—<SEVENTEEN>—

Preparations of War

Nagashizzar, in the 106th year of Asaph the Beautiful
(-1211 Imperial Reckoning)

A black-robed scout-assassin emerged from the wide, shadow-filled lane across the great cavern and skittered silently up to Lord Eshreegar. The two conversed quietly for a moment and the Master of Treacheries nodded stiffly. As the scout disappeared back into the shadows, Eshreegar turned his hooded head and nodded to Eekrit. The skeletons were coming.

Eekrit could feel Nagash’s minions approaching long before he saw the green glow of their eyes, or heard the dry rustling of their steps. He felt it in his old joints and in the back of his throat, as the thick, reeking air of the great cavern turned cold and dank as a grave. Gritting his teeth and leaning heavily on the gnarled cypress cane in his paw, he rose painfully from the wooden chair his slaves had brought down from the great hall. Behind him, the shackled herds of greenskins noticed the change as well and filled the echoing space with a rising chorus of growls, barks and shrieking cries.

Slavers snarled at the drug-addled beasts, lashing at their scarred backs with metal-studded whips to keep them in line.

Within moments, a pair of eerie grave-lights emerged from the gloom. Bone rasped along rough, slimy stone. A figure emerged, clad in mouldy rags and carrying a rust-spotted iron sword. Eekrit had seen this particular corpse several times before, but couldn’t say for certain what it was. It radiated power, like one of the kreekar-gan’s wights, but held far more intelligence than the rest. Its teeth were black and jagged as splintered ebony, giving its skull a permanent, broken snarl.

Behind the figure marched a long line of hunched, yellowed skeletons, swathed in rotting fragments of clothing and scraps of mouldy flesh. They moved in pairs, each carrying a heavy wooden chest between them. Their knobby skulls turned this way and that, snouts raised as though sniffing the air for their lost clan mates. Though Nagash no doubt held thousands of human skeletons in thrall, it apparently amused the liche-king to send skaven corpses to trade with the Under-Empire.

“By the scales, damn you,” Eekrit snarled, pointing with his cane to the towering wood-and-bronze apparatus at his right. Every three months, it was always the same. As the black-toothed creature glared hatefully at the skaven, the skeletons slowly turned, staring at the scales as though they’d just sprung up from the cavern floor. Then, one pair at a time, they shuffled over and set down their burdens for appraisal. Eekrit waved a paw impatiently and a small gang of skaven hurried forwards to weigh the chests of god-stone and tally the results. The former warlord surveyed the process with a sour look on his face and wondered once again if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake.

“A poisoned cup or an assassin’s knife has to be a better fate than this,” he muttered to himself.

“Not from my experience,” Eshreegar replied, as he joined Eekrit near the creaking scales. Though nearly blind now from age and his injuries during the war, his hearing was as keen as ever. “But, each to their own.”

Eekrit glared at the Master of Treacheries. “Shall we trade places, then?” he sneered. “I could give orders to your scouts and send reports back to Velsquee, while you stare at mouldy ledgers and put up with… with this—” he waved an arm at the noisome herds of shifting greenskins, “each and every day.”

Eshreegar folded his arms and sighed. “Well, Velsquee isn’t exactly happy with the reports, for what it’s worth.”

“No, I expect he isn’t,” Eekrit said, tail lashing irritably. The liche-king had begun rebuilding his strength the very day that the trade agreement had been set and he hadn’t stopped since. The foundries ran day and night, spewing vast clouds of choking fumes into the air above the mountain, while gangs of undead labourers bored dozens of new mine shafts deep into the mountainside. Toppled towers and collapsed buildings had been rebuilt at an ever-increasing pace, as a growing number of northern barbarians were sent to serve in the liche-king’s halls. Looking back now, it galled him to think how close they’d been to victory. He should have listened to his instincts from the outset and thrown everything he’d had into one, final attack. It would have been far better to have tried—and possibly failed—than to sit amidst this rubbish heap from one miserable year to the next.

The appraisers went to work opening each of the chests. Green light flared brightly from each one; within lay carefully stacked ingots of refined god-stone. At a half-pound of stone for every one hundred pounds of flesh or treasure, the skaven had learned to maximise their profits early on by trading in big, muscular greenskins and crates of heavy ores. The wealth they were reaping from the mountain was nowhere near the amount they had mined during the war, but was still a fabulous sum by any normal measure. The sight of so much of the precious stone in one place never failed to set Eekrit’s nose twitching.

One by one, the chests were weighed; two scribes—one from Velsquee’s clan, and one employed by Eekrit himself—noted down the value in their ledgers. When the process was complete, they would be placed under heavy guard until the morrow, when a contingent of Velsquee’s heechigar would come to collect them and carry them back to the Great City. There, Velsquee would sell the stone to the other clans and share the profits with Eekrit and Eshreegar. Eekrit had no doubt that Velsquee was robbing them blind in the process, like any self-respecting skaven would. Despite this, the former warlord had already amassed a sizeable fortune over the last few years. Another decade or so and he might be able to buy his way out of exile.

