DoDA Commission: A Nudge of Fate / Battle of Salkalten
New
A Nudge of Fate / Battle of Salkalten
Commissioned by Stephen9001, Written With Advisement and Aid by Blackout
"Smelling the flowers again, my lady Loremaster?" Dorial asks quietly as he settles down atop a crate full of preserved foodstuffs.
You can't help but shrug as you look up from the pressed vellum in your hands, glancing up at your friend and companion within the confines of the hefty wagon as it trundles along the inferior roads of the Empire once more. The rest of the Lightfangs are partaking in a rotating shift of guard duty as your small company makes its way north, but at the moment you are in fact part of a larger convoy, safety in numbers remaining a secure adage in such untamed lands. Human mercenaries hired by the merchants you've taken a temporary smaller contract with, a few brave travelers from the wilderness intending to start new lives in the city who have some rudimentary combat capabilities from said wilderness living, and a band of roadwardens with admittedly better equipment and training than from what you recall them having the last time you were in the area.
"Can you blame me?" You ask him, though within yourself you frown as the intended wryness of your tone becomes something graver and more serious on its way out of your mouth.
You glance down at the vellum, or more specifically the pressed flowers atop them kept in place with the faintest but effective loops of Ghyran, and inhale quietly but fully through your nose.
"I cannot," he admits as he shifts his weight on the crate.
"Fifty years," you say aloud, looking down at the vellum, at the perfectly written script in scented ink upon it, and the flowers kept along with them. "Fifty years," you repeat, quieter this time.
A day, a year, a blink of an eye, by the regard of your kind. What is fifty years to an elf? To one of the Asur? Nothing and little else. Or at least it should be. Yet after having lived fifty years in exile, you can confess that fifty years can stretch far longer than you could have ever expected to have understood before. When your title was Princess, and not Loremaster. Daughter, not exile. Hero, not fool. Fifty years barred from Ulthuan and all its claimed territories, all its lands. Forty eight years, give or take a few months, before you tired of Aislinn's provocations and manipulations, his vengeance growing with each day you remained a single step ahead to the point that you simply left his realm behind utterly. Yvresse, being one of the Outer Kingdoms, meant that the sea had always been a constant companion, a familiar sight, and one you were forced to strip yourself of, just one more comfort lost, that the Sea Lord's reach grew weaker and weaker the further inland you traveled.
Could you really be blamed to so greatly enjoy the scent of the flowers of Avelorn?
"Much has changed since we were last this far west," Dorial remarks, glancing outside of the wagon, more specifically towards the roadwardens.
"Indeed," you mutter, "And Ostland especially so."
Ostland.
One of your first contracts ever. Taken up with Joseph von Hohenzollern on an independent effort to try and cleanse some of the Middle Mountains he was nominally responsible for. Since then it has been a technically short time for an elf, yet apparently an entire epoch for the Empire, based on the tales and rumors you heard from the traders you were able to speak to, as well as what those in the Indan and Cathayan enclaves had heard. Another bit of irritation and exasperation to be laid into the complex knot of feelings you hold for Aislinnn, so thoroughly driving you from what the humans call 'The Old World'. For yourself, the true cause of your exile, and more. An Everchosen of Chaos, yet another invasion of Ulthuan by Malekith himself, also featuring your old foe in N'kari, or so you hear. An Everqueen dead, and that you know to be no rumor but utter truth, for you know precisely when it happened, such is the pain the whole of the Lightfangs felt in their heart on that day with Her Serenity's passage. Meanwhile, the Empire has itself a single Emperor, now, rather than three, and it is an individual that you think that heretical Sigmarite would never have guessed. A former minor noble, of all things, an absurdity.
Such is humanity, as you've well learned.
You were far more interested in the news the three Asur responsible for the Empire's victory, Teclis, Finreir, and Yrtle, the latter two famous in the longer term while the former is apparently some young firebrand and now the High Loremaster of the White Tower entirely. Part of you is grateful that someone actually knowledgeable and informed as to the nature of magic could instruct the primitive and dangerously unbalanced practitioners of humanity. Another is quite concerned that such knowledge was granted at all. The Colleges of Magic, as they called it when you were traveling along the rivers, a mixture of awe and suspicion and fear from the riverfolk. Admittedly, when you did pass by Altdorf on your way to Ostland, it was impossible to miss the Winds and how they cloaked the entire city in their presence.
