The End Begins
Not since the Age of Chaos had war raged across the Ashfall Delta, yet now it had come again.
Their march like rolling thunder, it was here the gathering Waaagh! of Colossa-boss Mogrek Longblade would have to pass through to reach the heavens of Azyr. There was no question they would take the Delta; it was only a matter of cost, paid in blood and bodies... and Atressa Redhand intended to collect.
Here, thawed by the hot breath of Ignoth’s Furnace, Mogrek’s shackled Everwinter meant little. The freeze it brought simply turned the many waterways to muck so deep that his hundreds of Rogue Idols sank like trapped animals in tar.
Robbed of his advantages, it was a battle he faced, and while triumph was never in question, victory could prove beyond the Longblade’s reach...
Fuegorn Drift
The sea was covered with groaning ice as it sloshed upon the fire kissed shore, and all around the thick fog of steam now cooled into a haze of obscurity through which the Longblades advanced. At their head had once been a pile of rock, arisen now with the infernal power of its new engine. Black smoke poured from the furnace embedded in its heart, and all around gathered those drawn to its power.
One hard thump at a time, the behemoth’s magma-fused rock lumbered one step closer to its rendezvous with destiny. In its great wake came the rest of the Longblades unto the Fuegorn Drift. A heady rush of the Waaagh! of Mogrek, in a gale of the ice cold Everwinter only to be met with silence.
There was no obvious enemy. No opposition to the landings, no defenders to be smashed and routed on the beach, no one to bar the way up the trails and natural causeways that led deeper into the heart of the island.
Nothing but a few shadows that seemed to lurk just out of range in the thick fog, a few empty camps, some construction works hastily done and seemingly just as quickly abandoned. They had been here once, that much was certain. But where they were now, that was the question that stuck a mote of anxiety into the minds of brutal and kunning.
The advance slowed under the simple inertia of a long march through untamed lands, and slowly did the rise start to be felt as the base of the great Leadtusk Tor reached out to greet them.
***
They were not quiet about it and that had a power all its own. For everyone could see or hear the behemoth of burning fire and black smoke in the midst of the Longblades. The shroud of fog riding the edge of the everwinter’s reach mixing with the steam of an infernal engine. They had watched the landing, seen the destruction wrought upon the beach and understood in that moment exactly why this new deployment had been ordered.
A deployment far away from the shore’s reach, far away from the jungles and fields, and swamps favored by the more kruel evolution of the orruk and why they were here upon the rocky crags of the slopes of the Leadtusk Tor, with clear fields of view to what could come from below.
‘If you give them a clear target to smash, they will smash it in a frenzy that won’t abate until everything is destroyed. We do far better to bore them than to bleed them here.’ She had said. 'Make them doubt if we are even here or wish to fight at all… then hit them with a fury they cannot recover from.’
The worry in the Decurion’s mind was that it also gave the Longblades the balance of the island without a fight and led them right to the base of the Tor unchallenged. A mighty thing the Tor was, but it was also a place easily cut off and surrounded. Tall Towers make for lonely sieges. But If there was one thing to be said about Atressa and her Redhands… was that they loved riding that knife’s edge above calamity. None of that truly mattered, however, for he had been paid, and entrusted to blunt the Longblade assault.
‘Until our last dying breath.’
***
The first action on the Tor was a mistake, for a small unit of Iscarneth Rifles was still trying to entrench themselves on the slope, not realizing they were in the wrong position and well out of the line they were meant to be in. They became easy prey for Gazlok Blackstone, and his gutrippaz made them pay the price of their mistake in a most proppa kunnin’ way. Whatever preconceived notions both sides had for this fight would be proven wrong as the Tor’s slopes were painted in this first drawn blood, and the battle started to form from where this first die was cast.
With the Infernal Chugging Behemoth came a tidal wave of fur and fury up the slope of the Tor, hoping to exploit that mistake into a wider breach. Skreech Sootlung riding upon the Behemoth itself in a frenzy of zeal to bring all to ash… only to crash headlong into an avalanche of onrushing rock let loose in a staccato of black powder explosions. Then what had been basalt forms among the slope revealed themselves to be an interlocked shield wall, and behind it the tell-tale flash of Iscarneth rifles was seen, and struck in a well timed volley before the sound of their report even registered.
The southern slope of the Tor became a maelstrom of brutal fighting as the Longblades pressed their assault hard, always seeking to hit hard and find the seams through which they could keep pressing forwards and upwards, while the Red Hands fired and maneuvered with both skill and ferocity to blunt each new thrust from the Longblades.
What had been desired to be a war of kunning, ambushes, through jungles and lush terrain was instead a nasty attritional battle upon the steep rocky slopes of the Tor, with each side rushing reinforcements to the flanks in the hope of finding a way through the impasse of clashed and embattled lines.
