Path 1—The War-Trod Trail
Battle through the Thunder-Gullet Gorge
Thunder-Gullet Gorge was formed when the primordial titan Bahuq’Tlan drove his ancient rival there, roaring so loudly down one of her throats the head ruptured and created an enormous amphitheatre. Typhoraxia’s nine surviving heads screamed, creating twisting fissures that carved out a gorge of crystal blood-veins and ichor-stained rock that never forgot the sounds of the battle. That seemed to pine for a return of that thunderous might, twisting and amplifying the sounds of all within.
Gorga Brood-Bride, daemon prince and tyrant of the Womb-Gut Butchers had made it her capital. A testament to Typhoraxia’s resilience, and, perhaps, to how much she liked the sound of her own voice. Until Craebmhorg had gutted her loyal generals and taken her vassals, and moved for their final coup of the heretical Womb-Gut Butchers. Not by a violent assassination that would make Gorga a martyr, but an ideological execution that would showcase that the only thing worth worshipping in the Flaywilds was strength itself.
Something the Morfiend Warhorde could not allow.
+++
To avoid the Gorge’s twisting effects, the Templars of Our Burning Saviour led the Morfiend Warhorde’s frontal assault on the stronghold in utter silence. They communicated between their formations and allied CARCASS troopers providing supporting fire using battleflags to avoid twisted words that could harm as much as any blade. And the loss of their potent, Tzeentchian spellcasting in battle was made up for in part by using Gorga Brood-Bride and her few remaining loyalists as ‘allies’—and meat shields. The disciplined formations cut down enemy skirmishers seeking materiel for their unholy pyre and initial points of resistance with relative ease, managing not to evoke any natural disasters within the Thunder-Gullet Gorge’s unnaturally reverberating walls.
Unfortunately for them, that wouldn’t last.
The Druids of Craebmhorg knew the ins and outs of the warping Gorge’s effects well, leveraging them to power potent spectral stampedes and other endless spells that harassed the Warhorde on all fronts, surging through earth and bone or forming right on top of them. Their prior victory in the Seven-Stomach Pits meant enough of the Womb-Gut Butchers were loyal to them that they learned the Thunder-Gullet’s ancient secrets, and any Morfiend soldier or slave that died rose again, their unnatural hearts beating in rhythm to the war-drums that shook every warriors’ marrow.
Still, the Templars held firm against undead hordes, enduring gunfire from the stronghold’s walls until CARCASS troops could get within range and counter-snipe the enemy. Craebmhorg’s House of the Eclipse gunners and artillery returned fire, and a deadly exchange between blackpowder forces erupted. While the Templars marched and fought in silence, the only sounds produced the the sundering of armour and bone… the thunder of gunfire was an escalation the Thunder-Gullet Gorge was all too eager to witness—and reciprocate.
Every gunshot echoed down its crystalline chasms and thundered back ten-fold, deafening all those who fought that day. But while none could hear the coming disasters, they could feel them.
The initial landslides were almost a boon to the Warhorde, the scree bowling over lighter infantry and spoiling their mobility while doing far less to the obdurant Templars and ogor ‘allies’. That alleviated some of the pressure in holding the front line, but it was replaced by increased fire from the enemy as the CARCASS covering fire faltered. Shots went awry as footing was lost, artillery stopped firing as crews and munitions were buried.
But the worst was yet to come.
They could feel it in their bones as they fought and died, only to have to put down their risen comrades.
A rhythmic thunder, silent but felt in their bones.
Craebmhorg possessed ancient wisdom and cunning, untold secrets passed down for centuries.
None of which were possessed by All’vit da Mountainstride.
The ancient, enormous troggoth was simply eager to hatch his new ‘buddy’, and with the enthusiasm of a child playing too roughly with old toys… he hit the Warhorde’s lines. They buckled under the assault, heavy infantry and ogors flying as mega-gargant sized arms swept through their ranks.
But they refused to break.
The Templars’ leader, Sargon the Avowed, launched himself at All’vit, carving a cauterized gouge up the troggoth’s wrist. The troggoth roared in pain and anger as he dropped the corpses he had been collecting to feed the titan egg’s pyre. He went to swat the annoying tzaangor, but the blow was intercepted by Gorga Brood-Bride, the ascended ogor tyrant’s strength enough to batter the giant fist off-course.
