The kingsmeet was over, and Belegar was glad. Soon he could go home.

The dwarf kings met in Karaz-a-Karak, Everpeak, home of the dwarf High King. Everpeak was the last place in the world where the ancient glory of the dwarfs shone undimmed. No matter that only half its halls were occupied, or that the works of its forges could never recapture the skill of the ancestors. The place teemed with dwarfs in such multitudes that one could be forgiven for thinking that they were still a numerous people.

Being there made Belegar miserable. In the distant past his own realm had been Karaz-a-Karak’s rival in riches and size. His inability to return it to glory filled him with shame.

He sat in an antechamber awaiting the High King, nursing a jewelled goblet of fine ale. He had been born and raised in Karaz-a-Karak, but half a century of dwelling in the dangerous ruins of Vala-Azrilungol had blunted his memory of its riches. The opulence on display was astounding – more value in gold and artefacts in this one, small waiting room than were in his own throne room. He felt decidedly shabby, as he had done all the way through the kingsmeet. Two months hard travelling and fighting to get here. He had to sneak out of his own hold, and he would have to sneak back in. Now here he was, kept behind like a naughty beardling after all the other kings had been sent to feast. Nothing Thorgrim would have to say to him would be good. The two of them had ceased to see eye to eye some time ago. Belegar steeled himself for another long rant about failed obligations and unpaid debt.

He rolled his eyes. What had he been thinking, telling the others he occupied a third of Karak Eight Peaks? From a strictly technical point of view, it could be deemed truthful. He had opened up mines, captured a good part of the upper deeps, and held a strong corridor between the surface city and the East Gate. But in reality his holdings were far less. The East Gate itself, the citadel, the mountain halls of Kvinn-wyr. Everything else had to be visited in strength. And he had promised military aid. With what?

Not for the first time, he cursed his pride.

The doors to the far end of the chamber opened wide. A dwarf in the livery of Thorgrim’s personal household bowed low, sweeping his hood from his head.

‘Majesty, the King of Kings is ready for you.’

Belegar slid from the rich coverings of the bench. A second servant appeared from nowhere, a fresh mug of ale on his silver tray. Belegar downed his first, until that moment untouched, and took the second.

‘This way,’ said the first dwarf, holding out his hand.

Belegar was shown into a chamber he knew only too well. One of Thorgrim’s private rooms high in the palace, it was large and impressive, and consequently used by the High King when he was going to dress down others of royal blood. It had grand views of the approach to Karaz-a-Karak, seven hundred feet below. Summer sunlight streamed in through the tall windows. A fire of logs burned in the huge hearth. A clock ticked on the wall.

‘Belegar,’ said Thorgrim levelly. The king wore his armour and his crown. Belegar tried to think of a time he had seen him without it, and failed. The latest volume of the Great Book of Grudges sat open on a lectern. A bleeding-knife and a quill rested in specially cut spaces by it. ‘Please, take a seat.’

Thorgrim gestured to one of a number of smartly dressed servants. They disappeared, returning moments later with a tall jug of beer and a platter piled high with roast meats.

Belegar sat down opposite the High King with resignation.

‘I do not mean to keep you from the feast. Please, help yourself, sharpen your appetite for when you join the others,’ he said.

Belegar did as asked. The kingsmeet had been long, and he was hungry. Both food and ale were delicious.

‘We’ll wait a moment before we get started,’ said Thorgrim. ‘There’s another I wish to speak with.’

The door opened again then. Belegar turned in his seat, his eyebrows rising in surprise at the sight of Ungrim Ironfist. The Slayer King strode in and took up a seat. He nodded at Belegar as he sat. His face was stony. Ungrim always had been angry. Belegar had no idea how he managed to survive caught between two oaths so contradictory. And he had just lost his son. Belegar felt a stab of sympathy for Ungrim. The safety of his own boy was never far from his thoughts.

Thorgrim pressed his hands on the desk before speaking, formulating his words with care. ‘All this business with the elgi and the walking dead has got me unsettled,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Things are happening of great portent, things that speak to me that…’ He shook his head. He looked even more tired than he had in the meeting. ‘We discussed all that. I am grateful for your support.’

‘Of course, my king,’ said Belegar.

‘Why wouldn’t I want to march out and destroy our enemies? You’ve heard all I have to say on this matter,’ said Ungrim.

‘I have,’ agreed Thorgrim. ‘Summoning the throngs will not be easy. You have heard Kazador and Thorek’s objections. They are not alone. The argument between attack and defence is one I have had all my life, and I fear it is too late to win it.’ Thorgrim paused. ‘I have asked you both here as you are, in your own ways, special cases. Ungrim,’ he said to the Slayer King, ‘to you I urge a little caution. Do not throw away your throng in the quest for vengeance for your son’s death, or in order to fulfil your Slayer’s oath.

Ungrim’s face creased with anger. ‘Thorgrim–’

Thorgrim held up his hand. ‘That is all I will say on the matter. I do not criticise you, it is a plea for aid. We will need you before the end. Should you fall marching out to bring war upon our enemies, the others will follow Kazador’s advice and lock themselves away. That way, we shall all fall one by one. By all means fight, old friend. But use a little caution. Without you, my case is weakened.’

Ungrim nodded curtly. ‘Aye.’

‘And you, Belegar,’ said Thorgrim. His face hardened a little, but not so much as Belegar might rightfully have expected. ‘Long have you struggled to keep your oaths. Loans have gone unpaid, warriors have been unforthcoming, and your hold swallows dawi lives and dawi gold as if it were a bottomless pit without any noticeable gain.’ Thorgrim stared hard at him. ‘But you are a great warrior, and the proudest of all the kings here. You and I have our differences to be sure, but of all the others, I think our hearts are most similar. Of them all, only you have set out to reconquer what was once ours. I respect you for that far more than you realise. So what I am going to ask of you will cut hard and deep. Nevertheless, it must be asked.’

‘My king?’ said Belegar.

Thorgrim sighed. ‘Against all my own oaths and desires, and against yours, I must ask you to consider abandoning Karak Eight Peaks. Take your warriors to Karak Azul. Aid Kazador. If you do, I will consider all your debts repaid.’

It was a generous offer, and sensible advice. Karak Eight Peaks was weak, besieged, a drain on the other holds.

Belegar did not see it that way. All his misery at his plight flashed at once into anger. When he stood, which he did quickly, his words were spoken in haste and fuelled by more than a little shame at his failure to secure all of Vala-Azrilungol.

When he had finally stopped shouting and stormed out of the room, his path was set. That very day, he left Karaz-a-Karak for the final time. He brooded on the High King’s words all the way to Karak Eight Peaks.

They would haunt him to his grave.

In the underbelly of the mortal world, a flurry of activity was set in motion. Rarely had the ancient Lords of Decay moved so quickly. A febrile energy gripped Skavenblight. Messengers scurried from place to place, carrying missives that were, in the main, far from truthful. Conspirators struggled in vain to find a quiet spot to talk that was not already full of plotters. Assassinations were up, and a good killer became hard to find.

The doings of the Council were supposed to be of the utmost secrecy, but on all lips, squeak-talked on every corner, were tidings of the death of Kritislik, and of who would inherit the vacant seat on the Council of Thirteen.

Into this stewing pit of intrigue Warlord Queek, the Headtaker, came, thronged by red-armoured guards. Through the underway, into the seeping bowels of Skavenblight, he marched to see his master, Lord Gnawdwell.

Queek avoided the streets, coming to Gnawdwell’s burrows without once having a whisker stirred by Skavenblight’s dank mists. This suited Queek, who was no lover of the surface world or the crowded lanes of the capital.

Gnawdwell’s palace was a tall tower rising over multiple layers of cellars and burrows at the heart of the Clan Mors quarter of the city. That he had summoned Queek to the underground portion of his estates was a subtle reminder of power, an accommodation to Queek. Gnawdwell was saying he knew Queek was more at home under the earth than on it. Gnawdwell was highlighting weakness.

Queek knew this. Queek was no fool.

Queek and his guards took many twisting lanes from the main underways to reach the underpalace. Great doors of wutroth barred the way to Gnawdwell’s domain. At either side were two times thirteen black stormvermin. Their champions crossed their halberds over the door. Not the usual rabble, these. They were bigger than and outnumbered Queek’s Red Guard.

Queek’s nose twitched. There was no scent of fear from the guards. Nothing – not even in the presence of mighty Queek! Was he not the finest warrior the skaven had ever pupped? Was his murderous temper not the stuff of nightmare? But they did not fidget. They stood still in perfect imitation of statues, glinting black eyes staring at the warlord without dismay.

‘State-squeak business and rank-name,’ one said.

Queek paced back and forth. ‘How stupid-meat not know Queek! Warlord of Clan Mors, Lord of the City of Pillars?’ His trophies rattled upon the rack he wore on his back, a structure of wood akin to half a wheel, every spoke topped by a grisly memento mori. His forepaws twitched over the hilts of his weapons, a serrated sword and the infamous war-pick Dwarf Gouger.

‘We know you, Queek,’ responded the guard, unmoved. ‘But all must state-squeak name and business. Is Lord Gnawdwell’s orders. As Lord Gnawdwell commands, so we obey.’

‘Stupid-meat!’ spat Queek. A quiver of irritation troubled his fur. ‘Very well. I Queek,’ he said with sing-song sarcasm. ‘Let me in!’

The corridor was so quiet Queek could hear water dripping, the constant seepage of the marshwaters above the undercity into the tunnels. Machines churned night and day to keep them dry. Their thunder reverberated throughout the labyrinth and the streets above, and their heat made the tunnels uncomfortable. They were Skavenblight’s beating heart.

‘Good-good,’ said the guard. ‘Great Warlord Queek, mightiest warrior in all the Under-Empire, slaughterer of–’

‘Yes-yes!’ squeaked Queek, who had no time for platitudes. ‘In! In! Let me in!’

The guard appeared slightly deflated. He cleared his throat, and began again. ‘Queek may enter. No one else.’

Chains rattled and the doors cracked with a long creak, revealing a gang of panting slaves pushing upon a windlass. Queek darted towards the gap as soon as it was wide enough.

The guard champions crossed their halberds to block the way.

‘No, Queek. Queek leave trophy rack at door-entry. No one is more glorious than great Lord Gnawdwell. No insult. Be humble. Arrogance in the face of his brilliance is not to be tolerated.’

Queek bared his incisors at the guards aggressively, but they did not react. He wished greatly to release his pent up aggression on them. Spitting, he undid the fastenings and handed his trophies over to the stormvermin. He growled to hide his own disquiet. He would miss the counsel of the dead things when he spoke to Lord Gnawdwell. Did Gnawdwell know? Stupid Queek, he thought. Gnawdwell know everything.

The guards also demanded his weapons, and this made Queek snarl all the more. Once divested of them, Queek was allowed entrance to the first hall of Gnawdwell’s burrow. A fat and sleek-furred major-domo with a weak mouse face came to receive Queek. He bowed and scraped pathetically, exposing his neck submissively. The scent of fear was strong around him.

‘Greetings, O most violent and magnificent Queek! Red-clawed and deadly, warrior-killer, best of all Clan Mors. O mighty–’

‘Yes-yes,’ squeaked Queek. ‘Very good. I best. All know. Why-why squeak-whine about it all day? You new or you know this,’ said Queek. ‘Guards new too.’ He looked the little skaven up and down contemptuously. ‘You fat.’

‘Yes, Lord Queek. Lord Gnawdwell gain many scavenge rights in Tilea-place and Estalia-place. War is good.’

Queek bared his teeth in a hideous smile. He rushed forwards, a blur in scarlet armour, taking the majordomo by surprise. He grabbed the front of the slow-thing’s robes in his paws and jerked him forwards. ‘Yes-yes, mouse-face. War good, but what mouse-face know of war? Mouse-face stupid-meat!’

The musk of fear enveloped them both. Queek drooled at the smell of it.

‘Mouse-face fear Queek. Mouse-face right about that, at least.’

The fat skaven raised a hand and pointed. ‘Th-this way, O greatest and most marvellous–’

‘Queek know way,’ said Queek haughtily, shoving the other to the floor. ‘Queek been here many times. Stupid mouse-face.’

Many years had passed since Queek was last in Skavenblight, but scent and memory took him to Gnawdwell’s private burrow quickly. There were no other skaven about. So much space! Nowhere else in all of Skavenblight would you be further from another skaven. Queek sniffed: fine food and well-fed slaves, fresh air pumping from somewhere. Gnawdwell’s palace disgusted him with its luxury.

Queek waited a long time before he realised no servant was coming and that he would have to open Gnawdwell’s door himself. He found the Lord of Decay in the chamber on the other side.

Books. That was the first thing he saw every time. Lots and lots of stupid books. Books everywhere, and paper, all piled high on finely made man-thing and dwarf-thing furniture. Queek saw no use for such things. Why have books? Why have tables? If Queek wanted to know something, someone told him. If he wanted to put something down, he dropped it on the floor. Not bothering about such things left more time for Queek to fight. A big table occupied a large part of the room. On it was a map quill-scratched onto a piece of vellum, made from a single rat ogre skin, and covered in models of wood and metal. Poring over this, an open book in one brawny paw, was Lord Gnawdwell.

There was nothing to betray Gnawdwell’s vast age. He was physically imposing, strongly muscled and barrel-chested. He might have lived like a seer, surrounded by his stolen knowledge. He might be dressed in robes of the finest-quality cloth scavenged from the world above, fitted to his form by expert slave-tailors in the warrens of Skavenblight. But he still moved like a warrior.

Gnawdwell put down the book he was holding and gestured at Queek to come closer. ‘Ah, Queek,’ said Gnawdwell, as if the warlord’s arrival were a pleasant surprise. ‘Come, let me see-examine you. It is a long time since I have seen-smelt Clan Mors’s favoured general.’ He beckoned with hands whose quickness belied their age. Gnawdwell was immeasurably ancient to Queek’s mind. He had a slight grizzling of grey upon his black fur, the sign of a skaven past his youth. The same had recently begun to mark Queek. They could have been littermates, but Gnawdwell was twenty times Queek’s age.

‘Yes-yes, my lord. Queek come quick.’

Queek walked across the room. He was fast, his body moving with a rodentine fluidity that carried him from one place to the other without him seeming to truly occupy the space in between, as if he were a liquid poured around it. Gnawdwell smiled at Queek’s grace, his red eyes bright with hard humour.

Awkwardly, hesitantly, Queek exposed his throat to the ancient rat lord. Submission did not come easily to him, and he hated himself for doing it, but to Gnawdwell he owed his absolute, fanatical loyalty. He could have killed Gnawdwell, despite the other’s great strength and experience. He was confident enough to believe that. Part of him wanted to, very much. What stories the old lord might tell him, mounted on Queek’s trophy rack, adding his whispers to the other dead-things who advised him.

But he did not. Something stopped him from trying. A caution that told Queek he might be wrong, and that Gnawdwell would slaughter him as easily as he would a man-thing whelp.

‘Mighty-mighty Gnawdwell!’ squeaked Queek.

Gnawdwell laughed. They were both large for skaven, Gnawdwell somewhat bigger than Queek. Ska Bloodtail was the only skaven that Queek had met who was larger.

Both Queek and Gnawdwell were black-furred. Both were of the same stock ultimately, drawn from the Clan Mors breeder-line, but they were as unalike as alike. Where Queek was fast and jittery, Gnawdwell was slow and contemplative. If Queek were rain dancing on water, Gnawdwell was the lake.

‘Always to the point, always so quick and impatient,’ said Gnawdwell. Old skaven stank of urine, loose glands, dry skin, and, if they were rich enough, oil, brass, warpstone, paper and soft straw. That is not what Lord Gnawdwell smelt of. Lord Gnawdwell smelt vital. Lord Gnawdwell smelt of power.

‘I, Gnawdwell, have summoned you. You, Queek, have obeyed. You are still a loyal skaven of Clan Mors?’ Gnawdwell’s words were deeply pitched, unusually so for a skaven.

‘Yes-yes!’ said Queek.

‘Yes-yes, Queek says, but does he mean it?’ Gnawdwell tilted his head. He grabbed Queek’s muzzle and moved Queek’s head from side to side. Queek trembled with anger, not at Gnawdwell’s touch, but at the meekness with which he accepted it.

‘I have lived a long time. A very long time. Did you know, Queek, that I am over two hundred years old? That is ancient by the terms of our fast-live, die-quick race, yes-yes? Already, Queek, you age. I see white fur coming in black fur. Here, on your muzzle.’ Gnawdwell patted Queek with a sharp-clawed hand-paw. ‘You are… how old now? Nine summers? Ten? Do you feel the slowness creep into your limbs, the ache in your joints? It will only get worse. You are fast now, but I wonder, do you already slow? You will get slower. Your whiskers will droop, your eyes will dim. Your smell will weaken and your glands slacken. The great Queek!’ Gnawdwell threw up a hand-paw, as if to evoke Queek’s glory in the air. ‘So big and so strong now, but for how much longer?’ Gnawdwell shrugged. ‘Two years or four? Who knows? Who do you think cares? Hmm? Let me tell you, Queek. No one will care.’ Gnawdwell went to his cluttered table and picked up a haunch of meat from a platter. He bit into it, chewed slowly, and swallowed before speaking again. ‘Tell me, Queek, do you remember Sleek Sharpwit? My servant I sent to you to aid in the taking of Karak Azul?’

The question surprised Queek; that had been a long time ago. ‘Old-thing?’

Gnawdwell gave him a long, uncomfortable look. ‘Is that what you called him? Yes then, Old-thing. He was a great warlord in his day, Queek.’

‘Old-thing tell Queek many, many times.’

‘Did you believe him?’ said Gnawdwell.

Queek did not reply. Old-thing’s head had kept on telling Queek how great he had been since Queek had killed him and mounted him on the rack. Skaven lie.

‘He was not lying,’ said Gnawdwell, as if he could read Queek’s thoughts. A shiver of disquiet rippled Queek’s fur under his armour. ‘When Queek is old, Queek’s enemies will laugh at him too because Queek will be too weak to kill them. They will mock and disbelieve, because the memories of skaven are short. They will call you Old-thing. I, Lord Gnawdwell, have seen it many times before. Great warlord, master of steel, undefeated in battle, so arrogant, so sure, brought low by creeping time. Slower, sicker, until he is too old to fight, devoured by his slaves, or slain by the young.’

Gnawdwell smiled a smile of unblemished ivory teeth. ‘I am much older than Sleek was. Why am I so old yet I do not die? Why you do think-wonder? Do you know, Queek?’

‘Everyone know,’ Queek said quietly. He looked at the small cylinder strapped to Gnawdwell’s back. Bronze tubes snaked discreetly over his left shoulder and buried themselves in Gnawdwell’s neck. A number of glass windows in the tube allowed observation of a gluey white liquid within, dripping into Gnawdwell’s veins.

‘Yes!’ Gnawdwell nodded. ‘The life elixir, the prolonger of being. Each drop the essence of one thousand slaves, distilled in the forge-furnaces of Clan Skryre at ridiculous cost. It is this that allows me to live now, to stay strong. That and the favour of the Horned Rat. For many generations I have been strong and fit. Perhaps you would like to be the same, Queek? Perhaps you would like to live longer and be young forever, so that you might kill-kill more?’

Queek’s eyes strayed again to the cylinder.

Gnawdwell chuckled with triumph. ‘I smell-sense a yes! And why would you not? Listen then, Queek. Serve me well now, and you may win the chance to serve me well for hundreds of years.’

‘What must I do, great one?’

Gnawdwell gestured at the map. ‘The Great Uprising goes on. Tilea is destroyed!’ He swept aside a collection of model towns carved from wood. ‘Estalia followed, then Bretonnia.’ He nodded in approval. ‘All man-lands, all dead. All ready to accept their new masters.’ Many other castles, fleets and cities clattered onto the floor.

‘Queek know this.’

‘Of course Queek knows,’ scoffed Gnawdwell. ‘But mighty though Queek is, Queek does not know everything. So Queek will shut up and Queek will listen,’ he said with avuncular menace. ‘The Great Uprising has been many generations in the planning, and soon the war will at last be over. Clan Pestilens fights to the south, in the jungles of the slann. But the Council is full of fools. All fight at first sign of success. They do not listen to I, Gnawdwell of Clan Mors, even though I make claim to being the wisest.’

‘Yes-yes!’ agreed Queek. ‘Wiser than the wisest.’

‘Do you think so?’ Gnawdwell said. ‘Listen more carefully, Queek. I make claim to be wise, I said. But I am not so foolish as to believe it. As soon as one completely believes in his ability, Queek, then he is dead.’ He scrutinised the warlord. ‘Over-confidence is ever the downfall of our kind. Even the wise may overreach themselves. This was Sleek’s greatest error. His self-belief.’

‘Lord Gnawdwell believes in himself,’ said Queek.

‘I am one of the Thirteen Lords of Decay, Queek. I am entitled to believe in myself.’ He spread his paw fingers and looked at his well-tended claws. ‘But I always leave a little room for doubt. Think on the current status of Clan Scruten. The grey seers never doubted themselves. Then the Great Horned One himself came and devoured the fool-squeaker Kritislik.’ He tittered, a surprising noise from one so burly. ‘It was quite the sight, Queek. Amusing, too. Now no white-furs are meddling in our affairs. They are gone from the Council with their sticky, interfering paws. The Lords are united. For a short while there is an empty seat on the Council, free for the first time in ages. It will not be empty for very long. I intend to put one of our clan allies in that seat.’

‘How-how?’ said Queek. He struggled to concentrate on all this. He understood all right, but he found intrigue tedious compared to the simple joys of warfare.

‘Why do you think you are here, most noted of all skaven generals? Even Paskrit the Vast is an amateur by comparison. Through war, Queek! War on the dwarf-things. We have let them live for too long. They died twenty thousand generations ago, but are too stubborn to admit it. Now is the time to inform them of their demise. We will kill them all. See-look! Learn-fear how deadly skaven are when united!’ he squeaked excitedly, his careful mode of speech deserting him momentarily.

‘Here.’ Lord Gnawdwell pointed at a set of models, these made from iron, sitting on the map. ‘Clan Rictus and Clan Skryre have deal-pledged, and attack together the holdfast of Karak Azul.’ He gave Queek a penetrating look. ‘I think they will be more successful than you. You remember-recall Azul-place, yes, Queek?’

‘Queek remembers.’

‘Here, Clan Kreepus attacks Kadrin-place. They have raised many-many warptokens in trading man-thing food-slaves. So now Clan Moulder brings much strength to their paws. Many beasts, great and horrible. There, at Zhufbar-place, the dwarf-things have Clan Ferrik to fight.’ Gnawdwell’s long muzzle twitched dismissively. ‘Weak they are, but many rabble clans flock to them, so their numbers are great. Enough to occupy them, if not prevail. Finally, at Barak Varr sea-place, Clan Krepid joined with Clan Skurvy.’

Queek’s eyes widened, his expression settling into an appreciative smile. ‘All dwarf-things die at same time. They not reinforce each other. They not come-hurry to each other’s aid. They all die, all alone.’

‘Very good. Tell me, what do you think? Is this good, Queek? Is this bad?’

Queek shuddered. This was so boring! Queek would gladly go to war! Why did Gnawdwell tell him these pointless things? Why? But Queek had wisdom, Queek was canny. Gnawdwell was one of the few living beings he feared to anger, and Gnawdwell would be angry at his thoughts. So he kept his words back. Only his swishing tail gave away his impatience. ‘Good-good that we attack everywhere at once. Then all the beard-things sure to die. Bad that Queek not get all the glory. Queek want to kill all the fur-face king-things himself! Queek the best. It not right that other, lesser skaven take trophies that rightfully belong to Queek!’

‘You have half the answer, Queek.’

Half? thought Queek. There was no component to his thinking other than Queek.

Gnawdwell sucked his teeth in disappointment. ‘It is not only you who matters, but our clan, Queek! Clan Rictus wants to discredit us, yes-yes! Take our glory, take our new seat from our allies. And Clan Skryre and Clan Moulder and Clan Rictus, and all the rest. It was Clan Mors that brought the dwarf-things down first. This is our war to finish!’ Gnawdwell slammed his paw onto the table, making his models jump. He gestured at various positions on the map. ‘This will not happen. I have taken precautions to ensure our glory. And many of our loyal troops wait with the others. To help, you understand.’

Queek didn’t see. Queek didn’t really care. Queek nodded anyway. ‘Yes-yes, of course.’ When could he go? The skin of his legs crawled with irritation.

‘They wear the colours of our comrade-friend clans. We do not wish them to be confused, to think, “Why Clan Mors here, when they should not be?”’ Gnawdwell mimicked the piping voice of a lesser skaven.

‘No. No! That would be most bad.’

Gnawdwell glanced at Queek’s thrashing tail. He bared his teeth in a skaven smile.

‘You are bored, yes-no? You want to be away, my Queek. You never change.’ Gnawdwell walked back to his general and stroked Queek’s fur. Queek hissed, but leaned into his master’s caress. His eyes shut. ‘You wish to kill, hurry-scurry! Stab-stab!’

Queek nodded, a sharp, involuntary movement. Calmness of a type he felt nowhere else came upon him as his master groomed his sleek black fur. The needles of impatience jabbing at his flesh prickled less.

‘And you shall!’

Queek’s eyes snapped open. He jerked his head back.

‘Queek is the best! Queek wish to kill green-things and beard-things! Queek wish to drink their blood and rip their flesh!’ He gnashed his incisors. ‘Queek do this for Gnawdwell. This is what Gnawdwell wants, yes-yes?’

Gnawdwell turned back to the map. ‘You disappoint me, Queek. To be a Lord of Decay is not to stab and kill and smash all things aside. You lack circumspection. You are a killer, nothing more.’ Gnawdwell’s lips peeled back in disappointment. He stared at his protege a long time, far too long for Queek’s thrumming nerves to stand. ‘You were so magnificent when I found you, the biggest in your litter, and they were all large before you ate them. I raised you, I fed you the best dwarf-meat and man-flesh. And you have become even more magnificent. Such courage. There is none other like you, Queek. You are unnaturally brave. Others think you freakish for leading from the front, not the back. But I do not. I am proud of my Queek.’

Queek chirred with pride.

Sadness suffused Gnawdwell’s face. ‘But you are a blunt tool, Queek. A blunt and dangerous tool. I always hoped you would become Lord of Decay after me, because with one so big and so deadly as you as master of Clan Mors, all the others would be afraid, and the air would thicken with their musk.’ He sighed deeply, the threads of his clothes creaking as his massive chest expanded. ‘But it is not to be. Gnawdwell will remain head of Clan Mors.’ He paused meaningfully. ‘But maybe Queek can prove me wrong? Perhaps you might change my mind?’

‘How-how?’ wheedled Queek. He desperately wanted to impress Gnawdwell. Disappointing the Lord of Decay was the only thing Queek truly feared.

‘Go to Karak Eight Peaks. Smash the beard-things. But not in Queek’s way. Queek has brains – use them! We will bring down their decaying empire and the children of the Horned Rat shall inherit the ruins. I will see that it is Clan Mors that emerges pre-eminent from this extermination. Finish them quickly. Go to help the others complete the tasks they will not be able to finish on their own. Clan Mors must look strong. Clan Mors must be victorious! Bring me the greatest victory of all, Queek. March on Big Mountain-place. It may take years, but if you are successful there… Well, we shall see if you shall age as other lesser skaven must.’

Queek cared nothing for councils. Queek cared nothing for plots and ploys. What Queek cared for was war. Now Gnawdwell spoke a language he could understand. ‘Much glory for Queek!’

‘Do-accomplish what you do so well, my Queek. Finish the beard-things, and we will shame-embarrass the others when you bring me the head of their white-fur High King and the keys to their greatest city. Clan Mors will be unopposed. We will deliver the final Council seat to our favoured thrall-clan, and then Clan Mors rule all the Under-Empire, all the world!’ said Gnawdwell viciously, his speech picking up speed, losing its sophistication, falling into the rapid chitter-chatter used by other skaven. He clenched his fists and rose up. All vestiges of the thoughtful skaven disappeared. A great warrior stood before Queek.

‘Queek is the best!’ Queek slammed his fist against his armour. ‘Queek kill the most-much beard-things! And then,’ said Queek, becoming wily, ‘Queek get elixir, so Queek not get old-fast and Queek kill-slay more for Lord Gnawdwell?’

Gnawdwell sank back into himself, the fires going out of him. His face reassumed its expression of arrogant calm. ‘That is all, Queek. Go-go now. Return to the City of Pillars and finish the war there once and for all. Then you will march upon many-beard-thing Big Mountain-place.’

‘But-but,’ said Queek. ‘Gnawdwell say…’

‘Go, Queek. Go now and slay for Clan Mors. You are right – Queek is the greatest. Now show it to the world.’ He retreated into the shadows away from the map, towards an exit at the back of the room. A troop of giant, albino skaven, even bigger than the guards of the outer gate and clad in black-lacquered armour, thundered out of garrison burrows either side of Gnawdwell’s exit, forming a living wall between Queek and his master. They came to a halt, breathing hard, stinking of hostility.

Queek scurried over to them. They lowered their halberds. Queek vaulted over the weapons and landed right in front of the white-furs.

‘Queek is the greatest,’ he hissed in their faces. ‘I kill white-fur guards before. How many white-fur guards Queek kill before white-furs kill Queek?’ whispered Queek. He was gratified by a faint whiff of fear. ‘But Queek not kill white-furs. Queek busy! Queek will do as Lord Gnawdwell commands.’ He screech-squeaked over the heads of the unmoving guards, turned upon his heels and strode out.

Skarsnik, the King under the Mountains, looked out over the greenskin shanty town filling the dwarf surface city. In ruined streets, between ramshackle huts of wood and hide, raucous orcs drank and fought one another. Goblins squealed and tittered. On the slopes of scree studded with broken statuary, snotlings gambolled, throwing stones at passing greenskins, oblivious to the cold that turned their noses pink.

Autumn was halfway through, and the first flakes of the year’s snow already drifted on the wind.

Skarsnik shivered and pulled his wolf pelt closer about him. He was old now – how old he wasn’t quite sure, for goblins took less care in reckoning the years than men or dwarfs did. But he felt age as surely as he felt the grip of Gork and Mork on his destiny. He felt it in his bandy legs, in his creaking knees and hips. His skin was gnarled and scabbed, thick as tree bark, and he leaned more often on his famous prodder for support than he would have liked. His giant cave squig, Gobbla, snuffled about around his feet, equally aged. Patches of his skin had turned a pinkish-grey, for he was almost as old as his master.

Skarsnik wondered how long he had left. It was ironic, he thought, that after years of wondering whether it would be a skaven blade or dwarf axe that finished him, it would be neither. Time was the enemy no one could fight.

In truth, no one knew how old a goblin could get because they did not usually last that long. Most of them would not even consider dying of old age. Skarsnik considered lots of unusual things because Skarsnik was no ordinary goblin, and what went on in his head would have been entirely alien to other greenskins. Lately, old age had occupied Skarsnik’s thoughts a lot.

‘Must be fifty winters and more I seen. Fifty!’ he cackled. ‘And here’s another come on again. Still, stunty, I reckon I got another few to come.’ Skarsnik was all alone on the balcony, save for a couple of mangy skaven skins and several dwarf heads in various states of decay, spiked along the broken balustrade. It was to his favourite, its eyes long ago pecked out, skin desiccated black in the dry mountain air, nose rotted away, that he addressed his words. A sorry-looking head, but even in death it had a magnificent beard. Skarsnik liked to stroke it when no one was looking. ‘Duffskul’s still knocking about, and he’s well older than me.’

He grumbled and spat, muttering thoughts that not one of his underlings would understand, and drew his long chin into his stinking furs.