***
You need a behemoth to fight a behemoth.
Wherever the Chuglord Behemoth strode, death came to the Redhands. The Longblade’s reforged rogue idol was drawing power from the destruction it wrought, and seemingly the closer it was to Ignoth’s Furnace. No shot, nor spell, nor avalanche of rock did any real harm to the thing. And no weapon of any real power to stop such a construct had been able to be brought up to the heights of the Tor. Daryth Ravens-Heart knew what had to be done, but had genuinely hoped it had not been needed in this fight so early.
But it was. A prayer. A clarion call to the heavens. Answered in the roar of one of the great Draconiths. The Ravens-Heart knew the sound of Zerithius as one knew the voice of their oldest friend. The Lord Celestant stepped into the fray with his Annihilators, as the Draconic form pierced the veil of everwinter with a gout of lightning into the foe.
The Chug Behemoth would be brought low, but at a terrible price. Zerithius would limp back into the sky, but Daryth Ravens-Heart would lay broken and smashed under the felled Idol, the Sigmarite greathammer he had driven through the Behemoth’s chest and smashed the engine that gave it power still clutched in his hand as the Lightning took his soul back to Azyr.
The Longblades had been stopped cold upon the slopes of the Tor, and now it seemed the true battle could begin. For when both sides had gazed upon the loft peek of the Leadtusk Tor, it was the same light of inspiration that took hold.
***
Neither side had any way to know that their end goal was not simply to the same end, but that each of their efforts were actually in near perfect harmony to achieve that end. Two rituals in nearly identical conjurations, enough that the wild melee of battle moved past all those casting Geomantic runes. For it was assumed it was part of their own side’s ritual and in the haze of battle it was difficult to tell friend from foe, especially when the chanted words were the same… so they focused on moving to support those already engaged in battle.
The end result was a ritual of far more power and portent than either had envisioned.
***
The Cravenrock… a catalyst, a burning heart of pure mixed realmstone like so much thermite was cast into already molten rock. Held steady within the summoned hands of she who had been nameless but had taken back her name. Caradrya held fast to the borrowed power of the astromatrix that held her catalyst from venting its full effect until she had sealed the magma chamber at the top of the Tor. But she needed the everwinter, and that power was being denied to her by the constant need to defend herself. She needed to be able to focus, to root herself in the leylines of power and draw the strength she needed through the realm itself.
Another blow, another attack, another fiery end in the magma below, and Caradrya hung on for dear life for not just herself, but for all the power of the ritual she was trying to will into being, yet falling apart for the key missing element she could not summon. She was infuriated as she tried to find a moment of peace around the raging war as the battle for the Tor reached its peak.
But then it was there. Not simply a summoned piece, but an actual pure mote of the Everwinter itself summoned with more power than she could have managed, and laid within her reach practically as if it were a gift. Caradyra’s bloodshot eyes locked with the determined eyes of Vargana as the Ycedöttir brought the Everwinter to the Tor to enact the final piece of her own ritual.
The two weavings of power harmonized in a sudden moment of shared purpose. The Tor would erupt and they would make it happen. A moment of peace, strangely shared between two bitterly opposed wills as they worked to bring the Leadtusk Tor to life in the full fury of its awakening as the last glyphs of power were laid in their mandated order.
***
The basalt of the peak trembled with the stress building upon it, once easily vented, now compounded into ever more expanding fury as the catalyst trapped in the heart of the magma chamber compounded the power in play, sealed fast into a pure pressure cooker of even more amplifying fury by the everwinter that kept it’s top sealed shut.
The rumble grew louder as more and more rock heaved under the strain, the inward sloping conical shape of the Tor took on an alarming swell from those able to see, and for those on the Tor itself the violent shuddering and shaking as rock that was never meant to bend, started to break under the strain of doing so.
The end was inevitable, but as with all things it was about the hands that shaped that inevitable ending.
The battle for the Fuegorn Drift was decided in these moments. The Named One and The Daughter of Ice holding the hopes and dreams of their respective sides as they pulled all their will into being the final hand that would shape the coming eruption.
It was in the moment between breaths, between a finite realm of mortals and the veil of endless time, that she understood… that she could see… that she perceived all the paths of fate unfold forwards and backwards from that moment in which they now stood. Into what had been, and into would could still be…and in that sudden power of knowing, she found the upper hand. Caradrya smiled, remembering the ancient words spoken by another facing just such a moment near a mountain like this: “Fortune favors the bold.” With that, she spoke the last word of her life to seal the final glyph of her ritual.
“Addaioth.”
