The End Times | The Rise of the Horned Rat

ONE Kingsmeet

The kingsmeet was over, and Belegar was glad. Soon he could go home.

The dwarf kings met in Karaz-a-Karak, Everpeak, home of the dwarf High King. Everpeak was the last place in the world where the ancient glory of the dwarfs shone undimmed. No matter that only half its halls were occupied, or that the works of its forges could never recapture the skill of the ancestors. The place teemed with dwarfs in such multitudes that one could be forgiven for thinking that they were still a numerous people.

Being there made Belegar miserable. In the distant past his own realm had been Karaz-a-Karak’s rival in riches and size. His inability to return it to glory filled him with shame.

He sat in an antechamber awaiting the High King, nursing a jewelled goblet of fine ale. He had been born and raised in Karaz-a-Karak, but half a century of dwelling in the dangerous ruins of Vala-Azrilungol had blunted his memory of its riches. The opulence on display was astounding – more value in gold and artefacts in this one, small waiting room than were in his own throne room. He felt decidedly shabby, as he had done all the way through the kingsmeet. Two months hard travelling and fighting to get here. He had to sneak out of his own hold, and he would have to sneak back in. Now here he was, kept behind like a naughty beardling after all the other kings had been sent to feast. Nothing Thorgrim would have to say to him would be good. The two of them had ceased to see eye to eye some time ago. Belegar steeled himself for another long rant about failed obligations and unpaid debt.

He rolled his eyes. What had he been thinking, telling the others he occupied a third of Karak Eight Peaks? From a strictly technical point of view, it could be deemed truthful. He had opened up mines, captured a good part of the upper deeps, and held a strong corridor between the surface city and the East Gate. But in reality his holdings were far less. The East Gate itself, the citadel, the mountain halls of Kvinn-wyr. Everything else had to be visited in strength. And he had promised military aid. With what?

Not for the first time, he cursed his pride.

The doors to the far end of the chamber opened wide. A dwarf in the livery of Thorgrim’s personal household bowed low, sweeping his hood from his head.

‘Majesty, the King of Kings is ready for you.’

Belegar slid from the rich coverings of the bench. A second servant appeared from nowhere, a fresh mug of ale on his silver tray. Belegar downed his first, until that moment untouched, and took the second.

‘This way,’ said the first dwarf, holding out his hand.

Belegar was shown into a chamber he knew only too well. One of Thorgrim’s private rooms high in the palace, it was large and impressive, and consequently used by the High King when he was going to dress down others of royal blood. It had grand views of the approach to Karaz-a-Karak, seven hundred feet below. Summer sunlight streamed in through the tall windows. A fire of logs burned in the huge hearth. A clock ticked on the wall.

‘Belegar,’ said Thorgrim levelly. The king wore his armour and his crown. Belegar tried to think of a time he had seen him without it, and failed. The latest volume of the Great Book of Grudges sat open on a lectern. A bleeding-knife and a quill rested in specially cut spaces by it. ‘Please, take a seat.’

Thorgrim gestured to one of a number of smartly dressed servants. They disappeared, returning moments later with a tall jug of beer and a platter piled high with roast meats.

Belegar sat down opposite the High King with resignation.

‘I do not mean to keep you from the feast. Please, help yourself, sharpen your appetite for when you join the others,’ he said.

Belegar did as asked. The kingsmeet had been long, and he was hungry. Both food and ale were delicious.

‘We’ll wait a moment before we get started,’ said Thorgrim. ‘There’s another I wish to speak with.’

The door opened again then. Belegar turned in his seat, his eyebrows rising in surprise at the sight of Ungrim Ironfist. The Slayer King strode in and took up a seat. He nodded at Belegar as he sat. His face was stony. Ungrim always had been angry. Belegar had no idea how he managed to survive caught between two oaths so contradictory. And he had just lost his son. Belegar felt a stab of sympathy for Ungrim. The safety of his own boy was never far from his thoughts.

Thorgrim pressed his hands on the desk before speaking, formulating his words with care. ‘All this business with the elgi and the walking dead has got me unsettled,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Things are happening of great portent, things that speak to me that…’ He shook his head. He looked even more tired than he had in the meeting. ‘We discussed all that. I am grateful for your support.’

‘Of course, my king,’ said Belegar.

‘Why wouldn’t I want to march out and destroy our enemies? You’ve heard all I have to say on this matter,’ said Ungrim.

‘I have,’ agreed Thorgrim. ‘Summoning the throngs will not be easy. You have heard Kazador and Thorek’s objections. They are not alone. The argument between attack and defence is one I have had all my life, and I fear it is too late to win it.’ Thorgrim paused. ‘I have asked you both here as you are, in your own ways, special cases. Ungrim,’ he said to the Slayer King, ‘to you I urge a little caution. Do not throw away your throng in the quest for vengeance for your son’s death, or in order to fulfil your Slayer’s oath.

Ungrim’s face creased with anger. ‘Thorgrim–’

Thorgrim held up his hand. ‘That is all I will say on the matter. I do not criticise you, it is a plea for aid. We will need you before the end. Should you fall marching out to bring war upon our enemies, the others will follow Kazador’s advice and lock themselves away. That way, we shall all fall one by one. By all means fight, old friend. But use a little caution. Without you, my case is weakened.’

Ungrim nodded curtly. ‘Aye.’

‘And you, Belegar,’ said Thorgrim. His face hardened a little, but not so much as Belegar might rightfully have expected. ‘Long have you struggled to keep your oaths. Loans have gone unpaid, warriors have been unforthcoming, and your hold swallows dawi lives and dawi gold as if it were a bottomless pit without any noticeable gain.’ Thorgrim stared hard at him. ‘But you are a great warrior, and the proudest of all the kings here. You and I have our differences to be sure, but of all the others, I think our hearts are most similar. Of them all, only you have set out to reconquer what was once ours. I respect you for that far more than you realise. So what I am going to ask of you will cut hard and deep. Nevertheless, it must be asked.’

‘My king?’ said Belegar.

Thorgrim sighed. ‘Against all my own oaths and desires, and against yours, I must ask you to consider abandoning Karak Eight Peaks. Take your warriors to Karak Azul. Aid Kazador. If you do, I will consider all your debts repaid.’

It was a generous offer, and sensible advice. Karak Eight Peaks was weak, besieged, a drain on the other holds.

Belegar did not see it that way. All his misery at his plight flashed at once into anger. When he stood, which he did quickly, his words were spoken in haste and fuelled by more than a little shame at his failure to secure all of Vala-Azrilungol.

When he had finally stopped shouting and stormed out of the room, his path was set. That very day, he left Karaz-a-Karak for the final time. He brooded on the High King’s words all the way to Karak Eight Peaks.

They would haunt him to his grave.

TWO Lord Gnawdwell

In the underbelly of the mortal world, a flurry of activity was set in motion. Rarely had the ancient Lords of Decay moved so quickly. A febrile energy gripped Skavenblight. Messengers scurried from place to place, carrying missives that were, in the main, far from truthful. Conspirators struggled in vain to find a quiet spot to talk that was not already full of plotters. Assassinations were up, and a good killer became hard to find.

The doings of the Council were supposed to be of the utmost secrecy, but on all lips, squeak-talked on every corner, were tidings of the death of Kritislik, and of who would inherit the vacant seat on the Council of Thirteen.

Into this stewing pit of intrigue Warlord Queek, the Headtaker, came, thronged by red-armoured guards. Through the underway, into the seeping bowels of Skavenblight, he marched to see his master, Lord Gnawdwell.

Queek avoided the streets, coming to Gnawdwell’s burrows without once having a whisker stirred by Skavenblight’s dank mists. This suited Queek, who was no lover of the surface world or the crowded lanes of the capital.

Gnawdwell’s palace was a tall tower rising over multiple layers of cellars and burrows at the heart of the Clan Mors quarter of the city. That he had summoned Queek to the underground portion of his estates was a subtle reminder of power, an accommodation to Queek. Gnawdwell was saying he knew Queek was more at home under the earth than on it. Gnawdwell was highlighting weakness.

Queek knew this. Queek was no fool.

Queek and his guards took many twisting lanes from the main underways to reach the underpalace. Great doors of wutroth barred the way to Gnawdwell’s domain. At either side were two times thirteen black stormvermin. Their champions crossed their halberds over the door. Not the usual rabble, these. They were bigger than and outnumbered Queek’s Red Guard.

Queek’s nose twitched. There was no scent of fear from the guards. Nothing – not even in the presence of mighty Queek! Was he not the finest warrior the skaven had ever pupped? Was his murderous temper not the stuff of nightmare? But they did not fidget. They stood still in perfect imitation of statues, glinting black eyes staring at the warlord without dismay.

‘State-squeak business and rank-name,’ one said.

Queek paced back and forth. ‘How stupid-meat not know Queek! Warlord of Clan Mors, Lord of the City of Pillars?’ His trophies rattled upon the rack he wore on his back, a structure of wood akin to half a wheel, every spoke topped by a grisly memento mori. His forepaws twitched over the hilts of his weapons, a serrated sword and the infamous war-pick Dwarf Gouger.

‘We know you, Queek,’ responded the guard, unmoved. ‘But all must state-squeak name and business. Is Lord Gnawdwell’s orders. As Lord Gnawdwell commands, so we obey.’

‘Stupid-meat!’ spat Queek. A quiver of irritation troubled his fur. ‘Very well. I Queek,’ he said with sing-song sarcasm. ‘Let me in!’

The corridor was so quiet Queek could hear water dripping, the constant seepage of the marshwaters above the undercity into the tunnels. Machines churned night and day to keep them dry. Their thunder reverberated throughout the labyrinth and the streets above, and their heat made the tunnels uncomfortable. They were Skavenblight’s beating heart.

‘Good-good,’ said the guard. ‘Great Warlord Queek, mightiest warrior in all the Under-Empire, slaughterer of–’

‘Yes-yes!’ squeaked Queek, who had no time for platitudes. ‘In! In! Let me in!’

The guard appeared slightly deflated. He cleared his throat, and began again. ‘Queek may enter. No one else.’

Chains rattled and the doors cracked with a long creak, revealing a gang of panting slaves pushing upon a windlass. Queek darted towards the gap as soon as it was wide enough.

The guard champions crossed their halberds to block the way.

‘No, Queek. Queek leave trophy rack at door-entry. No one is more glorious than great Lord Gnawdwell. No insult. Be humble. Arrogance in the face of his brilliance is not to be tolerated.’

Queek bared his incisors at the guards aggressively, but they did not react. He wished greatly to release his pent up aggression on them. Spitting, he undid the fastenings and handed his trophies over to the stormvermin. He growled to hide his own disquiet. He would miss the counsel of the dead things when he spoke to Lord Gnawdwell. Did Gnawdwell know? Stupid Queek, he thought. Gnawdwell know everything.

The guards also demanded his weapons, and this made Queek snarl all the more. Once divested of them, Queek was allowed entrance to the first hall of Gnawdwell’s burrow. A fat and sleek-furred major-domo with a weak mouse face came to receive Queek. He bowed and scraped pathetically, exposing his neck submissively. The scent of fear was strong around him.

‘Greetings, O most violent and magnificent Queek! Red-clawed and deadly, warrior-killer, best of all Clan Mors. O mighty–’

‘Yes-yes,’ squeaked Queek. ‘Very good. I best. All know. Why-why squeak-whine about it all day? You new or you know this,’ said Queek. ‘Guards new too.’ He looked the little skaven up and down contemptuously. ‘You fat.’

‘Yes, Lord Queek. Lord Gnawdwell gain many scavenge rights in Tilea-place and Estalia-place. War is good.’

Queek bared his teeth in a hideous smile. He rushed forwards, a blur in scarlet armour, taking the majordomo by surprise. He grabbed the front of the slow-thing’s robes in his paws and jerked him forwards. ‘Yes-yes, mouse-face. War good, but what mouse-face know of war? Mouse-face stupid-meat!’

The musk of fear enveloped them both. Queek drooled at the smell of it.

‘Mouse-face fear Queek. Mouse-face right about that, at least.’

The fat skaven raised a hand and pointed. ‘Th-this way, O greatest and most marvellous–’

‘Queek know way,’ said Queek haughtily, shoving the other to the floor. ‘Queek been here many times. Stupid mouse-face.’

Many years had passed since Queek was last in Skavenblight, but scent and memory took him to Gnawdwell’s private burrow quickly. There were no other skaven about. So much space! Nowhere else in all of Skavenblight would you be further from another skaven. Queek sniffed: fine food and well-fed slaves, fresh air pumping from somewhere. Gnawdwell’s palace disgusted him with its luxury.

Queek waited a long time before he realised no servant was coming and that he would have to open Gnawdwell’s door himself. He found the Lord of Decay in the chamber on the other side.

Books. That was the first thing he saw every time. Lots and lots of stupid books. Books everywhere, and paper, all piled high on finely made man-thing and dwarf-thing furniture. Queek saw no use for such things. Why have books? Why have tables? If Queek wanted to know something, someone told him. If he wanted to put something down, he dropped it on the floor. Not bothering about such things left more time for Queek to fight. A big table occupied a large part of the room. On it was a map quill-scratched onto a piece of vellum, made from a single rat ogre skin, and covered in models of wood and metal. Poring over this, an open book in one brawny paw, was Lord Gnawdwell.

There was nothing to betray Gnawdwell’s vast age. He was physically imposing, strongly muscled and barrel-chested. He might have lived like a seer, surrounded by his stolen knowledge. He might be dressed in robes of the finest-quality cloth scavenged from the world above, fitted to his form by expert slave-tailors in the warrens of Skavenblight. But he still moved like a warrior.

Gnawdwell put down the book he was holding and gestured at Queek to come closer. ‘Ah, Queek,’ said Gnawdwell, as if the warlord’s arrival were a pleasant surprise. ‘Come, let me see-examine you. It is a long time since I have seen-smelt Clan Mors’s favoured general.’ He beckoned with hands whose quickness belied their age. Gnawdwell was immeasurably ancient to Queek’s mind. He had a slight grizzling of grey upon his black fur, the sign of a skaven past his youth. The same had recently begun to mark Queek. They could have been littermates, but Gnawdwell was twenty times Queek’s age.

‘Yes-yes, my lord. Queek come quick.’

Queek walked across the room. He was fast, his body moving with a rodentine fluidity that carried him from one place to the other without him seeming to truly occupy the space in between, as if he were a liquid poured around it. Gnawdwell smiled at Queek’s grace, his red eyes bright with hard humour.

Awkwardly, hesitantly, Queek exposed his throat to the ancient rat lord. Submission did not come easily to him, and he hated himself for doing it, but to Gnawdwell he owed his absolute, fanatical loyalty. He could have killed Gnawdwell, despite the other’s great strength and experience. He was confident enough to believe that. Part of him wanted to, very much. What stories the old lord might tell him, mounted on Queek’s trophy rack, adding his whispers to the other dead-things who advised him.

But he did not. Something stopped him from trying. A caution that told Queek he might be wrong, and that Gnawdwell would slaughter him as easily as he would a man-thing whelp.

‘Mighty-mighty Gnawdwell!’ squeaked Queek.

Gnawdwell laughed. They were both large for skaven, Gnawdwell somewhat bigger than Queek. Ska Bloodtail was the only skaven that Queek had met who was larger.

Both Queek and Gnawdwell were black-furred. Both were of the same stock ultimately, drawn from the Clan Mors breeder-line, but they were as unalike as alike. Where Queek was fast and jittery, Gnawdwell was slow and contemplative. If Queek were rain dancing on water, Gnawdwell was the lake.

‘Always to the point, always so quick and impatient,’ said Gnawdwell. Old skaven stank of urine, loose glands, dry skin, and, if they were rich enough, oil, brass, warpstone, paper and soft straw. That is not what Lord Gnawdwell smelt of. Lord Gnawdwell smelt vital. Lord Gnawdwell smelt of power.

‘I, Gnawdwell, have summoned you. You, Queek, have obeyed. You are still a loyal skaven of Clan Mors?’ Gnawdwell’s words were deeply pitched, unusually so for a skaven.

‘Yes-yes!’ said Queek.

‘Yes-yes, Queek says, but does he mean it?’ Gnawdwell tilted his head. He grabbed Queek’s muzzle and moved Queek’s head from side to side. Queek trembled with anger, not at Gnawdwell’s touch, but at the meekness with which he accepted it.

‘I have lived a long time. A very long time. Did you know, Queek, that I am over two hundred years old? That is ancient by the terms of our fast-live, die-quick race, yes-yes? Already, Queek, you age. I see white fur coming in black fur. Here, on your muzzle.’ Gnawdwell patted Queek with a sharp-clawed hand-paw. ‘You are… how old now? Nine summers? Ten? Do you feel the slowness creep into your limbs, the ache in your joints? It will only get worse. You are fast now, but I wonder, do you already slow? You will get slower. Your whiskers will droop, your eyes will dim. Your smell will weaken and your glands slacken. The great Queek!’ Gnawdwell threw up a hand-paw, as if to evoke Queek’s glory in the air. ‘So big and so strong now, but for how much longer?’ Gnawdwell shrugged. ‘Two years or four? Who knows? Who do you think cares? Hmm? Let me tell you, Queek. No one will care.’ Gnawdwell went to his cluttered table and picked up a haunch of meat from a platter. He bit into it, chewed slowly, and swallowed before speaking again. ‘Tell me, Queek, do you remember Sleek Sharpwit? My servant I sent to you to aid in the taking of Karak Azul?’

The question surprised Queek; that had been a long time ago. ‘Old-thing?’

Gnawdwell gave him a long, uncomfortable look. ‘Is that what you called him? Yes then, Old-thing. He was a great warlord in his day, Queek.’

‘Old-thing tell Queek many, many times.’

‘Did you believe him?’ said Gnawdwell.

Queek did not reply. Old-thing’s head had kept on telling Queek how great he had been since Queek had killed him and mounted him on the rack. Skaven lie.

‘He was not lying,’ said Gnawdwell, as if he could read Queek’s thoughts. A shiver of disquiet rippled Queek’s fur under his armour. ‘When Queek is old, Queek’s enemies will laugh at him too because Queek will be too weak to kill them. They will mock and disbelieve, because the memories of skaven are short. They will call you Old-thing. I, Lord Gnawdwell, have seen it many times before. Great warlord, master of steel, undefeated in battle, so arrogant, so sure, brought low by creeping time. Slower, sicker, until he is too old to fight, devoured by his slaves, or slain by the young.’

Gnawdwell smiled a smile of unblemished ivory teeth. ‘I am much older than Sleek was. Why am I so old yet I do not die? Why you do think-wonder? Do you know, Queek?’

‘Everyone know,’ Queek said quietly. He looked at the small cylinder strapped to Gnawdwell’s back. Bronze tubes snaked discreetly over his left shoulder and buried themselves in Gnawdwell’s neck. A number of glass windows in the tube allowed observation of a gluey white liquid within, dripping into Gnawdwell’s veins.

‘Yes!’ Gnawdwell nodded. ‘The life elixir, the prolonger of being. Each drop the essence of one thousand slaves, distilled in the forge-furnaces of Clan Skryre at ridiculous cost. It is this that allows me to live now, to stay strong. That and the favour of the Horned Rat. For many generations I have been strong and fit. Perhaps you would like to be the same, Queek? Perhaps you would like to live longer and be young forever, so that you might kill-kill more?’

Queek’s eyes strayed again to the cylinder.

Gnawdwell chuckled with triumph. ‘I smell-sense a yes! And why would you not? Listen then, Queek. Serve me well now, and you may win the chance to serve me well for hundreds of years.’

‘What must I do, great one?’

Gnawdwell gestured at the map. ‘The Great Uprising goes on. Tilea is destroyed!’ He swept aside a collection of model towns carved from wood. ‘Estalia followed, then Bretonnia.’ He nodded in approval. ‘All man-lands, all dead. All ready to accept their new masters.’ Many other castles, fleets and cities clattered onto the floor.

‘Queek know this.’

‘Of course Queek knows,’ scoffed Gnawdwell. ‘But mighty though Queek is, Queek does not know everything. So Queek will shut up and Queek will listen,’ he said with avuncular menace. ‘The Great Uprising has been many generations in the planning, and soon the war will at last be over. Clan Pestilens fights to the south, in the jungles of the slann. But the Council is full of fools. All fight at first sign of success. They do not listen to I, Gnawdwell of Clan Mors, even though I make claim to being the wisest.’

‘Yes-yes!’ agreed Queek. ‘Wiser than the wisest.’

‘Do you think so?’ Gnawdwell said. ‘Listen more carefully, Queek. I make claim to be wise, I said. But I am not so foolish as to believe it. As soon as one completely believes in his ability, Queek, then he is dead.’ He scrutinised the warlord. ‘Over-confidence is ever the downfall of our kind. Even the wise may overreach themselves. This was Sleek’s greatest error. His self-belief.’

‘Lord Gnawdwell believes in himself,’ said Queek.

‘I am one of the Thirteen Lords of Decay, Queek. I am entitled to believe in myself.’ He spread his paw fingers and looked at his well-tended claws. ‘But I always leave a little room for doubt. Think on the current status of Clan Scruten. The grey seers never doubted themselves. Then the Great Horned One himself came and devoured the fool-squeaker Kritislik.’ He tittered, a surprising noise from one so burly. ‘It was quite the sight, Queek. Amusing, too. Now no white-furs are meddling in our affairs. They are gone from the Council with their sticky, interfering paws. The Lords are united. For a short while there is an empty seat on the Council, free for the first time in ages. It will not be empty for very long. I intend to put one of our clan allies in that seat.’

‘How-how?’ said Queek. He struggled to concentrate on all this. He understood all right, but he found intrigue tedious compared to the simple joys of warfare.

‘Why do you think you are here, most noted of all skaven generals? Even Paskrit the Vast is an amateur by comparison. Through war, Queek! War on the dwarf-things. We have let them live for too long. They died twenty thousand generations ago, but are too stubborn to admit it. Now is the time to inform them of their demise. We will kill them all. See-look! Learn-fear how deadly skaven are when united!’ he squeaked excitedly, his careful mode of speech deserting him momentarily.

‘Here.’ Lord Gnawdwell pointed at a set of models, these made from iron, sitting on the map. ‘Clan Rictus and Clan Skryre have deal-pledged, and attack together the holdfast of Karak Azul.’ He gave Queek a penetrating look. ‘I think they will be more successful than you. You remember-recall Azul-place, yes, Queek?’

‘Queek remembers.’

‘Here, Clan Kreepus attacks Kadrin-place. They have raised many-many warptokens in trading man-thing food-slaves. So now Clan Moulder brings much strength to their paws. Many beasts, great and horrible. There, at Zhufbar-place, the dwarf-things have Clan Ferrik to fight.’ Gnawdwell’s long muzzle twitched dismissively. ‘Weak they are, but many rabble clans flock to them, so their numbers are great. Enough to occupy them, if not prevail. Finally, at Barak Varr sea-place, Clan Krepid joined with Clan Skurvy.’

Queek’s eyes widened, his expression settling into an appreciative smile. ‘All dwarf-things die at same time. They not reinforce each other. They not come-hurry to each other’s aid. They all die, all alone.’

‘Very good. Tell me, what do you think? Is this good, Queek? Is this bad?’

Queek shuddered. This was so boring! Queek would gladly go to war! Why did Gnawdwell tell him these pointless things? Why? But Queek had wisdom, Queek was canny. Gnawdwell was one of the few living beings he feared to anger, and Gnawdwell would be angry at his thoughts. So he kept his words back. Only his swishing tail gave away his impatience. ‘Good-good that we attack everywhere at once. Then all the beard-things sure to die. Bad that Queek not get all the glory. Queek want to kill all the fur-face king-things himself! Queek the best. It not right that other, lesser skaven take trophies that rightfully belong to Queek!’

‘You have half the answer, Queek.’

Half? thought Queek. There was no component to his thinking other than Queek.

Gnawdwell sucked his teeth in disappointment. ‘It is not only you who matters, but our clan, Queek! Clan Rictus wants to discredit us, yes-yes! Take our glory, take our new seat from our allies. And Clan Skryre and Clan Moulder and Clan Rictus, and all the rest. It was Clan Mors that brought the dwarf-things down first. This is our war to finish!’ Gnawdwell slammed his paw onto the table, making his models jump. He gestured at various positions on the map. ‘This will not happen. I have taken precautions to ensure our glory. And many of our loyal troops wait with the others. To help, you understand.’

Queek didn’t see. Queek didn’t really care. Queek nodded anyway. ‘Yes-yes, of course.’ When could he go? The skin of his legs crawled with irritation.

‘They wear the colours of our comrade-friend clans. We do not wish them to be confused, to think, “Why Clan Mors here, when they should not be?”’ Gnawdwell mimicked the piping voice of a lesser skaven.

‘No. No! That would be most bad.’

Gnawdwell glanced at Queek’s thrashing tail. He bared his teeth in a skaven smile.

‘You are bored, yes-no? You want to be away, my Queek. You never change.’ Gnawdwell walked back to his general and stroked Queek’s fur. Queek hissed, but leaned into his master’s caress. His eyes shut. ‘You wish to kill, hurry-scurry! Stab-stab!’

Queek nodded, a sharp, involuntary movement. Calmness of a type he felt nowhere else came upon him as his master groomed his sleek black fur. The needles of impatience jabbing at his flesh prickled less.

‘And you shall!’

Queek’s eyes snapped open. He jerked his head back.

‘Queek is the best! Queek wish to kill green-things and beard-things! Queek wish to drink their blood and rip their flesh!’ He gnashed his incisors. ‘Queek do this for Gnawdwell. This is what Gnawdwell wants, yes-yes?’

Gnawdwell turned back to the map. ‘You disappoint me, Queek. To be a Lord of Decay is not to stab and kill and smash all things aside. You lack circumspection. You are a killer, nothing more.’ Gnawdwell’s lips peeled back in disappointment. He stared at his protege a long time, far too long for Queek’s thrumming nerves to stand. ‘You were so magnificent when I found you, the biggest in your litter, and they were all large before you ate them. I raised you, I fed you the best dwarf-meat and man-flesh. And you have become even more magnificent. Such courage. There is none other like you, Queek. You are unnaturally brave. Others think you freakish for leading from the front, not the back. But I do not. I am proud of my Queek.’

Queek chirred with pride.

Sadness suffused Gnawdwell’s face. ‘But you are a blunt tool, Queek. A blunt and dangerous tool. I always hoped you would become Lord of Decay after me, because with one so big and so deadly as you as master of Clan Mors, all the others would be afraid, and the air would thicken with their musk.’ He sighed deeply, the threads of his clothes creaking as his massive chest expanded. ‘But it is not to be. Gnawdwell will remain head of Clan Mors.’ He paused meaningfully. ‘But maybe Queek can prove me wrong? Perhaps you might change my mind?’

‘How-how?’ wheedled Queek. He desperately wanted to impress Gnawdwell. Disappointing the Lord of Decay was the only thing Queek truly feared.

‘Go to Karak Eight Peaks. Smash the beard-things. But not in Queek’s way. Queek has brains – use them! We will bring down their decaying empire and the children of the Horned Rat shall inherit the ruins. I will see that it is Clan Mors that emerges pre-eminent from this extermination. Finish them quickly. Go to help the others complete the tasks they will not be able to finish on their own. Clan Mors must look strong. Clan Mors must be victorious! Bring me the greatest victory of all, Queek. March on Big Mountain-place. It may take years, but if you are successful there… Well, we shall see if you shall age as other lesser skaven must.’

Queek cared nothing for councils. Queek cared nothing for plots and ploys. What Queek cared for was war. Now Gnawdwell spoke a language he could understand. ‘Much glory for Queek!’

‘Do-accomplish what you do so well, my Queek. Finish the beard-things, and we will shame-embarrass the others when you bring me the head of their white-fur High King and the keys to their greatest city. Clan Mors will be unopposed. We will deliver the final Council seat to our favoured thrall-clan, and then Clan Mors rule all the Under-Empire, all the world!’ said Gnawdwell viciously, his speech picking up speed, losing its sophistication, falling into the rapid chitter-chatter used by other skaven. He clenched his fists and rose up. All vestiges of the thoughtful skaven disappeared. A great warrior stood before Queek.

‘Queek is the best!’ Queek slammed his fist against his armour. ‘Queek kill the most-much beard-things! And then,’ said Queek, becoming wily, ‘Queek get elixir, so Queek not get old-fast and Queek kill-slay more for Lord Gnawdwell?’

Gnawdwell sank back into himself, the fires going out of him. His face reassumed its expression of arrogant calm. ‘That is all, Queek. Go-go now. Return to the City of Pillars and finish the war there once and for all. Then you will march upon many-beard-thing Big Mountain-place.’

‘But-but,’ said Queek. ‘Gnawdwell say…’

‘Go, Queek. Go now and slay for Clan Mors. You are right – Queek is the greatest. Now show it to the world.’ He retreated into the shadows away from the map, towards an exit at the back of the room. A troop of giant, albino skaven, even bigger than the guards of the outer gate and clad in black-lacquered armour, thundered out of garrison burrows either side of Gnawdwell’s exit, forming a living wall between Queek and his master. They came to a halt, breathing hard, stinking of hostility.

Queek scurried over to them. They lowered their halberds. Queek vaulted over the weapons and landed right in front of the white-furs.

‘Queek is the greatest,’ he hissed in their faces. ‘I kill white-fur guards before. How many white-fur guards Queek kill before white-furs kill Queek?’ whispered Queek. He was gratified by a faint whiff of fear. ‘But Queek not kill white-furs. Queek busy! Queek will do as Lord Gnawdwell commands.’ He screech-squeaked over the heads of the unmoving guards, turned upon his heels and strode out.

‘Silence be!’ screeched Lord Thaumkrittle.

The coven of grey seers stopped arguing and turned to look at their new leader.

‘This is not the place to argue and fight. It is much-very bad that Clan Scruten is no longer on the Council, worse that our god has shown his disapproval. We must work to regain the favour of the Horned Rat.’

More than one emission of fear’s musk misted the air. The grey seers chittered nervously.

‘We are his chosen! We bear his horns and have his powers!’ said Jilkin the Twisted, his horns painted red and carved with spell-wards. ‘This all a trick by Clan Mors, or Clan Skryre! Tinker-rats want all our magic for themselves.’

‘No. That was the Horned Rat himself, not some machine-born conjuring trick,’ said another, Felltwitch. He was older than many, tall and rangy. One of his horns was missing, reduced to a stump by a sword swing long ago. ‘And we have disappointed him.’

‘It not our fault,’ said Kranskritt, once favoured among the other clans, now as despised as the rest. ‘Other clans plot and scheme against us, make us look bad to the master.’

‘Yes-yes!’ squeaked others. ‘Traitors everywhere. Not our fault!’

‘No,’ said the old Felltwitch. ‘It is our fault, and only our fault.’ He stepped around in a slow circle, leaning on his blackwood staff. ‘If we blame-curse other clans, we not learn anything.’

