Headtaker

by David Guymer

  ‘The prince,’ Thordun gasped. ‘Then why? I heard his screams. It sounded like torture.’

  Handrik scrunched his eyes tight. If Kazgar’s return from the north had been the happiest moment in Handrik’s long life then the most ignoble was recalled with equal, if less welcome, clarity; right down to the stink of blood and excrement and foul orcish corpses that had somehow absorbed into the stones of Karak Azul to endure to this day. Something had broken in the king that day. His heir and only son brutalised upon his own throne, shaven and nailed into the iron. A challenge from the squatter king of Karak Drazh wrought in Kazador’s own blood.

  ‘Aye,’ he whispered, opening his eyes. ‘Prince Zaki, I’ve heard him called. Clever wordplay, eh?’

  ‘Zaki… but doesn’t that mean–’

  ‘Mad. Aye lad, and Kazrik is mad. He’s tough as his father and stubborn as his grandfather. He should rightfully have perished that day, but no dwarf could endure what he did and not suffer… scars.’

  ‘Can he not be helped?’

  ‘You think we didn’t try? You think Kazador’s heart is stone? We dwarfs are hardy, lad, but some wounds even we can’t abide.’ Handrik stiffened. The truth cut a little too close to the bone. ‘He’s kept away as much for his own safety as for Kazador’s pride.’

  ‘The king’s pride–’

  ‘Is everything! If you can’t accept that, then I suggest you not return from your journey to Karaz-a-Karak. And I wouldn’t tarry overlong either, for Thorgrim Grudgebearer is a very proud king.’

  Thordun looked at his feet, suitably chastened. ‘I understand.’ He seemed to notice for the first time that they’d stopped walking. He looked up and examined the door they stood beside. The sounds of drunken revelry filtered through the sturdy wood. His face dropped at the strains of a bawdy Bretonnian drinking song. ‘We’re here,’ he observed sadly.

  ‘Aye, and I suggest you stay here if you know what’s good for you.’

  Thordun opened the door a fraction, a warm glow slicing across his golden beard. The boisterous clamour escalated in volume. He spun around, just as Handrik made to leave. ‘Handrik, why did my father leave Karak Azul?’

  Handrik answered with a shrug. ‘You never knew your mother, did you? Let’s just say a dwarf doesn’t have it in him to forget. But that’s not to stop him trying.’ He gave a sad sigh and cocked his head towards the door. ‘Get some sleep. If you can. Grungni alone knows what the umgi have done to earn such celebration.’

  ‘I will try.’

  ‘The road to the Eight Peaks is short but perilous.’

  ‘I’ll be careful Handrik, and thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  Now it was Thordun’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘After the battle I… I thought I had offended you somehow. I would not have expected you to help me.’ He smiled and bowed once before leaving, easing the door closed behind him.

  Handrik grumbled as the dwarf vanished into his quarters, muttering under his breath at the strange ways of the young. Dwarfs had never used to have such bleeding hearts.

  A prickling at the nape of his neck bade him turn. Three centuries immersed in the forsaken places of the Underdeep had honed an intuition that only an Ironbreaker could understand. His gaze swept the corridor, scrutinising every crack and cranny. It was possible he had heard another dwarf, perhaps even the Hammerers continuing their patrol. This area of the Third Deep was well frequented. But a dwarf wandering his own halls would not go to such lengths to remain unnoticed.

  There was nothing there. And yet he felt the attentions of another.

  Deciding that something trying to hide wasn’t about to reveal itself with Handrik looking right at it, he turned and shuffled for his own bed. The prickling unease lessened as he walked and he relented that his disquiet must have been misplaced. Evidently, his vaunted intuition wasn’t what it used to be.

  ‘Grimnir take you then,’ he muttered.

  It was high time that Handrik Hallgakrin hang up his axe.

  Sharpwit sank into the shadow of an alcove, hidden from prying eyes by the imposing thighs of a dwarf-thing breeder-queen. He sat with his back to the statue, tail coiled around his waist and crutches set stacked over his crossed legs.

  He still buzzed with the residual charge of power, his blood singing with the electric thrill of it. It was all so brazenly unfair. He had been and would be a far better warlord; instead his brief rise and public fall had made him fair game, every glance from all but the lowest of slaves accompanied by a calculated licking of covetous lips. For all his treacherous words to Razzel, he needed Queek. Fear of the Headtaker rather than of the Council had spared his hide so far and he needed that protection back, however unwittingly or begrudgingly it was bestowed.

