Mallon's Folly
What began as words spoken in Dariel’s garden soon became the march of boots and the row of oars. Their purpose had become clear: destroy the monstrous Rogue Idols and prevent Mogrek Longblade from opening the Noctis’ realmgate. After so many bitter days spent tirelessly defending, the Ceraphate and her allies were eager for vengeance.
Mallon’s Folly was not fortified, per se, yet rampant Waaagh! energy crackled in the air from such a gathering. All the Dominion had been abandoned as Sharkbiter’s fleet carried Waaagh! Mogrek to the threshold of Noctis and the promise of high Azyr beyond. The battlecry of the Ashfall Delta went up, “break the gates!”, and thousands of throats answered, “Waaagh!”.
What remained of the Ceraphate’s vessels crashed against Sharkbiter’s fleet, boarding actions raging even as the sinking vessels were claimed by the shadowtides beneath them. From below and behind the Waaagh! encampments erupted fresh gnawholes, wrought by Likspit and in service to the Ceraphate, their armies pouring through directly into enemy lines. From above the Armies of Azyr hammered down upon bolts of lightning, while Kharadron allies opened fire with blistering fusillades and disgorged their warriors upon freshly-swept beachheads. Elsewhere the Remnant stalked forward, their paths less obvious.
If Mogrek succeeded in opening the Noctis realmgate, it would mean calamity for the Ceraphate. Victory or defeat rested solely upon destroying the most monstrous of his Rogue Idols, direct conduits of his near-deific power.
The fate of the Prime Dominion would be decided this day.
***
Kel kal Uzrog, da Tempest
With the rest of the Waaagh! occupied in the defence of the other idols, Kel kal Uzrog, known as da Tempest, was guarded by only two generals and their personal troops. Belligerent, excitable orruks and ornery gruntas alongside moon-mad cultists in eerie masks waited impatiently in the eye of the storm that tore across Merlara, gazing up at the baleful silhouette of the rooted idol upon its metalith above. Atop the colossus, Wapkagut hammered a steady rhythm, beating away at the great stone head with stikks and stamping feet. Further up, the Mooncaller gleefully rode the roil that surrounded the idol, allowing his monstrous body to be buffeted every which way. Both of Mogrek's most trusted lieutenants stood between the Iscarneth Alliance and da Tempest. It may have been a smaller force than many of the other great idols surrounding Noctis, but it would not be an easy fight.
Through the roil, a predatory shape loomed over the waiting orruks and grots, a hulking skyship bearing down on them like a hungry allopex. It was the Dread Nautilus, the Undesired’s colossal skyship back in the air after defending Iscarion. At the prow, looking out at the arrayed orruks and their mystical storm, the heretical grey seer Likspit stood, grim faced. By Likspit's side, the Deathmaster zealot Ghostface twitched nervously, guarding the grey seer’s back. Likspit nodded to the Deathmaster, sending him scurrying off to the control room to signal the beginning of the assault. As Likspit's only obvious guard left their side, beady eyes watched intently, hungrily, from the crowd of assembled combatants. Just as Likspit had hoped they would.
With a lurch, the Dread Nautilus began its descent into the maelstrom, rocking violently as it struggled to stabilise. The troops on deck and in the hold below were tossed about, clinging to railings and each other in a desperate attempt to keep their footing. One unfortunate clanrat from Clan Sleekit was sent hurtling off the side, screaming at the lashing winds and crackling lightning tore the flesh from his bones in moments. With a hiss, the skink priest Ssi’zil reached into the aether, pulling the energies of Azyr to himself and pouring them into the vessel, creating an aetheric cushion around the hull. With a shudder, the ship stabilised and resumed its course. Ssi'zil gritted his needle teeth in concentration; he needed to be ready for the next stage of the plan.
The passengers’ relief was short-lived. Just as they were sure that the maelstrom was beginning to thin, that they were about to reach the eye of the storm and the idol within, something hit the side of the hull like a meteorite, barely slowed by Ssi’zil’s wards. The ship lurched once more, shouts and cries of alarm sounding from the landing party below decks. Then something nightmarish exploded from the deck, sending warriors sprawling as it slowed to a stop above the Dread Nautilus, a horrible grin splitting its slick face. The Mooncaller had torn two great rents into the vessel’s hull and killed a dozen Alliance fighters in the process. Likspit swung about with a snarl, unleashing a crackling bolt of warp lightning from the tip of their staff before the creature could react. It scored across the Mooncaller’s face, burning a rent into his chitinous flesh and filling the air with an acrid stench. Smile unwavering, the Mooncaller launched his own arcane assault at his foe. The pair had failed to settle this score at the Siege of Iscarion. This time one of them would not be so lucky.
As the two wizards fought, a strange glow began to seep from the Mooncaller’s pocked flesh. It was, as survivors of the night raid on Iscarion realised with horror, the sickly light of the Bad Moon. As it seeped across the deck, sprouting things emerged, gibbering and gnashing. Fungal horrors suddenly rampaged across the embattled ship, scuttling and snapping and tearing as they went. The Alliance warriors found themselves immediately on the defensive, desperately rallying together, tiny islands in a sea of madness. Baal’Oot bundled the still concentrating Ssi’zil through the hatch, closing it behind him. He would be needed once they reached the eye. Mazoka Curse-Breaka and his boys roared and stomped at the encroaching horrors, brave orruks falling one by one as writhing tendrils ripped their armour away. Mios Altenguard was the unluckiest of them all, having been attempting to sneak behind the Mooncaller for a surprise attack while he was occupied by Likspit. He had taken the full brunt of the vile luminescence, and the vampire’s skin had encrusted with mushrooms in moments, his scream only broken when the fungus had forced its way down his throat. In moments, there was nothing left to mark that Altengard had existed there at all, save a vaguely vampire shaped mound of mushroom in the growing sea of fungus threatening to engulf the Dread Nautilus.
Back at the centre of the roil, Wapkagut gazed up at the encroaching shadow of the Undesired skyship. Moonie was doing a fine enough job bringing it down, he was sure, but he didn’t like leaving all the fun to the grot. With a chuckle that soon formed a joyous roar, Wapkagut upped his tempo, battering the great stone head. As his eyes began to glow green, so too did da Tempest’s. As he bellowed in exultation, so too did a great rumbling roar emanate from the stationary idol, blasting through rock and stone, transforming the metalith itself into an enormous amplifier. The air hummed with energy and noise and music and joyful destruction, setting the waiting horde below to a fever pitch. As the wall of sound collided with the storm generated by Kel Kal Uzrog, it mingled with it, shaped it, guided it, intensified it, battering the Dread Nautilus with renewed fury. Only Ssi’Zil’s wards saved it from outright destruction, but they would not hold for long.
Back aboard the Dread Nautilus, a cabal of skaven were beginning to panic. They had planned to harness the lightning themselves, using the ship’s crew as sacrifices to the Great Horned Rat, and, more pertinently, Likspit. Grey Seer Scalpite had intended to plunge his ritual blade into Likspit’s back at the height of their chanting, sacrificing the betrayer to the God that they so opposed. But now, they could barely focus on the mere act of chanting, what with the sky burning around them, the ground bucking beneath their feet, and their clanrats (whom they had, of course, intended to sacrifice also) dying in droves as they held back the wave of fungal horrors bearing down upon the ritual circle. Sleekit Fang, his form mutated and twisted into a hulking, four armed abomination by the moulders under his command, had stayed above to aid Scalpite in his betrayal, but now found himself fighting for his life rather than killing the seer. Likspit had of course known of his erstwhile allies intentions, and had prepared appropriate countermeasures ahead of time. But none of that would matter if they perished at the hand of the sorcerous abomination the Mooncaller had become.
