Ganbataar Ghiula Khan could not fathom what was happening.

Here he stood, strongest of The Ten Masters of Ginun, favored son of the Abyssal Gods, Great Khan of the infinite Rotten Steppes, Master of the steppe marauders, undisputed Lord of the largest dominions one could attain in Ginungagap, and HE WAS FAILING.

It was inconceivable, it was unfathomable, the sheer ridiculousness of it all would have made him laugh in any other circumstance, but still here he was, at the very edge of his dominion, at the base of the Crimson Pike Mountains, his very sanity precariously on edge.
It was all wrong, down to the very sounds of the battlefield. He could not accept that this blasted battlefield would sound in any way different than any other he had heard in his immortal life. He should have been surrounded by the screams of his enemies as his pike-dead would impale his opponents, the begging of the dying as his steppe raiders bore down on them, the eldritch murmurs of the Abyssal Gods, dark promises of power and eternal life, as his cultists' wicked daggers carved the maimed in honor of the Abyss.

Instead, here he was, his once one hundred thousand strong army reduced to a paltry ten thousand at most, the battlefield ringing only with the breaking flesh and bones of his pike-dead as they smashed uselessly against the gromril steel tower shields of his enemies, his fearless steppe raiders and their nightmare steeds in heaps of broken flesh as his enemies spears and curving blades sliced through them, his thousand and one coven of cultists, nothing more than puddles of blood and gristle, epitaphs of the Abyssal Gods displeasure with their failure.

He had promised the Oracles Malae that he would destroy this opponent in the name of the Abyss, and offer their screaming souls to it’s hungry Gods, yet now, here he stood, risking the same fate, as he fought the Legion of the Damned.

Ganbataar Khan looked again, trying for the thousandth time to find a way to break the Legion, but again he found himself staring only at a perfectly disciplined, impossible to break bulwark.

The Legion of the Damned. Every denizen of Ginun had learned to fear the name only recently. What was a paltry ten millennia ago merely a savage barbaric pack of suicidal maniacs, dangerous yet manageable, had become in the past six hundred years one of the most disciplined and dangerous battalion of suicidal maniacs that had ever crushed the charred lands of Ginungagap under their iron shod boots.

One look was enough for him to approximate the number of opponents. About four hundred gigantic warriors, each of them head and shoulders taller than an ogre, closed in on his position with the methodical and unstoppable force of a collapsing mountain. They were arrayed perfectly and every foot forward was made in lockstep offering no openings. The first row, two hundred warriors clad in black iron plate regalia, wielding thick tower shields the height of their entire body in one hand and spears or their wicked curved glaives in the other. Second row, one hundred light weight shock troops, protected only by black iron greaves, sabatons and scale-mail kilts over cured leather pants but otherwise bare chested and bare headed. Each one wielded a great curved sword, great ax or dual wielded two weapons with perfect stance and discipline. Whenever Ganbataar’s armies faltered against the shield wall and fell under their glaives and spears, the shields would go up and the shock troops would attack and reign havoc amongst the demoralized armies. The last row was comprised of one hundred drake-flame arquebusiers, flint-lock gunners and dragon-breath cannon teams.

Behind them stood the granite edges of the cauldron-like area that he had fallen in. An enormous mining quarry at the base of the mountains known as the Arms of the Giant and he had fallen into this trap like a damned greenhorn. There were only two openings into the quarry. One went back to the steppes and the other into the very heart of the mountains, and now both were blocked. Even worse, the bubble of shimmering mist around the gigantic quarry completely trapped them. His harpies had died trying to escape the quarry the moment they had touched the mist, their flaming carcasses falling on top of Ganbataar’s armies like the rain of some sadistic god. Not even his steppe raiders could leave the quarry as, even though their nightmare steeds could easily climb the walls, the moment they touched the mist, thunder would roar and lighting would kill.

No, Ganbataar was trapped, and the constricted space had made his enormous armies a hindrance rather than an advantage, dead-pike infantry unable to flank the enemy and his steppe raiders unable to even charge. He had no mobility while the small battalion of the Legion had the perfect position. His only options were to shatter the Legion and retreat into the mines under the mountains or reach the opening towards his domain, the steppes.

