The Era of the Beast is at an end, and the Vermindoom has ushered in a new and terrible reality. As hungry Skaven pour out into the Mortal Realms in their millions, the Hour of Ruin is nigh.
Battletome: Skaven is also nearly upon us, and the Warhammer Studio is celebrating the first Battletome of the new edition with this exclusive piece of short fiction. This Chronicles of Ruin series will continue across the edition – but the dubious honour of kicking things off goes to the ascendant ratmen.
The bells were screaming.
Not literally. The nearest of the great Warpshatter Bells was miles away. All the same, they screamed in Vasqueek’s ear as if they were mere paces distant. Their wail sent the black hunger in his guts writhing, a lash coiled around his brain. The Clawlord salivated, yanking on the reins of his mount. The gnaw-beast hissed and growled, long fingers scrabbling at Aqshian earth.
The compulsion was intense. Drool pooled in his muzzled helm. But no-no, no surrender to the spasming of his stomach. Vasqueek had to remain clear-headed. His masterful strategies needed seeing through.
From atop a hillock of ash, he watched his swarms advance on the man-thing settlement. Dirkgrave, his Eshin hirelings had said it was called, before they scuttled back into their shadows. Vasqueek didn’t much care what the surface-dwellers chose to name their warren; it was marked for death either way. The first wave of ratmen had hurled themselves against the arcane barrier protecting the outpost until it overloaded. Over their charred corpses, more chittering Clanrats and Stormvermin in black and white rags surged. Those were sacred colours, ordained by Lord Vizzik Skour, daemon-prophet of the Horned Rat, and donned under his evil eye. No clans here – all served the Prophet’s Great-grand Gnawhorde, the manifestation of his consuming will.
Barks of fusil-fire came from those man-things still defending their home. They stood knee-deep in the dead. A sergeant barked an order, seconds before a Jezzail shot punched through her forehead. Hastily prepared waves of bullets tore through the ratmen enveloping the defenders like a liquid mass. Ranks of Skaven crumpled.
But the bells kept clanging. Skaven kept swarming. And man-things fell in multitudes.
Yes, Vasqueek really was a genius. Still, he frowned.
‘Taking too long,’ the Clawlord muttered. ‘Supposed to be near the coast by now.’
Green lightning flashed in wracked and dirty skies. Vasqueek inhaled, savouring the thickened warp-winds that blew across the Gnaw. The domain that the Skaven had ripped out of Aqshy and made their own carried Blight City’s reek: that pervasive stench, the odour of innumerable foul things. Through a corrupt emerald haze, jagged spires of dirty brass could be spied, cyclopean and wicked as they reached towards the evil skies. They had torn the skin of Aqshy, turned its blood noxious and its surface virulent. The unusual survival of the man-thing settlement here, buffeted by gales of unclean magic, had only ever been a stay of execution.
Still. Too slow, all of it. Lord Skour had demanded the Gnaw cleansed, the first stage of this great-grand war of mastery. But those delays weren’t Vasqueek’s fault. The Gnawhorde were blessed to suffer the black hunger’s single-minded fury, its frenzy lending them strength and vigour, but it left their swarms challenging to control. Anything more than a headlong charge across the blasted land had required a great degree of cunning and effort.
Vasqueek had simply acted with appropriate caution. Yes, that was it. There was more than just the Sigmarites to consider. Warbands sworn to the man-thing Everchosen still lurked in the Gnaw, clinging on in defiance of all good sense of self-preservation. Many had seen reason and joined their forces with the Skaven, but some refused to recognise their real masters. Beneath Vasqueek’s muzzle-helm, the scar left across his jaw by some Darkoath tribe-mongrel’s blade ached. It had provided a lesson, though. For the past few days, he had been taking every precaution to prevent his swarm blunting its fangs on needless foes, even if that had meant long diversions. There was old, canny Verminus sense in that; you didn’t hold onto power by being reckless.
One of the man-things down below seemed to have organised a knot of defence. Volleys of fire under his direction had somehow beaten the hunger-frenzy out of Slizk’s clawpack; they turned, tripping over bodies in their rout, muzzles still coated in blood. Once their fear was in the air, others would soon scent it.
‘Intolerable!’ Vasqueek’s ire was directed at the Warlock Engineers clustered about the hillock, squabbling over the salvage. He jabbed his glowing halberd at the nearest. ‘You! Why has this not been dealt with?’
The Skryre techno-mages wore the Gnawhorde’s attire, but they were sensate enough to heed him, eyes wide behind their goggles. The nearest of them shifted, genuflected.
‘A thousand apologies, insightful lord.’ Fumbling with his robes, he produced a cable-studded farsqueaker and shrieked into the device.