The Mooncaller was spouting ichor from a dozen smouldering rents in his flesh, but still he twisted and pirouetted and blinked in and out of existence around the grey seer, flinging bolts of arcane power and concentrated madness at his foe. Likspit leapt nimbly about, barely keeping their footing as they danced through the hail of arcane fire. Then, suddenly, the Mooncaller was on top of them. Likspit shrieked and scrabbled back, but to no avail. The Mooncaller was no longer the feeble grot that he had once been, and their throat was clutched in his iron grip. With a wicked cackle, the Mooncaller raised his clawed hand and plunged it into Likspit’s heaving chest, reaching for their heart. Instead, he met no resistance, his hand jarring against the deck below as the form of the grey seer evaporated into shadow and screeching rats. Rather than running away, the rats immediately swarmed the reeling Mooncaller, gnawing and tearing even as the once-grot’s stinking ichor streamed over their furry forms. Just as the Mooncaller was beginning to recover, he felt a sudden sharp pain in his neck. It was the first time he had felt anything much at all in a very long time, and as his boggling eyes fought desperately to focus, he realised what had happened. Standing above him was Likspit, the real Likspit, with his torn out throat dangling from their jaws, ichor streaming from their mouth and into their matted grey fur. They spat it out and looked down at the Mooncaller as he died, a strange look of pity on their verminous face. “I was raised in the Ghurlands,” Likspit said as the Mooncaller felt the light dimming, the voices finally quieting, “and I have given you an honest death. The death of prey before a predator. Now rest. I have work to do.” And, with that, the Mooncaller felt his fevered mind slip away into blessed silence.
A ragged cheer came up from the embattled deck as the rampaging mushrooms suddenly fell away into dust. Any who had been paying attention to the Mooncaller’s corpse would have seen it dissolve into black ichor and seep away. Even they would not have seen what happened next, for the sludge found a secluded corner away from watchful eyes and reconstituted into something new: a mask, but not the same split face as before. This was the face of the Mooncaller as he had been in his final days, two proud horns and a wicked grin framing the piercing, boggling eyes.
The cheers grew heartier as, finally, the Dread Nautilus broke free from the grip of the storm, emerging just ahead of the Kel Kal Uzrog. Now was the time for the next stage of the plan. Ssi’zil finally let go of his protective buffer, channelling his energies into a series of gravitational pockets around the hull. Hatches opened above them, and the warriors of the Alliance came streaming out, descending towards the horde below, ready to fight. Among them were orruks from da Finkas, vampires of the Black Rose Coven, Kido Takara’s Exiled Blades, and a horde of stinking, writhing verminous abominations prepared by Sleekit’s moulders. As the rest streamed out, readying their weapons as they launched into the waiting hordes, one remained, waiting for the exact moment to make her own descent. Veithan would land directly on the rogue idol while its defenders were occupied by the main body of the force. She, nor her allies, had anticipated the presence of the warchanter atop the idol’s stone skull however.
Just as the Dread Nautilus was about to pass over the head of Kel Kal Uzrog, Wapkagut hurled his gorkstikk, sending it flying towards the approaching vessel. A crackle of concentrated Waaagh! energy built up by Wapkagut’s manic dance coruscated along the length of the thing as it tore through the sky, seeming to grow as it went, the carved face upon the bone twisted in a bestial roar. It hit the already damaged ship with a colossal crunch, tearing an enormous rent through the hull until it lodged in the huge engines, shattering into razor sharp bone shards as it went. Wolf rats screamed in their wheels as they were riddled with bone, while machinery screeched as it buckled under the impact. The few engineers and crewmen in the engine bay who had survived the initial impact died screaming as the engines exploded into flame and shrapnel, the whole ship bucking as it fought in vain to remain airborne. Baal’Oot took the lead on a desperate evacuation, sending the few who remained on the deck below to rendezvous with Ssi’Zil, joining the descent towards the ground assault. The skaven were initially reluctant to go, seeing their chance to assassinate Likspit slipping away, but fear won out, and they quickly abandoned their posts to escape the sinking ship. Likspit had rejoined Ghostface, the assassin in awe at the seer’s execution of the Mooncaller, and they were headed towards the ground. There would be another chance, just not under the anticipated conditions.
Veithan, Baal’Oot and Ssi’Zil were the last to leave, Veithan deposited on the Metalith itself, landing close to the idol but not quite on it. It would have to do. Only one soul remained aboard the falling Dread Nautilus, one of the only surviving members of her crew. An aelven former mercenary desperately steering a ship partially built from the remains of the shop where she had grown up away from her comrades. Nobody would remember her, she thought as she died, for everyone who might have was already dead. But somewhere, across the battlefield, a small grey seer in unassuming robes did remember, and they gave silent thanks to Drokna, heir to the Miscellaneum, as the shockwave from the crashing ship washed over them.
Wapkagut turned his attention away from the storm now as Veithan began her ascent up the craggy bulk of Kel Kal Uzrog towards him. With a grin, he hopped lightly down to meet her, morkstikk in one hand and wicked knife in the other. Veithan glanced about herself, trying to find a spot level enough to make her stand, but there was nowhere. She felt her stomach sink as she faced the realisation that all this had been for nought. She would not reach the idol’s summit after all. That was until a tremendous roar rumbled through the air, just as the sharp crack of lightning split the sky. It was not the viridian lightning of the Waaagh!-storm, but the clean blue-white of Azyr. A lightning-wreathed draconith hurtled out of the roil straight at the reeling warchanter, its rider pointing his hammer at the foe in challenge. Lord Vytravius and his mount Zerithius were shooting through the sky with the warchanter in their sights. They collided with an all-encompassing boom, and then were gone, leaving Veithan stunned but alone upon the stony hulk. She would not count her blessings; she had work to do.
Upon the surface of Merlara, blood spilled. The forces of the Undesired and Dawnguard had been severely battered during the incursion, and found themselves on the back foot as they faced the horde of defenders. Even as scaly seraphon warbeasts rampaged through ranks of masked cultists and gruntas from both sides stampeded across the mud-slicked plains, the forces of the Waaagh! stood firm. Fell bats under the command of Vaska of the Black Rose harassed the fighters, carrying grots into the air before sending them screaming to their dooms, while Kido Takara whirled her flaming naginata about her, cutting down charging orruks with each swing. Still the orruks came, driving the Alliance fighters back towards the storm and certain doom. Hitomi, Ghyranite healer and wife of Veithan, looked up from her work of tending to the wounded at the idol looming above. She just hoped the Veithan would come back safely.
Veithan herself was thinking little of her own safety, just concentrating on getting her job done. As she reached the pinnacle of the idol, she felt the familiar buzz of the Waaagh! prickling at her flesh. She reached into it, finding the centre of the Tempest at the heart of Kel Kal Uzrog and claiming it for herself. The idol roared with the sound of a thousand cataclysms, then subsided as it fell under Veithan’s sway. All around, the violent storm began to subside, Hysh-light breaking through the clouds and illuminating the battlefield in red and gold. She could hold the Tempest’s heart still for a time, but not forever. It was up to the others now.
Wapkagut got painfully to his feet. He’d been carried from the metalith by the draconith and dropped unceremoniously in the mud below as it had swung about to join the fight against his allies. It didn’t matter. One human would never bring down da Tempest on her own. He grinned, preparing to join the scrap, until he noticed something wrong. His face fell as he looked up to see the storm calming above him. Then, as if from nothing, a mighty host resolved itself beyond the clearing veil. At its head a colossus of lacquered stone in the shape of a great beetle marched, almost a match for the bulk of Kel kal Uzrog itself. It bore on its back an enormous standard, a violet tapestry of untold artistry. Even from here, Wapkagut could sense how the rhythm of the Realms bent around the banner, that it was no mere battle standard, but an object of great power. Slowly, his grin returned, and he whistled for his great, drum-lashed maw-grunta to come to his side. The thing came hurtling out of the melee beneath the metalith, and he leaped up its hairy flank without waiting for it to slow, already finding the right beat on his drums. Finally, a proper challenge. He’d stomp that banner into the mud himself, magic or no.
The march of the Remnant was swift. They knew that Veithan could only keep the storm at bay for a limited time, and they needed to bring their titan in close if they were to destroy the idol for good. They almost faltered when a single maw-grunta came hurtling out of the dissipating storm towards them. It crashed into the front rank with an ear-bleeding squeal, crushing the undead hordes raised by Victor Solveig and his necromancers under its bulk even as they stabbed into its porcine flanks with ancient weaponry. Kurnoth hunters under Streakorn’s command peppered the beast with arrows. Still it did not fall, momentum carrying the dying beast straight for the titan. Dynawr Cwsg, the head of the coven who had woven the mystical Banner of Dreams stood alongside High Queen Heterfer upon the titan that she controlled, ready to weather the mad orruk’s assault. There was one more with them there, hardly worth notice. A single freeguild general carrying an unassuming bundle in her arms.
