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This is a short story I wrote based on a skaven vs daemons battle I had. Hope you like.

Grey Seer Gnawkual looked out across the troll country. He had never expected to find such buildings in the middle of nowhere. Surely the human builders were not stupid enough to live out here so close to the power of the chaos wastes. But then again it may not be a settlement; perhaps men from the bitterly cold Kislev had erected these to guard against chaos. In that case they were far more likely to be useful as the Seers mage-sight could see the flicker of dark magic on the horizon that heralded the horde of chaos pouring southwards. Again on a direct bearing towards hell pit, Gnawkual thought peevishly. The monsters of chaos did not usually make such a strong attempt to attract the superior Skavens attention. Perhaps we are giving them to good a fight he wondered guiltily. That may be true of the berserker mortal followers who sought the greatest glory, or the foul beastmen who craved to destroy civilizations, but these creatures- if such a title could be given to such- were purposeful. They fought only to advance the power of chaos or for some further gain. Gnawkual shuddered. Perhaps these were the exact same army as before, just having remade their physical forms and marched once more to exact revenge. He certainly hoped it was not the case.
Gnawkual ran his mage-sight over the watchtowers another time. There was no chaos taint so the ruinous powers had not prepared a trap, and he was sure he would have detected any life within. Most likely Kislevites had built them then evacuated after one of them mutated from the magical taint in the air so close to the wastes. Luckily the rat men were immune to such taint, using warpstone in their food and currency had built up their own resistance to it. Slightly. Admittedly several slaves had disappeared during the long march north but Gnawkual was more willing to attribute that to hunger among his force and nobody missed a few slaves very much. He nodded thoughtfully then turned back to the camp of his own forces.
The skaven wallowed amongst the mud and dirt, chittering amongst themselves. They all held a shield and a weapon of some description, be it spear, flail or sword. Many of them had segmented plate armour, which would bend as they stretched their spines. The Rat-ogres were kept separate; the massive hybrids were huddling in a small group while a pair of packmasters patrolled them, trying to control them with whips and lashes. Near the rat ogres, the enormous Abomination seemed to slumber, its many heads breathing softly and its huge rat-like tail wrapped around the long sinuous body. Gnawkual knew though, that the creature was under the effects of gallons of drugs pumped into its body by the many syringes and pipes fixed onto. His lieutenants stood nearby: Slavemasters Issik and Krull, Clawleaders Sesquik and Gnashrak, Packmaster Felllash, Chieftain Skullsnatch and Warlock Engineer Skrewlooz. And Nightleader Doomfang.
They drew nearer when they noticed his gaze, and one by one pressed their muzzles to the earth. Gnawkual liked a bit of respect though he was rather meagre in this regard compared to other Grey Seers. “Hear-listen loyal Skaven” the Seer began, “Close now are we to the invaders. They come south from the chaos wastes to kill-loot Hell Pit. They are fools. Foolish fools. Their defeat is inevitable at the hands of our superior force. They are small, yes, and weak, yes. Fight well, and first scavenge rights will to the best fighters go.”
Gnawkual grinned inwardly at the final statement. The chaos creatures didn’t leave corpses, weapons or trophies when their corporal forms were defeated. It meant he didn’t need to worry about infighting over the spoils.
“Great leader what is your role for me” asked Chieftain Skullsnatch. He stood ready for any order, magnificent black fur gleaming, huge cleaver held at the ready.
“Your role, Skullsnatch will be to lead Clan Skratch’s main warriors. You will, with Clawleader Gnashrak and the Musk of Death, lead the Fanghorde between both Man-towers and smash-crush our foes. The Standard of Superiority bear will you.”
Now the other leaders craned to hear the Grey Seers plan for their own troops, all huddling in search of a share of the glory. Gnawkual kept them in suspense for another moment, bathing in the power of his station. “Slavemaster Krull, you will lead your pawpack west with Warlock Engineer Skrewlooz and the Abomination. You are our flank guard and try to steer the monster in the correct direction. The beast has munched many slaves and I would like it to recognise a foe-thing. Skrewlooz, your adept sorcery I want to use to zap-fizz the foe. Or try to shut down the beast if it goes the wrong way.” The pair of skaven glared at one another for a moment, and then nodded reluctantly. The Packmaster, Felllash, seemed rather taken aback by the idea of his Hell Pit abomination being that stupid, but then again it did have near on ten brains, so confusion was often.
The grey seer turned to the Packmaster now: “you, Felllash will lead the Rat Ogre pack with Issik’s pawpack. You are the eastern flank guard. I want Issik’s slaves to try and cause maximum disruption. But Felllash, keep to the east.” The two skaven nodded ascent. The flanks were not full of viscous enemies and rat ogres were ideal protectors. Gnawkual lashed his tail and continued
“Clawleader Gnashrak, with me and I have a rather special role for you Doomfang.” The black clad skaven smiled. The adepts of the nefarious clan Eshin specialised in special roles- assassination, sabotage and theft were their fore.


