2k words
***
“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?”
“Too easily,” Otto muttered. “We took to a life raft, but the waves were treacherous, and we were drawn way off course from the rest of the crew, and it was all we could do to make it to shore. We searched round for the others, and there were perhaps twenty of us by the second day, and nobody knew where the Captain was. We decided to push inland and hope to find a town or inn, somewhere to get directions. The Gods must have been smiling on us, because that’s when we ran into the wizard.”
“Fredwil?” Skyseeker demanded. “He live-lives?”
Otto nodded. “He was rallying survivors, like us, only he was in the company of knights. Brettonian knights. They looked down on ut like we were beggars, but they followed his orders amiably enough. Actually he was asking after you, Skaven, asked if we’d seen or heard of you. That druid must like you.”
“Of course he does, I’m more smarter and more beautifuller than anyone he’s ever seen. What about Rick-rod? Was he there? Is he alive?”
“He was not in Wilfred’s company, the Cap neither, and I didn’t have the time to ask after them. We were only reunited for a short while, and when we took to the road, we were ambushed. Those rats with the halberds and the red tunics, a whole company of them came upon us, and they had others flinging rocks at us from higher ground. We gave them all we had, but it was a massacre, even the knights couldn’t withstand. Those of us who didn’t surrender were killed, and they marched us into this place. You know the rest.”
She searched the grizzled, bearded faces, but could see none she recognised. She asked after Wilfred again, dreading the worst, but Otto replied with: “The wizard was mounted, so he and some of the knights managed to escape. I saw him try to organise a charge, but there were too many Skaven, and he was driven off.”
“Better that than enslavery,” Skyseeker said. If word reached Ironsnout that he had a captive magic-user, the warlord would have likely returned posthaste.
“He’ll come get us,” Otto said. “He’s porobably the only one who can get us out of this mess now. We just have to sit tight.”
“No! No waiting, no sitting, Fredwil’s not your only hope,” Skyseeker corrected. “You have me, man-thing, and Skaven is tired of waiting round for rescuing, so I’m going to do it myself, and you’re all going to lend a paw.”
“I suppose you’ve been here far longer than us,” Otto remarked. “You have a plan, then?”
“Well, yes. But not really. It’s in the pipeline, I just need… suggestions.”
“Well, I may have spent my sailing days below deck, but I’m handy with a blade, as are the rest of these men. If we could arm ourselves, we might be able to fight our way out.”
“An excellent scheme. I’m glad I thought of it,” Skyseeker chimed. “But one issue. Not seen armouries or weapons caches down here – Skaven wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep them close to slave pit.”
“If you don’t know where to find them, then…”
“Silly Otter! Never said anything about fINdiNG weapons.” She began to rap her fingers together mischievously. “I know these caves like back of own paw, been mapping it all out while pretending to be slave. Know where I can get you your blades, yes-yes.”
“How will you do that? Aren’t you a slave too?”
“What! Skaven is too cute to be slave, don’t you know that? Besides, I am ingenious at deception, I can slip away for times before any of the slavers notice.”
“It seems that this time, I am glad for your ability to avoid work,” Otto chuckled, clearly remembering their first interaction. “Alright then, Skyseeker, we’ll sit tight and wait for your call.”
-xXx-
Kretch had brought her up to speed with how things went down in the slave pits, and she likewise passed her vast knowledge onto Otto and the other humans, and she liked to think she spared them as many twos or sixes as she had suffered from Pinkface’s whip, though there was still plenty of friction between the species. The Imperials were stubborn things, and larger than even Pinkface, and so the slavers were twice as hard on them in kind, sometimes punishing them for infractions that even Skyseeker would not be caught out on.
Having her Imperial friends be inducted into her same fate was not something she’d ever wished, yet it was a welcome change regardless. Each man was eager for her plan, and she knew firstpaw how good they were in a scuffle. Until now all she had was Kretch, who seemed to have lost his spine sometime after she’d bested him and Ironsnout had discarded him, but it was hard to be frustrated at him. Breeders were not nearly as ferocious as male Skaven (barring herself of course), and she was all too familiar with how Ironsnout’s warp-suit made you feel like you were burning from the inside. Nobody deserved that punishment. Well, except for maybe her top three enemies, they could all rot and burn.
It had only been a day and night since Otto and his companions had arrived, and while Skyseeker felt compelled to stay down in the pits to lend assistance, she had other matters to tend to, and she couldn’t let sentimentality get in the way of a good plan.
The deeper levels of the burrow were rife with guards and slavers, but also opportunity, and Skyseeker had passed through these tunnels dozens and dozens of times. There were no exits down here, and if Kretch was right, that there were secret Skaven keeping an eye on her, they wouldn’t be this far away from the surface tunnels. Another example of her vast intellect.
Iron, wheels, and combustible chemicals were the heart of any Skaven presence, and the burrow was no exception. The fumes of industry chocked the air of the workshops and factory floors, where the secrets of the warp were made manifest into Ironsnout’s war machine. While she wouldn’t mind wielding a rattling gun or a warplock rifle, stealing such weapons was far beyond even her skills. No, better to keep the plan simple.
