Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘Aid me, Drokki!’ called Marag-Or. His eyes glowed with yellow firelight. Ash sifted down from his mouth with every word. He slammed his staff into the ground. ‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’

The beastmasters of the birthing chamber fought ferociously against the Fyreslayers. They were bigger than normal skaven, incensed by the slaughter of the mothers, and took a heavy toll on the duardin. Drokki watched as a vulkite berzerker threw his bladed shield at a fresh party of skaven entering the hall by a secret tunnel, decapitating one and piercing another through the heart. The warrior gripped his axe and charged into the gap opened up by his shield, but was quickly swamped.

‘Drokki!’ called Marag-Or again. ‘To me!’

Drokki hurried over to the ancient runemaster. The fires of his own runic iron flared bright in sympathy with Marag-Or’s magic as he snatched it from its belt loop. He waited for Marag-Or’s next beat, then joined in, pounding on the rock in time with his old master.

‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’ they shouted together.

The ground shifted. A crack opened in the rock. Superheated steam roared out, cooking mewling skaven young by the score.

‘Yes! Yes!’ shouted Marag-Or. ‘You can feel it, can you not, Drokki? The power of the earthblood. Feel it rise!’

‘I call on the mountain! Bring forth your earthblood! Fill the hollow chamber of your heart! Purify yourself!’ they shouted again. Their staffs slammed into the rock. Cracks ran out from their feet. The chamber quaked. The cracks widened into crevasses, the ruddy light of sluggish magma shining upward from deep underground.

The skaven’s sensitive noses twitched at the smell of burning rock. When another earthquake sent some of their feeding gear tumbling into the fires of the earth, they gave up their struggle, turned tail and ran.

‘Everyone out!’ shouted Marag-Or. He grabbed Drokki’s arm. ‘No more now, lad, we don’t want this place to go the way of the Ulgahold. Enough to burn the vermin out, no more.’

Grokkenkir’s warriors ran for the tunnel they had arrived by, dragging their wounded with them. The mountain no longer needed the runemasters’ encouragement and set up a terrific shaking all on its own. Molten rock oozed from the crevices in the floor, pooling in depressions. The cavern became as hot as a furnace. Skaven mothers, living and dead alike, burst into flame.

Drokki led Marag-Or over the broken cavern floor as best he could, helping him over the wider cracks, kicking skaven dead and boulders out of the way. Grokkenkir beckoned to them from the tunnel mouth, his eyes straying over Drokki’s shoulder at the rising tide of lava.

‘Come on, runemasters! Just a little way further!’ he cried.

Drokki stepped up the lip of the tunnel, and reached out a hand for the older runemaster. Lava filled most of the cavern floor and was creeping up the walls.

Marag-Or took his hand.

A shot rang out. Marag-Or’s eyes widened in surprise.

‘Skaven sharpshooters!’ bellowed Grokkenkir and pointed to where a number of jezzail teams were lining up on the catwalks.

Marag-Or looked down at his chest. A wisp of smoke rose from beneath his war harness. Blood welled after. ‘I’m done. You best get on, eh, lad?’ said Marag-Or. He let go of Drokki’s hand and fell back into the molten rock. His eyes closed as he sank into it, his skin blackened, and the fire took him.

‘Runemaster!’ said Drokki.

‘We have to head to the surface!’ said Grokkenkir, physically hauling Drokki back before he could jump into the lava after his mentor. A shot ricocheted off the wall and another shattered on the stone near their feet. ‘Now!’

Brokkengird sang as he cut down skaven by the score. Try as they might, they could not harm him. What few scratches he took only enraged him. He drove into them, a one-duardin army.

Tulgamar-Grimnir rode his magmadroth deep into the horde, the great ur-salamander spitting fire into the ratkin masses and igniting them by the dozen. Fyreslayers fought in disciplined ranks around the magmadroth’s feet, their axes cutting skaven down wherever they fell.

And yet still they were outnumbered, and the battle would have been lost, if two things had not occurred. Firstly, the ground’s booming and rumbling turned into a fully fledged earthquake so violent that skaven went sprawling. Smoke belched from the mountain’s summit.

Secondly, confusion took hold of the skaven still pouring from their lair. They began to falter, then to look behind themselves.

Ulgathern-Grimnir’s fyrd burst from the gates, smoke belching after them, slaying skaven as they came. The Runefather had lost many warriors, but those remaining fought ferociously and their arrival sent panic rippling through the skaven ranks.

‘Forward! To my brother!’ yelled Tulgamar-Grimnir. Grakki-grakkov reared high, pounding clanrats flat with its feet when it came down. Roaring, it broke into a lumbering canter, smashing ratmen aside as it ran for the gate. The Fyreslayers began to sing triumphantly. With trumpets blowing, they followed.

The skaven at the edge of the battle began to melt away. A few cowardly souls at first, then in great numbers.

The mountain boomed. Its smokes thickened. The Steelspike slept no more.

Brokkengird laughed. Today was a good day to kill.

The mass pyres of the skaven dead were still burning a week later when the rest of Ulgathern’s people came to join the hold from their camp at the Voltdrang.

The Fyreslayers refashioning the gates downed tools and ran out to meet the column as it appeared from the valley approach to the Steelspike. Families were reunited before the new hold. Ulgathern-Grimnir and his brothers were glad to see a sizeable force had been sent to escort them by the Volturung, and that they were well fed, clean and happy.

They were less pleased to see Runeson Golgunnir.

The runeson came on foot this time, and was garbed for war. Still far too ostentatiously for Ulgathern-Grimnir’s tastes, but at least he was dressed with fighting in mind.

‘Looks like I underestimated you,’ said Golgunnir. He looked around at the heaps of skaven bodies and gear. ‘You did a good job. You reawoke the mountain. Crafty.’

‘You thought we wouldn’t win.’

Golgunnir shrugged. ‘True. But my father thought you were in with a chance, or he would never have sent you. He’s an honourable sort, my father.’

‘You disapprove?’

Golgunnir nodded as he surveyed the mountain, the piles of scrapped machinery, the scaffolding around the gates where statues of Grimnir were already being roughed out in the rock. ‘I do. I’ll never be a runefather because of that. I’ve no faith in other folk. Still, at least I know my limits. Are there any tunnels left open?’

‘A few,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We’ve flooded the deepest with earthblood, set warding runes all about those higher in the mountain. I don’t want to plug them all, else how would we take the war to them?’

‘That’s what I hoped you’d say,’ said Golgunnir. ‘If I might have your permission, runefather, I will take my men hunting. The ratkin have regarded this land as theirs for too long.’

‘I grant it gladly.’

Golgunnir gave a brief nod, hitched up his belt, and held out his hand. ‘Welcome to the domain of the Volturung. Welcome home.’

Ulgathern-Grimnir clasped Golgunnir’s wrist. ‘If it’s all the same, we’ll be keeping the Ulgaen name. We are the last of our lodge-kin. Henceforth, we shall be Ulgaen-dumar lodge and Ulgaen-kumar lodge of Steelspike Hold.’