Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The bray-shamans were ordering their latest wave of attackers up the slope as Attaxes lifted his instrument and let out a series of peals and blasts, ascending and descending sharply. He repeated them twice, but the army was already in motion before he had started the third.

The Silverhands collapsed together, the vanguard and rearguard falling back towards the main body, each retinue withdrawing a few paces while its neighbours held off the beasts, and then in turn they fell back and others continued the defence. Even as the Stormcasts settled their line, retinues of Liberators, shields locked, advanced into the brunt of the fighting, weathering the storm of missiles, blades and mauls to push forwards again on the flanks, while the centre continued to withdraw to form a ‘v’ of retinues into which the beastmen were guided.

The Prosecutors descended through the canopy, a hail of mystical javelins scything down dozens of gors and bestigors. Samat and several other Knights-Azyros led a charge against the bull-beasts and other large foes still assailing the left flank, the light of the celestial beacons burning bright beneath the leaves. The energy of Azyr rippled along the hammers, grandaxes and grandblades of the winged Stormcasts as they fell upon their foes, circling to attack with a whirlwind of crushing and slashing blows.

To counter the threat from the lower force, Theuderis moved his Judicators to cover the approaches, their celestial missiles bursting forth once more against these fresh targets.

‘Clear the ground,’ Theuderis told Trajos. ‘Hinder their advance and leave them no sanctuary.’

Trajos passed the order to the other Primes and the next salvoes sliced not through flesh but wood, felling trees across the line of advance. Another fusillade from skybolt bows and thunderbolt crossbows set branches ablaze, forcing the creeping ungors to the ground. Here they were targeted by the Judicators carrying shockbolt bows, every crackling arrow that hit causing a chain of lightning to leap from one beastman to the next, slaying several score of foes in a few volleys.

Fresh torrents of fire continued to shred and rip through the forests, leaving a blackened, smoking swathe of destruction littered with burning and charred corpses.

The ‘Jaw of the Dracoth’ was starting to close on the beastmen, the two flanks of Liberators pushing hard towards each other, not using their hammers or blades, but simply presenting two walls of white-and-blue sigmarite that the beastmen could not pierce or break.

Theuderis joined the attack as dozens of Decimators and Retributors became the fangs of the dracoth, sallying forth between the ranks of the Liberators, who parted briefly to let them through. Axes cleaved flesh, hammers pulverised bone, the dead and dying beastmen wreathed with crackling remnants of celestial force.

The beastmen, even the more disciplined bestigors, were ferocious but unskilled. Theuderis abandoned any finesse and waded into his foes with his hammer swinging in wide arcs, scornful of any attack that might be directed at him. Leaving trails of blood and blue fire, his tempestos hammer swept aside every enemy before him. To his left and right the other Stormcasts were advancing over a carpet of beastmen dead, their weapons spitting and hissing with vengeful energies.

Behind them the Judicators were falling back once more as the gargant and other large monsters crashed towards their line. The beastmen were clearly content to allow these enormous creatures to lead the charge, loitering close behind to dash in and pounce on the Stormcasts once they were engaged.

‘Samat!’ Theuderis smashed his hammer through another three beastmen and pointed it towards the approaching monster. ‘The gargant!’

The Knight-Azyros saluted with his starblade and leapt into the air, disappearing through the branches in a heartbeat. A bullgor charged at Theuderis, horns lowered, distracting the Lord-Celestant for a moment. He crushed the monster’s bull head with a single blow and rolled over the body as it ploughed into the dirt. Theuderis came to his feet and looked back in time to see Samat’s descent.

It seemed at first as though a thunderbolt had struck the giant creature, but the flash of light resolved into Samat, blade in two hands, his lantern on his belt, wings stretched to the full as he swooped head first towards the ground. At the last moment the Knight-Azyros spun feet-down, landing smoothly a few paces from the gargant.

Samat took a step backwards and looked up, the gigantic figure framed by two trees blazing with pale blue fire. It twitched and then parted, two halves neatly slewing away from each other down a cut from the top of its head to its groin. Samat leapt to avoid the wave of blood and offal that spilled out. Pieces of bisected vertebrae and ribcage washed across the ground beneath him.

A great cry of woe went up from the beastmen as their enormous ally degenerated into a fleshy, shapeless mass. Caught in the vice of the advancing Stormcast retinues, many of them turned and fled, but the Prosecutors fell upon them in moments. They flitted between the trees, summoning celestial power to cast javelins into the routing gors and ungors while their companions hunted them down with their hammers, sweeping and wheeling through the boles to shatter spines and pulp heads.

Even so, it was no easy task to overcome the remaining foes. The bray-shamans grunted and barked at their underlings, forcing them into a fresh assault while the Stormcasts were still occupied driving through the remains of the first wave. Chaotic energies churning around their horned heads, raised fists and staff tips glowing with infernal magic, the shamans themselves joined the fray, escorted by scores of heavily armoured bestigors that advanced like a solid wall of fur, metal and horns.

And there were still several hulking mutants shambling closer, their skins pocked with sores, vestigial limbs waggling like cilia, plates of bone and chitin sliding and scraping. The centigors had abandoned their taunting attacks when the Stormcasts had withdrawn but now they returned, their broad-headed spears tilted ready for the charge. The yammering of the hounds intensified, carried through the crackle of flames up to the Stormcasts with the grunts and snorts of boar-like creatures and the coughing barks and low bellows of the beastmen.

‘For Sigmar!’ Theuderis raised his hammer above his head as he issued the shout. The echoing cry from his warriors rolled along the mountainside like thunder, shaking the ground. While the Decimators and Retributors of his Paladin Conclave continued to wreak bloody mayhem upon the last of the gors and ungors, the Lord-Celestant rallied the Redeemer Conclave’s Liberators and Protectors. ‘We are the God-King’s knights of vengeance. Our weapons are his wrath, his faith our armour. We are the righteous death, born for battle, created to kill. Hold back no ire and harbour no mercy. Death to the unclean!’

Arkas opened his eyes and found himself standing on the far side of the barbican, outside the demesne of the Queen of the Peak. He harboured the idea of returning but stopped himself from passing back through, aware that he had pushed his previous relationship as far as possible.

He broke into a run, remembering the attack about to unfold. As he powered up the bridge he thrust his hammer thrice into the air.

‘Hastor!’ he bellowed as he reached the top of the bridge. ‘Attend to your lord!’

In a flash of colour the Knight-Venator rose, trailing particles of ice. Arkas called out his orders as he skidded to a stop in a spray of snow. Hastor signalled his understanding.

‘Speed towards the dawn and seek them in the forests of the southern valleys,’ said Arkas. ‘Fly as swift as Sigmar’s scorn!’