Sargon had negotiated some semblance of a truce with the dethroned Womb-Gut Butcher. Together, they fought the mega-gargant-sized troggoth to a bloody stand still, each suffering more and more wounds as troops died all around them. But Craebmhorg’s forces continued to grow and push in on them from all sides.
And a temporary truce was far from a trusting alliance.
When All’vit’s fist crashed towards Gorga Brood-Bride like an enraged meteor, Sargon did not risk himself to deflect it. Even daemonic bones fractured under the power of the blow, and Gorga Brood-Bride finally fell, just another body tossed into All’vit’s mountainous basket of corpses to act as fuel.
But the Morfiend assault force didn’t need her to win, for they were just a distraction. Gorga and her foolish loyalists had served their purpose, just as the Templars and CARCASS had served theirs.
Alarms rang within the stronghold, Morfiend’s true assault began.
As All’vit turned to dash away to pour more fuel onto the pyre and reinforce the inner keep, CO Artemis of CARCASS launched one final rocket from a recovered battery that struck the troggoth on the side of the head. The explosion was almost as deafening as the mountainous troggoth’s fall to the earth, both serving as an invocation to the Gorge. The quake that followed knocked even the strongest soldier off their feet, leaving them prey to myriad endless spells ravaging all around them…
+++
While the main assault distracted the stronghold’s defenders, Morfiend’s Kardazharr Expedition tunneled beneath Thunder-Gullet Gorge. Zharradron and Skaven mining drills burrowed through the unnaturally hard bedrock slower than Barzok Ironvein would have liked, but faster than any mundane sapper could hope to compete with. Especially since most simply wouldn’t have been capable of this kind of operation at all.
Any hope that they could have avoided Craebmhorg’s attention or the Gorge’s effects were quickly dashed, however. The blood crystal-veins ran deep into the earth and the loud noises invoked the Thunder-Gullet’s wrath as much as those above. Shifting earth sheared tunnels and those within while others collapsed to bury machines and their operators. The reverberations carried to the defenders above more than average sapping operations would as well, giving them plenty of time to prepare counter-measures.
The Morfiend tunnelers met with the occasional, brutal and bloody counter-tunnel assault, but far more often encountered deadlier foes. The kind that one couldn’t best with sword or fang. Choking, toxic smokes infused with Nurglite and Pestilens plagues swept through the tunnels, suffocating sappers and leaving survivors that were a liability. Rampaging sorceries of lurid purple smoke that murdered and mauled tunnellers with golden hooves, beaks, and horns.
By the time Morfiend breached the surface once more, their forces had been ravaged. The openings had barely reached into the stronghold’s inner keep, some distance still from the titanic egg and its incubating pyre. The walls of magically shaped bone didn’t collapse like those that relied on individual stones and mortar would have.
That wouldn’t stop the Warhorde, however.
Hellpit abominations surged from the breaches, followed by other monsters and shock troops. Once they had gone forth to ravage the inner keep’s defenders, the Helsmiths emerged to set up their warmachines and firing lines to pick off the ritualists. Barzok Ironvein stepped once more into the light, assessing the chaos with a practiced eye.
Countless beasts of chaos and ghouls awaited them, the pyre and sorcerers safely behind their lines. Morfiend’s rampaging monstrosities were pushing Craebmhorg’s hordes back, one hellpit abomination punching deep into their ranks and nearing the sorcerers by the pyre. A zombie dragon with dull, emerald scales pounced on the creature, but the abomination dragged it from the air. The two tumbled across the ground in a titanic melee, crushing those too slow to get out of their way.
The Helsmith Grand Surveyor finished his assessment of the situation, and didn’t like it: desperate times called for desperate measures, the kind of risks he didn’t like taking unless too much of an investment rested upon it... He identified a position from which to bombard the enemy pyre, hoping to shatter it and scatter the nearby sorcerers. His Expeditioners formed up around without hesitation and moved to secure the hill. Instincts honed by decades in the field saved him and spared the Kardazharr irreparable losses.
The Smokepelt Slakefray leapt from the shadows, their near-perfect ambush spoiled when Ironvein called a sudden halt. Dozens of mutants bearing bestial stigmata charged from shallow tunnels, the Smokepelt Slakefray abusing their ‘divine’ status amongst the Craebmhorg to spread a Turnskin curse amongst their vassals to grow their numbers. They broke upon the disciplined ranks of Helsmiths, but were only a distraction.
