Hammers of Sigmar

by Darius Hinks

  Throl was able to steer the Celestant-Prime away from the more dangerous treestones, his magic giving him warning when the explosive fruit was ripe and ready to fall. The vapours that billowed up from the fissures, however, were a hazard that couldn’t be predicted. Several times the wizard had been forced to evoke a hasty spell to send the caustic emanations back into the crystalline depths.

  ‘The bloodreavers used to collect the fruit of the treestones,’ Throl explained, ‘but the gasses from below made them stop.’ He pointed at several curious spurs of crystal scattered about the edges of the fissure. ‘Those were men who tarried too long among the vapour. If you draw too near to them, you can still hear their moans.’

  The Celestant-Prime shook his head. For expediency he had told Throl to lead him by the most direct route to the Maze of Reflection, but to guide him by such paths as the minions of the Prismatic King were unlikely to frequent. He didn’t fear battle with the hordes of Chaos, but he couldn’t accept the delay such combat would cause. It was why he continued to march rather than take to the sky and betray his presence.

  Yet for all that, the hostility of this corrupted terrain made the Celestant-Prime wonder if the dangers of this course outweighed the potential gain. Throl had led him through canyons of porous bronze inhabited by birds with beaks of ice. They’d trekked through a desert where the sand was iron and the sky a bilious green, with vast slug-like behemoths surging through the desolation to feast upon creeks of molten glass.

  The warrior wondered what this region had been like before the Prismatic King focused the corruption of Chaos upon it. The Realm of Chamon and all its many lands were known for strange transmutations, the alloying of substances into something new. How firm had Shaard’s grip upon permanence been? How transitory had been the essence of that vanquished empire?

  ‘This domain has no limit to its horrors,’ the Celestant-Prime remarked, nodding to one of the crystalline statues, a groan of anguish whispering from its frozen face. ‘How dear your thirst for vengeance must be. I pity you, Throl, for your memories of what these lands once were.’

  Throl paused, staring out towards the horizon, across the shimmering expanse of hills.

  ‘Memory fades,’ he said. ‘It retreats into shadow, becoming naught but an echo after a time.’ His eyes were solemn as he looked to his companion. ‘When it is buried deeply enough, memory becomes confused with imagination.’ The wizard pointed his finger at the most distant of the hills. ‘Did the vineyards of the Brothers Kaltos stretch there once, or perhaps it was the fastness of the Knights Ebon? Perhaps there was nothing. Maybe what I think to have been never was at all.’ He kicked his foot against the crystalline ground, tiny flakes crackling beneath his toes. ‘Of what consequence is it to remember? It can’t change what is.’

  The Celestant-Prime looked at the hills, trying to imagine grapes and castles as Throl described. He pondered his own sense of familiarity with the lands of Shaard.

  ‘No,’ he conceded after a time, ‘memory may not change things back to what they were. But memory can kindle the flame that avenges what was. If you didn’t have your memories of a vanquished people and a vanished home, would you have the courage to guide me? Do not belittle the power of remembering.’

  The wizard bowed his head. ‘There is wisdom in your words,’ he said. ‘I will reflect upon what you have said.’ Throl tapped the side of his head. ‘For now, I fear we must test the limits of memory. Beyond these hills I think we should find the Daemon’s Hopyard.’

  As he heard the name, the Celestant-Prime felt an inexplicable familiarity. His mind was filled with an image of strange columns of wind-carved rock and great mesas of basalt and onyx. He could almost hear the eerie whistle of winged rock-rats gliding from the cliffs and smell the pungent tang of flowering weeds rising from the loamy earth.

  ‘Something troubles you?’ Throl asked, noting the change that had stolen upon his companion.

  ‘Lead me to the Hopyard,’ the Celestant-Prime said. ‘I might know better then what it is that troubles me.’

  With the crystalline hills behind them, the Celestant-Prime found that Throl needn’t have worried about the accuracy of his memory. The loamy earth, grey with its gritty, spore-like vegetation, rippled around great black mesas of volcanic rock that loomed hundreds of feet into a greasy sky of shining purple and gibbous silver.

