The Island of Blood

by Darius Hinks - (ebook by Undead)

  Guards were rushing back and forth with concerned faces and there seemed to be a commotion on the battlements outside. At the sight of Kalaer, a soldier dashed across the hall. “Bladelord Kalaer, the skaven are massing against the outer wall.”

  The swordmaster’s only sign of surprise was a slight raising of his eyebrows. “They’re here already?” He turned to Caladris and the knights. “These vermin move fast. Still, I suppose they’ve saved us a journey.” He nodded to the knights’ weapons. “You may not even have need of those. If the fools have decided to knock at our front door, we should be able to give them quite an impressive welcome. This could all be over very quickly.” He looked back at the soldier. “Load up the bolt throwers. Or are they already deployed?”

  The soldier hesitated. “The rat creatures aren’t alone, Bladelord,” he explained. “You’d better come and see.”

  They rushed down a narrow spiral staircase and emerged in the courtyard below. More soldiers and grooms were rushing back and forth in the moonlight. As the servants lit torches along the walls, a tableau of enormous stone skulls flickered into life, leering down at the elves as they headed out onto the narrow neck of land that joined the temple to the rest of the island.

  At the far end of the small peninsula, they reached the temple’s outer defences: an undulating, serpentine wall, topped with fang-like turrets that reared forty feet up from the jagged rocks. They could see hundreds of elves lined up above them on the parapets, both archers and spearmen, but all seemed reluctant to use their weapons.

  “What are they waiting for?” muttered Kalaer as they climbed up towards the battlements. As they reached the top of the wall, some of the sentries rushed towards the swordmaster with questions on their lips, but he barged straight past them and peered out into the night.

  “By the gods,” gasped Caladris as he reached Kalaer’s side and looked down over the island.

  The warped landscape below them was teeming with skaven. The approaching army rushed towards them through the darkness like a tsunami of twitching shadows. The inky shapes moved so fast and in such heaving, liquid surges that even the clear-sighted elves struggled to make out individual shapes. This was not the reason for their hesitance, though. Gliding back and forth over the shifting mass was the griffon, with a figure crouched low on its back, loosing arrow after arrow down into the shapes below.

  “I assume this is your prince?” asked Kalaer, turning to the young mage at his side.

  The griffon was performing a breathtaking series of swoops as its rider fired on the shadows massing beneath. For a few seconds, Caladris was too stunned by the scene to reply. He felt as though he was looking back through the aeons. The sight of an elven noble, launching himself so fearlessly against such a monstrous horde, seemed plucked from the most ancient legends. “Yes,” he breathed eventually, nodding his head in wonder.

  “Then for his own sake, call him to your side,” demanded Kalaer. “I have no desire to witness another needless sacrifice.”

  “He’s right, Caladris,” said Captain Althin, stepping up to the battlements. “Look at those lights; they have some kind of magic at their disposal. He’s playing a dangerous game.”

  Caladris followed the captain’s gaze and saw that he was right. Flashes of green flame were erupting from the scurrying masses at the foot of the wall. He closed his eyes for a second and allowed his senses to fly out from between the turrets and plummet down into the army below. After a few seconds he gasped and turned to the others, his eyes wide with alarm. “They must have powerful sorcerers with them. Their weapons are charged with warp magic.”

  “I can see that for myself,” snapped the captain, waving at the brittle trails of light flashing up towards the griffon.

  “Call him back.”

  Caladris gave a brusque nod and closed his eyes again, holding his hands out from the top of the wall and muttering a single, fluid syllable.

  The griffon immediately soared up away from the skaven and hovered for a moment, flapping its wings with great, booming swipes and giving the elves a clear view of Prince Stormrider as he looked towards them. The prince nodded, fired one last arrow and then steered his mount towards the temple. As he glided towards the waiting elves, he raised his lance in a magisterial gesture of defiance. The warpfire that surrounded him glinted along his polished gold armour and, as he descended from the flickering clouds, Caladris thought he looked like Aenarion reborn, carrying all the fury and tragedy of his race on the flashing gilt of his lance.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “We are legion!” howled Warlord Verminkin, rearing up above the writhing mass of his army. As he rose up from the swarming figures he shook his meat cleaver defiantly at the griffon hovering overhead. “Flee back to your little house, elf-thing,” he howled. “The Under-Empire is rising! Our time has come!” Then he looked around in wonder, shocked to see just how true his words were. Thousands of skaven were rushing across the island towards the temple. “There are so many of us,” he said, looking down at Ratchitt with a hint of confusion in his voice. “We seem to have even more clanrats than we set out with.”

