Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

The beast had gorged itself, its mouth a ruby red from the feast. It was looking intently at Khul, deciding whether it should attack. Scenting Khorne’s favour, it relented and padded to its master’s side.

Khul seized it by the neck, despite the hound’s monstrous size.

For a moment the beast resisted, but Khul would not be denied and it heeled before his dominance.

‘You are mine, creature,’ he hissed to the beast, and heard it growl in acquiescence.

In the distance, Khul heard chanting. He smelled roasting flesh and saw the glow of immense fires on the horizon. A gathering of his warriors.

‘The feast is over,’ Khul murmured to his hound as he released it. ‘War calls.’

He snarled, his rage still molten at his defeat, but smiled through his clenched teeth at the prospect of a fight and an adversary most worthy.

The stronghold was close.

‘I shall take your skull, Vendell Blackfist,’ Khul whispered as he headed northward, ‘and then… ascend.’

Chapter Five Bringers of the storm

Ithar cried out in agony. Ionus Cryptborn carefully but firmly placed his hand over the stricken warrior’s forehead to stifle his anguish. A mote of healing celestial magic entered the Retributor, but did little more than ease his pain. It would take more than this to sustain his life.

‘Be still, brother,’ Ionus whispered, one eye on the skies in the hope of seeing Sturmannon’s Prosecutors return.

Ithar’s heavy sigmarite armour was badly torn and rent. Huge grooves had been carved through the gilded breastplate and into his flesh. Bones had been shattered, organs pierced. In places, the flesh was burned. Though paladins were the hardiest of the Stormcast, they were not invulnerable. Ithar teetered on the brink, his stony-faced Retributor-Prime looking on.

‘Will he live?’ asked Theodrus, hefting his lightning hammer meaningfully. ‘Or is mercy all we have left to give him?’

Ionus raised his hand for calm.

‘I need a moment longer, Theodrus,’ he told him, returning to his ministrations.

It had been an ambush. Eighteen souls badly bloodied by a hunting pack of khorgoraths.

Ever since parting ways with the Lord-Celestant, Ionus’s chamber had been attacked at every turn. Monsters and peril were ubiquitous in these lands, it seemed. After a hard march, they had reached sight of their objective, a looming tower of brass. As the paladins had led the column through a narrow defile in a forest which bore blades instead of leaves on its trees, the khorgoraths had struck.

The four warriors who had lost their heads to the beasts were gone, with only ribbons of corposant to mark their passing. The rest had lived, but were brutally wounded. Now, Ionus had to try and keep them alive. They would need every hammer in the battle to come.

So far, he had managed to save all but two. Ithar was the last.

‘Sigmar…’ he intoned in a sepulchral voice. ‘O Lord of Azyr, Master of the Storm…’ Ionus clenched the relic hammer, holding it aloft as he let go of Ithar’s mouth with his other hand and gently placed it upon the warrior’s chest. His reliquary-icon stood nearby, driven into the earth. The skeletal totem bound to it, a sword in its bony fingers as it hung in silent repose, looked on as if in judgement. Ithar’s golden mask was lying next to it, split from crown to chin.

‘Heed my prayers and bestow your grace upon this paladin so he might rise to fight again in your name. Heed me, Sigmar!’ Ionus cried aloud, as black clouds began to gather overhead. ‘Grant us your glory. Bring forth the storm!’

A lightning bolt arced down from the heavens and struck Cryptborn’s hammer. He shuddered as the immortal god-power went through him and into Ithar. Slowly, a cerulean glow began to suffuse the fallen paladin, reknitting the wounds in his flesh.

In moments it was over and Ithar was restored.

Ionus sagged, the effort draining, and glanced at the hourglass he had set down the moment he began. The last few grains trickled down its neck as Ithar sat up.

‘Rise,’ said Ionus, standing himself.

‘Praise the God-King,’ Theodrus murmured, and held his hammer to his chest to venerate the Lord of Storms.

‘We are whole again,’ Ionus told him, although he sounded weary. ‘The tower awaits.’ He spoke to his entire Exemplar Chamber, who had been silently looking on. As if the Lord-Relictor had summoned them, Sturmannon’s Prosecutors swept in from the north.

The gathered paladins made room for them to land. Ionus held his ground, but stood ready to receive them.

‘I bear tidings, Lord-Relictor,’ said Sturmannon.

‘The tower’s garrison?’

‘Is nothing we cannot overcome, but there is something… unnatural about it. This is no mere keep, wrought of stone and metal.’

‘It’s a temple, Sturmannon,’ Ionus told him, in a voice as deathly as the grave, ‘pure and simple. A monument to war, and it must be cast down.’

‘I saw a priest upon the parapet, one who bore a totem that was utterly unlike your reliquary.’