Ulkhuu-Slaa and their most vicious slanngors leapt down upon Barzok Ironvein and his personal guard. The two fought a battle of opposites, Ulkhuu-Slaa’s speed and finesse matched by Barzok’s hardiness and brutality. While the moose-like beastfolk desired the Grand Surveyor’s head, they still fought smartly. As did Barzok, which is why the cunning Helsmith knew what he had to do.
Zharrdron bodyguards threw themselves at Ulkhuu-Slaa, distracting them enough to let Barzok slip away. And with Craebmhorg there in absolute force, Barzok called the retreat. His cold, calculating commands sent many sappers to their deaths, but saved many more as the Druids harried them like the predators and prey they were in that moment.
Barzok’s last sight of the Thunder-Gullet’s stronghold was of a twisted titan of decayed flesh and daemonic bone bursting from the hard shell. Its unnatural screech followed him through every bloody step of the tunnels, and into his nightmares.
Craebmhorg had hatched their scheme, earning themselves a monstrous titan and the loyalty of the surviving Womb-Gut Butchers to support their final push across the War-Trod Trail.
Druids of Craebmhorg—Major Victory
Morfiend Warhorde—Defeat
Path 2 - The Wyrmtongue River
Battle of the Hydra Lotuses
The Wyrmtongue river stood still and sullen. Shadows clung to the overhanging trees like spiderwebs, casting everything beyond the waters edge into a thick and inky gloom. Mossy tendrils trailed down limply into the water. Not a breath of wind stirred them. Not a bird broke the brooding stillness that had set upon the river.
The Nagendra’valla were gone. The serpent cult, who had stewarded these waters since a time beyond living memory, had been wiped out at the Pyramid of Itzl. They had given their lives for their great effort, calling forth the spirit of the river into a colossal emerald serpent, only to see it come shattered back down to earth. Now both were gone, and the river seemed to mourn their passing.
Barely a ripple disturbed the brooding waters as the small crafts cut through them. Paddles kissed the black waters without an errant splash, propelling them slowly but surely up the riverway. Empty huts along the waters edge watched them pass in mute protest. Small and squat, somewhere between a coracle and a canoe, they moved like a herd of wading beasts, yet to the minds of those that rode them they were a grand and mighty sight.
The Ghouls of Craebmhorg had come in force to the Wyrmtongue River.
The flotilla passed into the wide marsh that surrounded the Emerald Island, drawn by the pulsing light that rose above it. The Devils were there, working their foreign magics on the sky ruins that littered the isle, creating the hateful light that burned their eyes and filled their minds with horrible, twisted images. By the Rootmother’s command, they would end its terrible call.
Stark against the foreboding gloom of the woods, the marsh’s still surface was a brilliant tapestry of colour. Deep reds and exquisite purples stained its surfaces, hyper saturated and vividly intense. They were the hydra lotuses, flowering only in the shadow of the island and filling the air with the intoxicating soporific mists. They covered the water’s surface in a sea of blooms. Passing among them, the small boats were like horses galloping across a field of wildflowers, just as the ghouls inside them believed them to be. Then, they passed into the wall of fog that surrounded the island. A single huge statue loomed from the mist, a seven-headed serpent rising up out of the water that once warned the Nagendra’valla to stay clear of this place. But the Nagendra’valla were dead, and the warning unheeded. The boats pushed through into the mists and lotus flowers as the rain started to fall.
***
Water was hammering down now, the ricocheting drain drops creating a mist that hung over everything and made the island nearly as impervious as the marsh around it.
There had been six relays set upon the crashed components of the Xo’axtu, each reflecting the solar magic at the Isle’s center into the surrounding jungle. Only two now remained. A strange golden-green fire could be seen even through the mist where the last one had fallen to a combined assault by Khornate madmen and bellowing ogors. Even the pouring rain seemed to have little effect in extinguishing that blaze.
The defense of the isle had started well. Well-disciplined lines of Sigmarite firepower and orruk sharpshooters had dug in, with traps and barricades made to funnel the incoming Druids into kill boxes. A great cannon had been set up to smash through any great linebreaking threat that might materialize. With numbers, time to prepare, and the light of the solar beacon above them, they felt they had little to fear.
Perhaps that was why so many had felt comfortable experimenting with the hydra lotuses. Scores of baskets of the flowers were harvested and taken back to the various Devils commanders’ tents for experimentation. Some sought to create toxins with them. Others tried to distill their narcotic effects for greater potency. Yet the fruits of the Eightpoints would not be harvested or tamed. Whatever their reason, each had unwittingly brought poison into their midst.
