Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Arkas could see the bold shapes carved into the wooden totems and recognised four of them immediately as interpretations of the Chaos Gods — Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh. The fifth caused him some surprise, a rendition of a horned figure crouched upon a spiralling tower of skulls and bones covered with swarming vermin. The Great Horned Rat.

Why was the fifth member of the despotic pantheon, the skaven god, being worshipped by an Ursungoran tribe?

Chaos worshippers boiled out of their tents and rough hovels, leaving Arkas no time to ponder this question. Though they could not have expected to face a Strike Chamber of Stormcasts, the Chaos followers were well prepared to attack at short notice, and judging by the trophies and human remains that adorned their altar-pyres and totems, they had gained considerable success doing so.

Horsemen erupted from the woods, bringing with them baying packs of hounds. Riders, steeds and mastiffs all showed signs of Chaos mutations — horns, scales, sting-tipped tails, fiery eyes and burning manes, along with myriad other deformities. Rather than attack directly, the riders and their hunting packs circled to the right, along the lake shore, using their speed to outflank the oncoming Stormcast Eternals.

Marauders in mail and leather armour formed quickly into war-groups ahead of Arkas’ charge, at least two hundred of them clustered beneath tattered banners and standards made of bone and sinew. Here again there was skaven influence, triskele symbols similar to those of the Pestilens among the runes of the Blood God, Lord of Decay, Changer of Ways and Pleasure Prince. Brandishing spears and axes, the Chaos thugs jeered and hollered abuse. They crashed their weapons on wooden shields daubed with thick blood, taunting the Stormcasts and defying their own fear.

Warriors in a mix of heavier plate, gilded fishscale and banded laminar jogged into position to the left, facing the onrushing column led by Doridun. Many sported crab-like claws, tentacles, tusks and immense fangs, some of them bursting from their armour in places with unnatural muscles and tumorous growths, several easily as big as the Stormcast warriors pounding towards the lake.

Holding out his hammer, Arkas redirected the charge, acting as a pivot for the entire formation. The Warbeasts responded immediately, wheeling left towards the most dangerous foes. Arkas and Doridun speared into the heavy infantry while Dolmetis and his retinue of Protectors and Decimators redirected their assault towards the marauders in the centre. They would trust to the Judicators behind to waylay the cavalry encircling the oncoming host. Overhead, the glitter of artificial wings showed the progress of the Prosecutors as they headed over the lake towards the ridge beyond, their arcane missiles scything down the shrieking harpies that had escaped the initial attack.

Running down the sloping shore, Arkas caught a glimpse of the larger beasts reported by the Prosecutors. They might have been men once, or perhaps bears, it was hard to say. They lumbered forwards on their hind legs, a handful of moaning, snarling creatures covered in dark fur, chained together at the neck by thick iron links. Like the warriors, they bore signs of gross mutation, their flesh in places thick with pale chitin plates and pustules, while metal rivets had been driven into their bodies to make a kind of studded armour. Whipping pseudo-limbs thrashed back and forth, each lined with vicious barbs.

For all that the Chaos tribe was organised and experienced, it had never faced attackers like the Warbeasts. Armoured in sigmarite, the Stormcast Eternals cared little for the damage the enemy weapons might deal. Arkas applied the same principle to his strategies, training and drilling his warriors to drive into the thick of the enemy army, to seek out as one the toughest foe, just as he had singled out the Gore Maiden when he had first arrived. They had but one concern — to bloodily rip the heart from the opposition, destroying their best warriors and most fearsome beasts first. The Judicators and Prosecutors were well equipped to finish off those that remained.

So it was that Arkas was the first to fall upon the enemy, hammer and sword at the ready. Halberd blades and jagged maces rose to meet him as he leapt.

‘Death to the unclean!’ he roared, smashing into the Chaos warriors’ ranks, his weapons trailing twin tails of gore like Sigmar’s comet, celestial energy exploding through the ranks of the foe at his impact.

He crushed one beneath his weight as he landed, rings of mail scattering when the Chaos follower’s ribcage exploded. Crouching, Arkas smashed his hammer through the legs of three more, greaves and armour no defence against the sweeping blow. As he straightened, his blade carved a diagonal furrow across a pair of full-plated foes who were still drawing back their enormous maces.

Two heartbeats more, three more foes sliced and crushed.

The Retributors crashed into the foes pressing around Arkas, their hammers unleashing a blazing storm of lightning that split open armoured plates and charred the warriors within. Starsoul maces cracked like thunder, their touch bursting apart the bodies of the Chaos-tainted. At the centre of this celestial tempest the Warbeast struck the head from a foe with his runeblade, his hammer slamming into the chest of another.

‘Spare none!’ he roared, though his followers needed no such instruction. Driven by a hate aeons in the making, finally given true release in battle, the Stormcasts of the Celestial Vindicators let free their vengeance in a bloody outpouring of rage.

A fighter as tall as Arkas loomed out of the blood-spray, a jagged sickle-like blade in each hand, slabs of thick steel painted black covering his flesh. He wore no helm, and a reptilian third eye protruding from his forehead fixed the Lord-Celestant with an inhuman gaze, the regular orbs a glossy, sightless white beneath. Lips wrinkled back, revealing teeth like glass shards in bloodless gums, and a bulging black tongue.

‘Spawn of corruption!’

Arkas’ runeblade crashed against the Chaos champion’s upraised arm, red sparks flying as Chaos sigils burned in the hexed metal. The shock of the impact sent a tremor up Arkas’ arm and he stepped back, flexing his numbed fingers around the hilt of his sword. The Chaos champion let out a gurgling laugh and hacked at the Lord-Celestant, both weapons aimed for his throat.

Arkas raised his hammer in time to catch one blade on its haft, the sickle’s edge skittering over his gauntleted hand and leaving a furrow through the sigmarite. The other passed over his rising runeblade and struck him just above the left eye, whipping his head back.

Snarling, Arkas swung his hammer at his opponent’s midriff, but the blow fell short and was turned aside by a timely parry. The Chaos champion’s defence left him open, however, and the Lord-Celestant’s boot crashed into the man-beast’s chest, driving him from his feet.

The Retributors needed no urging and fell upon the toppled champion with hammers and maces, pounding incessantly upon his armour until the heads of their weapons glowed white with power and the runes of his plate burned yellow. The champion rolled to all fours, trying to escape the deluge of blows, but a starsoul mace cracked against his skull with an electric detonation. Bone and blood flew and the champion slumped, his collapse only drawing an even more incensed assault from the raging Stormcasts.

Arkas slashed and hammered his way into the press around his companions, slaughtering the Chaos warriors who sought to fall upon his Retributors as they finished off the champion. He cared not who dealt the final blow — it was only pride that led champions to seek to best each other in single combat.

Bursting free from the tangled mass of corpses and wounded, Arkas had just enough time to see Dolmetis’ warriors carving apart the last of the marauders before the gigantic mutant beasts were upon him, snarling, ropes of stinking saliva flowing from their enormous maws.