—<FIVE>—

Reversal of Fortunes

Nagashizzar, in the 99th year of Asaph the Beautiful
(-1295 Imperial Reckoning)

 

 

The fires could be seen from the tallest tower of the fortress, glittering like a necklace of rubies across the hilltops along the northern shore of the Crystal Sea. From the dark lanes that ran along the terraced mountain slope, hundreds of the Yaghur filled the night air with eerie, ululating howls as they caught wind of the devastation that had been wrought on their squalid homes.

Thestus folded his arms and studied the distant lights. “I count six fires,” he said grimly. His skin was pale as chalk beneath the moonlight and his once-dark eyes were now the colour of eastern jade. But for a few tendrils of black hair that fluttered in the breeze rolling in from the sea, the barbarian stood with the statue-like stillness common to the undead. “Judging by their positions, I would say that the largest of the Yaghur nests have been put to the flame.”

Nagash stood beside Thestus atop the narrow tower, his body shielded from the sea breeze by a heavy, hooded cloak. Ancient flesh crackled as he clenched his fists in rage. Dimly, the necromancer felt the leathery tendons of his right hand start to give way under the pressure; with an act of will he exerted his power and re-knit the corded flesh back together. The practice had grown so common over the last few years that he performed it almost without conscious thought. There was a sound like the tightening of dry leather cord, and his fingers curled inwards like a grasping claw. Too much of the ancient tissue had disintegrated, leaving the remaining tendons foreshortened. The realisation further deepened Nagash’s fury.

“Despatch ten companies of infantry,” he snarled. “Run the damned ratmen to earth and destroy them!”

Behind Nagash, in the shadow of the tower’s arched doorway, Bragadh answered coldly. “Send the Yaghur if you want to chase the ratmen,” he said. “It’s their filthy holes that are burning, after all.”

Nagash rounded on the warlord, his eyes blazing angrily. Words of power rose to his fleshless lips, ready to form an incantation that would shrivel the barbarian like a moth in a candle flame. The necromancer’s anger was palpable, radiating from his body in icy waves, but the warlord was unmoved. He stood with his fists clenched at his side, his expression icy and resentful. Diarid stood close by, his expression neutral but his body tense, as though ready to throw himself between Bragadh and the necromancer’s wrath.

“You forget yourself, Bragadh,” Nagash hissed. “More important, you forget your oaths to me.” The menace in his voice was like a knife, poised and ready to strike.

Yet the warlord seemed heedless of the danger. His voice took on a hard edge all of its own. “Not so,” he replied. “Be assured, master, I have forgotten nothing. I remember all too well how I swore to obey you—while you, in turn, swore to protect the hill forts of our people. And look what came of that.”

Doom had befallen the hill forts of the northmen five years ago, not long after Nagash’s failed counter-stroke against the ratmen. In one night, four of the largest of the barbarian settlements had been set upon by the enemy, who burrowed up into their midst and slaughtered every man, woman and child they could find. The hill forts’ small garrisons were totally unprepared to deal with the savage raids, and without any sorcery of their own there was no way to predict when or where the next attack would occur. More settlements were attacked on the following night, and on the night after that. By the time that a messenger reached Nagashizzar with the news, nearly a dozen of the hill forts had been destroyed. Bragadh and his kinsmen had been beside themselves with rage. They begged Nagash for permission to march north and protect the hill forts; even though many of the barbarians hadn’t seen their homes in decades, their rough sense of honour demanded that they take action. Nagash had refused outright. The barbarian companies were needed in Nagashizzar, helping to secure the mine shafts still under his control.

Instead, the necromancer had withdrawn to his throne chamber and begun working on a great and terrible ritual. The drafting of the sigil alone had taken days, marking out a great circle and hundreds of complex runes with abn-i-khat dust. Nagash had ingested still more of the dust, until his withered flesh was saturated with it. Then, upon the hour of the dead, he entered the great circle and began a fearsome incantation.

Once, long ago, he’d kept Bragadh and his barbarians in line with the subtle threat that their homeland was rich with the bones of their ancestors. Any rebellion by the hill forts could be crushed by the simple expedient of raising a punitive army drawn from the barrows of their own ancestors. Nagash now called forth the bones of the ancients not to punish the hill forts, but to protect them from further harm. Across the length and breadth of the barbarian lands, hundreds upon hundreds of skeletal warriors rose at Nagash’s command and returned to the hills that had once been their homes.

