by Guy Haley
The assassin’s arms sagged, his blades fell to the tunnel floor. Queek dropped Dwarf Gouger and grabbed the assassin by the throat. He struggled feebly in Queek’s grip, his pathetic choking noises making Queek smile until they stopped.
The assassin’s body followed his daggers to the floor as Queek withdrew his sword from his chest.
‘Stupid-meat! No one beat Queek! Queek the best!’ He licked his sword clean with a long pink tongue, working out chunks of gore from its serrated edge with his gnawing teeth. He smacked his lips and frowned at his friend. ‘What Ska doing there, lying around? Lazy Ska! Come-come! Help Red Guard dig through. Hurry-scurry.’
‘Yes, great Queek,’ said Ska resignedly, and recommenced tugging at the lumps of rock trapping his legs.
Queek waited in his trophy den for his minions to arrive. Racks where runic axes and dwarf mail coats had once hung displayed skulls and battered armour. Piles of smashed objects and trinkets were heaped all over the floor, a chieftain’s spoils gathered over a lifetime of war. He was ten! Ten years! He could not believe it. Time had gone so fast. His muscles twitched, setting his fur quivering. Not from fear, no, never that. But soon he would be old, and he did not like to think about it.
Queek had not been in his trophy room for over thirteen moons. He was gratified that it remained untouched. ‘Queek the best,’ whispered Ikit Scratch in the back of his head. ‘Everyone fear Queek!’
‘Yes-yes!’ Queek said. ‘No one dare touch Queek’s trophies.’ He ran his hands over a manticore skull, enjoying the memory of the beast’s death. ‘No one touch Queek’s trophies but Queek.’ He licked the skull and chirred with delight.
Krug Ironhand, Sleek Sharpwit and Ikit Scratch’s eyeless skulls looked on from their shelf of honour. The pickled hands of Baron Albrecht Kraus of Averland had joined his head next to them. This had not been preserved and had mummified in the chamber’s dry air, its browned flesh dried into a perpetual, lopsided grin.
‘I must say that it is good to have my hands with me,’ the baron said. ‘You know, I always say that you should have my head with you. Do I not say that, chaps? When the mighty Queek is not here?’
A chorus of ghostly groans came from Queek’s trophy collection.
‘Yes-yes! Others right! It because you always say “I always say” that your head stays here and is not with Queek and hands are!’ snapped Queek. ‘“I must say this,” and “did you know” and “I suggest”! Very boring. Hands not talk. Hands come with Queek, head stay here.’
‘My dear fellow…’
‘Silence!’ Queek was more irritable than ever. He rapidly read the source of his annoyance again, a parchment lately arrived from Skavenblight. On it were direct orders from Gnawdwell. Here he said that Queek should engage the dwarfs in a war of attrition, wear them out with the slave legions of Thaxx Redclaw.
He bared his teeth at it. The hand looked to be that of Gnawdwell, but it made no mention of their earlier conversation and Gnawdwell’s orders to finish the beard-things quickly. He held it up to his nose. The scent mark was right too.
‘This not right,’ he said for the third time. ‘Forgery. Must be trick.’
‘Trick-trap!’ suggested Ikit.
‘Maybe,’ Queek shrugged. ‘Maybe Gnawdwell change his mind, not want Queek to go to other clans.’ He sniffed the parchment again. ‘Name-smell is Gnawdwell’s,’ he reassured himself.
‘Your kind are traitorous vermin,’ suggested Krug. ‘Anything is possible. I’d watch out if I were you.’
‘Yes-yes, true,’ said Queek. ‘Maybe Gnawdwell sick of Queek. Maybe Gnawdwell send white-fur to check my power.’
‘Yes-yes!’ agreed the ghost of Ikit Scratch. ‘White-furs have no power. Someone else is behind this happening. Why not Gnawdwell?’
Queek stopped pacing, his tail swishing back and forth metronomically as he thought. The orders were contradictory, but in contradiction was latitude, freedom to act as he saw fit.
‘Very useful. Very useful indeed. Queek…’ He stopped and raised his nose into the air. ‘Shhh,’ said Queek, holding up his paw. ‘Everyone silent! Someone coming.’
