Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Deucius reached down and lifted Throl from the rocks. As soon as his feet were clear of the burning ground, Throl closed his eyes and began to murmur to himself, strange incantations whispering across his lips. The Celestant-Prime could see tendrils of aethyric energy being drawn into the wizard’s body, dancing and writhing about him in ropy coils of light. At the same time, he could see luminous patches blaze into life all across the fields.

‘Where the light shines the ground is firm,’ Throl spat the words in a hurried gasp, then quickly resumed his incantation.

The Celestant-Prime raised the godhammer overhead, fixing the attention of every Stormcast upon him. ‘Follow the light. Make for the shining ground and keep to its path.’

Balancing haste against caution, the Thriceblessed picked their way across the fields of Uthyr. Stretches of blackened earth separated the patches of safe ground revealed by Throl’s magic. Here the rock splintered and crumbled beneath the warriors, threatening them with immolation as jets of hot gas spewed up from the ground or pits of magma were exposed. Despite the promise of an excruciating death, the men pressed on, moving from one expanse of stable ground to the next.

At last the tunnel of volcanic glass came within reach. Othmar was the first to gain the eerie passage, climbing into the blackened corridor, feeling the heat of the glass billowing around him. Deucius was among the last. As the Stormcasts neared the entrance, he caught hold of Throl and flung the wizard into the arms of the Stormcast who had already entered the corridor. Then Deucius lunged at the undulating mouth of the passage, his hands sliding on the smooth glass as he fought to gain a grip on the edge of the opening. Before he could drop away, his comrades reached down and caught hold of him, dragging him back from the edge of oblivion.

The Celestant-Prime braced himself as he saw the tunnel dipping along the surface of the fiery pits. Holding back to aid any of the Stormcasts, the champion found himself the last remaining on the scorched field. The ground around him was splintering and cracking, sloughing away in a widening crater. Tongues of volcanic fury blasted upwards, searing the air with their fiery rage. What had been a patch of illuminated ground lost its enchantment, fading to the same charred hue as the rest of the fields. The meaning was clear: this ground was no longer safe and so Throl’s magic no longer shone upon it.

Feeling the earth beneath him trembling, the Celestant-Prime knew he couldn’t wait for the tunnel to rise back to a more advantageous position. Mustering all the strength in his mighty frame, the hero dived for the sinking passage, mighty wings propelling him into the yawning mouth as it skirted the surface of the flaming sea. The Celestant-Prime’s body hurtled through the narrow gap between tunnel and sea, fire licking about him as the thermal current smashed his body against the glassy roof of the corridor. Shards of glass from the fractured roof clattered around him as he fell to the scorching floor below. Almost at once, Deucius was beside him, helping the Celestant-Prime back to his feet.

‘As you said, my lord,’ Deucius stated. ‘We have come too far to falter now.’

‘With farther yet to go,’ the Celestant-Prime observed. Before them, the tunnel stretched away, writhing and whipping about in mad gyrations. The floor was broken, split into great slab-like sections with menacing gaps between them that opened into the molten sea beneath. What magic kept the fire from bubbling up through the openings, he didn’t know, but whatever its nature he was grateful for it. Gaps in the roof overhead let a patina of ash rain down from the smoky sky above.

‘The land itself fights us,’ Othmar cursed, wiping his gauntlet across the face of his helm to clear the scum of soot that was already gathering there.

‘The Prismatic King guesses your purpose,’ Throl said. ‘He unleashes the elements to defy you. He seeks to break your spirit and cast you down in defeat.’

The Celestant-Prime tightened his hold upon the godhammer, feeling the power pulsing within the weapon. ‘What better proof that the enemy fears us than these sorcerer’s tricks? He thinks he can break us with his magic, believes he can overwhelm us with his spells. He can’t understand our strength or imagine the fastness of our faith. He denies the power of Sigmar and the conviction of those who serve the God-King!’

The Stormcasts echoed the passion of their Celestant-Prime in a mighty shout, howling the name of Sigmar down the grim tunnel, defying the elements raging all about them. Boldly they followed the champion’s lead as he charged down the passage and hurled himself across the first gap in the floor. With a sea of fire blazing up at them, the warriors leapt across the gap, slamming down onto the undulating surface of the slab beyond.

As soon as the Stormcasts had crossed one gap they were running towards the next. They didn’t hesitate as the slab began to pitch, making their footing treacherous. They ignored the threat of disaster, the promise of burning death that awaited them below. For them there was only the objective ahead. Where the Celestant-Prime led, they would follow.

Throl matched the tremendous pace set by the mighty Stormcasts, the wizard’s lean body crackling with the magics he wove around himself to meet the demands of Sigmar’s chosen. Despite the taxing effort, he maintained the pace, confronting each hazard with the same fortitude as the warriors of Azyr. Only when they had leapt across the eighth gap in the floor did Throl hesitate. Throwing his arms wide, the wizard gave voice to a jubilant cry.

‘The ninth breach!’ he shouted. ‘Behold, the Eyrie manifests itself beyond the ninth breach!’

The roof of the tunnel and the smoky sky of Uthyr made it impossible to judge the disposition of the sun. Twilight, it seemed, had stolen upon the land without warning. As the wizard cried out to them, the Stormcasts stared at the far end of the tunnel. There they saw a deepening and thickening of the darkness that hovered above the fires of Uthyr. With each heartbeat, the blackness became a bit more solid, losing more of its nebulous appearance. Before their eyes, the Prismatic King’s palace was drawing shape and substance to itself.

The Eyrie of Illusion was built not from brick and stone, but seemed woven from shadows and echoes. It was a great pinnacle of darkness that drew all light into itself, making it stand stark and abominable against Uthyr’s fiery sea. Polished panels of darkling glass glimmered amidst the tower’s nebulous walls, pulsating with weird reflections and uncanny echoes. Twisted spires contorted away from the main bulk of the fortress, thrusting out in every direction like the thorns of some fecund growth. They would fade and distort even as the eye tried to fix them upon the map of memory, in one instant extending outwards a hundred feet and more, while in the next dissipating down to a mere nub protruding from the black walls.

The Celestant-Prime looked upon the Eyrie and felt his flesh crawl. It wasn’t fear that unsettled him, it was revulsion, the innate repugnance experienced by any mortal creature when faced with the infernal manifestations of powers profane and damned. It was a blight against the very concepts of reason and order — madness endowed with the most tenuous suggestions of shape and form, the most fleeting mockery of existence and substance. Only the most depraved and degenerate of Tzeentch’s minions could suffer such a blasphemy to be his abode, and only the bravest, most steadfast of men would dare to confront such a fiend within his obscene lair.

‘Thriceblessed!’ the Celestant-Prime cried out to the Stormcasts, raising the godhammer high, so that all his comrades might see the holy weapon and be bolstered by the relic’s sacred presence. ‘The enemy is before us. He thinks himself safe within his castle of nightmares. Now let us show him that from the Stormcasts, no pawn of Chaos can ever count himself safe.’