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Rating:
Mature
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
Game of Thrones (TV)Warhammer Fantasy
Characters:
Sansa StarkArya StarkGregor CleganeRobb StarkBrienne of TarthJaime LannisterSkaven Characters (Warhammer Fantasy)Tyrion LannisterOther ASoIaF | GoT Character(s)Queek Headtakerthrot the uncleanSnikch (Warhammer Fantasy)Theon GreyjoyThanquol (Warhammer Age of Sigmar)Asha Greyjoy | Yara GreyjoyTretch Craventail
Additional Tags:
Skaven Species (Warhammer Fantasy)Game of Thrones-Typical ViolenceWar of the Five Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire)POV AlternatingGame of Thrones Season/Series 03Blood and ViolenceCanon-Typical BehaviorBrienne of Tarth is the BestSansa Stark Deserves BetterDirewolves (A Song of Ice and Fire)No Warhammer knowledge requiredTheon Greyjoy Doesn't Betray Robb StarkSkaven are both horrific and hilariousno beta we die like nedImplied/Referenced SuicideCorpse Desecration
Language:
English
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Published:2026-06-07Updated:2026-07-18Words:59,282Chapters:9/13Comments:142Kudos:114Bookmarks:18Hits:4,532
The Glorious Skaven Invasion during the War of the Five Kings
SkilledWarriorKiwi
Chapter 2: Defiance of Darlessa
Notes:
I've never used Tretch Craventail in Total War since Queek is basically him but better, so he gets a chapter here as a little treat 🧀 also bumped the chapter count up 13 since that's the ratties fave number lol
Chapter Text
The creature was foul, twisted, unnatural, and thankfully very much dead.
Its corpse was splayed over the stones of one of the more out-of-sight rooms within Ashemark, having been smuggled in within a large crate carried by six guards.
Darlessa Marbrand wasn't a woman prone to fear but there was deep visceral unease as she stared down at the corpse of the ratman. It was the first time they had managed to actually seize one, dead or alive, as even if they had suffered skirmishes in the night they had managed to repel the attacking demons from overrunning the keep entirely. However the monsters would also drag their dead off into the darkness when they retreated so they had no evidence beyond their own words.
They finally gotten lucky after two weeks of these monsters harassing the countryside and attacking Ashemark directly.
Darlessa swallowed, hand bone-white from its grip upon the talisman of the Seven around her neck. The dead creature was demonic, there was no doubt about it. A great grotesque abomination, a man twisted into a rat or a rat twisted into a man she knew not, but the results were the same. Scabbly feet and hands, pink skinned and tipped with sharp claws. A long pink tail, hairless. Humanoid body covered in brown fur with scraps of armour- a dull silver breastplate, scraps of cloth bound about its hips and shoulders. Face unmistakably that of a rat, narrow long muzzle with a pink nose and whiskers, the round bare ears, black eyes open and glassy from death.
Even as she watched, one of the guards carefully poked the handle of his axe into the creature's mouth, prying it open to reveal rows of yellowed fangs. Each tooth was as long as Darlessa's pinky finger.
"We must get this to King's Landing as swiftly as possible," Darlessa said, finally managing to loosen her grip from the necklace as she put her thoughts in order. "This is the proof we need, to let the Iron Throne know our words are not just hysteria and tales. We need reinforcements, we need the Lannister army, before these...these vermin overwhelm us. This corpse is what we desperately needed to let them know the truth. We are running out of time."
Ashemark was a modest keep, the castle neither large nor small, but it was defensible. But against demonic rats Darlessa knew they held a slim hope. Especially as reports of these monsters spreading across the Westerlands grew more and more loud, Darlessa spending many nights in her chambers despairing over the letters as none of their allies responded with pleas for reinforcements.
Golden Tooth had been silent after the first three days of initial sightings, and now nothing despite her attempts. Darlessa had ordered several scouts to check upon the castle, along with several others in the area, yet none had returned from the short journey. She didn't know what to do.
