They were reaching the edge of Baersonling territory on the way to Kislev. The air was much too cold for a Sommerzeit day. Breath puffed out in vapor clouds.

Yetchitch was the first Kislevite village encountered. Bereft of life and livestock, it was assumed to have been evacuated ahead of the oncoming hordes. Still, it was razed, as no structure was to remain as representative of the old order. This went on for Sepukzy, Ramaejk, and Kacirk, empty. Many warriors itched for something to kill.

And at Volksgrad, they found it. A large, fortified town and commerce hub of the High Pass road to the far east. It stood defiant in the face of the approaching hordes, but between the wrath of Kholek Suneater, Sigvald, and the Everchosen, the town did not last a day.

Pinkie Pie plopped a ball of snow atop the neck of a snow-pony in progress. She sculpted it quickly, giving it a broad smile and looking down from a hill at the burning town of Volksgrad. Even from half a mile away, she could hear the town’s dying screams, civilians being butchered, buildings collapsing.

Once her sculpture was done, to mark her passing, she’d join in and save as many of the people as she could. Their meat would be hers, their souls kept safe with her.

----------------------------------------------------------

8 days earlier

The throne yurt of prince Sigvald was a monument to his vanity, with no expense, nor worthy victim spared for its makeup. Leather from the skin of Cathayan nobles made up its outside, furred with the hair of elves. The inside was choked with sweet smoke from hookahs and incense, visitors and favored individuals enjoying the goods the Chosen of Slaanesh had to play with.

Pinkie Pie herself was by Sigvald’s side, with him on an elevated, bejeweled golden throne. She intently watching the next visitors to see the prince a musician pair, with a lute and flute. They introduced themselves as Vittorio and Lucia Ercole, converts from Tilea, and hangers-on to the Decadent Host for over twenty years.

Resting on her belly like a waterbed, the liquefied remains of nearly a dozen rejected supplicants sloshed in her stomach. Even with such a feast packed away, her gut ached for more. Pinkie almost hoped these two would please Sigvald. They were good, very good.

At the end of their piece, they bowed to the applause of the patrons. Pinkie snapped her claws as her own way. They bowed low for Sigvlad, and the elderly Lucia needed Vittorio’s help to get up.

Sigvald leaned forward, hands clasped. “You, young man, may stay, but the hag, bah.” Sigvald dismissively waved a hand at her. “Pinkie Pie, remove her.”

“Your highness,” Vittorio stammered, wrapping an arm around Lucia in fear. “She’s my mother. I-”

“And?” Sigvald snapped. “You came here to impress me, and you did, not her. It hurts mine eyes just to look upon the one that birthed you, but at least she can die knowing her life led to something that serves me.” Sigvald snapped his fingers. “Pinkie.”

“You heard him, Vitty-bitty.” Pinkie Pie sang, and let her tongues whip at Lucia, who showed no fear as she was wrenched from her son’s hands.

“Remember what your father said,” Lucia spoke calmly, as the striped tentacles took her like an octopus with its prey. “Remember the rituals.”

Vittorio nodded with tears welling in his eyes, fighting every instinct to hurl wrath at the candy-creature. “Consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned.” They said in unison. “The flesh returns to the tribe. Becomes one with the tribe. Eternal rapture awaits.”
Dry and salty flavors filled Pinkie’s palette as she consumed the wrinkly woman whole. Vittorio stayed put, not wanting to offend Sigvald. When only Lucia’s face was visible at the back of Pinkie’s throat, she smiled she smiled to Vittorio.

“We see one another again, in time-”

Pinkie snapped her jaws shut and swallowed, the distenting bulge of Lucia lurching down her neck, and disappearing with an ominous gurgle into her stomach. She let out a satisfied sigh.

Vittorio took up his flute and bowed once more to Sigvald, stifling his grief. “I am honored to be in your service, lord.”

