THE OBERWALD RIPPER

Laurie Goulding

An air of unease had hung in the taproom that evening, and the locals spoke in hushed, reticent tones as they supped from their tankards. The inn was renowned for its fine brew, but the prevailing topic of conversation at the bar and the low wooden tables was rather more grim – word had apparently spread of the town’s troubles, and the usual crowd of tired and thirsty travellers was thin on the ground as a result. Those that had turned out were none too jovial, either.

Through the haze of pipe smoke and the dark little windows that opened out onto the main street, Felix had watched the lamplighters at work as he nursed his ale. They had hurried along in the fading evening light, glancing frantically left and right into the gloom as they went. Each had been accompanied by a similarly skittish watchman, who would regularly implore them to work faster while brandishing his sword and barking on about a curfew every time someone crossed their path. As darkness had fallen, Felix had wandered back to the bar to have his tankard refilled.

These people were terrified. That much was clear. He could see it in their gaunt, haggard expressions and in the way their gazes would dart towards the door every time a stranger entered. Cold food sat untouched upon grubby platters. Trembling fingers toyed with prayer beads.

As an outsider, Felix had felt their suspicious eyes upon him from the moment he stepped over the threshold. It was, therefore, no surprise when the inevitable confrontation came.

‘Who are you to say what’s best for this town?’ demanded a burly labourer, slamming his drink down upon the bar with a splash of spilled ale. ‘You come wandering in ’ere, just like the rest of ’em, full of your own opinions and trying to tell us how to deal with things.’

A few other locals, variously seated at tables or leaning against the bar, murmured in agreement. Tension had been growing in Oberwald as more and more of the day’s traders had moved on rather than remain after dark. For a market community dependent upon out-of-town custom, news of the horror still at large had cut deep into their earnings of late.

The innkeeper, a rotund little man in a grubby apron, tried to placate the irate labourer.

‘Now then, Till – I’m sure the gentleman didn’t mean anything by it. Let’s let him finish his drink in peace.’

Felix narrowed his eyes. He sized up Till, and his potential allies: the bearded man clutching a bottle by the hearth, and the thin, reedy fellow sat on a stool with a poorly concealed knife in his breeches.

Till gritted his teeth and glared, ignoring the innkeeper entirely. ‘Don’t you think we ’aven’t tried to catch him? You think your fancy Reikland soldiers would do any better?’ He jabbed a finger at the unfortunate middle-aged merchant he was accosting, and the man winced.

Felix, sat in a high-backed pew by the window, set down his tankard as the labourer continued. His hand strayed to the hilt of Karaghul beneath his cloak almost without thought, though he found Till’s words intriguing.

‘They say the Ripper’s got eyes that burn with an ungodly fire. They say he’s quick as lightning, and half as kind. If he ain’t a daemon given flesh, then he’s sold his soul to something wicked…’

His reedy friend rose from his stool. ‘Aye, they say you can see right through him,’ he chimed in.

‘And he flies!’ added someone else.

Silence had fallen over the inn. The merchant adjusted his coat, and made a small gesture to the well-dressed young woman standing behind him.

‘I… I’m very sorry to have offended you,’ he said in a thick Reikland accent. ‘Please, mein herr, I see that your tankard is almost empty. Let me buy you another ale.’

Till snorted, but his mood seemed to soften and he grunted in agreement.

As the subdued atmosphere of the taproom returned, Felix caught the gaze of the young woman. She smiled at him and nodded, clearly having noticed him preparing to step in on their behalf. He returned the gesture and picked up his tankard once more.

Felix was glad that Gotrek had been elsewhere. The presence of a belligerent, one-eyed dwarf with a fiery mohawk could well have turned the minor altercation into a full-on brawl, and that sort of attention was exactly what they needed to avoid. Rather than join him at the inn, the dour old Slayer had stomped off into the town in search of a gambling den, or ‘somewhere a dwarf might get a flagon of proper ale, manling’.

Though sometimes tiresome, Gotrek’s demeanour often gave Felix pause to consider their surroundings more carefully. It was unlikely that a town the size of Oberwald would offer anything that Gotrek would particularly enjoy – in spite of its market trade, it was somewhat parochial and rather unremarkable.

But ‘unremarkable’ was good, as far as Felix was concerned. Unremarkable meant that he and Gotrek could disappear with a minimum of effort and notice. Given the events of the past few weeks, that was the best they could hope for.

More to the point, it was a convenient layover and a welcome break from making camp in the sparse pinewoods, or on the bare hillsides beyond.

Felix just hoped that Gotrek would remember to keep himself covered up. It was hard to remain inconspicuous when one of the pair was so… remarkable. They had spent a whole evening by the campfire in stony silence a few nights before, when Felix had dared to suggest that the proud, honourable and fearless Slayer might consider wearing a disguise while gallivanting around in public. Not that it would do much good anyway, really – he was still unmistakable as a heavily set dwarf, even in a hooded cloak.

He drained the last of his ale, resolving to speak to the innkeeper about lodgings for the night. Just as he was about to make for the bar one final time, the young woman appeared over him, two foaming tankards in hand.

‘It seems my father has set the locals all aflutter, hasn’t he?’ she said, smiling but sounding slightly awkward nonetheless. Felix rose, but before he could speak she thrust one of the tankards at him. ‘I’m sure you would have come to my rescue, had they given us any trouble. I’m Sabine, by the way.’

‘I’m–’ he began, but caught himself. His mind raced. ‘I’m Max. Max Schreiber. Pleased to meet you, Sabine.’

The two of them sat at his little table, and drank long into the night. Though her manner was initially coy, Sabine’s intentions were obvious enough to a seasoned bohemian like Felix. Nonetheless, he found something endearing about the girlish naiveté with which she tried to keep him engaged in trivial conversation while plying him with yet more ale. Her occasional excited outbursts about poetry and all their other supposedly shared interests drew disapproving looks from the locals, but they left the pair of outsiders well alone.

She was not long past twenty, and though her father’s work held little interest for her she had abandoned her studies of the arts and travelled out with his entourage on business across the province. When Felix told her of his father’s own enterprise – being careful to mention no names – and his role as the family’s black sheep, she had practically squealed with delight and confessed that she too yearned to run away and follow her own dreams. Felix had smiled politely, though inside he felt some annoyance at her immature posturing. Still, he saw a reflection of his own youth in the girl’s innocence. As she had eagerly recounted tales of her non-adventures, most of which seemed to culminate in the consumption of wine or ale with her collegiate friends, his thoughts wandered back to the days when he too had lived only for such things, and he studied her as she spoke.

Maybe it was the ale, but she did look… unconventionally attractive in the firelight. The curve of her cheek, and the flash of rebellion in her eyes; the tumble of blonde hair that she would periodically brush from her face…

He had recoiled slightly when she ran her hand gently over his forearm in mid-conversation, but he caught himself and relented to her touch. After so long on the road with Gotrek, it soothed his ego to know that he still looked presentable enough to attract any female company at all. Besides, when he tried to blink away the pleasant, drunken haze, he realised just how close she had edged towards him along the pew. It’d be rude to push her away now, he thought. She had been buying the drinks all night, after all.

When Sabine’s father eventually made to retire up to his rooms, he stopped and regarded Felix coldly. ‘Sabine, liebchen. Time for us to leave.’

‘Oh, father, I can’t go yet,’ she protested, pouting almost theatrically. ‘I’ve still got a half-tankard left.’

Felix snorted into his own drink. Sabine nudged him in the ribs.

‘Besides, this is Max. He’s a poet from Altdorf. He’s just about to show me some of his best verses.’

Making a valiant attempt to appear sober, Felix stood. He still had enough sense to keep his sword concealed beneath his cloak.

‘Max Schreiber,’ he said, offering a hand to the merchant. ‘Your daughter speaks very highly of you, sir.’ Sabine discreetly pinched his behind, making him flinch.

Her father looked down at Felix’s proffered hand, then rolled his eyes and strode towards the door, sighing as he went. ‘By Sigmar, what have I done to deserve such a daughter? Just be ready to leave in the morning, Sabine. We must be in Lindeshof by noon.’

Felix stood swaying for a few moments. He glanced blearily around the taproom and saw that most of the others had already left. How long had the two of them been drinking? Where the hell had Gotrek gotten t–

Sabine pulled him down onto the seat and planted a long, cloying kiss on his lips. He guessed that she had probably meant it to be passionate, though all he could focus on was the fact that the room suddenly appeared to be spinning.

Oberwald ale, he thought. Stronger than it seems.

She gazed at him for slightly longer than was comfortable, and then bit her lip coyly before dragging him back to his feet. ‘Come on, you,’ she said. ‘Come and try out some of your fine words on me.’

Gotrek clutched his cards tightly in his thick, stubby fingers, squinting at them in the candlelight. He ground his teeth and tried to remember what he had played on the previous hand. Numbers and suits blurred together in his mind, and he rubbed at his forehead in frustration.

A gleek is three of kind, and the mournival four…

They had already vied the ruff, whatever that meant, and he had lost a handful of crowns to the dealer because apparently they had turned over a ‘tiddy’ on the trump draw. Gotrek would have been happy to pass each round and watch the others play until he got a better handle on the rules, but as the all-too-helpful backseat gamblers sat nearby kept pointing out, there was no point in passing in the same round as the opening vie.

‘Well then, Mast’r Dwarf – it’s your bid,’ said the dealer, eyeing Gotrek over the top of his thin eyeglasses. ‘The sun’ll be up, ere we finish. And I don’t know about you two, but I’d rather spend my winnings and be bedded down afore dawn.’ He grinned and patted the small pile of coins on the table in front of him, a pile that Gotrek noted contained a fair contribution from his own pocket.

The third player, a scrawny, bearded manling with fast eyes, twitched nervously and sipped from a small tin cup at his elbow before impatiently drumming his fingers on the edge of the table.

Gotrek returned his attention to his cards. He could feel every pair of eyes in the room upon him, and in all honesty he had no idea what he was doing. He was familiar with most of the games played in taverns and inns across the Empire, but this one – Gleek? Gleich? – was new to him, and it seemed to be infuriatingly complicated. Felix was the one with a head for things like that: trivial, calculating affairs that were as much to do with posturing as they were to do with adding up numbers and such.

Well then, he thought, may as well forget the rules and play the players instead.

He sniffed productively, and slid all nine of his remaining crowns across the table, fixing the dealer with his one good eye. ‘It’s to you, then. I’m cleaned out.’

The bid was high, much higher than the ante. High enough, he hoped, to make them all think twice before proceeding.

The man let out a short laugh, but withered under the dwarf’s iron glare after only a moment. His own gaze flickered to the other player, and then off to somewhere behind Gotrek. He shifted in his seat. Ran his fingers over the edges of his cards. Coughed once, then cleared his throat rather more affectedly.

There it was.

Gotrek narrowed his eye. The dealer had glanced back to the same point, just behind him. His demeanour then seemed to change noticeably.

‘In that case, Mast’r Dwarf,’ he grinned slyly, ‘I’m afraid that’s that. I’ll see your bid and let’s name those pairs, though I reckon you can’t beat this hand. With respect.’

Gotrek didn’t even wait for him to count out the coins. He simply laid his cards down and planted a meaty fist into the man’s nose.

Bone cracked, and blood splattered onto the pile of gold. The man made a shocked sound – not quite a yelp and yet more than a gasp – as he sprawled backwards with the force of the blow, his boots whacking up into the underside of the table, sending the cards and coins flying as it flipped over.

Before this had truly registered with the other patrons of the den, Gotrek whirled around from his stool and grabbed the nearest one by the collar of his rough tunic. There was a chance that it might not have been the dealer’s unseen card-reading accomplice, but that didn’t really matter – with a throaty, wordless shout, Gotrek heaved and laid him out cold with a solid headbutt.

Pandemonium erupted. Other brawls broke out at the tables and shadowed booths where other games had been going on, and accusations of cheating were bandied back and forth between the punches. Although Oberwald was home to several dubiously regulated gambling dens such as this, the watch would only turn a blind eye for as long as the activity remained quiet, and a fracas which spilled onto the streets or got too out of hand would likely bring them running. Felix had been going on about keeping a low profile for weeks, since the recent unpleasantness that had forced the pair of them onto the road north; Gotrek knew that he should probably teach these cheating swine a lesson and recover his gold quickly, before heading off into the night.

He shot his hand out to seize the third player from their game – the scrawny manling with the fast eyes – but his fingers closed on empty air. He turned his head to see that, indeed, the man was gone. His seat was empty.

Gotrek’s confusion lasted only a single heartbeat before someone broke a cheap wooden cudgel over the back of his head. He let out another wordless roar and launched himself at the new assailant in a whirl of fists, tattoos and fiery orange hair.

Off to his left, he saw a knife flash in the gloom and an agonised shriek cut through the din. As was to be expected in a room full of cut-throats, things had turned nasty very quickly. Already, many of the more savvy brawlers were scuttling for the low arched doorway which led back up to the street, leaving only a few bewildered out-of-towners and those locals who looked like they could afford to buy their way out of trouble regardless.

With a renewed sense of urgency, Gotrek sent another manling reeling to the floor with a blow to the temple, and then rounded on the injured dealer who was still thrashing about on his back amidst the debris from their upended table.

Clutching his shattered nose, the man was choking back blood and half-blind with pain, scrabbling about for his broken eyeglass frames. Gotrek noted that no one seemed to have come to his aid.

He pulled the manling up by the front of his leather jerkin and, ignoring his pitiful protestations, gave him a gentle slap on the forehead to get his full attention.

‘So you want to cheat me, eh?’ he growled. ‘Want to steal my hard-earned gold, you misbegotten little thief?’ He hauled him up close and stared hard into his eyes. ‘You’re lucky – I’m supposed to be behaving myself tonight.’

He let his words sink in for a moment before dropping the weakly struggling man to the floor once more, and scooping up as many of the fallen gold pieces as he could stuff into his belt. It was more than he’d had when he entered the den, but he considered that to be the price this daft human would pay for a lesson in honesty.

‘You just watch yourself, thief,’ he continued, yanking his pack and bedroll from under the bench against the wall. ‘I may come back for another game.’

Chuckling to himself, Gotrek hopped up the stone steps to street level and into the first paling light of dawn. It was still a good few hours until sunrise, and there would be plenty of time yet to seek out Felix at the inn.

A small group of stragglers from the gambling den darted away into the night as the unmistakable whistles of the watch echoed in the distance, and Gotrek ducked through the arch of a nearby building to avoid them all.

Aye, a good few hours still.

For the most part, the buildings in this part of town were in the half-timbered style, with high gabled roofs of grey and red shingles, and ornamental finials that spoke of a quiet, self-congratulatory smugness among the more permanent residents. It was shoddy human worksmanship, true enough, but it suggested that this was where the money was.

If he could find another den, he might indeed have enough time to try his hand at a new game, and maybe win a few more crowns for the pot.

It was the cold that Felix noticed first.

He was shivering, and lying on damp cobblestones – they pressed painfully into his hip and shoulder, and his face felt bruised. He had slept rough under the stars plenty of times before, but something here was strangely amiss.

Only when he attempted to pull his cloak tighter did the nausea hit him.

Felix gagged. His head was pounding.

He let out a long moan, full of all the remorse of the inebriate who cannot yet recall the night before but who knows that even merely in its telling it would most likely break him all over again.

Rolling slowly and delicately onto his front, he tried to take deep, cleansing breaths of the chill morning air as the world spun unforgivingly around him.

Who was making all that commotion? Blowing whistles and shouting, at this damned hour! Oh sweet, merciful Shallya! Deliver me from this wretchedness!

He drew his knees up and buried his face in his hands, almost sobbing at the pain behind his eyes. His hair hung wet and sticky against his clammy forehead, and he had the taste of bile and rancid ale in his throat. He gagged again.

Angry voices echoed in the alleyway around him. An alarming number of angry voices. Felix wanted to open his eyes, but he was certain that the effort would cause his brain to explode inside his skull.

When he finally did open them, the outcome was far worse.

Sabine lay before him on the cobblestones, in a wide pool of rain-watered blood. Her face was contorted, and her innards hung through a wide slash across her belly, which seemed to have almost cleaved her in two. Felix’s sword lay nearby.

As the watchmen came for him, their pitiless hands yanking him up from the ground, he was suddenly, horribly aware that his own hands and face were also smeared with Sabine’s blood.

He vomited copiously over the man who restrained his left arm, earning Felix a blow to the stomach that felled him instantly. Gasping and choking in the gutter, he saw that a horrified mob was being held back by the local watch commander at the entrance to the alley, and that they were crying out for vengeance.

It’s the Ripper! They’ve caught the Ripper!

Felix’s head hung at a maddening angle, and his vision swam. He needed time to think, just a few moments to–

Gotrek.

Felix caught sight of his dwarf companion’s grizzled face in the crowd, and his heart leapt. The Slayer was cowled in a dark hood, his single eye wide and his jaw set in a stern manner; most surprisingly to Felix, the dwarf’s expression was somewhere between anger and bitter disappointment. The sight was unnerving.

They had been so careful, tried so hard to remain inconspicuous…

Gotrek met his gaze, but said nothing. Solemnly he shook his head and slipped away into the baying throng.

Felix cried out in horror and anguish. One of the watchmen gripped him by his bloody hair, and bashed his face into the pavement.

As consciousness deserted him, away in the shadows Felix fancied he saw a lone figure: a skulking wraith of a man with piercing eyes.

Watching.

Gotrek stomped his way through the oncoming rabble; word was spreading fast, and in response more and more of the people of Oberwald were heading out onto the streets from their early morning duties. They were clearly agitated, although it seemed to be more fear than excitement that was gripping them.

Stupid manling. Stupid, stupid manling.

There had been a good deal of talk about a ‘ripper’ while they had been in the town, but Gotrek had simply assumed it was a harmless local legend or just another name that the humans had given to some wandering beast of Chaos. Who knows, he thought. It didn’t really matter now, anyway.

Felix had been stupid. Careless. You don’t cavort with taproom floozies when the whole district is on edge and looking for a scapegoat.

Always thinking with his tallywhacker, that one.

Up ahead, a young lad in a grocer’s apron had hauled himself up onto the low roof of a stone outbuilding and was pointing down to the corner where the cobbled alleyway met the main thoroughfare.

‘He’s there! They’ve caught him! They’re going to string him up!’

Gotrek sagged at the words. Hysterical shouts echoed from the half-timbered frontages which lined the street, and some of the bolder citizens began to jostle and run towards the apparent spectacle. He noted with grim inevitability that some of them were armed – an assortment of hand tools, pitchforks and kitchen knives gripped in trembling, white-knuckled hands.

There was a strange feeling in the air, an unusual dynamic to this crowd. This was not the usual lynch-mob, thirsty for blood; it was almost as if they were more afraid of this local terror now that they thought him cornered, more so than when he had supposedly stalked among them…

Fear was unfamiliar to Gotrek, and even humans themselves were a puzzle at times. He cast his gaze about as the people hurried by. A watchman with a hand firmly on the hilt of his sword. A housemaid, her face streaked with tears. Two youths in fine clothing. A blacksmith with a forge hammer and a curiously haunted expression, followed by his gloved apprentice.

The dwarf slowed, and turned back to see the burgeoning crowd at the mouth of the alley. Most of these people didn’t have vengeance on their minds, nor likely did they mean Felix any harm. Not directly, anyway.

They simply couldn’t believe that their Ripper had been caught.

They just had to see it with their own eyes, to witness him being dragged away in chains. They needed to finally banish the horror that had haunted them for so long, to restore their faith in the men who were supposedly employed to keep them safe at night. They needed to know that it was all over.

Somewhere further up the street, someone – most likely one of the watch trying to maintain order – fired a pistol skywards. The report rang down the street, and unfortunately had quite the opposite effect on the crowd. Screams filled the air, and then panicked cries as the thoroughfare was suddenly turned into a stampede.

‘It’s the Ripper! The daemon is loose again! Run for your lives!’

Gotrek groaned and shouldered the blacksmith aside as the lumbering brute almost ran him down, but even the doughty Slayer couldn’t weather the press of frantic bodies that surged around him. Being sure to keep a tight grip on his pack and the familiar weight of his axe strapped beneath it, he allowed himself to be swept along with the crowd.

Though he could barely think over the bleating and yammering and breathless prayers of the fleeing townspeople, Gotrek knew that he couldn’t just abandon his lanky companion to the hangman’s noose. First and foremost, young Felix had been locked up for a crime that – Gotrek hoped – he hadn’t committed. Secondly, if the watch held Felix for long enough, they might realise just who he actually was… and then, of course, they’d soon come looking for the mohawked Slayer too. There were plenty of things that the pair of them had done which would land them both in any gaol in the Empire, no question.

Finally, Gotrek realised, since Felix wasn’t this notorious murderer that the people had figured him to be, it meant that someone – or something – else was.

The Oberwald Ripper was still at large.

Time passed for Felix in a roiling, nauseous haze. He was unsure where the throbbing pain of his injuries ended, and the dull ache of his hangover began. He found that he couldn’t turn his head without the sensation that he was whirling down some hellish chasm to an unspecified but particularly unpleasant end.

It was like those things. You know. The dwarf machines. With the spinning blade things on top…

He whimpered before retching onto the floor.

Gyrocopters. That was it. It was like being attacked by gyrocopters every time he closed his eyes. Gyrocopters flying in a gale. With drunken pilots.

The watchmen had taken his cloak, taken his mail shirt and his sword. They had even taken his boots and his belt and clapped him in rusty manacles and leg-irons, although it was a mystery as to what kind of escape they thought he might attempt in his current condition.

Misery. He coughed and heaved again, and snorted out a clot of black blood.

He lay curled on a bare wooden bench, his face towards a rough-hewn stone wall that was slick with moisture and covered in blooms of lichen. The sound of dripping water in the cell was constant, like the ticking of some bizarre timepiece. Faintly, he was aware of thunder rumbling in the distance, and when he managed to turn his head far enough, he saw rain beating down upon the sill of the small, barred window set high up in the wall.

The only mercy that he felt was the cold draught that blew in through that opening. Though it might normally have wracked his body with chills, for now it was refreshing and he drew in long, deep breaths of it to steady himself before daring to move again.

‘You look unwell, friend.’

Felix started at the sound of the voice, started so hard that he almost fell off the bench and into the various puddles of his own making. His eyes slid in and out of focus as he peered into the shadows for the anonymous speaker, though the effort sent new jabs of pain lancing through his skull. His stomach tightened with the effort, but he managed to stifle another dry retch.

‘Who… who’s there?’ he managed at length, only to be met with a thin trickle of laughter.

In the far corner of the gaol was an empty bench, and heaped against the wall was a bundle of rags and detritus. Where the floor dipped in the middle, a pool of silty water had collected from the dripping ceiling, and looked to be at least a few inches deep. The heavy wooden door to the cell was bound with great iron hinges and bolts, and a battered little tin bowl containing a few mouldy crusts lay beside it.

But of the phantom speaker, there was no sign.

