Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘There were fifty warriors here,’ he said. ‘Blood-crazed reavers would have not the wit or self-control to capture every one of them. So why are there no mutilated remains?’

‘Perhaps they desired prisoners?’ asked Mykos.

‘Then why not just take a few, and kill the rest?’ said Thostos. ‘No, this has the stench of something darker about it.’

There was a silence. Each Celestial Vindicator was imagining in horrifying detail why a servant of Chaos might require a few dozen living prisoners.

‘We march,’ said Thostos at last. ‘These are no aelves — they will not pass without leaving a trace. We follow them, at pace, and when we find them we kill them.’

‘And if they make it back to their cursed fortress before we catch up with them?’ asked Mykos.

‘Then we attack. With full force, and no quarter,’ said Thostos, raising his voice so that every Stormcast in the clearing could hear him. ‘Let the might of our Warrior Chambers be unleashed. Let the enemy see what doom awaits them. No more waiting. We tear that place down, and we put every single one of its cursed defenders to the sword.’

Both the Argellonites and the Bladestorm had brought the greater number of their Warrior Chambers into the Roaring Plains, some five hundred warriors in total. A fighting force strong enough to tear down all but the most redoubtable bastions of the enemy. The Stormcasts roared, and songs of vengeance and of the glory of Sigmar shook the walls of the Dragonmaw Canyons. Lord-Celestant Mykos Argellon nodded.

‘For once we agree, Lord Thostos,’ he said. ‘No waiting to discover what fell purpose the enemy intends to use those captured warriors for. We fall upon them in full force.’

The Manticore Dreadhold was a cancer nested in the midst of the mountains, a brutal, imposing wedge of iron that comprised three grand towers and a semi-circular perimeter wall. As the Stormcasts broke out through the canyon and into the valley that housed the fortress, each of them felt the oily, nauseous touch of fell magic. The grand statue of the hated Everchosen, Archaon, loomed over them, cut into the heart of the mountain itself, casting a great shadow across the valley floor. Thostos felt the pitiless eyes of the monument bore into his own.

Build your self-aggrandising statues, Chaos filth, he thought. Watch as we hunt them down and shatter them beneath the lightning storm of Sigmar.

‘They are at the gate,’ shouted Goldfeather, high in the sky above the Vindicators’ position, accompanied by his Prosecutor retinue. ‘They have the prisoners!’

‘Then we are not yet too late,’ said Mykos. His grandblade Mercutia was already in hand, and Thostos could feel the man’s eagerness for battle. It very nearly rivalled his own.

‘We promised them hope, brother,’ Mykos continued, ‘and we let them all be taken. We failed them. I cannot accept that. I will not.’

‘We will rescue those we can,’ said Thostos. ‘But remember our mission, Lord Argellon. You know the consequences if we fail to secure that realmgate.’

‘Prisoners, Lord Varash,’ boasted the leader of the Bloodreavers, a balding, anvil-jawed creature with putrid, yellowed teeth. ‘Meat for the fire!’

Varash backhanded the wretch as he passed, sending him flying into his fellows, unconscious and drooling blood.

‘There will be time enough to fill your bellies later,’ he bellowed. ‘These ones are for the ritual tables. Slaadh?’

The Slaughterpriest loped over, his perpetual, razor-toothed grin etched across his face.

‘You see a man here touch one of these slaves without my permission, you give him a meal. Feed him his own lungs, and make sure he’s still alive so he can savour the taste.’

Slaadh chortled. ‘Yes, Lord.’

They were interrupted by the sound of a deep, booming horn, which emanated from the central tower. Almost at once the atmosphere inside the fortress changed. Warriors who had been gleefully taunting the captured tribesmen drew their axes and blades at once, and rushed off to form into their kill-packs.

The Bloodreavers began to holler and howl, like dogs promised fresh meat. Memno, one of Varash’s chosen Blood Warriors, hurtled from the tower, pulling on his horned, grilled helm as he ran.

‘Lord,’ he said, and his eyes were shining with joy. ‘Warriors in turquoise armour. Not orruks, but larger than men.’

Varash cursed. ‘Sigmar’s whelps,’ he spat. ‘Very well, let them come. To the walls.’

By now the inner courtyard was swollen with blood-mad killers, twitching and growling as the voice of the Lord of Skulls filled their heads with promises of torn flesh and spilt blood. The bloodlust was so thick about the fortress that Varash could almost see it as a tangible cloud over their heads. His ruined eye ached, and he delighted in the pain. It promised much.

He ascended the stairs of the central tower, pushing past the dull creatures that Xos’Phet used as his servants. He despised the things. They stank of the sorcerer’s weakling magic. One blocked his way at the iron door leading out onto the tower, so he grasped its head and snapped its neck with a satisfying crunch, then hurled the broken thing down the stairs.

Out on the battlements, Xos’Phet was putting the finishing touches to his twisted masterpiece. Three orruk shamans had been crucified at the far end of the tower. Over the course of several weeks they had been mutilated and otherwise prepared according to the profane texts.

‘They live, still?’ said Varash, as one of the things gave a low groan.

‘Oh yes, most resilient creatures,’ said Xos’Phet. ‘And powerful, of course. Their latent magic is degenerate and savage, but it will serve my purpose. There.’

The sorcerer finished cutting into the orruk’s flesh, and stood back to admire his work, wiping a bloody knife on the hem of his robe. The creature’s tough, green hide was now covered in runes and symbols that meant nothing to Varash, but still set his teeth on edge. The work was fine, as legible and neatly inscribed as any book. Xos’Phet was nothing if not a perfectionist.

‘The enemy comes,’ said Varash. ‘Are you done, witchkin?’

The sorcerer gave him a sickly, yellow-toothed smile.

‘Indeed, Lord Varash,’ he said. ‘Let us begin.’

Varash felt a surge of excitement. This was it, his chance to end the threat of the orruk tribes and to earn the favour of the Everchosen. He had seen Archaon’s fury when the Dreadhold had been overrun, when the great statue erected in his honour had been defaced with the image of the greenskins’ idiot gods. When the burning hooves of the Blood God’s eternal servants burned the grasslands of the Roaring Plains to cinders, then the name of Varash Sunken-Eye would be spoken of in awe in the halls of the Varanspire itself, the dread fortress of Archaon. Perhaps such a feat would even earn him his rightful place in the Varanguard.

He stood at the wall of the tower, overlooking the inner courtyard. From here he could see the hateful glow of the Manticore Realmgate, the ravenous essence that dwelt within its shifting, roiling depths already sensing the promise of spilled blood. Soon the sorcerer’s ritual would draw the full power of the ancient structure forth, and he would have his grand army. Let the weakling minions of Sigmar be the first to fall before him.

As the Stormcasts rushed towards the fortress wall, the first of the missiles began to fall. The crude projectiles of the human defenders, javelins and thrown axes hurled from the battlements, did little against the fine armour and shields of the Celestial Vindicators. Yet as they drew closer, the Dreadhold’s true defences roared into life.

The leering daemonic skulls carved into its surface began to smoulder, eyes burning with baleful light. This light grew in intensity until it burst forth from the carvings in a shower of white flame. Arcing jets of molten fire spat into the midst of the Stormcasts, searing and melting sigmarite, enveloping warriors in shrouds of flame. Celestial Vindicators went down, screaming in agony as the daemonfire devoured bones and turned their flesh to cinders.