A Cosmic Stroll
The dwarf simply...walked. His silvery-white armor shifting as he trod over the steps of the pristine white streets, strewn with blood and fire and corpses and smoke and death and yet, and yet, he was calm. No, not calm, as his splendorous white beard twitched from the stink of magic turned to absolutely vile pursuits, things that made his flesh writhe just to think about, the desecration of a thinking people, the atrocities unleashed. The hatred for those that had done this, the rage and fury and hate he felt at that very moment; it was more than absolute. If he had to he would strangle each one with his own bare hands that had participated in this, slowly and with great delight if at all possible. He sensed, more than understood, the cry that had come from the human pinned underneath the cart.
The voice of a child rang out, and his hand grasped even tighter on Zharrgal. His desire for words was nil, less-than-nil, but he let them come anyway, as comforting as he could be as he pulled off the wooden trap from the boy, who drew back, terrified at anything not human at this point. Not, of course, that Snorri could judge him for that, who wouldn't be? So he calmly stood back, and drew bread and a water-skin from his cloak and tried very hard not to consider how he could count the ribs and bones under the human's skin, even as he distantly heard magic unwind as one of his allies, for this pit had a way of making clear how very vast the difference between political disagreement and ancient dispute and true evil really were, or a young Runelord--and in this moment they were Runelords, all of them, each and every one drawn to fight in this hell as they brought Thungni's Judgement down upon those who bring such malice against another thinking people--snuffed it out as they had snuffed out the many.
After seconds the boy's hunger won over his fear and he took the bread and the water and chugged and ate and tried not to choke on the first food he had had in quite possibly days in the face of his captors. Snorri took that time to root through his cloak and pulled out yet another gift for the youngster, this time a small carved figure, possibly a human, possibly a dwarf, possibly a halfling.
But not an elf. Nay, not when elves were at the root of this evil. The human child took the toy and then threw his arms around Snorri and cried and the cantankerous old dwarf let it happen, wrapping an arm around him. And he mused on the Elves that had united the Ancients so against them, a terrible thing to face even withered as they were.
Not the Druchii. They were evil enough for it, but lacked the strength required for the totality of it. Half the world fallen to their deprivations, their slaughter, their evils. And growing over and over again.
Not the Asrai. They could be cruel in defense of their homes, and they could be cold to outsiders, and they had the spirits to make it possible. But they cared for justice more than that, and they were more rational than these elves were. He tried very hard not to compare one cycle of revenge to another, an ancient wound taken as an excuse for bestial slaughter even as the generations first responsible passed, and then their kin, and their kin, on and on down ages and ages and ages until ten generations had gone by and the blood shed had been repaid ten-fold.
And certainly, very certainly, not the Asur. At their worst they might have believed themselves superior to men and dwarfs and halflings and all other things that trod on two legs but that same stiff-necked arrogance meant even the worst of them would have killed those responsible for the slaughter and the suffering so unleashed, with their own bare-hands if necessary, or died in the attempt. And the more common, not that he would ever admit it out loud, who perhaps were proud but not insufferable, would have done the same, and even those who kept it restrained to merely a healthy, invigorating confidence.
Snorri took a second to sniff and a moment later the assassin sheathed in shadows who had thought themself so clever and able in their shadowmancy was rather briefly and violently turned into the stuff of shadows as the spell failed, though Snorri kept the boy from seeing.
No, no. A perturbance in the Aethyr, that had been the only warning they had received; then a portal to a new world, to this hell, where an entire species was dying, or worse, subjugated at the hands of those who should have known better had opened, varying in size as the invaders had tried to claim their world. Their cruelty, their savagery, it was astounding how quickly the Ancients had each decreed they would bring an end to it, alone if necessary and then together; a practical matter at first, then moral indignation, of what was Proper. Not alone, no. Humanity had poured in from all corners of the globe to face this particular evil too as the portals had grown, as the invaders had poured through then been repulsed.
But here, in this place, the capital of this nightmare of suffering, this slaughterhouse of an Empire? It was the elves and dwarfs and the nameless mass of native humans, too stubborn to die even in the face of such tragedy, who marched and fought and died and bled to...to stop this cruelty. Elsewhere Dragon-blooded and Ice Witch fought alongside Paladin and Warrior Priest in a righteous fury, slaughtering everything in their path.
Speaking of humans, he heard two yelling and looked up and for once in this Ancestors cursed world something good, something righteous, had happened. The boy's parents had returned for him; and Snorri knelt down to the lad, and pointed him towards them and watched as the boy was scooped up by a man who too looked gaunt and exhausted, his hair a mess and filthy, and the mother filthy and gaunt too, and so very tired but it fell away as the three embraced and began to run away with the boy clenched in their arms, towards the lines of humans.
And when the boy could no longer see nor hear them, he heard the rustling of magic fading away. And reforming, not simply appearing, out of the shadows Tyrion and Teclis themselves, covered in the blood of their depraved kin, smoky and burned. They looked torn between satisfaction that the deed was nearing its end, its crescendo; fury that it had been necessary; and the sort of nausea one might learn if literally buried in a rubbish heap. It was a mood he was learning too well, for his part, though grim satisfaction won out most often. "Is it done?"
"Master and Apprentice alike lie dead at our hands, yes. I do not think they expected someone able to turn apart their magic, not with the ease I did, not really." Teclis said it without any particular pride, the same way Snorri might say that he had crafted a better ax than an apprentice of a week would, just a statement of truth, a law of the universe: fires burn, water soothes, Teclis is a better caster than these savages.
"And the general?"
"Alarielle wanted to see the situation for herself, in spite of the requests of the Phoenix Court." Tyrion looked vaguely uncomfortable in saying this, for once not because he had not wanted it; but because he had wanted her in the field too much.
In the distance the sound of dragons turning paved stone roads to glass filled the air as their fire and acid streaked down to impact the ground and the lines of enemy soldiers that attempted to present some manner of threat to the Alliance of Ancient. Though hardly restored to the heights they'd held in the Golden Age, too many had died over the long ages for that to be so, it was the most dragons Asrai or Asur had brought to a single battle in a very long time. "When she saw exactly what this cursed place was like, she swore she'd see as many parts of it burned or buried under the living stone as she could and the part she's burning right now is the General's, yes."
In the distance there was too the rumbling of Gronti as they smashed apart the cruel monument to slaughter, and not just the precious few built to tap directly into the Deep Magic either. The imposition, the clash, the grind of the two worlds against each other had opened up the magic again, allowed it to rise and fill the world once more and so the Gronti had arisen again when called. Two-thirds had been deployed to the various Karaks under siege, Karak Eight Peaks and others; but that meant a third of them, a full third of every living statue ever created, was ransacking this monument to barbarism, shaking the walls and the buildings and the streets. The average Gronti may not have impressed compared to the average dragon, but there were many, many more Gronti than there were drakks, and living stone was not, in truth, easier to slay compared the great world burners.
"Then I suppose there's only one last place for us to go." He hoisted his hammer over his shoulder and began to head towards the palace, which was surrounded by what remained of the elven army. "It has been some time since I have fought elvish royalty. Let us see if her guards are as worthy of praise as the White Lions." He marched towards the distant citadel of suffering followed by the great elvish youths in silence as they prepared to confront their wicked kin. "If we are lucky, the White Dwarf will have left us some to warm up with, Beardlings."
Just what it seems, the world of Warhammer being attacked by something fantasy that's even more fucked up than they are and putting it down. No I will be naming what, because it's gross and I hate that I read it.