As Vasqueek watched, weapons with stalks protruding from bulbous fuel drums began to jostle their way through the swarms. Three Warpfire Thrower teams moved with a mix of bullishness and trepidation, snapping at any who drew too close. As man-things hurriedly reloaded, the weapon teams took up position, aiming straight down the main thoroughfare. There was a throaty roar as sheets of emerald fire vomited from their nozzles. The street vanished in flame as Sigmarites – and Slizk’s Clanrats – became screaming, thrashing candles.
The roar suddenly became an uncomfortable keening. Vasqueek couldn’t be sure whether some lucky man-thing had shot a fuel drum or if a Skaven gunner had simply been overeager. Either way, one of the Throwers suddenly went up in a bright green nova. Its twins followed, the operators’ screeches cut short, the battle briefly obscured by the conflagration. Vasqueek squinted, looking away from the flare.
Then a voice nearby further soured his mood.
‘Taking too long, Vasqueek.’
A figure draped in grey climbed the hillock, leaning on a staff hung with bells and rat tails. Glittik’s eyes bulged with signs of recent warpstone ingestion. Yet his curving horns, the mark of the Grey Seers, saw the Clawlord withhold any petty remark. Still, Vasqueek scowled. Glittik’s tongue was as sharp and acidic as any Deathmaster’s knife. Lord Skour had demanded their cooperation, and the only thing that had made it tolerable was the Seer’s tendency to disappear for days on end. Vasqueek’s suspicions at such times were offset by relief at not having to hear his voice. No such mercy now.
‘You hesitate, Clawlord,’ Glittik said. ‘Lord Skour commands his holy warriors to carry his proclamations of death-doom to the coast, yes-yes.’ He jabbed a finger towards the horizon, where more flashes of warp lightning wracked the sky. ‘Hel Crown is close. There we must offer our strength. Cannot be stalled here. I know this.’ His chest puffed out. ‘His Bleak Eminence speak-chitters to me. Not you.’
‘So you say, most august of augurs,’ Vasqueek snapped, before jabbing his halberd towards Dirkgrave. ‘Observe, though. We make progress.’
The Master Moulders of Clan Rasp had been wise to bow before the Gnawhorde when it ripped through their territory and feasted upon their flesh-pits. Their mutants now spearheaded the charge. As Rat Ogors bounded over toppled masonry, a small mountain of flesh advanced through the smog. The Brood Terror swung its chain-flail through a spire as warpflame screamed from its arm-mounted cannon. Cannonballs slammed into the monster’s flanks, ripping out chunks. The beast gurgled and staggered backwards a step, but it didn’t fall.
‘Too slow!’ Glittik shrieked. ‘Typical of a gruel-brained lord of Verminus! Fortunately,’ he smirked, ‘I have already taken wise-smart measures to solve this conundrum.’
‘Measures?’ Vasqueek said. Something in that utterance saw his fur bristle. Glittik’s smirk didn’t help. The Grey Seer turned, descending the hillock. With a last glance at Dirkgrave, Vasqueek yanked his mount’s reins and urged it to follow.
They passed mounds and valleys where the ashen sands glowed green. Glittik seemed unconcerned by possible treachery. Vasqueek, admittedly, was curious enough to avoid driving his blade into the Seer’s back.
For now.
‘It is time you saw-grasped my vision,’ Glittik said, entering a cave beneath a dune. Emerald sparked from braziers of warpflame: thirteen of them, ringing the central space. Muzzled Stormvermin stood at cardinal points, red-ringed eyes betraying the cramps of hunger in their guts. That wasn’t what drew Vasqueek’s attention, though.
‘All is ready,’ Glittik chuckled, as more Stormvermin emerged from a side cavern. They hustled a cleric into the ritual space inside the cave. His sigmarite doublet had been torn, revealing eight-pointed symbols inked on the flesh beneath. He wasn’t alone. Twelve figures knelt, bound and restrained. Some Darkoath tribal shaman. A slender being in a silvered mask. Even a Bringer-of-the-Word of the Clans Pestilens.
It was the last captive, though, that saw Vasqueek pause. This one was clad in black-and-gold plate, though it was easy to miss thanks to the warpforged chains and rune-cut bindings lashed across almost every inch of them. The fetters bound them to the altar, as did the mask-like clamp affixed over their lower face, while nearby Skaven levelled halberds warily. The security seemed apt. Despite the sorcery clearly addling them, there was a quiet, fuming outrage in the prisoner’s bloodshot glare.
‘That is one of the Varanguard!’ The Clawlord’s voice was a hiss, adrenaline flooding his blood. ‘You take the Everchosen’s sworn-blades? You have been… collecting these individuals? Explain!’
‘Servants of rivals to our Lord Skour,’ Glittik grinned. ‘Speakers of false truths. Much effort I have expended. Some snatched from their camps. Others bargained from the court of Krittok Foulblade. In their blood lies power, Vasqueek. Power to rip-rend the veil and call the Prophet’s kindred.’
