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Fangs of the Rustwood – Evan Dicken

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Gloomspite’

A Black Library Publication

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Fangs of the Rustwood

by Evan Dicken

In his time with the Order of Azyr, Kantus Valo had trekked through many perilous places – from the Bruteplains of Ghur to the feculent mires that had spread like tumours across the once beautiful forests of Ghyran. And yet, few places had been so menacing as the Rustwood.

What began as a respectable path had tapered to a tightrope of dirt. Razorweed loomed on either side of the trail, shredding cloaks and flesh at the slightest misstep. Scrubbing a hand across his sweat-streaked brow, the witch hunter gingerly stepped over a thick patch of mirrorvine, only to leap back as something fell from the branches overhead. A daggerlike leaf flashed past Kantus’ face to clatter in the brush below.

He glanced warily up at the canopy. It was late afternoon, but the tangled branches almost blotted out Chamon’s ruddy bronze sun.

‘You’re bleeding, lord.’ Bas, the commander of Kantus’ four guards, held out a bit of torn cloth, gesturing to the witch hunter’s face.

Kantus raised a hand to his cheek, and his fingers came away wet with blood. He took the proffered rag, wrinkling his nose as he dabbed at the cut.

‘By Ghal Maraz, we’ll have to hack our way through.’ Bas removed his helmet to run a hand through his sweaty hair. ‘Those vines will blunt any blade we have.’

‘Then we shall blunt them. The Order of Azyr will not be kept waiting,’ Kantus ordered. On the map, the path ran right through the Rustwood, a far quicker journey to the Order’s stronghold at Eshunna than the old Lantic road through the Iron Desert.

‘Lads won’t like that.’ The veteran sucked air through his teeth. ‘Not with night approaching.’

‘We must press on.’

‘And the prisoners, lord?’ Bas winced.

‘I shall see to the prisoners.’

Haste was not his only reason for passing through the Rustwood. As much as Bas and the other guards were discomfited by the journey, the forest’s danger hung like a noose around the necks of Kantus’ prisoners, drawing tighter with each step. Those in fear were less able to mind their tongues, more likely to let something slip.

And Kantus would be there when it did.

With a ragged salute, Bas turned away, calling for the other guards to break out axes.

The witch hunter made his way to the back of their tiny column where his three charges shuffled, chained hand and foot in a short coffle attached to the back of an ibuq. The great land lizard shuffled along with its rolling, splay-legged gait, its long rasp of a tongue flicking out to nervously test the air. The metal chest and supply packs on its back rattled around.

‘Apologies, lord.’ The guard, Yusán, tugged the ibuq’s rein as the witch hunter approached. ‘Something’s got her spooked.’

Kantus held out his hand.

‘You are needed up front.’

‘Thank you, lord.’ Yusán handed over the reins with a look of relief. ‘Don’t know how much more doomsaying I could stand.’

Kantus dismissed the guard, then turned to regard the lead prisoner.

‘You must turn back, before it is too late,’ the tall man in ragged robes wailed. Elabrin’s hair was unkempt, his once neatly combed beard now wild. Runes of negation were etched into his manacles, their soft glow casting the mage’s face in harsh relief and lending him a threadbare, nervous aspect like prey caught out upon an open plain.

‘Eyes like burning coals glitter in hungry shadow.’ Elabrin took a shaky breath. ‘We are as insects, struggling upon the surface of a still pond. Be still, be still!’

‘Enough prophecies, sorcerer. They’re what put you in chains in the first place,’ the second prisoner, Garrula Heko, growled, glaring at the back of Elabrin’s head as if she wanted to stab a knife in it. From what Kantus knew of Heko’s unsavoury reputation, she would have no qualms about killing the mage. Small and lithe as a gutter viper, with a round face and deep-set eyes, Heko cut an unassuming figure. But if Governor Bettrum’s journals could be believed, she was a purveyor of the most illicit and baneful toxins, linked to over a dozen poisonings over the past decade.

‘I am but a mouthpiece,’ Elabrin sighed, his voice taking on a weary tone.

‘It is not your prophecies that concern me.’ Kantus rested one hand on the pommel of his duelling sword. ‘But what steps you might have taken to realise them.’

‘Governor Bettrum would have brought doom to Uliashtai.’ Elabrin shifted with a clatter of chains. ‘I do not deny I prophesied this, but I did not murder him.’

‘That remains for the Order to determine.’ It was highly unorthodox, Kantus’ superiors demanding to see to the matter personally, but Governor Bettrum hailed from an old Azyrite family, one with connections that stretched throughout the Mortal Realms. And if Kantus understood anything, it was the importance of connections – favours paid and owed, the invisible currency of Azyrite society, one far more valuable than gold.

As the fifth son of a minor noble family, Kantus had joined the Order of Azyr to root out corruption and rid the realms of the heretical filth that gnawed at the roots of civilisation. If he happened to rise through the ranks of the Order in the bargain, it would only mean he was better placed to do Sigmar’s holy work.

The witch hunter regarded the three prisoners. One of them was a murderer and a heretic. If two innocents needed to suffer to find the guilty party, such was the price of justice.

‘Lord Bettrum was slain sometime in the night. His bodyguards saw no one enter or leave, there was no sign of a struggle, no forced entry and nothing out of place – this suggests sorcery.’

‘He’s got you there, mage,’ Heko drawled.

‘Or poison,’ Kantus countered. Governor Bettrum had tracked Heko for years, but had been unable to link her to a single murder. It would be quite the coup for Kantus to visit Sigmar’s justice upon such a traitor.

