by David Guymer
‘Queek says kill-kill,’ he squealed, panic lending his snarl a manic pitch. ‘Kill-kill!’ He grabbed hold of the seer’s staff. The pair of them struggled over it like rats over a bone, wilfully ignorant of the circling polecat.
‘Let go,’ Razzel snarled, horn chimes jangling as he tried to shake loose Ska’s paws.
‘Use that magic and kill-kill!’
Both skaven froze, paws entwined, as orcs came bellowing through the rain, flooding out between the giant’s feet. Their war-cries came first, disembodied shrieks lancing through the mist as clanrats were torn apart, rangy bodies falling bloodlessly in the streaming grey, trampled under brawny, ill-defined shapes. Ska felt the mood about him shift as ghostly forms refined into muscular solidity, blood-spotted, soaking, uncaring, ploughing through the trembling skaven with howls of animal delight.
Razzel’s eyes roved, captive in their sockets, finally settling back on Ska and the staff in his paws. He let go, leaving it to Ska, holding up his paws as he backed away. ‘You kill-kill!’
Ska shoved him into the arms of his minion with a snarl and threw down the staff almost as an afterthought. Grimacing, Ska hefted his axe. Skaven were being hacked down all around, orcs battering their way through the brittle line like living rams. An axe took a clanrat in the jaw, arms splayed as it fell, blood spraying, body rolling to rest not a spear’s throw from where Ska dreamt of escape. Skaven squealed in panic, the fight almost beaten out of them, a heartbeat from the brink.
He didn’t want to do this, but there was nothing for it. There were things more bloodthirsty than orcs in this world; monsters more dreadful than giants. And the Headtaker was watching. Muttering a prayer that enough of his warriors would be dumb enough to follow, Ska dropped his shoulder and charged.
Fizqwik bounced in his seat, wind whipping his whiskers, pebbles dashing against his goggles as the doomwheel sped down the mountain side. The landscape blurred into a continuous smear of grey, the uneven ground pulverised beneath the monstrous weight of his machine. The doomwheel smashed through a rocky outcropping, sailing for a bowel-spinning moment through empty air before crashing back to earth and slamming Fizqwik into his seat.
The warlock grinned madly, spinning a handle on his right-paw control panel to initiate the warp-power generator, sliding forward a lever on his left to spike the rats, ale-feed with stimulants from a gurgling vat bolted between the barrels. The last thing he wanted was for the weak link in his creation to tire. The machine trembled, tossing him about in his chair, and he glanced up from his controls to notice he had smashed through the orc lines. Thick-headed brutes turned, axes chipping wood from the wheels as they disappeared under the machine. Scores of ugly, misshapen beings homogenised into a state more befitting such lowly creatures. He swivelled in his seat and smirked back at the bloody smear of devastation. Axe blades, shafts splintered into oblivion, spun out, glittering flakes in his dust trail.
The machine jerked again as a particularly large brute went down under the wheels. Fizqwik frowned as he was tossed about. Perhaps some kind of suspension was in order? Something for the new model. He really should write that down. Taking his paws from the controls, he scratched about under his seat. He came up clutching a sheaf of folded parchment tied together with string. He flicked through them, scribbling something onto the final page, before looking up, confused. The tenor of crushed and terrified insignificants had shifted to a higher, noticeably squishier, register. He raised himself off his seat and peered down, noting as one might a misaligned shelf that he had strayed into skaven ranks. Perhaps some kind of steering lock as well. He added that to his earlier scrawl before stuffing the notes back under his seat and returning his paws to the controls.
He broke into a fit of giggles as the immense form of a giant coalesced out of the rain. It towered many times over him, even in his high throne, and grew more massive by the moment as he hurtled towards it. Orcs burst from beneath its colossal stride, Skaven charging forward to meet them. The very definition of an exercise in futility. He would show them. A light on his panel switched from black to green. Minimum potential achieved. He grinned, reflected warp lightning flaring in the lens of his goggles. The triumph of skaven intellect over the most monstrous foes. The true face of the skaven future. His future.
He reached forward. Paws gripped a large black lever. And pulled.
