There were mutters from the lads behind Ratgob – barely enough to form a proper mob, but still some of the most vicious loons Shriekstone had to offer. A few of the gits bolted for the vault exit, only to draw back as more fyreslayers emerged from the gloom, axes at the ready.
It was strange, being well and truly surrounded. Ratgob had expected terror, mad panic bubbling up through the cracks in his thoughts, but all he felt was an odd sense of relief.
‘Did you think you could escape?’ Thunas-Grimnir thundered, words falling like hammer blows. ‘Skulk from my Magmahold like the filthy thieves you are? By Grungni’s eternal eyes, did you think you could outwit me?’
‘Outwitted you four times already, didn’t I?’ Ratgob shrugged. ‘Figgerd one more couldn’t ’urt.’
The runefather’s face turned a delightful shade of purple.
Ratgob chewed his lips. Something had changed. There was an absence in the air, an emptiness he could not quite place. With a start, he realised what was missing.
Shriekstone was no longer screaming.
‘Yes, yes.’ King Thunas’ grin dripped with cruel promise. ‘You hear it, do you not? The silence.’ He thumped a fist against his chest. ‘Lachad remembers its true masters. Soon you and your ilk will be naught but bad memories – thus to all defilers.’
Smiling wide, Ratgob spat upon the tunnel floor. ‘Ow’s dat for defilin’?’
With a roar, Thunas-Grimnir charged.
Ratgob retreated into the milling crowd of gits as he dodged the runefather’s heavy, looping slashes. Thunas-Grimnir fought like a duardin possessed, strikes raining down. Ratgob ducked a wide cut, then threw himself down as the backswing almost took his head. The runefather’s second axe would have buried itself in Ratgob’s neck, except Rankfish chose that moment to leap at the fyreslayer, sharpened shovel stabbing for the stunty’s eyes.
Thunas cut the foregit from the air with almost casual disregard, but Throttle leapt onto the fyreslayer’s back, long fingers wrapping around the runefather’s exposed throat. Krudgit flung a handful of puffshrooms at Thunas-Grimnir’s face, while, giggling like loons, Magrot and Filthmiser tried to snare his legs with rope.
‘That’s right, lads!’ Ratgob shouted. ‘Bleed ’im good!’
The cave descended into confusion as the surviving fyreslayers charged to the aid of their king.
Surrounded, outnumbered and facing certain death, Ratgob’s gits fought like cornered bush hydras. Ratgob saw stunties netted and clubbed to death, or reel back, clawing at their flesh as gits tossed handfuls of pocket squigs at them. Muted pops marked the explosions of puffshrooms, clouds of dark, stinging mist rising from the melee.
Feet tangled in rope, Thunas-Grimnir stumbled, and Ratgob slashed at him, only to have his moonslicer rebound in a crackle of red-orange light as the stunty king’s last runes flashed and went dark.
Wheezing, the runefather slashed the rope with one axe, then reversed the other to hack back over his shoulder and split Throttle’s skull. Their snare broken, Filthmiser and Magrot scuttled away. Ratgob circled Thunas, searching for an opening, while Krudgit flung another fizzing vial at the duardin lord.
Thunas knocked it from the air, and the vial exploded with a pop of green mist, but the runefather was already moving, axes limned in sprays of crimson as he chopped into the poisoner’s neck. Still giggling, Krudgit fell back, vials crunching as he flopped like a dying cave fish upon the slick tiles.
Ratgob’s moonslicer carved a bloody line across the back of Thunas-Grimnir’s left knee. The runefather stumbled, and Ratgob discarded his hooked blade to pounce on the duardin, dagger at the ready. He drove the blade into the stunty’s ribs, twisting with both hands. It was a good dagger, filched from a stunty tomb deep in Shriekstone. Ratgob shrieked with joy as hot blood welled over his hands.
Thunas-Grimnir snarled, and Ratgob felt something dig into his thigh. There was no pain, only a dim sense of numbness. He gave the dagger one last twist, then pushed off to retreat, surprised when his leg would not bear his weight.
Glancing down, he belatedly realised he was short a leg.
The runefather tossed his axes aside to tackle Ratgob. The fyreslayer’s horrible bulk bore him down, filthy stunty hands closing around the loonboss’ throat.
Ratgob fumbled at his belt as his vision crinkled like rotting lichen, everything turning dull and distant. The runefather’s grim face loomed like a hideous sun above Ratgob, seeming to fill the entirety of his sight.
The loonboss’ fingers brushed glass, closed around the neck of Krudgit’s vial. With a grunt of effort he twisted to smash the flask into Thunas-Grimnir’s mouth.
The runefather blinked, dark green ichor dribbling down his chin. He shook his head as if to clear it, then gave a sputtering cough. The pressure on Ratgob’s throat relaxed as Thunas-Grimnir tried to claw the poison from his throat.
Ratgob tried to go up on his elbows, but fell back, dizzy from blood loss. Teeth gritted, he craned his neck to watch. There was no way he was getting out of this, but there was also no way he was going to miss the show.
Thunas-Grimnir staggered to his feet. Spasms shook his muscled frame as he staggered about like a drunken troggoth. The runefather’s beard was singed and wild, his eyes the deep orange of madcap dust. The duardin opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that emerged was a low, choking growl. He took a stumbling step towards Ratgob, then, like a great stone pillar, toppled forward and lay still.
Ratgob glanced around, satisfied. The surviving stunties were cutting up the last of his lads, but with a spark of pride, the loonboss noted there were as many dead duardin as grots, maybe more. What had started as a stunty horde the likes of which Shriekstone had never seen had dwindled to a few hundred tattered survivors.
‘Murdering grobi.’ A duardin shadow loomed over him, the muscled form blurring in Ratgob’s faded vision. The stunty raised an axe. ‘At last, our oath is fulfilled.’
The loonboss lay back, waiting for the blade to fall.
It began as a
