Arrival

From the top of a large boulder at the tunnel entrance Nurglottthe Vomitus gazed with beady eyes down into the Vale of Shai-Hulud. The old dwarven ruins that the Skaven chieftain occupied still smelt of the short hairless creatures that had fought to the end. Nurglott despised them. He despised most things. Using the under tunnels that stretched across the Old World Nurglott had led a small war band of clan rats and plague monks into the dwarf infested warrens and skilfully butchered them. Even now the Skaven warriors were feasting on the dwarf and Skaven corpses.

Dusk had finally arrived and Nurlgott signalled for one of his clawleaders to come forward. Nurglott look down as Vectiss Cyst rushed forward to the feet of his chieftain and knelt in obsieance. With a snarl and a baring of teeth Nurglott burst into a rapid series of chittering squeaks and barks. When he was finished, Vectiss Cyst rose back onto his hind legs and withdrew. Returning to his unit Vectiss barked in angry tones and the Skaven under his command stopped their feasting, gathered their spears and shields and started moving forward towards the cavern entrance, down the path into the Vale below.

Following them another unit of clan rats came bearing hand weapons. Their leader, a hulking clan rat with piercing eyes and significant facial scars bowed his snout in respect as he filed past Nurglott. Nurglott had respect for Seeprost of Fester Spike. They had fought together for a long time and the ferocity that Seeprost had against all opponents, mostly the hated Dwarves, was legendary. 

Finally from the depths of the cavern came a strange dirge-like noise. In their green robes, tattered and torn, and surrounded by flies and the stench of decay and disease, the Bringer-of-the-Word Bubonigen Puss shuffled along with his plague monks. Periodically the monk musician would bang on his gong and the dirge would change in pitch. Bubonigen broke away from his fellow monks and bowed before Nurglott. Even in the semi-darkness Nurglott could see the festering sores and weeping pustules on the Plague Monks' ski and the fiery mania that lay in the eyes of every Plague Monk. After a sharp bark from Nurglott, Bubonigen rose and followed the rest of his brethren.

Nurglott drew himself up to his full height and looked once more down into the Vale. Then with a glance back into the cavern he unsheathed his weapon, a blade of corruption that appeared rusted and old but dripped with pus and filled the air with warpstone. With a challenging, defiant roar into the night, Nurglott followed his troops down the pathway to fortune and glory.