‘So long I have waited for this!’ he said; his use of the secret tongue of the dwarfs clearly riled the king.
‘I too, filth. Today will be a great day when your entry might be stricken from the Dammaz Kron of Karak Eight Peaks!’
Queek attacked without warning, hammering Belegar with a flurry of blows from both his weapons. But slow and stolid though the beard-thing was, he was always in the right place, always ready with a block when Queek thought he had a killing blow. Queek twisted around Belegar’s replying strikes, acrobatically evading blows that would have shattered his body had they connected. Five times Queek was sure he had landed a final blow on the king, five times Belegar deflected them. Queek was quick, Belegar skilled. After two minutes of fighting, all Queek had to show for his efforts were a series of small scratches on Belegar’s shield.
Battle raged all around them, the dwarf and skaven ranks now thoroughly intermixed. The din of battle in the hall was amplified by the stone walls. Fire, blood and death were everywhere. Queek boiled with irritation. He hid it behind a wicked smile.
Queek wiped his mouth on the back of the paw holding Dwarf Gouger. ‘Belegar-king good warrior! This is most satisfying for mighty Queek. Too many famed killers die too quick-quick. That very boring for Queek.’
Belegar glared back at him.
‘But beard-thing king not as good as Queek! He cannot stand against mighty Queek for long. Already, Queek has slain many beard-things. See?’ He waggled his back, sending a dried dwarf head’s beard swinging atop his trophy rack. ‘Beard-thing king’s littermate. He was very poor. Not so good as strong-meat Belegar, but Queek kill him anyway. Now I kill-slay you. I bring him out specially from Queek’s trophy room, so he see you die-die. Soon your head will sit next to his. You will have long-ages to discuss how mighty Queek is. Won’t that be nice for long-white face-fur?’
To Queek’s frustration, Belegar did not react as so many beard-things would at his taunting – with a wild bellow of rage and a foolish attack. Instead, he warily circled the skaven.
And then he made his mistake. The tiniest opening. Belegar’s eyes flicked involuntarily up to the head of his brother impaled upon the spike.
Queek reacted instantly. Belegar was ready again, catching the blow of Dwarf Gouger upon his shield, but he was distracted and the block was not as true as his others had been. The shield was slightly too far out; it would take a fraction of a second longer to reposition. Queek made as if he were to make a second swipe. Belegar tensed to react. Queek swept Dwarf Gouger up and away, pirouetting past the king’s shield, putting all his weight and momentum into a backhand blow that sent Dwarf Gouger’s vicious spike through the king’s gromril and into his side. Queek yanked it free, and danced backwards, but too slowly. Belegar slammed him in the face with his shield, denting Queek’s helmet. A following blow from his hammer drew sparks from the rock as Queek rolled aside. He was licking dwarf blood from the maul as he regained his feet. He tittered, although his head rang like a screaming bell.
‘Mighty Queek!’ bellowed Ska. He was throttling a dwarf in ornate armour in one hand. The creature’s face went purple, and Ska cast it aside with a clatter. ‘We are in much-much danger!’
Queek’s eyes darted about. Ska was correct. Big-meat ogres and dwarf-things had pushed back the skaven line. The left flank was melting away. The dwarfs were occupied in containing the Hell Pit abomination there, and that was all that was saving his clanrats from destruction. How long it would hold them back was uncertain; it was surrounded on all sides by angry beard-things and was being hacked into pieces by their axes. The other abomination continued to wreak havoc, but elsewhere ogres pushed deep into the skaven horde with seeming impunity, while the dwarfs’ cannons were firing freely into Queek’s army. Worse still, the last rat ogre went down as Queek watched, its head smashed into a bloody pulp. The king’s guard were now free to concentrate on Queek’s Red Guard. Their formation tightened up, they began to push forwards, and the Red Guard were dying quickly, their morale wavering. Queek was in danger of being surrounded, and cut off.
Queek took all this in an instant. He made his decision to retreat just as quickly. He backed up. Belegar screamed at him, charging forwards with his hammer raised. Queek leapt out of the way, landing on the edge of the rubble pile’s cliff-like face.
‘Run-retreat!’ he squeaked. ‘Fall back, quick-quick!’
Gratefully, the Red Guard fled, more of them bludgeoned to death as they showed their tails.
‘We meet again soon, long-fur,’ chittered Queek, dodging hammer blows as dwarfs interposed themselves between him and the king. ‘Until then, Queek takes another trophy.’
He jumped from the circle of dwarfs, pushing off with one foot-paw from the helmet of one of Belegar’s warriors. He aimed himself at the king’s banner bearer, fending off the warrior’s hopeless parry. Queek relished the look of surprise and fear in the beard-thing’s face as his sword descended, cutting perfectly into the weaker mail at his neck and severing the dwarf’s head. The head toppled along with the standard, the metal icon painted red by fountaining blood.
Ska scooped up the fallen prize, and together they fled the stony mound.
‘Notrigar! Notrigar!’ howled Belegar.
‘Oh dear,’ said Queek to Ska as they scurried away. ‘Look like long-fur beard-thing lose another littermate.’
The dwarfs cheered as the skaven fell back, hurling insults after Queek. Some of the skaven army retreated in good order – Queek’s guard and his other stormvermin units held firm – but most did not and scrambled for the exits. Ogres ran them down without mercy, knocking handfuls of them flying with each swing of their massive clubs and swords. Green trails in the air marked out where jezzail teams aimed for the mercenaries, but the toxic bullets seemed not to affect them much, and it took several rounds to bring even a single ogre down.
The battle-dirges of the dwarfs changed. Victory songs erupted along the line at the flight of the skaven.
At the centre, the Iron Brotherhood found themselves unengaged. They yelled insults and banged their hammer hafts on the rock and on their shields.
Brok Gandsson sought out his lord, who stood at the brink of the cliff, looking down upon the scattering of bodies and blood-washed rock.
‘A great victory, my king!’ said Brok, his eyes bright, the shame of his murder of Douric forgotten for the moment.
Belegar looked with hollow eyes at the headless body of his cousin.
‘My lord?’ said Brok. He gestured for another to take up the fallen standard.
‘It is not a victory, not yet. If we prevail, and I say “if” carefully, Brok Gandsson, a dozen of our finest lie dead around us. Grungni alone knows how many others have fallen.’
‘Shall we pursue them? We stand a chance of catching the Headtaker,’ said Brok keenly. ‘Many are the grudges that can be stricken from the Book by his death.’
‘Pursuing Queek is futile,’ said Belegar. ‘We will be drawn into the mass of troops waiting for us and killed piecemeal. We have other foes of direr nature, and closer to hand.’ He pointed his hammer at the second abomination. The first was dead, but in their fury at the losses of their kin, the dwarfs of the Stoneplaits clan continued to hack at it. The second was dragging its vile bulk through the army, mindlessly unaffected by the general rout of the skaven. A bold unit of miners stood their ground in front of its heaving bulk. They buried their mattocks in its sickly white hide, only for them to be torn out of their hands by the convulsions of its flesh. A cannonball smacked into it, as effectual as a child’s marble impacting dough. ‘There is yet one more task for our hammers.’