He blinked in disbelief. Nothing had descended upon him with tooth and claw because there was nothing left to do so. Most of Skarpaw’s army was just so much gnawed meat choking the canal of the sewer. Those that still drew breath were curled into little trembling balls, panting and wheezing as their bodies struggled to recover from their frenzied madness. It would be many days before they recovered from the Black Hunger, if they ever did.
Dimly, Kratch heard voices raised in argument, sharp, snarling skaven voices. He could see four ratmen garbed in the black cloaks and leather wrappings of Clan Eshin arguing among themselves. One of the ratmen held a smoking jezzail in his paws and he was gesturing furiously at the unspeakable carnage that had consumed Skarpaw’s army.
Another skaven, this one larger and bulkier than the jezzail bearer, snarled and snapped at the excited sniper. With abrupt suddenness, the large skaven, who Kratch judged to be no less than Skarpaw himself, plunged a fist-spike into the eye of his rebellious underling. The sniper pawed at Skarpaw’s chest for an instant, provoking the assassin to plunge the fist-spike into his underling’s body in a blur of vicious violence.
The draconian discipline excited the other two Clan Eshin ratmen. One scrambled into a narrow pipe, his body squirming like an eel down the slender metal shaft. The other dived into the putrid stream of the canal, plunging beneath its filthy water and vanishing from sight.
Rising from the butchered sniper, Skarpaw glared first at the pipe, then at the filthy sewer canal. Kratch could guess the thoughts that slithered through the assassin’s crooked mind. He might be able to catch one of his escaped minions, but never could he catch both of them before they returned to Under-Altdorf and reported his defeat to his enemies and rivals. By the time Skarpaw returned to the city, if he was only stripped of his position as clanleader, he could consider himself blessed by the Horned One.
Skarpaw seemed to reach the same conclusion. Sullenly, the assassin turned and scurried down a sewer tunnel that would take him away from the direction of the skaven city.
Kratch waited until the assassin was gone before daring to move. He lifted his paws to his bloody head. The shot from the jezzail had miraculously been deflected by one of his small horns, a certain sign of favour from his god. The Horned Rat had spared him, spared him to pursue righteous vengeance against the traitorous Thanquol. Kratch ground his teeth together. His former master thought him dead, did he? Well, Kratch would show him the error of his arrogance before allowing death to crush the grey seer’s corrupt flesh.
Yes, Kratch thought, he would have his vengeance against Thanquol. His murderous grin spread as he turned his eyes back to the tunnel down which Skarpaw had escaped. He also knew of someone who had every reason to hate Thanquol even more than he did. Someone who would help him claim his revenge!
Hopfoot the Maus awoke with a start. He smacked one of his tiny fists against his head, trying to pound the last of his hangover from his skull. It was an effort that was far from successful, made all the worse because he still couldn’t shake the ringing from his ears.
No, not ringing. Scratching. A weird, grating sound, like a beaver gnawing at the roots of an old oak.
Hopfoot roused himself, almost banging his head against the top of the table above him. His shop filled to the gunwales with merchandise, the halfling had set his little mattress of fur and straw beneath one of the curio tables. It was an arrangement he preferred to separate sleeping quarters. This way he could keep an eye on his wares and be ready with his trusty blunderbuss should any thieves be brazen enough to challenge his resolve.
The fence rolled over, a surly grumble rolling off his lips as his bare feet encountered the chill metal barrel of his gun. Hopfoot’s fat little fingers curled around the stock. There was a definite pattern to the scratching, something more purposeful than the scampering of rats or the nocturnal wandering of cats. Thieves were an ever-present danger on the waterfront, even for a fence. Crawling out from under the table, Hopfoot let the funnel-shaped mouth of his blunderbuss swing around. He hoped he left enough to sell the physicians at the university. Even Hopfoot felt a twinge of shame selling dead thieves to the swineherds.
The persistent sound came from the back door of the shop, and Hopfoot carefully made his way through the gloom of his darkened store towards the source. He cursed as he stubbed his toe against the claw of a stuffed panther. Whoever was working at the back door must have heard him, for the scratching noise fell silent. It was only a momentary lull, however. A few moments, then it returned with renewed violence and vigour.