Queek basked in the cold violence of the explosion. He watched with deep satisfaction as hissing sheets of blackened metal rained from the sky. Even here, close to a mile from the wreck, steaming bits of it clattered off skaven helms. Tendrils of warp lightning arced out from the stricken engine, searing great rents in the clouds, blasting molten furrows through rock and flesh without distinction. The black glare faded as the dying machine bled itself dry. Queek watched it sputter, a final satisfying act of death and pain for him to savour. In its fitful shadow, the giant swayed, legs charred black and releasing great torrents of steam at the touch of rain. To watch a thing so large fall was an unexpected bonus. It tumbled backwards in what seemed like slow motion, but apparently not nearly slow enough for those caught beneath. Its impact blew a hole in the greenskin horde, the hundreds hurled from their feet added to the scores crushed under its back. Even high up on the mountain, Queek felt it. His trophy rack creaked as the tremors passed through his body.
Well done, Ikit congratulated him. Clan Skryre devices always go wrong-bad. None will ever blame Queek.
‘Pity,’ Queek muttered, but he was in too good a mood to let the loss of Tinker-rat’s final instant of terror get him down. He scanned the shivering skaven survivors delicately pulling themselves to their footpaws. It looked like the blast might even have accounted for White-fur. Ska too, but no scheme was ever perfect. He sighed contentedly. He truly was the most vicious, cunning and deceitful of all skaven.
And the giant slain also. Ikit added, almost as an afterthought. Inspired, great one.
Queek probed under his vambrace to extract the odd little tile of fibres and wiring that Ska had stolen. It smelt of unnatural elements and, very faintly, of warpstone. He gave it a last wary sniff and tossed it into the grass. He wouldn’t need that any more.
A scream sounded from the top of the tower. He focused on a pair of struggling shapes lost in the rain haze. His grin widened further. Tinker-rat, White-fur and soon Old-thing.
It has been a good day.
‘All days good-good for Queek.’
As you squeak-say.
Queek looked down into the valley. Watching the orcs regroup, Queek felt a terrible longing to sink his fangs into their flesh, to tear those squat, lumpen heads from their necks and ram them still blinking onto stakes ranked a thousand deep. His claws clicked around the grip of Dwarf Gouger in anticipation. His orc-things would hang on his every utterance. They would clamour to praise him as their last, greatest, most terrifying foe. He loved killing dwarfs as dearly as putting down uppity underlings, but he wouldn’t want to do either every day.
‘Variety,’ Queek mused, eyeing the raucous hordes as a chieftain from a far-flung warren might regard a clanlord’s repast. ‘Truly, it is the secret to less boring lives, yes-yes.’
You are a mad-thing, Queek.
‘Yes-yes,’ Queek grinned. ‘But not for reasons others squeak-say.’
Go home. Your rivals are slain. The City of Pillars is second to Skavenblight only. The whole mountain could be yours if you want-try. Be content with that.
Queek snickered. His gaze swept his warriors, his finest, trained by his own paw. They stood to disciplined attention, paws tight to their halberds, rain beading in the joins of their thick red armour like blood.
‘And why does Queek want-seek your advice? You are a dead-thing, dead by Queek’s paw.’
Did it occur that I know-smell things you cannot?
‘No.’
More fool-fool you.
Queek smirked, raising his sword so his warriors could see it bleed. Metal scraped in answer, tension spreading to black
-furred thighs, corded muscles readying for the downhill sprint and the murder to follow. Keeping his sword high, he glanced up at the tower once more. A length of wood fell from the sky, clattering once on the stone walls before spinning away and plunging into the thin soil at the tower’s base. It quivered slightly, as though in the grip of some invisible, dying paw.
‘Die-die painfully, Old-thing,’ he whispered, leaving the skaven to his bloody fate so he could enjoy his.
Yes. It was good to be Queek.
Sharpwit screamed as the weeping blade flashed for his throat, the impact shuddering down his wiry arms as the blade thudded into the gnarled wood of his surviving crutch. The assassin snarled over him, saliva dripping between his blackened fangs, poison oozing from the porous metal of his blade. Fang Dao struggled with his trapped blade, slashing for Sharpwit’s head with the other. Sharpwit writhed, pinned under the assassin’s weight, straining to twist his crutch to throw the assassin’s aim.
