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Karag Durak Grudge - David Guymer

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KARAG DURAK GRUDGE

David Guymer

Let it be known that on this day a great grudge is laid upon the vile rat-kin of Karak Eight Peaks – Grungni curse their debasing paws! Twenty-four brave dwarfs of the Ironbeard clan did fall in stalwart defiance of the verminous host that did seek to overrun the Karag Durak watch post. They will be remembered. Four-score tails are demanded in recompense for this outrage. Also on this day did Grimnar Ironbeard personally defeat the rat-king of the Eight Peaks, and his scampering foe did cause the rest of the cowardly host to flee for their lice-ridden holes. The thaggoraki show their true mettle! This bold act did allow fifty-five clansmen, including Grimnar himself, to bring word of these fell deeds that they may be recorded for all time. A thousand curses upon the rat-king that, before his craven flight, he did maim bold Grimnar’s hand. May the halls of Karak Eight Peaks flow with rat-kin blood for this act. Grimnar does take the name ‘Halfhanded’, and forever shall he thus be known to his ancestors until the debt is repaid in full – a thousand vermin tails and the head of the Headtaker himself.

from the Karak Kadrin Book of Grudges

The damp earthen floor shook to the pounding of a thousand clawed paws, the narrow passage filled with the panting squeals of skaven warriors as they shoved and fought through the press of their brethren.

Ska Bloodtail ran amongst them, keeping the flagging rat-men moving with the judicious application of the flat of his sword. His belly growled as a particularly plump specimen wheezing under the weight of its rusted chain hauberk struggled by. The clanrat stumbled, his footpaws tangling in knots as he fell. The skaven had barely hit the ground before those following after were diving onto his prone form. His agonised wails were short-lived as starving comrades ripped the flesh from his bones.

The other skaven nearby chittered angrily, their own bellies clenching in envy.

Ska took advantage of the distraction to slip a paw into the leather satchel he wore over his ancient and punished gromril coat. Tearing a thin sliver of goblin meat from the rations, he popped it into his mouth, swallowing without chewing as he looked around suspiciously. It had been wise of the warlord to entrust him with the rations; it was important that the fangleader kept his strength up. Who else would keep these lazy meat-sacks running?

The press of warriors ahead of him grew tighter, and even slashing their wiry backs to bloody ribbons could not force them to move. Ska felt his famed strength falter, his gromril chain spattered with gore when, suddenly, he spotted the reason for their slowing.

They had arrived at last. The gates of Karak Varn were within sight.

Biting and shoving, he bullied his way through the massed ranks, ignoring their squabbling as he barged to the front.

Ska slowed to a standstill as he came upon the giant gateway, gazing up towards the distant ceiling, the two great marble blocks towering into the hidden blackness. Each had once been adorned with glittering runic script but millennia of rot had eaten at their proud surfaces until all that lingered was the sad glint of gold beside dank slime and corroded stone. One giant block sat uncomfortably across the other, affording Ska a narrow view of four frightened red eyes on the other side.

‘Go away,’ hissed a voice from the darkness. ‘Fisk-Warlord say none enter Varn-lair. Not unless he say-say.’ The voice paused for a moment. ‘And he not say-say.’

Ska growled, pressing his muzzle against the gap to peer into the impenetrable gloom beyond. He listened with approval as the gate-rats scurried back. Just in case.

‘You open! You open now-now. Warlord comes and you no-no want cross. He skin you alive and feed you to each other.’

This time there was an extended pause, a faint chittering of tense conversation just below Ska’s hearing. After a few moments, one of the gate-rats hesitantly piped up.

‘But, Fisk-Warlord say...’

‘Grah!’ Ska head-butted the gate in a rage, taking little pleasure in the way the insolent vermin squeaked aloud in fright. He rolled his head sorrowfully against the cool surface. What was he to do now? It was so unfair that he should suffer for the stupidity of others.

His brain was running on nothing but warpstone fumes and adrenaline, but he desperately trawled it for some fresh ploy to coax the idiot gate-rats into opening up, before a bitter scent excited his nostrils.

His heart leapt into his throat.

Hurriedly Ska spun from the gate, collapsing to the damp loam in the most obscene demonstration of obsequiousness his aching limbs could achieve. He didn’t look up. He didn’t dare. But he could sense the mass of skaven warriors around him doing likewise. He tried to close his nose to that bitter scent, but the musk of fear rose from the assembled masses, blending with the foul moisture that clung to the fractured walls, the miasma descending over the throng like the none-too gentle paw of a vengeful god.

A terrified voice filtered through the tremulous thunder behind his ears and into his brain.

‘Open gate! He comes. Open now-now! Hurry-hurry. Fast-quick!’

A chittering wave of obeisance rolled from the far end of the chamber, crashing over his hunched shoulders as he lifted his voice to add to it, straining to out-squeak the voices of his rivals. But still, he hadn’t the courage to raise his muzzle from the dirt.

A footpaw squelched into the mud by his nose.

Suppressing a whimper, he cracked open one eye. His gaze tracked upward past the chainmail skirt to the scarlet plate where sigils of skaven supremacy had been roughly carved into the metal. Ska fancied he could could still scent the lingering traces of warp-dust from the chisel’s passing in the ensorcelled armour.

He lifted his eyes higher still and quailed. The warlord was a black-furred vision of death. A terror incarnate. From within a scarlet helm, eyes blazed with an inner fury, like fire agate drenched in the blood of a man-thing daemon. Those eyes commanded submission but, even so, Ska couldn’t stop his panicked gaze from flicking over the grisly array of trophies held aloft on the warlord’s shoulders, suspended on a wooden frame like half of a morbidly spoked wheel.

The decaying heads rocked with Warlord Queek’s twitching movements, the creaking of the wooden spikes like the spoken words of the dead. Queek cocked his head first one way, then the other, offering his ear to the shrivelled lips of the dead things as if heeding their council.

‘Yes-yes,’ he hissed. ‘Queek make fool-meat suffer.’ His eyes suddenly focused on Ska, his displeasure evident. ‘Why is gate not open for Great Queek?’

‘Is not my fault, most vicious of tyrants. Is stupid gate-rats. Their small minds fill-fill with mould, I think. They not open door for your mighty passing.’

Queek’s lip twitched, exposing the faintest display of glistening fangs as a snarl erupted from deep within the warlord’s gullet.

A fresh wail of terror streamed through the gateway, pitched to a level of horror far beyond anything Ska could have engendered himself. A panicked command was heeded with the whip-crack of a lash that drew a tortured moan, building in pitching to a squeal of rusted metal. Brackish water fell from the ceiling, drenching the massed skaven who eyed the trembling walls with mounting alarm.

His knees slowly sinking into the mud, Ska watched as Queek stalked amongst his warriors, baring his fangs and banging muzzles together to keep order as the metallic shriek rose to an ear-splitting crescendo that seemed to snap the gates in two. Protesting every inch, the great doors retreated, dragged inwards by what smelled like at least two-hundred skavenslaves to each mighty slab. Straining in despairing silence, the slaves hauled on thick, corroded chains that looped up through vast iron hoops and disappeared into the dripping darkness.

