The Whirling Winds of Frost and Insanity - Alexandra von Hohenzollern Interlude [Concurrent With Spikes, Horns, and Stone 19]
The Whirling Winds of Frost and Insanity - Alexandra von Hohenzollern Interlude
Concurrent With Spikes, Horns, and Stone 19
Concurrent With Spikes, Horns, and Stone 19
There were screams that filled the chilly air. There was rarely if ever anything that could be considered a light winter in these lands, and it often extended far beyond what any of the lands to the south experienced. Snow did not so much blanket as outright choke much of the ground for most of the year, in fact. Today was no different. Cold winds blew so hard that the skin and nose grew numb, the sea of snow was only ever briefly churned to slush before refreezing back around the legs no matter how many, and it was only by moving continually that the blood could be kept from solidifying into ice in the veins. Such was the fate of many in Kislev since time immemorial, long before even the Gospodars received their strange visions that led them from the rest of the Kurgan tribes and the worship of the Dark Gods. Since even before the Ungols were able to forge the kingdom that they would later lose, the same kingdom that they had built atop the trampled and conquered backs of the Roppsmen and other lesser tribes. In such weather, in such climes, the options were few. To shelter in place, and hope you had enough fuel for the fire and body to survive until conditions improved enough to move on, or to surrender to your fate and let the Oblast take yet another.
And, of course, to keep the body warm through movement.
Through battle.
Through killing.
On this day, all fought as fiercely as possible with half as much of the reasoning behind it being simply because to not would be to linger in one place long enough for the ice to take you. Everyone understood this perfectly well. That was why swarthy men with enormous mustaches that drooped down the sides of their faces clashed with each other, swords and shields clanging and smashing. Why others, beards swallowing the bottom halves of their faces and covering much of the top of their bulky armor with songs in their hearts and desperation in their eyes crashed into the shambling dead which moaned or clattered with necrotic flesh and unholy animated bone. Why those who had raised them as such could not so freely remain unmoving in the back of the fight, for even they who were not so touched by the natural world any longer were not wholly immune to the slowing of their bodies and movements required to channel and empower their servants. Horses with eyes bloodshot and rolling in their sockets whinnied and screamed as they galloped and cantered here and there as their riders lashed out with axe and blade and spear. Out of them all, it was the most absolute abominable creatures that were the most unaffected, of course. The beastmen who stomped through the snow with hooves that broke and splintered bone and mashed meat and muscle and fat beneath them, lashing out with crude weapons that should have been too heavy to wield one-handed, metal and wood bashed into form and shape or outright stolen from those with greater skill. The bellowing rat ogres that literally ran so hot thanks to the rivulets of warpstone in their bloodstreams and the eldritch technologies hooked into them that discolored steam rose from their bodies. The greater abominations that were so twisted by the utterly debased craft of the skaven that they barely even had blood to freeze at all. The hideous and irrevocably altered vomitus of the ice trolls as they clubbed about themselves and then did their best to consume what frozen hunks of meat and metal and otherwise that they could scavenge from the battlefield.
And through them all, Alexandra von Hohenzollern, Regent of Kislev, Grandmaster of the Nadzirateli, and acclaimed Droyaska, fought.
Alone, she might well have been more than enough for the battlefield. For she did not fight on foot. She did not even fight atop a brilliant steed of ice as so many of those granted the Widow's Grace could. Instead, the one known as Alexandra von Hohenzollern was mounted upon something older than Kislev itself. Something older than the Ungols. Than the Roppsmen. Than the race of man itself, in fact. She stood atop a creature that could only ever be described as primordial, one of those lingering remnants of the world that was before the coming of Chaos and the breaking of the world in those ancient lost days. They had many names, but the most common was Thundertusk. A creature that carried within it the essence of a cold from epochs long past into the modern day. And though up until now they had only ever most often been accompanied by the ogres of the Mountains of Mourne or were otherwise misconstrued as horrifying as freak blizzards whenever they emerged from their hibernations, this creature was different. For it had instead been drawn by the sheer potent Ice Magic lingering in the air around the Tomb of Shoika the Magnificent, first of the Tzarinas of Kislev, and sheltered there in the tomb as a guardian. It was, in fact, from carvings and ancient texts within the Tomb of Shoika recorded by Alexandra herself that she had learned the name of the creature that Shoika had bound with the immense magical powers of her bloodline. In Reikspiel it would be translated as Doomfrost. In modern Kislevite, РокМороз. What mattered was that its own powers over ice and snow joined with that of the Regent of Kislev, and each magnified the other's potency all the more.
