Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

‘Good hound,’ he said as he got to his feet. He grunted in pain as he retrieved his halberd and lantern. Spume was gone. Whether he was dead or had fled, Grymn couldn’t say, and didn’t much care. He looked about. Beastmen lay broken and bloody all around. Machus strode towards him through the smoke, his axe in hand. ‘Do you yet live, Lord-Castellant?’ he called.

‘No, I’m a ghost,’ Grymn spat, shaking his head. ‘Of course I live. And next time I tell you to do something — do it!’

Machus bowed his head. Despite his chastisement, Grymn could tell the Decimator-Prime was relieved. He shook his head.

‘Rally the others, Decimator-Prime,’ he growled. ‘There’s red work yet to be done.’

‘Aye, Lord-Castellant,’ Machus said, hastening to obey.

Grymn watched him go, and turned to see Morbus making his way towards him, accompanied by a number of others. Zephacleas and Ultrades walked with the Lord-Relictor as he stalked through the wreckage of battle, his reliquary staff glowing softly with a silver light.

‘We must redress our lines,’ Grymn said. ‘The enemy have been beaten here, but they will return in strength. We must find a proper defensive position, as well as another realmgate.’

‘Wait — look,’ Zephacleas said, pointing towards the slopes below the tor. ‘Look!’

Grymn caught sight of a glow moving through the smog-shrouded reaches below. It grew in intensity as it wound through the trees and the shattered remnants of the cursed menhirs, and Grymn became aware of the sound of creaking wood and rustling leaves.

‘Sylvaneth,’ Morbus murmured. Grymn knew he was correct. He had glimpsed the treekin often enough since arriving, and knew the sound of them well. Like a forest caught in a windstorm, the march of a warglade was an eerie chorus of creaks and groans.

‘Yes, but are they coming as allies… or enemies?’ Grymn said. Tallon growled softly and snapped his beak. The gryph-hound sensed his master’s unease, and Grymn reached down to stroke the animal’s feathered ruff. ‘Easy, my lad. Easy…’

‘We should take up a defensive position,’ Ultrades said, one hand on the hilt of his runeblade.

Grymn shook his head.

‘Too late for that,’ he said. ‘They’re all around us. Can’t you hear them?’

‘All I hear are the trees creaking in the wind,’ Ultrades said. Grymn snorted.

‘There is no wind,’ he said. He turned his attentions back to the light, and realised that he could make out figures within it. The tall, unnatural shapes of dryads stalked forward, carrying something — a throne of tangled branches and stiff vines — on their shoulders. The glow emanated not from the treekin, but instead from the figure slumped on the throne. A figure that was not unfamiliar…

‘Gardus…’ Zephacleas whispered.

Grymn started.

‘Gardus,’ he said, in disbelief. He took a step. Then another. ‘Gardus,’ he said again, unable to believe his eyes. A slow, flat smile spread across his face as he descended to meet his Lord-Celestant.

‘You have no idea how glad I am to see you.’

Chapter Five The Despised One

Torglug the Despised One looked out over the Glade of Horned Growths and heaved a sigh. ‘The rats are failing. Gluhak is failing. Spume is failing. Only Torglug stands, Grandfather…’ Down below, fungus-riddled trees shed their bark as the rot-fog of the skaven faded. The master of the Brotherhood of the Red Boil, the plague-priest Kratsik, was dead, squashed flat by a vengeful treelord. Something maybe to be thanking them for, Torglug thought, as he leaned on the haft of his axe and stared out at all of the nauseating green. He didn’t care for the skaven. They were too tricksy by half, and always seeking an advantage over their betters.

‘Not Torglug alone,’ a harsh voice hissed. The Despised One didn’t turn.

‘You are still living, then, Vermalanx? I was thinking you are dead at the Ghyrtract Fen,’ Torglug said. The blight-flies had brought word that one of the lightning-men had killed the rat-daemon at the Gates of Dawn, when boisterous Bolathrax had underestimated the hardiness of their enemies with predictable results.

‘I am harder to kill than that, Woodsman,’ the verminlord said, as he crouched atop the shattered standing stone behind the Chaos champion. The rat-daemon used the name by which he was known in Nurgle’s Manse. The daemons there called him Ironhood the Woodsman, for he had hacked down life-trees by the hundreds, in order to better fuel the blessed decay spreading from the open gates of Grandfather’s garden.

‘Your servants are not saying the same,’ Torglug said. Even as the lightning-men had silenced the Dirgehorn, the treekin, led by the pestiferous Lady of Vines, had launched a long-anticipated assault on the Glade of Horned Growths. Now the lightning-men were readying themselves to march anew, though just where he couldn’t say.