CHAPTER TWO 
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.
‘Silence be!’ screeched Lord Thaumkrittle.
The coven of grey seers stopped arguing and turned to look at their new leader.
‘This is not the place to argue and fight. It is much-very bad that Clan Scruten is no longer on the Council, worse that our god has shown his disapproval. We must work to regain the favour of the Horned Rat.’
More than one emission of fear’s musk misted the air. The grey seers chittered nervously.
‘We are his chosen! We bear his horns and have his powers!’ said Jilkin the Twisted, his horns painted red and carved with spell-wards. ‘This all a trick by Clan Mors, or Clan Skryre! Tinker-rats want all our magic for themselves.’
‘No. That was the Horned Rat himself, not some machine-born conjuring trick,’ said another, Felltwitch. He was older than many, tall and rangy. One of his horns was missing, reduced to a stump by a sword swing long ago. ‘And we have disappointed him.’
‘It not our fault,’ said Kranskritt, once favoured among the other clans, now as despised as the rest. ‘Other clans plot and scheme against us, make us look bad to the master.’
‘Yes-yes!’ squeaked others. ‘Traitors everywhere. Not our fault!’
‘No,’ said the old Felltwitch. ‘It is our fault, and only our fault.’ He stepped around in a slow circle, leaning on his blackwood staff. ‘If we blame-curse other clans, we not learn anything.’
‘What to do? What to do?’ said Kreekwik, marked out by his deep-red robes. ‘Grey Seer Felltwitch squeak-says we have failed? How to unfail the Great Horned One? Will any more grey seers be born? Are we the last?’
Panic rushed through the room, forest-fire quick, taking hold of each grey seer’s limbs and sending them into a storm of tail lashing and twitching. Pent up magic added its own peculiar smell to the thick scent of the room.
‘We should pray,’ said Kranskritt. ‘We are his priests and his prophets. Pray for forgiveness.’
‘We should act,’ said Felltwitch.
‘Let us wait them out!’ said Scritchmaw. ‘We live much longer than they.’
‘It is not possible. Clan Skryre has the secret of longevity-life elixir. Lords of Decay live too long – no one lives longer than they. No waiting, no waiting!’ said Thaumkrittle. He too was nervous. It was one thing to become chief of Clan Scruten, another to become chief immediately after their god had eaten the previous incumbent. Thaumkrittle was on edge, his emotional state veering between great pride at his elevation and a suspicion that he had only got the job because no one else dared to take it.
‘We have lost-squandered the favour of the Great Horned One! What are we to do?’ said Kranskritt, the many bells on his arms, wrists, ankles and horns rattling.
‘Win it back! Win it back!’
‘How do you propose to do that?’ A familiar voice came from the back of the room. The entire assembly turned to look. There, at the back, Boneripper hulking behind him, was Thanquol.
‘Grey Seer Thanquol!’ shrieked Kreekwik.
‘It is him! All this is his fault!’ said Kranskritt.
A hiss of hatred went up from every seer present. Magical auras fizzed into life. Eyes glowed.
‘How my fault-guilt?’ said Thanquol, as calmly as he could. ‘Many times I am this close to victory.’ He held his fingers a hair’s-breadth apart. ‘But treachery of other clans stop my winning. They are all at fault. It is not me, friends-colleagues. Not me at all!’
Thaumkrittle shook his head, sending the copper triskeles depending from his horn tips swinging. ‘You clever-squeaker, Thanquol. Always it is the same. Always it is the lies. Always we believe. Not this time. The Horned Rat himself came forth at the meeting and devoured our leader.’ Thaumkrittle pointed his staff directly at Thanquol. ‘Fool-thing! We no longer pay listen-heed to your squeak-talk. Go from here! Go!’
‘Yes-yes, go-go!’ the others chittered.
‘You will listen to me,’ said Thanquol. ‘Listen to my speakings. I have a way!’
‘No!’ shouted Kreekwik. ‘Squeak-talk of Thanquol grandiose lies.’
‘Cast him out!’ said Felltwitch. ‘Cast him out! Banish him!’
Light fled and shadows deepened as each and every grey seer began to cast a spell, bringing a taste of rot and brimstone.
‘No-no!’ said Thanquol. He backed up to the door, only to find it inexplicably locked. He cursed the guards he’d bribed to let him in. Cornered, he summoned his own magic.
Boneripper. Boneripper was there. Sensing his master’s peril, the rat ogre snarled out a thunderous roar and ran at the other seers, chisel-incisors bared.
