Hammer and Bolter 14 Page 9

  And that, Siskritt acknowledged, would not be him.

  He returned his attention to the immediate problem, looking up at the ominous portal to the surface world. For so foreboding a thing it was a simple affair: plain and pale-coloured, raised about the height of a man from the floor, and accessible by a half-dozen roughly hewn stone steps. Giant barrels loomed in the shadows on either side like leering trolls as he padded silently towards the steps. A man-thing might have been given pause, but Siskritt was born to darkness.

  He pressed his muzzle to the door and listened.

  His hearing was exceptional, even by the standards of his own race. He could pick up the strains of several man-thing voices, but they were distant and his grasp of Reikspiel far too rudimentary to pick out one voice amongst so many. He stayed a moment longer, the scent of the damp wood filling his nostrils, until at last he was satisfied he could open the door in safety.

  He returned his attention to Crassik. ‘You watch-see, you watch-guard. Understand? You pay attention. I go see. Anyone comes in here you kill-kill. Be quiet.’ He gestured at the dead man-thing. ‘And no eat-eat. You pay attention. You listen for me. I call, you come run-quick. Understand?’

  Crassik said nothing, preferring to stare sullenly at his own paws. Siskritt smirked. His litter-brother didn’t want Siskritt to have the talisman for himself, but Siskritt was in charge, and Crassik far too big and stupid to help him steal it. Too bad for Crassik.

  ‘Understand?’ he repeated.

  ‘I watch tunnel. Come run quick-quick. I understand.’

  Siskritt took a deep, steadying breath, cracked open the door, and scuttled hesitantly into the light.

  It was blinding. And terrifying.

  With trembling paws, Siskritt clung to the door frame, reassuring himself that escape was possible at any time. Gradually, the white glare began to fade and a vision of a smoothly cut, upward sloping stone passageway came into focus. A high-pitched squeak, well beyond the range of feeble man-thing ears, escaped his lips.

  It was strange, he thought, to be so fearful of walking amongst the man-things. He had spent many nights crouched in the shadows of Sartosa, ever alert for even the most meagre of opportunities for his own advancement. But the Tilean port city was a warren of bolt holes and hiding places from years of discreet skaven exploration, and Siskritt knew every inch of it better than the scratches on his own claws. Even now, after many weeks’ absence, he could picture its close, densely shadowed alleys, filled with the detritus of a city awash with poverty and prosperity in equal measure.

  Feeling emboldened by thoughts of home, he managed to slide one foot-paw forwards. He winced slightly, half expecting his leg to be burned from his body by the unfamiliar environment. When it was not, he felt his courage return like a rising tide. He flitted along the passageway’s upward incline, moth-like, towards the second doorway, cowering beneath the open frame to peer at the man-things beyond.

  He supposed it was some kind of common room, typical the world over of all man-thing buildings of similar function, no doubt: wide, straw-covered floor; high ceiling supported by sagging beams and joists; a score of rectangular tables and short stools littering the floor space; and a long bar opposite the doorway.

  The room was near deserted. His sharp eyes counted no more than a dozen men: the old, the sick and the crippled. Their conversations were muted, and their eyes were dead inside haunted faces. Siskritt cared not for their fears.

  Upon their first arrival in the Badlands, the clan had stirred up the local orc-thing tribes who had gone on to burn a swathe through this barren corner of the Old World. It had been the grey seer’s plan and Siskritt couldn’t help but admire the old skaven’s cleverness, even though the merest thought of the grey-furred rat set loose the fear of the Horned One himself in his soul. At the cost of a few hundred clan warriors, the seer had unleashed a horde of the orcs into the man-thing territories, and even now most of those of an age to fight were somewhere out in the Badlands hoping to repel the supposed marauders. And while orc and man-thing slaughtered each other in the fields, Siskritt and his kin would rise up to claim what remained.

  Siskritt peeked out from the doorway and behind the length of the bar, pulling his head back to relative safety with all the speed of a serpent’s flickering tongue. He snarled silently, nibbling at his dulled sword blade in consternation.

