The End Times | The Rise of the Horned Rat

by Guy Haley

  ‘’Ere, boss,’ called someone. ‘I got a question.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Dazzle me with your piercing insight, Krugdok.’

  ‘Just where exactly are we going?’

  ‘And I remain undazzled,’ said Skarsnik with such sharp sarcasm you could have trimmed a troll’s nose hair with it. Besides Zargakk, not one of the goblins or orcs, excepting perhaps Kruggler – and then only perhaps – noticed. ‘To tell you the truth, and I really mean it this time…’ The goblins dutifully tittered. The orcs scowled. ‘…I haven’t got a bleedin’ clue.’

  And with those eternal words, the last king of Karak Eight Peaks turned from his kingdom for the final time, and trudged over the mountain shoulder. Ahead of him the lowering volcanic skies hid an uncertain future.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Twelve in One

  Thanquol splashed through shallow puddles on the walkway by the sewer channel. He had given up trying to keep his robes clean. They were roughly made anyway, not like the finery he was used to.

  ‘This not good-good,’ he grumbled. ‘Grey seers fall low, Thanquol lowest of all.’

  He scurried along, head constantly twitching to look behind him. He missed the comfort of Boneripper’s presence. He got more done when he wasn’t constantly watching his own back.

  Not very far over him were the warrens of the man-things, the city-place they called Nuln. He was here to take it for Clan Skryre, and things were not going very well at all.

  If he’d known how much the clan would expect of him, then he probably wouldn’t have thrown himself on their mercy.

  Probably.

  Not so long ago, Thanquol and his fellow seer Gribikk – how annoying to find him here too! No doubt he had already reported Thanquol’s presence back to Thaumkrittle – would have been in charge of the expedition, and it would all have been over some time ago. But it was Skribolt of Clan Skryre who was in charge, his large contingent of warlocks supposedly fighting alongside Clans Vrrtkin, Carrion, Kryxx and Gristlecrack. Naturally, the entire expedition was unravelling.

  It was all Skribolt’s fault, not his. The Great Warlock was a fine inventor, Thanquol could see that, but he lacked vision, and his strategies lacked scope. How was it Thanquol’s fault that Clan Vrrtkin and Clan Carrion had turned on each other? How was it his doing that they could not even take a warehouse full of gunpowder without fighting among themselves?

  Of course, he was being blamed. Poor Thanquol, once the darling of the Council, now a scapegoat for a tinker-rat of limited vision. He gnashed his teeth at the terrible injustice of it all. He was desperate. The plans to raid the man-thing’s city for gunpowder and a working steam engine had come to nought. The Council of Thirteen had made it very clear the mission would succeed, or heads would be forfeit. As things stood, that meant his head, and that would not do at all. The emissary from the Council had been quite specific, in a roundabout way. Thanquol still could not believe that the grey seers had fallen so far. The shame of having to explain himself for something that patently was not his fault made his ears burn. Worst of all, it had been a lowly warlock who had come all puffed up and guarded by the Council’s elite Albino Guard to deliver the ultimatum. That was a grey seer’s task.

  Skribolt was close to ridding himself of Thanquol. He was in league with Gribikk – it was the only explanation. They’d taken Boneripper from him not long afterwards, ostensibly for repairs, but Thanquol knew the truth of it. Another attack on the surface failed shortly afterwards, again due to the treachery of Clan Vrrtkin. Ordered to report his own ‘failure’ by farsqueaker, he had sabotaged the machine and fled to the sewers. The uprising was going wrong all over the Empire, and they couldn’t blame him for all of it. But they didn’t have to. He was at last resorts. He didn’t know whether to be more angry than afraid, or more afraid than angry. If this didn’t work…

  Thanquol reached the door he sought and glanced about himself, nose twitching with nerves. The bundle he carried mewled, and he shushed and patted at it. A splash sounded up the river of filth flowing sluggishly past him. He stayed deathly still, ears pricked for any sound, but nothing came to him but the steady drip of water, and a far-off rushing sound from where the sewer discharged into the river.

  He unfroze, tail moving first and then his whole body melting into nervy activity. With his free hand he drew forth the key for the door, stolen from the city sewerjacks many years ago.

