The End Times | The Rise of the Horned Rat

by Guy Haley

  ‘Serves ’em right for being so tall,’ he said.

  The Axes of Norr hurled back the charge. The remaining ogres broke and fled. The dwarfs let out a small cheer from tired throats.

  ‘I’d kill for some ale right now,’ said Borrik.

  ‘You are killing,’ said Gromley, ‘but I don’t see any ale at the end of this.’

  ‘There might have been more, if the rats hadn’t done for poor old Yorrik,’ said Grunnir. ‘Oh, look at that, they got Albok.’

  ‘Grungni curse those treacherous ogres,’ spat Gromley.

  Albok lay dead, his head open from the crown to his nose, his brains glistening inside his broken helmet. Four Axes of Norr remained standing.

  Insane tittering came at them. A pair of fanatics spun into view. Two shots rang out, and both goblins fell with smoking holes between their eyes. Borrik looked up to see Durggan blowing the smoke from his pistols.

  ‘Aye, good lad, Albok,’ said Borrik. He lifted his shield. Every sinew and muscle twanged with fatigue. There wasn’t much more to say to it than that. They’d grieve properly later, if there was a later.

  Goblins milled about just out of grapeshot range, the corpses of the three previous failed charges buried now under dead ogres. ‘That’s right,’ said Gromley. ‘You stay down there.’

  ‘Hang on, lads, this might be us,’ said Grunnir.

  Golgfag was marching up the hill, his maneaters behind him.

  ‘They’re a mean crew and no mistake,’ said Gromley.

  Borrik looked down his meagre line of clansmen, four Axes, three Forgefuries. Where had they all gone? He remembered a time when the Norrgrimlings had been a large and prosperous clan. He was going to have a lot of explaining to do when he got to the Halls of the Ancestors. ‘Grunnir, Gromley, Uli, Fregar, Tordrek, Gurt, Vituk… I’d say it’s been an honour…’

  ‘Not living, breathing and fighting with this lot of grumbaki!’ said Grunnir.

  ‘Hush! The time for jesting’s done.’ He gave Grunnir one of his sterner looks. ‘It’s been more than an honour,’ continued Borrik. ‘A lot more. I could say more, I could wax lyrical, but you know what I mean. We’re dawi, aren’t we? I’m not an elf to collapse into tears and give everyone a cuddle.’

  ‘Dawr spoken,’ said Gromley.

  Golgfag’s ogres were breaking into a charge.

  ‘Norrgrimling khazuk! Khazuk-ha!’ Borrik said. His warriors repeated the words. He wondered what each was thinking here, at the last stand of the Axes of Norr.

  He supposed it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they stood by him until the end.

  Durggan was lining the cannons up to get one last shot on the ogres. One of his crew let out a cry and fell, a black-fletched grobi arrow sticking from his throat. Another died, slumping over the gun with a warpstone bullet embedded in his chest.

  ‘Keep it up! Keep it up!’ barked Durggan. ‘We’ll not fall without one last blast, eh, lads?’ He helped the remaining crewman of the cannon to line up the barrel. The second was ready, the last dwarf of its crew grasping the firing string, but Golgfag raised a pistol as big as a dwarf handgun and blasted him off his feet. As he was thrown backwards, the dwarf jerked the cord. An ogre took the ball to his gutplate, sinking to his knees with blood gushing around his hands. The other ogres hurled themselves into the Norrgrimlings. Golgfag singled out the thane, and attacked.

  As proud and skilful a warrior as Borrik was, he could not stand against the Maneater. Golgfag quickly put him down with a punishing blow to the head. Through blurring vision, Borrik saw his remaining clans-dwarfs smashed down, barged off balance by fat stomachs, then bludgeoned by umgi-high clubs.

  The maneaters wheeled and went for the cannon. Durggan, working on his own now, struggled to get the last piece aligned.

  ‘Not today, stunty,’ said Golgfag. He drew another pistol and blew out Durggan’s guts with it. So died the chief engineer of Karak Eight Peaks.

  The ogres halted. There were none left alive on the high ground except Borrik. He couldn’t move.

  ‘Look at this lot,’ said Golgfag waving his giant hand out over the battlefield. ‘This is madness! Nobody’s going to win this. Stunties in the north-east, skaven to the south, gobboes in the middle. It don’t make sense.’

