This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it isa land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forestsand vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reignsthe Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of thefounder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands ofthe Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

CHAPTER 1

THE SISTERS OF MERCY

In his carriage, Kaspar Wollendorp shivered. Cold prodded at his flesh with iron fingers. It scraped the inside of his nose with its nails. It dragged his breath from his throat in plumes, tugging it out of the carriage window to merge with the fog blanketing Averheim. Outside, the torches either side of the barrack doors were orbs of yellow, marsh-lights deep in the city. Black shadows of men in the yard slapped at their arms and rubbed their hands round a smear of brazier flame. Dawn was some time away. This was not an hour Wollendorp was accustomed to.

He was well fleshed, Wollendorp, but in weather like this, that only meant there was more of him to freeze. His long cheeks ran off his face to form jowls, giving his face a lugubrious expression. His lips were full and downturned. Together with his hooded eyes, he had a look of sorrowful disapproval to him. Those who were acquainted well with Wollendorp knew he was a kindly man; his face did not match his heart at all, but for once it displayed his emotions accurately.

He blinked. His eyeballs ached with the chill. His hat did little to keep the cold from his bald head. He pulled his chin further into the fur collar of his coat and let out a shuddering groan. His hands found each other within his muff. Touching his own fingers was as pleasant as grabbing ice. This would not do, not at all. He tried to doze. The cold battled his efforts until his thoughts blurred into dreams and he sank into an uneasy place of cold moors and inexplicable noises.

Squealing iron dragged him back to full wakefulness. He leaned forward as the door of the carriage jerked open, nearly banging heads with Captain Aldous Meisen of the Scarlet Blades. The carriage rocked. Sharp clips of hooves on cobbles sounded thinly in the fog.

‘What cursed hour do you call this, Wollendorp?’ growled the captain. He threw himself into his seat. He was a singularly ugly man, huge and bullish with a squashed nose and a scar across his forehead. He was not yet into his thirties, yet already his hair was thinning, and Meisen had taken to wearing it cropped close to his skull to hide the fact. The white roads of old blade wounds were stark on his scalp. A gaudy earring hung from his right ear. His clothes were of rough suede, the red of the Scarlet Blades, and he stank. He stank of beer and cheap Tilean wine and dwarf tobacco and the faded glory of the Blades. ‘I should have stayed abed and let you freeze out here alone.’

Wollendorp was not fond of Meisen. He made little attempt to hide his dislike. ‘He is awake, and he is lucid,’ he said.

‘What of it? Surely the ravings of a madman can no longer be of interest to the city. There is too much to be done here, half the place is in ruins still. Let the aldermen look to their own, not be casting their gaze over the mountains.’

‘Lord Osthammar thinks it worthwhile,’ said Wollendorp. He pulled his left hand from his muff, picked up his cane and banged its brass top on the carriage ceiling. ‘On, driver! On!’

‘Sigmar blast Osthammar,’ grumbled Meisen. ‘Last thing the city needs now is wretched foreign adventure.’

‘Nevertheless, it is he who commissioned us,’ said Wollendorp.

Meisen muttered something unintelligible and spat out of the window.

‘I think you are still drunk, captain.’

The carriage clattered into life, rumbling along Fleischstrasse. The Scarlet Blades, Averheim’s darlings during the time of Countess Ludmilla, had fallen far in the city’s affections. When the Neumarkt had been commissioned in the wake of the city’s recent unrest, to be built back up from the river, the Blades’ barracks had not been relocated, and that spoke volumes as to exactly how far their fall had been. The stink of cattle and slaughter hung about this district now. It did little to mask the malodour of disgrace emanating from the barracks.

With a freezing finger, Wollendorp lifted the leather flap covering the unglazed window. Cranes and the frames of unfinished buildings loomed suddenly out of the dark like grotesque skeletons. Somewhere to the left of them rose the great bulk of the Averburg, invisible in the fog. The lights on the nearest buildings were visible as cottony balls; further away they pulled themselves out into nothing. The fog glowed with the collected flames of Averheim, eerie and illuminating nothingness. The fog pressed hard around the carriage, and Wollendorp had the uncomfortable feeling they were travelling a sorcerous road, condemned to ride it forever. A shiver ran up his spine. He’d always had too much imagination.

In truth he found it hard to argue with Meisen, this was a waste of time. The man in the asylum, Bickenstadt, had been raving for months. Two years since their employment, and Wollendorp’s initial enthusiasm for Osthammar’s project had waned; he was bored and impatient to get back to his own studies. At the least, this meeting should be the end of it. His report was nearly done.

A cry of ‘Ware!’ went up. The carriage slowed. They were approaching the Geisttor. There was some conversation as the driver handed over Osthammar’s letter of patronage to the Averguard. Passage through the city walls at this time of night was not easily achieved. There was a slight delay, the Geisttor creaked open and the carriage clattered on.

Brickwork passed by inches away. Geisttor was one of the smaller gates bored through the thick city walls. Then they were out, back into the fog. Wollendorp looked up but could not see the tops of the walls, only that diffuse, horrible light. Nor could he see the moons, which was for once a small mercy. Morrslieb would be approaching full, and Wollendorp was glad it could not see him more than he was glad he could not see it.

They passed the ward, that broad zone outside the walls kept free of buildings, and then were into the outer city. Narrow lanes and alleyways led off the highway into warrens of timbered housing, all dead ends tonight, stoppered by the fog. A man stared at Wollendorp as the carriage passed, causing the academic to shift in his seat uncomfortably.

Streets gave way to scattered buildings, then to farms. The fog became a wall of grey, lit only by the carriage lamps. The road leading out from Geisttor became little better than a track. It was too early for the farmers who used it to be making their way in to market. The road was empty.

Of human traffic, at least.

Above Wollendorp’s head came a pair of clicks as his footman and driver pulled back the hammers on their blunderbusses. Even this close to the city, it paid to be careful.

Meisen snored opposite him.

He sat lost in thought for an hour or so, until the way grew less smooth, the track rutted. The cab swayed on its leather straps. Despite the lurch and bang of potholes, despite his mind going over what might be out there in the fog, Wollendorp was lulled to sleep by the creak of the carriage.

Once, he had loved travelling by carriage for that soporific song of wood and leather, but that had been a long time ago.

‘Herr doktor! Herr doktor!’ A hand was shaking him gently. Wollendorp awoke with a start.

‘Herr doktor? Are you awake?’

‘Dieter? Yes, yes, I am awake.’

Wollendorp’s footman bobbed a bow. ‘We have arrived, herr doktor.’

Wollendorp squinted past Dieter. It was growing light. His joints cracked as he pulled himself out of the carriage. The footman moved to support him. He waved the hand away. ‘I am growing older, but I am not yet old, Dieter.’

‘Yes, herr doktor.’ Dieter moved aside, and Wollendorp stepped out.

The carriage was in the bailey of a castle. A stable boy aided Wollendorp’s two footmen and driver in unhitching the horses and stripping them of their gear. Another gathered the tack, looping it neatly about his arms, and took it away to be oiled. The carriage, noted Wollendorp with annoyance, was filthy with mud.

He took in his surroundings. It was early morning. The fog had gone, clinging on only as wisps here and there. The sky was a flat white, the sun an irrelevant circle behind it. The cold lingered.

The castle was arranged at the summit of a knoll. To the north-east, where the curtain wall dipped down, Wollendorp could see into a sparse wood of pine and, beyond that, the flat plains of the province, thick with grain. The rolling nature of the land accentuated the modest height of the castle’s perch. The keep, a long lozenge-shaped affair, stood on the highest point of this promontory of rock. The castle was a compromise between luxury and military consideration. It had many decorative turrets. Blue slate tiles clad its roof in a diamond lay. An ornate lantern window crowned the octagonal roof, a bronze of Sigmar’s comet at its apex.

These days the luxury was fading, and the keep served to keep people in, not out. The windows sported heavy iron bars, rust from them streaking the fine ashlar. Stone additions to the buildings were obvious by their lighter colour. All were the badges of Shallya – hearts and doves – and before the keep’s main entrance was a small garden with a statue of a woman: Shallya herself, mother of mercy. Her face smiled and her hands were held out in blessing, stone tears on her stone cheeks.

He felt eyes on him, and looked to a wide oriel window on the first floor. Wan faces peered back: the inmates. After a lifetime of study, Wollendorp’s eyes were no longer good, and he could not pick out their individual features. Each was an identical ghost, dressed in white. They stared at him sadly until a stout female figure waved them back.

Wollendorp turned from them with a shudder.

Meisen stood by the stables, urinating upon a pile of dung and straw. He was staring upwards at the white sky, a cloud of his own steam wreathing him. He glanced back.

‘You’re awake.’

‘I am.’

‘Nice defensible spot,’ said Meisen. He hitched himself up and shook his shoulders. He did not pause to adjust himself, refastening his codpiece strings even as he walked to join Wollendorp. ‘Good wheat lands, good horse country too, down there.’ He pointed his chin down the hill.

‘Schloss Werdentraum was gifted to the order by the Alptraums seventy years ago,’ said Wollendorp. ‘I believe they still own the estate.’

‘And now it is a madhouse? Such a waste.’

‘Seeing as you know little of it, I doubt it had much military significance, and they are much blessed with large houses,’ he said drily. ‘Ah, here comes our welcoming committee.’

A dumpy priestess of Shallya passed through the keep’s double doors and came down the steps to the garden. She was one of those waistless women, all hip and bosom, whose form seem ill-suited to movement, but who nevertheless move with the bustle of those with a great many things to do and a low tolerance for those who would interrupt them. She puffed as she walked, cheeks red in the harsh morning air. A large bunch of keys chinked at her side.

‘Herr Doktor Wollendorp?’

Wollendorp put out his hands and dipped his head in a courtly bow. ‘It is I. Thank you for your message, blessed mother.’

‘Oh, no need for all that,’ she flapped a chapped hand. ‘I’m a lay sister, a nurse. The priests and priestesses have rather too much on their hands to receive visitors,’ she said, the subtext ‘as have I,’ stamped all over on her soft face. ‘Morrslieb waxes full two days hence, a busy time for us.’ She looked them up and down disapprovingly. ‘I am Sister Tabatha. And, there are two of you.’

Wollendorp gave a weak smile. ‘I am sorry for the inconvenience. I promise we will be brief and silent in our investigation.’

‘We? Your instructions said nothing about “we”,’ she huffed.

‘May I present Captain Meisen of the Averheim Scarlet Blades?’

‘Are they still clinging on?’ she said. Whatever merits Sister Tabatha might possess as a madhouse warden, tact was not among them.

‘The scandal did not quite finish us off, sister,’ said Meisen. ‘There are a few of us left who desire to restore our regiment’s honour.’ He held out his hand to take the sister’s in his own to kiss it. She looked at him as if he were mad and pulled it back.

‘I will see to it that your servants are fed. This way, please,’ she said, and turned on her heel.

The schloss was the picture of faded glories. Tapestries hung on the walls, yet they were dirty and torn. The windows held a small fortune’s worth of glass, but were smeared, and carpets were upon the floor, but threadbare. Lunatics wandered the halls freely. Some stared, some cowered, one hissed something at them in a tongue intelligible only to himself, another held spastic hands before her face and leered at them most horribly.

‘Do not fear them. They are, for the main part, harmless,’ said Sister Tabatha.

‘I do not fear them,’ replied Wollendorp.

‘Then why do you recoil, herr doktor?’ said Meisen. Wollendorp found the man’s swaggering most disagreeable. He jumped almost as much as the shuffling lunatics when Meisen made to scare them.

‘I cannot help it. We men keep our place and life by dint of reason shackled to the cart of our efforts. Without reason we are nothing. To see a man bereft of reason is one of the greatest tragedies this cruel world has to offer.’

A lunatic shrieked as Meisen pulled a face at her.

‘Oh, do stop that, Meisen!’

‘As you wish.’

‘Thank you, herr doktor,’ said Tabatha under her breath.

‘Meisen is an uncouth man,’ said Wollendorp loudly. ‘I can only apologise on his behalf.’

They passed into a broad hall, the one with the window Wollendorp had seen from the courtyard. Trestle tables were set up in rows and the afflicted sat there, quiet, loud, weeping, laughing – a carnival of human emotion, unfettered by custom or sanity.

Wollendorp found it all too tragic and looked out of the window. The view was quite astonishing, endless miles of golden wheat and horse farms, the broad bands of the River Aver coiled carelessly across the land in the distance.

‘You must have money to stay here,’ said Meisen. ‘I’ve seen a few madhouses in my time. Not like this at all.’

Probably as an inmate, thought Wollendorp, but he was too much of a gentleman to say so.

‘It is true,’ said Sister Tabatha. She reached another door, unhitched her keys and turned them around their iron ring until she found the one she required. ‘Our wards’ relatives give generously. Many here are the scions of noble and merchant families. A proportion of our income goes to the poorer houses the order runs in Averheim, but still… inequity was ever the way of the world.’ She looked at Wollendorp as if he were the source of said inequity. ‘Madness unites those we treat. All are equal before the mercy of the mother.’

A young man with drooping hair and huge eyes pawed at Wollendorp. ‘Oh, kind sir, kind, kind sir, please, I beg aid of you. You see,’ he looked from side to side, ‘I’m not mad,’ he said in a stage whisper.

‘Away with you, Maximillian!’ Tabatha said. A glance motivated two lounging orderlies, huge, unfriendly men, to move the boy away.

‘No, no, no! Please sir, please! I am not a madman, I am sane! I have seen them! I see them! Green things! Green in the night! Why will you not listen?’ The boy’s words choked off into sobs as he was hauled backwards.

‘I urge you to be careful, gentlemen. We are entering our secure section. Those confined within are less biddable than the inmates you have thus far seen. Are you ready?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Wollendorp and waved an impatient hand. Meisen sneered at his nerves, much to Wollendorp’s annoyance.

On the other side of the door sat a desk, and behind the desk sat a man with an avian face, lank hair as black as raven feathers, and button eyes of similar hue.

‘I must leave you here. Krest will show you to Bickenstadt’s accommodation.’

Tabatha returned through the door without acknowledging Wollendorp’s thanks.

Krest smiled warmly, belying the hardness of his features. ‘Come to see our playwright, have you, sirs?’

Wollendorp indicated that this was so.

Krest took up a bunch of keys even larger than that carried by Sister Tabatha. He stuck his head into a doorway and instructed someone within to man the desk. ‘This way, gentlemen.’ He led them down a long corridor, the drawing rooms, libraries, and ballrooms of the old schloss converted into quarters for the inmates. Heavy doors occupied each doorway, a barred window allowing the warders to look within. ‘Stay away from the doors, do not answer the inmates, do not give them anything.’ He gave them a reassuring look. ‘Best ignore them altogether, if I was you. Leave them to us, eh, sirs?’

‘Of course.’

Krest took a turn into a side corridor, and brought them to a narrow servant’s staircase. ‘Might I inquire as to what your interest is in Herr Bickenstadt?’

‘You may. I am Doktor Wollendorp.’

‘Ah, we could always use an extra doktor or two here, sir. Perhaps you’d like to tour the wards when you’re done?’

Wollendorp gave a wan smile. ‘You are mistaken. I am a doktor of philosophy. I am particularly interested in the habits and history of the green races. Orcs, goblins, suchlike creatures.’

‘Ah! Goblin expert are you, sir?’ said Krest affably. ‘Next left, sirs.’

‘Yes, you could say so. I am the author of Die Geheimnisse der Grunne Mannenm. Are you aware of it?’ The question was a habit, Krest would not have read it, few had.

They emerged onto a landing lined with more doors. The sounds of the mad could be heard, soft moans and weeping, the shuffle of feet accompanied always by the rattle of chains. ‘Can’t say I have, sir,’ said Krest apologetically. ‘I’ve not much time for reading, sir, although I can, and well.’

‘No matter. I and Captain Meisen here have been commissioned by Graf Osthammar of Averbad and Nord Wissen to investigate the wicked creatures that so bedevil the Border Princes. The duke has holdings there and wishes to learn more of the threats his lands over the mountains might be subject to. We understand that Bickenstadt has some information regarding certain of their tribes. We have been waiting a long time for an opportunity to interview him.’

Krest gave a little chuckle. ‘Oh, if he’s to be believed, sir, he knows all about that. He was picked up, him, mad and penniless in Wissenland over, oh, I’d say twenty-five or so years ago now. His family’s been paying for his keep ever since. They’re quite wealthy, or so I understand. Brother’s a merchant, I think; done better for himself than his poor Jeremiah here.’

‘I hear he has not been lucid for some time,’ said Wollendorp.

‘He has not, sir. But he has been here nearly as long as I have, and I’ve heard plenty from him when he’s been feeling more himself, sir, if you understand my meaning. Then he won’t stop going on about it sir, oh! About the mountains and caves, his work and some green monster by the name of Scheersnekken or some other such outlandish label. Says he was held captive by this creature, in his mountain hall at that. Could you credit it? You hear all sorts in here, but his story is among the most astonishing. I quite enjoy listening to him, if I may be honest with you.’

‘Wait!’ Wollendorp grasped Krest’s shoulder. Excitement coursed through him. ‘What was that name?’

Krest blinked his bird eyes. ‘Oh, I don’t know, sir? Have I got it wrong? Scheersnekken or Schnaksnek or something. Outside my area of knowledge, sir, sorry if I have it mistaken.’

‘Could it possibly have been Skarsnik?’

Krest beamed. ‘Why, yes! That’s the one, sir. Well, you are an expert and no mistake. Herr Bickenstadt will be so glad. Come on now, we’re just down here.’

‘What was all that about?’ hissed Meisen in Wollendorp’s ear. His breath was ripe with sleep and yesterday’s Tilean wine. ‘Why are you pawing at the servants, man?’

‘“Skarsnik”. He said that, he said Skarsnik!’

‘What are you blathering about, Wollendorp?’

‘The dwarfs. I have spoken with many of those who reside in Averheim and Nuln, their knowledge of the greenskins is second only to their hatred of them. They…’

‘This way, sirs,’ Krest beckoned them to a door. Outside it, on a three-legged stool, sat a boy whose pale face said he would rather be anywhere else than by that door.

‘What?’ said Meisen.

‘This might not be such a waste of time as we thought,’ said Wollendorp.

‘Now sirs, before I let you in, I must say that although Herr Bickenstadt is quite together today, he can turn quickly. He is restrained, but I advise you to stay away from the grille, and if he is taken out of sorts, I’d recommend leaving with some haste, poor man. He can’t reach you, but he has a sharp tongue on him, and a good aim. I have provided writing materials as requested in your letters, but please do not leave anything within reach of the bars. He can be a little troublesome, although I’m sure if it came to the worst, yon captain there would have the measure of him, wouldn’t you sir?’

‘Troublesome how?’ said Meisen, folding his arms.

‘Oh, you know, he rants, he raves, he fights. He might take you for some agent of this Scheersnekken… Skarsnik, I mean.’ Krest nodded, pleased with himself for remembering. ‘Some of the younger lads swear they can hear him talking of a night to something in there in some ungodly tongue. A couple of them won’t come up here on their own, but that’s just silly. Being in this place can affect you, I’m afraid to say, and there’s worse in the world outside these walls than there is within, that’s what I always say to them, not that they listen, sirs. The young, eh?’

‘Surely a man jabbering away at night is not out of the ordinary in an asylum?’ said Meisen.

‘Of course, captain sir! But they do say that something answers back, that’s the problem of it.’ Krest gave an apologetic grin. ‘There’s been talk of green lights and other such too, but I don’t put stock by that. The young y’see, they let this place get to them. Not me, I’ve been here far too long. Now, he does not like the sun, so we keep the drapes pulled at his insistence. There’s an oil lamp in there, but don’t light up any more if you please, and keep it burning low. Now, I’ll leave the boy up to sit outside the door. You need anything, or if, Shallya forfend, anything should go awry, you give the bell on the table in there a ring and Jurg here will get you whatever you need. Now, are you ready, sirs?’

‘Yes, yes, we are ready.’ Wollendorp struggled to maintain his composure. ‘Meisen,’ he whispered while Krest spoke through the grille. A raspy, old voice answered him, the words muffled. ‘Beyond that door could be a man who could give me… us… an insight into one of the most famed of all the greenskins, and information about the elusive cave goblin to boot.’

‘That may be so,’ said Meisen. He cracked his neck and yawned. ‘Or he could be a madman. What do you think the most likely?’

‘I refuse to let you deflate my enthusiasm, captain.’

‘Sirs,’ said Krest, holding the door open. ‘The playwright says you may enter.’

Wollendorp recoiled. The smell wafted towards him by the door was intense: stale air, cabbages, old chamber pots and skin unwashed for far too long. Wollendorp paused.

‘Smell bother you, Wollendorp? I’ll bet you’re one of those effete parchment scratchers who bathe once a week. I’ve carried a far worse scent myself on campaign.’ The captain pushed past into the room.

Wollendorp was indeed in the habit of bathing often. His annoyance at Meisen, never fully subdued, flared up.

‘Let us be about our business with some courtesy, captain,’ he said icily. The captain grunted. Cautiously, Wollendorp entered the room. Krest followed behind, and shut the door.

Foetid though the room was, it had once been opulent, and as Wollendorp’s eyes adjusted to the dimness inside, he saw that the ghost of luxury haunted the place. Oak panelling clad the walls, a frieze of wild animals and leaves round the top, the faces of Taal and Rhya peeking out from behind them in inscrutable, godly fashion. A large fireplace occupied one wall, likewise decorated in lordly style, although the fire held a pauper’s measure of coals behind its wire mesh. Tilean stucco work covered the ceiling, or rather it had, for a large portion of it had come away, revealing the lathes beneath. The room was altogether ghastly. Notwithstanding the smell, the dirty straw, the chipped and splintered furniture, the clashing styles of its decoration was simply appalling.

And then there was the iron grille running across the room, segregating a good third of it from its larger part. If the room was poorly maintained (and Wollendorp supposed it would look far worse in a strong light), this grille was not.

A table and two chairs were bolted to the floor out of arm’s reach of the grille. A ewer of water, a couple of horn cups, an oil lamp of indifferent manufacture and a pile of writing materials – paper, inkpot, blotter, sand and quills – were arranged neatly on its uneven surface.

‘There he is, sir,’ whispered Krest. He gestured to a shape in a high-backed chair on the far side of the fireplace. The playwright. Bickenstadt faced away from them, toward the windows as if he were taking in the view, even though all vestige of daylight was blocked by heavy, black curtains. A table stood next to this chair, upon it a large bundle of papers, roughly bound. A wizened fist, lit orange by the fire where it was not shrouded in shadow, rested atop this manuscript. That, and a glint of light off his bald scalp, was all that was visible of him.

The man in the chair spoke, causing Wollendorp to jump. He barely restrained himself from clutching at Meisen’s sleeve.

‘Are you the academic?’ His voice was raspy, metal rusted from too little use.

‘I–’ Wollendorp’s own voice came out a little high. He coughed again, and spoke more forcefully. ‘I am Kaspar Wollendorp von Averheim zu Heisenstadt, doktor of philosophy, formerly of the University of Altdorf, yes.’

‘Aha! Altdorf, I knew it well. I attended the university myself, you understand. And you are a gentleman also,’ the playwright coughed. ‘Although the Heisenstadts I understand are much richer than my own people.’

‘We are but a minor family sir, three generations ago nothing but simple merchants,’ said Wollendorp modestly.

‘We have much in common.’ The playwright conducted his conversation facing away from the two visitors but in all other respects he was as genial as a man meeting for debate and the pleasant passing of time in the better sort of tavern.

‘Indeed we have,’ said Wollendorp. He eased himself into one of the chairs and took up a quill. Its nib had not been cut into a shape he favoured, and naturally there was no penknife to be found to allow him to refashion it.

‘I want some wine. Do you want some wine?’ said Meisen. ‘Let’s ring for some wine.’ He looked pointedly at Krest. The warden nodded, and went to rouse the serving boy. ‘I hear you’ve some far-fetched tale of greenskins and the like.’

‘This is Captain Meisen, sir,’ said Wollendorp. ‘Of Averheim’s Scarlet Blades. We are here at the behest of Graf Osthammar to interview you.’

‘I know, I know, and I have waited so long for someone of your expertise to speak with. I fear few others would understand. I am disappointed it has taken you such time to come to me.’

Meisen and Wollendorp shared a glance. It was they, not Bickenstadt, who had been kept waiting, to the order of several months.

Meisen bent low to Wollendorp’s ear. ‘The man is oblivious to his periods of raving.’

‘I have been waiting, not raving,’ said Bickenstadt querulously. ‘It is you who has done me a discourtesy, not the other way. Still, it has at least given me time to work upon my book,’ said the playwright, and patted the manuscript. A smile entered his voice. ‘I hear very well, you know. It is the damnable darkness of this place. All those places. But it is the dark they like the best, and so I keep it that way, although it is hard on my eyes.’

Krest coughed and gave an understanding look to the visitors. Wollendorp had no idea why. He bobbed his head and left the room, gesturing to the bell.

‘If you need it, sirs,’ he whispered.

Sensing that the matter at hand was coming to the fore, Wollendorp picked up his pen and dipped it into the ink briskly. He was prone to indolence at times, but liveliness was his ruling trait when working. He tried not to let his excitement show. ‘Tell me, sir, are we speaking of the greenskins? Are we talking perhaps here, of the cave goblin or moor boggart? The lesser types? All are known for their love of dark places. Why, the lesser type can often be found in tree hollows,’ he spoke quickly, as he always did when expounding on his favoured subject. ‘Like owls,’ he added helpfully.

When Bickenstadt spoke next, Wollendorp began to set down everything the playwright said in a shorthand of his own devising. Try as he might to still it, his hand shook. Now was coming the revelation, whether or not this man had actually visited with Skarsnik, one of the most notorious goblins in the entire world. At least the dwarfs so reckoned him, and as far as Wollendorp could tell, the dwarfs had a tediously thorough system for categorising their enemies. It was to his disappointment that they had declined to share more with him.

‘Ah, no, no,’ said the playwright. ‘Cave goblins perhaps, for they live in caves, it is true. No, I speak of the night goblin. Do you know it, sir?’

Wollendorp blinked. ‘Why of course, although I prefer the term cave goblin. It is more fitting in my generic classification of the green races, I worked it through myself and–’

‘Well I, sir, can tell you that they do not like the name!’ The playwright’s voice rose to a hard bark. For the first time, Wollendorp heard the fractures of madness in it, like the warning creak seemingly solid ice makes before it gives way underfoot, tumbling the unwary into directionless, freezing blackness.

Wollendorp shuddered. He licked his lips. ‘Excuse my ignorance, night goblins then,’ he said.

Bickenstadt was mollified. ‘I must insist on the name, for he insisted. They find the name cave goblin rather offensive. “Cave runt” is what the orcs call them.’

‘Who insisted?’ The anticipation was an agony to Wollendorp.

‘Why, Skarsnik, of course! It is he of whom I will speak. I am of course working upon my own play about his life, as he requested. It is nearly finished now, but I thought it would refresh me to talk on the matter, especially with so eminent an expert.’

Wollendorp blinked. ‘He requested?’

There was a chink of chain as Bickenstadt shifted in his chair. ‘Yes, requested,’ he said reasonably. ‘First, before I divulge how he came to request this of me, I must tell you a little of myself.’

And so Bickenstadt began his tale. There were digressions, and long moments of silence, and times when Bickenstadt seemed to forget where he was or who he was talking to. In those moments Wollendorp came close to ringing the bell and summoning help, fearing the old man would leap up from his chair and hurl himself against the bars, but he was loath to leave his writing in case Bickenstadt should master himself and continue. This he invariably did, at least until the tale’s conclusion.

To Wollendorp and Meisen’s surprise, Bickenstadt was a lusty storyteller. He spoke with the offhand eloquence of the well-educated, and his metaphor tended to the florid, as one might expect from a habitué of the low theatre. As he became engrossed in his story, he would act out the various parts he described. He was a fine mimic of accents, human or otherwise, his thin voice adapting itself to the cant of an Estalian, or swelling to fill out the grunting baritone of an orc, or shrieking out the ludicrous squeaks of the goblins.

‘Well,’ a shaken Wollendorp would say to himself over and again, striving to rediscover his poise after the encounter had run its course, ‘what should we have expected? He was a playwright, after all.’

What follows here then is Wollendorp’s report of Bickenstadt’s account, tidied and edited by Wollendorp himself, yet otherwise unaltered from the lunatic’s own words, and presented here for your edification by I, Guido Kleinfeld, your humble servant. The passages concerning Wollendorp’s experiences at the Schloss Werdentraum are based on the doktor’s own recollections, related by himself to me, before his unfortunate death last year.

As to the truth of the tale, and the threat posed to our good Emperor’s realm by such a small and insignificant creature as a goblin, the debate on that matter has yet to be resolved.

CHAPTER 2

THE PLAYWRIGHT

‘I was born to a family of minor Junkers, nothing better than farmers, in truth,’ began Bickenstadt. ‘We tilled the lands around the upper reaches of the Aver, not far from the borders of the Moot. My childhood was uneventful, I was the second son. My brother stood to inherit, whereas I was to be educated. How proud my father was, how he would tell us, day after day, of how important our family name was, that we honour it and cherish it! He would bring down the sword of my great-
grandfather, a knight of a minor order, long since fallen. I cherished these stories, but as is the way of youth, I grew to despise them. I saw my father as weak. We were blessed by many years of peace, and when we were not so fortunate, my father’s men would drive away the bandits or beastmen who troubled our lands. He never lifted a sword in anger in his life. Although I left this callow arrogance behind me, it was to have an effect on what occurred to me in Altdorf.

‘I was somewhat ungrateful for the money father saved all my life to send me to the university. On the one hand, I begrudged him the effort and felt the burden of expectation upon me too high. On the other, I thought the money far too little. My lodgings in Altdorf were poor compared to those of my fellows, while the cut of my clothes marked me out for what I was. Not, as my father would have it, the scion of a noble house, but a farmer’s son with a rusty title. As many young men will, I rejected my upbringing and belittled it as often as I could. How I wish I had not.

‘My career at the university was as uneventful as the rest of my life. When I did meet with my parents upon their one visit to the city, I argued with them. How I regret it now. My father’s face was full of pride at my place there, but my heart burned with anger at how lowly I was regarded. I ridiculed his pretensions. I hurt my father, and for that I am ashamed.

‘I was never to see him again.

‘Grimly rejoicing in my cruel victory, I neglected my studies and turned my attentions to the writing of plays. A most disreputable profession for a gentleman, I am sure you will agree; all the better to distance myself from my father, who had hoped I would take up with the merchants of Altdorf and revive the fortunes of my family. Not so, and I was encouraged as I had some modest success with my writing.’

The door to the room creaked open, and the small boy poked his head around. He passed over a flask of red wine as quickly as he could, and was out twice as fast. Meisen, who had been leaning against the wall until this point, sat down in the chair opposite Wollendorp, took up one of the horn cups, and filled it with wine. He offered it to Wollendorp, who shook his head.

‘What fame I did earn was enough to improve my circumstances a little, and more than enough to attract the favour of the ladies. There were many actresses, little better than street doxies, most of them. But there was one. Gertrau, so beautiful, so innocent; like me, she had rejected a life of respectability for a life in dramatics! The romance of it beguiled us both, and soon she had beguiled me. Not long after we met, I fell in love and–’ Bickenstadt broke off. He did not speak for several minutes.

‘It was in the year of 2497 when I heard of my father’s illness. I was twenty-five years old. Bidding farewell to Gertrau, I departed for Averland by barge. I will not dwell overly long upon this trip, but I deem it cursed to this day. The barge I was upon struck a submerged log upon the third day, and was forced to haul over for repairs. I could not find passage on any other. It being close to Sigmarfest, all vessels were thick with people. I, of course, being of humble means, had not enough to convince another to give up their place for me. I headed with some of the other passengers to a nearby coaching station, fearful all the while of the depredations of beastmen. We were at least spared that, but we were not spared the weather. That year’s summer was intolerably wet, and the roads were choked with mud. I could tell you of the carriage that threw its wheel, the other with a drunkard for a driver, the other where the horse broke its leg… The gods were against me.

‘Suffice it to say, forty days had passed by the time I made it to my family’s home. My father had died, and my family, deep in grief, bore me much ill-will for the pain I had caused him. Pain to which I had been selfishly ignorant.’

Bickenstadt paused for a long time. Wollendorp changed his mind and motioned to Meisen for wine.

‘Worse by far was the letter waiting for me. Gertrau had sent it not long after I had departed, and it had arrived some time before I had. She had found another, declared her heart to him, and they were to be married. In the cruellest twist of all, the fellow was a young merchant with a promising start in life and no small means. If I had only done what my father had told me! But such is the lament of all men who lose their fathers, and as we all lose our fathers, so we all lament. The young and old are fated not to see eye to eye and to spend hours in regret over it.

‘Months of aimless wandering followed. I fell in with a band of travelling players. They were grateful for the fresh material I could provide them, and I of their company. Within a short time, I and the troupe leader, a dark, Estalian fellow by the name of Jemencao, became good friends. We resolved to head south into the Border Princes where we were sure, as so many foolhardy men before us have been, that we would make our fortunes.

‘There is much I could tell of our journey through the Black Fire Pass, of the Imperial keep of the Mountguard that hold its northern end, of the even grander dwarf fortress that stands sentinel over the south. The pass is a high defile, carved from ice-black glass, choked in places by noisome vapour. The ancient road of the dwarfs clings to its precipices, carrying the traffic of all nations. Armoured caravans from all corners of the Empire, flanked by ogre guards, bound for far-off Cathay; camel trains of Araby; lines of dwarf carts heavy with barrels and chests and packages of such precise design one can only wonder at their contents… Such things I saw… To be in that place, where our glorious nation was forged in battle! The sides of it are thick with the shrines and tombs of the mountain folk; piles of age-greened orc skulls stand for wayside cairns, each far greater even than that on the Plenzerplatz in Averheim. Such things! My heart, already healing, was lifted. Here was adventure! Not for the first time, I realised how foolish I had been in scorning my father’s plans for me, for surely most of these folk on the road besides us were brave merchants? And yet I felt also vindicated, for my pen had carried me equally far.

‘Down into the Border Princes we went, following the course of the Skull River. The land is rife with danger there, and we were obliged to seek protection in convoy with other travellers. The inhabitants of the towns and villages we passed through were dour and suspicious, yet all we visited opened their hearts to us once they saw us perform. We went slowly, and crossed the river by the dwarf bridge – another wonder – on the road to Barak Varr. We had received a message that a certain Baron Harkov wished to see us perform. And so, by slow degrees, we were drawn east, on to the place where my life would change forever…’

CHAPTER 3

THE INN OF THE CROOKED MOON

The wagon swayed on the rough road like a ship on the high seas, and I felt wretched. If anything, Esme and Isadora, the troupe’s two actresses, looked worse, and I am ashamed to say I drew some small measure of comfort from that. Rain lashed the cloth sides hard as gunfire. No one in the wagon had spoken for three hours. Only Hodo, our halfling cook, seemed unconcerned. He sat on a millet sack, rosy cheeked as ever, hairy feet out in front of him, munching on a barrelful of biscuits with methodical relish. His face wore that infuriating, slightly lascivious smirk it always had as he stared at the two actresses, as if he had the power to see through their clothes to the flesh beneath and enjoyed the fact mightily. I never liked Hodo, he was verminous even for one of his kind.

Thunder cracked outside. Esme whimpered and huddled closer to Isadora. She was terrified of the noise, poor girl. We were all wet and cold. My clothes were sodden from my last turn outside, walking alongside the troupe’s wagons. I dared not take my sopping boots off, for fear of what the constant wet had done to my feet. ‘What price I would not pay for a warm fire and a bed!’ I said.

The others said nothing. Hodo continued with his infernal leer, Isadora stroked Esme’s hair. The wagon creaked, and the thunder boomed again.

Presently, we halted. Isadora and I exchanged looks of dismay.

‘Why have we stopped?’ said Esme sleepily.

‘I will investigate,’ I replied, earning myself a grateful smile. I admit I was fond of the girl, and perhaps, had we spent more time together, something might have come of it, but it was not to be. The memory of my fair Gertrau was painful still, and Esme would soon be dead.

I stood in a crouch, for the hoops of the wagon cover would not allow me to stand erect. I cast my wet cloak on as best I could, lifted the flap of the wagon and stepped outside.

It was dark and the air was as a sheet of water. Lightning lit the scene for me. All three wagons had stopped. People were jumping down into the sucking mud of the road. A huge shape stood up ahead, directing the troupe to a gate set into a crude stone wall. Upon this wall, a pair of torches struggled against the downpour, spitting and hissing, their flames low.

‘Grog!’ I called. ‘Grog!’ This was not the ogre’s name. His real name was barbaric in the extreme. He was so named by the troupe for his fondness of ale. ‘What happens?’

The massive creature looked down at me. He made no concession to the weather. His shirt was plastered to his slab-like muscles by the water. A pair of giant pistols, as big as arquebuses, were tucked into his broad leather belt behind the round metal plate he wore over his stomach. How he had come by them he was reluctant to say, but I had been told by those better informed than I that such guns were the mark of a renowned ogre warrior. How he had come to serve Jemencao I also had no inkling, but I had been glad on many occasions that he accompanied us, and no gladder than I was that night.

‘Captain says to stop.’ He always called Jemencao so, a force of habit I suppose. ‘Inn,’ said the ogre. His voice was as deep as a well, his Reikspiel heavily accented, and his words went straight to whatever point he was making. He lifted an arm the size of a pig carcass to indicate the rough wall. ‘We sleep here tonight.’

I had given up hope of such a place in so wild a country. There are more men than you might suppose in the Borders, but they live for the main close by one another in fortified towns. To find an inn far into the night in this land so plagued by greenskins was nothing short of a miracle.

We were returning from the easternmost stop on our tour, a dreary little place named Grunnenburg, a town raised on ancient ruins by one Baron Harkov a century ago. The current baron was the grandson of this brave pioneer. He was a sad-looking, fishy man whose face bore an expression of resentment at his ancestor’s boldness. Grunnenburg was a horrible little place, to be sure, grey and underpopulated, a high wall around it as there is a high wall around all towns in the Border Princes, and with good reason.

We had heard from riders on the road that the town had been burned to the ground not long after our departure.

I thought myself blessed by Sigmar that we had not been there for the conflagration, and the thought of sleeping indoors, even in a stable, had tears coursing down my cheeks. To my good fortune, they were lost in the rain and were not seen by the others. Later that same night I would be weeping in earnest.

The inn was rough but welcoming. It was not so remote as I first supposed, being the outlying building in the small village of Bechtersmoln, if village is not too grand a word for that rough collection of hovels. Village and inn both were surrounded by the wall, the inn further blessed by a small tower, and so we felt safe.

It makes me wish to weep once more, as I think of our last performance. The fire was warm, the audience delighted. Esme shone like Myrmidia herself in the candlelight. Relief at comfort, however mean, granted our performances extra passion. We took our bows, drank well, ate our fill, and settled in for the night, happily dry.

Despite my tiredness, I sat up with Jemencao and our provinder, Hergenfeld, for a game of dice. The storm outside had spent the greater portion of its wrath. The wind continued to howl about the eaves of the place, and rain tapped still upon the glass. But the lightning and thunder had gone on their way, defeated by our discovery of the inn, or so I liked to think.

‘We keep this up, we making a lotta money,’ said Jemencao. He toyed with a stack of florins, letting them run through his fingers and clink. It was a pleasant sound to us all.

Somewhere, dogs barked. We paid them no mind.

‘That’s as may be, Hernando, but let’s not count our blessings yet. We’ve got to keep it and get out of the borderlands alive,’ said Hergenfeld.

‘Ever the cheery fellow, Hergenfeld,’ said I. I swilled the wine round my glass. Both drink and vessel were of surprising quality. He glowered at me. ‘I believe it is your turn.’ I waved my fingers at the dice. He rubbed his nose and picked up the dice.

He never made his roll. Jemencao grabbed his arm.

‘What, first you underpay me and now you want to stop me winning a little more?’ grumbled Hergenfeld.

‘Listen! What was that noise?’

‘We’re in worse than the wilderness, dear fellow,’ said I. I intended levity, I heard fear in my voice instead. ‘I have not passed a night without some fright. It will be something, and then nothing.’

Hergenfeld grunted. ‘No, listen.’

‘The dogs,’ I said.

‘Not the dogs. The horses. They are in a panic,’ said Hergenfeld. He got to his feet and downed the last of his drink. He reached behind him for his stout short sword, hanging from the back of the chair by its baldric.

‘Fire? I hear no hue and cry,’ I said. Nevertheless, I also reached for my rapier. We kept our weapons close by as a matter of course.

Jemencao stood looking to the door. ‘Or worse.’

Two others of our party roused themselves from where they slept by the fire. Esme and Isadora had come part way down the stairs from where they shared one of the inn’s few private rooms.

‘We heard a scream…’ said one of them.

‘Get back upstairs!’ shouted Jemencao. ‘Rouse who you can.’ He took up his own sword.

A rolling boom sounded outside. ‘And now the thunder has returned,’ I said.

‘That’s no thunder,’ said Hergenfeld. We looked from one to another, eyes wide.

‘Gunfire,’ I said.

The innkeeper hurried to join us, buckling on an ancient, black iron breastplate. His son and two other men were with him, pulling on rusty hauberks and helmets.

‘We’re under attack,’ he said brusquely. ‘Happens. Raiders. Greenies. All kinds round here.’

‘What are we to do? Wait in here?’ I said.

‘What are you to do?’ He looked to his son and retainers, and they all laughed as if I had made the finest jape of the season. ‘Why, you’re to fight! Fight, or die,’ he shrugged.

We hurried to the door. Please understand. I have never been a brave man. I do not seek excitement through force of arms, yet I attended the sword schools of Altdorf as was common for a young man in my day. I assume it is so still? I knew well enough how to handle my blade. The thought of what might be on the other side of that door terrified me. You must understand that greenskins are everywhere in the Border Princes, orcs with blue faces, most horrid spiders, raiding bands of plains goblins mounted on giant wolves, and they are not the only threat. Terrible things live in the dark, ancient ruins that crown every second hill. Then there are trolls in abundance, giants, and worse.

Jemencao looked to us and nodded. His throat apple bobbed as he swallowed. There was a look to him, and later, as I was led in that stinking hood through endless tunnels to meet my fate, I realised he knew he was about to die. He knew. I wondered how he knew, I still do, but he did, of that I had no doubt.

He pushed the door open onto a nightmare.

The rain still fell, but lightly now. The cloud was ragged. Mannslieb was close to its waxing quarter and lit the scene all too clearly.

The stable thatch smouldered, a half-dozen smoking arrows stuck out of it. The reeds were sodden by the storm, or it would have been ablaze. There was another boom and a flash of yellow fire, as a man on the boardwalk that ran around the wall discharged his weapon. A second of the inn sentries frantically rammed his powder and shot home into the barrel of his firearm, lifted it to his shoulder and likewise fired, the hissing pop of the flashpan igniting followed by the detonation of the weapon’s charge. A woman sat behind them, priming a third weapon. She lifted it to the first man and screamed as an arrow pierced her arm through. One of the men turned to help her. Four more shafts took him in the back. He plucked at them as he toppled from the walk and landed amid a miniature forest of arrows that had sprouted in the stable yard.

A cry went out, the voice unmistakably that of our ogre. ‘Goblins! Goblins!’ Grog stormed into the yard from the stable, one of the greenskins in his hand. His fist enveloped its head entirely, so that it looked like he dangled a black rag. Skinny hands clawed at his fingers. He shook the goblin, there was an awful crack as its neck broke, and it went limp. He threw it aside. In two strides he was by our sides. ‘I caught that one in the stables, trying to set a fire. Waste of good horse meat. Maw curse them all.’

I could hear them on the other side of that crude wall; muted, high-pitched jabbering. I had heard tell that goblins are cowardly creatures, but I could have sworn they were laughing, an awful, childish sound replete with malicious amusement.

Grog scanned the wall with a soldier’s eye. His gut rumbled. He was always hungry. A fight to him was an entrée. I had been told by Jemencao that Grog ate those whom he defeated, if he could do so unobserved. ‘They will come over now. There is no one upon the walls. Hergenfeld! He jerked his enormous head at the provinder. The two had some kind of past together, Hergenfeld too being an ex-military man. The provinder nodded and ran to the stone steps by the main gate, the two retainers of the innkeeper following him. Grog pulled one of his long pistols from his belt. I had never before seen him draw them. My knees went weak at the thought of the threat he saw, and I freed my rapier from its scabbard to steel my nerves.

To the east, over the wall that divided the inn from the rest of the village, came the orange glow of fire, turning the rain into rods of molten steel. There were many more screams now.

‘They are in the village! They have us surrounded!’ said Jemencao.

‘Mother!’ said the son of the innkeeper, little more than a boy. The innkeeper shook his head.

‘Stay here, boy.’

‘But–’

‘Our fight is here!’ shouted Jemencao.

‘Stand ready,’ shouted Grog.

Hergenfeld was on the parapet, his sword stabbed out at something. Impulsively, I ran to join him.

‘Jeremiah!’ Jemencao called after me. I paid him no attention.

I slipped on the stairs, nearly breaking my sword, but I remembered to catch myself with my left hand and, palm stinging, struggled up to the rickety walkway. A pair of glowing red eyes leapt up before me, a spear point whisked past my face. I ran the goblin through without a thought, and continued on to where the provinder leaned over the wall. He and one of the innkeeper’s men were pushing at a ladder. Arrows clattered off the stone and timber of the wall.

‘Help us, man! Help us!’ called Hergenfeld.

I was transfixed. There was a sea of stunted bodies swarming below. Each wore an identical robe that covered all but their faces and hands. And such faces! Vicious snarls on every one, a mix of fear and bloodlust. They had long hooked noses, broad mouths full of fangs, red eyes that glittered with the light of the fire. I was surprised when I met Skarsnik. He is a large personage, with a certain nobility of aspect to him that is completely lacking in his minions. These goblins were small, meanly proportioned, with grasping hands and furtive movements. They had none of the grace or deadly intelligence I was to find in their master.

Small they were, but there were many dozens of them, their officers standing to the back and exhorting them to harder effort with shouts and blows. A mob of the vile things were climbing up the ladder, their weight making it nigh impossible for Hergenfeld to push it away from the wall.

The village was ablaze. Strange, round creatures snapped their jaws as they bounded after the villagers. I watched with horrified fascination as one ran down its quarry, a woman, and gulped her down in two quick bites.

I cast about myself, snatched up the spear the goblin I had killed had threatened me with, and rammed it under the top rung of the ladder.

‘Heave!’ yelled Hergenfeld.

Using it as a lever, I was able to help Hergenfeld push the ladder away. Goblins flapped their arms like wings as they fell to the ground, breaking both their own limbs and those of their fellows as they hit the ground. Hergenfeld turned to congratulate me, grasped my shoulder, and an arrow took him in the throat. Hergenfeld died blinking with surprise. He slid to the boardwalk and toppled into the stable yard.

The last of the inn’s sentries discharged his weapon one final time. Reversing it, he swung the stock like a club before something below grabbed it and pulled hard, taking him with it. A rain of crude arrows was falling all around me, but I was drawn to the edge of the parapet, and peered down.

There below me, face but inches from my own, stood a troll. Have you ever seen a troll at close quarters? I suppose not. Let me describe it to you. This one, I suppose, is the variety referred to as a stone or cave troll. It was as tall as our Grog, if not taller, but not massive like him, nor built to the same proportions. The thing was a gangrel where Grog was stout and fat, but its long limbs were possessed of muscles like corded ship’s rope, the back covered with stony scales. In one of its outsized hands it grasped the dead retainer’s handgun, its fingers tipped with black, curving claws the length of swords.

The troll’s back was stooped. When it saw me, it uncurled, standing upright, bringing its reeking mouth in line with my face. It was twelve feet tall if it was an inch. It roared – whether it used words or not, I could not tell. One terrible claw grasped the parapet, tearing the stones free. It threw the gun down and reached for me with its other hand. I was transfixed with terror, I thought surely I would be dining in the gardens of Morr that night. But its head jerked back. Long chains were attached to its ragged ears, and goblins pulled hard on these. One of the larger greenskins jabbered at it and pointed below me, to the gates.

I ran for the stairs leading down to the courtyard. I stumbled over bodies. Arrows thunked into the wood. Grappling irons clattered onto the wall. Some pulled the stones away, so poorly made was the inn’s perimeter. What had seemed a mighty fortress was revealed in the light of the burning village to be what it was – a poorly fortified, impoverished inn.

By the time I reached the bottom, black-clad greenskins were scrambling over the wall, and the gate shook to the blows of the troll’s fists.

‘The ground outside seethes with greenskins!’ I panted. ‘And there is a troll at our gates.’ The remaining defenders of the inn had gathered in the mean stable yard: the innkeeper, his son, myself, Jemencao, Arturo the Tilean, Gens and Siegfried – three more of our company – and three or four other patrons of the inn. Some of these had bows and were picking goblins off the boardwalk as they came over the wall. We were a motley regiment to stand in the face of such horror. Grog grinned to himself as he swept his beady eyes over us. He nodded to me in comradely fashion, assuming I felt the same as he, relishing this unwinnable fight. I have heard certain widely-travelled ogres become jaded, and seek steep odds to battle against in order to rouse themselves to excitement. Here, this night, he had surely found his ideal melee.

‘Get in a line!’ yelled Grog. ‘Get in a line and keep them back!’

We watched the gate shiver under the blows of the troll, and I remembered all the awful things I had heard said of greenskins. The wood splintered. One of the hinges gave, scattering nails from itself as a pugilist might spit teeth from his mouth. Wood moaned against the gate lintel as it was pushed inwards, but the bar across the gates held. Long, grasping fingers forced themselves through the gap at the top and began to pick at the cracking wood with obscene delicacy.

This way and that, the troll shoved at the gate, plucking at the planks, until it secured a firm grip. The shouts of its goblin handlers outside grew more urgent. The left gate rocked back and forth as the troll tugged it hard, wood splintering and becoming loose.

‘Steady!’ yelled Grog, his ogre shout cutting through the screams, the crackle of fire and noise of fighting coming from the village, the roars of the troll and the infernal tittering of the goblins on the other side of the gate.

The gate gave way, the troll pulling on it and wrenching it from its housing. It reached through and yanked the bar loose, and the other gate flew inwards as a close-packed mass of goblins tumbled through. Our archers redirected their efforts. They could not miss, but their targets were so numerous that each slain goblin was an inconsequentiality.

The troll stepped into the yard, crushing greenskins under its clawed feet. Grog roared, pointing his pistol directly at the troll’s head. He touched fire as he stepped forward, then pulled the second pistol and fired, taking another long stride towards his target as he did so. The troll reeled as the first bullet passed through its forehead, the second into its arm, but its flesh writhed, and closed, and it came on as if it had never been harmed. Grog cast his pistols aside and broke into a run, tugging his huge blade from a sheath on his back. The stone troll met his charge with a roar as fierce as Grog’s own.

I did not see the climax of this battle, for greenskins had swarmed all around me and my attention was fully occupied fending off their attacks. They were half my height; their weapons were poorly made, spears little better than knives lashed to crooked branches. They giggled and shrieked as they jabbed at me. I was a far better swordsman than they, and I killed at least seven, but there were so many, and their morale was fortified by their numbers.

I parried and cut and thrust, my blade snagging on dirty black robes. Soon it was so slick with blood that I could barely keep a grip on it. I was as wet as my blade, covered in sweat; my eyes stung, and I could not afford to pause to wipe them. My breath burned in my throat and my heart pounded. We were all tiring, tripping on the corpses of the greenskins, close to tangling our weapons on one another. Our ragged line was reduced to a knot. One by one we were dragged down until only four of us were left. I saw one of their officers, a hideous brute with a moon-shaped claw in place of its hand, leering at me. It consulted a sheet of parchment and pointed its mailed fist in my direction. I swear it had picked me out.

For a brief moment, the press of goblins relaxed, and I skewered my final greenskin. Then more goblins pushed their way forward, bigger goblins, swinging weighted nets from their gnarled hands. I was snarled by one, then two nets, and trapped. I was pushed over, and my sword snatched from my hands. A crowd of glittering red eyes peered down at me, Mannslieb framed in a circle of their pointed hoods. I heard the sound of breaking glass and the screams of womenfolk. A spear butt descended on my face, my vision swam. I was hit a second time, and I knew no more of that night.

Of the number of our troupe, all but myself were to die.

CHAPTER 4

A GENTLEMAN KIDNAPPED

I passed in and out of blackness for the remainder of the night, my dreams as full of screams and horror as my waking moments. My unconscious and conscious existence became one infernal torment. When I regained something approaching clarity, I discovered that I had been dragged inside the inn. My wrists and ankles had been bound so tightly that I could no longer feel my extremities.

It was the least of my worries, for the scene in the inn was one worthy of the worst excesses of the Northern Wastes. The windows had been boarded over or covered by ragged cloaks pulled from the goblin slain. Several goblins were posted as sentries. Surly at being denied the awful amusements their fellows enjoyed, they stood at the doors and windows, fearfully eyeing what few blades of light crept in under the doors or through chinks in the boards. Only later was I to learn that this breed of greenskin has a profound horror of the sun and will only venture out during daylight under dire threat. And so they whiled away the daylight hours with torture and suffering, awaiting the return of the blessed night.

The remaining greenskins were drunk. They had hauled the inn’s barrels out from its cellars and opened every one. Some had unruly lines of laughing greenskins waiting to take turns under the spigots. Others had their tops staved in, goblins scooping jugs into the liquid. Later I saw them do the same with the hollowed heads of the villagers, dirty green fingers hooked into bloodied eye sockets, the hair of their victims dripping beer down their stinking robes as they drank from the open brainpan. The headless corpse of a man, gutted as if he were a beast, turned on the spit in the fireplace. In a cauldron on a fire built in the corner of the room, I saw a seared hand struggle from under the lid; screams came with it as the poor fellow inside was boiled alive. The pot lid was banged back down and, thankfully, the screams died.

They feasted on man and horse alike, gorging themselves on half-raw hunks of meat. The young of the village, squalling infants broiled like chickens…

(At this point it is unclear as to whether Bickenstadt ceased to speak, overcome by the memories of the horror he had witnessed, or Wollendorp could not write down what he said. The original manuscript is blotted terribly in the middle of this passage).

…they brought the women down later in the day. What they did, I will not speak of, but they understood well enough how to evoke anguish in the hearts of those men watching. When done with poor Esme and the rest, they raked the coals of the fire onto the floor. They dragged in the innkeeper’s son. To the wailing of terrible pipes they made him dance a jig barefoot on the coals. Every attempt he made to escape was met with a wall of spear butts. His screams were a terrible song. The greenskins found it hilarious, laughing and cheering and mimicking his agonised hopping. Eventually he could dance no more. He fell to his knees and howled. They dragged him from the coals, put out his eyes and pulled him away into the night. I never saw him again.

As the afternoon wore on, the captives were tortured to death or eaten until only a few remained. I alone was left unharmed. Greenskins leaned companionably on the bar next to me, gesturing and smiling, elbowing me as if they were sharing a good jest rather than the unspeakable horror playing itself out before my eyes. They gibbered at me in their uncouth tongue, offered me beer, snatching it away and laughing when I attempted to drink. Harm to me there was none, but I was forced to watch my friends and companions brutally murdered and devoured. Gentlemen, I am blessed with a vivid and wide-ranging imagination. As a playwright, I can put myself into the mind of the noblest hero, or the blackest villain. This, I could never have imagined.

They saved their best entertainment until last.

Late in the afternoon, they cleared the floor in a wide circle, removing the spilled coals and the inn’s furniture. They formed a small arena from tables turned on their sides. Their celebration quietened down, and a species of feverish anticipation took its place.

There were three goblins in this mass of more consequence than the others, the officers I had seen the night before. One was a scrawny fellow. He wore a hat that would have been of bright yellow were it not so besmirched with filth. This hat was in the likeness of a grimacing moon, the goblin’s face peering out through its grin of chipped teeth. He wore a bone through his nose and a necklace of fresh fingers. He had spent much of the celebration casting handfuls of dried mushrooms into the barrels, although I did not know that was what they were then, or why he did it. The others gave him a very wide berth. He was their thaumaturgist, or priest, or a mixture of both.

The other two were much larger than their fellows. One, near as tall as a man, was the vile fellow missing a hand. In its place, he wore a hook in the likeness of a sickle moon. His hat was large and ostentatious, more moons, three back to back, each wearing a different breed of wickedness for an expression. The other was only slightly shorter, missing an eye, and had a dirty bandage wrapped around his long nose. He had a wolf fur about his shoulders, even in the sweltering heat of the inn. He wore a lot of red. I realised then that the goblins were of two distinct bands. They were dressed nearly identically, but one group had belts of red, the others badges of triple-faced grinning moons. There were many small fights between these two groups, in the inn and later on our journey. Goblins, I discovered, are as indisciplined as they are despicable.

The two chiefs were grinning at each other, arguing vociferously, although without real anger. They struck me, oddly enough, as the best of enemies. This feeling was later proven correct. I inferred from what I was told that goblins do not have friends and colleagues as we do, only favoured rivals. Skarsnik named Moon Claw as one of his best lieutenants, Long Nose as his most cunning vassal. By that, I think he meant the least stupid. His words were layered with double meaning, and it was not easy to pick truth from his mockery and bitterness.

The chiefs were becoming animated. Both were drunk. Moon Claw held up four fingers. Their wizard seemed to seek confirmation. He nodded confidently. Long Nose counted his fingers painfully, picking out seven, then eight, then seven again. Again, the wizard asked for confirmation. He nodded too. Both then held up their hands, fingers extended.

There followed a raucous cheering.

Hodo, a chain about his neck, was dragged to the ring and pushed in. His goblin guard shoved him hard on the backside with a foot, and Hodo stumbled. The goblins laughed. Hodo was bruised and bloodied, but otherwise unharmed, and he had a look of defiance about him that I found surprising, for I had not thought there room in the sluggardly halfling’s heart for anything other than gluttony and lechery.

There was a shout, a goblin demanded something. Another shouted back. A fierce argument ensued, and a fight promptly broke out. After five minutes of scuffles, in which half the room became embroiled, the shouter bested his challenger. Moon Claw and Long Nose bludgeoned heads until relative peace was restored. The goblin that had made the initial protest righted his pointed hood and walked to the ringside. He made a show of rooting about in his robes and produced something that he handed to the halfling. At first I thought it a weapon, but then Hodo held it up. Again the goblins howled with laughter.

Hodo had been given a fork.

Something small and energetic was ushered into the ring with a combination of gentle encouragement and ringing blows. A tiny greenskin emerged from the night goblins’ skirts. As the goblins were half my size, so this was half theirs. A lesser goblin; a snotling, Skarsnik called them.

Its face was alight with puppyish eagerness. But when its master gestured to the halfling on the other side of the ring, it bared its teeth and growled, a curious, animal noise full of violence.

Hodo was to fight this creature, and it was given a dagger.

Although smaller and altogether of lesser girth than Hodo, the snotling fought like a rabid weasel, inflicting many small wounds on the halfling before Hodo brought it down. He pinned it to the floor with his gut, and stabbed it through the skull with his fork. He relieved it of its knife. He nearly took the fingers off the goblin that went to take it from him.

They let him keep the knife.

And so Hodo was forced to fight one after another of these small greenskins. He had a martial skill to him I would never have suspected, but he was fat, and he was hurt, and the snotlings were in endless supply.

The fifth snotling bit his throat before Hodo snapped its neck. Hodo staggered around, fighting the sixth creature, until the loss of blood caused him to fall upon the floor in a faint, and there he died. Long Nose and Moon Claw argued over whose was the winning wager.

I cried out at this final injustice. I had disliked Hodo, but to make him fight where he had no chance of victory lacked any form of honour. I said as much, loudly. Although he did not understand my words, my outburst annoyed the goblin currently looking over me and he beat me senseless once more

In the evening, they unbound my feet and pulled me outside. The sun was setting, and the goblins cheered when it sank behind the horizon. As if this were their signal, they set out in a shuffling column, heading towards the great grey wall of peaks to the east, towards the Worlds Edge Mountains. What had become of Grog, I never discovered, but the troll that accompanied the goblins had a new necklace of fangs. Of the strange round creatures that had bounded through the village I saw nothing.

I saw little at all after that. A hood of unpleasant pungency was pushed over my head, and we travelled at night. The goblins moved at a stumbling run. Were I not so much bigger than they, it would have been hard on me, for they did not stint on the whip. During the day they rested, hiding in ruins or woods or holes in the ground, hissing at the sun as it passed overhead. They gave me filthy water and unspeakable meat that they spat on and smeared with filth in front of my eyes. For two days I held out, before first thirst and then hunger compelled me to take what was offered.

Naturally, I became terribly ill. Soon I was staggering along, my limbs palsied and my bowels loose. I vomited in the hood several times. Eventually I fell, and they beat me and beat me, until it became clear I could not move.

I can guess what fate awaits most captives who cannot keep pace with these monsters. Not I. The hood was pulled from my face. Their shaman peered at me through his moonhat maw. He jabbered something, jabbed and sniffed at me. He stroked at his moon’s long chin. It was the first time I had seen him so close, and in my delirium I cried out in fear, for his eyes were piercing and cruel and did not look at me, but through me, through my flesh and to the reward I represented to him.

He called to an aide. The creature brought up a leather cup full of foul-smelling liquid.

Their shaman shook his head, put a hand over the cup, and smacked his assistant with the other. He pointed at me, jabbered something in his horrible language. He poured most of the potion back into a gourd and diluted the mixture with water. This was then forced down my throat. At first it burned, and I retched again. The shaman’s green, revolting hands clamped my nose and mouth shut, and the drink stayed down. Within moments, my pains had receded.

After that, my mind walked a different road to my body. Days and nights passed in a blur. I did not feel hunger or thirst. I giggled and sang like the goblins themselves, and they made no attempt to silence me. When I was unhooded to eat I saw a green glow, weak and insipid, around the goblins. The night sky shifted with strange aurorae like those said to haunt the skies of the north. The air swam and two pairs of stars became gimlet eyes boring down from heaven, the eyes of two giant orcs who laughed at me and fought each other, disappearing and re-coalescing like shapes in the mist. Sometimes they looked right at me, or cheered the small greenskins, at other times they appeared to pour derision on the goblin column.

On two occasions I saw the shaman, Moon Maw, looking up at the sky, and I knew he could see them too.

We travelled away from the old dwarf roads. The land began to rise underneath us. Once, during day, the goblins rose in a panic, forcing me into a run. A thunder of hooves came behind us, followed by the reports of pistols and the clash of arms. By this time my delirium had subsided somewhat, although the effects of the potion troubled me then as they still trouble me now. I contrived to shuck off my hood by tossing my head and looked back.

Several dozen horsemen were harassing the goblins. In the distance, I could see a tower I thought I recognised as that of Grunnenburg. The town was black wreckage around it, yet evidently the baron’s seat had survived the burning. A sudden insight struck me – these goblins must have been those who destroyed Grunnenburg, but why? The answer, when I heard it, was too fantastical to believe.

Half the goblins were corralled by the riders. Moon Claw and Long Nose abandoned them to their fate, the remainder of the greenskins running up the hill at a pace I could not match. On the slopes, the goblins were as nimble as mountain goats.

We went higher and higher, keeping to the ridges of the foothills, and turned south. When I could see, and when I was lucid, I realised that all sign of human habitation had disappeared. We passed shattered dwarf forts and towns, but of the living settlements of the better races we saw not a single sign. Everywhere was the mark of the greenskin, defaced monuments, abandoned camps, the sites of skirmishes, fields of bones. We hurried through the night to avoid a towering fortress alive with torchlight. I was later told it was the Iron Rock, an orc town whose inhabitants had not yet sworn fealty to Skarsnik. This citadel was a place of fear to the night goblins, and we ran through day and night to avoid it.

Finally, we came to the tunnels.

The hood was taken from my eyes, and I found myself before an ancient castle of the mountain folk. Two bearded statues stood guard over a gaping gateway four times the height of the Great Gate of the Averburg. The statues were much defaced and worn with time, yet still awe-inspiring feats of engineering.

Moon Maw the shaman came to me. ‘You need see now,’ it said in broken Reikspiel, the first inkling I had that these creatures could converse in the tongues of men. ‘It real dark.’ He chuckled and poked me hard in the chest with a horny nail. ‘You no get away. You unnerstand, pinkie?’

I nodded. He nodded back. There was an understanding building between us, I am sure of it. His eyes were calm today, and free of the malice I had seen spark in them so often. Curiosity was there, and something else.

We passed into the ruined fort of the dwarfs, where we were greeted by another group of goblins, gatewatch vassals of Skarsnik and his Crooked Moon tribe. Here, there was a feast, and fighting, and games – I say games, what I actually witnessed was the organised, fatal bullying of unlucky goblins chosen from the crowds – all on a broad platform surrounded by magnificent dwarf architecture, the faces of dwarf lords long dead looking on impassively.

The goblins were much more active now, the dark was constant and slept for short spaces. The next day, the band divided. Moon Claw and Long Nose embraced. Moon Claw caught a dagger in his claw that had magically appeared in Long Nose’s hand and was about to be plunged into Moon Claw’s back. Moon Claw laughed and hit Long Nose hard about the head. Long Nose shrugged abashedly, he smiled, but his eyes glittered, calculating Moon Claw’s weakness. I have no doubt that for all their apparent friendship, Long Nose would have killed Moon Claw there and then, and would try to do so again in future. Moon Claw did not seem to hold it against him, indeed, he seemed positively amused by it.

The goblins of the red belts, led by Long Nose, departed, taking their troll with them. Any hope I had that the goblins would cease their squabbling and thus lose fuel for their violent impulses towards me was soon dashed. Without the rival tribe to fight, the Three Moons fell to bickering among themselves.

We passed from the dwarf fort and into the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the mountains. By the gods! How little we know of the glories of the mountain folk. The forefathers of the dwarfs must have administered an empire that is hard to credit now. Everywhere under the mountains is evidence of their handiwork. We passed along subterranean highways broad enough to take ten carts abreast. They were much decayed, and probably had not been trodden by dwarf feet since the days of the Ironbeard. In places, they had collapsed entirely or were riven by bottomless chasms, and in these instances, we were forced into twisting, low-ceilinged ways tunnelled by the goblins themselves. The goblins kindled torches, but still it was dim for human eyes.

I began to fear I would never see the sun again. We travelled for days and days with little rest, I longed for every next draught of the shaman’s potion. We stopped in reeking goblin holes where we ate mushrooms and drank water that trickled from the rock. This, at least, was clean. I saw so many marvels on that long journey – the dwarf underways, caverns full of sparkling crystal which, alas, the greenskins took delight in smashing. At times, other night goblins joined us, then left as we passed out of their territory. We ran on through echoing dwarf halls, or crept past sealed gates which led, I am sure, to underground lands still held by man’s allies. We traversed a broke-backed bridge that soared high over a lake of fire. The ground intermittently shook, and rocks pattered down from the ceiling. At those moments, the goblins became very afraid and prayed to their dark gods.