It was as if time itself stopped for those moments. All the rumbling and powerful tremors as the very rock at the core of the Leadtusk Tor violently fought to free itself, stopped. Unnatural. Unnerving. Then the pure gout of fiery power blasted forth, burning with the searing red of pure Aqshian rage.
With a crack of thunder louder than any storm, the eruption shot fire and molten rock into a black column rising above the Tor. The fog and storms blasted back as that tower rose in pure red hate turning into a dark blackness as it roiled higher and higher, fighting its way trying to reach back down to strike at the volcano which continued to shove it higher and higher into the air.
***
Abound the Drift and indeed upon the rest of the delta, where there had been just the cold grip of snow, now came fiery ash, another blanket to rest heavy upon the Delta, ice and fire coming down, burying all beneath it. What Hyshlight remained was slowly choked out, until little more than a blood red disc pierced the veil, until it too faded away for only the fire of the Tor and flashes of lightning in the super charged clouds of storm and ash put a terrorizing illumination over the battlescape.
But the fire of the Tor was still in the assent, and all upon the Drift knew they had precious moments of time to escape, before that tower of fire and fury would stop it’s climb into the heavens, and come crashing back down into the great pyroclastic tide of death that would wipe clean any who were foolish to stand in its path.
The hands that had summoned it were unable to tell which had won that final battle of wills, and which side of the Tor would be brought to that fiery end, until the cinders started to fall.
It started with large heavy stones, burning hard as they came down, and then smaller and smaller stones that seemed to fall from much higher up… and then there was nothing but the roar of untold stones and fire as the cinderfall came at last, and that great tower of flame and fury collapsed upon itself back down from whence it came.
Only Gazluk Blackstone made it to the safety of Azoth’s ships… and from the blazing fires of so much burning jungle and the now clear flow of fire magma down the Tor’s slopes it was clear no other Longblade would be found among the living. Only the few eerie shapes of what might have been living forms now cast into the shells around their once mortal forms… sentinels of ash and everwinter bound in newly cooled basalt to be an echo of what had happened this day.
The Redhands were in far better shape, but rapidly fleeing along the less deadly slopes of the Tor. For while the full fury of the eruption was not being vented upon them, it was still no place to be if they wished to continue to live, or as alive as they were in their current forms. Those who could still fight rallied to Atressa to stand with the Redhand herself, and wherever she would step foot into the fray next, The rest fell back upriver towards the Prime Dominion.
Clear to all was the fact that the grip of Mogrek’s Everwinter would not grasp the Furghorn Drift, not for as long as the Tor still spewed fire echoing the last word of Caradrya The Named.
Result: Redhands Victory
Infurnata
Infurnata was a dreadful place, a land scorched of all worth in wars that have been forgotten for longer than they were remembered and now only the scarred landscape and a handful of broken ruins remained. Unfortunately, Mogrek Longblade and his Waaagh! had its sights set upon the island. War had come once again to Infurnata, and this conflict would prove to be the bloodiest in its history.
Atressa Redhand, eager to squeeze any advantage she could to slow Mogrek’s advance, opted to bait Mogrek inland. Traps were laid, artillery positions were scouted, ambushes were planned. Everything was falling right into place until the earth shook and a chill wind swept across the Realm of Fire. In an instant, the defenders knew Mogrek’s forces were upon them.
The Longblades had expected a proper fight on the beaches, yet to their dismay they found no resistance at all. Most chalked it up to the known cowardice of the pointy ears. Some of the more excitable warriors were upset by this news; no fightin’, no lootin', what was the point? After marching further on, the Longblades’ rampage of boredom reached the first trap near the gleaming tower. There the Redhands finally made their move and attacked from all sides. Volleys of fire erupted from carefully chosen positions, cutting down swathes of the Longblades’ advance before they even knew what was happening.
Deafening war cries echoed through the battlefield as High Templar Aethador led a thunderous cavalry charge towards a mob of orruk shamans and with a mighty crash they carved a bloody path through their foe. The High Templar and his knights saw their enemy’s resolve wavering and reformed for another charge, prepared to cut them down once and for all… until a troggboss tossed by a clan Kyodai gargant struck Aethador, killing both instantly and covering Aethador’s men in a blinding spray of gore. Shocked and leaderless, they became easy pickings for the cheering Longblades who routed the panicked horsemen with ease.
To the Redhands, the Longblade army appeared without end. More and more orruks, ogors, gargants, and even mordants charged into the Redhand defenders. As they advanced several of their number fell prey to the various traps and ambushes laid by the bestial spirit folk the Danaveth. Yet even all this could not stem the tide from pushing forward. For every one Longblade struck down five more took their place and were just as eager to fight. Gargants pulled boulders out of the earth and hurled them onto the defensive lines and soon, the order was given to retreat further up the island.