  As the Celestant-Prime circled a towering plateau of basalt and onyx, the sense of familiarity became overwhelming. He stared at the side of the mesa, trying to recall the memory. Almost without conscious volition, he strode towards the rocky base. Here the basalt was scorched and burned; there the onyx was disfigured and splintered. He looked down at his feet and saw something lying half-hidden beneath the crumbled rock and grubby spores. Brushing the debris away, he exposed a helm of blackened steel, its mask cast in the semblance of a grinning skull. The helm was cracked, a great gouge snaking from crown to chin.

  A battle had been fought here, fierce and terrible. Gazing up at the mesa he could envision tattooed marauders howling as they poured semi-molten boulders down from the heights. He could smell the foul reek of daemonic things as they slithered down the cliffs. He could hear the booming challenge of an armoured warlord in blackened mail and, again, the clamour of conflict.

  No. The sounds of battle weren’t in his mind. He could hear the crash of steel, the cries of warriors. Amidst the foul shrieks of beasts the Celestant-Prime could hear the shouts of men, voices raised in a cry that sent fire pouring through his veins.

  ‘For Sigmar!’ The war cry was repeated, ringing out above the din of battle. Leaving Throl behind, the Celestant-Prime hastened towards the sounds, running around the base of the plateau and on to all the eerie rock hoodoos that peppered the valley beyond.

  Among the bizarre stone formations raged a bloody fray. Hundreds of gors armed with crude stone axes and clubs of bone charged up from burrows gouged into the valley floor. The beastmen swarmed around a tight knot of figures with locked shields, foes clad in golden armour who struck at the creatures with sword and hammer.

  The Celestant-Prime recognized the cast of their armour and the emblem adorning their pauldrons. These were warriors of the Thriceblessed. For all his despair and bitterness, Throl had been wrong. At least these men had escaped the Maze of Reflection.

  ‘For Sigmar!’ the Celestant-Prime roared as he charged into the battle. The first blow from his warhammer sent lightning crackling across the body of a gor he struck, flinging the creature into one of the stone hoodoos and splitting the rock with the ferocity of its impact. More of the monsters turned to confront this sudden attack on their flank. A second strike from the hammer sent a dozen of the beastmen tumbling into the dirt, their bones shattered by the hammer’s might.

  The Thriceblessed, ringed on every side by the gors, now broke out from behind their shieldwall and flung themselves full into the enemy. The confusion wrought by the Celestant-Prime’s sudden assault against their flank was now redoubled as the Stormcasts took to the offensive. Horned brutes broke before crushing blows from sigmarite hammers while others bleated and squirmed upon the blades of swords. Yard by yard, the warriors pushed the beastmen back, strewing the ground with inhuman bodies.

  The Celestant-Prime fought with the cold determination of righteousness, smashing enemies at every step as he forced his way towards the Thriceblessed. A blow from his hammer splattered a bull-headed chieftain’s body across the rocks. Another strike and a pack of gors was reduced to a pile of carrion. Carnage was the hero’s herald, horrible and magnificent. Each yard he pressed into the valley was littered with the mangled carcasses of his foes.

  The combined valour of the Celestant-Prime and the resurgent Stormcasts finally broke the savagery of the gors. Whining like whipped curs, the creatures gave up the fight, fleeing back down into their burrows. The Thriceblessed pursued the routed monsters, slaughtering many of them before
they could withdraw into the subterranean darkness.

  Only when the last of the beasts was gone did the Thriceblessed turn to regard the warrior whose aid had delivered them. They numbered less than a score, their armour scarred and stained with the filth of many ordeals. Liberators with their warhammers and swords, a pair of Judicators with their skybolt bows and a single Retributor with his immense lightning hammer clenched in both hands. The Celestant-Prime could feel the uncertainty as the men approached him.

  ‘Is he real or another trick of the Prismatic King?’ one of the Stormcasts asked his comrades, armoured fingers drumming menacingly against the blade of his sword.

  Another warrior shook his head. ‘No, Othmar, he is real enough. Can’t you see he carries the Cometstrike Sceptre? Can you not see Sigmar’s hammer!’

  ‘Are you certain, Deucius?’ Othmar wondered aloud. ‘That could be a trick too.’

  The Celestant-Prime held the warhammer towards them, pointing the runeweapon at each man in turn. ‘I could doubt you as well,’ he said. ‘Each of you bears the emblem of the Thriceblessed, yet they have been accounted lost. I have been told the chamber was caught within the Prismatic King’s Maze of Reflection. How then is it that you eluded the trap that claimed your brothers?’

