by C. L. Werner
The Howling Hills, that jumble of broken rock and jagged boulders, were like a natural fortress, a place teeming with hiding places for the skaven to lurk in ambush. To try to unleash a barrage against the entire range would have been futile, instead Mandred had conceived the plan to strike along a very narrow front – the flanks of his own advancing force. As the skaven came swarming to the attack, creeping and crawling through the ravines and gorges, they brought themselves into the killing ground. More, by the route of their advance they exposed to the men below their hiding places, providing the artillery with still more targets.
The missiles thrown by von Boeckenfoerde’s catapults weren’t stones. They were fireballs cobbled together from broken-up wagons, dead trees, tents, blankets, spare clothing – anything in the army’s supply train that would burn. Gunpowder from the dwarfs was added to some of the missiles, bags of pungent dung to others, anything to further confuse and disorient the ratkin whether by sound or smell. As the burning missiles slammed into the stone flow, they shattered, raining down into the ravines and gorges, filling them with heavy black smoke.
All along the stone flow the raucous squeals of the ratkin became deafening. Deep down inside their ravines, the skaven didn’t know the reason for the blazing debris that rained down on their heads, the distant crack and boom of gunpowder reverberating among the rocks, the noxious stench of the blinding smoke that billowed across their positions. They were unable to appreciate the magnitude of the attack. Isolated and alone, communication severed by the assault of the catapults on the plain below, the skaven were only aware of their own small piece of the battle.
Panic reigned as the besieged ratkin began to flee their hiding places, scampering back down the narrow fissures running throughout the Howling Hills. As the assaulted positions broke, they charged headlong into their own warriors further back among the hills. Like an infection, their panic spread to the other skaven, the scent of their fear impacting against the other vermin and sending them likewise into full retreat.
The tide was turning, but Mandred’s infantry were still merely a tiny island in a sea of ratkin. Victory was anything but assured.
‘Fool-meat! Dung-sniffing flea-fondlers!’ Vrrmik brought the murderous head of Skavenbite slamming down into one of his sub-chiefs, obliterating the ratman’s rib cage and sending his maimed body spinning down among the rocks. The rest of the great warlord’s retinue cringed away from their enraged overlord, chittering anxiously to one another, sometimes trying to push a despised rival just a little closer to Vrrmik and his hammer.
Vrrmik licked the blood of his slaughtered minion from his muzzle and glared down at the shifting battlefield. The Howling Hills had taken on a hellish appearance, smoking as though a lava flow were running through its ravines. More and more of the burning missiles were hurtling down into the stone sea, pelting the ratkin in the ravines with flaming debris and filling the crevices with smoke. Many of the weak-livered vermin were in full rout, scampering away through the ravines, hurrying back to the tunnels that would lead them back into the underworld.
As infuriating as that was, Vrrmik found the actions of his bolder warlords and chieftains still more aggravating. Perhaps more aware of what was happening than the routed ratkin, these chiefs were leading their warriors down the slopes to attack the humans on the plain below. Vrrmik could easily imagine the moronic thirst for glory and favour that motivated these weak-minded dolts. They thought they could jockey for better position by ending the barrage and recovering the situation for the great warlord. What they were actually doing was leaving the safety of their cover and scurrying straight into the murderous archery of the man-things below! That nine of every ten of these suicidal mobs carried the banner of Clan Mors or one of its thrall clans only added to Vrrmik’s fury.
Two of the swarms actually reached the plain with some strength left in them. From the height of the hilltop, Vrrmik could see that their success had only brokered them a different kind of death. The human archers fell back as the skaven came leaping down from the rocks, drawing aside and allowing the waiting cavalry to come charging in. The resultant massacre was like watching a troll wrestle a goblin.
Vrrmik gnashed his fangs. His carefully conceived plan was coming apart all around him. The strength of Clan Mors was bleeding away between his fingers, threatening his position as He Who is Twelfth and his authority as Supreme Warlord of all Skavendom!
Drastic measures were called for if he were to snatch survival from the fangs of destruction!