There certainly didn’t seem to be any point in staying. Nagash had grown far too powerful. If mad old Qweeqwol had been right about the necromancer’s designs, Eekrit didn’t want to be anywhere near the mountain when the liche-king put his plans into motion.

“So many chests! Such magnificent wealth! It-it is pleasing to the eye, yes?”

Eekrit blinked, roused from his reverie by the nasal voice to his right. He glanced over at the wiry, younger skaven who had sidled up beside him. His ears flattened slightly in irritation. “Don’t start, Kritchit. I’m not in the mood.”

Kritchit wrung his knobby paws and gave the former warlord his most unctuous smile. Eekrit thought the slaver looked like a half-chewed lump of gristle. His shoulders were hunched, the left slightly higher than the right, and there was a noticeable hunk of flesh missing from his left thigh, which caused him to drag the leg when he walked. Kritchit’s head and arms were patterned with dozens of old scars and his ears had been chewed down to mere nubs. He was a genuine horror to look upon and reeked of spoiled meat besides. For years he and his band of savages had taken Velsquee’s gold and scoured the mountains for human and greenskin slaves. He was cunning, ruthless, and as greedy a wretch as Eekrit had ever met.

“Mood? How can your mood be anything but grand, my lord?” Kritchit spread his paws, taking in the long line of chests. “Are you not blessed? Is this not a great bounty of wealth laid before you, greater than any conqueror’s due?”

Eekrit’s eyes narrowed angrily. “We carved this much out of the mountain every day during the war.”

Kritchit chuckled. “Oh, no doubt, no doubt,” he said patronisingly. “But this here… this is a gift, yes? Dropped like ripe fruit into your outstretched paw. Did you sweat, and suffer, and bleed for this treasure? No, certainly not. You had but to recline here, in luxury, while my bold raiders and I hunted day and night on your behalf.”

The former warlord folded his arms. “You’re doing this for Velsquee, not me,” he growled. “I’m nothing more than a clerk.”

Kritchit sighed with theatrical weariness, ignoring Eekrit’s reply. “The life of a raider is a hard thing, my lord. Much deprivation. Much danger. Days and nights in the cold, open spaces, without so much as a burrow to shelter in.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

“And the greenskins… there are only a few herds left and those are the meanest, cleverest of them all.” The slaver shook his scarred head sadly. “There was much fighting. I lost many good warriors. Some were like litter-mates to me.”

Eshreegar made a disgusted sound. “That’s it,” the Master of Treacheries said. “I’m killing him.”

The former warlord forestalled Eshreegar with an upraised paw. “One share, Kritchit. Same as ever.”

Kritchit drew himself up to his full height, which had the unfortunate effect of making him seem a bit lopsided. His right paw fell to the butt of the coiled whip that hung from his belt. “Where is-is the justice in that?” he said. “I do all the work, take all the risks! I have warriors to pay, kinfolk to bribe. I-I have expenses.”

“One share, Kritchit.”

“It’s been one share for the last ten years! You know how much things cost these days?” Kritchit pointed to the milling herd of slaves. “These beasts killed a dozen of my warriors when we took their camp and then mauled two more-more on the way here! How do you expect me to-to replace them?” Kritchit licked at his long, front teeth. “Three shares, this-this time.”

“Am I speaking too quickly for you, Kritchit? Should I use smaller words? One. Share.”

“Two shares!” The slaver swept his paw at the line of chests. “Look-look at all that! Velsquee will never miss it!”

Eekrit sighed. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “Eshreegar, kill him.”

“Now, look here—”

Eshreegar had a knife drawn and was bearing down on Kritchit when a commotion suddenly erupted at the far end of the cavern. Greenskins bellowed and snarled, shaking their heavy chains and stirring up the entire herd. The slavers shouted back, their whips hissing malevolently through the dank air. Eekrit turned and saw a column of burly, armoured skaven shoving the slavers aside as they forced their way into the cavern from one of the wide tunnels that led from the mountain towards the Great City.

“What’s this?”

Eshreegar paused, knife poised to strike Kritchit. He squinted his one eye at the distant skaven. “Velsquee’s heechigar,” he grunted. “They’re early.”

The storm-walkers poured into the cavern in a great column, polearms at the ready. Behind them, Eekrit caught sight of a gang of bent-backed slaves carrying a swaying wooden palanquin. His eyes widened.

“By the Horned One. What’s he doing here?”

“Velsquee?” Eshreegar asked. “After all this time?”

