Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

When the Fyreslayers were halfway to the enemy, the sound and the vibrations of their challenge broke through the daemons’ celebration. The daemons hesitated in their dance. They stopped. They turned to see who had interrupted them, and who it was who did not fear them.

Distensiath’s grotesque smiles grew even wider.

Hills of struggling nurglings giggled in delight.

The more solemn plaguebearers clustered together and took up their weapons.

Distensiath spoke. The words came first from one mouth, then another. They overlapped in their speech, so that some words were spoken by two maws at once. The voice of the Great Unclean One was the sound of a mountain coughing up its lungs. The syllables were moist. The mockery was acid.

‘You are welcome, children of Grimnir. We have been waiting for you to join us. What has taken you so long? We have been calling you and calling you and calling you. Were you deaf and blind to our invitation?’

Do not answer, Thrumnor thought. Do not exchange words with the abomination. There is nothing to be gained in doing so.

But he could not remain silent.

‘Your taunts mean nothing!’ he shouted. ‘Your revels are over!’

‘Over?’ Distensiath repeated. All the mouths of the daemon laughed. Its corpulence trembled with mirth. ‘But they have only just begun! Your coming was foretold! Let the prophecy be fulfilled!’

Thrumnor felt the touch of an icy claw in his chest. Had he been wrong? He had seen the storm, and he had seen the light on the Great Weld, and he had believed a Fyreslayer prophecy was coming to pass. That had been the reason to urge action to keep the oath. But Grimnir’s hammer was not striking the anvil once more.

Did the daemon speak the truth?

The possibility was ghastly. Worse than the Krelstrag prophecy not being fulfilled was a daemonic one reaching fruition instead.

Are we the tools of that realisation?

No. Thrumnor would not permit such a thing. No Krelstrag would. The daemons had infested ground sacred to Grimnir, and for this crime they would suffer.

The daemons waited until the Fyreslayers had almost reached their position before they moved. Then they advanced, howling joyfully. The nurglings spilled around the legs of the plaguebearers, rushing to be the first to greet the newcomers to the revel. Distensiath’s maws unleashed a cacophony of laughter, and the Great Unclean One began to walk. Each step was ponderous, dragging and thunderous, shaking the ground and spreading new webs of cracks over the surface. The daemon could barely move, yet as it rocked forwards it spread its arms as if to gather new worshippers to its flock.

Rhulmok pounded the war altar with mounting fury. Thrumnor’s ur-gold sigils blazed in response, and he was consumed with the ferocity of battle. No enemy could stand before the rage he embodied. He roared. The entire host of the Krelstrag lodge roared. The Fyreslayers fell upon the daemons.

A battering ram in red and gold slammed into the abominations. Nurglings burst apart upon impact. The Krelstrag wasted no blows on them. Their charge was enough to part the stream of lesser daemons and hurl them back the way they had come. The plaguebearers were the more worthy opponents. Things of swollen bellies and rotten limbs, they sprouted long horns on their heads and wielded foul blades. They waded into combat with the Fyreslayers with mutters and nods. They appeared to be counting, and they attacked with purpose. The purifying rage of the Krelstrag clashed with the essence of disease.

Dorvurn and the runesons led from the front. They attacked in seven powerful kinbands. At their sides were the auric hearthguard and the berzerkers. Many of the hearthguard had been tasked to remain at the Forgecrag with Homnir, but even so, there were more than enough present to march with the lords of the lodge and burn the ranks of the daemons. The hearthguard’s magmapikes launched fiery death into the enemy, setting the plaguebearers ablaze. As the daemons’ chants turned to cries of pain and rage, they burned again as the berzerkers waded in with their flamestrike poleaxes. Braziers on the ends of chains crashed against the abominations. Into the spreading wall of burning daemonflesh, Dorvurn and his sons laid waste to the foe with sweeps of their axes and the monstrous predation of the magmadroths. Then came the vulkite berzerkers, a brutal wave of blades and anger. The Fyreslayers punched deep, breaking the coherence of the daemons’ advance, pushing the daemons back towards the centre of the plateau.

Thrumnor brought his staff down on the head of a plaguebearer, shattering it utterly. The daemon’s ichor spewed out, and the body sank to its knees. Thrumnor followed through with a sideways strike, crushing the bodies of the daemons who tried to close with him. There was rapid movement in the corner of his left eye. He turned, seizing a throwing axe from his belt and hurling it at another plaguebearer. The axe buried itself in the daemon’s face, splitting it in two.

The Fyreslayers drove deeper into the enemy, wedging the foul mass apart. The plaguebearers responded by closing around the Krelstrag army and trying to crush the lines. Axes smashed their bodies to festering slime.

Dorvurn and the runesons ripped through the diseased ranks, tossing daemons left and right, burning their way toward Distensiath. Seven lines of destruction converged on the greater daemon. It was the defiler of the Weld, and it would feel the greatest wrath of the Fyreslayers. The magmadroths sprayed flaming bile, turning left and right to consume the ravening daemons. The abominations howled and melted, but more rushed forth as Distensiath advanced, footstep by slow footstep, crushing its own followers in its eagerness to meet the Krelstrag.

‘Worship with us!’ Distensiath bellowed. It swung its massive sword and cut deep into the Fyreslayer lines, killing five warriors at a stroke. It swung again, and Krelstrag blood rained from the blade. The duardin roared their defiance. They charged forward to avenge the deaths of their brothers, and surrounded the bulk of the huge daemon. It laughed, delighted, and struck again. The lords of the lodge attacked Distensiath’s flanks. The hearthguard held the plaguebearers and nurglings back while the berzerkers brought their weapons to bear against the rubbery flesh of the behemoth.

Thrumnor stopped before Distensiath. He raised his runic iron high. Here and now he would reclaim the Weld for Grimnir and deny the daemon whatever purpose it believed drove its presence.

‘This is the anvil of Grimnir!’ Thrumnor shouted. ‘This is the work of his hands, of his hammer, and of his forge. You have no place here! Burn in the fire of Grimnir’s anger!’

The rod glowed crimson. Thrumnor slammed its tip into the ground. Now let the wrath of the Great Weld be loosed, he thought. The force of the spell transmitted itself through the surface of the plateau to the molten rock below. The magma rose. The anger was so great it threatened to escape Thrumnor’s control. He managed to contain it, and to direct the burst of its release. Rock split where the staff had hit. The crack widened as it raced toward Distensiath.

‘Grimnir’s fury!’ Thrumnor shouted, a warning to his brothers in the path of what was coming. They parted on either side of the widening gap. Then a geyser of lava shot from the ground before the Great Unclean One. It splashed against Distensiath’s belly and torso. In its first burst, it flew high enough to fall, burning, onto the daemon’s upper maw.

Distensiath screamed. The howl shook the entire Weld and knocked Thrumnor off his feet. A swarm of flies billowed out the daemon’s jaws and covered the sky. The great blade wavered, its blow arrested.

‘For Grimnir!’ Dorvurn shouted, and the latchkey grandaxe buried itself deep into Distensiaths’ bulging flesh. A hundred other weapons struck the raging daemon at the same moment.