by Guy Haley
‘No! No!’ said Morskittar. ‘I will speak! I will speak!’ He slammed a skull carved of pure warpstone down onto the table. It banged like a cannon, the report buying him silence. ‘Why point-indicate me with paw of blame?’ said Morskittar slyly. ‘I say the grey seers are the ones who shoulder responsibility. Clan Scruten are those who bring everything to ruin.’ He pointed at Kritislik.
‘Yes-yes!’ chittered the others immediately, all of whom had their own reasons for loathing the priest-magicians. ‘The seers, Clan Scruten!’
‘Outrage! Outrage!’ squealed Kritislik. ‘I have led this council long ages-time! I led great summoning many breedings ago! I speak for the Horned Rat!’
‘You speak for yourself,’ said Paskrit the Vast, gruffly. Sensing weakness, he heaved his bulk up to face Kritislik on his footpaws. ‘You speak for Clan Scruten. Always scheming, always plotting. Always say do this, do that! Why is it Clan Mors find itself fighting Clan Rictus? Why Clan Skurvy lose half of thrall clans the day before sea-battle of Sartosa-place?’
‘Grey seer is why, Clan Scruten! Clan Scruten are to blame,’ croaked Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch.
They all shouted then, except for the inscrutable Nightlord Sneek, master of Clan Eshin, who watched it all with hooded eyes half hidden by his mask and no scent to betray his thoughts.
‘It is not our fault! Your incompetence and greed-grasping stops the obeying of our rightful orders! We are the horned rats. We are the chosen-best of the Great Horned One! You fight-fight, scrapping like common rat-things on human middens. Listen to us, or suffer,’ shouted Kritislik.
‘No! Lies-deceit. You pit us against one another when all we wish to do is work in harmony for the betterment of all skavenkind!’ said Lord Gnawdwell.
The others nodded solemnly. ‘Truth-word!’ they said. ‘We would conquer, but for you. Grey seers make us fight-fight!’ They would all happily have knifed each other in the back at the least provocation, whether a grey seer was pulling the strings or not. That the grey seers usually were pulling the strings complicated matters enormously.
The Council of Thirteen erupted into a cacophony of squeaked accusations. The scent of aggression grew strong.
The Shadow Lords looked on with growing disapproval.
‘See-see,’ said Verminking. ‘Great victories they have, and now they fall to fighting.’
‘They are what they are, and no more,’ said Vermalanx disinterestedly. ‘Children yet, but mastery shall come to them. Then true greatness we shall see-smell in due course. I care not for this – my Nurglitch’s plans are well advanced.’
‘Yes-yes,’ said Throxstraggle, Vermalanx’s ally and fellow plaguelord. ‘What care we for these pup squeakings?’
‘Your grave error to set aside Clan Pestilens from the doing-aims of the others. You are not apart from this, poxlords,’ said Verminking. ‘You and yours distance yourselves, but Clan Pestilens is nothing alone. You think-remember that.’
Vermalanx chirred angrily.
‘No mastery will come. They fail! They fail!’ spat Basqueak. ‘Fool-things! Squabbling while the world slips from their paws. Always the same, civil war comes again. Skavenblight will ring to the sound of blade on blade. Man-things and dwarf-things will recover, and skaven stay in the shadows. Always the same.’
‘Yes-yes,’ said Verminking. ‘They fail. But watch…’
In the mortal realm, Kritislik stood, waving a fist at the other Lords of Decay, admonishing them for their stupidity. From the look on his face, he thought it was working, for the others suddenly fell silent and shrank back in their seats, eyes wide. A few bared their throats in submission before they could catch themselves. Someone shamefully let spray the musk of fear. It hung heavy over the crowd, an accusation of cowardice.
Kritislik began to crow. The mightiest lords of Skavendom, and he had them in the palm of his paw. Now was his chance to stamp his authority all over this rabble again!
Or maybe not. Kritislik was so taken by his own oratory that he had completely failed to notice the shape growing behind him.
Black smoke jetted from the seat of the Horned Rat. The wisps of shadow built into a cloud that writhed and began to take the form of something huge and malevolent.
‘Ah! Now! Order, is good, yes! You listen-hear good, you…’ Kritislik stopped mid-sentence. His nose twitched. ‘You are not listening to me, are you? You do not hear-smell me good?’ he said. He was answered by eleven shaking heads, the owners of which were all trying to look inconspicuous.
