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Shriekstone - Evan Dicken

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Gloomspite’

A Black Library Publication

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Shriekstone

Evan Dicken

‘Oi! Tell the Loonking, you gits skulking by,
That here, rotting in the gloom, we lie.’

– Author Unknown (Wilvar Bowrisson translation)

‘Grimnir will avenge me.’ The fyreslayer died laughing, wheezing through a grin gone wet and crimson as Ratgob worked his moonslicer deeper into the stunty’s miserable guts.

The loonboss scowled down at the red-bearded corpse. In his reign as High Creeper of Shriekstone he’d gutted plenty of duardin – heard everything from screams to death oaths.

Never laughter, though.

With a grunt, Ratgob tugged his moonslicer free and scuttled over to watch the slaughter.

His lads were doing the Bad Moon’s work. Mobs of black-robed grots surrounded the surviving fyreslayers, poking with rusty blades as the stunties bellowed in their ugly, hard-edged tongue. Ratgob had spied the nasty brutes earlier in the evening, climbing the switchback that led to Shriekstone’s corroded gates. The fyreslayers had been careful, but the mountain had eyes. Ratgob caught the fools in a double ambush, letting them slaughter a mob of malingerers while he crept from one of the many secret passages that honeycombed Shriekstone.

The thought made the loonboss smile – no one out-creeped the High Creeper.

‘Spook! Spook!’ The call went up, and Ratgob’s glee curdled as the shaman was borne forward by staggering slaves. Festooned with bells and clacking bones, Vishuz Spookfinger perched precariously upon the skull of a giant cave squig, jabbering and howling. The lads parted before him, shrieking as they crawled over one another in their hurry to escape the shaman’s ire.

Unarmed and bloodied, the last stunty struggled to its feet to glare up at Spookfinger.

‘Stab ’im!’ The shaman crooked a knobby hand at the fyreslayer. ‘Saw off his filthy beard!’

One of Spookfinger’s loons charged from the mob, mouth foaming with madcap as he raised his notched spear.

Ratgob’s moonslicer took the lad’s head clean off.

‘You ain’t the Creeper.’ Ratgob stepped from the gloom. ‘I say who gets shanked and who don’t.’

For a moment, Ratgob thought the shaman would leap from the skull and rip him apart. The air between them hung thick as the spore fields in the lower vaults of Shriekstone.

At last, the shaman gave a mocking bow. ‘You’re da boss.’

Ratgob regarded him through narrowed eyes. Give a git a big skull and he starts getting big ideas. Wouldn’t be long, now. When the time came, Ratgob only hoped Spookfinger tried something more original than a knife in the back.

The loonboss turned back to the surviving stunty. ‘Why you creeping ’round my mountain?’

‘You speak our tongue?’ The fyreslayer’s face twisted into a look of disgust.

Ratgob shrugged. ‘How else am I gonna boss my slaves ’round?’

The stunty looked like it was about to get surly, so Ratgob set it straight with a good poke. Once the worst of the bleeding had stopped, the loonboss asked his question again.

‘Grobi filth, we shall stomp your miserable bones to powder.’ The fyreslayer gave a wracking cough, spattering his beard with dark blood. ‘By Grimnir’s fist, the ur-gold of Lachad shall be ours again!’

‘Lachad?’ Ratgob ran his tongue across his jagged teeth. ‘Never ’eard of it.’

‘We stand in the Magmahold’s very shadow.’ The stunty gestured at Shriekstone’s summit. ‘Foolish skaz, flee back to your wretched holes. Runefather Thunas-Grimnir the Unflinching has summoned the Lachad Lodge. Our Lofnir brothers stand with us. A dozen fyrds have sworn vengeance before the Oathflame.’

Ratgob scratched his ear. ‘Y’wot?’

‘A host the likes of which Ghur has not seen in an age!’ The runes embedded in the stunty’s miserable hide shone as it jabbered at the surrounding mob. ‘We will come in our thousands, our tens of thousands. There will be no place to hide, no hole safe from our axes. Flee! Before the Lachad Lodge crushes–’

‘Enough of dat.’ Ratgob dragged his moonslicer across the stunty’s throat. Grinning, the loonboss spun on his heel, arms spread wide. ‘All right, lads, let’s get this lot dressed for dinner.’

Although the gits set to with a will, Ratgob could not help but notice the mutters and sideways glances. It was a safe bet none of them understood the stunty’s words, but all the shouting had them spooked.

To be fair, it had spooked Ratgob, too.

He glanced at the sky, empty but for a few racing clouds. Stars moved against the flat black as the beastly constellations of Ghur fought their endless, nightly battles. Still, he could feel it out there, like an itch at the base of his skull, a jabbering buzz so faint Ratgob couldn’t be sure if he had imagined it.

Some bosses claimed to feel the touch of the Clammy Hand, the buzz rising to a scream as the Bad Moon spoke to them. Surely it would have something to say about the stunty warhost stumping towards Shriekstone.

Ratgob cocked his head. Nothing.

‘Yer done for.’

‘Wuzzat?’ Ratgob spun, moonslicer coming up. Spookfinger had hopped down from his squig skull to creep closer while the loonboss was thinking.

‘Nuffin’, boss.’ Spookfinger raised his hands. Face-to-face, the shaman was just a weedy git, all bony and squint-eyed. ‘Just wonderin’ what yer gonna do ’bout that horde of stunties?’

‘Never you mind that.’ Ratgob should have known the shaman spoke duardin. A glance at the mob showed the lads had almost finished stripping the dead stunties. Ratgob headed for the scuffle, wanting to get stuck in before they nicked all the best shinies and choicest chewy bits.

‘Seems important s’all.’ Spookfinger trailed behind. ‘Our bones gettin’ stomped to dust.’

‘Only nutters believe stunty gab,’ Ratgob snarled back. ‘They always lie.’

‘Shank me, dey must’ve brought every bearded nutter in Ghur.’ Ratgob squinted into the scryeball and gave a low whistle. There had been other stunties – small raiding parties filled with fools bound for Shriekstone’s slave pits and stewpots – but this was different.

The bristling Bruteplains beyond Shriekstone crawled with red-crested fyreslayers, formations of half-naked stunties marching in a column that seemed to stretch to the horizon. At the fore roamed packs of frenzied, jabbering brutes, their spiked hair more garish than the glittering golden runes beaten into their flesh. Worse, Lachad Lodge did not march alone. Their stunty allies had brought teams of huge, shaggy crag sloths to drag cannons and organ guns, and massive airships floated overhead like corpses bobbing in a well.

‘Wuzzat, boss?’ Krudgit shifted with a jingle of glass bottles, trying to peer over Ratgob’s shoulder. Ratgob’s chief poisoner was tall for a grot, long-limbed and knobby kneed, almost spider-like in his proportions, with a head like a bloated egg sac and small, dark eyes the colour of rotten meat.

‘Nuffin’.’ Ratgob sat back from the scryeball, wiping off the accumulation of mould that filmed the greasy lens. Shriekstone once had dozens like it – the mountain covered with blinking eyes – but, over centuries, the High Creepers had plucked them out until only one remained.

Couldn’t have the lads spying on each other, that was for bosses only.

‘Stunties comin’, ain’t dey?’

‘Nevva you mind.’ Ratgob flapped a hand at the poisoner’s bag. ‘What you got fer me?’

‘Distilled troggoth bile, viledust, ground splintermoss, and I got a new one.’ Glass shattered as Krudgit dropped his sack and began to root amidst the vials. ‘My own special blend of double-strengf loonmist. One sniff an’ those stunties won’t know you from Gorkamorka.’

‘Good lad.’ Ratgob moved to pat Krudgit on the shoulder, but thought better of it. ‘Best get back to work, den.’

‘An’ the stunties, boss?’

‘Just leave ’em to me.’ Ratgob narrowed one eye. ‘An’ keep your gob shut. I need time to fink.’

‘Yes, boss. Course, boss.’ Krudgit gathered up his dripping sack and scuttled for the door.

Ratgob watched him go. No chance of things staying quiet, but it would take time for the news to filter through Shriekstone – time the loonboss needed to grab his dosh and run.

Filling a sack with his shiniest, most portable loot, Ratgob hurried along the mildewed galleries overlooking the great halls of Shriekstone. Once, the channels had flowed with nasty, glowing magma, but the fire had long ceased to burn, every fleck of gold scraped from the walls, every scowling stunty statue smashed to rubble. Now, the canals were home to spiders and other lovely oozing, crawling things.

