Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

‘Friends,’ Zephacleas rumbled. She flinched, and he softened his voice. ‘We are friends.’ He looked past her, towards the inner courtyard of the Setaen Palisades, where hundreds of sickly mortals waited — the survivors of those who’d made their stand here, when the skaven had attacked. Soldiers and nobility, now reduced to a pitiful state. The skaven had worked most of them to death, and abused the others terribly. Many had been broken in body and soul, their spirits crushed beyond repair.

But the rest… they would survive. The folk of the Ghurlands were hardy; if it didn’t kill them outright, they’d survive it. At least in my day, Zephacleas thought.

S’ual reached out, hesitantly, and traced the sign of the lightning bolt carved on his chest-plate. ‘Warm,’ she said, softly, wonderingly. ‘Your armour is… warm.’

‘As the day it was forged,’ he said. ‘Where did the daemon go? After it killed him?’

‘Away,’ she said, absently. She blinked. ‘The others — they fled towards the Sahg’gohl and the Storm-Crown, across the great causeway.’ She looked up at him, not quite meeting his eyes. She extended her good arm, pointing out across the structure in question. The causeway was not long, but it had once been an impressive span, lined with tall statues and prayer-towers. Now those towers were in ruins and the statues shattered. It extended from the rear of the highest tier of the palisades to the lightning-wreathed structure which crowned the worm’s head. ‘Will you follow them?’ S’ual asked.

He nodded. ‘We must. Can you lead the others back? The Dorsal Barbicans have been cleansed, and your folk hold them once more. There is safety there, if anywhere.’

‘Nowhere is safe. The great worm is dying,’ S’ual said.

‘Not if we can help it,’ he said. After a moment’s hesitation, he placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Go. Sigmar shall watch over you, sister.’

She straightened at his touch. Her fingers found his gauntlet briefly, and then she bowed her head and stepped back. Zephacleas watched her go, and felt the faint stirring of a half-forgotten memory… a proud face, hair like fire, bound in thick plaits, and a voice… sharp, like a knife. His hand curled into a fist and he shook his head, angry at himself, though he couldn’t say why.

‘The Storm-Crown… an apt name,’ Seker said behind him, diplomatically. He peered towards the head of the worm. ‘It was a temple, once. A way to Azyr and back — a realmgate — shattered at the beginning of the Age of Chaos.’

‘That’s not what the vermin came here for, otherwise they’d have already taken it,’ Zephacleas said, irritated with himself for a number of reasons, not the least of which was not sending warriors to take the place when he’d had the chance — a mistake he would not make again. ‘From what we’ve seen, I doubt they even knew it was there,’ he continued.

‘I wonder if our allies do.’ The Lord-Relictor indicated the seraphon as he spoke.

The slann hovered nearby, expressionless features gazing out over the causeway. Takatakk crouched atop the ancient being’s throne and chirped quietly to his master in the hissing tongue of the seraphon. ‘They know more than they’re telling… all this talk of helping us, of fate and dreams.’ He shook his head. ‘Why are they really here?’

‘It doesn’t matter. We came to free this place and that’s what I intend to do,’ Zephacleas said. ‘We must—’

Without warning, a geyser of ichor and poison spewed upwards from the great shafts carved around the courtyard as Shu’gohl thrashed in agony. The air reverberated with the worm’s groans, and all around him mortal, Stormcast and seraphon alike clutched at their heads in agony. The world shuddered and the sky spun as the leviathan writhed in pain. Chunks of stone fell from the towers, and lightning flashed as a Liberator was crushed. The ground bucked beneath them, sending warriors and mortals sprawling. The causeway shook on its supports and swayed so perilously that Zephacleas thought it might be destroyed.

‘There must be a way to calm the beast, else we’ll all be crushed — or worse, the causeway will shatter,’ Zephacleas shouted, grabbing Seker by the shoulder. ‘Work your healing magics, Gravewalker, or we’re all bound for Reforging!’

‘I can try,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘The beast might be beyond saving.’ He extended his reliquary staff, holding it above the ground. As he did so, Takatakk reached out to set his own staff across it. The skink looked back at his master, and then at the Lord-Relictor.

‘You will not try alone. We shall work our magics together, dream-of-Sigmar. We shall bring harmony to the great leviathan, and ease its agonies,’ the Starpriest chirped. ‘Align your thoughts to mine, and listen. We shall make whole that which is in disarray.’

As the skink spoke, the slann raised his long arms above his head and uttered a wordless croak of power. The amber sky turned blue, and the storm clouds thickened. Motes of azure lightning danced within them. The Dreaming Seer reached out towards the Lord-Relictor, and Zephacleas felt something indefinable and intangible pass between them. The slann’s eyes were wide open now, and there were stars within them. Seker and Takatakk raised their staves and began to chant in unison. Though one prayed to Sigmar and the other did not, their voices flowed together like rushing water, rising up towards the darkening sky. Through it all, the worm continued to bellow its agonies, until Zephacleas thought his eardrums might burst.

The air thickened with growing pressure, and the voices of the Lord-Relictor and the Starpriest shaped it and stretched it. Their words seemed to echo from every tower and stone in the Crawling City, redoubling in volume and strength. Overhead, the clouds had turned the colour of the void, and the lightning had become as stars.

The slann stretched out his hands and, for a moment, it seemed to Zephacleas as if the creature were larger than it was. A titanic shape, quite unlike the crude amphibian body it normally wore; something vast and serpentine, as wide as the world and as long as eternity. It stretched up, and fangs of starlight scraped the sky. A glittering cerulean rain began to fall across Shu’gohl — lightly at first, but then growing in intensity. It was not the rain which accompanied the Stormcasts as they went to war, but it was of Azyr nonetheless.

Zephacleas lifted his hands in wonder. Other Stormcast Eternals followed suit, as too did the mortals. It was a cleansing rain, as would purify both body and soul, and he felt invigorated as it splashed across his armour. Where it touched the ground, a pale steam rose from the worm’s flesh. The filth of the skaven was reduced to ash and their abominable structures sagged and decayed in an instant. The worm’s shuddering slowed, and its groaning faded to a dull rumble.

Seker stumbled, his staff nearly slipping from his grip. Zephacleas caught him and helped to steady him. ‘Easy my friend — you have truly worked a wonder this day.’

Seker shook his head. ‘Not… not me. Not alone. It’s— his mind, it was so vast, like nothing I have ever witnessed… his mind is a sun, and we but orbit it,’ the Lord-Relictor said, in a whisper. ‘I saw horrors and beauties undreamt of even in the halls of Sigmaron, and moments… like fragments of crystal, holding flickering images of places I did not recognize. His mind is as clockwork, built not of mortal matter but something else… he has played out this very moment a thousand times across a thousand years, honing it, pruning away those possibilities which displease him. We… No.’ He shook himself and pushed away from Zephacleas. ‘Forgive me, Lord-Celestant. I… I am myself again.’