I lost track of time. We came to a place held by many orcs, an underground citadel barring the road. Moon Maw spoke to their guards at length, showing them an amulet, some badge of office I thought. They appeared to respect Moon Maw, or fear him. The other goblins they despised. They snarled and roared at them to scare them, tripping them as we passed into their domain.

Beyond the citadel, the orcs ruled over a broken dwarf city, and it was through this that Moon Maw’s amulet had bought us passage.

We jogged for hours through corridors choked with refuse. My eyes were weary, my legs tired, and my stomach roiled with sickness and the shaman’s potions. The sight of skin that was not green shook me from my fugue. A gang of dwarfs passed across an intersection in front of me. Each was shaven and branded, and chained to his fellows. Their backs were scarred with marks from their orc slavemaster’s lash. One caught my eye, and the look of despair upon his face haunts my dreams still.

I later learned from Skarsnik that the orc city is known as Black Crag. Skarsnik told me that his ally, the orc warlord Gorfang, is king there. Allies they may be, but at all times I felt in great danger in the orc hold. Even the smallest orc was a head taller than I am, and they dwarfed my greenskin captors. If they chose to kill the goblins, what would have become of me then? The orcs poked and slapped at me as we passed. At least the goblins seemed to want me alive. Several times, Moon Maw was forced to show his amulet, or mutter some cantrip at an orc if they refused us passage. Green light glowed around Moon Maw when he did so, and this seemed enough to force the issue in our favour.

The traversal of Black Crag took well over a day, and we did not stop to rest. I stumbled from weariness, all meaning gone from my life save the putting of one foot in front of another.

And then, a strange change in quality began to affect the corridors and halls. Many minutes passed before I realised I was seeing the reflected glimmer of daylight for the first time in weeks.

We emerged into a giant hallway, colonnaded with columns whose tops I could not see, and I cried out in pain as my eyes met daylight in full. It took them minutes to recover, but when they did, I saw statues of dwarf ancestor-gods the height of towers lining high walls, although all were faceless and daubed with centuries of graffiti. Banners hung from every surface, war trophies of the orcs who dwelt there. On the far side of the hall was a magnificent window, and I forgot for a moment how perilous my situation was.

The dwarfs of old had punctured the rock with an angular filigree two hundred feet tall and a hundred wide, bowing out in a half-circle. A regiment of stern orcs, well-armoured, stood within its arc upon chipped mosaic. We approached them, and there Moon Maw was accosted by a massive orc chief. There were words exchanged, and our group was forced to wait. The goblins quailed at the sunlight, and so I took the opportunity to look through the window.

Dirty yellow crystals clung to the corners of the opening, remnants of ancient glazing. Wind blew through the window, and many larger holes had been made in the stonework. Although spoiled, it remained spectacular. I could see a precipitous pass, many fathoms deep. The window’s curve gave clear view from one end of the pass to the other. My grasp of geography is poor, yet I am sure this was Death Pass. The sun was setting in the west, turning the rocky ground below us a bright orange. On the other side, ten miles away at least, reared a collection of high peaks, clustered close together. Moon Maw joined me. He squinted at the sun and muttered at it under his breath, although he did not seem so frightened of it as his fellows. He gestured with a sweep of his hand at the southern part of the pass.

‘Skarsnik,’ he said with some satisfaction. ‘All Skarsnik, all belong. Skarsnik!’ he screeched at an orc who had strayed too close. The orc growled, and backed away. The shaman chuckled. His was a gravelly voice, much deeper than those of the other goblins. He looked about him, then said conspiratorially to me, ‘Skarsnik,’ and swept his hand around the orc hall. He gave me a wink, pressed a long finger to the side of his nose, and clapped his hands.

I had no idea to whom he referred. Not then. How I think back to that moment. What a strange feeling it is, to remember a time before I knew of Skarsnik. It is akin to peering into the mind of another man, a man who died many years ago.

The orc chief returned. There was some violent etiquette between the shaman and him on behalf of their masters. Gifts were exchanged, a trio of the weaker goblins were stripped and delivered bound and whimpering to the orcs. Hands were spat upon and shaken to seal the deal. Weapons were clashed together, and the orcs parted to let us depart. We descended a broad flight of stairs from the hall that led to a monumental processional way out of the old dwarf city, went through a great gate, and followed the road to the floor of the pass.

We crossed Death Pass as night fell, making our way over another ancient dwarf road which was as riven and in as poor repair as those under the ground. All up and down the pass, fires glowed and drums beat, welcoming in the night. It was, in its way, an imposing sight.

Some time later, we entered the southern wall of the pass through an unprepossessing door cut into the rock, invisible from only yards away. It led into a narrow, goblin-made tunnel possessed of many switchbacks. Nets full of rocks and suspended logs and pens of the savage round creatures I had seen at the inn waited around the corners, ready to be unleashed on any who might dare the entrance to the night goblins’ domain. Eventually, we came onto another old dwarf way, where a dilapidated building housed a regiment of night goblins. Here we stopped. I was taken inside to a cold cell and locked in. I fell instantly asleep, unknowing that the following day I was to meet Skarsnik, the warlord of Karak Eight Peaks, and the most powerful goblin alive in the world today.

I was so tired, I doubt I would have cared had I known.

CHAPTER 5

KING IN THE MOUNTAIN

Karak Eight Peaks is a wonder of the ancient world, and hotly contested. Returned dwarfs hold a portion of the uppermost levels, or did so when I was there; no doubt Skarsnik has winkled them out by now. Beastmen in the form of upright rats hold the lowermost levels. Try as they might, these two races cannot best Skarsnik. His tribe holds sway under and over the mountains, the beard scalps of the dwarfs flap upon poles in the cold mountain wind, while everywhere underground are stacks of giant rat skulls. All the orcs and goblins around the peaks pay obeisance to him.

I was led through the domain of the night goblins, first along the old dwarf road until rockfalls forced us up through the walls of the pass via a warren of rough-hewn passageways. We went from there out into the ruined city. The surface city is cupped between the eight mountains that give the place its name. I wore no hood now, but had scant opportunity to observe it before we went down again, once more through a wide staircase. The city above is large, that below much more so, the extensive workings of the dwarfs vastly expanded by the night goblins.

The goblins became more confident in their own kingdom, swaggering where before they had skulked. They showed me off to whomever they could, chests puffed out with pride.

We descended magnificent stairs and walked grand avenues choked with the detritus of the greenskins. We paused before another gigantic portal. There were three statues here. Two were the work of greenskins alone, tall boulders chipped into the likenesses of the greenskins’ twin orc gods. The other was a giant head, far larger than the totems, a leering goblin face that had been carved from the bedrock. Perhaps it was the work of slaves – I saw many captives of all kinds of creatures whilst there – for it bore tool marks of a subtlety beyond that which I saw the greenskins produce themselves.

A phalanx of large goblins came to our party. They wore yellow hoods each topped with a single, grinning moon. Checks and black flames ran around the base of these hoods, they carried sickle-moon swords, and mail rattled under their cloaks. They ignored the chief of the Three Moons and went straight to the shaman Moon Maw. He spent a great deal of time speaking and gesturing to himself, his chest thrust out, before having me brought forward. The big goblins looked me up and down. They motioned for me to be brought into the hall.

I believe I am one of the few men these last thousand years to have entered the Great Throne Hall of Karak Eight Peaks and lived to tell the tale. I cannot describe it adequately, I, who have lived by the actions of my pen. Where does one start? The forest of a thousand columns? The ever-deepening levels proceeding in geometric perfection? The statues? The principal gate and the grandeur of the steps that lead to the heart of the surface city? The scale of it? Its roof is studded with artificial stars, their light caught in glass by some art of the mountain folk. At its centre a dais rises high, as tall as a hill, crowned by the throne of the king of Karak Eight Peaks. Even with the gate to the outside thrown wide, it is a world of perpetual twilight.

Within the hall is a city within a city, and it is of a far shabbier kind. A winding tangle of tight streets of squalid tents and shacks crowds the floor. Refuse lies everywhere, middens are heaped without thought to their placing. Dry water channels run into pools turned dung pits. Sections of the ceiling are shorn up by ramshackle wooden towers; in other places it has collapsed entirely. Pillars are broken on the floor. Heaps of shattered rock lie everywhere; many of the carvings have fallen away or been defaced, smashed down to reveal raw, dripping rock beneath. A scrim of smoke hangs over the goblin city, halfway to the ceiling such is the depth of the dwarf delvings. The goblin-work is ugly compared to the mountain folk’s. Still, still, every glance holds a marvel to hold the eye for hours.

I did not have hours.

I was shoved through the city’s lanes towards the dais, a pinnacle of storeyed rock rising up from the very centre of the cavern. The dais was octagonal, stairs on every side. Goblin hovels clustered all around it, making it a seething ant mound. Piles of rusting weapons taken from their enemies littered the base of the steps. Only towards the top, where the steps became extremely steep, did the goblins’ dwellings dwindle away, revealing the ruined majesty of the stonework beneath.

The top was flat and surrounded by spikes. Once, the dwarf king of Karak Eight Peaks sat here to hear the petitions of his subjects. Now it is the throne of Skarsnik.

Skins of all manner of creatures were stretched on frames around this platform, as were heads on poles in various stages of decay. Many long strands of braided hair, dwarf beards, hung from the banners and totem poles that crowded the edges.

The original throne had gone. There was evidence that the stone had been hacked away, and no dwarf would sit in the throne of black iron that raises its cruel barbs in its stead. The back of the throne was like a great claw, a thousand tallow candles upon it, flames waving in the subterranean breeze, the dripped fat of their predecessors crusting the iron like flowstone in the caves.

Green potentates of every kind stood around the throne: night goblins, proud and arrogant in this lair of their king of kings; plains goblins, shifty hands on their blades, nervous so far from their own territories; mountain goblins swathed in furs, their eyes even more suspicious than those of their fellows; boggarts, marsh goblins, goblobs, river pirates… Goblins of every shape and size. Orcs there were too, grumbling and angry, and other evil creatures. Off to one edge a tent sat,;iron bowls held fires. The dais was as grand as any count’s throne room, differing only in its occupancy, its squalor, and its lack of walls.

Upon the throne sat a goblin of prodigious size. He was so much larger than his fellows as to appear of another breed entirely. His long, pointed hat, threaded through with bone spikes, made him appear the larger. But he exhibited the same features as his lackeys, the same sharp teeth, the pointed chin, the long hooked nose, although they were of altogether more noble a cast. Here was a lord of power, I could tell that the moment I saw him. By his feet slumbered an enormous example of the bounding creatures I had seen so briefly in the village and in the tunnels. Chains led from rings piercing its hide to the throne, where they were wrapped around a spike upon the arm. About Skarsnik’s waist was a belt made from the snowy white beard of some unfortunate dwarf. In a rest at his side was a huge trident, its shaft painted a brilliant red, its blades hung with fetishes. When the torchlight caught it just so, its edges glimmered green with magic.

There was little order to the crowd atop the dais. They milled about and squabbled, this gaggle of chiefs in ridiculous hats, whose bewildering range of spikes and horns and towering crowns and adornments went higher than my head. The big goblins who had led me thence were forced to shoulder their way through the gathered lords to allow passage for Moon Maw and myself. Moon Claw and his goblins had been stopped at the foot of the stairs, much to his annoyance.

When I first saw Skarsnik, he was being lauded by a stout goblin chief who had a pile of gifts of dubious quality to present to his overlord. Skarsnik was ignoring him. His eyes were fixed on exactly that part of the crowd where we emerged, as if he had accurately guessed where the goblins would part and I would appear. He grinned like a reptile, his tongue darting along his lips, dark and long. He leaned forward upon his iron throne. The big goblins hit me in the back of the knees, forcing me to kneel.

Moon Maw rushed forward, and threw himself down on the floor before the throne. He jabbered in the language of the greenskins, head bobbing all the while, flourishing gestures in my direction. Skarsnik did not take his eyes from me, his long chin resting in his hand, but he nodded at this thing or that that Moon Maw said.

Skarsnik’s eyes were arresting. Other goblins were jittery and easily distracted, scared of their own shadows. Their eyes rolled, as if they could not keep their minds concentrated. Not Skarsnik. His eyes were still, and thoughtful. As Moon Maw went on and on, no doubt telling his king of his achievement in bringing me there, he appraised me coldly, as a cat might appraise a mouse.

Skarsnik grew bored with Moon Maw. He waved his hand. When that did not silence him, he nodded to his big goblins, and they kicked him hard in the ribs. Moon Maw looked up, grinning madly. Skarsnik spoke. The hard syllables of the greenskin tongue hissed through his teeth. His voice was more nasal than I expected. Not the servile whine or excited squeak of many of the smaller greenskins, but not the commanding baritone I half thought to hear either.

Moon Maw was evidently happy with what was said to him, and bowed and scraped his way so far back he left the throne’s steps and bumped into the assembled crowd. Still grinning madly, he darted through the rancid cream of goblinhood. What his reward was, I do not know. I never set eyes on him again.

Skarsnik leaned forward and spoke directly to me.

‘Welcome to my kingdom, ’uman,’ he said.

I did not know what to do. I blinked. I was terrified. What was to become of me? Why had I been brought here?

‘Huh,’ Skarsnik said. ‘You a bit quiet, incha? I fought you might be more the speaking type. Did dose idiots take your tongue? I tole ’em not to. Pity. Could do with a nice chat.’

‘I… I… can speak. I can speak, my lord,’ I added. It was an affront to me to address this creature so.

‘My lord, is it?’ He laughed and nodded, looking at his cronies. ‘My lord!’ He held a ringed hand out towards me.

They burst out laughing in a forced manner. ‘Mah lor! Mah lor!’ they dutifully repeated.

Skarsnik jerked his thumb over his shoulder at them and sneered. ‘Lissen to dat. Lissen to ’em “mah lor, mah lor”, he parroted. ‘Zoggin’ idiots. They don’t have no good idea what they is sayin’. They is all stupid.’ He sat back on his throne, and tapped at its arms with his talons. ‘But you, you is not stupid, is ya? “My lord”, bet you don’t like that, bet you don’t like calling me dat at all, smelly little goblin like me. But you do it, don’t ya? Not like some of dem uvvers wot come in here though, are ya? Good know-wots you have. You aren’t stupid. Oh no, I sees dat. I always know, me.’

‘I-I like to think not, my lord.’

‘Nah.’ He sat forward very quickly. ‘Do you think I might be stupid, ’uman?’

I looked at him, this hunchbacked lord of uncountable goblins. I looked deep into his red eyes. Whatever he was, it was certain he was no fool. ‘I do not think so, my lord,’ I said, and I meant it.

‘You sure? I’m just a little goblin,’ he waggled his fingers in front of his face, voice high and mocking. It abruptly switched to disgust. He snatched a goblet of rich dwarf gold from a goblin attendant and drained it.

‘I am very sure, my lord.’ I was finding it hard to stand, I was ill and cold. My stomach cramped.

‘Good, good,’ Skarsnik placed the goblet back in the goblin’s hands with great care and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Iron vambraces beaten into the shape of howling mouths adorned his forearms. He did not move like the others. He was inelegant, as all greenskins are, but there was a precision to his movements the others lacked. ‘Then maybe we can come to a deal. What do you fink? Would you like to make a deal, humie boy?’

‘I would very much like to live, my lord, if that is what you mean.’

He laughed long and hard at this, his head thrown back, the moon medallions, ornaments and teeth hanging from his tall hat clattering against one other. His minions chuckled half-heartedly, their laughter dying long before the king’s. They stood around him as he laughed like a maniac, only their glinting eyes and noses visible in the deep shadows of their hoods. They shuffled from foot to foot, peering at each other in confusion. The smell was overpowering; if I were not so dirty myself and had not spent so many nights in foul tunnels, I fear I might well have retched.

Skarsnik stopped laughing. ‘We’ll see what we can do about that, ’uman. We’ll see. I tell you what. You do me a favour, and I’ll see you get home nice and safe like.’

‘What would the favour be?’

‘Ahaha!’ he said, and wagged a finger. ‘You need to say yes. Or no. If yes,’ he smiled evilly. ‘If no, well.’ He cocked his head, then lashed out a foot at the giant beast by his throne. It made a sound like an inflated pig’s bladder being kicked. The monster snorted. ‘Gobbla is hungry. He’s always hungry, and he likes men-meat as much as the rest. He ain’t fussy.’

‘What choice do I have, my lord?’

Skarsnik grinned at me. ‘Exactly. See, I knew you was clever. We got a deal then?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course. How may I serve you?’

He broke eye contact with me and leaned back in his throne. ‘S’ crooked moon soon,’ he said. ‘It’ll be in the sky. My moon. S’good omen. Gork tole me it’s time. There’s a big fight comin’, a big fight with da stunties.’ He gestured up with his eyes, as if to indicate the dwarfs penned in their citadel above. ‘If that King Belegar’s been feeling sorry for hisself, he’s got anuvver fing coming.’ He broke off this line of conversation with a shake of his head. The trinkets that festooned his enormous hood swung as he did so.

‘You know, ’uman, you ask any greenskin for ’undreds of miles round here, dey all know who I is. I is Skarsnik! Skarsnik the great! Skarsnik! King in da mountain!’ He stood and shouted this out. The other goblins caught on and took up a chant of his name. The goblin king shushed them. ‘But you. Do you know who I is? No lyin’, I will know, I will.’

‘No, my lord,’ I admitted.

‘Right.’ He pointed a finger at me and bobbed it up and down, punctuating his words with its movements. ‘Right. Didn’t fink so. And dat’s no good is it, you not knowing who I is. I’s not very ’appy about dat. I mean, I could just call up a Waaagh! March meself norf and do some mischief in dat Empire of yours. And maybe one day I will.’ He sighed expansively. ‘But I got me ’ands full ’ere, in I? Dwarfs and skaven an’ uppity orcses.’ He pointed to a heap of orc skulls. ‘Coming in here, “Oh, we’s not lissning to no stoopid gobbo!”’ he bellowed in a deep voice. ‘“We’s gonna kick you in, so we is.” Well, says I, we’ll have a little word wiv Gobbla about dat, shall we?’ Dey don’t like dat much at all, oh no.’ He laughed again and rubbed at his chin. ‘Anyways. Busy. Very, very busy. Being king of dis lot is hard work. So I fought I might get meself a poet, so all da pinkies will know who I am, so dat when I’m done with da stunties and dose stupid ratboys they’ll know who I am when I come to burn down dere cities. Be a bit rude, if I’s doing dat, and dey don’t know who I is! Eh, eh?’ He sniffed and inspected a long, dirty claw. ‘I hears poets is wot pinkies like youse like. Pretty words an’ that.’

Maybe the potion had destroyed my preservative instinct, but I became so very annoyed at being compared to a mere poet that I forgot for a moment I spoke not with a gentleman of the Empire, but a dangerous foe of all men. It could have been the journey. I was not at my best. ‘Sir!’ I protested. ‘Poets are low people, minds full of nonsense and hearts full of foolish romance.’ I had known several poets during my time at Altdorf. One whose attitude I found most repulsive was an arrogant pup a couple of years younger than myself. He attended a few blade lessons at my salle before declaring himself of far too high a level of skill to continue training with us. His name was Junker, or Jaeger, I think. I trust he came to nothing. Most poets do not amount to anything much at all.

Skarsnik’s eyes narrowed, and I realised I had made a grave error. He sat forward on that iron throne of his. ‘You don’ do pretty words? Cos pretty words is what I want, and if you can’t do me pretty words, you’re not much use at all, is ya, and I’ll ’ave to get someone else!’ He looked very annoyed at the prospect. Gobbla grumbled in its sleep, eyelids twitching as if it could sense its master’s displeasure. ‘I sent ’em for a pretty word man. Red Belts tole me there was one in da man town near dere mountain. If dey were wrong, you’re gonna die right now— in nasty little bitses. And den I’m gonna have a word wiv Niknok. Red Spears gonna need ’emselves a new boss.’

Panic rolled through me like a black wave. ‘But of course! I merely seek to correct your majesty, if I may. I am a playwright! I write drama for the entertainment and edification of the masses.’

Skarsnik’s brows drew together.

‘I tell stories to many people at a time,’ I explained. ‘It is much better than poetry, which garners a limited audience at best.’

‘Pretty words? I said I want pretty words!’ he shouted, his fists clenched.

‘P-pretty words!’ I stammered. ‘Oh yes, the finest of all words, my lord!’ It sickens me now how pleading I had become, a sycophant to a green monster. Please forgive me, for I was in fear for my life, and of a painful death.

Skarsnik nodded. ‘Good, good! Dat’s what I want, a good story. Because I am going to tell you a good story. An’ I want you to take it wiv ya, and I want you to tell all da uvver ’umies out dere who the biggest and meanest and bestest goblin in the world is, you got dat? And if you don’t do it in pretty words den I’ll come and eat your liver while you watches, got dat?’

I nodded vigorously. ‘And that mighty warlord you speak of is obviously yourself, my lord,’ I said. I was terrified, sick, drugged, dazed, and tired. A hundred pairs of red eyes were fixed on my face, all others there utterly silent.

‘Exactly,’ said Skarsnik. ‘You is a clever one.’

He waved two fingers at one of his guards, who came forward and produced a big knife. My heart quailed, but he slipped the iron into my bonds and cut my hands free. I gasped in relief, and then bit back a scream. My hands had been tied so long they had become entirely numb, and the sensation of the blood rushing back into them was as if they had been set afire. ‘You, you are untying me?’

Skarsnik looked about him, his eyes and mouth wide. ‘Oh yeah, I ’adn’t fought of dat! Gor! You could kill me or run off, couldn’t ya?’ He held up a finger to his lips in mock thought. ‘Oh no, ’ang on a minute. There’s a lot of nasty gobboes all arounds ya, and you’re a long way from ’ome. What ya going do, ’umie? Where’s ya gonna go? Sing up a dragon and fly off wiv da wind? Nah. I fink I’m gonna be all right.’ He shook his head at my idiocy and pulled a face of irritation. It was a look I was to grow very familiar with, for he deployed it often when talking with his subjects.

Skarsnik sat down again. A table was brought to me from somewhere, and a chair. A candlestick was thumped onto the table, a greasy tallow in it. Badly cured parchment, a bunch of dirty feathers, and a skull full of dark liquid were dropped in front of me. Skarsnik tutted and shook his head. The big goblin quivered as he tried to pat the pile into something approaching neatness. Skarsnik rolled his eyes. ‘Dey don’t unnerstand. Ya got to be organised! Organised!’ He slammed a fist into his throne’s arm. Gobbla growled and snuffled. The goblin guard shook so hard his armour rattled. Skarsnik’s rage subsided as quickly as it had come, and Gobbla went back to snoring. ‘Uvverwise, ya don’t get nuffink done, does ya? I keep tellin’ ’em, I do. Be organised. I try. Rule one, dat is. Rule one!’ he said. There was an underlying weariness to Skarsnik’s voice. Again, it was something I would come to know well.

I would also hear many more of these rules.

I remained kneeling on the floor as the goblin guards withdrew.

‘I got somefink for you ta drink ’n all,’ said the lord of Karak Eight Peaks genially. He was mercurial in character; one moment he was welcoming, almost human, the next vindictive. I had no doubt he could be as spiteful and cruel as the next goblin, if not more so. A large snotling, or perhaps a small goblin, it is impossible to be sure, with an exceptionally snooty expression brought a bottle of Bretonnian wine to the table, presented it with a flourish and set it down. Food, the most edible I had seen for days, came with it. Skarsnik nodded in approval, then frowned at me. ‘What? You gonna sit down or what? You ’umies are as fick as dem stunties up dere! Sit down! Sit down now!’ He stamped his foot.

I stood slowly, my hands and feet pained from their cramping. The chair was made of tarnished metal, as was the table. Both were suited to a being shorter and broader than myself, and I was forced to sit with my legs to one side.

‘Go on den, ’ave a drink,’ said Skarsnik, gesturing to the bottle.

I pulled the cork with my teeth and sipped the wine. It was of tremendous quality, and I greedily sucked half of it down. My stomach rebelled, but I clamped my jaw shut until the roiling within subsided.

‘Right den,’ said Skarsnik, rubbing his hands together. ‘Youse gonna write, gonna write now.’ He pointed at the feathers. I picked one that seemed most suitable. It was uncut. I raised an eyebrow. Skarsnik barked something at someone, and I was given the world’s least offensive knife to form my quill nib. I cut quickly so as not to anger the goblin king with further delay. Skarsnik was well acquainted with the habits of writing, I thought. I looked at his hands; sure enough his fingertips were black with ink, and I noticed papers peeking out from behind the seat of his monstrous throne.

‘Ready, ’umie? So here we go den.’ He leaned back, took a deep breath and looked upwards, bending his hat against his throne back. ‘It all started a long, long time ago, in a smelly little cave…’

CHAPTER 6

A RUNT SPAWNED

Dark. Cold. Damp. A slick membrane gave way, and soft hands found wet soil. There was nothing thinking in the little mind that worked the hands, not yet, nothing except the impulse to dig, to go upwards.

The soil was moist and full of rocks that scratched his hands. The goblin runt struggled hard, lungs burning. Spots flickered in the black. His life was done almost as it had begun.

A hand broke the surface, flapping madly in the air. The second followed, then a bald, pointy head. Were there strong light in the cavern, the newly spawned goblin would have appeared a whitish green. But there was not. Only the weak blue shine of glowshrooms held back the dark, and all was dingy.

The Runt pulled himself up out of the hole. A huge mushroom stood above his birthing-hole, wilting and black now it had served its purpose. The goblin lay on his back, panting. Scrabbling noises came from the cave all around him; other runts, pulling themselves out of the earth.

The Runt was feeble. The soil in the cavern was thin and rocky. The light was too dim. No orclings would be born there, only runty goblins and snotlings and squigs. These lesser animals flapped and slithered and snarled and bit their way out of the dark earth into the cold air of the cave.

The new-spawned were hungry. The Runt heard the flap of flat feet on stone approach him. The other goblin breathed raggedly, a fresh-sprouted stomach grumbling above the Runt’s head. The Runt lay still. Already his mind filled with things he did not understand. One of those was a deep and pressing urge not to die.

Thin, grasping fingers moved down to the Runt’s throat, wrapping themselves about his scrawny neck. The Runt waited until the goblin had bent over him. The fingers tightened, and the Runt struck.

Sharp teeth dug into a fleshy nose. They ached to their roots in their newness, loose in their gums. The Runt pulled back, ripping the nose off the face of the other goblin.

‘Waaggh! Waaagh!’ the goblin bleated. Blood pattered onto the Runt. He lunged up and knocked the other spawnling to the floor. A brief flurry of blows, sharp teeth closed upon a throat, and it was all over.

The Runt, who would one day be called Skarsnik, ate his first meal. His stomach ached with the newness of it. All the mushrooms in the cave were wilted. He had been among the last to emerge. Five more goblins sat on the far side of the cave, hunkered down around another corpse, wolfing down the flesh of their fellow.

The Runt regarded them warily.

A long journey upwards, from cave to crevice to crevasse the goblins went. One slipped hard and jammed his foot in a hole in a rock. His pleas were ignored and he was devoured alive by his fellows. This could so easily have been Skarsnik, and how different the world would have been then, how different my life. But it was not, and chance, or the gods, spared the future king as it would time and again. Another goblin was snatched away by a cave squig that burst from its burrow and vanished, leaving but the clack of jaws on the air and a terrified squeal to mark its passing. A third member of their party wandered towards whispers in the dark and was not seen again.

The remaining three spawnlings grew wary. Fear filled their heads. They milled about, wailing.

‘Up!’ said the Runt. ‘Up! Up!’ Words were coming to him. His skin was hardening, losing its slackness, the green of it deepening. He was smaller than the others, but his eyes were sharper, his mind quicker. His difference was there from the very beginning. He looked up and sniffed the air. ‘Up!’

They went up, following the Runt. He was small and weedy, but they listened.

Noise. Banging, a horrid wailing. They approached a broad crack in a wall. Cold blackness gave way to warm yellow light. Winds carried new scents to the goblin spawnlings. Their large noses sniffed the air, their ears wavered with uncertainty. The other spawnlings cowered, but the Runt pushed at them and scratched at their tender new skin with his nails. ‘On, on!’ he hissed.

They went through the crack.

They were on a stairway. The Runt recognised it for what it was, his feeling for the world instinctive, much about it uncoiling unbidden in his mind. The stairs stopped at a landing by two big stone bowls. The landing was choked with boulders, the way blocked further down entirely by rockfall debris.

Above them, torchlight glimmered. There was the sound of many voices, and music. ‘Come on! Come on! This way!’ The Runt gestured upwards. He was cold, but though he knew of warmth, he had yet to experience it first-hand, and so was not unsettled by his shivering skin.

The sound of drums and squigpipes battered their sensitive new ears. In the Runt’s birth-mind, there were no words for these things; of these, and so much more, he would have to learn, much as a human child does.

From cracks along the ruined stairs came other new-spawned runts, flopping onto the flat stones, out from the dark of the deep mountain roots as if born a second time. They came into the half-light of the stairs, and screwed their eyes up tight against it. Their faces were slack with wonder and fear. Mostly fear. Some bands, like Skarsnik’s, followed bold ones among their number, others skulked and prodded the smallest among them to the fore, instinct telling them to sacrifice the weak to save their own hides.

Soon scores of young goblins were creeping up the steps towards the noise.

Firelight flickered, casting crazed shadows that wheeled and danced on the ceiling. As he reached the top of the stairs, the Runt stopped. He slunk back behind a rock. His companions followed, not knowing what else to do.

A bonfire blazed on the landing. Some of the spawnlings bared their teeth and hissed at its hateful light, others of them shuddered in pleasure as its warmth hit their skin. Around the fire, goblins capered and leapt, long hoods capped with jingling bells or skulls whipping though the air as they danced.

The grizzled boss of the Backstairs Boys, Tarkit Fing-Finger, clapped, casting nervous looks to the giant goblin who sat upon his stone throne. The throne was the clan chief’s, but not today. Today Ibrit Dungstrangler, chief of all the Crooked Moon tribe, was touring his domains, and so Boss Tarkit stood.

‘Ibrit! Ibrit!’ sang the giggling, dancing goblins. Their eyes spun. They jumped high over the flames. ‘Ibrit! Ibrit! He is the best!’ The giant goblin grinned. He was huge, he seemed as big as a mountain to the Runt. He leaned on his double-headed axe, whose blades were wrought in the semblance of crescent moons mounted back to back. His hat was bulbous and vividly coloured, a patchwork of leering moons and grimacing suns. Ibrit’s nose bore the start of a fat scar that continued across his face, one eye white and dead, and his hands were stained deep brown, a result of the unpleasant habit that had given him his name.

The Runt watched as the other sproutlings staggered shivering towards the fire. At first, the adult goblins did not see these children, but then one and then another caught sight of them milling around at the edge of the landing. The Runt did not like the look in their eyes.

‘Lookee here!’ one squeaked. ‘Look at that!’

‘Runts! Fresh runts!’ shouted another. All the goblins on the landing had seen the runts. Their faces lit up.

The new-spawned were poked and prodded. Their ears were tweaked and noses were pulled. One was pushed into the fire, another was snatched up by an arm. ‘This one’s for dinner!’ called a goblin. Two more were plucked up from the floor, their necks wrung. They were swiftly gutted and prepared for roasting.

‘The moon! The crooked moon is out and shines on the rocks above! Runts come from da caves!’ screeched a goblin. A strange aura hung about him, as did the stink of mushroom liquor and fungus beer. ‘S’good, boss! It is a good fing! New runts!’ The goblin was as swivel-eyed as the maniac dancers. He pawed at the mail-clad sleeve of the king. ‘Oh yus! New runts for Ibrit Dungstrangler. From da Backstairs Boys, a gift, see, to fight the ratboys and the stunties!’

Dungstrangler stood and growled. He strode across the landing, sweeping new-spawned and adult night goblin alike aside with the shaft of his axe. ‘What use is runts? You lot is no good to me at all!’ he bellowed. ‘Look at you, skulking down here like a bunch of snotties. I need boys! I need mobs! Not… squig food!’ He plucked a squealing spawnling from the floor and threw it against the wall. It died with a wet crunch. ‘I want four mobs of good strong lads to fight with the ratboys by next two moon, or I’m gonna come down here and give these stairs to a bunch of greenies that know how to treat their chief!’

Ibrit Dungstrangler swaggered off up the stairs. His own boys, big, hard-headed Moonhat boss goblins armed to the teeth, took up their crescent swords and spears and grinned nastily at the Backstairs Boys as they went after their chief.

Tarkit Fing-Finger, Big Boss of the Backstairs Boys, picked at the thing on his finger that gave him his name. He scowled at a goblin that looked like it might try a quick back-stab, and punched him in the face. He glared at the ragged drunken goblin.

‘Oi, Duffskul! Now where the zog am I gonna get four mobs of boys to fight the rat-things?’

Duffskul shrugged. He looked at the sea of spawnlings cowering on the floor. They were being tormented by older goblins and clan snotlings alike.

Tarkit followed Duffskul’s gaze. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Oi! Gosgob, put that runt down! How’s he gonna fight dem ratboys if you eat him?’ He looked around his boys with incredulity. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Someone get Grobskab the runtboss in here! Now!’

The time of two moon came and went. Ibrit returned. He was angry that Tarkit did not have four mobs, but Tarkit wheedled and pleaded and showed Ibrit his new runts, and weren’t they coming on well? And won’t they be big and strong come the next fight? Ibrit let him live, and took two mobs of Tarkit’s big gobboes with him instead. Although, truth be told, Tarkit’s biggest were not so very big at all, for the Backstairs Boys were a poor clan. Food was scarce, and their birthing caves deep and mean.

Ibrit beat the ratboys, so they said, but an ambush after the battle by the Cave Clobberers, the Crooked Moon’s main rivals, did for most of them. Only five of the boys returned.

The Runt, as he became known – goblins are not terribly imaginative – was put into a runtgang with other runts, misfits and scrawny little ones that were neither snotling nor goblin but somewhere in between.

Weeks passed. The other runts became big and strong, for goblin young grow quick, and many were taken away to become real boys.

Not the one that would be Skarsnik. He stayed small and weak. For a long time, it looked like he’d never be bigger than a spawnling. That happened, sometimes, damning the greenskin in question to a halfway life. But still he lived and came to no harm. This was a most unusual state of affairs in the greenskins’ violent world.

Grobskab, the clan’s old slaver, noticed this scrawny little creature coming back to the pens night after night, at the head of his gang despite his diminutive stature, his followers’ arms straining under heaps of mushrooms, and he got to thinking about it. ‘Something funny about that one,’ Grobskab said. ‘Something strange.’ No one listened. ‘Runtbosses’, as Skarsnik called them, are notorious mutterers, their heads full of strange affections for their charges and other ungobliny ideas.

This affection was not exhibited by the runtboss’s two apprentices, Barfik and Snotruk – runtboys, Skarsnik translated their title, although I doubt the accuracy of all these names. Barfik was lazy and greedy, but Snotruk was by far the worst. From the first day he seemed to have it in for the Runt, indeed, it was he who first named him such. All spawnlings are called ‘runt’ until they have earned themselves a proper name, but Skarsnik’s growth was so retarded, he was simply ‘The Runt’, and it was not a term of affection. It may be Snotruk picked on the Runt because he had noticed Grobskab watching the scrawny goblin with approval, and that kindled a feeling akin to jealousy in his black little heart. Or it might simply be that the Runt’s size made him a target, as is the way with the goblins; they prey on the weak.

Under the command of this sadistic runtboy, the Runt’s team were made to gather mushrooms in the most dangerous of places, venture down burrows to haul the fierce creatures therein out by their tails, and other noisome jobs, jobs snotlings are too foolish to do properly, and other goblins will not. The Backstairs Boys were too poor to have slaves, and it fell to the weakest of their own kind to perform these menial tasks.

‘Sometimes,’ Skarsnik told me, ‘da ratboys would come out ov holes and get one of us, or wild cave squigs would chomp us up, or one of us would fall down a big hole. But I survived.’

By this point in his tale, Skarsnik had sent most of his cronies away from the dais. The wild-eyed shaman remained in his tent, two large goblins stood either side of the warlord. These were merely for show, for what has a goblin that has a giant cave squig as his constant companion to fear? It had grown cold up there on the pinnacle of rock without the press of dirty green bodies, and I was grateful for the iron firebowls. More chilling was the sense of loneliness. I wondered if the dwarfs who built the place felt that way; perhaps not, for they are a stoic folk. But I wondered if Skarsnik felt it. Perhaps he did.

‘I was different, see,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Oh, dey called me da Runt and dey beat and hurt me, but I was always quicker than them, up here.’ He tapped a finger on his temple. ‘You know what I mean? Da chains we had,’ he rattled Gobbla’s chain, ‘dey was so easy to get out ov. When da runtboss told us to work, I’d set me gang up and sneak away. We’d be down dere days, sometimes, and as long as I came back wiv da goods, it didn’t matter. I’d see fings… incredible fings.’

Skarsnik told me of how he clambered out of a certain crack in the wall in the mushroom caverns, the closest things these greenskins have to farms. The crack was hidden behind a rill in the rock and became his secret door to a world far greater than the other goblins were aware of: a door that led everywhere. ‘I had dis snottie... Snottie, I called him.’ A faraway look came into Skarsnik’s eyes. ‘He was my best pal. I found him, one time, he was gonna be eaten by cave scorpions. I fought dat was well funny, and I sat back to watch, making bets wiv meself. But den I fought, why? Why should I watch the little tyke get et? The runtboss, he had snotties, and dey did all sorts for him, and I fought it’d be good to have me own to go ’n do all sorts fer me. So I dropped some rocks on da scorps, and saved him. First fing he did was bite me, little sod.’ He rubbed at his hand. ‘I wanted to smash him so bad for dat, but I didn’t. And he became me pal.’

The Runt took Snottie under his wing, keeping him safe at night and feeding him morsels. He trained him to find the best fleshrooms, the meaty kinds most prized by the night goblins, or sniff out hidden squig holes and keep the Runt safe.

Skarsnik’s face grew soft at these reminiscences. ‘We got a system, me and da boys,’ explained Skarsnik to me. ‘We got Snottie to sniff out da best of da fleshrooms, not ones they uvvers’d find, nah, ones up little holes and in nasty dank cracks. Den I’d send in Snottie or some of da littler lads to get ’em out. Diglit, who was me best boss in dem days, small gobbo, but he had da smarts.’ Skarsnik tapped his head again. ‘Not fick like a lot of uvvers. He or me took the ’shrooms den, to our little stash. Shifted a rock, back of a hole, wrapped ’em up in old cloth to keep ’em fresh. We’d start a ruck wiv da uvver gangs, the runtboss or one of his boys’d have to come and sort it out, and Diglit could go on to da stash, safe as you please. Snotruk and da uvver runtboys’d be none the wiser. S’mazing what you can get wiv a bit of fleshroom. Get you anyfing, if you ask da right person.’

From early in his career, Skarsnik was scheming. Goblins are wily as a rule, but Skarsnik took it to heights undreamt of for one of his low status. His secret wares gained him a new job, feeding the Backstairs Boys’ sole pair of prisoners, an old dwarf and one of the rat beasts that so infest the depths. Skarsnik would sit for hours by the cage of the dwarf, listening to him rave, wondering why he was not the same as the others, for by then it was clear to the Runt that he thought differently to his fellows. The rat said nothing, either glared at him from the depths of its cage, or ran round and round the cell until the Runt felt obliged to pelt it with rocks and shout at it to stop.

Other times, he’d creep out of the runt pit or the mushroom caves with Snottie. Snotruk the runtboy was wise to his comings and goings, but there was always something to distract him, something to draw him away. And if he ever did make it to where the Runt’s gang laboured, he’d find a grinning crew, the Runt at its head, a pile of mushrooms worth a chief’s ransom heaped about them.

Together, Snottie and the Runt explored the vastness of the under-mountain, although it was some time before he braved the city proper. They traversed old goblin delvings, ventured into the dwarf mines, some sealed for long years, or skirted nervously around the outskirts of the ratmen’s homes, and the Runt began to get an inkling of how vast the ratmen’s holdings truly were, and also how small those of the night goblins were.

Time went on, and Skarsnik grew bolder. Fleshroom payments to Barfik got him out of the cave at night. He began following parties of the ratmen in the dark. They never knew he was there, for few things are more adept at hiding in the caves than a lone night goblin. They searched and dug constantly, and the Runt realised they were looking for something.

‘That could be useful, eh Snottie? To know what they is after…’ he whispered in the dark. He resolved to find out, and began to follow their foraging parties with redoubled interest.

Only once, Skarsnik told me, was he nearly caught. A breeze was blowing over him towards a party of scavenging ratmen. A ratman, bigger and more muscular than the rest, watched over a group of wretched slaves as they laboured, moving piles of rock in pursuit of their mysterious prize. Its nose came up, whiskers quivering in the blue gloom. It skittered towards his hiding place with surprising suddenness, but by then the Runt had already gone.

He did not make the same mistake again, staying downwind of the ratmen from then on.

He was rewarded some time later, when he witnessed the ratmen recover large nuggets of some glowing material from a buried well that made them very excited. This, then: wyrdstone, this was what they searched for.

This piece of information joined all the others in the Runt’s unusual mind, linking themselves together like the labyrinthine tunnels under the mountain. Crooked ways that wormed through his brain, never going where you might expect, but all ultimately joined into one. By now, he had a good understanding of the comings and goings of everyone from the Backstairs Boys’ tiny domain. He had explored the territory around them, save for those passages he was sure were further on down the stairs, on the other side of the rockfall. He could find no passage to lead him past the blockage. When he tried, he became confused and lost, ending up where he came from without really knowing why. He became somewhat obsessed with it, returning night after night to the choked-off stairs, venturing deep into the ratmen’s territory, but to the other side of the rockfall he could not go. No tunnel or way seemed to lead there.

He grew bolder and began to wander the abandoned dwarf city. The Backstairs Boys’ realm was near the bottom of the dwarfs’ old kingdom, and its true glories were found in the levels above. At first, he dared only those lower parts, close to hand. Much of the Eight Peaks was entirely empty, stripped of treasures and left to the dust and silence. Goblins or skaven might live here or there, and in some places in near permanence, but many territories were periodically emptied by their endless battles, or simply left unoccupied, inhabited only sporadically by drifters and outcasts.

The city was a frightening place for a night goblin, the marks of its builders everywhere. The Runt knew that there had been no dwarfs for a long time, but their works looked as if they were waiting, the statues and the doors, the long avenues and soaring halls, waiting for their masters to come back.

Most impressive of all was that place named the Abyss of Iron’s Dream, a vast, river-carved cleft that divided a quarter of the dwarfs’ city from the rest. The chasm cut through seven levels of the city, those which the dwarfs call ‘deeps’, or so Skarsnik told me. The dwarfs had squared it and smoothed the river’s way and incorporated it into their city’s design. The ceiling was shaped into angular sculpture; large rectangular lights in the ceiling let the day in from outside. The river they had trammelled in a channel of dressed stone, its many tributaries pouring not from flowstone tubes, but the stern faces of dwarf heroes. A hundred there were of these titanic effigies, or so Skarsnik said, each one sporting a waterfall beard, crusted now with flowstone and stalactites.

The Runt had chanced upon the sound of the subterranean river, and being curious, followed it. It had led him onto a broad platform near the base of the Abyss.

‘Wowser,’ he said. ‘Wowser.’ Skarsnik told me that was his reaction, as he gazed at this unimaginable space for long minutes, so huge no night goblin would dare live there. He explored the first few levels of it. He found ancient bones – dwarf, goblin and ratman – scattered on the platforms that jutted from the sloping walls. Always, that tall space hung over him, terrifying him with its openness. It had him thinking of the sky, that terrible place where the bad moon and its pale twin lived at night, and that during the day played host to the burning malice of the Evil Sun. A world without a lid. He became fascinated by that concept, obsessed by it as much as it scared him.

He thought to himself, the places he had heard were full of death and fear were not quite so full of death and fear as the other goblins supposed. He thought, perhaps the same was true of the surface too.

One day, the Runt decided to go all the way up.

‘I spent ages looking for a way out. Days. One day, Snottie found a fing, like a chimney,’ Skarsnik said. ‘He was leapin’ about and squealin’ and pointin’ da way I’d got him to when he found a big stash of fleshrooms. It was through me secret tunnel, the one in the mushroom caves. There was dis bit I must’ve been past an ’undred times, but he found sumfink there. Behind this soft and crumbly rock, I found dis hole, a crack. Dere was loose rocks bunged up in it, so I pulled ’em away. I stuck me head in, then me arms, then me legs, and sort of crawled in. I was gonna give ’im such a beating for distracting me, but it got me interested, dis hole, so I gave him a little treat instead, bit o’ rat toe. It was his favourite, dat. Da hole went up and up, all the way, and a little ways in, down and down the same. I didn’t even fink about it, it was safe, see, no one knew it was dere, no stink of ratboy, gobbo, or squig to it, and dere int much more dan dat dat could have fitted in dere. I stuffed Snottie in me robes, and I started to climb.’ He smiled and nodded, his charms jangling on his hat. ‘Gork’s teef, it was a long climb dat! I fought me arms would come off they hurts so bad. Nothing but gobboes in the upper levels them days, and not many at dat cause we was always fighting each uvver and da ratboys, not like now, so’s I had to be careful. But I wasn’t afraid. Not me.’

The Runt went higher than any other Backstairs Boy had ever been, passing corridors untouched by living creatures since the fall of the dwarf empire, isolated chambers closed by rockfalls or hidden by the efforts of the mountain folk. He rested by sealed dwarf tombs until the feeling crept back into his arms. He pulled food from pristine fields of mushrooms. The chimney changed, becoming lined with fine blocks of stone. The air grew colder, losing its staleness. Snottie whimpered, and the Runt shushed him as best he could while he climbed.

A wind blew, growing stronger and stronger, bringing with it strange smells and a sharpness that made the Runt’s ears quiver. He mastered his fear and pressed on. For long hours, he’d been in near total darkness, his way lit only by glowing fungus and flickering dwarf rune lamps. Now, a dimness permeated the chimney, a bluish light the likes of which the Runt had only glimpsed through the ceiling of the Abyss of Iron’s Dream. His eyes narrowed. He nearly stopped and turned back.

But he did not.

The chimney turned a corner, levelled out, and led into a cave.

The cave mouth was open to the outside, a circle of light blinding to his eyes.

‘I sat dere like a frightened snottie for a long, long time,’ Skarsnik said to me. ‘I daren’t go on, not into all dat light!’ He shuddered at the memory of it. ‘Den I fought about all dem bosses and boys what called me Runt, and what pushed me around and hit me and took me mushrooms and laughed when it hurt. I fought, “I’m better dan dat, I’m better dan dem!” They’d be scared, they would. So I won’t be. Snottie shook hard, and I fought “Am I a snottie? Am I?”’ He looked at me defiantly; he was angry, reliving the slights of the past. ‘No! I is a gobbo, not a shaking snottie! So I went towards the light, and now I is a king.’ He chuckled to himself, deep in his throat, and kicked his legs over one throne arm, lolling there. He squeezed his eyes closed. ‘At first me eyes hurt, but then I could see, and I sat down and looked out.

‘It wasn’t a cave, not a real one. Stunties made it. I was in a hole like a carved stunty mouth. Underneath me feet was da whole of the old stunty city! Spread out, like wot’s on a map or sumfink. All da buildings old and fallen in, wiv plants and green bits. Dere were fires and stuff down dere, orcses and others camping out under da stars. Big mountains, lots of ’em went round it in a big circle like, like really big Big ’Uns all standing to attention. Dere was this fing, like a big circle.’ He held up his forefinger and thumb in a ring, and peered with one red eye through it. ‘“And I fought, What’s dat?” And I said to Snottie, who was whimpering and squeaking all the time. “Look at dat! Dat’s the Evil Sun, it’s da sun, all bright an big and bad.”

‘But I looked at it. And I looked at it. And I wasn’t scared. It’s just a big fire in da sky, I fought, that’s all it is. Nuffink there to frighten me. Is dat what all dat lot down there are scared of? It’s just a light! So I laughed at it, and it ran away and hid behind the mountains and I knew it was scared of me. So I was feeling all brave. Mork spoke to me den, and not for the first time. He said “You is gonna be a boss!”, that’s all, “You is gonna be a boss!”, but what words, ’umie!’ He swung his feet back to the floor, and stood, his hands held high in fists, like he were challenging the sun again. ‘Oh, I stood up and I shouted, and my voice bounced all around the old city and dere was nuffink there to say anyfing to me. And I fought to myself, I fought, and I stood up and said: “One day, all dis will be mine, by Gork or Mork, or possibly both, one day it will all be mine!” And you know what else? I knew it too.’

He hissed and stared hard at me. ‘That’s the truth of it, ’umie. That’s the truth of it.’

CHAPTER 7

TWO HEADS ARE WORSE THAN ONE

‘Where the zog have you been?’

Snotruk. This was the worst luck possible for the Runt.

The Runt was awake instantly. ‘No-nowhere Snotruk!’

‘Oi! Barfik, where’s he been?’

Barfik pursed his lips. ‘The Runt? Right there, I reckon.’

The runtboy tugged at the Runt’s chains hard. ‘What’s this then, Runt?’ he said. His squigskin apron creaked as he knelt down and pointed at the Runt’s knees. ‘All scabbed and scratched. You get that in the cave? I don’t think so.’

‘I ain’t done nothing, Snotruk!’ The Runt had seen Snottie raise his tiny head over the stone that concealed his sleeping place. Should the runtboy see him, there would be trouble.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Snotruk. His ears fanned out aggressively, and he clicked his teeth together. ‘You’re always up to something, Runt. I don’t like you. One day I am going to find how you get out of these chains, because I know you do! You are sneaky, too sneaky by half. Runtboss says leave you alone, but I don’t like you, I really don’t.’ Snotruk sniffed and hitched up his belt. ‘I got a replacement for your gang.’ He nodded to the irons where Naffgrot had been chained, before he’d annoyed Snotruk one too many times and felt the whip bite too deep. The Runt’s old gang were all drifting away, either dead or grown. The Runt remained. He was still too small to be a boy, he hadn’t grown right. Skarsnik confided in me later that when he went up the chimney and sat, hands clasped about his knees to ward off the cold, he worried about his size; although he hurriedly insisted he always knew he would grow. I did not believe him.

New runts were coming in from fresh sproutings, taking the places of the Runt’s old gang. Snotruk’s name of ‘The Runt’ for him was becoming ever more apposite. ‘You going to say thank you?’ he said evilly.

The Runt swallowed. ‘Er, ta?’

‘Ha!’ shouted Snotruk. ‘Don’t thank me yet, you haven’t met him… them… er… it.’

He swung his whip carelessly as he walked out of the runtcave, clouting runts on the head as he went. ‘Whoops,’ he said. ‘Oh dear,’ and, ‘I didn’t see you there, sorry.’

A short while later, while they were eating their mouldering mushroom porridge, they brought in the Runt’s new gangmate. Snotruk and Barfik led him in. The old runtboss Grobskab was there too, watching over them.

‘Watch out! He’s an interesting specimen, Snotruk, don’t you mess him up! Two heads! Blessed by the gods!’ shouted the runtboss.

‘He’s too stupid to be blessed, boss,’ said Barfik wearily. He tugged at a leather strap leading out of the door.

The goblin they brought in was fully grown, bigger even than fully grown. It was the way that, besides young spawnlings, the biggest snotlings, the undersized, the feeble-minded, and slaves caught from other tribes and races, the odd genuine freak would be brought to the runtgangs to labour in the mushroom fields and beast pens.

This was such a freak. The new goblin’s skin was a pasty grey, not any one of the vivid green shades a proper goblin’s skin should be. Its legs were short and stumpy, its arms were too long, and its shoulders unnaturally broad. It waddled as it walked, bumping its barrel-shaped body into everything – the walls, the door, the runtboys… It did not help matters that it had two heads, and they argued forcefully with one another as to which way they should go.

‘No, Urk go this way! This way!’ shouted one head.

‘No! No! Ur-hur, er, no! Durk go that way!’ shouted the other. And so it staggered violently from side to side. A collar around each neck led to two straps, one held by Snotruk, the other by Barfik. They swore and tugged, trying to get it to go in one direction.

The runts stopped eating and stared. A two-headed goblin was a sight beyond compare.

‘What the zog is that, boss?’ said Diglit.

‘It’s a goblin with two heads, you idiot,’ said the Runt.

‘Sorry boss.’

‘Don’t be sorry, don’t be an idiot.’

‘Sorry boss.’

‘What did I just say?’

‘Sor–’

The Runt hit Diglit around the head.

‘Ow!’

The shambling goblin was prodded and tugged over to the Runt’s gang.

‘He’s all yours, Runt,’ chuckled Snotruk. ‘And now your gang is full up again, I’ll be wanting more mushrooms from your lot, get it?’

The Runt’s lip curled. There was no way he could get his boys to work harder, they were already working far harder than everyone else. It would be impossible if they were having to deal with this directionless monster, and Snotruk knew it. He was setting the Runt up for a beating.

Work down in the caves proved harder than ever. The new goblin Urkdurk, or Two Head as they dubbed him (I have mentioned, have I not, that goblins lack a certain imaginative capability?), stood around arguing with itself, or eating the crops they were supposed to be harvesting, or became so confused it stood there dribbling. The Runt’s runts beat and berated their new companion, but he was stolid and immovable, and as strong as an ox. Snotruk watched them the whole time, a look of smug amusement on his face. This was bad enough, but it also meant that the Runt could not pull off any of his tricks.

‘What we gonna do, boss?’ asked Diglit. ‘He’s eaten as many mushrooms as we’ve picked! And with that zogger standing there,’ he narrowed his eyes at Snotruk, ‘there’s no way I can get down to our stash.’

‘Yeah,’ said the Runt. Urkdurk was doing something interesting, staring at a patch of bright lichen amid the mushrooms, both heads grinning idiotically. ‘Hang on a mo’, I think I’ve got an idea.’

‘What, forming in your head?’ said Diglit.

‘No, in me dangly bits. Of course in me head, you idiot!’

‘Sorry, boss.’

The Runt kicked his underling, although in truth Diglit was now taller than he, and therefore more of an overling. ‘Don’t be sorry. Get me a glowshroom.’

Diglit went to do as he was told. Minutes later, the Runt stood in front of Urkdurk with a shining mushroom that gave off a sickly yellow light. ‘Here! Here! Hey Urkdurk! Urkdurk! Look at the pretty light, look at it, hey, pretty pretty!’

Two pairs of eyes, devoid of intelligence, focused on the glowshroom.

‘Me Durk,’ said one head.

‘Me Urk,’ said the other.

‘We Durkurk,’ said the first.

‘Nah! Urkdurk!’ said the second, and they fell to arguing again, the left hand slapping the right head, and so on.

‘Mork’s teeth,’ said the Runt. He pulled a hand down his face. ‘Let’s try again. Hey! Look at the pretty light!’

Snotruk was by now incapacitated with laughter, slapping his squigskin-clad knees. The other runts and spawnlings worked on in the mushroom fields, but even though they were frightened of the runtboys’ lashes, they stole many glances over to see what the Runt was doing with his freak and grinned with undisguised glee.

The Runt made the mushroom dance on its long stalk, sprinkling glow spores all around, until he finally had the attention of both Urkdurk’s heads. ‘There see, look, pretty?’

Urkdurk’s heads nodded together. ‘Pretty!’ they said.

‘Do you want it?’

‘Yeah! Oh yeah!’

‘Well, you can have it, and as many more of the same as you like, but you both have to do what I say, you got that? No more arguing! You got to be organised!’

Two sets of frowns confronted the runt. ‘Huh?’ said one head. ‘Duh?’ said the other.

‘Never mind. Do what I say?’

Urkdurk nodded. His hands reached out for the mushroom. At the same time.

The Runt snatched it back. ‘A-a-a-a!’ He admonished. ‘You gotta work to get paid. Pick up that pile of rocks there, and put them there. Then the other boys can use ’em to get to the top, all right, and pick them big mushrooms up there what no one can reach.’ He pointed to the mushrooms, high on a ledge.

Urkdurk lumbered off to pile the rocks, the heads talking rapidly about the pretty lights. The Runt nodded with satisfaction. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Snotruk glower. This made him glad.

‘Nice work, boss,’ said Diglit. ‘Nice trick. How’d you know about the glowy rocks then?’

For a perilous second, the Runt’s world tilted onto its side. Had Diglit been spying on him? The Runt reined in his emotions. Another goblin would have lashed out there and then, but not the Runt. He would give nothing away.

‘What do you mean?’ he said neutrally.

Diglit took on a frightened look. He was finally growing into a proper boy – helped, no doubt, by the fleshrooms the Runt had had his crew hiding away – and was now a head taller than the Runt. But despite their size difference, Diglit was frightened of his gang boss. There was something… ungobliny about him. ‘Nothing, boss! Nothing! I thought you knew already, I should have told you, like you’re always saying.’

The Runt felt the tension within him dissolve. Diglit hadn’t been spying on him. He did, however, know something the Runt did not. He kept his face stern as he tried to force it out of Diglit. ‘What? What haven’t you told me? I told you to tell me everything, Diglit! You got to be organised! How can we be organised if you’s holding out on me? We’re mates, right?’

Diglit’s ears flexed up and down. The Runt grabbed one between his thumb and forefinger and tweaked. Diglit squeaked. ‘I know! I know! I’m sorry, boss!’

‘Spit it out!’

‘It’s Two Head, Urkdurk, he’s… Ow, boss, it’s hurting! He’s said he comes from a cave with a glowy rock in it, that’s all. I suppose that’s why he likes the glowshroom, that’s all! Ow, boss, let go, please!’

The Runt released Diglit, and the bigger goblin skulked away, rubbing at his ear, the other pressed tight against his head in submission.

The Runt’s head exploded with possibilities. He strode towards the mutant goblin and grabbed its thick shoulder. ‘Tell me about the glowy rocks, Urkdurk,’ he hissed in an ear.

‘Durkurk.’ Insisted one head.

‘I’m just going to call you Two Head,’ said the Runt, in exasperation. ‘You’ve got two heads. The only difference is I can’t make my mind up which is thicker! Now, tell me about the glowy rocks!’ The Runt was aware that Snotruk was coming down the slope of the shroom cave, his whip out. The Runt had given Snotruk all the excuse he needed to whip him hard.

‘Glowy rocks, like in the cave what we was growed from!’ said Urk, or maybe Durk.

‘Yeah,’ said the other. ‘Pretty green!’

The Runt was smiling as Snotruk spun him round and started to whip him hard. He didn’t stop smiling, not even when he was criss-crossed in lines of blood and Snotruk was panting from the effort of beating him.

Goblins are tougher than they look, sharing the hardiness common to all the green races. The Runt hurt for a while, but the hurt faded. Five days came and went, and he was ready. Much planning had gone into this venture, and he had to pick his moment well.

It was after the day’s harvesting time. The goblins slept. The Runt waited an hour or so before he picked the locks on his chains, crept from his patch of cave floor, still stiff and sore from his beating but mobile nonetheless, and kicked Diglit and Two Head awake.

The Runt held a finger to his lips and freed his comrades. Then he went over to Snottie’s hole and pushed the sleeping creature aside. He pulled out a piece of fleshroom he kept there for emergencies and walked over to the cave mouth.

The runtcave had once been a set of dwarf-hewn rooms, the door to them one of those the Runt had first seen on the landing the day he had arrived at the Backstairs. Over the years, the goblins had enlarged and upset the original architecture until it looked nothing like it once had: the rooms were all knocked into one, and the space much bigger. A goblin-carved tunnel led down from the back into the shroomcaves beyond. It looked like any greenskin’s lair. Only the little stairway leading up to the landing doorway, barred with heavy bands of iron, hinted at its origins.

The three goblins crept up the stairs, Diglit and the Runt swearing quietly and hitting Two Head every time the mutant goblin made too much noise.

Outside the door, Backstairs Boys slumbered around their firepit’s embers. Everyone was asleep, everyone except the mad old dwarf in the rooms across the landing, whose muttering and wails drifted up and down the Backstairs.

Him, and Barfik the runtboy.

Barfik straightened up and stretched out his arms when the Runt approached. ‘I don’t like this at all. Three of you? Grobskab’ll have me hide if you gets caught.’

‘Fleshroom, Barfik,’ said the Runt. ‘Tasty fleshroom, nice and fresh, not likes the old leather you gets.’

‘I can eats a lot.’

‘I can see that.’

Barfik patted his fat belly, bulging under his robes. ‘Don’t get cheeky. I could turn you in, Runt,’ said the runtboy.

‘Yeah, and then you’ll never get no more fleshrooms for your very own self, will ya?’ said the Runt. ‘You haven’t done it yet and you won’t do it now, will you? You likes what I got.’ The Runt slapped a big piece of fleshroom into the runtboy’s hand. ‘There’s extra there for letting Two Head and Diglit out.’

Barfik weighed the slab of mushroom in his hand. ‘All right, I will lets you out. No promises mind if you’re noticed. And you keep the good stuff coming or I’m going to “catch” you one day when you escape, you understand?’ Barfik waved his spear meaningfully. ‘Then it’s meat, not mushrooms, I’ll be having for breakfast.’

The Runt nodded. Barfik looked around. All the Backstairs Boys remained asleep. Light glowed from the doorway leading down to the prison cells opposite. The dwarf’s cries increased in intensity; he shouted a long stream of words in his own tongue, and screamed. The guards were up, tormenting their charge.

Barfik peered about, checking the coast was clear. ‘All right,’ said Barfik, ‘off with you, back by night, all right?’

He pulled back the iron bar holding the gate closed and let the three goblins out.

‘You better be back before they all wake up.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said the Runt. ‘Like always. Trust me.’

Barfik pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Not if me life depended on it, Runt.’

Shepherding Two Head around the sleeping night goblins, Diglit and the Runt went looking for the glowy rocks.

‘All right Two Head, show us the way! There’s some tasty squig in it for you, nice and fresh, you want it?’ said the Runt once they were safely down by the rockfall.

‘Yeah-eh!’ said Urk, or perhaps it was Durk.

‘This is never going to work,’ said Diglit with a whimper. His ears were flat and he was sweating with fear.

‘It’ll work,’ said the Runt.

And so it did. Urkdurk led them through one of the fissures that riddled the walls of the Backstairs towards the rockfall. Rather than going down, whence the Runt had come, they took a crooked passage upward. The Runt had been that way many times before, but eventually they came to a turn in the passage he’d not noticed before. The ways under the mountain were numerous, and many were hidden behind pillars of rock or stands of mushrooms.

They went a long way, and Diglit began to whine and became fearful they would be gone too long, but the Runt would not listen. They pushed on. Soon scents and sounds came to them that the Runt recognised as being of the surface. He slapped Diglit, whose whining had become somewhat burdensome to his ears. ‘Calm down, you an elf or something?’

They came to what looked like a blank wall, but Urkdurk did a little step to the left, and disappeared. At the wall, the Runt saw that the rock overlapped itself, hiding a fissure which led into a square cave.

‘It was a stunty hole,’ Skarsnik described it to me, slapping a fist into his palm. He folded the palm over the fist, and leered at me. ‘Sumfink had opened it up, and then closed itself over da top. Dere was a trickle of light out da top, a square hole, but da rest was dark and glowy green, from da big rock in da middle of da cave…’

‘Glowy green rock!’ said Two Head.

‘Hur hur!’ said Two Head’s other head.

‘Well, well, well,’ said the Runt. He craned his neck at the light coming in from above. It was a well, he reckoned, long dry. The bottom of it had cracked and the water had rushed out. Some days later, he explored further up and found that the well had served a dwarf fort on the shoulder of the mountain overlooking Mad Dog Pass, long since collapsed into rubble.

‘I don’t like this, boss,’ said Diglit, his ears flat against his head as he stared fearfully at the daylight and the rock. ‘I don’t like it! It stinks funny.’

‘Shut up, Diglit, let me think.’

The wyrdstone was so deep-green as to be almost black. Strange lights swirled over its facets, and a dim glow that was neither green nor even true light seeped from it. The stone was very large, as big as three orcs at least, thought the Runt, and if the ratmen had become so excited by the tiny fragments he’d seen them collect, imagine what they might do for one this size…

He hit upon an audacious plan; it had but one flaw.

‘Now, how we going to shift it?’ he murmured. ‘That’s the thing…’

‘Shift it? Shift it? Have you gone mad? Look at this place! It’s a stunty hole. They’s made it, I don’t like it!’ squeaked Diglit.

‘Don’t be an idiot, Diglit, who do think made them stairs we live on?’

The Runt took in the rest of the cave. Warped birthshroom stalks bent at odd angles all round the fringes of the wall. There was a pit dug out of the loose shale at the foot of one blackened example, presumably where Two Head had pulled itself from the floor. The other mushrooms had borne no fruit; all save one, but the twisted thing that lay dead at its broad foot was not worthy of the name of goblin.

‘This is real bad, boss, real bad.’

‘Go, Diglit,’ said the Runt, as he gestured at the wyrdstone boulder. ‘Go on, give it a heave.’

‘No.’

‘It’s just a glowy rock.’

‘No. I’m not doing it.’ Diglit’s ears flared up from his head and he hissed. He was defying his boss, a move that could not end well.

The Runt produced a bent knife from somewhere within his robes. ‘I got this for a pair of puffballs. Bent as a squig foot, but it’s nice and sharp and will slip into your snivelling guts nice and easy. Now’ He licked his lips. ‘Give it a heave.’

Diglit scowled at the Runt, judging his chances against the smaller goblin, but Two Head towered protectively behind the gang boss, and so Diglit went to the rock.

‘All right!’ He spat on his hands and bent low, hooking his fingers under the stone. ‘Feels all funny, like tingly,’ he said, puffing and heaving. ‘I can’t shift it.’

‘Didn’t think so,’ said the Runt.

‘Then why ask me to try?’

‘I wanted to see what happened. Glowy green, Gork or Mork’s work that. Magic. Want to see what it does.’

Diglit held up his hand and shrieked, his ears standing near upright with terror. ‘Boss! Boss! Me fingers has gone all funny!’ His fingers writhed as if the bones were melting and the nails wished to dance. ‘Boss! We got to go back, tell Duffskul about this! Got to!’ Diglit whimpered as his fingers turned into writhing worms. ‘He can put it right, can’t he boss?’

‘No. We ain’t going to no Duffskul.’

Diglit’s eyes narrowed, his ensorcelled fingers forgotten for the moment. He growled and straightened up. ‘I think I’m going to say no now.’ He walked over to the Runt and looked down at him. The Runt gave him a mild stare in return. ‘You really are a runt. I don’t know why I let you boss me for so long.’ He slapped the Runt hard on the face with his good hand, forcing him to stumble. ‘What you going to do? We got to tell Duffskul and the chief, then they’ll let us out of the runtgang and we can be proper boys.’

‘I got plans for that rock, Diglit.’

‘Well I ain’t going to let you do them.’

