The End Times | The Rise of the Horned Rat

TWENTY-FOUR The King’s Head

The world had changed.

No longer could the dawi count the mountains as their own. They teetered on the brink of extinction.

Thorgrim Grudgebearer ground his teeth together. The Dammaz Kron lay under his hand. It had glutted itself on woes, growing thicker faster than at any other time in the High King’s remarkable reign.

He stared at the Granite Gate two hundred feet away. Massive twin doors of stone, imposing despite being only half – and it was exactly, precisely half – the height of the tall, vaulted corridor they barred. The gates shuddered under an impact from the far side: a quiver in the stone so small that only a dwarf, stone born and stone master, could see. Bands of runes carved into the gates glowed intensely with inner blue light, their magic striving to keep the gates whole and closed.

The skaven were coming. As sure as Thorgim’s chin wore a beard, they would get through. The ratkin had burst every defence, arcane and otherwise, that the dawi of Karaz-a-Karak had thrown up.

Thorgrim thought on the horrors that afflicted his people.

Karak Azul overthrown.

Karak Eight Peaks lost a second time.

Zhufbar swarmed by an endless tide of vermin.

Barak Varr pouring smoke from its great dock gates, the pride of the dwarf fleet broken in the sea before it.

The holds of the Grey Mountains overcome and lost in three horrific nights of bloodshed.

Karak Kadrin poisoned.

Karaz-a-Karak besieged for years now, cut off on all sides above and below. The streams of refugees pouring into the dwarf capital from other kingdoms had given Thorgrim much anguish. At a time when he thought his dream might be fulfilled, that the lost realms of the Karaz Ankor would be reclaimed, it had all come to nothing. The fleeing dwarfs brought with them tales of proud strongholds cast down, and not only in dwarf lands. Many dwarfs of the diaspora had fled back to their ancestral homeland from human cities – their habits and speech strange; some of them even trimmed their beards! – telling of similar woes beyond the mountains. But what was more horrifying than the incoming flood and the dire tidings they brought was that it had stopped. No dwarf had come into Everpeak for months.

Tilea, Estalia and Bretonnia ashes. The Empire devastated. The moon cracked in the sky, invasion from the north, and ratmen swarming from everywhere.

‘We stand alone,’ he said into his beard, his unblinking stare locked upon the door. It shuddered again.

‘The runes will not last, my liege,’ muttered Hrosta Copperling. A runesmith, but a mere beardling compared to the likes of Kragg the Grimm and Thorek Ironbrow. Their kind would never come again into this world. Hrosta was loyal and dedicated to his task, but his store of knowledge was paltry.

Thorgrim did not grace Hrosta’s obvious statement with a reply, but continued to stare at the Granite Gate.

Forty feet wide, fifty tall, the gate was a lesser portal of Everpeak. Leading onto a once-safe and well-travelled section of the Ungdrin Ankor, it had become, like all the other many gates into the mountain, yet another way for the skaven to attack them.

‘Thaggoraki,’ Thorgrim growled. He thought of what he had seen from the Rikund, the King’s Porch at the summit of Karaz-a-Karak. The endless seas of enemies, whose bodies stained the roads leading to his kingdom brown. There were so many of them, more than there had ever been before.

‘My king, I implore you to return to the Hall of Kings,’ said Gavun Tork, the most venerable of his living ancestors.

‘You leave, my friend, we have lost too many heads full of wisdom. Go back and be safe. My duty is here. The time for counsel and talk is done. The Axe of Grimnir will speak for me.’

‘Thorgrim, please!’

Thorgrim jerked his head at the living ancestor. Two of his hammerers broke from the ranks of the Everguard. ‘Escort Loremaster Tork back to the eighteenth deep. Keep him safe.’

‘Aye, my king,’ said his warriors.

Tork gave the king a helpless look, his rheumy blue eyes brimmed with concern that threatened to spill into the deep lines on his face. ‘If I were but two hundred years younger…’

‘You have swung many axes for the glory of Karaz Ankor, my friend,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Let those younger take your place. Yours is a different burden.’

‘I…’

‘Go!’ said the king.

The living ancestor shook off the hands of the hammerers. ‘Very well. But stay safe! This is foolishness. You should not risk yourself.’

‘You are wrong, loremaster,’ said Thorgrim, his flinty eyes returning to regard the door. ‘It is exactly what I should do.’

The clink of the Everguard’s armour receded. Silence regained its hold over the throng. One hundred ironbreakers, irondrakes in support, and three score of his Everguard.

It should be enough, thought Thorgrim.

The doors’ runes flickered and went out. The rock at their centre glowed bright orange, a pinprick at first that spread out in a perfect circle. The stone of the Granite Gate had been chosen well; there was not a flaw in it.

‘Close secondary portcullises!’ bellowed the gatewarden of the Granite Gate.

Three sets of heavy iron portcullises descended simultaneously from slots in the roof, their machinery noiseless. Only when they met the ground, and their heavy-toothed bottoms slid into matching holes in the floor, did they make the faintest clink.

The glow in the doors spread to engulf their middle, top to bottom. The light of it glowed redly from the ceiling and polished floor, catching in the eyes of ancestor statues, whose faces, changed by shadowplay, took on horrified expressions. A dribble of molten rock ran from the gate’s centre, creating a hole that grew as the rock collapsed outwards, a hole that guttered a plume of fire.

‘Irondrakes!’ called the gatewarden. ‘Airshaft doors ready!’

Fifty runic handcannons were levelled at the door.

The Granite Gate sagged all at once, its perfection lost in a pool of cooling slag.

‘Fire!’ bellowed the gatewarden. Tongues of flame burst from the irondrakes’ guns, aimed at the centre of the hole. Whatever was on the other side exploded noisily before it could withdraw. Green-tinged fire rolled out, licking at the irondrakes’ enchanted armour without effect. Squeals of dismay came from the other side of the doors. The stink of skaven fear and burning rock washed over the throng, and the air became stuffy and difficult to breathe.

The stone skinned over and cooled to a dull, ugly grey. A thick vapour obscured whatever lay on the far side of the broken gate.

Next came a hissing noise, as a green mist issued from the breach.

‘Gas! Gas! Gas!’ shouted the gatewarden. ‘Airshafts open!’

The noxious fog rolled towards the dwarfs, sinking low to the floor. The clink of rolling glass and its shattering followed. Lesser plumes of poison sprouted as short-lived mushroom clouds around the front of the dwarf line.

The gatewarden’s orders were quickly obeyed. Dwarfs cranked open large steel flaps, revealing shafts that stretched far up the mountain. Steam engines churned on levels above, creating a ferocious wind that blew downwards, exiting from angled horns to blow the gas back towards the door. More squeaking came.

Thorgrim smiled to hear them panic. The dwarfs were slow to embrace the new, but when they did, you could be sure it would be perfect.

The gas dissipated, misting the air. It was in danger of choking the dwarfs, and so the doorwarden ordered the steam engines disengaged. The pumped wind ceased, and the natural pressure difference between the low halls and the high mountain sucked the gas away, venting it harmlessly high above the tree line many thousands of feet above their heads.

Only then did the skaven come. As usual, the frantic squealing of slaves being driven at the dwarfs preceded the main assault. These were shot down without mercy, the blasts of the irondrakes’ handcannons immolating them by the handful.

‘No matter what they do, they are not coming through this tunnel,’ said Thorgrim.

In that, the High King was wrong.

What should have come next was more slaves, thousands of them, sent to die solely for the wasting of the dwarfs’ ammunition.

Through the reek of battle came no slaves. Instead the smoke curled around a great shape, horned and tall as a giant. Light warped around it, as if recoiling from the unnatural beast, shrouding it in a flickering darkness.

‘Verminlord,’ called out Thorgrim. ‘This one is mine!’

The rat-daemon strode forwards. Jabbering in some unholy tongue, it swept its glaive in a wide arc, allowing its hand to slip far towards the counterweight at the bottom, and extending its reach to well over fifteen feet. Trailing green fire, the weapon impacted the first portcullis with a thunderous clash. The steel was sundered, deadly shrapnel from its destruction slicing into the ranks of irondrakes. ‘Fire!’ called the gatewarden. Handgun fire from embrasures in the walls joined the shorter-ranged bursts of the irondrakes. All were stopped by the cloak of shadow that wreathed the daemon. The second portcullis was broken. Thorgrim ordered his thronebearers forward. They obeyed instantly, bearing the great weight of the High King’s throne without complaint. The ironbreakers parted ranks to allow their king passage.

‘Shield wall!’ roared the gatewarden. A line of overlapped steel formed to the front of the ironbreakers. The irondrakes withdrew, leaving the ironbreakers facing the monster before them. The third portcullis was thrown down, its refuse clattering off the ironbreakers’ shields. The verminlord threw back its head and squealed.

Then the skaven attack began in earnest, a rush of clanrat warriors pouring through the ruined gateway. As they reached the heels of their demigod, the daemon broke into a run, glaive thrumming around its head.

Thorgrim raised up his axe, and roared out a challenge. The creature came right at him. It brought its weapon down in an overhead sweep that would have slain a rhinox. But the mystic energies of the Throne of Kings responded and a flaring shield of magic stopped the blow three feet above Thorgrim’s head. He shouted his war cries, voicing the unyielding defiance of the dwarfs, and struck back. The Axe of Grimnir clove through the shadow protecting the creature and into its evil flesh. Blackness like ink spilled in water escaped from the wound, bringing with it the scent of rot. Thorgrim’s beard prickled at his proximity to the thing. He bellowed again, and swung again, and the creature blocked, spinning its glaive around the axe, nearly tearing it from Thorgrim’s grasp.

