Blight had reached the top of the tower, using all of his advantages to beat the plague priest. The rules of the challenge dictated that the combatants could in no way strike out against one another until both stood within the belfry atop the Shattered Tower and heard the Broken Bell toll the midnight dirge. Neither by magic or force was either ratman allowed to attack his enemy before the bell struck the thirteenth stroke. But how could a skaven be held accountable if some unfortunate accident claimed his opponent before he could reach the belfry?
Puskab redoubled his efforts, a prayer to the Horned One wheezing through his lips as his claws dug at the broken wall. He scrambled upwards, exploiting the grip afforded by one of the jagged fissures running down the side of the Shattered Tower. His fingers and toes wedged into the crack, he scurried up towards the belfry.
A great slab of stone crashed against the side of the tower, sending a cascade of debris raining down into the fog. Puskab’s paws were knocked from the fissure, his body flailing backwards as his feet struggled to maintain their purchase. A second slab hurtled past, smashing his tail as it bounced against the wall. The plague priest howled in pain, a spasm of agony rushing through his veins. By a supreme effort, he pulled himself back to the wall, ignoring the broken, bloodied mangle of his tail.
Eyes narrowed with vengeful determination, Puskab drew upon his sorcerous powers. Green flame blazed up from his eyes, ribbons of mephitic vapour rose from his nostrils. Evoking the great name of the Horned One, the plague priest’s jaws opened wide, spewing forth a reeking miasma that swept upwards. He might not be able to use his magic directly against Blight, but he could use it to hinder any ‘accidents’. The Wormlord would have a hard time dropping a brick onto the head of someone he couldn’t see.
Like a living thing, the magical miasma crawled up the face of the Shattered Tower, engulfing the crooked belfry. Puskab was near enough to hear Blight’s snarls and curses as the mist surrounded him and blinded him to what was going on below. Hastily, Puskab abandoned the fissure he had been using, scrabbling along a rain gutter until he reached the tower’s sharp corner. He chittered softly as he watched another slab of stone shoot past, clearly directed against someone using the crack to make his ascent.
The belfry was just visible through the haze of sorcery, tilting at a steep angle away from the Shattered Tower, its crooked roof a shambles of cracked tiles and splintered beams. Octagonal pillars supported the steeply gabled roof at every side, forming narrow archways. Faceless gargoyles leered from the slender ledge which ran about the bases of the pillars, their toothless mouths open in silent roars.
As Puskab hurried to climb the last few yards between himself and the belfry, the entire tower began to shake. A thunderous note boomed through the heavens, its dolorous tone causing the ratman’s bones to vibrate. The quivering masonry beneath his clutching paws flaked and crumbled, forcing him to dig his claws even deeper into the stone.
A pause, a moment of silence, and then the deafening bellow was repeated, sounding across the night like the angry howl of a daemon king. The tower shook and shivered, the lone skaven clinging to its side struggled to maintain his hold against the violent clamour. Ears ringing, body trembling, Puskab clenched his fangs and waited for the din to be repeated. He understood what the thunderous scream was — the ringing of the Broken Bell. It would toll thirteen times. If he failed to reach the platform of the belfry by that time, then his life would be forfeit. Blight would be free to use any means at his disposal to kill the tardy challenger.
Hissing psalms of putrescence and decay, Puskab scurried towards the belfry, moving only in those moments of shocking silence between the tolls of the bell. Five. Six. Seven. Again and again the Broken Bell screamed out the notes of Puskab’s doom. The plague priest’s heart hammered in his chest, his glands expelled themselves in a burst of despair. His fat fingers fumbled at the stones, his broken tail lashed against the crumbling masonry.
Eight. Nine. Ten. The belfry seemed as far away as ever to Puskab. With each toll, the fury of the Broken Bell increased, the reverberations quivering ever more violently through the tower. A horned gargoyle snapped from its mooring, streaking past Puskab on its way to the street hundreds of feet below. A shower of cracked tiles came sliding away from the gabled roof, pelting the plague priest with stinging fragments.
Puskab clenched his fangs, averting his face against the deluge, and struggled upwards.
Blight Tenscratch was standing between two of the pillars when the bell tolled the thirteenth note, his eyes darting from side to side, trying to pierce the veil of miasma. A heavy chunk of stone, chiselled away from one of the pillars, was clenched in the Wormlord’s paws. He hissed triumphantly when he heard the final note sound.
‘Fool-meat!’ Blight growled. ‘Think-dare to challenge me!’ The Wormlord’s voice dropped in a peal of vicious laughter.
‘I am here,’ Puskab snarled, heaving his bloated bulk over the ledge and onto the platform. His eyes lingered for an instant upon the monstrous bell suspended beneath the roof, a great black mass of corroded metal, a jagged split down its side, strange symbols engraved into its rim. There was something unholy and unnatural about the Broken Bell, about the way it seemed to drain light from its surroundings, soaking the illumination into itself like a sponge. The effect was chilling and terrifying, setting Puskab’s fur on end.
Alone with the horrible bell for almost an hour, Blight had become accustomed to its malefic emanations to a degree. Enough so that he recognised Puskab’s distraction and pounced upon it. The Wormlord hefted the heavy chunk of stone, hurling it at the distracted plague priest. The block cracked against Puskab’s side, its momentum nearly pitching him over the side of the platform. He yelped in pain, twisting about to face the foe whose presence he had almost forgotten.
Blight chittered triumphantly as he saw the way Puskab’s arm hung limp and ragged at his side. He drew a fat-bladed dagger from his belt, twisting his paw so that light played across the edge. ‘I will wear-take your pelt,’ he growled. ‘Teach-learn all traitor-meat not to trifle with Clan Verms!’
Puskab fixed the Wormlord with a merciless sneer. ‘You will suffer-rot, liar-fool,’ he promised. Awkwardly, he pulled his gnarled wooden staff from where it had been bound across his back, removing it with his left paw. His right continued to dangle at his side, limp and bloody.
Blight didn’t hesitate. While the Broken Bell’s clapper was still swaying from the violence of its final toll, the Wormlord sprang at Puskab, lunging at the plague priest’s left side. His crooked sword slashed out, ripping through his enemy’s robe, blocked at the last instant by the intercepting sweep of the wooden staff. Blight used his momentum to rake the claws of his foot across his foe’s knee.
The plague priest lashed out with his staff, but the heavy wood whistled through emptiness. Blight sprang away, coiling about one of the pillars with his twisted body, using it as a fulcrum to propel himself at his enemy. The notched sword flashed at Puskab’s head, crunching through one of his antlers. The Wormlord’s other paw shot out, latching about the priest’s throat. The cloth of Blight’s robe rippled as a long, creeping thing slithered out from under his sleeve. Brightly marked in splotches of red and yellow, a huge centipede reared its fanged head, poised to strike at the priest’s throat.
Even as Blight’s malignant laughter hissed between his fangs, the centipede faltered. Its long antennae drooped, its legs became slack. Like a strip of gaudy ribbon, the bug flopped lifelessly from the Wormlord’s sleeve, its tiny organs unable to withstand the pestilential aura of the plague priest.