presence of ghouls.
“This is the place,” said the more villainous of the two men. He was a Kharadrean human of the lowest type. This war had certainly given them some strange allies. He checked his pistol and made sure all the men had truesilver bullets loaded. He had been told to expect sorcery. The stump of his missing hand itched where the gutta-percha padding met flesh, a constant reminder of how dangerous evil magic could be. He looked at Asea who stood there with her half-breed lover. She was garbed for war, in her strange living leather armour and silver facemask. Sardec lifted a lantern.
“Wait here,” Sardec said, just to let everyone know he was in charge, and then gestured for the Foragers to enter the ruins. There was still a ceiling overhead although tumbled at a crazy angle. The bright moon shone through the gaps, illuminating an interior partially covered by snow. Shafts of silver light speared the ground in a dozen places. Wreckage lay everywhere — broken furniture, torn clothes. At the back of the room was an open trapdoor of the kind that would normally have run down into a coal cellar. As he approached it, the smell got worse; there was a hint of rot, and chemical bleach, as if someone had set up a tannery inside an old abattoir.
He looked at the men. They were pale and nervous and looked to him for leadership. He picked up the lantern with his hook and made for the stairwell. The Sergeant and the Barbarian and Weasel fell into step behind him.
Blood, he thought, as he descended into the gloom. Blood and chemicals. The stairs took him down into a large cellar. Something squelched beneath his foot as he reached the bottom. The stink of rot followed a bellow's wheeze. His footing was soft and slippery and he realised why soon enough. He was standing on a dead body. More dead bodies lay round about. They were oddly pale. He got off the corpse, looked around and saw that the flesh was white, the eyeballs grey. There were faded bruise marks in the arms and neck.
'No blood,' said Weasel. His voice was sombre. 'Something drained them of blood.'
'What's that?' Sardec asked pointing to the large metal tub, bigger than a wine-vat, that dominated the centre of the cellar. It seemed like they had encountered nothing but dark sorcery this whole year, ever since they had ventured into the valley of Deep Achenar and fought with the followers of the Spider God and the thing they had worshipped. Sardec shivered. He had lost his hand during that encounter, and almost his life. It had made him wary. He wished he still had his truesilver blade, but that had been turned to slag during the final battle in the abandoned city.
He looked around the walls. More corpses hung from hooks, some split like pigs at a butcher's shop, others still intact but pale, so pale. His skin crawled. He fought the urge to run from the place. If he had been alone, he might have, but it would not do to let the men see he was afraid, so he strode forwards towards the vat, conscious even as he did so of the fear that gnawed at his stomach, as if a massive rat were in there trying to bite its way through to his heart.
He heard something and paused, shocked. One of the corpses had shifted on its hook. For a moment, he feared that it had come alive, and was about to attack him. Memories of the Nerghul, the strange sorcerous assassin Lord Jaderac had sent to kill the Lady Asea back in Morven, gibbered at the back of his mind. That thing had almost killed him despite the presence of a squad of troops and the most powerful sorceress in the western world.
Sardec moved closer, set the lantern down nearby and looked into the vat. It was filled with a reddish black congealed fluid. Blood, he thought, with chemicals added to it to keep it liquid. There seemed to be something deep below, a vaguely humanoid outline that moved disturbingly, as if currents in the fluid were shifting its limbs. Heat rose from the vat and it bubbled obscenely, sending odd little farts of chemical exhalation into the air.
Sardec bent down and looked below the vat. It stood on metal legs. There was a mechanism that looked like a boiler; pipes connected it to the bottom of the tub. The chemical smell was more intense.
Something touched his forehead, wetting the brim of his tricorne hat before dribbling down onto his head and hands. A chill ran down his spine. He looked up and saw that the fluid had slopped over the edge of the vat. Something large and spidery crawled into view. It took him a moment to realise it was a hand.
