“They can’t all have thrown themselves in the stew, can they?”

“Sorcery,” Hef said.

“Of the blackest sort,” Spider added.

Gotrek looked down at the ledge and cursed in his native tongue. He was angry and his beard bristled. The light of mad violence shone in his one good eye. “They can’t just disappear,” he said. “It’s not possible.”

“Could they have used a boat?” Felix asked. The idea had just struck him. The others looked at him incredulously.

“Use a boat?” Hef said.

“In the stew?” Spider said.

“Don’t be stupid,” Rudi said. Felix flushed.

“I’m not being stupid. Look, the tracks end here. It would be quite simple for someone to step down from the ledge into a small skiff.”

“That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard,” Rudi said. “You’ve got some imagination, young Felix. Who’d ever have thought of using a boat down here?”

“There’s a lot of things you’d never think of,” Felix snapped. “But then thinking’s not your strong suit, is it?” He looked at the other sewerjacks and shook his head. “You’re right — a boat doesn’t make sense. Much better to believe they vanished by magic. Maybe a cloud of pixies wafted in and carried them away.”

“That’s right, a cloud of pixies. That’s more like it,” Rudi said.

“He’s being sarcastic, Rudi,” Spider said.

“A very sarcastic fellow, young Felix,” added Hef.

“Probably right though,” Gotrek said. “A boat wouldn’t be too hard to come by. The sewers flow into the Reik, don’t they? Easy to steal a small boat.”

“But the outflows into the river all have bars,” Rudi said. “To stop vagrants getting in.”

“And what’s our job, if not hunting down those self-same vagrants when they file through the bars?” Felix asked. He could see the idea was starting to filter into even Rudi’s thick skull.

“But why, manling? Why use boats?” Felix felt briefly elated. It wasn’t often that Gotrek admitted that Felix might know more than him. He considered the matter rapidly.

“Well for a start, they don’t leave tracks. And they might be connected with a smuggling operation. Suppose someone was bringing warpstone in by river, for instance. Our noble skulker yesterday seemed to be paying the rat-man off with it.”

“Boats make me sick. The only thing I hate more than boats is elves,” Gotrek said as they set off again.

They searched for the rest of the day and found no trace of any skaven, although they did find that the bars had been sawn away on one of the outflows to the Reik.


Felix stepped out of the street and into the Golden Hammer. He stepped from reality into a dream. The doorman held the great oak door for him. Servile waiters ushered him away from the squalor of the streets into a vast dining hall.

Richly clad people sat at well-filled tables, and dined and talked by the light that sparkled from huge crystal chandeliers.