01 - Grey Seer Read online

  Along with the healthy warriors, the infected swordsrat also withdrew from the monster, visibly shivering as he watched it feed. The sick skaven blundered into one of his former comrades. Instantly the stormvermin cried out, slashing the swordsrat from throat to belly with his halberd. Glowing worms oozed from the wound, slapping against the floor like greasy raindrops.

  The sound caused the enormous rat-beast to lift its skeletal head. The monster sniffed at the air, then its jaws opened in a sharp hiss. Before any of the skaven could turn to run, the beast leapt across the burrow and was in their midst. Giant claws ripped and tore the tight knot of warriors, shredding armour like paper. Squeals of terror and agony became deafening as the smell of blood enraged the beast still further, provoking it into a frenzied state.

  Kratch didn’t wait to see anything else. The adept dived from the burrow, scurrying on all fours in his haste to flee. In the tunnel, the panicked slaves were struggling to rip the iron spikes that anchored their chains to the crumbling walls from their earthen fastenings. When they saw Kratch, some of them abandoned their efforts, turning instead toward the savage taskmaster. Several leapt at him, tearing the empty air with their bloodied paws as they reached the limit of their chains.

  Kratch backed away from the maddened slaves, but found his retreat blocked by something warm and furry. Grey Seer Skabritt’s scent held an unfamiliar taint of fear, but Kratch still recognised the smell. He lifted his gaze to the sorcerer-priest. Like the stormvermin, Skabritt’s eyes were wide with fear. Unlike the warriors, however, fear was not the only thing Kratch saw in his mentor’s stare. He saw anger, the smouldering fury of a mad genius who at the moment of triumph sees his prize stolen from him.

  Then Skabritt’s eyes were changing, glossing over with a greenish luminance as he drew upon the arcane power of the Horned Rat and the warpstone talisman he clutched in his fist. Kratch could feel tendrils of energy oozing into his brain, trying to smother his thoughts. It took all of his own willpower and sorcerous knowledge to drive them back, to free his mind of their numbing touch. The adept slumped to the floor, physically drained by the effort of resisting Skabritt’s spell.

  The slaves were not so fortunate. From the ground, Kratch could see them grow still. Fear withered from their eyes, dispelled by a green glow that was an eerie echo of Skabritt’s own charged gaze. When the grey seer gestured, the mob stirred, pulling once again at their chains and the iron staples anchoring them to the walls. This time, however, they did not attack the task as a disordered rabble but rather as a unified body guided by a single will: that of Skabritt. One after another, the combined strength of the slaves tore the staples from the walls.

  The last staple came free just in time for Skabritt. The sounds of carnage and slaughter had faded from the burrow. In the exposed mouth of the chamber, its mangy pelt smeared in the black blood and yellow fat of the stormvermin, the rat-beast snarled and spat. Skabritt spun about, glaring at the loathsome creature and pointed a clawed finger at the monster.

  At his command, the ensorcelled slaves surged forward, a chittering mass of claws and fangs. Like a furry tide, they crashed upon the rat-beast, crushing it beneath their sheer weight of numbers, bowling it over and slamming it into the crumbling wall of the tunnel. Earth and rock showered down from the ceiling, throwing dust into the musty air.

  The rat-beast fought back, disembowelling slaves with every turn of its massive paws, snapping spines with its iron jaws. For all their numbers, for all the grey seer’s magic, the stink of fear began to rise from the tangled knot of skaven sweeping over the monster. Skabritt gave voice to an inarticulate howl in which was both terror and outraged fury. The sorcerer-priest scurried forwards, desperate to reinforce his hypnotic control of the craven slaves.

  Kratch watched the grey seer rush closer to the battle and his mouth pulled back in a predatory smile. He pulled a small piece of blackish-green rock from beneath his robes, a tiny sliver of refined warpstone. The adept’s teeth gnawed at the rock, letting little bits of stony grit burn their way down his throat and through his body. Now it was Kratch’s eyes that began to glow with an unholy light, the apprentice’s brain that roared with the mighty power of the Horned Rat. Kratch could feel his body pulse with strength, swell with godlike vitality. He felt the essence of the warpstone flow through his entire being, hearing its seductive whisper crawl through his flesh.

