A week passed in the canyon.
Marcus lay on a sun-baked slab of black rock, a tough cave mushroom hanging from his mouth, watching his great achievement with something like pride.
Thirty goblins, armed with the new weapons – sharpened sticks with fire-hardened points that he generously called spears, and lids of stolen barrels that he called shields – were trying to fight.
Trying was the key word.
He had spent five days trying to teach them to stand in three lines and thrust together.
On the first day they stabbed each other.
On the second day they ran away.
On the third day Iron Egg figured out he could use his spear to steal mushrooms from the others.
Today, they had finally understood the concept of “all run the same direction when boss shouts.”
It was a mob, not an army.
A screaming, shoving, backstabbing mob that surged forward like a green wave.
For Greenskins, that was perfect discipline.
Gaptooth was doing laps on his red Squig, which kept trying to eat Gaptooth’s foot.
Iron Egg was shouting at two Snotlings who were trying to eat dirt.
The sun was warm.
The fungus field behind them was finally starting to pulse healthier, dark green shoots coming up where the blood had soaked in last week.
Marcus was almost at peace.
Then the mountain blew up.
**BOOM!**
It wasn’t a loud, clean crack of human black powder.
It was a low, dirty, green-tinged WHUMP that made the air stink of ozone and burning chemicals.
A column of ugly black-green smoke rose from the western wall of the canyon, about half a mile away, right where the rock face was most sheer.
Marcus shot up, the mushroom falling from his mouth.
He knew that smoke.
Every Warhammer player knew that smoke.
Warpstone.
Skaven.
“ALL BOYZ!
GET CHOPPAS!
GET STICKS!
GET ROCKS!
FOLLOW BOSS!
NOW!
WAAAGH!”
He roared so loud his own ears rang.
The WAAAGH!
field rippled.
The goblins, who a second ago were napping, instantly went into a frenzy, grabbing whatever was closest and charging after him, screaming “WAAAGH!” without knowing why.
It took them almost twenty minutes to actually gather and move as one mass.
Half were still in the forest cutting wood, others were asleep in the dung pit.
Marcus didn’t wait.
He led his thirty-odd Goblins, sixty Snotlings throwing rocks, Iron Egg and Gaptooth, pounding west along the dry riverbed.
When they reached the blast site, the scene was exactly what he feared.
A Dwarf prospecting tunnel, masterfully cut into the rock with proper support beams, had been blown open from the inside.
The wooden beams were splintered and glowing faintly green.
At the entrance, five Dwarfs stood.
They were not the jolly miners from fairy tales.
They were Ironbreakers – the elite.
Short, wide as barrels, clad from head to toe in heavy gromril plate that even an Orc choppa would struggle to dent.
Their long beards were braided with iron rings, tied back for battle.
They were wounded, bleeding, but stood back-to-back in a perfect shield wall, hammers swinging, each blow crushing a rat skull.
And surrounding them were Skaven.
Not “big rats.” Skaven.
Clanrats from the Under-Empire.
As tall as a Goblin but far more vicious, their mangy brown fur matted with filth, their eyes glowing with warpstone-induced madness, wearing tattered leather and clutching rusty, jagged blades, spears tipped with glowing green rock.
Twenty-five of them, maybe thirty, chittering in their foul tongue, “Kill-kill the beard-things!
Take-take the shiny-stones!”
Marcus’s Goblins saw the rats and raised their spears to charge.
Marcus bellowed.
“HOLD!
WAIT FOR BOSS!”
At that exact moment, his system, late as always, finally decided to speak.
> **URGENT QUEST: KRUMP DA RAT-RATS!**
> Skaven nest detected under your valley!
These scouts must not return!
If they do, they will bring hundreds and eat your whole fungus field!
> Objective: Kill all Skaven.
> **SECOND QUEST: DA STUNTIES**
> Dwarf miners!
They know rock!
They know where metal is!
Dwarfs will NEVER work for an Orc willingly, but Dwarfs honor debts.
Make them owe you.
> Reward: [Da Tongue] – Rough understanding of Khazalid.
Marcus didn’t need a reward.
He understood.
If the Skaven reported a lone Orc tribe here, his farming plan was over.
He would be flooded.
He slammed his Old Boss’s Choppa against his chest, activated [Get Da Blood Up], and his muscles swelled, his eyes glowing faintly green with WAAAGH!
energy.
“WAAAGH!
BOYZ!
KRUMP DA RAT BOYZ!
KILL ‘EM ALL!”
He charged like a battering ram.