  They hadn’t missed the key. The lock was so clogged with rust it was patently obvious no one had been here since his last visit. He had to place the squirming bundle on the floor to turn it. The squealing it made set his heart pumping and glands clenching. The door groaned louder still when he pushed it open. He paused again, holding his breath until he was satisfied.

  He scooped up the bundle and scurried in, pushing the door slowly to behind him.

  As he suspected, the chamber was undisturbed. The man-things definitely hadn’t been there, and he breathed a little easier. Cobwebs thick with dust festooned the domed ceiling. A lesser drain ran diagonally through the circular room, cutting off a third of it from the rest before disappearing through a culvert in the walls. Thanquol absently patted the bundle again, and set it down in the corner as far away from the stream of human waste as he could. To summon the verminlord, it was important his offering was as pure as possible.

  He flexed his right hand-paw. The grafting scar around his wrist itched. He held both of them, regarding their mismatched nature. ‘Gotrek!’ he hissed, recalling the moment his hated nemesis had severed the paw. He clapped his left hand over his muzzle. Who knew if the dwarf-thing were here, lurking in the shadows and ready to foil him yet again?

  Thanquol took a generous pinch of warpstone snuff to calm his nerves. His head pounded at the effect, his brain strained against his skull. His chest rose and fell expansively. His vision cleared, and he saw revealed the straining tendrils of magic crossing the room. So much of it in the world!

  Enough perhaps for success. His eyes narrowed, and he allowed himself his most diabolical chuckle.

  Thanquol set to work.

  First, he brushed as much dust away from the centre of the room with his foot-paws as he could, revealing the stone beneath. Though segments of the walls dripped with moisture, and filth ran through it, the room was otherwise wholesome, and surprisingly dry. With a shard of sharpened warpstone, he scratched out a double circle and filled the band between inner and outer layers with intricate symbols. He fought the urge to nibble on the warpstone shard, at least until he was done. When he had, he munched on the blunt end as he scrutinised his work. He nodded, and turned to the bundle.

  He unwrapped it quickly.

  ‘So ugly!’ he hissed. ‘Not like skaven pups. Come-come! You sing for Thanquol now.’

  Thanquol drew his knife and placed the squealing bundle in the centre of the circle.

  When he was done, Thanquol carefully dripped the blood into the gouges in the floor. His usual frenetic movement became measured as he carefully filled in each. This had to be done precisely. Messing it up didn’t bear thinking of. He whispered words of summoning under his breath, hoping it wouldn’t be like the last time, hoping that…

  Skarbrand…

  Do not think-recall the name! he told himself. It was probably still listening. He calmed himself, waited until the memories of the bloodthirster he’d accidentally called up the last time faded, then continued.

  He placed the pup’s remains and its bloodied rags outside the circle, and held up his hand-paws.

  Although his past efforts had ended in disaster, once more the white-furred sorcerer attempted to slice the veil between realms. Once more he attempted to bring forth a verminlord. He spoke-squeaked the words of power, calling upon the Horned Rat and the mightiest daemons of his court. Green fire crackled from his eyes and between his upraised paws.

  ‘Come-skit
ter! Join me in the realm of the mortal! I command you! I, Grey Seer Thanquol so squeak-say!’ he said. There was a blast of power and the fabric of reality rippled.

  He stood there exulted, hands still upraised. It was working!

  Nothing happened.

  He let his arms drop, and looked around. The room was unchanged. He was alone.

  Once more Thanquol had failed. This time, at least, he had not done so with the same disastrous consequences as his previous attempt. He groaned. His paws clenched.

  ‘Why-why?’ he said. The temptation was to storm out, destroy the circle, and find someone else to blame. But he could not. He was the one being blamed – entirely unjustly – by others. He had to succeed.

  Tail swishing, the grey seer paced out of the circle, careful not to scuff the marks. He went around and inspected them all.

  ‘Perfect! Perfect! They are all perfect! The Horned Rat himself could not have drawn them better. Why-why does it not work?!’ he squealed angrily. The bloody rags caught his eyes. Maybe two…?

