Winds howled among the spindly dark oaks of Sylvania. Dead leaves rustled in the gale as the steady stomp of feet below the tress vibrated thought all the cursed ground of Sylvania.
Giant boots trampled the old and wrenched bushes underfoot and kicked aside dirt as twisted battle cries emerged from the chaos-warped throats of the hundreds of marauders and chaos worshipers that moved.
They could not be considered and army in any since of the word. When the formed up they did so in mobs, not as any kind of organized military formation that anyone would have recognized.
This was of course perfect contrast to the silent and grim ranks of the undead, perfectly arranged in deep ranks that where cut into orderly squares alongside slavering ghouls and massive rotting dire wolves.
Fell bats flew overhead and on the flanks of the undead host where scores of Black Knights, some of then just recently reanimated to fight in this particular battle. At their head were Konrad Sibrand and his Blood Knights, lusting for battle.
The forces of the dark gods where massive Kurgans, in great bearskin furs and leather decorations. They carried great axes and sword along with flails made of human skulls and shields of stitched human skin.
Among them where enormous men, each twice as wide and a head-and-half taller then the greatest of the marauders among them. They where the Chaos Warriors, the chosen of the gods and they greatest of the Northern tribes.
Huge mutated hounds loped along in front of the chaos battle line, yelping their deformed heads at their undead counterparts, their own howls being answered by that of the undead.
Chaos warriors mounted on mutated steeds that more resembled a lion or other great predatory beast roamed in great groups. They where itching for the great cavalry charge to get to grips with the enemy.
There where rotted, diseased men among the ranks, clad in filthy robes of brown and green. Enormous muscular barbarians with blood-red tattoos and carrying great axes stared hatefully at slender, androgynous swordsmen in purple silks. Occasionally their where blue-robed and raven-like sorcerers that muttered spells in dark tongues.
Mircea Von Carstein eyed the horde darkly as they assembled. He disregarded them not for their gross perfidy and invasion of his homeland, although those where some very migrating factors.
No, he hated them because they where an unnecessary distraction from his vengeance and plot to resurrect his most favored get. He had planned to deal with this trash later but even he could not refuse a direct order from Mannfred.
Around him where his elite grave guard, tall and dark and clad in ancient suits of ornate plate armor. Nearby where regiments of skeletons amidst zombies he had raised from the nearby earth, Sylvania always had an abundance of the dead.
On the flanks where the precious carriage of Sophia, around it where a force of great black wolves and undead wights commanded by Luke, They where assigned to guard Sophia’s regenerating form and Mircea knew that Luke was a potent Necromancer.
In the ranks amongst snarling and howling ghouls stalked Jan von Carstein, hungrily grasping his twin blades while he formed his own elite regiment of undead wights Mircea could see that the vampire could barley contain his battle lust.
Jan was unlike Luke in so many ways; Luke was a debonair wolf, a true blade and someone Mircea considered a quality vampire that could shine well with the conventional aristocracy.
Jan by contrast was a butcher. Even is Luke was embarrassed by his brother’s crass nature and boorish altitude he did not abandon them for they where brothers both in death and in life.
Near the frenzied vampire was a coven of necromancers, among them where Micrea’s personal sorceress Katja, along with his other vassals and those that Mannfred had sent to reinforce him. They where currently busing themselves with taking over that section of the line, allowing Mircea to condense his magic over a tighter area.
Even now he could see the strands of necromancy stretching over the battlefields, the skeletons coming out of their hidden crypts in the hillside, the bats swarming out of the caves and the wolves streaking out the forests, compelled by the will of the vampires.
Vast this northern horde may be but they where facing the vast army of the dead in a land which had seen much death and bloodshed in it’s time. Even the Northmen’s own recent murdered victims where rising as zombies.
Extending his will thought the Slyvanian army Mircea ordered units of zombies and dire wolves to advance across the dead landscape, amongst ramshackle farm houses and spindly pale trees.
With that Mircea began the first part of the battle.
