Alright, gather ’round, Warhammer enthusiasts, because the Dawnbringer Chronicles are dropping some serious rat drama! We’ve got Warlock Engineer Katchrikk Brassfang on a revenge mission against his arch-nemesis Queelum. These Skaven Warlocks are up to some serious shenanigans, and it’s about to get spicy.
Queelum was going to pay.
By the sparking guts of the Dark Innovator, Katchrikk Brassfang – most ingenious of Clan Gaskitt’s engineers – swore thusly. For too long he’d watched Arch-Warlock Chakkat be taken in by the smooth-chitters of his rival, diverting resources from Katchrikk’s far more deserving projects. With faultless patience he’d endured accusations of his agents attempting to sabotage Queelum’s prized Warpnexus Virulator. Ridiculous. The saboteurs had clearly been paid off by another. Had they followed Katchrikk’s orders to the letter, there’d have been no ‘attempted’ about it.
But Queelum’s vandalising of the Hyper-Warp-Ratling-Cannonade – that had been going too far. Worse still, the stub-tailed rogue had timed it for the clan’s Great Murder-Machination, where each Warlock demonstrated the fruits of their genius beneath Chakkat’s gaze. Katchrikk knew his rival was responsible for the warpstone accelerator battery’s catastrophic disconnection from the cannonade’s gimbal-limiter. He’d never have forgotten to double-check the affixing. Katchrikk had only just escaped the disaster that had obliterated half of the Arch-Warlock’s lair and inner circle. He knew punishment was coming.
But before it did, Queelum was going to pay.
‘Pay dearly,’ Katchrikk muttered, hunched at his workbench. A sparking cable overhead illuminated the barrel-mouthed contraption he laboured over. Hissing, Katchrikk snapped a claw. ‘Worthless thrall! The brass tube upon the shelf!’
‘Apologies, most masterful of mechanisers…’ Zzzit prostrated low enough to scrape the floor with his snout before scuttling off. The Acolyte had never been marked for greatness; he had, in fact, been marked as target practice. But he’d also lacked the sense to flee like the Warlock’s other servants, and Katchrikk was on a shrinking deadline. Zzzit soon returned, tube clutched in his paws. Katchrikk snatched it without comment. He opened the slide upon its flank, his tail twitching at the hiss of escaping pressure, before he lifted a pair of rusted tongs.
‘Careful, now,’ he mumbled. His tongue protruded in concentration. Then the world quaked with a crashing din. Discarded apparatus and half-finished doomsday weapons clattered where they lay.
Katchrikk hissed as the tongs almost leapt from his grip. Blight City was always shaking itself apart, but recently its tectonic agony had been especially pronounced. It wasn’t helping matters.
Exhaling, Katchrikk reached into the tube. Another spark illuminated the thread he plucked from within.
‘A… whisker, master?’ Zzzit asked.
‘From Queelum’s own snout,’ Katchrikk said. A third electrical sparking lit up the glee in his eyes. ‘Had to call many favours from the Eshin, yes-yes. And this,’ he motioned to the pipe-encrusted brass contraption before him. ‘Technology from the Bombardiers. When the warpstone core is attuned to a piece of Queelum’s body, an attached warhead will become attuned to Queelum’s soul-scent. Its blast will annihilate his very essence!’
The Warlock’s cackle descended into mania. ‘Had hoped to test-refine it further. But so be it. A fine blooding he will make. Chakkat will forget his displeasure when he sees my creation’s brilliance, yes-yes.’ Katchrikk’s grin vanished quickly as a plunging dagger. He glanced at Zzzit, nostrils flaring. ‘We go. Now-now.’
‘B… both of us, most devious of dominators?’
‘Now-now, wretched thing!’ Katchrikk hissed, lashing his iron tipped-tail across the cringing Acolyte’s shoulders. ‘Someone must be there to witness my genius!’
And to be caught red-pawed with the murder weapon, if I’ve misjudged Chakkat’s capacity for forgiveness.
A series of hidden hatches led to the exterior of Clan Gaskitt’s foundry-warren. The structure was a crooked pinnacle of iron that had long judged gravity an irrelevance, a mirror to its many counterparts that cast needle shadows across Blight City. Warp-winds howled as the two ratmen clung to the spire’s spike-studded exterior. Behind brass-rimmed goggles, Katchrikk cast his gaze over the sprawl.
Blight City was always consumed by activity. Rarely, though, had it seemed so animated. Beneath viridian lightning and bloated smog-clouds, every foundry and laboratory blazed with industry. Shrieks accompanied the stamping of innumerable marching paws.
