Contents

Cover

No Honour Among Vermin – C L Werner

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods’

A Black Library Publication

No Honour Among Vermin

C L Werner

The pungent smell of incense was predominant, but there were underlying scents as well. Human scents. Odours of subjugation, anxiety and adoration. The stink of fear.

Fylch Tattertail’s whiskers twitched as his nose instinctively tried to draw more information from the air. He knew it was a futile effort. The walls of the tunnel were much too thick and the alcove much too high to discern much by scent. It was by visual inspection that the truth would be revealed.

The brown-furred skaven pawed about in the pouches woven into the inside of his thread-bare tunic. Fylch pulled out a motley assortment of oddments. The skull of a weasel, the shiny carapace of a dried beetle, a rusty bolt of dubious importance, a gold coin badly scratched where it had been bitten, five buttons, a salted grot ear that looked a bit mouldy. Fylch let the litter of junk spill onto the tunnel floor. He didn’t need any of it. What he wanted was… He stopped fumbling about his tunic when he removed the blackened bit of warpblend. Steel infused with trace amounts of warpstone, the three-inch rod was etched with Queekish symbols invoking the Horned One’s protection. Fylch wasn’t so sure he accepted the merchant’s pitch about such divine defence, but he did know that the taste of warpblend on his tongue was a powerful stimulant, giving him a clarity and focus that was otherwise elusive.

Fylch scrambled up the last few steps to the top of the alcove. Slaves had spent several painstaking weeks excavating the secret stair and the little spy-perch at its top, working in absolute silence until their task was done. Fylch regretted it had been necessary to work them so hard – by the time the slaves were finished there hadn’t been much meat left on their bones. And Skowl Scorchpaw had been counting on the slaves to supplement the meagre rations the expedition had brought along.

Fylch shook his head and bit down harder on the warpblend. He was letting himself get distracted. He had to focus on the job ahead.

At the top of the alcove, Fylch found the brass-rimmed eyepiece jutting from the wall. Just a twinge of fear coursed through him as he pressed his face to the lens. He knew what he should expect to see; his biggest concern was that he’d be too late. If things had gone too far and the skaven had to wait for the next moon… Well, there weren’t any more slaves left to eat.

Peering through the lens, Fylch was afforded a bat’s-eye view of the chamber on the other side of the wall. He didn’t pretend to understand the complex arrangement of mirrors and mechanics that allowed the spy-scope to bring everything into view with such clarity. It was enough that the device worked the way it was supposed to work, something not always a certainty with Clan Skryre’s inventions.

From high above the chamber, the scope brought the room into view, gathering up the fitful light from braziers and torches to throw a reddish cast across everything. To Fylch it was like looking at a reflection in a puddle of blood.

The chamber was vast, easily a hundred feet wide and thrice again as long. Parts of the walls and especially the ceiling looked raw and natural, but the floor had been smoothed and levelled. The wall sections that had been worked were likewise smoothed down and covered in a sort of plaster or limestone glaze. There were pictures and symbols painted on them, but some of those symbols made Fylch’s glands clench and the less thought he gave to the murals the better.

Dominating the room, at its far end, was a broad altar of volcanic obsidian, its edges shining like mirrors. There were iron shackles set into the four corners of the altar, and Fylch could pick out the smell of dried blood rising from the shallow grooves cut into the top of the platform and the hound-faced basins resting on the floor beneath each one. Behind the altar, towering dozens of feet above it, was a monstrous statue. It had a roughly humanoid build, with broad shoulders and two powerful arms, but instead of legs it had a mass of serpentine bodies, their coils interlaced in grotesque patterns that defied the eye to follow them. There was no head; instead a bestial face jutted outwards from between the shoulders, its lips pulled back in a toothy snarl. One stony arm was held against the statue’s side, a viciously crooked sword clutched in its hand. The other was outstretched, pointing one of its claws forwards.

Fylch held his breath when he saw that claw. There was a chain wrapped around it and at the end of the chain there was a hook. Normally that hook was unburdened, but now there was a huge bronze bell hanging from it. It looked as big around as an overfed duardin and was about as tall as a grot in boots. Fylch could make out the grisly runes cut into the sides of the bell. They almost seemed to glow with malice and precipitated a spurt of fear-musk from his glands as he looked upon them.

It wasn’t just fear that Fylch felt. There was a brew of relief and eagerness that rushed through him as well. The bell was what they were after! It was the reason Skowl had brought them here. And despite his anxiety, Fylch knew that it wasn’t too late. They still had time to steal the relic away from the humans.

He glanced across the robed figures that were seated on the floor facing the altar. They swayed in time to the angry cadence of a huge drum, their hooded heads sweeping across the ground. At an estimate, Fylch would have guessed there to be two hundred of them, but he found it hard to make an accurate assessment with their individual scents masked by the incense – he might be counting the same ones over and over. He was more certain about the dozen armoured guards who flanked the congregation, tall and imposing men locked inside heavy suits of bronze armour. Then of course, there was the masked priest standing underneath the statue, his visage locked behind the fanged skull of a monstrous hound. That was the man-thing to pay particular attention to, and Fylch gave him a scrutinising glower. The cultists were mindlessly obsessed with ritual and each ceremony was performed exactly like the ones before it. The priest would set the tempo, and from what Fylch could see there was still quite a bit of time before he’d be ready to start his mumbo jumbo and make an offering to the Blood God.

Fylch drew back from the eyepiece. If not for the warpblend bit in his mouth, he might have uttered a titter of triumph; instead he simply lashed his forked tail from side to side in amusement. There was still time! Everything was ready and there was still time!

Fylch took the bit from his mouth and scurried back down the steps. He paused over the pile of junk he had dumped earlier. He picked through the rubbish, stuffing objects back into his pockets. It was a very pretty beetle husk, after all, and one never knew when even a mouldy salted grot ear might become appetising.

Fylch hurried down the narrow tunnel. He was reassured by its comforting confines, his whiskers brushing against solid walls to either side. All skaven preferred it when they knew nothing could go creeping around them and come at them from behind. When the tunnel opened into a wider corridor, Fylch’s paw closed about the hilt of the sword tucked under his belt. It was an unthinking, instinctive motion, a reaction to the abrupt loss of the security offered by the tunnel.

It was also a mistake. Before Fylch could react, he was struck a powerful blow from the side. He crashed against the hard stone floor, the sword flying from his fingers as he slid across the ground. The tang of his own blood was on the air, and he could feel a sticky dampness under his tunic where he had been scratched by claws. His eyes darted to the creature who had struck him. No need to guess which of the five skaven in the corridor was to blame. Only the hulking Krick was licking blood from his claws.

Fylch bared his fangs and lashed his forked tail in fury. Krick glared back at him, showing his sharp teeth in a wicked grin. The big skaven was powerfully built, almost twice as massive as Fylch. His body was covered in woolly black fur, and the fur in turn was covered by metal armour and a hide cuirass. Krick absently wiped the rest of the blood on the hanging skirt of his cuirass and glanced at the sword Fylch was reaching for.

‘Go. Take. Krick kill-bash Fylch fool-meat,’ the big skaven snarled, fingers tightening about the spiked mace the brute carried.

