‘And you, mighty leader?’ rasped Ikk.
Queek scanned the sea of black-robed goblins, seeking out the tell-tale splash of red that would reveal the location of Gobbla, and therefore his master. Queek could not find him! The imp-thing would have to wait. He turned his face to the wyvern flapping about the battle and slaughtering clanrats.
‘Queek has other matters to attend to.’
NINETEEN
War in the Great Vale
‘Waaagh!’ cackled Duffskul madly. He danced a little jig and threw bolts of green lightning from his fingertips, blasting skaven to pieces with every shot. His knees popped as he danced, but he was too excited to care. Swarms of ratmen fled before the feet of the Idol of Gork, squealing in terror. Wherever the stone monster went, skaven units burst apart like ripe puffballs, disintegrating into individual warriors who ran in every direction like mice fleeing an orc. ‘That’s right, ya little ratties! That’s right! Run away!’
Duffskul’s eyes glowed with the surfeit of Waaagh! energy washing over the battlefield. From atop his idol he could see right across the Great Vale for miles and miles. The main scrap was right there, in the old dwarf surface city, but smaller skirmishes were going on right the way across the entire bowl. Outside the walls, wolf riders ran down blocks of skaven infantry. Streaks of green whizzed down from on high where jezzail teams discharged their guns. Doom divers plummeted from even higher up. Batteries of goblin artillery duelled with skaven lightning throwers, sneaky gobboes dripping in night-black squig oil fought running battles with groups of skaven assassins. Right at the back, mobs of spider riders ran amok, unopposed by anyone. The ratboys were trying to bring their lightning cannons about, but weren’t having much luck. Not long now and they would smash up the skaven artillery. There was a lot more to see than just the big ruck at the centre, oh yus.
Duffskul liked a nice fight, and this was the biggest and best he had ever seen. There were loads of greenies! Lots of lots, boys from every tribe and every kind of greenskin you could think of – except sneaky hobgobboes and stupid gnoblars, naturally – while there were so many ratties on the other side that he couldn’t even begin to count them, and Duffskul could count pretty high for a goblin. It was a proper Waaagh!
‘Waaagh!’ he screeched. ‘Waaagh!’ The powers of Gork and Mork flooded through him and out his arms and toes and nose, the great idol of mad old Zargakk filling him with power.
What had happened to Zargakk, Duffskul had no idea. No one had seen him in years. He was probably dead. Good thing too, or there’d be no way Duffskul would have got his hands on the idol.
‘Come on, Gork!’ he called. A phantom foot formed from the magic spilling from Duffskul’s skin. With a screech he sent it smashing into a unit of ratties, squashing them flat. He laughed uproariously, so hard he cried. Orc magic that one; Duffskul might be crazy, but he was deeply in favour with the Great Green Twins.
The idol lurched to one side, nearly tipping Duffskul from his perch on its shoulder. With desperately scrabbling hands, he caught himself on the rough stone. Sucking his lacerated fingers, he cast about for his attacker.
A flash of black lightning crackled against the idol, making it moan. It stumped around to face its tormentor, a white-furred skaven sorcerer who was hurling magic of his own at Duffskul’s new pet. Unlike the blasts from the skaven cannon, this was hurting it.
‘Oi!’ he shouted, responding with a crackle of his own destructive magic. He screamed in triumph as it fizzed towards the skaven, but the rattie waved a dismissive hand, and the green light of Waaagh! power dissipated. The sorcerer raised his hands and hurled twin blasts of blacklight at the idol’s knee. Duffskul countered, but the magic got through, weakened, but still effective. With a tinkle, the chains binding the menhirs of the idol’s left leg burst apart. The idol took another step, reaching out crude hands to grab the sorcerer, but its foot was left behind.
‘Watch out! Watch out!’ Duffskul said in horror as the footless leg descended once more.
The idol let out a moronic bellow as it fell. The ground rushed up at Duffskul.
‘Heeeeeelllllp!’ he wailed. The idol crashed down, breaking into a dozen pieces of bouncing rock that rolled all over the place, trailing wisps of dying magic.
The sorcerer stood triumphantly, sure of his victory.
Duffskul was having none of that. Bruised but otherwise undamaged, he stood and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Oi! Ratty! Who do you think you are?’
The rat snarled, exposing the tiny needle teeth either side of its flat incisors. Its eyes went dead-black. Smoke tinged with purple flares poured from its mouth.
Duffskul threw up his own hands. Giant green fists formed around them. He held out his hand, a hand that had become the magic-wreathed, crackling fist of Gork himself. He swung at the sorcerer, who warded off Duffskul’s magic with his dark mist. Duffskul swung again. The skaven responded too late, and Duffskul grabbed him hard.
‘How you like that, eh, ratty? Orc magic that. I know it because I is the chosen of Gork and Mork, their teller of fings to Skarsnik, who was raised up high because of me!’ He squeezed hard. The skaven squealed.
‘We make deal-deal?’ it said in mangled greenskin.
‘I don’t fink so.’
Duffskul sucked in deep, inhaling the winds of magic rushing over the excited orcs and goblins. Power filled him. So much power! He could drink it all in and then he’d be the bestest wizlevard who ever lived, mighty as the gods themselves!
Duffskul’s head hurt with the strength of it, a good pain, deep and satisfying, like the kind of itch it is a pleasure to scratch. The magic-light flaring in his eyes bleached out his vision.
Duffskul giggled. The skaven white-fur shrank in his magic fist. ‘I’m gonna do this proper, you squeaking cheese-thief,’ said Duffskul. Determined to make a show of it, Duffskul fished inside his robes and pulled out a piece of shamanshroom. He taunted the skaven with it.
‘You know what this is, ratty? This is a shamanshroom. From da deep caves, where only those in da know can go. An old shaman, taken root, you might say, gone into da great green! But they leaves some of their magic behind, leaves it for the likes of me to eat up and squish ratties like you. Oh yus.’
Duffskul popped the leathery fragment in his mouth and chewed hard with black teeth. Something of the dead shaman’s residual power flooded into him, augmenting the magic coursing through Duffskul to catastrophic levels. Everything went far away. He could hear the laughter of the Twin Gods in the distance. Sometimes that was a good sign. But not always, far from it.
‘Now I is… Now I is…’
He hiccupped. Something went pop deep inside his brain. Duffskul frowned.
‘Whoopsie,’ he said.
With a wet splotch, his head exploded, fountaining a great deal of blood and a lot less brain all over the remains of the idol and the skaven sorcerer both.
The green fists evaporated into mist, and Kranskritt fell, taking in a deep and welcome breath to his bruised lungs.
‘Heh heh, green-thing. Very good. Very interesting. But you dead now.’ He frowned and leaned in to check. The green-thing’s head had gone, what was left soaking messily into his dirty yellow robes. ‘Yes-yes, definitely dead.’
Trying to salvage his dignity, Kranskritt brushed as much brain off his clothes as he could and walked away, checking all the time that no one was looking.