Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Rakh’s mind started to spin. Did he want a bloodreaver’s skull for that pyramid? Surely not — there were thousands of those. Why was the warlord telling him these things? Why not just kill him and be done with it?

‘But the stars have led me here now,’ Khul said. ‘Something must yet still dwell in this place, where once there were high walls and strong swords. I need more souls. The Goretide must swell. I must cover this land in eyes, all of which are mine.’

The warlord extended a withered claw, bound in rings of black iron. Within the grasp of two taloned fingers was a single fleshy orb, straggled with pulpy sinew. Flickers of green magic slid across its pale surface.

‘I cannot complete my great work with a mortal’s remains. I seek a worthy capstone.’

Rakh shrank back, already guessing what was going to happen. A dull pain kicked in behind his eyes, and his lids started to bulge outwards.

‘Do not struggle, flesh-eater,’ crooned Khul, strapping his axe to his belt and reaching for a long, curved knife with his other hand. ‘When this is done you may feast on the corpse of your old master.’

Rakh wanted to scream, but no sound came out. The mantra kept running through his fevered mind: Blood for the Blood God, Blood for the Blood God.

Khul’s shadow fell across him, and Rakh felt the knife’s tip press against the underside of his left eyeball.

‘For you are mine, now,’ breathed Khul. ‘Take this as the first sign of your new devotion.’

Beyond the gate, the land rose again. It was shattered, like a burned crust, latticed with fissures and sinkholes. The foul waters of the delta snaked amid the dark plates, hissing where they dribbled against the open wounds of magma.

The lone edifice was behind them now, but it was still visible, dominating everything else and standing like a sentinel against the southern horizon. Ahead of them, hard to pick out in the gloom, there was a ridge. The summit was hunchbacked and crowned with three old towers, all of which were hollow, roofless and part tumbled down. The semi-buried statue of a man with a granite warhammer protruded from the dank earth, his head severed and shattered into pieces.

The rain was falling in earnest now. Swollen clouds above them were lit from within by what seemed like perpetual lightning bursts, making the black land snap with flashes of silver. Water ran in foaming streams over the gravel beds, making the pathways treacherous.

‘This will be a beast,’ muttered Elennar, glancing up at the unquiet heavens.

The air itself felt close, hot and electric. Many thunderstorms had raced across the burned plains in the past year, but this one had an unholy feel to it.

‘Keep going,’ Kalja snapped, slipping in the greasy mud and cursing the rain for coming now.

They reached the towers, which offered little shelter. Twenty-eight of the tribe had made it, all exhausted and drenched. The skinnier ones started to shiver, and their muck-sweat mingled with the streams of rain. The rest shuffled and jostled to get as close to the inner wall as they could. Most hunkered down near the base, pushing themselves up against the stones to avoid the worst of the rain.

Elennar slumped to her haunches. ‘And what happens when they find us?’

Kalja shrugged, taking up her place behind the barrier, too tired to care now whether it hid them or not. They had done all the running they could.

As she slipped down into position, she risked one more glance towards the archway, half a mile away to the south. It dominated the terrain. The rain lashed against it hard, and somehow the clouds seemed thicker over its keystone, as if drawn in by some vast force of attraction.

As she watched, a lone shaft of lightning snaked against it, throwing the statues into sudden relief. She briefly caught the outlines of men in armour, of human faces, of dragons and griffons.

Then it was gone. The rain got heavier. More thunder ground away, getting closer and louder. Kalja smiled wryly. If the bloodreavers didn’t catch them, the weather might still kill them anyway.

She slipped down into the mud, pressing her back against the stones, and closed her eyes.

Khul stood in the heart of the ravine, waiting for the rest of his army to reach him. The Goretide, they called it. A long time ago he had been proud of that title. It had been given in fear, and the fear of others was something he enjoyed.

Now, though, he struggled to remember exactly why. The great battles were all over. Once he had stood on the causeways of the ancient keeps, roaring his heart out at the mortals sheltered within, daring them to come and fight. And they had, back in those half-forgotten days. Their champions had ridden out to face the darkness, clad in steel plate and bearing two-handed broadswords. He had fought and killed them all, and every moment of it had been a joy. Some had tested him sorely — the old sorcerers, the great knights, the mighty warriors from the savage plains. When those great ones had died, he had felt the loss, and kept their skulls as remembrance.

The oldest of the skulls hung on his belt, drilled fast by chains and bleached white by the passing ages. There had long since been too many to count, so he had heaped them into tributes to his divine patron, pouring libations of blood across the pyres before watching them burn. His strength had grown with every season and new warriors had flocked to his banner, and thus the skull-pyres had multiplied.

The sacrifices pleased the God of Battles, and more gifts began to flow. Victory begat victory. He slaughtered the denizens of Scorched Keep in a week-long orgy of bloodletting, and in the deepest vault of that place he found the axe he now carried, one that could tear at the very fabric between worlds. He bested Skullbrand, the only fighter ever to do so, and so the bloodsecrator duly joined his burgeoning horde.

Khul smiled to himself. Threx was a lunatic. They whispered that he had once fought his way to the burning steps of Khorne’s throne-dais itself, and there had challenged the greatest of Bloodthirsters to single combat before being ripped limb from limb. Amused by this, the Blood God had brought him back, gifting him the standard that summoned the howling madness of Chaos to the mortal plane.

Who could believe such a tale? And yet, there was no doubting the powers of the icon Skullbrand bore — on a hundred battlefields, its arcane veil-tearing had brought the Realm of Khorne screaming into solid reality, just one more weapon in the swollen armoury of the god-favoured.

But now, after all the victories, after all the triumphs, there was precious little joy remaining. The old adversaries were dead, their corpses long trodden into the dust. With every passing year, Aqshy passed more completely into the ambit of the Chaos realm, and all that remained to hunt were the verminous and sick. There were other Lords of War, to be sure, many as powerful as Khul himself, but their deaths were empty deaths, and the wars they fought now were little more than squabbles over ruined spoils. The God of Battles still rejoiced to see the blood flow, but for his servants the ichor was all mingled, and the endless cycle of honour feuds had slowly become a deadening procession.

At the sound of tramping boots, Khul looked up. The main body of his horde was approaching, marching up from the south. Its vanguard filled the valley from side to side, a serried mass of plate-armoured warriors. Banners swayed above the ranks, all bearing the sign of Khorne daubed in red inks on flayed skins. With the fading of the world’s sun, torches had been lit, and their angry light flooded up into the rain-swept sky. In another age, Khul might have foresworn such blatant displays of power, but there had long since ceased to be anything to fear from discovery.