by Guy Haley
‘There’s another delivery due soon, but they’re getting tardy,’ said Grunnir Stonemaster. There was no way of telling the time in the dark underground, but the dwarfs had an unerring knack for it. ‘It’s past midday or I’m a grobi’s dung collector.’
Borrik managed a grin that hurt his face. ‘That you certainly are not. Not only are they late, but the barrels are getting lighter.’
Grunnir shrugged. ‘Back in the glory days that would never have happened. Proper brewmasters then, and proper brew.’
Borrik looked at the devastation around him. Nothing was like it was, not any more. ‘You’re sounding like a longbeard.’
Grunnir tugged his beard. ‘It’s been well watered with blood these last weeks. It’s growing as quickly as my tally of grudges.’
Distant drums sounded. Borrik stood. ‘All right, lads! Back in formation – they’re coming for another go!’
The ironbreakers tossed another few corpses into the pit and trudged wearily back to their stations. Skaven began filing out into the Hall of Reckoning in organised lines that spread into calm ranks, a far cry from the panicking thralls they had first faced.
‘Look at them,’ said Gromley, taking in the number of stolen dwarf items in the hands of their enemies. ‘Thieving vermin. They’re so intent on killing us, they never stop to think who’ll they’ll steal off when we’re gone.’
‘Less of that,’ said Uli. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’
‘Well,’ said Grunnir, settling his standard into a more comfortable position. ‘If they do win, I hope the little furry beggars choke on their victory.’
‘Borrik! Borrik!’ A hand tugged at the mail shirt of the thane. Tordrek had come forward. ‘There’s someone at the door.’
‘Ale?’ said Borrik brightening.
Tordrek shook his head. Borrik cast an annoyed look at the marshalling skaven and followed his friend through the thin back rank of the Axes of Norr. There remained a single full line of ten to block the way.
The sound from the skaven was muted in the chamber at the rear. A steady tap-tapping came from the door. Borrik pressed his ear against it.
Borrik counted three different hammer sizes beating out the code, the notes they made identical to anyone but a dwarf.
‘Aye, that’s the right signal. Open the door,’ he said. ‘Quickly now, we don’t want this gate gaping wide when the skaven come to attack.’
‘We’re all right for a minute,’ came Gromley’s sour voice from the front of the ironbreakers. ‘They’re still trying to get themselves in order.’
Tordrek’s remaining Forgefuries, guarding the door, opened it.
What emerged was not ale. A spike of orange hair came around the door. Borrik took a step back, face grim. ‘It’s come to that, has it?’ he said. ‘Make way, lads!’ he called. ‘We’ve got company.’
Silently, the Slayers came out, more than twenty of them, all stony-faced killers. Their leader, an emotionless dwarf who made Borrik look the size of a beardling, nodded a greeting to the thane. The rest filed out without looking. Borrik didn’t look them in the eye, because behind the flinty light that burned there you could catch the darkness of shame. A broken oath, a grandfather’s mistake uncovered, a romantic advance rebuffed… Whatever crimes these dwarfs had committed or shames they had suffered, trivial or gross, they all felt the same. They were all broken by their experiences. Through the narrow passage they went. At the far end, the Norrgrimlings parted to let them past.
The skaven were working themselves up into a frenzy, biting at their shields, their leaders squeaking orders from the back, their soldiers squeaking together in response.
‘Quickly now, quickly,’ said Borrik. ‘Close ranks as soon as they’re through.’
Gromley gave him a hard stare that suggested that wasn’t going to be necessary, but prodded his tired warriors into place with his axe haft.
The Slayers spread out once in the hall, not in a disciplined line but each finding a spot that suited him best. That meant as far away from the others as possible. They said nothing as they waited for the skaven to attack. The ratmen did so cautiously, their eagerness for the fight seeming to desert them when they saw these fresh opponents.
Driven on by furious squeaking and the clang of cymbals, the skaven charged, flowing over the broken, bloodied floor of the Hall of Reckoning as one.
When the enemy were close, the Slayers counter-charged. Some shouted out to Grimnir, some sang, others howled with the pain of whatever shame had driven them to take the oath. Yet others made no noise, but set to with voiceless determination.
