Nagash found himself in a broad, low-ceilinged cavern packed with squalling, screeching ratmen. The terrified survivors had fled into the mass of warriors waiting their turn to advance up the tunnel, and their panic had spread like wildfire through the ranks. Pandemonium reigned as pack leaders fought to rally their warriors with snarled threats and the flats of their blades. Bone whistles shrieked and the urgent clash of brass gongs added to the cacophony.
The necromancer paused, taking his bearings. The closest of his undead warriors was six levels above him, below even mine shaft number seven. He was deep in enemy territory—possibly even behind the bulk of the ratmen army. In one swift move he’d turned his enemy’s knife back upon their own throat. For the first time in decades, he dared to think that perhaps victory finally lay within his grasp.
With a triumphant shout, Nagash drew upon the burning stone and brought down a rain of fire on the milling ratmen. Burning bodies collapsed in heaps, adding fuel to the howling panic. He advanced on the stricken horde, his warriors filling the space behind him and forming up into companies of sword and axemen. Dimly, Nagash could hear Bragadh and Thestus shouting orders over the din; their people’s hatred of the ratmen ran so deep that their rivalry had all but disappeared in the face of the invasion.
A dull clatter arose at Nagash’s back—the flat bark of sword and axe against the surface of bronze-edged wooden shields, rising in volume and intensity as one northman after another added their weapon to the din. Blue-tattooed barbarians threw back their heads and bellowed their bloodlust in a swelling roar that could be felt in the bones of man and rat-creature alike. In the confines of the cavern it was an awesome, world-shaking sound.
The noise rose to a fever pitch—and then, cutting through the tumult like a knife, came an unearthly, piping wail. Akatha’s voice, charged with primitive magics and shaped by the ancient secrets of her sisterhood, calling for the spilling of blood and the harvesting of souls. As they had for thousands of years, the northmen charged at their foes not to the baying of horns, but to the cry of the witch’s war-song.
A wave of shouting barbarians swept past Nagash in a thundering wave and smashed into the corpse-strewn ranks of the ratmen. The broad-shouldered warriors towered over their foes; their blows splintered shields and shattered swords. They carved their way through the enemy with as much joyous savagery as Nagash himself. Bragadh and his chosen warriors were in the thick of the fighting, spilling the blood of their foes with every stroke of their blades. The necromancer followed close behind them, hurling bolts of fire over their heads to fall upon the densely packed mob.
The ratmen, already well past the limits of their resolve, collapsed completely under the weight of the barbarian onslaught. A rout began: terrified warriors threw down their weapons and climbed over their fellows in an attempt to escape the oncoming northmen. The horde began to dissolve before Nagash’s eyes as the ratmen died or fled into the dubious safety of the passageways on the far end of the cavern. The murderous northmen hounded them mercilessly and the melee seemed to swiftly recede away from the necromancer. Behind him, still more of the barbarians were charging into the cavern; Nagash paused, his own thirst for slaughter ebbing away as he tried to focus on the unfolding battle. From where he stood, he had two options: order his warriors to turn aside and cut off the ratmen on the levels above, or to press still deeper into the mountain in hopes of sowing further chaos and perhaps coming to grips with the leader of the enemy army.
He hesitated for scarcely a moment before reaching a decision, but the pause was enough to save him.
Across the cavern came a chorus of metallic-sounding shrieks, like steam bursting from a dozen copper pots. A furious, greenish glow filled the air at the far end of the chamber, and the battle cries of the northmen were transformed into screams of horror and pain.
In an instant, the barbarian charge came to a crashing halt. Warriors piled into one another around Nagash, shouting and cursing. The strange, hissing shrieks sounded again, followed by more screams and a gust of hot wind that carried the sickly-sweet reek of charred flesh. The flickering glow was getting closer, spreading over and through the ranks of Nagash’s men.
The crowd of northmen surrounding Nagash began to surge backwards, towards the captured tunnel. Men were shouting in terror up ahead, exhorting their fellows in their own crude northern tongue. Furious, the necromancer forced himself through the press, searching for the source of the panic.
