- Location
- the Netherworld Dood
Well shit.
Total failure
Total failure
From a Dead World (Skaven Quest)
- Thread starter Xantalos
- Start date
- Fantasy
always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
- Location
- SEA
In the capital, perhaps. Sounds like some of the other cities took damage.
Cecylene
Eternal Idea Engine
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Pronouns
- He/They
Thinking about the timing of this, each of those cities is about 275 miles away from Magritta as the crow flies, and there are literal mountains in the way. Assuming these men traveled at record speeds inline with the Shahzada horse race, best time being 250 miles in 25 hours and 18 minutes, then depending on how long Myrmidia spent crushing Under-Magritta before returning to the surface than that means the Drillfiend first-strike started with the furthest cities either simultaneously, hours, or even a day or two before Myrmidia's own attack on Under-Magritta. Which means that Gnawdell has been marching closer with full supply trains the entire way for days.
This quote is absolute
Can't quite tell if you're being sarcastic here, but if you aren't than this isn't a total failure because our special Kill-Squad hasn't even made their move to kill Myrmidia yet, and the goddess is heading towards another major city that just so happens to be closer towards the Skaven's own territory and the oncoming forces.
We also spent Authority specifically for Eshin to keep track of Myrmidia once the invasion started and we haven't seen the Skaven POV just yet. Chances are we know where she's heading and we also have the resources we had intended to use for breaking Deathmaster Snikch out reassigned to other areas due to Nightlord Sneek doing that mission on his own.
This was a single city with a Goddess and an army of Anti-Skaven trained soldiers and her very own Templars that fought off our vanguard, I'd say the other cities are properly thrown into bedlam for when the main force arrives.
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always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
- Location
- SEA
Wait, we sent a kill-squad against Myrmidia? Nothing ventured, nothing gained I guess...just not expecting any results from them.
Cecylene
Eternal Idea Engine
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Pronouns
- He/They
Well, "squad" is something of a general term. Platoon or Battalion may be a more accurate assessment.
Quoting the plan that is currently being enacted regarding us directly targeting Myrmidia:
Also, to remind everyone of what's going to be happening to the cities Gnawdell thinks might be of a particularly intractable nature:
So those places will be fun to Myrmidia to encounter on her campaign to save Estalia.
Xilentxium
Existential Crisis Management
- Location
- Temperate Regions
"Do you hear that? The bell tolls-tolls for Estalia"
Post war research: Better Drillfiend control, make them proper warbeasts instead of fire and forgetish transports
Post war research: Better Drillfiend control, make them proper warbeasts instead of fire and forgetish transports
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
She may have won the battle, but Magritta is ruined and from this point on she's been forced into a reactive position.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Well, the main thing seems to be that the original intent of the vanguard being very closely followed by the main assault seems to have been lost, so as far as we can tell the initial attacks were both weaker than intended and foiled seemingly without too much damage. Whether that's a mistranslation of the plan, Gnawdell freestyling, or Estalia being way, way harder than expected is unclear. It might be the second but before you saying so that wasn't prominent.
Cecylene
Eternal Idea Engine
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Pronouns
- He/They
I think this is likely an issue more to do with the limited perspective that we have from Myrmidia's shoulder than a mistranslation of the plan. Not being able to see thing from another person besides a literal goddess's eyes means that there simply is no Big Picture view just yet. Myrmidia is running behind the pace car right now, the invasion started at least a day ago and Gnawdell's force could already have long since begun advancing up from the warrens across Estalia. Magritta simply had it's Under-Warren wiped clean in an afternoon. Part of the invasion was also to consist of a landing fleet showing up as well but that is currently resting at the bottom of the sea, which would explain why this vanguard assault didn't go as well as hoped.
All that said, I can entirely see Gnawdell allowing Under-Magritta to eliminate Skyre's presence in Estalia as well as diminish Moulder's contribution with the Drillfiends by delaying the non-critical follow-up attacks by a day to ensure that Mors gets the credit for the entire conquest. Skaven doing as Skaven do, as it were.
I'll withhold judgement as to how closely, or astray, our Plan has gone until we get a counter-viewpoint from the Skaven to see how they are reacting to the news from the SS/Eshin and know how either furious or infuriatingly smug Gnawdell is.
Also, my offering for a possible song and if not deemed appropriate for this immediate past chapter at least something to keep in mind for later on:
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Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
I think it might just be the way I'm presenting it skewing the general perception of it - Gnawdell's main army started arriving basically right after Myrmidia purged Magritta and is gonna proceed on basically an east->west sweep of the country, so I couldn't show the main thrust of it in this update. Not my intention, needless to say - nevertheless, the drillfiends were very closely followed up by Mors, with the army arriving in Estalia maybe 4 hours at max after deep-strike, probably closer to 3. I'll be able to make that more clear in the next update now that I've exited the narrative equivalent of cinematic vision.
@Pathos said it better than I did - the invasion's already begun, you've just kinda been blindsiding Mym this whole way through so she doesn't empirically know that yet.
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Kairos123
Insomniac Extraordinaire
And so the cycle continues.
We have SO MUCH to research and spread. Drill Fiends are great, and we use them quite a lot, but does wanting to use them as siege equipment as well really justify the investment? We aren't struggling for siege equipment as we are infrastructure, aerial units, and cavalry. We have Warp Lightning Cannons, Deathflinger Mortar, Deathsqueaker Rocket Battery, and Hellpit Abominations to play similar roles.
Now, if Moulder decided to do something with them of its own volition, on the other hand (as great clans are now able to do) I'd be happy to see them improved. That or their warbeast control gear.
While I agree that the plan is different than we imagined it, I still think people are overlooking the fact that we razed Magritta uncontested for hours. That's a pretty big win. All the infrastructure and defenses she had are now gone or damaged. I'm not sure he could have emphasized better that the city was messed up. The update is even titled "Magritta Burns". Moreover, as Pathos stated, it is going to take some time for her to reach each city to lift the siege/stop the ransacking. Whatever effort is expended is done so before the big battle. This isn't anywhere near as bad as some are making it sound, and I don't think that is on Xantalos.
On the plan itself...has there ever been a time where things lined up with exactly how we expected them to? After hearing this:
I fully expect her to either outright betray or marginalize the contingent of Skyre, Eshin, and Pestilens we sent to help. However, I will be surprised if she fails. She has waaaaay too much riding on this to fuck it up. Gonna assume she puts them to use before the inevitable betrayal, and that while things aren't going to line up exactly how we wanted them to, they'll work out.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
What I was also keying off of, unintended or otherwise, was this:
Indicating the vanguard splashed everywhere fairly inconclusively, even without special Myrmidia intervention. That is fairly unimpressive to me, given that tasked anti-Myrmidia forces weren't even on the field.
---
As the usual refrain every time this is unfortunately suggested, we have fairly bad examples of such to work off of. While we can just go off wandering into a random tech tree, it is going to be relatively inefficient compared to exploiting the numerous assets we have examples or direct teaching for.
And what he said exactly. New research or things identified now are shiny...but I don't think they jump queue on all the other stuff that's been stacking up nor are they -really- holes.
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
Ah, I see. Such are the consequences of not actually proofreading your update before posting it - they were only fully beaten off in Bilbali (with difficulty), everywhere else is ongoing. I'll change the language a bit to make that clearer.
always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
- Location
- SEA
It's too bad Ulthuan rules the waves. Not because of the additional damage the naval contingent could have done...but because it means we'll have to wait a while until we see more Vrisk action. 
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
My train proposal is intended to go hand in hand with giving the Navy a boost in developing the Port of Ruin as an important transit hub for going N-S on the eastern half of the Dark Lands. Not the sexiest for him personally but very relevant for the Navy.It's too bad Ulthuan rules the waves. Not because of the additional damage the naval contingent could have done...but because it means we'll have to wait a while until we see more Vrisk action.
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
If it's any consolation you will get a bit of Navy action in the Dark Lands campaign.It's too bad Ulthuan rules the waves. Not because of the additional damage the naval contingent could have done...but because it means we'll have to wait a while until we see more Vrisk action.
The Fall of Kislev - Canon - Pathos
Cecylene
Eternal Idea Engine
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Pronouns
- He/They
Behold, the lead up to and immediate aftermath of Archaon's attack on Kislev!
