Puskab gnashed his fangs together. He was being paranoid. Vrask was gone, fleeing Skavenblight with his tail between his legs. Puskab had escaped the trap Vrask had laid for him. Knowing how Nurglitch would react to this attempt upon his favourite disciple, Vrask had fled before any action could be taken against him.
Still, Puskab was unwilling to feel too secure. Vrask possessed friends in high places, friends who had warned him before Puskab’s acolytes could come looking for him. And the traitor had allies outside Clan Pestilens. There was no saying how deep Vrask’s ties with Clan Mors ran, or how much he had promised them. Depending on what Krricht might hope to gain, the zeal with which his sword-rats might pursue Puskab could be considerable.
For this reason, Puskab had come to the Abattoir, to cultivate his own allies beyond the confines of the Pestilent Brotherhood. If Krricht had more to fear than the displeasure of Clan Pestilens alone, he might forget whatever compact he had formed with Vrask.
Squeaks of excitement shuddered through the Abattoir as hundreds of thousands of ratmen greeted the activity unfolding on the arena floor with bloodthirsty glee. A great pit had opened up in the sandy surface of the arena, exposing a patch of impenetrable blackness. The skavenslaves mopping up the blood and offal from the last event screeched in terror, scrambling towards the little iron gates set into the wall. Their wails grew even more despondent when they found the gates firmly shut, callous guards jeering at them from behind the bars.
From the pit, that which the slaves feared crawled into view and a hush fell across the spectators. The creature was as big as a bear, its ghastly body covered in shiny black plates of chitin. Eight clawed legs sprouted from the sides of a squat, elongated body. Immense arms tipped with hideous pincers protruded from the front of the monster. The beast’s face stretched across the front of its body without even the semblance of a head. Two clusters of lustrous eyes gleamed with a ruby glow above a gaping maw ringed with chitinous mandibles. Rearing from the monster’s back, arching above its body, was a long muscular tail, its tip swollen with a dagger-like barb. Poison glistened from the tip of the barb, dripping down onto the creature’s armoured back.
The hush passed. The crowd cried out in anticipation as the gigantic scorpion scuttled across the arena, charging straight towards the panicked slaves.
‘Magnificent, yes-yes,’ chortled the ratman seated above Puskab. Blight Tenscratch, Wormlord of Clan Verms, rested his twisted body in a high-backed chair, attended by a gaggle of tawny-furred slaves and ringed by a phalanx of armoured warriors. The wormlord seldom missed an arena fight. Next to worm-oil and beauty-ticks, the arena represented the most prosperous of Clan Verms’s ventures. The bug-breeders produced a loathsome menagerie of horrifying abominations for the Abattoir. None were so popular with the crowd as the giant deathwalkers.
Puskab kept his voice indifferent, all trace of intimidation from his posture. ‘It is scary-nasty, Most Murderous Tyrant.’
Blight chittered with laughter, raising a crooked arm and gesturing at the giant scorpion. The arachnid had reached one of the slaves, gripping the doomed ratman in its massive pincers while it stabbed its lethal sting into his chest.
‘Only a demonstration,’ Blight said. ‘The real spectacle begins when that gate opens.’ He pointed a claw at a massive steel-banded door set into the side of the arena just below the first row of the lower arcade. ‘Clan Moulder promises something new. Something they think can beat my deathwalkers.’ The Wormlord bared his fangs in a scornful sneer.
‘Clan Verms very-much powerful,’ Puskab agreed. He didn’t add that they were also the most detested and abhorred of the Greater Clans, blamed for the legions of fleas and parasites that beset skavendom. ‘That is why I want-like speak-squeak with your Despotic Magnificence.’
Blight’s ears were masses of scar tissue, overwhelmed by the cluster of multi-coloured ticks which had fastened to them. Even so, they were able to flatten themselves against the Wormlord’s skull, a gesture that bespoke the most condescending of humour.
‘I know-know why Poxmaster Puskab wants to speak,’ Blight said. From the arena, a shrill cry announced that the scorpion had claimed a second victim. ‘Pestilens need-take help with plague-plan.’
Puskab’s glands clenched as he heard Blight speak. If the skaven of Clan Verms knew how the plague was transmitted they could thwart all of Clan Pestilens’s ambitions.
Grinning, Blight reached a gnarled paw to his neck, picking about the fur for a moment. He displayed the black flea he caught. ‘This carry plague, yes-yes?’ The Wormlord lashed his tail. ‘My spies know plague monks want-buy many fleas. Not ratkin fleas, but man-thing fleas. Easy to guess-learn why.’
The crowd fell silent once more. Puskab shifted his gaze from the gloating Blight to watch as the wooden doors slowly drew apart, exposing a large cage. The thing within the cage was a monstrous brute, a hulking behemoth four times as tall as a skaven and covered from head to toe in shaggy brown fur.
‘Packmasters call this ogre-rat,’ Blight snorted. ‘Deathwalker will eat well from its carcass.’
The plague priest wasn’t so certain. When the door of the cage swung open and the brute lumbered out onto the field, its every step bespoke a primal strength and savagery. The ogre-rat slapped its clawed paws against its chest, snarling an unintelligible challenge to the monstrous scorpion.
‘Clan Verms know-learn much-much,’ Puskab said, letting a subtext of threat seep into his words. There weren’t many skaven who pried into the diseased secrets of the plague monks. Even a Lord of Decay should know such a practice was unhealthy.
‘We can help Pestilens,’ Blight said, his eyes still fixed upon the floor of the arena. The deathwalker and the ogre-rat had closed upon one another and were now circling each other in preparation for the first attack. ‘Verms breed better bugs than anyone in Under-Empire. Make stronger flea for Pestilens. Carry plague far-far. Infect many more man-things.’
Puskab shifted uneasily in his seat, uncomfortable that Blight knew so much about the Black Plague and how it was spread. ‘I talk-speak to Arch-Plaguelord,’ he said. ‘Listen-learn if he like-like help from Verms.’
Blight clapped his paws together in glee. The scorpion lunged at the ogre-rat, its pincers ripping into the brute’s flesh. He turned his gaze reluctantly back towards Puskab. ‘You came here to help yourself, but I must have something in return. If you want-like Verms to protect you, then you must give something. I want to share in credit for the Black Plague. Impress Plaguelord Vecteek with the might of Clan Verms!’
‘Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch…’
Blight leaned back, blinking in surprise. ‘I wonder at your lack of ambition. You are the Poxmaster, creator of the Black Plague. You kill-slay more man-things each day than a whole army of stormvermin! The council knows your name!’
The plague priest lowered his head, his mind awhirl with the Wormlord’s words.
‘Why talk-speak with Nurglitch?’ Blight whispered. ‘There can be only one Arch-Plaguelord on the council, after all. The other Lords of Decay are ready for a change.’
Puskab’s glands clenched at the magnitude of what Blight was proposing. To sit upon the council! To be one of the Lords of Decay! It was more than he had ever dared dream, more prestige than he had ever prayed for! An alliance between Clan Verms and Clan Pestilens would make the spread of the Black Plague much easier and it would provide Puskab with the extra layer of protection he needed. But to betray Nurglitch, to allow the heathen Verms to share the credit for developing one of the Horned One’s holy contagions… these were things he would have to meditate upon.