A guttural snarl from one of the other skaven in the corridor caused Krick to drop down in a submissive posture, head turned and throat exposed in a gesture of contrition. ‘Tattertail bring-carry sword-blade…’ he stammered, trying to explain himself.

The skaven who had snarled at Krick gave the brute a menacing glower. He was a tall piebald ratman, lean and rangy in contrast to Krick’s muscled bulk. He wore a voluminous leather robe-smock, its outer surface slick and shiny. A bewildering array of tool belts criss-crossed his waist and chest. Lashed across his side was a metal cylinder with a deranged assortment of hoses and wires streaming away from it. Many of these connected to the bulky metal glove that was strapped to his right hand. A sinister green glow pulsated from the cylindrical device… and from a reservoir on the back of the glove. Taken in whole, the device was a ghastly weapon and one that had given its inventor his name: Skowl Scorchpaw.

‘Fylch too clever-smart to plot against me,’ Skowl snapped, eyes straying from Krick to Fylch. They were ugly, bulging eyes, burned red by the chemical fumes of Clan Skryre’s workshops, and it was a hard thing for any skaven to hold the warlock engineer’s gaze for long.

‘Yes-yes, mighty-great Skowl,’ Fylch whined, his forked tail flicking across the ground. ‘Fylch is loyal-true!’

Skowl held his crimson eyes on Fylch. ‘And what has loyal Fylch spy-seen?’

‘Man-things start rite,’ Fylch said. ‘Bell hang-swing from statue-beast.’ Fylch looked across the other skaven in the corridor. ‘Soon bring sacrifice-meat to altar-plate,’ he declared.

One of the other skaven, a hunchbacked ratman with a scrapyard of weird tools and devices hooked to the basilisk-hide coat he wore, quickly fished a spherical instrument from one of his bags. He squinted at the crystal sphere and manipulated a dial on its underside. He bobbed his head in delight as the device blinked and whirred. ‘Not-need fear-worry,’ he squeaked. ‘Cultists never start-slay without moon-time. Still time-chance for plan.’ He jabbed a clawed finger at the sphere as though to prove his point.

Fylch ducked his head to hide his bared fangs. The tinker-rat was Teekritt Badscratch, as adept at creating new inventions as he was at stealing them from other skaven. Fylch wondered which category the strange lunar tracker belonged under. He almost hoped the thing wasn’t working right just so he could watch Scorchpaw vent his displeasure on the arrogant Teekritt.

Skowl bruxed his fangs as he digested Teekritt’s assurance. He turned to the other three skaven in the corridor. ‘Know-remember what to do,’ he said. ‘Hide-find places. Wait-lurk.’ His gaze roved across the three. The red eyes locked with that of a small, one-eyed ratman. ‘Ragbrat send-show signal.’

Ragbrat’s gloved paw caressed the barrel of the gun he carried. It was a massive warplock jezzail, its barrel etched with Queekish scratches and its stock carved from a gargant’s tooth. There was a murderous twinkle in his eye. Fylch had heard it said the marksrat couldn’t go to sleep unless he had shot something beforehand.

The two skaven who would be waiting for Ragbrat’s signal were as different from each other as hot and cold. Brakkik Gnash wore a smelly confusion of rathides and a big satchel slung across one shoulder. A long, hollow rod cobbled together from finger-bones was strapped to a loop that crossed his chest. On his shoulders and scampering about his feet were a pack of rats, each branded with a different Queekish glyph.

The other was Haak Blackear. From head to toe he was covered in a costume of heavy leather robes, gloves and boots. On his back he wore a heavy metal cylinder, hoses running from it connected to the long mask that, for the moment, was hanging against his neck. Slung at his side was a big ratskin basket containing a deadly profusion of poison gas bombs.

Skowl turned back to Teekritt. ‘Prepare-ready box-casket,’ he snarled, pointing a claw into the darkness. ‘Wait-watch for Skowl return.’ The inventor lost his arrogant confidence and dipped his head in a show of obedience. Licking his fangs, Teekritt scurried off into the shadows. Skowl watched him go, then turned to Ragbrat and gestured towards the concealed door that linked the skaven tunnels with the halls of the humans. ‘Sneak-slink behind man-things. After priest-thing strike bell, Ragbrat give-send signal. Then Brakkik scare-scatter. Haak kill all-every brave-stupid man-things.’ The marksrat and his companions hurried away to carry out their orders.

‘Fylch, Krick, follow-stay,’ Skowl announced. The warlock engineer mounted the steps leading up to the alcove.

Fylch started to follow, but a cuff from Krick sent him sprawling. The black-furred brute gave him a toothy grin as he stalked past. It was more than just a reminder of where Fylch stood in the pecking order. It was a promise that there would be an accounting between them when it was all finished.

Fylch had to repress a titter of amusement as he followed Krick. The verminous thug had no idea who it was he was dealing with if he thought he’d have a chance to settle scores.

Fylch was back in the hidden alcove above the cult temple. The tiny space was even more cramped now that Skowl and Krick were with him. He was thankful that the others were down below, creeping about the back of the temple. Trying to stuff six ratmen into the place wouldn’t have left enough room to swing a dead mouse.

‘Fylch! Watch-spy! Speak-squeak all that happens.’ Skowl Scorchpaw gestured to the bat’s-eye scope. Krick lashed his tail in annoyance when the other skaven walked to the top of the alcove.

Fylch wondered if Krick would feel so jealous if he understood why Skowl had bestowed this ‘honour’ on him. The warlock engineer had a trepidation about using any device he hadn’t inspected beforehand. He had seen too many high-ranking skaven perish in unfortunate accidents – indeed had arranged several of them himself. With no time to extract the scope and examine it, he’d arrived at the pragmatic solution of letting Fylch take on the duty.

‘Man-things still sit-pray,’ Fylch reported as he gazed down at the cultists. The skull-masked priest was standing behind the altar, only now there was a bronze axe in his hands. Fylch knew it was just his imagination, but he fancied he could smell the blood caked onto the axe even through the heavy incense. The man-priest started to chant in a weird language that was unfamiliar to Fylch. It had a strange quality that he didn’t think was purely human, more like the snarl of wolves or hungry dogs.

Suddenly the priest swung around and gestured with the gore-caked axe, pointing it into the crowd. A cry of horror rose from one of the cultists. The worshippers to either side of him seized their companion and dragged him up with them as they stood. Fylch licked his fangs in grim anticipation as he watched the victim being led to the altar. ‘Sacrifice-meat is chained to altar-plate,’ he reported as the man was forced down onto the stone and bound by the shackles.

Now the man-priest reached down and tore open the front of the sacrifice’s robe, laying bare his chest. The gore-crusted axe came into play, but instead of hewing the man asunder, the priest merely brought the weapon’s edge to his victim’s body, scraping bloody furrows in his skin. Fylch repeated what he saw to Skowl.

‘Good,’ the warlock engineer hissed. ‘Soon they ring-strike bell.’

Fylch tried to control his glands when he heard Skowl speak. He knew what striking the bell would herald. Even so, he was compelled to keep watching the macabre tableau unfolding below.