Ganbataar cursed again. Not one. Not one of his enemies had fallen. His enemy worked as a well oiled machine, each warrior supporting and working in tandem with the next, in a display of discipline of such magnitude that he could not even begin to imagine the amount of training they must have done to achieve such synergy.

Four hundred warriors had gone against over one hundred thousand at dusk, and now four hundred warriors stood against little over ten thousand at dawn. No, he corrected himself, not four hundred, four hundred and one. His monstrous head turned towards the steppe opening of the quarry to regard the lone warrior of the Legion that stood atop a mountain of corpses, the bloody remnants of over one third of his army. Ganbataar’s third eye started twitching and both his mouths started snarling as he regarded the gigantic warrior in the distance and the shimmering bracelet around the warrior’s right hand.

Whomever this creature was, Ganbataar could not decide whether he was a genius tactician or simply insane. Just as the Legion blocked the opening to the mine, the lone warrior blocked the opening to the steppes. The warrior had purposefully made itself a target by blocking the escape route and by wearing the bracelet. To the magic seeing eyes of the demons of Ginun the bracelet was connected to the mist that hovered above the quarry and blocked escape and it was obviously the key to dispelling it. With two thirds of his army having engaged the Legion at the opposite opening, Ganbataar had wasted over thirty thousand warriors to kill the lone warrior and now they were all dead and broken, a frustrating monument to his failure.

Useless cowards, he thought as he signaled the last of his warriors to attack the Legion.

“I will deal with that defying insect myself" he snarled, then called “Malakai”.

His first lieutenant, Malakai Dal-Khan, prostrated his hulking form before the Khan. Despite his demonic body being the size of a mammoth, the demon knew better than to defy the warlord.

“Yes my lord”.

“Call my royal guard, you lead the rest of the army and put an end to the Legion”.

Malakai stiffened. He had seen what had happened to the bulk of the army and now he was expected to take the Legion with a paltry ten thousand?

“…But … my lor…” he began.

Before he could even finish the sentence, Malakai’s tusked head fell from his shoulders, parted by Ganbataar’s glaive, the Screaming Horn.
“Malakas” Ganbataar roared “you and the rest of the army destroy the Legion”.

Malakas Jul-Khan, was quick to kneel and agree with the Khan , not wanting to share in his brother’s fate. A later death at the hands of the Legion was preferable to an instant one at the hands of his warlord.

The ten royal guard , the elite of his army, his strongest warriors, each of them greater daemons, approached Ganbataar.
“Your will , my Khan “

“Ride before me ” Ganbataar’s frustrated mouths screeched in unison “and maim that fool who seeks to defy my will, but leave his head for myself”.

“As you command” all ten royal guard said in unison.

They went ahead as Ganbataar stepped towards his Nightmare steed, Howler .

He would succeed, the Khan thought, he was stronger than all his ten royal guards put together, he was immortal, he was a Lord, he was “ THE FAVORED OF THE GODS “ Ganbataar roared.

Ganbataar put heels to flanks on his nightmare steed as his ten Royal Guards reached the corpse mountain.

They would not fail, they were greater daemons just like him. The warrior may have managed to kill more than a third of his army but they had been only the mindless flesh golem automata of the dead-pike or the lesser daemons that were the steppe riders.

These however, were his ten elite, daemons blessed by the Abyssal gods to become one with their nightmare steeds transforming into centaur horrors. Eons of battle had made their flesh as stone and their bones as strong as iron. Each of them was covered head to clawed foot in thick black steel plate armor, their six legs and lower half horse-like bodies giving each individual’s charge enough strength to drop a fully grown Northern Mammoth.
They had even fought alongside Ganbataar when he had challenged and killed the Primordial Dragon, Mountain Eater whose great fang now made the very blade of his massive glaive.

They would not fail.

As the Royal Guard charged towards the corpse mountain, the warrior sheathed his blade and jumped from the top and into the leading Guard.

“Hmph, a rookie mistake ” snorted Ganbataar from his two mouths. Any sensible warrior would have retreated and tried to circle around towards the Legion at the other side of the quarry. Then again, any sensible warrior would not have stood alone against over thirty thousand enemies.

