Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

‘Aye,’ Zephacleas grunted, as he stamped on a wounded skaven’s skull, killing the squalling creature instantly. ‘Care to lend a hand in that regard, Gravewalker — or would you rather watch me do it?’

‘At my Lord-Celestant’s command,’ Seker intoned. He stopped and reared back, arms spread. The air before him twisted and grew bright. Threads of lightning stretched from a central point before him, curling about the head of his hammer and swirling through the fire-wyrm skull set into his reliquary standard. The wind picked up, and the Gravewalker thrust his arms forward. Lightning snarled outward, searing the air free of dust and killing the closest skaven. But as the crackle of the celestial energies faded, the clangour of plague-bells rose to replace it.

‘I think they’re done running,’ Zephacleas growled. ‘Lord-Relictor, see to the battle-line.’

‘And you, Lord-Celestant?’

‘I go to do as I was forged to do, my friend,’ Zephacleas said, clashing runeblade against hammer. ‘I am impatient and have no wish to play the millstone. Thetaleas — to me! Duras, you as well,’ he added, gesturing to a nearby Liberator-Prime. ‘Time to hunt, Bearslayer.’

‘As you command,’ Duras said, striking his warblades together. The Liberator-Prime was almost as fierce as his Lord-Celestant, and had earned his war-name in the Borealis Mountains, after stalking a Chaos-touched crag-bear for seven days before tracking it to its lair and slaying it. Like Thetaleas, he too had been at the Gnarlwood, and learned its lessons well.

As we all did, Zephacleas thought, as he led his chosen warriors forward towards the approaching skaven. Four Warrior Chambers of Astral Templars had entered the Gnarlwood of Ghur and cleansed it, despite heavy losses. It was where the Beast-bane had earned their title, in blood and fire. There too they had learned that no shield wall, no matter how strong, could last indefinitely; that no defence was impregnable, and no foe unbreakable. And, perhaps most importantly of all, that the best defence was a good offence.

His warriors spread out around him as they ran. They would bloody the enemy before they reached the shield wall — that was the Beast-bane way. The skaven boiled into sight, flooding the street in a chittering horde, and the Stormcasts raced to meet them in a loose line. Zephacleas crushed the first with his hammer, and beheaded the second. To either side of him Thetaleas and Duras led their retinues into the thick of the foe. And as he fought, the world grew soft at the edges and one moment flowed seamlessly into the next.

Sometimes, when his choler was at its height, he thought he was elsewhere, fighting beneath amber skies against savage foes. He felt a drumbeat in his soul, and a deep and abiding sense of something lost. Those were good days, though I can but see them dimly, he thought, as his hammer smashed a leaping skaven from the air. He remembered the smell of cooking fires, and the weight of crude bronze armour. The warmth of his tents in winter, and the voices of his clan — of those closest to him.

His runeblade sung out, smashing through a fuming censer to pierce the brain of its wielder. His clan were dead now, though their descendants might yet survive somewhere on the great northern taigas of the Ghurlands. They are dead, and I am dead — but I fight on, he thought. And while I fight, they live. The thought lent him strength as he turned and drove his hammer down, crushing a frothing skaven. That was the burden of Sigmar’s chosen. Two lives, two souls, forged anew in cosmic flame and clad in star-metal.

The whistle-crack of arrows sounded, causing him to whirl. A rat-monk thudded into the dirt at his feet, three faintly glowing arrows rising from its crooked back. Zephacleas looked up and saw a winged shape swoop towards him, realmhunter’s bow raised in salute.

‘Well timed, Mantius,’ Zephacleas said, raising his hammer in a return salute. ‘Your arrows are as deadly as ever, Far-killer.’

‘As is my duty, Lord-Celestant. Besides, the Gravewalker would be annoyed if you fell so ignobly to such vermin,’ the Knight-Venator called down.

Clad in amethyst and gold, with a crest of purest white rising above his ornate war-helm, the Far-killer was amongst the most lethal of the Beast-bane’s warriors. His arrows had helped to fell the Black Bull of Nordrath and plucked out the single eye of the tyrannical Butcher-king. Where he flew, death followed.

‘As would I, sky-hunter,’ Zephacleas said. He gestured with his sword. ‘Take your retinues high, my friend — and rain death and ruin on our foes.’

‘As you command,’ Mantius said. His great, crackling wings snapped, and he banked left. He rose upwards a moment later, joined by several retinues of Prosecutors. The winged Stormcasts fell smoothly into position behind the Knight-Venator, flying with a precision that did them credit. It served them well a moment later, as the sky was suddenly filled with a barrage of rancid filth.