Katchrikk started climbing. His dexterous paws scrabbled into handholds nestled across the uneven hide of the clan’s stronghold. His wrists strained, gear clattering in the winds. Zzzit’s constant whimpering didn’t soothe the lurches of vertigo whenever Katchrikk’s gaze fell on the plunging drop.
By the time Katchrikk reached the narrow ledge opposite Queelum’s laboratory – a bulbous chamber that swelled from the spire’s flank like a tumour – bells had begun to clang across Blight City, rising with the groans of the warpstone plateau on which the city stood and the rumblings of its tortured skies. His fur stood on end. He fought it down as he crouched, unslinging the weapon and placing the prize whisker within before slotting a warhead in. Its warpstone core began to glow an evil green, sniffing out the scraps of Queelum’s soul that clung to the follicle.
Katchrikk breathed low, trying to steady his jittering heartbeat, and pulled the trigger.
The rocket wailed as it launched. A black corona enveloped the corkscrewing warhead. It ripped into Queelum’s lab like the Screaming One’s claw. In a flash of hateful light, portions of the structure’s mangled metal flesh tore free with a bone-powdering boom. Murky emerald smoke belched from the blast site. Nothing moved amongst the wreckage except flickering fire. As bells continued to scream across the city, Katchrikk heard his own panting turn to laughter.
Then a thud echoed. Katchrikk’s glee choked. Another heavy impact saw the smoke ripple. A hulking shape stomped into view at the lip of the spire’s savaged gash – a figure entombed in a walking, gun-studded coffin of green-tinged metal.
‘Knew you would try something, Katchrikk!’ Projected through the far-squeaker array mounted across his thickened armour, Queelum’s voice dripped with scorn. The Warlock had less natural bulk than Katchrikk, but the strapped-together warsuit and the chundering power sources affixed to its back compensated ably. ‘Eshin spies whispered of your soul-blasting fireworks! So I crafted this armour to eat-gobble its magic. Not the only one who can meddle with warpstone, no-no…and it has other advantages.’
A keening, whirring din rang out. Ignoring Zzzit’s scream, Katchrikk raced to arm the spare warhead, as the generator mounted to Queelum’s armour roared – providing him the strength needed for the other Warlock to heft a ratling gun single-handedly, its barrels whirring and keening to life.
It was as both prepared to fire that the greatest bell-toll yet rang out.
The sonic force felt like it would blast the Warlock’s soul from his body. Katchrikk screamed, dropping his weapon and clasping his paws over his ears. He faintly heard Queelum do the same. Every hair, every muscle, seemed immobilised. Opening his eyes felt like hacking through stone.
The world had stopped. Billowing smoke hung immobile. Fire froze mid-crackle. Spears of lightning lingered as if trapped in a Moulder-chief’s preservative vat. Panting, Katchrikk cast furtive glances to and fro, locking his suspicious glare with an equally bemused Queelum.
A throat-dredged chuckle interrupted their acrimony. Katchrikk could not restrain his terror-musk. Every nerve clattered as he looked upwards. Crouched in the air was the outline of a figure, hunched and distended to vast proportions. A spiralling coronal of horns sprouted from its head, framing the warpstone shard upon its brow. One claw clutched a glaive, the other a curved sickle. Katchrikk heard Queelum squeal and prostrate himself before the Verminlord even as he did the same. A thump heralded Zzzit collapsing. The Acolyte didn’t bow; his heart had exploded.
The daemon snickered, before inhaling. Scraps of Zzzit’s wailing soul flowed into its gullet. It licked its lips before eyes leaden with malevolence settled on the Warlocks.
‘Amusing, amusing.’ Blood leaked from Katchrikk’s ears with each syllable that clawed against his brain-pan. ‘But this bickering ceases. You are needed.’
‘Y-yes, terrible lord!’ Queelum squealed. ‘M-my masterworks, a-all to your glory! Foul Katchrikk, petty Katchrikk, he sought sabotage!’ The grinding of armour accompanied his frantic gesticulation.
‘Perhaps.’ The scrutiny from the daemon’s nova-bright eyes pinned Katchrikk. ‘But this one’s talent for weaponcraft is… diverting. We desire to see more-more.’
The Verminlord straightened, giving a commanding hiss.
‘Your service to Chakkat is ended-dead. The underfather demands obeisance from those of his brood with a spark of talent. Much to be done, yes-yes, for the Most Masterful Scheme. You will work to our designs. Together.’
Both Warlocks glared at each other, but both recognised the futility of arguing. Swallowing, Katchrikk forced words past unwilling lips.
‘B-but, your verminous excellency… for what purpose?’
Though its face remained a sketch of dark lightning, Katchrikk thought the daemon grinned.
‘To gnaw, spawn-of-ours. Always to gnaw.’
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