The priest now turned from his victim and looked towards the dangling bell. With the man’s blood still dripping off the axe, the cult leader brought the weapon smacking against the metal. A dolorous note rumbled through the cavernous chamber. From where he watched, Fylch could feel the sound throbbing through his bones. There was a power within it that went far beyond simple noise. It was an intonation to shiver the very soul.

A gruesome change overtook the hall below. The illumination grew notably darker even though the flames rising from the torches and braziers had risen to twice their previous height. Fylch could feel a clammy chill emanating from the room, coursing up through the scope. His gaze was fixated on the altar. There was another figure there now, something that had not been there an instant before. It was taller than the priest and far more powerfully built than even the armoured warriors who guarded the hall.

The dark shape surged towards the altar, moving with a grotesque undulating motion. Fylch gnashed his fangs to stifle the squeak of fright he wanted to utter. Moving out from under the shadow of the statue’s arm, the daemon – for it could be nothing else – was revealed as a small simulacrum of the monstrous idol. Its flesh was slimy with fresh blood, its skin rippling as it moved. The eyes that glared from its hideous face were alight with a hellish fury, glowing with the kind of feverish intensity Fylch had seen only in warpsnuff addicts.

In stammering words, Fylch described what was happening to Skowl. Then the daemon swept to the man lashed to the altar and started to feed…

‘Fool-meat!’ Skowl growled as Fylch jerked away from the eyepiece. ‘Watch-tell! Hurry-scurry!’

Krick pounced on Fylch and forced him back to his post. The brute’s powerful arms were locked around his head, pressing his face against the eyepiece.

Down below, Fylch could see that the daemon had finished its meal. All that remained on the altar was a shambles of bone and shredded skin. Blood spilled from the gutters carved into the stone, filling the jars set beneath. The victim’s head was missing and as the daemon slithered back under the idol’s arm, Fylch could see the skull gripped in the beast’s jaws.

The bell was still ringing from the blow the priest had struck, but now the reverberations stopped. Awed silence held the chamber, the cultists watching in fearful adoration as the murderous daemon they had called up vanished with the last echo of the bell’s summons.

‘Daemon-thing leave-gone,’ Fylch told Skowl.

Skowl tittered with delight. ‘Plan-plot start now!’

Fylch could see the man-priest standing behind the altar again. He brandished the axe above his head with both hands and began leading the cultists in another bestial chant. Then, above the roar of the crowd, a sharp boom cracked across the chamber. The wolf-skull mask of the priest was shattered, crumbling to the floor in ragged fragments. The priest fell back onto the coiled limbs of the statue, his face obliterated by the warpstone bullet that had struck him.

The cultists fell silent, stunned by the grisly death Ragbrat’s shot had delivered from the back of the temple. Before they could gather their wits, cries of alarm sounded from the left flank of the congregation. Fire crackled against the wall, blazing away with ferocious violence. A second fire erupted from the right, soon to be followed by another and yet another.

Brakkik’s work, or rather that of his trained rats. Keeping out of sight, the ratmaster was blowing specially scented pellets into the chamber. The smell of each pellet was prepared to entice the rat trained to seek it out. Only unlike the treats used to teach them, those Brakkik now used would start a pyrotechnic reaction when consumed by the rats, turning the rodents into living firebombs. Fylch had to concede that the scruffy skaven was creating a splendid distraction with his pets.

Thrown into panic by the fires, confused by the murder of their leader, the cultists lost all cohesion. They scattered in frantic flight. Only a few were devoted enough to remember the bell. Led by an under-priest and accompanied by a few armoured guards, a small group removed the bell from its hook and hurried through the swelling smoke and fire to a little door at the back of the chamber.

‘Man-things take-fetch bell. Run-race through door.’ Fylch dropped away from the eyepiece the instant he felt Krick release him. One paw darted for the sword he wore, but Fylch resisted the urge to stab his oppressor. It would be too easy to gut the vermin where he stood. Besides, Skowl wouldn’t like it. Krick’s part in the plan was just starting. The vault where the cultists secured the bell was only a few hundred yards down the tunnel from the alcove and the black-furred brute would be needed to help carry it away.

Skowl bruxed his fangs in delight. ‘Yes-yes! Stupid-fool man-things! They do just what I want-need!’ He gestured to Fylch and Krick, then pointed at the steps. ‘Hurry-scurry! We find-fetch bell now!’

The three skaven scrambled back down the steps and into the tunnel. Fylch had lost count of how many times Skowl had forced them to practise this mad dash from the alcove, down the hidden tunnel to the secret door that opened into the cult’s vault. This time, of course, they made the run in earnest and that urgency lent him more speed than he thought he could muster. He reached the door easily ahead of the others. In the thrill of the moment, he pushed against the stone portal, but it resisted his efforts. He had to wait for Krick to add his brute strength to the effort before the stone swung aside and exposed the cult strongroom.

The vault was a long, narrow room with a low ceiling and a rough floor of unworked stone. The walls were cut into little niches wherein the mouldering remains of coffins and human bones gave off a musty smell. There were other smells, too, that assailed Fylch’s senses as Krick pushed him through the secret door. Blood was one. Evil was another, a brooding malice so potent that it conveyed itself to the skaven’s sharp nose as a rank, desolate odour. It took Fylch only a heartbeat to detect where the smell was strongest – a huge obsidian sarcophagus that loomed at the far end of the vault.

The sarcophagus, Fylch knew, was where the cult kept the daemon-bell when it wasn’t needed for their rituals. Arcane spells guarded the obsidian vessel and for more mundane purposes there were a series of complex locks that might have befuddled a duardin craftsman. Fylch was relieved to see the sarcophagus standing open. That meant they had beaten the humans to the vault and the bell hadn’t been sealed away. It also meant Fylch would be able to skip the most dangerous role he would have played in Skowl’s plan.

‘Thieves! Ratkin desecraters!’ The cry rang out through the vault. Fylch spun around to see the under-priest and his entourage entering through the vault’s door. Four cultists bore the daemon-bell between them, and he could see the fanatical outrage that twisted their faces when their leader shouted. The armoured guards, however, were of far more immediate concern. They didn’t simply glare at the skaven. They came charging towards Fylch with axes and swords. He glanced around for Skowl and Krick, but the other ratmen had ducked back inside the hidden passage.

Fylch cringed away from the guards as they rushed him. As the first swung at him with a bronze axe, the ratman whipped around, lashing out with his curved sword. Thinking the skaven cowed, the axeman was taken completely by surprise when Fylch’s blade slashed across his arm and tore into his shoulder. The guard cried out as his useless limb lost its hold on the axe and the weight of the weapon dragged down his good arm. For an instant the man was exposed and vulnerable. It was all the opportunity the swift ratman needed. In a blur of fur and steel, Fylch stabbed the point of his sword into the warrior’s throat. The man fell and thrashed on the floor while he choked on his own blood.

