03 - Thanquol's Doom

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  Desperate, Thanquol cast a hopeful look at Boneripper. The skeletal rat-ogre’s mechanics whirred as it pivoted at the waist and turned in his direction. Thanquol glared malignantly at Skraekual.

  “Call it off-back,” Skraekual snapped. “I can-will burn your brain before it takes seven steps!”

  Thanquol felt his glands clench as the other grey seer hissed his threat. He found himself staring at Skraekual’s fingers with their long filthy claws. Wrapped about one of the fingers was a band of black metal fashioned into the shape of a dragon’s head. Thanquol knew that particular bit of jewellery. It had been among the possessions of his late and unlamented master, Sleekit. How Skraekual had come by it, he didn’t know. He might have stolen it from Sleekit before Thanquol could find it, or perhaps it had been given to him by that treacherous rat Kritislik. At the moment, all that mattered was he had it and Thanquol knew precisely what he could do with it.

  Bobbing his head submissively, Thanquol waved away Boneripper, nervously watching the lumbering brute to make sure it obeyed him. There was no sense in alarming his dear colleague Skraekual.

  “Wise and noble Skraekual,” Thanquol said, brushing some of the filth from the other grey seer’s robes. “Surely you did not think-think I wanted Kaskitt to do anything to you.” Thanquol forced a peal of chittering laughter through his fangs. “What I say-squeak was to make the fool suspect me, not you. The more I tell him you are untrustworthy, the more he suspects me of being disloyal. After all, if I would betray a fellow grey seer, how can he think-think I won’t betray him?”

  Skraekual lashed his tail in amusement. “I did not get-make that impression,” he hissed. “Stop telling him bad things about me. Or else…” He raised his finger, displaying the ring so that his enemy could not mistake the threat.

  Thanquol squirmed uneasily, his fur feeling as if an army of fleas was scurrying through it. He watched as Skraekual dropped back into his usual stooped posture and limped away to join the flood of skaven rushing into the dwarf tunnel.

  The filthy mouse-livered worm! He wouldn’t dare treat so flippantly with a sorcerer of Thanquol’s stature were it not for that damn ring! It was just like the cowardly rat to cringe behind some magical artefact instead of relying upon his own powers! Any grey seer of real ability, anyone truly favoured by the Horned Rat didn’t rely on sneaky tricks and fancy weapons to deal with his foes.

  Thanquol waved his paw at Boneripper, the giant monster lumbering ahead of him to make a path through Kaskitt’s minions. Thanquol needed time to think and the pleasant distraction of brutalising his fellow skaven would only muddle his wits. He needed a clever plan to deal with that upstart Skraekual.

  Something sneaky.

  Something that he could have Boneripper attend to while he was somewhere safely out of reach of Skraekual’s magic.

  “Rikkit Snapfang has promised much-much warpstone to help him,” Kaskitt was telling Thanquol for what seemed the hundredth time. The grey seer rolled his eyes, but allowed the warlock-engineer to pursue his favourite subject: betraying Warlord Rikkit Snapfang. The plan involved getting Rikkit’s warriors engaged in an all-out assault against the dwarfs. Once Rikkit’s troops were committed, then Kaskitt and his skirmishers would turn tail and scurry back into the largely undefended burrows of Bonestash. They would find Rikkit’s treasury and plunder it to their hearts’ content.

  “We take-fetch more than he think-say,” Kaskitt chittered.

  Thanquol was less than enthusiastic about the plan. Not that he objected to the idea of stealing warpstone from a warlord who was trusting them to help him destroy some of skavendom’s most tenacious enemies. Any warlord stupid enough to leave his own burrow undefended deserved to be stabbed in the back and robbed. That was simple common sense.

  No, what bothered Thanquol was the fact that Kaskitt had confided in him. That meant the warlock-engineer wanted him involved in the plot in a big way. Rikkit Snapfang didn’t belong to some three-flea clan, he was part of Clan Mors, the most powerful warlord clan in the Under-Empire. High Warlord Gnawdwell sat upon the Council of Thirteen and could bring considerable influence to bear against those who wronged his clan. Kaskitt knew this. For all of his mad talk about rising to a position of dominance within Clan Skryre, Thanquol knew he wasn’t a complete fool.

