Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

‘We are all untried in battle, we Stormcasts,’ continued Thostos. ‘If I were Sigmar, I might send my more restrained warriors in first so I might better judge their virtues. And I might hold back my most ferocious for a time when they were truly needed. Patience, brothers. We have waited for centuries for battle. What does a handful more hours matter? We will all get to blood our hammers soon enough. An eternity of war awaits us. It may come to pass that we yearn for peace before long.’

‘Never,’ said Perun firmly. ‘I will never yearn for peace again, not until Khorne himself is cast from his iron throne and his collection of skulls smashed to bone meal.’

‘Aye to that,’ said Eldroc.

The stairs opened to a level place, floored with sand. A cave, were it not for the gap high above that showed the brazen sky. But the way seemed to end in a cul-de-sac. A wall of rock greeted Thostos.

‘This is it?’

‘Yes, Lord-Celestant. Another trick for the eyes. Follow me.’

Eldroc approached the rear of the cave, his turquoise armour flashing as he stepped through a slash of sunlight. It appeared he had vanished. Thostos and Perun stopped in amazement until Eldroc’s arm appeared again and beckoned them. What looked like one sheet of stone was two overlapped with a passage between.

‘Another marvel made with simple stone,’ said Perun.

They followed Eldroc. Another chasm awaited. The convoluted sides matched one another, so it seemed like the stone had parted like a pair of lips. A sandy path wended its way along the bottom, finally opening out in a large, bell-shaped chamber. Forty Stormcasts guarded the way in. They clashed their hammers on their armour as their officers approached.

‘Let’s see it then,’ said Thostos.

Eldroc pointed to the left. Set into the back wall of the chamber, right into the side of the mountain, was a great portal. Thostos walked to the centre of the chamber so that he might see it more fully. The sun was at exactly the right angle to shine through the small light in the roof of the chamber and play across the huge carvings surrounding it.

The gate was monumental in size, three hundred feet high and one hundred across. Two enormous duardin herms made up the bottom half of each side of the frame. Their heads and backs were bowed with carved effort, long stone beards brushing the sand along the cliff face’s foot. They were guarded by friezes of lesser carvings, a row of figures who scowled out at the Stormcasts and pointed with accusing hands. Tall, geometrically patterned pillars carried upon the upturned hands of the herms made up the remainder of the height, and bore the weight of a long lintel artfully fashioned from a single massive piece of stone. An outer band deeply carved with repeating geometric designs made the outer edge. In the flat space of the middle of the frame ran an unbroken run of six-foot-tall runes bordered by perfectly chiselled flora and fauna, thinner against the geometric band and thick around the gaping mouth of the gateway. Thostos had seen none of the things depicted there in the Chaos-tainted wasteland of Anvrok; the world the carvings showed was long gone.

The mountain here was black rock shot through with glittering seams of galena, but the arch was a creamy colour, a different kind of stone. Thostos could see no join to mark the transition between the two sorts — it was as if they had been welded together. Perhaps it had been. The duardin had skills none could match. The gate runes glowed feebly in the sun of Chamon, lambent with quiet magic that hinted at past power.

Thostos removed his helmet. Underneath was a face framed by blond hair and a beard, square jawed and heavily featured beyond the norms of mortal men. His eyes alone seemed completely human, and only they had remained unchanged during his remaking. They were the same eyes that had once beheld Amcarsh in its dying days. But neither his eyes nor the sweat and dirt streaking his skin could hide the god-gifted power crackling within him.

‘The fabled Silverway of the duardin,’ Thostos pronounced. With his mask removed, his voice was warm and rich. ‘How disappointingly easy to find.’

A few of the men chuckled, pride and frustration both in the sound.

‘There was no resistance at all? It was just here, waiting for you in the mountainside?’

‘Retributor Eustos found it,’ said Eldroc. He held up a hand to indicate a warrior who bowed his head in recognition.

‘A blackbird alighted upon a mountain stone,’ said Eustos. ‘I had seen no other life in this place, and so it drew my eyes. When I looked at the bird, the stair was plain to see, though I would swear to Sigmar himself that there was nothing there before.’