Odd, for a second he thought he saw his leading Royal Guard’s halberd stop as the warrior smashed the mid-swing halberd into the ground with his left hand.
Again, he thought he saw his Guard fall as the warrior broke it’s spine with the palm of his right hand.

But that was impossible, surely the Abyssal Gods must have been playing tricks on his mind, surely this was merely a test of his determination.

And yet, it happened again, as another Royal Guard charged into the warrior at full speed. The warrior merely took one step forward and the impact sounded like a cannonball hitting a granite mountain. Ganbataar stared in awe as his Royal Guard fell to the ground, his chest, lower body and forelegs caved in and broken by the impact and the Guard’s own momentum. A charge that could down a mammoth had barely halted the warrior's advance.

This…this had to be a joke.

Three Guards attacked in unison and yet it was still the warrior who made the first move. A step forward propelled his shoulder into one Guards chest, caving it in, then beheaded it as he unsheathed his blade. A quick swap of the blade from his right hand into his left and a downward stroke sliced the knees of a second guard who fell screaming face first into the stone ground. Before he even fell completely the warrior took another step towards the last of the three Guards and in the process crushed the fallen Guards skull under his boot.

The last Guard brought his halberd in a massive two handed strike from the left, putting all of it’s half a ton weight behind the strike. Still, the warrior caught it with the base of his blade, near the ornate guard. The halberd and the elite’s arms shuddered as if it had hit an anvil, while the warrior’s arm did not even twitch. A simple twist of the wrist and the tip of the great curved blade was leveled with the Guard’s face, then one thrust and the back of the Guard’s helmet exploded as the sword ran through it's skull.

In the space of three heartbeats, the warrior had killed three of the elite, without changing his stance more than one step. No crouching, no spinning and no useless flashy movements, just a few simple steps and indomitable strength, precision and discipline. The Khan had been wrong, this was no rookie, this warrior was a veteran of the highest caliber.

“All at once. Kill him NOW” the Khan roared as he goaded his steed to greater speed. He was only one hundred steps away and he needed to get there if he wanted to still have some warriors and claim victory without too many unnecessary risks.

As if catalyzed into action, the remaining five guards surged toward the warrior, halberds leveled and battle oaths on their lips.

Eighty steps
Two more Royal Guards disappeared in a gout of hot-white and pale green flame.

Fifty steps
Another fell clutching his throat as it spurt arterial blood.

Thirty steps
A fourth screamed in terror when his arms fell from his body as he started a massive overhead chop.

Ten steps
The last Royal Guard fell apart, as the monstrous sword cleaved through defending halberd, armor, stone muscles and iron bones, bisecting the daemon from crest to crotch in a perfectly angled and executed two handed slash.

Ganbataar Ghiula Khan stood in awe a mere ten feet from the lone warrior. The warrior who had killed a third of his army by himself. The warrior who had torn through the elite as if they had been nothing. He finally got a good look at him.

The warrior stood before him, a gigantic creature clad in the far eastern Nippon style black steel armor of the Legion of the Damned. Just as the warriors of Legion stood head and shoulders above ogres, this warrior was head and shoulders taller than the other Legionnaires and half again as wide at the shoulder. A single green dot stared at him from the depths of his helmet as the light reflected off the warrior’s pupil. Five sheathed curved swords hung at his back and left side while the sixth and largest one was clutched in his gauntlet.

“Most impressive, little insect” the Khan said defiantly, although he did fell his palms sweating on the haft of his glaive.
The warrior said nothing.

“You have killed a few thousand runts and flesh golem automata, Hells, you even managed to carve my elite ten guards ” he continued, his nightmare steed cracking open the beheaded skull of one under it’s hoof.
Still no response , the warrior simply started walking towards the Khan.

“But I am stronger than all ten put together ” The Khan smirked from both his mouths.
The warrior, as silent as the grave, kept walking.

“Know my name and tremble fool, I AM GANBATAAR GHIULA KHAN, LORD OF THE ROTTEN STEPPES, MOST FAVORED OF THE GO…”

No transition. Ganbataar had been alive for untold millenia but he had never seen a warrior attack with absolutely no transition. There had always been a telltale sign that one was about to attack, a small flexing of the chest or arms, a subtle lowering of the center of gravity, his third eye had always picked up on in, but not this time.