‘What to do? What to do?’ said Kreekwik, marked out by his deep-red robes. ‘Grey Seer Felltwitch squeak-says we have failed? How to unfail the Great Horned One? Will any more grey seers be born? Are we the last?’

Panic rushed through the room, forest-fire quick, taking hold of each grey seer’s limbs and sending them into a storm of tail lashing and twitching. Pent up magic added its own peculiar smell to the thick scent of the room.

‘We should pray,’ said Kranskritt. ‘We are his priests and his prophets. Pray for forgiveness.’

‘We should act,’ said Felltwitch.

‘Let us wait them out!’ said Scritchmaw. ‘We live much longer than they.’

‘It is not possible. Clan Skryre has the secret of longevity-life elixir. Lords of Decay live too long – no one lives longer than they. No waiting, no waiting!’ said Thaumkrittle. He too was nervous. It was one thing to become chief of Clan Scruten, another to become chief immediately after their god had eaten the previous incumbent. Thaumkrittle was on edge, his emotional state veering between great pride at his elevation and a suspicion that he had only got the job because no one else dared to take it.

‘We have lost-squandered the favour of the Great Horned One! What are we to do?’ said Kranskritt, the many bells on his arms, wrists, ankles and horns rattling.

‘Win it back! Win it back!’

‘How do you propose to do that?’ A familiar voice came from the back of the room. The entire assembly turned to look. There, at the back, Boneripper hulking behind him, was Thanquol.

‘Grey Seer Thanquol!’ shrieked Kreekwik.

‘It is him! All this is his fault!’ said Kranskritt.

A hiss of hatred went up from every seer present. Magical auras fizzed into life. Eyes glowed.

‘How my fault-guilt?’ said Thanquol, as calmly as he could. ‘Many times I am this close to victory.’ He held his fingers a hair’s-breadth apart. ‘But treachery of other clans stop my winning. They are all at fault. It is not me, friends-colleagues. Not me at all!’

Thaumkrittle shook his head, sending the copper triskeles depending from his horn tips swinging. ‘You clever-squeaker, Thanquol. Always it is the same. Always it is the lies. Always we believe. Not this time. The Horned Rat himself came forth at the meeting and devoured our leader.’ Thaumkrittle pointed his staff directly at Thanquol. ‘Fool-thing! We no longer pay listen-heed to your squeak-talk. Go from here! Go!’

‘Yes-yes, go-go!’ the others chittered.

‘You will listen to me,’ said Thanquol. ‘Listen to my speakings. I have a way!’

‘No!’ shouted Kreekwik. ‘Squeak-talk of Thanquol grandiose lies.’

‘Cast him out!’ said Felltwitch. ‘Cast him out! Banish him!’

Light fled and shadows deepened as each and every grey seer began to cast a spell, bringing a taste of rot and brimstone.

‘No-no!’ said Thanquol. He backed up to the door, only to find it inexplicably locked. He cursed the guards he’d bribed to let him in. Cornered, he summoned his own magic.

Boneripper. Boneripper was there. Sensing his master’s peril, the rat ogre snarled out a thunderous roar and ran at the other seers, chisel-incisors bared.

A dozen beams of warp-lightning intersected on his powerfully muscled body. They flayed the skin from his chest, but Boneripper kept on coming. The muscle underneath smoked. Still he kept on coming. He reached the first grey seer and reached forwards with a mighty claw. Green fire blazed from the seer’s eyes, reducing the rat ogre’s hand to ash. He roared in anger, not in pain, for Boneripper was incapable of feeling pain. He punched forwards with one of his remaining fists, but this was snared in a rope of shadow and teeth that fastened themselves into his flesh.

‘No-no!’ Thanquol shrieked. He countered as many spells as he could, draining magic away from his peers, but there were too many. His glands clenched.

With a mighty howl, Boneripper was dragged to his knees. Magic writhed all over him, burning and tearing pieces from him. Jilkin the Twisted, a particularly spiteful seer, reached the end of his convoluted incantation. He hurled an orb of purple fire at the injured construct, engulfing its wounded arm. The fire burned bright, then collapsed inwards into warp-black with a sucking noise.

Boneripper roared, his arm turning into a slurry of oily goo, which fountained over the other seers. A deafening thunderclap of magical feedback had them squeaking in agony. Many were blasted to the floor by the sudden interruption of their own sorcery.

When they got up, horned heads shaking out the ringing in their sensitive ears, they were grinning evilly.

‘No-no! Wait-wait!’ chittered Thanquol as they advanced on him. ‘Listen-hear my idea!’ He looked to them imploringly. ‘I am your friend. I was master to many of you. Please! Listen!’

Thaumkrittle drew himself up. ‘Grey Seer Thanquol, you are expelled-exiled from Clan Scruten. You will scurry from this place and never return.’

The other rats fell on him, sharp claws tearing, teeth working at his clothes, ripping his robes and charms from his body. Thanquol panicked. Drowning in a sea of hateful fur, he felt his glands betray him, drenching him in the shame of his own fear.

‘No-no, listen! We must… Argh! We must summon a verminlord, ask them what to do! We are the prophets of the Horned Rat! Let us ask-query his daemons how to pass this trial-test he has set us.’

The seers hoisted Thanquol onto their shoulders and bore him from the room. The door’s sorcerous locks clanked and whirred at their approach, the great bars rattling back into their housings.

The night of Skavenblight greeted Thanquol indifferently as he was hurled bodily into it, followed shortly after by the embrace of the mud of the street.

Thanquol groaned and rolled over. Unspeakable filth caked him.

‘Please!’ he shouted, raising a hand to the closing doors.

They stopped. Thanquol’s tail swished hopefully.

Thaumkrittle’s head poked out of the crack, the head of his staff protruding below his chin. At least, thought Thanquol, they were still wary of him.

‘If you return, once-seer Thanquol, we will take-saw your horns,’ Thaumkrittle said.

The large, messy figure of Boneripper was flung out magically after him. Thanquol barely dodged aside as the unconscious rat ogre slapped into the mud.

The door clanged shut. Thanquol snivelled, but his self-pity lasted only seconds before self-preservation kicked in. Interested red eyes already watched from the shadows. To show any sign of weakness in Skavenblight was to invite death.

‘What you look-see?’ he snapped, getting to his feet unsteadily. ‘I Thanquol! I great seer. You better watch it, or I cook you from inside.’

He set off a shower of sparks from his paws, then stopped. The light showed his beaten, dishevelled state all too clearly. The shadows drew nearer.

Clutching the remains of his robes to preserve his modesty, Thanquol checked over his bodyguard. Boneripper had lost two of his arms and much flesh, but his heart still beat. He could be repaired. Thanquol spent some time rousing the construct, his head twitching with intense paranoia this way and that. But though his glands were slack, his heart hardened. Eventually, the rat ogre hauled itself to its feet. To Thanquol’s relief, there suddenly appeared to be a lot fewer shadows in the street.

‘If Clan Scruten does not want me, then maybe Clan Skryre will,’ he said to himself. With all the haste he could manage, he headed off to their clan hall.

Inside the Temple of the Grey Seers, dull-eyed skaven and human slaves mopped at the mess that had been part of Boneripper. The grey seers resumed their places and recommenced their debate.

‘I have an idea,’ said Jilkin. ‘Let us summon a verminlord.’

‘That great idea,’ said Kreekwik. ‘Ask-beg the great ones from beyond the veil.’

‘Yes-yes,’ said Thaumkrittle up on his platform. ‘A great idea of mine. I am very clever. That why I your new leader-lord, yes? So, who want to follow my great idea and speak-pray to the Horned Rat for one of his servants?’

The grey seers looked at one another. Such blatant claiming of Jilkin’s suggestion was majestic. They could respect that.

‘Of course, O most mighty and powerful caller of magics,’ Kranskritt said. He bowed.

The others followed.

THREE Karak Eight Peaks

Skarsnik, the King under the Mountains, looked out over the greenskin shanty town filling the dwarf surface city. In ruined streets, between ramshackle huts of wood and hide, raucous orcs drank and fought one another. Goblins squealed and tittered. On the slopes of scree studded with broken statuary, snotlings gambolled, throwing stones at passing greenskins, oblivious to the cold that turned their noses pink.

Autumn was halfway through, and the first flakes of the year’s snow already drifted on the wind.

Skarsnik shivered and pulled his wolf pelt closer about him. He was old now – how old he wasn’t quite sure, for goblins took less care in reckoning the years than men or dwarfs did. But he felt age as surely as he felt the grip of Gork and Mork on his destiny. He felt it in his bandy legs, in his creaking knees and hips. His skin was gnarled and scabbed, thick as tree bark, and he leaned more often on his famous prodder for support than he would have liked. His giant cave squig, Gobbla, snuffled about around his feet, equally aged. Patches of his skin had turned a pinkish-grey, for he was almost as old as his master.

Skarsnik wondered how long he had left. It was ironic, he thought, that after years of wondering whether it would be a skaven blade or dwarf axe that finished him, it would be neither. Time was the enemy no one could fight.

In truth, no one knew how old a goblin could get because they did not usually last that long. Most of them would not even consider dying of old age. Skarsnik considered lots of unusual things because Skarsnik was no ordinary goblin, and what went on in his head would have been entirely alien to other greenskins. Lately, old age had occupied Skarsnik’s thoughts a lot.

‘Must be fifty winters and more I seen. Fifty!’ he cackled. ‘And here’s another come on again. Still, stunty, I reckon I got another few to come.’ Skarsnik was all alone on the balcony, save for a couple of mangy skaven skins and several dwarf heads in various states of decay, spiked along the broken balustrade. It was to his favourite, its eyes long ago pecked out, skin desiccated black in the dry mountain air, nose rotted away, that he addressed his words. A sorry-looking head, but even in death it had a magnificent beard. Skarsnik liked to stroke it when no one was looking. ‘Duffskul’s still knocking about, and he’s well older than me.’

He grumbled and spat, muttering thoughts that not one of his underlings would understand, and drew his long chin into his stinking furs.

‘What a bleeding mess, eh, stunty? Them zogging ratties done driven me out of me stunty-house. I am not happy about that, no, not one little bitty bit.’

He looked forlornly at the ruinous gatehouse marking the grand entry to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars, heart of the first of Karak Eight Peaks’s many deeps. ‘Once upon a time, stunty, that was mine. And everything under it. Not any more. On the other side of the great doors I won one of me greatest victories, and the stunty-house was me kingdom for dozens of levels down. Think about that, eh? Kept hold of it longer than your lot did, I reckon!’ His laugh turned into a hacking cough. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His next words came out all raspy. ‘Gobboes, beat them all and sorted them out. Ratties. Beat them, and then I beat them, and then I blew them up, drowned them and beat ’em some more. Stunties came back. Beat them too,’ said Skarsnik wistfully, looking across at the citadel that dominated the heart of the city. ‘Look at that will you, stunty! That’s all your king’s got. Nuffink. I’m the king around here. I am. Right?’

He paused. The dwarf’s beard stirred in the wind. Fat, wet flakes of snow splatted against its taut skin. It was coming down thicker, and the temperature was dropping.

‘Well, I’m glad you agree.’

Not that that changed anything. Skarsnik was still dispossessed, and he was not happy about it. He watched another tribe of greenskins straggling into orctown from the west gate. His eyes narrowed, calculating. They were weedy little ’uns, worn by hard travels. Within seconds of coming into the gate they were rapidly set upon by orcs and bigger goblins, who stole everything they had, leaving them naked and shivering in the cold. ‘Always more where they came from,’ whispered Skarsnik. ‘Always more.’

‘Ahem!’ A high-pitched cough demanded Skarsnik’s attention. Behind him, standing ramrod straight, was his herald, pointy hood standing as diligently to attention as its owner.

‘What you want, Grazbok?’ said Skarsnik, squinting at the small goblin. The sky was overcast, brilliant grey with pending snow, and the glare of it hurt his eyes. ‘You keep sneaking up on me like that, I’ll have to send you out scouting for ratties. And you,’ he said, kicking Gobbla in the side with a leathery thwap, ‘are losing your touch.’

Gobbla snuffled and waddled off, the chain connecting him to Skarsnik’s leg rattling as he licked scraps of dried dwarf flesh from the floor. Grazbok gave Skarsnik a sidelong look that suggested he was going to make more noise next time.

‘Your highnessness,’ the herald squeaked, ‘I have da great Griff Kruggler here to sees ya!’

Skarsnik’s lips split in a wide grin, yellow as the moon talismans dangling from his pointy hat. ‘Kruggs, eh? Send him up! Send him up!’

Kruggler was a long time coming up the steps from the halls under the Howlpeak. A pained wheezing came first, followed by the click of unsteady claws on stone.

Skarsnik’s eyes widened as Kruggler came out into the pale day upon the back of a staggering wolf. He had become fat. Enormously, disgustingly fat. His wolf mount gasped under him as it heaved itself up onto the balcony. Kruggler swung his leg over its back – with some difficulty – and slid to the flagstones. The wolf let out a huff of relief, dragged itself off into a corner and collapsed.

‘Been a long time, boss,’ said Kruggler.

Skarsnik took in the rolls of flab, the massive hat and the greasy gold trinkets festooning his underling.

‘What the zog happened to you?’

Kruggler was abashed. ‘Well, you know, living’s been good…’

‘You is almost as fat as that… what was he called? That boss. That one I killed of yours?’

‘Makiki, the Great Grizzler-Griff.’

‘Yeah! Only thing great about him was his size.’ Skarsnik laughed at his own joke. Kruggler just looked puzzled. Skarsnik scowled at his confusion. Trouble was, Skarsnik was a lot brighter than every other greenskin he’d ever met. It was depressing. ‘Gah, suit yerself. How you been?’

Kruggler pulled a face. ‘Not good, boss, to tell da truth.’

‘And there you was saying living was good.’

Kruggler looked confused. ‘Well, I did, er – well, it was, boss, it was. But things… well, they is not no good no more.’

‘What do you mean? Look at all these greenies come to join the Waaagh! Good times, Kruggs, good times. Soon there’ll be enough to kick the ratties out and take back the upper halls!’

Kruggs gave him a puzzled look.

‘Stop looking so zogging thick, Kruggs! Did I make an idiot king of all the Badlands wolf tribes?’

‘Well, er, no, boss, but…’

‘Go on, go on, spit it out!’

‘Well, I said things is no good,’ said Kruggler anguishedly. ‘I mean it! Dead things everywhere, fighting each other. Dwarfs on the march, fire mountains spitting fire and such. And the ratties, boss. The ratties is all over the place! I ain’t see so many, not ever. They’s taking over the stunty-houses, all of ’em, and not just a few. They’s slaughtering the tribes wherever they find ’em. Something big’s happening, something–’

Skarsnik was nose to nose with Kruggler before the plains goblin realised he’d moved. Skarsnik’s sour breath washed over his face.

‘Careful there, Kruggs. Don’t want you starting to bang on about the end of the world. Had a bit too much of that kind of talk lately from a few too many of the lads. Everything’s going on as normal here. We fight the rats, the rats fight the stunties, the stunties fight us, got it?’

Kruggler made a funny noise in his throat. ‘Got it, boss.’

‘Good.’ Skarsnik turned away from his vassal. ‘So what’s you saying then, Kruggs? You think they’s going to come here too? Better not, because they’ll have old Skarsnik to deal with and I–’ He coughed mightily. The fit held him for a minute, his hunchback shoulders shaking with it. Kruggler looked around, his tiny goblin mind torn between helping his boss, stabbing him, and wondering if there was anyone that could see him do either. Paralysed by indecision, he just stood and watched.

Skarsnik hawked up a gob of stringy phlegm and spat it onto a skaven hide rotting on a frame. ‘Because if they do, they’ll have me to deal with, and I ain’t no bleeding stunty! Anyways, look at all them. They’s come here to help me. They hears I’m the baddest and the bestest. Old Belegar and his mates up there in his stupid tower might have done for old Rotgut, but he can’t get me, can he? No zogging ratty or stunty is kicking me out of these mountains, you hear? You hear!’

He shouted loudly, his nasal voice echoing from the ruins of the dwarf surface city. Orcs and goblins looked up at him. Some cheered, some jeered. Some wandered off, uncaring.

‘See, with this lot coming to join da Waaagh! I’ll kick them ratties out and take it all back for good.’

Skarsnik had, of course, said this many, many times before. But it never happened. The balance of power between the greenskins and skaven swung backwards and forwards viciously; sometimes the goblins had the upper hand, sometimes the skaven – sometimes the stunties stuck their beards in for good measure. So it had been for time immemorial. But lately that had been changing. Skarsnik would never have admitted it to anyone but Gobbla, but each time he was victorious, he was able to hold less of the city, and for shorter periods of time.

‘But, boss! Boss!’ said a dismayed Kruggler. Cowardice nearly made him stop, but his loyalty to Skarsnik ran deep. He was one of the few who could tell the warlord what he didn’t want to hear. At least that’s how it’d been in the old days, and he really hoped it was that way still because he couldn’t stop himself. He plunged on, gabbling faster as his panic built. ‘They’re not here to help you, boss. They ain’t here for no Waaagh! That’s what I’m trying to tell you, boss.’

Skarsnik’s prodder swung round and was pointed at Kruggler’s face. Green light glinted along its three prongs. His expression became vicious. ‘There you go again! What do you mean? End of the world is it, Kruggs, because if you keeps it up, it will be for you.’

Kruggler held his hands up. He leaned back from the prodder so far his boss helmet slipped from his head to clang on the floor. ‘I means, boss, they is coming here because they knows you is here and you is da best.’

‘Exactly, exactly!’ said Skarsnik. He put the prodder up and nodded with satisfaction.

‘Yeah, boss. Yeah,’ said Kruggler with relief. ‘You is the cleverest. I knew you’d be clever and see.’ He came to stand next to Skarsnik and looked out. He smiled idiotically. ‘They isn’t coming here to fight. They think you can protect them! They is running away.’

Kruggler realised what he had said and clapped his hands over his mouth, but the fight had gone out of Skarsnik. He was staring out into the thickening snow at something Kruggler could not see.

‘We’ll see about that, we’ll see,’ he said sullenly.

A couple of miles away over the orc-infested ruins, King Belegar, the other king of Karak Eight Peaks, looked out into the gathering storm, engaged in his own contemplation. Abandon the hold indeed. Thorgrim’s request dogged his thoughts still. But now, six months later, a small part of him feared that the High King might have been right…

Like Skarsnik, Belegar was troubled by what he saw. Something dreadful was afoot.

He pounded his mailed fist on the rampart of the citadel, causing his sentries to turn to look at him. He huffed into his beard, shaking his head at their concerns, although he was secretly pleased at their vigilance.

‘Something dreadful is afoot,’ he said to his companion, his first cousin once removed and banner bearer, Thane Notrigar.

‘How do you know, my liege?’

‘You can stop it with that “my liege” business, Notrigar. You’re my cousin’s son and an Angrund. Even if you weren’t, we’ve fought back to back more times than I care to recall. Besides,’ he added gloomily, ‘a dawi has to be a real king to get the full “my liege” treatment.’

‘But you are a real king, my liege!’ said Notrigar, taken aback.

‘Am I?’ said Belegar. He gestured into the snowstorm, now so thick it had whited out everything further away than one hundred paces from the citadel walls. ‘King Lunn was the last real king of this place. History will remember that it was he, not I.’

‘There will be many more after you, my liege,’ said Notrigar. ‘A long and glorious line! Thorgrim is a grand lad. He is coming into his own with every day. You could not wish for a finer son, and he’ll be a fine king, when the time comes.’

Belegar was mollified for a moment. ‘A fine king, but one of rubble and ruination. And he needs to wed, and sire his own heir. Who will have him, the beggar king of Eight Peaks?’

‘But my liege! You are a hero to every dawi lass and lad. Send him back to Everpeak and there you shall have dawi rinn of every clan begging for his hand.’

‘What did I say to you? Belegar will do, lad. Or cousin, if you must.’

Notrigar, although now many years in the Eight Peaks, did not feel he knew his cousin well at all, raised as he had been in distant Karaz-a-Karak. Belegar was a legend to him, a hero. He could not countenance calling him by his name, cousin or not. He settled on ‘my lord’.

‘Yes, my lord,’ he said.

Belegar rolled his eyes. ‘Beardlings today,’ he said, although Notrigar was well past his majority and a thane in his own right. ‘All right, all right, “my lord” if it makes you feel better.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘Don’t mention it. What you said, just then. That’s the problem, isn’t it? He’d have to go back. He’d have to risk the journey. It took me nigh on four months to get to Karaz-a-Karak for the kingsmeet and back, and that in the summer. Things are worse now, mark my words. What if he’s taken by grobi or urk? What if the thaggoraki steal him away. Then that’ll be that, won’t it? What we’ve all fought so hard for gone. A kingdom of ruins with no king. Fifty years! Fifty years! Gah!’ He punched the stone again. His Iron Hammers had more sense and honour than to mutter, but they exchanged dark looks. ‘When Lunn was king, this was still the finest city in all of the Karaz Ankor. What is it now, Notrigar? Ruins. Ruins swarming with grobi and thaggoraki, with more coming every day.’

‘But you have been here for fifty years, my lord. You are successful.’ Notrigar had never dreamed to see his lord and kin in such poor temper, or to confide in him in such an open and upsetting manner. He did not know quite what to say. Reassurance did not come naturally to a dwarf.

‘Right. Here I am in my glorious castle,’ Belegar said sarcastically. ‘I came here hoping to take it all back. I came hoping to look upon the far deeps, on the ancestor statues of the Abyss of Iron’s Dream. I dreamed of opening up the Ungdrin again, so that armies might freely march between my, Kazador’s and Thorgrim’s realms. I dreamed of reopening the mines, of filling the coffers of our clan with gold and jewels.’

They both became a little misty-eyed at this image.

‘But no. A few weapons hordes, a few treasure rooms and a lot of failure. We can’t even keep our master brewer safe,’ he said, referring to one of the more recent entries in Karak Eight Peaks’s Book of Grudges. ‘Six months since the damn furskins took Yorrik and I’ve not had a decent pint since.’

‘We have the will and the resolve, my–’

‘You’ve not read the reports, have you?’ said Belegar. ‘Not seen what the rangers are saying, or what those new-fangled machines of Brakki Barakarson are saying.’

‘The seismic indicators, my lord?’

‘Aye, that’s them. Scratchy needles. Thought it was all a lot of modern rubbish, to tell you the truth. But he’s been right more than he’s been wrong. There’s a lot going on underground, down in the lower deeps. Never did get very far on the way to the bottom. Grungni alone knows how many tunnels the thaggoraki have chiselled out down there. Gyrocopters coming in, telling me every inch of Mad Dog Pass is crawling with ogres, grobi and urk. No message from half the holds in months, no safe road out, and no safe road in. I’ll bet that little green kruti Skarsnik is out there right now too, standing on the parapets of Karag Zilfin looking over at us as we look over at him. It’s been that way for far too long. If it only weren’t for that little bloody…’ He trailed off into a guttural collection of strong dwarfish oaths. ‘One enemy,’ he said, holding up a finger. ‘I think I could have handled one. If it weren’t for him I’d have driven the grobi off years ago and cleared the skaven out of the top deeps. Trust me to get saddled with the sneakiest little green bozdok who ever walked the earth.’ He sighed, pursing his lips so that his beard and moustaches bristled. ‘And now it’s all gone quiet. Too bloody quiet. I’ll tell you what this silence is, Notrigar.’

‘What is it, my lord?’ said Notrigar, for Belegar was waiting to be prompted.

‘It’s the beginning of the end, that’s what it is. Or so those thaggoraki probably think.’

Notrigar looked around for help. The ironbreakers, hammerers and thunderers manning the ramparts were staring studiously off into the middle distance. He raised a hand, started to speak, then thought better of it. To Notrigar’s dismay, the king began to hiccup, his chest heaving.

‘My lord?’ said Notrigar. Oh Grungni, thought the thane, please don’t let him be… crying? Belegar’s shoulders heaved, and he turned away. Notrigar reached an uncertain hand out for his kinsman.

He leapt back as Belegar burst out laughing, a sound as sudden and surprising as an avalanche, and to the unnerved Notrigar, just as terrifying. The king’s mirth rolled out from the ramparts, wildly bellicose, as if it could retake Vala-Azrilungol all on its own.

‘That’s right, you green bozdoks! King Belegar is laughing at you, and you, you vicious thaggoraki! I am laughing at you too!’ he bellowed. His shout was blunted by the snow, the lack of echo unsettling to Notrigar, but Belegar did not care. The king wiped a tear of mirth from his eye, flicking it and a finger’s worth of snow crystals away from his moustache. He clapped his arm around his cousin, his face creased with a grim smile. ‘Oh don’t look so glum, lad. I’ve always been a sucker for a lost cause, me. We’ll show them, eh? We can hold out. We always have, keeping our heads down until more reinforcements come and the bloody fun can start all over again. They’ll never get through the fortifications we’re planning, no matter how many of the little furry grunkati come – there’ll be a trap for each and every one of them, eh, lad? Don’t worry, I haven’t gone zaki. You see, lad, you have to know what you’re fighting, and be certain you’re not underestimating it before you can crush it. Once you know what’s what, nothing is impossible, and you can shout your cries of victory right in the face of your enemy. Furry or green, or in our case both, it doesn’t matter, lad. This is the Eternal Realm. We’ll never fall.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ The other dwarfs were chuckling at their king’s good humour, laughing at Notrigar for not seeing the joke. Belegar’s arm was like a stone lintel on his shoulders. Notrigar had a sudden urge for an ale. A strong one.

‘That’s right!’ Belegar bawled, making Notrigar’s ears ring. ‘I’ll be ready for you, Skarsnik! Send everything you’ve got. It will never, ever be enough. Cheer up, Notrigar. Why,’ said Belegar, ‘I’m just beginning to enjoy meself.’

FOUR The City of Pillars

The upper deeps of Karak Eight Peaks were heaving with warm fur. Every corner, every cranny, from the Trench at the very bottom to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars once inhabited by Skarsnik and his lackeys. The noise of so many ratmen’s squeaks and pattering feet close together merged into a sussuration so pervasive the very rocks seemed to be speaking with skaven voices.

Within the Hall of a Thousand Pillars, atop the pinnacle that had once housed the dwarf king’s throne, and for fifty years until recently that of Skarsnik, Queek inspected the first clawpack of the warhost of Clan Mors, and he was not happy about it.

Queek paced up and down as block after block after block of skaven marched out of the tunnels around the base of the soaring throne pinnacle, wove their way through the forest of pillars and went back out again, banners waving, their leaders proudly bringing up the rear.

‘How long this going to take? Queek bored,’ said Queek. ‘This boring!’

Thaxx Redclaw twitched his armoured neck, briefly exposing a patch of fur at his throat. He was the leader of the first clawpack, and appointed ruler of the City of Pillars in Queek’s absence. With such overlap between their roles, Thaxx felt especially vulnerable. ‘Great and deadly Queek, you are best and most perspicacious general! A cunning and mighty war-leader such as the incomparable Queek would want to inspect-smell troops?’ Thaxx nodded eagerly, inviting agreement. He received a cold stare.

‘There are many,’ added Warlord Skrikk, Queek’s supposed right claw. ‘How glorious for your gloriousness to feast nose and eye on such an army, all gathered solely for you, O great and deadly, violent Queek!’

‘Dull! Boring! Queek see hundreds of thousands of millions of skaven in his life,’ snapped Queek. ‘They all the same. Furry faces, pink noses. Some die, all die. There are always more. What need mighty Queek see all rat-faces?’

Thaxx snickered and bobbed his head, a poor attempt to hide his fear. The other clanlords atop the dais, out of Queek’s sight, backed away until they ran into Queek’s Red Guard and the massive body of Queek’s chief lieutenant, Ska Bloodtail. He stared down at them and shook his head.

‘But mighty Queek, O most cunning and stabby of all ratkin, how will stupid warrior-things know how to follow mighty Queek’s orders if glorious warlord is not there? See how their faces look upon your most awesome countenance with fear and, er, awe,’ said Thaxx.

‘You speak-squeak badly, Thaxx. Too long running this city without mighty Queek to keep you in your place. All things scared of Queek! Why is this useful for Queek to see-smell what he already knows?’

Skrikk and Thaxx glanced at each other.

‘There are questions of strategy and disposition, great fierce one,’ ventured Warlord Skrikk.

‘Oh? Oh? Strategy and disposition for Queek. Forgive ignorant Queek for asking, what use is there for you in this case?’ said Queek. ‘Gnawdwell say you Queek’s right claw.’ Queek narrowed his eyes. ‘Gnawdwell write-say “Take Skrikk! He your right claw!” Queek says he already has right claw. It good for holding Dwarf Gouger!’ He held up his paw and clenched it. ‘And Queek has Ska! Loyal, good Ska! So, Queek has two right claws. One for Dwarf Gouger, one for punching enemies. But Gnawdwell order Queek needs another right claw, so Queek obey. Queek think, maybe Skrikk good! Maybe Skrikk good for boring things, boring things that tire Queek and make him angry. Boring things like counting skaven clanrats.’ He leaned in close to the clanlords and twisted his head to regard them one at a time, causing them both to flinch. ‘But now Skrikk squeak-says, “Queek must think strategy!” What? Queek fight. Queek command. Queek does not count stupid-meat.’

Skrikk hunched over, looking sideways at Queek nervously.

‘Who Skrikk think he is? Queek does think strategy, stupid-meat. Queek greatest warlord there is! Queek think-scheme peerless battle plans. Queek the best strategist you will ever meet, weak-meat. You will see. But what does Queek need to know colours of every stupid-meat rat-flag for if he has Skrikk? Too much pointless knowing clouds Queek’s mind.’ He leaned back with a dangerous look in his eyes. He greatly relished the fear in Skrikk’s. ‘If Skrikk can’t count or Skrikk can’t see-smell clan banners and tell Queek how many rats, how many slaves, how many clan-things and Moulder-things left before Queek run out of battle-meat for victory, perhaps Queek not need Skrikk after all? Queek be very unhappy if Queek has to do all counting and scritch-scratching himself.’

‘O mighty one is correct!’ squeaked Skrikk, far more shrilly than he had intended. ‘Skrikk count. Skrikk has counted very well! I have noted all banners and numbers. See-read!’ He beckoned a slave bearing a pile of dwarf-skin scrolls forward. The warlords at least had the will to clench their musk glands, terrified of Queek as they were. But the slave shook uncontrollably, and the fear-stink was heavy on his fur. ‘See-look. Skrikk make all these himself. All is in order. I have everything written down so I know, mighty Queek. And what humble, unworthy Skrikk knows, most cunning Queek can know too! By asking! By asking!’ he added in a panic. ‘Of course you should not weary your piercing eyes reading such dull-tedious reports.’ He shooed the skavenslave away and bowed repeatedly.