So many thanks to @Xantalos for their help with writing this!
-----------------------------
The Fall of Kislev
-----------------------------
The sun shone upon a Kislev that would have looked more familiar to Sigmar or Magnus the Pious than any Tzar in recent memory.
The Storm of Chaos that swept across the land was an invisible hand of devastation and corruption. The Kingdom of Ice and Snow was plagued with unending nightmares, mutated animals, and failing crops. The Ice Witches, Hags, and Hedge Wizards were abandoning their estates, secret havens, and hidden caves to run screaming to the Tzarina with the same message on their lips, the foretold time of the Man-Witch was at hand and the Kislev must prepare itself if it wished to survive its prophesized doom.
The Tzarina sat at her desk amidst reams upon reams of documents and reports on topics of every kind from tactics and after-action reports of the war against Asavur Kul to the conquest of the Ungol people by the ancient Gaspodar, the annual harvests and population growth of Kislev for the past century, the size of the treasury, and the long list of favors, promises, and debts owed to Kislev by every nation known to Mankind.
Katarina was surrounded by abacuses and ledgers and the room was filled with the sound of her fireplace crackling low and the scritch-scratching of quill on parchment. Furiously and with abandon the Tzarina wrote out novellas worth of letters ranging from desperate promises of anything the recipient might desire to vitriolic demands for a centuries old favor's restitution in Kislev's hour of need to surreptitious requests for someone's attendance at a coming ball in the Palace that would never happen.
Messengers were coming and going from her chambers at all hours, from dawn to dusk to dawn again they would collect dozens of letters addressed to Merchant Princes, Boyars, Elector Counts, Dukes, Dwarfen Kings, Overtyrants, Warbosses, Priests of every denomination, and three were addressed to the Emperor himself each tied with a different color ribbon.
One letter remained unsent, sealed with wax mixed with glowing green stone and a crude triangle the Tzarina had written in a moment of weakness. She didn't feed it to the fire, like she did so many other letters, keeping it as a reminder for herself that when facing even the imminent destruction of her country and people that there were salvations worse than death.
Signing one final letter the Tzarina Katarina of Kislev, greatest wielder of Ice Magic since Khan-Tzarina Miska, called for her generals and advisors to be woken from their sleep and brought to the throne room. Kislev would be prepared to fight this coming war with or without the aid of others.
-----
Thus had Kislev and its people been transformed overnight. Fields were harvested and abandoned as armies of hard-faced men and women marched by, the fields reaped seemly overnight to stock the larders of the ever growing military of the Tzarina. The once-farmers were given either a halberd, a firearm, had they the experience to avoid damaging the gun in battle, or hand axes and a bow if judged as lacking in any other more useful skills. None were deemed "useless" as every back that could carry a pack, every leg that could march, and every arm that could swing was considered invaluable.
Every person of age and strong enough to heft a travelling pack and the weapons of the infantry were conscripted. Towns were emptied and children sent to the city of Kislev for safe-keeping, and some whispered for insurance of the armies' loyalty. Wailing babes were placed in the arms of their siblings who themselves sobbed and cried out for comfort as they were pushed onto vast caravans of wagons carrying yet more seemingly abandoned children.
The next decade would be one of hardship and scarce food as every farm began to fallow, but the Ice Witches and Hags spread the word that without such measures there would be no-one to suffer those hardships at all.
So the people of Kislev made plowshares into swords and guns, homes were pulled apart for the wood and iron and turned fortifications and bullets, and the towns that dotted the country side returned to wilderness as everything was taken to fuel the battles that were to come. Any food capable of it was salted and stored in the vast larders of the walled forts and settlements south of the River Lynsk, meals were restricted to those who showed up for work in the morning and those whose hands bled from labor in the evening.
Whilst the populace was gathered to the south to be forged into a unified army in service to Kislev's survival, at the borders of the Northern Oblast the Ice Witches gathered in numbers normally reserved for the Caucus in Frosthome. In the weeks leading up to the longest night of the year both Noble and Peasant Witches travelled in caravans escorted by the Kreml Guard itself to various points along the Lynsk. With the authority of the Ancient Widow evident in their magic and the might of the Tzarina on display through the Kreml Guard the witches were able to arrive in time for the great working.
Together, as the sun fell and the clouds gathered to cover the night sky the Witches met the Hags of the Ungol people. No words were spoken and no hospitality offered, they both had gathered this day for the same purpose and would tolerate the other for mutual survival today agreeing to settle their differences in blood after the Man-Witch was slain.
The Kreml Guard trembled as the true reason for their own journey to the northern border of Kislev proper was made plain as the long train of wagons was uncovered revealing dozens upon dozens of sealed iron chests emblazoned with the sigils of every College of Magic. Bringing the chests before the assembled Ice Mages the Kreml Guard opened them to gasps of astonishment, wonder, and trembling in equal measure.
Each chest was filled to the brim with Orbs of Power, products of a careful process of solidifying all the winds of magic into a solid form that lacked the mutagenic and corrupting properties of Warpstone yet losing none of the power. On that field, commissioned and paid for by the Tzarina herself, were hundreds the orbs each engraved with the symbol of the Ancient Widow. With a nod from Boyar Frederick Bol'shoyrev, the Kreml Guard upended the chests and poured out a cascade of solidified magick into the Lynsk River. This process was one repeated along the whole length of the river that defined the border of civilized Kislev, covens of Ice Witches and Hags that had been selected to journey to other critical points along the riverbank each looked on in shock.
As the Lynsk strobed with the glow of mystical stones the assembled Ice Witches began to reach out and grasp the water of the river and sky, drawing it upwards and inwards. The sky above began to churn as clouds formed above the assembled witches, churning, roiling, and at last plummeting from the sky to the river. The river rose up to meet the clouds and in an earth quaking crack billions of gallons of water froze into a single sheet of ice that soared tens of feet in height and stretched from Erengrad to Volkolamsk. The effort of delving so deep into the magic of the land and channeling it, even spread out amongst so many, proved too much for all but the mightiest of the Ice Witches, and when the sun rose again it would see hundreds upon hundreds of icy statues lining the banks of the Lynsk
As the Ice Witches of the Tzarina drew upon the teachings of the Ancient Widow and a portion of the borrowed magic within the Power Orbs the Hags of the Ungol people offered the remaining arcane spheres along with their remaining firmity and what youth was present to entice and bind the most ancient spirits of the land within the Lynsk. Prospective hags aged decades in moments and fell to the ground with the sounds of glass-brittle bones snapping under their own weight and the ripping of suddenly paper thin skin, and of those who had already bargained away their years were left gasping and gulping for every breath. Their skin tightened across their bones like curing leather and their muscles and limbs were robbed of any vitality and mobility and were left laid out upon the ground like mummified spiders. Soon these withered and ancient hags suffocated under the weight of their own flesh and their last shuddering breath crystallized in the midnight air before being swept into the Lynsk by grasping hands of snow and shadow.
With the sacrifice of so many lives and resources, within a single night a great fortification of ice had been erected and the invisible teeth of winter roused in the defense of Kislev. The Widow's Wall was twice as large as the walls of Pragg, whilst the river that ran on the far side of the wall roiled and frothed with the hunger of terrible spirits of ice and darkness.
A reindeer approached the river with caution and lowered its head to drink of its waters became a statue of ice in the span of an instant, before cracking and crumbling into snowflakes that were sucked into the depths of the Lynsk's waters.
When the survivors gathered at first light and saw what had been wrought in the dark of the night they shivered and shook, beginning the long march back to the capital without a single glance back. Hag and Witch walking side by side and surrounded by the Kreml Guard drawing some comfort from the camaraderie of having a single collective fear.
'Would this be enough?'
-----
The armies of the Everchosen were impossible to number; the cultists writhed and excruciated themselves in homage to their gods leaving altars of viscera, bile, bodily fluids, and impossible geometries along a miles wide path from the Northern Wastes through Black Fire Pass. Despite the ceaseless march and bitter, driving, cold of Kislev the horde of maddened zealots grew only larger as it passed through the Northern Oblast. Villages and towns had their doors beaten down and their people dragged from their homes and forced to either participate in or be subject to the debauchery, slaughter, infection, and mutation that characterized the servants of the Four.
