Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Vretch turned from the cowering skaven and thrust his voluminous sleeves up, exposing his pallid, mange-ridden foreclaws. Clutching his staff in both claws, he began to sweep it in a wide circle, as if he were standing over a pox-cauldron.

The air turned oily and thick. Half-seen shapes formed in the murk, and the water roiled about them as the edges of the raft were caught in insubstantial talons.

‘Pull in your oars, lazy fools,’ he said. ‘You are not going fast enough. As ever, it has been left up to me to see us through.’ He thrust his staff forward, and the newly-conjured pox-winds swelled, shoving the raft on through the water.

The sounds of battle faded as he manipulated the murky wind. He grunted in satisfaction. It was as he’d always said. If you wanted a bone gnawed properly, it was best to gnaw it yourself.

Skuralanx, clinging to the side of a setae tower, watched the seraphon lizard-riders charge through the rolling streets of the Crawling City in pursuit of their prey. They were led by a bestial war-leader on a monstrous steed. The verminlord shook his shaggy head, wondering at the thrill of fear that shot through him at the sight of the star-devils — he had never encountered them before.

The whispers of the Horned Rat, the daemon thought, after a moment. Like all of his kind, the verminlord was but a mote of something greater; a vast intelligence whose attentions he feared, resented and craved in equal measure. He crawled around the other side of the tower as a flock of flying lizards swooped past, their riders chirping to one another. Skuralanx watched them go, half-formed memories of wickedly sharp beaks ripping the steaming innards out of squealing skaven filling his crooked mind.

Skuralanx recognised his true foe easily enough. The name of the Dreaming Seer was a whispered curse in the plague-gardens and filth-warrens of skaven and mortal Rotbringer alike. Kurkori, last survivor of the Nightmare War and slayer of Balagrex, one of the Seven Virulent Sons of Bolathrax. The Dreaming Seer had cooled the ever-burning sea, so that his star-blooded legions could march across and lay waste to the Fortress of Malady and burn the seven great plague-gardens within.

Skuralanx scrambled to the top of the tower and sprang across the gap separating it from its closest neighbour. The tower swayed gently as he landed. Before it had stilled, he was moving again, hunting the hunters. They were on Kruk’s trail, and would catch him if he didn’t intervene. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have worried about it — Kruk had more than served his purpose — but he suspected he would need the fanatic again before this affair was ended, if only to have something durable to throw at his enemies, when the time came.

The seraphon were as implacable as they were deadly, and single-minded besides. That would be their downfall. The storm-things were a different matter. He’d recognised their great, roaring brute of a leader — that one had almost done for Skuralanx’s kin-rival, Vermalanx, at the Gates of Dawn in the Jade Kingdoms.

Skuralanx had watched from the shadows alongside the rest of his sniggering, chittering kin as Vermalanx had gone to aid his ally, the Great Unclean One Bolathrax. His kin-rival had paid the price for his lack of caution. Skuralanx did not intend to follow his example. This was not the Ghyrtract Fen, and he was not a fool.

Far behind the seraphon riders rose the storm clouds that marked the rest of their host. Where the warriors of Azyr marched, lightning flashed and cleansing rains fell, ruining all that the Clans Pestilens had worked so hard to build. Skuralanx hissed. They were moving faster than he’d anticipated. He’d left Squeelch to cover their tracks, but it hadn’t been enough. Even as a distraction, that one was a disappointment. He scratched a talon down the side of his skull, dislodging one of the bone-beetles nesting there. He caught the insect and popped it between his incisors. Crunching idly, he considered his options.

The Stormcast Eternals and the seraphon — one or the other, he could have handled. But both together was a challenge, even for one as perspicacious as Skuralanx the Cunning. Still, he had the advantage in cunning, in wisdom, and in might. One against two is no contest, he thought, but the one is me, and I am worth at least three, am I not? Yes-yes, possibly even four. All problems had solutions. He simply had to… ah.

He stretched out a claw and touched the filthy breeze. He could taste the million skeins of plague which threaded throughout the city, and with a single gesture, pulled them tight. A cacophony of squeals echoed through his head and he cackled. Where the skaven went, so too did their smaller cousins. Millions of plague-rats scurried through the city, spreading pestilence, and with the merest exertion of his incandescent might, he summoned them all.

The rats would divert some of the hunters, at least. For the rest, he would have to take matters into his own claws. He sped on, loping from shadow to shadow, winnowing through the rat-holes in reality, trying to get ahead of the main contingent of seraphon pursuers. He and his kin had gnawed tunnels through the walls of existence for millennia. One simply had to know where to look. The Scar-roads of the Crawling City were similar things. He saw movement below, and heard the clangour of bells.

Predictable, he thought. And out in the open as well. Vretch is right — Kruk is a fool. But, unfortunately, a necessary one. Vretch, though cunning, was too treacherous to be trusted with the secret of the Liber for long — that one was undoubtedly already planning to betray Skuralanx for his own gain. Kruk, should he survive, would make a more suitable figurehead for the glories to come. He was too simple to plot against his master and too durable to die.

Skaven spilled out of the stump of a ruined setaen tower like insects out of a rotten log. With angry squeals, they pursued a stumbling mortal into the open plaza beyond. Even from so far above, Skuralanx could tell that the human, one of the last surviving members of the Order of the Worm, was dying on his feet. Blood poured from his wounds, and his breath came in harsh rasps. Skuralanx leapt from shadow to shadow, descending in the blink of an eye.

He dropped to the ground in front of the mortal and slapped the unlucky human from his feet. The mortal fell to the floor, body contorted in agony.

Kruk, at the head of his followers, leapt on the fallen human with a triumphant growl. ‘Thought you could flee-escape, yes-yes? No! No! No-one escapes from Kruk,’ the plague priest snarled, crushing his captive’s skull with a blow from his censer.

‘A brilliant stratagem, Kruk,’ Skuralanx said.

Kruk looked up, scarred muzzle wrinkling in a snarl. ‘He tried to escape,’ he said. He still held a handful of the dead man’s robes.

‘Yes, captives tend to do that,’ the verminlord said. He straightened to his full height as he heard the roar of the carnosaur. The air filled with the musk of fear as Kruk’s followers looked around in panic. ‘You must run-fast-scurry-quick fool,’ Skuralanx hissed, glaring down at the skaven. Kruk dropped the dying human and wiped his bloody claw on his robes.

‘Yes-yes,’ he growled. He turned, as if seeking the source of the roar. ‘But the enemy…’

‘I will deal with them, Archfumigant. You will do as I command,’ Skuralanx snarled. His tails lashed in fury as he glared down at his servant. ‘Maybe I should have let Squeelch kill you, yes? Maybe Squeelch would have listened to his most wise and cunning master, rather than questioning me at every turn like the addle-pated fool before me,’ he hissed, snapping his jaws in frustration. ‘Get to the palisades, take them for me, take them from Vretch!’

Kruk opened his mouth as if to argue further, when a sudden shriek interrupted him. Star-devil lizard-riders loped across the open plaza before the ruined tower, heading straight for the gathered skaven. Skuralanx spat a deplorable word and a wave of sickly light washed across the plaza. As the plaza gave way, dissolving into tarry ichor, the worm writhed in agony. Setae swayed, slamming together with deafening crashes, as the street rolled upwards with a surging motion. The bipedal lizards screeched as they were sent sprawling. Some were hurled into the bubbling ichor, where they and their riders struggled helplessly against the viscous liquid as it ate at their flesh. Kruk cackled and capered. Skuralanx whirled and shoved him back. ‘I said go, fool,’ the verminlord shrieked. ‘Go or all is lost.’