When next the enemy raiders came pouring up from their tunnels, they ran headlong onto the swords and axes of the ancient dead. The few survivors were sent screeching back the way they’d come—only to return in greater numbers on the following night. Defeat followed defeat, but the enemy was undeterred. The raids grew more sporadic and more widely scattered; sometimes they inflicted more damage, sometimes less. Always they were chased off with substantial loss of life, but the tempo of the attacks never abated. They continued for months, then years, and slowly Nagash grasped the purpose of the enemy’s strategy. Though they lost nearly every battle against his forces, they were succeeding in forcing him to maintain scores of large garrisons across the northlands. Relatively small raiding forces were requiring him to maintain thousands of undead troops, draining his energies at a constant and prodigious rate. Meanwhile, the incessant tunnel warfare beneath Nagashizzar ground on and on, further taxing his strength and dividing his attentions.

After five years, the strain had become severe. Worse, it had sowed seeds of discord among his barbarian troops. Nagash had watched Bragadh grow more sullen with each passing year; the damage inflicted on the hill forts had reduced the stream of new recruits to a mere trickle. Now the ratmen felt bold enough to strike at the heart of the Yaghur as well. The enemy was drawing a noose around the mighty fortress, one agonising inch at a time.

Before Nagash realised it, his deformed right hand was raised to strike at Bragadh. Lambent bale-fire crackled hungrily along the curved fingers, increasing in power with each passing moment. Bragadh never flinched; his resentful glare practically invited the necromancer’s wrath.

Perhaps Bragadh wanted to be struck down, Nagash thought. Certainly, the enemy would wish it. There was no telling what repercussions such a blow would have on the rest of the barbarian army. The northmen worshipped Bragadh almost like a god at this point; to destroy him might incite the barbarians to open revolt. Though Nagash was certain that he could ultimately crush such an uprising, doing so would require troops that were desperately needed in the tunnels, and he had no doubt that the ratmen would take advantage of the crisis.

The noose around Nagashizzar drew inexorably tighter.

For a long moment, Nagash struggled to choke back his rage. Slowly, he closed his fist and willed the pent-up energies to dissipate.

“The day will come,” the necromancer grated, “when you will regret having spoken thus. For now, you will simply obey.”

Nagash reached out with his will and seized both of the barbarian warriors. Bragadh and Diarid went rigid, their eyes widening in horror as the necromancer used the power of his life-giving elixir to reach into their very souls.

“You are mine to command,” Nagash hissed. “Now and forever more. And I say take your warriors and go forth.”

Bragadh’s body trembled as the warlord struggled against Nagash’s grip. A low, agonised groan seeped past his tightly clenched lips. But no matter how hard he fought, the effort was futile. The warlord’s trembling increased and his body began to bend, like a river palm in the face of a howling desert storm.

Just before Bragadh could succumb, a slender figure emerged from the shadows beyond the tower doorway. Bone charms clinked softly as Akatha interposed herself between the warlord and Nagash.

“This accomplishes nothing,” she said to the necromancer. Her voice was hollow and cold, but her steady gaze and straight-backed pose still held some of the witch’s old defiance. “Unless it is your intention to play into the enemy’s hands.”

Fresh rage boiled up from Nagash’s withered heart. His left hand shot out, seizing the witch by the throat. Visions of hurling the barbarian woman over the tower battlements danced before his mind’s eye.

“You dare to speak thus to me?” he hissed. Ancient flesh along the back of the necromancer’s hand crackled and flaked away as his bony fingers tightened around Akatha’s neck. He felt her body stiffen, but her cool, penetrating stare never faltered.

“I do what I must,” the witch replied, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “Despatching the great kan’s warriors is pointless. If the raiders still remain, it is only because they have set an ambush for you.”

Akatha paused, drawing a tortured breath. “The rat-things… have grown clever,” she managed to say. “They are… forcing you… to waste your power on… futile gestures. You… cannot… react. You… lack… the strength.”

Her words only inflamed Nagash further. With an angry snarl he summoned still more power, dragging Akatha to the edge of the battlements as though she weighed nothing at all. Behind the necromancer, Bragadh let out a startled shout of protest.

More blackened pieces of skin crumbled away from Nagash’s wrist in puffs of faintly glowing dust. The muscles and tendons lying along his arm looked like fraying cords of cured leather. All at once, he felt the bones of his wrist and hand shift ominously, as though threatening to burst apart beneath the strain. Without thinking, he summoned yet more power to force the bones into their proper place—and in that fleeting moment of concentration he understood that the witch spoke true. Whether the ratmen understood it or not, they were pushing him to the point of dissolution.

Nagash released Akatha. The witch half collapsed, slumping against the battlements. She looked up at the necromancer through a fall of tangled hair.

“The ratmen hope you will send warriors out into the hills,” she told him. “Is it not obvious?”

Nagash had no answer. With an effort, the witch forced herself onto her feet. “If you would strike at them, do so at a time and place of your own choosing and marshal your strength where it will do the most harm.”

