When Thor strode out the still opening main gate, he was immediately met by a dart. It was aimed at his missing eye, but it was not nearly fast enough to exploit the weakness. His head twitched to the side, and it buried itself in the wood of the gate. He paid it no mind, instead looking in the direction it had come from, and the small puff of snow that was already dissipating into the wind. His gaze narrowed in on a small snowdrift, and he grinned.
Lightning cracked, and a bolt descended from the sky, smiting the snowdrift. The Skaven hidden within it had time only to howl in pain before it was dead, crispy and smoking in the snow.
Another rat person leapt up, as if from nothing, close enough to its dead fellow that it had surely been rattled by the bolt. It barely had time to throw another dart before Thor flicked his fingers at it, and it joined its companion in twitching, crispy death. The dart fell to the ground from where it had hit his armour uselessly.
Thor paused, waiting for another assailant, but after several long heartbeats, none was forthcoming. He glanced around to be sure, but there were no more suspicious snowdrifts, and the only movement to be seen was the swaying of nearby trees in the wind and the gaping of the sentry on the wall.
He trusted Harad to do his part, and so he approached the corpses he had made, aiming to inspect them. Fried and steaming as they were, he could still make out their key features; grey fur, long snouts and sharp fangs, they had fingers and hands as most humanoids did, but their nails were vicious claws. For all they seemed to be of a size with a man, his lightning had left them charred and cooked, burning away fur to reveal thin and malnourished bodies. They wore rags, and one had a dagger strapped to its tail. All in all, they were contemptible creatures…but Thor remembered a time when he had thought the same of the Frost Giants.
Footsteps crunching in the snow drew his eye, and Thor turned to see Harad rounding the village wall, dragging a corpse behind himself by its tail. Like his own defeated foes, it seemed a ragged thing, grey furred with scraps for clothing and scavenged maille for armour. The old warrior dumped the body near the others.
“Clever enough to be predictable,” Harad said, satisfied.
“You paid him back for your face, then?” Thor asked. His comrade had lurked at the side gate as Thor made his own louder exit, and it seemed his gambit had paid off.
“Aye,” Harad said. “Another ten years and it might have been dangerous, but without more of its kind to busy me, it never had a chance.” He spat on the corpses.
“Were there not more?” Thor asked, ignoring the vitriol. He lacked the history that these people had with the Skaven.
“There was another, but dragging it would have left entrails halfway round the village,” Harad said. “We don’t need that foulness.”
“Then I shall not linger,” Thor said, readying his axe. “The mine is to the east, you said?”
“A half hour by foot,” Harad confirmed, before pausing. “Thor - I know you are mighty, but do not let yourself be taken by the rats,” he said, voice quiet as the grave. “Better to die, than be taken.”
Thor would have smiled, but he could sense the old warrior’s sincerity, and the pain behind it. “Worry not, Harad,” he told him, “I am not the one in danger.”
Harad frowned, but gave a grunt and a nod, and then Thor was gone, rising up into the sky and away from the river, turning east.
It did not take long for him to spot what had once been an iron mine. Nestled at the edges of an ugly reach of foothills, there was still the detritus of the work clustered around a black hole in the earth, though it was clearly long abandoned. The late snow that had fallen on the town was absent there, only thawing ground and optimistic weeds, and Thor set down a stone’s throw from the mine entrance. The wind whistled through the mine entrance, eerie, but then it fell away. All was quiet.
Thor inhaled, testing the cold wind, only to snort as a rank scent came with it. It reminded him of the foulness of the den of the crazed bear. He glanced around, but there was only an overturned mine cart and a pile of rotted timber beams. In the shadow of the cart, a rat watched him, still as prey was in the presence of a predator.
He readied his axe and dallied no more, striding towards the tunnel and then into darkness.