As for Ostland?
That, you would have to judge for yourself.
=====================================================================
Aislinn had done his work swiftly and thoroughly. There was no elven enclave you could reach that had not heard of you first, that had not been in the majority indoctrinated as to how to treat you. The less said about the separatists the better. But this is a Handmaiden of the Everqueen. One of Her representatives. Her eyes and ears and voice. This one is clad in armor as befitting her station, masterful enchantments and blessings abounding in it, the literal touch of the divine as granted by Isha to gird her. It is simple to cast the smoke-clogged visage of what has become of Wulfenburg in your decades long absence from your mind at her visage, her presence, the balm of it as she simply stands there, a smile on her face. A genuine one. She is shorter than you, many elves are, but her presence looms like the sun rising over a mountain.
She greets you kindly.
"Handmaiden Sadrina," you bow deeply, as do all the Lightfangs.
"You arrived swiftly, and for that you have my gratitude," she says, inclining her head to you as you all rise, long blonde hair bound into a warrior's braid with silver thread waving slightly as she does so.
"I would never refuse a request from a Handmaiden," you say swiftly, but not too swiftly, not too eagerly old instincts and training rising to the fore.
You were a Princess, once.
But even if you had been nothing more than the least of the least of an Asur, you cannot conceive of ever refusing a Handmaiden.
"I know, and yet my appreciation remains," she informs you before gesturing into the best approximation of a castle that humans in the Empire have managed to build. "Please, follow me."
"Of course," you nod, doing just that with the rest of the Lightfangs in tow. "Tulo, can you see to the rest of our equipment?"
The now thoroughly aged Ropsmann tribeswoman nods in silence before turning to do just that. It has been a mildly horrid marvel to watch a young girl become an old woman in between eyeblinks, yet her wits remain sharp and even you had to admit that she has become an able quartermaster after her combat and scouting capabilities deteriorated too far.
"The message said that we face the Druchii," you ask as you follow behind the Handmaiden as she strides through the corridors, human servants and functionaries shifting aside far slower than they should, only confusion and wariness in their ignorant eyes.
"We do," she says, hands folding behind her back as she strides forth. "The news was brought forth by one of their priests, those that follow Manann."
Your brow twitches into a furrow for the briefest moment before your expression smooths itself out. A warrior as all Handmaidens must be, she was clearly chosen for her diplomatic capacity as well. In your time in the Empire before departing to the east, few of them would readily accept certain truths about Mathlann.
"We face two Arks," she adds, and it is to your credit that you do not stutter step, though your heart certainly accelerates its pace considerably, and no doubt the same is true for the rest of the Lightfangs.
But it is a near thing.
"The Sea Lord responsible for-," you begin to rasp out before she shakes her head, cutting you off.
"We have no naval assets readily available from Ulthuan," she says gravely, "After the incursion, there was more fighting to dislodge the Druchii from where they had beached on Nagarythe. Including other Arks there."
A curse fights to make its way out of your throat, but you keep it from actually escaping your lips.
"What assets we do have…are in the most part human," she notes. "Exceptional ones, however."
"Exceptional?" You cock an eyebrow, glancing again at the confused and befuddled Ylvathoi around you, including a few stiff-necked guards in thick and unwieldy plate armor.
The Handmaiden of the Everqueen proceeds in weaving one of the most fantastically ludicrous tales you've ever heard in your entire life. Of monsters and vampires, daemons and daemon princes, of heroism and loss, all centering around someone born four years before your exile and arrival at Erengrad. She speaks of Greater Daemons, of wars, of battles, of faith unborn and arisen, of battles barely acceptable to reason with the aid of elven artifice and intervention and even the works of dwarfs of all people. If it were not a Handmaiden telling you this, with a voice you are increasingly finding familiar, you would have declared the entire lifetime of the man you are to meet as a falsehood. Nothing but chicanery used to prop up the image and family name of a disfavored son who took up the mantle after Joseph von Hohenzollern died in a reckless charge against Chaos Knights, the rest of the Hohenzollerns wiped out by the vagaries of the Great Enemy.