Shriekstone wheezed like a stunty with lungrot, the old ventilation system choked with delightful fungal growths. Ratgob had never figured out whether the mountain was one great sedentary beast or thousands of little ones, but the rocky flesh did make quite a satisfying squeal when you cut into it.

The loonboss ran his fingers along a balustrade gone soft with moss. It seemed a shame to leave all this. A Creeper with no Shriekstone was no Creeper at all.

The mountain spread before Ratgob like an algal bloom. Gits scuttled through the gloom carrying picks, sacks and shovels; others prodded coffles of gaunt stunty slaves or led huge segmapedes loaded down with baskets of meat to toss to the squigs in the pits gouged into the floor of the central hall. As long as a troggoth was tall, the great insects trundled along on scores of legs, mandibles snapping at the occasional grot who ventured too close.

Great stone pillars supported the cavern roof, rickety scaffolds and rope bridges hanging between them like the web of a mad arachnarok. Once, the pillars had borne the faces of long-dead stunties, but, over many years, the gits had hacked the stone into more pleasing visages –Blisterblade Grothammer, Shkrug Neverchosen, Morg Six-Knives and dozens of High Creepers Ratgob couldn’t recognise. Only the cruellest, most tricksy gits ruled long enough to see their faces completed.

Inevitably, the loonboss’ gaze was drawn to his own monument – barely a shadow on stone, the beginnings of a chin and handsomely hooked nose hacked into the scowl of some ugly stunty king. There would be no time to finish, now.

With a snarl, Ratgob scuttled deeper. Beyond the columned halls lay miles of tunnels, straight passages criss-crossed by hundreds of pleasantly twisted snickelways. Fungal beds filled the old vaults. Ratgob’s lungs tingled at the heady mix of spores that hung over the vaults, but he drew no pleasure from it. The invaders would probably burn the groves of gourmet mushrooms and scour the intricate lichen murals from the walls.

‘Stunties got no appreciation fer art,’ the loonboss muttered to himself as he crept along the gallery that ringed The Pit, careful not to dislodge any loose rocks. In the old days it had been where the stunties emptied their rotten guts after too much brew, but generations of slime and accumulated filth had blocked off the sluiceways, The Pit itself now home to a horde of slumbering troggoths.

Ratgob paused, squinting into The Pit. The troggoths might have something to say about fyreslayers smashing up the place. Unfortunately, the trogghorde was just as likely to munch on grots as stunties.

From the darkness below came a low rumble, a tremble in the stone that was either a troggoth shifting in its sleep or the slow flow of magma deep down below the mountain. An uncomfortable reminder that, while Shriekstone had been dormant for generations, it had once roared with burning, bubbling fire.

With a shiver, Ratgob hurried away. As he moved through the deeper caves, he noticed a change in the hold – a skulking silence that seemed to press around him like a damp blanket. Shouts and titters gave way to furtive scampering, and Ratgob spied more than one pack of gits darting into the darkness, bulging sacks slung over their shoulders.

Word of the stunties had got out. The lads were abandoning Shriekstone.

Still, Ratgob hesitated. The sight conjured a strange tightness in the loonboss’ throat. He had been runted here, scrapped his way up through the mobs, and shanked more grots than he could remember. The thought of his mountain filled with nasty, bearded brutes set the loonboss’ fangs aching.

With surprise, Ratgob realised he was not going to run – not yet, at least.

He shook his head. ‘A Creeper without Shriekstone is no Creeper at all.’

With a sigh, the loonboss hefted his moonslicer and went to rally the lads.

Ratgob leaned against the rear wall of the vault, partly to have something solid at his back in case things took a bad turn, but mostly because it concealed a secret escape tunnel.

It was proof of the lads’ unease that only a few tussles had broken out among the mess of bosses, foregits, nutters, loonchiefs, spikers, eviscerators and fraudmarshals that crowded the mossy treasure vault deep within the bowels of Shriekstone. They clustered in a tight knot near the entrance, well out of reach of the giant cave squigs chained to the walls.

Dirty gold winked in the torchlight, piles and piles of the stuff scraped from every wall, statue and cranny over generations – all the dosh in Shriekstone, or at least all the dosh the High Creepers had managed to nab. Ratgob enjoyed dragging stunty slaves down to the vault, letting them see all the gold so he could watch the mad hunger in their eyes become terror as he fed them, one by one, to the guard squigs.

Ratgob took a deep breath. This was it – he either convinced the bosses to stay and fight or they ate him. Simple, really.

‘I’m High Creeper!’ Ratgob pushed from the wall, spreading his arms as if to gather the treasure close. ‘You fink I’m just gonna scamper and let the stunties nab all dis?’

There were some mutters from the crowd. Grot eyes glittered in the darkness, gazes sharp as knives.

‘Krudgit.’ Ratgob gestured at the poisoner. ‘You gonna just leave your venomenagerie? Pull up your deff garden and take it wiv you?’

All eyes went to the poisoner, who shuffled from foot to foot, nervous at the attention. ‘No, boss.’

‘An’ you, Rankfish.’ Ratgob nodded at a scarred foregit standing near the front of the pack. ‘Spent yer life cuttin’ tunnels into this mountain. What you fink the stunties gonna do wiv all that?’

Rankfish scowled, knuckles whitening on the haft of his sharpened shovel.

‘Dey gonna knock ’em in.’ Ratgob clanged his moonslicer against the wall, and the mountain gave a delightful screech. ‘Ruin everyfing!’

‘No stunty is settin’ one greasy boot in my ’oles!’ Rankfish shouted back, the other foregits shaking picks and cracking their whips.

‘Magrot, Filthmiser, Throttle!’ Ratgob shouted over the noise, picking the three nastiest bosses from among the mob. ‘You scrapped hard for everyfing you got – big names, bigger knives.’

The bosses grinned as laughter rippled through the crowd of grots.

‘Fancy skulking back down to the tunnels?’ Ratgob asked. ‘Tusslin’ wiv other mobs for scraps? Gettin’ kicked around by ratsneaks and orruks?’

That earned snarls from the bosses, many spitting at the mention of orruks.

‘We gots it good ’ere, real good. Dis mountain is ours.’ Ratgob scraped the blade of his moonslicer along the wall, and the stone gave a low, pained moan. ‘It’s ours. An’ no zoggin’ stunty is gonna take it away!’

Ratgob slapped his chest for emphasis, but instead of cheers a hush fell over the crowd. He glanced over to see Spookfinger standing atop his squig skull.

‘Lot of stunties out there, boss.’ The shaman cocked his head. ‘Lot of axes, lot of guns, lot of beards. Maybe too many, I fink.’

Ratgob considered giving Spookfinger a good poke. Instead, he smiled. ‘I’ve got a plan to sort those stunties.’

‘Mind sharing it, boss?’

‘So youz can steal it? I fink not.’ The loonboss gave a nasty grin as a stroke of genius hit. ‘Bad Moon told me just what to do.’

‘The Moon…’ Spookfinger’s eyes narrowed, ‘spoke to you?’

‘Course it did.’ Ratgob lifted his moonslicer to point at the ceiling. ‘It told me what to do – wiv the stunties, wiv you.’

The shaman crossed his arms. ‘You ’spect us to believe you’z been touched by the Clammy Hand?’

Ratgob tried not to snicker as he gave a solemn nod. ‘It also told me it was sending us a treasure trove! Erry one of dose stunties is a walkin’ pile of shiny bits. You lot will be up to your necks in dosh!’

‘We gets to keep it all?’ Krudgit glanced at the other bosses, yellowed fangs bared in a half-snarl.

Ratgob shrugged. ‘Dat’s what it said.’

‘You ’eard the Creeper!’ Rankfish raised his pick. ‘Get out dere and nab every git still skulking ’round Shriekstone.’

Krudgit started the cheer, but it was not long until the others joined in, grinning as they looked at the treasure, short-sighted as stunty slaves. Shouting and jostling, the bosses charged from the chamber.

‘Clammy Hand?’ Shaking his head, Spookfinger watched them go. ‘Pack of nutters, all of ’em.’

‘Go on, run.’ Ratgob let his grin turn ugly. ‘See how far you get.’

‘I’m stayin’.’ Spookfinger gestured at his slaves to heft the squig skull, then shook a bony finger at Ratgob. ‘But only cuz I hate stunties more’n I hate you.’

Scowling, the shaman was carried from the vault. It was only when the flap of running feet had faded that Ratgob allowed himself to sag against the wall. He had won over the lads, but what he really needed now was a cunnin’ plan – more than one, actually.

There were a lot of stunties outside.