  It was almost worse than Skabritt’s spell, fighting down the euphoric mania of the warpstone, but Kratch knew if he lost control now, his opportunity would be lost. That cold, ugly fact helped him maintain a grip on his reason. He forced his eyes to focus on the rat-beast and the slaves, on Skabritt now standing so very close to the fray.

  On the crumbling walls and weak ceiling of the tunnel.

  It seemed so easy. A few words, a few gestures, and the primordial power that raced through his body was reaching out. Like a great hammer, it smashed against the walls, it battered against the ceiling. A deafening roar thundered through the tunnel. In that last instant, Skabritt turned, locking eyes with his apprentice.

  Kratch grinned back, baring his fangs in challenge to his hated mentor. Then thousands of tons of earth and rock came crashing down, obliterating Skabritt’s expression of disbelief. Grey Seer, slaves and rat-beast, all were buried in the collapse.

  Kratch coughed, spitting dirt from his mouth, choking on the dust that filled the tunnel and stifled the warpstone lanterns. He wiped at his almost blind eyes, even as he was pressing a rag to his snout to act as a filter for his nose. Briefly, Kratch considered waiting to see if the entrance to the burrow had remained intact. Skabritt was not the only skaven who could put the Wormstone to good purpose.

  It was the memory of the stormvermin who had been infected by the Wormstone’s power rather than the dust and dirt that made Kratch decide to flee. He would not brave such a fate as he had seen. He would let others take those risks.

  Yes, Kratch decided as he scurried through the raw, desolate tunnels, he would need helpers if he wanted to recover the Wormstone and reap the rewards of such a find. Kratch’s muzzle dripped as he salivated in anticipation of those rewards. He knew where to find his allies. He knew where his report about Skabritt’s discovery would benefit him the most.

  “Stop your whining or get an honest job!” growled Hans Dietrich for what felt like the hundredth time since they had set out from the docks. It was a serious threat to make against men like those who lumbered after him through the stinking, dripping corridors. Most of them had been born one kind of thief or another. Compared to their past activities, smuggling was an almost legitimate enterprise, if no less dangerous. There were stiff penalties for bringing contraband into Altdorf. Everyone from the Emperor downwards took a dim view of cheating the excisemen, though nobody really seemed to mind that it was the excisemen who were the biggest thieves. Popular theory on the wharves was that if even half the money the excisemen collected on goods coming into the capital actually were to go where it was supposed to, Karl Franz would be able to buy back Marienburg.

  Reviled villains, the excisemen were everywhere on the waterfront, and if they weren’t around, then there was always the chance that some wrinkle-faced old charwoman or bleary-eyed stevedore was employed by one, acting as their eyes and ears. The Fish, probably the most notorious of the waterfront gangs, took especial pleasure in floating such toadies in the river. Still, there was always someone desperate enough to take a few coppers from an exciseman, whatever the risks.

  Which was why men in Hans’ profession avoided the wharfs and the streets. There was another, surer way to navigate the swarming, crowded warren that was Altdorf, and do so completely unseen. The sewers of Altdorf were the biggest in the Empire, if not the entire Old World. Built by the dwarfs so long ago that some said Sigmar’s water was the first to christen them, the sewers existed as an unseen underworld, ignored and forgotten by nearly all who prowled the streets above. Sewerjacks and ratcatchers, maybe the odd mutant hiding from
the witch hunters, but largely no one bothered the sewers or even thought about doing so. Far from prying eyes and wagging tongues, the sewers were more than a filthy nest of scummy brickwork and walls dripping with slime to Hans: they were his secret road to anywhere in the city.

  There were dangers, to be sure. Sewer rats grew to the size of small dogs and were infamous for their ferocity and the filthy diseases they carried. There were the grisly water lizards brought back from the Southlands for Emperor Boris Goldgather, which had escaped the Imperial Menagerie to slink and stalk through the humid damp of the tunnels. Hans himself had seen one of the things once, pale as the belly of a fish and with a tail thick enough to choke an ox.