  ‘They are not soldiers, not like we are, captain,’ said one ogre, almost as massive as his master and dressed in outsized Imperial finery.

  ‘What now, Captain Golgfag?’ said another.

  ‘I reckon we’re done here. Fulfilled our side of the contract. We’re never going to see that dwarf king’s gold if we stick around for the end of this mess. It don’t matter whose side we’re on. Besides, I got a healthy down payment.’ He patted a bulging pouch at his side. A gold object was poking out of it. Even through his near insensibility, Borrik recognised the crown of Vala-Azrilungol, lost for ages. He added that to his growing mental list of grudges.

  ‘Kulak, shout the withdrawal. We’re leaving.’

  ‘Captain! What about that one? He’s still alive,’ said someone Borrik couldn’t see.

  Golgfag swung around and looked right at Borrik. The ogre chief walked towards him, his boots filling Borrik’s vision. A rough hand grabbed his mail and rolled him over. Borrik found himself staring into the lumpen face of the world’s foremost mercenary captain.

  ‘Tough little buggers, your lot,’ said Golgfag. ‘I really hate fighting dwarfs. You take ages to kill. All that armour! Haha! Ha!’ he laughed, as if to include Borrik in his joke. A gale of halitosis swept over Borrik, rank with poorly cooked meat. ‘It ain’t nothing personal, stunty. Business is business.’ Golgfag patted Borrik’s chest with a massive hand.

  ‘The lads are coming, captain,’ said the finely dressed maneater.

  ‘Right then,’ said Golgfag, looking away. ‘West tunnel, third in. Looks very badly guarded. We’ll fight our way out that way. Any objections?’

  None came.

  ‘Good.’ Golgfag hitched his trousers into a more comfortable position and stood, his gut obscuring Borrik’s view of his face.

  ‘What about him?’ said an ogre. ‘You not going to kill him?’

  ‘The stunty? Nah,’ said Golgfag, leering down at Borrik. ‘It’s your lucky day, shorty. Like I said, I’ve fulfilled my part of the contract. I’ve finished here.’

  The ogres left Borrik lying in the shattered remnants of his clan.

  If I ever get out of this alive, he thought, I’m donating my entire treasury to the priesthood of Valaya, and then I’m taking the Slayer oath.

  Queek butchered goblins by the score. Spears of wood and toughened mushroom stalk shattered under the blows of his weapons. He snarled and spat as he slew them, squeaking in frustration as his blades became fouled in their filthy robes. He was attempting to reach the hated imp, Skarsnik, the so-called king. But for every goblin he slew, there seemed to be a dozen more. They tried to retreat from him, and wisely, but could not for they were packed into the hall so tightly. The dwarf artillery had been silenced, but Skarsnik was still blasting skaven and dwarf-things alike with impunity with the prodder. Queek had witnessed Skarsnik’s magical trident at work many times in the past, but never like this. It glowed with green light so bright it was nearly white. The glare of it left painful after-images streaking across his vision. The energy bolts it threw seemed many times more powerful, and more numerous, than ever before.

  ‘Let me pass! Get out of Queek’s way!’ shouted Queek at a group of skaven who found themselves in his path. They were lowly clanrats, scared beyond comprehension. They stared at him stupidly as he yelled at them to move. They did not, so he cut them down where they stood. Skarsnik was now only one hundred and fifty scurries from him. The goblin had seen him and was gesticulating obscenely. A bolt of green light came after his gestures, singeing Queek’s whiskers as he threw himself out of the way.

&nb
sp; ‘You wait-wait, green-thing. Today you die-die!’

  Queek leapt onto a pile of rubble, and from there threw himself into the melee swirling around its base. He cleared himself a space, slaughtering combatants from both sides. An ogre was close, isolated from his fellows a few yards further on. Queek launched himself at it, slamming his pick’s spike into the creature’s forehead. He used this to arrest his leap – curving over the ogre’s back, he yanked Dwarf Gouger out in a spray of blood and brains. Landing nimbly, he found himself alone on bare rock, as skaven, goblins and the ogre’s comrades fled from him.

  The way to Skarsnik was clear.

  Queek gathered himself for another leap, tittering evilly.

  The ground shook. Light blasted around him and he fell to the floor, Dwarf Gouger clattering from his grasp. His ears rang from the blast. When he looked up, goblin and skaven corpses smoked all around him.

