LordofUzkulak’s fanfics

“Where are they?” grumbled Gahzrak, peering out over the parapet.  “The reports from the watchtower said they’d be here an hour ago.”

“Manlings are always unreliable,” shrugged Hrazzan, hawking a gob of phlegm through crooked teeth  “And the Wastelanders more than most.  They’ve probably had to stop to fight an honour duel ’cause one of ’em stole another’s favourite skull.”  Gahzrak barked with laughter at his friend’s jest and gestured to a nearby slave to bring over a skein of wine so he could wash the mountain dust from his mouth.

“Still, it’s not like them to dawdle when they could have a scrap against someone else.”

“Hush,” Harazzan raised a hand, “Listen.”

“Two miles?”

“And a half at least,” nodded Hrazzan.  “Best sound the alarm.”  Raising a rune encrusted bronze horn to his lips, he gave a single, long blow, which echoed over the valley.  Resting the horn against the crenellations he began to casually reset the game board, smirking “Should give us time for another game, your turn to be trolls I believe.”

“Doesn’t matter,” grumbled Gahzrak, draining the last of the wine, “You’ll beat me again somehow.  I swear to Hashut you cheat somehow.”

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The sun was setting as the first of the marauders rode into the valley, horned and scaled hounds bounding ahead of them.  Spotting the walls of the fortress, they pulled up short of the broad stone bridge which spanned the chasm outside its gates.  Hollering in their uncouth tongues, the riders spread out, galloping in circles around the plain on their side of the bridge as if to mark out their own personal territories.  Horn blasts, drum beats and savage chanting echoed up the valley from whence the riders came and shortly afterwards the infantry marched from its mouth in ragged ranks.

First came the northern tribesmen clad in pelts and armour scraps, savage tattoos etched on their bare skin and rings or iron, gold and bone piercing their naked flesh.  The stoutest marched at the front of their rabblous units, bearing aloft ragged skull topped banners embroidered with foul runes and symbols.  Behind them in ordered ranks came the warriors – those favoured by the gods and bearing their marks.  While the marauders broke ranks, dashing forward whooping towards where their mounted kinsmen had claimed camp spaces, the warriors maintained discipline, striding in step to the centre of the plain and planting their banners in unison, the personal standard of their lord, Hroathgnaw Crowborn, flying high above the rest.

Last came the supply train, wagons piled high with looted weapons and pillaged food, drawn by hulking beasts or pitiful wretches mutated by the northern wastes.  Towering over the carts were four hulking shapes, dark fusions of hell-forged steel and daemons.  While the carts trundled down into the camp, the four hellcannons, goaded by their dwarfen handlers, lumbered to take up positions on the slopes of the hills that formed the valley mouth.

On the fortress walls on the other side of the bridge stood the disciplined ranks of the Dawi Zharr, waiting and watching.  As darkness descended and the barbarian hoard at their gates fell to drinking and feasting, the stoic dwarfen warriors held their places, still as the stones of the mountains.  Through the depths of night they stood watch, keen eyesight surveying the northmen’s camp for signs of movement, but all they saw were the debauched revelries of the servants of the Dark Gods.

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As dawn broke the next day, there were stirrings in the camp and a lone rider road forth from the centre of the camp, the bows of some northern tree lashed to the top of his lamp in sign of parley.  The massive warrior cantered over the stone bridge, lance held aloft and he drew up short of the gate, a bow shot and a half from the walls.  He waited patiently as the great iron bound doors groaned open and an emissary, escorted by thirty steel-clad warriors marched out to meet him.  From their position on the walls, Hrazzan and Gahzrak couldn’t hear what was being said but they could guess – undoubtably the Crowborn had come to barter for weapons and armour; impressed by the hellcannons following him, he surely wanted more.  From the gestures being made it looked as if the barbarian horde wished to buy passage through the fortress and down into the Dark Lands; a request the two Chaos Dwarfs knew would be denied.

The gestures grew more animated, and it was clear the messenger was loosing patience.  With a growl he took the lance in two hands and broke it over his knee, signalling an end to the discourse.  Tossing the shattered shaft aside, he yanked on the reigns, wheeling around and galloping back to the bridge.  With a shrug, the dwarfen emissary turned and signalled the warriors on the walls to prepare for battle.  With a chuckle, Hrazzan raised his horn to his lips and gave three sharp blasts which were answered by three matching blasts from the fortress nestling on the cliff face behind the wall.

