by David Guymer
Then again, many times magnified, a sequence of booming reports that raced through the hanging cloud like baying hounds. Fire bloomed dimly in the murky distance, and an instant later there was a shuddering beneath his footpaws as a series of titanic impacts punished the great walls of Black Crag. Queek looked up and through the fog that hung over Death Pass.
It was murky and indistinct, but Queek could always smell a dwarf. Ranks of deep blue and iron crested the rise where Queek would have sworn the reserves of his own army were supposed to be. He could see the stone tower where Sharpwit was meant to have died. The ground around it was studded with bronze icons and damp blue banners that snapped stiffly in the wind. Heart pumping with excitement, Queek tore Sharpwit’s head from his body. A swift claw scythed through its last glistening tether as he brought it to share this new spectacle. His trophies swaying and chattering in excitement, he ran to the lip of a natural embankment.
A pair of cannonballs sailed overhead and crashed through the huge iron gate of Black Crag. Splinters of red-painted metal sheared off the massive edifice like blood from a severed limb. More pummelled the green-thing positions on the battlements. Screams carried through the fog, of things living and things not. A steel ball punched through the swinging arm of a stone-thrower. The machine spat splinters high into the air as its payload tumbled back onto the heads of its crew.
Queek snickered at the sight of such carnage.
‘Ska! Get up here, lazy-meat. Fetch-bring Queek’s dwarf-thing.’
Ska lowered his muzzle submissively. He looked acutely worried. Queek took in the lengths of chain and the sprung lock in his underling’s paw and smothered a laugh. ‘Clever dwarf-thing. The man-thing?’
Ska gave a glum shake of the head.
‘Hah! No matter.’
‘No?’ Ska asked, not quite believing his luck. ‘What of the destruction of Azul-Place?’
More explosions came in swift succession. Fire rippled the length of the pass like a burning taper to unleash fresh pain on the Black Crag.
Queek ducked as a wall of noise descended from above. Misshapen eddies drove into the surrounding fog, rippling his lips, pulling at his fur, drowning out even the thunder of the guns. His muzzle swung to follow a squadron of dwarf-thing flying machines, his fur tugged in all directions by the ferocious downwash as they swooped overhead. On reaching the valley floor, they veered westwards, keeping in formation and trailing spumes of fire and ragged screams as they released their explosive payloads onto the hapless orcs and skaven beneath.
It was incandescently beautiful.
‘The Thirteen want no weapons from Azul-Place in Eight Peaks. Queek thinks there will be no more. It looks like they will need them for themselves.’
He looked down at the roughly severed head in his paw. Its eyes were wide, as though marvelling at Queek’s brilliance. Queek gave it a loving stroke, bringing its waxen lips to his ears with an occasional nod at its words. Pitching forward slightly, the head clasped gently between both paws, he reached up to ease Sleek Sharpwit onto Morglum Blacktooth’s spike. Blood dribbled down the spar, slowly congealing into gory stalactites where it dripped to his shoulders.
He sighed contentedly. Not only had he struck a blow against Belegar, dwarf-king of the Eight Peaks, by robbing him of the weapons of Azul, but he had hurt the green-thing, Skarsnik, too. So long as Kazador and Gorfang fought towards their hopefully mutual destruction, Skarsnik and Belegar would both find the Eight Peaks a far lonelier place. He couldn’t wait to return. If only to see the looks on their faces.
He spread his arms to the fires that engulfed the Valley of Death, a paternal embrace offered to the carnage he had sired. It was almost as if he had planned it.
Almost.
Chapter Eighteen
‘On this day does Kazador, king of Karak Azul, declare himself grudgesworn against Handrik, son of Hannar, Hallgakrin.’
Loremaster Boric continued with his recitation, the words dull beneath the continual crump and thunder of dwarfish artillery. His stylus trailed blood-red runes across the page of the great book in time with his speech. A short-bearded dwarf in the green robes of a junior lorekeeper stood over him with a shield upturned. Rain tapped against its ancestor boss, streaming from its rim and away from those precious pages.
‘The king being rightly aggrieved by the misappropriation of the subjects of Karak Azul and for the leading of his son and heir into peril most grave.’
The king stood unflinching atop the shield borne aloft by his bearers, wrathful as a winter storm, black clouds hooding his grey, hurt-filled eyes. Beads of dew clung to his beard and glistened on the wings of his magnificent helm like dark jewels.
The loremaster read on. ‘Keldur… Narfi… Lothgrim.’