  The bar was just a single stretch of plain wood with nothing at either end. It could give him a clear and concealed run across the common room, and to the stairway he had glimpsed at its opposite end. Were it not, that was, for the fat man-thing standing squarely in the way as though placed there by the Horned One himself as some wicked taunt. Siskritt bit down hard on the metal as he took another, more measured, look.

  Tasting iron on his lips, he withdrew his sword and hefted it thoughtfully. These men were on the very brink of madness after months of war against the orc-things, their soft minds ready to snap, to be sure. Catching the fat one unawares, Siskritt could kill it easily and swiftly – both things he liked – and he suspected there was a good chance that these others would not come willingly to its aid. He could be gone and away before anyone caught a glimpse of him. A good chance…

  But not good enough a chance for Siskritt. He liked to deal in certainties. Anything less left a chance for error, and when the cost of failure was so high…

  Well, what in this world could be more valuable than his own life?

  Not for the first time that day, he cursed the haste he’d been forced into. He didn’t like it. It made his fur crawl and his tail itch. Every sound and shadow sent his heart into his mouth. As if skaven lives were not already too short! He didn’t understand the rush, and that bothered him. What bothered him much more was the danger that that entailed for him. Damn that stupid grey seer, and damn Hellpaw too! Siskritt didn’t understand how someone as big and frightening as the warlord could be pushed around by anyone, even the insidious Thanquol.

  He shivered. He had met the grey seer just once, and then only briefly, for he had felt a sudden urge to be anywhere but in that infamous skaven’s presence.

  What was Thanquol after? He’d have given anything to find out. He shivered again, and changed his mind. He really didn’t want to know.

  He gnawed upon his blade to keep his fear in check and chanced another look along the bar. The fat man-thing was lost in conversation, but he could neither see to whom he was speaking nor understand the words he uttered. Nor did he much care. All he could see was a few inches of bright orange hair flaring up from behind the bar. Yet another child-thing; this place seemed infested with them.

  Riven with indecision, he hopped back and forth, one foot to the next, expelling some of the anxious energy that was bubbling up inside him. He had come too far, risked too much, to be thwarted at the last by… by a… a stupid, fat man-thing.

  His racing thoughts were disturbed by a distant scream from somewhere outside the tavern. His ears pricked up, though none of the man-things seemed to notice. As if the first had been some kind of signal, the strains of pained and frightened man-thing voices started rising from all across the town, merging together with the sound of slamming doors and of weapons being drawn. It was a cacophony that was most pleasing to Siskritt.

  At last, the noise reached the weak ears of the man-things. They raised wrinkled faces from their cups and muttered to each other fearfully. Siskritt found most of what was spoken incomprehensible, but one word stood out, a word that was common to all lands and languages of men throughout the world.

  Orcs.

  He couldn’t help but smirk. Yes man-things, he thought, turn to face the orc-thing that isn’t there, and die with a skaven sword in your back. It was at times such as this that the sheer magnificence of the skaven intellect simply demanded to be recognised.

  Muffled noises filtered through the sturdy walls of the tavern: confused shouts, screams, the pounding of running boots on cobbles, and the dull clamour of steel on steel.
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  The men shuffled nervously from the doorway and towards the bar, perilously close to where Siskritt lay hidden. For a moment he feared that man-thing soldiers would come bursting in, but such fears were instantly scattered by the roar of an explosion, close enough to rattle the door in its hinges and bring clouds of dust and grime streaming from the rafters, sending the man-things into fits of coughing. He flinched momentarily, but gripped the wooden frame tightly to steel his nerve.

  The fat man-thing cursed in words Siskritt did not know, before reaching behind it to a spot on the wall that was hidden from Siskritt’s view and plucking a giant war hammer from a sconce. Siskritt gulped to see the ease with which the silver-haired man-thing hefted the massive weapon, seeing for the first time the broad shoulders and powerful muscles that had lain hidden beneath thick rolls of fat. A former adventurer settled down for retirement, no doubt. He should’ve suspected as much. In many ways life in the Badlands bore similarity to life in the clans: only the strongest could survive and thrive.

