Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Vrindum looked closely. There was a small wound just beneath the edge of his helmet. The tip of a daemonic spine protruded from it. At the same moment, Beregthor opened his mouth.

The pink horrors had wounded the runefather deeper than anyone realised during the first battle. A thorn had pierced Beregthor’s flesh. It had been embedded in him, controlling him.

‘The Runefather bears a daemonic wound!’ Vrindum shouted.

Frethnir leapt forward to help. He had been freed of the pain of doubt, but now an agony a thousandfold worse had fallen on him. He had not acted when there was a chance, and now it was perhaps too late. He tried to reach for the thorn.

Beregthor twisted violently. He broke Vrindum’s grip and smashed the side of the grandaxe against the grimwrath berzerker’s skull, knocking him aside. He caught his son with the return sweep. His mouth was still open. His lips and tongue worked, trying to shape the sounds he was commanded to utter. His eyes widened. They were consumed with mortal horror. His soul struggled to silence the coming word. It failed. His voice ragged as if ripped apart by claws, he shouted a name. He sang a name.

‘Kaz’arrath!’

Three notes. Short, long, short. Three beats. Soft, strong, soft.

Now the wind returned. It exploded from Beregthor’s words with such force it smashed Vrindum flat. The runefather was suddenly the origin of the wind. He was the source of the song that had called the Drunbhor lodge to this place. The three-note refrain resounded across the bowl, echoing against the mountainsides.

Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath.

A song of triumph. And of summoning.

The wind howled the name. It shrieked over the Fyreslayers as if the combined force of the Typhornas Mountains had come to rage through this site. At the edges of the bowl, the growing night thickened. It swirled with dark tendrils, ready to burst. Beregthor kept his feet in the hurricane. He turned back toward the gate, his face slack.

Vrindum propelled himself up and forward. He did not know what would happen if Beregthor used the latchkey, but he did know it must not happen. What he had said to the runefather so many days ago was true: the events at Sibilatus had meaning. Every step of the journey had meaning, and the steps had led to a moment that could only mean ruin. So he threw himself at the hero of the Drunbhor, at the Fyreslayer he had followed his entire life. He would die for Beregthor. Now he attacked.

He swung Darkbane, and he howled with grief that he must do so. Filled with sorrow and dread, he was far from losing himself in the vortex of rage. He aimed Darkbane so the sides of the blades struck the shaft of the Keeper of Roads. He knocked it away from the keyhole, then rammed his shoulder into Beregthor. The runefather stumbled from the impact, then turned on Vrindum, his face contorted. Vrindum did not see the righteous anger of the Fyreslayers in his expression. He did not see the sacred fire of Grimnir. He saw only savagery, and a mindless malevolence.

Around the dais, the Fyreslayers were in uproar. Their most ferocious warrior was fighting the runefather. The world had lost all sense. Vrindum trusted that Trumnir, Harthum, the runesons and those who were closest could see the distorted, possessed face of Beregthor. But those further away would only be able to see an impossible conflict, the seed of a terrible schism.

Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, cried the wind.

Beregthor raised the Keeper of Roads over his head and brought it down, aiming for Vrindum’s skull. The grimwrath berzerker dodged to one side. Beregthor was attacking with enormous power but little skill. The Keeper slammed against the dais, lodging itself in stone. Vrindum launched himself at Beregthor again, battering him hard enough to break his hold on the latchkey grandaxe. Beregthor stared at his empty hands, and he howled.

Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath, Kaz’arrath. Short, long, short. A call. A summons.

The summons was answered.

The eight passes that formed the passages to the bowl erupted. The night gave birth to a horde of daemons. A legion of pink horrors and flamers cascaded down the slopes. Gales of demented laughter drowned out the cry of the wind. And to the north, striding behind the thousands of its army, a towering daemon appeared. It was winged. It stalked forward on long legs with multiple articulations. Its arms were almost as long, and it carried a staff in the shape of a giant iron key, whose head changed configuration second by second. Its own head was long and beaked, and its eyes blazed with the terrible cold red of the wards on the gate.