[Warhammer] - Dreadfleet Read online

  The koffe tent was thick with narcotic smoke. Lounging upon fat cushions of silk and leather were indolent gourmets drawing upon elaborate wyrdroot hookahs. The gurgle of their tainted smokewater ebbed and flowed under a babble of lazy conversation. Above Roth’s head, the tent’s thick canvas ceiling was artfully folded to allow light to fall through patches of gauze whilst keeping the sand-devils out. Veiled dancing girls wound their rounded hips to the lilting flow of ethereal pipe music, their luscious bodies passing in and out of shafts of light with hypnotic slowness. A pair of blue, three-eyed cobras danced upright with them, lathing the air to taste Roth’s sweat. Behind them, a gibbon in a tiny suit of spiked armour tapped out a complex rhythm on a tambour fashioned from an elephant’s skull. The wiry simian caught Roth’s gaze and smiled at him, exposing rows of sharp gold teeth.

  Without warning, a tall man with a wrestler’s physique and remarkable earlobes appeared by the captain’s side. Roth’s dagger was out in an instant, but the man just smiled broadly.

  “Go ahead, sea-sword,” said the newcomer in a thin, girlish voice. “I’ve nothing to lose. Alternatively, come this way, if you’d prefer to live till sunset.”

  Earlobes raised a pierced eyebrow and padded toward the rear of the tent. He stepped deftly between the lounging figures scattered across the floor and disappeared into the narcotic smoke. Light-headed and blinking, Roth followed as best he could. Lolling merchants and princelings giggled at his discomfort as Roth picked his way through them. One of the dusky-skinned dancers brushed his neck with a languid hand as he walked past, pursing her full red lips in an exaggerated kiss.

  Roth gave her a wink. “Next time, perhaps.”

  The captain followed the guard into a canvas-walled antechamber. The heavy flap behind Roth fell into place, plunging them into darkness. A strange sensation of movement disoriented Roth for a second, making his stomach lurch. Light flooded back into the antechamber as the guard pushed open a thick velvet curtain that led into a large circular chamber.

  Roth emerged into a large vaulted room that was twice the size of the koffe house he had entered. Its walls were hung with priceless silken prints depicting the monarchs of the elements ascendant. Every inch of the floor was awash with cushions, each different from the next. Roth gagged on the bittersweet air. It tasted like burnt sugar cane mixed with spice and fresh sweat.

  Directly ahead of Roth was a generously built man swathed in half an acre of pearlescent silk. His arms and legs were flung wide as he lounged against a cushion that could have consumed an ogre. Hookah smoke plumed above his curling black moustache, momentarily forming a pair of curvaceous women locked in a lover’s embrace before dissipating in the silken folds of the tent. His skin glittered as gold as the serried rings jammed onto his thick fingers and though one of his eyes was hidden behind a stylised eyepatch, the other stared out with frightening intensity.

  Entwined around him were five harem girls, each tattooed with exotic serpents and fire-symbols, their languid limbs snaking over each other. The man wound a tiny clockwork dancer in his right hand, releasing it onto the koffe tray beside him so that it spun with a metallic purr.

  The Golden Magus, as proud and strange as ever.

  “Captain Roth. You could at least show us the courtesy of removing those awful boots, my filthy old friend. Those cushions are Ulthuan silk.”

  The harem girls tittered and pawed at the Magus appreciatively while he adjusted his crotch with a contented smile.

  “Magus. May the desert winds bless you,” said Roth through a forced smile. “Though I have a feeling you’ve still got enough hot air to go round.”

  “O-ho, very good! A pun, and a topical one, no less! Very good, Jaego. The years have not dulled your cudgel-like wit. Instead it appears they have concentrated their efforts upon your face, and not without a considerable measure of success, it has to be said.”

  Roth scowled. “Perhaps my demeanour suffered with the recent death of my family.”

  “Ah. Most… unfortunate,” said the Magus with a heavy sigh. “I am truly sorry to hear that. A great loss. Your father was a good man and your wife had marvellous thighs.”

  A muscle twitched under Roth’s eyelid.

  “Yes. A loss I intend to avenge.”

  The sorcerer steepled a pair of heavily-ringed fingers in front of his lips before shooing his harem girls away. “Move, move. The Magus must speak now of matters grim. Leave us, and keep those pretty heads unsullied by talk of violence and revenge.”