But it is a Handmaiden saying it.
You can only listen as she continues, right up until she reaches and enters a mostly emptied out ballroom, this one with a variety of imagery and maps on easels. As well as an elf that is unmistakably an Asrai.
"Kerillian," the Handmaiden nods to the Asrai before your lips can do more than part in anger, and instead your head whips about to stare at her.
"Asur," the Asrai's tone is bored, her face masked by black woven silk, body cloaked in green and starwood, both like and unlike Scarloc from all those years ago. "And Asur," she greets you in turn, the disrespect and disregard irritating, but nowhere near the level of insult and antagonism you expected.
"Asrai," you mutter back before glancing at the Handmaiden once more, scrutinizing her. "Handmaiden, I beg your pardon, but…," you look her up and down again. "Have we met before? You are familiar to me, in a way."
The Handmaiden smiles at you as she turns from one of the charcoal sketches of what you realize to be Naggaroth of all places.
"Of course you know me," she says gently. "During the Eclipse Wars, I was in service as a High Sister of Avelorn."
You blink, memories and mind snapping to attention as you remember those headier days. Yes, you definitely remember her now. She was dressed in similar but distinctly different weapons and armor in those days, her voice a far raspier and colder thing, which is where the dissonance arrived. The Sadrina before you is a warmer woman, far more approachable, whereas before during the Eclipse War you had occasionally thought her demeanor dangerously close to a Shadow Warrior of Nagarythe than a Sister of Avelorn. For all that she was more abrasive back then, as a High Sister of Avelorn she was still a potent representative of the Everqueen, and therefore far more welcome in delivering your orders to your frustrating rival Princes at the time. The coldness, now utterly gone, that was the disconnect that your mind was struggling with.
But before you can say anymore than that, the doors thump open, and a man who looks very, very little like his father enters the room, Brain Wounder upon his hip, an artifact of incredible potency on his neck, and a piece of dwarf runework of great power on his arm. The man is absolutely touched by magic on a level you would scarcely imagine for the Empire of fifty years ago to be acceptable, practically drenched in the stuff, with Ghyran featuring most highly, no doubt because of the necklace he wears. His wife, on the other hand, is clearly a member off those strange ice witches of Kislev that you never had the chance to examine on a closer level after you made your decision to fully remove yourself from Aislinn's potential reach. But neither of them really come close to taking up your attention, in the purely physical sense if nothing else, than the gargantuan ogre squeezing his way in through the doors. Your hackles raise despite yourself, and you cannot help but think it all too plausible that the son would follow the father in gathering some ogres to his service.
But that wretched Maw priest you met all those years ago, and all who followed them, was far more emblematic of all ogres you would go on to meet in your travels, and so you find yourself somewhat perturbed that the ogre, at fifteen feet tall and wider than even the tyrants and slaughtermaster's you've had the misfortune to encounter, being clad in enough thick plated steel to bard almost an entire company of Imperial cavalry. Not to mention the spike-ended club that the ogre bears, which is a thing of horrifically potent bound power, another piece of dwarf-work. But it is the ogre's many-chinned face that catches your attention more than any of it, the armor or the club, for there is not the placidity of the imbecile or the quiet bloody hunger as have been present in so many ogres before now. It is a measured calm, an intelligent calm, that alights upon yourself and the Lightfangs in quiet assessment. The same assessment in the eyes of the Hohenzollern stinking of alcohol more than his father ever did, and the woman who can only be his wife, her left hand gloved and a patch over her left eye, hair subtly discolored in strange bands.
As well as the human in armor who's very existence seems minimized compared to the rest of them.
"Count Hohenzollern. Countess, Sir Knight," she nods back to each of them in turn, "Prince Sterneck."
Your expression is a masterfully schooled thing of cool and calm, belying the absolute ridiculousness of the title of knight being applied to the mountain of fat bound in metal.
"Sadrina. Kerillian," the gruff, bearded Hohenzollern states, eyes lingering upon you in particular though not simply because of your height, but because of the blade you bear. "And?"
