Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

He had fought the golden warrior, the one who had once been Vendell Blackfist. Khul had the better of him, and yet the wretch had escaped death a second time. Even in his stuporous state, the warlord of Khorne vowed there would not be a third.

And as he lay there, plotting vengeance even as he stirred from unconsciousness, he came to a realisation.

In spite of his survival, something had changed. He felt it in the shimmering heat of the air, heard it in the deep rumble of thunder overhead and beheld it in those who had come with the lightning, cast upon the storm.

For a time, after the battle, he had drifted in and out of a black daze in which his dreams were dark. Far from being restful, his torpor was a fitful sleep and wracked by paroxysms. His eyes opened, flickering in palsy against the sun, as something he had not felt in many years formed into being.

Defeat.

And with that realisation came the Blood God’s rage, urging Khul to his feet and fuelling limbs driven to the brink of exhaustion by the one known as the Hammerhand, a man resurrected, reborn, a man Khul should have killed decades before…

‘Vendell Blackfist… Vandus…’

As he muttered the name of his nemesis, he became aware of scavengers rummaging through the corpses, taking their fill of flesh, and soon they became aware of him.

The Igneous Delta looked as it had when Khul had fallen, a stinking, lava-strewn plain of scorched black rock. Only now it was his fellow Goretide that were coming for him, not the golden warriors from before.

Far from being cowed by Khul’s revival, the bloody chieftains and champions who prowled the dead saw a unique opportunity.

It was the way of the Bloodbound. The only road to Khorne’s throne was to climb a pyre of skulls.

Five warriors surrounded Khul, each with an axe or blade. They circled slowly, murderous ambition in their eyes, especially when they saw Khul was unarmed.

Khul grinned, exposing sharp, angular teeth. Through the eyeholes of his skull-faced helm, the world had turned a visceral red. He clenched his fists until the knuckles cracked.

‘Come then, take your chance and let’s see who Khorne favours.’

With a roar, the scavenging chieftains attacked.

A bearded brute of a warrior went first, swinging wildly with his axe. Khul deftly caught the chieftain’s wrist, fending off an overhead blow before pulling the warrior down, wrapping a muscular arm around his neck and snapping it. Before the chieftain hit the ground, Khul had taken his axe and embedded it in the chest of the second warrior. In a welter of gore, Khul wrenched the blade loose and flung it into a third aggressor, pitching him off his feet, the axe haft protruding from his face.

Three slain in as many breaths gave the other two pause. It was a momentary hesitation, yet ultimately fatal. Khul bellowed and charged, and the fourth chieftain hacked at him, but his sword only ate into the meat of Khul’s forearm, shearing through the armour and holding fast. Seizing the champion’s ruddy beard, Khul head-butted him until his faceplate cracked and then the bone beneath. The chieftains’ body capitulated, his legs buckling like broken reeds. Khul snatched up his sword.

As the champion fell, Khul was left facing the last attacker.

‘You’re thinking this was a mistake,’ Khul told him, his chest heaving up and down with barely restrained fury, his skin drenched in blood. ‘It was, but if you bare your neck I will make it fast.’

Eyes wide and suddenly unsure, the chieftain adjusted the grip on his axe and then looked to the weapon Khul had taken from one of the others. Blood dripped off the blade.

With a sudden movement, Khul lunged forwards and cut off the chieftain’s head. Then he butchered his flesh until nothing remained but a red ruin.

‘No place for the weak,’ he slurred, half drunk on rage, ‘at the foot of Khorne’s throne.’

Slamming the sword into the ground, he went to retrieve his axe. Its voice echoed in his skull, drawing his attention as it demanded for its bloodlust to be slaked.

‘Aye,’ Khul muttered to the axe, wrapping his meaty fist around the leather haft, ‘you’ll have your fill.’

He regarded the five corpses and began the grisly work of taking the heads and flensing them of all flesh and muscle.

After a short while, five bloody skulls stared at him through hollow eyes, their rictus grins suggesting they were much happier in death than they had ever been in life. Khul stacked them one atop the other, erecting a slaughter shrine so he might convene with his god.

As he ate the defeated chieftains’ flesh, he grinned, as if listening to words only he could hear, for the plains were almost silent. Then he heard a sound, one that emanated from the corporeal world. Strips of skin and sinew hanging from his teeth, Khul looked up sharply.

His axe was already in his hand as a daemonic hound sloped out from amongst the bodies.

‘Grizzlemaw…’ uttered Khul, both greeting and curse at the same time.