Even with his back turned, Queek knew who it was. He smelt them before they came. One of the reasons he had chosen this old armoury was that the prevailing air currents blew in, not out. One of the approaching skaven had a heavy reek of beasts and skalm, the other very little scent at all. Their footsteps gave them away in any case – the light pad of a stabber-killer from Clan Eshin and the heavier tread of a hulking beast-handler.
‘Greetings, O most malevolent of potentates, O sovereign of mighty Mors. I have hurried quick-quick at your summons,’ said Gritch, his cloak whispering as he bowed. ‘My watch-spies have already told me much-much. So sorry for cave-in. Assassin not one of mine.’
‘Hail, great Headtaker,’ said Grotoose.
Queek smiled. Grotoose was gruff, to the point, and a deadly fighter – the qualities Queek admired the most. He almost trusted him. Gritch was a useful spy, but as with any Clan Eshin member, he favoured intrigue and was likely to be playing more angles than he had claws. Queek pointedly kept his back to them for a moment, showing he had no fear of a dagger between the shoulder blades. Besides, he could rely on the dead-things to warn him.
Queek placed the manticore skull upon the floor in front of him and stepped around it, acknowledging his minions by turning to face them. Without greetings or preamble, he went to the heart of the matter. ‘A grey seer! What is the meaning of this? Did Queek not squeak-tell Lord Gnawdwell about the grey ones’ interfering ways? Did either of you know that the fifth clawpack is led by a horned one?’
Grotoose looked Queek in the eyes and bared his fangs. ‘I not know,’ he said. ‘My Moulder-brothers tell me nothing. Big secret.’
Gritch drummed his nervous, twitchy fingers against themselves, scratched his whiskers, and looked at his shuffling feet.
‘Gritch? Speak-squeak,’ coaxed Queek.
‘Yes, yes-yes. I knew. Not for certain, O terrible one,’ he said, looking up quickly. ‘I hear rumours, I hear whispers. I wait-wait to tell Queek, when next we met.’
‘You come see Queek earlier next time!’
‘We meet-greet now,’ said Gritch with a shrug.
With a swift flick of his wrist, Queek sent Dwarf Gouger to split the manticore skull before him.
‘Ska!’ shouted Queek.
‘Yes, great one,’ said Ska from the mouth of the tunnel.
‘Fetch Skrikk! Queek want to know what he has to say about this. One look from Queek’s eye and he squirt musk and tell all!’
‘Yes, great one.’
‘And send for Clan Skryre tinker-rats. Time for them to report to Queek. Much-much needs finishing before great signal.’
Queek snarled. He hated all this, hated, hated, hated.
‘Queek want to bury Dwarf Gouger in beard-thing’s head!’ he said.
‘Patience!’ said Ikit Scratch. ‘Soon the time come for death-slay and end of all dwarfs.’
Queek tittered. ‘Yes-yes. You right. You clever warlord. But not so clever to kill Queek! Now be quiet, others here.’
Grotoose gave Queek a concerned look. His tail twitched. ‘My lord?’
‘Nothing! Nothing squeaking for your ears, beastmaster. No! You return to your beasts, Grotoose,’ snapped the Headtaker. ‘Gritch tell Queek everything he knows about this. This is the Council’s doing. But,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘was Gnawdwell the paw behind it? That is the big question.’ He let this last statement hang a moment, knowing full well it would reach eager ears. If they thought the rat was out of the bag, then his opponents might panic. Gritch’s face stayed studiously neutral. ‘Tell Queek about Kranskritt. Squeak-tell me everything.’
Kranskritt leaned hard against the burrow wall, his head pounding to the merciless beat of his heart. Every sphincter he had
twitched, threatening to flood his robes with urine and musk. He shook all over and his paw-pads sweated. The potion was wearing off. Soothgnawer had warned him that the after-effects were unpleasant. Naturally, he expected the verminlord to lie to him, or not tell him the whole truth at least, but in this one thing he had been truthful – the sensations of withdrawal were awful.
It was horrible down there in the Trench. He hated being at the bottom of the pit. Every sleep he had he was woken by the screams of half-mad Clan Moulder-things. Every time it happened he thought they were coming from him. He was too hot and shook, as if all the fear he should have felt while under the potion’s influence were merely delayed, and afflicted him all at once.