“Of course you are,” Sigvald cooed, twirling his golden locks. “Now off with you. I shall call for you on my time. Next!”

Pinkie’s nerves were tingling in pleasure as Lucia was already being broke down in a pool of acid and chyme. Her flavors mixed into the sludge her gut readily absorbed.

"Creature," came Lucia's muffled voice. "May I ask something of you?"

"Maaaybe."

"Please. Vittorio will die, tomorrow or in sixty years. When the time comes, could you be there and ask if he will join me? With you, with Sigvald."

Pinkie felt her inner tentacles awake to their new morsel, wrapping around Lucia and pulling her under the caustic mire.

"I'll definitely ask him if that's what he wants," she assured.

"Thank you."

Return to the tribe… become one with the tribe. The phrase repeated itself in her head. See you again in time. Pinkie felt the old woman land on the bottom of her gurgling gut, bubbles of her last breath breaking at the surface.

"Bye bye, Lucia."

Sigvald drove her through the snow alone with gilded reins, bouncing in the saddle with her trot. “Would you look at that pile of hovels,” he sneered.

Pinkie Pie didn’t respond since she knew he wasn’t expecting her to. Praag looked like a wonder to her. Rock cliffs, at least two hundred feet high, were the foundation the monolithic walls were built on. Even sky-bridges straddled the river Lysk that split it in twain. Onion-domed bastion towers were spread at regular intervals, and the great Mountain Gate was flanked by two of them.

Kislev’s banners flew defiant in the icy mountain air. Pennants of bears, tridents, and the ice queen adorned every section.

A puff of smoke blew from one section of wall, followed seconds later by the boom of the cannon’s shot, and Pinkie Pie watched a cannonball fly as if in slow motion. Smoke hissed from its iron skin, and it was even written on in white paint, “Определенно для вас!” It landed short by several meters, and Pinkie Pie flinched as clods of dirt smacked her, a minor annoyance.

“Those urchins!” Sigvald hissed and dug his sharp heels into Pinkie’s sides.

Pinkie Pie immediately recognized the anger in that. He probably got a speck of dirt on his boot. She glanced at his golden boots, and sure enough, a dark brown stain marred their perfection.

She made great speed back to the chaos lines, which were already setting up siege works. Slaves were digging trenches, hellcannons with their malevolent spirits were herded into firing pits, and premade parts for siege towers were already being assembled, from sidings to meters-wide wheels taller than a man.

Sigvald guided Pinkie Pie to the Varanspire, jumped off, and ran inside, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Archaon!”

Pinkie giggled and sat herself next to the tower. The ground around it was very warm since it landed. She pulled a notepad and pencil from her mane, and got to work scribbling down what might be needed for the post-battle party.

-------------------------------------------

Skirmishes were on and off as the days went on. The city was completely surrounded, save for the river itself. Armored steamboats sailed in from the south, weathering most attempts to capture or sink them. Completely sealed, the ethereal ammunition of hellcannons simply dribbled off the sides with minimal damage. Extremely few were captured by cultist pegasi.

Praag’s lifeline to Kislev proper was thin, but functional.

It was said that the pact Kholek Suneater made with the Dark Gods was so blasphemous in the eyes of nature, that the sun itself refused to shine on him ever again. This promise, made beside the father of all dragon ogres, Krakanrok the Black, sealed the fate of a huge swathe of the ogre race to immortality, stripped of freedom.

Lightning was the light now, each flash was a like a photo of the world, a moment in time.

Kholek Suneater had been here before, nearly two hundred and thirty years ago. The whole scene was a familiar sight, the hordes of Chaos amassed, the supposed ‘end of the world’ underway. The Suneater determined towers would be useless here, just as they’d been centuries ago. Best to just force their way in.

Asavar Kul had been here too. Under his leadership, the city burned and was corrupted for all time, no matter how hard the Kislevites tried to scour Chaos’ taint.

Asavar Kul, Fourth Everchosen. Asavar Kul… Failure.

