Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

My men are still locked in formation and as their attackers falter they surge forwards, lowering their shields and unleashing a flurry of hammer and sword blows.

Hakh forgets me and races to the edge of the hand, still growling.

The light grows brighter and a fierce heat washes over the plain.

My Stormcast Eternals blaze like a constellation of stars as they smash through the enemy, but the heat is so great that they start to falter. Even Hakh’s knights, denizens of this hellish realm, recoil from the blaze, shielding their eyes as the night burns white.

The light grows so fierce that I’m soon unable to see even Hakh, who’s standing just a few feet away from me. I hear him raging and cursing as he tries to find my position. Is this dawn after all? Have I failed? Is the Crucible of Blood about to open its gates?

I climb along one of the hand’s crumbling fingers, feeling my way, trying to peer through the light.

My mind whirls as I see that it is fading.

As the glare dims, my vision starts to return. Hakh and his knights are still gathered in our makeshift arena, staggered by the display, but Celadon is striding towards me, clutching his great, two-handed hammer.

Blessed night floods back over the steppe, leaving just a single point of brightness, racing through the sky. It briefly becomes a golden, twin-tailed comet before crashing to the ground.

‘The God-King is with us,’ I whisper, as I see that my army is now free to advance.

‘Lord-Celestant,’ says Retributor Celadon, raising his hammer and drawing my attention back to Hakh. The Chaos lord turns his mangled face back in my direction, and I see the doubt in his eyes.

In the wake of Sigmar’s lightning, my men are now charging across the steppe towards the stone hand. The lightning has filled them with unimaginable fervour. I can hear their voices from here, still roaring the hymn as they smash, pummel and hack their way through the reeling knights.

Hakh looks from the butchery of his men to me and Celadon, fury written across his face. He throws himself at me like a bull, horns lowered. The ferocity of the attack gives him incredible speed and neither Celadon nor I have time to block it.

His horns crunch into my armour and we roll back across the palm of the hand.

Hakh’s men charge past us as we stagger to our feet, rushing to attack as my golden Liberators pour up over the rock, so incandescent with faith that even I can barely look at them.

Battle explodes all around me. Sigmarite pounds against brass and swords bite into flesh as a huge tumult of figures surge across the stone hand.

I haul myself to my feet and see that my armour is dented but not punctured.

Hakh lunges again. I block him but the impact knocks the breath from my lungs.

‘They will not save you!’ cries Hakh as he wades after me.

As I stagger backwards, clutching my chest, he draws back his sword to strike again.

He never stands a chance. Sigmar is everywhere. He’s in the sky, blazing through the cosmos. He’s in the song that’s roaring from my throat. And he’s in the hammer that I smash into Hakh’s slobbering jaws.

I swing Grius with such force that the front half of Hakh’s head shears away. There’s an explosion of red and he’s thrown several feet through the air, landing in a broken, lifeless heap.

‘Lord Tylos,’ shouts Retributor Celadon. He’s standing just a few feet behind me over a pile of broken bodies and I realise he’s been guarding my back while I dealt with Hakh. The red knights fight with a deranged fury as they’re driven back but Celadon pounds through them with fluid, easy blows.

‘We must reach the skull now!’ I cry, struggling to be heard over the din of tormented spirits, hymns and war cries.

The steady, unremitting blows of my men are smashing Hakh’s army apart. We’re still outnumbered but the storm summoned by Boreas has wiped out half of Hakh’s army, and his sacrifice has turned the survivors into a desperate rabble. In a few more moments we’ll have broken them and be on our way to the Crucible of Blood.

I rally my men and drive them in a surge to the far side of the hand. From there it’s just a few hundred yards through the drifting ruins and we’ll be at the lip of the crater.

At my command, they redouble their attack with a blinding wave of hammer-blows. We force the dazed knights back to the edge of the hand, where many stagger and fall onto the black rocks, dying beneath the shadows of the floating city.

Daylight is moments away, but moments are all I need. I shoulder my way through the lines until I reach the heart of the fighting.

Some of the knights recognise me as the man who killed their lord. They growl and charge, but Celadon is still with me. The first of them crumples beneath a blow from Grius, the second reels away headless, devoured by Evora, and the third is driven into the ground by the force of Celadon’s hammer.

Without pausing, I vault over the tumbling bodies and smash my way through the enemy ranks, making my way towards the centre of the Nomad City and the crater at its core.

The Liberators explode into action behind me, summoning up a final, furious push. The red knights collapse before us and we reach the lip of the crater with a victorious roar.

I raise Grius aloft and I look at our prize.

The Crucible of Blood grins back at me — the hideous creation of a brutal god. It soars overhead — thousands of tons of brass, cast by hellish sorcery in a realm of daemons. The top is open to the sky, and with dawn only minutes away, the lake of blood it contains is already starting to bubble and steam. Deep within its cloying depths, an obscenity is forming, preparing to spew madness across the steppe. The sight of it hits me like a physical blow — such a vast act of violence wrought against the landscape makes my breath catch. The bowl of charred rock that surrounds the skull still seems to be smouldering in memory of that ancient wound. Steam or smoke is rippling over the blast hole, but I stride on, feeling the seconds slipping away.

It’s only as I enter the crater that I realise that it is not steam that’s rippling across the ground — the rock itself is rolling and heaving.

‘What is this?’ asks Celadon, stamping on the shifting ground.

I shake my head and wave him on. There’s no time left to think, we just have to act.

We’ve only taken a few steps when Celadon’s question is answered.

As the rock cracks and opens, fleshless, gleaming bones begin hauling themselves from the ground. This is the vision I saw when Boreas healed my eye — this was the nightmarish scene that Sigmar poured into my mind. I pause and mutter an oath as a leering, sword-wielding skeleton climbs into view.

Returning to the Kharvall Steppe is even worse than I remember. The air is so hot and sulphurous that I’m wracked by a violent coughing fit. When I wipe the spittle from my face there are a few withered molars lying in my palm and I curse Sigmar for dragging me up here. I warned Boreas against playing war games and now look what’s happened. My stomach lurches again, but I manage to steady it with a quick draft of my philtre. My head is full of metallic buzzing, and energy is fizzing over my skin.

Giraldus is riding as close to my Coven Throne as he can. A tempest of souls separates us, but I can still see his outrage at what has been done to his former kingdom.

Behind us, our fleshless host is clawing itself up into the moonlight. I ignore Giraldus and study the army we have created. Despite my misgivings, I can’t help swelling with pride as my morghast heaves its huge frame from the blackened stone as I form the crowds of skeletons into orderly ranks. We’re in a fume-filled crater that must be a mile wide but we’ve filled it with revenants and cadavers from every realm. Such a horde could lay waste to anything the gods have to offer. Death is the great leveller, after all.