The necromancer glared hatefully at the witch. The fact that Akatha was right only made him want to destroy her all the more. He relished the thought of forcing his will upon her and commanding the witch to cast herself from the top of the tower. She would struggle, no doubt, but that would make it all the sweeter. Yet was her destruction worth the power it would cost?

Nagash whirled on Bragadh and his champion. “Send word to your companies,” he told the warlord. “Any warriors within the tunnels are to head for the surface and await my command.”

Bragadh eyed the necromancer warily. “What are you planning to do, master?” he asked.

“Something the damned ratmen will not expect,” Nagash replied.

 

* * *

 

The pale, crescent moon hung low in the sky to the west, casting its glow slantwise across the killing ground. Eekrit could hear the snarling howls and guttural barks of the flesh-eaters coming from a long way away, the maddened sounds carrying easily across the rolling, marshy ground. Like all skaven, the warlord could see perfectly in the darkness, and he searched the line of sickly yellow trees across from his hiding place for the first signs of the monsters’ approach.

The raid on the flesh-eaters’ foetid nests had unfolded with the mechanical precision of one of Lord Vittrik’s tooth-and-gear contraptions. Unlike the campaign against the barbarian forts further north, Eekrit had no intention of digging his way directly into the monsters’ foul burrows. Instead, his force, composed of the entirety of the army’s scout-assassins and half a dozen chosen packs of clanrats, had emerged from tunnels at the base of each of their hilltop objectives and quickly surrounded them.

Once upon a time the hilltops had been ringed with protective wooden palisades, but centuries of neglect had reduced them to barely-recognisable ruins. At the appointed time, bone whistles had skirled faintly along the night air and the scattered companies had swept up and over the broad, flat-topped hills. The handful of flesh-eaters caught on the surface were swiftly and silently despatched, then the skaven spread out and located the many entrances to the monsters’ reeking burrows. Heavy bladders of oil were brought up and emptied into all but a few of the tunnel mouths. By the time the first howls of alarm began to echo up from the darkness, the skaven had torches ready to toss in as well.

After decades of bitter fighting, the skaven had learned how much the flesh-eaters hated and feared the touch of fire. The oil went up with a hollow, hungry roar; from there it was merely a matter of lurking outside the unlit tunnel mouths and slaying the survivors as they emerged.

The fighting was as savage as it was merciless. No quarter was expected or given; the flesh-eaters were maddened by bloodlust and pain, and the skaven had come to fear and hate the unnatural creatures as they did little else. The monsters burst from the tunnels singly or in shrieking packs, many of them burning with sickly yellow flames, and Eekrit’s warriors rushed in and cut them down with spear and blade. After five years of brutal raids against the barbarian tribes, the warlord’s troops had become fearless, hard-bitten fighters—and Eekrit along with them, much to his surprise. Thanks to the thrice-damned Lord Velsquee, there had been little alternative.

Officially, Velsquee had no direct authority over the expeditionary force—or so he insisted to Lord Hiirc and the army’s many clan chiefs. Eekrit retained his rank and title; Velsquee and his huge contingent of elite troops were merely there to observe the course of the campaign and to provide advice and assistance where needed. Of course, no one believed a word of it, but no one was willing to gainsay the Grey Lord, either. Meanwhile, Eekrit had been advised to go and harass the barbarians and the flesh-eaters, while Velsquee and that lunatic Qweeqwol discussed strategy and issued recommendations to the army from the comfort of Eekrit’s own audience chamber.

Even now, five years on, there was much about Velsquee’s arrival that Eekrit didn’t understand. Clearly he and Lord Qweeqwol had been working together all along, at least insofar as the grey seers worked with anyone outside their own, secretive fraternity. But to what end? The warlord had no idea. At least, not yet.

Marsh grasses thrashed along the far end of the killing ground. Eekrit tensed, his paw drifting to the hilt of the sword resting on the damp ground at his side. The flesh-eaters burst from cover at a loping, four-limbed run, their eyes alight and their hideous faces contorted with bloodlust. Eight of the monsters emerged from the tree line and down into the marshy hollow where the raiders waited.

The skaven waited until their prey reached the very centre of the hollow. Black-robed shapes rose from cover, swinging braided leather cords above their heads. The slings made a thin, deadly whirring in the night air; the flesh-eaters halted at the sound, their gruesome heads swinging about in search of the sound, and that sealed their fates. Polished sling stones the size of snake eggs hissed through the air and found their mark; bones crunched wetly and the monsters collapsed, their limbs twitching.