Ska felt the vibrations running up his paws as the marble doors slammed against the far walls, bringing a fresh shower of foul smelling rain onto the heads of the assembled warriors. He hurried to his feet, turning to inspect the open gate as a wave of damp, cankerous air washed his whiskers. Feeling pleased with himself for overcoming the obdurate gate-rats to fulfil his warlord’s instructions so masterfully, he waited expectantly for the high praise that would soon be heaped upon his tireless shoulders.

‘Fool-fool!’ yelled Queek, mere inches from Ska’s ears. ‘What use are you that cannot open simple door? Time wastes. Get worthless meat moving or I take every minute’s delay from your lice-ridden hide.’

Ska’s head bobbed enthusiastically. ‘Yes-yes, I obey. Perhaps if you explain the rush-hurry that pulls so many warriors from battles with–’

The fangleader never finished his sentence as Queek’s fist tightened around his throat.

Ska watched through bulging eyes as the corded mass of black-furred muscle that was the warlord’s neck grew taut, dragging his kicking footpaws from the ground. Ska struggled to calm the urge to fight – an urge that would surely see him killed – as the warlord pulled him close, almost until his own blood-red eyeball pressed against that of his fearsome master.

‘A little knowledge is most perilous thing. Is a thing for warlords. Does Ska think to be warlord today?’

‘No-no,’ he croaked. His vision began to blur but still he bit down on the impulse to fight back. ‘I just... I just... I...’

With a snort of contempt, Queek dropped him, kicking him back into the milling ranks of warriors. Each one, to a rat, looked studiously elsewhere. With any other warlord, such a spectacle would have drawn a baying crowd looking to curry favour with the victor and, with luck, take a bite of their own from the loser. But the warriors of Clan Mors knew better.

Queek’s temper was a force best avoided.

‘Get them moving. I want away gone soon-soon. If not...’

There was no need for Queek to elaborate. Ska’s eyes widened as he thrust too-slow skaven from his path, roaring until his throat was hoarse to hurry the malingering rats to their feet.

He didn’t spare any notice as his warlord spun gracefully on his footpaws, stalking like a hungry predator towards the open threshold to Karak Varn.

Queek stood alone in the cavernous chamber, staring after the gate-rats’ fleeing silhouettes. He doubted they would have ran as fast had it been an army of stone trolls at their back.

‘Indeed,’ whispered the sepulchral voice from behind his shoulder. ‘Where is the troll that could equal the might of Queek?’

Queek didn’t turn to answer. The voices always listened when he spoke.

‘I like to meet this troll, I think. This troll that think it equal of Queek. Queek tear its chest and eat its beating heart.’ He hissed with amusement. His trophy heads jerked on their poles, laughing with him. ‘Stupid-dumb rock-thing. I am Queek Headtaker! I have no equal!’

His laughter faded as he looked around. The chamber was vast, shaped like an enormous inverted bowl to house the gateway’s gargantuan opening mechanism. A noisome ooze glazed the crumbling walls. It made the rock clammy to the touch, like being inside the churning stomach of a giant made of stone. Massed banks of skavenslaves huddled in fearful silence mere paces away to either side, although such was the sickly damp that seemed to smother his senses that he almost failed to notice.

A damp rustle from behind made him turn. He was the most feared warlord in skavendom, but some instincts existed for a reason. He relaxed – slightly – when he saw it was just Ska with a group of clanrats who had followed him in. Ska had a strange look. His gaze was vacant, animal, his breath coming in ragged gasps that heaved on his ogreish chest. Looking across at the others, Queek noticed many of them in a similar state. He had driven them hard, he realised, almost into the ground.

More skaven piled in through the gate, eyes glinting red and hungry in the blackness, their dark craving focused on the terrified ranks of helpless slaves. Seeing the madness in the warriors’ eyes, the manacled slaves thrashed and screamed, some even attempting to gnaw through their own paws to flee the butchery they knew would come.

Queek could not have restrained them, even if he had felt compelled to try.

As one chittering mass, the skaven surged forward, their vicious squeals melding with the wails of the dying, echoing grimly through the dripping halls of Karak Varn.

The army raced through the warrens of Karak Varn, groups splintering off to drag individual skaven kicking and screaming from their dens to be eaten alive by the frenzied warriors. Like the walls they cowered behind, the rat-men of Varn seemed wasted and decayed, the foul air mouldering the scrawny creature’s very bones. They fled before the army’s rampage, scurrying for soaked and sodden burrows that were sunk into the dank earth.

Queek rode the river, directing it as best he could, but even he was not immune to his nature. Watching his minion’s feasting had stirred the Black Hunger within his own gut; the insatiable agony of the Horned Rat himself gnawing at his innards.

And the Black Hunger could not be fought. Only fed.

‘Eat-feed, Queek-Warlord. We hunger!’

Queek snarled, foam flying from his lips. That was the whining voice of Ikit Slash. The long dead skaven warlord of Fester Spike had always been weak.

‘Is only one skaven in Varn-lair fit for belly of Queek. He learn fast-quick not to bar path of the Headtaker!’ Queek shrieked his own bloodlust and hunger as his starving warriors surged past. He tried to focus their death frenzy, to channel it. He would make an example of Warlord Fisk that would test the fortitude of even the blackest of skaven hearts.

He guided his army down what he judged to be the lair’s main thoroughfare. Tunnels punctured the walls of the cavern like the worm-ridden core of a particularly vile apple, skaven swarming over every opening like flies. The armoured mass of rabid warriors drove the skittish locals squelching for their holes – those too slow of foot or wit were quickly hacked to pieces, with Queek’s warriors tearing each other apart to get at the remains.

The sound of a goblin-skin drum pounding to the rhythm of armoured footpaws slowly became audible over the chittering hoard. Summoning every reserve of authority his fearsome reputation bestowed, Queek squealed a sharp command, the sound rebounding from the walls of the cavern. In ones and twos at first the orgy of blood-letting eased, the effect gradually spreading through his army as dripping weapons were lowered and crazed minds cleared of crimson mist.

Queek gave his musician an angry shove. The scarlet-armoured stormvermin took his cue, striking the great brass bell he bore suspended from the cross-bar of a worm-eaten stave. Thrice the dissonant bell tolled, sounding the order to reform. Responding to the command, his warriors fell in to disordered ranks, lowering a corroded ensemble of halberds, cutlasses, spears, daggers and everything in between, and issuing a barrage of coarse, challenging squeaks into the approaching darkness.

The drumming grew louder. It seemed that even the drum itself was slave to the foul, malodorous damp that infested this place, every beat conjuring images of stagnation and decay. Just as the full emptiness of the hall seemed to tremble in sympathy to its beating, a mob of skaven spewed from the mouth of one of the many side tunnels, charging down the walls in an unruly swarm towards Queek’s depleted force.

The charge slowed to a halt about a dozen strides back, the two blocks of skaven warriors snapping and snarling as they quickly worked out whether the force to their front was stronger or weaker than the one at their back.

Ensconced within that protective shell of rusted steel and furred flesh, Queek saw a hulking giant in silver plate scoured to an impossible shine. A pair of segmented horns spiralled down from the sides of his helm, red eyes gleaming from beneath the thick, iron brow with undisguised malice.

