Wolf of Sigmar Read online

  The warrior straightened in his saddle, waving his sword and sending drops of black blood spattering across the ground. ‘I am Mandred von Zelt,’ he called out in a bitter tone. ‘Graf of Middenheim. Lord of Middenland. Defender of the Eternal Flame.’ His eyes narrowed into slivers of rage. ‘Scourge of the Skaven,’ he declared in a low snarl, baring his teeth at the ring of monsters.

  The boldest of the skaven lunged at him, swarming towards Mandred in a burst of animalistic fury. A spear snapped against his horse’s barding, another broke against his pauldron as he leaned down to receive his attackers. The blade of Legbiter, fabled Runefang of the Teutogens, burned with magical brilliance as it sheered through the shoulder of the spear-rat and sawed across the beast’s ribs. Mandred was already turning away from the mutilated monster, striking out at a ratman thrusting at him from the other side of his horse. The edge of the runefang raked across the skaven’s face, leaving a gory slash where its eyes had been.

  Voices rang out above the shrill squeaks and screams of the skaven, hard voices that bellowed jubilantly. ‘The graf! It is the graf!’ they shouted. ‘Rally to Graf Mandred! Strike down the ratkin!’

  Mandred dug his spurs into the flanks of his warhorse, urging the beast forwards, charging it full into the pack of ratmen before they could slink back into their burrows and escape. Stamping hooves pulverised rodent bones, flashing steel split verminous flesh. Like some vengeful god of the forsaken north, Mandred pursued his foes, strewing the ruined street with butchered heaps of skaven. As his warriors came charging forwards to join him, to relieve their leader and join him in his battle, a sense of resentment filled his heart. Who were these men to share in his revenge?

  Resentment collapsed into shame. Mandred drew back on his steed’s reins, allowing the knights and soldiers to pursue the routed skaven through the rubble of Carroburg. He felt guilty as he watched the warriors cut down the ratkin, many of them shouting the cry that had poured fire back into the hearts of a defeated people.

  ‘For the Wolf!’ the fighters shouted as they wrought havoc among the monsters. ‘For the Wolf of Sigmar!’

  A tear slowly crawled through the skaven filth caking Mandred’s face. Who was he to command such loyalty? Who was he to inspire such hope when he had none inside his own heart?

  ‘We nearly lost you in this maze,’ a knight declared as he rode up beside Mandred. Beck’s face was haggard, drawn with concern for his liege and sovereign. Despite the gore coating his own armour and the leaking wound across his own scalp, the knight reached into his belt and handed a cloth to Mandred that he might wipe his face. ‘You must be more careful, your highness.’ Beck forced a laugh from his exhausted body. ‘I can’t protect you if I can’t find you.’

  Mandred clapped the knight’s shoulder in a display of appreciation. His mind retreated to years before, when his assigned protector had been Franz. How often he had delighted in slipping out from under Franz’s watchfulness. How often he had obliviously made a mockery of the knight’s sense of duty.

  Beck smiled at his lord, a new vigour blotting out the weariness of only a moment before. The regard of his leader was a greater tonic than any elixir conjured from an alchemist’s cauldron. It didn’t matter who Mandred believed himself to be. What mattered was who his people thought him to be.

  ‘See to yourself,’ Mandred ordered, handing Beck’s cloth back to him. The graf raised an armoured finger to his eye. Beck followed his example, frowning when he found that his eyepatch had been lost somewhere during the battle. A skaven blade had taken that eye, leaving Beck mutilated for life. Just another tiny reminder of how much mankind owed the vermin. Mandred looked away from Beck, looked out across the desolation of Carroburg.

  How dare he believe himself special, that his pain was somehow unique. He had lost his father to these monsters, but how many other men had lost entire families to the slinking fiends? His city had been ransacked and devastated by the ratkin, his home defiled. What was that beside the horrors endured by Carroburg, once the jewel of Drakwald, now reduced to a stinking mire of rubble and filth? For almost four years the ratmen had ruled the city, herding captives here to slave in muddy fields and squalid mills for their inhuman masters. Could he, for a moment, even imagine the terrors the people of Carroburg had endured?

  ‘We will drive the ratmen out,’ Beck swore, beating his fist against his breastplate to signify the gravity of his vow. ‘Most of the streets are already clear. The only real concentration of ratkin left is up in the castle.’