Imperiously, Vrrmik pointed the dripping head of Skavenbite at Puskab Foulfur and his plague monks. ‘Poxmaster!’ the white skaven snarled. ‘You will attack now! Kill-slay all man-things! No worry-fear. Great Vrrmik will follow you into battle!’
Suppressing a shudder, the plague priest snapped commands to his followers and the green-garbed monks began scurrying down the slope towards Man-dread’s warriors. Vrrmik let them gain a good lead before ordering his own stormvermin to advance.
It wouldn’t do to follow too closely. There was just a chance that Puskab might have his own ideas about exploiting the confusion of battle to remove an ally he no longer found beneficial.
The successive waves of skaven crashing against Mandred’s troops finally began to falter. The vermin on the flanks and at the rear of the human wedge broke away, slinking back into the rocks. Von Boeckenfoerde’s barrage had driven off their reserves and depleted the press of fresh ratkin rushing to bolster the assault. Without the hordes of ratmen at their back, the attackers finally lost heart, their ferocity collapsing into fright. First by ones and twos, then by the score, they turned tail and fled.
It was a near thing. The human battle-line had been savaged, most of the men in the outer ring sporting at least one wound. The bodies of many comrades lay strewn in the wake of Mandred’s advance, littering the slope below. The tightness of the contracted formation told Mandred better than words how severe the casualties had been. Perhaps as much as a fifth of his force lay dead among the rocks. The strength of those who remained was starting to ebb.
Yet there was still much killing to be done. Seeing the skaven on the flanks and to the rear falter, Vrrmik pressed home the attack at the fore, throwing armoured, black-furred monsters at the humans. The brutal killers hacked away at Mandred’s troops, pushing them back, forcing them in upon the lightly armed peasant troops at the core of the formation. Wielding Ghal Maraz, Mandred found himself becoming separated from the line, the warhammer’s magic enabling him to prevail where the swords of his comrades faltered.
Only Arch-Lector Hartwich remained at Mandred’s side. The two men guarded each other’s back, Legbiter and Ghal Maraz taking a butcher’s toll from the ratkin. The havoc wrought by the magic weapons became too much even for the black-furred monsters. They began to cringe back, whining and refusing to listen to the threats of their chieftains.
Finally, the stormvermin broke away entirely, falling back and leaving a gap between their ranks and the ground Mandred and Hartwich defended. Before the two leaders could start to withdraw back towards their own troops, the black wall of stormvermin parted, opening a path for the ghoulish creatures that came charging to the attack.
Mandred recognised the diseased stink of these creatures as much as their decayed green robes. Plague monks, the pestilential progenitors of death and disease that had wrought such havoc among the great cities of the Empire, the foul monsters that had decimated Carroburg and enslaved its populace. The plague monks rushed forwards with rabid ferocity, wielding wooden staves and rusty swords in a frenzied assault. Behind the robed monsters, Mandred saw a creature he recognised from the reports of the Teutogen Guard, the antlered plague priest that had killed Ar-Ulric.
Roaring with the fury of the vengeance that burned in his heart, Mandred brought Ghal Maraz whipping around, pulverising the first clutch of plague monks as they leapt towards him. Their pulped bodies were hurled throug
h the air, crashing down among their comrades, tripping them up as they charged forwards.
‘Now is our chance!’ Hartwich urged Mandred, tugging at his shoulder, trying to pull him back towards their own troops.
The graf shrugged the priest off. Grimly, he stalked forwards and brought the blazing hammer swinging around again. Roaring in rage, he crushed the skull of one plague monk and collapsed the chest of a second. Oblivious to the fate of their kin, the rest of the diseased monsters continued their attack, a grisly green light blazing in their putrid eyes.
Mandred staggered back at the force of the attack, pressed back by the intensity of the plague monks. He could see the horned priest behind them, its talon raised in a scabrous benediction, each claw glowing with the same baleful light that burned in the eyes of its disciples. Witchcraft! Some abominable sorcery driving the other plague monks to suicidal fury. Mandred howled at the monstrous injustice. To come so close only to be cheated by such perfidious magic.
