The War Begins
From the moment he broke free of the Everwinter which had entombed him, rolling thunder was ever the herald of Mogrek Longblade. The tread of hundreds of stone Rogue Idols, the beat of thousands of drums, and the lightning-wracked thunderheads brought about by that same Everwinter now held tightly in Mogrek’s fist. With a bellow of “Waaagh!” the bards would later claim shook Iscarion itself, the war began.
A messenger reached Ceraph Dariel in his garden. He said nothing as he received the news, and returned his hands to the soil as the runner departed. He’d already done all he could to prepare, and there was nothing more for him to do, not yet.
Caradryas Lightbringer wiped the sweat from his brow and surveyed the battery of Dawnhammer Bombards while hundreds of fellow Iscarneth made ready to fire. He spoke a quiet word of thanks to a dead woman, and in his thoughts he pictured the face of another.
It was twilight when, high upon the observation deck in Sylmare City, a squire presented Celennar’s Bite to his Warden upon bended knee, laid flat across his upturned palms. With a smile and a nod, she took the spear, spinning it in her hands before holding it up before those assembled like a torch. The moon’s light caught it, and it flashed with cold fire, as though ignited by the glint of its own reflection. “By oath’s sworn, this wrong too shall be righted,” she breathed.
In the quarry upon Tanulia, Basalt Lord Qarang Sarn watched his aspiring champions depart, eager to witness their deeds in the name of the Everchosen; elsewhere, the haunted woods of Zaleria resonated with a solemn dirge sung by the Tetarchary, a chant mourning those whom had not yet passed even as they marched to war. Knight-Arcanum Attica’s Mask Impassive betrayed no emotion even as others gave rousing speeches before departing the Library for battle, while Grey Seer Likspit found no need to depart the Miscellaneum; the war had come to them.
The War Below
The coming of the Waaagh! was heralded by the pounding of drums and hooves. The defenders of underside, both its denizens and their allies, scrambled to shore up their defense of Iscarion’s dark mirror. Likspit directed efforts as the mercenary Fangs of Garm worked alongside the skaven of Clan Refrakd to tear apart abandoned hovels and forgotten speakeasies to form a makeshift barricade around the almost-city. It would not hold, but it would have to do.
Ahead of the rotting wood and rusted metal of the new wall, a more substantial defense stood ready, as Iron Templar Annihilators in service to the Armies of Azyr created a bulwark of sigmarite and grandhammers, supported by the soldiers of the Watcher’s Folly Dawnbringers. Hidden in dark crevices and partially collapsed tunnels around the perimeter, Sleekit Fang’s moulders and packmasters fought to hold back their chittering abominations until the time was right to let them loose upon the foe. Likspit winced as they felt their arcane connection to their network of spy rats cut off one by one. The foe was here sooner than they had been led to believe. Many of the Undesired’s allies were still out in the field chasing patrols of orruk spies, no doubt falling into traps and ambushes across the Lux Umbra. Somehow, Likspit’s intelligence had been subverted. They had obviously underestimated the Waaagh!
Indeed, all across the shadowy hinterlands, desperate skirmishes broke out. Patrols of Undesired cutthroats fell screaming beneath the foetid blades of kruleboyz from Karitha’s Horde. Elsewhere, other members of the Iscarneth Alliance fared better. The Khimer Brayherd battered their way through a delaying force of weirdnob necromancers to reach Underside proper, while Vhaskora the Wardancer turned the Waaagh!’s ambushes against themselves, collapsing the tunnels they lay in wait within before they had a chance to emerge. The Shadowsworn Host found themselves caught up fighting the Shadow Trappas, weathering a rain of venom encrusted arrows to descend upon the kruleboyz in a storm of iron and fury… and throughout all of the fighting, the drums never ceased.
Closer and closer it came, a rhythmic cacophony threatening to consume all before it. The half-lit horizon billowed with dust kicked up by colossal hooves. Frantic outriders heralded the arrival, erstwhile highwaymen on screaming horses, clutching bleeding ears in shock as they retreated behind the Undesired’s makeshift barricade, ushered into lashed up medical tents tucked into tunnels and alcoves by the healers of the Black Lotus Combine. Likspit stood atop the barricade, clutching their warpstone tipped staff and nervously stroking the head of the spy rat they always kept with them, affectionately referred to as Speedy when not in others’ company. The creature bruxed, whether in pleasure, fear, or both, Likspit did not know, even with their arcane connection. They themself fought to hold back the musk of fear. It had been years since they had succumbed to that particular biological inconvenience, but the apocalyptic discordance that approached was sorely testing their resolve. Then it arrived.
