Zinzolin’s nose twitched as a tendril of smoke wafted into his face. The expedition’s camp was bustling with soldiers and retainers in the warm summer evening, and yet he hadn’t been able to fully shake the eerie chill he’d felt since the raid on Apuovia. Since he’d seen his master’s eyes glow with long-dead starlight as he communed with that primordial machine.
He hadn’t shared what he’d seen down there with anyone. Not Zinzolin, his loyal right paw. And not Rustmarrow, the crypt haunter who’d led the charge to rescue the Skaven from beneath the ancient church and now stood guard alongside him. The only one he cared to tell was their current employer. “It’s for Alfonzo’s ears-ears only,” he’d said whenever somebody asked, and that was apparently that.
And now he’d vanished into an opulent war-tent, bearing whatever secrets he’d been able to gleam from their little expedition that had nearly killed them all.
He took a swig from a bottle of something smoky that left a burning trail down his throat and shivered.
“Zinzolin,” the hulking ghoul next to him rasped, voice tight with restrained emotion, “May I ask you a question?” At the rat’s nod he continued. “What exactly did your master see down there?”
“He didn’t tell-speak me,” he shrugged, “but I assume-guess it was important.”
“You assume?” The self-proclaimed knight snarled. He took a step forward on legs that were taller than Zinzolin’s entire body, reaching a hand the size of a Skaven’s torso to grab the rat by the collar, but stopped himself short. “I… My apologies, but I had hoped that Mossmourn and Brokenrib had died for something greater than a sellsword’s assumptions.”
He had vague memories of a ghoul leading a charge into a swarm of Nighthaunt, screeching the praises of their mutual master as she went. He also remembered as she went down in a pile of hacking blades and tearing claws, the final casualty of the vengeful dead.
“Do you truly think that what he learned down there was worth the lives of 14 good men and women?”
He thought of Specimen 5, the loyal stormfiend torn apart by a Saurus assassin. He thought of Vrin and Fesh, who sold their lives to keep the assassin’s Skink minions from reaching Kralt as he stood blinded by starlight. And for the first time he could remember, he thought that if Kralt Gemeye was willing to spend their dwindling bodies so frequently, then maybe he shouldn’t be Director of Clan Refrakd.
“It had-had better be,” he growled, taking another swig.