‘This still does not explain why you dragged me from my garrison, witch hunter.’ Captain Lim met Kantus’ gaze with unflinching calm. The third of his suspects, Lim was a broad-shouldered woman who bore her chains with the easy familiarity of someone used to bulky armour.

Kantus gave the captain a thin smile. ‘Your disagreements with the governor are well known.’

‘Hardly a condemnation.’ The captain’s lip curled, revealing several missing teeth. ‘If I wanted Bettrum dead, I would have challenged him to a duel.’

‘Like you did Captain Hardanger?’

Her jaw pulsed. ‘Hardanger was a drunk. Inebriation and high ramparts make for poor bedfellows.’

‘Be that as it may, you gained from your old captain’s death, just as you stand to gain from Lord Bettrum’s.’ Kantus cocked his head. ‘Or did I misread your petition to be named interim governor?’

‘I have fought for Uliashtai my whole life, bled for it.’ Lim stiffened. ‘I would die for my city.’

‘Kill for it, too, I presume,’ Kantus replied. ‘The captain of the city guard would be intimately familiar with the governor’s security, the layout of his chambers, patrol routes, perhaps even his nightly routine.’

The captain lapsed into cold silence.

‘Lord Bettrum’s body bore only one wound – on his stomach, just below the ribs,’ Kantus said. ‘None of his servants were aware of the injury, and yet the wound had putrefied, dark veins spreading through the governor’s body, paralysing him long before the corruption reached his heart. He died alone and in great pain, unable to even call for help. Do any of you know what might have caused such a death?’

‘They tread silken paths, delicate and deadly. Legs like knives, mouths like daggers.’ Elabrin let out a soft moan, but Kantus remained watching the other two prisoners.

Lim gave no reaction.

Heko, however, did.

It was slight – a tick at the corner of the poisoner’s mouth, a narrowing of her eyes – and yet it was the first crack in Heko’s mask. Now, Kantus only needed to widen it.

‘Heko, let me see your manacles.’ The witch hunter reached for the keys at his belt. ‘I wish to speak with–’

A scream from the front of the convoy, from where the guards had travelled out of sight, drowned out the witch hunter’s order.

Kantus drew his blade, gripping the rein of the snorting ibuq tighter. But the trees were silent and still, leaves motionless in the gathering gloom.

Yusán burst around the corner, running up to them. He was stripped to the waist, skin sheened with sweat, a chipped axe clutched in his white-knuckled hands.

‘Lord, come quickly,’ Yusán panted. ‘Herat fell.’

‘Stay with the prisoners. If any run, cut them down.’ With a curse, Kantus dodged past the wide-eyed guard. The path curved around the great bole of a serashem tree and up a small rise. Kantus crested the hill to see Bas and another guard feverishly hacking a long section of mirrorvine from the lower branches. Herat was nowhere to be seen.

‘Watch your step, lord.’ Bas grabbed Kantus’ shoulder, preventing him from stumbling headlong into the pit that bisected the path. The old veteran’s face was bone pale, his eyes tight and worried.

The pit was about ten feet wide and perhaps twice as deep, with an uneven, roughly excavated look. Herat lay splayed across the bottom, moaning faintly. Blood pooled around the sharpened stakes that pierced her body. Kantus noticed a disturbing, oily sheen to the wood, far different from the quicksilver sap of freshly cut serashem.

‘Tie this off.’ Bas handed the cut vine to the other guard, throwing the length into the pit. ‘I’m going down.’

Another pained moan came from the pit.

‘Get her out. Quickly. I’m less worried about the pit than whatever fashioned it. Fishing her out for too long will leave us exposed.’ Kantus shook his head, his dreams of power and patronage vanishing like morning mist. ‘Then the Order will have to wait. We are turning back.’

‘Thank you, lord.’ Bas gave a grateful nod.

Kantus sheathed his blade, stepping up to help lower Bas. The mirrorvine scraped across his gloves as he let the length play out, the other guard braced behind him.

Bas took the descent slowly. With each step loose dirt trickled down upon Herat.

‘Almost there,’ the veteran called up. ‘Keep it steady, a moment more and I’ll have her.’

Elabrin’s panicked shriek echoed up the path. ‘Their eyes are upon us!’

Unable to see the prisoners down the tree-shrouded hill, Kantus half-turned to shout at the mage for silence, but the vine suddenly jerked in his hands, dragging him towards the pit.

As Kantus teetered over the edge, he saw what had snagged the vine. One of Bas’ boots had triggered some manner of snare set into the side of the pit. This had released a tensioned branch anchored in the other wall. The branch, covered in long, thin spines, had whipped across to sink into the veteran’s exposed back.

Bas let out a soft cough, blood painting his lips.

‘Hold on!’ The witch hunter fought to regain his balance. ‘We will pull you out.’

‘Skittering! Crawling!’ Elabrin’s voice had risen to a mad howl. ‘Struggling only draws the noose tighter!’

Something fell from the branches above the witch hunter, dropping upon the guard behind him. Little more than an angular blur in the gloom, the spider was about the size of a large gryph-hound, with a bulbous body and profusion of long, slashing legs. The unfortunate guard shrieked as it sunk vicious fangs into his neck.

Unable to anchor the vine alone, Kantus was forced to let go or be dragged into the pit. The heavy thud from below was like a spear driven into the Kantus’ his breast. Anger and despair warred within him. He reached for the fury, let it lend him strength. Only survivors could mourn the dead.

Snatching his blade from his belt, Kantus charged the spider. An arrow hissed by the witch hunter’s face, and, with a start, he realised there was a grot crouched atop the beast, giggling and howling as the spider mauled Kantus’ guard.

He slashed at the grot, a looping strike that lopped the top from the creature’s bow and carved a thin red line across its hateful face. Instead of recoiling, the grot leapt at him, spitting blood as it brandished a wickedly curved dagger.