  Deucius shook his head and pointed at the weapon the Celestant-Prime bore. ‘I cannot doubt the God-King’s hammer. Only Ghal Maraz could wreak such carnage upon the foe. Only Sigmar’s hammer could make me feel such awe. No thing of Chaos, mortal or daemon, could bear the weapon you carry. Only one favoured by Sigmar could do so and only one mighty in his service could evoke the hammer’s power.’ Deucius bowed to his knees and removed his helm. He stared up at the hero. ‘No thing of the enemy can withstand the touch of the godhammer. Let it touch me and you will know I am truly Stormcast.’

  Casting his gaze across the other warriors, the Celestant-Prime raised Deucius to his feet. ‘It is by faith that men prove themselves,’ he said. ‘It is through trust that men are made brothers.’

  Othmar let his fingers be still. Slowly he too bowed. ‘Forgive our doubt, but we have come to question all that our senses tell us.’ He glanced at their surroundings, at the strange sky and eerie hoodoos. ‘In this place, nothing is what it seems to be. It comes hard to trust anything.’

  ‘It is in doubt that the seed of defeat is sown,’ Deucius said. ‘A Stormcast Eternal can have no room for doubt. His mind must hold room only for duty and honour. There is no place for doubt in the righteous.’ The warriors nodded, reflecting upon the catechism Deucius quoted.

  The Celestant-Prime approached Othmar, laying his hand on the warrior’s shoulder. ‘Hardship can sap even the most stalwart faith. There is no shame in such caution.’ He looked across the other Stormcasts. ‘For myself, to find brothers in this desolation brings me too much joy to question it. Triumph and glory ring hollow without comrades to share it.’

  ‘We found no triumph and little glory when we challenged the Maze of Reflection,’ Deucius declared, lowering his face in contrition. ‘Devyndus Thriceblessed led us into the very heart of the enemy. But we were unequal to the test. We failed our Lord-Celestant and we failed great Sigmar.’

  ‘Even in failure there is room for redemption,’ the Celestant-Prime said. The words came to his tongue with a sense of humility, a feeling that they came not from himself but from something greater. A conviction that they were meant not only for the Thriceblessed but also for himself.

  Deucius met the Celestant-Prime’s gaze. There was an almost reverent glow in the Liberator’s eyes now. ‘The wisdom of the Deus Sigmar brings both comfort and challenge.’ He turned and darted a triumphant look at Othmar. ‘Would a trick of the Prismatic King quote Sigmar’s holy scriptures?’

  Othmar spread his arms wide in a gesture of submission. ‘I have already conceded the field, brother,’ he said. Bowing once more to the Celestant-Prime, he apologized to the winged hero. ‘You must indulge Deucius. He has enough devotion in him to balance the faults of all the Thriceblessed.’

  ‘If that were true,’ Deucius said, ‘then we should have conquered the maze and captured the Pillar of Whispers.’

  The Celestant-Prime swung around, his eyes locking upon Deucius. ‘The Pillar of Whispers?’ he hissed, feeling the name resonating within him, blazing through his mind like a ravening firestorm.

  ‘It is the realmgate we were charged to capture,’ Othmar said. ‘A portal seized by the Prismatic King and hidden within the maze. Lord-Celestant Devyndus believed that by securing the Pillar of Whispers we would sever the Prismatic King’s source of power. We could begin to reclaim the lands of Shaard without the threat of new enemy legions being drawn through the realmgate.’

  ‘We never even came within sight of it,’ Deucius stated. ‘The sorcery of the maze overwhelmed us before we could threaten the enemy’s treasure.’

  The Celestant-Prime could see the shame and remorse these warriors felt at their failure. It was an illness coiled about their hearts, slowly eating away at their valour, making them less than what they were. Boldly, he raised Ghal Maraz, compelling the eyes of every Stormcast to the relic. ‘Here is the key that will unlock the maze,’ he declared. ‘What sorcery can endure the God-King’s hammer?’

  Many of the Thriceblessed fell to one knee, seized by their awe of the relic and their belief in its indomitable power. Othmar remained standing however, his tone dour when he spoke. ‘I know Ghal Maraz is mighty,’ he said. ‘But I have also seen the power of the maze. All of us have… except you, my lord.’

  ‘Tell me of the maze,’ the Celestant-Prime ordered. ‘Tell me of this power that makes you question the might of Sigmar.’

