The End Times, page 37
‘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.
CHAPTER 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.
