Headtaker Page 11

  Intently, Sharpwit leant forward too, meeting the grey seer halfway. ‘How do you know this?’

  Razzel sat back, preening his claws through his lustrous white fur. ‘Like the Great Horned One himself, his chosen sees all.’

  ‘Squeak-tell,’ Sharpwit growled.

  Razzel eyed the older skaven for a moment before extracting a small statuette from within the folds of his robes. It was carved of wutroth wood into the likeness of a slinking rat, its fangs rendered with glass, its eyes picked out with tiny ingots of glowing warpstone. A long tail looped around its feet to form a base. Razzel placed it on the table, his paws making about it a possessive wall.

  ‘Even dwarf-thing places have rats.’ The grey seer stroked his carving, and the manner of its posture, body and snout rising into his paw, made it appear as if the creature gnashed its teeth in pleasure at the sorcerer’s touch. ‘This catalyst helps them hear the Horned Rat’s call. Lets a skilful user of his gifts use their body to hear and smell. Spy-rats show me the dwarf-thing army gathering, show me their secret councils. Good-lucky for us as the army is vast. Good-lucky for Sharp-wit,’ he added, pointedly. ‘Much mightier than Sharpwit squeak-tells before Council.’

  ‘I always was a lucky rat,’ he murmured, not rising to the bait. ‘Where does this army go?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Razzel shrugged. ‘Away-gone.’

  ‘Show me. Show me what you saw.’ Sharpwit reached for the carving but the grey seer snatched it away, clutching it jealously to his breast.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ Sharpwit snarled.

  ‘Because Prophet-Seer Razzel, chosen of the Horned One, is not yours to command. And because I do not want to.’

  Sharpwit growled but held his tongue. It was likely that the act of splitting his consciousness across the aether rendered the seer helpless, and no amount of cajoling would convince him to place himself at Sharpwit’s mercy. He filed the knowledge away for later use.

  He shuffled around on his stool at the sound of a disturbance from outside the seer’s burrow. It was a minor thing, no more than a scuffle, but enough to make his hackles rise.

  Across the table, Razzel sat up and snarled at the albino. ‘Fool-fool! The Council sends you to hide in corners? Go look-smell what is happening.’

  The stormvermin gave a slight nod and, flipping his resting halberd between his paws, strode into the tunnel to beat the fear of the Horned One into whoever was unfortunate enough to start a fight within hearing of Grey Seer Razzel.

  Razzel leant across the table, snapping his claws under Sharpwit’s nose. ‘Do not think to try-test. You remember who is in charge here.’

  Sharpwit gave an irritated nod, opening his mouth to speak just at the instant that an albino body smacked into the table between them. Razzel squealed and fell backwards from his stool into the rancid sacks, sending startled rats streaming across the floor. Sharpwit swivelled on his stool as the albino’s halberd followed its wielder’s earlier trajectory, the flat of the shaft smacking into the stormvermin’s side to elicit a fresh cry of pain.

  Sharpwit coughed, drawing in an intoxicating measure of warpstone dust. But not enough to completely obscure the scent of freshly spilled blood that clung like a vengeful spirit to the Headtaker. The warlord was in full armour but for his absent trophy rack. He dragged the groaning albino from the table, but otherwise paid the creature no heed. One paw remained firmly hidden behind his back as he stalked around the edge of the table, studying Sharpwit and Razzel as a cat might be intrigued by a pair of oddly behaving mice.

  ‘White-fur and Old-thing,’ Queek whispered. ‘Watch them plot. Watch them scheme.’

  ‘No-no, most understanding and wicked of warlords,’ Sharpwit began. ‘Razzel finds most crucial information. He knows his burrow too drab for great warlords and find-seeks humble Sharpwit to bring to the attention of the illustrious Queek.’

  Razzel nodded eagerly, climbing back up to the table. His chimes filled the burrow with broken music.

  Queek remained impassive, stalking slowly towards where Sharpwit sat and Razzel, his stool forgotten, now stood, nervous claws drumming on the table’s top. Sharpwit flinched as Queek came up behind him. He felt his hot, vile breath on the side of his face before the warlord moved on, circling around behind Razzel.

  All this time, the warlord hadn’t once removed his paw from behind his back.