Something big in the parade let out a long, mournful low. There were many Moulder-things in the army.

‘Battle-meat, battle-meat to get Queek close to the beard-things. Five thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, it not matter to Queek,’ Queek muttered. He stared at the skaven tramping by and became suddenly still. He no longer saw the troops. In his mind, he watched images of past slaughter.

The others cringed, each subtly trying to be the rat at the back of the crowd, but not too close to the giant Ska. When Queek’s constant twitching stilled, someone usually died.

Queek clenched his fists and rounded on them all. ‘Bah! This place still stink-smell of goblin-thing. Queek hate it. Queek still smell Skarsnik-thing squatting on his throne.’ He pointed to where Skarsnik’s throne had once been. ‘It so strong, Queek see him!’ His quick red eyes darted about, taking in the goblin’s defacement of the giant statues lining the walls of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars. The goblins’ shanty had been cleared, but signs of the greenskins were everywhere. What wreckage had not already been scavenged was still piled along the walls. Every inch of the place stank of goblin. He longed to kill green-things. He stared at the great dwarf gates to the surface city, opening mechanisms improved with skaven engines by the tinker-rats. On the other side of the doors were thousands and thousands of greenskins. One word would open the gates and the relief of battle could be his. Somewhere out there was Skarsnik, and he hated Skarsnik more than anything else in the world. Killing dwarfs was business, but his feud with the green-thing king was personal. His muzzle quivered with temptation.

‘Gnawdwell’s orders, remember Gnawdwell’s orders!’ squeaked the voice of Ikit Scratch from his skeleton impaled upon Queek’s back. ‘Kill beard-things first, green-things later.’

‘Queek go now,’ he said quietly, ‘before he choke on Skarsnik stink. What new boring thing has Thaxx and Skrikk to show mighty Queek?’

They had more of the same to show him, but neither dared say. ‘To the fourth and fifth deeps, O wicked and savage Queek,’ said Thaxx, spreading his arms and bowing low. ‘To the second and third clawpacks, who await your merciless majesty with much fear and anticipation.’

‘Yes-yes,’ added Skrikk, not to be outdone. ‘They are rightwise awestruck.’ The three-week journey here from Skavenblight had been somewhat detrimental to his nerves, and he jumped every time he thought Thaxx bettered him in flattery.

Three days it took to see the next two clawpacks. Queek only stopped to eat – which he did savagely and messily – or to sleep, which he did in short, rapid-breathed bursts. The finest burrows were set aside for him, the best flesh-meat. He did not care.

Much to his annoyance, nobody tried to kill him. His legs spasmed with impatience when he lay down. His hands itched to hold Dwarf Gouger. Everyone around him feared his fury. Murder was imminent, they were sure. Each warlord and clan chief he greeted showed their necks and squeaked in most pitiable homage. Each one half expected to die. Thaxx and Skrikk had it worst by far, for they had to accompany Queek everywhere. They were both sure it was only a matter of time before Queek killed one or the other, and their attempts to outdo each other in their obsequiousness became more outrageous by the hour. Their wheedling only angered Queek more.

But no one did die. They could all see-smell Queek was bursting with the need to kill, but he raised a paw against no one.

‘Steady, steady,’ said the dead beard-thing Krug to Queek. ‘You muff this up, lad, and you’ll not be getting Gnawdwell’s potion.’

‘The beard-thing is correct, mad-thing,’ added Sleek Sharpwit’s annoying voice. ‘Be careful, or you will perish.’

Queek shot Sleek’s fleshless skull a murderous glare. ‘Do not call Queek mad-thing, dead Old-thing!’

‘Steady!’ said Krug. ‘Steady.’

‘Yes-yes,’ mumbled Queek, cradling the dwarf king’s skull to his chest one sleep. ‘Krug right, Krug wise! Time only enemy Queek cannot kill. Only Gnawdwell help with that.’

‘And so the mad-thing listens to the dead dwarf, but not to the wisdom of the living. You are a poor warlord, Queek, no match for me at my peak,’ said Sleek.

‘I alive, you dead. I better,’ said Queek acidly.

And so Queek set all his will to restraining his considerable temper, resolving to add Thaxx and Skrikk’s heads to his trophy rack in due course.

Clawpacks two and three were led by Skrak and Ikk Hackflay, ex-lieutenants from Queek’s Red Guard. These stormvermin were known to him, and respected by him as much as he could respect any skaven. They were braver than most, and Queek was almost civil to them, bringing much prestige to their names. For all his hatred of machination, he changed the status of skaven simply by looking at them wherever he went. This in turn upset alliances and friendships, led to back-stabbings and new pledge-bonds. His passage through the ancient dwarf city rippled outwards, rewriting the architecture of treachery and false promises that underpinned any skaven society.

He was aware of it, but tried his best not to think about it. It only made him angrier.

Clawpacks two and three were much like the first. The second bigger than the third, half of each made up of Clan Mors warriors, the rest a selection of scruffy rabble clans.

‘Queek not see-smell slaves. Where slaves?’ he demanded shortly after visiting the third clawpack.

‘This way, O most terrible one!’ said Thaxx.

They cut across the city in the fourth deep, emerging below the stone-pile the beard-things called Karag Rhyn, and the goblins White Fang. There were many long tubular caves deep below this mountain, each carpeted with bones, some full to the ceiling with brittle skeletons. Queek looked repeatedly to the curved roof. Up there, somewhere, was Skarsnik. The imp had taken refuge in the northern range after finally, finally being chased out from the deeps. Queek sighed happily as he imagined gnawing his way up through the rock, to emerge in the imp-thing’s own room, where he would bite him to death. He tittered to himself, but his amusement turned to anger as the scenario’s impossibility rudely intruded. Queek’s tail flicked in agitation.

Laired in the bone caves were so many skavenslaves that Queek could not count them. He was dizzy on their scent. They shrank back into side tunnels at his approach, tripping over their chains to get out of his way, their eyes downcast.

‘There is many-many slave-meat?’ he asked, peering into a tunnel packed full of eyes glinting as they looked away.

Thaxx and Skrikk fought to be the one to deliver the information.

‘Over one hundred thousand, O lordly Queek!’ said Thaxx, cutting Skrikk dead. ‘We have bred them especially quickly, raising them in unprecedented time with black–’

‘Many are from Thaxx’s breeding pits, masterful Queek,’ butted in Skrikk. ‘He must be so proud, to make so many weak-meat for Queek. Poor, lowly Skrikk only provide clanrat warriors and stormvermin for Queek’s armies. Skrikk sorry!’

Thaxx scowled at his colleague. Skrikk returned a cocky smile.

‘Many weak-meat?’

‘Many-many!’ said Thaxx through gritted chisel-teeth.

‘Good-good!’ said Queek. ‘Then Thaxx not miss these.’

Queek could restrain himself no longer. He leaped into the tunnel, drew his weapons, and vanished into the gloom.

‘But they my slaves…’ said Thaxx.

‘If you like,’ said Ska, lounging on a rock and picking his claws, ‘you go stop him. I sure-certain that work out just fine for clever Warlord Thaxx.’ Queek’s Red Guards tittered.

The squeal of panicked ratmen blasted from the tube. They blundered out into the dimly lit corridor, but could not go far, caught by their chains.

One tripped and fell at Skrikk’s feet. He looked up at the clanlords pleadingly.

‘You go quick-quick now,’ said Skrikk. ‘Back in there so mighty Queek may kill-slay.’

‘He very bored,’ said Ska. ‘You be good and make him happy.’

The skavenslave stared at them piteously as he was dragged back into the cave, knocking a pile of bones out of the way. He grabbed a skull, but it did not arrest his progress and he disappeared into the dark still clutching it.

A short and noisy time later, during which the cave’s stale air ripened with the reek of blood, bowels and musk, Queek emerged from the tunnel, dripping with gore. He panted lightly.

‘That no fun,’ he said. He licked his lips free of blood and smiled with cruel joy nevertheless. ‘No challenge for Queek to slaughter slaves.’ He looked speculatively at Thaxx. Skrikk nodded enthusiastically behind his back, jiggling his eyebrows at Thaxx and making a pantomime of how formidable a warrior Skrikk was.

‘Skrikk greater warrior!’ said Thaxx in a tumble.

‘Not so great as mighty Queek!’ said Skrikk, his tail twitched nervously.

‘Who is?’ said Queek with a shrug. ‘Now, where final clawpack? If it far, Queek not happy. Maybe we see how good Skrikk and Thaxx are…’

‘Not far! Not far, mighty Queek!’ said Thaxx, bowing low. ‘A half day, then all inspections done.’

Skrikk shot Thaxx a warning look. Thaxx caught it.

‘Er, but Warlord Queek must be tired, so much travelling. He should go rest-sleep to increase his strength so that he might kill-slay beard-things and green-things better.’

‘You say Queek is sleepy-tired, less-brilliant-than-Queek Warlord Thaxx?’ said Queek.

‘Oh no, your deadliness, of course not. All know that Queek could kill all things half asleep and with a small feeding spoon. It is just that you are right…’ Thaxx took a step backwards as Queek reared up over him.

‘You say sometimes Queek not-right?’

‘No! No! Queek is always right! Every time! Everyone knows!’ squealed Thaxx.

‘Yes-yes, Queek the mightiest. Queek also the most correct and cleverest,’ said Skrikk. Queek was mollified.

Thaxx relaxed a little. ‘You say boring. It boring looking at so many rat-things.’ He flapped his paw dismissively. ‘They look all the same. Perhaps we go back now? Meet fifth clawpack later?’

Queek’s eyes narrowed. ‘What Thaxx hide? What Thaxx think Queek not like about fifth clawpack?’

‘Hide?’ said Thaxx, his eyes wide with wounded innocence.

‘Never,’ said Skrikk.

‘You quite insistent, both of you, that Queek see boring rats. And now, all of a sudden, you not want Queek to see boring rats. Queek not stupid. You think Queek stupid?’

‘No,’ wailed Thaxx.

‘You better tell Queek now,’ said Ska.

Thaxx abased himself upon the floor. ‘It is not Thaxx’s fault. Stupid-meat minions make mistake. He told by great lords to do it.’

‘Do what?’ said Queek. He hefted Dwarf Gouger and gave it a pleased lick.

‘It better,’ said Skrikk with a resigned expression, ‘if Queek see-smells with his own eyes and nose.’

They went downwards from the bone caves into old skaven ways, gnawed by teeth long before the invention of tunnelling machines. These cut a slope across the outermost edges of the dwarf deeps under the Great Vale. Innumerable shafts and stairways joined the halls carved into the mountains to the undercity proper. The skaven tunnels cut across them all. They came to a winding stair, and went down this for many thousands of paces – round and round, until Queek felt dizzy. He had lived most of his life in Karak Eight Peaks, but this stair was new to him. The Eight Peaks was so vast that it was impossible to know it all, although the hated green-imp claimed to.

Down and down, passing into areas of the city that had collapsed. Some skaven, like Sleek Sharpwit, heretically said that beard-things were not stupid and built well. Queek laughed. Here was proof it was not so! There were many cave-ins and collapses that had sealed off whole sections of the beard-things’ burrows before quicker minds had rejoined them.

‘Earthquakes, poor skaven engineering undermining good dwarf work,’ said Sleek’s dead voice sulkily.

‘Stupid beard-things,’ said Queek.

His underlings, as always, pretended not to notice Queek’s one-sided conversations with his trophies.

They skirted the edges of the City of Pillars, the main part of the skaven domain in the Eight Peaks, where the last of the dwarfish deeps gave way to broken mines and endlessly convoluted warrens of skaven burrows. The journey took three feedings before they emerged at the very bottom of the world.

Deep in the deepest reaches of the City of Pillars, hundreds of fathoms below the lowest of the old dwarf deeps, was the Trench.

Who knew what cataclysm had torn this gap into the bowels of the earth? Nearly a mile deep and half a mile across, it went further into the living rock than even the skaven wished to go, and they were the children of the underworld. Along its base were dozens of cave mouths. These were not natural formations. They were carved by living creatures, but only a portion of them by the skaven. Down there were strange things, blindwyrms, deep trolls, scumbloids, mad-things and worse. Skaven who went into those tunnels often did not come out again.

Not today. The tunnels had been pressed into use as barrack burrows and every one crawled with armed skaven. Nothing that did not squeak or bear fur would dare come into the Trench. From end to end and wall to wall, the floor of the canyon was a seething mass of ratkin bodies.

‘The fifth clawpack, your most mightiness,’ said Skrikk, bowing.

Queek’s mouth opened. He shut it with a click. He was reluctantly impressed. There were dozens of warrior clans – none of the greater ones, admittedly, but some of the more respected names among the rabble clans were present. More arresting were the large numbers of Moulder-beasts, far more than in the other formations. He spotted a great number of rat ogres, thousands of giant rats and, most impressively, a pair of caged abominations. Far more monsters than Queek had seen in the rest of the city.

‘Who lead-bring such an endless rat sea to the City of Pillars?’ asked Queek quietly. Both his lieutenants ducked their heads submissively.

‘It hard to say, most subtle and dangerous–’ began Thaxx.

‘That is, it not easy to put into words, great and–’ interrupted Skrikk.

‘I do,’ said a voice from the shadows. A shape was there, lurking where the dark was too thick even for skaven eyes to see through. Queek smelt the identity of the squeaker before he threw back his hood to reveal the silhouette of horns.

‘White-fur!’ said Queek, his sword hissing free from its scabbard.

‘O mighty, terrible and great warrior Queek! I am Kranskritt, servant of the Horned Rat and emissary of Clan Scruten.’ Kranskritt stepped out of the dark and bowed to the jingle of small bells. A bunch of flunkeys came skulking out behind their master. They had precisely none of his poise and threw themselves down to the stone hurriedly for fear of Queek.

Thaxx and Skrikk scuttled backwards, banging into Ska.

‘Where you go?’ said Ska mildly. He arched an eyebrow. He enjoyed the effect Queek had on the warlords.

Queek laughed horribly. ‘White-fur, white-fur! What you squeak-say?’ He pointed the rusted blade of his sword at the grey seer, but Kranskritt walked directly towards Queek, his back straight, muzzle smooth and glands closed.

‘I say I am the chosen of the Horned Rat, his emissary here in the City of Pillars, and master of the fifth clawpack.’ He looked at Queek’s swordpoint, hovering inches from his nose. ‘I am not frightened of your sword.’

‘Oh? Why-tell? You have few heartbeats before I kill-slay. Give me entertainment with last pathetic breaths, stupid-meat. Scruten no longer have favour of Horned Rat. Horned Rat say so himself. I hear he squeak-say it very forcefully to white-fur Kritislik.’ Queek giggled a rapid, twittering series of squeaks.

The grey seer came fully into what little light there was. His eyes glowed a dull warpstone-green. He wore purple robes embroidered with arcane sigils. Bells were round his ankles, his horns and his wrists. They tocked and clonked with his every movement. Strangely, none of the skaven present had heard him approach.

‘I am not frightened, because we work together for greater quick-death of beard-things. Allies not be frightened of each other, foolish, yes?’ said the seer mildly. ‘And Gnawdwell, he tell you to work with all, to make quick work of beard-thing pathetic fort-place? It would be a big shame if you kill me for supposed insult and all Kranskritt’s warriors go home. Queek’s job is then so much harder.’ He shook his head sadly, rattling his ornaments.

‘Gnawdwell a long way away from here, white-fur. I chop-kill and no one know.’

‘Oh everyone will know, most indubitably dangerous and most martial Queek. I doubt-think you care much. But I will tell you a secret.’ Kranskritt leaned in close. ‘I not care either. You kill-slay me, I go to Horned Rat quick-fast. There perhaps I can explain why Clan Scruten has been wronged, and why Queek is a big danger to all his children. And then you can come too and tell him yourself, because without my clawpack, Queek not get what Gnawdwell promise. Big, big shame and sorrow for mighty Queek as age and time make him weak. And dead. Yes! Dead-dead!’ He laughed weirdly.

Queek was outraged. His eyes bulged and veins stood out on his neck. His heart hammered so quickly its beats blurred into one constant note. Equally swiftly, Dwarf Gouger was in his hand. Kranskritt’s lackeys shrank back on their bellies. But not Kranskritt.

Kranskritt tilted his head. ‘Ah, the real Queek. Kill me then, I do not care.’

Queek squeaked. A paw held back his arm.

‘Who dares touch Queek?’ said Queek, trembling with fury.

‘He is right,’ hissed Skrikk. ‘Gnawdwell. Remember what Gnawdwell said!’

Skrikk was shaking. Queek wondered what inducements their lord had given him to be so bold as to touch Queek’s fur! But this other, he was even more troubling. He exhibited no sign of fear at all, and in the face of the mighty Queek. Queek let his weapons drop and paced around the grey seer, examining and sniffing the stranger from every angle. The seer’s servants backed away, still on their bellies.

‘You very brave, white-fur. I respect that. But there are no seers on the Council now.’

‘We are being tested by the Horned One,’ said Kranskritt. ‘That is all. You will see. Observe the might I bring to your army!’ He swept his paw behind him at the masses in the Trench.

‘No power, no influence.’ Queek sniffed suspiciously. Warpstone, yes, name scent, yes. Food, old filth and fresh-licked fur. But no fear! No fear at all. ‘You are not scared! Why you not scared of Queek?’

‘Come and see. I will show you what I have brought, yes? Then Queek know why I know you will not kill-slay Kranskritt, and so Queek will know why I am not scared. Simple, yes?’

Kranskritt gestured to the skaven waiting in the canyon. ‘No seat on the Council for Clan Scruten, no-yes. But still have power and influence we do, yes? See! I have warriors from thirty-eight clans, and many-much Moulder-beasts.’

Queek looked sidelong at the grey seer. Still he was unafraid. He held up a delicate white paw and gongs sounded. The skaven below began to march in procession. The hubbub of their gathering became a roaring, the tramp of soft feet and rattle of weapons overwhelming, and the skaven lords struggled to be heard over it. Surely even Belegar high up above could hear this doom that approached him. Queek hid a smile under his scowl.

The fifth clawpack was vast. Kranskritt rattled off the names of units and clans as they went past and into their garrison-burrows, their leaders coming nervously forward from the back of the shelf to be introduced. Despite his avowed disinterest in military minutiae, Queek recognised most of the banners. Some of them were far from home: Clan Krizzor from the Dark Lands, Clan Volkn from the Fire Mountains, for example. He snarled as the banners of traitor-Clan Gritus wobbled past. Only recently they had turned on their Clan Mors masters. Their appearance there was a slight.

‘How white-fur get so many warriors?’ demanded Queek.

‘Have power! Have influence, many-mighty horde of ratkin, yes? See! Many-much veterans, scavenge-armed from sack of Tilea-place and Estalia-place,’ shouted Kranskritt.

Queek sneered. ‘Stupid man weapons. Stupid man armour. This boring! Ska Bloodtail!’

‘Yes, O Queek?’

‘We go-depart now. Skrikk will stay. He write down all clan-things. Thaxx stay-listen to stupid white-fur boast-squeaks too. Punishment for not say-squeaking about white-fur.’ Queek stepped in close. Thaxx stood his ground as best he could, quailing at the stench of old blood and death coming from Queek’s armour. ‘Queek bored. Queek go think.’

Skrikk and Thaxx bowed repeatedly.

As Queek swept irritably from the Trench, Kranskritt smiled at his back.

FIVE Treachery in the Deeps

Queek, Ska and Queek’s Red Guard jogged upwards. The din of the fifth clawpack mustering in the Trench was amplified by the tunnel, hurting their sensitive ears. Time and distance diminished it, until the trumpets and stamping of feet joined with all the other mysterious echoes that haunted the City of Pillars, and they found they could talk again.

‘This not good-good,’ said Queek to Ska. The latter ran as fast as his master, but his great size – for he was a giant among his kind, as tall as a tall man, and bigger than the mighty Gnawdwell himself – made him seem plodding next to Queek’s swift movements.

‘No, great Queek,’ said Ska.

‘Thaxx and Skrikk sneaky-sneaks. Not like good and loyal Ska.’

‘Thank you, great Queek.’ Ska had fought by Queek’s side for many years and was of a similar age. Where his arms were visible between his plates of scavenged gromril, his black fur was spotted with patches of brilliant white. Many battles had left their mark upon his face in a pattern of pink scars. One of his ears had been torn off. Already intimidating, he was made fearsome by his war wounds.

They passed onto a wide dwarf-built way. Once a feeder road for the lower mines, it led directly back to the lower levels of the skaven stronghold. Even there, there was little space left, most of the width of the road taken up by sleeping clanrats atop unfolded nesting rolls. From top to bottom, Karak Eight Peaks heaved with vermin. They ran along this for a quarter of a mile, kicking skaven out of the way, then turned into a lesser-used tunnel.

‘If white-fur here, much scheming. Queek hate tittle-tattle squeak plots! Queek only wish to fight.’ He gnawed at his lower lip as he thought. ‘Send-bring me Grotoose, leader of Clan Moulder here, and master assassin Gritch of Clan Eshin. Queek question them both. I find out who behind this, who try to trick Queek.’ He squeaked with annoyance. ‘Queek happier if Queek bury Dwarf Gouger in Kranskritt’s stupid horned head.’

‘That is not a good idea, great Queek,’ said Ska cautiously.

‘Stupid giant-meat Ska! Queek know this! Queek make joke! Queek only wish for sim–’

A tremendous rumble cut their conversation dead. The roof caved in, and a tumble of boulders rushed from the ceiling, clacking one atop the other until they filled the way. Ska pushed Queek aside, but his Red Guard were not so lucky. They squealed in pain and fear as three of them were crushed, and the rest cut off from their master.

Queek rolled with Ska’s shove and was back on his footpaws instantly, sniffing the air. Fear musk, blood, the sharp scent of rock dust, registered on his sensitive nose.

‘Where Ska?’

‘Here, mighty Queek!’ said his henchman from the ground. He lay with his feet trapped by rocks.

‘Ska better not be hurt – big rat with crushed feet no good to Queek!’

Ska grunted. ‘I am not hurt, only trapped. I will dig myself– Queek! Look out!’

Queek was moving before Ska had finished squeaking. He somersaulted backwards as three razored blurs sliced through the air where he had been standing – throwing stars, which clanged from the rock fall leaving smears of bitter-smelling poison on the raw stone.

Queek landed sure-footedly on a boulder. He drew his weapons as he leapt, pushing himself off with his back paws and tail. Ahead of him, a black shape detached itself from the tunnel wall. Its cloak was patterned to match the stone and no name-scent came from it. An assassin. They had their glands removed as part of their initiation. Only they among the skaven carried no smell.

‘Die-die!’ squealed Queek. He landed in front of the assassin, who promptly flipped backwards, hurling two more stars from quick paws at the apex of his jump. Queek’s sword moved left then right, sparking as it deflected the missiles. Queek jumped after his attacker, bounding on all fours, the knuckles of his clenched fists hitting the floor painfully. The assassin turned to face him, brandishing a pair of daggers that wept a deadly venom.

Queek lashed his tail from side to side, aiming to wrap it around the assassin’s ankle, but the killer stepped over it as easily as if it were a jumping rope and came in, daggers weaving. Queek parried rapidly, his and the assassin’s blades making a network of steel between the skaven. Ska watched his master helplessly, moaning and tugging desperately at his feet. Metal sparked and rang. Suddenly, it stopped.

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.’

Kranskritt, still abased on the floor, felt the air stir the fur on his neck as Soothgnawer bent low. ‘And do you really think,’ the verminlord said, his hot breath washing over the seer, ‘that we can trust a mad-thing like Queek to accomplish that? No.’ Soothgnawer often answered his own questions. ‘Without you, he will fail. And without you, he might survive.’ Soothgnawer’s fleshless smile grew wider on his skull. ‘And we can’t have that, can we, little seer?’

SIX The Breaking of the Mountains

Morrslieb loomed, bigger than it had ever been, peering over Karag Nar like a glutton eyeing a honey cake. Sickly light shed from its mournful face reflected from the snow, painting the world a disturbing green.

‘As you see,’ said Drakki Throngton, loremaster of Vala-Azrilungol, ‘the Chaos moon waxes huge, my lord.’

‘What does this all mean?’ whispered Belegar. ‘Other than it’s got bigger,’ he said sharply, remembering Drakki’s endless lectures on precise speech during his youth.

‘I do not know,’ admitted Drakki sorrowfully. His breath misted his half-moon spectacles in the cold night air. ‘All I can do is check the measurements of our ancestors against our own observations.’

‘And?’ said Belegar.

‘Technically, my lord?’

‘Aye! Technically. I’m no beardling.’

‘I apologise, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘Well, see here.’ He flopped open a book over his forearm. The moonlight, cursed though it was, was ample illumination for a dwarf to read by. ‘The Chaos moon waxes and wanes according to its own whim. Sometimes there is a pattern, often there is not. It has grown larger and smaller in the past.’ He licked an ink-stained finger and flicked back a couple of hundred pages, two centuries’ worth of measurements. The handwriting was the same as in the recent pages. Drakki was old. ‘Such as here. That was when it was at its largest.’

Belegar glanced up from the page. ‘The years of the Great War Against Chaos.’

‘Indeed, my king.’

‘And the numbers?’

‘Well, my liege. There we have the most troubling news. These indicate that this is the largest it has ever been. Diameter, illumination, frequency of transit…’ His voice trailed away. ‘All higher numbers even than during the Great War.’

‘Hmph,’ said Belegar. He leaned against the parapet. In the city in the Great Vale, greenskin campfires burned insolently. ‘And what if I were to request the non-technical version?’

Drakki shut the book with finality. ‘Then I would say we were in a great deal of trouble, my liege. And not just us. Everybody.’

‘Now that’s putting it mildly,’ said Belegar. He drummed his fingers on the stone. ‘I’ve had requests, from the other holds, asking for their warriors back. Even, would you credit it, from High King Thorgrim.’

‘Yes, my liege.’

‘What kind of world is it, where even a dwarf can’t keep his word any more? A few weeks ago I was up here with Notrigar, winding him up.’

‘Oh, he is a little on the sparse-chinned side when it comes to recognising a good joshing, sire,’ said Drakki, his aged face crinkling with mirth.

‘That he is,’ said Belegar, no humour in his voice at all. ‘But I don’t feel it now. I look out at this place, Drakki, and all I can see is my dream slipping through my fingers.’

‘We will prevail, sire.’

‘That’s what I told Notrigar.’ Belegar huffed. The breath strained through his frosty beard to break free in clouds. ‘We do what we can. We’re as fortified as we can be. All we can do is wait for them, because as sure as gold is in the ground and khazukan crave it, they are coming. The only question is when.’

They looked out over the vale for a while, until a rumbling from the earth had them both casting their eyes downwards. Fragments of stone jumped like frogs from shelf to shelf on the outside of the citadel, click-clacking all the way down. A louder grumble took up with the first, then another and another, all eight mountains ringing the city protesting the failures of the world, sorrowful as longbeards deep in their ale. The ground convulsed, once, then again. The grating of stone on stone from the city told of ruins collapsing.

Belegar and Drakki swayed, their flat dwarfish feet keeping them upright. Alarms went off up and down the citadel, horns and clanging triangles.

‘Earthquake! Earthquake!’ dwarfs shouted.

The citadel’s masonry ground block on block, sending showers of ancient mortar down on the dwarf king, but the dwarfs were wise to the ways of the earth and built accordingly. The citadel did not fall. Hammerers ran to his side, pitched across the wavering battlements like sailors on a stone ship. ‘Protect the king! Protect the king!’ their leader, Brok Gandsson, bellowed. Shield rims clacked into one another as the dwarfs formed a barrier of gromril and steel to shelter their lord, half of them angling their shields upwards over his head. Fragments of masonry bounced off them.

‘Get back! I’m no beardling frightened by a little shiver,’ Belegar shouted, shoving at his protectors. They stood solid as the stones themselves.

‘Not until this is over, my king,’ said Brok.

The earthquake went on for long minutes, dying only gradually. Belegar waited under the shield roof while the earth gave one more heave. No more aftershocks came, and he shoved his men aside. Drakki followed him from the knot of hammerers.

A wind, unnaturally hot, stirred their beards, the runes on their weapons pulsing with blue light as it ran over them. Out in the ruins came the clamour of panicking orcs and goblins.

‘My lord, look!’ Drakki was pointing south. The winter skies were stained orange by distant fire. ‘Karag Haraz is erupting most fiercely.’

A distant boom rolled over the mountains, reflected from every rock face, until it seemed they clamoured in despair. Far to the north, more flamelight tainted the sky, colouring the high vaults of night.

‘And Karag Dronn,’ said Belegar.

‘They have been spouting fire for long months now, but these latest eruptions must be immense, if we can see them from here,’ said Drakki, unconsciously reaching for a notepad to mark the phenomenon down. ‘Karag Dronn is over one hundred leagues away.’

‘If they both speak, then doubtless Karag Orrud and the Karag Dum do.’

‘And east,’ said Drakki quietly. A gentle aftershock shook the ground, causing the hammerers to tense again. Drakki nodded to the eastern night sky. A haze of red coloured it as far as they could see from north to south.

‘Grungni’s beard,’ Belegar said. ‘All of them?’ The others remained silent. Such troubles from deep in the earth had brought the Karaz Ankor to its knees in the distant past and heralded the beginning of the dwarfs’ long decline. Nobody needed reminding of that.

‘Is it over, loremaster?’ asked Brok.

‘There will be further small earthquakes, but I expect the strongest have passed, for now.’ He looked to the Chaos moon, crowding its once larger brother from the sky. ‘There must be some connection. And if it continues to grow, there may be worse to come.’

Belegar nodded curtly. ‘Messengers!’ he called. Several lightly armoured dwarfs appeared from inside. ‘Get yourselves down into the first deep. I want to know of every stone out of place, do you understand?’

‘Yes, my liege,’ they all said.

‘It would be our bloody luck if that lot brought down some of our defences. If there are any casualties, Valaya forfend, you let me know.’

The messengers ran off, heavy boots clumping down the winding stairs leading down from the parapet into the citadel.

‘Something’s coming, very soon. If this doesn’t–’

A sky-shattering explosion tore through the night. The face of Karag Nar leapt outwards with surreal slowness, long cloudy trails of rock dust puffing up like flour from a burst sack. The ruined fortress upon its shoulder tumbled down like a town made of model bricks pushed over by a child, the finely cut dwarf masonry becoming one with the tumble of broken rock racing down the mountain’s flanks. Belegar watched open-mouthed as debris arced towards him.

Belegar was unceremoniously shoved to the flagstones of the wall-walk by his guards. This time he did not order them back. Pebbles rattled off gromril armour, the heavier stones that came tumbling soon after eliciting grunts from the hammerers covering the king. More explosions boomed, these muffled by depth.

A rain of boulders slammed down into the city, levelling whole districts. Avalanches of rock poured off the flanks of the mountains, burying further sections.

