Camilla’s blade raised a shower of spark as it ground across the black steel armor. The shock of the misaimed stroke jarred her shoulder painfully as the hell forged plate turned the elven blade. She fell back with a cry nearling losing her grip on the weapon. The dwarf drew back its hooked axe to gut her and for a moment she thought she heard an evil chuckle. Konrad’s greatsword sheered down in a might blow, amputating the things arm at the shoulder, slicing it from neck to breast in a spray of blood. Too tired to offer thanks Camilla fell back into her place in the loose diamond the party had formed around Dietricha. The wizard was crouched over the strange bull like altar chanting weird words that seemed to slide from her ears.

“Your guess is as good as mine!” Yantz shouted in response to a question she hadn’t heard. The sandy haired Imperial slashed uselessly at a trio of Chaos Dwarfs, his heavy sword striking like blacksmiths hammer down upon their shields. The orcs ranks were thinning rapidly. The greenskins were unmatched in their rage, but as Imperial armies well knew, discipline was more than a match for brute strength. The Chaos Dwarves were forming into larger ranks and beginning to push on the altar. Only the high ground and the distraction of the remaining orcs kept them from being instantly over run.

“This isn’t going to work!” Camilla yelled over the din, pausing to thrust the point of her weapon through the eyeslit of a dwarf attempting to gain the platform. Another six or seven Dawi-Zarr climbed onto the platform. They instantly locked shield, forming a bulwark which would be impossible for the exhausted group to overcome.

“We can’t…”

The cavern rocked with the war shriek of the monster as it smashed down into the rear of the phalanx, claws slashing like sabres. Whether by natural ferocity or dark sorcery, the creature’s claws tore armor like paper. It snapped and tore with its teeth, rending fresh and snapping bone in a nightmarish orgy of destruction. It’s tail snapped like a cannon, the scorpion like stinger struck Yantz’ sword and shattered it like a mortar ball, pitching the Imperial off his feet with a shout of pain. The beast roared and turned its head to look at Camilla, eyes burning with hateful intelligence. She was out of tricks and clever tactics, she hardly had the energy to dodge, all she could do was grip her sword and await the inevitable. The great beast reared back, muscles bunching like vast steel cables, black wings spreading like a funerial shroud. It screeched like a deamon, great jaws displaying hundreds of dagger like teeth, and launched itself at her like a thunderbolt from heaven. Camilla raised her blade and closed her eyes. She felt the wind of the things approach, smelled the stench of its maw and then…

The world exploded into a billion points of azure light.

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Chapter 7 - Praag

[i]When surveying the many geographic oddities that characterise the land of Kislev one would be remiss not to discuss the unique Karkov Crater of the Black Ice mountains. Located just over a hundred miles from Volksgrad the crater is a perfectly hemispherical gulf that appears to be scooped from the peak of one of the smaller mountains.  Approximately two hundred feet in diameter, the crater is unusually smooth and shows no sign of the volcanism which characterises similar craters in the archipelagos south of Araby and the Gulf of Ijan. 

As is so often the case, the local Kislivites ascribe all manor of strange superstitions to the crater. Some tales speak of an ancient stronghold of evil dwarves allegedly located beneath the mountain. Others speak of a beautiful woman descending from the heavens. Even more fanciful tales speak of the God Ulric rending the earth and rising from the crater to the great howling of wolves. Needless to say all of these peasant superstitions are ridiculous. The most likely explanation for the Karkov Crater is gradual erosion from a secondary aquifer…

From: Geographical Oddities of the Northern Reaches, Vol IV, Altdorf Press[/i]


“Answer me wizardling, lest I cleave your head from your shoulders” Ulkjar the Skull Cleaver demanded. The hulking champions brazen armor steamed in the frigid air of northern Kislev. The camp was located on an a rocky hillock. Though the snows covered the land with a thin film of white the ground for a mile in every direction was clear like a boil thrusting up through clear skin and spreading the red heat of infection. The Kislivites were proud of their harsh winter, long a bar for invaders, but for this army, for this commander, there would be no winter. Already his scouts had reached the outskirts of Praag, driving thousands from their pitiful villages to freeze in the snow. Once the city was taken, they would make fine provisions for the march south.

Around the hillock fires burned. Black armored chaos warriors moved among burly Norscans clustered around the days captives. Men and women screamed in a continual wail of agony as the vile warriors took their varied amusement with them. The weaker ones were already boiling in Norscan cook pots. Thousands of beastmen circled like skavengers, snapping at the bloodied leavings of their betters. Horns blew and weapons clashed in occasional displays of wanton blood lust. That was as it should be in the army of the Skull Cleaver. The weak, friend or foe, had no place here.

The adept of Tzeentch continued his chant, fell magics gathered about him, dancing off his crystalline armor in motes of leprous yellow light. Sarhasis the Neverborne was a powerful wizard and strange even by the standards of his own kind. Strange enough to seek out allies among Khorne’s chosen, a natural enemy of his mercurial master. The alliance the two had made was undeniably effective, they had cut their way across the waste together, gathering men and influence as they went, but neither of them like or trusted the other. Sarhasis spat a serpentine word of power and cast his knuckle bones. The bone, each taken from the index finger of an apostate priest, hung in the air a moment longer than gravity would have dictated and then fell to the earth in what looked like a random jumble.

“Nothing…” the sorcerer rasped, his voice like snake skins coiling and sliding over one and other.

“How can there be nothing?” Ulkjar snapped, his hand gripping and ungripping on the hilt of his axe. In the sunken caves of Uglish, the pair had uncovered an obscure prophecy carved into the living rock of those unhallowed catacombs. It spoke of an army that would march in the heat of the summer, though around them be ice. It also spoke of a twin bane. The Summer Maiden and the Wolf of Winter. Only if the pair stood against them were the omens of victory uncertain. If they did not take the city of Daemons, they did then they would have to seek their daemonhood at Haigh Tarna. Even Sarhashis, who had studied the library of the blind Eater Lygax and walked the scroll forest of Pentafore could find no record of where or what Haigh Tarna might be. Though they had found clues as to whom the Summer Maiden and the Wolf of Winter might be. 

Ulkjar had sent his norscan allies to deal with them, though they cursed him for forcing them to sail in such an unprofitable season. Blood oaths and terror had forced the reavers to go, though it seemed they had failed to kill either of the prophesied pair. That such doom should be attached to mere mortal mercenaries was not uncommon. Those who walked the many fold paths knew that fate more often turned on the actions of paupers than princes. Every nine days for the past two months they had cast the bones. Seeking signs and portents of the Banes. The readings had returned captivity, freedom, travel and the Daemon Smiths. It seemed now that the pair must have fallen for what else could explain their absence from the bones. Though it hadn’t been as smooth as Ulkjar had hoped, it seemed that the reavers had done their work. That the death blows came at the hands of Daemon Smiths was of no concern.

“They are dead,” Ulkjar rumbled, his enthusiasim giving his words the buzz of an impending landslide.

“It must be so, if they were upon the face of the earth, the bones would spy them out,” Sarhashis agreed reluctantly. Ulkjar began to laugh and turned from the profane circle to face his assembled chieftans. All four of the Dark Gods were represented as always they were when a great captain arose. He shook his axe in the air.

“We wait no longer!” Ulkjar roared, his shadow, cast by a hundred fires, briefly flickered into that of a vast dog with immense teeth.

“Victory awaits us in the City of Daemons!”

The answering roar shook the very hilltop