More names that Thordun didn’t recognise. Good names. Good dwarfs. He hardened his spirit to the roll call of the dishonoured. Better dwarfs again denied the Ancestors’ Hall while he, the lowest of them all, still lived. This truly was a blighted time, when the likes of Bernard Servat were permitted to endure what Handrik Hallgakrin could not. He knelt on the damp earth and awaited his turn.
‘Recompense for this grave wrong begins at a thousand thaggoraki tails and fifty urk heads, but this debt shall remain forever unresolved until the vile heads of the squatter king of Black Crag and the rat-king of the Eight Peaks, are presented in full ignobility before the Iron Throne.’
Loremaster Boric took a deep breath and set down his stylus, grimly rolling out stiff fingers in the meat of his other palm.
Only a handful of thanes had gathered for the recording of these grudges, most being busy elsewhere with the prosecution of battle. There was no comfort there. Their faces were stony, their eyes as cold as the fog that greyed them. Even Boric, who had recorded Thordun’s brave deeds after the battle of the Ninth Deep, now regarded him as an unwelcome stranger.
‘Thordun Locksplitter,’ the king spoke at last. ‘What became of the Hammerhand Hammer?’ Thordun could only offer a shrug. At best it lay abandoned to the vaults of Black Crag. At worst it graced a ratkin’s paws. ‘You were honoured with the duty of delivering it to Karak Eight Peaks. Instead…’ The king’s shoulders tensed. Thordun imagined fists grinding behind his back. ‘Instead, you joined Handrik on this… this… absurdity.’
Thordun said nothing. This was not a trial. He made no protestations of innocence. He lowered his face to the bleak ground.
‘I welcomed you into the hall of your forefathers, received you with full honour.’ Somehow, the king’s face darkened still further. ‘And you repay my kindness with betrayal.’
This time Thordun did speak up. ‘Your majesty, with respect.’
‘Respect?’ Kazador retorted, turning to the loremaster as though seeking an explanation of a poor joke. ‘Did you show respect when you made a liar of me by stealing the heirloom of an ally? Or when you connived with my most trusted friend to abscond with a score of Karak Azul’s bravest? To abduct my son. To follow them on this fool’s errand, to leave their remains to the blackness of the Crag and achieve nothing.’
‘Yes, majesty,’ Thordun answered softly. ‘Nothing but.’
Kazador growled and dismissed the sentiment out of hand. He gestured that Thordun rise, and he did so, clearing his throat nervously.
‘Thordun Locksplitter,’ the king said again, this time in a voice like thunder. ‘You are banished from Karak Azul. You will find no welcome in the lands of the Karaz Ankor until these debts laid against you are repaid.’
Thordun felt his eyes begin to burn and he closed them tight to spare himself that final disgrace. All his hopes, all his dreams, naught but ash in the wind.
‘The Headtaker is a destroyer of dreams,’ said Kazador, as if reading his thoughts. But perhaps the king understood despair like weaponmasters knew metal. ‘He casts them down and burns them as surely as he does lives, dynasties. Whole kingdoms erased, if not for our own memories that defy him and his kind.’ The king’s face shifted, a momentary effo
rt at a smile before the muscles at the corners of his lips abandoned the effort. He turned and gestured another dwarf forward. Thordun looked up as one of the king’s Hammerers approached with Thordun’s hammer. The dwarf offered it. He took it.
‘I told you that ours was an unkind world, youngling. I told you that you would learn this for yourself in time.’
‘You did,’ Thordun said, breath hot in his mouth. His fingers tightened around the haft of his father’s hammer. ‘And I have.’
Kazador nodded, offering the same to the loremaster to indicate that he record what came next. Thordun forced himself to hold the king’s gaze, but the wrathfulness of his expression was a sight to induce tremors even in those accustomed to horror. ‘The debt against you shall be considered repaid when the Hammerhand Hammer is duly returned to King Belegar and the head of the Headtaker adorns the Throne Hall of Karak Azul. May it stand there for all time as punishment for its crimes.’
Thordun rose, hammer in hand. He turned in the direction of Black Crag, the despoiled hold invisible but for sporadic eruptions of fire that revealed nothing but mist and shadow. He had a goal, a purpose, and he would see it done. He had nothing left to lose.
‘I will see it done.’
This time Kazador did smile, so strange and genuine a gesture Thordun was taken aback by it.
‘But first.’ Kazador’s voice swept the anarchy that roared its throes within the Valley of Death. ‘First we recover my son. Living or dead, my hope lies there. Find yours where you may, youngling, for now the Iron Peak will have its vengeance.’
Epilogue
The white-furred emissary quivered. He lay flat on the wooden flooring of this powerful being’s tower and grovelled, closing his eyes and waiting for the ancient to respond. His mind sorted his excuses, like clanrats ready to be thrown to their deaths to spare their master’s fur.
