War storm, p.1
War Storm, page 1
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 creations.
The Age of Sigmar had begun.
Chapter One
God-forged
The bolt struck Vandus Hammerhand like a spear flung from the heavens. First there was light, a searing luminescence so bright it eclipsed all sense of being and self. Then pain brought him back with white daggers of pure agony. Heat, fury, and the drumbeat of immortal vigour rushing through his veins reached a crescendo so loud it turned into deafening silence.
Then peace, a feeling of true solace and quietude.
Vandus would come to learn it was always this way. This is what it meant to be born of the storm and borne by the storm.
Reforged, wrought anew. Brought back. This is what it was to be eternal. But as with all such godlike deeds, this apotheosis did not come without a price.
Before…
After defeating Korghos Khul, the Hammerhands went north.
Though the Goretide were scattered, their ranks would swell again. The war against the dominion of Chaos was far from over, but Sigmar’s Stormcasts had won a great victory at the Gate of Azyr. Now that momentum had to be seized upon were it to mean anything.
And so the Hammerhands went northward.
Thousands clad in unalloyed sigmarite crossed the Igneous Delta. Liberators bloodstained and begrimed by war marched with grandhammers slung across the burnished plate of their shoulder guards. Dour Retributors strode in grim silence, their massive lightning hammers held firm across their chests. Above the infantry, retinues of unearthly Prosecutors had taken wing and soared across the blighted sky. At the clarion sound of the warrior-heralds’ war horns, their masked brethren below would close ranks and raise shields, knowing an enemy horde approached.
There had been many enemies, for the Igneous Delta and its surrounding lands were overrun by those bound in blood to Khorne.
It would fall to other Stormcast Eternals to hold the realmgate they had opened to Azyr. At least now they had a foothold at the Brimstone Peninsula, something to defend. But the vanguard could not rest. They had to forge on, despite the lead in their limbs.
Only when night had fallen and they reached the crags did they stop to make camp on a sheltered plateau of rock. Here the army had mustered, whilst a few of its leaders had walked up the shallow incline to a second smaller plateau from which they might gauge the best route onwards.
‘This is a strange land,’ murmured Dacanthos as he regarded the rime of frost around the fingers of his gauntlet. He clenched it in a mailed fist, shattering the ice that had formed.
‘Agreed,’ said Sagus, leaning on the head of his lightning hammer as the caustic wind of the delta tried to sear his armour. The air was rank with the stench of blood and cinder. It carried a foul cawing, like the mockery of crows, only deeper, as if uttered from the throat of a larger beast. Several carrion-creatures had already been seen.
The Hammers of Sigmar had left the scorched desert behind them. Here, on the rugged crags and low hills, a deep winter prevailed.
Snow hid some of the land’s deformity, its hillocks like the petrified claws of some ancient leviathan, a golem trapped forever in its final moments of agony. Eight stunted crests rose up from the smothering tundra like horns, and there were hollow cavities where eyes might once have been.
‘It is a grim place, enslaved to darkness,’ uttered Vandus, his voice deep, his distaste unmasked. From the edge of a rocky promontory, he looked out across the Igneous Delta and beyond. Swaths of forest colonised much of the eastern lands, but the trees looked unnatural, bent and tortured, their limbs petrified.
The Lord-Celestant’s eyes narrowed. He could have sworn he saw something stir within the dark heart of the forest. His gaze went skyward to an even greater and larger mountain fastness than the one his warriors had camped on. Clad in ice, it appeared more like a glacier. Oily mists crept from its footings, lathering the earth below in a foul tar.
Further north, Vandus discerned the forbidding silhouette of an immense tower, obscured behind scads of pyroclastic cloud. It was one of eight brass towers that surrounded Khul’s domain. Here then was their god-given mission, though he knew his own destiny lay elsewhere.
‘Rank indeed,’ snarled Vandus as he turned away to speak to his men. ‘But there is worse below…’ He gestured for Dacanthos and Sagus to join him at the cliff edge, certain those below them would not notice three figures watching from on high.
Sagus’s gauntlets cracked loudly as he clenched the haft of his hammer, and when the Retributor spoke it was with barely restrained anger.
‘Wretched filth… I would see them seared from this land, scraped away like dirt from a boot.’
Dacanthos had no words. He merely stared through the lifeless eyes of his mask, his body trembling with righteous anger.
Far below in a smoke-choked basin of tar-black rock, shawled by drifts of ash and snow, were mortal followers of Khorne known as the Bloodbound.
Hordes of the warriors had gathered to rest, after a long march. A great fire burned, spilling a column of smoke that almost reached the promontory where the Stormcasts were watching. Garbed in spiked leather and furs matted with dried blood, the tribesmen left their arms and torsos exposed. These Vandus and his men had come to know as bloodreavers. The lesser of the vast and mighty Goretide, they were nonetheless brawny and muscular fighters. What they lacked in skill, they made up for in aggression and devotion to Khorne.
