Savage City (Warhammer Fantasy) by Robert Earl

Author:Robert Earl [Earl, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A scream echoed out of a narrow alleyway. There was no mistaking the pain in the voice. In the weak light of their single oil lamp, the travellers couldn’t see any sign of the victim, and Florin was glad of it. He had no desire to witness the sort of atrocities that were committed in the Sump’s moonless depths. Even so, he peered into every shadow and flicker of darkness as he led his companions past the dark maw of the alleyway. This was no place to be taken unawares.

Behind him, the cry of agony was drowned by a chorus of high, inhuman giggling. He glanced back over his shoulder and was relieved to see that Lorenzo was nervously keeping a watch to their rear. The older man’s cutlass was bared, its razored edge perhaps the only clean thing in this squalid place. In any other of Bordeleaux’s quarters, walking around with a drawn blade would have been an invitation for trouble. Not in the Sump, though. Here, a drawn blade was merely a sensible precaution. Florin had taken to carrying his own unsheathed sword as easily as citizens of other quarters carried walking sticks or their trays of goods. There was, he’d already learnt, no telling where the next attack would come from.

With a last glance behind him he squelched forward along the unpaved street. As he did so, the giggles turned into grunts of exertion, and the splatter of torn meat could be heard.

Manann’s chamberpot and all its contents, Florin thought as the slobbering echoes of some terrible feast caught up with him. I can’t believe we got talked into this.

At first he had thought that it wouldn’t be so bad. They had money, after all. Not a fortune, but more than most of the denizens of these squalid streets would see in a lifetime. Unfortunately, far from smoothing their way, their wealth had just made things harder. Their fresh clothes and well-nourished frames had attracted the starving inhabitants of this quarter like piranhas to the scent of blood. This was all new to Florin. Usually he and Lorenzo, being both healthy and well-armed, had little trouble with footpads. But within these starving rat-runs their obvious strength made little difference. To the hollow-eyed desperadoes who’d sunk to these depths, the possibility of a violent death held no terrors.

Faced with the certainty of slow starvation, they had nothing to lose.

So far, Florin and his little gang had been driven out of two flophouses, their weapons wet with the blood of their hosts. They’d fought off half a dozen gangs of footpads, their victories robbed of any glory by the malnourished state of their attackers. And they’d taken one casualty. Thankfully, the sliced meat of Lorenzo’s shoulder still showed no sign of festering. Even so, all three of them desperately needed a safe place to rest and get some sleep.

Florin noticed that the first grey light of dawn had crept up on them, and he greeted it with a curse.

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