At first Darlessa had only worried over the ridiculous civil war with those Northern savages rampaging across Westeros. Her son was still missing, her dear Tyrek, having vanished during the riot of King's Landing. She had sent several letters to no avail, even if a part of her felt gladdened that her good-brother Tywin had actually responded to her personally. Regardless of her feelings for the lord of House Lannister, Tywin would never jape of his kin. Tyrion's responses to her letters had been more kind and personable. While he did not lie about their chances, he mentioned his own suspicion that Tyrek could have been snatched as a hostage due to the lack of remains found. Darlessa desperately hoped so, praying in the sept each morn for news of her son to be found alive even if it was only for ransom.
She lamented that her late husband Tygett was not present; he would have been able to convince his brother that the rumours of the rat demons had been truth. And his abilities as a warrior, commander, was desperately needed.
Instead Darlessa was alone and the repeated night attacks by the demons had led to a loss of a third of the household with more wounded and she knew it was not going to stop any time soon.
The ratmen did not bother with torches, able to see in the dark, and they used it to horrible effectiveness in their attacks upon the keep. Bursting from the darkness and vanishing just as easily. The demons wielded all manner of weapons, typically in close combat, but in their recent push they had hurled poisoned barbs over the gates and towers using slings. The maester had been unable to halt the poison and dozens died in the aftermath. The morning after that attack the maester had vanished from the rookery, along with all the ravens found dead in their cages.
Darlessa then ordered for no one to remain alone, especially as the demons seemed to vanish back into the ground when morning came so there was no rival camp for them to watch or parley with during the odd siege. Darlessa herself had four guards with her at all times, and she kept a vial of poison and dagger on her person, but she knew they wouldn't last much longer. These demons seemed to have no interest in hostages, instead were slowly chipping away at them. Terrorizing them. Killing them. Eating them.
The corpse now lying before her was just blind luck, that the rat had been killed by a crossbow and fell behind several crates and missed during the night battle when the fiends retreated. And now it was brought to her only an hour before sundown.
She directed the watching servants to fetch blocks of ice to be brought from the kitchen. The sooner a wagon got upon the road, heading to King's Landing, the better.
The men were very uneasy in touching the dead ratman, rolling it up in a heavy sheet. The box was lined with ice and the wrapped body was placed upon it with more ice poured over top. Then the lid was lowered, hastily latched into place and Darlessa followed as the box was carefully carried from the castle down into the courtyard. Outside the sky was growing orange as the sun began to set and already the guards were preparing for another assault. Servants helping with supplies, fixing broken barricades, a constant stream of humanity moving in agitated movements.
They were all busy enough none looked twice at the crate which was hefted up onto the wagon, which was hitched to four horses. The stables within the courtyard only had one lone horse left. The ones outside the keep had either fled or been eaten shortly after the demon rats appeared.
"Don't stop until you reach Lannisport," Darlessa ordered, handing over a letter to one of the men who took the reins. "Inform Kevan Lannister of this, let him see that creature so he knows the truth. Only spend one night there, then continue through the king's road. Do you understand? It is imperative we deliver this thing to King's Landing and the king himself as swiftly as possible."
"Yes, my lady."
"May the Seven watch over you," she said before a whip cracked and the horses quickly ran through the gates. No sooner did they pass did the portcullis descend and the men began to reinforce the gates.
Darlessa went to the ramparts, watching the wagon slowly vanish into the distance, swallowed by the rolling hills of the Westerlands. The landscape was pocked with great forests, lakes and villages, but it had been eerily silent.
She stood there, hand clamped back upon her necklace as she prayed. Torches were lit across the walls, braziers burning and people tense, as the sky grew darker and darker. After some distant staring to where the wagon had left she retreated back into the castle, hearing the orders of the captain of the guard barked across the ramparts and the servants hurrying to and fro.
They knew little of the demons, that even if they killed dozens hundreds more seemed to fill their place. The creatures were noisy in battle, could crawl up the walls, and wielded all manner of weapons. All with brown fur and pink paws, long tails. They were rats, grotesque monstrous ratmen, and were violent creatures just like the small ones that scurried within the floors and walls.
One of the monster rats seemed to be the leader according to several accounts even if Darlessa had never seen the thing itself. A larger demon rat that wore the skull of its own like a helmet along with having a vicious hooked blade affixed to the end of its tail, with a weapon that looked like a vicious pitchfork or trident with the three sharp blades upon the end. It was also unnervingly good at dodging arrows.