Shriekstone’s clammy gates shook from the impact of skycannon and volley gun shot, raining bits of scrap on the unfortunate gits who had been ‘volunteered’ to defend the entrance. The rock lobbers and bolt flingers the lads had managed to drag over had been unable to do more than keep the small fleet of airships that bombarded the gate from drawing too close. Ratgob’s best archers sat farther back in the cavern, ready to feather any grot who tried to run.

The loonboss would have preferred to fling open the gates, but then the stunties would know it was a trap.

‘Why ’aven’t dey trotted out big guns?’ Krudgit scratched behind one floppy ear, nodding at the huge, silent siege cannons silhouetted in the twilight – far larger than the airship guns.

‘S’like I said.’ Ratgob glanced back at the mob of sneaks crouched in the darkness of the secret tunnel. ‘Shriekstone used to be a nasty, burny place – one good blast might get the magma flowin’, melt all dat gold the stunties are afta. Dey gots to be real careful.’

‘If you say so.’ Spookfinger took a sip from a questionable-looking bottle, smacking his lips loudly.

Ratgob hissed the shaman to silence. It was unlikely anyone would hear them over the gunfire, but fyreslayers had a way with stone, a sensitivity to tips and taps echoing through the rock. It was only a matter of time until the invaders found the secret tunnels; best to use them first. Leading to the lower plateau, the tunnels would let Ratgob’s lads slip behind the stunty camp. All they needed to do was stay quiet until nightfall.

As if to mock Ratgob, Ghur’s hateful sun dawdled on the horizon. Even at dusk, the brightness was almost too much to bear, but Ratgob made himself look. The fyreslayer camp was a riot of activity. The stunties were digging in for a siege, throwing up walls with contemptuous ease. Teams of red-bearded brutes levered great boulders into place, while others filled the gaps with unmortared stone. Great tents stood near where Ratgob’s tunnel let out, a seemingly endless train of wagons unloaded barrels and crates.

After an eternity, the light faded. And still Ratgob waited.

The scheme was to strike before the stunties had fully dug in, the lads charging while Ratgob’s sneaks spiked the fyreslayers’ supplies. Ratgob figured on good odds something would go wrong, but was pleasantly surprised when loons burst from dozens of holes around the mountain, desperately clinging to the backs of bouncing, jabbering squigs.

The fyreslayers reacted quickly, but there was only so much they could do to halt the hoppers’ mad charge. Ratgob clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh as he watched a squig snap the head from a bellowing stunty, its rider hurling a lit torch at a nearby powder keg. The barrel ignited with a muffled whomp, consuming the squig, its rider and a dozen stunties in a ball of red-orange flame. Caught off guard, fyreslayers fought with axe and pick, rune-etched blades flickering as they carved squig flesh.

‘C’mon, lads, while they’re proper muddled.’ Ratgob levered open the concealed door and slipped into the gloom, his sneaks close behind. Faces masked, their weapons blackened with soot, they crept along the shadow of the half-built wall, breaking into smaller groups as they approached the provision tents.

A pair of axe-armed stunties stood outside the nearest tent, weapons drawn, their pained gazes focused on distant fires.

Spookfinger leapt from the gloom, jabbering and hooting, and a plume of greasy smoke billowed from his outstretched hand to wreathe the stunties and set them coughing and retching.

Ratgob’s moonslicer caught the first fyreslayer in the neck, and sheared through flesh before getting stuck in the stunty’s thick neck bone. The other guard turned, axe slicing down as Ratgob struggled to free his weapon.

The axe cut Ratgob’s billowing sleeve. The stunty pulled back for another slice, but a glass vial tumbled from the dark to shatter on its bare chest. A cloud of inky fog billowed around the guard’s face. The fyreslayer took a surprised breath, pupils going wide as it glanced around, mouth hanging open.

‘Raiders!’ Krudgit shouted at the stunty, then gestured at the distant battle. ‘In the camp!’

The guard blinked at him for a moment and gave a quick nod. ‘For Lachad!’

Ratgob watched, open-mouthed, as the stunty charged off into the darkness.

‘Toldja, boss.’ Krudgit flashed him a jagged grin. ‘Double-strength.’

Ratgob sucked air through his fangs, the beginnings of a scheme tickling his thoughts. ‘You gots more of dat loonmist?’

‘I could make more.’ The poisoner winked. ‘A lot more.’

Ratgob nodded. ‘Good to know.’

They slipped into the tent. The interior was filled with barrels, each stamped with the symbol of a flaming bearded skull with ‘XXXX’ etched upon its forehead.

Spookfinger paused, frowning. ‘Dis isn’t food.’

‘Stunties’ll fight wivout food, dey’ll fight wivout water, dey’ll even fight wivout weapons.’ Ratgob gestured for the other sneaks to spread out, then scuttled over to pry the top off a barrel and tip a vial of fizzing liquid into the contents. ‘But wivout ale?’

For once, Spookfinger’s nasty grin was not pointed at Ratgob.

They moved among the barrels, the tent silent but for the sounds of creaking wood and the occasional soft giggle. By the time the sounds of distant fighting had begun to fade, they had tainted most of the beer.

With a snarl, Ratgob gestured the sneaks out of the tent, and they skulked quickly back to the cave.

The loonboss gnawed at his cracked lips, smiling as he closed the secret door behind them. His sneaks hadn’t killed many stunties, not directly, but, like a fine patch of fungus, a good plan needed to be cultivated.

Ratgob had spread the spores. Now it was time to watch them grow.

Even from the far end of Shriekstone’s great entrance hall, Ratgob could see tears of fury glitter in the runefather’s eyes. It seemed impossible, but the loonboss thought he heard a shift in the mountain’s ululating cries, a strange warbling note that sounded almost hopeful.

‘By Grimnir, what have those monsters done to you?’ Runefather Thunas-Grimnir kicked the twitching git from his grandaxe as he reined in his snorting magmadroth to gaze around the vast cavern.

Led by more stunty lords on hateful, spitting magmadroths, ranks of fyreslayers poured through the shattered gates, their war chants drowning the shrieks of the fleeing gits. Many of the stunties looked unsteady on their feet, skin sheened in sickly sweat, wracked by coughs that produced small puffs of yellow spores. More than a few of the brutes seemed to be kept upright by fury alone. Even if the fyreslayers were too stubborn to die, Ratgob’s poisoned brew had done its work.

A few of the loonier lads stopped to fire at the approaching wall of blazing steel, only to have their arrows swept aside by the raging stunties.

‘Now, boss?’ Spookfinger asked from the darkness behind Ratgob.

The loonboss could almost feel the heat of the oncoming magmadroths. He squinted at the floor, judging distance as the fyreslayers charged across the hall. By the Bad Moon, there hardly seemed to be an end to them.

Still, the lads had done a good job spreading bits of moss and loose gravel across the floor of the hall. Hopefully it would be enough to conceal the shoddy carpentry.

As if to echo Ratgob’s thought, there came a deep crack from under the claws of the advancing magmadroths. The slats covering the squig pits might be stout enough to support the weight of fleeing gits, but a mess of charging war-beasts was much different.

Ratgob cackled as the floor gave way, tipping Thunas-Grimnir and the other foolhardy magmadroth riders into the seething mass below. The squigs fell upon the fallen magmadroths like creatures possessed, gnawing and chomping at the flailing beasts. Caught in their charge, the front ranks of the fyreslayer host tumbled into the pit, there to disappear amidst the churning scrum of squigs.

‘Beware the pits!’ Thunas-Grimnir’s voice rose above the din. He hacked at the mass of maddened squigs, unable to stem the toothy tide that swept over his magmadroth, dragging the great beast down. At last, roaring like a burning troggoth, he was forced to leap from the magmadroth’s back or be enveloped by the gnashing horde.

‘Hearthguard to the fore!’ The runefather leapt to catch the edge of the pit, where he was quickly dragged up by the other stunties. With delight, Ratgob noted the other magmadroth riders had not been so lucky.

A knot of pike-bearing fyreslayers adorned with tall helmets and necklaces of animal claws pushed to the front. They took aim down into the pits, but before they could fire more than a few blasts the squigs boiled up from below, the howling, gnashing horde hopping up the scaffolds Ratgob’s lads had thrown down earlier.

‘By the Oathflame,’ Thunas-Grimnir bellowed as the pike-wielding stunties disappeared beneath the wave of teeth and claws. ‘Pull back, form ranks!’

Runes flashed and axes bit into rubbery flesh as the fyreslayers fought to stem the tide. Here and there the flare of a magmapike cast crimson shadows across the gloom, but the fury of the stunties’ charge had spread them out across the hall, their endurance sapped by the poisoned ale.