They were engulfed by the vermintide like bright rocks in a dark sea. Like rocks, they were not overcome.
‘Look at them,’ muttered Gromley. The Slayer leader leapt and whirled, his paired rune axes trailing light and blood in equal part.
‘This is a rare sight. I’m glad I have one eye left to see it with,’ said Uli.
‘Look at that one! The big one with the scars!’ Albok pointed to a dwarf who was wider than he was tall, his body covered in tattoos, his tattoos scratched through by scars. He wielded a single, double-handed axe with a head as big as his own torso.
‘That’s the Dragonslayer Aldrik the Scarred, if I’m not mistaken,’ said Gromley. He blew out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘If you live to be five hundred, you’ll be half the warrior he is.’
Aldrik was a solid presence amid the churning mass of skaven. They were far quicker than him, but he moved aside from every blow. His axe strokes were deliberate. Not a single one missed. Every swipe cut a skaven in half.
The Norrgrimlings relaxed. It was plain to them all that they were not going to be needed in this engagement. The Slayers were butchering the skaven, and the ratmen were close to breaking. Already, their back ranks were becoming strung out from the mass at the front.
Of a sudden, the skaven had had enough. They fled, squealing frantically. The Slayers let out a shout and chased after them. Surrounded by piled bodies were three orange-haired dwarf corpses. The remainder disappeared down the stairheads after the fleeing skaven.
The Axes of Norr let their guard drop.
‘That’s that, then. Time for a rest,’ said Grunnir.
‘Aye, and more besides,’ said Thane Borrik, pushing his way to the front with a metal message scroll in his hand. ‘We’ve got new orders from the king. Time to pull back to the Hall of Clan Skalfdon.’ He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘Got a herald back there, so it’s as official as it gets. Tordrek, blow those doors up before we go.’
‘What about the Slayers, Thane?’ asked Albok.
‘Three groups of them have gone out,’ said Borrik. ‘It’s shameful to say, but we won’t see the likes of this for a long time. They’ve got their wish. Let’s take their dead back. The least we can do is lay their axes on the shrine of Grimnir, and let him know they fulfilled their oaths.’
As the Norrgrimlings tenderly retrieved the dead Slayers, Tordrek stepped up with his dawi and headed for the centre of the room. Once there, they opened fire and ignited the charges packed around each stairhead. The explosion in the Hall of Reckoning sounded like the end of everything. Dust blew out, coating the surviving members of the Axes of Norr so they appeared like the ancestors, freshly awoken at the roots of the world. Bright eyes peered out from grey faces.
‘That should keep them back a bit,’ said Borrik, when the last rock had clattered to a standstill. ‘Come on, lads, let’s see if there’s any ale left in the citadel. This has been a thirsty couple of weeks.’
ELEVEN
A Confrontation
‘A messenger is coming,’ said Soothgnawer’s voice, as yet unattached to a body.
Kranskritt startled. It was unnerving how the verminlord came from nowhere. He looked around for Soothgnawer, nose working frantically. He caught a whiff of the otherwordly
creature, but the scent was faint and all around him, and Kranskritt could not see him.
‘There is always a messenger coming. Who? What-what?’ responded the grey seer testily.
‘One of the Red Guard,’ came the reply. Soothgnawer had still not manifested. Kranskritt saw a darkening against the wall, a shadow out of place. He stared fixedly at it, determined not to be surprised.
‘Queek will give the orders I foresaw,’ said Soothgnawer smugly. ‘Queek has guessed the deception. It is to the peaks you will go, hunting goblins. He wishes your clawpack to engage Skarsnik and keep him away from the main assault upon the beard-things’.
‘Pah! Mad-thing does great insult to me,’ Kranskritt said. ‘I should be with him, I should whisper-command in his ear! He is mad and foolish-stupid.’ Kranskritt shivered. The bells on his ankles, wrists and horns tinkled with fury.
‘Hush, little seer! Do you remember our plans? You will have what you wish.’ Soothgnawer’s voice was poison-perfumed velvet, smooth against the senses, beguiling, yet smothering.
Kranskritt bridled. They were most assuredly not his plans. He did not like this situation. It was typically he who had foreknowledge and he who did the manipulating. This creature was always two scurryings ahead of him, possibly more.