  Sharpwit tried to sneak a peek around his shoulders but Queek angled himself to thwart him. Queek leant forward so his muzzle rested on the grey seer’s shoulder. The shivering sorcerer jangled with disharmonious terror.

  ‘Lies, these voices squeak. Lies. Queek sees poison on little rat-thing lips.’

  ‘No,’ Razzel stammered. ‘It is all true.’

  Queek frowned as he straightened, granting Razzel the briefest of moments of relief before he struck. His arm was a crimson blur, so fast that neither skaven had moved until it was too late.

  The warlord’s gauntleted fist smacked wetly against the table top, the impact spraying blood over the horror-stricken faces of the watching skaven. Sharpwit’s jaw hung open as the severed head being gently crushed beneath the warlord’s paw oozed the last of its life onto Razzel’s table. Its eyes had rolled up into their sockets, but Sharpwit still felt their gaze on his and he shuffled, ill at ease. The creature’s fur was white, its waxen hide rendered even more so as Queek squeezed the blood from its veins like juice from a soft fruit. Razzel stared at the remains of his former bodyguard in mute horror. The last surviving albino, having collected himself from the floor, covered his nose and looked away.

  ‘Lies,’ Queek hissed again. He gathered the head in both paws and faced it towards him. Blood flowed down his arms from its gaping neck, tendrils of muscle and ligament clinging to the metal of his armour as they swayed. ‘You tell truth to Queek, don’t you,’ he crooned, addressing the flaccid muzzle and blank eyes in his paw. ‘Tell White-fur what you tell Queek.’ He pressed the head’s cold lips to his ear, his expression enraptured. ‘Yes-yes,’ he nodded, the dead thing still whispering into his ear. ‘White-fur plots. White-fur covets.’

  ‘No-no,’ squealed Razzel, frantic. ‘He squeak-tells wicked-lies.’

  The warlord lowered the head, his eyes burning into Razzel with blistering malice. ‘His name is Stikslash. Queek finds him spying on Ska. He tells Queek where White-fur hide-cowers, where he cooks his plots.’

  ‘But they are mute. They don’t squeak-talk to anyone!’

  ‘All squeak-talk to Queek!’ The warlord calmed himself, resetting the head on the table, positioning it deliberately to keep Sharpwit and Razzel both in its vacant sights. Queek sat cross-legged on the floor, holding the head firmly between both paws and lowering his muzzle to its level as if to see through its eyes, to sense odours from beyond the veil.

  ‘Queek comes to tell White-fur and Old-thing that he does not care about their plots. They will fail.’ His voice was a whisper, seemingly intended for the unreceptive ears of Stikslash rather than any living audience. ‘White-fur and Old-thing plot all they like and they will never be mightier than Queek. Tomorrow we fight and dwarf-things die-die. Maybe White-fur also die-die,’ he suggested, to a squirm of discomfort from the grey seer. ‘But not Queek. No dwarf-thing ever bests Queek. Not even Kazador.’

  ‘You speak-squeak truth, most ferocious of warlords,’ Razzel stammered. ‘When we fight the dwarf-things, Queek will win an easy triumph.’

  ‘Easy? Easy how?’

  ‘Tell him, Razzel,’ Sharpwit said. ‘Tell Queek what you squeak-tell me.’

  Razzel nodded eagerly, his chimes sounding his excitement. ‘The dwarf-things leave. They leave! Kazador-King leads them away. The dwarf-place will be empty when we attack, and it will fall like stacks of hay in a gale. The Horned Rat favours this quest and greatly potent Queek, his champion, hmmm?’

  ‘Is this true?’

  Sharpwit hesitated. He saw the madness flicker behind Queek’s eyes, but Razzel was
blind to it.

  ‘True-true,’ Razzel said. ‘I see it.’

  The warlord erupted with a snarl. His gauntlet hammered the table top, making the staring head dance. ‘Kazador must not leave! How soon can Queek’s army be ready?’

  Razzel’s mouth worked as he thought, but Sharpwit beat him to it. ‘By the end of tomorrow, perhaps. Not before the thirteenth bell at the earliest.’

  ‘Not good enough. We attack at first bell tomorrow and Kazador will fall by my paw.’ The warlord was on his feet now, pacing the burrow in a rage, kicking and slashing with his claws at the rotten bean sacks, spilling their odious contents in a stream at his feet. He spun about. ‘Why are you waiting? White-fur and Old-thing will watch each other die if Queek’s army is not ready by then.’

