Skaven Wars: The Black Plague by C L Werner

Author:C L Werner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-10T15:34:43+00:00

Middenheim

Ulriczeit, 1118

In all his life, Mandred had never imagined anything could be as dark as what he found filling the vaults of Karak Grazhyakh. It was a blackness that seemed to have mass and substance, a cloying presence that pressed in all around as the humans marched into the depths. He could feel the weight of the mountain above him, on all sides of him. The impression of walking into a vast tomb was almost impossible to shake.

Entrance had been effected through a tunnel hidden beneath the temple of Grungni. No more did the prince have to wonder about what lay behind those massive doors. It was somehow anticlimactic, really. The dwarf temple had been brooding, ponderous even, but it fell far short of the megalithic construction Mandred had seen in the dwarf stronghold itself. Those regions illuminated by oil lamps and sputtering torches had been beyond magnificent. Great pillars of stone soaring up to meet arched ceilings in a seamless harmony that made him wonder if the dwarfs had carved them out of the living rock when they’d first dug the halls. Gigantic statues of ancient ancestors and mighty kings frowned down at them from niches gouged high upon the walls. Great stretches of runescript adorned entire tunnels, prompting Mandred to wonder what the Khazalid script said and what had been so important that the dwarfs had set it into solid rock to withstand the ages.

No marching songs roused the humans into quickening their step as they descended deeper and deeper into the mountain. The same oppression of spirit that gripped Mandred was shared by those he led. Occasionally, the tones of a whispered prayer might be heard, but that was all. Some of them might have wondered about this world beneath the streets of Middenheim, but none of them had ever imagined they would actually probe its depths. To their credit, despite the fear that dogged their steps, not a man of his expedition turned back. Noble or Dienstleute, the soldiers kept true to their oaths. Not since that fateful ride to relieve Warrenburg had Mandred felt such pride, such kinship, with those he would someday rule.

Would that pride withstand the real test, he wondered? These men had been told the sort of enemy they would face here in the dark beneath Middenheim, but could any warning really prepare them for the hideous reality? Would they stand before the skaven, or would they break and run?

‘A cheerless lot,’ Kurgaz Smallhammer opined. Marching beside Mandred, guiding the column into the depths, the dwarf cast a suspicious look over his shoulder. The same thoughts that had bothered the prince had likewise afflicted the dwarf. ‘Not a laugh, whistle or fart among them. If they’re trying to sneak up on the skaven they needn’t bother. The ratkin will smell them even if they don’t hear them.’ Kurgaz slapped the haft of the hammer he carried, a vicious-looking weapon he’d brought down from the temple. ‘Wish I had Drakdrazh with me,’ he grumbled for the hundredth time.

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