From step to dash to cut, the warrior had covered the last few steps that separated them in the time it took to blink and, in a show of insane strength and speed, had sliced through the nightmare steed’s stone hard neck with only one hand on his blade. It was only instincts honed over hundreds of battles that allowed the Khan to parry the blade with the unbreakable bone haft of his blade, and yet he was still thrown of the saddle and landed in a heap seven feet away.

Instincts took over once more and, using the momentum, the Khan rolled, back on his feet in a combat crouch and lifted his glaive with both hands just as the blade fell again. The warrior had not wasted a single fraction of a second and had kept himself right next to the Khan even as Ganbataar had flown through the air and rolled. He stood close, too close for the Khan to be able to properly use his Glaive.

In the space of a few seconds, the warrior threw a maelstrom of blows against the Khan, any blow that hit the Khan’s guard paralyzing his arms with the force behind it and any that bypassed his guard carving a large crest in what was supposed to be an unbreakable armor.
Ganbataar opened both his mouths and let loose a gout of black corrosive smoke, another of the many gifts that Abyss Gods had granted him, but instead of backing away as he had expected, the warrior simply advanced through the smoke. Even as his armor sizzled and corroded, the warrior’s hand shot trough the gloom and grabbed the Khan by the throat as his blade smashed his glaive into the ground and from his grip.

Impossible, for all his size, this creature still barely made it to the top of the Khan’s prodigious belly, and yet, the warrior had grabbed him by the throat and held his one ton bulk above the ground as a grown man would hold a child.
In desperation, Ganbataar let loose a flurry of punches that would have downed a dozen golems, yet not one made the warrior release him. It was as if the was striking an iron statue with his bare fists. The grip on his throat strengthened every second until the Khan’s neckguard cracked and windpipe was crushed.

The Khan let loose a gargled yell and his prodigious belly opened to reveal a massive toothed maw. With a mental incantation he let loose a ball of Abyss Flame, the very stuff of nothingness, the anathema of existence. The black fireball hit the warrior point blank and the armor shattered and broke, but still the grip did not falter.

Even as Ganbataar glared in awe at the broken armor and the wall of impossibly muscled flesh beneath it, he loosed a strangle scream of frustration.

How could he have lost, he was favored of the gods, he had been gifted a hundred dark boons. The psychic yell of the dread spirits in the corrosive smoke should have provoked so much pain in the warrior even trough the armor that he should not have even been able to move. The black flame ball had been a point blank hit and had broken the armor. Even as he watched the warrior, he saw the ruin of his chest, abdomen and neck, nothing but raw muscle, burned purple scales and shards of armor that had pierced the warrior’s flesh at the point of impact.

And still the warrior had not moved, his hand still crushing Ganbataar’s neck with the strength of a mechanical vice.

“Who…in the…nine….Hells…are …you” Ganbataar managed to gargle through his broken throat.
He got no answer, even as the warrior’s blade separated his head from his body, he got no answer, as he fell through the Abyss to the waiting arms of the cackling Abyssal Gods to pay the eternal price for failure.

The warrior watched as the Khan’s carcass putrefied and rotted at an accelerated rate. In a few minutes he would be but dust. He turned towards the great glaive of the former Khan and disconnected the fang of Mountain Eater from the haft.

The seventh of the ten great artifacts of Dragonkind had been recovered.
Spike wanted to smile, but all he could see in the blade’s reflection were six pairs of eyes, some tear-filled, most filled with fear and a few with hatred.

As always, Spike could only see his shame.

Author's Notes:

I've been a lover of books, specially Grimdark Fantasy all my life.
Also as a graphic designer myself i can appreciate good animation when i see it.
So, here's my first try.
MLP is damn good animation with good story and great characters, so why not apply a little grimdark to it?

This is my first try at writing,
Any and all constructive criticism is welcome.

P.S. Yes, the armor that the warrior is wearing is the one in the Cover Image (you can find the original image on Deviantart, i only edited it a little bit).