While the Banner of Dreams had been woven from the collective reveries of the Prime Dominion, there was another artefact of similar potency on the other side of the battlefield, only now coming into play. Likspit’s gnarled, warpstone-tipped staff had crumbled away into dust as it blocked Grey Seer Scalpite’s blade, sending it spinning through the air to land wedged into the skull of a fallen orruk. Scalpite leapt back, releasing fear-musk as he went, and unleashed his own magical salvo, all of which ricocheted wildly as the newly revealed staff blocked the assault. Likspit sighed sadly as they pointed the golden sceptre at Scalpite’s throat. It was a thing of artistry, its design incorporating the symbols of each of the members of the Iscarneth Alliance alongside the old symbols of the satrapies of the Prime Dominion. “I was very much hoping I would not have to use this just yet,” they said, wearily, “but you have forced my paw-hand.” They sighed again. “I really did want to believe that you shared my vision, Scalpite, but it seems that it is not so. This staff that I hold is my vision made manifest: that unity is the path to true strength.”
Indeed, while the rest of the Iscarneth leaders had fought at the siege of Iscarion, Renaya had embarked on her own task. She had travelled to each of the cities and towns of the Prime Dominion that had been saved by the actions of the alliance and gathered blessings of gratitude into this staff. It was proof of Likspit’s assertion that strength lay in unity and shared purpose, and now it would see the end of one who would threaten the future that they wished to build. Then came the second attacker. Likspit had anticipated such a turn, and had prepared their shadow-and-rat decoy to take their place just as the blow hit. Only they had had to use it during the unforeseen duel with the Mooncaller. With a screech, they whirled around to deflect Sleekit Fang’s weapons, leaving their back open for just long enough for Scalpite to recover and send an arcane bolt streaking through the air towards their heart. It never made it. Ghostface’s body collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, a smouldering hole in his chest where he had taken the bolt in Likspit’s place. Everything went still for a moment, the din of battle seeming to fade to a low hum as the three remaining skaven stood still. Then, with another screech, Likspit sent an arcane shockwave rippling from themself, knocking both Scalpite and Sleekit to the ground. Likspit stood there glaring down at them before turning away. “Too much skaven blood has been spilled this day already.” And, with that, they were gone, marching away into the fray and leaving their two would-be assassins lying stunned in the churned mud.
The riders of the Remnant titan had been thrown clear as Wapkagut’s grunta collided with it head on, finally dying as its skull slammed into the stone beetle. Heterfer and Dynawr landed amongst their troops, their control over the titan loosening as they fell, the thing coming to a halt as Wapkagut landed nimbly on its back. Now then, how do you kill a rock? He was still pondering this when he noticed that he wasn’t entirely alone on the thing’s colossal flank. A human, one arm hanging limp from the impact of protecting the bundle that now lay behind her, held her blade defiantly towards Wapkagut. He grinned and took a step forward. There would be no fun in crushing the woman, but whatever was in the bundle was obviously important, and he wanted it for himself. Just as he was bringing his blade down on the human the bundle lurched into the air, the fabric falling away to reveal the Tetrarchy themselves, impassive skulls glaring down on him. His smile faltered when he realised he could not bring his arm down. He suddenly felt himself being tugged at by a hundred spectral arms as the skulls arranged themselves around the injured human. “Now, sweet gran-daughter,” one said, “end it.” Without a word, Shella Haunchknyfe, last of the Mithridates line plunged her blade between the rough slabs of Wapkagut’s blue and yellow plate. He coughed out a dribble of blood and fell, the Tetrarchy letting go as they settled back down on the bundle. He fell from the titan and lay on the earth, eyes closed and blade protruding from his flesh.
The Mooncaller’s grots and Wapkagut’s orruks were already faltering at the loss of their leaders when the Remnant forces crashed into their back. It was a slaughter, the Waaagh! crumbling under the two prongs of the assault. It was looking to be a decisive victory until, finally exhausted by the effort of holding da Tempest in check, Veithan was forced to loosen her grip. She collapsed, lying back on the great stone slab of the idol’s head as it let out an all encompassing roar. The maelstrom kicked back into life with a vengeance, and worse, it seemed to be closing in. With no allies left to shield, there was no longer any reason for Kel kal Uzrog to maintain the calm at the centre of the storm, and it was receding fast. Already, stray clanrats, Undesired archers and fleeing grots were being swallowed up at the edges of the conflict. They needed to act, and quickly. Sensing impending defeat, Haluspiré Joyuse took decisive action, the nighthaunt possessing the great titan. With a groaning creak, the thing’s enormous stone wings unfurled and, with some difficulty, it lifted off the ground. It made it as far as the base of the metalith, clinging on to the stone and clambering up. The world was closing in around Joyuse as the storm swallowed more and more of the surviving combatants. With some difficulty, she managed to reach the idol itself, ramming the beetle’s huge stone skull into it over and over, sending shards of shale flying in all directions. The exhausted Veithan was also sent sprawling, tumbling over the edge of the metalith and saved only by the quick use of Ghyranite magic by her wife, landing in the soft embrace of a newly grown flowerbed.
Seeing the sudden explosion of new life gave Dynawr an idea. Reaching into the lifesong of the tree bearing the Banner of Dreams on the titan’s back, he sent a sudden explosion of roots from the base of the tree and into the cracks formed by Joyuse’s assault. Kel kal Uzrog creaked, grumbled and then exploded in a shower of stone as new trees sprouted up through its stone body. As suddenly as it had surged, the storm once again dissipated, leaving the light of Hysh to shine over the victorious Alliance. With a groan of complaint, the metalith began to descend, sending surviving warriors scattering away from the impact. It slowly settled, creating a furrow in the earth for itself, as if it had never flown at all. At the peak of the new hill was a strange sight indeed. A pile of old rock and a shattered obsidian beetle formed the base of a colossal tree from which hung the most beautiful tapestry the Prime Dominion had seen in an age. It held within it all of the dreams for the future of the Dominion and its people, no matter what came to pass in these last dark hours of war
Somewhere, far away from this vision of renewed peace, a half-dead orruk staggered into the crashed remains of an enormous skyship. He felt it calling to him, keeping him alive, wanting to be found. And then he did. Wapkagut tore the fimm-skull headdress from his head and crushed it to dust in his hand before gently picking up the precious mask. He placed it on his face, the lines of it conforming perfectly to the contours of his weathered face, and immediately felt the soothing voice invade his skull. It itched. It felt right. It felt good.
Iscarneth Ceraphate Victory
***
Rakrukka uv da Shadowsea
Rakrukka uv da Shadowsea was an ominous sight; wreathed in shadow and rising from the Shimmersea, one might mistake it for some cursed isle, but for the unsettlingly blood-like crystalline seams throughout its hulking body like exposed veins. What little light that managed to pierce the barrier of shadow that surrounded the idol reflected as a crimson glow, transforming the ocean spray into a roil of blood. Its great bulk had been decorated by some of its defenders, a charnel display of gore provided by Mad Queen Silanore whose nightmarish throne had been erected upon the idol itself. About the idol, veiled by the shadowy emanations of the falsestone that comprised much of its body, an armada waited in predatory silence. This was one of the most heavily defended of Mogrek’s great idols, the Waaagh!’s victories upon the Shimmersea granting them the naval superiority to deter any but the most foolhardy, or perhaps brave, warriors of the Iscarneth Alliance.
That brave, or perhaps foolhardy, assailant took the form of the vampiric King Ashavolk of the White Host. The first sign of his approach was a sudden chill on the air, a smattering of frost creeping up the hulls of the waiting ships. A few lookouts began to excitedly speculate that Mogrek himself must be passing near with the everwinter at his back. This excitement was short lived when the bright furnaces of the small chug-vessels that the fleet had been using to navigate the supernatural shadow surrounding Rakrukka began to blink out one by one, lowering visibility even more. Azoth, enraged at the sudden loss of his engines, ordered his gunners to aim out to sea, his lookouts desperately searching the dark for the outlines of enemy vessels. Still, the air grew colder, the frost creeping closer.
