Warp Token 2 Word Update

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But there was no response, and she didn’t have the time to add anything else, the four runners fanning out to surround her. There was no time to escape, she’d have to take them herself.

The four rats advanced as one, creeping up on her from the front and sides. She backed away so that the forecastle was right behind her, cornering herself, but also ensuring none of them got in her blind spots.

She passed her weeping blade to her off-hand, holding it out sideways as the runners bided their time. They coordinated in absolute silence, nothing save for the swishing of their baggy robes announcing their movements. They had her outnumbered, but they were unusually cautious. Gutter runners always waited for the perfect moment, and Skyseeker dared not blink for fear of giving it to them.

She looked around for anything to use. Her man-thing allies had abandoned her, but the bodies remained, human and Skaven alike. Their weapons were everywhere, including powder pistols, If she could get her paws on just one of them, that was one runner dealt with, but the closest flintlock was right behind the runner to her left.

They held the standoff for what felt like minutes, Skyseeker’s heart slamming against her chest. One of the runners flicked his ear, and Skyseeker was clever enough to realise this wasn’t an unconscious act, but a signal.

The runner’s raised their weapons, feet slapping against the deck as they rushed. Paws stretched, and eight knives plunged towards her face.

Skyseeker backed up until she compressed against the wall, and then braced her feet against it. She launched, the muscles in her powerful legs propelling her light frame into the air, and over the heads of the runners. Her dagger, the blade facing down, swiped across the face of one in her passing. It ripped through his hood and eye socket alike, the rat crumpling with a wail.

She hit the deck in an uncontrolled, turbulent cartwheel that was definitely on purpose, looking frantically to her surroundings. She’d landed close to the corpse of a sailor, Skyseeker blinking rain out of her eyes as she lunged for the pistol in his holster. It came loose with a creak of leather, and it took her both paws to lift the massive gun. She had no idea if the rain had soaked it through, or if it was even loaded, but she chittered a silent plead for the Horned Rat and squeezed the trigger.

The pistol was loaded, and went off with a white spark.

She’d squared the sights over the chest of the closest runner, and even though she’d had very little experience with guns, nobody could miss at point-blank range. A sound like a cannon chewed through her ear drums, the gun sending a violent jolt up her arms, into her chest and making all her organs quiver. The runner’s organs, however, detonated in a grim display of discharge, and right before he fell, Skyseeker could see the forecastle walls straight through the gap in his torso.

She turned the barrel on the next runner, putting all her strength into pulling the trigger. The gun didn’t explode, but clicked, Sksyeeker cursing herself for only now realising flintlock’s only fired one shot before needing to reload. She tossed the weapon instead, the gun flipping through the air once before the wooden grip smashed against the Skaven’s temple.

He yowled in the pain, but the other runner cried out in fury, charging her down. She had a moment to react to ready her weeping blade, driving it into the oncoming knife, but the Skaven was feinting. He twisted his angle and sliced her across the ribs, her blood warming the fur on her belly. An inch closer and she would have finally known what her intestines looked like.

She retaliated, but her weeping blade only cut air as the runner sidestepped her attack. She followed through with her other hand, decking him in the chest. For the second time, she cursed her forgetful nature. She no longer had two daggers, so she only accomplished an awkward punch, and she was too weak for that to have any effect.

The runner advanced on her, Skyseeker summoning all her concentration to keep track of his two daggers. He drew crosses in the air, his arms spinning with wild but deadly strikes, Skyseeker ducking and backing away in alarm. She snarled when the tip of his dagger clawed her across her bicep, more of her blood dripping into her dark fur. She was losing this. If she didn’t deal with them right now, this ship would be her grave.

She forced herself into the attack, her fear-musk spraying as she deliberately pushed into the runner’s range of motion. She jabbed out her blade towards his chest, but the runner made the fatal mistake of blocking. Her corrosive weapon could cut through anything short of warp-enchanted gear, and fortunately for her, the runner was only armed with common weaponry.

She cleaved his weapon in half, and then dropped into a ball. She rolled aside, her fur bristling as his other weapon stabbed the place she’d vacated. She jumped to her feet, raising her dagger into his armpit. The limb came off with a red spurt, the Skaven utterly silent as he whirled on her. He took a step forward, as though to continue the fight, and then he dropped to his knees, staring at his missing arm in mild disbelief.

