Omake: The founding of the brave band of Kislev I
Khapilov´s feet hurt.
To be specific his right leg did.
It hurt ever since the days when it had been torn off in that Widow damned forest of the imperials. He still shuddered at the memory.
The three gors before him died as one, his blade shearing their heads from their necks in half a breath´s time. A thin coating of ice covered the stumps even from the short contact it had made, produced by a potion he had poured over the weapon, given to him by a Priestess of the Widow in exchange for much of his savings.
Moroznaya smert was a fine sword, made by a trio of dwarfen smiths out of the best steel available. Rumor was that it had taken a full three years to forge, though he wasn´t sure how much he believed such words.
Course, he had only been an aspiring blade master back then, not a true Droyaska, like he was now. Which he still was despite the crippling against the damned undead, no matter what other´s said.
Not to his face, no never to his face.
An angry grunt left his mouth as he swiped away and ungor´s mace with more force than was necessary, before punching the squealing mutant right into the face, the cold metal of his gauntlet crunching teeth, nose and bone alike.
A followup stab pierced right through its heart, killing it before it could recover from the disorientation of the strike.
He had been declared Droyaska by no one else than Alexis himself!
There had been barely five hundred of them, hounded, exhausted, bloodied, holding the furth against a kurgan and chaos host four times their number as the Pulks of Kislev fell back from Praag, to meet up with the forces of the southern emperor.
Three of them there had been.
Three blade masters.
Over four hundred norscan´s had been on the other side, backed up by countless mutants, monsters and slave chaff. They could have torn through their pathetic Pulk in minutes and then could have kept straight going at the Tzar´s mangled hosts.
Instead they had made a game out of it.
When their forces had beaten back the first two casual assaults - few of the true warriors of chaos among them - the valor of Sasha the brave, Sviatolad the Vampire Hewer and himself -least of the three- had caught the eyes of the followers of the Hound that had made up this horde.
So they had challenged them to duels.
Again and again.
They had accepted of course. They all had known that they were dead men walking, that this was the day they would spend their blood for the land, to buy their Tzar more time.
Sviatolad was the first. He had slain a hulking mutant, a huskarl of the leader of the horde, which´s wounds healed over again and again, no matter how often struck. Sviatolad finally killed him by striking through his skull, having carefully worn away at his helmet. After this the champion of the horde had walked forward and slew him in a duel that lasted barely a minute, whereas the one before had taken almost an hour.
Sasha had been next. Picking up the blade of Sviatolad as well as wielding Moroznaya smert -being it´s original master- he killed another huskarl.
Had goaded and challenged the champion, had managed to make him promise –in his hubris - that, if they could kill him, his band would draw further, find another passage. That this was simply a ritual for his God of blood, to weed out if any of them were truly worthy to face him.
Sasha´s fight had lasted five whole minutes.
Moroznaya had hewn four deep wounds into his side and one across his shoulder before a brutal axe blow of the monster undid the body of his dear friend.
A duo of bestigors proved to be slightly more challenging than the previous beasts, waving around large 'swords' that were little more than thick slabs of iron, brown with rust and dried blood.
They were clearly smart enough to recognize how he was just a bit slower to his right side, how it was always his right leg that gave way first when he blocked and deflected blow after blow.
In the end, it was their weapons that gave way first.
The leftmost bestigor - an ugly thing with only one eye - weapon burst into a shower of metal in his hands, the frost of Moroznaya jumping like rot upon the enemies iron. The sixth blow to exactly the same point carved through the hopelessly brittle metal and into it´s chest, cutting out it´s vile heart with a singular masterful swipe.
The other bestigor sought to take advantage of the momentary opening before a thrown handaxe, coated from wooden hilt to the axhead in lightning, burst his horned skull like a cracked egg, brain matter and bone pieces showering him in a disgusting wash of blood and gore.
Uglinichinim only laughed in the back, his two handed great axe - that he swung around in one hand like it weighed little more than a feather - splitting down a charging Minotaur from horn to crotch in a single strike.
Khalipov had been used to being the best fighter wherever he went. Sviatolad had bested him as many times as he him in spars and among even the veterans of the pulk, he could take on a dozen at the same time and still win.
Sasha was different.
Always cheerful, always happy to give advice and to train - even on techniques others would have guarded jealously - he had always beaten him. In after two hundred duels, not once had he managed to defeat the brave.
He had felt terror when he stood against the chaos champion. Three of the huskarls he killed before he came forward to duel. Less than the others.
Perhaps his skills had been less impressive than those of his peers, so that fewer of the khornates had come forward? Maybe the monster had simply grown bored of the spectacle.
He had lasted a minute, exactly like Sviatolad, before his weapon broke and the cursed black sword bit deep into him.