Queek knew Warlord Fisk of Karak Varn only by reputation. The warlord’s fur carried an unhealthy green-tinge, lending him the repulsive appearance of a hulking orc-thing, something he only compounded with his fondness for large and noisy weaponry. From the corner of his eye, Queek spied a number of ratling gun teams taking positions in the tunnel mouths flanking his force. He watched as the loaders fed belts of ammunition from casks on their backs into the long-barrelled contraptions, the gunner’s paws hovering over their cranks with a terrible, optimistic glee. The whisper on the Underway was that Fisk liked to coffle his prisoners before strafing the lines with warpstone shells, not letting up until the weapon detonated in its unfortunate handler’s paws.

Fisk was a disgrace to the skaven race. Clan Skyre charged a fortune for their weapons, and almost as much for their operators.

Ignoring the pitiful sight of Fisk’s so-called warriors, Queek stabbed a claw towards the craven warlord, hissing his challenge. The gesture pitched forward his gruesome array of trophies, setting the bones to rattling. ‘Beware,’ they seemed to chatter in chorus. ‘Beware Queek!’

Queek grinned as he saw Fisk attempt a backward step, only to be blocked by the press of his own warriors, smashing the pommel of his sword into the snout of one of his clanrats as he attempted to cover his own obvious fear. Scowling at his underlings, the silver-helmed warlord barged forward, his bulk scattering his minions as he came to stand toe-to-toe before Queek. In a show of disdain, the warlord spun away from him to face his warriors, slamming a fist into his breast plate and screeching at the top of his lungs. His warriors responded in kind with a thumping of spear butts into soft earth and rusted blades upon shields.

Queek watched the peacock posturing without concern. The weak always felt the need to show off.

‘You come to fight-die with great Queek? Is your mind slow-soft? Run-hide to your burrow. Queek has no match.’

Fisk flourished his blade, a nicked and rusted bastard sword. Queek broke into a snicker of laughter as he drew his own weapons – the spiked maul, Dwarf-Gouger, and his own tried and tested blade. His heart thumped. He had denied himself too long. Soon his tongue would taste blood!

Fisk lunged forward with a clumsy downward slash. Queek rolled his shoulder, skittering aside with dancing pawsteps. Again his enemy came, and again Queek spun away from the attack, the tip of his sword licking out to open a long gash on his opponent’s cheek. Maddened by Queek’s teasing swordplay, Fisk barrelled forward, swinging his giant sword for Queek’s neck. Grinning, Queek hopped back a pace, parrying the lunge with a deft touch from his own blade.

The over-committed warlord struggled to regain his balance, his chest an open and inviting target. Queek spun on his footpaws, his cadaverous trophies grinning as they sensed a new pretender about to join their ranks. Mid-spin, he reversed his grip on Dwarf-Gouger, shrilling in exorcised fury as its spike punched through the vainglorious sheen of Fisk’s breastplate, piercing the rat-kin’s heart in a hail of bone fragments and blood.

Laughing, Queek yanked the weapon free. Fisk’s corpse fell to its knees at his feet, held upright by a footpaw on the chest.

‘You are on your knees, friend-Fisk? Then all is forgiven, of course.’

Snickering, Queek let Dwarf-Gouger drop from his paw, ripping Fisk’s helmet clear with a flash of his claws. He positioned the serrated edge of his blade against the dead warlord’s spine. Both sets of warriors moaned as Queek sawed through the thick meat of his rival’s neck, looking away as vertebrae crunched and separated. With a yell of triumph, Queek tore the severed head from the tangle of gristle that still clung to Fisk’s shoulders, shaking it defiantly before the subdued horde.

‘Queek is greatest! Queek is fiercest! Queek is strongest!’ With a scream, he hurled the bloodied thing into the opposing ranks, the warlord’s head splatting into a clanrat’s hurriedly raised shield. ‘Who else?’ he cried. ‘Who else dare test Queek?’

Silence was his answer.

Screaming with frustration, Queek threw his gore-spattered sword to the ground, pawing wildly at his own armour with un-sated bloodlust. He swallowed the urge to charge headlong into his enemy, to slaughter them like the slaves at the gate.

Slowly, the urge subsided. He did not have to kill them all. Skaven followed strength, and no one was stronger than Queek.

‘You!’ he shouted, directing a threatening claw at one of Fisk’s warriors. The rangy rat-man stared at it as though it might spit lightning. ‘Is there a Clan Moulder quarter in this foetid hole, gutter-spleen?’

The frightened skaven nodded eagerly to indicate that there was.

‘Fetch-bring a representative. They have things I need. It is their honour to serve great Queek-Warlord today.’

Ska cowered before his warlord’s rage, wincing occasionally when his violent temper manifested in a claw stabbed into the meat of his shoulder to emphasise some particularly galling point.

‘Where-where is stupid Moulder-thing. Are beast-meddlers so addled by warp-dust and cave mushrooms that they disobey Queek?’

Wracking his brains for the words his unpredictable master most likely wished to hear, he cringed as he saw the warlord bare his fangs for a fresh onslaught.

The expected blow never fell. Something else had drawn the warlord’s ire and he glanced across at the unlikely shape of his salvation: a tall, wiry, skaven in an oily blue cloak and hood that had separated from the crowd and was padding towards them.

Queek reached for his weapons. Even far from home and in a festering backwater like Varn, assassination attempts followed his warlord like warp-hounds chased warpstone. Ska closed his eyes and prayed that somehow, someday, one of them might finally succeed.

The skaven quickly lowered his hood and prostrated himself, anxiously gesturing the warlord to lower his weapons.

‘It is merely I, oh most gruesome of victors, bane of the green-things, and slayer of a thousand dwarfs.’

Queek kept his sword firmly in paw as he answered. ‘A thousand? Your tongue offends me, Skratch. Maybe I cut it out and eat it. Queek slays dwarf-things in tens of thousands! The blood of kingdoms stains his mighty fur.’

Ska kept his own council on Queek’s extravagant boast. He wasn’t about to stick his neck out just to give the warlord a free swing.

‘Meek and unworthy Skratch meant no insult to Warlord Queek. My head-brain is too simple to keep proper tally of mighty Queek’s many glorious triumphs.’

Grudgingly, Queek released his blade, dismissing Ska with a casual sweep of his paw.

Ska moved away, baring his teeth to discourage his inferiors from looking to him for orders. Making a show of polishing his blade with an old man-skin cloth, he pricked his ears to listen.

‘I received your message rat,’ said Queek, his whispered voice pitched high with excitement. ‘Before twelfth bell, last moon. It is here? You are sure-sure?’

‘Yes-yes. Sure as sure. Smell and hear and see. It is here.’

Queek leaned in, close and menacing, his muzzle pressed against the frightened scout. ‘You are certain it is still here? Varn-lair has lots-many dangers.’

Skratch gulped, answering with a vigorous nod.

With a grin, Queek shoved the scout away and bounded back to his milling warriors, bossing them into action with a vicious enthusiasm.

