Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

The angel was incredibly strong. Despite taking a dozen deep cuts from axe-blades, it struggled on, ever trying to gain loft. Its warhammer, held one-handed, scythed around, smashing three bloodreavers clear and sending their broken bodies tumbling. It kicked out, severing the neck of another and almost breaking free.

Rakh pounced again, hurling his cleaver straight at the creature’s breastplate. The iron edge hit the metal but was deflected, scraping across the pristine surface. The bloodreavers became more desperate, drooling with anger as they battled to pull their prey to earth.

The prospect of healthy flesh to gnaw on rather than worm-infested gristle made Rakh frenzied with meat-lust, and he flung himself into the air one more time. This time his outstretched fingers caught onto something solid — the warrior’s weapon-belt — and he yanked down with all his strength. Others of the pack seized the angel and chains were flung up, clanking onto his limbs and dragging at him. The axes and cleavers got to work, slamming down and breaking up the armoured plate.

Rakh smelled the first gush of the creature’s blood and knew then he would be locking his teeth onto skin within moments. He ripped the warrior’s helm-rim back from its neck and stretched his jaws wide, picking his spot before he plunged down.

The lightning bolt hit him cripplingly hard and he was sent flying, his chest smoking and his jerkin burned to scraps. His head spun and his vision reeled. He reached for his weapon groggily, gasping from the shock and pain, and tried to get to his feet.

More bolts flew in, each one crackling like ball-lightning before exploding with a sharp bang. The deluge scattered the gang of bloodreavers, some of whom were caught by it and cut down just as he had been. Rakh stood up, still bleary-eyed, and stared into the skies.

The angels were swooping in low, hurling bolts of energy right into the midst of the bloodreavers. Now acclimatised to the buffets of the storm-wind, they were hurtling through the air in a blur of gold and cobalt, uncatchable, unreachable, and burning with wrath.

The one that had been pulled to earth got back to his feet, still swinging his warhammer and crunching the skulls of the bloodreavers about him. Rakh stumbled into a charge, holding his cleaver two-handed and determined to bring at least one of those damned flying creatures to its death.

The angel turned to face him, his armour running with blood, and opened the palm of his gauntlet. A ball of white fire slammed into Rakh, this time burning right through what remained of his armour and chewing into his chest. He screamed and collapsed onto his back, clutching impotently at the forks of heat tearing across his skin.

Prone and agonised, Rakh could only watch as the battle-ravaged warrior leapt back up into the skies, bloodied but still capable of flight. His counterparts were dropping to the earth now, landing amid bursts of the searing starfire that shot from their very hands. Others darted down low, airborne still but flying near enough to send their hammerheads blasting into the backs of the fleeing bloodreavers.

Amid all his dizziness, Rakh couldn’t help but spit out a bitter laugh. They had tried to take down one of them, just one, and failed. Now the whole pack was suffering the vengeance of these strange and terrible warriors, and within moments they would be slaughtered to a man.

Rakh lifted his head just in time to see one more of the golden creatures coming for him. There would be no escape this time — he could barely move, and already the numbness creeping up his limbs was near-complete. With his last breath, he could only marvel at what had taken place.

What are these things?

But before any answer could be given the angel unleashed his fire, and Rakh’s brutish world ended in a blaze of pain.

Vekh had seen the danger before any of the others. While the rest of the army were still blinking and staring stupidly at the apparitions from the skies, he had reached for his flail and summoned the bestial presence at the heart of the horde.

For the long march north the behemoth had been shackled, weighed down with spell-wound chains of iron made in the depths of Khul’s forges. They had goaded it and dragged it, never getting too close, knowing what it could do. It had raged at them, lashing out under the burden of the iron collar and the iron yokes, and Vekh had always been there at its side, whispering the maddening words, stoking the fires that ever burned within its ruined mind.

‘Skuldrak!’ he had called as the fires fell from heaven, releasing its bonds with a word and calling the behemoth, the khorgorath, to his side.

And it had come. Despite the pain, despite the madness, it always came, answering the command of its tormentor and trampling the lesser creatures of the horde under its claws. It barged its way up from the very heart of the boiling multitudes until its red-rimmed eyes once more seized on the author of its agony.