  Again, he cursed the enforced haste. If he could have had just one day to scout the tavern…

  The innkeeper strode across the room with a calm authority, its hammer glowing with an inner power. Finally the fat one neared the door, squat and suddenly forbidding as if it were a portal to the Chaos Wastes themselves. Before it could lay hands upon the handle, a voice spoke out. Its words were in slow, deliberate Reikspiel, and Siskritt could just about make them out.

  ‘I wouldn’t open that door just yet, manling.’

  The speaker strode from where it had been hidden behind the bar. The enormous orange mohawk came into view like the sails of a smuggler’s ship rounding the horizon, followed by the muscular, heavily tattooed shoulders of a dwarf Slayer.

  The fat one turned to the dwarf to say something that seemed to Siskritt to be quite innocuous, but the dwarf spat back a venomous reply that was far too quick for him to follow. The man-thing dropped its eyes and raised an empty palm in surrender, and spoke again, this time more softly.

  Siskritt cursed the man-things and their pointless plethora of languages and dialects. He would gladly have traded a paw to know what it was they were saying.

  The dwarf cast the innkeeper a glance before returning his stare to the doorway. The man-thing towered above him, but the dwarf had an aura that dominated the room. Even Siskritt felt himself hanging on his next words. ‘I don’t know, manling. I’m just looking forward to killing it.’

  Siskritt snickered. Foolish dwarf-man, no orc-things for you this day.

  Taking one last look, he scurried behind the protection of the bar and dashed with silent haste to its far end. It was only a short hop from the bar to the shelter of the stairway. His ears twitched as the sounds of battle drifted closer.

  A green-black glow was streaming through the cracks in the door, accompanied by the murderous crackle of warpfire, bathing the man-things in a ghastly light. The air was practically fizzing with warpstone ash. There was a brief struggle in the street outside: shouts, screams, shrill squeaks, and metal sliding though meat. The door rattled angrily, as though something soft and heavy had just been thrown against it. The wail of a man-thing melted into a gurgle and, by its silhouette, Siskritt saw it slump against the outside of the door.

  Suddenly, it was as though a spell of quietude had been broken.

  The fat one began bellowing orders and the man-things snapped into life. Tables and chairs were dragged into a crude barricade, while those that had them readied their weapons. Siskritt picked out ridiculous names called between the man-things: Roodolf, Gunter, Holegur, Feelicks. The one named Roodolf hurried for the cellar door, fumbling with a heavy iron ring of keys.

  The sense of entrapment closed in upon him like claws around his throat. Between the rising barricade and the man-thing Roodolf, there was no way out. Panic rose in him as Roodolf drew closer and closer.

  Grah! Now or never!

  Half running, half crawling, he scrambled across the straw covered boards and behind the thin wall of stone that partitioned the stairway from the common room. He came gasping to a halt on the first step as he waited for his panicked heart to slow. Silently, he promised himself he would never ever do anything like this again.

  He glanced back around the wall just in time to watch the man-thing disappear down into the cellar. For a short moment he thought of Crassik; he would not grieve for the idiot, but the sudden feeling of isolation wormed its way through his veins. He was alone, trapped in the lair of the man-things!

  He took a deep breath, and though the air was thick with man-thing fear, he felt calmer. Crassik or no Crassik, he had always been alone. One Siskritt amidst a hundred thousand less deserving skaven. He ignored the shouts and noises of the busy man-things and returned his attention to the task in hand. The talisman was so close now he could almost feel its weight around his neck.

  The stairway was short. He counted ten bare wooden treads leading up to the building’s second level, but they were widely spaced, more suitable for the long stride of a man-thing than for Siskritt’s short legs. He leapt delicately from one step to the next, taking great care to land silently, though he doubted the sound of a creaking board would carry far above the excited chittering of a thousand clanrat warriors closing in on an easy kill.