A dozen beams of warp-lightning intersected on his powerfully muscled body. They flayed the skin from his chest, but Boneripper kept on coming. The muscle underneath smoked. Still he kept on coming. He reached the first grey seer and reached forwards with a mighty claw. Green fire blazed from the seer’s eyes, reducing the rat ogre’s hand to ash. He roared in anger, not in pain, for Boneripper was incapable of feeling pain. He punched forwards with one of his remaining fists, but this was snared in a rope of shadow and teeth that fastened themselves into his flesh.
‘No-no!’ Thanquol shrieked. He countered as many spells as he could, draining magic away from his peers, but there were too many. His glands clenched.
With a mighty howl, Boneripper was dragged to his knees. Magic writhed all over him, burning and tearing pieces from him. Jilkin the Twisted, a particularly spiteful seer, reached the end of his convoluted incantation. He hurled an orb of purple fire at the injured construct, engulfing its wounded arm. The fire burned bright, then collapsed inwards into warp-black with a sucking noise.
Boneripper roared, his arm turning into a slurry of oily goo, which fountained over the other seers. A deafening thunderclap of magical feedback had them squeaking in agony. Many were blasted to the floor by the sudden interruption of their own sorcery.
When they got up, horned heads shaking out the ringing in their sensitive ears, they were grinning evilly.
‘No-no! Wait-wait!’ chittered Thanquol as they advanced on him. ‘Listen-hear my idea!’ He looked to them imploringly. ‘I am your friend. I was master to many of you. Please! Listen!’
Thaumkrittle drew himself up. ‘Grey Seer Thanquol, you are expelled-exiled from Clan Scruten. You will scurry from this place and never return.’
The other rats fell on him, sharp claws tearing, teeth working at his clothes, ripping his robes and charms from his body. Thanquol panicked. Drowning in a sea of hateful fur, he felt his glands betray him, drenching him in the shame of his own fear.
‘No-no, listen! We must… Argh! We must summon a verminlord, ask them what to do! We are the prophets of the Horned Rat! Let us ask-query his daemons how to pass this trial-test he has set us.’
The seers hoisted Thanquol onto their shoulders and bore him from the room. The door’s sorcerous locks clanked and whirred at their approach, the great bars rattling back into their housings.
The night of Skavenblight greeted Thanquol indifferently as he was hurled bodily into it, followed shortly after by the embrace of the mud of the street.
Thanquol groaned and rolled over. Unspeakable filth caked him.
‘Please!’ he shouted, raising a hand to the closing doors.
They stopped. Thanquol’s tail swished hopefully.
Thaumkrittle’s head poked out of the crack, the head of his staff protruding below his chin. At least, thought Thanquol, they were still wary of him.
‘If you return, once-seer Thanquol, we will take-saw your horns,’ Thaumkrittle said.
The large, messy figure of Boneripper was flung out magically after him. Thanquol barely dodged aside as the unconscious rat ogre slapped into the mud.
The door clanged shut. Thanquol snivelled, but his self-pity lasted only seconds before self-preservation kicked in. Interested red eyes already watched from the shadows. To show any sign of weakness in Skavenblight was to invite death.
‘What you look-see?’ he snapped, getting to his feet unsteadily. ‘I Thanquol! I great seer. You better watch it, or I cook you from inside.’
He set off a shower of sparks from his paws, then stopped. The light showed his beaten, dishevelled state all too clearly. The shadows drew nearer.
Clutching the remains of his robes to preserve his modesty, Thanquol checked over his bodyguard. Boneripper had lost two of his arms and much flesh, but his heart still beat. He could be repaired. Thanquol spent some time rousing the construct, his head twitching with intense paranoia this way and that. But though his glands were slack, his heart hardened. Eventually, the rat ogre hauled itself to its feet. To Thanquol’s relief, there suddenly appeared to be a lot fewer shadows in the street.
‘If Clan Scruten does not want me, then maybe Clan Skryre will,’ he said to himself. With all the haste he could manage, he headed off to their clan hall.
Inside the Temple of the Grey Seers, dull-eyed skaven and human slaves mopped at the mess that had been part of Boneripper. The grey seers resumed their places and recommenced their debate.
‘I have an idea,’ said Jilkin. ‘Let us summon a verminlord.’
‘That great idea,’ said Kreekwik. ‘Ask-beg the great ones from beyond the veil.’
‘Yes-yes,’ said Thaumkrittle up on his platform. ‘A great idea of mine. I am very clever. That why I your new leader-lord, yes? So, who want to follow my great idea and speak-pray to the Horned Rat for one of his servants?’
The grey seers looked at one another. Such blatant claiming of Jilkin’s suggestion was majestic. They could respect that.
‘Of course, O most mighty and powerful caller of magics,’ Kranskritt said. He bowed.
The others followed.