Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘That does not lessen their number, Uniter,’ said Ajfor. ‘There are still many to kill.’

Arkas took a deep breath, still eyeing the approaching army. He let free some of the celestial energy inside his immortal body, his warhammer and runeblade flaring in his fists. He looked at Ajfor and smiled, though the Ursungoran could not see it.

‘Not too many.’

The crackle of thirteen vast firepits and the smoke from their flames filled the immense cavern of the undercity. The fires fizzed and popped with multicoloured light as wood, hide and warp-saturated flesh burned.

By the dim light of the fires, the huge structure of the Great Shrine loomed over the proceedings. The hammer of the great gong was pulled back, ready to strike and pronounce the beginning of the festivities. From every rickety balcony and pole hung banners of human skin and slave hide, decorated with the symbol of the Withered Canker, the thrice-slashed claw mark of Felk himself.

A hundred slaves laboured at the enormous turnspits erected over the pits, roasting the flesh of the diseased captives. Limbs and ribcages were pierced on the raw wooden stakes, while in mighty cauldrons tended by a further army of ragged slaves, organs and fat bubbled away, stirred by Felk’s watchful plague priests.

A barricade had been erected around the new enclosure, piled from brick and stone taken from the excavation of the realmgate, and supplemented with mouldy planks and boxes, tattered sacks stuffed with sand and gravel, and sheets of crudely flattened brass and bronze. Skarth and his spitevermin patrolled the perimeter, hissing and snapping at any that approached, hurling stones and darts at those that did not heed those warnings.

The floor of the cavern was layered with deep filth from many years of occupation. Through the accreted effluent of the undercity, trenches had been dug, waist-high to the slaves that had carved them from hardened excreta and filth. The trenches were arranged in an angled circle, with branches and offshoots running off at strange angles — the rune of the Great Horned Rat, the name of the Great Witherer, given shape.

The bottom of the trenches had been lined with the bodies of those that had dug them, the corpses so fresh that the blood was still drying in the wounds from the spitevermins’ halberds. From the banks of the trenches, plague monks poured out libations from cracked pottery urns and amphorae. The line of skaven passed dented golden goblets, stained porcelain vases, tin cups, glazed pots, silvered jugs and crystal pitchers all the way back from the skewed gates of the Great Shrine. Filled from the festering pits beneath the shrine, every receptacle brimmed with noxious fluid gathered over many years, faintly glowing with power from the warp deposits at the Great Shrine’s heart.

The plague monks breathed deep of the fumes that emanated from the frothing brew of corruption. Their tails twitched with excitement, eyes saucer-like with narcotic delirium, chattering and squeaking without words as they laboured to fill the trenches.

Felk prowled at the centre of it all, alternating between triumphant hand-rubbing and nervous twitches as his thoughts and moods shifted from his excitement about the feast to his concerns over the metal giants.

A shape ghosted out of the fire-shadows and resolved into Thriss, a splintered human thighbone in his claws. There were scratches on the bone, written in a code unknown to the gutter runner. Felk could smell rotting leaves and sensed the dissipating aura of Ghryan, the Realm of Life. He took the bone and quickly read the inscription. It was a simple statement explaining that it was not known where in the Realm of Life Felk’s portal would open, but assuring him that his agents would be prepared when it happened.

‘And other thing? The skull-skull?’ Felk demanded, beckoning with impatient claws. ‘Have it, yes-yes?’

From beneath the folds of his cloak, Thriss produced a skull, yellowed and much cracked. A prominent break pierced one temple. Felk could smell the dried blood ingrained in the bone. The holes had been stoppered with fatty-smelling wax. The skull was slender in the jaw, high in the cheeks, with a pronounced forehead and shallow brow. The head of an aelf. Not just any head. It had been taken from its owner by none other than Felk’s master, the verminlord Skixakoth.

Felk shook the artefact and was satisfied by the dull rattle of something within.

‘It is still inside, yes-yes? The Tooth of Skixakoth?’

‘Yes-yes,’ snapped the gutter runner. ‘As promised. Clan Darkclaw never fails.’

Felk cocked an eye at this ludicrous claim, but chose not to list the numerous times both Thriss and his Eshin companions had been total failures. The Poxmaster was too excited by his new acquisition.

‘Life-life and death-death,’ he crowed, stroking a claw across the top of the skull. He sniffed, taking in the heady scent of depraved magic, the raw Chaos of the verminlord fang still trapped in the skull. ‘Much magic! Power of Great Witherer itself! Yes-yes, glorious feast tonight.’

‘What is it for?’ asked Thriss, eyeing the skull with a dubious look. ‘What does it do-do?’

‘Is talisman,’ said Felk, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. He clutched the skull to his ear as if listening. ‘Is key to the gnaw-ways. Is symbol of Skixakoth. Is many things. Is greatest channel, opening, window to highest and lowest places.’

‘Channel where?’ Thriss’ eyes darted in all directions as though he expected some portal to open immediately. Felk hissed with irritation.

‘To burrows of the gods, to Great Horned Rat!’ he spat. ‘When dismal feast is done, we speak to Great Witherer and with blessing take all Whiteworld Above.’

‘What of metal giants? Humans not stop them.’

‘No-no, but metal giants come too late. Trap set.’ Felk lifted the skull in triumph and then, realising all of the plague monks could see it, snatched it back and hid it in a ragged fold of his robe. ‘Great Horned Rat will destroy metal giants. Felk will rule all Whiteworld Above. Open the gate, we will, and Withered Canker will destroy sylvaneth. All bow to Felk’s power!’

Thriss muttered something.

‘What say?’ demanded Felk. ‘Say-say again!’

‘Praise mighty Poxmaster Felk,’ Thriss intoned flatly. ‘Great leader of Withered Canker.’

Felk eyed the Eshin agent for a time, until thoughts of the dismal feast distracted him back to a more pleasing topic. The plague monks had filled the ditches, tossing the broken pots and jugs into the noisome soup. At a gesture from Felk, the plague priests started a low chant, uttering praises to the Great Horned Rat, invocations of pestilence and decay. The lower ranks took up the hymnal, swaying forwards and back, left and right, caught in drug-fuelled throes of elation.

Stalking between the undulating lines of robed skaven, Felk raised his staff, signalling to the slave-masters at the firepits. Whips cracked and voices were raised in command, ordering the slaves into action. Teams of bent-backed skaven lifted up the great skewers and pots and brought them across to the site of the feast, eyes rolling in fear, pink tails lashing.

Trenchers of rough-beaten brass and iron had been set up in long rows, forming a triangle around Felk. While the chanting of the plague monks grew louder and louder, the slaves bore their loads to the trenchers. Using broken, filthy claws, they tore away hunks of meat, corroded bonesaws severing thighs, shinbones and ribs, immense ladles filling the trenchers with thick, greasy stew.

Their tasks complete, the slaves cowered together, fearful of their masters’ goads. Felk walked amongst them, staff and empty hand upraised.