Warhammer 40k: Rise of the Great Horned Rat

Chapter 184 184: The Fleet of Clan Mors

Clan Mors knew how to pick their experts. Though the Skaven of Skavenblight looked down upon the Ratlings of Clan Ratling and the Verminus clans of the City of Blight, sneeringly branding them "Half-Ears," no Skaven was foolish enough to reject a cadre of specialists.

Leading this particular Ratling sniper team was none other than the sharpshooter squad commanded by the legendary Bigby Quickfinger. They had once been loyal soldiers of the Emperor, earning high praise from the Astra Militarum under the command of Marshal Ghanzorik.

Alas, those honors and reputations of loyalty had long since withered. After their homeworld, Ornsworld, was utterly consumed, their souls were inevitably corrupted by the Great Horned Rat. Their bodies began to twist and mutate, sprouting filthy fur, elongated snouts, and twitching tails.

Hunted relentlessly by the Imperial Inquisition, Bigby and the Ratlings of his entire regiment were forced to flee into the lightless depths of the under-hives. After days of hopeless prayers to the Emperor that went unanswered, they finally succumbed entirely to the Great Horned Rat.

Now, their stunted frames were covered in thick, brownish-gray fur. Though they stood even shorter than the average Skaven, they were exceptionally sturdy. Clutching Warp-snipers modified from Imperial Long Las rifles, they lacked the characteristic twitchiness and hyperactivity of common ratmen.

"We work for coin, yes. If the pay is right, nothing escapes our sights," Bigby boasted to Gnawdwell.

"I hope-hope so," Gnawdwell nodded. Lately, the reliability of Bigby Quickfinger's sharpshooters within the Under-Empire was so renowned that even the Jezzail teams of Clan Skryre were seeing a slump in demand. Now, nearly every wealthy clan in the Under-Empire kept a team of Ratling snipers on permanent retainer.

"Father! Ready-ready! Stunties, Greenskins, Iron-Skulls... Queek will kill-slay them all! None shall be spared-left!" Queek roared, baring his yellowed fangs. Behind him, the Red Guard and his trusted comrade and second-in-command, Ska Bloodtail, stood with a level of discipline rarely seen among Skavenkind.

"Good-good. I shall not lecture you-you on the battlefield, Queek, for you are my pride-pride," Gnawdwell said, reaching out to pat Queek's shoulder. The three-meter-tall Queek immediately dropped to one knee, just as he had when he was a mere pup.

Any other Skaven Warlord would have been filled with either overbearing arrogance or festering suspicion at such a display, but Gnawdwell felt only concern. He would have almost preferred Queek to show signs of a treacherous coup; if Queek remained this straightforward, he would never survive the machinations of the true "old shadows" of the Council.

"Queek will not fail-fail you, Father!" Standing tall, Queek gripped his weapons: a Darkstar glaive scavenged from the Leagues of Votann in one claw, and a Phase Sword taken from a Necron Overlord in the other. Upon the iron trophy-rack on his back were impaled the heads of his most cherished foes.

Kin, Orks, Humans, Skaven, and Tyranids. Queek called them his "chattering good heads." They spoke to him in voices only he could hear, sharing their tactical wisdom and bitter experiences.

And it seemed the heads spoke the truth.

As Queek led the Red Guard out of Gnawdwell's palace, they emerged into a vast plaza that resembled a mountain of scrap. There, an endless sea of power-armored Ironclaw Warriors, Terminator-like Iron-rats, and even greater numbers of Stormvermin and Clanrats stood in ordered ranks. Led by their respective Chieftains and Warlords, they were boarding the "trash-heap" vessels known as Brood-ships.

Clan Mors had spared no expense this time, determined to show Skavenblight that their power remained absolute. They had commissioned three Rot-King class Battleships, ten Venom-Claw class Cruisers, and fifteen Fester-Scar class Destroyers. Counting the various torpedo boats and frigates controlled by Mors' vassals, the clan had mobilized over ten billion troops and more than eighty vessels.

Queek and the Red Guard, alongside the elite Ironclaw Warriors of the First Claw Regiment, strode onto the Mors flagship: the Scarlet Harvest.

A Rot-King class Battleship, it was shaped like an arched, disc-like pyramid, spanning six kilometers in diameter. Its armament consisted of a Warp-Nova Cannon, twenty-four Warp-Lance arrays, four carrier launch bays, and twelve torpedo tubes.

Inside, countless logic-engines and servitors hummed; Warlock Engineers constantly dismantled and reinstalled them in new locations. However, no one dared touch the Warp-Lance arrays. These were masterpieces of the great engineers; anyone caught tampering with them would be charged with "copyright infringement" and sentenced to a lifetime as an engineering slave.

Led by the Scarlet Harvest, the five primary battleships of Clan Mors spearheaded the fleet, surging toward the remaining planets of the Eight Peaks system, worlds like the Pale Lady and Jahl, that had yet to fall under Mors' shadow.

…

On Luny, one of the nine planets of the Eight Peaks system and a primary Hold-world of Clan Angrund, two alarms were sounded.

The first came from the fallen capital world, the Silver Queen, reporting massive Skaven movements on an unprecedented scale. The second came from the Urani-Surtr Regulate.

The Freebooter King, Bogg, and the Necron Samnokh Dynasty had both begun to mobilize, advancing toward the Regulate's primary Hold-worlds.

The Urani-Surtr Regulate was a stubborn faction, possessing as many secrets as the First Legion. They were wary of outsiders and demanded oaths of absolute secrecy from any allied kindred. They would never abandon their secrets, which even the "Gods of the Great Game" (GW) had likely not yet codified, and began massing troops for a desperate defense of their Holds.

Furthermore, the Regulate demanded that Clan Angrund send reinforcements. In this reality, the importance of the Eight Peaks system far outweighed that of the Eight Peaks in the World-That-Was.

"No! We cannot abandon our home, Father!" Belegar Ironhammer hissed at his father, Durgar.

"But our oath to the Regulate is unbreakable," Durgar replied, his expression as heavy and grim as a stone statue. To stay and defend Luny meant breaking their word, but to leave felt like an even greater sin against their ancestors.

"Listen, son. You will take the Votann Ancestor Core and the majority of our kin to rendezvous with the Regulate. I will remain here to hold our honor," Durgar commanded.

Belegar shook his head in fury. "What? No! You won't make a coward of me! I would rather die here!"

"This is not running! This is duty! Unless you wish for Clan Angrund to bear the shame of oath-breaking!" Durgar roared. "Take the Core and go! As long as the Core remains, our Kindred never dies!"

Among these Kin, every individual was a clone produced by the Votann Ancestor Core. As long as the supercomputer remained functional, the population could always be restored.

The argument ended when Durgar knocked his son unconscious with a single blow. He ordered the Ironkin to carry him away, evacuating the planet just days before the Skaven fleet arrived.

When the massive Brood-fleet finally reached the outer orbit of Luny, the sheer scale of the swarm blotted out the stars.

Knowing the devastating anti-air and orbital defense capabilities of the Leagues of Votann, even Queek knew better than to charge his precious battleships directly into the fray. He immediately ordered a saturated landing, launching a tidal wave of dropships and troop transports. Their mission: to overwhelm the orbital defense platforms by sheer numbers, seizing or destroying them to pave the way for the main fleet's descent.

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