The thirty Goblins behind him lost their minds and followed, howling.
Marcus hit the Skaven line like a meteor.
His choppa, a 1.4-meter slab of rusted iron, came down and split a Clanrat clean in half, from head to crotch.
Black, stinking blood sprayed everywhere.
He kicked another so hard its spine snapped.
The Goblins hit a second later.
It was not a battle.
It was a brawl in a pit.
Goblins stabbing with sticks, Skaven biting and clawing.
A Goblin would stab a Skaven, then another Skaven would tear the Goblin’s throat out.
Snotlings jumped on Skaven backs and bit their ears.
The Skaven, who were brave when bullying five Dwarfs, broke instantly when they saw an actual Orc.
“Orc-thing!
Big Orc-thing!
Flee-flee!”
They tried to run back into their tunnel.
Marcus saw it.
He was bigger.
He lunged and planted his massive body right in front of the narrow tunnel entrance, becoming a wall of muscle and iron.
“NO ONE LEAVES!”
Any rat that tried to squeeze past got chopped.
One, two, five.
His choppa was slick with black blood.
The Goblins, emboldened, surrounded the rest and finished them off with sheer numbers.
Ten minutes later, it was over.
The ground was littered with dead.
Twenty-seven Skaven dead.
And twelve of Marcus’s Goblins dead, their bellies ripped open by Skaven claws, their wooden spears snapped.
The cost of fighting Skaven.
The Snotlings had mostly survived by staying at the back and throwing rocks, exactly as they were supposed to.
> **QUEST COMPLETE.
Reward: [Da Tongue]**
Suddenly, a harsh, guttural language made sense in his head.
He could understand the Dwarfs’ cursing.
The five Dwarfs had not moved an inch during the whole fight.
They were still in their wall, hammers raised, staring at Marcus with a hatred so pure it could have smelted iron.
They were breathing hard, wounded, but they would die standing.
Marcus stepped forward, black blood dripping from his choppa.
He tried his new skill.
His Orc mouth mangled the words, but it was understandable Khazalid.
“You…
beard-things…
why here?
What rat-things do?”
The effect was instant.
The lead Dwarf, the one with three braids tied with iron and a magnificent red beard, looked like Marcus had just spat on his ancestors.
An Orc speaking Khazalid was the ultimate insult.
“Grobi!
Filthy Grobi!
You dare speak Dawi tongue with your fungus mouth?!
I am Gram Firebeard, Ironbreaker of Karak Azgaraz!
We will die before we become your slaves!
Come, Grobi, and we will write your name in the Book!
The Dammaz Kron!”
The Book of Grudges.
Marcus grinned, showing his tusks.
He had an idea.
The only way to make a Dwarf work for an Orc.
“I not make you slave, Stunty.
I SAVE you.
Rats would kill you.
I kill rats.
You live because of me.
Dwarf law…
life-debt.
You owe me.”
Gram’s face contorted.
Every Dwarf knew the law of a life-debt.
It was unbreakable.
If a Dwarf owed a life-debt and refused to pay it, he was stripped of his beard and declared a Slayer, doomed to seek death.
“You…
you trick us, Grobi!
We owe nothing to greenskin!”
“You owe!
You live!
You work!
Dig rock for me until debt paid!
Then you free!
Then you come back with kin and try kill me!
Fair deal, Stunty!”
The five Dwarfs looked at each other.
It was a trap, but it was a trap forged from their own most sacred oath.
To refuse a life-debt was worse than death.
Gram finally, through gritted teeth that sounded like grinding stone, growled.
“…We…
will dig.
Until debt is paid.
We will dig your worthless dirt.
And when debt is paid, we will leave.
And we will return with our Throng and burn this valley and your whole stinking tribe to ash, Grobi Ironhead.
This I swear.”
Marcus threw his head back and laughed.
It was the most beautiful sound in the world.
He hadn’t hired miners.
He had captured five grumbling, furious, honor-bound Dwarf Ironbreakers who hated his guts, who would work under protest, complain about every stone, and spend every night plotting his murder.
That was perfectly Warhammer.
Gram looked at the still-smoking tunnel and spat black blood.
“And you should know, Grobi.
That blast was us trying to collapse this tunnel.
There is a nest.
A breeding nest right under your feet.
Clan Moulder or Clan Skryre.
Hundreds.
We failed.
That smoke will call more.
Your valley is not safe.”
Marcus’s smile faded.
His mushroom farm was sitting on top of a Skaven Under-Empire highway.