[Thanquol & Boneripper 03] - Thanquol's Doom

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  A larger force of dwarfs had been waiting in the Sixth Deep, gathered in the very hall where Thanquol had led the diversionary force while Ikit Claw ransacked the smelthall. Well-armed, stubbornly disciplined, the dwarfs could have caused Queek’s horde serious trouble had any warning reached them. As it was, they were poorly organised and caught unprepared. Thunderers were cut down while they loaded shot into their guns, cannoneers were hacked to ribbons as they struggled to shift their weapons and train them upon the skaven. Such a massacre should have been enough to quench any ratman’s thirst for battle, hundreds of dwarfs chopped to pieces at the cost of only a hundred or so skaven.

  Not the Headtaker though! Oh no, not the crazed Queek! Such was his hate of the dwarfs that he shunned the traditional place of leadership far behind the troops and away from the hazards of the fighting. No! Queek was right there at the front, slashing dwarf throats with his sword, crushing dwarf skulls with his maul, the gruesome weapon he called Dwarf Gouger. Axes flashed before the warlord’s eyes, hammers cracked against his crimson armour, and all the time Queek was laughing his murderous hate at his foes.

  Thanquol didn’t mind Queek trying to get himself killed. In fact, it was something the grey seer thought should be encouraged. What he didn’t like was the warlord’s paranoid insistence that Thanquol stay close beside him. He’d been forced to expend what little magic he felt strong enough to muster turning aside bolts and bullets or blasting the face of the most persistent of his attackers.

  They’d broken the dwarfs at last, running down dozens as they tried to withdraw from the Sixth Deep and flee into the upper hold. A hundred or so of the dwarfs had managed to escape, spreading the alarm through their halls. But the call to action came too late to save the Fifth Deep and the skaven had caught entire clans of the face-furs as they tried to evacuate their homes.

  Thanquol grimaced as he glanced about the shambles of the brewhall in which he found himself. Dwarf beer sprayed from ruptured casks, wutroth furnishings had been piled and burned, bronze tankards lay smashed, sacks of barley and hops lay slashed and befouled. The grey seer couldn’t keep a quiver from his lips as he considered the value of everything the war-rats were destroying.

  “Stop-stop!” Thanquol growled, shaking his staff at a stormvermin who was trying his best to wreck a heavy bronze mallet by smashing it against the rock walls of the brewhall.

  The grey seer got no further in his threatening. A steely grip closed about the back of his neck, lifting him onto the balls of his feet. The rancid scent of Queek Headtaker and the decaying reek of his trophies filled Thanquol’s nose.

  “Break-smash all dwarf-things,” the warlord snarled, flecks of blood dripping from his whiskers. “Make all dwarf-meat long-suffer!”

  Thanquol noted with some alarm that Queek, at least, had not been looting the dwarfhold. A collection of disembodied dwarf heads circled his waist, tied by their beards to his belt. The freshest of them continued to drip blood onto the warlord’s legs. Arguing with somebody who took the time to hack off heads while letting perfectly good loot be destroyed would require a good deal of cunning.

  Fortunately, for all his psychotic rage and hate, Queek was still a skaven, and no skaven liked to pass up weakened prey.

  “Tremendous Warbringer, Overmaster of Sword and Maul, Gnasher of Fangs and Cutter of Throats,” Thanquol whined in his most fawning and ingratiating voice. “I only mean-want to remind that there are more-many dwarf-things above. It would be wrong-wrong if they escaped.”

  Queek released Thanquol, dumping the grey seer onto the sodden floor. “Coward-scum!” he raged at the vandals. “Gather all warriors! We march on dwarf-things! Hurry-scurry!”

  Cursing under his breath, Thanquol wrung out his robes, wincing at the pungent smell of dwarf beer. He spun about as an uneasy feeling gripped him. He wasn’t reassured to find Queek staring at him with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

  “Thanquol has mighty magic,” the warlord hissed, his fingers tapping the handle of Dwarf Gouger. “Where is great-strong magic of Thanquol-meat?”

  Hastily, Thanquol drew the Hand of Vecteek from his robe. “I still have-carry the Hand!” he insisted, feeling a flicker of fear writhe through his glands when Queek’s attitude remained unmoved. “I can call-summon great-strong magic! The Horned One watches over me and helps me!”