The skaven were upon his warriors. Driven to a great fervour of war by the presence of their god’s avatar, they slashed with their weapons with strength beyond their feeble bodies, and bit so hard they broke their teeth. But they did not care. Thorgrim’s bearers hewed about them, keeping the creatures from their lord while he duelled with the daemon.

The verminlord struck again, thrusting with the point of its glaive, spear fashion. The rune of eternity blazed again, but the warpmetal – greenish black and as unearthly as its owner – slid through the protective magic. The great strength of the verminlord punched it through the Armour of Skaldour, ripping open Thorgrim’s side. The poisonous pain of warp contamination burned in his blood, but his roar was one of anger for the damage done to his panoply, for the skills to repair it had long been lost. The verminlord regarded him with amusement glittering in its red eyes. It assumed a guard posture, ready to strike again.

A fey feeling came upon the dwarf king. The settling of some great power about him. He felt it first as one feels the breath of another upon the cheek, perhaps unexpected, often welcome. His beard crackled with energy. This was magic, or he was umgdawi, but it was a clean sort, heavy with age, and if dwarfs respected anything at all, age was foremost. His doughty mind rebelled against it, yet against his will his heart welcomed it, and it came into him without resistance.

The world glowed golden. The metal of his throne gleamed in a way he thought impossible. The gold took on a most amazing lustre, a warmth pooled about his wounded side, and he felt the metal move there.

Infused with this glamour, Thorgrim lurched to his feet, his bearers expertly accommodating the movement of the king in combat as they fought themselves. He ran to the prow of his throne, and it felt as if the stuff of his wargear helped him – the metals that made it lending power and purpose to him above and beyond the already mighty measures he had of both. He came up level with the beast’s head. Before the power upon the king, the dark magic that pinned the rat-daemon to the fabric of the earth unravelled, the glow going from its glaive blade, the shadow wafting back as surely as the gas attack had been dispersed by the ingenuity of the dwarfs. The verminlord understood what was coming at it and recoiled. The thing was slowed somehow, and the king brought the axe down hard, splitting the skull of the creature before it could move out of reach. It died with a shriek that had warriors of both sides clutching their ears in agony. A jet of noxious black spewed from its shattered head as it fell backwards. The glaive dropped and vanished, while the body collapsed into its own shadows, boiling away to nothing before it could crush the ratmen scurrying at its feet.

Seeing their godling so decisively bested, the thaggoraki wavered, even though they were hundreds deep and outnumbered the dwarfs many times over. Their cowardice had ensured the dwarfs’ survival time and again.

‘Forward!’ shouted Thorgrim. ‘Retake the gate. Allow not one of them to set paw upon the sacred stones of the inner mountain!’

With a great shout the ironbreakers pushed forwards. Thorgrim’s Everguard led the charge, bludgeoning skaven with looks of murderous determination. The waver turned into panic, then into rout.

Almost as one, the skaven turned tail and fled, many dying on the axes and hammers of the vengeful dwarfs as they scurried to escape, and leaving their wounded to their fate.

‘Victory!’ shouted Thorgrim. ‘Victory!’

‘My king, of course the traps are primed,’ said Chief Engineer of the Cogwheel brethren, Bukki ‘Buk’ Ironside, ‘but we are…’

Buk was not an easily intimidated dwarf, not by a long measure of beard, but he wilted nonetheless under Thorgrim’s furious stare. Not the boldest dawi, nor the oldest, nor the wisest, could weather the king’s glare. His advisors stood in a semicircle before the Great Throne, all of them deeply interested in their beard ends.

‘There is no place for “but” in my kingdom!’ said the king. His eyes were red with unexpressed emotion and lack of sleep.

‘We stand ready at your command, my king,’ said Buk hurriedly, bowing several times as he shuffled from the king’s displeasure back into the safety offered by his engineering peers.

‘Good!’ snapped Thorgrim.

‘My king,’ began Gavun Tork. He stood at the head of a dozen other living ancestors, all grim and uncomfortable-looking in their gold-thick finery and elaborate beard plaits. ‘We have advised you several times on this matter. We counsel that we should weather this storm as we always have…’

‘As I have heard your counsel!’ said Thorgrim. He patted the Dammaz Kron. ‘So we sit and we sit and we wait, while our defences are weakened and our numbers dwindle.’

Nockkim Grumsbyn, a short but headstrong dwarf, tired of Tork’s moderate attitude and pushed his way forward. ‘Defence has guaranteed our continued existence for many millennia, what you propose is suicide.’

‘Hiding behind our walls has all but doomed us!’ roared Thorgrim, all deference to the ancestors’ age and wisdom burned away by his furious despair. ‘For the entirety of my reign I have desired to march out with the axe-hosts of the dawi kingdoms and exterminate the skaven. Time and again I argued that this alone would save our kind. But you counselled against it, you and your like, Nockkim. And so we find ourselves skulking like trapped badgers in our hole, while our enemy, allowed to grow unchecked to uncountable numbers, plots our final demise. No more!’ he roared again. He stood. ‘Get out! Get out, all of you! I am king of the dawi nations. Your advice is flawed. For too long have you filled my ears with the whispers of caution, keeping me from reclaiming the glory of our ancestors, dwelling instead upon their dwindling legacy. Well now it dwindles to the point of extinguishment. Get out, I say!’

The entire gaggle of king’s councillors stepped back in horror. Never had they seen Thorgrim fly so brashly in the face of traditional respect.

‘Sire, there is something amiss.’ Tork gestured at Thorgrim’s throne. ‘The throne, your words – there was an odd light upon you in the battle and although it may have gone…’

‘Out! Get out! All of you!’ Thorgrim slammed his fist down on the Dammaz Kron. ‘Out,’ he said, his voice subsiding. ‘Get out.’

Thorgrim’s Everguard stepped forward. ‘Clear the throne room! By order of the High King of the Karaz Ankor! Clear the throne room!’

The Everguard, all fifty of them on honour duty at that moment, formed a line in front of their king and marched out slowly, shepherding the king’s council out before them.

All around the mighty hall, whisperings and rustlings spoke of servants and other attendants withdrawing.

It took a full five minutes for the scandalised court, its servants and Thorgrim’s bodyguards to leave the room. The great doors swung to with a soft boom.

Thorgrim stared down the aisle between the columns for a while. When he was completely sure he was alone, he stood up, gasping at the pain from his wound.

Whatever the strange power was that had settled on him had healed his armour, but not his flesh. Many dawi had seen him struck, but none had seen his armour rent. Consequently, none knew of his wound but a select few of his closest retainers and the priestesses of Valaya who had treated him. From all of them he had extracted oaths of silence on the matter. Among this select few, only the priestesses knew that it was not healing, poisoned by warp metal. He would let no one else know. If he began griping about every scratch, then how were his people to feel? Dwarfs were of adamant; nothing could break them. They needed to see that quality exemplified in him.

He gritted his teeth against the pain as he stepped from the Throne of Power, steadying himself on its dragon-head decorations for a moment before going on. He had already been weak before the wound. Writing so many grudges into the great book had demanded too much of his blood.

He went to the back of the throne and bent down. Agony stabbed him afresh and he choked back a cry. It was partly to deny the others the sight of their king in pain that he had sent them away, but mainly because Tork had been wrong. The light in the throne had not gone.

It had faded. The gold gleamed still, but only as bright as dwarf gold should. The magic had hidden itself away, that was all. Thorgrim could feel it all about him, and the king knew where it might be.

Sure enough, the Rune of Azamar was glowing with a steady light, more brightly than it had for centuries. The rune of eternity had been carved, it was said, by the ancestor god Grungni himself at the dawn of time. So powerful was it that only one of its type could exist at a time. It was also said that so long as it was whole, the realm of the dwarfs would endure. Thorgrim placed his hand upon it, and the rune’s pulsing could be felt through the metal of his gauntlets. He let his hand drop. This magic was alien to him, not of the dawi at all. But it was not malevolent. Cautious though he was in most matters, he somehow knew this for an unassailable fact.

He missed his runesmiths more than anything then. Kragg the Grim had died months ago during the Battle of the Undermines there at Karaz-a-Karak. The only other who had exceeded his knowledge had been Thorek Ironbrow, and he was also dead, slain years before. No other had their knowledge. He considered asking the younger runesmiths, or the runepriests of Valaya, or the priests of the ancestor gods, but that was a risky course of action. They would likely be as baffled as he, and the tidings would get out. In that time of threat and upheaval, there was only so much more the dwarfs could take. The last thing Thorgrim wanted were whisperings of fell powers in their king’s throne, or, perhaps more damaging, wild hopes of the ancestor gods’ return. Was this not Grungni’s own rune? Did it not guarantee the persistence of the dawi race while it was still whole? Thorgrim felt the first stirrings of such hope himself.

No one was coming. He could not risk the crash in morale that could follow the revelation of this hope being false.

He would wait and see. That was the proper dwarf way. Only when he was satisfied would he reveal this new development.

His mind made up, he wearily got into the throne. He sighed. He supposed he had better apologise to the longbeards. Tork at least needed to know what was happening.

Before he could summon his servants, a long, mournful blaring filtered down sounding shafts into the hall. Thorgrim sat forwards, listening intently. Up on the tops of Everpeak’s great ramparts, the karak horns were sounding. The immense tusks of some ancient monster, the twinned horns were blown whenever danger threatened. From the notes played by the hornmasters, the entire city could be informed of the nature and size of the enemy force.

They played ominously long and low.

The doors at the end of the hall cracked open. A messenger huffed his way up the long granite pavement to the foot of the throne. Red-faced, he executed a quick bow and began to speak.

‘My king, a fresh force of thaggoraki is moving to reinforce the besieging ratkin outside the gates.’

‘Who brings this news?’