Ska’s eyes narrowed as he studied Skratch. The skaven fidgeted constantly, running his tail through his paws as his eyes tried to be everywhere at once with a hyperactive paranoia. Skratch’s twitching gaze met his and the scout squeaked in alarm, burying his muzzle in his cowl as he scurried away. Ska watched him disappear into the assembling ranks.

What treasure had Skratch unearthed in this abyssal place? And why was he sharing it with the warlord? Whatever the answers, Ska intended to find out.

Pleasant images of power and riches were still bright in his mind when Queek’s baleful visage brought a stab of fear to his chest, fearful that the warlord might read something traitorous in his scent? It was impossible, he reassured himself. The great and merciless Warlord Queek knew he had no servant as unswerving in his loyalty as Ska Bloodtail!

Karak Varn was vast, and it was empty – devoid of anything that moved but shadows, the black shapes flitting across the distant walls like carrion crows circling a tiring lamb. For the hundredth time since ascending that first stair, Queek wished he’d brought along more of his warriors. Skratch had urged caution, citing the legions of goblins and worse that haunted the sunken shell of Varn that might be disturbed by a large force. But the voices had whispered ‘What has the dark to challenge the all-conquering Queek?’ and he had listened.

Now he felt decidedly naked. Aside from the single Clan Moulder packmaster and his swarming rats, he had only Ska and a score of his fiercest stormvermin to throw between himself and danger. He tried to remind himself that he was Queek the Fearless, but it was difficult to be so dismissive of a threat that seemed to exist only in his mind, tickling the hairs at the back of his nostrils with the bitter scent of fear.

‘Ska,’ he whispered, his voice seeming caged, locked and buried beneath the oppressively cavernous space. ‘Take front-front. Great Queek shall watch the rear.’

Warily, Ska crept to the front of the mob where Skratch lingered on all fours, darting from side to side with his snout raised to the stagnant cross-draughts.

Queek took a sniff of his own and instantly regretted it. Green-things.

His nose wrinkled in disgust. The whole place stank of them. He didn’t know how Skratch could find his way through that. Queek certainly doubted whether he could find his own way back. Pitch darkness was nothing, but the high ceilings were adorned with dwarf glimstones and, although most had faded and died, some shone with an intermittent brightness that threw the hall into stark brilliance one moment, only to plunge it into utter blackness the next. The constant strobing rendered sensitive skaven eyes as good as blind.

‘Skratch,’ he whispered, fumbling in the strange dark-light. ‘Skratch, are you there?’

‘Here-here, most devious of warlords.’

‘Where do we go-sneak?’

‘A stair, oh feared conqueror of mountains. It take-bring to what dwarf-things call “the Fifth Deep”. We much-much close to surface now.’

Queek snarled and sent the scout away, fondling the leather grip of Dwarf-Gouger. He wished he’d taken his chances with the goblins. It seemed that time itself expanded to fill the vast hall... or was it simply the light confounding his senses? He ground his teeth in hatred of the dwarf-things. No one else would be so stupid as to build rooms so huge for a people that were so small!

A curt reprimand to Skratch for taking them on such a terrible route was on the tip of his tongue when suddenly two monstrous giants loomed out from the glare.

Queek screeched and leapt behind one of his stormvermin, but as the light faded to a more comfortable level he realised it was merely two mammoth granite statues flanking the entrance to Skratch’s stair. He took a deep breath, soothing his ego by breaking the stormvermin’s nose with his fist. ‘You stand in Queek’s way-path. Why do I suffer Ska to train you so poorly?’

He stepped over the mewling rat-man to examine the statues. They had once represented dwarfs, but their long beards were chiselled down, their stern countenances defaced with orcish features while their mailed torsos had been daubed with green-thing filth. Queek’s whiskers shivered with disgust.

‘Come-come,’ Skratch chittered. ‘Stair is long-far.’

Long-far. That was an understatement. A lonesome dripping echoed up – or possibly down? – the length of the stairwell, an intermittent torture that made his tail ripple with pent up rage. It felt like an age since he had last eaten, his gut sending vengeful spears of pain into his fur. It was a shame he had so few warriors – the heavy-set stormvermin would go far. But he had what he had, so he suffered with merely vandalising the mosaics that shadowed them insufferably up the walls of the stairwell. It was some kind of repeating, symmetric pattern of gold and silver squares that transformed into entirely new forms when viewed from another angle. It was disconcerting and pointless. The dwarf-things had an eye for the grandiose; they liked to build things to endure. It was a racial failing that he could never understand.

He was just beginning to entertain the notion that he surely couldn’t need all of these stormvermin, when the faintest tickle of cleaner air crept into his nose. An excited squeak from Skratch, several turns above his head, confirmed that the end was in sight. Queek tried to hide his relief, but his muscles seemed to boil beneath his fur like the bubbling warp-forges of Clan Skyre.

The skaven burst from the stairs with palpable relief. Queek winced as he rubbed feeling back into his thighs, hopping from footpaw to footpaw to keep his muscles from seizing. He watched as his so-called elite practically folded in on themselves as they collapsed onto the cracked white marble tiles. He shook his head contemptuously as the pride of Clan Mors lay sprawled on the cold stone.

He closed his eyes, the pulsing glimstones like weeping blades in his temples. At least the stench was bearable. The damp too seemed to have subsided into the sordid depths of Karak Varn – the horrific, cloying moistness that seemed to infect even the shadows themselves had been gratefully abandoned to the lower deeps.

He turned to his warriors. ‘Rest-rest now. But keep moving. Any who can’t walk when we away-go will be food for others.’

His look of scorn was dragged away from the splayed figures as Ska Bloodtail picked his way through the maze of limbs and discarded gear towards him.

‘I suggest we eat-rest. No slaves anymore and still see-scent no green-things.’

‘Green-cowards hide-hide,’ declared Queek. ‘They hear-smell Queek is here. I am like monster of story-tale to fearful green-things.’

Ska said nothing, and Queek snarled. He jabbed a claw at his lounging warriors.

‘Feed-feed then. Give all they can stomach. We have living meat soon enough.’

Licking his lips curiously, Ska padded away, wondering what the warlord had meant. Was it then some living thing they sought? A bound daemon perhaps or some escaped Moulder experiment that would pulverise his enemies? A dragon’s hoard? His heart pumped cold at the thought. Maybe the beast would choke on Queek while Ska made off with its treasure…

Thoughts skirted his brain like mice around a tainted cheese as he walked amongst his rat-men, drawing hunks of salted goblin hide from his pack and tossing them to the starving warriors. There was no great love for the vile meat but the ravenous skaven swallowed it enthusiastically enough. Even the hunter rats turned their noses up at the tuberous lump of gristle and viscera set before them, circling it warily as if it might pounce.

Continuing his rounds with an exaggerated nonchalance, Ska made a wide circle towards where Skratch sat apart. The scout glanced up expectantly as Ska fished in his pack.

‘So-so,’ began the fangleader, his paw still buried in the satchel. ‘You know what Queek-Warlord hunt-seeks. You tell him to come for it, I hear. Why not squeak-tell? Ska can keep secrets.’

