Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

At his signal, Prosecutors crashed down across the barbicans and into the courtyard, smashing apart the cages, freeing the sick and the wounded. Mantius dropped lightly onto one of the cracked minarets which rose over the ramparts, releasing an arrow as he touched down.

Other Prosecutors hurled their hammers to shatter the walkways between the slave-stockades and the skaven racing towards them. From his perch on the crumbled minaret, Mantius loosed three arrows at once and pinned a trio of squealing rat-monks to the collapsing rampart by their tails.

‘Free them, brothers — free them all so that they might take back their city,’ Mantius growled, as his arrow took a skaven overseer in the throat. ‘For Sigmar and the Realm Celestial!’

It was all going horribly, terribly wrong, Squeelch thought. And it was all Kruk’s fault. The one-eyed fool of a plague priest had led the Congregation of Fumes to its destruction at last. Squeelch’s only satisfaction arose from having played no part in such foolishness. It wasn’t his fault, no-no! He had done the best he could, under circumstances that would have tried even the legendary patience and skilful might of the most revered of pox-masters.

Still, he had done his best with what fate and Kruk’s ineptitude had dealt him. He had brewed his most virulent poxes and destroyed much of the man-thing city, levelling whole towers, filling the streets with a lovely, noxious murk and a veritable sea of steaming putrescence. He had done all that a skaven in his position could be asked and more, and what was his reward to be? Abandonment and brutal murder at the hands of their foes.

That had decided him. Now was the time — he’d never get another, if Skuralanx had his way. The daemon clearly wanted him dead. Squeelch could not fathom the verminlord’s fascination with a dullard like Kruk. Kruk knew nothing of the brewing of plagues, or any proper priestly duties. He was a brute, a fool and mad. A skaven could be any one of those things and prosper, but not all three — never all three!

And yet, the daemon continued to protect Kruk from harm. Perhaps that was why Kruk had survived all of Squeelch’s most cunning ploys and his boldest attempts at murder — yes. Yes! It all made sense now. The odds had been stacked against Squeelch from the beginning.

A test, he thought. A sudden bout of coughing wracked his frame, and he rubbed his muzzle with his grime-stiffened sleeve. Mucus bubbled out of his snout and he hawked and spat. It was a test: a test of his cunning, of his perseverance, of his faith… of his devotion to the Horned Rat. Well, he would pass this test, as he had passed all the others.

He hurried across the inner bridge, away from the sounds of battle, the ramparts and his precious plagueclaws. It hurt him to leave them behind, but it would serve no purpose to die with them. Despite his valiant efforts, the enemy were drawing close. Too close. They were already crossing the setaen bridges that swung between the closest towers and the barbicans, and the star-devils had reduced his bubbling moat to a shimmering glaze. Plague monks scurried past him towards the battle. He ignored their chittering, intent on his own fate.

It wasn’t fair! Kruk had led them to this, as Squeelch had always suspected he would. The other plague priest lacked the true skaven sense of self-preservation, and seemed deadly intent on dragging the rest of them down into death with him. The central structure of the barbicans, which housed the Libraria Vurmis, rose to greet him. He crept through the doors, which were already off their hinges, and into the central chamber.

There were no guards — Kruk needed none, save Skug and his malcontents. Every other skaven in the Dorsal Barbicans was either fighting or in hiding. There were always some who hid, even among the faithful of the Clans Pestilens. Squeelch would deal with them fairly, but firmly, when the time came.

The air in the central chamber of the library was redolent with the reek of fear-musk and death. He drew his knife as he entered the chamber, and held it close to his body. Squeelch crept forward. The wavy-bladed knife had been allowed to stew in one of the most virulent potions ever devised by skaven claws for thirty days and thirty nights. It was so potent that it had caused his claw to blister, just from touching the hilt. It was sure to be enough, he thought. And if not, well… Running had always served him well, in the past. Kruk wouldn’t get far with a knife in his back.

Plague monks scurried about him, climbing the shelves, tossing their contents to the floor, chittering in excitement. Kruk’s most trusted followers were hard at work, while Squeelch’s own spent their lives in brave-yet-futile battle. The library shook as the star-devil assault continued. Soon, the Dorsal Barbicans and his beloved plagueclaws would be no more. But catapults could be rebuilt, as could fortresses. Slaves could be retaken.

Parchment crunched beneath his claws, and he froze. But the noise had been lost amid the thunder of the attack. Dust sifted from the ceiling, and one of the great shelves toppled over, crushing an unwary plague monk.

Squeelch heard Kruk chittering in anger as he oversaw the evacuation, and the deep, growling tones of the verminlord as it pointed out which books might be needed to buy Vretch’s friendship long enough to turn on him, when and if he’d found the fabled Liber. Not much chance of that, of course… Squeelch had picked the library clean of its choicest morsels weeks ago. Those he hadn’t put aside for himself he’d sent on to Vretch. It was no wonder Kruk hadn’t found anything of use in them.

He hesitated, wondering if he should simply flee, rather than chance assassinating Kruk beneath the daemon’s snout. Would it look with favour upon such an act, or with anger? Assassination was a fine, long-standing skaven tradition, even among the Clans Pestilens. One could not expect promotion to the high plateaus of clan leadership without first spilling a bit of blood. But the daemon… he stopped, head cocked.

He realised he could no longer hear the daemon’s basso rumble. Kruk too had fallen silent. Squeelch froze, scarcely daring to breathe. He fought the urge to squirt the musk of fear. Had they heard him coming? Had Kruk fled while he dithered? Had he been left in the library, to face their enemies alone?

‘Cunning Squeelch, crafty Squeelch. Yessss,’ came a voice, from just over his shoulder. At first, he feared it was Skug. Then, as the voice’s owner began to titter, he realised with mounting horror that it wasn’t Skug at all. He turned, knife raised, and stared up — up! — into the skeletal grimace of Skuralanx.

The daemon’s prehensile tails coiled about him faster than he could follow. He shrieked as Skuralanx jerked him from the floor and slammed him against a shelf. His knife clattered from his grip. He tried to summon the strength to unleash a spell, but everything hurt too much. The bony leer thrust forward, so close that Squeelch could smell the hideous stench radiating from his captor. ‘And what were you going to do with that, hmmm?’ the daemon murmured.

Squeelch squeezed his eyes shut and began to whimper a prayer to the Great Witherer. He begged the Horned Rat to take and shelter his soul, for it seemed his body was about to be torn asunder. He felt a dribble of foulness run down his leg. He cracked an eye, and saw Kruk and Skug hurrying towards them, the censer bearer trying to hold his master back.

‘Squeelch? Treachery!’ Kruk chittered, reaching for the other plague priest with his good claw. Skuralanx yanked Squeelch out of reach and pointed a filthy talon at Kruk.

‘I will deal with this faithless one, yes-yes. You will take the Scar-roads, where the teeth of the great stone-wyrm Bolestros tore wounds in Shu’gohl’s flesh, in the days when the sky wept fire and the black blood of the earth sought to drown the land,’ Skuralanx snarled. ‘Take one of the man-things to show you. Leave the others here. Let our enemies see what awaits them.’