Exasperated, the assassin let his off-blade drop from the tower and wrapped both paws over the one embedded in Sharpwit’s crutch. He set his footpaws to the fractured wood and heaved, the weapon coming free in a spray of splinters. He spilled into a backward roll and came up hard, tail slapped rigidly against the stone, shadowed features bathed in the blue light emanating from the tear in Sharpwit’s crutch.
Sharpwit swallowed blood and spat out a black tooth worth more than the assassin’s life. He slithered from the battlement on his back like a worm, depositing himself on shaking paws. His crutch splintered further as it took his weight, more of the same eerie blue light streaming through the cracks traversing its length, like some hellish chrysalis about to rupture under the power of its maturing occupant. Sharpwit dashed the stave against the battlements. More wood went flying. A shape emerged from its cocoon, a blade, engraved with dwarfish runes of power, emblazoned at its hilt with the proud rune of Azul. The assassin took a step back, still watchful. He lowered gracefully into a crouch, blade-paw drifting to his snout so he sighted past the flat of the curved edge.
‘Whelp!’ Sharpwit shrilled, shaking the last splinters of wood from his sword. ‘Runt!’ he screamed, walking on unaided legs, empowered only by the fury that boiled beneath his fur. ‘Are you so stupid-blind you think yourself the first assassin I have killed-slain?’
Fang Dao bared his fangs in warning, backing off as Sharpwit came closer.
‘I had many rivals once. I remember their jealous, scheming faces. Their screams for clemency help me sleep through the days when I am troubled by all that was taken from me.’
The blade licked out for the assassin’s gut. Dao’s body curved around it, but the weapon shimmered and faded, projecting into a dozen ghostly mirages, each blurring back into a single dazzling edge as it returned to guard. Blue light burned through to sickly purple, blood dribbling from its tip. Dao clutched the torn silk at his belly, disbelieving.
‘Do you know how I found this sword?’ Sharpwit asked, surprised by how much the certainty of his assailant’s ignorance enraged him. ‘If skaven knew the value of history, you would. All would.’ He sighed, the blade again splitting like the barbed heads of a hydra to send the assassin sprawling. ‘I found it within Azul-Place. Long ago by our own terms. I protected it from jealous rivals and, when I was strong enough, used its power to kill-slay Warlord Rask and take the City of Pillars for my own.’ He laughed, throat crackling. ‘None remember Rask now. And none should. He was a fool. But Warlord Sleek Sharpwit.’ He spread his paws as if the gesture could encapsulate the scale of his former grandeur. ‘I was the scourge of the Worlds Edge. From Hell Pit to Cripple Peak my name was dread. I was undefeated, feared, peerless in battle, renowned for my cunning. The world rested in my paws.’
Dao scrambled backward until the battlements checked his retreat. ‘I did not know, mighty Sharpwit.’
Sharpwit advanced, sword scraping a furrow between the stones. ‘History is written by victors, if it is written at all. I was Gnawdwell’s favourite, but unlike Queek I earned it. And who remembers now? Who cares? Ten years since I left to serve my master in Skavenblight. Three generations of brainless meat husks that never knew enough to dread the name Sleek!’ He raised his sword to strike.
Dao threw out his arm. Rain smacked against an open palm. ‘Please-please, fabled and wrongfully forgotten Sleek-Warlord. I will serve as you ask-say.’
Sharpwit suppressed the desire to preen. So much for the nobler, blacker hearts of the Eshin. Thoughtfully, he lowered his glowing sword and limped to the battlements.
The battle raged, like a green tide rising to confront the muddy brown flow of an endless river in flood. Who was winning, who was losing, it was impossible to know. Were he not blessed with foreknowledge, he would have struggled even to guess who was fighting. Screams haunted the rain, guttural chants melded into an abusive roar that wrestled with the wind’s howl like a pair of warrior elementals. Occasionally, a clang of metal on metal rose above the lesser din, straddling it like a hero, before succumbing to the endless churn.
‘Will you help the true warlord of Eight Peaks to flee this pointless pride-whelp battle of Queek’s and take-find the dwarf-things we came for?’
The assassin set his weeping blade on the flat stone between them. Sharpwit doubted it was the last weapon secreted about the assassin’s person, but the gesture wasn’t wholly unappreciated. ‘The Nightlord sends me to help-help destroy Azul-Place. I will help do this thing.’
Sharpwit studied him for a moment. He itched to make an example of him. An example to whom was another matter, but the urge was a strong one. With an effort, he lowered his blade. An assassin might prove useful, after all. ‘Do you see out there, a stream to the west?’