  It was then that Thanquol perceived a shadowy hand reaching out of the blackness gathered in the chamber’s vaulted ceiling. The claws ripped through reality with a screech that sent pain running down his spine. The enormous hand headed unerringly for him. He found that he could not move, not even when the hand grabbed him by the ankles and lifted him upright, dangling him upside down as its owner stepped out of a black abyss of shadows. Remembering the fate of Kritislik, Thanquol liberally vented the musk of fear.

  But he was not consumed. The entity stepped through into the realm of the mortal, casually bestriding Thanquol’s protective circle. It examined him with curiosity, peering at him this way and that.

  Thanquol could do nothing but squeak in wide-eyed wonder. He had seen verminlords before, of course, but never anything like this. No horns had ever sprouted so majestically as the ones upon its head. Multiple sets curved and entwined the daemon’s face. They seemed to sinuously curve and move as Thanquol watched them. Beneath the horns one eye was missing. In its place was not an empty socket, but a warpshard, or if the angle was correct, a black hole of endless nothing. Thanquol’s head throbbed as he looked into it.

  ‘Ahhh, Thanquol, you took your time. Perhaps you are not so gifted as I thought?’ it purred. ‘I have waited for you to call me. Yes-yes, we have much to do.’

  ‘Who-what are you, O great master?’ shrilled Thanquol.

  The creature placed him gently alongside the channel. Only then did the grey seer notice that one of the verminlord’s foot-paws was in the drain. It did not sink into the river of filth but hovered above it.

  The ancient being stooped to Thanquol’s level.

  ‘Our name is Lord Skreech Verminking,’ said the verminlord. ‘There are many of us, and one.’ As he spoke, Thanquol saw before him – or perhaps he imagined it – the verminlord’s visage flicker, revealing many ghostly aspects that together somehow made the face the creature wore: the contagion-ridden body of a plague priest, the shadowy assassin, the hungry hordes, the tinkering weaponsmith, the future-gazing seer. ‘The ruins, the decay, they give me power. I was called here by blight and destruction. There is much in the world in this time, and it is good,’ it said, sniffing the air and craning its neck. ‘And by you, Thanquol.’

  Thanquol swallowed in awe. Could it be? The grey seers had long spoken in whispers of ‘the One’, a Rat King – a conglomerate evil. As mortal skaven had their hierarchies of clan, caste, and rank, so too did the verminlords above them. There was one, an entire Council of Thirteen elevated by the Horned Rat in the past to daemonhood as one creature. He was their ruler, the lord of the supposed Shadow Council of Thirteen. Had Thanquol really just summoned forth the most powerful of all verminlords? He had always known he was special, but this was pleasing confirmation. Pleasing indeed. He smiled.

  The grey seer looked up into that strange face staring back at, and possibly through, him. It seemed to have read his thoughts, for it looked down upon him indulgently, its enormous claw reaching out to ever so gently stroke his horns. ‘I am who you think I am, yes-yes, little seer. You have a purpose. I have need of your singular talents. Together we shall conquer.’

  Thanquol’s heart soared. With this creature at his side, none could stand before him! He couldn’t wait to see Skribolt’s face, or to smell him squirt the musk of fear.

  ‘Nuln-place first?’

  The verminlord nodded its head, pleased with the seer, or so it seemed to the conceited Thanquol. ‘And much more besides. We have many tasks ahead of us. But first, gifts!’

  Impossibly, a huge shape was in the corner of the room, half shadowed, like it had been there all the time and was patiently waiting for its cue. Thanquol’s eyes widened. The largest rat ogre he had ever seen stepped out of the shadows.

  Thanquol’s whiskers twitched with glee.

  ‘Many thanks-gratitudes for such beneficent generosities, O great and unplumbably wise Lord Verminking!’ Thanquol’s eyes narrowed, his imagination alive with much smashing and kill-slaying. ‘I shall call him Boneripper,’ he said.

  In the war council of the Nuln-place clawpack, all was not well. For hours the skaven assailing the city had hurled accusations at each other by the dimly flickering light of warp-braziers. The room the council occupied was a small one, built and forgotten by humans long ago, and pitifully insufficient in size to contain so many over-weaning egos.