Fighting continued up the length of Infurnata, rivers of blood forming in its valleys and the bodies piled so high at points that warriors made makeshift fortifications out of them. Through all this carnage the Redhands fought on. Volleys of fire rained down upon the Longblades as line upon line of infantry held out for as long as they could, yet the Longblades never ceased in their assault; pouring waves of their own onto the Redhands in a constant battle to break them. The Redhands were beginning to falter, each wave of orruks gaining slightly more ground than the last. This was not lost on the Longblades who committed even harder to breaking the defense. One by one the Redhand positions fell to the Longblade assault until every single Redhand who had not fled in defeat was dead.
Battered, bruised, exhausted, the Longblades had taken their blood soaked prize in the name of Waaagh! Mogrek.
Result: Longblades Victory
Flarecrux Spit
As battles raged elsewhere across the Delta, uneasy silence hung over Flarecrux Spit. The steep obsidian sides of the isle were daunting, a natural defense crowned by the ruins of Scalderbright. From their splintered walls, even a small force could hold control of the barren landscape near indefinitely. The strategic value was not lost on the Redhands. Grim-faced defenders marched quickly to secure the old settlement. Ballistae were hastily mounted on makeshift towers wherever the decaying palisade would support their weight. They were few, and they knew no reinforcements would be spared from the larger, more open battles expected elsewhere. No help would be coming. They would hold the line here, or die. Above them all, perched like a brooding vulture, leaned the derelict lighthouse glaring malevolently across the isle.
Mogrek’s forces did not arrive as they had elsewhere, a screaming horde storming the shores. Instead, it was the crackling of frost and a thick, leaden mist that filled the air. Ice bridges rose up out from the frozen waters, crystalizing hands grasping blindly at the land. They stretched, shattered and regrew, turning the shore into a maze of splintered ice. From this crept the kruleboyz, the lowest and most devious of Mogrek’s servants. The Longblade was no fool, and he too recognized the cost that taking such a defensible post would demand. It was not the horde, but the skulkers and killers that he would entrust the island to.
And so the battle for Flarecrux Spit began in shadow and ominous silence. The defenders on the wall waited with baited breath, yet all that emerged from the mists were thin, piercing screams. Talin Silverbane’s alves had not been idle. The twisting, volcanic chasms of the island split the invaders apart into small groups, and into the series of deadly traps that had been laid for them. Sharpened stakes were sprung upon them from above and false ground gave way beneath to spiked pits. Quickflow stone herded them into box canyons, killing fields under the waiting arrows of the aelves. Orruks died in droves, yet even these losses were not enough to deter them.
The kruleboyz were no strangers to murder in the shadows, and as they regained their footing after the initial shock, they began to exact their own vengeance on the wraith-like aelves. A vicious game of cat and mouse, flashing daggers and broken arrows played out in subtle red strokes across the obsidian shores. For every aelf that was slain, ten kruleboyz were left to bleed out on the cold ground, yet even at that rate the defenders could not last for long. Silverbane’s forces withdrew into the mist, leaving the bloodied orruks to regroup and resume their march on the summit.
Wounded, and with their command structure in shambles, the kruleboyz emerged out of the mists and on to the isle’s upper slopes. If they had hoped for a reprieve, however, those dreams died quickly. With a shout, the defenders along Scalderbright’s palisade opened fire, raining bolts down on the milling orruks. Twice the kruleboyz tried to rally together to charge the walls, and twice they were pushed back, breaking against the slope like a crashing wave. The second time they were repulsed, there was no turning back. Panic swept through their ranks, and like a receding tide, they ran back towards the fog. A cheer went up from the defenders, and spearheaded by Queen Talnya’s lancers, a charge struck out down the slope. They would drive the greenskins down to the sea, and claim the isle for Atressa.
That was when the real threat struck. Soaring high above on his corpsedrake, the vampire lord Kholtira had watched the kruleboyz falter and die. Mere chaff, but they had played their part. Mogrek had only entrusted one of his generals with the attack on Flarecrux, for he could see as well as the aelves that even a small force could hold the isle. Yet merely holding the land would not bring them true victory, and if the vampire’s token force could hold the more numerous defenders in place, they could not use it to support their other battles.
He had waited until the Redhands were spread thin, their charge carrying them to the very edge of the fog-shrouded shores, before striking. Shrieking hellbats and wraiths dropped from the sky, grabbing archers and ballistae crew from the palisade and carrying them off into the night. The cold breath of his warbeast froze the air in mens’ lungs. Fear ran through the lines. Kholtira struck fast and hard, fading back into the sky after each charge. Panic was on their side now, but he knew that the defenders would regroup in time, and their headstrong allies would return. Then, the weight of fire and spear would overwhelm his small group. He had no intention of letting that happen. He only needed to hold the defenders, keep them reeling and their attention scattered. The Longblades had one last trick up their sleeve.