^^^^
His name was Kroemdar, and he was a champion, almost eight feet tall and covered with notched red and black armor with an ornate silver eight-pointed star of chaos undivided carved into it.
On his back he wore a massive pelt of fur, a daemon, his warriors whispered, slain in combat and worn as a pelt to show his prowess as a warrior. Whether it was true or not he was a fearsome warrior.
He was zar, a word meaning warlord in the tongue of the northern barbarians, no one knew exactly how old he was, Kroemdar was, he himself had forgotten his age when he left his tribe to become one of the chosen of the gods.
‘’They smell like the shit of dogs’’ he snarled to one of his warriors, a massive bull-headed man, literally he had a massive bovine had and a crown of blue thorn-like horns draping his skull.
‘’At least they are not as bad as the followers of Nurgleth!’’ another warrior joked. ‘’Would you rather they smell like southerners? Or those weakling Imperials’’ a laugh sounded through the ranks.
Zar Kroemdar knew how to inspire his men for the gods, they had came down here as part of Archaon’s immense horde that butchered and ravenged they’re way though Ostermark and Ostland.
During which after the battle at Middenheim and the retreat to Brass Keep Kroemdar had broke off to raid on his own. He had already forged a coalition of other tribes under his command, behind a follower of Chaos Undivided made it easier for him to be accepted by the others.
Right now, members of his original tribe of Kurgans, whether they worshiped any of the four gods solely or if they worshiped Chaos Undivided as a pantheon. They where all granted command in his new army regardless, as proof of their devotion.
And now they faced the living dead. Kroemdar had heard of them before, somewhere in his past distant memory when he was just a knee-high boy sitting in his fathers lap he had heard stories about the ferocious blood drinkers.
He chuckled; Blood was for Khorne, not for drinking. These dead beasts where just as vulnerable to the blessings of the gods as they where to sunlight or stake. ‘’Blood for the Blood God indeed’’ he muttered.
Nearby Ulii, the standard bearer who carried a massive banner mounted in a pike. The banner was emblazoned with an image of a twisted black axe on a yellow field and the skulls of the Zar’s enemies where mounted on it.
He knew that the vampires where notoriously hard to kill by conventional means, but cutting off the head of a blood drinker would slay it the same as any other mortal, that head would decorate his trophy-banner.
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The great-mutated hounds howled their warped battle cries as they collided with the packs of massive undead wolves, balefires burning in their eyes. Fang and claw tore into each other with equal ferocity.
Both armies advanced with little missile fire to be exchange, the northerner’s distaining such weapons and the bulk of the undead too slow and basic to use such complex weapons.
Mircea gave a silent command to his ranks of skeletons that leveled spears and locked shields with inhuman efficiency and began to advance upon the howling marauders who broke into a run at the sight of the undead.
The north men smashed into the ranks of the undead like a sledgehammer thought rotten fruit. The front rank of skeletons was simply bashed aside by massive chaos warrior with evilly glowing weapons.
All around axes tore of the skulls of zombies who clawed and grasped at the flesh of the marauders as massive barbarian hacked through way to Mircea’s banner, howling praise to the four gods as they did so.
However after the initial emphasis of the charge faded Mircea pooled his sorcerous talent to re-raising his fallen warrior, pushing through the magical defenses to resurrect zombies and skeletons.
These warriors pressed on, only to be cut again and resurrected and cut down again as the circle repeated it. At first the dead seemed to be outmatched, but with each round of fighting the dead claimed the lives of northmen who where promptly raised again.
In the midst of the carnage was Jan von Carstein, covered in gore and laughing like a manic as his twin blades claimed the lives of a barbarian northerner with each deadly swing of steel.
His bloodthirst brought him deep into the barbarian ranks, the unconscious will of the vampire driving on his followers to fight with maniacal frenzy surprising even to the battle-hardened followers of chaos.