With palsied hands he pulled a soft man-skin pouch from under his robes, fished out a piece of dully glowing warpstone and nibbled at it. A surge of wellbeing coursed through him, driven on by his racing heart. Frantically, he dabbed at the crumbs on his front and licked them from his fingers.
Kranskritt closed his eyes and pressed his back and palms against the cool rock, letting the rush of the warpstone chase away his discomfort. He stayed like that until his heart slowed and his glands gave one last twitch. Feeling weak but better, he staggered the remaining way into his burrow, using the wall as a support.
Crates and boxes, some opened and their contents half spilling into the room, filled his chambers. He had not known how much to bring, not knowing how long he would be in the City of Pillars. In the end, he had packed everything, worried he might leave something important behind. But the crammed state of his burrow meant he couldn’t lay a paw on anything, and it made him anxious.
He sought a reason other than his own weakness – or Queek, for he was so frightened of him he didn’t want to think about it – for his disquiet.
‘Soothgnawer, yes-yes. He is too strong!’ chittered Kranskritt. ‘It is him! So tricksy and sneaky. Never a straight word for poor, honest Kranskritt.’
He paced back and forth. ‘A binding, a binding. That must be it. Make him my servant, not the other way around. I am too strong for him!’ he snickered. ‘Guards!’ he called. An unacceptable number of heartbeats later, three mangy stormvermin sloped into the room. Kranskritt missed the elite white-fur guard that usually accompanied seers of his rank, but all that had gone with Kritislik’s death and Clan Scruten’s disgrace. At least these, being of Clan Gritus, were unlikely to betray him to Queek and Clan Mors.
Probably.
‘Clear the floor,’ he squeaked imperiously. ‘Make me a space! And carefully! No more breakages.’
The stormvermin rolled their eyes but did as they were bid, working until the floor was clear and the crates were stacked more or less safely along the burrow walls. Kranskritt dismissed the stormvermin and hunted about for his warpstone stylus. He couldn’t find it. Forgetting his admonishment to the guards, he lost his temper and upended three crates before he seized upon it with a screech of triumph.
‘Now,’ he said, kicking packing straw and broken possessions to the edge of the room. ‘Where to begin?’
Kranskritt spent a happy bell scuttling around his chamber, sketching out his circle in chalk then filling in the design with his stylus. Where the lines met, they glowed with the non-light of warpstone. The atmosphere of the room changed, growing pregnant with power. And then he was interrupted.
‘Greetings, Grey Seer Kranskritt, O most wise and malign. I gather-bring news of the Headtaker.’
Turning from the writhing runes he was scratching into the chamber floor, Kranskritt glowered at his messenger.
Bowing profusely, the skaven gave his report to the floor, not daring to look upon the seer. ‘A boulder trap missed Queek. Three of his Red Guard were smashed-slain, but the Headtaker leapt aside.’
Kranskritt’s muzzle twitched. ‘He will know it was a set-trap, yes-yes,’ said the grey seer. ‘Who will he suspect-blame? Tell me who has he questioned about my presence?’
‘Grotoose of Clan Moulder, Gritch of Clan Eshin and Warlord Skrikk, my lord,’ responded the messenger without raising his eyes.
‘Hmmm, but not Gnarlfang?’ said the grey seer, musing to himself. ‘Strange-odd. Send Gritch to me immediately.’
Twitching his head to listen, Kranskritt waited until the sound of the messenger’s footsteps had receded before returning to his circle.
‘Your circle will not work,’ said a whisper from the shadows. ‘You are inscribing it wrong.’
Kranskritt froze. ‘Why don’t we tell-explain to the Headtaker that it is not us? Clearly he will come after me soon,’ said Kranskritt to the darkness.
A soft and altogether evil laughter filled the room, a sound as palatable as nails scratching on polished slate. ‘Of course he suspects you, but it would be no good to tell him that the one behind the attempts is Lord Gnawdwell. He suspects this to be the case, but he would not believe you. And yes, his agents are already on their way.’
After a long pause, the voice spoke again. ‘I could protect you, little Kranskritt, but there must be no more attempts to bind me.’
Kranskritt stamped his footpaw in frustration and threw down his stylus. ‘You tell me not to be scared of Queek. I not scared of Queek, but Queek almost kill this poor, stupid-meat. Then potion wear off and I am plenty-scared! Why did you not tell me how bad I would feel?’
