Thunderous Deeps And A Flickering Silver-White Flame - Logan von Hohenzollern Interlude
Concurrent With Spikes, Horns, and Stone 18
Logan did not so much cough out blood as spew it from his mouth as the orc drew a blade thicker than his thigh out of his belly. Blood, bile, and organ meat came spilling from the ragged tear it left in him out of his stomach and out of his back. The blazing silver-white fire that had haloed and outlined him in the line began to gutter out as his world began to go dark, a darkness utterly unlike the largely colorless realm that he had forever seen the world with. The orc, enormous, armored with enough iron to outfit multiple knights in full plate, laughed through their fearsome and concealing helm, burned with a fell emerald light that elongated and deepened and echoed its guttural chuff as it mortally wounded him. All of the black orcs that had finally managed to push through the burgeoning masses of greenskins that had been slamming against the lines of dwarfs and men alike were so illuminated to Logan. And to everyone else besides. Each of the black orcs was surrounded and infused with powerful WAAAAGH!! energies cast by some orc shaman or another before being sent through the breach, and it showed as they battered aside dwarfs who were saved purely by their runic gromril armor and gruesomely wounded or outright slew men besides. Men such as Logan, who's fingers felt nerveless and weak as he tried to keep hold to his axe even as he plainly toppled. He saw Morr coming for him as the black orc raised up their double-sided axe high above their head in a triumphant killing blow, that booming laughter audible even amongst the combat and carnage filling the vast halls of Karaz-a-Karak. But Logan weakly snarled back, refusing to cower or close his eyes as death rushed down on a crudely made but undeniably sharp and enchanted axe, managing one last defiant upwards swing of his own axe with naught but embers of Ulric's flame on its edge to catch the black orc in the groin. It didn't cut all the way through, it did not cleave the orc into pieces, but those last embers of silver-white flame seemed to leap from his body and armor and axe and into that single point, causing the black orc to shriek in pain and fury as divine fire found green skin and flesh.
By then the young Hohenzollern had fully collapsed onto his chips of bone and offal, twitching slightly, before a midnight black blade made of celestial dragon-steel slammed through one of the thin eye slits of the black orc's helm. A marble pale hand fell onto his face, and he stiffened as he felt and saw streamers of Shyish spilling outwards from that palm into him. What followed was a disturbing and frankly horrifying sensation as he felt himself growing rapidly numb, as if his death had been accelerated all the more. Except those same purple streams of magic were swirling around his fatal wound and then clinging there, changing and altering in some foreign manner that he had never witnessed before. The vampire Genevieve was there, not even looking at him, curling her free hand's fingers and causing her blade to launch back out of the orc's skull and into her grip. She did not even speak to him, simply stepping forward and filling the gap, and by then Logan felt himself being dragged away by hands that he couldn't even shift his head or neck to see. In fact, he couldn't move anything at all, he could not even blink. His entire body was frozen on the very brink of death, or perhaps just a single toe beyond it, but no further. He could not feel himself. He could barely hear the bellowing screams and cries of pain and rage, barely smell the stink of sweat and blood and gore and metal, his mouth a numb void. All he could do was stare what felt like from just behind his own eyes, not able to shift direction or glance or even twitch.
As such Logan could only watch as the line continued to shrink, to retreat, struggling to reform again and again and drag the wounded and even the dead away lest they by crushed to pulp by the pounding feet of so many thousands of orcs and goblins. He could only see as the green tide continued to pour in, with so much of the entry hall of the Everpeak set aflame or broken to rubble. Great statues of dwarf ancestors and heroes of ages past had largely disappeared under great greedy swarms of goblins and snotlings trying to pry free every speck of gold, while others more inclined to gleeful destruction swung picks and rocks and whatever they could to begin shattering the masterful masonry apart. There were some lumbering giants now, not the terrifying siege giants from before, they could not yet fit into the slowly widening hole that was continually being carved away into the gates, but their lesser brethren had managed to crawl through on their hands and knees before emerging to stand up and begin swinging their clubs about at whatever they were pointed at. The lesser side rooms had long been emptied by this point for anything that would have been of real value, but that did not stop the greenskins from smashing doors, throwing chairs, kicking tables, and throwing empty barrels around in the backline. There were only so many that could actually contest the combined forces of the Karaz Ankor and the Empire forged by Sigmar, given the walls and purposeful sealing and disguising of secret tunnels that could still allow for advances from behind the defenses. It had been agreed by all of the commanders that it was not yet the time for that, the situation not nearly so hopeless, but in turn it just meant that the rampaging horde could only charge in one direction. Those that could not actually reach a true foe had fallen to their nature and set about destroying and desecrating all that they could reach. It was no doubt all that the ancient orc Warlord Ugrok Beard Burner could have ever dreamed of and more when he'd futilely brought his rams to bear on the gates. But then, Ugrok Beard Burner had never even proved enough of a threat to activate the lava defenses.