Fluttershy laid prone as a procession of warriors climbed up into the howdah-bunker mounted on her back. She glanced up and across the Lysk at Kholek once in awhile. The Shaggoth paced, turning Starcrusher over in his claws, and chaffing to bring the city destruction once more.

Spike held Rarity’s hand as they ascended the steps. He looked back at her, a worried face, lit up by a flash of lightning.

“Hey, don’t worry. I’ll be with you every step. I won’t let anything happen to you.“

“Thank you,” Rarity stammered. “It’s just, everypony going in at once. It’s going to be a madhouse.”

“And they’re on the other side of the city. I don’t want to sound nihilistic, but if there’s nothing we can do for them, we shouldn’t worry about it. They’ll find a way, or make one.”

Rarity nodded, and hugged his arm as they entered the howdah.

--------------------------------------------

Sigvald guided Pinkie Pie at a canter along the battle line of his warriors. A fantastic body to behold, the Decadent host sought to emulate him in beauty and skill. Only the best, personally chosen by the prince himself. They cheered his name as their master passed, many in their native tongues.

“Sig! Sig! Sig! Sig!”

Sigvald held up a hand, and gestured to the city. “Sickly, sinful, spectacles stand, shuffle and saunter shamelessly in mine scandalized sight! I suggest a solution. Surely such sedition should sour and succumb to Sigvald - the salacious, scandalous, and sensational servant of Slaanesh!”

“Slaanesh! Slaanesh! Slaanesh!” the host cried back from thousands of throats.

“Son of Succubi, scion of sordid acts and slayer of squalid serfs!” Sigvald kicked Pinkie into a canter. “See how I stroll, stride, swagger and swirl, spin, slash and stab at stupid, senseless scum! Soon they shall swoon, shall seek solace and death from sundry torments wrought upon them by by strategic, severing, scintillating shower of shimmering strikes!”

Thousands of blades rattled against shields and armor, and praise shrieked in response. He drew Sliverslash, a gleaming silver sword wrought from shards of the personal weapon of She who Thirsts.

“They think their walls shall see them sheltered? Ha! Send for the sunderer! To slaughter!”

The ground began to rumble then. Thundering, pounding footsteps that cued the warriors to part ahead of the canter of an iron mare, the size of a Shaggoth. Pinkie Pie whistled as Fluttershy thundered by, and took off after her at Sigvald’s kick.

----------------------------------

Fluttershy’s tread tore the soil. An army charged behind her, relying on her. She weathered the storm of detonations from explosive shot that ripped the earth round her. Scores of cultists were eviscerated by shrapnel in the ranks of the Decadent Host.

Rope and chain ladders were rolled up at the back of her howdah, emaciated flayerkin latched on and waiting for the time to unfurl them.

The first true destruction of a city of men, Fluttershy’s magma rock of a heart pounded in anticipation. The rotten world men had forged, would come to an end, starting here.

At the cliff, her claws sank into the rock as she climbed. She felt the poke of bullets smacking her ironform as the defenders poured rifle rounds onto her. Boiling oil splashed over her head, feeling little more than warm.

She reached up for the lip of the battlements, and a lance of pain shot through her claw as a cannon fired into it point blank. She roared in indignant anger, brought her claw back up, and tore the weapon out of its station, hurling it and two men screaming to the ground far below.

The slaves released the ladders, and down they spun to the waiting throng of warriors, baying and howling for bloodshed and slaughter. Fluttershy hauled herself atop the wall, balancing delicately, and eyeing the Kislevites in their buttoned-down, gold-trimmed uniforms. Rather than lash out, she dug her grip firmly, and let the howdah’s doors swing open.

-----------------------------------

Light beamed in through slits and tears in the giant iron box, interrupted by someone or other undoing their harness and hurriedly passing by. Rarity’s breath came in hiking gasps while she fiddled to find the release on her harness.

