Quick AN: The story has been reposted with smaller hopefully easier to read chapters as I wasn't happy with one big block of words.
(In Queekish; the language of the Skaven unless otherwise stated.)
A rough and breathless cry echo's out into the otherwise overwhelming silence. "Prime… PRIME!"
A very nearly man sized rat, a Skaven, scuttles on its hind legs down a huge tunnel sculpted deep into dark earth that lies beneath the lands of Elves, Men and Dwarfs. It's long tail flying wildly behind it as it compels itself to its maximum running speed whilst trying to maintain balance. The tunnel itself is dark and damp, standing at least ten times the creature's height and wide enough for fifty Skaven side by side.
Racing around the nearest corner it passes under a giant arch, chipped with incredible detail by tooth and claw, containing images of great Skaven victories from times long forgotten, and into a hall so big that neither the walls nor ceiling are visible by the light given off by the natural pools of flaming oil on the ground.
It wears a long ragged dark blue coat. A symbol of its mediocre power in the Skaven ranks. A torn and tattered patch work of materials with some ripped strands dragging on the floor as it runs towards it's Prime.
"Prime!" The rat wheezed still twenty feet away from the throne. The Prime's head had barely moved an inch from when it first heard the weasels cry. It saw no reason to acknowledge the weak thing crying out in front of it.
As the inferior rat finally arrived at the giant throne made of shit and skulls he made his grovelling bow. His nose hovering a centimetre from the ground. The rat's quick shallow breaths blowing small puffs of dust off the filthy floor as it tried to refill his lungs enough to relay the news.
"My p-p-Prime." He sputtered and spat in his excitement as he stood to deliver his knowledge. "They are heading this way Sire."
The Primes head finally moved as it snapped round to assess the piece of shit stood before it. How he hated such small and pathetic creatures. A flash of rage crossed the beasts mind and it quickly considered picking up his blade and cleaving the thing in front of it in two. But the small Skaven stood confidently before him waiting for praise at its words.
Taking the Primes silence as an opportunity to continue he spoke again. "A pack of Dwarfs entered our tunnels six tides ago, as most of us know." He looked around at some of his nearest Skaven, grinning a yellow toothed smile and making sure he was being heard. "They met with clan Rictus in the north. Rictus met loss but didn't respond with full force because they are weak!" A quick dig at another clan always went down well to an audience. "And now my scouts tell me the Dwarfs have taken the Skorge tunnel. They will be on your dirt in hours. My Prime." Bowing again as he finished.
The Prime stood to its full eight foot height and began a huge in breath during which he turned and grabbed his weapon from its resting place besides his throne of filth. The Prime's weapon was a customised seven foot long staff topped with a foot long curved blade serrated near the connection to the staff. A simple scratch from the blade was all that was needed to kill as the weapon had never been cleaned and was always encrusted with the rotting and decaying remains of life forms it had ended. Raising its deadly weapon above its head with one hand the Prime roared at the very edge of its vocal limit powerful enough to shake the internal organs of those close by and vibrate the walls of its great hall.
"WARRRRR!"
The Prime was Warlord of this Skaven clan and he was the first of his kind. The size and strength of a small rat ogre but with a mind capable of strategy and deception. None knew of its origins that now lived. Or at least that was the common rats rumour. The simple fact is the Prime Skaven couldn't remember how it came to be. All it could remember was the pain of its unnatural birth followed by a killing spree that lasted weeks and lead him to where he settled upon an empty throne already built from rat filth and the skulls of many different species. That is where he made his mark upon the Under-Empire and started to amass his army of slaves and servants. It commanded it's clan by brutality and at the slightest insubordination heads would roll. It demanded to be called Prime and not Warlord and none have challenged and lived. The Prime's rule was so brutal that its clan always suffered from a lack of promoted rats. The only Skaven that had survived promotion for more than two years within the clan's highest levels were the most deadly and the most intelligent. But the lack of promoted rats was compensated by huge numbers of rat slaves. Thousands and thousands of filth covered lower life forms of too many varied mutations to list. Some of which had taken to worshipping their Prime as a Skaven God others shat themselves on the merest rumour that the Prime was heading their way due to his random rage based killing sprees.
One family of mutants was coveted by the Prime as their incestuous relationships produced a two headed rat which has yet to be used in battle, other than death matches for the Prime's personal amusement. But it always proved a fascinating blood bath to those who watched. And only now had the two headed rat's population reached high enough numbers for the Prime's clan to experiment with the mutant variant in group warfare.
The Prime itself had never set foot on anything other than the Under-Empire dirt. It simply commanded its hordes to go into the light and bring back to him spoils of flesh and things. But for all his power won by killing and tricking, to date all his enemies had been rats of one form or another. And the Prime was now eager to venture out upon the surface and test himself and his clan against other races like the green skin hordes and the fairy like elves. Elves especially as the last raid above ground had returned high elf flesh as part of the victory and the taste had made the Prime crave for more the instant he started eating.