Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Ionus heard the jeering of the bloodreavers anew, and turned his grim visage upon them.

‘So the Bloodbound are craven!’ he bellowed like a clarion horn. ‘I thought as much. Those who skulk are unworthy to hold a blade!’

The howls of laughter coming from the parapet turned to shouts of belligerence. A moment later, the portcullis began to rise.

‘Dolts and simpletons,’ Ionus muttered, ‘easily goaded.’ He nodded to Theodrus to lead the attack. ‘Vanquish them. Leave none alive.’

Baying and snarling, a horde screamed out from the mouth of the tower. Bearded warriors, clad in blood-red plate and hefting thick blades, crashed into a wall of charging Retributors. The gilded paladins bore the brunt of the blood warriors’ fury and blunted it against their iron-hard resolve and formidable armour. The garrison of the brass tower had never fought such a foe as these, led by a warrior for whom death was preferred to failure.

Anger drove Theodrus. Anger, and guilt.

Memories of his former existence, before his Reforging, were vague and fleeting. For some it was this way, while others remembered more. No one knew why or needed to ask. But in the surge of battle, when his blood was up and righteous words upon his lips, Theodrus remembered.

He remembered the temple on the hill. He remembered the old man and the day he staggered into his village speaking of horrors. Raiders had come to the temple, intent on defiling it.

All knew the dangers beyond the walls of the village, how remote the temple was, but Theodrus could not let this sacrilege stand. He had been Thaed back then, though the name meant little now. Thaed had taken most of the village warriors and ridden hard for the temple. But when he arrived, he saw it was empty, there were no raiders in sight. What he did see was a great flame light the sky, glowing ominously from the direction of the village. The old man had lied to them, for he was not old and not even a man, not really. Without warriors to protect it, the village burned along with all in it, including Thaed’s own kin.

He merely existed for a time afterwards, wandering the wilds until the raiders returned. But they were not just raiders anymore. They were conquerors now, their ranks swollen with monsters. Thaed stood no chance as their onslaught swept the land, but he stood anyway and begged for death with a blade in his hand. The light came swiftly after that, and the memory of his pain faded until the day he raised a weapon in anger again.

As he fought, Theodrus spoke the names of his kith and kin, every man, woman and child amongst them. He let it steel him, his desire to avenge them keener than any sword, harder than any hammer. Lightning struck, evil men fell dead and Theodrus led the line.

‘Avenge them!’ he cried, tears of grief and hate filling his eyes, unseen behind his impassive mask. ‘Avenge them!’

No amount of retribution would ever be enough, but on he slew.

In the shadow of the tower’s grim walls, the swell of battle was intense. Ionus rejoiced grimly as he fought shoulder to shoulder beside the Retributors.

At the front of the line, the struggle was at its fiercest. Axe blows rained in from the blood warriors, the air shimmering with the heat of their rage as they cut through even god-forged sigmarite.

Several Stormcasts lost limbs, great gouts of crimson ejected across their gilded plate. One was impaled on the blade of a serrated sword. His mask drooled red as its wearer coughed up blood. Another died instantly, head severed from body, and disappeared in a blazing coruscation of light a moment later. Across the line, flashes lit up the dark as a hellish frenzy of hacking goreaxes took their inevitable toll.

It became a scrum, brutal and attritional. The front ranks on each side quickly enmeshed as vigour and momentum took individual combatants deeper into their enemy’s formation. In truth, the Bloodbound had none, just a mob of bellowing and frenzied killers.

Whereas the blood warriors fought with fury and abandon, the Retributors embraced discipline and determination, fighting as one. Their lightning hammers rose and fell with relentless efficiency, crushing skulls and splitting the hefty war-plate of their enemies. Even as the barbarians died, they fought on, driven by rage, but the paladins were thorough and smote their enemies until there was little left but mangled remains.

Slowly, painstakingly, the Retributors reformed their ranks and began to push towards the tower.

‘Into them!’ roared Cryptborn, smashing a blood warrior aside with his relic hammer. ‘Do not relent!’

He raised his reliquary staff and a bolt of lightning crackled forth, destroying a slew of enemies.

‘As one, as one!’ cried Cryptborn, a wash of gore spraying across his skull-mask. He briefly caught sight of Theodrus urging his retinue forward. ‘Theodrus! Hold them. Hold them back.’

Pausing between hammer swings, Theodrus turned at the sound of his name, nodded and brought his men into order.

His paladins slowly formed the hammer, an offensive formation intended to blunt an opponent’s attack against a wedge of armour, many ranks thick, before pushing through with a narrow but even deeper column. To the Prosecutors whirling and pitching above, it would resemble a hammer, hence the name.

At the thought of the heralds, Ionus looked up.

Sturmannon’s retinue harried the tower ramparts, darting beneath hurled blades and spears, before sweeping in to unleash their celestial hammers. As agile as they were, not all the Prosecutors succeeded and heralds fell from the sky, burning like comets with wings ablaze.

Spears of light arced heavenward before they even struck the ground.

Scowling, Cryptborn pushed on into the fray. His eyes met those of Theodrus.

Pure as pools of azure, they shone with devotion but burned with vengeance. Theodrus raised his hammer aloft.

‘For Sigmar and Azyr!’

A roar came in answer from the swell of sweating, grunting, blood-slick warriors. A huge figure barrelled into the fight. He was more of a beast than a man, with a thick neck and broad shoulders. In one meaty fist he clenched a jagged-bladed axe, notched from splitting bone. In the other hand, he had an immense totem, pulsing with evil light. Furnace heat bled from the icon, the skull-image of Khorne resplendent in its anti-glory. He was the demagogue, a chain of skulls festooned about his neck denoting his rank, and crimson war-plate crested with spikes — the rage-maker.

‘Bloodsecrator…’ breathed Ionus Cryptborn.

He was the one from the battle for the Gates of Azyr. He had proclaimed his name to his Blood God, beseeching his favour. And he had received it, a most terrible boon that brought a rain of blood and blinding fury to anyone it touched: Khorne’s realm, manifest in reality.

‘Threx Skullbrand,’ said Cryptborn.

Heaving his own warriors aside, Skullbrand buried his axe in a Prosecutor who had swooped in to engage him.

The herald’s breastplate split, a ragged red cleft between the parted metal. He gaped, clutching crackling air before his hammers could form. Skullbrand finished him with a savage headbutt and grimaced as another flash of light soared heavenward.

‘Kill him!’ shouted Cryptborn, knowing what would happen next as he battered through the throng to reach the bloodsecrator. ‘Bring him down!’

Another Prosecutor arced towards the bloodsecrator, angling sharply, intent on avenging his comrade. A third flew swiftly after him, clenching a pair of crackling hammers.

The first died when he was caught by the throat. With the Prosecutor choking in his grasp, Skullbrand ripped off the gilded arch of his wings. Each crackled before its light ebbed to shivering corposant. The herald’s neck was broken with a savage twist, his lifeless body like a hurled spear as it struck his chasing comrade. He fell.