Wandering amidst the disorganized mobs of cultists were the daemons, summoned by the sorcerers who travelled behind the tide of meat that were the cultists, buoyed by the strength of the Winds of Chaos and the glorifying acts constantly being performed by the mortal servants of the Dark Gods. Bloodletters scythed through the horde, cackling and enlarging the skull-thrones being built along the path to the Old World. Daemonettes of Slaanesh danced through the crowd and trailed their claws across the flesh of all who gazed upon their beauty, the sign of Slaanesh forever scarred into the gawkers flesh. Plaguebearers trailed behind Kislev's doom, their tallymarks recording every putrescent disease spread from weeping sore into open mouth and every bloated and twitching person dumped into a mass grave. Pink and Blue Horrors cackled and screamed out as they shifted across the wastes and through the dreams of the slaves of Darkness, their forms ever shifting and phasing in and out of reality, whispering terrible secrets and lies to all foolish enough to lend them half an ear.
Of the countless Daemons that were being called forth every day, thousands were entombed within cursed steel and trinkets to lend the mortal servants of Chaos even a minor fragment of the gods' own power. Scythes made of more rust than iron that left festering wounds that could not be healed by mortal means, circlets of rainbow-fire that stretched and tore at the limits of the wearer's mind, skull goblets overflowing with blood that drove all who drank into the berzerker's frenzy, and obsidian armor that made their wearer proof against the a myriad of weapons. All these and a thousand variations more flowed from the ritual circles, covens, and soulforges that heeded the command of their Everchosen.
Armed with weapons beyond mortal ken and clad in armor whose every inch venerated the Dark Gods the Northmen obeyed the command of their long foretold Archaon and the will of the Ruinous Powers came crashing into the south as an avalanche meets a torch.
------
Marching perpendicular towards the oncoming hordes of Northmen and saemons a discordant array of mutants, madmen, and chaospawn could be seen. most numerous of all though were the Trolls.
Two years prior to this parade of twisted mockery of a nation, Throgg the King of Trolls had received a vision and a final blessing from the Dark Gods. He saw his deepest dreams fulfilled as the people of Kislev and beyond burned in terrible pyres, the forces of Chaos ruling from horizon to horizon, and the trolls of the world kneeling before his throne. Always he could see a twin-tailed comet in the sky, a common sight on the shields of countless knights, but it was paired with a thunderous and growing roar of war and battlelust that came from the north. As the comet sailed across the sky it seemed to hang in the sky for a moment before Throgg's vision expanded revealing the comet as a blazing third eye in a helmet, and upon feeling the gaze of the one upon whose brow seemed to rest a fallen star Throgg knew that such would be the sign he must watch for.
So did the Troll King leave his labyrinthine caverns to gather and beat obedience into his subjects. Travelling the width and breadth of his nation and gathering together tribes of the forsaken and forgotten, having every stream and shallow dredged for River Trolls, every boulder was over turned to dig the Stone Trolls from their dens, and the forests were scoured for common Trolls that were beaten into service. Most telling to Throgg that his endeavors were blessed was came from the most northern stretches of Troll Country the Chaos Trolls heeded the clarion call and ventured southwards. After they had consumed hundreds of war bands and villages, Throgg found the advancing wall of gaping maws and corruption wracked flesh.
After seasons of crushing sense into regenerating skulls and beating fear into the hearts of an entire countryside, the twin-tailed comet appeared in the sky. The heavens burned with the sign of the End Times, the hills and dales of Troll Country came alive with shouts and roars of anticipation and bloodlust, forests burned and rivers flowed with blood forming arcane symbols writ upon the landscape itself. Thousands of Roppsmen who showed even a moment's hesitation at joining the horde were dragged from their homes and sacrificed upon ancient stone altars or in unhallowed clearings surrounded by broken standing stones; such was the jubilation of these distance followers of Chaos.
Then came the final sign, Morrslieb appeared one night looming large and bathing all in its terrible incandescence. With the evil moon's appearance Throgg could feel of the Harbinger of the End Times' gaze and call. It took little time to corral and prod the tens upon tens of thousands of Trolls, men, mutants, and giants that Throgg had spent two years gathering under his banner.
Travelling in the direction that the Dark Moon bid, there came a night when from across the horizon the howls of millions of ecstatic and torn throats, tinged by the screams of terror and grief of the dying, could be heard. Throgg could feel every set of his teeth crack and wrinkle into a rictus grin at how far he had come. Soon enough, the roars of a nearly a hundred thousand trolls and thrice again as many mortal men joined the nightmarish chorus.
-----
The great river Lynsk's shores were rimed with frost and the statues of countless beasts and men all frozen in the moment they made contact with its waters, and on the river's far side rose a wall of ice over four dozen feet high and stronger than steel, proven by the countless grappling hooks and ladders that lay turned to ice after having fallen into the river and the men holding the rope now missing hands and limbs from the frost that had crawled up the rope like lightning.
The legions of Chaos had arrived at the river bank the night before and as the sun rose the hordes of the Troll King lumbered in and joined their ranks, both armies were swollen by the pillaging and corruption of the lands they had passed through. Noe the assembly of men, monsters, and steel that stared angrily across the Lynsk was larger than any single battlefield had seen in the history of the Old World.
As the day passed and the sun began to hang low, the Everchosen himself arrived at the front of his army the throng parting for him like flesh around a surgeon's blade. Silence and stillness fell across the legions and all could feel the burning gaze of Archaon upon them, with food falling from the mouths of Ogres and Trolls, Cultists freezing mid-adulation with some biting their hands to stifle their treacherous tongues, those blessed by the Gods all looked on with anticipation like coiled springs, and every last daemon wore a mockery of a smile and an expression of terrible hunger.
His eyes combing the banks of the river and the fortification that stretched across the far bank from horizon to horizon the Lord of the End Times was the first to break the silence. First with a snort, then a chuckle, and finally a full-throated laugh as he drew his sword, the contemptuous and murderous glee spreading throughout the horde like a plague of Nurgle. When Archaon gave the order the Cultists charged alongside daemons, adorations and prayers spilled from mortal mouths that were swiftly silenced when blood froze and flesh cracked. As the bodies of the cultists began to pile in the river and the red stain of blood-ice tinted the water the daemons all simply cackled, gurgled, squealed, and roared in exaltation as they dove into the spirit-infested waters.
Archaon's plan made itself rapidly apparent as the daemons rather than freezing burst in sprays of ichorous warp-stuff. As the volume of daemons spent and replenished by sorcerous covens grew, the warp-stuff began to spread up and down the river anchored as it was by the sacrifice of so many worshippers. Steadily the crystal clear waters began to dance a thousand colors and the water frothed with the sound of countless dying screams.
Soon the river was silent of screams, flotsam that smelled alternatively of blood, mucus washing up on the shoreline rather than ice, and the water shimmered like quicksilver coated in oil.
Raising a closed fist Archaon, who had remained unmoving 'til now, halted the torrent of sacrifice. Looking up to the sun as it began to dip behind the wall the Everchosen gestured with one hand and from the tainted water rose a bridge of bone and skull lashed together by flesh and sinew. Stepping onto it even as it was forming Archaon drew Kingslayer and held it aloft with both hands, point towards the sun. As the sun touched the top of the wall Kingslayer suddenly burned with rainbow colored flames and with furious shout Archaon brought the sword down and tore into the wall.
From that blazing wound cracks began to creep across the wall, and where the cracks appeared the fire spread. The process repeated itself endlessly across the whole structure until eventually the wall began to collapse under its own weight. Sections fell into the river causing great splashes to wash over and mutate any who were touched by it where others fell on the far side and their landing with a shuddering boom that could be felt as much as heard.
Soon enough the city of Pragg became visible, a city fortified with barricades and ringed with palisades both formed from ice, and the river was so filled with ice and slurry that it had turned from impassable to merely difficult to ford across.
King Throgg waited for no signal, and with a shout he began a charge that was joined by all present. Leaping over the river and ignoring the cannon shots that rained about him and the trolls that disappeared under the increasing barrage, the Troll King ran pell-mell towards the towering gates of the city. As he approached he could see shots slow as the cannoneers desperately attempted to aim at the legendary beast that was tearing towards them, cries of "Wintertooth!" audible now that he had come so close.