  ‘I say-squeak you are a worthless weak-meat, and all Clan Vrrtkin are puny-small and shifty!’ squeaked Warlord Throttlespine of Clan Kryxx. He had drawn his sword and pointed it at Warlord Trikstab Gribnode of Clan Vrrtkin. ‘You are at fault for our lack of success, tricking and lying and attacking when we should fight together.’

  ‘Lies, lies! Not good lies either,’ squealed Gribnode. He pulled his own sword. The other members of the war council stood hurriedly from the table, upsetting their chairs. ‘All knows Thanquol-seer is weak link in rusty chain here, and you are next weakest, Throttlespine. Banish Thanquol, great and cunning Warlock Skribolt! Banish him, so we not have to suffer the stink of his slack musk-hole! It is this that foils our efforts! Then let us banish Throttlespine. He is in league with Thanquol! His cowardice too is legendary.’

  Throttlespine growled and jumped onto the table. ‘Coward, am I? I lead from the back of my ratkin as every true warrior should-must, whereas you, where are you? Skulking and hiding off the battlefield! You are to blame, and seek to smear my good-true name with ordure of failure. I am a loyal servant of the council!’

  ‘No, I am the loyallest servant of the council!’ retorted Gribnode.

  ‘Stop-cease, halt!’ squeaked Skribolt. ‘This is too much!’ Unable to get anyone to listen to him, he began to crank the handle of his warp-lightning generator.

  Throttlespine was tensed for a leap when the sound of fighting came from outside.

  ‘Stop-stop!’ squeaked a stormvermin beyond the door. ‘Many-much council leaders exercise deep and important thinkings. Go aw–’ The guard’s order was cut short. The sound of armoured bodies clattering off the walls took its place. A terrifying roar had them all looking at each other, and struggling to control their fear glands.

  A single blow felled the plank door so hard it hit the flagged floor with a bang like a cannon shot. On the other side was the largest rat ogre any of the council members had ever seen, even Grand Packmaster Paxrot of Clan Moulder, and he knew his rat ogres very well. The four-armed behemoth doubled over to squeeze its bulk through the doorway. Following the monster came Grey Seer Thanquol.

  ‘Thanquol?’ said Skribolt, his hand slowing on the warp-lightning crank, then speeding up again. ‘You are banished!’

  ‘Good-good, all still here? I bring news from the Council,’ said Thanquol, who was puffed up and obviously very pleased with himself.

  This proclamation was most stunning to Great Warlock Skribolt, whose
claw still churned the handcrank on his warp-energy generator. His muzzle twitched as he grasped for what to say.

  ‘Yes-yes, after so much incompetence,’ and here the grey seer paused to look at Skribolt, ‘I am to be in charge. Any disputes can be directed to my bodyguard, Boneripper.’ At this, Thanquol nodded at the hulking beast stood snarling behind him, surveying the gathering with hate-filled eyes.

  ‘But that is not…’ Skribolt started to say, but the grey seer cut him off.

  ‘My new bodyguard, Boneripper,’ said Thanquol. ‘The old one was mostly dead,’ he added dismissively. ‘This one better. Now that the element of surprise is gone-lost,’ Thanquol continued, ‘I feel it is time to switch tactics. My plan is to–’

  At last Skribolt found his tongue. ‘Enough! No more! Halt-stop!’ said the Great Warlock, the last words coming out perhaps more shrilly than he had wished. ‘On whose orders were you gift-granted authority? Why-tell was I not informed?’

  Skribolt was standing, lightning wreathing him as his whirring contraption sucked in the winds of magic. All the other skaven – warlords, a top assassin, and a master moulder – took a step backwards away from the two.

  When a voice spoke from the shadows all turned, finding a terrible sight. The blackness strained with life, and an awful shape moved there. Such was the power inherent in it that several of the lesser warlords let their musk glands loose.

  ‘On our authority, Great Warlock!’ said the shadow. The room went black, lit only by dancing chains of lightning. A long, elegant claw reached out, snuffing out the sparks between Skribolt’s backpack conductors. In the blackness a single terrifyingly evil eye radiated green over them, holding them each in its turn, leaving none in any doubt that his most treasured schemes had been exposed, digested and dismissed as the work of fools.