Ratgob saw a fur-cloaked fyreslayer with an enormous double-bladed axe rear from the carnage, a squig clamped onto his drooping crest. With a roar, he carved a circle of ruin, runes flashing gold amidst the sprays of crimson. Squigs piled about his feet, still biting and snapping through reflex alone. One sunk its fangs into the fyreslayer’s bare calf, and the stunty stumbled, live squigs sweeping over him.

Ratgob turned his attention to the gates, where a cadre of stunties with flaming poleaxes and fur cloaks had formed around the runefather, runes glinting evilly as they slowly beat back the tide.

He turned to Spookfinger. ‘Now, now!’

The shaman raised his hands and, with a whoop fit to wake the dead, conjured a bolt of jagged, greenish lightning that blasted one of the fyreslayers from its nasty feet, beard burning, its flesh crackling with mad energy. The signal was taken up by other gits, and soon the cavern echoed with mad whoops.

From the tunnels came a beastly clatter, the clicking of claws on stone like a rain of arrows. Hundreds of segmapedes burst into the hall in a tide of roiling chitin. Spookfinger’s loons had terrified the normally placid beasts into a wild panic.

The stampede shook the floor of the cavern, sending tremors through the rock. Ratgob thought he might have heard an answering rumble from deeper down in the caverns, but shrugged off the concern, too excited to watch the carnage to worry about a little quiver in the mountain.

The giant insects crashed into the stunty line, knocking even more into the pits. Ratgob had expected the stunties to flee before the stampede, but the fools stood firm even as the segmapedes crushed them by the score. Axes rose and fell, sprays of greenish ichor rising like flies from an old kill. One by one the segmapedes stumbled, their legs hacked away. Runes sparked as Runefather Thunas-Grimnir leapt upon the back of one of the giant insects and beheaded it with a single sweep of his huge axe.

‘Show-off.’ Ratgob’s delight soured. Fresh stunty warriors poured through the broken gate, adding their numbers to the growing ring of steel. The momentum of their furious charge broken, the squigs shattered into smaller mobs, the duardin surrounding and hacking them apart one by one.

‘Should I unchain the loons?’ Spookfinger asked.

‘Stunties can have the hall, we gots more surprises.’ Ratgob shouldered past the shaman, risking a glance back. The lads had done good. The cavern was littered with duardin bodies, with even more wedged down in the squig pits.

Snarling, Ratgob scuttled for the tunnels, pursued by the deep rumble of stunty cheers. Let them celebrate, they would be weeping soon enough.

Those that survived, at least.

‘Die, thagi filth!’ The stunty’s axe swept by close enough to ruffle Ratgob’s robes.

The loonboss brought his moonslicer around to shriek across the sparking runes embedded in the fyreslayer’s flesh. Although the duardin bled freely from a dozen such slashes, the wounds seemed to barely slow the maddened brute.

Another swipe from one of the stunty’s axes almost took Ratgob’s head. Eyes stinging with panicked sweat, he glanced around the tunnel. All around, terrified gits fled before the roaring fury of the fyreslayers. Bare-chested, their beards plaited with images of ferocious beasts, the stunties had come on in a wild, animalistic charge, runes flaring like a fresh blaze. It had been all Ratgob could do to convince the lads not to bolt at the mere sight of the duardin.

‘Show yourself, creature!’ Thunas-Grimnir’s voice boomed from around the tunnel bend. Desperately, Ratgob shoved an unfortunate git into the path of the roaring stunty. The poor lad managed a single mournful screech before the fyreslayer’s axe smashed him to the cavern floor.

Sprinting past a rust-scabbed vent, Ratgob breathed in the damp, heavy air, feeling strength return as the spores filled his lungs. The stunties were deadly, but they moved slowly, wary of more pits and snares.

Ratgob dodged into a side-tunnel and crawled along its twisted length, eventually spilling out into a nest of tangled pipes further ahead of the advancing duardin. Shriekstone gave voice to an echoing scream. A low vibration rippled through the mountain causing him to lose his footing. The tremors were coming more often and lasting longer, but Ratgob had bigger things to worry about than a little magma.

‘They’re almost to the vents.’ The loonboss stood, hands on knees as he panted. ‘Is the loonmist ready?’

‘S’jammed.’ Krudgit banged on a large bronze pipe, knocking loose showers of blue-green verdigris.

‘No time for malingerin’.’ Ratgob straightened, ignoring the poisoner’s irritated glare. The loonboss clambered from the network of pipes and further down the passage, to where a knot of lads were doing their best to restrain a dozen wild-eyed loons. Green foam dribbled from around the mad grots’ gags, the ropes creaking and bulging as they struggled to break free.

‘Dey comin’?’ Rankfish staggered up. The foregit looked harried, and Ratgob noticed he was sporting a fresh black eye.

Ratgob nodded at the distant lantern flicker, broad-shouldered shadows crowding the gloom. ‘Get ’em ready.’

Heavy chains were pressed into hands of the thrashing gits.

‘Now, boss?’ Rankfish asked.

Ratgob frowned. ‘Hold.’

He could hear the stunties clattering down the tunnel, all boots and bluster.

Hold.

Their bestial helms glittered in the half-light: gryphons, bears, cliff snatchers, steelcats and more, the crests casting huge, ferocious shadows on the tunnel wall. At Ratgob’s side, the foregit shifted from foot to foot, muttering.

Hold.

Ratgob could smell the oil on their weapons, hear the creak of harnesses, the miserable pant of stunty breathing.

‘Cut ’em loose!’ At Ratgob’s scream, the lads cut the loons’ bindings, sprinting away down the tunnel as the madcap-addled fanatics began to spin.

Ratgob scrambled back into the pipes before the loons could work up speed. He crouched behind a bronze tube to watch the fun.

The lead stunty raised a fist, the red-bearded ranks behind it grinding to a halt. Silence descended on the tunnel. The big duardin cocked its head to listen as a mad giggle echoed from the gloom. Eyes wide, he drew in breath for a bellow, already turning.

A huge iron ball swept him aside as if he’d been made of scrap. Seeming not even to notice, the fanatic continued on into the duardin formation. Stunties tumbled through the air, bowled from their feet or crushed wetly against the tunnel wall. Those in the front shouted for a withdrawal, but the air was too full of screams and laughter. Fyreslayers threw themselves to the floor or pressed tight against the walls to avoid the spinning loons, but, in the tight confines of the tunnel, there was nowhere to go.

A fyreslayer with a helm shaped like a snarling cave bear dived under one of the whirling chains to cut the legs from one of the loons, and the fanatic’s huge ball went ricocheting down the tunnel, crushing another half a dozen stunties before rolling to a stop.

Further down the tunnel, a pair of duardin had become entangled in a chain. Although they struggled and swore, with each revolution the heavy chain grew tighter, until blood flowed between the links. With delight, Ratgob saw them slump and fall still before the fanatic spun off down the passage.

But there was only so much loons could do against so many. Two fanatics collided, their chains crushing them into a pulpy embrace. Another rebounded from the wall and was buried in the resulting avalanche of stone. More fell to blasts of magma, or were hacked down by stunties who seemed not to care it was death to charge the spinning loons.

Bloodied but undaunted, the surviving fyreslayers staggered to their feet. More than half their number lay spread across the tunnel floor, but the losses seemed only to make the stunties angrier.

‘Shank me, dey’z still comin’,’ Krudgit said. ‘An’ more from behind.’

Ratgob glanced down the tunnel, feeling his throat tighten at the sight of faint lantern light advancing from the other direction.

‘We’d better bolt, boss.’ Panic threaded the poisoner’s voice.

‘What ’bout the pipes?’

Krudgit gave the ancient duardin ventilation one last bang. ‘S’no use.’

Ratgob shouldered past to peer up the corroded pipe, the clash of duardin blades sharp in his ears. This close, he could smell the musty scent of rotten fungus, hear the faint hiss as the overtaxed ventilation system tried to work air past the blockage.

With a curse, he shoved his moonslicer into the grate. The hooked blade rasped on ancient bronze as Ratgob stretched as far as he could. He felt the moonslicer sink into something soft.

The loonboss heard the boom of a magmapike, and a blast of hot lava splattered the stone a handspan from Ratgob’s nose. He gritted his fangs as a scalding fleck burned a line across his cheek, and scraped with all his might.

‘Zog dis.’ Krudgit clambered back down the hole as a scowling, bearded face appeared beyond the pipes. Ratgob kicked at it, but the stunty ignored his shattered nose to grab the loonboss’ ankle.

