The End Times | The Rise of the Horned Rat

by Guy Haley

  The priest nodded to the other Slayers to begin.

  ‘And now Grimnir demands his due.’

  ‘It was for your own good,’ Durin growled over the low murmur of grim talk that permeated the pipe smoke of the Khaza Drengi. He glared straight down into the iron jug of ale that he circled with his hands. Red ink picked out the tendons and black emphasised the shadow. It was as though a daemon of blood and bone sought to crush that tankard with its bare hands.

  The Daemonslayer did not drink and Snorri regarded both him and the dwarf’s ale with equal glumness. Tentatively, he ran a hand across his head. His fingers brushed piggish grey bristle, and he winced as they passed over the scabbed-up punctures where his crest had been ripped out. It hurt as though he had jumped prematurely from a gyrocopter and been scalped by the spinning blades. He glared at Durin, dunking his little finger into the mug of water in front of him and withdrawing it for inspection. His expression soured.

  Snorri was not feeling especially forgiving just now.

  At low-slung tables all around the hall, Slayers sat hunched, locked in conversation over the great battles being fought all over the Old World and drinking with the determination of those for whom tomorrow was an unasked-for concern. The tables were packed and half a dozen dwarfs stood with beers resting on the bar, trading boasts with the bar-dwarf for the day, a leather-faced old Slayer named Drogun in an ill-fitting white apron. At the other end of the bar, a sullen slab of dwarf called Brock Baldursson dished up meat paste and potatoes from a steaming pot. The hall was busier than Snorri had seen it all year and was filled with unfamiliar faces.

  It was a sign of the times that Khaza Drengi was the last hall in Karak Kadrin to house more dwarfs than it had been designed to accommodate.

  Two tables over, a pair of dwarfs built like battlements wrestled arms across the table. Snorri recognised one of them. Krakki Ironhame roared merrily, a large pie in one hand, as he nonchalantly inched his opponent’s fist towards the tabletop. The Slayer’s girth was mammoth, even for a dwarf, and his hair, a natural fiery red, produced a fat, undyed crest. The day the dwarf arrived from Karak Hirn on his way north, Snorri had broken his knuckles on that same ‘lucky’ table. They seemed to be better now, but Krakki did not appear to have got any nearer to Kislev.

  Snorri turned back to Durin. The dwarf had still to touch his drink. It made Snorri angry just thinking about it going to waste.

  ‘If you choose to dislike me, Snorri, I will understand. But I am trying to help you.’

  Snorri scowled into his mug. ‘Tell Snorri again why he can’t have a beer too.’

  ‘Because Skalf would not untie you until you vowed to renounce it, remember?’

  Every word from the Daemonslayer’s mouth sounded blank, emptiness coloured only by the dimmest grey of regret. It was impossible to hate a dwarf that sounded like that. It would be like trying to hate the dark. Snorri rubbed his head ruefully, and then his throat. He could not remember the last time he had been completely sober, but then that had always been the point. Some dwarfs got philosophical when they drank, others belligerent, but not Snorri. It made him numb and that was how he liked it. He shook his head, scratched the grey boar-bristles across his scalp as if he could scour his thoughts from his mind. Then, into that induced emptiness, popped an unrelated thought. He brightened immediately.

  ‘Snorri remembers a human tavern called the Emperor’s Griffon. Human beer doesn’t count, does it?’

  ‘It is still beer.’

  ‘So they say,’ Snorri grumbled.

  The idea of never having another beer made his throat ache like the Arabyan desert, but forever was too big for him to deal with then and there. He wanted a drink now. He glared sulkily over the hard-drinking Slayers. If he could not drink then there was always the possibility of getting hit. The world was an ugly and unjust mistress and always looked better after it had knocked Snorri about the head a few times. Cheered by the prospect, he appraised the Khaza Drengi with a fresh eye. Brock Baldursson had the hard look of an old fighter, and Snorri had once seen Krakki punch out a priest of Grimnir with a set of freshly broken knuckles, but the rest were a disappointing bunch of scrawny-looking shortbeards that Snorri would not bet on in a fight with a goblin. He sighed.

  ‘Snorri hopes he finds his doom very soon.’