Matters were well beyond that point now.
Men and dwarf alike screamed and strained as they were forced back, back, and back again. Hastily constructed but sturdily reinforced firing platforms allowed thunderers and handgunners to unleash their weapons again and again into the tide. At this range, it was essentially impossible to miss, but the armor of many of the orcs meant that it took several shots to bring them down. Goblins were, one and all, far more vulnerable to bullets and quarrels from quarrelers and crossbowmen besides, but they ducked in and out from amongst the taller and broader orcs. Every time the hulking greenskins came forward, there were at least two or three goblins that were slinking out from their shadows to stab out from around their sides or even up from between their legs with blades dripping with poison and feces. Though the shamans could not – dared not more likely – cast their magics within the actual halls of Karaz-a-Karak just yet thanks to the presence of so many runesmiths and Runelords, the storm of WAAAAGH!!! energies that they could channel just outside was proving more than enough for them to empower the troops that filled the halls.
Then a Jade Wizard with vines entangled in her hair blocked off his field of vision from the rest of the battle, pale-faced and sweating before she reached out and placed both hands on the sides of his head and then suddenly all of the numbness went away. The moment it did, Logan almost wept for it to come back, as the pain slammed back into him in great waves and outright flung him into sweet unconsciousness. But only for long enough for him to come gasping back, coughing and hacking up a mixture of blood and bile from his mouth as Ghyran flowed in and around the massive gaping hole in his midsection. His senses were restored, meaning that once more he was almost deafened by the cranking rope and clanking of gears and timber as grudge throwers and greenskin rock lobbas hurled stones at one another. The booms of cannons of various kinds, as well as the thunderous slams of the giants against everything they could reach. The screaming of all combatants involved.
"Are you back with us, wolf priest?" The wizard asked him quickly, shaking him.
"I…I am, yes," he grunted, struggling to rise upwards with a trembling weakness that he was already striving to cast off. "My thanks, wizard. I do believe you saved my life."
She snorted, wiping a hand through her dark and sweaty black hair and the vines besides.
"Good sir, I merely healed you. Whover wielded the Shyish that preserved you to actually reach me in the first place is the one you owe your life to," she informed him before nodding once and immediately moving away.
The scene was being repeated on a massive scale all around him. Healers of all kinds were seeing to men and dwarfs alike. At this point, whether it was because of the shock of the first great gate of Karaz-a-Karak actually being breached, or the massive second gate finally being broken through twenty four hours previous, even the most traditionalist of the dwarfs were no longer refusing the workings of the Imperial Wizards in healing them. While Logan had heard some of them speaking as to certain supposedly regenerative brews that were incredibly rarely made but did in fact exist, if they did then they were not immediately available. Jade and Light Wizards were, and so it had come to pass that alongside the prayers of the priests from Sigmar to Shallya present were able to help heal, so too had the Wizards proven responsible for preserving the lives of a number of dwarf lords and thanes already. It was happening, yes, but would that it hadn't been needed. The preparatory layer of the dwarf defenses, their traps and lava and pitfalls and the sheer treachery of reaching the hold, had not held back the greenskins. The first true great layer, the vast gate of the Everpeak itself, with its incredibly powerful runes, the sliding stone and artillery positions, had not held back the greenskins. And now, their backs were butting up right against the next layer of defense. Though it had been runically empowered similar to the first gate, the greater edifice of the second was not nearly as inviolable by virtue of the hold that had been built up and around it. Much like the first breach in the first gate, the greenskins had once more taken the part of the ever widening crack through a dam, mining and blowing up the side passages and the internals of the mountain itself to allow them to come around the sides, to bloodily wrest control of the mechanisms and cranks themselves to winch the gates open for the rest of them.
"Damn it," Logan cursed as he brought his axe back up. "Damn it!"
