Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

He stared across the chasm with a look that could have soldered fyresteel. Affected by its master’s anger, the magmadroth scratched its claws into the rock and bellowed. The runefather had always preferred to lead his warriors on foot as one of them, but since the snowy night that his son’s mount, Caldernorn, had returned alone he had sworn that they would not be parted until both had vengeance.

Aethnir knelt in front of his fyrd of vulkite berzerkers, who silently joined him on one knee to pray. Their words were strange but still directed towards Grimnir. Beside them, Killim hoisted the icon of Grimnir the Wanderer and in a hoarse voice recounted tales of ancient triumphs over the chosen of Khorne. The auric hearthguard cheered the saga, stamping their feet faster, harder, as if to drown out the thunder from across the gorge.

Dunnegar looked across the gully. The mountain was a totem to the Dark Gods on an infernal scale. From its snow-swirled lower reaches to its majestic heights, it had been hewn into the idolatrous likeness of the Griever.

Its peak was a terrifying replica of the Chaos champion’s skull helm, a mile high, and through sweeps of snow, Dunnegar saw the realmgate they had sacrificed hearth and kin to find. It was inset into one of the eye sockets, ripples of fire shimmering apparently at random below its smooth, metal arch. The Griever and his chosen few stood by their banners on the top of the cheekbone, his horde spilling as far out and down as far as Dunnegar could see.

The Fyreslayers were on a higher, secondary peak, the two lodges occupying a long rump of stone a thousand feet wide.

It was a thumb.

Behind them were more rocky bumps, and an incredible stone lance rising precipitously into the dark sky.

The snow was starting to come down more heavily, and Dunnegar shook it from his beard.

A sour-faced runesmiter of the Sepuzkul lodge stood at the ledge. The duardin spread bare muscular arms wide as if to draw the gulf to him, a latch-axe in one hand and a forge key of pure ur-gold in the other. The Sepuzkul Fyreslayers ended their prayers with a dirge-like hum. Dunnegar and the Angfyrd lodge joined them until the mountainside resonated with deep duardin voices.

Chanting around, under, and against the dirge, the runesmiter smote the ferrule of his weapon on the rock and thrust his forge key out over the gully.

It flared into sudden life in his hand, and the entire mountain shook.

With a great tearing and spitting of rock, the runesmiter began to rise. The ground where his axe touched was a turgid, molten orange, and the glow spread until all but the ring of stone around the chanting duardin’s feet had been swallowed by it. Shouting now over the roar, he pointed his forge key to the realmgate and the spur grew at his command.

The rock behind him cooled quickly in the snow, hardening into a bridge that could bear the weight of an army.

‘Haaaaaggh!’ roared Horgan-Grimnir, thrusting his grandaxe high and kicking Caldernorn forward. The beast responded with a low, lingering roar of its own. The cadaverous magmadroth of Nosda-Grimnir, severe with skull-helm and grandaxe, followed. The bridge crunched under the combined weight, but held. Killim and the Angfyrd hearthguard ran fearlessly after the two monsters and then — at last! — went Dunnegar.

The snow took its free hit with a sadistic flurry. Knuckles dusted by metal and ice, the wind pummelled him from every direction. His beard and hair, driven into a crest through the tall flutes of his helm, pulled him sideways and dragged him down. Emptiness swelled to fill the world but for the spit of still-smouldering rock beneath his feet. He clenched his teeth, narrowed his eyes, and held them firmly ahead as he ran.

The impact, when it came, would forever settle any doubt as to the primacy of stone over wind.

The Griever’s mountain trembled under the strike of the molten rock-bridge and the world seemed to suffer with it. Men were shed by the thousand as their footing shook or simply slid away from under them. Others were dashed from their feet, tumbling down the unforgiving monument to godlike hubris, or flattened under the avalanches that came crashing down from the horned peaks.

The Sepuzkul runesmiter dropped into a braced position, knees bent, fists hard and white around the haft of his axe, as duardin sure-footedness and strength kept him standing. The magma glow receded from the rock beneath his feet and fed back into his axe. For a moment, the fyresteel glowed like the soul of a volcano, then blasted forth a cone of seismic wrath that immolated the shaken few still standing.

The death toll in those opening minutes was astounding. That there was a single Bloodbound still on the mountain was miraculous. The advantage of numbers was still theirs, however, as was the formidably contrived terrain of the mountain itself.

Before they could think to exploit either, Horgan-Grimnir and Caldernorn crashed through.