The end times, p.39
The End Times, page 39
Skrikk hunched over, looking sideways at Queek nervously.
‘Who Skrikk think he is? Queek does think strategy, stupid-meat. Queek greatest warlord there is! Queek think-scheme peerless battle plans. Queek the best strategist you will ever meet, weak-meat. You will see. But what does Queek need to know colours of every stupid-meat rat-flag for if he has Skrikk? Too much pointless knowing clouds Queek’s mind.’ He leaned back with a dangerous look in his eyes. He greatly relished the fear in Skrikk’s. ‘If Skrikk can’t count or Skrikk can’t see-smell clan banners and tell Queek how many rats, how many slaves, how many clan-things and Moulder-things left before Queek run out of battle-meat for victory, perhaps Queek not need Skrikk after all? Queek be very unhappy if Queek has to do all counting and scritch-scratching himself.’
‘O mighty one is correct!’ squeaked Skrikk, far more shrilly than he had intended. ‘Skrikk count. Skrikk has counted very well! I have noted all banners and numbers. See-read!’ He beckoned a slave bearing a pile of dwarf-skin scrolls forward. The warlords at least had the will to clench their musk glands, terrified of Queek as they were. But the slave shook uncontrollably, and the fear-stink was heavy on his fur. ‘See-look. Skrikk make all these himself. All is in order. I have everything written down so I know, mighty Queek. And what humble, unworthy Skrikk knows, most cunning Queek can know too! By asking! By asking!’ he added in a panic. ‘Of course you should not weary your piercing eyes reading such dull-tedious reports.’ He shooed the skavenslave away and bowed repeatedly.
Something big in the parade let out a long, mournful low. There were many Moulder-things in the army.
‘Battle-meat, battle-meat to get Queek close to the beard-things. Five thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, it not matter to Queek,’ Queek muttered. He stared at the skaven tramping by and became suddenly still. He no longer saw the troops. In his mind, he watched images of past slaughter.
The others cringed, each subtly trying to be the rat at the back of the crowd, but not too close to the giant Ska. When Queek’s constant twitching stilled, someone usually died.
Queek clenched his fists and rounded on them all. ‘Bah! This place still stink-smell of goblin-thing. Queek hate it. Queek still smell Skarsnik-thing squatting on his throne.’ He pointed to where Skarsnik’s throne had once been. ‘It so strong, Queek see him!’ His quick red eyes darted about, taking in the goblin’s defacement of the giant statues lining the walls of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars. The goblins’ shanty had been cleared, but signs of the greenskins were everywhere. What wreckage had not already been scavenged was still piled along the walls. Every inch of the place stank of goblin. He longed to kill green-things. He stared at the great dwarf gates to the surface city, opening mechanisms improved with skaven engines by the tinker-rats. On the other side of the doors were thousands and thousands of greenskins. One word would open the gates and the relief of battle could be his. Somewhere out there was Skarsnik, and he hated Skarsnik more than anything else in the world. Killing dwarfs was business, but his feud with the green-thing king was personal. His muzzle quivered with temptation.
‘Gnawdwell’s orders, remember Gnawdwell’s orders!’ squeaked the voice of Ikit Scratch from his skeleton impaled upon Queek’s back. ‘Kill beard-things first, green-things later.’
‘Queek go now,’ he said quietly, ‘before he choke on Skarsnik stink. What new boring thing has Thaxx and Skrikk to show mighty Queek?’
They had more of the same to show him, but neither dared say. ‘To the fourth and fifth deeps, O wicked and savage Queek,’ said Thaxx, spreading his arms and bowing low. ‘To the second and third clawpacks, who await your merciless majesty with much fear and anticipation.’
‘Yes-yes,’ added Skrikk, not to be outdone. ‘They are rightwise awestruck.’ The three-week journey here from Skavenblight had been somewhat detrimental to his nerves, and he jumped every time he thought Thaxx bettered him in flattery.
Three days it took to see the next two clawpacks. Queek only stopped to eat – which he did savagely and messily – or to sleep, which he did in short, rapid-breathed bursts. The finest burrows were set aside for him, the best flesh-meat. He did not care.