It was with some surprise, then, that when the enemy finally resolved itself, it came not in the form of a grand armada but instead that of a cavalry charge. The White Host’s death knights charged across the surface of the Shimmersea towards the defenders, the hooves of their glacial mounts freezing a solid path across the ocean. Attempting to bring his vessel about, the killaboss known as the Bastard Krawk was alarmed to find his rickety vessel frozen in place as the ice rapidly expanded to engulf the wooden hull. His was the first ship boarded by the deathly riders, his orruks caught reeling as ice-wreathed vampires stormed their vessel. The Winter King himself drew first blood, riding at the head of the charge while his zombie dragon Elpis soared overhead, raining icy death upon the invaders. He thrust his legendary blade, Fatebreaker, into the Krawk’s sternum as the killaboss tried to draw his blade, the orruk falling under his mount’s icy hooves.
Not all of the charging death knights were so lucky, however. Some were crushed by rocks hurled by the mercenary gargants of the Hyakki Yagyō, their bodies lost beneath the waves as enormous boulders smashed apart the ice upon which they rode. Others were dragged under by fellwater troggoths from the Loonchompa Troggherd, their stinking bulks breaching the ice to drag screaming vampires to their deaths. Still, Ashavolk pressed on, a pathway of ice carrying him from ship to ship, bringing death with him as he came. It was death,ironically, that finally stalled his progress. He found himself aboard one of the skeleton-crewed vessels of Markela’s Vyrkos exiles, bogged down in skeletal crewmen unaffected by the supernatural cold that he brought. Still he fought on, but the worst was yet to come.
The sea behind his assault was quickly filling with ships, Kaptain Mogrum’s Ironfang fleet cutting through the ice with the aid of the Steamwrought Chuglords’ flames to flank the slowing charge, more death knights falling to the sudden assault. Then came the fog. Something shifted in the air, a darkness upon the darkness, lit only by the intensifying glow of the distant idol’s crimson veins, and with it came madness. From Silanore’s ghastly throne atop the idol’s bulk, a scarlet mist seeped and writhed, carrying her own fevered delusion with it. As it settled upon the remaining death knights, their grip on reality was severed. Allies became nightmarish monsters in need of felling, while enemies turned into stalwart confederates even as they plunged their wicked blades into the maddening knights. Fighting to maintain his own grip on reality, his men dying all about him, King Ashavolk knew that the fight was lost. Calling down the circling Elpis, he mounted the zombie dragon, its great wings beating against the dark as it ascended out of the gloom.
This assault had been a desperate manoeuvre, and the King had always known that he might fail, but Ashavolk still rankled at the loss of so many good men, and for nothing. The ominous bulk of Rakrukka uv da Shadowsea taunted him from the dark that surrounded it, while artillery peppered the air around him, tearing new holes in Elpis’s ragged wings. Still, he made it away, beaten but alive. His men had not been so lucky.
Waaagh! Mogrek Victory
***
Old Growth Goomb
A forest now stood where the idol known as Old Growth Goomb had planted itself. Dark and twisted, the mist choked the air and the trees leered down on any that intruded on their soil. Drums echoed dimly from deep within the woods, the sound oddly hollow in the fog. Predatory beasts stalked among the shadows, conjured by the wellspring of Ghyran magics and lured to violence by the beastmasters of da Shadow Trappas. A guttural chanting intermingled with the distant drums. Upon the idol’s back, Dolgul the Wise and Tragrok Skullsmakka called upon the Waaagh!, channelling its might into the defenders arrayed throughout the darkened woods. A thick mist of red and green began to form, winding through the trees, shrouding the eyes and making them play tricks on the mind. The forest groaned and creaked, holding its breath for the violence to come.
Puscifex Blightwing stalked through the gloaming woods, at home in their resentful shadows. The low droning of wings that preceded them mingled with another sound, a concordant dirge just at the edge of hearing. It was the Sporesong, carried aloft in a glittering whorl of mycotic fireflies. The fallen revenant spread their consciousness out among the spores, worming through bark and branch, like they had so many times before. All they needed was one gap, one wound, an entry point into the lifeblood of the forest, and it would know the Grandfather’s blessing. Yet, at every turn, they were denied. The woods groaned near to bursting with life energies, channelled from Ghyran and pulsing to the beat of the Waaagh! drums. Every gap they found overflowed with it, pushing the corrupting spores from its heartwood. The arch-revenant’s jaw clacked in anger. They had come as a creator, to spread the joy of the Grandfather’s gifts, but if the forest rejected them then they would face the destroyer instead. In a flash of angry red chitin, Puscifex’s scorpion-like tail lashed into the nearest tree, driving their corruption deep into the wood. They could feel the pulsing life magic fighting back, but it could not hope to match the pace of the rot within. From here, Puscifex’s blight would spread through the entire forest, and into the Idol itself, killing it from within. Then, the howls started. Puscifex looked into the trees, into yellow eyes and long lupine forms that pulled themselves from the darkness. The fallen arch-revenant turned slowly, trying to keep as many of the creatures in their vision as they could. A growl sounded behind their head, and they spun to catch one of the larger creatures mid-pounce, bearing it down to the ground. Fingers like daggers drove into the beast’s side, skittering across or between ribs and wrenching free in a spray of black, undead blood. As Puscifex tore into the creature, however, they felt a shadow pass across the edge of their vision, and heard a wet ‘thwick’. Dodging free of the undead wolf, the arch-revenant turned to see Kuzma Wulfwynn standing at ease a few yards away. With a casual flick, the vampire scattered cloying, sappy blood from her blade, and Puscifex felt a searing pain. Looking back, they could see the end of their stinger still embedded in the tree, pumping its toxins sporadically, and their tail hanging limply below it ending in a clean, bleeding stump. They stumbled forward, suddenly off balance without the heavy appendage, Puscifex extended out their wings and attempted to take to the sky but Kuzma became a shadowy blur once more. Another quick cut of the blade, and the revenant's gossamer wings collapsed in shredded ruins. From their knees, they lashed out with their blood-blackened claws at the vampire, who caught the taloned hand by the wrist. A swift mailed boot crumpled the revenant’s knee, sending them crashing to the forest floor. From their knees, Puscifex looked up into the vampire’s dead eyes. Smiling cruelly, Kuzma twisted the trapped wrist, arching their shoulders and neck back. Then, with a single clean cut, she lopped the head from the revenant.
The vampire barely had a moment to knock the stricken stinger from the tree when a terrific bellow resounded through the forest. It was a primal, animalistic roar, echoing from a near-forgotten age, and the trees trembled. Even the wolves, undead as they were, drooped their ears and slunk back into the shadows. The Khimer Brayherd had arrived. Tearing through the trees, they came in a rush of stamping hooves and braying howls, heedless of the fog or the sound of drums. At their head ran Orgus the Ravager. The ancient ghorgon’s chest rose and fell like a great forge’s bellows. Might as he was, each breath now burned like fire, each roar tearing at what was left of his throat. He was dying, he knew. His whole people were dying. The great brayherds he remembered were gone now. Soon, even their memory would be forgotten, like a dream in the morning light. Even Sarn had cast them free of their bond. Tied to nothing, bound to no future, all they had left was the freedom to die as they wished. To carve one last black legend to be remembered by. Orgus lowered a shoulder, shattering through a mighty pine as the herd charged into the clearing before the idol itself. Immediately he felt a series of stinging jabs across his chest and face, and looked up to see the mercenary company of Mayric Galazgal clinging to the idol’s upper branches, their kharadron firearms raining shot upon the charging beasts. On the ground, the only thing that stood between them and their goal was a line of glimmering steel and silk. The Gleaming Host of Hypatos Rhamiel wavered in the face of the lolling-eyed madness of the brayherd, but a sharp word from their commander stiffened their spines, forming up into disciplined ranks just as the beastmen landed among them. Orgus waded into their midst, long blade-clawed arms ranks with mutation cleaving through their lightly armoured foes with ease. More shots peppered his face, and gleaming greatblades of enchanted steel bit into his matted sides. He felt the wounds, but discarded the feeling just as quickly. Pain was for those who hoped to live. Instead, he set his monstrous eyes on the towering figure manifesting among the defenders. Inhumanly elegant, adorned in flowing silks and a broad panoply of peacock feathers and flayed skins, the greater daemon raised its long glaive in a mocking salute. It did not have time to lower it before Orgus barged into it. Long piercing pincers stabbed deep into the ghorgon’s sides, but his sheer mass bowled the daemon over. Orgus bit deeply into the throat of the creature, tearing with teeth and jaws meant to grind. Covered face and chest in daemonic ichor, he placed one great hand on each of the keeper’s horns, and with a sick wrenching motion tore the head from its body. It had been a mere moment since the daemon appeared. Holding the head aloft and bleeding from all sides, Orgus roared to the sky.
