Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘No fear-fear!’ he told the quivering mass of poxy fur and scabbed skin. ‘Tonight is dismal feast. Slaves no more! Eat-eat! Strong you will be, blessed by the Great Witherer.’

The slaves eyed him with suspicion, glancing nervously at the trenchers and then back to the Poxmaster.

‘Eat!’ Felk snarled, grabbing the closest slave by a ragged ear, pulling it towards the food. ‘Fill bellies!’

Starvation won over distrust and the skavenslaves broke en masse to the trenchers, gorging themselves on the roasted and boiled meat. They squabbled and snapped, raked their claws across each other’s muzzles and bit the tails of their neighbours in their desperation.

While the slaves feasted, the plague monks turned, chanting still, lining the sigil of the Great Horned Rat. Felk’s priests disappeared into the gloom and emerged with thirteen bound humans. They were stripped to the skin, revealing lesions and boils, open sores and ruddy clusters of buboes. They were the most diseased, the greatest tribute to the power of the Great Witherer. Gibbering and sobbing they stared in horror at their hellish surrounds, recoiling from the frenzy of gluttony and depravity as they witnessed the fate of their former companions.

Unresisting, the humans were pushed to the ground, forced to kneel facing each other, Felk at the centre of the circle. The Poxmaster licked the air to taste their abhorrence. It was sweet nectar.

The activity at the trenchers was slowing, the slaves sated, staggering and groaning with bloated bellies. The plague monks continued their dirge, the rhythm starting to quicken, staves rising and falling to thud softly on the packed detritus that covered the ground. Faster, harder came the beat, and through it Felk could sense the magic of Ghur shifting, responding to the ritual.

The monks panted, gasping for air but unable to stop the liturgy. Possessed by the rising spirit of the Great Horned One, they continued to pound with their staves, the rhythm becoming more ragged, the chant discordant.

Felk was mesmerised by the chorus of mewling captives, moaning slaves, shrieking monks and thundering staff beats. He slowly turned on the spot, marvelling at the way the sound changed as he spun, the acoustics of the massive cavern twisting, rebounding and changing the music of the Horned Rat.

Arms still held high, he closed his eyes, his natural paranoia dropping away for an instant to allow him a moment of pure intoxication. He felt his heart juddering in his chest, could smell the musk and sweat and the taint of warpstone.

The sensation passed and he opened his eyes, wobbling to a dizzy stop. His vision swam for a while longer, the faces of his priests blurring in and out of focus, sometimes leering jealously, other times concerned and fearful.

‘Great Witherer!’ Felk declared, regaining his equilibrium. ‘Horned One of Decay! Felk offers you Whiteworld Above. Grant me this boon, grant me bounty, and Felk gifts all lands to your praise. Bless Poxmaster Felk, bless Withered Canker in your name. Felk beseeches Great Horned One, hear our prayers, hear laments of your victims! Plague we are. Pox and infection we spread. In your name, for your praise. We are Pestilens. Harbingers of the Doom of Worlds. Gnawers of vitality. Swift bringers of your filthy blessings.’

Felk pointed his staff at the human captives, who recoiled as if struck.

Their depressed moaning turned into wailing and crying.

‘See these offerings! Most foul, most touched by your divine hand. Back to the Great Horned One we send them.’ Felk skittered over to the prisoners and grabbed the hair of the nearest, dragging her head back. His thin tongue licked along her neck, leaving a trail of thick saliva in the crusted dirt, blood and pus. ‘Feast as we have feasted! Eat-eat, mighty lord of the thirteen plagues.’

Felk stepped back as his plague monks set about messily sacrificing the captives to their horned deity.

Now was the time. Now was the moment of his glorious triumph.

Felk snatched out the skull taken from the lair of Skixakoth. The daemonic fang within was rattling and bouncing of its own accord. The green glow of warp energy seeped through the wax and cracks, bathing Felk in its light.

The Poxmaster dashed the skull against the ground, releasing the power of the verminlord’s tooth.

Green lightning arced with violent snaps, leaping from the broken skull to the corpses of the sacrifices. The bodies jumped and jittered as though given fresh life. Limbs spasmed, chests heaved, eyes darted to and fro while twitching, bloodied fingers grasped at open wounds and shattered bones. Engulfed by the torrent of power, the cadavers rose to their feet, listless puppets sustained only by malicious magic.

Warp energy surrounded the sacrifices with an aura of sickly roiling magical fumes, like the vapours that rose from the sigil of the Horned Rat carved around the feast. The air grew thick with power, clinging to Felk’s claws and teeth, matting his fur. The noxious liquid in the mark of the Great Witherer started to bubble and boil of its own accord.

Still the magic grew in strength. It pooled into the engorged slaves, who were now lying in torpid piles beside the trenches. It filled them with unnatural vitality. They staggered to their feet with jerky movements and started to writhe and dance, distended bellies swinging, emaciated limbs shuddering and twisting.

His thoughts becoming a feverish blur, Felk heard a snap behind him and spun around in time to see the first slave collapsing, his weak bones unable to sustain him. A wet slapping noise heralded the gut of another splitting, its distended organs spilling out in a welter of undigested food and blood. The magic of the Horned One animated them still, set them flapping and cavorting across the uneven floor while more slaves burst, collapsed and broke under the magical assault.

Beside Felk the human corpses withered. The magical lightning sapped them of blood, fat and flesh. It turned their bones to dust, their blood to vapour, leaving only empty skin hanging in the air.

The fang of Skixakoth, as big as Felk’s outstretched claw from thumb to little finger, rose into the air, slowly rotating, held aloft by a miasma of jade warp energy. The fang stopped at about head height and righted itself, hanging down as though in an upper jaw. The fog started to coalesce into something more solid. Around the tooth a huge rat-like face crowned by thirteen horns shifted in and out of the mist.

Felk threw himself to the ground, averting his gaze. From the corner of his eye he saw his priests doing likewise. Some of the plague monks were not so swift. Their agonised shrieks cut across the thunderous pulsing that now filled the chamber, as they looked upon the visage of the Great Horned One and were sent mad. Wet mewling followed as they clawed out their eyes and gouged their flesh, trying to rid themselves of the sight, trying to free themselves from the gnawing that worried at their souls.

SPEAK.

The voice of the skaven god was not heard, it was felt. It was a rumbling in the rocks, a reverberation in the gut, a noise in the back of the head, a hissing in the ears. The scratching of ten thousand claws on the bones. The rasp of innumerable teeth, gnawing, gnawing, gnawing. The Poxmaster felt blood dribble from his ears and nose, but kept his face pressed into the dirt.

‘Poxmaster Felk, most devoted of the Horned Rat’s servants.’

FELK? WHY DO YOU SUMMON ME?

‘Offer Whiteworld Above to you, mightiest of mighty, potent deliverer of plague and distress. Grant me boon, hear Felk’s plea. A realmgate we have. Victory over sylvaneth. Death of life, pox unbound.’