The defeat at the Battle of the Poisoned Vale had plunged Typhus into a fit of manic depression that saw him pacing back a forth in his luxuriously appointed quarters muttering indignantly to himself. The one blessing to come out of the disaster was that the treacherous Vermin Lord had finally been banished back to the immaterium. But although Typhus had become self absorbed and withdrawn, his agent's vigilance was undimmed.
Clan Eshin agents presented Typhus with indisputable evidence that Warlord Snitchclaw, Kaigun Taishō of the Boiling Peak defence fleet, had pledged allegiance to the Vermin Lord during his failed coup attempt. That act of base treachery was years past now but it could not go unpunished if Typhus was not to appear weak. He ordered the Warlord's immediate arrest but Snitchclaw had already been tipped off, commandeering some of the fleet and fleeing out to sea.
Typhus scrambled the raiding fleet to hunt down the traitor. The much faster and nimbler sailing ships of the raiders soon caught up with Snitchclaw's slower ironclads and a vicious and one sided battle ensued. Snitchclaw's crews were bewildered at being fired on by their own side and were slow to fight back, unaware of their leader's perfidious rebellion. It was not long before the ironclads were all sinking beneath the waves with virtually no losses to the victorious raiders. Rather than help the stricken crew of the sinking ships they continued to fire at the desperate survivors until the water ran red with blood and the circling sharks went into a feeding frenzy.
Only when every traitor was dead did Kaigun Shōsō Pipsqueak, commander of the raiders, order his fleet to head for home in the sure and smug knowledge that he had performed his task well and there was now a vacancy in the chain of command.
