Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Two dozen more foes had been slain when Theuderis redirected his attention back to the line. Voltaran had moved back with some of the Judicators to pour more lightning-fuelled bolts into the horde, carpeting the ground with the bodies of the dead. Yet it seemed for all the ire of the Stormcasts, the numbers of the beastmen were greater, and they were driven on by some power more potent than their horrendous losses.

Tyrathrax snarled, her claws sticking in the mire of bodies underfoot, the corpses sliding and splitting beneath her tread as she laboured towards fresh foes. She spat lightning again, frustrated that she could not rend with her claws, turning another handful of ungors to ashen clouds. Bunching her muscles, the dracoth leapt free of the bloody morass and found firmer ground, sensing Theuderis’ desire to return to the line.

When he opened his eyes, Arkas could see all of Ursungorod. It took him a moment to accept it, so vast and unnatural was the view. Every sheet of ice was an eye, every snowflake an ear, every icicle a fingertip.

See, hear and feel as I see, hear and feel. Seek what you must.

His presence stretched the length and breadth of the mountains, the power dizzying. He focussed, drawing the vision within him, seeing the tower from the outside, as though standing on the broken curtain wall. He turned his mind’s eye and flowed effortlessly back across the bridge, sparing barely a glance for Hastor, Dolmetis and the Decimators at the far end.

He allowed his consciousness to fracture like a splitting ice flow, part of him zooming to watch over the Stormcasts still holding position on the Icemere, the rest of him skating to and fro through the wilds, leaping from snow-laden branches to drifts to frozen puddles in the blink of an eye. He scrambled across rockfalls of skull-shaped stones and slid along stone arches with icicle fangs. In the waters of Ursungorod’s hundreds of rivers he splashed through rapids between dagger-pinnacles and across impossible waterfalls that flowed up the slopes. He felt the eternal presence of the trees, slumbering in places, alive and predatory in others.

Arkas felt the tread of many feet as though on his skin. Concentrating, he saw different tribes, some in camp, others following the herds or enemies, raiding and fighting, sacrificing their own and their foes to the Chaos Gods. Pyres burned bright, blades gleamed with blood, voices were raised in guttural chants in praise of unholy powers.

Down he delved, following the cracks and chasms, into the lairs of the skaven, though he could not penetrate deeply. Even so, he recoiled at their teeming thousands, overwhelmed by the slithering, skittering touch of them, their greasy, furred bodies rubbing against him, pulsing and pushing like corrupted blood through veins, claws eternally scratching, teeth biting.

Repulsed, he almost withdrew, but as he did so Arkas saw something that pulled his thoughts away from the creeping touch of the rat-filth. He witnessed hooded figures buying slaves and mutated beasts from human warlords, paying in warpstone tokens and laying on blessings of the Great Horned Rat.

It seemed impossible that humans would worship the rat-god.

There are those who follow other powers, but when you fell and the last resistance ended, it was the Lord of Thirteen Dooms that stretched out the furthest to seize what was lost. To escape the disease they swore their souls to the rat-masters, allowed to keep the lands above in return for their obedience and service to those below.

There was a daemon, he recalled, a monstrosity that had filled him with dread. Arka Bear-clad had heard of such a thing only in the darkest legends, but Arkas Warbeast knew well the verminlords of the Great Horned Rat. Brought forth from the gnaw-wounds between realms, the rat daemons were incarnations of death and pestilence. It was this vile monster, a Corruptor, that had unleashed the plague winds that had slain his mother and later destroyed his army after his ascension.

Skixakoth .

It has a name?

An ancient evil from the world-that-was, given form once more .

Arkas tried to delve deeper, pushing as far as he could into the unforgiving bedrock, but he met a wall of resistance. No matter how hard he tried he could not penetrate the depths he knew to be there — the Shadowgulf.

Even my power does not extend so far. Another rules there.

Arkas felt the darkness pulse, a wave of hostility forcing him to retreat, suddenly wary of discovery. As he withdrew, he sensed another knot of power, a whorl of Ghurite energy that drew him in as a whirlpool might snare a boat. Rather than resist, Arkas allowed himself to drift upon the flow until he found the source.

It was a realmgate, half excavated by the skaven from the duardin undercity. At the moment of discovery he realised that this was his goal, the objective Sigmar had set for the Warbeasts and Silverhands. He had assumed the realmgate was active, but now he understood why the God-King had dispatched his Strike Chamber with such swiftness. The skaven were on the verge of opening the portal between realms, and once they did so they would have another route into the Realm of Life where Alarielle and her sylvaneth armies were sorely beset. A portal into Therdonia would bring the skaven perilously close to the Lifegate. Taking the gate of Ursungorod would not only hasten the Stormcast assault on Archaon at the Allpoints, it would stave off a potentially devastating skaven invasion into Ghryan.

I have shown you that which you desired to see.

Arkas’ thoughts moved quickly to his ally, Theuderis of the Knights Excelsior. Even as his mind turned to his fellow Lord-Celestant, his awareness shifted, racing away from the skaven caverns and into the peaks once more. In a few moments he felt the heavy footfalls of white-and-blue warriors, at their head a lordly figure on the back of a red-scaled dracoth. Above them burned the celestial light, shining down from the lanterns of Sigmar’s Knights-Azyros. Its touch filled him with a sense of belonging and ease.

Even as he luxuriated in Sigmar’s reflected glory, Arkas felt something marring the light, a darkness close at hand. In the ground beneath Theuderis’ warriors, a coming together of evils. Diving down, seeking the source, Arkas chanced upon a chamber lit only by luminescent fungi. A skaven clad in black conversed with a goat-headed creature with twisting horns that wore thick layers of tanned human skin as a robe and cloak. Their intent was clear — they plotted against the army of Theuderis.

An ambush. Arkas had to warn the Silverhand somehow.

What you have seen is but a shadow, a mirror of the past. Events are already in motion.

Dark woods spread out across the advance of the Knights Excelsior and in the shadows beneath the boughs gathered a throng of beastmen and Chaos-warped monsters. The immense trees shielded them from the eyes of the Prosecutors flying overhead. Theuderis was already marching straight into the trap.

There had to be some way to reach Theuderis. If through the magic he could see the Lord-Celestant, perhaps he could communicate with him? Arkas felt resistance from the queen.

That was not our bargain, Bear-clad.

The freezing became an agony, lancing through Arkas’ thoughts, blood snapping, marrow cracking.

Remember your oaths!

A sudden darkness warned Theuderis an instant before a monstrous beast hurtled through the trees close at hand, descending in a welter of snarling and broken branches. He barely had time to register it as another griffon attacked, black like a dreadful blend of raven and panther, eyes aflame with Chaos magic. On its back clung a knight armoured in bronzed plate and links, a sigil of the Dark Gods burning with yellow fire upon the blade of his axe.