Panic swept among the Gleaming Host. Battered and broken, some cast their weapons down or turned to flee. Yet, despite it all, their captain knew they had done their job. They had held long enough.
Amidst the roars of battle, a new sound fought rising to the surface. Hoofbeats rumbled, yet it was not the brayherd, their momentum stopped by the Gleaming Host. The drums which had echoed through the woods grew louder, closer. Then, they appeared. Streaming out of the forest, an avalanche of bristling hair and snorting tusks, came the charging of the boars. At their head ran da Ruff Ridaz, their mounts bigger and stronger than the rest. A green energy hung in the air about them, swelling them near to bursting their armour with power and rage. Upon the top of the lead boar, Dur’log Mawmangla danced and drummed a wild beat. Long gore-hackas shone with a blazing red-green light, and with a thunderous crash the charge broke into the flank of the brayherd. Fur and blood and bone flew in a splintering crash. Maw-gruntas ploughed great gashes through the bestigor lines, and their smaller gore-grunta cousins rushed to fill in the void. Some few orruks were pulled screaming from the saddle, to be silenced by bone knives or stamping hooves, yet for each that fell a dozen more broke through the lines. Orgus roared, his previous kill forgotten, and skewered a maw-grunta with his long taloned forearm, yet the weight of the dead pig wrenched the arm free from its socket and pinned the great beast down. Gore-hackas rose and fell, impaling him through in a dozen places or more. Orgus looked to the sky, and let out one last long braying roar to all the realms. It was the final, defiant call of a dying people, and once the last of the air was spent from his lungs, his head fell to his chest, still and silent at last.
While the bulk of the charge thundered into the Brayherd, Gazlock Blackstone swept his gnashtoof deeper into the woods, racing down a sunken ravine deep with fog. Bursting from the underbrush, they fell on the backs of the unsuspecting Knights Encarmine. Lashing left and right with his poisoned blade, Gazlock laughed as the stricken stormcast burst from their armour and fled back to Azyr. They’d thought they could turn the tables back on the Waaagh!, but Gazlock was far too cunning for that. He reigned in his mount, watching his gutrippaz play with the last few stormcast, prodding at them with their wicked spears like they were baiting boars. Of course those flash gitz from Azyr couldn’t out-cunning him. He’d never let them get the drop on-
Gazlock was blown out of his saddle as a streaking mass of golden armour and white feathers slammed into him, knocking him clear to the ground. He had barely a chance to look up before he was on the defensive, warding off stabbing spear thrusts. The Knight-Azyros towered over him, strikes falling like lightning bolts. Gazlock deflected one, turned aside another that was aiming down at his neck, and felt the spear bite deep into his shoulder instead. Quick as a flash, it rose up and down again, this time not aiming at Gazlock at his sword instead, cracking the blade and sending it spinning off into the gloom. He tried to raise his empty hand, but a heavy plated boot stamped down on his injured shoulder, pinning it and leaving him defenceless. The spear rose again, slower this time and more deliberate. The hooded head above stared down, only its two blazing eyes visible. Gazlock closed his eyes - then opened them again as the pressure on his shoulder was suddenly lifted. The Knight-Azyros was staggering back, the dirty figure of the Little Wren perched clinging to its back. Her injuries from the stormcast at Amisra still fresh, she clutched a shattered piece of bone in her hands and rammed it down again and again into the shrouded hood of the knight. Gazlock could see nothing within, but he heard a grinding, crunching sound, and as the bone shard was pulled back for another strike it came free in a gush of blue lightning. The Knight-Azyros’ form shuddered, then exploded, sending the Little Wren burned and flying across the clearing. Pulling herself to unsteady feet, she looked across the small ravine. Gazlock was unsure what she saw in her delusions, but as the light of the last stormcast vanished into the heavens, the Knights Encarmine were no more.
In the clearing around Old Growth Goomb, the last of the Dark Choosing had formed up around the Maggestus Rotspleen. Arrows quivered from his flesh, and bullet holes weeped putrescent pus and blood, yet the champion of the plague god held his ground. Beyond the wall of spears and shields, the orruks atop their gore-gruntas circled the survivors, testing them occasionally with jabs from their spears, yet for the moment they hesitated to charge. The nurglites were all that were left. The last of the brayherd had fallen or fled when their great champion had fallen. The flashes of lightning from off in the woods meant no stormcast reinforcements would be arriving. With a shuddering gasp, drawing air into phlegmatic lungs, Maggestus let out a dolorous cry of “For the Garden!” and charged towards the Idol. Bashing through the first rank of surprised orruks, the plague followers barrelled onwards. It was a charge built not of speed, but of momentum. It never had the chance to reach the idol. Bursting from the forest, the spear of the Knight-Azyros held high, Gazlock atop his gnashtoof bore down on the nurgle champion and struck. The spear pierced through corroded armour and plagued flesh alike, pinning Maggestus down like a butterfly. He let out one last gasping breath, then slumped against the spear. The Hands of the Rotten Orchard wailed, forming up around their fallen champion. With an almost Khornate frenzy, the chosen of the plague god cut a bloody path outwards, bearing their champion away from the idol and the battlefield, and back to the Garden for his final rest.
With the last major foe dispatched, the Waaagh! turned their attention to hunting down stragglers through the gloomy woods. Yet, where they did not look was in the tree branches themselves. It would make little difference now, Skritch Bloodfur knew. The attack on this idol had failed. Yet, there was still a blood debt to be paid. Leaping from limb to limb and onto the back of the idol itself, Skritch streaked across sky. His form was a shimmering haze, a favour from the Laughing Rats’ new gray seer. That would cost him later, he knew, but at the moment it was worth whatever cost. There, on the back of the idol, was the orruk Morgorab, one of Sharkbiter’s new ship-shamans. Leaping high into the air, Skritch brought both his weeping blades down into the orruk’s chest, punching deep into heart and lungs. Flipping back off the already dead shaman, he landed in a fighting crouch, just in time to dodge a blast of Waaagh! energy from Dolgul the Wise. Orruk and kharadron were turning towards him, spells and weapons ready. Skritch was heavily outnumbered here, he knew, but that did not matter. He had no intention of fighting them all. He had gotten what he came for. Jumping back off the idol and into the trees, he let himself slip into the shadows and skitterleapt away. Let them worry and fear. He would hunt down all of Sharkbiter’s crew for what they did, before taking the orruk’s head himself.
As the gore-soaked woods warmed in the vaulting light of day, a heavy mist rose of the once-again still trees. The attack had failed. The idol stood tall, its energy pouring into the waiting tower.
Waaagh! Mogrek Victory
***
‘Ardest Iron Rok
The heartland of Merlara had once been a rolling meadow of sungrasses and wildflowers, alive with the buzz of insects and songs of birds. No more. Since the idol known as ‘Ardest Iron Rok had anchored itself at the base of Mallon’s Folly, the once-green hillside had been transformed into a roiling morass of mud and rusted iron. The Chamonite plates that had been hammered into the idol’s sides seeped an oily, rust-red ooze that had seemed to stain everything. Twining razor grasses wove like barbed wire across the battlefield. The hills and gullies had become like trenches carved in the clinging mud, replete with their own pitfalls of iron spiked pits and sinking mud deep enough to swallow man or aelf whole.
Across this deathfield marched the Guardian Legion. With the implacable will of the undead, Brynja and her warriors cleared foot by sodden foot, pushing through kruelboy ambushes and razor wire traps. Likspit’s gnawholes had deposited the attackers before each of the anchored idols, yet the largest and most direct path from Iscarion had led to this blasted place. Clearing the way across the badlands had fallen on Brynja’s legion, and it was not a task the Eternal Guardian would back down from. At first, gunfire from the entrenched idol had raked across the advancing undead, smashing skeletons to powder. The armouries of the fallen garrisons across the dominion had been ransacked for their coveted rifles, and the Blacktoof Raiders had taken great delight in turning them on the mud-slogged warriors. Asarora had been able to lend aid to the Legion, at least for the moment, calling a storm down across the idol’s position. Mist and rain filled the air, obscuring the Alliance’s advance across the field. It had not stopped the orruks from firing blindly into the gloom, but it made the trench-like array of gullies between the rolling hills at least reliably safe enough to cross. The downside, of course, had been the foot of water and mud that they were forced to traverse through. And so, their pace slowed to a deathly crawl, they advanced.
