Chapter 3(Rat)
Hamato Yoshi the retired Clan Eshin assassin hid carefully in a shadowy alcove under a section of decaying scaffolding, as the skaven of Clan Scatsnack screamed in terror the next day after Hamato began his retirement here.
The big-burly well fed storm vermin of Clan Veek were currently rampaging through the burrow-warren of the weak-poor Clan Scatsnack, enslaving every clan rat they found.
The nasty-bully storm vermin thought that they were enjoying victory-win, but in a few moments they would die-die Clan Eshin style!
Hamato Yoshi readied his blow dart tube, and carefully selected a tiny dart tipped with the tiniest droplet of bad-awful venom from the Nippon Striped Gigantic Centipede, one of the most feared pain-agony venoms in existence. Hamato had many-many tiny bottles of various venoms and poisons from Clan Eshin hidden-secret away in his black robes, and his blow darts only needed the tiniest droplet of each venom to be bad-awful to foes.
Hamato Yoshi took careful aim with his loaded blow tube, and aimed at a gap in the armour of a Clan Veek storm vermin's neck...
With the briefest puff of air Hamato Yoshi blew, and the extremely small-tiny dart flew straight-true into the neck gap of the storm vermin's armour, bury-digging into the flesh-meat.
The storm vermin screamed in the most bad-awful pain-agony, and drop-fell to the scaffold floor, rolling around shriek-screaming!
The bad-awful venom-poison of the Nippon Striped Gigantic Centipede hurt-pain so much-much, that skaven bitten-stung by the centipede would cut-chop off their own bitten-stung limbs just to stop-stop the bad-awful pain!
Skaven who could not cut-chop off the bitten-stung part would try-try to kill-slay themselves just to make the bad-awful pain stop-end!
The screaming-shrieking storm vermin was now stab-stabbing his neck with his sword to stop the bad-awful pain, and blood was spraying everywhere from his stabbed neck artery. Soon he would be dead-slayed from his self inflicted neck bleed.
Hamato Yoshi readied another tiny-small dart tipped with bad-awful centipede pain-agony venom, and aimed at the neck of another storm vermin.
Soon-soon there were lots-many storm vermin scream-weeping in pain-agony, rolling on the scaffolding floor stabbing themselves in the neck to stop the bad-extreme pain-torture of the venom!
The still safe-healthy storm vermin were afraid-terrified at the sight of dozens of their fellows screaming in agony and committing suicide-self slay to stop-end the pain, and some wise-smart storm vermin check-inspected the dead bodies and found the poisoned Eshin blow darts.
"Eshin Assassin!, ESHIN ASSASSIN!," the wise-smart storm vermin screamed in terror, flee-running for their lives.
Hamato Yoshi blew yet more darts into a few idiot-fools who had not yet run-fled, making the storm vermin fear increase.
"ESHIN ASSASSIN!", the entire force of storm vermin were now screaming, spraying the musk of fear more strong-hard than ever before in their lives.
The storm vermin were not even stopping to collect the slaves they had gathered, they were fleeing for their lives, musk glands venting in terror of the terrible pain darts that made their fellows kill themselves just to end their agony.
Even the clan rats of Clan Scatsnack were afraid-scared of the demoralising sight of the screaming agonised storm vermin slaying themselves to stop their pain, and the musk of fear hung heavily throughout the burrow.
When the storm vermin of Clan Veek had all fled, Hamato Yoshi emerged from the shadows to collect his darts. The clan rats of Clan Scatsnack gawked at him in open mouthed awe, backing away from him fearfully, spraying the musk of fear in his mere presence.
The bodies of the dead storm vermin were strangely untouched after the battle, the clan rats of Clan Scatsnack were so afraid-fearful of the terrible pain poison that not even the black hunger could force them to eat the bodies, think-imagining that they also would stab themselves to death to stop the pain if they ate the meat.
Hamato Yoshi retrieved every single dart, and then began to eat one of the bodies, being very careful to avoid the venomous meat near the dart wound.
The clan rats rushed to eat the other bodies, but fast-quickly stopped when some clan rats ate the bits of meat-flesh that had venom and kill-slayed themselves screaming-weeping in agony-pain.
Hamato Yoshi just kept eating as the musk of fear hung heavily in the air.
***...
The rumours about Clan Scatsnack started immediately, the way they always did in Skavenblight.
The Clan Veek storm vermin had fled back decimated to their own burrow, reeking of the musk of fear and without a single slave for all their troubles. It was a humiliating defeat that made the Clan Veek chieftain leading the slave raid and his storm vermin forces look bad-stupid, so naturally the chieftain and storm vermin had lied-exaggerated greatly to explain-justify their defeat to make them look less bad-stupid to their Warlord.
According to the chieftain and the storm vermin, they had encountered a force of "hundreds-hundreds" of Clan Eshin assassins, tens of thousands of Clan Eshin gutter runners, an indeterminate multitude of rat ogres, warp lightning cannons, grey seers on screaming bells, at least twenty vermin lords, all twelve of the lords of decay themselves, and every other horrific thing in the entire under empire.
It had been a slaughter facing such terrible forces that it was actually a great-impressive feat to have had any forces survive at all to live to tell the tale, and only the sheer awesomeness-brilliance of the chieftain and his storm vermin had allowed even a single skaven to escape alive, anyone else would surely-certainly be dead-dead!