Felix gripped the edge of his bench tightly and tried to muster the strength to rise, but footsteps and angry words echoed in the space outside the cell, and underneath the heavy door he saw the suggestion of candlelight moving beyond.

With an iron rumble to rival the thunder outside, the bolts were pulled back and the door swung outwards to reveal several watchmen armed with spears, and the swarthy old watch commander in his brocaded coat, holding a lantern aloft. They entered cautiously, almost like a battlefield phalanx approaching him as they would a dragon or greater daemon, spears levelled.

‘This is him,’ spat the commander. ‘This is the cold-blooded bastard we found in the alley.’ He gestured at Felix, before spitefully kicking up a spray of the silty water in his direction. One of the spearmen jabbed at Felix, driving him from the bench and onto the filthy floor with a piteous cry.

Felix covered his eyes against the light of the lantern, and tried to ward off the spears of his captors and plead his innocence, the chains of his heavy manacles trailing on the stone flags.

‘N-no, you’ve got the wrong man! I didn’t do anything…’

The closest spearman, a potato-faced thug with one milky eye, leered in closer. ‘Shut yer mouth, devil, or I’ll cut out yer filthy tongue!’

Recoiling into the corner, Felix tried to think quickly. It was clear that they thought him to be this fiendish Ripper who had apparently plagued the town for so long. Of course, he could hardly blame them – here was an unknown outsider who could not have given a good account of himself even if he had been telling the truth.

The watch commander turned and spoke to someone standing in the passageway beyond the cell. ‘Is this the one, Herr Lieferen? Is this the man you saw?’

Felix almost didn’t dare to look.

Dishevelled, grief-stricken, with his eyes reddened and his hands trembling, Sabine’s father stooped in through the doorway and let his gaze fall upon Felix. It was a mournful gaze stung with tears and rage.

‘That’s him, that’s the poet! He’s to blame!’ he shrieked, wiping his eyes with the cuff of his fine shirt. ‘He killed my Sabine!’

The watch commander laid a hand on the sobbing merchant’s shoulder, causing him to flinch slightly, and ushered him back into the passageway.

‘Thank you, mein herr. We’ll see to him from here. This Ripper’s a crafty one, eluded us for a long time. We even thought of calling on the Witch Hunters – there were many as said he weren’t a man, but a ghoul or a daemon, or a vampire…’

Felix’s heart missed a beat.

The commander turned back and looked down at him with a sneer. ‘But he bleeds good enough, and I don’t see him flying up out of that little window any time soon. He’ll swing from the gallows before nightfall, you have my word.’

The watchmen began to back out of the cell, leaving Felix cowering and shivering in the corner. The commander swung his boot at the pile of rags near the far bench, eliciting a yelp of pain from it.

‘And you, how are you liking it in here? This must be a dream come true for you, eh? You simple-minded little pervert.’

To Felix’s surprise, the bundle unfurled into the form of a man – an emaciated, grimy vagrant in a tattered coat and cap. The man trembled and pawed beseechingly at the commander as he withdrew.

‘Please, your honour, I beg you,’ he bawled, ‘don’t leave me alone in here with him! He’s dangerous, he’ll kill me and take my soul for a plaything!’ He prostrated himself before the commander, splashing at the edge of the silty puddle and fawning over his grimy boots. ‘I saw him – when you were outside and couldn’t have known – he was licking the blood off his hands, and laughing! Oh, Sigmar preserve me, you can’t leave me in here with the Ripper!’

One of the other watchmen hauled him up by the scruff of his neck and sent him tumbling back into the corner. The commander blew out his lantern and reached for the ring of keys at his belt.

‘I ought to hang you alongside him. Be thankful you didn’t do nothing wrong, other than upset the common, decent folk.’

The heavy door slammed shut, and the bolts were racked back into place. The muffled sound of grim laughter and of spear hafts on the stone floor faded into the distance, leaving only Felix’s ragged breathing and the rainstorm outside the tiny window, and the endless drip-drip-drip of the vaulted ceiling.

Felix blinked in the sudden darkness, trying to locate the vagrant again. The man had fallen curiously silent, in spite of his desperate outburst in front of the watchmen.

With a sudden sharp intake of breath, Felix saw him.

He was sat slightly closer than Felix had expected, calm and cross-legged on the edge of the pool which still rippled from his little display moments earlier. He seemed bigger, somehow rangier than before – Felix supposed this was because he had initially mistaken him for a pile of gaol-cell rubbish. In the gloom, he saw the man’s shoulders rise and fall in slow, measured breaths, but not a sound did he make compared to Felix’s own laboured gasps.

Most unsettling of all were his eyes. His face was cloaked in shadow, but his beady little eyes peered out quite visibly.

Unblinking.

Felix pulled his manacled limbs up, edging back onto his bench in spite of his pounding head and the dizziness which threatened to pitch him to the floor without warning. The man’s eyes never left him all the while.

‘Well then, friend,’ came his cold voice once more. ‘This is quite a turn-up, is it not?’

A new sickness spread in Felix’s gut – it was not the ongoing legacy of his ale binge, nor was it at the prospect of his impending execution. It was not because Gotrek had abandoned him to the watch, nor because that poor girl lay dead or because he couldn’t even remember rightly how or when it had happened.

This new sickness was at the thought of having to spend his last hours locked up with this sinister figure whose predatory gaze never faltered, and whose breath did not seem to fog in the cold air of their gaol.

And no matter how sick Felix felt, he knew that he did not want to turn his back upon this monster for even a moment.

As thick as thieves, so the saying went. It was true throughout all the cities of men, in the Empire and beyond; in Gotrek’s experience, criminals tended to prefer the company of their own kind. Professional assassins, hired thugs, rogues, smugglers and footpads – they were all cut from the same cloth, and whatever twisted code of honour they followed, you could always count on them to cover for their fellows. At least until their interests conflicted.

And once you had a hold over one, you could find out more about another. Like this Ripper character, perhaps?

The problem was that Gotrek was never sure where the trail began, in these sorts of situations. That had always been Felix’s strong suit. The dwarf himself just wasn’t cut out for sleuthing.

Too much faffing around, like in those card games.

That, of course, had given Gotrek his flash of inspiration. There was a criminal type that he knew he could lean on, without fear of reprisal from the watch or whatever limited seedy underworld there was in this backwoods burg.

He cast a quick look about him, and then rapped hard on the door at the bottom of the stone steps just off the market square. Rain beat down upon his woollen hood.

No response. He kicked the bottom of the door three times with his boot, rocking it in its frame.

There came a scuffling from within, and the peephole set into the wood flipped open to reveal a bloodshot eye. After a moment, the eye settled on the diminutive Slayer, and widened in alarm. The peephole snapped shut again.

‘Go away!’ came a hoarse voice. ‘We’re closed, by order of the watch.’

Gotrek laughed pointedly. ‘Ha! I find that hard to believe.’

Hushed voices spoke quickly behind the door, followed by the faint creak of floorboards further in.

‘Believe what you like. You ain’t coming in. You just ’bout wrecked the place last night, with your shenanigans. New house policy – no dwarfs allowed.’

‘You’ve not to worry, manling. I’m not looking for another game.’ Gotrek dropped his voice to a stage whisper as a market cart trundled past on the muddy street above, and opened his pack to reveal the blade of his axe. ‘Now you let me in, quick as you like, or I’ll smash this door to splinters and–’

His words were cut short by a crash in the alleyway at the side of the den, and he lumbered up the steps to block the obvious escape route. Sure enough, he found the bruised and battered dealer from the previous night, picking himself up from a heap of tumbled crates just outside the building’s side door.

Gotrek barrelled into the man without hesitation, and with a fearsome growl he drew his axe from the pack and let his hood fall to reveal his flattened mohawk.

The battered man whimpered and screeched, producing gold crowns and sundry trinkets from his pockets and thrusting them at the Slayer in desperation.

‘Be still, you fool,’ Gotrek hissed, all too aware that their scuffle might attract attention from the people on the street behind them. ‘I’m not interested in your money. Back inside.’

He pulled the door shut behind them, and knocked the man’s legs out from under him with the flat of his axe. Although they were in a backroom which smelled suspiciously bad anyway, Gotrek realised that the man had just pissed himself in fear.

‘You filthy little thief! Is this how you want to meet your death? On your knees, with soggy pantaloons. What kind of an end is that, eh?’

The man gabbled incoherently, and began to weep from his puffy black eyes.

Gotrek made a theatrical show of lowering his weapon. ‘All right, all right. I’ll give you one last chance, thief. You can walk – or waddle – out of here alive, if you tell me more about this “Ripper” of yours.’

Sniffing and trembling uncontrollably, the man gingerly wiped his swollen nose and nodded frantically.

‘The R-Ripper, yes! They c-caught him this m-morning. The watch caught him.’

Gotrek leaned in, almost conspiratorially, and clucked his tongue.

‘See now, thief, I don’t think they did.’

The man frowned. ‘I don’t know w-what you mean,’ he said.

‘I think they got the wrong man, see? I mean, you tell me what you know about this Ripper. You ever seen him?’

‘No sir, Mast’r Dwarf! F-few have. Fewer still who’ve lived long enough to–’

‘Anyone you know?’

The man paused, still sobbing softly.

‘One fellow, maybe. He talked about the Ripper often enough. Talked about how his eyes blazed colder than a winter frost, and about how he could outrun the fastest horse on the forest roads, when he had a mind to.’

‘Who told you this?’ Gotrek demanded.

‘I don’t know his name – he sometimes comes in to try his hand at the tables though. Thin fellow, always nervous. Wears a cloth cap.’

The scrawny manling with the fast eyes.

‘He was here last night, was he not?’ said Gotrek.

‘Aye, that he was, though he didn’t stick around long after the… trouble began, Mast’r Dwarf. With respect.’

Slippery fellow, thought Gotrek. Too fast for me, and that’s saying something.

‘So, thief, where would the watchmen have taken this Ripper they’ve caught?’

‘Most likely to the gaol to await his execution, if any gaol will hold him. You know the town gibbet?’

‘I saw it. In front of the gallows in the market square.’

‘The cells are in the stone building at the eastern facing. You won’t miss them.’

Gotrek shouldered his axe, and tossed a grubby rag into the man’s face.

‘There you go, thief. Clean yourself up.’

Cautiously, Felix took a handful of water from the puddle and splashed it over his bare neck, never taking his eyes off the shadowy figure sat in front of him.

‘I know you,’ he said. ‘I saw you in the alleyway when the watch came.’

A spread of teeth emerged into a wicked grin in the gloom.

‘Indeed you did, friend, though I saw you and the girl a good while before that.’

Felix pointed at him in the most intimidatory manner he could. ‘For a start, you can stop calling me “friend”. You don’t even know me, and on balance I have to say that most of the people I call my friends don’t smell half as foul as you. Damned vagrant.’

The vagrant laughed his thin little laugh again. Felix ignored it.

‘Secondly, if you saw me there with Sabine then you know that I never touched her. I’m to be executed for something I didn’t do, and if you were half the “friend” you pretend to be, you’d tell that to the watchmen and clear my name.’ He sank back onto the bench, and waved dismissively. ‘But for whatever reason, you’ve decided to incriminate me further. I’m not sure what you hope to gain from that, but I’ll thank you to leave me alone. “Friend”.’

A tense moment passed between them, and Felix managed to match the vagrant’s unblinking stare.

He noticed that the smile had vanished.

‘Ungrateful,’ the vagrant hissed.

‘What?’

‘I’m giving you the gift of infamy. Your name will live on for generations – Max Schreiber, the legendary Ripper of Oberwald. You never even had to kill a single one of those… immoral citizens, and yet you will take all of the glory.’

‘But how–’

‘Oh, she did squirm so, your little lady. She was quite taken with you. Even after you passed out, I don’t think she even noticed me until I was already upon her.’

Felix’s stomach lurched. He tried to mask his horror.

‘And I must say, Herr Schreiber–’ the Ripper grinned again, ‘–your name is most apt for a poet. Is it a pen name, perchance?’ He chuckled, before snapping back to a humourless deadpan. ‘What, then, would your real name be, I wonder…’

Felix sprang to his feet, holding his manacled fists out before him, but the Ripper was lightning-fast and already stooped in a low crouch in the silty puddle. For what seemed an eternity, they stood facing one another in that dark gaol cell.

‘You stay away from me, do you hear?’ Felix gasped, his hair hanging limply in his bloodied face. He looked to the heavy door, and raised his voice. ‘Guard! Guard! He’s the Ripper! The filthy, stinking–’

Two heavy thuds on the wood. The milky-eyed watchman’s voice echoed in the passageway beyond.

‘Quiet in there, you murderin’ wretch.’

Now that he stood in the half-light from the small window, Felix could see the Ripper’s features more clearly: a gaunt, thin face with a straggly beard, cap pulled low over his brow. His gaze was just as intense as it had been, almost hypnotic, like that of an adder or viper. When he spoke again, his words sent chills down Felix’s spine.

‘Have you any idea how pitiful your gallows accusations will seem? How mad they will make you sound?’

‘Do not speak to me of madness,’ Felix spat. ‘You’ve stalked this provincial little town for months, and for what? You are deluded if you think anyone outside of Oberwald will ever hear of your exploits.’

The Ripper started forwards suddenly, his hands outstretched like grasping claws, but he held back. Nonetheless, Felix flinched and stumbled in his leg-irons – his opponent had the advantage of complete mobility, and he clearly intended to make the most of it.

‘Months?’ the Ripper sneered, his eyes narrow. ‘Try years. And what makes you think Oberwald is the only town to have enjoyed my particular attentions?’ He gestured widely. ‘In my time, I travelled throughout the Empire and the Border Princes, and further still. You have the air of the traveller about you too, “Herr Schreiber”. I wonder if you have also seen the things that I have seen.’

Felix shrugged, hoping to stall him. ‘Pray tell, what would that be?’

‘I have seen the worst in mankind. I have seen men rut like the beasts of the Drakwald, or wage war like the greenskins and dwarfs up in the mountains.’ He raised a hand, and closed it slowly into a fist. ‘But worst of all, I have seen the slow eradication of our innocence, even out here in the rural provinces. Take this town – no more than a crossroads between the local villages, and then later a market settlement. Traders, farmers; honest folk living by the toil of their own hand.

‘But then it grows. Money to be made, you see. The landowners and innkeepers creep in, start to make a killing by renting out their yards and frontages to the travelling vendors. How do you think these fine roads and buildings are maintained?’

The Ripper’s eyes had glazed somewhat, and he stared into the middle distance, no doubt imagining some apocalyptic end to his ranting monologue.

‘But the population is transient – market is only a few days each week, so they begin to specialise in their offer. Aside from food and lodging, the more wealthy visitor might even find himself with amenable female company for an evening… and suddenly there are whores and disease on every corner!

‘And all the while, there are still those who cannot afford even the most basic comforts. They are forced to huddle in the streets by night, bedding down in muddy straw bales or sleeping beneath their empty market wagons and shivering in the bitter wind. They die out there, while the rich continue to grow fat by their roaring hearths.’

Absently, he adjusted his coat against some dimly remembered chill.

‘It speaks of a base inequality. It is the soulless values of the big cities like Altdorf and Talabheim cast in microcosm. Without something to fear, without a beast at their door, men become greedy. I will give them all something to fear.’

Felix merely laughed. ‘I tell you what – you are mad.’

The Ripper’s eyes snapped back to him, fixing him with their cold, predatory glare once more. Still, he let Felix continue.

‘You say you’ve travelled the Old World, and yet you say that men have nothing to fear, out here in the provinces? You guess rightly – I’ve wandered these lands long enough to find nothing but bloodthirsty beasts and unspeakable horrors under every mountain and upon every plain.’

He pointed at the Ripper, who twitched nervously.

‘You’re not some saviour of men. You’re just a murderous lunatic.’

‘Wrong,’ he replied in a heartbeat. ‘You’re the murderer, remember? You’ll swing from the gibbet before the day is out, and I’ll be set free.’ He laughed again. ‘I’m just the vagrant caught skulking at the scene of your latest murder. Aside from offending the sensibilities of the townsfolk with my morbid curiosity, I am apparently innocent.’

Felix could stand it no longer. He bellowed and lunged at the Ripper, but the sinister figure flashed out of his path and sent him careening into the opposite bench. As Felix fell, his leg-irons yanked free from their rusted mounting on the wall and the chains splashed loosely into the pool of silty water.

The Ripper stood over him, partially silhouetted against the light from the window and yet with his pale eyes still noticeably visible beneath the brim of his cap. As Felix rolled onto his back and tried to stand, with a flick of the wrist his tormentor produced a long, serrated knife from beneath his coat.

‘Stay down, friend. You don’t want to taste this steel.’

Before Felix could formulate a suitably witty riposte, an unmistakable voice came down through the bars of the high window.

‘Manling? What’s going on in there?’

He let out an involuntary gasp of joy. The Ripper turned to look up at the tiny opening, but Felix yelled past him.

‘Gotrek? Gotrek! It’s the Ripper! He’s in here with me!’

As Felix began to tug the rusted remains of the leg-irons from his ankles, the Ripper looked slowly back towards him, confusion clear in his eyes.

‘Gotrek… the dwarfen Slayer…?’ he whispered.

Finally free, Felix leapt back to his feet, though his wrists were still manacled. The Ripper drew back into a vicious stance, his knife held out between them.

‘Felix Jaeger.’

Famous for all the wrong reasons, Felix lamented. He wound the chains of his manacles around his fists in readiness for combat.

Much to his surprise, the Ripper lunged for the heavy wooden door and began to beat upon it with the hilt of his knife.

‘Guard, raise the alarm! Send for the State Troops! He’s a wanted man!’

In an effort to silence him, Felix dived onto his back and the two of them crashed to the slick stone floor. With the wind knocked from his lungs, Felix couldn’t quite summon the strength to force his manacles over the Ripper’s head and around his neck, and so he grasped at his throat instead.

The flesh felt clammy and cold.

Letting his cap fall to the floor, the Ripper threw Felix aside as though he were a child, and stabbed down cruelly with his knife. The blade sliced through Felix’s sodden undershirt and grazed his ribs.

Felix let out a cry of pain, and punched the Ripper squarely in the jaw with a chain-wrapped fist. The blow knocked the fiend insensible, and the knife skittered from his grasp and into the murky puddle, out of sight. Felix hauled him up by the front of his coat, and sent him crashing into the nearest bench.

The frame gave way and shattered into damp kindling, but the Ripper was on his feet before Felix could recover. His eyes burned pale in the gloom as he grabbed Felix by the hair and plunged him face-first into the pool.

Felix gasped a lungful of the cold, brackish water, but his already bruised forehead struck the submerged flagstones and knocked the fight clean out of him. Icy hands on the back of his neck ground his face into the gritty stone, pinning his manacled arms beneath him. He tasted his own blood, fresh in the water.

Darkness began to creep in at the edges of his vision. He felt his heartbeat slowing, in the cold clutches of death. Somewhere in the distance he heard the whistles of the watchmen…

Too late. The Ripper had him now.

It was a strangely calming realisation. Soon, he thought. It will all be over soon.

Deep cold, like the bleakest Kislev winter.

From out of the shadows of a thousand haunted nights, he recalled her face. She was beckoning Felix into the embrace of whatever lay beyond this life, and he longed to go to her…

A pinprick of pain pierced the numbness of his hands in the water. His fingers closed around a blade.

Not yet. Not dead yet.

With every last ounce of strength he could summon, he kicked and pushed himself clear of the pool, and rolled around with the knife thrust out in both hands. The Ripper gasped as Felix plunged it between his ribs, into his heart.

Felix choked and spluttered and heaved the silty water from his lungs, even as the Ripper convulsed and fell forwards on top of him. The dead weight pinned Felix on his back in the puddle with the spreading warmth of his foe’s lifeblood soaking into his shirt, and he let his head sink to the stone flags in exhaustion.

Seconds later, the door to the cell burst inwards, torn from its hinges by the lifeless body of the milky-eyed watchman. Gotrek appeared in the vacant doorway, his tattooed muscles rippling as he dusted off his hands.

‘Oh, by my ancestors, manling,’ he barked. ‘You look terrible. Let’s get out of here.’

As they fled towards the low stone walls which marked the edge of Oberwald and the beginnings of the pine-wooded wilderness beyond, Gotrek steadied Felix as he wheezed and limped through the mud. In the fading light of early evening, the town’s alarum bell was ringing, although exactly whom the terrified citizens hoped to summon was a mystery.

‘You know… what they’ll say… don’t you?’ Felix panted, refastening his sword belt. ‘They’ll tell their grandchildren… that the Ripper… escaped from the gallows.’

Gotrek frowned.

The Oberwald Ripper – a folk-devil in the making, Felix thought. He hoped against hope that his old friend Max Schreiber, the real Max Schreiber, would never stray this far into the provinces, or at least that he would have the good sense not to go by that particular name.

‘So what was he?’ Gotrek asked. ‘Chaos cultist? A sorcerer collecting souls for his daemon-magic?’

Felix laughed. They clambered over a fence and into a field of dead grass.

‘What’s funny?’ said the dwarf. ‘Was he a degenerate mutant, then? A beastman sympathiser? No, wait – a druchii agent, masquerading as a human!’

‘No, sadly not,’ replied Felix, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it seems that he was just a man.’

‘But what about all this stuff he’s supposed to have done? He can jump forty feet over a house, and shoot lightning from his fingertips, from what I heard…’

Felix thought of Sabine for a moment. Poor, poor Sabine.

‘People need monsters,’ he shrugged, ‘and even when they’re lucky enough not to have any, they create their own... or they become them.’

Gotrek sneered.

‘Ha! Your kind are a strange bunch, manling.’

THE LION

Part Two

V

While his seneschal organised the forces of the Dark Angels, the Lion made his way to his personal arming chamber. Five Legion serfs were awaiting him inside the stone-clad room, dressed in dark green surplices, with heavy boots and gloves. Each wore a pistol at his belt too, though the Lion had encountered no enemy on his way there and they appeared unmolested.

The reports of attacks were growing in frequency as the nephilla – or whatever their immaterial assailants were – seemed to be widening the breach from warp space to allow more of their kind to manifest.

The walls of the chamber were covered with weapons of dazzling variety, either made for the primarch or seized as spoils of conquest from the hundreds of cultures he had encountered during the Great Crusade. It had begun with his first Calibanite short sword, presented to him by Luther on acceptance into the knightly order; that simple blade held pride of place at the centre of the display.

It was the one affectation he allowed himself, this collection of weaponry. He had spent long times here contemplating the many ways mankind had devised to kill an enemy, though of late his throne chamber had been a more regular haunt. He paused for a moment of thought, moving along the walls, touching a hand to favourite pieces, running a gauntleted finger along blades and spikes in appreciation of their craftsmanship. In war, just as in other pursuits, mankind was creative, showing insight and genius even with the most barbaric level of technology.

Many of the weapons were too small for his fist and were mounted for ornamentation only, while others served a different purpose in his hands: swords for normal men wielded as knives by the Lion. Some were traditional, ancient designs, while others had monomolecular edges, power field generators, electro-fields and other technological improvements.

