by David Guymer
Sharpwit paced the perimeter of the grime-shrouded antechamber. He trod delicately, careful not to disturb a single mote of dust, sniffing with wary suspicion at every cobweb and forgotten furnishing. A set of high-backed chairs had been pushed against one wall and covered with mouldering throws that were themselves covered with a layer of moth eggs and grime. The skeletal frame of a table descended into slow decay in the centre of the room.
‘You make me nervous, Sharpwit,’ Razzel complained. The grey seer kept to one corner, the better to scrutinise the entire room. He tinkled mildly, the faintest of breezes from Sharpwit’s secret passage, now concealed anew, sufficent to give muted voice to his chimes.
‘Dwarf-things do not use this place. Sealed since… since long ago. Yet the Horned Rat watches over those that watch their own backs.’
‘And stick-stab knife in backs of skaven as do not,’ Razzel snarled. ‘I read-learn the teachings of the Horned One, old-meat.’
Sharpwit bowed with a mock flourish. ‘Forgive this most humble servant of the Council.’
‘Not so humble, I think, hmmm?’
Sharpwit merely grinned, his fangs glowering like the face of the Chaos moon.
‘What you try-think you find?’
Sharpwit frowned, pressing his ear to the wall and rapping experimentally on the stone with his claws. ‘Think-certain I heard a noise. Dwarf-things do come this way sometimes. Replace torches. Ensure all is safe-well.’
‘Why, if they never use?’
‘They keep-hide something in these halls. A precious thing, but broken. Something Kazador values more highly than gold.’
‘Gold,’ Razzel tittered dismissively. ‘True-sure sign of dwarf-thing stupidity.’
Satisfied that they were secure, Sharpwit swung around. ‘I grow tired-bored of telling you experts, but dwarf-things win because Queek underestimates them. I do not. Look-smell where we are, see what dwarf-things build. Different, yes-yes, but not stupid.’
Razzel did as Sharpwit suggested and looked. He took in the faded hangings, the table laid out beneath a sheet of dust. His keen ears caught the tiny patter of a cockroach scuttling from hiding. He returned his attention to Sharpwit, unimpressed. ‘This a royal chamber once, hmmm? Decay is king here now. When the Horned Rat visits ruination upon the heads of the dwarf-things and make-render all they build like this, will Sharpwit rejoice like a true child of darkness, or will he cry like a man-thing whelp at his glorious work?’
Sharpwit cringed, consciously placing the table between the grey seer and himself. ‘I serve truly. But do you not wonder what skaven will do and how skaven will eat when those that farm and build and throw away are gone? I do. I wonder.’
Razzel bluntly ignored him, continuing to look around with a faint air of disgust. ‘Why are we in this hole-place? There plenty-many quiet places in Deadclaw.’
Sharpwit’s tail lashed as he thought of the answer to that question, disturbing the carpet of dust he had been so careful to leave be. Queek. He coughed hard, spattering his balding paw with blood. Still coughing, his ribs brittle bars to imprison his pain, he inhaled deeply through the silk filter of his sleeve. All the while he glared at Razzel, annoyed by his comfortable smugness.
‘Like your burrow? Queek finds us there. He should not, but he did. How? I don’t want-think to know. Queek is mad-thing, but he knows things…’
‘Hah,’ Razzel scoffed. ‘Sharpwit is a scared-rat.’
Sharpwit toyed with confronting the seer with his own so-called courage. He hadn’t forgotten Razzel’s absence from the battle. Perhaps if the grey seer could have prevented that blasted runemaker from wreaking such havoc they might even have won. He swallowed the urge. Razzel would have his excuses ready, and it would achieve nothing. Sharpwit knew how the great game was played and, much as he despised it, he played it better than most. A skaven did not live as long as he if he did not.
‘Then why is Queek not already dead if the mighty Razzel does not fear him?’ Razzel chewed his lip, his silence testimony enough to the truth, and Sharpwit went on. ‘He know-learns the name of your bodyguard when even we did not.’
‘Maybe he makes up.’
‘Maybe,’ he relented. ‘But how then did he find us? And other things too. Little things. He is mad-thing, for certain, but perhaps he is so far past madness that he looks back and from such distance he see things all laid out, hidden things, things lost under the noses of those too close.’
