The SDS Commander sat on the upper slopes of a glacier and watched as his battlegroup deployed about the Killing Caves of the Westering Isles. Below him, the massed ranks of his own FirstBorn Regiment stretched out across the slopes of the dormant volcano at the heart of the island.
Wave after wave of cloaked Imperials took up their positions in support of the heavy cavalry and troll marines now disembarking from transports and battlegalleons anchored close off-shore. Overhead, Imperials flew inland before stopping to hover at five hundred strides.
‘Go! Go! Go!’
Ropes snaked down, and barely half a bell later, three hundred strike teams – nearly ninety thousand lightly armed Bonecracker commandos – had abseiled down and swiftly taken up position at the inland entrances to underground caverns and combs that riddled the island.
The Witching Hour approached – the time when magic was at its most potent.
The Earl beckoned his standard bearer forward. ‘Give the signal.’
A beam of light streaked into the sky and exploded in twin white starbursts. The whole island was bathed in cold, white, slow-burning light, as bright as twin full moons. The battle had begun.
EEEEEareeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkeeee!
Like the drumming roll of thunder the heavily armoured Sabretooths, Spitting Adders and Vipers stormed the outer caves, broad chests mowing down hobgoblins like living battering rams, great taloned feet crushing the soft-skinned warriors beneath them as they charged into the gloom, flaming as they went.
Uttering their bloodcurdling clan battle cries, the Bonecrackers entered the fray.
‘Fire in the hole!’
BOOM!
The Tunnel Rats, escorted by Bonecrackers, were now deep underground, the steady rumble of their onslaught on the spawning pools reverberating like an earthquake. Tons of rock fell into the steaming water, rich with minerals that nursed the young hobgoblins in spring.
Galtekerion flinched in the tepid waters of the deep hibernation pools as the thunder of battle pounded overhead, the sounds magnified by water; but he held his warriors back.
‘They will use their cave dragons supported by the Bonecrackers to clear the combs,’ the Warlock had revealed, ‘and drive you into their mounted brigades and Marines deployed on the beaches. And beyond them cloaked Imperials will make sure none make the safety of the sea.
‘Hold your experienced warriors back,’ he commanded the Hobgoblin Warlord. ‘Give them all available food to keep them strong. Sacrifice the old, the young, the weak. Do not let them know – their flight will be all the more convincing. Let them blunt the blades of our enemies, weaken their arms.’
Galtekerion’s eyes glowed in the depths. The plan unfurled as the Warlock had foretold.
‘Flame! Flame!’
Leaping and screaming, poorly armed hobgoblins poured out of the caves to be met by a withering wave of dragonfire that vaporized the ice and turned the sand to glass.
As the smoke cleared, bugle notes rang out, and the SDS Commander unleashed his heavy brigades.
‘Charge!’
Line upon line of Cuirassiers smashed into the closely packed ranks of hobgoblins trapped between the cliffs and the Imperials.
‘Hold the line! Keep in formation!’
With savage joy, the Magma dragons pounded the hated hobgoblins into the sand beneath taloned toes tipped with barbed sheaths, whilst they struck out with their heads to seize limbs and sever heads with a single bite. Their armoured riders used their lances again and again, a swift jab, withdrawal, another, then another, leaving bodies piled in the frozen black sand. But the tide of the hobgoblins kept coming, and soon the SDS cavalry were utterly exhausted.
‘Fall back! Fall back to the transports!’ the bugles cried.
Streaming forwards in their wake, the desperate hobgoblins slammed into the waiting Marines’ shield wall, ten ranks deep.
‘Stand your ground!’ Sergeants cried as the first battlespells arced overhead. ‘Stand your ground, lads!’ But as the hour of the Stroppy Capercaille and dawn tinged the horizon, the heavily armoured trolls of the Marines, too, fell back to their waiting transports and battlegalleons, and Imperials supported by Frost Dragons entered the fray. Purple flames blossomed across the shoreline and the hobgoblins faltered. The battle seemed lost.
‘Hide in your deep hibernation pools where they cannot reach you. Let them think they have cleared the combs,’ the Warlock commanded Galtekerion, ‘then rise up about them. Slaughter them and their cave dragons in the combs where the Imperials cannot support them. Then drive those that survive out onto the beaches. Wait until they have landed their dragons to deploy fresh troops and airlift their injured, wait until the dragons are on the beaches and rocks, and then strike! Release the razorbacks!’