There were spatha, longswords, bastard swords, mortuary swords, flambards, rapiers, sabres, scimitars, khopeshes, colichmardes, tulwars, shotels, falchions, misericordes and cutlasses; myrmex, cestus and knuckle dusters; baselards, stilettos, dirks and daggers; cleavers, sickles and kopis; mattocks, clubs, picks, maces, flails, morning stars, mauls and war hammers; hatchets, tomahawks, hand axes, double-bladed axes, long-bearded axes and adzes; pikes, partisans, fauchards, sarissas, voulges, Lochaber axes, boarspears, tridents, halberds, scythes, half pikes and hastas.

He did not rush himself, but took the time to collect his thoughts, considering the enemy of the day. In his youth he had slain nephilla with his bare hands out of necessity, though they were all but impervious to most mortal weapons; another benefit of his primarch heritage. This day he would go armed, and he took up two blades, heavy hand-and-a-half broadswords by the reckoning of normal men but easily held in each fist by the giant primarch. They were superbly crafted, the product of a Calibanite artisan whose name had been lost to history. Their names were inscribed along the edge of each blade in florid lettering: Hope and Despair. Each had a long fuller to lighten the blade weight, and they were edged with a crystalline compound sharper than any metal, unbreakable and never needing to be sharpened. The Lion had found the pair of swords used as ceremonial pieces by one of the order masters, and becoming enchanted by their glittering edges had insisted on a trade, gaining them for the exchange of an unblemished sablesabre pelt the primarch had prepared by his own hand.

Armed with the twin blades, the Lion joined his allotted company at the main gateway above the reactor rooms and warp core, where the fighting was fiercest. Several wounded legionaries were being dragged up the access ramp, suffering a variety of horrendous wounds: burns and slashes through their armour that had gouged down to the bone.

‘Fight with pride, die with honour,’ said the Lion, raising his swords in salute to his little brothers. They fell in behind their primarch, forming five lines each fifty strong.

The corridors were littered with the dead; unarmoured serfs and crew for the most part. Their ragged bodies were heaped in bloody piles and choked the doorways to side chambers. Some had heads or limbs missing, others were little more than blackened lumps of charred flesh. Some were arranged in lewd poses with each other, eliciting a growl of disgust from the primarch.

Here and there, flies and maggots were already crawling through the filth of the dead, burrowing beneath the skin of the fallen and feasting on lifeless eyes. The Lion heard muttered curses uttered by his company, but had no desire to silence them, for he felt like cursing also.

He stopped as he came across the form of two dead Dark Angels. He knelt beside them. Their armour was half-melted as if by acid, and their skin was pock-marked by blisters and buboes. Caliban had occasionally been wracked by strange plagues, and the clusters of triple pustules that corrupted the skin of the pair of dead Space Marines struck a chord in the memory of the Lion.

‘We have to burn the dead, lest corruption spread,’ he said solemnly as he straightened. A trail of slime, like that of a snail, only a metre wide, led away from the bodies and passed into one of the passages leading away from the main corridor. The primarch detailed a squad to hunt down the creature that had left the trail and pressed on towards the main engine rooms several hundred metres ahead.

From nowhere, eight nephilla sprang into being ahead of the primarch. The warp rift had become so strong that it took almost no time at all for the attackers to materialise. These creatures were vaguely humanoid in shape, with lean, hunched bodies and wiry arms. They had legs like those of a dog and their flesh was the colour of blood and faintly scaled. Their heads were elongated, with black horns running back along the sides. In clawed hands they held triangular swords of gleaming bronze. Eyes of pure white regarded the Lion for a moment while forked tongues licked needle-like teeth.

With snarling war cries the nephilla attacked as one, raising their swords as they rushed towards the Lion. He did not wait for the enemy to come to him, but sprang forwards to meet them. In his left hand, Hope parried two blades swinging towards his groin, while Despair hacked through the neck of one of the creatures, parting the immaterial tissue of its body without pause.

The Lion felt a shock of energy ripple through him from his hand as the creature exploded into a shower of blood, coating the floor and the Lion’s armour with crimson. There was no pause to marvel at this strange death, for the remaining seven creatures were trying to encircle the primarch.

Bolt shells whined and cracked as the other Dark Angels did their best to help their commander. The detonations had little effect on the nephilla, but provided distraction. Sweeping Hope in a wide arc, the Lion sheared through an upraised blade and parted the bodies of two more attackers even as he stabbed Despair through the face of another. The blades of the nephilla bit at his black-and-gold armour, cutting deep into the enamelled plates in a way no mortal weapon had ever done, though the Lion’s flesh remained unmarked.

Parrying another swing of an infernal blade, the Lion twisted and brought Despair down onto the head of a nephilla circling behind him, cleaving through black horn and red skin. There was no skull beneath the flesh, and the creature collapsed into a crimson pool like the others. In two more seconds and a flurry of blows, the Lion had despatched the rest of his assailants, and his armour was awash with sticky red fluid. It smelt like blood, but he knew it could not be; the creatures had possessed no veins or arteries or hearts to carry such a thing.

Perturbed by this discovery, the Lion continued on, calling for his guard to follow swiftly as he splashed through the slick of red. He signalled Stenius, who had remained in the strategium.

‘How long until the warp drive is operational, captain?’

‘Less than twenty minutes, my liege,’ came the reply after a few seconds. ‘We have a problem, though. The enemy have driven the engineers from the warp core and are attempting to break into the containment chamber. Lord Corswain and Lady Fiana are trying to break through from the aft decks, my liege.’

‘I will meet them in the main core chamber, captain.’ The Lion broke into a run, his long strides quickly leaving behind his company of Dark Angels.

Corswain felt only a little better that he had Lady Fiana for company. The gaze of her third eye was devastating to the enemy, but she tired quickly and had to rest for several minutes between bursts. For those periods, it was up to him and the other Dark Angels to protect her with their mundane weapons. It was not impossible – the nephilla could be destroyed by weight of fire or a particularly powerful blast of a lascannon or such – but it was hard work and the force was expending ammunition and power packs at a prodigious rate. They had less than half the stores they had set out with by the time they reached the conveyors and stairwells that dropped down into the warp core chambers.

They had encountered all manner of horrifying foes on the two-kilometre journey aftwards: soaring disc-like beasts ringed with razor-sharp claws and possessing mouths that could chew through a legionary’s armour in a few seconds, six-limbed entities with giant lobster claws and lashing tongues coated with venom, ever-changing apparitions with leering faces in their torsos that cavorted and wheeled about whilst spitting sorcerous fire from their fingertips.

Corswain’s original force of two hundred Dark Angels now numbered just over half that; twenty-eight had been slain or were in the apothecarion, the others had been left as rearguard to defend against the enemy who could materialise anywhere.

With his personal guard close by him, the seneschal descended the main stairway into the bowels of the engine decks while other squads split to clear out secondary access routes. The steps were littered with the bodies of dead crew. Amongst the decapitated and disembowelled corpses were a few legionaries, their black armour rent open, their flesh hideously corrupted and twisted. Corswain had no idea what could have caused such horrendous injuries, and agitation caused him to tighten his grip on his bolt pistol and power sword as they reached the deck below.

All was clear, save for the stench of death coming from the bloated corpses of engineers and serfs. The passages here were lined with power conduits, piping and cables, which all showed signs of decay and disrepair, marked by patches of corrosion and slicks of moss and algae. Knowing that Stenius would never allow such a poor state to exist on his ship, Corswain was forced to conclude that the decrepitude was somehow a side effect of the nephilla’s presence.

The same was true on the next level down, and still no foe could be found. Meeting up with sixty of his Dark Angels, Corswain readied himself for the descent to the warp core deck. The corridor and stairwells thrummed with energy, but not just the power of the reactor that was being fed into the area; there was a tension in the air, an intangible shadow that clouded his thoughts.

‘The warp presence is almost total here,’ warned Fiana. Her face was screwed up with effort, sweat running down her brow and cheeks, her lip trembling. ‘If it were not for the lack of alarms, I would think the warp core had been breached.’

‘Everybody stay alert,’ Corswain told his warriors; somewhat unnecessarily he realised, as everybody was on edge. ‘No friendlies. Destroy everything that moves.’

He led the force down into the warp core sector. The walls were plated here, thick ferrocrete layered with adamantium. In layout, the deck was oval, a main corridor running around the core room itself, with branching passageways leading to monitoring stations and watch rooms.

The dead were everywhere, some of them so horrendously mutilated that it was hard to tell that they had once been men and women. In the first hundred metres, Corswain counted seven dead Dark Angels, two of them in the livery of Techmarines. The first door to the warp core was another hundred and fifty metres ahead and the piles of the deceased grew larger the closer they came to the gate.

Gunfire sounded from behind, and at the same time a wave of nephilla poured from the doorway leading to the main core chamber. They were of a type, all small creatures with faces in their chests, their unnatural flesh a glowing pink colour. Sparks and trickles of fire dripped from the open ends of their splayed fingers as they gambolled and cartwheeled along the corridor.

The Dark Angels opened fire, a hail of bolts meeting the nephilla fifty metres away. Corswain fired his pistol repeatedly, directing his shots against the same target until finally the creature ruptured, clouds of pink mist erupting from the wounds. Rather than fall, the nephilla started to shudder and spin crazily, a juddering shriek emitted from its lipless mouth.

Corswain stopped firing, shocked by what happened next.

The pink nephilla was mutating, growing an extra head, splitting into two other forms. Its pinkness turned purple and then into a deep blue as two smaller versions of its former shape snapped into existence with an audible popping noise. The blue creatures snarled and frowned at their attackers, fingers flexing menacingly. The same was happening to others, turning the pink tide into a wash of pink and blue as other nephilla were torn apart by gunfire only to re-emerge in their newer forms.

Firing on semi-automatic, Corswain plunged forwards, sword raised. He was just a few strides from the front of the blue mass when a black beam seared past him; the third eye of Lady Fiana. It tore a gouge through the mass of nephilla squeezed into the passageway, causing their bodies to disperse into blue and pink sparks where it touched them.

His pistol empty, Corswain swung his sword at the closest enemy, the power-field-edged blade hitting the outstretched arm of the creature. The impact felt strange, not at all like the slowing of a sword cutting into flesh, nor like the sudden jar of a strike against armour; it felt as though Corswain struck some fantastic rubber that bent under the strength of the blow before rebounding into its former shape.

Fiana’s third eye blazed again, opening up a gap for the Dark Angels to plunge forwards into the midst of the foe, their bolters roaring, the sergeants’ chain-swords whirring and power fists crackling. Fire engulfed them, purple and red, crackling along the edges of their armour, seeping into the cracks and joins. Corswain’s right greave was set alight, the paint peeling away to reveal the ceramite beneath, which started to slough away. As he chopped his sword into the leering face of a nephilla, he noticed in a detached way that the flame gave off no smoke, and that unsettled him even more than the fact that his leg was on fire.

The edge of the pelt hanging down his back caught fire, but before the flames spread, they dissipated, vanishing as swiftly as they had materialised. Turning his attention back to the enemy, he realised that they had all been destroyed. A multicoloured mist hung in the air, like droplets of dye in a zero-gravity environment.

As he reloaded his pistol, Corswain signalled his primarch on the direct command channel.

‘My liege, we are about to enter the main core chamber,’ he reported. ‘How close are you?’

‘Two decks down, little brother.’ The Lion’s voice betrayed no strain, though his next words were a testament to the ferocity of the opposition ranged against him. Corswain could hear feral howling and inhuman shrieking in the background, much of it cut abruptly short. ‘I am facing several dozen enemies at the moment. It will take me some time to slay them all. My force is moving up, about three hundred metres behind me. Secure the core chamber and I will meet you there shortly.’

Acknowledging his primarch’s reply, Corswain reloaded his pistol and gathered his warriors – seven fewer after the latest encounter – and headed towards the gateway to the core chamber. The gate itself was several metres high, the blast doors that had been brought down still in place but torn and melted through, leaving a hole large enough to step through.

Corswain expected the portal to be held against them, but no nephilla opposed the Dark Angels as they entered the portalway. High pitched shrieking and wailing sounded from the main chamber beyond, a sound impossible for humans to make. Stepping through the breached barrier, weapons at the ready, Corswain moved into the hall housing the warp core.

The core itself was in a heavily shielded octagonal structure at the centre of the high-domed chamber, enclosed by layer after layer of protective sheaths. Mechanicum symbols were etched into the housing, forming an intricate web of lines and shapes filled with gleaming metal against the obsidian-like stone of the warp core.

Dozens of nephilla – the pink and blue creatures they had just fought – were frenziedly hurling themselves at the core, clawing at it with their hands, trying to burn their way through with jets of pink flame. Their screeches were utterances of rage and frustration. Other creatures swirled about the upper gantries surrounding the core, swooping and climbing like Gadian skysharks. The nephilla paid the Dark Angels no heed as they strode into the chamber, weapons levelled, intent as they were on breaching the warp core.

‘Destroy them all!’ barked Corswain, opening fire with his pistol.

The fusillade of the Dark Angels – bolters, heavy bolters, lascannons and missiles – ripped into the mass of creatures gathered around the core structure. Spreading out along the walkways, the legionaries kept up the murderous rain of fire, some turning their weapons towards the ceiling as the circling beasts above dived down with piercing screams, their tails lashing, the barbs and serrations that ringed their manta-like bodies undulating as they descended.

The chamber filled with a swirling miasma of dissipating energy as the Dark Angels let fly with their fury, billowing clouds of warp power streaming upwards. Through the mist, Corswain saw something else moving, coalescing from the floating fragments that drifted up like embers from a fire. Something larger than anything he had yet seen, towering above the Space Marines, even taller than the Lion yet not so bulky.

Red lightning flared from the mist, ripping through Sergeant Lennian’s squad, cracking open armour and searing flesh in a long burst of raging energy. Their smoking bodies were flung through the air by the blast, smashing high up against the ferrocrete walls.

The thing that emerged from the swirling maelstrom of dying nephilla looked like a giant, nightmarish bird, at least four metres tall. It stood upright like a man, but its thin, twisted body was supported on legs like those of a hawk or eagle, taloned feet scarring the metal floor, leaving sparks in its wake as it advanced. Robes of fire hung from its torso, blown about by some unnatural wind. Its arms were long and sinewy, and in its clawed hands the creature held a staff made of solidified flame, ever-changing in colour. A pair of wings spread from the beast’s back, almost reaching from one side of the chamber to the other, iridescent feathers trailing on the ground.

It had two heads on long scaled necks, one like some grotesque vulture, the other serpentine, both crested with long multi-coloured feathers that dripped red and blue droplets of fire. And its eyes… Corswain regretted meeting that abominable gaze in an instant, but was unable to look away. The nephilla’s eyes were black: the black of the gulf between stars, the black of the darkest cave of Caliban. The seneschal saw himself reflected in those ebon orbs, a tiny figure against the huge expanse of the universe – a tiny, insignificant mote surrounded by the enormity of existence.

The nephilla lashed out with the tip of its staff and more lightning filled the chamber, ripping apart another half a dozen legionaries. Bolter rounds exploded without effect against its ever-shifting hide and lascannon beams reflected harmlessly from its wings.

Lady Fiana stepped past Corswain, her whole body shaking as she pulled free her headband to reveal her third eye. The seneschal ripped away his gaze from her just before that warp eye was opened, and watched the beam of darkness that sprang towards the nephilla. It struck the creature full in the chest, detonating with a flare of dark energy, rocking it back a step but doing no more.

With a horrified gasp, Fiana unleashed her warp sight again, but this time the nephilla released one hand from its staff and stopped the beam with its palm. The energy coalesced around its fingers, playing from fingertip to fingertip like a miniature storm, while its snake head arched down to examine the flashing cloud of power. Eyes narrowing, it looked up at Fiana and thrust its hand back towards her, releasing the energy.

The Navigator shrieked as her body was engulfed by blackness, veins and arteries pulsing under her skin, blood streaming from eyes, ears and nose. She fell, and lay unmoving.

Corswain turned his attention back to the nephilla, and raised his pistol. Both of the creature’s pairs of eyes were scanning around the chamber, necks craning to take in all of the Dark Angels. With a sweeping gesture, it sent a wave of power surging across the hall, smashing the legionaries from their feet. Corswain was hurled back with the others, crashing to his back beside the portalway.

Stretching up to its full height, the nephilla turned both heads towards the seneschal. It seemed to relax, staff held out to one side in one hand, the other stroking through the fires of its robes.

As all four of those black eyes fixed upon him, Corswain felt something inside his head, like a warp translation but sharper, like a pinprick in the centre of his mind. He tried to block out the sensation of fingers pulling apart his thoughts and memories, examining them one by one, but could not stop the creature’s mental assault.

Suddenly the seneschal’s limbs went numb. He stood up, with no volition, but was otherwise immobile. Around him, the other Dark Angels were just recovering from the shockwave of the creature’s last attack.

Corswain tried his best to resign himself to his death, but it was hard. He never had thought his life would end like this, as helpless as a newborn, facing an enemy that he could not even begin to comprehend. He wanted to spit a curse, or dedicate his last breaths to his primarch and Emperor, but he was denied even this honour. His body was not his to control.

The nephilla reached out a bony finger and beckoned him forwards.

Lashing out withan armoured boot, the Lion sent the hound-like beast tumbling down the corridor. Taking half a dozen strides, the primarch brought both of his swords down across its back as it tried to right itself, carving it into three pieces that spattered into gore across the decking.

He stopped for a moment to assess the situation. The flight of stairs down to the main core chamber was only fifty metres ahead, and the passageway was free of enemies. He could hear his company fighting behind him, the retort of bolters echoing up from the stairwell he had just left. Though he knew his little brothers were in a dire situation, he had to focus on his objective: regaining control of the core so that the warp engines and Geller field could be engaged.

The comm buzzed as he stepped forwards, and he heard Corswain’s voice. The seneschal sounded strained, as if speaking through gritted teeth.

‘My liege, the way is clear to the warp core. You must come at once. There is something else here, something we cannot destroy.’ The comm-link hissed for a few seconds. ‘It… It wants to speak with you.’

TheLion entered the warp core chamber at a full run, taking in the scene in a few moments. Several dozen Dark Angels were stood around the perimeter, their weapons directed at a monstrous bird-like nephilla but not firing. In front of the creature was Corswain, standing immobile just a few metres from it, arms hanging limply by his sides.

Cease your attack or this one will be destroyed.

The words came to the Lion’s thoughts directly, bypassing his ears. Their tone was soft and melodic, in contrast to the haggard, harsh-looking creature that had undoubtedly sent them. The nephilla’s intent was immediately clear and he skidded to a halt, coming to a stop with his swords held ready to defend himself. There was no reaction from his warriors, and he guessed that the words were directed to him alone. He did not know whether their passivity was voluntary or enforced, but it was clear they were in grave danger.

‘It is not I that launched an attack,’ said the Lion, taking a step closer to the apparition. ‘Leave now.’

And make a waste of all the effort that it took to reach this place? I have been searching for you a long time, Lion of Caliban.

There was something familiar about the creature’s voice, like a half-remembered dream. The Lion could not place from where, but it was not the first time he had heard this. His mind stirred with vague recollections, of pleading and entreaty.

Yes, that is true. I have come to you before.

‘Get out of my thoughts.’ The Lion stepped to his left and focused on blocking the creature from his mind, mentally bringing up a shield as though he were defending himself against a physical attack. It was a trick he had learnt as he had stalked nephilla on Caliban. One of the bird-beast’s heads followed him with its inscrutable gaze, the other stayed fixed upon Corswain.

That might work in the real universe, but not here. You are in my realm now, or at least teetering upon the brink of it. You cannot ignore me this time.

‘I do not treat with aliens,’ said the Lion, taking a few more steps to his left, closing the gap between himself and the nephilla.

Alien? Alien? There was despair in the voice. I am more than some simple creature of your universe. I am the giver and the receiver, the crux of fate, the master of the parallels. The past and the future are laid before me. Do not mistake me for some petty foe to be vanquished by mere might of arms.

‘You have nothing to offer that I will accept.’ The Lion was directly behind the creature now, its snake head still regarding him with an unblinking stare while the vulture transfixed Corswain.

That is not true. However, you do not desire power, that much is plain. Your ambition is woefully stunted for one of your abilities. You are happy to let your brothers dwell in the light of your father’s adoration. You even sacrifice your own to stay true to the memory of what once was.

The two necks were starting to cross each other as the Lion continued his circling. He resisted the lure of the accusation in the creature’s words, which echoed with the taunt made by the Night Haunter.

Freedom, Lion of Caliban. I can give you freedom. You know that you do not really care for these lesser beings. They are a distraction to you. Their frailties, their petty squabbles, are unnecessary trifles to be avoided. Even this war that you fight, it is without consequence.

‘Horus cannot be allowed victory.’

Horus’s victory is not your concern. All things are fleeting, even the lives of great Warmasters. I have witnessed the rise and fall of every civilisation in the universe. None of them can endure, Chaos always consumes them in the end.

That word – Chaos – resonated through the Lion’s thoughts. He had a fleeting glimpse of eternity, of the entropy of the universe, ever-changing, new lives born out of death, of stars decaying to create worlds and worlds dying to form new stars, all in constant flux.

‘The Emperor has shown us a new way. The Imperial Truth will endure for eternity.’

Laughter resounded inside the primarch’s skull.

Foolish! Your Emperor is nothing more than a fraudster with grand ambitions. His empire is no greater than any other edifice of Mankind, and it will tumble just as easily.

The words were spoken with scorn yet they lit a spark of hope in the Lion’s breast – the creature spoke of the Emperor in the present tense. It thought that the Master of Mankind still lived.

The nephilla could not follow the Lion’s progress any further with its snake eyes, and for a moment it broke its gaze from Corswain, serpentine head swinging towards the seneschal while its vulture-like visage fixed on the primarch.

It was only a split second but it was all the Lion needed.

Before its gaze was on Corswain again, the Lion launched himself at the nephilla, sword outstretched. With astounding speed it reacted, twisting its whole body in his direction, staff coming up to spew forth a sheet of forking energy.

‘Kill it, Cor!’ snarled the Lion as wreaths of crackling energy enveloped him, sending pain coursing through every limb, surging into his chest and pounding in his head.

With a roar, the primarch broke free from the net of lightning that surrounded him, still lancing his sword towards the nephilla’s body. A hail of fire hammered into the creature from the encircling Dark Angels as Corswain leapt away, the seneschal’s bolt pistol spitting rounds.

Predictable fool.

The nephilla’s staff swept out, turning aside the Lion’s first blow. Twisting, wings furling, the creature side-stepped the Lion’s charge, its serpent head lashing out towards his throat with bared fangs.

The Lion turned mid-stride, dropping Hope which had been deflected by the nephilla’s parry. His gauntleted fingers curled around the slender serpentine neck as the primarch allowed himself to fall to the ground. His grasp unbreakable, the Lion dragged the nephilla down with him, its chest plunging onto the waiting point of Despair.