The path was not particularly steep, until that changed suddenly, just as it grew too dark for mortal eyes. His boots clinked against the metal of one of the rudimentary rails now and then as he went, and he made no attempt to avoid it. As he walked deeper into the earth, the air grew colder, for all that it hardly affected him, and the faint stench that he was beginning to associate with the Skaven grew stronger, for all that he had still endured worse. Soon the tunnel he followed was too dark even for his eyes, and he conjured a halo of lightning, spiked and spinning. He would not call it a crown, but it sat atop his brow all the same, revealing grey rock and dirt. There were still puddles here and there at the sides of the tunnel, but for the most part it was dry.
On the walls, he saw many scratches, some old, some not. The freshest seemed to have been left by claws, and some were more deliberate than others. An inverted triangle caught his gaze, and for a moment the Skaven scent was almost overpowering, but he blinked, and it faded.
The tunnel branched, and he took the left hand path without hesitation. His choice would be correct, or it would not be. Onwards he walked, passing smaller side tunnels, but the air within them was stale and still. Soon he had to duck now and then as the ceiling grew lower, but onwards still he went, every other step clinking against the rail.
There was an unremarkable stretch of tunnel ahead, still leading deeper, curving slightly, and he stopped as he reached it. His halo crackled faintly, hardly thrumming, but there was no other sound to be heard, not even the drip of water. Slowly, he turned his head towards his left, to the crack in the wall, and the giant rat that had crammed itself into it.
The Skaven stared at Thor. Thor stared at the Skaven.
“Boo,” Thor said.
The Skaven shrieked, lunging from its hiding spot, dagger questing for Thor’s neck. He met it with a savage backhand, sending it right back where it had come from, and it died messily, from the blow as much as the impact.
“Brother’s misfortune, how sad, my advantage, joyous occasion!”
Thor turned at the chittering war cry, as another Skaven tried to take advantage of his apparent distraction. He flicked his wrist, and the rat that had been blending in with the rocky wall found itself pushed back by Stormbreaker’s haft, pinned in place.
“A cheat, unfair!” the Skaven yowled. “Garbed as the warrior, but instead the wizard!”
“The rogue cries foul at their ambush failing,” Thor said, flicking blood and fur from his hand. “How precious.”
The Skaven froze, whiskers trembling and eyes bulging. “You talk-speak language? Forbidden-impossible!” It had switched to Norscan in its accusation.
“Who would forbid me? Who could forbid me?” Thor asked, making a point of speaking in its own chittering language.
“Wretched man-thing!” the Skaven said, still talking in Norscan, struggling and twisting to get out from under the wooden haft that pinned it to the wall. “Strip-flense the flesh from your bones, eat your heart for great power-might!”
Thor gestured as the rat almost started to slip free, and something cracked in its chest. It shrieked, the sound echoing through the tunnel, and Thor was forced to step back as its tail whipped up, avoiding the shank-flail that was tied to its end. He caught it as it swiped again, wrapping it around his fist and squeezing in warning.
“That wasn’t very nice,” he said.
“Foe-thing isn’t nice to Skriek, Skriek isn’t nice to foe-thing!” Skriek forced out, pained.
“I could be nicer,” Thor said, easing off on the pressure of his axe the barest amount. “If you answer my questions, and truthfully.”
Skriek hesitated, but only for a moment. “I can speak-tell truth.”
“How many Skaven are in this mine?” Thor asked.
“Many-hundreds, thousands maybe,” Skriek lied.
“I see,” Thor said. “And why have you come here?”
“Come for slaves, for food, yes-yes,” Skriek said. “Glory for Chieftain Nightspark to rise in the Pit!”
“How many exits does the mine have?” Thor asked.
“Tw-three!”
Thor’s eyes narrowed, and Stormbreaker pressed down harder.
“Three!” Skriek insisted. “Two secret below, one open above!”
The rat was lying again, but Thor gave no sign that he had realised. Perhaps it was inexperience, or the pain, or perhaps it was because he did not think him capable of discerning the tells of another species, but Skriek was making little effort to conceal them.
“These slaves, where are they?” Thor asked. He spoke idly, like it was just another question.
Skriek bared its fangs at him, a cruel joy in its eyes. “Eaten, fed to- clan rats, yes-yes!”