  The harem girls made a great show of dismay, cooing and moaning, but nonetheless melted away into the dark antechamber behind Roth.

  The Magus hefted his great bulk from the silken cushions and padded over to a boiling glass urn at the back of the room. A long sword with a curved blade and astonishingly complex workmanship was sheathed within the glass chamber, twitching and jerking as bubbles flew madly from its red-tinged blade. The Golden Magus turned a tap at the bottom of the urn, filling what looked like a bronze lamp from its ornate fish-headed spout. The thick aroma of Lustrian koffebeans mingled with the omnipresent sugar-cane stench. It was not entirely unpleasant.

  “Something to drink? If I remember correctly, the charms of koffe are wasted upon you, but I believe I have some strong Estalian brandy around here somewhere…” The Magus made a show of turning over at least three cushions before growing bored and daintily filling a tiny porcelain cup from the bronze koffe lamp.

  “With all respect, old friend, I did not come here to drink.”

  “Of course. You came here to engage my services upon a vengeful crusade.”

  “You are a perceptive man, Magus.”

  “That I am. And might I ask who, or what, is the target of this little adventure?”

  “Count Noctilus, and the captains of the Dreadfleet.”

  “O-ho-ho!” The Magus slapped his legs in delight. “Oh, jest without price! You sly old jackal, you had me like a mackerel on a hook. Ha! I’m glad my girls did not see that one, they’d never have let me live it down. Oh, how I have missed you, Jaego, old friend, old knave, old scoundrel. Ah, me. Such fun.”

  The Magus wiped a tear from his eye, leaving a thin smear of kohl across his cheek.

  The mirth fell from his face as he saw Roth’s thunderous expression.

  “Ah. You do not jest at all.”

  The Golden Magus took a long slurp from his koffe, catching his clockwork dancer just as it began to wobble. He wound its spring back up, a pensive expression on his face.

  “And I presume you have brought me the crown jewels of not only Karl Franz but also the entire line of the Griffon Emperors in return for my assistance on this—shall we be kind and say brave little foray - that you propose?”

  “Lead me to the Flaming Scimitar,” said Roth, quietly, “and I will show you.”

  “Ah!” cried the Magus, almost spilling his koffe. “The Flaming Scimitar, he says.” The Magus pointed an immaculate fingernail at the curved blade inside the boiling urn. “That is the Flaming Scimitar, my dear fellow. My humble and frequently waterborne palace merely happens to be named after it. And now you play upon my curiosity, knowing that I am a sphinx at heart! Truly, you are a virtuoso of the conversational art, Jaego, to goad me so with implications of wealth unimaginable by a mere merchant prince such as I.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” said Roth. “Now are we going to your bloody warship or not?”

  “Well, so be it, so be it,” huffed the Magus, making a wounded face. “No need to be rude about it. Let us visit the Scimitar. In fact, Jaego, on that account I rather think I am one step ahead of you. Walk this way, and do try not to befoul the cushions.”

  The Magus drifted imperiously past Roth into the pitch-black antechamber behind him. The captain followed, secretly hoping to catch the eye of the dancing girl from his earlier encounter. The light was blotted out for a second, and Roth’s stomach lurched once more.

  The captain nearly choked when he emerged into bright s
unshine and inhaled a lungful of fresh sea air.

  Instead of passing back into the cramped confines of the koffe house, Roth had emerged onto the deck of a massive pleasure barge. The golden-brown palmwood of its construction was so spotless that it practically glowed. Directly ahead of him were two purple-walled minarets the size of castle keeps, one tall, one broad, their elaborately swirled roofs lustrous in the evening sun.

  Roth spun round in confusion, expecting to find the large canvas tent behind him. Instead he was confronted by a burnished banqueting hall. Its metal walls were pierced with tessellating designs in the style of the Arabyan courts. Above it flew two vast triangular sails of enchanted silk, their edges rippling with stylised flames that fluttered in the breeze. At the pleasure barge’s prow was a golden statue that was almost as large as Sigmar’s Wrath, a gilded djinn in a posture of attention, the blade of its downward-pointing falchion forming the prow of the ship. Roth blinked, completely nonplussed by what had just happened.

  The Flaming Scimitar, inexplicably, had come to him.