Finally, one of the cannons struck true and Throgg felt his left arm shatter under the impact as he was thrown to the ground by the force. Rising up, Throgg was astonished for a moment to see that the cannonball that struck him was still intact and seemed to be made of perfectly clear glass. Clearing his head and feeling his arm pull itself back together, the broken fragments become new spines along his forearm, Throgg took to running on his three intact limbs. Swiftly he reached the gates and bracing himself, reached out with both arms, and tore stones from the wall around the gateway. The stones gave more easily than they should have, and when exposed the wall seemed to be partially made of teeth, bone, and petrified meat. Disregarding the ease of doing so, and gripping both sides of the barred door Throgg was able to heave the doors up and with his unholy strength, laughing at the shouts of terror and panicked calls for men to form up ranks.
But it was too late, the front gate was open for all the forces that may. Throwing the two doors forward Throgg's mirth only grew as he watched it crush and cripple the men who had been trying to hold him back. As the rest of the forces of Chaos tore into the city they began putting the place to the torch and the defenders to whatever depraved tortures were being imagined on the spot, Throgg took in the sights of the city. Pragg seemed to be relaxing a muscle it had been holding for centuries as daemons and Chaos Warriors swept across the city in a wave of brutality lids seemed to lift on stones revealing multi-pupiled eyes and the streets seemed to be undulating.
As the screams of men and women rent the sky, a lone man riding south as hard as his steed could did not turn around. He did not imagine his city burning, his friends and family being torn limb from limb, nor did he imagine the unfleshed bodies that were already being hung from the city walls. Most of all, he did not see a man with three burning eyes watch him ride away.
-----
Under hundreds of deep blue banners bearing the Tzarina's sigil thousands of kossars and Streltsi, hundreds of Ungol Horse Archers, a full pulk of Winged Lancers, the full might of the Gryphon Legion, and Boyars from the Tzarina's own Kreml Guard marched forth towards the most likely point for the forces of the Northmen to attack, the city of Pragg.
Upon receiving word that the forces of the Ruinous Powers had finally been spotted marching towards the Widow's Wall they had set to marching. The reinforcements brought with them hundreds of cannons, thousands of guns, and enough supplies to resupply Pragg's larders thrice over. The wagon train stretched long and was filled to the brim with the most mundane use of Ice Magic yet, the forming of spheres of varying sizes. Tens of thousands of bullets and thousands of cannon shot had been created within months using only cast molds and water.
As they passed through nigh-abandoned settlement after settlement they came upon a single man stumbling his way down the dirt path. Swiftly circled by Lancers, the man was pale as a sheet and frostbitten across his entire body. Shoeless and gloveless, the man's clothes were frayed and torn all over and his fingers were blackened with cold where they hadn't turned green from the obviously infected cuts that covered his entire body, his limping walk gave away that the same had likely happened to his feet.
A Boyar came forward, "Where do you come from and why are you alone."
The man turned bloodshot eyes towards the Boyar and when he opened his cracked lips pale gums and long teeth could be seen, "Lost! Pragg has been lost! The Wall did not stand and the river runs foul! Foul like the stones, like the horse! It was tainted, it drank of a well and I knew it was of Chaos!"
The Lancers stirred at the news, Pragg lost? They had received the missive that the forces of the North had been on the march two days ago and mustered as quickly as they could, how could the Widow's Wall have failed so quickly?
Raising a hand for silence the Boyar questioned further, "Lost how? Cut off from supplies and men? How long was it besieged?"
The man's legs gave out and he lurched forward, grabbing onto the Boyar's pants, "Burned and corrupted! A day from when the city called for aid, all is lost and the screams will last forever! They sang songs and they still ring in my skin but I needed to tell someone! I ran and ran and the horse died but I sti-!"
Shaking his head and pulling out his pistol the Boyar pulled his leg out of the man's weak grip. Aiming down, the man died with a bang and the Boyar stepped over the corpse, "Aleksandr, take a group of outriders and get us news of Pragg. If Pragg has truly fallen then we must draw back and consolidate all our forces until the forces of the South can ride North to aid us. Nikolai, ride out with whatever priests you can find and see if what he said about the River Lynsk is true, if it has become corrupted than we must know if it can be purified or we will have to be prepared for mutants to come crawling south."
As the men began to disperse one of them let out a shout, and the Boyar felt someone grab the back of his shirt. Spun around at a dizzying speed he saw the hollowed skull of the man he had just killed and opening its mouth unnaturally wide the corpse began vomiting forth a spray of bile and viscera.
The zombie was brought down swiftly enough as a lance took it in the chest but the boils and rash that had already blinded the Boyar told the truth of Pragg's fate more surely than any of the men needed.
The Boyar's putrefied corpse was burned within the hour.
-----
The might of Kislev, prepared like never before and propelled to heights never before dreamed, was spent like pebbles cast before the tide.
The forces of Chaos numbered as many as there were living Kislevites, and nearly a third of them were monsters capable of being shot with a cannon to minimal effect or men girded in armor stronger than any forged by mortal hands with weapons capable of parting steel and bone like smoke.
Despite this Kislev fought and across a dozen battlefields heroes rose, and died shortly after for the hordes of Archaon wandered Kislev looking for sport, cities and villages to burn and sacrifice in great rituals to call forth ever greater blessings and daemons.
The Lancers and Ungol riders were hunted wherever they went, whole warbands diverting to run them down like the foxes of a hunt.
The Gryphon Legion was stalked endlessly, each time they took wing Archaon himself was there with a cadre of Knights riding manticores, discs of Tzeentch, or even Chaos Dragons. After the first week the Gryphon Legion was no more.
Drutsk was wiped off the map by a sorcerer's spell as the entire populace devolved into mutated spawn that tore apart and consumed those who escaped the effect.
Every isolated village that had lain untouched for centuries was found and slaughtered to the last. Their men and women sacrificed to the gods, the young used as target practice, and their wise women's minds emptied and their souls turned into vessels of fel power.
Erengard, weakened after the tainting of the Lynsk, was taunted for three days with offers of perfumed water and succulent meats by Sigvald the Magnificent. As the supply of water within the city ran dry the doors were opened to the invaders. When Sigvald's forces left the city he rode atop a palanquin carried by those who had pledged everlasting loyalty in exchange for mercy, and when one fell they were fed to the rest and replaced.
Boys and girls as old as eleven were being sent from the Capitol to reinforce weakening lines. At first simply as pages, then as runners, but before long they were standing shoulder to shoulder with men thrice their age driving pikes into oncoming charges of Chaos champions. They died just as easily as any other beneath ironclad hooves and before warp-touched blades.
Kislev was a nation no more, the Legion of the End Times wandering hither and thither across the Dobryrion with absolute immunity. A civilization that had withstood millennia of incursions reduced to sport and something to whet the appetite of the Northmen before they reached the Empire to the South. Millions were dead and every scrap of arable land lay corrupted beneath the tramping of warp-empowered boots and daemonic tread.
As the country burned and its people lay dying, in the heart of the Capitol the Tzarina was enacting a gambit she had feared since discovering it.
-----
The remaining members of the Hags and Ice Witches stood within the palace walls, and no longer could a difference be found between peasant, hang, or noblewoman. Every robe and face was covered with blood, dirt, and filth as the assembled woman continued a unified chanting.
Across the entirety of the Capitol the leylines of Kislev were outlined with scrawled glyphs and it formed the shape of a spider web, and at the center of the massive web stood the lone woman whose posture if not regalia gave away her identity.
The Tzarina of a Dead Land, the Ice Queen of Nowhere, Katarina Bokha stood at the center of this web and held Frostfear flat across both her hands. She could hear the susurrus screams of the spirits across all of her country, could feel the wounds being carved into the landscape as the corruption of chaos seeped deep into the earth to await the world's coming end, but most of all she could hear the whispers of the creature that dwelled beneath the palace and the font of Ice Magic.
The Tzarina repeated words only she could hear, as she had since the glyph networks completion two days priors, when a tremor shook the souls of all present in the room. It was nearly a physical thing, like an anchor dragged its way across the leylines towards them.
Looking around at the trembling but still chanting women arrayed around her, Katarina knew the thought that cross all their minds, 'The Man-Witch is here.'
