Warhammer [Ignorant Armies] by epubBillie

streamed down his face, suddenly bright as he staggered through the light of a nearby lamp set in the window of a whorehouse. He turned and bawled out, "Cutthroats! Lousy thieves! Sons of diseased mutant whores!" Then he groaned and clutched his head again and staggered on.
    Argo, hardly seeming to notice the man, strode through the shadows and ducked beneath the tilted lintel of the tavern. Karl had to hurry to catch him up, slipping through the door just as a couple of heavyset thugs pushed it closed.
    The main room of the tavern was almost as dark as the street outside, and hazed with yellow-grey smoke which gathered in thick reefs just beneath the sagging ceiling. Wolfish looking men sat at half a dozen rough tables scattered along the walls, and all were staring at the swordsman in unnerving and hostile silence.
    Argo crossed to the counter, his boots rattling the loose floorboards, and said softly to the large, bearded man behind it, "We wish to enter the sewer system. We will pay whatever is necessary."
    One of the ruffians behind Karl chuckled and dropped a huge, scarred hand on Karl's shoulder. "Your friend is a bold enough fellow, laddie. I always do like 'em bold."
    The landlord spat into a glass and smeared the spit around with a grey rag. "We don't like strangers coming in here, friend. On your way now. I can't help you."
    "We'll just have a word with 'em," the man holding Karl said. "Straighten 'em out, like."
    "Whatever you want, lads," the landlord said indifferently, turning away as the second ruffian, his head brushing the ceiling, stalked towards Argo, a weighted cosh dangling from one paw. Karl started to shout a warning, but a foul-smelling hand clamped over his mouth and nose. Argo turned, his cloak flaring, as the cosh swept towards his head... and then suddenly he was to one side of the man, his sword flashing through the smoke. Something hit the floor with a thump, blood pattering after: it was the ruffian's hand, still holding the cosh. The wounded ruffian shrieked, and then Argo's sword flashed again, and the ruffian fell to the floor, his throat spraying blood.
    The thug holding Karl started to back towards the door, ignoring the apprentice's struggles. There was a tingling pressure between Karl's eyes, at the bridge of his nose. For some reason he remembered the wizard's humiliating stare, and when the ruffian let go of Karl's mouth to pull at the latch, Karl managed to shout out the spell of bafflement he'd seen in the book. It was the only thing he could think of, but to his amazement it worked.
    The man let go of him and scratched at his head, his pig-like features twisted in confusion. He didn't seem to notice his companion, fallen on the floor in the centre of a widening pool of blood, or Karl, or Argo, who pushed Karl aside and ran the ruffian through with his already bloody blade, its steel scraping against ribs as he drew it out. For a moment, the man didn't seem to notice his mortal wound either, but then he gave a bubbling groan and toppled full-length, his fall rattling every flagon in the room.
    Now the silence in the room had a different edge to it. Karl discovered that his nose was bleeding, and dabbed at it with his sleeve. He pulled the dead man's knife from his belt while everyone was watching Argo. The latter stepped around the body of the ruffian who had first attacked him, kicking aside the severed hand, and up to the counter. He pulled at the landlord's beard, lifting the big man half over the counter and repeating his request to be allowed into the sewers, as if nothing at all had happened.
    The landlord's eyes crossed in disbelief. For a moment, the sound of his beard coming away at the roots was the only sound in the room. "The cellar," he managed to say at last. "Of course. You just follow me."
    The cellar was reached by a steep winding stair, its stone steps slippery with water that dribbled down the walls. Things moved in the darkness beyond the light of the landlord's