Immense red-armored men bellowed praise to Khorne as they carried massive hand axes, butchering their way to Jan’s position with a grim icy bloodlust, along side them marched Kroemdar and his huge black-armored chosen with that cursed banner.
A group of towering, slender, silk robed in purple-black and pink armor advanced on Sophia’s black coach with frightening speed and grace. Seeing their advance Luke howled out into the ranks of the undead army, summing flocks of fell bats and packs of dire wolves.
Imposing his will over these beasts he sent them hurling at the Slaanesh worshipers. They howled in please even as they where torn apart in a flurry of bat wings and ripped to shreds by the fangs and claws of the wolves.
Luke saw one man laughing even as he had an arm torn off. Another was giggling even though an enormous fell bat had bitten of his face. They ignored their wounds and fought on jovially towards the black coach.
Besides them emerged men in rotting armor and filthy robes, bearing rusty scythes and dirty flails. Luke turned his nose up in disgust at the rotting, stinking followers of Nurgle as the Chaos forces advanced.
Grimly Luke formed up his ranks of skeletons and ghouls and met the Chaos forces in a counter charge, swords shattered and spears splintered as the two forces collided in a bloody desperate mêlée.
Luke hung back and smiled as he called upon his necromantic prowess. He frowned as his attempt to raise zombies where dispelled by a black-robed mage with lizard’s feet and a third eye.
The sorcerer was doing his best to prevent the spells of Mircea and his coven of necromancers, beside him where ashes and lumps of mutated meat that had once been sorcerers.
Other silk-robed magicians and leprous shaman gave up casting their spells on the undead. The temptations of Slaanesh would do little to tempt something that is a mindless zombie and disease did not affect those who where already dead.
Luke turned to the ranks behind him and snapped his fingers. With a inhuman roar a massive shape lurched out of the undead line at incredible speeds, smashing aside capering ghouls who desperately tired to get out o fit’s way.
It was a massive beast; over nine feet tall and more thickly muscled than an ogre. It resembled a giant demonic bat crossed with a wolf and a man with great wings and hateful red eyes.
The Vargulf had once been a minor vampire rival, Luke had forgotten his name, but the vampire had his castle destroyed by witch hunters and forced to live in the forests, there he devolved into a mindless beast.
Many centuries later Mircea discovered it and bound the beast to him with necromantic magic, The Vargulf made an excellent shock warrior, so the vampire lord had made efforts to acquire others of it’s kind.
Leaping bestially the great bat-like beast smashing through the ranks of marauders and mutants and heads straight towards the black-robed sorcerer and his bodyguard of chosen barbarians.
The sorcerer shouted urgently at his bodyguard to form up besides him, attempting to cast a spell to annihilate the beast with bolts of magical energy. Smiling Luke brought of a scroll and read from it even as the Vargulf came into contact with the sorcerer.
Luke watched the dispel scroll crumble into dust as he prevented the spell that would have saved the life of the enemy sorcerer. He watched in glee as the massive bat monster tore apart the coven of enemy sorcerers like dolls.
Meanwhile the sleek-limbed worshipers of the Pleasure god and the diseased men of Nurgle broke through the skeletons, hacking down bones and ghoul flesh with equal abandon and savagery.
Almost negligently Luke allowed the necromantic stings holding the undead to collapsed, watching with disinterest of the ghouls where slaughtered and skeletons collapsed into piles of bones.
The Chaos forces moved forward, buoyed by the thrill of victory and the lust for battle. Luke gave a small, evil smile exposing his fangs as he raised an arm and them dropped it down.
Behind him galloped the massed ranks of the Black Knights and the Blood Knights under Konrad Sibrand. The Blood Knight had to barely restrain himself from joining in the slaughter until the time was right, now he had his chance.
The Kurgans had penetrated to deep behind the undead lines, now a large chunk of the chaos worshippers where exposed out and in the open as they milled about and desperately tired to reform their ranks.
Luke smiled as he saw corrupted blood fly into the air when the charge of the undead knights smashing into the ranks of northerners and began to butcher them as they did to the skeletons just earlier.