With a wet slurp, the mass blocking the pipe finally gave way, deluging Ratgob and the stunty with hundreds of dead snotlings.

The fyreslayers fell back with a curse as Ratgob clambered through the avalanche of tiny, putrefied corpses. The stupid blighters must have crawled in there to hide, or maybe some clever git had sent them up there to gum up Ratgob’s plan. He shook his head as the rattle and chuff of duardin pumps echoed down the tunnel.

Thick, dark mist poured from the grates. Ratgob scrambled down the grot tunnel as mist flowed down into the old duardin passage. He heard shouting from below, stunties hacking in the clouds of Krudgit’s loonmist. The fyreslayers seemed dazed at first. They called to one another, but cries to dress ranks soon became confused shouts.

‘Grobi, in the tunnels!’

‘By Grimnir, they’re behind us!’

‘Kill the filthy skaz!’

Some duardin began blowing their horns while others pounded on drums, the rhythms sharp and erratic. Weapons clattered, angry oaths like sweet laughter to Ratgob’s ears. At last, blinded and mad, the stunties turned on each other.

Ratgob only wished he could see the slaughter. Instead, he crouched in the grot tunnel and listened, bobbing his head to the sounds of stunties murdering one another.

Then came a shout from beyond the melee, a booming voice chanting in a language Ratgob did not recognise. Impossibly, golden light shone through the gloom. Scintillating, like glow-squigs reflected in stagnant water, it burned away the mist.

‘Shake your madness, kinsmen!’ Thunas-Grimnir’s hateful voice rose above the clamour. ‘Let the ancestors light your way.’

Ratgob could see the runefather, now. Surrounded by stunties in glittering helms, the king stood silhouetted by a swirl of fiery sparks. The circle of stunties raised their glowing braziers and struck them against the ground. There was a burst of painful light, and Ratgob was forced to turn away, hissing as bright after-images of duardin runes danced across his vision.

Slowly, the sounds of fighting died.

With a shake of his head, the loonboss clambered back up the gnarled tunnel. Forget Ratgob’s lie about the Bad Moon; when he told the others how stunty tricks had dispersed the loonmist, he would be lucky to escape without a shank in his eye.

‘S’time for somefin’ big,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Somefin’ real big.’

The slaves shuffled down the uneven stairs that wound down into The Pit. Shaved and gaunt, the runes prised from their flesh, the wretches were barely recognisable as duardin, let alone fyreslayers.

‘Too slow.’ Ratgob chewed his lip. ‘Dose stunties’ll be knockin’ our ’eads in afore this lot gets in The Pit.’

Spookfinger peered over the lip of the old duardin cistern. ‘Give ’em a prod, den.’

‘And risk a scream?’ Krudgit tittered. ‘You wanna get et up?’

Spookfinger made a face, but offered no more advice.

‘We need the slaves in one piece.’ Ratgob paced across the gallery. ‘How else we gonna lure in dem stunties?’

A distant boom almost startled the loonboss over the lip of the cistern.

‘That’ll be the vault door.’ Spookfinger’s mutter was just loud enough to set the surviving lads shuffling.

‘This’ll work – Bad Moon told me so.’ Ratgob turned to glare at the few hundred grots gathered in the gloom of the tunnel – all that remained of his kingdom. ‘It also told me to gut the first git who tries to nip off.’

‘Not us, boss. Never.’ Krudgit popped a vial of something blue into his mouth, crunching happily as blood dribbled down his chin.

Ratgob turned his back on the nutter. The stunties had backed them into a corner, occupying all the hold’s central passages and collapsing every grot tunnel they could find – which, being duardin, meant most of them.

Still, the loonboss had one last knife up his sleeve.

Ratgob heard the stamp of boots in the outer hall, rising above the low, threatening rumble that had become almost constant in Shriekstone. The Bad Moon must have heard Ratgob’s pleas, because the halls had not filled with magma, yet. Still, the stunties were moving slowly, taking time to clear each hall before advancing. They would not be caught in another trap.

Fortunately, this one would come to them.

‘Dey’re down, boss.’ Throttle scurried around the edge of the cistern, Filthmiser close behind.

‘Should be a sight.’ Throttle flexed the long spidery fingers that had earned him his reputation as a master strangler. Behind him, Filthmiser chuckled wetly, the mushrooms growing through the holes in his rotted robes jiggling with each wheezing exhalation.

Ratgob peered into the mildewed darkness. He cocked his head, fluttering his fingers at the lads for quiet.

The Pit was quiet but for the occasional whisper of bare feet and the low rumble of snoring troggoths.

‘Won’t be long, now.’ Krudgit rubbed his hands together, squinting at the flickering light at the far end of the hall.

‘Get everyone back in the tunnel.’ Ratgob nodded. ‘S’time for the show.’

Duardin fanned out along the far side of the gallery, covering the various angles of attack, while teams of fyreslayers advanced cautiously towards the massive cistern, magmapikes at the ready. Fortunately, the light of their runelamps didn’t reach the far end of the massive cistern chamber.

Rankfish and the lads scampered back down the tunnel, but Ratgob lingered with Spookfinger and Krudgit at the edge of the gallery. He noticed Thunas-Grimnir near the front. The runefather had exchanged his grandaxe for two smaller hand axes etched to resemble leaping leogryphs.

A snort reverberated from the depths of the ancient cistern, followed by a grumbling mutter.

The duardin held back, confused. Some with magmapikes took cover behind fallen masonry as their brutish brethren clashed axes together.

‘Dey ain’t gonna fall for it.’ Spookfinger gave a low chuckle.

Ratgob hissed the shaman to silence. The loonboss gripped his moonslicer tighter to hide his shaking hands. If the stunties backed off, Ratgob was as good as shanked. This was it – his last scheme. If there was any time for the Bad Moon to extend its Clammy Hand, it was now.

The first screams echoed from below – voices, fyreslayer voices, crying out in pain and terror.

‘Stunties won’t abandon der own,’ Ratgob said with more conviction than he felt. ‘You’ll see.’

‘S’pose I will.’ Spookfinger’s grin held no humour at all.

Ratgob could see indecision in the runefather’s grim scowl. Thunas-Grimnir’s gaze flicked from The Pit to his warriors and back again. Finally, with a growling curse, the runefather pointed an axe forward.

Ratgob almost fainted from joy as the stunties advanced.

The first ranks lobbed torches into the cistern, falling back while the magmapikes took up positions around the edge and sighted down into the dark. There was a moment, quick as an indrawn gasp, as the duardin took in the terrifying sight below. The chamber seemed almost quiet as Ratgob revelled in the stunties’ horrified expressions.

A lumpy hand plucked one of the fyreslayers from the rim of the cistern.

The boom of a magmapike shattered the unnatural stillness. Everything seemed to happen at once – some duardin firing down into The Pit, others dodging back to reload as their axe-wielding companions pushed forward to provide cover.

The troggoths rose from the darkness in a blood-maddened frenzy. Their gnarled claws cut divots in the stone, rock flowing like thick mud. Thunas-Grimnir’s bellowed commands were lost amidst the roars of the enraged trogghorde.

No sooner had massed duardin fire brought down one troggoth, than another would heave itself from the jagged mouth of The Pit. A lucky blast of magma burned away one troggoth’s face, but the beast seemed not to notice. Blindly lumbering forward, it scattered duardin like pebbles with swings of its massive stone club.

Another troggoth was engaged by half a dozen fyreslayers, the runes on their heavy axes flashing red in the gloom. They cut at the troggoth’s legs while it growled and stomped, but duardin steel proved no protection against the full weight of the enormous beast, and the stunties were crushed to bloody ruin.

Thunas-Grimnir charged into the fray. Dire oaths on his lips, he leapt to bury his axes in the stomach of a huge troggoth, scaling the beast’s chest as it reeled back. Stony hands closed about his chest, but the runefather tore his axes free in a spray of gore and hacked down at the troggoth’s wrist.

Ratgob made a sour face as Thunas-Grimnir’s blade bit deep into the troggoth’s rocky flesh. It snatched its hand back, yowling like a scalded squig, but the runefather only shifted to hack the beast’s head from its scabby shoulders.

Fortunately, several of the troggoths the duardin had downed earlier slowly staggered to their feet, flesh knitting around bones the colour of wet shale, and the runefather was forced back.

A flash of brilliant light made Ratgob wince as one of the stunty’s rune-pounders joined the battle. Chant cutting through the din, the duardin raised his smoking staff, the beginnings of a fiery sigil etching itself into the air.