Silence was a long time coming.

Belegar’s hammerers jumped up, hauling the dazed king to his feet. They attempted to hustle him back inside, calling for more of his bodyguard. Belegar was filled with rage and shoved their hands away. He went to the edge of the parapet to see what had been done to his kingdom, ignoring their cries for him to be careful, to get inside.

A choking mist of pulverised rock hung over the Great Vale, biting the throats of everyone who breathed of it. Caught by the wind, it drifted away like rain, to reveal a scene of utter devastation presided over by the grinning moon.

Three of the eight mountains bore wounds in their sides. Karag Nar’s eastern face had slumped inwards, while Karag Rhyn had collapsed into a broad fan of rubble, its height reduced by a half.

Belegar stared out in disbelief. Behind him, his hammerers formed up, but none dared approach the king.

When he turned to face them, a tear tracked down one dusty cheek.

‘The mountains. They have killed the mountains.’

‘That was no earthquake,’ said Drakki, blood from a cut on his forehead making red tracks in his dust-whitened face.

Horns sounded again, this time from inside the citadel, answering others blown in the first deep. Belegar clenched his fist.

‘Thaggoraki,’ he said. ‘It is starting.’

‘Another war,’ said Drakki.

‘No,’ said Belegar, pitching his voice low enough that only Drakki and Brok could hear. ‘The beginning of the end.’

SEVEN The Hall of Reckoning

Horns sang all over the dwarf-held part of Karak Eight Peaks, echoing down corridors and up forgotten shafts, so that it was impossible to tell where they were coming from.

‘That’s the signal! Here they come, lads!’ cried Borrik Norrgrimsson. His ironbreakers, Norrgrimlings all, held their shields up and locked them together, awaiting the arrival of the ratmen.

‘It’s about time the thaggoraki got here,’ growled Hafnir Hafnirsson, Borrik’s second cousin. ‘I’m eager to split a few heads.’

‘We’ve been standing in this hall for two months waiting for this lot. I’m sure we can hang on for a few more minutes,’ said the Norrgrimlings’ notoriously miserable Ironbeard, Gromley. ‘Now shut up, or you’ll put the thane off. He’s on to something.’

Borrik kept a careful eye on all three entrances to the Hall of Reckoning. Two dwarf-made stairwells leading down into the enemy-infested second deep, and a massive pit, gnawed by some unspeakable thing, gaped in the middle of the floor. Not goblin work, or Borrik was an umgi. Other places gave him cause for concern. He had a keen eye for tunnelling, Borrik, and had spent a goodly amount of time tapping at the walls with variously sized hammers. There were more tunnels behind the walls, some of them worryingly new. And if there was one thing ‘new’ meant to dwarfs, it was trouble.

When Belegar assigned him to the hall, he had examined every inch thoroughly. Four hundred and one half-dwarf paces long, part of a broad thoroughfare that once ran east-west through the first deep to join with the Ungdrin Ankor. Blocked at both ends by rock falls, it would have been of little concern, save one thing. The fall at Borrik’s end was pierced by a narrow gap, shored up by a failed expedition many centuries ago. At the other end, in a chamber hacked out of the loose rubble, was a steel-bound door that led into another passageway. This in turn led to the lower parts of the citadel. The door of Bar-Undak was its name, a messenger’s access way to the Ungdrin in happier days. Now, in Borrik’s seasoned opinion, a bloody liability. Belegar had been determined to keep the hall open, it being one of the more easily defensible ways into the deeps. So it stayed open, as did thirty-nine other ways, thought Borrik grimly. Thirty-nine. Sometimes the king was a real wazzok.

In this tunnel, the Axes of Norr were arranged, two dozen in all, their front rank of ten flush with the low entrance. Seven irondrakes – the Forgefuries – were ranged in front of them.

‘If Belegar has one fault, it’s optimism,’ he grumbled to his banner bearer, Grunnir Stonemaster.

‘Aye,’ said Grunnir, his eyes fixed like Borrik’s on the arched stairwells leading into the hall. ‘Like you, my lord, I find anything other than healthy cynicism in a dwarf entirely unnatural. But I’ll say this, what other trait would lead a dwarf to try to retake Karak Eight Peaks? There’s a lot to be said for bloody-mindedness. I thought you of all people could respect that.’

‘If it had been down to me, I would have blocked off this tunnel long since. As I’ve said to the king a dozen times…’

Grunnir rolled his eyes. He’d heard this opinion a lot recently. Borrik wasn’t one to let a point lie.

‘…ever since Skarsnik’s grobi got pushed out of the upper levels two years gone–’

‘It’s been obvious the thaggoraki are planning something,’ said Grunnir, finishing his thane’s words for him, so often had he heard them before. ‘You’re not the king, Borrik. And you and me and all the rest of us followed him here, didn’t we, you grumbaki?’

‘So? I’ve every right to grumble.’

‘As has every dwarf with a beard as long as yours, cousin. My point is that we all share Belegar’s fault – if it is a fault – in being here at all. So it’s not really his fault, is it?’

Borrik sniffed. There was no arguing with that. He was quiet a moment. ‘I’d still have sealed this tunnel off, mind.’

‘Oh, give it a rest, would you?’ said Grunnir. Borrik raised his eyebrows. ‘Thane,’ added Grunnir.

‘That’s better,’ said Borrik.

There was so much history around them. Ancestor faces at the top of the stairways told of Vala-Azrilungol’s glory days. The rock falls recalled its weakening and downfall, the marks of the mason who had chiselled out the tunnel they now defended harked back to one of the many doomed attempts to reclaim it, while the gaping, tooth-gnawed pit before them told them all who Karak Eight Peaks’s real masters were now.

A hideous chittering echoed up out of the dark.

‘Right, that’s it, here they come,’ said Borrik. ‘Ready, lads!’

A musty draught blew up from the tunnels.

‘By Grimnir’s axe, there must be a lot of them,’ said Grunnir, flapping his hand in front of his face. ‘I can smell them from here!’

Hafnir grinned. ‘There’s always a lot of them, but it doesn’t matter how many, because we’re here. One hundred or a million of them, they’ll not get past!’

‘Aye!’ shouted the lads.

Stone-deadened explosions sounded down the stairs, sending a brief, fiercer breeze washing over the dwarfs that smelt of gun smoke, sundered rock and blood.

‘That’ll be the traps, then,’ said Hafnir. Grim chuckles echoed from gromril helms.

More explosions sounded, closer now. Any other attacking army might have been discouraged, but the skaven were numberless and were never put off. Borrik hoped they’d killed a lot anyway.

The first skaven spilled into the room, eyes wild with fear. They were scrawny, badly armed if at all, mouths foaming. They saw the dwarfs in their corner. The front rank hesitated but were pushed on, those attempting to go against the tide falling under the paws of their fellows.

‘Typical,’ said Borrik, indicating the rusted manacles and trailing chains of the lead skaven with a nod of his head. ‘Slave rats. They’re going to try and wear us down.’

‘Don’t they always?’ said Grunnir.

‘Just once, it’d be nice to go straight to the main course,’ moaned Gromley.

‘In your own time, lads,’ said Borrik, nodding at Tordrek Firespite, the Norrgrimlings’ Ironwarden leader. The Forgefuries levelled their weapons. The skaven scurried forwards, forced on by the mass of ratkin boiling up out of the depths. The far side of the chamber was a mass of mangy fur, crazed eyes, twitching noses and yellow chisel teeth.

‘Fire!’ said Tordrek.

Thick blasts of searing energy shot out of the Forgefuries’ guns, punching through skaven and sending them sprawling back into the mob. The fallen disappeared under their scurrying colleagues. Many fell into the hole in the centre, forced over the edge by the surging press; others stumbled and were crushed underfoot.

‘Fire!’ cried Tordrek again. Once more the irondrakes spoke, misting the air with gunsmoke.

‘Fire!’ he said one more time. The entire front rank of the skaven horde had been smashed, but thousands more came on behind them.

‘That’s close enough. Part ranks!’ shouted Borrik. The dwarf ironbreaker’s formation opened up like a clockwork automaton, allowing the Forgefuries to slip through to the back. They went unhurriedly into the small chamber around the door of Bar-Undak, as if there weren’t a numberless pack of crazed thaggoraki snapping at their heels.

‘Close ranks!’ bellowed Borrik. The gromril-clad dwarfs slid back together, presenting their shields as the first skaven hit home.

The skavenslaves were slight creatures, no bigger than grobi and less heavily built. The wave of them crashed feebly upon the shield wall. Rusty blades and rotten spears broke on impenetrable gromril. More and more skaven piled in from behind, pinning the arms of the foremost, crushing the air out of their lungs. The dwarfs stolidly pushed back, unmoved by the immense pressure. The skaven trapped at the front snapped at the dwarfs, shattering their teeth on armour. The dwarfs responded by swinging their axes, chopping the foe down with every swing. They could not miss. Behind the shield wall it was surprisingly peaceful, as if the dwarfs waited out a storm battering the windows of a comfortable tavern.

‘This is too easy,’ grunted Kaggi Blackbeard, hewing down his fourteenth skaven.

‘Aye, but how long can we keep it up?’ said Hafnir. ‘How long will your muscles hold? This is not a contest of arms, but one of arms!’ he laughed.

‘I’m just getting warmed up,’ said Kaggi. ‘And save your puns for when you’ve a better one, Hafnir.’

Desperate claws scrabbled over the shields held over the front rank by those in the back, as a slave forced itself through the narrow gap between shields and tunnel ceiling.

‘Oi! Oi! Up top!’ shouted Grunnir. The skavenslave dropped down behind the back rank. It brandished a knife, realised where it was, vented the foulest stink and was promptly chopped down for its troubles.

‘Woohoo! Smell that! It’s like Albok’s been at the chuf again!’ said Kardak Kardaksandrison.

‘You want to be up front,’ said Hafnir. ‘Fear stink. It’s all over me shield.’

‘It’ll take an age to clean off,’ said Gromley miserably. ‘You mark my words. Don’t get any of that muck in your beard or you’ll run out of water before you ever get it out.’

‘Here comes another!’ warned Hafnir.

A second and third skaven scrambled over the shields, more intent on getting away from the crush than fighting. They found no escape. One was hewed down in midair, the other gut-barged by Tordrek and stamped to death by the Forgefuries.

The floor became slippery with spilt blood, but the surefooted dwarfs barely noticed. The skaven were not so lucky, skidding over in the viscera of their slaughtered littermates.

‘Pressure’s easing off!’ shouted Hafnir. The proof of his words came as more rotting spears and rusting blades battered against the shield wall as the skaven found room to move.

‘Ready,’ ordered Borrik. ‘Prepare to advance!’

The dwarfs in the front pulled their shields in tighter, while those at the back lowered them from over the front rank’s heads.

‘Forward!’ said Borrik. ‘Deep formation!’

Swinging their axes, the Axes of Norr stepped forwards, mowing down skaven. As they advanced, they smoothly rearranged their formation, so that they were arranged into a block four dwarfs deep and five wide, the thane at the front in the middle. Shields overlapped to the fronts and sides, making them a walking fortress of gromril and thickset dwarfish limbs.

‘Charge!’ yelled Borrik.

‘Gand dammaz! Az baraz! Norrgrimsson-za!’ The dwarfs shouted the ancient war cry of their clan, and broke into a stately jog. They were not fast, but when they hit they were unstoppable. The skaven parted in front of them, scrabbling over each other to get out of the way. The Axes of Norr ploughed on. The stink of terrified skaven became overpowering, that sweet, old-straw smell of rodent urine mixed with something stronger and far more acrid.

Almost as one, the remaining rats broke and fled. Borrik and his ironbreakers pursued them, still in formation, as far as the pit in the centre of the chamber.

‘Halt!’ cried Borrik. ‘Forgefuries!’

Blazing bolts of energy seared past the dwarfish block, cutting down fleeing ratmen. The skaven tore at each other in their haste to escape, ripping their comrades to pieces. Many were pushed into the hole, or leapt into its fathomless depths in blind panic. Another volley went booming past. The skaven poured back down the stairwells.

And shortly came running back out again, the fleeing, terrified rats who had just exited the room driven back into it by a fresh legion of skavenslaves.

‘They’re coming again,’ shouted Hafnir.

‘They always come again, lad,’ said Kaggi.

‘Pull back, lads. Back to the tunnel!’

The dwarf formation halted and reversed, faces always to the enemy, pulping the corpses of their foes under weighty dwarf boots. Once in the tunnel mouth, they held their ground again.

One more time the dwarfs rushed out. One more time the skaven were cast back. The fighting went on for hours, until the last assault broke, and the skaven fled. Borrik had his panting ironbreakers rest, ordering Tordrek forward with his irondrakes.

That time, the skaven did not come again. The ironbreakers rotated their shoulders and worked aching muscles, complaining loudly that they had not enjoyed proper exercise before the skaven fled. They broke out pieces of stonebread and chuf – the hard survival cheese of their kind. A keg of ale stored by the door of Bar-Undak was broached and leather flagons passed around thirsty lips.

‘Oh look at that,’ spat Gromley. ‘Look at that!’ He ran his finger along a tiny scratch in his shield. ‘Ruined! Absolutely ruined.’

‘Shut up and drink your ale,’ said Grunnir.

Gromley stared mournfully from the depths of his helm. ‘It’s all right for you to say that. Nobody’s scratched your shield, have they?’ He shook his head. ‘No respect for good craft, you youngsters. Happy with umgak work, you are. Now, in my day I’d have got a bit of sympathy. But is one of you reaching for your polish to help an old longbeard grind out the damage? No. And we wonder why we’re in this mess!’

‘Show some respect, shortbeards,’ said Uli the Elder, the oldest of their number. ‘Let’s not let our standards slip.’

Good natured jeers vied with heartfelt grumbles.

At the front, Borrik conferred quietly with Tordrek.

‘When will they come again?’ Tordrek asked.

‘Too soon. We’ve been lucky. I reckon we’ve accounted for about four hundred of their lot, for not a single one of the lads.’ He sucked deeply on his pipe. ‘Good work, and greater fortune, but it can’t last.’ He called back over his shoulder. ‘Hafnir! Gromley! Get me some blackpowder.’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at the doors. ‘I reckon it’s time to get ready to stop up some mouseholes. The rest of you, we need some clear space to fight. I want these corpses shifted to one hundred paces out.’ The others gulped their ale and moved out from the tunnel, wiping suds from their beards with the backs of bloodied hands. ‘And be clever about it,’ said Borrik. ‘Don’t stack ’em – we don’t want to give the thaggoraki anything to hide behind, do we?’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at a young dwarf, barely sixty years old, who was doing just that. ‘Call yourself a Norrgrimling, Albok? Think, lad! What would your old dad say?’

‘Sorry, thane.’ Albok pushed over the pile he’d made with a boot. ‘Where do we put them then?’

Borrik grinned and jabbed with his pipe stem. ‘Chuck them down that there hole.’

Albok heaved a skaven corpse into the black, his thick arms tossing it as easily as a wet fur blanket. No sound came. Albok cocked his head appreciatively, and began to throw them in quickly.

‘That’s right, lads, don’t tarry. We’re not going to have long before the little furry kruti come back for another go.’

Queek paced back and forth angrily. He struck down the messenger, drawing blood from his muzzle.

‘Still standing! Still standing! What squeak-nonsense Clan Skryre tinker-speaker bring to Queek? Four mountains were bombed-targeted. Only one collapse! What news of Skarsnik?’

‘No sign of him, O most undefeated and puissant of overfiends,’ said the messenger. ‘The other tall-rock, it also nearly gone. White Mountain-place, half size it was. My masters…’

Queek glared at him so hard the skaven pulled his head all the way back into his shoulders. The sight of it was so pathetic that Queek laughed madly.

‘Stupid-meat, or brave-meat, hrn?’ Queek bounded over and flipped the Clan Skryre skaven onto his back with a footpaw. He leaned in and sniffed. ‘Stupid-meat.’

The skaven squealed in terror, exposing his neck and spreading his arms. Queek had lost interest and walked away. ‘And you, rest of you! Why beard-things not dead?’

‘It stupid beard-things fault!’ said Skrikk. ‘Not mine, oh no. Seventy thousand slaves we sent…’

‘Thaxx say one hundred thousand!’ said Thaxx.

Skrikk shrugged. ‘Skrikk count, Thaxx lie. Terrible, terrible shame. And I thought him so loyal. No doubt great and fiercely intelligent Queek can see to the traitor-meat squirming beneath loyal-fur.’

‘Thaxx Redclaw the most loyal–’ began Thaxx.

‘No squeak-tellings! Beard-things!’ snapped Queek so loudly Skrikk flinched.

‘They are not killing the slaves quickly enough, grand one,’ said Grotoose. ‘They have chosen good spots for defence and cannot be dislodged. Our slave legions can attack on narrow fronts where they are easily slain. This is not the way to beat them.’

‘You tell Queek that stupid-meat beard-things, with their slow and stupid minds, are outwitting the swiftest thinker-tinkers in all of the Under-Empire?’

The assembled skaven looked at one another and pointed fingers. Queek squeaked loudly, stopping the accusations and counter-charges of incompetence before they could begin.

‘Enough, enough! Enough with slaves and weak-meat! Send in the clanrats. Call in the stormvermin. Kill the beard-things. Kill them all dead-dead!’

‘What of orders?’ said Thaxx. ‘What of Lord Gnawdwell’s commands?’

‘I do not care. Queek general here – where is Gnawdwell?’

‘In Skavenblight?’ ventured one.

‘Yes-yes, whereas Queek the Mighty here. We will win. Nothing else is important. We will destroy. Queek will show the whole world that Queek is the mightiest, the best, the most deadly! We will see what Gnawdwell says about orders then.’

The messengers bowed several times and rushed away. The clanlords and potentates of the City of Pillars attempted a more dignified exit. Queek’s long mouth split in a hideous grin and he waved his paws at them. ‘You too, hurry-scurry! Queek not like sluggards. Loyal Ska tell sluggards what Queek thinks of slow-meat.’

‘Queek does not like them,’ said the giant stormvermin, ‘and I don’t like them either.’

‘Boo!’ shouted Queek, making as if to leap into their midst, and away they fled spraying fear musk, much to Queek’s amusement.

The chamber was empty bar the patter of retreating paws and the smell of fear. Queek snickered to himself.

‘You see, Ska? This is why Queek is so great.’

There came no reply. Ska was thankfully brief in his praise of Queek. All the bowing and scraping and insincere flattery that characterised skaven social interaction the warlord found tiresome, but Ska usually said something.

Queek’s nose twitched. Something was wrong. A smell of old fires, rubbish and hot warpstone made him sneeze. The light leached from his surroundings, leaving everything grey. Ska was unmoving, frozen in position. He called for his guards, but they did not come.

Movement in the unmoving world caught his eye. He did not turn to it, not immediately. Something big was in the corner.

He spun around, leaping into the air and twisting his entire body. Dwarf Gouger leapt into his hand, and moved in a blurred arc impelled by all his weight and speed. His serrated sword came up next, aimed directly at the vitals of his giant ambusher.

Queek crashed into the stone. The creature was not there.

‘Oh ho! You are as good as they say. But mighty Queek could be the mightiest of all mortal skaven, and he still would not catch me.’

Shadows boiled all around him, darting like swarms of flies over the marshes. Queek hissed and made feints and jabs, but the darkness moved away from him, slipping around his weapons like water.

‘Who-you?’ he cried. His fur bristled with a fear he would not allow himself to feel. For the first time in years, his glands clenched. ‘What you want with Queek?’

The darkness ran together and parted for an instant, affording the warlord a glimpse of a masked, rodent face, ten feet in the air, topped with three sets of horns, two straight, one curved. The ends of them were twisted into the runic claw-mark of Clan Eshin.

‘I am Lurklox, Shadow Lord of Decay, one of the twelve above the twelve. And what I want with you, strutting warlord, is your victory.’

EIGHT The Hall of Pillared Iron

In the Hall of Pillared Iron, King Belegar took counsel. Between the thick iron columns that gave the place its name, venerable dwarfs of many clans crowded around low tables layered with maps. The hall had been built with the same attention to detail and pride with which the ancestors had built everything. Each of the room’s sixty-four column capitals had been wrought in red iron to resemble four straining longbeards holding up the roof. The remainder of the columns were inscribed with runes inlaid with precious minerals, most picked out by rapacious greenskins, but in the more inaccessible places electrum, silver, polished coal and agate still glittered, a reminder of the hall’s former glory.

Despite the care and craft of its making, the Hall of Pillared Iron was a foundation, a utilitarian room intended to support the finer citadel halls above. The metal in its walls and pillars allowed the citadel to reach its great and graceful height without compromising its efficacy as a fortress.

That had been then. The upper chambers were mostly toppled by centuries of war and earthquakes, among them the magnificent Upper Throne Room, whose wide windows and fine art made it the mirror to the Great Throne Pinnacle in the Hall of a Thousand Pillars in the first deep. Unique in all the dwarf realms, at the height of the Karaz Ankor the twinned thrones had represented Karak Eight Peaks’s mastery of the worlds under sky and under stone. Of these two hearts, one was rubble and the other had been occupied by a succession of foul creatures.

So low had the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks sunk that the Hall of Pillared Iron was their greatest hall. Magnificent though it was, as grand as Belegar’s throne looked when viewed down its aisles, the Hall of Pillared Iron was a support. Might as well call a single stone block all the temple. Belegar had refused to have it completely restored, lest the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks forget why they were there, and become content with scraps.

Drakki was speaking, addressing his king and his advisors. Brunkaz Whitehair, the oldest dwarf in the hold, was beside him. His beard was so long it looped three times in a complicated plait about his thick gold belt.

‘At Bar-Undak the Norrgrimlings are taking casualties. The endless stair is being overrun, half the Zhorrak Blue Caps are dead. Valaya’s quay has fallen, our warriors there falling back to the base of the citadel.’

‘The Undak?’

‘Still running clear,’ said Drakki. ‘But how long will that continue? The thaggoraki poisoned the river once – now we’ve lost the quays at the headwater, they could easily do it again.’

‘Buzkar,’ swore Belegar. He looked from map to map, searching for a sign of hope, some weakness in the enemy he could exploit, some dawi strength he could call upon.

He spread his hands over a portion of the map, caging it protectively in his fingers. ‘Kvinn-wyr still holds strong. So long as we hold the mountain, our people will have somewhere safe to stand. We’ve got the gyrocopter eyries at Tor Rudrum. As long as we have them, we can stay in touch with the other holds. Above all, the citadel is safe. Perhaps it is time to abandon the first line of defence and make our next stand at the Hall of Clan Skalfdon,’ said Belegar. He pointed to a great hall in the first deep below the citadel, three quarters of a mile from the collapsed east halls, where many lines of communication intersected. ‘Beat them back there and they’ll think twice about trying to crack the hold.’

‘There’s not time to fortify it,’ said Brunkaz. ‘We need to dig in there, or it’ll be a slaughter.’

Belegar laughed. ‘The only slaughter I’ve seen in recent weeks is that of the ratkin! We’ve slain so many I could carpet the east road all the way to the Uzkul Kadrin in vermin fur.’

‘Aye, true enough,’ conceded Brunkaz, although his expression made clear his distaste at covering good dawi stone with ratskin. ‘But these aren’t dregs we’re facing – that part’s done with. Belegar, you know how they work. The Headtaker is sending in his clan warriors and stormvermin. Our lads are worn down, and we’ve lost a good number. They’ll not last until the defences are ready.’

‘They’ll have to,’ said Belegar firmly.

‘There’s no time, my king,’ said Brunkaz.

‘There’ll have to be time, or we’ll not get the other lines finished!’ snapped Belegar.

Drakki cleared his throat, politely interrupting before grudges began to sprout like grobi in a damp cave. ‘And what of the way into Kvinn-wyr?’

‘That at least is in hand,’ said Belegar. ‘Dokki,’ he called over to an engineer hard at work over his own maps.

‘My king?’

‘How’re the preparations at the Arch of Kings going?’

‘Give me three weeks and the dawi I’ve got, or sixty more engineers and two days and I’ll have the fort back in dawr order. Before that…’ He sucked in his breath and clucked his tongue. ‘You’ll be lucky if it’s before the end of the month.’

‘This is the Eternal Realm! Surely we have time,’ said Belegar. ‘What about Kolbron Feklisson’s miners?’

‘Ah! Here we have less dire tidings,’ said Drakki, brightening a little.

‘We’ve retaken the western foundries?’ said Belegar hopefully.

‘Er, no. The miners have lost the foundries, but are still holding the eastern entrance.’

‘That’s good news,’ said Belegar hesitantly, fully expecting the worst. He was rewarded with it.

‘For now, my lord. They’re going to be encircled here and here – it’s only a matter of time,’ said Drakki, tracing a series of halls on the map. ‘We’ve rumour of thaggoraki tunnelling teams at work behind them.’

‘From who?’ said Brunkaz. ‘Half our number are sparsely bearded hill dwarfs or umgdawi.’

‘Sadly not from them, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘From Kolbron himself. No one knows stone better. If he says there’s something going on in the rock, you can bet your last coin there is.’

Belegar shook his head from side to side, his beard whispering against the parchment. ‘Tell them to withdraw.’

‘They won’t retreat, Belegar,’ said Drakki, a note of pleading in his voice.

‘Tell them it’s a direct command from me. I’ll write it on a bit of paper if it makes them happy. Get them back up here. I want them reporting to Durggan Stoutbelly and helping him fortify the Hall of Clan Skalfdon before sunrise or I’ll be writing grudges against the lot of them, is that clear? With their stonecraft under Stoutbelly’s direction, we’ve a fighting chance of establishing the next perimeter.’

‘It’ll be a hard task,’ said Brunkaz. ‘Not like the old days.’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ said Belegar tersely, only just reining in his temper and maintaining the appropriate level of respect due to the living ancestor. ‘It never is like the old days, and it never will be again if we don’t give good account of ourselves here. We’re in a tough spot, aye, but we’ll all be dead if we grumble about it.’

Brunkaz’s wrinkled face paled under his beard at Belegar’s lack of deference. Belegar regretted his tone. ‘Have the messengers set out?’ he said, more softly.

‘This morning, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘Six for each of Zhufbar, Karak Kadrin, Karaz-a-Karak and Karak Azul. No gyrocopters, as you commanded.’

‘We need them here.’ Belegar ground his broad teeth. Going cap in hand to the High King grated on his honour. What choice did he have? ‘The other kings will understand we cannot send their warriors back. They’ve not failed us yet. We’ll just have to dig in. Get Clan Zhudak to the gates of Bar-Kragaz, hold them back at the west tunnel. They’ll be coming through from the foundries that way as soon as they discover the miners have gone.’

‘Aye, my lord.’ Drakki hesitated, words that would not be spoken keen on his lips.

Brunkaz curled his lip at Drakki and made a rumble of disapproval that started deep in his gut and travelled upwards, quivering his moustaches as it came out of his mouth. ‘Drakki’s too good a dwarf to say it, but I will. We’ve got no chance. Half of us are dead already. The skaven are numberless. They’ve never attempted anything like this before. We’d be better off fighting our way out and leaving them to the greenskins.’

‘It’s a bigger attack, I’ll grant you. Nothing we can’t handle,’ said Belegar, his voice stiffening.

‘They’ve blown up Karag Nar! The sunset mountain, gone! Karag Rhyn’s a shadow of itself – half the old farmlands to the south are buried in its rubble. Can’t you see? Has pride blinded you so much? The mountains, Belegar, the mountains themselves are in pieces! If they can’t endure, what chance do we have?’ Belegar stared at his advisor, but Brunkaz had gone too far to stop. ‘There’s only one reason the Headtaker’s done that, and that’s to keep the greenskins off his back while he comes to finish us off. Or have you considered, it may not be long before they do the same to us? The thaggoraki have changed. We are not fighting against rats with sticks any more. Some of their machines make the creations of the Dawi-Zharr seem like toys! Why do you think they’ve left the surface camps alone? Why has Lord Duregar not had so much as a whiff of rat round the East Gate these last months while we’re knee deep in them? The answer’s simple – they’re coming to wipe us out! They don’t care. They’re massing for a final blow right at our heart, right into Kvinn-wyr.’

Belegar’s face grew purple, and his words when they came were quiet, the hiss of rain before the first thunder crack of a storm. ‘You will not mention the eastern kindreds in these halls again.’

‘All your life you’ve asked me for my counsel, from beardling to the king I love and serve gladly. I’ll give you the truth and aye, unvarnished,’ said Brunkaz. ‘This is my sooth, king of Karak Eight Peaks. Leave now, before we’re all dead. We tried our best. Sometimes we have to retreat a little further than we wish. Let the grobi and thaggoraki fight over the scraps. When the world’s troubles die down again, we can come back and take our lands from whoever wins. They’ll be weaker for their victory. More importantly, we’ll still be alive.’

‘Is that all, Brunkaz?’

‘Think of your son, Belegar.’

‘Is that all, Brunkaz?’ Belegar’s shout cut through the quiet muttering of dwarfs at council, so loud the candles and torches lighting the hall wavered before its fury. Only the glimlight of the glowstones was unperturbed.

Brunkaz could not meet his king’s eyes. He worked his cheeks, causing his beard and moustache to move around like a live thing. ‘Aye. That should just about cover it.’

‘Thank you. I suppose you’ll be wanting to leave, then? If you do, I’ll release you from your oaths, but the others’ll not thank you for it.’

Brunkaz went bright red. ‘I’ll not abandon my oaths! Course I’m staying. Why, if you were a few decades younger I’d put you over my knee and–’

‘Very well,’ interrupted Belegar. ‘If you’re staying, I’d appreciate you keeping your words tucked up behind your beard unless they’re something to do with defending the hold. Do you have anything useful to add in that regard?’

Brunkaz buried his chin in his chest, considering his next words. ‘There are ogres in the pass, my lord,’ he said slowly.

‘There are always ogres in the pass,’ said Drakki dismissively.

‘More than usual, Drakki Throngton. Golgfag Maneater leads a great host of them,’ said Brunkaz, still not looking at his king.

‘The Maneater is in the Uzkul Kadrin?’ said Belegar, brightening. He reached his hand, richly gloved, up to his mouth, as if he would hide the smile spreading under his beard.

‘You can’t be thinking on hiring him, my king? Ungrim nearly killed him. He’s a thug, a pirate, a… a… mercenary,’ said Drakki, taking his turn to be outraged.

‘That’s exactly what he is,’ said Belegar. ‘A mighty one.’

‘I beg you, my king, recall Duregar from the East Gate,’ said Drakki.

‘What, and let Skarsnik have it? And how do we get out then, if it should come to that?’ The king shot Brunkaz a warning look not to take up his cause again. ‘The East Gate garrison stays where it is, for now. Golgfag is what we need. He’s fought many times for the dawi.’

‘And just as often against us. And he doesn’t come cheap,’ said Brunkaz.

