by David Guymer
And Sleek Sharpwit could be very persuasive.
‘What’s going on out there?’
Something had changed. And it wasn’t just the men that were nervous. The goblins’ excited howls had become screams, the dark iron portal a slender barrier between Thordun and a world of shuffling feet, hacking metal and muffled slaughter. The men jumped, the door shuddering under a meaty blow.
Thordun gave the lock on the second door a thump. It retaliated with a stubborn rattle. He needed more time. Never enough time.
‘Muskets in staggered pairs,’ Bernard rasped over the hammering on the door. ‘Anything comes through that door, green or not, you shoot it.’
The ancient portal screamed off its hinges with a tearing of dead metal, driven over Thordun’s head like driftwood on a wave of green-black fire. Thordun threw himself down as it crashed into the wall above his head. His exposed cheek puckered in the heat.
Thordun barely had time to pick himself up before a scarlet outline formed out of the warpfire haze, as though murder and madness had been granted life and form by chemical synthesis and that insane heat. He drew hammer and pistol but already four men lay dead. Their spilled blood had already dried in the scorched air. The musketeers fired. One shot caught the daemonic creature square in the breastplate in a welter of glowing green dust and it went down, squealing. The surviving swordsman fell back. More of the ratmen poured through the smog like nightmares turned solid.
And this was just like his nightmares. Trapped in a burning shop, chittering ratmen flooding the streets outside, waiting for the fires to die, flesh devoured, remains defiled, calling for the son that should have been there. Was never there.
Thordun howled and squeezed the trigger of his pistol. Flint struck sparks from roughened steel and propelled a bullet through a skaven warrior’s scarlet plate. Before he had a chance to steal another breath, two of the fleet-footed devils charged him down. The first, he caught with an instinctive swipe of his pistol butt. The weighted ivory crushed into the side of its helm and pulped the screaming rodent’s eye. The second caught him a glancing blow with its halberd, blood seeping from a cut to his biceps. He gasped at the moment’s pain and tried to spin away, but the serrated blade had snagged his cloak. The skaven snickered, the expression frozen on its long face as the Hammerhand Hammer struck like a thunderclap, blasting its incinerated remains above the fray to snap against the far wall.
One of the skaven weapon-rats scuttled through the murk. Its orange eyes focused on Thordun and it lifted a paw clad in a huge leather gauntlet. A pair of silver-grey nozzles flared from the back of the gauntlet, flexible tubing encircling its arm like a pair of serpents connected to a sloshing container on its back. It clenched its fist, depressing a trigger in its palm, and punched. Thordun clenched his eyes and waited for the agony. He opened them again with the realisation that he wasn’t dead. The skaven shrilled in its strange tongue, shaking its paw as if it had just set it in something sticky.
Thordun raised his hammer, but a scarlet blur charged into the corner of his eye. He swung around with a roar, hammer passing clean over the screeching weapon-rat’s head. The red-plated skaven ducked, but Thordun was ready for it, checking his momentum and shoving the pistol in his left hand deep into the creature’s throat. There was a thrill of recognition. Headtaker.
He pulled the trigger. The flintlock sparked. And then nothing. There had been no time to reload. The skaven grinned around the gun barrel. It wrenched the pistol from his hand to study it and, to his astonishment, spoke. Its voice was deep but soft, absent even, employing a careless brutalisation of Khazalid, Reikspiel and even a little Tilean.
‘This keeps happening also to Queek.’ The skaven turned to look at the weapon-rat and tittered. He turned back and leant in conspiratorially. ‘Never trust tinker-makers, dwarf-thing.’
Thordun stumbled back from the Headtaker’s grinning muzzle, tripping over the bodies of men whose names he had never cared to learn. He looked frantically for Bernard but couldn’t find him among the sprawled dead, or the ghoulish creatures that ripped their claws through their bellies and sank fangs into glistening organs. He scrambled back, palms slipping on loose coin until his back struck stone. He felt the need to retch.
Queek reached down, soothing noises dripping from his fangs like saliva, and ran his claws over his golden head. ‘Do not be sorry-sad, dwarf-thing. You go home.’
‘Home?’
‘Yes-yes. Dwarf-thing goes back to brood-kin Kazador.’ The rat sneered. ‘Is Queek not the nicest?’