  Recovering his composure, Roth strode to the gunwales and looked down on El Khabbath’s dockside. Sure enough, his men were waiting there, canvas sheets covering the sea-chests filled with Nehekharan treasure. The Golden Magus’ crew had already extended a boarding ramp towards the dock and the sorcerer was striding towards Roth’s men, flanked by bald, bare-chested ogres with more piercings than a Stirlander’s dartboard. His arms were flung wide in a gesture of magnanimous welcome. Roth whistled hard and sharp, attracting the gaze of Ghow Southman and Old Ruger, and motioned them to bring the sea-chests aboard.

  Five minutes later, the sea-chests had been lugged on board the top deck of Flaming Scimitar. The Magus was just about managing not to jump up and down with excitement as Roth’s men jimmied open the outer casings.

  “It’s Lustrian gold, is it not? Lustrian? It’s heavy enough. We all know you have been there, Jaego. They say the lizards value gold less than pig iron, but they will kill a whole nation just to retrieve a stone plaque. There are not any stone plaques in there, are there, Jaego? Just gold, eh? Ha ha! Ah, and so very much of it, by the look of things. I count fourteen… no, sixteen chests. Oh, Jaego, this better not be one of our little jests, or it will be the plank for you. O-ho, the plank for a prank. Ha ha!”

  Ghow Southman shook his head in barely concealed scorn, piercings jangling, and ordered his men to open the sea-chests. They did indeed contain crown jewels. They also contained more gold than any of the crew had seen in their lifetime.

  “Nehekharan, actually,” said Roth, staring out at the horizon. “Zandrian, to be precise. I lost two hundred and twenty men securing it. I don’t think the King of Zandri was very happy about it. He sent half a legion to get it back.”

  For once, the Magus was lost for words.

  “Thank Manann we outdistanced them,” continued Roth. “The dead tend to be rather possessive, after all, especially those Nehekharan kings. Mad as scarabs, the lot of them. They’ll hunt a man to the ends of the earth just for looking at their grave-treasures, let alone harbouring them on a ship.”

  Beneath his golden body paint, the Magus paled. He plucked nervously at his rings, pulling them off and putting them back on again one after the other.

  “Zandrian gold. Zandrian gold eh? Fresh from Zandri, no less. Here on my lovely floating palace.” He clasped his fat fingers together and did a strange little dance. “Amanhotep’s hoard, then, it must be. King Amenhotep the Intolerant; let us give the desiccated old prune his proper title. I’m not afraid to name him, as profound a miser in death as he was in life.” The fact that the Magus’ jowls were shaking put the lie to his words.

  “Well I never, this is an interesting turn of events,” said the sorcerer. “That makes my decision a good deal simpler, eh? I’m in this to the bitter end, am I not?” The Magus frowned, then grimaced, then smiled like a crocodile. “Like it or not. Kill or be killed. Clever, Jaego. Very clever indeed.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “So talk on then, Jaego. I assume it is not just us two old men a-hunting on the high seas?”

  The Golden Magus had rallied remarkably well from his initial shock at the provenance of Roth’s stolen treasure. The sorcerer had spent several hours tucked away in the maze-like interior of his twin minarets, but had eventually emerged with a beaming smile, clad in crimson finery and eager to show Roth the hidden wonders of his pleasure barge. No doubt his harem girls had helped console him.

  “Far from it. The most dangerous men in Sartosa are sailing with us. We’ve over a thousand at the moment, but there’s room for almost twice that number. Those Sigmarites know how to build a ship, I’ll give them that.”

  “Aha, yes, quite. That is not what I meant, Jaego. Your acquisition is very impressive, there is no denying it. A little on the vulgar side, but you could not have picked a more perfect warship for the job and, though Volkmar and his majesty Karl Franz are no doubt already moving against you, it is a wide enough ocean to evade their attentions. No, what I wish to ascertain is how many other galleons you intend to take with you. Manann knows you are going to need them if you intend to go a-hunting the Dreadfleet. Who, pray tell, are the rugged and no doubt hirsute captains you’ve sworn to your side?”

  “I’m still working on that.”

  “Excellent,” the Magus said sullenly. “Truly excellent. I do not know whether to be flattered or horrified. You have not changed much, have you? Act first, act fast, and Morr take the consequences.”