Sadrina gestures at you grandly, a smile one her lips, completely ignoring the lack of her title that has your grip tightening ever so slightly on the hilt of your sword.
"May I introduce the Lightfangs, a mercenary company recently returned to the Old World," she states promptly, "Each of them peerless Swordmasters, their leader the lady Loremaster Fanriel. I thought to garner their services for the battle ahead."
Battle.
One word for what was liable to be at least somewhat of a slaughter. The ogres might stand longer than most, simply by virtue of having the bulk to survive longer, but you aren't going to hold your breath on the spirit of men standing up to the full dreadful power of the Druchii, let alone two whole Black Arks.
"…mmm," he nods, brows furrowed. "I won't turn away help," he states plainly and then glances away from you to the Handmaiden again. "Nice drawings."
"I thought so," Sadrina says, glancing at them. "Now then, now that we are all here, let us begin."
So begins a surprisingly lengthy briefing and war planning. Surprisingly revealing as well. Almost too revealing for your tastes. How much of the enmity between Asur and Druchii, how much of that history has been shared? Yet you cannot do anything but hold your tongue, for the tongue of Sadrina is that of the Everqueen.
But it is a near thing.
====================================================================
There are many thoughts in your mind after the rain of rubble and debris from the shattered walls finishes and the two Black Arks have let down their ramps, allowing the Druchii to unleash their abominations and slaves.
Surprise, that the humans were so willing to accept the inferiority of their walls. Disgust, at the so-called martyrs, the whole conception of it reminding you far too much of the Druchii themselves, thought up by a broken-souled human. Bemusement at the very idea of 'disciplined' ogres such as the Army of Ostland employed as actual state troopers rather than mercenaries. Interest, despite yourself, in the so-called Eonir volunteers, and their entire realm of elves declaring themselves fully independent from Athel Loren. Separatists twice over, yet visited by the Everqueen herself. Is it possible that what so many failed for so long might be accomplished instead by the new Everqueen?
"Did he just – Handmaiden!" You shout as the absolutely insane human takes off on his gryphon to go and try and match none other than Caledor's Bane, a Druchii who's presence on the field has made Orlaith practically vibrate in near insensate fury, spitting oaths and impotent fury.
She had come dangerously close to outright demanding one of the humans who had come riding Pegasi to get off so that she could ride instead to try and get to grips with a Druchii who has individually slain more dragons than any other in whole generations. There are many a noble house in Caledor that has lost sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, to his lance, as well as the mighty dragons they rode.
"Focus, Loremaster!" Sadrina barks at you, pointing down at the approaching hordes of beasts, slaves, hollow-souled abominations, and Druchii besides. "Now is the time to fight!"
You glance over at the Eonir Spellweavers and crudely trained human 'wizards' and then back towards the approaching Coven and grimace. It would not be wrong to say that you could have aligned your not inconsiderable magical capabilities with theirs to combat the magical capabilities of the Druchii.
But in this case, your talents are needed elsewhere, in your estimation of the soldiers and mercenaries that the humans have brought together.
"Lightfangs, with me!"
The Druchii are here, they deign to prey upon the world, and the Asur stand against them once more. It is as simple as that, a duty you'll never shirk. None of the Lightfangs will. The time to prove it comes within moments, the second some of the humans begin to buckle and break and die in droves. But before the gap can widen further, can allow the line to crumble entirely, you move, your company with you, and like a meteor cast forth by Asuryan Himself you arrive on the field. Blades flash and the enemy dies. It is not the same as fighting the Druchii themselves, the cowards prefer to throw as many auxiliaries against the enemy as they can, lest they overly strain themselves. Besides which, they are facing, as far as they knew, nothing but humans, and yet the moment you arrive, ithilmar shining, you can see them reorient upon you immediately. Hulking twisted creatures, beasts, the best of their combat slaves, are whipped or compelled through other means to charge you and you specifically.
Good.
So much the better.
