Everything about Nekrot’s scent and appearance screamed death. Not the cold, efficient death promised by the cloaked adepts of Eshin or the slinking stranglers of Skully. It was the hungry, unreasoning threat of a rabid wolf-rat, the predatory gleam of a prowling cat, the scavenging stare of a hovering vulture.
‘Watch-see, Holy One,’ Nekrot’s sepulchral moan wheezed across the fangs of his helm. His black, hungry eyes again turned to Skrittar. ‘My grave-rats will kill-kill all dead-things.’ He rubbed his pale, almost colourless, paws together and shifted his gaze to Manglrr. ‘We show-tell Fester-rats how to fight.’ Lips peeled away, exposing yellowed fangs in a threat-display as Nekrot gazed past Manglrr and studied the cloaked figure of Vrask Bilebroth. ‘Show-tell why Fester-rats should stay true to Horned One,’ he added with a touch of contempt. Vrask glared back at the bonelord, but the plague priest was wise enough to keep his tongue.
‘You promise much-much,’ Skrittar sneered, gnashing his fangs. ‘One third of my warpstone goes to your bone-lickers,’ he added, nearly choking on the words. ‘But only if they can really protect from the dead-things!’
‘Watch-see!’ Nekrot repeated, fur bristling. Huddled under the nest of interwoven branches that roofed the little shrine built by the man-things inside the grove, the skaven warlords observed as the ghoulish army emerged from the cover of the trees and descended upon the graveyard beyond. The cemetery was far older and larger than the one in which Vrask’s plague monks had failed to subdue the foe. Consequently, the undead defiling the graves were much more numerous. Even so, Clan Mordkin rushed at them with almost un-skavenlike boldness and ferocity. The way they ripped into the zombies was like watching a pack of starving wolf-rats.
Skrittar bruxed his fangs. That, of course, was the trick! Reared on a diet of decaying flesh, the grave-rats of Mordkin associated that smell with food. The odour of the zombies was throwing them into a frenzy born of hunger, driving out even their basest fears! It was an impressive exploitation of his underlings’ psychology on Nekrot’s part, and staging this display was having the desired effect upon Manglrr and the leaders of Clan Fester. After this slaughter, their confidence would be restored.
They would need it! After weeks drawing upon his store of divination spells and augury rituals, Skrittar had discovered the source of the undead infestation. Destroying that source would be a formidable task, one that would require the full might of both Clan Fester and Clan Mordkin to overcome. Certainly, there would be awful casualties, but afterwards they would have a free hand in Sylvania.
Besides, Skrittar reflected, if anything did go wrong he could blame it all on Vrask.
With that happy thought in mind, the seerlord settled back and enjoyed the spectacle of Nekrot’s ravening horde.
Middenheim
Kaldezeit, 1118
‘Does anyone want to argue with that?’ Kurgaz Smallhammer bellowed, hefting the filthy skaven carcass onto the Fauschlagstein. Fleas hopped from the loathsome carcass as it slammed down. The assembled councillors recoiled in disgust, von Vogelthal jumping from his chair and scrambling to the far side of the room.
Graf Gunthar sighed at the dramatic display. He’d seen the carcass some hours before, when Mandred had returned to the Middenpalaz with both the dwarf and the thing that had tried to kill him. It had certainly done much to impress upon him that a strange and sinister threat was menacing Middenheim.
Even so, he’d hoped to present the evidence in a more diplomatic fashion, to prepare his court for the horror of what they faced. Instead, the council’s bickering had grated on Kurgaz’s patience. Thane Hardin had warned him about the warrior’s volatile temper.
Grand Master Vitholf was the first to recover his poise. Leaning across the table, he poked at the body with his sword. ‘It’s a ratman,’ he conceded, nodding first to Kurgaz, then to Thane Hardin. ‘You say your people have been fighting these things for months?’
‘The grudge with the ratkin is ancient beyond human reckoning,’ Thane Hardin corrected him. ‘The present infestation afflicting Grungni’s Tower began four moons ago.’
Vitholf digested that information. The dwarfs had discussed much about these skaven, putting flesh to the old human fables about Underfolk. It was a disgusting thing for a man to contemplate. A society of humanoid rodents dwelling under their feet, plotting the downfall of civilization itself. The dwarfs insisted that such was the truth.
The story was borne out by Prince Mandred, who related his earlier encounters with representatives of the breed. Once in company with the Kineater and once lurking about with a cult of plague-worshippers on the walls of Middenheim. The implications of that first incident were almost too horrific to contemplate.
‘The outbreak of plague in Middenheim would coincide with the infestation in Karak Grazhyakh,’ Mandred said. His wounds had been dressed and bathed in healing unguents, but he was still weak from loss of blood, lending his voice an uncharacteristic air of fatigue. ‘The two must be related.’
‘I agree, your grace,’ Brother Richter pronounced. ‘The southern provinces have been beset by entire armies of these things. The brutes that enslaved Averland and Solland, burned Wissenburg and Pfeildorf were kin of this vermin. History tells us that Sigmar once drove this abomination from the Empire, but even His priesthood has ignored the veracity of His deed, finding it more politic to treat the account as mere legend.’
Ar-Ulric scowled at the carcass, knocking its tail away from where he was sitting. ‘Men would find it hard to sleep at night knowing things like that were scurrying around in the dark,’ the old priest declaimed. ‘It is one thing to accept the beastmen, the northmen and greenskins. Those are enemies out in the wild or beyond the borders.’ He brought his hand slapping against the table. ‘These… These strike at where we live. Even a wolf must feel secure in its den.’
‘His holiness is right,’ von Vogelthal stated. Slowly the chamberlain returned to the table, a visible shiver coursing through him at every step. ‘The peasants would revolt if they found out such things were prowling about under their toes! Why toil for their noble lords if those same lords cannot protect them from walking vermin?’
Thane Hardin nodded sadly. ‘That is why my people did not warn you about the fight in the tunnels. We feared you would flee Middenheim, abandon the city out of terror.’
‘Your opinion of men must be very low,’ Graf Gunthar said, pain in his voice.
‘You squabble and bicker among yourselves so much already,’ Kurgaz grumbled, ‘that any crisis is apt to set you at each other’s throats. Is it any wonder we prefer to do our own fighting?’
Brother Richter turned towards Kurgaz. ‘That is an injustice,’ he stated. ‘To be certain, humanity is more fractious and turbulent than dwarfkind, but our differences make us stronger, not weaker. Sigmar united twelve tribes, bound twelve different peoples into a single purpose. Through Him, the divergent traditions and ideas of the tribes were disseminated, spread throughout the Empire. The adversity of war brought men together in a way that peace and tranquillity never would. You fear that a crisis will bring out the worst in men. I reject that idea! I tell you that it is through crisis that you find the best in men.’
Kurgaz looked away from the Sigmarite, staring instead at Mandred, recalling how the prince had exposed himself to attack in order to cut the dwarf’s bonds. ‘I think I’ve already seen that,’ he admitted.