A loud crash of an axe on a shield drew his attention, and numerous other now healed casualties besides. There, a hoary old, white-bearded dwarf had replaced his winged helm upon his head, and glared at them all with bloodshot eyes. No one was unexhausted at this point, all of them fighting for so many, many hours as they'd been pushed back by an ever more eager and joyous greenskin horde. Logan had no doubt that his own eyes were bloodshot as well, and it largely thanks to the constant rejuvenating spells being cast over vast sections of the fighting forces by the Wizards or those energies called down from the Gods themselves that had kept them fighting so hard and so long. The dwarfs, those that were not benefiting from such, had nothing else to fall back upon than their own inherent stubbornness and the power of the runic equipment some were blessed enough to wield. For those without the latter, the dwarfs had broken out extra alcohol supplies to buoy them in some measure.
"Anyone who is ready to get back into the fight, follow me!" He roared, and many dwarfs and Imperial soldiers cheered with him, raising their weapons.
"Hold, my lord!" A voice cut through it all.
Logan inhaled sharply at the sight of her.
And at the sound of her besides.
Every step was heavier than it should have been, and he knew for a fact that the one now striding forth wore no boots. No shoes at all, in fact. Wherever she'd walked, she left behind bare footprints in the ground. Whether sand, or dirt, or stone itself though often the latter was quite faint. There was a scraping and quiet screeching of metal against metal, accompanied by the curiously musical of clanging and banging from thick and intricate braids that fell down her back, all of which did not swish or blow with the wind, for they were too heavy for that. Hair that was the color pure gold, and shined like it too. Much like the robes that she wore, which swirled around her shimmering like golden mercury, with silver highlights and outlines throughout. A face that was, largely agreed by many men young and old – Logan quietly a part of that same group – one of the most beautiful they had ever seen in their lives, held an arrogant leer which seemed to never go away. Heavy, hefty golden bangles of beautiful artistry dangled from her wrists and from her ankles, while a wider necklace did the same around her neck. A pair of arrogant crimson eyes speared them all in place as she advanced, with none other than Kragg the Grim himself shoulder to shoulder with her.
"There shall be no more advances," she commanded them all, smoky voice resonant and deep, "It has been decided that our forces have grown too exhausted to hold this point. We shall lash out one last time to beat them back, and then seal the three great gates to provide some measure of rest."
The dwarf lord was furious, his beard bristling, but before he could speak Kragg the Grim slammed his staff down with a single thunderous boom.
"I remember when you were naught but a beardling, boy, do not think to contradict the High King's commands!" Kragg spoke, and indeed, though they both had beards of white, there was no living dwarf that approached the sheer age of Kragg himself without at least multiple centuries of difference. "Look upon your forces, feel the tremble in your body! The defenses will hold them, for a time, at least enough for some rest and recuperation before we wreak bloody vengeance upon them in turn!"
"Indeed!" The Matriarch of the Gold College gave a noblewoman's laugh, so much so that her head tilted backwards as her hand came up just beneath her chin. "Let us dispense death, and not threats or pride! Go, then, all of you! Those who hold the enemy now, shall not be abandoned!"
Some of the Imperials were more than willing to lower their weapons and stagger back all the further to the triad of gates which marked the next layer of defenses in the Everpeak. The Gate of Grungni, the Gate of Grimnir, and the Gate of Valaya, named for the eldest and most prominent of all the Ancestor Gods of the Karaz Ankor. Already, now that he wasn't stuck in a strange twilight between life and death, nor fully stuck in on the front lines, he could see that the evacuation had already largely taken place. The healing line was one of the last to go, and already the priests and many exhausted wizards were being chivvied backwards by guards. In the other direction, he could see the fierce defenders steadily giving ground under careful command of their lords and officers both, extracting a great deal of blood and pain upon the greenskins for every painful inch. It did not mean that it wasn't disheartening to see that they were, in fact, being pushed back again.
"But what of the rest!" The dwarf lord protested, "Who shall allow the last of the defenders to make the cross, the umgi?!"
Golden light flashed in the Matriarch's crimson eyes, but it was Kragg that answered verbally.
"Those
humans," the greatest Runelord ground out, "Have died defending this place, beardling, and I'll not hear you disparage the sacrifices they've made!"