‘You’d beggar the kingdom for an ogre’s sword?’ Drakki shook his head so vigorously that he dislodged his spectacles. He pushed them back into place with an ink-stained finger, and squinted expectantly at his king.

‘Better a beggared kingdom than a fallen one. I’ll promise him the pick of the treasury.’

‘There’s precious little in the treasury,’ grumbled Drakki.

‘He doesn’t know that, does he?’ said Belegar. ‘Get a messenger out to him.’

‘There’s a blizzard rising.’

‘Then no one will be able to see him, will they?’ said Belegar. ‘Do it now, Grungni scowl at you!’

Now both longbeards were taken aback by Belegar’s attitude. Belegar supposed he should feel guilty, snapping at these honoured elders like they were callow beardlings, but he didn’t. They knew his temper well enough.

The longbeards walked away from the table, chins wagging like fishwives. Belegar ignored the pointed looks they gave him. To keep others from approaching him, he affected an air of bristling bad temper. He didn’t have to try very hard. Those dwarfs waiting to petition him – priests, merchants, umgdawi and hill dwarfs – were discouraged, if not by his manner then by his hammerers, who ushered them out of the hall. He heard their complaints well enough; the hall wasn’t that big. Fair enough, some of them had been waiting a day or so, but he wasn’t in the mood to dispense the king’s justice. He feigned deafness and returned to his maps, staring hard at them until his eyes swam. As if that would be enough to turn the red and green parts of the map blue again.

If only it were so simple.

One dwarf, somehow, got through.

‘Perhaps now your majesty might consider our request?’

The smell of rancid pig fat and lime was unmistakeable. Belegar looked up from his maps into the magnificently crested face of Unfer, nominally the leader of the Cult of Grimnir in the hold. When the Slayers wanted something, it was Unfer who asked. Belegar assumed he must be their leader, but in truth he did not know. Their ways were closed and mysterious to all who had not taken the oath.

The king tried to look away, but was arrested by the Slayer’s eyes. Beautiful eyes, set into a face scarred by cuts and inner pain. They were out of place, clear blue as ice, and as devoid of emotion.

Belegar tugged at his beard and cleared his throat. He waved his hand over his maps.

‘I’m loath to let such fine warriors go out. I need every axe we have here.’

Unfer glanced at the maps like they were a carpet he had no interest in buying, and Belegar an overeager merchant. ‘That is not the nature of our oath, my lord. We have no desire to retreat until there is nowhere left to retreat to, to find our doom backed into some corner, or worse, to be taken alive. There is no hope in this defence. Let us go, and kill as many of them as we can for you. It is a service we gladly offer you.’

Unfer’s glacial gaze bored into Belegar’s eyes. The insult to the king’s ability as a general was implicit.

‘There is always hope,’ said Belegar. ‘Help might come yet.’ He heard the desperation in his own voice; he was afraid that the Slayer was right.

‘There is no hope left in all the Karaz Ankor. No one is coming. The Eternal Realm is finished. Best we all shave our heads and take the oath so that we might die with a song on our lips and our shame washed away in blood.’

‘Shame?’ said Belegar. Unfer shrugged shoulders craggy with muscle. Blue tattoos writhed over them. In hands like boulders, he carried paired rune axes – royal weapons. Belegar often wondered who he’d been. Unfer would never tell.

‘The shame of all our kind,’ said Unfer. ‘That we have failed to restore the glory of our ancestors. Better to fight. Better to wish for a good death than a ragged hope.’

Belegar was tempted. To sally out with his remaining few folk, and kill the thaggoraki until they themselves were killed. Let them taste dawi steel and remember them forever!

He blinked visions of a glorious end away. He could not. He was a king. He had responsibilities. He had a son, the first heir born to the king of Karak Eight Peaks since its fall two thousand years ago. He would not retreat. He would not abandon the legacy of his ancestors, so much dearer now it was the heritage of another.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We wait here. We will defend, and retreat, and defend. And we shall prevail.’

Disappointment flickered over Unfer’s face. ‘As you wish. It is your kingdom.’ The Slayer put one axe over each shoulder and turned away.

‘I have not finished,’ said Belegar sternly. ‘You have my permission to go,’ he added with understanding. ‘I cannot keep you from your oaths. What manner of king would I be if I did? I wish you would reconsider, but if you must, you have my leave. Fight well, and find the doom you deserve, Unfer.’

Unfer nodded once. ‘It is all any of us can hope for any more. Grimnir go with you, King Belegar. If we meet again, may it be in happier times for all dawi.’

‘You’ll not go yet,’ said Belegar. Unfer cast a weary look over his shoulder. The Slayer moved in the way those with deep depression do: slowly, as if through a treacle of despair. ‘I may be a poor king, but I’m still a king. You’ll get a proper send off. I’ll open my cellars to you, we’ll say the right words, drink to your deaths.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘The old way.’

Unfer gave an appreciative bow. ‘Let no dawi say that King Belegar is ungenerous. It is good to hold to the old ways while we still can.’

‘Aye,’ said Belegar. ‘Aye, it is.’ He meant it as a good thing, but his troubled face said otherwise. All they had was the past, he thought, and even that was running away from them.

He didn’t notice Unfer leave. A commotion at the gates drew his tired eyes. One of the Iron Brotherhood, Skallguz the Short, was pushing his way through. He jogged up to his lord, red faced and out of breath.

‘My king!’ he said, and dropped to his knees.

‘What is it?’ said Belegar.

‘It is the queen, my lord. The prince…’ The dwarf stammered to a halt.

‘Spit it out!’ Belegar’s face went pale with terrible presentiment.

‘My lord,’ the dwarf said. ‘I don’t know how to say it… They’ve both gone!’

NINE Kemma’s Way

Wind sang sadly through the teeth of the broken window, set in the dairy, high up in the side of Kvinn-wyr. A sheer drop of four thousand feet fell away down the mountain outside, ending in broad fans of scree covered by snow. Gromvarl pulled his head back in through mullions worn edgeless by the wind and rain, and leaned against a cracked milk trough. He shook the snow from his shaggy mane of hair and filled his pipe.

He winced at the taste of the tobacco. Once the dwarfs had produced the world’s finest smoking weed in the Great Vale, along with much else. The soil of the bowl cupped between the eight mountains was so rich they called it Brungal – brown gold. In Belegar’s pocket kingdom there had been plans, and much talk in ale cups, of how the dwarfs were going to clear the farmlands and raise great crops to end Vala-Azrilungol’s reliance on the other holds. Of course, like so much Belegar said, it remained an unattainable dream.

A stealthy tread sounded in the old goat way outside. Gromvarl brought his crossbow up one-handed, wincing as he rested the stock in the crook of his broken arm.

He narrowed his eyes, finger on the trigger lever, then relaxed. No skaven or grobi whistled like that.

A deeply tanned dwarf with an expression so cheerful it belonged on the face of no real dawi came in through the door. He doffed his wide-brimmed hat, showing the scarf tied tightly over his ears and under his chin. His name was Douric Grimlander, a dwarf reckoner, a calculator of debts and grudges. Little better than a mercenary, to Gromvarl’s eyes.

‘Gromvarl! What happened to you?’ Douric said, his eyes lighting on Gromvarl’s splinted arm.

‘An urk happened to it. And then I happened to the urk.’

Douric peered about the small dairy. ‘You alone then?’

‘What does it look like?’ said Gromvarl through teeth gripping his pipe. He had always found Douric insufferable, even at the best of times.

‘I told you he’d say no,’ said Douric breezily. ‘I suppose it’s all off then. Belegar’s a fool to turn your offer down, but that’s that.’

‘Listen to me, you scraggle-bearded wazzok,’ said Gromvarl. ‘Why do you think he said no? This is his hold. Thorgrim is his son and heir.’ Gromvarl fixed the shorter dwarf with a beady eye and poked him in the chest with his pipe stem. ‘I wonder if you’re a real dwarf at all. You’ve no honour.’

Douric took the insult as a compliment, or so his broad smile suggested. ‘I like money. You like money. Who doesn’t like money? I have honour, but like my money, I’m just a little more careful than you where I spend it, that’s all.’

Gromvarl grunted, wiped the mouthpiece of his pipe on his bearskin, which was no cleaner than Douric’s jerkin, and replaced it in his mouth with the clack of ivory on teeth. ‘Oaths are worth more than gold, reckoner.’

‘I keep mine, unlike your king,’ said the reckoner mildly. ‘If I combine honour with payment, does it make me all that bad? Besides,’ he said, hitching his hands into his wide belt. ‘You’re the one who suggested to the king we should steal the queen out of the city against all tradition. So where’s your honour?’

Gromvarl adjusted the sling holding his broken arm, sliding thick fingers between the fabric and his neck. ‘My oath has always been to protect the queen, ever since she was a child. I’m doing that now.’

‘Doing that…?’ Douric’s eyes widened. ‘Oh ho ho! Gromvarl! I didn’t think you had it in you. She is here isn’t she?’

‘Not yet,’ said Gromvarl grudgingly. ‘Soon.’

‘Handing her over to me! A mere mercenary. Tut tut, Gromvarl. You’ll be coming with us now, I’ll warrant. It’ll be a mite uncomfortable down there once Belegar finds you’ve kidnapped his son.’ Douric jerked his thumb over his shoulder, back down the passageway in the exact direction of the citadel. Douric always had had a fine sense of direction, even for a dwarf.

Gromvarl grumbled, levered himself up from the tub and took a heavy step forwards, until he was nose to nose with Douric. ‘I’ve other oaths, oaths of service to the king. I’ll not break either. I need a dwarf of your… moral flexibility.’ He looked the reckoner up and down, his grubby clothes, his odd umgak gear garnered from who knew where. He was right, this was no true dwarf.

‘So you’re in a bind, then? Who’s the more fortunate here – you, all thick with responsibility, or me, who tends to the more cautious side–’

‘Self-serving more like,’ interjected Gromvarl.

‘–of things?’ continued Douric, undeterred. ‘A philosophy that enables me to help you out now. Who else would, Gromvarl? Who’s the better?’ He waggled his eyebrows in almost lewd fashion.

‘You little krutwanaz…’

‘Will you two stop arguing? The pair of you, thicker-headed than trolls!’ A sharp female voice speared out of the corridor. Queen Kemma of Karak Eight Peaks emerged into the dairy. She was followed by a very young dwarf, no older than ten or twelve, whose chin was covered in the straggly hairs of first bearding, and a hammerer, who nervously glanced behind them. Both the queen and youngster wore travelling cloaks and the rough clothes favoured by the kruti and foresters who worked overground. When the queen pushed past Gromvarl, her fastenings parted slightly, revealing rich gromril mail beneath. Both of them too had a royal bearing. Gromvarl sighed. No matter how they dressed up, there was no hiding who they were. He just hoped they had not been seen sneaking away.

‘I am sorry, vala,’ said Gromvarl, who at least had the decency to look abashed. He cast his eyes downwards. Douric, on the other hand, arched his back, and clasped his hands behind his back, an exceptionally self-satisfied look on his face.

The hammerer rubbed at his bulbous nose. ‘Here they are. I better get back.’

‘Another oath-bender!’ said Douric. ‘They’re popping up like mushrooms.’

‘Guard the queen as long as she is in Karak Eight Peaks, that was my oath. Well now she’s not,’ said the hammerer. ‘Nearly.’

‘You’re a good dawi, Bronk Coppermaster,’ said Gromvarl. He held up a small purse, distastefully pinched between finger and thumb, as if it were soiled. ‘For your trouble.’

Bronk looked at it in horror. ‘You’ve been hanging around with these here reckoners too long. Just see her safe, that’s all I want. If this ends well, then I’ll take my chances with Belegar, and we’ll still have our prince. If it doesn’t end well… Well,’ he shrugged, his gromril rattling musically, ‘then it’s not going to matter very much what Belegar thinks.’

Gromvarl nodded. ‘I look forward to fighting alongside you, Bronk.’

Bronk nodded and hurried off back up the passageway.

Meanwhile, Douric was attempting his charm upon the queen. ‘Vala Kemma! It has been too long. With every passing year your beauty grows greater.’ He bowed his head and reached for her hand.

‘Don’t even think about it, reckoner,’ said Kemma, snatching her fingers back from his puckered lips. ‘We have to be away now.’

‘Mother, are we sure this is the right thing to do?’ said Thorgrim. ‘I am the prince of Karak Eight Peaks, my place should be here. Father will be furious.’

Kemma placed her hands on his shoulders, and looked up into his face. Not yet full grown, he was already turning into a fine figure of a dwarf. He was already three feet tall; chances were he was going to be bigger than his father, and certainly as strong. Bryndalmoraz Karakal they called him – the bright hope of the mountains.

‘I am taking you to be safe, my son. Is it not your first responsibility to preserve the royal bloodline?’

Prince Thorgrim’s young face twisted with inner conflict. ‘But I am the prince, mother. I will not be an oathbreaker.’

‘You have taken no oaths,’ soothed his mother, stroking the lines on his face. ‘If you did not believe us to be doing the right thing, then you would have stayed behind. We have already come so far.’

The prince looked doubtful and bit his lip, causing the fuzz of growing beard to puff up. He nodded in what was intended to be a decisive manner, but Gromvarl saw he was still unsure. He was brave for a boy of his age.

‘Very well,’ said Thorgrim.

‘King Belegar for a father and that one there for his mother, I don’t envy that youngster,’ said Douric quietly.

‘You’re not wrong there,’ Gromvarl replied as the queen and prince talked. ‘But he’s almost past all that. He’ll be his own master soon, mark my words. He’s got a strong head, that boy, but with her temperament, thank Valaya. The last thing Karak Eight Peaks needs is another Belegar.’

‘I’m not sure the queen’s temperament is necessarily an improvement,’ said Douric.

Gromvarl snorted.

Strange noises sounded from deep in the mountain.

‘We best be away, vala. These tunnels were much fractured in the time of Great Cataclysm. They are unsafe. No one knows where they go,’ said Douric.

Kemma’s face crinkled with bitterness. ‘There is nowhere safe in Karak Eight Peaks – there never has been. I should have left as soon as Thorgrim was born.’ She reached into her robes. Douric held up his hand.

‘Payment upon safe delivery, or my word is not my bond,’ he said. ‘Best say your farewells.’ Douric tactfully withdrew, drawing the prince after him to leave Kemma alone with her guardian.

Gromvarl gave his queen a bow. He huffed on his pipe like a steam engine building power, filling the dairy with smoke.

‘Well, I suppose this is goodbye.’

‘Brave Gromvarl. Are you sure you will not come with us?’

‘Not with this, vala,’ said Gromvarl, lifting his broken arm. ‘And even without, I’d have to stay. You know why.’

Kemma smiled her understanding. ‘I lack the words to thank you for all that you’ve done for me.’ She leaned through the clouds around him and laid a gentle kiss on his old cheek.

‘It’s not necessary! Get on with you now, young lady,’ said Gromvarl, his voice inexplicably warbly. He coughed. ‘Damned tobacco making my eyes water! I’d give my other arm for a pouch of Everpeak Goldleaf.’

Douric led on up the passage, a krut ungdrin, where in better days herds of goats had been driven from their pastures to be milked and overwintered. They went through ways long forgotten, winding up the secret stair to a door high up on the shoulders of Kvinn-wyr.

‘Be careful, my lady, my prince,’ said Douric. ‘It’s cold and mighty windy out.’

This proved to be something of an understatement. The three of them were buffeted by a howling gale that drove needles of snow into their faces. The path they found themselves on went down steadily towards alpine pastures arrayed on the mountain’s shoulders. Rusted spikes of ancient iron in the rock showed where a safety line had once been anchored, but it was a distant memory. The three of them clung on to the stone for dear life until they turned a corner onto the southern flank of the mountain, where the wind dropped to strong gusts that plucked at their clothes, petulant at its lost power.

‘That’s the worst bit, for now,’ said Douric.

‘You know this way well?’ said Kemma.

‘I know all ways well, my lady. A reckoner’s not a reckoner if he can’t get in or out of a place where reckoning needs doing. Those with debts are generally shy, retiring sorts. They can be a little tricky to dig out,’ he said with a grin.

They went through high fields well above the tree line. Subject to the caprices of the wind, much of the snow had been blown from them, gathering in huge drifts against broken dry-stone walls and the cairns of piled rocks cleared from the fields by the ancestors. Tumbledown shacks marked the refuges of goatherds, and in one place the walls of a ruined village made straight, soft lines in the snow. All was abandoned, as everything was in the Eight Peaks. Here, however, there had recently been dwarfs tending flocks. The signs of recent occupation were visible in places, especially near other krut ungdrin. Once again, the pastures were empty.

Kemma found it hard to believe, but not so long ago there was an optimism to Karak Eight Peaks, a sense that things were turning for the better. Another cruel joke, and one she had never fallen for herself. This had always been a fool’s errand, and in Belegar the errand had found its fool. Nevertheless, she was a dwarf, and the ruination upset her as much as any other. She had never told anyone, but this was why she hated Vala-Azrilungol so much. Every inch of it was a shameful reminder of what her people had lost.

Douric hadn’t looked back at them the whole time they’d been outside; if he did she hoped he’d think her tears were brought forth by the biting wind and not from sorrow.

At one corner, they passed a collection of dwarf beard scalps, frozen stiff in the wind and rattling against their posts. ‘Thorgrim! Look away!’ she said. Her son did not heed her, and gawped at them. Anguish pulsed in her breast that he had to see such things, but it hardened her resolve. This was why they had to leave.

As they threaded their way through a series of terraced fields, the air grew thicker and it became easier to breathe. The tall white finger of Kvinn-wyr, cloaked in winter snow from peak to skirts, raised itself behind them. They were hidden from the feeble sun, trudging through a world of shadow and ice.

‘Soon we must go back inside,’ said Douric. ‘Through another way. We can rest a while at its head before we press on.’ He said this for the benefit of Thorgrim, who had a long way yet to go before he developed the full width of his thighs. He was trying his hardest to hide his discomfort like a good dawi, but his pale face and trembling lips told another story.

Kemma went to her son, and fussed over him as mothers do. He was proud enough to shoo her away, and Douric smiled at that. Kemma frowned, which he thought a little extreme, but then she held up her hand. ‘Shhh!’ she said. ‘What’s that?’

Douric cocked his head. His eyes widened in concern. ‘Curse my ears, I’m getting old!’

Kemma drew her hammer and put herself in front of her son.

‘Off the path! To that hut down there, and stay on the rocks. Leave no tracks!’ Douric pointed to a sorry ruin thirty yards away. Too late. A party of Belegar’s hammerers came around the corner from below, lining up three abreast to block their way down the rocky path.

‘Brok Gandsson,’ said Kemma. ‘Belegar has you chasing mothers who love their sons, has he? Your beard thickens with honour day by day.’ She spoke haughtily. There was no point in pretence. There was only one reason he could be here.

‘Halt! Halt in the name of the king!’ said Brok Gandsson, leader of the Iron Brotherhood. He stood athwart the path, puffing clouds of cold breath. Dressed in full armour, he wore no extra garb in concession to the temperature, and his nose was red and dripping as a result. His expression made it clear that he meant business.

‘I’ll do no such thing. You’ll let me by, Brok Gandsson. The future of the Angrund clan and all of the Eight Peaks is here by my side. Take him back, and you will doom him. Let me take him away from here.’

Brok stood his ground, his face set. Tension showed in the line of his jaw, bunching muscles under beard. He was not enjoying this role. That was something, thought Kemma.

‘The mountains are full of grobi and urk, and the tunnels heave with vermin. If I let him off this mountain, it is you who will be killing him, not I. I will not let your mistake weigh on my conscience.’

‘It’ll be your mistake, not mine. I’ve made my mind up.’

‘She’s coming with us,’ said Brok to his warriors in an unnecessary display of authority. ‘If her highness complains, clap her in irons.’

‘I am your queen!’ said Kemma, outraged.

‘No dwarf is to leave Vala-Azrilungol without the say of King Belegar. Queen or not, Vala Kemma, you’ll not be among those who disobey him.’

Douric stepped forwards, hands held in front of him as if they were full of reason, and they would all go away content if only they would look into his palms to see. He wore his habitual grin openly, like they were all sharing a joke that needed a punch line. ‘Wait a minute here, Brok. Can we not see our way through to some other solution? The lady only wants what’s best for her son, and the Angrund clan.’

But Brok was in no mood for amity. He looked upon the reckoner with undisguised hatred. ‘What do you know of the honour of the Iron Brotherhood? Long have you been a thorn in our king’s side! Always you reckoners taking a peck of this here, a pick of that there, when you have no right.’

Douric’s good humour fell away from his face in an avalanche, showing the cold hard stone beneath. ‘I have every right. I am a lawmaster of the High King, my lad – a petty one, I grant you, but I bear his seal and his authority.’

‘Then go back to Thorgrim in Everpeak, and steal your ale from his cup for a change!’

Douric took another step forwards. ‘You should let them go.’

Brok raised his hammer. ‘Do not come another step closer, wanaz. I’m warning you.’

‘Let’s just talk this out…’

Brok swung his hammer to smack into the side of Douric’s head with a final crack. The reckoner spun on his feet and went down hard, falling limp to the ground, where broad red flowers bloomed in the snow. His hat blew away on the wind.

Brok stepped from foot to foot, horrified at what he had done. His dawi murmured. Brok’s face hardened. ‘A pox on all reckoners and their dishonourable dealings! Gazul judge you harshly, oath worrier, grudge doubter!’ He spat on the rock. ‘You dawi! Stop your grumbling. Help the queen and the prince here back into the mountain. It’s cold up here and there are grobi about.’

Two hammerers came forward, reaching for Kemma.

‘Unhand me! I command you to let me by!’

Their hands dropped.

Some of the fury went out of Brok, and he sagged, unmanned by what he had done. ‘Belegar gives me my orders, vala,’ said Brok. ‘I had no choice. I am oath-given.’

‘Dawi killing dawi. Oaths or not, that’s a fine sight, not that my husband would care. He’s wanted Douric gone a long time. Too stupid to see a good dwarf in front of his nose, like a wattock can’t tell fool’s gold from gold.’

‘For what it’s worth, I am sorry.’

‘Not sorry enough to take the Slayer’s oath.’

Brok stared at her with a peculiar mix of emotions, all strong.

‘The reckoner’s body?’ asked one of his followers. ‘We can’t just leave it here.’

Brok stared at the dead dwarf. The wind teased his hair and beard, his hands were still open in a display of peace. He looked asleep, but for his caved-in skull. Self-hatred got the better of Brok, and he turned it outwards. ‘Yes we can, and we will. He was a traitor. Umgdawi to the core and gold-hungrier than a dragon. Leave him for the grobi and the stormcrows.’

‘Thane…’

‘I said leave him!’ bellowed Brok.

‘Shame on you, Brok Gandsson, shame on you,’ hissed Kemma.

‘We should all be ashamed, vala. We’ve taken a few wrong tunnels on the way, and now it’s too late for all of us,’ he said, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her forwards. Two other hammerers gently helped Prince Thorgrim away with encouraging words and swigs of ale. ‘Each and every one.’

TEN An Oath Fulfilled

Borrik hewed down the last of the stormvermin still facing him, his runic axe pulsing with power. The pure blue of its magic, clear as brynduraz in the sun, radiated more than light. The axe’s blessings brought relief to his burning muscles, drove the tiredness from leaden limbs. This was good, for Borrik could not remember the last time he had slept.

Once the Norrgrimlings had been renowned for sleeping upright while standing guard, taking turns in the centre where they might be held up by their brothers. Borrik yearned for those days as much as he yearned for sleep. Neither would come again. There were not enough Axes of Norr left to attempt their famed feat, and he feared they would never rebuild their numbers enough to do so again. It was a point of pride to his ironbreakers that they never had nor ever would abandon a post given them to guard. Pride had ever been the undoing of dwarfs. Soon it would be the end of them.

‘They’re falling back,’ he said. His strong, proud voice reduced to a hoarse wheeze. ‘Forgefuries, forward!’

With a stoicism that would shame a mountain, the remaining four Forgefuries set off with the same skill and speed they had possessed two months ago. Only their faces betrayed their fatigue, pale skin and brown smears under eyes grown small and gritty.

‘Fire!’ said Tordrek. His dawi reloaded and fired with breathtaking skill, pumping round after round of blazing energy into the back of the skaven, incinerating them as they fled.

The squeaking panic of the ratmen receded down the tunnels. Borrik stared at the near-invisible drill holes packed with powder around each stairwell mouth. If Belegar would only let him blow them… But the king would not. His name was a byword for stubbornness, even among the dwarfs. He cursed the king under his breath.

‘Right, lads,’ said Borrik. ‘You know the drill.’

‘Aye aye,’ said Albok tiredly. ‘Rats in the hole. Come on!’

The remaining Axes of Norr lumbered forward, clenching and unclenching fists that were moulded into claws suited only to holding axes. They betrayed no sign of weariness as they heaved up dead skaven from the floor, save perhaps a certain slowness as they tossed the corpses into the hole at the centre of the chamber. Not scrawny rat slaves these, but skaven elites, black-furred stormvermin equipped with hefty halberds and close-fitting armour. Some of this was dwarf-made. For the first days of the battle against the better skaven troops, the dwarfs had diligently stripped the work of their ancestors from the ratmen and stockpiled it in the chamber fronting the door of Bar-Undak. But there was so much of it, so very much, that they had given up. Now the defiled armour went into the hole like everything else, swallowed up along with their grief at seeing the craft of their ancestors so abused.

What cheer the Norrgrimlings had was gone. Weeks of hard fighting had worn them down, stone-hard though they were, as centuries of rain will wear down a mountain. Their eyes were red with lack of sleep, their beards stiff with blood they had neither the time nor the strength to comb out. Seven of them had gone to the halls of their ancestors, among them Hafnir and Kaggi Blackbeard. Their voices were as missed as their axes. Uli the Elder had lost an eye to a lucky spear-thrust, but refused to retire. Gromley had several missing links from his hauberk to add to the scratch on his shield, and complained bitterly about it. No one teased him for his grumbling any longer.

‘Is there any more ale?’ asked Borrik. ‘My throat’s dryer than an engine-stoker’s dongliz.’

‘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 tried 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.

A second passed. The stormvermin re-emerged.

‘Empty!’ he squeaked triumphantly. ‘Broken beer keg. Slain skaven, but beard-things gone!’

‘The door?’ asked the leader.

‘Locked-barred. No traps,’ reported the scout.

The clawleader rubbed his hands together. ‘Locked, you say? Barred, you squeak? We shall see-see. We shall see! Get it open! Get it open for the glory of Clan Mors! We shall be first into the citadel!’

A flurry of activity followed. At first the skaven tried to beat the door down themselves, but the gate of Bar-Undak was too strong and they were too feeble to breach its steel.

The leader pulled his warriors back, generously rewarding them for their efforts with the battle corpses littering the floor. As they settled down to eat, he conferred sharply with the warlocks, pointing and chittering something lost under the noise of the idling machine. The engine roared, black smoke tinged by green flecks puffed from its chimney, and it ground around to face the tunnel to the chamber. The drill picked up speed and the machine chewed through the thirty feet to the door chamber in short order, widening the original tunnel considerably. As soon as it backed up, Clan Moulder packmasters brought in two monstrously built rat ogres. Their masters gestured to the stones on the floor by the rock falls. The rat ogres understood, taking up a hefty lump of rock in each fist. They loped then into the widened tunnel and thence the chamber. There, under the direction of their masters, they battered at the doors, snarling as they grazed their knuckles and banged their heads on the ceiling in the cramped space. Their handlers goaded them with sparking prods and the rat ogres squeal-roared, bashing harder with their improvised tools. The door shook on its deep-set hinges.

For an hour, during which time Kranskritt continued to watch from his shadow-place, the door refused to give. The rocks scarred the steel, little else. But slowly the strength of the rat ogres began to tell, and the door became loose. They pounded out a bowl in the middle and a rent appeared. The rat ogres cast aside their stones to work their claws into the gaps and tug and pull at it.

At this juncture, Warlord Thaxx Redclaw arrived at the front, stepping imperiously from the tunnel mouth with an honour guard of equally arrogant stormvermin.

‘Masterfully canny Thaxx arrives at the most opportune moment, as no doubt his incomparable planning intended,’ squeak-greeted the skaven leader. ‘Humble Frizloq has great news. This door is soon to be destroyed. Come-see!’ He beckoned to his lord excitedly. ‘You are just in time to witness the opening of the way!’

‘You have done well, Frizloq,’ said Thaxx coolly, looking down his muzzle at the clawleader. ‘Four-score weak-meat I will pledge-give you for your adequate efforts on my behalf.’

Frizloq dipped his head in gratitude.

A bellow came from the door chamber, then a crash as the door was torn from its hinges and cast down.

Frizloq called out to his warriors, all of whom were feasting or sleeping, grabbing the opportunity to rest while the rat ogres worked. ‘To arms! To arms!’ he squeaked. ‘To the beard-thing citadel, and there to victory!’

Thaxx Redclaw grabbed his underling’s arm and shook his head. ‘No-no! Wait-wait.’

Frizloq became confused. ‘Why-why? The door is broken, the door so many died to breach. Why we not press on? Catch the beard-things unawares? If we hurry-scurry, we might disrupt them. Surely they fortify-build as we squeak? That is their way.’

‘No-no,’ repeated Thaxx. ‘Warlord Queek’s orders. All attacks on this front must halt. He does not wish Clan Mors warriors to die-die in dwarf-thing traps. First clawpack will wait, wait for slaves, for weak-meat.’

Frizloq opened his mouth, for Thaxx’s command directly contradicted his earlier orders from Queek himself, but he thought better of it. He twitched meekly and exposed his throat as a display of his utmost subservience. ‘As great Thaxx demands, so shall it be!’

‘Not humble I, but mighty Queek,’ corrected Thaxx. ‘We must thank to his strategic pre-eminence for this clever-smart move. Thaxx is but his worthy message-bearer.’

As if in direct challenge to Thaxx’s statement, a clanking came up the corridor. Frizloq’s skaven were shoved aside. Red-armoured stormvermin burst into the room, their mouths twisted into snarls, tails swiping with pent-up aggression. At their head came the biggest skaven in the City of Pillars, Ska Bloodtail. Thaxx’s nose quivered. He swallowed rapidly and blinked. Where Ska went, Queek was close behind.

The Headtaker bowed low to enter the Hall of Reckoning, saving his precious trophies from damage on the ceiling.

‘Who speak-squeaks on my authority?’ he demanded. ‘Why this front not press on? Mighty Queek say all stormvermin attack! All clanrats to move forward! The time for weak-meat is done. Why Thaxx say otherwise?’

Thaxx curled his lips, exposing his teeth all along his muzzle. In his shadow-space, Kranskritt shrank back, terrified by the murderous glare burning in Queek’s red eyes. The Headtaker bullied his way through the crowd, skaven scrambling over each other to get out of the way. He confronted Thaxx. Redclaw stood tall and held his ground.