Much to his annoyance, nobody tried to kill him. His legs spasmed with impatience when he lay down. His hands itched to hold Dwarf Gouger. Everyone around him feared his fury. Murder was imminent, they were sure. Each warlord and clan chief he greeted showed their necks and squeaked in most pitiable homage. Each one half expected to die. Thaxx and Skrikk had it worst by far, for they had to accompany Queek everywhere. They were both sure it was only a matter of time before Queek killed one or the other, and their attempts to outdo each other in their obsequiousness became more outrageous by the hour. Their wheedling only angered Queek more.
But no one did die. They could all see-smell Queek was bursting with the need to kill, but he raised a paw against no one.
‘Steady, steady,’ said the dead beard-thing Krug to Queek. ‘You muff this up, lad, and you’ll not be getting Gnawdwell’s potion.’
‘The beard-thing is correct, mad-thing,’ added Sleek Sharpwit’s annoying voice. ‘Be careful, or you will perish.’
Queek shot Sleek’s fleshless skull a murderous glare. ‘Do not call Queek mad-thing, dead Old-thing!’
‘Steady!’ said Krug. ‘Steady.’
‘Yes-yes,’ mumbled Queek, cradling the dwarf king’s skull to his chest one sleep. ‘Krug right, Krug wise! Time only enemy Queek cannot kill. Only Gnawdwell help with that.’
‘And so the mad-thing listens to the dead dwarf, but not to the wisdom of the living. You are a poor warlord, Queek, no match for me at my peak,’ said Sleek.
‘I alive, you dead. I better,’ said Queek acidly.
And so Queek set all his will to restraining his considerable temper, resolving to add Thaxx and Skrikk’s heads to his trophy rack in due course.
Clawpacks two and three were led by Skrak and Ikk Hackflay, ex-lieutenants from Queek’s Red Guard. These stormvermin were known to him, and respected by him as much as he could respect any skaven. They were braver than most, and Queek was almost civil to them, bringing much prestige to their names. For all his hatred of machination, he changed the status of skaven simply by looking at them wherever he went. This in turn upset alliances and friendships, led to back-stabbings and new pledge-bonds. His passage through the ancient dwarf city rippled outwards, rewriting the architecture of treachery and false promises that underpinned any skaven society.
He was aware of it, but tried his best not to think about it. It only made him angrier.
Clawpacks two and three were much like the first. The second bigger than the third, half of each made up of Clan Mors warriors, the rest a selection of scruffy rabble clans.
‘Queek not see-smell slaves. Where slaves?’ he demanded shortly after visiting the third clawpack.
‘This way, O most terrible one!’ said Thaxx.
They cut across the city in the fourth deep, emerging below the stone-pile the beard-things called Karag Rhyn, and the goblins White Fang. There were many long tubular caves deep below this mountain, each carpeted with bones, some full to the ceiling with brittle skeletons. Queek looked repeatedly to the curved roof. Up there, somewhere, was Skarsnik. The imp had taken refuge in the northern range after finally, finally being chased out from the deeps. Queek sighed happily as he imagined gnawing his way up through the rock, to emerge in the imp-thing’s own room, where he would bite him to death. He tittered to himself, but his amusement turned to anger as the scenario’s impossibility rudely intruded. Queek’s tail flicked in agitation.
Laired in the bone caves were so many skavenslaves that Queek could not count them. He was dizzy on their scent. They shrank back into side tunnels at his approach, tripping over their chains to get out of his way, their eyes downcast.
‘There is many-many slave-meat?’ he asked, peering into a tunnel packed full of eyes glinting as they looked away.
Thaxx and Skrikk fought to be the one to deliver the information.
‘Over one hundred thousand, O lordly Queek!’ said Thaxx, cutting Skrikk dead. ‘We have bred them especially quickly, raising them in unprecedented time with black–’
‘Many are from Thaxx’s breeding pits, masterful Queek,’ butted in Skrikk. ‘He must be so proud, to make so many weak-meat for Queek. Poor, lowly Skrikk only provide clanrat warriors and stormvermin for Queek’s armies. Skrikk sorry!’
Thaxx scowled at his colleague. Skrikk returned a cocky smile.
‘Many weak-meat?’