More black-robed figures appeared from cover and raced silently across the marshy ground. They converged on the flesh-eaters; daggers flashed briefly beneath the moonlight as the scout-assassins finished off their victims, then the bodies were dragged swiftly out of sight. Whatever their shortcomings as scouts and spies, Eshreegar’s rats were nonetheless very enthusiastic and capable killers.

Silence descended again. The ambushers resumed their murderous vigil, ears open wide as they strained to hear the faintest sounds of approaching troops. After several minutes, Eekrit let go his sword and relaxed once more.

“Another pack of stragglers,” Eshreegar whispered, close to the warlord’s left side. “Probably out prowling the wasteland at the foot of the mountain when we began the attack.”

Eekrit’s tail gave a startled twitch. The Master of Treacheries had appeared at his side like a ghost.

Calming his suddenly racing heart, the warlord gave Eshreegar a sidelong glance. The black-robed assassin was using a handful of marsh-grass to wipe the dark ichor of a flesh-eater from the edge of one of his knives.

“There’s no sign of a response from the fortress?” Eekrit asked.

Eshreegar shook his head. “Not since the alarm horns sounded, more than two hours ago. The main gate’s still shut.”

The warlord raised his snout and gauged the height of the moon. “If they don’t march soon, it will be dawn before they arrive,” he reckoned.

“If they come at all,” the Master of Treacheries agreed.

Eekrit muttered irritably and considered his options. After destroying the flesh-eater nests, he’d brought together his forces and arranged them in an arc along the most likely avenues of approach from the distant fortress. Velsquee and Qweeqwol had been certain that the enemy would respond, probably with companies of swift-moving barbarian troops. In the dark and upon the unsteady, marshy terrain, Eekrit had expected to give the enemy a good mauling, then retreat to the safety of his tunnels, but that was growing less likely with each passing hour. To make matters worse, hungry packs of flesh-eaters were being drawn to the fires from lesser nests throughout the area; the longer his raiders remained in place, the greater the odds that they would be hit by the creatures from an unexpected direction, or find their escape routes cut off.

Beside him, Eshreegar raised his head, his ears unfolding completely as he listened to the seemingly random animal sounds echoing across the marshland. “We’ve a runner from inside the mountain,” he said after a moment, then put a clawed paw to his mouth and made a sound very like the hiss of a large swamp lizard. The Master of Treacheries listened to the plaintive cry of a marsh owl and nodded to himself. “He’s heading this way.”

“Damn it all, what now?” Eekrit muttered. As hard as the campaign against the barbarians had been, at least he and his warriors had been far enough from the mountain that Velsquee couldn’t stick his snout into things whenever he pleased.

Within moments came the sounds of loud rustling through the marshy growth behind the raiders. Gritting his teeth, Eekrit rose carefully to his feet and sheathed his blade as a breathless skaven came dashing through a stand of dead cypress trees. The messenger came up short as he recognised Eekrit and crouched in a posture of subservience, his head cocked to the side and his throat bared to the warlord.

Eekrit scowled at the hapless rat. “Eshreegar, hand this idiot a brass gong,” he growled. “Perhaps he could bang it for a while and sing us some songs. I think there might still be a few half-deaf flesh-eaters who don’t yet know where we’re at.”

The messenger glanced nervously from Eekrit to the Master of Treacheries. “I… I don’t know any songs,” the clanrat protested weakly.

“I suppose we should thank the Horned One for small mercies,” Eekrit snapped. “Did Velsquee send you here for a reason other than to vex me?”

The messenger wrung his paws. “Oh, yes-yes, great lord,” he replied. “I-I bear a message from him.”

“Well?” the warlord demanded. “Must we torture it out of you?”

“No!” the clanrat squeaked. “No-no, great lord! Grey Lord Velsquee, ah, suggests that you and your warriors return to the mountain at once! The enemy is about to attack!”

Eekrit frowned. “About to attack? And how does he know this?”

The clanrat’s whiskers twitched. “That-that he did not say.”

Eekrit cursed under his breath. “No. Of course not,” he muttered. He waved a clawed paw at the messenger. “Tell the great Velsquee that we appreciate his advice and we’ll come straight away. Go.”

The messenger bowed his head and departed in a cloud of terrified musk. The noise he made thrashing through the undergrowth made Eekrit wince.

Eshreegar rose to his feet. “Shall I tell the rest of the warband?”

“We certainly can’t stay here anymore,” Eekrit snarled. “They probably heard that fool all the way back at the fortress.”

The Master of Treacheries produced a bone whistle and blew three eerie, piercing notes—the signal for the raiders to abandon their positions and return to the tunnels. As the skaven made ready to depart, Eekrit glanced towards the dark bulk of the mountain and wondered what else Velsquee knew but wasn’t saying.