The Skaven force scurried forwards towards the watchtowers. Gnawkual strode forwards confidently while his bodyguard chittered and hissed at the oncoming enemy. The Chaos-host was smaller than his own, up close, which was convenient as he had foretold such without a clue. The centre of the enemy was made up of masses of blood red humanoids, with long twisted horns to rival a grey seer’s own, and massive swords a skaven would struggle with using two hands, they wielded confidently in one. Alongside them were strange glowing monsters, all face occupying their bright pink torsos while many limbs swiped the air and held orbs of fire. Gnawkual’s mage-sight told him another story, as the winds of magic swirled around the pink horrors; they gathered them and shaped them into some kind of spell. Obviously they functioned together as a single sorcerer. The other skaven figured out as such when several cast fireballs towards them, vaporising a few skaven in the front rank.
At the head of the force was another chaos monster, an enormous winged creature, wielding a massive sword that the blood creatures would have struggled to lift two handed. It hovered several feet off the ground confidently until it swept around to the west after hearing the enormous roars of the abominations approach. The seer smiled. The abomination may well take down their leader-thing, and even if it was killed there was the off chance of its many unnatural hearts resurrecting itself.
Behind him, he heard a strange noise then a small green object whizzed through the air and smashed among the pink horrors. A green cloud of gas flowed out from the gas sphere and a couple of the creatures fell to the ground gasping for air as the poison filled their chaotic metabolisms. It seemed the poison wind mortars that Skrewlooz had brought had been worth that extra hundred warptokens. Not that a Grey Seer would admit it.
The seer began to draw the winds of magic to himself, flooding himself in power for his own magic. More and more energy poured into his small frame and he lost himself in it. For a moment he saw the battle from above. Here the many headed abomination charged into the winged creature while lightning flickered from the warlocks engineers paws. To the east he saw a squadron of the blood red monsters mounted on strange creatures of brass and hate be torn apart by the rat ogres while slaves scurried up into one of the watchtowers. Then he realised he wasn’t paying attention. With a supreme effort he shoved himself back into his body and chanted the ancient words of the dreaded thirteenth spell. He launched the syllables at the blood letters and nearly twenty of them fell writhing as the spell destroyed the chaotic webs of energies that maintained physical forms. With a crack reality seemed to prevail over them and there were suddenly only thirteen of the monsters left beside the pink horrors. Gnawkual gasped for a second, annoyed, they should have been moulded into rat men themselves! Nonetheless a huge cheer rose from the skaven host. The seer vowed not to try to do that here again. He could have been killed!

Skrewlooz carefully scampered up the stairs. The stone watchtower held firm easily and he could sense an awesome spell of Gnawkuals being loosed at the foe. His heavy metal armour seemed dangerous now. One wrong slip would send him smashing down the stairs. Perhaps Gnawkual had planned it that way. Perhaps this was a cunning plan to get rid of the obviously superior warlock engineer. Yes, the grey seer was clever, around here would surely be a trapped stair prepared for his rivals demise. Skrewlooz slowed down and scanned the wooden stairs with his mage-sight. They seemed perfectly sturdy but even so he proceeded with exaggerated caution until his helmet clanged against a trap door. He levered it open and found himself on the windswept flat peak of the watch tower. Ramparts ran along every wall, with many arrow slits for the Kislevite archers. He scuttled over to the wall and peered through.
The enormous winged monster was battling the abomination. Its huge sword flashed this way and that, opening wounds amongst the thick blubbery flesh like a knife through butter. Yet many of these shut themselves like mouths, growth agents and healing salves literally gluing the beast back together. Very few of them didn’t do this and as he watched the monster reared up, stretching up its many limbs and long, horrible body to nearly the height of the watchtower. Then it fell upon the chaos fiend. Spikes of bone, steel or warpstone stabbed deep into the creature and dark black ichor drooled from its wounds, hissing into a vapour as they dropped to the earth. Yet it exerted some kind of enormous pressure and gradually lifted the beast off. He turned and noticed the blundering slaves had been attacked a small army of disgusting maggot like things. They jumped and hopped and squeaked, seemingly happy to be fighting twenty bitter ratmen. He scampered over to the other edge of the tower and saw the Grey Seer, treacherous though he was, had managed to take down easily two thirds of the blood monsters. Yes, yes the clan rats and poisoned wind mortars would easily smash-crush the fools. Even as he watched small stones began to rain down on the pink horrors. He looked over and saw the other slave pack had filled the opposite watchtower and were now hanging out of windows and peering over the parapet to hurls stones from their slings. They definitely needed no help so he turned back to the battle of the abominations.