‘But I did,’ which was true, ‘and you were not scared, little horned one,’ which was also true.
Kranskritt drew a breath in to whine and dissemble, but he stopped, puzzled. ‘No. I was not scared.’
‘And so you are still alive. My potion worked. Stop-Fear! No gland will betray you. Fear is weakness. When will you learn-understand that what I say is truth?’
Whenever you start telling the truth consistently, and not only when it suits you, thought Kranskritt, though he did not say it. He cringed. How did he know the verminlord could not read his mind? He hurriedly composed a fawning apology in his head.
A mist gathered in the centre of the circle, coalescing into the form of a verminlord with white fur and many horns sprouting from its bare skull. Soothgnawer stepped daintily over the bounds of the binding circle, eliciting a squeak of annoyance from the grey seer. ‘I did say you were doing it wrong.’
Kranskritt slumped into a sulk, arms crossed. The first time he had seen the verminlord, taking shape in the magical fumes of the Temple of the Grey Seers in Skavenblight, he had collapsed in fear and adulation. He had been even more frightened when Soothgnawer had chosen him as the catspaw for his schemes. Not any more. Familiarity really did breed contempt. Now what he felt mostly was petulant, the verminlord treated him like a favourite slave. From under its impressive rack of horns, it gazed down at him with a wholly infuriating mixture of indulgence and smugness, like it knew it knew far more than Kranskritt ever could, and although it kept most of its knowledge to itself, it was secretly pleased when Kranskritt figured out a part of the greater picture. Most patronising, most infuriating!
‘Queek is angry, little seer,’ the verminlord said. ‘He travels repeatedly from clan to clan, despite his irritation with the role. Soon he will visit you – you cannot hide from him forever.’
Kranskritt’s tail twitched. His glands clenched. ‘Queek has his paws full. Many clans, all together. Bad recipe for big trouble. He is a mad-thing, always talking to himself.’
‘His name is enough to quell any revolt, little seer. He is not as mad-crazed as he pretends to be. When he talks, voices answer him.’
‘Whose? Who speak-squeaks to Queek?’
Soothgnawer laughed, a velvety evil sound. ‘That I will not tell you, for you do not need to know.’
‘Then what do I need to know?’ whined Kranskritt, and he threw himself flat on the floor, his forehead and the full length of his muzzle flat against the stone. ‘O great and powerful malicious one! Give-tell humble servant of the Horned Rat instructions so he
might further great verminlord’s master’s schemings.’
‘Hush! Hush!’ said the verminlord. It reached out a massive claw. Kranskritt forbore to be tickled between the horns. ‘Be calm, little seer. You must keep Queek on your side, for now. Do as he says until I instruct-command otherwise.’
Kranskritt looked up into the currently skeletal face of Soothgnawer. His appearance was inconstant, and changed worryingly.
‘Do not fear, little seer. Soon there will be opportunity for Clan Scruten to regain influence. That is what we both want-desire, yes-yes?’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Kranskritt.
‘Your fellows labour upon the Great Spell in Skavenblight. Already they draw the Chaos moon nearer to this world. This has been revealed to the remaining eleven Lords of Decay. The disturbance its presence will have upon the earth will be the signal to attack.’
‘But the tinker-rats? What if they are successful with their rocket and our spell is not?’
‘Clan Skryre attempt the construction of their rocket to destroy the moon. This contest between the clans becomes heated. Much turmoil in Skavenblight, many assassinations.’ Soothgnawer paused. ‘And Grey Seer Thanquol helps Clan Skryre.’
‘Thanquol?’ said Kranskritt in surprise.
Soothgnawer nodded. ‘It is not my doing. He has proven his lack of worth time and again. He is deservedly outcast. You are my preferred instrument to restore the fortunes of Clan Scruten.’
Kranskritt grovelled in appreciation.
‘The head of our Council has plans for him, as I have plans for you, little seer. Thanquol will succeed in his venture, but Clan Skryre will fail. The Great Spell must succeed!’
‘Why cannot Kranskritt join in this most holy of sorceries, great one?’ said Kranskritt, who really would have been anywhere else but near Queek.
‘Because, little seer, there is more than one task to be done. The beard-things must die. All of them.’