Kantus pivoted, the grot’s slash cutting fabric rather than flesh. Before it could attack again, Kantus slashed it across the chest then kicked the shrieking creature into the pit.

A flicker of motion at the edge of his vision gave Kantus warning just before the spider leapt at him. He spun, blade piercing the chitin just above the creature’s dripping fangs, sliding through its head into its body. The beast’s knife-sharp legs cut long gashes on the witch hunter’s shins, its jaws gnashing inches away from his exposed flesh. But he bore down, teeth gritted, and finally the creature’s spasms stopped.

Panting, Kantus gave the blade one final twist and stood, prepared for more grots to leap from the dark branches, but the forest remained still and silent.

After a long moment, Kantus glanced down at the spider-bitten guard. Foam dribbled from lips that had turned a deep, bruised purple. His eyes bulged sightlessly from his head, and his hands were hooked into agonised claws.

Suddenly, a yell pierced the night. Kantus hurried back towards the prisoners. As he approached, he saw Yusán trying to control the terrified ibuq, while Heko and Captain Lim stood head to head. From this distance, he could only hear snippets of what they were saying.

‘I warned you, captain,’ Heko hissed. ‘If you–’

The rest of the woman’s words were drowned out by a loud moan from Elabrin.

‘Too late…’ The mage turned his bloodshot eyes on Kantus. ‘Far too late.’

‘What happened?’ Yusán’s voice cracked. ‘Where are Bas and the others?’

Kantus shook his head.

Captain Lim shifted with a jangle of heavy chains. ‘I am sorry. They seemed like good soldiers.’

‘They were.’ Kantus gathered up the ibuq’s reins, dragging the beast’s head around as it snorted and stamped, pale yellow eyes terrified.

‘What are you doing?’ Heko asked.

‘It is too dangerous to press forward,’ Kantus replied. ‘We must head back and take the old Lantic road.’

‘You will never leave this forest.’

Elabrin’s words sent a shiver up Kantus’ spine.

‘Quiet, mage, before I gag you.’

‘He’s right, actually,’ Captain Lim said. ‘I’ve fought the Spiderfang before. That grot back there was just a scout. There are probably a dozen more closing in on us right now.’

Kantus tugged at the ibuq, scowling as the lizard tossed its heavy head in agitation. ‘And what would you have me do?’

The captain held up her manacled hands.

‘Free us.’

‘And risk the murderer slipping a dagger into my back?’

‘You’ll never outrun the Spiderfang, not like this,’ Lim replied. ‘When they come, and they will come, you are going to need every blade.’

As if to echo the captain’s warning, a low, hollow drumming echoed through the forest, still distant, the direction impossible to place.

‘What use is any of this if we’re all dead?’ Heko asked.

Kantus glanced at Elabrin, but the mage was staring sadly at his feet, silent for once. Yusán seemed on the verge of panic, terrified gaze sweeping the darkened branches, his axe gripped in white-knuckled fists.

‘If I am going to die, let me do it with a blade in my hands.’ Lim shook her chains. ‘Not bound and hobbled like a beast marked for slaughter.’

Kantus felt a rare uncertainty well up through the cracks in his resolve. The captain was right – if he continued as planned, he would never reach the Order’s stronghold, never stand before his superiors with the revelation of who murdered the governor.

Knowing he had no other choice, Kantus set his jaw and drew the key from his belt and opened the chest secured to the ibuq’s back. Throwing the lid back, he revealed the weapons and equipment he had seized from the prisoners.

‘Lord?’ Apprehension whetted Yusán’s question to razor sharpness. ‘Is that wise?’

Kantus gave no reply, instead turning to unlock the chains binding the prisoners.

‘You should get rid of the ibuq. It will slow us down.’ Captain Lim retrieved her blade from the land lizard’s back. ‘Drive it into the forest. The noise might distract the Spiderfangs.’

‘I thought you said we couldn’t outrun them.’ Heko massaged her chafed wrists as Kantus removed her manacles and leg irons.

‘We cannot.’ The captain tried a few practice cuts in the air, then nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘But that does not mean we shouldn’t try.’

Heko nodded, helping herself to her crossbow, quiver and brace of daggers from the chest.

‘Promise me, when the time comes…’ Elabrin’s eyes were little more than shadowed hollows in a face weathered as old parchment. His gaze flicked to Kantus’ blade then back to the witch hunter’s face. ‘Do not let them take me alive.’

‘No one is taking you anywhere but me,’ Kantus replied.

Elabrin’s laugh was almost a sob.

The clang of boots on fallen leaves caused Kantus to turn. He saw Heko sprinting down the path towards the pit.

‘Do not let these two move,’ the witch hunter growled to the guard. With a curse, he ran after Heko, rounding the bend in the trail to see her kneeling by the dead spider.

‘Calm yourself, witch hunter.’ Heko used one of her daggers to cut into the spider’s mouth, deftly working the blade around to remove a bloodied bit of viscera. ‘Venom sac. The spiders may be immune to it, but I’m willing to bet the grots aren’t.’

She slit it open, then dipped her daggers and quarrels into the venom.

Kantus drew his blade. ‘How does a person come to know so much about poisons?’

‘That’s a foolish question.’ Heko stood. Sheathing her dagger, she stepped around Kantus, apparently untroubled by the blade hovering inches away from her throat. ‘A good purveyor knows all her trappings.’

Kantus did not lower his blade.

‘I didn’t murder Bettrum, witch hunter.’

‘The governor wanted to see you hanged.’

