For a brief instant the warpstone conjured up delightful visions of destruction and death before Thanquol’s reddened eyes. He could picture the burning buildings, the humans hacked to pieces or led off in great slave trains. He saw himself striding through the ruins triumphant. The very thought made his tail stiffen.
Things were going very well indeed. Even Thanquol’s enemies were aiding his plans. That vile twosome Gurnisson and Jaeger had, guided by Thanquol’s brilliant insight, uncovered the lair of Vilebroth Null and stopped his plans in their tracks. The abbot had returned from the surface world alone, and no trace could be found of the Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes. Null had spent the last few days limping around the Underways muttering darkly about traitors. Thanquol tittered. There was a certain poetic justice in it all: it had been the abbot’s intended treachery to the cause of Thanquol, and of course the entire skaven nation, which had been the cause of his undoing.
It even appeared that the abbot might have done the invasion force a favour, for Thanquol’s agents on the surface reported some dire disease was dropping the humans in their tracks. Of course, potentially this meant that there would be less slaves once the conquest of Nuln had been effected, so perhaps then would be the time to have the abbot punished. He could trump up the charges for the council and let them deal with Null. Yes, it was true, Thanquol thought: every cess-pit has a warpstone dropping in it, if only you know how to look.
He studied the plans of the city before him. The various invasion routes were well marked in red, blue and green warpstone ink. They glowed in front of his eyes in a bright tangle and snarl of lines. Here and there circles indicated breakout points where the army would erupt onto the surface. The sheer labyrinthine complexity of it all filled Thanquol’s brain with pleasure. But the most pleasure came from his contemplation of what would happen afterwards.
The city would be garrisoned against human attempts to retake it. He would set up labour camps and make the captured human slaves build a big ditch around the city. Then they could dam the river with a great waterwheel which would provide power for the skaven’s machines and sweatshop factories. At some point they would erect a huge, one hundred tail-length high statue of their conquerors, and it seemed only fair to Thanquol that he should be the model for it, for truly he would personify the skaven spirit of conquest to them. It would be a glorious time, and the first of many victories that would end with all the human lands permanently and utterly under skaven rule.
He heard a not very discreet hacking cough outside the curtains of his sanctum. A hoarse voice said: “Greatest of generals, it is I, Lurk Snitchtongue, and I bring news most urgent.”
Disturbed from his reverie, Thanquol was inclined to be snappish but Lurk had proven to be an invaluable lackey just recently, and his sources of information had been excellent.
At this moment, he seemed a little ill, but Thanquol was sure that would pass.
“Enter! Enter! Quick! Quick!”
“Yes! Yes! Swiftest of thinkers!”
“What is this urgent news?”
Lurk twitched his tail. It seemed obvious to Thanquol that the little skaven had indeed come with interesting information, and intended to savour his moment of triumph.
“I once blasted a lackey who kept me waiting a moment too long. Stripped his flesh to the bones.”
“A moment, most patient of masters, while I gather my thoughts. Some explanation is needed.”
“Then explain!”
“My birthkin Ruzlik serves Clan Moulder.”
“Indeed. And you think this information is worthy of the consideration of a grey seer?”
“No! No, most perceptive of potentates! It’s just that he has a habit of gossiping when he has consumed fungal winebroth.”
“I see. And you, of course, are often sharing a flask or two with him.”
“Yes! Yes! Only this morning, in fact. He has told me that his master, Izak Grottle, has a great plan afoot. One that will bring the human city to its knees, and I hesitate to mention this, most understanding of skaven…”
“Hesitate no more. Quick! Quick!”
“He claims that Grottle’s plan will bring him great glory, will make him more famous even—his words, not mine, master—than Grey Seer Thanquol.”
News of this treacherous claim came as no surprise to Thanquol. It was ever the fate of great skaven to be undermined by jealous lackeys. Doubtless Grottle sought to win esteem in the eyes of the Council of Thirteen at the expense of Thanquol. Well, the grey seer knew ways of dealing with that.
