Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Gardus rolled to his feet, and lunged. Hammer and blade both found their mark and bounced off the daemon’s rubbery flesh. Bolathrax laughed and thrust his blade down. The Stormcast stepped aside, and the great sword slammed into the muck. He spun, set his foot onto the flat of the rusty sword and ran up its length. Bolathrax gaped as the Lord-Celestant leapt towards him. The daemon jerked his head back, but too late, and Gardus’ sword pierced the creature’s bulging eye.

Bolathrax shrieked and swiped his flail about his head blindly. Gardus was caught by the pox-hardened skulls and sent flying. He smashed into a standing stone and flopped into the muck, weapons lost, body a mass of pain. As he tried to push himself up, one of Bolathrax’s splayed feet came down on his back. Gardus cried out, as his spine cracked and a tidal wave of agony washed through him. The skull flail came down a moment later, and one of his legs was reduced to a red ruin, pulverised by the blow.

‘No more running, Garradan,’ Bolathrax grunted, as he looked down at Gardus. ‘Pain is but a door to experience, as the Grandfather says. It does wonders for the soul. Just ask Torglug the Despised. We made a man of him. I wonder what we shall make of you, when you have suffered enough, eh?’ The Great Unclean One reached down and snatched Gardus up by his remaining ankle. Gardus couldn’t breathe. He clutched weakly at the air, reaching for weapons that were not there.

The ghosts had gathered beneath him, and were staring up with mournful gazes. They did not speak, but they did not need to. Gardus coughed, and felt his shattered ribs dig into the soft places within him.

‘I shall put you somewhere safe, until you are ready to be reborn,’ Bolathrax chortled, as he reached down and lifted his belly folds wide, exposing the swirling vortex within him. ‘What do you say to that, eh?’

Gardus stared at the vortex — a black maw of horror, as deep and as dark as the spaces between the stars. His mouth was dry, but he forced the words out regardless.

‘Only the faithful,’ he croaked. Bolathrax began to laugh.

Gardus closed his eyes.

Chapter Sixteen The Sainted Eye

Tegrus hurtled through the smog-choked air, his hammers catching a bullgor across the skull with a thunderous crack. The beastman toppled over as Tegrus swooped past on wings of light. He rolled through the air, aiming himself towards the beastmen skidding down the scree of the valley wall. The creatures were charging towards the forest of glowing trees from which the arboreal citadels rose, axes raised.

‘Lord-Castellant,’ he cried, searching for Grymn. ‘We must…’ He trailed off as he saw the shieldwall of the Hallowed Knights momentarily buckle beneath the weight of the enemy, before it stiffened once more. He saw the Lord-Castellant amidst his brethren, exhorting them to greater effort as plaguebearers swarmed them. There would be no help from that quarter. Up to me, then, he thought.

Tegrus folded his arms to his sides and sped across the valley, leaving dust and deafened foes in his wake. His retinue of Prosecutors followed, though none were able to match his speed. But even he was too slow. Sap sprayed like blood as the bestigors and bullgors hacked away at the ancient forest. Tegrus dropped into their midst a moment later, crushing a bestigor’s head as he landed. He whirled, catching another in its mouth, silencing it mid-roar.

He saw one of his Prosecutors pulled from the air by a bullgor and broken over the monster’s knee. Another was brought low by a bestigor axe, and hacked to pieces as he writhed in the muck.

‘No!’ Tegrus snarled, as he brought his hammers down on another beastman, smashing the squalling creature to the ground. He saw a horde of skaven clad in rotting robes scuttling between the legs of the larger beastmen. They too began to hack and slash at the ancient trees.

‘Keep them back,’ he cried, before he realised that he was alone. The last of his warriors had fallen, throttled by a bullgor. The creature joined the Stormcast it had killed a moment later as Tegrus sent his hammer ploughing into its bestial skull.

More and more of the creatures pelted past him, heading for the trees. It was like trying to fight the tide. For every one he killed, it seemed two more slipped through. As he drove his hammer into the gut of a bestigor, crushing the creature’s ribs, he heard an ethereal screech. It sawed through his skull, causing his teeth to twitch in his jaw and his head to ache. All around him, beastmen stumbled, clutching at their heads. Whatever he’d felt, they had felt it worse. He reacted swiftly, lashing out with his hammers, shattering kneecaps and spines. He flung himself into the air as a light grew amidst the carnage. Beastmen staggered away as the light blossomed into the shape of a woman. No, Tegrus realised; not a woman.