The main door fell with a screech of hinges and crash that let light flood in. Rarity heard someone shout outside, barely on the edge of her hearing.

The world turned black, and she screwed her eyes shut against a burning pain ripping through her. She saw herself, like an observer outside her own body, struggling with the harness. Spike hurried to her, and with some effort, lifted the bars and set her free. A fraction of a second later, a cannonball burst through the wall behind Rarity, taking off her head and Spike’s shoulder, leaving them with blood-gushing ruins of where their parts had been.

Her vision crashed back to the present, and swimming through repercussive pain, she found Spike cursing and pulling at the bars holding her securely to the wall. With a generous application of a telekinetic push, Rarity tore the entire harness out, shoved Spike with enough force to knock him on his back, and threw herself to the ground, screaming, “Get down!”

The voice came, “Ogon’!”

A great blast thundered outside, signaling a cannonball smashing clean through the wall, scattering what remained of the harness’ trappings and sending shrapnel whizzing at lethal speeds. Two warriors didn’t have time to react and dropped screaming with shredded arms and necks.

Spike helped Rarity to her feet. “Precognition?” he asked, to which Rarity nodded. Spike laughed, and slapped a claw on her shoulder. “Come on, we’ve got to hold the opening. Fluttershy can’t do it on her own.”

A cacophony of shouting and crashing blades and shields made Rarity gulp. Spike moved ahead of her, wings outstretched, sword and shield at the ready. He was her shield, and didn’t trust anyone else with her protection.

Bullets and arrows whizzed from three sides, sparking off heavy armor, or only making warriors shriek in pleasure as they broke flesh. Leather-winged monstrosities and warp-spawned daemons joined in the assault, tackling Kislevites off the walls and letting them drop, only to fly away themselves.

Drawing in the winds of magic, Rarity projected a shimmering barrier along many meters of wall, to guard against ground fire.

Another vision stabbed into Rarity’s retinas. A warrior in gaudy rainbow armor taking an arrow straight to the neck. She quickly spotted him, like he wanted to be seen by all.

“Look upon me and realize the greyness of your lives!” he bellowed, hacking a man’s head from his shoulders.

With a flick of the hand, Rarity magically forced his head to cock to the side, just as the arrow sailed past and grazed his neck. A cut, but hopefully not lethal. He paused only a moment, then laughed uproariously at his foes, as though the Gods had seen fit to shield him from the unenlightened fools.

The fresh warriors reached the ladder-tops, and Fluttershy began hooking them onto the wall itself, freeing her to wreak havoc elsewhere. Cultist pegasi brought up their own ladders, and soon the trickle of reinforcement would be a flood.

The sorrowful sigh of a string brought Rarity’s attention to a grey earth mare playing a cello under the shield cover. Octavia Melody played with eyes shut, calm, and seemingly oblivious to the world around her. The instrument glowed dimly with magical energy, which Rarity assumed was an enchantment put on it to sound clearly over the gunfire and clamour. Rarity listened, and the tune sang of terrible things to come, the first kindling embers that would soon engulf the world in flame.

Octavia forced the cello to squeal in unison with a scream from Fluttershy. The giant clutched the wall like a lifeline with a chunk of armor-hide blasted out of her shoulder. The nearest tower had its guns trained on her.

Fluttershy lunged at the tower, as it made one more shot, shearing ironflesh off her barrel and exposing bundles of muscle-cabling. She attacked with feral savagery, tearing layers of metal off its top until she punched through the roof. Unable to see inside, she simply smashed her fist around the interior, listening to the sounds of dying men, and crushing metal.

“Push out!” Spike bellowed, pulling a bloodstained sword from a Kislevite’s chest. He sucked in a breath, chest swelling, and roared emerald flame that scoured all before him of their flesh, sloughing off like molten wax.