  Queek bared his fangs. “Pray-hope hard-much, Thanquol,” he warned. “I want better magic when we kill-slay dwarf-things.”

  Thanquol stiffened his spine. “You threaten a prophet of the Horned Rat?” he growled.

  “I give-gift Horned One many dwarf heads,” Queek snarled. “He won’t miss one grey seer.”

  Thanquol bent down, paws kneading his suddenly aching back. “Great-strong magic,” he said in a meek voice. “Yes-yes, I will cast-call many-many spells. Kill-slay many-many dwarf-things.”

  Queek continued to glare at the grey seer. His ears twitched and he cocked his head to one side as the clatter of armoured bodies rushing through the corridors of the Fifth Deep echoed through the dwarfhold. The marauding skaven were returning from their rampage, hastening to the summons of their ferocious master.

  “Stay close-near,” Queek told Thanquol. “Stay where I can keep an eye on you.”

  The warlord turned about, presenting his back to Thanquol. It didn’t take a genius to know what Queek expected of him. Bobbing his head in a series of contrite bows, the grey seer hastened from the brewhall, leading the way as Queek marched out to take command of his army.

  “The Fifth Deep is lost and I don’t know if we can hold the Fourth.” Thane Arngar ran his hand through his beard, trying to brush away the clotted blood that stained it. A gash in his cheek continued to bleed from beneath its bandage. The general’s voice was heavy with shame. He had been entrusted with defending the Sixth Deep by King Logan. Now he’d lost not only the Sixth but the Fifth Deep as well. Looking out over the small throng mustered in the Fourth Deep, he wasn’t terribly optimistic about their chances to keep even this level from the ratkin.

  “You are not to blame,” Guildmaster Thori consoled the general. “Klarak Bronzehammer talked King Logan into taking the bulk of our warriors down into the ratkin tunnels when their place was up here, protecting the hold. The responsibility for all that has happened is his, not yours.”

  Thane Arngar shook his head. “Blame won’t help us hold the Fourth Deep,” he grumbled. The general looked out across the rag-tag throng assembling in the Fourth Deep’s central hall. Masons, architects, stone-cutters, sculptors, rune-scribes, every available dwarf who could swing a hammer or wield an axe had been impressed into Arngar’s force. Many of the dwarfs he looked upon were mere beardlings with barely an inch of hair on their chins. Others looked old enough to be living ancestors. None of them were professional warriors. The only experienced fighters he had were those of the Fourth Deep Guard and the survivors from the army the skaven had overwhelmed down in the Sixth Deep.

  “We could withdraw to the Third Deep,” Thori proposed. “The powder rooms of the Engineers’ Guild are situated on the Fourth Deep. We could detonate the powder stores and collapse the entire level, bring it crashing down on the heads of the ratkin.”

  Arngar’s face went pale. “We… we would destroy half of Karak Angkul by doing that! The work of our ancestors, the halls of our forefathers lost forever!” The general shook his head. “No, I can’t do that! Better to let the ratkin take the deeps than destroy them! What has been taken can always be reclaimed!”

  “Very well,” Thori said. “Then we should fall back to the Ruby Gate. That is the most defensible position in the Fourth Deep. It will allow us to protect the ramp up to the Third Deep and also keep the king’s vault from the ratkin.”

  Arngar removed his helmet, scratching at his scalp. A file of immense stone statues lined the central hall, each the representation of one of the dwarfs’ ancestor gods. As he looked up at them, the general could feel their cold eyes staring down at him, weighing his ev
ery action. What he did today, the decisions he made, would be with him always, following him into the halls of his ancestors. He was determined they would do him credit, not shame.

  “We can’t fall back to the Ruby Gate until the rest of the Fourth Deep has been evacuated,” Arngar decided. The image of the dwarfs they had been forced to abandon in the Fifth Deep was one that plagued the general. He wouldn’t have it compounded by the lives of those who dwelt in the Fourth Deep.

  “We can’t delay!” Thori protested. “It is only by the grace of Valaya that we’ve been given this much time! If the ratkin weren’t busy plundering the Fifth Deep, they would already be at our throats!”

