Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

As he fought, he saw the branchwraith stride through the swirling ashes thrown up by the plague furnace’s destruction to confront a shrieking skaven. The skaven, swathed in foul robes, its hairy flesh puckered with scars and buboes, chattered a challenge. Gardus made to step forwards, but the branchwraith threw an arm across his chest, stopping him.

‘No,’ she said, in a voice like branches crackling on a fire. ‘Our sap runs hot, son of Sigmar. But Thellembhol’s runs hotter still.’

Gardus looked past the skaven, and saw an immense shape loom out of the smoke. The treelord that had upset the plague furnace rose up over the foul creature. The skaven whirled about, claws raised, eyes glowing as verminous lips writhed in the beginnings of a croaked incantation. Thellembhol raised one massive foot and slammed it down, stamping the life from it.

Gardus looked around; the battle was over. If any of the skaven had survived the wrath of the dryads, they had fled. The blightkings were all dead, their bodies dissolving into rancid sludge. His limbs felt heavy, and the fires which had seared his armour clean began to gutter and fade. He staggered and sank to one knee. Thick vines caught him before he fell, their thorns clattering almost gently against the plates of his armour.

‘You are tired almost unto death, son of Sigmar,’ the branchwraith said, looking down at him, her inhuman features twisted into an expression of what he thought was concern. ‘Know that you have the thanks of the sylvaneth and the Lady of Vines, war-hand of the Radiant Queen.’

‘Lady,’ Gardus said, as he pushed himself up, ‘I have waded through a sea of horrors to return to this realm… I must get back to my brothers. I–I must tell them of what I have seen. I have seen the Hidden Vale, and Alarielle. I can lead them…’

He trailed off as he suddenly recalled to whom he spoke. The Lady of Vines had stiffened at his words, and he felt the treelord approach, a rumbling growl slipping from its bark-maw.

‘Fear you to tell your tale, son of Sigmar?’ the Lady of Vines hissed. ‘You have learned a dangerous truth, it seems.’ The vines about him tightened, and he tensed, ready to fight his way free. Then, with a rattling sigh, the branchwraith released him. ‘Then, perhaps your coming shall bestir my mother from the darkling dreams which do assail her. Be not afraid, son of Sigmar — we shall take you to your brothers.’

Gardus sagged, relief flooding him. Then, with reserves of strength he did not know he possessed, he pulled himself upright. He met the branchwraith’s flickering gaze and nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Lead on, O Lady of Vines… and I shall follow.’

‘Forwards!’ Grymn roared, as he raised his halberd high, casting the light of his warding lantern across the blasted expanse of Profane Tor. Thunder snarled overhead, and a cerulean rain pounded down on faithful and foul alike. Strobing lightning revealed a gore-streaked tableau. ‘Forwards, for Sigmar… for Azyr… and for the Steel Soul,’ Grymn bellowed, fighting to drown out the drone of the monstrous Dirgehorn.

The Steel Souls had battled their way to the top of the tor through herds of slavering beastmen and the wailing of the horn. Somewhere in the clearing below, Zephacleas and Ultrades were bellowing orders to their respective warriors as they fought to give the Hallowed Knights time to silence that diabolical moan.

The Dirgehorn sat curled about the trunk of a great hag tree, amongst piled weapons and trophy skulls. The tree was a towering nightmare, looming over the tor, its branches stretching everywhere. It stank of rot and death, and noose-throttled corpses and spiked cages dangled from its crooked branches, twisting in an unnatural dance to the Dirgehorn’s song. A beastlord of immense size, with a crown of curved horns, put its slobbering jaws to the mouthpiece and blew again and again, as if to urge its warriors on to greater feats of madness.

Lightning streaked across the sky as the Stormcasts forced themselves forwards at Grymn’s command. With every echoing whine of the daemonic horn, skin blackened and metal tarnished, and men were forced to fight to prevent being bowled over by the sheer, abominable force of it. Beastmen swarmed across the tor from all sides, leaping over the great roots of the hag tree and flinging themselves onto the invaders.

‘Fight, Stormcasts,’ Grymn snarled. ‘Only the faithful shall be victorious. Only the faithful shall see the spires of Sigmaron again. Fight. Fight! Fight! ’

With every flash of lightning, Grymn could see silver-clad Hallowed Knights doing just that as they battled the servants of the Ruinous Powers. Liberators locked shields with frothing, goat-headed gors; Judicators launched volley after volley at the gigantic beasts prowling the misted eaves of the tor; wailing bray-shamans cast curse after curse upon the heads of the Stormcasts; and armoured champions of Chaos hacked a path through the ranks of their foes.

It was the latter that occupied Grymn’s attentions, and he smashed his way towards the bloated warriors, followed closely by Tallon. A two-headed beastman lunged into his path and he drove the end of his halberd through the creature’s gut. As it bent over, he brought the blade of his weapon down on the stretch of flesh between its necks. Black blood gushed and a pair of agonized screams rose up from the creature’s twin throats. Grymn ripped his halberd free and shoved the dying creature out of his path. A second beastman charged towards him, axe held over its horned head, but Tallon pounced on it. It fell with a strangled bleat as the gryph-hound’s beak tore out its throat in a welter of gore.

Grymn reached the obese Chaos champions a moment later. They were an unpleasant sight, even when considered beside their own diseased kind — the split-bellied axemen wore rusty, brine-crusted armour, and they had patches of pallid flesh that bulged around the straps and plates. At their head was a monstrous warrior with a horribly distorted body. Fully half of it was rent asunder and from the gaping wound emerged the snapping beak and twisting tentacles of some vile sea-beast.

Grymn knew instinctively that this was their leader. He set his feet and swung his halberd out, letting the haft slide through his hands as he did so in order to gain reach. The blade smashed into the marred flesh that marked the champion’s mutated side, and Grymn was rewarded by a spurt of inky blood.

The champion wheeled, smacking his halberd aside. The force of the blow almost tore the weapon from Grymn’s hands, but he recovered quickly.

‘Foul play, shiny-skin,’ the betentacled champion roared as he drove Grymn back with a sweep of his great axe. ‘Only fair to introduce yourself first. I am Gutrot Spume, Lord of Tentacles, Master of the Rotwater, and various and sundry other titles of importance. Who are you?’

‘Your death, abomination,’ Grymn said.

‘Ha! Heard that before, aye,’ Spume cackled. ‘You aren’t the first, and won’t be the last. Come on then, if you’re of a mind.’

The champion spun his axe in his human hand, and chopped out at Grymn, almost quicker than the latter’s eye could follow. Grymn jerked to the side, avoiding the bite of the immense blade, and thrust his halberd out like a spear. The spike at its tip slammed into Spume’s shoulder-guard, rocking the champion on his wide feet.

‘That’s the spirit, shiny-skin,’ Spume said, as three of his tentacles snagged the haft of the halberd and held it in place as Grymn tried to pull it free.

‘Tallon,’ Grymn barked. The gryph-hound lunged, his iron-hard beak snapping shut on the sinewy appendages and tearing them apart. Spume staggered back with a bellow, slashing out at the gryph-hound, and the animal bounded away. Grymn spun the halberd between his hands and swung it out. Spume blocked the blow, and for a moment Grymn’s world narrowed to the clash of blades as they traded blows back and forth. Their duel was not a graceful one; instead, it was a thing of strength and sheer bloody-mindedness — two things that Grymn had in abundance, and that marked him for leadership, alongside the Steel Soul.