Skratch eyed the bag longingly, a pale rope of saliva swinging from his open jaws. With an expansive gesture, Ska withdrew the last piece of meat, noticing how the starving skaven’s eyes chased after it like a hypnotist’s medallion. He shaved off a thin sliver and dangled it enticingly from his claw. Skratch grabbed it and gobbled it down before his paw had even finished moving.

Ska watched the scout swallow, hungry eyes immediately returning to what remained in his paw. Ska jiggled it with a hiss of laughter. ‘Tell-tell. What does Queek-Warlord seek in this foul place? What is so important he leaves green-things un-killed?’

Skratch shook his muzzle piteously, trapped between hunger and fear.

Angrily, Ska opened his own mouth wide to sink his fangs into the glistening flesh.

‘Wait-stop!’ whined Skratch, anxiously drumming his claws on the floor tiles. With an arrhythmic, jerking motion, the scout glanced about. Evidently satisfied nobody was about to kill him, he opened his paw for Ska’s food.

Ska held onto it, a fatty white paste beginning to ooze between his claws. He lashed his tail in delight. ‘Tell-tell first. Tell and you eat-eat. Then you help me kill-kill old Queek and maybe we split-share treasure.’

Skratch cringed, continuing to cast nervous looks over his shoulder every few seconds. Summoning the jittery scout’s attention the best way he knew how, Ska slammed his gauntlet through the floor tile. He raised his paw, meeting Skratch’s gaze. He grinned. He had the runt focussed now.

‘Tell-tell,’ he repeated, ‘and we share-share.’

‘Ska doesn’t understand,’ moaned Skratch. ‘The thing Queek seeks… is not a thing he share.’

Ska listened as Skratch laid out the warlord’s purpose and, with a vicious grin, handed the scout his promised reward. Maybe there was no treasure, but disposing of Queek might turn out to be a simple matter after all.

Ever deeper into the hold, Skratch led them; ever closer to the surface through one vertigo-inducing hall after another. Queek’s head spun from the vastness of it all. The one small mercy he clung to was that the damnable glimstones had disappeared, ushering them into blessed blackness. Chances were they had been pried loose and stolen by goblins. The simple-minded green-things had a magpie-like fascination for that which sparkled.

His claws tensed and relaxed almost with a will of their own. He needed blood on his paws. That was all.

He followed Skratch through yet another immense, vaulted chamber, this one littered with the iron skeleton of some kind of industry. The looming, metallic shadows had been peeled away, layer by layer, until their rusted innards spilled across the tiled floor. A pained squeak broke the silence as the packmaster trod on some ancient nail. He sneered at the muffled sniggers that broke out around him, exacting his rage on the cowering hunter rats in a torrent of vicious lash strokes.

Queek watched as Skratch pattered first one way and then another, lifting his nose to the air as he tried to find his way.

‘Admit it,’ growled Queek. ‘You are lost.’

‘Not lost, not lost,’ protested Skratch, quickly disappearing behind one of the listless hulks, only to be forced back into Queek’s sight with a panicked squeal by an avalanche of falling metal that boomed throughout the eerie machine graveyard like thunder.

Queek winced as the rumbling echo took an age to die. If there was a single goblin left anywhere in Karak Varn, they could not have failed to hear that.

‘You clumsy, dwarf-pawed imbecile! Look-smell where you go!’

Skratch burrowed through the scrap heap, more of the rusted remains trilling across the floor in response to his movements. Queek watched a spiked little wheel clatter across the floor towards him. He stamped on it with a snarl.

‘A tunnel, imperious master,’ said Skratch, his tail sliding anxiously up his leg. ‘Up-up, it goes.’

‘I grow tired-bored of this traipsing, Skratch. I want kill-kill. Tell me we are close.’

Skratch nodded eagerly. ‘Close, mighty warlord. Kill-kill, very soon. But some sneaky sneak has been this way. Tunnel blocked to stop Skratch finding, but Skratch’s nose cunning-good. Humbly, suggest I scout-scout ahead. Can’t warn enemies we come-come with clumsy clattering.’

Queek bit his tongue on what he thought of the scout’s position on clumsiness.

‘Fine-fine,’ he spat. ‘We wait here. Quick-hurry, or it goes bad for you.’

‘No!’ squeaked Ska, earning himself a cuff across the muzzle.

‘Queek is warlord. Queek says no or yes.’

Ska bobbed his head deferentially. ‘Yes-yes, imperious master. But Skratch should not go alone. What if danger? Perhaps strong Ska should protect him.’

Queek studied his fangleader, eyes filled with suspicion. His trophies whispered to him.

‘We see-smell them together,’ observed one. ‘What do Ska and Skratch say-squeak when think-think Queek not hear?’

‘Do they not know that the mighty Queek hears all?’ added another.

‘Yes-yes, fool-fools! What treachery do they plot together?’

‘Ska is untrustworthy. Do not leave him alone.’ Queek’s newest and freshest head hung from his trophy rack by a dark shank of hair. Listlessly, its sunken features turned from side-to-side, its eyes blank and ever watchful.

Whispering warm words, Queek reached up a paw to caress its sallow cheeks. It had belonged to a human adventurer named Torsten, but now it was the property of the Headtaker. Queek was glad for it. This one was new, but it was insightful. Ska Bloodtail could not be trusted.

Queek swiped the fangleader again, his claws drawing blood. ‘Stupid-Ska. You clumsiest clanger of all. Skratch go alone and Skratch hurry back.’ He turned to the scout, licking his lieutenant’s blood from his claws as he spoke. ‘Go-go, fast-quick.’

Skratch leapt to attention as if shocked, scampering away with suspicious enthusiasm into the upwardly sloping passage.

Queek tapped his footpaw impatiently. He had never liked waiting.

It felt like he had been waiting an inordinately long time. Damn that Ska, he thought, for talking his warlord out of sending someone to keep an eye on that useless scout. He glared at the traitorous underling, but the fangleader kept his eyes – and his thoughts – firmly to himself.

‘Moulder-thing,’ he snapped, finally out of patience. ‘Come now, quick-quick.’

The packmaster raced to the warlord’s side, dropping to one knee as he offered his unguarded throat. It was the first time Queek had deigned to take a proper look at the beast handler; his cowled muzzle was riddled with infected cuts and barely healed scars. He reeked of rat musk and warpstone, masking his own scent and leaving Queek wondering whether the rat-man was displaying the appropriate degree of terror as befitted an encounter with so fearsome a skaven as he. He was prepared – just this one time – to accept the violently shuddering shoulders of the packmaster as respect enough.

‘I will tolerate no more failure, Moulder-thing. Your pets had best-best succeed where traitor-Skratch could not.’

‘Moulder hunter-rats find-find anything, mighty warlord.’

‘Pray-pray you speak true, Moulder-thing.’

Without releasing the packmaster from his sight, Queek reached under the scarlet plate of his left vambrace, claws probing as though in pursuit of a particularly cunning flea.

‘Ah,’ he declared. ‘Here-here.’

Withdrawing his paw, he presented the object to the incredulous packmaster. There, hanging from the warlord’s claws on a length of cord, were two shrivelled digits, dried and pickled and pungent. The packmaster reeled from the smell, blinking away tears.