‘But I’m not–’
Thordun’s eyes flashed scarlet and then went black. A bolt of lightning seared through his skull for one moment of agony. And then nothing.
‘Bind it, Little-tinker.’
Queek was in an exceptionally buoyant mood. White-fur was probably dead. Tinker-rat was deader than any rat had ever been. He had Old-thing’s treasure, if not yet his head, and with this dwarf-thing he had Kazador by the throat.
The skinny warlock scurried past with a length of chain, lashing the dwarf-thing’s wrists behind its back before moving on to its feet. Queek watched, taking a nibble of the dwarf-thing’s pistol before pulling it out with a frown and tossing it away. He cast an envious look at his feasting minions and felt his own stomach kick. But he was saving himself for something special. There had been no scent of Ska, or of Old-thing. If they had come this way, they had hidden themselves well. It didn’t sound impossible. If Queek sought to hide from himself, he would be sure to do it well too.
‘What about that one, most vicious of vanquishers?’
The little engineer pointed to a large black-furred man-thing. Queek looked at it, wondering how something so big had managed to avoid being eaten. He poked it with his claw to make sure it was real. It groaned and spat on his arm, hawking up a glob of blood. Queek raised his wrist to his mouth and sucked it clean. He didn’t question what the creature was doing here. He kept slaves, why shouldn’t dwarf-things?
‘Bring it to Azul-Place. In case Queek gets hungry.’
‘And this?’ The tinkerer waved his paw over the yellow-metal that bled from splintered chests like the spilled guts of shiny yellow men.
‘Leave it.’
‘All of it?’
Queek eyed the glittering floor and grimaced. ‘Take Queek’s word. You cannot eat it.’
Handrik laid the second dwarf face up, placing the hammer he had found into a cold grip and laying it on the dwarf’s tattooed chest. He gave the dwarf’s hands a squeeze. ‘Tell Gazul to let you pass. You atoned today.’
A handful of cursing greenskins loosed arrows from the ruined city, but they were few enough that Handrik was content to ignore them for now. Keldur joined him under the cover of the bridgehouse.
‘What happened here?’
Handrik got to his feet, refusing the Hammerer’s hand without acknowledgement. The bridgehouse was littered with greenskin corpses. They stretched out over the bridge itself, draped over the walls and hanging over the jaws of oblivion like some morbid upholstery. There were so many. Torn apart, savaged, flesh so brutally undone it was impossible to tell where one flayed body ended and another began. The stench of freshly opened meat was overpowering.
Only a fool would imagine this was the work of dwarfs.
He picked a short way across the bridge, axe ready, drawn by a patch of crimson among the green flesh and black blood. He toed a goblin out of the way to expose the undying snarl of a skaven warrior, scarlet armour dented and scratched, black fur knotted thick with blood. He spat on its corpse.
‘Thaggoraki.’ The word tasted bitter. Like spoiled ale.
‘We’re too late.’ Keldur looked crestfallen. He laid a consoling hand on Handrik’s shoulder only for the old Slayer to shake it loose.
‘No we’re not. Not yet.’ He drew back to the bridgehouse, tapping out the steps with his axe against his palm. ‘Clear some ground, lads. If the Headtaker plans on returning with his prize, he’ll hav
e to come through us. And Narfi,’ he added, wincing slightly as his back twinged. He nodded to the nearly full kilderkin of grobkull that the young Hammerer was just now beaching between the supporting columns of the bridgehouse. ‘Be a good lad, and fill a longbeard’s tankard.’
‘Now what’s happening?’
Ska peered across the distant bridge. ‘Queek is back.’ He leant forward as if that would vastly improve his view. For a moment Sharpwit was tempted to shove him off the roof. But only for a moment. The fall was not a long one. ‘I think he brings dwarf-thing prisoners.’
Sharpwit rubbed his paws with glee. It was almost too good to be true. As fierce as Queek was, he wasn’t getting across that bridge, not while it was held by an almost equal number of dwarfs. It would be easier to pull the stones from beneath the dwarfs’ feet than remove the dwarfs themselves by force. Sharpwit knew that better than any, but he also knew Queek to be just the fool to try.
And after that, Sharpwit’s life was sure to become simpler.
‘Do you have a plan to help-help Queek cross?’
Sharpwit’s paws suddenly clenched. He’d forgotten about Ska.
