Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘Lightning-things,’ Kruk hissed, his good eye widening in pleasure. ‘Yessss…’

Squeelch tensed. He knew that tone. Kruk was insane — his brain was rotted in his mossy skull. He had a love for bloodshed that outstripped even that of a daemon like Skuralanx.

‘Yes, I shall rip them and break them. I shall fill their pretty armour with maggots,’ said Kruk. He whirled and caught Squeelch by his robes. ‘Get to your plagueclaws, Squeelch. Fill the air with great clouds of pestilence and your lovely poisons — I would fight in the shade.’

‘Beast-bane, follow me,’ Lord-Celestant Zephacleas roared as he crashed through the makeshift stockade. The Astral Templar swept his runeblade and hammer out to either side, smashing timbers and cutting through the thick ropes which held the wall together. Lengths of fossilised hair and wood toppled as the Decimators of his Warrior Chamber joined him in tearing apart the skaven stockade. It took longer than it should have.

The verminous palisades were crude things made from scavenged scrap. The skaven weren’t artisans by any stretch of the word, but their defences had a certain primitive strength regardless. They were built for function rather than form, akin to the Stormcast Eternals themselves.

Zephacleas and his Stormcasts were one amongst many Warrior Chambers sent to the Ghurlands to free the kingdoms and tribal lands of the Amber Steppes from the clutches of Chaos.

Shu’gohl was not the only ambulatory metropolis upon those plains — many of the remaining great worms bore some form of edifice or structure upon their backs, and had done since before the beginning of the Age of Chaos. Isolated and ever-moving, the surging tides of Chaos had swept about them, unnoticed by the vast monstrosities and avoided by the populations who clung to them.

Despite this, some belonged wholly to Chaos now, like Guh’hath, the Brass Bastion, which carried its population of wild-eyed Bloodbound across the steppes in search of slaughter, or Rhu’goss, the Squirming Citadel, its ancient ramparts manned by the soulless crystal automatons of the Tzeentchian sorcerer-king Terpsichore the Unwritten. Others, like Shu’gohl, had seemingly resisted the touch of Chaos for centuries, until the coming of the skaven.

Warriors from the Hallowed Knights and the Lions of Sigmar sought to topple the Hundred Herdstones of Wolf-Crag, even as the Sons of Mallus laid siege to Guh’hath. But to the Beast-bane had fallen the task of freeing the Crawling City from its skittering conquerors and preventing the death of the great worm.

Their orders were to fight their way through the skaven-held regions of the city, all the way to the ruins of the Sahg’gohl — the great temple of Sigmar which had been built by the first inhabitants of the Crawling City. The temple had once contained a realmgate connecting the Crawling City to the Luminous Plain in Azyr, and it would be so once again, once the Crawling City was free of its verminous invaders. The Sahg’gohl clung to the worm’s head like a lightning-wreathed crown, and Zephacleas yearned to see it — to see the glory of such a place restored.

Others might have attacked the Sahg’gohl directly and left the freeing of the city for later — Taros Nine-Strike, the Lord-Castellant of the Beast-bane, for one. But then, Taros put his faith in expedience. Zephacleas favoured a different approach. What good was a temple when the folk who would worship within it were dead?

He bellowed and Liberators stepped forward, using their shields and hammers to wedge apart the broken sections of palisade as the Lord-Celestant led the Decimators into the fray. While the Liberators worked, Judicators fired over their heads, driving back the skaven. The ratmen reeled beneath the sizzling volley, and Zephacleas seized his moment, leading his Paladin retinues forward into the heart of the foe.

The Lord-Celestant was a giant of a man, even among the Stormcasts, and he sang with joy as he wielded hammer and blade. Once, he’d fought simply for food to ensure the survival of his tribe in a land full of monsters. Now, he fought to sweep the Mortal Realms clean of Chaos in all of its forms.

He scanned the interior of the stockade and saw a dozen large, crude cages made from pox-warped bone and disease-toughened ligament. Inside the cages, men, women and children screamed and wept.

Zephacleas growled in anger and took a step towards the cages. A skaven leapt at him from the crumbling stockade, a filth-covered mace clutched in its grimy claws. He spun, smashing it from the air with a blow of his hammer. More of the vermin scuttled forward in a disorganised rabble, flowing around and between the cages, chanting in high-squealing voices and swinging spiked censers with berserk abandon.

‘To me, my brothers — let us show them how the Astral Templars wage war,’ he said, spitting a frenzied rat-monk on his runeblade.

Liberators armed with dual warblades joined Zephacleas and his Decimators in hacking away at the charging skaven. The amethyst-armoured Stormcasts fought as savagely as their Lord-Celestant, as savagely as they had in the Gnarlwood so long ago. But the ratkin were as thick as fleas on the ground and showed no signs of retreat.

‘Thetaleas,’ Zephacleas said, signalling to the Decimator-Prime of a nearby retinue of axemen. ‘Teach them to fear us, as you and your men did in the Gnarlwood.’

‘As you command, Lord-Celestant,’ Thetaleas said, lifting his thunderaxe. ‘I shall give them peace, one strike at a time.’ The Decimators surged forward, away from the other Stormcasts, where they could ply their trade freely. With broad sweeps of their axes they cut a path through the swarming skaven. They hacked down droves of the ratkin, until at last, even the most maddened of the skaven began to fall back before their inexorable advance. The remains of the horde began to scurry away, shrieking.

‘Well done, Thetaleas,’ Zephacleas said, as the last of the skaven vanished through the outer wall of the stockade. ‘Now see to those cages.’ He gestured with his hammer. ‘We’ve only got a few moments before they regroup.’

As one, the Decimators moved to obey, as they had every time before. They had freed captives in a hundred such stockades since arriving on the back of the great worm. Zephacleas joined his warriors in tearing apart the cages.

The folk of the city were not familiar to him, though they might have been descendants of those tribes he’d once fought beside and against. But they were mortal and free of the taint of Chaos, and that was enough. He chopped through the warped bars of a cage and tore apart chains of ligament and muscle.

‘Out, hurry,’ he boomed at the cowering captives. He drove his sword into the ground and extended his hand. ‘Come on, the way is clear.’ The captives stared at him, awed and terrified by the armour-clad giant. Zephacleas grunted in frustration. ‘Out with you,’ he barked.

‘Calm yourself, Zephacleas. They are frightened.’

Zephacleas turned as a figure loomed up behind him. ‘There you are, Gravewalker. Help me with them. We do not have much time.’

‘If you stop shouting, they might be more inclined to listen.’ Like all those who held the post of Lord-Relictor, Seker Gravewalker was a fearsome sight. He was clad in heavy, ornate amethyst armour marked with sigils of death and rebirth. His face was hidden beneath an imposing skull-helm, and the ragged hide of a fire-wyrm hung from one shoulder plate. The beast’s narrow skull was set into the Gravewalker’s reliquary standard, alongside ornaments of gilded bone. A heavy warhammer hung from his belt. He raised his hand, and a crackle of soft lightning played about his fingers. Every mortal eye turned towards him.

‘Go, my children. We come in Sigmar’s name, and strike your foes with his fury. Go, and spread the word to those who yet fight that the God-King has come, and his storm shall sweep your kingdom clean,’ he intoned, his voice swelling to fill the air like the peal of a bell. A man, his flesh bruised and bloody, took a step forward. A woman joined him. Then others, young and old alike, until all were pushing their way free of the cage and fleeing the stockade.