Thor narrowed his eyes, picking the hitch in its voice but unable to judge the why. “One final question, then,” he said. He leaned down, looming over his captive, lightning halo casting his features in shadow. “Are you a boy, or a girl?”
Skriek froze, but a moment later burst out into chittering, almost shrieking laughter. “Fool-thing think me idiot-breeder? Fool-thing! Fool-thing!”
He gleaned much from the answer, and he smiled without humour. “Thank you,” he told the Skaven, and then he punched through its head and into the rock behind it.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
His foes had already known they were assailed, and his interrogation had not been quiet. He swept onwards, cleaning gore from his hand with a flicker of lightning. In the distance, he could make out faint chittering and rushed footsteps. As he strode ever deeper into the mine, however, the sounds grew no closer, and no enemy struck at him, though he was sure he was following the correct path.
The tunnel grew smaller still, and it seemed he was reaching the end of what human hands had mined. The path grew damper, more puddles here and there, even a slow trickle of water patiently carving a trail on one section of wall. The wooden beams that braced the tunnel had clearly suffered from the damp, and many showed signs of rot. Thor grimaced as he pressed onwards. He had never enjoyed venturing underground; Surtur’s throne room had been bearable, cavernous as it was, but this tunnel held not a candle to it.
Finally, he reached the end of the mine tunnel, and squeezed through a hole in the wall. He found himself in another tunnel, but it was different, clearly dug by different hands and different tools. It was larger, rounder, and the timber that held it up was more ramshackle, if newer. It also made an immediate turn, and when Thor rounded it, he stopped at what he saw.
A single Skaven stood in the middle of the tunnel ahead, waiting for him. It was smaller than those he had faced so far, and had no weapon but for a crude axe. “Doomed man-thing!” he said, red eyes almost gleaming in the light shed by Thor’s lightning. “Rocks fall, you die now!”
The axe was slammed into a support beam, and when it broke, so did the ceiling.
X
Clawleader Kron watched gleefully as the tunnel collapsed, burying the foolish man-thing. The displacement of so much rock and earth sent a gust down the tunnel, carrying dust and debris with it, and he ducked back around the corner. He could not hold back a cackle at the fading shriek of the clanrat that he had sent to trigger the trap. If the fool hadn’t wanted to die, he should have seen the trick coming, no matter that he was only a month old.
The dust began to settle, and Kron peeked around the corner once more, sniffing at the air. All but the most cunning of Skaven would have thought his entire attention on the grave of his foe, but he of course had one ear rotated back, listening for any movement amongst his pack that might suggest one of them might be moving to stab him in the back. Zneek had been eyeing him lately when he thought him distracted, and Kreuk had finally recovered from the beating he had earned for thinking to take a choice cut of meat without offering it to him first, but for the most part his pack was properly cowed.
A tremor almost made him stumble, but for the paw he had resting on the wall. Had the slaverats proven their uselessness again, unable to even trap a tunnel properly? But the tremor subsided, and Kron repressed the musk of his fear with a flick of his tail, for all he had not been the only one to quail. He stepped out, swagger-stepping, and approached the caved in section of the tunnel.
“Clawleader’s cunning, worthy of a chieftain!” Kron boasted, turning to face his pack. They waited just outside stabbing distance, as was expected. “Rewarded I will be, father sons aplenty!” Perhaps after he was given his rightful reward, he would be given more clanrats to lord over, lifting him from the paltry thirty one he had and towards the horde he deserved.
Before his pack could cheer him as they ought, there was another tremor, sending more than one Skaven to stumbling. Kron snarled in anger as his moment was ruined, and he whirled around to inspect the rubble. There was no sign of any risk that the collapse would spread, but perhaps-
An arm burst from the rubble, seizing him by the throat. He flailed, wheezing in panic, fear musk in full flow as the man-thing’s head emerged, covered in dust but completely unharmed, eyes aglow. He stabbed at the arm holding him again and again, but his good knife only skittered off the scaled armour covering it. It was good, very good, it should have been his, but instead he was dying as his pack fled in panic, already vanishing around the corner and out of earshot.