‘We are watching Queek’s back, yes-yes?’ Ska asked with an edge of menace to his tone.
‘Of course,’ Sharpwit muttered, not at all convincingly. ‘Fine,’ he hissed, all out of excuses. ‘You first.’
‘Steady lads,’ Handrik growled. There was an almost imperceptible shuffling of feet as the Headtaker led his warriors onto the bridge. He wished he could’ve had a couple of sharp-eyed rangers on the bridgehouse roof with crossbows or handguns. But he didn’t, and there was little point weeping over that broken tankard now.
‘Do we charge?’ asked Keldur, cheeks taut from the effort of restraining the urge to vengeance.
‘Easy lad. Let the beggar stretch his legs before we put him down.’
The young Hammerer grumbled with the vehemence of an oft-wronged longbeard and settled his grip on his weapon.
By unspoken consent, Handrik stood front and centre, the giant Slayer a muscular presence by his side while Keldur and Narfi with their great hammers took what space remained on their flanks. Gunngeir and the Hammerers’ hooded companion stood behind them with the miners, cramped into tight ranks under the bridgehouse and sweating with grim anticipation. Handrik turned to the Slayer. The miners had dubbed him Dhunk, after a particularly surly breed of pit mule, and it had stuck. Not that the Slayer seemed to care.
‘Die well,’ Handrik offered.
The Slayer grunted without moving his head. Handrik followed his stare. Had a blade been affixed to it, it would have led him to the gutted corpse of the Headtaker. The rat-king ran on unflustered by the two Slayers’ hatred. If anything he seemed goaded by it, shrieking hatred, drawn closer like a rat into a trap. He tightened his grip on his axe. He’d not underestimate this vermin, not after his last encounter. Two dwarfs cut down faster than it took Handrik to open his eyes and see it done. He doubted he was a match.
But when had the near-certainty of failure ever discouraged a dwarf?
He turned back to Dhunk. ‘The Headtaker’s mine.’ This time the Slayer did shift, treating him to a grin of broken teeth. ‘Aye well, we’ll see who can swing his axe fastest.’
The grin broadened, massive fists throttling the haft of his axe like thaggoraki throats. Handrik took a sliding step forward, shoulder just brushing in front of Dhunk’s, shifting his own grip at the same time.
‘Keldur, Narfi, keep an eye out for Kazador’s kin. Get them out if you can.’
Narfi gave a nervous cough, half an eye on the charging skaven. ‘We’d rather not be the ones to head back if it’s all the same.’
‘No time to bicker over the plum jobs now, lads.’
The two brothers looked across to each other and nodded.
The skaven streamed over the halfway mark, the Headtaker a good stride ahead of his flea-ridden kin. After four hundred years, Handrik was still astonished by their speed. Already the rat-king was close enough to see the delirium burn in his red eyes, the rabid froth flaring from his muzzle. Perhaps if the mad rat pulled much further ahead, they could bring him down with weight of numbers. Honour would forgive this one.
‘Show them dawi steel and dawi stone! For Kazador!’ he roared, skin prickling as the packed miners made the cry their own. ‘For Karak Azul!’
The Headtaker was a hammer strike away, fangs glistening, maw wide in a challenging cry. This was it, now or never. He struck, Dhunk’s larger weapon a split second behind. The Headtaker was already shifting, veering between the careening blades like an elvish dancer. Keldur’s warhammer swung past his head but the skaven ducked beneath as though privy to a choreography no other had practised. With a speed that left the Hammerer rooted in stone, the Headtaker turned, driving his serrated blade up under Keldur’s swinging arm, through the opening in his mail, and deep into the youngling’s unguarded armpit. The Hammerer gargled and fell away. Handrik registered Narfi’s furious roar in his peripheral hearing. He leapt forward, axe sweeping a path for the Headtaker’s skull.
The skaven caught the blow on his angled blade the moment the following stormvermin thundered into the dwarfs in a squeal of metal and ratkin cries. Handrik’s axe slid the pitted length of his opponent’s sword. He pressed his body to the trapped blades, hoping to make an advantage of his greater strength. The skaven thrashed like a caged beast, covering him in bites and scratches and painful caustic burns wherever the creature’s fell armour rubbed against his bare flesh. He groaned, feeling his strength dwindle. The dark wound in his chest shrank from the nearness of warpstone like a fresh burn shrivelling before an open flame. He held on with all the stubbornness of his kind, if only to gift his kin a moment more. Queek snarled, finally succeeding in wriggling free and lashing his vicious maul inches from Handrik’s belly.
