Table of Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar
War in the Hidden Vale – Josh Reynolds
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
The Eldritch Fortress – Guy Haley
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
About the Authors
An Extract from ‘The Gates of Azyr’
Legal
eBook license
THE GATES OF AZYR
An Age of Sigmar novel
THE REALMGATE WARS: WAR STORM
An Age of Sigmar anthology
Quick Reads
ASSAULT ON THE MANDRAKE BASTION
Part one in the Black Rift of Klaxus series
BENEATH THE BLACK THUMB
A Realmgate Wars Quick Read
From the maelstrom of a sundered world, the Eight Realms were born. The formless and the divine exploded into life.
Strange, new worlds appeared in the firmament, each one gilded with spirits, gods and men. Noblest of the gods was Sigmar. For years beyond reckoning he illuminated the realms, wreathed in light and majesty as he carved out his reign. His strength was the power of thunder. His wisdom was infinite. Mortal and immortal alike kneeled before his lofty throne. Great empires rose and, for a while, treachery was banished. Sigmar claimed the land and sky as his own and ruled over a glorious age of myth.
But cruelty is tenacious. As had been foreseen, the great alliance of gods and men tore itself apart. Myth and legend crumbled into Chaos. Darkness flooded the realms. Torture, slavery and fear replaced the glory that came before. Sigmar turned his back on the mortal kingdoms, disgusted by their fate. He fixed his gaze instead on the remains of the world he had lost long ago, brooding over its charred core, searching endlessly for a sign of hope. And then, in the dark heat of his rage, he caught a glimpse of something magnificent. He pictured a weapon born of the heavens. A beacon powerful enough to pierce the endless night. An army hewn from everything he had lost.
Sigmar set his artisans to work and for long ages they toiled, striving to harness the power of the stars. As Sigmar’s great work neared completion, he turned back to the realms and saw that the dominion of Chaos was almost complete. The hour for vengeance had come. Finally, with lightning blazing across his brow, he stepped forth to unleash his creation.
The Age of Sigmar had begun.
Prologue
In the Garden of Nurgle
Gardus ran.
He did not run alone. Ghosts kept pace, maybe a hundred or more: souls trapped in Nurgle’s garden or perhaps memories given a twisted half-life by Gardus’ will and the madness of this place. They ran with him, or stumbled in his wake, no more substantial than the stinking murk that rose from the ground beneath his feet.
Some were familiar, most were not. Nonetheless, they all clung to him with whispy fingers, shapes thinning and fading as he struggled out of their clutches. Men and women and children, all victims of plague and illness, all caught in the garden, unable to escape. He wanted to call to them, to comfort them, but he could not. He was helpless here, able only to run, to flee that which followed.
Help us…
Garradan, help me…
Healer, where are you…
Healer…
Garradan…
‘Gardus, why do you run?’ echoed the hateful, burbling voice of his pursuer.
The ghosts momentarily scattered, only to return all the more insistently as Gardus stumbled and sank to one knee in the mire. He thought again of turning to face the daemon as a true Stormcast, hammer in hand. But something told him to keep running. A voice… a whisper of song… some compulsion to which he could not give name drove him on.
And so he ran, through the very seat of Nurgle’s power. Signs of it were everywhere he looked. Strange, unnatural plants loomed on all sides, their fleshy leaves dripping with mucus and their pale blossoms weeping pus. He could hear heavy forms floundering in the murk, but could not see them. He could barely see his own hand in front of his face. His lungs burned with foulness and his armour was crusted with grime and mould. Whenever he stopped for breath or fell, the mould began to grow, creeping across his silver sigmarite. It was as if the garden were seeking to take him into itself, to make him part of it.
He had seen what such a fate meant – had seen the twisted, moss covered boles with silently screaming faces, and trees bent in agonised, almost human postures – and had no wish to experience it himself. Only the faithful, he thought, as he pushed himself to his feet.
