Warhammer-Blackhearts 05-Tainted Blood by Nathan Long

Author:Nathan Long
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2006-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

Great Magic Is Done Here

Two great armies fought each other in the cavern valley, though the action was so fierce it was difficult to tell them apart. There seemed no order to the conflict, just hordes of spearmen – spear-rats, Reiner corrected himself – fighting hordes of sword-rats, while teams of rats from both armies wandered through the mayhem, shooting flame from brass hand cannons. Explosions of green smoke erupted from all parts of the field, causing all the ratmen near them to collapse, choking. An enormous rat-ogre, like the one Reiner and the Blackhearts had fought at Gutzmann’s fort, waded through a cluster of spear-rats, swinging an axe with a blade as large as a knight’s shield. It left broken bodies and rivers of blood in his wake.

Just below the Talabheimers and Reiklanders, on the slope that descended from the plateau to the valley – so close Reiner could pick out their scars – ranks of brown-clad rat-long gunners fired into the melee. On the far side of the chamber, gunners in green did the same. Ratmen by the score died on every part of the battlefield, but more poured from half a dozen tunnels and passages to join both sides.

Most of the chamber was made from the same glittering stone as the rest of the caves, but the right wall was different. It was glossy black, with a greenish sheen, and when Reiner looked at it, it seemed the mind-whispers that Valaris’s crystal slivers had dampened grew louder again. Darius trembled as he stared at it. Rickety scaffolding covered it, from which hung wooden ladders and ropes and pulleys and buckets. On the floor before it mine carts sat upon iron rails that disappeared into tunnels and further chambers. Neither the green army nor the brown army was using the scaffolding to fire from, nor were they damaging it.

‘Hoped I’d never see them nasty little buggers again,’ said Gert, wrinkling his nose. ‘Why do they fight, d’y’-suppose?’

Reiner chuckled. ‘For the waystone? Cursed thing seems to sow discord wherever it goes.’

‘But why?’ asked Franka.

Reiner shrugged.

Lord Boellengen cowered behind von Pfaltzen, staring at the sea of ratmen. ‘Sigmar! We are outnumbered ten to one.’

Von Pfaltzen trembled with righteous indignation. ‘This cannot be allowed. They must be exterminated. This cannot happen under the streets of Talabheim.’

‘Nor anywhere in the Empire!’ said Father Totkrieg.

‘But perhaps we should return with more troops,’ said Danziger, chewing his lip.

‘And artillery,’ said Scharnholt.

‘You overestimate them,’ said Schott. ‘Look how easily they die. We will drive them before us.’

A huge rat-ogre lumbered out of a side tunnel onto the plateau, its handlers whipping it toward the rear of the rat-handgunners on the slope. Boellengen’s handgunners fired at it in a panic. It roared, then crushed one of its handlers as it fell, riddled with bullets. The other handlers ran back into the tunnel.

Von Pfaltzen and Schott cursed.

Schott turned on Boellengen. ‘M’lord, control your troops.’

The damage was done. The rat-gunners had heard the firing and were looking up the slope.

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