Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

The daemons rushed at Beregthor, Vrindum and the runesons. A moment later, more of the pink horrors burst from the trunks on either side, falling to the ground with fat thuds, a rain of monstrous fruit. And as the daemons surrounded the Drunbhor, the plants attacked too. Their true nature was now clear; they were daemons of the same ilk fused and melded into each other, their limbs distorted and stretched into branches, their horns turned into the spines. Flexing, grasping, the conglomerations of daemons were even more like tentacles now, as if the entire forest were the claws of a great fist that now began to close. The huge trunks whipped down, shaking the earth with their impact. The spines lunged for the Fyreslayers.

‘Avenge Sibilatus!’ Trumnir cried. ‘Avenge its desecration!’

On his magmadroth, Runesmiter Harthum beat the war altar, and down the length of the Fyreslayer line the sigils of ur-gold worked into the warriors’ flesh stirred them to the joyous frenzy of war. The essence of Grimnir awoke in all of them, and would be satisfied with nothing except the utter annihilation of the daemons. Vulkite berzerkers tore into the pink horrors, while the magmadroths slashed at them with great claws and spat streams of flaming bile. In the gap created by the dissolving, burning daemons, the hearthguard berzerkers stormed outward, pushing hard against the daemons, cutting down abominations who dared attack the runefather. The vulkite berserkers advanced on either side, and the more the gibbering creatures attacked, the wider the column became as the Drunbhor met their challenge with a rising tide of fury.

Vrindum hurled himself at the daemons seeking to climb the flanks of Krasnak and take down Beregthor. He slammed into them with the force of a battering ram, knocking them back. His blows sank into solid, dense muscle that flowed with the possibility of change. There was no structure of bone. Revulsion fuelled his rage and his violence, and he struck harder yet, severing the flesh completely. It came apart in sticky tendrils.

A cackling daemon opened its maw wide enough to swallow his head, and Vrindum cut it in half with a single blow of Darkbane. The daemon’s laughter turned into a shriek, and then into wails of petulant grief as the two portions of its body shifted to blue and sprouted limbs. The new daemons reached for Vrindum, their gestures both predatory and entreating. They barely had time to come into being and mourn the loss of their greater self. Vrindum already had Darkbane raised again. He brought it down in a diagonal slash. One blow had ended the pink daemon; now one blow destroyed the two blue ones. The onyx blade smashed through Chaos flesh so hard it left a huge cleft in the ground. The daemons vanished mid-howl, their essence erupting then dispersing with a fading echo of a snarl. Vrindum yanked the greataxe from the ground and rounded on more of the foe.

Standing high on his throne, a roaring Beregthor battered pink horrors down from Krasnak’s flanks with the Keeper of Roads. He hit the head of one daemon with such force that he squeezed its essence within the cleft of the blade. Then he twisted violently, snapping the head in half. The blue horrors that came into being were flawed, malformed even for daemons, half their heads missing. Beregthor dispatched them quickly, crushing their bodies beneath the weight of the grandaxe.

Trunks bent and limbs grasped, but the Fyreslayers concentrated on the daemons not rooted to the ground. The other pink horrors numbered in the hundreds, a horde that would have overwhelmed an army of mere mortals with the sheer monstrosity of its existence. But the Fyreslayers waded into the struggle with eagerness. They were strong, and they were legion. They hacked at the pink horrors and then the squealing blue daemons. The enemy multiplied, then began to dwindle in a matter of seconds.

The Drunbhor batted away the probing spines as a mere annoyance. Drethor was bleeding from minor wounds on his face and chest. They were insignificant, barely noticed in the heat of anger and slaughter.

The fused horrors reached and stabbed, accumulating wounds, drawing blood. The tips of their horns broke off and left jagged burrs in the flesh of the duardin.