The howl seemed to echo among the rocks, answered by a still more savage cry. The ranks of stormvermin lifted their heads, sniffing at the air and chittering nervously. The plague priest turned its head, a tinge of fright playing about its eyes. Leaping out from among the rocks, hurtling above the heads of the massed ratkin, was a creature more bestial than them. A great white wolf, an animal Mandred had seen many times before, a beast he knew only too well.
The wolf landed among the plague monks, ripping at them right and left with its snapping jaws. The fright in the eyes of the plague priest grew into outright terror as it beheld the beast that had bitten its tail off. The glowing claws of its outstretched hand blazed with even greater intensity. The ensorcelled plague monks desisted in their attack on Mandred, turning instead to attack the wolf. One of their cudgels smashed against the animal’s head, driving it low.
Before the monsters could fall upon the stunned wolf, Mandred was among them. Ghal Maraz crushed them like insects, spattering the hillside with the filth of their bodies. Legbiter clove through the verminous brutes that slipped away from Mandred’s assault as Hartwich rushed forwards to support the nobleman’s advance, refusing to abandon the graf.
‘Guard her,’ Mandred snarled at Hartwich as Ghal Maraz sent the carcass of the last plague monk spinning through the air. He waited only to see the Sigmarite nod before he turned towards the horned plague priest.
The glow had faded from the creature’s claws. It glared malignantly at Mandred, snapping at the stormvermin around it, ordering the armoured skaven to attack and defend it from the human. The other ratkin weren’t so eager to rush within reach of Ghal Maraz after seeing it in action.
Snarling in its wrath, the plague priest spun around. Its jaws opened wide, vomiting forth a stream of corrosive vileness such as it had used against Ar-Ulric. This time the ratman loosed its magic against its own kind, burning down a dozen stormvermin and sending scores of others scampering off in terror.
Mandred was confused by this treacherous, fratricidal attack until he saw the hulking white-furred ratman standing amid the steaming carcasses of its murdered warriors. He recognised the skaven warlord whose ear he’d clipped in Averheim, recognised too the stolen Drakdrazh clutched in its paws. Some fell magic had preserved Vrrmik from the plague priest’s magic, merely disorienting the monster where those around it had been killed. The horned priest was presenting Mandred with a choice: attack it and sate his vengeance or attack Vrrmik and win his battle.
The choice was a bitter one, but Mandred knew which path he must take. As he charged across the corroded bodies of the stormvermin, he could hear the plague priest chitter in amusement. It was no stretch of imagination to picture the fiend skittering away.
Great Warlord Vrrmik reeled as his world was suddenly enveloped in steaming, searing pain. The anguished squeaks of his own bodyguards filled his ears, the stink of their melting flesh filled his nose. He tried to blink away the gibbous green blaze of Puskab’s magic.
Traitor-meat! No fawning excuse or flattering lie would save the Poxmaster now! Vrrmik knew the scent of the worm-eater’s sorcery. He’d feed the maggot his own spleen, make him eat his own paws one by one before he allowed the mouse-livered scum to die! No hole in the Under-Empire would be deep enough, no burrow in all skavendom remote enough to hide Puskab from his wrath! He’d…
As vision returned to Vrrmik’s eyes, he forgot about vengeance against Puskab. Charging through the parted ranks of his stormvermin, trampling the steaming corpses of his slain warriors, was Man-dread, an enormous warhammer clenched in his hands!
Vrrmik leapt back, narrowly avoiding the downward sweep of Man-dread’s hammer. Baring his fangs, growling his fury, he swung out with Skavenbite, investing his attack with all the outrage and wrath Puskab’s betrayal had sent coursing through his heart.
Man-dread blocked the downward sweep of Skavenbite, locking the haft of his own hammer against that of Vrrmik’s before the brutal enchantment locked inside the warlord’s weapon could shatter every bone in his body. They stood there a moment, man and skaven, each struggling to push the other back. Vrrmik’s raw, brutal strength began to tell, his warpstone-enhanced musculature overwhelming the brawn of his human foe. The ratman squeaked in delight, not even bothering to call in his warriors to assist him.