If you had been actually put in charge of this force, they might have fared better, but then perhaps not. There is only so much you can do for the feebler human mind even with magical reinforcement, and to be fair, they are being confronted with the full horror of the Druchii in its myriad forms. So is it really any surprise that, despite the Lightfangs forming an unbreakable island of death, that eventually the line would begin to crumble elsewhere? By sheer attrition if nothing else. That does not mean that you are particularly eager to retreat when the horns ring out. It is an orderly retreat, however, and an effectively done one, even you have to admit. Thanks to your presence, and the immediate change in the enemy posture and priorities, the great majority of the humans are able to retreat behind the next wall through the gates. You are also afforded the opportunity, to your incredulity, to witness the death of one who has haunted the nightmares of Caledor and been the subject of a dozen oaths of promised death.
"-meet Caledor's Bane," Count Hohenzollern finishes with relish, eyes wild and body bloody as he takes that accursed lance which has slain too many, and in an act of abject savagery thrusts the thing down through the Dreadlord's mouth as Maranith is held in place by the Asrai.
Down, down, down the lance goes, and you can spy the precise moment that the battered and broken Caledor's Bane dies.
A dragon and its rider are dead, and Frederick von Hohenzollern lives.
"Haaaaa…," Orlaith exhales noisily, happily, a deep satisfaction evident in her as she refuses to blink, trying to engrave the memory as permanently as possible no doubt.
There is more to be said after that, and your mind shall catalogue it accordingly as much is said between the man and his daughter and others, but your focus is upon the toxic blood of the Black Dragon as it puddles around it, mixing with the crimson of Maranith, Caledor's Bane no longer.
Then you are moving once again, towards the walls, to behold the true foe, now fully deployed. Your heart begins to race in your chest, your grip tight upon your blade, as you behold them. Gone are the slaves. Gone are the beasts. Nothing more than black and silver and bitter cruelty awaits you now, nothing to pity as you can those who are forced to battle by the Druchii. It was well that you did not expend your energies through spellcasting, for you shall truly need it now more. Though, admittedly, even your burning wrath and hate is chilled, as the hearts of all present, when you hear that cold voice speak.
Part of you knows who it is before he says it, another part desires dearly for you to be wrong.
Yet the fates are not kind enough to allow that sort of naivete to persist.
It is the Dreadbringer.
The Chosen of Khaine.
Admirably, however, the Hohenzollern refuses to give in to that dread malaise that fills the air. And through his defiance, his weak-hearted troops find something in themselves to stand strong once more. Instead, he barks orders, and your appreciation turns to disgust as the 'martyrs' are shuffled to the fore. The battle lines stiffen, the war machine crews ready themselves, and the Druchii come on in their thousands. This will be the crux of it, you know. This is where the defense will truly be decided. Once enough casualties have been taken, if they can be taken, the Druchii will be forced to retreat. Already, you can envision the victory that will be won here, if the Ostlanders and their allies can hold the line for long enough. There are more on the field than you have been a part of in a long time, both in terms of allies and enemies, and especially the Druchii, deployed in numbers you've scarcely ever personally witnessed.
And then you watch as all those Druchii, all those veterans bearing the emblems and banners given over to those aligned with Ghrond and Karond Kar, those elites of Har Ganeth and Witch Elves of Khaine and Sisters of Slaughter of Eldrazor, in their hundreds, their thousands…die. Deafeningly, dishonorably, desperately, they die. Your ears ring again and again before you manage a minor weaving to soften the sonic impact of so many cannons firing again and again for yourself and the Lightfangs, so many of the 'martyrs' colliding with the Druchii. It is a massacre, practically, and a glorious one to watch. You might not be wielding the blade personally executing all of them, but there is an unmistakable satisfaction in your soul seeing so very many of the Druchii die so violently. This is what the arrogance and the presumption of the Druchii bring them, their total assuredness that they could not be matched.
A priest of Mathlann, misconstrued as he might be by the humans, brought the news, and it was propagated outwards. Here, a Handmaiden is present. Here, seperatists in the Eonir and Asrai are present. Here, you are present. The Gods themselves have clearly turned against the Druchii, and it seems, towards the humans by extension. So you accept the world being turned to light and sound through the stench of black powder, hillocks of the stuff. For soon enough you hear the signal given, all do, and your heart practically sings with the knowledge that you have aided in seeing off the Druchii once more. As well as the heart-stopping realization that through the Hohenzollern's actions an intact dragon egg has been retrieved. The walls are lost, temporarily, and yet the battle is clearly over. A last act to ensure their successful retreat.
