Cyrdic's runic sword cut across the skinless beast's collarbone, causing it to howl and crash into the ground. With a fluid reverse he stabbed through the Chaos hellhound's chest and into the blood soaked earth, killing the last of the enemy's scouts. Behind him, over half of the Count's officers were slain. Johan's throat had been torn out, and Lance's entrails were strewn across the snow, his dead eyes staring into the approaching dawn. They had tried to fight, but the hounds had been supernaturally quick and lithe, and the men's bullets and swords had simply been repelled by the magics of the Hellhound's skinless hides. Only Cyrdic and Skaldi (who's axe must have had Dwarfish runes) among this group had managed to slay them. Luckily, such monstrous scouts were extremely rare.  

The Ostlander needed to rouse the full brunt of the army. The trees and the distant mountains still obscured the rising sun, but Cyrdic knew Norscan movements. They came just before dawn, when soldiers were rousing. 
"Damn them to hell!" Cyrdic heard in the distance. The Count roared as fiercely as any troll, and past a few copse of trees, Cyrdic saw him mount his fearless Griffon steed, his runefang glowing. "Get the troops moving! We must fight them in the town, Urlic willing." 

Skaldi ripped his axe out of a Chaos hellhound and spat on its corpse, the ichor of its blood acidic by nature and eating into the ground wherever a drop hit the snow. "Foul Varfdum!" he cursed in Khazalid, and kicked it for good measure. "Interrupting my gold stories!"

It took close to an hour before the word filtered through the camp that only Cyrdic, the Count Gaussar, and Harald Stout-arm were the only leadership left alive in the ramshackle Imperial forces. Cyrdic called the Greatswords to him as the army began to move, telling them the battle plans he hastily made, instinctual tactics he surmised based on an almost imperceptible intuition only borne out of experience. He already knew the landscape before them. He simply didn't know when they would get there to fight the Norscan army. 

The Count did a forced march, moving them out without breakfast and barely enough time to rouse and re-equip. It was by Sigmar's grace they happened to have a force that was experienced enough to don their arms and armor quickly, and within minutes the cavalry sallied forth out of the woods as fast as they could in the deep snow to scout out the enemy's movements. It was not needed... It was just after half of the main force of infantry emerged from the woods that the Norscans revealed themselves. 

Krondstat was already in flames, and the barbarous warriors were hacking apart whatever townsfolk remained. Even as Cyrdic watched from the southern column, a screaming woman was thrown off the top of a three story building with her child clutched in her arms. The men of the town were being impaled on spikes, the bases of the spikes had the shapes of crows, eagles, hounds, and snakes, signifying their symbols of Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Khorne, and Nurgle. To Cyrdic's dismay, the hounds were far more common than any. 

A great horn was blown from within Kronstat, and as one the northern warriors gathered. A few berserkers wielding double axes were too eager to sate their bloodshed, and charged down the small decline in the snowy ground, undisturbed by the cold and howling for blood. They were gunned down by shot and bolt before they could span the ground, though they died hard. Behind them, Norscan warriors with ritualistic blue tattoos began to grab at their own skins and rip them off, tearing at their outer layer to reveal not blood but fur. Out of their human forms, bristling Wolfish beasts tore through the tops of their necks and revealed themselves in monstrous fury, as tall as Ogres and fiercely lean. 

Snarling, they began to lope down the hill with a predatory grace that belied their terrifying strength. They were the true vanguard of the force. Behind them, the muscled, berserker Norscans followed in a wave of fury unmatched by any civilized men. They tried to beat the Skinwalkers to the Imperials, now arrayed in classical formation. Pikes and spears in front, and by Cyrdic's orders they were lowered and ready. Swordsmen and Gunners just behind to fire or surge through any gaps in the pikewall. Crossbowmen at the flanks, along with the cavalry to provide support. At the Center, Cyrdic stood with his Greatswords, with Skaldi at his side, giving a Khazalid warcry. 

When the Skinwalkers made it to the lines, many of the beasts were spit upon pikes, while others, too large and strong to be cowed, barreled through the spears with great leaps and hacked apart men with terrible frenzies of armor rending claws, only for they themselves to be hacked apart by the swordsmen. Next, the Norscans, brutes and mutants alike, crashed into shields and pikes with inhuman strength and zeal. At their center was a Norscan champion that stood as tall as a Skinwalker, with horns protruding out of his shoulders.

The Greatswords beside Cyrdic moved in perfect rhythm, their swords going up and down and blocking expertly, hacking off limbs and heads and guarding one another. Cyrdic faced off a mutated Norscan that had made it through the Greatswords, with a face obscured by a helm but a left arm having been corrupted into a brutal hacking weapon of its own, while his right hand held a handaxe. On his breast was the mark of the Changer of Ways. 

In eerie silence he swiped at Cyrdic, who sidestepped his arm and blocked the next axe chop with his Norscan shield. The sergeant stabbed forward and then instinctly blocked an arm cut by hacking at the base of the limb, severing it. The Norscan seemed more confused than hurt, and his life ended a moment later when Cyrdic cut him in half with his formidable strength. 

"Good killing isn't it?" Skaldi cried. The Dwarf seemed to have a strange frenzy close to the Norscan's, only a bit heartier while not as uncontrollable. Cyrdic usually didn't understand Dwarfs or their ways, but this he could empathise with. Cyrdic had always felt at home on the battlefield, and had an enjoyment of slaying foes that he sometimes found disturbing after the fact. He knew he shouldn't. If Theodric the Chosen's words were to be believed, Khorne had plans for him that Cyrdic shuddered to think about. 

As the battle raged on, the Imperial line wavered more than a few times, and the Cavalry engaged with Chaos wardogs at the flanks. But with heroic advances by Cyrdic and his Greatswords, along with the Count and his Griffon tearing apart any resistance, they were at least holding. But the flanking party was late, and Cyrdic felt a worry in his breast that he couldn't shake. Soon, there was a chill up his spine as his fears grew. 

"CEERDIK!" he heard from the left. To Cyrdic's relief and surprise, Ivan Petrovich and a few of his hussar riders waded through some of the disorganized Norscan lesser warriors, hacking at them with sweeps of their sabers. "To me!" Cyrdic called, the Greatswords and mercenaries that found themselves with him surged forward, cutting a path toward the riders and letting them through. But as they rode in, Cyrdic realized there were too few of them, and they came from the west, not the North. 

"Camilla!" he called over the din of battle as the riders passed. Ivan's face dropped, and he dismounted his horse. "Ceerdik..." 

"[b]Camilla[/b]!!!" he cried again, and knew she wasn't with them. Ivan placed a hand on Cyrdic's shoulder. The Ostlander turned his sword on Ivan and placed the blade at his throat, his fears and bloodlust having mounted since battle began. "Where is she?" he demanded. Ivan made no move against him, and was in fact a bit disturbed by Cyrdic's wolfish eyes for a moment. "Ve ver found out Ceerdik. She vas taken...I don't noe vere zshe iz." 

It took a few moments for Cyrdic to react, and he grabbed Ivan's shirt harder, pressing the blade closer for a few moments until his body was sapped of strength, and an utter horror took over his face. He dropped his runic sword into the snow, and the dozens of bleeding wounds and the lack of sleep suddenly felt like an anvil on his shoulders. "No..." he breathed, shaking his head. Unable to accept that she was gone. 

By Ulric, Cyrdic wouldn't let that happen. He would tear apart the entire Norscan army and sail to Norsca itself if he had to. 
[@Penny]