by David Guymer
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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