‘The governor was an imbecile.’ Her lip curled into a half-snarl. ‘What was Bettrum’s count? A dozen murders, and he couldn’t find one shred of evidence to link me to them. Why would I poison someone that inept?’

Before the witch hunter could answer, Lim jogged up, heavy boots thudding on the path. The captain had helped herself to a pack and torches from the ibuq’s back.

‘You caught her.’ Lim raised her own sword. ‘Now, kill this criminal and be done with it.’

‘I administer justice here, not you, captain,’ Kantus said.

‘Elabrin is a mad old man. I am a Freeguild captain with years in Sigmar’s service. She is as dangerous as the grots.’ Lim gestured to Heko. ‘She is the assassin, a poisoner with a dozen killings to her name. The answer is clear, witch hunter. We do not have time to argue.’

‘You are correct.’ Kantus sheathed his sword and turned to move. ‘We do not.’

The witch hunter’s shoulders tensed as he jogged down the path, but neither the captain nor the poisoner stuck a blade in his back. He paused to retrieve a pack of supplies from the ibuq’s back, then slapped the beast on the haunch to set it careening into the forest. It was almost fully dark now, the trees little more than smudged shadows at the edge of the path.

‘I will light our path,’ Elabrin said as the others jogged up.

The mage muttered a few words, and an orb of soft blue light appeared in the air above the witch hunter. Without another word, they hurried down the path.

‘How is it these creatures can hunt so close to Uliashtai?’ Kantus asked between panting breaths.

‘I wanted to lead patrols through the Rustwood,’ Lim replied. ‘But the governor thought our forces were better deployed elsewhere.’

They ran through the corroded gloom for what seemed an eternity, grot drums echoing around them steady as the beat of a hideous heart.

Branches trembled in the murky dark, angular shadows skirting the circle of Elabrin’s light. The trees opened into a clearing where someone had piled a small cairn of earth and stone.

Heko leapt atop the mound, levelling her crossbow at the path ahead. ‘They’re all around us.’

Red eyes glittered in the gloom. With mounting desperation, Kantus noticed the slick flash of chitin glinting in the pale blue light.

Lim drew her blade. ‘This seems as good a place to die as any.’

‘We need to find cover,’ Kantus said, casting about for something to shelter behind.

‘Lord, over there!’ Yusán gestured towards where more cairn stones formed a natural barrier. The guard had barely taken a step towards the cover when an arrow flicked from the shadows to strike him just above the collar bone. Yusán raised one trembling hand, probing at the wound as if to assure himself of its reality. Blood dribbled down his chin as he opened his mouth to speak, but all that emerged was a wet rasp.

Another arrow thudded into the young guard’s chest, and he toppled limply to the ground.

Elabrin raised his hands, words of power spilling from his cracked lips. The mage’s voice took on an uncanny resonance – not quite an echo, but more as if another inhuman voice were incanting the words and Elabrin merely repeated them. Beams of pale radiance criss-crossed the clearing like the web of a mad spider.

Kantus watched, wide-eyed, as a grot arrow flitted along one of the beams, the glow winking out a moment after the arrow thudded into the ground.

‘Beware the light,’ Elabrin called. ‘Our attackers cannot see it, but it will mark the path of their missiles before they fire.’

As if to echo the mage’s words, a shaft of light illuminated Kantus’ shoulder, and he stepped aside as an arrow hissed past.

Shielded by Elabrin’s sorcery, he and his companions slunk and ducked around the clearing, arrows hissing harmlessly by. Heko sent a bolt of her own into the jagged shadows, grinning as a grot tumbled from the branches to crash bonelessly to the ground.

Again, Elabrin’s incantation split the air, this time summoning a spinning maelstrom of tiny comets around the mage. Arcane wind blew his hair and beard into wild gusts as he set the points of light streaking into the trees, their impacts marked by chittering shrieks.

Chitin cracked and spiders dropped from the branches to skitter at the mage, their riders brandishing crooked spears and long, serrated knives.

Kantus swept in front of Elabrin and ran through one of the grots as Lim hacked at its mount. Her heavier blade sheared through the spider’s bloated body, spattering all of them with bits of oily viscera. One of Heko’s bolts caught another rider in the shoulder, and the grot tumbled from its mount, convulsing as white foam poured from its mouth.

A spider dropped onto Kantus’ back. Off balance, he twisted to dislodge it, pitching forward as he broke free of the creature’s knife-like legs. Impact with the ground knocked the wind from the witch hunter. He clenched his jaw against the white after-images flickering across his vision and rolled over just in time to raise his blade to meet the spider’s skittering leap.

The spider’s legs scrabbled for purchase even as its fangs twitched closer to Kantus’ throat, stopped only by his blade. On the creature’s back, its grot rider screeched and spat, stabbing at the witch hunter with its crooked-bladed spear.

Kantus shifted in the stony dirt, desperate to avoid the spear and fangs, both of which were undoubtedly poisoned. Unable to throw the spider, he grabbed the blade of his sword. The sharp edge cut through his glove and into his hand, but he only cursed and sawed the sword across the spider’s mouth. It made a high-pitched shriek and scuttled back into the darkened trees, leaving a trail of greenish-yellow blood.

Kantus had no sooner rolled to his knees when the screeching grot returned from the shadows. The witch hunter threw himself to the side to avoid the Spiderfang’s spear thrust, reaching up to grab the haft of the spear and drag the grot down. Unable to bring their weapons to bear, the two struggled on the ground. Kantus hammered a fist into the grot’s ribs, then screamed as the little monster sank its fangs into his bicep.