A towering figure of misshappen metal and clattering bone capered precariously atop a truly monstrous maw-grunta, its matted fur lashed with innumerable drums poached from all across the realms. Wapkagut roared and danced, gorkstikk and morkstikk glowing with green light as they beat out a frantic rhythm. Behind him, a truly staggering stampede of maw-gruntas, gore-gruntas, lithodons and other great beasts beat out their own earth-shattering rhythm.
The crush of beasts were twisted and distorted monstrously to the eyes of the defenders by a billowing cloud of hallucinogenic swamp-gas called forth by Tragrok Skullsmakka’s shamans, driving the orruks and their mounts to an even greater frenzy. With a screech, Likspit called for their forces to abandon the barricade and retreat to the tunnels. There was no chance they’d be able to weather the stampede; Wapkagut would grind them to dust with his mere passing.
As the Undesired and their allies sprinted for the tunnels, a volley of death rained down upon them. While the defenders were preoccupied by the looming violence of Wapkagut’s forward assault, his forces had brought all manner of brutal instruments of death to bear from the flanks. Ned Blackpowder’s cannons beat out a rumbling legato to accompany the staccato rhythm of Blisterpaw’s jezzails. Despite this, the majority of the defenders made it out of the killing ground thanks to Likspit’s direction, the unusual skaven remaining in harm’s way until the last possible moment as they attempted to save as many lives as possible. With a glance at the makeshift wall, they thought of the bulwark of Stormcast on the other side and cringed. Many would return to Azyr this day. Likspit suspected that some of the mortals that supported them might prove heroic enough to be taken to the anvil alongside them.
The inevitable clash came like thunder, sigmarite hammers beating out a new rhythm on battered plate and muscular flesh as the stormcast met the riders head on. More than a few peals of lightning rang out as Lord Celestant Aeron Ddriagheart’s forces fell beneath the onslaught, but it was fewer than might have been expected. Despite their size, the warriors adeptly wove between trunk-like legs and whirling blades, crippling joints and redirecting the flow of the horde as best they could to protect the Dawnbringers. The Watcher’s Folly forces did not merely cower behind the sigmarite bulwark however, gunners taking potshots at orruks and ogors as their mounts panicked below them, or to bring the sword to darting snarlfangs and ornery mournfangs.
For a moment, the all-encompassing beat faltered. Wapkagut’s eyes narrowed beneath his fimm-skull headdress, and with a bellow he redoubled his efforts, the beat somehow becoming even more frantic. Despite the Azyrites’ heroic efforts, the majority of the horde was beginning to break through, the barricade crushed beneath colossal hooves as if it had been nothing. The rear of the charge found themselves boxed in, however, when Sleekit Fang’s nightmare beasts came rushing from rents in the earth all around them. They came from all sides, malformed abominations and mutated hordes alike, bogging down the feet of the enormous warbeasts and swarming over the flanking artillery.
The usually bustling pseudo-city was dark and dead as Wapkagut dismounted, the roar of battle seeming to die down to a mere hum without his crazed drumming. Even with his beat-addled mind, Wapkagut knew that this was just an illusion. The real fight would be below. He smacked the rump of his maw-grunta with a meaty palm, setting it to wreak havoc among the shanty towns of Underside’s surface while he led his warriors to clear out the vermin below. He looked about himself and grinned as his horde did the same. The defenders had stopped a few of the lads from making it in, but what he had left was more than enough. Especially since this wasn’t the only way in.
Below the dusty earth, the Wildbone Gang worked, troggoths and ogors worked alongside skaven to tunnel their way into the outlaw-infested warrens of Underside. Jakang Wyldhulk salivated greedily as he imagined the feast of unsuspecting ne'er-do-wells that lay within. When he finally broke through, he burst into the tunnel with a roar, expecting to find a gaggle of cowering, scrawny pirates. Instead, he was met with immediate resistance. Orgus the Ravager and his Brayherd lay in wait, Likspit having correctly predicted the most likely location of a subterranean incursion. Alongside the bellowing beastmen, shambling ghasts and clattering skeletons poured forth, collected from the many forgotten corpses left in shootouts and back alley deals gone wrong across all of Underside’s long and sordid history and raised with the magics of life and death by Remnant sorcerers led by the Sylvaneth Streakhorn and the Nighthaunt Haluspiré Joyuse, alongside the Soulblight necromancer Viktor Solveig.