You even cannot help but let out a full-bellied laugh at the bedraggled sight of the fearsome Dreadbringer screaming petulantly at the Hohenzollern, as well as at the Hohenzollern's response.
"What, not having fun anymore, Dreadbringer?! Are the animals too much for you?!"
This is a glorious victory, you have to admit. A successful defense against two Black Arks is a wonderous thing, and you will give the humans credit for managing to provide such in the first place.
Which is when you hear the horns.
Elven horns.
Not Asur, no, but elven all the same. Joined with cruder notes, from cruder instruments, and undercut with the distant boom of many cannons.
Then, more signals, more.
Your heart begins to pound all the harder now, and you can feel the eager disbelief of the Swordmasters joining with yours. The tide was shifting before, but now it has churned entirely in the other direction faster than you could have ever believed possible. There is shouting, cheering, roaring, and you find yourself looking towards Frederick von Hohenzollern, hands still slick with the blood of Caledor's Bane, his family and companions by his side, carpets of dead Druchii before him. Dreadbringer rants, Dreadbringer spits, Dreadbringer flees. Flees for the Ark that has decided to try and depart, and even from this great distance, based on the sounds you know that the lesser Ark is being boarded. How many, you do not know. How many, you find you do not care. Because as if gifted by Lileath herself, you foresee what is to come now, having taken your measure of the Hohenzollern and reassessed a handful of times to reach this moment.
Drunk, drenched in sloppily drunk alcohol, he shouts and roars.
"Listen up. We're advancing! All of us! Anna, Arthur, Urgdug!" He shouts, making three heads swivel. "Two thirds split towards the larger Ark, the rest to the smaller! Cavalry go out first, then everyone else! See to it! Everyone up! Whitewings, with me! They don't get to run and hide!"
"No, no they do not," you mutter under your breath as multiple war cries go up.
But this time, your eyes fall upon the highest priority, wings of their Dark Pegasi flapping heavily as they retreat.
"Dorial," you call out to your loyal second in command. "Take the Lightfangs in, I leave their deployment to your discretion!"
He understands immediately, and the rest of your company is moving with the greater mass while you channel your magic stronger than you've done so the entire battle so far, and summon forth a winged steed of your own. It will not last forever, this modification upon the Shadowsteed spell, but it doesn't need to. It simply needs to serve as long as you need it to, which, if you have your way, will not be terribly long at all. A thought only further reinforced as you fly forwards at high speed, rapidly catching up to the Whitewings and the Hohenzollern as they fly after the coven. The Kislevite woman, his wife, has some appreciable skill, perhaps, but she is nothing compared to a Coven, even one depleted after their duels with the Eonir and human wizards.
It is an especially good thing that you conserved yourself properly, as you feel reality shudder and rip time and again as the Coven falls to even worse depravities in their desperation.
You are not able to arrive swiftly enough to stop the first few, but the last?
The last, you feel the sheer power of those bound scrolls from afar, the hideous power and promises in it.
"No…you…don't!" You shout out, sheathing Lightfang for the moment so that you can fully devote yourself to this act.
Reality shudders, rips, tears, as the sorceress tries to summon forth horrors too mighty for the humans below to handle. If the summoning is complete, they will be stymied, too stymied, to possibly actually reach the Ark in numbers enough to accomplish anything of note. That cannot be allowed to happen. So you will not. You are relatively fresh, when it comes to your grasp over the Winds, and while your foe is obviously incredibly potent, so are you. So when she reaches out to try and cast forth those particular abominations, reality shrieking as she tears at it?
You reach out in turn, and with your might, hold the tears shut and diffuse the summoning energies, grounding them out before they can fully be utilized.
The scream of outrage and frustration that fills the air from that act is like fine wine.
"That your doing?!" Hohenzollern shouts at you as your ethereal Aethyric steed reaches his gryphon.
"Indeed. If that summoning had been completed…," you shake your head. "Be glad that I was here, otherwise your forces would not be charging up the ramp as they are now!"
