Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘Something troubles you?’ Throl asked, noting the change that had stolen upon his companion.

‘Lead me to the Hopyard,’ the Celestant-Prime said. ‘I might know better then what it is that troubles me.’

With the crystalline hills behind them, the Celestant-Prime found that Throl needn’t have worried about the accuracy of his memory. The loamy earth, grey with its gritty, spore-like vegetation, rippled around great black mesas of volcanic rock that loomed hundreds of feet into a greasy sky of shining purple and gibbous silver.

As the Celestant-Prime circled a towering plateau of basalt and onyx, the sense of familiarity became overwhelming. He stared at the side of the mesa, trying to recall the memory. Almost without conscious volition, he strode towards the rocky base. Here the basalt was scorched and burned; there the onyx was disfigured and splintered. He looked down at his feet and saw something lying half-hidden beneath the crumbled rock and grubby spores. Brushing the debris away, he exposed a helm of blackened steel, its mask cast in the semblance of a grinning skull. The helm was cracked, a great gouge snaking from crown to chin.

A battle had been fought here, fierce and terrible. Gazing up at the mesa he could envision tattooed marauders howling as they poured semi-molten boulders down from the heights. He could smell the foul reek of daemonic things as they slithered down the cliffs. He could hear the booming challenge of an armoured warlord in blackened mail and, again, the clamour of conflict.

No. The sounds of battle weren’t in his mind. He could hear the crash of steel, the cries of warriors. Amidst the foul shrieks of beasts the Celestant-Prime could hear the shouts of men, voices raised in a cry that sent fire pouring through his veins.

‘For Sigmar!’ The war cry was repeated, ringing out above the din of battle. Leaving Throl behind, the Celestant-Prime hastened towards the sounds, running around the base of the plateau and on to all the eerie rock hoodoos that peppered the valley beyond.

Among the bizarre stone formations raged a bloody fray. Hundreds of gors armed with crude stone axes and clubs of bone charged up from burrows gouged into the valley floor. The beastmen swarmed around a tight knot of figures with locked shields, foes clad in golden armour who struck at the creatures with sword and hammer.

The Celestant-Prime recognized the cast of their armour and the emblem adorning their pauldrons. These were warriors of the Thriceblessed. For all his despair and bitterness, Throl had been wrong. At least these men had escaped the Maze of Reflection.

‘For Sigmar!’ the Celestant-Prime roared as he charged into the battle. The first blow from his warhammer sent lightning crackling across the body of a gor he struck, flinging the creature into one of the stone hoodoos and splitting the rock with the ferocity of its impact. More of the monsters turned to confront this sudden attack on their flank. A second strike from the hammer sent a dozen of the beastmen tumbling into the dirt, their bones shattered by the hammer’s might.

The Thriceblessed, ringed on every side by the gors, now broke out from behind their shieldwall and flung themselves full into the enemy. The confusion wrought by the Celestant-Prime’s sudden assault against their flank was now redoubled as the Stormcasts took to the offensive. Horned brutes broke before crushing blows from sigmarite hammers while others bleated and squirmed upon the blades of swords. Yard by yard, the warriors pushed the beastmen back, strewing the ground with inhuman bodies.

The Celestant-Prime fought with the cold determination of righteousness, smashing enemies at every step as he forced his way towards the Thriceblessed. A blow from his hammer splattered a bull-headed chieftain’s body across the rocks. Another strike and a pack of gors was reduced to a pile of carrion. Carnage was the hero’s herald, horrible and magnificent. Each yard he pressed into the valley was littered with the mangled carcasses of his foes.

The combined valour of the Celestant-Prime and the resurgent Stormcasts finally broke the savagery of the gors. Whining like whipped curs, the creatures gave up the fight, fleeing back down into their burrows. The Thriceblessed pursued the routed monsters, slaughtering many of them before they could withdraw into the subterranean darkness.

Only when the last of the beasts was gone did the Thriceblessed turn to regard the warrior whose aid had delivered them. They numbered less than a score, their armour scarred and stained with the filth of many ordeals. Liberators with their warhammers and swords, a pair of Judicators with their skybolt bows and a single Retributor with his immense lightning hammer clenched in both hands. The Celestant-Prime could feel the uncertainty as the men approached him.

‘Is he real or another trick of the Prismatic King?’ one of the Stormcasts asked his comrades, armoured fingers drumming menacingly against the blade of his sword.

Another warrior shook his head. ‘No, Othmar, he is real enough. Can’t you see he carries the Cometstrike Sceptre? Can you not see Sigmar’s hammer!’

‘Are you certain, Deucius?’ Othmar wondered aloud. ‘That could be a trick too.’

The Celestant-Prime held the warhammer towards them, pointing the runeweapon at each man in turn. ‘I could doubt you as well,’ he said. ‘Each of you bears the emblem of the Thriceblessed, yet they have been accounted lost. I have been told the chamber was caught within the Prismatic King’s Maze of Reflection. How then is it that you eluded the trap that claimed your brothers?’

Deucius shook his head and pointed at the weapon the Celestant-Prime bore. ‘I cannot doubt the God-King’s hammer. Only Ghal Maraz could wreak such carnage upon the foe. Only Sigmar’s hammer could make me feel such awe. No thing of Chaos, mortal or daemon, could bear the weapon you carry. Only one favoured by Sigmar could do so and only one mighty in his service could evoke the hammer’s power.’ Deucius bowed to his knees and removed his helm. He stared up at the hero. ‘No thing of the enemy can withstand the touch of the godhammer. Let it touch me and you will know I am truly Stormcast.’

Casting his gaze across the other warriors, the Celestant-Prime raised Deucius to his feet. ‘It is by faith that men prove themselves,’ he said. ‘It is through trust that men are made brothers.’

Othmar let his fingers be still. Slowly he too bowed. ‘Forgive our doubt, but we have come to question all that our senses tell us.’ He glanced at their surroundings, at the strange sky and eerie hoodoos. ‘In this place, nothing is what it seems to be. It comes hard to trust anything.’

‘It is in doubt that the seed of defeat is sown,’ Deucius said. ‘A Stormcast Eternal can have no room for doubt. His mind must hold room only for duty and honour. There is no place for doubt in the righteous.’ The warriors nodded, reflecting upon the catechism Deucius quoted.

The Celestant-Prime approached Othmar, laying his hand on the warrior’s shoulder. ‘Hardship can sap even the most stalwart faith. There is no shame in such caution.’ He looked across the other Stormcasts. ‘For myself, to find brothers in this desolation brings me too much joy to question it. Triumph and glory ring hollow without comrades to share it.’

‘We found no triumph and little glory when we challenged the Maze of Reflection,’ Deucius declared, lowering his face in contrition. ‘Devyndus Thriceblessed led us into the very heart of the enemy. But we were unequal to the test. We failed our Lord-Celestant and we failed great Sigmar.’

‘Even in failure there is room for redemption,’ the Celestant-Prime said. The words came to his tongue with a sense of humility, a feeling that they came not from himself but from something greater. A conviction that they were meant not only for the Thriceblessed but also for himself.