‘Gyrocopter patrols, my liege. They report a massive horde on its way.’ The messenger’s face creased with worry. ‘They fill the Silver Road with their numbers for twenty miles and more. Clans Mors is here, Queek Headtaker at their head. Banners of the warlock clans and their beastmasters also. Clan Rictus too. They have many hundreds of war engines, my lord. Also in the deeps, my king. Traps give forewarning. Mining teams report much stealthy movement.’

‘This is it,’ said Thorgrim, clenching his hand. ‘This is it! Bring me my axe! Thronebearers! Everguard! Marshall of the Throngs, call out the dawi of Karaz-a-Karak! We skulk no longer behind our gates! Open the Great Armoury. Take out the weapons of our ancestors. Let them sit in prideful peace no longer! Dawi and treasures both to war! To war!’

As the king lifted his voice, more horns played out their alarms from the many galleries of the Hall of Kings. Within minutes, the entire city was abustle, called to the final battle.

The electric flea-prickle of the skitterleap tormented Thanquol from horn curl to tail tip, and then the sensation was gone. He clutched his robes about him with the sudden chill.

From Nuln to Lustria to the man-thing place of Middenheim, Thanquol had followed Lord Verminking. He had been dragged about the world only half willingly, skitterleaping unimaginable distances. He did not trust the verminlord, because he was not a fool. Thanquol knew he was being used. He was arrogant enough to think initially that he was the master in his relationship with the Verminking, but wise enough to quickly reach the correct conclusion. Thanquol was merely a pawn in the mighty daemon’s game.

Once he had accepted that, everything did not seem so bad. Surely it was no bad thing to serve the most powerful rat in existence after the Great Horned One? And he was learning a great deal from the creature. More, perhaps, than Verminking intended to teach.

He examined their new location. It was an unusual place for a meeting, thought Thanquol, but the symbolism was hard to miss.

Even with its head blasted to rubble, the statue of the ancient dwarf-thing was enormous. Once this great stone king would have watched over the Silver Road Pass, an image of the strength of the dwarf kingdom. Now, in its ruin, it made rather the opposite statement.

‘They come,’ hissed Verminking. ‘Be silent, be deferential, or even I will not be able to protect-keep you!’

Clouds of shadows blossomed all around Thanquol and Lord Skreech. Ten more verminlords towered over him, gazing down, their ancient eyes gleaming with malice.

‘Why-tell the little horned one here?’ asked one of two diseased Lords of Contagion among their number.

Not knowing what to do, Thanquol gave the sign of the Horned Rat and bowed low before each. This seemed well received by the entities. Only the two foulest-looking of them gave tail flicks of displeasure.

‘You know why, Throxstraggle,’ answered Verminking, his own twin tails flickering menacingly. He glared intently at the greasy rat-daemon for a long moment before continuing, addressing the circle of verminlords. ‘We asked-bid you here so that we all agree. The Council of Thirteen decree is that the clan that delivers the dwarf-king’s head name-picks the last Lord of Decay. We are as one on this agreement, yes-yes?’

This was news to Thanquol. From Verminking’s feet he tried to gauge the reaction around the circle. Most of the verminlords bowed their heads in assent. A few of them looked irritated and abstained. It was with some pride that he noticed that none of the verminlords had horns as twisted or as magnificent as did the mighty Lord Skreech.

‘We are but eleven in number – where-tell is Lurklox?’ asked one, a grossly inflated parody of a skaven warlord.

‘Here,’ said a voice from behind them. Thanquol startled, but was pleased not to have leaked out anything regrettable.

A black-shaded Lord of Deception joined the circle, its face masked and body hidden in curling shadows. ‘As we anticipated,’ it said in a whispering voice, ‘the end of the dwarf-things approaches.’

‘All goes to plan-intention?’ asked Verminking.

‘What plan-intention?’ said a white-furred verminlord of inconstant appearance. ‘We agree-pledge that Clan Scruten will be reselected to the Council. This is our plan.’

Again, general indications of assent from the circle, with some dissension.

‘Quite right, we all declared it to be so. Why fret-fear?’ said Verminking reasonably.

‘My candidate is ready. Tell-inform me how the head will be won, and how it will be delivered to Kranskritt.’

‘You doubt our purpose?’ said Lurklox.

‘Lord Skreech takes new-pet Thanquol with him everywhere. He is a grey seer. I suspect-think Lord Skreech intends to gift-give the head of the long-face-fur to him.’

Verminking bristled. ‘You doubt my word, Soothgnawer?’

Soothgnawer laughed. ‘I would be a fool weak-meat to give any credence to your words at all.’

Verminking dipped his head in appreciation of the compliment. ‘Be easy. Thanquol has been very useful, very cunning. He will win great reward for his efforts, but…’ He looked down. ‘His place is not to be on the Council. We need his many talents elsewhere.’

Thanquol inwardly shrank. Until the fateful words were said, he had felt privileged; now he felt like a serving-rat. He kept up his outside appearance of interested confidence, behaving as if he often attended gatherings of such august personages, but inside he seethed.

‘Is this true, little grey-fur? Tell me the truth! I will know otherwise.’

Several of the giants crowded over him. Thanquol’s glands twitched. ‘Mighty lords! The fine and most infernal Lord Skreech Verminking has not told me of any plans to gift-grant me the fine and high most honourable exalted station of a seat among the Thirteen.’ This was exactly the truth. Verminking told Thanquol very little, only revealing his intentions when the outcome was already unfolding.

Soothgnawer sniffed the air as Thanquol spoke, then stood straight.

‘He speaks the truth, the precise truth, although he is very much disappointed to hear he will not sit beside the other little Lords of Decay. Very wise, very clever not to tell the little one of your plans, Skreech.’

‘The wise and cunning Thanquol knows everything he needs to know,’ said Verminking.

Thanquol looked up to the verminlords talking around him. That they could smell untruth and knew the mind of any skaven was an established fact. But it suddenly dawned on him that these gifts did not work upon each other. To all intents, in their own company they were as reliant on bluff and double-dealing as any other skaven. He wondered how. He wondered if he could possibly replicate their methods…

Thanquol remembered this for later use. Already ideas were forming. He wasn’t yet decided on how he could wring an advantage out of this information, but he would. He was certain of that.

TWENTY-FIVE Queek’s Glory

Queek was old. He felt it in his stiffening limbs. He saw it in the grey that grizzled the blackness of his coat all over, a coat once sleek and now broken with dry patches, whose coarsening fur revealed pink skin crusted with scurf.

Decrepitude surprised him suddenly, coming on swift as an ambush. He had thought to suffer a slow decline, nothing like this. Only three years after his great victory at Eight Peaks, and look at him. Beyond the limits of his arms’ reach, his sight grew dim and unreliable. Through the mists of age, the marching lines of his army blurred into one mass, losing colour around the edges. His smell and hearing remained sharp, but into his limbs a weakness had set, one that made itself more apparent with every passing day in the numbness of his fingers and the stiffness of his joints. The cold made it worse, driving him into frequent murderous rages that his troops had learned to fear.

It was always cold now, no matter where they went. It had been since the night the Chaos moon had burst, circling the world with glittering rings that obscured the stars. In the mountains it snowed all year round.

So much had happened. The swift victory Gnawdwell had wanted had not come. In many places the Great Uprising had not gone to plan, and the Great War against the dwarfs dragged on and on. The land of the frog-things and lizard-things had been annihilated, most of Clan Pestilens along with it, while in the lowlands in the ruins of the man-thing’s lands, the skaven conquered, only to fracture along clan lines. Such was the way of skaven. Alliance with the followers of Chaos had come, a move that made many on the Council, Gnawdwell included, deeply uneasy.

That was politics, and it was not for Queek. During that time Queek had fought the length of the Worlds Edge Mountains, destroying dwarf strongholds one by one, and exterminating their inhabitants wherever they were to be found. Clan Mors had grown rich on the plunder.

Finally, Queek had been ordered to Beard-Thing Mountain-place, where all attempts to take the dwarf capital had failed. Gnawdwell, inscrutable as always, continued his attempts on Queek’s life, simultaneously releasing the full might of Clan Mors and ordering it to go to Queek. Queek had not been back to Skavenblight in the years since their last meeting, wary of Gnawdwell’s intentions, but for the time being Queek seemed to be in his lord’s favour. All Clan Mors’s allies and thralls, from the Grey Mountains, Skavenblight and beyond, came with the Great Banner of Mors. Karak Eight Peaks had been emptied, leaving it an empty tomb for the many warriors who had fallen there in the long years of war.

The dwarf realms had been reduced to but one, the mightiest, the greatest. Karaz-a-Karak, Everpeak, as dwarfs and men respectively called it. Beard-Thing Mountain, as the skaven called it. A name supposed to convey their contempt, but uttered always with fear. Under skies perpetually darkened and striated with the sickly colours of wild magic, the skaven marched to bring their four thousand-year war with the Karaz Ankor to its end.

‘This whole pass stinks-reeks of dwarf-thing,’ said Queek, sniffing tentatively. His tail twitched. The scent of the dwarfs had become inextricably linked with bloodshed in Queek’s mind, and thus with excitement. It never failed to arouse his sluggish pulse, to excite his aged heart.

‘What does the mighty warlord expect it to smell of?’ said Kranskritt haughtily. The presence of Ikit Claw made the grey seer arrogant. Despite the long enmity between their clans, the two of them were knot-tailed much of the time, constantly tittering and squeak-whispering just out of Queek’s earshot, or so they thought. Queek’s hearing was better than he let on.

Queek growled by way of reply. He was in no mood to bandy insults with the seer. Kranskritt still smelt youthful to Queek, granted unnaturally long life by the Horned Rat. Even those grey seers without alchemical or mechanical aid could be known to reach the ridiculously advanced age of sixty. Not like Queek. Queek was old, he felt it. Kranskritt could smell it. Weakness.