“So it would seem.” The former warlord’s tail lashed agitatedly. For the life of him, he couldn’t fathom why the old Grey Lord would risk the long and arduous journey from the Great City and that made him very uneasy.

Eshreegar gave a discreet cough. He nodded his head at the slaver. “Do you still want me to…?”

The former warlord glanced back at Kritchit. “No,” he told Eshreegar. Then, to Kritchit, he said, “What luck! Here is Grey Lord Velsquee, no doubt come to partake of all those luxuries we’re so famous for here.” He gestured to the palanquin. “You should go at once and demand your extra shares from him. My lord is famous for his compassion and generosity.”

Kritchit shuddered from his whiskers to the tip of his tail. “Oh, no!” he squeaked. “No, I-I would not dream of-of imposing on Lord Velsquee.” The slaver gulped. “No. One share will-will do.”

“Truly, Kritchit, you’re an example to us all,” Eekrit sneered. “Now get your gang moving and hand over the slaves double-quick.” The former warlord sighed irritably. “I have guests to entertain.”

* * *

Eekrit and Eshreegar reached the great hall just ahead of Velsquee. The former warlord brandished his cane and snarled orders at the few slaves he had left, sending them scurrying to clear the worst of the rubbish out of the passageways before the Grey Lord arrived. While they worked, Eekrit had Eshreegar force open the one door to the hall that still hung on its hinges; the old skaven managed to shove it most of the way before the rotted wood tore free from its mountings and crashed to the floor in a cloud of dust and mould. After that, there was nothing left to do but stand by the dais and wait.

Minutes later, a company of storm-walkers came tramping up the passageway and filed into the hall. Velsquee was borne along in their wake, riding in a litter carried by eight exhausted-looking slaves. They passed between the ordered ranks of the heechigar and carefully lowered the chair to the floor, just a few feet from where Eekrit waited.

Velsquee rose from the padded seat with great care, his trembling paw leaning heavily on a rune-carved cypress cane. Eekrit reckoned that the Grey Lord was nearly two hundred years old now, his span of years extended by sorcerous means to well past that of a typical skaven. He could no longer bear the weight of weapons and armour, instead wrapping himself in layers of heavy, grey robes. His white fur had thinned around his paws and face, revealing the wrinkled skin beneath, and his ears hung listlessly against his skull. Grunting in discomfort, the Grey Lord found his feet and took a slow step forwards. Glowing charms of god-stone strung around his neck clinked softly together as Velsquee surveyed the mouldy, rotting tapestries and the pile of worm-eaten wood that had once been Eekrit’s expensive throne. When he spoke, his voice was a bubbling rasp. “How the mighty have fallen, eh, Eekrit?”

Eekrit’s tail lashed, stirring up more dust. “We wouldn’t want Nagash to think we still had a claim to the mountain, would we?”

The Grey Lord chuckled, breath wheezing past his lips. “Just so. Just so.” He raised a palsied paw to wipe at his mouth. “Have you any wine?”

Eekrit sighed. “Wine we have, my lord. Bowls, however, are in short supply. I have my slaves looking for some now. Forgive me, but we had no idea you were coming.”

Velsquee grunted. “No. Of course not. That was the entire point. No one knows I’m here.”

“Not even the Council?”

“Especially not them.” Velsquee took a few halting steps towards the two younger skaven. “As far as those idiots know, I’ve taken ill and retired to my sickbed.”

The news surprised Eekrit. The journey to the mountain from the Great City and back again took many months. Velsquee was risking a great deal; by feigning illness for so long, his rivals on the Council would think him easy pickings and begin manoeuvring against him. By the time he returned home, Velsquee might find his power base swept away and assassins lurking in every shadow.

“What in the Horned One’s name is going on?” Eekrit blurted.

Velsquee leaned with both paws upon his cane. “Your reports over the last few years have been very troubling,” he began.

“So you’ve read them, have you?” Eekrit snapped. “At what point did you first become concerned? Was it the mention of the legions of undead warriors Nagash has raised? Or perhaps it was the vast necromantic ritual the liche-king performed on the Night of the Horned God, some eleven years ago?”

Velsquee’s eyes narrowed. The heechigar filled the audience chamber with threatening growls, their paws tightening on the hafts of their polearms.

“Now is not the time for sarcasm,” the Grey Lord said.

Eekrit paused, drawing himself back from the brink. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said grudgingly.

“Good,” Velsquee said. He sighed. “You’ve stated in your reports that you no longer think we can defeat Nagash.”

Eekrit met the Grey Lord’s stare. “That’s right. He’s far stronger now than he was before the war and not just in the number of warriors at his command. His necromantic powers have increased as well.” He pointed a claw in the direction of the great cavern. “Did you see those skeletons? Did you feel the cold clinging to their bones? They’re much more potent than the ones we’ve faced before.” The former warlord shrugged. “He’s got too much god-stone in his vaults and he’s had time to improve his defences throughout the tunnels. Even with the full weight of the Under-Empire arrayed against him, I doubt we could prevail.”

