Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

‘Liberators forward,’ Zephacleas said, as the first of the rat-monks squeezed back through the stockade. The skaven didn’t attack immediately, but their numbers grew by the moment. ‘Lock shields and hold your ground. Gravewalker, get the mortals to safety,’ Zephacleas said. The Lord-Relictor nodded and stepped back, shouting orders to those retinues not already part of the battle-line.

Zephacleas’ pulse quickened at the thought of the battle to come. He could hear the sounds of fighting outside the stockade, as the rest of his chamber defended the newly-freed mortals from harm. The skaven outside were swarming about the stockade, trying to overwhelm the Stormcasts through sheer weight of numbers. But they would fail. Come in your thousands, vermin, we shall not fall, he thought. We held you at the Gates of Dawn, and in the Hidden Vale, and we shall hold you here.

The skaven charged across the stockade, squealing and screeching. A terrible cloud of poison followed them, spewing from the censers of those in the lead. Zephacleas resisted the urge to race to meet them. Judicator retinues loosed volley after volley, at the Lord-Relictor’s command. The crackling bolts tore great holes in the mass of robed and furry bodies, but the creatures did not slow.

‘Stand fast, my brothers. They are but beasts, and we are their bane,’ Zephacleas cried, as he split the skull of a squealing rat-monk. The hooded skaven fell, but it was soon replaced by others. They flung themselves at the thin line of Astral Templars in a screeching, stinking wave of diseased flesh and filthy robes. Their weapons shattered against the sigmarite shields of the Liberators, but they seemed to take no notice of such trivialities.

‘Push them back,’ Zephacleas bellowed. He caught a skaven in the chest with a well-timed kick, crushing the life out of the filthy beast. Liberators and Decimators moved to join him as he stepped out of line. The warriors formed a ragged chain and began to fight their way forward. ‘We are ruin,’ Zephacleas said, lashing out wildly at the skaven.

‘We are destruction,’ the warriors around him responded as they fought. Their savagery matched his, and for a moment, the Lord-Celestant was a mortal again, fighting alongside his clansmen, the heat of battle rising in their veins, their foes falling before them.

‘We are death,’ Zephacleas roared, splitting a cowering rat-monk from skull to tail. ‘Death and ruin! Death to the dealers of death! Ruin to the bringers of ruin!’ His warriors bellowed in reply, their voices mingling, becoming a single fierce note of promise. As far as a war cry went, it was a simple thing, and prone to being bent out of shape when the mood struck him. He did not hold with words forged from iron and prayers set in stone. Let the Hallowed Knights or the Hammers of Sigmar march to a familiar beat, if that gave them comfort. For Zephacleas and his warriors, the song of battle was always different. Yet it served its purpose as well as any hammer or blade.

And at the sound of it, the skaven at last broke. The bloodied remains of the horde streamed away in panic, biting and clawing at one another in their haste to escape. Zephacleas was tempted to pursue them, but he restrained himself. The man he had been would not have hesitated, but that man was dead, and there was more to their mission here than simple slaughter. He raised his sword, signalling for his warriors to fall back and reform their lines.

As Thetaleas and his Decimators moved forward to tear apart the rear wall of the stockade, Zephacleas turned to his Lord-Relictor. ‘Once the stockade is down, we’ll continue the advance along the dorsal thoroughfare. We should reach the Dorsal Barbicans by nightfall.’ He gestured to the distant ridge of ramparts. Streaks of oily green light rose from its length and fell into the city as they watched.

The catapults of the skaven had been firing at those sections of the Crawling City still in the hands of its original occupants, spreading a miasma of corruption and sickness through the streets. Whether the intent was wholesale slaughter or merely to drive the sickened and panic-stricken mortals into the claws of the roaming bands of rat-monks, Zephacleas didn’t know. Whatever the reason, the battery of verminous war engines had to be silenced if they were to free Shu’gohl from the skaven.

‘We’d stand a better chance if you didn’t insist on hurling yourself into the thick of the fray at every opportunity. If you should fall…’ Seker began.

‘I would be reforged anew, and you would lead the Beast-bane in my stead in the meantime,’ Zephacleas said, bluntly. Despite his bravado, the thought was not a pleasant one. Zephacleas had already endured the Reforging. He’d lost his mortality, his memory, and perhaps more besides. What else might he lose, were he forced to endure it again? He thrust the thought aside. ‘Warriors fall in battle, Gravewalker. You know that as well as I. I will not fear the inevitable,’ he said.