Darlessa spoke to the servants and maids, directing the people within the walls as they prepared. The women and children had already gone down into the wine cellar for protection, down in the bowels of the keep to keep them safe. Darlessa and a few of the other women remained above, Darlessa refusing to be cowered. She was a Marbrand, the burning tree stitched upon her skirts, and had been married to a Lannister, the lions upon her bodice.
Nonetheless she kept the Seven within her thoughts. Praying for levity and for the men to deliver the corpse of the demon to Lannisport. Kevan would be able to convince his brother of the truth of things if he saw the creature himself, she just knew it.
However it seemed the gods were not listening or at least the ones she prayed to. For when the attack came, it burst open the cobblestones of the courtyard itself.
Darlessa had been at the window, scribbling down more letters to try and send in vain, when the loud crack split the air and down below she watched in horror as over two dozen of the twisted ratmen scurried from the newly made tunnel and attacked the people within the courtyard. At the same instant the vermin waiting patiently in silence just beyond the light of the torches ran forward with squeals and yelps to swiftly start scaling the walls.
There were even more than usual and Darlessa sprang to her feet as the people down below were swiftly overwhelmed. They were inside the walls, no doubt digging their way through the earth in their earlier skirmishes and they now intended to swarm the entire keep. More and more of the demonic rats swarmed the area, killing everyone they could catch. The keep was lost in that one surging attack, Darlessa knew. Castles were only as strong as their walls and Ashemark was falling.
At least she had managed to send the rat corpse to Kevan.
"Quickly! To the cellars!" she barked before gathering her skirts and running with her four guards by her side.
She ignored the screams of the dying, the shrieks of the monsters and the clashing of weapons. The stink of blood was thick in the air, seemingly growing even stronger as she quickly hurried down the stairs to the lower levels.
There was crashing behind doors, windows broken, and Darlessa ran over the mutilated remains of several people. Yet it would seem the rats in the courtyard weren't the only ones that burrowed through the earth.
Soon they reached the heavy door of the wine cellar, Darlessa fishing out the key from her neck as her men kept watch. One with a crossbow, three with swords, and all as panicked as herself as screams and cries still filled the air, bouncing down the narrow hallway as the stench of blood and gore was near overwhelming.
She unlocked the door and pulled it open, only to freeze when she looked inside to see all the women and children sheltered within in the midst of being eaten. The back wall of the cellar had collapsed inward, wine bottles shattered and barrels knocked askew from the tunnel bored through the wall. The nearest demon rat paused from where it was hunkered over a bloody mess, an undersized limb jutting out from between its gore-stained fangs, as its burning red eyes fixed onto her.
Darlessa slammed the door shut, locking it just as quickly.
"Back upstairs," one of the guards said, features nauseated. "Through the servants door, we might be able to get out that way."
Their efforts were all for naught.
As they ran back up the stairs and out onto the hallway, one of the doors burst open and the rat with the skull upon its head appeared. At its back was more of the vermin, all in various bloody states.
The man with the crossbow fired, and the skull-clad rat quickly dodged and the rat behind it took the shaft into the throat. The skull rat threw its three pronged weapon at him, the blades catching the man in the face with a meaty thud and making him collapse with a scream. Darlessa didn't wait to die with him, sprinting past with the three other men in tow before the rats could grab them.
"Get back here-here!" the demon rat screamed after them as the motley group fled, making Darlessa felt a lurch of panic at hearing the monstrous thing speak.
Their luck ran out as they hit a dead end in the living quarters at the end of the hallway, Darlessa unfamiliar with the servant quarters and their only other exit barricaded from the other side. One of the men smashed open the window, only to curse when he looked out and saw the sheer drop below. Maybe if they were children they could crawl through the windows as well, so there would be no reprieve.
"There's no where to go," one of the guards, who looked painfully young and panicked, glanced about wildly.
"Shut the door, barricade it with the beds," Darlessa ordered. "If we stay silent, perhaps we can trick the vermin into not checking here. They will be too occupied with the rest of the keep. If we keep quiet we may yet live."