The ritual was not ready, the Avatar of Kislev could not be made manifest and the soul of Miska would never inhabit its perfect form.
Grasping for straws as the ritual continued on in vain, Katarina heard one final whisper from below before it fell silent. Closing her eyes and nodding, she reached out and pulled on the assembled threads of power that had been wrapped around her and instantly she felt like she stood within the heart of a volcano as she held the leylines in the grip of her indomitable will. The magnitude of power surged in her ears, but over that noise she could hear that the room had fallen silent.
Opening her eyes as snowflakes fell in place of tears, Katarina looked across a room full of icy statues and shadows made of snow cast on the floor. Holding Frostfear to her lips, Katarina whispered a single word to the blade and, by kissing the sword of her foremothers, imbued it with all the power of Kislev. Instantly the sword was changed, the cross guard becoming a Widow spider and the leather of the grip turning to dust before the sheer cold of the blade. Lowering the blade from her frostbitten lips, Katarina knew the blade in the right hands could fell any foe who dared stand against Kislev. Yet it was too little too late for her country, she would never get close enough nor could she pass the blade to another before Archaon would be upon her.
Gripping the blade in one hand and the hilt in the other, Katarina brought the sword down upon her knee shattering it like glass.
For a moment the sound echoed across the room and she stood alone in the room holding the broken fragments of her ancestral blade.
Then all she knew was COLD and WHITE.
-----
From the Palace of Kislev erupted a blizzard unlike any ever seen before, not by any Northman or by even the Slann during the Coming of Chaos.
The capitol was devastated and shattered by massive spires of ice that burst from the palace and that erupted from the ground. A wave of ICE continued in an ever expanding wave across the country and never weakening in its intensity. Hail like broadswords fell from the sky with enough force to split dragon skulls, the winds flayed flesh from bone through even the smallest gap in armor, the cold penetrated even the thickest layers of cloaks, and the driving snow buried houses within hours.
Every cultist that had been brought into Kislev was flash frozen by the oncoming wave of snow and ice, the blessed of the Chaos gods who survived the absolute cold were swiftly overcome by the torrent of snow entombing them beneath tens of feet of ice, and the monstrous followers who had answered the Everchosen's call were skewered by the hail.
The land was silent after the first day save for the howling of the wind and the crunching of hail and snow. The daemons having been pulled screaming back into the warp with the cessation of bloodshed and tormenting of souls leaving them unable to sustain themselves within the storm.
All was silent across the land that was once called Kislev.
-----
Archaon, The Everchosen, Lord of the End Times, The Three-Eyed King, Kingslayer, Man-Witch, rode across the wasteland atop Dorghar and in his wake blackened and frostbitten hands broke the snow crust, milk-eyed bodies pulling themselves from beneath the snow. Periodically a massive troll's hand tore itself free and the rest followed as a deathly pail creature rose from a snowbank. Other times it was a black armored helm as plate armored warriors trudging their way through the snow, scaling the packed ice like a stairway.
The living and dead marched south, the ranks of Chaos swelling with the bodies of Kislevites rising alongside cultists. Hundreds of thousands of cultists had died in the blizzard, but the Tallymen of Nurgle were gleeful in their accounting and worked tirelessly to find every last body.
It would take time to regroup and find their way in the storm, but the world's death had only been delayed for a time.
Archaon pondered if it would be enough to make it a challenge.
So many thanks to @Xantalos for their help with writing this!
-----------------------------
The Fall of Kislev
-----------------------------
The sun shone upon a Kislev that would have looked more familiar to Sigmar or Magnus the Pious than any Tzar in recent memory.
The Storm of Chaos that swept across the land was an invisible hand of devastation and corruption. The Kingdom of Ice and Snow was plagued with unending nightmares, mutated animals, and failing crops. The Ice Witches, Hags, and Hedge Wizards were abandoning their estates, secret havens, and hidden caves to run screaming to the Tzarina with the same message on their lips, the foretold time of the Man-Witch was at hand and the Kislev must prepare itself if it wished to survive its prophesized doom.
The Tzarina sat at her desk amidst reams upon reams of documents and reports on topics of every kind from tactics and after-action reports of the war against Asavur Kul to the conquest of the Ungol people by the ancient Gaspodar, the annual harvests and population growth of Kislev for the past century, the size of the treasury, and the long list of favors, promises, and debts owed to Kislev by every nation known to Mankind.
Katarina was surrounded by abacuses and ledgers and the room was filled with the sound of her fireplace crackling low and the scritch-scratching of quill on parchment. Furiously and with abandon the Tzarina wrote out novellas worth of letters ranging from desperate promises of anything the recipient might desire to vitriolic demands for a centuries old favor's restitution in Kislev's hour of need to surreptitious requests for someone's attendance at a coming ball in the Palace that would never happen.
Messengers were coming and going from her chambers at all hours, from dawn to dusk to dawn again they would collect dozens of letters addressed to Merchant Princes, Boyars, Elector Counts, Dukes, Dwarfen Kings, Overtyrants, Warbosses, Priests of every denomination, and three were addressed to the Emperor himself each tied with a different color ribbon.
One letter remained unsent, sealed with wax mixed with glowing green stone and a crude triangle the Tzarina had written in a moment of weakness. She didn't feed it to the fire, like she did so many other letters, keeping it as a reminder for herself that when facing even the imminent destruction of her country and people that there were salvations worse than death.
Signing one final letter the Tzarina Katarina of Kislev, greatest wielder of Ice Magic since Khan-Tzarina Miska, called for her generals and advisors to be woken from their sleep and brought to the throne room. Kislev would be prepared to fight this coming war with or without the aid of others.
-----
Thus had Kislev and its people been transformed overnight. Fields were harvested and abandoned as armies of hard-faced men and women marched by, the fields reaped seemly overnight to stock the larders of the ever growing military of the Tzarina. The once-farmers were given either a halberd, a firearm, had they the experience to avoid damaging the gun in battle, or hand axes and a bow if judged as lacking in any other more useful skills. None were deemed "useless" as every back that could carry a pack, every leg that could march, and every arm that could swing was considered invaluable.
Every person of age and strong enough to heft a travelling pack and the weapons of the infantry were conscripted. Towns were emptied and children sent to the city of Kislev for safe-keeping, and some whispered for insurance of the armies' loyalty. Wailing babes were placed in the arms of their siblings who themselves sobbed and cried out for comfort as they were pushed onto vast caravans of wagons carrying yet more seemingly abandoned children.
The next decade would be one of hardship and scarce food as every farm began to fallow, but the Ice Witches and Hags spread the word that without such measures there would be no-one to suffer those hardships at all.
So the people of Kislev made plowshares into swords and guns, homes were pulled apart for the wood and iron and turned fortifications and bullets, and the towns that dotted the country side returned to wilderness as everything was taken to fuel the battles that were to come. Any food capable of it was salted and stored in the vast larders of the walled forts and settlements south of the River Lynsk, meals were restricted to those who showed up for work in the morning and those whose hands bled from labor in the evening.
Whilst the populace was gathered to the south to be forged into a unified army in service to Kislev's survival, at the borders of the Northern Oblast the Ice Witches gathered in numbers normally reserved for the Caucus in Frosthome. In the weeks leading up to the longest night of the year both Noble and Peasant Witches travelled in caravans escorted by the Kreml Guard itself to various points along the Lynsk. With the authority of the Ancient Widow evident in their magic and the might of the Tzarina on display through the Kreml Guard the witches were able to arrive in time for the great working.
Together, as the sun fell and the clouds gathered to cover the night sky the Witches met the Hags of the Ungol people. No words were spoken and no hospitality offered, they both had gathered this day for the same purpose and would tolerate the other for mutual survival today agreeing to settle their differences in blood after the Man-Witch was slain.
The Kreml Guard trembled as the true reason for their own journey to the northern border of Kislev proper was made plain as the long train of wagons was uncovered revealing dozens upon dozens of sealed iron chests emblazoned with the sigils of every College of Magic. Bringing the chests before the assembled Ice Mages the Kreml Guard opened them to gasps of astonishment, wonder, and trembling in equal measure.
