Chris Wright - Age of Sigmar - Omnibus

Gardus shook his head. ‘You know as well as I, Lorrus. She is the one we have come to find.’ He motioned to the vast shape of the Oak of Ages Past, and the clear, shining waters that now spilled from the cleft in its trunk. ‘There is a reason the enemy had no more luck finding her than we did. She was hiding beneath their very noses, in a place they thought already conquered. She is here,’ he said, voice rising. ‘The gate to Athelwyrd is here. We have found the Hidden Vale.’

Torglug shook his head, trying to clear the flies from his ears, as the skaven grey seer chattered obsequiously up at the Glottkin. The creature had summoned them to the banks of the Gelid Gush. At Torglug’s suggestion, the ratkin had been placed on the invaders’ trail, and had pursued the enemy across Rotwater Blight. Their skulking spies had scurried in the wake of every battle, keeping track of the foe’s movements. And now, at last, it seemed the time had come to run their quarry to ground. ‘Storm-things pass into the river,’ the grey seer chittered, gesticulating towards the water. ‘The water… it is the portal!’

As it spoke, there came a sound like a hundred rats gnawing a hundred stones, and the verminlord Vermalanx dropped into reality. The rat-daemon shrieked at his charge, snapping long fangs in obvious agitation. The grey seer shied away from this display, and Torglug wondered what contest was being waged between master and servant. The rats aped men in that way more than any other, always seeking the advantage even over their own kind. The rat-daemon was clearly enraged, and Torglug suspected that the grey seer had been ordered to report the whereabouts of Athelwyrd to Vermalanx first.

Whatever the reason for it, the verminlord’s anger was like the sweetest bile to Torglug, and he extended his axe between the rat-daemon and his servant.

‘You are ceasing this unseemly display, vermin,’ he rasped. ‘We are being allies in this endeavour, and we will be needing every one of us to take the Hidden Vale and its mistress.’

‘If this treacherous rat isn’t simply lying,’ Vermalanx hissed, glaring at the cowering grey seer. ‘If this place is indeed beneath the river.’

‘It would make a certain sense,’ Otto Glott said, twirling his scythe. Idly he swatted at the flies that clustered about the crusted wounds in his belly. ‘Why else would they come here, into the very heart of Grandfather’s blight?’ He looked at Torglug and inclined his head. ‘A good plan, this, letting the rats skulk and spy.’

‘I am pleased you are satisfied, Master Glott,’ Torglug rumbled. He shook his head and looked at the now-pristine river, sparkling in the setting sun. ‘It is under us the whole time,’ he murmured, leaning on his axe. ‘We are running around, and here it is. How she must be laughing.’ He looked aside, at the portly shape of the sorcerer, Slaugoth, who stood nearby, wrapped in his ragged cloak, leaning on his boil-covered staff. ‘Why did we not look here, jolly one? Why was it the rats who are finding it first?’

‘We assumed nothing would survive in such close proximity to Pupa Grotesse, that’s why,’ Gutrot Spume interjected before the sorcerer could reply, his tentacles coiling and clenching about the haft of his axe. The champion stood on the other side of Slaugoth, glaring at the river as if it had offended him. ‘More fool us, I’d say.’

‘Quiet,’ Torglug snapped, irritated by Spume’s presence. The other champion had grown increasingly infuriating since the fall of Profane Tor. Spume seemed to regard the continued assaults of the lightning-men as a personal affront, rather than as the danger it truly was. But Torglug knew better… The Stormcasts were anything but weak to get as far as they had. They had humbled Spume, Slaugoth and the maggoth lords alike, and crushed every obstacle that the Grandfather had placed in their path. Normal men they were not.

There were vast things afoot, in the spaces between moments. Torglug could feel them, deep in his blighted marrow. The Grandfather stirred uneasily on his throne, and the world shuddered, as if slowly coming awake after a long sleep. He looked up at the sky, peering at the greenish clouds, wondering what force lurked above, watching. What power had sent them, these Stormcasts? And why now? He looked at the Glotts, considering.

They were not worthy, those three. Ghurk, perhaps, but Otto and Ethrac were fools, and lazy ones at that. Industry was a dirty word to them. They knew nothing of effort, and their only loyalty was to one another. It was not they who had poisoned the lifewells, or conquered the tribes of the Ghyranic highlands. It was not the Glotts who had tamed the ogors of the Graven Peaks or decimated the sacred groves of Thyrr. Yet they reaped the Grandfather’s rewards while better men were left to sit and simmer, forgotten. Torglug’s grip on his axe tightened, and he wondered what might happen in the hours to come.

‘Deep in thought, Woodsman,’ Slaugoth murmured, startling him. The sorcerer peered at him, yellow eyes narrowed in speculation, as if he could read Torglug’s thoughts. ‘What are you thinking, Despised One?’

‘Nothing of import,’ Torglug said.

‘They say that you were once a man of this realm, Ironhood,’ Slaugoth pressed. ‘I myself come from more distant climes, though I find the air here quite congenial.’ He smiled widely. ‘They say that the Grandfather himself tutored you in the ways of pox and plague while you rotted in a pit. It must have been something to see, especially for a barbarian from the wilds of Ghyran,’ the sorcerer said slyly.

‘The Grandfather is blessing me,’ Torglug said. He looked at Slaugoth. ‘Why are you asking?’ He leaned closer to the sorcerer. ‘Are you thinking Torglug is worried?’

‘Not worried. Plotting, perhaps, as we all are, in our own ways,’ Slaugoth said. He smiled, as if amused. ‘We all had our designs on the glory to be had from this moment, all save that fat fool, Morbidex. We all wished to stand here alone, beneath Grandfather’s benign gaze, to claim the maggoth’s share of the credit. And instead…’

‘The Glotts,’ Spume growled. ‘The Brothers Three.’ He shook his head, and the kraken mouth in his side snapped angrily. ‘Sneaks and rogues, so they are. No better than the skaven.’ Spume grunted and looked at Torglug. ‘We’re for it now, Woodsman. We’re under their maggoty thumbs and I’ll be barnacled if they don’t claim this was all part of some blasted plan.’

‘Grandfather will be knowing the truth,’ Torglug said confidently. He lifted his axe and held it parallel to the ground. ‘Now what are we to do?’ he called out, to the Glotts.

‘Simplicity itself, Woodsman,’ Otto said, planting his scythe. ‘We go for a swim.’ He looked at his brother, Ethrac. ‘Ethrac, oh second-favoured sibling. That river is too pure by half. Summon Grandfather’s Deluge so we can flood this place for good.’

‘A meritorious idea, brother from my mother’s womb,’ Ethrac said. ‘Gates can be forced open as well as unlocked. Slaugoth! Attend me, O portly one.’ Ethrac snapped his fingers at Slaugoth, whose head bobbed in agreement.

‘Commendable thought, Master Glott. I most heartily agree,’ the sorcerer murmured, scratching his chins. ‘We could fill that entire vale with noisome fluid, and thus claim it forever in the name of Grandfather’s infinite putrescence.’ He made a pudgy fist. ‘Serve those silver-skinned pests right for the drubbing they gave me. They tore down my sludge-walled keep without so much as a by your leave, and washed away my lovely, filthy rains with their god-blasted tempest. Aye, let us wake the Deluge, and drown ’em all.’