Puskab now viewed the tunnel around him through the lens of paranoia. This far below the streets of Skavenblight, the corridor should be alive with skaven hurrying about their business. In winter, cold descended upon the surface, making the swampy lanes slick with frost and ice. But below, warmed by the fecund heat of thousands of ratmen, the tunnels retained an almost stifling heat. There should be hundreds of skaven scurrying through the corridor, squeaking and shoving as they hurried between warrens. Even allowing for the instinctive fear and abhorrence most ratmen displayed towards Clan Pestilens, there should have been at least some traffic present.
The plague priest raised his nose, sniffing for any trace of what had caused the other skaven to shun the tunnel. His mind raced with thoughts of warlock-engineers rigging the corridor to collapse or packmasters unleashing rabid wolf-rats into the passageway. Whatever was set to happen, news of it had spread among the skaven of this district and caused them to avoid the tunnel.
Puskab forced a slobbering orison from his throat, drawing upon the profane power of the Horned One. The air about his body began to grow murky, surrounding him in an aura of green smog. The rats creeping along the corridor squealed in fright as the scent of Puskab’s magic reached them, fleeing as quickly as they could from the plague priest’s presence.
‘Swords,’ Puskab hissed at the monks with him. The word had scarcely left his mouth before the tunnel was filled with fierce battle cries. From a dozen hidden holes and concealed pits, a mob of snarling skaven spilled into the dingy worm-light of the passage. They were ragged, hideous creatures, with scraggly fur and pallid skin. Scraps of filthy cloth and tatters of rusty mail clung to their scrawny frames, while stone-axes and bone knives were clenched in their paws.
The attackers had taken pains to smear themselves in dung to mask their scent, but the plague monks did not need to smell their foes to recognise them. Each of the attackers was malformed, huge flappy ears drooping from their skulls and enormous black eyes bulging from their faces. There was no mistaking the cave-rats of Clan Skrittlespike. Their kind dwelled in the warp-mines far beneath Skavenblight, eking out a troglodyte existence far from sun and surface. It was rare for them to ever venture higher than the under-warrens, and even then they did so only to scavenge supplies or steal pups from the brood-mothers of more prosperous clans.
Puskab snarled as the cave-rats rushed towards him. It seemed Vrask wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be blamed for the Poxmaster’s murder. Krricht must have taken pains to engage the swords of Skrittlespike’s warriors. Already despised and outcast, the cave-rats didn’t have anything left to lose by murdering such a renowned skaven.
There was only one problem with Krricht’s plan. He had underestimated the strength of the Poxmaster.
Puskab stretched forth his claw, pointing his rotten fingers at the foremost of the charging ratmen. A sickly glow gathered about his fingers, then shot forth to pierce the cave-rat in breast and belly. The attacker crumpled, his fur turning pale and leprous where Puskab’s spell had struck. The stricken ratman cried out in terror, but his shriek was cut short as the skaven behind him trampled his body underfoot.
The spell had accounted for one cave-rat, but there were a dozen more to take his place. Fear of Puskab’s magic was not enough to overwhelm fear of their own clanlord. The plague priest’s spells might strike them down one by one, but the clanlord’s wrath would claim them all. In their craven hearts, each of the cave-rats was secure in the belief that it would be a comrade and not himself who would fall prey to the Poxmaster’s magic.
In focusing upon Puskab, the ratmen made a critical mistake. The spell had killed only one of their number, but it had done something more. It was a physical manifestation of the power of the Horned Rat, a reminder that the path of Clan Pestilens was the true faith. The noses of the plague monks twitched as the smell of divine disease erupted from Puskab’s fingers. Their ears filled with the anguished howl of the dying cave-rat, their eyes fixated upon the fast-spreading leprosy.
Before the cave-rats could reach him, Puskab’s entourage was leaping into their path. Foam flecked the muzzles of the enraged plague monks as they lashed out against the goggle-eyed skaven. With the maniacal zeal of fanatics, the green-robed ratmen brought their rusty blades crunching through fur and flesh. The anguished whines of the wounded rose in a shrill cacophony, echoing through the empty tunnel.
The enormous ears of the cave-rats were too keen to endure their own shrieks. Their faces twisted in expressions of agony, their paws clapping against their heads in an effort to blot out the sound. Though they outnumbered the plague monks four to one, the cave-rats were unable to withstand the frenzied resistance of the robed skaven. Their attack faltered and they began to retreat down the tunnel, leaving their dead and dying strewn across the floor.
Puskab watched the havoc with narrowed eyes. It was all too easy. Much too easy. There was a reason why Clan Skrittlespike was despised and outcast. It was because they were weak. No matter how desperate, no murder ring would depend upon them to finish…
The plague priest whirled about just as a brown-furred ratman brought his sword chopping towards his neck. Puskab’s staff intercepted the blow, the serrated blade of his adversary digging deep into the wood. His attacker snarled at him from beneath the brim of a steel helmet, his beady red eyes narrowed with hate. The powerfully built sword-rat brought one of his feet slashing upwards, kicking at the Poxmaster with his claws.
Puskab chuckled wickedly as the ratman’s claws raked harmlessly against the mail hauberk he wore under his green robes. Like most skaven, the sword-rat hadn’t given enough thought to what might be hidden under a plague priest’s robes. His effort to disembowel Puskab thwarted, the skaven thrashed about, trying to free his sword from the plague priest’s staff.
He discovered the deed to be more difficult than it should have been. The ratman strove with all his might to wrench the sword free, but instead there was only a grinding sound. Flakes of brittle red rust trickled from the edge of his blade. Horror filled the skaven’s eyes as understanding began to assert itself. He glanced down at his foot, gazing in disgust as the fur began to peel away, as the exposed flesh began to ripple with decay.
Puskab chittered with loathsome laughter as his would-be killer tried to flee. The skaven was experiencing first-hand the protective magic that had been summoned by the Poxmaster’s orison. The green smog surrounding Puskab was a concentration of the Horned One’s putrid majesty. Harmless to true believers, but corrosive and deadly to all infidel-meat.
The sword-rat whined in terror, abandoning his corroded blade and moving to disengage from Puskab. Before he could flee, the plague priest’s staff whipped around, cracking the skaven across the jaw. The rotten bone, weakened by Puskab’s magic, shattered like an eggshell. The stricken ratman wilted to the floor in a quivering heap as he choked on his own blood.
The blade of a halberd came chopping down at Puskab, snapping the tip of one of his antlers and missing the bloated priest’s head by a matter of inches. Puskab leapt back, moving with a frantic ease that belied his corpulent bulk. He found himself staring up at a snarling ratman looking down at him from a hole in the ceiling. No scrawny cave-rat from Clan Skrittlespike, but another brawny brown-furred warrior. It seemed Clan Mors had employed the cave-rats as a distraction and scapegoat, leaving the actual murder to their own stormvermin.
Puskab decided to show the vermin-meat the price of such arrogance. As the halberdier dropped down from his hole, the plague priest’s voice croaked out a glottal incantation. Green fire flared from his eyes, the air filled with the repugnant sound of buzzing flies. The armoured stormvermin struck out with his halberd once more, trusting that the long reach of his weapon would keep him safely away from Puskab’s corrosive aura. He did not reckon upon the priest’s other spells.