A troggoth loomed behind the duardin. It frowned down at the jabbering stunty, then leaned over and smashed him flat with the palm of its hand. Light streamed between the troggoth’s fingers, making the beast squint. With a frown of intense concentration, it scooped up a great handful of stone and simply folded it over the unfortunate stunty.

Ratgob could not restrain his delight as the fyreslayers retreated before the furious trogghorde. He could see Thunas-Grimnir waving his axes, but even the runefather seemed unable to deal with the onslaught. Troggoths kicked through the fleeing duardin, occasionally stooping to cram a screaming stunty into their mouths.

Ratgob should have known it was too good to last.

As the duardin scattered, so did the troggoths. Some pursued knots of running stunties, while others lumbered into the darkness beyond; a few even turned to climb back down into The Pit, blinking sleepily.

‘Zoggin’ idiots!’ Ratgob slammed the butt of his moonslicer against the ground.

‘Boss.’ Krudgit nudged Ratgob, pointing to where a few hulking troggoth shadows were making their way around the chamber towards where the grots stood.

With a disgusted curse, Ratgob turned away from the slaughter. His plan had been perfect, but bigger was not always better.

‘What the Bad Moon tellin’ you now?’ Spookfinger’s words dripped with scorn.

‘Never you mind.’

‘Sure, boss.’ The shaman spoke the last word like a curse.

Ratgob caught the slightest glint in the corner of his vision. Through reflex alone, the loonboss spun away just in time to avoid Spookfinger’s dagger.

‘A knife inna back?’ Contempt iced Ratgob’s words.

The shaman grinned. ‘Well, it is poisoned.’

‘You, too?’ Ratgob glanced at Krudgit.

The poisoner offered an apologetic shrug, then tossed a vial to Ratgob. ‘Plenty to go ’round.’

Ratgob snatched the poison from the air, then dropped flat as the shaman crooked a knobby finger at him. With a fizzling crack, a bolt of sickly-green lightning flashed above his head, leaving blackened streaks on the tunnel wall. Before the shaman could conjure another blast, Ratgob scrambled to his feet and leapt at Spookfinger.

‘Enuf of yer lies! Touched by the Clammy Hand? Touched by lungrot, more likely!’ Spookfinger met the loonboss’ charge, his dagger darting like an angry blisterwasp.

‘I’ve got dose stunties right where I want ’em!’ This close, Ratgob could not bring the blade of his moonslicer to bear, so he gave Spookfinger’s face a good thwap with the handle.

‘Oh, come off it!’ The shaman staggered back, eyes watering as he dabbed at his bloody nose. ‘Shriekstone’s lost – there ain’t no future for you, not ’ere, not anywhere.’

Ratgob didn’t bother with a response – the shaman was right, but it hardly mattered. Only stunties worried about the future, gits took things as they came.

The hook of Ratgob’s moonslicer opened a wide gash on Spookfinger’s leg. The shaman toppled with a shriek, hands clamped on his oozing calf.

‘So, dis is it, boss?’ Spookfinger looked up at Ratgob. ‘After everyfing, you jus’ gonna cut me up?’

‘Not me,’ Ratgob said, with a nod at the approaching troggoths. ‘But I reckon dey might ’ave different plans.’

Ratgob scurried back into the shadows, Spookfinger’s despairing cry lifting his spirits. He eyed Krudgit. ‘I should feed you to the trogs, too.’

The poisoner spread his hands wide. ‘Don’t fink they’d bite, boss – I’m too bitter.’

Ratgob snorted out a laugh. Krudgit had betrayed him, true, but a little double-cross now and again was only natural. Besides, he still might need the poisoner.

Ratgob nodded at Krudgit. ‘C’mon den.’

The two grots scurried down the hall. Spookfinger’s screams were little relief to the heaviness threading Ratgob’s chest. He was as good as shanked – if not by Krudgit then by some other canny git. Ratgob was done as High Creeper. Finished. Not even worth a glance from the Bad Moon.

Now, was definitely the time to run. But first, Ratgob just needed to grab a little something for the journey.

‘You are not going anywhere, skaz.’ Runefather Thunas-Grimnir the Unflinching stepped from the shadows of the treasure vault, one axe pointed at Ratgob’s chest. The loonboss could see scores of stunties ranged in the glittering dark behind the runefather. All that remained of the fyreslayer host. Beaten, bloodied, their axes were chipped and their runes guttered like dying candles, but the hateful glint of their eyes burned brighter than ever.

There were mutters from the lads behind Ratgob – barely enough to form a proper mob, but still some of the most vicious loons Shriekstone had to offer. A few of the gits bolted for the vault exit, only to draw back as more fyreslayers emerged from the gloom, axes at the ready.

It was strange, being well and truly surrounded. Ratgob had expected terror, mad panic bubbling up through the cracks in his thoughts, but all he felt was an odd sense of relief.

‘Did you think you could escape?’ Thunas-Grimnir thundered, words falling like hammer blows. ‘Skulk from my Magmahold like the filthy thieves you are? By Grungni’s eternal eyes, did you think you could outwit me?’

‘Outwitted you four times already, didn’t I?’ Ratgob shrugged. ‘Figgerd one more couldn’t ’urt.’

The runefather’s face turned a delightful shade of purple.

Ratgob chewed his lips. Something had changed. There was an absence in the air, an emptiness he could not quite place. With a start, he realised what was missing.

Shriekstone was no longer screaming.

‘Yes, yes.’ King Thunas’ grin dripped with cruel promise. ‘You hear it, do you not? The silence.’ He thumped a fist against his chest. ‘Lachad remembers its true masters. Soon you and your ilk will be naught but bad memories – thus to all defilers.’

Smiling wide, Ratgob spat upon the tunnel floor. ‘Ow’s dat for defilin’?’

With a roar, Thunas-Grimnir charged.

Ratgob retreated into the milling crowd of gits as he dodged the runefather’s heavy, looping slashes. Thunas-Grimnir fought like a duardin possessed, strikes raining down. Ratgob ducked a wide cut, then threw himself down as the backswing almost took his head. The runefather’s second axe would have buried itself in Ratgob’s neck, except Rankfish chose that moment to leap at the fyreslayer, sharpened shovel stabbing for the stunty’s eyes.

Thunas cut the foregit from the air with almost casual disregard, but Throttle leapt onto the fyreslayer’s back, long fingers wrapping around the runefather’s exposed throat. Krudgit flung a handful of puffshrooms at Thunas-Grimnir’s face, while, giggling like loons, Magrot and Filthmiser tried to snare his legs with rope.

‘That’s right, lads!’ Ratgob shouted. ‘Bleed ’im good!’

The cave descended into confusion as the surviving fyreslayers charged to the aid of their king.

Surrounded, outnumbered and facing certain death, Ratgob’s gits fought like cornered bush hydras. Ratgob saw stunties netted and clubbed to death, or reel back, clawing at their flesh as gits tossed handfuls of pocket squigs at them. Muted pops marked the explosions of puffshrooms, clouds of dark, stinging mist rising from the melee.

Feet tangled in rope, Thunas-Grimnir stumbled, and Ratgob slashed at him, only to have his moonslicer rebound in a crackle of red-orange light as the stunty king’s last runes flashed and went dark.

Wheezing, the runefather slashed the rope with one axe, then reversed the other to hack back over his shoulder and split Throttle’s skull. Their snare broken, Filthmiser and Magrot scuttled away. Ratgob circled Thunas, searching for an opening, while Krudgit flung another fizzing vial at the duardin lord.

Thunas knocked it from the air, and the vial exploded with a pop of green mist, but the runefather was already moving, axes limned in sprays of crimson as he chopped into the poisoner’s neck. Still giggling, Krudgit fell back, vials crunching as he flopped like a dying cave fish upon the slick tiles.

Ratgob’s moonslicer carved a bloody line across the back of Thunas-Grimnir’s left knee. The runefather stumbled, and Ratgob discarded his hooked blade to pounce on the duardin, dagger at the ready. He drove the blade into the stunty’s ribs, twisting with both hands. It was a good dagger, filched from a stunty tomb deep in Shriekstone. Ratgob shrieked with joy as hot blood welled over his hands.

Thunas-Grimnir snarled, and Ratgob felt something dig into his thigh. There was no pain, only a dim sense of numbness. He gave the dagger one last twist, then pushed off to retreat, surprised when his leg would not bear his weight.

Glancing down, he belatedly realised he was short a leg.