Filthy fingernails clawed at the witch hunter’s face, reopening the cut on Kantus’ cheek as the grot tried to hook a claw into his eye. Kantus wedged his blade between the grot’s jaws in an attempt to pry it free from his arm. He felt the creature try to pull away, and reached up to hook his bloody fingers behind its head. The grot shrieked and struggled, but slowly, Kantus ground its hideous face into his bared blade. Hot ichor spilled across the witch hunter’s arm as the sharp edge cut into the grot’s flesh.

At last its jaws released, and Kantus hurled the beast aside. Struggling to his feet, he ran it through before the grot could scamper off into the night.

A glance around the clearing showed Lim engaged with a pair of spider riders, and Heko atop the cairn, launching bolt after bolt into the canopy. The sight of his prisoners surrounded by grots sent a shiver of helpless fury through Kantus. He had led them all to their deaths, and every moment brought him closer to failing in his mission to present Governor Bettrum’s murderer to the Order.

Elabrin’s scream cut the air as a rope of webbing caught his leg. He clawed at the dirt as the unseen spiders dragged him from the clearing.

Kantus lunged after the screaming mage, dropping his sword to catching Elabrin’s flailing arm with both hands.

‘No!’

The witch hunter pulled until he thought his shoulders might tear. But with hands slick with blood and the dead spider’s ichor, it was hard for Kantus to get a good grip. Slowly, Elabrin slipped from his grasp.

‘Please.’ The mage’s voice was terrified. ‘Do not let them–’

His plea was choked off as a strand of webbing looped around Elabrin’s neck, jerking the mage from Kantus’ hands.

The witch hunter spun to snatch up his blade, thinking to cut the webbing. When he turned back, Elabrin was gone, his thin, choked wail vanishing amidst the retreating thunder of Spiderfang drums.

As if to punctuate the mage’s fate, Elabrin’s magical light flickered and disappeared, reducing the clearing to almost total darkness.

Kantus put his back against a tree, sword at the ready, but no new monstrosities leapt from the shadows. Even the drums had fallen silent for the moment.

Panting, he rooted around in his pack for a torch. The firelight showed a scene of slaughter, grot and spider bodies strewn across the clearing, the cairn stones stained with dark ichor.

There was a spark in the shadows, then a bright flare as another torch was lit. Heavy footfalls approached. Squinting into the glare, Kantus discerned Lim’s broad-shouldered shadow. The captain sported a nasty gash across her forehead and several bloody patches on her uniform.

‘Elabrin?’ she asked.

‘Taken.’ Kantus frowned. ‘And Heko?’

Lim nodded at the cairn, lifting her torch so Kantus could see the smuggler’s body curled upon the bloodstained stones.

Kantus shook his head. ‘Why did the Spiderfangs withdraw?’

‘To toy with us,’ Lim replied. ‘Why else?’

Despair settled on Kantus’ shoulders, heavy as a sodden cloak.

‘We should keep moving.’ He straightened. One prisoner remained to him, he would deliver her to the Order or die in the attempt.

Captain Lim gave a solemn nod. ‘Edge of the forest can’t be too far, now.’

In truth, Kantus did not know. He stepped towards Heko’s body.

‘What are you doing?’ Lim asked.

‘Heko’s equipment might hold the key to your exoneration.’ Kantus knelt to retrieve the smuggler’s crossbow and daggers. ‘I had neither the time nor resources to examine her blades back in Uliashtai, but at the Order’s stronghold I may be able to find traces of the poison that killed Governor Bettrum.’

At first, it seemed as if Heko had succumbed to the throes of spider venom, until Kantus noticed the dark veins of corruption threading her neck. With surprise, he realised her hands were similarly afflicted, her fingernails the exact shade of bruised purple that Governor Bettrum’s had been.

The back of Kantus’ neck prickled. Suddenly, he felt very exposed.

A boot scuffed on dirt, and the witch hunter threw himself aside as Lim’s blade struck sparks from the cairn stones.

‘Couldn’t leave well enough alone.’ Lim aimed another cut at the witch hunter’s head. ‘We could have left this forest together. Heko could have taken the blame. Everyone wins.’

‘Not Governor Bettrum.’ Kantus rolled to his feet. Tossing his torch at Lim’s face, he closed with a fast thrust.

The captain batted his blade aside with her torch, then lunged, far quicker than Kantus had expected. Unable to block her heavier blade, he twisted to avoid the thrust, scoring a shallow cut on her forearm as he dodged past.

Scowling, Lim flexed her hand. ‘The old mage was right – Bettrum would have doomed Uliashtai. The Spiderfang gather on our very doorstep, and what does he do? Dispatch half the city guard on desert patrol.’

‘It is not your place to question. The governor would be privy to information you were not.’

In reply, Lim spat upon the ground.

Kantus circled the captain. Although Lim was likely of equal strength to him, her blade was heavier. She was a soldier – used to the vicious cut and thrust of battle, but Kantus was a skilled duellist, Azyr-trained and blooded. Had this been a duel, he would have tried to tire her out and reopen her wounds, but time was not on his side. The Spiderfang could return at any moment.

He launched a series of quick cuts, leaving his left side exposed. As the witch hunter had hoped, Lim thrust at his chest. He skipped aside and swung a wide cut at her face, twisting his wrist at the last moment to aim the backswing at her throat.

Unable to block the cut, the captain surprised Kantus by dropping her torch and reaching up to catch his blade. Blood welled through her thick glove, the only thing having prevented her from losing her hand. She screamed as Kantus tried to rip the sword free, but held firm.

Her own blade came up, and Kantus desperately hooked her wrist with his free hand. Lim’s breath was hot on his cheek as they twisted and strained, each trying to force their blade closer to the other. The captain was strong, but every moment saw Kantus’ sword bite deeper into the flesh of her palm.

A heartbeat, perhaps two and it would be at her throat.