‘Not our plans!’ he said, wringing the hem of his robe. ‘Yours! What happens if Queek discovers? What if he say-accuses me? He has no fear of the Horned Rat. He has no fear of me!’
‘Patience!’ said the voice, now from right behind him.
With a yelp, Kranskritt spun on the spot. From the shadows between unpacked crates, a space far too small to accommodate the verminlord, large eyes full of an ancient malevolence regarded him. Half concealed in this too-small space, yet there nonetheless, the creature’s triple rack of horns seemed to grow and twist sinuously. At that moment skin and fur clothed his skull, and he looked like a grey seer grown vast on magic and evil. A clawed hand thrust out, holding an enormous gazing globe.
‘You are right to fear the future, Kranskritt. If Queek suspects, then die long and horribly you will, and lower the status of Clan Scruten becomes. Look-look! There are many paths to follow. All bad but one. In life I too walked as a grey seer. Now I am more. Much more. I scry beyond space and time – the future is downwind. And I tell you, there is no other way.’
The voice left the room, burrowed directly into Kranskritt’s mind. It was at once compelling and threatening. Soothgnawer had a way of posing questions that provided their own answers, which, when examined later, posed more questions. The endless conundrums this generated in Kranskritt’s agile mind was threatening to drive him as mad as Queek. He turned an involuntary blow at his own head into a scratch of his ear so furious it drew blood, and glanced into the ball.
‘Yes-yes, I see-scry that now.’ He saw nothing, but wished to appear wise before this creature. He instantly regretted the hesitancy in his voice. Verminlords could smell deception.
‘You see nothing.’
Kranskritt wailed. ‘I cannot see!’
‘Look harder.’
The grey seer turned away, shaking his head, but the voice would not be dislodged. ‘Tell me, why-why is my clawpack not ordered into the fight?’ demanded Kranskritt. ‘Why must I chase the green-thing? I have the largest clawpack.’
‘Patience, little seer. Queek was confounded. Two sets of orders from his master demand his action in opposing manner.’
Kranskritt tittered. ‘A good trick-treachery on the arrogant mad-thing! Who is behind it? Is it your doing, horned master? Such a trick is worthy of your unsurpassed intellect,’ he said, remembering his manners under the verminlord’s gaze.
Soothgnawer emerged a little further into the material world, huge and terrifying. ‘Little seer must learn to listen more closely. Both sets of orders come from Lord Gnawdwell. The lord of Clan Mors tires of his general.’
Kranskritt wrinkled his muzzle. ‘Then why two orders? Why not bad orders, or simple kill-slay? It makes no sense!’
Soothgnawer eased himself out of whatever hellish realm he inhabited and into Kranskritt’s burrow. The laws of space-time asserted themselves, and he popped into existence. Fully manifested, he filled the room, his horns scraping fragments of stone from the ceiling. He pushed crates over and sat down on one. Still he towered over Kranskritt. ‘Is this the level of the grey seers’ intelligence in these times? So sad. No mystery to me why the Great Horned One punished Clan Scruten.’ Soothgnawer spoke with infinite paternal patience to the seer. ‘Gnawdwell wants to see what Queek will do. He is too attached-fond to the warlord. In his head, here,’ the verminlord tapped between his eyes, ‘he thinks that he confuses Queek to make him hesitate, to anger his underlings so that they will kill-slay him and replace him. But in his heart Gnawdwell has become too sentimental. His attempts on Queek’s life are poorly planned and half-hearted, and so is this scheme-plan. He does not admit it, but he gives Queek another chance, a way from death. If Queek is successful here, Gnawdwell will not kill him. He knows Queek is unworthy as his successor, that a creature as insane as Queek can never sit upon the Council of Thirteen, but he has deluded himself that the Headtaker might change, and so Gnawdwell’s heart wars with his mind.’
Kranskritt spat. ‘The heart is quick and treacherous. Great thinkings only come from the mind. Is it not established that the skaven are the most intelligent of all races? We grey seers do not listen to our traitor-hearts.’
‘This is so. This is right. Make sure you stay that way, little seer.’