‘What bribe-gift you take to betray Clan Mors?’ asked the Headtaker, tail swishing back and forth.

Those around the two powerful war-leaders spread out, forming a large challenge ring. Fear musk sprayed from the lesser members of the crowd. The stormvermin watched intently, but others were desperate to find elsewhere to be. Walking sideways, the two combatants began to circle each other, their muscles tensing to spring.

Excuses, denials and renewed pledges were the tried and true ways of skaven avoiding, or at least delaying, such confrontations. Thaxx Redclaw had known Queek Headtaker too long to attempt such pretence. He knew what was coming next, had planned for it. He had not expected it to happen now, necessarily, but no scheme was mad-thing proof, and he was ready. Baring his teeth in a hissing grimace, the warlord of the first clawpack drew his sword, its cruelly serrated edge glistening with warp venom. Yet how did Queek know? Thaxx had told no one of his dealings with Clan Skryre. And how did the Headtaker get here so quickly? Both things were impossible – but now was not the time to think upon it.

The Headtaker sneered. ‘You wonder how I know? Mighty Queek has informants you could never dream of, fool-thing… No one bests Queek!’ He drew his sword and weighed Dwarf Gouger carefully in his other hand, his gaze fixed on Thaxx’s head. Thaxx glanced nervously at the new spike of pale wood lashed to the Headtaker’s trophy rack. ‘Now, tell Queek, Thaxx traitor-rat, what was the promise-pact? No warptokens or breeders – you have too many of those already,’ said Queek. ‘Yes-yes, don’t look surprised. Queek knows what you hide in your under-warrens. No, the great Thaxx would not be tempted by what he already has. The offer was to be first warlord of Clan Mors, wasn’t it? Yes-yes? Replace great and mighty Queek in City of Pillars? Delay long enough until Queek failed and a replacement was in order, unless there was an accident first?’ Queek tutted. ‘Queek say Thaxx has been left alone for too long in City of Pillars. Now Thaxx learn highly unpleasant lesson from good teacher Queek.’

Thaxx leapt forwards, his sword hissing down at Queek. Queek dodged out of range with ease, and Thaxx went right past him. But Thaxx’s attack was merely a feint, giving him space to draw a hidden warplock pistol with his free hand. He spun past the Headtaker, turning his failed lunge into a graceful turn.

‘Die-die!’ shrieked Thaxx, squeezing the trigger over and over.

Queek laughed. Thaxx should never have reached for another weapon. Without that, he stood more of a chance. Against the mighty Queek, Queek thought, that was still less than no chance, but he might have died with dignity.

With the agility of a warrior born, Queek leapt aside. Knowing he would never close the distance in time, he hurled his sword.

Thaxx had time to fire off three quick shots from his repeater pistol. Two of them dented Queek’s armour, sending showers of warpstone-impregnated dust from it. The third missed, and then Queek’s blade slammed into his pistol. The sword severed one of Thaxx’s fingers, the digit still locked upon the trigger as the pistol clattered to the floor. Thaxx squealed with pain. In shock, the wounded warlord looked down first upon his bleeding hand, and then to the fallen pistol, to find his missing finger. This was his final mistake.

Queek crossed the gap between them in a single bound. He brought Dwarf Gouger down and then up, catching Thaxx under the chin with the blunt side.

Thaxx’s jaw shattered, and he was sent sprawling onto his back. Queek pounced so that his feet were spread either side of Thaxx’s chest. He thrust his yellow incisors close to Thaxx’s face.

‘Tsk tsk, foolish Thaxx. Queek knows a bribe from Clan Skryre when it is fired at Queek,’ hissed Queek. ‘But tell-say, who else is involved? That venom on your sword-blade smells like Clan Eshin good stuff. Tell-squeal and Queek will end it quick-quick.’

Queek leaned in, so that Thaxx’s burbling, blood-choked words were audible to him alone. But Kranskritt, aided by Soothgnawer’s magic, heard them too, mangled though they were through the Redclaw’s wounded jaw.

‘The Horned Rat skin you forevermore, mad-thing.’

To Kranskritt’s surprise Queek laughed and nodded with satisfaction. He drove Dwarf Gouger down point first into Thaxx’s belly, and ripped upwards, disembowelling Thaxx.

Straightening up, the Grand Warlord of the Eight Peaks surveyed the skaven gathered around him in the Hall of Reckoning. ‘First clawpack,’ rang out Queek’s voice. ‘Thaxx betrayed Clan Mors. I will lead you now.’

‘Queek! Queek! Queek!’ the others shouted. Frizloq prostrated himself with admirable alacrity. His officers, then the lesser rats, did the same, all chanting the Headtaker’s name.

‘Loyal Ska!’ yelled Queek over the adulation.

‘Yes, O mighty Queek?’

‘This not over. Bring me Skrikk, bring me Kranskritt, bring me Gritch.’ He snickered evilly. ‘It is time all traitor-things dance with Queek!’

‘See now?’ said Soothgnawer to Kranskritt. ‘This is what you face.’

Kranskritt nodded.

‘Good. Back we go!’

The Hall of Reckoning faded from view, and Kranskritt found himself in his burrow once more.

The grey seer gathered what little courage he had and thrust out his horns. He closed his eyes – a skaven show of confidence. This time he spoke more boldly. ‘Yes-yes. How could perfect Soothgnawer be anything but correct?’

‘Indeed,’ said Soothgnawer.

‘I will find the goblin and make the offer. Goblin kill first clawpack, Kranskritt save the day with fifth clawpack. Grey seers look like heroes.’

And so, Kranskritt dearly hoped, Kranskritt could avoid his meeting with Queek.

When he opened his eyes once more, he was alone. Soothgnawer was gone, but the verminlord’s voice rang still in the secret spaces of his skull. ‘I know,’ it said.

Kranskritt threw together a variety of magical ingredients. He called in his servants. ‘Gather fifth clawpack! Into the mountains! Send-scurry message to mighty Queek.’ Kranskritt smiled as his scribe fetched quill and man-skin parchment. ‘Tell him unworthy Kranskritt follow mighty Queek’s orders to the letter, loyally and without question.’

TWELVE Skarsnik’s Big Deal

The halls under Karag Zilfin had once belonged to a powerful dwarf merchant family. In the glory days of the Eternal Realm, the place was plaqued with gold, its dark ways lit with glimlight glowstones and runic lamps whose oil never ran dry. Not that Skarsnik, the current occupant, knew that. Vala-Azrilungol had been stripped thousands of years before Skarsnik had sprouted. He had to contend with walls that ran black with mould, water that dripped from the ceiling all the time, and the constant blast of the mountain winds whistling in through glassless windows and empty door frames.

‘I hates this. It’s rubbish,’ he muttered as he walked to his chambers. He passed through his audience room, which was embarrassingly tiny compared to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars he’d once called his own. Tribute lay heaped chaotically everywhere. ‘Really rubbish. Nowhere near enough room for all me presents. I miss it in the proper underground, Gobbla. Nice and warm.’ He cut down a long corridor, perfectly carved in the stunty way with not a curve or kink to halt the wind blasting in from outside. Treasuries, store rooms and steps leading down opened up either side of him. At the end were his private quarters. He wasn’t too happy when he got there and came upon the moonhat guards and phalanx of little big ’uns trusted with his safety, all of whom were sprawled about the place snoring and not at all doing a good job of guarding. He was too annoyed to kick them awake. Instead, he let Gobbla eat one. His screams woke the others and they ran, mismatched armour rattling, to their posts.

‘Zogging idiots!’ he shouted. ‘There’s a bleeding war on!’

He muttered darkly and scowled at them. Gobbla burped. The goblin elite shook so hard their knees knocked.

There was, at least, a door across the entrance to his rooms. He went in and shut it behind him with a sigh. A fire of bigshroom stalks burned in a long stone trough in the fireplace. He looked at the filthy furs heaped on his bed, and thought of sleeping.

He shook his head. ‘Nah, never no time for sleeping. Sleep when you’s dead, eh, Gobbla?’ He chuckled. ‘Got work to do. First mind, I reckon it’s time for a little drinky.’ On a table piled high with parchment covered in his spidery handwriting were numerous bottles. He shook them until he found one that was full. He held it up critically, grumbling that he had to tilt it this way and that to read the label. His eyes weren’t as good as they used to be.

‘Produzzi di Castello di Rugazzi,’ he said. He shrugged at it. Castello di Rugazzi had been burned down along with the rest of Tilea a couple of years before. He wouldn’t have cared had he known, but what Skarsnik held in his hands was quite probably the last bottle of wine from that vineyard, if not from Tilea. Skarsnik’s stash had once had brews from all across the Old World, purloined from caravans braving the trek over to the Far East. But once Gorfang was killed and the rats infested Black Crag, there was no one to police Death Pass. Then the wars had started. No one had come that way he could bully or rob for a long while, and Skarsnik’s cellars were running dry.

‘Gotta be better than Duffskul’s brew,’ he said sourly. He found his goblet on the floor, groaning as he stood up straight and his back cracked. He tipped a spider out and peered in. The goblet was filthy, so he spat in it and cleaned it with his ink-stained thumb until he was satisfied.

He bit the top off the bottle with his needle-teeth and poured. As it glugged into the goblet, Skarsnik smacked his lips in anticipation. He pulled a snotling out of a cage and made it drink some. He watched it for a moment. It smiled stupidly, and obligingly did not die, so he shoved it back into its prison.

‘Cheers, snotties,’ he toasted his tasters, and slurped down a mouthful of wine. Then he lit a candle of dwarf fat and sat down to his work. ‘Now then, now then,’ he said, rubbing his hands. He was determined to update his list of tribes currently squatting in the surface city and the Great Vale. ‘Got to be organised, eh, Gobbla? Where are you if you’s not organised?’

Gobbla growled. That was not the correct response. Skarsnik stiffened. His ears prickled.

A ball of black lightning burst into being behind Skarsnik, caused him to spin round so fast he lost his face in the back of his hood.

‘Not this again! Ratties, they never learn!’ he said, wrestling with his bosshat. ‘You’ve tried this fifteen times before, ya dumb gits! Garn! Get some new ideas!’ He stood up violently, sending his papers onto the floor. His goblet he caught deftly in one hand as the table toppled from underneath it. With the other hand he snatched up his prodder, and pointed it at the fizzing orb.

Black energy throbbed, sending arcs of greenish-black sparks earthing in his possessions. Much to his annoyance, his papers caught fire. ‘Oi! Oi! Oi!’ he yelled. ‘You want to come and talk to me, use the zogging front door like everyone else! You’s burning all me stuff up! Bleeding ratties! Got no manners!’

The whirling energies settled down. Through a dark portal, an arrogant horned rat-thing, fur white as snow, robes suspiciously clean, stepped into Skarsnik’s bedroom. The grey seer surveyed the room as if it owned it, and that really annoyed Skarsnik. Actually, that was kind of the entire problem with the Eight Peaks. When would they learn that the place was his!

The rat sniffed the air and pulled a face at what it found. ‘I great Grey Seer Kranskritt. I come-skitter with deal-tidings, green-thing.’ It spoke in accented orcish, higher than a gobbo, but perfectly intelligible. Skarsnik was used to that.

‘Well, well, well – a horny rat!’ said Skarsnik back in Queekish, the language of the skaven, and that took the grey seer by surprise, to Skarsnik’s delight. ‘Tinkle-tankle little bells too. Very nice, very pretty. Learn that off an elf? Cut above the average squeaker, ain’t ya? But it’s not like your lot to turn up yerselves. Usually get some poor rodent to do your dirty. You can’t be that important.’

‘I very-very much-important, green-thing!’ said Kranskritt, eyes boiling with outrage. ‘You show me respect!’

Skarsnik leered a yellow grin and slurped upon his wine. ‘Yeah? Or what? I’ll tell you what, you goat-rat… fing, whatever you is. You’ll get angry and then I’ll blow you up with me prodder, that’s what’ll happen. It’s happened before. It’s getting late and I’ve got a lot on, so be my guest. Tempt me, and then I can gets on with me work.’

Kranskritt clashed his incisors together, eyeing the prodder nervously. Its power was well known by his kind, and feared.

‘I suppose you want to make a deal, then? Your lot don’t do well in deals with me, you realise that?’ said Skarsnik.

‘You very annoying-pain, green-thing,’ admitted Kranskritt.

‘You could have just sent me a messenger.’

‘We did. His skin-pelt now your new bedding,’ said Kranskritt, pointing disdainfully at Skarsnik’s bed.

Skarsnik looked sidelong at the fresh rat pelt serving as a coverlet. ‘Oh. Right. Yeah. He did try to tell us something, to be fair. If it makes you feel better, he was very tasty. Right then. I got things to be doing. Stuff to write. Plans to make. You know, you burneded all me papers up. Took me ages to do that. I’m not happy.’

‘Pah! Green-thing plans little plans. I know-know much more.’

‘So you said.’ Skarsnik had another drink. The wine wasn’t too bad. ‘Actually, you haven’t said much of anyfink apart from how important you is.’

The grey seer hissed and clenched its fists. This meeting was obviously paining it. ‘Tomorrow, Lord Queek of Clan Mors begins the next stage of the great war of extermination against the beard-things. He attacks in the Hall of Many Beard-Things.’

‘In the citadel?’

‘Big beard-thing fortress, yes-yes!’ snapped Kranskritt. His tail lashed.

‘Funny really, don’t know the citadel well. Even before the stunties came back, didn’t really go there. Full of traps. Nasty little stunties. I quite like being alive, y’see. No idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I show-show!’ snapped Kranskritt.

‘All right, all right, keep your horns on.’ Skarsnik giggled at the skaven as it bristled. ‘What’s the point?’

‘It would be good-proper if Lord Queek is not successful. Tunnel teams dig-melt their way upwards. I show. You take them, good quick-fast, yes? You come up into citadel. You kill many dwarf-things, many, er, stunties, you stop Queek’s easy victory.’

Skarsnik set his drink down. ‘Why? I ain’t no patsy for ratsies.’ He laughed again. He was on form today.

Kranskritt clawed his hands. ‘Foolish green-thing! Now your time is done, but still you making stupid joke-laughs! The children of Chaos rise! The Under-Empire will rule over all! You be destroyed, swept-aside like leaves in storm! You do it, and you live. Not enough for you, green-thing? You die now, if you prefer.’

‘Yeah, right. Blah, blah, blah. Squeak, squeak, squeak.’ With his teeth on his lips, Skarsnik mimed a little rat mouth jabbering. ‘I have heard it all before!’ he said, suddenly angry. ‘Year in, zogging year out! It’s always the same with your lot! Ooh, we is so clever. Ooh, we is the best. If that’s the bleeding case, how comes I’m the king of Karak Eight Peaks?’

Skarsnik stood tall. He was very large for a night goblin, bigger than the seer. The prodder thrummed with orcy power. ‘I ain’t no idiot. If you are so powerful, you don’t need me, does you?’

Kranskritt growled in irritation. He and his kind were used to skaven grovelling before them, squirting the musk of fear as soon as a seer showed its face. This goblin’s cool insolence was deeply disrespectful. ‘Very well! You help my faction, you help yourself. Hand-claw to hand-claw. Friends-alliance! No war! You take back upper deeps when beard-things dead.’

‘That’s more like it,’ said Skarsnik. ‘All the deeps to the third, and no poking yer little pink noses out of yer burrows for four winters.’

‘Skweee! Done-done,’ said Kranskritt.

‘All right then. Yeah. I’ll do it.’

‘Tomorrow! Third bell.’

Skarsnik shrugged. ‘Sorry?’

Kranskritt squealed. ‘New-day sunrise! Be in the west foundry, fifteen scurryings down-up-down-north of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars!’

‘Lots of ratties down there. In my house, I might add,’ said Skarsnik. ‘I’ll bet you know some of them. They’ll probably try to kill me. I’m not all that popular with your lot.’

‘I know you know-have ways in. Be there!’

Kranskritt disappeared with a squeak of annoyance and a burst of purplish light.

Skarsnik let out a long breath and shook his head. After a moment, he went to refill his goblet and gathered up the remains of his work. He frowned as he stared at the still-smouldering edges. ‘So then, Gobbla, rats is fighting rats again. Always the way. And when they is fighting, there’s some space for the likes of me to make something of it. Get me house back, get me halls back. Get some of them greenboys from up top down there to keep it, and for good this time! Be warm again!’

He flopped into a chair. The chamber rumbled with yet another tremor. They had never really stopped since the days the mountains had exploded. Gravel pattered onto his head. Gobbla waddled up and snuffled for a scratch. Skarsnik obliged, massaging Gobbla’s favourite spot between his eyes. ‘Of course, boy, it’s all a big trap. It always is.’ He slurped his wine. ‘But,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘why does I have this feeling this time things is a teeny bit different? And not in a good way…’

He sat there a long time rubbing Gobbla’s leathery skin, thinking thoughts no other goblin could, alone as always.

THIRTEEN Payment for Services Rendered

Duffskul flapped his sleeves manically until his grubby green hand was free to press the stunty face. The fist-sized carving made a click, and the secret door it activated rumbled back into the wall. Duffskul puffed on his pipe and clucked his tongue with appreciation. It never ceased to amaze him how long the stunty-stuff kept on working.

Cold wind keened through the crack of the door, became a moan as the gap widened, and then a blast of winter that put out his pipe. Duffskul frowned and tapped the ashes from the bowl. He tucked the pipe into his belt, muttered some words to Mork and Gork, and waved his hands around desultorily. It was a poor effort, but lately the world had been so heavy with the essence of the Twin Gods, he barely had to try any more. The spell came on quickly, flattening him out, deepening the darkness of his robes. Soon all that was visible of him was a shadow like all the other shadows, excepting perhaps a greenish smear that might have been a face until you looked right at it.

The door finished its grinding recession, leaving the shaman’s way clear. Duffskul stuck his head out into the day. He was a night goblin and therefore not at all fond of daylight, but what little effort the sun put forth through the winter sky, choked as it was with ash and magic, was weak and unimposing.

He hopped out of the door. The odd flake of dirty snow splatted against his hood. Snow had been falling for weeks in the mountains, and Duffskul squinted at all the brightness of it, but wrapped up in his shadow cloak he felt safe enough from the Evil Sun. Besides, he couldn’t see it through all that cloud, so it couldn’t see him, could it? The thickest runt knew that. Even if the ground shone like silver. Humming tunelessly for courage, Duffskul tottered off, out onto the flanks of the Silverhorn.

Seventeen treacherous switchbacks later, a quick dart past a fresh skaven tunnel, and a hairy moment when a dozen rocks the size of cave squigs bounded inches past Duffskul’s nose, the aged shaman reached the bottom of the mountain. There the path joined a wider dwarf way, its cobbles much split by tree roots, which in turn descended through scrubby pine woods to join the main old road that ran through Death Pass.

Duffskul came out in a place not far from the Tight Spot, where the road went through high moorland. The dwarf road was heaving with greenskins of every kind, passing in long scrap trains out of the Dark Lands. They had started coming a few years ago, fleeing some upheaval out there and heading into the Badlands. Goblins first by the thousand, because they don’t like fighting. But lately there had been many orcs also. They had their fiercest faces on, but Duffskul was canny, almost as canny as Skarsnik, and he could see they were afraid. Duffskul wondered what was happening in the wider world. He had tried staring out through Gork and Mork’s eyes, but there was so much magic bleeding into everything that it made him dizzy just to try. Most troubling was that on the western side of the pass, where most of this lot were heading, the greenskins were coming back again. Life in the Badlands wasn’t too good either, Kruggler kept saying. All fine news for Skarsnik, thought Duffskul, as the majority of the greenskins, having nowhere else to go, were ending up in the Eight Peaks. But what did it mean? Through his persistent fug of intoxication, the old shaman couldn’t help but be concerned.

The ground rumbled. Rocks pitter-pattered down from the heights. It was not, reflected Duffskul, a question that needed answering. Earthquakes were frequent. They’d always had a bit of the old heave-ho coming from the ground, but nothing like this. Over the eastern peaks of the mountains the sky was black as night, and the sun never, ever shone there any more. The Dark Lands had become a whole lot darker.

‘The world is changing, that’s what,’ he muttered to himself. ‘A sorry sight, and no mistake, oh yus.’ A group of wolf riders bolted as his shadow popped, turning him back into his usual solid self. He giggled at the sight of the riders struggling to control their mounts, causing chaos in the already fractious crowds of greenskins marching west. It took his mind off being exposed to the light.

‘Can’t be helped,’ he muttered. ‘Get trod on if I is a shadow.’

He plopped himself down on a dwarf milestone. From under his filthy robes he produced a puffball flask. He guzzled down the contents, some of his own special brew. Courage fortified, he refilled his pipe with shroom-smoke fungus, and took in the view.

At this point past the Tight Spot, Death Pass opened up. Here it stretched ten miles wide, the far side blued by distance. Much of it thereabouts was inhospitable moorland, broken by humps of rock, little streams and the grey stumps of pines hacked down by the greenskins for their fires and rickety constructions. Only the old dwarf road offered good travel, and that’s where the traffic was.

In a state of disrepair, the road of Death Pass still held the power to impress. It went dead straight as much as possible, burrowing through such minor inconveniences as mountain spurs without stopping. There were ditches to either side, deep and lined with stone, although all that was visible this time of year were indentations in the snow and hairy yellow grass poking through. Every eight hundred yards, paired statues of stunty gods stood guard over it. Most had been broken aeons ago by orcs, but a few were more or less whole, glaring at the usurpers marching under their noses. Duffskul scuttled by these intact ones whenever he encountered them, because they gave him the creeps.

The pass had long been the domain of the orcs. The way had been tightly controlled for years by Gorfang Rotgut down in Black Crag. But the Troll-Eater was gone, killed by the king of all the stunties, so they said, and no one collected his tolls any more. Duffskul supposed sudden freedom of passage hadn’t helped the traffic levels.

He watched the endless caravans groan past. Most of the greenskins were wolf tribes, not much use for Skarsnik’s battles underground, but they had at least a number of ferocious beasts in their rickety cages. He even saw a group of much-battered hobgoblins chained up in one.

What is the world coming to, he thought, if even them treacherous backstabbers aren’t being stabbed first chance? They don’t even taste very nice. Why keep ’em?

He scowled at them. Cowardly at the best of times, they were beaten and downcast, and did not return his gaze.

He smoked awhile with his eyes closed to shut out the horrid glare of the sun until he felt suitably fortified by smoke and brew. He opened one eye, then the other, hiccupped and slid off the rock.

‘Suppose I better be getting on,’ he said. He let his finger rise up of its own accord, snaking around in the clouds of pungent shroomsmoke until it had found the right direction. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that way.’

He headed east, and the crowds parted for him. Now he was far from the ratties and stunties, he could trust to his status as a shaman of Mork and Gork to keep him safe. It wasn’t just a matter of respect due him for his ability to commune with the Great Twins, but one of fear. Not even the biggest black orc wanted turning into a squig, a magic that was well within Duffskul’s considerable capabilities.

When Skarsnik had called Duffskul in, he hadn’t needed to ask what had happened; Skarsnik’s rooms still stank of magic and rat.

‘You had a visitor, boss?’ he’d said.

‘Them ratties are trying to make a deal,’ Skarsnik said. And then he had told Duffskul what the deal was, and who had made the offer.

Duffskul wasn’t fazed – the ratties were always trying somesuch nonsense or other. ‘Yus, boss,’ Duffskul said. ‘They is always trying to do that, isn’t they, boss? Do deals and that, oh yus.’

‘Yes, yes, they are. But I’m not having any of it. Not this time!’

‘You not going to do it, then? Not make the deal?’

‘Of course I’m going to do it!’ Skarsnik said. He had paced up and down his room with his hands behind his back, head bowed in thought. Gobbla waddled faithfully behind him, the chain that connected them clinking. ‘There’s always more to it with them furry little zoggers. There’ll be some nasty surprise for us in there. And the chances of them giving us back the upper stunty-house like what they said they would are about as big as Kruggler’s brain.’

They both laughed, Duffskul’s eyes spinning madly in his ancient face.

‘What we need is a plan of our own. I says we do what that magic ratfing says. We go in and take these burrowing gizmos off of them rats, burst up through the floor as planned. But…’ Skarsnik held up a finger. There was always a ‘but’ with the king of Eight Peaks, you had to hand it to him. ‘But, we have a few alterations. Make a plan of our own, so to speak. They have a plan, and so I has a plan.’

‘Oh yus, boss, right you are, boss,’ said Duffskul, leaning on his staff. He’d never known Skarsnik not to have a plan. ‘What plan would that be then, boss?’

Skarsnik grinned slyly. He pulled out a heavy-looking sack from under his bed and dropped it on one of his many work desks. It hit the wood with that kind of rich clunk only solid gold makes. He whipped back the filthy material to reveal a battered but still impressive crown. Five types of gold, stunty runes, some really finickity chasing work and an awful lot of big gemstones.

‘Ooh, that’s nice, that’s lovely that is.’ Duffskul reached out a hand; he couldn’t help himself, but snatched it back when Gobbla fixed him with his one good eye and growled.

‘Ogres, Duffskul! Ogres is me plan. Been saving this for a special occasion,’ the boss said. ‘Now’s as good a time as any.’ He nodded at the sack. ‘I’ve heard Golgfag is nearby.’

‘What, Golgfag the incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain, boss?’

‘That’s the one. Golgfag the incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain, Duffskul.’

‘And what do we wants with this incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain? He’s known for not playing it straight, if you gets me, and he often fights for the stunties.’

Skarsnik smiled broadly, Duffskul smiled back. ‘And those two reasons, me old mate, is exactly why we want him, isn’t it?’

‘Oh yus, boss! Oh yus! I gets ya!’

The pair of them had laughed long and hard together. Skarsnik’s snotling food tasters joined in from their cages, not a single idea as to what they were laughing at in their empty little heads.

Now Duffskul pushed on to where his finger told him Golgfag could be found – a trick he’d learned long ago, from the somewhat mad Tarkit Fing-Finga, back in the… Well, there was no telling how long ago it was now. Greenskins swore and cursed as he went against the tide of the migration, moving their wagons aside just the same. Wolves snapped at each other as they were whipped out of the way. The road got progressively narrower as he approached the Tight Spot, where the pass was squeezed hard between two mountains.

Then a wolf was before him, snarling and drooling. Duffskul squeaked with shock, but it yelped as reins tugged its head back. A wall of mangy fur and stinking, bandy-legged goblin raiders flowed into being in front of him.

‘Shaman! Which way to the Eight Peaks?’ a goblin warchief with gold teeth shouted at him, his accent all funny. Duffskul giggled at him, he sounded so stupid. ‘Where do we find Skarsnik the Great?’

The Great? thought Duffskul. He’ll like that. ‘That way!’ he said. ‘Follow the big road up into the mountains. Big city, huge stunty-house. You really can’t miss it, to tell the truth, oh yus.’

The goblin chief wheeled his steed around and let out an ululation, waving his hand around his head. He shot forwards and his band followed, leaping over the ditch, over the uneven ground at the roadside, and scrambling onto the loose rocks and snow that lined the pass. They must have been from the mountains somewhere, because they were quickly away on the rough ground, drawing annoyed shouts from the other goblins forced to trudge along.

A scrapwagon pushed by grumbling stone trolls creaked by next, the slave-cage atop it empty of prisoners but heaped with ragged possessions. A fat goblin on the top waved a couple of snotlings on a stick in front of the trolls to make them move. He looked unspeakably glum, as did the tribe behind. They were all injured, some seriously, many with burns and blackened faces.

There came a blast of brazen horns resounding off the pass’s sides. Gruff orc voices shouted, huge black orcs moving forward in the crowd, shoving lesser greenskins out of the road. ‘Make way! Make way for Drilla Gitsmash! Make way, yer lousy runts!’ They backed their words with slaps and worse, spilling dark red blood on the setts. They stamped forward, until one was right in front of Duffskul, staring down at him with furious eyes. It snorted plumes of steam into the chill mountain air.

‘Get out da way, wizlevard, or you’ll be sorry.’

‘Will I now?’ said Duffskul. He cocked an eyebrow over one mad eye. The black orc roared and hammered its axe against its breastplate, but moved on just the same.

Around the corner came the biggest orc Duffskul had ever seen. That would have been enough to make him shift, but the contraption the orc rode decided it. Duffskul lifted the skirts of his dark robes and hopped over the ditch like he was a hundred years younger. He took up position well out of the way at the foot of a fan of scree.

Drilla Gitsmash’s mount was a clanking, mechanical boar, its black iron spell-marked with the runes of the curly bearded tusk-stunties of the Dark Lands. Steam hissed from its pistons as it trotted by, hooves cracking the slabs. Four banner bearers came after him, holding high icons fashioned from steel. Further along the pass, the black orc heralds were shouting at the goblins and their troll cart, cursing them off the road. Trolls moaned, goblins wailed. A snap cracked off the mountainside, and the cart sagged on a broken axle. Shouting angrily, the black orcs cut the traces of the trolls, put their shoulders to the wagon bed and heaved it over, ignoring the shrill protests of its owners. It toppled into the ditch and broke apart.

Drilla’s brigade of black orcs marched past Duffskul in perfect step. They held their heads high, the tusks of their visors jutting towards the sky. They were disgustingly clean, their armour immaculate. On and on they went. There must have been over three hundred of them. Screams sounded from further up the pass as they ran into the thick press of greenskin refugees, but they did not slow, they did not stop.

The last rank of black orcs went by. A final blast of brazen horns resounded off the pass’s sides, and the black orcs disappeared round a shoulder of the mountain.

For a few minutes the pass was clear. Duffskul scrambled back onto the roadway to take advantage of the lull, and jogged as fast as his old legs would carry him. The crowds thickened soon enough, but when they caught sight of the shaman, his dirty robes held high over his knees, face determined, they got out of the way no matter how cramped the road was.

The ogres were camped at the Tight Spot. There were two old stunty-houses there, both forts, on knolls either side of the road. One was so tumbledown it looked like part of the mountain, the other was whole and, consequently, full of ogres. On the other side of the Tight Spot the pass rapidly widened again, becoming heavily wooded and sloping steeply down towards the Dark Lands. Duffskul left the road and puffed his way up the broken track to the gates, flanked by large ogre banners depicting that big gob of theirs. He paused in his ascent for a look out east. The line of greenskins went on forever. He tried counting them – and he could count, properly; not quite as well as his boss, but not far off. He had to give up. There were too many.

He didn’t get much further up the hill before he was noticed.

‘Ooh looks, it’s a shaman, zippety zap!’ gnoblars jeered from behind rocks in accented greenskin.

Duffskul waved his staff at them, and they ran away shrieking in terror. ‘I dunno, only kind of greeny worse than you lot is the zogging hobgobboes!’ he shouted. ‘Gnoblars! Hill goblins! No sort of gobbo at all!’