‘The Horned Rat, he gift-gives such visions to his prophets, not to mad-thing warlords.’
Sharpwit scratched his ear anxiously. He was yet to be entirely convinced that Queek would not somehow find them even here. ‘We agree though he is a mad-thing. That it is time to think about completing the task set us without Queek.’
Razzel nodded to the accompaniment of discordant music. The seer tightened his grip on his dark wood staff, his eyes distant and unseeing as they conjured dreams of power. ‘Old-thing should have listened before. Razzel knew this would happen. The Horned Rat, he squeak-tells truths to his chosen.’
Sharpwit spread his open paws. ‘Queek is a mighty war-leader, paw-picked by Gnawdwell to lead.’ He regarded the grey seer carefully. ‘Did you know-hear of how Queek crushed Warlord Slash and the traitor-rats of Fester Spike?’
Razzel shook his head.
‘Queek-Warlord spent great-many days burrowing tunnels all under the lair to attack at once from many sides.’
‘Simple plan,’ Razzel scoffed.
‘Might seem so, yes-yes. Ikit Slash thought so. He sent warriors to guard every one because Queek made certain he learned of them. You know why?’
Razzel leant forward dangerously onto his staff. ‘Because he is a stupid mad-thing.’
‘They were decoys. Queek comes through one tunnel only, himself, in frontal assault with his strongest warriors.’
Razzel looked aghast. ‘He led himself? Like common slave-meat?’
‘Slash’s warriors were spread thin and killed-dead piecemeal. He kill-slay Slash himself and keep-take as trophy-meat. Then he crashes the place to the ground. He take-smash everything. Even,’ and here he paused, ensuring the seer was fully attentive before continuing, ‘toppling idol of the Horned Rat. And then he beheads it. Dead-dead.’ He mimed the action with a downward sweep of his crutch.
The grey seer’s mouth hung open like a griffon chick awaiting feeding. Eventually he gathered enough wit to speak. ‘How is such heretic heathen-meat allowed to live, much less to lead a glorious army in the Horned Rat’s name? This quest is cursed to fail-die so long as Queek is warlord.’
Sharpwit grinned as the grey seer spun away, paws clenching and unclenching at his side as they itched to exact pious vengeance. Razzel was a coward, but he just needed the proper levers pulling. It hardly mattered that it was all without a scrap of truth. It was the sort of thing Queek might have done, and truth really was whatever the beholder wished it to be.
‘Then there is the time he feuds with Grey Seer Thanquol…’
‘I hear enough. Queek is clearly unfit.’
‘As you say, most sagacious of seers.’
‘We destroy Queek!’ Razzel squealed. The warpstone idol atop his staff began to throb as the sorcerer worked himself into a zealous fury. Its dark glow traced shifting shadows between the cobwebs, scratching at the walls like the claws of the Horned Rat, burrowing from the bowels of the earth to embrace his wayward children.
‘And what will the Council say?’ Sharpwit interceded. ‘What will Gnawdwell do? He raises Queek high and treats him like a precious thing.’ Razzel paused in thought and Sharpwit went on. ‘No. First give the Council their prize. First we cripple Azul-Place, and then get rid of Queek. There are lots-many ways for crazy-meat warlords to perish without bloodying our paws.’
‘But Queek is a problem. We will not succeed as long as he lives.’
Sharpwit tittered, edging around the table towards Razzel, bobbing obsequiously as he shuffled closer. ‘Queek thinks he is in
charge, but it will be the most shrewd of sorcerers, Razzel, who pulls strings and claims glory.’
Razzel preened, scratching the unholy brand on his face with the horns of his warpstone idol. ‘How do we do this thing?’
Sharpwit grinned slyly. ‘You did not ask what mighty treasure Kazador hides here. Kazador is a broken king, weak in heart, and we skaven, we like to kill-stab where our enemies are weak. Kazador will gift-give the wealth of Azul-Place to me.’ He held out his paw, the pale flesh wrinkled and old. ‘He will place it here in Sharpwit’s paw.’
‘Tell me how!’