The dwarf lord flushed, and growled before giving an angry curt nod and stomping away, many of his retinue following him with cowed looks under Kragg's pitiless gaze. In the meantime, Logan and many others plainly boggled at those that were now forming up behind their Matriarch. It was not, in fact, the most wizards that he had ever seen at one time. He'd been part of the great muster after all, and seen the wizard's camps within the entry hall of the Everpeak when they'd been preparing for the siege. But it didn't mean that the sight of so very, very many Wizards all together and standing out distinctly as everyone else ran past them didn't make for an awe-inspiring sight. Or a terrifying one. Or both. It depended on how you perceived people who willingly reached out into the dangerous Winds of Magic and then tried to make it do what they desired. In this case, it looked like every single Gold Wizard that had come with the expedition force was present here, none of them nearly so drained or exhausted looking as the Light or Jade Wizards.
"Now then!" The Matriarch clapped her hands. "Off you go, all of you! See yourselves to safety! I would not have you killed in the midst of the experiment!"
Logan, who had already begun moving, slowed to a halt at her words along with some of the others. Unlike some of the others, like the more common spearmen or warriors, his admittedly ruined armor and priestly vestments marked him out. As did, perhaps, his name and presence. Enough so that the Matriarch's crimson eyes speared him place before she began taking rapid heavy steps towards him, leaving faint impressions into the ground beneath her. Though her body appeared to be somewhat slender and tall, the weight she exuded out into the world was far in excess of it. Personally, given the metallic clanging and other such noises that often emanated from her, Logan suspected that some significant portion of her body had become somewhat metallic somehow. Certainly, he had seen many more Gold Wizards than he ever would have imagined before, and many of them had bits and pieces of their bodies that clearly appeared to be solid gold yet remained mobile.
"You there! Priest! You…ah," she clucked her tongue with full luscious lips with glittering golden makeup. "This is him, is it not, Kragg? The Hohenzollern! Wonderful, wonderful," she reached out and Logan stiffened slightly as a curious but enticing mixture of warm metal, cinnamon, and sandalwood flooded his nose while those slender pale but undeniably strong hands wrapped around one of his. "My goodness! Look at you, you must have nearly been dead! Tch, you should have come to one of us to have your armor hardened and improved, young one!" She reached out and smudged away some of his own blood off his cheek, tutting at him. "Hmm, your confusion, speak of it, and allow me to allay your concerns! I am most generous, no?" She quirked an eyebrow at him, his mouth feeling strangely dry at the moment.
"I…the word experiment," he said with a strange weakness that he seemed to not nearly have that much control over. "It is…concerning?"
"The boy speaks truth, wizard," Kragg grumped. "What we need is to reliably and safely extract as many of our kin and allies as we can."
"Yes, yes," she made brushing motions with her hands. "Darling Runelord, you made quite the case to the Emperor and the High King, and you and yours shall ensure the safety of the experiment, and improve the results as well!"
"Hmmph," the Runelord grunted.
"And yes, boy, I speak of an experiment. There is never a better time than situations such as these to test! Now then, you should stay and observe," she informed him, patting his cheeks and making him feel a bit warmer than he should have been. "Your father is a good proponent for the further usage of the Colleges out in the world, and yet he seems to favor the Bright and Jade Colleges far more," she sniffed dismissively, tossing her golden quietly chiming and clanging hair slightly. "The Gold College is far preferable! And you should tell him such after watching this," she grinned deviously, making Logan gulp for a reason he hadn't quite yet identified.
"Stay by me, young one," Kragg said with a sigh. "I'll keep you safe from their…
business," he spat to the side.
"So dismissive~!," the Matriarch moaned, placing a hand against her forehead briefly before taking a few more steps forward with her chin raised high and head tilted slightly back. "Come, my children, come! It is time…for the experiment to begin!"
Then she raised up her hands above her head in a loud clap that echoed far louder and longer than anything mundane should have, momentarily writhing in a way similar to some Arabyan dances that made Logan stare for a bit before he realized that all of the Gold Wizards were standing forward now with some small gaps between them. Though he could only perceive the material realm without colors, the same was not true of the Winds of Magic, of the influence of the Gods themselves. But in this case, he saw an increasingly thick and solid cloud of pure Chamon being gathered from the air. So much of it that he had never seen the like before, swirling and sweeping about as they were bringing forth an invisible sandstorm into being. They drew it from every direction, and Logan couldn't help but notice as Kragg grunted and planted his staff down, and subtly began cutting away and blocking off the other Winds from mixing about. Then he noticed similar efforts of cleansing and channeling going on elsewhere, each sphere of influence upon the Winds marked by the presence of a grim-faced Runelord.
