Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Damn you, Gardus, he thought. Sigmar had made Gardus his sword, and Grymn his shield. But now he’s gone, and I must be both. The thought drove him, as always, to fight all the harder. Gardus had been his greatest rival, the one whom he tested himself against. But now Gardus was gone, and only Grymn was left.

As lightning flashed, he could see that he and his opponent were not alone in their struggle. He saw a slavering bullgor tear away a fallen Stormcast’s armour, only to howl in thwarted rage as the dying warrior evaporated in a burst of blue. He saw lightning hammers blast through barrel chests and storm axes lay open spines. As he parried a blow from Spume, he saw Tegrus swoop low in the corner of his vision and smash the head from a blightking’s shoulders.

Spume’s laughter faded as they duelled back and forth through the rain. The battle swirled about them, men and beasts rising and falling in untold numbers, but they remained locked in combat, neither warrior able to best the other.

Grymn parried a sweep of his opponent’s axe and replied in kind.

He roared in anger and chopped down on Spume’s head. His blade glanced off the champion’s featureless helm. Spume staggered. Grymn saw an opening and took it. He spun his halberd about and stabbed it forward, catching the champion in the gaping beak-maw that had replaced his armpit.

The maw closed on the sigmarite head of Grymn’s halberd, and the yellowed fangs cracked and shattered. The abnormal growth shuddered, and Spume’s tentacles stiffened and drooped, forcing him to drop his axe. As he fell back, Grymn saw his paladins, led by Machus, his Decimator-Prime, chop down the last of Spume’s warriors. Before he could call out to them, Spume lunged for him, tentacles flailing.

The axe-wielding Machus beheaded the last of his opponents and kicked the body aside.

‘Lord-Castellant, I am coming,’ Machus said, hacking down a beast that leapt into his path.

‘Machus, take out that damnable horn,’ Grymn shouted, as he forced Spume back. The Decimator-Prime chopped through a second bloat-bellied beast and hesitated. Grymn cursed. ‘Forget about me, fool — destroy that horn!’ he roared, crunching the sigmarite-bound haft of his halberd into his opponent’s bloated throat.

‘Should have let him aid ye, shiny-skin,’ Spume croaked, as he grabbed Grymn’s throat with his human hand. With a grunt, he hurled Grymn backwards across the clearing. The Stormcast slammed hard into a moss-encrusted menhir and fell, wracked with pain. His vision blurred as rainwater ran into his eyes through the slits of his helm, and he slipped and fell as he tried to push himself to his feet. Things grated inside him and he coughed blood. He stretched out his hand, trying to reach his halberd where it had fallen. Damn you, Gardus, he thought. You were always too reckless. Why did you have to die? It should be you leading this attack. You were the sword. I am the shield.

‘Now I’ll be for chopping your head off and nailing it to my mast,’ Spume wheezed as he staggered towards Grymn. He had recovered his axe and dragged it behind him. ‘It’ll be Gutrot Spume who’s the wormy apple of Nurgle’s eye, and not some jumped up Ghyranite who got a bath in the Pit of Filth and decided to turn coat…’

His muttering broke off abruptly into a scream as Tallon caught hold of one of his trailing tendrils and dug in with his paws, yanking Spume off-balance.

The champion whirled, the gryph-hound leapt, and they both fell over. As they struggled, Grymn saw Machus hurl his great double-bladed axe towards the repugnant horn and its bestial wielder. The weapon slammed into the beastlord and pitched him backwards into the instrument, hard enough to crack the twisted curve of bone. The horn split along its length and the artefact’s great drone rose to an agonised scream. The magical energies of the horn roiled out of control, consuming the beastlord’s twitching body before exploding with an earth-shaking rumble, taking the hag tree with it. A thousand sharp daggers of oak and bone filled the air, eviscerating every warrior nearby not blessed enough to be clad in holy sigmarite.

As the smoke cleared, and his senses with it, Grymn saw Tallon trotting towards him, a writhing tendril clasped tight in his beak.

‘Good hound,’ he said as he got to his feet. He grunted in pain as he retrieved his halberd and lantern. Spume was gone. Whether he was dead or had fled, Grymn couldn’t say, and didn’t much care. He looked about. Beastmen lay broken and bloody all around. Machus strode towards him through the smoke, his axe in hand. ‘Do you yet live, Lord-Castellant?’ he called.

‘No, I’m a ghost,’ Grymn spat, shaking his head. ‘Of course I live. And next time I tell you to do something — do it!’

Machus bowed his head. Despite his chastisement, Grymn could tell the Decimator-Prime was relieved. He shook his head.

‘Rally the others, Decimator-Prime,’ he growled. ‘There’s red work yet to be done.’

‘Aye, Lord-Castellant,’ Machus said, hastening to obey.

Grymn watched him go, and turned to see Morbus making his way towards him, accompanied by a number of others. Zephacleas and Ultrades walked with the Lord-Relictor as he stalked through the wreckage of battle, his reliquary staff glowing softly with a silver light.

‘We must redress our lines,’ Grymn said. ‘The enemy have been beaten here, but they will return in strength. We must find a proper defensive position, as well as another realmgate.’

‘Wait — look,’ Zephacleas said, pointing towards the slopes below the tor. ‘Look!’

Grymn caught sight of a glow moving through the smog-shrouded reaches below. It grew in intensity as it wound through the trees and the shattered remnants of the cursed menhirs, and Grymn became aware of the sound of creaking wood and rustling leaves.

‘Sylvaneth,’ Morbus murmured. Grymn knew he was correct. He had glimpsed the treekin often enough since arriving, and knew the sound of them well. Like a forest caught in a windstorm, the march of a warglade was an eerie chorus of creaks and groans.

‘Yes, but are they coming as allies… or enemies?’ Grymn said. Tallon growled softly and snapped his beak. The gryph-hound sensed his master’s unease, and Grymn reached down to stroke the animal’s feathered ruff. ‘Easy, my lad. Easy…’

‘We should take up a defensive position,’ Ultrades said, one hand on the hilt of his runeblade.

Grymn shook his head.

‘Too late for that,’ he said. ‘They’re all around us. Can’t you hear them?’

‘All I hear are the trees creaking in the wind,’ Ultrades said. Grymn snorted.

‘There is no wind,’ he said. He turned his attentions back to the light, and realised that he could make out figures within it. The tall, unnatural shapes of dryads stalked forward, carrying something — a throne of tangled branches and stiff vines — on their shoulders. The glow emanated not from the treekin, but instead from the figure slumped on the throne. A figure that was not unfamiliar…

‘ Gardus… ’ Zephacleas whispered.

Grymn started.

‘Gardus,’ he said, in disbelief. He took a step. Then another. ‘Gardus,’ he said again, unable to believe his eyes. A slow, flat smile spread across his face as he descended to meet his Lord-Celestant.

‘You have no idea how glad I am to see you.’

Torglug the Despised One looked out over the Glade of Horned Growths and heaved a sigh. ‘The rats are failing. Gluhak is failing. Spume is failing. Only Torglug stands, Grandfather…’ Down below, fungus-riddled trees shed their bark as the rot-fog of the skaven faded. The master of the Brotherhood of the Red Boil, the plague-priest Kratsik, was dead, squashed flat by a vengeful treelord. Something maybe to be thanking them for, Torglug thought, as he leaned on the haft of his axe and stared out at all of the nauseating green. He didn’t care for the skaven. They were too tricksy by half, and always seeking an advantage over their betters.