The final gutter runner had recovered from her thrown pistol, stalking towards her from her flank. She turned, seeing blood leaking down one side of his face, his bloodied visage like something out of a nightmare.  

Skyseeker was panting for air, but she summoned all her strength, raising her paws into the air and holding them together. Her weeping dagger was clutched in her fingers. She brought her limbs down, like an axeman coming down on a chopping block, and let her dagger go. The gunner runner tried to dodge away, but Skyseeker’s weapon was faster, and its green edge speared into his heart.

The final runner collapsed, and so did Skyseeker, taking a moment to catch her breath. The rain on her face was cool and wet, and she’d have fallen asleep right there among the bodies if it hadn’t been pouring on her with enough force to make her flinch. That, and the constant cannon fire coming from the midship.

Slowly, she clawed to her feet, wiping more raindrops from her face. She skulked over to retrieve her dagger, the weapon popping free with a crunch of meat and blood. She stared at the dead runner for a long while, noticing a strange stitching on his sleeve. It was a patch, she realised, and on it was the symbol of Clan Mors.

Its sight frightened her, but also made her feel… bad. She’d taken Skaven lives before – who hadn’t? – but never one of her fellow clanrats. Of course, this rat had tried to kill her, she’d had no choice but to give him the same courtesy, but it still bothered her all the same. Clan Mors was the closest thing she had to a family, and just because she renounced them, didn’t mean that changed.

She shook her head to dispel her thoughts. Never mind all this moral nonsense, there was still a battle going on, and a certain Captain to pay a visit to…

She retreated from the bow, moving back the way she’d come. In the small alley between the bulwark and the flank of the forecastle, she found Von Kessel and his merry band of degenerates fighting off another group of Skaven. A part of her wished that the Mors rats would do away with him, but his skill were undeniable, and they drove off the Skaven by the time Skyseeker announced herself.

“Kessel!” she snarled, pointing an accusing finger. “I’m back! Not expecting Skaven to pull through, did you?”

His reaction was all the answer she needed. He turned, his needle-blade glinting in the sudden lightning strike overhead, his gaze flicking beyond her.

“You are a hard rat to kill,” Von Kessel admitted. “That changes today.”

He nodded to his men, and two of them stepped forward, frowning at her as they readied their swords. For the past two weeks, she’d come to associate the presence of man-things with protection, comfort, the number of allies helping to get her to sleep at night.

But now, she felt that old familiar hostility that every Skaven felt to anything that wasn’t a rat. There was no comfort here, not among Von Kessel’s trusted bodyguards, and maybe their never had been.

“What is this?” Skyseeker demanded. “Well pull my tail and call me a broodmother, is Kessel-man betraying me-me?”

“How can I betray someone who isn’t on our side?” Von Kessel asked. “You are a resource, Skaven, and you outlived your usefulness the moment that weapon was safely recovered. You’ve done nothing but poison the crew with your lies ever since. That stops today. Lothar, see that nobody disturbs us.”

One of his guards took another man, moving back to the midship, blocking the bottleneck with their bodies. Skyseeker didn’t think it was really needed. The crews were still fighting down there, nobody would be paying attention to this end of the ship. She doubted that even if she screamed, nobody would come.

Von Kessel’s goons advanced on her, Skyseeker taking up a defensive posture, but there was little conviction behind it. Her fight with the gutter runner’s had tired her out, and fighting man-things required stamina that she simply did not have. No, fighting was out of the question, but maybe there was another way.

Instead of running, she charged forward, as swift as a Skaven. She dropped to her knees and slid between the legs of the first man, right as he thrust his sword out to gut her. The second man turned, but the limited space of the deck meant that he clashed against his companion, the two failing to turn and watch her before she was out of reach. For a second, Von Kessel looked at her with an alarm that teetered on fear, and then the mask lipped, and he scowled in anticipation of combat.

She launched toward him, but not with her weeping blade. Instead, she gripped his needle across its gilded hilt, and plunged her feet into his chest. She pushed off him, while holding onto the weapon with all her might, the act taking all of three seconds. The moment of surprise was enough, and she ripped the needle from his hand, readying it in her paw. It was far lighter than it looked, perfectly balanced, and Skyseeker liked its feel already.