While Brynja would be the vanguard, behind them marched the hammer of the Dawnguard. Renaya, surrounded by the X Fretensis, fought as an escort to Prince Rhyunar and the ghouls of House Highsong. Gibbering lunatics though they were, the flesh-eaters bore the cache of explosives like the holiest of relics, shielding it from enemy fire with their own bodies. The group struggled across the path cleared by the Guardian Legion, stepping over dead orruks and smashed skeletons already being subsumed in the mire. Clawed, dead hands seemed to grip at their legs from foot-deep water. Some of those that stumbled into the mud never emerged again.
Marcus ducked as he heard a bullet whiz past his ear. Ahead of him, he saw King Leopold stagger as another punched into the armour at his shoulder, yet it seemed the Ventoleon steel held. Pushing further up the trench in a half-crouching run, he slid next to Renaya.
“We can’t go much farther! Look!” Ahead of them, they could see the line of the Guardian Legion’s advance, stalled out beneath the lip of a great, rising hill. At its crown, the forces of the Waaagh! were dug in, raining fire down on the pinned undead. A half-dozen idols - regular idols, Renaya caught herself thinking now, staring up at the towering Iron Rok beyond them - lobbed boulders down on them as well, most getting stuck in the mud but a few rolling through to obliterate skeletons by the handful.
“We’ve got up to the van, but pushing up that hill would be suicide! It’s now or never!”
Renaya nodded. “Now, then. United, Unbreakable.”
As she said the words, the air above them split open and a burning gateway appeared. Hoofbeats roared like an open flame. The cavalry had arrived. Princess Aries rode at their head, her horses hooves leaving a fiery trail through the sky, and the knights that followed her streaked like valkyries across the battlefield. She was not alone. Lethe Ashendoom, her full fiery form revealed and trailing cinders behind, loosed molten arrow after arrow as she rode forth. Koyou rode at her side, shielding her with magic called from across the realms and unleashing devastating barrages of her own power. The hornblowers of the Caengan Lodge blasted battle dirges as they leapt from the fiery bridge onto the orruks bunkered below. Qarang Sarn rode level with the princess, at the head of his own konroi of Varanguard and aiming straight for one of the smaller idols. Raising his warhammer high, its dark runes burning red, he brought it down on the stone creature’s forehead. A shattering crack resounded across the field, and the idol fell into a pile of broken stone. His knights wheeled their charge towards the next idol, but were beaten there by Khvath Slaveborn, bedecked in unfamiliar armour and sitting astride a monstrous daemonic manticore. As they bowled over the idol, Lethe’s arrows slammed past them and into a third, carving great rents through the stone. Aries hollered with joy. This was the Charge of the Golden Warriors to match any in her myths.
As the great charge broke across the orruk lines, Vat and Uny stared in dismay from the small hollow they had found. The two grots clutched nervously at the broken pieces of the gore-grunta mask that the Mooncaller had given to them, wishing again that their boss Karitha had still been there with them. They had wondered a lot about what they were supposed to do since she had died. They wondered too about what had happened to her. She wasn’t technically a greenskin, so would Gorkamorka know what to do with her soul? Maybe they just needed to make him take notice, do something big enough that he’d look down on a pair of lowly grots long enough for them to tell him. Nervous but determined, they raised the glowing mask shards to their faces.
“Now!” Renaya screamed, leaping up over the lip of the trench and onto the muddy slope. The charge had broken through the defenders, clearing a line for her and her escort. The Highsong ghouls still ran at her side, the explosives carried aloft reverentially. A few gunshots still sounded from the outer edges of the orruk lines, where the charge had not yet rolled them up. She saw the flash of a barrel from the corner of her eye before even hearing the sound, and brought her blade up in a flashing arc. The bullet shattered across it, breaking the sword and sending a spray of fragments cutting into one side of her face, but it barely broke her stride. All of this would be for nothing if they could not get the explosives to the idol’s feet.
She vaulted up over the final hillside, landing at last before the idol itself. There was another crack of gunfire and she flinched, expecting to feel the sudden burst of a bullet, but none came. Instead, she turned to see the ghoul that had been carrying the explosives slump back against the hillside. The heavy chest fell from senseless hands, and began sliding down in the mud. She tensed, ready to leap after it, but saw Prince Rhyunar already mid-spring and knew he would get there first. The X Fretensis were somewhere behind her, still trying to make it up the hillside. Then, she felt something hit her, hard.
Sprawled across the mud, she looked up at two figures approaching her. They looked like grot, yet their forms seemed to swell and shift in unreal proportions. Green magic radiated off the broken masks they both seemed to wear. Her broken sword long gone, she reached for a dagger, but the two figures moved impossibly quickly for grots. Kicks rained down on her, and she raised her hands to shield her head. One nasty kick to the stomach sent her up to her knees, and reflex acting through the pain drove her to roll free of the attackers.
“Unbreakable!” With a mighty roar, Fhurgyn Dharksson was suddenly among the grots, his bokaz whistling through the air. Whatever strange magics were suffusing the pair were strong, and with their own daggers flashing they held off the Runeson’s attacks, parrying the heavier weapon the darting in to stab at his legs or sides. Renaya tensed to jump to the duardin’s aid, then looked back towards Prince Rhyunar’s direction. The ghoul was nowhere to be seen, but the chest of explosives lay safely where his companion had fallen. A quick glance at Fhurgyn showed the fireslayer on the defensive, but holding off the two grots for the moment. Acting quickly, she leapt to the chest and gathered the explosives, dragging them to the idol’s feet. She looked about for the long fuse, but couldn’t find it. It must have fallen free when the chest fell, she thought.
“Any time now … would be appreciated,” muttered the duardin between parries. A score of small wounds marked his face and forearms.
Renaya looked about the clearing, and her eyes lighted on a pistol stuffed into the belt of a fallen Blacktoof. It was still primed.
Scooping it up, she turned and took aim at the explosives.
“Fhurgyn, get clear!”
“Shoot!”
“No, get back, we-“
“Shoot, blast yer eyes! I can take it!”
She could see the runes embedded in his skin begin to glow and hiss, and suddenly the grots were giving way before him.
Renaya shot.
She tried to leap with the blast, but the shockwave caught her anyway and flung her bodily out across the hillside. She could see below a tangled mess of razor wire and twisted metal, flying to meet her. Then, an armoured hand shot out and wrapped itself around her wrist, pulling her back. Qarang Sarn swung her around and onto the back of his saddle, the hellsteed galloping out across open air once more on burning hooves.
Behind them, a tremendous crack split the air. The explosion had sent fractures streaking through the stone idol, breaking it apart as they rose. Shards fell, great Chamonite armoured plates sheering to the ground, then it collapsed in a wave of rust and stone. The long tether of power tying it to the centre of Mallon’s Folly shuddered, and disappeared. ‘Ardest Iron Rok had fallen.
Iscarneth Ceraphate Victory
***
B’rahl
The attack on B’rahl began with Syndir and Asavash. The lord of the Shadownsworn Host dismembered and disembowled with hacking swings of his greataxe while the Paladin of Fate flew above him on her disc, setting ablaze all before the Templars of Our Burning Savior. The “bestest blades” of Grukka Redtoof were the first to feel their fury and despite the Killaboss’s adherence to the better part of valor, Syndir brought him to single battle and plunged his rune-etched sword through the kruleboy’s chest, splitting his wicked heart in half.
However, this early momentum had outpaced the Ceraphate attack, and the Shadowsworn and Templars soon found themselves thrown back and ground down under a relentless counter-charge led by the mercenary Fangs of Garm. Their deaths would have been a certainty save for a timely intervention by Baron Krogg and the Bogg Sloggers, their Fimirach staves ablaze with the incandescent fires of the Ur-Phoenix. With Krogg came the Metallic Mongrels, the Children of Humbris, and da Skullkrushas, their weapons similarly aflame.