‘What a bleeding mess, eh, stunty? Them zogging ratties done driven me out of me stunty-house. I am not happy about that, no, not one little bitty bit.’

He looked forlornly at the ruinous gatehouse marking the grand entry to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars, heart of the first of Karak Eight Peaks’s many deeps. ‘Once upon a time, stunty, that was mine. And everything under it. Not any more. On the other side of the great doors I won one of me greatest victories, and the stunty-house was me kingdom for dozens of levels down. Think about that, eh? Kept hold of it longer than your lot did, I reckon!’ His laugh turned into a hacking cough. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His next words came out all raspy. ‘Gobboes, beat them all and sorted them out. Ratties. Beat them, and then I beat them, and then I blew them up, drowned them and beat ’em some more. Stunties came back. Beat them too,’ said Skarsnik wistfully, looking across at the citadel that dominated the heart of the city. ‘Look at that will you, stunty! That’s all your king’s got. Nuffink. I’m the king around here. I am. Right?’

He paused. The dwarf’s beard stirred in the wind. Fat, wet flakes of snow splatted against its taut skin. It was coming down thicker, and the temperature was dropping.

‘Well, I’m glad you agree.’

Not that that changed anything. Skarsnik was still dispossessed, and he was not happy about it. He watched another tribe of greenskins straggling into orctown from the west gate. His eyes narrowed, calculating. They were weedy little ’uns, worn by hard travels. Within seconds of coming into the gate they were rapidly set upon by orcs and bigger goblins, who stole everything they had, leaving them naked and shivering in the cold. ‘Always more where they came from,’ whispered Skarsnik. ‘Always more.’

‘Ahem!’ A high-pitched cough demanded Skarsnik’s attention. Behind him, standing ramrod straight, was his herald, pointy hood standing as diligently to attention as its owner.

‘What you want, Grazbok?’ said Skarsnik, squinting at the small goblin. The sky was overcast, brilliant grey with pending snow, and the glare of it hurt his eyes. ‘You keep sneaking up on me like that, I’ll have to send you out scouting for ratties. And you,’ he said, kicking Gobbla in the side with a leathery thwap, ‘are losing your touch.’

Gobbla snuffled and waddled off, the chain connecting him to Skarsnik’s leg rattling as he licked scraps of dried dwarf flesh from the floor. Grazbok gave Skarsnik a sidelong look that suggested he was going to make more noise next time.

‘Your highnessness,’ the herald squeaked, ‘I have da great Griff Kruggler here to sees ya!’

Skarsnik’s lips split in a wide grin, yellow as the moon talismans dangling from his pointy hat. ‘Kruggs, eh? Send him up! Send him up!’

Kruggler was a long time coming up the steps from the halls under the Howlpeak. A pained wheezing came first, followed by the click of unsteady claws on stone.

Skarsnik’s eyes widened as Kruggler came out into the pale day upon the back of a staggering wolf. He had become fat. Enormously, disgustingly fat. His wolf mount gasped under him as it heaved itself up onto the balcony. Kruggler swung his leg over its back – with some difficulty – and slid to the flagstones. The wolf let out a huff of relief, dragged itself off into a corner and collapsed.

‘Been a long time, boss,’ said Kruggler.

Skarsnik took in the rolls of flab, the massive hat and the greasy gold trinkets festooning his underling.

‘What the zog happened to you?’

Kruggler was abashed. ‘Well, you know, living’s been good…’

‘You is almost as fat as that… what was he called? That boss. That one I killed of yours?’

‘Makiki, the Great Grizzler-Griff.’

‘Yeah! Only thing great about him was his size.’ Skarsnik laughed at his own joke. Kruggler just looked puzzled. Skarsnik scowled at his confusion. Trouble was, Skarsnik was a lot brighter than every other greenskin he’d ever met. It was depressing. ‘Gah, suit yerself. How you been?’

Kruggler pulled a face. ‘Not good, boss, to tell da truth.’

‘And there you was saying living was good.’

Kruggler looked confused. ‘Well, I did, er – well, it was, boss, it was. But things… well, they is not no good no more.’

‘What do you mean? Look at all these greenies come to join the Waaagh! Good times, Kruggs, good times. Soon there’ll be enough to kick the ratties out and take back the upper halls!’

Kruggs gave him a puzzled look.

‘Stop looking so zogging thick, Kruggs! Did I make an idiot king of all the Badlands wolf tribes?’

‘Well, er, no, boss, but…’

‘Go on, go on, spit it out!’

‘Well, I said things is no good,’ said Kruggler anguishedly. ‘I mean it! Dead things everywhere, fighting each other. Dwarfs on the march, fire mountains spitting fire and such. And the ratties, boss. The ratties is all over the place! I ain’t see so many, not ever. They’s taking over the stunty-houses, all of ’em, and not just a few. They’s slaughtering the tribes wherever they find ’em. Something big’s happening, something–’

Skarsnik was nose to nose with Kruggler before the plains goblin realised he’d moved. Skarsnik’s sour breath washed over his face.

‘Careful there, Kruggs. Don’t want you starting to bang on about the end of the world. Had a bit too much of that kind of talk lately from a few too many of the lads. Everything’s going on as normal here. We fight the rats, the rats fight the stunties, the stunties fight us, got it?’

Kruggler made a funny noise in his throat. ‘Got it, boss.’

‘Good.’ Skarsnik turned away from his vassal. ‘So what’s you saying then, Kruggs? You think they’s going to come here too? Better not, because they’ll have old Skarsnik to deal with and I–’ He coughed mightily. The fit held him for a minute, his hunchback shoulders shaking with it. Kruggler looked around, his tiny goblin mind torn between helping his boss, stabbing him, and wondering if there was anyone that could see him do either. Paralysed by indecision, he just stood and watched.

Skarsnik hawked up a gob of stringy phlegm and spat it onto a skaven hide rotting on a frame. ‘Because if they do, they’ll have me to deal with, and I ain’t no bleeding stunty! Anyways, look at all them. They’s come here to help me. They hears I’m the baddest and the bestest. Old Belegar and his mates up there in his stupid tower might have done for old Rotgut, but he can’t get me, can he? No zogging ratty or stunty is kicking me out of these mountains, you hear? You hear!’

He shouted loudly, his nasal voice echoing from the ruins of the dwarf surface city. Orcs and goblins looked up at him. Some cheered, some jeered. Some wandered off, uncaring.

‘See, with this lot coming to join da Waaagh! I’ll kick them ratties out and take it all back for good.’

Skarsnik had, of course, said this many, many times before. But it never happened. The balance of power between the greenskins and skaven swung backwards and forwards viciously; sometimes the goblins had the upper hand, sometimes the skaven – sometimes the stunties stuck their beards in for good measure. So it had been for time immemorial. But lately that had been changing. Skarsnik would never have admitted it to anyone but Gobbla, but each time he was victorious, he was able to hold less of the city, and for shorter periods of time.

‘But, boss! Boss!’ said a dismayed Kruggler. Cowardice nearly made him stop, but his loyalty to Skarsnik ran deep. He was one of the few who could tell the warlord what he didn’t want to hear. At least that’s how it’d been in the old days, and he really hoped it was that way still because he couldn’t stop himself. He plunged on, gabbling faster as his panic built. ‘They’re not here to help you, boss. They ain’t here for no Waaagh! That’s what I’m trying to tell you, boss.’

Skarsnik’s prodder swung round and was pointed at Kruggler’s face. Green light glinted along its three prongs. His expression became vicious. ‘There you go again! What do you mean? End of the world is it, Kruggs, because if you keeps it up, it will be for you.’

Kruggler held his hands up. He leaned back from the prodder so far his boss helmet slipped from his head to clang on the floor. ‘I means, boss, they is coming here because they knows you is here and you is da best.’

‘Exactly, exactly!’ said Skarsnik. He put the prodder up and nodded with satisfaction.

‘Yeah, boss. Yeah,’ said Kruggler with relief. ‘You is the cleverest. I knew you’d be clever and see.’ He came to stand next to Skarsnik and looked out. He smiled idiotically. ‘They isn’t coming here to fight. They think you can protect them! They is running away.’

Kruggler realised what he had said and clapped his hands over his mouth, but the fight had gone out of Skarsnik. He was staring out into the thickening snow at something Kruggler could not see.

‘We’ll see about that, we’ll see,’ he said sullenly.

The upper deeps of Karak Eight Peaks were heaving with warm fur. Every corner, every cranny, from the Trench at the very bottom to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars once inhabited by Skarsnik and his lackeys. The noise of so many ratmen’s squeaks and pattering feet close together merged into a sussuration so pervasive the very rocks seemed to be speaking with skaven voices.

Within the Hall of a Thousand Pillars, atop the pinnacle that had once housed the dwarf king’s throne, and for fifty years until recently that of Skarsnik, Queek inspected the first clawpack of the warhost of Clan Mors, and he was not happy about it.

Queek paced up and down as block after block after block of skaven marched out of the tunnels around the base of the soaring throne pinnacle, wove their way through the forest of pillars and went back out again, banners waving, their leaders proudly bringing up the rear.

‘How long this going to take? Queek bored,’ said Queek. ‘This boring!’

Thaxx Redclaw twitched his armoured neck, briefly exposing a patch of fur at his throat. He was the leader of the first clawpack, and appointed ruler of the City of Pillars in Queek’s absence. With such overlap between their roles, Thaxx felt especially vulnerable. ‘Great and deadly Queek, you are best and most perspicacious general! A cunning and mighty war-leader such as the incomparable Queek would want to inspect-smell troops?’ Thaxx nodded eagerly, inviting agreement. He received a cold stare.

‘There are many,’ added Warlord Skrikk, Queek’s supposed right claw. ‘How glorious for your gloriousness to feast nose and eye on such an army, all gathered solely for you, O great and deadly, violent Queek!’

‘Dull! Boring! Queek see hundreds of thousands of millions of skaven in his life,’ snapped Queek. ‘They all the same. Furry faces, pink noses. Some die, all die. There are always more. What need mighty Queek see all rat-faces?’

Thaxx snickered and bobbed his head, a poor attempt to hide his fear. The other clanlords atop the dais, out of Queek’s sight, backed away until they ran into Queek’s Red Guard and the massive body of Queek’s chief lieutenant, Ska Bloodtail. He stared down at them and shook his head.

‘But mighty Queek, O most cunning and stabby of all ratkin, how will stupid warrior-things know how to follow mighty Queek’s orders if glorious warlord is not there? See how their faces look upon your most awesome countenance with fear and, er, awe,’ said Thaxx.

‘You speak-squeak badly, Thaxx. Too long running this city without mighty Queek to keep you in your place. All things scared of Queek! Why is this useful for Queek to see-smell what he already knows?’

Skrikk and Thaxx glanced at each other.

‘There are questions of strategy and disposition, great fierce one,’ ventured Warlord Skrikk.

‘Oh? Oh? Strategy and disposition for Queek. Forgive ignorant Queek for asking, what use is there for you in this case?’ said Queek. ‘Gnawdwell say you Queek’s right claw.’ Queek narrowed his eyes. ‘Gnawdwell write-say “Take Skrikk! He your right claw!” Queek says he already has right claw. It good for holding Dwarf Gouger!’ He held up his paw and clenched it. ‘And Queek has Ska! Loyal, good Ska! So, Queek has two right claws. One for Dwarf Gouger, one for punching enemies. But Gnawdwell order Queek needs another right claw, so Queek obey. Queek think, maybe Skrikk good! Maybe Skrikk good for boring things, boring things that tire Queek and make him angry. Boring things like counting skaven clanrats.’ He leaned in close to the clanlords and twisted his head to regard them one at a time, causing them both to flinch. ‘But now Skrikk squeak-says, “Queek must think strategy!” What? Queek fight. Queek command. Queek does not count stupid-meat.’

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.

Queek, Ska and Queek’s Red Guard jogged upwards. The din of the fifth clawpack mustering in the Trench was amplified by the tunnel, hurting their sensitive ears. Time and distance diminished it, until the trumpets and stamping of feet joined with all the other mysterious echoes that haunted the City of Pillars, and they found they could talk again.

‘This not good-good,’ said Queek to Ska. The latter ran as fast as his master, but his great size – for he was a giant among his kind, as tall as a tall man, and bigger than the mighty Gnawdwell himself – made him seem plodding next to Queek’s swift movements.

‘No, great Queek,’ said Ska.

‘Thaxx and Skrikk sneaky-sneaks. Not like good and loyal Ska.’

‘Thank you, great Queek.’ Ska had fought by Queek’s side for many years and was of a similar age. Where his arms were visible between his plates of scavenged gromril, his black fur was spotted with patches of brilliant white. Many battles had left their mark upon his face in a pattern of pink scars. One of his ears had been torn off. Already intimidating, he was made fearsome by his war wounds.

They passed onto a wide dwarf-built way. Once a feeder road for the lower mines, it led directly back to the lower levels of the skaven stronghold. Even there, there was little space left, most of the width of the road taken up by sleeping clanrats atop unfolded nesting rolls. From top to bottom, Karak Eight Peaks heaved with vermin. They ran along this for a quarter of a mile, kicking skaven out of the way, then turned into a lesser-used tunnel.

‘If white-fur here, much scheming. Queek hate tittle-tattle squeak plots! Queek only wish to fight.’ He gnawed at his lower lip as he thought. ‘Send-bring me Grotoose, leader of Clan Moulder here, and master assassin Gritch of Clan Eshin. Queek question them both. I find out who behind this, who try to trick Queek.’ He squeaked with annoyance. ‘Queek happier if Queek bury Dwarf Gouger in Kranskritt’s stupid horned head.’

‘That is not a good idea, great Queek,’ said Ska cautiously.

‘Stupid giant-meat Ska! Queek know this! Queek make joke! Queek only wish for sim–’

A tremendous rumble cut their conversation dead. The roof caved in, and a tumble of boulders rushed from the ceiling, clacking one atop the other until they filled the way. Ska pushed Queek aside, but his Red Guard were not so lucky. They squealed in pain and fear as three of them were crushed, and the rest cut off from their master.

Queek rolled with Ska’s shove and was back on his footpaws instantly, sniffing the air. Fear musk, blood, the sharp scent of rock dust, registered on his sensitive nose.

‘Where Ska?’

‘Here, mighty Queek!’ said his henchman from the ground. He lay with his feet trapped by rocks.

‘Ska better not be hurt – big rat with crushed feet no good to Queek!’

Ska grunted. ‘I am not hurt, only trapped. I will dig myself– Queek! Look out!’

Queek was moving before Ska had finished squeaking. He somersaulted backwards as three razored blurs sliced through the air where he had been standing – throwing stars, which clanged from the rock fall leaving smears of bitter-smelling poison on the raw stone.

Queek landed sure-footedly on a boulder. He drew his weapons as he leapt, pushing himself off with his back paws and tail. Ahead of him, a black shape detached itself from the tunnel wall. Its cloak was patterned to match the stone and no name-scent came from it. An assassin. They had their glands removed as part of their initiation. Only they among the skaven carried no smell.

‘Die-die!’ squealed Queek. He landed in front of the assassin, who promptly flipped backwards, hurling two more stars from quick paws at the apex of his jump. Queek’s sword moved left then right, sparking as it deflected the missiles. Queek jumped after his attacker, bounding on all fours, the knuckles of his clenched fists hitting the floor painfully. The assassin turned to face him, brandishing a pair of daggers that wept a deadly venom.

Queek lashed his tail from side to side, aiming to wrap it around the assassin’s ankle, but the killer stepped over it as easily as if it were a jumping rope and came in, daggers weaving. Queek parried rapidly, his and the assassin’s blades making a network of steel between the skaven. Ska watched his master helplessly, moaning and tugging desperately at his feet. Metal sparked and rang. Suddenly, it stopped.

The assassin’s arms sagged, his blades fell to the tunnel floor. Queek dropped Dwarf Gouger and grabbed the assassin by the throat. He struggled feebly in Queek’s grip, his pathetic choking noises making Queek smile until they stopped.

The assassin’s body followed his daggers to the floor as Queek withdrew his sword from his chest.

‘Stupid-meat! No one beat Queek! Queek the best!’ He licked his sword clean with a long pink tongue, working out chunks of gore from its serrated edge with his gnawing teeth. He smacked his lips and frowned at his friend. ‘What Ska doing there, lying around? Lazy Ska! Come-come! Help Red Guard dig through. Hurry-scurry.’

‘Yes, great Queek,’ said Ska resignedly, and recommenced tugging at the lumps of rock trapping his legs.

Morrslieb loomed, bigger than it had ever been, peering over Karag Nar like a glutton eyeing a honey cake. Sickly light shed from its mournful face reflected from the snow, painting the world a disturbing green.

‘As you see,’ said Drakki Throngton, loremaster of Vala-Azrilungol, ‘the Chaos moon waxes huge, my lord.’

‘What does this all mean?’ whispered Belegar. ‘Other than it’s got bigger,’ he said sharply, remembering Drakki’s endless lectures on precise speech during his youth.

‘I do not know,’ admitted Drakki sorrowfully. His breath misted his half-moon spectacles in the cold night air. ‘All I can do is check the measurements of our ancestors against our own observations.’

‘And?’ said Belegar.

‘Technically, my lord?’

‘Aye! Technically. I’m no beardling.’

‘I apologise, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘Well, see here.’ He flopped open a book over his forearm. The moonlight, cursed though it was, was ample illumination for a dwarf to read by. ‘The Chaos moon waxes and wanes according to its own whim. Sometimes there is a pattern, often there is not. It has grown larger and smaller in the past.’ He licked an ink-stained finger and flicked back a couple of hundred pages, two centuries’ worth of measurements. The handwriting was the same as in the recent pages. Drakki was old. ‘Such as here. That was when it was at its largest.’

Belegar glanced up from the page. ‘The years of the Great War Against Chaos.’

‘Indeed, my king.’

‘And the numbers?’

‘Well, my liege. There we have the most troubling news. These indicate that this is the largest it has ever been. Diameter, illumination, frequency of transit…’ His voice trailed away. ‘All higher numbers even than during the Great War.’

‘Hmph,’ said Belegar. He leaned against the parapet. In the city in the Great Vale, greenskin campfires burned insolently. ‘And what if I were to request the non-technical version?’

Drakki shut the book with finality. ‘Then I would say we were in a great deal of trouble, my liege. And not just us. Everybody.’

‘Now that’s putting it mildly,’ said Belegar. He drummed his fingers on the stone. ‘I’ve had requests, from the other holds, asking for their warriors back. Even, would you credit it, from High King Thorgrim.’

‘Yes, my liege.’

‘What kind of world is it, where even a dwarf can’t keep his word any more? A few weeks ago I was up here with Notrigar, winding him up.’

‘Oh, he is a little on the sparse-chinned side when it comes to recognising a good joshing, sire,’ said Drakki, his aged face crinkling with mirth.

‘That he is,’ said Belegar, no humour in his voice at all. ‘But I don’t feel it now. I look out at this place, Drakki, and all I can see is my dream slipping through my fingers.’

‘We will prevail, sire.’

‘That’s what I told Notrigar.’ Belegar huffed. The breath strained through his frosty beard to break free in clouds. ‘We do what we can. We’re as fortified as we can be. All we can do is wait for them, because as sure as gold is in the ground and khazukan crave it, they are coming. The only question is when.’

They looked out over the vale for a while, until a rumbling from the earth had them both casting their eyes downwards. Fragments of stone jumped like frogs from shelf to shelf on the outside of the citadel, click-clacking all the way down. A louder grumble took up with the first, then another and another, all eight mountains ringing the city protesting the failures of the world, sorrowful as longbeards deep in their ale. The ground convulsed, once, then again. The grating of stone on stone from the city told of ruins collapsing.

Belegar and Drakki swayed, their flat dwarfish feet keeping them upright. Alarms went off up and down the citadel, horns and clanging triangles.

‘Earthquake! Earthquake!’ dwarfs shouted.

The citadel’s masonry ground block on block, sending showers of ancient mortar down on the dwarf king, but the dwarfs were wise to the ways of the earth and built accordingly. The citadel did not fall. Hammerers ran to his side, pitched across the wavering battlements like sailors on a stone ship. ‘Protect the king! Protect the king!’ their leader, Brok Gandsson, bellowed. Shield rims clacked into one another as the dwarfs formed a barrier of gromril and steel to shelter their lord, half of them angling their shields upwards over his head. Fragments of masonry bounced off them.

‘Get back! I’m no beardling frightened by a little shiver,’ Belegar shouted, shoving at his protectors. They stood solid as the stones themselves.

‘Not until this is over, my king,’ said Brok.

The earthquake went on for long minutes, dying only gradually. Belegar waited under the shield roof while the earth gave one more heave. No more aftershocks came, and he shoved his men aside. Drakki followed him from the knot of hammerers.

A wind, unnaturally hot, stirred their beards, the runes on their weapons pulsing with blue light as it ran over them. Out in the ruins came the clamour of panicking orcs and goblins.

‘My lord, look!’ Drakki was pointing south. The winter skies were stained orange by distant fire. ‘Karag Haraz is erupting most fiercely.’

A distant boom rolled over the mountains, reflected from every rock face, until it seemed they clamoured in despair. Far to the north, more flamelight tainted the sky, colouring the high vaults of night.

‘And Karag Dronn,’ said Belegar.

‘They have been spouting fire for long months now, but these latest eruptions must be immense, if we can see them from here,’ said Drakki, unconsciously reaching for a notepad to mark the phenomenon down. ‘Karag Dronn is over one hundred leagues away.’

‘If they both speak, then doubtless Karag Orrud and the Karag Dum do.’

‘And east,’ said Drakki quietly. A gentle aftershock shook the ground, causing the hammerers to tense again. Drakki nodded to the eastern night sky. A haze of red coloured it as far as they could see from north to south.

‘Grungni’s beard,’ Belegar said. ‘All of them?’ The others remained silent. Such troubles from deep in the earth had brought the Karaz Ankor to its knees in the distant past and heralded the beginning of the dwarfs’ long decline. Nobody needed reminding of that.

‘Is it over, loremaster?’ asked Brok.

‘There will be further small earthquakes, but I expect the strongest have passed, for now.’ He looked to the Chaos moon, crowding its once larger brother from the sky. ‘There must be some connection. And if it continues to grow, there may be worse to come.’

Belegar nodded curtly. ‘Messengers!’ he called. Several lightly armoured dwarfs appeared from inside. ‘Get yourselves down into the first deep. I want to know of every stone out of place, do you understand?’

‘Yes, my liege,’ they all said.

‘It would be our bloody luck if that lot brought down some of our defences. If there are any casualties, Valaya forfend, you let me know.’

The messengers ran off, heavy boots clumping down the winding stairs leading down from the parapet into the citadel.

‘Something’s coming, very soon. If this doesn’t–’

A sky-shattering explosion tore through the night. The face of Karag Nar leapt outwards with surreal slowness, long cloudy trails of rock dust puffing up like flour from a burst sack. The ruined fortress upon its shoulder tumbled down like a town made of model bricks pushed over by a child, the finely cut dwarf masonry becoming one with the tumble of broken rock racing down the mountain’s flanks. Belegar watched open-mouthed as debris arced towards him.

Belegar was unceremoniously shoved to the flagstones of the wall-walk by his guards. This time he did not order them back. Pebbles rattled off gromril armour, the heavier stones that came tumbling soon after eliciting grunts from the hammerers covering the king. More explosions boomed, these muffled by depth.

A rain of boulders slammed down into the city, levelling whole districts. Avalanches of rock poured off the flanks of the mountains, burying further sections.

Silence was a long time coming.

Belegar’s hammerers jumped up, hauling the dazed king to his feet. They attempted to hustle him back inside, calling for more of his bodyguard. Belegar was filled with rage and shoved their hands away. He went to the edge of the parapet to see what had been done to his kingdom, ignoring their cries for him to be careful, to get inside.

A choking mist of pulverised rock hung over the Great Vale, biting the throats of everyone who breathed of it. Caught by the wind, it drifted away like rain, to reveal a scene of utter devastation presided over by the grinning moon.

Three of the eight mountains bore wounds in their sides. Karag Nar’s eastern face had slumped inwards, while Karag Rhyn had collapsed into a broad fan of rubble, its height reduced by a half.

Belegar stared out in disbelief. Behind him, his hammerers formed up, but none dared approach the king.

When he turned to face them, a tear tracked down one dusty cheek.

‘The mountains. They have killed the mountains.’

‘That was no earthquake,’ said Drakki, blood from a cut on his forehead making red tracks in his dust-whitened face.

Horns sounded again, this time from inside the citadel, answering others blown in the first deep. Belegar clenched his fist.

‘Thaggoraki,’ he said. ‘It is starting.’

‘Another war,’ said Drakki.

‘No,’ said Belegar, pitching his voice low enough that only Drakki and Brok could hear. ‘The beginning of the end.’

Horns sang all over the dwarf-held part of Karak Eight Peaks, echoing down corridors and up forgotten shafts, so that it was impossible to tell where they were coming from.

‘That’s the signal! Here they come, lads!’ cried Borrik Norrgrimsson. His ironbreakers, Norrgrimlings all, held their shields up and locked them together, awaiting the arrival of the ratmen.

‘It’s about time the thaggoraki got here,’ growled Hafnir Hafnirsson, Borrik’s second cousin. ‘I’m eager to split a few heads.’

‘We’ve been standing in this hall for two months waiting for this lot. I’m sure we can hang on for a few more minutes,’ said the Norrgrimlings’ notoriously miserable Ironbeard, Gromley. ‘Now shut up, or you’ll put the thane off. He’s on to something.’

Borrik kept a careful eye on all three entrances to the Hall of Reckoning. Two dwarf-made stairwells leading down into the enemy-infested second deep, and a massive pit, gnawed by some unspeakable thing, gaped in the middle of the floor. Not goblin work, or Borrik was an umgi. Other places gave him cause for concern. He had a keen eye for tunnelling, Borrik, and had spent a goodly amount of time tapping at the walls with variously sized hammers. There were more tunnels behind the walls, some of them worryingly new. And if there was one thing ‘new’ meant to dwarfs, it was trouble.

When Belegar assigned him to the hall, he had examined every inch thoroughly. Four hundred and one half-dwarf paces long, part of a broad thoroughfare that once ran east-west through the first deep to join with the Ungdrin Ankor. Blocked at both ends by rock falls, it would have been of little concern, save one thing. The fall at Borrik’s end was pierced by a narrow gap, shored up by a failed expedition many centuries ago. At the other end, in a chamber hacked out of the loose rubble, was a steel-bound door that led into another passageway. This in turn led to the lower parts of the citadel. The door of Bar-Undak was its name, a messenger’s access way to the Ungdrin in happier days. Now, in Borrik’s seasoned opinion, a bloody liability. Belegar had been determined to keep the hall open, it being one of the more easily defensible ways into the deeps. So it stayed open, as did thirty-nine other ways, thought Borrik grimly. Thirty-nine. Sometimes the king was a real wazzok.

In this tunnel, the Axes of Norr were arranged, two dozen in all, their front rank of ten flush with the low entrance. Seven irondrakes – the Forgefuries – were ranged in front of them.

‘If Belegar has one fault, it’s optimism,’ he grumbled to his banner bearer, Grunnir Stonemaster.

‘Aye,’ said Grunnir, his eyes fixed like Borrik’s on the arched stairwells leading into the hall. ‘Like you, my lord, I find anything other than healthy cynicism in a dwarf entirely unnatural. But I’ll say this, what other trait would lead a dwarf to try to retake Karak Eight Peaks? There’s a lot to be said for bloody-mindedness. I thought you of all people could respect that.’

‘If it had been down to me, I would have blocked off this tunnel long since. As I’ve said to the king a dozen times…’

Grunnir rolled his eyes. He’d heard this opinion a lot recently. Borrik wasn’t one to let a point lie.

‘…ever since Skarsnik’s grobi got pushed out of the upper levels two years gone–’

‘It’s been obvious the thaggoraki are planning something,’ said Grunnir, finishing his thane’s words for him, so often had he heard them before. ‘You’re not the king, Borrik. And you and me and all the rest of us followed him here, didn’t we, you grumbaki?’

‘So? I’ve every right to grumble.’

‘As has every dwarf with a beard as long as yours, cousin. My point is that we all share Belegar’s fault – if it is a fault – in being here at all. So it’s not really his fault, is it?’

Borrik sniffed. There was no arguing with that. He was quiet a moment. ‘I’d still have sealed this tunnel off, mind.’

‘Oh, give it a rest, would you?’ said Grunnir. Borrik raised his eyebrows. ‘Thane,’ added Grunnir.

‘That’s better,’ said Borrik.

There was so much history around them. Ancestor faces at the top of the stairways told of Vala-Azrilungol’s glory days. The rock falls recalled its weakening and downfall, the marks of the mason who had chiselled out the tunnel they now defended harked back to one of the many doomed attempts to reclaim it, while the gaping, tooth-gnawed pit before them told them all who Karak Eight Peaks’s real masters were now.

A hideous chittering echoed up out of the dark.

‘Right, that’s it, here they come,’ said Borrik. ‘Ready, lads!’

A musty draught blew up from the tunnels.

‘By Grimnir’s axe, there must be a lot of them,’ said Grunnir, flapping his hand in front of his face. ‘I can smell them from here!’

Hafnir grinned. ‘There’s always a lot of them, but it doesn’t matter how many, because we’re here. One hundred or a million of them, they’ll not get past!’

‘Aye!’ shouted the lads.

Stone-deadened explosions sounded down the stairs, sending a brief, fiercer breeze washing over the dwarfs that smelt of gun smoke, sundered rock and blood.

‘That’ll be the traps, then,’ said Hafnir. Grim chuckles echoed from gromril helms.

More explosions sounded, closer now. Any other attacking army might have been discouraged, but the skaven were numberless and were never put off. Borrik hoped they’d killed a lot anyway.

The first skaven spilled into the room, eyes wild with fear. They were scrawny, badly armed if at all, mouths foaming. They saw the dwarfs in their corner. The front rank hesitated but were pushed on, those attempting to go against the tide falling under the paws of their fellows.

‘Typical,’ said Borrik, indicating the rusted manacles and trailing chains of the lead skaven with a nod of his head. ‘Slave rats. They’re going to try and wear us down.’

‘Don’t they always?’ said Grunnir.

‘Just once, it’d be nice to go straight to the main course,’ moaned Gromley.

‘In your own time, lads,’ said Borrik, nodding at Tordrek Firespite, the Norrgrimlings’ Ironwarden leader. The Forgefuries levelled their weapons. The skaven scurried forwards, forced on by the mass of ratkin boiling up out of the depths. The far side of the chamber was a mass of mangy fur, crazed eyes, twitching noses and yellow chisel teeth.

‘Fire!’ said Tordrek.

Thick blasts of searing energy shot out of the Forgefuries’ guns, punching through skaven and sending them sprawling back into the mob. The fallen disappeared under their scurrying colleagues. Many fell into the hole in the centre, forced over the edge by the surging press; others stumbled and were crushed underfoot.

‘Fire!’ cried Tordrek again. Once more the irondrakes spoke, misting the air with gunsmoke.

‘Fire!’ he said one more time. The entire front rank of the skaven horde had been smashed, but thousands more came on behind them.

‘That’s close enough. Part ranks!’ shouted Borrik. The dwarf ironbreaker’s formation opened up like a clockwork automaton, allowing the Forgefuries to slip through to the back. They went unhurriedly into the small chamber around the door of Bar-Undak, as if there weren’t a numberless pack of crazed thaggoraki snapping at their heels.

‘Close ranks!’ bellowed Borrik. The gromril-clad dwarfs slid back together, presenting their shields as the first skaven hit home.

