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“Noted,” Kretch said, storing her little nugget of wisdom for later.
-xXx-
Skyseeker could only count the days by the times Pinkface shouted the pit into waking, as she could never see the sun or moon beyond a few scant beams of light that filtered through cracks in the stone. When the count reached upwards from ten, she grew concerned. Not only because she feared Roderick or Wilfred or any of the others would find ever find her down here in the dark, but because each passing moment meant acclimatising to the slavery, accepting it.
Pinkface and the other slaves took advantage or her superior charisma every shift, having her run deliveries between messages, bringing word of a maintenence here, relaying new orders to other slaves working different workshops there. They had her scurrying from near one end of the caverns to the other, and sometimes she felt like without her the whole vermintide would fall into an even deeper state of chaos than was current, but this was no advantage she could leverage. If she tried to deliver falsehoods, or give up her duties, Pinkface would know it was her. What’s more, the moment she even considered trying to alternate her messages, Pinkface seemed to be one thought ahead of her, and he’d backhanded her one morning after giving her a look.
“You speak with my voice-words, slave, but that not make you me, understand? You speak my words and you speak them true, you get your food and water. Try to be smart? Try to put words in my snout? You get to eat my whip. Got that? Now scamper-move, slave, go tell slaves over in kitchens that we need more warpstone shards.”
How he’d detected her thoughts, she could not guess. Pinkface seemed to know everything. Her gender was thankfully still a hidden secret, but Skyseeker had doubts about even that. Sometimes she’d catch Pinface staring at her, not her eyes, but below. Kretch had helped her repair her goggles and she usually kept them looped around her neck, but none of the slavers seemed to mind her having them as long as she fulfilled her duties. Sometimes she wondered if Pinkface was searching for her teats, btu she dared not cover them lest she draw more of his oily attention.
The threat of discovery hung above her like the clouds hanging above the surface-world, and not a night past she was not scared for her life. Pinkface interacted with her daily, and what cruelties would he force on her if he or the other slavers were to find her out? As cared as it was, it was better to be Pinkface’s mouthpiece than Ironsnout’s consort.
She had not seen much of the warlord since maybe the ninth or tenth day of her capture. Always he would return to the pit late in the evening to lock himself in his chambers with his breeders, and then depart that morning back to the surface and his duties, but one day the routine had shifted. According to her sources in the doom flayer packs, Ironsnout was calling his clawcaptains to action, and the factories were given bigger, and more harsher quotas.
The machines were overclocked, the furnaces burned day and night, and the great clockworks of Skaven machinery spun and squeeked with the effort of a thousand slave paws. Skyseeker’s ventures into the caves were full of armed clanrats being whipped and trained, and spears and swords were being handed out to anyone who wasn’t a slave.
When quotas weren’t met, the clawcaptains punished the slavers, and the slavers punished the slaves. Skyseeker was not spared from Pinkface’s two’s or sixes, but she got off lightly than most. Kretch had one of his fingers chopped off at the knuckle when he poured too much coolant into one of the generators, and a couple of Skaven who collapsed from exhaustion were beaten to death, right in the middle of Pinkface’s workshop for all to see.
It was the longest week she’d ever lived, but it ended with one shining ray of hope. Ironsnout’s force was ready, and he left the underburrow in force, followed by his toughest stomrvermin, his elite weapon teams, and reared by clanrats of the thousands. She never saw the whole force at once, the caves were too narrow, and it was too dangerous for her to range far outside of Pinkface’s authority, but by the end of the warlord’s leaving the underburrow felt distinctly empty, quieter, and the weight of Ironsnout’s presence was lifted from her chest since she’d first come to this place.
She had imagined he would find her, secure her down in his chambers perhaps, but interestingly the Snout had never come looking for her, not once since she’d smashed his eyeglass in with that rock. It was almost as if he was completely oblivious to how close she was to escaping.
“It’s never or now, Kretch,” she told the ratman, the two camping out by his cage, a long day of being slaves behind them. “Snout is gone, the clanrats are far and few, perfect time to leave-escape.”
“Where would Kretch and Seeker go?” he asked, shaking his furry head. “Snout has scout teams all over surface, they go round and round and find anything, slaves or man-things or other things. Some have far-squeakers, we not get far before entire tide knows we gone.”
“Have you not been paying attention? I am master assassin of Clan Mors – the Skyseeker. Stealth is my middle name, and I can never be found unless I want to be.”
“Didn’t you try to sneak up on the Snout and got caught?” Kretch pointed out, Skyseeker scowling at him.
“No! W-Well, maybe, yes, but that was before, when Snout was here, and now he’s not, so he can’t capture me anymore. It’s pure logic.”
“It’s pure folly-follishnes,” he replied. “How you think we can get out of burrow? Ironsnout locks exit to pit with his own keys, and he’s not stupid enough to not take them with him.”
“There are other ways out,” she insisted. “tunnels open to sky, no keys necessary. All we need to do is scurry out when nobody is looking. It’s fullproof!”