But nothing.
Just the continuing, casual, stroke of skewer and blade onto a wooden board, the occasional snap and swallow as something slippery disappeared down the ancient one’s throat. He opened one eye.
The ancient skaven regarded him impassively from behind a sturdy dwarf-made table laden with glistening seafood and pickled spawn. Black-furred and barrel-chested, his coat flecked with iron grey, there was an aura to him that age had enhanced rather than diminished. His paws stopped, partway through sawing at a brawny length of tentacle. They were paws that remembered how to hold a blade. They were killer’s paws.
The emissary gulped, then remembered how to speak. ‘Most ageless and eternal of great lords, if there is no more that the great Gnawdwell requires of this unworthy emissary–’
The clanlord held up a paw for silence, and the emissary’s jaw slammed shut. ‘You say that Sleek Sharpwit is dead.’ Gnawdwell’s sonorous voice creaked like ancient leather, but there was no mistaking the power that had defied the toll of years. ‘That is… regretful.’
‘Yes-yes, most omniscient of clanlords. It was Queek that–’
Another raised paw preceded another instantaneous silence. The clanlord smirked and resumed his knifework. ‘Sleek was a rare asset, but no good thing lasts forever. My spies in the City of Pillars tell me that Queek has won many victories since his return there. They say the dwarf-things are ready to buckle.’
‘But, Azul-Place–’
This time the emissary was able to stop himself from speaking just as the clanlord’s brow began to arch. Gnawdwell grinned viciously, a skewered tentacle halfway to his lips.
‘Fool-fool,’ Gnawdwell growled. He snapped at the tentacle, gulping it down whole and ramming the silver skewer into his wooden platter. ‘Do not think you could ever sense the world as I do, pale one. It is a long war we wage, three thousand years and still unfinished.’ He thumped his chest, the veneer of civilised self-discipline fracturing like ice over a black mere. ‘My clan struck first blood in Karak Eight Peaks. It will be mine that ends it. My clan. My glory.’ The clanlord clenched his jaw and sat back, wooden chair groaning under his bulk. He yanked his skewer free and brought the forked rod thrumming to his muzzle.
‘Do you care much for fish, Grey Seer?’
The emissary’s jaw flapped, startled by the sudden tangential shift. The thought arose that perhaps all of Clan Mors carried the same affliction of madness, but it floundered and drowned under Clanlord Gnawdwell’s red stare. The ancient seemed unsurprised by his guest’s silence and continued, paw spread to what was laid out on his table.
‘I see the slaves that go wading into the Blighted Marshes with spears for these creatures.’ He shrugged and tossed a live whelk from a bowl of saltwater into his mouth. It crunched as it went down. ‘Long ago, before I claimed Clan Mors’ place among the Thirteen, I witnessed the dwarf-thing way, hunting fish with blackpowder.’ He grinned coldly. ‘Queek is blackpowder. Sometimes you just have to throw him in.’ He mimicked the gesture, then grinned. ‘And see what bodies fall.’
He gestured with his long black snout and a pair of albino warriors hauled the grey seer up by the arms and started to drag his useless legs back towards the stairs.
‘B-b-but, great one,’ the grey seer stammered. He struggled against the firm grips around both wrists. His bells tinkled softly off his horns as he jerked to no avail. ‘Sharpwit did this to my legs. To me, precious prophet of the Horned One. And fool-Queek left me to die. The seerlord demands an example be made.’
The clanlord didn’t rise. ‘You are an irksome tick. Aren’t you, Razzel?’
‘I am the Horned One’s favoured. My survival proves it. Vengeance on the impious is only what is just, noblest and most fair of dark lords.’
Gnawdwell tittered quietly, evidently finding something of great amusement. ‘I have seen the Horned Rat with my own eyes, you petty creature, and he does not suffer favourites. So go tell Seerlord Kritislik.’ He laughed harder, black barrel chest rippling with mirth as his albino guards tossed the crippled seer down the stairs. Gnawdwell raised his voice so it would carry after him. ‘Tell him that if he so greatly wishes for an example, then he is most welcome to summon Queek to Skavenblight… and exact it himself.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Guymer is no stranger to the worlds of Warhammer, with exciting stories in Gotrek & Felix: The Anthology and Hammer and Bolter, and much more on the way. He is a freelance writer and occasional scientist based in the East Riding. When not writing, David can be found exorcising his disappointment at the gaming table and preparing for the ascension of the children of the Horned Rat.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Cheoljoo Lee.
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