Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Tegrus swooped towards it, snatching up his hammer as he flew past. Gravewalker helped Zephacleas to his feet. ‘Are you hurt, Lord-Celestant?’

‘Only my pride. That beast is mine, Tegrus!’ he bellowed, shaking a fist at the Prosecutor-Prime. Whether the other Stormcast heard him, he couldn’t say, for the Prosecutor was forced to bank and rise upwards as the verminlord retreated to safety amongst the heaving ranks of its followers.

‘Kill-kill for Vermalanx!’ the verminlord shrieked as it sprang to the top of one of the few remaining standing stones that occupied the soupy ground before the Gates of Dawn. ‘Kill the storm-things!’ it shrilled, snapping its yellowing fangs in a show of fury. It gesticulated, urging its followers forward, and they went in scuttling waves, darting between the slower plaguebearers and leaping over the frolicking nurglings to get to the Stormcast.

As the ranks of ratmen went on the attack, squealing bands of skaven slaves scrambled up from the hole the others had emerged from, dragging the rickety shapes of catapults and other, more esoteric, war-engines. These weapons were turned on the Stormcast, and the sky was soon marked by poison contrails and whistling chunks of glowing green rock.

‘We must destroy those weapons,’ Gravewalker said, swatting a frothing ratman in mid-leap. ‘They will pick us apart otherwise.’

He and Zephacleas fought back to back for a moment. The Lord-Celestant saw Tegrus flare his wings and the crackling feathers sliced a ratman in two.

‘Aye, and I know just the Stormcast to see to it. Ho, winged one, make yourself useful… Take out those catapults,’ Zephacleas shouted.

He did not see whether his command was obeyed, for a knot of skaven came at him in a rush, and he was forced to defend himself. He heard men scream and die, and the dull roar of their spirits ascending back to Azyr, bound for Reforging. The black clouds above were struck through with hundreds of pinholes made by these flashes of bright light. How many warriors had already returned to the cosmic forges?

Too many, he thought, as he spitted a skaven on his sword. He turned towards the Gates of Dawn and saw the tiny form of Gardus locked in combat with the bloated nightmare at the top. Hurry, my friend, he thought, before this all becomes for naught — hurry, Gardus. Hurry!

Chapter Nine Duel at the Gates of Dawn

Gardus’s lungs burned as he climbed, and his legs soon ached, but he refused to slow. He could hear the rumble of one of the greater daemon’s bodyguards pursuing him, but he couldn’t afford to stop and confront the creature. The Gates of Dawn had to be closed, one way or another. If he could destroy the realmgate, the battle would be won.

As he reached the uppermost landing, the archway began to tremble, the stones grinding against one another. Bolathrax flung his hands out in a throwing motion, and the darkness beyond the arch suddenly congealed and burst. A dozen monstrous flies — each one larger than a man, and bearing a plaguebearer on its back — exploded out from the archway and shot towards the battle, followed by thousands of their smaller kin.

Gardus stared in shock as the plague drones flew past him. He turned to look at the Gates of Dawn. It had become tainted, he knew — it was now nothing more than a blasphemous canker in the skin of reality, leading to Chaos itself. His heart shuddered in his chest as he stared into the swirling darkness. It pulsed with an unholy rhythm, like a thing alive. I have to destroy it, he thought, hesitation turning to determination.

‘Look who it is,’ Bolathrax said, as he turned to look down at Gardus. ‘Come alone, little boil? I suppose your friends are rather busy, eh?’ The Great Unclean One laughed.

‘One of me is more than enough to handle the likes of you,’ Gardus said, whipping his hammer out and around.

The head punched into Bolathrax’s belly, tearing the sagging flesh. Gardus struck again and again, making great wounds in the daemon’s body. Bolathrax sagged back, mouth open in a mocking leer.

‘Oh, I don’t think so, dear me, no,’ the Great Unclean One rumbled. ‘I simply cannot abide baseless bravado in one so infinitesimal.’ The creature lashed out with his chained flail, shattering stone, and the force of the impact nearly knocked Gardus from the top of the steps. ‘You are nothing, mortal. A momentary distraction, a gaseous emission, passed and just as soon forgotten,’ Bolathrax continued. ‘Just like that frail wretch you call a god. God? Pah! I have met gods and warred with them in Grandfather’s name. Your lightning-hurler is no god. Merely an old wound, yet to properly heal.’ The flail slammed down again, sending a fusillade of stone fragments bouncing off Gardus’s armour. ‘We shall deal with him directly, have no fear. The Age of Chaos has only just begun, and it shall last unto eternity.’