They were fingers. Dwarf fingers.

Queek thrust the grisly relics into the packmaster’s unwelcoming paws. ‘Take-show to your rats. If you succeed then soon I have all five, and you will have your weight in warpstone.’

The packmaster gasped with sudden greed, darting back to his waiting beasts, holding aloft the shrivelled digits like some kind of charm. The rats sniffed them excitedly, exploring their taste with sharp flicks of their tiny, slobbering tongues.

With a sudden gesture, the packmaster pulled the cord away, secreting it amongst the voluminous pockets of his cloak. The rats huffed and whined, raising onto hind legs and pawing at their handler’s legs in dismay. He shoved them aside with an impatient sweep of his tail, focusing their simple minds with a sharp crack of his whip. ‘Find-find,’ he hissed.

Like an explosion of tooth and fur, the rats billowed outward in an expanding wave; sniffing, tasting; some scratching against the tunnel walls while others tried to burrow under the rusted rubble. Then, as if the packmaster had issued some psychic command, the rats ceased their chaotic behaviour – raising their damp noses in unison they turned their eyes upwards, following the incline of the tunnel. As a single, living tide, the mass of rats flooded forward, sweeping past the grinning skaven.

‘We are close-close,’ he said, turning to Queek, his previous fear forgotten. ‘They know-smell their prey is near.’

Queek pushed the packmaster aside, drawing his weapons with gleeful anticipation.

‘No-no Moulder-thing. My prey.’

Without bothering to wait for his bodyguard, Queek charged after the streaming vermin, breaking into a loping run as he tore through the tunnel. The well-trained rodents seemed to take it in turns to pause, turn, and wait for him to catch up before haring off after the rest of the pack. Queek bounded after them with a wild abandon, barely noticing as he burst from the tunnel, his claws skittering across the smoothed stones as he adjusted his footing.

As he ran, a shape began to emerge from the gloom: a great archway, flickering and indistinct like a desert mirage. Queek grinned. It was no illusion, and the light he saw came from no glimstone, he could smell the burning pine cinders of a guttering torch.

Closing fast, he found the origin of the light. It was an opening, framed by a granite arch proudly embossed with runic script. It led onto another staircase that spiralled through a tight rise towards the peak of Karak Varn. Queek launched himself at the stairs, deaf to the crunch and splatter of tiny bodies beneath his footpaws as the mass of rats struggled up the steep climb.

His heart pounded violently in his chest, as though it too yearned to take up Dwarf-Gouger and gorge itself on dwarf-thing hide. His mind was lost, drowning in a foaming sea of rage.

‘Queek comes for you dwarf-thing,’ he screeched. ‘This time there will be nothing left.’

Ska clawed a string of meat from between his teeth, sniffing it briefly before tossing it back down his throat. The paltry scrap did nothing to soothe his hunger pangs.

‘Should we... follow?’ asked a nervous stormvermin whose name Ska had never bothered to learn.

The fangleader scowled, turning his disapproving eyes on the unfortunate skaven. The stormvermin cringed, scurrying out of reach. Ska’s tail flicked angrily, tasting the air like a snake. ‘Mighty Queek deserves first taste of his prize. Is respect to give him good-good head start.’

Slowly he drew his sword, his ears registering the subtle shift in pawholds on a score of halberds at his back. That was long enough. There was always the possibility that Queek might survive...

He led the warriors across the hall after the hunter rats’ scent, taking it at an easy pace. The warlord would not thank him for exhausting his elite before they had the chance to fight. As they approached the stairway, he heard a faint note of anger from the shadow of the packmaster’s hood. Ska looked down upon the smashed and broken bodies of the hunter rats scattered around his paws. He bent to scoop one up, opening his jaws to it like a funnel and crunching down on its tiny bones. His eyes gleamed in the torchlight.

‘Come-come, before we too late to help poor Queek-Warlord.’

Ignoring the sounds of more furry bodies forcing their way down ravenous throats and a murderous parting glance from the packmaster, Ska began his ascent.

After several dozen turns around the corkscrew climb, he waved the trailing skaven to a standstill. He was convinced he had heard something – a scratching behind the walls? And he could smell something. Sulphur and saltpetre. Like the black powder devices of the dwarf-things.

He watched as the packmaster placed an ear to the wall, his tongue loping from his muzzle in a terminal expression of curiosity.

Ska’s jaw dropped in dawning horror. ‘Run!’

Queek stumbled to a halt as the sound of an explosion roared through the tight rise. The steps beneath his feet trembled as though the mountain itself had come alive. He threw out his paws to steady himself on the walls, but they simply served as a conduit for the vibrations, running down his arms and rattling him against his armour like a stone trapped inside a skull.

A stream of rock dust descended from the steps above, layering his fur with a ghostly coat of granite. He sneezed, slamming a fist against his battered helmet to unclutter his senses. It worked, to an extent, the ringing in his ears becoming replaced by a din of a wholly different sort, the sound of a thing he craved more than any other.

Battle.

Skaven bodies threw themselves behind whatever cover they could. Ska struggled upright, offering thanks to the Horned Rat for leading him to that dead Ironbreaker all those years ago as he brushed a jagged spear of blasted masonry from the links in his gromril coat.

The stairwell had been transformed, as though enveloped by some kind of mystic shroud. He could see nothing, smell nothing; the only sounds to reach his ears were squeaks of pain, muffled and distant as though from another world.

As he lifted his snout for another sniff, an ethereal form burst from the haze swinging a giant pick-axe in two meaty hands, a curse fresh on his lips. Ska stumbled back, tossing into the dwarf’s path the only thing he had to hand. The miner’s weapon stove the headless torso of the packmaster, burying itself deeply into dead flesh. The dwarf swore as it tried to shake the body loose.

Ska felt his blood come alive as his fingers tightened around the grip of his sword. He swung his weapon above his head and, bellowing like a gelded ox, decapitated the dwarf with a mighty downward sweep.

Nothing fought harder than a skaven with nowhere to run.

Above the sounds of shifting rubble, the shrill screams of his bodyguard fighting and dying filtered through the ash-choked space. Queek had fought and killed enough of the dwarf-things to recognise their sounds in combat – the whoosh and smash of heavy miner’s picks, and the guttural battle cries of the Khazalid tongue. Khazukan kazakit-ha!

They had a set a trap for him? How good of Ska to keep his warriors back to draw the ambush from his illustrious warlord. It seemed that he had misjudged the depths of the fangleader’s loyalty, but then a warlord of Queek’s stature deserved nothing less.

‘Queek!’

He froze, spinning on his claws to glare through the endlessly rising steps above his head as though the force of his hatred alone might sunder them. A strangled growl rose from his belly, shaking his body with a tremor of pure hatred.

He knew that voice.

His myriad trophies chattered in his ear, rattling on their poles as his shoulders trembled with rage. The idiot dwarf knew Queek came for him and yet still he was here. The creature’s simple-minded arrogance knew no bounds! To survive one encounter with Queek the Unrivalled was to push the limits of one’s luck to a preposterous degree, but to wish for a second...?

‘Do not run-run yet, dwarf-thing,’ he called. ‘The Headtaker comes for you!’

