Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The Hammerhands clambered up behind him. Ionus and Andricus arrived at his side. Not a soul amongst them spoke. Before them was a crater, wide and deep.

‘It’s gone,’ said Lord Vandus dully. ‘And the hammer with it.’

‘So we go after it,’ said Ionus Cryptborn. ‘We keep going until we find it.’

‘But how, if some fell power has claimed it and taken it who knows where?’

Cryptborn shrugged. ‘Fear not, Lord Vandus. We will find a way.’

The leaders of the Stormhosts gathered atop the crater’s crest. Tempers ran hot and bewilderment ruled. No decision had been reached as to what to do next, and as the day grew old none seemed to be forthcoming.

Ionus did not take part in the debate. He found a block of stone to one side and sat upon it, removing his helmet to allow his pale skin to feel the sun and the sweat to dry. He remained there, facing west, as the day’s shadows lengthened and the great wyrm shone in the evening, its flames becoming brighter as the sky darkened. When Chamon’s sun had slunk past its coils and dipped behind distant Knatrok, a shimmer in the air resolved into a lithe figure.

Ionus stood and bowed, his hand over his heart.

‘Celemnis, the Silver Maiden. I give you greetings of the night. We are kin, you and I. United in death.’

She said nothing, but floated forward, the silver of her lower body flowing over the freshly turned rubble of Elixia. She gave Ionus a sad, lingering smile. Her face had lost its ferocious aspect, and Ionus presumed that aside from her skin of metal she looked now much as she had in life: a beautiful, proud face haloed by red hair. She bowed her head and reached out a hand. From it sprouted a long tendril of rippling silver. It steadied itself and became the sword Ionus had gifted her from his reliquary. She took it in both hands and offered it up to him much as he had offered it to her.

Ionus took the returned blade. Its edges glimmered sharp and silver, and he marvelled at the change.

‘Your work?’

She smiled again.

‘You have done me a great honour, my lady.’

By now, others had noticed what was occurring. The arguments of the war council subsided, and the lords of the hosts turned to watch this strange exchange.

Ionus carefully replaced the hilt of the sword into the clasped hands of the skeleton on his staff. ‘Perhaps you could do me another. I would not ask, as you have done so much for us already, but we have come to an impasse. Your efforts are important. If we succeed here, then this city might live again, and you could go to your rest.’ He smiled. ‘Or you might linger, and remain its guardian.’

She tilted her head to the side, awaiting his request.

‘Thank you, my lady. Firstly, tell me — where has the castle fled to?’

She looked upwards at the Great Crucible and pointed.

‘I see. And how might we venture there with so great an assemblage?’

She smiled again, and beckoned. Without waiting to see if Ionus followed, she set off west into the city. The Lord-Relictor went after her, tilitng his head to meet Lord Vandus’ gaze. Vandus nodded and motioned for his men to follow.

A sepulchral quiet was on the city, and Vandus had no desire to break it in case the maiden’s magic be broken also.

‘Sound no trumpet and say little,’ Vandus said, ‘but spread the word. The Silver Maiden shows us the way.’

The Stormhosts gathered themselves rapidly and said nothing as commanded. They had marched for days and fought for much of the morning, but the magic of Sigmar made them strong and unwearying. Sleep they could stave off for days, if need be. And so it was, for Celemnis did not halt to let them rest, but continued westward at a steady, unhurried speed.

They passed back along the Anvrok highway, past the turn to the Bright Tor Gate. There Vandus sent messengers down to the encampment and others to the entrance of the Silverway, and bade them take news of their progress back to Sigmaron.

On for a dozen more miles the Stormcasts proceeded, before Celemnis took them up an unassuming spur of the road into the Bright Tor Mountains. In this part of Anvrok there was no sign of the Stormhosts’ recent invasion. They trod secret paths shown to them by Cryptborn’s strange ally. Chaos tribes that had yet to face the Stormcast Eternals launched attacks, but they retreated soon enough. Once three had been bested, the army was attacked no more.

Celemnis and Ionus led the way, the others keeping a wary distance. Cryptborn could be seen speaking with the ghost and listening attentively. What they spoke of was his alone to know; he was too far ahead for his words to be heard clearly, and from her they heard nothing at all.

Before the eighth day was out, the Stormhosts emerged from a narrow pass and Vandus stopped in amazement.

‘The Argent Falls,’ he said.

For the last three days the confines of the mountains had hidden all but hints of the crucible and its strange guardian. Now revealed, Argentine filled the horizon, its coils impossibly vast. The Great Crucible formed a halo around Argentine’s upturned head. The roar of the dragonfires that heated the crucible were loud. The mountains there rose up high, but gusting, hot winds blew over them from the drake’s fires and molten silver, keeping them warm and free of snow.

The Argent Falls plunged from the edge of the crucible, falling miles through the air in a wide sheet. The surface was silver, but the orange glow of smelting was visible in the folds of the liquid. Where the falls struck the rock of Anvrok, gobbets of precious metal splattered across the mountainside, and a wide area around the river’s headwater was covered in globular formations of pure silver. The remains of catcher channels could be seen half-buried in the metal. These ruins of industry were far below the Stormcasts, who looked down onto them from a high road.

Beyond the falls was a little more of the land of Anvrok, then the mountains stopped abruptly and the skyvoids began. The road they were on curled downwards, closer to the falls, before it crossed a bridge over a ravine. Smaller roads led off to the works there, and then the main road rose up again to a township on a crag opposite the army, as ruinous as every other city in Anvrok. At the brink of the cliff the circular platform of a dais rose up on an artfully coiled staircase. Six statues of dragons stood around its circumference.

Vandus was close to Ionus and Celemnis, and heard his Lord-Relictor speak.

‘A dragonfate dais?’ Ionus said. ‘How can that aid us?’

Celemnis pointed a long-nailed finger at the dais and disappeared.

Vandus waited a moment before calling out. ‘Has she departed?’

‘No. I sense her still,’ Ionus replied.

Vandus rode up beside him.

‘I am glad. She is a good ally.’

‘She is in great pain,’ said Ionus matter-of-factly. ‘This place must have been fabulously wealthy. I have seen many dragonfate shrines, but never one rendered in solid silver.’

Calanax made a growling purr.

‘Calanax approves. This is a fitting honour to the great drakes. Silver is favoured by them.’

Vandus stroked between Calanax’s horns. ‘And yet, against the barbaric hordes of Chaos, the protection of their old gods availed them little. There is only one god who can stand before the Four, and that god is Sigmar. What would the Silver Maiden have us do, I wonder?’

‘Let us consider the question upon the dais,’ said Ionus. ‘The answer may come to us there more easily, and that is where she pointed.’

‘We cannot all go — look at the road. The town is small.’

‘We should not go alone. We have suffered several ambushes already. Summon Thostos and let his Warrior Chamber come with ours. He is deeply involved in this affair,’ said Ionus.