 

All labour in mine shaft six had come to an abrupt end. The labourers had set aside their dusty picks and shovels and taken their place in the ranks of the spear companies massing along the length of the cavernous tunnel. A handful of barbarian warriors, hastily returning from a long patrol through the treacherous passages of the lower levels, eyed the silent assembly with a veteran’s sense of foreboding as they picked their way through the tightly packed columns and continued their long journey to the surface.

Moments later, a stir went through the spear companies at the centre of the mine shaft, and with a clatter of bone they shifted left and right as Nagash and the glowing figures of his wight bodyguard emerged from a nearby branch-tunnel. Behind the necromancer shuffled a score of broad-shouldered ratmen, their muscular bodies stained with gore and their filmy eyes glowing faintly green. They laboured under the weight of a massive bronze cauldron, appropriated from one of the necromancer’s fearful laboratories. The cauldron’s curved flanks were freshly incised with hundreds of angular runes and it was sealed with a heavy, ornate lid crowned with a cunning representation of four gaping human skulls. Faint wisps of vapour curled from the skulls’ open mouths and deep eye sockets.

At Nagash’s unspoken command, the rat-corpses bore the cauldron into the cleared space between the companies and set it upon the stone with a dolorous clang, then withdrew to the mouth of the branch-tunnel. As they did, the necromancer produced a bag of crushed abn-i-khat from his belt and began to pour out a glowing circle of power around the great vessel. The sigil was a simple but potent one, designed to shape the workings of a spell and increase its potency a hundredfold.

When all was in readiness, the necromancer stepped up to the great cauldron and pressed his ravaged palms against its surface. Then, in a low, hateful voice, he began his spell. For many long minutes, arcane words spilled from Nagash’s fraying lips, filling the mine shaft with ominous power. A deep, low hissing rose from the depths of the great cauldron and its sides began to shimmer with steadily mounting heat. Thin wisps of smoke rose from the necromancer’s desiccated hands, but Nagash did not relent. His chanting grew in speed and intensity, his glowing eyes focused intently on the boiling cauldron and its invisible contents.

Slowly but steadily, the vapours emanating from the leering bronze skulls began to take on a luminous, sickly, greenish-yellow hue. The tendrils of mist thickened swiftly, flowing heavily across the cauldron’s lid and writhing like serpents across the tunnel floor.

With eerie swiftness, the flow of vapour swelled to a torrent, pouring from the skulls in a rushing flood and boiling about the ankles of the waiting skeletons. Its touch pitted bone, tarnished bronze and bleached wooden spear-hafts and shields, but the undead took no notice.

Nagash’s incantation swelled in volume, and the mist seemed to react to the vehemence in his sepulchral voice. Within moments the mists stretched the entire length of the mine shaft, rising as high as the knees of the skeletons and roiling against the tunnel walls.

All at once, Nagash threw back his head and roared a stream of arcane syllables, and a charnel gust of wind swept down the branch-tunnels from the surface. It howled like a tormented spirit in the confines of the mine shaft and drove the heavy vapours ahead of it, down the branch-tunnels and into the lower levels, where the masses of the ratmen waited.

 

By the time Eekrit and his small force had collapsed the raiding tunnels behind them and reached the under-fortress, the entire camp was in a state of pandemonium. Alarm gongs clashed and bone whistles screeched, calling the army’s reserves into action. Slave masters and their gangs were driving masses of panicked slaves into the upper access tunnels, lashing the backs of their wretched charges with whips or prodding them with wickedly pointed spears. The warlord even heard a cacophony of hisses and howling shrieks from Clan Skryre’s quarter, hinting that their infernal machines were being hastily readied for action. Knowing how jealous Vittrik was of his unpredictable creations, the sound raised the hackles on the back of the warlord’s neck.

Eshreegar paused beside the warlord, his ears open and his nose twitching. “What’s this?” he mused aloud.

“Nothing good,” Eekrit answered darkly. He considered the sounds of movement on the far side of the cavern; the main tunnels were likely crammed with skaven warriors rushing to battle. He had no intention of getting caught up in that chaos—especially with Vittrik’s war machines coming up behind him. “Get the warriors over to the eastern murder holes and wait for me there.”

“What about you?” Eshreegar said.

“I’m going to find out what in the Horned God’s name is going on.”

The warlord broke away from the raiding party and dashed down the maze-like tunnels that subdivided the cavern. Minutes later he was standing outside his clan’s former quarters. He’d expected to find Velsquee’s personal guard standing watch outside the entrance, but the fearsome-looking storm-walkers were nowhere to be seen.

Tail lashing apprehensively, Eekrit pressed on, heading for the audience chamber. The cramped passageways were deserted, as was the hall itself. Eekrit stood at the threshold to the chamber and stared possessively at the throne at the far end for a moment.