A figure loomed ahead of him. It was Bragadh, his face streaked with gore. The warlord’s eyes were wide with shock. He shouted something in his native tongue, then remembered himself and switched to Nehekharan. “Back, master!” he cried. “You must go back—”
Before Nagash could snarl a reply, the shrieks rose again, louder and closer than before, and the necromancer saw a dozen northmen in front of Bragadh disappear in a roaring blast of green flame. The sorcerous power in the fire was as palpable as the heat he felt against his leathery skin. It ate through armour, clothing and flesh with appalling swiftness, gnawing the warriors down to blackened bones right before his eyes.
Like the lash of a whip or the flickering tongue of a dragon the flame receded with a thin hiss, vanishing even as the charred corpses of the northmen collapsed to the ground. With a shock, the necromancer realised that the hungry flames had carved a broad swathe through his troops, who were now in full retreat from the four contraptions of wood and bronze that squatted at the far side of the cavern.
The devices were each the size of a large war-chariot, and mounted on a wooden bed supported by a pair of bronze-rimmed wheels. A sturdy wooden yoke extended from the front of the bed, but where a set of horses would have been lashed to the post, there were four broad-shouldered ratmen with push-handles gripped in their clawed paws. Upon the wooden bed sat a sealed cauldron of cast bronze, whose curved sides shimmered with radiant heat.
Situated on the rear of the wooden bed, just behind the cauldron, was a large box of bronze and wood. Four long, almost oar-like levers extended from the box, alternating to the left and right. Two ratmen gripped each lever. In that strange, slow-motion clarity brought on by combat, Nagash saw the rats lift the great levers so high that they rose onto the tips of their toe-claws. There was a muffled whoooosh of indrawn air, like the sound of a great furnace bellows.
Four thick, bronze pipes ran from the box into the sides of the great cauldron and a long, oddly flexible pipe of some kind ran from the front of the cauldron and was threaded through arched bronze staples hammered into the wood. It extended for another six feet from the end of the yoke, terminating in a heavy-looking bronze nozzle held by a pair of curiously garbed ratmen. The creatures were swathed in heavy robes of leather and sturdy cloth, and wore leather gauntlets that reached all the way back to their knobby elbows. The skin of their snouts was bald and blistered from heat. Strange discs of some dark, glossy material were held over their beady eyes by a dark leather band, lending them an unblinking, soulless stare.
Nagash watched the mouth of one nozzle turn his way. Green fire flickered hungrily in its depths, mirroring the hungry leer of the ratmen who wielded it.
There was nowhere to run. Instinctively, Nagash shoved Diarid aside and called upon the power of the abn-i-khat. The wild energies burned at his fingertips, but at the last moment he hesitated to unleash his sorceries on the fire-throwers. If the cauldrons burst, even in such a relatively large space as the cavern, the escaping heat might consume everything in the chamber. Instead, he turned his attentions on the carpet of mangled bodies that lay between him and the ratmen.
The necromancer clenched one fist. “Rise,” he commanded, just as the bellows-rats hauled down their levers and another chorus of draconic shrieks filled the cavern.
Necromantic energies flowed from Nagash in a torrent, enveloping the corpses in an instant. The bodies of human and ratman alike reared up from the cavern floor, like mummer’s dolls pulled by invisible strings. They caught the blast of sorcerous
flames full-on; Nagash heard the buzzing sizzle of flesh and the sharp crackle of splintering bone as the heat consumed them. The ranks of the undead were cut down by the flames, but in so doing they absorbed or deflected enough of the blast to spare their master.
Once more the flames receded with a menacing hiss. Barely a handful of Nagash’s newly-animated corpses remained.
Diarid clambered to his feet and stared at the enemy war engines in evident horror. “We must retreat,” he said to Nagash. “Quickly, before those things can draw another breath.”
Nagash clenched his corroded teeth. The barbarian was right. He hadn’t imagined the damned ratmen could be so clever. Wordlessly, he ordered the remaining corpses forwards in a token charge against the war engines, then hastened swiftly back to the far tunnels.