“And what is this plan? Speak! Speak!”
“Alas, the fool could not say. He has merely heard the Moulders chitter among themselves. He knows it has something to do with a grain boat, for he himself led the raid to steal one from the humans. He has no other hard details.”
“Then go and find some. Now!”
“I may need to spend warptokens, most generous of masters.”
“What you need will be provided—within reason.”
“I go, master.” Lurk bowed and scraped as he retreated back through the drapes.
Thanquol slumped down in his throne. Certain things were starting to make sense. He had heard reports that one of the human grain barges had been stolen. He had merely put it down to some claw leaders exceeding their orders, and doing some private plundering. Now it seemed that there was another ulterior and sinister motive. Thanquol knew that his position would not be safe until he found out what that was.
“I don’t like you,” the man said, slumping down in his chair. “I really don’t like you.”
“You’re drunk,” Felix said. “Go home!”
“This is a tavern! My copper’s as good as anyone’s. I’ll go home when I please. I don’t take orders from the likes of you.”
“Fair enough!” Felix said. “Stay, then.”
“Don’t try and smooth-talk me. I’ll go if I like.” Felix was getting tired of this. He had seen drunks like this before: belligerent, full of self-pity, just looking for trouble. Unfortunately, Felix was usually the candidate they chose for it. They always picked him for an easy mark. He supposed they were all too scared of Gotrek and the other bouncers. There was something familiar about this one though. His coarse features and squat muscular form looked familiar even in the shadowy gloom of this corner of the tavern. He had been in several times over the past few days since Felix had returned from his interview with Herr Ostwald.
“Elissa’s my girl,” the drunk said. “You just leave her alone.”
Oh, of course; it was the peasant lad who used to go out with Elissa. He’d come back.
“Elissa can make up her own mind about who she wants to see.”
“No she can’t. She’s too sweet. Too easily led. Any city slicker with a smooth tongue and a nice cloak can turn her head.”
Felix saw the part he was being cast for. He was the heartless seducer leading the poor peasant girl astray.
“You’ve seen too many Detlef Sierck plays,” he said.
“What? What did you call me?”
“I didn’t call you anything!”
“Yes, you did. I heard you.”
Felix saw the punch coming a league away. The man was drunk and slow. He raised his hand to block it. His forearm stung from the force of the blow. The man was strong.
“Bastard!” Hans shouted. “I’ll show you.”
He lashed out with a kick that caught Felix in the shin. Sharp pain stabbed through Felix. By reflex, he lashed out with his right hand and caught Hans under the jaw. It was quite possibly the best punch he had ever thrown against a man who was in no state to do anything about it. Hans dropped like a pole-axed ox.
The surrounding crowd applauded. Felix turned around to bow ironically and he saw Elissa looking at him with a look of horror in her eyes.
“Felix, you brute!” she said, moving past him to nurse Hans’s head in her lap.
“Oh Hans, what did that heathen do to you?”
Just loo
king at her, Felix could tell that any explanation of what had happened would be useless.
“You have found out more of the Moulder’s schemes, I hope?” Thanquol allowed some of his anger and impatience to show in his voice. Over the past few days Lurk had spent considerable sums from the grey seer’s treasure chest but still had not produced any results. The little skaven gave a wheezing cough.
“Yes, yes, most perspicacious of masters. I have.”
“Good! Good! Tell me—quick, quick!”
“It’s not good, most forgiving of masters.”
“What? What?” Thanquol leaned forward to glare down at the little rat-man and watched him flinch. Few could endure the grey seer’s red-eyed stare when it suited him to use it.
“Regretfully, the wicked Moulders may already have implemented their plan.”
Cold fury clutched Thanquol’s heart. “Go on!”
“My birthkin overheard the packmaster gloating. It seems a grainship bearing Clan Moulder’s secret weapon will arrive in the man-city tonight. Once it arrives, the city will fall. He knows that it has something to do with the city’s grain supply but he’s not sure what. Clan Moulder are very technical and have their own words for many things.”