Hopfoot chose a position behind the wooden counter, cocking the hammer of his gun, aiming its wide mouth at the door. The instant it opened, he would fire and turn the face of the strange thief into so much shredded meat.
How strange the intruder was, Hopfoot discovered an instant later when the weakened door gave inwards, nearly gnawed clean through at its base. Gnawed was indeed the right word, for neither pick nor axe had done such terrible work. Squeezing itself through the hole, its bulk causing the frame to bulge and snap, was a vision of ghastly, verminous nightmare that froze the halfling solid with terror.
It was like a rat, only bigger. Much bigger. Enormous in a way only travellers’ tales from the Mountains of Mourn could match. To call it a rat was to call a griffon a sparrow. It crept through the darkened shop on its hand-like paws, dragging its scaly tail after it. Its nearly hairless body oozed with sores and blackened scabs of burned flesh, its face scalded into a skull-like mask.
The blunderbuss fell from Hopfoot’s frozen fingers, clattering across the floor. The rat-beast turned its head, its beady eyes focusing on the halfling. It sniffed at the air, raising its body after the fashion of its smaller kin. It chittered, displaying its gruesomely oversized fangs. Hopfoot thought his heart would turn to stone as it dropped back to all fours. If the thing should come one step closer, he should die of fright.
Instead the rat-beast turned away, loping through the clutter of shelves and tables. It tipped over a nest of old shirts and moth-eaten blouses to expose the fence’s iron strongbox. Again the monster chittered, a vocalisation of its hunger.
Hopfoot did not even dare to curse as he watched the monster start to chew its way through the strongbox. The iron chest contained all of his wealth, all the gold and silver he had accumulated from his thieving patrons, all the gems and jewels he had bought over the years, even those weird green-black rocks Kempf claimed were wyrdstone.
There was something even more valuable, however, that Hopfoot had not locked away in his strongbox. As he heard the rat-beast’s fangs gnaw into the metal box, Hopfoot decided to save his smooth plump skin and edge out the smashed door. He waited until his hairy feet had carried him a full block from his shop before he started to scream.
By the time he could convince anyone that he was not drunk and that he was not insane, by the time enough people stopped laughing at him long enough to follow him back to his shop, the monster was gone. It had finished its gruesome effort to chew its way into the strongbox. Strangely, all the gold and silver, gems and jewels, were scattered across the floor of the shop.
The only thing that was missing were the wyrdstone shards.
CHAPTER TEN
Shadows of Altdorf
“Where is Hans Dietrich?”
The question was punctuated by a sharp scream, a blood-curdling sound that raised the rafters of the Crown and Two Chairmen. The interrogator was a very angry Gustav Volk. The wailing subject of his attention was Mueller. The smuggler’s eye patch had been torn away and Volk’s gloved finger was probing the scarred cavity with a none-too gentle touch. His face split in an evil grin as blood spurted from the empty socket and Mueller’s scream rose still higher in pitch.
“Where’s your boss?” Volk repeated, his voice a low snarl. He pressed his finger still deeper.
The employees and patrons of the tavern and its attendant brothel were clustered about the main hall, just beneath the carpeted stairway th
at rose to the sleeping rooms above. The mobsmen had scoured the entire building of occupants, herding them into a single mass of anxiety and fear at the base of the stairs. Several of Volk’s men, steel-barrelled handguns at the ready, kept even the most frantic from making a break for it. The gory spectacle of what happened to the few who refused to accept an invitation to Volk’s gathering kept the hotheads from getting any bold ideas. No man wanted to risk his life showing off for an audience of barflies and doxies.
“I… I don’t… Nooooo!” Mueller shrieked, another spurt of red bursting from the socket. Blood dripped from Volk’s leather tunic.
“Wrong answer!” growled Volk, pressing still harder and dragging more screams from the smuggler.
“He’s telling the truth!” a shrill voice shouted at the racketeer.
Volk turned his head slowly, his finger still deep in Mueller’s empty eye socket. The mob leader glanced across the frightened mass of prisoners, then glared at the nearest of his henchmen. “Which whore spoke?” he asked the thug.