Ignoring the fading cries of his bodyguard he leapt onto the next step, accelerating into a mad rush around and around the narrow spiral like a rabid rat chasing its own tail.

The dwarf’s voice continued to fill the stairwell. Queek had made it a point of pride never to learn a single syllable of Khazalid, but there were only so many holds you could sack, kingdoms you could burn, and dynasties you could tear down before picking up a word or two. Grudge this, great grudge that, may his beard grow for all time, blah, blah, blah. Queek howled his own fury in answer as he rounded the final turn, already imagining the dwarf-thing’s heart pumping its lifeblood into his jaws.

And suddenly there he was.

Grimnar Halfhanded.

The stout warrior stood at ease, a hand-axe held loosely in one hand. A beard as grey as steel spilled from the open face of a winged helm, the proud mess falling over a gromril breastplate to where it was tied off around his ample waist with a leather braid. Queek’s eye was drawn to the steel-rimmed shield strapped over the dwarf’s left forearm – it was painted blue and bore a simple rune resembling a white mountain. The warrior wore it over his mangled hand.

The hand Queek had ruined for him.

The dwarf did not stand alone. He was flanked by two massively built fighters, virtually naked bar tattoos and iron studs. The scent of orange dye and sweat-sodden hides rose from the slayers like musk. One stood ready with a giant warhammer while the second, brandishing a murderous pair of hatchets and with an enormous silver ring through its nose, stood slightly back.

Grimnar paused in his recitation of grudges, the whisper of some glib remark half-formed on his tongue. He waved the slayers back. With a grunt of disappointment, they shuffled away, their wild eyes fixed on the skaven warlord.

‘I knew you would come for me, vermin-king,’ said Grimnar, his thick beard shifting into a smile. ‘Never treat with the thaggoraki, they said. Hah! I knew better. If there’s one thing more certain than the treachery of elves, it’s that a skaven will always betray his own... and that the Headtaker’s ego won’t allow the memory of defeat to walk free.’

Queek spat, his knuckles whitening on his weapon’s grips. ‘Queek has never been defeated!’ He thrust his sword at the dwarf’s groin, hissing in fury as Grimnar’s axe parried it aside. ‘Queek will never be defeated!’

Grimnar laughed, his mirth rattling his mail undershirt against his breastplate, but the dwarf’s humour soon died as his cold eyes hardened into a more deadly hue.

‘Today, countless Grudges shall be unwritten and, tomorrow, my ancestors in Karak Kadrin will remember me once again as Ironbeard!’

With a roar, the dwarf barrelled forward, swinging his axe in a crosswise slash for Queek’s midriff. Taken aback by the un-dwarfish speed and fury, Queek’s sword rose too sluggishly and Grimnar’s axe smashed into his right pauldron. The strength of the blow forced him to his knees, but the weapon’s edge turned on his warpshard armour, the dark suit’s quiescent malice coming violently alive. Green-black tracers arced outwards, earthing themselves in Grimnar’s axe and stabbing down into pliant flesh. The dwarf stumbled, his teeth clenched against the pain. Black steam rose from his axe-hand with the scent of charred meat, but Grimnar held his grip with a stubborn defiance.

Queek’s chittering laugh preceded him as he dived forward, his sword coming around in a searing arc. Pre-empting the move, the dwarf swung up his shield, smashing it against the bone of Queek’s wrist. The warlord squeaked in pain, his fingers jangling, nothing more than the strength of his hatred keeping the weapon from flying from his paw.

Grimnar took advantage of his momentary distraction, stepping in with his axe to unleash a barrage of short, controlled strikes. Queek spun away, his sword darting back and forth, a ceaseless blur of motion as it deflected them. He snickered as his sword rose and fell with mesmeric speed, the perfect shadow to Grimnar’s axe. All the while, Dwarf-Gouger probed for an opening, but Grimnar had faced Queek before and knew well the potency of the maul. Accordingly, the dwarf fought carefully and his eyes, alight with the cold anger of the Grudge, were ever watchful for the characteristic flicks and feints.

Hissing in fury, Queek spun into a renewed attack, his twin weapons becoming a whirlwind of steel, hammering down blows like warpstone rain. Displaying a prowess that Queek’s otherwise brilliant memory had neglected to recall, the dwarf evaded or parried every blow that fell, but even Grimnar’s superior strength couldn’t keep himself from being swept ever back by the sheer ferocity of the attack.

Side-stepping the downward sweep of Dwarf-Gouger, Grimnar countered, slamming the haft of his axe into Queek’s snout. Queek scrambled back a pace, blinking in surprise, his nose spouting blood. The two Grimnars before him blurred back into one, and with a harsh squeak, Queek thrust his sword for the opening in the dwarf’s helm. Grimnar raised his shield to block the strike, but his feet floundered as the expected pressure never arrived. Leaving his sword quivering in the longbeard’s shield, Queek took up Dwarf-Gouger with both paws and – spinning with the awesome weapon like one of Skarsnik’s hated fanatics – smashed Grimnar’s shield to splinters.

The dwarf fell with an anguished cry, clutching his ruined hand as it fell from what remained of his shield.

‘Die-die, dwarf-thing,’ Queek hissed, pouncing on the prone fighter with Dwarf-Gouger raised high.

The dwarf rolled aside and the maul smashed the flagstone beneath him. Queek rose, shaking his head to fend off the sudden wave of dizziness, Dwarf-Gouger feeling oddly heavy in his paws.

‘Tired, are we?’ Grimnar sneered.

Queek glared daggers at the hated dwarf, but his foe wasn’t even sweating, whereas he could barely stand still without his legs trembling. For the first time since catching the scent of dwarf-meat, he felt his hatred ebb. He caught sight of the two slayers, standing off from the fight, a nervous twitch spreading to his lips as he eyed their monstrous bulks.

Grimnar followed his look and grinned. ‘There’s no escape for you, vermin-king. Even in death, I’ll have my honour.’

Queek ground his teeth and cursed silently. He cursed the Horned Rat. He cursed Skratch for leading him into such an obvious trap. He cursed Ska for getting caught in an ambush when he should be here, at his warlord’s side. They would all suffer once he was done devouring this wretched dwarf-thing!

And then he cursed the Horned Rat once more, for good measure.

A vicious howl emanated from the mouth of the stairwell. Queek’s heart sank – it appeared that the dwarfs had finished with his bodyguard and now wanted to crown their day’s work with him. Yet, with his back to the stair, he was most puzzled by the expression of horror that spread across Grimnar’s bearded face until he heard for himself the shrill voice of Ska Bloodtail exhorting his stormvermin to butcher their fill of dwarf-meat.

Wonderful, loyal Ska! Queek always knew that the fangleader would stand by him!

For a moment, it seemed Grimnar forgot he stood not three paces from the most feared warrior in skavendom. The perceived insult stoked the embers of his hatred, filling his tired limbs with fresh strength. Squealing in incoherent fury, he lashed out with Dwarf-Gouger.

With a sharp intake of breath, Grimnar threw himself back, the maul’s cruel spike passing mere inches from his face. He swayed unsteadily from his desperate leap, one foot hovering in the air as he his balance wavered.