‘Many-many!’ said Thaxx through gritted chisel-teeth.
‘Good-good!’ said Queek. ‘Then Thaxx not miss these.’
Queek could restrain himself no longer. He leaped into the tunnel, drew his weapons, and vanished into the gloom.
‘But they my slaves…’ said Thaxx.
‘If you like,’ said Ska, lounging on a rock and picking his claws, ‘you go stop him. I sure-certain that work out just fine for clever Warlord Thaxx.’ Queek’s Red Guards tittered.
The squeal of panicked ratmen blasted from the tube. They blundered out into the dimly lit corridor, but could not go far, caught by their chains.
One tripped and fell at Skrikk’s feet. He looked up at the clanlords pleadingly.
‘You go quick-quick now,’ said Skrikk. ‘Back in there so mighty Queek may kill-slay.’
‘He very bored,’ said Ska. ‘You be good and make him happy.’
The skavenslave stared at them piteously as he was dragged back into the cave, knocking a pile of bones out of the way. He grabbed a skull, but it did not arrest his progress and he disappeared into the dark still clutching it.
A short and noisy time later, during which the cave’s stale air ripened with the reek of blood, bowels and musk, Queek emerged from the tunnel, dripping with gore. He panted lightly.
‘That no fun,’ he said. He licked his lips free of blood and smiled with cruel joy nevertheless. ‘No challenge for Queek to slaughter slaves.’ He looked speculatively at Thaxx. Skrikk nodded enthusiastically behind his back, jiggling his eyebrows at Thaxx and making a pantomime of how formidable a warrior Skrikk was.
‘Skrikk greater warrior!’ said Thaxx in a tumble.
‘Not so great as mighty Queek!’ said Skrikk, his tail twitched nervously.
‘Who is?’ said Queek with a shrug. ‘Now, where final clawpack? If it far, Queek not happy. Maybe we see how good Skrikk and Thaxx are…’
‘Not far! Not far, mighty Queek!’ said Thaxx, bowing low. ‘A half day, then all inspections done.’
Skrikk shot Thaxx a warning look. Thaxx caught it.
‘Er, but Warlord Queek must be tired, so much travelling. He should go rest-sleep to increase his strength so that he might kill-slay beard-things and green-things better.’
‘You say Queek is sleepy-tired, less-brilliant-than-Queek Warlord Thaxx?’ said Queek.
‘Oh no, your deadliness, of course not. All know that Queek could kill all things half asleep and with a small feeding spoon. It is just that you are right…’ Thaxx took a step backwards as Queek reared up over him.
‘You say sometimes Queek not-right?’
‘No! No! Queek is always right! Every time! Everyone knows!’ squealed Thaxx.
‘Yes-yes, Queek the mightiest. Queek also the most correct and cleverest,’ said Skrikk. Queek was mollified.
Thaxx relaxed a little. ‘You say boring. It boring looking at so many rat-things.’ He flapped his paw dismissively. ‘They look all the same. Perhaps we go back now? Meet fifth clawpack later?’
Queek’s eyes narrowed. ‘What Thaxx hide? What Thaxx think Queek not like about fifth clawpack?’
‘Hide?’ said Thaxx, his eyes wide with wounded innocence.
‘Never,’ said Skrikk.
‘You quite insistent, both of you, that Queek see boring rats. And now, all of a sudden, you not want Queek to see boring rats. Queek not stupid. You think Queek stupid?’
‘No,’ wailed Thaxx.
‘You better tell Queek now,’ said Ska.
Thaxx abased himself upon the floor. ‘It is not Thaxx’s fault. Stupid-meat minions make mistake. He told by great lords to do it.’
‘Do what?’ said Queek. He hefted Dwarf Gouger and gave it a pleased lick.
‘It better,’ said Skrikk with a resigned expression, ‘if Queek see-smells with his own eyes and nose.’
They went downwards from the bone caves into old skaven ways, gnawed by teeth long before the invention of tunnelling machines. These cut a slope across the outermost edges of the dwarf deeps under the Great Vale. Innumerable shafts and stairways joined the halls carved into the mountains to the undercity proper. The skaven tunnels cut across them all. They came to a winding stair, and went down this for many thousands of paces – round and round, until Queek felt dizzy. He had lived most of his life in Karak Eight Peaks, but this stair was new to him. The Eight Peaks was so vast that it was impossible to know it all, although the hated green-imp claimed to.