The captain twisted her blade’s hilt, and, with a soft click, a small blade sprang from the base of its pommel. Little more than a finger’s width, the concealed blade had a sickly purple sheen, its edges glistening with vile toxin as it hovered mere inches from Kantus’ eye.

‘I had hoped to spare you this.’ Lim shifted to put her weight behind the blade, bearing down.

The witch hunter’s arms trembled with strain. Desperately, he drove a knee into Lim’s stomach, and the captain let out a surprised breath. In the momentary weakness before she could catch her wind, Kantus jerked her blade away from his face. He meant to rip his own weapon free before she could bring the poisoned dagger to bear once more, but instead of stabbing at him, Lim dropped her blade and punched Kantus in the face.

He staggered back, eyes watering as the captain hit him again, and again. Kantus tried to raise his blade, but his head spun, his movements jerky and wooden. Dully, he felt his sword ripped from his hand, then the cold bite of steel as Lim drove it into his midsection.

Kantus fell back against the edge of the cairn, boots churning the bloody ground as he struggled to rise. It was as if Kantus were buried under the cairn rather than slumped against it. Through blurry eyes he watched the captain bend to retrieve her sword, straightening with a pained grunt.

‘I am sorry for this. You seem like a true servant of Sigmar. As for the others…’ Lim turned to nod at Heko’s corpse. ‘For all her faults, Heko was a great purveyor. She could get anything for anyone, and didn’t ask questions.’ The captain paused. ‘Perhaps she should have.’

‘Sigmar damn you.’ Kantus’ curse ended in a bloody cough.

‘If it is any consolation, you have saved Uliashtai.’ Lim offered him a bloody smile, stooping to retrieve her torch, then cocked her head as the Spiderfang drums began once more. ‘The death of a witch hunter will surely bring retribution on the grots.’

Kantus tried to speak, but the words would not come.

‘Alas, I must leave you alive, I’m afraid. The spiders would avoid a poisoned corpse, but living prey…’ She took a few steps, and paused. ‘I will tell everyone you died a hero.’

It was all Kantus could do to keep his dimming gaze fixed upon the captain’s back as she fled down the trail. At last, Lim’s light faded, leaving the witch hunter alone in a pool of guttering torchlight.

No, he was not alone.

Whisper-quiet, spiders gathered in the darkness above. Eyes glittering like coals in the hungry shadows, they descended on silken threads, legs like knives, mouths like daggers.

About the Author

Evan Dicken has written the short story ‘The Path to Glory’ and the novella The Red Hours for Black Library. He has been an avid reader of Black Library novels since he found dog-eared copies of Trollslayer, Xenos and First and Only nestled in the “Used Fantasy/Sci-fi” rack of his local gaming store. He still considers himself an avid hobbyist, although the unpainted Chaos Warband languishing in his basement would beg to differ. By day, he studies old Japanese maps and crunches data at The Ohio State University.

An extract from Gloomspite.

Tobias Kench stepped from the tavern door into the cobbled street beyond. He wiped the blood from his knuckles and took a deep breath of cool evening air.

‘That’s better,’ he sighed, rolling his shoulders. The Wayward King rose at his back. The tavern was a slab-like architectural pile that looked as though it had been carelessly discarded rather than built. Its bottleglass windows were webbed with cracks, its heavy roof slates had begun to erode, and the rain-proofing was peeling down its frontage where the landlord had been remiss in his duties of care.

Tobias wouldn’t have drunk in this dive if his life depended on it. He wouldn’t have drunk anywhere in the Pipers’ District, come to think of it. But the Wayward King was always good for working out the stresses of a bad day. It had got so that the regulars knew to get very quiet and attend their flagons of rotgut when Tobias walked in, but there was always someone who didn’t know better: docksnipes off the barges that came upriver from Hammerhal Aqsha, spending their ingots before they’d earned them; a local piper who’d scraped together enough dust to drink their resentment away in the cheapest dive in town while cursing their betters for their own misfortunes; ne’er-do-wells making sure to celebrate their latest score a safe distance from any who would place their faces. Some days it was just outsiders that he judged to be lacking in piety, or those Tobias suspected had turned from Sigmar’s light.

Tobias would never take his fists to good, God-King-fearing folk. He would have been horrified at the thought. But the Wayward King never let him down.

‘Such impious souls always stray when the daemon drink takes them,’ he muttered to himself as he readjusted his watchman’s cloak and took a moment to work the sparker of his lantern. It stubbornly failed to fire, reminding Tobias that he had meant to hand it in for repair and draw a replacement from stores. Evening was drawing in and the shadows of the volcanic mountains flowed along Draconium’s streets like ink, pooling between the city’s tall, slate-roofed buildings. ‘I am merely preempting their transgressions, reminding them that Sigmar is always watching.’

Behind him, the tavern was quiet, as it always was after he left. It would become rowdy again soon enough. They’d light the lanterns, mop up the blood and carry on as though he’d never been there. Tobias, meanwhile, would continue his watch.

Ever was the pious man’s burden thus.

Lightning blossomed high overhead, drawing Tobias’ gaze to the sky. Up there, amidst the jagged peaks and rumbling calderas of the Redspine Range, storms brewed and broke with ferocious speed. The storm’s wrath was a sign that Sigmar watched over them all, thought Tobias, as arcing bolts were drawn from the sky to strike the metal prayer rods of the shrines that dotted the mountainsides. He wondered if any pilgrims were up there now, knelt upon narrow ledges of stone, their rapturous expressions illuminated by the arc and flare of one lightning strike after another. If so, there’d be bodies to bring down by morning, those who had passed into the realm of the dead and whose charred mortal remains were no longer required.