  Mandred raised his eyes, staring up at the hill and the sombre battlements of Schloss Hohenbach. The castle had been the final refuge of Emperor Boris in his vain attempt to flee the Black Plague. Boris had sought to escape his doom by hiding in the fortress. Instead the castle had become his tomb. Now the tattered banners of the ratmen fluttered from its walls, the noxious sigils of the vile skaven.

  ‘Kurgaz said the dwarfs have a plan to breech the castle,’ Mandred mused as he studied those imposing walls.

  Beck frowned and shook his head. ‘Their plan would undermine the foundations and send the whole fortress toppling into the river,’ he reminded the graf. ‘The castle will be an important asset if your highness is to administer this region once the skaven have been driven out.’

  It was the old argument again. The Council of Middenheim had been unanimous in their support when Mandred told them of his intention to relieve Carroburg. Their motives, however, had been anything but united. Some could look no farther than political opportunism, seeing in Carroburg’s distress an opportunity to claim the whole of the Drakwald as their own. Some, like the Sigmarite Arch-Lector Wolfgang Hartwich and old Ar-Ulric urged the more humanist ambition of freeing those enslaved by the ratmen.

  And his part? What was it that moved him to send men into battle? Mandred felt a chill settle around his heart as he stared at the castle and imagined all the men who would be lost taking it back.

  ‘Tell Kurgaz I approve the dwarf plan,’ Mandred declared. He fixed Beck with a stony gaze. ‘Don’t tell anyone except the dwarfs,’ he warned. He wasn’t in the mood for another debate with the blue-blooded scavengers who could only see profit where others found tragedy.

  Beck stared uneasily at his master, making no move to turn his horse about. Slowly, Mandred returned Legbiter to its scabbard. ‘Even if I wanted to go looking for another fight, my horse has earned a rest,’ he told the knight. Satisfied, Beck bowed his head and rode off down the street towards the fields where the Middenheimers had formed their encampment.

  Mandred watched Beck until he vanished around a rubble-strewn corner. Then he lifted his gaze back to the grim mass of Schloss Hohenbach. If what Kurgaz had told him was true, the dwarfs would send the top of the rock sliding into the Reik. It was sobering to think that the dwarfs had such power at their command. But a more important concern gripped the graf’s mind. It was the thought of how many lives would be saved by avoiding a siege.

  Sending men to die that Carroburg might be liberated had been no easy thing, but at least it was a noble cause. To waste men in a pointless battle was something else. Deep down inside, Mandred wanted to break open Schloss Hohenbach, to cut down the slinking ratmen with his runefang, to hurl their shrieking bodies from the highest tower.

  That wasn’t war, however. That was nothing more than revenge.

  As Graf of Middenheim and Lord of Middenland, he could command his people to do many things, but he wouldn’t order them to die for his own revenge.

  Skavenblight, 1120

  The stink of fear musk released by the clenched glands of a hundred skaven overwhelmed the thousand other smells in the air. It was a scent that spoke louder than fawning words and empty flattery. The tongue of a ratman was duplicitous and born to treachery. It was only in his scent that truth could be found.

  Scorned, derided and mocked, the ancient Order of Grey Seers was a waning power in the vicious hi
erarchy of Skavenblight. The heretical plague monks had seized dominance through a blend of terror and greed. The lesser clans flocked to their diseased, abominable corruption of the Horned Rat’s dogma, some hoping to protect themselves from the might of Clan Pestilens, others trying to ingratiate themselves with the plaguelords and share in their vast power. The plague monks had often been openly antagonistic towards the grey seers, but now their sentiments were echoed in the chittering tones of dozens of warrior clans both within and without the noxious Pestilent Brotherhood. It was the way of skaven from time immemorial to sniff out any sign of weakness and pounce on it.

  Let them squeak, Seerlord Queekual thought as he marched through the grimy tunnels beneath the streets of Skavenblight. His gleaming eyes prowled the darkness, watching the slinking shapes that cowered in the shadows cast by worm-oil lamps. Let the vermin hiss and howl all they wanted, in their craven hearts they knew better. Their souls still belonged to the Horned Rat – the true Horned Rat! They knew that the only ones who could intercede with their terrible god were the grey seers. For all the lies told by the plaguelords, the teeming hordes of skavendom recognised the truth!

