The air was thick with a green haze now. All around the trio, the buildings had morphed and curved in on them like a snare that would, at any moment, close tightly around them. The Hunter was pacing, grumbling to himself; they had been travelling for a few hours now and were already lost.
Jasper was sat down on the cobblestones, flipping a coin into his hat for amusement. He had never looked so childlike. When he looked up and followed the Hunter's movements, his eyes were wide and clueless. This was the face of one who had seen too much. The hunter stroked his beard and nodded sternly at this assessment.
Then he turned to the Greatsword, that mysterious figure who had said nothing to him since the journey began. Occasionally, though, he would lean into Jasper's ear - and then the boy would stop shivering and panicking, and his eyes would gain a sharp focus.
He shook his head. There was no way they could remain in the open; if the bandits and heretics did not get them, the foul taint of the wyrdstone would. "Where are we going, boy? You said you knew..."
Before the boy could respond, the Hunter was advancing into the nearest building. A hole had been bust into the wall somehow, but the lack of debris on the other side meant that it was probably a creature rather than an explosive. Jasper followed, muttering to himself.
The Greatsword had already entered, without either of them noticing. He was walking about the room, running his hand across each surface as if a blind man trying to get his bearings. The Witch Hunter found a spot in a corner, squatted there against the wall and began observing the soldier's ritual intently.
Jasper took the chance to retreat upstairs. His head was buzzing, and he had been dizzy since his ordeal. A solemn ringing like a large iron bell filled his head with bursts of sound every few minutes, and so he could not think straight. He shoved open the door, advancing down the corridor until he found a room that looked to be a study overlooking the road.
He opened the door and immediately froze. The entire room had fallen away in some previous chaos, and the whole road was visible...
Or it would be, if not for the teeming mass of shambling bodies that swept across it, away from them. Backing away from the gap, Jasper squeaked back. "Guys! Sirs, come and see this!"
There were groans from downstairs after the fourth yell, and the thudding of heels against steps. Both figures were behind him now. The Greatsword was deathly silent.
"By Sigmar. I knew it." The Hunter broke into a smile that stunned Jasper like a slap across the face. "I knew it, it was Undead! They are here!"
The horde below - for it so thickly covered the street that only the odd cobblestone was visible here and there, and the air was thick with deep howls and moans - was an undead horde, hundreds strong. The bodies were of men, no doubt former residents of Mordheim. Some were state troops who had been garrisoned here before the fall, others citizens of all stripes and shapes and sizes, and others still mutated beyond all recognition and then risen again to serve some other force. If they knew of the fresh meat barely a dozen metres up from them, none of the creatures made known that fact, save the odd one here and there which stopped, stared and growled before being carried along by the wave of flesh or knocked and trampled underfoot.
The Hunter dropped back behind the pair. Jasper was about to turn around when another shot from the bell sent his head spinning. He fell to the ground, twitching. There were yells of shock as the two men hoisted him to his feet and lay him against the wall. Then the hunter knelt over the edge of the gap, looking up the road.
"There." He pointed far to the right, where the field of chimnneys and roofs rose in a gentle curve with the hill on which Mordheim was built, the tip of a spire could be seen twinkling. It was a needle on the horizon, covered by the haze and clouds and impossible to make out.
"There. Look, the Horde is moving this way, where else would they be going but-"
"The Chapel of the Sisters of Sigmar. Where all the fruits of this cataclysm are locked away." The Greatsword spoke grimly. The Witch Hunter stood aghast for a moment. His gaze pierced the man suspiciously.
"We must go there, we must reach it before these creatures do!" The hunter furrowed his brow and ran his hand over his hat irritably.
The Greatsword lifted his blade and motioned back to the staircase. "We cannot make it through that horde, but you're free to try, Hunter. Your boy's sewers can lead us there." He gazed at Jasper, who shivered. The man's eyes were black and vacant.
"Sewers? Oh!" He cried and shook his head frantically. "Not going back down there! Not with those beasts down there!"
The Hunter growled and pinned the boy against the wall, a hand grasping each shoulder. "The monsters up here are very real and very dangerous, boy. They are enough without you imagining things. Now take us."
"No!" The boy squealed. The hunter lifted his pistol into view. Jasper whimpered. "You're crazy for a hunter! Fine... fine! You want to die sir? Fine, sir. I'll take you."
There was quiet, save the groans of the shambling dead beneath them. The Greatsword peered over the side, to see if the commotion had disturbed any of them, but they carried on their way deeper into town. The trio headed back out from whence they had come, and Jasper took lead. At the nearest sewer grating they paused.
"Here. Think I know this bit - used to go straight to the market. Was an easy way to get food." The boy cursed to himself and continued quickly. "I can take you to the chapel, yeah. Should take a day at most - way faster than those shamblers can go anyhow."
The two men wrenched the grating from its holding, and Jasper led them underground.