Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

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.