The skavenslaves were slight creatures, no bigger than grobi and less heavily built. The wave of them crashed feebly upon the shield wall. Rusty blades and rotten spears broke on impenetrable gromril. More and more skaven piled in from behind, pinning the arms of the foremost, crushing the air out of their lungs. The dwarfs stolidly pushed back, unmoved by the immense pressure. The skaven trapped at the front snapped at the dwarfs, shattering their teeth on armour. The dwarfs responded by swinging their axes, chopping the foe down with every swing. They could not miss. Behind the shield wall it was surprisingly peaceful, as if the dwarfs waited out a storm battering the windows of a comfortable tavern.

‘This is too easy,’ grunted Kaggi Blackbeard, hewing down his fourteenth skaven.

‘Aye, but how long can we keep it up?’ said Hafnir. ‘How long will your muscles hold? This is not a contest of arms, but one of arms!’ he laughed.

‘I’m just getting warmed up,’ said Kaggi. ‘And save your puns for when you’ve a better one, Hafnir.’

Desperate claws scrabbled over the shields held over the front rank by those in the back, as a slave forced itself through the narrow gap between shields and tunnel ceiling.

‘Oi! Oi! Up top!’ shouted Grunnir. The skavenslave dropped down behind the back rank. It brandished a knife, realised where it was, vented the foulest stink and was promptly chopped down for its troubles.

‘Woohoo! Smell that! It’s like Albok’s been at the chuf again!’ said Kardak Kardaksandrison.

‘You want to be up front,’ said Hafnir. ‘Fear stink. It’s all over me shield.’

‘It’ll take an age to clean off,’ said Gromley miserably. ‘You mark my words. Don’t get any of that muck in your beard or you’ll run out of water before you ever get it out.’

‘Here comes another!’ warned Hafnir.

A second and third skaven scrambled over the shields, more intent on getting away from the crush than fighting. They found no escape. One was hewed down in midair, the other gut-barged by Tordrek and stamped to death by the Forgefuries.

The floor became slippery with spilt blood, but the surefooted dwarfs barely noticed. The skaven were not so lucky, skidding over in the viscera of their slaughtered littermates.

‘Pressure’s easing off!’ shouted Hafnir. The proof of his words came as more rotting spears and rusting blades battered against the shield wall as the skaven found room to move.

‘Ready,’ ordered Borrik. ‘Prepare to advance!’

The dwarfs in the front pulled their shields in tighter, while those at the back lowered them from over the front rank’s heads.

‘Forward!’ said Borrik. ‘Deep formation!’

Swinging their axes, the Axes of Norr stepped forwards, mowing down skaven. As they advanced, they smoothly rearranged their formation, so that they were arranged into a block four dwarfs deep and five wide, the thane at the front in the middle. Shields overlapped to the fronts and sides, making them a walking fortress of gromril and thickset dwarfish limbs.

‘Charge!’ yelled Borrik.

‘Gand dammaz! Az baraz! Norrgrimsson-za!’ The dwarfs shouted the ancient war cry of their clan, and broke into a stately jog. They were not fast, but when they hit they were unstoppable. The skaven parted in front of them, scrabbling over each other to get out of the way. The Axes of Norr ploughed on. The stink of terrified skaven became overpowering, that sweet, old-straw smell of rodent urine mixed with something stronger and far more acrid.

Almost as one, the remaining rats broke and fled. Borrik and his ironbreakers pursued them, still in formation, as far as the pit in the centre of the chamber.

‘Halt!’ cried Borrik. ‘Forgefuries!’

Blazing bolts of energy seared past the dwarfish block, cutting down fleeing ratmen. The skaven tore at each other in their haste to escape, ripping their comrades to pieces. Many were pushed into the hole, or leapt into its fathomless depths in blind panic. Another volley went booming past. The skaven poured back down the stairwells.

And shortly came running back out again, the fleeing, terrified rats who had just exited the room driven back into it by a fresh legion of skavenslaves.

‘They’re coming again,’ shouted Hafnir.

‘They always come again, lad,’ said Kaggi.

‘Pull back, lads. Back to the tunnel!’

The dwarf formation halted and reversed, faces always to the enemy, pulping the corpses of their foes under weighty dwarf boots. Once in the tunnel mouth, they held their ground again.

One more time the dwarfs rushed out. One more time the skaven were cast back. The fighting went on for hours, until the last assault broke, and the skaven fled. Borrik had his panting ironbreakers rest, ordering Tordrek forward with his irondrakes.

That time, the skaven did not come again. The ironbreakers rotated their shoulders and worked aching muscles, complaining loudly that they had not enjoyed proper exercise before the skaven fled. They broke out pieces of stonebread and chuf – the hard survival cheese of their kind. A keg of ale stored by the door of Bar-Undak was broached and leather flagons passed around thirsty lips.

‘Oh look at that,’ spat Gromley. ‘Look at that!’ He ran his finger along a tiny scratch in his shield. ‘Ruined! Absolutely ruined.’

‘Shut up and drink your ale,’ said Grunnir.

Gromley stared mournfully from the depths of his helm. ‘It’s all right for you to say that. Nobody’s scratched your shield, have they?’ He shook his head. ‘No respect for good craft, you youngsters. Happy with umgak work, you are. Now, in my day I’d have got a bit of sympathy. But is one of you reaching for your polish to help an old longbeard grind out the damage? No. And we wonder why we’re in this mess!’

‘Show some respect, shortbeards,’ said Uli the Elder, the oldest of their number. ‘Let’s not let our standards slip.’

Good natured jeers vied with heartfelt grumbles.

At the front, Borrik conferred quietly with Tordrek.

‘When will they come again?’ Tordrek asked.

‘Too soon. We’ve been lucky. I reckon we’ve accounted for about four hundred of their lot, for not a single one of the lads.’ He sucked deeply on his pipe. ‘Good work, and greater fortune, but it can’t last.’ He called back over his shoulder. ‘Hafnir! Gromley! Get me some blackpowder.’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at the doors. ‘I reckon it’s time to get ready to stop up some mouseholes. The rest of you, we need some clear space to fight. I want these corpses shifted to one hundred paces out.’ The others gulped their ale and moved out from the tunnel, wiping suds from their beards with the backs of bloodied hands. ‘And be clever about it,’ said Borrik. ‘Don’t stack ’em – we don’t want to give the thaggoraki anything to hide behind, do we?’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at a young dwarf, barely sixty years old, who was doing just that. ‘Call yourself a Norrgrimling, Albok? Think, lad! What would your old dad say?’

‘Sorry, thane.’ Albok pushed over the pile he’d made with a boot. ‘Where do we put them then?’

Borrik grinned and jabbed with his pipe stem. ‘Chuck them down that there hole.’

Albok heaved a skaven corpse into the black, his thick arms tossing it as easily as a wet fur blanket. No sound came. Albok cocked his head appreciatively, and began to throw them in quickly.

‘That’s right, lads, don’t tarry. We’re not going to have long before the little furry kruti come back for another go.’

In the Hall of Pillared Iron, King Belegar took counsel. Between the thick iron columns that gave the place its name, venerable dwarfs of many clans crowded around low tables layered with maps. The hall had been built with the same attention to detail and pride with which the ancestors had built everything. Each of the room’s sixty-four column capitals had been wrought in red iron to resemble four straining longbeards holding up the roof. The remainder of the columns were inscribed with runes inlaid with precious minerals, most picked out by rapacious greenskins, but in the more inaccessible places electrum, silver, polished coal and agate still glittered, a reminder of the hall’s former glory.

Despite the care and craft of its making, the Hall of Pillared Iron was a foundation, a utilitarian room intended to support the finer citadel halls above. The metal in its walls and pillars allowed the citadel to reach its great and graceful height without compromising its efficacy as a fortress.

That had been then. The upper chambers were mostly toppled by centuries of war and earthquakes, among them the magnificent Upper Throne Room, whose wide windows and fine art made it the mirror to the Great Throne Pinnacle in the Hall of a Thousand Pillars in the first deep. Unique in all the dwarf realms, at the height of the Karaz Ankor the twinned thrones had represented Karak Eight Peaks’s mastery of the worlds under sky and under stone. Of these two hearts, one was rubble and the other had been occupied by a succession of foul creatures.

So low had the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks sunk that the Hall of Pillared Iron was their greatest hall. Magnificent though it was, as grand as Belegar’s throne looked when viewed down its aisles, the Hall of Pillared Iron was a support. Might as well call a single stone block all the temple. Belegar had refused to have it completely restored, lest the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks forget why they were there, and become content with scraps.

Drakki was speaking, addressing his king and his advisors. Brunkaz Whitehair, the oldest dwarf in the hold, was beside him. His beard was so long it looped three times in a complicated plait about his thick gold belt.

‘At Bar-Undak the Norrgrimlings are taking casualties. The endless stair is being overrun, half the Zhorrak Blue Caps are dead. Valaya’s quay has fallen, our warriors there falling back to the base of the citadel.’

‘The Undak?’

‘Still running clear,’ said Drakki. ‘But how long will that continue? The thaggoraki poisoned the river once – now we’ve lost the quays at the headwater, they could easily do it again.’

‘Buzkar,’ swore Belegar. He looked from map to map, searching for a sign of hope, some weakness in the enemy he could exploit, some dawi strength he could call upon.

He spread his hands over a portion of the map, caging it protectively in his fingers. ‘Kvinn-wyr still holds strong. So long as we hold the mountain, our people will have somewhere safe to stand. We’ve got the gyrocopter eyries at Tor Rudrum. As long as we have them, we can stay in touch with the other holds. Above all, the citadel is safe. Perhaps it is time to abandon the first line of defence and make our next stand at the Hall of Clan Skalfdon,’ said Belegar. He pointed to a great hall in the first deep below the citadel, three quarters of a mile from the collapsed east halls, where many lines of communication intersected. ‘Beat them back there and they’ll think twice about trying to crack the hold.’

‘There’s not time to fortify it,’ said Brunkaz. ‘We need to dig in there, or it’ll be a slaughter.’

Belegar laughed. ‘The only slaughter I’ve seen in recent weeks is that of the ratkin! We’ve slain so many I could carpet the east road all the way to the Uzkul Kadrin in vermin fur.’

‘Aye, true enough,’ conceded Brunkaz, although his expression made clear his distaste at covering good dawi stone with ratskin. ‘But these aren’t dregs we’re facing – that part’s done with. Belegar, you know how they work. The Headtaker is sending in his clan warriors and stormvermin. Our lads are worn down, and we’ve lost a good number. They’ll not last until the defences are ready.’

‘They’ll have to,’ said Belegar firmly.

‘There’s no time, my king,’ said Brunkaz.

‘There’ll have to be time, or we’ll not get the other lines finished!’ snapped Belegar.

Drakki cleared his throat, politely interrupting before grudges began to sprout like grobi in a damp cave. ‘And what of the way into Kvinn-wyr?’

‘That at least is in hand,’ said Belegar. ‘Dokki,’ he called over to an engineer hard at work over his own maps.

‘My king?’

‘How’re the preparations at the Arch of Kings going?’

‘Give me three weeks and the dawi I’ve got, or sixty more engineers and two days and I’ll have the fort back in dawr order. Before that…’ He sucked in his breath and clucked his tongue. ‘You’ll be lucky if it’s before the end of the month.’

‘This is the Eternal Realm! Surely we have time,’ said Belegar. ‘What about Kolbron Feklisson’s miners?’

‘Ah! Here we have less dire tidings,’ said Drakki, brightening a little.

‘We’ve retaken the western foundries?’ said Belegar hopefully.

‘Er, no. The miners have lost the foundries, but are still holding the eastern entrance.’

‘That’s good news,’ said Belegar hesitantly, fully expecting the worst. He was rewarded with it.

‘For now, my lord. They’re going to be encircled here and here – it’s only a matter of time,’ said Drakki, tracing a series of halls on the map. ‘We’ve rumour of thaggoraki tunnelling teams at work behind them.’

‘From who?’ said Brunkaz. ‘Half our number are sparsely bearded hill dwarfs or umgdawi.’

‘Sadly not from them, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘From Kolbron himself. No one knows stone better. If he says there’s something going on in the rock, you can bet your last coin there is.’

Belegar shook his head from side to side, his beard whispering against the parchment. ‘Tell them to withdraw.’

‘They won’t retreat, Belegar,’ said Drakki, a note of pleading in his voice.

‘Tell them it’s a direct command from me. I’ll write it on a bit of paper if it makes them happy. Get them back up here. I want them reporting to Durggan Stoutbelly and helping him fortify the Hall of Clan Skalfdon before sunrise or I’ll be writing grudges against the lot of them, is that clear? With their stonecraft under Stoutbelly’s direction, we’ve a fighting chance of establishing the next perimeter.’

‘It’ll be a hard task,’ said Brunkaz. ‘Not like the old days.’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ said Belegar tersely, only just reining in his temper and maintaining the appropriate level of respect due to the living ancestor. ‘It never is like the old days, and it never will be again if we don’t give good account of ourselves here. We’re in a tough spot, aye, but we’ll all be dead if we grumble about it.’

Brunkaz’s wrinkled face paled under his beard at Belegar’s lack of deference. Belegar regretted his tone. ‘Have the messengers set out?’ he said, more softly.

‘This morning, my lord,’ said Drakki. ‘Six for each of Zhufbar, Karak Kadrin, Karaz-a-Karak and Karak Azul. No gyrocopters, as you commanded.’

‘We need them here.’ Belegar ground his broad teeth. Going cap in hand to the High King grated on his honour. What choice did he have? ‘The other kings will understand we cannot send their warriors back. They’ve not failed us yet. We’ll just have to dig in. Get Clan Zhudak to the gates of Bar-Kragaz, hold them back at the west tunnel. They’ll be coming through from the foundries that way as soon as they discover the miners have gone.’

‘Aye, my lord.’ Drakki hesitated, words that would not be spoken keen on his lips.

Brunkaz curled his lip at Drakki and made a rumble of disapproval that started deep in his gut and travelled upwards, quivering his moustaches as it came out of his mouth. ‘Drakki’s too good a dwarf to say it, but I will. We’ve got no chance. Half of us are dead already. The skaven are numberless. They’ve never attempted anything like this before. We’d be better off fighting our way out and leaving them to the greenskins.’

‘It’s a bigger attack, I’ll grant you. Nothing we can’t handle,’ said Belegar, his voice stiffening.

‘They’ve blown up Karag Nar! The sunset mountain, gone! Karag Rhyn’s a shadow of itself – half the old farmlands to the south are buried in its rubble. Can’t you see? Has pride blinded you so much? The mountains, Belegar, the mountains themselves are in pieces! If they can’t endure, what chance do we have?’ Belegar stared at his advisor, but Brunkaz had gone too far to stop. ‘There’s only one reason the Headtaker’s done that, and that’s to keep the greenskins off his back while he comes to finish us off. Or have you considered, it may not be long before they do the same to us? The thaggoraki have changed. We are not fighting against rats with sticks any more. Some of their machines make the creations of the Dawi-Zharr seem like toys! Why do you think they’ve left the surface camps alone? Why has Lord Duregar not had so much as a whiff of rat round the East Gate these last months while we’re knee deep in them? The answer’s simple – they’re coming to wipe us out! They don’t care. They’re massing for a final blow right at our heart, right into Kvinn-wyr.’

Belegar’s face grew purple, and his words when they came were quiet, the hiss of rain before the first thunder crack of a storm. ‘You will not mention the eastern kindreds in these halls again.’

‘All your life you’ve asked me for my counsel, from beardling to the king I love and serve gladly. I’ll give you the truth and aye, unvarnished,’ said Brunkaz. ‘This is my sooth, king of Karak Eight Peaks. Leave now, before we’re all dead. We tried our best. Sometimes we have to retreat a little further than we wish. Let the grobi and thaggoraki fight over the scraps. When the world’s troubles die down again, we can come back and take our lands from whoever wins. They’ll be weaker for their victory. More importantly, we’ll still be alive.’

‘Is that all, Brunkaz?’

‘Think of your son, Belegar.’

‘Is that all, Brunkaz?’ Belegar’s shout cut through the quiet muttering of dwarfs at council, so loud the candles and torches lighting the hall wavered before its fury. Only the glimlight of the glowstones was unperturbed.

Brunkaz could not meet his king’s eyes. He worked his cheeks, causing his beard and moustache to move around like a live thing. ‘Aye. That should just about cover it.’

‘Thank you. I suppose you’ll be wanting to leave, then? If you do, I’ll release you from your oaths, but the others’ll not thank you for it.’

Brunkaz went bright red. ‘I’ll not abandon my oaths! Course I’m staying. Why, if you were a few decades younger I’d put you over my knee and–’

‘Very well,’ interrupted Belegar. ‘If you’re staying, I’d appreciate you keeping your words tucked up behind your beard unless they’re something to do with defending the hold. Do you have anything useful to add in that regard?’

Brunkaz buried his chin in his chest, considering his next words. ‘There are ogres in the pass, my lord,’ he said slowly.

‘There are always ogres in the pass,’ said Drakki dismissively.

‘More than usual, Drakki Throngton. Golgfag Maneater leads a great host of them,’ said Brunkaz, still not looking at his king.

‘The Maneater is in the Uzkul Kadrin?’ said Belegar, brightening. He reached his hand, richly gloved, up to his mouth, as if he would hide the smile spreading under his beard.

‘You can’t be thinking on hiring him, my king? Ungrim nearly killed him. He’s a thug, a pirate, a… a… mercenary,’ said Drakki, taking his turn to be outraged.

‘That’s exactly what he is,’ said Belegar. ‘A mighty one.’

‘I beg you, my king, recall Duregar from the East Gate,’ said Drakki.

‘What, and let Skarsnik have it? And how do we get out then, if it should come to that?’ The king shot Brunkaz a warning look not to take up his cause again. ‘The East Gate garrison stays where it is, for now. Golgfag is what we need. He’s fought many times for the dawi.’

‘And just as often against us. And he doesn’t come cheap,’ said Brunkaz.

‘You’d beggar the kingdom for an ogre’s sword?’ Drakki shook his head so vigorously that he dislodged his spectacles. He pushed them back into place with an ink-stained finger, and squinted expectantly at his king.

‘Better a beggared kingdom than a fallen one. I’ll promise him the pick of the treasury.’

‘There’s precious little in the treasury,’ grumbled Drakki.

‘He doesn’t know that, does he?’ said Belegar. ‘Get a messenger out to him.’

‘There’s a blizzard rising.’

‘Then no one will be able to see him, will they?’ said Belegar. ‘Do it now, Grungni scowl at you!’

Now both longbeards were taken aback by Belegar’s attitude. Belegar supposed he should feel guilty, snapping at these honoured elders like they were callow beardlings, but he didn’t. They knew his temper well enough.

The longbeards walked away from the table, chins wagging like fishwives. Belegar ignored the pointed looks they gave him. To keep others from approaching him, he affected an air of bristling bad temper. He didn’t have to try very hard. Those dwarfs waiting to petition him – priests, merchants, umgdawi and hill dwarfs – were discouraged, if not by his manner then by his hammerers, who ushered them out of the hall. He heard their complaints well enough; the hall wasn’t that big. Fair enough, some of them had been waiting a day or so, but he wasn’t in the mood to dispense the king’s justice. He feigned deafness and returned to his maps, staring hard at them until his eyes swam. As if that would be enough to turn the red and green parts of the map blue again.

If only it were so simple.

One dwarf, somehow, got through.

‘Perhaps now your majesty might consider our request?’

The smell of rancid pig fat and lime was unmistakeable. Belegar looked up from his maps into the magnificently crested face of Unfer, nominally the leader of the Cult of Grimnir in the hold. When the Slayers wanted something, it was Unfer who asked. Belegar assumed he must be their leader, but in truth he did not know. Their ways were closed and mysterious to all who had not taken the oath.

The king tried to look away, but was arrested by the Slayer’s eyes. Beautiful eyes, set into a face scarred by cuts and inner pain. They were out of place, clear blue as ice, and as devoid of emotion.

Belegar tugged at his beard and cleared his throat. He waved his hand over his maps.

‘I’m loath to let such fine warriors go out. I need every axe we have here.’

Unfer glanced at the maps like they were a carpet he had no interest in buying, and Belegar an overeager merchant. ‘That is not the nature of our oath, my lord. We have no desire to retreat until there is nowhere left to retreat to, to find our doom backed into some corner, or worse, to be taken alive. There is no hope in this defence. Let us go, and kill as many of them as we can for you. It is a service we gladly offer you.’

Unfer’s glacial gaze bored into Belegar’s eyes. The insult to the king’s ability as a general was implicit.

‘There is always hope,’ said Belegar. ‘Help might come yet.’ He heard the desperation in his own voice; he was afraid that the Slayer was right.

‘There is no hope left in all the Karaz Ankor. No one is coming. The Eternal Realm is finished. Best we all shave our heads and take the oath so that we might die with a song on our lips and our shame washed away in blood.’

‘Shame?’ said Belegar. Unfer shrugged shoulders craggy with muscle. Blue tattoos writhed over them. In hands like boulders, he carried paired rune axes – royal weapons. Belegar often wondered who he’d been. Unfer would never tell.

‘The shame of all our kind,’ said Unfer. ‘That we have failed to restore the glory of our ancestors. Better to fight. Better to wish for a good death than a ragged hope.’

Belegar was tempted. To sally out with his remaining few folk, and kill the thaggoraki until they themselves were killed. Let them taste dawi steel and remember them forever!

He blinked visions of a glorious end away. He could not. He was a king. He had responsibilities. He had a son, the first heir born to the king of Karak Eight Peaks since its fall two thousand years ago. He would not retreat. He would not abandon the legacy of his ancestors, so much dearer now it was the heritage of another.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We wait here. We will defend, and retreat, and defend. And we shall prevail.’

Disappointment flickered over Unfer’s face. ‘As you wish. It is your kingdom.’ The Slayer put one axe over each shoulder and turned away.

‘I have not finished,’ said Belegar sternly. ‘You have my permission to go,’ he added with understanding. ‘I cannot keep you from your oaths. What manner of king would I be if I did? I wish you would reconsider, but if you must, you have my leave. Fight well, and find the doom you deserve, Unfer.’

Unfer nodded once. ‘It is all any of us can hope for any more. Grimnir go with you, King Belegar. If we meet again, may it be in happier times for all dawi.’

‘You’ll not go yet,’ said Belegar. Unfer cast a weary look over his shoulder. The Slayer moved in the way those with deep depression do: slowly, as if through a treacle of despair. ‘I may be a poor king, but I’m still a king. You’ll get a proper send off. I’ll open my cellars to you, we’ll say the right words, drink to your deaths.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘The old way.’

Unfer gave an appreciative bow. ‘Let no dawi say that King Belegar is ungenerous. It is good to hold to the old ways while we still can.’

‘Aye,’ said Belegar. ‘Aye, it is.’ He meant it as a good thing, but his troubled face said otherwise. All they had was the past, he thought, and even that was running away from them.

He didn’t notice Unfer leave. A commotion at the gates drew his tired eyes. One of the Iron Brotherhood, Skallguz the Short, was pushing his way through. He jogged up to his lord, red faced and out of breath.

‘My king!’ he said, and dropped to his knees.

‘What is it?’ said Belegar.

‘It is the queen, my lord. The prince…’ The dwarf stammered to a halt.

‘Spit it out!’ Belegar’s face went pale with terrible presentiment.

‘My lord,’ the dwarf said. ‘I don’t know how to say it… They’ve both gone!’

Wind sang sadly through the teeth of the broken window, set in the dairy, high up in the side of Kvinn-wyr. A sheer drop of four thousand feet fell away down the mountain outside, ending in broad fans of scree covered by snow. Gromvarl pulled his head back in through mullions worn edgeless by the wind and rain, and leaned against a cracked milk trough. He shook the snow from his shaggy mane of hair and filled his pipe.

He winced at the taste of the tobacco. Once the dwarfs had produced the world’s finest smoking weed in the Great Vale, along with much else. The soil of the bowl cupped between the eight mountains was so rich they called it Brungal – brown gold. In Belegar’s pocket kingdom there had been plans, and much talk in ale cups, of how the dwarfs were going to clear the farmlands and raise great crops to end Vala-Azrilungol’s reliance on the other holds. Of course, like so much Belegar said, it remained an unattainable dream.

A stealthy tread sounded in the old goat way outside. Gromvarl brought his crossbow up one-handed, wincing as he rested the stock in the crook of his broken arm.

He narrowed his eyes, finger on the trigger lever, then relaxed. No skaven or grobi whistled like that.

A deeply tanned dwarf with an expression so cheerful it belonged on the face of no real dawi came in through the door. He doffed his wide-brimmed hat, showing the scarf tied tightly over his ears and under his chin. His name was Douric Grimlander, a dwarf reckoner, a calculator of debts and grudges. Little better than a mercenary, to Gromvarl’s eyes.

‘Gromvarl! What happened to you?’ Douric said, his eyes lighting on Gromvarl’s splinted arm.

‘An urk happened to it. And then I happened to the urk.’

Douric peered about the small dairy. ‘You alone then?’

‘What does it look like?’ said Gromvarl through teeth gripping his pipe. He had always found Douric insufferable, even at the best of times.

‘I told you he’d say no,’ said Douric breezily. ‘I suppose it’s all off then. Belegar’s a fool to turn your offer down, but that’s that.’

‘Listen to me, you scraggle-bearded wazzok,’ said Gromvarl. ‘Why do you think he said no? This is his hold. Thorgrim is his son and heir.’ Gromvarl fixed the shorter dwarf with a beady eye and poked him in the chest with his pipe stem. ‘I wonder if you’re a real dwarf at all. You’ve no honour.’

Douric took the insult as a compliment, or so his broad smile suggested. ‘I like money. You like money. Who doesn’t like money? I have honour, but like my money, I’m just a little more careful than you where I spend it, that’s all.’

Gromvarl grunted, wiped the mouthpiece of his pipe on his bearskin, which was no cleaner than Douric’s jerkin, and replaced it in his mouth with the clack of ivory on teeth. ‘Oaths are worth more than gold, reckoner.’

‘I keep mine, unlike your king,’ said the reckoner mildly. ‘If I combine honour with payment, does it make me all that bad? Besides,’ he said, hitching his hands into his wide belt. ‘You’re the one who suggested to the king we should steal the queen out of the city against all tradition. So where’s your honour?’

Gromvarl adjusted the sling holding his broken arm, sliding thick fingers between the fabric and his neck. ‘My oath has always been to protect the queen, ever since she was a child. I’m doing that now.’

‘Doing that…?’ Douric’s eyes widened. ‘Oh ho ho! Gromvarl! I didn’t think you had it in you. She is here isn’t she?’

‘Not yet,’ said Gromvarl grudgingly. ‘Soon.’

‘Handing her over to me! A mere mercenary. Tut tut, Gromvarl. You’ll be coming with us now, I’ll warrant. It’ll be a mite uncomfortable down there once Belegar finds you’ve kidnapped his son.’ Douric jerked his thumb over his shoulder, back down the passageway in the exact direction of the citadel. Douric always had had a fine sense of direction, even for a dwarf.

Gromvarl grumbled, levered himself up from the tub and took a heavy step forwards, until he was nose to nose with Douric. ‘I’ve other oaths, oaths of service to the king. I’ll not break either. I need a dwarf of your… moral flexibility.’ He looked the reckoner up and down, his grubby clothes, his odd umgak gear garnered from who knew where. He was right, this was no true dwarf.

‘So you’re in a bind, then? Who’s the more fortunate here – you, all thick with responsibility, or me, who tends to the more cautious side–’

‘Self-serving more like,’ interjected Gromvarl.

‘–of things?’ continued Douric, undeterred. ‘A philosophy that enables me to help you out now. Who else would, Gromvarl? Who’s the better?’ He waggled his eyebrows in almost lewd fashion.

‘You little krutwanaz…’

‘Will you two stop arguing? The pair of you, thicker-headed than trolls!’ A sharp female voice speared out of the corridor. Queen Kemma of Karak Eight Peaks emerged into the dairy. She was followed by a very young dwarf, no older than ten or twelve, whose chin was covered in the straggly hairs of first bearding, and a hammerer, who nervously glanced behind them. Both the queen and youngster wore travelling cloaks and the rough clothes favoured by the kruti and foresters who worked overground. When the queen pushed past Gromvarl, her fastenings parted slightly, revealing rich gromril mail beneath. Both of them too had a royal bearing. Gromvarl sighed. No matter how they dressed up, there was no hiding who they were. He just hoped they had not been seen sneaking away.

‘I am sorry, vala,’ said Gromvarl, who at least had the decency to look abashed. He cast his eyes downwards. Douric, on the other hand, arched his back, and clasped his hands behind his back, an exceptionally self-satisfied look on his face.

The hammerer rubbed at his bulbous nose. ‘Here they are. I better get back.’

‘Another oath-bender!’ said Douric. ‘They’re popping up like mushrooms.’

‘Guard the queen as long as she is in Karak Eight Peaks, that was my oath. Well now she’s not,’ said the hammerer. ‘Nearly.’

‘You’re a good dawi, Bronk Coppermaster,’ said Gromvarl. He held up a small purse, distastefully pinched between finger and thumb, as if it were soiled. ‘For your trouble.’

Bronk looked at it in horror. ‘You’ve been hanging around with these here reckoners too long. Just see her safe, that’s all I want. If this ends well, then I’ll take my chances with Belegar, and we’ll still have our prince. If it doesn’t end well… Well,’ he shrugged, his gromril rattling musically, ‘then it’s not going to matter very much what Belegar thinks.’

Gromvarl nodded. ‘I look forward to fighting alongside you, Bronk.’

Bronk nodded and hurried off back up the passageway.

Meanwhile, Douric was attempting his charm upon the queen. ‘Vala Kemma! It has been too long. With every passing year your beauty grows greater.’ He bowed his head and reached for her hand.

‘Don’t even think about it, reckoner,’ said Kemma, snatching her fingers back from his puckered lips. ‘We have to be away now.’

‘Mother, are we sure this is the right thing to do?’ said Thorgrim. ‘I am the prince of Karak Eight Peaks, my place should be here. Father will be furious.’

Kemma placed her hands on his shoulders, and looked up into his face. Not yet full grown, he was already turning into a fine figure of a dwarf. He was already three feet tall; chances were he was going to be bigger than his father, and certainly as strong. Bryndalmoraz Karakal they called him – the bright hope of the mountains.

‘I am taking you to be safe, my son. Is it not your first responsibility to preserve the royal bloodline?’

Prince Thorgrim’s young face twisted with inner conflict. ‘But I am the prince, mother. I will not be an oathbreaker.’

‘You have taken no oaths,’ soothed his mother, stroking the lines on his face. ‘If you did not believe us to be doing the right thing, then you would have stayed behind. We have already come so far.’

The prince looked doubtful and bit his lip, causing the fuzz of growing beard to puff up. He nodded in what was intended to be a decisive manner, but Gromvarl saw he was still unsure. He was brave for a boy of his age.

‘Very well,’ said Thorgrim.

‘King Belegar for a father and that one there for his mother, I don’t envy that youngster,’ said Douric quietly.

‘You’re not wrong there,’ Gromvarl replied as the queen and prince talked. ‘But he’s almost past all that. He’ll be his own master soon, mark my words. He’s got a strong head, that boy, but with her temperament, thank Valaya. The last thing Karak Eight Peaks needs is another Belegar.’

‘I’m not sure the queen’s temperament is necessarily an improvement,’ said Douric.

Gromvarl snorted.

Strange noises sounded from deep in the mountain.

‘We best be away, vala. These tunnels were much fractured in the time of Great Cataclysm. They are unsafe. No one knows where they go,’ said Douric.

Kemma’s face crinkled with bitterness. ‘There is nowhere safe in Karak Eight Peaks – there never has been. I should have left as soon as Thorgrim was born.’ She reached into her robes. Douric held up his hand.

