‘Wuzzat, boss?’ Krudgit shifted with a jingle of glass bottles, trying to peer over Ratgob’s shoulder. Ratgob’s chief poisoner was tall for a grot, long-limbed and knobby kneed, almost spider-like in his proportions, with a head like a bloated egg sac and small, dark eyes the colour of rotten meat.
‘Nuffin’.’ Ratgob sat back from the scryeball, wiping off the accumulation of mould that filmed the greasy lens. Shriekstone once had dozens like it – the mountain covered with blinking eyes – but, over centuries, the High Creepers had plucked them out until only one remained.
Couldn’t have the lads spying on each other, that was for bosses only.
‘Stunties comin’, ain’t dey?’
‘Nevva you mind.’ Ratgob flapped a hand at the poisoner’s bag. ‘What you got fer me?’
‘Distilled troggoth bile, viledust, ground splintermoss, and I got a new one.’ Glass shattered as Krudgit dropped his sack and began to root amidst the vials. ‘My own special blend of double-strengf loonmist. One sniff an’ those stunties won’t know you from Gorkamorka.’
‘Good lad.’ Ratgob moved to pat Krudgit on the shoulder, but thought better of it. ‘Best get back to work, den.’
‘An’ the stunties, boss?’
‘Just leave ’em to me.’ Ratgob narrowed one eye. ‘An’ keep your gob shut. I need time to fink.’
‘Yes, boss. Course, boss.’ Krudgit gathered up his dripping sack and scuttled for the door.
Ratgob watched him go. No chance of things staying quiet, but it would take time for the news to filter through Shriekstone – time the loonboss needed to grab his dosh and run.
Filling a sack with his shiniest, most portable loot, Ratgob hurried along the mildewed galleries overlooking the great halls of Shriekstone. Once, the channels had flowed with nasty, glowing magma, but the fire had long ceased to burn, every fleck of gold scraped from the walls, every scowling stunty statue smashed to rubble. Now, the canals were home to spiders and other lovely oozing, crawling things.
Shriekstone wheezed like a stunty with lungrot, the old ventilation system choked with delightful fungal growths. Ratgob had never figured out whether the mountain was one great sedentary beast or thousands of little ones, but the rocky flesh did make quite a satisfying squeal when you cut into it.
The loonboss ran his fingers along a balustrade gone soft with moss. It seemed a shame to leave all this. A Creeper with no Shriekstone was no Creeper at all.
The mountain spread before Ratgob like an algal bloom. Gits scuttled through the gloom carrying picks, sacks and shovels; others prodded coffles of gaunt stunty slaves or led huge segmapedes loaded down with baskets of meat to toss to the squigs in the pits gouged into the floor of the central hall. As long as a troggoth was tall, the great insects trundled along on scores of legs, mandibles snapping at the occasional grot who ventured too close.
Great stone pillars supported the cavern roof, rickety scaffolds and rope bridges hanging between them like the web of a mad arachnarok. Once, the pillars had borne the faces of long-dead stunties, but, over many years, the gits had hacked the stone into more pleasing visages –Blisterblade Grothammer, Shkrug Neverchosen, Morg Six-Knives and dozens of High Creepers Ratgob couldn’t recognise. Only the cruellest, most tricksy gits ruled long enough to see their faces completed.
Inevitably, the loonboss’ gaze was drawn to his own monument – barely a shadow on stone, the beginnings of a chin and handsomely hooked nose hacked into the scowl of some ugly stunty king. There would be no time to finish, now.
With a snarl, Ratgob scuttled deeper. Beyond the columned halls lay miles of tunnels, straight passages criss-crossed by hundreds of pleasantly twisted snickelways. Fungal beds filled the old vaults. Ratgob’s lungs tingled at the heady mix of spores that hung over the vaults, but he drew no pleasure from it. The invaders would probably burn the groves of gourmet mushrooms and scour the intricate lichen murals from the walls.
‘Stunties got no appreciation fer art,’ the loonboss muttered to himself as he crept along the gallery that ringed The Pit, careful not to dislodge any loose rocks. In the old days it had been where the stunties emptied their rotten guts after too much brew, but generations of slime and accumulated filth had blocked off the sluiceways, The Pit itself now home to a horde of slumbering troggoths.
Ratgob paused, squinting into The Pit. The troggoths might have something to say about fyreslayers smashing up the place. Unfortunately, the trogghorde was just as likely to munch on grots as stunties.
From the darkness below came a low rumble, a tremble in the stone that was either a troggoth shifting in its sleep or the slow flow of magma deep down below the mountain. An uncomfortable reminder that, while Shriekstone had been dormant for generations, it had once roared with burning, bubbling fire.
With a shiver, Ratgob hurried away. As he moved through the deeper caves, he noticed a change in the hold – a skulking silence that seemed to press around him like a damp blanket. Shouts and titters gave way to furtive scampering, and Ratgob spied more than one pack of gits darting into the darkness, bulging sacks slung over their shoulders.
Word of the stunties had got out. The lads were abandoning Shriekstone.
Still, Ratgob hesitated. The sight conjured a strange tightness in the loonboss’ throat. He had been runted here, scrapped his way up through the mobs, and shanked more grots than he could remember. The thought of his mountain filled with nasty, bearded brutes set the loonboss’ fangs aching.
With surprise, Ratgob realised he was not going to run – not yet, at least.
He shook his head. ‘A Creeper without Shriekstone is no Creeper at all.’
With a sigh, the loonboss hefted his moonslicer and went to rally the lads.
Ratgob
