To End the Everwinter

Frostlord Bjorgulf sat in the saddle of his Stonehorn, Mjawrn, scowling as he watched a prophecy in its death throes.

He had led his tribe deep into the Realm of Death. He had cut a swathe through the underworlds. Mortals and monsters alike had felt his warriors’ bite. Legions of corpses lay gnawed and frozen in his wake, all in service to the voice that howled in his dreams.

Bjorgulf, had the power to end the Everwinter. The voice told him, night after night, roaring and bellowing like the gales through the mountain passes. He would lead his ogors and their mighty beasts to the very heart of the deadlands, and there feast upon the carcass god in his black city of night. So was it foretold.

Victory had followed victory until today. Here, on this grey tundra, beneath the gaze of basalt statues the size of castles, defeat threatened. The ice winds blew, driving sheets of snow across the battlefield, but the enemy’s fire flared and roared in response. Humans and aelves. Weakflesh, all of them, but in huge numbers and armed with firesticks a-plenty.

Bjorgulf could have bypassed this weakflesh army, but that would have made him weakflesh himself. No, he was compelled to destroy and devour all that stood in his way.

Bjorgulf stood in his stirrups, sweeping his gaze across the milling ogor beast-riders that surrounded him. They had rallied around their Frostlord after being driven back from the heights for a second time. Many were wounded, wild-eyed with hunger and fury. Their steeds prowled and snarled, Mournfangs snapping at Thundertusks, which gave subsonic rumbles of anger. Stonehorns stomped, threatening to pull away from their masters’ control and rampage. What had been a mighty hunt was now a ragged band of raiders, more than half their number gone, morale crumbling.

It would not do.

Bjorgulf sucked in a deep breath of icy air and let out a ferocious bellow.

‘We are the winter that ends the winter!’ he roared. ‘We are the avalanche! We will feast upon the carcass of a god and end the Everwinter! Do you doubt?’

His warriors roared back at him, shaking their heads and gnashing their teeth. The Frostlord kicked his heels into his steed’s flanks and lowered his gallowbone lance. Mjawrn’s hooves bit deep as the Stonehorn propelled himself uphill. The ground shook and the winds howled as the last of Bjorgulf’s tribe gave a mighty cry and followed their Frostlord in the charge.

Projectiles whipped around Bjorgulf. Explosions lit the slopes as the enemy’s fire-weapons spoke. Ogors and beasts were torn apart. Still he drove his charge home, and the howling of the dreamvoice melded with his own war cry as he crashed into the enemy lines. It took long moments of slaughter and bloodshed before he realised that he fought alone.

The last of his tribe, surrounded, outnumbered. Doomed.

Bjorgulf hawked and spat.

‘This for prophecy,’ he snarled in disgust, moments before a cannonball took his head from his neck.

Captain Hemsler blew out a breath through his moustache as the last ogor beast-rider fell.

As the din of shooting stopped, an eerie quiet settled. None of Hemsler’s surviving soldiers cheered. They looked at one another uneasily, talking quietly and checking over their dwindling ammunition supplies. The icy winds moaned, and flurries of snow continued to fall. Already the carcasses of ogor and beast were vanishing beneath the white blanket, indistinct carrion mounds.

‘Well, that’s an end to it then, eh, Llethryn?’ said Hemsler, glancing at the aelven Loremaster that accompanied his command. He disliked how much his question came out sounding like an entreaty.

‘I do not know, Captain,’ said Llethryn, head tilted to one side as though listening. ‘The ogors are slain, yet the unnatural storm that accompanied them has not lifted.’

‘Best redress the ranks and be away from here as quickly as we can then, eh?’ said Hemsler with forced cheer. ‘After all, we’ve a duty yet to Sigmar and it’s not exterminating ogors. I’ll not have it said we were the last army to join the march on Nagashizzar.’ He gestured to his lieutenants, who began barking orders. Drums rattled hollowly. Signal banners waved.

‘I must concur, Captain,’ said Llethryn, his frown deepening. ‘There is something disquieting at work here. The sooner we depart this ill-omened place, the better.’

Before the Loremaster finished speaking, Hemsler was overtaken by inexplicable dread. He cringed when, a moment later, the regimental scouts raised cries of alarm.

‘What is it?’ he asked as soldiers milled around him, and exhausted artillery crews stood to their pieces. ‘Anyone? What’s out there?’

The snows had closed in, swirling wildly around the Freeguild positions and dropping visibility to a stone’s throw. The first moans came, carrion cries rising from beyond the grave to chill the hearts of men. Glowing shapes whipped through the snowfall, shrieking spectres and madly spiralling ghasts.

Behind the spectral terrors came more corporeal foes, masses of staggering corpses riddled with frostbite and – in many cases – part-eaten. They stumbled up the hill from every side, emerging from the snows with glassy eyes shining and blackened fingers grasping. They were the dead the ogors had left in their wake, all those they had reaved through and feasted upon, pursuing them to extract revenge.

‘Form up!’ bellowed Helmser. ‘Sergeants, redress to face the enemy! Artillerymen, grapeshot! Fight, in Sigmar’s name, fight!’

To his fury, Hemsler saw that Llethryn had sunk to his knees. The aelf closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

‘It is too late, Captain, for the ogor-slain are legion. We shall march alongside them soon enough.’

Hemsler wheeled, looking for any sign of hope. Over the heads of his beleaguered soldiers, down amongst the ruins of the battlefield, snow-draped mounds were stirring. One by one, the ogors and their beasts stumbled back to their feet, eyes staring white orbs, maws hanging open. The dead pressed in from every side as the winds of the Everwinter screamed and howled.

For a moment, Hemsler almost fancied the sound formed words.

Then the dead were upon him, moaning, clawing.

His pistol barked, then fell silent.

PRODUCED BY GAMES WORKSHOP IN NOTTINGHAM

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