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Slinktalon – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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SLINKTALON

Robbie MacNiven

Ichit caught the assassin’s scent before he heard him.

Like many Eshin acolytes, the killer had rubbed sour-root ash into his fur and bindings in an attempt to mask his smell, but Ichit’s senses were as keen as his blades, and he detected the faintest whiff of musk in the stale air of the old burrow.

He spun, a dagger in each paw, the blades crossing to intercept a blow from a quarterstaff that would have staved in the back of his skull.

‘Quik,’ he snarled, baring his fangs at his assailant. ‘Knew I recognised your musk-stink.’

The rival assassin shrieked with frustration and whipped his staff free from Ichit’s knives before he could scissor them together and bisect the weapon.

The pair circled one another, tails flicking and thumping the dusty floor, slipping instinctively into their respective combat stances. Ichit, an old student of Master Skabeclaw and a naturally short, slight Skaven, kept low to the ground, one arm held straight out with the knife in a reverse grip. It was both a strong guard and a lure, designed to hold the target’s attention while the second blade, held low against the body and under his cloak’s hem, was kept for the killing blow. Quik, altogether taller and broader than most Eshin assassins, fronted up, square-on, languidly spinning his quarterstaff between his paws. Ichit had completed enough contracts alongside him – and had attempted to kill him on enough occasions – to know that the staff was as much a distraction technique as his own forward knife. The sting was in the tail, literally, or specifically the small half-dagger gripped in its tip, concealed behind Quik’s back. The opponent would focus so much on Quik’s brawn and the anticipation of a physical struggle that they’d fail to notice the little blade until it was punching into their throat.

‘Come to finish what you start-started in Brightspear, brood-brother?’ Ichit said, watching his opponent’s stance intently, hoping the words might cause a misstep he could exploit.

‘Your tricks will not fool me this time, little one,’ Quik responded stoically. ‘It was you who left-abandoned me like a dead thing in the Hanging Valleys. I knew it was you who lured me here, with your pretend summons.’

Such a claim was undoubtedly Quik’s weak attempt at playing mind-tricks, but reaching that conclusion nearly proved fatal. It was Ichit who had hesitated, and now Quik sprang at him, staff a blur.

Ichit counter-attacked without thinking, springing forward to dart in under Quik’s guard and carve open his bowels.

Neither strike met its intended target. Ichit found his forward momentum arrested, his body yanked to the side and pinned up against the burrow wall. The cowl of his cloak constricted sharply around his throat, and he squirmed, pinned in place not by a hand, he realised, but by a black steel throwing star that had buried itself in the dirt and taken his cloak with it, close enough to nick his neck.

He tried to yank himself free, then went deadly still as he discovered that there was also a knife at his throat. Quik was opposite him, likewise pinned by a second throwing star and menaced with poison-tainted steel.

‘Cease-stop your struggles,’ hissed the new arrival.

They both recognised him, and obeyed. After a hesitation to ensure compliance, the third assassin removed the threat of his knives and allowed the pair to wrench themselves free, a piece of Quik’s cowl tearing as he extricated himself.

Ichit felt the urge to squirt fear musk, but it was impotent. Like all assassins of Clan Slitit, he had long ago had the glands responsible for his pheromones cut out.

He bared his throat instead, Quik mirroring the sign of obeisance. Seemingly satisfied, the third assassin slipped his knives back into his cloak.

‘Scrapping like brood runts again,’ he tutted. ‘Keep your blades keen, little brothers. It was I who summoned you here. I have a new contract for you.’

The trio of assassins sat cross-legged in a triangle in the centre of the burrow, mirroring the most sacred symbol of the Horned Rat. Their tails were coiled around their waists, and though they had put away their other weapons, Ichit noted Quik still had his little throat-slitter gripped in his prehensile coils.

Relq seemed unconcerned by that, which did not surprise Ichit. The third assassin was the oldest of the trio, and the most favoured by the clan masters, though Ichit had known him before his climb to prominence. They had grown up together, part of a Slinktalon, a method used by many Eshin clans to train and test prospective assassins. The concept of teamwork – really of any kind of loyalty or cooperation at all – was anathema to Skavenkind, yet those who followed the ways of the Deceiver understood that concerted effort had its place. An assassin who could not operate alongside his knife-kin and lesser vermin had no future among the acolytes of Eshin.

Still, it had been a long time since they had stalked and killed together. Ichit had encountered Quik during recent assignments – usually trying to thieve his kills – but he had not seen Relq since the near debacle of the aelf-thing murders in Azyr. Relq seemed too exalted to do anything but give new assignments to his underlings these days, which was what Ichit assumed he had come to do now. It felt like an age since their youth, learning the craft of the Deceiver together, one throat-slit at a time.

‘You have a new contract,’ Relq reiterated. ‘I have come to deliver. Pay close attention.’

‘The assignment is for both of us?’ Quik asked doubtfully, glancing across at Ichit. In all their time together, Ichit had never quite established if Quik’s mental slowness was genuine, or an affectation to make others think him less dangerous. He had decided it was at least partly true, but Quik embellished it as part of a double bluff.

‘Yes-yes,’ Relq said. ‘Client was most specific.’

‘Our fame goes ahead of us,’ Ichit chittered.

Relq reached into his cloak, causing the other two assassins to stiffen briefly, but when he removed his paw he held only two scraps of hide-parchment, scrawled with the Skaven’s crude runic language.

‘Read-study, then gnaw-destroy,’ Relq ordered, presenting the two pieces of hide, just far enough out of reach to force Ichit and Quik to briefly lean forward to snatch them.

Neither assassin attempted to study the scraps yet, both too experienced to allow themselves to become distracted while in such lethal company.

‘Clan masters giving out new contracts then?’ Quik asked.

‘Objective is not from clan masters,’ Relq said. ‘Outside contractor. Identity hidden, but could not trick old Relq.’

‘And what is target?’ Ichit demanded.

‘Brain-vermin from the Skryre clans,’ Relq said. ‘Name is Queem – Warlock Engineer and inventor-tinkerer. Think-thinks himself very clever. We shall soon see how clever.’

‘If contract is from outsider, what is the reward?’ Quik asked slowly. ‘Much-much warpstone? Fresh blade-venoms?’

Relq let out a chitter of amusement.

‘Oh no, it is something much more valuable, little brothers.’

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

This eBook edition published in 2025 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Alex Boyd.

Slinktalon © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2025. Slinktalon, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-83609-246-9

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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