  “Well, there’s Saltspite. She’ll have her price—she always does—but this time I can meet it. I just have no idea how to find her. She fled Sartosa as soon as Noctilus showed up.”

  “The Queen of Tides, eh? If you think you can bring that little minx under your flag, you must have something truly special tucked away in those roguishly bloodstained breeches, oh yes. But then you know her so much better than I, do you not, Jaego? If the wagging tongues of the dockside are to be believed, that is. You have heard what they say about her, I take it?”

  “Yes, yes. My crew delight in telling me. She’s got the sea in her blood, so to speak.”

  “It would explain a lot. There may be truth to it, for all you know, stranger things have happened.”

  “Like as not we could just follow a shark’s fin,” said the captain, his face sour. “I’m sure it’d lead us to the bloodthirsty bitch sooner or later.”

  “Ah, the blessed labyrinth of love. If it is true, you might not be too far from the mark. She would indeed be a valuable ally. A warship as formidable as the Swordfysh might be able to weather the hellstorm you seem intent on conjuring.”

  Roth nodded distractedly, his thoughts elsewhere.

  “Guth, attend me!” shouted the Magus, beckoning over one of his ogre bodyguards to his side.

  The largest of the walking meat-mountains lumbered over.

  “Assuming you are not too busy killing time, Guth, perhaps you would care to accompany me in order to fetch a little something from within my sanctums?”

  The pantalooned monster frowned in puzzlement, absentmindedly scratching his craggy behind. Roth would have laughed if there hadn’t been a serious risk of his head being twisted off.

  “Do wot?” said Guth. “Killin’ time, is it?” The ogre unsheathed a gleaming falchion that even Salt would have struggled to lift and hefted it into the air.

  Roth jumped back, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “No, Guth, no…” said the Magus wearily, motioning for the brute to put his great blade away. “Look, just… just follow me, please.”

  He turned to Jaego with an exaggerated sigh. “My own fault, really. Without going through certain procedures, my minarets can be rather lethal. Good luck to the pirate that tries to plunder those most convoluted of puzzles. He might very well lose his head in the process, a-ha! Take a few minutes to appreciate the peace whilst I retrieve something, Jaego, it may be your last chance for a while.”

  The Magus h
eaded off towards the larger of the two minarets, his ogre bodyguard lumbering after him.

  “And do keep an eye out for Nehekharan galleys, old friend?”

  True to his word, the Magus returned after a short while. His ogre bodyguard was hefting an overlarge ceramic urn the colour of the ocean in bright sunlight. Strange inscriptions and stylised waves ran around it in overlapping patterns. The Magus sauntered up to Roth, a smirk on his broad face.

  “Of course I would love to show you my latest dalliances in the field of clockwork, Jaego, were time not one of your many, many enemies. I have come rather a long way since I designed your eyepiece and your new hand, I do not mind telling you. But you strike me as a man who prefers his vengeance served lukewarm at the very least.”

  The Magus motioned for Guth to place the painted urn against the polished wall of the barge, standing on his toes in order to better examine a minute chip on the rim.

  “Conjuration is rather old hat for me these days, to be honest. My tastes have drifted into more… esoteric areas. Ah, change! The only true constant in the world, or beyond it, come to that. Still, I have plenty of these urns tucked away, of varying sizes and degrees of antiquity. I am sure I can spare one, for old time’s sake.” He smiled wickedly, as if sharing a private joke with Roth. “Oh yes, some real treasures hidden away, just waiting for their moment. Guth, please fetch my sword from the smoking room.”

  The ogre returned within minutes, carrying a large and exotically crafted scimitar, its blade ablaze with leaping white flames. Guth held the burning artefact by the hilt as if it were a live asp.

  Roth shielded his eyes from the sword’s brilliance, tinting his lenses to shut out the worst of the light.

  “Impressive,” said Roth. “I take it you’ve enough boiling water for the time being, then.”

  “O-ho, yes, very good, very good,” said the Magus, pulling on a glove of heavy chainmail and leather. “This, my dear Jaego, is the Flaming Scimitar, sword of a hundred fiery curses, the blade that burns with the flames of outrage! We have some pretty good curses in Araby, as you can see. One should not really drink that water, but it does give a certain kick to the koffe and it is about the only way I can find to sheathe the bloody thing.”