In the silence of the night, small noises that normally would have been ignored during the light of day seemed to travel unhindered in the darkness. Khaz cursed the sounds of the breaths leaving both himself and those around him internally as they attempted to keep the sound of wood paddling through water as soft and unnoticeable as possible.

While the leader of the 'Orks' had set himself up in his stronghold for one final battle against the servants of the God Emperor, the First Helhiem Warband was required elsewhere. The largest 'power station' on the planet was a large dam of mind boggling size that had been occupied by a sizeable number of green skinned monsters who had dug themselves in; Despite the wide range of powerful tools and weapons that the human servants of the Emperor had at their disposal, it was quickly deemed by the powers that be that the damn was simply to important to risk causing the structural damage that bombardment of any kind would cause. The orks would need to be dealt with the hard way. 

When Grand Alpha Gort had volunteered the First Helhiem to spearhead the attack against the dam under cover of darkness with the promise that the dam would be retaken by dawn or die trying, the human Alpha he was speaking to had seemed impressed enough at the challenge that he offered the Warband a true blessing; The chance to go in alone to secure as much glory in the Emperors name as possible for themselves. 

Grand Alpha Gort wasn't a fool through; The green skinned monsters had heavily fortified themselves at the various entrances to the awe inspiring structure that they were to take and even with the cover of darkness to get them as close as possible to their positions he doubted that they would manage to close to melee without taking heavy losses from whatever ranged weapons they had. There was however another point of attack...

It had taken a few hours for the Warband to cut down a small forest a trees and create a small navy of transport boats, but once it became dark enough they boarded their boats and started to paddle over the large ocean like lake that the dam had created. 

It had taken what felt like eternity for them to arrive at their landing zone, but despite how twitchy Khaz was to get into the fray he kept himself calm; The Emperor would reward their patience soon enough. Before long, the makeshift boat that he was seated in came to rest against a wall of gray stone. One of the archers (He didn't know her name, she was from one of the other tribes) took careful aim before firing an arrow up the wall, a rope ladder trailing behind it. Her arrow struck true. After testing to make sure that the ladder was secure enough to support them, they started to climb one by one. 

As Khaz set hoof on top of the dam, he made sure that he had his sword well in hand as he carefully searched the area for possible threats; While there were giant green skinned monsters in sight, they were relatively far away from the part of the dam they were landing at, to busy drinking and fighting to keep watch for a surprise attack... at least from the direction of the water. 

It was almost physically painful to wait, but once a hundred or so of his kin had made the climb up the wall, the signal was given; With a loud bray the gathered members of the warband charged while the rest continued to climb up the ladders. The battle for the dam had began!

...............................................................

Taking his seat around a large bonfire, Khaz couldn't get the smile off of his face as he let out his own cry to join those of his brothers and sisters in arms. The green skinned beasts had proven to be a worthy enemy and the battle the night before had truly been worthy of song and story. The First Helmhiem had gone into the battle for the dam a thousand strong, now fifty two remained to sing of the glorious victory that they had earned by the shedding of orkish blood.

The shelters that they had acquired where already decorated with the trophies of battle; Orkish weapons and heads that had belonged to those with green skin who proved strong enough to be worthy of remembrance; The grandest trophy was the monstrous metal 'claw' that the leader of the orks had been wearing, a massive creature in his own right that was brought low in single combat with Grand Alpha Gort. It hung above the door to Gort's shelter in a place of great honor. Khaz looked at his own prize with a great deal of pride; He had pried what appeared to be a steel jaw from the largest ork that he had killed and he had decided to turn it into a shoulder guard of sorts.

Khaz couldn't help but feel in his heart that if he had died right this second, he would have easily earned enough honor and valor in the Emperors eyes to earn himself a good spot in his great tent... and this was just the first battle! Tilting his head back, Khaz let out a loud bray of unbridled joy, for tomorrow was another chance to prove himself.