Fylch darted around as one of the other guards came at him with a sword. There was no question of parrying the man’s blows. In a contest between human and skaven, the advantage of strength usually belonged to the man-thing. Even a comparative brute like Krick was merely able to hold his own against a human warrior. But the skaven had their own advantages over their enemies. If Fylch could not match the guard’s strength, then the guard could not match his speed. While ducking around the warrior’s blade, the ratman lashed out with his forked tail. Like a scaly whip it cracked against the man’s leg, stinging the exposed skin of his thigh. The sudden and unexpected pain provided a moment of distraction, one that Fylch was quick to exploit. He dived in towards the guard, rolling across the floor and raking his sword across the man’s side as he passed. The guard screamed in agony, a great gout of blood spilling from where the serrated edge of the skaven blade had ripped just above his hip, between the sections of his bronze armour.

Fylch darted a glance at the other cultists. Krick had finally rushed out from the tunnel. One guard was down with his head caved in while the other was trying to fend off the attentions of the spiked maul with his axe. The under-priest was shouting for help while at the same time forcing the cultists carrying the bell towards the obsidian sarcophagus. Fylch hissed a curse on the damnable humans. If they should make it…

One hand clutching his bleeding wound, the guard Fylch had injured chopped at him with his blade. Again, the wily skaven ducked the sweep of the sword and struck out with his own weapon. He had the satisfaction of feeling flesh rip under the steel, and saw a pair of fingers go bouncing across the floor. His hand maimed, the warrior staggered back, trying to recover his momentum. Fylch didn’t give him the chance. Thrusting forwards, he stabbed his blade into the gap in his armour where pauldron joined cuirass. He felt bones crack under the blow and savoured the sharp tang of blood that sprayed from the man’s torn flesh. Darting back from a desperate but unfocused sweep of the guard’s sword, Fylch watched his foe crumple to the ground.

‘The cult-men!’ Skowl roared as he deigned to emerge from the tunnel. ‘Stop-slay!’

Skowl acted on his own words; holding forth his metal glove he pointed the fingers at the cultists. Green energy crackled about the glove, sparks flying from the generator and the reservoir. Then streamers of jade lightning went shivering across the vault. Fylch threw himself to the ground as one of the green bolts hissed past his ears. Others smashed into the roof and walls, blasting little showers of pebbles from the stone.

Some of Skowl’s erratic warp lightning seared into his intended targets. Anguished screams rose from the cultists as the green energy burned through them. Robes and hair burst into flames, flesh blackened and cracked as the humans were flash-boiled.

The immolated cultists fell, and as they fell the daemon-bell crashed to the floor. Again, the dolorous, shivering tone pulsed through the air and trembled through Fylch’s bones.

The under-priest, half-cooked by Skowl’s attack, lurched to his feet, his face ashen where it had not been burned, his eyes wide with terror. In a Herculean effort, he wrapped his arms around the bell and flung it into the sarcophagus. The lid slammed shut as the man collapsed beside it.

If the human had thought to save himself by locking away the bell, he was to be disappointed. Fylch could see the dark, monstrous shape that had suddenly manifested in the vault. He felt its ravenous, malevolent eyes sweep across him and the other skaven. The under-priest was closer to it, however, and it was the cultist it chose for its victim. In a rapid, undulating motion, the daemon surged over the prostrate priest. Fylch had thought the earlier ritual was ghastly, but now he was afforded a close-up view of the proceedings.

It was enough to gag a rat.

As before, once it had claimed its meal, the daemon evaporated with the same swiftness with which it had manifested. The only evidence of its advent was the gory litter it left behind.

Skowl was the first of the skaven to recover his wits once the daemon was gone. He glanced at his still glowing glove, then at the dead cultists, and finally at the sealed sarcophagus. His lips peeled back from his fangs and he lashed his tail angrily from side to side. Turning towards Fylch, he seized him and pulled him within inches of the exposed fangs.

‘Fool-meat! Traitor-meat! Why Fylch not stop-slay man-things?’ Skowl dumped Fylch to the floor and continued to glare at him. ‘Now Fylch will open bell-box! Quick-quick!’ He turned his head towards Krick, who was standing over the body of the last guard. ‘Fail-falter and I will feed your spleen to Krick!’ The proposition brought a grisly leer from the black-furred skaven.

‘Yes-yes, bold-wise Skowl.’ Fylch bobbed his head in an unctuous display. He didn’t dare tell the warlock engineer that it was his fault the cultists had dropped the bell and called the daemon back. A skaven quickly learned it wasn’t smart to point out the mistakes of superiors.

Muttering curses under his breath, Fylch approached the sarcophagus. He was careful to keep away from the mangled mess that had been the under-priest. Closer to the obsidian vessel, he could feel the crackle of the protective wards cast upon it. The lid of the sarcophagus had been cut into the semblance of a human skeleton – a grim touch that he didn’t appreciate under the circumstances. He wasn’t certain what the wards would do to a thief and he wanted to keep things that way.

Fylch rummaged about the pouches sewn inside his tunic. He discarded a ball of twine, some rock-hard cheese, an empty moth cocoon, three azurite beads, a lizard fang… Finally his paws closed around the object he wanted. It was a long, smelly item: a severed skaven hand that had been pickled and then coated in paraffin. Each finger was upright with a little wick pinned to the claw. The mummer he had bought it from called it a ‘paw of gory’ and claimed the magics invested into it would counteract any spell that tried to foil a thief. Fylch had used it before, as two singed fingers attested, but never to steal anything that he was absolutely certain had some kind of arcane protection.

‘Hurry-scurry! Quick-quick!’ Skowl snapped. The warlock engineer didn’t have much patience and what he did possess was wearing thin.

Gnashing his fangs and clenching his glands, Fylch set the paw of gory down on the floor. From another pocket he brought a duardin tinderbox and used it to light one of the wicks. He started to put it away, then reflected on the eerie sensation of the arcane wards. There was power here that might need more to oppose it. He hastily lit the other fingers so that all five were flickering with an ugly blue glow. Almost at once, he felt the uncanny crackle of the wards dissipate. As long as the wax-coated fingers burned, the arcane wards would be rendered impotent.

Fylch glanced back at Skowl and Krick, then swiftly set to work. There was no need to rummage around to find the intricate lock picks he carried. He kept them secure on his belt where they would always be in easy reach if he needed to get out of a tight spot quickly. Staring at the morbid sarcophagus, Fylch felt this was about as dangerous a place as he had ever been in.

With the paw of gory sputtering away, Fylch approached the mechanism the cult used to secure their relic. Previous inspection of it had convinced him it was going to be a tough bone to crack. Coupled with the wards, it was the reason he had persuaded Skowl that they should intercept the bell rather than try to steal it from the vault. Besides, the warlock engineer wanted to make sure the bell really summoned daemons before going through with the scheme.

Fylch now attacked the problem of the devilish locks. A pick gripped in each paw, two more clutched in the coils of his bifurcated tail, and a fifth clamped between his fangs, he set to work. Carefully, with the exacting caution only someone raised in the paranoid society of skaven could master, he manipulated the tumblers and teeth. There was a system to the mechanisms, forcing each to be opened in sequence before the whole would be overcome. Fylch experienced moments of panic as picks threatened to snap under the pressure of the teeth, and tumblers refused to budge. So intent was he on his task that he even ignored the demands and threats Skowl shouted at him. The locks would be finished when they were finished. Not before.