He turned around to see a horned head forming from darkness more complete than that found in the deepest places of the world.
Kritislik threw himself to the floor in outright obeisance as the manifested Horned Rat opened eyes that flooded the room with sickly green light. Words of power rumbled from some other place, the voice underpinned by hideous chittering – the deathsqueaks of every rat and skaven ever to have drawn breath.
‘Children of the Horned Rat,’ he said, his voice as final as a tunnel collapse, ‘how you disappoint your father.’
‘O Great One! O Horned One! Once more I welcome you to the–’
‘No one summon-bids I, Kritislik. I come, I go, wherever I please. I have no master.’
‘I… I…’
‘You squabble pathetically. This will cease now. Your plans are sound, your alliances are not. I will not countenance another failure. Long have Clan Scruten had my blessing. I have given you my mark, great power, and long life.’ The head bore down on Kritislik, lips parting to show teeth made of crackling light. ‘You have wasted my favour.’
Without warning, a hand formed from the smoke, scrabbling as if seeking purchase on an unseen barrier. Fingers and claws pointed forwards. The air warped as the hand pushed against an unseen skin, then burst its way into common reality and reached down.
Kritislik squealed in terror as he was plucked from the floor by his tail. His fine robes dropped down to cover his head. The musk of fear sprayed without restraint, followed by a rich stream of droppings.
‘The others are right-correct, little Kritislik.’ A second hand reached out from the darkness, where now a muscular torso had also formed. A gentle claw-finger lifted the hem of Kritislik’s upended robes to reveal his petrified face, and stroked along his horns. ‘So much I have given you, and yet you scheme for more. Greedy, when there is enough for all to feast upon. Your avarice stops now.’
The mouth of the Horned Rat gaped wide. Kritislik was hoisted high by the tail over a maw swirling with terrible possibilities. Kritislik stared down and gibbered at what he saw there.
‘M-mercy! M-mercy, O Great One! We will double our efforts! Triple them! Quadrupl–’ His pleas ended in a scream as his tail was released. The grey seer fell into the eternally hungry mouth of his god. The Horned Rat’s jaws snapped shut. His eyes closed with pleasure, and when he opened them again they burned with a cold and terrible light.
‘Thirteen times thirteen passes of the Chaos moon I will give you. Thirteen times thirteen moons I will wait. Go to your legions and your workshops! Bring me victory. Bring me dominance over this mortal realm! You must be as one, work as one, as single-minded as a swarm pouring from a cracked sewer-pipe – all rats scurry-flood in same direction. Only then will you inherit the ruins of this world, only then will you rule. Thirteen times thirteen moons! Fail, and all will suffer the fate of the seer.’
With a crackle of green lightning and the tolling of a bell so loud the room quaked, the Horned Rat vanished. Kritislik’s bones lay black and smoking upon the floor.
The tolling bell faded and stopped. The Lords of Decay uncovered their ears, picked themselves up off the floor and sniffed the air.
The ensuing silence lasted for all of fifteen swift skaven heartbeats.
‘I move,’ said Morskittar, swallowing to moisten his dry throat, ‘to vote the grey seers from the Council.
Clan Scruten will sit-rule no more!’
For only the fourth time in skaven history, a vote was passed unanimously. As soon as it was done, the clanlords immediately fell to arguing again: over what to do, and more importantly, over who should occupy the empty seat.
In the Realm of Ruin, the twelve Shadow Lords of Decay managed a shocked silence for a little longer.
Skweevritch broke it. ‘But the Great Horned One has not gone abroad in the mortal realm for many-many years. Centuries!’ he wailed.
‘What-what? What?’ squealed Soothgnawer, white-furred as the unfortunate Kritislik. He was the champion of Clan Scruten and was dismayed, but he did not voice his objections too loudly in case the Horned Rat became aware of them. ‘No seer on the Council? No seer? Unthinkable.’
‘And what of us, what do we do?’ said Skrolvex. They all glanced nervously at the throne, in case their god should pay them a visit also. The Horned Rat’s appetite was notoriously insatiable.
