Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Its blades carved gouges in his war-plate as his charge carried it backwards into the statue of Sigmar. Stone legs cracked and the daemon squealed. It drove its elbows down on his shoulders, trying to break his hold. He ignored the blows and tightened his grip. Steam rose from the daemon’s maggoty flesh as the blessed sigmarite contracted about it. Its struggles grew more frantic and it hacked wildly at him, shearing slivers from his armour. Its knee caught him in the chest, and with a sudden, convulsive heave it broke his hold and flung him backwards.

The daemon was on him before he hit the ground. He caught the downward sweep of its blades on his bracer and knocked them from the creature’s grip. Before it could recover, he caught it by the throat. It grabbed hold of his head and slammed him back, rattling him. He drove his fist into its skull until the yellowing bone cracked.

The daemon rolled away from him, the lightning playing about its monstrous form. Zephacleas gave it no chance to recover, no chance to flee. He scrambled to his feet and hurled himself upon its back. He caught one of its remaining horns with one hand and snaked his arm around its shaggy throat. With a roar, he snapped its horn loose and drove the length of splintered bone into its good eye.

The daemon flung him off with a wail. He crashed into the statue of Sigmar. Stone cracked and split. Zephacleas rolled aside as the statue broke at the knees and fell. Ghal Maraz crashed down on the verminlord’s skull, silencing the daemon’s wails with dull finality. Its body thrashed for a moment, and then slumped in defeat. Slowly, it began to dissolve into a putrid mess of bubbling, tarry excrescence.

Zephacleas hauled himself to his feet, breathing heavily. He met the stony gaze of the statue and then looked up, through the hole in the roof, at the storm overhead. With a grunt of mingled annoyance and thanks he shook his head and picked up the golden plaques. They were warm to the touch, even through the metal of his gauntlet. He hefted them, feeling their weight. They were covered in strange pictograms, indecipherable to his eye.

It is done, the voice said, as vast and as deep as the dark between the stars. The words pulsed through him, echoing through flesh and bone. He heard a crack, as of great wings, and felt the heat of undimmed stars and blazing suns.

He looked at the Dreaming Seer. The slann was fully awake for the first time since his arrival, bulbous eyes wide open. The Starmaster gazed at him unblinkingly. Takatakk and Sutok were there as well, though he had not noticed them arrive. The skink crouched on his master’s throne, head cocked. ‘Do you hear, dream-of-Sigmar?’ the little creature chirped. ‘It is time. All has happened, as the Great Lord foresaw. And now our dream ends, and we will sleep again.’

Great Lord Kurkori extended his hand. Zephacleas hefted the golden plaques and some force plucked them from his hand. They floated onto Kurkori’s palm. As the Lord-Celestant watched, the plaques were suddenly suffused with light. They came apart with a soft sound, reduced to golden dust which spilled through the slann’s fingers and cascaded to the floor. Old calculations, best left forgotten, the voice said. It is done. The pattern may continue, unimpeded by random variables.

‘It is done,’ Zephacleas said, echoing the voice in his head. Whose voice it was, he couldn’t say. Kurkori’s perhaps, or maybe even Sigmar’s, echoing down from the Realm Celestial. Or the voice of something older, and more vast in scope than any god or sorcerous ancient.

Slowly, the slann inclined his wide head. He blinked, once, as if in thanks, and Takatakk chirruped. Sutok growled and raised his war-mace in salute. Then, with a soft whisper of parting air, they were gone. Light flared from the plaza beyond, and there was the sound of air rushing to fill a sudden void. Zephacleas knew that the rest of the seraphon had departed as well. Gone back beyond the veil of stars.

He looked down at the pile of golden dust, wondering what it had been. Had its destruction been the only reason the seraphon had come? Or had there been some greater purpose? He shook his head, annoyed by the thought of questions that would likely never be answered, and reclaimed his weapons. He was a warrior, not a seer. He raised his hammer in salute to the departed seraphon. Though he was unable to see the stars of their constellation for the storm, he knew that they were there regardless.

‘To what dreams may come, my friends,’ Zephacleas murmured. Weapons in hand, he turned to rejoin Seker and the others. The battle for the Crawling City was done but there were others yet to be fought. And Zephacleas intended the Beast-bane to be in the vanguard.

EPILOGUE The Congregation of the Worm