Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The Carrion Princes are watching from the shadows as always, and they drift a little closer as I shove back my chair. I try to rise from my desk and collapse onto the floor. Damp, pulpy books soften my fall and I break into a furious, hacking cough.

Skinless finger bones dig into my arms as the princes help me back onto my feet. I cling onto one of them for a moment, trying to stand straight, gripping a cold, dusty humerus as my legs tremble beneath me.

The princes whisper inside my skull. You need to eat.

‘Food?’ I laugh. ‘I’m no animal.’

I reach out and rummage through an old cabinet until I find a vial of sapphire-blue liquid. There are a few flies drifting in it but I pick them out and gulp the philtre down. Warmth rushes through my body and I slowly start to recover.

I shoo the princes away and stagger over to a mirror. It’s thick with dust and obscured by a mound of annotated skulls, but once I’ve cleared a space I manage to see myself for the first time in months. I feel a little calmer — I could almost pass for one of my skeletons. My skull grins out from behind its thin covering of white skin. I’m everything that an ascetic scholar should be. No gaudy gold armour for me, just a few simple robes and enough flesh to keep my mind working. There was a time when Boreas would have understood such asceticism, but not now. Anger and hurt drives me to drink another philtre. My eyes start to burn the same blue as the liquid and my heart pounds an irregular rhythm.

‘I always knew Boreas would return,’ I say, ‘but not like this — not to mock and accuse. How could he throw his lot in with brutish soldiers when I could have shown him the mysteries of the cosmos? How can he believe in Sigmar’s ridiculous doctrine?’ The more furious my words, the more I know that I’m lying to myself. I’m angry because I’m afraid he might be right, afraid that I’ve wasted all these years.

I shake my head, trying to rid myself of this infuriating self-doubt. It irks me that I’m not able to continue studying, but I can’t banish the memory of his faith. I stumble across the room, barging past the princes and knocking over towers of books. The Kuriat is on my desk, still thudding patiently. I pick it up and stare at its hardened, shrivelled arteries.

‘Boreas has been made a fool of. This thing has no power as a weapon. What did he hope to achieve?’

Then why did you take it from him?

‘Because the wretched fool cared for it more than anything! Because I wanted to hurt him.’ I realise how small-minded and ridiculous I sound, but it just makes me even more furious. I put the lump of meat back on my desk and try not to think about it.

‘If that really is Sigmar’s great army,’ I continue, ‘why would he send them to the Crucible of Blood? Why is the Kharvall Steppe of such importance to him? There are countless other strongholds he should strike first if he means to unseat the Dark Gods.’

I turn to the princes. ‘What else do we know of the Crucible of Blood?’

Very little. Your scribes have searched every text. They’re all curiously quiet on the subject. One of the princes waves at the gruesome illustration of daemons boiling in blood. We know nothing more than that.

‘There must be more. Something is happening here. This is all significant. I know that Boreas is not really a fool. I taught him too well for that. There must be something I’m missing.’

What about Giraldus?

‘Giraldus?’ I frown with distaste as I recall the pompous old bloodsucker. ‘He’s a third-rate scholar and a first-rate fool.’ I picture the deluded vampire as I last saw him, parading around Nagash’s court in the ornate, decorative armour of a grand noble. ‘He claims to be a king, but he behaves more like a spoiled little prince.’

As a mortal, he dwelled on the Kharvall Steppe. He was indeed a king. He was not always Nagash’s puppet. When he ruled, there was still a city where the Crucible of Blood now stands.

It annoys me that I didn’t know this myself, but I mainly feel relief. I can’t abide not having a thread with which to unpick a puzzle. My mind whirls with thoughts of Boreas, daemon-filled skulls and gleaming, noble armies.

‘Ready our legions,’ I say suddenly, looking around for some clothes. ‘Prepare the Coven Throne.’

They reply at once, filling my head with panicked questions. I can’t help but laugh. ‘Yes, my old friends. I may lack Boreas’ martial zeal, but I know when I need to act. Whatever’s happening at the Crucible of Blood needs to be stopped, or at least controlled. I can feel it as surely as I feel Boreas’ knife in my back. Giraldus will tell us what he knows and he will lend me his swords.’ I grab my rune-inscribed staff from beneath a moth-eaten fur. ‘And then I’ll make sure we can continue our work here in peace. I won’t let Boreas or his soldiers ruin everything with their wretched ideologies and faith. I will not have war thrust upon me by Sigmar.’

I stagger through the fane, clambering over my wonderful collections and starting to warm to my task. My purpose has always been to cheat death, but if I need to deal a little of it out, then so be it.

By the time I emerge into the drizzle my army is already mustered. I can’t help but smile when I think of Boreas’ boasts. This is an army. The power of the philtre pounds in my chest as I survey it. The entire valley has been painted white by the gleaming, fleshless skulls of my long-dead spearmen. While my enemies thought I was sleeping, I summoned a host that lesser scholars could only dream of. Countless thousands of warriors stare back at me in unflinching silence, bound by the impenetrable wards tattooed on my skin. Every one of them clutches a rusting, prehistoric weapon and wears fascinating scraps of armour. Their shields and hauberks display the design of myriad cultures. This is archaeology in the form of a lethal, fearless host.

Pacing before them is my greatest prize, a morghast — a winged giant of bone and metal, bleeding light from its armoured ribcage. I stole it at great risk from my supposed regent, Nagash, and it makes an incredible sight. It towers over the spearmen at eight or nine feet tall and it holds a pair of enormous, machete-like swords that predate even the fane. Its fleshless bones are lit up by screaming, tormented spirits. In fact, the entire host is shrouded in a pale green ocean of swirling figures, all bound to me by the same tattooed glyphs. For many years we kept a head count, but recently it has become impossible. Even my hordes of scribes and clerks cannot record the vast numbers arrayed before me. My army numbers in the tens of thousands; that’s all that matters. Has anyone ever assembled such a host? I can’t believe they have.

The princes materialise from the mist, hauling my chariot behind them — the Coven Throne, a relic of an ancient race, charged with the life force of their countless victims. It billows towards me on a storm of death-magic, drawn by diaphanous horses and a tempest of spirits. Ghosts lift me up like an offering and present me to the chariot. The blazing tumult envelops me and, as I take my seat, it turns to face the numberless hordes below. I hold my staff aloft and spirits whirl upwards, filling the valley with noise and light. The ranks of skeletons say nothing as the Coven Throne lifts me over their heads, but, as I give the order to advance, the sound of their feet falling is like the boom of thunder.

Shyish: the realm of ageless, boundless, grandeur. What became of you? There was a time when every one of the underworlds contained wonders beyond the imagination of the living. Now they are a collection of broken shells. The iron-clad boot of Chaos has crushed the wonder from my home. I have been hidden away for so long in the fane that it shocks me to see how far Khorne’s reach has extended. The horizon is a spine of bristling towers.