All of which was heightened all the more by the blue-black star of light which she gripped in one hand that was encased in thick and opaque black ice which crept all the way up to her shoulder whereupon it sprouted outwards like an upraised spiked pauldron.
"KILL! THEM! ALL!" She screamed in fury, and each word was cast out as thick shards of ice which punched through steel breastplates, rat ogre chitin-bone armor, and sundered ethereal shrieking ghosts bound to necromantic service.
Where Doomfrost walked, the penetrating wedge of Romanov loyalists followed behind. First, and leading the bleeding edge, were the brutal and uncompromising Kreml Guard, who had sworn oaths of penance and vengeance for so failing the Tzarina that they had sworn their oaths to. The blades of their halberds had been replaced with Ledstahli, carrying sharpness beyond any mundane steel and bearing the chill of the Ancient Widow Herself to their enemies. Behind them were Streltsi, wielding axe and gun in equal measure, and it was through the efforts of other Priestesses of the Widow that there were miniscule bubbles of air that the howling cold was kept from adversely affecting so that they could light the matches of their handguns and fire them. Elsewhere were Kossars wielding their bows, managing to string and fire arrows with fingers that aught to have frozen over if they were not constantly kept moving. Roaring and thundering priests of Ursun and Tor respectively called out to their Gods and beseeched them for favor even as they plunged axes and hammers into the bodies of their enemies. Around the edges, Ungol horse archers plied their deadly trade, dancing and skittering out of the way of the outstretched claws and blades that tried to reach them and moving in and out of the range of the ranged weapons utilized by their enemies. Winged Lancers plunged into the fray with their lances before expertly guiding themselves back out again, all so that they could cycle back and do it all over again.
But they were opposed by so very, very much.
How it had begun was crystal clear in the minds of all who now fought one another.
The Bohka, amongst several other separatist forces that had temporarily allied with them for lack of better options, had finally been forced to give battle rather than continually harrying the Regent's forces as they expanded their zone of control outwards from the city of Kislev. They had tried to cut her supply lines as she stormed west to take Erengrad, and had to try and blunt those probing attempts towards Praag. Some of the disparate separatists had been properly chastised and brought back into the fold. But that only meant that their forces were of temporarily equal parity, and even then only because she had taken many of the mercenaries and tasked them with guarding that ground which she had already taken. There would already be much blood spilled by Kislevites from other Kislevites, and yet if it needed to be done, the majority of the work could not be left to foreign mercenaries liable to leave as soon as their contracts were up. After all, to utilize the mercenaries in such a way, to use them to slay the majority of the enemy, would only embolden the detractors. But so too had other foes needed to be dealt with as well – for the mask had been finally done away with and some of the Bohka's hidden backers were revealed. Some of the Bohka had been horrified and broken away, but found themselves too committed to simply surrender now. Others had figured they were damned regardless, and now fought less for the cause of a better Kislev under their rule and instead for a chance at survival under their newer masters. Such was what the best of the interrogations had revealed. But it would never be simply that, of course. The skaven had boiled up from below all three cities, requiring work on all parties involved, undead included in some cases, to push them back. Why the skaven had chosen now to reveal themselves in such numbers, no one knew for certain, but they had definitely killed a great many, thousands of civilians at the very least.
But that was how it all degenerated as the Bohka and Romanovs came to battle.
For they clashed in this open clearing between one of the solid and unyielding forests that had survived countless winters in Kislev, and yet in doing so, had come across a skaven army that had been above ground for one reason or another, hauling away hundreds of human captives for who knew what purposes. Rescue, a temporary truce, had been enough to save some, but that was when the other skaven arrived, and saw only enemies before them. The same was evidently enough true of the vampires that had been tracking the second group of skaven, and even now it was perfectly evident why. The enormous wagon which carried a solid chunk of warpstone that had to have fallen from the sky at some point recently had to weigh at least over a ton or two, and that much potency was too much for the vampires to ignore for their own works. Or for the other skaven to not greedily desire. The banners that had flown only a scant few hours before were now soaked in blood and ectoplasm as opportunistic separatists on both sides had seen a chance to try and clear the board for their own causes to take primacy. Then the other vampires had shown up, clearly seeking some kind of violent recompense from the army of the first. But they were not even the last to enter the battle, for from the trees had come the beastmen, finally, bringing with them many of the slavering denizens of Troll Country bound in their service either by promises of food or threat of force.