Bellowing and fighting, they revelled around the fire. Long shadows cast by their bodies contorted in the fell light, transformed into an echo of what they might become should they live long and worship with enough devotion. A bloodreaver’s altar was the battlefield, his offerings slaughter and death.
They were a rabble, but a dangerous one. Their blades were thick and sharp, notched by battle and stained black with the blood of innocents. But of late they had grown arrogant and complacent.
‘When do we bring the storm’s wrath, my Lord-Celestant?’ Dacanthos said at last.
‘Soon,’ said Vandus, half-turning as he felt the presence of eyes upon them. ‘After I have consulted with our Lord-Relictor.’
All three warriors turned as one to face Ionus Cryptborn. The Lord-Relictor emerged from the shadows, as if he were a part of them and they him. Morbidity clung to Ionus like a curse, and his skull-helmed visage gave him a grim aspect that was entirely in keeping with his demeanour.
Ionus gave a shallow bow, disturbing the oath scrolls attached to his golden war-plate. He rasped, his voice like the last stirrings of a disquiet spirit.
‘I crave your ear, Lord Hammerhand.’
Hanging his tempestos hammer, Heldensen, on his belt, Vandus nodded at the other two warriors, who departed with muttered reverence to the relic-keeper.
Only once they were gone, back down to the plateau where the army mustered, did Vandus speak further.
‘I shall not be dissuaded, Ionus,’ he warned.
‘You have spoken to me of the Red Pyramid of skulls, and I now understand that is not something you can ignore,’ said Ionus, slowly taking off his helm to reveal a gaunt, sinister-looking face. ‘I only wish our paths were conjoined. That you, like I, were headed to the brass towers as Sigmar has ordered.’
There was rebuke in Ionus’s tone, regret that they would be parted for the battles to come. It sat ill with him, but his Lord-Celestant had fixed his gaze on thwarting Korghos Khul and destroying the dread Gate of Wrath.
‘But I know your purpose is unwavering, my friend,’ Ionus concluded.
Vandus nodded. He was smiling as he turned towards Ionus and removed his war-helm, holding it in the crook of his arm. In sharp contrast to the Lord-Relictor, Vandus had a noble face and the clean, chiselled features often represented in the statues of heroes. Those monuments to old glories, to an age torn down, were gone but Vandus would see them rise again. He extended a hand to Ionus.
‘Fate shall see us together again, brother.’
The corners of the Lord-Relictor’s mouth only curved up a little, but he clasped his Lord-Celestant’s forearm in the manner of warriors.
‘Aye. The tower shall fall and I’ll make for your brotherhood. United, we shall triumph against any fell beings who claim lordship over these lands. The domination of Chaos is at an end.’
Vandus’s good humour faded, as he was reminded of what he had seen and the desperate battle they had fought and won at the Gate of Azyr.
‘It is possible he survived?’ Vandus asked.
‘Khul?’
‘Who else?’
‘He lives.’
Vandus raised an eyebrow. ‘You sound certain, brother.’
‘It is a feeling. Nothing more.’
Vandus caught an inkling that it was much more, but kept his silence for now. The ways of the Relictor were veiled to him, and perhaps that was for the best. But if Khul did yet live, as Ionus professed, then that meant the vision could still be proven true.
Vandus’s head, cut off and brandished aloft by Khul, exulting as he capped his dread pyramid.
‘I saw my own demise, Ionus,’ said Vandus, after a moment.
‘The vision we spoke of, the one that is leading you to the Red Pyramid?’
Vandus nodded.
‘And you would still step into Khul’s domain, knowing it means your death?’
‘I would.’
Ionus frowned. ‘But why? Unless you believe you can defy prophecy.’
‘Have you not said before that we are architects of our own destiny?’
Ionus gave a curt laugh. ‘I say a great many things, but not all are intended to be heeded on face value alone.’
‘I follow this path because I must, my friend. If I do not stop Khul then who else will?’
‘And if you challenge him, you may end up fulfilling his prophecy for him.’
‘Then that is a chance I have to take.’
Ionus regarded the Lord-Celestant for a moment, and not for the first time was reminded why Sigmar chose Vandus to be the vanguard of his storm.
‘Yes, I believe it is. Still, I hope he does not kill you, Vandus.’
It was meant in humour, but Vandus grew serious.
‘Are we truly immortal? If fated to die, can we?’
‘We are as immortal as Sigmar’s will, but even the God-King does not always get his way.’ Ionus gestured to the Bloodbound they had come to vanquish, then to the land beyond and all its perfidy both seen and unseen.
They stared at the revelling hordes below, and after a brief silence had passed Ionus said, ‘They think they are the death of these lands. They think they have already won.’
Vandus laughed. ‘They are not death, brother. We are death.’
He slammed his helm back on, demonstrably belligerent, and turned at last to the Lord-Relictor. ‘And it’s past time that we dealt our gift to those heathens beneath us.’