Each chest was filled to the brim with Orbs of Power, products of a careful process of solidifying all the winds of magic into a solid form that lacked the mutagenic and corrupting properties of Warpstone yet losing none of the power. On that field, commissioned and paid for by the Tzarina herself, were hundreds the orbs each engraved with the symbol of the Ancient Widow. With a nod from Boyar Frederick Bol'shoyrev, the Kreml Guard upended the chests and poured out a cascade of solidified magick into the Lynsk River. This process was one repeated along the whole length of the river that defined the border of civilized Kislev, covens of Ice Witches and Hags that had been selected to journey to other critical points along the riverbank each looked on in shock.
As the Lynsk strobed with the glow of mystical stones the assembled Ice Witches began to reach out and grasp the water of the river and sky, drawing it upwards and inwards. The sky above began to churn as clouds formed above the assembled witches, churning, roiling, and at last plummeting from the sky to the river. The river rose up to meet the clouds and in an earth quaking crack billions of gallons of water froze into a single sheet of ice that soared tens of feet in height and stretched from Erengrad to Volkolamsk. The effort of delving so deep into the magic of the land and channeling it, even spread out amongst so many, proved too much for all but the mightiest of the Ice Witches, and when the sun rose again it would see hundreds upon hundreds of icy statues lining the banks of the Lynsk
As the Ice Witches of the Tzarina drew upon the teachings of the Ancient Widow and a portion of the borrowed magic within the Power Orbs the Hags of the Ungol people offered the remaining arcane spheres along with their remaining firmity and what youth was present to entice and bind the most ancient spirits of the land within the Lynsk. Prospective hags aged decades in moments and fell to the ground with the sounds of glass-brittle bones snapping under their own weight and the ripping of suddenly paper thin skin, and of those who had already bargained away their years were left gasping and gulping for every breath. Their skin tightened across their bones like curing leather and their muscles and limbs were robbed of any vitality and mobility and were left laid out upon the ground like mummified spiders. Soon these withered and ancient hags suffocated under the weight of their own flesh and their last shuddering breath crystallized in the midnight air before being swept into the Lynsk by grasping hands of snow and shadow.
With the sacrifice of so many lives and resources, within a single night a great fortification of ice had been erected and the invisible teeth of winter roused in the defense of Kislev. The Widow's Wall was twice as large as the walls of Pragg, whilst the river that ran on the far side of the wall roiled and frothed with the hunger of terrible spirits of ice and darkness.
A reindeer approached the river with caution and lowered its head to drink of its waters became a statue of ice in the span of an instant, before cracking and crumbling into snowflakes that were sucked into the depths of the Lynsk's waters.
When the survivors gathered at first light and saw what had been wrought in the dark of the night they shivered and shook, beginning the long march back to the capital without a single glance back. Hag and Witch walking side by side and surrounded by the Kreml Guard drawing some comfort from the camaraderie of having a single collective fear.
'Would this be enough?'
-----
The armies of the Everchosen were impossible to number; the cultists writhed and excruciated themselves in homage to their gods leaving altars of viscera, bile, bodily fluids, and impossible geometries along a miles wide path from the Northern Wastes through Black Fire Pass. Despite the ceaseless march and bitter, driving, cold of Kislev the horde of maddened zealots grew only larger as it passed through the Northern Oblast. Villages and towns had their doors beaten down and their people dragged from their homes and forced to either participate in or be subject to the debauchery, slaughter, infection, and mutation that characterized the servants of the Four.
Wandering amidst the disorganized mobs of cultists were the daemons, summoned by the sorcerers who travelled behind the tide of meat that were the cultists, buoyed by the strength of the Winds of Chaos and the glorifying acts constantly being performed by the mortal servants of the Dark Gods. Bloodletters scythed through the horde, cackling and enlarging the skull-thrones being built along the path to the Old World. Daemonettes of Slaanesh danced through the crowd and trailed their claws across the flesh of all who gazed upon their beauty, the sign of Slaanesh forever scarred into the gawkers flesh. Plaguebearers trailed behind Kislev's doom, their tallymarks recording every putrescent disease spread from weeping sore into open mouth and every bloated and twitching person dumped into a mass grave. Pink and Blue Horrors cackled and screamed out as they shifted across the wastes and through the dreams of the slaves of Darkness, their forms ever shifting and phasing in and out of reality, whispering terrible secrets and lies to all foolish enough to lend them half an ear.
Of the countless Daemons that were being called forth every day, thousands were entombed within cursed steel and trinkets to lend the mortal servants of Chaos even a minor fragment of the gods' own power. Scythes made of more rust than iron that left festering wounds that could not be healed by mortal means, circlets of rainbow-fire that stretched and tore at the limits of the wearer's mind, skull goblets overflowing with blood that drove all who drank into the berzerker's frenzy, and obsidian armor that made their wearer proof against the a myriad of weapons. All these and a thousand variations more flowed from the ritual circles, covens, and soulforges that heeded the command of their Everchosen.
Armed with weapons beyond mortal ken and clad in armor whose every inch venerated the Dark Gods the Northmen obeyed the command of their long foretold Archaon and the will of the Ruinous Powers came crashing into the south as an avalanche meets a torch.
------
Marching perpendicular towards the oncoming hordes of Northmen and saemons a discordant array of mutants, madmen, and chaospawn could be seen. most numerous of all though were the Trolls.
Two years prior to this parade of twisted mockery of a nation, Throgg the King of Trolls had received a vision and a final blessing from the Dark Gods. He saw his deepest dreams fulfilled as the people of Kislev and beyond burned in terrible pyres, the forces of Chaos ruling from horizon to horizon, and the trolls of the world kneeling before his throne. Always he could see a twin-tailed comet in the sky, a common sight on the shields of countless knights, but it was paired with a thunderous and growing roar of war and battlelust that came from the north. As the comet sailed across the sky it seemed to hang in the sky for a moment before Throgg's vision expanded revealing the comet as a blazing third eye in a helmet, and upon feeling the gaze of the one upon whose brow seemed to rest a fallen star Throgg knew that such would be the sign he must watch for.
So did the Troll King leave his labyrinthine caverns to gather and beat obedience into his subjects. Travelling the width and breadth of his nation and gathering together tribes of the forsaken and forgotten, having every stream and shallow dredged for River Trolls, every boulder was over turned to dig the Stone Trolls from their dens, and the forests were scoured for common Trolls that were beaten into service. Most telling to Throgg that his endeavors were blessed was came from the most northern stretches of Troll Country the Chaos Trolls heeded the clarion call and ventured southwards. After they had consumed hundreds of war bands and villages, Throgg found the advancing wall of gaping maws and corruption wracked flesh.
After seasons of crushing sense into regenerating skulls and beating fear into the hearts of an entire countryside, the twin-tailed comet appeared in the sky. The heavens burned with the sign of the End Times, the hills and dales of Troll Country came alive with shouts and roars of anticipation and bloodlust, forests burned and rivers flowed with blood forming arcane symbols writ upon the landscape itself. Thousands of Roppsmen who showed even a moment's hesitation at joining the horde were dragged from their homes and sacrificed upon ancient stone altars or in unhallowed clearings surrounded by broken standing stones; such was the jubilation of these distance followers of Chaos.
Then came the final sign, Morrslieb appeared one night looming large and bathing all in its terrible incandescence. With the evil moon's appearance Throgg could feel of the Harbinger of the End Times' gaze and call. It took little time to corral and prod the tens upon tens of thousands of Trolls, men, mutants, and giants that Throgg had spent two years gathering under his banner.
Travelling in the direction that the Dark Moon bid, there came a night when from across the horizon the howls of millions of ecstatic and torn throats, tinged by the screams of terror and grief of the dying, could be heard. Throgg could feel every set of his teeth crack and wrinkle into a rictus grin at how far he had come. Soon enough, the roars of a nearly a hundred thousand trolls and thrice again as many mortal men joined the nightmarish chorus.
-----
The great river Lynsk's shores were rimed with frost and the statues of countless beasts and men all frozen in the moment they made contact with its waters, and on the river's far side rose a wall of ice over four dozen feet high and stronger than steel, proven by the countless grappling hooks and ladders that lay turned to ice after having fallen into the river and the men holding the rope now missing hands and limbs from the frost that had crawled up the rope like lightning.
