Jasper stood on his tip-toes and pressed the lit torch up into the tunnel duct. He reached up, missing twice, and on the third jump grabbed the entrance and lift himself into it with a grunt. Even for him it was a tight fit, and he hit the top of the tunnel hard, his head throbbing. Shuffling forward he pulled the scrolled-up map from his pocket and glanced over it.
A bee-line right under the noble quarter. Right above where his company had been slaughtered. The still air felt suddenly oppressively cold. He felt himself shiver and looked around into the blackness, wary as if a hundred eyes were on him.
Still, it's a straight-line. Sigmar willing, this should be easy. He pushed himself forward on his elbows. The air was still and fetid, but the dirt base of the tunnel was slick with moisture and easy enough to pass through. In one hand the torch flittered with his movements. He could see nothing but the glistening soil around him.
Then he paused. He felt a jolt of fear. There was light passing through a grating up ahead, illuminating the wall. He gave the map another startled glance. There was nothing there – or shouldn't have been. He prayed that the city sewers had just been renovated here without his knowing and pressed on.
Still, his heart was beating in his chest – that map had never failed him before. When he reached the grating, he paused to catch his breath. He tried to look through, but the light was overwhelming, and he shielded his eyes as they adapted. He looked again.
Hordes and hordes of vermin. They were all arrayed along walkways of crooked wooden planks and corroded steel that zig-zagged at jarring angles across a wide chamber. The room – no, arena, for it was easily two leagues across – passed out of his view. At its base fighters tore into one-another as blots of brown and grey colliding and parting and colliding again until one froze entirely; another victim of the sports. The cheer of the ratmen was a constant drone that shook the boy to his core. The tallest platform of all was suspended on a hollow cylinder, through which lightning crackled intermittently. It radiated the same sickly green for which these creatures had embedded themselves in his mind. Atop it was a colossal bell.
At the sight of the warp-energy Jasper caught himself whimpering. Tears fell down his face, but he didn't recall crying. He scampered past the grating as he imagined these rats must do. There were hundreds of the creatures in there, and his thoughts passed to the woman clad in black who was to take her place among the arena's many contenders.
He felt he must be drawing close after several more minutes. His hand was clutching the torch so tightly it was drenched with sweat, and his baggy clothes had long since been soaked through and browned. Sure enough, he saw across from him dim strobes of light from where the tunnel reached another ventilation shaft up ahead. He reached it, sat as up hunched and peered into the hole. He saw nothing in the darkness. Deliberating as he watched the torch flames crackle, he lowered it down and dropped it into the darkness, begging it would reach ground and would not go out.
With a light clatter it hit the floor, and the ground about it was coated in a ring of dancing orange. He prepared to hoist himself down.
Then the bell in the arena tolled. The sound was like thunder striking him from all sides, and he cried out in surprise and pain. The entire tunnel seemed to shake furiously, like an angry creature trying to force him out from within it, and Jasper fell flat on his back. He was gasping for air which felt like it had been torn out of his lungs and his ears were ringing fiercely; even as he convulsed under the wave of sound and struggled to right himself, his crying was faint and distant.
He fell still and didn't know how long he lay in that dank tunnel. It was a miracle that nothing had chanced upon him in that state. He didn't dare think what they would do; he had heard of ordinary rats that devoured young boys beneath the shadow of houses and in isolated alleyways. This would be much worse.
"Sigmar protects me." He said softly with a smile. He sat up, and his jaw dropped.
The torch was gone.
In confusion he looked away and back down. A layer of black greeted him, entirely devoid of light. He felt his heart roaring again, and his hands shook as he lowered himself into the void. He dropped to his knees and ran his hands across the cold floor. He couldn't feel the torch anywhere. He crawled along, searching more, and hissed as his hands tore across something jagged and hard. He shook his hands which were already growing hot and sticky with blood. He tried to look ahead, but he had no way of knowing if that even was ahead.
He felt entirely as if he were about to die, especially when something fell with a clatter besides him. He closed his eyes – for all the good it would do – and waited, but nothing happened. He chanced a look in the direction of the sound.
Suspended in the air, no higher than four foot, the orange-white orb of torchlight danced in place. Jasper almost felt taunted by it as it bobbed and crackled with intensity almost cheerful. Then it stood bolt-still as the torch was moved by an unseen hand. It arched through the air, away from the boy, and when it fell still another ring shot out from the darkness ahead. Jasper followed the torch, knowing not what else he could do.
Sofie listened to the jeering masses of beasts with eyes closed. She was encased head-to-toe in her vampiric plate, and her two blades hung limp from arms that lay by her side. The Banshee was circling her slowly, as softly as leaves are carried by the wind.
"You are not invincible, my lady." She spoke.
"What would I do without your guidance, wraith?" Sofie chided. "You cannot think of anything else – Don't argue, you have been silent since this plan was put in motion. These ratmen are cowards."
"Yes, they are." The Banshee conceded.
"Which one is the leader?" The vampire asked, placing a hand on the crooked trap-door that funnelled into the chamber.