  Othmar shook his head. ‘It is a thing beyond words. Something past sight and sound and feeling – at once all and none of these things. We marched into a place of nothingness, an emptiness where there was only ourselves. An emptiness that stretched on forever, without limit or end.’

  ‘Othmar found a flaw in the maze,’ one of the other warriors declared. ‘A crack in the cage of nothingness that held us.’

  ‘Only we few were able to slip free before the crack closed,’ Deucius explained. ‘But of what consequence has our freedom been? We’re too few to assail the Prismatic King’s Eyrie and we lack the secrets of the maze to seize the realmgate or rescue our brethren.’

  ‘Then it is well you have found Ghal Maraz.’ The Thriceblessed swung around, reaching for their weapons as the voice carried to them. Stalking out from the shadow cast by the plateau was the lean little wizard Throl. The man nodded respectfully to the armoured warriors as he hastened towards the champion.

  ‘Such do I call him, for his is the burden of the godhammer,’ Throl boasted. ‘If Ghal Maraz cannot break the power of the maze, then there is no force that can!’

  The Celestant-Prime gazed down at the little man. ‘You took your time joining us.’

  Throl plucked at his ragged cloak and slapped his lean legs. ‘You might have tarried a bit and given me a chance to catch up. I am hardly so spry as once I was.’

  ‘My lord, who is this man?’ Deucius asked.

  ‘Throl of Shaard,’ Ghal Maraz answered. ‘Last of his people and our ally.’

  Throl bobbed his head in agreement. ‘My magic is too weak to oppose the Prismatic King, but I have been able to spy upon him. I know the secret paths that lead to the Maze of Reflection, ways hidden from even his most loyal servants.’

  Othmar approached the little wizard, towering over the cloaked man.

  ‘And what of the Maze? Do you know its secrets too? Can you lead us through the trap? Can you help us redeem ourselves?’ The Liberator shook his head. ‘How can this wretch bring victory where the Thriceblessed have found only failure,’ he scoffed.

  ‘There is a time for valour and strength and a time for cunning,’ the Celestant-Prime reminded Othmar. ‘Pride is a poor substitute for strategy.
’

  ‘I only want to redeem the shame we have all suffered,’ Othmar explained. ‘This is a burden that belongs to the Thriceblessed.’

  ‘Your zeal does you credit,’ the Celestant-Prime told him, ‘but it is presumptuous to think the burden is yours alone. All who oppose Chaos have a stake in the Great Battle.’ The winged hero turned back to the wizard. ‘You say you know the way to the maze, but what of the Prismatic King’s Eyrie?’

  Throl took a step backwards, almost tripping over himself in shock at the question. ‘You can’t mean to attack the Prismatic King’s stronghold.’

  ‘It isn’t my place to question one chosen to bear the godhammer, but shouldn’t we overcome the maze before we take on the Prismatic King?’ Othmar asked.

  ‘The maze has been challenged before,’ Ghal Maraz declared. ‘If courage alone was sufficient to overcome its magic then the Thriceblessed would have prevailed. No, there is a secret behind the maze. None of us here knows that secret, but we know where to find the one who does.’

  ‘The Eyrie of Illumination is guarded by the most infernal of the Prismatic King’s legions,’ Othmar said. ‘When our chamber came here, we knew that only by capturing the realmgate and securing it could we prevail against the Eyrie. If our warhost was insufficient for the task, how can a mere handful triumph?’

  ‘You forget that we have the might of Ghal Maraz now,’ Deucius declared. ‘What army can stand against the power of the godhammer?’

  ‘It isn’t necessary to capture the Eyrie,’ the Celestant-Prime explained. ‘For that, we would need the strength of numbers. But our purpose isn’t to seize the fortress, only to find its master. To that end, a small group is better. Let the Prismatic King underestimate his peril, let him believe we are naught but a nuisance to be swatted aside. He will hesitate to commit his legions if he believes they are unnecessary.’ The hero turned from the Stormcasts and again regarded the cloaked wizard. ‘Do you know a way into the Eyrie?’

  Throl smiled. ‘The Prismatic King moves his Eyrie whenever it suits him. Sometimes it is in the plains, sometimes the mountains. But always it must return to the fields of Uthyr where he first raised it from the fire. At dawn and dusk, the inbetween times when the borders of existence are at their thinnest, that is when the stronghold must return to its foundations.’