The task of turning them back fell to the Clan Pestilens Acolyte Blisterpaw, the festering habits of his Monks catching alight beneath the Ceraphate’s flaming weapons. Chugwrought steamshot belched from Blisterpaw’s looted cannons while burning sludge rained from his Plagueclaw catapults. The barrage found little purchase among the Children of Humbris, however, as they set light the outcast among their number as living torches to send into Blisterpaw’s line. Elsewhere, the Fangs rallied to take on the Bog Sloggers even as an ancient drake of deepest shadow, summoned by Soto’s ritual, swept down and snapped its jaws around the Baron’s arm. Both tumbled away, locked in a desperate struggle.
That was the moment the Armies of Azyr joined the battle.
Like a breaking storm, Knight-Incantor Attica’s forces struck with the blunt force of a grandhammer. The first moments saw Khataras Khan struck down, the Bonereaper’s scythe snapped apart and body broken open beneath the furious onslaught of Questor Boros the Indomitable and Relictor Tarkos, the last of their Astral Templar soulsworn. Likewise, Cik Bloodhorn led his Beastcast into the waiting blades of Shërbëtor G'Jak-u, Rendmaster of Khorne. Already sworn to take Cik’s head and restore the Murder of Axe’s honor for the death of G’jak, Cik went gladly to his death, goring the Rendmaster through her stomach with his horns before lightning returned him to Azyr.
The Waaagh! cast back on the defensive now, Knight-Incantor swept forward, the dragons of the Stormscale Covenant and the Pyrotheurge Gaherian scouring a road paved with the charred corpses of Blisterpaw’s zealots and Ned Blackpowder’s stockade. With the battle turning and B’rahl before them, Knight-Incantor Attica called upon all their learning to cast a mystic shield upon Marshal Aegrun and the queens Malita and Melura. Nefarious upgrades had been wrought upon B’rahl, who now belched warpflame in response to dragonfire, the contraption installed in its heaving mass shielded by great slabs of fresh-hewn stone.
“Burn for me!” Asavash screamed from above, the Tzaangor’s disc and sorcerous mastery carrying her close enough for a single, fateful strike. The armor tore free and the machinery in its guts ruptured, its own self-immolation threatening to tear the monstrous Idol apart. A great cheer went up, and the Armies of Azyr pushed forward once more, the Fighting Legion and Twilight’s Blade coven breaking free of an errant Squigalanche and punishing the Coalcut tribe as Glottul Coalcutter sought to slow their advance with rampant arcane manifestations.
Something ponderous shifted below B’rahl, and the wounded monstrosity shifted, giving way to something worse. The Waaagh! lines broke and withdrew behind B’rahl, leaving the Armies and their allies to reform their own. Attica called a halt, even as the dragons above and the bloody-minded Iron Templars and remaining Beastcast sought to pursue their fleeing enemy.
The battlefield toppled onto its side and stood, something that served as a foot throwing a Bog Slogger to the ground as it emerged and then obliterating the unfortunate Fimirach mercenary beneath the impossible weight of its gargantuan tread.
The behemoth before them could only be a Rogue Idol, but not like any they’d seen. It made B’rahl appear as a child as it gathered itself, its misshapen lump of a face turning to regard the warriors assembled at its feet. Stone hands that could crush the life from a mega-gargant opened and closed. Bathed in a rancid fog, dressed in the hides of half-eaten dead, studded with sparking gemstones: all the Waaagh! had conjured this atrocity into existence and staked their whole war upon it.
So, that was it. Behind their Mask Impassive, Attica smiled, blinking away tears.
For the second time in as many days, the Knight-Incantor removed their mask, moving with steady certainty. For the first time since they had awoken upon the Anvil of Apotheosis, they knew who they were, and what they were meant to do. When Attica spoke again, all listened, from the ‘ardest Megaboss to the weediest grot.
“I was born Mithridates, sixth of my name, rightful Basrahip of Amasya and shepherd to the Iscarneth people…”
He cast away his mask and drew his sword.
“... and I defy you!”
***
Alrik couldn’t hear what the trident-helmed man was shouting at him, or even why, for that matter. He made to clear his ears of mud, but pulled his hand away at the touch of sticky blood and charred flesh. Something boomed- Ironblaster fire, a distant part of him realized- and a great stretch of ground some hundred yards away gouged up, throwing muck, gore, and broken bodies to rain down around them.
Awkwardly, Marshal Aegrun pulled Alrik onto his Hydra mount, holding the dazed warrior close lest he fall off. Alrik called out to a face he recognized… Amfried, maybe? Before realising most of the sprawled man wasn’t there below the waist. Alrik blinked, trying to make sense of what…
Reality rushed back like being slapped in the face with a cold fish. This was a retreat. No, not a retreat… this was a rout.
***
Countless hours of dutiful tutelage and practiced mastery had unlocked the arcane secrets of the Knight-Incantor discipline. Five hundred years of undying sorcery and superhuman strength lived as a Soulblight had been its own lesson, as had been a mortal life spent forestalling the Age of Chaos.
All of that had been for this moment… and in this moment, it was not enough.
The Stormcast Eternal that had been Mithridates Alti gave a racking cough, lungs collapsed, ribs shattered. It had never been enough, he thought bitterly. He had never been enough. Dislocated fingers gripped his broken blade, and he spit an incantation of thunder, stunning the monstrosity for another moment, giving his Armies a few more seconds to withdraw. They would be needed; this battle was lost.
Attica blinked. So, that was it. Had been, all along.
He pushed himself back to his feet and held the shattered Sigmarite blade up in challenge. This was a good death, he realized. To die in service of his people was a better thing than he’d done his entire life.
Still, his last thought as the Idol crushed the life from him and the lightning tore him apart was the faint hope that he wouldn’t be reforged again.
Waaagh! Mogrek Victory
***
Mallon’s Folly
Mogrek stood at the top of Mallon’s Folly. The Flames of Aqshy burned in his hand, searing flesh and soul alike as they poured off the Longblade and into the focusing crystal overhead. The pain did not matter. He had felt worse. The costs did not matter. He had paid more. He was close now, so close. Centuries had been denied to him, trapped in the ice while the realms rotted. So much lost to time that could never be recovered. He would not lose a moment more.
He had felt the deaths of Kel kal Uzrog and the ‘Ardest Iron Rok. Each was an irreplaceable loss. He had felt the tethers of their power snap, and for a moment true concern had entered his mind that he might not succeed. Yet, it had only been a moment. The other three idols held strong, their power shielding and amplifying his own.
“Stop!”, a voice called out from across the tower’s summit.
Mogrek half turned, and raised an eyebrow at the woman standing across from him. The furs she wore whipped in the cold wind, revealing the heavy bandages wrapping across many injuries.
She held a knife out towards him, firm and unwavering.
“I will stop you if you make me.”
Mogrek held her gaze a long moment, then tilted his head back to the sky and laughed. It was a loud, booming laugh, genuine and free. She had expected it to be low and sinister, heavy with threat, yet it rang with undiluted mirth. It took him a long moment to master himself again.
“You’ve got the spirit well enough, ‘umie. Someone’s taught you about the Waaagh!, haven’t they?”
Veithan nodded, eyes hard and the knife held ready. “I am Waaagh-mother, shaman, boss of da Finkerz. I learned from Sokrateez, whose library you destroyed. I fought with Da Green Knight and Gore’ox, who you killed. I know the Waaagh!, and I’ll stop you with it.”
“Go on then.”
Veithan drew deeply into herself, feeling for the Waaagh! that had always beat within. Since she had seen her old mentor’s face, it had been harder and harder to grasp. She hadn’t told anyone how hard it had been to commune with the idol, how uncertain she had been that she could find that power. It was harder than ever to reach, like grasping at a dream upon waking. She sought for her mentor’s words, but none found her. Her head swam. Other faces rose instead. Hitomi. Gore’ox. Cai. Baamu. Takara.
There! She felt the beat of it at the back of her mind, familiar and comforting. She let the green draw her in, sweep through her, channelling it around her as she had done so many times before. Within it was life, strength, joy, and the will that drove so many foes beneath her blades before.
She opened her eyes, and saw Mogrek Longblade for the first time.
Through the eyes of da great green, Veithan saw the sun itself standing before her.
The Waaagh! beat through all of them, she knew. She had seen great users of its power thread it around themselves, through their bones and muscles to make them bigger and stronger, or weave it like a cloak they wore across themselves. Mogrek was the opposite. The flesh he wore was the cloak. The being within, the truth of it, was purely of the Waaagh!