Those three, alongside another cadre of their reanimated host, stood alongside Likspit and the Undesired in the upper tunnels, prepared to meet the invaders’ headlong assault. Kratchet Many-Lives snarled and barked orders at his underlings, while Squirm Pactmaker cowered behind him, working to summon daemons to aid in the fight, uncomfortable at his proximity to the front line. The Children of Humbris stood alongside the Shadowsworn Host in the shadowy tunnel, faces lit by guttering flames and sickly bioluminescent moss as the forces of daybreak and darkness prepared to fight and die side by side. If Wapkagut expected this to be an easy extermination, he had another thing coming.
Up above, the stragglers of Wapkagut’s charge found themselves bogged down even further as the pooling blood of the slain suddenly began to writhe with foul energies, sanguine arms reaching up to grab the invaders’ armoured shins. The Goredrenched nighthaunt pulled themselves from the carnage, horrific spectres of animated ichor sending panic through the once-bellicose warriors. As above, so below, Wapkagut’s vanguard finding themselves surrounded by rank upon rank of snarling cutthroats, undead horrors, and chittering ratmen.
Likspit stepped forward, head raised, and looked the warchanter in his single good eye. Wordlessly, they held each other's gazes for a long moment, both sides clutching their weapons tensely. Then, as if a spell had been broken, Wapkagut turned away, showing his back to the foe fearlessly. “Alright lads, show’s over. Nothin’ else for us ‘ere. We did what the beat told us. Let ‘em ‘ave their stinkin’ warrens.” And with that, he calmly padded out the way he had come, fellow warriors and foes alike watching with bemusement as the enigmatic orruk walked away. He seemed like an entirely different creature to the mad drummer who had ridden down the walls of Underside, but even now, Likspit’s watchful eye caught his fingers tapping out a baleful rhythm on his stikks. Grumbling and snarling, the invaders followed him, squishing a few stray rats as they went for good measure. Likspit winced at each one, but did not move. There was a good chance that, if Wapkagut had not decided to back off, both sides would have been all but obliterated.
Wapkagut emerged into the half light with an almighty bellow that brought both sides to a halt. A screaming phantom lunged at him, and, without so much as looking, he grabbed its gore-soaked skull in one massive hand and crushed it to dust as if it had been nothing. He whistled loudly, and his great mount came charging through the rubble. He swung up onto the high saddle without the beast even slowing down, his remaining warriors doing the same. Before long, they had cleared out entirely, leaving the bloodstained cobbles ringing with awful silence.
Likspit emerged to survey the destruction. There was almost nothing left of Underside’s surface, the tangle of shanties, walkways and taverns reduced to rubble. The warren below had fared better, but with the assault from both ends, it had not been entirely spared. The news from further afield was worse. While the main forces of the Iscarneth defenders and Wapkagut’s invaders had been focussed on the city, both Downside and Bilgebottom had been annihilated, only a small remnant of the Undesired cutthroats left to guard them having made it out alive, carrying what they could from the remains of the Miscellaneum and shepherding surviving civilians to the last bulwark of the Lux Umbra. With a haunted look, an aelven woman handed Likspit a burned and splintered piece of polished wood: part of the great desk at the Miscellanium’s centre, they realized. She stood there a moment, breathing heavily, then she said, almost whispering: “Make them pay.”
Iscarneth Ceraphate Minor Victory
The War at Sea
It was upon the waters of the Prime Dominion that Mogrek would unleash the worst of his shackled Everwinter. Freezing winds whipped the liquid light into a rough and choppy spray, the foam turning to sludge atop the decks of Waaagh! and Ceraphate vessels alike. Great slabs of the surface froze and broke apart, creating a grinding morass capable of dashing a ship apart as surely as any rock.
Commanded, more or less, by Kaptin Sharkbiter of the orruk hulk Ungorkable, the Waaagh! armada poured from the Catarhactes realmgate like a swarm of locust, devouring anything too slow to escape. Those ships that hadn’t sailed to join Mogrek had been cobbled together from the devastation they’d wrought along the way, entire forests put to the axe with which to build new barges.
