That Night...?

[Okor]

Things were going poorly, to say the least. Almost half of the hunters lay bleeding in the earth, returned to the earth; Gavsson’s famed sight now sunk into the mire, while Saalrik the Strong’s guts spilled out into the swamp. That was to say nothing of the burned husk that was once Bjaarn’s face, the grin that had stolen the hearts of barmaids across Darkshire before he discovered God now turned to ash and cinders.

As much as Nurgle valued a backbone in his followers, it remaining inside of his followers’ bodies was much preferred by The Gangrenous God. Pustules upon Gudrun’s body popped, releasing festering fumes into the air as he drew a dilapidated handbow from a holster at his side, a bolt coated in infected fluids and the fetid muck of the moors held in place by taut wire and driftwood. A guttural cry emerged from his throat as he aimed the contraption at the armoured newcomer, his contagion-riddled kin briefly pausing in their struggles as their Alpha’s call and his infested pheromones reached their dulled senses.

Saalras the Swift’s cudgel clashed against a glowing corona of energy emitted by the prayer beads wrapped around the crusader’s wrist, a snarl coming forth from his festering maw. His hand struck out as the sister riposted, his hand arresting the blade’s momentum as it split his palm in two. The hunter smiled as his claws wrapped around the blade embedded in his hand, dragging the divine warrior off-balance. With the sister staggered, a shaft whistled through the air, its toxic tip piercing her plate and sinking into her shoulder, eliciting a cry of pain and hate from the Hospitaller as she pulled her sword back, sending severed fingers falling to the ground.

Blood dripped from the hunters’ wounds as they started to pull back, splattering against the sodden earth in a grim haruspex, a sanguine script foretelling the bloodshed to come, tangled lengths of chains and corroded steel contraptions shed in favour of speed. While their original prey was content to watch them depart from behind her shield, a little voice at the back of her mind asking if she would ever be able to wipe the blood clean from her blade, the newcomer was much more aggressive. With a cry to her dead God, she tore the bubonic bolt from her shoulder, squeezing off shots as her slowly deadening arm hefted her las-gun, spears of scintillating scarlet energies scything through the undergrowth and scorching the backs of the fleeing hunters.

With a crack, a coruscating crimson beam lanced into the heel of Halgrim, the youngest of the band falling into the mire with a grunt, scrambling for his weapon in the waterlogged, muddy earth. A vengeful cry echoed from behind him as the sister as she raised her sacred blade, blessed boots stomping through the swamp. As her consecrated ceramite greaves descended, being met with a crack as corroded jaws of steel clamped around her ankle, tainted teeth biting into her anointed armour as she struggled to free herself from its cruel embrace.

Gunnar stepped forward as the remainder of his pack turned tail, standing over his still-struggling companion as he lashed out with the back of his hand, the Hospitalier’s raised blade flensing fur and flesh from his arm as he did so. His own blow struck home as the Sister refused to relent, a spray of blood accompanied by a broken tooth flying from her mouth as she sunk her sword into his side on the backswing. As Ascalon ground against his ribs, the huntsmaster snarled and drove his head down, cracking sacred skulls together and driving the Sister back as the bear trap’s rusted construction gave way.

Wiping blood from the Fleur De Lis emblazoned upon her cheek, the sister gripped the hilt of her blade with both gauntlets, the familiar sensation of pain creeping its way back into her previously deadened arm. “Hellspawn,” she snarled through gritted teeth, bile and blood seeping down the edge of her weapon as she steadied herself, bone-forged needles stitching the cultist’s wounds shut before her eyes.

Gudrun’s axe was raised high in the air, its rusted edge caked with dried blood, flakes flying free at it descended. It would have rent the Crusader’s ceramite plating asunder, were it not for the bullet that impacted into his wrist, driving the heavy blade off-course and into the dirt. The Amazon advanced forward, her transformative weapon shifted into the form of a rifle, resting atop her golden, blood-soaked shield, eyes hard behind the sights of the firearm.

“No more,” she said, the three warriors momentarily paused, breathing hard as they prepared for the next burst of violent activity.

Bone erupted from the Cultist’s wound, a freshly-formed exoskeleton wrapping itself around his wrist as he dredged his weapon up from the marsh, chuckling, no, cackling as he bared a mouth filled with stolen fangs.

“There will always be more for you, spawn of The Smiling One. The demiurge did not steal you from your life to be at peace,” he smacked the flat of his axeblade into his palm as he cracked his neck, twisted vertebrae protesting. “You will kill, you will die, and you will kill again, until he tires of you.”

He stepped forward, infected eyes staring out from beneath his bear-hide hood, darting between blades and bucklers, axe held at the ready so strike down his foes. “But this day, the Lord of All reclaims his dutiful children.”