With the sound of an avalanche, the crystalline surface of the Hollowsoul Lake shattered upwards as a massive, smoldering Idol pulled itself to its feet. Loose earth tumbled from its obsidian sides as the magical construct strode forwards, quickly picking up speed as the meteoric momentum behind it grew. With a crash of timbers, it burst through the palisade, the old wood barely checking its charge. Wooden splinters shot through the defenders. One massive stone fist crashed down on a ballista nest, rendering the priceless war machine into so much worthless timber. Kholtira smiled and sent a mental command for his forces to withdraw. They had completed their mission here.
The stone idol waded through the defensive lines, raising an arm to smash another war machine, when a lone bolt trailing electricity struck the side of its head. The blow resounded with a strange, atonal clang, like a bell rung underwater, and a portion of its obsidian form splintered and flaked away. It turned what was left of its head, and looked up at the looming lighthouse and the lone form of Lethe Emberdawn upon its crown. The stormcast shouldered her crossbow, and grabbed a burning torch from the wall beside her. The construct charged. The torch fell, dropped from her hand over the tower’s side. It spun through the air with an almost lethargic slowness, trailing flames that burned to blue, and just before the idol struck the tower, it landed down among the explosives concealed at the tower’s base. Explosions rattled off in a chain of blooming fire, showering the defenders with flaming debris, and with a screech of splintering stone and wood the ancient lighthouse began to pitch forwards towards the charging idol. The construct’s hand flew up, grasping the falling tower, and for the briefest moment it seemed as though the idol would hold its crashing weight at bay. Then, streaming fire from her armour like a shooting star, Lethe leapt from the tower’s crown, slamming the full weight of Sigmar’s fury into the idol’s head. With a crash, tower, construct and stormcast all collapsed downwards, over the edge of the isle’s high sides and into the churning Ur-River beyond.
It took time for the dust to settle, clogging eyes and muting the sounds of the wounded defenders. Their fortifications were in ruin, their defenses spent, yet they had held. Flarecrux Spit belonged to the Redhands.
Result: Redhands Victory
Brimnstorn
The skies had turned to mud. Warmed by the hot ash billowing from Fuegorn Drift, the Everwinter’s icy winds turned to thick, pouring rain which stuck to everything it touched. It was through this soup that the Able Albern Baking Co. descended, the Kharadron flotilla taking station over southern Brimnstorn and all but daring the Longblades to brave their guns.
Emberport constituted what little remained of civilization in the Delta, and like Infurnata, this was not its first war. Everywhere else the Redhands had chosen subterfuge, ambushes, feints and ripostes as their weapons of choice, but not here. Here, the Redhands would make their stand.
As the only deepwater port in the Delta, the Longblades had already sent those ships that hadn’t become ensnared by the frozen Ur-River behind them. Overcrowded and largely ramshackle landing craft were shepherded to the beachhead by fighting ships like the Mathlan’s Revenge, Sea Spear and Damned Serpent. Like everywhere else they made the shore without contest… which was when the thunder began.
Barely able to see beyond pistol shot, the orruk sky-pirates of the Ironfang Fleet engaged the Kharadron flotilla, ramming their frigates and leaping across to board, all heedless of the deadly drop below. With cannons booming at point-blank range the skyships tore into each other, the battle below all but forgotten.
Hearing the fight above them and eager to get stuck in somewhere, anywhere, the Longblades surged forward… and found themselves bedeviled. I’zrun the Flameborn had gone to great lengths to veil the shores around Emberport, and boats which believed themselves safe crashed upon unseen rocks, while warriors who believed themselves in shallows leapt overboard only to be dragged into the depths by the weight of their own armor. Then came from the mist shrieking daemonic screamers, clawing at the Mathlan’s Revenge, which lost control in the confusion and ran afoul of the Sea Spear, pitching yet more overboard in the collision.
Those warriors already on the beach ran headlong up the ravine into hidden traps of Aqshian blaze cactus, a particularly volatile and explosive plant. Tossed about like children’s dolls and pierced by thorns the size of blades, Takac Serpentbane’s forlorn hope came under fire by Valandile Briarthorn’s concealed handgunners. The Redhands had played their hand and Takac fell, his body broken, pierced and torn apart.
The mood among the Longblades shifted. They had come for a scrap, sure, but this was different. This was dirty. Now, they were angry.