His token force managed scarcely a dozen steps before they were incinerated. Nagash felt the heat of the flames wash over his shoulders, then abruptly recede. He glanced over his shoulder to see a semicircle of green flame playing across ruined corpses three-quarters of the way across the cavern. Realising that their quarry had retreated beyond their reach, the nozzle-rats were screeching at the wretches manning the yokes of their war engines, urging them forwards.
Diarid vanished into the tunnel. Moments later, Nagash reached the mouth of the sloping passage. Behind him, axles groaned as the war engines began to move.
The necromancer turned back to the ratmen, his rage building. Would the damned stalemate never end?
Nagash raised his arm and pointed at the oncoming ratmen. The fires of the burning stone had ebbed to little more than sullen embers. He’d expended too much, too quickly. Next time, he would be certain to have greater reserves to call upon.
His ragged lips curling with contempt, he spat a stream of arcane syllables. A handful of darts, larger and brighter than those he’d cast before, streaked across the cavern. They flashed past the nozzle-rats of one of the middle fire-throwers, missing them by a hair’s breadth—and struck the bronze cauldron in a shower of hot green sparks. The cauldron resounded like a struck bell and then blew apart in a thunderous detonation. The crew of the war engine vanished in a ball of sorcerous fire. Jagged metal fragments slashed through the air, striking the engines to either side; less than a second later, they detonated too, showering the cavern with curtains of sizzling flame.
Hot air buffeted Nagash, tugging at his hood and the sleeves of his robe. For a long moment he stared into the depths of the holocaust he’d unleashed, then, muttering venomous curses, he withdrew into the darkness of the tunnel.
The long knife flashed in the firelight, silencing the pack leader’s protestations. The warrior stiffened, beady eyes widening as he clawed at the gaping wound that stretched across his throat. He collapsed in a welter of bitter blood, legs and tail twitching horribly.
Lord Eekrit stood over the dying clanrat, his tail lashing in fury. The hem of his rich robe was soaked in gore.
“Anyone else?” he hissed, turning to glare at the trio of quivering pack leaders left on the dais. Four of their number already sprawled lifelessly on the steps behind them. The warlord gave the fifth pack leader a savage kick, rolling him off the dais to join the rest. “Does anyone else expect me to believe that a burning man with eyes of god-stone killed four hundred of our best warriors by himself?”
The surviving pack leaders—all that remained of those who’d presided over the debacle earlier that night—stretched their rangy bodies across the stones and bared their necks to Eekrit. Ears flat, tails twitching feverishly, they filled the air with fear-musk and made no reply.
Eekrit had enough. No one was telling him anything useful, and his shoulder was getting sore from all the throat-cutting. “Out of my sight!” he shrieked. “Out-out!
“Tomorrow you fight in the front ranks, with the rest of the slaves!”
The three pack leaders scrambled off the dais, all but tripping over themselves in their haste to escape their master’s rage. Once they were gone, packs of slaves hastened from the shadows to drag away the objects of Lord Eekrit’s ire. The warlord watched them for a moment then turned away in disgust, flinging the bloodstained knife across the dais. It skittered over the stones, missing Lord Eshreegar’s foot by a hair’s-breadth. The Master of Treacheries never so much as twitched.
Like everything else in the great cavern, the dais had changed greatly in the past quarter-century. Slaves had built three-quarter-height walls from rubble and mortar, creating a proper audience chamber without completely isolating it from the cacophonous noise of the rest of the space. Rich rugs had been laid across the top, flanked by two gilded braziers that filled the partially enclosed space with a pleasing mosaic of light and shadow. Heavy tapestries hung from the walls, each one commissioned at great expense by artisans in the Great City. Tall, broad-shouldered warriors from Eekrit’s own clan stood guard at every corner and to either side of the chamber’s door, clad in armour of thick leather faced with bronze discs and clutching fearsome-looking polearms.
At the rear of the dais another, smaller platform had been built, upon which sat a fine and imposing throne made of teak and inlaid with traceries of gold. Growling under his breath, Eekrit stalked back to the throne and collapsed angrily onto its cushioned seat. “Idiots,” he muttered darkly. “I’m-I’m surrounded by idiots.”
