Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘Hold them here, brothers,’ he ordered. ‘The Lord-Celestant will return, and we will drive the orruk before us.’

Eldroc had little faith that would be the case now. The Celestial Vindicators had cut down countless scores of the enemy, but now their own losses were taking their toll. They were losing cohesion, and that would spell their end.

He made his way out into the blazing sun of the inner courtyard, his Paladin retinue close behind, and emerged into a scene of chaos. The orruks had cleared the wall, and now the lines of battle had broken down entirely. Across the clearing the gleaming turquoise of the Celestial Vindicators clashed with the yellow iron of the orruks, and more of the creatures were leaping from the rampart stairs even as Eldroc and his men barrelled into the fray.

The Lord-Castellant took in the carnage in an instant, searching for the spot where he was most needed. On the left-hand side of the courtyard, a dwindling group of Liberators was battling a mob of five orruks that towered over their fellows. They were broader, more strongly muscled, and though their armour eschewed ornamentation, it was thicker and more garishly painted. Each figure bore a red hand-print across its ugly face and carried an array of crude yet savagely effective weaponry.

‘With me, Vindicators,’ Eldroc shouted, and headed in the direction of these painted warriors. Howling orruk faces bore down on him as he ran, but the Retributors of his personal retinue cleared the way ahead with brutal efficiency, their hammers sweeping out to send the enemy flying, limbs broken, skulls shattered.

The last of the Liberators fell, the orruk elites falling upon him with cleavers and axes, hacking and tearing at him until his head came free. The helm rolled across the floor, leaking blood, before it evaporated in a flash of light.

‘For vengeance!’ roared Eldroc, and crashed into the nearest of the warriors. The orruk reacted with astonishing speed, crossing its axes to intercept the Lord-Castellant’s falling halberd. Eldroc sent the weapon into a spin, and turned with it, sending the haft out in a horizontal strike that hit the creature in the face. Its ugly nose burst, and the orruk went into a frenzy, launching itself into the fray with both its weapons. There was little skill or thought to its wild swings, but they were effective nonetheless.

The Lord-Castellant gave ground, deflecting desperately with his halberd, but poor fortune saw him crash against another orruk behind him. He stumbled, just a step. The face-painted orruk’s axe crashed into his right pauldron, and the force of the impact sent him down on one knee. The brute at his back sensed a chance to spill blood and lunged forwards with its spiked mace. Eldroc ducked one shoulder, and the creature missed its swing and stumbled past, crashing into the face-painted orruk. The bigger creature hammered this new inconvenience to the ground, but the brief scuffle gave Eldroc a few precious seconds, and he did not waste them. He set his halberd, and rammed the tip of the weapon through the painted orruk’s throat. The creature’s brow furrowed, and it glanced down with almost comic confusion as its lifeblood drained away. Eldroc twisted the weapon, and sent the greenskin tumbling to the ground.

Two more orruks bounded forwards in the dying brute’s wake. He hacked one down, scything deep into its thigh and sending it sprawling to the floor. The other was close behind — too close for Eldroc to possibly get his halberd up in time to block the axe it held raised and ready to swing.

An arrow whipped past the Lord-Castellant’s head, and sank into the beast’s eye. The orruk howled, one hand reaching to pluck the shaft loose, and Eldroc sank his halberd’s blade deep into its skull. As the orruk fell, he glanced across in the direction the arrow had come from. A few yards behind him, Alzheer knelt on the rampart stairway, calmly loosing arrow after arrow into the chaos beneath her. She seemed a tiny, helpless figure indeed amongst the chaos of the battle, dwarfed by both the towering Stormcasts and the savage orruks.

The several dead orruks lying before her with white-feathered shafts protruding from eyes and throats put the lie to that.

‘Priestess,’ Eldroc said, making his way towards her. The arrival of his force had pushed back the orruks momentarily, though that would not last for long. Even now, more of the savages were dropping down amongst the defenders, and light flared across the wall as more Vindicators made the journey back to Azyrheim. Redbeak hopped down the steps and came to a halt by Alzheer’s side, head and feathers spattered with dark blood.

‘Lord Eldroc,’ she said, patting the gryph-hound affectionately on the flank. ‘Do we yet hold the gate?’

‘For a few minutes longer at least,’ he said. ‘I believe the Lord-Celestant said you should rest, my lady.’

She laughed. ‘It hardly matters now, does it? Our time has run out. The orruks will slaughter every living being in this fortress, sound asleep or not.’

Eldroc took in the battlefield. The orruks were everywhere. The section of wall directly over the gatehouse was the only spot that the Stormcasts still held, and even then just barely. With every passing second more warriors fell, and the closer the end came.

‘A fair point,’ he conceded. ‘Though you need not fall here. You could still make for the mountain tunnels. It is a chance at survival, at least.’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It ends here, one way or the other. I will die fighting by your side. It is what Zi’Mar would wish.’

‘It would be an honour on my part, priestess. Whatever happens here, the orruks in this region will be but a shadow of their former selves. Without their leader to keep them in line, they will fall to infighting and squabbling. Take comfort in that, for your people will find them far less of a danger in the coming days. At least for a time.’

‘I hope that is so,’ she said, and flashed him a tired smile. Then she furrowed her brow in confusion.

Eldroc heard it too, a thunder that reverberated through his bones, shaking his teeth and pounding in his skull. The orruks beneath the wall also noticed the growing noise. They turned, confused, to the source of the sound. It was coming from the pass. The curved walls of the canyon channelled and amplified the sound, until it seemed as though the ground itself would tear apart, ruptured in the advent of some catastrophic tectonic disaster.

‘What new calamity assails us?’ Eldroc muttered, as he and Alzheer raced up the steps to the rampart wall.

The answer emerged from the mouth of the pass like the surging tide of a flash-flood. A carpet of brown and tan flesh, a thousand, thousand powerful limbs and heavy bodies surging together in the unity of panic. They screamed and snorted as they ran, drowning out even the bellowed chants of the orruks. Above the oncoming apocalypse, Thostos saw spiralling, swooping figures with wings of silver flame, hurling streaks of lightning into the throng and dropping low to skim above the beasts’ terrified heads. They were herding the animals, Eldroc realised. The leader of the flying warriors dived in an audacious corkscrew, pulling up at the very tip of the spear of living flesh, and Eldroc saw a bright blue plume, radiant in the breaking sunlight.

‘Goldfeather,’ he said, and shook his head in disbelief.

The stampede hit the orruk flank like the fist of a vengeful god. Bodies were hurled high into the air, to tumble like ragdolls into the surge. Others were ground underneath the appalling weight or spitted on vicious horns and carried along with unstoppable momentum.

With nowhere else to turn, and their simple minds ruled by sheer terror, the mass of herd animals continued to plough into the obstacle before them, rolling through the massed infantry and cavalry with ease. In a moment, the fragile cohesion of the leaderless orruk horde collapsed. Great swathes turned to run. Not to flee, but to give chase to this new and unexpected aggressor. Orruks leapt onto the backs of passing herd-beasts, hooting and whooping with delighted stupidity as they were carried along. Others hacked and smashed at any animals they could see, only exacerbating the panicked violence of the stampede. All was chaos, and the sounds of screaming, roaring, bellowing and the relentless pounding of hooves rose to a deafening crescendo.