Leading the Ceraphate’s flotilla was Admiral Soraya, a capable veteran who had faithfully served Dariel during the civil war. Gathering to her a group of allied captains calling themselves the Bladebreakers, their strategy was simple: draw out straggling Longblade ships and cull them one at a time, bleeding Sharkbiter’s armada through a thousand cuts.
Aboard the Promised Conflagration, Asavash the Serene turned the Everwinter’s winds to steam and Ironfang mercenary hulks into flaming wrecks. The Burning Templars were aided in their task by Varrag da Wall’s Ur-Serpent. which saw orruks gleefully plunged into brawling boarding actions as Sharkbiter’s armada sought to prey upon fleeing fishing boats. Kido Takara of the Dragon’s Eye would go on to score several kills, while clawing clouds of plague flies billowed from the craft of the Mournful Choir, suffocating Longblade crews aboard their ships before the battle even began even as Baal’Oot tore the still-beating hearts from orruk captives in a bloody tribute to Sotek.
These and other victories would see the Bladebreakers claim early success. Despite this, Admiral Soraya grew increasingly concerned as the bulk of the armada spread unimpeded. The Waaagh!-algined Kharadron of Mayric Galazgal captured several small islands unopposed, quickly establishing a beachhead, while Grukka Redtoof and Trog Boss Darga pillaged indiscriminately, ignoring Marshal Aegrun’s attempts to bait them. Markela of the Vyrkos Exiles met Valentian of the Decaying Host in battle, two ancient soulblight vampires finding themselves on opposing sides of this war, while the Ironfang fleet descended to overwhelm the smaller number of harrying vessels.
The Bladebreakers had done all they could; Kaptin Sharkbiter would have to be brought to battle. The Shards of Wirenth would see another bitter battle as Admiral Soraya rallied her ships against the Waaagh! armada, their weight of numbers negated by the treacherous Shards. Orchestrated by Pyrotheurge Gaherian, Soraya’s trap was sprung as metaliths descended from the storm-wracked skies, accompanied by two mighty Maw-Krushas belonging to Varrag da Wall and the Knights-Draconis of the Shattered Sky Stormhost, strafing the Waaagh! ships with gouts of fire.
Even as the battle turned to flame and steam, Sharkbait offered up a surprise of his own; dozens of Beast-Skewer Killbows bristle from the decks of many vessels, accompanied by lanky mobs of Boltboyz. Anticipating the Ceraphate’s aerial supremacy after the battles of the Ashfall Delta, the sky is blackened with a hail of wickedly-tipped arrows. Those not slain by the Kruleboyz’ withering fire are forced out of range, tipping the scales in favor of the Waaagh! once again.
Kaptin Sharkbiter bellowed and his boys took up the cheer as Big Bog, an aleguzzler gargant, straddled the Ungorkable’s deck with a nasty greatbow of Kruleboy design. Taking up an arrow the length of a boat, it leapt from the makeshift bow with a streak of eye-searing green lightning, striking the first metalith and shattering it like a rock beneath a hammer. The lightning leapt from one metalith to another, setting them ablaze or breaking them apart, their occupants leaping clear and hoping to fall next to friendly ships- if they survived at all.
The final blow would by struck by Soto da Fish, whose Sword of Twilight summoned the spirit of a shadow dragon to sweep across the decks the remaining Bladebreakers. Reeling and risking a devastating route, Admiral Soraya was forced to sound a retreat, hoping to regroup beyond the Waaagh!’s surging advance.
Waaagh! Mogrek Lesser Victory
The War Above
On land, the Ceraphate and her allies could not know where Mogrek would strike first. They’d fortified what they could and entrenched where they could not. In Amisra, Da Finkerz’ WAAAGH-Mother sought to provoke Mogrek like waving a red flag before a charging bull and started her own greenskin brawl with the Baitmaster Bargog’s help.
In Edraele, the ghouls of House Highsong and the Ventolean army fell upon Kruleboy scouts, while Valkaara Crimsonforge made good on her promise to bolster Ellisar City’s defenses, emplacing cannons and mortars upon the walls. Anticipating attack, Princess Aries Lucius coordinated the city’s defense, bolstered by the formidable Stormcast Eternals of the Guardian Legion and the Encarmine Host of Taran, a Lumineth loreseeker come to halt Mogrek’s advance. They easily fended off what little came their way, and it soon became apparent to all within the city that the Longblade would not fall upon them this day.
