Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Skuralanx’s voice echoed almost painfully in Kruk’s head. He hissed and considered telling the daemon to go scurry up his own shadow. Then he looked at Vretch thoughtfully. One good thwack with the censer and his rival might simply come apart, given his state.

No, Kruk. For you there is a more glorious task, yes-yes… hold the enemy back, Kruk… do as you were born to do and fight. Rip them, tear them, choke them… for if you don’t, I shall surely do it to you, yes-yes. Vretch — follow my voice… bring me the prize.

‘I will protect them, O most portentous of pox-bearers, yes-yes,’ Vretch hissed, cowering back before Kruk’s beady glare. ‘Ours is not to reason why, no-no, ours is but to do and… and prosper, yes-yes! Skuralanx has used-tricked us, but for the greater glory of the Horned Rat. I know that now… we shall be pox-masters, yes-yes.’ He hugged the golden plaques to his chest. Thin streams of smoke rose where the strange metal touched his bare flesh, but he did not seem willing to let Kruk take them from him. His eyes were wide and mad, and Kruk wondered what had happened to his rival.

It wasn’t that he particularly cared, of course. But he did wish to avoid a similar fate, if possible. He shrugged. ‘Guard your prize then, yes-yes,’ Kruk said. ‘From the looks of you, I could simply take it from your rotting claws, but I will refrain.’ He gestured dismissively with his censer. ‘Go on then, scurry away. Your master calls. But when this is done Vretch… I will settle up with the pair of you, oh yes…’ He fixed Vretch with a glittering eye. ‘We will settle all debts.’

CHAPTER TEN Mysteries of the Worm

Skuralanx perched on the shoulder of Sigmar in the central chamber of the Sahg’gohl, and called out to Vretch, guiding the worm-ridden skaven to him. His sibilant tones echoed back at him from the curved walls and shattered dome of the chamber.

He hissed and rubbed the stumps of his broken horns. What he felt could not be called pain, as such, but it rankled nonetheless. That such a puling creature had been able to get close enough to harm him — to harm the mighty Skuralanx — spoke volumes about how badly his underlings had bungled things. He hoped that at least one of them would survive, so that he could have the pleasure of devouring them himself.

He could have gone to claim what Vretch had found himself, but his injuries had weakened him considerably. He would need every iota of his remaining strength to twist open the realmgate and escape. Yes, he had to conserve his strength.

Rain fell through the cracked dome and mingled with the lightning which occasionally crossed the floor in bursts. The radiance rising from the realmgate situated in the statue’s plinth cast long shadows across the faded and peeling murals which marked the curved walls. Scenes from Shu’gohl’s history were illuminated briefly before fading into darkness. Skuralanx had covered most of them in claw-marks and filth, for the sheer joy of it.

This place was his — or soon would be. As soon as Vretch delivered whatever he had found, Liber or otherwise, to him, he would depart, only to return at the head of an army larger even than the Congregation of Fumes had been… the Children of the Horned Rat would swarm over and through the worm, gnawing it hollow and making a warren-to-end-all-warrens from its bloated carcass. And nothing would stand in their way.

He gazed down at the realmgate, studying its design with his remaining eye. A matter of moments, yes, that was all it would take. Even if he didn’t understand the way the facets were locked together or what the symbols on them meant, he knew he could open it. Indeed, he had already begun. A portion of his cunning intellect was focused on the task, necessitating his remaining here, well away from Kruk’s doomed last stand. The daemon sniggered. He had saved Kruk’s tail often enough; now it was the plague priest’s turn to repay Skuralanx’s kindness.

Perhaps he might salvage the burly lunatic, before he departed. Vretch was in no condition to be of any further use, but Kruk… yes, let no one say Skuralanx didn’t pay his debts. Kruk had enabled his triumph — it seemed only fitting that he spare the brute.

But first… the Liber. He looked towards the causeway. He could feel Vretch’s agonised mind. The plague priest was on his last legs. He was rotting as he staggered through the ruined temple, leaving a trail of worms and mangled flesh.

It was a fitting irony, Skuralanx thought, that such a treacherous creature should die serving the master he’d sought to betray.