He saw a throwing star, smeared with some foul reddish substance, doubtless poison.

Two more skaven had extricated themselves from the mass outside the window and dropped into the room. They scuttled towards him with eye-blinding speed, evil shadows of man-sized rats, their yellow fangs glistening in the lantern-light. He knew better now than to even glance at the doorway. There was no way he could reach it without taking a blade in his back.

Why me, he asked himself? Why am I standing here half-naked and alone, facing a pack of skaven assassins? Why do these things always happen to me? This sort of thing never happened to Sigmar in the legends!

He threw the cloak over the head of the oncoming skaven. It writhed in the tangle of woollen folds. Felix ran his blade through it. His razor-sharp sword cut through flesh like butter. Black blood soiled the garment. Felix struggled to pull the blade free. The second rat-thing took advantage of his preoccupation and sprang forward, both blades held high, swinging downwards like butcher’s cleavers. Felix threw himself backwards; the blade came free with an awful sucking sound. He landed flat on his back, his sword clutched in his hand. He raised its point and the flying skaven impaled itself on it. As it fell, its weight pulled the blade free from Felix’s grasp.

Damn, he thought, rising to his feet. Weaponless. The point of his blade was visible, protruding from the skaven’s back. He was reluctant to touch the foul beast with his naked flesh but he had no choice if he wanted the blade. His cloak was already starting to flatten as the skaven decomposed with terrifying rapidity.

Too late! More skaven leapt in through the window. There was no time for any qualms. He picked up the skaven sword and charged. The sheer fury of his rush took the skaven by surprise. He cleaved one’s skull before it could react and disembowelled another with his return stroke. It fell, trying to hold in its ropy guts with one claw, even as it attempted to strike Felix with the other.

Felix hacked at it again, severing the limb. He cut around him in blind fury, feeling the terrible shock of impact run up his arm from every blow. Slowly, though, more and more skaven pressed into the room, and remorselessly, defending himself as best he could every step of the way, he was pressed back towards the wall.


Heinz looked up in surprise as Gotrek stomped into the bar. In one hand he held his blood-smeared axe. His other huge fist clutched a dead skaven by the scruff of the neck. The thing was decomposing at a frightening rate, seemingly undergoing weeks of decomposition in moments. Gotrek glared around at the surprised bouncers with his one good eye and dropped the body. It squelched and formed a puddle at his feet.

“Bloody skaven,” he muttered.