The runefather tossed his axes aside to tackle Ratgob. The fyreslayer’s horrible bulk bore him down, filthy stunty hands closing around the loonboss’ throat.

Ratgob fumbled at his belt as his vision crinkled like rotting lichen, everything turning dull and distant. The runefather’s grim face loomed like a hideous sun above Ratgob, seeming to fill the entirety of his sight.

The loonboss’ fingers brushed glass, closed around the neck of Krudgit’s vial. With a grunt of effort he twisted to smash the flask into Thunas-Grimnir’s mouth.

The runefather blinked, dark green ichor dribbling down his chin. He shook his head as if to clear it, then gave a sputtering cough. The pressure on Ratgob’s throat relaxed as Thunas-Grimnir tried to claw the poison from his throat.

Ratgob tried to go up on his elbows, but fell back, dizzy from blood loss. Teeth gritted, he craned his neck to watch. There was no way he was getting out of this, but there was also no way he was going to miss the show.

Thunas-Grimnir staggered to his feet. Spasms shook his muscled frame as he staggered about like a drunken troggoth. The runefather’s beard was singed and wild, his eyes the deep orange of madcap dust. The duardin opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that emerged was a low, choking growl. He took a stumbling step towards Ratgob, then, like a great stone pillar, toppled forward and lay still.

Ratgob glanced around, satisfied. The surviving stunties were cutting up the last of his lads, but with a spark of pride, the loonboss noted there were as many dead duardin as grots, maybe more. What had started as a stunty horde the likes of which Shriekstone had never seen had dwindled to a few hundred tattered survivors.

‘Murdering grobi.’ A duardin shadow loomed over him, the muscled form blurring in Ratgob’s faded vision. The stunty raised an axe. ‘At last, our oath is fulfilled.’

The loonboss lay back, waiting for the blade to fall.

It began as a mutter, a chattering call that seemed to bloom in the back of Ratgob’s mind. At first, he thought it was the blood loss, but slowly, a voice emerged from the mad babble, four words formed from the giggles and shrieks of a thousand, thousand grots.

The fyreslayers looked around as sickly yellow-green light bled into the cave, seeming to congeal the very air. From deep in the tunnels there came a low, threatening rumble, followed by a crackling roar that seemed to fill the entire cavern. In it, Ratgob heard the slap of feet on stone – many feet. Shrieks and cackles echoed from the gloom, mad chants, indistinct at first, but growing clearer by the moment.

‘By the ancestors…’ The stunty glanced around. ‘What new foulness is this?’

The loonboss drew in a great, rasping breath – his last, he knew now – and grinned up at the duardin.

‘Da Bad Moon will avenge me.’

As if to echo his words, the mountain began to scream once more.

About the Author

Evan Dicken has written the short stories ‘The Path to Glory’, ‘Fangs of the Rustwood’ and ‘Shriekstone’, and the novella The Red Hours for Black Library. He has been an avid reader of Black Library novels since he found dog-eared copies of Trollslayer, Xenos and First and Only nestled in the ‘Used Fantasy/Sci-fi’ rack of his local gaming store. By day, he studies old Japanese maps and crunches data at The Ohio State University.

An extract from Gloomspite.

Tobias Kench stepped from the tavern door into the cobbled street beyond. He wiped the blood from his knuckles and took a deep breath of cool evening air.

‘That’s better,’ he sighed, rolling his shoulders. The Wayward King rose at his back. The tavern was a slab-like architectural pile that looked as though it had been carelessly discarded rather than built. Its bottleglass windows were webbed with cracks, its heavy roof slates had begun to erode, and the rain-proofing was peeling down its frontage where the landlord had been remiss in his duties of care.

Tobias wouldn’t have drunk in this dive if his life depended on it. He wouldn’t have drunk anywhere in the Pipers’ District, come to think of it. But the Wayward King was always good for working out the stresses of a bad day. It had got so that the regulars knew to get very quiet and attend their flagons of rotgut when Tobias walked in, but there was always someone who didn’t know better: docksnipes off the barges that came upriver from Hammerhal Aqsha, spending their ingots before they’d earned them; a local piper who’d scraped together enough dust to drink their resentment away in the cheapest dive in town while cursing their betters for their own misfortunes; ne’er-do-wells making sure to celebrate their latest score a safe distance from any who would place their faces. Some days it was just outsiders that he judged to be lacking in piety, or those Tobias suspected had turned from Sigmar’s light.

Tobias would never take his fists to good, God-King-fearing folk. He would have been horrified at the thought. But the Wayward King never let him down.

‘Such impious souls always stray when the daemon drink takes them,’ he muttered to himself as he readjusted his watchman’s cloak and took a moment to work the sparker of his lantern. It stubbornly failed to fire, reminding Tobias that he had meant to hand it in for repair and draw a replacement from stores. Evening was drawing in and the shadows of the volcanic mountains flowed along Draconium’s streets like ink, pooling between the city’s tall, slate-roofed buildings. ‘I am merely preempting their transgressions, reminding them that Sigmar is always watching.’

Behind him, the tavern was quiet, as it always was after he left. It would become rowdy again soon enough. They’d light the lanterns, mop up the blood and carry on as though he’d never been there. Tobias, meanwhile, would continue his watch.

Ever was the pious man’s burden thus.

Lightning blossomed high overhead, drawing Tobias’ gaze to the sky. Up there, amidst the jagged peaks and rumbling calderas of the Redspine Range, storms brewed and broke with ferocious speed. The storm’s wrath was a sign that Sigmar watched over them all, thought Tobias, as arcing bolts were drawn from the sky to strike the metal prayer rods of the shrines that dotted the mountainsides. He wondered if any pilgrims were up there now, knelt upon narrow ledges of stone, their rapturous expressions illuminated by the arc and flare of one lightning strike after another. If so, there’d be bodies to bring down by morning, those who had passed into the realm of the dead and whose charred mortal remains were no longer required.

‘Not my task,’ Tobias told himself. ‘Not for many years now.’ Pilgrim retrieval was a duty given to the watchmen fourth class, and these days Tobias was second class. He touched a fingertip to the silver clasp, inscribed with Sigmar’s hammer, which held his cloak in place and denoted his rank. A habit, ever since Iyenna had left him to the affections of what she described as his twin mistresses – his job and his religion.

As it always did, the thought of Iyenna soured Tobias’ mood. He squared his shoulders and set off down the street. His normal patrol route took him from here through the fringes of Docksflow before he doubled back west to reach the factories and workshops of Forges, before angling back uphill through the more affluent streets of High Drake and thence to the watch blockhouse atop Gallowhill. It would only be a short detour, however, to angle through the dive streets of the Slump. Tobias was sure he would find more impious souls to punish down there.

The watchman had taken only a few steps before a subtle movement caught his eye. Shadows shifted in the alleyway beside the Wayward King. Between a broken crate and a heap of burlap sacks, something moved. There was a scratching sound. Tobias frowned, shifting his grip on his halberd and pacing closer to the alley. Vagrants and fengh addicts were a constant problem in Draconium. Life was hard in the realms beyond the heavens, Tobias could attest to that, but he would never understand how desperate someone must have to be to lean on the rotted crutch of drugs.

His scowl became a smile as his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he made out glinting yellow eyes and a long, waving tail.

‘Hah, Saint Klaus, you old rogue. Where have you been? It’s been weeks, I thought the God-King might have taken you up for reforging!’

Tobias sank to his haunches and held out a hand. The cat padded from the alleyway, its gaze switching hopefully between his gloved hand and his smiling face. It shoved its head against his fingers, an insistent nudge that elicited a chuckle from Tobias. He scratched the cat’s ears.

‘Still no owner, lad?’ asked Tobias. Klaus purred, danced back from his hand for a moment then wound under it again with his tail twitching. ‘Oh, very well.’ Tobias’ smile broadened, and he reached into a pouch at his belt for a strip of dried saltfish. Klaus snatched the food from his hand, and Tobias watched with pleasure as the cat chewed and swallowed, then looked expectantly at him again.

‘One of these days, I’m going to carry you back to the blockhouse and we’ll take you on as a mascot.’ Tobias reached for a second piece of fish but paused as a fresh volley of lightning broke high overhead. In its strobing glare, the alleyway behind Klaus was momentarily illuminated and Tobias saw something strange.

The watchman’s frown returned, and he rose, trying again to light his lantern. It sparked and died, sparked and died, then at last sputtered fitfully into life. Klaus meowed a question, but Tobias ignored him, brow furrowed as he raised the lantern and played its beam along the alley. There. Halfway along, at the darkest point where buildings loomed high overhead, Tobias saw a deeper darkness surrounded by lumpy shapes.

