by Darius Hinks
~ THE AGE OF SIGMAR ~
THE GATES OF AZYR
An Age of Sigmar novella
~ THE REALMGATE WARS ~
WAR STORM
An Age of Sigmar novel
GHAL MARAZ
An Age of Sigmar novel
~ THE BLACK RIFT OF KLAXUS ~
PART ONE: ASSAULT ON THE MANDRAKE BASTION
PART TWO: IN THE WALLS OF URYX
PART THREE: THE GNAWING GATE
~ THE CALL OF ARCHAON ~
PART ONE: BENEATH THE BLACK THUMB
PART TWO: EYE OF THE STORM
PART THREE: THE SOLACE OF RAGE
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.
Chapter One
Lord-Celestant Tylos Stormbound
The hammer falls.
Vengeance tears from my throat, ringing through the bloodless metal of my mask. ‘God-King!’ I cry in a voice that is no longer my own.
‘God-King!’ howl my lightning-born brothers as the tempest hurls us from the sky.
The ground gives as we land but Zarax rides on, ignoring the odd, yielding terrain. I cling to her scales, as blind as a newborn. The others are close behind and I hear their metal boots pounding across this broken, benighted land. Weapons are drawn, oaths are howled and I take my first breath of mortal air. Sulphur pours through my mouthpiece and I gulp it down, relishing the bitterness.
The storm thins, revealing plumes of smoke and embers. I whisper to Zarax and as she slows I sense the others gathering around me. I almost pity those we have come to destroy. Who could dream of such an enemy?
The smoke drifts, revealing glimpses of a tortured landscape. We’re heading down a glistening, crimson road that seems to have been carved from a flayed corpse. Sigmar’s tempest has landed us on a butcher’s block of body parts and thrashing, broken wings.
It’s a shameful sight but I don’t avert my gaze. I must be vigilant, aware. I must understand this place quickly.
I look harder and realise that it’s not a road, but a bridge of meat and chains, hazy with flies. Its span is vast beyond measure, stretching miles ahead before disappearing into a crimson wall of smoke. Over the side I glimpse wisps of cloud and realise we’re far above the ground. Shrieks fill the air and I see that the bridge is alive. The whole structure is made of living birds – thousands of them, broken and burned together by hot irons and fixed to a mesh of thick, oily chains. It’s the stink of their ruined flesh that fills my lungs. It’s their thrashing bodies I’m riding across and their pain I can hear.
I want to roar in outrage, but I bite down my fury and keep my voice level.
‘Advance,’ I say, rising up in my saddle and turning to face my army.
My heart races as I see what I command. The storm has spawned a golden host. Even in this stinking, bloody wound, they are a vision. Every one of them is clad entirely in gleaming armour, still crackling with the fury of the storm. Pennants trail above glinting, haloed helmets, bearing the divine sigils of Sigmar and the Celestial City. No army ever looked so glorious, so dignified. And Sigmar has entrusted it to me.
The vanguard is a seamless wall of shield-bearing Liberators; numberless ranks of heroes, marching towards me in perfect unison. Then come the retinues of paladins – striding goliaths that dwarf even the Liberators, clad in blessed, god-wrought suits of armour. Some carry great, two-handed hammers that look like they could topple city walls, while others wield pole arms – long, gleaming glaives with lightning in their blades. In the rearguard are my divine archers – hundreds of Judicators, moving with the same precision as the rest of the army, readying their shimmering bows. High above, riding the thunderheads, are our winged guardians, the Prosecutors: radiant, inviolable and more dangerous than the lightning.
I almost laugh. Stormcast Eternals – the God-King’s unbreakable fist. Removed from the golden halls of Azyr, we shine all the brighter.
I turn back to the bridge and see the sky for the first time. It’s almost entirely obscured by rock. A vast sphere of smouldering ore, hundreds of miles in diameter, hangs directly over our heads. Such a star-burnt hulk can only be a moon, dragged from the heavens by divine will. It’s moving towards us, shedding sparks and boulders as it glides majestically through the clouds. The sky ripples in its wake like water in the lee of a ship.
‘Lord-Celestant.’
I look down from Zarax’s back at Lord-Relictor Boreas. I can barely recognise my brother’s dry tones. His arcane duties have left their mark on his speech, just like every other part of him. As I was being drilled and remade in the Celestial City, Sigmar sent my brother through death and beyond. Eternity echoes in his every word.
Unlike the rest of us, my brother’s mask resembles a bleached skull, and I find myself wondering what lies behind. Would I recognise his face? Unlike me, he has endured Sigmar’s fire a second time. He knows what it really means to be immortal.
The rest of my captains stand back in respectful silence as he approaches.
‘What are your orders, Lord-Celestant?’ he asks, speaking formally, giving no hint of our shared past. He glances at the heavens. ‘This was not prophesied. None of my auguries indicated that we would land here, on this bridge of birds.’