Pulled from the depths like puppets on frayed strings, the dead of Emberport’s past wars marched from their watery graves, dancing to the flatulent tunes of Siphius the sloppity bilepiper. Rotted bodies bloating with fresh pestilence, the remaining Longblades rallied behind them like unliving shields. Beckoning old ally King Tiberius to his side, Mazoka Kurse-breaka made to repel this new threat, yet were met by the charge of Tragrok Skullsmakka and Soto Da Fish, with the rabid gorgers of Sir MarrowMaw close behind. The town began to burn in spite of the heavy rain as the fighting spilled from one street to another.
It would be Captain Cassiopeia who first recognized Emberport was lost, and employed her ship to rally those she still could under cover of I’zrun’s faltering sorcery. Others who couldn’t reach Cassiopeia were forced to fall back into the Sulpherwald, where Ayranth Redsong and Bram Tallow fought side by side, fiercely holding off the Longblade’s gathering momentum as Mogrek’s forces realized the town was theirs. In the skies above them, the sound of gunfire fell silent.
Yet still battle rang out within the town, even as the Redhands abandoned Brimnstorn. To defend the Ashfall Delta was to defend the Prime Dominion, and Valandile Briarthorn would not fail in their duty. This pleased Mogrek Longblade greatly as he entered Emberport, gathering MarrowMaw and Da Konfessas to his side. One among the Redhands, at least, was no coward.
Shouldering the Longblade with a savage grin, Mogrek made to personally acknowledge the Iscarneth soldier’s bravery.
Result: Longblades Victory
Heartpyre Nar
Fuegorn Drift burned and rained ash upon its siblings. The dead lay piled upon Infurnata while bitter bloodshed defended Flarecrux Spit, and the best laid plans went awry in Emberport. Yet perhaps the fiercest fighting in the Ashfall Delta occurred across Heartpyre Nar, where the war would be decided in earnest.
The largest and centre-most of the islands, Heartpyre Nar trembled beneath the march of armies. It was here Mogrek’s most unlikely ally made their play as howling masses of flesh-eaters spilled ashore, utterly lost in their delusions of righteous crusade.
The Dawnbringer settlement of Runefall held out, defended and delivered by the remaining Stormcast Eternals of Daryth Ravens-Heart. The duardin brewery of Harkdeep did not fare as well. Greyfyrd Fyreslayers, hired at great expense by the Iscarneth Ceraphate, fought until defeat was certain, and charged from the brewery’s gates with oaths spilling from their lips and smoking pipes between their teeth.
Atressa had unlikely allies of her own, and sent them against the cannibals threatening to overrun the Redhand’s redoubts. A tactical genius by birth, the Skaven Twistwhisker of Clan Skryre would demonstrate his incredible gift for strategy by luring the flesh-eaters into open battle before laying waste to clanrat and ghoul alike to the chattering cacophony of ratling guns.
Their momentum faltering, the Longblades sent their next wave. Countless troggoths lumbered inland, accompanied by a horde of Spiderfang grots. Twistwhisker would turn his deft judgement to them at Wyrmwater, laying low a heaving Arachnarok with warpstone gunfire. Slipping behind the attacker’s lines and into their Loonshrine, gutter runners knifed the grot boss… whose death-yelp alerted a nearby pack of squigs to an easy meal, who then also devoured the unfortunate assassins while they were about it.
Skaven weren’t the Redhands’ only strange bedfellow. The Seraphon of Chax fought the rampaging Troggoths in the Northmarches, and fell with the torn flesh of their enemies still between their teeth.
The remaining Greyfyrd Fyreslayers fared better, fending off the battered Troggs from atop the wickedly cruel walls of Scorchbrass Keep. This second wave all but cast back into the Ur-River, victory appeared well in hand.
That was when Mogrek Longblade landed, and he did not walk alone.
Killaboss Mukka Faceripper accompanied him, eager to claim Atressa’s head for his new boss. Dreadlord Estannias held himself apart, while Sir MarrowMaw and Da Konfessas could barely restrain themselves. With the sound of rolling thunder in the air above them and ash-mud beneath their boots, they made for Breakspear Castle.
Battle already raged there. What remained of the Able Albern Baking Company’s flotilla found themselves beset above the Castle’s ramparts by vessels once of Kharadron make, yet belching warpfire and “improved” upon by Skaven minds. Below, Twistwhisker of Clan Skryre and Mendflesh of Clan Moulder fought to drive off the last of the troggoth mob. A grotesque amalgamation of rat and machine heaved forward to do battle with the Longblade’s greatest troggboss, still tearing each other apart long after either one should have succumbed to their wounds. Accusing Mendflesh of incompetence or perhaps outright betrayal for the Abomination’s death, the two Skaven masterminds quickly turned on each other, loyalties forgotten.