‘Klaus, old boy, I think you may make a watchman yet,’ murmured Tobias. ‘My cloak if that’s not a tunnel of some sort, dug right in under the Wayward King.’

Thoughts full of smugglers and thieves, Tobias opened the clasps on the haft of his watchman’s halberd and affixed his lantern beneath its blade. A twist of the mechanism and the clasps snapped shut, securing his lantern so that, when his halberd was lowered and pointed blade-first ahead of him, its light would shine out to light his way and blind potential miscreants. Tobias always thought of it as Sigmar’s light, an inescapable glare that transfixed wrong-doers and aided the God-King’s rightful servants.

Stepping carefully past Klaus, Tobias advanced into the alleyway. Lightning cracked on high, whitewashing the walls and floor then plunging them back into shadow. To Tobias’ right rose the flank of the Wayward King, all crumbling stone and a couple of small, dirty windows high up. To his left hunched a tenement, one of many built to house dock workers, and Tobias noted that the only windows on this side of the building were long-ago broken and boarded. It was a good spot for secretive deeds; no eyes upon it at all.

None but his and Sigmar’s.

In the beam of his lantern the dim suggestion of shapes resolved into something clear and, to Tobias’ mind, incriminating. A hole had been dug here, right into the foundations of the Wayward King. It was surrounded by rough heaps of spoil, dirt and old broken cobbles piled a foot deep on the alley floor.

Sloppy work. Professionals would have removed the debris to avoid attention being drawn to their efforts. And surely pointless, he reflected with puzzlement. The hatch that led to the tavern’s beer cellar was around the back of the building, in Drover’s Lane; he knew from experience that its lock had been broken and repaired so many times that a good kick was all it took to snap it off and gain access below. So why go to the trouble of digging a hole?

He paced closer, lantern beam swaying with his footsteps. Tobias’ body radiated tension. He was ready at any moment for some malcontent to spring from the pit, cudgel swinging.

Nothing moved but him.

Lightning flashed again as he reached the lip of the hole and saw that, sure enough, it led straight down into the tavern’s cellar. Or rather, he realised as he stared at it, it had been dug up and out of the cellar. The way the soil had been pushed up and heaped around left him in no doubt of that fact. Tobias’ frown deepened. He sank down on his haunches, playing the beam of his lantern around the edges of the pit.

‘This was dug with… claws? Burrowed by something?’ He glanced back and saw that Klaus had followed him a short way down the alley, but that the cat had now stopped, wide eyed and watchful, some way back. Klaus’ tail twitched with agitation. His fur bristled.

Something was awry here, and Tobias aimed to find out what. If some vermin or beast had been allowed to make its lair in the cellar of the Wayward King then his next visit wouldn’t be the usual social call, but an official inspection that would undoubtedly end in the negligent owner’s business being shut down. Tobias felt a momentary pang of regret that his visits would have to end. It was eclipsed by the greater surge of pious satisfaction at the thought of doing his duty to Sigmar.

‘Nothing for it, lad,’ he said, setting off for Drover’s Lane. ‘That lock’s getting broken again.’

A few moments and one swift kick later, and Tobias was treading carefully down into the darkened cellar of the Wayward King. He pointed his halberd ahead of him, its lantern light flickering as he played it across stacked kegs and boxes of foodstuffs.

‘City watch,’ he said in a loud, clear voice as he advanced. ‘If anyone is here, step out into the light now or it will go worse for you.’

He paused at the bottom of the steps, waiting, but nothing moved. Tobias had been half-ready for some belligerent duardin smuggler or worshipper of the Dark Gods to burst out and assail him. If he was honest with himself, he had rather hoped for it.

It was cold here, the district being too poor to benefit from Draconium’s thermal heating-pipe network. Ironic, he thought; they toiled to build and maintain the system that drew volcanic heat up through the pipehouse and funnelled it to the richer regions of the city, but they had not earned the right to benefit from it themselves.

From above, Tobias could hear a muffled din of rowdy conversation, singing and the clink of glass. Trickles of dust fell sporadically through the floorboards above his head, drifting in his lantern light.

‘How in Sigmar’s name can they have a hole in their cellar and not know about it?’ he wondered aloud, but a moment later Tobias’ question was answered as he realised that he couldn’t see the hole at all from where he stood. Pacing across the cellar to where he knew the hole must be, Tobias instead found a wooden wall barring his path, empty ale tuns piled up against it in a heap.

The boards were rough-cut yarrenwood, festooned with splinters.

‘Cheap,’ muttered Tobias. ‘And comparatively new.’ It had clearly been put there to hide something.

Quick and quiet, Tobias set aside his halberd, propping it so its light was pointed at the false wall. He moved the empty tuns one by one, stacking them to his right until he had cleared a good space, and then slid his gloved fingers into the gap between two boards. A quick, sharp wrench and the board he had grasped came away with a splintering crack of wood and nails.

Tobias peered through the gap he had made. Sure enough, there was another few feet of space back here, and a ragged-edged tunnel connecting cellar and alleyway. He saw Klaus staring at him through the hole.

Repeating his wrenching procedure several more times, Tobias made a large enough gap to squeeze through. He thought about grabbing his halberd, but the weapon would be unwieldy in the confined space and besides, its light would serve him well enough from where it was.

Tobias pushed his way into the hidden chamber and immediately saw what it was for. Heaped at one end were several wood-and-iron strongboxes, hidden away behind the false wall.

‘Ill-gotten gains, I’ll wager,’ he said with a satisfied smile. ‘The watch coffers are about to receive a generous donation.’

Then he registered another hole, this one yawning in the dirt floor at one end of the hidden chamber. This pit was wider, around five feet across and vanishing back and downwards into darkness. Again, it looked to have been excavated with large, heavy claws. A damp reek wafted from it, causing Tobias to wrinkle his nose in disgust. Small, glistening fungi sprouted around its entrance, half-visible in the spill of his lantern’s light.

‘What in the realms did this?’ Tobias wondered aloud. He edged tentatively closer to the hole, peering into its depths. Suddenly, he felt the lack of his halberd keenly. He was about to turn back for it when his lantern’s light suddenly winked out.

Tobias cursed as he was plunged into inky darkness.

‘That damned lantern,’ he snarled, then stopped as he heard a scuff of movement from the direction of the main cellar. The sound came again, something or someone trying to move stealthily across the dirt floor. Someone coming closer.

Tobias tensed, then jumped as Klaus gave a yowl from somewhere up above. Heart thumping, Tobias turned, trying to locate the gap in the boards that led back to the cellar. The hole up to the alleyway gave next to no light at all.

He fumbled at his belt for his coglock pistol.

‘City watch,’ he barked, hoping to banish his panic with the weight of his authority. ‘Whoever is there, you are interfering with an official investigation. Spark that lantern at once and step back, or face Sigmar’s justice.’

He heard a sound that might have been a mean chuckle or might simply have been an animal snarl. Tobias’ heart beat faster. Nothing human had made that noise. He strained to see, the darkness seeming to smother him. He fumbled his pistol free just as another scuffing scrape came from the cellar, the sound close enough that it made him recoil involuntarily.

Tobias stepped smartly back and pointed his pistol blindly.

‘I’m warning you–’ he began, then something struck his legs from behind with tremendous force. Tobias felt hot agony sear its way up from his calves, felt himself flung forwards and a sudden crunching impact as the floor rushed up to meet his face. He tasted blood. His ears rang. His throat closed over the winded shriek of pain that tried to escape his lips.

Something was ripping at the flesh of his legs, like a dozen knives driven into his calves and thighs all at once. Tobias tried to cry out, to yell for aid, but shock seemed to have sealed his voice inside him as sure as a stopper rammed into a bottle. He heard grunting, felt a wash of stinking breath, felt warm wetness, the slither of something muscular and slick across his flesh and a crushing weight.

No.

Not knives.

Teeth.

‘Oh, Sigmar,’ croaked Tobias, swinging his pistol down to point at whatever had surged from the hole and sunk its fangs into him. There came a violent dragging motion, a wrench that hauled Tobias across the dirt floor and cracked his chin against the lip of the hole. His gun spilled from his nerveless fingers. Consciousness wavered.

Tobias felt another ferocious tugging sensation, a crushing pressure and an explosion of unbearable agony from his legs, then a deeper darkness swallowed him whole.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in the Warhammer Age of Sigmar anthology Oaths & Conquests in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Nuala Kinrade.

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ISBN: 978-1-80026-355-0

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