Skaven expedition defeated

They had been lost in the jungles for weeks. Grittik had looked on, exasperated, as the Chief Warlock Skrix turned the map over and around, time and again, occasionally glancing up and down the jungle paths, tail jerking nervously, then turning his perplexed gaze back to the tattered map grasped in his paw. Skrix clearly didn’t have a clue where they were supposed to be going. Given the circumstances, most Chiefs would by now have been quickly... err, retired, yes-yes... but Skrix had managed to maintain a facade of confidence and authority throughout the trek deep into the heart of Cuitlaxaochitzin.

But Grittik and the other warlocks of the Guild’s warpstone expedition were tiring of the pressing jungle heat, persistent bites and stings from tropical bugs, and seemingly endless trudging. Grittik had acquired a huge blistering sore on his tail where a bloat fly had nipped him four days ago. Things had continued to get worse as the army became increasingly strung out on the march, each cohort becoming separated from the others as they navigated tangled vines, noxious bubbling swamps and venomous thickets. Frettin’s clanrats were falling way behind, and the Unscurried hadn’t been sighted since those pompous, puffed-up Stormvermin decided to go left around the lake instead of going right with the rest of the expedition, claiming to “know better than any bunch of worthless litter-runts”.

Chitters of dissention were passing between the warlocks when Skrix’s back was turned. If he was allowed to continue in this folly they could all end up trapped in this tropical hell forever. But Chief Warlock Skrix’s potent and unstable blend of genius and paranoia made it hard to judge the right moment to enact his “demotion”.

Grittik stopped, resting his weapon against a tree to uncork his water bottle, when he heard a SNAP in the thicket up ahead. He froze to the spot. Some of the others had heard it too. The air danced with twitching whiskers as dozens of anxious noses sniffed the cloying jungle air. Then, like the first thunderclap of a storm, the jungle erupted in a cacophony of raucous bellowing, pounding footfalls and discharged blackpowder weapons. Bursting through the mist and undergrowth came a ferocious warband of Ogres. Each of them was easily five or six times Grittik’s height and at least twenty times his weight. They roared their war-cry as they charged towards the Skaven, the canopies above shaking with the force of the avalanche of Ogres surging beneath.

“Ambush!!” the cry went up, though any who hadn’t realised instantly what was going on must have had their brains addled by swamp pox. Clanrats swirled around in disarray as the Ogres bore down on them. Grittik threw himself down on his belly and scrabbled beneath the carriage of the ponderous cannon that had, just moments before, been lumbering up behind him. Just with a whisker to spare too, as the Ogres crashed past him and on into the assembled clanrats who were serving as the Chief Warlock's personal escort.

Grittik watched from his hiding place as the Ogres milled through his comrades. The brute leading the Ogres’ attack stopped in the midst of the clanrats, reached down momentarily, then leapt back up and thrust his arm in the air as if in triumph. Wide-eyed, Grittik saw Chief Warlock Skrix firmly locked in the monster’s iron grip. Scrabbling against the gnarled fingers of his captor, Skrix was screeching hysterically as the shovel hand brought him in towards the hulking Ogre’s gaping yellow-toothed maw. Grittik turned away and closed his eyes tightly just in time to miss the end, but he couldn’t block out the nauseating CRUNCH as the Ogre made short work of the morsel that had been the once-proud Chief Warlock.

Grittik could just peer out from under the gun carriage to make out dozens of iron-shod feet stomping towards his hiding place from across a clearing to his right. He had to move or risk getting crushed beneath the wood and iron frame when the Ogres inevitably smashed the gun to kindling. Overcome by a sudden and personally unexpected attack of reckless courage (a most disturbing and unsettling sensation for any sane rat), Grittik scampered out on all fours and rushed to the tree where his weapon still rested. He seized the barrel, knowing that if he was going to get out of this with his life he’d somehow have to slow the Ogres down first.

Paws shaking, Grittik levelled the barrel at his oncoming foes and squeezed the trigger. There was a hooting WHOOSH! and with a sprouting tail of smoke the rocket left the tube and spiralled up into the air, smashing low branches and shaking loose a shower of leaves. Grittik allowed himself a moment of malevolent satisfaction as the rocket screamed towards the target, only to have his optimism turn to dismay as the projectile corkscrewed widely and veered off through the canopy. He heard the dull, thudding BUMPH! somewhere in the distance, the accompanying cloud of warp-tinted smoke mushrooming up through the trees. Grunts and cries of a score of dismayed Ogres he hadn’t even seen echoed back. At least he’d hit something.

However, Grittik was now acutely aware of his peril. The jungle air was filled with the gleeful bellows of rampaging Ogres, the screams of massacred clanrats and the acrid stench of burning warpfire. More pressing, the Ogres that he had tried to shoot at looked none too pleased at having a rocket fired at them. On the contrary, the look of unbridled battle-rage contorting their faces quite convinced Grittik that retreat was the better part of valour.

With that he turned and fled, all four paws kicking up the dirt and leaves of the jungle floor as he made off into the dense brush. After some distance, with the Ogres mercifully falling behind, he came upon towering tree trunk. Without hesitation he shot up it, digging his frantic claws into any nook or crevice that afforded a hand-hold. Some forty feet up, safely in the canopy, he paused. Tongue lolling and panting heavily for breath, Grittik could espy the Unscurried making their way into the battle. The Stormvermins' wickedly barbed halberds glinted steel death in the dappled forest light, but Grittik thought it best to see out the rest of the battle from up here. What good could he do down there anway? Besides, someone would need to take up the post of Chief Warlock when this was all over.