The Runt showed his teeth. He had known that this day would come. Diglit was bigger than he by a head, and to greenskins, size is the only measure of power.

‘Oh, Diglit, me old mate.’ He held his arms out wide. ‘Let’s just talk this out? I didn’t mean it. I’d never stab you, specially not in the guts.’ The Runt offered his friend a hand. Diglit drew back into his robes, ears quivering with uncertainty.

‘Come on, Diglit! I want you to help, be rich! Be strong with me! Haven’t you always been my best boss?’ The Runt moved forward, shifting his footing as he came, face wide and friendly, knife gripped tight in his hand.

Diglit snuffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Maybe it’s time I was the boss.’

‘I knew you was going to say that.’ The Runt threw himself at his friend, sharp nails scratching for the eyes. They fell to the floor. Diglit was stronger and bigger, and angry, but the Runt was possessed of a cool certainty and purpose Diglit could never know. Urkdurk watched them with confusion, dismay creeping over his twin faces. Rotten mushrooms collapsed under them as they rolled around, and then Diglit had the Runt on his back, smacking the knife from his hand. Fingers and things that used to be fingers wrapped around the Runt’s throat. The Runt choked and gasped, his hand scrabbling around the floor. It closed around a rock, and he brought it up with force into Diglit’s head. There was a crunch and a scream. Diglit’s hands flew up to his head, which now sported a large dent. The Runt bucked and thrashed underneath him and flipped him off, as he scrabbled for his knife. Diglit stood and keened as he staggered after the Runt.

The Runt stepped behind his friend and brought up the knife to his neck. Diglit’s noise reached horrible heights as the Runt sawed the knife across his throat. His squeals abruptly became a choking gurgle. Blood sprayed. He clutched at his neck and collapsed to the floor.

The Runt kicked him.

‘Rule number two,’ the Runt said. He spat on the corpse. ‘Ain’t no one more important than me.’ He wiped his knife on his robe. ‘I said I got plans,’ he said. ‘Idiot.’

‘What happened to Diglit?’ asked Two Head’s Urk head (or perhaps it was his Durk head).

‘Him, ah, don’t worry about him. He’s having a nice little sleep,’ said the Runt. ‘I can’t shift it.’ He tapped the bloodied knife on his teeth. ‘But I needs a bit, a little itty, bitty bit. How do I get a piece of this back down to the stairs?’

He managed, after a time. He threw rocks hard at the wyrdstone boulder for a long while. He dared not touch it, not after what had happened to Diglit’s hand. He grew frustrated, for the rock was as hard as rock is. ‘Zogging glowy rock!’ he shouted. He threw the biggest, sharpest stone he could carry at it as hard as he could. He was rewarded with a bang that came from more than stone hitting stone. Green sparks pattered onto the floor of the cave, bringing with it the stench of rotting eggs and latrines, and the metallic taste of magic.

Several splinters of the wyrdstone rattled to the floor.

‘Aha!’ he shouted with glee. He rushed to scoop them up, but stopped himself as his fingers came within a hair’s-breadth of the stone. Strange sensations washed from the fragments, and it was warm in a vile way.

He looked about the cave. His eyes narrowed as he took in Two Head. He had an idea. He took Two Head’s birthshroom down. It was stiff and dense as leather now, dried hard in the mountain air. He cut it with his knife into strips, and chewed these until they were pliable. He wove a little pouch from these strips and, using it as protection, picked up one of the glowing green pebbles. He grimaced as he reached for it, his body leaning back instinctively. His ears flattened themselves.

He plucked up a fragment and danced back. Quickly he inverted the pouch, sealing the wyrdstone inside. ‘Hehehehe,’ he chuckled, and did a little jig. Then stopped. He pushed out his lower jaw, rubbing the sharp points of his teeth on his top lip. The rock was still warm, even through the pouch, and it still didn’t feel right, although he was not experiencing the tingling Diglit had reported. He had another notion.

‘Here, Two Head. How would you like to carry this nice piece of glowing rock back home for me? It’s all lovely and warm, and there’s a nice piece of fleshroom in it for you.’

‘Hurhur,’ said Urk or Durk. ‘Fleshroom. Hur. Yummy.’

The goblin closed a big, grey fist around the stone in its pouch.

‘Now,’ he said nodding to Diglit’s corpse. ‘How’s about a little something to eat before we goes home?’

It was something of a miracle that they returned without incident, and the Runt resolved never to take one of his colleagues with him on his adventures again. They had to wait for the Backstairs Boys’ sentries to turn around and head back up the stairs before dashing for the runtcave. Barfik let them back in. Some of the other runts stirred and blinked as the gate drew back, but none of them said anything. They were rather enamoured of the condition of life, no matter how hard it may have been.

‘You’re cutting it fine, ain’t you?’ Barfik hissed. ‘And where’s the other one?’

‘Don’t know,’ lied the Runt. ‘Wandered off.’

‘Yeah, right. What if he comes back?’

‘Oh, he won’t be coming back. Got too near the rat tunnels. We’ll say he got et by the runts, shall we? You squeal on me, Barfik, you’re for the lash too.’

‘Lash?’ scoffed Barfik. ‘They’ll smash your head in with a rock.’

‘That lash stings real bad, Barfik,’ said the Runt. ‘Them teeth, ooh they bite deep.’ The Runt poked a finger up his nose, pulled out some crusted filth, and bit down on it by way of demonstration.

Barfik, who often used the whip but had felt its kiss but rarely before, quailed and shoved the Runt back to his sleeping place.

So they did say Diglit had been eaten, and that was the truth. Who was to gainsay the Runt? They were goblins after all, and goblins will get hungry in the night.

CHAPTER 8

RUNT NO MORE

The Runt set down the filthy water and rotten mushroom porridge he’d been given to serve to the prisoners, and settled himself cross-legged outside the dwarf’s cell door. The old dwarf sat on the floor, head shaking, muttering to himself. His hair had been pulled to tufts, shiny bald where his scalp had been yanked free with it; his chin was a patchy mess of scar tissue, his beard carved away long ago. The knife that took his beard and moustache had taken part of his lower lip, and his teeth were on permanent display. Saliva ran down his face. His nose had been slit open and one of his eyes burned out. All the injuries were inflicted by the Backstairs Boys out of malice, for they had no questions to ask the dwarf, and he had no way of telling them what they might wish to know.

Doubtless the Runt enjoyed staring at the wounds of his kind’s ancient enemy, but he also marvelled at how tough the mountain folk are. This one had been tortured and beaten so many times that it would be impossible to count; he was fed foul food, when the goblins remembered to feed him at all. And yet here he was. How long he had been there, no one in the Backstairs Boys really knew. A goblin’s life is short, and they keep poor count of time, but the old dwarf was a permanent feature of their mean domain, as unchanging as the rock above their heads.

The Runt liked to sit there, not to torment the old dwarf as the others did, but to think. He found the ravings of the dwarf comforting. Sometimes he just listened, a few times he’d pull his hood down to cover his long nose and ears, and put on an old beard scalp he’d stolen from a pole on one of his wanderings; the sad evidence of an unsuccessful dwarf treasure hunt. His disguise seemed to calm the dwarf and, at those times, he would talk to the goblin as if he were an old comrade. The Runt listened and listened and found, to his surprise, that after a time he could pick out some of the dwarf’s words, having learned their meaning through association and deduction. He was certain ‘grobi’ meant goblin, and he gathered a stock of phrases he was sure were entirely offensive.

‘That’s anuvver rule,’ Skarsnik said to me all those years later. ‘You gotta listen, see?’

That the sounds made by other creatures could carry meaning, and that those meanings could be learned, would not have occurred to most goblins. Some, as I witnessed myself, know the speech of others, but to figure this out all by himself, well, that meant Skarsnik was special indeed. And he knew it. By now, Skarsnik was convinced of his own unique nature. He would spend the days there, or up on the mountain in the mouth of the ventilation shaft, wondering why he thought the way he did. I learned from my times with the greenskins that they do not suffer from self-doubt. Their world is as their world is, what they cannot change by violence they deem beyond alteration. But they are afraid of many things, and the shadow that crossed the Runt’s mind as he dwelled on the differences between himself and his fellows was a cousin to fear. Time and again he asked himself, ‘Why am I different?’ That shadow flickered across his mind, that twist of terror in his guts that set his bowels to water. But they were sensations that did not last. Always, his doubts fled before a smile, as the voice in his head answered, ‘Because you is better.’

That night, he had not come to speak with the dwarf. Nor had he come to ponder.

He stared at the old dwarf, but from the corner of his eye he watched the ratman, who in turn watched him from the far side of its cage.

Tonight, the dwarf muttered to himself, rolling back and forth on the floor of his cell, oblivious to the world around him.

‘I wonder what he’s saying? Do you know, rattie?’ The Runt didn’t look at the ratman, but talked to him just the same. ‘You have been in here a perishing long time, how long is it now? Longer than I’ve been around that’s for sure. You must like it here.’

There was no response. The ratman’s eyes were black marble in the dark, and points of light came and went as it blinked. Otherwise, it sat immobile as a statue.

‘But you know what? I was asking about you, and the other boys say that you was caught snooping around here looking for something.’ He turned to look at the ratman. ‘I know you boys understand proper speaking, even if you’re always squeaking at each other like stupid mices. And I know what you are looking for.’ He reached into his robe. This was the perilous part of his enterprise, and not only in showing the wyrdstone to the ratman, for carrying it under his robes made his skin crawl with magic. ‘I got something in here that might be of interest to you.’ He tossed the pouch into the ratman’s cage, and went back to watching the dwarf. His life hung in the balance. If he could achieve his aims tonight… But then someone could come in at any minute, and kill him for taking too long, or for giving the ratman the pouch, or because they were bored and required a little meaningless violence to hurry the hours along.

I doubt that these things truly bothered the Runt that would be Skarsnik. When I knew him he was of a most self-assured character, and seemed, with occasional reservation, convinced of his destiny to rule the Eight Peaks. He insisted he had always been that way. How much of this was bravado on his part, and how much of his courage he had attributed to himself in later days is debatable. One thing is certain, and that is Skarsnik was no coward when I met him.

The ratman sat still for long minutes. The Runt became nervous, fearful that he would not take his bait and his plans would come to nothing. All he had to do was look in the bag!

Finally, just as the goblin’s nerve was giving out, the ratman crept forward on his hands and knees. It sniffed at the pouch. Its head snapped up, looking right at the Runt. Its hands went for the pouch and it tore it open.

It chittered excitedly, its face lit up by the green glow of the rock within. ‘Where you get this? Where you get warpstone?’ it said, in rapid, squeaking greenskin.

‘Ah, I knew you’d be interested,’ said the Runt with deliberate casualness.

‘Very-very!’ It looked back and forth. It stood and limped to the barred door of its cage.

‘You can keep that, call it a favour.’

The ratman blinked. Its fur was matted and unhealthy looking, not glossy like the ratboy warriors he’d seen in the caves. Scars crossed it and scabs crusted it. ‘Take-take?’

‘Yeah, take, er take. Whatever you like. Just keep it from the other gobboes, if you know what I mean.’

The ratman looked nervously around itself again, as if someone would materialise to snatch its prize from its hands. To the Runt’s surprise it bit down hard on the wyrdstone. Half of its teeth had been pulled, including both of its fore teeth. Skarsnik told me that this was the normal practice with imprisoned ratmen, because they can gnaw their way through steel, given time. The ratman chewed at it with his side teeth, his long muzzle working with difficulty to grind it up. In a few seconds it had gone, and the beast was dabbing sparkling grains of it from the floor.

The Runt took a step back. ‘Gor, so that’s what you do with it!’

‘Not pure. Safe-safe.’ The ratman’s eyes glowed bright with an inner light, a quicksilver sheen that flashed and then was gone. It dragged itself to its feet and limped forward. Goblins had taken pleasure in breaking its leg and tail, and neither had set properly. ‘Yes-yes, good, good!’ Foul breath gusted from its mouth. It regarded him curiously, then shivered. ‘What you want, green-thing? What you want from Skreekrit Yellowtooth?’

The Runt forced himself to the gate. The cell smelled peculiar to his goblin nose, the aroma around the rat tunnels where no goblin but he dared go amplified a thousandfold. Like spoiled straw and a sweetness that was not altogether wholesome – ratstink.

The Runt grasped the bars of the cage door. His nose poked through the gaps in the iron, bringing it to within inches of the ratman’s twitching muzzle. ‘I think we might have a little deal, you and me. You want more of this?’

The ratman cocked his head and blinked. Lips twitched back, exposing the pink gums where his fangs had once been.

‘Don’t go all shy on me, furry boy. I knows this is what your lot spends an awful lot of time looking for. I can get you more. Lots and lots more.’

‘Good-good. Free me. Show me where-where-where! We make deal then.’

The Runt tipped his head back and looked behind him. ‘You hear that?’ he said to the old dwarf. ‘This ratboy here wants me to give up me secrets!’ He faced the ratman again and clucked his tongue. ‘Nah. I’ll get it to you all right, but don’t you be telling me what to do.’

‘In exchange? What for warpstone?’

‘Ah, now that’s the tricky part. How do I know you are boss enough of the ratboys to make it all work out nice like?’ He cast his eyes down at the ratman’s infirmities. ‘I hear your lot don’t like cripples much.’

The skaven drew himself up. He was taller than most goblins, his black-furred arms rippling with hard muscle that his incarceration had done little to diminish. ‘I no cripple! I am Skreekrit Yellowtooth, Fangleader of Stormvermin! I fight good leg, bad leg, nomatter!’ He winced, and stooped again, panting hard. ‘Get-get warpstone. They listen plentygood.’

‘Right.’ The Runt licked his lips. ‘I’ll want as many mushrooms as you can find, specially big ones, and I’ll want them every week. Forty sacks. And I don’t want any more ratties around the Backstairs unless I say.’

‘Backstairs?’

‘Here.’ The Runt waved his hand back towards the stairs. For that you’ll get…’ How much? The Runt had spent several nights trying to calculate the wyrdstone’s worth to the ratmen. ‘A bag.’

‘How much-much is bag?’ said the ratman suspiciously.

‘A lump. Big as my fist.’

‘Goblin fist small.’

‘That’s what you’ll get.’ The Runt scratched his behind, feigning indifference. ‘If you don’t want to get out of here…’

‘Yes-yes! Get out, yes!’

‘And another thing, this is between you and me, don’t tell the other gobboes… Greenthings.’

The ratman’s eyes narrowed. He understood. ‘How-how? How get me from here if not tell green-things?’ The ratman looked around the door, whiskers twitching, searching for a way out he might have missed.

‘Let me worry about that. Have we got a deal?’

The ratman nodded hesitantly. ‘Deal-deal. We lock tails.’

‘I haven’t got a tail, furboy.’ The Runt hawked hard and long and spat a glistening gobbet of phlegm onto his hand. ‘We’ll do this the goblin way.’

He held out his hand. Hesitantly, the ratman took it.

‘Deal.’

‘Skaven deal-deal with green-friend.’

‘Yeah. Right. And don’t even think of squealing or it’ll be bad for you.’

The Runt left the cells, shouting violently at the ratman as he left. ‘And don’t let me catch you cheeking me again!’ He called after him as he kicked the door that led to the stairs that led back up to the Backstairs (from what I saw of the intermingled domains of goblin, ratman and dwarf under the Eight Peaks, there are a great many stairs under the mountains).

‘What you mean, cheek?’ said Bugfat suspiciously. He was the surliest guard goblin who ever had the job of guarding prisoners anywhere in all the goblin realms, of this the Runt was sure.

The Runt set the prisoners’ tray on the guard table. ‘Oh, he didn’t say nothing. He just looked at me, all insolent like.’ He grinned his best grin. Bugfat growled and pulled out his keys.

‘What they got a runt like you serving food to them down there for, I don’t know.’ He unlocked the door. ‘I got my eye on you, runt.’

‘That makes me feel all happy,’ said the Runt, and stepped out onto the landing.

He hurried across the landing back to the runtcave, through knots of goblins sat around playing dice, cheating every throw. There was little occurring in their underground realm today, nothing except the endless task of gathering food from the caves, and that was runt’s work.

‘To tell da troof,’ said Skarsnik to me, ‘I ’ad no idea at all ’ow I was gonna get dat ratboy out ov dat cell.’ He leaned back on his grand iron throne and began idly kicking the slumbering bulk of Gobbla. He held his goblet in his hand. His servants were attentive to him, and it seemed he lacked for little. They took care of my needs, as best as their green minds understood. They had replenished my food and thrown a mouldering wolf pelt around my shoulders as the temperature dropped. The only indication I ever had in Skarsnik’s hall that night had fallen outside, and that was only when close to the surface; further underground the air maintained a constancy that was neither hot nor cold, but which contrived to be both muggy and chill at once. Large logs burned in the iron firebowls. The wine had quite gone to my head. I believe that in other circumstances I would have been drowsy, but here, in the dark, Skarsnik’s face wavering daemonically through the fire as he spoke his story, I paid rapt attention. I was, in short, entranced. So relaxed he seemed in his power, and yet I had learned already that the life of a goblin is harder than that of the lowest pauper in our cities.

‘Fing is,’ he continued, ‘I is a special gobbo. Chosen by da gods to be king in da mountain!’ He sniffed. ‘Duffskul dere says so, ain’t dat right Duffskul?’

The wizened shaman in the tent door looked up from the dung he was poking around the floor and nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh yus.’

‘And when you is special, like I is, just when you gets stuck and a scheme gets all knotty, ole Gork and Mork come along and help ya out a bit…’

This help he spoke of came, unexpectedly, in the form of Snotruk…

The runtboy stood in the doorway to the steps of the runtcave.

‘Where you been?’ asked Snotruk. The Runt pulled his lips back from his teeth. He was about to retort that Snotruk ought to find himself a new question to ask, so often had he asked it of the Runt, when he saw something was amiss with the runtboy’s hand. He held it protectively against his breast. Blood caked the bandage wrapped around it.

‘I been looking into your doings, Runt,’ said Snotruk. He smiled nastily, exposing gums pale from blood loss. ‘And you will never guess what I found.’ He brought his other hand out from behind his back and threw something. Snottie’s tiny, headless corpse flopped sadly onto the stone in front of him. ‘Nasty little thing, trying to stab me with a sharpened nail. So I bit its head off.’

The Runt felt a stab of some unknown emotion, a welling of loss rising up from deep within his little heart. The something, he had no name for it, proceeded into his throat where it threatened to choke him.

‘You…’ He tensed.

‘Ahahaha!’ Snotruk planted his uninjured hand in the Runt’s chest. ‘The boss is here to have a word.’ Snotruk’s face shone with malicious glee. He stepped aside to allow the runtmaster of the Backstairs Boys up from the runtcave.

Old Grobskab was, as his name suggests, an old, old goblin. His black robe was so faded with age it was brown. He wore no hood, and on his head a small clump of three mushrooms grew. They were glowshrooms, spotted things as high as a finger that gave off a dappled blue light. One could always tell where Grobskab was. He prowled the caverns like a deep-sea fish, headlights bobbing. Woe betide the runt who headed towards that light at the wrong time.

Headshrooms are not that unusual for a night goblin to sprout, but unusual enough for it to be regarded an honour, and so Grobskab was one of the clan’s better-respected elders. His robe’s neck came up high, swathing his mouth to the bottom of his nose. The runts dreaded what might be behind there, for none had ever seen Grobskab’s face uncovered.

The runtmaster grumbled deep in his throat. ‘What’s this then, Snotruk? What’s all this bother?’ He held a snotling as ancient as himself in his arms, one of the tiniest snotties the Runt had ever seen. It clung to the runtmaster’s robe. Grobskab tickled it under its chin with the point of a nail, causing it to purr in delight.

‘It’s this runt, boss, he’s been sneaking off. Him and his mate Diglit. Always sneaking about!’

‘You ever catch him at it?’

Snotruk looked at his feet. ‘I just knows, boss!’

‘Hmmm, and where is this Diglit?’

‘He got et,’ said the Runt helpfully.

‘Shut it, you!’ said Snotruk. ‘He’s been keeping this snottie here.’

‘That dead one?’

‘That dead one.’

‘He’s not keeping it any more then is he?’ said the runtmaster.

Snotruk’s ears flexed down then up. ‘Boss! He’s been hoarding fleshrooms, down there in the big cave. I followed one of his gang, he had a stash there in a secret hole. I figured it all out, me. I did!’

‘Figured it out before you fingered it out, eh?’ The runtmaster sniggered at his joke.

Snotruk’s ears fell, and he hunched himself around his injured hand. ‘I put me hand in, and snap! Something took two of me fingers off.’

‘Ah, you found me shroomsnap then,’ the Runt said.

The runtmaster looked at him quizzically, ears rising with interest.

‘Facebiter squig. Boss,’ he added hurriedly. ‘In the hole with the shrooms.’

‘I see.’ The runtmaster set the little snotling down at his feet, where it skipped and gibbered, plucking at his robes and squalling to be picked up again. Grobskab’s hands strayed to his belt. The Runt could not help but cringe. Upon the old goblin’s left side hung a cruel squig-hide whip, twisted and gnarled and studded with teeth plucked from the mouths of the runts he had beaten to death.

Grobskab did not take out his whip. Instead his hand came to rest upon his big bunch of keys. He unhooked it and knelt by the Runt’s feet. ‘Well worn, these locks are,’ he said as he twisted the key in the manacles. The Runt shrugged and gave a broad toothy grin. The runtmaster laughed again, and the mushroom clump sprouting from his head waggled.

‘Whu-whut are you doing?’ said Snotruk. The fingers on his good hand curled and uncurled. ‘He’s been hoarding! He’s got a massive stash of fleshrooms! His zogging squig bit me fingers off!’ Snotruk waved his bandaged hand around. Blood spotted the floor of the runtcave.

‘Aye, and he’ll be punished for that, he will.’ The runtmaster turned on Snotruk. ‘And so will you, for letting this runt get the better of you. Less time with the whip, or more with the smarts.’ He slapped at Snotruk’s whip and then poked him hard in the face with a warty finger. ‘Herding runts ain’t all about beating. Course,’ he sniffed, ‘you got to have a good beating arm, no doubt of that, but that’s not all there is to it! No, course not. Like being a goblin, it ain’t all about size. Mostly, but not all.’ He kicked the Runt. ‘You’re still small and nasty, little ’un, but you’re more cunning than Mork hisself.’

The Runt looked at his feet, then at the runtmaster.

‘I’m not a runt no more?’

The runt master farted and hooked his fingers into his belt. He was as flatulent as he was old. ‘No, you is not a runt no more. But only because I says so, all right? And I is the runtmaster of the Backstairs Boys, so I knows what is a runt and what is not a runt better than anyone else. I says it’s a runt, it’s a runt, I say it ain’t a runt, well, then it ain’t no runt, got it?’

‘Course.’ The Runt stood up.

‘But he’s a thieving git!’ said Snotruk, his voice rising to an outraged squeak. Spittle flew from his lips, his ears quivered in anger.

‘Nah, he’s not. He was keeping them mushrooms all safe for me, weren’t you, runt?’

‘Er, yes, boss! That’s right, boss!’ agreed the Runt.

‘So you’re going to go and get them for me nice and soon, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah, boss! Right, boss!’

‘Boss!’

‘Shut it Snotruk. Clever runt this. Had my eye on him, I have. And I knows me runts. Got his team going, picked his load and more besides, and with that two-headed thing you lumbered him with. He worked him, and he didn’t damage him, that’s a good thing because he’s Mork and Gork blessed that one, if you don’t count him being an idiot. Good work that. Good runting work.’ The runtmaster scratched the cloth covering his chin. ‘You got to have a proper name and all. ‘The Runt’ just ain’t right.’ Grobskab sniffed hard twice, the second one turning into a long snort. He hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and chewed it a moment, his unseen mouth working away behind his mask. He swallowed. ‘You can be Runtgit, because you is still little, but you is also a right little git, Snotruk’s right about that, at least.’

The newly dubbed Runtgit smiled, his sharp teeth glinting in the blue light coming off the runtmaster’s headshrooms. He did a little jig.

Grobskab held out his hand, palm face down. ‘Hey, hey, steady there, Runtgit. You got to prove yourself yet. You too Snotruk, because you have been very shoddy in your work. Very. Shoddy.’ The runtmaster poked his runtboy hard in the chest. ‘There’s a little job you both got to do.’

Snotruk’s ears flattened themselves against his skull. ‘Job?’

‘Yeah. Boss Tarkit Fing-Finger’s been talking to that fing on his finger again. Apparently it told him he needs to get tough.’ Grobskab snorted hard, once, twice, and coughed. ‘He wants to get himself some cave squigs, chomp up some ratboys, make Chief Ibrit all impressed. Some of the boys seen squig spoor in the south caves. He’s got some hunters coming to catch them. And you’re going to help them. Then, we’ll see. Might be an opening for a new runtboy, you never know.’ He stared meaningfully at Runtgit and Snotruk. ‘Or it might be I needs one less.’

CHAPTER 9

NO JOB FOR A GOBLIN

‘This is all your fault, you thieving git,’ said Snotruk. The mournful song of squigpipes blared in the tunnels behind them. Cymbals clashed, horns hooted. The hunters were a way behind them, nets and squig pacifying clubs ready; it wouldn’t do for them to get in the way of the bait. Far off in the winding corridors ahead of Snotruk and Runtgit, squig hounds bayed and snuffled.

‘I’d save your breath for running if I was you, Snotruk,’ said Runtgit. He flexed on his toes, bent his knees and stretched out his calves. He started to roll up his new robe, all black and proper as a night goblin’s robe should be, not like the tattered thing he used to wear while he was simply The Runt. He thought better of it, shucked it off and rolled it up neatly, and jammed it behind a rock.

‘Yeah?’ said Snotruk. ‘What are you doing with your legs? Why are you taking your clothes off? Stupid runt, they should never have made you a boy.’

‘I’m doing it, you three-fingered idiot, so’s I can run fast, aren’t I?’

Snotruk snorted. ‘You ain’t going to outrun a cave squig, is you?

‘Don’t have to outrun no cave squig,’ said Runtgit wickedly. A slow smile split his face.

Snotruk’s eyes widened as understanding dawned. He fumbled at his belt and tugged off his runtboy’s apron and then his robe. They both stood shivering, naked but for their loincloths. The cave was dark, so dark even night goblin eyes strained to see.

‘I am going to mess you up, runt. I am going to get you.’

‘Not today you’re not,’ said Runtgit. He hawked up something nasty and spat it on the floor right by Snotruk’s feet.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ said Runtgit. He tugged at the rope around his waist, making sure it was nice and tight. At the other end was a round ball of small beasts gathered from the goblins’ cesspool – their ’drops – all tied together by their tails. Snotruk had a baitball just the same. The animals’ flesh had been sliced, so their juices left a trail upon the floor wherever Runtgit and Snotruk went. They mewled and struggled pathetically, half dead.

‘Who says?’

‘I do! You ain’t got time matey, because here they comes!’

The baying of squig hounds grew louder. Runtgit turned on his heels and took flight as a trio of cave squigs burst from a fissure. The round balls of their bodies sailed through the air, bashing into one another as they came. They bounced off the far wall and hit the ground with a series of loud slaps. A pack of squig hounds came hurrying from the opening after them, twisting over one another and snarling. The nails on the squig hounds’ six feet rattled out a rapid drumbeat of pursuit, and they barked and nipped at the horny heels of their bigger cousins. The cave squigs turned this way and that, claws clicking and clacking, trying to bite down on these annoyances, teeth as long as goblin swords clashing as they snapped their rubbery mouths. The squig hounds darted under the cave squigs’ globular bodies, always out of reach. Then squigpipes honked close behind them, and the cave squigs turned in fear at the sound of the music.

Snotruk gaped in terror and fled after Runtgit.

The two goblins ran along twisting tunnels carved by who knows what. Stones reached out to snag them, crevasses in the rock gaped before them. The squigs bounded after them, their short but powerful legs propelling them in a series of hopping leaps, richocheting from the tunnel walls as they came. The bay of squig hounds and the dread noise of the squigpipes hooted behind the cave squigs, the swift shapes of tasty goblins trailing even tastier squigs behind them ran in front. Their small minds needed little encouragement in which direction to go.

Runtgit and Snotruk ran as fast as their legs could carry them. The squigs’ bounding motion would bring them dangerously close, only for them to fall behind as they gathered their feet in for their next jump.

‘We’re not going to make it!’ shouted Snotruk. He tried to grab at Runtgit, to throw him back into the mass of leathery flesh pounding after them.

‘Gerroff!’ shouted the ex-runt. ‘Come on, this way!’ He pointed to a smooth hole leading off the main tunnel, diving into it head first. Snotruk dithered. He looked at the charging squigs, and threw himself after Runtgit. The hole was just big enough for him. The tunnel beyond led upwards, the rock slippery with slime. He banged his head as he went in, and slid backwards. Cave squigs called, bass harrooing noises, their vicious white teeth snapping. For a terrifying moment, Snotruk thought he would slip right into their jaws. Impelled by terror, he scrabbled up the tunnel, leaving the spherical creatures thrusting at the tunnel mouth impotently, claws and spines rasping on the rock.

Runtgit sat in a cave, knees up around his chin, in the middle of a crowd of inch-high mushrooms. Bigger, leathery fungi filled the cramped space behind him. ‘Nearly got you, eh? Told you I was faster,’ he said smugly.

‘I’m going to kill you, runt.’

‘Runtgit,’ said Runtgit. ‘I’m Runtgit now, and no you’re not gonna kill me, is you?’

‘Oh yeah, who’s gonna see me? I could do you in and no one would be wise to it.’ Snotruk strode towards the other goblin, long arms out, hands ready for a strangling. Runtgit was undeterred.

‘Know where we are, Snotruk?’ said Runtgit. His conversational tone set alarm bells ringing in Snotruk’s mind. His ears twitched.

‘See them there, them big old shrooms? Them are squigshrooms, cave squigshrooms. Found these a while back. See the shroomheads? All droopy ain’t they? I knows a lot about mushrooms, me. They’re just waiting for something to feed on. Oh look!’ Runtgit picked up his baitball. Blood dripped onto the earth. ‘I reckon they should be ready to sprout right about… Now!’

A chirruping and scrabbling came to their ears. Snotruk paused. ‘Whassat?’

‘Squiglings, see?’ Runtgit pointed to a patch of soil heaving under a mushroom. Small round bodies pulled themselves out of the ground, blinking and cheeping like birds. They waddled about, wide eyes quickly taking on the piggy viciousness common to all squigs. Their cheeps became snarls. ‘We take this lot in, we’ll get loads of teeth, what do you say? Deal?’

‘Oh yeah?’ said Snotruk. The ground boiled as a flood of cave squiglings burrowed up out of the dirt. ‘And let you take all the credit? That’s how you work, runt. I seen it.’ He stamped hard on a squigling and popped it wetly, a fan of guts spread across the dirt. ‘I’m not falling for that! No teeth or glory for you!’ He began stamping with gusto, turning the young cave squigs into a smeary paste.

‘What you think you’re doing?’ shouted Runtgit. ‘These squigs’ll make us both bosses!’

‘Nah, make you a boss you mean.’ Stomp, stomp, stomp went Snotruk’s feet. He snatched an uncommonly large squig-ling up from the ground. He waved it at Runtgit. ‘I’m not falling for your double-crossing, runt. I knows you, and don’t you forget it.’ He drew a nail hard across the squig’s face, cutting its eye and skin. It squealed piteously. Fluid leaked from its ruined eye.

Runtgit slapped it out of his hand. The tiny squig bounced from Snotruk’s grasp and rolled across the floor. Snotruk shoved past Runtgit, but Runtgit hooked a foot under his leg and pulled. The runtboy skidded on the mess of guts and fell hard. The little squig, blind in one eye, snuffled its nose at Runtgit, and took a step forward.

Runtgit smiled at it. Perhaps it was the memory of Snottie, or maybe he was simply being capricious as goblins can be, but he felt like sparing it both Snotruk’s feet and the iron prods of the squig herders. ‘Nah, little fella, off you go then, off you go.’ He shooed it away.

The squig snuffled, hesitated, turned and hopped down a hole at the back of the cave.

Snotruk squealed as other squiglings worried at him with their teeth. He was fortunate, for the teeth of a fresh squigling are soft and dull, and yet still they bite hard.

Runtgit backed towards the hole they’d come from as Snotruk batted and swatted at the squiglings swarming up his legs.

‘Do you know much about squigs?’ Runtgit said. ‘Another thing I’ve learned, Snotruk me old mate, is that when the squiglings hatch, daddy squig is never far away.’

Snotruk stood, panting and furious. ‘Yeah, so? Not going to get us in here, is it? Not getting up that chute, is he?’

‘Ah, yeah, I should’ve said, there’s two entrances to this cave, Snotruk.’

A low growl sounded behind Snotruk. His mouth gaped, his ears fell, his knees knocked together and his shoulders slumped. ‘He’s behind me, isn’t he?’ he whimpered.

Baleful yellow eyes opened. The adult squig was so big they glowed either side of Snotruk in the dark.

‘Oh yes, oh yes he is, my friend,’ said Runtgit. He waggled his fingers in a wave. ‘Byesy bye. I’d say I’d miss ya, but I ain’t gonna!’ He hopped out backwards down the tunnel. He slid quickly, tumbling out into the passage where they’d fled the stampeding squigs. He slid on his belly down the wet stone and shot out into the main tunnel.

Out in the tunnel the squigs were trussed and helpless, pinned down by weighted nets. One was being dragged away by a sweating team of hunters. A trio of burly goblins battered at the other two with huge squig pacifiers. One such club came quickly towards Runtgit’s face.

‘Rozzla! Stop!’ said a goblin.

The club stopped a finger’s-breadth from Runtgit’s nose.

‘Eeek!’ said Runtgit.

‘See? It’s one of them boys what got sent in as bait, Rozzla.’ The goblin herder who spoke was covered in scars and tattoos. His arms bulged as he pointed.

‘Oh yeah, so it is, Fuggrak,’ said the goblin with the club. ‘Thought you was a squig,’ said the goblin to Runtgit. He smiled in a way that suggested he did not much care one way or the other if Runtgit’s brains were smashed from his skull.

‘I thought you got et,’ said the one named Fuggrak. The squig he was minding barked and whined, shifting in its net. ‘Quiet down you!’ he yelled, then walloped it with a squig pacifier the size of Runtgit. ‘Yeah! Don’t like that do you?’ Fuggrak cupped his hand to his mouth and called out, ‘All bagged and ready to go! Good job lads.’

Runtgit accepted Rozzla’s hand and pulled himself up. He began to laugh, quietly at first, but soon he was squeaking with amusement like a snotling on a fungus beer bender.

Fuggrak and Rozzla looked at each other. They shrugged. Rozzla spun his finger around his temple. ‘Mad,’ he mouthed.

‘What’s so funny, little runt?’ asked Rozzla.

Runtgit shook his head, gulping for air. ‘Timed to perfection!’ he said. ‘Timed to perfection!’

Snotruk they dragged from the cave, missing an ear and scared witless.

He’d found a cleft in the rock to hide in, where the squig couldn’t quite take off his head. It took five squig herders to subdue the large brooding squig he and Runtgit had disturbed. He’d soiled his robes in fright. A peculiar smell followed Snotruk around for weeks afterward.

Much to Snotruk’s annoyance, he had been right. Runtgit did get all the credit for finding the squiglings.

‘You can’t have everyfing,’ said Skarsnik to me, years later. ‘I wanted him to get et. He didn’t get et. I was going to regret that, oh yes I was Bickrystad me old mucker. Rule free, y’see, always have another plan what can go if your first plans go wrong.’

‘A plan B?’ I timorously offered.

‘An’ what’s bees to do wiv it? Stupid humie, anuvver plan! Not bees.’ He rocked his hand dismissively. His favourite servant topped up his goblet from a pitcher of fungus beer. ‘But den, s’gods, innit? Gork and Mork, they do fings in ways wot I can’t understand, and I understand stuff better dan any uvver gobbo. I was not happy at all dat Snotruk did not get all et up. But, if it hadn’t been for ole Snotruk,’ he looked around his domain, holding up his hand, indicating that I should do the same, ‘I wouldn’t be here at all, an’ all this, well, it wuttn’t be mine, would it?’

Runtgit was taken on as third runtboy by the runtboss. In no time at all, he had Grobskab’s approval. He was given two teams to oversee. They were well-marshalled, each gang equipped with snotlings he trained himself to sniff out the best fleshrooms. His stature grew among the other goblins, if not his actual size, at least, not at first. So impressive was the harvest his gangs brought in he was soon put in charge of a third runt team. Snotruk grew insanely jealous of Runtgit’s new measure and would watch the diminutive runtboy, always clad in a robe slightly too big that flopped over his hands and eyes, directing his runts in ways Snotruk could never hope to emulate.

As goblins will, Snotruk plotted the downfall of his rival. There is nothing unusual in this. It is simply the way of life among the greenskins. It was, however, very unfortunate for Snotruk that he was plotting the downfall of the wiliest goblin to have been spawned in generations.

Runtgit knew what Snotruk was up to, but did not move against him. Instead, he entertained himself by foiling his rival’s every trick. Everything Snotruk tried went awry, every good thing he did was attributed to his hated rival, and every time he thought he’d got one up on Runtgit all his runts would get mysteriously eaten, or he’d come down with a terrible case of the drop-trots that laid him up for days; when he was not running for the drops clutching at his backside, at any rate.

Runtgit was not satisfied. He wanted more. When the others slept, he would stay awake, scratching in the dirt by the ancient firebowls on the lower landing. He would not waste his time at dice, not unless he could rig it so that he won for sure and squeeze favours out of the other boys. Runtgit had more time to think. He had always been thinking anyway, so his additional time spent in cogitation meant he thought a prodigiously large amount for a goblin, more perhaps than any goblin to have ever lived. He took to eavesdropping on his betters and listening to the stories the old skargobboes and Little Big Un’s told around the fire, ingratiating himself with them with the special fungus ales and choice foods his growing piles of mushrooms bought him. As his wealth of mushrooms and orc teeth accumulated, so did his knowledge grow.

Runtgit had a taste of power, and he wanted more. His mind returned to the ratman, Skreekrit, languishing in the cells off the landing. He planned, he wheedled, he put words in ears and ideas in the minds of his elders and betters. The other young goblins thought him a lickspittle, so deferential he was to the likes of Duffskul, Tarkit and Grobskab, but he had his plans, and he did not care.

After many weeks of scheming, one of those plans was ready for execution.

‘Fing is,’ Skarsnik said, ‘Dem skaven are a tricky bunch, they’s always wanting to make deals and do this and then that. And then what? They try and stab you in the back, and den I ’ave to teach ’em a lesson and dis happens.’ He gestured to a rat skull on a spike and gave a wicked grin. ‘Don’t matter, mind. Gobboes is no better. In some ways, we’s da same. In uvver ways not, but there’s one fing I didn’t know back den and wots I know only too well now.’ He looked at me with a half smile, as if he were sharing a good joke. ‘There’s farsands of the hairy bleeders, farsands and farsands of ’em.’ He stamped his foot on the ground. His brows knotted and he sneered. ‘Down there. Place is crawlin’ with ’em, even after what I did to ’em, but that came later…’

Skreekrit Yellowtooth limped ahead of Runtgit who, for once, was feeling nervous.

‘Where-where we go?’ said Skreekrit.

‘Down here, and then that way,’ Runtgit pointed.

‘I cannot see-see! Stupid green-thing!’ chirruped the ratman, ‘I have blindfold, no eyes!’

‘Yeah, that’s cause I don’t want you to know where we is going, do I?’ He prodded the ratman in the back with his spear. He pulled a lump of dried mushroom out of a pocket and bit down on it. The ratman stumbled. ‘Watch out there, gets a bit bumpy, you might say,’ he said, spraying crumbs.

‘Stupid green-thing!’

Runtgit kept his eyes on the ratman. The story he’d spun to get the ratboy out of the cage had been an outrageous lie, even by his standards. No one believed it, some nonsense about a trip to the mountainside, a wyvern egg and an orc named Nork with a gimpy leg and a bag full of teeth, but he was high in the clan’s esteem. Both Grobskab and Duffskul the shaman pressed Tarkit Fing-Finger to allow Runtgit to take the skaven, if only because they wanted to see exactly what he would do with him. Tarkit had been swayed and, after the fing on his finger had been properly consulted, had assented to let Runtgit take the ratman away.

With all that out of the way, Runtgit’s biggest worry was that he might be followed, for if his true intentions were uncovered, he would be killed. Trading with the ratmen was a step too far for the Backstairs Boys’ elders, he knew that; they would not understand what could be gained from it. But they, as he told himself often, were idiots, not at all special like he was. Had Mork spoken to them? No, he had not. To his mind, that settled the matter.

They went out of the Backstairs Boys’ territory, the least of all the Crooked Moon tribe’s domains. Runtgit was heading right for the burrows of the ratmen.

Skreekrit came to a halt, and Runtgit narrowly missed spearing him.

‘Oi!’

Skreekrit’s nose twitched. ‘Smell-smell! Under-Empire close. Home-home!’ he said.

The ratman limped faster following that.

Runtgit took them to a tunnel that lay right on the outside edge of greenskin territory, a stately dwarf avenue lined with exquisitely carven stone trees. Runes Runtgit could not read ran along the tops of the walls, glittering with faded magic. A few of the crystal fruits descending from the stone trees’ branches still held power from the old times, and the corridor was lit with their cold light. One end of the avenue was choked with rubble, the other led off, who knew where, into the distance. Below were the deepest deeps of the dwarfhold, unknown lands occupied by the ratmen. Round, burrow-like holes punctuated the stonework, some appearing as if they’d been gnawed, others melted or chiselled through the stone by arcane powers and machines. They punctured the wall like the cells in a beehive, crowding out a well-dressed door made by the ancient mountain folk that led onto another broad roadway.

‘All right furboy, you can take your blindfold off now,’ Runtgit said uneasily. Dust lay thick on the ground, ancient trails of paw and tail blurred by time. He had chosen this spot carefully. These were the tunnels of the ratmen all right, but the smell of the creatures on them had faded to nothing. They had been unused for a long time. From what Runtgit had heard, the ratmen spent as much time fighting each other as they did the greenskins.

Skreekrit wiped at his arm with a paw. Just being here seemed to make him healthier and more upright.

‘You stay close-close. You not speak! You not move! You say nothing or you die-die! You understand?’

Runtgit swallowed hard. He was beginning to think this whole plan a bad idea, but then he thought about Snotruk and how many mushrooms he was going to get out of it, and how much power. He nodded within his hood, his assent a pathetic rustle of coarse goblin cloth.

‘Good-good.’ The skaven sniffed at the air. ‘Sickness here. Many bad tunnels. We no go this way. Death there! And Death there!’ He pointed to two of the tunnels. ‘This way, beard-thing way.’ Skreekrit pointed to the dwarf tunnel leading off the avenue. ‘Come-come, this better.’

Trailing ever so reluctantly behind, Runtgit followed the limping ratman out of his own world and into another. For the first time in his life, he felt as small as he really was.

Skarsnik found it hard to describe what he saw in those tunnels. By the time I had met him, he had fought the ratmen very many times and had become inured to the wonder of their strange machineries. But from the look that crossed his face, a series of expressions – chief among them wonder, fear, amazement and annoyance, annoyance being by far his most favoured mien in general – I surmise the things he saw in this ‘Skaven Under-Empire’ that first time had made a deep and lasting impression upon him.

The road they trod was dwarf-made for much of the way. Then they came to a wall built of scavenged stone blocks across the road. It filled the corridor, floor to ceiling, a walkway running along the back, halfway up its height. Ratmen in leather hoods rested long guns in its loopholes, alert to some threat or other. Their way blocked, they turned left into a warren of rat-gnawed tunnels.

What did he see? He spoke of tunnels that twisted in and out of the old dwarf city, tunnels where few ratmen were to be found at first, but then encountered in ever-greater numbers. Skaven slavemasters whipped gangs of scrawny ratmen, construction teams drilled at the rock with whirring devices. Piping was being laid along the floor and bonded together with machines that shot flame hot enough to melt metal. He was cuffed and kicked along when the overseers caught him looking at these. Only Skreekrit’s size and black fur prevented his death. The other ratmen looked at this battered returnee to the Under-Empire with open suspicion, but none at first dared challenge him.

Tunnels that began bare and unadorned gathered strange contrivances: more pipes that hissed and leaked scalding steam, roughly wrought lanterns that burned with a greenish haze, and everywhere the rank, acridly sweet stench of the ratmen. They went through caves filled with clanking machines, passed over fathomless caverns on swaying catwalks. Green lights glowed and lightning crackled far beneath their feet. Strange, snuffling monsters shoved past them, driven on by slavemasters. Were he not so deep in enemy territory, Runtgit would have turned tail and fled.

As they went deeper, Skreekrit was stopped numerous times. Runtgit attracted large amounts of attention at checkpoints and from patrols of ratmen warriors. But Skreekrit, bereft as he was of uniform, badges, weapons and teeth, stood tall. He was bigger than the other ratmen, far more heavily built, and his black fur appeared to intimidate these others. He chittered at them as if ordering them. They ducked and twitched and a stink filled the corridor that stung the inside of Runtgit’s nose.

‘They not want to let us pass-pass!’ said Skreekrit. He slapped at his chest. ‘But I am fangleader, stormvermin black-fur! They listen or they die.’

Runtgit followed the ratman, no longer sure who was the captive and who was the captor.

They came to a crooked tower on the side of a crooked way. Bronze chains and bells streaked green with verdigris, skeletons in gibbets, and smoking lamps festooned it on all sides. The skaven stopped before its doorway and looked it up and down. ‘This mine-mine. My post. Guardway!’

They went in.

What exactly happened next, Runtgit could only guess. There were more of the black-furred ratmen in there, these heavily armoured. Their equipment, unlike nearly all that Runtgit had seen so far, was well-forged and well-oiled. Some of it looked dwarf-made. The other black-furs were very surprised to see Skreekrit. Tails swished uneasily and paws went to swords.

A conversation of rapid squeals ensued between Skreekrit and another black-fur, whose helmet bore an elaborate crest. The black-fur chirred a laugh and went for its sword.

There was an explosion of movement almost too fast to follow. Skreekrit leapt forward. His left hand closed around the other’s wrist, stopping its sword from leaving the sheath. Yellow teeth snapped at Skreekrit’s face. There was a squeal, and the other ratman fell to the floor, its own dagger sticking out from a gap in its armour.

All but one of the other black-furs froze. This other made its challenge, hefting a heavy blade. Skreekrit’s crooked tail whipped forward. In one sinuous movement, Skreekrit’s tail grasped the dagger, pulled it from the dead ratman and flicked it across the room. The knife whirred through the air, pinning the other black-fur’s hand to the doorway with a thump. His sword clattered to the floor. It squealed and tugged at its hand.

‘He say-say I dead, then he say I cripple, then he say how I be Fangleader with no fangs? In any way, I not in charge.’ The ratmen snuffled rapidly at the corpse, its nose twitching violently. ‘He wrong-wrong! This post of Skreekrit Yellowtooth before, this post of Skreekrit Yellowtooth again. I servant of Lords of Thirteen. He traitor, not I.’ He pointed and chirruped at the other black-furs. They hurried to obey, freeing the challenger’s hand from the door, removing their erstwhile commander’s corpse. A sword was pressed into Skreekrit’s hand by a black-fur that bowed. For a moment, Runtgit thought he had overreached himself and would be struck down. Skreekrit was excited, his bent tail swished through the air behind him, fur bristling all over his body. ‘Now we remake deal-deal, green-thing. Twenty sacks these mush-rooms, for two fists warpstone.’

Runtgit looked stiffly to the left, he smiled worriedly to the right. Elite ratmen stood, huge and armoured, all around him. ‘Er yeah, hur, yeah. That sounds like a good deal, Skreekrit, me old friend. Twenty sacks, two fists, no problems.’

Skreekrit’s tail wrapped around Runtgit’s hand. ‘This time, we agree skaven way.’

He was escorted back to the avenue. When the black-furs left, he fell limp to his knees. Fear had sapped his energy.

After a while, he started to laugh.

The deal was put into action, and so Runtgit’s influence grew. He was awarded a fourth runt team. ‘Best runtboy I ever had,’ Grobskab was heard to say. As for Duffskul, Runtgit often caught him smoking his fungus cob, staring through the smoke at him or peering thoughtfully over the top of a skull full of fungus beer. Runtgit thought this a good thing. Even the fing on Tarkit Fing-Finger’s finger agreed Runtgit was a boon to the clan, and so he was left to his own devices.

Runtgit had one team of his runts set to carving up and bringing the glowy rocks down out of the mountainside. Another was employed carting it to the ratmen’s labyrinth.

‘Course, when I was Runtgit, quite a lot of them runts went a bit, well, funny,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Glowy rocks is dangerous rocks, ya know. But if they did, well, dey was only runts, weren’t dey? Dey went down a big hole we found. Had no bottom, you could hear ’em squealing for ages, hur hur.’ He coughed. ‘Well, da ones dat still had mouths.’

Runtgit went to pains to ensure this was all kept secret. Anyone caught spying on him by his squig hounds or snotling alarm callers vanished. Anyone he thought might be thinking about spying on him, for Runtgit was developing a healthy sense of paranoia, had a little accident. Or maybe two little accidents. Or as many little accidents as were necessary until they were quite dead. He told me about some of these.

Uksmak. Ran into a ratman patrol, on his own.

Gibble. Fell down an old dwarf well.

Dubbin. Tripped and went into the cookpot.

‘Now what are da chances of dat!’ said Skarsnik of this one, as he laughed and rubbed his hands together. ‘Still, made da stew better, eh?’

And so on. Of course, Urkdurk was never far away either, and if he failed to prevent outright attacks upon Runtgit’s person by intimidation, he generally halted said attacks mid-execution by bludgeoning use of his fists.

Snotruk – who had instigated many of these attempts to uncover Runtgit’s secrets, or kill him, or both – became more and more frustrated. And Runtgit laughed at him, but otherwise left him alone. Why, I could not discern. Was it a matter of pride, of humiliation? For all the time I spent listening to the greenskins, I understand little of how their minds work. When I thought I had a grasp of it, Skarsnik would tell me something wildly improbable or contradictory. The green races will forever remain a mystery to us, I fear, Herr Wollendorp, despite your good offices in attempting their solution.

‘Dat’s when I realised rule number four of bein’ a sneaky git: a frustrated enemy is the worst kind,’ Skarsnik said. ‘So bad dat I almost never learned that rule.’ He shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I almost never did.’

CHAPTER 10

FIGHT-FIGHT

Duffskul the shaman ambled over to where Runtgit was tallying up his tribute of mushroom sacks and handing them over to an impressed Tarkit. ‘Wotcha Runt,’ said Duffskul. ‘How’s it going?’

‘I ain’t a runt no more, Duffskul, I’s a boy. A proper boy. Me name’s Runtgit now.’

Duffskul eyed him speculatively. ‘Nah,’ he said at last. ‘That’s not your name. I’ll tell you what your name is.’

‘What is it then?’ said Runtgit. Duffskul drove him to distraction with his impenetrable pronouncements, and besides, his constant scrutiny of Runtgit unnerved him.

The shaman pursed his lips. He belched and took a swig of fungus beer from a squigskin gourd. ‘It’s a secret, until I says otherwise.’ The shaman took another swig. ‘Maybe, if you’re real good, I’ll tell you. Not today though.’

‘You’re talking rubbish, Duffskul,’ said Runtgit.

‘I’m talking gods’ stuff, little runt. I’m talking words from the Great Green!’ He jabbed a finger at Runtgit, the gourd swishing in his hand. His eyes flickered with arcane power, and Runtgit’s ears twitched with fear.

‘Something special about you, little gobbo, something big. Gork told me, Mork says so too, oh yus.’ He took another drink. Duffskul was always drunk. ‘So, seeing as you so special, I want you to do something for me.’

‘What?’ said Runtgit. He stopped counting a moment. That he could count over four was something of a miracle, as to most goblins anything greater than this is simply ‘lots’. Runtgit could keep on going ad infinitum if he tried very hard, but it made his head hurt.

‘When a shaman gets all old, older than me, he needs to set his roots down, you know what I mean?’ Duffskul winked.

‘No,’ said Runtgit. ‘No I doesn’t.’

Duffskul looked upward, and put his arm around Runtgit’s shoulders. Runtgit stiffened, expecting a knife in the ribs at any moment.

‘Runts! Born with nothing in their heads these days, I tells ya. Look, there’s these special mushrooms. Good for the magic. They are perishing rare and you never see them. They’re bigger than a gobbo and usually have a face on them.’ He circled a dirty finger around his own face. ‘They was shamans, see, long ago. Now that shaman has growed into a mushroom, his mind gone off into the Great Green. But his body see, that stays behind, along with some of his power. I eat that, I get more power, good for bashing up us enemies, see?’ Duffskul took another swig. ‘There used to be this special place, a special cave, where shamans went when they got old and tired. Some of the older ones say that it’s still there, hidden away. They is right, I reckons. I hears it, calling to me, calling me into the Great Green!’

Duffskul waved his hand across the air and looked up at the ceiling of the Backstairs again, like there was no rock there, just the throbbing orcish energy that made Mork and Gork so quintessentially Morkish and Gorkish, for want of a better phrase. That there were older shamans than Duffskul, who was as wrinkled and scabbed as a month-old mushroom, Runtgit found hard to credit.

‘Thing is, this cave is lost. You can’t get there, ratties took it a long time ago. Shamans in the old days’d go down there, and pick the shamanshrooms, but they can’t get there now, not until it’s their time, then Gork…’ His brow furrowed. ‘Or is it Mork? He guides them in nice and safe.’ He belched and rubbed at his belly. ‘Ooh, that’s better,’ he said happily. ‘Look, you can get anything, I been watching you. I know you seen me watching you. So, you get me one of them shamanshrooms, and we can make some kind of deal, you and me. What do you think? You never know when you might need the gods on your side, and they listens to me well.’ He gave a lopsided smile and tapped his nose.

Runtgit thought for a moment. Was this a genuine request, or was the cunning old devil seeking to uncover his pact with the skaven? He thought the former. Duffskul was too addled to care about the ratmen and greenskins trading, or maybe he was not, and was clever enough to see the advantage. Runtgit nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can do, boss.’

Duffskul leaned in close, his breath hot and rank on Runtgit’s cheek. ‘Good lad, good lad.’ He patted Runtgit on the shoulder and walked away. Runtgit’s eyes slitted and a wily smile played on his lips. Duffskul was an ally worth having. An ally like that, he could make you chief.

His enthusiasm for the task soon turned to despair. He looked and looked, but he could not find the shamans’ cave, nor could he find a shamanshroom anywhere else, not in the deepest deeps, not in the mountainside caves, not in the surface city, and not in those rat tunnels he dared go down himself.

Frustrated, he set his mind to asking Skreekrit. If it was in the rats’ territory, then by Mork and Gork (or perhaps by Gork and Mork), the rats could go and get it for him.

‘Beard-things. Beard-things coming,’ Skreekrit told Runtgit as they stood at their meeting point. ‘Coming soon-soon.’

‘Stunties? Here? How do you know that?’ said Runtgit dubiously. The skaven lacked a certain credibility in roughly half the things he said to Runtgit, or so the clever goblin figured it.

Skreekrit gestured expansively. ‘Hear in stone. Sniff in air.’

‘Spies,’ said Runtgit. Runts and ratslaves bustled around them, exchanging piles of goods. The business between Skreekrit and Runtgit had grown complex. Crates of wares taken from Sigmar-knows-where were piled with sacks of various mushrooms taken from caverns in the ratmen realm no greenskin could gain. These items would be traded with other goblin clans. On Runtgit’s side, stacks of dwarf treasure looted from sealed chambers sat by pouches of wyrdstone.

The Backstairs Boys were becoming rich, and so was Runtgit. The bosses of the clan never saw anything but the mushrooms, naturally. He wore a shirt of fine dwarf mail under his robes now, and carried a sickle sword so well made it did not bend when he hit things with it, and it held an edge too. His hood was tall and sharply pointed, making up for his lack of stature, although this was increasing as his power grew. His arms were thick and strong in the folds of black that swathed him, and slowly he was getting taller.

Skreekrit chittered. ‘As you like-like.’ The Fangleader’s fur was a glossy black again, his limbs clad in articulated plate armour. His tail had been rebroken and reset straight. His limp was less pronounced, a brass contrivance on his leg helping it bear his weight. ‘Is true! I have seen!’

‘I ain’t seen nothing, mate,’ said Runtgit. ‘No one has said anything to me.’

‘Suspicious little green-thing! You no believe me? You see too, soon-soon. In upper levels, at top, past goblin clans. They come, they go, quiet-quiet and sneaksy. You no see? You no look! We have beard-thing drink, see! We take-take from them. How else Skreekrit get such beard-thing things? How much? Tell me! Is yours.’

‘And them stunties!’ he said to me, digressing from his narrative. ‘Gork! They fight harder for dere beer dan dey do to protect dere gold!’

Runtgit looked at the pile of dwarf ale barrels. It was a small pile, only three kegs. Doubtless this had been taken by stealth, he had heard nothing from his own network of know-it-alls and tattle-tales among the other clans and tribes in the Eight Peaks about a fight between dwarfs and the ratmen. That he had heard nothing of any dwarfs in the peaks worried him, because Skreekrit was right, that was dwarf ale right before him – in new barrels too, not the ancient stuff they sometimes uncovered cached deep underground. How could that be? The mountain folk came periodically, trying to retake their kingdom, but there had been no dwarfs come there for several sproutings.

Maybe they were coming back.

Runtgit narrowed his eyes and pulled at his chin. The barrels were almost certainly poisoned, he doubted the rats would pass up on the chance to do that. Still, he could always sell them on, the Cave Clobberers were being troublesome again. See how they liked a couple of bellyfuls of bad beer, he thought. ‘One lump and a shard,’ he said finally.

‘Deal-deal!’

They linked hand and tail.

‘I got a question for you, Skreekrit. Good trade.’

‘Speak-speak! Trade good!’

‘I’m looking for a special kind of mushroom,’ he began. And so he described the shamanshroom to the ratman. As you might expect, he left out the fungus’s mystical properties. ‘Not small,’ he finished. ‘Them are mushlings and snotrooms, sometimes the little ’uns eat too much puffball and go a bit shroomy. Nah, this has to be big. Has to be as big as me and bigger.’ He held his hand out flat as high as he could above his head. ‘Y’understand?’

‘Yes-yes!’ Skreekrit looked about him, and pulled Runtgit away. ‘I know-know where is to be found. Yes! Yes! Big cave. Many mush-rooms, many-many! I get-get. But you, payment…’ A quick finger darted out on the skaven’s paw. He waved it through the air, inviting an offer.

Skreekrit made sure no one was listening, and laid out what he wished in return. ‘I have bad-bad trouble with warrior pack. Longtails, their boss Gronskwee no good-good. See beard-things come back. They think there be war, we think there be war. When beard-things come to old places, they always want take back what is now ours. Longtails want-take power before big war start, win rights-seize many beard-thing treasures after fight-fight. Make war on my chief, try to take over our pack territory. Want look good to War-Chieftain Skruk Spittletail! Mighty leader of all Clan Esk. My Clan. Warrior Clan.’

‘Then why don’t you just bash him with your black-furs then?’ said Runtgit. The ratmen had many clans, too many to keep track of, all at each other’s throats.

‘Nononono!’ The ratman shook his head. ‘This secret war, poison and night stab, alliance and cunning! No fight-fight. Bad. War-Chieftain Skruk be angry! But you, you,’ he pointed at Runtgit. ‘Well, you fight-fight, no problem for you.’ The ratman swallowed. His pulled fangs had been replaced with two shovel-like steel blades. ‘You bring me many warp tokens, you make me strong. Make me stronger, and you get this… shamanshroom. I tell you where Longtails be, certain time, certain place. Hmmm? You kill-kill. Green-thing attack, Longtails dead, Gronskwee dead, big pity. What to do?’ he tutted. ‘Skreekrit safe. Skreekrit know nothing. What you say-say?’

Runtgit thought about it. As I understood it, night goblins have a strange relationship with war. They adore violence, and to fight, but are terrible cowards at the same time. Even Runtgit, who was bolder than most, would only fight if there was no other option.

Then again, Runtgit didn’t actually have to do any fighting, did he?

‘What’s in it for my boys?’ he said finally.

‘Weapons, gold, warp tokens,’ Skreekrit shrugged. ‘I care not. Kill-kill, take what want from them, I want Longtails warriors and Clanleader Gronskwee dead, is all. Deal?’

‘Let me see first. I have to do some work. Check it out. Think on it. I’ll let you know. Two days’ time, you have a ratboy here, take a message to you. Then we deal?’

‘Very well,’ said Skreekrit. ‘Two days, then we deal.’

That morning, as the night goblins’ day was winding down, but the sun’s rising was just a promise, Runtgit returned to the surface to sit in the ventilation shaft. He had not been there for some time and found the going hard for he had increased in size and the way had become tighter.

Panting, he pulled himself into the sculpted cave made aeons gone by dwarf hand.

‘Let’s see what we can see, eh?’ he said to himself.

He looked out over the bowl that cupped the surface city of Karak Eight Peaks like a palm. The lights of both moons shone tonight, and the city was lit up in stark white and pale, eerie green. Wind whistled drearily through the place. There was no activity at all that he could see, nothing whatsoever. No fires, no noise, no sound of anything at all.

‘Lying git,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll bet that fight he wants me to have is a trap.’

He slid backwards on his belly, just in case something was watching. He’d reached the top of the shaft when a noise made him stop. It was a noise like he’d never heard before, similar to the sounds the rat-machines had made, but different, like a knife chopping quickly over and over into puffball meat.

He inched his way back. The noise was coming from the sky. He looked up. He squinted. Something small was moving quickly across the night, flickering wings blocking out the stars as it passed. It was high, so high up he had no idea how big it was, this noisy moth. Skirling orange sparks trailed after it. It banked around, swinging across the old dwarf city, and slowed until it hovered uncertainly over the top of the old citadel. It held position, wavering back and forth, forward and back.

Runtgit drew in a sharp breath. There were lights coming from the tallest tower of the fortification. Quick blinks, red-white-green. Stop. Three white flashes. Two green flashes. A red flash. A pause. A quick flicker of white. The lights stopped.

‘Signals,’ said the goblin. ‘Light talk.’ He’d heard the skar-gobboes speak of this, some cleverness of the dwarfs.

The moth-machine spun on its axis and puttered off into the night, briefly silhouetting itself against Mannslieb. Blessed to us Mannslieb may be, but the goblins call him the Evil Moon for his brightness, and Runtgit quickly looked away.

There were no fires in the city. None at all. Surely there should be something? There were orcs there most times, and some of the upper clans of goblins went out at night. Every night. But there was nothing.

Come to think of it, when had he last heard from his spies in the Broken Spears, or the Gnashas? A week, maybe, not long, but long enough for something to have happened.

He cursed himself for not staying appraised of such important tidings. ‘Zog me!’ He said. ‘The stunties are coming back! The stunties are coming back!’

He would, of course, tell no one about this until it suited him. Pleased with this new information, he scuttled back down the shaft into the underworld of the Crooked Moon tribe, back to the increasingly prosperous lair of the Backstairs Boys clan.

‘What’s the picture, boss?’

Runtgit rubbed his hands over his face, pulling his nose painfully out of shape. ‘It. Is. Not. A. Picture!’ he said through gritted pointy teeth, punctuating his words with slaps around the head of the little goblin. ‘It is a map! A thing what shows you where things is! You and the other runts stay here, you understand?’ He jabbed at the paper.

‘What, on the paper boss?’

‘No! Behind the pointy rocks.’

‘Oh, right you are boss.’

‘Then you lot there,’ he pointed at his second lot of runts, ‘will come round and get them from behind. Do you understand?’

‘Er, no,’ said the lead runt of the second team. He earned a smack on the ear.

‘You lot stand here,’ said Runtgit, with as much patience as he could muster.

‘Where? On the paper, boss?’

‘No! Zogging Mork’s pointy ears. Not on the paper! By two tunnels, south of the stunty road, near the big shroom cave, near three up, four down ways? All right? The other runt team, that means them,’ he sliced the blade of his hand at the other gaggle of undersized goblins, ‘they come up from the side and do them hard when you’re fighting their front.’ He punched the goblin leader of runtgang one hard.

‘Yes boss! Sorry boss! Ow boss!’ The little goblin rubbed at his pointy little head through his pointy little hat.

‘Runts, runts and more runts.’ Runtgit shook his head as he inspected his army. He had rounded up as many snotlings as he could to augment his pitiful force. They giggled and cried in the corner, endlessly trying to escape from the cage he had them in. ‘It’s all I got, you little ’uns, but you’ll do. We’ll fight them ratboys good, eh? We’ll kill ’em dead!’

There was a squeak of approval. Worn spears and blunt swords were waved in the air.

‘Here!’ said one runt by the name of Bok. ‘How comes there’s more of them to go fight at the side? Won’t us at the front gets all chopped up like? And how come they’ll be in that tunnel, when the fight will start back there? And where are you going to be?’

Runtgit stuck out his bottom lip. He thought about Bok. Bok was quite clever, a quality in his goblins Runtgit alternately sought out and ruthlessly suppressed, depending on his mood. Either Bok was going to get a promotion, or he was going to get made into dinner. He had not yet quite decided. Bok’s fate rested on how ambitious Bok was. ‘No, stupid. Them ratties are all big and brave in a big bunch,’ he said, some other wisdom he had gleaned from the skargobboes and Little Big ’Uns, ‘but get them in a panic and they’ll scurry off nice and quick, see? Rule five! Get them in the side. We won’t be fighting long! What you lots need to do is to lure them in. You pretend you’re running away, see? And then they’ll all get chewed up. And I’ll be directing. S’important, being a general. Too important for the likes of you!’

Bok should not be too harshly judged for believing Runtgit’s explanation. It was plausible, and in the main true. Runtgit had, however, neglected to tell them that the ratmen would most probably slaughter them all.

‘What’s a rule?’ asked one runt.

‘What’s five?’ asked another.

‘How do we do it, boss?’ asked another runt.

‘Yeah, I hear them ratties are well fierce, not like picking shrooms, is it?’ said Bok.

‘Funny you should say that. Twohead?’

‘Hur, yeah, boss?’

‘Get the sacks!’

The mutant goblin dragged three huge sacks out of the shadows.

‘Tip them out!’ said Runtgit.

A stream of brightly coloured mushrooms fell to the floor.

‘Cor!’

‘Well, would you look at that!’

‘That’s right, boys, stabspore, gutshroom, even a few madcaps in that lot. Get it brewed up, and you’ll be as brave as orcses!’

The runts were brimming with excitement. They had never been allowed the battle mushrooms of the bigger boys before. An iron pot was set upon a pile of dried-out fleshroom stalks. Giggling runts filled it with water. Duffskul got up from where he had been sitting and commenced mixing a potent brew for the runts.