A pair of bored ogres stood guard at the dead-eyed gatehouse to the stunty fort. They stood taller and gripped the handles of their swords as he approached.

‘What you want?’ one demanded, his voice thick, clogged with fat and anger.

Duffskul leaned on his staff like he didn’t have a care in the world and stared up. ‘You Golgfag’s lot?’

‘Yeah, what’s it to you?’ said the ogre.

‘Got a job for him.’

‘From who?’ said the second ogre. ‘We already got employment.’

‘So I hear, but I’s got an offer for your boss he might find very interesting. Money’s a wonderful thing, ain’t it?’ He leaned forwards and whispered behind his hand, ‘And we got lots. Let me in, let me see Golgfag.’

The ogres looked at one another. One shrugged. The other jerked his head into the camp. ‘Can’t do any harm. Go on then. You’ll find him easy enough. He’s having his dinner.’

For some reason that made them laugh deeply. Duffskul shook his head. Ogres were such fat idiots.

The place was better organised than a greenskin camp would have been, but only just. Piles of bones, scraps of half-cooked flesh still stuck to them, littered the place, filling the courtyard with the stench of decay even in the cold. Ogres went about their business heedless of everything below gut level, forcing Duffskul to dodge out of the way frequently. Despite the chill, nearly all of them were naked from the waist up. A semicircle of heavy wagons filled the back half of the fort. Giant shaggy draught beasts and mounts were corralled by a fence made of tree trunks nearby.

Golgfag was indeed hard to miss. He sat at the centre of the camp upon the top half of a broken stunty statue, next to a roaring bonfire. Bigger than every other ogre in the place, his head seemed disproportionately small atop the mountain of fat and muscle that was his body. A maul and sword were propped up next to him, an iron standard depicting a circular, toothed maw thrust into the ground behind. A pair of halfling cooks worked nearby over a smaller fire. Whatever they were cooking smelt much tastier than the gnoblars being roasted over smaller fires.

Golgfag was munching on one such cooked gnoblar. The outside was burned to a crisp, the inside pink.

‘When’s my stew ready, Boltho? I’m nearly done on my starter!’ Golgfag shouted in grumbling Reikspiel.

‘Coming right away, gutlord!’

Duffskul licked his lips, at both the halflings’ food, and the sight of the halflings themselves.

The ogre tore a mouthful of meat off, white strings of tendon hanging from his mouth.

‘Ahem,’ said Duffskul.

Golgfag turned round, searching at ogre height for his interlocutor, greasy moustaches flapping. It took him a moment to look down.

‘Ah, another course,’ said the mercenary brightly. ‘Thanks for delivering yourself.’

‘Nah, you’s not going to eat me,’ said Duffskul. ‘Got a business offer.’ He sat down and began to fill his pipe.

‘Oh yeah?’ said Golgfag. ‘Already got a job. I don’t see what a hole-skulking cave runt goblin like you can offer me that the king of Karak Eight Peaks can’t. Go on, get out of here, or I will eat you.’

‘No you won’t,’ said Duffskul. He clamped his pipe in his mouth. His eyes glowed green and it ignited. ‘Because I’m here from the real king of Karak Eight Peaks.’

‘I’m not worried by no scrawny goblin magician!’ laughed Golgfag. ‘And I’m not too impressed by this Skarsnik either. If he’s so great, how comes he’s always fighting? He’s been at war for half a century! I would’ve beaten them all by now.’

Duffskul shrugged. He pulled out an object wrapped in oilskin from under his cloak and put it on the ground. He unwrapped it, revealing the lost crown of Karak Eight Peaks. Ogres were greedy for more than food, and Golgfag’s eyes widened comically at the sight. He shuffled round on his seat to get a better look.

‘Now that’s a pretty trinket.’

Duffskul tittered. ‘It is, ain’t it? From Skarsnik. You like it?’

‘What’s not to like?’ The ogre leaned forwards, face alight with avarice.

‘You can have it. Payment. We just need a little favour. Carry on like you is, be all friendly like with the stunties…’

‘What, then when the time comes turn on them and give ’em a nasty surprise? That old trick? What do you say I don’t just rip your head off and eat you and take that there crown off you right now? I’m getting sick of gnoblar. Goblin’s got an altogether gamier flavour. Very nice your lot taste, underground greenies. Hint of mushroom to you. Delicious. I like a nice wizard too, sparkles on the tongue.’ A different kind of hunger showed upon the ogre’s face. His gut rumbled, twitching behind its horned belly plate.

‘Because, fatty, this ain’t it, is it?’ Duffskul passed his hands and the crown dissolved into a handful of old leaves.

Golgfag sat back and belched out a reek of uncooked meat. ‘Right. So in that case, how do I know you have actually got it? Your boss ain’t exactly known for his upright nature.’

‘Oh, we’ve got it all right.’

‘King Belegar has promised me one tenth of the treasure in his treasure chamber. That’s a lot of gold. Now that’s a pretty crown. But worst case for me is that you’ve no crown, and when I pull the old switch on the stunties I get no gold at all. And that is not happening.’

‘Lot of gold? Belegar? It ain’t a lot of gold,’ countered Duffskul – now it was his turn to laugh – ‘because he’s having you on! Old Belegar ain’t got no gold!’

‘Nah, he’s a dwarf, they’ve always got gold,’ said Golgfag, flapping the shaman’s stinking smoke away from his face.

‘Not this ’un. Poorer than a snotling, he is. Not much more sense either. Tell you what, do this for us and you can have half of Belegar’s stunty-hoard. And the crown.’

Golgfag took a bite from the gnoblar’s haunch and pondered for a moment. ‘Seems fair enough. If you make it three-quarters. Got me overheads – not cheap running a mercenary band like this, and the price of grog is way up. If your lot lose, I’ll get only the crown and Belegar’s downpayment, nothing else. You understand.’

Duffskul made a sympathetic face. ‘Times is hard. That crown is worth a lot, though.’

Golgfag smiled, the gaps in his teeth jammed with bloody meat. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do says so, and you heard me say it. Now tell me, what do we get for the crown then?’

‘The real crown?’

‘Course,’ said Duffskul.

Golgfag stood up and stretched. He tossed the remains of his first course into the fire. ‘See them gutlords marching?’ He pointed a greasy finger at heavily armoured ogres sparring with hooked swords as big as an orc. ‘You’ll get them. And me other lads. The whole lot. I’d throw in a few gnoblars for you as well, but Belegar’s messenger was quite insistent on us not bringing them in.’ He belched and scratched under his belly plate. ‘He didn’t want any greenskins in his hold at all. As if gnoblars count! Ain’t that the ironic thing? Anyways, we ate all the fighting ones. It doesn’t matter, because they’re useless at fighting. We only bring ’em along to distract the enemy. No great loss. Still got me pets.’

‘They is not gobboes, that’s the truth, oh yus.’ Duffskul could not agree more on that score. ‘Also, you promise no double-double crossing!’

‘Hah!’ said Golgfag. ‘Now that’s funny coming from you. Don’t you worry, Belegar would never give us more money. Too tight, them dwarfs, especially if he’s as skint as you say. It’ll be the end of them, if you ask me.’

‘And what about the other party?’ said Duffskul obliquely.

‘The ratmen? Nah, can’t stand them myself. Vermin. Always getting into my larder.’ He nodded at a couple of spitted skaven roasting on a fire. ‘Caught them trying to sneak into the pay wagon three nights ago. When they pay you, half the time they don’t pay you, if you know what I mean. If I told you how many of their cash deliveries turned out to be magicked, the chests full of rats in black cloaks that go all maniac on yer with their little stabby knives, you’d be surprised.’

Duffskul hiccupped. ‘Nah, I don’t think I would.’

Golgfag laughed. ‘Right. Your lot’s got experience there. Let’s shake on it then.’ He gobbed a truly impressive mouthful of spit into his palm and held out his hand to shake, humie-style. His fingers were thicker than Duffskul’s limbs, and smelt of roast greenskin. ‘We got a deal?’

Duffskull took a finger on the proffered hand and shook it carefully. ‘We have got a deal.’

‘See you around, little greeny. I’m off to finish my dinner. I’ll send word to the lads not to eat you on the way out.’ The general’s vast bulk shifted around. It was like watching a hill move. ‘Send us the details later. We’ll need some kind of signal. You have a little think about that, all right?’

‘All right.’

‘Until later, shorty,’ said Golgfag.

‘Until later, fatty,’ giggled Duffskul.

FOURTEEN The Hall of Clan Skalfdon

Atop a mound of rubble, King Belegar stood at the front of his Iron Brotherhood, Notrigar beside him bearing the clan banner of the Iron Hammers. The dwarf battle line stretched from the eastern side of the hall to the west, the high ground of an ancient rock fall at the north-western end held by Durggan Stoutbelly and the grand battery of Karak Eight Peaks. Past the Iron Brotherhood, the east end of the rubble pile was occupied by the Clan Zhorrak Blue Caps, and beyond that the rubble shelved off. From there to the walls of the hall, the ground was level, the flagstones uncovered by detritus. Two hundred yards behind Belegar’s position was the Gate of Skalfdon, one of the last fine things remaining in the derelict hall, a massive portal barred by a rune-carved stone gate five feet thick.

To the south, the Hall of Clan Skalfdon stretched away, the ancestor statues carved into its far walls lost in the gloom. A few lonely glimlights still burned up in the high roof a full twenty centuries after the fall of the city, stars lost in a stone forest of pillars supporting the vaulted sky. Most of the light came from less grand sources – torches and lanterns in the main, held by the dwarf host.

Belegar looked up and down the ranks of his people. Six hundred of them, pretty much all the strength he had, barring Duregar’s garrison holding the East Gate at the end of the Great Vale. Clan Skalfdon’s hall swallowed them up, built at a time when a thousand times six hundred dwarfs had dwelled within Karak Eight Peaks. That glory was long gone, like the Skalfdon clan itself, the last of whose scions had perished in one of the many attempts to retake the Eight Peaks before Belegar was successful.

Successful. He snorted. This wasn’t success. Already the skaven were creeping out of their holes, coming in through the dozen archways at the southern end of the hall.

‘Something troubles you, my king?’

‘Aye, Notrigar, a great deal,’ said Belegar. ‘I look at them and my blood boils. This is their domain, not mine. Look at how at home they are in the ruins, skulking about in the graves of better people. Look at them! Look at their dirty feet scrabbling on the faces of our ancestors. Look at the weapons they carry. They value nothing, not hard work, or craft, or skill – all they wish is to tear down and destroy, and disport in the remains. They thrive on blight and decay. They don’t build anything to last. They don’t build anything fair to look upon. All their kingdoms are but the debris of dying civilisations. It is unfair that such as these should inherit the world while better folk perish.’

‘It strikes me as so, my king,’ agreed Notrigar. These depressing rants of Belegar’s had become more frequent, his moments of humour seldom as the war wore on.

‘It strikes me that the gods are a bunch of baruzdaki,’ said Belegar, ‘by whom our own great ancestors were sorely mocked. Everything’s gone, diminished. Look to this battle, one of the great acts of our days, and I see the pale reflections of the Karaz Ankor in pools of blood. Our ancestors battled the lords of misrule themselves, forcing them step by step out of this world and back into their own. What would Grimnir, who holds to this day the hordes of Chaos at bay, think of his descendants smashing rats into the dirt in their own homes?’ He shook his head.

Mutters of agreement came from the ranks of the Iron Brotherhood.

‘Still, we’ll give them a pasting to remember, eh, lads? It ends here! One way or another, or I’m no dawi.’ Belegar pointed, past the carpet of giant rats and slaves seeping into the hall like rising floodwaters. Glints of metal could be seen coming through the gateways, blocks of troops forming up behind the wretches in the vanguard.

‘See, brave khazukan!’ shouted the king, so all could hear. ‘See how our great foe comes! See how he marshals all his strength against us! The Headtaker is here!’

A wail of fury went up from the dwarfs. They clashed their axes against their shields and roared. Belegar continued to speak, his anger powering his voice through the clamour raised by his warriors.

‘He comes to see us die, to see an end to dawi in the great city of Vala-Azrilungol! Well, I say, let him come. Let him break his vermintide upon the shields and axes of the sons of Grungni. Let him be disappointed! Khazukan! Khazuk-ha!’ he bellowed.

‘Khazukan! Khazuk-ha! Grungni runk!’

Durggan added the voices of his war machines to the dwarfish war cry. At various points within the hall, range-markers had been secreted, white stones that told Stoutbelly exactly who he could hit from where, and with what. The lead ranks of skavenslaves now passed the first of these.

Cannons boomed thunderously, tearing long holes in the ranks of the slaves. They squealed in terror, and doubtless those nearest the carnage would have turned to flee if it were not for the endless swarms pushing them on. At the back, whips cracked. In reply to the cannons, streaks of green whistled into the dwarf ranks, felling warriors along the length of the line.

‘Jezzails!’ shouted their officers. ‘Shields up!’

‘Garrak-ha!’ shouted the dwarfs. Triple-forged dwarf steel rippled upwards along the dwarf line, locked together with a clash. Bullets still punched through, but fewer dwarfs fell.

‘Belegar! My lord! Get down!’

Belegar stood at the front of the Iron Brotherhood shouting his defiance. Warpstone bullets pinged off his rune-armour and the Shield of Defiance, disintegrating into puffs of nose-searing green smoke. ‘Let them try, Notrigar. I am no skulking ratman to hide at the back of his warriors. Let them come! Let them come! Queek, I am here! I am waiting for you!’

Dwarf crossbows twanged as the skaven came into range. Shortly after, the popping reports of handguns joined them. So tightly packed were the skaven that every bullet and bolt found its mark. Those who fell were pulped under the feet of those following. Bolt throwers skewered them in threes and fours, cannons blasted them to pieces. Grudge-stones rained down, sailing between the columns of the roof on perfect trajectories. But there were thousands of skaven, and no matter how many died, there were always more. The tunnels leading back into the lower deeps were thick with them, their red eyes shining in the dark.

At the appropriate time, Durggan unleashed the fiery horror of his only flamecannon, incinerating a wide cone of skaven. They squealed in fear and pain, and the air was thick with the smoke of their burning.

‘Here they come, lads!’ bellowed Belegar. He gestured forwards with his hammer. ‘At them!’

Shouting the war cries of their ancestors, the Iron Brotherhood ran into the mass of skavenslaves.

Queek watched patiently from a broken statue, squeaking orders when he felt his minions were letting him down. These were carried off by rapid scurriers, who forced their way into the ranks to seek out Queek’s officers.

‘You wait, little warlord, this is good,’ hissed a voice only Queek could hear. The shadows cast by a pillar danced with more than the flamelight of battle. Queek’s trophies were unusually silent, cowed by the verminlord.

‘Pah! Queek hate waiting. Queek want to smash-kill dwarf long-fur and take head! But Queek is no fool, Lurklox-lord,’ he said, the honorific unpleasant on his tongue. ‘Dwarfs outnumbered ten to one. And this is but the first clawpack! They have no reserves. Queek guess that no dwarfs are anywhere else nearby, except sick, young and old.’ He tittered. ‘Young very tasty. Not so tough as old long-furs!’ He sneered. ‘Dwarfs are stupid, slow-thinking – not quick-clever like skaven – but they are strong. Very good armour. Fine weapons. Much singing.’ He shuddered; the grinding-stone sound of the dwarfish battlesongs hurt his sensitive ears. ‘No matter.’ He waved his hand-paw dismissively. ‘Under enough pressure, even dwarf-forged steel will snap. Soon will be time. Loyal Ska!’

‘Yes, great Queek,’ said Ska from the foot of the statue, where he restricted access to the mighty Queek.

‘Ready my guard. Tell Grotoose now is time to loose his monsters.’

Queek watched the dwarf line. Having made a space at the front of the king’s position, Belegar’s Iron Brotherhood were retreating with mechanical precision from their initial foray to the safety of the line. Slaves scattered in the opposite direction, many shot down as they tried to flee. Others surged forwards, drawing themselves right onto the dwarfs’ guns, where they died in droves. ‘Pah!’ said Queek. ‘That is what slaves are for, yes-yes, Lurklox?’

There was no reply. The shadows were empty.

‘He has scurry-gone,’ said Ikit Scratch from his position along the central run of spikes on Queek’s trophy rack.

The dead-thing sounded afraid.

From the gates behind Queek came an unpleasant bellow as Grotoose, the Great Packmaster of Clan Moulder, prodded his creatures into the fight. First to come were packs of slavering rat ogres, starved for the battle. They ran at the dwarf lines, barely directed by their packmasters.

Behind them came two gigantic Hell Pit abominations, their naked, maggoty skin rippling as they heaved themselves forwards, their many heads snapping at the air. The creatures, a hideous mix of flesh and machine, moved surprisingly quickly. Cannonballs slammed into the foremost abomination, and it howled in idiot rage. But its unnatural vitality saw its skin knit back together almost instantly, and it continued onwards. They squashed hundreds of slaves as they went towards the dwarf shield wall, but that did not matter. Queek had thousands and thousands more of such weak-meat. Every dwarf killed could never be replaced. He snickered as the first then the second abomination burst into the dwarf line, punching a big hole in it. No slaves followed into the openings, too terrified of the beasts. But the abominations were mighty enough alone. The entire dwarf east flank became bogged down fighting only one, while the other abomination turned at right angles to the beard-thing’s battle line and began to work its way up towards the west flank, scattering those dwarfs it did not kill.

The rat ogres, meanwhile, loped forwards, giant hands grasping, swatting aside any slave that did not move away quickly enough. Queek watched as they swiftly arrived at the front of the battle. The largest pack was sent against a weak spot in the dwarf line hard by the king, a group of blue-capped beard-things wielding slow-loading crossbows. Such a pathetic weapon, typical of the dwarf-things: powerful but ponderous. Obsolete and doomed as their owners! The beard-things had time for three shots and no more before the rat ogres went raging into them. These dwarf-things were lightly armoured and did not last, the surviving few breaking and running, allowing the rat ogres to pile into the flank of Belegar’s bodyguard.

Queek’s eyes narrowed. This was the moment he had been waiting for. He bounded down the side of the statue, towards the front of his Red Guard.

‘Now, Ska, now! Sound the advance!’

Skaven gongs rang. The slavemasters ceased cracking their whips, allowing the slaves to flee. They needed little prompting, their ragged remnants trickling away from the hall, leaving space for Queek’s advance. The second line of skaven readied themselves, these well armed and armoured. Gongs clashed, bells rang. They started forwards.

At their centre went Queek Headtaker.

Belegar’s hammer crushed the skull of his opponent, spattering all those around him with skaven brains. His fellows threw down their arms and ran for it, affording Belegar a moment’s respite. From his vantage point, he could see up and down the line of his warriors. All were embattled. In two places his line had been breached by the abominations, and more deadly creatures were coming to attack them. Rat ogres were headed right for Clan Zhorrak. Belegar swore. The Blue Caps were no match for the beasts, and their supporting units were thoroughly occupied with the reeking monstrosity rampaging through his rear echelon.

‘Blue Caps, bring them down!’ he shouted, gesturing with his hammer.

The dwarfs shot numerous quarrels into the rat ogres, felling several. But there were well over a dozen of them, and most barrelled forwards ignoring the missiles sticking out of their bodies. With a hissing roar, the rat ogres bounded up the rubble pile, right into the Blue Caps. The dwarfs dropped their crossbows to pull out their double-handed axes. Bravery was not enough against the creatures, and the quarrellers were lightly armoured. Sword-long claws ripped the quarrellers apart. The rat ogres pushed through their formation, slaying many. By the time the Blue Caps of Clan Zhorrak broke, there were few left. Without stopping even to feed, the rat ogres pivoted and slammed right into the flank of the Iron Brotherhood. Signal flags fluttered on the opposite side of the cavern. Skaven war-gongs and bells tolled. Seeing the king’s guard assailed, and the dwarf line sorely pressed all along its front, the skaven elite pressed forwards.

‘Queek.’ Belegar pointed towards the approaching skaven.

The rapidly thinning horde of slaves fled. Those who were slow were pushed forwards onto the axes and hammers of the dwarfs by the bigger skaven coming from behind. With horrifying speed, Queek and his Red Guard were upon the Iron Brotherhood.

The dwarf hammerers were holding their own against the rat ogres, smashing skulls, ribcages and knees with typically dwarfish efficiency. But they were pinned in place by the monsters, and could not react effectively to the charge of Queek’s favoured.

‘Protect the king! Protect the king!’ shouted Brok Gandsson. A knot of hammerers hurried forwards, and surrounded Belegar. The Red Guard smashed into the dwarf front, huge ratmen almost umgi-tall, their sleek black fur rippling with muscle. They wore the tokens of their might: the teeth of black orcs and giants, stolen dwarfish talismans, beardscalps and skulls. Tirelessly the Iron Brotherhood fought them back; for every one hammerer who fell, three elite skaven paid with their lives.

Queek had not yet entered the fight, but that was about to change. He scurried up the rubble like it was a set of shallow steps, the hated Dwarf Gouger and his serrated sword held out either side. He launched himself skywards, spinning as he went. Using the momentum of his somersault, he punched the spiked side of Dwarf Gouger through a hammerer’s helmet. Queek landed on the shoulders of another, his sword flashing down to end the dwarf’s life before he could react, then leapt again. Hammers aimed at him seemed to move through treacled ale, so slow were they in comparison to the Headtaker. He leapt and spun and killed and killed and killed, unhindered by his heavy armour and unwieldy trophy rack. Without gaining so much as a scratch, he was in the middle of the Iron Brotherhood’s formation, killing his way towards Belegar.

Belegar roared. ‘Now, Notrigar! Now! Sound the horn! Sound the horn!’

The dwarf horn-bearer lifted the Golden Horn of the Iron Brotherhood to his lips. Bejewelled, ancient and honoured, the Golden Horn was among Clan Angrund’s most treasured relics.

A bright note lifted over the battle, pure as fresh-cut diamond. The dwarfs took heart at its sounding, singing their songs of grudgement louder and fighting harder. But that was not the purpose of its winding.

A noise like a giant drum came from the Gate of Skalfdon, followed by the rattling of chains so heavy their movement could be heard through the thickness of the gate. The gate slid upwards, the stone moving smoothly over its ancient mechanisms, flooding the hall with golden light.

Roaring out the name of their leader, Golgfag Maneater’s mercenary band marched into the hall. The dwarf line near to Durggan Stoutbelly’s position opened, and the ogres barged their way into the fight, mournfang cavalry and sabretusks going before them, driving wolf rats away from the artillery battery. Skaven were flung high into the air by the force of the ogres’ impact, and the mercenaries penetrated many yards into the seething fur before they were slowed. The ogres were untroubled by the skaven’s weaponry, and killed the creatures easily, their cannon-wielding warriors slaughtering whole units with each blast. Golgfag’s disciplined force then turned to the left, and began fighting their way down the front of the dwarf line, their cavalry pushing their way deep into the horde. The pressure came off Durggan’s position, and the dwarf artillery intensified its fire, blasting, spearing, roasting and squashing hundreds of clanrats.

Belegar smiled. His eyes gleamed. He pointed his hammer at Queek. ‘Come on then, Headtaker! Match your skill against mine. There is one head here you will never have!’

‘Charge-kill!’ screeched Queek. He leapt from rock to rock, then into the dwarfs.

Time slowed in his quick skaven mind. He reacted without thinking, relishing his skill. In battle he was free of scheming lords and underlings and verminlords. Here he was the mightiest, unmatched Queek, the greatest skaven warrior who had ever lived! No more, and no less.

He bounced and slaughtered his way through the clumsy beard-things, killing them with ease. Their hammers moved so slowly! His Red Guard, not so mighty as he, fared less well against the long-face-fur’s elite, but it did not matter. All he needed was a little time, and for now the Red Guard were full of courage, scrambling forwards up the piled stone to replace those slain. Ska Bloodtail fought at their fore, knocking down dwarfs with every swing of his mighty paws.

Queek had come up the hill some way from the dwarf king. Once within the packed ranks of the dwarfs he started to kill his way towards Belegar. Jammed together, the beard-things were easy prey and handy stepping stones both.

A horn rang out several yards from Queek, the horrid nature of its tune hurting his ears. There was the sound of a gate lifting, and shortly the music of the battle changed. Queek was too involved in his own melee, too intent on the dwarf king, to take notice of what it betokened.

Belegar turned to face the Headtaker, a triumphant look on his flat, funnily furred face. He shouted a challenge at the warlord. Queek grinned.

He bounded from the shoulders of one of the king’s tough-meats, killing him and two others before his paws touched the ground. Queek ducked an arcing hammer, and three more dwarfs died.

Then Queek was before King Belegar. The beard-thing glared at him, his eyes ablaze, the reek of hatred leaking from his body. His long-fur twitched on his patchy-bald face, his hand gripped his hammer tightly.

‘So, Belegar beard-thing. You want to fight Queek? Good-good! Queek is here!’ said Queek. He always used Khazalid when he spoke with the dwarf-things. It upset them so much.

Queek launched himself at the dwarf king so quickly it was hard to see him move. Belegar was ready, side-stepping the warlord’s rush and landing a heavy blow on Queek’s shoulder guard. Queek rolled with the hit, saving his shoulder, but his armour split with a shower of glinting, green-black motes of metal. He squealed at the shock. Belegar reeled, blasted back by the magic of Queek’s warpshard armour.

The pair circled each other for a moment, Belegar with his guard up, his shield in front of him, hammer at the ready. Queek held both his weapons wide, his sinuous body low. He hissed and giggled, and his tail twitched behind him with excitement.

‘So long I have waited for this!’ he said; his use of the secret tongue of the dwarfs clearly riled the king.

‘I too, filth. Today will be a great day when your entry might be stricken from the Dammaz Kron of Karak Eight Peaks!’

Queek attacked without warning, hammering Belegar with a flurry of blows from both his weapons. But slow and stolid though the beard-thing was, he was always in the right place, always ready with a block when Queek thought he had a killing blow. Queek twisted around Belegar’s replying strikes, acrobatically evading blows that would have shattered his body had they connected. Five times Queek was sure he had landed a final blow on the king, five times Belegar deflected them. Queek was quick, Belegar skilled. After two minutes of fighting, all Queek had to show for his efforts were a series of small scratches on Belegar’s shield.

Battle raged all around them, the dwarf and skaven ranks now thoroughly intermixed. The din of battle in the hall was amplified by the stone walls. Fire, blood and death were everywhere. Queek boiled with irritation. He hid it behind a wicked smile.

Queek wiped his mouth on the back of the paw holding Dwarf Gouger. ‘Belegar-king good warrior! This is most satisfying for mighty Queek. Too many famed killers die too quick-quick. That very boring for Queek.’

Belegar glared back at him.

‘But beard-thing king not as good as Queek! He cannot stand against mighty Queek for long. Already, Queek has slain many beard-things. See?’ He waggled his back, sending a dried dwarf head’s beard swinging atop his trophy rack. ‘Beard-thing king’s littermate. He was very poor. Not so good as strong-meat Belegar, but Queek kill him anyway. Now I kill-slay you. I bring him out specially from Queek’s trophy room, so he see you die-die. Soon your head will sit next to his. You will have long-ages to discuss how mighty Queek is. Won’t that be nice for long-white face-fur?’

To Queek’s frustration, Belegar did not react as so many beard-things would at his taunting – with a wild bellow of rage and a foolish attack. Instead, he warily circled the skaven.

And then he made his mistake. The tiniest opening. Belegar’s eyes flicked involuntarily up to the head of his brother impaled upon the spike.

Queek reacted instantly. Belegar was ready again, catching the blow of Dwarf Gouger upon his shield, but he was distracted and the block was not as true as his others had been. The shield was slightly too far out; it would take a fraction of a second longer to reposition. Queek made as if he were to make a second swipe. Belegar tensed to react. Queek swept Dwarf Gouger up and away, pirouetting past the king’s shield, putting all his weight and momentum into a backhand blow that sent Dwarf Gouger’s vicious spike through the king’s gromril and into his side. Queek yanked it free, and danced backwards, but too slowly. Belegar slammed him in the face with his shield, denting Queek’s helmet. A following blow from his hammer drew sparks from the rock as Queek rolled aside. He was licking dwarf blood from the maul as he regained his feet. He tittered, although his head rang like a screaming bell.

‘Mighty Queek!’ bellowed Ska. He was throttling a dwarf in ornate armour in one hand. The creature’s face went purple, and Ska cast it aside with a clatter. ‘We are in much-much danger!’

Queek’s eyes darted about. Ska was correct. Big-meat ogres and dwarf-things had pushed back the skaven line. The left flank was melting away. The dwarfs were occupied in containing the Hell Pit abomination there, and that was all that was saving his clanrats from destruction. How long it would hold them back was uncertain; it was surrounded on all sides by angry beard-things and was being hacked into pieces by their axes. The other abomination continued to wreak havoc, but elsewhere ogres pushed deep into the skaven horde with seeming impunity, while the dwarfs’ cannons were firing freely into Queek’s army. Worse still, the last rat ogre went down as Queek watched, its head smashed into a bloody pulp. The king’s guard were now free to concentrate on Queek’s Red Guard. Their formation tightened up, they began to push forwards, and the Red Guard were dying quickly, their morale wavering. Queek was in danger of being surrounded, and cut off.

Queek took all this in an instant. He made his decision to retreat just as quickly. He backed up. Belegar screamed at him, charging forwards with his hammer raised. Queek leapt out of the way, landing on the edge of the rubble pile’s cliff-like face.

‘Run-retreat!’ he squeaked. ‘Fall back, quick-quick!’

Gratefully, the Red Guard fled, more of them bludgeoned to death as they showed their tails.

‘We meet again soon, long-fur,’ chittered Queek, dodging hammer blows as dwarfs interposed themselves between him and the king. ‘Until then, Queek takes another trophy.’

He jumped from the circle of dwarfs, pushing off with one foot-paw from the helmet of one of Belegar’s warriors. He aimed himself at the king’s banner bearer, fending off the warrior’s hopeless parry. Queek relished the look of surprise and fear in the beard-thing’s face as his sword descended, cutting perfectly into the weaker mail at his neck and severing the dwarf’s head. The head toppled along with the standard, the metal icon painted red by fountaining blood.

Ska scooped up the fallen prize, and together they fled the stony mound.

‘Notrigar! Notrigar!’ howled Belegar.

‘Oh dear,’ said Queek to Ska as they scurried away. ‘Look like long-fur beard-thing lose another littermate.’

The dwarfs cheered as the skaven fell back, hurling insults after Queek. Some of the skaven army retreated in good order – Queek’s guard and his other stormvermin units held firm – but most did not and scrambled for the exits. Ogres ran them down without mercy, knocking handfuls of them flying with each swing of their massive clubs and swords. Green trails in the air marked out where jezzail teams aimed for the mercenaries, but the toxic bullets seemed not to affect them much, and it took several rounds to bring even a single ogre down.