  At first he thought he had been hit by Skarsnik, but the goblin was gone from his rock pile. Away to the right of where Skarsnik had capered, Queek caught a glimpse of pale grey fur, almost white.

  ‘White-fur!’ hissed Queek. ‘You pay for this with your head!’

  Kranskritt rose from a tunnel in the centre of the cavern, arcane power crackling around him, and came to rest on the side of a toppled pillar. He snarled imperiously and flung out one hand-paw. The ground rumbled. Fissures opened like hungry mouths, swallowing creatures of all kinds indiscriminately. Queek started, meaning to run-scurry at the white-fur and strike him dead. But there was something else with him, a shadow behind him, half hidden by the black glare of Kranskritt’s magic.

  Verminlord. Queek snarled. At first he thought it the same one as had come to him, but it was not. The horns were different, for one, and it was less hidden in the shadows than the other.

  ‘Two verminlords in the City of Pillars?’ he whispered to himself, ill at ease. ‘Unprecedented.’

  The ground shook regularly as Kranskritt and his master – for the verminlord was almost certainly the weak-willed sorcerer’s ruler – unleashed a storm of earthquakes, sending even the agile Queek staggering. Snarling, he ran towards Kranskritt.

  ‘Fool-fool! Stop-stop!’ shouted Queek.

  To his surprise, Kranskritt heard him and looked down. An expression of pure, malicious calculation crossed his face. His hands rose. Queek tensed, ready to dodge. His warpstone amulet pulsed with protective magics.

  The moment passed and Kranskritt performed a deep bow. One without any sign of submission, the sort of acknowledgement given to an equal! Kranskritt was getting too confident. Another reason to kill him.

  ‘Do not despair, mighty Queek!’ the sorcerer shouted over the noise of his patron’s continuing magical barrage. ‘I came from my hunt in the mountains as quick-quick as I could. Clan Scruten will aid mighty Queek and save the day from green-thing treachery!’

  The verminlord loomed over Kranskritt. The grey seer’s tail swished easily, given confidence by the proximity of the daemon. Queek snarled. His mind worked fast. If he killed Kranskritt now, it would be in front of everyone at a time when the sorcerer was helping turn the battle. Furthermore, he had a verminlord stood right behind him. Queek fleetingly considered matching his blades against it, but wisely decided not to.

  He shouted instead. ‘Fool weak-meat! You send the green-imp scurrying away from mighty Queek’s blade! You will pay for this!’

  ‘And mighty Queek was doing so well without me,’ said Kranskritt sarcastically. ‘See! The goblin tunnels collapse. They are trapped! You win-win, mighty Queek. You are correct – I should be paid for this. I should be paid many-much warptokens, not with unkind bite of steel.’

  Queek bared his fangs and held his serrated sword up in challenge to the seer. Then with a swift turn he sprang away, seeking others to vent his anger upon.

  He would kill Kranskritt later. He promised himself that he would.

  A great tremor ran through the ground as the skaven daemon and his pet sorcerer unleashed another earthquake. The goblins’ tunnels fell in, opening long trenches in the floor. Warriors from all sides fell into the gaping pits.

  Belegar’s plans were in tatters.

  ‘A thousand times a thousand curses on Golgfag and his honourless ogres,’ said one of his bodyguards.

  ‘Yes,’ said Belegar absently. He watched the skaven sorcerer. He was troubled anew. Daemons were abroad in Vala-Azrilungol.

  ‘They are ogres. It was a gamble, a poor roll of the dice, no more, my lord,’ said another.

  Belegar shook with anger. ‘It’s not that. I don’t understand,’ said Belegar. ‘How did Skarsnik know? How did he speak with them?’

  Behind his back, the hammerers shared glances. This was an oft-repeated story: bold King Belegar outwitted by a goblin.

  The abomination was finally dead, for good this time, but the price had been high. The crushed corpse of Brok Gandsson leaked its life-fluids onto the bare rock, pinned under the bulk of the twice-living monster. Only thirty or so of Belegar’s elite hammerers remained.

