Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘There is a certain beauty to it,’ said the Knight-Azyros, casting his gaze to the illuminations of the heavens.

‘Glamours of Chaos,’ said the Lord-Celestant. He snorted and shook his head. ‘The air itself is thick with the corruption of the Dark Powers. See how it rebels against the presence of Sigmar’s truthbringers and forces you to the ground.’

‘You think there is more to this storm than mountain climate, Lord Silverhand?’

‘I am certain of it. Since we crossed into Ursungorod I have felt its enmity. We are strangers in this land, bearers of Sigmar’s grace. We are not wanted here.’ Theuderis noticed Samat glance at him. ‘Do you not sense it also? There is a presence here, hiding in the shadows, spying on us, stalking us.’

‘The skaven, perhaps?’

‘No, though their stain is close at hand. One of their lairs is nearby, but it is not the skaven presence that I feel. It is Ursungorod itself, I am sure of it.’

‘A daemon, maybe?’

‘That may be it, Samat,’ said Theuderis. Tyrathrax shook her head, dislodging the snow gathering on her chamfron. ‘Yes, something nascent, like a daemon trying to break into the realm through Ursungorod.’

‘A curse on this storm that blinds us to the way ahead and shields our foes.’

Theuderis said nothing and they continued on in silence for some time. It was well past midnight when the snows faltered and the clouds started to break apart, revealing a purple-tinged sky. Shooting stars streaked yellow trails while two red crescent moons stared down from past the mountain peaks.

‘Shall we ascend?’ asked Samat, loosening his starblade with his free hand.

‘Not yet.’

Theuderis could see blocky shapes jutting from the slopes ahead. More duardin ruins. As the vanguard approached the broken remnants, they slowed their march, stopping to examine the collapsed towers and fallen walls. The Lord-Celestant urged his dracoth into a run, swiftly covering the ground along the trail forged through the snows by the conclaves ahead.

‘Keep moving!’ he bellowed as he came upon the first warriors of the vanguard. ‘We can afford no delays.’

‘My lord, look at this,’ called out one of the Liberator-Primes, pointing to a leaning column not far from the path. There were faces in the stone.

‘Just old duardin carvings,’ Theuderis snapped, but on riding closer the cause of his warriors’ curiosity became obvious. Though once the designs had been of stout bearded faces beneath crested helms, they had been subtly changed, looking now more like bears, cats and dogs.

In the flickering lighting of the celestial beacons it looked as though the faces were alive. Then a monstrously fanged wolfshead on an arch keystone not far away opened its mouth and Theuderis heard a howl. He started in shock as Tyrathrax lurched away, hissing and spitting.

‘Sigmar’s wrath!’ exclaimed the Lord-Celestant, clearly seeing the wolf curl back its lips with a snarl that echoed through the ruins. He could feel magic seeping up from the ground, the weathered masonry contorted under its influence. Theuderis drew his sword, its blade silver in the flow of magic. ‘Hold ground! Angelos aloft! Paladins secure!’

The Strike Chamber moved as a single entity, blue and white shining in the light of the Knights-Azyros’ lamps as they led the Prosecutors skywards. The Liberators and Judicators of the Redeemer Conclave fell in towards the ruins where Theuderis waited, while the Paladins — retinues of Decimators, Retributors and Protectors — formed a solid outer wall of hammers, glaives and axes.

The snarls, barks and growls of animals intensified as more and more of the ruins sprang into unnatural life. To Theuderis it seemed as though massive claws scraped on stone and he spun in the saddle, whipping his sword around. There was nothing but for the glaring faces in the tumbled stones. His dracoth paced left and right, unnerved, snow falling from her scales.

‘Hold steady!’ Theuderis called, the words helping to calm his mood as much as that of his fighters. ‘Scour the dark!’

With the celestial beacons shining their light from above, the Stormcast Eternals stood ready, eyeing every shadow, hole and broken doorway around them. Voltaran moved up beside his lord, bringing with him a regiment of Judicators armed with shockbolt bows. The fire of their projectiles made the darkness and light dance all the more crazily. Theuderis did his best to pierce the night with his inhuman gaze, but could see nothing except his own warriors.

He forced his breathing to slow and relaxed his grip on the hilt of his sword. Slowly the Ghurite energy seeped back down into the earth and the stones returned to their inert state, the grimacing faces of duardin ancestor heroes and lesser godlings returning where feral visages had leered before.

Even when all seemed to have returned to normal — whatever passed for normal in these Sigmar-cursed mountains — Theuderis did not stand down his force. He waited, reassuring Tyrathrax with pats on the shoulder, until Samat descended, his beacon lamp bathing the ruins with its comforting light.

‘No foes in the sky or on the land,’ reported the Knight-Azyros, hovering a few paces from his lord. ‘As for what passes below… Our eyes cannot see there.’

‘Very well,’ said Theuderis. He suppressed a sigh of relief, unwilling to betray to his companion how tense he had become. The Lord-Celestant stared at the ruins for a few moments more, daring them to change again. Nothing happened and he raised his voice. ‘Form column! Divine Fury formation. Advance with all haste.’

The ruins shuddered to the thunder of marching boots and the scrape of armour. Conclaves of Stormcast Eternals seamlessly filed and split, arranging themselves without delay or hesitation, the lines and ranks almost mesmerising in their efficiency. Watching the conjoining retinues settled Theuderis. His army in motion was a thing of pleasure to witness, a single beast of sigmarite and reforged flesh that answered to his command as quickly as his dracoth.

He waved them onwards, urging Tyrathrax forwards with a single word, glad to quit the ruins. When they were well clear, and heading back down into a cleft between two vertiginous peaks, he turned to look back. The first smudge of the coming dawn lit the sky and for an instant it seemed that two broken gateways formed eyes glaring at him.

‘Onwards,’ he told the dracoth and she moved into a smooth run, taking him towards the head of the column. ‘In the name of the God-King, we will strip the Chaos from these lands. We shall wash it clean with the blood of the corrupted.’

The vast chamber reverberated with the scurrying of thousands of clawed feet on bare rock, an incessant scratching that gnawed away at the soul even as the skaven gnawed at the underbelly of the mountains. The skittering of the slaves drowned out the click of picks and hammers, obliterated the crack of overseers’ whips and masked the tormented shrieks and squeaks.

A living tide of mangy furred bodies seethed across the cavern floor, ebbing and flowing down side tunnels, across rickety bridges that spanned bottomless chasms, along ladders and scaffolds built from the bodies and bones of their predecessors. Lash marks competed with buboes and sores on their suppurating hides, cankered limbs forced into agonising service while cataract-pale eyes gazed blindly in the green light of the warp-lamps. Boulders and baskets of smaller rocks passed across the slave carpet, hewn down from the walls by rusted tools and bare hands, to be passed out into the great spoil heaps that littered the surface of the Whiteworld Above.

The air was thick with turgid swirls of emerald smoke from hundreds of incense braziers, the fumes causing the slaves to constantly hack and cough while its warpstone essence fuelled near-dead limbs with unnatural stamina. The musk of the downtrodden mass was equally cloying and foul, as was the rank aroma of the splashing filth underfoot.