Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The reflected glow of the lava gave their armour a lambent shine, though not bright enough to give away their position.

‘Patience, paladin,’ Ionus uttered. ‘I learned long ago it pays to be wary when attacking your enemy’s stronghold. And we are not so unscathed as to throw our caution aside.’

A dread aura bled off the brass tower.

Its armaments were clad in metal and shimmered with heat. Skulls had been hammered into the sides and piled up at the base like macabre footings. Foul, daemonic gargoyles leered down from the battlements. Spikes, thick chains of iron and a heavy, barbed portcullis kept aggressors at bay, though who would challenge the might of the Goretide in these lands was beyond the Relictor.

No archers or war engines defended it, but the walls were thick and its vantage high.

Evidence of a forest surrounded the tower, but its trunks had been cut down. The stumps remained, oozing red sap that looked uncomfortably like blood. The gruesome sight of it put Ionus in mind of severed necks, rather than trees, as if an army had been sunk deep into the earth surrounding the tower and decapitated one by one as they struggled helplessly.

Perhaps they had been, but he had no desire to find out.

Either way, the garrison would see them coming and send out an army before Sigmar’s chosen could even reach the outer border. If they were trammelled it would give the warriors inside time to organise a defence or summon further reinforcements.

The attack had to be swift and decisive. It was bad enough he had parted ways with Vandus and left the Lord-Celestant unsupported; he could not fail in this also.

‘If we could move unseen…’ Ionus murmured, and eyed the tumultuous sky and burgeoning clouds overhead.

Behind the grim facade of his skull mask, Ionus smiled.

‘I know what must be done.’

Rhoth slumped against the battlements, gorged on flesh and drunk on the ale his kind fermented in vats of black iron. A heady brew, it brought blinding anger to the fore at first before surging through the body like a fever and leaving behind a burning need for more.

‘Empty…’ he slurred to Gannon, another of the bloodreaver garrison.

Rhoth reached for his axe, grabbing the haft on his third attempt.

‘Eh, swine. I am speaking to you.’

But Gannon wasn’t listening, nor were the other warriors standing watch on the parapet. Instead, they were looking and pointing.

Heaving up his body to peer through the brass spikes that crowned the edge of the tower, Rhoth saw what had caught the attention of his fellow tribesmen.

‘What is that?’ he asked, briefly wondering if his hallucinations from imbibing the dark ale had yet to abate.

A storm rolled towards them — a massive belt of cloud. Howling gales raced along with it, and thunder boiled around it as lightning flashes lit up the dark hollows within.

‘Like nothing I have ever seen,’ uttered Gannon, as the half-chewed femur dropped from his meaty grasp.

The storm was not of sky, but surged across the ground like a carpet of fog.

Rhoth shook his head, to try and shake off his torpor. ‘How is that possible?’

Inside the storm, all was calm as the Stormcasts doggedly advanced. Even the lofty Prosecutors were concealed by the rolling thunderhead their Lord-Relictor had summoned. The slow beats of their wings crackled in time with the dolorous footfalls of the heavily armoured paladins.

Ionus led them, his icon held before him like a guiding beacon.

‘Make ready,’ he told his warriors, scarcely needing to raise his voice such was his mastery of the storm. ‘When we reach the threshold, they will be undone.’

‘I will strike for the tower’s summit,’ said Sturmannon, flying by the Lord-Relictor’s side.

‘Be careful, we know not what horrors it might yet possess.’

Again, Ionus’s mind went back to the blood-priest, the one he knew lurked somewhere within the tower. Once more, he thought of Vandus fighting alone, against Khul and against prophecy.

There was no time left for regret; the gatehouse now loomed before them. An iron portcullis barred the way, threaded with skulls and studded with spikes. But as the storm veil parted and revealed the warriors within, no foes came out to meet them. The gate remained shut.

Instead the bloodreavers on the parapet hurled insult and obscenity, believing themselves safe behind their walls of brass. A few threw axes between jeers or tossed rocks, remaining steady.

None of the Stormcasts fell, their armour fending off the desultory efforts of the garrison.

Theodrus mustered the Retributors, preparing to rip the tower down a piece at a time if necessary.

‘We can batter those gates into submission,’ he told his Lord-Relictor belligerently, ‘and then the curs within…’

‘Hold,’ Ionus ordered, though he knew the Retributors were eager to be unleashed. Sturmannon’s Prosecutors were the same, held aloft on their wings of light, beyond the reach of a hurled axe. Insults bit deeper and spurred the herald to want to act.

‘I can sweep them off that parapet, Lord-Relictor.’

‘No, wait…’ Something felt wrong, but Ionus had yet to identify his worry.

The cut-down trees, a buried army with heads cut from the bodies of its soldiers, the deep red soil and the apparent reluctance of the garrison…

‘When have you known a servant of Khorne to ever refuse a fight?’ he asked.

‘Lord-Relictor, we cannot delay,’ Theodrus replied, and signalled the attack.

Ionus let it happen, having no good reason to stop it. But when the Retributors had passed into the decapitated grove, and the gargoyles crouched atop the tower began to speak, he realised his concerns had been justified.

By then, it was already too late.

In the dark keep of the brass tower, a hulking figure regarded the army outside the gates through a murder slit in the wall.

He smiled as the Stormcasts came closer, urged by the murderous desire the tower evoked in all warriors.

‘You have come for blood,’ Threx Skullbrand whispered to the darkness. ‘And you shall have it.’

Their voices were iron, the grinding of metal against metal. Far from being grotesque statues, the gargoyles had another purpose than mere macabre decoration.

Ionus saw the danger, but his warning cry was stolen by the deep chanting of the statues.

‘Stand fast,’ he cried, ‘and defend yourselves!’

The cut-down trees… they were a trap. Not necks or trunks, but vents.

The ground underfoot began to tremble, before a fount of scalding blood burst from the red soil and took a piece of the vanguard with it. Retributors flailed, catapulted skyward.

Armour was scorched, flesh burned, and warriors came down to earth thunderously. Lightning flashes lit up the night as Sigmar reclaimed his own and the strength of Ionus’s chamber was eroded.

He heard shouting, confusion, and fought to restore order.

A second eruption of blood followed swiftly, and the air was filled with the death cries of Azyr’s paladins. Some tried to brace against the blood plumes but were torn off their feet anyway. No sigmarite plate nor lightning hammer would avail them.

Two further eruptions burst forth, spattering Cryptborn’s armour with hissing gobbets as he took what shelter he could. He grimaced as the blood crept inside the aegis of his plate and scalded the flesh beneath.

‘Enough,’ he snarled, watching Sturmannon’s Prosecutors whirling and diving to try to avoid the horrific blood rain.

Muttering words of power, Ionus called upon the Lord of Storms and unleashed lightning from the heavens.

A cerulean bolt arced from the clouds, as straight and pure as a spear. It struck the summit of the tower, lighting up the darkness. It utterly destroyed one of the gargoyles and silenced the rest. The blood-rain ebbed and no more lightning flashes split the night.