Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

One of them carried a great standard of gold and bone, and his face was masked with the stark image of a skull. Another propelled himself high into the storm-lashed skies, his wings still surrounded by the blinding aura of the descent. They were the lords, then, the masters of these strange outcasts from the arch of the heavens.

But Khul could see that one alone was the true master of the host. He had come down first, and had emerged from the annihilation of the domes before any other, and Khul had watched him with a greedy yearning. Alone of the warriors he did not tread the earth of the Brimstone Peninsula, but rode a giant beast with skin of dark cobalt and jaws the length of a man. The rider’s cloak, billowing out in the eddies of the storm, was the sapphire of clear skies, and his helm was surmounted with a golden crest. The image of the hammer and comet shone out from a boss on his armour, and like the brothers that emerged after him, he carried that most devastating of the great weapons of old — the warhammer, crimson-shafted and wrought from glittering gold.

As soon as Khul saw this he remembered what it was like to face an enemy capable of fighting. He saw the might in those steel-clad arms, and the artistry in that golden armour, and knew then that these foes were like nothing he had ever faced before. The light of unsullied star-realms shone in their masked eyes, and the calm presumption of victory bled from their every poised movement.

But there was more than that — the mounted warrior held his attention. Khul heard Grizzlemaw growl, and recalled another combat, lifetimes ago, one which had remained unfinished, cut short by the intervention of lightning, just as this encounter had been presaged by it.

It could not be — such things were impossible, sundered by too much time and space — but the feeling was the same, the instinct was the same.

By now his army was recovering itself. They were picking themselves up from where they had fallen, shaking their heads to clear them, retrieving axes, remembering their voices of hatred and murder. Skullbrand strode among them, rousing them to repel the storm-borne host. Vekh had been faster, and was sweeping towards the three towers with flails whirling. Every stroke that he dragged across the back of the blood warriors snapped them from their stupor and roused them back into the lust for slaughter that had seen them tear across the plains toward the Gate.

Khul laughed again. He raised his axe and curls of lightning snapped on to the hell-forged iron.

‘ Blood for the Blood God! ’ he thundered, making those around him froth and snarl with rabid fury. ‘One chosen skull for the pyre of his glory!’

He angled his axe towards the lord of the storm-delivered, and fixed him for the death that would break the back of the glittering host before the night’s end.

‘You!’ he roared. ‘ You I shall take myself!’

The passage of the void had been like a death. Nothing, save the Reforging that he had endured so long ago, compared to its straitening pain. He had seen the deep dark in all its abyssal glory, yawning down into eternity over a vault of cold-burning stars. Amid that space, he had seen the snatched images of other realms, lit softly amid the thrown scattering of the firmament. He had seen places of blasted stone, over-verdant forests, and screaming towers of multi-hued madness. All of it was different and all of it the same — warped by the wills of malevolence, turned into variegated hells, lost to hope.

Then the visions had ripped away, replaced by the sheer fire of the descent. He had cried out, feeling the lightning surge through his very body, burning along his veins, spilling from his eyes, his mouth, his hands. Too late did he remember how it had felt the first time, when the God-King had reached out to pluck those he deemed worthy of ascension from the failing battles of the old ages.

Then the agony snapped out and he felt the Realm of Fire solidify around him. He heard the roar of its storms and smelled the acrid smoke of its endless pyres. The cocoon of celestial power bloomed about him, and he saw the dim outline of vast ruins through its translucent veil.

The dome blew out, dissolving in a rain of twisting shards. Vandus breathed in the first air of Aqshy. He tasted it, he heard its tumults, he felt the unstable tremors beneath his feet.

It had changed beyond all recognition — even if his dreams of the old life had not been so fractured, he would not have known the place. The skies were overcast with driving filth, the earth below sundered with rivers of spitting fire. Only the storm, a mere remnant of the Celestial Realm’s purity, contained any splendour — the rest was spoiled.

Lifetimes ago, he had seen the limitless darkness take this world and torture it. He had seen the legions marching under blood-red banners, and the skies riven by the screams of the taken. He had seen the brass cities, where pyramids of scraped-clean skulls served as altars to gods whose victory was soon to be complete. Even now, removed by both time and space, he could remember the way the world had died. Every withered plain and craggy mountain had been taken, polluted by hatreds that were older than the stones themselves.

So much had gone. He could not know how long ago it had been, nor what mortal count of years he had reached before the God-King had seen fit to take him for his own, but he had dreamed in Sigmaron of the old houses of stone and thatch, in which had dwelt all those he had known in the life before life. He still saw their faces — the warriors who had ridden out with him when the skies were lit with dancing fires and the warbands of hell were abroad. Many had been precious to him — those who had fought longest and hardest, who had followed him out into the wilds and lived among the wolves when the light of the sun itself was marred.

There was one face from those years that would never leave him — a woman’s, a warrior just as he had been, the one with whom he had shared his soul. Hers was the only clear vision he still retained, but even then her name was gone. Her skin had been scarred like all the rest of them, and streaked with the grime of constant combat. It had been a hard face, made tough by the rigours of a war without end, but when she had smiled her dark eyes had held the light of stars.

But now that was washed away, seared by the white fire of the Reforging. That world, those faces — all were excised, and what remained was a mere reflection, twisted into horror, more potent than he could ever have imagined.

Around him his warriors hastened to their stations. They had known so little of what they would encounter, save for the vague location of the Gate and the likelihood of resistance wherever they emerged. Their prediction had proved sound — a massive army had already arrayed itself before them, pouring down from a far ridge and milling across the plains to the south of their impact sites. The horde before them outnumbered Vandus’s own vanguard a dozen times, and even a company of Eternals would be borne down by such tides, given enough time. The task now — the only task — was to endure long enough to see the Gate unlocked. Until that was done, they were on their own. Once the portal was opened, whole legions of their brothers would be sent, and the war would commence in earnest.

Vandus saw that already his captains were doing what was required of them. Ionus was leading the Retributors down from the heights and into the valley of fire. They would be charged with holding the line around the base of the portal, and there the Cryptborn’s strange powers would be tested as never before. Anactos had taken his Skyhost soaring into the rain-soaked storm, from where the assault on the magical wards would begin.