by William King
‘We’d better look into it.’ he said eventually, ignoring the groans of his fellow sewerjacks.
‘It shouldn’t take long. I’ll lay odds it’s nothing anyway.’
Knowing his luck, Felix decided, that was a bet he wouldn’t take.
Water dripped down from the arch of the tunnel. Gant had narrowed the aperture of his lantern so that only the faintest glimmering of light was visible. From ahead came the sound of voices. Even Felix could hear them now.
One of the voices was human, with an aristocratic accent. It was impossible to believe the other belonged to a man. It was high-pitched, eerie and chittering. If a rat had been given the voice of a human being it would have sounded like this.
Gant stopped and turned to look back at his men, his face pale and worried. He obviously didn’t want to go on. Glancing round the faces of his fellow sewerjacks, Felix knew they all felt the same. It was the end of the day. They were all tired and scared and up ahead was something they didn’t want to meet. But they were sewerjacks; men whose only virtue was courage and the willingness to face what others would not, in a place where others would not go. They had a certain pride.
Gotrek tossed the hatchet into the air. It spun upward, blade catching a little of the light. With no apparent effort the Trollslayer caught it by the haft as it fell. Spider pulled his long-bladed knife from its sheath and shrugged. Hef gave a feral smile. Rudi looked down at his shortsword and nodded. Gant grinned. The Trollslayer looked pleased. He was in the company of the sort of maniacs he could understand.
Gant gestured softly and they shuffled forward, picking their way carefully and quietly along the slimy ledge. As they turned the bend he opened up his lantern to illuminate their prey.
‘Your payment, a token of my esteem. Something for your own personal use,’ Felix heard the aristocratic voice say. Two figures stood frozen like trolls in a fairy tale, petrified by the sudden bright light. One was a tall man, garbed in a long black robe like a monk’s. His face was patrician: fine-boned, cold and aloof. His black hair was cut short, ending in a widow’s peak above his forehead. He was reaching forward to hand the other figure something that glowed eerily.
Felix recognised it. He had seen the substance before, in the abandoned dwarf fortress of Karak Eight Peaks. It was a ball of warpstone. The recipient was short and inhuman. Its fur was grey, its eyes pink; its long hairless tail reminded Felix of a great worm. As the thing turned to squint at the light, the tail lashed. It reached inside its long, patchwork robes and clutched something in its taloned paws. From its belt hung an unscabbarded rusty, saw-toothed blade.
‘Skaven!’ Gotrek roared. ‘Prepare to die!’
‘Fool-fool, you said you were not followed,’ the thing chittered at its human companion. ‘You said no one knew.’
‘Stay where you are!’ Gant said. ‘Whoever you are, you’re under arrest on suspicion of witchcraft, treason and unnatural practices with animals.’
The sergeant’s confidence had been restored by the fact there were only two of them. Even the fact that one of the perpetrators was a monster seemed to leave him undaunted.
‘Hef, Spider, take them and bind them.’ The rat-thing suddenly threw the sphere it had withdrawn from its clothing.
‘Die-die, foolish manthings.’
‘Hold your breath!’ Gotrek shouted. His hatchet hurtled forward simultaneously.
The skaven’s sphere tinkled and shattered like glass and an unhealthy looking green cloud billowed outward. As he shoved Felix back down the corridor, Gotrek grabbed Rudi and pulled him with them. From inside the gas-cloud came the sound of gurgling and choking. Felix felt his eyes begin to water.
Everything went dark as the lantern went out. It was like being caught in a nightmare. He couldn’t see, he was afraid to take a breath, he was stuck in a narrow corridor underground and somewhere out there was a monster armed with deadly, incomprehensible weapons.
Felix felt the slick slime of the stone under his hands. As he fumbled he suddenly felt nothing. His hand was over the stew. He felt unbalanced and afraid to move, as if he could suddenly topple in any direction and plunge into the sewage. He closed his eyes to keep them from stinging and forced himself to move on. His heart pounded. His lungs felt as if they were about to burst. The flesh between his shoulder blades crawled.
He expected a saw-toothed blade to be plunged into his back at any moment. He could hear someone trying to scream behind him and failing. They gurgled and gasped and their breathing sounded terribly laboured as if their lungs had filled with fluid.
It was the gas, Felix realised. Gotrek had told him of the foul weapons which the skaven used, the products of a Chaos-inspired alchemy allied to a warped and inhuman imagination. He knew that to take one breath of that foul-smelling air was to die. He also knew that he could not keep from breathing indefinitely.
Think, he told himself. Find a place where the air is clear. Keep moving. Get away from the killing cloud. Don’t panic. Don’t think about the huge rat-like shape creeping ever closer in the dark with its blade bared. As long as you keep calm you’ll be safe. Slowly, inch by torturous inch, his lungs screaming for air, he forced himself to crawl towards safety.
Then the weight fell on him. Silver stars flickered before his eyes and all the air was driven from his lungs. Before he could stop himself he took in a mouthful of the foul air. He lay in the dark gasping and slowly it dawned on him that he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t choking. No knife had been driven into his back. He forced himself to try and move. He couldn’t. It was as if a great weight lay across him. Terror flashed through his mind. Maybe his back was broken. Maybe he was a cripple.
‘Is that you, Felix?’ he heard Rudi whisper. Felix almost laughed with relief. His burden was his huge fellow sewerjack.
‘Yes… where are the others?’
‘I’m all right,’ he heard Hef say.
‘Me too, brother.’ That was Spider.
‘Gotrek, where are you?’ No answer. Had the gas got him? It seemed impossible. The Trollslayer couldn’t be dead. Nothing as insidious as gas could have killed him. It wouldn’t be fair.
‘Where’s the sarge?’
‘Anybody got some light?’
Flint sparked. A lantern flickered to life. Felix saw that something large was shuffling towards them along the shadows of the ledge. Instinctively his hand reached for his sword. It wasn’t there. He had dropped it when he fell. The others stood poised and waiting.
‘It’s me,’ said the Trollslayer. ‘Bloody human got away. His legs were longer.’
‘Where’s Gant?’ Felix asked.
‘Look for yourself, manling.’
Felix squeezed past and went to do so. The gas had vanished as quickly as it appeared. But it had done its work on Sergeant Gant. He lay in a pool of blood. His eyes were wide and staring. Trickles of red emerged from his nostrils and mouth.
Felix checked the body. It was already cooling and there was no pulse. There was no wound on the corpse.
‘How did he die, Gotrek?’ Felix knew about magic but the fact that a man could be killed and have no mark left on him made his mind reel.
‘He drowned, manling. He drowned in his own blood.’ The Slayer’s voice was cold and furious.
Was that how he dealt with fear, Felix wondered? By turning it into anger. Only after the dwarf went over and started kicking the corpse did he notice the dead skaven. Its skull had been split by the thrown hatchet.
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First published in 1999 by Games Workshop Ltd.
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