Eekrit caught a hint of movement at the corner of his eye. He turned swiftly, reaching for his sword out of reflex, and saw one of Velsquee’s slaves scuttling from a side-passage. The slave caught the sudden motion and let out a terrified squeak. Pungent musk filled the air.

“I’m-I’m on an errand for Lord Velsquee!” the slave bleated, his beady eyes wide. “An important errand, yes-yes! Certainly not hiding. No, I’d never—”

“I don’t care,” Eekrit snarled. He took a step towards the terrified slave. “Where is Velsquee now?”

“Up-up, in the tunnels, with Lord Qweeqwol,” the wretch stammered. “The seer said that the skeletons were going to attack, and Velsquee went with the heechigar to catch the kreekar-gan.” The fiery-eyed burning man had become a baleful legend among the ranks of the army’s veterans.

Eekrit lips drew back from his chisel-like teeth. Qweeqwol had never been half so useful before Velsquee arrived. “Go on,” he growled.

The slave shuddered and his ears folded back against his head. “Velsquee laid-laid a trap for the kreekar-gan, but this time the skeletons have filled the tunnels with a killing smoke that slays-slays everyone it touches! Many-many are dead, and the rest are in flight! Already, the skeletons have taken mine shaft seven, and are drawing close to number eight!”

The news stunned Eekrit. If Velsquee had laid a trap for the kreekar-gan, he would have had his best troops gathered for the ambush. In those tunnels, there would have been no escape from any kind of killing gas. The heechigar and the clan warriors of Velsquee’s supporters—including the insufferable Lord Hiirc—had likely been decimated.

Like any sensible skaven, Eekrit’s first instinct was to grab everything valuable he could find and not stop running until he reached the Great City. Yet the warlord also sensed a tantalising opportunity to regain some of his lost stature, if he could but find a way to check the enemy’s advance. Eekrit’s mind raced. He could use the murder holes to get in behind the skeletons, but what then? A few hundred warriors with hand weapons and a few torches wouldn’t do more than slow them down. He would have to do something drastic.

An idea occurred to the warlord. His tail lashed as he formulated the outlines of a plan. It could work, he thought, his confidence growing. Of course, it could also get him killed. Even if he succeeded, Velsquee might have him poisoned just out of spite, but he would worry about that later.

Eekrit shook himself from his scheming reverie. “You said the skeletons were moving on mine shaft eight,” he said, turning his attention back to the slave. “Is there any chance of holding the enemy there?”

The warlord blinked in surprise. He was alone in the antechamber. The slave had fled while he had been lost in his own thoughts. Under the circumstances, that seemed to be answer enough for Eekrit’s purposes.

 

Eshreegar gripped the sputtering torch uneasily. “Are you certain this is wise?”

“Wise? No,” Eekrit muttered. “But necessary. Of that, I’m certain.”

The warlord and his raiders were packed into a steep, roughly circular passage that had been gnawed through the hard rock that lay deep within the great mountain. The tunnel was one of several that had been dug over the last decade and set aside in case an enemy attack succeeded in overrunning the defensive positions around the lower mine shafts. The passages were small enough to avoid detection by the enemy, or so Eekrit devoutly hoped, but were positioned to allow for lightning raids behind the enemy’s line of advance. The small skaven force had reached the uppermost limit of the tunnel they were in, right at the level of mine shaft seven. Only a foot of relatively soft rock separated them from the shaft itself. A small knot of skaven warriors stood ready, awaiting the order to create the breach.

Orange light flickered hungrily in the cramped confines of the tunnel. One skaven in twenty carried a lit torch—not nearly enough to suit Eekrit, but all that they had left after the raid against the flesh-eaters. The rest of the raiders were charged with ensuring that the torchbearers reached their targets. The rest was up to luck and the Horned God’s favour.

From the look on Eshreegar’s face, the Master of Treacheries was far from convinced. “What about this killing smoke that the slave mentioned?”

Eekrit tried to give Eshreegar a nonchalant flick of his whiskers. “If the skeletons have such a weapon, it would be down in the lower tunnels by now,” he said. “The enemy will be pressing its advantage to gain as much ground as it can.”

The assassin shifted uncomfortably. “But smoke gets everywhere—” he protested.

“Then hold your breath if you like,” Eekrit growled. With a curt nod, he ordered the digging party to go to work.

Eekrit focussed on readying his weapon and clamping down hard on his own musk glands. The more he thought about the ways his plan could go awry, the more nervous he became. He was gambling heavily that the majority of the skeletons would have passed through mine shaft seven by now. If he was wrong, there would be no way for the small force to extricate itself—and he would have opened up a direct route for the enemy all the way to the under-fortress, many levels below. Not that he would live long enough to witness such a disaster.

