Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘Stormbrothers! With me!’ the Celestant-Prime shouted to his fellow warriors, charging through the fissure he’d opened. Ahead all he could see was a grey dinginess, like a cloud of dust. The foggy greyness clung to him as he rushed into the breech. Then he was through, past the walls of the fortress and inside the palace proper.

What he saw was a deranged confusion of angles and distorted perspectives, stairways of marble that folded in upon themselves or merged with alabaster ceilings or flowed both into and out of topaz floors. Corners were at once convex and concave, defying the senses with the insanity of their violations. Crystal fountains bubbled from the roof, the chromatic liquid flowing from them arcing about in gravity-defying spectacles that mocked every effort to define them.

The Celestant-Prime forced himself to confine his focus to only that which was immediately before him. Something inside him warned that if he tried to contemplate the infernal manipulations of the palace’s confines then the barrage against his senses would break his mind. Only by restraining his awareness could he defy the discordant architecture of the Eyrie and the transforming sorceries of the Prismatic King.

‘By the thunder of Azyr!’ Deucius gasped as the warrior joined the Celestant-Prime within the mad hall. As each of the Thriceblessed pressed through the breech in the wall, he felt a similar sensation of wonder and revulsion.

‘Do not marvel at the Prismatic King’s illusions,’ the Celestant-Prime cautioned them. ‘Focus upon what is near and tangible. Fix your mind upon what you feel and not what you see.’

‘Listen to the wisdom of Ghal Maraz!’ Throl echoed the hero. ‘If you allow your attention to wander, if you lose your focus, then your mind will abandon itself to the Prismatic King’s coils!’ The lean wizard looked towards the Celestant-Prime. ‘My magic can protect against the worst of his illusions but I worry that any spells I cast here may be corrupted by the sorcerer. To my cost I have learned how much greater his power is than mine.’

‘We will protect you, enchanter,’ the Celestant-Prime promised.

‘Whatever we do, let it be done swiftly!’ Deucius cried out. He pointed towards the crazed array of stairways and corridors that opened into the maddening hall. Every passage was swarming with enemies, mortal warriors in grisly armour of bone and chain rushing alongside gibbering daemons and horned beastmen. The Eyrie’s garrison was answering the intrusion of the Stormcasts into their master’s domain. Lost to the Prismatic King’s insanity already, the monstrous horde was accustomed to navigating the chaotic discord of his halls.

Throl closed his eyes, clapping his hands together as he drew upon his own magic. Eldritch energies flashed from his fingers, snaking around his body before stretching outwards.

‘Pursue the light,’ the wizard hissed through clenched teeth. ‘The Prismatic King seeks to usurp my spell. I know not how long I can fend off his sorcery.’

The Celestant-Prime led the Thriceblessed in pursuit of Throl’s guiding light. They rushed past gaping doorways that opened into nothingness, hurtled down stairways that descended into the ceiling and dashed around corners that bled back into themselves, racing against the malignity of the sorcerous tower. At every turn, bands of Chaos warriors and packs of shrieking daemons assailed them, seeking to drag them down with blades of steel and talons of iron.

Before them, the hall opened into a great gallery, the walls fashioned from bizarre panels of stained glass, each pane emitting a kaleidoscope of light. Strange scenes unfolded along the translucent walls, frozen images of obscene sorceries and magical atrocities, portraits of maniacs and monsters, each more wicked and obscene that the last.

Billowing up from the centre of the gallery, spreading like a skeletal tree, was a wide stair fashioned from shimmering hoarfrost. Branches of the stair stretched into the glass walls, vanishing through the images locked upon the panes. Other limbs of the stair connected with the raised arcade that ringed the hall, widening into broad platforms of mist and ice. From these platforms and down the arctic branches charged a snarling horde of Chaos knights, their foul armour stained with cabalistic sigils and arcane emblems. The weapons each knight bore were things of fell sorcery and vile ritual — great axes of brass and silver that shrieked as though endowed with monstrous vitality of their own, hideous swords, their blades coruscating with eldritch flames, spears of iron and bone that pulsated with the discordant harmonies of unchained ether, and flails that writhed with the infernal essence of the daemons bound within their steel.

The Stormcasts met the charge of the Chaos knights, and Ghal Maraz tore a path through the armoured fiends. The Celestant-Prime loosed the sacred fury of the godhammer against the degenerate men, shattering their armoured bodies with each blow. By the score he reaped a butcher’s toll upon the vassals of the Prismatic King, strewing the gallery with their broken bodies. Yet for each knight he brought down, a dozen more appeared to take their place.

The Thriceblessed locked their shields, letting the charging knights break against them in a wave of rage. Swords stabbed out from between shields to gut the warriors who strove to batter their way past. Skybolts sizzled into the howling guards, piercing corrupt mail to gouge the abominable flesh within. Safe behind their defending brethren, the Judicators were able to measure each shot, loosing only when certain of a killing strike. From the shadow of the Stormcasts, Throl worked his magic, unleashing fingers of flame that licked across the oncoming knights and left their armour scorched and smoking.

The Prismatic King’s slaves, however, took their own toll upon the Stormcasts. First the lone Retributor was pulled down, his knee shattered by the impact of a spiked mace, his head crushed beneath the halberd of a horned warrior. Then the Liberator beside Othmar was felled by a spear through his gorget, blood spilling from the mask of his helm as he coughed out his life.

Lightning rumbled through the great gallery as one by one the Thriceblessed were killed by the enraged knights. As life ebbed from the body of each Stormcast, flesh and spirit evaporated in a blast of coruscating brilliance, hurled back through the vastness of space to return to the realm of Azyr and the golden halls of Sigmaron.

Death might not be the end for the Stormcasts, destined to be reforged anew, but the loss of so many comrades pained the Celestant-Prime. They were now only ten. Each fighter lost raised the odds against them all and made the task ahead of them that much greater.

Leaping upwards, powering into the gallery’s frosty air on his shimmering wings, the Celestant-Prime drove down upon the stairway. Raising the Cometstrike Sceptre, he unleashed the magic bound within the relic. The head of the sceptre blazed with dazzling energies, a spike of divine power streaking upwards, piercing the profane vaults of the Eyrie. An instant passed, and then the ribbon of holy energy was hurtling down once more, bearing a fiery sphere. A sweep of the sceptre and the Celestant-Prime unleashed the imprisoned comet. His target wasn’t the horde of Chaos knights spilling down into the hall — with a thunderous shriek the comet slammed into the stairway. Branches cracked and split, sending howling knights crashing to the floor below. The main trunk of the stair shivered, sagging to one side then another, guards clinging to the swaying balustrades as they lost their footing.

The Stormcasts were quick to exploit the opportunity the Celestant-Prime’s attack presented. Breaking their formation, the golden warriors rushed forwards, striking down the stunned knights writhing on the floor, attacking the Chaos warriors who continued to slip free from the swaying trunk. A blow of the godhammer and the stair came crashing down in an avalanche of frost and flailing bodies. The knights caught in the collapse screamed in agony as they were crushed.