Animosity Campaigns
Where narrative comes to play
Season 6 - Shattered Dominion

Zogbad wasn’t really known for delicacy. The hulking orruk brute moved around with great earth-shaking steps, clad in more armour than two Stormcast put together. But for Da Kaptin, he would carry the plate. Strange fruits as small as his fingernails were scattered across the wooden utensil, and in the back of his mind, he wondered how Castian sustained on such meagre pickings.

Argumentative grunting and shouting echoed out of the cabin and down the hall.

“Are you deaf az well az blind? Lift it to da left!”

“I’m already movin’ it left!”

“Dats my right, git-brain!”

He stood at the door and listened, not wanting to interrupt. More chants confirming that it was, in fact, the speaker’s right side went up from the rest of the gathered orruks he could hear in the room beyond. They weren’t getting anywhere anytime soon.

Zogbad pushed open the door as gently as he could. This meant that it slammed back into the wall with an almighty crash. The two brutes attempting to hang the trophy on the wall roared with surprise and dropped it to the floor, covering part of the gathered crowd with the great white serpent’s hide. After a brief kerfuffle, all eyes turned to Zogbad with a heated dislike.

“Thank you, Zogbad. Leave it on the table,” came the clear voice from the other end of the room. Castian sat apart from his squabbling mob, not even looking up from his maps as he summoned Zogbad closer. Deep bags ringed his pale eyes, and although he always appeared resplendent in his silk finery, his tightly-drawn expression betrayed the sleep-deprived mania beneath.

The brute hurried past his comrades’ scowls to set the plate down. He felt an internal sense of pride that every fruit had made it to Da Kaptin’s table in one piece. As he pulled back, his eyes fell upon the Realm maps Castian was studying on the table.

“Erm, Kaptin, you’v got one of dem upside down,” he ventured.

“Oi, Zogbad! Don’t point dat out! Pointies might read maps diff’rent to us, bonehead!” cried one of the gathered company, quickly shuffling forward to pull his rude friend away.

Castian dismissed him with a flick of his slender wrist.

“You see this edge?” he began, pulling Zogbad down with one hand and drawing his finger emphatically along the bottom of the Ghurish map, which he had turned upside down and connected to the western edge of the Chamonic map. “This so-called Bleed has connected these two points linked by the Ur-River, but the maps don’t fit together at the same angle. To triangulate the position of this ancient beast, we must improvise.”

“Triyang-you…”

“The Bleed smushed these two edges together.”

A murmur of awe went up from the brutes.

“Thank you for bringing me the food, Zogbad. Dismissed.”

As Zogbad retreated from the room, a proud warmth glowing deep within his black and silver armour, he listened smugly to the sounds of his eager comrades.

“Kaptin! Are you gonna thank us for kleanin’ the hide?”

“Kaptin! Is this the trophy ya wanted?”

“Take a look, Kaptin! Whatcha think of puttin’ it up ‘ere?”

“Do as you wish,” his voice was unchanged. “The Ur-Serpent was yesterday. We have a new target within our sights.”

As Zogbad turned at the door, he shivered. His mob was threatening, yes, and bulged comically in the aelven cabin like a herd of flathorns, one movement away from destroying everything at all times.

But as the group all watched Castian’s ice-chip eyes, alight with madness and engrossed in that seam between the parchment, he knew the truth: even the largest flathorn would never dare set foot in the viper’s nest.


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VI Shattered Dominion