  He listened quietly as the long-furred dwarf-thing departed, rubbing his paws together in delight of his own irresistible genius. The ancient dwarf-thing was never going to spot him behind the statue. Sharpwit, on the other paw, could smell the old sweat on his goat wool undergarments, the ale on his breath and even the lingering trace of wax from the gold-furred dwarf-thing’s cloak. Truly, he was the luckiest of rats. And while he was old enough to appreciate the notion that it was better to be lucky than good, a fair dose of brilliance never went amiss. Sometimes, he supposed, it helped to be lucky and good.

  For who else but Sharpwit would have dared to shadow such fearsome dwarf-thing warriors as the two hammer-dwarfs? Padding silently in their footsteps, he had heard them stumble upon the younger, gold-furred dwarf-thing at the mad prince’s cell. He had considered and swiftly abandoned the idea of co-opting Kazrik into his scheme. He had suffered quite enough of mad-things. And besides, even a dwarf-thing as unhinged as Kazrik would likely tear Sharpwit’s head from his shoulders before he could open his mouth. A lesser skaven mind might have abandoned his fruitless quest there. But Sharpwit knew himself to be a skaven of rare insight and purpose. Who else, besides Sharpwit, would have been clever enough to follow the gold-furred dwarf-thing to his burrow? True, he hadn’t known exactly what he was looking for, but he knew a skaven of his perceptiveness would recognise it when it fell into his paws.

  And it had. And he did. Man-things.

  He had had few dealings with the tall furless race that tilled the fields of the surface world, but from his general gleanings, he understood them to be the closest among all the world’s races to emulating the purest majesty of the skaven. Such notions were deeply heretical, but dogmatic principle was something else for which Sharpwit had little time. Particularly as it was plainly true, at least to anyone able to recognise the man-thing capacity for self-interest, treachery and deceit. Such concepts he could understand. And exploit.

  His keen ears twitched to the unfamiliar syllables of their speech. He estimated between five and ten man-things. Eventually one of them must leave.

  All he had to do was wait.

  ‘This is the tinker-place?’

  ‘Yes-yes, most vengeful of victors,’ said Ska, following his warlord into the booming underbelly of the Clan Skryre foundry.

  The air was thick with fumes and stifling in a way that even the aridity of Deadclaw had not prepared them for. The heat pawed at him, abasing itself at his all-conquering footpaws. Little shapes scurried through the cloying cloud. From vats suspended just above head height between iron pylons erupted silvery jets of molten steel, the eructations throwing off great bodies of steam that turned titanic wheels. It was this that caused the numbing din. Queek was fascinated despite himself, that something so insubstantial could generate force enough to drive something so huge as the great chain of toothed wheels that traversed the ceiling.

  ‘What is all this?’ Queek asked, perplexed. ‘What is it for?’

  ‘I do not know, most mighty warlord.’

  ‘Pull it down,’ Queek ordered, making a ripping gesture as though he might rend iron with his own claws. ‘Tear-smash all. That teaches Tinker-rat to betray, yes-yes.’

  Ska eyed the nearest such engine-py
lon dubiously. It was five times his height, wrought of iron and who knew what else, and likely hot enough to sear the fur from an incautious skaven’s hide. ‘Maybe just pull down one?’ he asked hopefully. ‘Maybe just part way?’

  ‘Where is Tinker-rat?’ Queek asked, deaf to his lackey’s whining. He stabbed a claw at a hurrying shape. The target of his attention was a runtish creature with bright orange eyes, enwrapped in oversized leather overalls and cumbersome flame-retardant gloves. He squealed, releasing a squirt of fear musk, and hastened to abase himself at the footpaws of the Headtaker.

  ‘Where is Tinker-rat?’

  The wiry skaven gawped, horrified. His eyes were blank of anything but reflected dread.

  Ska prodded him with the haft of his axe. ‘What is your name-scent, Skryre-thing?’

  ‘No,’ Queek cut in. ‘Queek does not care. Where is Tinker-rat?’

  ‘Fizqwik?’

  ‘Where is he? Perhaps runt-thing hides him, perhaps he and Tinker-rat share in their plotting.’