Mogrek’s arrival on Heartpyre Nar had not gone unnoticed. Although it went against everything she had always been, Atressa had stayed behind, trusting her generals to lead from the front and waiting for Mogrek to play his hand.
Atressa Redhand had kept the truth to herself, and she was not proud of it. Every report had claimed Mogrek could not be stopped before he reached the Prime Dominion. Warden of the Ceraphate, she stood responsible for its defense, and had listened while Dariel, Caradryas and Iden devised the Dawnhammer Bombards with which to destroy Mogrek’s rogue idols.
Battle was all she had known, by choice at first, and then by necessity, for survival. She had attempted to embrace these years of peace, that serenity was not surrender… and yet, it would never be home. For the first time, she felt grateful that victory eluded her in favor of Dariel. Her need for conflict would have destroyed the very thing she meant to protect.
Yes, she had kept the truth to herself, for she meant to kill Mogrek Longblade before he ever reached the Prime Dominion.
The Seraphon brought word of Mogrek’s approach. Once her Equerry, the Black Pilgrim Eris Bloodwrath rallied those who could be found. Bram Tallow had just returned with the survivors of Emberport, the forces of Shiraghul and Helaku with him. Once mustered, they made for Breakspear Castle with all haste.
Atressa smiled, though none save Eris might have noticed. No, ruling was not for her. Her place was here, and she was content.
Breakspear Castle
The castle was built so long ago that entire trees had seeded, grown, and died about its walls. Mogrek regarded the place with contempt. Perhaps, in his past life, Breakspear would have been worth kicking down. It was a ghost of itself now, bones left standing in a mockery of life.
They had fought well, these Redhands. He couldn’t say the same about all those that had called themselves Longblades. The ghouls, the troggs, the grots… they’d all been bashed proper. Good, he thought. That was the way of things, and the boys still standing were stronger for it.
Breakspear belonged to the Longblades when Atressa Redhand besieged it, but Mogrek would not be found cowering behind castle walls. With a bellow, his lads poured out, or threw themselves from the parapets onto their enemy. Shiraghul tore into Da Konfessas, and Helaku smashed Sir MarrowMaw to the ground. Bram Tallow and Dreadlord Estannias clashed while in the eye of the storm, Eris Bloodwrath led her war party into Da Frostbitaz’ teeth, and with them, Atressa and Mogrek.
The sheer bulk of the colossa-boss was unmistakable even through the falling ash. Atressa’s breath caught; in all her years, she had never seen such an orruk. They had spoken of him as a beast birthed in the Age of Myth, and for the first time, she believed them.
Bram’s Freeguild and Eris’ Bloodbound fought shoulder to shoulder. Mogrek swung his namesake like a scythe, cleaving apart half a dozen of them with a single blow. The lines of battle parted, and Eris called Atressa to her side as she charged the colossa-boss.
Atressa Redhand sprinted to keep up with the Eris’ galloping brass-and-brimfire Juggernaut. Something came at her from the side, and she leaned into it on instinct as Killaboss Mukka Faceripper crashed into the Warden, knocking her into the mud.
Alone now, Eris swept her axe up and into Mogrek as she rode past, yet the blow glanced off his armor. Throwing himself around, Mogrek brought the Longblade down, its reach well beyond his own massive arm. Eris pitched in her saddle, dodging the backhanded swing even as it cleaved the snorting head from her Juggernaut and sent both crashing to the ground.
Mukka hooted and hollered as he pressed his attack, hacking at Atressa with axe and flail as she scrambled to get away, unable to find her footing in the muck. He brought the flail down on her, striking her in the back, and went for the kill with both hands on his axe. Inside his guard now, Atressa buckled his knee with a kick and ran her sword through his throat with Mukka’s own momentum. “It will take a greater greenskin than you to kill me,” she spat as pulled her blade from his throat and left him to die.
Eris struggled to her feet, eyes blazing red, as Mogrek Longblade lumbered toward her. Her right arm hung limp, blood pouring between the chainmail. She shrugged off her Khornate-marked shield and took up her axe in her off hand. “With it, or on it,” she remarked, spitting blood on the shield.
Mogrek peered at her, his own eyes like hot coals.
“When I put you down, you don’t get back up.”
Eris came again, and Mogrek kicked her in the chest, stomping her into the ground and twisting his boot atop her broken body. When he stepped away, she stayed down.
A flash of motion caught his attention and he turned his head, the sword meant for his eye instead splitting his cheek. Atressa was on him, but Mogrek wouldn’t give her another opening. He forced her away with a backhand, and followed that with the Longblade. He was fast, too fast. She raised her blade to block, and felt her arm go numb even as the tang broke and twisted in her palm.