Almost carelessly he began to raise more and more zombies from the corpses to join in on the attack, to pull down fleeing Kurgans with cold gray fingers and down to their deaths.
^^^
By now Kroemdar’s Kurgans had finally smashed their way through the ranks of undead in front of them, unaware that their positions where rapidly behind enveloped by the forces of Konrad Sibrand and Luke.
Kark Marrowgrinder, champion of Khrone raised his twin axes and led a charge into the ranks of Mircea’s own grave guard, Kroemdar rallying his warriors around him for the example of the Khornate.
Bones where snapped underfoot as the barbaric howls of the marauders sounded through the landscape and great axes and broadswords hewn down zombies by the dozen, only for the undead to be reanimated by the magicks of the necromancers.
Mircea, looking over the battlefield drew his broadsword and gave a silent command to his grave guard as he formed his reserve up into orderly blocks and he began to chant words that would cast spells pf speed and vigor to the undead ranks.
Silently, but with glowing magical balefires in their eyes the ranks of armored skeletons and grave guard charged the Kurgans. The battle-hardened barbarians met the undead elite in a bloody charge as bestial howls echoed around the battlefield.
Kark Marrowgrinder reached a tall skeletal, necromancer and clove him in half, he was on another necromancer in the blink of an eye and beheaded him casually, and the beheaded form did not bleed as it slowly collapsed into dust.
He then split of ghoul from skull to crotch before flinging aside his axes and diving into the sea of undead in a mindless rage of bloodletting. Across the battlefield his counterpart, Jan was doing the same.
Mircea dispatched the first few Kurgans with an icy precision, his swings went through the leather armor and mail hauberks of the northerners like paper as the enchanted blade howled keenly thought the air as it began to absorbing streamers of blood.
Almost negligently he beheaded a shrieking northman clad in red armor, as the barbarian’s massive body keeled over dead, blood spurting in the air. Mircea looked about for the leader of the Kurgans.
He spotted an enormous banner, with heads impaled on spikes, that banner was ornate enough to be a chieftain’s. Muttering another spell of magical vigor he drove his grave guard forward with his supernatural will, glowing spectral blades cutting down Kurgans as they went.
He spotted the barbarian’s leader, a towering figure in black armor wielding an enormous black axe, warped by chaos and studded with spikes and evil shimmering runes. He raised his blade in salute as the chaos lord spotted him.
The Chaos worshipper roared with approval and broke free to charge the vampire, Mircea mentally commanded his Grave Guard to form up into a ring that would prevent the Kurgans from interfering with the fight.
The chieftain was taller than the vampire lord and bulkier, but that did not mean anything since the vampire lord had great strength and speed, which counteracted any advantages of reach that the chaos lord might have possessed.
The twisted black axe and the screaming sword met in a flurry of magical sparks as the two enchanted weapons clashed again and again. Both combatants trying to overpower the other.
Whatever weapon the Kurgan warrior wielded, it was a match for the blade that Mircea held, the blade itself was Vlad’s own sword, painstakingly recovered from the priests of Altdorf after the first vampire war.
The chaos lord scored first blood as his axe bit into the right armguard of the vampire lord, cleaving halfway to the bone, Mircea blocked a strike one-handed with his shrieking sword and used some of the stored blood in the blade to heal his injured arm in seconds.
The northman snarled and slashed the vampire across the chest from shoulder to hip, the strike bouncing of the enchanted armor before reversing the spiked black axe into a strike at the vampire’s head. With inhuman reflexes Mircea avoided the eye-blurring speeds of the blade, which would have taken his head off otherwise.
He used the distraction to impale the barbarian through his gut, the sword passing easily through the armor plate. The barbarian grunted and black ichors seeped through the stomach of the barbarian.
The chaos worshiper grunted and then brought his axe down into the shoulder of the vampire lord, driving it down through the side of his chest as Mircea’s arm came out to grab the blade before a traveled further into his body and catch his heart.