Harmed but not slain, the nephilla reared up, taking the sword from the primarch’s grasp, wings spreading once more, now bat-like and shimmering gold. Its vulture’s beak rammed into the side of the Lion’s helm as it sought to pull its other head free from his grip. Wings beating fiercely, it tried to lift away, but the Lion’s grasp held firm as he was pulled back to his feet.

‘Did you see this coming?’ snarled the Lion, hammering his fist into the pommel of the half-buried sword, driving the blade fully into the nephilla. The primarch felt a moment of contact, something deep within him connecting with the substance of the nephilla. His anger raged, finding conduit through his arm, into his fist, given vent along the blade of the buried sword like white fire pulsing from the Lion’s heart.

The creature’s piercing shrieks ripped through the Lion’s mind. Its body burst into a globe of power, filling the chamber with expanding flame that sent the primarch reeling, droplets of the molten sword pattering against his armour.

Silence descended. The black of his armour was covered with a patina of roasted gore and his mind was still throbbing with the death-scream of the nephilla. The primarch picked himself up, retrieved Hope from where it lay on the deck and made his way over to the warp core control panel. Much of it was scorched and broken, and he started to pull away cracked panels to expose the circuitry beneath. He made a quick assessment of the damage and activated the comm.

‘Captain Stenius, I will have the warp engines operational in seven minutes. Ready the Geller field and prepare for translation.’

VI

Once the Invincible Reason had translated fully into the warp, protected from the maelstrom of energy by its Geller field, the Dark Angels took the offensive. As had been proposed by Lady Fiana, the nephilla were much weakened, unable to draw on the power of their realm, making them vulnerable to the weapons of the Dark Angels. With the newly-restored Librarians and the Lion leading the purge, every part of the battle-barge was scoured, the remnants of the attackers driven out of hiding to be gunned down. For two days the scourging continued, passageways and gun decks, engine rooms and mess halls, dormitories and drill ranges resounding to the roar of bolters and the vengeful battle cries of the First Legion.

Nearly three hundred Dark Angels had fallen during the fighting, many of them within the first hours of the assault. More than twice that number of Legion serfs and crew had also been slain. The apothecarion was filled with those legionaries who had survived, some of them with hideous, grotesque wounds that festered with unnatural decay or continued to blister and bleed despite the best efforts of the Apothecaries.

Amongst those being treated was Fiana, who had survived the backlash of her third eye, but only barely. She looked to be a wizened, aged crone as she lay in her bunk, her body otherwise undamaged but her mind dislocated by the psychic assault suffered at the whim of the nephilla. Despite this, she and her fellow Navigators did all they could to assist the legionaries. Cut off from the warp by the Geller field, the nephilla’s presence was easily discernable by their othersight, and they guided the Dark Angels kill squads unerringly to their targets, no matter how dark and isolated their hiding places. On top of this, the Navigators had to guide the Invincible Reason to Perditus, pressed to find the utmost speed by the urging of the Dark Angels’ primarch.

It was eight more days of travel before the Navigators announced that they were in the vicinity of Perditus. Lady Fiana had recovered a little more from her ordeal, and was able to take her place in the rota of Navigators steering the ship. On reaching their destination, she requested an audience with the Lion before she would allow the Invincible Reason to translate back to real space. As before, the Lion met with her in his throne chamber, attended to by Stenius and Corswain. Fiana had noticed the seneschal check on her condition several times when she had been in the apothecarion, but she had not had the opportunity to discuss what they had encountered. Now was not the time, the Lion was clearly impatient with the delay in translation.

‘There is something amiss, lauded primarch,’ Fiana explained when the primarch demanded to know the cause of her hesitation. She was forced to lean heavily on a cane that one of the Techmarines had constructed for her from a length of ribbed piping, its finial fashioned from a piece of jet-black stone, the ferrule made from a carefully cut section of the material used in the joints of power armour. Her voice had become a wheezing whisper, her words punctuated by heavy gasps. ‘By all calculation and observation, we have reached Perditus, yet for the last three hours we have been unable to sight any warp beacon to confirm this categorically.’

‘The storms?’ suggested Corswain.

‘On the contrary, the warp is incredibly placid in this locale, disturbingly so. There is almost no movement whatsoever, as if the currents have been flattened, stretched into non-existence. It is this dampening effect that I believe obstructs the beacon signals.’

‘It is no mystery,’ said the Lion, his expression easing into a less agitated state. ‘We observed the same when we first came here. This pooling phenomenon is, I was led to believe by the Mechanicum, a side effect of the work they are performing at Perditus. It confirms that we have arrived. Make arrangements for translation as soon as possible, Captain Stenius.’

‘There is something in the warp causing this oddity, lauded primarch,’ insisted Fiana, taking a laboured step towards the primarch. ‘I and the others can feel its presence, sense the pressure it is placing on the warp. The stability here is hiding a far more turbulent undercurrent.’

‘Your observations have been noted, Lady Fiana,’ said the primarch. He stood up, ending the conversation. ‘Please continue to make your reports on the matter to Captain Stenius.’

Fiana railed against this casual dismissal, unable to shake the disquiet she had felt at this sinister discovery, but knew better than to debate the matter with the primarch. He was already turning his attention to Corswain. She dipped her head in acquiescence, understanding that the mystery would have to be solved another day.

Several Dark Angels ships had already made transition to the Perditus system when the Invincible Reason broke through into real space and established contact, though nearly a dozen vessels were still in transit in the warp. Fleet movements had never been easy through the warp, and the storms had exacerbated the problem considerably. It was one of the main reasons the Dark Angels had been unable to force a decisive encounter with the Night Lords in Thramas; by the time sufficient vessels arrived in a system to confront the enemy the elusive Night Lords had time to escape direct conflict.

The Lion weighed up his options: to wait for more of his flotilla to arrive or to press on towards the Mechanicum station on Perditus Ultima. Surmising that the Iron Hands and the Death Guard would both be aware of their arrival, the primarch saw no cause for delay and directed the five ships present in his fleet to advance in-system at full speed.

Passing the uninhabitable gas giants at the edge of the system, the Dark Angels picked up sensor readings of two fleets engaged in a protracted manoeuvre for position around Perditus Ultima, the closest planet to the star, on the very edge of the habitable zone. Ident-codes and intrafleet signals marked out the vessels as Iron Hands and Death Guard ships, each flotilla numbering no more than half a dozen ships; even combined they would be no match for the might of the Dark Angels that would be arriving. Despite hails, communications could not be established with either fleet, or the ground station on Ultima.

Crossing the orbit of Perditus Secundus, just five days from their destination, the warriors of the First Legion were in range to detect forces deployed onto the surface of Perditus Ultima. Comm-intercepts indicated that a stalemate persisted there as well as in space. The ships of both the Iron Hands and Death Guard were conducting an extra-orbital ballet, each trying to gain position over the world to support their troops on an offensive action, but neither was able to gain the upper hand without risking a decisive, and potentially devastating, space-borne engagement; thus the two sides were locked together at arm’s length, neither prepared to wager possible defeat against a push for victory.

Summoning a council of his captains, the Lion determined a course of action for the Dark Angels.

‘We will position our fleet directly between the Iron Hands and Death Guard, and announce that all hostilities are to cease,’ he told the assembly of officers gathered in his throne room aboard the Invincible Reason. ‘If neither side is willing to risk an engagement with each other, for certain they will not be keen to take on a fresh foe.’

‘A risky proposition, my liege,’ said Captain Masurbael, commanding the frigate Intervention. ‘What is to be gained by placing ourselves in harm’s way? Our arrival and numbers will be known to both sides already, there is no reason to expose ourselves to the danger of direct attack.’

‘Purpose and threat,’ replied the Lion, smiling coldly. ‘We are to make our intent and determination crystal clear from the outset, lest our adversaries think we issue idle demands. Perditus is under the aegis of the Dark Angels and the sooner we establish the fact, the swifter we will conclude our business here and return to the battle with the Night Lords.’

‘What of the Death Guard, my liege?’ asked Corswain. ‘Should we not simply attack, with the aid of the Iron Hands? They are known to have declared with Horus from the earliest days of the rebellion.’

‘Until we can establish the loyalty of both factions here, and that of the Mechanicum as well, we should not suppose any aid from either side. The Iron Hands have been leaderless since Manus was slain at Isstvan. Who can say what their current agenda is or where their true loyalties lie? Similarly, it has been reported that those Legions that sided with Horus did not do so wholly. Whole companies and fleets have been spread far across the galaxy, and with the warp storms isolating many sectors we must not hastily pre-judge any situation, little brother. It may be the case that in Perditus, it is the Death Guard who are loyal and the Iron Hands who have turned from the Emperor’s cause.’

Corswain absorbed his primarch’s wisdom with a nod, while Captain Stenius took up the conversation.

‘Is it your intent that we also gain position to place troops on Perditus Ultima, my liege?’ said Stenius. ‘Are we to break through the Iron Hands and Death Guard cordons for low orbit?’

‘That is exactly my intent, Captain Stenius,’ replied the Lion. ‘The Invincible Reason will spearhead the thrust to Perditus Ultima, passing between the lead elements of the two enemy fleets. We shall broadcast warnings that any hostile action will be met immediately and decisively with overwhelming force. I will issue fleet instructions when we have concluded here. Are there any more questions?’

The tone of the Lion indicated that he did not expect any further debate and the assembled captains lowered to their knees to accept their primarch’s command. When the others were dismissed Corswain loitered in the audience chamber, wishing to speak with his lord in private. The Lion waved for him to speak his mind.

‘It is possible that what you say is true, my liege, but the likelihood of the situation is that the Iron Hands are loyal to Terra and the Death Guard are sworn to Horus,’ said the seneschal. ‘We should arrange our advance to favour defence against attack from the Death Guard.’

‘As you say, little brother,’ said the Lion. ‘Yet do not be so sure in the loyalties of the Iron Hands. We are living in complex times, Cor, and there is no easy division between those who fight on our side and those who fight against us. Antagonism towards Horus and his Legions no longer guarantees fealty to the Emperor. There are other powers exercising their right to dominion.’

‘I don’t understand, my liege,’ confessed Corswain. ‘Who else would one swear loyalty to, other than Horus or the Emperor?’

‘Whom do you serve?’ the Lion asked in reply to the question.

‘Terra, my liege, and the cause of the Emperor,’ Corswain replied immediately, drawing himself up straight as if accused.

‘What of your oaths to me, little brother?’ The Lion’s voice was quiet, contemplative. ‘Are you not loyal to the Dark Angels?’

‘Of course, my liege!’ Corswain was taken aback by the suggestion that he might think otherwise.

‘And so there are other forces whose foremost concern is their primarch and Legion, and for some perhaps not even that,’ the Lion explained. ‘If I told you we would abandon any pretence of defending Terra, what would you say?’

‘Please do not joke about such things,’ said Corswain, shaking his head. ‘We cannot allow Horus to prevail in this war.’

‘Who mentioned Horus?’ said the primarch. He closed his eyes and rubbed his brow for a few moments and then looked at Corswain, gauging his mettle. ‘It is not for you to concern yourself, little brother. Prepare the task force for the attack, and let wider burdens sit upon my shoulders alone.’

From his vantagepoint behind the armoured windows that pierced the central tower of Magellix station, Captain Lasko Midoa had an uninterrupted view of the whole Mechanicum complex. His attention was directed to the south and east, towards outposts Seven, Eight and Nine, currently occupied by his Death Guard adversaries. Behind the low octagonal structures spread the mirrored screens that ran the circumference of the entire facility, creating a micro-climate of thermal updrafts that assisted in keeping down the temperature at Magellix, making it inhabitable if not tolerable. Beyond were the upthrusts of Perditus Ultima’s mountains, their bases hidden behind a blanket of dense greenish fog a thousand kilometres across, their summits many kilometres above the plain glistening from golden refractive materials that coated the rock.

The ever-present mist layer distorted the distances, so that although the outer stretches of the facility were several kilometres away, their bulk was magnified to make them seem almost within bolter range. Heat shimmer from the mirror wall compounded the problem. It did not help the captain’s sense of perspective to know that his foes were inside the stubby keeps, ready and able to launch an attack at any moment. With Midoa stood Captain Casalir Lorramech, commander of the Ninety-Eighth Company. The two Iron Hands officers had their helms removed, making the most of the processed atmosphere inside Magellix; for the bulk of the thirty-eight days since they had arrived on Perditus Ultima they had been in full battle gear. The pair were almost identical, with close-cropped silvery hair, broad faces and leathery skin. Only two features separated them. Lorramech had natural blue eyes while Midoa had silver-lensed inserts. Midoa also had a tracheal respirator replacing his lower jaw and throat, which hissed rhythmically with his breathing. When he spoke, his voice issued from a small speaker-comm unit set into the bone of his right cheek. The speech device transmitted Midoa’s words in a sing-song cadence that was quite at odds with his mechanical appearance.

‘And you are sure that they are heading directly for orbit?’ Midoa asked, responding to Lorramech’s report that the Dark Angels had continued towards Ultima at full speed.

‘Yes, Iron Father,’ said Lorramech, whose voice was deep and gravelly, each word uttered with gritted teeth and barely moving lips. Midoa was incapable of smiling at the use of the ancient honorific, but it was a source of pride that his fellow captains had chosen to raise him up to command of this expedition. ‘Course and speed are consistent with an orbital heading. They will be in high orbit in less than three hours.’

‘But they still have not breached the comm-dampening shell?’

‘We have not yet been able to directly communicate with the Dark Angels.’

‘And what of them?’ said Midoa, pointing out through the window at the Death Guard positions. ‘What are they doing?’

‘The enemy seem intent on an intercept course,’ replied Lorramech. ‘With your permission, I will signal the fleet to counter-manoeuvre. We will engage the Death Guard ships and provide a screen for the arriving Dark Angels. They have two battle-barges amongst their flotilla, which would be valuable orbital support.’

‘You have my permission,’ said Midoa. ‘We have an unforeseen and fortuitous opportunity, Casalir. Have all but one in ten squads drawn down from their patrols and garrisons and mustered in the main vehicle pool. It is my intent to launch an attack.’

‘It will be as you say, Iron Father,’ said Lorramech. ‘With the aid of the Dark Angels, we will drive the Death Guard from Perditus and secure the Tuchulcha engine.’

It took most of the next hour for Midoa to gather together the forces he required for the counter-offensive. Squads and companies were drawn in from their positions across Magellix and the surrounding rocky plateau, moving in secret along underground highways that had been dug beneath the surface of Perditus Ultima long before the Emperor’s compliance fleet had arrived.

The Iron Hands sallied forth from the main gateway of Tower Two, Predator battle tanks and Land Raider armoured carriers spearheading the thrust, while the force’s Rhinos and the larger Mastodon transports followed behind the more heavily armed screen.

Almost immediately, defensive fire from Tower Eight punched through the gloom of Perditus’s atmosphere: stabs of laser and the flare of heavy cannon fire. The vanguard of the column spread out into covering positions, the tanks taking up stations behind enormous scattered boulders, jagged escarpments and the shallow ferrocrete blocks that housed the station’s atmosphere filtration fans. Soon the return fire of the Iron Hands was lancing into the slab walls of the outer towers, ripping trails through ferrocrete and cracking massive glassite observation decks.

Behind the storm of fire, the next wave charged onwards in their Rhinos, hatches and doors battened down as the transports roared across the undulating rocky ground at full speed. Midoa was in the lead vehicle, keen to set an example for his warriors to follow. The slower, bulkier Mastodons, each quadruple-tracked and towering above the Land Raiders, powered through the dust and fog as quickly as they could, their heavy tracks carving fresh ruts in the baked surface of Perditus Ultima.

Before they reached Tower Eight, the Iron Hands came into range of the guns at Tower Nine. Midoa had known this and speed was the best defence against the strengthening crossfire. There were three hundred metres of ground to cover where both towers could fire at full intensity, before the bulk of Tower Eight obscured the arcs of fire of its neighbours.

Being first across the killing zone had its advantages. The gunners were unable to adjust their aim quickly enough to target Midoa’s Rhino, but ten metres behind him Sergeant Haultiz’s transport was struck full-on by a lascannon beam. Engine boiling smoke, the breached Rhino skidded to a halt, the black-and-silver armoured warriors within spilling out onto the dusty rock while more transports poured past them. Midoa’s orders had been simple: stop for nothing. The Iron Hands in the other transports barrelled past their stranded brethren, knowing that the surest way to protect their fellow legionaries was to mount an assault on the gun positions manned by the Death Guard.

The fifteen seconds it took to dash through the blazing kill zone was the longest fifteen seconds Midoa had felt in his life. He was crouched in the rear compartment with his command squad, all of them tensed and ready to extract if a hit forced them to bail from their transport even while it was moving. Over the comm, Midoa learnt of a second Rhino being hit, and then a third, but by the time the lead transports were within a hundred metres of Tower Eight’s secondary gate, seven of the Rhinos and three Land Raiders had pierced the cordon of fire. A further eight Mastodons followed behind, each carrying forty Iron Hands warriors, their power fields soaking up autocannon shells and lascannon blasts with actinic flashes of energy.

As the Rhinos slewed to a halt beneath the guns of Tower Eight, Captain Tadurig and his squad disembarked swiftly, approaching the wall of the tower ahead. With them they had brought a phase field generator; a device Midoa had overseen the creation of since arriving, with the aid of his Mechanicum allies. It took only a few seconds for the Iron Hands legionaries to assemble the four-legged platform and install the phase field generator, the bulk of the machine taken up with an energy distillation dish at the centre of which were thousands of wire coils to transmit the phase field into place.

Joining his warriors, Midoa made a last few adjustments to the machine which he had painstakingly assembled and rigged from old tunnel-delvers and other pieces of warp-tech machinery left over by Perditus’s previous inhabitants. They had used the channelled power of the warp as freely as the Imperium employed plasma and electricity, much to the amazement of Midoa.

With a thrum of magnetic actuators sliding into position, Midoa pulled the activation lever and stepped back. He had not yet had time to test the device – he had been planning on using it during a subterranean assault on Tower Nine in a few days’ time – but he knew that in theory it would work. Muttering an old Medusan proverb, he waited for the power capacitors to reach full potential and then switched on the conductor coils.

The phase field sprang into life, looking like a cone of pearlescent energy. Everything within the field disappeared, including a circle of the Tower Eight wall some three metres in diameter. After a few seconds, Midoa signalled for the machine to be shut down and with his squad on his heels, stepped through the newly-made gap.

Inside, the phase field had displaced a swathe of the room within the tower, along with another interior wall and the ceiling twenty metres further on, exposing the floor above and a basement level below. Neatly severed cables sparked while sliced atmosphere recycling pipes dribbled contaminant-laden steam into the air. Their suit lamps piercing the darkness inside the tower, the Iron Hands pushed on with weapons ready.

‘What do you mean, Tower Eight has been breached?’ Calas Typhon, First Captain of the Death Guard Legion, Commander of the Grave Wardens, was in a foul mood already, and the news of the Iron Hands’ success did not improve his humour.

‘A phase field generator, commander,’ replied his second, Captain Vioss, who was forced to take a step back as his senior turned; Typhon and his subordinate’s massive suits of Terminator armour almost filled the command blister on the top of Tower Seven. Vioss’s voice was a low, slurred hiss, his speech impaired by an ugly suppurating wound in the right side of his jaw. ‘Sarrin had too much focus on the gateways and the breach through the wall has him outflanked.’

‘Why now?’ demanded Typhon, his top-knot of dark hair flicking like a horse’s tail as he twitched his head in annoyance. ‘Have they received some signal from the Dark Angels?’

‘Impossible, commander,’ said Vioss. ‘The Terminus Est’s dearthfield is still functioning, no communication is able to pass from surface to outer orbit.’

‘And the Dark Angels continue on their course directly towards Perditus Ultima?’

Vioss nodded, his sallow face deeply creased by a scowl.

‘They will have orbit in less than two hours, commander.’

‘Then we have less than two hours to punish our idiot foe for his foolhardiness. He should have waited until orbital supremacy was guaranteed. Signal the fleet and tell them to stave off engagement as long as possible. That should afford us an extra hour at least while the Dark Angels are forced to consider their options.’

‘You plan to bring forward the next attack, commander?’

‘Yes, right now, may the Father take your eyes!’ Typhon crashed his fist into Vioss’s shoulder, sending him reeling into the wall of the glassite-domed cupola. Motes of rust drifted in the air from the impact, shed from the corroded edges of Vioss’s armour. ‘We must free Tuchulcha while we have the chance. A lot depends on our success here. Tell Ghrusul to assault from Tower Nine, we will trap our enemy between us and drive onwards to the central facility.’

‘For the Father,’ said Vioss, bowing his head. ‘The Grave Wardens will not fail.’

Thesubterranean passageway was five metres high and twice as broad, lit by thin, dust-covered yellow strips in the floor and ceiling. The rails of an ancient locomotive system rusted at the centre of the tunnel and raised platforms ran along the walls to either side. Normally it was a gloomy place, but the arrival of the Iron Hands and Death Guard had turned it into a place of pyrotechnic brilliance.

Bolter fire echoed along the five-hundred-metre length of the interchange, the shells expelled by the exchange hurtling in both directions in a criss-cross of bright flares. Now and then the miniature blue star of a plasma shot shrieked across the gap or the red flare of a missile trail illuminated the murkiness. Blossoms of frag missile detonations appeared amongst the line of twenty Death Guard Terminators advancing on Tower Eight.

At their head, Commander Typhon roared his men onwards. Like his warriors, he was protected by the massive bulk of his modified cataphractii armour, painted white in the colours of the Death Guard.

Rounded plates that heaped up higher than the top of his knightly helm protected his shoulders, his chest and gut encased in segmented slabs of ceramite, arms and legs sheathed in thick greaves and vambraces. Adamantium mail hung in sheets across the joints of his armour. The left arm of his suit was incorporated into the bulk of a reaper autocannon, its twin barrels spitting a rapid-fire hail of shells towards the Iron Hands, chewing through the ammunition belt like a starving dog devouring a strip of sinew. In his right Typhon held a manreaper, a wickedly-bladed power scythe, symbol of his rank, and a smaller copy of the weapon wielded by his primarch, Mortarion. The glow of its power field shone a sickly yellow light on the white Terminators around him.

Heavy support Terminators backed up the twenty warriors of the spearhead, their cyclone launchers sending showers of missiles over the heads of their companions, detonations cracking the plastite sheathing of the tunnel walls and tossing silver-and-black armoured legionaries into the air. Combi-bolters spat rapid-fire rounds as the Grave Wardens continued to close, marching unharmed into the teeth of the enemies’ fire.

The Iron Hands fell back, unable to match the Grave Wardens with their heavier armour and weaponry, but progress was slow. Ghrusul had reported entering Tower Eight twenty minutes earlier, yet Typhon was still two interchanges from breaching the tower from below. He was expecting word from Vioss at any moment, telling him that the Dark Angels were in orbit, but until then he was determined to press on with the attack.