Rarity kept close behind him, telekinetically knocking aside enemy thrusts, and yanking the weapons from their hands. Spike grunted as a bullet punched a neat hole through a wing he used to bat a warrior over the wall. Rarity spotted the rifleman, and reaching out with her mind, crushed his throat with a clench of her fist.

She stopped cold, running into Spike’s back. Taking a moment to orient herself, all had gone quiet and still. Bullets, arrows, ash, and blood droplets drifted at a crawl in flight, and every warrior was rendered still as a statue.

“Whew!” Pinkie Pie gasped, hauling herself over the embrasure.Sigvald held her reins securely, in mid-shout with spittle flicking from his lip, and sword raised. The Mirror guard were just reaching the top alongside, in gleaming armor that reflected the prince’s image from every angle.

“Oh, whoops. Sorry I missed you,” said Pinkie sheepishly.

“Pinkie, what’s happening?” Rarity attempted to touch one of the bullets, and recoiled at its heat on her fingers. “Is this how you move so quickly?”

“Yeperoony! But I just...” Pinkie rapidly circled Rarity, like a predator sizing up its next meal. “I don’t know why you didn’t stop. Maybe you’re just really dense with magic.”

The thought of Pinkie slowing the world to do with as she pleased made Rarity that much more uneasy.

Pinkie wiped sweat from her forehead, and stalked from Rarity. “But I can’t keep this up for too long. I gotta work fast.”

Pinkie picked her way through the carpet of bodies, grinning when she found one wounded but alive, and swiftly crammed him down her throat. Her stomach rumbled like caged thunder, destroying him and soaking up the ruins as quickly as she packed him away.

“And this is how you’re using a power that did this!?” Rarity threw her arms toward the frozen world.

“Pinkie gulped down her second wounded before answering. “It’s totally worth it, though! This guy was part of a cult that had this thing about eating the dead. ‘Return to the tribe. Become one with the tribe’. So I caught him alone and asked him, and they think that by eating the dead, especially the wounded,, they can keep the essence of their soul with the cult. Sooo…”

She took a moment to slurp down a severed head. “What if I’m keeping their souls with me?”

Rarity mulled it over, bending over to study the features of a Kislevite whose face was frozen in a rictus of pain, his belly split and innards exposed. “That sounds like an excuse to justify eating everypony who can’t fight back,”

“But if they’re dead already and there’s a chance to keep them with me…” PInkie Pie hugged the soldier and licked his cheek. “Feeling what I feel, and make them smile, even after they kick the bucket. You spent a lot of nights in my tummy, you know what it’s like.”

Rarity looked away as Pinkie devoured the soldier, not bothering to swallow, but push him down.

“Okay, real-time,” Pinkie sighed, veins bulging at her temples in strain. “Rarity, you might wanna take a step to the left. Arrow coming up from behind.”

Pinkie Pie vanished in a pink blur, cannonballing over the wall to the inner ground, as the world accelerated to real-time. The Decadent Host swarmed over the ladders, and stormed the tower after Fluttershy kicked in the door. Rarity was caught up in the rush of armored bodies the norsemen. Spike forced a way to her, and she took his claw, an anchor in the tide.

“PInkie’s damn fast,” he said, glancing over at the man-pony combo butchering an artillery battery below. “They’re not going to last long alone down there. With me?”

Rarity smiled and nodded, and they both took a step over the edge.

How times had been changing.

The founding of the Karaz-A-Warhawks was ignoble at best, tracing its beginnings to the perpetual siege of Karak-Eight-Peaks.

Griffons flocked to the service of the Dwarfs since the Fall, initially something to do for cash and an excuse to get out of New Griffonstone, which was somehow worse than the old. Griffons worked as couriers where gyrocopters were in short supply, and air-mobile troops, where their literal eagle-eyes were invaluable for reconnaissance and marksmanship.

