Warp Token Update

2k words

***

“Fresh out,” he said, his companion sagging her shoulders at the news. They wouldn’t exactly die of thirst, but sprinting for so far in such a short amount of time had taken the wind out of them, his mouth as dry as the hills they crossed to get here.

“Listen!” Skyseeker suddenly said, cupping a pink ear beneath a paw. “Sound like water-drink!”

Roderick strained to listen, but all he heard was the gentle rustling of leaves, and the occasional call of a bird (not the gryphon, thank Sigmar). “I don’t hear anything,” he said.

“That’s because Rick-rod is stupid man-thing,” Skyseeker replied. “Come from that way-way.”

Her hearing must be far more sensitive than his own, unless she was just imagining things. “Then let’s go check it out,” he said, his chausses rubbing against his shins as he stood.

“W-What, now?” the Skaven asked, peering up at him as she shrunk into the ferns. “Feather-thing still around! We must wait for it to go away!”

“It won’t breach the canopy… probably,” he added, Skyseeker not impressed by his skeptisism. “It flew back to the hills, didn’t you see? It’s given up.”

She peered up at the sky with a worried look on her face, shaking her hooded head as she slinked deeper into the brush. Shrugging, Roderick went on moving in the direction she’d indicated anyway, leaving her to idle by the treeline. After a few minutes, he heard her scurrying through the undergrowth after him, Roderick knowing full well she would stay on his heels until she had no other choice.

It took a bit of searching, but it turned out Skyseeker had in fact a pair of sharp ears on her head, Roderick picking up the bubbling sound of water after some more walking. The source turned out to be a flowing stream, cutting a channel of gravel and mud through the vibrant forest, Roderick kneeling by it to dip his canteen beneath the bubbling waterline.

“Looks clean enough to drink,” he commented, able to see the very bottom of the riverbed. He could have boiled it to be safe, but his throat demanded a drink, and he lifted the canteen to his lips. The water was pleasantly cool, Roderick downing a whole litre of the stuff before he was quenched. “Tastes well enough,” he added, turning to his companion. “Want some?”

She was lingering back in the ferns a good distance from the river, stealing glances between him and the sky. “Throw it,” she whispered, her voice so low he had to ask her to repeat herself.

“Why? Just come here.”

“Man-thing right in feather-thing’s sight!”

“I already told you, it’s gone.”

The Skaven shook her head no, a sound like that of a sob escaping her pursed muzzle. Their close encounter had really shaken the poor rat woman, Roderick sighing as he got up, and walked over to place the canteen by her feet.

She glanced up at him appreciatively, or maybe she was looking beyond him at the canopy, it was hard to say, then drank greedily. He moved back to the river, splashing his face and neck, relaxing as he rubbed the grime he’d accumulated over the past few days away.

He was content to pause for a rest by the riverside, Skyseeker offering no complaint as she clung to the ferns a ways to his rear. He tried to pass the time with conversation, but his comments were met with silence and short one-word rebuttals, Roderick’s annoyance soon growing.

“Come now, Skyseeker, get over here and talk with me. Don’t just slink in the shadows.”

“Shadows safe,” she replied, again in that hushed, trembling voice. Roderick immediately regretted snapping at her, why should he blame her for being so frightened of the gryphon? She’d clearly never seen one before, she had no idea what their capabilities were, and the chance it wouldn’t come back couldn’t be wholly dismissed.

She clung her hood tighter against her face, her whiskers twitching, and Roderick suddenly got an idea.

He grabbed a few handful of twigs and leaves, then made his way over, stopping in front of her as she peered up at him curiously. “You want to hide from the gryphon, right?” he asked. The rodent didn’t reply, her answer obvious. “Back in the Empire, our scouts would camouflage themselves against whatever environment they happened to be in, so they wouldn’t be discovered so easily when behind enemy lines.”

“How?” she asked. Her goggles were reflective, but he had a feeling her eyes were wide behind those lenses.

“I’ll show you,” he said, sitting down nearby, placing the bundle of vegetation between his feet. “Give me your cloak.”

“My…?” She inched away from him. “Never! Get your own!”

“I’m not going to steal it,” he reassured, gesturing for her to calm down. “I’m just trying to help. Look here.”

He laid his pack down, Skyseeker inching closer as he flipped open one of the saddlebags, producing a needle and a spool of thread. He’d stolen them from the camp in the event he’d had to sow an injury or repair his gamberson, but sparing a little for Skyseeker wouldn’t be the end of the world.

He started by tying the piece of string into a mesh pattern, taking his time until it was just under a foot wide. When the thread resembled part of a fishing net, he took a fistful of branches, then looped them onto the mesh at random angles, fastening them tight with a few simple knots. He stuffed some loose leaves into the sparse places between, then held the thread up for her to see.

“You tie this onto your cloak, like this.” He pressed the string and branches against his chest. “That way, you don’t stand out as much against the environment. Here.”

He passed it over, Skyseeker cocking her head as she placed the netting on top of her shoulder. She seemed satisfied with the result, though still a little uncertain. “But, it won’t stick to me-me!”

“I can sew it on for you, it won’t take long.”

She turned her eyes up as she considered, a bird of prey soaring beneath a low hanging cloud, then gave him a long look, stroking a whisker as she contemplated. She eventually made up her mind, reaching up to pull back her hood, exposing her long muzzle to the sunlight. It seemed the hood wasn’t part of her cloak, the Skaven detaching it via two small buttons near the back of the neck. She thrust the hood into his hands, her pink ears swivelling in his direction as he began to work.