  The answer was obvious, so obvious Kaskitt himself had mentioned it at their first meeting in hopes that Thanquol would dismiss it as being too obvious. He was going to use Thanquol as the decoy, place all the blame for treachery on the grey seer’s shoulders while he made good his own escape. Thanquol appreciated that in some quarters he had acquired an entirely underserved reputation for scheming against his own allies and always trying to improve his own wealth and position. Kaskitt’s lies would be readily believed and Thanquol might not have the chance to explain the reality of the situation when Gnawdwell’s outraged warriors caught up to him.

  Day and night through the long march Kaskitt had been elaborating on his plan. Day and night Thanquol had been wracking his brain for a way to extricate himself from his predicament. Revealing the plot to Rikkit Snapfang when they reached Bonestash was one option, but hardly one that would put any warpstone in Thanquol’s paws. No, there had to be a way to go through with Kaskitt’s plan and shift the blame back onto somebody else.

  The high ceilings of the Ungdrin Ankor didn’t help ease Thanquol’s mind. He kept expecting a Lustrian lizard-hawk to come swooping down out of the darkness to snatch him up in its claws. Or maybe a tregara, creeping along the black ceiling watching for prey. Thanquol’s glands clenched as he remembered his own near escape from one of the carnivorous insects in Kritislik’s Maze of Merciless Penance.

  Unsettling smells lingered in the mammoth tunnel, saturating the dust-covered stones. Thanquol’s nose caught the stink of cave squig and goblin scat, the reek of troll and the odour of spider webs. Somewhere in the darkness, a reptilian geckamund had cast off its scaly skin. Behind the pillars, the husk of a giant beetle was quietly rotting away.

  Even the softest sounds echoed through Thanquol’s keen ears. The squeaking of blind bats as they flew through the darkness, the rustle of rats as they crept along the walls. He could hear the faint drip of water from one of the stone cisterns the dwarfs had carved into niches in the tunnel walls.

  Thanquol cursed the dwarf-built corridor. The miserable rock-sucking beard-brains were always trying to overcompensate for their diminutive size. That was why they built everything on such ridiculous, gargantuan scale. Why, a family of dragons could come cavorting down the Underway and still have room to spare! Anything might be lurking out there in the darkness, just waiting to pounce upon an unsuspecting skaven! A mob of blood-crazed orcs, a gang of ravenous ogres, even a distempered lion!

  Glaring at Kaskitt, Thanquol could only wonder why the fool-meat hadn’t struck a deal with Clan Sleekit to take them as close to Bonestash as possible on some of their barges. It was much safer to travel by river and much quicker. The rivers were forever connecting to the Ungdrin Ankor, because the dwarfs always needed water to power their steam engines and mining machines. The moron hadn’t thought of that! If only Thanquol’s brilliance hadn’t been distracted with the petty schemes and jealousies of these small-minded lice he should have suggested such a plan back in Skavenblight.

  “We will reach Bonestash soon-soon,” Kaskitt promised, scratching at the wires winding about his head.

  “About time,” Thanquol sniffed. “I grow weary of marching through these cursed dwarf-runs!” He dug a pawful of black corn from a pocket and chewed spitefully at the stuff. It had annoyed him to no end that Kaskitt had decided to start in on the black corn before carving up a few of the slaves. He rather suspected the idiot was trying to show off to his minions by feeding them on Skavenblight’s famed crop. Unfortunately, black corn was about as appetising as a mouse turd and had about the same taste.

  Kaskitt turned about to give some manner of rejoinder when the sharp squeal of a skaven in distre
ss echoed off the walls of the Underway. Thanquol spun about, putting Boneripper’s thick leg between himself and the source of the cry. It had been several hours since they’d lost a ratman to one of the Underway’s predators. That time it had been a giant spider hiding above a cistern. Thanquol only hoped the current danger was likewise content to stuff itself with a single skaven and then scuttle back into the dark.

  More cries sounded. Mixed among them now were the distinct booms of guns. The dwarfs! It had to be! Thanquol ground his fangs together in rage. That idiot Kaskitt had marched them straight into a formation of dwarfs! His head snapped about, claws spread, but Kaskitt was already scrambling for cover. The cowardly mouse! He would strangle that tick-licking scat-sniffer when he got his claws on him!