‘Payment upon safe delivery, or my word is not my bond,’ he said. ‘Best say your farewells.’ Douric tactfully withdrew, drawing the prince after him to leave Kemma alone with her guardian.

Gromvarl gave his queen a bow. He huffed on his pipe like a steam engine building power, filling the dairy with smoke.

‘Well, I suppose this is goodbye.’

‘Brave Gromvarl. Are you sure you will not come with us?’

‘Not with this, vala,’ said Gromvarl, lifting his broken arm. ‘And even without, I’d have to stay. You know why.’

Kemma smiled her understanding. ‘I lack the words to thank you for all that you’ve done for me.’ She leaned through the clouds around him and laid a gentle kiss on his old cheek.

‘It’s not necessary! Get on with you now, young lady,’ said Gromvarl, his voice inexplicably warbly. He coughed. ‘Damned tobacco making my eyes water! I’d give my other arm for a pouch of Everpeak Goldleaf.’

Borrik hewed down the last of the stormvermin still facing him, his runic axe pulsing with power. The pure blue of its magic, clear as brynduraz in the sun, radiated more than light. The axe’s blessings brought relief to his burning muscles, drove the tiredness from leaden limbs. This was good, for Borrik could not remember the last time he had slept.

Once the Norrgrimlings had been renowned for sleeping upright while standing guard, taking turns in the centre where they might be held up by their brothers. Borrik yearned for those days as much as he yearned for sleep. Neither would come again. There were not enough Axes of Norr left to attempt their famed feat, and he feared they would never rebuild their numbers enough to do so again. It was a point of pride to his ironbreakers that they never had nor ever would abandon a post given them to guard. Pride had ever been the undoing of dwarfs. Soon it would be the end of them.

‘They’re falling back,’ he said. His strong, proud voice reduced to a hoarse wheeze. ‘Forgefuries, forward!’

With a stoicism that would shame a mountain, the remaining four Forgefuries set off with the same skill and speed they had possessed two months ago. Only their faces betrayed their fatigue, pale skin and brown smears under eyes grown small and gritty.

‘Fire!’ said Tordrek. His dawi reloaded and fired with breathtaking skill, pumping round after round of blazing energy into the back of the skaven, incinerating them as they fled.

The squeaking panic of the ratmen receded down the tunnels. Borrik stared at the near-invisible drill holes packed with powder around each stairwell mouth. If Belegar would only let him blow them… But the king would not. His name was a byword for stubbornness, even among the dwarfs. He cursed the king under his breath.

‘Right, lads,’ said Borrik. ‘You know the drill.’

‘Aye aye,’ said Albok tiredly. ‘Rats in the hole. Come on!’

The remaining Axes of Norr lumbered forward, clenching and unclenching fists that were moulded into claws suited only to holding axes. They betrayed no sign of weariness as they heaved up dead skaven from the floor, save perhaps a certain slowness as they tossed the corpses into the hole at the centre of the chamber. Not scrawny rat slaves these, but skaven elites, black-furred stormvermin equipped with hefty halberds and close-fitting armour. Some of this was dwarf-made. For the first days of the battle against the better skaven troops, the dwarfs had diligently stripped the work of their ancestors from the ratmen and stockpiled it in the chamber fronting the door of Bar-Undak. But there was so much of it, so very much, that they had given up. Now the defiled armour went into the hole like everything else, swallowed up along with their grief at seeing the craft of their ancestors so abused.

What cheer the Norrgrimlings had was gone. Weeks of hard fighting had worn them down, stone-hard though they were, as centuries of rain will wear down a mountain. Their eyes were red with lack of sleep, their beards stiff with blood they had neither the time nor the strength to comb out. Seven of them had gone to the halls of their ancestors, among them Hafnir and Kaggi Blackbeard. Their voices were as missed as their axes. Uli the Elder had lost an eye to a lucky spear-thrust, but refused to retire. Gromley had several missing links from his hauberk to add to the scratch on his shield, and complained bitterly about it. No one teased him for his grumbling any longer.

‘Is there any more ale?’ asked Borrik. ‘My throat’s dryer than an engine-stoker’s dongliz.’

‘There’s another delivery due soon, but they’re getting tardy,’ said Grunnir Stonemaster. There was no way of telling the time in the dark underground, but the dwarfs had an unerring knack for it. ‘It’s past midday or I’m a grobi’s dung collector.’

Borrik managed a grin that hurt his face. ‘That you certainly are not. Not only are they late, but the barrels are getting lighter.’

Grunnir shrugged. ‘Back in the glory days that would never have happened. Proper brewmasters then, and proper brew.’

Borrik looked at the devastation around him. Nothing was like it was, not any more. ‘You’re sounding like a longbeard.’

Grunnir tugged his beard. ‘It’s been well watered with blood these last weeks. It’s growing as quickly as my tally of grudges.’

Distant drums sounded. Borrik stood. ‘All right, lads! Back in formation – they’re coming for another go!’

The ironbreakers tossed another few corpses into the pit and trudged wearily back to their stations. Skaven began filing out into the Hall of Reckoning in organised lines that spread into calm ranks, a far cry from the panicking thralls they had first faced.

‘Look at them,’ said Gromley, taking in the number of stolen dwarf items in the hands of their enemies. ‘Thieving vermin. They’re so intent on killing us, they never stop to think who’ll they’ll steal off when we’re gone.’

‘Less of that,’ said Uli. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’

‘Well,’ said Grunnir, settling his standard into a more comfortable position. ‘If they do win, I hope the little furry beggars choke on their victory.’

‘Borrik! Borrik!’ A hand tugged at the mail shirt of the thane. Tordrek had come forward. ‘There’s someone at the door.’

‘Ale?’ said Borrik brightening.

Tordrek shook his head. Borrik cast an annoyed look at the marshalling skaven and followed his friend through the thin back rank of the Axes of Norr. There remained a single full line of ten to block the way.

The sound from the skaven was muted in the chamber at the rear. A steady tap-tapping came from the door. Borrik pressed his ear against it.

Borrik counted three different hammer sizes beating out the code, the notes they made identical to anyone but a dwarf.

‘Aye, that’s the right signal. Open the door,’ he said. ‘Quickly now, we don’t want this gate gaping wide when the skaven come to attack.’

‘We’re all right for a minute,’ came Gromley’s sour voice from the front of the ironbreakers. ‘They’re still trying to get themselves in order.’

Tordrek’s remaining Forgefuries, guarding the door, opened it.

What emerged was not ale. A spike of orange hair came around the door. Borrik took a step back, face grim. ‘It’s come to that, has it?’ he said. ‘Make way, lads!’ he called. ‘We’ve got company.’

Silently, the Slayers came out, more than twenty of them, all stony-faced killers. Their leader, an emotionless dwarf who made Borrik look the size of a beardling, nodded a greeting to the thane. The rest filed out without looking. Borrik didn’t look them in the eye, because behind the flinty light that burned there you could catch the darkness of shame. A broken oath, a grandfather’s mistake uncovered, a romantic advance rebuffed… Whatever crimes these dwarfs had committed or shames they had suffered, trivial or gross, they all felt the same. They were all broken by their experiences. Through the narrow passage they went. At the far end, the Norrgrimlings parted to let them past.

The skaven were working themselves up into a frenzy, biting at their shields, their leaders squeaking orders from the back, their soldiers squeaking together in response.

‘Quickly now, quickly,’ said Borrik. ‘Close ranks as soon as they’re through.’

Gromley gave him a hard stare that suggested that wasn’t going to be necessary, but prodded his tired warriors into place with his axe haft.

The Slayers spread out once in the hall, not in a disciplined line but each finding a spot that suited him best. That meant as far away from the others as possible. They said nothing as they waited for the skaven to attack. The ratmen did so cautiously, their eagerness for the fight seeming to desert them when they saw these fresh opponents.

Driven on by furious squeaking and the clang of cymbals, the skaven charged, flowing over the broken, bloodied floor of the Hall of Reckoning as one.

When the enemy were close, the Slayers counter-charged. Some shouted out to Grimnir, some sang, others howled with the pain of whatever shame had driven them to take the oath. Yet others made no noise, but set to with voiceless determination.

They were engulfed by the vermintide like bright rocks in a dark sea. Like rocks, they were not overcome.

‘Look at them,’ muttered Gromley. The Slayer leader leapt and whirled, his paired rune axes trailing light and blood in equal part.

‘This is a rare sight. I’m glad I have one eye left to see it with,’ said Uli.

‘Look at that one! The big one with the scars!’ Albok pointed to a dwarf who was wider than he was tall, his body covered in tattoos, his tattoos scratched through by scars. He wielded a single, double-handed axe with a head as big as his own torso.

‘That’s the Dragonslayer Aldrik the Scarred, if I’m not mistaken,’ said Gromley. He blew out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘If you live to be five hundred, you’ll be half the warrior he is.’

Aldrik was a solid presence amid the churning mass of skaven. They were far quicker than him, but he moved aside from every blow. His axe strokes were deliberate. Not a single one missed. Every swipe cut a skaven in half.

The Norrgrimlings relaxed. It was plain to them all that they were not going to be needed in this engagement. The Slayers were butchering the skaven, and the ratmen were close to breaking. Already, their back ranks were becoming strung out from the mass at the front.

Of a sudden, the skaven had had enough. They fled, squealing frantically. The Slayers let out a shout and chased after them. Surrounded by piled bodies were three orange-haired dwarf corpses. The remainder disappeared down the stairheads after the fleeing skaven.

The Axes of Norr let their guard drop.

‘That’s that, then. Time for a rest,’ said Grunnir.

‘Aye, and more besides,’ said Thane Borrik, pushing his way to the front with a metal message scroll in his hand. ‘We’ve got new orders from the king. Time to pull back to the Hall of Clan Skalfdon.’ He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘Got a herald back there, so it’s as official as it gets. Tordrek, blow those doors up before we go.’

‘What about the Slayers, Thane?’ asked Albok.

‘Three groups of them have gone out,’ said Borrik. ‘It’s shameful to say, but we won’t see the likes of this for a long time. They’ve got their wish. Let’s take their dead back. The least we can do is lay their axes on the shrine of Grimnir, and let him know they fulfilled their oaths.’

As the Norrgrimlings tenderly retrieved the dead Slayers, Tordrek stepped up with his dawi and headed for the centre of the room. Once there, they opened fire and ignited the charges packed around each stairhead. The explosion in the Hall of Reckoning sounded like the end of everything. Dust blew out, coating the surviving members of the Axes of Norr so they appeared like the ancestors, freshly awoken at the roots of the world. Bright eyes peered out from grey faces.

‘That should keep them back a bit,’ said Borrik, when the last rock had clattered to a standstill. ‘Come on, lads, let’s see if there’s any ale left in the citadel. This has been a thirsty couple of weeks.’

‘A messenger is coming,’ said Soothgnawer’s voice, as yet unattached to a body.

Kranskritt startled. It was unnerving how the verminlord came from nowhere. He looked around for Soothgnawer, nose working frantically. He caught a whiff of the otherwordly creature, but the scent was faint and all around him, and Kranskritt could not see him.

‘There is always a messenger coming. Who? What-what?’ responded the grey seer testily.

‘One of the Red Guard,’ came the reply. Soothgnawer had still not manifested. Kranskritt saw a darkening against the wall, a shadow out of place. He stared fixedly at it, determined not to be surprised.

‘Queek will give the orders I foresaw,’ said Soothgnawer smugly. ‘Queek has guessed the deception. It is to the peaks you will go, hunting goblins. He wishes your clawpack to engage Skarsnik and keep him away from the main assault upon the beard-things’.

‘Pah! Mad-thing does great insult to me,’ Kranskritt said. ‘I should be with him, I should whisper-command in his ear! He is mad and foolish-stupid.’ Kranskritt shivered. The bells on his ankles, wrists and horns tinkled with fury.

‘Hush, little seer! Do you remember our plans? You will have what you wish.’ Soothgnawer’s voice was poison-perfumed velvet, smooth against the senses, beguiling, yet smothering.

Kranskritt bridled. They were most assuredly not his plans. He did not like this situation. It was typically he who had foreknowledge and he who did the manipulating. This creature was always two scurryings ahead of him, possibly more.

‘Not our plans!’ he said, wringing the hem of his robe. ‘Yours! What happens if Queek discovers? What if he say-accuses me? He has no fear of the Horned Rat. He has no fear of me!’

‘Patience!’ said the voice, now from right behind him.

With a yelp, Kranskritt spun on the spot. From the shadows between unpacked crates, a space far too small to accommodate the verminlord, large eyes full of an ancient malevolence regarded him. Half concealed in this too-small space, yet there nonetheless, the creature’s triple rack of horns seemed to grow and twist sinuously. At that moment skin and fur clothed his skull, and he looked like a grey seer grown vast on magic and evil. A clawed hand thrust out, holding an enormous gazing globe.

‘You are right to fear the future, Kranskritt. If Queek suspects, then die long and horribly you will, and lower the status of Clan Scruten becomes. Look-look! There are many paths to follow. All bad but one. In life I too walked as a grey seer. Now I am more. Much more. I scry beyond space and time – the future is downwind. And I tell you, there is no other way.’

The voice left the room, burrowed directly into Kranskritt’s mind. It was at once compelling and threatening. Soothgnawer had a way of posing questions that provided their own answers, which, when examined later, posed more questions. The endless conundrums this generated in Kranskritt’s agile mind was threatening to drive him as mad as Queek. He turned an involuntary blow at his own head into a scratch of his ear so furious it drew blood, and glanced into the ball.

‘Yes-yes, I see-scry that now.’ He saw nothing, but wished to appear wise before this creature. He instantly regretted the hesitancy in his voice. Verminlords could smell deception.

‘You see nothing.’

Kranskritt wailed. ‘I cannot see!’

‘Look harder.’

The grey seer turned away, shaking his head, but the voice would not be dislodged. ‘Tell me, why-why is my clawpack not ordered into the fight?’ demanded Kranskritt. ‘Why must I chase the green-thing? I have the largest clawpack.’

‘Patience, little seer. Queek was confounded. Two sets of orders from his master demand his action in opposing manner.’

Kranskritt tittered. ‘A good trick-treachery on the arrogant mad-thing! Who is behind it? Is it your doing, horned master? Such a trick is worthy of your unsurpassed intellect,’ he said, remembering his manners under the verminlord’s gaze.

Soothgnawer emerged a little further into the material world, huge and terrifying. ‘Little seer must learn to listen more closely. Both sets of orders come from Lord Gnawdwell. The lord of Clan Mors tires of his general.’

Kranskritt wrinkled his muzzle. ‘Then why two orders? Why not bad orders, or simple kill-slay? It makes no sense!’

Soothgnawer eased himself out of whatever hellish realm he inhabited and into Kranskritt’s burrow. The laws of space-time asserted themselves, and he popped into existence. Fully manifested, he filled the room, his horns scraping fragments of stone from the ceiling. He pushed crates over and sat down on one. Still he towered over Kranskritt. ‘Is this the level of the grey seers’ intelligence in these times? So sad. No mystery to me why the Great Horned One punished Clan Scruten.’ Soothgnawer spoke with infinite paternal patience to the seer. ‘Gnawdwell wants to see what Queek will do. He is too attached-fond to the warlord. In his head, here,’ the verminlord tapped between his eyes, ‘he thinks that he confuses Queek to make him hesitate, to anger his underlings so that they will kill-slay him and replace him. But in his heart Gnawdwell has become too sentimental. His attempts on Queek’s life are poorly planned and half-hearted, and so is this scheme-plan. He does not admit it, but he gives Queek another chance, a way from death. If Queek is successful here, Gnawdwell will not kill him. He knows Queek is unworthy as his successor, that a creature as insane as Queek can never sit upon the Council of Thirteen, but he has deluded himself that the Headtaker might change, and so Gnawdwell’s heart wars with his mind.’

Kranskritt spat. ‘The heart is quick and treacherous. Great thinkings only come from the mind. Is it not established that the skaven are the most intelligent of all races? We grey seers do not listen to our traitor-hearts.’

‘This is so. This is right. Make sure you stay that way, little seer.’

‘Tell-squeak me, how you know what Gnawdwell think-feels, great and wise Soothgnawer?’ asked Kranskritt, half afraid of the answer, for if the verminlord could read minds as he suspected, Kranskritt would have a lot of grovelling to perform. His glands twitched.

‘To be a master of our kind, as I am, little seer, you must look beyond what each ratkin does to another, and into the mind behind the scheme. Within all of you there are many reasons and many desires, and these vie and plot one against the other as surely as you fight one another.’ The creature paused. Its white-furred face lost all flesh and skin to appear as an eyeless skull, turning back into a grey seer’s face without appearing to change, even to Kranskritt’s magic-sight. Kranskritt felt very weak indeed and flinched from him. ‘Now Queek reacts with open violence. It is what Queek does. He is as unsubtle as his Dwarf Gouger. Look-look into the ball and see.’

Reluctantly, Kranskritt stared into the verminlord’s over-sized gazing glass. If he had put his arms around it, his paws would not have met. Now he saw. In its uncertain depths were crystal-clear images of skaven marching all over the City of Pillars, all going upwards. The burrowing machines of Clan Skryre worked tirelessly to bore them new routes. Massed ranks of skaven confronted lines of glowering dwarf-things, the long-fur on their faces bristling. Skaven war machines opened up on them, killing the stupid creatures by the score.

‘The dwarfs will soon retreat. The future is changing. We come to a nexus in the way. At the right moment, you must be in place to act and seize the right path. See why, little seer. Watch now and witness a fate that will be yours and all grey seers’ if you are not successful,’ said Soothgnawer, his voice lodged still in the space behind Kranskritt’s eyes, more irritating than a tick. ‘Watch-watch.’

Kranskritt gave a startled squeak. He was no longer in his burrow, but in a hall choked with many skaven dead. A large hole was in the centre, and two piles of shattered stone were to either side. Rock dust drifted on air currents, the smell of freshly broken rock and blackpowder was choking, but although he could smell it, although he felt he should be coughing hard, he breathed easily. He looked about for Soothgnawer. He could not see him, but could feel his presence.

‘You are here and not-here, little seer. This is the Hall of Reckoning, as the dwarf-things call it. Great things happen here very soon. Be calm and watch.’

Kranskritt tried his best not to think about where he was or how he was there. On the edge of his perception was the endless, anguished squeaking of millions of voices that he did not care to hear.

Fortunately for him, the burring noise of heavy machinery soon troubled the chamber and drowned out the squeals of the damned. The ground shook. A short distance from the leftmost blocked tunnel, a fall of dust sheeted away from the rock. Small stones skittered from their position on the rock falls as the vibrations grew louder, until with the crack of broken stone, a giant drill head breached the wall, multiple toothed grinding heads all turning in separate directions. The Clan Skryre machine jolted as it drove out of the tunnel and dropped six inches to the floor of the hall. A platform on tracked wheels followed the drill head, two goggled and masked warlocks tending the mass of sorcerous machinery mounted atop it. They pulled levers, flicked switches. Lightning burst from the tops of brass orbs. Fluids bubbled in long glass tubes protected by copper latticework. The drilling machine drove off to one side, pulping skaven corpses under its truckles. The drill ceased spinning and the machine came to a halt, powering down with a teeth-wounding whine.

A score of heavily built stormvermin came from the new corridor, a thunder of pounding, muscular legs and thick armour. Stones pattered from their shoulders as they emerged, but the tunnel held. They fanned out, forming a solid square in the middle of the chamber. Kranskritt drew back into the shadows.

‘Foolish little seer, they cannot see you,’ laughed Soothgnawer in his mind. ‘Do not fear!’

Their leader, a mid-ranking member of Clan Mors whose name-smell was Frizloq, came next, entering the Hall of Reckoning as warily as a common rat might dare a night-time kitchen. He sniffed the air, stepping delicately down the spilled rock to survey the room. Whatever he expected to find there was gone, and he grinned widely at its absence. He prodded one of his minions with the butt of his polearm, gesturing that he should enter the tunnel in one corner. The skaven cringed at being separated from the warmth and protection of his littermates, but obeyed. He disappeared into the tunnel with a wary backward glance.

A second passed. The stormvermin re-emerged.

‘Empty!’ he squeaked triumphantly. ‘Broken beer keg. Slain skaven, but beard-things gone!’

‘The door?’ asked the leader.

‘Locked-barred. No traps,’ reported the scout.

The clawleader rubbed his hands together. ‘Locked, you say? Barred, you squeak? We shall see-see. We shall see! Get it open! Get it open for the glory of Clan Mors! We shall be first into the citadel!’

A flurry of activity followed. At first the skaven tried to beat the door down themselves, but the gate of Bar-Undak was too strong and they were too feeble to breach its steel.

The leader pulled his warriors back, generously rewarding them for their efforts with the battle corpses littering the floor. As they settled down to eat, he conferred sharply with the warlocks, pointing and chittering something lost under the noise of the idling machine. The engine roared, black smoke tinged by green flecks puffed from its chimney, and it ground around to face the tunnel to the chamber. The drill picked up speed and the machine chewed through the thirty feet to the door chamber in short order, widening the original tunnel considerably. As soon as it backed up, Clan Moulder packmasters brought in two monstrously built rat ogres. Their masters gestured to the stones on the floor by the rock falls. The rat ogres understood, taking up a hefty lump of rock in each fist. They loped then into the widened tunnel and thence the chamber. There, under the direction of their masters, they battered at the doors, snarling as they grazed their knuckles and banged their heads on the ceiling in the cramped space. Their handlers goaded them with sparking prods and the rat ogres squeal-roared, bashing harder with their improvised tools. The door shook on its deep-set hinges.

For an hour, during which time Kranskritt continued to watch from his shadow-place, the door refused to give. The rocks scarred the steel, little else. But slowly the strength of the rat ogres began to tell, and the door became loose. They pounded out a bowl in the middle and a rent appeared. The rat ogres cast aside their stones to work their claws into the gaps and tug and pull at it.

At this juncture, Warlord Thaxx Redclaw arrived at the front, stepping imperiously from the tunnel mouth with an honour guard of equally arrogant stormvermin.

‘Masterfully canny Thaxx arrives at the most opportune moment, as no doubt his incomparable planning intended,’ squeak-greeted the skaven leader. ‘Humble Frizloq has great news. This door is soon to be destroyed. Come-see!’ He beckoned to his lord excitedly. ‘You are just in time to witness the opening of the way!’

‘You have done well, Frizloq,’ said Thaxx coolly, looking down his muzzle at the clawleader. ‘Four-score weak-meat I will pledge-give you for your adequate efforts on my behalf.’

Frizloq dipped his head in gratitude.

A bellow came from the door chamber, then a crash as the door was torn from its hinges and cast down.

Frizloq called out to his warriors, all of whom were feasting or sleeping, grabbing the opportunity to rest while the rat ogres worked. ‘To arms! To arms!’ he squeaked. ‘To the beard-thing citadel, and there to victory!’

Thaxx Redclaw grabbed his underling’s arm and shook his head. ‘No-no! Wait-wait.’

Frizloq became confused. ‘Why-why? The door is broken, the door so many died to breach. Why we not press on? Catch the beard-things unawares? If we hurry-scurry, we might disrupt them. Surely they fortify-build as we squeak? That is their way.’

‘No-no,’ repeated Thaxx. ‘Warlord Queek’s orders. All attacks on this front must halt. He does not wish Clan Mors warriors to die-die in dwarf-thing traps. First clawpack will wait, wait for slaves, for weak-meat.’

Frizloq opened his mouth, for Thaxx’s command directly contradicted his earlier orders from Queek himself, but he thought better of it. He twitched meekly and exposed his throat as a display of his utmost subservience. ‘As great Thaxx demands, so shall it be!’

‘Not humble I, but mighty Queek,’ corrected Thaxx. ‘We must thank to his strategic pre-eminence for this clever-smart move. Thaxx is but his worthy message-bearer.’

As if in direct challenge to Thaxx’s statement, a clanking came up the corridor. Frizloq’s skaven were shoved aside. Red-armoured stormvermin burst into the room, their mouths twisted into snarls, tails swiping with pent-up aggression. At their head came the biggest skaven in the City of Pillars, Ska Bloodtail. Thaxx’s nose quivered. He swallowed rapidly and blinked. Where Ska went, Queek was close behind.

The Headtaker bowed low to enter the Hall of Reckoning, saving his precious trophies from damage on the ceiling.

‘Who speak-squeaks on my authority?’ he demanded. ‘Why this front not press on? Mighty Queek say all stormvermin attack! All clanrats to move forward! The time for weak-meat is done. Why Thaxx say otherwise?’

Thaxx curled his lips, exposing his teeth all along his muzzle. In his shadow-space, Kranskritt shrank back, terrified by the murderous glare burning in Queek’s red eyes. The Headtaker bullied his way through the crowd, skaven scrambling over each other to get out of the way. He confronted Thaxx. Redclaw stood tall and held his ground.

‘What bribe-gift you take to betray Clan Mors?’ asked the Headtaker, tail swishing back and forth.

Those around the two powerful war-leaders spread out, forming a large challenge ring. Fear musk sprayed from the lesser members of the crowd. The stormvermin watched intently, but others were desperate to find elsewhere to be. Walking sideways, the two combatants began to circle each other, their muscles tensing to spring.

Excuses, denials and renewed pledges were the tried and true ways of skaven avoiding, or at least delaying, such confrontations. Thaxx Redclaw had known Queek Headtaker too long to attempt such pretence. He knew what was coming next, had planned for it. He had not expected it to happen now, necessarily, but no scheme was mad-thing proof, and he was ready. Baring his teeth in a hissing grimace, the warlord of the first clawpack drew his sword, its cruelly serrated edge glistening with warp venom. Yet how did Queek know? Thaxx had told no one of his dealings with Clan Skryre. And how did the Headtaker get here so quickly? Both things were impossible – but now was not the time to think upon it.

The Headtaker sneered. ‘You wonder how I know? Mighty Queek has informants you could never dream of, fool-thing… No one bests Queek!’ He drew his sword and weighed Dwarf Gouger carefully in his other hand, his gaze fixed on Thaxx’s head. Thaxx glanced nervously at the new spike of pale wood lashed to the Headtaker’s trophy rack. ‘Now, tell Queek, Thaxx traitor-rat, what was the promise-pact? No warptokens or breeders – you have too many of those already,’ said Queek. ‘Yes-yes, don’t look surprised. Queek knows what you hide in your under-warrens. No, the great Thaxx would not be tempted by what he already has. The offer was to be first warlord of Clan Mors, wasn’t it? Yes-yes? Replace great and mighty Queek in City of Pillars? Delay long enough until Queek failed and a replacement was in order, unless there was an accident first?’ Queek tutted. ‘Queek say Thaxx has been left alone for too long in City of Pillars. Now Thaxx learn highly unpleasant lesson from good teacher Queek.’

Thaxx leapt forwards, his sword hissing down at Queek. Queek dodged out of range with ease, and Thaxx went right past him. But Thaxx’s attack was merely a feint, giving him space to draw a hidden warplock pistol with his free hand. He spun past the Headtaker, turning his failed lunge into a graceful turn.

‘Die-die!’ shrieked Thaxx, squeezing the trigger over and over.

Queek laughed. Thaxx should never have reached for another weapon. Without that, he stood more of a chance. Against the mighty Queek, Queek thought, that was still less than no chance, but he might have died with dignity.

With the agility of a warrior born, Queek leapt aside. Knowing he would never close the distance in time, he hurled his sword.

Thaxx had time to fire off three quick shots from his repeater pistol. Two of them dented Queek’s armour, sending showers of warpstone-impregnated dust from it. The third missed, and then Queek’s blade slammed into his pistol. The sword severed one of Thaxx’s fingers, the digit still locked upon the trigger as the pistol clattered to the floor. Thaxx squealed with pain. In shock, the wounded warlord looked down first upon his bleeding hand, and then to the fallen pistol, to find his missing finger. This was his final mistake.

Queek crossed the gap between them in a single bound. He brought Dwarf Gouger down and then up, catching Thaxx under the chin with the blunt side.

Thaxx’s jaw shattered, and he was sent sprawling onto his back. Queek pounced so that his feet were spread either side of Thaxx’s chest. He thrust his yellow incisors close to Thaxx’s face.

‘Tsk tsk, foolish Thaxx. Queek knows a bribe from Clan Skryre when it is fired at Queek,’ hissed Queek. ‘But tell-say, who else is involved? That venom on your sword-blade smells like Clan Eshin good stuff. Tell-squeal and Queek will end it quick-quick.’

Queek leaned in, so that Thaxx’s burbling, blood-choked words were audible to him alone. But Kranskritt, aided by Soothgnawer’s magic, heard them too, mangled though they were through the Redclaw’s wounded jaw.

‘The Horned Rat skin you forevermore, mad-thing.’

To Kranskritt’s surprise Queek laughed and nodded with satisfaction. He drove Dwarf Gouger down point first into Thaxx’s belly, and ripped upwards, disembowelling Thaxx.

Straightening up, the Grand Warlord of the Eight Peaks surveyed the skaven gathered around him in the Hall of Reckoning. ‘First clawpack,’ rang out Queek’s voice. ‘Thaxx betrayed Clan Mors. I will lead you now.’

‘Queek! Queek! Queek!’ the others shouted. Frizloq prostrated himself with admirable alacrity. His officers, then the lesser rats, did the same, all chanting the Headtaker’s name.

‘Loyal Ska!’ yelled Queek over the adulation.

‘Yes, O mighty Queek?’

‘This not over. Bring me Skrikk, bring me Kranskritt, bring me Gritch.’ He snickered evilly. ‘It is time all traitor-things dance with Queek!’

‘See now?’ said Soothgnawer to Kranskritt. ‘This is what you face.’

Kranskritt nodded.

‘Good. Back we go!’

The Hall of Reckoning faded from view, and Kranskritt found himself in his burrow once more.

The grey seer gathered what little courage he had and thrust out his horns. He closed his eyes – a skaven show of confidence. This time he spoke more boldly. ‘Yes-yes. How could perfect Soothgnawer be anything but correct?’

‘Indeed,’ said Soothgnawer.

‘I will find the goblin and make the offer. Goblin kill first clawpack, Kranskritt save the day with fifth clawpack. Grey seers look like heroes.’

And so, Kranskritt dearly hoped, Kranskritt could avoid his meeting with Queek.

When he opened his eyes once more, he was alone. Soothgnawer was gone, but the verminlord’s voice rang still in the secret spaces of his skull. ‘I know,’ it said.

Kranskritt threw together a variety of magical ingredients. He called in his servants. ‘Gather fifth clawpack! Into the mountains! Send-scurry message to mighty Queek.’ Kranskritt smiled as his scribe fetched quill and man-skin parchment. ‘Tell him unworthy Kranskritt follow mighty Queek’s orders to the letter, loyally and without question.’

The halls under Karag Zilfin had once belonged to a powerful dwarf merchant family. In the glory days of the Eternal Realm, the place was plaqued with gold, its dark ways lit with glimlight glowstones and runic lamps whose oil never ran dry. Not that Skarsnik, the current occupant, knew that. Vala-Azrilungol had been stripped thousands of years before Skarsnik had sprouted. He had to contend with walls that ran black with mould, water that dripped from the ceiling all the time, and the constant blast of the mountain winds whistling in through glassless windows and empty door frames.

‘I hates this. It’s rubbish,’ he muttered as he walked to his chambers. He passed through his audience room, which was embarrassingly tiny compared to the Hall of a Thousand Pillars he’d once called his own. Tribute lay heaped chaotically everywhere. ‘Really rubbish. Nowhere near enough room for all me presents. I miss it in the proper underground, Gobbla. Nice and warm.’ He cut down a long corridor, perfectly carved in the stunty way with not a curve or kink to halt the wind blasting in from outside. Treasuries, store rooms and steps leading down opened up either side of him. At the end were his private quarters. He wasn’t too happy when he got there and came upon the moonhat guards and phalanx of little big ’uns trusted with his safety, all of whom were sprawled about the place snoring and not at all doing a good job of guarding. He was too annoyed to kick them awake. Instead, he let Gobbla eat one. His screams woke the others and they ran, mismatched armour rattling, to their posts.