‘Still repeating that phrase, as if that’ll help you,’ came the rumbling taunt. ‘Your thoughts hang heavy on the perfumed air of the Grandfather’s garden. It disturbs the flies, Gardus – or should I call you Garradan?’
So far, Bolathrax had kept itself at a distance, seemingly more interested in the chase than the kill. That was the sole reason he still lived, Gardus knew. The garden of Nurgle was populated by more than the stinging flies that crawled across his armour. Great beasts, brawling daemons and cackling, pestilential sprites had all shown themselves at one point or another. Most crept out of the dripping undergrowth to watch his flight. Others tried to stop him, but were warded off by a roar from Bolathrax or else fell to Gardus’ hammer and sword. The deaths of these creatures were greeted by a rumbling from the poisonous clouds above.
He ignored those clouds now, after the first time, when he’d looked up and they’d briefly cleared to reveal a grin as wide as the sky itself and two pus-cream eyes as big as moons. This was Nurgle’s realm, and nothing happened here that the God of Decay did not see and approve of. Gardus did not look up now, or to the side. He kept his gaze to the fore and ploughed on, trying to ignore the exhaustion that clawed at his mind.
‘Tired, aren’t you, Garradan?’ Bolathrax gloated. ‘But not as tired as you were that final night in Demesnus Harbour, eh? When the skinstealers at last crested the walls and the hospice of Grand Lazzar came under attack, you had been awake for three days, tending the wounded and dying. Was that why you picked up those candlesticks as they butchered your patients? White robes gone red, Garradan… That’s what you dream of.’
The ghosts redoubled their efforts to gain his attention as Bolathrax spoke. He saw the faces of lepers and wounded soldiers, of starvelings and nobles alike, mingling with the howling, scarred features of skinstealers. He brought his hands up.
Garradan… help me…
So sick…
Help us teacher…
Burning up…
Can’t move…
Help us…
Garradan…
Garradan…
Gardus stumbled on, driven by a resolve as hard as steel. Sigmar would sustain him. He was faithful.
He swept his arms out, trying to drive the ghosts away, but it was no use. He could see faces in the surface of the waters he waded through, and in the murk before him. All of them cursing hi
m, begging him for help, screaming his name. The ground trembled beneath his feet as Bolathrax continued to follow and to chortle grotesquely.
‘Where are you going, Garradan? The garden is boundless and you will never breach its walls. Stop, give in, and Bolathrax will be merciful…’
‘Only the faithful,’ Gardus said, driving himself forward. He was not Garradan the healer, not anymore; he was Gardus, the Stormcast Eternal. He was no mere mortal, he was Sigmar’s lightning made flesh. And he would not stop. ‘Only the faithful… Only the faithful…’
The words were less a prayer now than a mantra, a chant to keep him sane in this mad garden of horrors. He scraped the thick shroud of mould off his helm, clearing his vision, and blinked in shock as a brilliant glimmer of light flickered through the haze ahead.
‘What?’ he croaked. A trick? A trap? Or something else? He heard a rumble from above and risked a look. The mouth in the clouds was no longer leering, but instead… frowning. Hope blossomed in his chest and he took a trembling step forwards. It was so beautiful. He took another step. His breath caught in his throat.
Wherever that glow originated from, it could not be of this hideous realm. The song in his head, the whisper of sound that pulled him on, swelled to a crescendo as Gardus ploughed on. At last, he knew where he was going. Weapons in hand, he pressed forward, wading towards the swelling, lambent light…
Chapter One
To silence the dirge
The sound of the Dirgehorn hung over everything.
Here, so close to the source, it was almost a physical pressure, beating upon the minds and souls of the Stormcast Eternals who fought their way through the crooked, fungus-slick trees and overgrown fen of Rotwater Blight.