Within minutes, the sound of splintering stone rose above the scrabbling claws of the warriors. Eekrit tried to forget about everything that could go wrong and just focus on living through the next few minutes.

The breach opened with a crash of falling rubble. Eekrit raised his sword. “Forwards!” he cried.

The skaven warriors who made the breach grabbed up their weapons and charged forwards, into the mine shaft. Eekrit and Eshreegar were hard upon their heels—and then, without warning, the three skaven at the front of the raiding party collapsed to the floor of the mine shaft.

Eekrit’s blood turned to ice. He caught sight of a very faint, yellow-green tinge to the air. The killing smoke!

The three skaven writhed on the stone floor, clawing at their throats. Hideous choking sounds rattled from their gaping mouths for a few heartbeats and then their eyes rolled back and they went still. The skaven directly behind them turned and tried to flee back the way they’d come, crashing into Eekrit and Eshreegar. The scent of fear-musk was thick in the dank air—along with a very faint metallic tang, like burnt copper.

Eekrit snarled at the warriors, giving the skaven in front of him a rough shove that sent him sprawling onto his backside. “Keep going!” he snapped. “If the smoke is going to kill us, it’s already too late! Go!”

Without waiting for the warriors to respond, Eekrit rushed past them, charging up the gentle slope of the mine shaft. The faint taste of burnt metal seared his throat and made his eyes sting, but no more. What little smoke remained in the mine shaft was too dispersed to be much threat—although he reckoned the dead warriors behind him would disagree.

After the glare of the torchlight, it took the warlord’s eyes a few seconds to adjust to the gloom. He heard the skeletons long before he could see them—a rolling, clattering tide of wood and bone filling the mine shaft before him. It sounded like thousands of the damned things and they were all coming his way.

The warlord shook his head savagely, trying to blink away the last vestiges of the torch glare. The first thing he could make out were green pinpoints of light—a veritable sea of them—floating through the air in the tunnel ahead. As his eyes adjusted he made out the rounded tops of human skulls and the hard outlines of wooden shields. The undead warriors were bearing down on the skaven raiders in a relentless tide, but without any sense of formation. Their response was daunting in size, but largely uncoordinated. It wasn’t much, he reckoned, but it just might be enough.

“Eshreegar!” the warlord cried. “The supports! Fire the supports!”

“Now?” The Master of Treacheries gave Eekrit a wide-eyed look. “But—”

“Do it!” Eekrit ordered.

Eshreegar looked as though he might argue further, but one look at the oncoming horde seemed to persuade him. Barking orders at the raiders, he dashed over to the thick wooden support closest to him and placed his torch against it. The heavy column, soaked in pitch to prevent rot, erupted in hungry blue flames within seconds.

Other skaven torchbearers dashed across the mine shaft, lighting every support within reach. Eekrit felt waves of heat play across his shoulderblades. It was a start, but they had to reach a great many more of the wooden beams if they hoped to succeed. He raised his sword. “Fire as many supports as you can!” he called out. “Don’t waste time on the skeletons! Go!”

With that, the warlord beckoned to Eshreegar and dashed forwards, hugging the right-hand wall of the shaft. Skeletons moved to intercept him; he screeched a fierce battle cry and lashed out at their legs with vicious sweeps of his sword. Bronze smashed against bone, and undead warriors toppled, their spears still jabbing for his chest and throat. Corroded bronze points stabbed into his armour, or were turned aside; he stumbled as another point gouged a furrow across his left thigh. Snarling, he threw his shoulder against the shield of the skeleton in front of him and knocked the undead warrior backwards against its companions. With a sweep of his sword he hacked off the warrior’s lower legs, then ducked his head and plunged still deeper into the shifting mass.

More screeches and savage cries echoed across the mine shaft as the rest of the skaven raiders charged into the press of skeletons. They bent low and raced through the crowd at little better than knee-height, breaking leg bones and shattering joints with claw and blade. Others plied their torches as weapons, setting rotting cloth and shrivelled flesh alight. The skeletons hefted their spears and stabbed at the racing skaven, but the press of bodies left them with little room to bring their weapons to bear. Still, as swift as they were, the thicket of bronze points still drew blood among the raiders. Eekrit heard cries of agony as warriors were stabbed again and again by the enemy, yet still they pressed on.

The warlord forced his way further up the mine shaft, past one wooden support after another. There wasn’t time to glance back and see if Eshreegar was still behind him; it was all he could do to keep pushing forwards, staying literally one step ahead of the skeletons and their spears. He tore wildly at the undead warriors, savouring the brittle crunch of bone. A spear dug into his hip, biting deep into the armour and driving him against the wall; he snarled at the sudden bloom of pain, seizing the spear haft with his free paw and smashing the skull of the skeleton that wielded it. Eekrit pulled the weapon loose and drove himself forwards with another angry shout.