The legions of Chaos had arrived at the river bank the night before and as the sun rose the hordes of the Troll King lumbered in and joined their ranks, both armies were swollen by the pillaging and corruption of the lands they had passed through. Noe the assembly of men, monsters, and steel that stared angrily across the Lynsk was larger than any single battlefield had seen in the history of the Old World.
As the day passed and the sun began to hang low, the Everchosen himself arrived at the front of his army the throng parting for him like flesh around a surgeon's blade. Silence and stillness fell across the legions and all could feel the burning gaze of Archaon upon them, with food falling from the mouths of Ogres and Trolls, Cultists freezing mid-adulation with some biting their hands to stifle their treacherous tongues, those blessed by the Gods all looked on with anticipation like coiled springs, and every last daemon wore a mockery of a smile and an expression of terrible hunger.
His eyes combing the banks of the river and the fortification that stretched across the far bank from horizon to horizon the Lord of the End Times was the first to break the silence. First with a snort, then a chuckle, and finally a full-throated laugh as he drew his sword, the contemptuous and murderous glee spreading throughout the horde like a plague of Nurgle. When Archaon gave the order the Cultists charged alongside daemons, adorations and prayers spilled from mortal mouths that were swiftly silenced when blood froze and flesh cracked. As the bodies of the cultists began to pile in the river and the red stain of blood-ice tinted the water the daemons all simply cackled, gurgled, squealed, and roared in exaltation as they dove into the spirit-infested waters.
Archaon's plan made itself rapidly apparent as the daemons rather than freezing burst in sprays of ichorous warp-stuff. As the volume of daemons spent and replenished by sorcerous covens grew, the warp-stuff began to spread up and down the river anchored as it was by the sacrifice of so many worshippers. Steadily the crystal clear waters began to dance a thousand colors and the water frothed with the sound of countless dying screams.
Soon the river was silent of screams, flotsam that smelled alternatively of blood, mucus washing up on the shoreline rather than ice, and the water shimmered like quicksilver coated in oil.
Raising a closed fist Archaon, who had remained unmoving 'til now, halted the torrent of sacrifice. Looking up to the sun as it began to dip behind the wall the Everchosen gestured with one hand and from the tainted water rose a bridge of bone and skull lashed together by flesh and sinew. Stepping onto it even as it was forming Archaon drew Kingslayer and held it aloft with both hands, point towards the sun. As the sun touched the top of the wall Kingslayer suddenly burned with rainbow colored flames and with furious shout Archaon brought the sword down and tore into the wall.
From that blazing wound cracks began to creep across the wall, and where the cracks appeared the fire spread. The process repeated itself endlessly across the whole structure until eventually the wall began to collapse under its own weight. Sections fell into the river causing great splashes to wash over and mutate any who were touched by it where others fell on the far side and their landing with a shuddering boom that could be felt as much as heard.
Soon enough the city of Pragg became visible, a city fortified with barricades and ringed with palisades both formed from ice, and the river was so filled with ice and slurry that it had turned from impassable to merely difficult to ford across.
King Throgg waited for no signal, and with a shout he began a charge that was joined by all present. Leaping over the river and ignoring the cannon shots that rained about him and the trolls that disappeared under the increasing barrage, the Troll King ran pell-mell towards the towering gates of the city. As he approached he could see shots slow as the cannoneers desperately attempted to aim at the legendary beast that was tearing towards them, cries of "Wintertooth!" audible now that he had come so close.
Finally, one of the cannons struck true and Throgg felt his left arm shatter under the impact as he was thrown to the ground by the force. Rising up, Throgg was astonished for a moment to see that the cannonball that struck him was still intact and seemed to be made of perfectly clear glass. Clearing his head and feeling his arm pull itself back together, the broken fragments become new spines along his forearm, Throgg took to running on his three intact limbs. Swiftly he reached the gates and bracing himself, reached out with both arms, and tore stones from the wall around the gateway. The stones gave more easily than they should have, and when exposed the wall seemed to be partially made of teeth, bone, and petrified meat. Disregarding the ease of doing so, and gripping both sides of the barred door Throgg was able to heave the doors up and with his unholy strength, laughing at the shouts of terror and panicked calls for men to form up ranks.
But it was too late, the front gate was open for all the forces that may. Throwing the two doors forward Throgg's mirth only grew as he watched it crush and cripple the men who had been trying to hold him back. As the rest of the forces of Chaos tore into the city they began putting the place to the torch and the defenders to whatever depraved tortures were being imagined on the spot, Throgg took in the sights of the city. Pragg seemed to be relaxing a muscle it had been holding for centuries as daemons and Chaos Warriors swept across the city in a wave of brutality lids seemed to lift on stones revealing multi-pupiled eyes and the streets seemed to be undulating.
As the screams of men and women rent the sky, a lone man riding south as hard as his steed could did not turn around. He did not imagine his city burning, his friends and family being torn limb from limb, nor did he imagine the unfleshed bodies that were already being hung from the city walls. Most of all, he did not see a man with three burning eyes watch him ride away.
-----
Under hundreds of deep blue banners bearing the Tzarina's sigil thousands of kossars and Streltsi, hundreds of Ungol Horse Archers, a full pulk of Winged Lancers, the full might of the Gryphon Legion, and Boyars from the Tzarina's own Kreml Guard marched forth towards the most likely point for the forces of the Northmen to attack, the city of Pragg.
Upon receiving word that the forces of the Ruinous Powers had finally been spotted marching towards the Widow's Wall they had set to marching. The reinforcements brought with them hundreds of cannons, thousands of guns, and enough supplies to resupply Pragg's larders thrice over. The wagon train stretched long and was filled to the brim with the most mundane use of Ice Magic yet, the forming of spheres of varying sizes. Tens of thousands of bullets and thousands of cannon shot had been created within months using only cast molds and water.
As they passed through nigh-abandoned settlement after settlement they came upon a single man stumbling his way down the dirt path. Swiftly circled by Lancers, the man was pale as a sheet and frostbitten across his entire body. Shoeless and gloveless, the man's clothes were frayed and torn all over and his fingers were blackened with cold where they hadn't turned green from the obviously infected cuts that covered his entire body, his limping walk gave away that the same had likely happened to his feet.
A Boyar came forward, "Where do you come from and why are you alone."
The man turned bloodshot eyes towards the Boyar and when he opened his cracked lips pale gums and long teeth could be seen, "Lost! Pragg has been lost! The Wall did not stand and the river runs foul! Foul like the stones, like the horse! It was tainted, it drank of a well and I knew it was of Chaos!"
The Lancers stirred at the news, Pragg lost? They had received the missive that the forces of the North had been on the march two days ago and mustered as quickly as they could, how could the Widow's Wall have failed so quickly?
Raising a hand for silence the Boyar questioned further, "Lost how? Cut off from supplies and men? How long was it besieged?"
The man's legs gave out and he lurched forward, grabbing onto the Boyar's pants, "Burned and corrupted! A day from when the city called for aid, all is lost and the screams will last forever! They sang songs and they still ring in my skin but I needed to tell someone! I ran and ran and the horse died but I sti-!"
Shaking his head and pulling out his pistol the Boyar pulled his leg out of the man's weak grip. Aiming down, the man died with a bang and the Boyar stepped over the corpse, "Aleksandr, take a group of outriders and get us news of Pragg. If Pragg has truly fallen then we must draw back and consolidate all our forces until the forces of the South can ride North to aid us. Nikolai, ride out with whatever priests you can find and see if what he said about the River Lynsk is true, if it has become corrupted than we must know if it can be purified or we will have to be prepared for mutants to come crawling south."
As the men began to disperse one of them let out a shout, and the Boyar felt someone grab the back of his shirt. Spun around at a dizzying speed he saw the hollowed skull of the man he had just killed and opening its mouth unnaturally wide the corpse began vomiting forth a spray of bile and viscera.
The zombie was brought down swiftly enough as a lance took it in the chest but the boils and rash that had already blinded the Boyar told the truth of Pragg's fate more surely than any of the men needed.
The Boyar's putrefied corpse was burned within the hour.
-----
The might of Kislev, prepared like never before and propelled to heights never before dreamed, was spent like pebbles cast before the tide.