‘Not my task,’ Tobias told himself. ‘Not for many years now.’ Pilgrim retrieval was a duty given to the watchmen fourth class, and these days Tobias was second class. He touched a fingertip to the silver clasp, inscribed with Sigmar’s hammer, which held his cloak in place and denoted his rank. A habit, ever since Iyenna had left him to the affections of what she described as his twin mistresses – his job and his religion.

As it always did, the thought of Iyenna soured Tobias’ mood. He squared his shoulders and set off down the street. His normal patrol route took him from here through the fringes of Docksflow before he doubled back west to reach the factories and workshops of Forges, before angling back uphill through the more affluent streets of High Drake and thence to the watch blockhouse atop Gallowhill. It would only be a short detour, however, to angle through the dive streets of the Slump. Tobias was sure he would find more impious souls to punish down there.

The watchman had taken only a few steps before a subtle movement caught his eye. Shadows shifted in the alleyway beside the Wayward King. Between a broken crate and a heap of burlap sacks, something moved. There was a scratching sound. Tobias frowned, shifting his grip on his halberd and pacing closer to the alley. Vagrants and fengh addicts were a constant problem in Draconium. Life was hard in the realms beyond the heavens, Tobias could attest to that, but he would never understand how desperate someone must have to be to lean on the rotted crutch of drugs.

His scowl became a smile as his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he made out glinting yellow eyes and a long, waving tail.

‘Hah, Saint Klaus, you old rogue. Where have you been? It’s been weeks, I thought the God-King might have taken you up for reforging!’

Tobias sank to his haunches and held out a hand. The cat padded from the alleyway, its gaze switching hopefully between his gloved hand and his smiling face. It shoved its head against his fingers, an insistent nudge that elicited a chuckle from Tobias. He scratched the cat’s ears.

‘Still no owner, lad?’ asked Tobias. Klaus purred, danced back from his hand for a moment then wound under it again with his tail twitching. ‘Oh, very well.’ Tobias’ smile broadened, and he reached into a pouch at his belt for a strip of dried saltfish. Klaus snatched the food from his hand, and Tobias watched with pleasure as the cat chewed and swallowed, then looked expectantly at him again.

‘One of these days, I’m going to carry you back to the blockhouse and we’ll take you on as a mascot.’ Tobias reached for a second piece of fish but paused as a fresh volley of lightning broke high overhead. In its strobing glare, the alleyway behind Klaus was momentarily illuminated and Tobias saw something strange.

The watchman’s frown returned, and he rose, trying again to light his lantern. It sparked and died, sparked and died, then at last sputtered fitfully into life. Klaus meowed a question, but Tobias ignored him, brow furrowed as he raised the lantern and played its beam along the alley. There. Halfway along, at the darkest point where buildings loomed high overhead, Tobias saw a deeper darkness surrounded by lumpy shapes.

‘Klaus, old boy, I think you may make a watchman yet,’ murmured Tobias. ‘My cloak if that’s not a tunnel of some sort, dug right in under the Wayward King.’

Thoughts full of smugglers and thieves, Tobias opened the clasps on the haft of his watchman’s halberd and affixed his lantern beneath its blade. A twist of the mechanism and the clasps snapped shut, securing his lantern so that, when his halberd was lowered and pointed blade-first ahead of him, its light would shine out to light his way and blind potential miscreants. Tobias always thought of it as Sigmar’s light, an inescapable glare that transfixed wrong-doers and aided the God-King’s rightful servants.

Stepping carefully past Klaus, Tobias advanced into the alleyway. Lightning cracked on high, whitewashing the walls and floor then plunging them back into shadow. To Tobias’ right rose the flank of the Wayward King, all crumbling stone and a couple of small, dirty windows high up. To his left hunched a tenement, one of many built to house dock workers, and Tobias noted that the only windows on this side of the building were long-ago broken and boarded. It was a good spot for secretive deeds; no eyes upon it at all.

None but his and Sigmar’s.

In the beam of his lantern the dim suggestion of shapes resolved into something clear and, to Tobias’ mind, incriminating. A hole had been dug here, right into the foundations of the Wayward King. It was surrounded by rough heaps of spoil, dirt and old broken cobbles piled a foot deep on the alley floor.

Sloppy work. Professionals would have removed the debris to avoid attention being drawn to their efforts. And surely pointless, he reflected with puzzlement. The hatch that led to the tavern’s beer cellar was around the back of the building, in Drover’s Lane; he knew from experience that its lock had been broken and repaired so many times that a good kick was all it took to snap it off and gain access below. So why go to the trouble of digging a hole?

He paced closer, lantern beam swaying with his footsteps. Tobias’ body radiated tension. He was ready at any moment for some malcontent to spring from the pit, cudgel swinging.

Nothing moved but him.

Lightning flashed again as he reached the lip of the hole and saw that, sure enough, it led straight down into the tavern’s cellar. Or rather, he realised as he stared at it, it had been dug up and out of the cellar. The way the soil had been pushed up and heaped around left him in no doubt of that fact. Tobias’ frown deepened. He sank down on his haunches, playing the beam of his lantern around the edges of the pit.

‘This was dug with… claws? Burrowed by something?’ He glanced back and saw that Klaus had followed him a short way down the alley, but that the cat had now stopped, wide eyed and watchful, some way back. Klaus’ tail twitched with agitation. His fur bristled.

Something was awry here, and Tobias aimed to find out what. If some vermin or beast had been allowed to make its lair in the cellar of the Wayward King then his next visit wouldn’t be the usual social call, but an official inspection that would undoubtedly end in the negligent owner’s business being shut down. Tobias felt a momentary pang of regret that his visits would have to end. It was eclipsed by the greater surge of pious satisfaction at the thought of doing his duty to Sigmar.

