C. Werner - Blighted Empire

Crawling from the wreckage, Vecteek sniffed the air, drinking in the scent of his fleeing slaves. He would find them and they would pay. So would Puskab and Silke and that mould-furred dung-slime Vrrmik! All of them would suffer the wrath of Vecteek’s vengeance!

The Warmonger turned his keen nose towards the south, picking out from the riot of scents and smells the familiar scent of Middenheim’s pup-king. The prince was certain to be leading these enemies. Therefore, if Vecteek was to prevent the collapse of his own army, the prince must die!

As he led his men into the plaza, Mandred’s heart froze. Even their grisly march through the ravaged streets of the Wynd as they emerged from the temple of Grungni hadn’t prepared him for the carnage unfolding before them. That embattled ring of men at the centre of the plaza and the verminous horde that surrounded them. He had imagined the host down in the Fourth Deep to be formidable, but they were nothing beside the legion of ratkin he now gazed upon.

The men in the plaza were in a hopeless position unless they could be relieved, unless Mandred’s troops could fight their way to them.

‘Wolf and graf!’ The war-cry thundered from the throats of a thousand men. Even some of the dwarfs took up the cry, a show of solidarity that even in the bedlam of battle impressed the Middenheimers with the severity of its depth. It was no empty gesture, that adoption of the human cause. The humans had been ready to die in defence of the Crack; by joining the fight for Middenheim the dwarfs were promising to pass a grudge debt to ten generations of descendants should the city fall.

The dwarfs were sparing with words of gratitude. For them, deeds spoke louder than any words, and Mandred’s decision to honour his oath and drive the skaven from Karak Grazhyakh even when his own home was threatened had struck to the core of what a dwarf valued: honour.

With the help of the dwarfs, Mandred’s troops drove the skaven before them. The monsters died by the score as they wreaked a terrible vengeance. Revenge, however, wasn’t the passion burning in the prince’s heart. Rising above the heads of the men trapped in the plaza, he had seen his father’s banner, the heraldry of the castle and the wolf which only Graf Gunthar could bear.

He didn’t know if his father yet lived, but he did know that when those brave men had marched against the skaven, it was the graf who had led them.

Beside the prince, Beck cursed as the flailing body of a ratman fouled his sword and nearly dragged the blade from his hand. The knight looked around anxiously, observing that they were perhaps being a little too eager in their advance. They were striking deep into the skaven formation, but at the same time they were becoming separated from the bulk of their own forces.

‘Use the edge, not the point,’ Kurgaz Smallhammer scolded Beck. The dwarf hero had insisted on accompanying Mandred when they struck out for the surface. Many ratkin deaths would be needed to balance the murder of his brother Mirko. The theft of Drakdrazh, he claimed, was a grudge that no amount of blood could wipe away. Each skaven skull he smashed was a dirge to his brother and a vow that he would find the white vermin that had stolen his hammer.

Beck snarled at the dwarf. ‘I know how to use a sword,’ he snapped, tearing the blade free just as a ratman leaped for his throat. The brute knocked Beck onto his back, its claws raking his cheek. Before the thing could do any worse damage, Kurgaz’s hammer came crashing down.

Beck blinked up at his saviour from a mess of vermin blood and rodent brains. Kurgaz shook his head at the knight. ‘If you fight like one of them, you may as well smell like one of them.’

Mandred chopped the paw from his own adversary, the creatures behind it losing their appetite for battle when they heard the squeals of their maimed comrade. The prince struck the injured ratman across the neck as it tried to flee, dropping it in a quivering heap. The other skaven fled, struggling to wriggle past the press of warriors behind them.

‘Beck! Kurgaz!’ the prince shouted as he saw the nature of those warriors. They were tall, black-furred skaven clad in imposing armour of plate and chain. Rending axes and murderous halberds were clenched in their paws.

Mandred’s comrades rallied to his side, guarding his flanks as the Verminguard charged at them. Slippery, treacherous foes, the huge skaven married their bestial strength to the depraved tactics of the lowest street fighter. Mandred thought of his many mock-battles with his instructor, van Cleeve. The swordmaster would have been appalled at the feckless, vile methods employed by these monsters.

Kurgaz was nearly beheaded after a Verminguard smashed the butt of its halberd into the dwarf’s groin, eliciting a shrill gasp Mandred would never have believed him capable of. Beck’s left eye was an oozing mess of blood and jelly after a skaven jabbed one of its claws into his face.

His own turn came when a Verminguard was practically thrown onto his sword by one of the skaven’s treacherous kin. Mandred’s sword was wrenched from his grasp by the shuddering body impaled upon it. As the armoured ratman crashed to the ground, its betrayer moved in for the kill.

Its fur was even blacker than that of the Verminguard, its armour cast from some strange alloy and adorned with a riot of spikes. There was a stamp of such unreserved evil in the thing’s aspect that Mandred reflexively recoiled from the ratman’s approach. The monster’s eyes glowed with an eerie luminance as it bared its fangs.

‘Prince-meat,’ the skaven hissed in debased Reikspiel. ‘Die-die for Vecteek!’

The Grey Lord jumped at Mandred, bringing a huge spiked mace smashing towards the prince’s skull. Mandred managed to throw himself to one side. Instead of having his brains dashed in, his shoulder was merely clipped by one of the spikes. Even that slight cut sent burning agony roaring through his veins. As Mandred reeled away, trying to fend off the skaven with nothing but a dagger, he realised the monster’s weapon was coated in some loathsome poison. Vecteek didn’t need to land a telling blow; even a glancing hit might deliver enough poison into his system to drop him!

Vecteek raised his muzzle, snuffling as he inhaled the smell of fear wafting from Mandred. The Verminguard had distanced themselves from the fight, concentrating on Beck and Kurgaz and the others trying to aid the prince. The ratmen seemed confident their overlord could settle Mandred on his own.

That display of contempt, executed by such lowly creatures, was a slight that made Mandred forget his weariness, forget the burning pain of skaven poison throbbing along his shoulder. Even the fate of his city, the rescue of his father were forgotten. All that was left was outrage.

Snarling like one of Ulric’s wolves, Mandred dived at the gloating Vecteek. His drive brought him upon the monster almost before the fiend could react. He felt the mace slam against his back, felt the sting as some of its spikes pierced his mail. But he also felt his dagger slice against furry flesh, felt hot blood ooze down the blade.

Vecteek leaped away from the prince, snarling in pain. The skaven pawed at the cut across his forearm, hissing as black blood bubbled up between his claws. There was an almost human expression of disbelief on the monster’s face, as though he refused to accept that anyone could be so bold as to strike him.

Mandred exploited Vecteek’s distraction. Fighting against the pain that coursed through his body, he threw himself to the ground in a sprawling dive. Vecteek reacted swiftly to the prince, bringing the spiked mace crashing down. The blow narrowly missed Mandred, slamming into the paving stones and pelting him with chips that cut his face.