‘It will smell of burrow and home soon enough,’ said Ikit. ‘We will smash the beard-things and take their heads. No more dwarf-things! All done. All ours.’

‘This is true. Once enough failures accrue, they call for Queek. No one is better than Queek at killing dwarf-things. Queek will end this siege. Queek will win this war!’

The dead things on his back wailed and gibbered. What they said now made little sense. When their utterances became intelligible, what they said made Queek’s fur crawl. Their voices never ceased. The long periods of quiet he had once enjoyed were no more. Even when the verminlords were close, which had been rarely of late, they did not stop their racket.

‘Not without my help,’ said Ikit. He too, under his mask of iron, had aged better than Queek. Queek could smell the long-life elixir on him. ‘I am the pre-eminent slaughterer of dwarf-things. They call me here to finish it – you are only to help.’

‘Yes-yes,’ said Queek sarcastically. ‘Queek hear many times of great Ikit Claw’s impressive victory over orange-furs of Kadrin-place. I hear the flesh of the dead so poisonous after Ikit Claw’s masterful plan not even trolls would eat it, and even now, three cold-times since big death there, the air is still deadly to breathe. Very good plan, making such a fine mountain-holdfast uninhabitable to skaven clan-packs. Very clever way of denying living space to Clan Skryre’s enemies.’

‘And the dwarf-things,’ said Ikit, his voice ringing inside his iron mask. How Queek had grown to loathe that voice.

Queek found the warlock engineer even more irksome than the grey seer, although he was secretly relieved that the warlock’s clanking pace allowed him to walk more slowly. Ikit’s war engines were impressive, even if it annoyed him to admit it to himself. A lesser clan might scrape together enough warptokens to buy one or two lightning cannons from Clan Skryre. A greater clan might have a dozen. In the siege train of their army there were hundreds, dragged painstakingly through tunnels and mountains to assail this last enduring rock of the dwarf-things. No other warlord clan could access such materiel. As a result of Gnawdwell’s manoeuvring, Skryre and Mors were open allies. The supply of sorcerous machines had been cut off to all other clans. Clan Eshin had not been drawn into the pact, but provided Queek’s army with their warriors anyway. Clan Moulder backed all sides, so consequently many of their creatures, and specifically the newer rat ogre weapon-beasts bred in conjunction with Clan Skryre, supported his troops. With Skryre came the larger part of Clan Rictus’s clanrats. From Rictus, Ikit Claw had his own bodyguard, the Clawguard, war-scarred stormvermin as large and imposing as Queek’s own Red Guard. At Queek’s back went one of the largest skaven armies ever to brave the surface.

‘The fate of more than the dwarfs depends upon this war,’ said Kranskritt. ‘Remember, O ignoble and most devious warlords, whoever takes Thorgrim-Whitebeard’s head will win the seat on the Council of Thirteen. Most assuredly it will be I, and Clan Scruten will regain its rightful place.’

Queek snorted. Poor-fool Kranskritt. He was naive to the point of idiocy, not like mighty Queek! Gnawdwell had forged a pact with the other Lords of Decay, stipulating this final condition for victory in the struggle for the seat. Tired of the long years of instability the empty seat had provoked, the other clans had agreed. Clan Mors and Clan Skryre had steered events masterfully so far. Together they would claim the head of Thorgrim and break the power of the grey seers forever.

Queek wondered how long Clan Skryre had been working themselves into this position. He had no doubt that the head of the dwarf king, once he took it, would find its way into the paws of Clan Skryre, who would at the last cheat Gnawdwell. Who would stop them? Clan Pestilens were mostly destroyed in the war for Lustria.

Mighty Queek, that was who. He recalled the scratch marks on the order scroll that had arrived six weeks ago, and which he had swiftly eaten. Gnawdwell would allow Queek some of the long-life elixir, if he brought the head of the long-fur to him.

Finally, finally. Queek could not wait. He had tasted infirmity and had no liking for it.

Kranskritt was being cossetted and fooled. Even the verminlords were being played off against each other. Or were they deceiving the Council? The interminable power plays of the skaven court made Queek’s teeth ache. Ever dismissive of politics, he had grown careless over the last few years, openly provocative. He set out to deliberately antagonise the heads of other clan clawpacks. Only his reputation, his distance from Skavenblight, and his own skill at arms kept him alive.

He bites his own tail, just to see it bleed, others said of him. ‘Doom, doom, doom! Death, death, death!’ wailed the chorus of his victims.

Only when he had a battle to fight did the ailments of mind and body recede.

The endless column of skaven crested a rise in the Silver Road Pass, and the capital of dwarf-kind came into view.

Queek was chief general of the most powerful warlord clan in all Skavendom. As such, he had seen Karaz-a-Karak many times before, but never so close. The mountain was colossal, one of the tallest in the world. Soaring above the pass and into the bruised clouds, its peak was lost to the boiling skies, its flanks dappled by the polychrome strangeness of magical winds. The raw stone had been shaped by generations of the dwarf-things, so that giant faces, hundreds of feet tall, glared challengingly at Queek. The main gate was yet many miles away, but even Queek’s failing eyesight could see the dark smudge of its apex reaching high up into the cliff face that held it, surrounded on all sides by soaring bastions. The skaven leaders and their bodyguards left the road and mounted a hillock that blistered the side of the mountain. They clambered onto the rubble atop it. The beard-thing watchtower that had occupied the mound had been melted into bubbled slag. Streaks of metal in the contorted stone hinted at the fate of its garrison.

Kranskritt hissed, daunted by the sight of Everpeak. In contrast, Queek felt the confidence only those gifted with supreme arrogance can. Behind Queek stretched more clawpacks than had ever been assembled in one place. Millions of skaven were his to command. They marched by in an endless stream, their fur carpeting the road as far as the eye could see, from one end of the pass to the other. More moved underground, ready to attack from below.

‘How will we take-cast down such a place?’ said Kranskritt. ‘There must be so many beard-things within.’

Ikit Claw laughed, his machinery venting green-tinged steam into the chill noon, as if it shared his amusement. ‘The dwarf-things breed slowly. Many breeders produce no young. They were dying even before we challenged them for their burrows,’ said Ikit. ‘Surely you must know these things, wise one?’

Kranskritt shook his hand at the warlock. The bells on his wrist conveyed his irritation in tinkles. ‘The will of the Horned Rat is my interest, not the breeding habits of lesser races.’

Ikit sniggered again.

‘Are you sure this plan of yours will work, Queek?’ said Kranskritt. He had stopped using the insincere flattery of their kind some time ago when speaking with the Headtaker. This social nicety had always annoyed Queek, but it annoyed him more that Kranskritt had ceased its use. ‘It is rather simplistic, attacking directly.’

‘Queek’s plan is sound. We come on all fronts. Every shaft and hole will be assaulted at once, white-fur. And what does white-fur know of strategy? Thorgrim beard-king will not know where to defend. His forces will be scattered and easily worn down. This is the way of the dwarf-things – to stay behind their walls and fight, fool-meat that they are. We have the numbers, and they have no time. So declares mighty Queek.’

‘It is still simple,’ said Kranskritt. ‘A pup-plan.’

Queek shrugged. ‘The simpler the better, white-fur. How many grand schemes fail-wither due to incompetence and stupidity, or treachery? Treachery is so much the harder when there are fewer folds to hide in. Simple plan, Queek’s plan, is best.’

‘For this once, the mighty Queek speaks wisdom,’ said Ikit Claw. ‘All weak points are already known. This fortress has been attacked a hundred times, a thousand. There is nothing we do not know about it. Why waste time with cunning ruses to learn what we already know?’

‘We have a long wait,’ said Queek. ‘We must meet-greet the clan warlords here and take command. Too long they have besieged the great beard-king. Thorgrim-dwarf-thing must be very sad at all this. He need not worry, for soon it will all be over. Mighty Queek is here!’

A day later Queek ordered the attack. Alone atop a newly broken statue, he watched the advance through brass looking glasses – made for him by a foolish warlock, who was dead as soon as he completed the commission. Let not know of Queek’s weaknesses!

The slave legions went in first, if for no other reason than Queek had them, and they went in first by tradition. From their thousand gunports, the dwarfs gave fire.

He saw the light flashes of cannons long before he heard the sound. Rolling thunder filled the pass. The vast numbers of skaven looked puny in front of the great gates of Karaz-a-Karak.

The hundreds of lightning cannons in the skaven train were pushed into range and set up under fire. Warlocks squealed frantic orders. The guns elevated and replied.

Soon the vale at the doors of Karaz-a-Karak was thick with gunsmoke lit by discharges of greenish lightning. The skies overhead were dark, polluted by magic seeping into the world from the north. The thunders of the battle vied with those ripping the heavens apart. The imaginings of the most deranged flagellant of the Empire could not outmatch the scene. This was the end of the world, beating its apocalypse upon the stone doors of the dwarfs.

The skaven died in howling masses at the gate, the machines they dragged with them to penetrate it smashed to pieces before they ever reached the stone and steel. Slaves surged back and forth, waves on a beach capped by froths of blood as they were cut down by dwarf and skaven alike.

So it went. So Queek expected it to go, until one of the many attacks he had ordered from the underworld broke through and skaven got into the soft underbelly of Beard-Thing Mountain-place, silenced the guns one by one, and allowed his siege engines to approach unmolested. Queek had killed many examples of the myriad creatures that crowded the world, but his greatest pleasure, and his greatest skill, lay in killing dwarfs. He knew their minds well. They would sit behind their stout walls until nearly dead, and then likely as not they would march out, determined to kill as many of the enemy as they could before they themselves were killed.

