Thieves’ Paradise by Nick Horth

Author:Nick Horth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-18T13:43:02+00:00

Chapter Nine

The entrance to the Tower of a Thousand Doors lay beyond a courtyard of looming statues. A mist had descended upon us, covering the stone forms of mythical beasts in a faint, green shroud. In the distance, the ice-white wall of the tower rose high, high into the sky. Such was the sudden pall of fog that I saw no more than a few yards ahead.

‘Where’s this damnable mist come from?’ said Jacques.

We crept forward into the silent plaza, shivering at the cold that gnawed at our bones.

‘You go first,’ I said to Grey Jacques, who was padding softly behind me.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Because I’m already dead?’

‘Exactly. If something kills you, we’ll know it’s a trap.’

‘Madame, I am sorely wounded. Just because I am immortal, do not think that I cannot suffer pain. The nature of my condition does not prevent a poison arrow from causing an unpleasant end, nor ease the agony of being crushed by a hidden deadfall.’

‘Yes, but being squashed to death will be decidedly less final for you than for me. So please, do me the honour.’

The thief sighed, and went ahead. He drew his rapier, moving gracefully across the square. In the thick mist, the statues took on a particularly menacing aspect, like half-glimpsed monsters looming out of the fog. They were facing one another along the central avenue leading to the foot of the tower. Ahead, I saw the faint outline of an arched doorway, surrounded by stone gargoyles and winged beasts.

Drifting in on the cold air came a particularly foul smell – the sweet-sour scent of rotten meat. I raised my sleeve to block my nose.

At the same time the putrid scent reached our nostrils, Jacques raised a hand, ordering us to a halt. There was nothing but silence all around. The sounds of birdsong had ceased, and so had the soft and distant strains of music.

‘What in Sigmar’s name is that stench?’ muttered Tavyat, her brutish face locked in a grimace.

‘The dead,’ said Varon. His face was as pale as a corpse, and he held his pistol in trembling hands as he stared into the thickening fog. There was no fear in his eyes. In fact, they shone with a hazy light. For the briefest moment I thought that I saw a blazing green flame skitter across the blacks of his eyes.

Then we saw them. Hideously familiar shapes, racing out of the mist. Skeletal warriors, their yellow bones slimed with weeds and encrusted with barnacles. And behind, looming over the teeming horde, a palanquin of sinew and bone, borne aloft by fleshless hands. A familiar figure rode atop the hideous thing, black-cloaked and hooded. I saw the skull-like face of the necromancer who had ambushed us aboard the Pride of Talyn.

‘Kauss,’ growled Varon.

There were too many by far for us to fight, and the fog had let them draw terribly close. They spilled into the plaza like a great wave of yellow bone, loping towards us from all sides. Tavyat shoved me roughly behind her as she brought up her blade in a high guard.

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