Soon, the cave was full of smells that are delicious to a night goblin, but that would turn the stomach of an honest, civilised man. Duffskul inhaled the fumes deeply and nodded, his eyes wide and staring. The little runts formed a scuffling line, cups and skulls gripped in eager hands. They gibbered and squeaked with excitement.

They drank. The cave filled with the ear-splitting sound of goblins singing.

The little runts were herded from the cave, laughing and hallooing. Five of Runtgit’s most trusted lieutenants, hard-headed goblins he’d raised up from runthood over the preceding months, went with them, nodding to their boss as they followed his happy charges from the cave. They knew what to do.

Runtgit sipped at the mushroom soup. The world seemed inexplicably amusing now that he had a few draughts. Bright spots winked in front of his eyes as he turned his head. He felt bold, big as the world and quick with it.

Duffskul sniffed at the cauldron. ‘Better in beer, this, but soup’s just as good when you’re in a rush.’ He took a massive slurp from a ladle. ‘Oh yus. Nice. Now, you sure this gonna get me my shamanshroom?’

‘I told you I would, didn’t I?’ Runtgit fought a burst of giggles. ‘It’s all me plan. Fuggrak! Fuggrak! You there?’ called Runtgit.

‘Yeah, bait-boy, I’m here.’ Fuggrak the squig herder stepped out of a side-passage, twirling his squig pacifier nonchalantly round his wrist by its thick leather cord.

‘You get your squigs in that passage like I told you. I want them ready for when me runts break and run.’

‘You got payment?’

‘Course I have,’ said Runtgit.

‘Then we’re already there. I’ll get the lads to unpen the squigs now.’

Fuggrak took a slug of the soup and pulled a face. ‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘It’s better brewed.’

With that, he went away, whistling a squig-scaring air as he went.

Duffskul sniffed. ‘You’re taking a big risk not telling Tarkit about this. He’ll be angry, and you could have had a couple of mobs of proper boys for the job.’

‘You didn’t tell him, did you?’ said Runtgit.

‘No, I didn’t. Clever Runt.’ The shaman tittered.

Runtgit tittered back. ‘Good. No point telling old Tarkit about it, then he gets first pick, don’t he? Now come on. Me and you, we got to go down there and all.’

Goblins shrieked as they ran down the scree slope in the cavern, waving their makeshift weapons, some of them laughing so hard they fell over their robes. No matter that they were a pathetic bunch, the ratman column was very surprised to see them. The goblin charge hit home, sending the side of the marching line into disorder and surrounding its front. Ratslaves bearing heavy boxes panicked, pulling at their chains, biting and thrashing at anything within reach as they struggled to escape.

Their leader, Gronskwee, squeaked and chittered. The goblins were undersized and poorly armed. He put a warpstone bullet through the face of one, and his sword was in his hand an instant later, slashing at the little creatures. They fought poorly. What did he have to fear? His clanrats formed around him. Within the forest of stalagmites, goblins died quickly. Even with their reactions sharpened by the fungus brew, the skaven were quicker still. The goblins’ confidence started to fail.

It was when little Durrit had the top of his skull taken off so viciously by a serrated skaven blade that his brains got in the eyes of half a dozen of the other runts that they decided they had no more stomach for battle.

The runts broke and ran.

Chittering excitedly, Gronskwee ordered five of his clanrats to remain behind, whip the slaves back into shape and then set off in hot pursuit of the fleeing goblins.

They went at speed from the cavern, following the worn trail of an ancient river. Gronskwee did not know these caves well, but was gratified to see the tunnel split in two. In front of the fleeing runts was a pair of dead ends, both branches closed with walls of shadowed rock some way back from the main way. There was nowhere for the runts to go.

Squealing with bloodlust, the skaven leapt upon the remaining few runts.

‘Right then,’ said Runtgit, stepping forward. ‘Now!’ Runtgit tore down the painted cloth hanging over the tunnel entrance he and the other runts hid in. He shouted at his diminutive army, gesturing rapidly, kicking them and forcing them down towards the ratmen. In truth, they did not need much encouragement. The mushrooms emboldened them greatly.

The runts charged into the flank of the clanrats, shouting madly, jabbing and poking with their scavenged weapons. The clanrats – fur, teeth and weapons smeared with bits of dead runt – turned to meet this new threat. For a moment they panicked, and the narrow passage filled with the unmistakable scent of frightened ratman. Gronskwee himself pushed through his troops and leapt into the second runt gang. Seeing that this band of goblins was as puny as the first, the ratmen rallied and pressed their attack. But there were more runts this time, and the ratmen were pinned in a narrow passageway. The clanrats were mired in a press of squeaking, undersized goblins. Urkdurk waded in, a club in each hand, both heads laughing, bashing skaven skulls to a bloody mess of fur and brain and bone.

‘Duffskul!’ shouted Runtgit. ‘The signal!’

Duffskul muttered under his breath, and a cascade of green sparks sprang from his waggling fingers, higher and higher. Each detonated with a loud crack and a flash. The other supposedly blind tunnel opened up too, another painted rock face flipped back to reveal a wall of pointy white teeth in round red bodies. The terrible wail of the squigpipes struck up and the squig herders goaded their monsters towards the rear of the ratmen’s line.

The squigs bounded in at speed, knocking skaven down as balls knock down skittles. The clanrats panicked. Squig teeth snapped and squig bodies bulged as shrieking clanrats were gulped down whole. Many runts fell to the snapping jaws too, but Runtgit did not care.

Gronskwee realised things were lost. Seeing the goblins as the lesser challenge, he urged his few remaining skaven to hack their way through the runts. He made it into Runtgit’s tunnel mouth.

‘Ahahaha! Not so fast, furboy.’ Runtgit stepped into Gronskwee’s path, and his sword slipped into Gronskwee’s gut. He gave it a twist and grinned. ‘That’s from your mate Skreekrit.’ He twisted it again, more viciously. ‘And that’s from me.’

The skaven’s eyes widened. His weapon clattered to the floor. Its whiskers twitched and blood frothed around its chisel-teeth. Runtgit wrenched out his sword, spilling the thing’s viscera upon the floor.

Gronskwee dropped and Runtgit fell upon him. He squatted on Gronskwee’s chest, cackling madly, as he sawed at the neck with his blade. With a grunt, he pushed his sword through the ratman’s spine and the head rolled free. The two last skaven made a break for it. One was dragged down by triumphant runts and bludgeoned to death. The other hared off up the tunnel.

‘Oi!’ called Runtgit. ‘Get that, would you?’

Duffskul pushed himself up off the wall and pointed a finger. A jet of green fire shot from his hand, and the skaven vanished in a puff of smoke.

‘Nice one,’ said Runtgit. A squig bounded over to him, teeth gaping wide. The would-be boss goblin punched it hard above the nose, just where the squigherders had told him. Its beady yellow eyes rolled back in its head and it slapped into the wall. ‘Zog off,’ he said.

Runtgit went into the main tunnel, Gronskwee’s head dangling from his hand. Squig herders battered squigs back into passivity, tossing them the odd luckless runt to distract them if a clubbing was not enough of an incentive to calm down. His remaining runts were happily carving themselves trophies from the dead clanrats, laughing madly and uncaring that only half of them had survived.

‘Gather up them weapons, you lot!’ shouted Runtgit. ‘Get a good bit of steel, you can be proper boys next fight out. Now come on! We got some stuff to grab.’

Five minutes later, the remaining members of Gronskwee’s column were fatally surprised to find their leader was not coming back after all.

‘Hello, furry boys,’ said Runtgit evilly. ‘I believe that stuff you got there is mine.’

‘Yeah boss, yours boss,’ said Bok, and gave his most ingratiating smile. ‘That’s right, boss!’

Promotion, decided Runtgit.

Boxes clattered from furred backs. Rats backed away slowly.

They all died anyway.

At the head of a triumphant column of runts, Runtgit marched home. He felt as big as the biggest orc, a feeling that was only partly attributable to Duffskul’s mushroom stew.

‘And this!’ he said later, as he stood before Tarkit Fing-Finger’s mean throne, ‘is a dozen ratboy pelts from the ratboys what was saying all kinds of things about you. And thirty ratboy skulls.’ Runtgit smiled and wiped his bloody hands on his robes. ‘I thought we could pile them up in a pile like, make the place look nice.’

Tarkit nodded as the furs were laid on top of the heap of scavenged weapons and the skulls piled with wet clicks at his feet. About half the material being carried by the ratmen had found its way to the goblin boss. He knew it, and Runtgit knew Tarkit knew it, and as long as both knew the other knew what he knew was what they knew, then they were both happy.

‘Well done, Runtgit,’ said Tarkit. ‘Duffskul here and Grobskab too, they is always saying good stuff about you. Maybe they is right.’ Tarkit’s eyes narrowed. ‘Me fing on me finger now, he’s not so sure, but this is a lot of shiny stuff you’ve brought, so I’ll let it pass.’

Snotruk piped up. ‘How did he know?’

‘Who said you could talk, Snotruk?’ said Grobskab.

Snotruk was not to be dissuaded. ‘I mean, how did he know where them ratboys were going to be? And how did he get all the stuff to pay for them squig herders? And what about his runts? That’s bad runting that what he did! They’s all dead!’

‘They’s only runts, Snotruk,’ said Tarkit. ‘We gots loads of runts. And if they all died, so what? We’ll have more runts next week. And look at all the shiny.’ He scratched under his massive boss hat and thought a moment. ‘Nah, shut it. Shut it right now. Runtgit did good. What you ever done for me, eh? Nothing! So shut it!’

‘Bu–’

‘I said shut it!’

Snotruk’s remaining ear wilted and he cringed. But underneath his cravenness, his heart filled with resolve. He was going to bring the ex-Runt down.

‘And so he did,’ said Skarsnik to me, as we sat upon the dais in the dwarf kings’ throne room. ‘So he did.’

CHAPTER 11

EXIT THIEVING GIT, ENTER THE MOUNTAIN FOLK

‘Beard-things is coming,’ said Skarsnik. I was exhausted by this point, the long march to the Eight Peaks and my terror having taken its toll upon me, but I still wrote. I could feel the pen gripped hard in my hand, but it was as if the limb belonged to someone else, or worked under its own volition, a foreign organism grafted to my arm. I had finished the first bottle of wine. Another had been provided. I had soiled my breeches, for I dared not ask for a pot to relieve myself in and my bowels were still not mine to command. In spite of this, and of the draughts atop Skarsnik’s lofty perch, fire and wine warmth seeped into my core. There was no danger of my sleeping; to have fallen asleep then would surely have meant my death. Skarsnik was a kingly goblin, mightier and more noble in his way than some Imperial lords I have known. And yet he was still a goblin.

But oh! How similar we were, yet so different. I saw in his life a parallel to my own. He, like I, had been set apart from his fellows by his talents, few understanding him, many abusing him, as I had been misunderstood and abused. At first, I chastised myself for such fancies, but as he continued his tale, telling me of his exile from his people, I saw that fate or the strange, brutal gods of the orcs had conspired to bring us together. There was no chance element to our meeting; none at all, of that I remain convinced.

‘Beard-things is coming, that’s what he said. And I’d seen it wiv me own eyes too. Lights in the night! Dey do that ya know, blink blink flash flash, long-distance talking. I figured it out, ages back. I knows what they is saying, it’s all here, I wroted it down somewhere.’ Skarsnik flicked the corner up on a pile of parchment on a table low to the floor. ‘Tried to get me gobboes to learn it, but can dey? Mork’s ’urty bits no dey cannot. Idiots.’ He fell to grumbling to himself awhile in a mixture of languages. He stirred his wine with a long jewelled finger. He was drunk and becoming maudlin.

‘S’what ole Skreekrit said. ‘Beard-things.’ Things, wiv beards. Course he meant the stunties. I didn’t know how close dey was. Lucky for me too. Like I says, I is special, uvverwise, how do you explain all dis?’ He looked around his vast throne hall as if seeing it for the first time, his eyes widening with wonder at the glowing stars set in their stone firmament by the ancient dwarfs. His face creased with puzzlement when he took in the smoking goblintown that sullied the floor, annoyed at the blemish on his kingdom. He snarled. His quick hands played over his goblet, turning it back and forth, back and forth, as he looked past me deep into a past I could barely comprehend.

‘I’d been to see Skreekrit. He was well pleased with what I had done. I gave him da head, he gave me da shamanshroom. Everyfing was going to plan, everyfing! And den dat sneaky git Snotruk rumbled me, dint he?

‘They was waiting for me when I got back. Him, and anuvver boy, one ov Tarkit’s own lads. Sneaky beggar had smeared himself all over in nightsquig oil. Blacker dan black dat, and stinkier dan da drops. Me snots and me squiqhounds and me boys would never ov seen or smelled him. He were a sneaky one!’ Something akin to admiration came across Skarsnik’s face. ‘He really had it in for me he did, and I never knew he had it in ’im. He must ’ave been desperate, nightsquig stinks well funny. You never can get rid of da smell, know that? Stays wiv ya forever. So,’ Skarsnik sniffed hard. ‘He stands dere, shivering and dripping stinking gunk all over da place, pointing his finger. “I sees him boss! I sees him! He was dere, speaking wiv da ratties! He was dealin’ wiv dem! Our enemies!’’

‘“Er, no I wasn’t,” says I. But I sees it in Tarkit’s eyes. I sees it in da eyes ov da uvver boy what is also all black and slimy too. He’s seen it too. Tarkit’d never believe just Snotruk, would he? Clever Snotruk, taking anuvver of da boys. ‘Where’s da proof?’ I says. Den I know me squig is cooked. A nasty look comes over Snotruk, he smiles all broad and evil like and frows dis little bag on da floor. “Here’s ya proof,” he says. “Here’s ya proof, I gots all da proof ya needs…”’

The leather bag landed lightly on the floor. Runtgit did not need to pick it up to know what was inside. A weird feeling he was all too familiar with was coming off it, the one that made his nose prickle: magic.

‘Er, I never seen that before,’ said Runtgit. ‘Oh no, I hasn’t.’

‘Liar!’ shouted Snotruk. ‘Liar!’ His voice was a hysterical, piercing shriek. His remaining ear vibrated with hatred. ‘You always was a lying little runt, and you is still a lying little runt!’

‘He’s right, Runtgit.’ Tarkit looked stern, and feverish with it. When a goblin looks like that – rolling eyes, slick skin, twitching lips – you can be sure the potential for hideous cruelty is emerging from the situation. All the goblins felt it. Runtgit looked around the circle of goblins surrounding him. They all stared back at him hungrily, and a couple shuffled closer. Their fingers wiggled in anticipation. The praise and boisterous good cheer that had accompanied his victory just a few days before had gone. They wanted to hurt him, and they would. He was an outcast now, and thus fair game for their wicked appetites. ‘I should have listened to me fing, me fing on me finger!’ said Tarkit. ‘It’s always right. Nah, we’re going to eat ya. You is a thieving git!’

‘Thieving git! Thieving git!’

‘Yeah yeah, all right Snotruk, calm down, you is beginning to get on me nerves,’ said Tarkit.

Runtgit looked about for support. Grobskab was nowhere to be seen, while Duffskul stood behind the throne, shroomstem pipe clamped between his teeth, mad old eyes watching thoughtfully, just like he always did. Only this time, they were going to kill him.

Doesn’t he realise they’re about to roast me? thought Runtgit. Won’t he help me?

Rough hands grabbed him, ripping at his clothes. ‘No! Stop! I was going to tell you about it! I was! Who do you think kept the ratties away! Who–’ A skargobbo loomed into view, huge and gnarly, and punched him in the mouth. Blood gushed over his tongue as he spat broken teeth. ‘No! No stop!’

The goblins laughed.

For long the master of his own destiny, Runtgit was reduced, become again a frightened little goblin.

They stripped Runtgit naked and hoisted him up on their shoulders, giggling madly. Fingers poked him in the eyes. They tweaked his ears and bit his nose, they punched him hard, shouting as they beat him. ‘Tenderise the meat! Make it soft, make it sweet!’

Tarkit got up from his throne, standing tall over the other goblins. ‘By the power vested in me by being bigger and stronger and meaner than youse lot, I pronounce you Runtgit a “Thieving Git”,’ said Tarkit. ‘Take him away!’ He cleared his throat. ‘Now, er, Snotruk, now you can starts with the shouting of “Thieving Git”, if you wants,’ said Tarkit begrudgingly.

The whole crowd of them erupted into cries of ‘Thieving Git’ and ‘Toast the Runt!’ for Runtgit’s hard-earned name had been stripped away. They tossed him up into the air and caught him, whooping and laughing and hurting him all the while. ‘To the barbecue pit!’ one shouted. Many shrill voices took up the cry. Nagbad, who passed as the clan’s cook, snatched up his favourite spoon. ‘For basting!’ he cried, brandishing it like a war hammer. ‘For basting!’ the others tittered.

A black tide of over-excited bodies spilled down the Backstairs, towards the firebowls on the lower landing where the rockfall choked off the clan’s domain.

Barrels were rolled down the steps. Axes cracked them open. Fungus beer was passed out in cups made from skulls, and the festivities started in earnest.

Runtgit was dragged to one of the old firebowls. Stupefied by his beating, he recoiled from the grim dwarf faces all around the rim. The base of the firebowl was stained by corroded metal from a feedpipe for some gas or other the mountain folk used to keep the fires alight in ancient times. The goblins took a more direct approach.

Leaves that had blown into the mountain were piled into the firebowls, dry mushroom stalks heaped high around them.

Runtgit was bound to an iron spit with twisted ropes of soaked squig-hide while boisterous goblins banged flintstones against each other, and against their heads, to raise a spark.

Drums were brought out and beaten, pipes wailed. The goblins began to sing.

Runtgit’s guts churned with terror. Every face was full of hatred and glee at his suffering, every grin a joy at his pain. All his friends had deserted him. He saw Bok fighting over his hat, his best boss hat. He caught Bok’s eye, and Bok slunk away. At least he was loyal enough to look shamefaced. Not like Two Head. Urkdurk clapped and capered, both heads singing along tunelessly as the goblins regaled Runtgit with a stirring air:

‘He stole some stuff, and that’s enough,

To get him set on fire!

He told the rats he’d give them things,

’cos Runtgit is a liar!

We’ll spice him up, and roast him good,

And we’re having runt for tea!

Ol’ Runtgit thought him tough and brave,

He won a big bad fight,

He’s not so smart, not any more,

We’s setting him alight!

And we’re having runt for tea!

Tarkit says he is a thieving little git,

He took stuff from da boss

So now he’s in the cooking pit,

With flames that lick and spit!

And we’re having runt for tea!

Runtgit thinks he’s dead clever,

But now he’s not,

He’s dead, that’s what

He’s in the gobboes’ cooking pot,

And we’re having runt for tea!

Ole Runtgit, me sad ole pal,

The fing on Tarkit’s finger,

Said to da boss, he says it so

You ain’t allowed to linger,

And we’re having runt for tea!’

And so on. Despite their feeble cultural achievements, it seems goblins have quite the talent for extemporisation. The song would hit a lull, and a bright and fiendish face, shining with fungally-induced joy, would leap up and declaim a new verse, the goblins with deeper voices singing the refrain ‘And we’re having runt for tea!’. They all, naturally, found it the very height of hilarity.

Finally, the goblins coaxed a flame into being at the heart of their untidy pile of fuel. It guttered, and Runtgit’s heart skipped, for a condemned man will take joy in every few seconds of life given them. But the flame curled the leaves, and leapt up, and licked at a dry mushroom stalk, and so the fire burst into life. Runtgit’s ears fell flat against his head. He hissed and thrashed against the spit. ‘No! No! Help! Help!’ he squeaked.

‘You might fink it funny,’ said Skarsnik to me at this point in his story. ‘That I would tell you, me, king of da mountains, dat I wuz scared. Surely me, Skarsnik, king of all da Crooked Moons and a lot of uvver gobboes besides, and some orcs and uvver fings, wouldn’t be scared.’ He glared at me. His words were slurred from his beer. ‘Don’t be stupid, humie, course I was scared. Dey was gonna eat me!’

Runtgit was hoisted up by rough hands, banging his head on the floor. Cackling goblins lifted him high over the firebowl, while others erected a spit stand. The mushroom stalks were all ablaze, and now the goblins were assiduously placing compacted pellets of squig dung upon the fire. We think them unsophisticated, the greenskins, but they have their own ways of living. To any who would say otherwise, and I doubt you are one of those, Herr Doktor Wollendorp; I would say if they are so unsophisticated, how are they such a threat to men?

Bellows pumped. Squig-fuel bricks glowed red. Nagbad, resplendent in his dirty white cooking hat, nodded and smacked his lips. The goblins lifted Runtgit higher in the air and placed the spit in its rests and started to rotate him, so as to roast him the better.

‘Noooooo!’ Runtgit howled. He blew at the flames. They were so hot! Such unbearable heat! His skin blistered. Only the turning of the spit provided him any relief. He threw himself from side to side, but the squig ropes were too tight, and tightening as they dried. ‘I got lots of mushrooms! Things you ain’t never seen! You can have all of it! All of it! Lemme go! Don’t eat me! Urkdurk! Help!’

Urkdurk laughed and threw a rock at his former chief. It struck him above the left eye, and blood clouded his vision. Runtgit started a fresh round of pleas, but Nagbad walloped him on the skull with his basting spoon so hard his ears rang.

If Runtgit had not been gripped by such fear, I doubt very much he would have noticed the coil of smoke blowing through the hole in the rockfall. In times of high emotion, we are all wont to see that which would otherwise remain hidden to us, and Runtgit was no different in that regard to a man. He paused in his crying. He frowned. The smoke smelled funny, strong and sharp over the scent of the squig fire and his own crisping skin; a round, full smell, like pepper and drops-water and burned mushroom stalk.

‘Wait! Wait! Can you smell something burning?’ he shouted.

‘Course I can, Runtgit – you!’ shouted Nagbad.

The hall erupted with gales of laughter, for the goblins were by then deep in their cups. The turnspits joined in, bent double, tears running from their eyes. Runtgit swung to a halt. He struggled against his bonds all the harder as his back burned.

His panicked eyes came to rest on Duffskul, stood at the top of the stairs, smoking his pipe, his ever-present skull of fungus brew in his hand, watching, always watching. He couldn’t be sure – smoke and blood were in his eyes – but he swore to me as he related his story that Duffskul winked at him.

The sound of the party receded, the goblins helpless with laughter he could no longer hear.

‘I told you you was special, runt.’ Runtgit looked wildly about, but there was no source for the voice. Duffskul’s eyes glowed a soft green. He was speaking right into Runtgit’s mind!

For some reason, Runtgit was compelled to look towards the rockfall.

The strange smell went away. The smoke stopped its smoking.

Tarkit stood, be-finged finger held high, about to make a joke at Runtgit’s expense.

There was a deafening roar and a crash, and the world turned white, then black.

The rockfall exploded inwards. Tarkit and a score of the Backstairs Boys were shredded to gristle by splinters of rock. Many more goblins fell dead as fist-sized pebbles stove in faces and chests. Others were blown far across the room, smearing themselves messily over the walls. One of the spit stands holding Runtgit collapsed. His head swooshed towards the fire, and the other stand fell and he clattered down. For a moment he teetered dangerously on the lip of the barbecue pit, then he fell to safety. He lay there for a moment, not knowing where he was, utterly terrified by the explosion. His head rang and his vision swam. Grit was in his eyes, ears and mouth. The grumble of settling rock died away. A wave of dust billowed up the stairs, reducing the world to a series of shapes and frightening shadows, full of the squeaks of dying goblins. The whole world reeked of shattered rock and the strange, sharp scent of the smoke amplified a thousandfold. Silhouettes flitted past him as goblins ran through the smoke and dust, hoods flapping as they ran.

Something deep inside Runtgit took over, an urge to survive. He wrestled at his bonds. With difficulty, he rubbed them at the edge of the bowl. The squig-hide was charred and parted quickly. He had his hands and feet loose when the first gunshots rang out, whip-crack clear and deafening in the confined space of the Backstairs.

He peered over the firebowl rim. Squat shapes were coming through the new hole, squat shapes with long beards. They were dressed in armour that clinked in that muted, heavy fashion that well made war harness has.

The dwarfs were coming back to Karak Eight Peaks.

There were well over a score of them, grizzled longbeards, hatred in their eyes. They stepped into the rabble of confused goblins and laid about them with their axes and hammers, hewing them down in droves. A line of warriors armed with handguns took up station where the rockfall had until so recently been, picking off the goblins as they fled.

Tarkit was dead. Urkdurk too. The goblins had not been prepared for a fight. All they had to hand were knives, a lot of skaven-skull drinking pots, and Nagbad’s basting spoon. The fight on the lower landing did not last long.

Still, such is the hatred of the night goblins for the dwarfs they rallied themselves on the upper landing. Runtgit looked up the stairs to the main living space of the Backstairs Boys. Duffskul and the skargobboes were marshalling their forces, kicking goblins into a line and passing out spears. He could not go that way.

He had to get past the mountain folk and go down the stairs, into the unknown.

The lower landing was all confusion. Running goblins shrieked, dwarfs shouted war cries in their phlegmy language, they gestured up the stairs, forming themselves into a block and raising their shields over their heads as the first shower of arrows fell among them.

A dwarf with a magnificent white beard shouted orders. He carried a metal staff and was armoured in heavy plate. The helm was cast to resemble a ferocious dwarf face, the breastplate and staff chased with runes that gleamed with unnatural light, far brighter than the faded writings found in the ruined hold. The dwarfs, shields locked, advanced up the stairs, heavy boots crunching inches away from Runtgit’s hiding place.

A wounded dwarf was dragged before the white-bearded leader. White-beard looked down, spoke words through his helm: ‘Valaya…’ ‘Grungni’ and ‘aid’ and others Runtgit recognised, for he had garnered an understanding of the dwarf language from the Backstairs Boys’ captive. The dwarf struck his staff upon the ground, once, twice, thrice. The runes flared brighter still. The wound on the injured warrior glimmered, and closed. He sat, dazed, and was hauled back to his feet and pushed back into the fight. The old dwarf consulted with two others, less heavily armoured. They carried scrolls which they glanced at, looking around the Backstairs, nodding and pointing, ignoring the fight. The old dwarf held his staff up high. Invisible runes in the rock revealed themselves, and a shape like a door appeared in the stone.

Runtgit slunk around the firebowl. The dwarfs tramped past up the stairs, breaking into a charge. They attacked the goblins, roars of loathing coming from both sides. There is no love lost between the mountain folk and the greenskins who have usurped their halls.

Runtgit kept his eyes on the old dwarf as he crept among the bodies. Staff held high and shining, the old dwarf and his aides were entering a chamber the goblin had never seen before, concealed for centuries by powerful dwarfen magics.

Runtgit lost sight of them as they went inside, and he became intent on his escape. Gun smoke and rock dust choked the air, the torches had blown out, and it was dark. He paused by a shattered goblin corpse. He undid the rope around the goblin’s waist and rolled the body out of its robe. By sheer good fortune, he was able to creep to the cleared rockfall unnoticed. He came close enough to a dwarf gunner to be able to reach out and pluck a hair from his beard. The dwarf, his face enclosed in his helm, intent on his weapon, did not see Runtgit, and the goblin slipped unseen into the dark.

The rockfall was very deep, hundreds of yards. There were signs of pick marks and digging leading up to the blown-open entrance. Evidently, the dwarfs had been working through it for some time. Only magic or artistry could have masked their approach. Runtgit suspected they had plentiful supplies of both.

Runtgit’s bare feet slapped on the rock as he ran down the stairs, the sound of battle receding as he went. He shook goblin gore from the robe as he ran, and slipped it on. There was no hood, and it was only an outer robe; he did not have the comforting layers of cloth he used to swaddle his wiry body in. But it was better than nothing.

Cold, unarmed, and in a part of the underground city no goblin had entered in living memory, Runtgit’s problems were just beginning.

CHAPTER 12

OUT OF THE FIRE AND INTO THE FIRE

The tracks of the mountain folk were deep in the dust. In places, he came across signs of struggles, mummified bodies of ratmen or goblins in poses suggestive of a violent end. The dust around these was scuffed and disturbed, as if some of the combatants’ bodies had been taken away. He saw low cairns of piled stones nearby, and guessed that the dwarfs had buried their ancient dead as they had ascended the stairs.

No goblin tunnel or rat burrow pierced the walls of the stairs here. They were pristine, the signs of long ago battle apart. The runes running along the wall friezes were sharp, glimmers of power clinging to them. Glowstones flickered still. Broad landings periodically broke the stair’s gentle fall, what carvings or ornament adorned them was unsullied by goblin-work.

Runtgit came to a landing where the dwarfs had made camp. Shields, digging tools, machines, spare weapons and packs were neatly arrayed there. Two ponies stood still as statues, nosebags on. A dwarf, even more venerable than the priest he had seen above, sucked on a pipe and grumbled loudly at a brace of short-bearded youngsters, scolding them as they went about their duties.

Runtgit’s ears pressed flat against his head. There was no way past them.

He came to a halt by a statue of a dwarf hero. He scooped up a pebble. Like the landing back at the Backstairs Boys’ lair, here four doors opened off at the sides. He tossed a pebble hard into one of these.

The grumbling dwarf was on his feet in an instant, an axe appearing in his hand. He shouted at the youngsters, bidding them stand either side of the doorway. The older dwarf hitched up his belt, set his pipe aside, and walked boldly over to where Runtgit had thrown the pebble.

Runtgit readied himself. He nearly did not go, but the fear of being caught skulking in the dark was far greater than the fear of being caught running away.

He threw himself down the stairs. He took the deep steps three at a time. A panicked squeak escaped him as he stumbled through the camp; the ponies shied from him and whinnied. He blundered into a stack of picks, knocking them down with a shocking racket.

The veteran dwarf spun on his heel. He pointed and shouted in the thick tongue of the dwarfs. He pulled a pistol and fired. Runtgit ducked, the ball knocking a spray of splinters from the wall right by his head. The sound of dwarf feet pounded after him, and yet Runtgit had fear on his side and he ran with feet winged with terror.

The sounds of pursuit receded behind him. Shouts and echoed curses followed.

Then he was alone.

Runtgit followed the stairs deeper and deeper under the mountains, into places where nothing had trodden for a thousand years, not before the dwarfs came back. He walked for he knew not how long. Now the initial excitement of near death and its cheating had subsided, pains and hurts he had not previously regarded came to taunt him. His wrists and ankles were cut by the squig-hide ropes, he was covered in bruises and scrapes, his skin was peppered with grit from the blast. Worst of all were the burns he had suffered to his back and limbs from his roasting. His skin tightened where it had been seared, making it difficult to walk. He limped on, cold and afraid, into the deep night at the roots of the world.

The walls of the stairs came to be punctured by many square entryways. The stairs were of fine workmanship, but there was little beyond practical neatness to these side-passages. Dwarf-hewn they might have been, but beyond their well-dressed portals were old mine workings, either shafts or vast caverns carved by pick and hammer from the rock, what ores had been taken thence unknowable, the working steeped in centuried silence. Dwarfs are fastidious creatures, for all that in their world, there is a still a difference between a mine and a grand hall.

Runtgit hesitated in some of these doorways. He could go down into the workings, but where did they go? The mountains were riddled with mines left behind by the dwarfs. Most ran on for miles, then abruptly stopped, the mineral veins they followed worked out.

It was very dark in these tunnels. And quiet. The air seemed full of angry dwarf-thoughts at his presence.

He carried on down the stairs.

The stairs ended eventually in a portal carved in the likeness of a shouting dwarf’s face. Runes glowed brightly around it, the stone door that had closed the way drawn aside on ancient rollers. A fresh coat of grease covered these wheels and the machinery at the door sides. A fine carpet of rust was sprinkled on the ground where it had shaken loose. The dwarfs had come this way.

He passed through the door on to a highway under the mountain. When he turned to look back at the doorway, his face grew puzzled. He could see the ancient dwarf head clearly if he looked at it one way, but otherwise, the wall of rock appeared to continue on unbroken but for the incongruous rectangle where the door had been drawn back. More dwarf magic. He had heard from the Little Big ’Uns that they had hidden whole rooms of shiny treasures with their magic scratchings way back. Twice today he had seen the truth of that. No wonder he had never been able to find his way further down the stairs!

The highway was strewn with desiccated ratmen corpses, evidence that once a ferocious battle had been fought here. Haloes of fluff lay around the dead skaven, their weapons outlines of rust on the floor. When Runtgit touched the bodies, their clothes crumbled to dust and their skin was hard as iron. Another new cairn, topped with a fierce dwarf face freshly carved in stone, sat in the middle of the way.

The road surface was riven by cracks. The section to his left had been lifted up by some ancient convulsion of the earth, so that it stood a good ten feet over Runtgit’s head and touched the cave roof. The road leading to it dipped down sharply, for the highway had been driven under itself. A huge crack split the wall and ceiling where these two mismatched levels met. He padded away from the uplifted section. He could not go that way; the earth had closed it. In the other direction, the underway ended abruptly, a fallen slab of roof shutting it far more effectively than any door ever could.

Until recently. A tunnel had been carved through this collapse. Slow-burning lanterns in brackets lined the tunnel. Fresh chisel marks, white on the grey-brown stone, covered the walls. Piles of tailings were heaped at the door, and a dwarf machine sat outside, still and quiet. If that was whence the dwarfs had come, he could not go that way either, for who knew how many angry, bearded warriors waited in that direction?

That left the crack.

Sniffing the air for dwarf-stink, Runtgit entered the tunnel and plucked a lantern from its mount.

He went back to the roadway. The crack was black on black, blacker than the blackest thing in the blackest places of the mountains. It went up the wall and across the ceiling, the sides of the split stretching upwards until they were lost in the gloom. A faint breeze blew down on his head. Runtgit approached the crack in the wall. A slope of rubble led down into the dark. His nose twitched, his ears quivered. There was no movement to the air there, it was dank and mysterious.

Noises sounded from behind him, dwarf noises, coming down the stairs, coming for him.

With a tiny gibber of fear, he went down, slipping and sliding on the uneven surface, and fled into the true dark of the under-mountains.

The dwarf lamp lasted a long time; how long, Runtgit did not know, for time as you or I understand it is an irrelevance to mountains and goblins both. Under the mountains, the weight of the rock above presses down, squashing all light from the air, all nourishment also. It squeezes time flat, makes it sad and cowed. When the lamp finally went out, it was so dark that even Runtgit’s goblin eyes, attuned to the dimness of the world under our feet, could see nothing. He waved his hand in front of him. He felt the air move, but could not see a thing. He cursed himself for not thinking to take two lamps, or three, or four, or lots, lighting them in succession as they burned out one after another. But how many lamps would he have needed? How long was he going to be in this place, lost in the black where even the dwarfs had never ventured? There was no sign anything alive had ever been down here.

Somewhere, water dripped.

Gingerly, he made his way down the unstable rock, his freezing toes feeling out a way. His heart felt it would burst every time a stone skittered off in front of him. He carried on in this way for many hours, until terror became such a constant companion he grew bored of it, and his mind calmed. He became absorbed in his task, pushing his foot forward, gripping the rough wall for support, inching forward and down, feeling for peril with his toes. His eyes had nothing to see, and the dark swirled with odd colours.

Once, his foot went out into nothing, and he barely caught himself before he followed it. He drew himself back at the last minute and got down on his hands and knees, feeling along the edge of a chasm. He dropped a rock into it. He waited a long time before he heard the splash of water echoing up from far below.

His panic rose again, thinking his way blocked. But he found a way around.

After a time, he realised with surprise that he could see. The walls of the tunnel became visible, shadow on shadow at first, then the hard edges of cracked rock. He held his hand in front of his face and flexed it. A dull grey shape moved in the dark. After another twenty steps he could see his feet, another twenty, the path ahead. The loose rock gave way without warning to a water-worn passage. There were many subterranean streams in the mountains, and they made smooth tunnels like this before finding an easier way, leaving their old passage dry. The fault in the stone he had been following narrowed to an arms’-span in the floor of the tunnel, but cleaved it deep. He cocked his head, his ears pricked high. Far off, he could hear the rush of water. A lot of water.

He edged around the crack and continued to where the light became brighter still. The tunnel opened into a large cave, ornamented with glorious spires of rock. Water dripped loudly into a pool as still and bright as a mirror, flowstone formed into exotic shapes around it. On an island in the middle of this small lake, a stand of glowshrooms stood tall. Other mushrooms grew under their broad caps, prospering in their light. It was beauteous, a rare sight, a grotto worthy of Taal himself.

Runtgit could have cried. I suspect he did cry. Skarsnik never admitted to shedding tears, but he must have done. I saw many other goblins weeping, in terror, or with laughter. They are inconstant, emotional beasts, as their garrulous nature attests. He wept then, I am sure, wept for joy at the light which he thought he would never see again.

He dallied a moment at the water’s edge before wading the lake to the island. The water was as cold as ice. He drew in a sharp breath as it came up to his waist, then he gasped in pleasure as it soothed the pain of his burns. He ducked down, letting the chill wash some of the heat of the fire away.

The crop of mushrooms on the island was a modest one, the glowshrooms small compared to those in the mushroom forests higher in the mountain and yet, to the battered goblin, they were a veritable feast. His stomach awoke with stabbing pangs. He was famished! He crammed dozens in, barely stopping to breathe.

His hunger subsided. Cold though he was, he lay down amid the comforting copse of mushrooms. Within seconds, he was fast asleep.

Something brushed across the goblin’s face, a light touch as gentle as cave spider webs wafting in a draft. His snores interrupted, he pawed at his nose and rolled over, muttering in his sleep. He twitched, and pulled his knees in closer to his chest.

The touch came again.

Runtgit was exhausted, but the survival instinct of a night goblin is finely honed. He sat bolt upright, immediately awake. ‘Wassat?’ he said. He looked around himself, head turning this way and that. The mushroom copse glowed. Total, deep quiet, the kind of silence it is only possible to find in the hollow places of the earth. Nothing stirred. The pool was glassy black as polished glass.

Runtgit relaxed. ‘S‘nothing,’ he said, simply to hear the sound of a voice, any voice. He stood and stretched. He shoved a mushroom into his mouth and chewed.

‘Shhhhh,’ said something. A whisper on the air, quiet as shadows creeping down evening mountainsides.

‘Who’s there?’ The mushroom fell from Runtgit’s mouth. His red eyes darted about, squinting into the dim corners of the cave.

‘There, there, there,’ said the voice. This was not his voice’s echo; this voice had its own echo.

Runtgit’s ears flattened against his head. He hunched protectively, hands out in front of him ready to grasp and squeeze any soft warm necks that might present themselves.

Runtgit’s ears twitched at the patter of stone, the slosh of water. An arrow of ripples passed over the pool’s surface, making him jump.

‘So brave, little goblin, so brave to come here. No one has been here for so long, so very, very long.’

The voice swept from one side of the cavern to the other, moving close and then far. It spoke a language the goblin did not know, but which he understood only too well. A soft voice, but under its velvet welcome was something unwholesome and hungry.

‘Leave me alone!’ he said. He spun around. His heart hammered.

‘Why? Why? Why?’ the voice echoed. ‘So tired. So cold. Come and keep me warm, little goblin. Make me warm…’ A shadow passed over the wall. Where it fell, there was no light nor an object to cast it. Long fingers reached outwards from a thin and skeletal form, a shadow skull gaped wide.

The goblin screamed. The goblin ran. He splashed through the water. The cave filled with a terrible scream, the sound of something uncanny and foul. He knew it was coming for him, to suck the warmth from his bones and leave him cold and dead as stone. His eyes alighted on the rock forms again, and now with horror he could see faces, faces trapped within the flowstone!

Something dived down at him, he could feel the air move. He ducked and rolled, screaming as he went.

He left the cave, the thing within roaring in outrage and loss. The crack in the river tunnel opened in front of him. He did not stop to think.

It undoubtedly saved his life.

He cast himself into the crack, towards the rushing sound of water.

‘I fell and I fell den,’ said Skarsnik. He sniffed. ‘I fell a looooong time, down and down and down, me screams loud in me ears, the screams of da fing,’ he shuddered ‘almost as loud. Gor, it was angry! But I had got away.

‘I fought I would never stop! I fought I would fall f’ever and ever! Eventually, I stopped screaming. Den I hit da water. It was freezing cold, and it was fast, faster dan da wulf carts da grass boys ride around in.’ He coughed. ‘I tumbled round and round in da water, no air, all black. Oh, I fought I would die. But den I fought, why? Gork ’n Mork had saved me lots already, I thrashed me arms, and I burst da surface and I breathed! I went under again and again, but just as I fought me last breath had come I’d pop back up. I was banged and bashed and smashed near to bits. But I didn’t die.

‘Da water, it got faster and faster. Dere was a loud noise, like, like loadsa boys chargin’ at once. Dere was light, den I was in da air! Flying through it, falling again. I saw grey sky and grey land, and den I hit some more water. Da thundery noise hit me, and everyfink went black.

‘I came round. Me head hurt so bad. Sumfink was pokin’ and a-proddin’ me in da ribs. I opened me eyes. Gor, dey hurt! It was so bright, and da sun was shining hard and mean in me face. I reached up for me hood, but course, I didn’t have one, did I? On account ov nearly bein’ eaten by me mates and dat.’ He chuckled. ‘Good times.’

‘Sumfink breathed on me, all hot and stinky. I screwed me eyes up real tight. And dere was dis big hairy wulf fing starin’ right at me! I sat up. Dere was anuvver, and anuvver, all wiv gobbo boys sat on ’em. Only dey wasn’t like any boys wot I had see before. Dey was bigger and meaner lookin’ dan da boys back home, all covered in tattoos and paint and wulf bits. And dey didn’t seem to pay da sun no mind at all, dey didn’t even have proper robes on to cover ’em up proper, just smelly wolfskins!’

‘“Wot is dat? Is it a flyin’ gobbo?”’ said one. “Nah, swimmnin’ gobbo,” said anuvver.

‘“Er, dey call me Deffbad, Deffbad da cave squig slayer, so you better all stay back, all of you!” says I, but I was weak and ’urt and dey could see it.

‘“What’s a cave squig? One of them little ’uns?” says the first one again, the one wot fought I was flyin’ and dat.

‘“Stupid! Stupid gobboes!” said dere boss. I could tell he was in charge. He was even bigger and even meaner. His teef had gold on ’em, and his hat was the biggest hat of the lot. “S’scrawny little mountain runt. He’s fallen out of his mountain. And now, s’our prisoner, dat’s what dat is. And we’s gonna take him to da Griff. Get a few teef for im we will. Either dat, or we cans eat him.” And so he gets his wolf to trot over, and he smashes me dead hard on da head wiv his spear and it was all dark again. Which was all right, cause da sun was ’urting me eyes more dan his stupid stick ’urt me ’ed.’ Skarsnik drained his cup. ‘And dat’s how I ended up da potboy of Great Grizzler-Griff Makiki da Wily, although you’ll see, he wasn’t really all dat wily.’ He chuckled.

Skarsnik stood at that point. I had no idea then to what cycle the night goblins conduct their lives, whether it be the turning of night or day or some other thing. When the gates of Karak Eight Peaks are closed, there is no sun to gauge the hours by. The night under the mountains is eternal. The sound from the goblin cavern town was muted, only the occasional shout or giggle or skirl of awful goblin music. The old shaman Duffskul snored loudly in his tent. The heads of Skarsnik’s Moonhat bodyguards nodded. ‘Right den boys, get dis boy down dere wiv da uvvers.’ The king of the Crooked Moons rubbed his hands together. ‘I need some kip.’ He picked up his strange trident and poked hard at his pet. Gobbla awoke with a snuffle and a snort. He growled, then rubbed himself against his master. Skarsnik scratched between the spines running down its back. ‘Come on, Gobbla.’

The lord of the mountains stumped off, his monstrous companion shuffling after him obediently.

As for myself, I was grasped hard by the Moonhats. Whatever mercy they possessed departed with their master, and I was handled most cruelly as I was taken to the vile pit that housed the unfortunate prisoners of the Crooked Moon.

‘And that, gentlemen, is where we too shall pause,’ said Bickenstadt. I grow weary and must sleep. We will continue tomorrow.’

Wollendorp blinked. His eyes were sore from writing all day, his hand cramped. As was often the case when he spent long periods at his work, it took a few seconds for him to come back into himself. The air in the room was stale, soporific with heat from the fire. Meisen slept, chin tucked into his chest, legs stretched out in front of him.

‘Please, gentlemen, ring the bell,’ said Bickenstadt. ‘Call my gaolers and go on your way. We will talk again upon the morrow, you have my word.’

Wollendorp stood unsteadily and did as he was bidden. He kicked Meisen’s boots until he woke.

The asylum staff were not pleased that the two men intended to stay, and more than once, Wollendorp was obliged to produce the Graf’s letter.

CHAPTER 13

INTERMISSION

It was well past dark by the time the two Averlanders sat down to dinner in the schloss’s kitchen. Wollendorp had protested that gentlemen should not be forced to dine like servants, to which the curt reply came that it was either the kitchen or the refectory with the lunatics. For all Meisen’s earlier comments about the asylum’s relative comfort, the food was bland stew filled with stringy lumps. Wollendorp pushed it around the platter with his spoon. The plate was wooden, the spoon of horn. Neither were clean.

Meisen wolfed his down. ‘You not going to eat that?’ he said.

‘I am sure I will rediscover my appetite shortly, captain,’ said Wollendorp.

‘You go to war, Herr Doktor, and you’ll find it unwise to turn down any food. You get hungry, you get slow and clumsy. Fighting hungry is a quick way to fill your stomach with steel.’

Wollendorp tapped his plate in annoyance. How did Meisen always make his title sound like an insult? He shoved his plate away. There was wine, which was a comfort, rough as it was. He took a drink, and thought on Bickenstadt’s claim of fine Tilean vintages in the dungeons of the world.

‘You think this a waste of time,’ said Wollendorp. ‘We are here under contract, and we are both being paid, surely that has something to recommend it to your better humours?’

‘I don’t care much beyond the money, it’s true,’ said Meisen.

‘So you do think it a waste of time.’

Meisen shrugged. He wiped his mouth on a napkin, grey with a thousand washes, and filled up his cup with wine from the pitcher. ‘The man is obviously insane. No doubt he dreamt all this up in a gutter somewhere.’

‘Well,’ Wollendorp licked his lips. ‘Perhaps. Some details of his story do not make any sense to me, and are factually incorrect. Goblins cannot swim, for example. Their bodies are too heavy, their bones are too dense.’

‘Aye, and I’ll bet you’ve drowned a few finding that out,’ said Meisen drily.

‘Oh, for the love of Shallya, Meisen, I am an academic, a doktor of philosophy, not some drowner of greenskins!’

‘If you were, you might learn a little more. I wager you have never even seen one in the flesh.’ Uncouthly, Meisen spoke with his mouth full.

‘Now that,’ said Wollendorp, looking Meisen in the eye, ‘that is not true.’

Meisen chewed and looked away with a grunt. He took a swig of wine, and swilled it round his mouth, washing down the stew. ‘You are right,’ he said eventually. ‘I do think it a waste of time. Listen to him spin his yarn! I’ve not heard so much horseshit since I saw the Baron of Unterbergen depicted in a play as a hero of the siege of the Red Orcschloss.’

Wollendorp raised an eyebrow.

‘The Baron of Unterbergen is as fat as a cow,’ explained Meisen, ‘can’t swing a sword to save his life and was fourteen years old when that battle took place. He was there all right, but right at the back. I don’t trust playwrights. They can be paid. The vanity of other men is their master, not the truth.’

‘Ah,’ said Wollendorp. He turned his cup around on the table. ‘This is not the same, Meisen. You are right, of course, the man is a playwright. You are also correct to say such men do not create narratives as litanies of cold fact. But there are many accurate details that I cannot decide how he knows, and that speaks to me of some measure of the truth. Then, on the other side of the coin, there are many things he could not know at all. He is embellishing this story, that much is clear. The crux of it, however – the bones of the tale.’ He took a sip of wine and grimaced. ‘That may prove the goodly wife of veracity. The labour of the task is in separating that which is definitely not true from that which may be true.’ He became thoughtful.

‘Horseshit,’ said Meisen again, this time with great emphasis.

This disrupted Wollendorp’s thinking, and he grew surly. He rapped on the table with his spoon. ‘Maybe you are right. I hoped to learn something, some deeper truth of how the greenskins live… I, oh!’ He cast his spoon away. It bounced off the floor. ‘Stop smirking at me, Meisen. You cannot honestly say to me that our visit here is a waste of time for you. You have learned something of the threat the Graf’s holdings may face.’

Meisen snorted. ‘That there are greenskins in the Border Princes? Everyone knows this. Waste of time. Waste of drinking time, waste of whoring time. It is, sir, a waste of time.’

Wollendorp scowled. ‘I suppose there is all his talk of these “Skaven”?’ He looked to Meisen for confirmation. ‘I have known others in similar fields of study to my own who insist they are real, but where is the proof?’

Now it was Meisen’s turn for seriousness. ‘Do not discount the stories, herr doktor. I have seen and fought them myself. As a young man. They are real, of that you can be sure.’

Wollendorp nodded. Of course. The Scarlet Blade’s shame, losing so many of their number to an enemy that many held to be imaginary. After their forays into Averheim’s sewers, fifteen or so years back, they had come back with all manner of ludicrous tales. Any proof they maintained to have was conveniently lost before it could be presented. The burghers and his Grace suspected the Blades of being in league with some cultist faction or other, hence their decline in favour. Wollendorp had no desire to get into an argument with Meisen about it now, it was the shortest and surest path to provoking the soldier. Wollendorp was tired, and vexed, and he could live without further vexation.

‘This is impossible, Meisen. I am the foremost expert in my field, and yet here I am in a madhouse interviewing a lunatic.’

‘As you mentioned earlier, we are being paid.’ Meisen continued with his meal.

Wollendorp fought the urge to chew at a nail. This was so exasperating! All his life he had had an obsession with the greenskins. Ever since…

He didn’t like to think of that.

Part of him so dearly wanted it to be true that a king of goblins reigned under the mountains, it was such a fascinating idea, glorious, in its way. He knew that was wrong. If there were a creature such as Skarsnik, he was a terrible threat. But kingdoms under the mountains! Ratmen, endless tunnels filled with scheming goblins. It was so enthralling, it galled him to admit that it smacked of nonsense.

But what about his sources among the dwarfs? They spoke of their ancient kingdom, they had spoken of Skarsnik.

Skarsnik.

He needed evidence, corroboration, or he’d be no better than those fools who drew maps and put ‘Here be dragons’ in the blank parts, whether there were dragons there or not, and that was beneath his professional pride. And how was he going to get proof? He scolded himself.

He stood quickly, sending his chair scraping across the flags.

‘I am done for this day. I am going to retire, Meisen. I trust I will see you in the morning.’

Without waiting for a response, he roused the dozing boy that had been set to serve him and demanded to be taken to his lodgings.

‘I will eat your stew then,’ called Meisen.

Wollendorp was already out of the door. Shrugging, Meisen leaned across the table, hooked the rim of the plate with his spoon and dragged Wollendorp’s meal towards himself.

Long-nosed faces leered out of the dark, sharp-nailed fingers poked and scratched him. He tried to run, but his legs would not move. Dirty hands grasped him. He screamed, and a filthy palm that stank of leaf mould clamped itself over his mouth and nose. Hard, bony hands gripped him with bruising force. The goblins capered and sang as they dragged him to the dark hole in a hill.

Like they had dragged little Heinz away.

He fell into the hole with them, and they all tumbled together into the chill dark.

Wollendorp sat up with a shout, scaring the boy awake outside. A tremulous knock came on the door.

‘Sir! Sir! Is all well? What has happened? Sir!’

‘A minute!’ he called. ‘A minute, damn you!’ Wollendorp’s nightshirt was soaked with sweat. The fire had gone out and the room was freezing.

He patted himself over, trembling hands feeling for signs of injury. It was a dream, just a dream, you fool! he told himself. Nevertheless, he was ill at ease, and peered nervously into the dark. He would light a candle. With a fumbling haste that embarrassed him, he struck a match and touched it to the wick. His heart slowed as warm light filled the room. No red eyes reflected its glow. No green fingers twitched in anticipation of his throat.

Heinz. Gods have mercy. He had never liked his cousin, and yet why could he not get his terrified face out of his mind? Savage green faces, bloated spiders on the forest road, the cry of panicked horses, the bang of guns and smell of gunpowder, all crowded into his mind whenever Heinz’s pale face surfaced in his thoughts, and it did so often.

And his father had told his mother over and again, travel to Middenheim that time of year was unwise!

He went to the room’s washstand and poured water into the bowl from a pewter ewer. The water felt colder than ice as he splashed it on his face. He let out a ragged breath and dabbed his hands and face dry with the towel.

It was still night-time outside. Autumn was in its last dismal phase, winter approached. He hated this time of year, all mist, mud, rain and wet chill. A clock ticked quietly on the wall. This guestroom was large and in better condition than the other parts of the schloss. No doubt the asylum’s noble benefactors – or more likely their factors, Wollendorp supposed – stayed here when inspecting the results of their donations or the health of an unfortunate relative. These were dark times, and madness was indiscriminate in its afflictions.

Another knock on the door. ‘Herr Wollendorp? Herr Wollendorp, are you ill?’

It was too late to sleep. Wollendorp went to the door, let the serving boy in and had him build a fire. He cast a borrowed dressing gown about himself and sat down to review his notes. In the chair by the fire he was soon warm enough, and he stayed there and worked until the sun rose.

‘He’s not quite so well disposed today, sirs,’ said Krest apologetically. ‘I’m afraid the sisters say dragging all this up has made him take a turn for the worse.’ The attendant ran his huge ring of keys through his hands, picking each one up in turn and letting it drop onto the one below with a little musical click.

‘You will allow us to conclude our interview, will you not?’ said Wollendorp. He really did not want to say, ‘for I am on important business from the Graf Osthammar of Averbad and Nord Wissen,’ again, but he did so anyway. He reached into his jacket.

‘Please! Please,’ said Krest. ‘There is no need to show me your letter again, sir; most generous the Graf has been to Shallya’s house at Werdentraum.’ He held up a hand. ‘I only tell you so that you gentlemen are prepared. Today may not be so fruitful as the last.’

‘Very good,’ said Wollendorp. ‘Thank you.’

Meisen yawned.

Krest opened the door to Bickenstadt’s cell. All was as yesterday. Wollendorp’s writing materials had been replenished, the room was as dark and as close as before, the grille remained as a stark reminder of their host’s insanity. Bickenstadt was clearly agitated. He paced in the shadows, face hidden from them, chains rattling as he went the width of the room and back.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said seriously. ‘I am afraid we must be swift about our tale telling today! It has been made known to me that Skarsnik is not pleased with my efforts to tell his story. Oh! Oh! He tells me, he told me in the night! It is not right at all, not right at all!’

‘He has been like this since midnight last night, good sirs,’ said Krest.

‘Do not tell me that this is unusual. The man is a lunatic,’ said Meisen dismissively.

‘Oh no, not unusual at all,’ said Krest. He shook his head sympathetically. ‘The poor fellow is often like this before he suffers an episode. I fear we may lose him to his ravings again soon.’

‘Krest! Krest! What are you telling them?’ Bickenstadt’s voice became anguished.

‘Nothing, sir. You calm yourself now, sir, or I’ll have to call those nice gentlemen in to help you calm yourself, sir.’

‘There’s no time for that, Krest!’ said Bickenstadt, as if were rebuking his valet. ‘No, no, I must simply... Yes, that is it. He will be happy with that. Much happier.’ Bickenstadt stopped. He walked a little forward until he stood in part in the light of the room’s imprisoned fire, the curtains being still tightly shut. Wollendorp was surprised, although he supposed he should not be, at the man’s filthy and ragged clothing, far worse than that of the other patients he had seen. As for his face and hands, they were still hidden in shadow, the tips of oily hair and beard visible, nothing more. ‘Then gentlemen, you are ready? Yes? Herr Doktor? Herr Kapitan?’

Wollendorp and Meisen answered warily and took their seats. Bickenstadt swallowed audibly and sat down. When he spoke again, his voice was shaky, his mania receding.

‘I should tell you more of his glories! Not of his life under the mountain, of Skarsnik the general, the warrior!’ he said. ‘Oh, do tell me, herr doktor, that you will not dwell overly much on this early part of his life? My play, when it is performed, will cover many battles, his triumphs and successful schemes, but your account may well be the first to be aired. He will be most displeased if your telling is light on his glories, and heavy on his ignominies. Most displeased indeed!’

‘I must admit that I am interested in the life of the greenskins under the mountain. But I will keep that for myself. In my report to the Graf I will not dwell upon his life as a slave, sir,’ said Wollendorp gently. ‘You have my word on that.’

Bickenstadt calmed. Sensing the man was about to pick up his story, Wollendorp picked up his pen.

Chains clinked as Bickenstadt settled into his chair. ‘Good, good. Then I will continue. I will continue.’

CHAPTER 14

THE MISFORTUNES OF A RUNEPRIEST

Skarsnik’s bodyguards removed me roughly from the throne platform. They were no bigger than I, their giant hats only allowed them to overtop me in height, but their thin limbs hid iron strength, and my arms were soon in wretched agony from their grasp as they pulled me down into the maze of goblin dwellings around the dais’s feet. There was little activity in the town at that hour. Red eyes glinted in shack doorways. Goblin gibbers came and went. Wild laughter might whirl up a crooked alleyway of the goblintown, or a muffled scream cut off as neatly as if with a knife.

I was dragged on. The goblins tripped me or poked me with their weapons without warning, and laughed horribly at my stumbles. I did my best to ignore them and tried to remain alert to their mischief, all the while fearing the twist of the final, fatal blade. It did not come. Evidently, their vindictiveness did not extend so far as permanently harming their master’s new pet.

They took me towards a doorway in the cave wall, between two statues slumped into gravelled ruin. They prodded me down stairs slithery with moisture and ordure. Torches flickered in irregular sconces, and much of the way was too dark to see. I slowed, and they jabbered at me impatiently, surefooted and keen-eyed as they were themselves in that murk.

A noisome wind blew from the depths, carrying with it howls of torment and shrieks of the most distressing kind. We went down further, the stairs winding tightly round. Many were worn to a steep angle, and several times I nearly tumbled to my ruin, much to the amusement of my captors.

The howls stopped. There was whimpering, and then silence. After many long minutes of this dreadful descent, dim firelight granted me succour. It grew in brightness as we went around the last few turns of the stair, and then I was in the cellar.

The stench choked me, a mix of excrement, old blood and spoiled meat. The cellar was long and barrel-vaulted, its buttresses carved directly from the living stone. Arched side vaults barred by iron grilles lined its length. Whatever it had been intended for by its dwarf builders – I supposed a kitchen – now it was the prison-hall of Skarsnik.

Miserable wretches of a half-dozen races were chained together, their heads bowed. They wore nothing but rags to protect them from the chill of the stone. At one end of the hall, a fire blazed in a huge fireplace, another part of the mountain folk’s legacy, but the goblins’ slaves sat as far away from it as they could, as if repulsed rather than drawn to its warmth. I readily understood why, for by the fireplace were arrayed stained tables fitted with manacles and chains. Racks of barbed instruments surrounded these torture benches. A goblin was wiping one table down, whistling as he did, another replacing dripping implements in their proper places. The rotting remains of prisoners past hung like a lord’s hunting trophies from the wall. Above the fire, an iron cauldron large enough to boil an ox hung, although I was under no illusion that oxen were its usual contents.

A huge, fat goblin slept snoring in a chair by the fire, his bursting gut blanketed by a stained apron. Lesser greenskins slumbered on the floor around his feet. Others leaned idly on spears, their eyes fixed nonetheless upon the slaves. The cave was too dark for me to experience the other horrors that doubtlessly lurked in the black, and I count myself fortunate that it was so. As I was marched along by my guards, I caught sight of the fat goblin’s head. Three dimly glowing mushrooms stood proud upon it. This must be Grobskab, I thought, grown fat on his refusal to take part in the runt bake that saw Skarsnik driven from the mountain. It appeared Skarsnik rewarded those who served him well.

My guards kicked and cursed their way through the slaves. The slaves offered no resistance, their spirits broken. The smell from them was vile, all were emaciated, and not one was left unmarked. I was bullied towards one of the side vaults. It went deep into the mountain. Further, smaller spaces led from it, also screened by iron grilles, the manner of space that perhaps barrels or crates might once have been kept in. No longer; the stores there were of living flesh and despair.

One of the goblins pinned my arms to my side while the other fumbled a set of keys from his robes. Cursing under his breath, he searched for the correct one. The door in the centre of the grille squealed open, and he mockingly bade me enter with arms spread wide.

Each of the cells was crammed with ragged creatures. I saw the ratmen of which Skarsnik had spoken, man-sized abominations with long muzzles, covered in fur. They brought me to the final cage, opened its door and I was shoved forward, a boot to my rear propelling me to the floor.

Dank straw layered the floor. A bone covered in scraps of putrid flesh sat in the centre of the cage. I kicked it into a corner, not wishing to learn of its provenance.

There was a shuffle and a moan from the cell opposite. A gabble in a hard language I did not understand, a second voice soothing in that same tongue. The moaning ceased. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I made out a large shape in this cell opposite mine. The shape split and became two shapes, two bodies, squat and powerful, one prone, the second kneeling. The kneeling shape stood, and made its way from the shadows. The torchlight was weak, but it was enough to see the ruin of the dwarf’s face as he pressed it against the flat bars of his prison.

Where the dwarf’s beard should have been was a raw scar, his chin smooth and hairless. Some whiskers still clung to its cheeks and upper lip, but these had been hacked at, and his face was a mess of cuts. His head had been shaved, longer tufts jutting out from the stubble. His face was seamed with filth. A bandage torn from his own clothes covered one eye. He gripped the bars with huge hands either side of his face, and I saw they had not escaped the attentions of the goblins. Three fingers on one hand were missing, the others were scabbed. And yet for all that, a nobility remained in his face, a defiance in his remaining eye, and I had no doubt that here was a lord of the mountain folk.

‘You must be important,’ he said to me, his voice deep and gravelly as the voices of dwarfs are, his Reikspiel hard. I fancy it was as if he spoke through rough-hewn boulders, and I river-smoothed sand. ‘To get a cell all to yourself.’

I insisted that I was not important. ‘I am but a playwright, sir,’ I said. ‘I have no idea why I am here.’

‘Playwright?’ grunted the dwarf. ‘Let me guess – the usurper is telling you how magnificent he is?’

I blanched. ‘I am not the first?’

The dwarf shook his head and let out a low chuckle. ‘There was one other. He was no scribe, and he refused. A proud man, an honourable man, for an umgi.’

I dropped my eyes. ‘I am ashamed to say I have not refused. I listen, and I write.’

The dwarf grunted with disapproval, as if he expected no better from a mere man. But when he spoke he did so kindly. ‘I cannot say I blame you,’ he said.

‘Are you the one Skarsnik speaks of, the dwarf once imprisoned by his clan?’

There was a cry of terror from behind the dwarf. The dwarf turned back and whispered comfort in his own language, then replied to me: ‘No. I am not he.’ He jerked a thumb behind him. ‘That brave soul who lies there, Grunfin Goldfinder, is the one of whom you speak. He had been held captive by the grobi for years before I joined him. His body was broken long ago, his mind not soon after, but the grobi usurper keeps him alive for his own amusement. Together we have been here five years, at least by my reckoning.’

I blinked. I was not sure what to say. In some manner, this conversation, conducted with all appropriate civilities, was the most shocking thing that had occurred to me in days, throwing all the horror around me into stark contrast. My breeding saved me from a swift descent into madness. ‘I am sorry, sir, I forget my manners,’ I said. ‘I am Jeremiah von Bickenstadt, lately of Averheim, now of nowhere at all.’

‘I forget mine also,’ said the dwarf. ‘The hospitality of the grobi is such that a dwarf can forget his wits, such is the luxury presented him.’

We shared a laugh at this grim jest.

‘I am Braknar, son of Brangar,’ he said. ‘King Belegar, rightful lord of these halls, is my liege.’

‘How did you come to be here?’ I asked.

‘The same as any of my kind,’ said Braknar. ‘I was proud, and I was brought low by my pride.’ He looked off to one side, peering into the dark to where the guards might be. I could see nothing. Our conversation was hushed, our whispers swallowed by the night and the palpable terror hanging over the vault. ‘The grobi are craven and reckless, but they can be cunning.’ He looked back to me. ‘It is a lesson you would be wise in learning, manling. Whatever the grobi usurper tells you, of it believe less than a half measure. He is wicked and clever beyond the run of his kind. Would that I had but known that…’ He chuckled ruefully. ‘Tell me, have you seen his weapon, the three-pronged spear he has beside him at all times? Does he have it still?’

‘I have,’ I said. ‘He does.’

The dwarf looked sorrowful. ‘That is a relief and a shame, then. A relief that I know where it is, a shame that he has it at all.’

‘Why is that?’

He grasped at the bars again, and pushed his face into the grille, so that his nose stuck out and his face was framed by rusting metal. ‘I will not speak of it,’ he said. ‘It is my shame, and I will not share it. Perhaps I will wipe this stain of honour away, perhaps not. It is of small consequence compared to the fate of Vala-Azrilungol, and if the latter goes in our favour, I will revenge myself at leisure. My lord Belegar must have the measure of the usurper. The numbers of my people brought here and…’ His hands twisted on the bars of the cage. ‘The numbers of my people brought here to this dungeon grow the lesser. I reckon it will not be long before Vala-Azrilungol is cleansed of the green filth, grudges may be stricken from the great book, and the songs of my ancestors will be sung loudly in these halls again.’ A strange look, part wistful, part fanatical, came over his face. ‘I came here with Lord Belegar to make it so, and it will be so! He already sits in the citadel where none may assail him, crowned king again, and our people clear more of the delvings of our ancestors. Twenty-nine generations of my clan have lived and died in exile since we were driven from our ancient halls, but we never forget, manling. A dwarf never forgets, and never forgives. I may die in these dungeons, but I will be avenged. The vengeance of the dwarfs will be terrible and final. The fires of Karak Eight Peaks will burn a thousand days, fuelled by the corpses of grobi and skaven, before the hosts of my people dwell here again, and all will be as it was in the days of the glorious past.’

Braknar fully believed this, of that I was convinced. His faith in the victory of his kind shone clear and unchallenged upon his ruined face. But trapped in that dank, chill cavern, surrounded on all sides by enemies of the worst kind, I could not share his optimism.

CHAPTER 15

IN TRUTH, A BRAVE LITTLE GOBLIN

I was woken some hours later, sore and chilled. My stomach felt a little better. My muscles were stiff and protested vigorously as I was hauled to my feet and dragged away from the prison-caves. I was a young man then, and fit from my life on the road. Had I been older or frailer, I have no doubt that I would have perished from my travels and my incarceration, Skarsnik’s interest in me or not.

The cave of prisoners was empty as I was taken through it. Goblintown was awake and full of bustle. This was fortunate for me as Skarsnik’s bodyguards were forced to kick their way through the crowds, and so had less time to mishandle me, although I drew a deal of unwanted attention from the goblins who crammed the streets.

