Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

The glow dimmed. Vandus straightened. He had returned to Azyr, and stood within a quenching chamber. His sight took a moment to return; the light had been dazzling and the chamber was now dark. First he saw stars shining through an aperture at the apex of the dome, then he held up his arm and the starlight glinted from muscles larger and more powerful than those of any mortal man. His physique was still that of a Stormcast Eternal, and his skin was unmarked by the forge burns of his former life. He had not met death, not this time. Relief rose in him, and he felt ashamed that he had feared his power gone. Power was what the followers of the Four craved, not the Stormcasts. For the warriors of Sigmar, there should only be vengeance.

He thought back to Aqshy, to his plea to the skies as he had stood within the arch of the Gate of Wrath. Sigmar had struck him down as he had requested, but rather than destroy his bodily form it appeared that the God-King had taken him up to Azyr, just as he had centuries before. He only hoped that Korghos Khul’s realmgate had been destroyed by the storm bolt that had effected his escape, and that the battle for the Brimstone Peninsula had not been lost for his sake.

Light of a different sort grew. Shining shapes resolved around Vandus, burnished plates of golden armour that orbited him in stately dance. Vandus reached for them with a thought. Lightning leapt out from his skin to the armour plates, pulling them sharply into place until he was clad in the raiment of a Lord-Celestant once more.

A twinge affected him. Strange thoughts intruded upon his dressing. He felt there was a hollow space in his mind, as if in returning home he had chanced upon an unknown door and opened it to find an empty room pregnant with disquiet.

Vandus shook the sensation off, and called upon his war-mask. The visor, shaped into the impassive face of a judgmental god, slid into place. Vandus extended his hand and the hammer Heldensen crackled into being from nothing and clapped into his grip. The Lord-Celestant raised his other hand and grasped at the night sky, pulling down his cloak of star-silk from the heavens.

Outside, a trumpet note sounded, high and sweet: a summons. Sigmar called for him. The doors of the quenching chamber peeled themselves back. Vandus stepped outside into a long, curved corridor where many identical doors were set. Magical lamps burned with unchanging light in alcoves all the way along. Like everything else in Sigmaron and the Sigmarabulum, the corridor was beautiful.

Vandus was met by Knight-Heraldor Laudus Skythunder and Lord-Castellant Andricus Stoneheart, his friends and fellow officers, lords of the Hammers of Sigmar and its primary Warrior Chamber, the Hammerhands.

Laudus hung back, his silver horn tucked under one arm. Stoneheart was of a more demonstrative character, and he grabbed at Vandus’ upper arms and peered at him in wonder. His helmet was open. The battle armour topped with Andricus’ cheerful face instead of the blank war-mask of the Stormcasts made for an incongruous sight.

‘You’re alive then, lad?’ said Andricus. He unexpectedly embraced the Lord-Celestant. ‘Good to see you, Hammerhand. We feared you lost.’

‘Sigmar promises us an eternity, Andricus. I was taken from the battle whole and unharmed.’

Andricus stepped back. ‘Of course he does, of course. But we did not know for certain if you would survive the energies of the gate. You were snatched from the very jaws of the Realm of Chaos! And there have been…’ He shook his head, then forced a smile back onto his heavy features.

‘What?’ asked Vandus. ‘Why do you look at me so strangely? It is I, Vandus who was Vendell! The Hammerhand! Come, my friends, what did you fear?’

Andricus and Laudus shared a look. ‘Now’s not the time,’ said Andricus. ‘There’s much to discuss. We have been summoned again.’

‘How did you come to be here? You were not struck down?’

‘We were fortunate to avoid the agonies of death, my Lord-Celestant,’ said Laudus. He was altogether more aloof than the Lord-Castellant. Where Andricus spoke of his life as a peasant, Laudus had been noble born. They sometimes bickered over whose existence was the more honest. What was not in doubt was that they had both been heroes.

‘We returned to Azyr via the realmgate.’

‘The battle is won?’

‘Yes, son,’ said Andricus. He had been an old man when taken; to this he insisted he owed his cheerfulness. ‘We’ve all been invested with the power of the storm, but my joy doesn’t come from that,’ he was fond of saying. ‘I’m happy to see clearly, to get up from my bed without the crack of aching joints.’ When had he heard this, Laudus had pulled a face. ‘You’ll never understand how it is to be old now, my lads. And be thankful for it!’

Certain habits of speech and manner persisted from Andricus’ prior existence: his custom of speaking to all as if they were years younger than he, for one. Vandus was half-convinced Andricus did it simply to annoy Laudus.