The Warlord of Clan Veek was not a complete idiot and had his doubts about the accounts he had been given, but this defeat made the whole of Clan Veek look weak-stupid, lessening the prestige-standing of the Warlord himself, so the Warlord simply repeated the lie, elaborating it slightly to sound less ridiculous and more plausible.
According to the Warlord of Clan Veek, Clan Scatsnack had become a thrall clan under the protection of Clan Eshin, and Clan Eshin themselves had personally protected their thrall clan from the Clan Veek raid. This was much more plausible sounding than the original excuses, and helped Clan Veek save face-reputation by justifying how they could possibly be defeated attacking the weak Clan Scatsnack.
It had been the perfect lie, as of course no one else would dare to actually ask Clan Eshin if it was true, and Clan Veek got to avoid looking weak-stupid to the other lesser warlord clans.
The rumour quickly spread that Clan Scatsnack was a thrall clan under the personal protection of Clan Eshin, and the slave raids against Clan Scatsnack instantly and completely stopped.
Not only did Clan Veek stop raiding Clan Scatsnack, but all of the other clans who usually raided Clan Scatsnack also stopped raiding them, extremely cautious from all the rumours. The other clans didn't necessarily believe that the rumours were true, but they also didn't know for sure if they were false.
It was a known fact that Clan Veek was very strong and very very good at slaving, and it was also a known fact that they had suffered a terrible defeat attacking arguably-probably the weakest clan in the whole of Skavenblight. Clan Scatsnack couldn't possibly have beat-defeated Clan Veek by themselves, and every single report agreed that an unknown number of Clan Eshin assassins had been present slaughtering the Clan Veek storm vermin.
It just fit-fit that Clan Scatsnack had somehow gained the protection of Clan Eshin. It was also a fact-certainty that Clan Scatsnack could not afford the price of hiring Clan Eshin as mercenaries, so it sounded more probable that Clan Scatsnack had indeed become a thrall clan of Clan Eshin.
None-none of the warlord clans wanted to discover the hard way if this rumour was indeed true, and so they cautiously did not attack Clan Scatsnack, raiding other weak clans instead.
***...
Scabscratch the clan rat of Clan Scatsnack bobbed his head fearfully to Hamato Yoshi, as the musk spurtingly terrifying Clan Eshin Assassin walked past Scabscratch's wheelbarrow full of droppings on a scaffolding.
All over the scaffolding other clan rats and runts were showing fearful respect to Hamato Yoshi, and all were making a point of getting out of Hamato's way as he walked, terrified of even touching him.
Every breeder on the nearby scaffolding was eagerly squeaking at Hamato to mate with them, all knowing that he had personally defeated Clan Veek and finding this sexy-hot. Clan Scatsnack could not afford the intelligence dulling drugs that most other clans used to keep their breeders docile-stupid, and the breeders were smart-aware enough to understand words-speech and knew-understood the business of their clan.
The breeders all knew-understand that Hamato Yoshi was a hero-saviour, and they all want-desire him for sex-mating.
Scabscratch felt stabs of jealousy as the breeders all squeaked like that at Hamato, but Scabscratch was too afraid-terrified of Hamato to let any of this jealousy show, he not want to suffer the pain-agony venom that made skaven kill themselves!
Hamato Yoshi waved proudly to the squeaking excited breeders.
"Sorry-apologies breeders, I have sex-mated too much to continue yet. Give me time-time and I mate-sex with all of you," Hamato fondly promised the excited breeders.
Every breeder in earshot squeaked in disappointed understanding, and squeaked for Hamato to please-kindly recover soon and mate-sex with them.
Scabscratch and every other adult skaven male in earshot trembled with visible jealousy, wishing that the breeders would make such a big fuss-excitement over them instead. Hamato Yoshi noticed the jealous trembling and bared his teeth threateningly, lashing his tail in warning!
Scabscratch and everyone else squirted the musk of fear instantly and abased themselves in submission before the terrifying assassin.
Hamato Yoshi covered his teeth again, satisfied by their collective grovelling submission to him, and he resumed fondly waving to the excited breeders.
Scabscratch felt bitter jealousy as Hamato Yoshi continued on his way along the scaffolding, but his fear of the assassin was far stronger.
***...
Warlord Cack of Clan Scatsnack rubbed his paws together happily as his clan enjoyed the end of its second straight week without a single slave raid, it was glorious-wonderful!
The clan had more wealth than ever before without the constant theft of belongings and clan members, and they were actually making a profit selling tanned leather without needing the money to constantly buy replacement equipment-tools!
The poo harvests were better than ever with no harvest parties attacked-enslaved in the tunnels between clan burrows, and many-many runts were getting big-large enough to become clan rats with the extra food, more-more than usual.
Actually-actually, without the constant slave raids and with so much extra food letting more runts and young adults survive each week, the clan burrow scaffolding was getting a bit tight-crowded, (more than usual).
Warlord Cack was tightly pressed in on all sides by other skaven, and according to reports-spies the overcrowding was so bad-big that clan rats and runts were forced out into the tunnels surrounding the burrow just to find room-space...
Warlord Cack thought-think that maybe he should get his clan rats to build a bit more scaffolding to make more room, now that they could afford the wood for some extra scaffolding.
Good idea yes-yes?
***...