‘Zogging idiots!’ he shouted. ‘There’s a bleeding war on!’

He muttered darkly and scowled at them. Gobbla burped. The goblin elite shook so hard their knees knocked.

There was, at least, a door across the entrance to his rooms. He went in and shut it behind him with a sigh. A fire of bigshroom stalks burned in a long stone trough in the fireplace. He looked at the filthy furs heaped on his bed, and thought of sleeping.

He shook his head. ‘Nah, never no time for sleeping. Sleep when you’s dead, eh, Gobbla?’ He chuckled. ‘Got work to do. First mind, I reckon it’s time for a little drinky.’ On a table piled high with parchment covered in his spidery handwriting were numerous bottles. He shook them until he found one that was full. He held it up critically, grumbling that he had to tilt it this way and that to read the label. His eyes weren’t as good as they used to be.

‘Produzzi di Castello di Rugazzi,’ he said. He shrugged at it. Castello di Rugazzi had been burned down along with the rest of Tilea a couple of years before. He wouldn’t have cared had he known, but what Skarsnik held in his hands was quite probably the last bottle of wine from that vineyard, if not from Tilea. Skarsnik’s stash had once had brews from all across the Old World, purloined from caravans braving the trek over to the Far East. But once Gorfang was killed and the rats infested Black Crag, there was no one to police Death Pass. Then the wars had started. No one had come that way he could bully or rob for a long while, and Skarsnik’s cellars were running dry.

‘Gotta be better than Duffskul’s brew,’ he said sourly. He found his goblet on the floor, groaning as he stood up straight and his back cracked. He tipped a spider out and peered in. The goblet was filthy, so he spat in it and cleaned it with his ink-stained thumb until he was satisfied.

He bit the top off the bottle with his needle-teeth and poured. As it glugged into the goblet, Skarsnik smacked his lips in anticipation. He pulled a snotling out of a cage and made it drink some. He watched it for a moment. It smiled stupidly, and obligingly did not die, so he shoved it back into its prison.

‘Cheers, snotties,’ he toasted his tasters, and slurped down a mouthful of wine. Then he lit a candle of dwarf fat and sat down to his work. ‘Now then, now then,’ he said, rubbing his hands. He was determined to update his list of tribes currently squatting in the surface city and the Great Vale. ‘Got to be organised, eh, Gobbla? Where are you if you’s not organised?’

Gobbla growled. That was not the correct response. Skarsnik stiffened. His ears prickled.

A ball of black lightning burst into being behind Skarsnik, caused him to spin round so fast he lost his face in the back of his hood.

‘Not this again! Ratties, they never learn!’ he said, wrestling with his bosshat. ‘You’ve tried this fifteen times before, ya dumb gits! Garn! Get some new ideas!’ He stood up violently, sending his papers onto the floor. His goblet he caught deftly in one hand as the table toppled from underneath it. With the other hand he snatched up his prodder, and pointed it at the fizzing orb.

Black energy throbbed, sending arcs of greenish-black sparks earthing in his possessions. Much to his annoyance, his papers caught fire. ‘Oi! Oi! Oi!’ he yelled. ‘You want to come and talk to me, use the zogging front door like everyone else! You’s burning all me stuff up! Bleeding ratties! Got no manners!’

The whirling energies settled down. Through a dark portal, an arrogant horned rat-thing, fur white as snow, robes suspiciously clean, stepped into Skarsnik’s bedroom. The grey seer surveyed the room as if it owned it, and that really annoyed Skarsnik. Actually, that was kind of the entire problem with the Eight Peaks. When would they learn that the place was his!

The rat sniffed the air and pulled a face at what it found. ‘I great Grey Seer Kranskritt. I come-skitter with deal-tidings, green-thing.’ It spoke in accented orcish, higher than a gobbo, but perfectly intelligible. Skarsnik was used to that.

‘Well, well, well – a horny rat!’ said Skarsnik back in Queekish, the language of the skaven, and that took the grey seer by surprise, to Skarsnik’s delight. ‘Tinkle-tankle little bells too. Very nice, very pretty. Learn that off an elf? Cut above the average squeaker, ain’t ya? But it’s not like your lot to turn up yerselves. Usually get some poor rodent to do your dirty. You can’t be that important.’

‘I very-very much-important, green-thing!’ said Kranskritt, eyes boiling with outrage. ‘You show me respect!’

Skarsnik leered a yellow grin and slurped upon his wine. ‘Yeah? Or what? I’ll tell you what, you goat-rat… fing, whatever you is. You’ll get angry and then I’ll blow you up with me prodder, that’s what’ll happen. It’s happened before. It’s getting late and I’ve got a lot on, so be my guest. Tempt me, and then I can gets on with me work.’

Kranskritt clashed his incisors together, eyeing the prodder nervously. Its power was well known by his kind, and feared.

‘I suppose you want to make a deal, then? Your lot don’t do well in deals with me, you realise that?’ said Skarsnik.

‘You very annoying-pain, green-thing,’ admitted Kranskritt.

‘You could have just sent me a messenger.’

‘We did. His skin-pelt now your new bedding,’ said Kranskritt, pointing disdainfully at Skarsnik’s bed.

Skarsnik looked sidelong at the fresh rat pelt serving as a coverlet. ‘Oh. Right. Yeah. He did try to tell us something, to be fair. If it makes you feel better, he was very tasty. Right then. I got things to be doing. Stuff to write. Plans to make. You know, you burneded all me papers up. Took me ages to do that. I’m not happy.’

‘Pah! Green-thing plans little plans. I know-know much more.’

‘So you said.’ Skarsnik had another drink. The wine wasn’t too bad. ‘Actually, you haven’t said much of anyfink apart from how important you is.’

The grey seer hissed and clenched its fists. This meeting was obviously paining it. ‘Tomorrow, Lord Queek of Clan Mors begins the next stage of the great war of extermination against the beard-things. He attacks in the Hall of Many Beard-Things.’

‘In the citadel?’

‘Big beard-thing fortress, yes-yes!’ snapped Kranskritt. His tail lashed.

‘Funny really, don’t know the citadel well. Even before the stunties came back, didn’t really go there. Full of traps. Nasty little stunties. I quite like being alive, y’see. No idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I show-show!’ snapped Kranskritt.

‘All right, all right, keep your horns on.’ Skarsnik giggled at the skaven as it bristled. ‘What’s the point?’

‘It would be good-proper if Lord Queek is not successful. Tunnel teams dig-melt their way upwards. I show. You take them, good quick-fast, yes? You come up into citadel. You kill many dwarf-things, many, er, stunties, you stop Queek’s easy victory.’

Skarsnik set his drink down. ‘Why? I ain’t no patsy for ratsies.’ He laughed again. He was on form today.

Kranskritt clawed his hands. ‘Foolish green-thing! Now your time is done, but still you making stupid joke-laughs! The children of Chaos rise! The Under-Empire will rule over all! You be destroyed, swept-aside like leaves in storm! You do it, and you live. Not enough for you, green-thing? You die now, if you prefer.’

‘Yeah, right. Blah, blah, blah. Squeak, squeak, squeak.’ With his teeth on his lips, Skarsnik mimed a little rat mouth jabbering. ‘I have heard it all before!’ he said, suddenly angry. ‘Year in, zogging year out! It’s always the same with your lot! Ooh, we is so clever. Ooh, we is the best. If that’s the bleeding case, how comes I’m the king of Karak Eight Peaks?’

Skarsnik stood tall. He was very large for a night goblin, bigger than the seer. The prodder thrummed with orcy power. ‘I ain’t no idiot. If you are so powerful, you don’t need me, does you?’

Kranskritt growled in irritation. He and his kind were used to skaven grovelling before them, squirting the musk of fear as soon as a seer showed its face. This goblin’s cool insolence was deeply disrespectful. ‘Very well! You help my faction, you help yourself. Hand-claw to hand-claw. Friends-alliance! No war! You take back upper deeps when beard-things dead.’

‘That’s more like it,’ said Skarsnik. ‘All the deeps to the third, and no poking yer little pink noses out of yer burrows for four winters.’

‘Skweee! Done-done,’ said Kranskritt.

‘All right then. Yeah. I’ll do it.’

‘Tomorrow! Third bell.’

Skarsnik shrugged. ‘Sorry?’

Kranskritt squealed. ‘New-day sunrise! Be in the west foundry, fifteen scurryings down-up-down-north of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars!’

‘Lots of ratties down there. In my house, I might add,’ said Skarsnik. ‘I’ll bet you know some of them. They’ll probably try to kill me. I’m not all that popular with your lot.’

‘I know you know-have ways in. Be there!’

Kranskritt disappeared with a squeak of annoyance and a burst of purplish light.

Skarsnik let out a long breath and shook his head. After a moment, he went to refill his goblet and gathered up the remains of his work. He frowned as he stared at the still-smouldering edges. ‘So then, Gobbla, rats is fighting rats again. Always the way. And when they is fighting, there’s some space for the likes of me to make something of it. Get me house back, get me halls back. Get some of them greenboys from up top down there to keep it, and for good this time! Be warm again!’

He flopped into a chair. The chamber rumbled with yet another tremor. They had never really stopped since the days the mountains had exploded. Gravel pattered onto his head. Gobbla waddled up and snuffled for a scratch. Skarsnik obliged, massaging Gobbla’s favourite spot between his eyes. ‘Of course, boy, it’s all a big trap. It always is.’ He slurped his wine. ‘But,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘why does I have this feeling this time things is a teeny bit different? And not in a good way…’

He sat there a long time rubbing Gobbla’s leathery skin, thinking thoughts no other goblin could, alone as always.

Duffskul flapped his sleeves manically until his grubby green hand was free to press the stunty face. The fist-sized carving made a click, and the secret door it activated rumbled back into the wall. Duffskul puffed on his pipe and clucked his tongue with appreciation. It never ceased to amaze him how long the stunty-stuff kept on working.

Cold wind keened through the crack of the door, became a moan as the gap widened, and then a blast of winter that put out his pipe. Duffskul frowned and tapped the ashes from the bowl. He tucked the pipe into his belt, muttered some words to Mork and Gork, and waved his hands around desultorily. It was a poor effort, but lately the world had been so heavy with the essence of the Twin Gods, he barely had to try any more. The spell came on quickly, flattening him out, deepening the darkness of his robes. Soon all that was visible of him was a shadow like all the other shadows, excepting perhaps a greenish smear that might have been a face until you looked right at it.

The door finished its grinding recession, leaving the shaman’s way clear. Duffskul stuck his head out into the day. He was a night goblin and therefore not at all fond of daylight, but what little effort the sun put forth through the winter sky, choked as it was with ash and magic, was weak and unimposing.

He hopped out of the door. The odd flake of dirty snow splatted against his hood. Snow had been falling for weeks in the mountains, and Duffskul squinted at all the brightness of it, but wrapped up in his shadow cloak he felt safe enough from the Evil Sun. Besides, he couldn’t see it through all that cloud, so it couldn’t see him, could it? The thickest runt knew that. Even if the ground shone like silver. Humming tunelessly for courage, Duffskul tottered off, out onto the flanks of the Silverhorn.

Seventeen treacherous switchbacks later, a quick dart past a fresh skaven tunnel, and a hairy moment when a dozen rocks the size of cave squigs bounded inches past Duffskul’s nose, the aged shaman reached the bottom of the mountain. There the path joined a wider dwarf way, its cobbles much split by tree roots, which in turn descended through scrubby pine woods to join the main old road that ran through Death Pass.

Duffskul came out in a place not far from the Tight Spot, where the road went through high moorland. The dwarf road was heaving with greenskins of every kind, passing in long scrap trains out of the Dark Lands. They had started coming a few years ago, fleeing some upheaval out there and heading into the Badlands. Goblins first by the thousand, because they don’t like fighting. But lately there had been many orcs also. They had their fiercest faces on, but Duffskul was canny, almost as canny as Skarsnik, and he could see they were afraid. Duffskul wondered what was happening in the wider world. He had tried staring out through Gork and Mork’s eyes, but there was so much magic bleeding into everything that it made him dizzy just to try. Most troubling was that on the western side of the pass, where most of this lot were heading, the greenskins were coming back again. Life in the Badlands wasn’t too good either, Kruggler kept saying. All fine news for Skarsnik, thought Duffskul, as the majority of the greenskins, having nowhere else to go, were ending up in the Eight Peaks. But what did it mean? Through his persistent fug of intoxication, the old shaman couldn’t help but be concerned.

The ground rumbled. Rocks pitter-pattered down from the heights. It was not, reflected Duffskul, a question that needed answering. Earthquakes were frequent. They’d always had a bit of the old heave-ho coming from the ground, but nothing like this. Over the eastern peaks of the mountains the sky was black as night, and the sun never, ever shone there any more. The Dark Lands had become a whole lot darker.

‘The world is changing, that’s what,’ he muttered to himself. ‘A sorry sight, and no mistake, oh yus.’ A group of wolf riders bolted as his shadow popped, turning him back into his usual solid self. He giggled at the sight of the riders struggling to control their mounts, causing chaos in the already fractious crowds of greenskins marching west. It took his mind off being exposed to the light.

‘Can’t be helped,’ he muttered. ‘Get trod on if I is a shadow.’

He plopped himself down on a dwarf milestone. From under his filthy robes he produced a puffball flask. He guzzled down the contents, some of his own special brew. Courage fortified, he refilled his pipe with shroom-smoke fungus, and took in the view.

At this point past the Tight Spot, Death Pass opened up. Here it stretched ten miles wide, the far side blued by distance. Much of it thereabouts was inhospitable moorland, broken by humps of rock, little streams and the grey stumps of pines hacked down by the greenskins for their fires and rickety constructions. Only the old dwarf road offered good travel, and that’s where the traffic was.

In a state of disrepair, the road of Death Pass still held the power to impress. It went dead straight as much as possible, burrowing through such minor inconveniences as mountain spurs without stopping. There were ditches to either side, deep and lined with stone, although all that was visible this time of year were indentations in the snow and hairy yellow grass poking through. Every eight hundred yards, paired statues of stunty gods stood guard over it. Most had been broken aeons ago by orcs, but a few were more or less whole, glaring at the usurpers marching under their noses. Duffskul scuttled by these intact ones whenever he encountered them, because they gave him the creeps.

The pass had long been the domain of the orcs. The way had been tightly controlled for years by Gorfang Rotgut down in Black Crag. But the Troll-Eater was gone, killed by the king of all the stunties, so they said, and no one collected his tolls any more. Duffskul supposed sudden freedom of passage hadn’t helped the traffic levels.

He watched the endless caravans groan past. Most of the greenskins were wolf tribes, not much use for Skarsnik’s battles underground, but they had at least a number of ferocious beasts in their rickety cages. He even saw a group of much-battered hobgoblins chained up in one.

What is the world coming to, he thought, if even them treacherous backstabbers aren’t being stabbed first chance? They don’t even taste very nice. Why keep ’em?

He scowled at them. Cowardly at the best of times, they were beaten and downcast, and did not return his gaze.

He smoked awhile with his eyes closed to shut out the horrid glare of the sun until he felt suitably fortified by smoke and brew. He opened one eye, then the other, hiccupped and slid off the rock.

‘Suppose I better be getting on,’ he said. He let his finger rise up of its own accord, snaking around in the clouds of pungent shroomsmoke until it had found the right direction. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that way.’

He headed east, and the crowds parted for him. Now he was far from the ratties and stunties, he could trust to his status as a shaman of Mork and Gork to keep him safe. It wasn’t just a matter of respect due him for his ability to commune with the Great Twins, but one of fear. Not even the biggest black orc wanted turning into a squig, a magic that was well within Duffskul’s considerable capabilities.

When Skarsnik had called Duffskul in, he hadn’t needed to ask what had happened; Skarsnik’s rooms still stank of magic and rat.

‘You had a visitor, boss?’ he’d said.

‘Them ratties are trying to make a deal,’ Skarsnik said. And then he had told Duffskul what the deal was, and who had made the offer.

Duffskul wasn’t fazed – the ratties were always trying somesuch nonsense or other. ‘Yus, boss,’ Duffskul said. ‘They is always trying to do that, isn’t they, boss? Do deals and that, oh yus.’

‘Yes, yes, they are. But I’m not having any of it. Not this time!’

‘You not going to do it, then? Not make the deal?’

‘Of course I’m going to do it!’ Skarsnik said. He had paced up and down his room with his hands behind his back, head bowed in thought. Gobbla waddled faithfully behind him, the chain that connected them clinking. ‘There’s always more to it with them furry little zoggers. There’ll be some nasty surprise for us in there. And the chances of them giving us back the upper stunty-house like what they said they would are about as big as Kruggler’s brain.’

They both laughed, Duffskul’s eyes spinning madly in his ancient face.

‘What we need is a plan of our own. I says we do what that magic ratfing says. We go in and take these burrowing gizmos off of them rats, burst up through the floor as planned. But…’ Skarsnik held up a finger. There was always a ‘but’ with the king of Eight Peaks, you had to hand it to him. ‘But, we have a few alterations. Make a plan of our own, so to speak. They have a plan, and so I has a plan.’

‘Oh yus, boss, right you are, boss,’ said Duffskul, leaning on his staff. He’d never known Skarsnik not to have a plan. ‘What plan would that be then, boss?’

Skarsnik grinned slyly. He pulled out a heavy-looking sack from under his bed and dropped it on one of his many work desks. It hit the wood with that kind of rich clunk only solid gold makes. He whipped back the filthy material to reveal a battered but still impressive crown. Five types of gold, stunty runes, some really finickity chasing work and an awful lot of big gemstones.

‘Ooh, that’s nice, that’s lovely that is.’ Duffskul reached out a hand; he couldn’t help himself, but snatched it back when Gobbla fixed him with his one good eye and growled.

‘Ogres, Duffskul! Ogres is me plan. Been saving this for a special occasion,’ the boss said. ‘Now’s as good a time as any.’ He nodded at the sack. ‘I’ve heard Golgfag is nearby.’

‘What, Golgfag the incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain, boss?’

‘That’s the one. Golgfag the incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain, Duffskul.’

‘And what do we wants with this incredibly large and famous ogre chieftain? He’s known for not playing it straight, if you gets me, and he often fights for the stunties.’

Skarsnik smiled broadly, Duffskul smiled back. ‘And those two reasons, me old mate, is exactly why we want him, isn’t it?’

‘Oh yus, boss! Oh yus! I gets ya!’

The pair of them had laughed long and hard together. Skarsnik’s snotling food tasters joined in from their cages, not a single idea as to what they were laughing at in their empty little heads.

Now Duffskul pushed on to where his finger told him Golgfag could be found – a trick he’d learned long ago, from the somewhat mad Tarkit Fing-Finga, back in the… Well, there was no telling how long ago it was now. Greenskins swore and cursed as he went against the tide of the migration, moving their wagons aside just the same. Wolves snapped at each other as they were whipped out of the way. The road got progressively narrower as he approached the Tight Spot, where the pass was squeezed hard between two mountains.

Then a wolf was before him, snarling and drooling. Duffskul squeaked with shock, but it yelped as reins tugged its head back. A wall of mangy fur and stinking, bandy-legged goblin raiders flowed into being in front of him.

‘Shaman! Which way to the Eight Peaks?’ a goblin warchief with gold teeth shouted at him, his accent all funny. Duffskul giggled at him, he sounded so stupid. ‘Where do we find Skarsnik the Great?’

The Great? thought Duffskul. He’ll like that. ‘That way!’ he said. ‘Follow the big road up into the mountains. Big city, huge stunty-house. You really can’t miss it, to tell the truth, oh yus.’

The goblin chief wheeled his steed around and let out an ululation, waving his hand around his head. He shot forwards and his band followed, leaping over the ditch, over the uneven ground at the roadside, and scrambling onto the loose rocks and snow that lined the pass. They must have been from the mountains somewhere, because they were quickly away on the rough ground, drawing annoyed shouts from the other goblins forced to trudge along.

A scrapwagon pushed by grumbling stone trolls creaked by next, the slave-cage atop it empty of prisoners but heaped with ragged possessions. A fat goblin on the top waved a couple of snotlings on a stick in front of the trolls to make them move. He looked unspeakably glum, as did the tribe behind. They were all injured, some seriously, many with burns and blackened faces.

There came a blast of brazen horns resounding off the pass’s sides. Gruff orc voices shouted, huge black orcs moving forward in the crowd, shoving lesser greenskins out of the road. ‘Make way! Make way for Drilla Gitsmash! Make way, yer lousy runts!’ They backed their words with slaps and worse, spilling dark red blood on the setts. They stamped forward, until one was right in front of Duffskul, staring down at him with furious eyes. It snorted plumes of steam into the chill mountain air.

‘Get out da way, wizlevard, or you’ll be sorry.’

‘Will I now?’ said Duffskul. He cocked an eyebrow over one mad eye. The black orc roared and hammered its axe against its breastplate, but moved on just the same.

Around the corner came the biggest orc Duffskul had ever seen. That would have been enough to make him shift, but the contraption the orc rode decided it. Duffskul lifted the skirts of his dark robes and hopped over the ditch like he was a hundred years younger. He took up position well out of the way at the foot of a fan of scree.

Drilla Gitsmash’s mount was a clanking, mechanical boar, its black iron spell-marked with the runes of the curly bearded tusk-stunties of the Dark Lands. Steam hissed from its pistons as it trotted by, hooves cracking the slabs. Four banner bearers came after him, holding high icons fashioned from steel. Further along the pass, the black orc heralds were shouting at the goblins and their troll cart, cursing them off the road. Trolls moaned, goblins wailed. A snap cracked off the mountainside, and the cart sagged on a broken axle. Shouting angrily, the black orcs cut the traces of the trolls, put their shoulders to the wagon bed and heaved it over, ignoring the shrill protests of its owners. It toppled into the ditch and broke apart.

Drilla’s brigade of black orcs marched past Duffskul in perfect step. They held their heads high, the tusks of their visors jutting towards the sky. They were disgustingly clean, their armour immaculate. On and on they went. There must have been over three hundred of them. Screams sounded from further up the pass as they ran into the thick press of greenskin refugees, but they did not slow, they did not stop.

The last rank of black orcs went by. A final blast of brazen horns resounded off the pass’s sides, and the black orcs disappeared round a shoulder of the mountain.

For a few minutes the pass was clear. Duffskul scrambled back onto the roadway to take advantage of the lull, and jogged as fast as his old legs would carry him. The crowds thickened soon enough, but when they caught sight of the shaman, his dirty robes held high over his knees, face determined, they got out of the way no matter how cramped the road was.

The ogres were camped at the Tight Spot. There were two old stunty-houses there, both forts, on knolls either side of the road. One was so tumbledown it looked like part of the mountain, the other was whole and, consequently, full of ogres. On the other side of the Tight Spot the pass rapidly widened again, becoming heavily wooded and sloping steeply down towards the Dark Lands. Duffskul left the road and puffed his way up the broken track to the gates, flanked by large ogre banners depicting that big gob of theirs. He paused in his ascent for a look out east. The line of greenskins went on forever. He tried counting them – and he could count, properly; not quite as well as his boss, but not far off. He had to give up. There were too many.

He didn’t get much further up the hill before he was noticed.

‘Ooh looks, it’s a shaman, zippety zap!’ gnoblars jeered from behind rocks in accented greenskin.

Duffskul waved his staff at them, and they ran away shrieking in terror. ‘I dunno, only kind of greeny worse than you lot is the zogging hobgobboes!’ he shouted. ‘Gnoblars! Hill goblins! No sort of gobbo at all!’

A pair of bored ogres stood guard at the dead-eyed gatehouse to the stunty fort. They stood taller and gripped the handles of their swords as he approached.

‘What you want?’ one demanded, his voice thick, clogged with fat and anger.

Duffskul leaned on his staff like he didn’t have a care in the world and stared up. ‘You Golgfag’s lot?’

‘Yeah, what’s it to you?’ said the ogre.

‘Got a job for him.’

‘From who?’ said the second ogre. ‘We already got employment.’

‘So I hear, but I’s got an offer for your boss he might find very interesting. Money’s a wonderful thing, ain’t it?’ He leaned forwards and whispered behind his hand, ‘And we got lots. Let me in, let me see Golgfag.’

The ogres looked at one another. One shrugged. The other jerked his head into the camp. ‘Can’t do any harm. Go on then. You’ll find him easy enough. He’s having his dinner.’

For some reason that made them laugh deeply. Duffskul shook his head. Ogres were such fat idiots.

The place was better organised than a greenskin camp would have been, but only just. Piles of bones, scraps of half-cooked flesh still stuck to them, littered the place, filling the courtyard with the stench of decay even in the cold. Ogres went about their business heedless of everything below gut level, forcing Duffskul to dodge out of the way frequently. Despite the chill, nearly all of them were naked from the waist up. A semicircle of heavy wagons filled the back half of the fort. Giant shaggy draught beasts and mounts were corralled by a fence made of tree trunks nearby.

Golgfag was indeed hard to miss. He sat at the centre of the camp upon the top half of a broken stunty statue, next to a roaring bonfire. Bigger than every other ogre in the place, his head seemed disproportionately small atop the mountain of fat and muscle that was his body. A maul and sword were propped up next to him, an iron standard depicting a circular, toothed maw thrust into the ground behind. A pair of halfling cooks worked nearby over a smaller fire. Whatever they were cooking smelt much tastier than the gnoblars being roasted over smaller fires.

Golgfag was munching on one such cooked gnoblar. The outside was burned to a crisp, the inside pink.

‘When’s my stew ready, Boltho? I’m nearly done on my starter!’ Golgfag shouted in grumbling Reikspiel.

‘Coming right away, gutlord!’

Duffskul licked his lips, at both the halflings’ food, and the sight of the halflings themselves.

The ogre tore a mouthful of meat off, white strings of tendon hanging from his mouth.

‘Ahem,’ said Duffskul.

Golgfag turned round, searching at ogre height for his interlocutor, greasy moustaches flapping. It took him a moment to look down.

‘Ah, another course,’ said the mercenary brightly. ‘Thanks for delivering yourself.’

‘Nah, you’s not going to eat me,’ said Duffskul. ‘Got a business offer.’ He sat down and began to fill his pipe.

‘Oh yeah?’ said Golgfag. ‘Already got a job. I don’t see what a hole-skulking cave runt goblin like you can offer me that the king of Karak Eight Peaks can’t. Go on, get out of here, or I will eat you.’

‘No you won’t,’ said Duffskul. He clamped his pipe in his mouth. His eyes glowed green and it ignited. ‘Because I’m here from the real king of Karak Eight Peaks.’

‘I’m not worried by no scrawny goblin magician!’ laughed Golgfag. ‘And I’m not too impressed by this Skarsnik either. If he’s so great, how comes he’s always fighting? He’s been at war for half a century! I would’ve beaten them all by now.’

Duffskul shrugged. He pulled out an object wrapped in oilskin from under his cloak and put it on the ground. He unwrapped it, revealing the lost crown of Karak Eight Peaks. Ogres were greedy for more than food, and Golgfag’s eyes widened comically at the sight. He shuffled round on his seat to get a better look.

‘Now that’s a pretty trinket.’

Duffskul tittered. ‘It is, ain’t it? From Skarsnik. You like it?’

‘What’s not to like?’ The ogre leaned forwards, face alight with avarice.

‘You can have it. Payment. We just need a little favour. Carry on like you is, be all friendly like with the stunties…’

‘What, then when the time comes turn on them and give ’em a nasty surprise? That old trick? What do you say I don’t just rip your head off and eat you and take that there crown off you right now? I’m getting sick of gnoblar. Goblin’s got an altogether gamier flavour. Very nice your lot taste, underground greenies. Hint of mushroom to you. Delicious. I like a nice wizard too, sparkles on the tongue.’ A different kind of hunger showed upon the ogre’s face. His gut rumbled, twitching behind its horned belly plate.

‘Because, fatty, this ain’t it, is it?’ Duffskul passed his hands and the crown dissolved into a handful of old leaves.

Golgfag sat back and belched out a reek of uncooked meat. ‘Right. So in that case, how do I know you have actually got it? Your boss ain’t exactly known for his upright nature.’

‘Oh, we’ve got it all right.’

‘King Belegar has promised me one tenth of the treasure in his treasure chamber. That’s a lot of gold. Now that’s a pretty crown. But worst case for me is that you’ve no crown, and when I pull the old switch on the stunties I get no gold at all. And that is not happening.’

‘Lot of gold? Belegar? It ain’t a lot of gold,’ countered Duffskul – now it was his turn to laugh – ‘because he’s having you on! Old Belegar ain’t got no gold!’

‘Nah, he’s a dwarf, they’ve always got gold,’ said Golgfag, flapping the shaman’s stinking smoke away from his face.

‘Not this ’un. Poorer than a snotling, he is. Not much more sense either. Tell you what, do this for us and you can have half of Belegar’s stunty-hoard. And the crown.’

Golgfag took a bite from the gnoblar’s haunch and pondered for a moment. ‘Seems fair enough. If you make it three-quarters. Got me overheads – not cheap running a mercenary band like this, and the price of grog is way up. If your lot lose, I’ll get only the crown and Belegar’s downpayment, nothing else. You understand.’

Duffskul made a sympathetic face. ‘Times is hard. That crown is worth a lot, though.’

Golgfag smiled, the gaps in his teeth jammed with bloody meat. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do says so, and you heard me say it. Now tell me, what do we get for the crown then?’

‘The real crown?’

‘Course,’ said Duffskul.

Golgfag stood up and stretched. He tossed the remains of his first course into the fire. ‘See them gutlords marching?’ He pointed a greasy finger at heavily armoured ogres sparring with hooked swords as big as an orc. ‘You’ll get them. And me other lads. The whole lot. I’d throw in a few gnoblars for you as well, but Belegar’s messenger was quite insistent on us not bringing them in.’ He belched and scratched under his belly plate. ‘He didn’t want any greenskins in his hold at all. As if gnoblars count! Ain’t that the ironic thing? Anyways, we ate all the fighting ones. It doesn’t matter, because they’re useless at fighting. We only bring ’em along to distract the enemy. No great loss. Still got me pets.’

‘They is not gobboes, that’s the truth, oh yus.’ Duffskul could not agree more on that score. ‘Also, you promise no double-double crossing!’

‘Hah!’ said Golgfag. ‘Now that’s funny coming from you. Don’t you worry, Belegar would never give us more money. Too tight, them dwarfs, especially if he’s as skint as you say. It’ll be the end of them, if you ask me.’

‘And what about the other party?’ said Duffskul obliquely.

‘The ratmen? Nah, can’t stand them myself. Vermin. Always getting into my larder.’ He nodded at a couple of spitted skaven roasting on a fire. ‘Caught them trying to sneak into the pay wagon three nights ago. When they pay you, half the time they don’t pay you, if you know what I mean. If I told you how many of their cash deliveries turned out to be magicked, the chests full of rats in black cloaks that go all maniac on yer with their little stabby knives, you’d be surprised.’

Duffskul hiccupped. ‘Nah, I don’t think I would.’

Golgfag laughed. ‘Right. Your lot’s got experience there. Let’s shake on it then.’ He gobbed a truly impressive mouthful of spit into his palm and held out his hand to shake, humie-style. His fingers were thicker than Duffskul’s limbs, and smelt of roast greenskin. ‘We got a deal?’

Duffskull took a finger on the proffered hand and shook it carefully. ‘We have got a deal.’

