Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

From the steady stream of muttered asides and the way they appeared to compete with each other for the right to be first in the line, the three Sepuzkul were likely the sons of the late runefather. Their wargear was black, ribbed, and hatched with runes that looked like tally marks. One wore a magmadroth skull as a helm and simply by the short shrift with which he put down his brothers he clearly held himself as the favourite to succeed.

Horgan came last, trailing his long cloak of gold-etched steel. As was his way, he allowed his molten stare and weapon arm to do his talking. His immense latchkey grandaxe rested across his shoulder and dripped a trail of blood behind him. None met that gaze, even Dunnegar, though a part of him had longed to try it ever since the day of his trial.

‘A waste of a bloody blessing is what it is,’ Rolk scowled.

‘Your assistance was timely and appreciated,’ said the skull-helmed prince, leaning into his barbed spear and huffing out his bleached cheeks into a grimace. ‘But we’ll send off our own as we always have. I suggest you head on your way and do whatever it is you do with yours.’

‘We’d be better off together,’ said Dunnegar, earning a sharp stare from everyone for his lack of propriety. ‘A lot more Bloodbound where these came from.’

‘Always,’ Aethnir echoed with a thin smile.

‘We have a way around them,’ said the helmed Sepuzkul runeson. From the pride with which he said it, it was plain that if there was a way it was because he had found it. ‘It took us years to explore the trails up in those mountains, but we have found one that leads almost all the way to the gate.’

Killim grinned, closing his book with a tink of metal. ‘You’ll show us?’

‘And why should I? Has your lodge bled itself for the Griever to find this trail? No. Find your own way and to the Lord of Undeath with you all.’

With a rumble of exasperation, Rolk rounded on the Sepuzkul runeson.

‘And if I swear an oath to avenge that lost blood with the life of the Griever, would you let us join you on your trail?’

The four Sepuzkul Fyreslayers looked aghast at the suggestion.

Aethnir explained. ‘Such oaths we swear only for gold.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Rolk muttered. ‘The rate you throw it away.’

‘You would… do this?’ said one of the other runesons.

The runemaster merely crossed his arms, offended at having his conviction questioned and sincerity doubted.

‘I won’t allow it,’ rumbled Horgan-Grimnir. Slowly. Finally. ‘Your skills are needed.’

‘Aye,’ said Dunnegar, voice rising. ‘If it’s to be done at all then it should be me.’

‘Bah! I was wringing the necks of the blood-crazed before your grandfathers grew out of wooden axes.’

His gaze was fire, and even Horgan-Grimnir met it uneasily.

But Runemaster Rolk was harder than the magmadroth scale he wore and just as hot on the inside. It was a miracle he had restrained himself this long. Horgan-Grimnir shook his head, but did not argue the point again. None present doubted that the ancient Fyreslayer would and could do exactly as he vowed.

‘On the one thousand and forty-second day, the realmgate came within our grasp at last. A mighty battle it was to be, a red day, a grim day…’

The Angfyrd Odyssey

The Lord of Khorne who called himself the Griever thrust his lance into the tumbling snow and bellowed his challenge. His voice cracked with the sound of impacting skulls and echoed hollowly from behind the fused teeth of the metallic skull that encased his head as a helm. The skins of Rolk and those duardin that had gone after him fluttered from poles mounted in the harness of the brazen juggernaut the Chaos warrior rode as a mount, while the hell-steel of his armour was fused with the gaping skulls of duardin and countless others.

His horde took up his cry. They coated the mountain like a blood slick. Fifty thousand warriors armoured in crimson and draped in the dead skins of men and beasts stamped their feet, rattled weapons above their heads, and gave vent to a single wordless howl that would surely have brought the mountains down upon them all had the Titan’s Edge not been firmly under the heel of the Lord of Skulls.

Looking across the gully from halfway up the facing mountain, Horgan-Grimnir wordlessly sat back on the violet-scaled shoulders of his magmadroth and raised his grandaxe high. The challenge was accepted.

The Fyreslayers of both lodges, diminished as they were, swore new oaths.

The preceding year had taught them why this dark champion was known as the Griever. The Sepuzkul Fyreslayers set up a great lament to see their dead so mistreated, but none brooded on the insult more than Horgan-Grimnir.