In the Charnel Wilds

Warriors of Chaos (Mike) vs Tomb Kings (Tim)

In the south west of the Devil’s Pathway, north of the Black Gulf and close to the centre of the Border Princes, is a desolate plain that stretches for miles: almost devoid of life and a place few men dare to cross. The plain is known as the Charnel Wilds and for good reason. What life does exist there is so lethally dangerous that no living witnesses have reported anything concrete beyond garbled and contradictory rumours of threats like invisible stabbing insects and gargantuan many-limbed worms with teeth-filled orifices everywhere.

In the centre of this plain lies Dunkel Schloss, the dark castle.

From its depths marched rank after rank of sinister armoured warriors, flanked by packs of ravening hounds warped and twisted by chaos and thundering cavalry bearing towering knights, mouldering steam issuing from their visors. To the south lay the lands of the Undead Nation and the citadel of Barak Varr, controlled by the deathly Tomb Kings. The black eyes of the Warriors of Dunkel Schloss gazed on this realm with bitter jealousy and destructive rage. Their hatred of all things was paralleled only in the blackest of hearts and their axes desired nothing but devastation and motionless death.

Waiting for them on the parched fields of the Charnel Wilds stood hundreds of expressionless skeleton warriors, each gripping an ancient bejewelled blade or reaching spear, and beside the ranks of the skeletons were chariots, skeletal steeds waiting in front of them to drag them into battle.

The warriors came on and the Tomb Kings moved to engage them but the great power of Ovidium and Virgillium, the dark sorcerers, blocked almost every attempt of the Liche Priests to spur the soldiers faster into battle. Holding, the dark Lord of the warriors smiled grimly, preparing to give the charge order, then the sun grew dark and he looked up.

A boulder that was formed from mystically fused skulls fell from the heavens and crushed him, horse and all, hurled from a Tomb King catapult.

Enraged, the knights charged forward, shattering the fragile chariots rattling towards them as the Chaos infantry ran alongside them, battering the skeletons that stalked forward to meet them. The Warriors of Chaos were unlike anything seen within the Border Princes before. The strength and endurance was unbeatable. With each swipe of their axes they chewed through the skeleton units, devastating them as their unnatural instability dragged them down.

Slavering hounds bounded round the flank toward the sluggish Liche Priests as fireballs flew toward them from the hands of the sorcerers. Forced to abandon their support of the rest of the army to save themselves, the Liche Priests bombarded the Chaos Hounds with magic missiles, but they couldn’t prevent them bursting through and first one, then the other fell under dripping jaws and disease-riddled claws.

Ordinarily, this would have signalled the end of the army as the magic holding it up vanished and the army crumbled, but not this time. Even as the Liche Priests were brought down the last of the skeleton infantry were bashed and cleaved to powdered bone until they were no more.

Suddenly the battle was over.

The Charnel Wilds were silent.

The Warriors of Dunkel Schloss looked at one another then fixed their eyes on the distant lands of the undead and resumed their march south.