‘See you around, little greeny. I’m off to finish my dinner. I’ll send word to the lads not to eat you on the way out.’ The general’s vast bulk shifted around. It was like watching a hill move. ‘Send us the details later. We’ll need some kind of signal. You have a little think about that, all right?’

‘All right.’

‘Until later, shorty,’ said Golgfag.

‘Until later, fatty,’ giggled Duffskul.

Atop a mound of rubble, King Belegar stood at the front of his Iron Brotherhood, Notrigar beside him bearing the clan banner of the Iron Hammers. The dwarf battle line stretched from the eastern side of the hall to the west, the high ground of an ancient rock fall at the north-western end held by Durggan Stoutbelly and the grand battery of Karak Eight Peaks. Past the Iron Brotherhood, the east end of the rubble pile was occupied by the Clan Zhorrak Blue Caps, and beyond that the rubble shelved off. From there to the walls of the hall, the ground was level, the flagstones uncovered by detritus. Two hundred yards behind Belegar’s position was the Gate of Skalfdon, one of the last fine things remaining in the derelict hall, a massive portal barred by a rune-carved stone gate five feet thick.

To the south, the Hall of Clan Skalfdon stretched away, the ancestor statues carved into its far walls lost in the gloom. A few lonely glimlights still burned up in the high roof a full twenty centuries after the fall of the city, stars lost in a stone forest of pillars supporting the vaulted sky. Most of the light came from less grand sources – torches and lanterns in the main, held by the dwarf host.

Belegar looked up and down the ranks of his people. Six hundred of them, pretty much all the strength he had, barring Duregar’s garrison holding the East Gate at the end of the Great Vale. Clan Skalfdon’s hall swallowed them up, built at a time when a thousand times six hundred dwarfs had dwelled within Karak Eight Peaks. That glory was long gone, like the Skalfdon clan itself, the last of whose scions had perished in one of the many attempts to retake the Eight Peaks before Belegar was successful.

Successful. He snorted. This wasn’t success. Already the skaven were creeping out of their holes, coming in through the dozen archways at the southern end of the hall.

‘Something troubles you, my king?’

‘Aye, Notrigar, a great deal,’ said Belegar. ‘I look at them and my blood boils. This is their domain, not mine. Look at how at home they are in the ruins, skulking about in the graves of better people. Look at them! Look at their dirty feet scrabbling on the faces of our ancestors. Look at the weapons they carry. They value nothing, not hard work, or craft, or skill – all they wish is to tear down and destroy, and disport in the remains. They thrive on blight and decay. They don’t build anything to last. They don’t build anything fair to look upon. All their kingdoms are but the debris of dying civilisations. It is unfair that such as these should inherit the world while better folk perish.’

‘It strikes me as so, my king,’ agreed Notrigar. These depressing rants of Belegar’s had become more frequent, his moments of humour seldom as the war wore on.

‘It strikes me that the gods are a bunch of baruzdaki,’ said Belegar, ‘by whom our own great ancestors were sorely mocked. Everything’s gone, diminished. Look to this battle, one of the great acts of our days, and I see the pale reflections of the Karaz Ankor in pools of blood. Our ancestors battled the lords of misrule themselves, forcing them step by step out of this world and back into their own. What would Grimnir, who holds to this day the hordes of Chaos at bay, think of his descendants smashing rats into the dirt in their own homes?’ He shook his head.

Mutters of agreement came from the ranks of the Iron Brotherhood.

‘Still, we’ll give them a pasting to remember, eh, lads? It ends here! One way or another, or I’m no dawi.’ Belegar pointed, past the carpet of giant rats and slaves seeping into the hall like rising floodwaters. Glints of metal could be seen coming through the gateways, blocks of troops forming up behind the wretches in the vanguard.

‘See, brave khazukan!’ shouted the king, so all could hear. ‘See how our great foe comes! See how he marshals all his strength against us! The Headtaker is here!’

A wail of fury went up from the dwarfs. They clashed their axes against their shields and roared. Belegar continued to speak, his anger powering his voice through the clamour raised by his warriors.

‘He comes to see us die, to see an end to dawi in the great city of Vala-Azrilungol! Well, I say, let him come. Let him break his vermintide upon the shields and axes of the sons of Grungni. Let him be disappointed! Khazukan! Khazuk-ha!’ he bellowed.

‘Khazukan! Khazuk-ha! Grungni runk!’

Durggan added the voices of his war machines to the dwarfish war cry. At various points within the hall, range-markers had been secreted, white stones that told Stoutbelly exactly who he could hit from where, and with what. The lead ranks of skavenslaves now passed the first of these.

Cannons boomed thunderously, tearing long holes in the ranks of the slaves. They squealed in terror, and doubtless those nearest the carnage would have turned to flee if it were not for the endless swarms pushing them on. At the back, whips cracked. In reply to the cannons, streaks of green whistled into the dwarf ranks, felling warriors along the length of the line.

‘Jezzails!’ shouted their officers. ‘Shields up!’

‘Garrak-ha!’ shouted the dwarfs. Triple-forged dwarf steel rippled upwards along the dwarf line, locked together with a clash. Bullets still punched through, but fewer dwarfs fell.

‘Belegar! My lord! Get down!’

Belegar stood at the front of the Iron Brotherhood shouting his defiance. Warpstone bullets pinged off his rune-armour and the Shield of Defiance, disintegrating into puffs of nose-searing green smoke. ‘Let them try, Notrigar. I am no skulking ratman to hide at the back of his warriors. Let them come! Let them come! Queek, I am here! I am waiting for you!’

Dwarf crossbows twanged as the skaven came into range. Shortly after, the popping reports of handguns joined them. So tightly packed were the skaven that every bullet and bolt found its mark. Those who fell were pulped under the feet of those following. Bolt throwers skewered them in threes and fours, cannons blasted them to pieces. Grudge-stones rained down, sailing between the columns of the roof on perfect trajectories. But there were thousands of skaven, and no matter how many died, there were always more. The tunnels leading back into the lower deeps were thick with them, their red eyes shining in the dark.

At the appropriate time, Durggan unleashed the fiery horror of his only flamecannon, incinerating a wide cone of skaven. They squealed in fear and pain, and the air was thick with the smoke of their burning.

‘Here they come, lads!’ bellowed Belegar. He gestured forwards with his hammer. ‘At them!’

Shouting the war cries of their ancestors, the Iron Brotherhood ran into the mass of skavenslaves.

Queek’s scampering slowed. He looked to the ground and giggled. ‘Halt-stop!’ he called, holding up his hand-paw.

The Red Guard tittered, recognising the rumbling for what it was – the anticipated arrival of their reinforcements from the third clawpack. They formed up. Other units were slowing, their flight turning. For a moment they stood in a state of stilled disorganisation, before flowing back together, units consolidating almost magically from the chaotic mass of the rout. From the gateways into the hall more skaven issued. This was the remainder of the first clawpack, ordered to join battle by Queek only when the tunnelling machines made their presence known.

‘Hehehehe,’ snickered Queek. ‘Now we see who is the best, Belegar-king. See, loyal Ska, how the dwarf-things have broken their line in their foolishness. Too quickly they are to believe Queek would run-run! They have fallen for mighty Queek’s trap! They will all die-die, no matter how fast they stump-run to find their clawpacks again!’

Ska frowned. To his simple mind, it had looked like they were about to lose. Ska wasn’t particularly quick, but he was smart enough to know saying so would not be wise. ‘Yes, mighty Queek,’ he said instead.

The vibrations grew stronger, a bone-shaking grinding joining them. The entire hall rumbled. Just when it seemed they couldn’t possibly get any louder, the tone of the noise changed and piles of splintered rock mounded up in various places in the hall.

Queek leapt onto a boulder and brandished his weapons. ‘Be ready!’ shouted Queek, his voice barely carrying over the noise of the tunnelling machines. ‘Third clawpack arrives! Today, mighty Queek take long-fur’s head!’

‘Queek! Queek! Queek!’ squeaked his army.

The snout of a drilling machine appeared from one of the oversized molehills to the north, fifty yards short of the rapidly reforming dwarf army. The drill poked a few feet overground, then withdrew. With nothing to support it, the centre of the hillock collapsed, leaving a gaping hole in the ground.

Queek waited gleefully, his tongue searching out fresh scraps of dwarf flesh and blood in his fur.

Green light issued from the hole. Smoke poured after it. Other machines were poking up out of the floor and walls, and retracting, leaving fresh tunnel mouths behind them. One by one they fell silent and the tremors dwindled.

‘Not long now, loyal Ska. Truly is Queek the most cunning of generals.’

‘The most cunning of the cunningest,’ agreed Ska.

Something emerged from the hole. It was a long way to see for Queek’s weak skaven eyesight. He squinted hard and made out a bouncing, round shape headed for the dwarf lines.

‘That not third clawpack…’ said Ska in dismay.

‘Queek can see that!’ squeaked Queek loudly. ‘Queek know!’

The hole burst outwards as dozens more of the creatures came boinging out, their powerful hindlegs propelling them at great speed into the air. They slapped into the ground, rolling and bouncing, shoving themselves off with their legs to repeat the process. The mushroom stink of green-things blew from the holes.

‘Skarsnik!’ chittered Queek, stamping from foot to foot. ‘Skarsnik! What is this? How does he know? How does he still live?’

As if invoked by the name of their king, the green-things poured in great multitudes from the holes in the ground. Regiments of night goblin archers came first, firing as they ran, the new tunnel mouths wide enough to let them come out four abreast. The skaven, expecting allies to come from the ground, were taken by surprise, and some among the newly rallied army were seized again by panic. Black-fletched arrows fell among them, bringing forth many death-squeaks. The massed skaven retreated from the holes, allowing legions of goblins to flood the hall.

There were many tribes, and many kinds of green-thing. Queek narrowed his eyes and hissed. ‘Imp-thing been busy!’

The greenskins wasted no time in attacking both armies. From a hole opened right before the Gate of Skalfdon, ranks of tittering spearmen, drunk on fungus beer, marched out. They jogged into position on the far side of the dwarfs. Staggering fanatics carrying massive iron balls were pushed from their regiments. They blinked and stared around themselves, laughing and drooling. And then they began to spin.

Faster and faster they went, round and round, the drugs coursing through their veins allowing them to drag the huge weapons they carried up and get them airborne. In a blur of metal and spinning pointed hoods, they connected with dwarfs turning to face the goblins behind them.

The fanatics moved quite slowly, but such was their momentum that they smashed the dwarf shield wall apart, caving in the best armour and pulping bodies. If their initial impact was bloody, their lives after were short. Some spun through into the skaven on the far side; others wavered unsteadily along the dwarf line or turned back upon their frantically shrieking comrades. Ultimately, they came variously to throttle themselves on their chains, collapse exhausted or crash into the pillars and rubble piles that made the hall so hazardous for them.

It did not matter, the damage was done. The goblins followed their fanatics quickly, charging the disordered dwarf lines.

Squigs were running amok through the dwarf army, gobbling down a dwarf with every bound. Queek’s quick mind followed his quick eyes and nose as he judged the situation. ‘Now would be a good time to fall back, lad,’ said Krug, from his perch.

‘Oh, good time for you to talk now, dead-thing,’ muttered Queek. Still, he was of half a mind to follow the dwarf king’s advice, retreating while the beard-things were occupied with a new enemy. Let them wipe each other out. Queek would come back for whoever was left later.

He would have done so too, had Skarsnik himself not appeared.

Skarsnik rose from a hole in the ground in the very middle of the hall. Explosions and flashes of magic surrounded him, the indescribable noise of squigpipes played him in, making sure all saw his grand entrance. He walked cockily from the hole, his attendants carrying banners stuck with the heads of the leaders of the third clawpack. He walked to a pile of fallen rock, and climbed unhurriedly to the top, his rotund pet obediently following. Queek squealed in annoyance. The sheer arrogance of Skarsnik enraged him. He behaved like he was the best, when who was the best? Queek was!

‘Listen, youse lot!’ shouted the green-thing, his voice carried on the magic of the smelly lunatic who always accompanied him. Sure enough, he was there, blowing foul fumes from his pipe not far behind the king’s right shoulder. ‘I’s the king here, so why don’t all you furboys and stunties zog off. Give to Skarsnik what belongs to Skarsnik, and we’ll call it quits.’

With that inspired piece of oratory, Skarsnik held aloft his prodder and let a stream of violent green energy streak into the roof. Razor-sharp shards of rock blasted out from the impact, slicing into whoever was below. Which was mostly goblins, but Skarsnik, true to form, didn’t care about that.

This was altogether too much for Queek.

‘Skarsnik! Imp-thing! Kill-kill!’ he shrieked. He ran forward, leaving his guard behind. They milled about confused until Ska Bloodtail squeak-ordered, ‘After him! After the mighty Queek!’

Seeing their lord and his guard surge ahead, the skaven clan leaders, clawpack masters and other officers decided they had better advance. Their ragged charge became organised as more of them came to the same conclusion and followed.

The skaven were so intent on the goblins that they didn’t notice the ogres change sides.

‘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.’

Kemma gave a sad nod, staring at the shining hauberk, perfectly crafted although not yet finished, in her lap.

‘The last one, pilot by the name of Torin Steamhammer, just got in before the ledges were taken by grobi on spiders.’

‘Spider riders? I thought they lived in the forests in the lowlands.’

‘They did,’ said Gromvarl, wheezing as he sat down on a three-legged stool. He took his pipe out from his jerkin and filled it. He thought to take a half-bowl, for there was precious little tobacco left in the Eight Peaks, just like there was precious little of anything fine remaining. But with things the way they were he figured he probably had scant days left to smoke what small amounts he had, and after a second thought rammed it full with his thumb. ‘All sorts of monsters up here now. Things I’ve never seen in the mountains before. The world’s in turmoil, vala.’

‘Do you have to call me that?’ Kemma said sharply. A booming played under their conversation, deep and monotonous, never stopping – the beat of an orcish battering ram on the great gates of the citadel. The greenskins had been at it ever since they’d driven the dwarfs back from the outer defences. Belegar’s warriors did what they could to keep Skarsnik’s hordes back, but they were low on everything bar rocks to drop on the besiegers. ‘You’re my only friend, Gromvarl. My only link with home.’

Gromvarl looked at her fondly. How much she’s grown, he thought. Such a pity the way fate falls. ‘Aye.’

‘He still won’t talk to me, will he?’

Gromvarl shook his head, sending his clouds of smoke shifting about his head.

‘My son?’

‘Thorgrim’s fine, my lady. He’s fretting about you. Keeps asking his dad to come and talk things through, but Belegar’s having none of it.’ He didn’t tell her that Belegar had precious little time for his heir either. He had become withdrawn, pale. He wasn’t sleeping, he was sure of that. Dawi were tough, and Belegar tougher than most, but that wound he was trying so hard to hide from everyone was not only obvious, it was not healing. Gromvarl was worried, very worried, but he did his best to hide it from Kemma behind an air of grave concern.

‘My husband is an arrogant, prideful fool, Gromvarl,’ said Kemma.

‘He’s one of the best, if not the best, warrior in all the Karaz Ankor, va– Kemma.’

‘He’s an idiot, and we’ll all die because of him.’

Gromvarl couldn’t disagree in all honesty, so he harrumphed and looked around the chamber, searching for the right thing to say. It was austere, cold, lacking a womanly touch. He found it depressing that such a good-hearted rinn as Kemma should have been brought to this. He was glad he did not have daughters. He was glad, in these awful times, he had no children at all. Still, he had not finished imparting his run of bad news. He mulled over how much he would say, but he had promised to keep her up to date.

A promise is a promise, he reminded himself. Without honour, and trust, what did they have left? An oath lasted longer than stone and iron.

‘There’s more, Kemma,’ he said quietly. Kemma fixed him with her eyes, expressionless, waiting patiently. ‘The gyrocopter brought a message from Karaz-a-Karak. After he read it, the king sat on his own in the Hall of Pillared Iron all day, bellowing at anyone who came near. He only told us what it said this morning, when he’d calmed down. A bit. Most of the holds are under siege, it can’t be much longer before they all are.’

‘And?’ said Kemma. ‘There is more, isn’t there, Gromvarl?’

The longbeard sighed. She always was far too clever. ‘Karak Azul has fallen.’ His heart pained him to speak it aloud. ‘King Kazador and Thorek Ironbrow were both killed, an ambush in the high passes some time ago.’

Kemma drew in a sharp breath. Ironbrow in particular was a terrible loss. None had his wisdom and skill with the runes. Much sacred knowledge was lost with him.

‘The hold was overrun not long after,’ continued Gromvarl. ‘The message from the High King was the same as all the others the king has had these last weeks.’

Kemma clutched at the hauberk. The rings tinkled. Gromril, by the look of it. ‘This is for Thorgrim,’ she said. ‘He’s outgrown his last.’

‘He’s getting a good girth on him,’ said Gromvarl approvingly. ‘He’ll be a strong lad, and a good king.’

Much to Gromvarl’s dismay, Kemma burst into tears.

‘He’ll never be king! Can’t you see? It’s all over. They’re coming to kill us all. They’ll kill you, and the king, and my son!’

Gromvarl reached out his hand uncertainly. A year on, his arm still pained him. Though it had set true, it had been wasted from weeks of disuse, and half-rations were no aid to building its strength back up. ‘Come on now, lass, there’s no need for that. It’s worse than it was even in the time of King Lunn, I grant you, and yet your husband is holding out. There’s not many who could do that. The runes might no longer glow upon the gates…’

‘Why?’ demanded Kemma. ‘The magic of the ancestors deserts us.’

Gromvarl clucked his tongue and rattled his pipe on top and bottom teeth. ‘No one knows. No one knows anything any more.’ It was a poor answer and did little to satisfy her. He blundered on. ‘My point is, they’re strong still. They’re tall, made of stone, steel and gromril. Made to last forever. They have not fallen yet. Why,’ he forced a smile, ‘the urk have been at it for days and they’ve not even dented them.’

‘There are many things like that in the dwarf realm, supposedly eternal, and they are failing one by one,’ said Kemma. She wiped her eyes, angry at herself for her lapse in control. ‘I’m sorry, but this is my son! A curse on dawi heads and the blocks of stone they call their brains. We should have gone months ago. Pride will kill us all.’

‘You’ll see,’ said Gromvarl. ‘Things are bad, but we’ll prevail. We’ve less ground to cover now the surface holdings are gone. Duregar’s finally been called back from the East Gate. We’ve some strong warriors here. Good lads, and brave. Most are veterans. I’ve not seen such a lot of battle-hardened dawi in my life. With them at our backs we’ve every chance. We’ve still got our defences. Kromdal’s line is the strongest yet. There are only four ways through that: the King’s Archgate, the Blackvault Gate, Varya’s Stonearch and the Silvergate. Hundreds of dawi wait there, and they’re all spoiling for a fight. And if they get through that there’s the Khrokk line, and after that…’

‘After that they’re into the citadel,’ said Kemma harshly. ‘Belegar is waiting for our enemies to fall on each other, or to wear themselves out. But they won’t. Ogres, greenskins and thaggoraki have us under siege. There’s never any less of them, and fewer of us every day. We’ve nowhere left to run. My husband’s too set in his ways! He can’t see that they’re not going to kill themselves on our shield walls – they’re going to keep coming until they break through and destroy every last one of us.’

‘It’s worked all the other times.’

‘This isn’t like all the other times! Valaya preserve me from the thickheadedness of dawi men!’ she said. ‘You’ve already told me there’s no help coming. We’ve not changed, Gromvarl. It’s why we are going to fail. Doing the same thing over and over and over… All it has to do is not work once. It didn’t work at Karak Azul. Why should it work here? They killed the reckoner. Dawi killing dawi! Do you know why?’ She didn’t give him a chance to respond but answered for him. ‘They killed him because he knew. Because he wasn’t a tradition-bound fool.’

‘Because he was helping you leave,’ said Gromvarl. He deliberately avoided the word escape.

‘It could have been you,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’m glad it wasn’t.’

Gromvarl sighed around his pipe stem, and patted her hand. She was right. Kvinn-wyr was overrun, all the surface outposts, the East Gate three weeks back. The citadel was all they had left, and only the part above the ground at that.

‘It’ll all be fine, you’ll see,’ he said.

Kemma grasped his hand. She smiled through her tears. ‘You have been a loyal servant. You are wise beyond the length of your beard, and a fine warrior, Gromvarl, but you are a terrible liar.’

He humphed and clicked his teeth on his pipe.

‘Don’t get into a huff! I’m no beardling to be coddled. If we’re to die, then I’ll do it with my hammer in my hand,’ she said. Her smile hardened with resolve. ‘This I swear.’

‘Patience, Queek, patience. You cannot kill Kranskritt, not any more.’

Queek hissed and gripped the arms of his throne. He didn’t like this new advisor of his much. For a start, the dead-things he had so carefully collected over his bloody career would no longer speak with him while Lurklox was around. Secondly, the verminlord showed no deference or fear towards him whatsoever. Kranskritt’s daemon ruled him utterly. Queek was determined the same would not be the case with him. He had the sneaking suspicion he wasn’t succeeding.

‘Pah! What sneaker-squeaker know?’

‘I killed many thousands for the Council while I still lived, little warlord,’ said Lurklox menacingly. ‘Deathmaster Snikch’s skill is a poor imitation of my glorious ability.’

‘What you know of killing in plain view, Queek means! You hide and hide before stab-strike. Too cunning, too cautious. Mighty Queek sees an obstacle, mighty Queek destroys it! Hidey in the dark is not my way.’ Queek grumbled and settled into his throne. ‘Why all this pretence-pretending! It boring! Queek bored!’ He cast a look at his favourite trophies, arrayed upon a massive rack fanning across the back of the throne. Dwarf Gouger and his sword were in a lacquered weapon stand taken from some Far Eastern place to his right. All down the aisle leading to the throne-burrow mouth were heaped piles of dwarf banners. The right claw of Clan Mors liked to boast he had more dwarf standards than the dwarf king himself. But to have them all on display made him uneasy. These were Queek’s private things! Not to be seen or touch-sniffed by any other. Mine.

‘You will do as I say, small creature,’ said the voice, coming first from near, then from behind and then to his left, ‘or I will devour you as surely as the Horned Rat himself devoured Kritislik. Arrogance is a virtue, but too much of a good thing is still too much.’

Queek glanced about. Lurklox had disappeared completely; the twitching shadows that betrayed his presence were not visible. Queek felt the first stirrings of fear. He shifted on the throne, acutely aware of his musk glands for the first time in years.

‘You are right to be afraid, O most mighty and invincible Queek,’ mocked Lurklox’s voice, coming from nowhere in particular. ‘I know you are wary of the Deathmaster, and yet perhaps one as talented as you in kill-slaying might best him in open combat. Yes-yes,’ the voice turned to musing. ‘That would be a good-fine match to watch. But I am not the Deathmaster. I am Lurklox, the greatest assassin ever to have been pupped in Skavendom! In my mortal years my name alone could stop a ratkin’s heart. In open battle you would stand no chance against me then, and now I am the immortal chosen of the Horned Rat himself. You could never beat me.’

Queek’s ears twitched.

‘Oh I know-smell you think of it, and that a part of you wishes to try. Against the lesser verminlords of the Realm of Ruin, you might even triumph.’ The voice hissed close to his ear, startling Queek. ‘Never against me! And if we were to come to violence-conflict, it would never be face to face. You would die screaming in your sleep, mad-thing Queek, and I would place your head upon your trophy pole to rant at those you killed, for no one else would hear your words. This would be my kindness to you, for the pain would be great but the humiliation worse. Do as I say-command. You are important to my plan-scheme, but no one is indispensable. You should know that. You should understand. Do you understand, Queek?’

Queek stared straight ahead, unblinking. ‘Yes-yes,’ he said through clenched teeth.

‘Good. Now listen-hear to what I say-squeak. You cannot kill Kranskritt. You know why. News of his success has already reached Skavenblight. My brother in darkness aids him. They seek to regain the seers’ position on the Council. I suspect this to be the will of the Horned Rat, to test his chosen. The seers of Clan Scruten always were his favourites. I see no reason why they are no longer. My advice is that it would be foolish to disturb this test.’

‘Kranskritt is powerful, useful-good,’ said Queek. ‘You say this Soothgnawer wanted to create good impression with Kranskritt’s victory by helping mighty Queek? This is nonsense. He wants Queek dead, to take all glory for his scheming white-furred self. When Kranskritt is no longer useful, he is no longer good. Then Queek slay-kill. If you try stop me, then we will see if mighty-dark Lurklox say-squeaks the truth about supernatural battle-prowess.’

‘You are not as mad as they say.’

Queek giggled. ‘Mad or not, Queek still mighty.’

‘That you are, Queek of Clan Mors, although you have many enemies. Too many for even you.’

‘Kranskritt, Skrikk, Gnawdwell, Soothgnawer and Lurklox,’ he said rattling the names off quickly. ‘Queek does not care.’

Lurklox did not speak, Queek knew he was reading his body language and scent for the lie in his words, probably his mind too, and he knew also that Lurklox would find none.

‘I withdraw,’ the daemon said presently. ‘Ikit Claw comes. Do not reveal my presence! It will be worse for you than would be-is for me.’

Queek chittered his acknowledgement, irritating though it was to be beholden to the verminlord.

The hall fell silent. Lurklox allowed none near Queek while they spoke. Not even the dead-things. Not even loyal Ska!

Queek could hear the clanging iron frame and steam-venting hiss of the approaching Ikit Claw long before he could see him. It was not by accident that the dignitary was forced to walk the lengthy corridor. Queek watched the warlock slowly approach. He did not move fast, being more machine than rat, but there was a solidity to him, a stolidness too, that was lacking in other ratkin. He reminded Queek of a dwarf-thing. Queek suppressed a titter at the thought.

Ikit Claw did not speak until he had finally clanked to a stop before Queek’s towering trophy throne. A voice rasped behind his iron mask. ‘Greetings, O great Queek, Warlord of the City of Pillars. I bring-carry tidings. Yes-yes, I have slain many beard-things – I have broken Iron-Peak!’

Queek had heard that the rival Clan Rictus had as much to do with bringing Azul-place low as Ikit had, but he was too canny to mention it. What Ikit Claw said was as much provocation as delivery of news; Queek’s own failure years ago to destroy Karak Azul was widely known.

Queek squeaked in annoyance as Ikit drew in a long metallic breath, presaging a long flurry of ritual greetings and mock-flattery. Queek went straight for the point.

‘Why-tell are you here?’

A menacing green glow emanated from Ikit’s iron mask. ‘I bring great Queek tribute. The Council bid I gift you Clan Skryre weapons. Very kill-kill, these devices.’

Ikit paused. If he was expecting gratitude, he was disappointed.

‘Where-tell are they? Show mighty Queek!’

A grating clunk sounded from Ikit’s metal face that might have been a noise of regret. ‘Clan Mors will not be granted direct usage of these weapon-gifts. Much work has gone into their creation by Clan Moulder and Clan Skryre, although mostly hard-work thinkings of Clan Skryre. Trained teams of Clan Rictus direct them where Queek needs.’

‘I see-smell,’ said Queek coldly. ‘Is cunning Ikit Claw also to remain, to hold Queek’s hand-paw all the way to victory?’

Ikit raised his paw to his chest and bowed slightly. ‘Unfortunately not. As mighty Queek doubtless knows in his most labyrinthine and devious mind, the chief servants of the Council must hurry-scurry on and on. I cannot stop-stay,’ he said. ‘I am bid-go to the mountain of the crested beard-things, there to make much war-killing, and end another infestation of dwarfs for betterment of all skavenkind. Fool-clans besiege Kadrin-place for many months, and cannot break it. I have much fame, much influence. I killer of dwarf-places. They call for me to come here. But mighty Queek does not need much help, does he? Not like weak-meat fighting the orange-beards.’

Without waiting for a reply, the master warlock engineer turned tail and began clanking his way back. ‘But I will be back if Queek cannot do the task,’ he said. ‘So speaks the Council of Thirteen.’

‘We shall see-see,’ said Queek softly as he watched Ikit painfully clatter his way out again. ‘While fool-toys of Clan Skryre face beard-things, Queek will deal with his other enemy, and then we see-smell who is the greater. Tomorrow, Skarsnik imp-thing dies on my sword.’

‘Wait, Queek, there is another way…’ said Lurklox. The shadows thickened once more, and a rank smell of decay filtered into Queek’s nose from behind his throne. Ikit Claw left the throne-burrow and the door slammed shut. Queek levered himself out of his chair and gathered up his things. He felt better once his trophy rack was on his back. He lifted his weapons. ‘Yes, there always another way, rat-god servant. There is Queek’s sword, and there is Queek’s Dwarf Gouger. Two ways is enough choice for Queek! Skarsnik die by one of them. Which, Queek not care.’

‘Queek!’ said Lurklox warningly. ‘We must be cunning…’

But Queek was already scampering away, calling for his guards and the loyal Ska Bloodtail.

Duffskul hiccupped and waddled along the corridor to Skarsnik’s personal chambers in the Howlpeak. He hummed to himself as he went, trailing clouds of stinking shroomsmoke behind him. He was wearing his best wizarding hat – a once very bright yellow, now so grubby it was almost green – and a collection of charms that hummed with Waaagh! magic.

The little big ’uns and moonhats by Skarsnik’s chambers scrambled over themselves to open the doors.

‘A fine welcome, oh yus. You got the right respects for your betters, grotty boys,’ he said. They simpered gratefully at his praise.

In the corridor it was freezing; the constant winds whistling through the windows gave the mountain its goblin name and its hurty-bit biting temperatures. In Skarsnik’s rooms it was a different matter, swelteringly hot from the fire blazing in the hearth. Duffskul brought in a gust of sharp-smelling winter with him, but it was swiftly defeated, carried off by the vapours steaming from his robes in the sudden heat.

‘Duffskul, me old mate,’ said Skarsnik, looking up from his work. As usual papers tottered around him, and on many other desks too, to which he flitted as he worked. He wrinkled his eyes, holding a parchment at arm’s length.

‘Too much reading’s bad for you, boss, oh yus.’ Duffskul kicked old bones, rags and bottles out of the way as he made his way over to a sturdy dwarf chair near the fire. Gobbla lay asleep on the filthy rug before the flames, whiffling gently in his sleep.

‘Someone’s got to keep these zogging idiots in line,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Can’t do it if you’s not organised…’ His words trailed away as he deciphered whatever it was that he had written there.

‘I always said you was a funny little runt. Done us proud you have wiv all that thinking there in the old brain box.’ Duffskul rubbed his hands together in front of the fire and sighed contentedly. His heated robes gave off the most noxious smell. ‘Ooh, that’s nice, ooh, that’s very nice!’ He smacked his lips and pulled out his gourd of fungus beer. He sloshed it around disappointedly. ‘If only I had a little drinky to help meself really enjoy it.’

Skarsnik had gone back to his work, the enormous griffin quill in his hand scratching over his parchment.

‘Wanna drink? Help yourself,’ he said distractedly.

Duffskul didn’t need telling twice. He grabbed up the nearest bottle and uncorked it. ‘You is running low.’

‘And you is going to have to brew up a lot more fungus beer. And preferably stuff that don’t taste of old sock!’ said Skarsnik. ‘Precious few stunty barrels to nick, and none of the grapey goodstuff coming out the west these days, so don’t you go gulping it all. I needs me drinks to thinks,’ he said, and giggled quietly.

Duffskul guzzled anyway, glugging priceless Bretonnian wine right from the bottle until it had nearly all gone. ‘Ahh! Now that is better. Ooh, that is a lot better.’

‘Right. Now you is all nice and comfy, why don’t you tell me what you is doing here,’ said Skarsnik, finally looking up and laying down his quill. ‘I am a very busy goblin.’

‘Ain’t you just, ain’t you!’ giggled Duffskul.