  Durin lowered himself to the table until he dropped into Snorri’s eye line. ‘I hope that for us both. I have sworn before the Shrine of Grimnir that you will find a worthy end.’

  Snorri stared acidly at the other Slayer. He was not getting off that easily, not after he had stolen Snorri’s nails and would not even let him have one beer to make up for it. ‘Does that make you Snorri’s rememberer then? Because Snorri doesn’t need a rememberer.’

  The Daemonslayer sat back and picked up his tankard as if considering his words with the care of a gemcutter over a rare stone. He took a sip, swallowing as if it might be his last. Snorri watched every twitch as it went down his throat.

  ‘I am not your rememberer, Snorri, though clearly you need one more than most. I am just a dwarf with a debt.’

  Intrigued now despite a stubborn will not to be, Snorri waded into the murky stew of his memory. He had journeyed with many fellow Slayers in his time, but most had already beaten him to their ends. Rodi Balkisson, although the details of it were hazy, had been slain by Krell at Castle Reikguard while his other recent companion Agrin Crownforger had fallen in battle with an entire beastman herd. Grudi Halfhand had taken the orc that had shamed him to a worthy end at the bottom of an ale barrel. Further back, memories became sharper and came quicker. Bjorni Bjornisson, the selfish bastard, had been cut down by that Chaos warlord during the siege of Praag, cheating both Gotrek and Snorri of mighty dooms while he was at it. Ulli Ullisson had fallen earlier that day. He thought back further. Grimme had been as sour as this Slayer, but the red tattoos and air of horror that clung to this one were wholly different. In any case, Snorri distinctly recalled Grimme being incinerated by a dragon, just moments before that dragon had gone on to crush another Slayer, Steg. Snorri chuckled. That one had made Snorri laugh.

  It had been a good death. They all had. He sighed.

  But not for Snorri.

  ‘I am not surprised you do not remember me,’ said Durin. ‘And not just because of your problem.’ For a moment, the dwarf’s gaze was distant. His eyes seemed to widen, sinking into the black-inked pits of their sockets. He swirled his ale. ‘There were many of us that you and your companions rescued from Karag Dum that day.’

  Durin looked up to find Snorri staring intently at his face. The daemon’s face he wore twisted into the first smile Snorri had seen on it. It was not, he decided, something he wanted to see again sober.

  ‘The face of the Destroyer,’ said Durin. ‘Like you, it is difficult for me to remember. Like you, I must make myself if I am to follow my true path. How long before that which befell Karag Dum is the fate of all? The Chaos Wastes expand. Already daemons walk freely across the Troll Country.’ Durin’s words were growing louder and his face hotter as he continued. Behind him, there was a crashing of bone into oak and a thunderous eruption of laughter. Durin ignored it. ‘I am leaving for Kislev, with you or without you. I will not be here when Karak Kadrin is caught by the Wastes. And be assured that it will be. I have lived through that once, and daemons will not hunt me through my own halls a second time!’

  Durin was on his feet and panting with emotion. Snorri did not know what to say. He should probably want to punch him for suggesting Karak Kadrin might fall, but even Snorri knew that greater holds than her had fallen before and would fall again. Durin Drakkvarr came from one of them. He shook his head. Tempting as it sounded, he wanted to remember his shame first. He had promised.

  Except he did not want that at all. He wanted–

  He hung his head.

  Valaya’s sweet breath, he wanted a beer.
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  ‘Snorri!’ The shout from the arm-wrestlers’ table startled Snorri from his thoughts. Krakki Ironhame thumped on trunk-legs towards them. ‘Grimnir’s britches!’ he laughed. ‘Did you lose a wager or did you just walk underneath Malakai’s Magnetic Rune? Hah! You look old without your crest. I barely recognised you.’ The fat dwarf gave Snorri a mighty smack across the back. Snorri’s nose wrinkled. Even at the best of times, Krakki smelled like sweaty pork that had been left the week to marinate in ale. These were not the best of times. ‘But I like the leg.’

  Snorri’s mace-leg thunked into the flagstones as he remembered it was there. ‘Snorri is getting used to it.’

  Krakki’s grin slowly faded as he took in the contents of Snorri’s mug. ‘What in Gazul’s damnation is this?’

