The wind stirred the dusty ground into little vortexes of sand as Khandra leaned against the mud brick of the wall. Sredni Vashtar looked down on her from his Dracoth. He saw the dents underneath the caked blood and ichor on her golden armour. The Stormcast Eternals were almost tireless, almost.
Khandra needed this moment to recenter herself.
"Today something is coming, from out there beyond the hills, to kill us while we stand here and slaughter the people in this town," she said quietly.
Sredni Vashtar looked out over the wall of the town toward the hills.
"We will hold them until my vanguard gets here. Then we will crush them."
The other five warriors of Sigmar were going about the town making sure that all of the townspeople were in the large building.
The Lord-Cellestant indicated Khanda and Vaymond.
"You two are tired. Stay in the building and guard the people in there. We will stay out here and meet the initial wave of the enemy."
The indication that they weren't up for front-line duty stung Khanda but she saw the wisdom in what was said. She picked up her Warhammer and ducked under the doorway to make her way into the building.
Inside the people moved away from her and towards the back of the building. It was just as well, they would not be in the way when the fighting started.
It was not long before the Saki Vashtar flying high above the town yelled out that he could make out the enemy.
"There are only about 40 of them, 5 mounted, the others on foot."
The dracoth growled as the Chaos force moved to the top of the hill and the wind brought their scent into the town.
As the warriors charged towards the town Anuth Drabtar started a cant that mixed with the whipping of the wind and soon the winds swirled in front of him and the air started to solidify into 10 gibbering pink forms who were moving towards the town as soon as they appeared.
In the town the defenders clenched their hands around their weapons and those in the open looked over their shoulders to see if the glint of metal would indicate that their reinforcements would be there soon.
The snarling of the twisted chaos mutants and the pounding of the hoofs of the riders got closer to the town. Khanda started to hear a sound in the building. It was soft at first but was growing in intensity. It was chant.
She left her station at the wall and looked around the corner to where the towns people were.
Her eyes widened in shock behind the gold mask she wore. The people were gathered in concentric circles around a small 3 foot circle, they were all chanting softly, while slowly the people in the most central circles were allowing their throats to be slit in time with the chanting. The woman slitting the throats was using the blood to paint symbols of Tzeentch on herself.
"We are betray'd," she yelled, "It is a trap!"
The rear most of the circles broke from the ritual and discarding the clothes they wore revealed the weapons they carried under them. The masked cultists charged into the room where Khanda and Vaymond stood and the two metal clad warriors battered them to the ground, standing back-to-back in the fray.
Sredni Vashtar had no time to respond, the Chaos knights had made it over the wall and he charged into their ranks before they could clear the obstructions near the edge of the town.
Echoes of the sound of metal on metal rang down the length of the town. Saki Vashtar unleashed arrow after arrow into the advancing foe, his arms moving so quickly that it appeared as though there was a wheel against his chest as his bow flexed again and again.
Still they came, a massive Ogroid Thaumaturge charged the gates but the two defenders there turned his attack back and stabbing at him with their broad-bladed swords brought him down. The Tzaangors used the opportunity to sneak over the wall and engaged the Stormcast heroes from the flank, forcing them to leave the gate open.
Soon all of the defenders were swarmed with opponents, the while the air was cracking and twisting as more of the gibbering pink horrors materialized and moved towards the town, raining warpflame upon the defenders where ever they became free from the hordes thronging them.
Vaymond eventually fell beneath the stabbing blades of the cultists, his massive heart giving out as the blood in his huge frame fled from dozens of small holes. Khanda fought on though, battering cultist after cultist to the ground. Soon it was just the leader left and the two circled each other, treading on and over bodies and trying not to slip on the blood soaked ground.
His attacks were savage but undisciplined, wounded and tired as she was Khanda waited for her moment to strike back. Then she heard the sound of feet pattering towards her through the building. She was out of time, the daemons had come in.
Rushing forward she slammed her shield into the blade of the cult leader, forcing it up and then swinging her massive warhammer she crashed it into his ribs and felt some give way before the blow.
He fell to his knees and she smashed his metal mask into his face with enough force that the cultist's eyes were forced through the holes in the mask.
She put her shield up just as the screaming monsters came around the corner. The chanting had grown so loud that inside the building the walls were shaking and no other sounds could be heard. Not even the cheer that went up from the defenders outside that the reincforcements had arrived. Khanda did not know that salvation was almost at hand where her form was consumed by blazing warpfire.
As Sredni Vashtar battered the last of the Chaos knights to the ground, he looked around him. Three of his champions were swamped by mutated Beastmen and massive chaos warriors. He had no time to go to their assistance as there were more warriors climbing over the town wall. He looked down the length of the main street in the town and could see Stormcast Eternals moving through and prosecutors flying above raining death on the daemon-spawn on Tzeentch.
He had time to reflect that the battle had completely changed focus and now it was the forces of chaos that were trying to protect the townspeople so that they could complete whatever devious ritual they were carrying out, while his men were trying to break through and extract the Stormcast commanders from the trap.
It was only a moment though before the Chaos Warriors were upon him and his Dracoth was clawing through their armour and he was smashing them to the ground with his grandhammer.
Saki Vashtar continued his rain of missiles on the enemy from above. Each of the daemons that were destroyed burst forth into two more smaller daemons and eventually recognizing the threat from above they turned their warpfire upon the flying Sigmarite champion.
His armour was enough to resists the first fusillade directed at him but the heat became so intense that his body burned with in it and eventually it started to melt and droplets of liquid metal ran off of his burning body like rain on the town beneath him. His burning form plummeted to the earth below as his spirit streaked back to Azyr.
The large building was shaking with the chanting now and the walls started to crack and fall in. The daemons rushed to the cultists and protected their bodies with their own semi-ephemeral forms as the poorly constructed building collapsed around them.
The chanting continued and the Stormcast seemed to be turning the tide now. As daemons appeared they were blasted apart by arrow or thrown hammer and those that were already there were being beaten into the ground or slashed apart with steel weapons.
It was not all one way though and groups of daemons clawed at the steel-clad warriors dragging them down one-by-one, some units disappearing entirely beneath a wave of pink and blue flesh.
A surge managed to bring enough of the Stormcast into the building, pushing through and slaying the daemonic defenders, but just as they were about to bring the now-glowing and blood soaked priestess down, two bolts ripped through their ranks dissolving living flesh inside inviolable armour.
It was just enough and the priestess screamed as one more throat was slit. She hunched over in agony, wings sprouting from her back, her form first turning blue and then growing and growing. Had the building not already come apart the monstrous creature now appearing in their midst would have shattered it anyway.
Sreni Vashtar looked up on the form of the Lord of Change and knew that all was lost.
He bashed the last of the Chaos Warriors down and bounded through the town yelling for his men to extricate themselves and flee.
Some were consumed in blasts of warfire from the greater daemon and fewer than 1-in-5 of the Stormcast Eternals that had set out to save the town escaped from the trap that had been set for them.