Skarsnik’s dais was full once again of his cronies and supplicants. He was breaking his fast as I was brought before him. He looked up from his meat with a wide smile of acknowledgement.

‘Wotcha,’ he said.

‘Good morning, my lord,’ I replied and bowed, which broadened his smile.

‘You ’ad sumfink to eat? No? Get him sumfink ta eat!’ he bellowed, and cuffed a random goblin flunky hard around the head. ‘Humie food too! Don’t want ’im dying on me.’

‘Might I also ask for a pot to relieve myself in?’

This made him laugh so hard his belly wobbled. A pot was procured, although there was no privacy to go with it.

Hunger compelled me to eat the stew given me. I had managed to this point to avoid it, but the smell of it, as nauseating as it was, causes stabbing knives of need to trouble my stomach. I devoured it, along with the spongy bread-like mushrooms I was given. I still shudder to think what the stew might have contained. There was another bottle of the wine brought me. The wine washed the taste of the meat, and the thought of what that flavour might betoken, from my mouth and my mind.

‘You ready den?’ said Skarsnik. He wiped his hands and his mouth on a cloth held by a servant, a rich piece of embroidery treated as a soil rag. He was alone in these minimal ablutions, as I saw no other goblin clean itself while there.

I nodded that I was. Trying not to let the shaking of my hand show, I poured myself a full goblet of wine and took up my pen.

‘Now,’ said the green potentate. ‘Where was I? Ah yes… Makiki and his crew, that was it…’

Wolf legs eat miles as readily as wolf mouths devour flesh. Drear moors and steep valleys filled with miserable forest dropped away, and the hills became gentler as they rode down from the skirts of the Worlds Edge Mountains. Runtgit was aware of little of this on his way from his mountain home. His eyes were seared by the light of the Evil Sun, and the grey grasses that whisked past his pointed nose were a confusing blur. He had never been out of the caves, not in his short, short life. The furthest outdoors he had ventured had been to the mouth of the dwarf air chimney, and for some time, his addled mind questioned how the ground could be so hairy and green. The blow to his head had scrambled his wits, and he imagined himself as a flea on the hide of a giant, furred orc as huge and as unknowable as the world.

Runtgit swam in and out of consciousness. He was periodically slapped awake, dirty water or burning liquor poured down his throat. The other goblins laughed at his discomfort. They were larger and more heavily muscled than night goblins, and had an orcish swagger to them that looked strange to Runtgit’s eyes. At first, Runtgit took them to be Little Big ’Uns, but a fearful doubt crept into his heart. Perhaps these were ordinary boys, in which case, the elite of their tribe would be terrible monsters, twice as big as Runtgit was!

He did not give the goblin wolf riders the satisfaction of seeing his fear.

By nightfall, the wolves had covered many leagues. When Runtgit craned his neck to look behind, the mountains had shrunk by half, although they still crowded out most of the sky. The sun, so round and orange and terrible, was slipping down past the horizon, and Runtgit was relieved. He felt parched and fried by this unwelcome orb, and when he blinked, the dusk was marred by glowing blobs, as if the ghost of the sun had snuck into his eyes to haunt him through the night.

This thought terrified him, yet still he did not show it.

The wolves slowed, panting hard. The leader of the little troop wheeled his mount backwards, leaning back and waving his spear as he pulled hard on the reins. The wolf growled and high-stepped around in a tight circle.

‘All right, boys! We’s stopping here tonight,’ he shouted. These goblins spoke greenskin with a strange lilt, and used words which Runtgit had to hear twice before he understood.

‘Boss! I’s not sure that’s clever thinking that, s’night-time. Bad things round here at night-time.’

‘Shut it, Kruggler, you give me any more mouth and it’s target practice time.’ As if to emphasise this, the boss’s wolf stopped and shook, setting the bow and arrows arrayed behind its saddle to rattling. ‘I is boss here, me Snarkit the Snaggler, and if you don’t like it, you bleeding well get zogged. Wulloffs are hungry, see? How’s about you for a nice little snacky-snack, keep them sweet and running well?’

Snarkit’s mount growled. The one named Kruggler demurred to be a meal, and Snarkit spat at him.

Snarkit had them ride over to a tumbledown selection of walls. Once, perhaps, this had been a village. Little but low humps of grass remained, with weathered stones protruding through the turf like old, grey teeth.

The village broch, however, had stood the test of time. The tower was of tightly packed stone, layered without mortar. Partly ruinous, its remains stood in the bleak wilderness as sharp as a fang, the broken redoubt of a forgotten people.

‘All right, boys!’ said Snarkit. He quickly scouted out the broch. ‘Zigg, get the wulloffs somethink to eat. He’ll do.’ Snarkit pointed at a terrified-looking goblin slung over Kruggler’s wolf.

‘Boss! He’s mine! I’ll not get me dues!’ said Kruggler.

‘Shouldn’t cheek me, should you? Wulloffs gotta eat something, be glad it ain’t you. Dirklug! Fink! Rukkit and Bork! Make camp, get me a fire! We’re staying here tonight, tomorrow we take our captures to the Great Grizzler-Griff!’

Runtgit was tipped unceremoniously off the wolf. He landed on his head. This is by far the least delicate part of a goblin, so he was soon recovered enough to wriggle upright and take in his circumstances.

There were a dozen of the wolf boys. Runtgit had heard the Little Big ’Uns and the skargobboes talk about other sorts of goblin, but they were outlandish tales and he had not put much stock by them. He’d always assumed wolves would be akin to a cave squig, round and bouncy and full of teeth. But these creatures were lean, swift-runners, sharp-toothed yes, but in no way similar to a goblin, which squigs somewhat resemble. He was in a land unutterably alien to him.

As we have noted already, the future Skarsnik was not like other goblins. Other goblins would have wailed and pleaded, other goblins would have been snotty little messes, cowering in fright. Not Skarsnik-to-be. He waited, and he watched, looking for opportunities for survival, and perhaps profit, for Runtgit had a calculating nature. To call him an optimist would be incorrect, goblin lives are too hard for a positive outlook, but he was possessed of a certain confidence in his own abilities, even back in the days before he won his crown.

There were seven captives with the wolf riders. Four goblins of differing sorts, a filthy human of primitive appearance (Runtgit, having never seen a human, thought it at first some kind of sick dwarf, until he heard it named differently), a skaven and something he could put no name to. His own captor, Bork, a goblin with a long, scrawny neck, huge nose and a helmet pulled down so tight you couldn’t see his eyes, led the wolves into the remains of a circular hut, the only thing in the village beside the broch standing higher than Runtgit’s waist. The walls there were high enough that once the doorway was blocked with a flat slab of stone, it served adequately as a pen. Shortly after that, there were six prisoners, as Bork cut the throat of one of the goblins and tossed its twitching corpse into the wolf pen. Tearing, snapping and snarling sounds followed, and Runtgit swallowed anxiously in spite of himself.

The broch had a single doorway, halfway up its remaining height. There was but one floor left, of large stone slabs, and only a half-floor at that. One side of the tower, that around the half-floor, was higher than the other, and where the floor had collapsed, so too had the higher parts of the outer wall. Steps led down the inside of the tower from the doorway to the ground within. The prisoners were left on the grass that grew there, bound hand and foot. More of the harsh liquor was forced down their throats. Kruggler laughed as Runtgit spluttered.

‘Can’t take your drink, stupid night goblins. You’re all weak and weedy and scared of your own shadows.’

Runtgit blinked tears from his eyes. ‘Yeah, untie me and say that, or are you too scared to now you don’t have your pet to do your fighting for you?’

Kruggler kicked Runtgit hard and snarled. ‘You think you’re clever? Let’s wait until the sun comes up, then we’ll see.’ Kruggler cringed back in pantomime. ‘Ah! Me eyes! Me eyes!’ He squealed. ‘Make it go away! Ooh! The sun! The Evil Sun!’ He stopped and leaned in close. ‘Pathetic. Should have stayed cowering underground, cave runt. We’ll see how smart your mouth is when you’re up in front of the Griff, when he’s got you in the pit in a fight. Likes a fight, the Griff; he likes a bet. And because you’re not worth betting a single tooth on, you’ll be used for the warm-up, before the proper scrapping starts, runt like you.’

‘Oi!’ Snarkit bellowed. ‘Leave them prisoners be! The Griff pays more for ’em if all their armses and legses work proper!’

Kruggler shot a contemptuous glance up to the half-floor’s edge where the boss stood, framed against the watery blue of the drawing night. Very deliberately, Kruggler spat on Runtgit, and strode away.

‘Dirklug!’ shouted Snarkit. ‘You checked around? Anything strange?’

‘No, boss!’

‘Good, now get me a fire lit!’

This went on for some time, the goblins all bustling as they set up camp. Runtgit was impressed. The wolf boys were disciplined and efficient, two words that he did not know, but which had he known he would never have thought to apply to goblinkind. He decided these goblins, living on their wits out here on their own, had to be sharper than the night goblins, otherwise they would simply die.

It grew black, blacker than the pits of the caves. With the sun gone, it became cold. In the caverns it is always cool, and if some of them are colder than others, the temperature varies but little. Runtgit was soon shivering, his teeth chattering. Where his clothes had not dried on the ride to the ruins they grew stiff and freezing. Frost rimed those of his fellow prisoners, and they all quaked fearsomely with the chill. The upper walls of the broch glowed with comforting firelight, and Runtgit longed for its warmth. Snarkit and his crew had camped on the half-floor of stone slabs. The wolf boys rotated their turn as lookouts, checking on the prisoners as they went to and from the fire. The sounds of laughter and bickering dwindled. Snores replaced conversation, and the fire sank low.

Runtgit could not sleep. His hands and feet were numb from his bindings and the cold. He rested his head against the wall, and stared up at the semicircle of sky trapped in the broch’s walls. Runtgit had been into the Hall of a Thousand Pillars, that place that would one day be his throne room; he had seen the glowstones set there by dwarf-craft long ago. But the sky… deep and dark as the deepest, darkest crevasse under the mountains, and full of lights, so many lights! To his mind, unused to the stars, the night sky was a thing of wonder and beauty. Goblins, I think, do appreciate beauty, but being ugly themselves, both in body and spirit, will do anything to deface it. Perhaps they see mockery in it. I have seen how it enrages them, and how nervous and upset they become once the beauty has been smashed. They are like children in this regard, destroying that which they covet so that none may possess it. The sky, so far and distant, was entirely unconcerned by the creatures toiling below it, and Runtgit appreciated this cold distance as much as he did the twinkling lights of the stars.

It was almost enough to make him forget how cold he was.

The dark shape of a goblin sentry stood, blocking out a portion of the night. Runtgit wished he would move.

There was the faintest ‘Urk!’, and the sentry fell backwards. There was the sound of metal on stone and a muffled squeal.

Silence.

Runtgit sat the straighter.

A bald head, skin so pale it almost glowed in the night, appeared over the wall lip. Yellow eyes blinked. A long-fingered arm spidered up onto the stone, then another. Silently, the creature skulked along the crumbling broch’s stonework, to where the sleeping goblins lay.

Runtgit licked his lips. Whatever it was, it didn’t look very friendly. It looked, in fact, like the kind of creature that might eat a goblin, should it chance upon one lying there tied up and helpless. With a great deal of luck, it would kill the wolf boys and leave him alone. But what if there were more than one? And it would take a great deal of luck…

‘Oi!’ he bellowed as loudly as he could. ‘Oi! There’s something coming over the wall!’

Outside, the wolves commenced howling.

The shape on the wall stared right at him. It shrieked, a long unearthly sound that chilled Runtgit more than the cold ever could. From above came the sound of goblin curses and shouts. Weapons rasped free of their scabbards. The creature’s head whipped round. It bounded on all fours along the wall and leapt towards the ruined half-floor.

Four arrows buried themselves in the creature and it tumbled through the air, landing in a reeking heap by Runtgit’s feet. He drew his legs away from it as best he could. There was something unnatural about it.

‘Bork! Bork! Where is Bork?’ shouted Snarkit. ‘Get yourselves sorted! Kruggler, get on that wall! Dirklug, Rukkit, Gukguk, get out there and let the wulloffs out! Dead-gobblers! They is dead-gobblers coming over the walls!’

The camp was all in commotion. The other goblin slaves wailed.

‘Oi! You, what’s a dead-gobbler? Oi! Stop squealing!’ said Runtgit to the other prisoners. But it was no use; the captive goblins were too far gone into their fright, and the human snapped and snarled at him.

Goblins jumped from the upper floor and scurried up the stone steps to the broch door. Kruggler bounded nimbly to the broken wall and looked out into the dark.

‘There’s one!’ He pulled back his bow, nocked an arrow and loosed it. ‘Mork’s hurty bits!’

‘You miss it?’ shouted Snarkit.

‘No use boss, I can’t see a thing! Too dark!’

The wolves were howling and snarling. Unearthly shrieks came from outside. Goblins screamed. Shouts ended in bubbling moans. A ghoul jumped onto the wall in front of Kruggler. Kruggler dropped his bow in surprise and stabbed it through the eye with an arrow. It fell, clawed hands scratching at its face.

‘Let me loose!’ shouted Runtgit. ‘Let me loose now!’

‘What, are you stupid?’

‘No! But I is a night goblin!’

‘So?’

‘So I sees well in the night, don’t I? And I don’t think youse lot can! Let me loose!’

Kruggler looked to his boss. Runtgit could not see Snarkit’s reaction, but he must have agreed, for Kruggler jumped down and cut Runtgit’s bonds with three swift passes of his knife.

‘You try any funny business, and I’ll gut you, right?’

Runtgit nodded. He blew out his cheeks and thrust his hands under his armpits as the blood rushed back to them. His teeth rattled with the cold. ‘Sure thing, boss,’ he said.

Kruggler gestured to Runtgit to follow him up to the wall.

‘So,’ he said to the night goblin. ‘What do you see?’

Runtgit had no real idea if he could see any better than the big, outside goblins, but it turned out he could. As Kruggler squinted into the dark, Runtgit saw the shapes of ghouls clambering over the ruins.

‘There’s five of ’em,’ Runtgit said at last.

‘’Ow many?’ said Kruggler.

Runtgit looked heavenward in annoyance. ‘Lots,’ he said.

‘Boss! Runt here says we got lots!’

‘Gork’s teeth! Are them wulloffs out yet?’ Snarkit and the other goblins were leaning over the wall, heads bobbing, trying to see what they could. Every now and then one of them let off an arrow, but it would whistle away into the night ineffectively. With no moonlight, and the fire by them dazzling away their ability to see in the dark, the goblins were as nightblind as you or I would have been.

Kruggler pulled Runtgit around the wall to the half-floor. This was where the ruins of the broch reared high above a goblin’s head, but Runtgit could see the wolf pen if he poked his head around the wall. The wolves were scrabbling up the side of the ruined hut, trying to get out. A pair of ghouls were down on the floor, dead themselves, but another hunkered over the corpse of one of Snarkit’s goblins, pulling at its flesh with its teeth. A second goblin cowered in a ball by the wolf pen, the third was nowhere to be seen.

‘No,’ said Runtgit. ‘Your… things are still all locked up. Pity.’ Despite the danger to himself, Runtgit was enjoying watching the plains goblins panic.

‘Right. Well, you go and let them out then!’ said Snarkit.

‘Er, what?’ said Runtgit, the smirk dropping from his face.

‘Dead-gobblers, nasty prospect. Think I’m sending one of my boys out there to get et when I’ve got you? You can go,’ said the wolf boy boss.

‘See, I said boss, I said that we shouldn’t come here, didn’t I?’ Kruggler shouted. Snarkit gnashed his teeth together at this impertinence.

‘What?’ said Runtgit. ‘You want me to go out there, on me own?’

Snarkit grinned wickedly. ‘Nah, Kruggler can go with you. Now youse lot! Get that fire burning high!’

They jumped back down to the ground floor where the slaves were to get to the bottom of the stairs. Once upon a time, there would have been access to the raised doorway from the first floor, but that half of the floor had long since collapsed, and the plains goblins had been forced to leap across to make their camp. They climbed to the top of the stairs. Runtgit looked out into the night. The dead-gobblers stared up at the broch. They were at an impasse. The dead-gobblers would not approach the ruin, the goblins would not go out.

‘What are those things?’ Runtgit whispered.

‘What, you got no dead-gobblers in your caves?’

The night goblin shook his head.

‘They’re a bit like humies, I suppose,’ said Kruggler, ‘but they is wild and crazy. They eat only dead ’uns, the stinkier the better, and that’s what I never seen no regular humie do. They live in like dirty caves and them little green hills what humies bury their dead ’uns in and stuff. I bet there’s one here somewhere, zogging Dirklug is an idiot. He’ll have missed it. That’s if they’s not hanging around with the proper dead ’uns.’

‘What, the dead ’uns they like eating?’ said Runtgit, and thought it a reasonable question.

‘Mork and Gork’s fart at you! You don’t get out much, do you? Dead ’uns, walking about, fighting and that, you know? Click-clack, yellow old bones?’ The plains goblin shuddered. ‘Spooky.’

Two more goblins jumped from the broken floor above, rolling as they hit the floor and springing to their feet, as nimble as tumblers. ‘Boss says we’re to mount up once you’ve got the wulloffs out. Boss says we’re going hunting.’

Kruggler nodded. All of those of the wolf tribe were constantly straining to see if they could catch sight of their mounts. Without the wolves they were lost.

‘All righty then, you ready, cave runt?’

‘Yep,’ said Runtgit.

‘Lead on then,’ said Kruggler.

Runtgit was up and over the wall and running. He pounded towards the wolf pen. It was only twenty yards or so, but it felt as long as the day. The open sky, unchained from the broch, yawned wide and glittery above him as if it would pull him off the ground. His head spun.

Feet pounded behind him. ‘Over there!’ Runtgit shouted, pointing at the ghoul chewing noisily on a fallen goblin. He need not have spared the breath. Away from the firelight, the plains goblins saw nearly as well as he did. Kruggler’s bow sang, and an arrow appeared as if by magic in the dead-gobbler’s shoulder. It sprang up from its meal, arms waving, and fell back with a cry.

Runtgit was so concerned with watching the creature that he almost went head over heels, skidding right through the remains of one of the other goblins Snarkit had sent out. The third remained by the wall, a shivering ball of terror. A series of bloodcurdling screeches set up, coming from all around the ruined village.

Runtgit slammed hard into the flagstone the plains goblins had shut the hut doorway with. Wolf heads bounced up and down on the other side. One got its forequarters up onto the stone, paws scratching frantically, then fell back among his fellows with a yelp.

Runtgit grabbed at the flag, trying to tip it backwards, but it wouldn’t budge. He wished hard he had a flagon of Duffskul’s special brew, the one made of madcap mushrooms that could grant a goblin inhuman strength. But he did not, and he let out an involuntary squeak of frustration.

Kruggler’s bow twanged behind him. There was a screech as the arrow found its mark.

‘No, no no!’ the plains goblin said, his breath coming hard. ‘It’s wedged, there! There! Get that rock out, get it out. That one!’

Runtgit followed Kruggler’s wavering finger to the ground. A square block jammed the makeshift door shut. He wrenched it out and pushed at the bottom of the flagstone. ‘I can’t shift it!’

‘You better had! They’s coming!’ Kruggler shot again and cursed as he missed. The sound of pursuit drew in, the snuffling breath of the ghouls, their triumphant gasps.

Runtgit could have sworn he felt their breath on his neck. ‘They’s coming! They’s coming!’ he yelped.

‘Back back back!’ shouted Kruggler at the wolves. He ran to the flag and put his shoulder to the flagstone. Wolf paws appeared around its edges as it tipped slowly backwards. Kruggler stood up, and stared at the trio of ghouls bearing down upon him and Runtgit. ‘Hello, nearly dead things,’ he said. The ghouls slowed, noses twitching, brows creased in puzzlement as to why this goblin would not run. They were pale and awful, and Runtgit’s knees knocked at the sight of them. They stank of grave mould and deep, damp places where the dead things lie. ‘Say hello to me friendly little doggies.’

Kruggler smirked as he extended one finger and pushed at the loosened flagstone. It fell completely flat, and a tide of furry bodies poured over it, howling as they came. Runtgit threw himself out of the way, their claws raking at his back. The ghouls were buried under an avalanche of teeth and hide. There was a piercing yelp, and one of the wolves fell dead, its chest clawed open. Then the ghouls were pulled to the floor and torn to bits.

One of the wolves ran to Kruggler and bit him playfully. Kruggler’s smile broadened, his pointed teeth picked out in the starlight.

‘Y’see,’ he said, triumph making the plains goblin friendly. ‘You should have pushed the top.’ His smile died.

Runtgit stood at his side, the knife in his hand gouging a shallow trail in the other goblin’s ribs. Kruggler’s eyes widened.

They stood there eyes locked, Kruggler waiting for the blade to finish him.

Runtgit withdrew the knife. ‘Just you remember, Kruggler. I could have done you. I could have done you right now with this knife, and I could have said it was them dead-gobblers what did it, and no one would have been any the wiser.’ He spat on the floor between the goblin’s feet, a reminder of his earlier insult to Runtgit. The knife followed, sticking into the ground. ‘But I didn’t, right? Me and you, we could be a good team.’

‘Fang here would have eaten your face off.’

‘You’d still be dead. Don’t matter if I have a face or not to you then, does it, boy?’

Kruggler snarled and swung himself up onto his wolf. ‘I won’t forget this, cave runt.’

‘I wouldn’t be happy if you did,’ said Runtgit.

Kruggler circled his mount around on the spot, and then raced off.

Dismounted, the wolf boys were as prone to skulking and hunching as any night goblin. A little bigger, certainly: brasher, maybe, but craven creatures still. Once upon his wolf, Kruggler became something else. He was as tall as an orc up there, the wolf obeying the actions of his knees and voice almost before they were issued. It was something to see. Kruggler and his mount flew into the night, bringing one of the ghouls down to the frosty ground where Kruggler’s wolf rent its throat wide. The two goblins waiting at the broch stairs ran out and grabbed their own mounts, pulling themselves onto their backs without stopping the wolves. Then they were running too, round the camp, the loose wolves following in a pack, tearing the ghouls to pieces.

Runtgit thought it rather grand and wondered what he could achieve, if he had such goblins under his command.

The boys in the tower whooped and cackled, the fire leaping high behind them as brush was piled on it. More and more of the goblins came out of the broch, calling their mounts to them and joining the hunt.

Soon it was all over, and Runtgit was surrounded by a circle of prowling wolf riders.

‘You did well, runt,’ said Snarkit. He pressed a nostril closed and snorted a stream of snot onto the floor from the other. ‘But if you think we’re letting you go you’ve got another thing coming.’

Kruggler looked Runtgit hard in the eye as the night goblin was wrestled to the ground and tied again.

Runtgit turned his face to the frozen earth and permitted himself a secret smile.

CHAPTER 16

THE GREAT GRIZZLER-GRIFF MAKIKI THE CUNNING

Snarkit’s boys ran down from the foothills and swept onto the plains. The wolves ran faster than ever before, glad at their release from the rough terrain. Runtgit, bouncing along on the back of a wolf whose master had died the night before, did not share their pleasure. He clung on as best he could with his hands tied, and muttered prayers to Gork (and certainly Mork) that he would not fall to his death.

The surviving wolf riders let out a whoop, and their mounts bayed in response. Runtgit unscrewed his eyes – the sun did not hurt them so fiercely as the day before, and he dared to think he was getting accustomed to it. There, on the horizon, a line of dots could be made out against the grey winter sky.

The dots grew into gaudy wagons and clanking contraptions pulled by dozens of wolves. Flatbedded wagons were piled high with diverse wares and scrap metals. Huge cages on wheels, many times the height of a goblin, held chained creatures, smaller ones crammed with prisoners of several peoples. Lines of slaves, tied at the wrists to taut ropes, trudged wearily behind. Covered wagons painted bright greens and yellows and reds, rolled steadily on. Swift chariots threw up sprays of mud from the ground as they raced around the caravan. Wolf riders rushed between the wagons, they sat upon distant hills and scanned the horizon, they raced in mobs thirty strong. They were everywhere. A tribe of goblins was on the move, a world of refuse trailing in their wake.

At the centre of all this rumbling wood and iron went the greatest wagon of all. It was twenty yards long, with a dozen wheels each side, broad and flat and surmounted by a wood and canvas contrivance, part fort, part palace, part tent. Two small wooden towers were set fore and aft of this. Two tall masts held the peaks of the tent high, each topped by a crow’s nest. With the canvas of the tent in its centre, the wagon looked like a ship whose sails had fallen in a storm.

There was a cry from the top of the rear tent pole, then movement. A red flag fluttered in the wind, and a horn sounded. Spear-throwing engines along the side of the wagon tracked the movement of Snarkit’s boys. A large pack of wolf riders peeled free from the host riding alongside the caravan, and sped over the ground to meet them, spears down and bows drawn.

Snarkit gave a shout, and one of his boys took out a curled horn. He blew hard, three long blasts, two short. Immediately the spears of the approaching wolf riders went up.

‘Snarkit’s boys! Snarkit’s boys is back!’ one called, and the wolf riders wheeled about and fell in with the band Runtgit accompanied. There were greetings and catcalls and good-natured spite on both sides as the swollen troop raced over the damp ground to the caravan.

The welcome the Great Grizzler-Griff Makiki the Cunning had for them was somewhat less cordial.

‘You, Snarkit, have got to be zogging kidding me. Nine teef, for this lot?’ Makiki stood up from his throne, a giant’s hand-bones wired together to form a cupped seat, scattering snotlings from his lap. A goblin sat at the hand-throne’s side, scribbling away in a book, and he tutted in annoyance as a snotling landed on his work.

The Grizzler-Griff was a massive goblin, fat and flabby, with deeply unpleasant eyes set deep in a deeply unpleasant face. His nose was unusually upturned for a goblin, and behind his back, the others called him ‘The Snorter’, which I believe is a kind of large boar. Makiki’s foible was for snotlings, and dozens of them were scattered all around the tent-wagon, snickering and playing like malevolent infants. They teased the Griff’s servants, jabbing them with sharp nails and biting their toes, but the attendants to the Griff stood stock still, teeth grinding. The air of the tent was a miasma of snotling urine and dung. Puddles of it were everywhere, running into cracks between the boards of the deck as the landship juddered its way on over the plains. The furs of the tent floored were soaked with it. Runtgit had never seen so many snotlings. ‘What a pathetic little haul!’ continued the Grizzler-Griff. ‘What a shower! What a crock of dung.’ The Griff’s favourite snotling snarled, a large specimen all done up in a velvet suit and wearing a miniature copy of the Griff’s own oversized crown. It hopped up and down in front of the Griff. The fat tradelord bent down and scooped it up. It nestled into the crook of one arm. The Griff gestured rudely with the other. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Snarkit, you used to be good, thought you had a bit of Griff in you, but look at this!’ The Griff went up to the line of kneeling prisoners, and smacked them one at a time around the head. ‘Two hill goblins, a beast fing, a humie savage, and a cave runt! What use are they! Eh? What use?’

‘Er, Griff boss sir,’ said Snarkit, ‘you forget the ratboy. I got you him and all.’

‘Oh, he’s going straight in the wulloff feed. Last time I had one of them in here it turned out to be a sneaky git, tried to knife me in the night. No fear.’

Without prompting, two of the Griff’s Little Big ’Uns came forward and dragged the ratman away. Runtgit doubted it could get up to much harm, it was skin and bone, a ratslave if he ever saw one. The Little Big ’Un’s on the other hand, they were the biggest goblins he’d seen, nearly as tall as the human and twice as muscly. An even bigger goblin stood behind the Griff’s throne, an enormous club dangling from its fist. Its face was slack with idiocy, but its muscles bulged.

‘Er, this one, boss, he’s clever. He is!’ Snarkit pointed to Runtgit. ‘Saved us a load of bother with some dead-gobblers he did. He could be well useful.’

‘Hmm, yeah, I heard about that.’ The Grizzler-Griff stroked one of his many chins. ‘You’re getting slack Snarkit, the old Snarkit, the Snarkit I used to know, he’d never make a gaffe like that! Never.’ The Griff slapped a palm on to the top of Runtgit’s head and pushed back until the night goblin was looking into the Griff’s piggy eyes. ‘Can you fight, little cave runt?’

Runtgit gave him his most defiant look and nodded hard. The Griff’s ringed, greasy fingers patted Runtgit’s head forcefully. An odd look flickered over the Griff’s face so quickly Runtgit nearly missed it. Snarkit certainly did.

‘Pickings is thin, boss,’ said Snarkit.

‘Nah!’ The Griff shook his head emphatically. The snotling in his arms blew a raspberry and plucked at the Griff’s clothes. The Griff went back to his throne and swept several snotlings from its dirty cushion. ‘No more money for you! You’ll get nothing, nothing at all.’

‘Boss!’

‘All right! Not nothing. Five teeth is it, and you’ll be happy. Gur!’

The big goblin came to life, a statue waking from the stone.

‘Pay Snarkit here!’ The Griff waved at Snarkit. ‘Come back with rubbish like this again and I’ll have you fed to me wulloffs, you get me?’

‘I get you, boss,’ said Snarkit surlily. The goblin did not look up from the floor. What had seemed so powerful before, to Runtgit, had become as strong as a beaten snottie in front of a big orc boss. (Skarsnik’s words, not mine, but illustrative, I am sure you will agree, Herr Doktor.)

The Griff watched Snarkit go, petting his favourite snotling as he did. The wind blew at the sides of the dirty canvas. The wagon creaked.

‘He gone?’

‘He gone, boss!’ said a sentry at the door.

‘Right then, hill gobboes to the pushin’ teams, they look strong enough’ said the Griff. He shoved the snotling away and rubbed his hands together. ‘Five teef! A bargain. Ha!’

‘No one out-grifts the Griff, Griff,’ said the scribe.

‘Righty-right Gulbash me old mucker. I like that. I’m very clever to have come up with that one. “No one out-grifts the Griff!” Write it down, I likes it a lot.’

Gulbash dutifully did as he was told, marking out his statement in the blocky, laborious glyphs of orc-kind.

‘Beast thing next up in the fighting pit tomorrow.’ The Griff looked it up and down. ‘Nice specimen. I’ll put two teef on him to win.’ Gulbash, the goblin with the book, scratched the detail down. ‘Humie to the slave lines, we’ll sell it on. And you.’ The Griff’s face lit up with sadistic delight as he got to Runtgit. ‘Put him in the slave cages, he’s too runty to walk far without his feet wearing off, and I want to see what these brains is all about. We still got da stunty and that humie we picked up lots of days ago?’

‘Yes your Grizzly-Griffness,’ said Gulbash. ‘We do.’

‘Oh, Gulbash me mucker! Of course we do, dat stunty is me best fighter, isn’t he? See Gulbash, I’m always testing you, see?’

‘Yes, Griff.’

‘Right. So, stick him in there, then we’ll see how blessed clever he is.’

The Griff’s favourite snotling tittered evilly, and the Griff joined in. ‘Oi! Get Gurklekin to get me some food up! I’m hungry enough to eat youse all up. Get me something tasty to eat now!’

Runtgit was dragged away.

‘What da Griff had in for me, I dint know,’ said Skarsnik. He had become almost wistful as he recounted this part of his story, as if his time outside the mountain had been one of gratifying enterprise and pleasure. ‘Them big gobboes of his shoved me into this wagon, not a big ’un like da Griff’s, but a little ’un. Dere was lots of uvver prisoners in dere, and dey came and went and more came and dey went too, sold by da Griff or eaten or dead from sickness and fings. But these two, one was a stunty, another a humie like you. The humie and stunty gave me such hard looks it near hurt me feelings.’ He chuckled. ‘An’ I was in there for a long old while. The Griff’s boys went from place to place on the plain. Sometimes, a whole load of ’em would rush off into the hills, mostly they stuck together. They were traders, see, going from da Howlers to da Broken Teef, to Crooked Fang and da Stinkin’ Geezers, wheelin’ and dealin’ sellin’ and buyin’ and stealin’. The Griff was good at dat, real good. But what did he want wiv me? And why was I in dat cage? No! Don’t answer, it’s a right-orcical question, innit? I’ll tell you why…’

The caravan rolled over endless plains, creaking from one dilapidated greenskin village to another. Orc fortresses came and went, tribes of wolf boys would join them for a while and then fall away. The goblin who would become Skarsnik saw many strange things. The landscape was studded with effigies of Mork and Gork, huge heads sculpted from stone or orc dung. Some were ancient, little more than grassed-over mounds where stunted trees, blasted by the winds, fed off the ancient ordure. He saw sorcerous towers that scraped the sky, giants battling by moonlight, hefting boulders at each other, their roars rolling thunderously across the plain.

Several times the caravan was assailed by other greenskins, but the Griff’s forces were well-disciplined and numerous. Foes were encircled and killed, the Griff’s bolt throwers accounting for many. Runtgit realised that the Griff often disguised his strength, sending his wolf boys far away and signalling them back by flashes of light or horn blast when required. Chariots were disguised as rickety wagons by boards and painted cloth and extra wheels hung from ropes, the bolt throwers were hidden under tarpaulins, all the better to lure unsuspecting greenskins in to assault the caravan.

Those they defeated, they devoured or sold.

Then there were the pit fights. The Griff had a fine line in showmanship, setting up fighting rings at the caravan’s stops, and setting his captives against one another. Among the Griff’s followers were goblins of many talents. They would juggle and stiltwalk around the goblin villages, blowing fire and singing vulgar songs.

Runtgit would listen to the hoots and howls and the ringing of blades, and wonder when he would be forced into the pit.

He was not.

Through rain and snow and freezing nights, Runtgit rode the wagon. He did nothing, said nothing, to draw attention to himself. But he listened. He listened to the guards complain. Their griping told him so much – who was an enemy to whom, who was friends with whom, who was strong or slow, who was cunning or weak.

And he listened to the prisoners.

The dwarf said little. He spoke, sometimes, while he slept. Occasionally he spoke with himself at length in the Khazalid tongue. Runtgit paid close attention to what he said, attempting to improve his grasp of the language, although it proved difficult.

The human was another matter. A man like me, Skarsnik said, and he meant a man of the Empire. How he came to be in that cage Skarsnik did not tell me, but the man spoke Reikspiel, and he spoke it often. He spoke to every prisoner that came in, he tried to engage the dwarf in conversation, he even spoke to Runtgit. Runtgit flattened his ears and smiled and bobbed his head submissively, to show he meant no harm, but the man lost patience with the goblin’s inability to understand him and addressed Runtgit infrequently.

At night, the man often wept. Runtgit found this amusing.

While the other prisoners slept or sank into their own private miseries, Runtgit wrapped his inhuman lips around the sounds of Reikspiel, and he practised the words silently, his face pressed outward through the wagon bars. After a few months, his sharp little mind had grasped a hold of our language. I doubt very much he learned it so well as to be able to speak to me as he did solely within the confines of that cage, but he insisted that it was so.

Runtgit was a goblin of unusual patience. Most of them are creatures of impulse. Not Runtgit. He waited and waited for many long weeks, biding his time, waiting to see if the Griff’s plans regarding him would reveal themselves. They did not.

Winter passed, and watery sunlight played over the Badlands. The colder months are brutal there, but when spring comes, it does so with rapidity, overthrowing winter in a series of bold skirmishes. Although spring may lose a battle, it cannot hope but win the war. New growth forced itself through the prairies; the battlefields of the greenskins became brief gardens ornamented by weathered dung-idols sporting out-rageous crests of wildflowers.

Runtgit did not care for flowers, but he did care for his liberty, and he hatched a plan to reacquire it.

He waited for a moment when the caravan was stopped. Goblin guards lounged around the slave wagons, picking their teeth and bullying the smallest of their number. A kind of calm prevailed.

‘Oi, you,’ said Runtgit. ‘Yeah, you.’

The dwarf’s head came up fast, fury boiling in his eyes.

‘How do you know our sacred tongue?’ he spat. His face grew red.

Runtgit did not quite understand this, but he understood enough to say something exceptionally impolite to the dwarf. It involved the dwarf’s mother, her sexual habits, and a mountain pony. He wasn’t entirely sure if he had the grammar right, but the sentiment was there.

The dwarf’s face went purple with rage. He leapt to his feet, chains taut as he swiped at Runtgit. Runtgit laughed. The Griff valued his prisoners; their manacle chains were short enough to prevent them killing each other.

The dwarf, however, was not for the stopping. Veins stood out on his temples, his muscles bulged, he roared oaths to the dwarf’s ancestor-gods. His entire body was red and shaking with the effort.

By now, goblins were up and on their feet. ‘Oi, you! Get down, stop that now! Oi!’ They poked their spear butts through the bars, attempting to subdue the dwarf.

‘You get in there and bop him on his head!’ said one.

‘No fear! You do it! He’s gone nutty!’

The dwarf heaved, leaning his body into his restraints. Blood ran down his arms where the manacles cut into his arms. He bellowed. Runtgit goaded him on, rattling off every vaguely offensive thing he could think of to say with his limited grasp of Khazalid, although the mere fact he knew any at all was almost certainly enough to feed the dwarf’s fury.

One chain gave way, a weak link splitting. The dwarf’s arm came free. He alternated his efforts then between grabbing at the laughing Runtgit and tugging hard at his remaining restraint. Runtgit dodged, hopping from foot to foot. The dwarf flailed his stumpy legs in Runtgit’s direction. Spit flew from his mouth and stuck in his tangled beard.

One of the smaller goblins was pushed into the cage by his fellows. He held a large club. Warily, he approached the dwarf. The dwarf ducked its first swipe, grabbed the club, tugged the goblin towards him and smashed its face hard into the bars.

He pulled the club from the felled goblin’s fingers and swung hard at Runtgit. Runtgit stopped laughing. His movements were restricted by his own chains, and he could not dodge far enough. The club cracked into his elbow, and agony exploded up his arm. The dwarf bent down, searching the goblin for something more dangerous. He let out a bark of triumphant laughter, and held up a key before his face.

He jiggled it in the manacle lock, cursing the inferior workmanship of greenskins as he did so.

‘Oi! Oi! What the zog… Oi!’ Gulbash came running towards the wagon. ‘What? You, you, you! Get in there! Oi!’ He kicked and slapped at the goblins crowding around the cage door. ‘You think the Griff won’t gut you, you let his prizes get scratched? Get in there, now!’

Goblins came in: two, then three, then five. There was only one entrance to the wagon, and so they could only approach from one direction. Goblins on the outside jabbed at the dwarf, hoping to herd him towards the clubs and jacks of the goblins in the cage.

I do not know how much you know yourself of the mountain folk, but no dwarf will surrender without a fight, especially when the fury is upon him. Letting out a roar of outrage at his long captivity, the dwarf slipped free from his chains. Runtgit forgotten, he threw himself into the goblins. Green bodies flew in every direction. The other prisoners huddled as tight as they could into the bars as the dwarf laid about him with the club.

‘Stop it! Stop it!’ shouted Gulbash.

A goblin performed an overhead thrust with his spear, impaling the dwarf’s leg. The dwarf stumbled, he fought on, but could not move.

‘That’s the spirit! Get the stunty!’ hollered Gulbash.

Goblins piled on top of the dwarf. Clubs rose and fell. After a frantic tussle on the floor, the dwarf lay spread-eagled and pinned, two panting goblins to each limb.

Runtgit chuckled. A finger poked him through the bars. ‘Dunno what you’re laughing about, cave runt,’ said Gulbash. ‘The Griff is going to want to see you about this. Then we’ll see who’s laughing, won’t we?’

‘What did you say to him?’ said the Griff.

‘Boss…’

‘Shut it, Gulbash, I want to hear what the cave runt has to say.’

The Griff sat on his giant hand-throne, stroking his fat chins with one hand, his favourite snotling with the other.

‘I dunno, I told him some rude stuff,’ said Runtgit.

‘Someone told me,’ said the Griff, ‘that you said it in stunty speak. How comes you knows stunty speak?’

‘Just do,’ said Runtgit with a shrug.

‘And why didn’t you tell us that before?’ said the Griff.

‘Just didn’t,’ said Runtgit.

The Griff sighed. He drummed his fingers on his throne. He snorted through his piggy nose. ‘All right, everybody out. Everybody except Gur.’

‘What?’ said Gulbash. His ears went up high, then as far back as they would go. ‘You’re talking to him, on… on your own?’

‘Gulbash, he’s tied up, and I’ve got Gur, don’t I?’

‘Yes boss, but boss…’

‘Get out, Gulbash.’

His head bowed low, the Griff’s chief advisor shuffled out, his precious book tucked under his arm, following the Griff’s other cronies and hangers-on.

The Griff grunted. ‘Right then, cave runt. I suppose you want to know why I put you in that cage, yeah?’

‘Not really,’ said Runtgit.

The Griff spat on the floor. Snotlings scrabbled to get at it. ‘Yeah you do, you don’t fool me. You’re a clever ’un, like I is. Now, be clever like what I think you is, and tell me, why did I put you in that cage. Or I can have your feet and hands cut off and I’ll set the snotties on you.’

The snotlings stilled. Two dozen pairs of eyes fixed hungrily on Runtgit.

‘I’ll say, if that’s all right, boss. You wanted to see what I’d do, boss,’ said Runtgit. He relaxed as the snotlings went back to tussling among themselves.

‘Right. See, clever. I knew you was. What you doing out of your caves, cave runt? I seen your sort before, but not on your own, too scaredy for that aren’t you?’

‘I was chased out, boss.’

‘Why?’

‘For being clever.’

‘Clever, how?’

Seeing no other option, Runtgit laid out his short life, his rise to power, his deals with the skaven, and his fall from the lofty heights of top mushroom gatherer.

The Griff settled himself more comfortably in his throne. ‘Thought so. If it’s true, and if it ain’t you got a fine talent for telling tales, and that ain’t to be sniffed at anyways. Let me tell you something, cave runt. I need someone clever like you. Someone to keep an eye on things for me, someone to do me dirties for me, you get me?’

‘Yeah boss, I understand.’

The Griff rubbed his mouth. ‘I can’t trust none of this lot, can I? But you? You got no friends here. I’m your only friend. That’s how I know you is not going to try and do me in. You betray me, what have you got? You got nothing and no one. You be a good little goblin, and we’ll be mates. Heh! Like the great Grom and that Niblet fella he used to hang around with, that was a big Griff and a little cave runt too, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes boss. Thanks boss.’

‘“Yes boss. Thanks boss”,’ mimicked the Griff. He sneered. ‘Now, get on. Get on down to the cook wagon, tell Gurklekin I sent you, and that you’re me new potboy and food taster.’

‘Yes boss. Thanks boss.’

‘What’s yer name? Deffbug…?’ The Griff petted his snotling, and it nuzzled into him contentedly.

‘Nah, er, Deffbad, but I said that to make myself sound harder. It’s Runtgit, boss.’

‘Heh. That fits, because you is runty, but you is also gitty.’ He laughed as if he’d made the wittiest comment of the season. ‘Right then, Runtgit, you can take that for a start.’ The Griff pointed to a big iron pot full of filth. ‘That’s me day’s leavings. Get shot of it. Stinks worse than me snotties. No drops on the wagons, eh?’ he said, oblivious to the mess his pets made. ‘Chuck it over the side.’

‘Yes, boss… Yes, Griff.’ Runtgit struggled with the pot. His hands were still bound, and it was full to the brim.

He negotiated the rough deck of the tent-ship carefully. He made it to the door.

‘Oh, and Runtgit?’

Runtgit turned back. ‘Yes, boss?’

‘You cross me…’ The Griff plucked the snotling from his chest. He gave it an affectionate tickle under the chin with a claw, then swift as a snake grasped its head and crushed it like an egg. The little greenskin’s small measure of brain leaked through his fingers. The Griff dropped the corpse, and wiped his hand on his throne cushions. ‘There’s always another snottie, Runtgit. There’s always another runt. You get me?’

Runtgit nodded, and walked out of the tent onto the outside deck, where he tipped the pot over the side.

Gulbash glared at him. Runtgit gave the plains goblin a cocky salute, and took the empty pot back in to his new master.

CHAPTER 17

THE WAY OF COIN

‘I became his potboy, cleanin’ up his drops,’ said Skarsnik, ‘runnin’ errands and dat, making food, tellin’ tales. Everyone fought I was just da poop boy, but I weren’t. I was his best gobbo. His spy. His sneaky git.’ He patted his belly through his robes and beard belt. ‘Good times.’ Gobbla snuffled and shuffled round. His bulk nearly obscured his master from me. Skarsnik scratched him on the head. As he spoke he plucked lice from around Gobbla’s horny plates, squashing them between his fingers and eating them. ‘Bigbug don’t like Drid, Drid likes Urbash, Urbash is finking about a challenge on Mirkit, Mirkit wants to be da next Griff, and so on. Stuff like dat, and den da Griff would have a little word, or there’d be a new fighter in da pit fight, or his snotties would get a little fatter, Of course, didn’t take much to mention one or two boys in there that I dint like, did it? This goblin was bad to me, and he’d get the mention. Anuvver might wake up to find he’d stolen the Griff’s second-best boss hat. They called me cave runt for a while, then it was Runtgit, and den it was boss. Makiki came to trust me more and more, he’d tell me everyfink. “Maybe I kills ya tomorrer,” he’d say, every night. “Maybe I kills ya tomorrer.” But ’e never did.’

Skarsnik pushed Gobbla away and reached for his goblet. The great squig whined as his master’s attentions were withdrawn, a ridiculous sound coming from so fearsome a monster. ‘Only Gulbash I couldn’t shift. He could write. He could read. He could read humie, you know that? He was all clever like, and da Griff trusted him. I did try, but da Griff wouldn’t have anyfink said against him. He wanted us to be mates, but dat was never gonna happen. He did make Gulbash show me how to make da glyphs, and read the humie books. He tried to tell me wrong, course, but I was smarter. For a bit of extra food an that, some of the prisoners, dem what could read the scratchings, they helped me, and orc glyphs is orc glyphs, ain’t dey?’ He tapped his head. ‘I had dem in me head since I was a sproutling, what I learned though with Gulbash was to write ’em good, tell stories wiv em, and give orders. All very handy indeed.

‘Now, the big fing I had over Gulbash was dat he was a big scaredy. Say what you like about dem outside gobboes, dey might be bigger and braver and that than me night boys, but dey is slow, and Gulbash was slow and scared. He was cunning, but I was cunninger, and me, not like him, well, I liked a scrap. So what’s that mean? That means I was lots better, that’s what…’

‘There they is, boss!’ Runtgit snapped the spyglass shut and gave it to Griff Makiki. For once, the boss goblin had dragged his corpulent self out of the tent and up the netting to the crow’s nest. The day was windy, and his wolfskin cloak billowed around him, wafting the stale scent of fat goblin and snotling piss up into Runtgit’s hood. Gulbash crouched at the Griff’s feet, hands wrapped so hard round the netting his fingers were white.

‘I’m not sure this is a good idea, there’s a lot of humies out dere,’ Gulbash said carefully.

‘Yeah, and a bunch of fatboys too.’ Runtgit pointed to the shapes of ogres striding alongside the human wagons. ‘About forty of ’em I reckon.’

Makiki screwed up his face at this difficult, high number. ‘Forty? That’s a lot.’

‘Not too many, boss,’ lied Runtgit.

‘Them wagons are all made of metal. And they have them boomstick things,’ countered Gulbash.

‘Guns?’ said Runtgit. ‘Don’t worry about guns, boss. Slow, them bangsticks. Noisy, yeah, and nasty, but well slow.’

‘I think they can see us,’ said Gulbash.

The Griff rounded on his scribe. ‘Course they can see us! This is the biggest cart in the Badlands! Zogging idiot.’

Runtgit nodded. ‘It don’t matter. It’s good. What works on gobboes, your disguises and tricks and that, your Griffness, works on humies too, don’t it? They ain’t so clever. Anyways, look how quick they’s going.’ He pointed out the plumes of dust kicked up by the horses’ hooves. ‘They is scared. They is looking to avoid…’ He searched his sharp little mind for the word he had learned from the human slaves. ‘“Confruntashuns,” and while they is looking at us lot, they’s not looking at Snarkit’s boys, are they?’

‘Those horses are noisy!’ said Gulbash.

‘Taste good though,’ said the Griff, and licked his lips.

‘So,’ said Runtgit innocently, ‘shall I ask Gulbash to go and have a go at ’em? Give ’em a taste of greenskin fightyness?’

The Griff scratched under his second-best boss hat. He was obviously thinking about not attacking the Imperial caravan, otherwise his shiniest helm would have been atop his head. ‘Nah, Gulbash don’t like a scrap. I’m not sure I like it, Runtgit. Not sure at all. Let ’m go on by, we got plenty of slaves and stuff, we’re near to the Green Gribblers’ territory, and they always have loads of teeth. Eh, lads? We can have ourselves an easier fight.’ The Griff looked to the other goblins up on the crow’s nest. Their ears and noses twitched. They were half scared, half spoiling for a scrap, and liking and loathing their Griff in equal measure for saving them from it. Such is the wide divide in the mind of the goblin. Betwixt fear and violence they live, forever.

‘True, true,’ said Runtgit. ‘Forget I said anything.’

‘Yeah?’ said the Griff. He sounded relieved, for he had come to rely on the night goblin’s counsel.

‘Yeah, but there is…’

‘What?’ said the Griff.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Runtgit, as he leaned on the railing facing the train of wagons on the horizon. It was running parallel to the Griff’s, heading up to the pass. They were north of the Iron Rock, the Griff’s caravan having cut across the plains in a wide arc away from the sea dwarfs of Barak Varr. They had been haunting the old dwarf highway waiting for a suitable target. This human caravan was either plying trade on the landward route between the Empire and the dwarf city, or maybe on its way from there to the Silver Road, and on from there to wherever the humans went when they crossed the mountains to the Dark Lands.

‘What?’ said the Griff.

‘Well, only that there’ll be loads of gold and shinies and other pretty things in there, and guns and swords and spikies. But you don’t want all that, do you? Nah, I see, it’s too much trouble. You is real wise, Griff, I got to hand it to you.’

‘Yeah, well,’ said the Griff. His eyes had taken on that odd shine they had when he was thinking about money.

‘Boss!’ said Gulbash. ‘Don’t listen to him!’

‘Aw look, Gulbash won’t go, he’s too scared. And you can’t go boss, too important, gotta keep things running here, eh?’

‘Zogging pity that,’ said the Griff.

They were quiet a while, Runtgit letting the idea of gold and weapons sink into the piggy goblin lord’s head.

‘I could go,’ said Runtgit. ‘I mean, I could, make sure it’s all done right and that. For you, boss.’

‘Did you say Snarkit’s boys were already out there?’

‘Yeah,’ said Runtgit, ‘and some others, I thought you might fancy a crack, got it all set up for you, so I did. Just in case like.’

‘Did you now?’ said the Griff, who was not entirely stupid. As it was, he was greedier than he was clever. A quick calculation told him what he could gain from the venture if Runtgit went. As he tallied it, he would lose little if the cave runt died.

What he did not calculate, however, was what he might lose if Runtgit were successful.

‘All right then. I’ll lend you me best cart. And me driver…’

‘Can I pick me own driver?’

‘All right. And some armour and that. You pull this off, cave runt…’

‘Yeah, boss,’ said Runtgit, rubbing his long hands together. ‘I know.’

Kruggler was most put out to be chosen to drive Runtgit’s chariot. He preferred riding wolves to driving them; mostly because it was difficult to run away in a chariot. Secondly, when driving a chariot, there were always other goblins directly behind you, goblins with pointy knives and bows. That Runtgit was one of those goblins was a worry to him. ‘Why you pick me?’ he shouted over the thunder of wheels. His ears flapped in the wind.

‘Wanna talk!’ said Runtgit. He looked the very picture of a goblin boss in his armour. The links of a fine mail shirt shone out from under his outer robe, and large leather spaulders decorated with boar tusks were tied atop his shoulders. His pointed black hood was pierced on both sides to allow the horns from his helm to poke out. By his side he wore a sickle-moon sword, the traditional weapon of the night goblin chiefs. Of course, the plains goblins had little experience in making these, but Runtgit had the tribal smith create it, mainly by beating the plains goblin over the head with an iron bar until he had roughly the shape he needed.

But the effect was rather undone. Runtgit felt terribly ill on the bouncing chariot. Kruggler could see it, and he grinned at the night goblin as he clutched at the post. ‘Got a problem?’ He swerved the chariot left then right, and Runtgit groaned. Kruggler stood as nonchalantly on the deck of the chariot as only one born to it could. He swayed with its every move, wolf reins held carelessly in one hand. ‘I thought you was doing pretty good, meself, cave runt, what you need my help for?’

Runtgit gulped down a mouthful of saliva. He was turning an unhealthy shade of white. ‘I got the boss’s ear, right? I’m his best man after Gulbash, but Gulbash is the problem. He don’t like me, and I need rid, you understand?’

‘I’s not back-stabbing Gulbash!’

‘Nah, don’t want you to, I’ll sort him out. It’s Gur I want rid of.’

‘Are you shroomstruck?’ shouted Kruggler. He pulled hard on the reins in surprise. The three wolves pulling the chariot yipped in annoyance and veered hard left, threatening to tip the vehicle. Curses and howls came from behind as the dozen chariots following them were forced into patterns of evasion. ‘He’s the biggest, hardest gobbo in the tribe! The only reason he’s not the Griff is that he’s well thick.’

‘Nah! Listen! Gur listens to Gulbash, he’s really Gulbash’s gobbo, not the boss’s! Think of that! Our poor boss, Gulbash has got him! Get rid of Gur, then I can get rid of Gulbash, boss will be safe, and I’ll be number two gobbo. You help me… Well, you could be number three. Be dead easy, promise. I’m going to fix it.’

‘How?’

‘Because he is well thick. I promise, honest, you do this for me and it won’t be no trouble for you.’

‘How do I know you ain’t wanting rid of me?’

‘You don’t’ said Runtgit, and managed a weak smile. ‘And if you don’t do what I says, well you might make boss, but more likely you’ll be dead. You do this, you might be a Griff instead.’

‘Griff?’ Kruggler laughed. ‘You are crazy.’

‘Throw down on him tomorrow, when we’s dividing up the spoils, all right?’

‘Oh, so you think we’re going to win too? Nutty.’

‘Oh, we’ll win all right,’ said Runtgit. ‘We’ll win. Got to, haven’t I? Got to show the Griff that I am the bestest boss he has, so that he will listen to me good. Gulbash don’t fight. I do. It’s important, that.’

‘So you’s doing this on the chance? You lot eat too many mushrooms in those caves!’ said Kruggler.

‘Don’t worry.’ Runtgit patted the bigger goblin on the arm, ‘I got a plan. I always do.’

‘Does it involve them?’ Kruggler nodded to a box of clinking clay bottles wrapped in straw on the chariot bed. A burning torch was strapped near them to the side of the chariot.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Runtgit wickedly. ‘Yes it does.’

The chariots, flanked by huge mobs of wolf boys, were drawing near the Empire caravan. When the men had noticed the goblins bearing down on them, they had picked up speed, the ogres breaking into a jog, their sturdy legs keeping pace with the horses drawing the wagons. Runtgit expected this. He also knew that they’d quickly realise that the wagons could not hope to outrun the wolves. The men prepared for battle.

There were a dozen wagons pulled by teams of eight drays apiece. Seventeen spare horses trailed behind. A dozen outriders armed with pistols galloped alongside. The wagons were steel-plated – loopholes in the sides of each, wheels the size of a man bearing their weight. The tops were flat and surrounded by a low metal-plated parapet, making each a small fortress. Groups of men in the bright clothing of caravan mercenaries were stationed atop them, their guns poking above the side. With smoothness that spoke of frequent practice, the lead wagon pulled off the setts of the old dwarf road, curling back towards the tail of the caravan. The others followed, until the wagons were in a circle. Men jumped down from their driver’s boards, unhitched the horses and led them into the centre of the circle. Ogres pushed at the wheels of the horseless wagons,until they were nose-to-tail with the one in front, and men hurried about, slamming steel pins into sockets, joining the wagons up into an immovable wall. The chariots were still a way off, and already three wagons were linked together.

‘We’ll never get there before they’ve made that lot into a fort!’ shouted Kruggler. He raised his whip to urge the wolves on. Runtgit grabbed his arm.

‘Nah, mate, slow down.’ Runtgit turned and nodded to one of two musicians on the back of the chariot behind him and Kruggler. The goblin blew out his cheeks and puffed hard on a curling goat horn. A blast rang out on the wind.

Puffs of smoke came from the tops of the wagons, followed a second later by the crack of gunfire. Balls hissed through the air. Goblins toppled from wolves behind Runtgit’s chariot. Wolves yelped in pain. A chariot wolf foundered and fell, tripping the others pulling its cart. Goblins squealed in panic as the contraption ran over its beasts and flipped, exploding into splinters of wood as it hit the floor. Shouts of fear and anger came from behind as the other chariots split around the wreck. Another lost a wheel to a hidden stone and slowed violently to a halt, spilling goblins onto the grass where they were promptly run over.

Runtgit ignored the casualties. His eyes were on the ground not far from the caravan circle. He let out a shout of triumph. The prairie came alive as blankets covered in grass were cast aside. Goblins and their wolves, lying underneath, sprang to their feet, emerging as if by magic from the spring growth. They were close enough now that Runtgit could hear the noise of the caravan – the whinnies of frightened horses, shouts and curses as the men caught sight of this other threat. Snarkit’s boys were very close to them, and the wagons had not yet closed their circle.

The wolves ran at full speed towards the caravan laager. Half the ogres abandoned their attempts to push the wagons together, and formed up, two to each gap. Their comrades continued their efforts, men lending their shoulders to the wheels. Puffs of gunpowder smoke came from the wagon loopholes and armoured tops. A score of goblins fell, and the mob next to Snarkit’s turned tail and fled. Snarkit’s boys charged on, their spears levelled. The first rank were smashed from their saddles by heavy ogre clubs, then the rest swarmed the giant mercenaries, wolves snarling and biting, goblin spears tearing deep into muscled fat. Snarkit’s wolf leapt high, clearing the tumult, and landed on the inside of the laager. Ogres were pulled down, their clubs hampered by the press of wolf and goblin. They struggled bare-handed on the ground, swatting at the greenskins swarming all over them. Other goblins ran over them to the middle of the laager. The screams of wounded horses joined the battle’s noise.

‘Now! Kruggler, go right!’

‘What?’

‘That way!’ shouted Runtgit, and smacked the other goblin on the head. The chariot tilted as it made a sharp turn, the plains goblins expertly leaning, Runtgit staggering into its wicker sides. Runtgit’s chariots and wolf boys ran around the laager, pouring volleys of arrows over the sides. Men toppled from the roofs of the wagons. Long guns retorted, and goblins were blasted from their saddles. The greenskins were hollering, their wolves yipping and baying.

‘Hold it steady, Kruggler!’ said Runtgit. He bent down to the crate at his feet, taking up a clay bottle. An oil-soaked rag hung from its top. He touched this to the burning torch and lobbed it as hard as he could. The bottle hit the side of an armoured wagon, exploded as it broke and ignited its cargo of flammable squig oil.

‘Hahahaha!’ laughed Runtgit. The other goblins joined in, their eyes burning red, wicked smiles on their faces.

‘Watch out! Fatboys!’ shouted Kruggler. A group of ogres stood before them. A hail of arrows arced over Runtgit’s chariot, peppering the brutes and bringing one down.

‘Run ’em down! Run ’em down!’ bellowed Runtgit. His hornblower blew out the order and Runtgit threw another makeshift bomb into the wagons. It whooshed as the clay cracked and the oil took fire.

The chariots accelerated. The ogres stood defiant, braced to receive the charge. Four chariots went into them, wolves and goblins alike making a terrible din.

One ogre went down, the chariot bouncing over his solid body; another chariot shattered on impact, cracked to matchwood against the ogre’s armoured gut. The wolves were snared in their own traces and easily slain, the goblin crew thrown to the floor. Kruggler jinked around the tangle of wood, wolf and goblin, twitching the reins to bring the chariot back around the rear of the ogre group. A spray of blood went up as the chariot’s scythed wheels took legs off at the knee, their owners toppling and bellowing in outrage. Runtgit ducked a club blow. It took the side off his chariot and one of the crew gobboes instead.

He and Kruggler howled with delight. This was living! Fast and free as the wind. Runtgit had had no idea life outside the caves could be so much fun.

Most of the chariots had caromed into the ogres, leaving Runtgit at the head of three. They rode on, wolf riders at their sides, arrows flying, on round the wagons, Runtgit lobbing bombs until half the caravan was ablaze. They whipped past the far side of the laager where Snarkit’s boys fought hard against man and ogre.

They were coming for their second pass around when a wagon side flipped down. Men heaved at an object covered in a heavy oilcloth. They pulled it free to reveal a gun with nine barrels. The crew hurried into position and began to turn a crank at the rear. As each barrel came to bear, a heavy hammer descended, setting off a charge.

The air was suddenly full of iron. One of Runtgit’s wolves exploded in a shower of gore. Its remains caught at the other wolves’ feet, and the chariot skidded to a halt. The cart tipped over, sending Kruggler and Runtgit tumbling. The other chariots were smashed to pieces.

Runtgit stood to find himself staring up at the nine-barrelled cannon.

‘Er,’ he said. The men at the other end of the gun smiled and pulled back the hammers on the top deck of guns. Runtgit closed his eyes.

There was a gasp, and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. He opened his eyes again. Snarkit leant down from the open wagon side, his knife dripping.

‘Your lucky day, cave runt.’

The sounds of battle were dying down, isolated gunshots and screams. Runtgit smiled.

‘Now what?’ said Snarkit.

‘Help me up, I got some talking to do.’

The caravan leader knelt on the floor, his defiant eyes cast to the Griff’s palace-wagon deck. His hands were bound behind him, and his ripped finery was covered in soot and bloodstains.

‘Tell him,’ said the Great Grizzler-Griff, ‘that I is going to kill ’em and eat ’em all. Hurhurhur.’

‘Er, no,’ said Runtgit.

‘You did well, Runtgit… hang on, what do you mean “no”?!’ The Griff’s face went from satisfaction to rage in a heartbeat. He clenched his fist, throttling the snotling on his lap.

‘No offence,’ wheedled Runtgit. ‘But I’s got a better idea.’

‘You don’t get to say no to me, Runt!’ roared the Griff. ‘Gur!’

The massive goblin behind his throne swung his head, his slow, evil eyes focussing on Runtgit.

Runtgit waved his hands, his black robe flapping. ‘No, no, wait, boss! No, no, boss. It’s a good idea, honest. Let me tell you, and if you don’t like it, then set Gur on me. Loads of gold and shinies innit?’

The Griff calmed. ‘All right, all right.’ He unclenched his fist. The snotling whimpered with relief.

Runtgit spoke quickly. ‘Don’t kill ’em! You let ’em go, they come back, they’ll bring more cash back with them. And if they go home, then their mates will say “Ooh, look at that! That way’s nice and safe, we’ll be back in time for tea, but best take some gold to give them nice goblin wolf boys what will see us through the Badlands up to the mountains.”’

‘You talkin’ stupid Runtgit, I can kill em all and have all their gold for meself.’

‘No! Me Grizzly-Grifty-Grifflyness, listen up. You kill them now, sure, you get all their gold. But it’s all the gold you’re ever going to get, ain’t it? But if you let them go, you take some gold now, and some later. And then their mates come, and you take some of their gold, and their mates come, and so on. You kill them, their mates ain’t never going to come, are they?’

To most other goblins, this would have been utterly incomprehensible. But the Griff wasn’t any other goblin. He was the Griff, the canniest trader in the northern Badlands. He stroked his chin. ‘I heard of something like dat. Them, what they called? Gulbash, them goblins with their funny “tack” thing.’

‘The Red-Faces, Griff. They called it taxing, learned it off some ogres a whiles back,’ said Gulbash grudgingly. He gave Runtgit a look of withering scorn.

‘Yeah, taxing. I take a little bit of gold off lots of them, that’s better than a lot of gold off some of them, that’s,’ he counted on his fingers, ‘one, two, three, four, why, that’s lots of gold!’

‘It’s not lots of gold, boss,’ whispered Runtgit enticingly. ‘It’s loads of gold.’

‘And so,’ said Skarsnik, ‘dat’s how I got to be da Griff’s second boss. After dat, I could do wot I liked.’

I noted all this down diligently as I had noted everything so far. But a thought occurred to me. ‘I am sorry, my lord, to interrupt your story. But you did speak of Gur the goblin, and how you were afraid of him…’

Skarsnik’s eyes became dangerous and hard. All sense of comradeship went from them as if a flame had been doused. ‘I never said I was afraid of him, did I?’ Gobbla growled.

I attempted to keep my voice level. ‘I mean, my lord, that he stood in the way of your plans, being Gulbash’s man, and all that.’

‘I never said he was no man, eiver,’ said Skarsnik, shaking his head at my idiocy. ‘But yeah, I did, dint I? I had to get rid of him, had to. You asking because you want to know? Yeah? All right then, this is how I got rid of big old Gur.’

CHAPTER 18

GUR, GULBASH, THE GRIFF AND THE WAY BACK HOME

Runtgit had seen the mushrooms a few weeks before, growing in a pile of aurochs dung; the wild cattle that goblins will not tackle, such is their ferocity. The mushrooms were poor and shrivelled specimens to a night goblin used to their cave cousins, ones so big they were taller than an orc, but they would do.

The plains goblins did not notice the mushrooms at all; they tramped or rode or rolled by them, unmindful of their use, for the proper cultivation and employment of fungi is very much the realm of the night goblins.

Runtgit had been sitting on his hut-wagon’s driving board, thinking, his long chin in his long hands, wondering what was next, and how he was going to fulfil his plan of getting himself a whole army of goblins so that he could return home in triumph and have Snotruk imaginatively murdered. Such are the daydreams of the power-hungry greenskin, the principal difference with our protagonist here being that he successfully pursued them.

The dung, and its crop of weedy mushrooms, slid across his vision as Runtgit’s hut-wagon rolled on, his mangy wolves huffing and wheezing as they dragged it ever onwards across the plains.

Runtgit sat up and turned his head. Without a word to his driver, he slid from the drive board and landed on the turf. He hurried back to the dung and sniffed at the fungus.

‘Look at that!’ called a goblin guard to his fellow. ‘The Griff’s pet cave runt is eating dung!’ The two, spears at a lazy slope on their crooked shoulders, trudged by laughing. Runtgit paid them no heed. He plucked the mushrooms with deft fingers, and placed them in a wolf-hide pouch he pulled from his voluminous robes. His head twitching backwards and forwards with paranoia, he scurried back to his wagon, and pulled himself up. His driver looked at him and snorted. There was precious little conversation between them, for if Runtgit was obeyed, he was still not entirely accepted by the plains goblin tribe.

That night, by flickering lamps fuelled with man fat, he hung the mushrooms up to dry in an out of the way corner of his wagon.