The battle-dirges of the dwarfs changed. Victory songs erupted along the line at the flight of the skaven.

At the centre, the Iron Brotherhood found themselves unengaged. They yelled insults and banged their hammer hafts on the rock and on their shields.

Brok Gandsson sought out his lord, who stood at the brink of the cliff, looking down upon the scattering of bodies and blood-washed rock.

‘A great victory, my king!’ said Brok, his eyes bright, the shame of his murder of Douric forgotten for the moment.

Belegar looked with hollow eyes at the headless body of his cousin.

‘My lord?’ said Brok. He gestured for another to take up the fallen standard.

‘It is not a victory, not yet. If we prevail, and I say “if” carefully, Brok Gandsson, a dozen of our finest lie dead around us. Grungni alone knows how many others have fallen.’

‘Shall we pursue them? We stand a chance of catching the Headtaker,’ said Brok keenly. ‘Many are the grudges that can be stricken from the Book by his death.’

‘Pursuing Queek is futile,’ said Belegar. ‘We will be drawn into the mass of troops waiting for us and killed piecemeal. We have other foes of direr nature, and closer to hand.’ He pointed his hammer at the second abomination. The first was dead, but in their fury at the losses of their kin, the dwarfs of the Stoneplaits clan continued to hack at it. The second was dragging its vile bulk through the army, mindlessly unaffected by the general rout of the skaven. A bold unit of miners stood their ground in front of its heaving bulk. They buried their mattocks in its sickly white hide, only for them to be torn out of their hands by the convulsions of its flesh. A cannonball smacked into it, as effectual as a child’s marble impacting dough. ‘There is yet one more task for our hammers.’

‘My king!’ Brok bowed. He ordered the Iron Brotherhood to come about face. The king marched with them, his wound concealed by his shield. He gritted his teeth against the pain and told no one of it.

The abomination reared over them, stinking of decayed meat and warpstone-laden chemicals. The weapons of half a dozen clans were embedded in its flabby sides, its underside slick and red with the blood of those it had crushed under its enormous weight.

Upon seeing their king and his guard arrive, the remaining miners fighting the creature took heart and shouted their war cries anew. Those without weapons took up whatever they could find to assail the creature.

‘The heads! Destroy the heads,’ ordered Belegar.

‘They’re high up for a killing stroke,’ said Brok.

‘Then let’s get its attention,’ said Belegar, ‘and make it bring them nearer our hammers.’

He strode forwards. Shouldering his shield, he swung the Ironhammer two-handed, smacking the thing hard on the rump. Waves rippled away from the impact. A second blow shattered a leg, a third a wheel grafted to its rear.

Finally recognising what it felt for pain, the abomination howled and reared up, dragging a pair of dwarf miners off their feet. They hung on to their picks for grim death as it lumbered around to face this new irritation.

‘Khazuk! Khazuk! Khazuk-ha!’ shouted Brok.

The hammerers advanced. Their numbers had been whittled down by a quarter in their earlier fight, and they had been battling for a good part of the morning without rest or refreshment. Lesser creatures would have been weary, and suffered for it. But these were dawi, many highborn, all warriors of the finest mettle. In their endurance they were indomitable, and they swung their hammers as if taking them up for the first time that day. Like triphammers in the forges of Zhufbar, the hammers of the Iron Brotherhood fell in a wave, pounding upon the skin of the horror, snapping bone and mashing flesh. The creature roared, swiping with one of its many arms. The first rank of hammerers were knocked down like pins in a game of skittles, but thanks to their armour few were hurt. The second rank stepped up to deliver another rippled blow. A grasping hand was shattered, a bloated paw burst. Brok Gandsson bellowed a challenge and ran at the side of the creature, pushing himself up the shattered machinery crudely grafted to its limbs. His feet bounced on its rubbery hide, but he kept his footing, ran to the top and cracked it hard over one of its nine heads. The neck attaching it to the sack of its body cracked, and the head sagged, dead. The abomination flung its upper portion to and fro, sending Gandsson flying.

Shouting mightily, the hammerers followed their champion, surrounding the creature and smashing at it furiously. The abomination thrashed, howling horribly. It killed but a few of the dwarfs, and its lower portion was soon so pulverised that its unnatural vitality could not heal all the tears in its flanks. Crying, it sank low, biting at its tormenters, allowing the hammerers access to its heads by doing so. These the dwarfs smashed to pulp one after another as soon as the snapping jaws came near.

Finally, the last head was split. With a tremendous shudder and a pitiful moan, the abomination breathed its last through pulverised lips and broken jaws.

The hammerers gave a ragged cheer.

‘Well done, Brok Gandsson,’ said Belegar, as the Iron Brotherhood helped their bruised but otherwise unhurt champion to his feet with many a clap on the back. ‘A deed worthy of the ancestors.’

Brok bowed his head. ‘My thanks, my king.’

‘Now blow the Golden Horn once more. It’s time we left this battlefield and retreated to the next defence.’ Belegar looked around sadly. To do so meant leaving the deeps completely in the hands of his enemies. From now on, they would be fighting for the citadel’s roots alone.

The war for the underhalls was lost, probably forever.

The horn blower lifted the sacred relic to his lips, but did not blow.

‘What…?’ said Belegar. All dawi eyes looked to the ground.

Through the ground came a rumbling sensation that built steadily until the floor itself vibrated. No dwarf could mistake it for an earthquake. The sensation was too regular, too localised for natural perturbation of the rock.

‘Tunnelling machines,’ gasped Brok.

‘Reform!’ bellowed Belegar. ‘Reform… ahh.’ He gasped, and clutched at his side. Red blood dripped upon the floor. His head swam. A strange, unholy heat radiated from his wound.

‘My lord,’ said Brok in dismay. ‘You are wounded!’

Belegar shouted back, annoyed at himself for betraying his injury. ‘It is nothing – a scratch. I gave the Headtaker more to remember me by than this, believe me. I commanded the army to reform. Look to them, not me. Be about it quickly, or all is lost!’

‘Yes, my lord.’ Brok relayed the order, and his orders were passed on by others. Dwarfs were efficient in all things, and very shortly horns sounded as the dwarfs called back their warriors from the pursuit.

A sound came from behind the Iron Brotherhood’s new square.

‘My king!’ shouted Brok.

Brok pointed at the abomination. Its skin shuddered. Three of its mouths worked. Bones cracked as jaws reset. Eyes grew bright. Flesh knitted together. It vomited freely from all of these mouths, and with a pained squeal, it jerked fully back into life and hauled itself up once more.

FIFTEEN Enter Skarsnik

Queek’s scampering slowed. He looked to the ground and giggled. ‘Halt-stop!’ he called, holding up his hand-paw.

The Red Guard tittered, recognising the rumbling for what it was – the anticipated arrival of their reinforcements from the third clawpack. They formed up. Other units were slowing, their flight turning. For a moment they stood in a state of stilled disorganisation, before flowing back together, units consolidating almost magically from the chaotic mass of the rout. From the gateways into the hall more skaven issued. This was the remainder of the first clawpack, ordered to join battle by Queek only when the tunnelling machines made their presence known.

‘Hehehehe,’ snickered Queek. ‘Now we see who is the best, Belegar-king. See, loyal Ska, how the dwarf-things have broken their line in their foolishness. Too quickly they are to believe Queek would run-run! They have fallen for mighty Queek’s trap! They will all die-die, no matter how fast they stump-run to find their clawpacks again!’

Ska frowned. To his simple mind, it had looked like they were about to lose. Ska wasn’t particularly quick, but he was smart enough to know saying so would not be wise. ‘Yes, mighty Queek,’ he said instead.

The vibrations grew stronger, a bone-shaking grinding joining them. The entire hall rumbled. Just when it seemed they couldn’t possibly get any louder, the tone of the noise changed and piles of splintered rock mounded up in various places in the hall.

Queek leapt onto a boulder and brandished his weapons. ‘Be ready!’ shouted Queek, his voice barely carrying over the noise of the tunnelling machines. ‘Third clawpack arrives! Today, mighty Queek take long-fur’s head!’

‘Queek! Queek! Queek!’ squeaked his army.

The snout of a drilling machine appeared from one of the oversized molehills to the north, fifty yards short of the rapidly reforming dwarf army. The drill poked a few feet overground, then withdrew. With nothing to support it, the centre of the hillock collapsed, leaving a gaping hole in the ground.

Queek waited gleefully, his tongue searching out fresh scraps of dwarf flesh and blood in his fur.

Green light issued from the hole. Smoke poured after it. Other machines were poking up out of the floor and walls, and retracting, leaving fresh tunnel mouths behind them. One by one they fell silent and the tremors dwindled.

‘Not long now, loyal Ska. Truly is Queek the most cunning of generals.’

‘The most cunning of the cunningest,’ agreed Ska.

Something emerged from the hole. It was a long way to see for Queek’s weak skaven eyesight. He squinted hard and made out a bouncing, round shape headed for the dwarf lines.

‘That not third clawpack…’ said Ska in dismay.

‘Queek can see that!’ squeaked Queek loudly. ‘Queek know!’

The hole burst outwards as dozens more of the creatures came boinging out, their powerful hindlegs propelling them at great speed into the air. They slapped into the ground, rolling and bouncing, shoving themselves off with their legs to repeat the process. The mushroom stink of green-things blew from the holes.

‘Skarsnik!’ chittered Queek, stamping from foot to foot. ‘Skarsnik! What is this? How does he know? How does he still live?’

As if invoked by the name of their king, the green-things poured in great multitudes from the holes in the ground. Regiments of night goblin archers came first, firing as they ran, the new tunnel mouths wide enough to let them come out four abreast. The skaven, expecting allies to come from the ground, were taken by surprise, and some among the newly rallied army were seized again by panic. Black-fletched arrows fell among them, bringing forth many death-squeaks. The massed skaven retreated from the holes, allowing legions of goblins to flood the hall.

There were many tribes, and many kinds of green-thing. Queek narrowed his eyes and hissed. ‘Imp-thing been busy!’

The greenskins wasted no time in attacking both armies. From a hole opened right before the Gate of Skalfdon, ranks of tittering spearmen, drunk on fungus beer, marched out. They jogged into position on the far side of the dwarfs. Staggering fanatics carrying massive iron balls were pushed from their regiments. They blinked and stared around themselves, laughing and drooling. And then they began to spin.

Faster and faster they went, round and round, the drugs coursing through their veins allowing them to drag the huge weapons they carried up and get them airborne. In a blur of metal and spinning pointed hoods, they connected with dwarfs turning to face the goblins behind them.

The fanatics moved quite slowly, but such was their momentum that they smashed the dwarf shield wall apart, caving in the best armour and pulping bodies. If their initial impact was bloody, their lives after were short. Some spun through into the skaven on the far side; others wavered unsteadily along the dwarf line or turned back upon their frantically shrieking comrades. Ultimately, they came variously to throttle themselves on their chains, collapse exhausted or crash into the pillars and rubble piles that made the hall so hazardous for them.

It did not matter, the damage was done. The goblins followed their fanatics quickly, charging the disordered dwarf lines.

Squigs were running amok through the dwarf army, gobbling down a dwarf with every bound. Queek’s quick mind followed his quick eyes and nose as he judged the situation. ‘Now would be a good time to fall back, lad,’ said Krug, from his perch.

‘Oh, good time for you to talk now, dead-thing,’ muttered Queek. Still, he was of half a mind to follow the dwarf king’s advice, retreating while the beard-things were occupied with a new enemy. Let them wipe each other out. Queek would come back for whoever was left later.

He would have done so too, had Skarsnik himself not appeared.

Skarsnik rose from a hole in the ground in the very middle of the hall. Explosions and flashes of magic surrounded him, the indescribable noise of squigpipes played him in, making sure all saw his grand entrance. He walked cockily from the hole, his attendants carrying banners stuck with the heads of the leaders of the third clawpack. He walked to a pile of fallen rock, and climbed unhurriedly to the top, his rotund pet obediently following. Queek squealed in annoyance. The sheer arrogance of Skarsnik enraged him. He behaved like he was the best, when who was the best? Queek was!

‘Listen, youse lot!’ shouted the green-thing, his voice carried on the magic of the smelly lunatic who always accompanied him. Sure enough, he was there, blowing foul fumes from his pipe not far behind the king’s right shoulder. ‘I’s the king here, so why don’t all you furboys and stunties zog off. Give to Skarsnik what belongs to Skarsnik, and we’ll call it quits.’

With that inspired piece of oratory, Skarsnik held aloft his prodder and let a stream of violent green energy streak into the roof. Razor-sharp shards of rock blasted out from the impact, slicing into whoever was below. Which was mostly goblins, but Skarsnik, true to form, didn’t care about that.

This was altogether too much for Queek.

‘Skarsnik! Imp-thing! Kill-kill!’ he shrieked. He ran forward, leaving his guard behind. They milled about confused until Ska Bloodtail squeak-ordered, ‘After him! After the mighty Queek!’

Seeing their lord and his guard surge ahead, the skaven clan leaders, clawpack masters and other officers decided they had better advance. Their ragged charge became organised as more of them came to the same conclusion and followed.

The skaven were so intent on the goblins that they didn’t notice the ogres change sides.

‘Keep up the fire to the front there!’ shouted Durggan Stoutbelly.

The cannons boomed over the heads of the Axes of Norr, detailed to guard the battery. It was an honourable task, given to them in thanks for their heroic efforts at the door of Bar-Undak.

Borrik ducked as a bolt of green lightning blasted past his face. He snarled in the direction of Skarsnik. The goblin king was stood upon a pile of rock in the centre of the battlefield, capering madly.

‘He looks pleased with himself,’ muttered Gromley.

‘Aye,’ said Grunnir, spitting on the floor. ‘Little green kruti.’

This is not looking good, not looking good at all, thought Borrik. The goblin ambush had surprised both armies, but the dwarfs suffered the most for it. Their flank, anchored by Durggan’s war machines, had become cut off from the bulk of the dwarf throng as a prong of the greenskin ambushers pushed its way through the army. Worse, although Belegar was sounding the orders for retreat, their way from the cavern was blocked by hundreds of grobi and no small number of urk emerging from at least two fresh tunnels.

And there were the ogres as well. This wasn’t a very good day.

‘Here they come again, honourless fat baruzdaki,’ said Borrik. ‘Norrgrimlings-ha!’ he shouted.

A regiment of swag-bellied Ironguts ran up the slope at the much-depleted battery. Only two cannons remained. The others were silent, destroyed by magic or their crew all slain. Dead goblins, skaven, dwarfs and ogres were intermingled around the battery, their corpses dangling from the earthworks and dry-stone walls erected before the battle.

‘Fire!’ shouted Durggan. With a deafening bang and gouts of smoke, the cannons unloaded two lots of grapeshot right into the teeth of the ogre charge. The last few Forgefuries added their hand-cannon shots to the fusillade. The front rank, four ogres wide, stumbled and fell.

Gromley cocked his eyebrow. ‘Now I don’t say it often, but that was impressive.’

‘Well I live and breathe, at least for a few moments longer,’ said Borrik, shouting over the ogres’ deafening war cry. ‘Gromley impressed by something! I reckon I can die happy, and maybe not a little surprised.’

Gromley’s sour response was lost to the clatter of ogre gutplates hitting gromril. The thin line of the remaining Axes of Norr, five all told now, bowed but did not break. ‘At ’em, lads!’ shouted Borrik, and hewed an ogre’s foot away with a single blow of his rune axe. The ogre hopped about, crashing down when Gromley took his other leg off at the knee.

‘Serves ’em right for being so tall,’ he said.

The Axes of Norr hurled back the charge. The remaining ogres broke and fled. The dwarfs let out a small cheer from tired throats.

‘I’d kill for some ale right now,’ said Borrik.

‘You are killing,’ said Gromley, ‘but I don’t see any ale at the end of this.’

‘There might have been more, if the rats hadn’t done for poor old Yorrik,’ said Grunnir. ‘Oh, look at that, they got Albok.’

‘Grungni curse those treacherous ogres,’ spat Gromley.

Albok lay dead, his head open from the crown to his nose, his brains glistening inside his broken helmet. Four Axes of Norr remained standing.

Insane tittering came at them. A pair of fanatics spun into view. Two shots rang out, and both goblins fell with smoking holes between their eyes. Borrik looked up to see Durggan blowing the smoke from his pistols.

‘Aye, good lad, Albok,’ said Borrik. He lifted his shield. Every sinew and muscle twanged with fatigue. There wasn’t much more to say to it than that. They’d grieve properly later, if there was a later.

Goblins milled about just out of grapeshot range, the corpses of the three previous failed charges buried now under dead ogres. ‘That’s right,’ said Gromley. ‘You stay down there.’

‘Hang on, lads, this might be us,’ said Grunnir.

Golgfag was marching up the hill, his maneaters behind him.

‘They’re a mean crew and no mistake,’ said Gromley.

Borrik looked down his meagre line of clansmen, four Axes, three Forgefuries. Where had they all gone? He remembered a time when the Norrgrimlings had been a large and prosperous clan. He was going to have a lot of explaining to do when he got to the Halls of the Ancestors. ‘Grunnir, Gromley, Uli, Fregar, Tordrek, Gurt, Vituk… I’d say it’s been an honour…’

‘Not living, breathing and fighting with this lot of grumbaki!’ said Grunnir.

‘Hush! The time for jesting’s done.’ He gave Grunnir one of his sterner looks. ‘It’s been more than an honour,’ continued Borrik. ‘A lot more. I could say more, I could wax lyrical, but you know what I mean. We’re dawi, aren’t we? I’m not an elf to collapse into tears and give everyone a cuddle.’

‘Dawr spoken,’ said Gromley.

Golgfag’s ogres were breaking into a charge.

‘Norrgrimling khazuk! Khazuk-ha!’ Borrik said. His warriors repeated the words. He wondered what each was thinking here, at the last stand of the Axes of Norr.

He supposed it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they stood by him until the end.

Durggan was lining the cannons up to get one last shot on the ogres. One of his crew let out a cry and fell, a black-fletched grobi arrow sticking from his throat. Another died, slumping over the gun with a warpstone bullet embedded in his chest.

‘Keep it up! Keep it up!’ barked Durggan. ‘We’ll not fall without one last blast, eh, lads?’ He helped the remaining crewman of the cannon to line up the barrel. The second was ready, the last dwarf of its crew grasping the firing string, but Golgfag raised a pistol as big as a dwarf handgun and blasted him off his feet. As he was thrown backwards, the dwarf jerked the cord. An ogre took the ball to his gutplate, sinking to his knees with blood gushing around his hands. The other ogres hurled themselves into the Norrgrimlings. Golgfag singled out the thane, and attacked.

As proud and skilful a warrior as Borrik was, he could not stand against the Maneater. Golgfag quickly put him down with a punishing blow to the head. Through blurring vision, Borrik saw his remaining clans-dwarfs smashed down, barged off balance by fat stomachs, then bludgeoned by umgi-high clubs.

The maneaters wheeled and went for the cannon. Durggan, working on his own now, struggled to get the last piece aligned.

‘Not today, stunty,’ said Golgfag. He drew another pistol and blew out Durggan’s guts with it. So died the chief engineer of Karak Eight Peaks.

The ogres halted. There were none left alive on the high ground except Borrik. He couldn’t move.

‘Look at this lot,’ said Golgfag waving his giant hand out over the battlefield. ‘This is madness! Nobody’s going to win this. Stunties in the north-east, skaven to the south, gobboes in the middle. It don’t make sense.’

‘They are not soldiers, not like we are, captain,’ said one ogre, almost as massive as his master and dressed in outsized Imperial finery.

‘What now, Captain Golgfag?’ said another.

‘I reckon we’re done here. Fulfilled our side of the contract. We’re never going to see that dwarf king’s gold if we stick around for the end of this mess. It don’t matter whose side we’re on. Besides, I got a healthy down payment.’ He patted a bulging pouch at his side. A gold object was poking out of it. Even through his near insensibility, Borrik recognised the crown of Vala-Azrilungol, lost for ages. He added that to his growing mental list of grudges.

‘Kulak, shout the withdrawal. We’re leaving.’

‘Captain! What about that one? He’s still alive,’ said someone Borrik couldn’t see.

Golgfag swung around and looked right at Borrik. The ogre chief walked towards him, his boots filling Borrik’s vision. A rough hand grabbed his mail and rolled him over. Borrik found himself staring into the lumpen face of the world’s foremost mercenary captain.

‘Tough little buggers, your lot,’ said Golgfag. ‘I really hate fighting dwarfs. You take ages to kill. All that armour! Haha! Ha!’ he laughed, as if to include Borrik in his joke. A gale of halitosis swept over Borrik, rank with poorly cooked meat. ‘It ain’t nothing personal, stunty. Business is business.’ Golgfag patted Borrik’s chest with a massive hand.

‘The lads are coming, captain,’ said the finely dressed maneater.

‘Right then,’ said Golgfag, looking away. ‘West tunnel, third in. Looks very badly guarded. We’ll fight our way out that way. Any objections?’

None came.

‘Good.’ Golgfag hitched his trousers into a more comfortable position and stood, his gut obscuring Borrik’s view of his face.

‘What about him?’ said an ogre. ‘You not going to kill him?’

‘The stunty? Nah,’ said Golgfag, leering down at Borrik. ‘It’s your lucky day, shorty. Like I said, I’ve fulfilled my part of the contract. I’ve finished here.’

The ogres left Borrik lying in the shattered remnants of his clan.

If I ever get out of this alive, he thought, I’m donating my entire treasury to the priesthood of Valaya, and then I’m taking the Slayer oath.

Queek butchered goblins by the score. Spears of wood and toughened mushroom stalk shattered under the blows of his weapons. He snarled and spat as he slew them, squeaking in frustration as his blades became fouled in their filthy robes. He was attempting to reach the hated imp, Skarsnik, the so-called king. But for every goblin he slew, there seemed to be a dozen more. They tried to retreat from him, and wisely, but could not for they were packed into the hall so tightly. The dwarf artillery had been silenced, but Skarsnik was still blasting skaven and dwarf-things alike with impunity with the prodder. Queek had witnessed Skarsnik’s magical trident at work many times in the past, but never like this. It glowed with green light so bright it was nearly white. The glare of it left painful after-images streaking across his vision. The energy bolts it threw seemed many times more powerful, and more numerous, than ever before.

‘Let me pass! Get out of Queek’s way!’ shouted Queek at a group of skaven who found themselves in his path. They were lowly clanrats, scared beyond comprehension. They stared at him stupidly as he yelled at them to move. They did not, so he cut them down where they stood. Skarsnik was now only one hundred and fifty scurries from him. The goblin had seen him and was gesticulating obscenely. A bolt of green light came after his gestures, singeing Queek’s whiskers as he threw himself out of the way.

‘You wait-wait, green-thing. Today you die-die!’

Queek leapt onto a pile of rubble, and from there threw himself into the melee swirling around its base. He cleared himself a space, slaughtering combatants from both sides. An ogre was close, isolated from his fellows a few yards further on. Queek launched himself at it, slamming his pick’s spike into the creature’s forehead. He used this to arrest his leap – curving over the ogre’s back, he yanked Dwarf Gouger out in a spray of blood and brains. Landing nimbly, he found himself alone on bare rock, as skaven, goblins and the ogre’s comrades fled from him.

The way to Skarsnik was clear.

Queek gathered himself for another leap, tittering evilly.

The ground shook. Light blasted around him and he fell to the floor, Dwarf Gouger clattering from his grasp. His ears rang from the blast. When he looked up, goblin and skaven corpses smoked all around him.

At first he thought he had been hit by Skarsnik, but the goblin was gone from his rock pile. Away to the right of where Skarsnik had capered, Queek caught a glimpse of pale grey fur, almost white.

‘White-fur!’ hissed Queek. ‘You pay for this with your head!’

Kranskritt rose from a tunnel in the centre of the cavern, arcane power crackling around him, and came to rest on the side of a toppled pillar. He snarled imperiously and flung out one hand-paw. The ground rumbled. Fissures opened like hungry mouths, swallowing creatures of all kinds indiscriminately. Queek started, meaning to run-scurry at the white-fur and strike him dead. But there was something else with him, a shadow behind him, half hidden by the black glare of Kranskritt’s magic.

Verminlord. Queek snarled. At first he thought it the same one as had come to him, but it was not. The horns were different, for one, and it was less hidden in the shadows than the other.

‘Two verminlords in the City of Pillars?’ he whispered to himself, ill at ease. ‘Unprecedented.’

The ground shook regularly as Kranskritt and his master – for the verminlord was almost certainly the weak-willed sorcerer’s ruler – unleashed a storm of earthquakes, sending even the agile Queek staggering. Snarling, he ran towards Kranskritt.

‘Fool-fool! Stop-stop!’ shouted Queek.

To his surprise, Kranskritt heard him and looked down. An expression of pure, malicious calculation crossed his face. His hands rose. Queek tensed, ready to dodge. His warpstone amulet pulsed with protective magics.

The moment passed and Kranskritt performed a deep bow. One without any sign of submission, the sort of acknowledgement given to an equal! Kranskritt was getting too confident. Another reason to kill him.

‘Do not despair, mighty Queek!’ the sorcerer shouted over the noise of his patron’s continuing magical barrage. ‘I came from my hunt in the mountains as quick-quick as I could. Clan Scruten will aid mighty Queek and save the day from green-thing treachery!’

The verminlord loomed over Kranskritt. The grey seer’s tail swished easily, given confidence by the proximity of the daemon. Queek snarled. His mind worked fast. If he killed Kranskritt now, it would be in front of everyone at a time when the sorcerer was helping turn the battle. Furthermore, he had a verminlord stood right behind him. Queek fleetingly considered matching his blades against it, but wisely decided not to.

He shouted instead. ‘Fool weak-meat! You send the green-imp scurrying away from mighty Queek’s blade! You will pay for this!’

‘And mighty Queek was doing so well without me,’ said Kranskritt sarcastically. ‘See! The goblin tunnels collapse. They are trapped! You win-win, mighty Queek. You are correct – I should be paid for this. I should be paid many-much warptokens, not with unkind bite of steel.’

Queek bared his fangs and held his serrated sword up in challenge to the seer. Then with a swift turn he sprang away, seeking others to vent his anger upon.

He would kill Kranskritt later. He promised himself that he would.

A great tremor ran through the ground as the skaven daemon and his pet sorcerer unleashed another earthquake. The goblins’ tunnels fell in, opening long trenches in the floor. Warriors from all sides fell into the gaping pits.

Belegar’s plans were in tatters.

‘A thousand times a thousand curses on Golgfag and his honourless ogres,’ said one of his bodyguards.

‘Yes,’ said Belegar absently. He watched the skaven sorcerer. He was troubled anew. Daemons were abroad in Vala-Azrilungol.

‘They are ogres. It was a gamble, a poor roll of the dice, no more, my lord,’ said another.

Belegar shook with anger. ‘It’s not that. I don’t understand,’ said Belegar. ‘How did Skarsnik know? How did he speak with them?’

Behind his back, the hammerers shared glances. This was an oft-repeated story: bold King Belegar outwitted by a goblin.

The abomination was finally dead, for good this time, but the price had been high. The crushed corpse of Brok Gandsson leaked its life-fluids onto the bare rock, pinned under the bulk of the twice-living monster. Only thirty or so of Belegar’s elite hammerers remained.

Belegar looked at the disaster unfolding in the hall. Durggan’s battery was shattered; all his men and those set to guard him were dead. The sorry remnants of the flank the artillery had anchored were surrounded on all sides, cut off and beyond hope. The horns sounded the retreat time and again, but many of the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks were mired in battle with one faction or the other and could not retreat. Either that or they had fallen into all-consuming fits of hatred, desperate to bury their axes in their despised foes. These dawi had lost all reason and did not heed the signals. Worst of all, the path to the doors of Clan Skalfdon was thick with goblins.

‘Sire, sire!’ said a familiar voice.

‘Drakki?’ Belegar said flatly. ‘Why aren’t you with the rearguard, recording our…’ He wanted to say defeat, he should have said defeat, but somehow he couldn’t. He was bone weary, not merely from today, but from fifty years of chasing an impossible dream. Defeat was too big a word to fit into his mouth.

‘The rearguard are with you, my king. The lines have collapsed. We have been pushed together.’ He gestured at the shrinking knot of dwarfs, units fighting back to back. ‘Bold dawi await your command, my king.’

Belegar was dazed. ‘I…’

Drakki grabbed the king’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Do something,’ he whispered.

It was thanks to the mercy of Valaya, Belegar supposed, that the ogres were leaving the hall, killing anyone of whatever army who got in their way. He blinked. The fuddle of emotion clouding his mind receded.

‘Blow the charges,’ he said.

‘My king?’ said Drakki.

‘I said, blow the charges,’ Belegar repeated, more clearly. He hefted his hammer. His warriors breathed easier seeing their lord return to them.

‘Are you sure this is wise?’ said Drakki.

‘No. But they are rigged to collapse the hall to the south. If Durggan did his work well – and when did he ever not? – we should be able to retreat through the gate.’

‘Dawi of Karak Eight Peaks! Dawi of Vala-Azrilungol that was! To arms to arms! Make for the gate!’ called their thanes.

Horns blew loudly. The dwarfs checked their aggression, forming up into squares and blocks.

‘Do it now,’ said Belegar.

A complex tune played from the Golden Horn of the Iron Brotherhood.

‘To the fore! To the fore!’ shouted Belegar’s clan lords.

The dwarfs, now in a broad column, lurched like a train of ore carts beginning their journey. Slowly they gained traction, and then they were away, axes and hammers falling, carving a red path through thaggoraki and grobi alike towards the great doors of Clan Skalfdon.

Three minutes later, long fuses burned their way to the charges hidden around the bases of the pillars to the southern end of the hall. Twelve explosions followed one another quickly, their reports amplified to deafening levels by the enclosed space.

The pillars ground on shattered bases. Broken at top and bottom, they tumbled with apparent slowness, an illusion created by their great size and weight. They broke into many pieces as their toppling accelerated, falling on the hordes of Belegar’s enemies as effectively as bombs and bringing torrents of stone from the ceiling with them, killing hundreds more.

The dwarfs fought on, too occupied to pay much attention to the roof falling in behind them. The collective scream of skaven and goblins being crushed chilled even boiling dwarf blood.

‘My king,’ shouted Drakki. He pointed upwards. Belegar followed his arthritis-knobbed finger to the ceiling. ‘Something has gone wrong!’

A crack was opening across the sky of stone, dislodging glimstones that had shone for five thousand years. The fissure spread with ominous leisure, slowly, as if it were sentient, and choosing for itself the most devastating route. Stones rattled down on the column of embattled dwarfs.

Shouts rose from along the force’s length ‘Ware! Ware! Cave-in!’

The dwarfs raised their shields over their heads, as the roots of the world fell in upon them.