The last thing Clawleader Kron saw was the indifferent face of the thing that killed him, his vision fading until there was only the glow of its crown.
X
Thor was surprised to see the Skaven that had fled their leader return before he was more than a minute down the tunnel, rushing out of the darkness with shrill cries, promising enslavement and death and devouring, and not in that order. He cut through them without breaking his stride, grimacing at the stench they carried with them, and he flicked their blood from his axe as he ventured deeper into their warren.
It was their warren in truth now, it was clear, no longer parts of an occupied mine. The tunnels he walked were new, not dug out in search of ore but curling and winding every which way, and he could not say by what manner they were dug. Many small passages intersected the main path that he followed, some rejoining only a short ways down the tunnel, others perhaps linking up with other such tunnels. He spared no time for those, however, only advancing deeper into the Skaven nest. The twisting and turning likely would have left most mortals turned about and disorientated, but even dozens of metres below the surface, he could still feel the sky.
Twice more he was assaulted by packs of Skaven boiling out of cracks and side tunnels, poorly armed and armoured, as likely to bite as stab, and twice more he left the walls covered in gore. He could not help but wonder why there were so many Skaven to defend their warren, when there had been only a scant handful to assail Harad’s village.
Whatever the cause, none that crossed his path would threaten any other again. Perhaps they realised that, for he was not attacked again as he began to draw close to the centre of the warren, for all that he could hear distant squeaks and skittering footsteps. He knew he was closing in on the centre, for the darkness began to lighten, and the stillness of the air was interrupted here and there by a faint breeze.
He slid down a steep but short incline in the path, and ahead there was light, cast by something out of sight around yet another turn. He dismissed his halo, letting his eyes adjust; the light ahead was a dull orange, but it did not flicker or set the shadows to dancing. When he reached the bend, he stepped around it without fear, and beheld what awaited him.
A large cavern had been carved out, by labour or artifice he did not know, and it was larger than the longhall back at Vinteerholm. Shoddy and crude buildings of wood covered the floor and rose up the walls, and the sources of the dull light littered the place. One was close; it was some kind of lichen, smouldering slowly in wooden bowls, and while it did not give off smoke it still put a faint haze in the air. Thor could not help but disdain it all. He was no stranger to people making do with what they had, but the mess he saw spoke of something else.
Something sailed through the air from across the cavern, barely visible in the near gloom, heading right for him. A clay pot.
Such a trifling thing would not bother him, but nor was he going to stand and let it hit, not when his foe had so generously revealed themselves. He leapt, soaring across the cavern, crashing through two shacks as he landed with a shower of splinters. A skaven scrabbled away before him, red eyes bright with fear. He was larger than any of the other rats he had encountered that day, but that did not stop him from stepping forward and planting his boot on his chest.
There was an explosion at his back, and heat washed over him. The poor light of the cavern was overwhelmed with a wash of green, and a chorus of panicked squeaks rose throughout it. Thor ignored them, leaning down at his captive, his features cast in shadow.
“And who,” the god asked, eyes aglow, “are you?”
“Chieftain Nightspark, mighty-powerful!” the skaven squeaked, fearful and trying to hide it. He wore a bandolier of flasks and clay pots, and was much better armoured than any other seen thus far, clad in leather and chain. “Much-important to the clan, worth great ransom!”
Green faded away to orange, as part of the shanty town began to catch fire. Even as he tried to bargain for his life, Nightspark was pawing at his waist, trying to free a pouch of some substance, and Thor had no time for it. He flexed his leg and crushed his torso with a squelch, and the skaven only had time to realise he had been slain before his paw went limp.
From a walkway above, a skaven leapt down at him, leading with a dagger. When it seemed like there would be no dodging the attack, the skaven let out a triumphant screech, only for Thor to lurch out of the way, carried by his axe. The would-be assassin landed face first in what had been his chieftain’s chest, but Thor paid him no mind, rising up into the open space at the heart of the cavern. He cast his gaze about, taking it all in. The fire was starting to spread, and he could see dozens and dozens of skaven scurrying about the shanty town in panic, seemingly paying him no mind.
