Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘You have a point,’ conceded Thostos. The buildings had been hidden from prying eyes, but unlike the gate had suffered the effects of time and weather. Many were surrounded by skirts of detritus cracked by frost and the sun’s heat on the walls. Roofs had fallen in. Windows were eyeless holes that the wind blew mournfully through.

‘If the duardin intended us to find this, why can we not find them?’ asked Eldroc.

The men stared at the gate a moment.

‘Does it work?’ asked Thostos. ‘Is the way still open?’

Lord-Castellant Eldroc raised a hand. A herald of their chamber stepped from the knot of Stormcast Eternals at Eldroc’s back, his bearing proud, detached, his heavy helmet tucked under one arm. The mechanisms of his wings were folded, the feathers of light extinguished. He announced himself, his voice sonorous and clean and somewhat hollow behind the warmask, like the voices of all the reforged.

‘Prosecutor-Prime Martius the Swift, of the Skyblood Angelos Conclave.’

‘Speak, Martius,’ said Thostos.

‘I have returned to Sigmaron upon this road, my lord. It works exactly as our lord Sigmar said it should. Beyond the arch is a tunnel, fair made and well-dressed in stone. As one follows this, the cold of the utterdark gathers about the traveller, until all is black and freezing as the dark before time. Then there is a second arch, like the gate before us but twice as finely wrought. This entrance here is not the gate, but the path to the Silverway. Blackness and starlight wait beyond, but I trusted the word of our God-King and stepped out into the void, uttering six of the names of Azyr as I did so. And lo! A road of silver rose up beneath my feet, and stretched on, shining as with the light of the pure moons of Azyr. Five steps I took upon this endless road, finding myself in the Gardens of Celerity, nigh to the road leading to Sigmaron. The legends do not speak falsely.’

‘There was no way back through the realmgate that you exited?’

‘None. It closed behind me without trace. I was taken there, and left. I returned by Sigmar’s own hand.’

‘And there is nothing untowards upon the road?’

‘It is pure and unsullied. No trace of Chaos’s mark upon it.’

‘Then the key part of our crusade is concluded.’ Thostos laughed. In truth, he, Eldroc and the others of the Bladestorms wished for vengeance before success. ‘Sigmar will see this as a great triumph.’

‘Indeed he does,’ said Eldroc. ‘A part of the Stormhost has been ordered to return to Azyr.’

Thostos raised his eyebrows at his Lord-Castellant questioningly. ‘And?’

‘Not us, my lord. Our own Bladestorm is to remain here, as are the Fireblades and the Doombringers. The Harbingers of Vengeance are to remain on guard upon the Bright Tor Gate under Lord-Castellant Barahan. Others will set out to the west and south, and to Denvrok, to widen the search for the duardin.’

Thostos nodded, visibly relieved. ‘That is good. We shall have our vengeance yet.’

‘Maybe, maybe not, my lord,’ said Perun.

Thostos looked over the officers and champions of Eldroc’s cohort. All of them radiated frustration.

‘We are all Celestial Vindicators,’ he said, raising his voice so that all might hear him. ‘Here by dint of our great desire for vengeance. I see much impatience, a desire to close with the foe and smite him hard, to rend and destroy those foul traitors who turned their backs upon the gods and embraced the impure power of Chaos.’ His voice boomed from the cliff. ‘Fear not, my brothers, we shall have vengeance, each and every one of us, over and over again from now until the close of eternity ushers long night upon the Mortal Realms and all those that lie beyond them. Do not see the ease with which this gate was found as a disappointment, no! For by this road of the duardin our hammers might make their presence felt on a thousand times a thousand battlefields. Better we test our mettle later in many wars than in the single one. Do not despair, O Celestial Vindicators, we shall have the blood of ten thousand enemies in recompense for the lives of our families and the destruction of our nations.’

‘Well said, my lord,’ said Eldroc.

‘You do not appear satisfied, Lord-Castellant.’

‘I yearn to fight,’ admitted Eldroc.

Thostos clapped his hand upon the arm of his lieutenant. ‘As do I, Eldroc, as do I.’

‘Others will have their chance sooner than we, I think,’ said Eldroc. ‘I have the orders for the Bladestorms. I can guess their content.’

A scroll was brought out by Eldroc’s aide. Thostos read it quickly. When he was done he rolled it up again, whereupon it burst into flames and went to nothing.

‘We are to stay and guard the gate.’

Eldroc nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘I understand your desire to go out and fight, Lord-Castellant.’ Thostos looked upward to the pale sky, as if he might see Sigmar up there, staring back down at him. ‘This task of holding the Silverway I would entrust to none other but you, Eldroc,’ he said. ‘You are among the finest of all Lord-Castellants, a master of defensive warfare.’

‘Nevertheless, I do not know whether to be angry or relieved,’ said Eldroc. ‘The others will be sent on to realms where battle rages already.’ He rested his lantern upon the sand and gripped his halberd tightly. ‘Their chance at vengeance comes before ours.’

‘Or our fellows still present here might find nothing, and those sent home find themselves in reserve in the Golden City,’ said Thostos.

‘You don’t believe that, I think, Lord-Celestant.’

‘No,’ snorted Thostos. ‘Not really. But I also do not believe this ease will hold. This land appears empty, but has long been under the dominion of the master schemer. There are beastmen, and others will come once tidings of our arrival spread. Our presence will have been noted. Can the process of concealment be reversed?’

‘Yes, Lord-Celestant.’ Eldroc’s voice was heavy with disappointment. He raised his arm, and his warriors moved back to the gate’s guardian statues.

‘Stay your hand, Lord-Castellant,’ said Thostos. ‘Let us leave the Silverway open to view. Let it be a signal to the forces of Chaos that not all the works of the ancients were cast down, and that we come in open war to reclaim them. We are not skulking whelps. Let them see this and rage. The enemy will come against us soon enough. Of that I have no doubt.’

The posture of the Celestial Vindicators around the gate changed. They stood taller. Whispers passed among them, urgent with the anticipation of battle.

‘Then I await them with eagerness in my heart,’ said Eldroc. ‘I thank you, my lord.’

With the haunting call of trumpets, three chambers of Celestial Vindicators marched up through the revealed city of the duardin and into the tunnel of the Silverway.

They came up the road five abreast, the tramp of their feet and rattle of their armour echoing from the mountainsides and their songs soaring to the peaks.

The remainder of the Bladestorms came first, joining with Eldroc’s cohort, and stood aside to let their brothers by. Warrior after warrior marched on, their Celestants, Castellants, Vexillors and Relictors leading. Dracoths huffed and growled, reluctant to leave Chamon. There were ranks of bow-carrying Judicators, hammer-wielding Retributors, winged Prosecutors and grim Liberators, their wargear gleaming and standards waving.

Thostos saluted his brother commanders as they went past. Such was their presence that it seemed their passage would never end, a turquoise stream of thwarted avengers doomed to pass through the gate over and over.

But it did end. As the day darkened into night and the Alchemist’s Moon made itself known in the sky, the last of the departing warriors went into the tunnel. The sound of their march persisted long after the final few ranks had vanished into the dark, until the sound stopped suddenly.