It was a momentary lapse, but it was all Queek needed.

Allowing Dwarf-Gouger’s momentum to carry him around, Queek’s tail snaked out, looping around the ankle of the dwarf’s standing leg. His spin continued until his tail grew taut.

And then he pulled. Hard.

The dwarf cried out as his leg was yanked out from under him, his armoured body crashing to the ground with enough force to drive the air from his lungs. Queek angled his weight so his next spin carried Dwarf-Gouger through a high arc. In that instant, his eyes met those of Grimnar, but the dwarf’s face was a blank mask. There was neither fear nor anger, merely grim acceptance.

Grimnar’s arms jerked spasmodically as the maul’s great spike drove through his forehead in a triumphal spurt of bloody brain matter and beaten shards of steel and bone, rupturing the back of the dwarf’s helm and gouging the stone floor beneath.

Queek lifted his face to the ceiling and roared his victory. Let all know that he was Queek Headtaker. Let all know that he had no equal! His veins flooded with a giddy euphoria, Queek paid scant attention as the two slayers tore into the remnants of his bodyguard, ululating war cries ringing from their throats.

He didn’t care. He ignored it all. With the battle receding from his mind, he crouched down beside his kill, lowering his salivating jaws to the dwarf’s wrist.

His fangs never closed.

He froze, the barrel of a dwarf-made pistol pressed into his open mouth. A familiar scent filled his nose.

Skratch!

The traitor giggled gleefully. ‘Queek-Warlord, you make me richer than Gnawdwell.’

Before Queek could summon an answer, Skratch pulled the trigger.

The shot filled his head with thunder and he coughed on the black smoke that was thrown into his snout. Curious, but still coughing and very much alive, he glanced up into the trickle of dust from where Skratch’s shot had burrowed into the ceiling.

Snickering, he stood up, reclaiming Dwarf-Gouger from the bloody mess that had once thought itself his match.

‘Fool-fool, traitor-meat. Arms too weak for big dwarf-thing guns.’

Skratch squealed in terror, flinging the spent pistol at him before scuttling away and hurling himself into the melee. The weapon clanged harmlessly from Queek’s helmet and, curiously, he bent to pick it up; it bore the same white mountain rune on its grip as was on the dwarf-thing’s shield.

A skaven will always betray his own.

With a snarl, he hurled the pistol back to the ground, Grimnar’s words echoing in his mind. Even after death, the stubborn dwarf would try to cheat him of victory! He stalked after the fleeing vermin’s tail, the musk of his fear so strong in Queek’s nostrils that he could have tracked him across the shifting plains of the Chaos Wastes.

A stormvermin lay in his path, wrestling with the nose-ringed slayer through a mound of dead. The hunger-maddened skaven thrashed for the dwarf’s jugular, his claws drawing deep cuts into the thing’s tattooed hide as the slayer stubbornly squeezed the rat-man’s throat, massive biceps bulging in his crushing grip. With a single, murderous blow from Dwarf-Gouger, Queek dispatched them both, kicking them from his path with a snarl.

He would teach Skratch the price of betrayal.

Howling with fury, Queek burst from the battle. Blood dripped from his weapons and stained his granite-dusted fur to match his armour, re-forging him as some hellish elemental of blood and slaughter. He spotted Skratch, the cowardly traitor-meat trying to worm his way into the walls of the chamber. For the first time, Queek felt admiration for the handiwork of the dwarfs. Not with a Skyre digger-engine could Skratch escape him through those stones.

The scout dropped onto all fours. ‘Is a mistake,’ he wept. ‘I not try-try to kill. How could small, puny rat like Skratch hope to harm mighty Queek-Warlord?’

‘He could not,’ Queek answered, a wicked glint in his eye.

‘Of course not! I have much-much wealth. You take!’

Skratch fumbled through his oily rags, spilling his wealth to the ground. Queek watched as the eclectic mound of treasure grew: gold coins from the mints of Karak Kadrin; warp-tokens with the scratch marks of Clan Mors; wildly coloured mushrooms from the night goblins of the Crooked Moon; glowing amulets, precious stones, and more besides.

Queek poked his claw into the pile. The vile, mouse-spleened, man-brained, troll-nosed traitor. It wasn’t just Grimnar; Skratch had sold him out to everyone!

His back straightened with pride. Only a great warlord such as Queek Headtaker could have so many enemies.

‘Yes-yes,’ gabbled Skratch, misreading the warlord’s intent. ‘Is yours. All you ask is yours.’

‘Great Queek does not ask! Great Queek takes!’ He grabbed the snivelling traitor by his neck and, in the same movement, swept the scout’s blade from where it had been dropped on the floor. ‘So die-die all traitor-things!’

With all his strength, Queek plunged the sword into the rat-man’s shoulder, forcing the blade through and into the stone wall beyond. With a dying moan, the handle snapped from the rusted weapon, pinning the weeping skaven where he hung.

Queek spun away, screeching. ‘So die-die all traitor-things!’

Lifting his gore-slicked muzzle from the swollen belly of the slayer, Ska shook his head to rid it of the lingering traces of blood frenzy. The three surviving stormvermin stood apart squabbling over the second slayer, not daring to challenge Ska’s claim to the heftier of the two dwarfs.

‘So die-die all traitor-things!’ Queek howled again.

Ska shrunk before the advancing warlord, scurrying away from the half-eaten dwarf, abandoning it as an offering to the Headtaker.

Warlord Queek towered above the carnage like a titan, his blood-spattered trophies swaying above his armoured shoulders like gnawed trees in a winter gale. He clenched one gauntlet into a fist, red eyes aglow with fierce pride as his other paw pointed to the pinioned traitor.

Ska followed the outstretched arm. Skratch still lived, his muzzle damp with tears, still professing his innocence in whispered words that even the Horned Rat himself might strain to hear.

‘Feast-feast on traitor-meat,’ Queek growled. The hungry stormvermin needed no further urging as they charged past the warlord, deaf to Skratch’s increasingly desolate screams.

Ska ran to join them, only to be held back, a scarlet gauntlet on his shoulder. He looked around and into the unholy gaze of Queek Headtaker. His legs turned weak and he fell unceremoniously to his knees.

‘Remember well its taste, Ska,’ Queek whispered, lowering his jaw to Ska’s level, his breath ripe with the stench of rotten meat.

Queek’s vision glazed for a moment, Ska seemingly momentarily forgotten as some other thing – some other voice – intruded upon his thoughts.

‘Yes-yes,’ the warlord murmured, ‘Queek tell him.’ A predatory grin played across his bloodied fangs as his attention returned. ‘Ska should listen to dead dwarf-thing. Halfhand know. He know the fate of those who cross Queek!’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Guymer is no stranger to the worlds of Warhammer, with exciting stories in Gotrek and Felix: The Anthology and Hammer and Bolter, and much more on the way. He is a freelance writer and occasional scientist based in the East Riding. When not writing, David can be found exorcising his disappointment at the gaming table and preparing for the ascension of the children of the Horned Rat.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Cheol Joo Lee

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ISBN 978-0-85787-797-0

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These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 You attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.