‘It will cost you many lives,’ said the voice of Krug. Queek’s ears stiffened. The voices had been constant yet incoherent for a very long time. Krug spoke clearly, without the respect he once had. Queek glanced behind him. From a spike on Queek’s rack, Krug’s eye sockets glimmered with wild magic.

‘Yes-yes, but I have meat to spend. The dwarf-things do not,’ said Queek.

‘They will make you pay,’ said Krug, and there was a note of pride and defiance in his voice.

‘Do not be so sure, dead-thing!’ Queek snapped. Krug’s voice melted into gruff laughter, before rejoining the howling chorus of the others.

Queek scratched at his head; it was bloody from his constantly doing so. The voices receded eventually.

The battle did not proceed as he expected.

The dwarf bombardment ceased. The last thunder of their discharge rolled and died. Queek watched, fascinated, as smoke puffed from the gunports and blew away. The lightning cannons went on firing unchallenged, blasting showers of rock from the mountain and its fortifications. Surely his infiltrators had not succeeded so quickly?

The great horns mounted high up the mountain blared: first one, then the other, their mournful, bovine hooting joined by hundreds of others from every covered walkway and battlement carved into the mountain. The noise of it was dreadful, and Queek flinched from it. Under it there came a great groaning creak.

‘The gates! The gates!’ he said excitedly, moving his field glasses from the gunports to the doors.

He fiddled with the focusing wheels, cursing their maker as the vista became a blur. He pulled the view back into focus in time to see a gleaming host emerge from the gates of Karaz-a-Karak.

The king went at the fore upon his throne. He looked as if he rode a ship of gold upon a sea of steel.

From out of the gates, the last great throng of the dwarfs marched to meet their doom.

Queek lowered his glasses for a moment. His nose twitched in disbelief. His fading eyes did not deceive him. From the vale, the sounds of gruff beard-thing voices in song drowned out the crack of lightning cannons, and the clash of arms was louder still. Loudest of all was the voice of the king. Queek raised the glasses again. Thorgrim stood upon his throne platform, one finger tracing the pages of his open book. His words, though faint, were heard clearly by Queek even from so far away.

‘For the death of Hengo Baldusson and the loss of ninety-seven ore carts of gromril, five hundred thaggoraki heads. For the loss of the lower deeps of Karak Varn, two thousand thaggoraki hides. For the cruel slaying of the last kinsfolk of Karak Azgal, nine hundred tails and hides. For the…’

His recitation of his grudges roared from him, the atrocities of four thousand years of war driving his warriors onwards. Queek watched in disbelief. For the dwarf-things to sally out so early was unheard of! He panned across the column. There were hundreds of beard-things. Thousands! He gave a wicked smile.

‘The whole army of Beard-Thing Mountain comes to make war on Queek!’ he tittered. ‘Very kind, oh very considerate, of Thorgrim dwarf-king to bring his head to Queek’s sword!’

As the dwarfs advanced into the seething mass of skaven, the guns of the walls spoke all at once. Cones of fire immolated hundreds of slaves, while cannon balls streaked overhead, the guns’ aim recalibrated, to shatter dozens of the lightning cannons.

A good loss, thought Queek. He laughed as he watched Clan Skryre’s pride battered by the vastly superior dwarfish artillery force. No matter how many war engines they dragged up here, the dwarf-things would always have more. Open space before the gates became a killing field, a zone of destruction advancing in front of the dwarfs in a devastating creeping bombardment.

The skavenslaves predictably broke. They fled away from the vengeful dwarf-things only to be slaughtered by the skaven stationed behind them. They went into a panicked frenzy, tearing each other apart, gnawing on anything to escape. This was a fine exploitation of the explosive violence of the skaven’s survival instinct, and had won many battles on its own. But every dwarf was armed and armoured in fine gear. The weapons they carried glowed with runes, Thorgrim’s dread axe brightest of all. The Axe of Grimnir shone as if sensing the rising tide of war, emitting a radiance that could be seen far down the gloomy pass. The throng of armoured bodies shone blue in its reflected effulgence.

The dwarfs waded through the frenzied slaves regardless of their snapping mouths and their insensate fighting. Weapon-light pushed back the twilight of the dying world. Queek had never seen so many magical weapons deployed in one place. He would not have thought there so many in the world. Queek’s triumphal squeaking quieted as the dwarfs cleaved their way relentlessly through the slave legion and into the clawpacks waiting behind. Skaven died in droves. Soon enough, the dwarfs were through the slaves and trampling Clan Rictus and Clan Mors banners underfoot.

A titanic boom rumbled from a few miles up the pass. Queek swung his glasses around, catching sight of the sides of the pass collapsing along a good mile of the road. The rocks peeled away either side to bury thousands of his troops, and his better ones at that, in deadly avalanches. Pale new cliffs shone in the war-choked gloom, menacing as bared fangs.

No, this was not quite as good as he first thought. Still, the inevitable was happening. The dwarfs drove forward. Caught up in their hatred, they were moving further and further away from the gates. The guns would soon stop for fear of killing their own. Something Queek himself had no qualms about.

Making his decision, Queek secreted his seeing aid within his robes.

‘Loyal Ska!’ he called.

The great skaven limped around a boulder that had until recently been the nose of a dwarf king.

‘Coming, O mighty one,’ he said. Ska too was old and slow, but his arm was still stronger than that of any other.

‘Order up the next clawpack! Make the dwarf-things rage. Soon-soon they go out of range of their guns, fool-things. Ready Queek’s Red Guard. When the beard-things are tired, when they are alone, then Queek will attack and add the head of the last king to his collection!’

‘Yes, great one,’ said Ska with a curt bow.

‘Ska?’

‘Yes, O mightiest and bloodiest of warlords?’

Queek looked back into the valley, the battle a shifting blur without his glasses. The noise from below told him all he needed to know. He had seen many dwarf armies at bay before, fighting to their last out of sheer, stubborn vindictiveness. A sight that was as glorious as it was terrifying. ‘The long war is nearly over.’

‘For the slaughter of the miners of Karak Akrar, fifty thaggoraki hides!’ roared Thorgrim. The power of the throne was in him, the pain of his wound dulled by his hatred. The stink of the rat creatures surrounding him angered him further. Only their blood could slake the terrible thirst for vengeance he felt. ‘For the deaths of Runelord Kranig and his seven apprentices, and the loss of the rune of persistence, nine hundred tails!’ The Axe of Grimnir hummed with power as it bit into worthless furry hides.

‘Onward, onward! Crush them all! Queek is impudent – we shall meet him head on and take his head!’

His army, initially reluctant, were overcome with their loathing. Every dwarf fought remorselessly.

Thorgrim spoke of Karak Azul, and Zhufbar, and the sack of Barak Varr, and the endless litany of unpaid-for wrongs that stretched back to the Time of Woes. The orders he gave were few and barked impatiently. Always he read from the Great Book of Grudges. He became a conduit for grudgement; millennia of pain and resentment flowed out from its hallowed pages through him.

The slaves were all dead. By now the dwarfs had pierced deep into the skaven army, moving away from the gates to where the vale was wider. The outlying elements reached the thaggoraki weapon positions. At the vanguard went the Kazadgate Guardians. These well-armed veterans had pushed into the war machines and were cutting their crews down. Their irondrake contingent, the Drakewardens, drove off reinforcements coming to save the machines with volleys from their guns. Their handcannons crippled the war machines, and warp generators exploded one after another in green balls of fire. The surviving warlocks squealed in anguish to see their machines destroyed.

A clashing of cymbals heralded a counter-charge led by a skaven in an armoured suit that hissed steam. Thorgrim, up on his throne, had a fine vantage point and recognised him as Ikit Claw.

‘For the warpstone poisoning of the Drak River, the life of Ikit Claw!’ he said, pointing out the warlock.

Claw came with a thick mob of stormvermin, but these were cut down easily by axe and forge-blast. Ikit Claw attempted to rally his followers, casting fire and lightning from his strange devices at the ironbreakers and irondrakes. But the Drakewardens walked through the fire unscathed. Their return fire blasted the stormvermin around Claw to bits. He wavered, Thorgrim thought, but a terrific racket drowned out the battle-chants of the dwarfs as a dozen doomwheels came barrelling over a rise. Too late to save their cannon, the doomwheels exacted revenge for their loss, running down a good portion of the Kazadgate Guardians.

At this insult, Thorgrim took pause. He had come right out in front – too far in front. In the wider vale, the dwarfs had no way of protecting their flanks, and his army was being encircled, broken up into separate islands of defiance. They were gleaming redoubts in a universe of filth. Thorgrim could count the warriors remaining to him, and their numbers dwindled. The skaven were effectively infinite.

Thorgrim looked from side to side. His Everguard and throne stood alone, one of the smallest of these islands. His fury was the greatest and had carried him furthest.

The Great Banner of Clan Mors, festooned with obscene trophies, was approaching him at the head of Queek’s Red Guard. Alongside it came rat ogres of a new and vicious kind, bearing whirring blades instead of fists, smoke belching from the engines upon their backs.

The High King and his bodyguard were cut off. The nearest group of his army had noted the peril he was in and were fighting desperately to come to him. They hewed down skaven by the hundred, but there were always more to fill the gap. They might as well fight quicksand. By the time the other dwarfs reached the High King, it would be too late.

‘Bold dawi,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Queek comes. We shall meet their charge.’

His Everguard reformed into a square, clearing space in the skaven horde for their manoeuvre with their hammers. Thorgrim spied Queek’s back banner at the front of the formation moving to attack them.

‘Stand firm!’ he called. ‘In our defiance, eternity is assured!’

Queek broke into a run, coming ahead of his followers, his yellow teeth bared, the pick that had taken the lives of so many dwarfs raised high.