The leading squads of the Grave Wardens were within fifty metres of the end of the interchange held by the Iron Hands when Typhon’s helm crackled with the signal of an incoming comm-link. Rather than the sibilant whisper of Vioss, he heard a deep voice filled with authority that caused him to involuntarily stop in his tracks. Around him, the rest of the Death Guard were similarly immobilised and the fire from the Iron Hands died away within seconds.

‘The world of Perditus Ultima is under the protection of Lion El’Jonson of the First Legion,’ boomed the message. ‘You are to immediately cease all warring and quit this planet. Any resistance will be met with ultimate force and there will be no prisoners taken. Failure to comply with my demands will result in your immediate destruction.’

As if breaking from a trance, Typhon staggered forwards a step, almost losing his footing. Only in the presence of Mortarion had he ever experienced anything like the reaction he had just felt and he quickly realised that it was not just the Dark Angels that had arrived: their primarch was with them. He could sense the unease of his warriors as they came to the same conclusion, and the advance that had shuffled to a halt was slowly turning into a withdrawal. Ahead, the Iron Hands were backing away from their positions too, cowed by the same tone of authority that had pierced the minds of the Death Guard.

Typhon gritted his teeth and shook his head to rid himself of the fugue that had descended on him following the Lion’s proclamation. He knew that there was something else at work here, not just the innate command of a primarch. Typhon opened up his mind to the warp, sensing the waves of energy that were part of, yet separated from, everything in the material universe. When he had been a member of the Librarius his powers had been considerable. Mortarion’s hatred of warpcraft had finished Typhon’s exploration of his other nature when the Dusk Raiders became Death Guard, and so he had committed himself to becoming First Captain. Now, with the encouragement of darker sponsors, Typhon had once again embraced the warp-born side of his powers, learning far more about the universe and its mysterious ways than he had ever thought possible.

It was this that had first brought him in contact with the Father, and it was his warp-self that now detected the gentle interplay of energies being directed at the surface of Perditus Ultima. It seemed the Lion was no longer impressed by the Council of Nikaea’s decision either and had allowed his Librarians to reclaim their birthright.

With this knowledge, Typhon was able to extend a little of his will, seeking a means to block the resolve-weakening presence of the Dark Angels Librarians. Despite his personal prowess, he was up against several trained minds, and so he turned to that shadowy force that had accompanied him these past years. He asked the Father for help, and help was granted.

With a surge of psychic energy buzzing through him, its touch like the tread of a thousand tiny insects in his mind, Typhon cast a pall of shadow over his Grave Wardens, shielding them from the assault of the Dark Angels psykers. Almost immediately they ceased their withdrawal and turned to him, expecting orders.

‘Fools!’ he rasped, pointing his manreaper at the retreating Iron Hands. ‘Now is not the time to step back, now is the time to attack! Slay them all.’

In a darkened chamber in the bowels of the Invincible Reason, the Lion stood between four of his Librarians, listening to their murmuring voices. All of the psykers had donned their old ceremonial robes of blue, their faces hidden by the shadows of the cowls pulled over their heads. It was better that this was kept from the sight of the ordinary battle-brethren. Confusion and hearsay could breed superstition faster than any explanation could thwart it.

Corswain stood to one side, his agitation audible as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again, his armour creaking with each movement. The Lion ignored his seneschal’s discomfort. This way was better, cleaner. If the Death Guard and Iron Hands could be forced to parley without fighting, it would be in the best interests of the Dark Angels.

The Lion sensed Corswain straighten and he turned his gaze upon the seneschal.

‘It’s not working, my liege,’ said Corswain, sounding relieved by the fact. ‘Sensors show that the Iron Hands are retreating from a renewed Death Guard assault. They are being pushed back into the main facility.’

‘I warned them,’ snarled the Lion. ‘None will doubt my authority.’

‘Shall I signal Captain Stenius, my liege?’

‘Yes. If the Death Guard do not comply with my wishes, Magellix station will be obliterated. Tell Stenius to launch the torpedo.’

Gilead’s Curse

Chapter 5

Nik Vincent and Dan Abnett

By all that’s good and holy, by Sigmar’s beard and Ulric’s teeth, and by blessed Aenarion, it pains me to repeat the events and traumas that Gilead suffered at any hand, but these cursed tales are the most hellish of all to tell. Were I not on my deathbed, facing the end of my time in these environs, I would not choose to recount such stories, but I am honour-bound by the tenets and laws of the bardic guilds to impart all that I have learned and all that has been entrusted to me by those that came before, however addled their minds in the telling and however young I might have been in the hearing.

Listen if you dare, but be aware of what you will hear and how it will affect your lives. Pass this dread mantle I must, but with a weary heart made heavy by promises pledged too easily, many years ago.

Gilead lay too long in that place. He was bound so tight that it was impossible for him to move. He was barely able to breathe, and if he had not had his wits about him, and inhaled deeply as soon as he was aware that the skaven hordes sought to bury him beneath their combined weight, he would surely have died of asphyxiation; either at the time of his capture or shortly after his bindings were secured. There was barely an eighth of an inch movement in the bindings of his chest, so his breaths must be shallow and controlled, and no unnecessary energy must be expended before he was able to escape his captivity.

The first time he gained consciousness, Gilead kept his eyes closed while he carried out a detailed inventory of his ailments, wounds and vulnerabilities. They were many and took some time to innumerate and assess, but the worst of them was the tight, restricting bandage of greasy cloth, sodden rope, and leather straps and thongs that held him in the tightest of grips. He could neither straighten his knees nor flex his ankles. He could not rotate his wrists, tied tightly behind him, nor push his elbows away from where they were strapped to his sides. He could not turn his head nor flex it back or forth on his neck. He could not take a deep breath to settle his mind or relax his body. He could barely breathe deeply enough to lift smells out of the air around him. He could see, if he chose to open his eyes, but, most importantly of all, he could hear. He could hear, but he could not respond.

‘He has come, so he has. He has come. Now he has come, for come he has, I’ll live forever. I won’t live for now, not just for now. I’ll live forever,’ said the skaven Rat King.

Gilead did not need to open his eyes to know who was speaking. The rat’s voice had become impossibly high-pitched with excitement, and the words kept tripping out of his mouth, over and over, the speaker apparently caught in some spell that made him repeat the little speech, ad infinitum, as if it were some kind of unholy mantra.

Gilead did not open his eyes. He did not respond. He continued to take shallow breaths. His mouth was dry and somewhat tacky from the noxious smells that he had inhaled underground and could not rid himself of, but he did not swallow, nor did he lick his parched lips. His mouth remained firmly, but casually closed, as if he continued in his unconscious state in some still and dreamless existence. The skaven had not killed him. Their King had been stronger and more powerful than Gilead could ever have expected; more in control of his horde than any Rat King had a right to be, and far more cunning than the average enemy creature, and yet the elf had not died at their hands. Since he was not dead yet, the skaven clearly had other plans for the elf. He knew not what they were, but he did know that there was time enough to find out, and, in the meantime, his best course of action was to rest as much as he could, regain some strength, and formulate a plan of escape.

Gilead rolled his closed eyes back into his head, and adjusted a twinge or two with some small exertions and a little fine muscle control. The Rat King could, no doubt, detect his movements, but dormant creatures stirred too, and the skaven would surely think nothing of the elf moving a little in his sleep.

The elf fell, voluntarily, into a restful and invigorating sleep-state, one from which he could wake at will, should the need present itself.

Gilead woke again when the chanting stopped. He lay still for an hour or two, listening, and opened his eyes only when he knew that he was likely to remain alone for some time to come.

Aware that the skaven could detect the smallest of movements through the vibrations carried by earth, brick and rock in their underground fastnesses, Gilead made no attempts to free himself from the confines of the ties that bound him. He did not thrash or squirm. He lay as still as he could and felt the earth floor beneath his body. He had to concentrate long and hard to feel any vibrations at all, and when he did feel something, he was able to deduce that the crowds in the great hall had dispersed and there were few or no skaven close by.

Gilead had been lying on his side, curled slightly, as his bindings pulled his knees towards his chest. He opened his eyes into the faint green light that hung in the air of the antechamber. He could see very little apart from the legs of an oddly formed piece of furniture close to his face. The Rat King had clearly taken pleasure in looking down on the elf’s face, for Gilead cast his eyes upwards to see that the tangle of wood and blades and handles, and parts of tools and weapons strapped together, formed an impressively grotesque throne, of sorts.

The faint smell that drifted around Gilead as he flexed the muscles down the left side of his body in an attempt to roll onto his back, told him that the Rat King had left the room four or five hours previously and had not returned. There was only one scent signature in the room, so the King was clearly a lone creature, keen to maintain a private space. There could be only one reason for that.

Gilead flexed again, breathing out as hard as his bounds would allow, and slowly rolled off his side and onto his back, trapping his hands beneath him. His feet were raised slightly off the ground and his knees tucked up. It was not the most elegant of postures, but it was a possible position of strength against the bindings when the time came.

For the moment, Gilead allowed the back of his head to rest on the cold dank earth and began to cast his eyes around the room, since there was very little movement in his head and neck.

The room was spartan. It had only one door to serve as both entrance and exit, so must be an antechamber to a larger space, possibly the great hall, since the few sounds that came to Gilead appeared to do so from an echoing distance.

The room held only the chair for furniture, but was too small to be used as a throne room for the skaven to kneel and bow before their leader, besides, Gilead had already determined that the room had only one inhabitant. As his eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light in the room, Gilead began to cast his gaze into the deeper recesses. He could not see into the corners beyond his head, at floor level, but he could look up into the low ceiling of dark, crusting earth above him. He followed the line of the ceiling until he was able to peer into the corners, albeit there were only three of them and they curved away rather than met the walls at regular angles. Then a dark spot caught his eye, just below the rim where the ceiling met the curving, irregular wall to his left. He cast his eye further along the wall and spotted another dark spot, and then a lighter one. He counted six anomalies along the top of the wall.

Concentrating first on the lightest of the patches high on the wall, Gilead quickly realised that he was looking at an opening or a niche from which a small amount of light was emanating. He took two or three shallow breaths and blinked twice, taking his time to examine the area of the wall, thoroughly.

He saw a faint spark, and thought he heard a low hum. He stopped breathing and closed his eyes for a moment so that he could concentrate on fully hearing the sound. It was a click, so slow and pitched so low as to be almost inaudible and easily mistaken for a low buzz or hum. Gilead took a breath, drawing in as much of the stale air around him as he could, and listened again while he exhaled impossibly slowly.

There was a pattern to the clicks, a rhythm, a pace, not like a heartbeat, but more like music, like a skilled percussionist picking out a complex tune with intricate phrasing. It was beautiful, and Gilead found his mind following the pattern, trying to decipher its meaning. It must mean something.

His eyes firmly closed, his breathing abated and only his hearing informing his consciousness, Gilead was mesmerised by the sound until he stopped counting the clicks, stopped trying to work out the pattern, and simply became absorbed by it. It filled his mind’s eye with a swarming carpet of gleaming, glossy carapaces, an oil-slick of rainbow colours refracting impossibly from the backs and wing-cases of a tidal wave of chittering insects. Suddenly, the low click separated into thousands, millions of squeaks and squeals as armoured limbs rubbed against one another and proboscises and antennae twitched and flexed.

Then, at the apex of the crescendo, a thousand million wing-cases unfolded, releasing gossamer wings in thousands of shades of blue, yellow and green. The sound changed again as millions of pairs of wings extended into the air, moving and shifting great swathes of it and causing a deafening susurrus as if an exodus were under way.

Gilead wondered in the moment, afraid of nothing, steeped in the pleasure of so magical an event.

Eventually, the elf had to breathe again, and his mind returned to him, only the low hum and the greenish light, a reminder of what he had witnessed. He blinked and an image flashed against his retina. He could not see it, not from this angle low to the floor, and yet he knew that the niche from which the faint greenish light emanated held a bell jar in which was imprisoned a single, mature, winged beetle of a type that he had never seen before, and which he believed he would never see again. It was magical, talismanic and beautiful, and it was as far from home as he was, and almost as ancient.

Gilead cast his eyes along the wall to the left of the lit niche, and concentrated hard on the first of the dark patches; if the lit patch was a niche and in that niche was the captive insect, what else might the Rat King have collected? What else could Gilead learn about his captor?

Gilead concentrated for what, to skaven scum would have seemed like a very long time, but Gilead was a mature example of one of the longest living of species, and minutes, hours, days, even, were as nothing to him. Time was always on his side. He dilated his pupils as far as he could, until his vision became slightly blurry at the very edges, casting an aura around the niche he was focusing on, making it appear even more magical, more dreamlike. His flexed pupils grabbed all the light that they could out of the air, deep in the shadows of the niche in the wall, and he began to discern a shape there. He saw a ‘V’ of some lightweight chain or other, from which hung something so fragile it seemed to shift in some invisible, imperceptible breeze in the room, although it was only the smallest movement in the air caused by Gilead’s measured, shallow breathing. It looked like a feather... No, a lock of hair. It was a lock of the finest, brightest, lightest of hair, like the down that grew on the most precious of elf-infants’ heads.

Gilead’s blink captured everything the elf could wish to know about the pale lock of hair, the single sweeping curl that hung by the side of a glorious face... glorious even for a human, for the curl did not belong to an infant elf, but to a beautiful human girl. An abundance of soft curls crowned a delicate, porcelain-perfect head. Suddenly, the face broke into a stunning smile of perfect pink lips and tiny teeth, plumping and rouging apple-cheeks and reaching into the palest of pale blue eyes, with devastating effect. The girl tossed her head, and the cascading curls bounced around her face. Gilead noticed a discreet circlet of fine gold wirework with pink sweet-water pearls and an abundance of pave-set diamonds. The hair did not belong to any beautiful girl, it belonged to a special girl, a girl of fine breeding and finer habits, a girl of great expectations and exemplary deportment; it belonged to a singular girl, a girl who could change the Empire forever.

Gilead’s eyes opened at the end of the blink, and he sighed slightly. The girl, so clear in his mind, so complete, so real, was gone, and he was back in the dark, underground bolthole of the skaven scum.

Gilead wondered whether he wanted to look into any of the other niches in the wall. He had seen such wonders in the first two, and did not want to break the spell, and yet, he needed to know, felt compelled to scrutinise the niches, not only for the sake of the Rat King, not only because he thought he’d gain a greater insight into the machinations of the creature, but for the sake of the objects themselves, so that he might experience their wonders.

An hour passed in the moments that Gilead took to prepare himself for another bout of concentration, and for the possibility of losing himself in his mind once more.

As Gilead looked up at the third niche, a warm, orange-red glow began to emanate from it. The glow trickled and then poured out of the wall. It appeared to turn into a stream of clear orange liquid, and then began to steam and coalesce, and before he knew what was happening, Gilead was being drowned in a confetti of cascading leaves. They were red and yellow and a bright, sappy green. The light seemed to come from within them, flickering brightly, making the leaves seem transparent, showing the skeletons of their perfectly symmetrical veins. The leaves continued to fall, pouring from the niche as if blown through it in great gusts.

Gilead was soon covered in the leaves, too light for him to feel them falling, but warming him in a blanket of feathery silk. When they fell close to his eyes, Gilead barely needed to breathe out to shift the trajectory of the leaves, keeping his face clear of them, although a little part of him longed to be buried forever in the subtle, comforting embrace of whatever natural force had created such a wonder.

He continued to watch, unblinking, as more leaves were ejected from the niche, but, as they met the foetid air of the antechamber, they began to spark and dance. One by one, the leaves began to ignite in bright, smokeless flames. They changed colour to subtle ashy greys and blues, and then floated up into the curved ceiling before their lights were extinguished and they vanished into the air, leaving behind only the faintest whiff of warm clouds and clean ozone.

As the air cleared, more and more of the leaves began to ignite. They jumped and skittered over Gilead’s form like benign fleas before combusting and floating away in brilliant, waving, dancing patterns before his eyes.

As the last of the sparks and flames and the last wisps of light disappeared, Gilead saw the outline of a climbing plant imprinted on the wall. It was like a sky clematis, espaliered against the wall in an endless ladder formation, branches twisting, and tendrils sending out enough shoots to accommodate the abundance of leaves that had been shed into the room. The illusion was there in the last flames of light, and gone just as quickly. The niche held... what? A single leaf? No, Gilead saw that the niche contained a tall glass vial sealed at both ends, suspended in a soupy shaft of light that almost obscured the contents: a single tendril with a lone bud-node and a barely formed leaf.

The fourth niche, the highest and largest of them, was more than simply a cavity, with its cleanly defined arched shape and its protruding shelf. Initially, Gilead could detect nothing there, except the shadow of something ancient, cold, long-dead. The shadow began to dissipate and the air to flex and, suddenly, Gilead was looking at a reflection of himself in a dense, smoky pane. The reflection stood to the foreground, and beyond it, the elf could see the antechamber with him lying on the floor looking up at the niches, each glowing brightly, displaying its wares. The arched niche through the glass was reflecting light and the faint image of another supine Gilead.

Gilead did not dwell upon the images, but something primal made his mind stir, and, for an instant, he felt the urge to shiver. There was not room to accomplish the feat in the confines of the ties that bound him, so he contented himself with the sensation of someone walking stolidly over his grave.

The fifth niche was a ragged black hole in the wall. Gilead stretched his mind into it, dilating his pupils and concentrating for several minutes in an unblinking state. He was shadowfast in his will, lying perfectly still, but performing a great many checks and manoeuvres in his mind to eliminate the possibility of anything at all emerging from the fifth anomaly in the wall, barely a niche, just a roughly scooped out hollow. In those several minutes, the niche disclosed nothing of its contents, past, present or future. It was as if it had never held anything, including the hands and tools that had dug it out of the wall, and that it never would house anything. Gilead had never witnessed anything so empty; it was as if the very air refused to fill the aperture.

With some unease, Gilead relaxed his mind away from the niche, pushing his head gently into the earth beneath it in order to relax the muscles in his neck. They had become firm with his extended bout of concentration, not that he had been able to move his head more than a fraction of an inch, but the fine muscle control was part of an elf warrior’s training and it stood him in good stead. When the shackles came off, when the bindings were cut or unravelled, he would not rub at sore joints and creak at the knees and elbows, his head would not ache from the pressures on his neck and shoulders, and he would be able to stand both feet firmly on the ground without tendons and ligaments crying out for mercy.

The rest he had taken had worn away to nothing as Gilead dissected the contents of the various cavities in the antechamber’s wall. He cast his ears out of the space once more, listening for echoing sounds of life in the great hall and the warrens, corridors and burrows beyond. Hearing nothing, he rested again, turning his eyes back into his head and succumbing to the self-induced sleep state that would refresh his mind and body.

Gilead woke. For several seconds, he thought about nothing except what might have disturbed his sleep. When he did think, it was to assess his position again. He was well-rested, and, from his condition, he deduced that several more hours had passed. A quick check of his physical state confirmed that he had sustained no lasting injuries, but that some of the many minor wounds inflicted on him by the skaven were beginning to fester with the inevitable infections that their filth bred.

He could only guess to the nearest hour or two what time it was. He did not know for sure whether it was daylight outside or for how long he had been tied up and left on the cold earth floor, but it must have been some time as the ground beneath his body had taken some of his heat and he no longer felt the dankness there. Sleep and hyper-consciousness, and the shifts in time they caused, elongating or diminishing it, like a concertina being played by some over-zealous drinking-hole musician, made time almost infinitely flexible.

Gilead waited for whatever had woken him to stir again, but nothing happened. He felt none but the faintest of vibrations through his back and his hands trapped beneath him, between his spine and the floor of the antechamber.

He looked up at the last of the niches, but could barely discern its outline against the dark, uneven wall. With half of his faculties directed at the possible return of the Rat King, looking into the niche was proving impossible.

Gilead rocked slightly, releasing the increasing pressure on his hands, lifting his head off the floor in a series of complex callisthenic micro-movements. Despite being locked in bindings so tight as to make almost all movement impossible, the elf had rested his body well, and was not suffering stiffness, muscle cramp, loss of blood flow or any other minor ailments that might afflict humans, or even other, older, less-fit elves.

Satisfied that his body was sound, and that there was no immediate threat from the other side of the antechamber door, Gilead allowed his mind to concentrate entirely on the final niche. The others told only parts of stories, and not the whole, and the elf believed that the artifacts collected by the Rat King would afford him a greater insight into the ratman leader’s intentions, and a better opportunity to defeat him and quash his obvious ambitions.

Gilead breathed rhythmically, closed his eyes to focus on listening, and then opened them wide, concentrating on his sight at the expense of his other senses. His eyes penetrated the darkness and, within moments, it was as if he was standing with his chin at the lip of the niche, peering in, with an unhindered view of what was inside.

Two small objects lay in the aperture, side-by-side. To begin with, Gilead could not see a connection between them. The first object was a small, perfect sphere hewed from some kind of stone. It was unexceptional, save that it was lapped to a mirror finish so bright as to surpass understanding of the craftsmanship that must have gone into making it. The second object looked like an entire eggshell with the egg removed. It was white and matt, and so transparent that Gilead could barely follow the curve of its form. There was a tiny pinprick hole in one end that allowed a fine shaft of light to penetrate it, and it sat on a larger hole in its flat end.

Gilead breathed in and concentrated harder. In the next instant, he was trying to pick up the tiny sphere. Its surface was so smooth as to make it impossible to get a grip on the little object, but it was cold and preternaturally hard. At once, Gilead knew that the little ball was made of the rarest of all rocks, carved by a dwarf craftsman of the very first and finest order. Instinctively, he knew what the other object was. It was not an eggshell at all. The other object was the antithesis of the first. The little rock ball was the most perfect sphere with the most perfect surface made of the densest, hardest and heaviest of all organic rocks. The egg, though also made of stone, was hewn from the lightest, softest and most friable of the organic rocks, also carved by a fine craftsman, probably by the same man that had carved the sphere. These two objects represented the alpha and omega of the stonecutter’s craft. Gilead knew, without further investigation that he could never lift or hold the sphere; that its smooth surface would roll it out of his hands, even if he could hold its weight. Nor could he touch the egg without it crumbling to dust before it fell into his open palm.

Gilead was reminded of the great hall where he had been captured by the skaven rat hordes. The high, vaulted ceiling was beautifully, perfectly carved whole out of the rock. The walls were as smooth as silk and the floor was flat and level. The great expanses of the room were almost impossibly large between the pillars that held the ceiling aloft, and this, too, reflected the dwarf stonecutters’ arts.

As his mind moved around the great room, Gilead’s ears pricked. He could hear an odd rhythmic chant, a strange ululating call, and the echo of it across the space. Then he heard footfalls, clicking with claws in a scurry that could only be made by skaven feet, punctuated by the rhythmic tap of the Rat King’s staff, like a third foot beating syncopated time.

‘He has come,’ he heard.

‘He has come, so he has. He has come. Now he has come, for come he has, I’ll live forever. I won’t live for now, not just for now. I’ll live forever.’