  Nervously, Sharpwit cleared his throat. ‘With the greatest of subservience to the mightiest and most despotic of warlords, we are not here to kill-slay one dwarf-thing. We are here to smash-burn the entire dwarf-place.’

  ‘Yes-yes,’ Queek muttered. ‘Smash-burn.’ Suddenly remembering something, he snatched up the head of Stikslash and planted its muzzle back against his ear. ‘Yes-yes, little friend-thing. We burn-dead in pyres so high that all the world sees the might of Queek and trembles and Kazador, he watches, he watches from my paws.’ He stalked for the tunnel before, in a moment of lucidity, he glared back at Sharpwit and Razzel.

  ‘First bell, hurry-scurry!’

  Queek’s mind worked fast.

  He raised Stikslash to his eyes, studying him grimly. ‘First bell too late, dead-thing. Kazador might already be away-gone. Who then will tell-squeak of Queek’s strength? Who?’ The albino had no reassurance to offer and Queek let his arm drop, his claws buried in the bloodless flesh of the dead creature’s scalp. Somehow he had to stop the dwarf-things from leaving, to keep them within Azul-Place until he could strike at their king.

  He swept through the tunnels of Deadclaw. The heat was unbearable, but thoughts came easier when accompanied by actions.

  He was the strongest warrior, the mightiest of skaven. But the world was large and, strange as it might seem, there were peoples within it that had yet to quaver at the name of Queek Headtaker. It was not to be borne! He would claw-scratch his glory into the heavens with the blood of Kazador-King such that all under the stars would see it and lower their muzzles in dread and awe.

  It was deathly quiet and no other skaven sought to share his thoughts. It was amusing how space could always be found when skaven desperately desired some other place to be. Amusing, but hardly useful. Instinctively he made to summon Ska, only realising after he had bellowed the name into the cavernous belly of Deadclaw that his worthless lackey still rested like the indolent breeder-thing he was in the stormvermin barracks, a foul-smelling smear of skalm daubed over the filthy bruise that concealed two cracked ribs and a punctured lung.

  Queek would have to figure this one out alone.

  He glanced at the head in his paw and grinned.

  Not alone.

  Thordun stood proudly within a stern phalanx of dwarfish shields. To left and right, bearded clansdwarfs in crimson-tinted mail were arrayed in grim-faced order. Thordun carried no shield with which to form a shield wall and had been positioned at the back of the block of infantry. At least he hoped that was the reason. He had heard the mutterings of Thane Hrathgar when the dwarf thought he was out of earshot about being forced to ‘babysit’.

  Hrathgar Hammerhand was a dour and joyless individual, grumbling commands as if the need to issue them at all was a source of grievous disappointment to him. The thane stood in the front rank. His tall helm was clearly visible above the intervening heads. Baleful runes glowed red on its gromril surface, horns like those of a minotaur striking from its temples. His ancestral weapon, a massive warhammer engraved with the clenched fist and the hammer of the Hammerhands, rested in quiescent readiness across one broad, armour-plated shoulder.

  The anticipation was palpable. The time that every dwarf of Karak Azul had awaited for fifteen years had come. Thordun hoped he was ready. He checked his handgun for the tenth time.

  ‘I feel ridiculous,’ said Bernard, towering with the other men over the dwarfs they were ranked beside. ‘Every greenskin’s going to be shooting at me.’

  Thordun chose to ignore the man’s griping. He was sick of it. The man’s annoyance hadn’t stopped him, or any of the others, from signing their names into Loremaster Logan’s great war ledger and accepting the king’s coin. Gold was gold and while less gold was less, it was still gold.

  ‘What’s happening, Bernard, what can you see?’

  The big Bretonnian swung his bearded face from right to left, nodding in hard-faced satisfaction, the way Thordun had seen him appraise a wealthy home with a weak door. ‘A decent number. And they look tough. We might actually get paid at last.’

  ‘Give it up already. Is the king here yet? Are we ready to march?’

  ‘I don’t see him. But then maybe I just don’t recognise him. Some of us didn’t get the chance to meet him yester–’ His voice broke. Raising a hand to shield his eyes from the glare reflected off the casual wealth of starmetal axe blades and gold-embossed helms he stared at some point across to the left. If Thordun recalled correctly, to the left was the stairwell down to the Fourth Deep. ‘Attendez,’ he said. ‘I think I see something.’

