Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Ulgavost nodded. Without another word, he stepped through the gate. On the other side he looked around, inspecting the ruins. Tulgamar-Grimnir barked orders that sent a large regiment of his own, fresher warriors after his brother to protect him.

Ulgathern-Grimnir roused his own weary people. ‘Get them up. We need to leave. Now.’

‘What kind of land is it, through there?’ asked Tulgamar-Grimnir of Drokki.

‘I can tell you… Well, I can tell you what kind of land it was, but what kind it is now? That we will have to see.’

‘Are you sure Volturung still stands?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Huh,’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir. ‘Oh well.’ He stamped down on the thick scales of his mount. ‘Huphup, Grakki-grakkov! Into the woods! You’re going home to the lands of fire!’

The great ur-salamander rumbled happily, and plodded through the realmgate.

Drokki and Ulgathern-Grimnir remained on the Ghur side of the gate, shepherding their relatives and followers through. Marag-Or came last.

Ulgathern-Grimnir grabbed his arm before he could pass through the shimmering skin of magic dividing one realm from the next. ‘Tell me. If I had done as my father asked, and not listened to Drokki, would the hold have fallen?’

‘Prophecies are tricky things, Ulgathern-Grimnir,’ said Marag-Or. ‘Often they contain the seed of their own fulfilment. Who can tell?’ He pulled his arm free, and passed through the realmgate.

Drokki went next, leaving Ulgathern-Grimnir alone in the shaking halls of Gaenagrik.

He took one last look at the burning Ulmount before stepping through to another world.

He never set eyes upon his home again.

II

Eight days after coming into the realm of Aqshy, the Ulgaen lodges came weary and footsore down mountain paths to the Broken Plains. Through beastman-infested swamps and into the arid Firespike Mountains they had travelled. The mood of the lodges was mixed. In Aqshy they found much to delight them, and being in their ancestral realm lifted their spirits. In the swamps the air was as warm and thick as that of a forge, and pleasingly sharp in the mountains. But their thoughts strayed often to their lost kin. They had little food, and were alone in a hostile land.

So it was that when the plains opened up before them their hearts lifted. They were as broken as their name suggested, a country-sized lava flow that had been cracked by the movements of the earth into giant broken plates of stone, all tilted at thirty degrees, their raised sides pointing away from the mountains. They were all of a size — an endless sharp-edged landscape of black teeth salted with white sand. The plains were featureless, but for a duardin causeway running down the middle of the plain parallel to the mountain range. The road was obvious from on high, but as they reached the plains it disappeared between the jagged stone teeth, leaving the Fyreslayers to negotiate a labyrinth that taxed even their finely honed sense of direction.

The sun beat down mercilessly. In the crevices between the rocks there was not a breath of wind. It was hot enough to bake bread, and it made them sweat, fire-born though they were.

Though the journey to the road from the mountains was but a short part of their trek, by the time they reached it they were more exhausted than ever before, and coated with dust.

Ulgathern-Grimnir clambered onto the causeway. In one direction the road stretched away to the vanishing point, disappearing into the shimmering heat haze of the plains. In the other direction, where the mountains thrust themselves out into the desert, lay the Voltdrang of the Volturung lodges. It was many miles away yet, but so vast in scale that they could easily see it from their new vantage.

A whole mountainside had been refashioned into the roaring face of Grimnir-at-war. His curled beard cascaded down the rocks to merge with those of the plains. His craggy brows made a stepped series of battlements. His eyes were giant windows, also fortified, between a hooked nose topped with a rampart. The lower jaw of his roaring mouth disappeared under the stone. A huge throat went into the cliff. At the bottom of it was a massive pair of stone gates whose fyresteel reinforcements glinted in the sun.

Tulgamar-Grimnir’s magmadroth clambered onto the road after Ulgathern. Ulgavost followed him. The three siblings stared at their goal.

‘That’s an impressive sight,’ said Ulgavost.

‘Aye,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir.

‘What do we do? March up and knock?’ said Tulgamar-Grimnir. Grakki-grakkov rumbled and yawned.

‘I don’t have a better idea,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘Get everyone up on the road. It’ll be quicker going, and better if they can see us coming.’

It took far longer to get their people out of the baking crevasses than Ulgathern-Grimnir would have liked. By the time all eleven hundred of them were on the road, the sun was going down and a strong wind was coming out of the desert.