  “Position your gun crews over there,” Arngar told the engineer, unmoved by his objections. “That will give them a clean line of fire when the ratkin come up from the Fifth Deep.”

  Guildmaster Thori bowed his head, favouring Thane Arngar with a look that said “I hope you know what you’re doing”. The engineer hurried to relay the general’s orders to the small number of cannoneers who had joined the motley throng. Arngar watched as the crews began to push their cannons into position. Again, the general felt a tremor of doubt. He’d had six cannons to defend the Sixth Deep. Now he had only half that number and a single organ gun brought down from the proving halls on the Second Deep. He could only hope the skaven wouldn’t be expecting a fight and that the mere presence of a defence would send them packing. He certainly didn’t have enough to stop them if they pressed the attack.

  Arngar turned his head, watching as a pair of women herded a dozen children past his line of defence. The general smiled bitterly. Whatever happened, he would hold this hall. The ratkin wouldn’t drive him off this time. He bellowed to his aide, a grizzled longbeard named Norgrin. “Fetch down the oathstone of the Arnrim Clan.” He saw the flash of surprise in the longbeard’s eyes. To fight beside an oathstone was no small thing for a dwarf lord. It would mean no retreat, however the battle turned. Even if it meant certain death, no dwarf would dishonour himself by abandoning his clan’s oathstone.

  “Here I make my stand,” Arngar said, his voice raised so it might carry to his troops. “Let the ratkin come, if they dare. They shall be broken upon our shields and die beneath the eyes of our gods.”

  The roar of cannon thundered through the massive corridor. The stink of gunpowder and black skaven blood spilled across the ramp. Mangled bodies were flung through the air, cartwheeling over the heads of the close-packed skaven as they surged up from the depths of Karak Angkul. Fangleaders snapped reprimands as their troops squealed in panic, some of them using the flat of their swords to keep their warriors in line, others not bothering with the flat and using the edge to lop off the ears of the nearest malcontents.

  “Perhaps we should be in the second wave?” Thanquol squeaked, knowing as he did so that his words were falling on deaf ears. Queek’s eyes were ablaze with the sort of red madness Thanquol had thought only the eyes of an orc could ever possess.

  Before them, at the head of the ramp, a cluster of dwarf cannon pointed down into the Fifth Deep. As soon as the skaven had reached the halfway mark, a concentrated volley from the cannons had smashed into them, cutting through their massed ranks like a cleaver through rotting man-flesh. Now, a file of dwarf jezzails marched out from behind the cannons while the crews reloaded their weapons.

  Thanquol felt hideously exposed as the dwarfs began firing into the swarming skaven. But he’d feel even worse if one of the bullets zinging past his horns found its mark. The yelps of the skaven around him as the bullets found other victims didn’t help the grey seer’s valour. Ducking and bobbing, weaving between the armoured stormvermin, Thanquol tried to gradually let himself sink into the onrushing mob. As long as he could keep a few bodies between himself and the dwarfs, his own prognosis for survival would be markedly enhanced.

  Queek, damn his mangy hide, seemed oblivious to all danger. The warlord was lost to his crazed bloodlust now. He didn’t even flinch when a dwarf bullet shattered one of the skulls on his trophy rack. The warlord reared up, smashing his sword and maul together, roaring like some escapee from Clan Moulder’s Hell Pit.

  Then the dwarf cannons spoke once more, bellowing like giants as they spat death down the rampway. Thanquol shrieked as a cannonball went careening through the ratmen on his left, passing so close that his side was splashed with skaven blood. Squeals of terror rose from the rear ranks of the horde as mangled bodies were hurled into their midst. Again, Thanquol cursed the foolishness of Queek. A leader’s place was in the rear, where he could quell such panic as soon as it started.

  And, of course, avoid getting too close to whatever caused such panic to begin with.

  The dwarfs clearly expected the skaven attack to falter in the wake of a point-blank discharge of their cannons. They had not reckoned with the frenzied hate of Warlord Queek Headtaker. The maddened skaven warlord leapt through the cloud of smoke billowing from the mouths of the cannons. Perched atop the bore of one cannon, he brought his sword slashing down, tearing the arm from a gunner. Dwarf Gouger crashed into the face of a second foe, splashing blood and brains across the neighbouring cannon.