A nod from two, who quickly began to draw one of the heavy bed frames to the door while the youngest guard was shaking violently. Darlessa went to the door, key in hand to lock it.
Then there was a distant cry of pain and a woman stumbled out into the hall. The maid saw them as she straightened up, her sweaty face bright with desperate hope.
"Lady Darlessa!" the maid shouted, a bloody gash staining her chest red as she ran to them. "Lady Darlessa, please!"
Darlessa hadn't time to shut the door before the skull rat skidded around the corner to end up behind the maid and lashed out with a whip. It caught her ankle and sent her sprawling across the floor. By the time she scrambled up to her feet the monster was almost upon her. The maid screamed in panic, the woman stumbling but managing to avoid a vicious swipe from the ratman's bladed tail before she ran for the door.
It was enough for the monster to spot Darlessa and the guards inside the room before she slammed the door shut with a curse.
Darlessa managed to lock the door before the maid hit it on the other side, the woman's voice begging and pleading for her to open it. Banging on the door and crying hysterically. A moment later the wood shook violently as the maid was slammed up against the door hard enough her begging cut off with a choked noise.
Then the woman started screaming, such agonized noises paired with wet tearing noises that Darlessa knew she was being eaten alive right outside.
Darlessa hunched her shoulders as she retreated further into the room even as the guards shoved the table against the door but they all knew it was an empty gesture now that the rat knew they were inside. Inside and with no where to go.
Rats in a cage.
It took the maid a horribly long time to stop screaming, even as the noises she made became gurgled and wet, not even recognizable as human. Red was seeping beneath the door, staining the rug. Darlessa's skin felt tight and sweaty, the hairs on her nape on end with her gripping the useless key of the keep so hard blood was dripping from her fingers.
Until, finally, the maid stopped.
The long silence beyond was its own type of fear. And then Darlessa heard it.
Knock knock.
The young guard was crying into his hands and Darlessa was not faring particularly better, but she gathered her courage to stand up straighter.
"What do you want?" she asked coldly to the barricaded door. The two guards looked at her as if she was mad and maybe she was.
"Man thing."
The reply was raspy, slow. She had to wonder if the monster had ever spoken Common before, or if it had just torn the knowledge from the mind of the people it had just eaten.
"We can help-aid each other, yes-yes? This all big...misunderstand," the thing behind the door said.
Darlessa could hear grumbles beyond, foot falls and clink of armour, and knew even more of the rats had appeared. They were probably clogging the entire hallway out beyond. There would be no escape.
"A misunderstanding?" Darlessa said. "You have attacked my home, killed my people and now threaten me whilst I am trapped."
Out beyond the heavy breathing of the monster at the door Darlessa could still hear distant screaming. Ashemark had fallen but she had hope her men would reach Lannisport. It was all she had left, before she ended up like the maid. Food for a monster. She looked about the room, mind made up.
"Ah, that was just...joke. Yes-yes. You man things very excited, always have weapons, always screaming. We respond. Such...terrible-bad thing this is. Oh no. But now we talk," it replied. "Perhaps claw-pact possible, hm? You are clan leader. I clan leader. Why not talk. You see how long my tail is. I strongest of all."
Darlessa spotted the half empty flagon on one of the side tables next to an abandoned dice game, quickly going over to it as she pulled a small vial from within her sleeve. The poison was clear, lethal, as she dumped it all into the flagon.
"You want to be a friend?" she said, before pouring out the juice. There were several cups but she filled four of them.
She held her cup close, glancing at the guards. The youngest was on the ground crying, but the older two had expressions of grim acceptance on their faces as they accepted the tainted cups.
"I loyal. Trust me," the demon called, voice coaxing.
"Go to Seven Hells," Darlessa replied just as easily. "You lying disgusting beast."
"Kick it down-down," she heard the rat order, the faux friendliness vanishing in an instant.
The door reverberated within the frame, but it took only four blows before the wood started to groan and split. One guard had already collapsed onto the ground, body twitching and bloodied foam at the corner of his mouth. The other drained his cup while the younger remained sobbing on the floor.
Tygett, I will be reunited with you soon, Darlessa thought before draining the cup in a single swig just as the door was smashed in.
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