As the soporific clouds spread amongst the Devils’ lines, the defenses began to collapse, eaten away from within like moth-ridden cotton. Many of the soldiers simply collapsed into a blissful dream, smiling in their sleep as their companions tried to rouse them until blood began to leak from closed eyelids and grinning lips. With holes suddenly appearing across their well-constructed lines, the defense quickly broke down, and organized structure became a chaotic melee in the mud and pouring rain. The Druids too had suffered in the assault. The first wave of ghouls and hedonites had suffered greatly from the defenders firepower before the lines had collapsed, and many were in full retreat. Ossiarch reinforcements had failed to appear after their commander had attempted to march across the riverbed and surprise the defenders, only to overlook the dangers that lurked in the waters. Though the water’s black depths shielded them from the magic beacon, the cohort were met with gnashing jaws and scales instead.
As the battlefield dissolved into a swirling melee, Armod Tal of Graywater clutched his rifle tight and ran for the faint, pulsing light of the last beacon. He had faced down ghouls and ogors, had done his part and more for his pay, but now his powder was wet and his pike was lost back in the mud.
A great crashing sound echoed across the island as the massive cogfort known as Annaliese’s Library stumbled out of the mist ahead of him. For a moment, Armod felt hope soar, then he saw the awkward way the thing was moving. Each stubby foot seemed to move of its own volition, and none could agree which way they wanted to go. Staggering like a drunk, veering sideways, Armod watched in fascinated horror as it lurched sideways and crashed into the nearest pyramid relic relaying the solar beacon. There was a crack of splintering stone, strangely hollow in the muting rain, and the structure collapsed. The light overhead wavered, then shrunk again. Only one relay still kept the solar magic alive.
As hatches across the cogfort opened and survivors stumbled out, Armod got a close look at the inside of the structure. Even from a distance, he could see the vivid colours of the hydra lotuses. They had taken them inside, planted the damned things, been breathing in their musk. A corpse inside stared back out at him with unblinking eyes, and Armod could already see veins of roots spreading across its flesh and a new flower sprouting from its skin.
Only the last of the beacons still stood, and the remaining defenders formed up around it. Standing in the pillar of light, Knight-Incantor Pyrrhas was doing all he could to keep the undead at bay, sending pulses of its power down to rebuke them. The mighty Chax fought at his side, smashing through the followers of the dark gods that could pass where their undead allies could not. Yet for each foe they felled, three more took their place.
Armod set his rifle carefully down and drew the small footman’s dirk. If this was to be their last stand, he was prepared to sell his life dearly.
The sounds of leathery wings ripped through the storm, and a huge shape crashed down into the masses of the Druids. From atop the newly tamed wyvern Wyldling, Kaia Wolfkin laid into the savage hosts with reckless abandon. The Druids faltered, recoiling back like a wave. There was a moment of uncertainty, as the odds of battle trickled down into minute calculations. Then with a holler, the Devils charged forth and instead of crashing back down and swallowing them all the wave of Druids broke. Following in Wyldling’s wake, the surviving Devils pushed the Druids back into the dark waters of the marsh and stood, exhausted but victorious.
With their solar magics rooted in the ruins of the pyramid on Emerald Island, the Devils had secured a bastion on the Wyrmtongue River from which to strike towards the Temple of Radiance at the jungle’s heart.
Starfall Devils - Minor Victory
Druids of Craebmhorg - Defeat
Path 3—The Wyrdspine Mountains
Battle for Tzunki’s Serene Pyramid of Healing
Long before the coming of Archaon, the Goreroot Cradle had once been a place where life celebrated itself.
Now it remembered only slaughter.
Eight mass graves fed its roots, each burial mound raised over the corpse-heaps of wars between forgotten daemon princes. The trees had drunk so deeply of blood that their bark resembled blackened scabs, their sap ran crimson as fresh-opened veins, and every leaf shimmered like sharpened brass. Suspended above that living charnel pit hung Tzunki's Serene Pyramid of Healing, once a temple of restoration, now imprisoned within a cradle of colossal roots that writhed like serpents.
Its healing waters had become something far stranger.
The broken body of Lady Serelyth, the Knight of Thorns, rested within its heart. Around her knelt the Ashenmourne Choir, chanting without pause as the potent artefact Gloamthorn rested across her breast.