The two monsters were smashing into one another with tooth and claw, or the massive sword it carried. Even as he watched the hell pits massive mace-like arm smashed down on the winged creature, caving in half of its chest and letting more and more ichor slosh out. Deciding that the glory could not all go to such a brainless brute he began to channel more and more of the winds of magic to himself, before smashing his paws together so that a jet of greenish lightening flickered towards the foe. It smashed into the thing with the force of a slug. The creature turned, searching with eyes like night for its attacker and cracked open its wings when it spotted Skrewlooz peering over the ramparts. Then the mindless abomination tore it limb from limb.
Skrewlooz breathed a sigh of relief then glanced around for more targets. The blood creatures were carefully backpedalling to higher ground, apparently cowed by the awesome magic of the grey seer, while the Moulders Rat Ogres had appeared around the other watchtower. Those would surely be the end of the pink horrors as Chieftain Skullsnatch’s Fanghorde slammed into them. Suddenly he heard a long lonely bloodcurdling howl and turned around.
A pack of strange blood red reptiles were snarling at the Abomination. They bounded agilely around like wolves and had strange reptilian crests growing from their necks. Even as Skrewlooz watched one sprinted forward and leaped onto the monsters chest, jaw snapping shut on one of the monsters throats. A head screamed in agony and coughed forward blood, before a smash from a mighty fist tore the hound, and half of a neck, away. Skrewlooz summoned more power into him and chanted the spell once more, sending a bolt of lightning to bore through one of the things bodies, bursting the monster like a balloon. It vanished back into the realm of chaos with a distinguished “poof!” like noise. The Abomination had killed another pair but the one of the creatures sneaked around behind the massive fists and smashed apart the pumps and syringes of healing salves grafted onto the monsters rear. Suddenly the other one tore off a massive head with its powerful jaws and the Abomination fell forward like a tree hacked in half. The warlock engineer felt the floor shake on the tower. The pair of flesh hounds bayed triumphantly and darted forward to tear the corpse to greater ruin.
Somehow, Skrewlooz decided, he would have the blame for this. Then he noticed the corpse was trembling on the ground. Yes, he thought, maybe the beast will revive itself. He had heard tales of such things from the pack masters he had marched with. They claimed that it’s many hearts and organs often could not be stopped altogether, and would often pump the remaining healing agents to vital areas, allowing it to shudder into life once more. Yes, he decided that was definitely happening here. Even from this distance he could see the skin squirming and bulging like a strange thick fluid. Even the victorious hounds whimpered and packed away slightly as the body swayed and seemed to inflate. Then suddenly hundreds of rats broke free of the skin and poured out of the body by holes they gnawed or by the dreadful wounds already inflicted on it. They swarmed forwards to the hounds which bounded happily about the sea of rats, squishing them beneath scaly paws. Skrewlooz shook his head. As if anything those moulders could devise in case of death would have saved the fiend. Yes, he decided, if he was ever wrongly accused of letting the monster die, well, that was only because he had been falsely led to believe that it would survive any grievous damage. The pack masters boasting had killed their pet.
Suddenly a whooshing sound filled the air and a rock clattered to the floor of the tower. Were those fool-slaves aiming for him?! He turned wildly searching for the sharpshooter, and then saw a smoking hole in the ground near the bloodletters. Aha, he realized, the warp grinder had shot earth up and then it had all rained back down. As he watched the black clad night runners clambered out of the tunnel and pelted the blood creatures with throwing star and sling stone. Among them, presumably bullied out of the tunnel and onto the surface by the skaven came the two-rat drilling device. It sent a small blast of energy at the red things and vaporised one. Skrewlooz smiled content. The rat ogres and clan rats had mauled down the pink terrors and even now advanced on the red things. Beneath him the rats overwhelmed a flesh hound and the slaves, finally having killed the last maggot thing piled onto the other.
He decided that his awesome skills were surely going to be justly rewarded for killing the flying leader thing and the pack of strange hounds. But first he needed to make sure Slave master Krull had the same opinion of events. As he scampered down the stairs he loosed the draw strings of his moneybag.


Gnawkual surveyed the depleted troops from the watch tower. The army had filled the new tunnel and the other tower, and still many skaven camped on the ground. He wanted to make sure that they guarded for a few cursed days while they ensured no reinforcements came to aid what might have been a powerful raid. It seemed the troops had performed well. Skullsnatch was proving to be an excellent leader for the Fanghorde and the slaves had been useful. Apparently the engineer had taken down a brilliant number of dangerous foes with his lightning. He would have to be suitably rewarded. Gnawkual was fairly sure he was not exaggerating. After all the new slavemaster Krisk had backed his story though no one seemed to know where the previous one was....