A thrown dart put paid to that thought, and Thor scowled as it plinked off his chest. He could not allow these foes to escape and fall upon some other group that lacked his protection. Not after what he had seen of them. Stormbreaker began to spark, and he pointed it at the cavern wall.
Lightning erupted, not a solid bolt but countless fingers, and he raked the cavern with it. Huts shattered and splintered, rope burnt and came undone, and the ramshackle dwellings were left in ruins. His way was not to bring destruction upon even enemy villages and homes - but this was no peaceful village. Skaven shrieked and flailed as his power touched them, loud enough to be heard above its crackle and buzz, and if the lightning did not kill them then their collapsing dwellings did. The fire was smothered by the same, at least for the moment.
The lichen-torches had almost all been destroyed, and so he summoned his halo once more - it was not a crown - and looked upon what he had wrought. There was no movement in the cavern, and little left standing. If any skaven yet lived, there was not so much as a twitching whisker or smothered squeak to give them away.
‘Thor, your faithful ask for strength!’
The prayer was heard and answered in the same heartbeat. Somewhere, one of his needed aid, and they had received it - but still he worried. Had Vinteerholm been attacked in his absence? Had he missed another band of skaven on their way to Harad’s village? Had Tyra met with trouble in Kislev?
Whatever the cause, it was time for him to be gone from that wretched place. The tunnel he had entered through was blocked by wreckage, and though that was no barrier to him, the collapse further along would be tiresome to clear. The assassin Skriek had lied about there being three exits, but even if there were only two, at least one ought to be open to him if he could but find it…with a thought, his halo flared brighter, banishing the shadows that remained.
Thor found a possible exit, but then he found another, and then another. Two were tunnels that had been revealed by his destruction, looking much the same, and one was a gate that blocked off any sight of what might be behind it. He frowned, considering. If he was right, one was an exit, one was a trap, and one was something else.
The ‘something else’ tweaked his curiosity, and so he allowed himself to descend back towards the ground, setting down just before the gates, his halo dimming to a more reasonable level. They were set into the rock where the ground sloped into the wall. Built from slabs of wood, they were large things, heavy chains lashed across them, and seemed better built than anything else that had been built in the cavern. They also seemed to be made to keep others out, rather than anything in. He stepped forward to raise an ear to the gate, listening for a moment. Faintly, there came the sound of paws scratching on stone.
The gates were wrenched open, the chain snapping, links popping off every which way. Another tunnel was revealed, larger than any he had seen thus far, and he strode along it. It headed away from the cavern in a straight line until it seemed to end, but as he reached it he saw there was a large pit, though it was covered by a wooden platform. A ladder allowed access on the far side, and Thor approached it. With the first step he took upon it, the movement he heard grew frantic, more hurried. He could smell blood.
A sudden thought had him ignoring the ladder, the possibility of captives being murdered before he could reach them lending him speed, and he crashed through the wood, leading with his knee. He hit the ground in a crouch, ignoring the beam that clattered over his shoulder, and looked about swiftly, hoping he was wrong in his imaginings.
What he saw was worse.
The centre of the pit was dominated by a single huge being, a mass of bloated flesh that was longer than Thor was tall, and several times thicker. Laid out on one side, its limbs were withered, desiccated things, hanging limply and far too short to reach more than the closest parts of its bulk. Its fur was matted by all manner of unpleasant substances, and there were weeping sores on its upper side. Rows and rows of nipples lined its exposed stomach, each oozing a foul looking substance that might have been milk, were it not for the green tinge to it. Its nose quested about, sniffing, milky eyes unseeing.
It was a female skaven, and as Skriek had implied it lived for only one thing: breeding.
Movement captured Thor’s gaze. Standing by the legs of the breeder bare feet away was another skaven, frozen in place by his sudden attention. It was smaller than the others he had met, and only scarred lumps of flesh remained where its ears should have been. It was chewing on a pink cord, and in its paws was a pink, wriggling, baby skaven. Something called Thor’s eye to the ground at its feet.
Five more babies were piled there. Each one was dead of a broken neck.