The call of the Dirgehorn was in everything, reverberating from every stone and stump, quavering in the fly-blown air like an unending groan. The hideous sound of it rolled on and on, each note slithering into the next. It was a wave of pure discord, sluggish and flat, carrying with it despondency and gloom. It was a constant drone that shivered along on the wings of flies and miasmic breezes, withering trees and cracking rocks. Where it passed, green leaves turned black and the very stones sprouted quivering boils and buboes.
The sylvaneth had been put to flight by its mournful note, clutching at their heads with palsied fingers as their bark-like flesh grew cracked and pale. Those who had made Rotwater Blight their home fled deeper into the forests to escape it, and the land echoed with the sounds of their flight. Dryads shrieked and wailed as they staggered through the swampy forest, adding to the already horrid din, and squealing forest spites filled the air, flickering like fireflies as they hurtled away from the maddening pulse.
But while the treekin fled, the Stormcasts plunged into the teeth of that droning sound, determined to silence it or perish in the attempt. Retinue after retinue, brotherhood by brotherhood, they slogged on, through stinking mire and dying glade, pitting lightning-forged hearts and souls against the blaring call of Nurgle. Liberators and Retributors marched in ordered phalanxes along the mould-spotted trails and were guided by winged Prosecutors, who braved the fly-choked air to steer their kin to firmer ground. The Decimators’ weapons glowed with cold fire as they carved a path towards the Dirgehorn’s call, hacking through thick vines that sprayed viscous sap and clutching branches that writhed like serpents as they fell.
The Steel Souls, a Warrior Chamber of the Hallowed Knights, led the way. Their panoply of war gleamed silver and rich gold, while their shoulder guards and heavy shields were of deepest regal blue. The Steel Souls were not alone in their march – others shared their burden. Warrior Chambers from the Astral Templars and the Guardians of the Firmament both fought their way through Rotwater Blight alongside the Hallowed Knights, their Decimators joining those of the Steel Souls at the point of the spear.
The Stormcasts had borne the wailing call of the artefact known at the Dirgehorn for many miles and days of marching, braving horrors undreamt of. They had struggled through belching quagmires and hillocks of dead insects. The bubbling morass of the Greenglow Lake stretched to the west of the armoured host, splitting the land like an open wound. To the east, the thick forests of the Blight rose wild and forbidding. The sky overhead was the colour of an infected wound, and a choking wind blew from the east.
Everywhere Lord-Castellant Lorrus Grymn of the Hallowed Knights looked, it was as if the land was dying. He strode alongside the column, accompanied by the furry, feathered shape of his loyal gryph-hound, Tallon. His heavy halberd lay across one broad shoulder, and he kept a firm grip on its haft, ready to swing it into position at a moment’s notice. He held his warding lantern high, casting its light across the ranks of warriors as they marched. The fortifying glow burned off the layers of filth that caked the armour of his brethren, returning it to a glorious lustre, as was fitting.
The Hallowed Knights had been the fourth Stormhost to be founded, the ranks of their Warrior Chambers filled with the faithful of the Mortal Realms. Their only commonality was that each had called upon Sigmar’s name in battle and had been heard, and that each had shed his mortal flesh in the name of a righteous cause. The Steel Souls were the best of them, tried and tested and found worthy in the fires of war. But not without cost, Grymn thought.
Yes, the Steel Souls had paid a heavy price. Lord-Celestant Gardus, the one who had given them their name, was gone, lost through the realmgate known as the Gates of Dawn, leaving his warriors bereft of his leadership. It had been Gardus who had led the first strike into the wilds of Ghyran so that a permanent path to Azyr might be opened. It had been Gardus who had been sent to ensure that Grymn and the rest of his Warrior Chamber might descend upon the Jade Kingdoms to reinforce their brothers. It was not to be, however.
Despite the aid of the Astral Templars, and the last minute intervention of the warglades of the mysterious sylvaneth, Gardus had been forced to destroy the realmgate and had perished in the act. Damn you, Gardus, Grymn thought, not for the first time. It was even as the Lord-Relictor of the Steel Souls, Morbus Stormwarden, had said. The sage had seen Gardus’ fall in his dreams and had come to Grymn with his concerns. But too late.