“And how are we supposed to avoid detection? You think Snout not have secret eyes watching you, breeder? The second they catch your scheming, they’ll get you, and take one of my other finger-claws!” He held his four-fingered paw to his chest. “What tunnel you think we can escape through? Is it guarded? By how many? Kretch and Skyseeker can’t kill guards, we have no weapons, and in the minus-zero chance we even make it to surface, what then? What would we eat? Where would we go? What would we do? What’s your scheme for that?”
“Well, uh… I didn’t think that far ahead,” she admitted. “But! Apart from all that, the plan is fullproof!”
“You are a fool, Skyseeker, you should stop scheming and start slaving. You have good thing, being Pinkface’s mouth. Better than being his paw, Kretch will tell you that twice. You have good thing, being-”
“Yes-Yes, I get it,” she said, waving a dismissive paw. “Why won’t you help Skaven escape?” she asked. “Don’t tell me Kretch likes being slave?”
“Kretch did not say that,” he insisted. “Kretch just thinks you make terrible scheme that will get both of us killed. Kretch’s idea?” he asked, but he went on before she could deny him. “You keep snout down until Snout brings tide back to Skavenblight. Lot of confusion when whole tide marches, maybe you slip away then.”
“That’s too long!” she complained, snapping angrily at the piece of bread that was her ration. Ironsnout would see her back to Skavenblight under his personal watch, she was sure of that, but what’s more, he had marched off with most of his force in a hurry, and she suspected why. Ironsnout’s mission here was twofold, and Skyseeker was only half of that goal. If he was taking most of his fighting force into a march, that could only mean one thing. Time was running out, and fast.
As much as she wanted to berate Kretch, he was partly undeniable. If her escape should be thwarted by an unaccounted guard or other obstacle, there would be no end to punishment, assuming Pinkface didn’t find out first, and he always found out. She needed help, she needed a weapon, but where to find either?
The answer eluded her, and another few days past until she decided to take Kretch’s advice, at least to bide her time for an opportunity. When the next morning came, she woke not to Pinkface’s rambling but to the great doors of the pit opening, the echoing ring of unlocking latches stirring her from a fitful rest, her heart skipping a beat. Had Ironsnout returned already? Had he found the relic? No, he couldn’t have, Roderick was the relic’s keeper now, and if the Snout had it that would mean…
She was almost too afraid to look up those steps, but when she did, she saw it was not Ironsnout who had returned, but a procession of hunched figures, herded inside by slavers and armed clanrats. Some were unconscious or sleeping, being dragged roughly down into the pit within nets or ropes. She wondered if that was how she’d come to this place, tied up and knocked out.
The group was corralled into the pit, and after a few jabs with spears and whips, the guards made for the exit. Most of the current slaves watched the newcomers with a bland sort of interest that lasted only a moment before turning away, but Skyseeker was on her feet in an instant.
“Where you going?” Kretch asked as she walked off. “They just slaves.”
“No, they aren’t,” she replied. “They man-things too.”
There was about a dozen of them, stripped down to rags like she was, covered in grime and dust. Unlike the Skaven who seemed to isolate themselves, they clung together like a pack, sitting in a rough circle with their backs to each other, so they could watch all angles. It was the move of soldiers, she noted.
One of them nudged another when he noticed her approaching, half the group turning their eyes on her. Each man was twice her height, and their were no guards or slavers to monitor the peace in the pit, she would have to tread lightly, even among humans, who were just as dangerous as Skaven in their own way.
“Man-things, hello,” she began, waving a paw in greeting. “welcome to the slave pit. I am-”
“Begone, rat,” one of them chuffed. “Your stench is making me queasy.”
“Whomever said that I will shank you,” she demanded, but when the speaker stood up in challenge, she took a faltering step back.
“Y-You?” she whispered. “do… do my beady eyes play tricks?”
The ragged man went to voice some threat or challenge, but after a moment he too did a double-take on her. “I know your face, rat,” he whispered back. “Skyseeker?”
“Otto!” She dashed up to him and gave him a friendly pat on the leg. “It’s good-good to see you again! Well, not that good, but good enough!”
“Sigmar preserve me, this was the last place I’d expect to see a friendly face.” Despite not exactly leaving on the best of terms, the shift manager gave her a pat on the head, a friendly enough gesture. “How can this be? How did you wind up here, of all places?”
“The same way as you, Skaven imagines.” She recalled what had happened to her, from washing up on the shore, to her escape into the mountains, and her failed assassination of the Snout. She left out the part where Kessel had betrayed her – that was dangerous information that was best to keep to herself for the moment, assuming Otto wasn’t in on it.
“You came to this place willingly?” he asked, gesturing her to sit beside him. It was strange, but she felt far more comfortable around humans than her own kind these days. “You mad fool, Skyseeker, you should have turned around when you had the chance.”
“I had chance to cut off the tail from this warband,” she protested. “I failed, yes, but that’s neither here or there. I came this close, man-thing, this close. What about you? How you boys get captured?”