  Queek howled his challenge, pouncing upon the dwarf warriors who came charging forwards to protect the embattled cannons. Again and again the warlord’s weapons struck, bringing death with every blow. Dwarf Gouger tore through even the thickest gromril plate as though it were cheesecloth, smashing the leathery bodies inside.

  One doughty longbeard, more determined than the rest, pressed his attack even after a blow from Dwarf Gouger broke his arm. The dwarf’s blade raked across Queek’s armour, the crimson coating fracturing in a spray of metallic splinters. The longbeard screamed as the splinters dug into his flesh, sizzling as they came into contact with his skin, their warpstone content eating away at the dwarf’s body like the most vitriolic acid.

  Now other skaven surged forwards, goaded on by their master’s example. It wasn’t loyalty or courage that made them hasten to Queek’s side, but rather the fear that their warlord would win his way clear and come looking for any ratman who had been too timid to press the fight.

  The cannons were finished now, their crews scattered or slain. The thunderers retreated through the ranks of their own warriors, trying to form a fire line from which they could cover the eventual retreat of their comrades.

  Thanquol pressed himself against one of the walls, watching as Queek’s warriors tore into the reeling dwarfs. There was little question that the skaven would overwhelm their foes now, but the dwarfs would take a lot of killing and a lot of ratmen would go down with them. Thanquol did not intend to be one of them.

  Satisfied that Queek Headtaker would have his paws full killing dwarfs for a while, Thanquol began to sidle back down the ramp. He’d had more than his fill of Clan Mors and its maniacal leadership. It was time for all prudent grey seers to cut their losses and scurry back to Skavenblight. Besides, he still had the Hand of Vecteek. That would be enough to set him up good with Seerlord Kritislik. Or Seerlord Tisqueek, if it looked like Kritislik’s rival might prove a more generous patron.

  A quivering sensation against his spine sent Thanquol springing away from the wall. The grey seer drew back, his staff held defensively across his chest, his beady eyes glaring at the wall. There was nothing there. Irritated at his unreasonable fright, Thanquol stepped back to the wall, placing his hand against the stone. He immediately pulled his paw back. There was a noticeable tremor running through the wall. His mind pored over the possibilities of earthquake and sabotage. Perhaps that traitorous rat Ikit Claw was back and trying to get his revenge by collapsing the ramp and sealing Thanquol up with Queek’s lunatics!

  Thanquol cast a worried look back at Queek and the raging battle with the dwarfs. It still looked like a bad idea to get involved in that scrap, even if he just lingered at the edges of the fighting. He cast his gaze back at the wall. It was noticeably shaking now, little trickles of dirt running down from between the block
s. There might still be time to race back down into the lower deeps and beat a hasty retreat.

  Then again, Thanquol thought as the violence acting against the wall increased, there might not be time to get clear before the whole thing came crashing down. He’d already had a near escape from that sort of thing. He wasn’t about to repeat the experience.

  A stone block suddenly broke loose, smashing into the floor of the ramp and rolling down into the darkness of the Fifth Deep. Another soon followed, and then still another. Thanquol straightened himself, smoothing back his whiskers.

  Why should he be afraid? Ikit Claw was the one who should be afraid! Unlike that dullard Queek, the Claw knew all about the Hand of Vecteek and what it could do. And this time the maggot didn’t have a malfunctioning Doomsphere to try and bluff his way past Thanquol’s wrath!

  Oh yes, Thanquol thought as the reek of warpstone began to billow out from the expanding hole in the wall, there would be a reckoning when the Chief Warlock showed his ugly face! If the Claw didn’t grovel just right, Thanquol would snuff out his worthless life like a mouse in a troll-trap!

  “So-so,” Thanquol snarled as he saw the grinding drillhead tear through the rock. “You come back to beg the Great Thanquol to forgive-forget your…”

  Thanquol shook his head, his nose twitching as an impossible smell struck his senses. He blinked, trying to make sense of the scent. Surely there weren’t dwarfs hiding in the walls of their own stronghold?

  The drill crashed to the floor of the ramp, slowly sliding down towards the Fifth Deep. After it came a grimy, dirt-covered dwarf. Despite the dirt, however, Thanquol couldn’t fail to notice the pitiless hate shining in the creature’s gold-flake eyes.