  Queekual paused as a yellow-robed slaveherder of Clan Moulder came scurrying towards him. The ratman was grotesquely proportioned, his obesity compelling him to scurry sidewise in a shuffling fashion. A string of dirty goblins, their necks shackled together, came trooping along behind him.

  The Seerlord glared at the slaveherder, waiting for the fat creature to bow his head in obeisance. Instead, the slaveherder’s lip peeled back in a gleam of fangs. ‘You are Queekual?’ he asked, his tone and posture insolent.

  ‘Seerlord Queekual,’ the grey prophet corrected him. He raised his paw, spreading his claws in one of the thirteen gestures of destruction. Before the slaveherder could even blink, Queekual’s talons blazed with an unholy glow. Malefic energy leapt from the Seerlord’s fingers, striking out at the insolent ratman. In the silence that filled the tunnel, the sound of rending flesh was like the roar of ocean waves. For an instant, Queekual held his claw poised, before the glow faded from his fingers. Absently he discarded the windpipe his spell had torn from the slaveherder’s body, wiping the ratman’s black blood on his cloak. The heavy charcoal-grey robe seemed to drink in the gore, absorbing it with hungry rapacity.

  The string of goblins shrieked as the slaveherder fell dead. The wizened green monsters struggled to pull free, to flee down the tunnel. In the shadows, lurking skaven pressed themselves closer to the walls and emptied their glands.

  Queekual hefted the horned staff he bore, pointing it at one of the cowering ratmen. When he spoke, his voice was like a blade of ice. ‘You will go and announce me to Slavemaster Skuzzyl. Tell him to send an escort worthy of a Grey Lord.’ Queekual allowed the ratman a heartbeat to overcome his fear and do as he was commanded. When he found the wretch still frozen with fear, the Seerlord stretched forth his hand and again made one of the thirteen gestures.

  Wiping the gore from his talons, Queekual fixed his burning gaze on another cowering ratman. ‘You will go and announce me to Slavemaster Skuzzyl…’

  The skaven didn’t need to hear anything more. With a squeak of fright, he leapt into the middle of the passageway and hurried to carry out the Seerlord’s command. He made a wide detour as he passed the carcass of the slaveherder and the string of goblins sadistically mutilating it with a jagged piece of stone.

  Seerlord Queekual hissed with satisfaction. Let the lies of Pestilens fare where they would, the hordes of skavendom would not forget the power of the grey seers. When the time came, they would flock once more to the true faith of the Horned Rat, would seek the salvation only Seerlord Queekual could deliver to them.

  Yes, he thought as he watched a pack of rats scurry out of the darkness and begin feeding on the skaven he had slain. Yes, skavendom would once again grovel before the grey seers. They would grovel, or they would all die!

  The network of burrows was dank and slimy even by the loose standards of Skavenblight. The walls were caked in mud and black water dripped from the ceiling. Slime seemed to coat everything, almost growing before an observer’s eye. The smells were those of sweat and blood and fear. Not the scent of ratkin, but the stink of lower creatures. The stench of man.

  Queekual’s escort of grizzled stormvermin marched alongside him in enforced silence. The flesh-shapers of Clan Moulder were careful about their elite guard, taking no chance that they might betray the secrets of their masters. About the neck of each guard-rat a thick iron collar had been locked, but they weren’t so extensive as to completely obscure the jagged scar along each throat where the slavemasters had slashed the vocal cords of their minions. The Seerlord’s eyes strayed to the twisted, bestial claws of each stormvermin. Even if the brutes were able to understand written Queekish, they’d have a hard time scratching out a message with such disfigured claws.

  It mattered little. Let Clan Moulder cling to their petty secrets. It was only by some caprice of the Horned Rat that such a lowly and insignificant clan had weaselled their way onto the Council. What were they but semi-clever animal breeders? They might be capable enough to create larger varieties of rat, encourage certain cosmetically appealing turns of scent and pelt, nurture a particularly delectable sort of taste, but were such activities essential to the teeming hordes of skavendom? Their more audacious creations, the art of their vaunted flesh-moulding, were vicious horrors no ratman could control. The image of an entire mob of Clan Moulder skaven being torn apart by the wolf-rats they were exhibiting for the Grey Lords was vivid in Queekual’s mind. So was the savagely impressive performance of their new ogre-rat against one of the deathwalkers of Clan Verms in Skavenblight’s Abattoir many years ago. He could still see that enormous brute standing, bloodied and poisoned, perched atop the dismembered carcass of Blight Tenscratch’s gigantic scorpion.