The Grey Lord nodded. At length, he said, “I think you are right. In fact, I’ve suspected it for some time.”

Eekrit clenched his fist. Anger and frustration threatened to overwhelm him. He forced himself to speak as calmly as he could. “Then why are we still here? Why continue feeding him slaves and increasing his strength?”

“Because it allows us to maintain a presence near the centre of the liche-king’s power,” Velsquee said.

“To what end?”

The Grey Lord glanced at the nearest storm-walker and nodded, sending the heechigar striding swiftly from the chamber. “Ever since the end of the war, there have been troubling reports from the Seer Council,” Velsquee said. “Visions of darkness and death, spreading like a stain across the face of the world. They were vague things at first, but ever since the Horned God’s Night, the clarity and intensity of the visions have increased.”

Eekrit felt his hackles rise. “So Qweeqwol was right all along.”

The Grey Lord’s expression turned bleak. “Given the things I’ve heard recently, it’s possible that the mad old rat may have understated things quite a bit.”

Eekrit laughed helplessly. “Then what in the Horned One’s name do you think I can do about it?”

Velsquee did not answer at first. A few moments later, the storm-walker returned, labouring under the weight of a long, narrow case cradled in his powerful arms. He walked carefully across the chamber to stand beside the Grey Lord and set the case on the floor between him and Eekrit. Its surface was covered with intricate runes of protection; its lid bore thirteen elaborate magical seals.

The former warlord squinted at the case’s grey sides. “Is that made of lead?” he asked.

“It is,” Velsquee said grimly. “And sealed with potent sorceries to boot. Otherwise we would all be dead right now.”

Eekrit shrank back slightly from the container. “What’s inside?”

“A weapon,” the Grey Lord said simply, but there was a trace of awe in the old skaven’s voice. “A weapon more terrible than anything our people have made before. The finest warlock-engineers in the Under-Empire gave their lives to make it. I commissioned its forging in secret, just after the end of the war. It took nearly all my wealth and influence to see it finished.”

Eekrit stared at the case, feeling the first stirrings of greed at the power contained within. “Such expense,” he murmured, feeling the temptation to reach out and touch the enchanted lead.

Velsquee shrugged. “All the gold in the world doesn’t make much difference if you’re dead,” he said. He nodded at the case. “If any weapon in the world can destroy the liche-king, it’s this one. And I’m leaving it here with you.”

“Me?” Eekrit said. “Here? Right under the-the liche-king’s nose?”

“Better here than the Great City, hundreds of leagues away,” Velsquee snapped. “Do you imagine that you could get close enough to Nagash to kill him at this point?”

The former warlord glanced sidelong at Eshreegar, who snorted in disdain.

“Of course not,” Eekrit said. “We’d get turned to ash—or worse—before we got within a mile of him.”

“I suspected as much,” Velsquee replied. “But the liche-king is marshalling all this power for a reason. Sooner or later, he’ll put it to use. His armies will march and great spells will be cast.”

Eshreegar folded his arms. “Providing us an opening,” the Master of Treacheries said.

Velsquee nodded. “And when the moment is right, you must strike.” He pointed to the case. “Among the many enchantments worked into the seals is a spell that will alert me and the Seer Council when the case is opened. When that happens, we will gather in the Great City and lend you all the aid we can. In the meantime, we will see to it that you receive the very best potions and amulets to maintain your health and vigour. We wouldn’t want you dying of heart failure before the task is complete.”

Suddenly the case didn’t seem nearly so attractive anymore. In fact, Eekrit felt a bit sick just looking at it. “How am I to know when the moment has arrived?” he protested.

The Grey Lord shook his head. “I have no idea. Not even the seers can say for certain.” He sighed and made his way slowly back to his litter. “Watch and wait, Eekrit, watch and wait. And one more thing.”

“What is that?”

Velsquee settled back onto his chair. “Remember Qweeqwol’s warning. Only someone who is dead himself has any hope of defeating the liche-king.”

At a gesture from the Grey Lord, the slaves lifted the litter onto their shoulders. Without a word of farewell, Velsquee turned about and departed the great hall, probably for the very last time. Stunned, Eekrit turned to Eshreegar.

“Oh, no. Don’t give me that look,” the Master of Treacheries protested.

“Why not? You’re the master assassin.”

“He didn’t say the job called for an assassin,” Eshreegar snarled. “Just some stupid bastard who’s already dead—and doesn’t know it.” He folded his arms irritably. “That could be either one of us.”

Try as he might, Eekrit couldn’t very well deny it.