Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

The mountain boomed. Its smokes thickened. The Steelspike slept no more.

Brokkengird laughed. Today was a good day to kill.

The mass pyres of the skaven dead were still burning a week later when the rest of Ulgathern’s people came to join the hold from their camp at the Voltdrang.

The Fyreslayers refashioning the gates downed tools and ran out to meet the column as it appeared from the valley approach to the Steelspike. Families were reunited before the new hold. Ulgathern-Grimnir and his brothers were glad to see a sizeable force had been sent to escort them by the Volturung, and that they were well fed, clean and happy.

They were less pleased to see Runeson Golgunnir.

The runeson came on foot this time, and was garbed for war. Still far too ostentatiously for Ulgathern-Grimnir’s tastes, but at least he was dressed with fighting in mind.

‘Looks like I underestimated you,’ said Golgunnir. He looked around at the heaps of skaven bodies and gear. ‘You did a good job. You reawoke the mountain. Crafty.’

‘You thought we wouldn’t win.’

Golgunnir shrugged. ‘True. But my father thought you were in with a chance, or he would never have sent you. He’s an honourable sort, my father.’

‘You disapprove?’

Golgunnir nodded as he surveyed the mountain, the piles of scrapped machinery, the scaffolding around the gates where statues of Grimnir were already being roughed out in the rock. ‘I do. I’ll never be a runefather because of that. I’ve no faith in other folk. Still, at least I know my limits. Are there any tunnels left open?’

‘A few,’ said Ulgathern-Grimnir. ‘We’ve flooded the deepest with earthblood, set warding runes all about those higher in the mountain. I don’t want to plug them all, else how would we take the war to them?’

‘That’s what I hoped you’d say,’ said Golgunnir. ‘If I might have your permission, runefather, I will take my men hunting. The ratkin have regarded this land as theirs for too long.’

‘I grant it gladly.’

Golgunnir gave a brief nod, hitched up his belt, and held out his hand. ‘Welcome to the domain of the Volturung. Welcome home.’

Ulgathern-Grimnir clasped Golgunnir’s wrist. ‘If it’s all the same, we’ll be keeping the Ulgaen name. We are the last of our lodge-kin. Henceforth, we shall be Ulgaen-dumar lodge and Ulgaen-kumar lodge of Steelspike Hold.’

‘Whatever you like. You keep your side of the bargain, we’ll keep ours.’ Golgunnir sniffed. ‘There’s something else too.’

‘Oh?’

‘An ambassador. He should be here, about… now.’

Golgunnir looked skywards and took three steps back.

With a rush of wings, a huge warrior in gleaming gold armour slammed into the ground before Ulgathern, as shocking as a lightning strike. Wings of brilliant white light dazzled the Runefather, then were extinguished, the mechanisms that had projected them folding upon the warrior’s back.

A stern-faced war-mask looked down on him. Ulgathern-Grimnir was sure this was a human male. He had never seen one so big who was not in the service of the four powers, but the energy that crackled around him was not of Chaos, he was sure of that.

‘Hail, Runefather! I am Seldor, Knight-Azyros of the Hammers of Sigmar. I come to you with tidings of hope,’ said the angelic warrior. ‘The gates to Azyr are reopened. The stormhosts march. Sigmar returns to free the realms from the tyranny of the Dark Gods.

‘The war against Chaos has begun, and we seek allies.’

Josh Reynolds Skaven Pestilens

CHAPTER ONE The Crawling City

Skuralanx the Scurrying Dark, the Cunning Shadow, servant of the Great Corruptor, verminlord and blessed child of the Horned Rat, crept on stealthy hooves through the dead temple towards its central chamber. The daemon’s massive frame was heavily muscled beneath his mangy hide, and his bifurcated tail lashed in equal parts annoyance and excitement as he ducked his many-horned, fleshless skull beneath a cracked archway.

He crawled, skulked, scurried and slunk through the shadows cast by the eternal lightning-storm which swirled about the cracked domes and shattered towers. Writhing streaks of lightning cascaded down broken statues or struck the pockmarked plazas of the temple-complex. The sky above was a knot of painful, shimmering cobalt clouds, and the daemon avoided the sight of it as much as possible.

The mortals who had built this place called it the Sahg’gohl — the Storm-Crown of the City-Worm. A fitting name, Skuralanx thought, for a place where the air stank of iron and the elemental heat of Azyr. Within the domed central chamber was a door to that realm, and it wept forever in fury. Perhaps that explained the lightning. Skuralanx didn’t know and didn’t particularly care. Such doorways could be twisted out of shape and off-path with ridiculous ease, if one knew the trick of it.