‘Tell-squeak me, how you know what Gnawdwell think-feels, great and wise Soothgnawer?’ asked Kranskritt, half afraid of the answer, for if the verminlord could read minds as he suspected, Kranskritt would have a lot of grovelling to perform. His glands twitched.
‘To be a master of our kind, as I am, little seer, you must look beyond what each ratkin does to another, and into the mind behind the scheme. Within all of you there are many reasons and many desires, and these vie and plot one against the other as surely as you fight one another.’ The creature paused. Its white-furred face lost all flesh and skin to appear as an eyeless skull, turning back into a grey seer’s face without appearing to change, even to Kranskritt’s magic-sight. Kranskritt felt very weak indeed and flinched from him. ‘Now Queek reacts with open violence. It is what Queek does. He is as unsubtle as his Dwarf Gouger. Look-look into the ball and see.’
Reluctantly, Kranskritt stared into the verminlord’s over-sized gazing glass. If he had put his arms around it, his paws would not have met. Now he saw. In its uncertain depths were crystal-clear images of skaven marching all over the City of Pillars, all going upwards. The burrowing machines of Clan Skryre worked tirelessly to bore them new routes. Massed ranks of skaven confronted lines of glowering dwarf-things, the long-fur on their faces bristling. Skaven war machines opened up on them, killing the stupid creatures by the score.
‘The dwarfs will soon retreat. The future is changing. We come to a nexus in the way. At the right moment, you must be in place to act and seize the right path. See why, little seer. Watch now and witness a fate that will be yours and all grey seers’ if you are not successful,’ said Soothgnawer, his voice lodged still in the space behind Kranskritt’s eyes, more irritating than a tick. ‘Watch-watch.’
Kranskritt gave a startled squeak. He was no longer in his burrow, but in a hall choked with many skaven dead. A large hole was in the centre, and two piles of shattered stone were to either side. Rock dust drifted on air currents, the smell of freshly broken rock and blackpowder was choking, but although he could smell it, although he felt he should be coughing hard, he breathed easily. He looked about for Soothgnawer. He could not see him, but could feel his presence.
‘You are here and not-here, little seer. This is the Hall of Reckoning, as the dwarf-things call it. Great things happen here very soon. Be calm and watch.’
Kranskritt tri
ed his best not to think about where he was or how he was there. On the edge of his perception was the endless, anguished squeaking of millions of voices that he did not care to hear.
Fortunately for him, the burring noise of heavy machinery soon troubled the chamber and drowned out the squeals of the damned. The ground shook. A short distance from the leftmost blocked tunnel, a fall of dust sheeted away from the rock. Small stones skittered from their position on the rock falls as the vibrations grew louder, until with the crack of broken stone, a giant drill head breached the wall, multiple toothed grinding heads all turning in separate directions. The Clan Skryre machine jolted as it drove out of the tunnel and dropped six inches to the floor of the hall. A platform on tracked wheels followed the drill head, two goggled and masked warlocks tending the mass of sorcerous machinery mounted atop it. They pulled levers, flicked switches. Lightning burst from the tops of brass orbs. Fluids bubbled in long glass tubes protected by copper latticework. The drilling machine drove off to one side, pulping skaven corpses under its truckles. The drill ceased spinning and the machine came to a halt, powering down with a teeth-wounding whine.
A score of heavily built stormvermin came from the new corridor, a thunder of pounding, muscular legs and thick armour. Stones pattered from their shoulders as they emerged, but the tunnel held. They fanned out, forming a solid square in the middle of the chamber. Kranskritt drew back into the shadows.
‘Foolish little seer, they cannot see you,’ laughed Soothgnawer in his mind. ‘Do not fear!’
Their leader, a mid-ranking member of Clan Mors whose name-smell was Frizloq, came next, entering the Hall of Reckoning as warily as a common rat might dare a night-time kitchen. He sniffed the air, stepping delicately down the spilled rock to survey the room. Whatever he expected to find there was gone, and he grinned widely at its absence. He prodded one of his minions with the butt of his polearm, gesturing that he should enter the tunnel in one corner. The skaven cringed at being separated from the warmth and protection of his littermates, but obeyed. He disappeared into the tunnel with a wary backward glance.