Sharpwit froze as he made to answer. This time he had definitely heard something. Again, he pressed his ear to the wall and listened. It sounded like footsteps. It would help if the idiot grey seer could stop jangling like a one-skaven bell-ringing troupe and be quiet. He turned back to Razzel, nothing but eagerness to please. ‘Leave the details to me, most prodigious of prophets. You must return to Deadclaw. None will miss a tired old-thing, but the loss of your peerless leadership will be noted.’
Razzel nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes-yes. I imagine it will. Come speak-squeak with me when all is done. We plot-plan what must come next.’
‘I keenly anticipate your insights, most subtle of schemers.’
He suppressed a sigh of longing. Razzel might be a one-dimensional moron, but for now he was his moron. That wasn’t to say there wouldn’t come a time in the hopefully-not-too-distant future when he outlived his value. The thought made him feel warm inside. It made the insufferable genuflecting almost bearable. He sought out the pressure pads behind one of the hangings and the hidden door glided outwards. Razzel departed with an imperious sweep of his robes, and Sharpwit quietly pulled closed the door and heard it click into place. He leant back against it and breathed a sigh of relief.
He snickered softly. ‘Fool-fool.’
Hobbling around the table back to the opposite wall, he flattened his better ear against it. He tried to still his breathing. It was definitely footsteps. Two pairs in fact, with a heavy tread. And he could hear gruff voices, although they were too muffled for him to make out their words.
Perfect, he thought, as he swiftly sought out the mechanism to the chamber’s second concealed door.
He always had been a lucky rat.
Handrik wandered the halls alone. A sombre mood had settled over the corridors of Karak Azul. He recalled victories from ages past. The carousing would stretch well into the following morning, and Handrik would have been hard pressed to find a passage not occupied by cherry-faced dwarfs intent on drinking the great hold dry.
His fondest such instance had been two hundred years ago, after King Kazgar had crushed a Black Orc warlord on the plains of Zharr. It had been one of the last actions of the Great War, and the throng had returned to a heroes’ welcome. Handrik had been among the eldest left behind. Half of the hold’s Ironbreakers had departed for the war in the north, the oldest and the best but for himself. He hadn’t earned his command; it had been foisted on him, like a chain around a guard dog’s neck. Kazador had been but a beardling, but already a strong lad, and mighty had been the tantrum he’d thrown when the king bade him remain under Handrik’s regency rather than join him in war. Handrik had been enamoured with it still less, but was not nearly so sparse on the chin to let it show.
Kazgar was ultimately proven right, as he almost always was, and their victorious return would swift become the stuff of legend.
Kazador had been pursued from the gates by his Hammerer guard, their blushes as much from the shame of allowing their charge from their sights as from the effort of pursuit. For the prince who would be king was ever the peerless athlete, with an uncommon fleetness of foot even when gleaming from head to foot in gromril. He had shone in the sun of the new day, a beacon of hope that shone all the brighter for the defeat of the Ruinous Powers. Handrik still recalled the young dwarf’s indecision, uncertain who to embrace first: Handrik, or his father. The memory gladdened him even now. He had never married, never considered marrying. But had he ever had a son, or indeed a daughter, of his own, he could have loved them no more deeply.
Such had been the occasion’s joy that the celebrations had taken place right there in the valley beneath the naked sun and, later, the stars. And then the sun again. Roast boar and warm ale had been carted up from the kitchens with huge platters of vegetables and sweet breads all laid out on the bare earth where kings and thanes mingled freely with potboys and goatherds. Kazador himself out-drank and out-competed all comers and did it with the broadest of smiles that bespoke no triumphalism. During the impromptu feast, the famous Karak Azul miners’ brass band set up amidst great anticipation and played through to midnight, the peaks resounding to the joyous blasts of horns and trumpets, and there had been as much dancing and singing as there had been hard drinking.
Handrik sighed deeply. This time there was no such sense of triumph. Only in Karak Azul could victory taste so bitterly of defeat. They had crushed a skaven force many times their own number, but it was a battle no one wanted. The victory was a token one. One that brought the purging of Black Crag no closer.
And then there was Logan.