Gilead opened his eyes and ears, and found himself back in the antechamber. The Rat King was returning, and the elf planned to be ready for the hunched, hairy, grotesque figure to walk through the door.

Gilead expected the chant to end. Surely the Rat King couldn’t keep up his singsong prognostications indefinitely?

Then he realised that the chant was in the air, embedded somehow, in the room around him. It was as if there was a zone around the skaven leader that followed wherever he went. The surest evidence of it was the chant, the mantra that alluded to Gilead. He wondered if there had been other chants for other missions, for it was clearly the Rat King’s fervent wish to trap the elf in some demeaning form of servitude or, perhaps, as some captive specimen.

Gilead breathed in as long and deeply as he was able, and then breathed out again. He emptied his body of every last atom of air, and relaxed his muscles until they were almost unbearably slack. Then he repeated the exercise. He did this three, four, five times more, and then listened again.

It was taking some time for the Rat King to cross the great hall, but Gilead was in no doubt that he was heading for his antechamber, and for the elf.

One by one, Gilead tensed all of his muscles individually, beginning with his hands and feet, and working his way towards his body mass and his centre of gravity. When he had tensed all the muscles individually, he tensed them all in unison, breathing in as deeply as he could while doing so.

The bounds around the elf’s body felt extraordinarily tight, and, where they were of the narrowest gauge, they began to cut into his skin and the almost imperceptible layer of subcutaneous fat that covered his muscles.

The elf was not concerned that the Rat King could hear him, only what he could hear of the Rat King. He was still minutes away, and the chant continued unabated.

Then Gilead felt a breeze on his face, and looked up at the door to see if he could locate the source of it. The door was firmly shut, but Gilead could see the shadows of leaves, falling on a breeze. They were the same leaves that had cascaded down on him from one of the wall-niches. The same, but different. The leaves were not red and yellow and sappy green, they were brown and black, like gossamer lace, ragged and punctured with ugly holes.

The leaves fell around him, disappearing in the air, leaving a putrid smell behind of rotting vegetation, and, oddly, of stale urine. He looked around, trying to work out what was going on, and saw a massive root system growing down through the ceiling from the earth above, and into the room. The roots appeared to be growing strong and true in the same ladder-like formation as the plant above ground, except that dozens of rats were playing around the roots. They were pulling on the finer roots, as if they were playing some strange game of tug-of-war; they were scratching away at them, trying to gnaw through them, and pissing on them. Several young skaven were laughing and playing, and seeing who could piss the highest up the root system. Where their urine fell, it burned like acid, making the roots shrink and fume with the reek of ammonia and sulphur. Where there were tooth marks in the roots, and chunks bitten away, the white fleshy part of the plant was turning brown and shriveling before Gilead’s eyes. The magical tree did not stand a chance under the skaven onslaught, and they seemed to be treating the destruction of the beautiful, rare and ancient organism as a game.

The odours in the room thickened as the tree, first the leaves, and then the branches, and, in what seemed like no time at all, the entire plant, roots and all, turned to dust and ashes.

Gilead turned his attention back to his predicament. He was bound with ropes made of hemp, leather and rags . The rags were heavily greased, and much of the leather had moldered in the dank conditions underground. Some of the hemp ropes were little more than oakum ready for the picking. The rot and filth of the skaven existence below ground, and never far from the water table, meant that conditions were forever dank and moist, and that all organic materials rotted easily and quickly.

The ropes that were whole, complete, were new to a life below ground, unwilling to fall apart and shred, nevertheless they had a deep and penetrating dampness about them that made them soft and pliable. As Gilead breathed in and flexed his muscles, over and over again, he began to hear the creak of the ropes as they flexed and stretched.

The whisper of dying leaves and crumbling roots subsided, and beyond the sounds, Gilead heard a faint, pitiful cry. He smelt a salt-sweet tear cutting across the malodorous plant smells of organic death and ammonia, and he saw a tendril of silvery hair bobbing. The cry gave way to wracking, wretched sobs, and Gilead saw a string of snot finding its way between lips that should have been pink and pert, but were, instead, pale and pursed in a grey, frightened face. Only the eyes, the huge, pale blue eyes of the child princess were as he had seen them before.

Then he saw a pink, fleshy, padded paw with black claws and scrappy grey/brown fur, and he felt wet onyx eyes staring malevolently into the porcelain blue ones. One claw traced a trail down the girl’s cheek, leaving first a livid white line and then a thread of crimson blood. The girl closed her eyes, squeezing her nose up so high that it looked for all the world as if she were baring her small, pretty teeth, but her gums were almost blue as she hyperventilated herself into a state of raw panic. The claw that had sliced the flesh of her cheek, however shallowly, now went to work on her hair and on the pale, silky sheen of the fabric of her simple dress, trimmed with lace too old and too perfectly and intricately made to be of recent manufacture, and the colour of good paper to prove its age. Curls of hair and ribbons of silk began to float through the air as the child screamed. More padded paws with more filthy claws began to grab at her hair and clothes. She screamed, shrill and sudden, and a gold wire circlet of pink pearls and glittering diamonds dropped to the floor with a sound like tiny bells, scattering gems everywhere.

As the Rat King wove his path across the great hall, the images in Gilead’s visions became bigger and more garishly coloured, and the sounds resonated less hollowly, seeming more real. Gilead could almost see the waves of scents on the air, the sweet, honeyed aroma of the girl’s peachy skin and recently laundered garments, the clean salt of her tears, and the sour smell of her abject horror. If the skaven hadn’t chosen to kill her, the experience very well might have. Gilead confronted the events, knowing that they had happened deep in the past, and that there was no way to change what had gone before.

The Rat King’s past actions, the means by which he had retrieved the various strange, magical objects that occupied the niches in the wall above Gilead, hung heavily in the air.

Gilead breathed again, deeply and quickly, swelling his torso and making hard bunches of the muscles in his arms and legs, putting pressure on the bindings until wrinkles and then cracks began to appear across the leather thongs that bound his legs. As much as it was possible to be still and yet shadowfast, the elf had achieved that state. He used his speed to flex and relax his muscles, spasming them at an alarming rate in order to manipulate the ties and thongs that bound his arms to his torso. Finally, one by one, the leather straps began to twist, and stress fractures began to appear in several places in the ties around his wrists and elbows.

Then the knocking began, the sound of axes against rock, of wedges and pegs being driven into fissures with hardwood mallets, and of water dripping from rotary drills driven into rock by short, heavyset creatures with stone in their hearts. Gilead saw the sheen of sweat on low brows topped with abundant hair, and droplets forming on full beards and moustaches. Then he looked down at his hands, and they were the hands of a dwarf holding a diamond file in his right, the left stained with the lapping powder that had been scattered onto whatever he was holding in it. Gilead blinked hard, and looked around. The faces of a dozen dwarfs around him, each mason wielding a tool of his trade, began to fade and flicker out, until Gilead was alone. He looked down and saw that he was sitting at a bench on which sat the eggshell that he had seen in the niche. The elf was disconcerted for a moment to see through the eyes of a foreigner, but he persisted in opening his left hand and looking down at what was held there.

He caught the merest glimpse of a small, hard spherical object, and then became aware of its extraordinary weight. Gilead loitered for a moment in the nameless dwarf’s mind, and there he saw the great sadness of a man who had lost his companions. This dwarf was the last of them, the others all lost in battle to the hugely abundant ratkin. It was a war of convenience; the skaven were multiplying beyond all that was reasonable, and sought to annex whatever underground spaces they could colonise. The dwarfs had been the greatest architects of the Empire for millennia, but they were a dying breed, and the skaven were willing and eager to capitalise on that.

With no one to defend him from the hordes, the dwarf fought bravely and well. He would not have had the opportunity to fight at all if Gilead had not been in his head when the skaven ambushed him, but the elf could not fight for him. Gilead blinked hard and stepped out of the dwarf’s mind.

The skaven quickly disarmed the dwarf of his file, but not before he had brained several of the marauding ratmen. When all that remained to him was the little ball of heavy stone in his left hand, the dwarf closed his fist around it and punched his way through the heads of a dozen more of the rat-scum before he was overwhelmed and taken down. After the dwarf had fallen, the Rat King pried his fingers aside to expose the magical sphere of rock. It took several of his coterie to roll the little ball onto an improvised litter so that it could be transported back to the Rat King’s lair. Gilead could not bear to watch what became of the dwarf’s body, but when next he opened his eyes, there was no dwarf corpse to be seen among the dozens of dead ratmen.

Gilead returned, resolutely, to the antechamber and to his corporeal form, bracing himself for what he must do to escape his bindings, once and for all. The elf concentrated on his breathing again, and every new breath that he took came longer and deeper into his chest until he no longer needed to rely on filling his lungs to expand his chest, but only had to flex his muscles. In a matter of a few minutes all of the leather ropes and thongs had torn through under the pressure of his muscles under tension, and he was moving freely. Only the oiled rags resisted stretching and breaking, but once the leather and hemp ropes had been desiccated and destroyed, it was only a matter of a few minutes and a little extra exertion before the elf was able to shrug off the stinking rags.

Gilead got to his feet and kicked the ropes, thongs and cloth bindings that had held him so rigidly into a corner out of the way. There was no getting away from the filth and stink of the ties that had bound him from his neck down, but he took a moment to straighten his clothes and to run his fingers through his hair, which appeared to be yellowing from the miasma of grease smoke in the atmosphere.

Gilead’s weapons had been wrested from his hands as he’d fought to breathe beneath the dozens of writhing bodies that had pinned him to the floor of the great hall. He did not know or care how many of the ratmen had died, suffocated or crushed to death in their efforts to subdue him. He did care that they had managed to take his weapons from him. But, the Rat King was clearly a scavenger, a collector of objects, and elf-made blades must surely be as prized as many another artifact. It took Gilead a matter of moments to find his sword and dagger slotted into gaps in the throne chair. He was surprised that he had not seen them there sooner among the poorly made, rusting and broken pieces of weaponry that the chair was constructed from.

As he passed the flat of the blade against his thumb, reassured by the cool, smooth steel, he heard the whisper of gusting breath between the words that the Rat King was still mouthing.

‘He has come, so he has. He has come. Now he has come, for come he has, I’ll live forever. I won’t live for now, not just for now. I’ll live forever.’

The Rat King held his amulet in his left paw, and sniffed and twitched at the smell of burning flesh that emanated from it. He could not stop grinning, and nor could he stop repeating, over and over again, the words that meant so much to him.

He clipped down the short spiral staircase to his little chamber, and pushed at the door with the end of the staff that he held in his right hand. He could not wait to cast his eyes down on the elf once more. He had almost been too excited to leave him, but he had no choice but to appoint new men at every level of his horde. So very many had died for him in capturing the Fell One, so many little sparks of life force had been gathered and added to his immortality. They had died for him, but now he had to be certain that they would die for him again, and that required a hierarchy. If his captains, lieutenants and leaders were not in place then the skaven would turn on each other in a free-for-all of devastating proportions. The Rat King’s power base, painstakingly built up over years, decades, would be lost forever if he had no one to keep the troops in line.

He had spent most of the previous day watching fierce young skaven clawing and hacking each other to death in a series of gladiatorial bouts that ended with the last ratman standing being awarded the highest military honours and the best positions in the Rat King’s bodyguard.

He was going to live forever, and the Fell One would keep.

Gilead did not wait for the door to open to take up a belligerent stance with a weapon in each hand. He only wondered that the Rat King did not feel the need to bring a phalanx of fighting men with him.

The door swung open, and the hunched figure of the Rat King appeared in front of Gilead. He was not armed, except for the long staff that he used as a walking aid, and for ceremonial appearances. It was a badge of office as much as it was a useful weapon, and he was certainly not wielding it in anger, or using it as a defence as he walked into the antechamber.

Gilead could not see what was in the Rat King’s other hand; nevertheless, he knew that it was the reason he was in the skaven stronghold. He also knew that the Rat King believed the object could control the elf, and hold him in its thrall. Gilead knew no such thing. After all, had not the amulet given him visions of the Rat King’s little collection of artifacts? Had it not opened his eyes and ears, and warned him of the Rat King’s return?

Gilead looked hard into the Rat King’s eyes, but heard only the words tripping inexorably from the foul creature’s maw.

‘You have come, so you have. You have come. Now you have come, for come you have, I’ll live forever. I won’t live for now, not just for now. I’ll live forever,’ it said.

Gilead saw the little skip in the Rat King’s step as if it was attempting to dance a jig, and detected a greedy glint in its eyes as it looked down at its paw where it held the single perfect curl from the girl’s innocent head. The lock of hair bounced and jiggled as the ratman’s body jostled up and down to some spastic rhythm, all its own. He saw the wracked, battered and bruised corpse of the girl-child at the Rat King’s feet, and he saw the group of skaven fighting to be the first to taste her sweet flesh.

His sword still drawn, Gilead held his stance, but could not move to attack the wretched creature that stood before him. The curl was gone from the Rat King’s paw, and in its place was a great handful of brilliant red and orange leaves, spilling over and falling to the ground. As they fell, they blackened and smoked with a noxious, greasy gas. The Rat King rubbed the leaves in his paw, and a rope of drool dripped from his canines and landed in the vegetation, the acidic spittle igniting the foliage in a flaring blue flame that made the leaves fizz and wither.

Gilead wanted to save the leaves, rescue the magical plant, but he knew that it was long gone. He wanted to kill the Rat King, too, the monster who had wrought such evil madness upon the noble, the innocent and the magical. His vision shifted and rippled in front of him, and he stared deep into the Rat King’s eyes once more. The beast appeared to be laughing at him, its eyes wide and glistening, its teeth bared and its tongue dancing around in its maw.

The Rat King let something drop from his paw. The object was suspended from a length of ribbon, apparently made from intricately plaited hair, and it swung and twisted slightly.

Gilead could not tear his gaze from the Rat King’s eyes, but in those eyes he began to see flashes of bright light, sparks bobbing and dancing in the onyx orbs. The sparks coalesced into soft, white lights that seemed to fall on a complex tableau, a fully formed picture of some moment far in the future, appearing simultaneously in the Rat King’s marble-like eyeballs, in stereo.

Gilead wanted nothing more than to kill the Rat King and to destroy the sparkling amulet that was sending shafts of light into the creature’s eyes. The elf did not know whether the amulet was in thrall to the rat or the rat was in thrall to the amulet, it mattered not, for both must perish.

He thought to raise his sword, to lunge, to attack the Rat King, to best him before his loyal horde stormed the antechamber, for he knew, now, that the ratmen had gathered in vast numbers, beyond, in the great hall. He did not know how the knowledge of their gathering had eluded him, only that it had.

The warrior elf knew that if he killed the Rat King and destroyed the amulet, the spell would be broken and the rat hordes would fall into desperate disarray. He would not have to fight his way out of the warrens and burrows below ground, for the ratmen would not choose to fight him and die if they could fight one another and live.

Gilead had to kill but one creature. He looked deeper into the Rat King’s eyes, searching for the motivation to seize the moment and end whatever new tragedy was to come before it had begun.

Gilead beheld the image of a vast, ancient ratman with sleek white fur, glistening teeth and gleaming eyes. The ratman was standing on a mountain of corpses of mesmerising proportions. This was the future if Gilead did not act to end the Rat King here and now.

‘You have come, so you have. You have come. Now you have come, for come you have, I’ll live forever. I won’t live for now, not just for now. I’ll live forever,’ said the Rat King.

SLAYER OF THE STORM GOD

Nathan Long

‘Knock again, manling,’ said Gotrek Gurnisson.

Felix Jaeger raised his fist and rapped on the door of Hans Euler’s Marienburg town house, louder this time.

A window opened in the house next door and a maid in a winged cap leaned out.

‘Herr Euler is away, mein herren,’ she said. ‘You won’t find him home.’

Felix would have been very surprised if he had, for he had stabbed Euler through the heart on the dark elves’ black ark more than a week ago, and the treacherous pirate was hopefully rotting at the bottom of the sea at the moment.

He was about to tell the girl some lie about leaving a card, or delivering a letter, but then Gotrek turned towards her and her eyes went wide. She disappeared into the house with a squeak of fright.

Felix didn’t blame her. Gotrek was a fearsome sight. He was a dwarf trollslayer, and ugly even for that ugly breed. Short, broad, and muscled like a jungle ape, his scarred, sun-browned flesh was covered in swirling blue tattoos, and a crest of flame-orange hair rose from his shaved head. Add to this an eye-patch, a face like a weathered boulder, and a rune-inscribed battle-axe in a fist the size of a baked ham, and one had a vision to make a hardened veteran blanch, let alone a Marienburg housemaid.

Felix knocked again. Again there was no answer, but this time he thought he heard faint shufflings and thumpings inside.

‘Someone’s after your safe,’ said Gotrek. ‘Stand aside.’

Felix stepped back and the slayer gripped the doorknob, twisting it with slow, inexorable strength. His biceps bulged. The lock mechanism squealed for a moment in pain, then, with a sharp snap, the knob spun loose and the door creaked open.

There were more thumpings and rustlings from within. Felix drew his sword as Gotrek pushed the door wide and stepped into the dim interior. All was as he remembered it – or nearly all. The wood-paneled entry hall was still dark and stuffy, with a spiral staircase to the left and a door that opened into a richly furnished parlour at the back. The parlour’s bay window still had a big hole – now partially boarded up – where Gotrek and Felix had been shoved out of it during their last visit, and the small safe that Gotrek had thrown down the stairs was still half-sunk into the wooden floor where it had smashed through the polished planks.

The dead butler sprawled on the floor was new, however, as were the chisels and hammers and files that were scattered in a puddle of water surrounding the safe. Felix turned away from the butler, whose brains were spilling out of the hole in his head. The thieves must have been hard men indeed to murder the man and then leave him where he fell as they went about their work.

Gotrek snorted as he looked at the safe-cracking tools. ‘Cheap human chisels. No match for dwarf workmanship.’

Felix rolled his eyes at this typical dwarfen bias, but had to admit that the safe showed hardly a mark. Beyond it, a trail of wet footprints led from the broken parlour window to the puddle and back again.

‘They’ve gone out the back,’ he said.

He and Gotrek strode to the back window and looked out. Euler’s back wall dropped straight down to the canal they had plunged into when his bodyguards had thrown them out. If the housebreakers had gone out the window, they’d have had to have gone into the water, but Felix saw no swimmers, only circular ripples spreading out across the calm water.

‘Strange,’ said Felix.

Gotrek shrugged. ‘At least they didn’t get into the safe,’ he said, and turned away, pulling a ring of keys from his belt pouch.

Felix followed the slayer to the safe. They had stolen the keys from Euler on their previous visit, but their abrupt exit had prevented them from using them.

The whole business had been distasteful. Not the sort of thing Felix normally cared to do. Euler had been in possession of some incriminating letter with which he’d attempted to blackmail Felix’s father, and the old man had asked Felix to get it back. If he hadn’t been on his death bed when he’d made the request, Felix would never have done it, but as it was he’d felt obliged, and had come reluctantly to Euler’s house to try to intimidate him into giving it up.

Needless to say, it hadn’t gone well, and then the business with the dark elves had intervened, with Euler chasing them across the Sea of Chaos, thinking that they were on the trail of great treasure, and Felix had been forced to kill the pirate when he had turned on them in the bowels of the black ark.

That nightmare was over, thankfully, and now he and Gotrek were back in Marienburg until the following morning, when they and their old friend Max Schreiber, a magister of the College of Light, and Claudia Pallenberger, a seeress from the Celestial College, would board a riverboat to Altdorf for the last leg of their journey home.

Max and Claudia were staying the night at the house of an acquaintance of Max’s, and Gotrek would have been content to bide his time drinking at their inn, the Pelican’s Perch, but Felix still felt an obligation to recover the letter, even though Euler was dead and there was a distinct possibility that his father was as well. So he had asked the slayer to accompany him back to the smuggler’s house for one last try.

The key turned in its lock with a satisfying click, and Felix knelt as Gotrek hauled on the handle and opened the safe’s heavy steel door. The walls of it were inches thick, and the space inside hardly big enough to hold a loaf of bread, but what lay within glittered in a way that made Felix’s heart race and Gotrek’s ugly face split in a terrifying smile.

‘You can have the letter, manling,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the rest.’

He pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to Felix, then began scooping out the treasure and dumping it on the floor – a small spill of jewelry, loose gems, and gold coins of strange foreign design.

Felix sorted through the papers. There were contracts, promissory notes, articles of incorporation, and, at last, an envelope scrawled upon in his father’s scratchy hand. His heart thumping with relief, Felix opened it and made sure there was a letter within, then stuffed it in his belt pouch.

‘I have it,’ he said.

Gotrek just grunted and kept sorting the treasure, entirely engrossed. He held a thick gold circlet up to his single appraising eye. ‘Dwarf gold, human work,’ he said. ‘Not bad for all that.’

Felix looked at the coil as the slayer slipped it on his wrist. He thought it might have once been a necklace, but it barely fit around Gotrek’s meaty arm. It was made of heavy gold wire – eight braided strands branching from a central bezel set with a sea-green gem the size of a walnut. Though it was undeniably beautiful, Felix found he didn’t like the look of the thing. Perhaps he was just sick of anything that reminded him of the sea.

‘Are you sure it’s not elven?’ he asked, hoping to make Gotrek take it off.

Gotrek snorted. ‘Not flimsy enough.’ He tossed a delicate gold necklace into the puddle. ‘That’s elven,’ he said with a sneer, then began picking through the rest and putting the choicer bits in his belt pouch.

Felix thought the elven necklace was beautiful, but he wasn’t going to argue the point with a dwarf. He’d just take it. But as he picked it up, voices reached them from the street.

‘Aye, sergeant,’ came the housemaid’s voice. ‘I saw ‘em. They broke down Herr Euler’s door.’

A man’s voice answered her. ‘Back inside, miss. We’ll take care of this. Swords out, boys.’

‘The watch,’ whispered Felix.

Gotrek grunted angrily, and for a moment Felix was afraid he meant to stay and fight, but instead he just swept up the treasure in his big hands, stuffed it down his breeches, then stumped towards the spiral staircase, jingling with each step.

‘To the roof, manling,’ he said. ‘While they follow the footprints to the canal.’

Felix followed, surprised and relieved. Apparently Gotrek’s lust for gold had momentarily won out over his lust for battle.

As they started up the stairs, Felix paused and looked back at the wet footprints, suddenly wondering why they seemed so wide and splayed. Had the housebreakers used some sort of special shoes to swim the canal?

There was a crash as the front door burst in. Felix hurried after the slayer.

Gotrek shook another ruby out of his trouser leg and put it on the table with the rest. ‘I think that’s the last of them.’

Felix looked up from reading his father’s letter and glanced askance at the little pile of now-pungent treasure the slayer had amassed. Showing so much wealth in a tavern like the Pelican’s Perch would bring nothing but trouble, but perhaps that was what the slayer wanted, or perhaps he just didn’t care.

