Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

He drew another arrow from his quiver. The arrows were magical in nature, as was the quiver they rested in. Crafted by the Six Smiths, the quiver filled as quickly as he could empty it, as the magics condensed new arrows from the air and the storm. Only one arrow was not so easily replaceable — the star-fated arrow. Forged from the very stuff of the stars, its potency was such that it took days rather than moments to reappear in the quiver. That one was reserved for the most powerful of targets. He’d used the star-fated arrow to pierce the fiery brain of the Black Bull of Nordrath, and cripple the abomination so that his fellow Stormcasts could end its monstrous rampage.

From the upper reaches of the fallen towers, rat-monks armed with rocks and whatever other missiles they could scrounge took aim at the winged warriors. Stones hissed through the air and Mantius swooped upwards, arrow nocked. As he crested the top of the tower, he loosed arrow after arrow, quicker than mortal eyes could follow. Skaven died, clawing and snapping at the arrows which transfixed them. As he nocked another arrow, he saw his huntsmen destroying the curve of the fallen tower, and burying the skaven within.

As the tower was reduced to a slope of smoking rubble, Lord-Celestant Zephacleas led retinues of Liberators and Decimators up the incline, killing any skaven who managed to wriggle free. Mantius swooped towards them, his hands a blur. Nock and loose, he thought, repeating the mantra over and over again in his head. There was a comforting rhythm to it, a susurrus that eased his scattered thoughts into the calm of battle.

He had been a hunter, once. A seed-rider, on the Ghyran Veldts. He had vague memories of floating on updrafts and riding swift downdrafts, loosing arrows at the wild, jade-feathered birds his tribe hunted for food. He had ridden his seed-pod into war as well, against the Rotbringers and their foul allies — chortling, gape-mouthed daemons who crushed entire tribes beneath their loathsome weight. The sound of their laughter still echoed up out of the black wells of his memory. He drew, nocked and loosed, faster and faster, losing himself in the rhythm.

‘Far-killer — the skaven seek refuge below,’ one of his huntsmen, Darius, cried, as he flung the smoke-wreathed body of a ratman aside. Several Prosecutors had landed at the apex of the fallen tower, where it had crashed against another, creating a natural arch. There, they dealt death to the skaven seeking to escape from one tower to the next, and drove most back towards the advancing Decimators. ‘Should we pursue?’

‘Aye, let no shadow escape the light, Darius,’ Mantius said, as he loosed a final arrow. Several of the Prosecutors, led by Darius, leapt into the air and swooped swiftly beneath the fallen tower. Mantius tucked his wings and followed, Aurora keeping pace.

It was dark beneath the tower, and streams of dust and filth spilled down from the cracks in the structure, reducing visibility and choking the air. Mantius spread his wings and cut through the streams, following his warriors. He could see the snap-spark of a celestial hammer as it spun towards a knot of writhing skaven. The ratmen were attempting to squeeze through a spider-web of cracks and escape their amethyst-armoured pursuers.

But as the Prosecutors drew close to the fleeing skaven, the Knight-Venator heard a grinding of rock and twisted in the air, hunting for the source of the noise. His breath caught in his throat as a wave of rot-stink enveloped him. He saw two thick, pale tendrils uncoil from the shadows which clung to the underside of the fallen tower. Before he could cry a warning, they snapped out and coiled around a Prosecutor’s neck and arm, yanking him from the air. The tendrils quivered and tensed. The air was filled with a horrible cracking sound, and the Prosecutor slumped.

‘Darius — beware,’ Mantius cried, as he brought himself up short and reached for his quiver. His warning came too late. Darius wheeled about, crackling hammer manifesting in his waiting hand, but something that gleamed with an oily hue spun out of the shadows and removed his head. The curved, sickle-like blade thudded home into the opposite tower, even as Darius’ body returned to Azyr in a blinding flash.

Mantius loosed a trio of arrows, trying to gauge where the blade had come from. As his arrows pierced the shadows, their attacker uncoiled from the darkness and dropped towards the remaining Prosecutors of Darius’ retinue.

It was akin to a skaven, but far too large and muscular to be a member of that breed. A number of curved and ridged horns rose from amidst its shaggy, greasy mane, and surmounted its fleshless skull like some hideous crown. Its bifurcated tail lashed about it like a whip and its boil-encrusted flesh clung tightly to swollen muscles. Daemon, Mantius thought. He’d seen similar beasts in the Jade Kingdoms, in Ghyran.

‘Die- die for Skuralanx,’ the monstrosity shrieked as it dropped, its sickle-blade opening an unlucky Prosecutor from skull to midsection. Even as the warrior came apart and vanished in a flare of lightning, the daemon was falling towards the next, tails lashing. Its blade slammed against the Prosecutor’s crossed hammers. The force of the contact caused the combatants to twist through the air.

A swooping Prosecutor had his neck snapped by a piston-like blow from the daemon’s cloven hoof. The verminlord spun through the air, somehow keeping itself aloft through sheer savagery. It leapt off a Prosecutor’s back and drove its hooked blade into the throat of another warrior, reducing him to a writhing streak of lightning. As it struck the opposite tower, it tore its hurled blade free and lunged back into the fray.

Mantius cursed, unable to draw a bead on the quicksilver shape of the rat-daemon. The creature seemed to be there one moment and gone the next, as if it were only a trick of the light. It sprang from tower to tower, ricocheting between them with inhuman grace. Another Prosecutor perished before Mantius at last had a clear shot. He loosed the arrow, but only managed to splinter one of the creature’s worm-eaten horns.

The verminlord sprang back, seeking refuge in the shadows.

‘Aurora,’ Mantius snapped. The star-eagle screeched and shot forward, talons spread. The raptor intercepted the daemon and drove it back in a flurry of glittering feathers. The rat-daemon dropped, digging its blades into the side of the tower. It looked up at him, eyes flaring with hatred. Mantius reached for the star-fated arrow — daemon or no, few creatures could resist it.

As if guessing his intentions, the daemon tore its blades loose and dropped to the street below. The remaining Prosecutors hurled their hammers after it, obliterating the sides of the tower and filling the air with debris. Mantius knew that the beast was gone before the air cleared. A coward, just like its followers, he thought, as he flapped his wings and rose.

‘Proxius, Caledus,’ he said. ‘Gather the other huntsmen. There will be time enough to mourn later. For now, we must clear those ramparts.’ He surged up and away, swooping around the curve of the fallen tower and over the thick ramparts of the Dorsal Barbicans.

As he rose over the walls, he spotted the slave-stockades inside the inner courtyard. Prosecutors swooped to join him. The stockades were domed cages of bone and setae, and each one held dozens of mortals, most of them undernourished, maltreated or dying. The skaven were using them as pox-hosts, ammunition and food, he knew. The vile creatures valued nothing save ruin.

Between the seraphon advancing on the central gates and the Stormcast Eternals climbing the fallen towers towards the ramparts, the vermin had little attention to spare his efforts. He was determined to make them regret that.