Sardec sprang upright and brought his hook down in a vicious arc so that it pierced the back of the hand. Reddish fluid oozed forth from it to flow back into the vat. A head emerged from the liquid, to be followed by a broad pair of naked shoulders and a massive burly torso. He slashed at it with his hook and drew more blood. The thing made no noise and reached for him. He sprang backwards and away.
'What the hell?' the Barbarian shouted. Sardec looked around. The intact corpses on the hooks had started to move, flailing their limbs as they attempted to dislodge themselves from their hanging places and get to grip with the intruders in their domain. One by one, like obscene fruits dropping from an overloaded tree, they hit the cellar floor and began to advance towards the startled soldiers.
Sardec snatched the lantern up in his hook. 'Back!' he shouted, 'Out of the cellar.' He knew it was imperative that they not be trapped down here. Once they were on the surface they could call on the rest of the Foragers for help. If they failed to get away, these night-stalking things would emerge and take the troops by surprise. He was not going to allow that.
He raised his pistol and fired it at the head of the thing in the vat. The bullet caught it squarely between the eyes. The whole back of its head exploded. Brain jelly splattered one of the animated corpses hanging behind it. The undead creature vanished beneath the surface of the vat like a drowning swimmer. A long-barrelled rifle spoke thunderously as Weasel shot down another walking dead man. The Barbarian raced into the room, blade held in each hand, filled with desperate fury and desire to get to grips with his undead foes.
'Back!' Sardec roared. 'Get back I tell you! We don't want to get trapped down here!'
The Barbarian had already reached one of the foes. He slashed it with his left blade and buried the right in its throat. The creature kept on coming, despite the terrible wounds.
'Get back, you great northern idiot!' shouted Sergeant Hef, raising his own rifle, and taking a shot. He was not as accurate as Weasel in the poor light and it thunked into one of the hanging sides of human beef, sending it swinging on its hook. Weasel was already at the top of the stairs, reloading, and getting ready to cover his companions as they retreated. Whatever else Sardec thought of him, he gave the former poacher credit for presence of mind.
He strode over to the Barbarian, yelling at him to retreat. He prepared to slash at any walking dead man with his hook. He was here until the Barbarian got out. Under these circumstances he was not going to leave any of his men behind. 'You can't kill them, northlander. They are already dead.'
The sense of this seemed to cut through the Barbarian's fear-induced fury. He gave a wide scared grin and began to back away towards the stairs. His eyes seemed too wide, his skin too pale, as if something of the evil magic in this place had already started to affect him. Sardec prayed this was not the case.
He let the Barbarian slip past him, not quite sure why, save that he felt it was his duty. The big northerner was undoubtedly much more capable of taking on one of these things than he was. Weasel's rifle roared again and another one of the dead men went staggering back to fall back into the bubbling vat. Sardec watched its blood- caked feet jerk spastically for a moment before it vanished below the surface. An image of some sort of horrid mating taking place down there filled his mind. Disgusted he pushed it aside as he backed towards the stairs.
'Get out,' he yelled at Weasel. 'Go rouse the others. We need every man we can get.'
Another thought struck him. It might be best to try and blow these evil things apart. 'Get grenades ready as well.'
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw that Weasel understood and was already departing. Sergeant Hef was right behind. The Barbarian had already begun to scamper up the stairs. Sardec hoped he did not trip. Now would not be a good time to be caught in a tangle on the steps. He gave his attention back to the oncoming undead. Their eyes glowed with a reddish light and their bodies seemed to exhale putrid air with every step. It was as if simple motion forced rotten gases from their corrupted lungs out of their mouths and the gaping holes in their pale naked bodies. Some of them had very long nails, almost claws. He had absolutely no doubts that those talons could tear his flesh or gouge out his eyes. He had no intention of remaining down here to test this empirically if he could help it.
The corpses moved noticeably faster now, like sleepers reaching full wakefulness after a doze. One or two of them lumbered forward. Their balance was not good, and they weaved like drunken men, crashing into one another, finding only unstable footing on the corpses strewing the floor. Sardec put one foot back on the stairs and began to move up them. He slipped his pistol into his sash and transferred the lantern to his good hand. He began
