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Cankerworm

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Cankerworm

by Darius Hinks

Is murder necessarily such a bad thing?

The question rang so clearly in Captain Zelter’s mind that he thought for a moment he had spoken it aloud. He peered into the smoky, candlelit gaming room and was relieved to see that even if he had, no one would have noticed. The prioress was slumped in her filthy chair, talking to a bemused-looking wolfhound and the other guests were piled around her in various stages of inebriation.

The captain placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. There were certainly worse crimes than murder. He looked at his aunt with a sneer of disgust. Her powdered wig was hanging comically down one side of her jowly face and her robes were covered in food, wine stains and animal hair.

The old woman grinned, revealing a set of ridiculous, ill-fitting wooden dentures. Her eyes were rolling wildly. ‘Did you hear about those monkeys in Nuln?’ She spoke in a lilting, singsong voice. ‘The Emperor’s engineers have taught them to bear arms and march in columns.’

Captain Zelter shook his head, gripping his chair so tightly that his knuckles gleamed.

The prioress patted her adoring wolfhound as she spoke. ‘Our animal friends are far more intelligent than people think.’ She waved at a mullioned window and the colourful shapes flitting by outside. Even at this time of night, the streets of Altdorf were crowded with life. ‘My neighbour, the Margrave, often plays chess against his horses. Not the mares, obviously.’ She picked a tiny speck from her leg and watched with delight as it moved up her arm. ‘And did you know that bedbugs only appear to be silent? They speak a lot of sense actually, just very quietly.’

Captain Zelter’s head swam with a mixture of disgust, desperation and alcohol. In a few hours it would be dawn and the regiment would leave for Ostland. It was not fear of battle that made him drink so heavily, but fear of disgrace. Duke Klatzkin had made it clear: credit could only be extended so far, even for a noble. If the captain did not clear his debts of honour soon, he would be ruined, and banished from his beloved regiment. Bile rose in his throat. While this babbling old lunatic was sitting on the family fortune, talking to insects and making a fool of herself, he was on the verge of disaster. Why did she cling to life so tenaciously, when her only living relative was in such dire need of an inheritance?

As the prioress climbed awkwardly from her chair, a pair of ferrets peered out from the folds of her robes, eying the captain suspiciously. ‘More wine,’ she demanded, but the servants had long since gone to their beds, so she waved at her scowling nephew. ‘Come,’ she slurred, sounding as drunk as the captain felt. ‘The cellars.’

The captain moistened his lips and grinned. This was it. This was his chance. Away from the others, in the cavernous cellars of the prioress’s townhouse, there could be an accident… The old bat had been drinking all night. A blow to the head could be easily explained.

As they staggered through a series of creaking, gloomy passageways, Captain Zelter had to shove his way past dogs, ponies and potbellied pigs. These animals had inherited his ancestral home, staining the rugs with their filth and scraping the oak panelling with their claws and hooves.

The prioress continued to babble merrily to herself as she led the way. ‘The rabbits in Averland have learned to paint portraits of each other.’ She paused beneath a gilt-framed canvas. It was smeared with muck. ‘They adopt all the latest techniques, but their skill is grounded in good, honest draftsmanship.’ She paused, and turned to her nephew with a frown. ‘Draftsrabbitship?’

The captain gave a noncommittal grunt and shoved his gibbering aunt through the next doorway.

The oil lamps had been extinguished hours ago and the only light came from a single candlestick. The weak flame flickered over mounds of slumbering beasts and piles of broken furniture.

As they turned a corner, a snarling face loomed out of the darkness.

‘By the gods!’ cried the captain. ‘What’s that?’

The prioress lifted her candle to reveal a stuffed head mounted on the wall. It was a huge rodent with long, jagged canines and a pair of glittering rubies for eyes. She gave her nephew a surprised frown. ‘Surely you’ve heard the tales of the underfolk?’

The captain cursed, annoyed with himself for jumping at shadows. Now that he saw it more clearly, he realised that the thing was just a grotesque portmanteau of animal parts, crudely sewn together. ‘Ah yes, a ratman.’ His voice was utterly deadpan. ‘Of course.’

The prioress missed the captain’s sarcasm and her bloodshot eyes glittered with excitement. ‘Exactly. A denizen of the Under-Empire.’

Captain Zelter raised his eyebrows.

The prioress dusted the head with her sleeve and smiled. ‘This one was a great warlord; perhaps the greatest. Its name was Longfang.’

The captain gestured onwards down the corridor, eager to kill his aunt as quickly as possible, before he lost his nerve. ‘Are the cellars this way?’

The prioress nodded and headed down an unadorned passageway that ended in a single, rough-hewn door. ‘Longfang was a legend amongst the underfolk. It carried a halberd charged with a magic stone that made it incredibly powerful. It slew hundreds, maybe even thousands, of its own kind, carving out a vast kingdom beneath the Empire.’

Ancient stone steps slumped down into the shadows. ‘This way?’ The captain’s head was still spinning from the wine, but he could feel his resolve slipping. Was he really a murderer? To kill someone in the heat of battle was one thing, but this…?

The prioress ignored his question as she began climbing awkwardly down the steps. ‘In fact, if anything, Longfang was too powerful.’ She paused for breath at the bottom step. ‘Such bravery is unnatural amongst the underfolk. Its deeds were bound to be noticed.’

