Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘I am sorry, Thostos, that I did not reveal to you my suspicions. I am certain you and your comrades wondered why I would send my most vengeful warriors to seek out old allies when their hammers thirsted for war, not words. I needed your fury there, in case the hammer was uncovered and needed to be snatched quickly. Here in Azyr my actions are secret, but out there in the realms they are not. I could not risk rumour of my intuition coming to the ears of the Changer of the Ways. Now you know.’

Thostos said nothing. Vandus looked sidelong at him.

Sigmar stood. ‘Warriors! Stormcasts! This is your quest! Go to Anvrok in Chamon and assail this fortress of which Thostos speaks. Destroy it and return what is rightfully mine to my hand! I had not dared hope Ghal Maraz could be recovered so early in our struggle. With it, we might begin our war in earnest!’

A rousing acclamation roared from the Stormcasts. ‘Sigmar! Ghal Maraz for Sigmar! Sigmar!’

‘Vandus and Thostos shall lead you,’ continued Sigmar, his godly voice cutting through the shouts of his men. ‘Hammers of Sigmar! Anvils of the Heldenhammer! Celestial Vindicators! Lions of Sigmar! Twelve Stormhosts shall I send. We shall crush the servants of Chaos within Anvrok. The hammer shall be ours. Nothing will prevent our victory!’

In a place outside of time, Kairos Fateweaver peered intently into the Flame that Consumes the Now, its strange lights reflected in his four eyes. Both his faces frowned.

‘This troubles me, this fixation on the present and not the past,’ said one head to the other.

‘Or the future. But needs must. I must bear the agony of the instant. Watch our petty friend, as he postures in front of his minions.’

In the fire, an image rippled of Ephryx, Ninth Disciple of the Ninth Tower. He stood atop the walls of his broken fortress, addressing a crowd of lords and knights: the nobility of Chamon.

‘So many schemes, so many ambitions,’ said the left head. ‘So many little heads to hold them in.’

‘None of those schemers can match Ephryx’s plans. They would tear him limb from limb if they knew what he intended. Their mistake is to think his ambitions are as limited as theirs. Their horizons are not broad enough.’

‘There! His scheme I say — I talk like him. It is my scheme.’

‘When I look into the past, I see his hand more in evidence than mine,’ rejoined the other head.

‘And when I look into the future, I see my victory and not his.’

‘Much must be done to make fate bend to my will. The sorcerer does not deserve another chance. He had nearly enough magic to complete the translocation, but frittered too much away to save his pointless mortal life.’

One shoulder shrugged. ‘It was Tzeentch’s plan.’

‘Of course.’

‘Of course, of course, but I must take an active hand,’ said the right head.

‘Ephryx is vulnerable,’ said the left.

‘His magic must be replenished.’

‘How to accomplish that?’

‘Time. The dearest coin of all. He must have more of it.’

Kairos leaned forward to the flames, keen to listen to what the doomed sorcerer had to say to his allies.

‘War has come to Chamon!’ shouted Ephryx. His voice echoed from walls of steel and copper, from bastions of brass and bronze. He had dressed himself in his finest occult robes and his horns gleamed with fresh lacquer. It was an effort to maintain his appearance of power — a necessary fiction.

A week ago, the Eldritch Fortress had been a gleaming example of Ephryx’s ingenuity. But his perfect kingdom, so long laboured over, was much damaged. A gaping hole had opened in the curtain wall, gouged out by the wild magic of Ephryx’s mutalith during its fatal fight with the turquoise storm warrior. Many of the skulls that had adorned every inch of the outside walls, transmuted to copper to store magic, had been burned away by lightning or smashed to pieces by hammer and sword. Too much of Ephryx’s hoarded power had been spent driving off Sigmar’s warriors.

There were several minor breaches elsewhere. None were quite so devastating as that in the wall of the huge, central tower. A long crack ran up from the base, showing the domed keep inside. This too had suffered damage, and the cairn of lead within had been shivered from its foundations. A wild glory shone out through the ragged gaps, brighter than the sickly sun. There was no more hiding for Ephryx’s artefact. Its painful light was plain for all to see.

Ephryx was sure that the hammer’s location was no longer secret. They would be coming for it, and soon. On the other side of the breach, Ephryx’s tall tower cast a thick black shadow, as precise as a sundial’s. It provided a measure of relief from the blazing light, and so there gathered all the might of the Hanging Valleys of Anvrok. Lord Maerac of Manticorea had emptied his kingdom of dukes and barons. They sat sullenly upon their manticores, or lounged against their mounts’ flanks. Even Mutac the Silent had come down from the remote island. The sorcerer had once fancied himself a rival to Ephryx, until Ephryx had called upon Tzeentch to curse him for his impertinence. Mutac had gone about cowled ever since. Ephryx alone knew what lurked under Mutac’s hood in place of a face — nine fleshy towers, capped with nine eyes; an unsubtle reminder of who was the supreme mage of the Hanging Valleys of Anvrok.

That Mutac had come down suggested he thought Ephryx’s time was done. Ephryx looked out from his broken walls seeking allies, but instead saw two dozen scheming rivals that weighed and measured him as if he were a bullock ready for slaughter.

‘Friends,’ he began. ‘Allies!’ There were no such things under the gaze of the Great Changer, unless they were of convenience. Ephryx gave a silent prayer that the lords of the Hanging Valleys of Anvrok would find him convenient for a little while longer. ‘We must defend ourselves!’

‘You mean we must defend you!’ shouted Baron Kergoth of Ungivar. Scattered laughter came from the nobles. A manticore growled and rolled upon its side. Scratch my belly or I shall eat you, the expression on its face suggested.

Ephryx licked his lips. There were a lot of Maerac’s men below. They all had manticores. In the Shattered City, ten thousand campfires burned. There, the bondsmen of Maerac’s followers waited. For a fleeting instant the sorcerer worried he may have miscalculated.

‘Defend this tower, and you defend your own kingdoms,’ said Ephryx.

‘Rubbish!’ shouted a minor count, far beneath Ephryx’s disdain and as thin as he was unimportant.

Maerac sneered. ‘Look at him. He has some scheme. I do not think he lies directly to us, although he will be lying about something. Tell us, Ephryx, the Ninth Disciple of the Ninth Tower, what have you hidden in this fortress? Why is it so imperative that we defend you, when we should look to our own in the face of this threat?’

Ephryx’s warped face split in an apologetic smile. He pressed his hands together. ‘The artefact is none other than Ghal Maraz! The hammer of Sigmar Heldenhammer himself.’

The nobles went quiet. They looked askance at one another. Now they appraised each other, and not Ephryx alone, each one evaluating his chances of seizing the weapon for himself.

That was more like it.

‘You had the Great Shatterer in your possession all this time, sorcerer, and you told no one?’

Ephryx shrugged. ‘The people who dwelt in this city before me raised a great monument over it. It was the talk of the realm. You did not know of it. Sigmar did not know of it. I knew of it. Why do you think this is, Maerac?’

Maerac scowled but held his tongue.