Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

The sun beat down mercilessly. In the crevices between the rocks there was not a breath of wind. It was hot enough to bake bread, and it made them sweat, fire-born though they were.

Though the journey to the road from the mountains was but a short part of their trek, by the time they reached it they were more exhausted than ever before, and coated with dust.

Ulgathern-Grimnir clambered onto the causeway. In one direction the road stretched away to the vanishing point, disappearing into the shimmering heat haze of the plains. In the other direction, where the mountains thrust themselves out into the desert, lay the Voltdrang of the Volturung lodges. It was many miles away yet, but so vast in scale that they could easily see it from their new vantage.

A whole mountainside had been refashioned into the roaring face of Grimnir-at-war. His curled beard cascaded down the rocks to merge with those of the plains. His craggy brows made a stepped series of battlements. His eyes were giant windows, also fortified, between a hooked nose topped with a rampart. The lower jaw of his roaring mouth disappeared under the stone. A huge throat went into the cliff. At the bottom of it was a massive pair of stone gates whose fyresteel reinforcements glinted in the sun.

Tulgamar-Grimnir’s magmadroth clambered onto the road after Ulgathern. Ulgavost followed him. The three siblings stared at their goal.

‘That’s an impressive sight,’ said Ulgavost.

‘Aye,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘What do we do? March up and knock?’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir. Grakki-grakkov rumbled and yawned.

‘I don’t have a better idea,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Get everyone up on the road. It’ll be quicker going, and better if they can see us coming.’

It took far longer to get their people out of the baking crevasses than Ulgathern-Grimnir would have liked. By the time all eleven hundred of them were on the road, the sun was going down and a strong wind was coming out of the desert.

‘Get a move on!’ shouted Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We can’t be stuck out here at night!’ He turned to his brothers. ‘Get the best we have up front. Let’s look presentable. I want us to arrive as lords, not beggars.’

Arranged with as much dignity as they could muster, they continued on the last leg of their journey.

As they neared the hold, cairns appeared atop the rocks, singly or in twos and threes at first, then with increasing frequency until every tilted stone tooth was capped.

‘Armour, and arms,’ said Ulgavost.

‘Um, yes,’ said Drokki. ‘They build them from the many enemies who have come against their fortress and failed.’

‘I know that!’ said Ulgavost. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘His point is, the stories are true,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

‘They’re not just true,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir, taking in the endless heaps of bones and armour, and the massive face growing steadily before the column. Already it was big enough to swallow the sky, and they weren’t even halfway there. ‘They don’t tell the half of it.’

They walked on into evening. The mountain reared higher and higher, Grimnir’s face appearing titanically huge.

The Fyreslayers were already feeling daunted when a tremendous peal of trumpets blasted out from the Voltdrang. They blared across the silent desert. With no other noise to challenge them, they seemed to go on forever.

‘The gates! They’re opening!’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir.

A muted cheer went up from the column.

The rattling of the gate mechanism came to them cleanly, again for the lack of any other noise to compete. Shouting and the sound of marching feet echoed around the wide throat of Grimnir, followed by more trumpets.

‘Send Brokkengird to the back,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘I don’t want him coming out with anything regrettable.’

Brokkengird farted loudly. Beaming at himself, he turned about and marched away to the column’s rear.

They were close now. Outside the hold the plain had been flattened and a town constructed. The buildings were all duardin-built, but sized for a mixture of peoples, as far as Ulgathern-Grimnir could tell. The place was ruinous, the buildings tumbledown, its defensive wall so full of breaches that the few parts still at full height resembled rough pillars.

‘The Voltdrang seems inviolable at distance,’ Ulgavost said beneath his breath, so that only Ulgathern-Grimnir would hear. ‘These ruins tell a different story.’

‘Their hold stands still,’ Ulgathern-Grimnir replied. ‘That is all that matters.’

It was there, in the central plaza of the ruins, that the Volturung Fyreslayers greeted them.

A great lord approached them, borne aloft on a litter of gold and steel made in the form of a stylised magmadroth. Eight warriors carried it, their biceps studded with runes of strength. The lord wore more ur-gold than Ulgathern-Grimnir had ever seen on one duardin. His hair was easily four feet high, framed by an elaborate helm and crest of gold and jewels. He rode the litter standing, his hands clasped on the top of a double-headed rune-axe. Behind him marched four hundred hearthguard, all heavy with gold and ur-gold.

Horns blared one more time and the litter came to a halt on the other side of the square to the Ulgaen lodges.

Ulgathern-Grimnir nodded to Drokki. He stepped forward and bowed so low his crest brushed the roadway.

‘O high and mighty lords of Volturung! We, the people of the Ulgaen lodges, have travelled many long days to meet with you. We humbly beseech you for aid. Our home is—’

‘You’re a sorry lot, and no mistake,’ interrupted the Volturung lord.

Drokki stopped talking. His confidence evaporated.

‘Runefather!’ he began again, more weakly. ‘We ask only—’

‘Do you hear that? Runefather!’ The Volturung delegation laughed loudly. ‘Voltus-Grimnir wouldn’t rouse himself to greet a bunch of vagabonds like you. I am his fifteenth son, Golgunnir. I suppose I must look like a runefather to you, paupers that you are.’

Golgunnir was old enough and richly decorated enough to be a runefather. Gold pendants hung around his neck in layers. His skin was studded with ur-gold runes. One or two more and he’d be a grimwrath berzerker, but Ulgathern-Grimnir was having none of his poor bearing, gold or not.

‘Right then, runeson. I am a runefather, and I invoke the right of hospitality, and the rights of seniority.’

‘You do, do you?’

‘Yes. So shut up and do me the courtesy of listening. We come here to ask for sanctuary. Our hold was destroyed. Our people are homeless. Volturung is the great-great-great grandsire of our lodge. We return to our homeland and ask for aid.’

Golgunnir rudely looked away until Ulgathern-Grimnir had finished.

‘What happened to your hold?’

‘His brother opened a tainted realmgate and let the hordes of Chaos come flooding in!’ shouted Brokkengird.

‘I thought he’d gone to the back,’ muttered Ulgavost.

Ulgathern-Grimnir closed his eyes. His temper roared hot. ‘We are your kin!’

‘Ulgaen, you say? Never heard of you. Do you know how many lodges Volturung is father to?’ said Golgunnir. ‘Do you? Scores. There are nearly a dozen that claim the name Volturung in their title alone. We can’t take every failing branch back. We’re full, sonny.’

‘You will address him as runefather!’ said Ulgavost angrily. ‘He and Tulgamar-Grimnir both.’

‘I’m twice the age of your runefather. I’ve five times more warriors to command, and I’m reckoned the fourth senior of Voltus-Grimnir’s sons. Now, my father is runefather, highest lord of all the Volturung kin-lodges, which I suppose includes you. Do you see what I’m saying? Your lot, you’re a stripling lodge looking for a handout. That is not the Fyreslayer way. If you’ve got ur-gold to pay us to fight, then fine. If you have something to offer us for our mutual profit, we can talk. But you’re not moving in no matter what, not if you brought me Grimnir’s golden big toe and dropped it at my feet.’