Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘Star-devils,’ Kruk snapped, his good eye wide with fury. ‘We were betrayed! Betrayed!’

Squeelch refrained from asking the obvious question. Instead, he nodded jerkily. ‘Yes-yes. But what now, O Hardy Scion of the Horned Rat?’

‘Nowww?’ Kruk growled. ‘Now, you summon a warpflame, fool-fool!’ The plague priest reached out with his good claw and caught a handful of Squeelch’s robes. ‘Quick-quick, or I will eat your heart.’

He extended his bloody stump. Squeelch pulled himself free and gestured over the chunk of warpstone lashed to the top of his staff. The green stone began to glow with a sickly light, and he felt the ticks in his ears grow agitated in response. An oily flame blossomed from the facets of the warpstone and he held it out.

Kruk thrust his ruined claw into the flames and hissed in mingled pain and fury. ‘Get me the censer, quick-fast,’ he snarled, as he withdrew the smouldering stump. Skug lurched forward, holding a makeshift gauntlet. It slid over Kruk’s stump with a click, as the warpstone-infused nails within immediately pierced the charred flesh and spread like cancerous roots. Kruk shrieked in pain and bashed a nearby censer bearer on the skull with his new limb, killing the unlucky skaven instantly. Squeelch flinched, glad that it wasn’t him. Skug tittered phlegmatically and shook his chains.

Squeelch hated the censer bearer with a passion. The leader of the Reeking Choir was as foul a watch-dog as Kruk could hope for. He was certain Skug harboured his own schemes and desires, but for now, the boil-encrusted brute seemed content to ward Kruk against any harm that might befall him, whether from without or within. Squeelch looked away from the operation, and studied the defences he’d laboured so long over.

The Dorsal Barbicans were heavily manned. The bulk of the congregation’s laity now guarded the walls, clutching their weapons in anticipation of the confrontation to come. Censer bearers from the Reeking Choir moved among them, filling the air with pungent smoke and wailing out the thirty-nine Bubonic Hymns. Some few stragglers scurried across the setae bridges from the outer towers, seeking shelter within the barbicans.

The sound of thunder echoed up from the streets below, signalling the approaching enemy. There was a strange musk on the air — dry and harsh. Squeelch felt his insides twist in knots at the merest whiff, and knew he was not alone. All across the barbicans, skaven muttered to one another in growing fear. They could all feel it — all save Kruk and his Reeking Choir, whose noses were dead to anything save the scent of decay.

It came with the star-devils, swooping down on searing celestial winds to burn away all save the urge to run, to flee. Only their numbers and the bilious fumes spewing from the censers of the Reeking Choir kept those crouched atop the barbicans from scattering and fleeing.

Squeelch found comfort in his plague-engines. The plagueclaws were the holiest of the holy, and Squeelch felt his sores pucker in pride as he gazed at the rancid contraptions of rusty metal and festering wood. They were as the filth-encrusted talons of the Horned Rat himself, gouging at the enemy. Plagues brewed by his own claws were ladled into the catapults to be hurled into the enemy’s midst. With his plagueclaws, Squeelch had spread many a blessed sickness through strongholds and citadels, through streets and caverns. He had rewarded many of his most fervent followers with the honour of crewing one of the machines.

Those who now crewed the plagueclaws had shed their robes, so as to better saturate themselves in the hissing virulence of the ammunition. Their mangy hides were covered in abscesses and weeping tumours, and many had lost most, if not all of their hair. Soon, they would rot away entirely, their shrieking essences becoming one with the Great Witherer. He would have to remember to choose their replacements.

To Squeelch, that was the truest way of war — to share the blessings of the Horned Rat with the foe, but from afar. Very, very far. A rain of death, rather than a poke with an infected stick. That was the best way.

Kruk held up his gauntlet and examined it with his good eye. It was a smaller, fist-sized censer, taken from Skug’s plethora and mounted on a heavy iron bracer. Greenish fumes rose from it, flowing up Kruk’s arm and around his bandaged head. ‘It’ll do,’ he grunted, inhaling the smoke with a sigh. He looked at Squeelch. ‘Destroy it.’

‘Destroy what, holiest of holies?’

‘The city. All of it. Turn it to sludge, now-now!’ Kruk snarled, thrusting his censer beneath Squeelch’s nose. ‘Fire the plagueclaws — destroy everything. Let the star-devils wade through oceans of filth, if they would.’

‘But— but our warriors, most powerful of plague-winds,’ Squeelch began, flinching at the mention of the scaly creatures. He had never seen them before, but something in him recognised them regardless. Rising up in him, he felt the instinctive urge to find a hole and hide away from them, to burrow deeper than they could follow. For a moment, he was lost, and he knew the full terror of being prey.

‘They die for the glory of the Corruptor. If you would not join them, you will do as I command,’ Kruk growled, his eye glittering with malice. He did not seem afraid. Then, Squeelch would have been astounded to learn that Kruk even knew what the word meant. ‘Destroy everything — the city, the lightning-riders, the star-devils, all of it .’

‘A— as you command, O mighty Summoner of a Thousand Pestilences.’ Squeelch turned, ready to screech orders at the plagueclaw crews to begin loading his deadliest poxes. If the foe wanted to take the Dorsal Barbicans, they would have to do so through a rain of plagues. But before he could give the order, something caught his eye.

He turned, gazing up into the storm-tossed sky. Gleaming shapes glided out of the clouds on crackling wings and dove towards the barbicans. He peered up at them, trying to understand what he was seeing. His eyes widened. ‘Fire-fire! Hurry! Quick-quick,’ he shrilled, flinging out his claws in panic.

Kruk whirled, glaring up at the descending shapes as the plagueclaw crew hurried to ready the war engines to fire. ‘What—?’ he growled. ‘Treachery!’

The first plagueclaw fired, hurling a steaming mass of putrescence into the air. The diving storm-things rolled through the sky, nimbly dodging the missile. There were twelve of them, and their wings gleamed like fire. Storm-swift, they swooped. Heavy hammers appeared in their waiting hands, manifesting in a blaze of light. A moment later, those hammers were spinning through the air towards the barbicans.

They struck like comets, shaking the great walls down to their foundations. Squeelch was knocked from his claws. He cowered for a moment, expecting the nearest plagueclaw to topple over on him, but it merely swayed in place. The crews scrambled across it, readying it to fire.

Skug jerked him to his feet. ‘Up-up, squealer,’ the skull-faced skaven gurgled. Squeelch slapped his claws aside.

‘Do not be touching me, fool-fool,’ Squeelch hissed, exposing his teeth. Skug snarled at him, and Squeelch prodded him in the chest with his staff. The chunk of warpstone lashed to the end lit up and Skug cowered back, raising his claws in surrender. Before Squeelch could poke him again, Kruk caught hold of the staff with his good claw.

‘Cease-stop, fool. Enemies aplenty before us,’ the scarred plague priest roared, shoving Squeelch back against the plagueclaw’s frame. More of the glowing hammers struck the barbican wall as the winged Stormcasts swooped overhead. Panicked skaven ran in every direction, trying to avoid the storm of debris that arose from the impacts.

The plagueclaws continued to fire, their crews driven beyond fear, beyond sense, by their proximity to the foul ammunition of their war engines. The boil-encrusted crew-skaven fought to swing the catapults about, trying vainly to track their foes. Squeelch hissed in consternation as a glowing hammer tore apart the frame of one of his charges, nearly destroying it.