She staggered back. Against the brightness of the sun, she felt her own flame flicker and waver.
“Now you see,” said Mogrek, his voice pensive, reflective.
“The Green no longer recognizes you, Veithan, Waaagh!-daughter of Sokrateez. You have forgotten its purpose.”
He passed a hand through the air, between their eyes, and as it passed the green left her vision. She saw only the hulking orruk standing before her once more. She tried to reach down into the Waaagh! once more, but it was gone. Not buried, not elusive. Gone. She felt nothing at all, a void in the place where her beating heart had once been.
“How could…”
“You did it to yourself. You forgot the face of the Green.”
“Fight me,” she said, raising the knife again.
Mogrek turned back to the crystal, and the stream of fire that streaked across the sky. A long crack split through the Nullstone shell of Noctis.
“No.”
With a brilliant flash of life, Noctis fractured.
The entire world roared in heat and light.
Veithan was driven back and to her knees, shielding her face, her knife blasted from numb hands to spin out into the distance. When her vision returned, she saw the realmgate that had once been Noctis hanging in the air, its edges burning with a white flame. Hanging like a halo behind it, nullstone hung in a coronal ejection in the air. The Shimmersea writhed and spasmed, great waves already blasting across towards the mainland. The island around her shook and rumbled, the tower suddenly leaning precariously.
Her head spinning and hand numb, Veithan could only look up. “What just happened?”
“I won,” Mogrek said, then turned his back on her and stepped into the stream of white light.
***
Iscarion
The Grand Conclave had emptied at last. No more diplomats, no commanders, no adjutants, no messengers. Only the Ceraph Dariel remained, his Warden by his side.
“We lost,” He gave voice to the words he’d refused to speak before anyone else.
“You must be unaccustomed,” Renaya retorted, and immediately regretted her words. “Forgive me. I speak too harshly.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Dariel murmured. “It becomes easy to believe your own legend, when it’s proven true. I dreamed…” Renaya held up a hand to silence him. “I know what it is to dream, but dreams end with the dawn.” She nodded to herself, and stood to attention, banging Celennar’s Bite on the tile in salute. “I am our people’s Warden, and you are their Ceraph. Whatever we face now, the Iscarneth will face it together. "
"This oath, I swear.”
***
The Tetrarchy chanted, their words spoken by mouths without lips. The dead listened, their shades gathering like moths to a flame. Their congregation was welcoming to all, and one by one, the spirits flickered and faded, guided to what peace could be found for them.
These were the depths of Iscarion, somewhere between the metropolis above and the shadow-city below. Secluded far from prying eyes, their existence had been revealed by Iden, and furnished- such as they were- by Caradryas. Four pairs of eyes without sight looked upon their new resting place, a hallowed necropolis deep in the beating heart of the Ceraphate.
“The Ceraph is both generous and wise,” Mithridates Uc counseled. “He pursues his own best interest,” Mithridates Iki countered. “Countless are those slain by this war. Such bloodshed takes root in the soil of a place.”
“We are shepherds, and our flock is returned to us,” Mithridates Bir, the eldest, soothed. “Such petty matters are the concern of the living. Have we learned nothing from the fate of our own bloodline? Mithridates do not rule, we serve.”
Mithridates Dort concluded, her tone almost eager: “Yet in ages to come, when war returns… so shall we.”
***
Although untold damage had been wrought upon the Dominion, it was the armies of Azyr that had suffered perhaps the most bitter defeat. The cause they had been gathered for was lost, and the man who’d gathered them with it. And yet…
Sigmar knows better than any what it means to lose everything and rise again. The repercussions of what had transpired here would be felt for years, decades, even centuries to come. The Armies had forged strong bonds with the Dawnguard and it became clear in the days after the war that a lasting alliance between the Sigmarites and the Ceraphate had been established. Although many of those who answered Attica’s call would depart for other wars, Iscarion would see an influx of manpower and material diverted from the Dawnbringer Crusades, stabilising the situation in the Dominion… and casting the long shadow of Sigmar’s influence over the Noctis realmgate.
***
The Varanspire
Sarn knelt, his bared head bowed. The Master of the Sixth loomed over him.
“The Throne is displeased, Qarang. That brute boasted that it would do what the Everchosen could not. Thanks to your failure, it was right.”
Face downcast, Sarn smirked grimly. The Varanguard did not reward failure.
“However,” she continued, “you have brought us many promising recruits. Those of your Choosing that survived had earned the right to take the title of Black Pilgrims. Not under you, however.”
Sarn looked up sharply.
“For your failure, your Konroi will be dissolved, the Knights given to a more suitable Templar. You are reduced to the rank of Knight-Errant, and banished from the Eight Circles until you have accomplished a feat worthy to be Varanguard once more.”
An hour later, Sarn rode hard across the blasted wastelands. He had left the survivors of the Choosing with his - now former - retainers. Those that had survived were strong and cunning. They would make fine pilgrims. If they took his words to heart, they might even survive long enough to become Varanguard themselves. He carried all to his name in the small pack atop his hellcharger’s back. His horned helm bounced at his hip.
Looking out over the empty wasteland, Qarang Sarn smiled.
***
Somewhere
From out of the dark, I watch my children. They live so quickly, burn themselves away like candles. A million million tiny lights flickering in and out, each trying to snuff all of the others, each being snuffed in turn. Here, I turn my focus upon a crimson-plated clawlord, preening as he feeds his own men to his gnawbeast. There, a mind-addled plague priest was tricked into charging to his death by jealous subordinates. And now… ah yes, this is one of my favourites. One with the temerity, the treachery, to plot against even me.
This one has been beaten time and again, ever patient, ever ready to start building anew in their quest to topple me from my throne. Twice have they thrown their lot in with an aelf-thing of this cursed Dominion, twice have they come out on the losing end of a war, all their careful politicking for naught, knives at their back and precious little to show for it. Peculiar that they would remain after all this loss. For one with such a capacity for betrayal that they would betray even myself, they exhibit a disturbing amount of loyalty, even in the face of failure. But then, that is what makes this all interesting. When a million flames are lit each second, a million more snuffed out, some are sure to shine brighter than others. Those are the ones to whom I bestow my gifts, and though this one spurns me, and would loathe it if they knew, they are gifted indeed.
Come then, little flame, keep trying to usurp me. Keep struggling, keep failing, keep building and destroying. I wait for you at the end of your foolish labours. Oh, the gifts you shall receive when you finally return to my jaws!
***
High Azyr
Aetheric purples and blues shimmered across the skies, washing Tetar-Muntaq in otherworldly light. It had been too long since the skink had been back in High Azyr. Their time in the Prime Dominion had not been a great hardship, yet it was comforting to be back among the stars. Too long among the dull, plodding warmbloods had left them feeling dangerously coalesced. Soon, they would rejoin their kindred in the cleansing light. First, however, they would need to see the Master.
The long halls of the great temple ship echoed with the soft slapping sounds of Tetar-Muntaq’s footfalls, the tiny sounds carrying across the vast empty stillness. The grand audience hall they crossed could hold ten thousand saurus warriors in full battle panoply. They remembered when it had. The skink’s memory was long, and they had served the Master here for longer than any others. They remembered bearing the messages, in ages past, that brought Grungi’s last disciple to the speck of an island in Ulgu. They remembered leading the son of Gork to that place, knowing the trap the Iron Sage had laid. So much preparation had led to this moment. So many years spent watching, waiting, only moving when at last the time was right. They had known the signs in Bykaal. A war among aelves had been guided by careful hands, shaped like a living tree to grow into the outcome the future required. Dreams, woven from the power of a crystal throne, had stirred the mind of the sleeping dragon. They had laid the temptations into the slumbering hopes of the treasure seekers, guiding them to wake the frozen forge. All for this moment. All so that the Son of Gork could set foot in the heavens.
Tetar-Muntaq reached the darkened threshold and hesitated for a moment. Once they stepped through the doors, into the presence of the Master, it would be over. A thousand years of planning had led to this moment. One step further, and they would be entering into the unknown.
The heavy doors swung inwards. Tetar-Muntaq saw the figure within, the broad face and moon-shrouded eyes.
The voice came directly into their minds.
“It is time.”