“You the Redhand?” Mogrek rumbled. Atressa nodded. “Atressa,” she answered. “You should know the name of the woman who killed you.” Mogrek snorted, and charged like a bull.
In her youth, Atressa had fought wolves and snakes for sport; Mogrek had the speed and strength of both. He hurled his whole body at her like an avalanche of flesh and iron; every time she made to attack him, great hacking swings of the Longblade would drive her back. It was all she could do to keep her footing- if she went down in the mud again, this would be over.
There was no thought behind his attacks, only violence. They told her she was nothing more than a bug to be crushed. She smiled, and backed away. “Coward,” Mogrek snarled, his slate face flashing in anger. He came at her again with a bellow, and again she backed away.
Atressa watched his clumsy attacks and she laughed, reminded of her water dance. They could not reach her. Moving as if in a trance, she felt herself bump into a dead gnarloak.
Mogrek saw his opening and struck.
Atressa was gone before the Longblade connected, lodging itself in the tree. With a grunt, Mogrek made to wrench it free, and found the Longblade held fast where it had bit deep into the flesh of the gnarloak. Atressa’s blade had already sunk to the hilt in his chest, and she looked up with a grin of triumph… into a snaggle-toothed smile of his own. “Was that supposed to hurt, Redhand?”
With numbing horror, Atressa realized she had misjudged his heart. Screaming like a wildcat, she threw all her weight into the blade, twisting it up inside him, driving it deeper into his chest.
Mogrek hacked blood and the broken tang snapped off in Atressa’s hand, leaving only a hilt with no blade. Atressa laughed incredulously before Mogrek grabbed her in his massive hand, putting both Atressa and his fist through the gnarloak.
***
Atressa was still laughing as she looked up at him from the cold, wet ground. Her lungs had collapsed, her ribs shattered, her back broken. She hadn’t dropped the hilt, but instead clutched it in nerveless fingers. The pain wasn’t bad, as she couldn’t feel much of anything.
He towered over her. “I was wrong about you, Atressa Redhand,” Mogrek growled, the sounds of ongoing battle lost in the rain around them. “You aren’t a coward. But I said I was going to have your head, and I do what I says.”
Atressa looked up at him and laughed, spitting blood. “Only victory,” was all she had to say.
For a long moment Mogrek regarded Atressa Redhand with a look of confusion, then shrugged and brought the Longblade down like a butcher’s cleaver.
Result: Redhands Victory
The Prime Dominion
Iscarion, capital city of the Iscarneth Ceraphate
The council chambers could seat a hundred, and Ceraph Dariel stood alone within them, for there was nothing more to say.
Atressa Redhand was dead. She had won.
Caradryas was there when they had come, and Dariel watched something fall away behind the prince’s eyes that he never knew was there. Dariel dismissed the messengers without sentiment; he would mourn her in his own way. She had ensured the Dawnhammer Bombards would be completed before Mogrek Longblade arrived.
Atressa Redhand was dead, and she had won.
Those Iscarneth that scoffed at the threat had fallen silent. The reports were… incomplete, but they all confirmed her death. Some claimed her body had been recovered by a Freeguilder by the name of Bram Tallow, but they hadn’t found him yet. Valandile Briarthorn’s regiment remained missing in action; Mazoka was unable to account for them.
Still, the Dawnhammer Bombards would be ready. Mogrek’s Rogue Idols would be met with devastating cannonfire, the likes of which Greywater Fastness would be hard pressed to match. Iscarion would have a fighting chance.
Dariel voiced gratitude to an empty room. The woman his words were meant for would never hear them.
He turned to retire to his gardens when a commotion at the doors caught his attention. They swung open a moment later, and a messenger all but tumbled in, chest heaving as he caught his breath.
“Your Grace,” he gasped. “Your Grace, I come with news from Catarhactes!”
Dariel rushed to his side, taking him by the shoulder and guiding him to a councilor’s chair. “Easy, sentinel,” he reassured the youthful Iscarneth. The lad must have been barely more than a boy during the last war. “What tidings do you bring for me?”
“There’s a woman, Your Grace,” he said. “She came through the Realmgate. She claims to be Iscarneth. She carries a spear, Your Grace. And, Your Grace, she said to us…” He took a deep breath.
“... She wants you to know that she swore an oath.”
Everything changes, given time. Names are lost to history, caught in the bloody machinations of nations and dynasties who are themselves adrift amid the turbulent tide of years. From a distant enough vantage point, even the gods appear as afterthoughts while the Mortal Realms grind like cogs in an unfathomably vast machine.
Yet all history was once lived, and all wars fought for a reason. Each fleeting life so desperately spent had its own meaning, its own purpose.
Legacy.
Ambition.
A way of life.