The captain decided to distract his aunt with a question as he looked for a suitably blunt weapon. ‘Tell me, Magdalena, how did the Old World’s most famous rat lord end up with its head on your wall? Did you kill it yourself?’

The prioress let out a derisive snort. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never travelled to the Under-Empire. If I had, I’d be insane by now.’

The captain shook his head. ‘Imagine that.’

‘The underfolk are ruled by thirteen devious, cowardly kings,’ she continued, lifting her candle to one of the barrels. ‘They were terrified by the warlord’s power and swore to destroy Longfang.’

The captain grunted to imply he was still following the story but he was actually engrossed in his weapon hunt. He had found the remains of an empty barrel and was trying to extract one of the shattered planks without making too much noise.

‘The skaven warlord fought desperately as it saw its enemies closing in, determined to hold on to the domain it had carved with its own claws. The Under-Empire was rocked by a vast, bloody war.’ The prioress paused and held out her hand without turning around. ‘Your glass, boy.’

The captain stepped quickly away from the broken barrel and handed over his empty glass. He hid the jagged plank behind his back.

The old woman gave him the wine and continued. ‘But the harder Longfang fought, the more sure the thirteen kings were that it had to die. They raised an army like nothing the Under-Empire had seen before. Even Longfang’s blazing halberd could not turn it back and, one by one, as they saw defeat looming, the warlord’s generals started to plot against him.’

The captain scowled as his fingers sank into the piece of wood. It was completely rotten. He cursed under his breath and let it slip to the floor.

‘Just as it seemed that Longfang was on the verge of defeat, a hooded, grey-furred stranger entered its lair, offering a last chance at victory. Claiming to be the infamous sorcerer, Grey Seer Slinktail, it offered to teach Longfang a powerful secret: an ancient curse, known as the cankerworm. Such magic could easily turn the tide of a battle, but there was a condition. Longfang would have to show allegiance to Grey Seer Slinktail. The warlord would have to wear an iron medallion around its neck, cast in the shape of the sorcerer’s rune – making it clear to the whole Under-Empire that Longfang was in thrall to Slinktail. All would know that the warlord’s victory over the thirteen kings was only made possible by the sorcerer’s dark magic.’

The prioress shook her head, oblivious to her nephew, who had drawn his sword and was studying the hilt. ‘Longfang bristled at the idea of sharing its triumph, but it was that or face imminent death. As the warlord grudgingly swore to wear the iron badge, the rune glittered and sank deep into its chest armour. Then, with a satisfied nod, the sorcerer handed over the ancient curse in the form of a potent, luminous green salve to coat the warlord’s weapons.’

The captain raised his sword and stepped closer, preparing to silence the old woman forever.

The prioress continued. ‘As Longfang led its army in a fierce counterattack, the poisonous weapons took effect. A mutating disease struck down the warlord’s enemies, turning them into bloated, spineless lumps. The warlord howled victoriously and took its army to the throne room of the thirteen kings, demanding that they kneel and worship their new emperor.’

The old woman shook her head. ‘Only then did Grey Seer Slinktail reappear. It offered to destroy Warlord Longfang for the thirteen kings – at a price, of course. The kings looked at the mewling, slug-like remains of their army and agreed, willing to pay Slinktail anything, if it could rid them of the warlord. The sorcerer laughed at their pitiful entreaties. Then, with a wave of its claws, it detonated the medallion embedded in Longfang’s chest armour. The iron rune contained the cankerworm in its purest, most virulent form and the warlord exploded like a green firework, scattering body parts in all directions and sending its head spinning off into a fast-flowing sewer.’

The captain tried to swing his sword but found he did not have the strength. His arm suddenly felt incredibly heavy.

The prioress turned to face him, showing no surprise at the sight of the raised weapon. And there was something else odd about her: all trace of madness had vanished from her gaze. She nodded at the captain’s glass. ‘The cankerworm is visible for a while, before it has fully dissolved.’

The captain’s sword clattered to the floor as he looked at his half-finished drink. There were strange, green lights suspended in it.

His aunt gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘When Warlord Longfang’s head was discovered by a dockworker, he quickly realised it was infused with powerful magic – not quickly enough to avoid a pitiful fate, though. The explosion left the head highly contagious. Extracting the cankerworm without poisoning myself has been quite a challenge.’

The weakness in the captain’s arm spread to the rest of his body and he dropped heavily to the cellar floor. ‘Why?’ he croaked.

The prioress lowered her voice and leaned closer. Her words had lost their lilting, lunatic edge and were now full of venom. ‘I know your kind, nephew. I know why you’re here. You’re a thief, just like all the others, but you won’t have my money. My animals rely on me. They need me.’ She waved her candle around the cellar and revealed a mass of pale, limbless shapes, struggling across the cobbled floor. Their faces retained hints of humanity but, more than anything, they resembled giant, bloated rats.

As the captain felt his body softening and expanding he tried to cry out, but all that emerged was a long, terrified screech.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darius Hinks’s first novel, Warrior Priest, won the David Gemmell Morningstar award for best newcomer. Since then he’s become one of the Black Library’s most prolific and popular authors, writing a whole swathe of novels, novellas and short stories set in the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. His recent works include the Warhammer Heroes novel Sigvald and ‘Sanctus’, a novella included in the Space Marine Battles anthology Architect of Fate.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover design by Rachel Docherty

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ISBN 978-0-85787-648-5

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