  Snorri sagged miserably into the table. Whoever said that thing about misery and company had definitely not been a Slayer. ‘Snorri made an oath.’

  ‘Then maybe I can piss in that mug for you, Nosebiter,’ Krakki laughed, belly rippling with coloured tattoos. ‘My water’s richer than anything drawn from the wells of Karak Kadrin.’

  ‘An oath is an oath,’ said Durin, softly spoken yet deathly serious as though arguing in his sleep. ‘It is not to be mocked.’

  Krakki jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Daemonslayer. ‘Friend of yours?’

  Snorri pulled a face. ‘Snorri would not go that far.’

  With a shrug that suggested he had not really cared either way, Krakki helped himself to a chair and deposited his bulk into it. There, he leaned in, as though sharing a secret for Snorri and Durin alone. ‘You speak of Kislev,’ Krakki boomed and Snorri winced, wondering if the dwarf thought Snorri could not hear properly with one ear. With horror, Snorri wondered how Krakki would sound through two. ‘And you are not alone, but first you have to worry about getting there. The Underway north of here is overrun with beastmen. They even drove the goblins out, bless their evil green hearts.’

  ‘We will clear them,’ said Durin.

  ‘Good for you,’ said Krakki, then mimed a wazzock gesture with a finger looping over his temple and returned to Snorri. ‘The manlings kindly allowed the Chaos hosts to march right over them and now they’ve nothing better to do than find and break all the Underway gates they find. A runesmith led an expedition of Ironbreakers and Slayers under the humans’ fort at Rackspire to reseal the ways, but he was captured by beastmen and carted off to Praag. Or so the survivors of his throng say.’ He glanced at Drogun, fiercely polishing tankards behind the bar.

  ‘Wait,’ said Snorri. What Krakki was saying chimed with something that Durin had been trying to tell him before. What was it? He scratched the pinhole where his ear had once been, slowly coming to a conclusion so stupid it could only have come from Snorri’s own head. ‘Kislev can’t have fallen,’ he said slowly. ‘Kislev men fight almost as well as they drink. Snorri likes them.’

  Krakki smacked the table and barked with laughter. ‘You have been buried in Khaza Drengi too long! Here, give me that trough-water they’re feeding you.’ The Slayer took Snorri’s mug, and then Durin’s too, spreading them apart on the table. With a frown, he bellowed to the bar. ‘Drogun! Bring me that old clay tankard, the ghoul-ugly one.’ Krakki waited, drumming his sausage-fingers on the table while the leathery old Slayer came grumbling over and stamped the requested vessel onto the table. It was indeed ugly. Gargoyles leered from every side of it and the handle had been shaped to look like bone. Why anyone had ever made such a thing, Snorri could not guess.

  ‘This is Praag,’ said Krakki, positioning the gargoyle mug in front of him ‘Obviously. It was sacked months ago by a warlord named Aekold Helbrass, only he got pushed out of Praag by some other warlord, leading a horde of trolls so they say, and continued south.’ Here, he placed his huge palm over Snorri’s mug. ‘This one, being piss-weak, can be Kislev city. Their queen tried to catch the Chaos horde as they forded the Lower Tobol.’ He shook his head grimly and took his hand back. ‘Helbrass crushed them. Their city fell soon after.’

  ‘Sounds bad,’ said Snorri. He liked Kislev. He had had some good fights there and liked their vodka. He did not want to think that it could have been destroyed without him even realising the fight had started. And also, he was almost certain that Kislev city had been where Gotrek had been headed. ‘Does anyone still fight?’

  Krakki sat back, big eyes rolling to indicate the sullen potman behind the bar. The dwarf noticed the attention, but merely grunted and continued to stir his stew. ‘Brock Baldursson was on the Tobol Crossing that day with a throng of the Kislevite clans. It takes something to drive a dwarf from his home and Brock won’t say much, but it sounds like Helbrass unleashed a special kind of hell that day.’ Krakki’s eyes lowered, voice dropping to a rumble. ‘Of course, he wasn’t a Slayer then.’

  ‘And Helbrass?’ murmured Durin. ‘What became of him?’

