Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

‘Hold position,’ he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. Whatever was coming, whatever had spoken, was unlike anything he had ever encountered before. Its words had squeezed his heart, and nearly stripped his courage from him. If he’d been a normal man, he might have broken in that moment, but he was a Stormcast Eternal — fear had no power over him.

Above him, the Gates of Dawn began to shudder, shedding vegetation and dust, as the ancient stones ground against one another. Something indefinable bubbled beyond the frame of the arch, and a stinking chill rippled through the suddenly cloying air.

‘Grelch was loyal and dutiful, and his blood serves as well or better than that of any puling slave,’ the horrid, burbling voice continued. ‘Blood is the key and it has turned the lock. Knock knock, little storm clouds, let me in.’ A black void eddied and frothed beyond the arch, like a ragged wound torn into the very air, and Gardus’s ears echoed with the buzzing of innumerable flies as a chill rippled through the air. The gate began to shudder and twist, as if the very stones were in agony.

And then, before Gardus’s horrified eyes, two immense rotting hands reached out from within the arch. They caught either side of it, and within moments, something abominable began to squeeze its impossible bulk through the Gates of Dawn. Broken, rotting fangs clashed in a bulbous jaw as the monstrous daemon began to chortle with glee. The archway rocked alarmingly as the thing pried itself free and lurched through the realmgate. Those Stormcast closest to the gate rushed forward, as if they might reach the summit in time, but falling rubble from the contorting gate smashed them aside. Those who avoided the debris were caught in the flood of acidic froth that spilled from the now-warped gate. Gardus bellowed for the remainder to fall back.

‘Greetings, whelps of a tiny god,’ the greater daemon of Nurgle — for such Gardus knew it must be — thundered cheerfully. It slapped its grossly distended belly and leaned forward on crooked legs. ‘Allow me to introduce myself… I am Bolathrax. Your souls are mine.’

Chapter Two Beyond the Gates of Azyr

Zephacleas, Lord-Celestant of the Astral Templars, sat, eyes closed, and listened to the crackle of the storms that raged over the aetherdomes that ran along the great platform of the Sigmarabulum. He thought he could hear the agonized screams of the fallen in each crash of thunder or snap of lightning as their spirits underwent the process of Reforging. Victory at any price, he thought, with a grim smile.

He opened his eyes and leaned forward, head tilted so that the light of the broken world bathed his battered features. Zephacleas gazed up at the great sphere that hung in the heavens above the fabricated ring. It was but a fragment of the world-that-had-been, yet still its iron core was as large as any moon. It gleamed with a strange iridescence, casting long shadows across the vast forges, laboratories, armouries and soul mills of the fabricating ring.

Beautiful, in its own way, Zephacleas thought. Even so, he wished he were elsewhere. His brother Stormcasts were at war in the Mortal Realms, fighting to throw back the servants of the Ruinous Powers. But of the Stormhosts chosen to assail Ghyran, the Astral Templars had been held back in reserve. Soon, though, they would be called forth to wreak Sigmar’s vengeance on the Ruinous Powers and all of their twisted followers.

Zephacleas looked forward to it. He had a taste for war and longed for the clangour of battle. It had awoken old memories in him, and stirred the ashes of the man he had once been, before Sigmar had brought him to Azyr. The same had been true of them all, he thought, from the mighty Vandus Hammerhand to the quiet Gardus, Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights.

Gardus, he thought, with a smile. He shook his head. The Steel Soul was the best of them. In him was a devotion to duty that far outstripped that of any other Stormcasts save perhaps that of Ionus Cryptborn himself. He wished him glory wherever Sigmar had chosen to send him.

Gardus had been left out of the assault on Aqshy, much to his disappointment. The Hallowed Knights had yet to be blooded, and when their Warrior Chambers had been selected to take part in the assault on the Jade Kingdoms, Zephacleas had seen the uncertainty in Gardus’s eyes. As if he and his men would not live up to Sigmar’s trust.