He still remembered how the man had picked him by his throat, as if he was a babe, and began to mutter words. How this sacrifice was khorne´s name, in his honour.
How he would take their three skulls as trophies.
He would probably have said more, had Khalipov, in his desperation, not managed to pick up Sasha´s sword and thrust it right into his side, through the gap his friend had made.
He had been barely conscious, from blood loss and the choking, but he still remembered how the bastard´s eyes froze and burst, as kislev´s frost entered his innards.
The chaos warband of course broke their leaders deal.
They swept through them and butchered most of them. He managed to kill a couple more of them, before a swing of a particularly large barbarian had sent him tumbling into the river, the roaring torrent of ice and water.
He still could feel it. The cold, the frost, the ice. How it entered his mouth, his nose, his ears. How, despite it all, he never let go of Moroznaya Smert. Not of his own free will, no. Simply because his fingers had refused to. Even as the weapon cut through five ungors as if they were one, he could still feel the bitter cold.
Deep in him, he knew, even if he were to throw himself into the hottest fire, the cold would never go away.
A couple of the lads of the pulk had survived and later picked him up from where the stream had delivered him too. They had managed to halt the war band for hours and the deed saw him later declared Droyaska.
Not that the Tzar was alive for long either after that.
A title was a title however, and with it came responsibilities. Khapilov had survived that river, the kurgan attacks that came later, and so much more. As long as he breathed he would guard the people, of the land, of Kislev.
Even after the journey with the honored Tzarina´s army to that damned forest that saw him put out of commission for so long.
The people of the stanista of Popovorich were fine folk, who had accepted him on his journey with little complaint. They had offered hospitality and in turn he had trained a couple of their boys for the local pulk.
A handful might even be material for some decent soldiery later.
Still, he hadn´t been the only visitor.
A wandering priest of Tor had been there, by the name of Uglinchinin Bovar. He had been constantly drunk, downing various concoctions of mushrooms, grass, kvas and other stuff he didn´t even want to guess.
In his words to improve his visions with Tor!
He had halfway doubt he was even a priest at all, if it´s wasn´t for the clear and open blessings he showed.
At some point the stanista had decided enough was enough and had 'incentivized' him to move on. Luckily, the latest of his "visions" had told him to leave anyway, so he had been more than willing.
Unfortunately, a bunch of the more pious folk in the stanista had felt guilt about it and had payed him to make sure nothing bad happened to him.
Kislev was a harsh land after all.
So he had left and accompanied the giant of a priest, together with a handful of the lads he had trained, their babushka´s apparently having done to little to beat the drive for adventure out of their skulls.
And that´s how he had gotten to this point.
Khapilov relaxed his muscles as much as he was able, crouching behind a fallen tree overlooking the camp. They had just barely managed to catch the last of the beastmen before they had managed to flee to their ilk and warn them. Beside him Uglinichinim was hunched, as much as the big man could be. He had half a mind to place him with the rest of the men behind him, stealthily crawling towards the enemy encampment.
The snow was fluffy instead of packed in, it could harm his vision in a brawl. Right now it made sneaking easier, he didn't have any crunching that could give them away, mostly. There were frozen puddles hidden around, he and the others in his band had to be careful.
'Luckily' the warband were busy celebrating their latest haul to watch their perimeter.
Beastmen stomped around their camp, being as watchful and disciplined as he expected. Meaning not at all.
Gors were lounging around, guzzling stolen alcohol and munching on meat, mostly human remains but he spied some local deer or rabbits. No bread, as expected. He had heard that they physically could eat bread but no beastmen willingly did.
As he watched one shambled upright to stagger towards a circling ungor, poor sods who were actually keeping watch. For its service the gor smacked it on the head, bringing it to the stomped up muck of the ground, and laughed to its comrades. Then it roared at the other ungors, getting hateful glares as they tromped off.
Khapoliv tested the air, the wind wasn't blowing from behind them. Good, they couldn't use their great sense of smell to detect them early, papering over their lackluster watch. He could do without the stench of rotting meat and feces and things he didn't want to identify, but it would do. He could spot thirty to forty beastmen altogether, with a higher proportion of gors.
What mattered was a large beastlord who was swaggering around, hunting for then grabbing a seemingly random beastman. It let out a higher pitched yowl than he expected, meaning… he stopped looking. Khapoliv only made sure that it had some armor and a big rusty axe, and it wasn't too drunk. That could pose a problem.
The second thing was peering at the center of the camp, by the blazing fire that may have been someone's home before. Khapoliv distantly hoped it was a hunting cabin, but that wasn't likely. Anyway, seeing that, he motioned for his men, falling into the roll he had had all these years ago almost like it was a long lost mantle.
The beastmen had captives.
Mangled foot or no, he was a blade master of Kislev.
Today, monsters would die once again at his hands.