  ‘No-no,’ the runt squealed, trying to wriggle even deeper into the soil at Queek’s footpaws. ‘Was all Fizqwik’s doing! He take-steals everything for fool-fool invention, even from dwarf-things, even when the old-thing tells him stop.’ The warlock unholstered his warplock pistol and passed it butt first to the warlord. Queek sniffed it warily but didn’t take it. The little-tinker jiggled it under his nose until it became apparent Queek was not going to take it. ‘See how light it is? Is hollow. Fizqwik steals even from his own hard-working and loyal apprentices.’ He looked around bitterly, pointing out the slag heaps littered with corroded gun barrels and engine parts. ‘Nothing here works.’

  ‘What does Tinker-rat build?’

  ‘I don’t know. He keeps it boxed and works on it only when nobody looks.’

  ‘Get out, runt-thing. You serve Queek good-well.’

  The skaven’s skinny muzzle lit up and he scrabbled to his footpaws, hunching his body into the most wretched display of unworthiness. He scurried for the exit, spinning about to offer a last swift bow only to trip over a pipe and plunge loudly into a pile of scrap.

  ‘Ska!’ Queek yelled over the desperate clatter of displaced metal parts.

  ‘Yes-yes, mighty Queek.’

  ‘Step away from stupid wheel-thing. You are never where Queek needs you.’

  ‘Yes-yes,’ said Ska, looking relieved.

  ‘Follow runt-thing and let none other leave.’ Queek turned to face the smog-ridden blackness of the foundry. He interlocked his claws and pushed them apart, hearing his knuckles crack. ‘I find Tinker-rat.’

  It had been over long since he had killed something. And Tinker-rat was bound to be in here somewhere.

  Chapter Ten

  Bernard Servat knuckled the crick from his neck. The great gate to the Throne Hall of Karak Azul was a grand sight to be sure and it was hard to not be impressed. The lords of Bretonnia went to extravagant lengths to inspire such awe without ever approaching a shadow of the monolithic constructions he had witnessed under the earth, far beneath the sight of men. The Ninth Deep fortifications alone made Chateau Brionne look like the hill fort of some mountain tribe savage.

  He wished some of those perfumed lords could be here to see this.

  The door alone was immense. The richly scented red pine was engraved with blockish dwarfish runes. The runes were embellished with gold paint and each row of script was offset from the next by heavy bands of iron polished to a high shine and interleaved with threads of gold into rigid, angular motifs. Bernard wondered how much gold was in this one door. Probably enough to buy himself a modest duchy. It glittered in the light of dozens of flickering torches, held immobile in the fists of the statues that lined the approach.

  The casual display of wealth rankled. He wondered where the famed King Kazador concealed the serfs that built such wonders for him. Every kingdom depended on the dullards that kept its cellars full and their knees bent to their betters. Two weeks in Nuln had soon soured the dream that the Empire, or anywhere, was any different from his homeland. You were weak or you were strong, and the weak seldom enjoyed such grandeur.

  But it was still hard not to be impressed.

  A short line stretched behind him, the dwarfs grumbling softly in their flinty tongue. Some had brought ale and bided the wait with a tankard moistening their lips. Towards the back of the line, a scruffy dwarf with the look of a goatherd was being upbraided by a hook-nosed official with a long beard plaited through silver clasps. Despite the language barrier, Bernard found the exchange diverting enough. The nearby dwarfs shook their heads disapprovingly as the disagreement rumbled on, the bureaucrat evidently objecting to the newcomer tethering his mule to the leg of one of the statues.

  He turned to the two Hammerers that stood watch on the gate. The grim-faced soldiers barely reached his chest, but they were broader than he and muscled like oxen. He rubbed the bruised knuckles of his right hand ruefully. An ill-advised arm wrestle with a dwarf miner in the alcohol-hazed aftermath of yesterday’s battle was testament to the brute power in those squat bodies.

  ‘How much longer?’

  The two dwarfs looked up at him, mirror images of disdain.

  ‘Kazador won’t be rushed,’ grunted one.

  He stared coldly at the dwarf, recalling every feature. His eyes were icy green and sombre, grim lines chiselled into a scarred face half-concealed by a thick brown beard that spilled down his broad chest in two plaits that were knotted behind his waist. A huge hammer was strapped across his shoulders. The head had been rouged, like a careless lady’s lips, the blood of ages polished ever deeper into the ancient metal. The dwarf stared back, unmoved and unrepentant.