  ‘What is?’ Thordun asked, pointedly. ‘Is it the king?’

  ‘No it’s…’ Bernard tailed off, sketching the sign of the Grail. ‘Par la dame.’

  Without further explanation, Bernard broke ranks and sprinted in the direction of the stairwell.

  Thane Hrathgar turned irritably. ‘Control your sell-swords, beardling. I’m sure you can get away with this sort of thing in the Empire, but when dawi are told to stand, they stand. Until released or the sun freezes and falls from the sky.’

  ‘I’ll fetch him, Thane Hrathgar,’ Thordun said, with a swift nod.

  The grey-bearded thane turned away, grumbling loudly to his icon bearer over the unreliability of the young.

  Thordun excused himself, easing his way clear of his regiment. He ignored the disapproving looks and subtle shakes of the head from the dwarfs he hurried past, finding Bernard half a turn down the stairwell. The big man cast a deep shadow on the gleaming marble stones.

  ‘What is it?’ Thordun asked irritably. ‘I think Hrathgar already dislikes me.’

  ‘Ratman,’ Bernard rumbled, his fist tightening around the leather grip of his morning star. ‘Like in Nuln. A big one – black fur, red plate. Saw him on the stairs. Caught my eye and the thing just waved and then scarpered.’ He turned around, his face white. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘He left this.’

  Thordun peered around Bernard’s broad shoulders and choked. Hurriedly, he traced the rune of Valaya across his chest. Pinioned to the wall by a rusted blade wedged into the joint between two marble blocks was a pale skaven head. It appeared to be choking, gagging on the sword that had been rammed deep into the back of its throat. Swaying in the gentle breeze rising up from the Fourth Deep, a sickly brown scrap of parchment fluttered from the weapon’s box hilt. Retching at the sight of the thing, Thordun reached for the note. His fingers recoiled from the touch. It was not paper, nor parchment, nor any other writing material he was familiar with. It felt like dead flesh, and his fingertips crawled at the memory of its touch as though infected.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Hrathgar bellowed. ‘What are you up to in there, you umgi-sired kruti?’

  The thane’s insults ran dry as he saw what Thordun and Bernard had found. He reached past unsqueamishly and, not wishing to damage the parchment in his heavy gauntlets, carefully teased it free. It resembled a mad child’s scrawl, random lines and scores scratched into dead meat. Hrathgar’s eyes roved across the page. The language was Queekish, the claw-scratch form of the skaven tongue and well familiar to the thane of Karak Eight Peaks. No dwarf would ever admit it but, deep in his stubborn heart, even Hrathgar und
erstood that the rats were now the true rulers of the Eight Peaks.

  The thane muttered aloud as he read, teasing out the dense and childishly rendered words. ‘Old grey fur… Kazador-King… forever squeak-tell of the glory… assault on the Ninth Deep… face if you dare… find doom at the paws of…’

  Numbly, the thane’s arm dropped, his face turning as white as the dead albino.

  ‘What is it, Thane Hrathgar?’ Thordun asked. ‘Do the skaven intend to attack? It is a trick, surely. Who would be mad enough to first warn their enemy?’

  Hrathgar studied the ratskin parchment again, staring at the name scratched into the bottom. He hoped that if he stared hard enough it might blur into some other shape. But it did not. It remained as blindly defiant as the warlord to whom it belonged. A name inscribed into the dammaz kron of Karak Eight Peaks a hundred times in the blood of kings, his manifold crimes recorded until the end of days.

  Dwarf-bane. Defiler of the Eight Peaks.

  Headtaker.

  Kazador would have his war, though not the one he intended.

  Queek was in Karak Azul.

  Chapter Six

  The Ninth Deep was the lowest level of Karak Azul. There were deeper delvings, test shafts, drainage channels that flowed deep into the porous underbelly of the mountain, but this was as far into the earth as the dwarfs had come before the earth pushed back. The cataclysmic chain of quakes that had brought the Karaz Ankor to its knees and presaged the ending of the Golden Age of the dwarfs had not been kind to the Ninth Deep. Deep fissures split the grime-covered flagstones, occasionally venting steam as the heat and pressure from beneath grew untenable.