I look back down the road, blanking out the thrashing wings and the insanity hanging overhead.
‘The tempest can’t have strayed too far off course, Boreas.’ I nod back down the bridge. ‘We’ve clearly found our foe.’
There are figures emerging from the fumes – a barbaric, crimson-clad rabble scrambling along the bridge, pouring from the smoke like blood from a wound. The moonlight shows them in sickening clarity. They wear jagged, red and brass helmets and their bare chests are lashed with scarred muscle. They carry repulsive, brazen idols and axes as tall as men, scored with foul sigils, and every one of them is draped in skulls and glistening with blood.
‘Bloodreavers,’ says a voice edged with hate. ‘Finally these snorting dogs will receive some justice.’
I turn to face the speaker. ‘Liberator-Prime. There can be no victory without discipline.�
� I nod at the lines of Liberators marching towards us. ‘They will follow our lead, Castamon. Show them what Sigmar expects.’
He nods, humbled. ‘Lord-Celestant.’
I turn back to the bloodreavers. As they run they fill the air with a dreadful din. They are trailing something that clangs and clicks along the chains of the bridge but at this distance I can’t make out what it is.
The rest of the Liberators clatter to a halt around us, moving with such well-drilled precision that they could be on a parade ground.
I point my hammer at the bloated moon and raise my voice.
‘Remember this, Stormcasts: nothing is forsaken. Look deep enough into the darkness and you will always find Sigmar looking back.’
They remain motionless and silent, but I feel their battle-hunger; it radiates from their gleaming armour.
‘Lock shields,’ I say, and there’s a deafening clang as the vanguard snaps into place. The entire army moves as one, bodies, shields and armour, fitting together to make an impenetrable bastion of sigmarite.
Struggling to suppress my pride, I raise my warhammer, Grius, to the crimson heavens. It flashes in the moonlight, and Zarax lets out a roar. As the dracoth rises beneath me she opens her reptilian jaws and unleashes pure white fury at the clouds. The air crackles and spider legs of electricity dance across my armour.
I give the signal to advance and as we meet the enemy lines I become one with my expressionless mask – an emotionless implement of Sigmar’s will. Anger is forgotten. Grief is suppressed. Everything falls away: the sound of shields rattling on greaves, the torment of the bridge, the lunacy of the moon – all I know is this moment. I feel the long, slow arc of my life reaching its culmination. Finally, I face the monsters I was born to slay.
Gold and crimson collide. There is an explosion of grinding metal as the vanguards meet. Sparks glitter in the darkness, axes clang against shields and bucklers smash against armour.
The lines of Liberators hold steady and I order them onwards. Their shields lock tighter with every step and they drive the enemy back across the bridge of birds. Even from a few rows back I can barely breathe for the stink of the bloodreavers, a ripe stench even more powerful than the sulphurous moon. They fight like wounded animals, snorting, spitting and howling as they throw themselves against the Liberators’ shields, trying and failing to break our line. I glimpse deranged faces, eyes rolled back in sockets, delirious with rage. They’re more stampede than army.
‘Drive them back!’ I shout as the bloodreavers’ frenzy grinds us to a slow plod. ‘Drive them back to whatever dark vaults spawned them!’
They begin to drop, felled by lightning hammer-strikes, golden flashes that lash out from behind shields, crushing armour and bone. It seems that victory will come before I even have chance to gauge the strength of my army.
I hear a cry of pain from the shield wall.
I peer through the serried, golden lines and glimpse one of my Liberators clutching at his throat. His armour has been rent and there’s blood, lots of blood, rushing between his fingers. He vanishes from view as the phalanx closes around him.
His choked screams scrape around my skull and I drive Zarax forwards, keen to be done with these animals. Even the dracoth cannot easily wade through such a crush, so she unleashes a gout of lightning, tearing a channel through the enemy ranks. The smell of cooking meat intensifies the stench.
A bloodreaver bounds over the shield wall. He vaults several rows, screaming hysterically, and lashes out with a pair of jagged axes. Another Stormcast staggers as the bloodreaver crashes into him.
Before the Liberators can respond, a paladin strides casually forwards and brings down his huge, two-handed hammer. He moves with a languid, easy grace but his blow lands like a thunderclap. The bridge rocks and blinding light envelops us all. Even Zarax stumbles.
When the glare fades, the bloodreaver is gone and the paladin has calmly resumed his place. If it weren’t for the gore sliding down his breastplate there would be no sign that the Chaos creature had ever existed. I take note of the Stormcast’s markings.
‘Retributor Celadon,’ I shout, disguising my pride beneath a stern snarl. ‘Wait for my command.’
More of the howling curs manage to scale the shield wall, disrupting our faultless lines. It’s becoming harder to match the dispassion of my mask. Anger boils through my limbs. I clutch one of my honour scrolls and recite the Oath of Becoming.