‘But this…’ Vasqueek twitched, tail quivering. Nothing from the Foulblade’s larders ever came without cost, but that was the least of his concerns. ‘The Everchosen’s hordes trust us little enough already. Supposed to fight as one. If this was known… too much, too much!’
‘No-no. Nothing is too much for us now,’ Glittik crooned, turning pointedly from the Clawlord. ‘We are in ascendancy! The time of our rivals is done-finished. You are craven-weak, Vasqueek. Unsuited to the new age.’
The cave swirled with infernal gales. Dark corposant crackled. The bells droned louder as Glittik approached the altar, warpstone dagger in hand. As if stirred by his presence, the Varanguard jolted, straining fruitlessly against bonds that glowed a virulent green. Ignoring him, Glittik began chanting. Dread welled up in Vasqueek’s chest.
‘Wait-wait!’ he screeched, as Stormvermin drove halberds into the captives and Glittik dragged the dagger across the Varanguard’s bulging throat.
Green light erupted from the wound like a detonating Skryre pressure-bomb. Glittik threw himself prone, wailing, as Stormvermin were reduced to ash. The cavern groaned as if in pain. Vasqueek’s Gnaw-beast reared in terror, throwing him from the saddle as it skittered away. A ghoulishly vast shape pulled itself from the cut in reality that the Varanguard’s corpse had become.
The daemon was a scratch upon the world. Its eyes shone with concentrated malice. Vasqueek could scent its foulness even over the cloying, pungent blend of his and the Grey Seer’s fear-musk.
‘Vacillators. Lack-a-wills.’ The Verminlord’s words were knives scraped over the mind. ‘Who dares summon almighty Chitterclaw? Which of Skour’s sludge-pawed broodlings seeks aid in pleasing the Prophet?’
Vasqueek’s gaze darted to Glittik. The Grey Seer was still blinking away the flare of summonation. The Clawlord saw his chance. He pointed at the sorcerer.
‘He did, most terrible of lords!’
Stepping from the fleshy wreckage of the sacrifice, the Verminlord reached down. It scooped up Glittik, incisors shearing off the Grey Seer’s head before it consumed the corpse. The daemon swallowed, green-black lightning crackling from its eyes.
The rattle of laughter drew Vasqueek’s eyes upwards from where he had buried them in the ground. Chitterclaw’s gaze flayed him to the core.
‘The Prophet chooses curious puppets.’ The daemon spoke as if tasting the words – as if tasting him. ‘But… malleable. You will suffice.’ Its nostrils flared. ‘War-scent I smell. Murder to make.’ It gave a slick chuckle. ‘Calm yourself. Your swarms will rend the man-things and crack their bones, as I command… as the Prophet wills.’ The Verminlord nodded, tail snaking. ‘Is that not why you allowed the Grey Seer his schemings: to pay the penalty for letting us walk this realm?’
Yes… yes, that was true, wasn’t it? Vasqueek had allowed Glittik his plots, and look at him now. As the lethal edge of panic was blunted, Vasqueek felt manic laughter ripple up his throat. He clamped down on it. His eyes shifted to the piles of flesh that had been the assorted priests of ruin.
‘Questions?’ Chitterclaw’s head cocked.
‘Only… only…’ Inside his muzzled helm, the Clawlord licked dry lips. His throat was hunger-raw now. ‘Why them, dread one? Why use the souls of Chaos-sworn to summon you?’
‘Because their time passes. Ours comes. We are amongst them now, seated on their pantheon,’ Chitterclaw said, breath steaming like poison wind. ‘They scorned us, made us skitter in the shadows. Fear-filled they were, because they knew we were their antithesis. Our swarms kill with frenzy, but no rage. We scheme not for change but for changeless mastery. We defile without bringing new life. We consume without joy. Yes-yes, always have we been the rats gnawing in their bellies. They will learn this no less than the shining man-things, in this new age. We will use the Chaos-sworn, grind our foes to ruin with them. Then we shall gnash-feast on their bones too.’
Slowly, the daemon approached the Clawlord and raised a talon. It settled upon Vasqueek’s face. Fear flushed through the Clawlord, visions of his throat being slit and blood spraying forth. Instead, Chitterclaw unhooked the chieftain’s muzzle. It clattered to the ground with a clang. Vasqueek gasped, chewing and gnashing at the air, ravenous saliva spilling free. The bells were almost deafening now.
‘Now rise, spawn-of-ours,’ Chitterclaw chuckled. ‘Always let us gnaw this world to ruin.’
Ruin is the word of the edition, clearly! You’ll be able to pre-order Battletome: Skaven and all its vile children from tomorrow. Watch out for another edition of Chronicles of Ruin shortly, when Battletome: Stormcast Eternals blasts its way from the heavens on an azure bolt.