Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

At a word from Arkas, his Prosecutors swept into the gorge, speeding along the twisting ravine and unleashing more heavenly arrows into the throng. Scattered projectiles leapt up to meet them but were poorly aimed and of little threat to the armoured fliers. Trolls and larger beasts hurled rocks and fistfuls of smaller stone, bellowing impotently at the tormentors soaring out of reach.

‘Arrows alone will not slay them all,’ said Ajfor, who had remained with Arkas to act as a messenger if needed. He pointed to the narrowest part of the ravine, where sharp, ice-covered rocks thrust like gigantic fangs. They glittered in the weak sun, the striations of red stone inside like trails of dried blood. ‘That is the best place to defend.’

‘The Jaws,’ said Arkas. ‘A good choice if I was going to pick somewhere to make a last stand.’

‘What do you intend, Uniter? We cannot hold them on the open ice.’

‘I don’t intend to hold them anywhere.’ Arkas beckoned to Doridun. ‘Prepare to signal the attack. We’ll push down the river and cut down anyone stupid enough not to run.’

The Knight-Heraldor nodded and relayed the order to Dolmetis, who carried the command to the nearest Primes. The Warbeasts moved closer to the edge of the ravine, ready to start their descent.

‘Attack?’ Ajfor’s eyes were so wide they seemed to bulge out of his head.

‘We are the storm of Sigmar’s wrath, the Celestial Vindicators, the Warbeasts,’ Arkas said with a grin. ‘We do not wait for battle to come to us, we seek it out.’

At his word, the Strike Chamber started the climb. Reaching the pebble-strewn bottom, where ice covered the small stones, the Warbeasts quickly assembled into their retinues, rallying on their Primes. The canyon turned to the left, masking them from view for the moment, though the Chaos warriors leading the attack could not have failed to see them disappearing from the clifftop.

‘Full charge, no mercy,’ Arkas barked to his Stormcasts. ‘Kill the foe in front, leave the foe to the left and right to your companions. We fight together, we win together.’

A guttural roar signalled the assent and readiness of the Warbeasts.

‘Come on then,’ laughed Arkas.

They reached full speed before the enemy came into view, pounding across the blue ice and splashing through the frothing water. Rounding the bend, Arkas saw that the foremost Chaos tribe were also moving swiftly.

Well-armed and armoured warriors led them, advancing at a trot, gathered beneath a banner of bone and stretched skin inked in gore with the symbol of the Blood God, Khorne. Some had bare heads, their faces heavily scarred and pierced, while others wore helms with curving bull’s horns fitted like tusks and tipped with jagged iron shards. Each bore two heavy hammers or maces, their gauntlets were spiked at the knuckles, and they wore metal bracers on their forearms.

Issuing bloody challenges, the Chaos warriors broke into a sprint, heedless of the threat posed by the Stormcasts, relishing the opportunity to slay the most powerful foes. The Warbeasts continued on at the same relentless pace, a wall of sigmarite that left a trail of shimmering celestial power on the rocks and dancing across the rapids.

The crash of the two forces rang down the canyon. The bodily impact of the Stormcasts sent many of the Chaos warriors hurtling and tumbling, while sweeps of starsoul maces and stormstrike glaives sent hewn corpses spinning into the reddening spume of the river.

Pushed on by the weight of their comrades behind, the leading edge of the Warbeasts rumbled down the gorge. Arkas, running along the left bank, cleaved a path with warhammer and runeblade, as Dolmetis and Doridun formed the point of the attack on the opposite side of the river.

The Prosecutors returned from their raking attacks further downstream and poured their missiles into the tribesmen just a dozen yards ahead of the Stormcast assault. One in three Chaos followers fell beneath the aerial onslaught, the survivors disorientated and split, easy prey for the rampaging Warbeasts.

The steep sides of the ravine left little room for manoeuvre — or escape. The more cowardly tribesmen found themselves trapped against the unforgiving rocks, cut down as they fled, crushed against the boulders by hammers and maces forged in the heavenly foundries of Sigmaron.

Preceded by the volleys from above, the Celestial Vindicators swept all before them, only the occasional flash of blue light showing where an unfortunate Stormcast had fallen to a lucky blow or an aggregation of many wounds. A corona of azure light moved before them like a bow wave, flickers of lightning from skybolts and shockbolts detonating in the depths. Ruined flesh and armour carpeted the defile in their wake, and the Black River ran crimson.

‘Easy now,’ bellowed Arkas as the gorge widened. They had pushed on perhaps a thousand paces, and here the river was slower, the sides of the defile not as steep. Warhounds and cavalry skirted the flanks, holding back for the moment, but waiting for the Stormcasts to over-extend and give them room around the flanks.

‘Hold fast!’ Arkas ordered.

The notes of the command rang out from Doridun’s clarion and the Strike Chamber stopped in a heartbeat, extending outwards as far as possible, the end of the line bowing slightly to present no space through which the enemy might slip.

‘Enough glory for each of us, my lord,’ said Martox. The Decimator-Prime stood a little way to Arkas’ left, his thunderaxe over one shoulder as he surveyed the mountain hordes.

Though his tone was light, Martox’s observation was correct. Two thousand at least had fallen already, but Arkas watched a sea of warriors still coming up the river. Freed from the strikes of the Prosecutors, several tribes, each a few hundred warriors strong, had started the ascent to the ice field again.

The nearest tribal groups pulled back, taking advantage of the sudden halt in the attack. Over their heads, Arkas could see larger monsters being brought to the fore — skull-faced khorgoraths with bulging bodies and flailing bone-tentacles, Chaos-twisted spawn that defied category and description, and other mutant monstrosities covered in scale and fur and sharp spines. More heavily armoured warriors shouldered their way through the barbarian marauders, line-breakers determined to make a breach in the Stormcast wall. Behind them came plate-armoured warriors on the backs of huge destriers covered by caparisons of bronze mail, fire burning in the eyes of their daemonically blessed steeds.

War altars dedicated to the Dark Powers were carried forwards on the backs of scaled beasts or held aloft by chained slaves blinded and whip-scarred. Arcane magic spilled from these unholy totems, polluting the draughts of Ghurite energy that flowed with the Black River. Cockatrices and chimerae from the deep forests were goaded forwards by hooded beast-handlers. All the myriad forces of the Chaos Gods were arrayed against the Warbeasts, the river valley thick with their numbers.

‘At least it’s stopped snowing,’ Martox continued.

Laughing, Arkas looked up. The clouds were there, grey and pregnant with a fresh blizzard, but for the moment Martox was right.

The Lord-Celestant saw something against the gloom, small at first but swiftly approaching. As it came closer he could make out that it was a bird, quite large, with multicoloured wings.

Smiling, Arkas raised his sword and flexed his grip on his warhammer.

‘Charge!’ he roared.

The sky glittered, a coruscating backdrop of magic that made stark the descending silhouettes of angels. The Angelos Conclave of the Silverhands fell with swift fury on the dark legions, first clearing the ravine walls of foes before raking missiles into the Chaos tribesmen. A few dozen tainted warriors managed to clamber to safety on the glacier, only to be met by Hastor and Venian, who were quickly joined by the rest of Arkas’ Prosecutors.