‘And you, Lord?’
‘I will unleash the Abyss upon them …’
Galtekerion shuddered as the taint of the Maelstrom swirled darkly about the Warlock like smoke. Who was this sorcerer who sought the dark rule of the maelstrom?
‘The trollsss are retreating, Lord, to the transports as you sssaid they would.’ the hobgoblin warrior was young and could not understand why the WarLord had not attacked, why so many hobgoblins lay dead. ‘The Imperialssss have decloaked and have taken to the field.’
Galtekerion signalled his bodyguard. ‘It issss time.’ He bared his fearsome teeth. A horn wailed its grating command as Galtekerion and his heavily armed warriors kicked for the surface of the hibernation pools. Webbed feet and powerful thigh muscles propelled them swiftly towards the flame-licked surface above. A hundred thousand hobgoblins shot up and out of the pools, landing in the middle of the attacking Bonecrackers.
‘Now, my warriorsssss,’ Galtekerion hissed, a huge war mallet in his hands as he crushed a dozen commandos. ‘Now we strike back at the Dragon Lordssss. It is they who are trapped.’
Weapons spun and commandos died before they even knew what was happening. Nets dragged the exhausted cave dragons into the deep pools.
In the deeps, the ominous beat of dragonskull drums began.
Boom … boom …
Crying out their ululating cry, the elite warriors leaped out of the caves and onto the open battlefield, intent on total destruction of the SDS.
The Earl Rufus frowned. More and more hobgoblins were surging out of the combs which should have been completely cleared. There was no sign of his Sabretooths or Adders, and the thunderous detonations of the Tunnel Rats had ominously fallen silent.
Sensing that the tide of the battle was turning, the Commander signalled three wings of his waiting FirstBorn regiment to engage the enemy immediately. Time to see the battlefield for himself.
‘Mount up, Time to stretch our wings!’
Brothers … sisters … Stormcracker sang as he raised his wings and bared his fearsome teeth.
‘Dive! Dive! Dive!’ The Earl’s deep voice carried over the chaos of the battlefield, as purple smoke from Stormcracker’s nostrils billowed about him. The cloaked Imperials glided down over the glacier through the churning rainbow smoke, flaming as they went, a lung-searing whirlwind of hot wind, fire and death. Howls of rage and a rain of arrows and darts rose up to greet them.
Death, death to the dragon-eaters, the dragons sang as they battled amongst the hobgoblins surging onto the beaches, crushing and breaking and burning.
Boom … boom … boom …
Galtekerion faltered as wave after wave of hated Imperials materialized on the battlefield, deploying fresh troops and vaporizing his warriors. Doubt niggled at the back of his mind as spells and incantations arced and exploded in prisms of light, brilliant against the darkness, as the Dragon Lords unleashed their battlemagic on the field and his banners fell back against the crumbling cliffs. Bolts of fire rained down, punching holes in his massed ranks. Even with the trap reversed, the battle now hung in the balance.
Boom … boom … boom …
‘Stay in formation …’
Flanked by his cloaked household guard the SDS Commander banked slowly over the cliffs and beaches, studying the seething battle below. If he didn’t know better, he would say that the hobgoblin banners were fighting in wedge formation, heaviest warriors to the fore, the lesser tribes behind with nets and spears.
And they were not creatures roused from semi-hibernation, unarmoured, weak and weaponless, like those who had been driven out of the combs with the first strike attack. These huge tattooed warriors were fully armed veterans from all thirteen tribes fighting together, ragged tribal standards whipping in the wind. Then he saw another topped by a dragon skull in the thick of the press.
‘Galtekerion!’ he breathed in horror, searching the seething hordes below. The Warlord was clearly alive and held back his best troops, as if he had known all along what tactics the SDS would employ! He was directing the tribes according to their fighting strengths, a tactic hitherto unheard of amongst the undisciplined thirteen tribes. This was a trap!
‘Fall back!’ he ordered his officers. ‘First Born and Nightstalkers, combat retreat. SeaReavers, cover us …’ The Earl’s standard bearer raised his battlestaff. Two balls of red streaked into the air to explode, followed by white.
‘Combat retreat! Combat retreat!’
Seeing the SDS waver in uncertainty, Galtekerion roared: ‘SSSSSSSSummon them!’
A horn blasted out, the sound carrying far beneath the icy water. Its call was answered by a fearsome cry that promised death.