Gilda Bronzebeak had joined up with the 2nd Griffonstone Light Cavalry regiment, and their first mission was the Eight Peaks. The king, Belegar Ironhammer was hell-bent on reclaiming the ancestral home of his people, thrown out by the goblin warlord Skarsnik, and Skaven under Queek Headtaker. Daily, the grind went in a predictable pattern. Advance mere inches, and there would be a massive counterattack. Hordes of ratmen and goblins like a tide of blades and teeth in a hellish three-way battle.

It took less than a month for her to desert. So much blood and treasure was being thrown into the place, and she felt like she’d be just another body in the count. Over time, she ran into other deserters in the mountains around the area, deciding it was probably best to watch each other’s backs should they be caught for going AWOL.

First had been Gunter, a giant of a griffon, with the might to break her in half if their cooperation went south. Over time, their alliances of convenience became that of comradery. As more disaffected troopers joined them, Gilda came to a position of natural leadership. Whether it was due to charisma, or having Gunter to enforce group rules, she didn’t care.

They found their way to the Empire, and put their training to use on lesser operations, dealing with orc raiders or the occasional peasant uprising for burgomeisters or local lords. Gunter had come up with their name in a drunken rant. Karaz, or ‘Everlasting’, A-Warhawks, an ironic label for their lack of loyalty. News of them spread, and their numbers had grown into the hundreds with griffons from across the Old World, as far as fair Bretonnia and the Grey Mountains. Pay was good, and the fighting was relatively easy, especially when you got to pick your own battles and fly circles around grounded foes.

Now that she had met meet with the head of the Empire himself, and was serving as a medium of translation between Deathclaw and Karl Franz, their reputation was secured. Within months, their numbers swelled to well over a thousand, and it hit Gilda just how much of a legend Deathclaw was elsewhere in the world by their folklore.

------------------------------

The paddle boats were unbearably hot, cramped with supplies and bodies, and induced terrible sea sickness in their armored interiors. The smell of smoke and spilled breakfast was inescapable.

Something crashed against the side of the boat, making an inward bulge in the wall. Gilda stepped over Gaston, who was shocked awake by the noise.

“Colonel? Sacred Boreas, what did that?”

“Dunno, but I think we’ve arrived. Sit tight.”

The rest of the troops were stirring. Two hundred of them were on this ship, the Lagoda, and the rest trailing behind in the Valgo, Andrej, and Kalinka. Another two crashes struck the ship before the captain’s voice echoed through a pipe-horn.

“Approaching the Water Gate. Prepare to disembark. Repeat, prepare to disembark.”

“Fina-feathing-lly,” Gilda sighed.

The ships were stopped astern before Karlsbridge, and the outside air was no better.

Ash fell like rain, immediately staining Gilda’s face and field jacket. The Grand Parade was a mess of infantry traffic, ammunition handouts, and boyars shouting words of encouragement through metal cones. A ring of copper statues, children spinning in a ring and arm in arm centered the end of the Grand Parade boulevard. Cannon Fire echoed from the front, not too far away, accompanied by the baying howls of flange-throated monsters.

“Colonel Bronzebeak!”

A young trooper ran up and shook her claw.

“Ravem Chuikev, adjutant to General Rokossovsky. Sorry he couldn’t receive you in person, but he has his hands full at the moment.”

“I get it,” Gilda nodded. “They’re attacking early. Real early. How soon does he need us to be out and about?”

“As soon as possible, in particular at the Ogre Ghetto. We’ve set aside a wing of the art academy for your boarding.”

The Magnus gardens was home to the arts college, and like nearly every large building in the city, it was given over to fortification and supply storage. Boarded-up windows only let slivers of light in, and with the storms raging outside, all were limited to firelight. The place was still permeated with the chemical smell of paints and cleaners, long since disposed of.

Once established, the tasks were assigned. 1,749 griffons in five companies, each assigned to a sector. A-Company took to the Square of Kisses, in the shadow of the Citadel.

