Kruk licked his scarred muzzle and reached down, catching Vretch by the scruff of his neck. Vretch squealed as the other plague priest hauled him bodily to his claws. Disgusted, Kruk flung him back to the ground. Vretch hugged a set of strange golden plaques to his chest and tried to scramble away, but Kruk set a claw on his tail, pinning him in place.
‘Vrrretch,’ the burly skaven growled. ‘Where were you going, Vretch?’ He cocked his head. ‘Is that my Liber, Vretch?’ he asked, slyly.
Vretch squinted up at him with filmy eyes. ‘N-not a Liber,’ he said, finally. He coughed, and something wriggled down his chin.
Kruk’s scarred lip curled. ‘Then what is it? Tell me fast-fast or I shall flay you to the bone,’ he growled.
Vretch began to laugh. It quickly turned into a wracking cough. ‘G-go ahead,’ he wheezed. He extended his arm, and let one mouldering sleeve slide back. The limb was gangrenous, and covered in burrowing black worms. The whole thing looked like it would pop off if you gave it a good twist. Kruk waved his followers back.
‘What have you done?’ he said.
‘Not me… Skuralanx,’ Vretch moaned.
Kruk froze. His growing suspicions bloomed fully and crystallised. He caught Vretch by the throat, ignoring the feel of the worms wriggling beneath the other skaven’s loose flesh.
‘What is the daemon to you? Answer me,’ he snapped, shaking Vretch brutally.
Before Vretch could answer, however, a clamour went up from his followers. Kruk looked up, and saw winged shapes hurtling through the sky above the causeway. Below them came ranks of marching storm-things and star-devils. They were closing in, moving faster than he’d thought possible. He looked back at Vretch.
‘We fight… togetherrr,’ Kruk growled, glaring up at the circling storm-things and flying reptiles. Vretch stared at him for a moment, then nodded weakly.
‘If we must,’ he said.
‘We must,’ Kruk grunted. ‘You will. Or I will kill you myself.’ Kruk thumped his rival in the chest with his censer. ‘We will defend this place with claws and teeth.’
‘Or magic. Magic might be more useful,’ Vretch said.
‘Yessss. Magic,’ Kruk said. His eye fixed on the plaques Vretch held wrapped in his robes. ‘What is that, if not my Liber?’ he demanded, snapping his teeth together inches from Vretch’s snout.
Vretch shook his head. ‘It is something else. But valuable, yes-yes! Valuable nonetheless,’ he simpered. ‘I must get it to Skuralanx. I must…’
Yesss.
Both plague priests turned. Kruk glanced at Vretch. ‘You hear him too?’ Vretch nodded weakly. He coughed, and a wad of something indescribable dripped from his jaws.
Bring me what you have found, Vretch. Hurry-quick! And protect it with your worthless life!
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.
He’d known from the start that Vretch harboured ambitions above his station. It was one of the reasons he’d brought Kruk along… while Vretch was focused on his hated rival, there had been less chance of him coming up with ways to free himself from Skuralanx’s influence.
In a way, the daemon was almost sad that it was all coming to an end. Vretch and Kruk had been entertaining in their way. But better days awaited, greater glories and mightier triumphs. He chittered in anticipation and hunched forward, clawing at the statue. Soon… soon it would all be done.