  The warlock engineer clambered up onto the shoulders of a slave and looked back over the huge army. “It’s true. There are many-many,” he replied with a cringing bow. “The most distinguished warlord has won back the fealty of his clan.”

  Verminkin frowned. “You mean…”

  Ratchitt nodded eagerly. “Yes-yes, your brutalness. My device is still suppressing the power of the island’s guardians, and the tunnels are still open. Many of the clanrats who betrayed you are now abandoning Spinetail and rushing to join you in victory.”

  Verminkin peered back over the army and began to nod in agreement. “Yes. It’s true.” He pointed his cleaver at a soldier just a few rows back. “That’s Skurry Slicksnout, the treacherous runt. He must have come to his senses and abandoned that wretched usurper.” His excitement grew as he spied several other skaven he thought lost to him. “Yes-yes. Many of those stormvermin had abandoned me too.” He howled up at the griffon again, quivering with ecstasy and bloodlust. “Flee while you can, elf-thing. Death is coming!” As his frenzy consumed him, Verminkin grabbed a nearby slave by the scruff of the neck and hurled him up at the receding griffon. The screaming slave tumbled through the air in a jumble of thrashing limbs and rolling eyes, before slamming to the ground with a dull crunch.

  To Verminkin’s delight, the griffon banked away and flew towards the temple’s vast outer wall. “See how he runs?” he cried, jabbing his cleaver towards the heavens and scampering back and forth across the backs of his soldiers. “He dares not face the wrath of Warlord Verminkin.”

  A huge roar erupted from the surrounding skaven and they began racing towards the gates that blocked their way onto the peninsula. The rattling of their swords was deafening as they darted across the twisted rock, but as they reached the gates the clamour died down. The huge doors towered thirty feet over their heads and were made of the same gnarled, impenetrable rock as the rest of the wall.

  “Ratchitt,” cried Verminkin, grabbing the engineer by the throat and lifting him up out of the heaving throng. “What can you do about those gates?” He pulled Ratchitt so close that the engineer could see the blood vessels pulsing in his rolling red eyes. “Smash-break! Smash-break!”

  Ratchitt clawed at his throat, trying desperately to breathe. “Yes,” he gasped eventually, after managing to loosen the warlord’s grip. “My machines,” he croaked, waving at the row of carts rattling along the rocky path behind them. “Let me…” His words trailed off into a squeak as the warlord reasserted his grip.

  “I want to see them crushed, Ratchitt,” snarled Verminkin, hurling the engineer back down into the crowd. “Just don’t fail.”

  Ratchitt slammed onto the black rocks with a yelp of pain. He tried to rise, but an avalanche of claws, wheels and weaponry bowled him over again. Spitting curses, he crawled up onto a gnarled column of rock and scampered out of the wa
y of his charging ratkin. “I won’t fail, Verminkin,” he muttered, clutching his pistol and glaring at the back of the warlord. “Ratchitt’s time is coming. You’ll be the first to know when it’s here.” He looked back over the advancing army at the approaching wagons. Then he leapt from the rock and scuttled across the backs of the other skaven.

  As he made his way back through the crush, a strange, whistling breeze sprang up behind him. The engineer paused and looked back towards the temple. It was too dark to see anything clearly at such a distance, so he took a spyglass from his robes and cranked a small handle on its side. The handle rotated a series of cogs and as Ratchitt furiously wound the handle they began to spark. After a few seconds, green light began to pour from the lens and Ratchitt held the spyglass up to his eye. He hissed. The sound he had heard was no natural wind. The warp-powered lens allowed him to see almost as though it was day, and he saw that with the prince now safely behind the wall, the elves had wheeled dozens of huge wooden eagles into view. The beautifully-carved birds gazed serenely out from the parapets, with their gleaming gold and ivory paintwork lit up by the surrounding beacons, giving them the appearance of proud avian spirits as they poured clouds of razor sharp bolts down onto the huddled masses below.