  Then there were the floods, when the reservoir beneath Altdorf would overflow and dump its spillage for the sewers to cast the excess into the Reik. There was little warning when these floods would rush through the tunnels; only by watching the rats could a man find any hint of alarm. If the rats started scrambling for the surface, the smart man was right behind them. Hans cursed the fiendish cunning of the dwarfs; no human would have thought of using the reservoir as a means to clean the tunnels. He cast a nervous look at one of the grimy chutes that yawned in the wall, somewhat reassured to find a big black rat staring back at him from the muck, its whiskers twitching as it gnawed on some nameless filth clutched in its hand-like paws.

  “Are we there yet?” the thin, reedy voice of Kempf called out from the rear of the little procession. There were ten men in Hans’ little gang, just big enough to keep their cut of the merchandise lucrative, but too small to bounce anyone from the mob. Even an annoying weasel like Kempf.

  “You seen the mark?” Hans snarled back, turning around to glare at Kempf. Like the rest of the smugglers, Kempf was dressed in a grimy set of homespun and wool that was only slightly too good to be called rags. Kempf affected a goatskin coat two sizes too big for him, the garment hanging well below his knees while a gaudy scarf circled his throat, hiding an Adam’s apple so big the man looked like he’d swallowed a goblin.

  Kempf lifted his hands in a placating gesture, causing Hans to roll his eyes. Kempf had an ugly habit of excusing himself from all the heavy work. While the rest of the men laboured under the weight of a half-dozen casks of bootleg Reikland hock from Carroburg, Kempf had conned his comrades into posting him as rearguard to keep a wary eye out for sewerjacks… or worse.

  “Maybe we passed it,” Kempf suggested, visibly cringing when he saw the reaction on Hans’ face. The reedy smuggler bobbed his head like a punch-drunk stork and started a bout of his braying, nasal laughter. “I know, I know,” he said. “You keep a good eye out for the marks. Nobody says you don’t. I mean, that’s why you’re the leader.” Kempf’s thin face spread in a toothy smile that was both ingratiating and smarmy. “But, I mean, everyone makes mistakes.”

  Hans scowled at the rearguard, sucking at his teeth as he imagined burying his fist in that smug smile. He counted to ten, then reversed the numbers. His brother was always on him about his temper. They’d lost a few clients and quite a few men because Hans didn’t keep a tight leash on his tongue. More than a few of their enemies had started that way by being on the receiving end of Hans’ ire. Someday, Johann was always warning him, his temper was going to get all of them into more trouble than they could handle.

  Hans looked away from Kempf and gave Johann an exasperated look. His brother was younger but taller and more muscular, his features handsome in a rugged sort of way that had all the girls at Argula Cranach’s making cow-eyes at him and offering discounts. His leather tunic, despite years of abuse and crude mending, still managed to constrain his brawny build. Hair the colour of old corn was cropped close to the skull, starkly contrasting eyes as cold and blue as the waters of the Upper Reik.

  Johann had inherited all the better qualities. Hans was short, his unimposing build fading to fat, his left ear swollen out of proportion thanks to the impart of a Reiksguard’s bludgeon during the Window Tax riots many years ago. His nose was crooked, bent into its current asymmetrical fashion by the fist of a dock-ganger from the Hooks. His hair was a scraggly brown mop, like some disordered bird’s nest threatening to burst from beneath his battered felt hat. It wasn’t just looks that Johann had won out on. The younger brother was smarter, stronger, more cautious, less emotional and decidedly braver. What Johann lacked, what his older brother provided, was ambition.

  Starve or steal was a simple choice to make for the people who inhabited the waterfront. The Dietrich brothers had chosen to steal, at first petty arts of thuggery that yielded petty results. There wasn’t much coin to be had rolling drunks as they stumbled out of the Orc and Axe. The real money was to be had by smuggling, sneaking goods from river trader to city merchant without the excisemen interfering.

  They’d been profiting well from the venture, too. Even with his hot temper, Hans had a steady cadre of clients quite willing to put up with him for the sake of avoiding usurious duties and customs. Johann had scouted out a large section of the sewer over the course of several months, making marks in chalk and soot where the walls of the stinking tunnels corresponded with some important landmark above. By watching for the marks, the smugglers always knew where they were and where they needed to go.

  Only Hans hadn’t seen any marks for quite some time now. Far too long, now that he thought about it. He didn’t like to give any credence to one of Kempf’s slippery suggestions, but the sneak might be right this time. Maybe he had missed something.

