Age of Sigmar: Omnibus

Eldroc laughed. ‘Are such magics intended to intimidate me, mage? See here the power of Sigmar Heldenhammer manifest!’ He held aloft his warding lantern, the seat of his power and symbol of his office. Brilliant light blazed forth. Where it lit upon the Celestial Vindicators’ sigmarite, dents popped out of scarred metal, and gashes in flesh knitted themselves shut. The Stormcasts were invigorated by the light of their God-King, and redoubled their attack. But where it touched upon the scions of Chaos they reeled back. Wounds closed by the sorcerer burst open once more, and the suits of armour brought to life fell back to the ground.

The charge of the Chaos knights had been broken. The last was brought down, his steed letting out a grating, reptilian whinny as it was tripped and pushed over. Both rider and steed were obscured by hammers rising and falling.

Only the sorcerer’s bodyguard remained in the centre of the enemy line, a grim company of wicked murderers dressed like kings and armed with a daemon’s plunder. Dangerous, but few in number.

The tide was turning. It was time to press the advantage.

‘Judicators, protect the flanks!’ yelled Eldroc. His battle shout pierced the tumult of battle. The irregular rain of stormbolts ceased and two distinct barrages set up. Two-thirds of the gleaming bolts fell on the greater numbers of Chaos warriors by the entrance to the mountain path, while the other third speared down onto the small knot by the eastern flank. The stormbolts there did swift work, breaking up the formation of the warriors and leaving them at the mercy of the Eternals’ hammers and swords.

‘Liberators, to me!’ Eldroc called. Without waiting for his men, he ran across the narrow gap and plunged into the sorcerer’s bodyguard. Halberds with gibbering faces flowing over molten surfaces rose to greet him, but he smashed them aside. Screaming his oath to Sigmar over and again, he hacked his way deep into the enemy’s ranks. A solid crash came behind him as the Liberators’ shieldwall impacted the foe. He was impetuous, carving a passage alone towards the sorcerer. He spun his weapon, whirling it round his head and turning his body about to maintain its momentum. Redbeak came at his side, ripping at those few who evaded Eldroc’s wrath.

With a final crash Eldroc put down his last foe. It took him a moment to realise he had burst right through the dread regiment. The sorcerer stood just a few yards from him. They locked eyes a moment, then the sorcerer turned and fled back towards his golden platform.

Redbeak leapt after him, but the sorcerer waved a hand at the gryph-hound, sending it spinning aside.

‘Judicators, bring down the curse caster!’ roared Eldroc.

The disc bobbed in the air, rotating at stately speed until the sorcerer approached, whereupon it stopped and sank low to the ground. With a single bound, the sorcerer jumped upon it. The disc’s revolutions restarted and quickened as it rose up, bearing the sorcerer over the heads of the combatants. A hail of stormbolts came at the sorcerer. None hit their target. A fresh wall of blue fire erupted around the disc, and the bolts clashed off it harmlessly. Shrinking rapidly in on itself, the ball of fire darted up and away, heading off over the duardin ruins and then to the south.

Eldroc noted its direction, but could spare little time in consideration of pursuit. The damned warriors, seeing their master gone, were fighting all the harder, and Thostos’s flank was being pushed back before their fury.

‘Slay them! Slay them all!’ called Eldroc. He and his men laid low the remainder of the wizard’s bodyguard, then turned to the mountain path entrance to fall upon the rear of the Chaos warriors fighting there.

Minutes later it was all over. Stormcast Eternals stood, hammers suddenly heavy in their hands, chests heaving. The broken bodies of Chaos slaves lay on the sand and rock of the platform floor. The statues of the duardin on either side of the arch looked on impassively. Eldroc let the haft of his halberd thump to the floor as Thostos came to join him.

‘Finally,’ he said. ‘Vengeance begins.’

‘And it is a beginning only. Did you see the way the sorcerer fled?’

‘To the south.’

‘Aye,’ said Thostos, and there was grim pleasure in his voice. ‘Towards the ruined city of Elixia. Towards the great fortress.’

CHAPTER EIGHT The Glimmerlands

Once the battle at the platform was done, the wounded ministered to and the tally of those returned to Sigmaron calculated, Thostos elected to take fully two-thirds of the Bladestorms off the mountain by the stairs in pursuit of the horned sorcerer, leaving Eldroc to his duty as guardian of the Silverway.