Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

He looked up, and he saw her again.

A shiver ran down his spine, and his heart hammered in his chest. There she was, as beautiful and strong as the day they had met.

‘Zenia,’ he whispered, and the figure turned to him and smiled. Then she faded into nothingness.

‘No!’ he shouted, scrambling across the carnage of the battlefield towards the spot where she had stood. ‘No! Zenia, come back to me!’

With the encampment aflame, the enemy dropped their bows and drew their crude weapons, desperate to shed blood face to face. They charged into the burning camp, expecting, perhaps, to meet beleaguered mortal warriors in battle. Foes that could be hacked apart, torn down and excruciated, their remains carried off to the cooking pits for the night’s feast.

Instead, they met a wall of unyielding sigmarite, and the blades of the Celestial Vindicators.

Oh, it was good to match blades against the eternal foe once more, thought Mykos Argellon, smiling broadly as he sliced Mercutia diagonally through the torso of a shrieking berserker. The filth fell apart in two neat pieces, and the Lord-Celestant slammed the pommel of his grandblade into the face of another screaming warrior. The blood-starved wretch spat teeth, and staggered backwards. Mykos followed, crashing the pommel into the man’s face again and again. Finally his enemy toppled to the ground, his skull little more than a ruined crater.

This was what they had been created for. This was the honest freedom of battle against a hated foe.

Another volley from the Judicators rippled through the ranks of the blood-crazed enemy, and dozens came apart in a lightning burst of gore and scorched flesh.

She waited for him at the twins. This had been their place, once. They had sneaked away in the night, he from the warriors’ tents, she from her father, who had never approved. They had never had much time together. There was always the hunt, always the threat of a warband appearing on the horizon. They had lived their lives in snatched moments, even when the priestesses had blessed them and their son had been born. Even afterwards.

As he clambered onto the taller of the two rocks, he saw her. She turned to him and smiled.

‘Husband,’ she said. ‘Do you remember?’

The figure shifted, becoming an insubstantial cloud of mist. Within its limits Rusik could see the same images that had haunted him every single night since he had lost her. He saw the charging orruks, raising and swinging their jagged cleavers. He saw his son, brave little Achren, fall, trampled under their iron boots. He saw Zenia, her own sword wet with enemy blood, a song of vengeance upon her lips. Spears ran her through from all sides, and she arched her back and screamed in agony. She turned to him. Her dead eyes bored into his own, and Rusik felt her agony, her sense of betrayal. A pair of mighty hands closed around her neck, gauntleted in jagged yellow iron. There was a sickening snap. Zenia fell, and so did Rusik.

‘I tried to reach you,’ he sobbed, collapsing to his knees. ‘I did. I rode my steed until it collapsed, and then I dragged myself for miles across the plains. I was too late.’

‘Such bravery, husband,’ his dead wife snarled. She lay in a pool of blood, her head swivelling on a broken neck with a groan of creaking cartilage. ‘Tell your dead son how you tried so hard to reach him. Tell your fellow tribesmen, left bleeding and broken.’

‘Zenia, please,’ he begged, hot tears running down his cheeks.

‘You were weak,’ she snarled, beautiful face twisted with pain and hatred. ‘You let them die. Worse, you left them unavenged.’

‘I have killed so many of them,’ said Rusik, shaking his head.

‘You think cutting down a few scouts assuages your sins?’ Zenia spat. ‘You think our tortured souls can be soothed by such paltry offerings? No, husband. ’ She made the word a curse.

‘Only when the plains run red with orruk blood will we be calmed,’ she continued. ‘And your pitiful Sky God cannot give you the strength to do this. He has abandoned you, husband. You know it to be true.’

‘He sends warriors,’ said Rusik. ‘Giants in fine metal armour.’

Zenia was silent for a moment. ‘And these warriors have pledged their aid to you in destroying the orruks?’ she asked.

‘No,’ growled Rusik. ‘They refuse to aid us, and say they have their own mission here.’

‘Then they are no servants of Zi’Mar,’ said Zenia. ‘They are impostors, and they mean to use our people to achieve their own ends. They are not to be trusted. There is only one power in the realms that can offer you what you seek.’

‘Tell me,’ pleaded Rusik. ‘I will do anything to avenge you, my love.’

Zenia smiled a blood-red smile.

Eldroc strode through the wreckage of the camp, Redbeak at his side. The Lord-Castellant’s anger rose as he passed fallen mortals riddled with arrows and burned by the rising flames. The surviving tribespeople stared out from the ruins of their tents, faces blackened by smoke. He saw no fear or anger on their faces, just the weary resignation of a people worn down by constant war. He leaned down and gathered up the body of a fallen youth, pale hands clasped around the wicked arrow shaft that had pierced his belly.

The Lord-Castellant laid the corpse down in a row next to a score of other casualties. The boy’s dead eyes were wide with pain and shock. Eldroc brushed them closed, snapped off the arrow shaft, and crossed the dead youth’s hands over his chest in the same manner as his fellows. He caught Elder Diash’s eyes, and the old man nodded gratefully.

‘I am sorry for your losses,’ said the Lord-Castellant. He felt as if he should say something more, but words escaped him. He was not used to dealing with mortals.

‘We will commit their flesh and their souls to the Sky God,’ said Diash. ‘They will return to the earth, where they will remain with us, always.’

Eldroc bowed, intrigued by the strangeness of the nomads’ rituals. Stormcasts were deeply faithful, but that faith was rooted in the physical presence of a living, breathing god. These mortals had survived centuries without a glimpse of their deity, and even in the midst of terrible loss and hardship, they still believed. That impressed and terrified him in equal measure. Would he fight so hard in Sigmar’s absence, he wondered? He supposed he had, once. That was the hallmark of a Celestial Vindicator’s ascension, after all.

The Lord-Castellant was shaken from his musing by the sound of armoured boots. He turned and saw Mykos Argellon approach, wiping his grandblade clean of gore with a few strands of grass.

‘They have scattered,’ he said. ‘The scum didn’t put up much of a fight.’

‘I don’t believe they expected to find us here,’ replied Eldroc. ‘They meant to draw the tribespeople out. To capture as many of them as they could.’

‘For what reason?’ asked Mykos.

‘Who knows?’ replied Eldroc. ‘Perhaps they require slaves. Perhaps they require food.’

Mykos shook his head in disgust. ‘Cannibals. How does a man fall so far?’

‘I have long since ceased asking myself that question,’ Eldroc replied. ‘Where is Thostos?’

‘Somewhere out there,’ said Mykos. Eldroc could tell his friend was attempting to keep his tone neutral. ‘He took a score of warriors with him in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. He wants them all dead, so none can reveal our presence to the main host.’

‘Sound strategy,’ said Eldroc.

‘I suppose so,’ replied Mykos.

Eldroc sighed. ‘Speak, brother, I beg you. I have suffered enough brooding silences of late to last me several lifetimes.’

‘You wish me to talk directly?’ said Mykos, a hint of anger in his voice. ‘Very well. The Bladestorm is a danger to his men. He is no longer the hero that led your chamber to victory at the Eldritch Fortress. You must see it.’