Graznak sent Kroirriogs forward with a forge of bounders to scout out the ruins before he brought the main army up.
He waited watching the fallen stone piles as the force moved quickly towards one of the few standing structures in the city. The Realmgate at the heart of the city still glowed with eldritch power. He sensed a trap, from what he had heard he expected to face a city full of hummies, and scrawny ones at that. To find bones and wrecked buildings disturbed him. That some of them still emitted smoke made him worry further.
The screeching of goblins was preceded only briefly by the war cries of men. Graznak had been expecting this and ordered his force forward.
They advanced quickly but not quickly enough it seemed. On his left he could see some hummies in dull, blood drenched armour, charge into one of Kroirriogs giant.
In the center naked humies charged a heard of the bounders, they hacked at the rubbery creatures and their handlers and soon the stupid monsters were in full flight, bounding past Graznak's arrer boyz. In their furor to get away it seemed that they had chewed through most of the hummies and only one remained, drenched in both squig and human blood and screaming for someone else to fight.
Graznak's gaze focused on the fight to his right. The massive squigs had moved near a ruined building, bouncing and falling over each other, their goblin "riders" just barely holding on.
The humans had rushed among them, hacking and slashing, Graznak's eye could tell they were not well trained and disciplined fighters, like his 'ardboyz, but they were very enthusiastic and experienced amateurs. They cut apart the huge bounders before the massive creatures were able to attack back and the things were reeling when they did.
Still, even a wounded 10 foot tall squig is a 10 foot tall squig, thought Graznak and when they jumped away from the hummies they caught some of the ones that had surrounded them with their chains. The sight of their enemies dying put a little heart into the monsters and they took a hesitant bite at the humans, warming up to their job as they swallowed the first couple.
Then they were in it again, biting and jumping and quickly there was only one man able to fight back, only one that had not fled before the massive monsters. His fury overcame him and he slashed at them with a madman's strength. New wounds opened on one of the squigs but as it bounded away the other one bounded forward and the chain hit the man in the chest.
Catching the panic of the first, the second jumped back too and the man's arms were pinned to his sides as the chain pulled tight around him, the squigs smashed into each other almost dislodging two of their grots and then went bouncing in opposite directions. The chain held, the man did not and a geyser of blood erupted and the chain sliced through his body just below his nipples.
Graznak was still moving forward on his boar when he saw the Loonboss and the giant killing the last two hummies in the center of the goblin line.
To his left he could see the giant over there was having a rough time of things. It bled from a number of small cuts, for it, and was slightly staggered by the ferocity of the warriors it faced.
The grots that were riding bounders were moving towards it and he could see the outlines of swirling forms in their midst. As they got closer the several balls on chains, each seemingly attached to a small black form burst from the squig riding herd.
Fanatics. This would be fun to watch, he thought. They hit the humies like a hammer made of frozen boar milk.
The humies were quick too and many were able to cut down their assailants as they fell.
One humie fled before the onslaught, leaving only one of them to face the giant and the last fanatic. It wasn't much but with him there, tying up that giant, Graznak was not able to push his army through the Realmgate.
The delay was fatal. Soon he heard the thundering of hooves on the paving stones of the street and as he watched, iron clad men atop massive bone-coloured steeds smashed into his archers. They had fired one desultory volley before being crushed beneath brass clad hooves.
As those greenskins flew before the onslaught, Graznak was glad his 'ardboyz were next in the line, they would hold. The elite orcs linked put their left handed axes over the hand of the orc next to them, making a greenskin chain.
The irresistible force of the beasts was met by the wall of orc flesh.
Many died but it halted the advance. As the orc line bent, the skullcrushers stopped, then the orcs pushed and took a step forward.
It wasn't much and without help the warriors would still slaughter them.
A thundering caused one of the armoured humies to look to his right and just as he did Graznak's giant head butted him in the face. The giant's forehead was so thick it pushed the metal plate into the warriors face collapsing nose and mouth.
The bloodbound fell from his mount trying to suck in air that would not come, blood spurted forth from the ruined helmet, but only for a minute.
The giant then lay into the warriors with it's massive club, knocking down mount and rider alike. The orcs took the break in the pressure to pull their axes up and began hewing at their enemies too.
One of the riders was struggling to get back on his mount and the giant stomped him into the ground, smashing the armoured breast and back plate as easily as the ribs, lungs and liver underneath.
He then went stomping down the small hill towards another of the Chaos champions, whose whip cracked at the giant before the humie was smashed by the giant's club.
Graznak now thundered into the Chaos lines himself and lay about him mightily with his cleaver, weird flesh-spare daemons were cut down as he and the gore gruntas smashed into their lines.
He could then see through the chaos lines to where Kroirriogs form lay inert next to the opening of the Realm Gate. He could see through the portal into Ghyran and wondered why the shaman had not just jumped through.
His trolls ran forward and smashed into the massive winged daemon in the enemy lines. The stupid, savage creatures ripped into it with their clubs and the already staggering creature was destroyed.
But the creatures had ignored the warriors behind them and it was a fatal mistake. The warriors ripped one of the trolls apart and the attack was so savage and sudden that the last troll fled before them.
No grots inhabited the field.
Graznak called out to Gork and in his mind he remembered a talisman he had found. It was a rock hewed into the shape of a lightning bolt.
Graznak turned Boar away from the fighting for a moment and rubbed the lightning bolt before grinding it into powder between his cutter and his shield.
Bolts lit up the sky and flashes momentarily blinded everyone.
10 steel clad warriors stood behind the orc lines.
As soon as they saw their enemy they piled in to help the orcs.
But it was too little too late and Graznak saw that the Chaos lord had reserves he had not yet called upon too.
With a great cry the bulky servant of the Blood God described a stylized skull in the air with his ax and reality came apart before it.
Out poured more bone coloured daemons and one massive black form, wings unfolding as it materialized.
The reinforced chaos host charged and neither the orcs nor the stormcast could stem the flow of their destructive path.
Graznak was born to the earth by the creatures.
As the blood soaked warriors swept past him he looked up at the warp gate, Kroirriogs was not their.
Boar was bleeding profusely, like a stuck . . . something. It was breathing hard and in shock. Too wounded to fight Graznak gave it a half-hearted kick in the teeth and it jumped up and he grabbed fur and hauled himself on as it sped away from the battle.
He saw a green tide streaming away from the new, winged monster and even his 'arbdoyz were hoofing it away from the former cognopolis.
sails to the Skeleton Seas, and finds inspiration as she goes.