"Yes…yes!" She cried out now, chortling that noblewoman's laugh yet again. "Oh! Ho! Ho! Ho!"
Logan had to squint, and then had to shut his eyes outright entirely as the golden storm of Chamon grew blinding in its intensity. So bright that he could see it behind his eyelids and through his arm.
"FIRST!" She cried out in that superior arrogant tone. "PREPARE THE FIELD FOR THE EXPERIMENT!"
He realized that he could actually see the Matriarch still, in fact many of the nearby Gold Wizards, just as he could see the Runelords as well. But where the latter were visible to him thanks to the flatness of the Winds in their bound runes, and the greater field of void which they cast out upon the Winds and world itself, he could see the Gold Wizards wholly illuminated by Chamon. Every part of them, all through his eyes and arm, so bright that the young wolf priest worried for the greater secret sight he possessed. Was it possible for such a thing to be so overexposed that it could be blasted out of him? It had not occurred against the greenskins, but he'd been further away at that point. But those thoughts came to an end as vast tendrils of Chamon began to extend outwards from the whirling storm of golden energies.
"SUCH ARMS AND ARMOR ARE OFFENSIVE TO ONE SUCH AS I! I DENY THEIR EXISTENCE YOU FILTHY
MONGRELS!"
When the Gold Wizards tore their arms downwards in the air, it was as if they were struggling to pull their fingers through wet clay. But what a stunned Logan saw, instead, was the entire front line of the greenskins screaming and shouting in dismay and confusion and much pain besides as their armor began to become liquid. Where once there had been axes, swords, knives, hammers, where once they had worn helmets, greaves, breastplates, shields, the greenskins howled in fury and pain as all of that metal rapidly became molten lead. Some of them died immediately and outright from the pain of it all, ironically those most heavily armored becoming entombed by what had once protected them. The moment it began, the ranks of the defenders broke and turned about to begin sprinting back towards the Three Gates and safety. The greenskins did not immediately give chase, confused and outraged by the loss of their weapons and the death of hundreds of their largest warriors. Especially because the metal that all melted and had grown molten rapidly shifted back to solid, with screaming orcs trapped in their own ruined armor once more, all while becoming obstacles to those behind to try and push past. Goblins hopped about, screaming, waving their ruined hands back and forth as the huge knives they had wielded had melted back down and fused themselves to their wrists and forearms as blunt useless molds.
It did not last long, that confusion, that slowness, but it did last long enough.
Long enough for the Gold Wizards to become the new defensive line with the previous defenders retreating behind them, and all the while, the Matriarch had not stopped laughing into the back of her hand.
In fact, when an orc underboss' crew of bruisers finally hacked him out of his own melted armor, leaving behind huge chunks of his skin and flesh seared inside of it and himself naked, she only laughed harder.
"GET DEM YOU GITS!" The underboss roared, and finally the green tide began to shift forwards once more.
"I THINK NOT! NOW…THE EXPERIMENT SHALL BEGIN!" The Matriarch declared just as loudly back, and then Logan stared as the so very many, many Gold Wizards drew from that vast cloud of Chamon being channeled above them with the aid of the Runelords, and then threw out nuggets of gold upon the ground in front of them. "BEHOLD…
THE SPELL GLORIOUS ENOUGH TO BE CREATED BY ME! NAMED BY ME! MOST BEAUTIFUL AND WONDEROUS OF ALL OF THE STUDENTS OF TECLIS!"
Then there was a clap of thunder, a surge of Chamon, a twisting of reality itself, and then where there had been nothing but regular golden nuggets, there was now an array of absolutely enormous cannons seemingly made of pure shining gold upon the field. But around the Matriarch herself, there was all the more. With another dancer's pirouette, she cast her limbs out artistically, with all of the bangles flying off of her wrists and ankles and neck, and those golden rings flew out hung clearly in the air facing towards the greenskins. Bright flashes of light filled the air around her, and suddenly they had seemingly expanded larger and larger until the front halves of multiple gargantuan cannons sprouted forward as if called from some other dimension of pure golden destruction.
"
FEEL GRATEFUL, MONGRELS, FOR YOU SHALL BE THE FIRST TO TASTE GEHENNA'S GOLDEN GUN!"
And Logan went deaf and blind all over again.
