Warhammer [Ignorant Armies] by epubBillie Page A

upheld lantern. Rats, the landlord said, but the thing Karl glimpsed was twice as big as any rat he'd ever seen, and seemed to scurry away on more than four legs. Argo, indifferent to any danger as usual, followed the landlord into the darkest recess of the vaulted cellar without hesitation, past rotting casks and heaps of rubbish and broken furniture.
    There was a low door set deep in the wet stones of the wall, barred with iron and held shut by massive bolts, which the landlord threw back with some effort. A rush of hot malodorous air gushed out as the landlord pulled the door open. Argo started through, and Karl said loudly, "We'll need light." He didn't want to go down there, but he could hardly expect to be allowed out of the tavern alive any other way. If he was going, he wanted to be able to see.
    Argo turned and plucked the lantern from the landlord, then ducked under the lintel. As Karl followed, the landlord swore and slammed the door shut on their backs, yelling through the wood that they'd never get out, he'd see that they didn't. There was a rattle as he threw the bolts home. And then there was only the drip drip drip of water from overhead, and the faint rush of water somewhere below.
    A winding stair led down to one of the sewer tributaries, a smelly brick-lined tunnel scarcely tall enough for Karl to stand up in, through which a stinking stream of brown liquid gurgled. In turn, this gave out onto one of the main channels, where high stone walks ran either side of a fast-running, filthy stream.
    Argo raised the lantern, peered at Karl. He brushed a cold finger over the drying blood on the apprentice's upper lip, and put it in his mouth. "The price of magic," he said, after a moment.
    "It was only a little spell, something I read in that book. I didn't even think it would work, but there was nothing else I could do."
    "You are modest. But do not try and use your Art against us, I warn you. We are not bound by it."
    Karl looked up at him, a shadow behind the lamplight, eyes glittering. "I didn't even know the spell would work," he said again. "Really. Now, where do we go?"
    "We will take you to the beginning of the maze," Argo said. "Then you must lead the way."
    Karl thought hard. "The map showed that there was a kind of big round room from which the maze started. There were drawings of statues all around its walls."
    "I know it. That is where we must begin."
    Black rats scampered away from the light of the lantern Argo carried. Looking back, Karl could see a hundred pairs of little red eyes watching from the safety of the darkness. Sometimes, tantalizingly, he could hear the noises of the streets above, the cries of beggars or food sellers, or the rattle of wagon wheels over cobbles. But soon Argo led him away from the main channel, down a rubble-strewn slope that dropped steeply through the living rock, down into the necropolis beneath the living city.
    Karl soon lost all track of time. He knew only that he was tired and hungry and frightened... and thirsty too, for the tunnels that wound ever deeper into the rock were surprisingly dry, their floors coated with dust as fine as flour. With every moment he was growing more and more afraid, and he was beginning to wish that he had never seen the book, or tried to cheat von Stumpf of its price.
    Worst of all, he kept thinking that he heard footsteps in the darkness at his back, a steady even pace that always stopped a moment or two after he stopped to listen. Although dwarfs still lived in certain parts of the underground tunnels, most were rumoured to be inhabited by mutants and worse. Anything could be out there in the darkness, anything at all, and the knife he had taken from the dead thug in the tavern seemed little enough protection. But Argo ignored Karl's fears, and, rather than growing tired, the swordsman seemed to gain strength as they descended through the tunnels. As if he were at home in them, as if the darkness and the weight of rock above - the