Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

His monks poled the raft deeper into the tangled ruin. They followed the trail of his pain along the winding eddy until they reached a massive bole of stone and mossy soil. It had been compacted into an unmoving bubo of dirt, perched awkwardly in the water. Broken bones, half-dissolved and intertwined with millions of thick-bodied black worms, floated in a sump of tarry ichor at its base. A winding stair of stone rose from the murk, and Vretch led his remaining monks up its unstable length. The pain was concentrated in his belly now. It had become a pulsing black heat, filling him snout to tail. A strange fluid spattered on the stones where he trod, and worms rose from it.

‘Do not let them touch you,’ he said. ‘You are not worthy to receive their blessings.’ And, he thought, I may need some of you alive before this is over. He hacked and coughed into his sleeve. Worms squirmed in his robes and wriggled out of his pores as he tried to concentrate on the Thirty-Nine Rancid Mantras.

At the top of the steps was a chamber. A buckled section of stone floor, gummed to its walls by a mortar of filth and sour meat, spread out before him. There were piles of broken bones everywhere, swaddled in rotting rags — the remains of a hundred or more skaven, long dead. The dried husks of worms lay scattered about in heaps. Familiar graffiti marred the walls and the signs of the Three Horns had been scratched into the floor. Shattered cauldrons lay everywhere, and their contents had spread tackily across the loose stones of the floor, to drip down into the sump below. From the scene, Vretch deduced that the Geistmaw clan — for these remains were theirs, of that he was certain — had been in the process of brewing the worm-pox when Geistmaw fell to Shu’gohl’s hunger.

‘It must be here, it must,’ he hissed. In a sudden frenzy, he began to smash aside bones with his staff. ‘Well? Don’t just stand there, fools! Help me look-find the Liber! Now-now,’ he snarled, glaring at his followers.

They scrambled to obey immediately. Plague monks flung aside bones and lifted broken cauldrons, tore at loose stones and ripped up fallen shrouds. So hurriedly did they set about their business that the air was soon filled with the clangour of the bells they wore. Vretch watched for a moment, his head and belly throbbing with agony. Then he turned, raising his staff high. He summoned a flicker of light into the warpstone. ‘Sssseek,’ he muttered. Motes of sickly light spilled from the facets of the stone and darted about the chamber.

There was always the chance it wasn’t here. That it had been swept away, lost to the dark. But this was the source of the worm-plague. If they’d had one of the lost Libers, it would have been here, somewhere. Skuralanx was certain of it, and by extension, so was Vretch. Whatever else he might be — traitor, deceiver, assassin — he was no fool. It had to be here somewhere, it had to be . Heart thudding, panic growing, Vretch swept his staff about wildly, trying to illuminate the whole chamber.

All at once, something glinted, reflecting the light of his staff. ‘There!’ he snarled. He lurched forward, robes flapping. He shouldered aside two of his followers and stabbed the end of his staff down, through the bones and rubbish.

Clink.

He fell forward, clawing at the refuse with his free claw until he found it. It was not a book, nor a tome, a grimoire or parchment, as he’d expected. It was, instead, a set of square golden plaques, with holes punched along one side, bound together by thick coils of some sort of vine, unlike any he had ever seen. He made to snatch up the plaques, but they were glued to the floor by ichor and mould. They felt warm, as if they hadn’t been lying in the dark for hundreds of years. Vretch hissed in frustration and pried at them, to no avail. The other skaven shuffled forward, as if to help, and he snarled at them in warning. ‘Back,’ he snapped. ‘Back, fools — this is mine-mine!’

As they scuttled back, he braced himself over the plaques. They were shrouded in the same sticky worm-ichor that covered the walls and floor. He grunted and set his foot-claws, tail lashing. Pain-riddled muscles strained and his head began to pound. His eyes bulged and worms spilled from ruptured blisters.

‘I… will… not… be… denied, ’ he yowled. He felt the floor shift beneath his claws and heard the hardened ichor pop loose. Vretch chittered in triumph as he toppled backwards, the golden plaques in his claws. ‘Mine — it is mine!’ he howled, lifting his prize over his head. ‘Vretch shall be triumphant!’

As the echoes of his cry faded, the floor gave way; all save a circular section on which he stood, eyes wide. One by one, accompanied by a rain of rock, his remaining followers dropped into the bubbling morass of worms far below.

The skaven screeched as, drenched in the steaming ichors, their flesh swelled and split, disgorging more worms to join those writhing about them. Truly a blessed plague, Vretch thought, tightening his grip on the plaques as he watched his followers die. The golden plates were warm against his abused flesh, almost uncomfortably so. He made to examine them, but heard the harsh rasp of scales on stone.

Vretch froze. Then, slowly, he looked up. Small, scaly shapes shimmered into view on the walls and ceiling of the chamber, their round eyes fixed on him.

Sutok roared joyfully as he swung his war-mace about his head and brought it down on the cowering skaven. The creature splattered in a satisfying manner, and the Sunblood turned, searching the central courtyard of the Setaen Palisades for new prey. He waded forward into the thick of the fighting, his massive, scarred form shining like a fallen star.

All around him, seraphon poured up the steps and into the courtyard beyond. The skaven had been caught by surprise and only a few of them were putting up any sort of fight. That had always been the way of it — the rat ran and snake pursued, until at last, the rat could run no more. It shed its tail, its fur, all in haste to escape, until there was barely a mouthful left.

It had always been that way, and would be that way again. Again and again, without end, the Great Serpent chewing its tail. Wherever the rat ran, the serpent would follow. Sutok took comfort in that thought. He stomped forward, crushing skulls and flattening skaven.

His smaller brethren followed him, and fell upon the skaven with pleasing vigour. Spears and clubs rose and fell, and the broken bodies of the vermin were crushed underfoot. Sutok swept his mace out in a wide arc, smashing several of the ratmen from their claws. Their diseased flesh pulped easily, for all that it was less sensitive to pain. They stank of sickness and rot. Faint memories flickered within the depths of his thoughts, fragments of a lost past.

The Sunblood swung his head about, studying the ebb and flow of the enemy tide. He could perceive a foe’s weakness as another might scent the blood of a wounded animal. Spotting the weak link in the swarm of skaven, he roared. Instinctively, the nearby seraphon lunged forward. They fell upon the skaven with a savage joy that was a match for his own. They all remembered, and in remembering, felt the old hate rise anew.

But they were not alone in that hate. Sutok glanced down at the armoured figures fighting alongside him. Yes, they were not alone. It was good not to be alone. Oxtl-Kor did not understand that. Sutok felt no sadness at the Oldblood’s death. It was the thing of but a moment. Sutok himself had fought and died a thousand times, and each of those deaths was but a moment experienced and then forgotten.

It was a good thing, to be a dream.

‘Any sign of the Far-killer?’ Thetaleas asked as he swept his axe out in a wide arc, chopping through another cage. Zephacleas helped the Decimator-Prime pry it open, freeing the mortals within. They were inside the Setaen Palisades, having pushed the skaven back from the outer defences and into the courtyard.