  Maybe it was a bit hasty to dismiss the peculiar art of Clan Moulder out of paw.

  The Seerlord shook aside any thought about Clan Moulder’s potential. It was too soon to consider the value of any lesser clan. The exploitation of under-vermin would have to wait until the threat posed by Clan Pestilens had been eliminated. It would be a shame to hatch plans for a new pawn before knowing if they would be survivor or victim of what Queekual intended to unleash.

  For now, it was enough that the slave-herders of Moulder could help Queekual further those plans. Even if they didn’t know it yet.

  The slimy tunnel opened into a great cavern, its floor littered with cages of iron, wicker, wood and bone. More cages swung from the ceiling, suspended by a deranged network of rope and chain. The walls themselves were pockmarked with the barred doorways of cells and pens. The stink of man was even thicker here, the reek of subjugation and slavery. Queekual could hear the miserable creatures whimpering and moaning in their cages, cowering before the supremacy of their masters.

  The ratkin of Moulder were everywhere, crawling about the cages, forcing fodder onto their charges, checking them for obvious signs of disease. The dead, the sick and the insane were dragged from their cages and hauled to a great pit yawning in the centre of the floor. Queekual could smell the butcher-stink rising from the hole. He applauded the practicality of Slavemaster Skuzzyl. Feed the useless to the useful. A commendable disposition of resources.

  Skuzzyl leered down at Queekual from atop a heap of man-thing bones. He was a grotesquely obese ratman, his pelt greasy with animal fat, his ears notched with a confusion of jewellery, his fingers swollen with a multitude of rings. Even more than his belly’s appetite, Skuzzyl had a consuming hunger for shiny trinkets. As a favoured underling of High Vivisectionist Rattnak Vile, Skuzzyl had plenty of opportunity to indulge all his gluttony. Few dared call him ‘Packrat of Hellpit’ within his hearing.

  Queekual stared back at Skuzzyl on his bony perch. The Seerlord let just a slight edge of sorcerous light shine from his narrowed eyes, a reminder to the slaveh
erder that he wasn’t dealing with some ten-flea warlord or fungus-licking adept. The display pierced Skuzzyl’s arrogance, the pile of bones teetering as he recoiled from the Horned Rat’s prophet.

  ‘We are honour-pleased by your visit, most great-mighty Queekual…’ Skuzzyl addressed his guest with a nasal paean of flattery.

  A dull rumble throbbed through the cavern as Queekual brought the butt of his staff slamming against the floor. Bottles bounced from the tables, crashing against the floor. Clods of earth crumbled from the walls. Dirt rained down from the roof. Humans in their cages cried out in terror as they felt the ground shudder. Skaven vented their glands as the tremor of Queekual’s magic throbbed through their bodies. A small, even petty display, but it spoke louder than any words the Seerlord might have used. He was in no mood for empty praise or mercenary squabbling. He had a purpose, one that would brook no interference.

  ‘Your flea-fondlers have what I want, yes-yes?’ Queekual asked, his hiss sharper than the crack of a slavemaster’s whip.

  Skuzzyl shifted uncomfortably, knocking a skull and a femur from his perch. ‘Yes-yes, Most Horrible One!’ he tried to reassure the Seerlord, ears laid back in an expression of sincere submission. A flick of his claws sent a pack of skaven scrambling about the barred door to one of the pens. With a viciousness that bordered on panic, the slavers forced a tangle of humans stumbling into the cavern.

  Queekual sniffed at the captured humans, watching them with his beady eyes. ‘These?’ he snarled, his tail twitching with annoyance.

  The wattle of flesh that hung from Skuzzyl’s lower jaw flopped as he swallowed the horror that rose up in his throat. ‘We do best-good!’ Skuzzyl protested. ‘Not find-catch many man-things clever-learned! Many die-sick from Black Plague! Many die-sick when bring to Skavenblight!’

  The Seerlord didn’t look at the simpering Skuzzyl, but continued to study the humans the slaveherder’s minions had brought. They were a pathetic sight, scrawny and wrinkled, their hides blotched with age, their fur pale and matted. Under ordinary circumstances such slaves would have been chopped up weeks ago and fed to the stronger specimens. But these weren’t ordinary circumstances and, if Moulder had done what was expected of them, these weren’t ordinary slaves.