Dozens of the bloodreavers are falling to the Liberators’ hammers and swords but I hear Stormcasts crying out too. Such noble beings were not made to succumb to such soul-sick dogs and my patience starts to fray. The crush of bodies becomes oppressive. My eyes blur with sweat and my muscles burn with the effort of holding myself back.
Another Liberator falls and a whole section of the shield wall gives.
The bloodreavers seize their chance and wrench the gap wider with a flurry of axe blows.
I signal to the paladins, finally giving them permission to advance, and they surge forwards, led by Celadon’s brutal blows.
‘Close ranks!’ I roar, rising up in my saddle and ordering the Liberators back into position as the paladins storm ahead. They try to obey but the bloodreavers are becoming even more feral. They fight with no structure or reason. Something is driving them into a boiling frenzy. It’s bewildering.
Another Stormcast cries out in pain and I will take no more.
‘For the God-King!’ I roar, launching myself from Zarax’s back and into the enemy, joining the wave of paladins.
Ranks of warhammers rise behind me, along with a chorus of battle cries.
The fight begins in earnest.
I pick out the largest bloodreaver and bear down on him. His face has been warped beyond recognition by deep jagged scars and there are thick hoops of brass hammered through his biceps. Every inch of him has been transformed by a lifetime of war. The din of battle is everywhere, but I’m deaf to everything beyond the deep, phlegmy rattle of his breath. He snorts like a boar, drooling and bestial as he smashes his axe into my hammer.
The blow jolts through me and I rock back on my heel, gauging the weight of him against my own strength. He is as heavy as iron, but I’m easily sufficient for the task, and after the crush of the shield wall I relish the chance to lash out. The stink of his breath is worse than the rotting bridge – he growls something in his disgusting, dark tongue and I recognise the smell of human flesh.
I smash Grius into his axe and savour the sensation of my armour-clad limbs. My body feels like a new weapon, forged in the stars. There’s a strength in me that I can barely fathom.
The bloodreaver recovers and swings but I’m faster. So fast. Grius crunches through the mouthpiece of his helmet, tearing it away in a shower of sparks and blood. His head snaps sideways and he reels away from me, jaw hanging loose from his head.
I stride after him, barging deeper into the crush, and draw back my warhammer for another blow.
Laughter explodes from his throat. He tears away what remains of his jaw, hurling it to the ground like the remnant of a meal.
There’s something so obscene about this that I pause – only for a second, but long enough for him to slam his fist into my golden mask. My head rocks back as a long, iron spike grinds through the eye socket of my helm. Pain explodes across my face and my helmet fills with blood. I stagger backwards, reeling across the thrashing birds, blinded in one eye, and almost drop my hammer.
He gurgles grotesquely as he lunges after me, blood rushing from where his mouth used to be.
Pain only makes me faster. My hammer connects with the top of his helmet and brass crumples beneath god-forged sigmarite. His skull collapses.
He gives a last, porcine, grunt and topples back into the throng.
I down another opponent with a backhanded blow, then step back to survey the scene. I’ve unleashed a storm. Freed
from the crush, the paladins are striding through the bloodreavers like a tempest, their voices raised to Sigmar, lightning flashing across their hammers. The bloodreavers topple before the combined onslaught of Liberators and Retributors. It’s a massacre. My army flows like gold from a brazier. In minutes we have shattered their ranks, scattering heads and axes as we go. The battle is almost won.
Boreas fights beside me, smashing his way through the enemy with slow, precise determination, splitting shields and heads.
I wipe the blood from my golden mask and realise that we’re mirroring each other as we strike.
‘Victory and honour!’ I cry, and he raises his hammer in reply.
I take a fume-filled breath and look around. There’s a vast shape looming up from the smoke further down the bridge, punctuated by ominous crimson lights.
‘That’s not the Crucible of Blood,’ I call out to Boreas. ‘We must finish this quickly and find out where the storm has landed us.’
He peers at the distant tower. ‘You have eyes in the heavens, Lord-Celestant.’
I nod and look up into the darkness. ‘Drusus!’ I cry, fending off a blow and peering back down the bridge. At first there’s no reply so I battle on, scouring the heavens for my cloud-borne Prosecutors.
The moon has fallen even closer. The sight of it is dizzying, vast beyond understanding. Such a colossal, dazzling sphere has no place looming so low. As it gets closer it starts to affect the bridge. The structure sways so violently that birds are being torn free and hurled up towards the sky, and the chains reach up to the clouds, dancing like serpents.
‘Lord-Celestant!’ cries a voice.
I make out the golden form of Drusus, flying overhead.
Divine light gilds his wings as he dives through the fumes, trailing Sigmar’s heralds of death behind him. He banks and rolls, clutching twin hammers. Even the blank expression of his mask can’t hide his excitement.
‘See what this bridge has in store for us,’ I shout, levelling my hammer at the shadows up ahead.
Drusus nods but remains overhead, struggling to hold his place, buffeted by a new storm that has sprung up.