There was only one thing that could urge Fylch to reckless haste, and a chance glance back at the paw of gory provided it. Two of the fingers were already burned down to mere nubs while the others had less than half their length to go! Once they were all extinguished, whatever dread spell guarded the sarcophagus would be unleashed.

Fylch pried and prodded the locks with all five picks, juggling and jostling with abandon. Unable to think about what he was doing, he fell back to instinct and the innate sense of long experience. First one, then another of the locks sprang open. Soon it was Fylch’s turn to demand haste.

‘Fetch-take bell! Fast-quick!’ He swung open the lid of the vessel, exposing the sinister bell.

Skowl now turned his impatient ire on Krick. ‘Get-fetch! Help loyal-clever Fylch!’ he snarled at the brute. Pointing the glowing warp-glove towards the skaven motivated him to be quick.

Fylch helped Krick lift the bell away from the sarcophagus, trying to ensure that the clapper didn’t strike the sides. ‘Quick-quick,’ he hissed to the black-furred killer. He was watching the paw of gory burning down to its last knuckle. When it went out, the arcane wards would return.

‘Lift-carry, tick-sniffer,’ Krick cursed as he hefted the bell. Together the two ratmen managed to carry it away from the sarcophagus. Fylch felt the magical crackle of the restored wards as they scurried away. He was still happy not knowing what the spell would do to a thief.

‘Rest later,’ Skowl told them as they lugged the bell towards the tunnel. ‘We find-seek Teekritt. Use his bell-box to take-leave cult-nest.’

Fylch and Krick both bobbed their heads in agreement. Right now, anything that let them set down the heavy bell sounded like a good idea. It seemed to grow heavier with each step they took, but knowing what would happen if they dropped it made them persist.

It wasn’t particularly reassuring to Fylch to see Skowl keeping his distance as they trudged down the tunnels. If anything did happen, the warlock engineer was making sure it didn’t happen to him.

Fylch’s arms felt as though they were on fire by the time he and Krick finally reached the spot where Teekritt was waiting for them. Krick gave a happy squeak when he saw the cart and the big metal casket Teekritt had prepared to receive the bell. Fylch winced when he saw the ramshackle conveyance. It looked as if it would collapse under the bell’s weight when they loaded it. Skowl had been so meticulous in all his plotting and scheming, but this minor detail appeared to have escaped his devious cunning.

‘No-not drop-trip now!’ Fylch warned the black skaven.

Krick bared his fangs. If his hands weren’t around the bottom of the bell, he might have put them around Fylch’s neck. ‘If weasel-licking Fylch would hold-carry his end!’ he growled.

Teekritt squeaked in horror when the two skaven took a final stumble towards the cart. The clapper swayed perilously close to the side of the bell. All three of the ratmen froze and didn’t twitch so much as a whisker. Scrambling under the bell, Teekritt reached up and held the clapper still. Gesturing with his free paw he motioned the others forwards, keeping the bell silent while they pushed it onto the cart.

Fylch let out a deep breath once the bell was in place. ‘Good-glad to put down bell.’

Krick grimaced at the rickety cart Teekritt had brought. A spurt of fear musk wafted into the air. ‘Need better-good way to carry-take bell,’ he complained. He turned and looked at Skowl as the warlock engineer approached, finally deigning to join the others now that danger was no longer imminent. ‘Cart make bell shake-ring.’

Skowl bruxed his fangs and gave Krick a sharp look. ‘I already plan-plot. I need-want Krick carry bell. Now I need-want Krick keep bell quiet.’

Krick’s ears were folded back in puzzlement as he heard Skowl speak. He still had that confused look when Fylch drove his sword into the ratman’s back. Krick spun around, fangs bared, but Fylch’s blow had been delivered with the murderous skill of an assassin. Death silenced Krick’s fury before he could even raise a claw to his killer.

Skowl looked away from the corpse to Teekritt. ‘Get to work,’ he told the tinker-rat.

Teekritt scurried underneath the cart and dragged out a wooden skinning rack. In short order he had Krick’s body stretched out and was peeling away the ratman’s woolly hide with a flensing knife.

‘Krick will muffle-quiet the bell,’ Skowl declared. ‘Let sleeping daemons sleep.’ He turned to Fylch. ‘Grey Seer Nezslik pay much-much for magic bell, but not enough for Krick-share.’

Fylch bobbed his head in agreement, while trying to keep any sign of agitation from his posture. ‘Big-share better than little-share,’ he said.

Skowl displayed his fangs in a gruesome grin. ‘True-squeak,’ he agreed. Before he could continue, the sound of something running down the tunnel brought all three skaven spinning around. Their agitation relaxed slightly when they saw that it was only Brakkik returning to join them. The ratmaster looked even more ragged than before, breathing heavily and without his entourage of trained rodents scurrying about his feet.

‘Where are Haak and Ragbrat?’ Skowl wanted to know.

Brakkik dipped his head in apology to the warlock engineer. ‘Dead-die, ‘ he reported, though there wasn’t any regret in his tone. ‘Ragbrat shoot-kill man-priest, then Brakkik’s rats confuse-scare cult-things. Some cult-things see-find skaven. Chase-hunt! Ragbrat try to shoot-kill but jezzail-gun explode!’ Brakkik made a violent gesture with his hand. ‘Haak use Poison Wind globes to gas-kill, but poison get into mask!’

‘Then they are all dead,’ Skowl stated. He gave Fylch a knowing look.

Fylch fumbled among his pockets until he found the squirming bundle he wanted. He pulled out the rat, its back branded with the number four. A flick of his claws broke the tethers that bound its legs and jaws. He held the animal towards Brakkik. ‘Lose-drop,’ he said. ‘Fylch find-save.’

As Fylch released the rat it went scampering straight for Brakkik. The ratmaster squeaked in horror, all too aware of what kind of treachery was afoot. He frantically patted his clothes, trying to find the scented treat that was drawing the number four rat to him. It was a futile effort, Fylch had hidden it with the same dexterity that had allowed him to steal it in the first place. Brakkik realised this and turned to flee down the tunnel, but even as he did, the rat reached him. It scurried up his back and down the neck of his coat. An instant later there was a hideous scream and a bright plume of fire as the vermin found its deadly treat and the resulting conflagration consumed its master.

‘Then there were three,’ Skowl stated. ‘Clever-quick Fylch. Now we split all their shares.’

Fylch bobbed his head in agreement. Skowl watched as he rummaged in one of his pockets and brought out the screw he had removed from Ragbrat’s gun and the valve that had previously been attached to Haak’s respirator. ‘Skowl not need-want more?’ Fylch asked, backing away from the warlock engineer.

‘I did not need-want Brakkik and others,’ Skowl said. ‘They not-no useful. Clever-loyal Fylch is useful.’ He looked aside to Teekritt as the tinker-rat was stuffing Krick’s hide inside the bell to muffle its clapper. ‘Teekritt clever-loyal too,’ he added. ‘Both clever-loyal skaven put bell inside bell-box now.’

Fylch scrambled up onto the cart beside Teekritt and helped the tinker-rat push the bell into the metal casket. Once it was inside, the lid was shut and Teekritt locked the casket with a small brass key.

