Duffskul hiccupped and waddled along the corridor to Skarsnik’s personal chambers in the Howlpeak. He hummed to himself as he went, trailing clouds of stinking shroomsmoke behind him. He was wearing his best wizarding hat – a once very bright yellow, now so grubby it was almost green – and a collection of charms that hummed with Waaagh! magic.
The little big ’uns and moonhats by Skarsnik’s chambers scrambled over themselves to open the doors.
‘A fine welcome, oh yus. You got the right respects for your betters, grotty boys,’ he said. They simpered gratefully at his praise.
In the corridor it was freezing; the constant winds whistling through the windows gave the mountain its goblin name and its hurty-bit biting temperatures. In Skarsnik’s rooms it was a different matter, swelteringly hot from the fire blazing in the hearth. Duffskul brought in a gust of sharp-smelling winter with him, but it was swiftly defeated, carried off by the vapours steaming from his robes in the sudden heat.
‘Duffskul, me old mate,’ said Skarsnik, looking up from his work. As usual papers tottered around him, and on many other desks too, to which he flitted as he worked. He wrinkled his eyes, holding a parchment at arm’s length.
‘Too much reading’s bad for you, boss, oh yus.’ Duffskul kicked old bones, rags and bottles out of the way as he made his way over to a sturdy dwarf chair near the fire. Gobbla lay asleep on the filthy rug before the flames, whiffling gently in his sleep.
‘Someone’s got to keep these zogging idiots in line,’ said Skarsnik. ‘Can’t do it if you’s not organised…’ His words trailed away as he deciphered whatever it was that he had written there.
‘I always said you was a funny little runt. Done us proud you have wiv all that thinking there in the old brain box.’ Duffskul rubbed his hands together in front of the fire and sighed contentedly. His heated robes gave off the most noxious smell. ‘Ooh, that’s nice, ooh, that’s very nice!’ He smacked his lips and pulled out his gourd of fungus beer. He sloshed it around disappointedly. ‘If only I had a little drinky to help meself really enjoy it.’
Skarsnik had gone back to his work, the enormous griffin quill in his hand scratching over his parchment.
‘Wanna drink? Help yourself,’ he said distractedly.
Duffskul didn’t need telling twice. He grabbed up the nearest bottle and uncorked it. ‘You is running low.’
‘And you is going to have to brew up a lot more fungus beer. And preferably stuff that don’t taste of old sock!’ said Skarsnik. ‘Precious few stunty barrels to nick, and none of the grapey goodstuff coming out the west these days, so don’t you go gulping it all. I needs me drinks to thinks,’ he said, and giggled quietly.
Duffskul guzzled anyway, glugging priceless Bretonnian wine right from the bottle until it had nearly all gone. ‘Ahh! Now that is better. Ooh, that is a lot better.’
‘Right. Now you is all nice and comfy, why don’t you tell me what you is doing here,’ said Skarsnik, finally looking up and laying down his quill. ‘I am a very busy goblin.’
‘Ain’t you just, ain’t you!’ giggled Duffskul.
‘Get to the point, you mad old git,’ said Skarsnik affectionately. Duffskul had been with him right from the very start, and had stuck with him when others had wandered off, turned traitor or inconsiderately died.
‘Well, we has questioned the ratty scouts.’
‘Yeah?’
‘And we has kept careful watch on their doings and all that, oh yus.’
‘Tolly’s boys?’
‘Best sneaks in the peaks,’ said Duffskul. ‘And I has been trying to speak with da Twin Gods! Gork and Mork, what you has visited and who is the mightiest greenies of them all.’
‘Right. And? Are the ratboys going to attack, then? They’ve got them stunties well bottled up. Only a matter of time before they make their move on me. When and where, that’s what I want to know, when and where.’
‘And you shall know, king of the mountains!’ Duffskul swivelled in the armchair, and leaned on its torn, overstuffed arm. ‘The rats are going to try and drive us out for good, starting with orctown in the old stunty city and da camps outside the walls.’
‘Right,’ said Skarsnik, who had expected as much. ‘East Gate?’
‘Drilla’s boys went to kick out the stunties yesterday. Empty. Well, it was – full of black orcs now.’
‘Hmm.’ Skarsnik drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Well, let’s ambush the little furry bleeders.’
‘They’ll be expecting that,’ said Duffskul.
‘Course they will! That Queek’s not an idiot, even if he is as mad as snot on one of your better madcap brews. But what he’s not gonna be expecting is a special ambush, and so I’s going to make it a very special ambush. He’ll definitely not expect that!’
‘Oh no, oh yus,’ said Duffskul.
‘The Waaagh!’s building, Duffskul, greenies coming to me from left right and centre.’ He paused, and looked down at his lists, running ink-stained fingers down the parchment. ‘I reckon I should meet with this Snaggla Grobspit. Drilla’s lads have already come over. Time to take that cheese-stealing maniac to task, don’t you fink?’
‘Oh yes, boss! Oh yes. Oh yus,’ said Duffskul, his eyes spinning madly in his face. ‘And I’ve got a cracking idea meself.’
‘Have you now?’ said Skarsnik. ‘Right then, tell me all about it, and we’ll figure out exactly what we is going to do…’
The paired skaven warpsteam engines at the gates of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars chuffed madly, whistling as they vented pressure to equalise their efforts. Masked Clan Skryre engineers looked out from the haphazardly armoured embrasures holding their machines, then scuttled back to their charges, fiddling with knobs and tossing levers. Satisfied that their pistons were synchronised, the tinker-rats blew whistles at one another, then set about yanking more levers into the correct positions to open the doors. The tone of the engine’s voices deepened as their gearing wheels thunked into position, engaging with the massive cogs that worked the door mechanisms. Huge gear chains twanged as they came under tension. Machinery hidden high in the roof of the Hall of a Thousand Pillars rattled, and the great gates of the underhalls of Karak Eight Peaks creaked open.
The skaven massed behind the doors shrank back in terror of the sunlight. Few of them had ever been overground, and the prospect of a world without a roof sent a chitter of nervousness through their ranks.
‘Hold-hold!’ their masters ordered, cracking whips and punching the most timid.
The gates crushed rubble and other detritus to powder as they opened. Ponderous but unstoppable, they were one hundred feet tall. The tired sun picked out their decoration as they swung inwards, the runes and clan marks of the beard-things that made them still fresh as the day they had been carved.
‘Forward!’
The first claws of skaven scurry-marched up the ramp leading into the surface city.
All around Karak Eight Peaks, skaven emerged blinking and terrified into the sunlight, pale though it had been made by the choking ejecta of the world’s volcanoes and the endless, uncanny storm that wracked the skies. At the fore of the warriors emerging from the Hall of a Thousand Pillars into the surface city went Ikk Hackflay, a rising star in Queek’s entourage. He was a logical replacement for Thaxx and Skrikk, whose heads now graced the Grand Warlord’s trophy room.
From the skaven-held mountains, more warriors emerged. Four of Queek’s five clawpacks. Reduced by months of war, they still numbered in the tens of thousands. Over one hundred thousand warriors marched forth. Every column flinched as it walked out into the day, and not just for the frightening lack of a ceiling. They all expected to be ambushed as they came out, no matter how well hidden or supposedly secret their burrows were.