Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Ionus put a hand on the paladin’s shoulder in comradeship. ‘It may yet be, brother. For we are not attacking another tower. Instead we go north. Now rise.’

With the clanking of sigmarite armour, the chamber got to its feet.

‘East?’ asked Theodrus, and Ionus could hear him frowning by the tone of his voice.

‘To Vandus, and the Gate of Wrath. Our brothers will not be alone when they face Korghos Khul.’

The Retributors saluted as one. Ionus knew it had hurt them to abandon the Lord-Celestant.

This is Sigmar’s will, thought Ionus, but he heard the voice of another, gnawing at the edges of his mind. It was one whom he owed a debt, one who was determined that debt would be fulfilled, a creature so ancient and powerful it would not be denied.

Vandus stood upon the hill and looked out across the ashen expanse of the Brimstone Peninsula. In the distance, he could still make out the banners of Jactos Goldenmane as his fellow Lord-Celestant forged farther west.

Looming over them was the monolithic Red Pyramid of Korghos Khul and standing in its shadow, the Gate of Wrath itself. It was little more than a vast courtyard of stone, but thronged with warriors.

‘Two prongs, my lord,’ said Dacanthos. ‘We will trap the Goretide and crush them.’

After their reunion in the shadow of the Volatus Ridge, the Lord-Celestants had formed a plan that would see Jactos attack from the far west and Vandus from further east on either side of one of Khul’s brass towers. Both armies avoided its garrison. Bitter fighting against the warbands that currently held sway over the Brimstone Peninsula had seen both armies pushed farther apart than Vandus would have liked, but their strategy could still work.

Khul’s hordes, his Goretide and the lesser warbands that paid him fealty, were in disarray. They had responded to the incursion by Sigmar’s warriors with aggression but without strategy, attacking the many Thunderstrike Brotherhoods alighting on the Brimstone Peninsula. It had left Khul’s stronghold vulnerable, along with the Gate of Wrath.

Vandus meant to take full advantage of the warlord’s lack of foresight. He and Jactos would take the stronghold together and destroy the realmgate. Bereft of reinforcement, Khul’s martial strength would suffer a major blow.

It was a sound plan, but Vandus still frowned. At the parting of their chambers, Jactos had seemed ever eager in spite of the near annihilation his warriors had faced.

‘He overreaches,’ said Vandus, eyes narrowed.

‘Lord Goldenmane will rein them in.’

‘No, he won’t.’

Cursing Jactos’s recklessness under his breath, Vandus took up Heldensen from where he had thrust it down and went to where his Warrior Chamber waited below.

‘It seems our fellow Hammers of Sigmar have set a fast pace,’ he declared loudly to his throng. ‘Who here thinks we can match it?’

Every Stormcast shouted in affirmation. ‘Aye!’

‘I thought so,’ Vandus told them, hiding his irritation at Jactos and determined to reach the Goldenmanes quickly. ‘Onward then… To glory!’

As Laudus Skythunder urged the Hammerhands forward with blasts of his clarion horn, Vandus lingered to watch the Red Pyramid.

‘He is up there now,’ he said to Calanax who was waiting for his lord nearby, growling in sympathetic ire.

‘Khul’s reign must end,’ swore Vandus, reminded of the vision that prophesied his death, ‘and I shall be the one to do it.’

The courtyard echoed to the metallic ring of an axe being sharpened.

Khul was alone and seated upon a throne, his legs apart with an orruk’s skull at his feet. It had been a brutish creature whose iron-hard bone made for a serviceable whetstone. It was a needless task, for the edge of his Khornate axe would never blunt. So sharp was it, and such was the potency of the dark sorcery bound into the blade, that it could cut the very fabric of reality itself.

As he carved into the orruk’s skull, Khul regarded the ragged banners hanging from the racks arrayed about him and the many trophies of conquest he had won.

Nothing had stood in his path, no king or rival warlord.

‘Was I not honourable?’ he asked of the revenants of foes long dead. ‘Were you not beaten by the stronger opponent?’

He had won every battle, though not always according to his twisted sense of martial pride. Sometimes his desire for glory had forced his hand towards less than honourable deeds. It rankled Khul, though he could attest that every challenge he had ever been given had been accepted, fearlessly and without doubt. And there had been many. He had never known defeat. Now it was different though. Despite his savage joy at such worthy foes to fight, he felt the threat to his dominance posed by the golden warriors. Surely, it was a sign from Khorne that Vendell Blackfist led them. Khul believed it was more than fate that this had happened.

‘Destiny brought you to my domain,’ he said to the piled skulls around him. They stared at him with hollow eyes, the unworthy, the weak and the craven. There was no place for them upon the Red Pyramid. Khul would not insult his lord with such tawdry offerings.

No, only kings and chieftains would suffice, and they were all dead in these lands. Khul had slain them. Except for Vendell Blackfist, an immortal to crown his glory and ensure his ascension to daemonhood.

Clenching the orruk skull in one mighty fist he crushed it into bone splinters, discarding what was left.

Rising from his throne, he went and tore down every banner.

‘Nothing!’ he bellowed, smashing his trophies underfoot.

At the foot of the throne, Grizzlemaw stirred from its slumber but did little more.

Khul seethed.

He knew the bloodcrushers had failed, that Threx had been defeated and one of the brass towers had been cast down. He felt it in his blood, in the way it boiled and how Khorne’s anger pained him. The chains fettering the Gate of Wrath strained and twisted, and Khul heard them scream for release.

His gaze strayed beyond the borders of his lair to where he knew his prey watched him.

‘Soon, Vendell Blackfist,’ Khul promised, barely heeding the massive war host gathering and awaiting his command. ‘You and I, to the death.’

He was about to turn away when something else caught his attention on the horizon. An army, distant but still discernible.

‘Not you, Blackfist…’ Khul whispered, then smiled. ‘He brings another to fight his battles for him, the craven.’ He shrugged, laughing. ‘Then let the blood flow.’

A bloody mist had risen from the ground to envelop Jactos and his warriors, not enough to cloud the way ahead but disconcerting all the same. It stuck to the Stormcasts’ armour, robbing it of its sheen and fouling the joints.

‘This war-plate feels like lead,’ groaned Lord-Castellant Neros, trying to scrape the worst of it off.

Jactos felt the unnatural weight of the blood too, but chose not to answer. He was intent on what lay ahead.

They had battled hard and through seemingly numberless warbands to reach so far into Khul’s domain, and the intense fighting had driven a wedge between the Hammerhands and the Goldenmanes, forcing them apart and onto separate paths. Though he would only admit such vainglory to himself, Jactos welcomed it. He wanted this, without any other Warrior Chamber from any Stormhost to intervene. Now he was determined he would face the warlord before Vandus. Though it hurt his pride to confess it, he had failed in the shadow of Volatus Ridge. Now he would make amends and show Sigmar he was worthy of his glory.

He grinned as the pyramid emerged from above the mist, hazy but recognisable. But still there was more.