The weapon of living-wood drank.
The Pyramid answered.
And the forest awoke hungry.
+++
The battle for the Serene Pyramid was a blood bath, with the forces of Craebmhorg and the Morfiend Warhorde equally matched despite the latter’s number advantage. Every engagement cost both dearly, and coordination was poor with messengers vanishing routinely. And more and more engagements sprung up between them, despite orders otherwise.
Just as Bearer-of-Lost-Voice planned, the mud-covered saurus stashing away yet another messenger’s mangled corpse.
Nearby, a rifle thundered and a commander from the Teulu Cernunnos fell. The enraged hunters rushed towards the noise and came upon a Skaven jezzail team who wasn’t ready for their speed. The battle drew the Pestilent Herd from Morfiend’s formation, the buzzing of insects heralding the Nurglite assault on Craebmhorg’s Khornate skirmishers, which drew more forces into the escalating maelstrom.
Neither side noticed the Umbra Squad slip away from the conflict, their hounds scenting out enemy scouts that let them lead the Starfall Devils safely before any noose could close on them.
Sunblood Chax and his Talons of Quetzl found themselves chased by Syn’Exyn and their Grand Cavalcade once more, the Twinborn daemon hungering to finish their duel. No matter where he went, the daemon found him, isolating him from his allies.
Unable to retreat to friends, Chax instead retreated to the enemy of his enemies.
The Talons of Quetzl triggered an ambush from the Black Bells, rushing through a kill zone to drag the Grand Cavalcade through enfilading fire that cut down their numbers, but not their eagerness. In that chaos, Chax made his stand and Syn’Exyn found him… dueling another.
Chief Skraw fought for his life against the powerful Sunblood, a fight that looked grim for Skaven until an underhanded shot peppered Chax’s face with warpstone. A bitter Syn’Exyn joined the fray, not wanting to see another duel ruined by an unwanted, ungrateful interloper. Agility met power once more, this time swirling with Skaven cunning and ingenuity.
Syn’Exyn felt the thrill for battle rise in Chax, giving in to their own excitement once more. All the while Chief Skraw wanted no part of this dramatic madness, yet somehow couldn’t escape it!
The swirling melee only grew as all three sides cut one another apart, their blood sowing rife seeds that rapidly sprouted into blighted monstrosities: soulless Sylvaneth driven by the spirits of all the fallen in the area. Their raging battle drew more forces into the area, Morfiend storm vermin bearing the finest arms and armour coming in force to support the Black Bells. As the Morfiend Warhorde slammed into Craebmhorg’s flanks, they in turn were flanked by from nearby branches by the nimble skirmishers of the Scions of the Bleeding Wild.
One Faealas interrupted the three-way duel, seeking skilled opponents herself. Between the fear-musked Chief Skraw and the wounded Chax, she chose the latter and drove the Sunblood away from Syn’Exyn and the others to duel for herself. The nimble wardancer put Chax on the backfoot immediately, spear thrusts tearing through scales and flesh. More of her blows came close to killing the wounded Sunblood outright, and may have succeeded were it not for Bearer-of-Lost-Voice pouncing on her from the shadows.
Two against one pushed the wardancer as she desired, until gunshots rained down upon her from hidden positions. She twisted through the air, bullets grazing only flesh, but creating a buffer between her and her opponents that let them slip away. Syn’Exyn reached the thieving wardancer in time to watch Chax and the Starfall devils break away from them, leaving the two Druids dissatisfied… and the daemon feeling betrayed.
The Starfall Devils had not come in force, had not come seeking glory or even the Pyramid itself.
Only to make sure their enemies walked away with a hollow victory, and as many wounded as possible.
The Goreroot Cradle laughed through every brass leaf and creaking branch, drinking in the carnage with delight.
+++
Far above the chaos, the Kharadron frigate Cloud-Stalker cut through broken clouds.
"Now!" Rognir Fireheart roared as he leapt first.
Dozens of Kintsugi Axeband Fyreslayers plunged after him, magmadroth-hide capes snapping in the wind before grapnels bit into the Pyramid's fractured terraces.
They hit like falling anvils.
Axes shattered living bridges.
Explosive charges collapsed support galleries.
Runesmiths drove glowing spikes into walls older than kingdoms.
"If we cannot claim it," Rognir bellowed, "we'll leave naught worth claiming!"