"VON CARSTEIN!" Alexandra roared, pointing her blade at the marble-white skin and hair of the black-armored aristocrat on their undead steed, unholy necromantic energies billowing about them. "YOU SHOULD HAVE RUN FROM THE OLD WORLD ENTIRE, NOT SIMPLY FLED NORTH!"
The Von Carstein, for it was a Von Carstein that had once more raised the dread flag of now fallen and razed Castle Drakenhof, simply sneered back at her before unleashing a bolt of necromantic energies at her that Alexandra dispelled with a contemptuous gesture. The vampire hissed at her before raising another hand, and their grave guard began to advance once more. The vampire bared his fangs at her before pushing forward into the scrum himself. The banner that they raised was unmistakable, though there had been little time or opportunity for the vampire to declare himself. The same was true of the second army of the undead, who bore no banners that Alexandra recognized herself, but seemed to have only women vampires amongst their number. Regardless, the vampiric lord knew that she had to die, just as he knew that if he were to fall his army would begin crumbling as well. But both could only approach so far through the scrum, and that was before a thick column at least three handspans wide made of filthy and rancid looking ice flew out of the air to nearly slam through Alexandra's side.
The Regent blinked and then snarled before whirling to the side, to focus her attentions upon one of the most hideous creatures she had ever witnessed.
It was a shaman, that was unmistakable by its staff and the horns on its head.
But it was far more than that.
It was impossible to mistake the swell of the chest, covered in icicles and frost and fur as it was, as well as the uneven sway of its hips as it clopped forward on its hooves. More disgusting were the skins that it had placed and draped upon itself. Layer after layer of painstakingly skinned women were stretched across its body like too many shirts and pants that did not fit. Too many faces that had their mouths stretched wide to accompany the snout, with tears and rips where the inhuman physiology was impossible to cover even for the disturbingly pliant skins. As well as the horns that pierced through too many outer layers of heads to reveal curling goat horns. This creature, unlike others in the chaos of the battle, had identified itself proudly, and most hatefully, before the she-shaman had focused the entirety of the abominable warherd it led against the human foes to exception of all others. A foe that had been thus far only whispered of in rumors, just one more problem piled upon so many others, yet left razed stanistas in its wake and terrified scattered victims.
"DIE, KATTARIN-SLAVE, DIE!" Raglef Frosthoof shrieked at Alexandra in guttural Kislevite, the horrific transformation that the shaman had suffered at some point in the past unable to stop the distinct courtly accent that some of the words still managed to possess.
A turnskin, as some might have called it.
Whatever Ice Witch that the beastwoman might have been was gone now, subsumed by animalistic fury and rage. But the fact that it could still, in some small way, call upon the Widow's Grace was outright heretical. Why it wore the skins of so many other Ice Witches or Priestesses, Alexandra could only guess at. Perhaps failed continual attempts at taking back the body she might once have had. Grotesque vengeance upon women who had remained human, where Raglef had not. Regardless of the case, the very Winds of Magic around the shaman were hideous to view, and every time she drew upon her Ice Magic it was enough for Alexandra almost to wretch. It was not the same as the prophesized tainting of the Ice Magic that was to be brought about by a male wielder, but it was damned close. Why now the beastmen of Troll Country and the rest of the northernmost reaches of Kislev had chosen to act out, Alexandra could not say for certain.
But one thing was true, she promised herself.
"IF YOU WANT TO DIE FIRST, SO BE IT!" The Regent yelled, and then responding to her will, Doomfrost began to wheel away from the outraged and insulted vampire lord who was even now being piled over by skaven bodies.
The only way that the loyalists would survive the day would be if they utterly scoured every other foe on the field.
Human.
Alive.
Or otherwise.
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