‘Get to the point, you mad old git,’ said Skarsnik affectionately. Duffskul had been with him right from the very start, and had stuck with him when others had wandered off, turned traitor or inconsiderately died.

‘Well, we has questioned the ratty scouts.’

‘Yeah?’

‘And we has kept careful watch on their doings and all that, oh yus.’

‘Tolly’s boys?’

‘Best sneaks in the peaks,’ said Duffskul. ‘And I has been trying to speak with da Twin Gods! Gork and Mork, what you has visited and who is the mightiest greenies of them all.’

‘Right. And? Are the ratboys going to attack, then? They’ve got them stunties well bottled up. Only a matter of time before they make their move on me. When and where, that’s what I want to know, when and where.’

‘And you shall know, king of the mountains!’ Duffskul swivelled in the armchair, and leaned on its torn, overstuffed arm. ‘The rats are going to try and drive us out for good, starting with orctown in the old stunty city and da camps outside the walls.’

‘Right,’ said Skarsnik, who had expected as much. ‘East Gate?’

‘Drilla’s boys went to kick out the stunties yesterday. Empty. Well, it was – full of black orcs now.’

‘Hmm.’ Skarsnik drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Well, let’s ambush the little furry bleeders.’

‘They’ll be expecting that,’ said Duffskul.

‘Course they will! That Queek’s not an idiot, even if he is as mad as snot on one of your better madcap brews. But what he’s not gonna be expecting is a special ambush, and so I’s going to make it a very special ambush. He’ll definitely not expect that!’

‘Oh no, oh yus,’ said Duffskul.

‘The Waaagh!’s building, Duffskul, greenies coming to me from left right and centre.’ He paused, and looked down at his lists, running ink-stained fingers down the parchment. ‘I reckon I should meet with this Snaggla Grobspit. Drilla’s lads have already come over. Time to take that cheese-stealing maniac to task, don’t you fink?’

‘Oh yes, boss! Oh yes. Oh yus,’ said Duffskul, his eyes spinning madly in his face. ‘And I’ve got a cracking idea meself.’

‘Have you now?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Right then, tell me all about it, and we’ll figure out exactly what we is going to do…’

‘Waaagh!’ cackled Duffskul madly. He danced a little jig and threw bolts of green lightning from his fingertips, blasting skaven to pieces with every shot. His knees popped as he danced, but he was too excited to care. Swarms of ratmen fled before the feet of the Idol of Gork, squealing in terror. Wherever the stone monster went, skaven units burst apart like ripe puffballs, disintegrating into individual warriors who ran in every direction like mice fleeing an orc. ‘That’s right, ya little ratties! That’s right! Run away!’

Duffskul’s eyes glowed with the surfeit of Waaagh! energy washing over the battlefield. From atop his idol he could see right across the Great Vale for miles and miles. The main scrap was right there, in the old dwarf surface city, but smaller skirmishes were going on right the way across the entire bowl. Outside the walls, wolf riders ran down blocks of skaven infantry. Streaks of green whizzed down from on high where jezzail teams discharged their guns. Doom divers plummeted from even higher up. Batteries of goblin artillery duelled with skaven lightning throwers, sneaky gobboes dripping in night-black squig oil fought running battles with groups of skaven assassins. Right at the back, mobs of spider riders ran amok, unopposed by anyone. The ratboys were trying to bring their lightning cannons about, but weren’t having much luck. Not long now and they would smash up the skaven artillery. There was a lot more to see than just the big ruck at the centre, oh yus.

Duffskul liked a nice fight, and this was the biggest and best he had ever seen. There were loads of greenies! Lots of lots, boys from every tribe and every kind of greenskin you could think of – except sneaky hobgobboes and stupid gnoblars, naturally – while there were so many ratties on the other side that he couldn’t even begin to count them, and Duffskul could count pretty high for a goblin. It was a proper Waaagh!

‘Waaagh!’ he screeched. ‘Waaagh!’ The powers of Gork and Mork flooded through him and out his arms and toes and nose, the great idol of mad old Zargakk filling him with power.

What had happened to Zargakk, Duffskul had no idea. No one had seen him in years. He was probably dead. Good thing too, or there’d be no way Duffskul would have got his hands on the idol.

‘Come on, Gork!’ he called. A phantom foot formed from the magic spilling from Duffskul’s skin. With a screech he sent it smashing into a unit of ratties, squashing them flat. He laughed uproariously, so hard he cried. Orc magic that one; Duffskul might be crazy, but he was deeply in favour with the Great Green Twins.

The idol lurched to one side, nearly tipping Duffskul from his perch on its shoulder. With desperately scrabbling hands, he caught himself on the rough stone. Sucking his lacerated fingers, he cast about for his attacker.

A flash of black lightning crackled against the idol, making it moan. It stumped around to face its tormentor, a white-furred skaven sorcerer who was hurling magic of his own at Duffskul’s new pet. Unlike the blasts from the skaven cannon, this was hurting it.

‘Oi!’ he shouted, responding with a crackle of his own destructive magic. He screamed in triumph as it fizzed towards the skaven, but the rattie waved a dismissive hand, and the green light of Waaagh! power dissipated. The sorcerer raised his hands and hurled twin blasts of blacklight at the idol’s knee. Duffskul countered, but the magic got through, weakened, but still effective. With a tinkle, the chains binding the menhirs of the idol’s left leg burst apart. The idol took another step, reaching out crude hands to grab the sorcerer, but its foot was left behind.

‘Watch out! Watch out!’ Duffskul said in horror as the footless leg descended once more.

The idol let out a moronic bellow as it fell. The ground rushed up at Duffskul.

‘Heeeeeelllllp!’ he wailed. The idol crashed down, breaking into a dozen pieces of bouncing rock that rolled all over the place, trailing wisps of dying magic.

The sorcerer stood triumphantly, sure of his victory.

Duffskul was having none of that. Bruised but otherwise undamaged, he stood and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Oi! Ratty! Who do you think you are?’

The rat snarled, exposing the tiny needle teeth either side of its flat incisors. Its eyes went dead-black. Smoke tinged with purple flares poured from its mouth.

Duffskul threw up his own hands. Giant green fists formed around them. He held out his hand, a hand that had become the magic-wreathed, crackling fist of Gork himself. He swung at the sorcerer, who warded off Duffskul’s magic with his dark mist. Duffskul swung again. The skaven responded too late, and Duffskul grabbed him hard.

‘How you like that, eh, ratty? Orc magic that. I know it because I is the chosen of Gork and Mork, their teller of fings to Skarsnik, who was raised up high because of me!’ He squeezed hard. The skaven squealed.

‘We make deal-deal?’ it said in mangled greenskin.

‘I don’t fink so.’

Duffskul sucked in deep, inhaling the winds of magic rushing over the excited orcs and goblins. Power filled him. So much power! He could drink it all in and then he’d be the bestest wizlevard who ever lived, mighty as the gods themselves!

Duffskul’s head hurt with the strength of it, a good pain, deep and satisfying, like the kind of itch it is a pleasure to scratch. The magic-light flaring in his eyes bleached out his vision.

Duffskul giggled. The skaven white-fur shrank in his magic fist. ‘I’m gonna do this proper, you squeaking cheese-thief,’ said Duffskul. Determined to make a show of it, Duffskul fished inside his robes and pulled out a piece of shamanshroom. He taunted the skaven with it.

‘You know what this is, ratty? This is a shamanshroom. From da deep caves, where only those in da know can go. An old shaman, taken root, you might say, gone into da great green! But they leaves some of their magic behind, leaves it for the likes of me to eat up and squish ratties like you. Oh yus.’

Duffskul popped the leathery fragment in his mouth and chewed hard with black teeth. Something of the dead shaman’s residual power flooded into him, augmenting the magic coursing through Duffskul to catastrophic levels. Everything went far away. He could hear the laughter of the Twin Gods in the distance. Sometimes that was a good sign. But not always, far from it.

‘Now I is… Now I is…’

He hiccupped. Something went pop deep inside his brain. Duffskul frowned.

‘Whoopsie,’ he said.

With a wet splotch, his head exploded, fountaining a great deal of blood and a lot less brain all over the remains of the idol and the skaven sorcerer both.

The green fists evaporated into mist, and Kranskritt fell, taking in a deep and welcome breath to his bruised lungs.

‘Heh heh, green-thing. Very good. Very interesting. But you dead now.’ He frowned and leaned in to check. The green-thing’s head had gone, what was left soaking messily into his dirty yellow robes. ‘Yes-yes, definitely dead.’

Trying to salvage his dignity, Kranskritt brushed as much brain off his clothes as he could and walked away, checking all the time that no one was looking.

Skarsnik went into his private rooms as quickly as he was able. That was not very quickly. He had to patrol the borders of his much-reduced kingdom to make sure the lads were watching out properly, and that there were units ready to see off an attack, and that the outsiders who had come into the Howlpeak didn’t cause any bother. That went double for any who were orcs. He had a few challenges now Gobbla was gone, but that was not such a bad thing. He needed to put a couple of orcs down to keep the rest in line. Without Gobbla, they found him still extremely dangerous, and the fact that he could still break an orc with his bare hands without his giant pet had quietened them down real quick. But Gobbla’s loss was telling on him in other ways. Without the squig, he’d lost his skaven assassin early warning system. He might as well leave the door unlocked, dismiss all his guard and go to sleep with a knife conveniently laid out next to his bed.

Once inside, he locked the door and commenced pacing, the butt of his prodder clashing on the floor. He banged it harder and harder as he got more and more worried. Skarsnik was no stranger to dilemmas, but this one was a real pickle and no mistake.

‘Got to get organised, got to get organised!’ he muttered to himself. ‘Where is I if I don’t gets organised?’ He glanced to his papers, but this time they didn’t hold the answer. ‘Gotta fink!’ he said, and worried at his fingers with sharp goblin teeth. ‘Item one,’ he said to himself. ‘Old Queek’s going for conquest. Item two, there’s loads more of them than there is of us. Item three, them stunties aren’t going to be there much longer, and when they is not, old squeaky Queeky’s gonna come knockin’ on me door with all his monsters and such. So what to do? Need Duffskul, yeah.’ He made to call the shaman, but remembered he was dead too. Who else could he call on? No one had seen Mad Zargakk in years, Kruggler was the brightest of the gobboes to hand but still very thick, and there was no point at all in asking an orc…

He caught something from the corner of his eye, a flicker in the room where one shouldn’t be.

‘Oh, come on. Not again!’ he groaned. He levelled his prodder at the globe of black lightning crackling into being. ‘I’m not in the mood today, ratboy! Buzz off or get a face full of Morky magic!’

But as the visitor manifested, Skarsnik’s expression of defiance turned to a gape. His intention to zap the rat dissipated. This wasn’t your usual rat with horns, magicking himself in to have a pop – although it did, he supposed, have horns. And it did look like a rat, only not that much. Bigger, it was. Everywhere.

‘Rats,’ he said, ‘aren’t usually that big.’

Skarsnik took a step back as an immense shape stepped out of the shadows. Although, that wasn’t right, because the shadows came with it. They writhed over the thing, whatever it was, stopping Skarsnik from getting a good look at it. He got an impression, nothing more – long, hairy arms lined with thick tendons, black claws, and a head crowned with an impressive rack of horns above a masked face where terrible eyes burned.

For the first time in a long time, Skarsnik gulped fearfully. The thing! The weird thing from the battle that had taken out Grobspit’s spider monsters, right there in his bedroom! The creature was huge, bigger than a troll, all wiry muscle and patches of fur. It had claws bigger than Gobbla’s teeth. Then Skarsnik recognised it for what it was, and recovered his wits. Better the daemon you know, and he knew this kind well enough.

‘Oh. Right. It’s one of those.’ The stink of rodent and glowy green rock was unmistakeable. ‘Ratfing daemon, one wiv lots of extra shadow, but a ratfing daemon you is. Well, ain’t I honoured,’ he said archly. ‘Oi, back off,’ he shouted, holding his ground. His prodder crackled with power. ‘I ain’t no snotty to be pushed about.’

‘I am a lord of the Thirteen in Shadow!’ scoffed the rat-daemon. ‘I am master-assassin! That cannot hurt me. You cannot hurt me!’

‘Yeah, right. Shall we give it a little try? I reckon a blast of Mork magic’d put a very big hole in you, you… you… ratfing. Don’t you?’

‘This is no stand-off, green-thing. I mighty-powerful. I show you mercy. If I wanted you dead, tiny and most vexing imp, dead you would be.’

‘Who’s showing who mercy? You want to test?’ He jiggled the prodder. ‘Fzapp!’ it went, very quietly but menacingly. Skarsnik sniffed at the sharp smell of discharged magic. ‘What is it you want, anyhow? Not seen one of your like for a while.’

‘I am verminlord! Master of skaven. You have glimpsed-seen my kind?’ said Lurklox, catching his surprise just a moment too late.

Skarnsik nodded the tip of his pointy hat to a large skull mounted over the fireplace. ‘Yeah. You could say that. Bagged that one about fifteen winters back.’

Lurklox looked at the yellowing skull then back at the prodder. Skarsnik grinned evilly.

‘So now we got that out of the way, what do you want, then? Get on with it, I haven’t got all day. Just lost a battle, and I need to do something about it.’

Skarsnik’s bravado rather put Lurklox off his stride, and spoiled his grand entrance. He stood taller, but the goblin would not be intimidated.

‘Green-thing!’ said Lurklox portentously. ‘You are beaten-defeated. The indefatigable Queek has smashed your army for the last time.’

Skarsnik looked off at his heaped stuff, disinterested. ‘Has he now? There’s a lot more where those boys came from.’

‘Lie-lie! Green-things like strength. You beaten, you not strong. They leave soon, and you die-die.’

‘Right,’ said Skarsnik. ‘I’m no quitter though, and I’ve won a lot more battles than I have lost.’

‘Already your large and bouncing beast-thing is no more.’ Lurklox pointed at the broken chain still manacled to Skarsnik’s ankle. ‘We kill-slay it, we kill-slay you.’

‘You wait a minute,’ said Skarsnik with sudden and dangerous anger. ‘The fight ain’t gone out of me yet, you big horned rat… rat… What was it you said you was?’

‘I great verminlord!’ shrieked Lurklox.

‘I don’t care what you are, you’re in my bedroom and I’m not happy about it!’

Lurklox sniffed the air and made a disgusted noise. ‘Neither of us are. To business, then! I come offer-give with mighty gift-offer for green-thing Skarsnik! In possession of Ikit Claw, arch-tinker rat, is a very powerful bomb.’

‘A bomb?’ said Skarsnik.

‘A bomb! The greatest bomb ever made by rat-paw and skaven ingenuity.’

Lurklox waved a paw, and a scene wreathed in warpstone-green smoke shimmered in the air before Skarsnik. It showed a vast and busy workshop. Skaven in strange armour worked at cluttered benches. Atop one of these was an intricate brass device the size of a troll’s head.

‘Yeah?’ said Skarsnik, careful to hide his surprise at the workshop, the likes of which he’d never seen before. He rapidly factored its existence into his calculations, allowing for it being an illusion, but he reckoned it probably wasn’t. ‘So what? Why are you telling me this? Gloating, are we? Going to blow me up? Didn’t work last time, did it?’ He decided the towering rat god wasn’t going to kill him just yet, and he sat down on his filthy bed with a groan. It had been a testing day.

‘No-no! I give-bring to goblin warlord! A fitting gift-prize for worthy foe.’

‘And what the zog exactly am I supposed to do with this giant metal egg, eh?’

‘There are many dwarf-places left. See!’ Lurklox brandished his shadowed claws again. An image of a strong dwarf citadel surrounded by a siege camp. ‘Zhufbar-place! Impregnable, undefeated. Many skaven die here. Perhaps you could win great glory for yourself by bringing it low?’

‘Looks like you’ve got plenty of furboys there right now. What do you need me for? And come to think of it, why not just get one of your sneaky pink-nosed little pals to do it? You don’t need me at all.’ Skarsnik’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why not just off me now? I’m not buying this at all.’ Skarsnik emphasised his words with the prodder.

‘You are as much boon-thing as problem-trouble, green-thing. Many pieces on the board-game. I prefer to keep you alive. The skaven at Zhufbar-place are weak. You are strong. Dependable.’

‘That’s nice to know,’ said Skarsnik.

‘You do as I squeak-say, green-thing?’

Some of the defiance went out of Skarsnik. He felt older than ever. He was tired. Outside a sea of rats awaited him, Queek wanted his head and might just get it this time, he’d lost his only useful advisor, and then there was Gobbla. The next time this big rat paid him a visit, he might not survive. Skarsnik slumped a little, it was time to face facts. ‘I don’t see I got much choice,’ he said quietly. ‘But it’s going to cost you more than the big boom boom,’ he added sharply.

‘Yes-yes?’

‘If I can’t kill Queek,’ he spat the name, ‘I’ll not be happy leaving both them gits alive. Bring me Belegar’s head for me collection, and I’ll do as you say. Skarsnik will leave the Eight Peaks,’ he smiled. ‘Although it’s more like six and a half peaks now, ain’t it?’

‘You swear-swear, and you go to Zhufbar? Lead your mighty armies there?’

‘And then I’ll never come back. I swear it. Although you know that means nothing, right?’

Lurklox’s masked face appeared for a moment in the swirling green-black fog surrounding his form. Something like a smile wrinkled the skin visible around his eyes.

‘I see why we have not beaten you yet. You are almost like a skaven.’

‘Oi!’ said Skarsnik. ‘There’s no need to be rude.’

In an out-of-the-way cellar of the citadel, Gromvarl stood in a pit in the floor and tugged at an iron ring set into a flagstone. Unprepossessing, lacking the adornment of most dwarf creations, a slab of rock hiding a secret. There was a finality to it.

‘Someone give me a hand here!’ grumbled the longbeard. ‘It’s stuck.’

‘It’s the differentiation in air pressure – sometimes does that, sucks it closed. It’s murder to get open,’ said Garvik, one of Duregar’s personal retainers. ‘Come here. Ho ho, Frediar! Hand me a lever.’

Garvik’s nonchalant manner turned to swearing. Soon there were four of them in there, arguing over the best way to prise the door open. Finally, after much effort, it budged. Air whistled around the broken seal. They tugged hard, and a fierce draught set up, building to a shrieking wind that settled into an eerie moan once the stone had been set aside.

Gromvarl looked down the narrow shaft the trapdoor covered: big enough for a dwarf, no more. He held his lamp over it. Red iron rungs stretched down into the blackness. The shaft descended thousands of feet. That it had not been uncovered by the thaggoraki or the grobi was a wonder. Only weeks ago, a handful of rangers had set out from this place to guard the refugees fleeing the sack of Karak Azul. There had been hopeful talk of their numbers swelling those of the dwarfs of Karak Eight Peaks, but Karak Eight Peaks had become a place of wild hopes. None of the dwarfs of Ironpeak had ever arrived, and the warriors sent out to help them were lost.

A double-or-nothing gamble for the king, and the dice had come up poorly once more. The dice these days were always loaded. Douric could have told him that. The king rolled now in desperation, a dawi down to his last coin.

‘Gromvarl! Get yourself out of there. The king’s coming.’

Gromvarl disdainfully allowed himself to be helped up out of the pit, like he was doing those who helped him a favour, and not the reverse. Truth was, he was not so spry any more, but he hid it under a barrage of complaints.

Once out, he stood among a group of fifty dawi gathered in the cellar, three dozen of them dressed for hard travelling, all armed. The room was crowded, the damp air fogged by their breath and the heat of their bodies. Longer than it was broad, with a tapering roof of close-fit stone, the cellar was flawless work, but all unembellished as the escape door. No such place of shame should be decorated. No carven ancestor face should look upon the backs of dwarfs as they fled. That was the reasoning. A shame that ordinarily ale barrels and cabbage boxes hid.

Several of those present were proper warriors, rangers and ironbreakers. They stared at the floor, humiliated beyond tolerance by the king ordering them to leave. They understood that what they had to do was important, all right, but Gromvarl would bet his last pouch of tobacco – and he was down to the very last – that every one of them wished some other dawi had been selected and told to go in his place. They chewed their lips and moustache ends and fulminated. Gromvarl could see at least three potential Slayers among their number.

A dwarf matron rocked a babe in arms. The child, its downy chin buried in its mother’s bosom, snuffled in its sleep. Gromvarl smiled sorrowfully at the sight. There were too few unkhazali in these dark days, and there was no guarantee this one would survive. His expression clouded. Dwarf babies were as stoic as their elders, but they still cried from time to time. One misplaced call for milk and ale from the bairn could spell the end for the lot of them.

Better out there than in here. His thoughts turned to others, whose parents could not be swayed to leave. He thought too of Queen Kemma, shut up in her tower. As merciful as Belegar had been in permitting, and in some cases ordering, others out, he could not be swayed to release his queen and his prince. Oaths, said the king. Sadness gripped Gromvarl. Some oaths were made to be broken.

With that in mind, he clutched the key in his pocket.

Torchlight glinted from artful wargear. The king and his two bodyguards entered the small cellar where the dwarfs waited to flee.

The king was wan, his eyes heavily pouched and bloodshot. He tried to hide the stiffness in his side, but Gromvarl was too old to be fooled. The rumours of the king’s injury told of a sad truth. That was far from the worst of it, however. Gromvarl could tell from the look on Belegar’s face; he had finally given up on the slender hope of aid from elsewhere. He was prepared to die.

‘I’ll not make a meal of this,’ said Belegar softly. ‘I know none of you made this decision lightly, and some of you didn’t want to go at all. Let it be known that I release you all from your oaths to me. Find some other king, a better king. Under his protection and in his service, may you live out more peaceful lives.

‘Warriors,’ he said to those handful of such. ‘I have not chosen you to go because I can spare you. I cannot. I have chosen you because you are among the finest dawi left alive in Karak Eight Peaks. These are your charges. They need you more than I do. I release you also from all your oaths to me, and consider them fulfilled two and a half times over. Had I gold to give, you would have it by the cartload and in great gratitude. Instead, I place upon you one final burden – guard these last few of the clans of Karak Eight Peaks with your lives and your honour. Do not let the bloodlines of our city die forever.’

At these words dwarf resolve stiffened. Gazes were no longer downcast. Lips trembled with new emotions, and spines straightened.

‘Aye, my king,’ said Garvik, then the others repeated this one after another, some of the shame at their departure leaving through their mouths with the words. Belegar held the eye of each one and nodded to them.

‘Now go, go and never return. This was a glorious dream, but it is over. We wake to the darkest of mornings. May you all see the light of a better morrow.’

Gromvarl stood back. Garvik wordlessly indicated that they should begin. A ranger went first, the group’s guide, spitting on his hands before he reversed into the dark hole and took grip of the first of the iron rungs. The moan of the wind changed tone as he blocked the shaft.

‘Four thousand feet,’ he said, his words bearing the soft accent of the hill dwarfs who had once ranged above the ground of the Eight Peaks. ‘Your arms will hurt, dawi or not. Keep on. After me, leave ten rungs, then ten rungs between each that follows after. Anyone thinks they’re going to fall, call a halt. Pride will kill everyone beneath you should you slip. Remember that. Don’t talk otherwise. This way is as yet undiscovered by our enemies, let us keep it that way.’

His head disappeared into the shaft. They counted ten ringing steps.

‘Next!’ whispered the ranger from the ladderway.

The first went, then the next. As they disappeared into the dark, wives bid farewell to husbands, children to fathers, warriors to their master. Then they were all gone, swallowed up by the ground as if they had never been.

Gromvarl watched them all go into the hole, one after the other, his heart heavy and a lump in his throat. So went the last sorry inhabitants of Karak Eight Peaks, to a doom none within would ever know.

When the last had gone, the king nodded. Gromvarl beckoned to two others. With their help, the trapdoor was replaced. Runes of concealment flared upon it. As the marks faded back into plain stone, the trapdoor went with them. The inset iron ring disappeared, as did any sign of a join with the pit floor. Then the dwarfs levered the flagstone that concealed the pit wherein the trapdoor nestled back into place. Masons hurried forwards, swiftly mortaring it back into place. Within a couple of hours, it would look like any other slab in the floor of the cellar.

Barrels were rolled back in, filling up the room.

The escape route disguised, the dwarfs filed out in silence.

Gromvarl staggered up the stairs. Black spots swam in front of his eyes, crowding out what little light there was left in the citadel. The poisoned wound in his back throbbed a strange sort of pain, at once unbearable yet simultaneously numb. He fought against it with all his dwarfish will, forcing himself on in the fulfilment of his first, last and most important oath.

The protection of Vala Kemma.

The sound of fighting still sounded from below, but it was that of desperate, lonely struggles fought in dark corners against impossible odds, and not the regimented clash of two battle lines. Screams came with it, and the stink of burning. There were only the old, the sick, and the young in the upper levels. The skaven were coming for Karak Eight Peaks’s small population of children.

Gromvarl stumbled on the steps, his feet failing to find them. He broke a tooth on the stone. Five thousand years old, and still a sharp corner on the step edge. Now that, he thought, was proper craftsmanship.

Kemma was up above, locked in her room and forbidden to fight. Gromvarl had one of the only keys, but had been forced by the king to swear he would not use it.

The king was dead. As far as he was concerned, the oath died with him.

He staggered his way upwards, his progress growing slower and slower as he went. The fiery numbness had taken hold of his limbs. He had to rest often, his unfeeling hand pressing against the stone. He knew that if he sat down he would never reach his destination.

Finally, he arrived, one hundred and thirty-two steps that had taken a lifetime to climb behind him.

The door wavered ahead of him, its black wutroth shimmering as if seen through a heat haze. He fell to his knees and crawled towards it, the poison in his blood overcoming his sturdy dwarf constitution at the last.

With a titanic effort of will, Gromvarl slid the key home in the lock. Only his falling against the door enabled him to twist it at all.

The door banged open and he fell within. He moaned as he hit the floor. He slid into blackness. To his surprise, it went away again, and he managed to heave himself up to his knees. His head spun with the effort.

‘Kemma!’ he said. ‘Kemma!’ His throat was dry. A fire raged in it, consuming his words so they came out as insubstantial as smoke.

The queen was not there. The room was too small for her to hide. There were sounds coming from her garderobe, smashing, a frantic scrabbling.

A black-clad skaven came out, a scarf wrapped around its muzzle. It was a wonder it hadn’t heard the door; then Gromvarl realised that the sounds of battle were very close behind.

Upon seeing him, the skaven assassin leapt over him, and pulled back his head sharply by the hair. A blackened dagger slid against his throat, the venom that coated it burning his skin.

‘Where dwarf-thing breeder-queen?’ asked the skaven. Like all of its kind, its voice was surprisingly soft and breathy. Not a hint of a squeak to it when they spoke the languages of others. Gromvarl found this rather funny and laughed.

The skaven twitched behind him, agitated.

‘What so amusing, dwarf-thing? You want to die?’

‘Not particularly, you thieving thaggoraki.’ He burst out laughing again.

‘Very good. You die-die just the same.’

A loud bang filled the room. The skaven slid backwards, its poisoned knife clattering to the floor. Gromvarl tossed the smoking pistol away.

‘Never did like guns,’ he grumbled, ‘but I suppose they have their uses.’ He fell onto his hands and knees. ‘Not long now, eh, Grungni, eh, Grimnir? Soon I’ll be able to look you in the eye and ask how I did. Appallingly, I’ll bet.’ He coughed, and bloody froth spattered from his mouth. Before he fell face down onto the floor, he smiled broadly.

Vala Kemma had always been as particular as any dwarf. Even in this prison in all but name, she’d kept her mail well oiled and her armour shining.

The mannequin that it had sat upon was empty.

Kemma had got away.

‘That’s my lass,’ he said into the stones of the floor. They were cool, welcoming. His breath dampened them with condensation. ‘That’s my lass,’ he whispered, and the stones were damp no more.

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-skitter! 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.

The world had changed.

No longer could the dawi count the mountains as their own. They teetered on the brink of extinction.

Thorgrim Grudgebearer ground his teeth together. The Dammaz Kron lay under his hand. It had glutted itself on woes, growing thicker faster than at any other time in the High King’s remarkable reign.

He stared at the Granite Gate two hundred feet away. Massive twin doors of stone, imposing despite being only half – and it was exactly, precisely half – the height of the tall, vaulted corridor they barred. The gates shuddered under an impact from the far side: a quiver in the stone so small that only a dwarf, stone born and stone master, could see. Bands of runes carved into the gates glowed intensely with inner blue light, their magic striving to keep the gates whole and closed.

The skaven were coming. As sure as Thorgim’s chin wore a beard, they would get through. The ratkin had burst every defence, arcane and otherwise, that the dawi of Karaz-a-Karak had thrown up.

Thorgrim thought on the horrors that afflicted his people.

Karak Azul overthrown.

Karak Eight Peaks lost a second time.

Zhufbar swarmed by an endless tide of vermin.

Barak Varr pouring smoke from its great dock gates, the pride of the dwarf fleet broken in the sea before it.

The holds of the Grey Mountains overcome and lost in three horrific nights of bloodshed.

Karak Kadrin poisoned.

Karaz-a-Karak besieged for years now, cut off on all sides above and below. The streams of refugees pouring into the dwarf capital from other kingdoms had given Thorgrim much anguish. At a time when he thought his dream might be fulfilled, that the lost realms of the Karaz Ankor would be reclaimed, it had all come to nothing. The fleeing dwarfs brought with them tales of proud strongholds cast down, and not only in dwarf lands. Many dwarfs of the diaspora had fled back to their ancestral homeland from human cities – their habits and speech strange; some of them even trimmed their beards! – telling of similar woes beyond the mountains. But what was more horrifying than the incoming flood and the dire tidings they brought was that it had stopped. No dwarf had come into Everpeak for months.

Tilea, Estalia and Bretonnia ashes. The Empire devastated. The moon cracked in the sky, invasion from the north, and ratmen swarming from everywhere.

‘We stand alone,’ he said into his beard, his unblinking stare locked upon the door. It shuddered again.

‘The runes will not last, my liege,’ muttered Hrosta Copperling. A runesmith, but a mere beardling compared to the likes of Kragg the Grimm and Thorek Ironbrow. Their kind would never come again into this world. Hrosta was loyal and dedicated to his task, but his store of knowledge was paltry.

Thorgrim did not grace Hrosta’s obvious statement with a reply, but continued to stare at the Granite Gate.

Forty feet wide, fifty tall, the gate was a lesser portal of Everpeak. Leading onto a once-safe and well-travelled section of the Ungdrin Ankor, it had become, like all the other many gates into the mountain, yet another way for the skaven to attack them.

‘Thaggoraki,’ Thorgrim growled. He thought of what he had seen from the Rikund, the King’s Porch at the summit of Karaz-a-Karak. The endless seas of enemies, whose bodies stained the roads leading to his kingdom brown. There were so many of them, more than there had ever been before.

‘My king, I implore you to return to the Hall of Kings,’ said Gavun Tork, the most venerable of his living ancestors.

‘You leave, my friend, we have lost too many heads full of wisdom. Go back and be safe. My duty is here. The time for counsel and talk is done. The Axe of Grimnir will speak for me.’

‘Thorgrim, please!’

Thorgrim jerked his head at the living ancestor. Two of his hammerers broke from the ranks of the Everguard. ‘Escort Loremaster Tork back to the eighteenth deep. Keep him safe.’

‘Aye, my king,’ said his warriors.

Tork gave the king a helpless look, his rheumy blue eyes brimmed with concern that threatened to spill into the deep lines on his face. ‘If I were but two hundred years younger…’

‘You have swung many axes for the glory of Karaz Ankor, my friend,’ said Thorgrim. ‘Let those younger take your place. Yours is a different burden.’

‘I…’

‘Go!’ said the king.