The Pyramid answered with disciplined resistance. Ashenmourne knights emerged from hidden passages in perfect formation, shields interlocking as thorned halberds thrust with elegant precision.
They gave ground against the rushing Fyreslayers, but never broke. Each corridor became another carefully prepared killing ground.
Then the Carrion Forge arrived. Gigantic spiders crawled across ceilings carrying Helsmith riders wrapped in soot-black armour. Webs thick as chains pinned fyreslayers and sylvaneth where they stood before burning harpoons punched through exposed flesh and heartwood. When their enemies retaliated, the spiders and their riders skittered away, coming back to harass the enemies of the Morfiend Warhorde again and again, driving them back and slowing the Kintsugi’s ability to sabotage their prize.
Around them the Pyramid burned while disciplined knights slowly drove the surviving attackers away from the central sanctum.
Every corridor they lost drew them farther from Lady Serelyth.
Exactly as the Ashenmourne Choir intended.
+++
One warrior had reached her already.
Arbaal Kin-Flayer walked quietly through halls strewn with corpses, none who wore Ashenmourne colours. Every invader who had threatened the healing ritual lay dead with clean, efficient wounds.
He had learned much during the campaign. The Flaywild's predators had taught him patience. Its hunters had taught him silence. The Ashenmourne taught him floramancy—the subtle language through which branches bent aside and roots opened hidden roads.
Those lessons had carried him and the Red Brotherhood farther than any army.
Guided by a mournful dirge, heard only in the back of one’s mind.
He entered the innermost chamber just as Lady Serelyth opened her eyes.
"I wondered," she said softly, "whether you would arrive before the others."
"I wished to fight you."
"I know."
She rose slowly, the Pyramid’s healing waters flowing from her armour in streams. The Ashenmourne knights and Red Brotherhood spread out silently, giving the two warriors space.
“Our conversation was so long ago…” she murmured, spinning the living-weapon Gloamthorn to stretch weary limbs. “Before we truly understood what the Flaywilds had in store for us.”
“It did.”
“Tell me then, Arbaal ‘Kin-Flayer’... Have you discovered your place within the world's song?"
The song still haunted the Khornate Warlord, it showed on his face as he considered the question and readied his axe.
“I know only that I must keep prowling until I understand."
“Still the philosopher,” the Knight of Thorne replied, iron-like petals closing about her head and leaving an armoured helm. Her halberd’s spinning stopped, pointed directly at Arbaal. “Then show me what you have learned.”
Steel met thorn.
+++
Outside the chamber, Craebmhorg warriors encountered Ashenmourne knights.
Weapons lowered.
Without command.
Without discussion.
Together they formed a widening ring around the sanctum.
No one would interrupt.
Not this duel.
Not yet.
+++
Their battle flowed through flooded chambers and up flowering courtyards.
Serelyth fought differently. Gone were the barbed precision and venomous cruelty Arbaal remembered, replaced with fierce agility and uncompromising determination in the face of his aggression. Her style had adapted in the face of multiple assassination attempts, made more suitable to combat against smaller foes.
A part of him wished he could see her face off against her hated foe, perhaps he would once he granted her an eternity of war in the name of Khorne.
“You’ve grown,” she observed between strikes. “Good, the Flaywilds would accept nothing less.”
“As have you,” he replied.
“Not enough, not yet.” The pain in her eyes was replaced with a smile. “But enough that you will find my skull worthy, I hope.”
They fought on, the exchanges intensifying.
Then the wall exploded inward.
Bona Tetair came roaring through the dust, shattering a Khornate daemon-host with a single blow.
The mutated ogor had become almost unrecognizable. His lower body twisted into a serpentine trunk wrapped in bark while enormous branches erupted from his shoulders like spider legs, each bearing webs spun between blood-red leaves. Dozens of Morfiend warriors poured through the breach behind him.
The duel ended.
Without a word the former opponents turned together.
Arbaal ducked beneath sweeping branches while Serelyth severed them from above with powerful leaps.
The ogor answered by hurling entire pillars, forcing them apart as whirlpools of melees formed all around them.
Webbing bound Ashenmourne knights to walls. Roots erupted beneath Khorne warriors indiscriminately. Stormvermin chopped knights in half, until they split and kept on fighting. Slowly but surely, the Morfiend Warhorde pushed the Ashenmourne and Craebmhorg alliance back.
