Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Farhome was a remote place.

Far from BigMountain, far from Riverbend, so far, in fact, that that very piece of trivia had become its namesake. It was such a remote village, in fact, that the townsfolk told themselves, in their heart of hearts, "we are safe", "none shall come here", "the problems of the big city are for the big city". They were, it turns out, quite wrong.

The star grew swiftly above them, burning through the sky on a precise trajectory (for the Daemons who'd aimed it were creatures of precision), an arrow fired by a bow of stars.

It struck the earth in the fields outside the village, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris, showering the town with fragments of trees, a fence post or two and the old bolder that Harris had thrown his back out trying to life.

The townsfolk had been besought by their city kindred when the war started. They knew the visitor was likely hostile. The menfolk fetched their short las's, their poorly maintained combat blades, even weighty rocks. The womenfolk began to evacuate the town, but there was nowhere to go save down the road.

As the armed throng, for throng it was, no disciplined squad this, closed on the grounded space relic, they breathed a sigh of relief. It was small, too small to be a troop carrier or drop pod, such as the Emperor's Angels used in the ancient tales. This looked more like...

A Coffin.

When it's front opened, with an audible crack, everyone took a step back. Hissing steam, literally hissing, rose from it, writhing and dissipating like smoke from a burning house on a windy day.

Vrakk rose from his transit tomb, gazed around. He took in the pastoral scenary of northwest New Codexia. He took in the rubble caused by his landing. He took in the armed, terrified and hostile mob, outnumbering him 50 to 1.

His face distorted in a horrifying smile. His black voice whispered to him "I'm going to like it here", and he nodded in absolute agreement.

From the north, the taint spread.

Over weeks, a month, the War People, flush with their victory over the Bucklers, their breaching of the Wall, and the confidence of their Warmaster, came south in a flood.

They were opposed, in places, diverted, in places, and assailed, sporadically, but overall the forces of New Codexia resisted their urge to do battle and fell back before them. Such was the will of Gargan, and the command of Governor Shastler had been to obey that will.

The armies of the Archenemy were bolstered now by forces Daemonic. The Warmaster's destruction of Dhuurock had blasted Narl's fog from the world, and the indiscriminate slaughter his legions practiced soon drew the servants of his Patron to the world. His army was as much a creation of the Ruinous Powers as it was a conventional foe. A literal extension of his fury, a crawling throng of angry impulses, channeling a rage that could split the sky's vault.

Gargan understood this, knew that a tipping point had been reached. The next battle must decide the issue, or the land would be tainted too deeply to recover. If allowed to fight, to triumph, the gates of the Warp would be thrown wide, and the land would fall beneath the brass tread of the Daemons. By contrast, if the Warmaster could be defeated, the War People would lose their Daemonic masters, and the gaze of the Gods would be averted in shame. The next battle, for good or ill, would decide the issue.

As a result, it couldn't be trusted to a regional army, couldn't be delegated to nobles, or the PDF. Only the fortifications of Central City, only the Grand Army of New Codexia, bolstered by the Space Wolves, led by Gargan Silverpelt and sheltering in the Emperor's light. Only such a mighty host could prevail against the coming storm. His orders insured the final clash. The Daemon would sense the same, would be drawn to the center of the land's defiance like a moth to flame.

From the north they came, a tide of crimson and brass, a wave of murder, an ending to the peaceful veneration of the Emperor which was most hateful to them. But one thread in the skein of fate lay unaccounted for, and it gnawed at the vestiges of Hraavack's soul.

He was not, yet, the appointed victor of the contest. He'd glimpsed it, as he closed on his foe in the grand melee. A Zepp'lin, holding the final locus, the Princeling's pawn. His Red Lord demanded that he bring the Imperium to heel, but he was bound by the rite's obligations to overcome Sylvester. The twin pressures split his attention, and the slaying of a world demanded his full attention.

Fortunately, a solution presented itself, in the form of his unexpected vassal. The Bloodfeeder pulsed in his mind, and he made its desires known to it. Soon after Xull and the blasted creations known now as the Obliterated veered from the path of the horde and moved to the west. With them went the favor of Khorne.

They would be his hand, his flaying knife, his will made manifest. They'd track down and destroy the Slaaneshi champion, even as the Warmaster cast down the corpse worshippers.

Beyond even the complication of Sylvester, there was one further aspect of the battle that neither of the opposing generals had considered. Time had passed, with their maneuvering and jockeying, and Lord Gribbly had put his house in order. Now, with the power of a Battle Barge at his command the erstwhile referee of this game would enter it.

this is awesome! Keep it going!
Only two things you could do better: 1.Less Characters, and 2.Better Surroundings.

1.More characters means more sidetracks. It eventually comes to the point when you forget
names and where a character is currently located. Well, it is fun to see everything from
many points of wiew as it makes the conspiracy(ies) much more entertaining for
the reader, but it's not fun when it's done to the point when the reader has to go
checking the previous pages thinking ''who the @!£¤ is this guy?''

2. At some places you did'nt really describe the surroundings very well.
For example, the battle against the Bucklers. I myself cannot remember any
descriptions of the surroundings in that piece, although i did imagine some sort
of plain. The same for the Rubric marines drop spot, where i imagined
a desert due to the 'die of thirst' thing. You did, however, perfectly describe
the swamp, and i give you credit for that.

Apart from the above points, the story is great. You should publish this
some day, with a few minor alterations Keep it going!

Thanks for the compliment. I can't really publish this, as, ya know, GW owns all the IP, but I put it on some fanfiction sites.

I try to use honoriffics to describe who characters are. That is, if you don't know that Hraavack is the Khornate guy I hope that calling him Brother Slaughterer will convey the point. It's certainly a problem though (particularly as he goes by Warmaster now, post Daemon Prince-ification). Vrakk, in particular, just kind of showed up when I realized I needed a Possessed guy for a thing later on.

You make a good point about the surroundings for the big battle. In my mind it was just sort of plains area, somewhere SW of Bigmountain. In particular, I imagined the War People rushing across the fields of Gettysburg (hiked there once), so I guess it was a grassland. I should have made that more clear.

Sylvester steered his stolen vehicle down the road, raging inwardly at the vehicle's lack of responsiveness.

He longed now for the Sonic Transit he'd left on the barge. He longed for a simple bike of human manufacture. Even an Ork buggy would have been preferable to his current mode of transit.

The Sonic Champion was driving an Imperial supply truck. A vehicle wrought from an ancient and decayed understanding of the Standard Templates, a vehicle built for power and reliability, and wholly incapable of any kind of speed.

No matter what kind of pressure he put on the accelerator, no sensation rewarded him. Oh, it screamed along as well as it could, two or more times as fast as any New Codexian had ever driven such a vehicle, but not nearly fast enough to excite his jaded sensitivities.

He tried to make things more interesting by risky maneuvers, but the vehicle simply wasn't unpredictable enough for such things to thrill him. When he crosscut a convoy he was in no doubt that it would miss him by a millimeter. When he wove in and out of civilian transit the only thrill he got was the familiar and jaded pleasure of causing death. There simply wasn't any uncertainty.

He made up his mind to seek some. With Dhuurock and Glubbulous (he could FEEL the absence of Nurgle's soldier) out of the picture, he could afford to spend some time. Hraavack was a savage, a creature base in its appetites and conspicuous in its presence. Even transfigured, it wouldn't take him long to provoke his own destruction.

Brother-Fether Sylvester, champion of the Dark Princeling and erstwhile sergeant in the Flawless Host, had only to wait.

He hated waiting.

TOO LONG/DIDNTREAD

Edited by Moderator.

Thread necromancy WTF?