Skowl held out his hand, waiting for Teekritt to give him the key. Fylch grabbed the tinker-rat and kept him from dropping down to join the warlock engineer. ‘Wait-listen,’ he hissed at Teekritt. ‘Maybe share-three is too much for Skowl. Maybe share-twice is too much!’

‘Doubt-question Skowl?’ Teekritt tried to keep his voice level, his posture authoritative but not unduly threatening. His red eyes fixed on Fylch. ‘Honest-clever Fylch learn-know Skowl is good-true. Pay much-much when Clan Skryre come to take-carry bell.’

Teekritt glanced at his weird timepiece. ‘Yes-yes, Clan Skryre come soon-now.’

Skowl stroked his whiskers and bruxed his fangs. ‘Pay Fylch much-much.’

‘Same-like way Ragbrat and Haak and Brakkik and Krick pay much-much?’ Fylch asked.

Skowl bared his fangs. He was tired of this slinking thief’s impertinence. It didn’t matter that Fylch was right and he’d be disposed of just like the others. That was simply what happened to underlings who were no longer useful.

‘Traitor-Fylch!’ Skowl roared. He raised his warp-glove, but then his eyes narrowed with vicious cunning. The bell was too close to risk using warp lightning. He glanced at Teekritt and saw the confusion in the half-crazed tinker-rat’s eyes. There, at least, was an underling who was still useful. ‘Teekritt! Kill-slay traitor-meat!’

The tinker-rat rounded on Fylch, but he was ready for him. Fylch’s claws raked across Teekritt’s face, then he dived against his foe and sent them both crashing down from the cart. The two skaven wrestled on the ground for a moment, then Fylch broke away and fled to the far side of the cart.

Skowl lifted his gloved hand, but again stayed himself because of the bell. His gaze drifted down to Teekritt. The tinker-rat didn’t have the same shield to protect him. In a blast of green energy, Skowl immolated the hunchbacked ratman. He leaned over the carcass and plucked the key from the charred claws.

‘Only Fylch and Skowl now!’ the warlock engineer snarled. He glared at the cart with his red eyes. ‘Come out and die quick!’

For answer, an object came whistling out from the darkness. Skowl leapt back as it struck him. He expected to feel a stabbing pain; instead he felt an unpleasant warmth at his side. He stared down at the warp generator for his glove. A throwing star, similar to those employed by Clan Eshin, was buried in the device, causing it to spit sparks and green flame.

Frantically Skowl ripped away the straps that fastened the generator to his side. He pulled away the warp-glove and threw the whole apparatus far into the tunnel. He spun around and threw himself to the floor as the malfunctioning device exploded and sent metal shrapnel and bits of refined warpstone flying.

The explosion was still ringing in his ears when Skowl regained his feet. He glared at the darkness, trying to spot or scent Fylch. When he couldn’t find the coward, a sneer of contempt curled his tail. Let the little thief run; once Skowl collected from the grey seer there wasn’t anywhere in Skavendom Fylch could hide from him.

Skowl picked up Krick’s maul and stood guard over the cart and the bell-box. He would not need to wait long. The conveyance he had arranged would be here soon to retrieve both himself and his prize.

Fylch watched from the shadows as the huge Clan Skryre digging machine burrowed its way into the tunnel. The crew helped Skowl aboard, then loaded the bell-box as well. Fylch held his breath while they carried the casket inside, but nothing happened. Then the digging machine was moving again, its huge drill gnawing away at the opposite wall while its wheels ground against the floor. In only a few moments, the huge machine was gone from sight.

Fylch dropped the woolly hide he had removed from the daemon-bell. He didn’t need it any more. He also didn’t need the key he had stolen from Teekritt. It was as useless to him now as the one he had replaced it with and which Skowl had taken with him. While the warlock engineer was getting rid of his warp generator, Fylch had used the real key to open the box and remove the muffling hide.

He crept down the tunnel to where the digging machine had gone. Fylch strained his ears in hope he would hear the faint tolling of a bell. He lashed his tail in amusement when he imagined the daemon appearing inside the machine to eat the crew. Even more amusing was the idea of Skowl trying to open the bell-box with the wrong key.

Grey Seer Nezslik would have to forget about adding this relic to his grisly collection. Skowl Scorchpaw had made a few too many enemies among his fellow warlock engineers. Enemies who had paid Fylch quite well to dispose of him in a manner that couldn’t be traced back to them.

The problem Fylch had now was to make sure his employers paid him with money in his paw instead of a knife in his back. But that was an almost daily ordeal for any enterprising skaven. The fine balance between caution and ambition.

About the Author

C L Werner’s Black Library credits include the Age of Sigmar novels Overlords of the Iron Dragon and The Tainted Heart, the novella ‘Scion of the Storm’ in Hammers of Sigmar, the Warhammer novels Deathblade, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang and Brunner the Bounty Hunter, the Thanquol and Boneripper series and Time of Legends: The Black Plague series. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the Space Marine Battles novel The Siege of Castellax. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer worlds.

An extract from Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods.

I arced over the gurgling water like a zephyrgryph with his claws unfurled. The air was ice, the sky a weird shade of green, amber leaking into the night with the dawn. My face was the painful side of numb as my arms and legs paddled the thin air. All I could hear from beneath me was the creak of ice, the rush of the river and the wind slipping through my fingers. I started to laugh, my mouth thus conveniently wide for a roar of triumph as my boots slammed into the frozen slush of the Nevermarsh. Cracks spread through the frost-veined mud, but it was already hard as rock and did not break.

Just as well – sinking to my greaves in mud or getting into a tug-of-war for my boot was hardly the look I had been going for.

‘Yes!’

The cry exploded from my chest and I spun around with my fists in the air.

‘Let it be known that Hamilcar Bear-Eater is first across every river, first into every charge, first unto every blade!’ I bellowed.

Broudiccan’s slow handclap wasn’t quite the enthusiastic reaction that I felt the feat deserved. My second-in-command cut an imposing figure on the other side of the water, a fortress of a man in the thrice-blessed maroon and gold of the Astral Templars. His Mask Impassive, the grim facial covering of the Stormcast Eternals, was anything but; a gouge from a beast’s claw had cloven the stoic purple mask in two, leaving a disdainful aspect which suited his taciturnity to the ground.

If he thought he could leap twenty feet across ice-cold rapids then I would have very much liked to see him try.

‘Bravo, Lord Hamilcar,’ Frankos shouted through cupped hands, separated from the burly Decimator by the haggard width of a tree. ‘Congratulations on being the first of Sigmar’s Stormhosts to set foot in the Nevermarsh.’

Distinctions of age and experience counted for little within a company of immortals, but the Knight-Heraldor had always been possessed of a youthful effervescence that made me feel old. I nodded my thanks, pausing to glare at my second.

‘May the Heraldor Temples always proclaim it so,’ I bellowed back.

‘They shall, my lord,’ he cried with gusto. ‘They shall.’

Frankos was also quite unique amongst my warrior chamber in taking everything I said in deadly earnest. He continues to do so, in fact, even after the later reversal in our fortunes.

The sigmarite mountain called Broudiccan rumbled as the giant sighed.