  As the bolts found their mark, a chorus of screams erupted from the skaven nearest to the wall. The graceful design of the weapons could not disguise their cruel efficiency. Waves of arrows hurtled down into the advancing army and each one had enough force to slice through the armour of several panic-stricken skaven. Ratchitt twitched and hissed with dismay as he watched the lethal storm. He could not believe the speed and effectiveness of the weapons. Not one of them backfired or even stalled as they poured death down from the temple walls.

  “Ratchitt!” roared Verminkin from a few feet away. His face was contorted with rage as he levelled his cleaver at the wall. “Smash-break! Smash-break!”

  Ratchitt gave a fawning, simpering bow and turned on his heel. He scampered back towards the largest of the carts—a huge, lumbering wagon—and leapt up onto its canvas covering. “Quick-quick!” he screamed at the slaves dragging it forwards.

  With the help of his terrified assistants, Ratchitt heaved back the cloth and revealed the colossal weapon beneath. As the filthy canvas crumpled to the ground, the surrounding rocks were bathed in unearthly green light. Ratchitt’s tail quivered with excitement as he dashed back and forth over the device: an enormous, rune-engraved cannon, bolted to a throbbing green boulder of pure warpstone. The engineer moaned with pleasure as he ran his paws over the copper barrel of the gun. Such things had been built before, but never so big. Ratchitt had created a weapon on a scale previously undreamt of. “Take down the walls,” he hissed, jumping to the ground and shoving the slaves towards the firing mechanism. “Crush-smash!”

  The weapon team pulled leather hoods down over their snouts and rushed to obey. After checking the harnesses that held the huge weapon in place, three of them leant their weight against a ratchet attached to the back of the gun. The slab of warpstone blazed even brighter as the cogs clicked into place and a low rumbling began somewhere within the complicated array of copper pipes, spinning wheels and bubbling glass canisters. The slaves backed away, eyeing the cannon with a mixture of excitement and fear as the rumbling sound grew. Within a few seconds the whole barrel was trembling with the force of the vibration. Rivets began to ping from the metal plates, whizzing past the slaves’ heads and causing the device to emit a deafening rattling sound.

  “Now!” screamed Ratchitt, pointing at a second lever, fixed on the side of the first. “Fire-fire!”

  If the slaves could hear him over the deafening cacophony, they gave no sign of it and continued to back away nervously from the jangling pile of metal.

  Ratchitt fumbled beneath his armour for his pistol and when he looked up, the slaves were dashing across the rocks away from him. “Fire-fire!” he screamed again, trembling with rage at their cowardice and looking back at the cannon. It was now shaking so violently that it could only be a few more seconds before the whole thing collapsed. Snapping down his goggles against the blinding glare, Ratchitt rushed towards the machine. He screeched in pain as he remembered that the lenses were broken and, as he pressed down the second lever, tears were flooding from his eyes.

  A thunderous boom echoed across the rocks and for a brief second the night was replaced by a dazzling, emerald dawn.

  Agony tore through Ratchitt’s skull and he knew no more.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Caladris felt the wall beneath him shudder and grabbed onto the ramparts to steady himself. For several seconds a thick column of light arced over the heads of the skaven army and lashed against the wall’s gates. The old stone rippled and buckled and finally exploded backwards into the small courtyard behind. The force of the blast was so intense that as the gates crumbled, the rest of the wall began to shift and slide too.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the light ceased.

  As the echo of the blast faded the elves held their breath, waiting to see its effect. For a few seconds there was nothing; then, with a terrible heaving groan, the whole wall began to slump slowly backwards.

  “Down!” cried Prince Stormrider, launching his griffon from the ancient stone and rising up over their heads. “Abandon the wall!”