‘I see.’
‘Fetch-find Grey Seer Razzel and bring him there.’
‘Excuse this minion, but did you not smell-see the blast? There is no chance-hope the grey one survived.’
Sharpwit pulled a face. ‘We should be so lucky. However great-big the apocalypse, rats like Razzel always come-crawl free. He will be alive, and he still has uses.’
Dao bowed low before turning and scurrying for the stairwell. Sharpwit watched him leave. Finally free of scrutinous minions, he collapsed, exhausted, against the crenellations. He forced himself to breathe and his heart to beat. He had only to manage a little longer, but it was so hard, and he felt so very weak. He cursed himself with the bitter benefit of hindsight for not having Dao fetch him his lost crutch. Hopefully it would still be there when he got down. He wasn’t keen on making his lone way across Death Pass without it.
He looked down. His paw tingled, a welcome sensation of cool creeping through his arm. He had been right to hide the sword. A half-blind old-thing could never have kept such a treasure from covetous paws, but he had missed it. Oh, how he had missed it. ‘Please, Queek,’ he whispered, trying to pick out the warlord from among so many. ‘Please stand in my way one last time.’
The rat fought as it died. That was good. He liked it when they fought. Eyes bulging, it gasped for breath, claws scratching feebly at a wrist as dark and hard as old wood. Armour crunched beneath his grip, tortured metal screaming, the rat jerking as its steel gorget buckled and scythed into its own soft little neck. He squeezed a little tighter, the rat twitching a couple times more like someone had just trod on its tail and then was still.
The orc gave a soft growl of pleasure as the rat’s neck snapped and flopped bonelessly over his fist. He shook it, the head swaying, meat slapping against his knuckles. Laughing, he looked around to make sure his mates were watching too. They were. Good. Good they remember who’s the toughest orc round here.
‘Nice one, boss. Da red ones is da toughest, I fink.’
The orc gave it one more shake, drawing it close to his one working eye, the other bolted shut behind a rusted iron patch. ‘Scrawny little fings int dey. Like gobbos.’ He grunted and let the thing drop. Something had caught his eye. Something out there, where a fat wedge of the red
rats were fighting their way through his mob towards his fort. One of the rats charged ahead of the rest, fearless like an orc, fighting with a fury that had his chest aching with the desire to mash up that pretty red armour with his club. He clanked around a half-circle, massive armour plates grinding out dust as the biggest orc in the Worlds Edge forced a ton of mismatched metal to move.
‘Dat’s ’im init. Big bad king o’ da ratties!’
He lugged his club from the ground, its mashing end fat with turf where it had sunk into the mud. It had been the leg of a stone stuntie once, but they’d just left it standing around in Black Crag. And that was dumb, even for stupid stunties, since it was so useful for bashing out stuntie brains with. He smashed it against his own skull and, feeling nothing, laughed again, shoving his way in pursuit of the rat-king. He turned round to make sure his mates were following. They were. That was good. He wouldn’t want to have to break their legs.
He shouted back, his broken growl heard easily over the clamour. ‘None of you’z forget now. Da Headtaker belongs to Gorfang.’
Chapter Fifteen
Skiblit reached out, slender fingers curling around the double doors and pulling them to. He laid his palms against the varnished wood to ease it closed. He held his breath as it clicked shut. Eventually he overcame his terror sufficiently to shuffle the few inches back to the wall, hugging his knees to his chest as he slowly dried in breathless, terrified silence. The scramble through the stream hadn’t shifted the gore from his face, just made it sloppy and wet, set to quivering by his body’s shivers. He didn’t dare peel it off. He even tried to force his ribs to stop creaking with each breath as he just sat there with the scraps of Gumrot’s skull clinging to his forehead. He could still hear the boom as the gun had gone off, still see the colours as his lackey’s head exploded, still feel the blindness as his face was dashed with gore and he’d slipped, panicked, tumbling down the steps and out into the rain. He shivered.
His night vision fixed on the wafer of darkness between the two doors. It seemed to widen under the pressure of his stare, until it became impossible to imagine that the eyes of every creature in the Crag were not staring right back. He scrunched his eyes tight, shoving his fingers into his mouth to keep from screaming.