Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Squeelch looked away. He wasn’t particularly squeamish, but between the noise and the smell, he was getting hungry. He gazed about him, taking in the Libraria Vurmis and the bodies which now decorated its floors. In life, they had been something the man-things called Vurmites — an order of holy warriors, devoted to the library and its secrets. In death, most of them had begun the delightful slide into putrescence. Those who were not quite dead yet were chained or nailed to the great curved shelves which occupied the chamber, to await Kruk’s attentions.

Throughout the chamber, the most trusted members of Kruk’s congregation searched the great shelves for anything of interest, or fuel to feed the fires which heated their pox-cauldrons. The plague monks worked under the watchful gazes of Kruk’s personal censer bearers. The deranged fanatics held their spiked, smoke-spewing flails tightly and dribbled quietly, twitching in time to a sound only they could hear.

Squeelch grimaced and turned as the man-thing librarian sagged in his bonds. He moaned softly as his blood spattered across the piles of loose pages and torn parchments which covered the floor. He was the seventh in as many days, and was sadly proving about as useful as the other six. Squeelch could only assume that the weeks of deprivation and torture had rendered them senseless. Either that, or the fact that neither he nor Kruk could speak their language was proving a greater stumbling block than expected. Regardless, Kruk’s frustration was palpable. His scarred tail lashed like a whip as he dug his claws into the dying man’s flesh.

Squeelch cleaned his whiskers nervously, watching as Kruk tore the hapless man-thing apart. The plague priest was a brute, even among the black-furred monstrosities of Clan Festerlingus. He was broad for a skaven, and his heavy robes made him seem all the larger. His cowl was thrown back to reveal a flat, wide skull wrapped in seeping bandages. Kruk was missing his right ear and his left eye, courtesy of a rival plague priest — Vretch, of Clan Morbidus, current occupier of the other half of the Crawling City.

Vretch had tried to obliterate Kruk with a meticulously planned trap. As Squeelch recalled, it had mostly involved certain explosives, procured from the Clans Skryre at what was no doubt great expense, stuffed down the gullet of the man-thing Kruk had selected for his second interrogation. Squeelch recalled this because he had been the one to plant them, at Vretch’s behest. It was always a behest, with Vretch. An imploration, a request, a favour… commands by any other name. Commands that Squeelch was happy enough to follow, as long as it led to his assumption of the Archsquealership of the Congregation of Fumes. Even if Vretch was a heretical Red Bubite. Purple, that’s a proper bubo, Squeelch thought. But still, by clinging to Vretch’s tail, he might rise very far indeed.

Unfortunately for them both, Kruk was sturdier than he looked. Thus, Vretch and poor, put-upon Squeelch would have to find a more effective means of his disposal. Squeelch had considered and subsequently discarded any number of options, from the mundane — a knife in the back — to the noteworthy — many knives, not just in the back — to the extraordinary — more explosives, and in greater quantities, possibly also filled with knives — but no real solution, as yet, had presented itself.

Kruk’s resilience was frustrating. Under his leadership, the Congregation of Fumes had staggered from one massacre to the next, swelling and shrinking with an unfathomable virulence. But such destructive potential was wasted on a creature like Kruk. Even Vretch agreed with that. There were better ways to spread the Great Witherer’s gospel through the Mortal Realms. And Squeelch would do it, with Vretch’s backing. The Congregation of Fumes would stalk at the forefront of Vretch’s procession and reap the benefits of that alliance. Why, together, they might even challenge the great clans themselves…

But all of that was predicated on his removal of Kruk, a task that seemed more difficult with every passing day. Kruk was a monster, and Squeelch doubted that even a direct hit from a plagueclaw catapult would finish the other plague priest off. Two or three, at least, he thought nervously, watching as his superior dismembered his prey. ‘Maybe more,’ he muttered.

‘Wwwhat did you say?’ Kruk hissed, turning to glare at him. ‘What-what? Speak up quick-fast, Squeelch.’ Brown fangs flashed as he stepped towards his lieutenant.

Squeelch shied back, clutching his boil-dotted tail to his chest as he tried to avoid Kruk’s single, madly gleaming eye. ‘Nothing, O most pestiferous one,’ he squeaked. He was beginning to suspect that his bargain with Vretch hadn’t been well thought-out.