Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The bridge itself was of duardin construction, perfectly fitted and mortared stones creating a span ten paces wide with a low parapet at each edge. Though the skills of the old duardin mason and engineers had been magnificent, it was the enchantment of the Queen of the Peak that had protected the bridge from the decline that had ruined the rest of Ursungorod’s ancient cityscape — the snow did not settle here, but a thin veneer of ice covered every intricately carved block and thread of mortar.

Arkas did not ascend immediately, but led his Stormcast companions beneath the bridge, to the crumbling edge of the plateau. The mountain dropped down into a sheer chasm, the forests below just a dark smear against white, the glittering ribbon of a frozen river even further away. The fog continued to roll back, revealing the gorge. It was over five hundred paces wide, the far side a jagged face of black rock and pale ice.

‘It was not like this when last I came here,’ said Arkas, turning his gaze to the left, towards the bridge. ‘This chasm was but a javelin’s cast across, the duardin bridge crossing over the ruins of the outer castle.’

‘What use is a fortress that has a bridge over its wall?’ asked Dolmetis. ‘An enemy could march in and besiege the keep with ease.’

‘The bridge was not built in time of war,’ replied Arkas. ‘It linked the duardin lands to those of my forefathers, when Sigmar first drove the taint from Ursungorod and peace prevailed for a time. The bridge was marked by powerful duardin runework. I think that it would collapse at their command if needed, taking any attackers to their deaths and sealing the castle.’

‘The remains of the outer wall and gates, such as they are, are down there,’ said Hastor, pointing into the abyss. ‘I descended earlier. The far side of the cliff is marked by old passages and halls, revealed in cross-section as if a blade had cut through them.’

‘What of the tower?’ Arkas’ question was answered not by the Knight-Venator but by a swirl of wind that revealed the furthest extent of the sky-bridge. The stocky design of the ruins unveiled by the retreating cloud was obviously of duardin making, but the central tower was taller and more elegant, topped by an onion-shaped dome that still sparkled with red and gold.

‘Remarkable…’ breathed Dolmetis.

‘Indeed it is,’ replied Hastor.

Arkas looked on in stunned wonder.

The bridge descended as it had always done, to a sturdy four-towered barbican in front of the Queen of the Peak’s abode. The tumbled remnants of the duardin fort lay about on broken cobbles and flagged courtyards. In turn, the tower and ruins stood upon a great hunk of frozen rock, held only by the bridge itself, the vastness of the chasm dropping away below the inverted cone of the foundations so that it seemed to hang in the air. Openings that were the remnants of duardin vaults and storerooms broke the outside of the edifice, squared caves and smooth-hewn ledges.

‘The duardin runes you spoke of, my lord,’ said Dolmetis. ‘You think they might still work?’

‘I think they were activated long ago but nullified by the power of the queen,’ replied Arkas. He looked at the Knight-Vexillor and shrugged. ‘Should she wish to deposit us into the gorge, she has only to release her icy grip. Bridge and castle would drop as surely as a stone from your fist.’

‘But she would plummet also,’ said Hastor, ‘without the bridge to hold her tower. There is little danger.’

‘Says the knight with the wings,’ Dolmetis said sourly.

‘Time is passing,’ Arkas said, turning back to the bridge. ‘I will return to the army before night falls if possible. I will proceed alone.’

The Knight-Vexillor and Knight-Venator accepted this order without comment and moved to join the Decimators that had formed a defensive ring around the approach to the bridge. Arkas started his ascent.

The climb was not steep but the slippery surface of the bridge forced him to proceed with a little more caution than normal — the duardin-height wall to each side did not even reach to his waist and would have been little barrier against a fall.

At the apex of the arc he stopped to survey the mountains that had once been his home. The peaks seemed so familiar — he could remember the names of them all — but it was more than geography that made Ursungorod, and the indefinable spirit that suffused the land had been changed. Near the roof of the world, far from the rivers and forests that were the foundation of the peaks, the traces of magic that rose this high were thinned, like the air. Away from the near-overwhelming rush of power he had felt on his first return, he could taste the change, the telltale foulness of Chaos pervading everything.

Could it have even entered into the mind of the Queen of the Peak? She had been an ally at best for Arka Bear-clad, never a friend — giving support only in return for something. The Chaos Gods had become all-powerful in the centuries of Sigmar’s enforced exile to the Celestial Realm and over the turn of the years the queen might have succumbed to their threats and temptations.

With more uncertain thoughts in mind, he started down the far side of the bridge, heading towards the half-ruined fortress that hung impossibly over the valley. The stones soon gave way to timeworn paving, which led a short distance to the shadow of the gatehouse looming over the road. The wall to either side had long since been toppled, by time and assault, even as it had been in Arkas’ life as a mortal.

Of the gate itself nothing remained either. Even so, there was a barrier, a shimmer of energy between the massive bastions that flanked the road, a haze that obscured the tower beyond. Moving off the path towards the ruins of the wall, Arkas could see a line of thick frost that encircled the keep as surely as any curtain wall. His keen eyes picked out the shine of bones and skulls trapped within the ice beyond the boundary circumscribed by the ancient stones.

‘Though you might not know me by sight, know me by heart,’ he announced, using the dead tongue of his homeland rather than the language of Azyr. The words seemed heavy and crude after so long conversing in the speech of the immortals. ‘I am Stormcast, a warrior of Sigmar, God-King from the world-that-was. Arkas I am called, though I am known to my lord and companions as the Warbeast. The Bear-clad I was before Sigmar took me, Arka the Uniter, the Bear of Hard Winters. By another name you knew me, and you alone, written with this rune by your hand.’

Laying down his weapons, Arkas knelt before the portal.

‘“Saviour”, you told me it meant when last I was here. The Fang of Freedom you called me. I am here to deliver on my promise, though it has been long in the reckoning.’

Silence followed, even the wind stilled while the Queen of the Peak considered his pledge. Arkas gripped his hammer and sword, stood up and waited. Nothing happened.

A test, he thought, looking at the shimmering curtain just a pace away. Beyond that he could see the wide, low steps leading up to the arched doors of the tower itself. One step, one stride would take him into the domain of the Queen.

An act of courage? No. His courage had never been doubted, by any that knew him.

An act of trust.

He stepped into the veil.

The sky was blue above, the air sharp, cold and invigorating. The sun was low in the sky, a winter sun devoid of warmth but reassuring all the same. Frost crackled under Arkas’ tread, his boots leaving clear imprints in the thin layer that covered the flagstones leading to the tower.

Exactly as it had been hundreds of years earlier when the Bear-clad had made his last journey along this road.