His masked gaze slipped towards the frothing water.

Feral-looking birds with wicked red eyes twittered back and forth between the two banks. Their beaks were perfectly made for the stripping of flesh, the cracking of bone, and I suspected they could even chew the cure right off a man’s armour. Generally, the birds were happy enough scavenging for fish and insects amongst the densely tangled buttress roots that clawed out of the riverbank and into the water, but the Freeguild army I was leading through the Gorwood might as well have been one giant victuallers’ caravan for all they were concerned. More than one poor soldier had already lost a finger or an eye. Broudiccan swatted at one, which knew better than to test its toothed beak on sigmarite and flapped out of reach to shrill from the leafless canopy.

‘I’ll wait for the bridge,’ he grumbled, after a while.

I barely heard him over the white roar of the water, but I am a Stormcast Eternal, and my ears are sharp enough.

‘I wonder about you sometimes,’ I laughed. ‘Are you a plodding Knight-Excelsior, summoned to my warrior chamber in error?’

Broudiccan shrugged. ‘Even Sigmar can make mistakes. The pain of reforging is proof enough of this.’

‘Ha! Indeed. I remember my last day as a mortal, when I feasted with Him and ten thousand warriors in the Heldenhall.’ The memories of my mortal life were dimmer back then than they are now, jumbled like a stained glass window that had been broken and thrown back together, most of the pieces still missing, but this I remembered. ‘He has a delicate stomach. For a god.’

Frankos frowned at nothing. ‘I do not remember my final night.’

‘Parts of mine are a little blurry also. It was that aelf nectar wine. I swear there was nothing like it where–’

A racket worthy of Gorkamorka drowned me out as the rest of the army made their way through the trees.

I looked past the two Astral Templars, my sentence unfinished.

About nineteen hundred soldiers, two of the five Freeguild regiments of the Seven Words, had followed me into the Gorwood. Their baggage train and camp followers amounted to about the same again although I generally deferred the small details to Frankos and the mortal generals themselves. The fifty warriors of my Chamber, the Bear-Eaters, were strung out over several leagues of woodland. The trees that grew here at the boundary of the Low Gorwood were twisted runts compared to the predatory bowers that canopied the high slopes of the Gorkomon, but no less deadly. For all my efforts, the Gorwood was – and would always be – a wild place, home to as many hungry creatures as it had been when the Beastlord Uxor Untamed had ruled these heights. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The men and women that emerged wore a collage of colours – torn, faded, chewed on – over armour of tough leather and the occasional skin. There were a few wooden or leather shields, but most carried two-handed spears, javelins or hunting bows. Despite the cold and the predations of the forest they were still laughing – Ghurites all of them, none tougher – whistling catcalls at those behind and pointing at me on the other side of the river.

Coming in behind the vanguard was a trio of ogors in tattered surcoats, hauling a bridge of coppery lumber behind them. Their faces were snarled with effort, muscles standing like boulders from a mountainside. A few of the soldiers dropped their gear to run in and help push, the ogors hissing something that probably wasn’t all that complimentary through their teeth.

I put my hands on my hips and watched them, my heart ready to burst with pride.

I loved them all.

Only slightly less than they loved me.

‘Who is first upon the Nevermarsh?’ I called out to them, thumping my breastplate. ‘He who waits upon no man, beast nor creature of Ruin.’ I thrust my gauntleted fists in the air, wringing the musty stink of bear from my cloak.

‘Hamilcar!’

Cheers rippled through the treeline. The ogors took the opportunity to draw up and wipe the sweat from their sledgehammer-like brows, before readjusting the draw-chains wrapped round their fists.

I made a grand show of pulling off my gauntlets, rubbing my hands together and blowing into them, despite the fact I have little feeling for the cold. I am a champion of Heaven, and to be of Heaven is to be as cold as starlight. And yet it means something to the common soldier to see his hardships shared. Most Stormcast Eternals, broken from humanity in order to be elevated to that space beyond, would never even have considered such a gesture. There are better warriors than I in Sigmar’s Stormhosts. I’ll not name them, and I’ll only deny saying it should it get back to them. Let’s just say I have all the fingers I need to count them. But if you think that any of them can get as much as I can from a mortal man, then I would say you have passed too many times over the Anvil of Apotheosis, my friend.

‘The winter is cold,’ I yelled. ‘The Ghurlands are dangerous. But you know cold, you know danger. Every man and woman here is a veteran of the Gorwood. You have fought beside me against beastman and skaven and orruk, yet here you all are with me still. Why?’ My breath shrouded my tattooed fist in fog. ‘Because Hamilcar Bear-Eater is your brother and your champion, ahead of you every step of the way!’

‘Hamilcar!’

The cry came back louder now, men still spilling out of the forest to hear my words.

I unhooked the halberd from its bracket across my back. The black wood of the haft scraped over my armour as I drew it. The head sang as it came free. The blade was sigmarite, forged by the first of the Six Smiths under the Auroral Tempest, imbuing the metal with the storm’s vicious power. Bands of amber and violet rippled through the blade as I turned it and held it aloft. A pair of predator birds that I had managed to trap and kill myself dangled from the head on chains. Runes of my own inscription decorated the haft. They imparted no power I know of, and I had no idea from which ice hole of my memory they emerged, only that in those days you could not leave me with a flat surface and a knife and not return to find the former filled with the strange pictograms.

I had always assumed them to be a facet of my lost life as a mortal, which would of course prove to be correct, though I never gave it much thought at the time.

‘The Nevermarsh is another challenge again. No army of Sigmar has ever crossed its border, and yet…’ I spread my arms to indicate the river running across me. The soldiers chuckled, a few of them still shouting my name. A cloaked and helmeted veteran in a glittery cuirass of leather and glass and a rash of insect bites on his browned face choked with laughter. Even I didn’t think my remark was that amusing, but I acknowledged the old-timer with the point of my halberd. I recognised him from some battle or other, and I always liked to give the impression of familiarity with every woman or man who bore the Twin-Tailed Comet in my name.

‘This is where our enemies seek to hide from us, so this is where we hound them. We will run them to the ground, my friends. We will kill them, we will butcher them, and we will feed their bloody carcasses to the carniferns of the Gorwood!’

The bank erupted with a mighty cheer.

‘For Sigmar!’

‘Sigmar!’

‘For the God-King!’

My voice was the coming of thunder. I held the final syllable until my throat was hoarse and my body shook with passion.

I rehoused my halberd, leaving my fist raised in salute.

The men would all be warm now. If my Vanguards were right about the position of the hole that our enemy had found to hide in, and they generally were, then I expected the fire I had put in the soldiers’ bellies to last them until it was needed.

‘A good speech, lord,’ Frankos shouted to me.

I could almost sense Broudiccan’s eyes rolling.

‘Go and aid with the bridge,’ I told the Heraldor. ‘You’re as strong as any ogor, brother.’ One hand on the pommel of his broadsword, Frankos bowed low, his white crest bobbing in the frozen muck. I called after him as he departed. ‘Be sure that it’s good and flat. I would hate for Broudiccan to fall off.’

I chuckled to myself, Broudiccan still wearing that disdainful look of his.

