Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Atrin blocked out the words, taking advantage of the momentary calm to focus and think. His enemy was toying with him, and that gave him time.

Thostos spun inside his opponent’s reach, ringing strike after strike off the orruk’s armour. Sparks and shards of metal flew as he pummelled his enemy. Drekka threw an elbow that snapped the Lord-Celestant’s head back, and Thostos responded with a headbutt that cracked into the orruk’s face, crunching bone and further flattening its porcine nose.

‘Good one!’ roared Drekka, as if he was applauding a fine joke.

This one’s skull was as thick as the walls of Sigmar’s palace.

They exchanged yet more blows, weapons cutting back and forth so blindingly fast that they seemed like little more than blurred extensions of each warrior’s limbs. Thostos rolled awkwardly in his heavy plate, and Drekka’s great cleaver soared past him, taking the head from an unfortunate orruk spectator. The dead creature’s fellow threw a punch at the Lord-Celestant, who swayed back to avoid the blow, and brought his foot up into his assailant’s groin. The orruk doubled over, and Thostos planted a foot in its face and kicked him back into the path of Drekka.

The great cleaver burst through the dazed orruk’s chest, lifting it into the air. Drekka whipped the dying brute back and forth in an attempt to dislodge it, brow furrowed in irritation. Blood and ruptured organs spilled out, splashing into the mud at his feet.

‘Get out of my way, ya useless gits,’ he bellowed.

Alzheer regretted leaving the Sky Warrior behind, but he would insist that they stay together, and she preferred to hunt alone. In any case, it was hardly as if he was more vulnerable in her absence. Even with a shattered arm and likely a broken leg, the man still held his blade strong. Such strength and fortitude was incredible. She wished that her father were alive to meet these warriors. She would have liked him to pass knowing that Zi’Mar had come for his people.

All you have is the tribe.

She had lived her life by those words in honour of her father. She had taken the old oaths and joined the ranks of mighty Zi’Mar’s priests. Time and again she had brought home food when her people were in danger of going hungry for another night. She had learned to master the bow and the sword, and had used both to protect her home. She had kept her faith, even as her people diminished, because she knew that if only they stayed strong together, the sky god would not abandon them and leave them to fade into nothing.

Yet something within her had died when Rusik the betrayer had led her warriors to the slaughter. He was here, somewhere, and she would not rest until he was dead.

She slipped into the shadows, an arrow strung and ready on her bow. Movement ahead made her stop. Two of the bandaged horrors rushed out of a nearby chamber towards the sounds of battle in the distance. Atrin had clearly introduced himself.

These were not her quarry, but she could not leave her friend to face every wretch in these tunnels alone. Her first arrow took the trailing figure in the back as it scuttled down the corridor in front of her. Its companion turned with a hiss of alarm, and she stepped out of cover to put an arrow through its throat. It fell with a gurgle, smashing into a smouldering brazier as it dropped.

Stringing another arrow, Alzheer made her way forwards.

Somewhere close, the Stormcast had encountered the sorcerer Xos’Phet. Alzheer could hear bizarre, unearthly laughter and the sound of Atrin bellowing and cursing at an unseen enemy. Unnatural sounds that could only be the wizened monster’s hateful magic echoed throughout the halls. She cursed. It seemed the sorcerer had recovered fully from the knife she had left in his gut. Leaving Atrin to battle weakling minions alone was one thing, but she could not abandon him in the face of such a dangerous foe.

Alzheer sprinted down the corridor ahead, turning left at the next junction towards the commotion. In her desire to come to the aid of her ally, she abandoned caution for haste.

Even so, the sheer speed of the blow took her by surprise. One moment she was running, the next she was sailing through the air to strike the far wall with staggering force. She slid down to hit the floor, moaning in agony.

Rough, cold hands dragged her upright. Alzheer looked into the face of the betrayer Rusik.

Or something that wore his face. The man’s angular features were there still, the hooded eyes and the high, sharp cheekbones. Yet they registered unsettlingly, as if the bone beneath had been shifted and warped. The skin was torn and raw, and the eyes were the grey-pink colour of spoiled meat.

‘Look what you have made of yourself, traitor,’ she spat, choking the words out through the iron-hard grip that held her. ‘To gain revenge on the orruks that slaughtered your family, you let this madman tear apart everything that you were. Look what your betrayal has wrought. You disgust me, monster.’

When he spoke, his words hissed forth like the gasps of a man with his throat cut.

‘I have been forged for what must come. I am the spirit of vengeance, priestess. I will slaughter the greenskins one by one, but first you die.’

He began to squeeze her neck. The pressure of his grip was incredible. She felt blood swell in her eyes, and the inexorable press began to crush her windpipe. Desperately, she fumbled with one hand at her back, and grabbed an arrow from her quiver. She rammed the arrowhead into Rusik’s chest, but his skin was like that of an arralox, so thick and leathery that the arrowhead could not penetrate. He laughed at her.

‘You think your crude weapons can harm me? No, priestess, I can no longer be—’

Alzheer switched her grip on the makeshift weapon, and plunged the tip straight into his eye.

He roared in surprise and pain, and lost his grip for just a moment. Alzheer dropped to the floor, hacking and coughing, trying to force some air down her throat. Rusik staggered behind her, crashing into the wall of the corridor. She had laced each arrow with enough of the porsuka’s poison to bring down a herd-beast, but still he stood. She just hoped she had bought herself enough time. Grabbing her fallen bow, she staggered down the corridor away from the traitor and towards the sounds of battle in the distance.

Whatever spell the sorcerer had woven, it rendered him invisible to Atrin. Even his keen eyes, regarded as the sharpest amongst his Judicator retinue, could not find him. The laughter seemed to echo around the room at random, so it likewise could not be used to locate his enemy.

In such situations, one must be decisive.

Atrin shouldered his boltstorm crossbow, ignoring the agony in his arm as he raised it to his shoulder and loosed. The lightning-wreathed projectile scorched through the air and struck one of the glass cases on the far side of the room. Foul-smelling liquid poured across the floor, along with broken glass and what appeared to be a number of eight-fingered hands. Nothing else. He shattered a second jar. Nothing. A third and a fourth, which spewed out tentacled limbs that writhed and slapped at the stone floor.

A bolt of blue flame struck him in the side, searing a gaping hole through his armour, and he staggered to the floor.

‘Stop!’ screamed Xos’Phet. ‘Enough! Do you know the value of my work? The hours, the years I have spent gathering these samples?’

Atrin spun, and destroyed another jar. This one contained a flayed torso with only a circular maw like that of a lamprey upon its short, squat neck. Hands that ended in razor-sharp claws dragged the thing across the floor, and it let loose a horrifying wail. Of greater note was the fact that when the fluid from this jar flowed, it diverted from its natural path just a fraction of a second.