In the Imperium Nihilus, within the lightless reaches of the galaxy, lies the mining world of Zavka. For millennia, this planet has been flayed open by the toil of untold billions of debt-slaves, servitors, and gargantuan tectonic drills. Its crust is a ruin of honeycomb tunnels, countless arteries of stone and iron that lead into a dark, forgotten abyss.
Saturated by lethal pollutants, these sub-levels are home to mutated horrors that defy the most fevered imaginings. Here, in the crushing dark, even a fully mobilized army has no guarantee of survival; most who venture too deep become nothing more than splintered marrow in a lightless grave.
Through this labyrinth, a fanatical procession of "humans" descended. Clad in the scavenged wargear of the Planetary Defence Forces and the Astra Militarum, these bald-headed cultists moved with predatory confidence. The alien DNA of the Great Devourer bonding their flesh allowed them to navigate the gloom without the need for lumens.
These were no men. They were the vanguard of a xenos apocalypse: a Genestealer Cult.
Decades ago, the cult had successfully overthrown Zavka's planetary governor after the world was severed from the light of the Astronomican. Yet, for reasons unknown, their psychic summons to the Tyranid Hive Fleets had failed. Even the cult's Patriarch found his telepathic shadow inexplicably smothered by a mysterious shroud.
In the intervening years, the cult realized that despite their total shadow-dominance of the world, their hybrids were vanishing. In the deepest, most stagnant trenches of the underworld, they found only the gnawed remains of their kin—shattered bone marked by the frantic, serrated bite-marks of a rodent species.
The cult was forced to confront the planet's oldest, most absurd folklore: the legend of the "rat-men" of Zavka's deep-crust. It was said that upright-walking vermin haunted the dark, stealing grain, snatching technology, and dragging the unwary into the depths.
Weary of waiting for the "Star Gods" to descend, the Purestrain Patriarch finally ordered a mass purge to root out these hidden rivals. But even a cult that owned the surface could not fully map a world with thousands of years of erratic excavations.
Today, a band of hybrids would find exactly what they were looking for. It was their greatest fortune, and their final misfortune.
"Scent... a foulness. This is no ordinary stench," hissed a Genestealer Astropath, her senses catching a musk that reeked of hunger, greed, and a staggering, low-born malice.
"Eee-yah-aaaaah!"
With a shriek of warning, the Astropath leveled her staff. A crackling arc of bio-electric warp energy tore through the darkness, shattering a nearby outcrop of rock. A high-pitched squeal erupted as scorched bodies tumbled into the light. They were hunched, narrow-faced creatures with long, hairless tails—vermin given bipedal form.
"By the Patriarch! We have found them! The pests!" the Astropath cried, signaling her hybrids to form a firing line.
She was too late. The silence of the tunnel vanished, replaced by a deafening, skittering cacophony. The sound of a million claws scratching against stone. In the dark, ten thousand pairs of ruby-red eyes ignited. Through their thermal sight, the hybrids saw them: a tidal wave of scrawny, grey-furred rat-men.
The creatures were filthy, matted with old scars and dressed in nothing but tattered rags. Their weaponry was pathetic: rusted shivs, crude spears tipped with jagged scrap, and erratic, "bootleg" copies of PDF autopistols. Yet what they lacked in quality, they overcompensated for with sheer, foaming-at-the-mouth insanity.
"Open fire! Purge the vermin!" the Astropath commanded.
Heavy stubbers, mining lasers, and heavy flamers roared to life. Bullets tore through the fragile bodies of the rat-men, but the swarm did not falter. They surged over the corpses of their own kind, their crude pistols spitting glowing green projectiles. The warp-tainted rounds shredded the hybrids' hazard suits, the sheer volume of fire pinning the cultists down.
As the cult attempted a tactical withdrawal, they found the tunnel behind them choked with fur and fangs. Worse, the tires of their Achilles Ridgerunners had been gnawed to useless shreds while they stood still.
"There are too many! Break out!" the Astropath screamed. "Aberrants! Clear a path!"
Dozens of hulking Aberrants and massive Abominants swung their power hammers and heavy mining picks, smashing through the rat-kin with brutal efficiency. For a moment, it seemed the raw physical power of the Genestealer strain would prevail.
'I must report this to the Patriarch,' the Astropath thought. 'These pests must be exterminated.'
But then, a thunderous impact shook the cavern. Massive, ape-like silhouettes slammed into the Aberrants. These new horrors had rusted hammers and glowing green drills sewn directly into their muscular stumps. They were Rat Ogres, beasts the size of Abominants that moved with a terrifying, simian agility.
The tunnel turned into a meat-grinder of bio-monsters. The deadlock was broken when an even larger, mutated Rat Ogre tore from the shadows. With a roar, it tackled the largest Abominant, its warp-enhanced claws punching through armor and flesh that could withstand las-cannon fire.
"YES! YES!"
"Bald-things... eat-consume them!"
The swarm shrieked in delight, their mouths dripping with black, foul-smelling bile. Aided by the overwhelming tide, the Rat Ogres began to dismantle the cult's elites.
Desperate, the Astropath gathered her psychic strength for a final, suicidal blast to collapse the tunnel. But her power hit a wall. In the distance, atop a pile of rubble, stood a white-furred rat-man with massive, curving horns. He wore robes of thick, luxurious silk, magnificent by rat standards, and brandished a triangular staff that pulsed with sickly green light.
A Grey Seer.
"No... no!" the Astropath gasped, her mind locked in a psychic stalemate with the verminous sorcerer. She was paralyzed, her will neutralized by his malevolent sorcery.
The swarm surged forward. A sea of fur and rusted blades submerged the last of the Genestealer Cult. Soon, the only sound left in the tunnel was the wet, rhythmic sound of frantic gnawing.
…
Deep within the planet's core, in the heart of the Skaven's "Blight City," the Council of Thirteen was in session.
Thirteen high-backed thrones stood in a circle. From left to right sat the lords of the great clans: Clan Grey Seer, Clan Skryre, Clan Moulder, Clan Eshin, Clan Pestilens, Clan Rictus, Clan Mors...
Twelve of the most powerful Warlords and Seers in Skavendom were gathered. However, the thirteenth seat, traditionally left empty for the Great Horned Rat, was occupied.
A small figure draped in a black hooded robe sat there in total silence.
"The time has come..." the figure spoke. Unlike the chittering, manic staccato of the other Council members, his voice was calm, cold, and terrifyingly lucid.
The other Rat-Lords froze, their whiskers twitching in excitement.
"Forgive-excuse us, Great One... you say the time-hour is here? What meaning-intent?" asked Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch, his rotting, pustule-covered face twitching.
"The time has come," the hooded figure repeated. "Now... we ascend to the surface. Ring the Great Bell thirteen times. Let the dwellers above, let the entire galaxy understand... the Great Horned Rat walks among us."