The brutish thug snarled an answer, then shoved his way into the crowd, pulling Argula from the cluster of cowering harlots. He pushed the woman forwards, spilling her at the feet of his boss. Still maintaining his grip on Mueller’s face, Volk glared down at the woman.
“Alright, bitch, you say he doesn’t know, then I’ll go ahead and believe you.” Volk stabbed his finger savagely into Mueller’s socket, then yanked his hand away. The maimed, shrieking man collapsed into a trembling heap on the floor, blood pouring from his mined face. While Argula was still gawking in horror at the savage spectacle, Volk’s bloody fingers coiled in her hair and pulled her from the floor. “Start talking, or I start cutting,” the racketeer warned, drawing his dagger. His smile became a sneer as he stared into her eyes. “I won’t start with your face, whore. I’ll start with the bits the lads are paying for first.”
Argula cast a desperate look at the crowd of patrons, employees and friends, imploring any of them for help. The only one with nerve enough to meet her eye was Gustaf Schlecht, the sometime house surgeon. The piggish man didn’t have the same helpless look as the others, but rather had the leering smile of a sadistic child watching an older sibling pull wings off a fly. His lack of empathy sent even more fear pounding through her heart. No one would help her and, given half a chance, grinning Gustaf might just join in!
“He was here,” Argula groaned while Volk continued to wrap the woman’s hair ever tighter in his fingers, forcing her ever higher onto her toes to stop the pain. “That one,” she said, pointing to Mueller’s moaning body, “and the man you killed upstairs brought him, but someone else came and moved him elsewhere later.”
“You see, Herr Volk, I told you true.” The words came from the apothecary Sergei Kawolski, his speech partially muffled by the bloody rag he pressed against the corner of his mouth.
“Shut your face, quack,” growled Volk without looking at Sergei. “Or maybe you’d like to choke on some more teeth?”
Sergei shook his head, recoiling from the brutal racketeer. The apothecary had thought to turn a quick coin by informing Volk’s gang of the hideout of Dietrich and his smugglers. Instead, he was quickly realising he would be lucky to walk away from the fiasco with his life. If Volk’s men hadn’t found Mueller and Wilhelm, Sergei knew he would already be dead. If they failed to find the sickly Hans, Volk still might kill him.
Gustav Volk’s smile was almost reptilian in its merciless inhumanity as he pressed his face into that of Argula, his murderous eyes boring into her own. “Now, strumpet, who moved that bastard Hans and where did they take him?” He twisted his hand, forcing her to crook her head at an awkward angle, the better to watch Volk’s dagger slide slowly down her body, slicing a little ribbon of lace from her bodice and dress as it worked its way down her side. “Talk or scream, I’ll find out and nobody’s going to stop me.”
A sudden chill swept through the tavern, bringing shivers to racketeers and prisoners alike. Beads of frost formed upon the bottles behind the bar, wood creaked as the air about it became icy. The darkness of the hall seemed to grow steadily thicker, every shadow attaining a sinister aura of lurking menace.
“Keep a watch on those prisoners!” Volk snapped. Like his men, he was turning about, watching the eerie, supernatural display unfolding all around them. The racketeer pulled Argula close to him, wrapping his arm across her generous chest, using the madam as a living shield against whatever unseen danger had descended upon the Crown and Two Chairmen.
Suddenly one of Volk’s thugs cried out, followed quickly by a second. Both men fell, their heads split by what looked like knives of solid shadow. Before the horrified gaze of the other mobsmen, the arcane blades began to wither, seeping into the wounds they had dealt even as blood dribbled out.
“Over there!” roared a black-toothed rogue, pointing at the stairway and firing his gun. The shot rushed past a grim apparition cloaked in grey robes, the bullet shattering against the ceiling. Every eye turned to the landing, drawn to the mysterious figure. Gleaming eyes, their colourless depths swirling like the cloudy heart of a tempest, impressed themselves upon all who looked upon the wizard, however far away. Cruel judgement, merciless justice, these were the threat carried in those eyes, a promise of death to all who defied the iron will dwelling behind their steely gaze.