Queek vaulted over the front line of the Everguard, cutting one of them down. Before he landed, the lines of dwarf and skaven met with a noise that shook the mountain.

Queek had not waited for the best time, thought Thorgrim; he would have been better served holding off for a few more minutes. But it was still a good time, he thought ruefully.

The Everguard were the elite of the dwarf elite, warriors bred to battle, whose fathers’ fathers had served the kings of Karaz-a-Karak since the dawn of the Eternal Realm. The Red Guard could not hope to match them.

Queek, however, could. Thorgrim was chilled at how easily the skaven seemed to slaughter his warriors, spinning and leaping. Every thrust and swipe of his weapons spelled death for another dwarf, while their own hammers thunked harmlessly into the spot the skaven lord had been a moment before. There were still many ranks of Everguard between Thorgrim and Queek, but time was not on their side.

‘I’ll not wait to be challenged by that monster! Forward, thronebearers. Forward! Everguard, you shall let me pass as your oaths to me demand!’

In dismay, the Everguard parted, fearing for the life of their king. They were beset on all sides, the rat ogres chewing through their right flank. The dwarfs killed far more skaven than died themselves, but they fought the same battle every dwarfhold had fought and lost: a hopeless war of attrition.

‘Forward! Forward! Bring me to him so that he might feel the kiss of Grimnir’s axe!’

The shouts of dwarfs were becoming more insistent. They were far out of the range of their guns. The cannons spoke still, slaughtering every skaven that came close to the gates, but the greater part of the throng of Karaz-a-Karak was isolated, and surely doomed.

Thorgrim reached the front line. His axe sent the head of a rat ogre spinning away. His Everguard cheered as it died. He would not allow that he had doomed his hold and the Eternal Realm. Only victory was on his mind; it was the only possible outcome. The magic in the throne reached up, lending strength to him through the metal of his armour and weapons. Queek changed course. He was twenty feet away, then ten. The square of dwarfs shrank as more of their number fell, Thorgrim’s thronebearers stepping back in unison with them.

The end was coming.

‘For Karaz-a-Karak! For the Karaz Ankor!’ Thorgrim shouted, and prepared himself for his ancestors’ censure for his foolishness.

Horns sang close at hand. Dwarf horns.

Thorgrim eviscerated a rat ogre. It went down, teeth still clashing. He lifted his eyes upwards. Against the glow of the shrouded sun, he picked out figures. The silhouette of a banner emerged over a bluff, as down an almost invisible game trail, dwarfs came.

Atop the banner gleamed a winged ale tankard.

‘Bugman is here! Bugman comes!’ shouted the dwarfs, and swung their tired arms harder.

Bugman’s rangers were few in number, no more than a hundred. Vagabonds who roamed the wastelands behind their vengeful leader, survivors of the sacking of Bugman’s famous brewery, they were scruffy and ill-kempt. But each and every one was an implacable warrior, as skilled in the arts of death as he was in brewing. Crossbow bolts hissed into the Red Guard’s rear. Surefooted dwarfs ran down the steep slope, tossing axes at the greater beasts and bringing them down. A brighter light shone, that of fire, and what Thorgrim saw next burned itself into his memory.

Ungrim of Karak Kadrin was with Bugman’s rangers. On him too was a strange, magical glow. His eyes burned with the heat of the forge. The Axe of Dargo trailed flame, the crest on his helmet elongated by tongues of fire. With a desolate roar of rage and loss, the last Slayer King launched himself twenty feet from a cliff top straight into the skaven ranks. Burning bodies were hurled skywards with every swipe of his axe. Behind him came many Slayers, the last of his kin and his subjects, each one orange-crested and bare-chested. They scrambled down rocks and set about their bloody work. Night runners detached themselves from the shadows, hurrying to intercept the reinforcements, but they were slaughtered, flung back, their remnants scurrying away back into obscurity.

‘Bugman! Ungrim!’ laughed Thorgrim. His face changed. ‘Queek,’ he said quietly. He ordered his thronebearers to set down his throne. ‘Headtaker! I call you! Queek! My axe thirsts for vengeance. Come to me and with your blood we shall strike many grudges from the Dammaz Kron!’

Heaving himself up out of the Throne of Power, Thorgrim marched upon Queek in open challenge.

TWENTY-SIX The Death of a Warlord

His troops were letting him down again! Queek smelt the fear-stink, heard the calling of beard-thing instruments and the change of pitch in their shouts from despair to excitement.

‘Must finish this quick-fast,’ he muttered.

The Horned Rat must have heard Queek. Thorgrim approached him, stepping down off his land-boat, bellowing Queek’s name.

‘Good-good,’ snickered Queek. ‘Very good! Here dwarf-thing, a spike is waiting, much company for the long face-fur!’

Queek flicked his wrist, spinning Dwarf Gouger, and took up his battle stance. With one finger he beckoned Thorgrim onwards.

Thorgrim shouted at him, his voice deeper than the pits of Fester Spike. ‘Queek! Queek! For the death of Krug Ironhand! The head of Queek!’

Queek laughed at his petty grievances.

‘Queek flattered that mighty beard-thing not need his special book to recount Queek’s fame!’

‘For the illegal occupation of Karak Eight Peaks! The head of Queek!’ shouted Thorgrim. The dwarf-thing’s eyes were glazed and spittle coated his beard. Quite mad, thought Queek. Good.

‘Queek is coming!’ trilled Queek, and laughed. ‘Queek killed many dwarf-things – soon there will be no more left to kill. This makes Queek sad. Maybe Queek take a few of High King Thorgrim-thing’s littermates back to Skavenblight for fighting practice? Truly Queek is merciful.’

Roaring his hatred, Thorgrim charged, just as Queek had anticipated. Dwarfs were a weak race; their affection for their pups and littermates made them easy to goad. Such a pity, Queek had wanted this duel to be one to savour in the long years ahead, when he grew young on Gnawdwell’s elixirs and there were no more dwarf-things in the world to slay.

Queek waited until Thorgrim was so close he could see the red veins threading his tired eyes before launching his rightly famed attack. Queek leapt, his age forgotten, his body spinning. He drew his sword and simultaneously swung the weighted spike of Dwarf Gouger at Thorgrim’s helmet. Queek’s mind worked quickly, so fast the world appeared to move more slowly to him than to those of longer-lived races. He did not know it, but it was a blessing in some ways, this rapid life cycle. Queek could enjoy the sight of his weapon spike hurtling towards the dwarf’s face in unhurried slowness.

Queek blinked. Thorgrim swept up his axe. Impossible! The runes on the axe shone as bright as the hidden sun, searing their image onto Queek’s eyes. He could not read the scratch marks, but in one terrible moment of understanding their meaning became clear: Death. Death to the enemies of the dwarfs!

Dwarf Gouger met the axe. The rune-shine whited out his vision, and he knew if he survived his eyes would never recover. Dwarf Gouger shattered on the edge of the blade with a bang and discharge of freed magic. Queek landed, panicked. He thrust at Thorgrim with his sword, seeking to make him dodge aside so that Queek could put distance between them. But the snarl nested in the thing’s long face-fur grew more ferocious. He grabbed Queek’s sword in his armoured fist and yanked him forwards. Queek scrambled to get back, but could not. So unusual was the situation that he did not think to release his sword’s hilt until it was too late. Thorgrim dropped his axe and grabbed Queek by the throat, lifting him high into the air. Only then did Queek let his sword go, and Thorgrim flipped it around, using it to cut loose Queek’s treasured back banner. The dead things’ heads fell, screaming in exultation, free at last.

‘For the Battle of Karak Azul, the head of Queek,’ rasped Thorgrim, his voice ruined by his screaming.

Queek squirmed and thrashed, his teeth clashing in panic. He braced his legs against Thorgrim, trying to flip backwards. His world turned black around the edges. Queek scrabbled with his hand-paws, raking at the king’s face.

‘For the killing of Belegar Angrund, rightful king of Karak Eight Peaks, the head of Queek,’ spat Thorgrim.

Queek’s struggles weakened. His frantic gouging became more precise. He gave up trying to hurt Thorgrim and desperately attempted to pry the dwarf’s granite grip loose. The fingers would not shift, and Queek’s own bled as his claws tore loose on the king’s impenetrable armour. Thorgrim tightened his grip. Queek’s choking became wet, feeble as the death croaks of a dying slave-rat.

The king pulled Queek level with his bearded face. ‘For the death of many thousand dawi, the head of Queek. Now die, you miserable son of the sewers.’

The last thing Queek ever saw were the eyes of Thorgrim Grudgebearer, burning with vengeance.

Thorgrim shook the skaven. Queek’s neck snapped. His body went limp, but Thorgrim continued to squeeze, the litany of woes he shouted at Queek transforming into a long, inchoate roar.

At last, he dropped the body at his feet and stamped upon it with ironshod boots, shattering Queek’s bones. He spat on it with disdain.

‘You can keep your head upon its neck, thaggoraki. I’ll not have it sully my halls.’

Thorgrim retrieved the Axe of Grimnir and gestured to his thronebearers. The skaven were in full flight, mad panic radiating out from the points where Thorgrim stood and where Ungrim slaughtered them. Queek’s Red Guard were smashed down as they broke.

‘That’s right! Flee, you worthless, honourless cowards!’ shouted Thorgrim. The sun had sunk below the level of the boiling clouds, and a golden light shone on the battlefield, as if the strange aura of his throne had expanded to take in the whole of the vale.

Satisfied at what he saw, he turned and walked back towards his throne, his bearers kneeling in anticipation. He looked forward to striking out many grudges today.

Unseen by the king, a black-clad skaven flitted from the churning mass of fleeing ratmen and ran at him. Too late, one of his thronebearers called a warning, dropping the throne and raising his axe to protect his lord. His bodyguard were too far away to intercept it, caught up in the merciless slaughter the battle had become. Thorgrim was exposed and alone, surrounded by bodies.