The fortress, nominally and outpost of Uzkulak but in actuality, due to the extent of the delving of the Dawi Zharr, the outskirts of the Place of the Skull, was a four tiered ziggurat half buried in the cliff at the rear of a cwm overlooking a chasm in the mountains to the north of the Zorn Uzkul.  Across the mouth of the cwm spanned a great wall, bookended by two ominous towers.  The gate, iron shod and ten times the height of a dwarf sat in the centre of the wall and lead into the cwm.  However, this was not the true way into the fortress, for the ziggurat was built high up on the rear cliff with no door or gateway opening to the valley floor.  Instead a warren of tunnels nestled beneath the surface, leading to platforms lining the sides of the cwm and to secret doors hidden outside the wall on the narrow plain between the mountainside and the chasam.  Secret doors were hidden in the main walls’s gateway too, on either side of the gate, cunningly disguised as the walls of the arch, so that if the gates were breached, units of blunderbusses could spring as from the wall itself and ambush the invaders as they passed under the wall.

As the rider crossed back over the bridge, wide enough for a hundred men to walk abreast, secret signals were given and dwarfen warriors marched from the tunnels where they had lain in wait, appearing to the encamped barbarian horde to be marching through the gate from a courtyard betwixt wall and fortress.  Seeing the stunted warriors deploying and their own emissary returning in disgrace, lords and chieftains sprang to their feet, rousing their men.  The sun ascended higher as the rabble began to form, different tribes jostling for the honour of being the first to cross the bridge and it was past mid morning before the advance was sounded.

Beating axes, swords and hammers against their shields rhythmically the horde began to march.  Shoulder to shoulder the crossed the bridge in a tightly packed mass, banners snapping in the wind.  At the front once more were the marauders, the warriors and knights holding the centre, letting their disposable allies be the ones to rush forwards and taste the blades of the Dawi Zharr.

Hrazzan and Gahzrak watched idly as the barbarians crossed, waiting for the right moment.

“Now?” asked Hrazzan, sucking his teeth, trying to dislodge a stuck bit of meat, as the first marauders reached the halfway point of the bridge, slavering hounds bounding ahead.

“Wait for it,” grumbled Gahzrak, raising a meaty fist.  When the front rank was only a quarter span from fully crossing, he dropped his hand.  “Now.”  With a grin, Hrazzan grabbed a speaking tube built into the parapet and blew his horn into it.

A heartbeat passed and hen there was a mighty crack.  Sections of the bridge, large enough to hold a hundred men fell away on mighty hinges, pitching the marauders standing on them into the chasm below.  Screams of horror and bellows of rage went up as hundreds fell to their deaths.  Such was the strength of the flow of bodies that those standing near the new holes were forced over the edge to join their recently fallen comrades.  Confusion went up as the forward momentum was broken as men pushed against each other to escape the death pits.

Without warning, the human cries were joined by heart stopping, inhuman screams as the deathshriekers positioned on the cwm’s platforms opened up.  Rockets leapt up high into the air, sailing over the chasm to burst over the hordes yet to cross.  Daemonically infused explosives corkscrewed down, slamming into the tightly packed mass on the opposing plain sowing more terror and confusion in their ranks.  Panicked and seeking to escape the death from above, the remaining marauders threw themselves forwards, trying to force their way onto the bridge, while the mutants and more cowardly of the barbarians scattered, rushing back towards the valley they’d marched down the afternoon before, hoping to outrange the rocket batteries.

Seeing this, Hrazzan and Gahzrak bellowed with laughter, knowing what was about to happen.  Without warning, the dwarfen handlers of the hellcannons leapt to their feet and snatching up heavy hammers and axes, cut loose the chains binding the daemon engines.  Howling with joy, the hellcannons leapt forwards bearing down on the fleeing mutants and forcing them back to the killing zone.

As the press increased, those crossing the bridge soldiered on, more tumbling into the chasm through the gaps.  As they did so, flames bloomed in the iron statues lining the low walls of the bridge and jets of flame were vomited from their mouths as hidden magma cannons activated as the next stage of the fortresses defences come into play.  Black smoke gusted up from the bridge with a great charnel stench which billowed in the breeze, obscuring the plain where the hellcannons wreaked havoc.  In the centre of the bridge, surrounded by the death fires, the knights wrestled with their horses who bucked and stomped, spooked by the screams and heat.