The forces of Chaos numbered as many as there were living Kislevites, and nearly a third of them were monsters capable of being shot with a cannon to minimal effect or men girded in armor stronger than any forged by mortal hands with weapons capable of parting steel and bone like smoke.
Despite this Kislev fought and across a dozen battlefields heroes rose, and died shortly after for the hordes of Archaon wandered Kislev looking for sport, cities and villages to burn and sacrifice in great rituals to call forth ever greater blessings and daemons.
The Lancers and Ungol riders were hunted wherever they went, whole warbands diverting to run them down like the foxes of a hunt.
The Gryphon Legion was stalked endlessly, each time they took wing Archaon himself was there with a cadre of Knights riding manticores, discs of Tzeentch, or even Chaos Dragons. After the first week the Gryphon Legion was no more.
Drutsk was wiped off the map by a sorcerer's spell as the entire populace devolved into mutated spawn that tore apart and consumed those who escaped the effect.
Every isolated village that had lain untouched for centuries was found and slaughtered to the last. Their men and women sacrificed to the gods, the young used as target practice, and their wise women's minds emptied and their souls turned into vessels of fel power.
Erengard, weakened after the tainting of the Lynsk, was taunted for three days with offers of perfumed water and succulent meats by Sigvald the Magnificent. As the supply of water within the city ran dry the doors were opened to the invaders. When Sigvald's forces left the city he rode atop a palanquin carried by those who had pledged everlasting loyalty in exchange for mercy, and when one fell they were fed to the rest and replaced.
Boys and girls as old as eleven were being sent from the Capitol to reinforce weakening lines. At first simply as pages, then as runners, but before long they were standing shoulder to shoulder with men thrice their age driving pikes into oncoming charges of Chaos champions. They died just as easily as any other beneath ironclad hooves and before warp-touched blades.
Kislev was a nation no more, the Legion of the End Times wandering hither and thither across the Dobryrion with absolute immunity. A civilization that had withstood millennia of incursions reduced to sport and something to whet the appetite of the Northmen before they reached the Empire to the South. Millions were dead and every scrap of arable land lay corrupted beneath the tramping of warp-empowered boots and daemonic tread.
As the country burned and its people lay dying, in the heart of the Capitol the Tzarina was enacting a gambit she had feared since discovering it.
-----
The remaining members of the Hags and Ice Witches stood within the palace walls, and no longer could a difference be found between peasant, hang, or noblewoman. Every robe and face was covered with blood, dirt, and filth as the assembled woman continued a unified chanting.
Across the entirety of the Capitol the leylines of Kislev were outlined with scrawled glyphs and it formed the shape of a spider web, and at the center of the massive web stood the lone woman whose posture if not regalia gave away her identity.
The Tzarina of a Dead Land, the Ice Queen of Nowhere, Katarina Bokha stood at the center of this web and held Frostfear flat across both her hands. She could hear the susurrus screams of the spirits across all of her country, could feel the wounds being carved into the landscape as the corruption of chaos seeped deep into the earth to await the world's coming end, but most of all she could hear the whispers of the creature that dwelled beneath the palace and the font of Ice Magic.
The Tzarina repeated words only she could hear, as she had since the glyph networks completion two days priors, when a tremor shook the souls of all present in the room. It was nearly a physical thing, like an anchor dragged its way across the leylines towards them.
Looking around at the trembling but still chanting women arrayed around her, Katarina knew the thought that cross all their minds, 'The Man-Witch is here.'
The ritual was not ready, the Avatar of Kislev could not be made manifest and the soul of Miska would never inhabit its perfect form.
Grasping for straws as the ritual continued on in vain, Katarina heard one final whisper from below before it fell silent. Closing her eyes and nodding, she reached out and pulled on the assembled threads of power that had been wrapped around her and instantly she felt like she stood within the heart of a volcano as she held the leylines in the grip of her indomitable will. The magnitude of power surged in her ears, but over that noise she could hear that the room had fallen silent.
Opening her eyes as snowflakes fell in place of tears, Katarina looked across a room full of icy statues and shadows made of snow cast on the floor. Holding Frostfear to her lips, Katarina whispered a single word to the blade and, by kissing the sword of her foremothers, imbued it with all the power of Kislev. Instantly the sword was changed, the cross guard becoming a Widow spider and the leather of the grip turning to dust before the sheer cold of the blade. Lowering the blade from her frostbitten lips, Katarina knew the blade in the right hands could fell any foe who dared stand against Kislev. Yet it was too little too late for her country, she would never get close enough nor could she pass the blade to another before Archaon would be upon her.
Gripping the blade in one hand and the hilt in the other, Katarina brought the sword down upon her knee shattering it like glass.
For a moment the sound echoed across the room and she stood alone in the room holding the broken fragments of her ancestral blade.
Then all she knew was COLD and WHITE.
-----
From the Palace of Kislev erupted a blizzard unlike any ever seen before, not by any Northman or by even the Slann during the Coming of Chaos.
The capitol was devastated and shattered by massive spires of ice that burst from the palace and that erupted from the ground. A wave of ICE continued in an ever expanding wave across the country and never weakening in its intensity. Hail like broadswords fell from the sky with enough force to split dragon skulls, the winds flayed flesh from bone through even the smallest gap in armor, the cold penetrated even the thickest layers of cloaks, and the driving snow buried houses within hours.
Every cultist that had been brought into Kislev was flash frozen by the oncoming wave of snow and ice, the blessed of the Chaos gods who survived the absolute cold were swiftly overcome by the torrent of snow entombing them beneath tens of feet of ice, and the monstrous followers who had answered the Everchosen's call were skewered by the hail.
The land was silent after the first day save for the howling of the wind and the crunching of hail and snow. The daemons having been pulled screaming back into the warp with the cessation of bloodshed and tormenting of souls leaving them unable to sustain themselves within the storm.
All was silent across the land that was once called Kislev.
-----
Archaon, The Everchosen, Lord of the End Times, The Three-Eyed King, Kingslayer, Man-Witch, rode across the wasteland atop Dorghar and in his wake blackened and frostbitten hands broke the snow crust, milk-eyed bodies pulling themselves from beneath the snow. Periodically a massive troll's hand tore itself free and the rest followed as a deathly pail creature rose from a snowbank. Other times it was a black armored helm as plate armored warriors trudging their way through the snow, scaling the packed ice like a stairway.
The living and dead marched south, the ranks of Chaos swelling with the bodies of Kislevites rising alongside cultists. Hundreds of thousands of cultists had died in the blizzard, but the Tallymen of Nurgle were gleeful in their accounting and worked tirelessly to find every last body.
It would take time to regroup and find their way in the storm, but the world's death had only been delayed for a time.
Archaon pondered if it would be enough to make it a challenge.
King Arthur
The Once and Future King
Hrmmmm, you know, speaking of Kislev, it might not be a bad idea to spend some die spreading our influence in that country. There's something there I want to find.
Namely, there might be a tomb with Arianka, a still living goddess of law, in Praag. As one of the three Chaos deities of Law she should, theoretically, be pretty darn high tier as far as deities go, and she's perfectly trapped for us. She is the same type of deity as the big four, Slaaneesh, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Khorne are, just an opposite faction, so stupid amounts of power and potential there, and yet she is trapped in one place in the material realm unable to protect herself.
If we cannot figure out how to turn that into a massive power boon for us then, well, we should be ashamed of ourself.
Namely, there might be a tomb with Arianka, a still living goddess of law, in Praag. As one of the three Chaos deities of Law she should, theoretically, be pretty darn high tier as far as deities go, and she's perfectly trapped for us. She is the same type of deity as the big four, Slaaneesh, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Khorne are, just an opposite faction, so stupid amounts of power and potential there, and yet she is trapped in one place in the material realm unable to protect herself.
If we cannot figure out how to turn that into a massive power boon for us then, well, we should be ashamed of ourself.
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Kairos123
Insomniac Extraordinaire
daemons
Now
hag
Excellent piece, Pathos.
Praag already fell. If this dubious piece of canon does exist here, she already fallen to Chaos.
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- He/Him
Yeah, putting aside the fact we don't even know if she exists in this continuity, it's too harsh an environment that's as likely to get anyone we send killed and make it a complete waste of precious effort.
always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
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- SEA
It'd be hilarious if the world was saved by...the skaven??