He raised Heldensen aloft, so the warriors amassing on the plateau would see it, and cried out in a clarion voice. ‘Stormcasts, to arms! This night, we mete out death and Sigmar’s judgement!’
A great cheer rose up from the golden throng, loud enough that the hordes below heard it. Some of the wretched tribesmen began to look up at the Stormcasts who now emerged above them, others scrambled for blades, a few even began barking orders.
‘Vermin,’ snarled Vandus, as he felt the armoured tread of an entire chamber of Hammers of Sigmar gather at his back. Ionus was at his side, skull-faced once more. It would be their last battle together for a while. If Sigmar willed it, their paths would cross again.
‘Scurry all you like, it will avail you nothing.’
Heldensen flashed like a golden flame against the darkness. This time, more than a thousand hammers joined it in salute.
Ionus roared, unable to hold his righteous fury at bay a moment longer.
‘Smite them and cleanse this land!’
And the storm descended on burnished wings and in a crushing tide of gold.
Chapter Two
Raw wounds
Like a red-raw wound, dawn broke over the heaped and tangled corpses left in the tar valley. Their skin was blackened, as if scorched by lightning.
Vandus and his Hammerhands left the bodies of the bloodreavers behind to rot in the sun. They had destroyed them, leaving none alive. They had also left Ionus and his Thunderstrike Brotherhood and headed for the southernmost brass tower, one of eight, and symbolic of Khorne’s domination of the Brimstone Peninsula.
It was no mere thing to deny his duty to the God-King, but Vandus knew he had been shown Khul and his pyramid of skulls for a reason. This vision had to come from Sigmar himself; he was convinced of it.
At the head of the column of Stormcast Eternals, Vandus peered through the narrow eye slits of his mask at the shimmering heat haze that had fallen upon the land like a veil. The ice-clad mountains were long behind them now and the desert reigned once again. A lava plain surrounded them, choked by poisonous fumes and drifts of ash.
A ridge began to form through this miasma, stained a sickly yellow from vents of sulphurous gas eking through fissures in the rock.
‘Volatus Ridge,’ murmured Vandus, recognising the region. His gaze strayed upwards, and he called out into the clouded sky.
‘Kyrus!’
First came the beating of wings and then, from out of blood-red sunlight and gangrenous smoke, came one of the warrior-heralds.
As the Prosecutor landed, he folded back his lightning wings and bowed.
‘The skies are clear of foes but wretched with filth, my lord. What is your bidding?’
Kyrus was a dutiful warrior, but his mood was akin to a tempest and ever turbulent. He had raged at the death of his former leader, Anactos Skyhelm, swearing vengeance. Now Prime until Skyhelm returned, Kyrus was determined to be worthy of the honour.
‘Take your warriors and fly beyond that ridge,’ said Vandus. ‘I want to know what lies ahead, beyond this foetid pall.’
Nodding curtly, Kyrus took flight, celestial corposant dissipating in his wake. Vandus watched as a retinue of gilded Prosecutors soared alongside their leader, resplendent on the wing, before he ordered the column to march on.
Where the others went on foot, Vandus rode the back of Calanax. The dracoth snarled at the stench of the air as if it were a foe that could be cowed by its wrath. Vandus quickly soothed the beast by patting the back of its scaled neck.
‘Easy, my friend. This land has us all disquieted.’
Calanax growled in acquiescence but kept a mindful eye, as did they all. Arching his serpentine neck, the dracoth watched the rapidly disappearing Prosecutors and gave a muted cry as the heralds were lost from sight.
As the Hammerhands trudged towards the Volatus Ridge, a bile-hued fog rose up around them. It stank of sulphur, but gathered too fast and moved too insidiously to be natural. Nothing in this land was natural – all had been warped by ruin.
The pall thickened, and for the Stormcasts it became impossible to see much farther than their outstretched gauntlets. Vandus wasted no time in slowing the advance, wary as they delved deeper and grew blinder with every step.
‘Sagus.’ Vandus summoned the Retributor, whose armoured paladins had been guarding the rear flanks of the column. ‘Your warriors are to take the core as we take the Sigmarund formation. Dacanthos,’ he called. ‘Liberators to encircle. Malactus’s Judicators will form the inner ring, behind a wall of shields. Both of you, be wary.’
The two warriors made the sigil of the hammer across their breasts and went to their duty. Heraldor Laudus Skythunder sounded the orders, and the formation of the column changed rapidly and efficiently into a walking circle of sigmarite.
Vandus took position behind the Liberators’ shieldwall, ahead of the Judicators with their skybolt bows and at the foremost part of the circle that faced towards the ridge.
‘Onward,’ he called, and the clank of god-forged steel resounded.
By now, the yellow cloud had completely engulfed them and the Stormcasts could not even see their feet or the heads of their weapons. Something was coming, Vandus could feel it.
‘Hammerhands,’ his voice rang out like a pealing bell, almost enough to cleanse the spiritual fog that he knew burdened the hearts of his men. ‘Hold true, hold together, and we shall triumph.’