That was some time before the fight with the humans. And then the night of Runtgit’s victory came, and he had a use for the mushrooms.

‘All right there, Gur! No, mate, don’t get up.’

The big goblin sat by the fireside, his face furrowed with lines of perpetual puzzlement. Gur looked out on the world with incomprehension, and he wore it for all to see. The other goblins said Gur was as stupid as an orc. In this, they were misguided, as the least intelligent of orcs is a good deal more intelligent than Gur was.

‘Wot you want?’ said Gur. His words were poorly formed and slow, even for a goblin.

‘I brought you this! It’s a present.’ Runtgit held out a steaming bowl of stew. Gur’s big nose twitched speculatively. Runtgit was pleased to see the other goblin swallow down a mouthful of saliva.

He hitched up his robes with his free hand and squatted down. ‘Mind if I sit? Course you don’t.’ Runtgit looked around the campfires. The sounds of revelry and casual violence came from each and every one – all that is, except for Gur’s. ‘Not joining in the party?’

‘Gur not like party,’ he said. Uttering that sentence cost much time and effort, and he puffed out a huge breath when he had finished. ‘Gur too slow.’

‘Aw, matey, that’s not right, big goblin like you, should have lots of friends.’

‘You be Gur’s friend?’ said Gur. His ears rose slightly. ‘Everyone fraid of Gur. Gur big! Gur strong! Gur smash! Hurhurhur.’

‘I used to have a friend like you.’

‘Yeah? What happen him?’

‘Oh,’ said Runtgit, poking a stick into the fire. ‘He tried to eat me, and then got himself all blowed up by the stunties.’

‘Oh,’ said Gur.

‘Oh. So,’ Runtgit said breezily, ‘you is big and strong, and I like big and strong pals, so I made you this.’

‘Smell good.’

‘You eat it all up then,’ said Runtgit. ‘Go on, all up.’ He held out the plate.

Gur shook his head, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘You sneaky. You share, or Gur no eat.’

Runtgit laughed. ‘Sure, why not? Very tasty this, I’d be delighted to share your present. I even have two spoons, I was hoping you’d say that, so I was.’

They ate together.

‘Gur! Gur! What is wrong with you! Fight him! Fight him!’ bellowed the Griff.

Gur staggered around in slow circles, his club dragging in the dirt of the fighting pit. Kruggler laughed and danced around him, slapping the big goblin’s rear with the flat of his scimitar. Gur looked even more puzzled than usual. He made a couple of passes with his club, staggering with it, like he was trying to throw the heavy weapon away but forgetting to let go. Kruggler let out a warshout and cut at the big goblin’s exposed leg.

Makiki was so enraged that he was driven to stand up, leaning on the spikes set into the rim of the fighting pit. ‘Have you been at the brew again!? Fight you lazy zogger! Fight!’

Gur spun around on his heel drunkenly, nearly losing his footing. Kruggler stabbed him in the chest and leaned hard on his blade. The notched end of his scimitar came out Gur’s back.

‘Kweeeee!’ squeaked Kruggler and thrust his face close to Gur’s. Gur looked down at the blade and then up to Kruggler. His mouth formed a question he never voiced. Kruggler stepped to one side, and the big goblin crashed face down into the dirt of the pit floor. The goblins around the pit went wild. The air rang with a cacophony of shouts, cheers and curses as bets were paid and money lost.

‘What?’ shouted Makiki. ‘What?!’

‘Looks like you got yourself a new bodyguard, boss,’ said Runtgit.

The Griff’s eyes narrowed. ‘You have anything to do with this, Runtgit?’

‘Not me, boss. Why’d I want to hurt poor old Gur?’

‘I heard you gave him some food last night.’

‘Which I ate myself,’ said Runtgit, wounded by this accusation. ‘I was only trying to be friends. Like you said, boss, I don’t have many here.’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ The Griff stared at the victorious Kruggler, who was prancing around the ring, bloodied sword held high. He looked back to Runtgit. ‘I find you did something sneaky…’

‘Yes, boss.’

The Griff turned on his heel and swept out as elegantly as his gross body would allow. He too had lost many orc teeth, the goblins’ currency, on this bout.

Runtgit belched a nasty acid burp. Dungshrooms always disagreed with him. At least he, having been eating them since he was a runt, was largely immune to their intoxicating effects. He giggled, mainly because he had bet on the right goblin.

Gulbash looked at him with hatred. Runtgit waved and smiled.

‘And dat was dat,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Wiv Gur gone, Gulbash daredn’t front me up. He was a big snivelling coward, and I’m not.’ He leaned forward on his iron throne. ‘One fing about me, ’umie, I’m cleverer dan most gobboes, but I’m braver too. I likes me scraps. Oh, he had a couple of the uvver boys try it on, for a while there I was fighting in da pit once a week! I fink da Griff was sulking, cos he let em have a go. But the fing is, smaller we might be dan dose outside gobboes, a little nervier, like, but we is quick. Stunties is slow, outside gobboes is slow, but night goblins? We’s fast, faster than either of dem at any rate. I’d go in jabbin’ and a-pokin’. An’ if I had some big ’un to bash dat I dint fink I could beats, den he might have a little haccident before da match, if ya know what I mean.’ His eyes shone. ‘So I was boss. Second boss. Makiki was chief, but dere was so much money wot I got, so much shiny-shiny, dat the uvver gobboes started to lissen to me more dan him. I was da prince of da grass, I was. And da Griff got fatter and fatter, and I got more and more big, until I was as big as an outside gobbo, and bigger still – as big as one of dere bosses. And den they didn’t dare boss me no more, and dey all did wot I said.

‘Dat’s when I fought it was time to come home… Oh yes, dey hadn’t heard the last of old Runtgit in da mountains, not by a long shot. But first I was gonna need two fings. I needed a bit of muscle, and I was gonna have to get rid of Gulbash, wasn’t I?’

‘This stuff stinks, s’all goaty and horrid!’ Gulbash pushed the sack of rancid beastman meat away from him with his toe.

‘Shut it, Gulbash. I didn’t want to bring you but the Griff made me, so shut up or you’ll be the bait, all right?’ Runtgit said. Spring had come and gone, summer was a distant memory. Runtgit had been with the plains goblins nigh on a year. He had grown to a size properly commensurate with that of a goblin lordling. The sun no longer bothered him. He even went abroad with his hood down on cloudy days, and no one, not ever, referred to him as ‘cave runt’ any more.

They were lying on the damp stone, looking out over an outcrop of rock to a defile below. The bottom of it was choked with bones and half-eaten carcasses.

‘I can’t see any trollses, no, none at all,’ said Kruggler. He licked his lips nervously.

‘Oh, they is down there all right,’ said Runtgit.

‘The Griff had some once, but he sold ‘em, they et their wagon, and half a mob of gobboes. Too dangerous, he said.’

‘That’s cos he didn’t know how to handle them, did he? I do. One of the Little Big ’Uns in me clan had been a trollboss once. Told me all about it, didn’t he? It’s all about the food, you’ll see.’ Runtgit could barely stop himself from laughing at what he had planned. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ said Runtgit. ‘They’s all sleepin’ now. Don’t want to wake them up. A woked up troll is a grumpy troll.’

They moved away quietly, sliding over the rocks, carrying the sack of beastmeat. They went to the mouth of the defile. They left the meat there and retreated to the shelter of a large boulder some distance away. Some of Kruggler’s boys dragged another sack from the wagons hidden behind the bluff around the corner, creating a scent trail from wagons to canyon. They lost their nerve near the entrance, tossed the second sack atop the first and ran.

‘Oi!’ hissed Runtgit. ‘Quietly!’

Nothing stirred.

Goblins hid all around the rocks, eyes on the canyon opening.

‘I don’t like it up here, boss,’ said Kruggler, looking at the mountains looming in the distance. ‘It’s all slopy and crooked. Wulloffs can’t run. Anything could be around here. Anything at all!’

‘And it is,’ said Runtgit, ‘but none of what’s out there is as bad as us, is it? Better get used to it Krugs, because we get these boys on our side, we’re going up.’ He pointed a dirty green finger towards the mountains. ‘All the way up. And then down. All the way down.’

‘You got any of that beastmeat on you?’ said Gulbash, sniffing around him.

‘No, why?’ said Runtgit.

‘I dunno, we put the sack over there, and I can still smells it.’

‘Must be you,’ said Kruggler. He and Runtgit guffawed. Gulbash’s ears went flat against his head, and he hissed at them, his hand twitching near his dagger.

‘Don’t even think about it, Gulbash,’ growled Runtgit.

They waited, fidgeting. Gulbash fell asleep. Kruggler could not keep still, drifting away every half-hour to relieve himself behind a rock. The sun tracked its way across the sky, and down over the plains behind them. The rocks took on an orange tint. Once, Runtgit would have cowered at this colour, the anger of the Evil Sun staining the world in hated light. These days he barely noticed.

Kruggler was energetically picking his nose. Runtgit pulled his hand from his face. ‘Give Gulbash a slap,’ he said, ‘the trolls are waking up.’

Kruggler smacked Gulbash hard on the nose, and his snores stopped.

‘Ow!’ said Gulbash.

‘I don’t see nothing,’ said Kruggler.

‘Watch the stones,’ said Runtgit, and pointed. ‘Not the caves.’

Kruggler stared into the failing light. The gully was darker than the surrounding hillside, a black slash across dusk-greyed rock. In its shadowy confines, he saw movement.

‘What?’ he whispered.

What he’d taken to be rocks earlier were shifting, cracks in the stone defining arms and hands, nobbles in the rock elbows and knees.

‘Is they made of stone?’ said Kruggler in amazement.

‘Nah,’ said Runtgit. All were talking quietly. ‘They just eat lots of it, this sort, and so they looks like it. That’s just the way it is with trolls.’

The trolls stood one by one, scratching themselves and belching, until five were revealed. Their long black claws rasped on their skin with a noise like grindstones. Cracked scales covered their backs and arms. They were the same colour as the rock of the gully, dirty brown. Eyes glittered under heavy brows. They had long noses and pronounced jaws like orcs. And they were huge! As tall as five goblins stood one atop the other. Whispers of fear went around the goblins hidden in the rocks.

‘Right then, Kruggler, you get back there and make sure they have those wagons ready. Trolls are stupider than Gur was, so if you got them some food and that, they’re no bother. Just don’t get in the way, all right?’

Kruggler nodded and licked his lips nervously. Their three sturdy wagons bore iron cages, a couple of runty looking beastmen they had caught chained as bait in each. He drew his long knife and slipped away. He knew his job.

‘All right Gulbash me old mucker, here they come…’

‘There better be no funny business, or I’m telling the Griff.’

‘That’s why you’re here matey, I know.’ Runtgit watched the defile. The trolls’ long noses were twitching. They had scented the beastmeat. ‘All right, let’s get out of here.’

They withdrew cautiously. The sleepy trolls kicked their way through the bones and carcasses that littered the floor of their lair. As they drew nearer the meat, they pushed and shoved at each other. One reached the sacks and tore them open. They grumbled at one another as they scrapped over the meat. Another pushed through, nose close to the ground, sniffling and snuffling at the rock.

The trolls emerged from the defile’s mouth.

‘Now, Kruggler! Now!’ Runtgit punched a fist into the air. From behind him came the sound of bleating and rough-voiced beast words as the beastmen had their throats sliced by Kruggler and his crew.

The trolls’ heads snapped up as the scent of fresh blood filled the air. Their eyes wide, noses twitching, they ambled forward with gathering speed.

Runtgit backed stealthily away from Gulbash.

It took Gulbash a moment to notice. ‘Oi! Where are you going?’ said Gulbash. ‘Hey! Why is that troll looking at me?’

Runtgit made it to the steep rock wall of the bluff. A rope snaked down, and he put his foot into a loop at the bottom. ‘Quick, Gulbash, come on!’ he said. His words lacked sincerity.

Gulbash was transfixed by terror. The lanky frame of the troll loomed over him, nose twitching. Gulbash’s head tilted back. The troll came closer, bending low. It sniffed at Gulbash.

Gulbash backed up slowly. ‘Nice troll! Nice troll!’ squeaked Gulbash. Something occurred to him then, in his last few moments of life, a spark of an idea. He fumbled at his belongings hanging from his belt. His pouch of things felt heavier than usual.

His back hit the rock. He patted at it; the rope had gone. He tugged at the binding on his pouch and pulled it from his belt.

From his pouch, he withdrew a rotting piece of beastmeat.

Gulbash held the meat up before disbelieving eyes as the troll’s huge hand descended. Drool ran from the monster’s mouth, glistening on its belly.

‘Runtgi–’ he wailed. His cry was cut off as the fist closed, crushing him.

Runtgit watched as the troll stuffed the corpse of Gulbash into his mouth. Chewing, it ambled off after its fellows towards the smell of blood. Shouts came from where the wagons were concealed as goblins used long prods to guide the trolls into their cages. That was the plan, and Runtgit could hear nothing that made him think Kruggler’s boys had got it wrong.

‘Poor old Gulbash,’ Runtgit said. He flipped his hood back and pulled his helmet off. He clasped it to his chest and dropped his head. ‘What will the Griff do now?’

The goblins on top of the rock with him looked to one another as Runtgit laughed fit to burst.

‘Six weeks later, me and Kruggler’s mob were making our way up into the mountains. They was scared, them outside gobboes, scared of da beasts and da cold and da wet. How I laughed! ‘Who’s a scaredy now?’ I’d say, and dey’d look at every rock like an army of stunties was ready to leap out and get ’em.’ Skarsnik sniffed. ‘Every greeny is scared of sumfink, and dem outside boys ain’t no different. Still, we needed to find a way in, a way dat wasn’t watched too much. I fought and I fought, and I fought some more. Go down the stunty chimney? Too narrer. Come in through da ways I got out all dem months back? Well!’ He waved a finger in the air. ‘I had no idea where dat was, did I, or how I could swim up a river, or climb up dat place I fell down, or get me trolls and wulfies up if I could find it, and den dere was da fing in da dark… Nah. I couldn’t go in da way I came out. Wasn’t feesibul, was it?’ he said. I was impressed still with his grasp of our Reik’s tongue. Surely he had omitted some detail as to how he had learned it. I bore the words of Brangar in mind, that I could not trust anything this greenskin said, despite his charisma.

‘So,’ said the green king. ‘I figured we could do it one way and one way only. I only had a zogging army wiv me, didn’t I? S’obvious. I had to come through the front door.’

Skarsnik began to detail his long travails in reaching the old dwarf city, at whose heart the grand doors to the undercity of Karak Eight Peaks were situated, the doors I could see from the throne dais. A tribe of mountain goblins, kin to the Griff Makiki’s kind, assailed them, running above them on mountain ledges, peppering them with arrow fire. He lost many of the plains goblins this way, for a wolf is of little use in assailing an archer on top of a cliff. He rooted out their villages and beat them, his trolls wreaking carnage. How he controlled these idiot monsters is beyond my comprehension. What little I know of trolls suggests communication with them is impossible, as they possess no speech of their own. And yet the greenskins manage. When I asked of this, Skarsnik gave me one of those looks, one of the ones he reserved for unintelligence in his lieutenants, and went on with his tale.

Skarsnik explained that as a greenskin grows in power, so his power grows. A few minor clans and tribes of goblins had drifted to his banner as the caravan of Makiki struggled on upwards through the mountains, simply by dint of them being there. The way Skarsnik told it to me, any large agglomeration of greenskins will attract others to it. Their kind respects strength, and only a strong leader can keep a large tribe of them together. If there are victories, this process accelerates. So it was after Skarsnik’s victory over the mountain goblins. His original group of a hundred or so goblin warriors swelled until it was three hundred and more strong, twice the size of the Backstairs Boys. Several opportunistic bands of orcs from the Broken Tooth tribe attached themselves to his force – only weeks before Runtgit’s goblins were forced to skulk by their territory, ever-watchful of their patrols. They took a treacherous, little used route to avoid Mad Dog Pass and the orcish holdings of Black Crag and their warleader, Gorfang Rotgut. At the time of Runtgit, or should I say Skarsnik’s, arrival at his home, a small band of orcs made their home in the ruins of the city, mostly outcasts from Rotgut’s Red Fangs tribe. These were swept aside, their jeers turning to howls of outrage as the goblin army smashed their defences. Their survivors pledged allegiance to the rising goblin leader. Or they did, once Runtgit had bested their last remaining boss in single combat.

If this seems unlikely, this victory over an orc by a goblin, then please forgive me. I do not know myself whether to trust all of this story I recount to you. Skarsnik was certainly of an imposing size, and his underlings seemed afraid of him. Greenskins, lest we forget, respect strength at arms above all else. But I forget a detail, as Skarsnik himself forgot when initially telling me his story, and the telling of this may lend credence to his claims of expertise in combat.

‘If I may, my lord, and I do not wish to interrupt your reminiscences, but perhaps you could tell me what became of the Great Grizzler-Griff Makiki?’ I admit I myself was curious. Initially I had wished to appear as if I were doing a thorough job, now I wanted to know for the sake of knowing. It may have been that the story’s telling blocked out the horrors all around me, the glimmering red eyes, the stench, the sharp teeth and rusted weapons, the pain in my sick stomach. I still wanted to know.

‘Wot? Him. Oh yeah.’ Skarsnik scratched himself under the armpit, and picked up a goblet. This was not the fine dwarf drinking vessel of the day before, but a goblin skull polished white with use, mounted on an iron stem. ‘Er, yeah, I suppose dat is important, ain’t it? He was a Griff after all, except he wasn’t when I finished wiv him, oh no. He was nuffink then.’

Thatch burned. Runtgit leaned on his sickle-moon sword, making no attempt to wipe the blood from it. He panted lightly, the chief of the Lazy Claw goblins in two unequal parts in front of him. The corpse was poorly clad and free of jewellery. He had been scrawny for a chief, armed only with a club and armoured in bark studded with bits of metal. Kruggler led the round-up, his wolf boys hunting down fleeing Lazy Claws and prodding them towards the slave lines.

This wasn’t right. The Griff was doing it all wrong. Greenskins were supposed to submit to the chiefs that conquered them, swelling the tribe of the victor and building steadily to the start of a new Waaagh!, a green tide that would sweep aside the armies of other nations, and trample their cities into the dust.

Runtgit’s eyes gleamed at the thought of it, of the fame and glory. His dreams had exceeded mere revenge by now, and his plans were growing ever bolder. The most famous heroes of the greenskins are remembered because of their deeds. He watched the scrawny Lazy Claws whipped crying into lines. No one would remember the Great Grizzler-Griff Makiki; petty slave deals and raiding for scrap was a runt’s game. Runtgit snarled and spat into the dirt.

‘Boss!’ said Kruggler. The goblin, once so antagonistic to Runtgit, had become his trusted right hand. ‘All these weaklings are lined up.’

‘It’s a poor effort, Krugs,’ said Runtgit. He shifted his moon sword over his shoulders and slung his hands over its grip and blade, letting the weapon take their weight. ‘When was the last Waaagh! in the Badlands, Kruggler?’

Kruggler shrugged. ‘A whiles back, it’s always orcses that starts it, and they don’t ever come to much. Last big one round here was Da River Boyz, but that got bashed up before it got as far as the Iron Rock.’

‘Grom,’ said Runtgit firmly. ‘Grom started his Waaagh! here, didn’t he?’

‘Oh yeah, boss, but that was like…’ Kruggler counted on his fingers. He looked at them perplexed once he got past the fourth. ‘Ooooh, like loads of years ago.’

Runtgit nodded.

‘Thinking of having your own Waaagh!, boss?’ said Kruggler mockingly.

Runtgit shot him a black look. The smile fell off Kruggler’s face.

‘Sorry, boss.’

Runtgit though a moment. ‘Tell these runts, any of them want to fight for me, they can join up with us. Give them weapons and a job.’

‘Boss!’

‘It’s the way it should be, Krugs.’

‘But–’

‘Yeah, I know what Makiki will say, I’ll handle him.’ There was a crash of tumbling stones as the trolls pushed over the chief’s house. They sat down amid the wreckage, chewing placidly on beams. ‘And get them trolls back in their cages. There’s zog all to steal in this place, there’ll be a lot less if they eat what there is.’ Full of irritation, Runtgit stalked away, swinging his sword at the bloodstained grass.

Makiki had grown grosser by far since Runtgit had arrived. No longer obliged to do much of anything except eat and give orders, his girth had expanded considerably.

‘What are you doing, Runtgit? Giving spears to beaten runts?’ Makiki scoffed.

‘It’s not right, boss. How we ever going to be powerful and strong if we’s always selling us beaten boys off?’

Makiki sneered and thumped his throne arm. ‘Is that what this is about? Listen, Runtgit, we’re not having no Waaagh! There’s orcses north all about, a hundred different tribes of gobbo all around. We get ideas, we get pounded. Simple as. Best to be smart and trade.’

‘It’s not what Grom would have done,’ said Runtgit.

‘You ain’t Grom the Paunch, cave runt! You’re Niblet, remember?’ Makiki laughed, and looked around at his other followers. None joined in. Makiki scowled. ‘You’ve been good for me tribe, Runtgit. Real good, but I’m going to have to put you down. Kruggler!’

Kruggler didn’t move.

‘Snarkit!’

Nor did Snarkit. Makiki called name after name. Goblins stood stock still, and most looked to Runtgit. The others looked unsure, or stared at their feet.

Snarkit spoke. ‘I don’t like Runtgit, never have, never will, but he’s a good boss. You want him gone, you gotta do it yourself.’

Makiki growled and looked about the room. ‘Like that, is it? All right then. Pit fight.’

The whisper went around the room. The atmosphere was tense, but excitement quivered across it.

Makiki stood. He towered over Runtgit. He was not as tall as Gur had been, but he had much more mass. Strong muscles moved under flab.

‘You gonna fight me, Runtgit? Or are you going to do me like you did old Gur?’

‘Oh no,’ said Runtgit. ‘We’re going to do this proper like.’

Makiki clapped his greasy hands together. Runtgit turned away as the fat chief started to shout orders to the boss goblins. ‘And make sure the pit is dug nice and deep! I don’t want this little git climbin–’

Runtgit hopped into the air, putting his entire weight into a double-handed swing with his sickle sword. The moon-shaped blade at the end of the weapon whistled and took Makiki in the throat.

The Griff’s proclamation ended in a choke. He grabbed with both hands at his multiple chins. Green skin parted, revealing beads of yellow fat. Blood welled up between the Griff’s fingers. It became a torrent, jetting from his hands.

Makiki the Great Grizzler-Griff fell forward like a felled tree. When he hit the deck, the entire tent-wagon rocked. Snotlings looked up from their play. Tentatively at first, they clambered onto the corpse, mewling and poking. ‘Boss! Boss! Boss!’ they said, the only word most of them could manage. One by one they stopped their crying. They gave the body of the Griff an experimental sniff. One of them nibbled, gently at first, then it started tearing at the flabby green flesh. Others joined it in feasting on the body of their master. Their confusion turned to savagery as the scent of raw meat drove them wild.

Runtgit watched in disinterest as Makiki was devoured by his pets.

‘Boss?’ said Kruggler.

‘Don’t want no pit fight. Changed my mind,’ said Runtgit. He shrugged. ‘There’s been a change. I’m in charge. Any objections?’ He hefted his black iron weapon and waved it menacingly. The goblins shook their heads. Some did it hastily, in fear, others with slow admiration. But all shook their heads. ‘Good,’ said Runtgit. ‘Kruggler, get the boys together, we’re going into the mountains.’

There were squeaks and mutterings from all present. None of the goblins moved to challenge their new leader.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Runtgit. ‘There’ll be lots of gold. Lots of rich pickings, and then you lot can come home. You get me?’

‘We get you, boss,’ said Kruggler. ‘We get you.’

‘Night goblins is fast. We is clever, we is quick. Da Griff was fat and slow, but he was strong and cunnin’. Why should I fight him in da pit? Mork likes cunnin’, and I is cunnin’, I is da blessed of Mork, I is. Me! Yes, you surprised?

‘I seen him, you know? I seen him. The second time he talked to me, I was out dere on the plains. I was all drunk one night, and da stars swam and went all green. And this big orc made of stars, he said, “You!” – ’e shouts lots. “You! Little greeny! Go home! Go home and be da biggest and bestest gobbo since Grom da Paunch flattened da pansies! Go on! Go on home now!” You might fink dat’s nonsense, but…’ Skarsnik held his hands palm up and looked around at the vast dwarf hall and the goblintown it contained. ‘But it ain’t, oh it ain’t!’

‘It ain’t!’ shouted a voice from the tent. Duffskul was another goblin who could speak the tongue of men. It was reinforced in my mind how little we know of these creatures. ‘He’s da chosen of Mork. And Gork! Yes he is!’

‘Shut up, Duffskul!’ said Skarsnik. ‘I left Snarkit in charge of da caravan. No point wasting it, right? Good money from dat, and I was gonna need dat. But da Griff’s palace, I burned that right up, with the snotties in and all! You should have heard the little zoggers squeal as they roasted… We had snottie kebabs and danced around the fire. Difficult making a snottie kebab, dey climb off da stick, but I is something of an expert…’ A misty look of nostalgia came over the goblin and he trailed away, heading off into the private world of memory. He shook it off. ‘Right, where was I?’

He scratched under his hood. ‘Killed da Griff, burneded da Griff, came up through da mountains, killed dose runts, killed dem orcs.’ He lapsed into muttering. ‘Ah! Dat’s right. The gates of pillar city. After I’d beat dem orcs well good, and dere boss, I got to da gates, the great gates wot have never ever been shut, not in faaaarsands of years! Not since we gobboes drove the stunties out wiv our spears and steel. No sir, never shut! I was gonna lead Kruggler’s crew and da rest down into the underground, bash up who got in me way, and go see Dungstrangler. He’s been tribe chief for so long I don’t even fink dere was another chief before him. Wiv an army, he’d have to take me back, right? And he’d have to make me a boss. That was me plan. And then I could kill Snotruk, if he was still alive. A good plan, dose big halls are big enough for a proper battler, no worries! So I got dere, and there was a little problem.’ He held his forefinger above his thumb to demonstrate the tiny nature of said problem.

‘And what was that, my lord?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ said Skarsnik with a big sigh. ‘Dose big gates, dem ones what have not been shut up for a long long time?

‘Dey was shut, wasn’t dey?’

‘This ain’t supposed to be like dis!’ said Runtgit. He ran his hands over the carved stone doors. Rubble was piled where the doors had been set when he had left – open, as they had been for all time. The impossible had happened, and the doors had been pulled closed, fan-shaped scrape marks and powdered stone marring the floor from their movement. The doors were big as mountains themselves, the stern faces of dwarfs glaring out over the surface city. Someone had repaired the mechanisms that shut them. He scratched his chin. Who? It could have been goblins. They weren’t too stupid to achieve such a feat, but why would they bother? And where were the goblin engineers’ improvements? (In my time under the mountain, I saw many such altered devices. These enhancements were invariably of lower quality than the original work, and hampered the function of whatever they were attached to rather than improved it.) He stood there for a few moments, thinking about the weird machines he’d seen in the deepest depths of the mountains, at the limits of the old dwarf delvings, the machines in the caverns of the ratmen.

He looked around. ‘Oi! You!’ He pointed a claw at an orc at the bottom of the stair leading to the gates. The orc looked left and right at its fellows, then pointed doubtfully at himself. ‘’Ow long this been shut then?’ He strode down the steps.

‘I dunno,’ shrugged the orc with a voice wherein dwelt the very essence of surliness. ‘Been like that since we came and set up camp.’

‘Well,’ said Runtgit impatiently. ‘How long is that?’

‘Er, lots of nights?’ ventured the orc. He displayed his annoyance at being spoken to like that by a goblin plainly, but he was wary nevertheless. Runtgit was large now, and he had killed the orc’s boss.

‘You see any gobboes around?’

‘Oh nah,’ said the orc. ‘Just the rat-things, scurryin’ about, always busy. They taste horrible. Not like a nice bit of goblin.’

‘Right,’ said Runtgit.

‘What is it, boss?’ said Kruggler. The goblins were looking warily around the silent dwarf surface city, jumping at their own shadows. Runtgit had to act fast, or his little army would break up. The trolls would keep them here for a while, lending the goblins courage by their presence, but at the end of all things, goblins are only goblins.

‘Things have changed around here,’ Runtgit thought aloud. ‘But if what I think has happened has happened, it’ll be good for us. If there are rat-things in the upper levels, then we can kill ’em all good and be friends with the warboss here. Savvy?’

Kruggler nodded. ‘And then we gets our stunty gold?’

‘And as much rat steak as you can eat, Krugs.’

‘How’s we gonna get in then?’ said Kruggler. He looked up at the gates of Karak Eight Peaks. Runtgit could tell he was frightened by their scale. There was nothing like this on the plains, just primitive human ruins.

‘Don’t worry, Krugs, it’s just stone and that,’ said Runtgit. ‘I got to go in. Best if I go meself, I knows the way.’ And he didn’t want to reveal the secret to the plains goblins. ‘I go talk to the big chief, and then we can see if we can sort out a deal.’

‘Are you sure, boss?’

‘Eh!’ He threw his arms wide and slapped his chest. ‘I’ll be okay. I’m a boss now! Any gobbo bothers me and I’ll kill him dead.’ Runtgit swished his sword through the air. ‘Make camp. I’ll be back before the sun is up.’

‘Yes boss.’

Runtgit waited until the goblins were bedded in well, holed up in an old dwarf building in an elevated position with clear views. He told them to steer clear of the citadel. Too obvious, he said, but the orcs did not listen and said they had been camping near there anyway, and what was he going to do about it? Runtgit left them to it. If a crowd of orcs wished to die to warn his other servants of impending peril, then that was fine with him.

There were many ways into the lower levels, but only one Runtgit dared try. If the skaven truly had occupied the levels this close to the surface, there was no telling what would be waiting at the bottom. Besides, not all goblins in the ruins recognised the overlordship of Ibrit, and to get home, he would have to traverse many territories.

The old ventilation chimney, that had never been found by anyone else, not even after he had been caught and accused of being a thieving git. It would take him right into the heart of the Backstairs Boys’ mean little fiefdom, which could be good, or bad. If Duffskul was still alive, he might have a chance.

He made sure the goblins blocked and guarded the ways down into the undercity from the dwarf building. When he was sure no one was watching him, he set off up the mountain to the shaft.

Wandering on his own through the moonlit ruins brought back memories of his runthood in the mountains, and he found himself humming an old squig hunting air as left the edges of the surface buildings. He picked his way through broken cliff dwellings towards the steep mountainside. Once there, he sheathed his sword, spat on his hands, and began to climb.

The moons were high by the time he made it to the shaft. It was surprisingly small, he having grown so mighty since his exile. He still fit, his mail scraping on the chimney walls as he made it down and down to the depths. His limbs, grown large on power, good meat, and war, were barely aching by the time he made it to the bottom. He pulled himself with trouble through the crack in the wall. Cautiously, he walked around the spur of flowstone hiding the crack from the mushroom cave.

There was nobody there. The air was heavy, as if it had not been disturbed for a long time. Mushrooms grew wild. They had not been harvested, the older ones left to die and rot after their sporing. No one had been there in months.

All the mushroom caves were like that. By the time he made it to the way up from the caverns to the runtcave, he was worried as to what he might find. Perhaps the skaven had wiped out the Backstairs Boys to a goblin? He readied himself for the fight of his life.

He emerged out of the complex of mushroom caverns into the back of the runtcave.

Runtgit heaved a sigh of relief. Sleeping runts lay on the floor, although they were thin and small and few in number. He picked his way through them.

He crept up the stairs and pulled his sword. The runtboy watching over the runts was asleep. He awoke with a sword blade at his neck.

‘Oi!’ said Runtgit. ‘I need to see the boss. And then I need to see Ibrit Dungstrangler.’

The runtboy, a goblin Runtgit was not familiar with, gaped helplessly.

‘Suit yourself,’ said Runtgit, and ran him through.

He went up the stairs. A circle of goblins played dice around a fire on the landing. Many others slept. There were a lot fewer Backstairs Boys than there used to be.

‘Bit lazy, all this sleeping, ain’t it?’ said Runtgit. ‘It’s night-time you know, you’s lot should all be working.’

The dicing goblins, all Little Big ’Uns, looked up at Runtgit and leapt to their feet. He was pleased to see he was bigger than them all.

‘Who is this boss?’ said one.

A second peered hard at him. ‘That ain’t no boss! I recognise him!’

‘I need to speak to your boss,’ said Runtgit. ‘I need to see Chief Ibrit.’

‘You ain’t seeing no one, thieving git!’

‘Oh yeah,’ said a third. ‘It’s Runtgit. Hello, Runtgit.’

‘Shut up you!’ said a fourth. ‘Runtgit’s dead. Can’t be Runtgit.’

‘Looks like Runtgit,’ said the first.

‘He’s supposed to be dead,’ said the fourth doubtfully.

‘Big, isn’t he?’ said the third.

They thrust their weapons at him, trying to herd him towards the wall. Runtgit batted them aside with his sword. ‘That’s pathetic,’ he snarled. ‘Really pathetic, you the best the Backstairs lot have got?’

‘Ooh, he’s a feisty sort!’ cackled one.

‘I recognise that sneer! It is Runtgit! Come on youse lot! Kill him, kill him dead! Let’s take his body to the boss!’ said the first.

Runtgit rolled his eyes. He moved swiftly under their blows, dodged a spear thrust, parried a sword and decapitated the most talkative goblin. By now, the rest of the landing was stirring, sleepy goblins groping for their weapons.

‘Gork’s teeth! I don’t want to fight you boys,’ said Runtgit. ‘Can’t we be friends?’

‘There’s no being friendly with a thieving git like you!’ said one. The Little Big ’Uns pressed him hard. He was forced to kill another, then another. The other goblins, seeing their biggest and best so casually despatched, kept their distance.

Runtgit had the last Little Big ’Un under his boot, sword at his throat, when a voice called out.

‘Oi! Stop!’

Runtgit looked up the stair. A huddle of night goblins were at the top, bows creaking as they trained their arrows upon him. A bulky figure stood in the middle, hands on his hips, boss hood proud on his head.

Runtgit let his sword point droop to the floor.

‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Runt, come back all big and bosslike. I wonder what he wants, boys? Things have changed around here, Runt, things have changed a lot.’

The boss of the Backstairs Boys marched down the steps onto the main landing. Half his face was mangled, his skin rough with grit from the dwarfs’ destruction of the rockfall. But he was recognisable.

‘Snotruk!’ said Runtgit.

‘Yeah, Snotruk! I’m the boss round here, Runt. You’s going to be sorry you ever came back.’

Snotruk gave a curt nod. Arrows were pointed at Runtgit. A burly goblin came up. With an evil grin, he smashed a squig pacifier into Runtgit’s head. Blackness crowded out the world, Snotruk’s evil face pursuing him into a dreamless pit.

CHAPTER 19

ENTER GOBBLA, STAGE CENTRE

Runtgit stood on wobbly legs. A lump the size of a squig throbbed on the side of his head. He prodded it carefully as he took in his surroundings. He was in an old quarry, the centre of which, where he stood, occupied entirely by a fighting pit ringed with incurved spikes, like the fighting pits Makiki had been so fond of, only much bigger. Mirrors of beaten bronze shone torchlight on Runtgit. Two gates had been chipped into the rock on either side of the pit, barred by iron gates. Goblins crowded around the arena on a shallow spiral road that led down from a gate at the top, running all the way around the quarry to and down to the floor. Around the road dwarf masons of old had pushed their barrows full of stone, but now the way from the arena floor was barred by a spiked fence festooned with skulls.

Runtgit had never been in the quarry before. The Backstairs Boys must have expanded their holdings in his absence.

‘Right then you lot!’ A big shape stood from a chair made of skaven skulls. He leaned against a fence of spiked wood and bone. Snotruk. He had grown big and muscled since Runtgit had departed; like him, he had gained the size of rank. Snotruk wore a tall, iron helm fashioned in the shape of a leering moon, a heavy fur draped over his shoulders. ‘This little runt here,’ he pointed down at Runtgit, ‘is a thieving git! He was supposed to get et, but the stunties spoiled the party.’ He turned and rattled a pole decorated with beard scalps. ‘They’s not going to spoil this one!’

A cheer went up from the Backstairs Boys. ‘Thieving git! Thieving git! Thieving git!’ they chanted. Their faces were hidden in their hoods, eyes glinting in the torchlight, mouths set in cruel grins. One stood on a rock, hands flapping and passing out stone chits, taking bets on how long the returned Runtgit would live. Another enterprising sort went around the goblins with a tray, from which he sold strips of roasted squig flesh and flasks of beer.

Snotruk held up his hands for silence. It came reluctantly. ‘Now then, Runtgit, you got anything to say?’

Runtgit licked his lips nervously. He looked around the stadium. Every face there was hostile, except Duffskul’s, and his expression was unreadable. He stood watching with the other boss goblins on Snotruk’s throne platform. He held his copper weirding staff, earthing the energy generated by the squealing mob. Green sparks flashed around his fingers and nose, but he was calm, smoking his pipe. His eyes were amused, as enigmatic as ever.

‘Er,’ said Runtgit. His eyes alighted on a stake of wood. It was placed insecurely, typical goblin-work, wedged into a hole with a pebble. If he could get that out…

Snotruk laughed. ‘Great last words, runt!’

‘Zog off, Snotruk!’ shouted Runtgit, waving his fist. ‘I’ll have you!’

Snotruk smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ Leather thongs creaked as he tightened his grip on the fence. ‘Release the squigs!’ he shouted.

Runtgit looked over to one of the gates barring the tunnels into the arena. Behind it, Fuggrak the squig herder and his boys cranked on handles. The portcullis went up, and Fuggrak’s lads jumped behind wooden shields studded with squig teeth and nails. The blare of squig horns sounded. The excited squeals of squigs answered.

Runtgit ran for the loose spike as the squigs came into the arena. Four of them, they emerged into the light slowly, sniffing the sand. Little eyes squinted. Chains rattled on their taloned feet, that hobbled to prevent them from leaping out of the arena.

Runtgit reached the spike, his throbbing head forgotten in the heat of danger. He went straight for the pebble, flipping it out with quick fingers. The spike drew out easily from the hole. He spun round with the stake held out before him as a hurtling body came through the air, clawed feet wheeling, teeth snapping. Runtgit ducked the clashing jaws and the cave beast impaled itself on his makeshift weapon. It deflated with a wet noise. He shook it off in time to get the stake across his body as another squig came in. He jammed the stake widthways across its mouth. The creature leaned hard into him, jaw straining. Its teeth scissored the wood, raising splinters, and Runtgit was glad his hands were outside its mouth.

Behind Runtgit, two goblins cheered.

‘I told you we’d get a good show, dint I? Good old Runtgit,’ said one.

‘Oh yeah, good old deadgit!’ said the other. They howled with laughter.

Runtgit jammed one end of his spike against the wall, extricated his hand and poked the squig hard in both eyes. Its eyeballs popped, and it keened most horribly as it reeled back, blinded.

Runtgit dragged his stake round and drove the point up through the squig’s gaping mouth, through the weaker part of its skull, and thence into its brain. It died instantly.

Two squigs remained. They barked and snapped at him. He circled, keeping his back to the arena wall. There was no way he could use the stunning trick Fuggrak had taught him, the squigs were alert, jaws wide. With several dozen treacherous greenskins behind him, this was not the ideal situation for the future warlord.

Runtgit noticed the squig on the left tensing for a leap. He set himself ready to receive it. The creature’s powerful legs sent it sailing into the air. Runtgit rolled back, using the blunt end of his stake to flip the squig through the air. It went hurtling into the stakes lining the pit. Goblins scattered in panic. The squig smacked straight into the stakes, where it snagged and died, corpse sagging like a rotting pumpkin.

‘One left, Snotruk!’ shouted Runtgit. ‘One left! I don’t need no stunties to spoil your party for you this time!’

‘Cocky!’ shouted Snotruk, but Runtgit was pleased to hear anger in Snotruk’s voice. Snotruk scrabbled in a bowl held by a lackey, pulling out a fat handful of beetle grubs. He chomped down. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet, runt!’ Blue juice ran from his mouth and he bellowed, ‘Release Gobbla!’

A howl of delight went around the arena. The bookmaker goblin took a flurry of frantic bets.

The second gate clanked up behind Runtgit. He circled backwards, trying to get both the gate and the remaining squig in front of him.

In the dark of the gate, a single yellow eye flashed.

The biggest cave squig Runtgit had ever seen shuffled forward. Two of Fuggrak’s goblins poked at it with prods, swearing at it. It turned around with deadly speed. Savage jaws snapped shut. A prod’s metal head bounced off the arena wall as the great squig chomped down on the shaft. The goblin herder screamed and held blood-pumping wrists up in front of his eyes, his hands severed. Goblins laughed and pointed at the wounded herder and at Runtgit. Squigpipes wailed. Gobbla wailed back as the noise hurt his ears. More herders came and poked at the beast. Gradually, they goaded it into the arena.

Runtgit had never seen a giant cave squig before, one of those rare squigs that grow to enormous size in the deep, dark places of the world. Here was one in the flesh. A ridge of horns curved over its face, bony plates covered its back. Its legs were heavily muscled, as big each as one of the lesser squigs. If he was not so busy fending off the remaining lesser squig, Runtgit would have frozen with fright.

A wave of musty air washed over Runtgit, a blend of mould and animal hide. The giant squig snorted. A flap of cartilage bisecting the hole that passed for its nose flicked back and forth as it sniffed the air. The thing shuffled forward. One eye was milky white, a scar running across its face, deep and old and pink.

‘I’m glad he’s gonna eat ya!’ called Snotruk over the noise of the crowd. ‘But I’ll give you this, you do give a good show, Runtgit!’

Goblins hooted with laughter. Gobbla glared up at Snotruk and gave a dangerous rumble.

Runtgit stabbed at the other squig, his stake point catching in its rubbery flesh. It barked in annoyance. Using the stake as a lever, he strained and sent the animal staggering.

Gobbla charged.

Head down, it hopped clumsily across the arena’s sand, slowed by its chained ankles. The lesser squig tried to get at Runtgit, but Gobbla tossed its mighty head and batted it out of the way. Runtgit held his stake out. It was as puny and useless as a mushroom stalk in the face of such power, but he would not go down squeaking like a runt.

Gobbla’s massive jaws gaped wide.

‘Down in one! Down in one! Down in one!’ shouted the crowd.

Runtgit’s stick disappeared into the monster’s deep gullet. His world was suddenly roofed by a ceiling of red flesh fringed by teeth. The smell of half-digested goblin wafted up from the depths of its stomach.

‘Zog it,’ he said, and closed his eyes tight.

Nothing happened. He opened one eye, and then another.

The red cave squig retreated. The squig looked at him curiously. Its cadaverous nose came towards him, snorting blasts of hot breath at him. It snuffled once, twice, and then buried its nose in his robes, sniffing hard. Runtgit was buffeted backwards. ‘Hey! Hey!’ he said. The squig was making a peculiar whiffling noise. The shouts of the crowd trailed off into stunned silence.

‘What’s going on? What’s going on? Eat that runt! That’s an order!’ howled Snotruk. But he was powerless to command the squig.

Runtgit cautiously reached his hand up and scratched the squig between the horns. It wriggled with delight and mewled. A long tongue as big as Runtgit rasped up the goblin, covering him in slobber. He spluttered and laughed. The eye! Could this be the squigling he’d saved from Snotruk? He patted his new friend.

The other squig came bounding over to attack. Gobbla waddled around. He barked out a challenge. The other squig snapped back, and Gobbla chomped down on it hard, bursting it like a grape.

Runtgit laughed. ‘You’ll never get me, Snotruk!’ He walked over to where the prodder head lay on the sand. ‘I’ve been to the roots of the mountain! I’ve seen the things in the dark! I’ve been outside! I’ve seen the world! I’ve lived under the glare of the Evil Sun and the Bad Moon.’

‘Ooh!’ went the crowd.

‘Without a hat!’ added Runtgit.

A gasp went around the room. Runtgit jammed one of the prodder head’s points into the chain hobbling Gobbla and prised a link apart. He shook it and the chain came in two. ‘I’ve fought fatboys and humies and gobboes and orcses. I’ve taken a tribe and killed a Griff. I’ve spoken to Mork. And then I’ve come home.’ He pointed the prodder at Snotruk. ‘What makes a git like you think you can kill someone like me?’

Snotruk growled. He roared. He shouted, ‘Archers! Kill him, fill him full of arrers!’

Night Goblins with bows came to the edge of the pit, and drew back their strings.

They never let fly. Arrows from the other side of the pit flew into them, felling many. The rest fled. On the upper levels of the arena, Kruggler and a score of plains goblins shrugged off stolen robes. ‘Nobody touch my boss!’ he shouted.

Snotruk shouted. The cave was in uproar. Runtgit patted the giant squig on the flank and whispered in its ear. ‘Go get ’im, Gobbla.’ A good name, he thought.

The great squig stepped from foot to foot, trilling in delight at its freedom from the chains. It drew its legs under itself, and with one mighty leap hurtled upwards. It crashed into the spikes surrounding Snotruk’s throne, smashing them to flinders. The Little Big ’Uns attending Snotruk dropped their weapons and ran. Snotruk turned to flee, but a heavy foot stomped on the hem of his robe.

‘Wa–’ he began.

Gobbla gaped wide and bit him in half with a loud ‘Chomp!’

‘Now,’ said Runtgit. ‘Those were lousy last words.’

Duffskul looked from the great squig to Runtgit. Unlike the others, he had not scurried away. He took his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Welcome home, Runt. I told you you was special. I keep saying so, don’t I?’

‘Kruggler and his lads had followed me, see, even though I told ’em not to,’ said Skarsnik. ‘And was I glad dat dey did! Den dere was Gobbla.’ He gave his pet an affectionate kick. ‘That’s another rule, right dere, humie,’ he said. ‘To be da boss, don’t matter how many rules you’ve got, you gotta be lucky too.’ He settled back into his throne, throwing his legs over one of the arms. ‘So, we had a little chat, me and da uvvers. “He’s been sent by Gork an’ Mork!” says Duffskul, and they lissens to him, drunk though he was, but mostlys they look at Gobbla, and dey look at Kruggler and ’is lads, and dey say “Okay den, you can be clan boss”.’ He stroked at his skull cup. ‘And when Gobbla crapped out Snotruk’s bones, I ’ad ’im made into dis luvverly cup. Nice innit?’ He held it up for me to see. I agreed, naturally. ‘Cheers, Snotruk!’ he said. He took a messy slurp of beer from the skull and he laughed. He became serious again.

‘But it wasn’t all happy and chirpy snotties in da mushroom patch, was it? No sirree. Fings had changed while I’d been gone away. Bad fings ’ad ’appened.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Fer a start, all dis,’ he waved his hand around the chamber, ‘all dis had fallen inta da hands of da ratboys. Dere’d never been nobody much up here anyhows, few orcses, mebbe, some ov da outside gobboes, some ov da scrawnier night boys. Too close to da surface to grow mushrooms, see, nowhere to hide, so not many of our lot wanted to live up here. Before I came along, they was happier skulking about in da darker places. ’Swhy until I got da power, lot of Crooked Moon boys were out eastaways in da tunnels outside da city. But den dem ratties got a bit uppity, dint dey? What was ours became deres, dey killed off any gobbo dat came up here, and so we killed off any ratboy we could lay our hands on. It was a terrible state of affairs! All fightin’ and bashin’ and dat. S’all good fun, but dem ratties had come up in numbers. Choked all da boys wiv green smoke and funny fings wot shot lightning. Dey was all scared. Ibrit Dungstrangler was cut off, way the other side of where da ratties had come up. Da lads tole me loads of boyz were carted off down dere.’ He pointed a talon down. ‘So, there was me. I had me little band of Backstairs Boys, Fuggrak’s squig wallopers, Kruggler’s gang, them Broken Toof orcses what had come into da mountains wiv me, da mountain gobboes, and da Black Crag outcast boys. About, ooh, I dunno.’ He scrunched his face up with effort. ‘Five hundred gobboes and squigs, an’ bart a hunnred orcses,’ he said.

He belched. ‘Dat’s better. Word got out dat dere was a new boss in town, an’ a couple of da other clans from da halls hooked up wiv me, including dem what had been given a pastin’ by da ratboys. Some of dem tried to fight me,’ he chuckled. ‘Gobbla ate a lot ov chiefs and clan bosses den. But I was bein’ clever. You might fink I’d go in dere, loads ov gobboes, and kick out da ratboys. But did I?’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Course I didn’t! I knew dat wouldn’t work. I sent runners out to all da clans and tribes, even tried to get over to Ibrit, but I couldn’t. I had Kruggler and dis orcy name of Bograt keep the top all sorted. Ratses tried to come up a couple ov times, but dey got a bashin’. I had the entrances sealed up nice, all but a few, and we kept ’em in tight. Course, by that time Kruggler figured there weren’t much gold to be had, and dat, well, I was fibbin’. But he didn’t care no matter, dere was loads of fighting, and sides, he was a big boss in a big tribe now, and he was doing very well for hisself. Bograt wasn’t like da uvver orcs, he kept da orcs in line topside, took ’em down when dey was a-grumblin’ about followin’ orders from off of runts. I knew he was working for Gorfang, he was usin’ us night boys to keep da ratties out of da Black Crag, but right den I didn’t care at all, because dat suited me fine.’

He put the luckless Snotruk’s skull down and laced his fingers behind his head.

‘We was careful, though. I never told them runners much at all, so if they got caught by the ratties, then they couldn’t squeal. Any fights wiv da ratties were done by da different clans, here and there, tit and tat, so dey wouldn’t figure we were linkin’ up like. And anyways, we was still fighting each uvver. Da ratties fought dey had won, dat dey could take a whole load of greenie land away and we’d just go back ta normal, bashing each uvvers brains out in da teeny bits dey let us keep.’

He sat forward. ‘And dey was right, fer a while. But dey hadn’t counted on me, had dey? Da ratties pulled back dere armies a ways. Here an’ there they set up breedin’ pits – horrible places full of pink squirming fings.’ He gave a shudder. ‘S’gusting. But dey was too cautious to move up ’ere all nice. At da same time, dey fought we was beat, or maybe dey were fightin’ each uvver again, cause dey do that a lot. Anyways, when dere wasn’t dat many of dem, and dey was getting all,’ he tilted his head on one side, eyes shining as he searched for the right word, ‘com-play-sunt, yeah, when dey was dat, dat was when I made me move.’ He chuckled deep in his throat, a disturbing, gurgling sound, and spat upon the floor. ‘Dem ratties never knew what ’it ’em.’

CHAPTER 20

I AM SKARSNIK!

Runtgit’s plans to rid the upper halls of the skaven were complex to say the least. A series of bluffs, betrayals, staged retreats and cunning counter-attacks. That was, in any case, the way Skarsnik described it to me, the veritable acme of strategic genius. Skarsnik was never modest, however, and my experience of battle begins and ends with the loss of the inn of Bechtersmoln. I was forced to take the proclamations of his brilliance on trust, as you are now as I repeat them, herr doktor.

Skarsnik, still then Runtgit, plotted long and hard. He would sit and listen to the insane dwarf Grunfin Goldfinder for inspiration, his new friend Gobbla never far from his side. I inferred that cave squigs are nigh on untrainable; their handlers must drive them before themselves with steel and noise, and those few that are ridden are uncontrollable.

Gobbla was different. A most placid beast, as I saw him, who hung off his master’s every word and gesture. But then appearances can be deceptive. Suffice it to say, Gobbla followed Runtgit everywhere, would obey his commands instantly, and proved highly effective in both intimidating and eating any opposition to the rising goblin’s schemes.

Conceiving his plans in the poky rooms off the Backstairs was one thing. Getting his minions to understand and accept them was another. He argued long and hard. There were several intelligent creatures in Skarsnik’s retinue; goblins, as we have seen, are possessed of a certain low cunning, but of wisdom akin to our mannish faculty, they have little. I do not doubt this held true back through all his days of power. There was always the air of frustration around the goblin king, an immense irritation at the idiocy of those that abetted him. How long must he have schemed? It was surely only half the time he strove to ensure those schemes were put into motion effectively.

Of key importance was that the skaven remain ignorant of his intentions. Ibrit Dungstrangler remained isolated outside the city, away from the part of the Crooked Moon tribe which dwelt within the city’s walls and principal deeps. Runtgit parleyed and talked with the other factions of greenskins in Karak Eight Peaks. Where that failed, he resorted to murder and well-timed accidents, removing those chiefs who opposed him until they had been replaced with others more amenable to his ideas. This did not take too long; he was a rising power, the chief of the Crooked Moons was absent, and goblins respect strength and wits above all else.

All the runners sent to speak with Chief Ibrit never returned. Lacking anyone to lead them, the shamans and the subchiefs, the bosses and the skargobboes, the runtbosses, the champions, the snivelling cave lords and the Little Big ’Uns became frantic for someone to take charge. Runtgit was only too happy to oblige.

All over Karak Eight Peaks, goblins moved. Goblin engineers led teams to prepare the wicked surprises Runtgit had in mind for the skaven. Kruggler was instructed to leave the surface in the hands of Bograt the orc. He, a large number of goblins and Runtgit’s trolls were despatched on a most secret mission, upon which they were gone many months. Goblin and night goblin alike muttered that Kruggler was probably dead, perceived as a threat to the power of the ex-runt and disposed of. Runtgit let them think this was so, for it served his purposes for them to think him so ruthless.

Time passed.

‘No, no, no!’ Runtgit smashed his fist down hard on the table. ‘You.’ He jabbed a hard claw into the chest of the boss of the Notched Axe Lads. ‘You and the rest of the pathetic gits you call your clan, go here!’

‘Sorry, boss,’ squeaked the Notched Axe Lads boss. Gobbla loomed over Runtgit’s shoulder. The other bosses in the room, night goblins, orcs and common goblins of the hardest sort, shuffled back as Runtgit’s giant pet gave them all a speculative look.

‘Zogging idiots!’ He swept the maps off the table onto the floor. ‘Is it so hard? You is supposed to be the brains of your clans! Clever, I wanted, but you is all idiots!’ Gobbla waddled around on the spot, following Runtgit’s glare, his leathery feet slapping on the floor. The great squig’s tongue lolled. The goblin chiefs could not help but recoil from it. ‘It’s easy! We hit them hard, we hit them everywhere! We hit them so hard they can’t squeak properly no more!’

‘Er, but boss,’ said Gruzzwazz, the Lord High Stab Boss of the Gut Shredders, ‘we haven’t got that many gobboes.’

‘Argh!’ Runtgit stamped his foot hard. ‘It’s not about how many gobboes you have, it’s about how you use them. Look.’ He stared at the table. ‘Where’s me maps?’

‘Here they are, boss,’ said Fikbat, Arch-High Gitflicker of the Cunning Cave Spiders. He quickly placed them back on the table and smoothed them flat. ‘There you go, all nice again.’

‘Fikbat,’ said Runtgit through gritted teeth.

‘Yes, boss?’

‘They is all upside down!’ he shouted.

‘It don’t matter,’ said Fikbat. ‘Er, does it?’

Runtgit groaned and pulled his hand down his long face. By the time it had got to the bottom of his pointy chin, his exasperation had turned into an unpleasant smile. ‘Right. Gobbla, eat Fikbat.’

The boss goblin was crunched up swiftly by Runtgit’s pet. ‘Now, any more bright ideas? Because…’

A goblin came running into the room. ‘Boss!’ he panted.

Runtgit scooped a spear off the table and hurled. It sailed through the air and hit the goblin in the shoulder. He staggered backwards into the chamber wall.

‘How am I supposed to concentrate with all these interruptions! Idiots asking questions, gobboes a-coming and a-going without so much as a by-your-leave! Gah!’

‘But, boss!’ said the goblin hoarsely, clutching at the spear. ‘It’s the stuff! We got some! The black sand! You said you wanted telling as soon as we got some!’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Runtgit. ‘Thanks.’ He relaxed and frowned at the goblin. ‘Go and have a sit down. You might want to get that spear looked at. Looks painful.’

‘Yes, boss,’ whimpered the messenger.

Two goblins came in bearing a wooden sled on ropes looped over their shoulders. They carried it gingerly and set it down with looks of utter fear on their faces. On top of it were three kegs, each marked with dwarf runes. Runtgit’s eyes glittered as he saw them. His tongue darted out, lizard-quick. ‘We got fifteen more outside, boss,’ said one of the goblins.

‘Righty-right,’ Runtgit said. ‘That’s it. Tomorrow then, tomorrow night we do it proper like. Three horn blasts, and we drive those furry gits back down whatever hole they came up out of. I’ve got someone to see, and once he’s gone, the rat-things will be in disarray!’ He cackled madly. No one joined in. He looked to his lieutenants. They looked back stupidly. ‘Ak! I mean the rat-things will be totally zogged!’ He cackled again. This time his lackeys joined in. Runtgit stopped suddenly and scowled. ‘Go on then! Positions! Positions! Got to be organised, haven’t we? Go on, get out!’

The head gobboes filed out, chattering excitedly to each other. They left Runtgit with Duffskul, who sat drinking on a stool in the corner. Runtgit looked to the old shaman. ‘I often think it would be easier if I could lead every zogging mob meself,’ he said. He grumbled as deep as an orc, but there was a hint of a gobliny whine to it, and Runtgit hated himself for that.

Duffskul took a large drink from his pot and smacked his lips together happily. ‘I said you’re special, Runt, but you ain’t that special.’

Runtgit went deep into the mountain. At the avenue of stone trees he bade his guards remain behind. They had to restrain Gobbla, who howled as his master set out on his own. The great squig’s cries followed him as he took one of the rat tunnels. Alone again, he headed out of goblin territory and into the uppermost levels of the skaven’s Under-Empire.

Half an hour later, he sauntered up to a guard post, emerging from the shadows like a ghost, thumbs hooked in his belt as if he had not a care in the world.

‘Wotcha,’ he said to the surprised guards. ‘Skreekrit about?’

Black-furred stormvermin came and clapped the goblin in irons. He was as big as they were now, and they held little fear for him. He had a plan, after all, and no plan is worthy if it does not include at least a few calculated risks. Gork and Mork would see to his safety.

Down they went, deep into the skaven’s realm. Their holdings had expanded since Runtgit was last there, the tunnels full of skaven in armour and shambling monsters as big as Runtgit’s trolls. Loud bangs and crackles, ear-piercing shrieks and other sounds generated by arcane machinery echoed around the tunnels, and everywhere the air had a sharp smell to it, overpowering the musty odour of the skaven themselves. There were more pipes this time. He looked at these metal snakes, and he thought of Duffskul’s smoking pipe, and then he thought of the strange green fog the other chieftains had told him of when he had returned, the one that had choked the goblins the night before the skaven came and took the upper halls. He resolved to do something about that.

They passed the guard tower Runtgit had been taken to last time, and went deeper, following a road as wide as the old dwarf highways, but chewed from the rock and supported by jerry-rigged buttresses of stone and mouldering wood.

They went off this and into a warren of tunnels. The chittering of the ratmen came from every direction, grating on Runtgit’s sensitive hearing. His clever eyes darted back and forward, taking in every detail.

He was pushed into a broad chamber, a hall. Alone upon a throne at one end sat Skreekrit. The skaven had grown fatter and sleeker since their last meeting, as Runtgit had grown larger and more powerful. They recognised each other just the same.

The stormvermin shoved the goblin to the floor. Runtgit went onto one knee, but stopped himself falling onto his nose.

‘All right there, Skreekrit me old mate. It’s been a long time.’

Skreekrit’s whiskers twitched. ‘Small one? Green-thing? Runtgit?’ He stood from his throne, and walked down the steps to the floor. ‘You-you? You so big-big!’

‘Things change, don’t they mate? I’ve had a few adventures, got me own boys now. But I’ve come back.’ He licked the points of his yellow teeth. ‘That’s when I see how much things can change. You have been busy.’

The skaven’s skin quivered. ‘Yes-yes. I now Great Chieftain. City of Pillars upper levels my command, given to me by Warlord Skruk Spittletail! We drive out green-things again! Always green-things, we drive out, they come back, they die, they come back. You great nuisance.’ He shook his head.

‘Yeah,’ said Runtgit. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘And what you? What-what you want, green-thing? I kill-kill you now, but...’ He shrugged. ‘You good to me in days gone by. You live. You speak, then maybe you die-die. We see.’

‘Well that’s it, Skreekrit, me old pal.’ Runtgit glanced behind himself at the skaven guards and stood up, a difficulty with his hands bound behind him. The guards moved forward. Skreekrit stopped them with a gesture of his hand. ‘I reckon we can do a deal again. To tell you the truth, there ain’t that many of my lot left. We just want to be left alone is all, grow our mushrooms in peace. You can have the city. We lost, fair and square. We learned our lesson. We won’t be no more bother.’

Skreekrit chirruped. ‘Since when goblin know what fair and square is?’

‘I could say the same thing about you ratties,’ said Runtgit. He dropped his voice to a whisper. His ears drooped and he hunched smaller. ‘Thing is mate, we’re done. I figured we could make a deal, sort it out, know what I mean? What do you say to peace? We’ll leave you alone and you needn’t worry about us no more.’

‘I no trust you!’

‘Yeah, that’s okay,’ said Runtgit. ‘So I figured I’d give you something as a token of my esteem, a little peace offering, if you like. I’ll bet you’ve not had any of that lovely glowy green rock, have you?’

Runtgit knew full well they had not. Parties of skaven had been scouring the upper levels, but none had found Runtgit’s wyrdstone in the old fort.

Skreekrit froze. The constant, jittery movements common to his race stilled. ‘Speak-speak,’ he said.

‘Well, there is a load of it left. No trading this time.’ Runtgit gave an apologetic chuckle. ‘Fact is, there isn’t enough of us left to bring it down to you!’ he said. ‘Nah, I’m just gonna give it to you. All of it. Spoils of victory. What do you say?’

Skreekrit tilted his head on one side. ‘You trick me.’

‘No trick mate! I’m all out of tricks. You’ve won, haven’t you? Didn’t I say so already?’

The skaven thought for a moment. ‘Very well. You show warriors. They tell me. You live, deal-deal?’

‘Listen, I only want to show you. No offence and that, but what if I showed one of your boys here,’ Runtgit dropped his voice to a hiss, ‘and they took it for themselves?’ He spoke normally again. ‘Oh, and, sorry about this, but if something happens to me, then another gobbo will be telling some other rattie big boss about it instead, you get it?’

Skreekrit squeaked in alarm then nodded. ‘Very well. I come-come. We go together.’

Skreekrit, a guard of stormvermin and Runtgit went up out of the skaven tunnels, away from the clamour of their infernal industries. They went out into the places once inhabited by goblin clans, all silent now. Runtgit had forbidden anyone but his spies from getting too close to the rat tunnels or their new forts and pits. He had his goblins hidden away, waiting for the big event. He kept his numbers hidden.

They left the goblins’ empty domain and headed upwards to the cave where Two Head had been born.

The remains of the dwarf fort were exactly as they had been left, the tunnel to the well bottom still hidden, the warpstone boulder glowing dimly within. Scattered lumps of it lay around the floor where they had been left by Runtgit’s goblins. The ladder he had put in was still in place, leading into the pit. Even Diglit’s skeleton remained, a sorry heap of bones bundled into a corner. No one had come here after he had gone.

Skreekrit stopped, a hand signal staying his men. ‘It smells! Much goblin! Goblin-stink, goblin-things!’

‘Calm down, mate,’ said Runtgit. ‘Of course it stinks of gobbo. I had dozens of boys mining this stuff for you, they were getting all hot and bothered, know what I mean?’

‘This fresh scent.’

‘That’s me, mate. I’m scared aren’t I? Prisoner of a powerful big chieftain like you.’

This seemed to pacify Skreekrit. His armour clicked as he made his way to the pit. ‘This-this not just warpstone, little green-thing.’

‘No?’ said Runtgit. He looked around the well bottom. The fort above must have been useful in commanding Mad Dog Pass in ages past, before it collapsed. He thought he might rebuild it when he was the lord of the mountains. ‘What is it then, if it’s not just glowy green rock?’

‘This history! This great artefact! Long time gone, skaven put warpstone in beard-things’ wells, make them weak, make them weak to kill-kill!’ He slammed his fist into his armoured palm. ‘Great cost, many warptokens.’

‘So you’ve been bringing it back when you found it again? I see.’

‘Most gone, long gone, but many wells here, many buried. Sometimes we find. This big beard-thing castle once, that why great warpstone piece, like here!’

Runtgit gave a long, impressed whistle. Which also happened to be the signal to the lads in the shadows. ‘Well, well, it’s all yours now, ain’t it?’

Black shapes with red eyes rose silently behind the stormvermin.

‘Yes-yes!’ Skreekrit looked up from the pit. ‘And now you die…’

‘Nah, mate,’ Runtgit shook his head and chuckled. ‘You got that part all wrong.’

The creak of a bow being drawn gave them away.

The stormvermin’s ears twitched, and they spun to face the noise.

‘What this!? Green-things? Treachery! Treachery!’ shouted a stormvermin. He opened his muzzle to say more, but a black-fletched arrow took him in the heart. Arrows whistled through the air as goblins smeared in stinking mushroom juice and nightblack squig oil jumped from their hiding places. With commendable rapidity, the stormvermin formed an armoured wall, protecting their lord. Skreekrit was in the centre of the chamber, the tunnel full of goblins; the stormvermin hacked at the horde of greenskins with their halberds, felling them with little effort, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. There was no way out. A stormvermin moved to grab at Runtgit, but the future king stepped aside as three arrows thunked into its back.

‘You trick me!’ said Skreekrit.

Runtgit shrugged. ‘Yeah, sorry. There’s a lot more gobboes than you think, see. You kill a thousand of us, there’s two thousand more, hiding in all the cracks and little places, like.’

‘There be one less-less! You die-die!’ Skreekrit stepped forward, his sword in his hand. Runtgit stepped towards him. His chains fell to the floor. He’d picked the locks hours ago.

‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. The knife he’d hidden under his deepest layer of rags was in his hand, and then it was in a gap in Skreekrit’s armour. The skaven’s beady eyes widened. His sword clanged to the floor. The chamber rang to the clash of weapons, the squeals of dying goblins, and the squeaks of injured ratmen. Skreekrit choked, his steel teeth bloodied. ‘I quite liked you, so I did,’ said Runtgit. He eased the dying skaven to the ground, twisting his knife as he did so. The blade scraped satisfyingly on Skreekrit’s armour and ribs. ‘We’re not so different, you and I. Good mates, yeah?’

Skreekrit’s eyes dulled. Runtgit looked at him thoughtfully and then cackled. He kneeled and rocked his knife across the throat of the ratman. He sawed through gristle, reached the neck vertebrae, just as he had done to Gronskwee at Skreekrit’s request. With a grunt, he parted the chieftain’s head from his shoulders. He turned around and held it aloft, shrieking in triumph.

The last stormvermin went down fighting. For ten of the great ratmen, Runtgit had lost thirty or more greenskins. Their small, crumpled bodies littered the chamber like black leaves.

