The Chronicled Battles of Lucinda Vargbain's Gravehost, as witnessed by Voraq the Scribe.
Battle of the Bell Tower, part 1
Let it be known, that I do not write these journals to commemorate Lucinda Vargbain's military genius, but to underline her failures. Both as a leader of a Gravehost, and as an oath-bound Vengorian Lord, completely blinded by her self-delusions of purity and control.
It was our Gravehosts fourth encounter when I decided I needed to start keeping a journal. During our most recent outing, before that, Lucinda lost control of her senses for the entire combat and nearly met her Final Death against those skinny aelf-wytches and their blood-spewing walking statues of murder. I foresee, that eventually there will be a night when Lucinda doesn't return from the battlefield and then I will take my place as the rightful commander of this slowly growing gravehost.
We came to the Realm of Beasts in search of the great godbeast that we Vyrkos owe our heritance to. Lucinda claims that she's had blood-visions that lead us here, to one of he most unwelcoming of Realms. We arrived one moon ago and instantly had to defend our position against those fanatic blood-addled aelves and even the very nature itself. Since then we have also had some battles with the disciples of the fate-weaving, ever-meddling chaos-god, Tzeentch.
Our fourth battle was also our second outing with these demons and their braying puppets. We were advancing on a lead about Lucinda's visions that had led us to a Sigmarite Mausoleum, an oasis-like spot of tranquility in the middle of the raging forests of Ghur, somewhat south of Amberstone Watch. We arrived to the central crypt-tower, only to find it already being ransacked by a Tzaangor Shaman and it's cackling entourage of pink horrors. It was hard to tell their exact number but I estimated that the unit of pink horrors had been given reinforcements since we last saw them. I was sure the enemy had other units nearby too, but they were nowhere to be seen when the battle began.
Lucinda formed us in a circle around the tower, guiding us to attack the pink horrors from all sides and pushing them together to better contain the inevitable tide of lesser horrors splitting from the slain demons. I was again given the duty of babysitting our zombie unit along with Gorslav. We also had the support of our Corpse Cart and it's power-boosting lodestone behind us. Knights of the Khwitas Ros assembled to our left, the white rose petals etched on their shields glinting in the moonlight as white as the teeth of their skeletal steeds. Their ranks were missing one fifth of their usual strength. Apparently the swamps of Ghur hold fast even the dead that would normally rise with a flick of the wrist and a few simple incantations. Lucinda took place on the opposing side of the tower, the bloodhungry Fell Bats in tow. She was still badly injured after the last fight, but she insisted she needed to partake in this search personally. It is exactly this kind of foolhardiness that will be the end of her. Tomas the Groom, the hideously transformed spouse of Lucinda was getting ready to leap on the enemy on our right flank, near the north side of the boneyard..
The bell on top of the central crypt-tower tolled once and the battle began with us taking advantage of the enemy's surprise. Lucinda controlled her urge for violence, at least for now and tried to conjure a hex of weakness on the pink horrors. I sensed the winds of magic converging strongly around her, but the Tzaangor Shaman unbinded the spell with ease, as it had foreseen the spell being spun. I decided to offer protection for Lucinda, summoning a protective barrier around her. I felt the power of the lodestone amplifying my incantations and the Shaman was powerless to stop me. Then using the sorcerous powers of my Arcane Tome I blasted one of the pink horrors in twain with an Amarantine Orb, the fiend instantly splitting into two blue horrors. All our forces, save the Corpse Cart were withing charging distance of the enemy and I sensed that Lucinda's plan was to make quick work of the defending demons. A tall order as I wasn't sure if our combined might would be enough to slay the demons before their reinforcements would arrive. I knew Pink Horrors were one of the most frustrating foes, especially if they stood above something you needed to gain control of.
