Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

He flexed his sunbolt gauntlet, studying the star-forged celestite that shrouded his talon. He did not understand the secrets of its working, only how to employ it. At a gesture, he could unleash a flash of celestial fire which would sear flesh and soul alike. Another gift of the slann to their most loyal servants.

The wind shifted, bringing with it the stink of the falling pox-rain. Sawtooth, angry, reared and unleashed a thunderous roar. Oxtl-Kor lifted his spear and added his voice to that of the carnosaur.

The skaven would hear. They would know that the wrath of Kurkori, and of the seraphon, was sweeping down on them.

They would know that the end of their dark dream was near.

Poisonous fumes stretched through the streets, reducing iron-hard setae to sagging masses of smoking glop. The bodies of mortals and skaven lay everywhere in heaps and piles, victims of the pox-rain rising from the Dorsal Barbicans. The street squelched underfoot as Zephacleas led his chamber towards the barbicans. Things were growing ever more foul the closer they drew to their goal. If they didn’t manage to destroy the skaven weapons, the city — and the worm it was built upon — would surely perish.

He looked up, scanning the toxin-filled sky. Mantius and his Prosecutors were scouting the area ahead, their crackling wings searing a path through the befouled air. While their assault on the Dorsal Barbicans had failed, they’d managed to keep the skaven from venturing too far from the fortress. Three times the ratkin had massed to attack since the arrival of the seraphon, and three times the Knight-Venator and his sky-hunters had broken them from afar.

Now, what few skaven remained outside the protective ramparts of the Dorsal Barbicans were in hiding, likely hoping the combined host of Stormcast Eternals and seraphon would pass them by. They’d have to be hunted down and harried from their foul lairs after Shu’gohl had been freed, but first the skaven warrens around the Dorsal Barbicans and the distant Setaen Palisades would have to be destroyed. The vermin could not be allowed to hold such places, or destroy them as they were even now attempting to do.

The skaven were levelling the city all around the barbicans in an effort to impede the progress of their foes and prevent them from reaching the walls. Nonetheless, many of the setae towers were still standing — full of skaven, but still standing. They were connected to the walls by the strange, swaying bristle-bridges. If they could get to the walls without having to fight their way through the barbicans they could silence the catapults quickly. And once the Dorsal Barbicans had been freed from skaven control, they could push forward towards the anterior sections of the worm-city, including the Setaen Palisades. Hopefully there are survivors there yet, he thought.

A sudden roar shook the tainted air. He glanced up as the shadow of the great reptile and its rider fell over him, and the echoes of its roar faded. It was a truly imposing creature, and its rider was equally fearsome. Oxtl-Kor was the seraphon’s name, or perhaps his title. Zephacleas wasn’t entirely sure which, and the creature didn’t seem in a hurry to explain it to him. Indeed, the creature — the ‘Oldblood’, as the skink Starseer, Takatakk, called him — seemed unhappy with the current state of affairs. Or so Zephacleas judged — he’d communicated nothing either way.

None of the seraphon save for the Starseer had spoken, or shown any inclination in that regard. Indeed, other than Takatakk and the hulking creature called Sutok, most seemed content to ignore the Stormcast warriors marching alongside them.

‘What do you mean?’ Seker said.

Zephacleas looked at him, and then at Takatakk, when he realised that the Lord-Relictor’s question had been directed at the skink.

‘You are made of light,’ the skink chirped, as it circled the Lord-Relictor. ‘Storm-light, sun-light, ghost-light…’

‘But not star-light,’ Seker said. The Gravewalker had been talking with the little seraphon since they had begun their march towards the Dorsal Barbicans, trying to learn all he could about their strange allies. Or perhaps it was the other way around, Zephacleas mused. ‘Not like you,’ the Lord-Relictor continued.

‘Same, but different, yes? Yes,’ the skink said, head cocked. ‘You are a different type of dream, I think.’ The creature glanced back towards the hovering bulk of its master. ‘Yes, a different dream,’ the lizard-man said, more firmly.

‘I’m solid enough,’ Zephacleas said. He pounded his fist against his chest-plate.

‘Hrr,’ the big seraphon called Sutok grunted throatily. One claw swatted Zephacleas in the back, nearly knocking him from his feet. The ‘Sunblood’, as the skink called him, was impossibly strong — Zephacleas counted himself among the strongest of the Astral Templars, but he knew that the seraphon could tear him limb from limb without much effort.

‘Sutok agrees,’ Takatakk chirped. ‘He likes you.’