"You expect me to know of these creatures? I am just as in the dark as you, mistress – though something tells me these beasts are not subtle. I am sure you will be well acquainted with that one."
She sniffed the air. A pair of rat-guards lay dead beside her. They bled profusely, and the scent allayed her doubts. "The boy will make it. Even if I do not, and he will warn the survivors of their coming plight."
"Perhaps the true danger is right ahead of us, mistress. The more you slay here the fewer those women and children and merchants will have to deal with, and they are hardly an ounce of your prowess." The Banshee smiled. It was always to her amusement to test this Sister's patience. In her current form she looked truly monstrous; there was nothing of the purity that she felt lay within to be seen.
It was terrifying, and that was their only advantage.
"Quite right." She smiled and donned her helmet, making her way through to the chamber. The wooden door was held tightly closed with chain. Across it were perforations torn across it like stitching, and here and there gashes made chasms in the wood surface from where joyous ratmen and torn and clawed and bitten to get inside. "It is locked." The banshee observed.
Sofie turned to her in silence and cocked her head. "Obviously." She spat.
"How will you get-"The innocent voice began, but even as she spoke the vampire had taken several strides backwards. She turned and watched her mistress. "You aren't going to-"
She charged the door, jumping up into the air and kicking at its centre. The wood splintered at the impact and the force tore each side of the door from its hinges with a horrible whine and spinning half a dozen metres forward. Beneath where it landed a furry arm twitched and fell still.
That one was the first. Her advisor had already faded as she strutted into the chamber, head up high and with a wry smile. There was a deathly silence all throughout at her coming, alleviated only by the final low knells of the rats' bell. When she glanced all around her, she felt a thousand eyes in confusion and apprehension. Atop the central platform a grey-white figure was jerking and pacing skittishly.
"Who-who are you? Which fool let surface-things in my chamber of fighting and feasting!?" It squealed. The voice was as jerky and malleable as the creature that carried it, but it was guttural in a way Sofie had not heard of their kind, and the gazes of the ratmen fell onto the creature. The Vampire drew her blades. She had interrupted what looked to be gladiatorial combat; those on the ground-floor with her were not of their kind, but slaves. Indeed, a skeletal man in nothing but a loincloth looked at her with eyes wide. In his weak hand a cleaver shook profusely. She approached him.
"No-no! You don't kill my slaves, I kill my slaves! Or I get minionsto kill slaves!" The voice roared out. "I Seer Chuntack, none defy me here!" Then he paused. Sofie could almost feel the malicious thoughts passing his mind, because with a single finger he pointed down into the pit.
"Prisoners! Loyal subjects! You kill black-thing, you leave free!" He declared with a cackle.
They were forming a horseshoe around her now, most of them humans but some oddities too; what caught her eye was a short stout figure. She thought him a man at first, but his mouth was scarred horribly by claw-marks. A single tuft of thick chestnut hair fell from his chin past his neck, and this gave him away. The Dwarf looked with glossy, mournful eyes, and held up his axe. The rest of the prisoners prepared themselves too.
Sofie shook her head. "Don't. I will free you. Don't." They were advancing.
The Dwarf spoke suddenly, his voice raspy and distant. "No honour left," he said, swallowing hard, "But to kill an un-dead, now the Ancestors may forgive me yet." He jerked forward as if his movements were not his own, bringing the axe high. The rest of the gladiators followed suit.
It was over in a few terrible seconds. A handful of men and women, a dwarf and a green-black goblin lay dead around the Vampire. She stood silently. That horrible laughter echoed at her deed.
"Disappoint us all!" The Seer said, "Not good performance, no? Not befitting mighty-best Skaven, no?" The crowd exploded into chittering laughter. "No!" Chuntack raised a hand and they fell silent. The dwarf's axe was still gripped by his dead hand. She wrenched it free. "Vampire, stupid-fool! You cannot hurt me-me up here! I take you, and then I take your city, and then I take your people for slaves! And then all Skavendom see, that it was I-"
She roared and threw the axe with all her strength. It shot through the air in a blur, whistling as it did like a crossbow bolt. The Seer ducked, and the spinning axe flew clear over his head, embedding itself into the bell and sending it toppling with a terrible screech. It hit the pit-floor hard and the wooden frame splintered. The bell fell piteously into itself, a low groaning note its death-knell as it fell still on the sand.
The Seer gnawed his tail in rage. "The Horned Rat saw that! Oh, he won't forgive you now! Kill-kill, Kill-kill! Rats and ogres and rats more, kill it now!" He launched into his ravenous tirade until the doors all about tore open and all but one rats flooded out, armed with crude blades and spears. From the last came deep stomps and a silhouette plastered itself ahead of whatever lay in the dark. It looked like a gorilla at first, but as it approached and its shadow extended Sofie saw what looked to be a crystal rising from it.
Then the Rat-Ogre emerged, beating its chest with two muscular arms and charging with reckless abandon. The rat hordes followed suit.
"This was the fight you wanted?" The Banshee asked, "It seems a lot to chew through, even for your mightiness."
"I have time." The Vampire said. She tore up her helmet, lapping the flat of each blade for sustenance.