Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The orruk’s great, gnarled finger tapped the fanged skull it wore upon its left pauldron.

‘I’m honoured… to be in such esteemed company,’ said Mykos. The creature boomed with laughter again, then rushed forwards, seemingly unworried by the vicious wound it had been dealt.

Too many. Kyvos had slaughtered a dozen or more of the creatures, crushing their heavy iron chestplates under devastating blows of his thunderaxe, dashing skulls to pieces or slicing through legs to leave their owners drowning in the stinking quagmire at his feet. On they came, an endless, howling swarm of them, and the more they slew, the more eager they seemed. These warriors fought on foot, either fresh troops or riders who had been dismounted and had been lucky or thick-skulled enough to survive the fall.

‘Is this all you have, you mindless wretches?’ roared Axilon at his side, kicking another dead orruk from his blade and letting it tumble down the mound of dead they had created. ‘I thought your kind lived for war? I’ve barely broken a sweat.’

His words brought a tired cheer from the remaining Vindicators, but despite his bluster it was clear to Kyvos that the Knight-Heraldor was tiring. Gone was the deft, cultured bladework for which he was known throughout the halls of Azyrheim. His broadsword looked heavy in his hands, and he was favouring his right leg.

And on the orruks came.

Axilon rested a hand on Kyvos’ pauldron, and the Retributor-Prime heard him gasp a ragged breath.

‘My time draws near, son,’ said the Knight-Heraldor. ‘When I fall, you lead them on. You kill as many as you can, you hear?’

‘Aye, sire,’ Kyvos said. ‘Though I’d say we’ve accounted for our fair share already.’

‘Not enough. Not nearly enough.’ Axilon shook his head.

‘Then let’s draw them in,’ said Kyvos. He looked up at the canyon wall. Axilon’s previous efforts had brought down a huge chunk of stone and gouged a great hole, but now that they had been forced back several dozen feet they were underneath another overhanging ledge. ‘As many as we can. See if we can’t add a few more to the tally.’

Axilon nodded, and Kyvos could hear a wet, pained chuckle.

‘Leave it to me,’ said the Knight-Heraldor.

He stepped forwards, stabbing his broadsword into the dirt and raising his battle-horn. Kyvos formed the remaining Liberators in a defensive line around the Knight-Heraldor. Axilon drew in a breath.

‘All right, you gutless lot,’ he bellowed, and blew an ear-shattering note from the battle-horn. ‘Call yourself warriors, do you? I’ve seen cellar rats that fight better. You’re a disgrace to your cretinous gods, you weakling cowards. Not a one of you has the stones to take me down, and I’m fighting with half my organs carved in two!’

Whether the orruks understood a word of what the Knight-Heraldor was saying, Kyvos had no idea at all. Regardless, his booming voice and the clarion call of his battle-horn drew them like moths to a flame. There were hundreds of them now, mounted on their war-beasts or charging towards the Stormcasts on foot. They were an island in the middle of a surging sea. Axes clattered against the Liberators’ shields, and the press of bodies began to crush the Vindicators back into the wall of the canyon. Kyvos headbutted an orruk that pressed its leering face into his, then drew his gladius to stab it in the gut.

‘Knight-Heraldor, do it now!’ he shouted, and felt an axe slam into his shoulder. Suddenly he was on his knees, and all he could see was a forest of yellow iron. Something struck him in the face, and he spat blood. ‘Now!’

He glanced up, trying to see through the mass of bodies. The Knight-Heraldor still stood, ignoring the barbed spears that pierced his chest. He raised the battle-horn to his lips as the swarm of bodies reached up to haul him down into the fray. The last thing that Kyvos heard was the sound of thunder and falling stone.

Mykos Argellon’s world was a storm of sigmarite and iron. He had never fought a battle such as this, so furious that it was governed by sheer instinct and reaction, rather than skill at arms. This Drekka was so fast, so blindingly fast. No sooner had the Lord-Celestant picked off one attack, than he was forced to adjust to another, and another. He was being driven back, and in the bloody mire in which they battled that was dangerous indeed. One wrong step, one moment too long in pulling his boot free from the grasping mud, and the orruk would have him.

His beloved Argellonites were dying around him. Against the numbers that now came down upon them, there was no chance at all. From the corner of his eyes he could see his warriors fall, surrounded and hacked to pieces. Flashes of light signalled another lost friend, another sent back to the forge to be recast and remade. He would join them soon.

It happened as he stepped backwards over a body left half sodden and bleeding in the murk. Something grabbed his foot. He looked down, and saw that the orruk beneath him was not dead. Its porcine eyes glared up at him maliciously. It snarled as it drew a short, broad knife and attempted to drive the blade deep into the Lord-Celestant’s leg. Mykos stamped his foot down upon its neck and ground it deeper into the mud, then brought his grandblade up to intercept the inevitable attack from the pursuing Drekka.

He was too slow, by a fraction of a second. The orruk chieftain’s axe skipped from the edge of Mercutia, and Mykos did not have the strength left to deflect the blow. It tore through the sigmarite armour at his elbow, and sheared the limb free. Pain blurred the Lord-Celestant’s vision, and he fell to his haunches.

Drekka Breakbones loomed over him, and he heard the creature’s cruel laughter echoing in his ears, as if from a great distance.

‘That it?’ the orruk asked, and Mykos looked up to see a gap-toothed grin cross its ugly, scarred face.

He heard the sound of thunder roll across the battlefield again. He saw the confusion on Drekka’s face, and glanced to the left. Another rent had been torn in the canyon wall, even greater than the last. He saw rocks the size of carthorses scything and spinning through the orruk ranks, crushing scores of the creatures to death. One last gift from Axilon, then. He would see his friend back in Azyr. Would they recognise each other, he wondered? All they had been through together since Sigmar had opened the realmgates and hurled them out into the world — would they recall any of it? All those moments of heroism, of sacrifice. Would they be lost? Mykos Argellon did not want to die. He did not want to come back like Thostos, cold and distant even to those he had once called brothers.

The orruk chieftain raised the axe high. As the pouring rain hit the dull iron, blood ran down the blade to drip aross Mykos’ war-mask.

This was not the end. He feared what would become of him, but he did not regret his choice to give his life for a moment. This was the truth of the Stormcast Eternals. They would make this sacrifice, over and over again, so that one day no mortal would have to. For some reason he thought of the priestess Alzheer, and hoped she yet lived. She was the bright future, the hope that he gave his life for.

He closed his eyes.

Goldfeather saw the towering orruk bring the axe down. He saw it strike his Lord-Celestant in the side of the neck, and he saw a brief, bright flare of lightning as Mykos Argellon’s body toppled to the floor. Then the cloud of dust from the shattered rock on the left-hand side of the canyon rushed across the battlefield, and he could see nothing at all.

They had killed the Lord-Celestant. The chamber was shattered. The Prosecutor-Prime could not see a single speck of turquoise amongst the sea of green and yellow below. It was over.