To the beat of Septicus’ exhortations and the hooting of his pipe, the plaguebearers pulled. With gnarled hands and paws made soft by fungal infestation, with limbs wizened and leprous, with fingers knotted with arthritis and lessened in number by gangrene, they dragged upon the ropes, mumbling their count of sicknesses all the while.

‘Heave!’ bellowed Squatumous. Bubondubon cracked his whip, and the dirty glass set into its length chopped flies from the air by the gross.

The plaguebearers slipped in the foul mud; some fell and were trampled. Strands in the rope broke and unwound violently, flinging out acidic juices before the cores of the ropes gave way and pitched whole lines of pulling daemons into the filth. But enough daemons stood and enough ropes held. Flaking rust and grinding bone, a gigantic iron cauldron came juddering out of the void whale’s depths. It clacked on the jawbones, dislodging the great feeding fans of the dead beast’s mouth. Upon the edge of the beak, the cauldron became lodged, and no amount of pulling would set it free.

The flies had blotted out the stars. Greenish clouds rushed across the new dark, and a stinking drizzle began to fall.

‘Heave!’ yelled Squatumous.

‘Pull, you laggards!’ shouted Bubondubon.

Septicus’ playing took on a see-saw rhythm, well suited to haulage.

‘You, the Flyblown! You, the Rashgirdled, aid your brothers!’ roared Bubondubon, his whip snapping over the heads of the shambling daemons. More cohorts broke from the legion. Palsied hands dragged up ropes from the mud, and they lent their strength to their fellows. Thunder rumbled.

‘Heave!’ yelled Squatumous.

Bubondubon applied the lash, cutting plaguebearers down. The rain intensified as they heaved, raindrops pounding onto rotting backs. They pulled and pulled, Septicus’ braying music urging them on, until there was a crack of rotting bone louder than a tree giving out in a storm. The cauldron shifted. The daemons stumbled at the sudden release of tension, but none fell.

‘Take up the slack! Heave!’ bellowed Squatumous and Bubondubon together.

A last effort dislodged the cauldron from the whale’s mouth. It rolled down onto the mud with deceptive slowness, squashing flat scores of the daemons who had pulled it free, and came to rest. Its red rusty sides turned brown as the rain soaked them. It was fat-bellied and high-lipped, with three stout pegs for legs. It was unremarkable in form, similar to cooking pots from any number of worlds and ages, except for its massive size and the three-ringed device of Nurgle repeated three times around its widest part.

Already lords of the Plague Guard were moving to the cauldron’s side, commanding the daemon legions to set it upright. More daemons dragged a sled of bone from a second whale and placed it alongside.