Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘We are…’ Arkas struggled to find the terms that would explain how they had been mortals once but had now been made into something deadlier. ‘We are tempest-born, servants of Sigmar the God-King. We were men once.’

He lifted away his mask to show the flesh beneath. The woman smiled and nodded.

‘Yes, I see that the birds spoke the truth,’ she said with an assured nod. ‘I am Katiya Gospor and I have been waiting for you since I was a child.’

‘How can that be?’ He replaced his mask, the chill breeze on bare, ravaged flesh making him feel exposed without it.

‘Of tempest-warriors I know nothing. But I have had dreams for many years. Of a bearded king who once ruled. Others did not listen — they said I was touched to believe the legends were anything but stories. But I knew. I knew. Arka the Uniter would return.’

Stunned, Arkas said nothing. Katiya lowered herself to the flat ice and offered her weapons up to the Lord-Celestant.

‘I knew,’ she said again, eyes brimming with emotion. ‘Your army awaits, Bear-clad. I have summoned them for you.’

‘Army?’ Arkas stepped forwards and motioned for Katiya to stand. ‘What army?’

Katiya winked then and raised her fingers to her lips. She let out a piercing whistle that drifted into silence across the emptiness of the ice field. For several heartbeats nothing happened. Then, two hundred paces to the left the ice shifted. It looked as though a boulder rolled aside and suddenly half a dozen men emerged from nowhere, clad in leathers and plate, wielding swords and oval shields. Five more rose up from a mound a little behind them.

The retinues of Stormcasts rearranged themselves instantly, the thud of boots on hard ice and scrape of armour plates the only noise as they executed drill and manoeuvres practised a thousand times in the arena of the Gladitorium. The giant warriors seamlessly moved to form a cordon of weapons between the newcomers and Katiya. An aurora of celestial power from bared blades and cracking hammers shimmered over the host and cast hard shadows across the ice.

Everywhere Arkas looked more men and women seemed to materialise from the ice field. Most were dressed in grey, pale blue and white, with furs and patterned hides that made them seem as much animal as human.

Turning about he guessed that two hundred had revealed themselves already and more were still appearing, rising up from crevasses and cracks, climbing out of openings cut into the ice itself. Twenty heartbeats passed and Katiya’s army numbered at least a thousand, springing into existence like snow devils.

‘Venian?’ Arkas called out. ‘I would have words!’

‘They ran,’ explained Katiya as she led Arkas between two shoulders of rock. Doridun flanked the Lord-Celestant on the other side, the Protector-Prime, Diocletus, following close with his retinue. ‘They thought you dead, struck down by the sorcery of the daemon-lord. Faced with such power and the unending numbers of the ratkin, the defenders of Kurzengor fled.’

An undercut formed the start of a tunnel that ran steeply into the ice, the pale walls indistinguishable from the rest of the glacier. Led by other guides, the rest of the Warbeasts descended into the hidden settlement — Katiya had been swift and insistent with her demands that the giant warriors did not remain on the surface to attract hostile attention.

‘They would have died, had they remained,’ said Arkas.

‘The stories tell of how they flung down their shields and threw off mail coats to speed away,’ the Ursungoran elder replied. ‘Some, the cursed ones, turned on their own and cut them down.’

‘They hoped to find alliance with the skaven by slaying their allies?’

‘They were already agents of the rat-filth,’ spat Katiya. She looked up at Arkas. ‘Traitors that would strike from within the walls. The legends speak for some time on how they are accursed for eternity and the Uniter would return to revenge himself upon them in many unpleasant ways.’

‘I thought every one of them my brother or sister,’ murmured Arkas. ‘We had spilt and given blood together, shared ale and meat at the fires. It was for nothing?’

Katiya did not reply. She stopped as the tunnel widened, pulled back the hood of her fur coat and had a brief conversation with a young, broad-shouldered warrior waiting for her. He nodded and dashed off into the cavern.

Stepping across the threshold, Arkas suddenly understood how it was that Katiya’s ‘army’ had survived and been able to appear so swiftly. The glacier was riddled with passages and tunnels, dug from bare ice but shored up with duardin-hewn stone. The ceiling of the hall into which he stepped was so low he could almost touch it, but the hollow was easily three hundred paces across, the floor of the open space paved with cracked flagstones. He counted eight more archways leading off, as well as several sets of steps winding further beneath the ice field. Lines of Ursungorans and Stormcasts were emerging from these other tunnels.

‘Amazing,’ said Doridun. ‘A lifetime’s work.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Katiya. Arkas explained.

‘Nineteen,’ she said. ‘Nineteen generations have carved the City of Ice until today.’

‘Nearly four centuries,’ Arkas told his Knight-Heraldor. ‘It is not so long as I thought since Sigmar took me. Ursungorod has not aged lightly in my absence.’

‘Time is a cruel companion,’ replied Doridun. ‘For mortals.’

‘What language do you speak?’ asked Katiya, watching the exchange with wide eyes.

‘It is the language of the celestial sphere, of the God-King and his immortals.’

‘It is like thunder and music at the same time!’ Her brow furrowed. ‘And loud!’

‘It is a tongue for battle, to be heard over the crash of metal and the dying cries of our foes,’ said Arkas, making an effort to speak softly. ‘Our chambers in Sigmaron are vast, so I suppose we do quite a lot of shouting. Just how far does this city stretch?’

‘For nearly the length and breadth of the Bear’s Pelt,’ Katiya said, her back straightening and chest swelling with pride. ‘As grand as the duardin city that came before.’

They crossed the chamber while Arkas’ warriors gathered in their brotherhoods, looking in astonishment at their surroundings. The native warriors drew back from the armoured giants, their expressions displaying disbelief, fear and hope in equal measure.

‘How have you not been discovered? The Pestilentzi must know you are here.’

‘The city is known but we are few enough that we hide when the cursed tribes come. We know the City of Ice and its ways, and we kill those that trespass. A few we allow back to the surface to spread tales of the snow-killers of the ice. The rat-filth do not come and we do not disturb them.’ She smiled with grim determination. ‘Until now, of course. Now we disturb them much.’

‘Are there more of you?’ he asked, looking at the hundreds of men and women crowding into the chamber, faces expectant yet wary. Quite a few had seen as many years as Katiya, and there were few young faces amongst the throng.

‘Some patrols and sentries that keep guard, maybe another hundred,’ Katiya told him. His heart sank a little and she must have noticed.

‘Each is worth ten cursed ones and twenty rat-filth!’ she said.

‘I am sure of it,’ said Arkas. He had been equally sure of it on the walls of Kurzengor. He directed his next words to Doridun, keeping his tone even so as not to betray further disappointment to Katiya. ‘Twelve hundred fighters at most. I had hoped to liberate many more to add numbers to our cause but that is not going to be the case. Send word to Venian, he has a chance to redeem himself. Tell him to seek out Hastor and Theuderis. He will guide them to this place, not the agreed rendezvous. Our foes will surely have marked our progress here. It would be wrong to abandon these people now.’