And you find yourself sharing a fierce grin with the man as you fly on, the Army of Ostland pouring forth into the Ark. Dorial is assuredly heading towards one of the Anchorstone Complexes, to stopper the Ark's interwoven enchantments and prevent its leaving from being successful. If the humans down there are wise, they will listen to his instructions and orders on the matter and head to one of the others. But your focus is now wholly upon the Tor of Dominance you are heading towards. You've dreamed, once or twice, about storming one of these, but never had the chance before now. Now you do, your mind awhirl, for what had been a successful defense is now a desperate and furious offense, one you are more than glad to partake in.
"Hah!" You shout with narrowed eyes, "Look! The Druchii turn on each other, in desperation!"
Like the treacherous creatures they are in their hearts. The abject failure to succeed in the summoning, to stymie the charge of the humans at all, appears to have broken whatever thin bonds of loyalty that the Coven held towards their leader. A coup is underway by the time that you reach the top of the Tor, entering through the atmospheric bubble that keeps the skies clear and clean no matter the weather that the skies can be properly studied. Your skin itches so close to a massive, crystallized piece of Dhar, but it is no matter, you can see their leader, the deference by her supporters clear as well as the antagonism in her would-be-usurpers.
Still, to your surprise, you find that your party is not the first to have reached them. The highest human representative of Mathlann is present, wielding a frankly disquieting amount of power in her, the signs of her passage shown in black scorch marks and dead sorceresses. She is struck down just as you arrive, however, smoking thing that comes just shy of toppling over the edge of the roof. But you will give the woman this, she did much in the time she had, slaying an appreciable amount of the Coven. Also present is Dreadbringer himself, but as much as it is a surprise for you to have ever considered it, he is the lesser threat here.
"Dreadbringer's ours," Frederick shouts, and you acknowledge it with a curt nod.
"The Supreme Sorceress is mine!"
Alas, you are noticed before you get too close, and with a casual gesture your Aethyric winged steed is dispelled. By that point however you are close enough to simply roll forward and spring upwards, Lightfang at the ready.
"Sorceress!" You bark to gain her attention, as well as a number of the other sorceresses, pupils shrinking to pinpricks as she sights you. "I am Loremaster Fanriel, and I am your end."
"You are not the first Asur I will have slain, child," she sneers at you, drawing herself up, "I am Mellis Screamtaker, and you will beg me for mercy a hundred years before I grant it to you."
Ah.
This one you know.
One of the most well-established masters of the Arks, a particularly sadistic – and that is saying something for Druchii – woman who has plagued the oceans for more than a thousand years. Only in the past five hundred did she take command of…
This is the Claw of Dominion, you realize in an instant.
One of the first Black Arks ever created.
"I'm not done yet!" A gurgled, angry woman's voice reaches across the rooftop as the High Matriarch stands aback up, lightning and water swirling about her frame, trident pupils shining. "Manann take you, I AM NOT DONE!"
The Coven wheels to deal with this new foe, and out of the corner of your eye you see the battle being joined by the Kislevite and the Handmaiden, but your focus is wholly upon Screamtaker. She is tired, has used incredibly powerful magics in the battle thus far, challenged the Eonir, and partook in other bombardments. You have fought physically, yes, but in comparison you are practically well-rested.
So much the better.
This sorceress has been a plague upon the world for too long, and you are not foolish enough to dismiss any advantage you could gain over her. Such as the fact that while you are a Loremaster, and powerful magically, she is a Supreme Sorceress. You could potentially contest her magically, but why do that when you don't have to. Instead, your particular specialty comes to the fore as you summon a swarm of elementals, belonging to Aqshy, Ghur, and Azyr, and set them upon her in unison. The instant you do so, she reacts, dispelling and destroying them one after the other, not a single one actually managing to damage her, but what they do gain you are a few vital seconds so that your long strides can bring you that much closer to her.
"Damn you all!" Screamtaker shrieks as you charge forward, eyes widening as she realizes what you intend.