  Even with the ground collapsing beneath their feet, Bladelord Kalaer and the others refused to show fear. As a deafening eruption of dust and stone exploded all around them, they jogged silently towards the crumbling steps that led down to the courtyard and the isthmus.

  As soldiers rushed past him, crowding around the quickly disintegrating escape routes, Caladris uttered a spell of binding and channelled his magic into the crumbling stone. For a few minutes he felt the whole weight of the structure pressing down on him. Sparks of power crackled between his fingers and ran between the stones like mortar, as the soldiers continued to hurry past him and down the steps. Then, finally, he let out a cry of frustration and leapt from the wall, leaving the whole edifice to collapse behind him. His eyes flashed with a white fire as he drifted gracefully down towards the distant flagstones of the courtyard. Upon landing, he turned to look back up at the tumbling wall. The skaven weapon had left a hole the size of a house and as the elves fled, the huge turrets began to collapse in an avalanche of rocks and mortar. Caladris noticed with a mixture of pride and horror that dozens of the guards had made no effort to reach the vanishing stairs. The crush of bodies meant it was impossible for everyone to escape, so they had simply remained at their posts—waiting patiently to die, so that others might have the chance to live.

  Caladris rushed out onto the thin strip of land that led back to the temple. Once he had reached a safe distance he turned to see a new wall rising in place of the old one. This one was made of colossal, rolling plumes of smoke and it was rising even higher than the original. The huge curtain of dust spared him the sight of the dying elves, but their screams sliced into the mage, causing him to flinch and stagger as he edged back across the narrow bridge of rock.

  Groups of dust-shrouded soldiers began to emerge, ghostlike, from the haze, unable to disguise their shock at the level of destruction they were witnessing. The wall had stood for thousands of years; built by unknown hands, before even the time of Aenarion. None of them had ever dreamed it would fall.

  Caladris saw Bladelord Kalaer, striding calmly through the smoke and shepherding his swordmasters through the chaos. He gestured over to the mage and cried out a series of commands. The soldiers rushed to obey, forming themselves into neat ranks and making a protective circle around Caladris.

  Caladris peered through the debris at the approaching figures and sighed with relief. Captain Althin was there, leading a group of his sea guard, and they were followed in turn by Eltheus in his plumed helmet and the lithe shapes of his Ellyrian reavers.

  “Further back!” cried the prince from overhead.

  They all looked up to see a blur of tawny feath
ers and gleaming gold armour, as the griffon cut through the clouds of dust.

  “You’re still not safe!”

  Caladris looked back towards the wall of smoke and saw towering shadows looming through the haze.

  “He’s right. Something’s coming,” he muttered, gripping his staff in alarm.

  “Do as the prince commands!” cried Bladelord Kalaer, levelling his two-handed sword back across the isthmus. “Make for the temple.”

  As the elves rushed to obey, Caladris saw the huge silhouettes emerging behind them from the smoke. As their hulking shapes were fully revealed, the mage reeled in shock. The monsters that strode over the shattered wall were unlike anything he had ever seen. They resembled grotesquely oversized skaven, but they seemed to be sewn together from the body-parts of several other creatures. Their heavily muscled limbs reached out from a jumble of mismatched fur and crudely stitched flesh and their scarred muzzles were contorted with a mixture of pain and frantic bloodlust. As they pounded through the rubble, they gorged themselves on the bodies of fallen elves, cramming whole limbs down their misshapen throats and clawing at each other in their eagerness to advance. Smaller figures rushed around the feet of the rat ogres, lashing and prodding at the monsters’ legs with an array of cruel weapons in a desperate attempt to control their lumbering movements.

  As Bladelord Kalaer reached Caladris’ side he looked back at the advancing enemy and could not hide his shock. He quickly drew himself erect however, and gave a brisk nod. “Very well,” he snapped, turning to the mage. “You and the others must do as the prince says.” He waved his sword at the monsters. “But these things are moving too fast. If they’re left unopposed they’ll tear us apart as we flee. I’ll hold them here for a while so you and the others can reach the temple and make a proper defence.”