Handrik missed him already, more than he thought he would. Whatever Kazador’s decree, Handrik knew Logan’s death was his own fault – because of his own stubbornness. In the hours after the battle he had considered shaving his head and swearing the Slayer Oath, but had immediately dismissed the idea as laughable. Who ever heard of one of the cult of Grimnir who could scarce walk, much less pick a fight? Some glorious end that would be.
He would have to find some other way to atone. He simply did not know how.
Without any further guidance to the contrary, his feet bore him on.
He looked up from his memories as a door swung open. One of the ancient carved oak portals stylistically banded with gold and gromril that led to Kazador’s own rooms. Handrik checked his steps. Maybe whoever it was would turn the other way and miss him. He desired nothing but solitude.
A pair of Hammerers emerged from the open doorway. Keldur and Narfi were their names and he knew them well. They were brothers, inseparable since birth and strong warriors, although he still saw in them the fearless beardlings he had once known. Their mighty weapons were strapped across their backs, and between them they dragged a struggling figure across the lacquered flagstones.
Handrik got a good look. ‘Merciful Valaya,’ he mouthed, breaking into a trot to intercept the guards and their prisoner.
The dwarfs looked over up over their shoulders at Handrik’s approach. Both offered a respectful nod without letting go of their captive. ‘Longbeard,’ they intoned in unison.
Handrik shook his head disapprovingly at the dishevelled young dwarf in his scuffed breeches and jerkin that sat on his behind between the two Hammerers.
Thordun looked up and offered a nervous smile, evidently none too reassured by the sight of this particular familiar face. ‘I didn’t steal anything, I swear it.’
Handrik forced a smile he did not feel. ‘This one’s with me, lads.’ He offered a helpless shrug. ‘Thordred’s boy.’
The revelation elicited smiles. Narfi, ever the more avuncular, broke into a chuckle. His mail vest rustled against his ample girth. ‘Well there’s a name I’ve not heard in a good while.’ He offered Thordun his hand, which the younger dwarf took, and hauled him to his feet. ‘The ore hasn’t fallen far from the seam, eh? You’ve inherited the old Locksplitter sticky fingers.’
Keldur, broader and less well padded than his younger sibling, soon gave up the pretence of appearing stern. His auburn beard parted into a grin and he jabbed Thordun with a comradely elbow in the ribs. ‘Has Handrik told you of the time we caught your father in the king’s vault?’
‘He didn’t try to deny it,’ Narfi added. ‘But then being neck deep in the king’s gold would’ve taken some explaining.’
‘A terrible liar your father. Always an honest dawi.’
The chuckli
ng Hammerers shared a look and their mirth dried up. Their heads shook sadly. ‘Happier times.’
‘Aye,’ Handrik agreed. ‘That they were.’
Keldur held Thordun’s shoulder with a fist like a ham. There was no amusement in his eyes now and he regarded the young dwarf with steel. ‘Stay away from these corridors, beardling. For Handrik, and for Thordred, we’ll let this pass just one time.’ He turned to his brother for confirmation. The other dwarf simply nodded. ‘If Kazador were to hear you’d been here…’ He trailed off.
There was no need to continue. Handrik could see in Thordun’s face that he realised the consequences, a fate worse than any but the most sadistic of kings might devise. He really does want to be accepted here, Handrik realised, surprised and more than a little ashamed to have doubted it. His heart broke a little to see the young dwarf’s distress, but the most important lessons were ever the hardest.
‘Chin up, lad. No harm done.’
Gently, he eased the beardling on his way. The Hammerers bowed as he passed. He swore silently as he returned their farewells. He resented their pity, no less than he wished to shun their ill-placed respect. He warranted neither.
‘Best get you back to your own quarters where you can’t find trouble,’ he said after he and Thordun had walked some distance in silence.
‘Who is in there, Handrik?’ Thordun blurted the question, tactless as usual. ‘Who does Kazador keep imprisoned there?’
Handrik studied the face of the young dwarf of the Empire. Could he understand? Was the lad dawi enough for that?
‘He’s nobody’s prisoner, lad.’
‘Then why–’
‘It’s Prince Kazrik, damn it!’ Handrik roared. He winced as he realised how loud he’d shouted. He rubbed the back of his hand across his lips as though the words could be scrubbed away in retrospect. ‘It’s the king’s son,’ he hissed.