“May the Horned Rat gnaw your birthkin’s entrails! Is he hearing any more?”
“Just that the barge has been painted black to conceal it from human eyes and that it will arrive this very night. It may even have done so already, most magnificent of masters.”
Thanquol’s fur bristled. What could he do? He could mobilise his troops and interfere but that would mean moving openly against Clan Moulder and every instinct the grey seer possessed rebelled against that. What if he summoned his troops, and they failed to find the ship? Thanquol would be a laughing stock and could not endure that. There was no time to waste. He knew that this called for urgent and desperate measures.
Swiftly he reached for pen and parchment, and inscribed a hasty message. Take this to the burrow where the dwarf and the man Jaeger dwell. Make sure they get it—and quickly! Deliver it personally!”
“P-p-personally, most revered of rat-men?”
“Personally.” Thanquol made it clear from his tone that he would brook no argument. “Go. Quick! Quick! Hurry-scurry! No time there is to waste!”
“At once, mightiest of masters!”
Vilebroth Null looked up with rheumy hate-filled eyes. He coughed, but the sound of his coughing was lost amid the hacking coughs of other skaven in the corridors. At last his patience had been rewarded. His long hours of lying in wait near Thanquol’s lair had finally paid off. Somehow Vilebroth Null knew the grey seer had been behind the failure of his carefully contrived plan. So where was that little sneak Lurk Snitchtongue going at this hour? The abbot knew there was only one way to find out.
“He started it!” Felix said, all too aware that he sounded like he was whining. He looked around the room they shared, his eyes caught by the package of clothes the tailor had delivered. He had still not unwrapped them.
“So you say,” said Elissa inflexibly. “I think you’re just a bully. You like hitting people like poor Hans.”
“Poor Hans put a bruise the size of a steak on my shin!” Felix said angrily.
“Serves you right for hitting him,” Elissa said. Felix shook his head in frustration. He was just about to get himself in deeper water when suddenly the window crashed in. Felix threw himself over Elissa to cover her as broken glass rained down. Fortunately, not too much landed on them. Felix rolled to his feet and scanned the chamber in the lantern light. Something dark and bulky lay on the floor.
Swiftly he drew his sword and prodded it. Nothing happened.
“What is it?” Elissa said, getting to her feet fearfully and pulling her nightgown tight around herself.
“Don’t know,” Felix said, bending over to inspect it more closely. As he did so he recognised the shape, and he thought he recognised the thing wrapped round it. “It’s a brick, and it’s wrapped in paper.”
“What? It’ll be young Count Sternhelm again. He and his cronies are always breaking windows when they get drunk!”
“I don’t think so,” Felix said, gingerly unwrapping the paper. It was the same thick coarse parchment all the other skaven messages had come on. He unfolded it and read:
Frends—the Black Ship brings doom to yoor city! It comes tonite and carries certin deth! It is a grane barge loded wiv bad! Yoo must stop it! Go QUIK! QUIK! Yoo do not hav much time! They wil destroy yoor grane!
Felix pulled himself to his feet and started to pull on his clothes. “Run and get me some paper! I need to send a message to the palace. Move! Quickly!”
The urgency in his voice compelled Elissa from the room without asking any more questions.
Lurk rubbed his paws together and offered up a prayer of thanks to the Horned Rat. His message was delivered and somehow he had managed to avoid being chopped up by the dwarf’s fearsome axe. Mere minutes after he had lobbed the brick through what he had ascertained was Jaeger’s window he saw all the lights in the inn go on, and shortly thereafter, the human and the dwarf raced from the building bearing weapons and lighted lanterns.
A job well done, he told himself with satisfaction and rose to go. He sniffed heavily, trying to clear his nose. He was not feeling too well, and had been feeling less than well for days. He wondered if he was going down with the strange new disease that, rumour had it, was going around the skaven camp… the disease so strangely similar to the plague which was felling the humans. Lurk fervently hoped not. He was still young and had many things to accomplish. It would not be fair for him to pass away without achieving them.