Verminking spoke, cunningly and persuasively. ‘Pups need guidance. Who becomes slave, who becomes lord. The strongest decides. The Horned Rat! The Great Horned One has shown us the way. Is it not clear? We must follow his example. We must go to them, into the mortal realm. We will guide them.’ He pointed at the bickering mortal skaven.
Lord Basqueak twitched. ‘Mortal realm? We are vulnerable there! Danger! Much peril.’ His tail twitched.
They were all immortal, chosen of the Horned Rat. And yet certain rules applied to them, as they did to all inhabitants of the higher realms. To suffer death and banishment for a hundred years and a day back into the Realm of Chaos was not a terminal experience, but their places on the Shadow Council would be forfeit, and no verminlord could countenance such a loss of power.
‘Coward!’ squealed Kreeskuttle. He stood tall with a rattle of armour. Kreeskuttle was the mightiest of arm upon the Council, if not of intellect.
Basqueak hissed, jutting his head forwards. ‘Then you, Lord Kreeskuttle, shall go to the mortal lands and take the risk! Show-tell how brave you are.’
Kreeskuttle growled, and sank back into his chair.
‘I will go,’ said Vermalanx arrogantly. ‘I have no fear. I will go to the land of the frog-things, there to guide the great plagues.’
‘Yes! Go-go!’ burbled Throxstraggle enthusiastically, notably making no promise of his own to follow.
‘I too,’ said Soothgnawer. ‘It wrong-bad no seer sits on the Council. I will help them win their place again. We must atone for our sins against the Horned Rat.’
They eyed each other with quick, suspicious eyes. Plots were forming, plans being drawn up. No doubt others would go without declaring their intentions. Outrageous risk for ephemeral gain wobbled yet again on the balance of the skaven soul.
‘Soothgnawer is right,’ said Verminking. ‘The grey seers hold the key.’
The mist over the pool shivered, clearing away the bickering lords of the mortal skaven. The image wavered, and a narrow alleyway materialised, one of thousands within the crammed confines of Skavenblight. Noses twitched, teeth bared. The verminlords recognised it instinctively, although it changed daily. The home of all skaven.
‘Here-here, valued lords. Here-here is our weapon!’ said Verminking.
A white-furred figure scuttled along, constantly looking over his shoulder. A massive rat ogre paced along beside him, taking one step for every fifteen of the grey seer’s.
‘Is that…’ asked Vermalanx.
‘It isn’t…’ said Kreeskuttle.
‘It is!’ gasped Basqueak.
‘Thanquol!’ squeaked Poxparl.
‘Why him-him?’ said Grunsqueel, moved finally to speak. ‘He is useless! Great power has been gifted-given to this horned one, and what has he done? He has squandered-wasted it. Of all of them, he is by far the worst.’
‘Used it no good.’
‘True-true. How many times has Thanquol, great grey seer, failed us?’ said Lurklox. ‘The Horned Rat should eat him too!’
‘Many-many times!’ chittered the others. ‘Failure! Liability!’
‘See-watch, how weak he is! He goes always tail down, the musk of fear never far from squirting. He is weak. Excuses, excuses and never success,’ said Basqueak.
‘He is a coward!’ said Skweevritch, which was a little rich, as he was no hero himself.
‘Fool-fool. The dwarf-thing and man-thing have thwarted him alone many-many times!’ said Kreeskuttle.
‘The disaster at Nuln.’
‘The shame of his failed summoning!’ said Basqueak. The others nodded in emphatic agreement. More than one of them had been ready to step into the mortal world that day, only for Thanquol to botch it.
Verminking held up a hand-claw and hissed. ‘He is all these things and more. Failure! Dreg! It is in part because of him no grey seer sits upon the Council in the world below.’
‘Failure!’ the others squeaked.
‘Fool-fool! He should be destroyed-killed, not aided,’ said Throxstraggle.
‘Yes, failure. Yes, fool-fool. But in him is our greatest tool.’
‘What-what?’
‘Lord Skreech squeaks madness,’ said Verstirix. The warrior verminlord puffed up his chest. ‘Enough! Veto right is mine.’
‘Do you challenge us, the greatest of our number?’ said Verminking.
Verstirix looked to his colleagues for support; they pointedly looked away.
‘Grey Seer Thanquol has much service to render. Yes-yes,’ said Soothgnawer.