  Boneripper trembled as something smacked into its chest. Thanquol peered out from his refuge behind the rat-ogre’s leg just far enough to see a smoking crater above where the monster’s heart should have been had it been a thing of flesh and blood. The grey seer’s glands clenched at this display of marksmanship. His eyes darted across the tunnel, not to find where Kaskitt had hidden himself but to find a suitable refuge for his own precious skin.

  A fallen pillar looked as though it might afford a suitable barrier between himself and the fire of dwarf guns. Hastily, Thanquol snapped orders to his bodyguard. Boneripper’s head creaked on its hinge as the rat-ogre stared down at him, then the monster’s body swung about. In an instant, the brute was dashing across the tunnel, effortlessly pushing through the confused bedlam of Kaskitt’s entourage.

  “Wait-wait for me!” Thanquol cursed Boneripper. He wanted to use the brute as a shield until he was safely behind the smashed pillar. Now he found himself scurrying after his own bodyguard, frantic to keep pace with it. The boom of guns sounded again and Thanquol winced as a ratman beside him crumpled to the ground. The tangy smell of warpstone struck his senses. For an instant, he hesitated, staring down at the writhing skirmisher, greed arguing against his instinct for self-preservation. From the smell, the dead skirmisher must have a fair amount of warpstone on him.

  “The Horned One need-want your flesh,” Thanquol snarled, seizing a ratman fleeing past him. Swinging the struggling skaven about, Thanquol bashed the head of his staff into his captive’s skull until the prisoner went limp. Holding the slack body up like a shield, he bent to inspect the dead body at his feet.

  A thrill of alarm squirted from his glands when Thanquol saw the extent of the damage the bullet had done to the skirmisher. The ratman’s chest was a gory crater; his armoured breastplate looked as though a giant had punched it. Gazing at it, the grey seer realised that his living shield wouldn’t prove much barrier against any weapon that could dole out such damage.

  Callously dropping his senseless captive, Thanquol scurried with all haste across the tunnel, freely battering and clawing at any ratkin who got in his way. The sound of bullets whipping through the air, the agonised shrieks of dying skaven, the smell of fear-musk and black blood spurred him on. He could see the comforting safety of the rubble ahead of him, Boneripper stupidly standing out in the open waiting for its master to give it new orders.

  He’d give it new orders all right! Thanquol cursed the dim-witted machine and its infernally fast legs. It was all a subtle plot by Kaskitt Steelgrin to get him killed! He’d known he couldn’t trust any gift handed to him by the delusional lab-rats of Clan Skryre!

  The stench of burning fur struck Thanquol’s nose and a whoosh of flames rushed past his ears. He could feel intense heat blaze across his back. A pack of confused skaven who had decided to follow him to safety gave voice to a miserable howl. Thanquol glanced over his shoulder to see a dozen ratmen writhing on the ground, their bodies engulfed in green flames.

  A hideous suspicion flared up as Thanquol sniffed the dying skaven. They reeked of warpstone, even though many of them were scrawny slaves who couldn’t possibly have any of the precious mineral on them. Moreover, he’d never seen a dwarf flame cannon that tossed green fire at its victims.

  The grey seer made a wild leap and scrambled behind the pile of rubble. He took a half-dozen breaths, then reached for his snuff-box. A pinch of warpstone snuff would help just now. His paw froze as his fingers closed on the rat-skull box. If he was right, then he would need his full wits about him. The emboldened mindset of a warp-addled brain wasn’t going to do him any good, however much it calmed his nerves.

  Thanquol peered out from behind his refuge. The floor of the tunnel was littered with dead and dying ratmen. He could see the pile of rocks from which the ambushers were picking off Kaskitt’s minions. He could even see Kaskitt Steelgrin cringing behind the base of some dwarf king’s statue, Skraekual and a clutch of leather-coated tinker-rats trying to exploit the same sanctuary.

  Resolutely, Thanquol stuffed the rat-skull box back into his robe. “Over here, idiot,” Thanquol growled at the still unmoving Boneripper. The rat-ogre shifted position, dropping down behind the rubble to join its master. Thanquol noted that the lummox had been shot several times while it had been standing out in the open. Each of the ghastly impacts had pitted the brute’s skeletal frame and battered its armoured machinery. Little flecks of glowing green stone clung to the edges of the wounds. Gingerly, Thanquol extracted one of the slivers and pressed it to his tongue.