  Belegar looked at the disaster unfolding in the hall. Durggan’s battery was shattered; all his men and those set to guard him were dead. The sorry remnants of the flank the artillery had anchored were surrounded on all sides, cut off and beyond hope. The horns sounded the retreat time and again, but many of the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks were mired in battle with one faction or the other and could not retreat. Either that or they had fallen into all-consuming fits of hatred, desperate to bury their axes in their despised foes. These dawi had lost all reason and did not heed the signals. Worst of all, the path to the doors of Clan Skalfdon was thick with goblins.

  ‘Sire, sire!’ said a familiar voice.

  ‘Drakki?’ Belegar said flatly. ‘Why aren’t you with the rearguard, recording our…’ He wanted to say defeat, he should have said defeat, but somehow he couldn’t. He was bone weary, not merely from today, but from fifty years of chasing an impossible dream. Defeat was too big a word to fit into his mouth.

  ‘The rearguard are with you, my king. The lines have collapsed. We have been pushed together.’ He gestured at the shrinking knot of dwarfs, units fighting back to back. ‘Bold dawi await your command, my king.’

  Belegar was dazed. ‘I…’

  Drakki grabbed the king’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Do something,’ he whispered.

  It was thanks to the mercy of Valaya, Belegar supposed, that the ogres were leaving the hall, killing anyone of whatever army who got in their way. He blinked. The fuddle of emotion clouding his mind receded.

  ‘Blow the charges,’ he said.

  ‘My king?’ said Drakki.

  ‘I said, blow the charges,’ Belegar repeated, more clearly. He hefted his hammer. His warriors breathed easier seeing their lord return to them.

  ‘Are you sure this is wise?’ said Drakki.

  ‘No. But they are rigged to collapse the hall to the south. If Durggan did his work well – and when did he ever not? – we should be able to retreat through the gate.’

  ‘Dawi of Karak Eight Peaks! Dawi of Vala-Azrilungol that was! To arms to arms! Make for the gate!’ called their thanes.

  Horns blew loudly. The dwarfs checked their aggression, forming up into squares and blocks.

  ‘Do it now,’ said Belegar.

  A complex tune played from the Golden Horn of the Iron Brotherhood.

  ‘To the fore! To the fore!’ shouted Belegar’s clan lords.

  The dwarfs, now in a broad column, lurched like a train of ore carts beginning their journey. Slowly they gained traction, and then they were away, axes and hammers falling, carving a red path through thaggoraki and grobi alike towards the great doors of Clan Skalfdon.

  Three minutes later, long fuses burned their way to the charges hidden around the bases of the pillars to the southern end of the hall. Twelve explosions followed one a
nother quickly, their reports amplified to deafening levels by the enclosed space.

  The pillars ground on shattered bases. Broken at top and bottom, they tumbled with apparent slowness, an illusion created by their great size and weight. They broke into many pieces as their toppling accelerated, falling on the hordes of Belegar’s enemies as effectively as bombs and bringing torrents of stone from the ceiling with them, killing hundreds more.

  The dwarfs fought on, too occupied to pay much attention to the roof falling in behind them. The collective scream of skaven and goblins being crushed chilled even boiling dwarf blood.

  ‘My king,’ shouted Drakki. He pointed upwards. Belegar followed his arthritis-knobbed finger to the ceiling. ‘Something has gone wrong!’

  A crack was opening across the sky of stone, dislodging glimstones that had shone for five thousand years. The fissure spread with ominous leisure, slowly, as if it were sentient, and choosing for itself the most devastating route. Stones rattled down on the column of embattled dwarfs.

  Shouts rose from along the force’s length ‘Ware! Ware! Cave-in!’

  The dwarfs raised their shields over their heads, as the roots of the world fell in upon them.

  SIXTEEN

  Queen Kemma’s Oath

  ‘Tor Rudrum is gone, vala,’ said Gromvarl.

  Queen Kemma set down her riveting pliers and sagged over her metalwork. She did nothing but thread mail links to one another all day every day, because there was nothing else for her to do. Belegar would not let her out, nor would he see her.

  ‘We are trapped, then,’ she said.

  ‘Aye, lass,’ said Gromvarl. He reached out awkwardly to pat her back. ‘That’s about the size of it. A flight of gyrocopters came in yesterday.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Only one got through, Kemma,’ he said gently. ‘The rest were shot down by the thaggoraki. They’ve overrun all the peaks, those that are not in the hands of the grobi, at any rate.’