And now Gardus was gone. The best of them. The one who had been, up to this point, Grymn’s only equal on or off the field – a man with whom he had been proud to stand shoulder to shoulder against the foes of Sigmar.
The Steel Soul had not died as a Stormcast ought and returned to the great forges of Sigmaron, there to be remade by the hands of the God-King himself. Instead, Gardus had thrown himself into the Realm of Chaos, locked in combat with a greater daemon. No soul returned from those hell-realms.
Not even one made of steel, Grymn thought. Angry now, he turned his thoughts to the present. They had a duty to fulfil and they would meet it no matter the cost. The Dirgehorn would be silenced. Of this Grymn was confident. But he knew that while the artefact had sorely afflicted the inhabitants of these wooded realms, it was not the sole cause of their pain.
Flies droned and swamp-sludge bubbled as rotted boughs creaked in the unnatural pall that marked the places where Nurgle’s influence had eclipsed that of the Realm of Life’s rightful ruler. Chain-throttled oaks moaned wordlessly about them and forest spirits struggled helplessly in the mires of Nurgle’s making. The Stormcasts who fought across the ever-shifting landscape of Ghyran were doing what they could to free the Jade Kingdoms from the clutches of the Plague Lord, but they could not do it alone. Sigmar had sent representatives to find the Lady Alarielle, in her seclusion, and re-establish old ties, but as far as Grymn knew they had all returned to Azyr empty-handed.
Alarielle had, like Sigmar himself, existed for untold aeons, and there were murals in Sigmaron dedicated to her. The largest and greatest of these showed Sigmar waking the Radiant Queen from her centuries of slumber, and the two throwing back the forces of darkness together. Once, she had been the God-King’s ally. Once… but not for many year
s, since the powers of ruin had swept through the Mortal Realms and the great celestine Gates of Azyr had slammed shut, sealing the Realm of Heavens off from the rest of the Eight Realms. Now those gates were open once more, and Sigmar had stretched forth his hand to old and new allies alike, so that together they might throw off the chains of monstrous tyranny.
A good dream, if as yet unproven, Grymn thought.
‘Lord-Castellant!’
Grymn looked up as the silver swooping form of Tegrus of the Sainted Eye, Prosecutor-Prime of the Steel Souls, gestured towards the shore of the lake. Grymn cursed as he saw several Stormcasts stumble towards the dark waters.
‘Tallon – go!’ he said urgently as he hurried towards the warriors. The gryph-hound chirped and bounded away. The animal slid between the Stormcasts, snapping and shrieking, stopping them in their tracks long enough for Grymn to reach them. ‘Back, you fools, get away from the water,’ he roared.
As he caught hold of a stumbling Stormcast’s shoulder and pulled the warrior back, the still waters of the lake erupted in a storm of lashing, mouth-studded tendrils. Several of the Stormcasts were snatched up before they even had time to cry out. Tallon flung himself upon one tendril, severing it with his beak and freeing the warrior it held.
‘Back,’ Grymn roared again, hooking his lantern on the blade of his halberd and extending it out over the water. The light of the warding lantern shone across the frothing lake, and the tendrils retreated as if burned. In the darkness, something wailed like a damned soul, and Grymn heard heavy bodies flopping and thrashing.
‘Tegrus,’ Grymn called out to the Prosecutor swooping overhead. ‘Drive these beasts back into the depths!’
Overhead, Tegrus led his winged warriors out over the water. They hurled their celestial hammers at the vast shapes that dwelled beneath the murk. The monsters plunged deeper into the waters to avoid the barrage, leaving behind only a sour smell and the shooting blue light of those warriors they had managed to drown before Grymn had stymied them.
‘Away,’ he snarled, gesturing back towards the path. ‘Get back. Move!’
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