  The grey seer felt a hot shock sizzle through his body, a burning sensation that was at once excruciating and invigorating. His suspicion was justified. The bullets that had struck Boneripper and Kaskitt’s henchrats were made of refined warpstone. The fire that had consumed the skavenslaves had been of a chemical nature, liquid flame that used warpstone as its base.

  The ambushers weren’t dwarfs. They were skaven! No wonder there had been no betraying glimmer of lamps and lanterns! The ambushers didn’t need to see their victims; with their sharp noses and the updraft of the tunnel, the ratmen could smell their enemies!

  As if to confirm his suspicion, several ratmen emerged from behind the rubble. They wore elaborate armour, their arms and legs locked inside complicated frameworks of pipes and gears. When they moved, they clanked and clattered in the same fashion as Boneripper and with a similarly uncanny speed. While Thanquol watched, the enhanced skaven fell upon a pocket of Kaskitt’s minions, butchering them with long, hook-bladed halberds.

  More attackers followed the war-rats. These were leather-coated skaven who resembled in almost every way the skirmishers Kaskitt had brought. The only difference was the red tabards they wore, each marked with a black, slash-like symbol.

  And the fact that the jezzails they carried were loaded and ready to kill.

  Teams of muscular ratmen scurried about the flanks of the jezzails. These wore long cloaks that glistened wetly in the faint light of the tunnel and their faces were carefully masked with leather visors. Each team consisted of two skaven, one lugging a huge cask on his back, the other holding a curious metal implement before him. Thick hoses of ratgut connected the cask the rear skaven carried to the implement the leader bore. A faint drip of flaming green liquid dribbled from the gaping mouth of the device in the leader’s paws.

  Thanquol recognised the weapon for a warpfire thrower, one of the most fiendish of Clan Skryre’s inventions. He’d suspected the presence of such a weapon the moment he’d seen the burning skavenslaves. These seemed to belong to a more complex pattern than those his own minions had employed on his behalf during the Battle of Nuln, but their function was certainly the same. As he watched, the grey seer saw the attackers immolate a knot of Kaskitt’s followers with a sheet of green fire.

  Thanquol tugged at his whiskers. He didn’t know what sort of game was being played, but he knew he had to take a paw in the action now while there was still time. A judicious use of magic could rescue Kaskitt’s expedition from disaster. A grateful Kaskitt Steelgrin would then be obliged to help Thanquol with his own problems. They could always tell Kritislik that Skraekual had been killed in the fighting.

  Climbing atop a chunk of rubble,
Thanquol gazed out across the battleground. Maliciously he selected his first victim, one of the warpfire teams. It wouldn’t take much of a spell to do what he wanted. He wouldn’t even need any warpstone to reinforce his concentration. The fire-thrower would provide that.

  Opening his mind to the aethyr and his soul to the tyrannical glory of the Horned Rat, Thanquol pointed his staff at the doomed fire-team. A crackling ribbon of lightning leapt from the head of his staff. The magical energy seared across the tunnel, striking the fuel cask. Instantly the entire tunnel was lit up by a burst of green light. The weapon team vanished in the explosion, streams of unleashed warpfire spattering about the passageway, striking down ambushers and victims alike. A second warpfire thrower was caught by the blast, causing its fuel cask to explode in a similarly dramatic manner.

  Unfortunately, the chain-reaction ended with the second warpfire thrower. Revelling in the destruction he had unleashed, Thanquol was almost caught in the vengeful sheet of flames that swept across the tunnel. A third warpfire thrower had marked him as the cause of their comrades’ demise. Determined not to share such a fiery fate, they viciously persecuted the grey seer.

  Diving down from his perch, Thanquol glared helplessly at the green flames sizzling all around him. Another weapon team had joined the first. The combined fire couldn’t penetrate his cover, but then, it wouldn’t have to. The slinking villains could just sit back and roast him alive without ever clapping eyes on him!

  “Two can kill-slay this way,” Thanquol muttered. He turned his eyes on Boneripper. The murderous machine was a magnificent example of Clan Skryre’s techno-sorcery. A far more advanced weapon than the cheap toys his enemies were using. It would make short work of his foes once it was turned against them, burning them alive with its own fire-thrower.

  “Boneripper!” Thanquol howled at the rat-ogre, trying to keep his voice from sounding too panicked. “Go-go! Kill-slay! Burn-burn!”