‘Too much faith you have in him,’ said Basqueak. ‘Fool-thing, Throxstraggle is correct. We should slay-kill very slowly. Then find another.’
Verminking stroked the surface of the foetid pool, his long black claw sending ripples across its surface and the image shimmering above it. ‘No-no. It is he, it is he.’
‘Who make you decide-determine? Vote! Vote!’ screeched Verstirix.
‘Yes, vote-vote. Ten against two. You lose, Soothgnawer, Skreech,’ bubbled Vermalanx.
‘Not two against ten, not that at all. You count bad.’
‘Two! Two! I see only two, fool-things!’
‘Three against ten,’ said Verminking quietly. He looked meaningfully at the Horned Rat’s throne. It could have been a trick of the light, but it appeared that the warpstone eyes of the effigy atop it glowed more brightly.
A silence fell over the Council. Tails twitched. Beady eyes darted beneath horns that shook, just a little, with fear.
‘I say,’ said Poxparl calculatingly, ‘that we give Thanquol another chance. Mighty Lord Skreech has moved-touched my heart.’
‘Yes-yes,’ squeaked Basqueak very loudly, talking directly towards the vacant throne. ‘I vote yes-yes.’
‘I too,’ said Throxstraggle.
‘If it is so, it is so,’ muttered Vermalanx.
One by one, the verminlords voted. The motion was passed by a narrow margin – there had never yet been a unanimous vote on the Shadow Council. Verminking looked to Verstirix, challenging him to use his veto. The ex-warlord looked at the empty throne, then found something on the surface of the table that needed his urgent attention.
‘It is done, then,’ said Lord Skreech Verminking triumphantly. ‘Let us rip the veil between worlds. Let us stalk mortal lands again! Skitter-disperse, go to your favourites.’ He peered hungrily into the pool. ‘Go where you will, as quickly as you can. We shall go to Thanquol.’
Thanquol’s nose twitched, his famous sixth sense giving him the itchy feeling that he was being watched. He looked around the stinking alley, into crooked windows, along the skyline, black against the foggy night, into alleyways where sagging duckboards crossed open sewers. He saw no threat, but shivered nonetheless. His musk gland clenched.
‘Sssss! Jumping-fear at own shadow! At own shadow!’ he scolded himself. He jerked an angry paw at
his bodyguard. ‘Boneripper, on-on!’
And so, unknowing of the attention focused upon him at that moment, Thanquol continued with his furtive passage through Skavenblight.
ONE
Kingsmeet
The kingsmeet was over, and Belegar was glad. Soon he could go home.
The dwarf kings met in Karaz-a-Karak, Everpeak, home of the dwarf High King. Everpeak was the last place in the world where the ancient glory of the dwarfs shone undimmed. No matter that only half its halls were occupied, or that the works of its forges could never recapture the skill of the ancestors. The place teemed with dwarfs in such multitudes that one could be forgiven for thinking that they were still a numerous people.
Being there made Belegar miserable. In the distant past his own realm had been Karaz-a-Karak’s rival in riches and size. His inability to return it to glory filled him with shame.
He sat in an antechamber awaiting the High King, nursing a jewelled goblet of fine ale. He had been born and raised in Karaz-a-Karak, but half a century of dwelling in the dangerous ruins of Vala-Azrilungol had blunted his memory of its riches. The opulence on display was astounding – more value in gold and artefacts in this one, small waiting room than were in his own throne room. He felt decidedly shabby, as he had done all the way through the kingsmeet. Two months hard travelling and fighting to get here. He had to sneak out of his own hold, and he would have to sneak back in. Now here he was, kept behind like a naughty beardling after all the other kings had been sent to feast. Nothing Thorgrim would have to say to him would be good. The two of them had ceased to see eye to eye some time ago. Belegar steeled himself for another long rant about failed obligations and unpaid debt.
He rolled his eyes. What had he been thinking, telling the others he occupied a third of Karak Eight Peaks? From a strictly technical point of view, it could be deemed truthful. He had opened up mines, captured a good part of the upper deeps, and held a strong corridor between the surface city and the East Gate. But in reality his holdings were far less. The East Gate itself, the citadel, the mountain halls of Kvinn-wyr. Everything else had to be visited in strength. And he had promised military aid. With what?
