Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Kyrus was a dutiful warrior, but his mood was akin to a tempest and ever turbulent. He had raged at the death of his former leader, Anactos Skyhelm, swearing vengeance. Now Prime until Skyhelm returned, Kyrus was determined to be worthy of the honour.

‘Take your warriors and fly beyond that ridge,’ said Vandus. ‘I want to know what lies ahead, beyond this foetid pall.’

Nodding curtly, Kyrus took flight, celestial corposant dissipating in his wake. Vandus watched as a retinue of gilded Prosecutors soared alongside their leader, resplendent on the wing, before he ordered the column to march on.

Where the others went on foot, Vandus rode the back of Calanax. The dracoth snarled at the stench of the air as if it were a foe that could be cowed by its wrath. Vandus quickly soothed the beast by patting the back of its scaled neck.

‘Easy, my friend. This land has us all disquieted.’

Calanax growled in acquiescence but kept a mindful eye, as did they all. Arching his serpentine neck, the dracoth watched the rapidly disappearing Prosecutors and gave a muted cry as the heralds were lost from sight.

As the Hammerhands trudged towards the Volatus Ridge, a bile-hued fog rose up around them. It stank of sulphur, but gathered too fast and moved too insidiously to be natural. Nothing in this land was natural — all had been warped by ruin.

The pall thickened, and for the Stormcasts it became impossible to see much farther than their outstretched gauntlets. Vandus wasted no time in slowing the advance, wary as they delved deeper and grew blinder with every step.

‘Sagus.’ Vandus summoned the Retributor, whose armoured paladins had been guarding the rear flanks of the column. ‘Your warriors are to take the core as we take the Sigmarund formation. Dacanthos,’ he called. ‘Liberators to encircle. Malactus’s Judicators will form the inner ring, behind a wall of shields. Both of you, be wary.’

The two warriors made the sigil of the hammer across their breasts and went to their duty. Heraldor Laudus Skythunder sounded the orders, and the formation of the column changed rapidly and efficiently into a walking circle of sigmarite.

Vandus took position behind the Liberators’ shieldwall, ahead of the Judicators with their skybolt bows and at the foremost part of the circle that faced towards the ridge.

‘Onward,’ he called, and the clank of god-forged steel resounded.

By now, the yellow cloud had completely engulfed them and the Stormcasts could not even see their feet or the heads of their weapons. Something was coming, Vandus could feel it.

‘Hammerhands,’ his voice rang out like a pealing bell, almost enough to cleanse the spiritual fog that he knew burdened the hearts of his men. ‘Hold true, hold together, and we shall triumph.’

A trumpet clarioned, and Calanax echoed it with a shrilling cry of its own, but even the usually strident notes of the Hammerhand heraldor were robbed of clarity by the miasma.

‘My lord…’ muttered a Stormcast, Baered, shoulder to shoulder with his brothers in the shieldwall and advancing slowly. ‘Do you see that?’

Vandus saw it well enough, and nodded grimly. Apparitions had begun to coalesce in the fog. At first they were indistinct, mere wisps of cloud that struggled to hold their corporeality, but they quickly changed, anthropomorphising into souls long dead and cruelly brought back.

Every man beheld a different form: a wife, a daughter, a son. The only thing the apparitions had in common were that they were dead, nothing more than revenants whose only purpose was to torment.

And they were not silent.

Centuries ago, Vandus had been Vendell Blackfist, a blacksmith chief and tribesman. He had lost everything to Chaos, his entire people. Every one of them returned to haunt him now, their bile-yellow figures made manifest in the fog. Though he knew them all, these were not the men and women of his former life but spirits formed from bitter memory who meant to harm.

Help us…

Kill us…

Betray us…

Vandus quickly shut his mind to them, and urged his warriors to do the same.

‘Have the courage to banish these unquiet devils.’

The shieldwall clenched closer, as if withered by the onslaught of the spirit host.

How Vandus wished Ionus Cryptborn were with them now.

A spectral hand reached for him… his dead wife, with the ghostly figures of his sons cowering at her feet. The mask held his emotions firm, but he wept behind the cold metal.

‘Begone…’ he rasped, voice trembling, but found his resolve. As he lashed out at the spirit forms, their aspect changed.

Talons grew in place of fingers, and the eyes of the once beloved became hollows in hundreds of fleshless skulls. As one, the spectral figures shrieked their final death cry and the shieldwall buckled as men fell to their knees or chased after illusory versions of their loved ones.

‘Hold firm!’ Vandus roared, reaching down from the back of Calanax to seize Baered by his gorget and haul him into formation. ‘Dacanthos,’ he cried, hoping his Prime could help restore order, but it was already too late.

The stench of blood rose in Vandus’s throat. The Bloodbound were here, warriors of the Goretide.

A guttural war cry ululated through the murk, echoing wildly so Vandus could not tell where it originated from. He barely parried the blow aimed at his neck, before Heldensen’s haft came to his rescue. The grunting brute, a bloodreaver, snarled at him and tried to carve through the hammer with his axe. Vandus kicked him hard to the ground. Then Calanax lurched forward and took off the bloodreaver’s head as he was still sprawled on his back.

Another ran in from the right and this time Vandus caught sight of the warrior and turned, crashing Heldensen down into the bloodreaver’s shoulder. Bone shattered as the hammer drove on into the warrior’s chest, spraying Vandus’s armour with gore.

More attacks flew in, not just against the Lord-Celestant but against all the Liberators in the broken shieldwall. It began sporadically at first, isolated clashes of blades, but grew in intensity.

Soon, a surge of brawny warriors in bloodstained metal and furs charge into the gilded throng of beleaguered Stormcasts. Some made it through the gaps in the Liberators’ line and began to cut down the Judicators. A few of Malactus’s men panicked, unleashing their skybolt bows heedlessly. Their Prime bellowed for them to cease as fellow Stormcasts were struck in error.

‘Dacanthos, reforge the shieldwall and protect Malactus’s retinue,’ said Vandus, as the Liberator-Prime appeared through the fog.

His armour rent and battered already, Dacanthos nodded wearily and ran back into the fight, hurling orders like they were spears to unite his warriors again.

Hundreds of skirmishes unfolded at once as Vandus fought in a sea of indistinct figures. Bellowing until he was hoarse, he managed to corral a small host together. They locked shields, an island of gold amidst an ocean of bloody red.

Vandus rode on into the miasma with Calanax, the beast clawing as his rider swung left and right with his hammer.

Hauling himself in with the reins, he drew close to the dracoth’s neck. ‘We must break up this assault, old friend, and give our comrades time to reorganise,’ Vandus told him, receiving a growl in reply. His eyes went skyward as he prayed for some sign of the returning Prosecutors, but the vile fog was too thick.

As he looked down again, something lumpen and horrific loomed out of the miasma. A khorgorath. It savaged a band of Liberators who had strayed away from their brothers, tearing down their defence as if it were parchment and not god-forged sigmarite. One of the warriors shuddered as the khorgorath’s bone tentacles impaled him. Another lost his head, swallowed down the beast’s grotesque gullet. Two more lost limbs, dying in crumpled heaps of blood-flecked gold before the storm reclaimed them.