When Man-dread suddenly rolled away from Vrrmik, the overlord’s hammer came smashing down, pulverising the stones and sending little slivers of rock scything into the air. The skaven reared back, springing back to the attack with the inhuman swiftness of his verminous breed.
Man-dread’s hammer was already swinging towards him. Skavenbite’s destructive magic, dragon-slaying runes engraved upon it by dwarf runesmiths in ages past and further magnified by bands of pure warpstone, collided with the enchantment of Ghal Maraz’s glowing head.
Vrrmik was thrown through the air as Skavenbite shattered against Ghal Maraz. Fragments of the broken hammer slashed through the ratman’s flesh and fur, digging deep furrows in his body as they pierced his warpstone armour. Tattered, bleeding and broken, the Great Warlord of Clan Mors, the Warmonger of Skavenblight, the Supreme Warlord of all Skavendom, lay sprawled among the rocks. He struggled to lift himself, to crawl away, but severed nerves and torn muscles refused to obey him. He could only gnash his fangs when he saw Man-dread standing above him. As he watched the human lift Ghal Maraz overhead, Vrrmik hissed only a single word, a curse he wished upon the head of the ratkin who had brought him to such an end.
‘Treason!’ Vrrmik snarled in the instant before Ghal Maraz came crashing down.
Mandred turned away from the twitching carcass of Great Warlord Vrrmik, casting his smouldering gaze across the ranks of skaven warriors who had just watched him reduce the head of their leader into a bloody smear. One step towards them was enough. Squeaking in terror, the ratkin fled, scurrying back into the ravines and crevices.
Slowly, Mandred made his way back to Hartwich. He noted with some confusion that the priest no longer wore his vestment over his armour. Instead the arch-lector’s robe was thrown about the body he knelt beside.
The Sigmarite was visibly pale as he met Mandred’s questioning gaze. Hartwich didn’t speak, he simply nodded.
‘No one must know,’ Mandred said. ‘Whatever she is, she has served all men, all gods this day.’
‘You cannot keep this secret,’ Hartwich said.
‘Together we can try,’ Mandred told him. He stared down the slope, watching as his troops drove off the last skaven assaulting their line. ‘Take her down the hill. Hide her in the camp. Whatever it takes, whatever power Sigmar has given you, don’t let her die. I’ll see you after I have thanked my soldiers for this victory.’
Hartwich nodded again. He watched as Mandred strode down to join his troops, and then the priest took up the body lying wrapped in his robe, the body he had watched change from the white wolf into the form of Hulda the witch. As he held her close, h
e knew it would be simplicity itself to let her die. Mandred would never question him, he trusted the Sigmarite too much to doubt him.
It was because of that trust that Hartwich carried Hulda down the hill to where he could tend her wounds.
The ways of the gods, Hartwich realised, weren’t always as simple as men or even priests would like them to be.
As he descended towards the camp, Hartwich could hear the troops cheering Mandred. They hailed him as ‘Skavenslayer’, liberator of the Empire. The first title he had already earned, but Hartwich knew there were things still to be done before the Empire could be truly declared liberated.
Skavenblight, 1124
A ragged pack of ratkin slunk through the streets of Skavenblight, keeping to the least frequented alleys and passages. At every turn, they were met with furtive chitters and subdued snarls. From every crack and crevice, beady eyes watched them with hateful scrutiny. Sickly scavengers scurried away at their approach, running with such indecent haste that they cast aside their miserable pickings, leaving the gutters strewn with old bones and scraps of soiled ratskin.
Puskab Foulfur scratched at the boils clustered about his antlered scalp. He hadn’t dared to hope his small retinue could creep back into Skavenblight ahead of the calamitous news. Defeat in the Howling Hills, the ruination of all the skaven had achieved in the past thirty-nine birth cycles. It was all that pompous braggart Vrrmik’s fault, of course. A flea-licking goon with pretensions of grandeur, imagining himself to be Vecteek’s successor! The Man-dread should have made the mouse-livered trash suffer for such delusions! As though Vrrmik were even a patch on Vecteek’s despotic pelt! The Supreme Tyrant of Rictus should never have allowed the armies of skavendom to be dealt such a resounding defeat!