There was a slurping sound, as the frozen skaven sucked down what was hopefully an umbilical cord, apparently without thought. A moment later, it seemed to realise its position. Its paws went to the neck of the squirming baby it held.
Thor pointed, and the skaven died, blown back by an arc of lightning and towards the wall across the pit. Before it could collide and burst messily, Thor had already caught the baby it had meant to murder. He made to check it for injury, but he was not yet alone in the pit.
Another small skaven emerged from around the head of the female skaven, cautious at the strange sounds it had heard, but unprepared for what it faced. This one was also in the middle of eating, but there was no ambiguity this time, the small leg of what had once been a newborn hanging from its mouth.
Stormbreaker separated head from body, before returning to his shoulder. Two thumps followed, and the mother jerked as the head landed on her own. She gave a plaintive cry, limbs reaching uselessly for something.
Thor felt his gorge rising as he rocked the baby he held in the crook of one arm. He knew evil. He had seen it, fought it, slain it - but this was something else. The Svartálfar had fought to the very bitter end, but even they did not slaughter their children when the Einherjar penetrated their strongholds. He could only be thankful that he had chosen to investigate the gates first, or else the tiny life he now held would have joined its siblings on the ground.
The mother gave another cry, head searching for something, jaw working even when it wasn’t found. He approached her head, looking beyond the grotesque appearance to see the truth of her circumstances. He had read inequality in Skriek’s words, but this was beyond that.
“Your child is safe now,” Thor told her, leaning down to present the survivor. It squirmed still, nose poking about his arm. “Do you understand?”
But there was no response, only a slow attempt to take something into her mouth, and he pulled the baby out of reach. He kept the rage that was building within tightly leashed. She did not even possess language.
There was a rickety table nearby, and on it were several ropes of meat and fat, ground down and packed together. He took up on with his free hand and placed one end into the mother’s mouth, and she subsided, chewing at it contentedly. He placed a gentle hand on her head. His rage built.
A grunt distracted him. It came from the mother, and she grunted again as she tried to shift her bulk, not to move, but to ease some discomfort. There was the sound of something splattering on the floor, and he realised what was happening. He rushed back down to her feet just in time to catch another baby skaven as it fell from an orifice that he had no wish to inspect closely. It was still in its birth sac, and he broke it, wiping away fluids to clear its airways. He was about to pinch the umbilical cord off when another baby was squeezed out, forcing him to move quickly to catch it awkwardly, but he managed, before clearing its airways as well. He put aside his nausea and inspected the mother for signs of more babes to come, but he was no midwife.
There was a pained squeal, and the sound of metal sinking into flesh. The squeal cut off, and the mother went limp. Slowly, Thor looked up, leaning to the side so he might see what he knew he would.
Another skaven stood by the mother’s head, dagger buried in her brain. “No stolen breeder-broodmother for you, idiot-fool!” it said, pointing at him. And then it laughed.
Thor’s rage slipped its leash. His hands were full, and Stormbreaker too merciful. He conjured a storm in its flesh, and the skaven had a moment of pain such as it had never known, before it was obliterated. Thunder rumbled distantly, and it took an age to fade.
He stared at the dagger sticking from the mother’s head for a long moment, his rage drained. She had known nothing, and from birth had only been valued for the litters she could spawn for those that would claim to own her. The moment something had threatened that ownership, she had been slain by the very beings set to care for her. Thor found that his rage was not very drained at all.
Another birth spilled from the dead mother, and he put his rage and the newborns aside to catch what he knew to be the last of the litter. This one was different. Its eyes were still sealed shut, it still whimpered at the sudden cold and nosed at the large arms holding it, but instead of pure pink skin, there was a tiny stretch of white hair along its back. Knowledge came to him from the ether, and he knew it to be female.
“Yours will be a different fate, little one,” Thor whispered as he freed it from its birth sac and wiped its snout. “You and your siblings will have the right of choice. This I promise you.”
He could feel the oath settling, and knew for surety that he had taken a great struggle upon himself, but he cared not. He would see it through, and woe be to the being that sought to stop him.