He kicked his way through the dead and dying. Excited goblin faces crowded around him. He didn’t have much time.

Runtgit and his gang ran as fast as they could through the tunnels towards the throne room of Karak Eight Peaks. Here the principal encampment of skaven in the upper levels was to be found. It was vital they were destroyed as the remainder of his plan was put into action.

Two hours later, he arrived in a series of small caverns adjoining the Hall of a Thousand Pillars. These caves had once been part of the Great Western Halls, destroyed in the war that had broken out between the goblins and skaven when the hold had first been taken from the dwarfs. His goblins had painstakingly carved out a route between pockets of stale air, trapped under slabs of ceiling for centuries, carting tons of rubble away in secret. Passages propped up with crooked timber wound their way in. Torches cast feeble light and stained the roof with oily smoke.

Yellowed orc bones and rusted armour crunched underfoot as Runtgit marched into the cramped space. He wore his mail, iron boots, vambraces and a tall spiky chief’s hat. His moon sword was unsheathed. Gobbla waddled at his side. Two hundred pairs of red eyes followed his entrance.

‘You lot ready?’ shouted Runtgit. Hushed calls of assent and excitement replied. Duffskul pushed himself off a toppled statue’s head and drained his cup.

‘Boss,’ he whispered, giving the warboss a curt nod. He signalled to his helpers, who sat upon five bound and gagged goblins. The eyes of these restrained greenskins rolled. Muffled giggling came from each. By Duffskul were five metal balls, each nearly as big as a goblin, on long chains as thick as an orc’s wrist.

‘What we got then?’ said Runtgit. He marched up to the doorway that had once opened upon the Hall of a Thousand Pillars. There had been eight of these mighty portals, one for each of the peaks that ringed the city, mirroring the gates in the walls of the surface city above. Symbolic, I presume, of the dwarf kings’ mastery over the mountains or some such. Precious little good it did them. The western three doors were blocked when the halls they led to had been collapsed by the skaven during the fall of the dwarf empire. Blocked, until now.

Runtgit pressed his eye up against the hole his goblins had made in the rubble pile, a thin shield of tumbled stone hiding his men from the ratmen. He looked upon the skaven fort in the centre of the throne room.

The throne room had been the domain of the Grinning Shroom Kings, a pathetic collection of goblins whose grandiose title only served to underline the weakness of their clan. No night goblin wished to dwell so near the surface if he could help it. The skaven regarded it more highly. The ratmen had assembled a scrofulous camp in the middle of the hall, near to the throne dais of the dwarf kings. Makeshift walls of plundered masonry surrounded their tents. Scaffolding marked the beginnings of more permanent fortifications. These were sited upon the ruins of older towers and walls, thrown up and pulled down innumerable times during the skaven and goblins’ endless wars.

‘They haven’t got any idea that we’re here, boss!’ said the regiment’s officer, a crook-nosed goblin with the voice of a village idiot.

‘Cracking plan, boss!’ called one of the boys.

‘Yeah!’ called another. A chorus of approving goblin gibber set up.

‘Quiet youse!’ Runtgit said this harshly; he had to keep his reputation as a proper boss, although his black little heart swelled with pride. ‘Don’t want them to hear us, eh?’

Runtgit turned back to the hole and nodded with satisfaction. The ratmen were wary but quiet. He checked the wall of rubble in the doorway. Ropes had been attached to strategic boulders within the pile of rocks and tumbled masonry, waiting to be pulled loose.

Runtgit turned to a goblin at the mouth of the entrance tunnel and nodded. The goblin sketched a quick bow and ran off, hood and robe flapping.

Ten minutes later, a horn sounded, almost lost in the depths of the mountain. Runtgit waited with bated breath. Where were the others? He was about to cry his rage at his minions’ incompetence when another horn sounded, then another, and another, until all the ruins of Karak Eight Peaks rang to their long, mournful songs. Squigpipes and drums joined their call. The dwarf city reverberated to greenskin war music.

An explosion sounded far beneath Runtgit’s feet, so distant it was but the faintest of thunders. A second and third followed hard upon it as stolen dwarf blackpowder collapsed the uppermost of the skaven’s tunnels. Rock fragments pattered down. The goblins looked nervously to the fallen slabs roofing their chamber.

‘That’s the skaven tunnels sealed then, this lot won’t be seeing any help now, will they?’ Runtgit gloated. He pushed his eye to the hole. The skaven were agitated; ratmen ran to and fro. Their leader gave orders in their high, squeaking tongue. ‘Kruggler’s lot should be coming around about… Now.’

Frantic arms waved on the skaven walls. From where Runtgit was, they looked about the same size as normal rats. He entertained the notion of stomping them flat with his armoured boots, and the thought of it made him giggle.

The cracking pop of gunfire sounded. The skaven were rushing towards the other side of the camp. The drone of squigpipes sang out from the far side of the encampment. Bolt throwers, brought from Kruggler’s lot on the surface piece by piece, fired. Spear-sized arrows flew from the high galleries where the war machines were stationed. A skaven signalling with flares from atop a half-finished tower was hit square in the chest. It flew backwards, landing on a tent that promptly caught afire.

Runtgit was pleased with that. He had told Kruggler to target their order-givers, officers and chiefs.

In the dim light of the eternal glowstones, Runtgit made out the shapes of bounding squigs drawing in on the south-east of the fort. Kruggler’s most insane squig herders rode atop the enraged animals, jabbing them in their ears or hitting them with the flats of their swords to make them bounce faster. A couple of the squigs cleared the wall, disappearing within the skaven fort, where Runtgit hoped they were causing the largest amount of damage possible.

He nodded. ‘All right, boys, now.’

Goblins took up the ropes attached to the posts rammed hard into the rubble. They had had none of the fungus brew that ordinarily gave the night goblins the courage to go into battle; he had not allowed it. One misplaced titter or high-pitched fighting song and the entirety of his plans would be undone. But the goblins here were not cowering, nor did they shiver with fear. Their ears were erect with confidence. They looked to him with excitement on their ugly faces. He had done that, with his leadership and plans. He sneered. Those rats were as good as dead.

The goblins heaved and pulled. They made comical noises of effort, squealing and huffing. At first nothing happened, and Runtgit wondered if he should not have brought one of his trolls up into the cave. But then, with a sudden grinding, one of the biggest boulders shifted. The rope attached to the post underneath its slackened, sending goblins sprawling. The others pulled upon their lines, and the wall gave and came crashing inwards.

Runtgit did not wait for the dust to clear. ‘Through! Through! Through!’ he roared. His voice had deepened as he had grown, and it came out impressively orcy. Goblins practically elbowed each other out of the way to be through the gap before their fellows. The standard bearers of three goblin mobs, and their drum beaters and hornblowers, ran into position, marking rally points for the goblins. Quicker than he thought possible, Runtgit’s three mobs formed up. Two hoots from the horns, a clang of cymbals and gongs, and their spears dropped to form a hedge of spikes. Duffskul’s assistants carried their bound and struggling charges into the front ranks of the mobs, and they were ready.

Runtgit glanced north, to where the great gates to the throne room were locked against the outside, keeping his greenskins on the surface. His teams should be moving into position now, but if so they moved well, for he could not pick them out in the dark. He banished thoughts that they may have been caught. Too late to worry about that!

He looked upon his goblins. Not frightened, not weaselly, but ready for battle and brave, brave because of him.

Their shields locked loosely together. Upon each was the same symbol. Whether the goblin was a Red Hat, or a Shroom King, or a Cave Clobberer, or a Backstairs Boy, or any one of the dozens of clans and minor tribes that inhabited the ruined city, each one had repainted his shield. They ranged from crude to spectacular, these daubings, but each showed the same thing.

The Crooked Moon.

Runtgit took his place in the front of the biggest mob. Duffskul rolled up his sleeves and stood next to him. The wily old shaman nodded.

‘Ready, boss?’ he said.

‘Forward!’ shouted Runtgit.

The goblins jogged forward, covering the ground between the sealed west halls and the skaven fort at the centre of the throne room quickly. The skaven, not expecting an attack from this direction and assailed already to the south-east, slipped into a panic, but their officers held firm and whipped them into order. Half of the ratmen turned from the south-eastern corner where Fuggrak’s boys were herding angry squigs into their camp. Skaven wheeled and formed ranks to meet this new threat.

Strange lights played about the goblin standards. Sparks arced and crackled. Duffskul glanced up, he frowned. ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ he said. He made passes in front of his face with his hands, his eyes flared green, and the sparks died.

‘Skaven wizlevards,’ he said, panting with the run. ‘Shaman stuff.’

Skaven glaives dropped to meet the goblin charge.

‘Lads, halt!’ cried Runtgit. As smoothly as they had been drilled, the goblins came to a halt. Skaven looked at one another in puzzlement.

Duffskul’s assistants cut the ropes on the bound goblins. A hideous cackling set up as they were ungagged. The ends of the chains on the balls were pushed into their hands, and they were shoved from the goblin ranks. These goblins spun around and around, intoxicated by one of Duffskul’s more peculiar brews. One tangled himself in his chain and dropped to the floor crying with laughter, but the others, tugging on their balls, somehow managed to shift the enormous weights along. Dragging them in circles at first, the goblins moved faster and faster. The balls lifted into the air in a blur of iron, and the goblins wobbled towards the skaven lines.

‘Ah, fanatics,’ said Duffskul happily. ‘Don’t you love them? This is where it gets good.’

Gunshots ricocheted from the iron balls as the goblin fanatics picked up speed. Empowered by Duffskul’s potions, they moved impossibly fast. They impacted the skaven regiments in a whirl of motion. Bodies flew everywhere. Even at that distance, blood and scraps of fur rained down on Runtgit and his mobs.

‘Right!’ Runtgit said. ‘Charge!’ With the hooting of horns relaying his orders, the goblins surged forward. There was an almighty crash and a cacophony of squeaks as the two subterranean peoples met blade to blade.

Duffskul smashed a skaven down with his staff, and shot green spears from his fingers. They fizzed and popped among the skaven, frying them in their armour, boiling their eyes in their skulls.

‘I got to get me some of that!’ Runtgit said.

‘Shaman stuff, boss runt,’ said Duffskul.

Runtgit disembowelled a squeaking ratman. Another lost an arm as Runtgit’s moon sword swung round his head and down. Gobbla was a nightmare of flashing teeth, his gigantic bulk squashing as many ratmen as he swallowed. Every time one of the skaven came close to Runtgit, Gobbla would interpose himself, ending every threat to his master with a snap of his jaws. Skaven spears bounced from his rubbery hide, or pierced it only to snag and break. With Gobbla by his side, Runtgit felt invincible.

‘Boss! Boss! More ratties!’ shouted one of his men.

Runtgit looked to the north-east. Through one of the great arches, a column of skaven were marching down the slope. They came from the second of the ratmen’s main camps, ready to reinforce their brethren in the Hall of a Thousand Pillars.

Panic rippled through Runtgit’s warriors, but his bosses and chiefs slapped heads and pointed to Runtgit and Gobbla. They fought on harder, their faith in Runtgit urging them to supreme effort.

There was a booming noise, loud as thunder, a rattle of mighty chains and the whistle of steam engines. A crack appeared in the darkness, a line of light so bright it dazzled all the combatants on the field.

Runtgit’s teams had been successful, they had killed the skaven at the gates and taken control of the machines they had used to shut out the world.

The doors of Karak Eight Peaks were opening.

With a roar like an avalanche, the doors swung wide. Howling filled the vast hall along with the light. Kruggler’s boys came charging down the steps from the outside, and straight into the side of the skaven relief force.

It was just as Runtgit had planned. He let the fight surge on away from him, and clambered up onto a pile of rubble to get a better view.

The relief column of ratmen bowed as goblin chariots crashed into it. Even from here, Runtgit could see tiny bodies being thrown high into the air. Well ordered blocks of infantry became a seething mass of terrified fur. Skaven broke and fled, scrambling back up the slopes to the north-eastern halls. Kruggler’s wolf riders ran them down.

Confident his plan was working, Runtgit threw himself back into the fight. He shrieked. His goblins, sensing victory to be close, fought with all the ferocity of orcs. Runtgit cut down a skaven and raised his sword to cut again. Only at the last moment did he swerve it aside, nearly burying it in the face of Fuggrak’s boy, Rozzla.

‘Sorry,’ panted Runtgit. ‘I thought you was a ratboy.’

Rozzla grunted and slapped squigs away from Runtgit’s infantry mobs. So expeditious was he in this task that only a few were accidentally eaten.

The skaven were defeated. Knots of them fought grimly on, knowing there would be no quarter. Soon, they were all dead. Kruggler came galloping over on his wolf, coming to a sliding halt on the blood-wet cavern floor. Goblins pointed him out, muttering that he was not dead after all, although none had the faintest of ideas where the plains goblin had been all these weeks. ‘North-eastern lots are dead ’uns, I got some boys going over to the camp now, but I don’t think they’ll have any trouble,’ said Kruggler.

‘Well done, Kruggs, extra rat steaks for your lads. That was a good charge.’

Whispers went around the goblins, they turned into shouts, and then songs. Goblins did little dances, kicking pointy-toed shoes high. They had won! They had beaten the skaven, and it was all thanks to Runtgit!

‘All hail Runtgit!’ Fuggrak kicked squigs out of his way and grabbed the goblin boss’s arm and held it high. Goblins piled up a mound of dead skaven, and Runtgit was propelled to the top.

‘Runtgit! Runtgit! Runtgit!’ shouted the goblins, delirious with battle lust.

‘Nah, he’s not Runtgit,’ said Duffskul. His voice was a quiet croak, but such was the power in him the army fell silent. The old shaman walked up the corpse pile. ‘I said that weren’t his name. He needs a better name than that.’ Duffskul stroked his chin, then grabbed Runtgit’s other arm in a tight grip.

‘All hail the grim cutter! All hail the tough stabber! All hail Skarsnik!’

‘Skarsnik! Skarsnik! Skarsnik!’ bellowed the goblins.

The goblin who had been the Runt, and who was then Runtgit, shook off the hands of his fellows and held his arms high. ‘I am Skarsnik!’ he shouted.

For miles around, the caves echoed to goblin cheers and the roars of cave beasts.

As Skarsnik took his new name, all over Karak Eight Peaks skaven died. Goblins in skaven skins approached checkpoints, knifing surprised guards. New breeding chambers were doused in squig oil and set ablaze. Several towers collapsed simultaneously, more or less, as goblins pulled pit props from shafts undermining them. Everywhere, hordes of laughing goblins descended on the newly conquered skaven territories, hacking furred bodies to pieces in vicious tunnel fights. In every corner of the upper city, skaven were ambushed and destroyed.

Skarsnik’s genius had been to assault the skaven outposts together. The ratmen, he told me, are bold in numbers but on their own more cowardly than even a goblin. Isolated, unable to reinforce each other or bring their numbers to bear, the skaven panicked, and were cut down by the hundred.

This was the way of the city, it had been ever since the dwarfs were driven out hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Sometimes the goblins would hold more of the ruinous realm, sometimes the skaven. It essentially came to the same situation – the greenskins held the upper deeps, peaks and surface city, the skaven the lower levels. How much was a matter of degree, nothing more.

This situation, this perpetuation of the bloody status quo, as entertaining as it was, this was not of interest to Skarsnik.

Skarsnik intended to keep what he had won for good.

CHAPTER 21

IN A SMALL REVERSAL, IBRIT RETURNS

There was a clamour on the stairs and a shouting. Trumpets and drums sounded.

‘Ibrit’s coming back! Ibrit’s coming back!’ shouted Skarsnik’s top-stair sentry. His calls were silenced by a steel-clad fist.

Skarsnik and Duffskul were in the rooms near the prisoners, plotting to the accompaniment of tormented dwarf. They looked up from their new charts.

‘Here he comes,’ said Skarsnik.

‘Yep,’ said Duffskul. He cracked his knuckles, downed a pot of fungus ale, and put on his most crazed face.

‘Ibrit!’ shouted the guard at the door. ‘Urk!’ he said, as he was pushed over by a thick brown hand.

Ibrit Dungstrangler walked into the room. He was so big he had to bow his head to get through the entryway. When Skarsnik had been a runt, Ibrit had seemed to be a giant. Skarsnik was many times the size he had been then, and still Ibrit seemed huge.

The chief of the Crooked Moons stood at the top of the stairs, huge brown hands smeared with fresh dung hooked into the top of his belt. His robes were stained thereabouts with the filth he so loved to squash in his fists.

‘What is this,’ he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘about some runt come back and taking an orcy name and going round beating up the ratties, eh? Eh? Anyone going to answer me, perhaps?’

‘Er,’ said Skarsnik. ‘That’s me, boss.’ He stooped a little, ears flattening a fraction in submission, but not too much. He was a powerful boss in his right.

Perhaps here is a suitable moment to indulge in a brief discussion of Skarsnik’s new name. Goblins may take many names over the course of their lives. Many of them are bestowed upon them by their fellows; the greenskins are hatched from the earth, if they are to be believed, and possess no mothers or fathers to name them. The vast majority of these names are insulting – dung spittle, scumbloid sniffer, dead muncher, weak enemy, dead runt, stupid runt, thick runt – or any other concept that might humiliate and degrade the receiver (‘runt’ being a firm favourite). Once a goblin has garnered a measure of respect from their friends, he might choose his own name, and these will be of less offensive nature. A canny goblin will choose a name that makes him appear neither too weak – for to do so may mark him out as a potential meal, or too powerful – for that might make him a threat. To take a name such as Skarsnik… among our green friends, Skarsnik is a great name, a warlord’s name, its meaning akin to ‘tough cutter’ or ‘hard stabber’ in Reikspiel. An ambitious orc might take such a name as a challenge. He would be expected, and would expect, to fight to keep both it and his life.

For a goblin to take a name like that, a powerful name, an orcish name; well, no matter that he might have had it bestowed by his fellows, a name like that is a provocation to all other greenskins who hear it. The orcs of Black Crag certainly took it to be so, and so did Ibrit Dungstrangler, then chief of the Crooked Moons.

‘Go on then,’ said Ibrit. He walked into the room, filling it as full as one of Skarsnik’s trolls would.

‘Well, er, boss, y’see, I thought I’d get rid of the ratboys, take our lands back, leave the way open for you, so to speak.’

‘You certainly did that.’ Ibrit looked around the room and sniffed. ‘Bit pokey this place. Howsabout I make you top bigboss of the tribe? You can have the places you kicked the ratties out of, see if you can keep hold of them for me, all right?’

Skarsnik wrung his hands together and bobbed a servile bow. ‘Oooh, yes, boss, thank you, boss.’

Ibrit took another look around. He gave Gobbla, asleep in the corner, a long, hard stare. ‘Right then. You see you don’t get smart, all right? And we’ll get along famously.’ He spat on the floor. ‘Best be sharp. I’ve heard word of stunties around again, creeping about, nicking stuff they’ve got no rights to be having. I’ll be needing your boys I reckon, keep ’em out. This ain’t their place no more, but if they need a good smacking to remember that, then I’m only too happy to do it.’

‘Ooh, stunties, I hates stunties I do!’ gibbered Duffskul, a long rope of drool escaping from his lips.

‘Shut up, you. Everyone hates stunties. You’re crawling. What’s that?’ said Ibrit, pointing a dung-scented finger at Skarsnik’s charts.

‘Maps, boss.’

Ibrit shook his head and tutted, as if Skarsnik had suggested he would go into battle with a candied mushroom stalk rather than a sword. He drew in closer. The stench of dung was overpowering. ‘Not gobliny, not gobliny at all. Maps! Thinks he’s a stunty.’ The big goblin grinned, a nasty, humourless smirk full of sharp teeth and rancid holes where sharp teeth should have been. ‘That name too, that’s not a gobliny name. You go round with a name like that, a gobbo’s gonna think you think you’re an orc or something, that you got ideas above your station.’ Ibrit poked Skarsnik in the chest with his stinking forefinger to punctuate each word. ‘Have you got ideas above your station, “Skarsnik”?’

Duffskul’s mask of lunacy dropped a moment, revealing the true face of lunacy underneath. His real madness was a different madness, sharper and harder edged than the pantomime he gave the chief. Dangerous. Ibrit took an involuntary half-step back, ears twitching in his hood.

‘Mork gave him that name,’ said Duffskul.

The chief drew himself back up to his full height. ‘That’s as may be, shaman, but he’s going to have to watch it. Or I might think he’s got his eyes on me best boss hat. Have you, Skarsnik?’

‘What?’ said Skarsnik, all innocence.

‘You know, got your eyes on me best boss hat?’

‘Oh that, oh no,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Not at all.’

‘Good. Good.’ Ibrit cast one final look around and then left.

Outside the door, Ibrit said to his skargobbo boss. ‘He’s gotta go.’

Inside, Skarsnik said to Duffskul, ‘He’s gotta go.’

‘Oh yus,’ said Duffskul. Two kinds of crazy flitted across his face. Skarsnik gave up trying to decide which was real and which an act.

The following weeks and months were tense. Ibrit and Skarsnik constantly watched one another. Skarsnik, patient as a snake, did nothing. Ibrit acted. Traps were uncovered, assassins eaten by Gobbla, who by now had proven his worth as a bodyguard time and again. The two goblins maintained an air of civility appropriate to goblins, which is to say hardly civil at all. This is the way of the goblins. An orc might have demanded a fight, Skarsnik said to me, but goblins will dance around one another, looking for the most propitious moment for a good back-stabbing. Praises will be sung, vassals pledged, gifts given. Never mind that the praise song will have a set of less flattering alternative lyrics, or that the vassals come with back-stabbing daggers, or that gifts are dangerously faulty or outright poisonous. Let me warn you now, gentlemen, if a goblin is ever overly polite to you, which is to say at all, beware, for he is plotting your downfall as surely as the moons rise in the sky.

And then the dwarfs came back to reclaim their ancestral lands, and Skarsnik finally made his move on Chief Ibrit.

Skarsnik watched in disbelief as Ibrit had his goblins charge headlong into the line of dwarfs. The fanatics they’d sent in had done some damage, but not much. Three of them had collided with each other on the walls of the roadway, and two more picked off by gunfire. Two had got through, but Skarsnik had been amazed to see half the stunties the great balls had flattened pick themselves up off the floor and get back into line. The dwarfs were the most heavily armoured things he’d ever seen, and were holding the narrowest part of the cavern. It was the only way into the citadel’s underground portion, the dwarfs having blown, blocked or collapsed all the other entrances after they retook it.

‘What would you do, boss?’ asked Duffskul.

‘Well, I wouldn’t do that,’ said Skarsnik. Gobbla grumbled at his side. Behind him, the Backstairs Boys fidgeted, itching to get at their hated enemy. ‘I could go in the side, take them out, or try to creep up over that rock there and get them from behind. But that idiot Ibrit’s keeping me out of the fight, isn’t he? I bet you he’ll wait until Gruskin’s lot are all dead, then he’ll have me go for the front. It’s zogging stupid, I tells you.’

‘You’ve too much glory, boss,’ said Duffskul. ‘That’s part of it. He won’t listen to your good sense. You get too many victories under your belt and he’ll be dead for sure. You’re like a great big ball of dung, and he’s a little scumbloid, oh yus.’

‘Er, yeah, right. He’s an idiot,’ said Skarsnik. Ibrit had already tried to get Skarsnik killed off by throwing him hard at the front of the dwarfs in early skirmishes, but he had become such a fearsome fighter, and Gobbla was so dangerous, that he had won pretty much every encounter anyway. All except those he did not think he could win, at which points he had become mysteriously unavailable. ‘We’ll never get those stunties out of that castle this way! They’re not gonna come out where we can fight them nice and unfairly are they? I mean, they’ve already kicked Kruggs and the lads out of topside town. What is that zogger thinking? He should never have sent Bograt off back to Rotgut. Doesn’t he see he’s not going to get any favours off the orcs for that?’

‘Ibrit’s losing support from the clans, boss,’ said Duffskul. ‘Ever since he marched back in and took over. Yours is the name they whisper in awe, Ibrit they curse and spit. They blame him for letting the stunties back in.’

‘Yeah, well, if I’d still have been in charge, then that would not have happened, not ever. Nope.’

The old shaman sucked on his pipe. ‘I reckon it might be time, don’t you?’

‘He still thinks you’re on his side?’

Duffskul let out a long, squeaking fart. His eyes crossed. ‘Oh yus. I think. More or less.’

The last of the goblins ran away from the line of dwarfs. One of Ibrit’s bosses was waving a flag at Skarsnik, signalling that the Backstairs Boys should go in. Skarsnik did not fancy his chances there much and pretended not to notice. He kept his eyes locked on the dwarf regiments holding the tunnel. The old white beard, the one who had blasted his way into the Backstairs – Skarsnik was sure of it – stood at their centre, staff glowing.

‘I want that stick, Duffskul, I want it bad.’

‘Oh, a fine stick,’ said Duffskul. ‘I could do things with a stick like that, right proper and orcify it.’ He hawked up some phlegm and spat it onto the stone wall. He peered at it glistening there, as if it could tell him something. ‘But what about Ibrit?’

Skarsnik snarled. ‘Him first then, then get me that stick. Here’s what we’re going to do,’ said Skarsnik, and outlined his improbable plan.

‘Come quick, boss! Come quick!’ Duffskul capered and gurned, turning wheels that sent his hood flapping as he came into Ibrit’s throne room. Some of it was an act, but in truth a large part of it was not, for Duffskul was that day incredibly drunk.

‘Duffskul? Duffskul, ain’t it?’ Ibrit sat upon his throne of skaven skulls – skaven that Skarsnik had killed. He had moved his lair into the city, out of the mountain passages where the bulk of the Crooked Moons habitually dwelled. The city was full of goblins. He did not make his headquarters in the throne room, as Skarsnik would later, but in an out of the way hall. Grand in its way, but not the statement of power and bravado that sitting in the vulnerable throne room would be for the future king.

Ibrit’s cronies were everywhere, drinking and arguing as is the way of goblin chiefs. They looked up at the shaman’s noise, and went back to their own business. Duffskul was not worth their attention.

‘Yes, oh great chief! It is I, Duffskul! I have great news for you, and tidings, yeah, them too, oh yus!’

Ibrit sat back on his throne. He looked annoyed, as he always looked annoyed. It was hard to say whether Duffskul was responsible for his ill humour or not.

‘Spit it out then, or will a great load of mushrooms come out with your nonsense?’

Ibrit’s cronies laughed weakly. Their king was known for his bad jokes, and for his belief that he was the funniest goblin in the Worlds Edge Mountains. And, as he was prone to caving in the heads of those who disagreed with a squig pacifier, who would argue?

Duffskul looked around himself, eyes spinning. He beckoned to the king, and then drew closer himself. ‘A way, my lord, a way!’

‘A way for what, magic boy?’ Ibrit was bored, that much was clear. He kicked a snotling away from his throne with an iron-shod foot.

‘A way,’ Duffskul lowered his voice. ‘For you to be rid of Skarsnik.’

Ibrit sat upright, suddenly interested. ‘Oh yeah? Do tell.’

Ibrit and five of his hardest skargobboes followed Duffskul down a narrow stairway.

‘In there!’ hissed Duffskul from behind his hand. He was enjoying himself immensely.

‘What, in that storeroom?’ said Ibrit. His skargobboes scowled.

Through a square, unadorned archway came the sound of crashes and snuffling and shattered objects. The smell of pickled mushrooms and spilled beer wafted through the door. They were the sounds and smells of something large and hungry rootling without regard for the things it rootles through.

‘Yes!’ said Duffskul. ‘It’s Gobbla! He’s all alone, and he’s hungry. Skarsnik’s been too scared since you came back, see? He’s not been getting any ratses or stunties to gobble. Foolish Skarsnik! Oh!’ He held his hands to the air, beseeching the gods. ‘Now he has no protection!’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Or he won’t soon, will he, boss?’

‘So, what you’re saying is we go in there, and nobble Gobbla, and then we can get Skarsnik?’ said Ibrit. ‘Why don’t we just go and get Skarsnik now?’

‘Do you know where he is? Because I don’t, always up to something that one.’ Duffskul hiccupped and belched. Ibrit reeled from the shaman’s gases. ‘But he’s got to come back sometime, ain’t he? And when he does…’ Duffskul drew his finger across his throat. ‘Leastaways, if there’s no Gobbla, eh?’

Ibrit held a finger under his nose and inhaled deeply of its dungy smell. He nodded slowly. ‘You got a point there, magic boy, you certainly do.’

The skargobboes had ceased to leer and look mean and now looked decidedly worried instead. ‘I dunno, boss, that Gobbla’s a bit mean,’ said one of them.

‘Nah! He’s hopeless without Skarsnik to direct him, don’t you worry boys,’ said Duffskul.

Ibrit punched the skargobbo. ‘Shut it you, it’s just a squig! A stupid little squig! You’re skargobboes, ain’t ya?’

They nodded warily.

‘Good! I thought you was a bunch of snotlings, the way youse all shuffling about and looking at your feet. Get in there! Kill it dead! Go on!’ Ibrit cajoled.

Another goblin warboss might well have sent in his lackeys and claimed the credit for the deed, but that was not Ibrit’s way. He was brave, for a goblin, and liked to do his own dirty work, a sentiment that extended beyond squashing excrement for amusement. He was keen on stabbing foes.

The chief of the Crooked Moons rotated his shoulders, took his great axe from his back and went into the storeroom.

Duffskul peered in through the door. The snuffling stopped.

‘Er, boss, what’s that buzzing noise?’ said one of Ibrit’s bodyguards.

‘Sounds like… cave hornets?’ said another.

There was the sound of a large pot breaking. That would have been the pot with the cave hornet nest in it that Skarsnik had put there earlier. Screams followed.

There was a short war cry that ended with a squeal, and many more crashes. A fair amount of oaths were uttered. A skargobbo tried to flee the door, but something grabbed at his feet, flipping him onto his stomach, and dragged him into the store. His nails broke on the flagstones as he went. His eyes locked with Duffskul’s pleadingly.

A scream. The loud noise of gobbling. Another loud bang. A ball of flame bellied from the doorway. Squig oil, placed there, again earlier, by Skarsnik.

Gobbla skipped out from the store. A brawny arm hung from his mouth, its hand stained brown with drops-mess. Gobbla sucked up the arm, sniffed at the hand, made a noise of disgust and bit hard through the wrist.

Ibrit Dungstrangler’s hand dropped to the floor.

‘The chief of the Crooked Moon is no more!’ said Duffskul with great gravity. He tittered and burped and scratched Gobbla’s forehead.

‘I guess,’ said a voice in the shadows, ‘that means there’s a vacancy.’

Skarsnik stepped into the open from the storeroom opposite.

‘Oh yus, boss,’ said Duffskul. ‘That it does. That it does.’

When Skarsnik brought this up to the other chiefs and petty goblin princes of the city, not one of them had any objection to his taking Ibrit’s place. And nor did they complain when he insisted that they call him king. They were stupid compared to Skarsnik, but none of them were that stupid.

‘Right then,’ said the new king of Karak Eight Peaks. ‘Let’s sort those stunties out.’

CHAPTER 22

THE WOES OF THE MOUNTAIN FOLK

Skarsnik grew tired after relating this part of his tale to me, and I grow weary in my turn. And yet I will tell you another story before we finish for the day, the story of the mountain folk, and their return to the halls of their ancestors.

Skarsnik dismissed me curtly that evening. He seemed preoccupied with something and had been prone to bouts of irritability all day. It may seem odd, but I did not feel in any real danger. The source of his annoyance lay elsewhere.

I was taken once more to the dungeons beneath the great throne hall. I was by now certain that these had been kitchens, large enough to prepare a feast for an entire throng of dwarfs. What devilishly schemed tortures were cooked up there I would rather not bring to mind, even though I am forced to by the caprice of memory, and therefore do so constantly.

I was seized by the most violent of stomach cramps upon my entry to my cells, and was forced to void my bowels in a corner of the room. My waste was a spray of liquid warmth. As I squatted, wretched, cold and stinking, I knew that I would not survive many more nights under the mountain. I lay down as far away as I could from my own excrement, and slept awhile.

Braknar, son of Brangar, was of a more talkative mind my second night in the dungeon, although his mood had taken a turn for the blacker. After some hours, I was awoken by his rough voice from across the way that separated our cells. There was no preamble to what he said. He merely began. Sat there, a boulder in the dark, only his words let me know that he was alive at all. He huddled over the other dwarf, another dark and massy shape, whom I took to be asleep.

He spoke in an odd manner, halfway between song and speech. I was too weak to move. I lay there helpless and listened to his dirge. As I fell under his singsong recount, his voice soon became all the world to me. In the dark, down there, one can so easily lose oneself, you see. I clung to that dwarf song, that hummed history, as a drowning man cleaves hard to a plank of wood, and gradually the clenching pains of my stomach receded.

This is what he sang.

‘Lord Belegar Ironhammer, son of Karegear, son of Molden-krag, of the line of Lunn, rightful king of Vala-Azrilungol, below and above, and all the lands for many leagues abouts, decreed seven years ago that he and his clan would leave his exile in Everpeak, the realm of the High King, and take back what was once his.

‘Many times have the dwarfs attempted to retake the city of the Eight Peaks. Every attempt has been a failure, every lord who set out upon the task slain or driven home in disgrace. My lord Belegar was not to be dissuaded. A dwarf’s mind, once set, is carved in stone.

‘In true words I say how it came to happen.

‘At the beginning, Belegar resolved to come here and take the treasures of his ancestors, and he would return home in triumph, and that would be that.

‘Long was the period of planning for that first expedition. Finances were raised and bargains struck between the hosts of the dwarf lords. Clans provided surety and arms. The kin of many a prince trod the Ungdrin in Belegar’s train, for the treasures of Vala-Azrilungol were beyond compare, and success was assured. Of this, Belegar gave many guarantees.

‘Belegar is a wise king. For many months before he set out, he employed the services of doughty rangers from all over the everlasting realm. Few are those brave enough to venture within the city of the Eight Peaks. Grunfin Goldfinder here was one.’

Braknar stopped a moment, and looked to his unmoving companion.

‘Grunfin was a son of Karak Norn. Drawn to the great lost holds as a beardling youth, there was little that Grunfin feared. Of all the songs that called to his heart, none sounded louder nor sweeter than that sung by the city of the Eight Peaks. He and his cousins drew ancestry from this place, and they could not resist its call, as I could not, as Lord Belegar could not. But Grunfin was braver than both I or my lord, a bold, courageous dwarf, a hero of our kind. Long before Belegar’s invitation, he had travelled the hallways of Vala-Azrilungol, above and below. From the peak of the citadel at the heart of the city, to the seventh deep, he charted the changes wrought upon our home by its vile occupiers. Every rockfall, every disrupted pathway, every foul skaven burrow or goblin lair he duly noted. He bore this information back time and again, slipping in and out of the hold like the very ghost of his ancestors.

‘Were it not for Grunfin, Belegar would never have dared to set his mind to the first expedition, and had he not, there would never have been the second expedition, and had there been no second expedition, Belegar would not now sit in the citadel as rightful king. It is to Grunfin we should offer our thanks. Without him, Vala-Azrilungol would remain in the hands of our enemies.

‘Grunfin entered the sole employ of Belegar. The oath was long and rightfully complicated, and sealed by consumption of the finest ales in the Everpeak. By dint of his courage and his skill, Grunfin marked many treasure chambers upon the ancient maps of Clan Lunn. The last we saw of him was in the fourteenth deep of Karaz-a-Karak, where he intimated to me and my lord that he had found the base of the stair that led from the Ungdrin to the lower part of the fifth deep of Vala-Azrilungol. Upon this thoroughfare, hidden in plain sight, was said to be a great store of weapons and crafts the like of which are rarely seen in these terrible times. He provided us a map, and left, his head held high, to mark more of the treasure houses of yore upon his charts for my lord’s useful strategies.’

In the dark, I discerned a heavy dwarf hand stroke the hair of the prone ranger.

‘Grunfin was not seen again, and we presumed him dead. We hoped it so, for the fates of dwarfs taken alive by the grobi are too terrible to contemplate. How were we to know that as we followed his map up from the Ungdrin, and blasted our way into the Stair of Undying Fire, that he had languished but yards from our treasure house? This I have learned from his ravings, that he was held for nigh upon a year by the greenskins in a chamber twenty pick-swings from the hidden arts of his ancestors. The torments inflicted upon him by the grobi were grave indeed, yet he never told them of the store. Perhaps it was the proximity of so much treasure that he could not hold that finally broke his mind, and not the torment. That would be more fitting, and I believe it so.

‘After we had breached the stair, with Grunfin’s maps we swept through the hold, often unseen, using ways hidden to the grobi and ratmen who squat within our home. Many treasures were ours again. Lord Belegar was pleased with our progress. The first and second deeps seemed barely infested by the spawn of Chaos or by orckind, the city above near-empty. Cradling the heirlooms of King Lunn in his arms, Belegar swore there and then that he would return, and in force. After three thousand years, he said, the time to come home had arrived.

‘In Everpeak a host assembled, three hundred dwarfs and more, glittering in war harness and bearing the finest weapons our craft can provide. No treasure hunting quest now, we set out to further the prime efforts of our kind: to take back what is ours and rebuild the glories of the everlasting realm. I and my clansmen, exiles of Vala-Azrilungol ourselves, stood amongst their number. I had ascended the Stair of Undying Fire in that first return, and now a flame that would not be quenched burned within me, a fire to return again, this time to retake our land. Oh! What I witnessed in the caverns of our city hardened my heart. Not even the pleadings of all my ancestors could have prevented my second journey, not if Grimnir himself had shown me my end in this dungeon would I have hesitated. If it is my fate to die here in furtherance of my lord’s goals, if it is my fate to dishonour myself and my clan so that dwarfs will one day drink in these halls again, so be it.

‘Before the throne of the High King, Lord Belegar knelt. High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer took the tome of kinship from his whitebeards, and reading the pages aloud himself described the long ancestry of our lord. He declared Belegar a master of his own hold, the rightful heir to Karak Eight Peaks, king of Vala-Azrilungol. Lord Belegar knelt, King Belegar stood. The throngs of Everpeak cheered, and the mountains shook to our songs.

‘From Everpeak we marched to reclaim our home, our hearts light and our faces grim; we would pay in dwarfen blood to reclaim our lands, and we would pay the price in full. Orcs and other beasts stood in our way as we travelled the Ungdrin and surface roads, but we were gladdened to see everywhere the activities of our kind, and not merely our ancestors, for of late we reclaim ever more. Roads that were impassable a generation ago are safe, and everywhere is the sign of our turning fortunes. Here, in Vala-Azrilungol, we felt assured it would be the same. Now is the time of the dwarfs come again!’

For a moment his fervour of the prior night returned, but it passed fleet, and his voice dropped again.

‘Our scouts met us on the way, and informed us that the grobi and the skaven had fought a great conflict, and that the skaven had been driven away. All the better, said our lord, to face but one enemy and not two. This was an omen, he said, the hands of the ancestors aided us. We left the Ungdrin for the last time. The tunnel we had hacked through the rock to the base of the stair for our first adventure was too small for our number. Overland we came instead, determined to install ourselves in the citadel, whose mass sits above the earth. A fortress it had been in the golden years, and it would become a redoubt from which to stage our reconquest.

‘We arrived in the high passes by night. We camped upon the slopes of Karag Rhyn, where a secret way snakes over the redstone cliffs. We were undetected. How our spirits rose as we saw the sunrise, its rays hitting the eight sacred peaks of Vala-Azrilungol one after the other: Karag Nar, the sunrise mountain; Karag Zilfin, the windswept mountain; Karag Yar, the sunset mountain; Karag Mhonar, the shadow mountain; Karagril, which men call Silverhorn; Karag Lhune, the crescent mountain; Karag Rhyn, the redstone mountain upon which we camped; and finally, and most beautiful of all, Kvinn Wyr, the white lady, whose snowy peak flushed with the light of the rising sun is as beautiful as the first bloom of love upon the face of the fairest of dwarf maidens.

‘We waited for the full light of day before we descended into the valley, for the greenskins are creatures of the dark. With the sun high overhead, the air crisp and clear as only true mountain air can be, we made our way down the hillside, and into the surface city of Vala-Azrilungol.

‘We were dismayed to see the great walls across the passes broken, the sacred gateways leading to each mountain gaping wide. Our anger at this desecration lent strength to our arms. When we came upon the grobi in the city, we fell upon them like a thunderbolt, smashing them asunder. Their wolf bandits and war chariots were little use in the rubble of our glorious yesterdays, and we drove them back into the slighted building they use as their lair.

‘Marching shield-to-shield, we made the main gate of the citadel. While our warriors kept the greenskins at a distance, our engineers destroyed the gates with blackpowder, although it caused them great anguish to damage the work of our revered ancestors.

‘Orcs made their home there. They waited for us at the citadel’s inner gate like cowards as their comrades died under our axes. A wall of flesh and wood, they were, their shields locked. They have learned their lessons in pain from us well. Together, the shield walls pressed, orc sinews straining against the stolid might of our Ironbreakers. The orcs were confident and did not expect their rear to be vulnerable.

‘Our scouts came from below, through a secret door never uncovered by the greenskins. Runes glowed and stone creaked open. Forty brave dwarfs came through, silent as snowfall as they formed a firing line. Crossbow bolts brought righteous death to the interlopers. They unstrapped their axes and, wielding them in both hands, charged hard into the unprotected backs of the orcs. They felled them as surely as trees are felled. Flesh is no match for steel. The orcs were cut down to the last.

‘Fifteen of ours were dead, a score wounded. It was my great honour to invoke the mercy of Valaya and heal their hurts where I could, although it gave me great regret that some were beyond the goddess’s help to make whole, and were crippled for their bravery.’

He looked at his empty fist, and clenched it.

‘We secured the citadel. Our rangers had marked out the paths into the fortification. Clansmen hunted the remaining greenskins down as our engineers, smiths and rune masters set to work. Old gates were reinstated, runes refreshed. Where we could not hold a way, we blocked. We went into the first deep, the cellars and bastions of the citadel. This we took swiftly. The greenskins appeared leaderless and in disarray. Soon we were patrolling as far as the Hall of a Thousand Pillars in the second deep unopposed. We worked tirelessly, and our citadel was made a fortress once more. Word was taken back to Karaz-a-Karak, and other exiled families flocked to our banner.

‘I will not say we became complacent, human, for a dwarf is not capable of such foolishness. But we did underestimate our foe. Pride, that is our weakness. At first, things went easy. The greenskins would attack us piecemeal, always head on, on the surface and underground. They charged us heedlessly, their inferior weapons breaking upon our armour. We cut them down by the hundred. Their cave beasts came at us. They died. Their fanatics were useless in the tunnels we held, their magic sputtered as our runes shone.

‘And then things changed. The first deep became quiet. We saw no greenskins for many days.

‘When the attacks recommenced, they had changed. In ones or twos we would be taken, sometimes from near the citadel itself. We mourned those gone as if dead, and sealed ourselves in the tighter. King Belegar ordered the patrols to be doubled in size. In the first deep, beyond the citadel’s bastions, we became aware of being watched. Grobi sign became more evident. We dug in further and halted our forays into the lower deeps.

‘And then the usurper struck. Goblins formed up in front of a patrol in the Hall of Bookkeeping. I was there. Glad to see the hated foe face to face at last, our warriors set themselves for battle in unbreakable lines of steel and gromril.’

He stopped for a moment; this part was difficult for him, the account of his own dishonour. ‘They brought out the captives. The first that died was Arntholf Vargson. The grobi had him bound, and shaved. He had been taken from a camp a week earlier, and he had been cruelly treated since. He was scarcely alive, and yet still their torturers managed to rouse screams from his ruined mouth.

‘At first, our warriors held firm. The ways of grobi are evil ways, we are taught that from birth. Their hatred for us is only bettered by our hatred for them, such are the insults they have given us. Of all creatures, the black deeds of the night goblins occupy the greater part of our grudge keepers’ time. We older dwarfs, sorely provoked, nevertheless knew the trap for what it was. But there were many young beards among us, not long since beardlings. Their energy was an asset to our venture, but their inexperience proved their undoing, their rage unblunted by wisdom. When the grobi used Arntholf’s own axe to cut his feet from his legs, three cruel, clumsy blows for each, and they lifted their robes and soiled him as he lay dying…’

The runepriest choked; his voice grew thick.

‘The young broke their line, they ran at them, and I could not restrain myself. Enraged beyond tolerance, I sprang forward with the warriors, sure in my abilities that if I were but to reach Arntholf, his life could be saved. If I had but held myself for a moment, if I had but thought, I could have called most of them back. I should have called them back. The axe of Grungni’s judgement hangs heavily over me, and it sways when I think this, oh how it sways. It was my fault for not holding them back…’ He shook his head, and his voice betrayed tears. ‘Cooler heads than mine could do naught but follow, or lose more dwarf lives. My people ran into the grobi. Those caught upon the edge of our fury died far better than Arntholf had.

‘As I knew in the deeps of my own heart, it was a trap. By the time I reached him, Arntholf was dead. Arrows came at us from everywhere. From the darkness, either side the goblins charged. Our warriors were overwhelmed and brought low. So many young warriors lost. I was singled out. Their net casters attempted to bring me down. I was set upon from all sides. I was forced to abandon my duties as a healer and concentrate on my own survival. My runestaff burned with the goddess’s anger as I smote them left and then right. Their nets parted into nothing when they touched the staff. For a moment, it looked as if we would prevail. The remainder of my brothers formed around me. Until there came a terrible bellow, and Skarsnik unleashed his trolls upon us.

‘There were but two, but one troll is a foe worthy of a lord, and we were all in disarray. They plucked warriors from the ground in their black claws, desperate axe blows were turned aside by their stony hides. Dwarfs were crushed and gouged, sent hurrying to the eternal holds of the ancestors.

‘I was dragged back from their onslaught as the staff was wrested from my grasp. That day, I saw him for the first time, as he stood upon a rock: Skarsnik, watching all, that great monster cave beast beside him. He directed his troops in a way I have never witnessed in a goblin, sure and certain. I saw him rub his hands and laugh as the staff was brought to him.

‘As the door to the armoured redoubt at the base of the first deep slammed shut behind me, I understood – the trap had been set for me. Skarsnik had coveted my staff, he had planned to take it, and taken it he had. The shame I felt at not anticipating his avarice and the trap that sprang from it burns me still, hot as dragon flame. Arrogance and pride. A dwarf is proud, and rightly so, but we must be wary that it blinds us not, and blinded I was, to my unending shame.

‘It was but the start of our troubles. Those making their way through the mountains to join us were ambushed and killed, or dragged away. At night, the first deep and surface rang with the screams of dwarfs tortured to death, the air was thick with the smell of roasting flesh as they were baked alive in their armour. Outside, poles were set up within sight of our walls out of rifle range. Every day, goblins would hang fresh beard scalps from them to mock us. Any attempt to take down these affronts would be met with overwhelming force, and the following day, more bloodied beards would hang alongside those we had sought to remove.’

His singsong recitation faltered, his anger and sorrow overcoming him, his words now a near babble of disbelief and anger. ‘This foe… He is not like any grobi we have encountered. He understands... he is like no other… Skarsnik.’ He spat the name. ‘We learned his name, carved as it was in crude runes upon the back of Gundar Thronkisson. He was but a beardling, proud to accompany his father. Sixty years old, no more, taken in a raid in the third deep, blinded, no hands, no feet, no tongue, no beard: unable to craft, or sing, or fight. Left as he was like that, he would have been better dead, and Skarsnik knew it. He sent envoys offering us safe passage out of the city. All lies; those that took him at his word were killed and their screams added to the night’s dread chorus. He wrote to us in our own secret language! How can this be? And then, my staff… you recall the great trident?’

I swear to you now that the atmosphere in that prison grew thicker, the dark darker, the awful place made worse by the dwarf priest’s shame. I murmured that I did recall Skarsnik’s weapon, that I had seen it glinting green and deadly behind the goblin king that very day.

‘It has the look of magic to it,’ I ventured.

The dwarf nodded, his heavy head a dark shape in the cellar. ‘Dwarf magic, bound to metal by rune and craft, so!’ He slapped the back of his hand into his palm. ‘My staff. His trident. Once it was a mighty talisman of Valaya. With it, I could salve the hurts of the wounded and bring peace to the dying, or ruin to our enemies. He had his cursed spell-flingers,’ he coughed a word in the angular speech of the dwarfs. ‘They remade it, an insult to my people and our ancestor-gods. They besmirched it with their foul smithcraft and unclean magic, making it what you saw.’ He turned towards me, his one eye glaring, sparks of fury glinting in its depths. ‘Its loss ate at me. Night after night, I listened to the screams, tormented, unable to rest. In the end, I had no choice. I resolved to take it back, I could not tolerate such an insult to my honour! My clansmen came with me. King Belegar said we should reconsider, and that he could not order us to ignore our duty, but that we should wait for vengeance. We were not for the waiting. Our rangers had sight of the staff, and we had little time to waste.

‘Our axes were sharp, our resolve the sharper. In through our stolen halls we came, through the Abyss of Iron’s Dream, hewing and cutting and slaying the grobi by the score as we walked the stairs that lead down its side. On a platform jutting out into the abyss, a place where once priests performed their sacred rites, was the staff. It was in my sight, within my reach!’ He reached out through the grille as if he could see his staff before him. ‘The steps were brought down behind us, their cave beasts beset us on all sides. We killed and killed, but were tangled by their nets and brought down and into dishonour. Fourteen of us were taken, only I now remain. In front of my very eyes, they remade it. They chained me to the wall and remade the pure instrument of Valaya’s mercy into something evil.’

Braknar hung his head, the stubble on his head glinting in the meagre torchlight. ‘So you see, manling, he is cunning. I fully own we were outwitted, by a grobi. Until today, I thought if I could keep Grunfin alive and bring him home, I could wipe away some of my dishonour. I prayed and prayed to Valaya, that she grant me the strength to bring Grunfin out alive and return him to his kin, but she has forsaken me, she will not listen, I…’ He sighed deeply, and his breath shuddered. ‘I think only the oath of the slayers can fully atone for my arrogance now. For you see, I was too proud. With the goddess behind me, with King Belegar my lord, I thought myself capable of anything, anything…’ His words trailed off into incoherent gasps. His shoulders shook, and he wept openly.

‘I trusted I would leave this place, and I think now that is an unlikely prospect.’ He hung his huge head. What had come to pass, what had happened in the space of a day that could have changed his tone so?

‘Go, human man, go back to your people,’ he said. ‘If you can find it in your heart, seek out my kind, those that dwell among men. Speak with the sons of Grungni and Grimnir, and tell them this, so that they might bear the news to our kin in the halls of the Everpeak.

‘Tell them Braknar, son of Brangar, and the one they call Grunfin Goldfinder, are dead. He already, I soon so to be. With his death goes my chance at atonement.’

He arranged the hands of the dead Grunfin so they crossed upon his breast and retreated to the back of the cell. I heard no more from him. I can only pray that he languishes in that terrible place no more.

I drifted back to sleep. Later, I was shaken awake. Skarsnik’s skargobboes dragged me from that place for the final time. As we passed Braknar’s cell, the light of the goblins’ torches lit up his broad back. I spoke his name, once, twice, then the gaolers clubbed me hard on the leg, causing me to stumble. Braknar did not look at me.

My face was brought close to Grunfin’s. I tried my hardest not to look at him, but my eyes would not obey me.

When my gaze fell upon Grunfin, his injuries fully illuminated by the goblins’ lights, and I saw what had been done to him, I knew my fate was sealed.

CHAPTER 23

A SECOND NIGHT AT THE ASYLUM

Heinz, little Heinz, why had his mother insisted that he come too? He had never liked his cousin. The boy’s mother was a burden, his father was dead, and Heinz was sickly beyond all belief. The boy was plagued with the hot sweats. He missed more lessons that he attended, and was praised mightily when he spent a month out of his sick bed. Kaspar resented the attention Heinz got. He tried hard to be good towards him, to pray to Shallya to make him well, to Sigmar to make himself appreciate the boy better, but too often, Kaspar’s patience turned to irritation, his games to bullying, and his prayers to darker avenues, where Kaspar would ask fervently for Heinz to go away.

Young Kaspar liked to travel by carriage. He liked the lullaby a carriage sang, the wood and leather’s gentle groan, the clop of horses’ hooves. Heinz had stopped crying at going away from his mother at last, and the summer evening was a delicious tonic of light and insect buzz, warm and golden and glorious. The grass was brilliant green, the forest trees majestic.

In the rocking bower of the carriage Kaspar dreamt he was at home, and younger. His mother held him close and sang a song – she had kept him close as a babe in arms, the wet nurse barely employed. Suspended in that lucid place between sleep and wakefulness, he felt warm and loved.

A loud knock on the wood, the thocking of a rock thrown against a barrel, interrupted the song. He awoke in confusion. He opened his eyes, unscrewing them slowly against the bright evening. He was hot and confused.

A few inches from his face, something stuck out of the wood that had not been there before.

It took him a moment to recognise the sharp, barbed object for an arrowhead. He reached his hand for it.

‘No!’ Their tutor, Magister Almeric, grabbed his hand. ‘See the blackness upon the tip? Poison.’

Kaspar was about to speak, but his words never left his mouth.

‘Goblins!’ The shout of the coachman was wild and laced with panic. ‘Goblins!’

Soon little Heinz would have much to cry about.

Wollendorp sat bolt upright. He looked to the left and the right, a man fearing that he has been caught in an act of indiscretion. He sighed and ran a shaking hand over his face. These damn dreams, so vivid here in Werdentraum.

He settled back onto his pillow, his eyes wide. He doubted he would sleep now. He would be glad to leave the schloss. Very glad indeed.

Judging the hour to be late, but not so late he might rise, he shut his eyes.

An unearthly howl had them snap open again. Another followed, and another.

He pricked his ears and listened. There was a lull, and then all bedlam broke loose. The air filled with wails and screeches, moans and screams. He got up and padded to the window. By the glass, the commotion was louder. All the lunatics in the asylum were shouting, and no wonder. As he watched, the unhealthy, leering face of Morrslieb heaved itself into the sky, full and fat. Mannslieb was absent tonight. These were the worst of nights, those lit solely by the unholy green light of the Chaos moon, times when the many evils that beset this poor world walked abroad in force.

Wollendorp stood by the window, mouth open. In Morrslieb’s light, the gardens of Werdentraum became a sinister place of shadow. He could imagine them full of goblins. That shape, not a rosebush, but the pointed hat of a night goblin, that bush a green assassin, that sundial a shaman, skull in hand, that…

The door burst open, and so nearly did Wollendorp’s heart. He spun round, hand upon his chest, eyes starting out of his head in fright.

‘Meisen!’ he shouted, his voice a girlish scream. ‘Don’t you knock, man?’

‘Damn you!’ panted the captain. He leaned forward and planted his hands on his knees. ‘I did! There was no reply.’

Wollendorp mastered himself, and his voice. ‘I did not hear, the inmates…’

‘They are baying at Morrslieb like, well, lunatics.’ Meisen managed a smile.

‘Did you run here?’ Wollendorp said. His question carried traces of disbelief and distaste. A gentleman did not run.

Meisen nodded. ‘From the kitchen, to Bickenstadt’s room, from Bickenstadt’s room to here, and now we must hurry back. I was in the kitchen sharing a drink with Krest when the boy came down. Come, dress quickly. We do not have much time if you wish to finish your interview.’

The shadows in Bickenstadt’s cell were even more disturbing than those outside, flickering, capering things cast by the fire. There was no wind that night, and yet the fire danced madly. Bickenstadt was in his chair, again facing away from them, again as deeply lost in the shadows of his madness as of the cell. He was agitated, his head rolling from side to side.

Meisen hurried in first with Krest, Wollendorp panting behind. He had not had cause to run for a long time.

‘Herr Bickenstadt! The captain and I have brought the scholar, as you requested,’ said Krest.

‘Good, good!’ moaned the playwright. A strangled peal of maniacal laughter escaped him. ‘I feel the influence of Morrslieb tug at my mind as surely as the moons tug upon the tides. I think my time is short!’

‘It is always so,’ said Krest. ‘When he is slipping away into his fugue, this is how it happens.’

‘Is it the influence of the Chaos moon?’ asked Meisen. He was transfixed by Bickenstadt’s rocking silhouette.

‘I can hardly think it helps, Meisen!’ snapped Wollendorp. He set out his pens and his manuscript quickly, his hands trembling.

‘The doktor is correct, it is an influence,’ said Krest. ‘But that is all. He comes and goes into lucidity to the tick of his own clock. Now, herr doktor, captain, please, he is at the end of his purse of sanity. Do not push him hard. The sisters are not happy you are still interviewing him, but I took the liberty of mentioning Herr Doktor Wollendorp’s letter.’

Wollendorp gave a nod. ‘Fine, fine. We will be quick.’

‘I near the end of his tale!’ shouted Bickenstadt. Whether in response to the other men’s conversation or at the prodding of some dark imagining was impossible to say. ‘Nrggh! Quick, quick, he will have you hear it all!’

Wollendorp and Meisen sat. Wollendorp cursed as he knocked his inkpot awry in his hurry to be ready, spilling a small pool of it. Krest dutifully wiped it up. Unlike before, this time Krest stayed in the room.

‘He was in the temple of the dwarf goddess Valaya,’ began Bickenstadt, ‘when he received his trident...’

CHAPTER 24

OF DWARF MAGIC AND PRODDERS

Skarsnik stood upon the lip of the dwarfs’ platform temple, Gobbla beside him. Images of the goddess glared sternly at him from all around, dumpy and unforgiving. She did not look much, thought Skarsnik. He preferred Gork and Mork, not this ugly dwarf with no beard.

At his feet, the Abyss of Iron’s Dream plunged down. The iron faces of the dwarfs’ gods and heroes stared at him once more, only now, he was here as the place’s master, and not as a wayward runt. A further difference was the deep lake that filled the bottom third of the chasm. He leaned out over it, and spat. His gobbet of phlegm fell down for many seconds before it was swallowed by the water.

‘Going to have to do something about that, boss,’ said Duffskul. ‘The Shroom King’s shaman told me they’ve got water leaking into their new caves.’

‘Yeah. I know,’ said Skarsnik. ‘So what? Who cares if a bunch of runts gets their shoes wet?’

‘Just saying, boss.’

‘Yeah, well, it’ll be done soon enough. Kruggler’s got his runts working hard. Nearly time now. Your lot ready?’

Duffskul sniffed and looked behind him. Goblins were setting a forge upon the cracked altar stone of the goddess. Shamans worked around its edges, smearing their own magic symbols over the dwarf runes. There was a loud clatter as a smith dropped a pile of iron rods close to the altar, but otherwise the runts, smiths and shamans worked silently. Snotties, spawnlings and little ’uns puffed under buckets of coal and faggots of wood. Four big goblins strained as they carried an anvil and placed it on the altar. All did so with not the smallest squeak or oath. Any noise that was made earned a sharp stare from Duffskul, and they all feared him.

Duffskul plucked a pouch of smokeshroom from his belt, and tamped it into his pipe bowl. ‘Quiet aren’t they, boss?’

‘It’s this place,’ said Skarsnik. ‘It’s so big.’ He looked down on Duffskul. He was much bigger than the shaman. For some reason, that made him feel old.

‘Nah.’ Duffskul shook his head. ‘It’s this business, Skarsnik. This is serious.’ He placed his pipe in his mouth and sparked it up with a large match. It sputtered and burned crimson. ‘Tonight we’s gonna call up Gork and Mork. It’s all special this, it wouldn’t work for just anyone, and even though it’s you, boss, it mightn’t work. We got to be careful. Tonight we’s going to have the gods here, both of ’em.’ Duffskul made a strange sound in his throat. It might have been a laugh. His eyes spun around in his face, wheels of madness and magic. ‘You ready, boss?’

Skarsnik swallowed. He did not care to admit it, but he was scared. ‘Do we really need to have him hanging around?’ He pointed his chin at the dwarf whitebeard hanging from the wall.

Duffskul glanced at their unconscious captive. ‘Oh yus, boss, serious business, boss. All to do with hate and magic and power and showing those stunty bossgods that Gork and Mork are mightier than the lot of them. That’s why we need that too.’ He gestured with his pipe at the dwarf’s runestaff leaning against a statue. It shone with a cold inner light. Surrounded by the ruddy glow of torches and the forge fire, it looked out of place. ‘So much magic in that stick, boss, so much of it hammered in by them stunties, carved in with their little stick glyphs.’ He waggled his fingers and chuckled. ‘Our magic’s better, you’ll see. We’ll take it and remake it and make it strong! We’ll make it angry, and then it’ll be all yours to do some serious bashing with.’

Skarsnik touched his long tongue to his teeth one after the other. ‘What’ll it do?’ he asked.

‘Ooh, lots. You wait and see.’ Duffskul inspected his claws with a speculative look. ‘I’m doing this special like, for you, boss. No charge.’

‘If it works, Duffskul, and I’m pleased, you’ll get what’s coming to you.’

‘Oh, boss, it’ll work, and you’ll be pleased. You’ll see. Now, sit down, I got work to do.’

Skarsnik sat in a corner, out of the way. He watched the shamans and smiths go about their business. The smiths wore no robes, only trousers and thick dwarfskin gloves and aprons. A grindstone, braziers, quenching barrels, and a tool rack were set up. The fire was coaxed to a fierce heat. The head smithgoblin nodded. The shamans were all in their most magical finery; hats heavy with bones and trinkets, faces painted with esoteric designs. Their daubing of the altar stone done, they sat cross-legged as one, a ring of five of them, and began to chant. Their song was low and reverential, not the frenzied praises to Gork and Mork that Skarsnik usually associated with the shamans.

Duffskul waddled over, his hat and the bone through its point wobbling. He held out his hand. ‘Eat this,’ he said, and dropped a leathery piece of old mushroom into Skarsnik’s hand. ‘And drink this brew.’ He proffered a cup.

Skarsnik took both. He ate the mushroom. It was tough and hard. The drink was beer of a kind he had never tasted, so bitter it made him retch.

Duffskul grabbed Skarsnik’s face and held his mouth closed. ‘Keep it down!’ he growled. His face and voice were hard. His red eyes sparked with green flashes. ‘This is gods’ business, you got to do exactly what I say, boss or not.’

Skarsnik choked it down and nodded.

‘Good, good,’ said Duffskul with satisfaction. ‘Now, watch the show, boss, watch the show.’

The chanting became louder. The shamans swayed from side to side. A goblin took the runestaff in pincers from the wall. Duffskul made passes in the air and shouted something in a language Skarsnik did not know. The fire flared right up to the ceiling, lighting up a section of the abyss. Faces of orcs and goblins materialised in the fire, howling, and melted away. Five times Duffskul did this. When he finished, the fire died down. It burned green, hotter than ever.

The goblin smith with the pincers thrust the staff deep into the furnace. Metal glowed red, and runes glowed blue, in the magical fire. The chief smith muttered. The staff was drawn out and laid upon the anvil. He brought his hammer down to touch the staff, gauging his mark. Once, twice, thrice. Then he raised it high, and brought it down hard.

The metal rang loud. Sparks showered from it. A scream of dismay sounded from somewhere a long way away, then another close by. Skarsnik lifted his head – it felt heavy, like it was stuffed full of rocks. The longbearded dwarf was howling. He staggered to his feet, pulling his knife from his belt. The ground tilted under him. The faces of the goblins in the temple warped and twisted, becoming those of daemons who whispered awful things. The hammer came down in time with the chant. The ringing of it did not die, but stayed in his ears and grew and grew as more hammer notes laid over the top of those preceding them, drowning out all else. Skarsnik felt sick, he rubbed his hands on his robes. He was too hot, and the dwarf would not be quiet.

Sparks from the hammer turned into strange things and flew away. The rivulets of sweat running from the smiths’ naked backs became serpents that slithered across the ground. Skarsnik frowned and looked for Duffskul. The shaman had split in two. One of him wavered in the air, gesticulating and chanting; the other sat smoking his pipe on a barrel, that enigmatic, knowing look on his face.

The dwarf howled again as the hammer came down on his staff. Skarsnik snarled and turned on him.

‘Shut up, stunty! I’ve got a headache.’ With a swift, well-practiced movement, he slipped his knife edge under the dwarf’s skin and tore his beard scalp free. The dwarf bellowed in pain, his back arching. A fresh beard of blood appeared on his chin and chest. Skarsnik held the long white beard over his head and cackled. He turned to show Duffskul, but he tripped on something that hadn’t been there before. With horror, he saw the floor had gone. A deep green hole that went down forever was in its place. With a scream of terror, Skarsnik plunged headlong into it.

He fell for an age, down the hole, turning over and over, his head spinning with vertigo. The walls were of green light shot through with black. Hungry things looked through the green and tapped their claws against it.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he lay on the ground, although it was like no ground he had ever seen. A plain stretched away in all directions, all of it – rocks, ash, bones, sand, trees and dead grass – in shades of green. Armies of phantom orcs and ghostly goblins fought one another. They were locked in combat, but the noise of it was muted, as if heard from miles away. Skarsnik shouted to them, but they did not hear. He walked towards them, but for every step he took they receded from him so that they were always just as far away. He looked at himself. He was more solid than the others about him. Clutching his bloody prize in one hand, his knife in the other, he stared around in amazement.

‘The Great Green!’ he said in an awed whisper. The spirit land the shamans went to! He was in the home of the gods themselves. No ordinary goblin could come there.

As he thought it, a shadow fell across him. He looked up.

Two orcs stood in front of him, big as mountains. They were so big Skarsnik had to crane his neck to see their heads. The one on the left had a huge club rested upon his left shoulder, the one on the right an identical weapon upon his right. They were mirror images of each other, identical in every respect. Sprung, it was said, from beneath the same giant mushroom at the beginning of all things.

Gork and Mork.

‘Little goblin,’ said Gork, or possibly Mork. ‘You have come home. That is good. We likes a gobbo what listens to us.’

‘Yeah,’ said Mork, or possibly Gork. ‘Yeah, we do. We watched over you for a looooong time.’ The orc gods had fierce expressions. Their eyes glowed dark red, red as the hot rocks under the mountains. Their teeth were as long as lances and yellow as soiled snow.

‘You have done lots of biffing, and we likes that. But youse got a lot more biffing to do,’ said Gork, or was it Mork? Skarsnik could not tell them apart. He looked hard at them, trying to decide which was the cunning but brutal one, and which the brutal but cunning. He could not. They were the same. ‘You is not like all the other little goblins. You will be the bashiest gobbo what ever there was since fat old Grom went all the way to pansy land and gave them elves a kicking. You will stomp the stunties! You will smash the ratties! You will give those humies a right old scare! Wear that beard what you got in your hand as a sign of your greatness. Get more, come to that, make a belt.’

‘That’d look nice that,’ said the other approvingly. ‘Dead killy.’

‘Make the stunties fear you! And when you kill them, tell them that Gork and Mork sent you. Then you is going to lead the biggest Waaagh! ever dreamed up by cave runts!’ Gork, Skarsnik was pretty sure it was Gork who was doing all the talking, swung his club down to point at the longbeard’s beard. Skarsnik ducked.