Sitting tall in the saddle, the Crowborn tugged on his reigns, causing his daemon steed to rear in anger.  Bellowing instructions, the barbarian lord thrust his bloodthirsty axe forwards towards the ordered dwarfen ranks waiting on their side of the bridge.  Digging his spurs in he forced his horse into a gallop, trampling the milling mass of marauders that blocked his path.  Gaining control of their own horses, the knights followed after him swiftly, cutting down any marauder who got in their way.  Clearing the crushing mass of confusion, the charge picked up speed, hooves striking sparks on the flagstones of the bridge.  Seeing the fast approaching cavalry, the blunderbussers hefted their weapons and took aim.  As the knights cleared the bridge a sharp crack split the air as a wall of lead streaked into the charging horsemen who disappeared in a red mist.

A breath of stillness fell over the dwarfen fire lines as the shots echoed down the chasm.  A stillness broken by a bloody snort and the clatter of armour.  With heathen obscenities on his lips, the Crowborn plunged from the mist and crashed into the heavily armoured dwarfen lines.  In good order, the blunderbussers fell back from his fury, and forward stepped Zahxan Bullslayer, the fortress’s overlord, accompanied by the silent ranks of his obsidian-clad Immortal Guard.  Spying his foe, the Crowborn screamed a challenge, tossing aside his shield.  Zahxan gave a silent nod and strode forward, his bodyguards spreading out to encircle the duel.

Spitting hate filled words, the Crowborn took his axe in a double handed grip, sweeping it in a low arc aimed at his opponent’s chest.  Zahxan raised his shield casually, deflecting the blow with a sneer of disdain on his lips.  Furious, the Crowborn reigned down more blows, hammering away at the iron barrier betwixt him and his stunted foe.  Biding his time, Zhaxan stood resolute, shrugging of the attacks as if they were no more than insect stings.

Suddenly, without warning, he lashed out with his maul, striking the Crowborn’s left leg, shattering the knee.  The barbarian howled in pain and redoubled his efforts, but his new limp threw him off balance and his once precise, if savage, attacks began to miss, clipping Zahxan’s shield rim rather than pounding its brazen boss.  Again Zahxan bided his time, and again when he was ready it was a single bludgeon he delivered, this time to the right knee.  Cursing to his gods, the Crowborn staggered on broken legs, his attacks now wild and un aimed.  Snorting derisively, Zahxan stepped forwards and delivered a third blow.  All men and dwarfs in eyeshot winced in collected reflexive sympathy at the sickening crunch as maul collided with armoured groin and the Crowborn sank to his shattered knees.  Not missing a beat, Zahxan dropped his shield, stepping to the left and took his weapon in both hands, twisting it as it swung in an underarm arc up into the Chaos Lord’s neck, launching his head high into the air.

With the death of their master, the will of the horde finally broke, and they turned and fled back over the bridge.  As they did so, yet another layer of the fortress’s defences was revealed.  Of the statues on the bridge five had not gouted flames, and under the plinths of these had clustered many marauders.  But as the barbarians had began to rout, these statues burst into flames and fell upon their flanks.  Roaring with red hot fury, the K’daai Fireborn plunged into the tide of flesh, lashing out wildly, scorching their prey with their fiery forms, the flagstones of the bridge blistering and cracking in the heat.

As the daemonkin pursued the survivors, the pyre clouds parted revealing the far plain.  From hidden doors flooded hordes of hobgoblins, sweeping down from the mountains to meet the fleeing men.  Armed with whips, nets and chains, the cackling greenskins fell upon the broken force, capturing those they could and driving the remainder back towards the bridge and into the waiting arms of the advancing chaos dwarfs.  Zahxan and his Immortals held the centre and to either side of them marched fireglaive armed warriors and on the flanks were eager young beardlings, most not even a century old.

Exhausted, the last few hundred marauders threw down their weapons and fell to their knees, crying for mercy. Chuckling evilly, the beardlings rushed forwards, dragging down the barbarians and binding them tightly with heavy chains.

Up on the wall, the gathered dwarfs began to disperse, the entertainment done for the day.  Resting against the parapet, Hrazzan sighed and grabbed a wineskin.  Nodding the the carpet of corpses coating the bridge he chuckled “Looks like meat’s on the menu tonight.”

“Aye,” nodded Gahzrak “Was getting sick of year-old hobgoblin; much prefer mutton to chicken.”  Hrazzan roared at his friend’s jest and passed him the skin.

“Thank Hashut we have plenty of drink and a warm brazier up here – I pity the poor gits who have to clear that mess up down there.”

“I’ll drink to that,” laughed Gahzrak, tossing back the wine and settling in for the remainder of their watch.