Through it all, Arbaal and Serelyth rejoined the fray. Together, they fought in an effortless rhythm despite the chaos around them. Her halberd opened wounds while his axe widened them. Finally, Bona Tetair collapsed, trunk split open, chimeric ichor froms dozens of consumed entities pouring from him.
Both champions raised their weapons for the killing strike.
An enormous bomb flew through the air, and suddenly everything was green fire.
The detonation parted the warriors explosively.
+++
Khuoung Blackfist entered through the smoke, committed to the fray at the behest of his advisors.
The absolute warlord of the Morfiend Warhorde stood surrounded by towering stormvermin bodyguards while another servant hurried forward with a freshly lit bomb.
“Kill-slay them all!” he ordered, hurling another of his devastating devices.
The stormvermin surged forward.
Then everything slowed.
Gloamthorn lay upon the floor between Arbaal and Serelyth.
Their eyes met.
Both moved.
She hesitated.
Only for an instant, but enough that Arbaal sensed something was wrong.
Arbaal reached the weapon first.
The moment his hand closed around its haft he understood everything.
Ancient tendrils coiled eagerly through his soul, whispering that every betrayal had purpose, every friendship weakness, every noble intention merely another path towards domination.
He looked toward Serelyth.
The cruel, capable killer he had admired was gone. Not because she had adapted, but because Gloamthorn’s hold on her had weakened until it finally left her.
The daemonic Briarwyrm had been speaking through the living-weapon all along, when he had possessed the weapon as it drank his life-blood a century ago.
Yet a part of him still wondered… how much of that true Knight of Thorns remained?
That realization was Arbaal’s last thought before Khuong’s second bomb went off, and hurled him from the Pyramid.
When the smoke cleared, the Morfiend Warhorde could not find the Knight of Thorns, Arbaal or the artefact Gloamthorn. Lady Serelyth managed to escape back to the Starfall Devils that had chosen not to abandon her charges completely, despite the odds, along with a few of the Ashenmourne Knights who had also escaped the shadows that had possessed them. Meanwhile, Arbaal returned to Craebmhorg… still clutching the artefact Gloamthorn, and doing everything in his power not to succumb to it.
Yet Tzunki’s Serene Pyramid fell under control of Clan Morfiend.
Outside, Morfiend banners rose above its terraces while skaven warlock engineers already measured its ancient machinery. The healing waters still flowed. The living roots still obeyed whoever mastered the temple's forgotten controls. And once understood, the Morfiend Warhorde would be able to use it to control the dense canopy across the Wyrdspine Mountains, which would offer them a meaningful boon on their final approach…
Morfiend Warhorde—Minor Victory
Craebmhorg—Defeat
Starfall Devils—Defeat
Path 4—The Lost City of Bhaal-Irama
Starfall Devils attacking the Morfiend Warhorde
Scar-Veteran Yotaqel was frustrated and very, very lost. Or, at least, he assumed he was lost, because the promised Morfiend vermin were not being crushed beneath the tread of his carnosaur Rhoux. Where in Dracothian’s rear end was the enemy?
Ranging ahead, an aggrodon lancer whistled an alert. There was battle ahead. Snarling in satisfaction, Yotaqel urged Rhoux into a run, the other lancers falling in at his flanks as they stampeded through the underbrush.
***
The Clan Gnaw-Shot deathmaster pulled at his whiskers with rising panic and wondered where it had all gone wrong. They were gutter-runners, for Vizzik’s sake. They were supposed to be doing the ambushing! It was all the fault of the lumbering Stormfiends, that was it. They must have incited the aelf freaks to attack. Nevermind that those same Stormfiends were the only thing keeping the Gnaw-Shot pack alive at the moment, their warpfire throwers roasting screaming aelfs alive and their club hands smashing to pulp any who made it through the inferno. What was meant to be a simple treasure hunt had become a fight for their hides.
There seemed to be no end to the aelfs as they slipped out from between dense foliage and tumbled ruins, yet they paused in their assault at the sound of a thunderous roar. Like the breaking of a dam, a wall of jungle gave way and toppled forward onto the scar cultists, quickly followed by a crashing wave of aggrodon steeds led by a massive carnosaur.