A breach had been made at the Mountain Gate on the north end, and the bulk of the invader would be coming straight down the center to get at the city’s heart. The New Town burned further down the hill, a lake of fire whose splashing waves sounded of screaming and wicked laughter.

The Square was an excellent killzone, with only one uphill entrance that spilled out into a coverless open. Even then there was news of superb climbers, including a massive metal quadruped that scaled the outer walls.

One hundred Warhawks made firing positions on the inward-sloping side of the roofs on two sides of the square. The last hundred and fifty of A-Company took up cover behind berms and on the Citadel’s inner walls.

Gunter was set up beside her, tinkering with the sight on his Albus Gun. The weapon itself was a modified barrel from a dwarf organ gun that fired projectiles the size of a fist, and only he was strong enough to carry it unassisted.

A thunderous crunch of static echoed from the bottom of the hill.

“Is… is this thing on-ah fuck!?”

A piercing feedback rang out. Many winced in pain at the volume. Whoever it was talking, their voice was scrambled as if put through a dozen filters.

“Good afternoon, Praag! What a lovely city. Before the band and I get started, I just wanted to break the ice ‘tween you and I.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Gilda whispered.

“Hopefully some survivors from the walls made it back to tell you about the intro works done by my great friend, Octavia Melody! Let’s hear it for that one, The Kindling!”

No one in the square made a noise, but the enemy warhost erupted in cheering, weapon rattling, and stomping of boots and hooves.

“Boss,” Gunter said, glancing at Gilda.

“Yeah?”

“We have a bug-out plan, yes?”

“If it gets to that point, yeah. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“The music we play today was inspired by Slaanesh herself, and we’re not completely one sided. This one goes out to the Karaz-A-Warhawks. For a bunch of deserting AWOLs, I gotta give you props for coming here of all times and places. So, without further ado…”

A hundred rifles cocked. Gilda licked her beak, awaiting the first head to poke over the ridge.

“The Square of Kisses!”

The music opened with a guitar, a bouncing introduction with a steady beating drum. Gilda ignored it.

A glint of silver caught Gilda’s eye. With reflexes and precision only a bird of prey could have, she fired. At least a dozen others also took the shot, and the everything above the man’s eyebrows was vaporized by the impacts.

The foe stormed the ridge in force, buying an inch more into the square with each death. They came poorly armed and armored, with hunks of twisted metal for swords, and wood boards for shields.

Meatshields,slaves, and madmen, Gilda thought, and sighted her next target.

Two. Three. Four. Brain. Neck. Eye.

“Ease!” Gunter shouted.

Dust jumped up with the Albus' report, and seven cultists had their chests blown open, or limbs clipped. Gunter’s true target, a beetle-backed warbeast, had its head crushed into its thorax. Snapping the breech open, a smoking brass case spun off into the air. Slamming another round home, his next shot took an arm off of a lurching, grafted flesh and bone monstrosity.

The speed and ferocity of the cultist assault carried them unto the berm, and a wall of Kislevite steel and and griffon talons met them. Gunfire continued to chatter from three sides as the cultists climbed the berm, sending them rolling back down, but still they came. Gilda slung her rifle and drew the six-shooter, discharging all its rounds in half as many seconds at point blank.

The trooper beside her screamed with a sword buried deep in his shoulder. A giant of a man in gleaming silver armor tore it out and split his skull in two with the next strike. Bullets smacked him but failed to penetrate, and with another blurring swipe, decapitated another Warhawk.

Gilda screeched, high and piercing, and the Warhawks took to the air. Kislevite reserves rushed forward to fill the gap as planned.

On the ground, it was man’s fight now.

Spike felt anger now, hot and heavy, filtering into his body like boiling poison, clinging to the back of his throat and tasting of blood and bile. The Everchosen’s words burned in his mind, belittling him, thinking him simple. A walking, talking dragon apparently wasn’t enough for Archaon, and Spike’s ‘instincts’ were called into question. Archaon rebuked him as only coveting Rarity for the crystals clutched to her body like tumors, and that lit his blood on fire.