Even with the sun still up, the taproom was crowded with rowdy revellers. In fact all Marienburg was crowded with rowdy revellers, piling into town for the Storm Festival, a local holiday that culminated with the priests of the sea god Manann leading their congregations in a prayer to spare their fishing and trading fleets from harsh winter storms. Despite the freezing winter winds that whipped spray off the canals and blew it in their faces, the merry celebrants were singing songs in the streets and carousing from inn to inn, red-cheeked and rubber-legged and praising Manann with every bend of their elbows.

A squad of Black Caps pushed into the tavern. Felix hid his face behind his father’s letter, but the watchmen only spoke with the barman, scanned the place cursorily, and headed back out to the street. The watchmen looked on edge – understandable, what with the town full of drunks, and also rumours that some of those drunks were going missing – pulled into the canals by strange assailants, never to be seen again. The Storm Festival Curse, the locals called it, for apparently it happened every year. Felix thought it much more likely that the missing revellers had fallen into the canals after one too many toasts to Manann.

As Gotrek muttered over his glittering hoard, Felix returned to the old letter. So far he hadn’t found anything particularly blackmail-worthy. It was a note from his father, acknowledging that he had received some goods from Euler’s father – a smuggler just like his son. There were lists of Tilean glass, Bretonnian brandy, Cathay silk, and other fancy goods that Felix supposed might have been smuggled or stolen. It didn’t seem enough somehow. His father had been terrified that this letter would rob him of Jaeger and Sons. Nothing here seemed to merit that terror.

Felix turned the letter over. His heart stopped. He had found it. At the top of the page was a list of six books, with a note scrawled to one side in his father’s hand. Felix didn’t recognise all the titles, but even the ones he did were enough to tie his stomach in sailors’ knots – The Maelificarium by Salini. Urbanus’s The Seven Gates, Sudenberg’s Treatise on the Hidden World. All were forbidden texts in the eyes of the Temple of Sigmar – tomes of darkest sorcery. The possession of any one of them would be enough to have a man burned at the stake.

Felix read the note his father had written beside them.

Returning the Urbanus and the Bastory. Estlemann says they are damaged and unsellable. Will want full refund.

GJ

Felix’s head swam. His father had dealt, was perhaps still dealing, in forbidden books! This was indeed something that would destroy Jaeger and Sons if exposed. He was filled once again with loathing for the old man’s greed. This proved beyond a doubt that Gustav would do anything to increase his fortune. Of course, Felix thought with a twinge of guilt, his father might be dead now, and he shouldn’t think ill of him, but the old villain certainly made it difficult to be charitable.

A shadow passed over the letter and a voice jarred Felix from his musings. ‘How much for the bracelet?’

Felix looked up. A piratical old sailor in a long coat stood at the table, jostled on all sides by the crowd that filled the tap room. He was a barrel-chested man, with a bald head, gold earrings, and a clay pipe that stuck out from an enormous white moustache and beard. He pointed a thick finger at Gotrek’s wrist, indicating the bracelet with the sea-green gem.

‘Not for sale,’ said Gotrek. He pushed a small pile of jewelry towards the man. ‘If you want any of that, we can deal. It’s elven.’

The old sailor shook his head. ‘Just the bracelet.’

‘Then you’re out of luck,’ said Gotrek.

The sailor frowned. ‘Double its weight in Altdorf Crowns,’ he said.

Gotrek snorted. ‘Crowns are cut with copper. This is pure. Ten times its weight wouldn’t be enough.’

‘So, you’re willing to haggle?’

‘No,’ said the slayer, and returned his attention to his sorting.

The sailor shrugged. ‘Can’t say I didn’t try.’ He stepped back. ‘Get ‘em, messmates.’

All at once, all the men who had been jostling and laughing and drinking behind the old man turned towards Gotrek and Felix, grinning as they readied cudgels, brass knuckles and saps. Felix had never in his life seen so few teeth among so many men.

Gotrek jumped up, laughing, and snatched up two three-legged stools. ‘Come and get it, you wharf rats!’

The wharf rats obliged him, roaring and leaping over the table at him as bracelets and necklaces scattered everywhere. Felix was shouldered to the floor in the rush. Boots stomped his spine as he rolled under the table, covering his head, and the smack of fists on flesh was loud in his ears.

He took the opportunity to stuff his father’s letter back into his doublet, then looked around for a suitable weapon. Unfortunately, just then, Gotrek heaved up on the table, overturning it and sending the pirates that fought upon it flying – along with the rest of his treasure.

A pirate crashed down on Felix’s ribs, knocking the wind out of him. Felix sucked in a stabbing breath and elbowed the man in the face, then ripped the cudgel from his hands and staggered up, looking around. Pirates were reeling away from Gotrek as he windmilled about him with a stool in each fist, but others still surged in, howling and slashing furiously, as the rest of the tavern-goers pressed to the walls, trying to get away.

Felix waded into the scrum, cracking heads and elbows with his cudgel. The pirates snarled and lashed back at him. He took a punch to the ribs.

Then a woman’s voice shrilled over the cacophony. ‘Gold! The floor’s covered with it!’

Suddenly, all the onlookers, who had been doing their best to keep out of the melee, charged forward, diving under the pirates’ feet and bowling them over in their frenzy to reach the spilled treasure.

‘Keep back, ye lubbers!’ bellowed the old pirate, but no one paid him any heed.

A pirate with a face like a frog leapt on Gotrek’s arm, weighing it down and trying to pull off the braided gold bracelet.

‘Get it!’ roared the old pirate. ‘Throw it here.’

Gotrek brained frog-face with one of his stools and heaved him into the others. He held up his left arm, showing them all the bracelet.

‘It this what you want?’ the slayer roared. ‘Come–!’

He was drowned out by a pair of deafening explosions. The whole room stopped where they were and everyone turned towards the bar. The landlord, a short, round man with sailor’s tattoos and a peg leg, stood upon it, two smoking pistols in his hands as plaster rained down all around him. From the look of the ceiling it wasn’t the first time such measures had been warranted.

‘Right, you wreckers!’ he said, dropping the pistols and taking an enormous bell-mouthed blunderbuss from a serving girl behind the bar. ‘Outside or I’ll give you a volley of shot in yer tender parts!’

The threat worked well enough on most of the patrons – particularly those that already had some of Gotrek’s gold clutched in their hands – and they ran for the exits, but the pirates were made of sterner stuff. One of them pulled a pistol of his own and aimed it at the landlord.

‘And I’ll give you a hole where yer mouth is,’ he snarled.

Felix raised his cudgel to beat the man’s arm down, but just then the Black Caps ran back in, whistles blowing and truncheons at the ready.

The landlord waved them towards the pirates. ‘Them there, Captain Schnell! They’re disturbing the peace!’

The old pirate backed away. ‘Hard about, messmates!’ he croaked, as the watchmen started forward. He shot a glare at Gotrek. ‘We’ll finish this later.’

The pirates scattered in every direction, and the Black Caps raced after them. The taproom was suddenly empty.

Gotrek glared around at the floor, which was conspicuously bare of treasure. ‘All gone,’ he said, disgusted. ‘The dirty thieves.’

‘Serves you right for sorting it in public,’ said Felix wearily. He looked around for a place to sit, but before he could right a bench, the landlord turned his blunderbuss their way.

‘You too, buckos,’ he called, jerking his chin towards the door. ‘You were in the middle of it. On yer way.’

‘But....’ said Felix. ‘But we have a room here.’

‘You had a room here,’ said the landlord.

Felix was about to argue the point, but Gotrek grunted and started towards the door. ‘Forget it, manling. The beer was terrible anyway.’

As they crossed to the door, Gotrek paused, then bent and picked something up from the floor – a wayward topaz. ‘Here,’ he said, flipping it to the surprised landlord, who almost dropped his blunderbuss trying to catch it. ‘For the damages.’

With the old pirate’s vow that he would ‘finish this later’ still ringing in his ears, Felix was afraid that they would be jumped as soon as they left the inn, but apparently the Black Caps had chased the pirates off, for they made their way through the crowded streets without incident.

Unfortunately, because of those crowds, finding another room was difficult, and they spent more than an hour walking from inn to inn, and being turned away at every one. But finally, at the western-most end of the Suiddock, on a street that reeked of tar and rotting fish, they discovered a place that had a vacancy. Felix didn’t wonder why. The Bunk and Binnacle was dreadful. Anyone with any money or sense would never have looked twice at the place.

It was small and cramped and reeked of damp and mildew, and every surface felt like it was covered in a thin layer of slime. Its floors dipped in the centre, its ceilings sagged, and its walls bulged in on either side. Felix was afraid to lean against them for fear they would collapse.

‘This place is a deathtrap,’ he said as he and Gotrek made their way up the three cockeyed flights of stairs to their room.

Gotrek shrugged. ‘No worse than most human places,’ he said.

Felix was too tired to argue. They had been walking forever. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

Felix stared around, appalled, as they entered their room. He had been in nicer prison cells. The smell of mildew was even stronger here, and seemed to be coming from the beds. The floor sloped down alarmingly towards the back wall, where the winter wind whistled through a shuttered window. He stepped cautiously down the slippery incline and opened it. One of the shutters tore from its rusty hinges and fell away. Felix looked down and saw it splash into the water of the harbour, directly below him. The inn leaned out over it like a vulture preparing to swoop down on a carcass.

Felix backed cautiously from the drop, wiping his hands on his breeches. ‘I really would have preferred to give up the bracelet and keep our room at the Pelican’s Perch,’ he said.

‘It wasn’t your bracelet,’ said Gotrek, and started laying out his bedroll on the floor.

Felix was dragged from sleep some time later by soft squelching noises and angry dwarfen grunts. He pried open his eyes and peered around at the darkness, feeling for his sword.

‘Gotrek?’

‘Get off me, you snot-skinned invertebrates!’ came the slayer’s voice, followed by the crunch of an axe through bone and a shriek of pain.

Felix jumped to his feet and drew his sword. In the fuzzy dimness of the room he could see a dozen black shapes squirming and thrashing where Gotrek had been lying. The reek of damp, which before had been only unbearable, was now too thick to breathe. ‘Hoy!’ he choked, then stabbed at the back of a flailing form.

The thing snarled and turned on him, lashing out with long arms. It was wearing breeches and a shirt, but that was Felix’s only clue that it had once been human. As his eyes adjusted, he could see that the inner side of its arms and hands were covered with disc-shaped suckers, and it had a head like a trout.

Felix slashed at it, nausea and pity warring within him. The trout-man ducked and caught his blade in a suckered hand. Felix tried to jerk it away, but the discs stuck fast to the smooth steel, and the mutant pulled at it with uncanny strength.

Sounds of terrible violence continued from Gotrek’s side of the room as Felix fought the trout-man for the sword. Then two more mutants charge out of the dark. One had a rusty boarding axe clutched in hands like crab claws. The other was a woman – or had been – with hair like a sea anemone and translucent fins running down the length of her forearms. She slashed at him and they sliced through his clothes to his skin. They were razor sharp!

Felix kicked her in the face, then ducked crab-hands’ rusty axe. Trout-face tried to catch Felix’s neck with his other tentacle. Felix let go of his sword and grabbed the slimy thing, yanking him off his feet and sending him careening into crab-hands. The mutants crashed down on the flimsy bed, collapsing it. Felix stomped on trout-face’s wrist. He yelped and let go of the sword. Felix snatched it up and spun just in time to block another swipe from the fin-woman. His sword tore through her right fin and into her arm. She staggered back, wailing, and fell in a heap against the door.

Felix whipped back and gutted crab-hands and trout-face as they tried to stand. They toppled back into the ruin of the bed, gushing black blood.

Felix stumbled over the uneven floor towards Gotrek. The slayer was in the centre of a whirlwind of crazed mutants. Half a dozen lay dead and dismembered on the floor, but just as many still surrounded him, swinging boathooks, cutlasses and belaying pins at him with wild abandon. One of them, a sleek-skinned, barrel-shaped little runt with flipper arms, had swallowed Gotrek’s left arm up to the elbow in its sphincter-like mouth. Gotrek swung him around like a flesh mace, knocking down his comrades with his bulbous body, then cleaving their heads and chests with his axe as they fell.

Felix leapt into the fray and cut down two of Gotrek’s attackers from behind. Gotrek clubbed three more to the floor and hacked them to pieces. Only the flipper-man remained, stuck on the end of Gotrek’s arm like a living gauntlet.

‘Mutant filth!’ rasped Gotrek, and slammed him down as hard as he could.

The mutant slapped against the planks like a carp against a cutting board, letting go of Gotrek’s arm with a fishy gasp.

Gotrek chopped down at it, but it squirmed wetly down the sloping floor and the slayer’s axe smashed through rotting floorboards. Felix leapt after the thing, but the canted planks were slick with blood and slime and he fell.

‘I’ve got him,’ said Gotrek, skating forward on the film of muck with his axe raised.

But he didn’t, for before the slayer could reach him, the flipper-man humped himself upright against the wall and threw himself out the window.

Gotrek slammed into the sill and looked out and down. He cursed as, from far below, there came a splash.

Felix picked himself up, his clothes wet with blood and noxious fluids. All the remaining mutants seemed to be dead or dying. The battle was over.

‘Is everyone out to get us in this miserable town?’ he sighed. ‘What did they want?’

‘The bracelet,’ said Gotrek. He turned away from the window and held up the arm the flipper-man had been gnawing on. ‘And they took it. That thing swallowed it.’

Felix groaned. The damned bracelet again.

From the door came a shrill cackling. They looked around. The wounded fin woman was grinning at them, a demented gleam in her too-widely-spaced eyes. ‘Though you kill a thousand of us, we will prevail. Stromfels’ will shall not be denied.’

Felix hadn’t heard that name since he and Gotrek had sailed with the pirates of Sartosa. Stromfels was a sea god – a shark god – the evil mirror of Manann, sworn to by pirates up and down the coast of the Old World.

Gotrek strode towards the woman, his axe raised menacingly. ‘Do you know where they took it?’

‘Oh yes,’ she laughed. ‘To the swamps. To the ceremony. To Stromfels’ Reach.’

Gotrek put the axe blade to her throat. ‘You will take us there, wretch.’

The fin-woman tittered. ‘No need for threats, mein herren. I’ll take you. Stromfels welcomes sacrifices.’

By the shifting light of the moons, which peeked occasionally through breaks in the roiling clouds like pale eyes through knotholes, Gotrek and Felix set down their poles and followed the fin-woman as she stepped from the weathered flatboat onto a mist-shrouded mud bank deep in the middle of the Cursed Marshes. Gotrek steadied himself with his axe and spat a fat gob of phlegm.

‘The only thing worse than sitting in a boat,’ he said, wiping his mouth. ‘Is standing in one.’

Felix for once agreed with him. Dwarfs were notoriously unhappy on water, but even for Felix, piloting the wobbly little craft had been a stomach-churning chore.

Something shrieked like a banshee in the middle distance. Felix jumped, heart thudding. Gotrek turned, ready to fight.

The fin-woman paid the noise no attention. ‘Hurry, mien herren,’ she said, beckoning them on. ‘They will beginning soon. They will want you.’

Felix let out a breath, then glared at Gotrek as they followed the fin-woman into the sea of chest-high sawgrass that rippled and whispered around them in all directions. There was no reason for them to be traipsing through a swamp in the middle of the night. They could have been back in Marienburg, asleep in a comfortable bed – or at least looking for one – if not for Gotrek’s stubbornness.

Felix had tried his best to convince him to forget the bracelet and go back to Altdorf, but the slayer would have none of it.

‘No, manling,’ he had said. ‘A slayer cannot stand by when there are mutants to be killed, and a dwarf can never forgive a theft.’

‘But you stole it from Euler,’ Felix had countered.

Gotrek had snorted. ‘Stealing from a thief is not stealing.’

After that faultless display of dwarf logic, Felix had given up. Now he wished he had tried harder. Even on a summer’s day, the Cursed Marshes were unlikely to have been a pleasant place for a stroll, but now, in winter, in the coldest hours of the morning, with a fitful wind spitting icy swamp-water in Felix’s face and the sopping ground sucking at his boots and freezing his toes through the leather, it was a nightmare. Weird rustlings and moanings came from every direction, and writhing arms of mist curled up from the tall grass like looming spectres. He kept looking over his shoulders at things that weren’t there.

‘Careful, mein herren,’ said the fin-woman as Felix almost stepped into a hidden channel. She giggled. ‘Wouldn’t want to deny Stromfels’ Harbinger his snack.’

Felix backed from the channel and followed more carefully behind her. She might once have been attractive, for she had a shapely figure and piercing blue eyes, but now she was repulsive. In addition to the fins that stuck from her wiry forearms, her mouth hung open in a fishy gape, and her eyes were pushed to the sides of her head, peering slyly from under a mop of tiny, translucent tentacles that writhed with a mind of their own.

‘What do your friends want with this bracelet?’ he asked her as they swished through the grass.

‘Stromfels’ Heart?’ she said, chuckling. ‘Why, it’s the centre of the whole thing, mein herr. It calls the Harbinger. Wakes him, y’might say. Gives him his strength. Without it, there ain’t no ceremony.’ Her lower lip pushed out in a pout. ‘Like last year. Very sad, that was, when that false pirate Euler took it.’

‘False pirate?’ said Felix. ‘He seemed piratical enough to me.’

‘A true pirate worships Stromfels,’ she sniffed. ‘That fat lubber was just a thief with a boat, and we’re obliged to you for getting the Heart back from his safe. Most kind of you. Mind the bloodsedge, mein herr,’ she added.

Felix jerked his foot back as a bush in his path rattled to life and extended vine-like tendrils towards him. He hacked at one that tried to snare his ankle, then danced away after Gotrek and the woman. The thing rustled in agitated frustration behind them.

‘I hate this place,’ said Felix.

‘At least were off the cursed boat,’ said Gotrek.

They pressed on.

A half hour later, they came to a dense stand of bulrushes growing from the water of a wide, shallow inlet. The plants were taller than Felix’s head.

‘Just through here, mein herren,’ said the fin-woman, smiling back at them as she stepped down into the water. ‘Hurry now.’ And with that she disappeared into the towering thicket.

They splashed after her and shouldered into the close set plants. The tall stalks bent aside as they parted them, then sprung back after they had passed. Felix couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead, and lost sight of the woman almost immediately. He tried to listen for the slosh of her footsteps, but they were drowned out by their own.

Felix looked over his left shoulder, then his right. ‘This is an ambush,’ he muttered.

‘We can only hope,’ said Gotrek.

He lashed out with his axe, hacking a swath through the tall plants. Felix drew his sword and joined him, swinging wide. The bulrushes toppled before them, but didn’t reveal hidden assailants, only more bulrushes.

‘Quicker, mein herren!’ echoed the fin-woman’s voice from far ahead. ‘You don’t want to be late.’

They pressed on, cursing, and a few minutes later came to the far edge of the stand, and a muddy shore that fringed another sea of sawgrass. They stepped warily up out of the water and looked around. The fin-woman was nowhere to be seen.

‘Where are you, woman?’ called Felix. ‘Come out!’

There was no response. Felix cursed and slashed angrily at the sawgrass. ‘She’s tricked us. She’s led us off into the middle of nowhere. I’ll wager the ceremony is miles from here.’

‘No, manling,’ said Gotrek, pointing. ‘It is there.’

Felix turned and followed the slayer’s gaze. Far across the waving grass was a low hill, rising from the marsh like the back of some aquatic behemoth, and behind it, glowing dimly through the shrubs that furred its spine, was an orange flicker of fire.

A short while later, Felix and Gotrek hid among those shrubs and peered at the scene below them. The hill sloped down to a shale beach that curved around a tidal lagoon, hemmed in on all sides by the sawgrass marsh. A bonfire blazed on the beach, illuminating an ancient, sea-weathered standing stone that rose from the shallows. The thing was twice as high as a man and carved to resemble a shark’s head, with a crude triangular notch in the front to delineate a mouth. Around this central stone eight smaller stones, man-high and carved all over with saucer-sized circles, also poked from the waves. An altar to Stromfels, Felix was certain, though it wasn’t clear to him what the lesser stones might represent.

More than a score of fish-featured mutants stood on the beach and in the water around the stone circle, chanting and raising their misshapen arms in exaltation as their long shadows undulated across the water like black snakes. In their centre, standing knee-deep in front of the shark stone, was the old pirate from the Pelican’s Perch, stripped to the waist and holding aloft Gotrek’s bracelet as he shouted an invocation to the sky. Felix wasn’t surprised to see him, nor his men, who stood and chanted along with the other worshippers. In fact, it made the night’s events fall into place. And though it sickened him, he wasn’t surprised that they were mutants either.

With their coats flung off in the heat of the fire, the pirates’ abnormalities were revealed – scales, fins, gills, webbed fingers, eel-like tails, trailing tendrils like those of a jellyfish. It was as if their god was slowly shaping them in his own image.

The old pirate’s mutation was the subtlest, but also the most disturbing. As the man gyrated in his ecstasy, Felix saw what he at first thought were strands from his beard waving in the wind. But a longer look revealed that the strands were actually finger-sized tentacles that ringed his mouth, and which had been hidden within the luxuriousness of his moustaches.

‘It seems you were right not to sell to him,’ said Felix, chagrined.

‘Aye,’ said Gotrek, but that was all. The slayer wasn’t one to say ‘I told you so.’

Felix looked further down the beach. At the edge of the firelight, a number of longboats were pulled up on the shale, and near them crouched half a dozen pitiful figures, all bound hand and foot, their ropes staked to the ground so they couldn’t escape. Felix thought he recognised their guide, the fin-woman, among the guards that watched over them. He could see her peering around into the shadows – looking for him and Gotrek no doubt.

‘The vanished revellers?’ Felix asked, nodding towards the six prisoners.

Gotrek nodded. ‘Sacrifices,’ he growled.

Felix feared he was right. He gripped his sword. ‘Then we’d better go stop the ceremony before it is complete.’

‘No,’ said Gotrek. ‘We wait.’

Felix turned to him, confused. ‘But if we wait, they will call their god, and–’

‘Aye,’ Gotrek interrupted. ‘Mutants are nothing. I want to fight this harbinger, whatever it is.’

‘But, the sacrifices,’ said Felix.

‘I’ll kill it before it comes to that,’ said Gotrek dismissively.

Felix shook his head. He sometimes forgot that, though Gotrek generally fought for the good of the Old World, and hated Chaos with a passion, he chose his fights for glory as much as for any other reason.

A rising wail from the mutants returned his attention to the ceremony below. Things seemed to be reaching a climax.

While the mutants writhed and chanted, in the centre of the ring, the old pirate turned to the shore and dropped to his knees in the water, the bracelet raised high over his head.

Felix blinked and squinted at the thing. This far away, it was hard to make out details, but its appearance had definitely changed. The braided gold coil that the central bezel was fixed to seemed to have unwoven itself, the gleaming strands spreading out from the gem like spider legs. They even appeared to be stretching and curling – a grasping hand of yellow wire.

Gotrek edged forward, his single eye glittering eagerly in the firelight.