The deathmaster did not wait for an invitation. He rallied his runners and turned tail as battle was joined in earnest, his rats saved by the lizards…
***
The vivisection lab was an abomination. It may have once been a great centipede of some type, but if so all that remained was a husk animated by arcane machinery, its shell reinforced with iron and studded with steaming engines into a many-legged mockery of a duardin land-train. It was large and plodding, its progress slow, and would have been an easy target in the jungle… if it had been traversing the jungle.
From the prow-head of the lab, Krait Stormeye surveyed his monstrosity with satisfaction. The Doomdozer drill was doing its job admirably, punching a hole below the Carrion Gardens for the lab to follow. Dozens of warpgrinder teams worked in a frenzy to drill ancillary holes up to the surface, through which the agents of the Blackrat organization scurried back and forth with their ill-gotten corpse-fruit with which to supply the lab.
Behind the lab, scraping against the top and sides of the tunnel, came Warlock Scorchtail’s prized behemoths, the War Walkers. These constructs lurched forward on hissing, clanking legs, their heavy guns trained on the tunnel behind them, ready to obliterate anything that might try to slip into the tunnel and attack from behind.
Yes-yes, this was a brilliant plan, Krait thought. Truly ingenious, and utterly infallible!
***
With the tunneling lab slowly advancing behind them, the maggot-ridden Rift Ravager pirates scouted the twisted overgrowth of the Gardens ahead, accompanied by the sharp-eyed jezzails of Lurk’s Longshots. Their advance attracted expected attention, and they were set upon by Boss Zugrokk and cavaliers of the Fallen Comets freeguild. It should have been a devastating charge, even in this cramped, wretched environment, but the attackers found themselves impeded by devious snares of silken web. Their momentum stalling, the Rift Ravager’s Offal King invoked the unstable magics of the land, and detonated a string of corpse-fruit in the midst of the enemy’s charge. Torn apart, the Fallen Comets broke off, retreating before they could be routed. Boss Zugrokk simply got angry and charged blindly ahead, only to be cut down and slain to an orruk by the Longshots.
Their retreat covered by Caengan fyreslayer Grungolt Dharksson and his magmadroth, the survivors of the Fallen Comets regrouped with the Arcanum Bellatores freeguild, who had ventured ahead of the lab’s path to trap and mine the route. Realizing their snares were worthless against the subterranean advance, and cursing yet another failure of the Castelite doctrine, Marshal Denis Feuge quickly rallied his allies. The plan, it seemed, was the first casualty of the enemy.
***
The War Walker’s guns were deafening in the confined space, and their Kruleboyz assailants had no cover. The attack was practically over before it had begun, and Magara Redeye’s boltboyz slunk back to the surface, thwarted. Yes, all was proceeding as intended- no, as expected, Krait corrected himself. Truly, this was a masterful gambit!
Then the Doomdozer made a sickening sound it wasn’t supposed to make, and Krait watched as it fell forward and then down into a chasm. Blinking against a sudden flash of bright sunlight, Krait realized with dawning horror what had just happened: a cavern had opened up- no, had been carved- ahead of them, and the lab was grinding forward into it. In desperation, he ordered full reverse- and that was when he clocked the Cogfort.
***
Quaj’Xor eyed its masterful work. Its Striking Mandibles had already been carving their way through the earth with the intention of coming up below the lab, so meeting it head on was an easy enough task. With the drill out of the way, the lab itself was vulnerable.They had been forced to collapse a sinkhole to allow the Ventoleon comfort to advance, but even now its ponderous realmscorcher cannon swung around to release a gout of burning hell on the prow-head of the lab, the flames washing down its decking and igniting the hoarded corpse-fruit, decimating the scurrying figures aboard and blasting apart the lab itself.
Satisfied at the carnage, Quaj’Xor ordered its soldiers to attack what remained.
***
The rats streamed out of the tunnels Krait’s warpgrinders had cut, just to hit a wall: the combined formations of the Thermodon, Corvid Eye and Arcanum Bellatores freeguilds. Their defeat had become a route.
***
Vala Endrinsdottir didn’t trust the Devils any more than she’d trusted the Craebhmorg, but allies of convenience were just that. The Agent apparently did not have a name, only a title, and his demeanor was nothing if not sinister. Somewhere below the crumbling ruin they found themselves on, Travelt Kemthir, Charles Vogt and their men fought off the Scar Court cultists who had emerged from the gathering dark to stop them.
Vala nodded to herself. They were on the right path. What they would find at its end, however, she couldn’t say…
Starfall Devils— Minor Victory
Morfiend Warhorde— Defeat