‘What, me?’

As one, the twin gods laughed. The god that Skarsnik had decided was Gork (or maybe Mork), said, ‘You is my chosen one.’

‘Soon you will return to the world of the not-green,’ said the other. ‘We’re sorry about that, lots of good fighting here, but there it is. First we got some real important stuff to say. There are two great battles ahead, so pay attention, got it? The first…’ Mork, or possibly Gork, frowned. ‘Hang on a minute, I thought he was my chosen one.’

‘No, he’s my chosen one. We agreed.’

‘We didn’t agree nothing!’ roared Mork, or maybe on second thoughts it might actually have been Gork. He pushed his brother.

‘Don’t you push me!’

Within an eye blink, the two god-brothers were fighting. They fought without reserve, lambasting each other with their clubs so hard they staggered. Gork (or Mork, it really was very hard to say) grabbed the arm of the other, and threw him onto the floor. Mork (we will have to agree that it was him, whether it was or not), pulled at his brother’s ankle. The other fell hard, and they wrestled on the ground, biting and gouging and roaring. They faded away, until they were as ethereal as the phantom orc armies that fought on the plain. They joined the ghostly orcs. The warring greenskins looked up in alarm when their gods emerged in their midst. They scattered as the twin deities rolled willy-nilly over their battleground, punching and biting each other.

With horror, Skarsnik realised he too was fading, was he dead as well? He wasn’t ready for the Great Green, not yet! He had so much to do, such big plans.

‘Gork! Mork! Wait, wait! What’s coming, what’s coming?’

The ground shot away from his feet, the armies and the gods shrinking to the size of ants before being lost in a viridian fog. He felt as if he were falling up into the sky. He tumbled as helpless as a leaf in the wind, and went back up the hole, with its parade of monsters scratching against the orcy green, trying to get at him. There was a hard smack, and he woke up.

‘Wait!’ he croaked. ‘Wait, please.’ The floor was cold on his back. A rough hand grabbed his arm and shook him until his shoulder ached.

‘Boss! Boss! You back?’

‘Duffskul?’

‘Yeah, boss.’

Skarsnik opened his eyes. The holes at the top of the chasm let in watery daylight. The furnace had died to ash-frosted coals. The dwarf hung from the wall, bloodied and unconscious. Goblin smiths sat on the other side of the altar, polishing something, while the shamans snored loudly in their circle.

‘It daytime?’ He winced. His head hurt abominably.

Duffskul laughed. ‘It’s four days later, boss.’

‘I had a dream,’ he swallowed. His head pounded. His mouth was dry as sand. ‘About the gods.’

Duffskul’s eyes gleamed. ‘That weren’t no dream, boss. Only real big bosses like you gets to see them. Warbosses, and us shamans, course.’ He sniffed. ‘It’s a good sign. They’ve picked you for great things, and you’ve made them happy, oh yus.’

‘They were going to tell me something, and they didn’t.’ Skarsnik propped himself up on one elbow. He felt shaky and ached all over.

‘That’s the gods for you,’ Duffskul shrugged. ‘No, boss, don’t stand up yet, you’ll be…’

Skarsnik was violently, noisily sick. Duffskul patted him on the back. ‘There you go, god sick, let it all out. Makes them happy, don’t it?’ He nodded behind him. A goblin acolyte hurried over with a leather cup. Duffskul took it. ‘Drink this, boss, it’ll stop you chucking up all over the place.’

Skarsnik took a tentative sip. It tasted good. He glugged it down. Almost immediately, he felt better. He stood straighter and wiped his mouth on his arm. ‘Right then, let’s see what you made me.’

At this, the smiths sprang up. There was a large object hidden under a cloth in the hands of their chief. They whipped the lower portion back as a long shaft of painted red wood was hurried over. The smiths worked quickly to attach the object to it. Skarsnik saw the glint of metal.

Duffskul went over and took the weapon, still covered in its cloth, and carried it over to Skarsnik. ‘You got a big squig, boss.’ He nodded at Gobbla, who was greedily licking up Skarsnik’s vomit. ‘So you need a big prodder.’

With a flourish, he removed the cloth.

In his hand, Duffskul held a weapon like a trident. Skarsnik told me its proper name is a prodder, a tool for herding squigs. He brandished it at me as he described the first time he held it. His was huge and made for fighting, the blades atop wickedly sharp. The weapon had fittings of brass, and a chain ran between the lower two blades, hung with arcane talismans – the bad moon and the wicked eye prominent among them. Its blades held a greenish hue where they caught the light. Duffskul handed it to the king. It crackled with uncanny energies.

‘Now, you wanted to know what it did, your bossness. Point it at that wall over there.’

Skarsnik did as was asked; he extended his arms, aiming the prodder’s three points at a statue over the chasm. The prodder was well-balanced. If he held it in the right place, it felt like he held nothing at all.

‘Think bad things, boss, think things of hate, think of power!’ whispered Duffskul.

These things came easily to Skarsnik. He narrowed his eyes and he thought. He thought how much he wanted to crush the dwarfs, how he wanted the ratmen out of the city, of how he would take his crusade beyond the halls of the peaks and smite the–

There was a loud crack, as of thunder, and a weird whoop. The prodder jolted in his hands. Three green bolts of fizzing energy sped across the chasm, slamming into the statue on the far side and engulfing it in an explosion of yellow and green fire. Chunks of rock flew into the air. Slowly, the statue’s top half turned on its shattered middle and toppled into the chasm, where it hit the water with an almighty splash. The echoes of its destruction rumbled around the abyss.

‘Ooooooh,’ said Skarsnik. He snickered evilly. He pointed it again. He thought his bad thoughts. Nothing happened. His joy turned to anger. ‘It don’t zogging work!’ he yelled.

Duffskul held up his hands. ‘Yes it does, boss, it just needs a bit of encouragement. You need some boys behind you, then it’ll charge up and fire again, just from the sheer orcy and goblinyness all round ya. Orcs is better than gobboes for that, it’s true, but either’ll do. You get a bunch of really, really excited boys behind you and it’ll bring down half a mountain.’

‘Really?’ said Skarsnik. He put the weapon’s butt on the floor and looked it up and down with happy eyes.

‘Yes, well, no.’ Duffskul wiped dribble from his chin and did a little jig. ‘Not really, not a mountain, that’d be a bit much. But what you just seen is only a teeny part of what it can do for you. Happy?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Skarsnik, examining the weapon. ‘Oh yeah.’

‘And, it’s still well sharp.’ Duffskul beckoned him over to the chained priest. ‘Want to try?’

The other goblins understood his malicious leer. They went to Braknar and threw a bucket of water over him. He groaned and stirred. One yanked his head up by his hair. Skarsnik held the prodder level with his face.

He waited until Braknar had awoken fully before he pushed the centre spike into Braknar’s eye.

The dwarf’s screams echoed around the chasm, chasing the aftershocks of the explosion.

CHAPTER 25

A PLAGUE OF RATS

Gobbla sniffed at the dark. Something was not right.

On the bed, his master lay snoring, oblivious to the world. The lamps were all out. In the days of the dwarfs, the room had been the office of a minor functionary, it had not been a lordly apartment. There was not one aperture that looked upon the outside world or the caverns of Karak Eight Peaks, but Skarsnik valued his security. Skarsnik’s foetid possessions lay heaped around it. Only in one corner was it neat and tidy. This was his plotting desk, the place where he sat for hours on end, scheming and making his plans by the light of dwarf-fat candles.

It was dark in the chamber, stygian dark, but light enough shone from lichens glowing gently on the ceiling for Gobbla to see by all the same. A creature of the deepest, darkest holes in the world, any light at all allowed the beast to watch his surroundings, and his sense of smell was keener still.

He sniffed at the air. A scent like straw and urine. Ratstink.

By his master’s bed, a darker shadow pulled itself together from the dark, taking on the form of a cloaked figure. Slowly and in utter silence, the figure unsheathed a blade. It glowed a sickly green, a burning beacon to Gobbla’s single eye.

Gobbla hated this thing. He hated anything that would hurt his beloved master, the one who had saved him after the nasty goblin put out his other eye. The one who would have killed him.

Gobbla pounced, one push of his legs sending him sailing through the air. He landed, mouth open.

The assassin was bitten in half.

Gobbla munched on the ratman’s top part. He picked the legs up carefully.

‘Oi, Gobbla, get off, get off!’ said Skarsnik drowsily. ‘I’m sleepin’!’ He rolled over, his calloused feet poking out from under stinking blankets. He wore a long nightcap, decorated with moons and stars with wicked faces.

Gobbla nuzzled his master, licking him to wakefulness. He deposited the remains of the skaven assassin on the pillow next to Skarsnik’s head.

Skarsnik sat up and fumbled for a candle. He struck a light with flint and tinder.

‘What? Gobbla! Gork’s fists, not again!’ He stared at the mutilated rat corpse. ‘That’s the fourth one this week!’ He chuckled and slapped Gobbla playfully on the face. The great squig grumbled happily. ‘When are they going to learn? Good old Gobbla.’

‘That’s a lot of ratboys trying for your head, boss,’ said Duffskul.

‘That’s cause they is up to something, Duffskul,’ said Skarsnik. ‘I reckon they’s going to try and get it all back.’ He tapped a claw on a dwarf-vellum map. ‘But we won’t let them, will we boys?’

A clamour of agreement replied. Skarsnik and the chiefs of the greenskin tribes all around the Eight Peaks crowded around a stone table. Gritgag of the Creepy Gits was there, so was Ukbof, Dukmak from the lowest levels where the ratties dare not go and strange things splashed through stinking puddles, Grishbog from the Red Mount, Snikkle of the Stranglehands, Tolly Grin Cheek, Orkun the Awesome, Boddle Scumblesneer, Hugamuk the Unpleasant, and Nice Gritnok the Snikker, who had been granted his name by being anything but nice. There were more besides. Kruggler was there for the plains goblins, and a fat, squat fellow by the name of Burkfang Arsewangler, Big High Wallop of the mountain goblins.

Skarsnik looked to the faces of his vassals. Now Ibrit was dead, Bograt had been sent back by Gorfang to keep an eye on this new power in the mountains, and he stood for the Broken Tooth adventurers and the Red Fang outcasts. Two other orc chiefs were there with him, towering over the sea of black hats and horned helms sported by the goblins. Skarsnik had many hundreds of orcs now. He was happy for their strength, and if any of them got a little uppity, he had Gobbla eat their bosses until they backed down.

Many greenskins of all kinds had flocked to Skarsnik’s domain, drawn by rumours of the most cunning night goblin ever to have lived. Something big was building in Karak Eight Peaks. There were whispers of a crusade, and oftentimes whispers are all that are required to set the greenskins upon the warpath.

‘The ratties are going to try something soon,’ said Skarsnik. ‘They is trying to kill me so youse lot will all fall out and fight each other, and then they can walk in here as easy as you please.’

One of the orcs nodded its bucket head and muttered to Bograt. ‘He is a shaman, ain’t he? He can see the future.’

Skarsnik caught this exchange. He slammed his fist down. ‘No! I is not, it is just thinking, see? Thinking, that’s what I does.’

The goblins and orcs nodded and grunted. To them thinking was as impressive as magic.

Skarsnik tapped his finger against his head. He had his new boss hat on, a tall hood that hid an iron helm, the tusks of squigs jutting through the cloth. ‘Although it is true, I do have the ears of the gods.’

‘What, on your head?’

‘No Hugamuk, he means they listens to him,’ said Tolly Grin Cheek, his teeth showing through where his cheeks had been mutilated.

‘Gork and Mork speaks to you, does they?’ said the second new orc. He was less impressed than the other orc chieftains by this goblin upstart. ‘No they doesn’t.’

‘I’m a gobbo, but so was Grom the fat,’ said Skarsnik.

‘You ain’t fat Grom,’ said the orc. Orcs are incredibly literal creatures.

‘No I ain’t, and if you think you can take me in a fight, come over here and me and Gobbla will have a word. No? Right then. Kruggs, how’s the special project coming on?’

‘Nearly done, boss,’ said Kruggler. ‘Nearly done.

‘What, er, speshul projeck?’ said the doubting orc.

‘Never you mind! We can’t have them ratses finding out about that, so them what needs to know, knows already, and them what don’t need to know don’t know and won’t know. We got to stop the ratties when they come, and then we can do them in for good, get them out of the top five deeps at least, that’s all you need to know. I’ve got Fuggrak and his squig hunters rustling up a real special surprise for them and all. The rest of youse lot, pay real careful attention to what’s I’m going to say…’ He pulled a map towards him. He began to speak, but a commotion at the door interrupted him.

‘Stop, you can’t…’ said a goblin guard. Then, ‘Argh!’ as he came flying over the table and hit the wall.

An enormous orc, huge as an ogre, pushed his way into the room. He ducked his head to avoid banging it on the door lintel. Three disreputable-looking orc thugs trailed in his wake, eyeing the crowd of greenskins with gimlet glares, daring them to try something.

Gorfang Rotgut was paying a visit.

The goblins in the room shrank back, as did the two new orcs. Skarsnik saw Bograt stand his ground, his hand resting on the worn handle of his cleaver. The goblin king noted that well.

The giant orc swayed like a tree in the wind as he walked. Like all orcs, his legs were short and ape-like, bowed at the knees, topped with an enormously muscled torso and arms that hung nearly to the ground. He wore a suit of scale armour, an enamelled plate depicting the Evil Sun in glaring red covering his belly. A sword the weight of Gobbla hung at his side. On the top of his head was a close-fitting helm. He swung open the orc-faced visor attached to it and snorted like a bull. He ignored everyone in the room and stared directly at the king of Eight Peaks. ‘You Skarsnik?’

‘I am,’ said Skarsnik. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

‘And I was expecting an orc, name like Skarsnik, that’s an orc’s name. You want to be careful, calling yourself that,’ Gorfang said in a voice as slow and as deep as the rumbles of a mountain glacier.

‘Have some respect orcy! Gork called him that!’ said Duffskul.

‘Right, I bet that’s all real true. Like I bet it’s true you saying you been expecting me. It’s not like you’re just saying that, because if you was expecting me, you can explain to all your little pals here why I could walk in here without any bother. Rubbish,’ said Gorfang.

Skarsnik smiled and cleared his throat. ‘Yesterday, you killed Jurk the Strong for cheek. After the sun came up, you had breakfast, and that was...’ He cocked his head on one side, making a show of remembering. ‘A dwarf steak, fungus beer and fifteen meatshrooms. At noon you took fourteen sacks of gold from a caravan of gobboes taking slaves into the Darklands and ate one of their big bosses for cheek. Again. Then you had a nap. You went to the drops where you were bitten by an ’urty bits chomping squig… You want me to go on? I was expecting you all right.’

Gorfang snarled and looked around. ‘Your stunty house is bigger than mine. That won’t do, you being a gobbo and all.’

‘You’ll not take it off me, Gorfang.’

‘Suppose not. I’m not here for that anyways. You and me, gobbo, you and me oughta make a deal. Me and me Red Fangs have the north of the pass, you have the south. Don’t see no reason to be scrapping when we got ratses and stunties to be a-bashin’ at. We can be…’ His face wrinkled. ‘Allies, yeah, that’s the word all right. Them stunties are here again, and I fancy having a go at them meself, just so’s they don’t get any ideas about coming back to the Black Crag.’ He sniffed and stood up on his toes, hitching his trousers up. ‘You’re pretty big for a cave runt warboss. I reckon it’s no shame doing a deal. Big is best.’

Skarsnik smiled his most cunning smile and rubbed his hands together. ‘You’re on, Gorfang me old mate, you are on.’

‘Good.’

‘Yeah, good. Hey.’ Skarsnik’s smile grew a little wider. ‘How do you fancy a nice big scrap?’

Three nights later, Gobbla’s eye opened. There was another rat in the room. He belched and rolled over, and went back to sleep.

The Clan Eshin assassin’s heart slowed back down to a rate commensurate with life. He took a relieved breath. With a muffled squeak of triumph, he drove his poisoned blades deep into Skarsnik’s bed.

Duffskul watched the creature from a spyhole. It checked the room, took Skarsnik’s hat from the floor as a trophy, and squirmed into a crack in the wall too small for a goblin to get into.

‘Oh, that’s where they’re getting in. Wriggly, aren’t they? I wonder how they know where you is sleeping at?’ said Duffskul.

‘They don’t though, do they?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Gubin did well, didn’t he? Great acting. Performance of a lifetime.’

‘Oh yus, very convincing.’

‘Shame he had to die.’

‘Shame,’ said Duffskul.

‘Reckon they’ll fall for it?’

‘Oh yus,’ said the shaman. ‘Oh yus. They wants you dead so bad, I think they’d believe it if you walked down them stinking tunnels and told them you were dead yourself.’

‘You see, humie,’ said Skarsnik to me, ‘that’s rule eight. Play dead when it suits ya.’

I wondered what rules six and seven were. I never did get to find out.

CHAPTER 26

THE BATTLE OF THE THOUSAND COLUMNS

The news of Skarsnik’s demise went out into the skaven Under-Empire with rapidity. Skarsnik hid from his own men for several days. Even though he had told them he was going away for a little while, his men found out about his ‘death’ and fell to fighting. It took five days to restore order once he revealed that he had not, in fact, been killed, and still some of the slower goblins were unconvinced. As Skarsnik saw it in his terms of calculated risk, the strife between the greenskins would only help to reassure the skaven of his successful assassination.

The response to the news of Skarsnik’s end was a full-scale invasion of Karak Eight Peaks. War-Chieftain Skruk Spittle-tail, lord of the lower dwarf deeps and the unfathomable pits beneath, pulled in many favours to assemble a host of ratmen such as Karak Eight Peaks had not seen in many a hundred years. Skarsnik’s spies observed them gathering in such numbers that he knew that this would be a battle like none other, and he started to plan in earnest.

He had his goblins pull back from the lower levels. Some of the clans weren’t disposed to follow his orders, but again, Skarsnik was happy for them to remain where they were, for it made his trap all the more convincing.

Overland and from underground the skaven came. Thousands of warriors, twice that number of slaves, many of their stormvermin, diseased monks, great beasts and terrifying machines. Skarsnik and Duffskul stood in a ruined dwarf tower on the outer shoulders of the white mountain and watched a sea of furred bodies spill from tunnel mouths way down on the mountainside. They made their way up towards the bowl that contained the dwarf surface city in verminous multitude; so far away, the army looked like a thread of yarn winding its way slowly up.

‘Heheh,’ Duffskul chuckled, his throat rough and raspy from the prior night’s drink. ‘Looks like you got their attention now, Runt.’ He patted Skarsnik on the shoulder, and pulled out his pipe.

The skaven horde was half-heartedly harried as it approached Karak Eight Peaks, above and below. Dissident tribes of mountain goblins were swatted aside, disobedient clans of night goblins were destroyed, and orcs who thought they knew better than to take orders from a runty goblin were ground into dust.

Skarsnik called it a nice big clean out.

The skaven were confident, despite the number of unexplained incidents that affected their advance. An avalanche killed a hundred warriors and severely delayed the skaven overland force. Dozens more were mysteriously taken ill. A cohort became lost in the passes. Wild squigs appeared at the most inconvenient moment to carry ratmen away. Tunnels that were open only the day before were found blocked by cave-ins. But the mountains are dangerous places, and the skaven took this in their stride. Believing Skarsnik dead, they attributed most of these setbacks to the unkindnesses of chance, and only a few to the work of the goblins, whereas in fact, all were the master plan of just one.

Skarsnik.

Skarsnik let the skaven penetrate into the city before he set his goblins to work properly. Ambush followed ambush, whittling down the skaven’s numbers further. He stiffened his resistance as they drew closer to the great throne room, the Hall of a Thousand Pillars, and there he met them in pitched battle.

Under the unwavering light of the dwarfs’ magical stars, Skarsnik’s army waited, ten thousand strong. The hall, as I saw it, was filled rim to rim by goblintown, but at the time of Skruk Spittletail’s invasion, it was an empty place, the ideal battlefield. It was, perhaps, not so different to the battlefields we men are used to. Steps filled the place of hillsides, stands of mushrooms took the stead of forests. At the centre of it was the prize, the stepped dais of the old dwarf kings. Whoever took this strategically vital point would carry the day.

Skarsnik stood at the front of his army, Gobbla by his side. In the half-dark of the mountain hall, the serried ranks of his goblins stretched away into the blackness. There were so many tribes, so many kinds of evil creature – trolls, their numbers at nearly two dozen, bolstered by recent troll hunts into the mountains, squigs, a giant they’d lured underground with a vat of ale, Kruggler’s plains goblins, and many mountain goblins clad in rancid goatskins.

The goblins were in two main lines, a skirmish line of archers some way out in front of those. Skarsnik’s vanguard contained mostly night goblins. His trolls stood close by him so that he could direct the moronic beasts the better in the conflict. The giant waited in the second wave with the mountain goblins; they had some experience with giants, after all. Behind the second line, a number of what he described as ‘speshul surprises’ he hoped would drive the skaven away were hidden by other troops and the rubble and the multitudinous columns of the hall. Orcs made up the rearguard. Many more greenskins lay in wait all over the hold, waiting to ambush any relief forces that might come up from below, or catch the fleeing army should Skarsnik’s plans be a success.

Artillery was ranged behind all this, huge stone throwers, squig pot casters, fire throwers, and other fiendish weapons of war. Kruggler’s bolt throwers were once more in elevated positions in the different galleries of the hall, their numbers swollen threefold with newly minted constructs. The Hall of a Thousand Columns resonated to raucous goblin singing. Their lord had made sure they had had a good measure of fungus beer each; it would not do to have them run away from skaven.

The scratch of claws and rattle of armour, the pad of thousands of rodent feet came from across the hall. Skarsnik had funnelled the skaven army through the southern parts of the hold. He directed them with a careful series of rockfalls, floods, and weak goblin resistance. All so he could hold the broader north of the hall, opposite the great doors. The skaven army, though numerically superior, would be trammelled by the hall’s shape and unable to use its numbers to best advantage.

‘Here they come, lads,’ Skarsnik shouted, ‘here they come!’

A swarm of ratmen came from every doorway, every tunnel, every crack, opposite the greenskin lines. Down from the surface, through the great hall’s gates, they marched, rivers of fur and rusty metal merging into a nightmarish horde.

Imagine a plague of rats such as dog the poorer districts of our own cities from time to time; this must have looked similar, only these rats walked upright in the twisted semblance of men and bore spears, swords and shields. Teams of slaves pulled war machines behind the army. A construction the height of fifteen goblins rumbled forward at the heart of the skaven force. A bell big enough for a clan of goblins to live in swung ponderously within its framework. A white-furred skaven with horns gesticulated from a platform at its front. A giant ratman, as big as one of Skarsnik’s trolls, pulled on a mechanism, and the bell began to sway back and forth.

The skaven army lined itself up. There were thousands of them. More of the giant ratmen stood in groups amid the swarm. Giant rats ran ahead as a vanguard, guided by the deft flicks of the skaven packmasters’ whips.

And the floor. The floor squirmed. Skarsnik peered hard. The ground was deep in rats, hundreds of thousands of rats.

He sneered. So what? They were only rats.

If the skaven were surprised to see that Skarsnik lived, for with Gobbla by his side he was obvious at the centre of his host, Skarsnik could not tell.

‘Watch out for that bell, boss, that’s wizarding stuff. Could be nasty,’ Duffskul advised. ‘That white-fur, nasty wizard. Don’t worry though, I’ll sort him.’ The shaman was intoxicated. He had been up the entire night overseeing the finishing touches to the army’s beer in the city’s main brewery, recently refurbished for the purpose. Duffskul had taken a large number of unusual mushrooms to keep fatigue at bay, and his eyes rolled more than ever.

Skarsnik nodded. He licked his teeth and scratched Gobbla between his eyes. The great squig purred. ‘That’s their boss, right there, isn’t it?’ He pointed the prodder at a large ratman in armour atop a palanquin borne by lesser skaven.

‘Oh yus, boss,’ said Duffskul. ‘That’s him.’

‘I’m having him,’ he muttered. Skarsnik turned to face his army. ‘Boys!’

Their songs and giggling became a shout. ‘Skarsnik!’ The regiments bellowed it raggedly, even the goblins within each regiment out of time with each other. The goblin king’s name rippled chaotically across the army, barely coherent.

‘We’s not letting these ratties back in! This is our place now, and it will be forever!’

‘Yeah!’ roared the army back.

‘Let them have it!’ roared Skarsnik.

The goblin lines surged forward, stamping on rats as they went. Skarsnik’s trolls moaned. They stopped moving and looked puzzled, the noise and sheer number of creatures in the cavern confusing them.

‘Get on, you lousy rocks!’ shouted their handlers. Prodders and squig pacifiers were deployed, goblins hammered at the trolls’ stony hides. They achieved a semblance of order, and the stone trolls lumbered towards the skaven lines.

Skarsnik and Gobbla broke into a lope. Skarsnik was at the front of the first wave of attackers, just like an orc. No skulking at the back for him, and his goblins tugged each other’s sleeves and pointed with open mouths at his courage. Spear-sized arrows whistled overhead, skewering entire ranks of the ratmen. A sharp snap cut through the tumult of war cries as one of the bolt throwers broke under the strain. Skarsnik did not care, there were plenty more.

The skaven held their lines, tightly ranked, spears held forward over their triangular shields, waiting for the goblins. The bangs of gunfire sounded in the cavern. Green streaked the air. Goblins fell dead around Skarsnik. Gobbla squealed as a bullet nicked him. They were targeting the king and his pet.

‘Magic’s coming, boss!’ panted Duffskul.

The bell had attained a sufficient swing to toll, the rat ogre at its mechanism tugging on its rope hard. The bell sounded, its peals ringing out across the battlefield. The power of it rocked the goblin advance. The little greenskins faltered.

‘On, on, on!’ shouted Skarsnik. Horns and gongs conveyed his orders to the horde, and chiefs in the regiments relayed them to their boys, hitting and shoving. Skarsnik glanced over to the left. A section of his army had stopped, a squabble had developed, and goblins fought one another, the enemy forgotten. The remainder of his troops held true, forging on through the carpet of rats.

Duffskul’s eyes blazed green, empowered by the excitement of the goblins. He shouted out uncouth syllables, and extended his hands. Green fire shot from his fingers.

A barrage of missiles rained down on the ratmen from the goblin back line – boulders, clays pots of thick pitch that burst into fire upon impact, others containing cave hornets or facebiter squigs. The skirmish line of goblin archers ran ahead of Skarsnik’s boys, halted and let loose a shower of black-fletched arrows, then ran on and fired again. There were so many skaven, every arrow found a target no matter how poorly aimed. The ratmen held firm, their courage bolstered by the ringing of their monstrous bell.

Lightning skittered around the bell, earthing itself through spears, arcing up to caress the cavern roof. Ancient glowstones exploded as the bell’s magic touched them. A discordant buzz came with it. The ground shook.

Blocks of masonry fell from above, squashing goblins by the score. A statue slid from its seat by the wall. Skarsnik glared around at his minions and shouted, flag wavers and musicians sending orders to continue to the unit bosses.

There was a deafening rumble, and the ground tilted under Skarsnik’s feet. Goblins fell over each other as they tumbled backwards. Vapour shot from the ground as rock melted. Goblins fell screaming into the cracks, their black robes bursting into flame. Those that escaped the fall flapped their sleeves as steam scalded them, running in tight, wailing circles.

‘Get on!’ roared Skarsnik. ‘Get on!’ His prodder thrummed with power. He thrust it forward. Bolts of green lightning leapt from the prongs, slamming into the superstructure of the bell. It rocked at the impact, and a couple of braces gave way.

Duffskul stopped, a sea of goblins rushing past him. A nimbus of light shone around him. The white-furred ratman upon the bell’s platform was waving his hands high above his head. The air crackled with pent-up magic. Skarsnik decided it was best to let them get on with it.

He waved his goblins on. He was at the head of a regiment of two hundred or so of the little greenskins. Another goblin war-chief would have placed himself in the ranks of his skargobboes, the big goblin veterans the chiefs keep as a retinue. But Skarsnik knew his larger minions were less likely to run away if left to their own devices than the smaller goblins. They got back to their feet, encouraged by his presence, and stumbled on over the fractured floor.

At a hundred paces from the skaven lines, strange weapons were deployed by the ratmen. Skarsnik caught sight of one of these ratmen teams drawing down on him with the muzzle of their cannon. He blasted it to pieces with his prodder, sending bits of rat and shrapnel everywhere. A circle of ratmen fell dead around it. Skarsnik laughed and shook his prodder. ‘Good old Mork! Good old Gork!’

His goblins were not so lucky. Half of the Cave Clobberers were incinerated by a gout of wyrd-tinged fire. The remainder faltered, turned tail and ran, running straight into another mob following behind them. His trolls roared with anger as a hail of bullets hammered into them from one of the portable cannons, its barrels spinning madly as it spat fire. The trolls’ flesh bubbled as it struggled to heal itself under such an assault. One groaned, stumbled and fell, and did not rise again.

The toll was high, but then the goblins were in range, and it was time to put the first of Skarsnik’s devilish schemes into play. He shoved his lead hornplayer. Three horns and a squigpipe blared out rising notes. Gongs rang.

The skirmish line of archers got his orders mostly right, falling back through gaps in the lead mobs. Only a couple got stuck, or went the wrong way, or forgot they weren’t actually running away and carried on pell-mell for the rear of the army. The rest retired behind the first line of warriors, spread out their lines with discipline, and recommenced firing over the goblin infantry in front of them.

Skarsnik came to a stop. The line of goblin infantry lined themselves up neatly with his mob, more or less. ‘Release the fanatics!’ he screeched.

Shrieking goblins were pushed forward, their mad laughter audible even over the ringing of the skaven’s infernal bell. They were shoved from their regiments, dozens of them.

Duffskul had been busy.

Spinning madly, the fanatics wavered towards the skaven lines. About half of them did not make the full distance. These spun about in front of the ratmen, giggling manically. Several were shot down as the panicked skaven turned their bizarre weapons on them. There was a satisfying explosion as a flame-throwing device malfunctioned, spraying burning fuel all over a ratman regiment.

The rest of the fanatics hit home.

They rattled around the skaven regiments like musket balls shaken in a box. Skaven were squashed or tossed high into the air by the impact. One of the giant ratmen was decapitated as a spinning ball hit it in the face, another fell to the ground, its leg broken. The fanatics were wreaking carnage.

Glass balls came over from the skaven side, shattering on the stone floor to release choking gas. Lightning seared the air, projected by cannons of brass and crystal. Thunder boomed. Stones and bolts and firepots were the goblins’ replies.

Skarsnik held his trident high, but the magic within would not function. He looked at the skaven wizard, and saw him dismissing the weapon’s power with a paw.

‘Gah!’ shouted Skarsnik, but at least the enemy wizard’s counter-magic was spent. Duffskul sent bolts of fizzing light into the skaven’s ranks. A regiment collapsed into disorder, the skaven slapping themselves as cave spiders appeared all over them, crawling into their snouts and eyes.

‘Charge!’ shouted Skarsnik. His flag goblins fluttered their flags. Horns blew. The goblins let out a reedy ‘Waaagh!’ and ran at full tilt at the skaven.

The skaven line was reordering itself from the fanatics’ impact when the goblin vanguard hit. They ran through their own fanatics, those that had not made the distance, the crazed goblins killing many of their comrades. It did not matter, for Skarsnik’s horde numbered in the thousands, and they were all quite drunk.

As Skarsnik had planned, the majority of his goblins hit at once, preventing the skaven from flanking his regiments. Archers fired volleys over the heads of their comrades, felling skaven in the back ranks. The fire from Skarsnik’s artillery intensified. The battlefield was narrow here. The dais broke the front in two. The forest of columns and rubble between them created numerous chokepoints. There was no room for manoeuvre. The skaven were pressed in tightly, and suffered for it.

Skarsnik led his goblins into the centre of the skaven army. The skaven line bowed back. Nets cast from the middle of the goblin units tangled their spears, disrupting their formation further. Skaven came at Skarsnik and were felled. Gobbla snapped and howled, killing the ratmen by the brace with every bite. Skarsnik fought like a daemon, his heavy prodder adding to his strength. When he could, he discharged its power. Further magical blasts blazed across the battlefield, as Duffskul set the power of Gork and Mork against that of the white-furred wizard and his awful rat-god. Lightning burst from the skaven cannon.

Skarsnik killed all those within reach of him. The skaven regiment he faced crumbled before his onslaught, leaving many dead behind. Another unit marched forward to take its place. In the lull, Skarsnik looked about for the skaven warlord. He was well away from Skarsnik, a hundred yards to the right. A dent had formed in the goblin line, black-furred stormvermin threatening to break through to the base of the dwarf throne dais.

The bell’s tolling took on a greater urgency. The air had the tang of metal. The peals grew in volume, far louder than the bell should have been able to produce. Goblins clutched at their sensitive ears, squealing in agony. Blood ran through their fingers. The skaven fell upon them with renewed ferocity.

Skarsnik stumbled. The pain was unbearable. A spear struck at him, he clumsily parried, and it ran over his ribs, piercing his mail. He hissed and staggered back, but the hot kiss of steel shook him from his confusion. He grabbed the shaft of the spear, and his prodder ended another rodent life.

The bell’s reverberations died back. The goblins were losing heart. Gobbla felled several skaven as his master recovered. Skarsnik’s ears rang still. He found a hornblower, and had him sound the retreat.

Goblins ran gratefully for the safety of their back line. Many were brought down by the skaven’s arcane technology. The skaven army let out a triumphant squeak and gave chase, catching many fleeing greenskins. Things looked ill for the goblins.

It was, naturally, all a trap.

Skarsnik gave a smile. This was the moment of truth. Now he would see if his goblins had taken his drilling to heart.

He halted and signalled his remaining flag wavers and musicians. Cymbals rang and horns blew as flags snapped urgently in a complicated dance. If the goblins did not hear or see this through the tumult of battle… he shook the thought away.

They did.

The back line parted, regiments of mountain goblins marching with admirable discipline swinging open like the gates of the hold itself. A large gap two hundred yards across formed across the goblin’s second line of infantry.

Kruggler’s wolf chariots were first out. A stream of night goblins ran past them the other way, retreating and forming up again behind the second line.

Twenty ramshackle carts thundered forward, crammed with goblins firing arrows.

They barely slowed as they slammed into the skaven line, carrying themselves deep into the enemy before their wheels were clogged with broken bodies.

Behind the chariots came a wall of squigs. Goblins were mounted upon some, goading them to great speed. The squigs, irritated beyond measure, leapt high, bouncing all over the battlefield. They bit and snapped wherever they landed, the goblin riders whooping and stabbing. Those unridden formed a wall of teeth, driven on by Fuggrak’s herders.

The view clear, Skarsnik could see his orcs battling against black-clad skaven who had gained the hall from one of the tunnels at the back. There were not many of the skaven, but Skarsnik was glad he had left the big greenskins as a rearguard.

He gave another order. At the blast of a horn, the squigs surged forward, the dread wail of squigpipes and sharp prodders sending them wild. Another blast. More horns joined it. The tunes they played were precise, not the usual blarings of goblin war music, and the goblins responded as they had been trained.

The majority of the fleeing goblins immediately rallied. They quickly redeployed, spears to the fore, and moved forward to re-engage.

The skaven line was strung out, broken by their desire to pursue Skarsnik’s feint. A horde of snotlings poured through tiny holes in the blocked western gates, falling directly onto the heads of the skaven right flank. Skarsnik’s remaining trolls stood in a sea of furry bodies, slapping down ratmen and stuffing their bodies into their wide maws. The skaven tried to bring their own monstrous infantry forward to engage with the stone-skinned monsters, but the way was blocked by the lesser ratmen and the hall’s pillars. Goblin bolt throwers were steadily picking the bigger creatures off.

The squigs ran through the gap in the goblin lines, following the bloody trails carved by the chariots.

The wizard atop his bell shouted at the rat ogre manning it. The giant rodent redoubled its efforts, heaving upon the bell rope with all its might.

‘Take that thing down!’ shouted Skarsnik, brandishing his prodder. His flag wavers fluttered their pennants at the goblin artillery.

Stones clanged off the bell. Spear-sized arrows thunked into its wood. The great rat died with a roar, a bolt through its heart. The bell, impelled by some magical agency, continued to chime.

‘I said, take it down!’

A boulder sailed over Skarsnik’s head, turning gracefully in the air. The skaven wizard’s head followed it. Even from that distance, Skarsnik could see his eyes widen in dismay before he threw himself from his platform.

The boulder hit, destroying the bell’s left support in a shower of splinters. It sagged heavily to the side. Wood creaked as it struggled to support the weight of the bell. With the groan of sundered timber, the bell fell to the floor and rolled in a ruinous semicircle. Skaven ran in all directions as their companions were crushed.

Another horn blast, and Fuggrak revealed his surprise.

An explosion cleared the blocked tunnel entrance Skarsnik had used to such great effect in his previous battle in the throne room. Skarsnik was very much of the opinion that if it worked once, it would work again. This time, he had stacked the odds higher in his favour.

A bellowing and hooting came through the dust. Two wobbling, round shapes came through the hole, teeth shining.

Great cave squigs. Bigger even than Gobbla, chained together at the ankles.

Fuggrak straddled the head of one, more of his herders by his side. Others ran by the creatures’ feet, poking the squigs and goading them in the proper direction.

‘Heheheheh,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Manglers.’

Fuggrak employed his knowledge of squig anatomy expertly, jabbing with his weighty prodder. The squig he sat upon howled in outrage. It tried to bounce away from the source of the pain, but its leap was brought short by the chain holding it to its fellow. It fell back into the other squig with a leathery slap, and immediately began biting at it. The other squig retaliated. Unable to get away from one another, the squigs bounced and bit madly, becoming a frenzied blur of teeth. The goblin herders leapt around them, poking and shouting, driving them into the skaven where the enraged squigs ploughed a bloody furrow.

‘Charge! Charge! Charge!’ roared Skarsnik. His goblins needed little encouragement. The second line broke into a run. The giant came with them, the regrouped night goblins following.

The unruly mobs of the mountain tribes smashed into the skaven, followed by a mass of flapping hoods and pointy spears. There was a crash. For a moment, as the skaven line rocked back, it looked as if it might hold, and then the giant, a massive thing as tall as the hall’s pillars, waded into the skaven, and they broke in terror.

The entire right flank of the skaven army turned tail and fled. The throne room became even more chaotic as goblins broke ranks to hunt down their enemy. Skarsnik gave another order. A horn blast brought Kruggler’s wolf riders out. They passed through the gap in the goblin back line, and went hunting their fleeing quarry with vicious abandon.

Skarsnik looked at the battle. The orcs had despatched the skaven’s infiltrators and were moving up to engage the main body, desperate to get into the real fight. The larger part of the skaven army had fled, but a core remained, some of the more drilled units of the centre, Skruk’s personal bodyguard, and a portion of the left flank and rearguard.

Atop the dais, the skaven warlord Skruk Spittletail had taken up position. His most steadfast warriors were arrayed upon its steps, supported by some of the skaven’s terrible weapons. The skaven’s white-furred wizard was among them, using his spellcraft against Skarsnik’s goblins.

A globe of poisonous gas smashed down near Skarsnik. The skaven were surrounded by the greenskins. They could not retreat, but they were not defeated yet.

‘Right then, Gobbla,’ he said. ‘We got one more job to do.’ He called his skargobboes to him, had a boss round up his trolls, and reordered his lines.

A stone from a war engine demolished a pillar, bringing a tumble of rock down from the ceiling and killing fifty goblins at a stroke as Skarsnik led the charge.

Seven times, Skarsnik assailed the skaven, one assault after another crashing like waves on a rock. His own war machines silenced those remaining to the ratmen quickly, leaving the contest to be decided steel upon steel. The giant scraped ratmen from the steps with its hands. Trolls fought rat ogres, goblins battled skaven, snotlings rolled in the dust with the rats.

In the end, victory was inevitable.

Gobbla bounced from step to step through the depleted ranks of the ratmen, swallowing his foes whole or biting them in half. He dragged Skarsnik after him. The goblin king’s trident blazed with magic. He blasted skaven at close range, lofting them through the air to be smashed upon the cave floor. He stabbed and cut, even the stormvermin were no match for his and Gobbla’s might.

Duffskul was the focal point of a storm of magic below, his duel with the skaven wizard unfinished. The two had turned their attentions upon one another entirely, the rest of the combatants forgotten.

Skruk sat on his palanquin, his bodyguard arrayed about him. Skarsnik and his skargobboes attacked, charging up the last flight of stairs. Several of the big Moonhats were pushed from the edge hard enough to miss the steep steps entirely. They fell screaming to their deaths.

‘Oi, you, Skruk! Come out and fight me like the rat you are!’

Skruk did not move. He stayed upon his throne, he blinked black eyes. His warriors appeared unperturbed by his cowardice. Even a goblin would never be that low. ‘All right then,’ shouted Skarsnik, ‘we’re coming to get ya!’

The ratmen fought as hard as the doomed will. Skarsnik lost many of his biggest goblins to their blades, but in the end, there were too many greenskins for the ratmen to hold back.

The last few ratmen were embattled on all sides by goblin veterans when Skarsnik reached Skruk. The skaven warlord pulled a pistol from his belt. Skarsnik ducked. The bullet took Gobbla in the side. The squig barked in pain and bit the head off a skaven black-fur.

The skaven warlord stood and cast his pistol away. His palanquin bearers lowered him to the floor and moved aside. They went for their own weapons. Gobbla killed them before they were drawn.

‘Very well, green thing, we fight.’ Skruk said. He was steely, unafraid; courage is not the chief virtue of the ratmen, but he had a surfeit compared to others of that ignoble race. He made to draw his sword.

‘Nah, mate, you had your chance,’ said Skarsnik. He jumped forward with speed that surprised the ratman and ran him through with his prodder. Skarsnik’s leap over-balanced them, and Skarsnik fell on top of the ratman.

‘Nyyyyeergh!’ he said, grinding the weapon in the skaven’s gut. The warlord scrabbled at it, his paws growing weak. He coughed a clot of dark blood, and then was still.

Skarsnik stabbed him several more times to make sure he was dead, and then threw back his arms. ‘Hai-eeeeeeeee!’ he screamed, as loud as he could.

The white-furred wizard, protected by the last five of the ratmen alive on the platform steps, twitched his nose. There was a crackle and a pop, and he was gone in a blaze of magic.

Skarsnik grunted out a laugh as the last skaven were felled. ‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘You can’t kill them all, can you?’ He pulled his prodder from the body of Skruk. He grunted as he lifted the dead warlord in his arms. He walked to the edge of the dais and held the body high. ‘I am the king of the mountain! I am the king of the goblins! I am Skarsnik! These mountains belong to us! To us greenies and no one else! I am Skarsnik, and I is the best!’

He hurled the limp corpse of Skruk from the top of the stairs.

The cavern resounded to the sound of his name.

‘Skarsnik! Skarsnik! Skarsnik!’

Those skaven that could, fled. Many were killed in the tunnels by goblin ambuscade. A large contingent staged a fighting retreat through the hold doors. They gained the surface town, only to find Gorfang and his orcs waiting for them outside the city.

The skaven were wiped out to a rat.

It is said that Gobbla ate so many of the ratmen that day, he had to be rolled from the battlefield like a barrel, and he could not move for a week.

CHAPTER 27

DROWNING RATS

Kruggler’s project had come to an end.

The river was trapped behind a wall of massive blocks stolen from the city above. Huge stone beams had been dragged by teams of sweating runts and orcs to buttress the dam. Thin spouts of water sprayed from gaps, but the majority of the torrent was contained, backing the river up all the way to the Abyss of Iron’s Dream. The river bed was exposed, smooth and dark as a throat. Water puddled in potholes in the glistening stone, white cavefish swimming blindly hither and yon, unable to comprehend why their world had shrunk so.

Goblins worked with baskets of rubble, blocking the river’s original passage. Day and night, runt teams piled stones high. Skarsnik’s trolls laboured in heavy harnesses, dragging boulders into place to the steady crack of whips and the shouts of goblin runtbosses. The last blocks were being put in place as Skarsnik looked on.

To the left of this second dam blocking the original watercourse, a fresh tunnel had been hacked from the stone, chipped away by industrious goblin engineers to a route scouted by the best pathfinders Skarsnik had. Through sealed galleries and ancient stream beds, old dwarf ways and abandoned greenskin tunnels the new waterway went, each branch blocked where necessary, ensuring the water went exactly where Skarsnik wanted it to go.

At the end of the new river passage, a thin shield of rock had been left in place. Carved with muffled hammers, from the outside, the rock appeared undisturbed, but the stone was eggshell weak, ready to be breached by the coming flood.

The cap on the new waterway was situated directly over where the main skaven thoroughfare opened into the base of the hold.

Skarsnik’s feet slapped through puddles, his robe trailing wet, prodder clacking on the stone. Behind him, the dam spat jets of water, the river in a state of indignation, powerless to do naught else but splutter in protest.

‘This better work, Krugs,’ said Skarsnik. Kruggler shuffled alongside his warlord, one eye on Gobbla. His hand and arm were still bandaged from the battle with Skruk’s army.

‘Should work, boss, these digging gobboes you given us have been hard at it.’

‘Them walls hold?’ Skarsnik pointed to the piles of rubble blocking the old riverbed.

‘How should I know, boss?’ Kruggler scratched at his injured arm. ‘All this creeping about under the hill is not my style.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘Thing is, boss, me and the lads were wondering when we could be going home. We had a nice little thing going on down there on the grass.’ Kruggler got a faraway look in his eye.

‘Want to be Griff do you, Kruggs?’ said Skarsnik.

‘No, no, boss. I just want to go and ride me wulloff about and stab things under the sky.’ The plains goblin looked to the ceiling. ‘Not under all this rock. Scares me, so it does, like it’s going to snap shut on me and gobble me up like what Gobbla does.’

Skarsnik stopped. ‘Kruggs, me old mate,’ he said. ‘This mountain has been standing since before the stunties came down here with their picks and that, it’s been here ever since, and it’ll be here a lot longer than us. Even when that goes,’ he pointed at the dam, ‘it won’t fall down.’

‘But, boss…’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ said Skarsnik. He waved his hand. ‘There’s one last thing to do. When that’s done, you and whatever gobboes what likes can go back to your wulloffs and your big carts, all right? But I’m your boss forever, got that?’

‘Sure boss, thanks boss, whatever you say boss.’ The despondent goblin perked up. ‘Kruggler’s boys will always be the gobboes of Warlord Skarsnik!’

Skarsnik smiled wryly. ‘Warlord, eh? I likes that.’

Kruggler looked at his feet, his cheeks and nose tip colouring. ‘I means it, boss. And it’s not just me as is calling you that now. You killing that rattie big boss, Grom hisself couldn’t have done it better.’

Warlord, the highest of all the ranks of orcdom. There have been few goblin warlords in history, so Skarsnik told me proudly, secure in the knowledge that he was one of them. He dared to dream, to be the next Grom the Paunch, but the title spoken out loud almost sounded like an affront to their twin gods. The word hung in the air. For the goblins, this slip of Kruggler’s was as significant and embarrassing as an unexpected kiss between friends who wish to be lovers, but neither dare say.

Skarsnik cleared his throat. ‘Let’s get this sorted shall we? I’ve been waiting to do this for ages.’

The final blocks were slotted into place, plugging the river’s original course with a dam forty feet thick. When freed, the flow of water would not be able to go the way it once had.

Skarsnik gave a nod to his chief engineer, a gnarled old goblin with a thick, leather apron over his black robes and skin pocked by a nasty puffball habit. The engineer nodded to his assistant. His assistant waved a flag. The assistant’s assistant gave a shout. Someone blew a horn. Someone else kicked a snotling. The snotling squeaked.

‘That’s the clear signal, boss,’ said the engineer. ‘Best get out of the way.’

Skarsnik and Kruggler went up rough steps of wood that had been built up the river side. The stairs led to a ledge. The ledge had been created by knocking down the wall to a side tunnel, and had originally been used as a place to dump off the rubble and blocks that had started the dam. Now it was crowded with goblin potentates, all Skarsnik’s bosses, waiting for the show. Over the top of the dam, they could see their new lake, its surface dark and still.

On a ramp that led to another hole in the wall below, runtbosses coaxed harnessed trolls into position with squirming snotlings on spikes. Goblins ran about, hooking up heavy chains to the base of the central stone beam propping up the wall. This done, they waved and hurried away. Other goblins heaved on the chains, pulling them onto fastenings attached to the trolls’ harnesses. Squigpipes blared and drums rolled as the goblins got into a festive mood. Mugs of fungus beer appeared and were handed around. Skarsnik took none of it, his attention fixed entirely on the culmination of his grand project. The trolls looked on, bemused at the activity going on around their enormous feet.

Flags waved, whistles tooted, the goblins in front of the dam ran for cover. Below, alone on the exposed riverbed, stood Grobskab, his glowing blue head tilted back as he looked up to the ledge.

Skarsnik nodded. ‘Let it go! Free the water! Drown the lot of ’em!’

Goblins whooped and a mass of instruments gave voice to a braying cacophony.

Grobskab gave a little salute and marched out of view, hefting a large troll prod. Shouts and the cracking of whips came from below, followed by the deep bass complaints of trolls. The chains clattered, unspooling from the piles they had been laid in and snapping taut so fast water droplets sprang into the air.

The chains hummed with tension. The main beam shifted, the screech of stone on stone drowning out the music and shouts and the racket of trolls. The beam juddered forward, then lodged against a rock, resisting the strength of the trolls for a few seconds.

The beam snapped.

Blocks toppled from their place as the centre of the dam gave, a sheet of water as smooth as rippling silk pushing them aside. More blocks fell as the river pulled at the goblin dam with hands of foam and fury.

With a colossal rumble that must have been heard by King Belegar up in his citadel, the dam collapsed. Rocks the size of carthorses tumbled away like leaves kicked by a child. The freed river burst out of its confinement in a froth of joy. Its snout battered hard at the second dam blocking its old route. Denied egress, it hurried on, slapping angrily at the walls. It sighed as it plunged into the new tunnel, gladly taking the route provided it by the goblins.

All this took place in less time than a single breath, yet for the goblins on the ledge it seemed longer, like they were watching a living creature loosed from a cage. They stood gaping, little red eyes wide, fungus beer forgotten.

The new river bed filled with foaming water that roared and growled.

No one witnessed what happened down in the new waterway, and if there were anyone there they surely died. But we can imagine. The river raced down the tunnel. Stymied at the paths it might more naturally have taken, it thundered on down the goblin-path. By the time it reached the skaven holdings it was moving with the speed of a charging dragon. With hammer-blow force, it hit the weakened tunnel wall, burst through, and poured into the skaven holdings like the very wrath of Gork and Mork.

There were many thousands of skaven killed in the Battle of a Thousand Pillars. Who knows how many remained in those tunnels? They are a numerous breed, and doubtless there were thousands there still as the water poured into their warrens. What did they think as the icy flood thundered upon them? Did they look up in astonishment at the rumble of water, to be swept away seconds later? Did they blame Skarsnik as they whirled in its merciless arms and were drowned? Did their machines die in showers of green sparks as their caverns filled? How far did the torrent go before its impetus was spent and it was reduced once more to a mere river?

Who knows indeed. What Skarsnik did know is that the upper levels of Karak Eight Peaks were forever cleared of the Chaos vermin.

‘Dey never really got over dat,’ he said to me. ‘We got lots ov new tunnels off of dem through dat. Ha!’ he slapped at his thighs. ‘Some of ’em are still under water. I fink dere was sumfink going on down dere. We gobboes like a fight as much as the next fing, but dem skaven! Always scheming and fighting and plotting. For what? When we’s fought, we’s all friends again, but dat lot down there?’ He shook his head. ‘Furry maniacs, da lot of ’em. So anyways, after dat dey was always tryin’ to make deals. So I let’s ’em! Dey is so proud dem skaven, fink dey’re the bosses of da world. I’d make a deal, and den I’d break it. And den some uvver idiot’d come along, and make another deal. So I’d break dat. This war-chief, ’e gets all cocky, so I gets all, “Sorry me lord, oooh, I has been a bad little goblin.” Know what I did?’

He tugged at his chin and winked. ‘I got Fuggrak and his squig boys to round up an ’undred cave squigs. And den we fed ’em all up on fungus beer. Dem skaven are always after monsters and dat, dey is mad for it! So I had dese sleepy squigs, all boozed up, taken down dere, and handed over wiv much hand-wringing and sorry noises. “Ooh, here’s dese special squigs, docile like, sorry about the battle and all that!”’ He sniffed. ‘A day or so laters, da squigs wake up, and boy, are dere heads sore!’ He laughed uproariously. ‘We had us listenin’ pipes in. We lissened and lissened to all dat squeaking and snappin’ and chompin’. Ha!’ he said. ‘We got ’em so good, dat when me boys went to mop up, dere was only like three of ’em ratboys left. Didn’t take long. Sent in some topside orcses to clear ’em off, job done. Den we got to dat big tunnel of deres, dat road dey have. So, I fought to meself, I dun water. What about some fire for da ratties, dry ’em all out nice like? I stacked it high wiv barrels of squig oil and blew da lot. Da roof comes crashin’ in, flames shootin’ everywhere, Kruggler’s boys says you can see ’em whistlin’ up out of holes in da ground all over da mountains. Got meself a bigger place for dat, dey couldn’t get back in, brilliant. And all dose dead ratties, good sproutshroom food dat, so soon I had a load more boys too.’

He nodded at me eagerly. ‘S’good, innit?’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I means, dey was a bit upset after dat, water and squigs and den da fire. Dey stopped trying to make deals den. I mean, dey can only be so stupid, can’t dey?’ He sighed and tapped his fingers on the iron throne. ‘Still, can’t get rid of dem. It’s a real headache, I tells ya. Dey got so many holes, dem skaven, it’s hard to tell where’s they gonna poke up their horrid little pink noses next, and dey always do, they always do! Just when I fink I’ve got ’em on the run, they pop up somewhere else and make all kinds of bother. But they’s out ov da top deeps now, they’s stuck down dere in da dark away from all da best bits, so I don’t care.’

He looked thoughtful for a long time. ‘And now it’s da stunties give me my main troubles. Gor, always coming down here, always looking for a fight. Dey’s easier to deal wiv dan dose ratboys, not so many ov dem, but still…’ He hiccupped. ‘We all likes a big fight, don’t we? Good job too.’ He leaned forward and hissed at me, glancing comically from side to side with mock seriousness. ‘Dere’s a load more on da way! But don’t you worry about me, humie, me and me old mate Gorfang will sort them all out, so we will. Bish, bash, bosh. Mostly bash dough!’ he laughed loudly to himself.

The few of his followers atop that dais ceased laughing long before he did. Finally, he stopped. He wiped a tear from his eye with his finger, and stared down at me.

‘Now then, humie,’ he said. All the humour went from him, just like that, quicker than the water from the dam. ‘That’s me story all done wiv. So what we gonna do about you, eh? What we gonna do about you? You been seeing all right? Not too hard in this dark to write, is it? Humie eyes are weak, ain’t they?’

I laid my pen down. So our interview was over. I swallowed nervously. My stomach cramped, I was still wretched with sickness but to show any weakness then would have doomed me. Skarsnik’s gaze bored into me, those inscrutable red eyes staring at me from the depths of his hood. He looked at me from across the gulf that separates our kinds, a broad gap of charity, mercy, and kindness that divides men from greenskins. But there was understanding in those eyes, a malicious appreciation of my own intellect, and it chilled me to the core.

I was horribly aware that whatever I said next would have the greatest importance to whether I lived or died.

There was half a bottle of Tilean wine left on the table. I grabbed it in my hand, poured, and drank it, I think, in one draught.

‘I am fine, my lord. I can write well enough when the lights are low.’

‘In the dark?’ asked the goblin warlord. He raised his eyebrows, turning one side of his head towards me.

I hesitated, wary of lying to this perceptive king, and nodded.

‘And your ’membrings, I suppose them’s good too, eh?’

I must confess that pride, or maybe the wine, probably both, got the better of me then. My apprehension was put to one side. ‘Oh, yes, my lord, my memory is fine! I am renowned for it, in fact it is a necessary trait in a playwright.’

He looked at me long and hard, his face flinty. He stroked his chin. ‘Right then. I thinks you is telling the truth.’ He waved a hand. Two of his Moonhat goblins appeared at my either shoulder.

I felt a little relief.

‘Make sure you tell all those humies, humie, make sure you tell ’em good, make sure you tell ’em about the king in da mountain. Tell ’em all about me, Skarsnik, tell ’em all about my life, leave nuffink out.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ I said. My heart was in my throat. Was I to be allowed to live?

He dropped down off his throne and came towards me. Gobbla was awake instantly, his massive bulk shuffling around so he could follow his master’s progress with that one, beady eye. He snuffled and grunted. As Skarsnik approached me he let out a long, warning growl.

Skarsnik stood over me, hand on hips. At that dwarf-sized desk, my papers in front of me, I felt like a schoolboy before an angry master. The goblin leaned his outsized head close to my face. He had a strange odour; he was not as filthy as the other goblins, I think he may even have bathed, but he smelled of must and mushroom fields and fox dung and dry leaves long piled in forgotten caves.

‘And then, when you’ve told them all that,’ he whispered, his eyes blazing with menace, ‘tell all the other humies that I’m coming for them too.’ He nodded. It was a nod that demanded a reciprocal nod, an agreement. I obliged.

‘Right.’ He stood up straight and looked to his henchmen. ‘Take him away. You know what to do.’

CHAPTER 28

OUR TALE IS DONE

‘And so, Herr Doktor Wollendorp, Herr Kapitan Meisen, our story is done.’ Bickenstadt’s chains clinked. Meisen prodded Wollendorp. He looked up to see Bickenstadt approaching the bars across the room. Wollendorp drew in a sharp breath when he saw the man to whom they had listened these last two days.

Bickenstadt was a ruin of a human being. He limped, dragging a crushed foot. In hands missing several fingers, he clutched a bundle of dog-eared papers. Those parts of his arms that were visible under his crusty robes were covered in old burns. His head was a mess of scar tissue punctuated with greasy wisps of grey hair. Worst by far was his face. His nose had been slit, and part of it was missing. His cheeks were a criss-crossed mass of knife wounds. And his eyes, his eyes were gone, his hollow sockets filled with knotted scars.

‘Skarsnik was gentle to me, he truly was, he only took my sight. It could have been so much worse.’

Krest stood, suddenly alert. ‘His chains, he has broken his chains! Boy!’ he shouted. ‘Boy!’

‘I pose you no threat. Please.’ Bickenstadt held out the papers. ‘Please take these. It is my life’s work. I have decided, herr doktor, that you should publish them. You and I have enjoyed a fine dialogue. I would be honoured if you were to publish it alongside your account of our interview, a play in four parts, my “Life of Skarsnik”. Talk to Guldenberg at the Orb and Sceptre in Altdorf, he should receive the manuscript gladly. We put on a few shows in our time. I pray he remembers me fondly.’

Krest put a restraining hand on Wollendorp. ‘Do not approach the bars,’ he warned.

‘Do not fear, dear Krest, I will leave it upon the floor, so.’ With trembling hands, he patted the bars and pushed the manuscript onto the floor. He walked away then, towards the fire, as if he would warm himself.

‘Sigmar’s mercy! Where is that boy!’ shouted Krest. He snatched the bell off the table and rang it furiously.

Wollendorp picked up the sheets where Bickenstadt had dropped them. They were covered in near indecipherable spidery writing, overwritten countless times. He peered hard at the sheets, trying to glean some meaning from the mess. His frown cleared, his eyes opened wide.

It was just one name, written thousands of times: Skarsnik.

‘And now,’ said Bickenstadt, ‘if you will excuse me, I am cold.’

How he had done it, the men were at a loss to say, but Bickenstadt had broken his chains and done some mischief to the fine metal grille that prevented him from touching the fire. Previously bolted to the wall, it came free at a touch. He picked it up and put it carefully to one side. Without warning he thrust his hands into the fire and pulled forth two fistfuls of glowing coals. His flesh sizzled. He held the coals in his hands a moment.

‘I have lived too long, I fear, and it is so cold in these caves, so very cold.’

He let the coals drop onto his robes. Flames engulfed him with unnatural speed. The burning man stood a moment; he let out a long, unearthly cackle that ran fingers of dread up Wollendorp’s spine. He held his ruined arms aloft and ran at the window, his burning limbs touching flame to the curtains across it. He could not penetrate the glass, bounced from the wall and fell to the floor ablaze.

‘Gods!’ yelled Krest. In the flames’ light, he became even more raven-like, his eyes black pebbles, his nose a beak. ‘Boy! Boy! Fire! Fire!’

Wollendorp shielded his face. The flames spread as if the room had been soaked in oil.

‘How is this happening?’ shouted Meisen. ‘This is no natural blaze!’

The boy finally arrived. His eyes widened at the disaster unfolding in the room. ‘Get help, sound the alarm!’ shouted Krest. The boy was rooted to the spot. ‘Now!’ Krest said. He grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him out into the corridor.

Wollendorp staggered back. He tripped on the chair. He went down with a shout, banging his head. Meisen quickly had him under the armpits, dragging him backwards.

Wollendorp was never sure if he saw what he thought he saw, but from that day on, a new nightmare joined the endless repetition of Heinz’s kidnap.

A face made of green fire whirled into being, a bone through its nose, a face surrounded by a pointed hood hung with strange charms and ornaments. Wollendorp blinked. The goblin regarded him with a knowing look, winked, and was gone, spun by the fire into other, less recognisable shapes. For only a moment he saw it, but that face stayed with Wollendorp forever after.

Meisen pulled him free of the room and slammed the door on the inferno. Bells clanged. Shouts went up. Every corridor rang with the cries and gibbering of lunatics.

Wollendorp watched the smoke rising from Bickenstadt’s rooms, blending with the morning fog. The fire was out. No major damage appeared to have been done to the schloss; the castle was thick-walled and designed against such exigency, but Bickenstadt’s quarters had been gutted.

‘Do you think he was telling the truth?’ asked Meisen.

Wollendorp turned his attention to the captain. It took a moment for the man’s face to come into focus. He felt so tired, and old. ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

‘What the hells is that supposed to mean?’ Meisen said. The scent of burned flesh and fire had been added to the smells of last night’s wine and unwashed body that he carried with him ordinarily.

‘I mean he told us a playwright’s truth, a heroic truth. His story was far too polished to be entirely fact, and the goblins evidently treated him with greater cruelty than he would admit.’

‘I have seen lesser hurts send a man plain out of his wits.’

‘There you are, then,’ Wollendorp said, too tired to restrain his ire at the captain.

Meisen was undeterred by Wollendorp’s waspishness. ‘So you’re still saying what he told us was like those plays where you see men like the Baron of Unterbergen depicted as playing parts they have no right to claim for themselves?’

‘Exactly so. The siege of the Red Orcschloss took place, did it not?’

‘It did. I was there. At the front, unlike the baron.’

‘And I do not doubt there is a green king in the dwarf halls of the Eight Peaks.’ Wollendorp tucked his hands into his sleeves. He was cold. He felt detached from reality, his mind woolly and slow. ‘But how much else of it is truth? I suppose we will never know.’ Wollendorp shuddered. In part at least, he was glad of that.

Meisen said, after a considered pause, ‘And there was that fire.’

‘There was that fire.’

‘Well, Wollendorp,’ said Meisen with forced cheer, attempting to rekindle some of his former character. ‘I have no idea how pleased the Graf is going to be at receiving our reports, but at least you’ve got yourself plenty of material. Probably as close as you’ll ever get to a real greenskin. Do you still find them so interesting?’

Wollendorp’s anger at Meisen’s assumptions was as wet ash, cold and lifeless, but bitter-tasting still. He stared at the other man until he returned his gaze.

‘When I was nine years old, my cousin Heinz came to live with us,’ said Wollendorp quietly. ‘His father had been killed in the service of Count Marius, and his mother – my mother’s sister – sought company for herself and her boy. I loathed him. He was small and weak and endlessly sick, and all the attention I once had was given to him. “Was he well? Had he triumphed over the hand the gods had dealt him and mastered his classical? How were his letters? Oh, such a good boy, such a clever boy, despite his illness…” On and on and on. To me, it seemed the adults of my household worshipped him, and I was ignored. Nonsense, obviously, but I was young and I was hurt. I prayed vindictively, as I am sure all small boys will, that something would take him away and that I would be the centre of my mother’s life again. I got my wish.

‘The summer of my thirteenth birthday, mother and my aunt sent us both to foster with their brother in Middenheim, where, it was hoped, we would learn some of the skills we would need in later life to be successful gentlemen. They were insistent, against my father’s wishes, who said the roads were too dangerous. My mother won through. But my father was right.

‘On our way through Middenland, our coaches were waylaid by goblin bandits. They rode spiders as big as ponies and took the first coach in our pair and all aboard it. I escaped, my coachman whipping his way through the greenskins and making for the open road. Before we broke free, a monstrous spider grabbed the side of our carriage and Heinz was dragged from the window by the greenskins. He reached for me, but I was paralysed with fear, and did not extend my hand. Then he was gone, and it was too late. We escaped, he was never seen again, alive or dead. Ever since, I have dreamt of that moment, and I wonder what I could have done to stop it, if I could have saved him if only I had reached out. And I wonder too, even to this day, if my prayers were to blame for his death.’

Meisen was uncharacteristically quiet. ‘You seek atonement? Through study?’

Wollendorp began a shrug. He stopped himself. He looked away, at the smoke-blackened walls above Bickenstadt’s cell. ‘Yes. Yes I do.’

Meisen blew out a plume of steam. ‘Well, my friend, we all seek forgiveness for our sins. Me,’ he clapped his hand upon the academic’s shoulder, ‘I look to my soul’s salvation with spirits.’ He smiled, not unsympathetically. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll buy you a drink when we get back, you need one, and I do not think we are welcome at Schloss Werdentraum any more, letter from the Graf of Averbad and Nord Wissen or no.’

The yard was crowded with people. A pile of fire-damaged furniture lay broken on the lawn. Where Wollendorp saw faces, they looked back at him with hostility.

‘No, I suppose we are not.’

Wollendorp summoned his coachman, and told him to make the carriage ready. Wollendorp’s servants were as eager to be away as he was, and with unusual speed, the coach horses were hitched and the vehicle brought out of the coach house into the courtyard.

Wollendorp, soot streaked and weary, climbed into his carriage without a word. When Meisen was aboard they began their journey back to Averheim.

On the way home, neither of them spoke.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Guy Haley began his career on SFX Magazine in 1997 before leaving to edit Games Workshop’s White Dwarf, followed by SF magazine Death Ray. Since 2009, he has been a wandering writer, working in both magazines and novels. He lives in Somerset with his wife and son, a malamute and an enormous, evil-tempered Norwegian Forest Cat called, ironically, Buddy.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Cheoljoo Lee

Map by Nuala Kinrade.

© Games Workshop Limited 2013. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-0-85787-820-5

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eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 You attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.