The living ancestor shook off the hands of the hammerers. ‘Very well. But stay safe! This is foolishness. You should not risk yourself.’

‘You are wrong, loremaster,’ said Thorgrim, his flinty eyes returning to regard the door. ‘It is exactly what I should do.’

The clink of the Everguard’s armour receded. Silence regained its hold over the throng. One hundred ironbreakers, irondrakes in support, and three score of his Everguard.

It should be enough, thought Thorgrim.

The doors’ runes flickered and went out. The rock at their centre glowed bright orange, a pinprick at first that spread out in a perfect circle. The stone of the Granite Gate had been chosen well; there was not a flaw in it.

‘Close secondary portcullises!’ bellowed the gatewarden of the Granite Gate.

Three sets of heavy iron portcullises descended simultaneously from slots in the roof, their machinery noiseless. Only when they met the ground, and their heavy-toothed bottoms slid into matching holes in the floor, did they make the faintest clink.

The glow in the doors spread to engulf their middle, top to bottom. The light of it glowed redly from the ceiling and polished floor, catching in the eyes of ancestor statues, whose faces, changed by shadowplay, took on horrified expressions. A dribble of molten rock ran from the gate’s centre, creating a hole that grew as the rock collapsed outwards, a hole that guttered a plume of fire.

‘Irondrakes!’ called the gatewarden. ‘Airshaft doors ready!’

Fifty runic handcannons were levelled at the door.

The Granite Gate sagged all at once, its perfection lost in a pool of cooling slag.

‘Fire!’ bellowed the gatewarden. Tongues of flame burst from the irondrakes’ guns, aimed at the centre of the hole. Whatever was on the other side exploded noisily before it could withdraw. Green-tinged fire rolled out, licking at the irondrakes’ enchanted armour without effect. Squeals of dismay came from the other side of the doors. The stink of skaven fear and burning rock washed over the throng, and the air became stuffy and difficult to breathe.

The stone skinned over and cooled to a dull, ugly grey. A thick vapour obscured whatever lay on the far side of the broken gate.

Next came a hissing noise, as a green mist issued from the breach.

‘Gas! Gas! Gas!’ shouted the gatewarden. ‘Airshafts open!’

The noxious fog rolled towards the dwarfs, sinking low to the floor. The clink of rolling glass and its shattering followed. Lesser plumes of poison sprouted as short-lived mushroom clouds around the front of the dwarf line.

The gatewarden’s orders were quickly obeyed. Dwarfs cranked open large steel flaps, revealing shafts that stretched far up the mountain. Steam engines churned on levels above, creating a ferocious wind that blew downwards, exiting from angled horns to blow the gas back towards the door. More squeaking came.

Thorgrim smiled to hear them panic. The dwarfs were slow to embrace the new, but when they did, you could be sure it would be perfect.

The gas dissipated, misting the air. It was in danger of choking the dwarfs, and so the doorwarden ordered the steam engines disengaged. The pumped wind ceased, and the natural pressure difference between the low halls and the high mountain sucked the gas away, venting it harmlessly high above the tree line many thousands of feet above their heads.

Only then did the skaven come. As usual, the frantic squealing of slaves being driven at the dwarfs preceded the main assault. These were shot down without mercy, the blasts of the irondrakes’ handcannons immolating them by the handful.

‘No matter what they do, they are not coming through this tunnel,’ said Thorgrim.

In that, the High King was wrong.

What should have come next was more slaves, thousands of them, sent to die solely for the wasting of the dwarfs’ ammunition.

Through the reek of battle came no slaves. Instead the smoke curled around a great shape, horned and tall as a giant. Light warped around it, as if recoiling from the unnatural beast, shrouding it in a flickering darkness.

‘Verminlord,’ called out Thorgrim. ‘This one is mine!’

The rat-daemon strode forwards. Jabbering in some unholy tongue, it swept its glaive in a wide arc, allowing its hand to slip far towards the counterweight at the bottom, and extending its reach to well over fifteen feet. Trailing green fire, the weapon impacted the first portcullis with a thunderous clash. The steel was sundered, deadly shrapnel from its destruction slicing into the ranks of irondrakes. ‘Fire!’ called the gatewarden. Handgun fire from embrasures in the walls joined the shorter-ranged bursts of the irondrakes. All were stopped by the cloak of shadow that wreathed the daemon. The second portcullis was broken. Thorgrim ordered his thronebearers forward. They obeyed instantly, bearing the great weight of the High King’s throne without complaint. The ironbreakers parted ranks to allow their king passage.

‘Shield wall!’ roared the gatewarden. A line of overlapped steel formed to the front of the ironbreakers. The irondrakes withdrew, leaving the ironbreakers facing the monster before them. The third portcullis was thrown down, its refuse clattering off the ironbreakers’ shields. The verminlord threw back its head and squealed.

Then the skaven attack began in earnest, a rush of clanrat warriors pouring through the ruined gateway. As they reached the heels of their demigod, the daemon broke into a run, glaive thrumming around its head.

Thorgrim raised up his axe, and roared out a challenge. The creature came right at him. It brought its weapon down in an overhead sweep that would have slain a rhinox. But the mystic energies of the Throne of Kings responded and a flaring shield of magic stopped the blow three feet above Thorgrim’s head. He shouted his war cries, voicing the unyielding defiance of the dwarfs, and struck back. The Axe of Grimnir clove through the shadow protecting the creature and into its evil flesh. Blackness like ink spilled in water escaped from the wound, bringing with it the scent of rot. Thorgrim’s beard prickled at his proximity to the thing. He bellowed again, and swung again, and the creature blocked, spinning its glaive around the axe, nearly tearing it from Thorgrim’s grasp.

The skaven were upon his warriors. Driven to a great fervour of war by the presence of their god’s avatar, they slashed with their weapons with strength beyond their feeble bodies, and bit so hard they broke their teeth. But they did not care. Thorgrim’s bearers hewed about them, keeping the creatures from their lord while he duelled with the daemon.

The verminlord struck again, thrusting with the point of its glaive, spear fashion. The rune of eternity blazed again, but the warpmetal – greenish black and as unearthly as its owner – slid through the protective magic. The great strength of the verminlord punched it through the Armour of Skaldour, ripping open Thorgrim’s side. The poisonous pain of warp contamination burned in his blood, but his roar was one of anger for the damage done to his panoply, for the skills to repair it had long been lost. The verminlord regarded him with amusement glittering in its red eyes. It assumed a guard posture, ready to strike again.

A fey feeling came upon the dwarf king. The settling of some great power about him. He felt it first as one feels the breath of another upon the cheek, perhaps unexpected, often welcome. His beard crackled with energy. This was magic, or he was umgdawi, but it was a clean sort, heavy with age, and if dwarfs respected anything at all, age was foremost. His doughty mind rebelled against it, yet against his will his heart welcomed it, and it came into him without resistance.

The world glowed golden. The metal of his throne gleamed in a way he thought impossible. The gold took on a most amazing lustre, a warmth pooled about his wounded side, and he felt the metal move there.

Infused with this glamour, Thorgrim lurched to his feet, his bearers expertly accommodating the movement of the king in combat as they fought themselves. He ran to the prow of his throne, and it felt as if the stuff of his wargear helped him – the metals that made it lending power and purpose to him above and beyond the already mighty measures he had of both. He came up level with the beast’s head. Before the power upon the king, the dark magic that pinned the rat-daemon to the fabric of the earth unravelled, the glow going from its glaive blade, the shadow wafting back as surely as the gas attack had been dispersed by the ingenuity of the dwarfs. The verminlord understood what was coming at it and recoiled. The thing was slowed somehow, and the king brought the axe down hard, splitting the skull of the creature before it could move out of reach. It died with a shriek that had warriors of both sides clutching their ears in agony. A jet of noxious black spewed from its shattered head as it fell backwards. The glaive dropped and vanished, while the body collapsed into its own shadows, boiling away to nothing before it could crush the ratmen scurrying at its feet.

Seeing their godling so decisively bested, the thaggoraki wavered, even though they were hundreds deep and outnumbered the dwarfs many times over. Their cowardice had ensured the dwarfs’ survival time and again.

‘Forward!’ shouted Thorgrim. ‘Retake the gate. Allow not one of them to set paw upon the sacred stones of the inner mountain!’

With a great shout the ironbreakers pushed forwards. Thorgrim’s Everguard led the charge, bludgeoning skaven with looks of murderous determination. The waver turned into panic, then into rout.

Almost as one, the skaven turned tail and fled, many dying on the axes and hammers of the vengeful dwarfs as they scurried to escape, and leaving their wounded to their fate.

‘Victory!’ shouted Thorgrim. ‘Victory!’

Queek was old. He felt it in his stiffening limbs. He saw it in the grey that grizzled the blackness of his coat all over, a coat once sleek and now broken with dry patches, whose coarsening fur revealed pink skin crusted with scurf.

Decrepitude surprised him suddenly, coming on swift as an ambush. He had thought to suffer a slow decline, nothing like this. Only three years after his great victory at Eight Peaks, and look at him. Beyond the limits of his arms’ reach, his sight grew dim and unreliable. Through the mists of age, the marching lines of his army blurred into one mass, losing colour around the edges. His smell and hearing remained sharp, but into his limbs a weakness had set, one that made itself more apparent with every passing day in the numbness of his fingers and the stiffness of his joints. The cold made it worse, driving him into frequent murderous rages that his troops had learned to fear.

It was always cold now, no matter where they went. It had been since the night the Chaos moon had burst, circling the world with glittering rings that obscured the stars. In the mountains it snowed all year round.

So much had happened. The swift victory Gnawdwell had wanted had not come. In many places the Great Uprising had not gone to plan, and the Great War against the dwarfs dragged on and on. The land of the frog-things and lizard-things had been annihilated, most of Clan Pestilens along with it, while in the lowlands in the ruins of the man-thing’s lands, the skaven conquered, only to fracture along clan lines. Such was the way of skaven. Alliance with the followers of Chaos had come, a move that made many on the Council, Gnawdwell included, deeply uneasy.

That was politics, and it was not for Queek. During that time Queek had fought the length of the Worlds Edge Mountains, destroying dwarf strongholds one by one, and exterminating their inhabitants wherever they were to be found. Clan Mors had grown rich on the plunder.

Finally, Queek had been ordered to Beard-Thing Mountain-place, where all attempts to take the dwarf capital had failed. Gnawdwell, inscrutable as always, continued his attempts on Queek’s life, simultaneously releasing the full might of Clan Mors and ordering it to go to Queek. Queek had not been back to Skavenblight in the years since their last meeting, wary of Gnawdwell’s intentions, but for the time being Queek seemed to be in his lord’s favour. All Clan Mors’s allies and thralls, from the Grey Mountains, Skavenblight and beyond, came with the Great Banner of Mors. Karak Eight Peaks had been emptied, leaving it an empty tomb for the many warriors who had fallen there in the long years of war.

The dwarf realms had been reduced to but one, the mightiest, the greatest. Karaz-a-Karak, Everpeak, as dwarfs and men respectively called it. Beard-Thing Mountain, as the skaven called it. A name supposed to convey their contempt, but uttered always with fear. Under skies perpetually darkened and striated with the sickly colours of wild magic, the skaven marched to bring their four thousand-year war with the Karaz Ankor to its end.

‘This whole pass stinks-reeks of dwarf-thing,’ said Queek, sniffing tentatively. His tail twitched. The scent of the dwarfs had become inextricably linked with bloodshed in Queek’s mind, and thus with excitement. It never failed to arouse his sluggish pulse, to excite his aged heart.

‘What does the mighty warlord expect it to smell of?’ said Kranskritt haughtily. The presence of Ikit Claw made the grey seer arrogant. Despite the long enmity between their clans, the two of them were knot-tailed much of the time, constantly tittering and squeak-whispering just out of Queek’s earshot, or so they thought. Queek’s hearing was better than he let on.

Queek growled by way of reply. He was in no mood to bandy insults with the seer. Kranskritt still smelt youthful to Queek, granted unnaturally long life by the Horned Rat. Even those grey seers without alchemical or mechanical aid could be known to reach the ridiculously advanced age of sixty. Not like Queek. Queek was old, he felt it. Kranskritt could smell it. Weakness.

‘It will smell of burrow and home soon enough,’ said Ikit. ‘We will smash the beard-things and take their heads. No more dwarf-things! All done. All ours.’

‘This is true. Once enough failures accrue, they call for Queek. No one is better than Queek at killing dwarf-things. Queek will end this siege. Queek will win this war!’

The dead things on his back wailed and gibbered. What they said now made little sense. When their utterances became intelligible, what they said made Queek’s fur crawl. Their voices never ceased. The long periods of quiet he had once enjoyed were no more. Even when the verminlords were close, which had been rarely of late, they did not stop their racket.

‘Not without my help,’ said Ikit. He too, under his mask of iron, had aged better than Queek. Queek could smell the long-life elixir on him. ‘I am the pre-eminent slaughterer of dwarf-things. They call me here to finish it – you are only to help.’

‘Yes-yes,’ said Queek sarcastically. ‘Queek hear many times of great Ikit Claw’s impressive victory over orange-furs of Kadrin-place. I hear the flesh of the dead so poisonous after Ikit Claw’s masterful plan not even trolls would eat it, and even now, three cold-times since big death there, the air is still deadly to breathe. Very good plan, making such a fine mountain-holdfast uninhabitable to skaven clan-packs. Very clever way of denying living space to Clan Skryre’s enemies.’

‘And the dwarf-things,’ said Ikit, his voice ringing inside his iron mask. How Queek had grown to loathe that voice.

Queek found the warlock engineer even more irksome than the grey seer, although he was secretly relieved that the warlock’s clanking pace allowed him to walk more slowly. Ikit’s war engines were impressive, even if it annoyed him to admit it to himself. A lesser clan might scrape together enough warptokens to buy one or two lightning cannons from Clan Skryre. A greater clan might have a dozen. In the siege train of their army there were hundreds, dragged painstakingly through tunnels and mountains to assail this last enduring rock of the dwarf-things. No other warlord clan could access such materiel. As a result of Gnawdwell’s manoeuvring, Skryre and Mors were open allies. The supply of sorcerous machines had been cut off to all other clans. Clan Eshin had not been drawn into the pact, but provided Queek’s army with their warriors anyway. Clan Moulder backed all sides, so consequently many of their creatures, and specifically the newer rat ogre weapon-beasts bred in conjunction with Clan Skryre, supported his troops. With Skryre came the larger part of Clan Rictus’s clanrats. From Rictus, Ikit Claw had his own bodyguard, the Clawguard, war-scarred stormvermin as large and imposing as Queek’s own Red Guard. At Queek’s back went one of the largest skaven armies ever to brave the surface.

‘The fate of more than the dwarfs depends upon this war,’ said Kranskritt. ‘Remember, O ignoble and most devious warlords, whoever takes Thorgrim-Whitebeard’s head will win the seat on the Council of Thirteen. Most assuredly it will be I, and Clan Scruten will regain its rightful place.’

Queek snorted. Poor-fool Kranskritt. He was naive to the point of idiocy, not like mighty Queek! Gnawdwell had forged a pact with the other Lords of Decay, stipulating this final condition for victory in the struggle for the seat. Tired of the long years of instability the empty seat had provoked, the other clans had agreed. Clan Mors and Clan Skryre had steered events masterfully so far. Together they would claim the head of Thorgrim and break the power of the grey seers forever.

Queek wondered how long Clan Skryre had been working themselves into this position. He had no doubt that the head of the dwarf king, once he took it, would find its way into the paws of Clan Skryre, who would at the last cheat Gnawdwell. Who would stop them? Clan Pestilens were mostly destroyed in the war for Lustria.

Mighty Queek, that was who. He recalled the scratch marks on the order scroll that had arrived six weeks ago, and which he had swiftly eaten. Gnawdwell would allow Queek some of the long-life elixir, if he brought the head of the long-fur to him.

Finally, finally. Queek could not wait. He had tasted infirmity and had no liking for it.

Kranskritt was being cossetted and fooled. Even the verminlords were being played off against each other. Or were they deceiving the Council? The interminable power plays of the skaven court made Queek’s teeth ache. Ever dismissive of politics, he had grown careless over the last few years, openly provocative. He set out to deliberately antagonise the heads of other clan clawpacks. Only his reputation, his distance from Skavenblight, and his own skill at arms kept him alive.

He bites his own tail, just to see it bleed, others said of him. ‘Doom, doom, doom! Death, death, death!’ wailed the chorus of his victims.

Only when he had a battle to fight did the ailments of mind and body recede.

The endless column of skaven crested a rise in the Silver Road Pass, and the capital of dwarf-kind came into view.

Queek was chief general of the most powerful warlord clan in all Skavendom. As such, he had seen Karaz-a-Karak many times before, but never so close. The mountain was colossal, one of the tallest in the world. Soaring above the pass and into the bruised clouds, its peak was lost to the boiling skies, its flanks dappled by the polychrome strangeness of magical winds. The raw stone had been shaped by generations of the dwarf-things, so that giant faces, hundreds of feet tall, glared challengingly at Queek. The main gate was yet many miles away, but even Queek’s failing eyesight could see the dark smudge of its apex reaching high up into the cliff face that held it, surrounded on all sides by soaring bastions. The skaven leaders and their bodyguards left the road and mounted a hillock that blistered the side of the mountain. They clambered onto the rubble atop it. The beard-thing watchtower that had occupied the mound had been melted into bubbled slag. Streaks of metal in the contorted stone hinted at the fate of its garrison.

Kranskritt hissed, daunted by the sight of Everpeak. In contrast, Queek felt the confidence only those gifted with supreme arrogance can. Behind Queek stretched more clawpacks than had ever been assembled in one place. Millions of skaven were his to command. They marched by in an endless stream, their fur carpeting the road as far as the eye could see, from one end of the pass to the other. More moved underground, ready to attack from below.

‘How will we take-cast down such a place?’ said Kranskritt. ‘There must be so many beard-things within.’

Ikit Claw laughed, his machinery venting green-tinged steam into the chill noon, as if it shared his amusement. ‘The dwarf-things breed slowly. Many breeders produce no young. They were dying even before we challenged them for their burrows,’ said Ikit. ‘Surely you must know these things, wise one?’

Kranskritt shook his hand at the warlock. The bells on his wrist conveyed his irritation in tinkles. ‘The will of the Horned Rat is my interest, not the breeding habits of lesser races.’

Ikit sniggered again.

‘Are you sure this plan of yours will work, Queek?’ said Kranskritt. He had stopped using the insincere flattery of their kind some time ago when speaking with the Headtaker. This social nicety had always annoyed Queek, but it annoyed him more that Kranskritt had ceased its use. ‘It is rather simplistic, attacking directly.’

‘Queek’s plan is sound. We come on all fronts. Every shaft and hole will be assaulted at once, white-fur. And what does white-fur know of strategy? Thorgrim beard-king will not know where to defend. His forces will be scattered and easily worn down. This is the way of the dwarf-things – to stay behind their walls and fight, fool-meat that they are. We have the numbers, and they have no time. So declares mighty Queek.’

‘It is still simple,’ said Kranskritt. ‘A pup-plan.’

Queek shrugged. ‘The simpler the better, white-fur. How many grand schemes fail-wither due to incompetence and stupidity, or treachery? Treachery is so much the harder when there are fewer folds to hide in. Simple plan, Queek’s plan, is best.’

‘For this once, the mighty Queek speaks wisdom,’ said Ikit Claw. ‘All weak points are already known. This fortress has been attacked a hundred times, a thousand. There is nothing we do not know about it. Why waste time with cunning ruses to learn what we already know?’

‘We have a long wait,’ said Queek. ‘We must meet-greet the clan warlords here and take command. Too long they have besieged the great beard-king. Thorgrim-dwarf-thing must be very sad at all this. He need not worry, for soon it will all be over. Mighty Queek is here!’

His troops were letting him down again! Queek smelt the fear-stink, heard the calling of beard-thing instruments and the change of pitch in their shouts from despair to excitement.

‘Must finish this quick-fast,’ he muttered.

The Horned Rat must have heard Queek. Thorgrim approached him, stepping down off his land-boat, bellowing Queek’s name.

‘Good-good,’ snickered Queek. ‘Very good! Here dwarf-thing, a spike is waiting, much company for the long face-fur!’

Queek flicked his wrist, spinning Dwarf Gouger, and took up his battle stance. With one finger he beckoned Thorgrim onwards.

Thorgrim shouted at him, his voice deeper than the pits of Fester Spike. ‘Queek! Queek! For the death of Krug Ironhand! The head of Queek!’

Queek laughed at his petty grievances.

‘Queek flattered that mighty beard-thing not need his special book to recount Queek’s fame!’

‘For the illegal occupation of Karak Eight Peaks! The head of Queek!’ shouted Thorgrim. The dwarf-thing’s eyes were glazed and spittle coated his beard. Quite mad, thought Queek. Good.

‘Queek is coming!’ trilled Queek, and laughed. ‘Queek killed many dwarf-things – soon there will be no more left to kill. This makes Queek sad. Maybe Queek take a few of High King Thorgrim-thing’s littermates back to Skavenblight for fighting practice? Truly Queek is merciful.’

Roaring his hatred, Thorgrim charged, just as Queek had anticipated. Dwarfs were a weak race; their affection for their pups and littermates made them easy to goad. Such a pity, Queek had wanted this duel to be one to savour in the long years ahead, when he grew young on Gnawdwell’s elixirs and there were no more dwarf-things in the world to slay.

Queek waited until Thorgrim was so close he could see the red veins threading his tired eyes before launching his rightly famed attack. Queek leapt, his age forgotten, his body spinning. He drew his sword and simultaneously swung the weighted spike of Dwarf Gouger at Thorgrim’s helmet. Queek’s mind worked quickly, so fast the world appeared to move more slowly to him than to those of longer-lived races. He did not know it, but it was a blessing in some ways, this rapid life cycle. Queek could enjoy the sight of his weapon spike hurtling towards the dwarf’s face in unhurried slowness.

Queek blinked. Thorgrim swept up his axe. Impossible! The runes on the axe shone as bright as the hidden sun, searing their image onto Queek’s eyes. He could not read the scratch marks, but in one terrible moment of understanding their meaning became clear: Death. Death to the enemies of the dwarfs!

Dwarf Gouger met the axe. The rune-shine whited out his vision, and he knew if he survived his eyes would never recover. Dwarf Gouger shattered on the edge of the blade with a bang and discharge of freed magic. Queek landed, panicked. He thrust at Thorgrim with his sword, seeking to make him dodge aside so that Queek could put distance between them. But the snarl nested in the thing’s long face-fur grew more ferocious. He grabbed Queek’s sword in his armoured fist and yanked him forwards. Queek scrambled to get back, but could not. So unusual was the situation that he did not think to release his sword’s hilt until it was too late. Thorgrim dropped his axe and grabbed Queek by the throat, lifting him high into the air. Only then did Queek let his sword go, and Thorgrim flipped it around, using it to cut loose Queek’s treasured back banner. The dead things’ heads fell, screaming in exultation, free at last.

‘For the Battle of Karak Azul, the head of Queek,’ rasped Thorgrim, his voice ruined by his screaming.

Queek squirmed and thrashed, his teeth clashing in panic. He braced his legs against Thorgrim, trying to flip backwards. His world turned black around the edges. Queek scrabbled with his hand-paws, raking at the king’s face.

‘For the killing of Belegar Angrund, rightful king of Karak Eight Peaks, the head of Queek,’ spat Thorgrim.

Queek’s struggles weakened. His frantic gouging became more precise. He gave up trying to hurt Thorgrim and desperately attempted to pry the dwarf’s granite grip loose. The fingers would not shift, and Queek’s own bled as his claws tore loose on the king’s impenetrable armour. Thorgrim tightened his grip. Queek’s choking became wet, feeble as the death croaks of a dying slave-rat.

The king pulled Queek level with his bearded face. ‘For the death of many thousand dawi, the head of Queek. Now die, you miserable son of the sewers.’

The last thing Queek ever saw were the eyes of Thorgrim Grudgebearer, burning with vengeance.

At the edge of the battlefield, three dwarf lords watched their kin go about their sorrowful work.

‘I could not save them,’ said Ungrim Ironfist. Fire still flickered around him, on his axe and in his eyes, but it could not hide his despair. ‘I marched too far from my gates, filled with thoughts of vengeance. They sprang their trap. Three of their abominations breached the gates. They had within them bombs full of gas…’ His face contorted. He could not understand why anyone would do such a thing. ‘Everyone, everything… It is all gone, gone!’

‘Rest easy, lad,’ said Josef Bugman, who had a particularly disrespectful way with kings. ‘Here, let me get you something for your nerves.’

Bugman beckoned over one of his warriors, a young dwarf already scarred and grim-eyed from many battles. Bugman took a tankard from him and offered it to Ungrim. ‘Fit for a king,’ he said encouragingly.

The Slayer King stared at him, deep in shock. ‘I am not a king any more. I have failed in one oath. Only by fulfilling the other can I make amends.’

All over the battlefield dwarfs worked, retrieving their lamentable number of dead. There were many runic items scattered amid the gore. These were attended to even before the slain, while a large block of troops stood ready, in case the skaven mounted another attack, took them unawares and armed themselves with the treasures of their ancestors. Dusk had fallen. Night came quickly, abetted by the fumes that clogged the sky and kept the sun away.

‘Drink,’ said Bugman encouragingly.

‘No, no, I will not,’ said Ungrim. ‘I cannot rest, I will not rest. My Slayers and I will go to the Empire, to lend what aid we can to the Emperor, if he still lives.’

‘All need light in dark days,’ said Bugman.

‘Grimnir is with me,’ said Ungrim.

‘At least let me give you a few casks of ale for your warriors. They’ll march further and fight harder with a little of my XXXXXX in their bellies.’

Ungrim nodded, and Bugman gave the necessary orders. The last dwarfs of Karak Kadrin, unsmiling though they were, were nevertheless grateful.

Thorgrim and Bugman watched them go into the fast-falling night, Ungrim’s fiery aura making of him a living torch to light the way.

‘A kingly gift, Master Brewer,’ said Thorgrim.

‘I am not a king either, High King,’ said Bugman affably. ‘But I do what I can.’ He sighed. ‘A bad business this. A bad, bad time.’

‘It is a time we cannot recover from,’ said Thorgrim quietly. ‘Look at Ungrim. Karak Kadrin fell three years ago and he behaves as if it were yesterday. If we prevail, shall we all be the same? Broken-minded, fit only to roam the lands of our ancestors?’

‘Steady now, that’s not like you to say so, king.’

‘The Rune of Azamar is broken,’ said Thorgrim.

To them both, the mountain breeze blew a little more chill. Silently, Thorgrim led Bugman round the back of the throne and pointed out the awful truth. There was no light to the rune, and a long, fine crack ran across it from top to bottom.

Bugman tamped down tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and sat down upon a rock. Behind them, dwarfs shouted and chisels clattered as the stonemasons’ guild repaired what damage they could to the walls. Bugman blew out a long plume of smoke. ‘Aye,’ he said at last. ‘I am not surprised.’

‘The Karaz Ankor will fall.’

‘What about Ungrim? The light of Grungni was on him. Surely that’s worth something.’

Thorgrim eased himself down next to the old brewer. ‘It’s not the light of Grungni. Something similar affected me too, filling my armour and weapons with might. Ungrim is possessed by some fire spirit, and I think something rooted in the spirit of metal came to me.’

‘Is it gone now?’

Thorgrim nodded.

‘Well,’ said Bugman, ‘Grungni or not, there’s still good in this world, that’s for sure.’ He gave the king a penetrating stare. ‘Will you drink with me, High King? You’ll not refuse my brew too, will you now?’

Thorgrim was taken aback. ‘A king can refuse many things, Master Brewer, but never a sup from Bugman’s own barrels.’

‘Good for you,’ said Bugman. ‘But I can do better than my own barrel. I reckon you could do with a bit of pepping up. Here, drink from my own tankard. You’ll never taste its like, I promise.’ The dwarf passed over a battered pewter tankard. Once finely worked, it seemed to have taken much hard use and its decorations were worn smooth where they were not tarnished.

The High King took the tankard from Bugman. It brimmed with frothy ale, although the cup had been but moments before hanging empty at the brewer’s belt. The colour was perfect: a deep, golden brown, as pure as a young rinn’s eyes. And its bouquet… Thorgrim lacked the words to describe it. Just smelling the beer made him lightheaded. He immersed himself in the sensation. It brought back memories of happier days, and he forgot all his woes.

Bugman chuckled. ‘Go on then, don’t just stare at it! Drink up, I swear by Grungni’s long beard you’ll feel better for it.’

Thorgrim did as he was told, even though part of him did not want the moment of expectation to pass. He put the pewter to his lips and drank deeply of the ale. Warmed to perfection, it tasted finer than anything he had ever partaken of before, and he’d enjoyed plenty of Bugman’s ales in the past.

As he drank it down, a glow as golden and clean as the colour of the beer seeped into his limbs. There was a brief, vicious stab in his side as the wound seemed to fight back, but it was overwhelmed, and the warmth pushed aside the dirty, itching pain the injury caused him. He drank half the tankard down, of that he was sure, before pulling it away. His gasp of satisfaction turned to one of amazement. The tankard was still full.

‘Take another pull, O king,’ said Bugman.

The king did. When he finished, he patted his side, then prodded it, then poked hard. Nothing.

‘The wound is not healed, I’m afraid,’ said Bugman. ‘It’s too far gone for even my old great-granddad’s tankard to fix with a couple of draughts. But you won’t feel it for a while, and it might just tip it onto the right road to be mended. The curative powers of the mug and my ancestor’s best brew. You’ll not get that anywhere else now but from my own pot. Count yourself privileged.’

Thorgrim, usually so stern, was wide-eyed. ‘It is the greatest honour I have enjoyed in a long time, Master Brewer.’

‘Isn’t it just?’ said Bugman. He looked the king dead in the eye. For all his power and honourable ancestry, Thorgrim felt the battered ranger, born from the dwarf exodus, little better than city-dwelling umgdawi, to be far more than an equal to him. ‘When my old dad’s brewery burned to the ground, and my folk were all killed, I thought it was the end of the world.’ He sighed, a spill of smoke twisting its way from his mouth. ‘And it was the end of one. Another began. I am still here. Don’t scratch out the dawi yet, High King. There’s fight in us all still.’

Bugman hung his magic pint pot, now mysteriously empty again, from his belt. He stood up and offered his hand to the king, like they were two merchants in a bar and not a dispossessed brewer and the lord of all dwarfs. Thorgrim shook it.

‘I’ll be away now.’ He looked into the night, broken only by the dwarfs’ lamps and torches and the light streaming from the high windows of the forts. ‘There are other dwarfs out there as need me.’

‘Still?’ said Thorgrim.

Bugman smiled down at the king. ‘Aye, and there always will be. Whatever happens next, king of kings, don’t ever forget that. We’ve lost a lot, that’s for sure, but there’s no use crying over spilt ale. As long as the mountains are made of stone, there’ll be dwarfs in them, of that I’ve no doubt.’

Bugman lifted up his head, and let out a long trilling whistle. The call of the high mountain chough, not heard for years in those parts. It brought a tear to the king’s eye.

Dark, solid shapes moved from out of the rocks. Thorgrim rubbed his eyes. He felt quite drunk. Bugman, seconds ago alone, was surrounded by his warriors.

‘Look after those of my lads that fell here, king.’

Thorgrim nodded. Bugman winked and vanished into the dark.

Blearily Thorgrim got into his throne. From the vantage it offered, he looked about, but Bugman was nowhere to be seen. He suddenly felt very tired.

‘I shall rest a moment,’ he said. ‘Just a moment.’ He sat down, closed his eyes, and drifted off to the sound of dwarfs hard at work repairing the damage others had done.