He leapt back, dragging himself bloodily free from the grievous wounds that the axe had inflicted; he used up the remainder of blood collecting in his magical blade, muttering necromantic spells under his breath, desperately trying to heal his wounds.
He could be slain by precious few things these days but the magically enchanted chaos axe probably could kill him, however he was safe if he could heal himself with his blood sword and magicks.
However the Chaos lord did not plan to give him that chance, with a roar Kroemdar charged Mircea, ignoring his stomach wound be brought his sword around to block the strike, the sheer momentum driving the vampire lord several inches back as he dug his armored boots into the ground.
He shook the blade of and swiped his sword at Kroemdar’s head, but the Chaos lord sifted so the blade skipped of the metal of his helm. Then the chaos lord launched a flurry of strikes at Mircea’s defenses.
The vampire blocked every one as he brought his blade down, trying to cleave into the chaos lord, however his strike missed and merely cut through the left knee of Kroemdar who lurched back, stumbling on the cut tendons of his knee.
Mircea saw his chance and launched forward, his magical blade cutting into the Chaos Lord’s right arm, cleaving it at the elbow, causing more black ichor to spurt from the stump.
With unnatural reflexes the Chaos lord has switched his axe to his other hand right before the strike struck and he slammed the axe deep into the side of Mircea, the vampire lord speed back, the chaos axe imbedded deep into his side, blood bubbling from his pale lips.
The Chaos lord laughed and Mircea did something he had never done before; he reached back and flung his sword at the barbarian’s helm with all his strength. The sword speared through the brain of the barbarian as Kroemdar collapsed on the ground.
With effort the vampire lord wrenched the axe from his side and grabbed the sword before yanking it from the skull of the barbarian. He then lopped of the head of the nearest Kurgan, collecting his blood, allowing it to flow into his wounds and heal himself.
Regaining his strength he swing the blood sword through several more of the Chaos Lord’s bodyguard, commanding his grave guard to form up behind him, to attack and butcher the Kurgans.
Coming upon the banner bearer of the Chaos Lord he blocked the sword strike of the bull-headed warrior before ramming his hand through the chest of the warrior and into the heart. He looked at the beating black heart before tossing it away and charging into the slaughter once more, the banner topping behind him to be trampled by the boots of the grave guard.
^^^
Watching the slighter below where two horsemen. Both where clad in blue armor that was trimmed with silver. Both where chaos warrior, huge and on snorting black steeds with wolves fangs.
One had a jagged mark carved over the right eye slit of his helm while the other eye glowed red. The other had some sort of armored covering over his left eye while the other eyepiece glowed with a witch fire. The riders looked upon the slaughter below, the countless thousands butchering each other.
The envelopment of the northerners was complete, Konrad Sibrand led the relentless hordes of the dead into the rear, the attack spearheaded by the Blood Knights and trailed by undead knights and wolves.
Meanwhile Mircea led the blocks of skeleton infantry and freshly raised zombies at the Kurgans, butchering the northmen at the head of his own grave guard as the noose closed around the invaders.
To their credit the Kurgans continued fighting even after the death of their leader, dying to the last even as hordes of skeletons and zombies drowned them under a tide of the dead flesh.
But the two did not care about that except to admire the tough northern spirit. ‘’Was allowing Kroemdar command of that troops really wise sir?’’ the left-eyed one, the one he who seemed the younger of the two said.
The older one, the right-eyed one snorted. ‘’Don’t worry about it, the worshipers of Tchar who joining Kroemdar where idiots for doing so, and the Weaver of Fates does not suffer idiots lightly, and the others died because they where idiots too, relax and cast aside your worries Maer’’ he said his voiced light and cheery.
The other chaos rider nodded. ‘’Yes sir, or course.’’ He said before wheeling his horse around and riding off. The other rider remaining for a few moments to stare at the carnage.
‘’Just as planned’’ he muttered before setting off after his subordinate.