The assassin leapt as Thorgrim began to turn, drawing two long daggers that wept black poisons. It drove them down, putting all its momentum into the strike with a victorious squeal. The blades shattered upon the Armour of Skaldour, and Thorgrim dispatched the creature, opening its body from collarbone to crotch with the Axe of Grimnir.

Thorgrim flicked the blood from his rune axe and remounted his throne as a ragged cheer went up. All around the skaven were fleeing. Trapped by the avalanches unleashed by the dwarfs, they had nowhere to run, only a few making it over the broken mountainside blocking the road back to the safety of their tunnels. They still outnumbered the dwarfs five hundred times, but their flight was unstoppable. Only Queek could have halted them, and Queek was dead.

‘Destroy them all! Destroy them!’ shouted Thorgrim. ‘Let none escape!’ Cannon and gunfire slew those who attempted to run towards Karaz-a-Karak in the confusion. Ungrim and his Slayers cut down the warlock engineers, Ungrim’s axe blasted fire over their leader. Thorgrim saw Ikit Claw fall. He watched to see him rise again, but he did not. Another grudge answered.

A roaring filled the vale as gyrobombers flew over the king, stirring his beard hair with their progress. They swooped low, bomb racks rattling, blasting the skaven apart. Ungrim’s fire consumed those few ratkin who tried to reform.

The battle was over. Thorgrim saw the greatest victory of his time play out around him, and it felt good. But the strange power had left him and his throne. It gleamed only as much as gold could gleam, and his armour felt heavy upon him again. He sent a silent prayer to Grungni for his aid, if that was indeed who had sent it.

‘My king!’ said a thronebearer. Thorgrim glanced down to the ashen face of Garomdok Grobkul.

Thorgrim felt ice in his heart. Somehow, he knew what Garomdok was about to say before he said it.

‘The Rune of Azamar, my king, it is broken!’

TWENTY-SEVEN Eternity’s End

At the edge of the battlefield, three dwarf lords watched their kin go about their sorrowful work.

‘I could not save them,’ said Ungrim Ironfist. Fire still flickered around him, on his axe and in his eyes, but it could not hide his despair. ‘I marched too far from my gates, filled with thoughts of vengeance. They sprang their trap. Three of their abominations breached the gates. They had within them bombs full of gas…’ His face contorted. He could not understand why anyone would do such a thing. ‘Everyone, everything… It is all gone, gone!’

‘Rest easy, lad,’ said Josef Bugman, who had a particularly disrespectful way with kings. ‘Here, let me get you something for your nerves.’

Bugman beckoned over one of his warriors, a young dwarf already scarred and grim-eyed from many battles. Bugman took a tankard from him and offered it to Ungrim. ‘Fit for a king,’ he said encouragingly.

The Slayer King stared at him, deep in shock. ‘I am not a king any more. I have failed in one oath. Only by fulfilling the other can I make amends.’

All over the battlefield dwarfs worked, retrieving their lamentable number of dead. There were many runic items scattered amid the gore. These were attended to even before the slain, while a large block of troops stood ready, in case the skaven mounted another attack, took them unawares and armed themselves with the treasures of their ancestors. Dusk had fallen. Night came quickly, abetted by the fumes that clogged the sky and kept the sun away.

‘Drink,’ said Bugman encouragingly.

‘No, no, I will not,’ said Ungrim. ‘I cannot rest, I will not rest. My Slayers and I will go to the Empire, to lend what aid we can to the Emperor, if he still lives.’

‘All need light in dark days,’ said Bugman.

‘Grimnir is with me,’ said Ungrim.

‘At least let me give you a few casks of ale for your warriors. They’ll march further and fight harder with a little of my XXXXXX in their bellies.’

Ungrim nodded, and Bugman gave the necessary orders. The last dwarfs of Karak Kadrin, unsmiling though they were, were nevertheless grateful.

Thorgrim and Bugman watched them go into the fast-falling night, Ungrim’s fiery aura making of him a living torch to light the way.

‘A kingly gift, Master Brewer,’ said Thorgrim.

‘I am not a king either, High King,’ said Bugman affably. ‘But I do what I can.’ He sighed. ‘A bad business this. A bad, bad time.’

‘It is a time we cannot recover from,’ said Thorgrim quietly. ‘Look at Ungrim. Karak Kadrin fell three years ago and he behaves as if it were yesterday. If we prevail, shall we all be the same? Broken-minded, fit only to roam the lands of our ancestors?’

‘Steady now, that’s not like you to say so, king.’

‘The Rune of Azamar is broken,’ said Thorgrim.

To them both, the mountain breeze blew a little more chill. Silently, Thorgrim led Bugman round the back of the throne and pointed out the awful truth. There was no light to the rune, and a long, fine crack ran across it from top to bottom.

Bugman tamped down tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and sat down upon a rock. Behind them, dwarfs shouted and chisels clattered as the stonemasons’ guild repaired what damage they could to the walls. Bugman blew out a long plume of smoke. ‘Aye,’ he said at last. ‘I am not surprised.’

‘The Karaz Ankor will fall.’

‘What about Ungrim? The light of Grungni was on him. Surely that’s worth something.’

Thorgrim eased himself down next to the old brewer. ‘It’s not the light of Grungni. Something similar affected me too, filling my armour and weapons with might. Ungrim is possessed by some fire spirit, and I think something rooted in the spirit of metal came to me.’

‘Is it gone now?’

Thorgrim nodded.

‘Well,’ said Bugman, ‘Grungni or not, there’s still good in this world, that’s for sure.’ He gave the king a penetrating stare. ‘Will you drink with me, High King? You’ll not refuse my brew too, will you now?’

Thorgrim was taken aback. ‘A king can refuse many things, Master Brewer, but never a sup from Bugman’s own barrels.’

‘Good for you,’ said Bugman. ‘But I can do better than my own barrel. I reckon you could do with a bit of pepping up. Here, drink from my own tankard. You’ll never taste its like, I promise.’ The dwarf passed over a battered pewter tankard. Once finely worked, it seemed to have taken much hard use and its decorations were worn smooth where they were not tarnished.

The High King took the tankard from Bugman. It brimmed with frothy ale, although the cup had been but moments before hanging empty at the brewer’s belt. The colour was perfect: a deep, golden brown, as pure as a young rinn’s eyes. And its bouquet… Thorgrim lacked the words to describe it. Just smelling the beer made him lightheaded. He immersed himself in the sensation. It brought back memories of happier days, and he forgot all his woes.

Bugman chuckled. ‘Go on then, don’t just stare at it! Drink up, I swear by Grungni’s long beard you’ll feel better for it.’

Thorgrim did as he was told, even though part of him did not want the moment of expectation to pass. He put the pewter to his lips and drank deeply of the ale. Warmed to perfection, it tasted finer than anything he had ever partaken of before, and he’d enjoyed plenty of Bugman’s ales in the past.

As he drank it down, a glow as golden and clean as the colour of the beer seeped into his limbs. There was a brief, vicious stab in his side as the wound seemed to fight back, but it was overwhelmed, and the warmth pushed aside the dirty, itching pain the injury caused him. He drank half the tankard down, of that he was sure, before pulling it away. His gasp of satisfaction turned to one of amazement. The tankard was still full.

‘Take another pull, O king,’ said Bugman.

The king did. When he finished, he patted his side, then prodded it, then poked hard. Nothing.

‘The wound is not healed, I’m afraid,’ said Bugman. ‘It’s too far gone for even my old great-granddad’s tankard to fix with a couple of draughts. But you won’t feel it for a while, and it might just tip it onto the right road to be mended. The curative powers of the mug and my ancestor’s best brew. You’ll not get that anywhere else now but from my own pot. Count yourself privileged.’

Thorgrim, usually so stern, was wide-eyed. ‘It is the greatest honour I have enjoyed in a long time, Master Brewer.’

‘Isn’t it just?’ said Bugman. He looked the king dead in the eye. For all his power and honourable ancestry, Thorgrim felt the battered ranger, born from the dwarf exodus, little better than city-dwelling umgdawi, to be far more than an equal to him. ‘When my old dad’s brewery burned to the ground, and my folk were all killed, I thought it was the end of the world.’ He sighed, a spill of smoke twisting its way from his mouth. ‘And it was the end of one. Another began. I am still here. Don’t scratch out the dawi yet, High King. There’s fight in us all still.’

Bugman hung his magic pint pot, now mysteriously empty again, from his belt. He stood up and offered his hand to the king, like they were two merchants in a bar and not a dispossessed brewer and the lord of all dwarfs. Thorgrim shook it.

‘I’ll be away now.’ He looked into the night, broken only by the dwarfs’ lamps and torches and the light streaming from the high windows of the forts. ‘There are other dwarfs out there as need me.’

‘Still?’ said Thorgrim.

Bugman smiled down at the king. ‘Aye, and there always will be. Whatever happens next, king of kings, don’t ever forget that. We’ve lost a lot, that’s for sure, but there’s no use crying over spilt ale. As long as the mountains are made of stone, there’ll be dwarfs in them, of that I’ve no doubt.’

Bugman lifted up his head, and let out a long trilling whistle. The call of the high mountain chough, not heard for years in those parts. It brought a tear to the king’s eye.

Dark, solid shapes moved from out of the rocks. Thorgrim rubbed his eyes. He felt quite drunk. Bugman, seconds ago alone, was surrounded by his warriors.

‘Look after those of my lads that fell here, king.’

Thorgrim nodded. Bugman winked and vanished into the dark.

Blearily Thorgrim got into his throne. From the vantage it offered, he looked about, but Bugman was nowhere to be seen. He suddenly felt very tired.

