Sixty-four times had the realms bled at the hands of Sonaht, Daemon Prince of the Thousand Cuts. Each time a massive host had to be assembled to obliterate the followers of the follower of Khorne and the massed ranks of his blood-soaked warriors.
Each time that massive host had been nearly wiped out and Sonaht had made the forces of order pay an unimaginable blood-price. Each time a little bit more of the Mortal Realms had fallen to Chaos as the forces aligned against him had to be drawn from threats elsewhere.
The monster was so reviled and feared that a Stormhost had been dedicated to putting an end to his threat forever. They had waited for their chance and it was now upon them.
It was not hot but the air blurred like a heat-haze. The metallic plain stretched before the warriors in the gleaming silver armour seemingly forever in every direction. It ran to their right, to their left, in front of them, behind them, even up and down somehow. There was no shine to the iron-like surface, soaked as it was in blood. The horizon was dotted with small structures, altars, ruins of buildings, industrial machinery of some unguessed at purpose and skulls. Skulls were underfoot, they paved paths through the realm, they floated in rivers of blood.
It had cost the lives of 142 Evocators to bring Celias and his host to the realm of the Blood God, their life energy completely used up in the spell. Never would those heroes rise again, never would they be reforged to fight for Sigmar. Their life essence went into creating this breach.
Celias vowed that it would be worth it.
He shook his head as he tried to come to terms with what he saw. The shifting realm of Chaos was like nothing in the Mortal Realms. Rivers seemed to flow uphill and the ground itself seemed to shift and rock and even quiver.
7
He could feel the very material of his being pulled. Little rivulets of metal started to flow out and up and down from his armoured form. He concentrated, he focused his will on himself and the outflow ceased. The Evocators in his army were already chanting and Celias looked around him, a few of his followers had dissolved in the first few minutes here. Energy flowed from the sorcerer-Stormcast, it gently flowed over his soldiers and then over Celias himself.
The protective encasement was fragile, but it would hold for long enough. They did not have much time to do what they came to do.
With the protective field he now had a better view of the area around him. Saturated with the blood of millions the first step that led up to the brass Throne of Skulls was before him and armies before that.
A thousand angry eyes turned their sight upon the army of Sigmar. Their blood-drenched weapons slowly moving down from where they had been ready to carve into opponents. There were piles of corpses everywhere on the plain. The two forces, mortal and daemon, that had been hewing each other to pieces the moment before now stood in silence and gazed upon the silver host arrayed before them. For one brief moment there was peace in the realm of this God of War.
It was like a Christmas miracle.
If there was Christmas in the Realms of Chaos. Which there was not.
c
The eternal combat of the Blood God's Realm had seen Sonaht fall. The scryers of the Lord Arcnanum had witnessed the event though it cost them the lives of one of their number a day to keep the watch. The Daemon Prince lay at least wounded in one of those piles. Celias was here to make sure that he never rose again.
"Forward," was all he said and the brief respite of war in the Realm of Khorne was gone forever.
4
Welcome, Guest. Please 
April 28, 2024, 05:23:30 AM
February 21, 2011, 06:16:14 PM