The Four Sisters would fare similarly; had the Waaagh! come upon them, they would have found a score of Chaos hosts eager for battle. Some among them interpreted their nominal allegiance to the Ceraphate more loosely than others, as the Darkoath of the Burning Chorus scoured the Sisters for captives. Those taken were given a simple choice: to join the Chorus… or be fed into the Soul Forges.
The Nurgle-tainted Sylvaneth of the Sporesong Swarm plunged into the deep forests, while Maggestus Rotspleen “secured” supplies to better defend the Sisters from a hapless duardin merchant caravan and Jabathai Twistflame bent the inherent magics of the Prime Dominion itself to their will. At the Colosseum, Bram Tallow’s Incineratii would jest that the rats were playing cards with the ghosts in their boredom, while the mercenaries of Krogg’s Bog Sloggers would find no enemy to fight in Tanulia.
Upon Lhoris, the Armies of Azyr committed in strength to similar result as the Dark Choosing, as Fyreslayers, Kharadron and Stormcast Eternals scoured the countryside for an enemy that did not show. Within the Library of Galaeron, Knight-Arcanum Attica watched and waited, their sanctum defended by the beast-faced Stormcast of Cik Bloodhorn, the witch aelves of the Coven of Twilight’s Blade, and the indomitable and very literate ogor Chungus.
The Remnant’s deathly touch likewise sought the enemy across Hycis, Namys and Zaleria, with little luck. It was then that Mogrek’s strategy became horrifyingly apparent; although their targets seemed chosen without reason, the Waaagh! had descended upon each like an avalanche, gathering momentum as more and more warbands joined the attack. It was the Skyport of Corinth that would feel their fury first.
Caradryas Lightbringer had labored for half a year preparing for this very moment, yet that did nothing to ease the knot in his stomach as his spotters caught sight of the signal flares over Corinth: Idols spotted, fire at will.
It fell to Lord-Relictor Doruhn and his Ruination Chamber to hold the line, yet it was not orruks that set upon him, but G’Jak the Savage, a Bloodthirster of Khorne. Daemonic Skull Cannons howled as they shot green-and-gold Kharadron ships from the sky, before turning on the Prosectuors and Stormdrakes of Doruhn’s Stormscale Covenant as they counter-attacked. G’Jak’s advance was halted only as Doruhn met the daemon in single combat, meteoric shield turning aside the monster’s hellforged axe time and again.
Yet Doruhn was only a single warrior, and G’Jak’s Khornate legion seethed around the pounding tread of Mogrek’s Rogue Idols. Joined now by ogors and gargants, their shared rage seemed to drive each other’s fury to new hights, and the Skyport was split open. Their targets zeroed, the Dawnhammer Bombards opened fire, nullstone rounds smashing the Rogue Idols apart even as they charged forward, heedless of the punishing casualties. Daemons dissolved to nothing and ogors were crushed as the Idols were reduced to rubble. Their momentum faltered, and the Seraphon of the Excan Tlahtoloyan counter-attacked from within the Skyport. Saurus fell by the score for their audacious attack, but upon reinforcement by a screaming Siorc Fishbane, the Waaagh! was put to flight.
Sylmare City did not fare as well.
The Lumineth storm mages Aledrec and Asarora had prepared their defenses well, but now they stood alone against the full might of Waaagh! Mogrek. They sat at the base of the mountain where Sylmare City rested. Surrounding them were Hurakon Windchargers, Vanari Sentinels, Dawnriders; a force built for hit-and-run tactics. Above them, higher on the mountain path, awaited the bulwark of the force. A wall of spikes, blades, and hammers as Vanari Wardens locked shields, with Bladelords and Stoneguard prepared for any breach of the shield wall and behind them towering Hathorians waited to charge. The more mobile force below needed to dwindle the attacker's numbers, harass the enemy as much as possible. They knew higher up the mountain is where the battle would truly begin, but Asarora wanted to hit the enemy early and hard, and from afar as long as possible.
Unfortunately, possible would not last very long.
The Little Wren, Knight-Errant of Mossroot and her Emerald Pilgrims would race the Screaming Court of Mad Queen Silenore, each mob of frenzied flesh-eaters eager to be the first to spill Ceraphate blood. Their pace matched by the loping run of a dozen Rogue Idols, Aledrec’s strategy was swept aside in minutes, their retreat threatening to collapse into a route. Even as the freezing stormclouds clawed at the mountain fastness, Bombards boomed in the distance, smashing apart the Rogue Idols even as they approached Asarora’s second line. For a moment, it appeared the Lumineth would hold, ghoul-horrors matched blow-for-blow by mighty Hathorians. Then, the sky turned to blood red flame.