‘I shall rest a moment,’ he said. ‘Just a moment.’ He sat down, closed his eyes, and drifted off to the sound of dwarfs hard at work repairing the damage others had done.

Thanquol was nauseous. No matter how he held himself, he felt like he was about to fall over. The walls of the tower – he assumed it was a tower, but who knew if it was or if it was not – did not look right. He felt like he was standing at an angle even when he was quite straight. Wherever Lord Verminking had brought him was not of his world.

‘Now we show you, as promised,’ said the verminlord.

‘What should I see?’ asked Thanquol. He stared into the swirling scrye-orb Verminking produced out of nowhere.

‘Doom, yes-yes. Doom which will lead to your ascension,’ said Skitzlegion.

This did not exactly answer Thanquol. He had no idea how the swirling clouds within the orb amounted to doom, and how was he going to ascend? The grey seer was about to question the verminlord further when the mists of the globe coalesced into faintly glowing images. He was watching a dwarf-thing.

‘The king of all dwarfs!’ he whispered. ‘How do you do-accomplish this? Dwarf scratch-magic makes see-scrying impossible.’

‘Not to us,’ said Verminking, tittering. ‘We know things you shall never know. Concentrate. Think yourself inside his head. You will know all. You will know his thoughts, his heart, his mind. Breath-breath! Yes, yes, that is right. In, we skaven can steal into anything, why not another’s soul? Listen to me, Thanquol, and you learn much, plenty-good magic…’

Thanquol’s vision swam. And then he wasn’t there any more.

Thorgrim Grudgebearer looked up the first curl of the spiral Stair of Remembrance. The walk to the King’s High Porch atop Karaz-a-Karak was always an arduous climb, but right then the stairs were as daunting as a steep mountain slope. He was bone tired. He’d woken a few hours before dawn to find himself exhausted. A clean tiredness, that of the purged, but heavy upon him. He suspected his whole body ached, but could only feel the renewed throb of his wound. Bugman had been right, though. The returned pain was less than it had been before he drank from the fabled tankard. He supposed he should rest more, and he would, but this had to be done first. With his jaw set in determination, the High King began the journey up the spiral stair. Although he longed for sleep, this personal ritual, a way to both commemorate the fallen and ultimately to clear his head, had to be performed.

Despite his victory, his mind was awhirl. Ungrim – grown stranger than ever – had given the High King much to muse over, but that would have to wait. And Bugman, with his never-empty cup and unquenchable hope. Could it be the dwarfs would persist? Now the ale glow was gone, Thorgrim was not so sure, and his oaths to retake their ancient realm seemed laughable.

The stairs demanded his attention, and he turned it upon them. Up and up he wound, each step bringing him pain.

No one but the High King might use these stairs. The lookout at the top and its King’s View was his privilege alone. It was High King Alriksson, Thorgrim’s predecessor, who had shown Thorgrim the way, and even then he had not been permitted to look out, not until Alriksson was dead, and he had made the journey alone.

With each clumping step, Thorgrim remembered one of the slain from the day’s battle. He recalled each dwarf, his name and clan. The journey took hours, yet Thorgrim always ran out of stairs before he ran out of names. The rest of the fallen must await his return trip.

Towards the top, the air grew very thin, and Thorgrim’s lungs laboured hard, aggravating the pain in his side. Dwarf blood was thick, but the air was too sparse here even for them. His progress slowed. The last quarter took longer than the rest. He saved the names of the greatest of warriors for this difficult part of the climb.

At last he reached the top, a high dome carved right inside the very tip of the mountain, adorned with carvings unseen by any other eyes and lit with a king’s ransom of ancient runic glimlights. The sight always awed him slightly, a reminder of the power and glory of the old dwarf kingdom. Coming here was like ascending into the heavens themselves.

Outside, there were no longer any stars. Thorgrim pushed open the rune-heavy door to the porch. The stone slid outwards soundlessly.

Wind whistled around the edges. The air this high was icy and incredibly thin. Thorgrim took deep, panting breaths to stave off dizziness and stepped onto the shallow balcony of the King’s High Porch. Twelve paces across, seven deep, a small balcony, whose balustrade pillars were fashioned in the shape of dwarf warriors. Cut from a natural bay in the mountain, the porch was invisible from below. When shut, the door behind Thorgrim blended seamlessly with the stone. Below him the high snowfields of Karaz-a-Karak plunged downwards. The horizon to the east was a dull silver, the rising sun fighting against the murk. In the few clear patches of the night-gripped sky overhead, only rings of black-green could be seen, the whirling remnants of the cursed Chaos moon.

From the top of the world, Thorgrim looked down upon the lesser peaks. They marched away to every horizon, untroubled by the wars of the creatures who lived among them. Only now in this private spot did the High King begin to open and examine the chambers of his mind. Karaz-a-Karak had resisted, but for how long? And how much stock could he put in the legend of the Rune of Azamar? He wished Ungrim had remained behind – he had never expected Bugman to – but perhaps he could do something to aid the realms of men. In some of the few accounts Thorgrim had received, the Emperor was dead; in others he was alive, but his nation was a ravaged ruin. If he still lived, he would need all the help he could get.

Deep in thought, Thorgrim never saw the black shadow unfold from the rocky peak. Spider-like, it crawled down a cliff face before letting go.

‘Assassin!’ squealed Thanquol in his nowhere place.

‘Hsst!’ warned Verminking. ‘Do not let your excitement alert the king to our presence. We are in his mind!’ Then, more gently, he continued, ‘This is the culmination of many scheme-plans. Deathmaster Snikch delivers the final blow to the dwarf-thing’s empire. It has taken him long-long to work his way to the top of Beard-Thing Mountain-place. No other but he and Lurklox could have achieved it.’

‘The king’s armour…’ began Thanquol doubtfully.

‘He bears new knives, they are warpforged, each triple blessed by the retchings of the Verminlord Lurklox, Master of All Deceptions. They can slice through gromril as easily as incisors sink into a corpse. He will not fail, now hush, and watch!’

In mid-air, the dark shape somersaulted and drew forth its three blades – one in each hand and a third in its tail. With all the momentum of his fall, Snikch drove all three blades into his target.

Thorgrim staggered forwards, great stabs of pain coursing through him. Thanquol gasped, sharing a sliver of his agony. As the king fell to his knees, Thanquol fell to his. Through Thorgrim’s eyes he could see the points of three blades jutting out of his chest, and for a gut-churning second, Thanquol thought it his own.

Thorgrim’s last thoughts were for his people. Like a damned fool beardling he had left the door open behind him. There were so many grudges left unanswered. His last thought crystallised with painful clarity – of course, the hateful cowards had stabbed him in the back.

Thanquol’s consciousness retreated from the dead king, and he observed the scene once again through the scrying-orb.

Tail lashing with excitement, Thanquol watched Snikch saw off the king’s head with his tailblade. The Deathmaster kept watch on the open runic door, his tail performing the grisly deed by its own volition.

‘That head will come to you, little horned one,’ purred Verminking behind him. ‘You must take-show it before the Council of Thirteen, Reclaim the grey seers’ rightful place.’

‘But… but… you told Verminlord Soothgnawer, many praises be upon him, that…’

Verminking chittered, half in amusement, half in exasperation. ‘I had not expected such naivete from you, little seer.’

Thanquol, who had long anticipated himself on the Council of Thirteen, let his mind race with possibilities.

In the orb, the asssassin was scrawling runes upon the stone.

Verminking explained. ‘He is summoning Lurklox. Dwarf scratch-magic prevents skitterleaping, but his scratch-markings will overcome them. Soon an army of gutter runners will be inside Karaz-a-Karak. They will open the gates for our rabble army. Clan Mors has been all but destroyed, but the lesser warlord clans wait in the deep tunnels, and they will be inside before the dwarf-things know. The dwarf realm will be utterly broken!’

‘Then we have won, yes-yes?’ asked Thanquol in surprise. The thought of it seemed… odd.

Verminking shook his head solemnly, his majestic horns swaying. ‘We have won much, but not all. The lizard-things and their lands are dead-gone – but Clan Pestilens is broken. I sense Vermalanx and Throxstraggle’s fury. Although,’ he mused, ‘we must not forget Skrolk, or the Seventh Plaguelord, for he is hidden within the Under-Empire even from my eyes. Clan Skryre has been humbled, but Ikit Claw just survived and will be dangerous. While more goes on in the minds of the Moulders than you know.’

Verminking looked down upon the grey seer, his enormous claw-hand patting Thanquol’s head.

‘And our new allies – the Everchosen, Chaos. They are most powerful of all, yes-yes. We need-must not tell you. Yet we, you and us, we will bide our time. One day it will all be ours.’

Thanquol smiled faithfully up at Verminking. The answer to how to conceal his true thoughts had been simple, when it came to him. As he guarded his words, he must guard his thoughts. All day he had been practising at obscuring his intentions from the verminlord behind a wall of sycophantic loyalty he built across his mind. Once he was certain of the method, he had thought the most treacherous thoughts he could. And Verminking did not hear! All through the battle he had done so without repercussion. He was growing in power.

Shielded by this mental redoubt, Thanquol plotted how he would rid himself of the verminlord for good, and use what he had learned to his greater advantage. He was Thanquol! The most cunning skaven who had ever lived. Lord Skreech Verminking would come to regret forgetting that.

‘Yes-yes, O great one,’ said Thanquol. His eyes narrowed. Soon he would be the master. Soon he would sit upon the Council of Thirteen in the mortal world. But why should he stop there? Unwittingly, the verminlord had opened endless worlds of opportunity to him.

Thanquol’s face betrayed even less than his mind did. ‘Your wishes are my commands,’ he said, and meant not a word of it.