Now ordinarily, these sullen spells were precisely the reason I chose the Paladin for my second. The long silences gave me more room to talk, but a man can only bear so much.

‘Spit it out, brother,’ I barked.

‘It is nothing.’

‘With you, it’s never nothing.’

The big Paladin grumbled. ‘You are like a boy on his first hunt, lord.’

I smiled wistfully. ‘You remember your first hunt?’

‘No.’

‘Nor I mine.’ I cocked a grin as though he had just made my point for me. ‘Every time is the first now. The realms are so vast, the enemy so numerous. It is always new.’

‘You are a Lord-Castellant, not an Azyros or a Venator to go seeking out new dangers.’

I blew out through my lips. ‘The best defence…’ Broudiccan’s eyes narrowed reproachfully, and I motioned towards the Freeguild further uphill, dragging the bridge towards us with renewed vigour. ‘They will work faster knowing I’m here on the far side. I don’t forget my calling, brother.’

Frankos had joined the labourers as I spoke, jostling in between the ogors and taking up some of the chain to help pull.

‘He is a bad influence upon you,’ said Broudiccan.

I laughed at that. ‘I suspect most would say it was the other way around.’

‘I have known Frankos longer than you. He is perfectly incorruptible. You, on the other hand, will do anything for an audience.’

I frowned across the water, but Broudiccan had nothing more to add. Frankly, I should have been astonished to have got as many words out of him as I had, but I was justifiably distracted by what happened next.

Lightning struck earth a few feet from where I was standing.

Not an actual lightning bolt, of course. Deliverance from the Celestial Stair remained as possible as it ever had been during the Realmgate Wars, but it had become rarer in those days as Sigmar’s wars spread his attention thinner. Azyrite energies crackled and burst as the Prosecutor furled his wings then stood. His armour was the black of freshly dug soil, richer in gold even than my own, and embellished with images and inscriptions as one would a tombstone. It put me in mind of the mortis armour worn by Xeros Stormcloud, my Lord-Relictor, who had earned his war name for the black mood that followed him wheresoever he chose to darken with his tread. Or so I chose to believe, and tell all who ask.

Despite having just risen, the Prosecutor dropped again to one knee. ‘Lord-Castellant, I bear an urgent missive from my lord, Akturus.’ His delivery smacked of some ritual phrasing, the effect only slightly ruined by the breathlessness that came with a long flight from the Seven Words. He presented a tightly furled scroll, sealed with a flickering Azyrite rune.

The scroll fizzled under my nose.

Now, it has never been any secret that I find the written word disturbing. Trapping a man’s words and thoughts, his soul even, on parchment or tablet still seems to me like witchcraft and I avoid it where I can.

An awkward second passed between us in which neither moved or spoke.

‘Urgent was Akturus’ word, lord,’ said the Prosecutor, the formality of his address slipping. ‘Not mine.’

I sighed.

If in doubt, bluff it out.

‘Read it to me as we go.’ I turned my back, picked a direction from the frostbitten scabgrass and sand-coloured rushes of the Nevermarsh in what I was sure was an authoritative manner and started walking.

‘Yes, lord.’

The sounds of hammering and sawing and the strains of an ogor working song faded quickly as I strode into the marsh, swallowed by the chirp of predatory birds and biting insects. I idly swatted at a few. Largely out of habit. Most things in Ghur would try to eat you one way or another, but there wasn’t much out there that would willingly make a meal out of the storm-fused flesh and blessed sigmarite of a Stormcast Eternal.

The realm’s erratic sun was just pushing over the horizon, kissing every leaf and frond with amber lips. It was beautiful. From behind me, there came a faint crack as the Prosecutor broke the lightning seal and unrolled the scroll.

‘Brother Castellant,’ he read aloud. ‘Praise Sigmar, for he has noted your abrupt absence and seen fit to reinforce the Seven Words until your prompt return. Lord-Veritant Vikaeus Creed did arrive this morn at the head of the Drakwards, Exemplar Chamber of the Knights Merciless, to–’

I grumbled under my breath, missing whatever it was that the Prosecutor said next.

Vikaeus and I had what you could call a history.

She thought me foolhardy and arrogant. Actually, she still does, and nor is she exactly wrong. Foolishness and arrogance are two of my finest qualities, virtues to which too few amongst the Stormhosts can lay claim. I, for my part, have always been underwhelmed by the Lord-Veritant’s much vaunted gift for prophecy. While it is true that she accurately prophesied the coming of the White Pox to the Valdenmoor, and foretold of Skulla Gashamna’s ascension to daemonhood months before Lord-Ordinator Vorrus Starstrike read it in the stars, her warnings of my imminent self-inflicted demise had thus far all come to naught.

‘Still waiting for that vermintide she foresaw swallowing the Seven Words, I imagine,’ I said.

‘The Lord-Castellant did not impart that detail, lord.’

‘I bet he didn’t. Did he impart anything else?’

‘Yes, lord. He asked me to tell you that he prays for your swift return, and to remind you that the slight raised against his honour still stands.’

I said nothing to that.

Akturus Ironheel commanded a warrior chamber known as the Imperishables, a force numbering some four hundred souls. As a Lord-Castellant, we were equivalent in rank, but utterly dissimilar in character. The Anvils of the Heldenhammer, the Stormhost to which the Imperishables belonged, were a force of black repute, assembled from the heroes of empires long-dead and hammered into being while the Mallus turned under a darksome phase.

Or so their lords-relictor claim, and good luck to them, for no one knows better the power of a fearsome legend than I.

‘It was meant in jest,’ I said. ‘He enjoys it.’

‘He has already prepared the ring for ritual combat, lord. All of the Seven Words are eager for your return.’ It could just have been me, but I was certain I heard a smirk in the winged warrior’s voice.

Akturus might have preferred sitting in a castle to taking one, and despised the untamed Ghurlands as much as I hated being bottled up in the Seven Words, but he was the most vicious and underhanded fighter I have ever had the misfortune to cross in all my centuries of war. I swear, he knew the weaknesses of aegis armour and the pressure points of a Stormcast Eternal’s body the way a Lord-Castellant should know bricks and mortar.

And he was touchy about the honour of his war name, as I had recently learned.

‘Not nearly as eager as I am,’ I said, though I would have rather challenged the entire Drakwards Exemplar Chamber than entertain Akturus in the ring. If there’s one thing people admire more than a victor, it’s a bold loser, and being batted around the Seven Words by a Dracoth or two would at least be a moral triumph of sorts.

The Prosecutor chuckled, which I took as more comradely than mocking. It was easy to forget sometimes that the Imperishables were as human beneath their armour as I.

I sighed. I supposed that my reputation could afford to suffer a knock or two, taken in good spirits.

Suddenly, I stopped walking, holding up my hand as I stared into the endless marsh. It was called the Nevermarsh for a reason.

‘The thought occurs. I have no idea where I’m going.’

The Prosecutor gestured back the way we had come. ‘This way, lord. I am not the only bringer of news.’

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Inferno! Volume 2 in Great Britain in 2019.
This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

No Honour Among Vermin © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. No Honour Among Vermin, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-78999-694-4

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.