The tunnel had been a masterstroke. It had taken weeks to gnaw through the hard granite closer to the mountain’s heart, but it had positioned his army for a devastating thrust into the enemy’s side. While a massive frontal assault pinned down the bulk of the mountain’s defenders around mine shaft six, Vittrik’s precious war engines would have been positioned to pour fire into the rear ranks of the enemy. Meanwhile, the rest of Eekrit’s troops would have raced into the upper levels of the fortress, seizing key tunnel junctions and disrupting the flow of reinforcements from the surface. He’d fully expected to seize at least three of the enemy’s upper shafts by the end of the day, possibly even more. With a little luck and the Horned God’s favour, it could even have been the death-stroke that put an end to the whole war.
But of course it hadn’t worked out that way. All he had to show for his efforts were another three thousand dead skaven and a raging fire in his painstakingly crafted tunnel that was still burning, hours after Vittrik’s engines had been blown to scrap. If he cocked his ears just right, Eekrit could hear the sounds of crashing metal and panicked squeals in the distance as the drunken warlock-engineer took out his rage on his hapless slaves.
Lord Eekrit drummed his claws on the hard wood of the throne’s armrest. What could he have possibly done to earn the Horned God’s ire? Had he not made all the proper obeisances, given all the proper bribes? What had he done to deserve such a perplexing, miserable, expensive war?
True, he had personally profited greatly from the War beneath the Mountain, as it was being called back at the Great City. God-stone was being carved from the mine shafts under his control and shipped home in staggering amounts. His personal fortunes and those of his clan swelled with each passing season; they had grown so great that Rikek was now considered among the most powerful of the warlord clans. He could afford the best of everything, even sorcerous potions and charms of god-stone to preserve his handsome looks and youthful vigour. Eekrit had even begun to seriously consider buying his way onto the Great Council once the war ended, if it ever ended.
There was just no end to the damned skeletons. For every one his warriors killed, there seemed to be a dozen more ready to take its place. The northmen who’d apparently allied themselves with the walking corpses were at least something his people knew how to deal with. Long ago they’d had a running war with the humans over their meagre store of god-stone, and while the barbarians were fearsome warriors in their own right, the fact was that they had lost their war with the skaven all those centuries ago. They could be beaten. The corpse army, though, that was something else again.
The long war of attrition was consuming skaven lives
at a horrifying rate. New companies of reinforcements were arriving from the Great City every month. When the first loads of god-stone had begun to arrive at home, there had been a massive swell of volunteers from the clans, each seeking to make their own fortunes in the war. Now most of those treasure-seekers were dead, spitted on enemy spears or eaten by the enemy’s pallid corpse-takers, and their gnawed skeletons stood in ranks behind their foe’s tunnel redoubts. All that Eekrit got from the clans now were mobs of terrified slaves and sullen criminals; he suspected that the Great City hadn’t been so free of bandits in centuries.
So far, the Council of Thirteen had tolerated the bloody stalemate thanks to the wealth of god-stone Eekrit provided, but he knew that such tolerance had its limits. The Children of the Horned God had never fought so long and so bitter a war in the entire history of their people and their resources, however vast, were not without their limits. He had to find a way to break the deadlock, and soon, before the Grey Lords decided to take matters into their own paws.
Eekrit glanced sullenly at Eshreegar. “What do you make of it?” he asked.
The Master of Treacheries shrugged. For once, Eshreegar couldn’t be blamed for having no news to give the warlord; his scout-assassins had been covering the diversionary assault, many levels away from the disaster. “We know that the northmen are accompanied by a witch,” he observed. “It’s said they have powers of divination. She might have predicted the attack.”
“Not that,” Eekrit growled. “The burning man.”
Eshreegar’s ears rose in surprise. “You believe the pack leaders’ tales?”
“The fools didn’t have the wit to change their story, no matter how many throats I-I cut,” Eekrit grumbled. “So I must assume they were telling the truth, strange as-as it seems.”
The black-robed skaven considered the warlord’s question. “A sorcerer-corpse, perhaps?”
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