Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

The rock blight became thicker as they climbed, and more active. It pulsed and scraped. The endless whispering of dissolving stone sounded in Thrumnor’s ears like a daemon’s mockery. That this great wonder, this holy monument, should be so desecrated made his fists tighten in fury. He longed to strike out at the bearers of this plague.

Nurglings cavorted along the cliffs, scrabbling over each other, sometimes falling like overfed ticks to burst on the ground below. In small groups they attempted to harry the Krelstrag, and they were dealt with savagely. They could not summon the numbers to attack in the concentrated manner they had in the tunnels, so they taunted and laughed.

Thrumnor vented his rage on those who dared come within reach of his staff, but it brought no satisfaction to smash the lowliest of daemonkind. They were not the ones who had created the blight. He might as well be striking at the mould.

He did once, snarling, then caught himself, even more angry that he had succumbed to his frustration. As he turned back to the path, he heard a low, deep buzzing. He looked up to see a swarm of huge insects descend from the heights of the Weld. Ragged wings supported drooping sacks of bodies. Serpentine trunks hung from their heads. The sound of the rotflies’ wings crawled into Thrumnor’s ears and into his mind. His spine ached. The swarm flew down the path as if to knock the Fyreslayers off the side of the slope. The host of the Krelstrag responded before the first rotfly struck. Vulkite berzerkers hurled throwing axes at the daemon insects. A single blow from a fyresteel blade would have done little against the flies, but the axes arced upwards in the hundreds.

The daemons flew into a scything wall. Axes cut wings to shreds and burst swollen bodies. A score of the creatures tumbled into the dark below. Screeching hatred, the rest of the swarm spread over the Krelstrag line. The abominations fell on the duardin warriors, tearing their bodies apart with the jagged points of their chitinous limbs. Fyreslayers avenged their kin before the insects could fly away with their victims, attacking each monster with wrath and steel. The magmadroths smashed them from the air.

Thrumnor struck at the daemons that flew near him, but his blows with the runic iron were not enough. He longed to punish the rotflies with a burst of lava from within the Weld. Their presence was still another grievous insult to the sacred anvil. His anger grew, but before he lost himself, Rhulmok called his name and drew him back.

He raged, swinging his staff with all the more force because Rhulmok was right. The rage in the Weld was far beyond his own, far beyond his control. He would unleash disaster if he called it to the surface.

Four score of the Krelstrag lay dead before the last of the rotflies was exterminated.

‘Mourn our brothers,’ said Dorvurn, ‘and celebrate their victory. The foe has not stopped our advance.’

‘But they could not have,’ Rhulmok said, thoughtful.

‘What do you mean?’ Thrumnor asked.

‘How could they have hoped to, with those numbers?’

True. The swarm had been no more than another harrying raid.

‘What does it mean?’ Rhulmok asked. The question felt like a challenge.

‘It changes nothing,’ Thrumnor said. He knew he wasn’t answering, but whatever the attacks meant, his faith in the truth of his vision held. He could imagine no other interpretation. He swallowed his anger at Rhulmok and said, ‘We are being tested. We will be tested again at the peak. And from these tests we will emerge stronger yet.’

‘What test?’ said Rhulmok. ‘What waits above? Nothing but foulness has come down to us.’

‘We will cleanse it.’ Thrumnor thought again of his vision, of the great hammer and its transformative blow. Such light, such fire. The memory renewed his faith. They would cleanse the Great Weld of its plague.

On they climbed. The Great Weld shook and rumbled. Its convulsions were not those of an anvil resonating from hammer blows, but agonised wrath struggling to find expression. The heat of the Weld’s interior pushed outward. Cracks webbed along the ledge and stone fragments fell from the cliff face. The walls of the mountains were solid, and they contained their anger, trembling with the effort while their flesh was gnawed by the blight.

The Krelstrag marched day and night without rest. The nurglings gave them no respite. Further swarms of rotflies eroded their ranks. But the summit called to them with its thunder and its beating glow. They would answer. At the end of the fourth day, with the fall of night, they arrived at the peak. What Thrumnor saw there almost paralysed him with rage and horror.

The summits of the many volcanoes had been fused into a giant plateau. There was no sign of the calderas that had once been. Instead, the surface of the plateau was slightly rounded, as if bulging upward. At the centre, half a league away, was the origin of the green light.

It was a celebration.