  The great door creaked open and the moment was broken. A dwarf in the austerely cut green robes of a journeyman lorekeeper squeezed his belly through the opening, carefully guiding a piled stack of tomes between hands and chin. He mumbled something incomprehensible to the Hammerer guards and made an expansive gesture with his eyebrows before hurrying off on his own errand.

  The green-eyed dwarf jerked his thumb towards the open door. ‘In you go then, human.’

  Sharpwit hobbled nervously into Queek’s burrow. The place was no less disturbing on a second visit. The scent of death was almost overpowering and his eyes gravitated of their own volition to where Toskitt’s corpse still lay. Twinkling eyes followed him hungrily, and he contrived to ignore the murderous chittering of rats with a taste for skaven meat. Insects marched in ordered columns across the gore-strewn floor, bearing aloft their scraps of flesh, but even their basic impulses steered them well clear of the Headtaker.

  Queek lay flat along the floor, muzzle resting on his crossed arms, and watched the industrious insects, enraptured. He had shed his armour and lay naked, any modesty the feral creature might have possessed evidently satisfied by the thorough smearing of gore that pasted him from nose to tail.

  ‘Old-thing,’ Queek hissed dreamily. He did not look up. ‘You would not believe the wicked things this traitor-rat whispers.’

  Sharpwit shrank back. How could the warlord even know it was him? He doubted Queek could smell a thing the way his snout was clotted with gore. His cloudy eye flicked left and right to where the skull of a dwarf and a skaven seemed to follow his every move.

  Surely not.

  A rat appeared from the dwarf’s eye socket and regarded him with a wary, alien intellect. He tightened his grip on his crutch to keep from striking it. If Razzel wanted so badly to know what was going on, he should have come himself rather than hide in the tunnel and send Sharpwit alone.

  ‘Toskitt squeaks seditious lies–’

  ‘Shhh.’ Queek raised a claw to bid him silent. ‘Traitor-meat is not finished.’

  ‘But, mighty Queek. I bring a plan to pick victory from the carcass of this defeat.’

  Queek reached forward languorously. His paw hovered over the streaming insects before flashing down with impossible speed. He raised his paw and studied the helpless crea
ture skewered upon his claw. A beetle the size of Sharpwit’s thumb scurried with impotent haste.

  ‘Queek is the Undefeated. He is the Terrible.’

  ‘Yes-yes, great Queek. It was all Fizqwik’s doing. But despite his treachery, we have a mission to accomplish.’

  ‘What then is Old-thing’s clever plot-scheme?’

  ‘I suggest a different way, a way less vulnerable to the many jealous rivals of mighty-great Queek. We can weaken Azul-Place without swinging another sword.’

  Queek popped the struggling insect into his mouth and rolled into a crouch. His serpentine tail wavered threateningly above his head. ‘Queek’s sword likes being swung.’

  Sharpwit waved his paws placatingly. ‘I have an agent in Azul-Place, a man-thing. He will bring us this prize.’

  Queek leant forward until his muzzle, even in his crouch, was inches from Sharpwit’s. He flexed his claws and Sharpwit could not mistake the deadliness of his intent should he answer Queek’s next question incorrectly.

  ‘Does he kill-slay Kazador-King?’

  Bernard started for the open door but the immovable bulk of the Hammerer barred his path.

  ‘Your weapon, human.’

  Bernard glanced at the thick chain coiled about his left shoulder. The spike-studded head of his morning star lay cosseted against his back, enwrapped in half a dozen folds of an old fleece shawl.

  ‘I took your king’s coin. I can bear arms where I please.’

  ‘We wouldn’t allow a king before Kazador so armed. Either drop it or take your petition elsewhere.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Bernard, sliding the coiled chain from his arm and dropping it noisily at the dwarf’s feet. The guard made no move to pick it up.

  ‘And the rest.’

  Cursing ripely in his mother tongue, Bernard unbuckled his belt, tossing it and the sheathed short sword on top of his flail.

  Still the Hammerer would not move. The old dwarf’s face betrayed nothing but profound disapproval. His dour gaze flickered over the line at Bernard’s back.

  ‘We can wait all day, human.’