“Kill him!” Volk shouted, breaking the spell of awed silence that gripped his men. The thug who had fired dropped his gun and scrambled to draw his sword. Two other rogues joined him on the stairs, firing their own guns before resorting to their blades. Like the first, the other marksmen failed to strike their target, the ghostly shape seeming to bend and distort around their speeding bullets. Two more missiles smashed harmlessly into the ceiling above the top of the stairs.
A mocking hiss rose from shrouded lips, and the cloaked shape became indistinct as the shadows on the stairway seemed to rush in and converge upon the wizard, wrapping and blurring his form in a mantle of darkness. The thugs on the steps trembled, their vicious courage wilting before the fearsome display of arcane power.
“It is just a conjurer’s trick!” roared Volk, making no move to join his men or abandon his living shield. “Kill him!”
The encouragement of their brutal boss sent steel back into the spines of the thugs. They forced defiant snarls onto their pale faces, glaring at the inky cloud of blackness that now filled the top of the stairway. One of the racketeers began to climb the steps, his fingers white around the grip of his sword.
No sooner had the villain taken his third step than the shadowy mass was billowing down the stairs, rushing towards him like some malevolent fog. The thug cried out, slashing his sword through the formless wall of night. An instant later and the man was enveloped by the shadows, an instant after that and his body was crashing through the wooden balustrade. The thug was already dead when he hit the floor, his neck sliced open and a look of abject terror frozen upon his cold features.
The dead man’s comrades on the stairs had no chance to recover from the shock of their fellow’s swift destruction. Before they could either move forwards or back, the wizard’s concealing darkness swept down, enveloping them as completely as the first racketeer. Briefly, the sounds of swords clashing carried itself from the blackness. A loathsome gurgle, a piteous groan, and all was silence again. One of the thugs emerged from the black fog. He swayed on the stairs for a moment, then toppled and fell, his body rolling brokenly down the steps.
As though struck by a sudden gale, the shadowy mantle was swept aside, streamers of darkness writhing and twisting as they slithered back into the shadows. The grey-cloaked magister stood revealed once more, a bloody sword in his hand, the dead body of a racketeer crumpled at his feet. From either side of his hawklike nose, the wizard’s fierce eyes cast judgement upon the men below.
Such cringing valour as remained among Volk’s crew withered beneath the renewed attention of that merciless gaze. With a cry of fear, the last two racketeers thre
w down their guns and ran towards the door. The wizard did not move, merely raised one of his darkened hands. Slivers of shadow empted from the oily skin of darkness that coated his fingers, flashing across the hall to strike down the fleeing mobsmen. The thugs tottered and fell as the wizard’s sorcerous knives slashed through their backs. There was no honour among thieves, and no chivalry to be shown to murderers.
Gustav Volk’s body shivered, the first time the mob leader had known abject terror since becoming old enough to call himself a man. His eyes roved the hall, hunting for some avenue of escape, some place of refuge. Argula moaned in his twisting grip. A rat-like smile spread across Volk’s lips. He pulled the woman to the tips of her toes, using her shapely figure to completely cover himself from the silent figure standing upon the stairs. He pressed his dagger to her throat, bringing a tiny bead of blood running down the steel.
“Stay back, warlock!” Volk shouted, his voice filled more with panic than menace. “One step closer, and I’ll gut this whore like a pig!”
The cloaked wizard remained unmoving upon the stairs, his eyes still trained upon the mob leader. Volk’s face formed itself into a twisted grin. He began to back slowly across the hall, dragging Argula with him.
Volk’s slow retreat ended in a cold, icy pain that shivered through his back and belly. The racketeer’s dagger fell from his numbed hand, all the strength and vitality withering in his veins. Argula slipped from his slackened grip, shivering as she recoiled from the thug. Volk stared in disbelief at a sluggish crimson stain slowly spreading across his tunic, his incredulous gaze returning to the still unmoving figure on the stairs.
The illusion gradually faded, as the real wizard stepped around from behind the stricken racketeer, the tip of his sword wet with Volk’s blood. The pitiless eyes of the magister bored into those of Gustav Volk as his dying frame crumpled to its knees.
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