As the wild chant grew faster and louder, the old pirate lowered the clutching golden thing to his chest and pressed it against his sternum. Felix saw the gold wires clench, digging into his tattooed flesh. The pirate grimaced, but held the jewel in place. The wires gripped harder. He screamed and spasmed, his mouth tentacles trembling. The gold claws dug down into his chest like they were seeking his heart.

The pirate thrashed and convulsed, but made no move to try to pull off the burrowing bracelet. Finally, with a last agonised bellow, he stiffened and pitched face-first into the waves, his head completely submerged.

The mutant worshippers all fell silent, staring, as he floated face down in the water. Felix stared too. Had the old man died? Had the evil jewel killed him?

‘Do you think perhaps that didn’t go as planned?’ he whispered.

‘Quiet, manling,’ said Gotrek.

Felix turned back to the beach. For a long moment there was no movement at all, and no noise but for the crackle of the bonfire. But then, with a splash and a cry, the old pirate twitched and floundered in the water.

Felix could hear an indrawn breath from the mutants, and then a huge cheer as the pirate pushed himself up and stood, streaming with water.

‘The Harbinger!’ they cried. ‘Stromfels’ Harbinger is here!’

Felix did not feel like cheering. He felt like vomiting, for a horrible transformation had come over the old pirate, and was continuing as he watched.

For one thing, he was larger than before, and was growing bigger still. He now towered head and shoulders above his followers, and his body was thickening and turning a dull iron grey. For another, he was distorting hideously. His neck swelled with muscle until it was as wide as his shoulders and his head grew to match. A triangular fin sprouted from his back, and his eyes became black orbs and shifted position, moving above his ears, which shrank into his skull and vanished. His nose widened and lengthened until it took over his whole face, and his mouth stretched along with it, a black, lipless gash filled with razor-sharp teeth. But more horrible still was the transformation of the eight little tentacles that had surrounded his mouth. As he grew and changed, so did they, lengthening and thickening until they were as big around as pythons, while their inner surfaces sprouted cup-sized suckers that clenched and contracted obscenely.

The pirate-turned-monster threw back his head and howled in a voice like a howling winter storm, his arms and tentacles raised in triumph. ‘Bring the offerings!’ he roared. The gem from the evil bracelet glowed blue-green in the centre of his chest.

Gotrek stood and drew his axe from his back, grinning savagely. ‘Now this will be a fight,’ he said, then charged down the slope towards the beach, roaring a wordless battle-cry.

Felix hesitated as the mutants all turned and stared, then he sighed and ran after the slayer. It rankled somewhat that Gotrek seemed to assume that he would automatically follow him into battle. That certainly hadn’t been their original bargain. Felix had sworn to record Gotrek’s doom, not share it. But he had fought so many times at the slayer’s side that it had indeed become second nature, and he did sometimes charge in after him without thinking. Had he, Felix wondered with sudden concern, come to look forward to it?

The pirates and mutants swarmed to meet them as the hulking, shark-mouthed octopoid howled behind them from the water.

‘Bring me the trespassers!’ it cried. ‘They will be first!’

Gotrek ploughed into the horde, driving those at the front back into the rest as his rune axe splintered spears and sheared through swords and arms and stranger appendages in a bloody blur. He didn’t slow to fight them, however, only cut a path through them, his attention entirely on Stromfels’ Harbinger, who surged out of the lagoon to face him.

Felix fell on the mutants before they had recovered from Gotrek’s passage, impaling the wounded and hacking down those who were trying to stand. Not exactly sporting, but then again, they meant to feed him to their god as a snack, so he felt little remorse. The rest turned and leapt at him as, beyond them, Gotrek pounded across the shale at the looming monster.

Now Felix did regret following the slayer, for a dozen weapons were stabbing at him all at once, and he had to whirl like a top with his sword at full extent just to keep them at bay. At least, he thought, there is room enough here to swing and light enough to see, luxuries he hadn’t had in his earlier fights against them.

‘Get ‘im, my darlings!’ screeched a familiar female voice from the edges of the mob. ‘He ain’t nice to ladies!’

Felix cut down a man with gaping fish-heads for hands and dodged past him to the bonfire, then snatched up a burning branch in his left hand and turned to face the rest. A brilliant plan, he thought. With the flames at his back he would only have to defend in front of him.

They charged in, howling, and he stumbled back, nearly falling into the fire as he blocked their blows. A brilliant plan, he thought again, as his backside began to grow unpleasantly warm.

Beyond the mutants, Felix saw Gotrek’s fight in brief glimpses – two heavy, suckered tentacles spinning away in a spray of black blood – the Harbinger of Stromfels howling in agony – Gotrek clubbed into the lagoon by another tentacle.

‘You are fools,’ the fin-backed behemoth shouted as it waded out after him. ‘Just like the damned Marienburgers.’

The slayer jumped up again, axe raised, but to Felix’s horror, the monster’s two severed tentacles had grown back, as thick and strong as before.

‘They think it is their milquetoast prayers to Manann that protect them from the winter gales,’ the monster rumbled as it lashed the slayer with its limbs and drove him back amongst the standing stones. ‘Ha! Only appeasing Stromfels will stop the storms. We are the true protectors of Marienburg!’

Gotrek chopped furiously, severing tentacle after tentacle as he tried to reach the monster’s shark-like trunk, but no matter how many he cut, by the time he had finished cutting the last, the first had grown back again.

Felix, too, was in desperate straits. A woman with stinging whips growing from her neck lashed them at his face while a dozen more mutants stabbed at him. He hacked wildly around at them all while trying to shield his face from the whips. One burned his cheek and he flinched back, crying out. His heel crunched down on a burning log. He smelled burning wool. He was standing in the fire!

An iron-shod staff rammed him in the chest, knocking him further back. He was falling! Desperate, he snatched at the staff, hauling at it with all his might.

Fortunately, the mutant was pulling too, trying to jerk the staff from Felix’s grip. Felix used the momentum to launch himself forward and shouldered the man to the ground, then hurriedly tore off the flaming cloak, his heart pounding, and whirled it over his head.

‘Back, damn you!’ he gasped, fighting for breath. ‘I’ll burn you!’

A mutant snagged the cloak on his spear tip and whipped it contemptuously away. The others pressed in again from all sides. Felix cursed and spun around with his sword, his lungs aching as he tried to hold them all away – right back where he’d started. At least he’d gotten away from the fire.

In the water, the Harbinger of Stromfels shouted in triumph and lifted a struggling Gotrek over his gaping mouth, pinning his right arm and axe with a tentacle.

Felix cursed and charged towards it, trying to break through the ring of mutants to reach the slayer in time.

‘Gotrek!’ he cried, hacking wildly. ‘Hang on!’

The slayer’s left hand scrabbled for the haft his axe, then tore it free and hacked down at the tentacle, severing it. He splashed at the monsters feet and disappeared under the water as it screamed in agony.

It plunged its arms and tentacles below the surface, feeling for him. ‘I will tear you apart!’

Gotrek surged up behind the thing, the severed tentacle still wrapped around him, and aimed a left-handed slash at its spine, but the massive beast turned with surprising speed and the axe blade caught it under the ribs instead, sinking deep. The Harbinger roared in pain and fell back into the water, crashing down by the standing stone.

All around Felix, the mutants wailed and spasmed in eerie unison to their leader’s agony. Felix lashed out at them, trying to take advantage of their weakness, but they staggered away, shrieking. He was too tired to pursue. He stumbled towards the slayer.

Gotrek was wading deeper into the water, axe raised for another strike. Felix sloshed in after him, and they strode out past the circle of stones together, looking all around, but the water remained calm and flat.

‘He has defeated the Harbinger of Stromfels!’ cried the mutants, fleeing into the shadows. ‘He’ll kill us all!’

Gotrek ignored them, chopping at the water with his axe. ‘Come back, you coward!’ he bellowed. ‘I know you’re not dead!’

His voice echoed away across the lagoon, to be answered only with silence. He grunted and spit into the waves, then turned and slogged back to the shore, prying the severed tentacle from his skin with a series of dull pops.

Felix looked around the beach. The mutants had vanished, leaving their dead behind. ‘Well done,’ he said.

‘Bah,’ said the slayer, disgusted. ‘It ran away, and took the bracelet with it.’

Felix nodded, knowing the slayer would accept no sympathy. ‘Well, at least we can bring these poor wretches back to safety.’ He pointed down the beach. ‘They left their boats.’

Gotrek shrugged, not at all consoled. ‘I suppose.’

They walked down the beach to the prisoners, keeping their eyes on the shadows, but the mutants remained hidden.

‘What have you done, you meddlers?’ whined a tired-looking woman in a shopkeeper’s apron as Felix knelt to cut her ropes.

‘Eh?’ said Felix. ‘We’re saving you.’

‘And dooming Marienburg,’ said a captured stevedore. ‘You should have left well enough alone.’

Felix frowned. ‘You came willingly?’ Then why did they tie you down?’

The stevedore hung his head. ‘Some change their minds at the last minute.’

‘Now Stromfels will send the storms,’ said a third captive, a young man in the uniform of the Black Caps. ‘Our deaths would have appeased him, but now....’

Gotrek turned his single baleful eye on him. ‘You worship that abomination?’

‘No,’ said the shop wife. ‘Never. But the swamp men are right. It is he who calls the storms, not Manann, and so we give ourselves up to keep our families safe for another winter.’

Gotrek spat, disgusted. ‘You’re to blame for its power. You make it stronger with your fear.’

‘And you’ve made it angry with your slaughter,’ said the stevedore. ‘Many ships will sink this winter because of you.’

Gotrek snorted and turned away.

Despite their protestations, the rescued prisoners were quite willing to go back to Marienburg with Gotrek and Felix before the mutants returned, so they stole one of the longboats and set off. Gotrek refused to row, or do anything but sit in the stern looking green at the gills, so Felix and the men took up the oars and poles, with the shop wife at the prow, calling out the hazards.

After a long hour of rowing and poling through weed-choked and winding waterways, then fighting the strong currents of the Manannspoort Sea, they pulled wearily into Marienburg’s harbour and rowed through the Brunwasser Kanal just as the first grey light of the day began to tinge the eastern sky.

Already, the big merchant ships that lined the docks were being loaded and unloaded by armies of longshoremen, while huge winches lifted cargo nets full of barrels and burlap sacks from deep holds, and carts and wagons piled to the point of collapse with goods from all over the world creaked away into the city.

It made Felix tired just to look at it all. He was ready to drop. Except for a fitful hour’s sleep on the damp floor of the Bunk and Binnacle, the entire night had been spent walking, rowing, fighting, or slogging across swampy ground.

Finally, they nosed the longboat under the prow of a cargo ship and glided towards a little wooden dock that stuck out from a stone bank. Felix reached out to grab a piling and pull them close as the others backed their oars, but just as he touched the post the boat stopped suddenly, and then jerked backward in the water. Felix stumbled and fell on top of the shop wife.

‘Easy,’ he said, pushing himself upright. ‘No need to...’

He paused as he saw the other rowers looking around too.

‘Who did that?’ Gotrek growled, raising his head.

The boat lurched suddenly down at the stern, and the nose shot up. Felix fell again as the others cried out. Something snaked from the water and curled over the side of the boat. A tentacle.

‘Stromfels’ Harbinger!’ screamed the shop wife.

Felix’s heart lurched as he stood again. More tentacles gripped the boat from all sides.

‘Off!’ roared Gotrek.

‘Onto the dock!’ Felix shouted.

He tried to run to the side, but the boat tilted and rose out of the water. He fought for balance, then threw himself towards the dock, now a man’s height below him. He landed hard on his hands and rolled across the planks. A thud and a curse told him that Gotrek had done the same. A few splashes told him that others had fallen short.

He rolled on his back and looked up. Eight huge tentacles were lifting the longboat as the rescued sacrifices wailed and clung to it. Then, with a splintering crack, the curling limbs ripped the boat asunder, and the men and women fell into the water, flailing and screaming.

A blunt grey island poked up directly under the shop wife, and she clung to it. The island had a mouth. It yawned open and the woman tumbled in, shrieking. Teeth like elven shields closed, crushing her. The shrieks ceased.

The others floundered desperately for the dock, but the huge tentacles caught them and raised them high.

‘Gods,’ said Felix, backing away. ‘It’s grown.’

Gotrek grinned maniacally. ‘Good.’ He drew his axe.

The Harbinger of Stromfels breached the waves, water streaming down it in sheets – a shark’s head and body, twice the height of a man, with tiny, useless arms, but eight tree-trunk tentacles ringing its mouth. The axe wound Gotrek had given it earlier was nothing more than a puckered line on one flank. The gem of the golden bracelet looked as small as a nail head in the centre of its broad grey chest. Felix stared in horrified wonder. The thing could tear down a temple of Sigmar.

‘Did you think Stromfels would let the sea be my grave?’ it roared, turning eyes like black glass cannonballs on them as the shop wife’s blood streamed from its mouth.

All over the docks people ran and screamed. Stevedores abandoned their loads. Merchants and sailors fled their ships. The crew of a winch left a pallet of grain sacks swinging in mid-air as they ran and called for the Black Caps.

‘I’ve come for what is mine!’ the Harbinger rumbled, shaking four of its squirming victims at Gotrek as it stuffed a fifth into its maw.

‘Let them go, fish!’ bellowed Gotrek, sprinting to the end of the dock and swiping at one of the extended tentacles. ‘Fight me!’

The beast howled in pain and jerked the tentacle back as Gotrek’s axe bit deep. It glared at the slayer. ‘Very well,’ it said. ‘They will wait.’

It tossed the captives aside and whipped its tentacles at Gotrek, trying to sweep him off the dock.

The slayer rolled between two sturdy pilings, then lashed out at the Harbinger’s limbs from their cover. Felix ran forward to help him, but leapt back again immediately as a tentacle nearly knocked his legs out from under him. He swiped wildly at it as it passed, opening a red groove in it. The monster roared and grabbed for him, but he dodged out of reach.

Gotrek, however, was in the middle of a tentacle hurricane. Some tried to knock him from between the pilings. Some tried to squash him to the dock. Some tried to grab him. He countered them all, making the beast pay for each attack with bloody, trench-deep gashes. It howled at every strike, but kept flailing. Its tentacles were too thick now to be severed with one blow, and to Felix’s horror, the wounds grew closed in the time it took for it to draw back and strike again. It seemed impossible that Gotrek could kill it before it found some way to pry him from his cover.

A tentacle slammed into the dock, smashing through the planks at Gotrek’s feet. It had found a way.

The slayer jumped back. Another tentacle slapped down and more planks caved in. Gotrek fell back again. The Harbinger came on, hauling itself out of the water with its tentacles and stomping forward on huge human legs that shook the dock with each step.

Felix backed towards the stone embankment with the slayer as the tentacles swatted at them, inches away.

‘What now?’ he asked.

‘The fish-woman said the bracelet gives it its power,’ Gotrek rasped. ‘If I can take it, I wager I can kill it.’

They reached the embankment and ducked behind a wall of crates.

‘But how will you get past its tentacles?’

The slayer shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’

The monster tore down the crates and hurled them away. Gotrek and Felix dove to the ground as they bounced over their heads and smashed to pieces beyond them. People fled screaming. Felix and Gotrek picked themselves up and joined them. The Harbinger lumbered after them on its tentacles like an ape on its knuckles.

A handful of sailors appeared at the rail of the ship to their left, all armed with long guns. They fired. The beast writhed as the bullets tore into its body, but kept on, not turning from its prey.

Gotrek looked up at the ship and paused, almost taking a tentacle in the small of the back. He spun and lopped off the tip of the thing, then started up the ramp to the big cargo dock. ‘Lead it this way.’

There was no time to wonder what Gotrek’s plan was. The Harbinger was pulling itself up the ramp faster than they could run. Felix slashed behind him at a questing tentacle and missed, then had to leap like a scalded cat to avoid being flattened by a barrel it flung after them.

‘Faster, manling,’ said Gotrek.

Felix grunted, he was going faster.

They topped the ramp and stumbled on, weaving through piles of cargo as the towering mutant smashed barrels and crates into the water. Gotrek looked up as they ran under the pallet of grain sacks that dangled high over the dock, and Felix suddenly knew what the slayer intended.

Gotrek looked over his shoulder. The Harbinger was just ducking under the pallet.

Gotrek chuckled evilly. ‘Away, manling!’

The slayer veered left, sprinting for the winch that held the pallet and raising his axe. Felix dived over a pile of rolled carpets and looked back.

He gaped as Gotrek fell flat on his face, inches from the base of the winch. A tentacle jerked the slayer up off the ground by the ankles and raised him high.

‘You think I’m such a fool?’ laughed the monster.

It stepped out from under the dangling pallet, more tentacles wrapping around Gotrek as it lowered him towards its gaping mouth. The slayer wrenched his axe arm free and slashed around, but the limbs healed as fast as he cut them and didn’t let go.

With a grunt, Gotrek threw his axe at the Harbinger of Stromfels’s head. The weapon spun through the air and chunked into its shark-like snout, right between its oval nostrils, and stuck.

The beast bellowed and staggered back, cracking its head on the pallet as it blundered under it.

‘Manling, get the–’ A tentacle clamped over Gotrek’s face.

Felix ran for the winch, raising his sword.

The monster saw him and swayed forward unsteadily, shooting a pair of unoccupied tentacles after him. Felix dove, slashing. His sword sliced the rope, making it sing like a harp string, but a few strands still held.

Felix cursed and crashed to the dock. A tentacle wrapped around his leg, lifting him into the air. He swiped at the rope again as he was dragged back.

The last strands parted.

Swinging upside down in the Harbinger’s grip, Felix saw the pallet of grain sacks drop as the rope zipped through the pulleys. The monster lurched out of the way, but not fast enough. The pallet hit it on the hip, crushing its right leg and knocking it into a pile of crates. It crashed to the dock on its back, tentacles flailing for balance, and flung Felix away.

He slammed down on the lip of the dock and almost bounced off into the water. Only catching a wooden piling in the ribs stopped him from going over. He gasped as all the air shot out of him and lay there glaze-eyed, clinging feebly to the post.

The monster shoved feebly at the grain sacks with its tentacles, trying to free its legs. For a moment, Felix couldn’t see Gotrek amidst all the coiling limbs, but then he appeared, climbing the monster’s broad chest and reaching for the bracelet.

‘No!’ it roared.

The slayer got his thick fingers around the glowing green gem and pulled as tentacles bludgeoned his shoulders and back. Gotrek only tucked his head and pulled harder.

Felix staggered to his feet, clutching his aching ribs, and stumbled forward. He could see the golden wires of the bracelet pulling from the Harbinger’s flesh as Gotrek hauled on it. They stretched and strained, fighting to maintain their grip.

Felix hacked weakly at a flailing tentacle, hoping to divert the monster’s attention. It worked. It swatted him across the dock. Unfortunately, the rest of its tentacles were not distracted.

As Felix sat up, dazed, he saw the suckered limbs wrap around Gotrek’s arms, legs, torso and head, pulling him in eight directions at once. Felix winced. It was like watching someone being torn apart by horses. The slayer was so wrapped in tentacles that all Felix could see of him was one foot, a bit of orange crest, and his left arm, pinned fast against his back.

With a howl of frustration, Stromfels’ Harbinger pushed Gotrek away from its chest like someone trying to peel off an overly affectionate monkey, but Gotrek was still gripping the gem, and as the monster thrust him away, the bracelet tore from its chest. Felix saw the golden strands waving in the air like the legs of an inverted crab as Gotrek held it high.

The Harbinger screamed and convulsed, whipping its tentacles about in a frenzy and slamming Gotrek down on the deck of a nearby ship like a sack of wet clay. The bracelet spun away from Gotrek’s slack fingers and bounced down to the dock as the massive monster pushed up and looked around, the rune axe still sticking from its snout.

‘My heart!’ the Harbinger roared, as it saw the golden bracelet rolling along the planks.

Felix blanched. The cursed bauble was coming right towards him!

The beast surged up and thundered after it. ‘You will pay for this! All will pay!’

Felix scrambled between some crates as the Harbinger loomed over him, but it only snatched up the bracelet in a tentacle and held it high, its black eyes glittering triumphantly.

Felix gripped his sword, preparing to dash out and sever the tip of the tentacle that held the evil thing, but then he saw movement above and behind the monster.

Gotrek was running along the rail of the merchant ship. He leapt and landed on the beast’s broad back, clambering up its triangular fin towards its snout. The harbinger spun around, nearly throwing him off, but the slayer held tight and wrenched his axe free, then hacked down at its skull.

The monster roared and stumbled as the axe struck bone. Its tentacles whipped around, trying to dislodge the slayer. Gotrek struck again, laughing maniacally, and this time shattered the beast’s boney carapace. Blood and ooze soaked his face and beard as he pulled back for another blow.

Felix’s heart pounded with sudden hope. The Harbinger’s wound was not healing! The bracelet was no longer protecting it!

A third stroke and the monster’s tentacles sagged. It weaved on its legs, then toppled to the deck, crushing a pyramid of wine barrels. A pool of red spread out from beneath it as Gotrek rolled off its back and lay panting on the planks. His skin was marked from head to foot with red, saucer-sized rings.

Felix limped out of hiding as the slayer pulled himself to his feet. They looked down at the massive corpse.

‘This time,’ said Felix. ‘I think it’s finished.’

Gotrek shook his head, then turned to scan the dock. ‘There’s still the bracelet.’

Felix stared at him. ‘You’re not going to keep it?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘Not after this!’

‘No,’ said Gotrek. He crossed to the tentacle that held the jewel and pulled it free. He held it up. The thing had reverted to its original shape – a coil of woven gold holding a sea-green gem. ‘It needs to be destroyed. Cleansed.’

The slayer turned towards the city. ‘Come on, manling. There has to be a dwarf smith somewhere in this human swamp.’

Three hours later, as a cold wind whipped whitecaps across the harbour, Gotrek and Felix trudged wearily up the gangplank of the Jilfte Bateau, the river boat that would take them up the Reik to Altdorf.

Leaning on the rail at the top of the ramp was their old friend Max Schreiber, smoking a meditative pipe. Beside him was the young seeress, Claudia Pallenberger, still gaunt and weak from their recent adventure on the Sea of Chaos. Max smiled as Felix and the slayer stepped onto the deck.

‘You two look like you visited every taproom in Marienburg,’ he said.

‘Almost,’ answered Felix, too tired to deny his implication.

‘You nearly missed the boat,’ said Claudia.

‘We were busy,’ said Gotrek. ‘Purifying cursed gold.’

Max smirked and blew a stream of smoke into the air. ‘Some euphemism for drinking beer, no doubt,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Felix. ‘Not really.’

He shuffled with Gotrek towards the door to the cabins. He would explain later. Right now all he wanted to do was sleep all the way to Altdorf.

Just as he ducked through the door, raindrops spattered across the deck and the wind pushed hard at his back. He turned and looked to the west. The sky over the Manannspoort Sea was black with clouds. Felix’s chest tightened as they rolled closer. It looked like a terrible storm was about to hit Marienburg.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Greg Staples

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