More skeletons pressed against Eekrit; time blurred, the seconds stretching with the dreadful elasticity of combat. He blocked and parried, cut and thrust. He lost count of the number of skeletons that fell beneath his blade. All that mattered was staying alive from one moment to the next and putting one foot resolutely in front of the other.

Dimly, Eekrit became aware of a constant, breathy roar that rose above the clatter and crash of battle. Fierce heat prickled at the back of his neck and head, but he paid it little heed. Then, suddenly, a hand tightened on the back of his cloak and tried to pull him backwards. With a snarl, the warlord spun, brandishing his sword, and saw that it was Eshreegar. The Master of Treacheries was bloody and soot-stained and his head was silhouetted by a halo of raging flames.

“Enough!” Eshreegar shouted. “It’s enough! We’ve got to get out of here!”

For a moment, Eekrit didn’t understand—then he saw the inferno stretching behind them. The pitch-soaked columns were fully ablaze and the fire had spread to the overhead beams as well. Sheets of hungry flame were shooting along the ceiling of the mine shaft, drawn towards the surface by thin draughts of air; as Eekrit watched, the fire raced overhead, reaching for the next set of supports in line. The intensity of the heat swelled in an instant, bearing down on him like a red-hot brand.

The skeletons were withdrawing as well, retreating farther up the mine shaft away from the skaven. From where he stood, Eekrit could see a few score of his raiders staggering like drunkards among the heaped bodies. Many of them had drawn their cloaks over their snouts to protect them from the heat. The warlord nodded, gasping for breath, and fished out a bone whistle. He blew three shrill notes and his warriors raced boldly back into the flames.

As he watched, several of the warriors’ cloaks left trails of smoke and flame in their wake.

“It’s possible that I didn’t think this through very well,” the warlord said, shouting over the roar of the flames.

Eshreegar gave the warlord a look of pure irritation—and then his eyes widened in terror. “Down-down!” he cried, jerking hard on Eekrit’s cloak. Eekrit was pulled completely off his feet, just as the world exploded in a sizzling crack of thunder and a flash of blinding, green light.

When his vision returned, Eekrit was on his back, staring up at the inferno roaring overhead. Spots of awful heat burned across his chest, like hot coals laid atop the surface of his armour. His nerves jangled painfully, like glass shattered under a hammer blow. With a groan, Eekrit levered himself onto his elbows, and saw that a half-dozen of his god-stone charms had been melted into smoking, black lumps. They had saved him—just barely—from the blast of sorcery that had struck him from farther up the mine shaft.

Perhaps twenty yards up the smoke-filled tunnel, surrounded by skeletal spearmen and fearsome-looking wights, stood the infamous kreekar-gan. The figure was swathed in tattered grey robes and his face concealed within the depths of a voluminous hood. Twin points of green flame burned hatefully from its depths, their baleful glow fixed on Eekrit’s stunned form. The burning man’s mummified hands were stretched towards him, wreathed in a terrible aura of sorcerous power.

Beside Eekrit, Eshreegar moaned, and tried to push himself upright. The warlord had caught the brunt of the blast, but the Master of Treacheries had suffered a glancing blow that had battered him senseless. Eekrit scrambled to his feet, his body given new life by the terrifying figure of the burning man.

“The fire!” Eekrit yelled. “Back into the fire!” He grabbed hold of Eshreegar’s smouldering robes and began to drag him bodily down the mine shaft.

A howl of pure rage chased after Eekrit as he fled into the dubious safety of the inferno. The heat was nigh unbearable; after only a few seconds it felt as though his limbs were aflame. Every breath was an agony of heat and choking smoke. All around him, wood burst with loud, blistering cracks, showering the tunnel with burning splinters. Fragments of dirt and broken stone were falling from the ceiling in a growing tide as the overhead supports began to give way.

Eekrit’s head began to swim. Where was the breach? He couldn’t be certain how far he’d gone. Everywhere he turned, there was only fire. A curse came to the warlord’s lips, but he hadn’t the breath to voice it. There was a groan above him, a sound so deep he felt it in his bones, and it grew with every passing second. The sound was important, the warlord thought dimly, but he couldn’t quite understand why.

It was impossible to breathe. Eekrit heard a pounding in his ears, growing louder by the moment. Who in the Horned God’s name would be pounding drums in the middle of a roaring fire?

Eekrit turned about, trying to focus on the sound. Invisible hands plucked at him, pulling him this way and that. And then came a thunderous, splintering craaaack overhead and the warlord felt himself falling backwards into roaring darkness.