Erich drew his sword, prepared to sell his life as dearly as he could. He singled out the murderous bulk of Drechsler. If he could only take one enemy with him, he vowed it would be the Scharfrichter. He glanced aside at the baron, hoping the man’s senses would rally before he was butchered out of hand by the advancing Kaiserjaeger.
The Kaiserjaeger wore confident expressions as they stalked forwards, but before they reached Erich, those expressions changed. Colour drained from their complexions and they staggered back in gasping horror. Erich didn’t need to turn around to know what they had seen. Lunging for a nearby sarcophagus, the knight rolled into cover and watched as a swarm of chittering monstrosities came spilling from the narrow crack in the wall.
‘Forget the mutants!’ Kreyssig was shouting. ‘Get the rebels!’ But for once fear of their commander wasn’t enough to make the Kaiserjaeger obey. Ancient night-terrors, fables learned in the cradle, horror stories told about winter hearths, all of these came rushing through the minds of the soldiers. The instinctive loathing and fear of vermin of every breed and stripe gripped their brains. Crying out with the same disgust Erich had voiced, the Kaiserjaeger met the ratmen.
Erich watched as Reikland steel clashed against the rusted blades of the verminous monsters, as brawny men matched their strength against the wiry suppleness of ratkin. The speed of the monsters was unbelievable, only the spastic crudity of their swordsmanship allowing the Kaiserjaeger any chance at all.
Then Erich found his gaze wandering away from the general fray to focus upon one combatant. Gotthard Drechsler was fending off three of the ratmen at once. The executioner’s legs were slashed, his torso betraying a jagged cut, but already two ratmen lay broken at his feet. While the knight watched, the Scharfrichter caught one of his enemies with his huge sword. The ratkin’s body was flung across the crypt by the impact, bones cracking as it smashed against the crumbling wall. Even as the creature crumpled to the floor, Drechsler brought the flat of his blade smashing down upon the snout of another foe, shattering its muzzle and leaving the ratman twitching at his feet.
Where Erich might have sympathised with another combatant, rallied to their shared humanity against a subhuman abomination, he could feel only hate. In his mind flashed the memory of Grand Master von Schomberg’s humiliating and cruel execution, and the Scharfrichter’s role in that atrocity. Revenge decided his actions. Clutching his sword, Erich sprang from cover.
Drechsler was still engaged with the last of his adversaries when Erich came at him. The knight felt no dishonour in attacking such a butcher from ambush. Any right Drechsler had to chivalry had been forfeited in the Widows’ Plaza.
The knight’s sword stabbed deep in the executioner’s back, piercing him through the belly. Drechsler screamed in agony, spinning around and swatting Erich with the back of his hand. The knight reeled, feeling as though he’d been kicked by a horse. Through his spinning gaze he could see Drechsler lurching towards him, the tip of the sword still protruding from his body. By an incredible feat of stamina, the executioner ignored his wound and raised his massive zweihander for a murderous sweep. Erich saw death glistening in the Scharfrichter’s eyes.
Then a verminous shape pounced upon the executioner’s broad back, rodent fangs burying themselves in his neck. Drechsler howled in agony as blood spurted from torn veins, as his monstrous enemy worried at his flesh. The zweihander fell from his weakened fingers. He clutched feebly at the ratman on his back, but the creature squirmed away from his hands, dropping to the floor and watching with savage glee as the dying man slumped to his knees. A titter of malignant laughter rushed past the ratman’s fangs as Drechsler crashed face-first to the floor.
Erich staggered back, fumbling for the dagger in his belt, sickened as he watched Drechsler’s blood dripping from the ratman’s muzzle. Myth or monster, he would not die in such a way!
Above the sounds of battle and the squeaks of the monsters, the voice of Adolf Kreyssig continued to ring out, desperately trying to stop the chaos. His Kaiserjaeger, however, remained deaf to Kreyssig’s cries. There was only one man who noted the commander’s voice. Ignored by both ratkin and Kaiserjaeger, Baron Thornig rose to his feet. Glaring at Kreyssig, the Middenlander tightened his grip on his warhammer. With a fierce bellow of ‘Erna!’ the baron charged his enemy.
The war cry did not go unheard. Kreyssig noted the maddened Middenlander’s rush, darting aside as Baron Thornig swung his massive hammer at him. The weapon swept past the commander, smashing against the wall of the crypt instead. Masonry rained down from the crumbling wall as a jagged crack slithered its way up to the stone ceiling.
‘Relent, you fool!’ Kreyssig snarled, slashing his blade across the baron’s arm. Thornig ignored the cut, striking once more at the peasant. Again, the blow failed to connect with his enemy, crashing instead against the wall.
This time, the entire crypt shook. The ratkin raised their muzzles towards the ceiling, frightened squeaks rippling from their throats. In a single, chittering mob, they broke and scattered, clawing at each other in their haste to squeeze back into the fissure.
An instant later great blocks of stone came thundering down from the roof. Erich saw one of them smash into Baron Thornig, battering the enraged Middenlander to the floor. Another mass of rubble pulverised a wounded Kaiserjaeger, reducing him to a red smear on the ground.
The other Kaiserjaeger ran for the south exit. Erich could see Kreyssig start after them, then turn back towards Baron Thornig’s body. Stones smashed down around the commander as he darted through the collapsing crypt. There was an exultant look of triumph on his face as he ripped the warhammer from Thornig’s lifeless fingers. That expression quickly faded when he saw his prize wasn’t Ghal Maraz, just a heavy chunk of Middenheim steel. He just had time to appreciate his mistake before a mass of stone came crashing down. Kreyssig screamed, raising his arms in a futile effort to shield himself.
It was the last thing Erich saw before a stone slammed into the back of his head and his world collapsed into darkness.
Erich von Kranzbeuhler awoke to pain. His body felt like one enormous sore, hurting in places he didn’t even know existed. The smell and the darkness told him he was still in the sewers.
He was surprised to be alive.
A furtive rustling sound snapped him from bleary contemplation of his wounds to terrified awareness. There was a lantern resting beside him. Frantically, he reached for it, never questioning its presence. Feeding more oil to the flame, he found that he wasn’t in the crypt, but in an entirely different part of the sewers. Such understanding had barely registered, however, before he was pressing himself against the wall, stark terror racing through his veins.
Crouched only a few feet from him was one of the ghastly ratmen, studying him with its beady red eyes. The creature bared its fangs as the lamplight washed over it. Erich’s horror only increased when the thing spoke to him in a shrill, squeaky whisper.
‘Man-thing leave-go,’ the ratman said, pointing a clawed finger down the tunnel. ‘Scurry-hurry, quick-quick!’ it added, a long scaly tail slapping against the floor behind it, either in a display of annoyance or as an emphatic gesture. The creature lowered its finger, pointing at something lying on the ledge beside Erich. ‘Take-hide king-hammer,’ it squeaked, its body trembling in fear.
Erich forced himself to follow the ratkin’s pointing claw. When he did, he was shocked to see Ghal Maraz resting on the ledge. Somehow, for whatever reason, the ghastly ratmen had recovered Sigmar’s hammer and returned it to him.