He almost fainted when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and a hideous bubbling voice whispered in his ear: “You will tell me what you have been doing! All of it! Quick! Quick!”
Even through the thick wad of snot that filled his nostrils, Lurk recognised the oppressive stench of Vilebroth Null.
“What’s the hurry, manling?” Gotrek rumbled. “We don’t even know where we’re going.”
“The river,” Felix said, feeling a strange sense of urgency. The note had said they did not have much time, and their skaven informant had never lied to them before. “A ship must arrive by river.”
“I know, manling, but it’s a big river. We can’t cover it all.”
“It’s a barge! There are very few places where a barge can tie up, and it must follow navigable channels.”
Felix considered the possibilities. What certainty did he have that this “Black Ship” was going to tie up, rather than say, explode? None, really; he was just hoping that this was the case. Then it came to him. The big grain warehouses were down by the wharves and the letter had mentioned grain. At least, he hoped it had.
“The granaries,” he muttered. “The Northside docks are near the granaries.”
“The Northside docks would seem to be the best bet then,” Gotrek said, hefting his axe.
“Well, we need to start somewhere.” They jogged on. Felix hoped fervently that the tavern boy had managed to deliver his note to Count Ostwald.
Skitch cursed as the barge shifted off course again. It was not a vessel the skaven were used to handling and the helmsman had had a lot of trouble with the tricky currents on their way down-river. Skitch hoped that they would arrive soon, for if they did not reach the manburrow during the hours of darkness the whole plan would be ruined. The barge painted black to be inconspicuous on this moonless night would stick out like a human baby in a litter of runts by day.
Well, he supposed the ship had been necessary. There was no other way such a huge number of specimens could have been carried through the Underways and released into the human city without arousing suspicion. He knew the last thing that his master wanted was for either Grey Seer Thanquol or the humans to have any inkling of what was going on. It was a well-known fact that the plans of Thanquol’s rivals had a tendency to fail if he found out about them. Skitch shuddered at the thought o
f what would happen if the humans found out what was going on.
He shook his head and returned to inspecting his charges. They scrabbled at the bars of their cages, hungry and desperate to be free.
“Soon! Soon!” he told them, feeling a certain kinship for these short-lived vermin that his mighty intellect had created. He knew they were flawed, just like he was. They would live only days.
The ship moved on through the night, coming ever closer to the sleeping city.
The docks by night were not a reassuring place, Felix thought. Lights spilled from many seedy taverns, and many red lights illumined the alleys. Armed patrols of watchmen moved between the warehouses, but were careful not to enter the areas where the sailors took their pleasure. They were more intent in protecting their employers’ goods than stopping crime. Still, Felix was reassured to know that there were armed men within call if things went horribly wrong.
He stood on the edge of the wharf and stared out into the river. The Reik was wide at this point, perhaps a league across, and navigable by ocean-going ships. Not that many of them came this far. Most traders chose to drop their cargoes in Marienberg and have it shipped upriver on barges.
From here he could see the running lights of both barges and the small skiffs which carried folk across the river all hours. He assumed that there would be many more craft out there than lights. Not all boats or their passengers wanted their businesses known. Felix assumed that the Black Ship would be among their number. Only instead of carrying a cargo of illegal goods it was carrying some awful skaven weapon. Felix shuddered to contemplate what it might be. The Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes and the weapons of Clan Skryre had been terrible enough for him.
The wind blew cold and he drew his old tattered cloak tight about his shoulders. What am I doing here, he wondered? I should be at home back in the Pig, trying to patch things up with Elissa.
Or maybe not. Maybe that was what he was doing here, avoiding Elissa.
He wondered where things were going with the girl, and he had no real idea. It was just something he had drifted into, not something he ever imagined would have a future. He knew he did not love Elissa the way he had loved Kirsten. Recently, he would not even say they were friendly. He thought that for her, too, it was just a passing thing, something that had happened. Maybe she would be better off with her peasant boy. He shrugged and continued to peer out into the darkness, and listen to the waves slopping gently against the wooden supports of the wharf.