‘Nothing for it, lad,’ he said, setting off for Drover’s Lane. ‘That lock’s getting broken again.’

A few moments and one swift kick later, and Tobias was treading carefully down into the darkened cellar of the Wayward King. He pointed his halberd ahead of him, its lantern light flickering as he played it across stacked kegs and boxes of foodstuffs.

‘City watch,’ he said in a loud, clear voice as he advanced. ‘If anyone is here, step out into the light now or it will go worse for you.’

He paused at the bottom of the steps, waiting, but nothing moved. Tobias had been half-ready for some belligerent duardin smuggler or worshipper of the Dark Gods to burst out and assail him. If he was honest with himself, he had rather hoped for it.

It was cold here, the district being too poor to benefit from Draconium’s thermal heating-pipe network. Ironic, he thought; they toiled to build and maintain the system that drew volcanic heat up through the pipehouse and funnelled it to the richer regions of the city, but they had not earned the right to benefit from it themselves.

From above, Tobias could hear a muffled din of rowdy conversation, singing and the clink of glass. Trickles of dust fell sporadically through the floorboards above his head, drifting in his lantern light.

‘How in Sigmar’s name can they have a hole in their cellar and not know about it?’ he wondered aloud, but a moment later Tobias’ question was answered as he realised that he couldn’t see the hole at all from where he stood. Pacing across the cellar to where he knew the hole must be, Tobias instead found a wooden wall barring his path, empty ale tuns piled up against it in a heap.

The boards were rough-cut yarrenwood, festooned with splinters.

‘Cheap,’ muttered Tobias. ‘And comparatively new.’ It had clearly been put there to hide something.

Quick and quiet, Tobias set aside his halberd, propping it so its light was pointed at the false wall. He moved the empty tuns one by one, stacking them to his right until he had cleared a good space, and then slid his gloved fingers into the gap between two boards. A quick, sharp wrench and the board he had grasped came away with a splintering crack of wood and nails.

Tobias peered through the gap he had made. Sure enough, there was another few feet of space back here, and a ragged-edged tunnel connecting cellar and alleyway. He saw Klaus staring at him through the hole.

Repeating his wrenching procedure several more times, Tobias made a large enough gap to squeeze through. He thought about grabbing his halberd, but the weapon would be unwieldy in the confined space and besides, its light would serve him well enough from where it was.

Tobias pushed his way into the hidden chamber and immediately saw what it was for. Heaped at one end were several wood-and-iron strongboxes, hidden away behind the false wall.

‘Ill-gotten gains, I’ll wager,’ he said with a satisfied smile. ‘The watch coffers are about to receive a generous donation.’

Then he registered another hole, this one yawning in the dirt floor at one end of the hidden chamber. This pit was wider, around five feet across and vanishing back and downwards into darkness. Again, it looked to have been excavated with large, heavy claws. A damp reek wafted from it, causing Tobias to wrinkle his nose in disgust. Small, glistening fungi sprouted around its entrance, half-visible in the spill of his lantern’s light.

‘What in the realms did this?’ Tobias wondered aloud. He edged tentatively closer to the hole, peering into its depths. Suddenly, he felt the lack of his halberd keenly. He was about to turn back for it when his lantern’s light suddenly winked out.

Tobias cursed as he was plunged into inky darkness.

‘That damned lantern,’ he snarled, then stopped as he heard a scuff of movement from the direction of the main cellar. The sound came again, something or someone trying to move stealthily across the dirt floor. Someone coming closer.

Tobias tensed, then jumped as Klaus gave a yowl from somewhere up above. Heart thumping, Tobias turned, trying to locate the gap in the boards that led back to the cellar. The hole up to the alleyway gave next to no light at all.

He fumbled at his belt for his coglock pistol.

‘City watch,’ he barked, hoping to banish his panic with the weight of his authority. ‘Whoever is there, you are interfering with an official investigation. Spark that lantern at once and step back, or face Sigmar’s justice.’

He heard a sound that might have been a mean chuckle or might simply have been an animal snarl. Tobias’ heart beat faster. Nothing human had made that noise. He strained to see, the darkness seeming to smother him. He fumbled his pistol free just as another scuffing scrape came from the cellar, the sound close enough that it made him recoil involuntarily.

Tobias stepped smartly back and pointed his pistol blindly.

‘I’m warning you–’ he began, then something struck his legs from behind with tremendous force. Tobias felt hot agony sear its way up from his calves, felt himself flung forwards and a sudden crunching impact as the floor rushed up to meet his face. He tasted blood. His ears rang. His throat closed over the winded shriek of pain that tried to escape his lips.

Something was ripping at the flesh of his legs, like a dozen knives driven into his calves and thighs all at once. Tobias tried to cry out, to yell for aid, but shock seemed to have sealed his voice inside him as sure as a stopper rammed into a bottle. He heard grunting, felt a wash of stinking breath, felt warm wetness, the slither of something muscular and slick across his flesh and a crushing weight.

No.

Not knives.

Teeth.

‘Oh, Sigmar,’ croaked Tobias, swinging his pistol down to point at whatever had surged from the hole and sunk its fangs into him. There came a violent dragging motion, a wrench that hauled Tobias across the dirt floor and cracked his chin against the lip of the hole. His gun spilled from his nerveless fingers. Consciousness wavered.

Tobias felt another ferocious tugging sensation, a crushing pressure and an explosion of unbearable agony from his legs, then a deeper darkness swallowed him whole.

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A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Pedro Nunez.

Fangs of the Rustwood © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. Fangs of the Rustwood, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-78999-722-4

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