Piloted by Azoth Realmgorger, a metal monstrosity streaked through the heavens toward Sylmare City, borne aloft by Mad Queen Silenore’s sinister magic and whose person now clung to the side of it. The accounts of those who fled would describe it as a flaming comet, whose impact incinerated several blocks. From the ruin came howling, half-burnt ghouls and the blackened bonewrought warriors of Khataras Khan.
Commanding what remained of the city’s quickly crumbling defense, Renaya Oathsworn fought in the burning streets alongside the Lost One Lethe Ashendawn, a solitary Stormcast who now served as bodyguard in the feverish melee. Renaya had seen bitter defeat before, and knew already the city was lost. As hope of escape was cut off by the kunnin’ Shadowsplittaz of Weirdnob Dolgul- whose inspired infiltration earned him the title of “the Wise”- Renaya prepared herself for the end.
It was only a chance encounter with Mios Altengard of the Undesired that saved the last defenders of Sylmare City; he’d arrived on reconnaissance just as the battle had begun, and ushered Renaya and the others through secret ways which had been known only to Likspit. Seemingly unbothered by the raging inferno about her, Lethe Ashendawn was the last to quit the battle, claiming to witness two massive monsters wreathed in steam commanding the Waaagh!’s forces as they obliterated what remained of the city.
The reason for Mios Altengard’s mission had been simple prudence; Wapkagut was a simple creature, by all accounts, and neither Downside nor Bilgebottom lay in the direct path of his anticipated assault. Of course, the Undesired had anticipated some amount of minor raiding as the warhost hurtled towards the under-city, and had left what they believed to be sufficient defenders at each location, a mix of local outlaws and outsiders sworn to the Undesired. At Bilgebottom, Baitmaster Bargog set about readying his captured beasts to raid any Waaagh! camps that might appear in the area, while the ghouls of the Skinnerkin haunted Downside. It was not nearly enough.
Bargog found his raiding plans scuppered when a Waaagh! force led by Razzak da Soulwhispera, Kuzma Wulfwynn and Dur’logg Mawwrangla descended upon him like a tidal wave. The Baitmaster’s troggoths found themselves hopelessly outmatched by the combined might of wolves, gruntas, orruks and vampires that fell upon the old mining encampment, and it was all he and his Undesired allies could do to escape with their lives.
The situation in Downside was no better. Faced with the combined might of the Blackstone Warhost, the Loonchompa Troggherd, and the Coalcut Tribe, all backed by the gargant mercenaries of the Hyakki Yagyō, Illna Skrett’s ghouls fell back to the Miscellanium, linking up with the local mercenaries that had been left to guard it. Together, they focussed on escaping the skyport with as many civilians and vital resources from Likspit’s throne room as possible, falling back towards Underside, taking heavy losses on their way. The skyport, and all its myriad benefits, had been lost to the Undesired, and the wider Iscarneth Alliance, for good. The Miscellaneum, so painstakingly fortified, as well as the Old Undercliff Inn where so many tall tales had been told and drinks spilled, were both reduced to rubble with the Waaagh!’s passing.
Mogrek’s hand was now revealed, for the Waaagh! had thrown its full might against only a small handful of Iscarneth positions. Spread thin, the Ceraphate and her allies could not have known where they would be hit the hardest, and simple luck of the draw conspired against them.
Two Rogue Idol Battlegroups Destroyed
Sylmare City Destroyed
Bilgebottom Destroyed
Downside Destroyed
The War Ahead
Battles won and battles lost; the Ceraphate had already begun to burn, regardless. Just as Dariel dug in his garden, Mogrek sat upon his great stone throne, each snarling breath ragged and pained from the sword blade between his ribs. He would let Wapkagut and the Mooncaller have their fun. The Ceraphate would falter in time, and when it did, Mogrek Longblade would step forward to slaughter it just as he’d butchered their champion in the Ashfall Delta.
The War Beyond
Others watched, even now. Eyes long since lost to blinding light, and eyes that reflected only inky darkness. Eyes glowing red, their number beyond counting. They watched, and waited. Their time would come soon enough.