  ‘It’s not as if he’s anywhere to go but south, but there’s no one left to tell of it.’ Krakki pointed then to Durin’s mug. ‘Erengrad. She still stands, but has been essentially annexed by the Empire. And she’s on the other side of the Auric Bastion.’

  ‘The what?’ said Snorri.

  ‘That’d take some explaining,’ Krakki laughed. ‘What matters is it’s keeping the enemy good and hot. They’ve nowhere to go so there’ll be plenty waiting for us once we’ve cleared the Underway.’

  ‘What is… here,’ said Snorri, jabbing his finger into a knot in the table. It fell just to the left between ‘Kislev’ and ‘Praag’ and just looking at it made Snorri’s head feel funny.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ said Krakki, gently. ‘That’s just the table. Try to pay attention, Snorri.’

  Snorri stared at it anyway. You will have the mightiest doom. Spindly brown legs split out into the oak from a dark core. Spiders in the trees.

  ‘But Helbrass?’ Durin pressed again.

  ‘Better question,’ said Krakki, leaning back against his chair and grinning like a half moon. ‘What threw the conqueror of Kislev out of Praag?’

  Praag, thought Snorri, letting the Slayers’ talk fade into the whistle through his torn ear. It always seemed to come back to Praag. It was a city full of memories, and despite the certainty of battle and death he found that he was not at all eager to return there.

  ‘Snorri,’ Krakki’s voice dragged him up by his working, cauliflower ear. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you looked scared.’

  With a sad grin, Snorri went back to staring at the knot in the table. An old lady standing over him. She is sad. She is… angry. Snorri shook his head. Scared? He was outright terrified and the fact he was not certain why did not help at all. The image of that dwarf woman and child rose in his thoughts. He could smell burning, feel blood on his hands. He scrunched his eyes and tried to think of something else. There were too many memories and the priest had been right. Snorri did not want any of them.

  The thought of those ghosts following him from Khaza Drengi and catching him alone on the wastes of Kislev petrified him far more than dying in shame.

  Slowly, Snorri unclasped his fingers from around his mug and dragged them to the lip of the table. There, his fingernails crunched into the ancient wood and he pushed himself until he stood eyeball-to-eyeball with Krakki Ironhame. His new mace-leg thunked against the stone floor. Krakki met Snorri’s eyes, his ginger brows lifting questioningly. Snorri wanted a drink. His head ached for the need of it. Without breaking eye contact, Snorri reached for his mug, brought it to his lips and tossed it back. A shock of mountain water struck the back of his throat. Snorri’s eyes widened. His throat tightened in protest, but it was too late. Snorri gave a gargling sound as the dregs drained into his belly.

  And just like that, Krakki began to laugh.

  That’s it, thought Snorri. Snorri has had enough.

  Muscles bunched through his neck and shoulder
s, then exploded forward, sending his forehead crashing through Krakki’s nose. Blood spattered from the fat Slayer’s face and he tipped back, spinning on nerveless toes before smashing full-on through the end of a table of feasting Slayers. The other end of the table swung up, swiping the bowls from under the dwarfs’ noses and catapulting gravy and ale across the hall. Leaving the shouting dwarfs and Krakki’s poleaxed body to their own devices, Snorri slumped back down into his chair. He wiped a piece of beef gristle from his head.

  That had not been nearly as satisfying as he had hoped it would be.

  It seemed that there was nothing for it but to go to Praag and die as quickly and as gloriously as was still possible. It was what the old lady had promised, what everyone seemed to want. Everyone except Snorri, of course, but when had that ever mattered? He had always followed others, ever since that first trip into the Chaos Wastes. That had been before he and Gotrek had both become Slayers, before he–

  His jaw clenched.

  No. He would not remember that.

  A proper fight was what he needed. The priest was right about that too. And at least Kislev was where Gotrek and Felix must be. They had a marvellous knack of being where the fighting was fiercest. They were both just lucky that way. He looked up over the wreckage of the table, heart sinking at the sight of Durin picking his way through it to fetch him another mug of water. He let out a long, resigned breath.

  The End Times could not come soon enough.

  Click here to buy Gotrek & Felix: Kinslayer

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  First published in Great Britain in 2015.

  This eBook edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Cover artwork by Paul Dainton.

  Internal artwork by Mark Holmes and Alex Boyd.