Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

A noise caught his attention. He glanced behind him at his procession. A great mass of plague monks shuffled in his wake, their robes and weapons dripping with filth. They twitched and coughed, like true members of the Clans Pestilens — their bodies were temples to the many and multifarious blessings of the Horned Rat. They felt no pain, no weakness. The skaven of less faithful clans did not understand them or the purity of their purpose. They were the most worthy of all the Great Corruptor’s children, and Vretch was the worthiest of the worthy.

Doom gongs rang out in gloomy fashion, and bale-chimes clanged as his chosen servants followed him, murmuring the praises of the Great Witherer. Those closest to the front of the procession carried those tomes and scrolls he’d chosen to bring with him, often staggering slightly beneath their weight. At the centre of the procession was the Conglomeration, squatting on its palanquin of bone.

He had considered leaving the thing behind, but it was his conduit to Skuralanx and the will of the Great Horned Rat. That wasn’t the only reason he would need it where he was going, however — the thing was the only creature he’d discovered so far to be immune to the strange plague which had brought the skaven to Shu’gohl in the first place. He patted his robes, where a jar of the pox-froth which had spilled earlier rested. When the time came, the Conglomeration would ingest it and sniff out the source of the Great Plague. As if reading his thoughts, the mass of scab-melded skaven shook, its many tails lashing with surprising vigour.

Vretch watched the Conglomeration twitch and shriek with some concern. While the accumulation of diseased flesh was prone to paroxysms, this was something different. A number of its larger abscesses burst, expelling steam and superheated pus. They sprayed across the plague monks who bore its palanquin on their shoulders. One of the bearers screamed as boiling pus spattered across his muzzle, burning his flesh to the bone. The monk staggered away, clutching at his snout, squealing in agony. The stink of fear-musk filled the air as the palanquin dipped and shifted. His congregation scattered, abandoning their fellows with commendable speed.

Vretch backed away as the Conglomeration heaved itself to the side and bit off the head of another bearer. The other two couldn’t hold up the palanquin by themselves, and it crashed to the ground, spilling the monstrosity off. It shrilled out in what might have been pain, or perhaps hunger. Its heads jerked and bit at the dying bearer. All save one.

That one turned towards him, malformed features contorted in a snarl. ‘Vvvvretch,’ it groaned in the unmistakable tones of the verminlord. ‘Heed me, most subservient one…’ Flailing limbs caught handfuls of the ground and it began to drag itself towards him. Vretch backed away.

‘I hear and heed, O most puissant and shadowed one,’ he chittered, jabbing at the roiling mass of infected flesh with his staff. ‘You don’t have to come any closer, no-no.’

‘Vretch, an old-new enemy comes slithering down out of the stars,’ Skuralanx hissed. The Conglomeration’s other heads turned, jaws still mindlessly chewing bits of bearer. They fixed Vretch with the daemon’s gaze and he froze in place, staff hanging forgotten in his hands. ‘They come for Kruk first, but they will come for you as well…’

Images flashed through the plague priest’s head — vague, ghostly moments, stolen from the world-that-was, the world the Horned Rat had led his children from at the tolling of the great plague-bell. The beginnings of the Virulent Exodus, when the Horned Rat carried the forefathers of all skaven through the tunnel of stars.

Vretch’s body spasmed as he felt the stinging rain of fire that had consumed that despoiled world, and the fear of those who’d fled. More, he heard the thump of monstrous drums, rising out of the deep jungles to reverberate through his wormy bones. He heard the earth-shaking tread of great beasts as they pursued him, and the ever-hungry roars of titanic predators, hungry for the flesh of cringing skaven. He felt the Fear — the old fear, the first fear — flood him, and he squealed in panic.

The sky yawned wide above him, like the jaws of something infinite and terrible. A serpent of clouds and stars, its eyes swirling vortices, its scales the light of flaring suns. Vretch fell to all fours, clawing at the ground, trying to dig a hole, to escape the eyes of the Fear. His only thought — escape, escape, escape!

‘There is no escape, Vretch. You are cornered. Your burrow is aflame, your warrens invaded. The old enemy comes, and no shadow can save you. Only victory — victory, Vretch! Only that can save you from the jaws of the serpent.’ The hands of the Conglomeration clutched at him, tearing at his robes. Vretch shook himself and skittered back, trying not to thrust at the thing with his staff.