Handrik held his ground. Queek parried his axe with embarrassing ease, spinning round to smash his maul through his face but murdering nothing but air. Handrik nodded sweat from his brow as the Headtaker came at him again, weapons blurring into one implacable wall of metal. He countered as best he could. He was fighting harder than he ever had in his life with nothing to show but the blood that streamed from a dozen cuts. Landing a blow was like clutching at smoke, as though he were a babe in the crib fumbling for coloured objects suspended just out of reach.
Skaven flooded by, swirling like ghosts in frosted glass. Like ghosts they ignored him, and he ignored them. Queek dodged his latest effort. He gritted his teeth in prideful frustration. Queek returned with a stab that Handrik rolled, but not before suffering another long nick across the chin, sending orange strands fluttering to the bloody ground.
‘Queek thinks this a good one. He might keep it.’
Handrik wheezed, heart thrumming out of tune. ‘Handrik thinks you’re a bloody loon.’
Queek tittered, sending him ducking beneath a teasing swing of his maul. ‘Everyone, they concerned for Queek’s sanity. Perhaps you worry less for what is in Queek’s head, and more on keeping what is in yours.’
Handrik managed a shrug. ‘I can do two things at once.’
Queek lunged forward with a strangled snarl. ‘Die-die, dwarf-thing!’
Handrik stumbled from the sword, turning his axe to catch the maul as it descended like a comet. His ancient axe blade shattered into three with an almighty crash of metal. He fell back with a cry, his bloodied hand clutching a splintered stump of axe-handle.
Handrik shook his head clear. The Headtaker stood over him, armoured footpaws stepping either side of his prone body, maul held high. He didn’t fear death as it came for him. His eyes opened wide in welcome.
The slender bridge heaved with death. The orange-furs and the hammer-dwarf held their own as Queek’s stormvermin squeezed between to get at the miners behind. If they hoped for an easier time of it, they were to be disappointed. The miners cursed in snarling, salivating faces, inviting the vermin onto them if they so badly wished to pass. And t
he skaven did, heavy halberds slashing with frenzied blood-hunger at the stolid dwarfs. The miners retaliated with their heavy picks and equal ferocity. If not for the bridge, the dwarfs might all already be dead. But there was a bridge, and so long as no ratkin fancied the climb that meant meeting the dwarfs claw to fist, blade to blade, one to one. And it was going badly for them.
Ska scurried towards the bloodbath, darting from the cover of a tumbled corner wall and into a doorway that faced onto the chasm. The bridge stretched far into the shaded distance of his weak skaven eyes. Queek stood over a fallen dwarf in the very midst of the melee, heedless of the peril that raged around him. Queek was unbeatable. Ska had learned that harsh lesson well enough. But he was just one, one that cared little for the finer nuances of conducting a battle. That was why he would always need Ska Bloodtail.
He raised his snout for a cautious sniff. Unsurprisingly, the place was filled with greenskin spoor, but it was too pervasive to tell if any were close. He emitted a nervous snarl, fear of green-thing arrows in the back warring with fear of Queek.
He shortened his grip on the long-handled dwarfish axe, holding it closer to the blade, and scurried across the open plaza. It seemed to go on forever, and he half-expected every pawstep to reward him with an arrow for the effort. But none came, and with a muffled sigh of relief he made the bottom of the bridgehouse steps. He crouched low, shuffling on all fours. He could see the backs of the rearmost miners. He wiped saliva from his jaw. Nothing tantalised like an axe in an enemy’s back. He let the haft run out through his paw, marking the dwarf that would be the first to die: the one standing right between himself and Queek, so his warlord might see.
A shock passed through his tensed muscles at a metallic stamp from behind. It sounded like a rat ogre treading on a steel barrel. He twisted back the way he had come and almost dropped his axe. At the head of about a dozen large, muscular orcs stomped the largest orc he had ever seen. Its ponderous armour gave it a rolling gait. Even from across the plaza, Ska could tell that the orc was bigger than him – a lot bigger. The same could also be said of the massive stone club held effortlessly in one fist.