Spike killed his second Griffon, hacking her black-feathered head from her neck in a single blow. One of them, at a passing glance looked familiar, screeched, and the rest shot skyward like a flock spooked from the trees.

For a moment, Spike thought them on the run, until the Kislevites rushed to take their place.

Rarity was close by him, unleashing immaterial magic on the defenders. Though most blows between them were directed at Spike, he protected her when a blade or arrow looked to be aimed true. Blood ran down his wings as the ribbed edges had deflected more than a dozen blows aimed for the sorceress.

On climbing the berm, Spike breathed a gout of flame to flush out the enemy warriors. Rocks baked, and flesh disintegrated. The cultists had done their work in carrying the fight to them, and now the Decadent Host stormed over their dead. The twin towers guarding the gate to the Citadel boomed over the mutual butchery, blowing gouges through the oncoming horde.

Spike and Rarity slammed their backs against the wall, under the guns.

“Is Fluttershy coming for the gates?” asked Spike.

Rarity touched a hand to her forehead, and it came away bloody. She didn’t seem overly bothered by this, to Spike’s surprise. “She looked quite banged up from the first attack. She might still be getting repaired-”

A whistling shriek drowned her out. Heaving its weight to crest the hill, an iron platform hissed of steam, and shone dazzlingly with a thousand lights. Wide, spiked wheels carried it along, powered by a roaring engine, spewing jets of flame skyward. A team of dwarfs tended to the beast’s iron heart, and under an armor-glass bubble, a band performed, oblivious to the battle.

At the microphone, Vinyl Scratch danced and would sing herself hoarse by the time the day was done. Like her bandmates, her body was slick with sweat, but she was in bliss to the music, blaring from the mounted loudspeakers.

“Bringers of destruction are ravaging the land. Fury of the Northmen, a force to reckon with. Sets the world on fire, then turns to strike again. Flames are burning higher, the heads keep rolling!”

The cultists parted before the iron daemon as its piston-driven scythes and drills ground to animation, whipping at the air and ground with near-living hunger for something to eviscerate.

Bullets continued to rain onto the chaos horde, but for every one that fell, his place was filled up. Nothing appeared to make any difference in the sea of fanatics.

The Iron Daemon’s appendages tore at the Citadel gate, splinters and shards of iron flying with each hammer blow, and chewing of the drill.

Too quickly. They broke though far too quickly. Shaggoths, giants, and such terrible abundance of magic. The Citadel would fall. They were already in. Praag would burn.

Alexandre Rokossovsky looked up as the room shook with the sound of a distant explosion. Dust and pebbles shook loose from the ceiling. Sergai was dead, and Alexandre hoped he made good use of his grenade belt.

Wounded men surrounded him, barely able to stand, but still holding a rifle or blade, the last of the CItadel holed up in the top of the central spire.

“Someone's coming,” Valentin said, taking his ear from the door.

The walking wounded took up positions, some whispering last wishes of strength from Tor and Ursun.

Alexandre tossed Valentin a charge. “Give them a grenade.”

Valentin yanked the strip, and the explosive sparked to life. Cracking the door open, he tossed it out and slammed it shut. There was a brief panic outside, and a crump of detonation. Some of the soldiers smiled or chuckled at making the enemy suffer, even in their last moments.

The doorknob glowed orange suddenly, wisps of green flame coming through the keyhole. The brass melted away in seconds. Knuckles whitened around handles. Fingers twitched on triggers.

Slowly, the door creaked open, and none fired on the figure, guarded by a great silver shield. They backed up as he took a step inside. Nothing to shoot at, he was guarded head to toe. A pair of slitted green eyes fell on Alexandre, and the figure leveled a massive sword at him.

“The battle is over,” it growled.

Alexandre Rokossovsky plucked the last grenade in the Citadel from his waistcoat.

“Then I accept your surrender.”