  The upper floor was better kept than the lower. A wide, carpeted hallway stretched ahead of him, its stained and faded patterns barely visible after years of wear. To the left was an evenly spaced trio of low, recessed doorways leading to the guest rooms, each one carved with the likeness of a different fantastical beast. He could not quite discern the carvings on the further two, but the nearest door carried a rendering of a three-headed chimera, sufficiently lifelike to make him squeak out in alarm when he rounded the corner to find it six inches away and glaring into his face.

  The wall to the right was broken by several wide and intricately leaded windows, and the view beyond was one to warm the heart of any skaven.

  The city burned.

  Half of the skyline was alight, with pockets of green-tinged flame in hotspots throughout the city. Siskritt’s heart swelled at the inherent greatness of his race. Let the foolish man-things sit behind their walls and battlements. How useless they were in the face of skaven cunning. He watched as another explosion carried the roof from a nearby building, its walls bursting like overripe fruit to be consumed by the warpstone-fuelled fires.

  The flames painted the hall with an eerie green light through the windows, as though Siskritt himself swam in molten warpstone, trapped behind glass for the amusement of some half-crazed Clan Skryre warlock.

  He was dragged from his reverie by a sound from further along the hallway, and he dived through the chimera door just as a pair of armed men clattered past him and down the stairs. From the furthest doorway a voice yelled after them in the Tilean tongue that Siskritt knew well.

  ‘I’m the one that pays you, you ungrateful dogs! Not this excuse for a city!’

  For a few moments, Siskritt could hear the man-thing still hanging upon the threshold as if fully expecting its minions to return.

  ‘Fine then! Die together, all of you!’

  The door slammed closed and Siskritt grinned to be the beneficiary of such unlikely luck. Listening to his prey’s former bodyguards lending their efforts to the man-things below, Siskritt mouthed a silent thanks to the munificence of the Horned One.

  He spared a glance over the empty, unmade chimera room. The eldritch warplight from outside cast long shadows that flickered and danced across the walls and ceiling. Even in this state, the room smacked of human luxuries he could only imagine… But one day soon he would have all of this, and more. He squeezed his eyes tight with pleasure at the prospect. His paw closed over his chest where his talisman might soon rest. Yes, he would have all this and much more besides.

  He crept back into the hallway, reassuring himself that the Tilean’s guards were fully occupied downstairs and would not be returning any time soon. Sat
isfied, he moved lightly past the second guestroom – a manticore, he thought – and around a long table towards the third.

  Suddenly, a low rumble vibrated its way up through his feet. He stared out of the window in horror as the tall building across the street subsided into an evidently ill-judged skaven tunnel, burying hundreds of panicked clanrats as they swarmed clear. Broken tiles tumbled from its roof and peppered the rough stucco walls of the inn. As realisation finally dawned, Siskritt rolled under the table just as the tiles from the building’s elevated garret smashed through the windows, showering the hall with glass and heavy lengths of gritty lead that thundered against his scant cover. Rolling into a ball, he buried his face in his fur until the scraping of settling rubble and the thin cries of buried skaven told him the barrage had ceased.

  Timidly, he unblocked his ears and poked his snout from his hiding place. The sounds of slaughter came clearly now through the voided windows, the wind laced with screams and heavy with the scent of smoke and burning flesh. He took a sniff, but he could smell little beyond his own blood, welling up where a sliver of glass had lacerated the soft flesh of his nose. Squeaking alarm, he squashed his bloodied snout beneath the tattered sleeve of his tunic.

  The last wisps of courage fled his body with the blood from his precious nose and he scampered clear of the table, blind to everything but the instinct to escape. He collided headlong into a wall, collapsing tail-over-head into a heap before righting himself in a blur of blood and fur. Witless with panic, he trembled in the shadow of the wall, catching short rapid gasps of the charnel house air. Slowly, his nerve returned and he gingerly pulled his sleeve from his face. He gave his nose a tentative dab with the cleaner – relatively speaking – side and almost fainted with relief when it came away bloodless.

  He gave the cloth an experimental sniff. Blood, dirt, faeces. All of the familiar smells.

  Using the window ledge for support, he pulled himself upright, tiny slivers of glass twinkling from his fur in the fiery green glow, and peered down into what remained of the street below.