The process was a simple matter of lopping the needle through the mesh into the hood. Skyseeker inched closer, eager to see what he was doing, and very likely also making sure he didn’t ruin her clothing in some way. When he successfully sewed the shrubbery onto the cloth, he handed it back, the Skaven quickly donning it.

“Looks good,” he said, but Skyseeker wasn’t about to take his word for it. Glancing to make sure the gryphon wasn’t lurking, she hopped down to the riverbank, glancing at her reflection in the water.

He looked down to see her tail whipping back and forth, the Skaven turning to him with a bright look on her face. “More camouflagining!” she demanded, bounding back over in such a rush she nearly knocked Roderick over. “Here!”

Her prior hesitation seemingly forgotten, she pulled off her cloak, exposing a pair of slim, but muscular shoulders, her dark fur covered in a layer of moisture that reflected the sunlight. Was that sweat perhaps? Did rats even sweat? His eyes trailed down to her chest, her coat so thin he could pick out every contour of her sinewy muscles. Her bosom was wrapped up in a sling that was barely serviceable enough to be called an undergarment, it had more in common with a bandage than anything.

As she pulled her cloak up over her shoulders, she turned, giving him a better look at her shapely profile, Roderick unable to help but admire her figure. The muscles in her exposed abdomen caught his attention, a six-pack that would have put Sigmar to shame cutting defined lines down her torso. She certainly had the body to be jumping and leaping all the time.

He quickly looked away when she tossed him her cloak, Roderick turning it over in his hands. To say it was a tattered piece of clothing would be an understatement. The edges were frayed, there were holes all over it, the dark colour was faded in places. If he had to guess it looked like it had been burned, sewn together, clawed apart, dumped in a vat of bleach, then burned again. This garment, like his old Imperial armour, had seen a lot of death.

He gripped something hard through the fabric, noting the cloak was weightier than it looked, Roderick flipping the cloth over to expose the inlining. “What in the…? Why do you have so many knives in here?”

The inside of the cloak was dangling with a ridiculous number of pouches and holsters, all of them bulging with weapons of every kind, but mostly knives and daggers.

“More weapons equals more murder-kills!” she answered, Roderick shaking his head as she snickered.

He set about making another mesh, but his gaze kept on wondering over to the Skaven, now wearing nothing but those bandages over her bosom, and a loincloth over her crotch. She shifted, pressing her stout thighs together, her upper legs unusually large for her stature. She could jump quite high, no doubt there was a lot of muscle beneath that soft covering of hers.

“Why Rick-rod stop?” she asked, the flexible Skaven leaning her head down to block his view of her legs. She seemed oblivious to his peeping, but he still cobbled together and excuse anyway.

“Just… wondering how you don’t wound yourself with those magic blades of yours,” he said, gesturing to her belt. Just above her loincloth was a strap where she stowed those corrosive daggers, the blades protected by leather scabbards.

“I have… assassins’ paws!” she replied, puffing her chest out and inadvertently giving him a view down her cleavage. “Master of steadiness! What about Rick-rod?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where did warlord know how to… sew string-threads?” she explained. “Look like skill for slaves.”

“I’m not a warlord,” he replied, tying off a loop. Skyseeker shook a claw at him.

“Rick-rod take man-thing’s into battle, give orders, kill things! Skaven call that a warlord.”

“I prefer the term general, and those days are long behind me,” he said. “As for your question, used to dabble in stitching before I served on the front lines, but I’m better with the sword than the needle, as you could probably tell.”

He created another mesh with what thread he had left, and before long, most of Skyseeker’s cloak was covered in foliage. She finished off the personal touches herself by dousing it in dirt, completeing the impression she was wearing part of a hedge on her back, then pulled it over her shoulders, poking her ears through the cutouts on the hood’s top.

“How does it look-see?” she asked, brushing an errant leaf that had flittered in front of her face. She dropped into a crouch, turning her head away until she resembled a mound of shrubbery.

“You’re a master assassin now,” he said. She scowled at him, so Roderick quickly added: “That is, a much sneakier master assassin.”

She nodded her approval at that, Roderick reaching down to give the threads a tug, making sure they wouldn’t come loose. Skyseeker watched him pluck over her new gear, squinting at him like one would squint at an adversary. She’d have turned those knives on him in an instant a few days ago, or scurried out of his reach, but instead but she merely watched him fret over her, not moving a muscle as she gave him a strange look.

“Not too tight is it?” he asked, the leaves on her hood rustling as she shook her head.

“Thank you, Rick-rod,” she said, beaming up at him. Up to now she always sounded like speaking came off as an effort, but she said those words with an unusual amount of clarity, her tail starting to sway back and forth again.

“No trouble, lass,” he replied.

-xXx-

“Never felt so glad to see paved stones before,” Roderick said.

After repurposing Skyseeker’s cloak, the pair had set off further into the woods, keeping the river to their right both as a guide and a fresh source of drinking water. Like the forest he had first encountered the strange Skaven, their progress was slowed by thick vegetation and wild terrain, but the natural shielding of the countless trees a welcome addition.

The treeline from which they’d crossed to escape the gryphon became a distant blur, then it was gone entirely, every cardinal direction turning to woodlands, every inch of ground overabundant with plant life. Navigating soon became a chore, particularly without a clear view of the sky, which had begun to turn red with the sunset, and he was about to ask Skyseeker if she could climb a tree to try and find any landmarks, when she at one point cocked a claw off to their left.

“Look! See thing!”