Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Battle in the sky

‘Only the faithful,’ Tegrus shouted as he folded his wings and arrowed towards the plague drone. Hammer crashed against plaguesword as he swept past. Prosecutors from three Stormhosts had launched themselves aloft to engage the daemon-flyers, as the latter swarmed the island, seeking to attack those who stood upon it.

As he swooped through the air, back towards his quarry, Tegrus could see the grey-green reaches of Rotwater Blight spreading out far below him. There too was the shattered husk of the Oak of Ages Past, larger than a range of foothills and rising up as if to catch hold of the sky. From its end flowed a ribbon of pure crystal water, turning midstream to a flow of putrid slop. There, squatting amidst that filth, was the being they had come to find, the Great Unclean One that Gardus had spoken of.

You were right, Steel Soul, he thought, as he rolled through the air.

One of his hammers snapped out to catch a plaguebearer in the head. His blow sent the daemon tumbling from its buzzing mount. The fly contorted with malign urgency, its hairy legs crashing against Tegrus’ armour as it sought to crush him. The acrid stench of it washed over him, choking him. With a strangled shout, he drove his hammers into its pulsing thorax, rupturing the shiny carapace and covering himself in a pungent tide of squirming maggots. The fly plummeted from the air, following its rider to the ground far below. Tegrus grimaced and pressed his hammer to his chest, burning away the creatures that clung to the sigmarite.

He looked around, taking in the aerial battle going on around him. When the daemons had appeared, every Prosecutor capable of flight had thrown themselves into the air. Tegrus himself had been eager for the fray. It had been too long since the battle at the cairns. His quarry, the bloated beast-rider calling himself Morbidex, had escaped Sigmar’s justice, fleeing deeper into the swamp. Though Tegrus had pursued him, his foe had escaped. The thought of the beast-rider’s gurning face still sent a pulse of anger through him. Such a creature, steeped as it was in the stuff of Chaos, could not be allowed to live, but Gardus had commanded him to leave it be, fearing, perhaps, that his Prosecutor-Prime was being led into an ambush.

In his heart, he knew the Lord-Celestant was right. Nonetheless, he was frustrated. And when the plague drones had shown up, he had seen them as an opportunity to work out some of those frustrations. So he fought, waging war in the manner to which he had become accustomed. It had taken some getting used to, in those early days after he’d been raised up to the ranks of the Stormcasts, reforged from the simple hunter he had been and made into one of Sigmar’s avenging warriors. Rarely did he think of those bygone days. He knew some of his fellow Stormcasts dreamed of their old lives, or were tormented by memories they did not recognize. But for him, the past was the past; it was as banished as the daemon whose head he’d just split.

More plague drones hummed towards him, swooping and diving. Tegrus turned and gave a flap of his wings, pushing himself back towards the island. He led his pursuers low over the ranks of the Stormcasts, and the bows of the Judicators sang.

Tegrus heard a dim rumble from somewhere far below. He swooped out over the rim of the island and his eyes widened as he saw the geyser of boiling pus rising from the mire below. Alarmed, he turned, wings flapping, knowing even as he flew that he would not be able to warn the others in time. He didn’t know what it was, but it was nothing good. The pus splashed against the underside of the island with a roar, causing the great mountain to quake down to its roots. It pitched to the side, like a vessel caught in the grip of a storm, and where the pus struck, it clung, a greenish vapour issuing forth in great, blistering gouts.

The island fought to stay aloft, sagging and rising, but Tegrus could see that it was doomed to fail. Whatever magic, life-force or animating spirit kept it afloat, it was still weak from the vile rains that Lord-Relictor Morbus’ magic had dispatched. The jet of burning pus was eating away at its roots and hollows, carving great wounds in its belly and sides. The mountain began to shudder. Tegrus flew over the heads of Gardus and the others, shouting, ‘It’s coming apart. If you value your lives — hold on!’

Stormcasts leapt to obey, anchoring themselves the best they could as the shuddering grew in strength, until whole sections of the rocky slopes gave way and slid down, tumbling into the void below. Several Stormcasts were caught by the falling rocks and carried to their deaths. Others raised their shields, or called out Sigmar’s name, as if by his hand they might gain the strength to survive the next few moments.

‘Steady,’ Gardus roared. The Lord-Celestant stabbed his sword into the ground to anchor himself, and the others did the same. Even so, dozens of Stormcasts were thrown from their perches, or ripped upwards by the force of the island’s descent. Tegrus and the Prosecutors not still engaged in battle with the plague drones soared upwards, fighting the storm, trying to save any that they could. Their wings crackled as they forced themselves up against the drag of the island’s passage. Their wings had been forged by Sigmar himself, each feather a scintilla of the God-King’s holy lightning, and they flashed brightly as they beat. Tegrus narrowed his eyes, fighting to see through the wind and the vast contrail of foul steam spilling from the wounded island.

A glint of silver caught his eye and he bent towards it, rolling through the air. His wings tore through the cloud of steam and he saw a number of Liberators falling upwards. As Tegrus neared them, one came apart in a flash of blue light, returning to Sigmaron to be reforged. Tegrus put on speed, trying to reach the other two before they met a similar fate.

Tegrus caught one of the Liberators by the hand even as the second hurtled out of reach, disappearing into the clouds. There was a flash of blue. I’m sorry, brother, he thought as he banked and turned back towards the island. Other Prosecutors sailed upwards, continuing in their efforts. ‘Hold fast, brother,’ he said to the Stormcast whose wrist he held. ‘I will get you down in one piece, if I’m able.’

The Liberator’s reply was lost in the howl of the wind. Tegrus aimed himself towards the island, hoping that it would hold together long enough to land more or less safely. The mountain drifted lower and lower, losing pieces of itself all the while, as the acidic pus ate away at it from roots to crags. A dull groan, as of a living thing in agony, rose from it as it sank towards the shallows of the River Vitalis.

Tegrus rose upwards as the island struck the ground with a thunderous roar. Entire mobs of plague daemons were crushed beneath it as it fell, and more were similarly obliterated as the island collapsed in on itself. A tsunami of infected water surged back along the course of the river, escaping the banks and washing over the massive shape of the Great Unclean One squatting at the river’s heart. Tegrus stared in horror at the monstrosity. The creature was far larger than the beast that had attacked them in the Ghyrtract Fen, as if swollen by the stolen vitality of the river. The greater daemon roared in outrage as the dust thrown up by the island’s fall began to clear, and yanked a rusted flail from the water.

Pupa Grotesse forced himself to his feet with a second, rolling bellow and slashed out with the flail, smashing at the river. Turgid, brown-frothed waves smacked into the remains of the island, washing over it and clearing the dust and steam. Tegrus dropped from the air, depositing his burden. The Liberator looked at him.

‘Olanus,’ he said, raising the hammer he’d somehow managed to retain in salute.