Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

A flash of shimmering light caught his eye, and he smiled. ‘Prey enough for the both of us, eh, Aurora?’ he said, to the circling, iridescent shape of the star-eagle. He’d bonded with the fierce raptor during a training exercise within the Aetheric Clouds which clung to the Broken World. There, in the star-spattered darkness of celestial space, he and the creature he’d named Aurora had hunted the great void-beasts of Azyr. More than once, the star-eagle had saved his life in the void, warning him with a shriek, or tearing apart some ethereal predator with its glittering talons. Now the raptor waited for his command to launch itself down among the enemy, to rip and tear.

He drew another arrow from his quiver. The arrows were magical in nature, as was the quiver they rested in. Crafted by the Six Smiths, the quiver filled as quickly as he could empty it, as the magics condensed new arrows from the air and the storm. Only one arrow was not so easily replaceable — the star-fated arrow. Forged from the very stuff of the stars, its potency was such that it took days rather than moments to reappear in the quiver. That one was reserved for the most powerful of targets. He’d used the star-fated arrow to pierce the fiery brain of the Black Bull of Nordrath, and cripple the abomination so that his fellow Stormcasts could end its monstrous rampage.

From the upper reaches of the fallen towers, rat-monks armed with rocks and whatever other missiles they could scrounge took aim at the winged warriors. Stones hissed through the air and Mantius swooped upwards, arrow nocked. As he crested the top of the tower, he loosed arrow after arrow, quicker than mortal eyes could follow. Skaven died, clawing and snapping at the arrows which transfixed them. As he nocked another arrow, he saw his huntsmen destroying the curve of the fallen tower, and burying the skaven within.

As the tower was reduced to a slope of smoking rubble, Lord-Celestant Zephacleas led retinues of Liberators and Decimators up the incline, killing any skaven who managed to wriggle free. Mantius swooped towards them, his hands a blur. Nock and loose, he thought, repeating the mantra over and over again in his head. There was a comforting rhythm to it, a susurrus that eased his scattered thoughts into the calm of battle.

He had been a hunter, once. A seed-rider, on the Ghyran Veldts. He had vague memories of floating on updrafts and riding swift downdrafts, loosing arrows at the wild, jade-feathered birds his tribe hunted for food. He had ridden his seed-pod into war as well, against the Rotbringers and their foul allies — chortling, gape-mouthed daemons who crushed entire tribes beneath their loathsome weight. The sound of their laughter still echoed up out of the black wells of his memory. He drew, nocked and loosed, faster and faster, losing himself in the rhythm.

‘Far-killer — the skaven seek refuge below,’ one of his huntsmen, Darius, cried, as he flung the smoke-wreathed body of a ratman aside. Several Prosecutors had landed at the apex of the fallen tower, where it had crashed against another, creating a natural arch. There, they dealt death to the skaven seeking to escape from one tower to the next, and drove most back towards the advancing Decimators. ‘Should we pursue?’

‘Aye, let no shadow escape the light, Darius,’ Mantius said, as he loosed a final arrow. Several of the Prosecutors, led by Darius, leapt into the air and swooped swiftly beneath the fallen tower. Mantius tucked his wings and followed, Aurora keeping pace.

It was dark beneath the tower, and streams of dust and filth spilled down from the cracks in the structure, reducing visibility and choking the air. Mantius spread his wings and cut through the streams, following his warriors. He could see the snap-spark of a celestial hammer as it spun towards a knot of writhing skaven. The ratmen were attempting to squeeze through a spider-web of cracks and escape their amethyst-armoured pursuers.

But as the Prosecutors drew close to the fleeing skaven, the Knight-Venator heard a grinding of rock and twisted in the air, hunting for the source of the noise. His breath caught in his throat as a wave of rot-stink enveloped him. He saw two thick, pale tendrils uncoil from the shadows which clung to the underside of the fallen tower. Before he could cry a warning, they snapped out and coiled around a Prosecutor’s neck and arm, yanking him from the air. The tendrils quivered and tensed. The air was filled with a horrible cracking sound, and the Prosecutor slumped.

‘Darius — beware,’ Mantius cried, as he brought himself up short and reached for his quiver. His warning came too late. Darius wheeled about, crackling hammer manifesting in his waiting hand, but something that gleamed with an oily hue spun out of the shadows and removed his head. The curved, sickle-like blade thudded home into the opposite tower, even as Darius’ body returned to Azyr in a blinding flash.