Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

A blade sank into his chest, and began a long, circular cut. He screamed and choked on the foul gag in his mouth. Deeper and deeper went the knife.

‘Hush, hush,’ said the voice. ‘Your moaning is really quite irritating, and most unnecessary. Think of this as a gift. When I am finished with you, you’ll be much improved. More powerful than even those toy soldiers who dared destroy my work at the Dreadhold. And no more guilt, Rusik. No more regrets, no more shame.’

The knife made a complete circuit, and Rusik felt something pull the torn flesh of his chest apart. He dared to look down. In one pale hand the sorcerer grasped a fleshy, pulsing organ.

‘Only pain,’ the man said with a broad smile.

Judicator Atrin held his boltstorm crossbow high, jammed tight to his shoulder and ready to fire the moment that the shadows shifted. It had not happened yet, but he was sure it would. This place had an ill feel to it.

Atrin had a second sense for trouble. It took a good eye to join the ranks of the Vindicators’ archers, but even amongst that hallowed number, Atrin was known to have the sharpest vision. The rest of the warriors called him Eagle-Eyes, much to his embarrassment. Titles and glory had never meant much to Atrin, and he always felt slightly awkward and uncomfortable when others lavished praise upon him.

This was what he lived for. The hunt. The chase. In another life he had been a forest ranger, and the skill of navigating a landscape without disturbing it had not been lost in the forges of Azyrheim.

‘Yet no sign of the enemy,’ came the deep bass of Retributor Callan. ‘How long shall we traipse through these wretched caves before we accept that this is a waste of our time?’

‘With due respect, Paladin,’ said Judicator Oreus. ‘The Lord-Celestant gave the order, and we obey.’

His brother’s tone was even, but Atrin knew Oreus well enough to recognise that the warrior was no happier than Callan about being sent off with the mortals while the rest of the Chamber prepared for war. He was simply far too reserved and professional to complain.

Callan, however, was not.

‘Who knows how long it will take for Tharros to unseal the realmgate,’ he muttered, loudly enough so that the rest of the mortals, and indeed anyone in the surrounding few miles, could hear his every word. ‘Imagine it. We return to find our brothers gone on to glory without us, while we wasted our time wandering around in the dark.’

Atrin could hear the irritated murmurs of the mortals who had accompanied the priestess Alzheer on this expedition. They might see the sky warriors as heralds of their sky god, but they had formed a distinctly negative impression of the belligerent Callan.

‘The Lord-Relictor believes it will take many hours to finish his work,’ said Oreus. ‘We were given strict instruction by the Lord-Celestant as to how long we continue this search. They will not leave us behind.’

‘So you hope,’ said Callan, and lapsed into sullen silence.

The Retributor barely even raised his head as they passed into a cavernous chamber so vast it could have housed the entirety of Sigmar’s grand throne room. They trod a path that wound around the right side of the cavern, and on their left was a sheer drop coloured an azure blue by phosphorescent light. Above, a forest of stalactites as large as dracoliths hung, so thick and jagged it seemed to the party like they stared up at the teeth of a shark.

‘Throne of Sigmar,’ muttered Atrin.

‘Look,’ said Alzheer, ignoring the sight before them and kneeling down to study the rough-hewn path of stone. ‘Fresh kills.’

Several yards down the path lay two corpses, both mutilated by deep wounds. There was a spatter of gore on the ground, as well as an arc splashed across the cavern wall. The priestess turned one of the bodies over, examining it. She traced the edge of the wounds, and winced slightly as the stench of the dead things hit her. They looked humanoid, but their too-thin figures were hidden under leather smocks and bloody, rotting bandages. The eyes and mouths of both bodies were stitched closed. They reeked like month-old corpses.

‘This may not be the work of your man,’ Callan said. ‘More than a few Chaos scum fled into these mountains after we broke their back. This could be down to any number of them.’

Alzheer shook her head.

‘These wounds,’ she said, indicating the long, wide slashes in the creatures’ flesh. ‘These are from an eskar, a curved blade. See the wide, deep cuts? Cleaner work than the jagged axes and cleavers of the fortress men. No, this is Rusik.’

‘And what in Azyr are these things?’ said Callan, indicating the corpses.

She frowned. ‘The sorcerer in the tower used them as… servants. Butchers. They answered only to his command. I thought that we slew them all.’

‘Evidently not,’ said Callan. ‘Perhaps we’ll find ourselves a fight down here after all.’

‘We should move,’ said Alzheer. ‘The blood is still flowing. These kills are fresh. He is close.’

The daemon was only an inch from Tharros’ face, but he could not release his magic, for that would not only spell the end of the Celestial Vindicators’ hopes of carrying out Sigmar’s word, but would in all likelihood force open the already-substantial breach and allow yet more of these filthy creatures through. He managed to raise his relic staff to block the swing of the creature’s blade, but its strength was hideous. Its leering, coal-black eyes stared deep into the apertures of his skull helm, and he felt its sulphurous breath sear and scorch his armour.

There was a sharp rush of air, and suddenly the beast had no head at all. A gaping neck wound pumped boiling black ichor across his face, until a gauntleted hand grasped the dead thing and flung it away to crash in the dirt.

‘Are you injured, Lord-Relictor?’ came the soft, alarmed voice of Mykos Argellon.

Tharros did not risk speaking, but managed to shake his head as he continued to chant the ritual of cleansing.

Around him, he saw, the battle continued to rage. The Celestial Vindicators had recovered from the shock of the initial incursion, but these were no blood-mad savages that they faced. These were the shock troops of the Blood God himself, creatures forged and hardened by countless millennia of warfare.

Throne of Azyrheim, he was tired. His old bones rattled like dice in a cup as he staggered to his feet.

Another red-skinned nightmare capered forwards, and Lord-Celestant Bladestorm met it with a flurry of strikes from warhammer and blade. The thing toppled to the floor, bursting into flames as it was banished to the hellish realm that it called home.

‘Close this breach, Lord-Relictor,’ shouted Thostos, who was already assigning a formation of shield-bearing Liberators to surround Tharros. ‘And do it now.’

Tharros declined to launch into a lengthy explanation of exactly how complex the magic at play was, and how one did not simply decide when it was done. Thostos Bladestorm was a warrior, a being of action. Let him be about his work. The Lord-Relictor felt the song of the storm surround him, let its power course through every fibre of his being. He heard the rabid howls of delight that echoed from the mouth of the Manticore Realmgate, and beneath that frenzied madness he heard a softer whisper, that same cold and ancient promise that haunted his dreams and his nightmares. The promise that one day, the scales would be balanced, and his eternal soul would be reclaimed. Perhaps that would be this day.

So be it.

‘Something nears,’ said Alzheer. She was sharp, that one, thought Atrin. She did not let much show, but she took things in. You didn’t live as close to the earth as her people without being able to tell when danger drew close.