Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

‘Do not be touching me, fool-fool,’ Squeelch hissed, exposing his teeth. Skug snarled at him, and Squeelch prodded him in the chest with his staff. The chunk of warpstone lashed to the end lit up and Skug cowered back, raising his claws in surrender. Before Squeelch could poke him again, Kruk caught hold of the staff with his good claw.

‘Cease-stop, fool. Enemies aplenty before us,’ the scarred plague priest roared, shoving Squeelch back against the plagueclaw’s frame. More of the glowing hammers struck the barbican wall as the winged Stormcasts swooped overhead. Panicked skaven ran in every direction, trying to avoid the storm of debris that arose from the impacts.

The plagueclaws continued to fire, their crews driven beyond fear, beyond sense, by their proximity to the foul ammunition of their war engines. The boil-encrusted crew-skaven fought to swing the catapults about, trying vainly to track their foes. Squeelch hissed in consternation as a glowing hammer tore apart the frame of one of his charges, nearly destroying it.

Incensed, the plague priest thumped the barbican with his staff, and unleashed a putrescent light from the warpstone crystal mounted atop it. One of the winged Stormcasts was caught full-on by the blast. Amethyst armour corroded as the flesh within turned black and gangrenous. What was left of the warrior tumbled from the air to land with an undignified splat. Azure lightning roared upwards from bubbling remains, and Squeelch flinched back.

‘Haaaa, yes-yes, that’s the way, Squeelch,’ Kruk screeched. ‘Kill-kill, rapid-quick!’ He thrust out his censer. The smoke spewing from it billowed abruptly, shredding and reforming to become a massive claw. Kruk swung his arm, and caught one of the storm-things in the smoky talon. The warrior struggled, trying to smash his way free. Kruk rotated his wrist, and the claw tightened, enveloping the warrior in its noxious grip. The storm-thing’s struggles became more frantic as the poisonous vapour filled his lungs. Then, abruptly, he went limp.

Kruk chortled and let his victim fall. ‘They die easy,’ he grunted, looking for more prey as lightning crackled upwards from the dissolving body. Skug knocked him aside as a glowing arrow thudded into the barbican where he’d been standing. Kruk smacked Skug away with a curse and clambered to his claws. More arrows rained down, impaling skaven where they stood. Death fell across the barbican, marked by glowing contrails.

As Squeelch ran back and forth, trying to avoid the shimmering arrows, he caught sight of the sky-archer hovering over the barbican, his crackling wings holding him aloft. The warrior’s armour was more ornate than that of his hammer-wielding followers, and his arm was a blur as he loosed arrow after arrow in rapid succession.

Squeelch flung himself beneath the frame of a plagueclaw, narrowly avoiding losing the tip of his tail. Kruk was not so lucky. The plague priest screeched as an arrow pinned his tail to the rampart. He staggered as the second tore through his robe, somehow missing anything vital. One of the winged Stormcasts swooped low, hammer raised as if to remove Kruk’s head. Despite being pinned, the plague priest was in no mood to surrender to fate. The smoking censer that had replaced his claw lashed out and caught the winged warrior in the head, dropping him twitching to the parapet.

At Kruk’s shriek of command, Skug and the rest of the Reeking Choir swarmed over the downed warrior. A moment later, the censer bearers were thrown back by a crackling bolt of lightning, which speared upwards to streak towards the heavens.

By now, the miasma of the whirling censers was rising into the air, and skaven swarmed across the barbican. Fanatical plague monks clambered up the plagueclaws, slashing wildly at the winged Stormcasts if they drew too close.

Kruk tore himself free of the arrow that pinned his tail, even as it dissolved into motes of light. He shook his censer-claw at the winged shapes in a show of defiance, as the plagueclaws continued to fire, filling the air with boiling clouds of sickness. Squeelch stuck his snout out from under the plagueclaw and gave the ground a thump with his staff.

The bodies of the fallen skaven began to twitch as the lice and maggots that occupied their robes were wracked by the transformative energies of his spell. The insects became humming flies. At Squeelch’s gesture, the flies rose up in a massive, buzzing cloud and roiled towards the Stormcast Eternals, shrouding them in biting, stinging swarms. The winged warriors darted skywards a moment later, leaving both the flies and the barbicans behind.

Squeelch’s triumphal chitter was cut short as Kruk hauled him out from under the catapult and held him aloft with his muscular claw. ‘Stop wasting time, fool-squealer,’ he snarled. ‘Destroy this city — destroy everything! For the glory of the Horned Rat!