Down and down, passing into areas of the city that had collapsed. Some skaven, like Sleek Sharpwit, heretically said that beard-things were not stupid and built well. Queek laughed. Here was proof it was not so! There were many cave-ins and collapses that had sealed off whole sections of the beard-things’ burrows before quicker minds had rejoined them.
‘Earthquakes, poor skaven engineering undermining good dwarf work,’ said Sleek’s dead voice sulkily.
‘Stupid beard-things,’ said Queek.
His underlings, as always, pretended not to notice Queek’s one-sided conversations with his trophies.
They skirted the edges of the City of Pillars, the main part of the skaven domain in the Eight Peaks, where the last of the dwarfish deeps gave way to broken mines and endlessly convoluted warrens of skaven burrows. The journey took three feedings before they emerged at the very bottom of the world.
Deep in the deepest reaches of the City of Pillars, hundreds of fathoms below the lowest of the old dwarf deeps, was the Trench.
Who knew what cataclysm had torn this gap into the bowels of the earth? Nearly a mile deep and half a mile across, it went further into the living rock than even the skaven wished to go, and they were the children of the underworld. Along its base were dozens of cave mouths. These were not natural formations. They were carved by living creatures, but only a portion of them by the skaven. Down there were strange things, blindwyrms, deep trolls, scumbloids, mad-things and worse. Skaven who went into those tunnels often did not come out again.
Not today. The tunnels had been pressed into use as barrack burrows and every one crawled with armed skaven. Nothing that did not squeak or bear fur would dare come into the Trench. From end to end and wall to wall, the floor of the canyon was a seething mass of ratkin bodies.
‘The fifth clawpack, your most mightiness,’ said Skrikk, bowing.
Queek’s mouth opened. He shut it with a click. He was reluctantly impressed. There were dozens of warrior clans – none of the greater ones, admittedly, but some of the more respected names among the rabble clans were present. More arresting were the large numbers of Moulder-beasts, far more than in the other formations. He spotted a great number of rat ogres, thousands of giant rats and, most impressively, a pair of caged abominations. Far more monsters than Queek had seen in the rest of the city.
‘Who lead-bring such an endless rat sea to the City of Pillars?’ asked Queek quietly. Both his lieutenants ducked their heads submissively.
‘It hard to say, most subtle and dangerous–’ began Thaxx.
‘That is, it not easy to put into words, great and–’ interrupted Skrikk.
‘I do,’ said a voice from the shadows. A shape was there, lurking where the dark was too thick even for skaven eyes to see through. Queek smelt the identity of the squeaker before he threw back his hood to reveal the silhouette of horns.
‘White-fur!’ said Queek, his sword hissing free from its scabbard.
‘O mighty, terrible and great warrior Queek! I am Kranskritt, servant of the Horned Rat and emissary of Clan Scruten.’ Kranskritt stepped out of the dark and bowed to the jingle of small bells. A bunch of flunkeys came skulking out behind their master. They had precisely none of his poise and threw themselves down to the stone hurriedly for fear of Queek.
Thaxx and Skrikk scuttled backwards, banging into Ska.
‘Where you go?’ said Ska mildly. He arched an eyebrow. He enjoyed the effect Queek had on the warlords.
Queek laughed horribly. ‘White-fur, white-fur! What you squeak-say?’ He pointed the rusted blade of his sword at the grey seer, but Kranskritt walked directly towards Queek, his back straight, muzzle smooth and glands closed.
‘I say I am the chosen of the Horned Rat, his emissary here in the City of Pillars, and master of the fifth clawpack.’ He looked at Queek’s swordpoint, hovering inches from his nose. ‘I am not frightened of your sword.’
‘Oh? Why-tell? You have few heartbeats before I kill-slay. Give me entertainment with last pathetic breaths, stupid-meat. Scruten no longer have favour of Horned Rat. Horned Rat say so himself. I hear he squeak-say it very forcefully to white-fur Kritislik.’ Queek giggled a rapid, twittering series of squeaks.