  Before he could speak, Hans saw Johann’s eyes narrow into a suspicious squint. Slowly, the younger Dietrich began to lower his cask of cheap Carroburg booze.

  “Something’s wrong,” Johann said, his voice low. His hand dropped to a weapon belt that was in far better shape than his tunic, fingers tightening about the grip of his dagger.

  “Who…” but Hans had no need to finish his question. Torches blazed into life from the sewer tunnel up ahead. More lights burst into flame from the cross-tunnels to either side. Dark silhouettes moved through the blackness, naked steel reflecting the flickering flames. Hans felt his stomach turn as he decided that the sewerjacks had finally caught them. In the next moment, he found himself wishing they were sewerjacks.

  “The Dietrich boys,” a deep voice growled, a voice Hans and any other scoundrel on the waterfront knew only too well. Gustav Volk. In a district infamous for casual violence and brutality, Gustav Volk was a name held in fear. As the speaker stepped out of the shadows, Hans reflected that it wasn’t size or strength that made Volk so feared, the man possessed neither in such abundance as to overwhelm the feral courage of rakes and thieves. It was the face—that grizzled scowl with its stubbly hair and heavy brow. Volk carried an expression that could make a wolf pass water. It burned in his eyes, the pitiless rage looking for any excuse to allow the man to do his absolute worst to his victim and enjoy every screaming, bloody minute of it.

  Volk oozed out from the darkness, accompanied by a bull-necked bruiser carrying a torch. Other thugs followed close behind. Volk looked the smugglers up and down, his lip curled in scorn. “Quite an accomplishment,” he snarled. “Your operation has become big enough to become annoying to Herr Klasst. Bad news for you.” To add emphasis to his statement, Volk slapped the hilt of his sword. For the moment, it was sheathed. Nobody was fool enough to think the moment would last.

  Klasst. Vesper Klasst. He was even more of a bogeyman to the inhabitants of the waterfront than Volk. A big-scale racketeer and gang-leader, it was said Klasst controlled criminal bands all across Altdorf, from Little Tilea to the Morrwies. After the Fish and the Hooks had been at least partially broken up by the Altdorf Dock Watch in the weeks after the murderous Beast had finally been brought to ground, it was Vesper Klasst who had become the undisputed power on the waterfront. And Gustav Volk was his enforcer, extorting a percentage from every transaction, criminal or legal, that happened in his territory, brutally coercing many of the district’s thieves to join Klasst’s “famil
y”.

  Hans had resisted Volk’s suggestion that his band of smugglers accept the protection of his gang. That meeting had ended with one of Hans’ fingers bent so far backward it wasn’t so much broken as snapped. It had also ended with Johann’s dagger tickling a piece of anatomy Volk wasn’t too keen on losing. The last view the brothers had had of Volk was him screaming for a chirurgeon and clutching his blood-soaked breeches. That had been three months ago. They’d been lucky to avoid him so long. Now Ranald had decided their luck was at an end.

  “I want the wine,” Volk stated, his tone broaching no argument. “Then you’re going to show me where you were taking it. I’ll make a good example of somebody who thinks they can still use independents without Herr Klasst finding out.”

  “How do we know you won’t just kill us anyway?” Hans challenged.

  Volk’s smile was as ugly as an orc in a nursery. “You can die here, slow, or you can die there. I’ll have other things to do there, so I’ll make it quick.”

  Johann pulled his dagger from its sheath. “How about I just gut you like the pig you are and leave you floating here with the rest of the…”

  Hans stared in horror as his brother lunged at Volk. The entire sewer exploded into madness, armed men charging from the darkness to confront the smugglers. Hans dodged the murderous sweep of a boat-hook, driving his elbow into the thug’s belly and knocking the wind out of him.

  So much for Johann being the level-headed one, Hans thought as he drew his own dagger and joined the fray in earnest.

  Six casks of Reikland hock, three dead and two men missing. Johann knew he should be thankful that any of them were still alive, but he still couldn’t help but grumble over their losses. They’d accounted for at least two of Volk’s gang, but unfortunately he wasn’t one of the casualties. Not bad considering they’d been outnumbered three to one. Still, if Volk’s men had known the sewers half as well as the smugglers, there was no chance they’d have given the thugs the slip.