Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Thriss had earned his warpstone payment twice over. Felk turned to say as much to the agent, only to find the assassin had already fled back down the crack.

Alone and exposed on the balcony, the Poxmaster quickly followed.

The crunch of the snow sounded impossibly loud. The creak of armour was an assault on Arkas’ senses. The blustering wind skirled and hooted in fantastical melodies, every gust carving swirls in the snow. He could hear breathing, fast and heaving, distorted by a helm. He had thought it was Dolmetis, but realised it was his own. He fixed his eyes ahead, seeing vague silhouettes through the blizzard that had descended moments after they had started up the ridgeline. Even vision made perfect by the artifice of Sigmar could not penetrate the white veil ahead.

With every stride he expected the ground to give way and he knew he should proceed with more caution, but his blood was still fired from the fight with the Chaos warriors. The spirit of Ursungorod, the magic-infused air, drove him on as much as memories of the oath he had sworn.

The wind surged for a moment, clearing away the fog, and then stillness enveloped the ridge. He heard Dolmetis take in a sharp breath as the darker shadows materialised into the shapes of men, women and beasts. Like Arkas, the Knight-Vexillor already had his sword in hand, but the Lord-Celestant caught a glimpse of the blade as Dolmetis drew it up in readiness.

‘Calm yourself,’ Arkas said quietly. ‘These foes are beyond our wrath.’

As they neared the figures Arkas could see what he had already suspected — each was clad in a faceted sheath of translucent ice. Like blue-tinted glass it covered them, a layer of frozen water no thicker than his finger. There were fighters in the garb of the Ursungoran tribes, most with expressions forever locked in fear or pain, eyes wide and glittering with crystals, the spittle on their tongues like air bubbles. Amongst them were men and women showing various signs of Chaos mutation — extra limbs, lizard-scaled skin, cat-like eyes, a profusion of horns, tusks and fangs.

There were snow tigers and cave bears too, and larger beasts also warped by Chaos — manticores, hippogryphs, hydras and others, towering twice as tall as the Stormcast Eternals, some even larger still. A squid-like bekevic had been drawn from its watery home, or forced out by some mortal hand. A few of the monsters still carried riders clad in armour of Chaotic origin, made of bone or whorled with strange devices, or etched with runes that continued to shift and writhe even within the ice bonds.

‘What bizarre display have we discovered?’ whispered Dolmetis. The muttering of the Decimators sounded dully from further back.

‘Touch nothing,’ Arkas reminded them, stepping around a frozen hound skulking close to the ground, its legs buried in the snow, ears back as it whimpered at something unseen ahead. ‘These are the trophies of the Queen of the Peak. Disturb them and we risk joining their ranks.’

He stopped when he realised Dolmetis was no longer at his shoulder. Arkas turned in time to see the Knight-Vexillor approaching a statue-like woman, her hands upraised as if to protect her face, locks flowing from beneath a tall helm like a frozen waterfall.

‘What enchantment slew them?’ asked Dolmetis, slowly circling the female warrior. ‘Why did she kill them?’

Arkas stepped up next to the standard bearer as he completed his circuit and stopped in front of the woman, bent slightly to peer into her face.

‘Why do you assume they are dead?’ asked Arkas. He could imagine Dolmetis’ look of surprise inside his helm as he twisted sharply to look at his lord.

‘They live? Inside this frost-born casing?’

‘So legend speaks,’ replied Arkas. ‘For a time, at least, until the Queen of the Peak grows weary of their company, or forgives them, or otherwise releases them from torment.’

‘There have been survivors?’

Arkas shook his head.

‘You misunderstand me, Dolmetis.’ He pointed to the woman’s chest. The ice was darker, denser in the slight hollow her breasts formed in the mail shirt. ‘She spares them further suffering by lancing an icicle through their hearts. The bodies remain.’

‘I do not think it is wise to risk this venture.’ Dolmetis straightened and looked back along the ridge towards the Icemere, though it was far from view. ‘Let us lead the army to the rendezvous and begin the attack on the skaven. We have no need of this hag’s aid.’

‘I think we do,’ said Arkas, stepping away a few paces. He indicated something further ahead, gesturing for Dolmetis to look.

The Knight-Vexillor adjusted his position to see what Arkas intended. Two dozen paces ahead, just within the retreating bank of fog, stood the unmistakable shape of a skaven. Three, in fact, huddled close together, hunched over, their rags stiff in a breeze that no longer blew, their serrated daggers held in frozen hands and prehensile tails.

Arkas set forth with long strides, Dolmetis following after the briefest hesitation. On closer inspection they found that the skaven were clad in brown and black, the garb of thieves and silent killers, their ratty faces wrapped with dark bandages. Something greenish-black shimmered on the edges of their weapons.

‘Weeping blades,’ said Dolmetis. ‘Assassins. They meant harm to the Queen of the Peak.’

‘There is another skaven, over there,’ said Arkas. He pointed at a frozen vermin figure cowled in thick robes, a staff in its hands. ‘They tried to send an emissary and when that failed they dispatched would-be killers. When that also failed, they had the approaches barred by their tame tribesmen. I think that none have approached in many years, decades or perhaps centuries even.’

‘The Queen of the Peak is probably mad with loneliness too? Any other good news, Lord-Celestant?’

Arkas grinned inside his helm and pointed with his hammer. A much larger shadow rose from the ridge, curving away to the left. It looked like a bridge composed of a single arc, though its far end was lost in the mists. Something moved above, coming closer.

‘We draw close to our goal,’ said Arkas. ‘And here comes Hastor to accompany us on the last stretch.’

The Lord-Celestant spoke truthfully and the flying shape quickly resolved into the Knight-Venator, gliding down towards the ridge with vortices of snow trailing from his shimmering wings. He landed a short distance away and met Arkas halfway.

‘You seem unsettled, Hastor,’ said Arkas, feeling a wash of agitation from the commander of his Angelos Conclave. ‘I hope you did not pass the gate as I commanded.’

‘In truth, my lord, only a direct command to step over the threshold would have forced me beneath that arch,’ confessed the Knight-Venator. He turned his attention to Dolmetis. ‘I trust all went well on the lake.’

‘Righteous bloodshed is its own reward,’ replied the Knight-Vexillor. ‘I find myself on more uncertain ground at the moment.’

‘The way ahead is free of foes?’ said Arkas, cutting across Hastor’s next words. ‘None approached the tower?’

‘None dared try.’ Hastor indicated the sharp slopes to either side of the ridge. ‘A few attempted to negotiate the snows below, but the storm took them.’

‘We shall push on.’

The going was quicker from then on. The mists parted before them, revealing more and more of the frozen statues as the ridge widened to a plateau from which rose the bridge Arkas had seen. Like before, the Queen of the Peak’s victims were a mix of human, Chaos-tainted, skaven and beast. The ice covering betrayed the greater age of many of them, frosted, chipped and cracked in places, though the screaming, terrified faces within showed no sign of decay.