Adjacent to the weapons assembly were the furnaces and the steam rooms, the sound of hammers smashing against iron thumping from inside. How brow began to sweat as she walked up to the furnaces, projecting the air of one who belonged.
“Runt!” one the slavers snarled, beckoning to her with a claw. She felt like she’d been called every name under the sun at this point, every slaver called her something different. “What you doing here? You better not be telling me to power down my shop again, my runts have work to do.”
“Master has different request this time-time,” Skyseeker replied. It was still a pain to call Pinkface that, but she had built an image with all these different slavers, and she had to keep up the act. “Here, take it.”
She placed a scrap of paper into his paw, the slaver holding it up so the light of a sconce caught the parchment. “I can’t read this!” he scoffed.
Neither could Skyseeker, but one didn’t need to read to know what Skaven letters looked like, and the charcoal she’d pinched from one of the mining tunnels had made a perfect quill for scribbling.
“It’s new order for things,” she explained. “Skaven’s master needs new things to hurt his new slaves.”
“But he has whips for that, yes-yes?” the slaver asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
“Whips no good against man-things. You heard Skaven right, man-things. They got taken-captured other day, and my master owns them now. Whips no good against thick skin, need to stab-stab them, he says.”
“How many stabby-stabs?”
“Ten and five would be good-good.”
“Lot of work for runts,” he mused. “Lot of iron, and time, and heat. Order like this takes lots of warpstone.”
The implication was far from subtle, and Skyseeker reached into her undergarment, producing a pawful of warpstone nuggets. She had dealt with this slave enough times to know his weakness. Even one shard was enough to get in this slaver’s good side. How someone could be so tempted by a piece of rock was beyond her.
Her bribe would have been bigger, but she’d snacked on it during her walk over. She had pinched this little prize from the hangar, right beneath the snouts of the pilots, since they only had eyes for their vehicles. It would have been quicker to just take some from Pinkface’s stashes, but she hadn’t dared.
“Oooh, this will do fine-fine,” the slaver cackled, shoving his paw into his mouth down to the wrist, making a loud sucking sound as he inhaled the nuggets. “You know what buttons to press, runt. You go tell you master he has his stab-stabs. He pick them up tomorrow.”
“Actually, master wants deliverance. It says write there, at the bottom, see?”
He directed his attention to the note, where she’d done her best scribbles. The slaver took one glance and scowled. “Deliverance? Who’s really the slave here, us or them?”
“Us, of course,” Skyseeker said, suppressing a smirk.
“I’ll get runts to scurry them over, but only in batches. He’ll have to wait if he wants my runts doing all the work. And I expect more warpstone as compensation, runt.”
“You’ll have it,” she replied. “Just please my master, and I get you all the warpstone. You’ll have so much you’ll die for it!”
“Excellent! Run along then, runt, tell your master he’ll have his stabby-stabs.”
Yes he will, Skyseeker thought, snickering as she dashed away.
-xXx-
“You’re mad and foolish, Skybreeder. Moolish!”
Another day of slavery had gone by, Kretch and Skyseeker taking their usual seat by his preferred cage.
“That may be so,” she admitted. “but I’ve had enough of being a slave to that pink-faced, hairless turd-ball. I am escaping by tomorrow, or will die attempting.”
“You can’t trust the man-things,” he protested. “You think they wont’ step on your tail as soon as you turn back-back? Escaping was bad enough, but now you want to do it with them?”
“You know the ultimate irony, Kretch? I do trust the man-things, more than I trust any skavenslave. I’ve spent much-much time among them, they may be dumb-looking and weak and mostly morons, but they have tenacity, they barely understand the meaning of giving up, and I plan to use that in my plan-scheme. They are my only way back to Rick-Rod.”
“They’ll kill you and them all to death,” Kretch said. “You not been in this burrow long as Kretch has, you not know how impenetrable it is.”
“You always whinging about my plans, Kretch. First you say that we can’t do it, so Skaven gets a dozen man-things in on the plan, and now you say that’s not enough either! When you going to get that tail out between your legs, Kretch? ‘Cause my plan has no room for any of that weak, simpering things like you doing.”
“Kretch…” The rat man sighed, fighting an internal battle by the way his expression twisted. “Kretch wants out, Skybreeder, Kretch admits that. Kretch just… not want to die.”
“And Kretch won’t, as long as he follows the plan-plan,” Skyseeker said. “All you have to do is tell Skaven where the way out is. Is there any tunnel that’s not guarded, not locked perhaps? Give me something to use, Kretch.”
“The ways are all locked,” Kretch said. “The hatches, the secret ways, they only unlock from outside, to prevent escapades. But some unlock both ways. The tunnels on south end of burrow, warbands use them to leave burrow discretely, but rats need keys or nothing gets out.”
“Where?” she demanded. “Where are keys?”
“Close, but not close enough for slaves to get. He’ll catch you if you try, Skyseeker. You’ll get one more two or six, and then you never wake up.”
“Pinkface?” she asked. “He has keys?”
“You brave, but you stupid if you try it, Skybreeder,” Kretch insisted. “You won’t get them, he’ll know, he’ll know before you know. Always.”
“We will see about that, Kretch. We will see. And stop calling me that!”