Now with two weapons, she pointed each to her sides, warding the humans off with frantic jabs. “You come any closer, and old gingerbread-man gets a shanking,” she warned. The two bodyguards stopped in their tracks.

The rest of the Captain’s men were behind him, but they hesitated to intervene. Von Kessel was well within range of a good stab, and they didn’t want to test her reaction skills.

“Kessel-man will reconsider traitoring,” Skyseeker continued. She hopped onto the railing, waving the needle in Von Kessel’s face. “We make barter-deal, and you can’t say no-no, because Skaven has your weapon. What you think about that?”

Skyseeker didn’t see the holster before it was too late. Von Kessel’s speed was on par with Roderick’s, and he drew his pistol from its holster with a blur of movement, yet without any visible trace of effort. She blinked, and in the next second, she was staring down the dark circle of its barrel.

“I think not,” Von Kessel replied.

Skyseeker might be able to get in a hit, her needle was almost directly below the gun, but Von Kessel’s reaction times were quick, and she might take a bullet in the process. Even if it didn’t, she’d have five other man-thign to deal with afterward. This was too many times to be outnumbered, even for her skillset. Behind and below, the waves crashed against the hull, sending creaks up the wood and iron.  

“W-Wait a second-moment,” she stammered. “I surrender, Kessel-man. God-Emperor takes pity on prisoners, yes-yes?”

“The sons of Sigmar spare no mercy to Chaos,” Von Kessel replied. His smile was cruel. “I warned you not to push your luck, Skaven.”

Skyseeker took her chance. She shoved the needle up and right, pushing the pistol’s path way from her head. She was about to surge forward, when there was a shattering crack and a spark, and then a huge force buried into her stomach.

She staggered back, but there was no surface to catch her, and Skyseeker plunged into freefall. She had just enough time to watch the smoke rise from Von Kessel’s gun, before he and the other man-things disappeared behind a rapidly rising hull.

As she plunged towards the ocean, she wondered if perhaps the shot had missed. When she crashed into the water, that all changed, pain exploding up her midsection. She cried out, but all that came out were bubbles, her body engulfed in the tides and cutting off the sounds of battle and replaced with hollowed, muffled noises.

The ocean’s flickering surface lurked above her head, maybe five meters above, all the chaos and fury of the last few minutes contrasting against its calm ripples. To her side, the pod shaped underbelly of the wolfship loomed, casting her into its shadow. Beyond it was part of the clanship’s lower bulk, coddled up against it.

The water was so quiet, yet she wailed in pain, the bullet sending out fiery currents through her nerves. The cries of pain came out as gently lifting bubbles.

Darkness ate at the corners of her vision, but not because she was losing consciousness. It was the void of the water, creeping up from the depths, threatening to swallow her. One look down there forced her into action, and Skyseeker flurried her arms and kicked her legs, pushing herself back towards the surface.

She breached the dappled ocean with a sharp inhale, oxygen cooling her burning lungs. Cannon fire and shouting men reached her ears, but they were somehow muted, as though heard from a distance.

Skyseeker searched for the wolfship, and spotted it behind her. The oars from its belly had extended, and were pulling at the waves, surging the vessel into movement. The sails were drawn, and the ship was starting to gain speed. Behind it, the clanship lingered like a dead carcass, its rear half engulfed in flames. Perhaps the engines had malfunctioned, and it could no longer give chase.

Skyseeker wanted to shout out, she wanted to call Roderick, or Wilfred, or anyone, but the pain in her stomach turned her pleas into impotent wails, and the lapping water smothered her snout and threatened to choke her if she opened her mouth.

The storm was making the water bob up and down, and some were so high that she lost sight of the wolfship for a few terrible seconds. Each time it came back into view, it was a little further away. Even if she could shout, nobody would hear her.

It was hopeless. Dread dug into her stomach as hard as the bullet-wound as the waves got rougher and wilder, the currents dragging her away. Lightning streaked across the sky, but its length was blocked by a great wave, curdling with foam.

The water curled over her, and kicked her legs in panic, but she couldn’t escape its reach. As the wave enveloped her, Skyseeker held her breath.