A humongous fireball manifests in an instant in her hands, but so too does an Aqshy elemental interpose itself between them and absorbs it. The same occurs with a lightning bolt. Her fury grows, but she is not a Supreme Sorceress for nothing, and within your next step she switches tactics. Dhar gathers in a cloud around her, and she obliterates the elementals with a power that you would never call upon purposefully. A foolish resort on her part to fall to, as it exhausts her all the more to call upon Dark Magic. Reality tears open before you can stop it, and her next obstacle presents itself in the form of bloodletters and flamers, the daemons screeching and attacking without hesitation the moment they are manifested into the material realm. She also forms the Dhar in an intriguing shield around herself, a grinding thing of obliteration for all that touches it. But she does not know that Lightfang possesses the Master Rune of Purity, and against it?
Daemons are parted, and banished, and a bolt of Dhar is cloven in twain.
She also does not know of your armor.
So it makes her puzzled confusion all the sweeter as you outright body slam the woman, and the powerful disintegrating shield of Dhar upon her rebounds into her at every single part of her body at once. By the time the effect fades, leaving her skinless and with shredded musculature and exposed bone but still breathing, it is done.
You are more than close enough for Lightfang to pierce her chest, and you hope her ears still work as you lean in to whisper to her.
"You deserve far more pain and suffering than this for your crimes, for all you've done, but fear not - unlike you, I am capable of mercy."
Then you twist the blade, and she dies. When you look up, it is to find Dreadbringer being decapitated by Hohenzollern, and a sorceress on her knees before the Handmaiden, head bowed but clearly still alive.
"Very well, then, child," you hear the Handmaiden say gently, "You shall be heard."
That…you don't know what foolishness that is about, better to kill her and be done with it, but so be it. Instead, you take a hard breath, realizing that the rest of the Coven has been slain, or outright fled from the Ark entirely. There is still fighting to be done, but you know the truth, looking upon the battlefield below.
This battle is won.
Through critical elven aid, and that of your Gods, two Black Arks have fallen out of the grasp of the Druchii. Too much of the victory can be laid at human feet, however, for you to hope for relief from your exile.
But as you stand there, for just a moment, you could believe otherwise.
========================================================================
"We did it, my love," Natasha murmurs, leaning against you.
"We did it," you echo.
As insane as it sounds, victory is yours – and with a Druchii sorceress defector of all fucking things. There have been losses, Long Drong amongst them apparently, but to your amazement, both of the Black Arks have been successfully taken. It is a victory that has never before been managed in the history of the Empire – not simply seeing off an Ark, but two? Not defending successfully, but claiming them? It's going to be one for the history books, that is for sure. Maghda's alive, barely, thanks to the Loremaster and the Handmaiden, so that's good too. The flags of Ostland and Nordland and the Eonir besides are being draped from the tallest of the towers on the Black Arks, and now you have to turn your thoughts towards what in the hell you're supposed to do with all the prisoners.
Apparently, an Ark completely failing to retreat, and being counter-invaded, plus the presence of the Eonir and Nordland, broke something. Their highest leadership all dying at the invader's hands and all that, shattered the Druchii morale to the point that they actually started surrendering. Sure, there are holdouts, and are liable to be some for the next while, but you bled their elites white during the fighting. Even with all of that, there are plenty of lesser Druchii, and civilians, and all their slaves to boot that are free now. According to the traitor Druchii, Hultressa or whatever it is, there's a whole host of particular individuals and artifacts below she's happy to show how to free or retrieve or whatever else.
And you have nowhere near enough supplies and housing and storage for any of it. Barely even a fraction, frankly.
But the important thing is that you have to consider such things at all, rather than receiving reports of Salkalten razed to ruins and these Druchii burning the whole of the coastline as they invade inwards.
"Praise Manann, eh?" You ask her, pulling out a flask of Bugman's Best and drinking heavily from it.
"Praise Manann," she agrees with a laugh.
You've done a lot of things, but this? This might be one of the most momentous you've ever accomplished. For yourself. For Ostland. For the Empire.
"…now what?" She asks you quietly, and you have to think on it for a moment.
"Now we get back to work," you shrug, and she laughs, a laugh you join in with, the giddy headiness of it all getting to you.
Victory! The Battle of Salkalten has been won, with the historic and never-before accomplishment of human-led invasion and capture of two Black Arks!