Lucinda send the Fell Bats in first and just as I anticipated, the horrors unleashed a barrage of warp-flame on the advancing bats. For a moment the night sky became bright as day as pink, purple and blue hues danced along hot white blasts. When my eyes again adjusted themselves to the welcoming darkness of the moonlit night, I noticed that only less than half of the Fell Bats had been consumed by the torrent of unnatural flames. That was certainly a bit unexpected. Now that the horrors were being harassed by the giant bats, rest of our forces could charge in without being shot at. First the black knights rushed in, their steeds trampling some demons. Then on the north side, Vargskyr Tomas closed the distance in pounding leaps and smashed into the fray, right next to the remaining Fell Bats. Gorslav charged too, I commanded the zombies to remain just within striking distance, not yet charging them to melee. Then with a mighty roar, Lucinda charged next, her thunderous voice savage, more that of an animalistic beast than of any woman. The roar prevented the Tzaangor Shaman from uttering commands to its demonic minions and I must confess I was perplexed if this was part of Lucinda's strategy or just pure luck and coincidence. Just before launching myself at the foe, I noticed an immense shadow hulking closer from north of the battlefield. Lucinda had forgotten to summon her wolves! The first tactical error of this battle and the fighting had barely begun. I was aware that she could connect to the Sacred Wolf within our Vyrkos blood and a group of vicious Dire Wolves would appear. They would have helped to protect our exposed flank in the north, but it was too late. I wondered if this oversight would cost us dearly before long.
The demons fought fiercely, being surrounded from all sides, except the eastern flank, where the zombies were held too far for the demons to attack them, but close enough for them to lunge on the demons when I would release my control over them. When the demons had committed their strikes, I finally unleashed the zombies on them and closed the circle around our foe. I lended some of my strength to the zombies, the new vigor making them fight twice as hard. For this particular skill I seem to be destined to lord over the lesser undead in our gravehost. (Note to self: I must not take pride in this as the taste is quite bitter.) We inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, while not taking much damage ourselves. Lucinda set a ferocious example to the rest of us. If I'm not mistaken, with the power of Sangsyron at her command, she took away as many demons as the rest of our forces combined and with the shimmering Mystic Shield around her, she was impervious to damage.
Despite suffering heavy casualties, the horrors now had double their original numbers. All the pink ones were gone and most of the blue ones too. Their Shaman commander prevented their essence from escaping back to the Realm of Chaos and the explosions of warp-energy had animated more zombies to join the original unit, which had gained about half of it's original strength of fresh zombies. The battle was going exactly as planned.
Until the initiative switched to the opponent. The blue-skinned bray-shaman waved it's staff and started conjuring a chaotic mutation on Lucinda. She could not manage to unbind the spell but her undead fortitude prevented any harmful effects. After that, the Shaman lifted itself over the tower on its disc and flew away from the heat of battle, someways south I presume. My focus was on the opposing direction as a might roar sounded from the north as the dark shadow materialized into view. It was as large as the bell-tower that was at the center of the battlefield, and as loud as it was ugly: a Ghorgon. Behind it flew a unit of Tzaangor Enlightened on their demonic discs. They charged our northern side, and the remaining Fell Bats were quickly chopped to bits by the Tzaangors. The huge Ghorgon bellowed to the Zombies, severing the necrotic hold I had on them and momentarily preventing me from issuing any commands to their undead minds and then tarted making paste of our risen Zombies, destroying half of them in the following melee. Those wolves would have prevented a rear-charge like this, I was sure Lucinda would come to regret her error and the moment seemed to be just that much closer.
We continued to keep our focus on the horrors and eventually the remaining brimstone horrors disappeared with a crackling noise and a sulfurous cloud. We had managed to destroy them in a record time. I was a bit amazed when the remaining Zombies stood defiantly against the Ghorgon, apparently some shared memory from their lives against similiar foes made them look like actual exemplars of valour and none of them perished due a weakening necrotic link.
As the bell strung a second time, it was time to assess the battlefield and focus on our objective.
To be continued...
