The Wardens of Burden have been charged with the defence of Hammer’s End, and not a moment too soon. Word has reached Azyr that the colony is under attack from Kruleboys; the original Stormcast garrison has been entirely wiped out protecting the mortals, and now only local forces remain. The Kruleboys press them hard, and unless divine intervention takes place it is likely that the newly founded settlement will be burned out and its inhabitants subjected to a gruesome fate.
Thankfully for Hammer’s End, Sigmar had ordained divine intervention this day, and the Wardens of Burden would be borne by lightning to see it delivered.
The Concussors, Iulus and Metima atop Kalanx and Yttixar, were deployed first onto the battlefield. They struck down next to the Freeguild rallying in the centre of Hammer’s End for a last stand, their puissant arrival briefly pausing the combat as mortals and Orruks alike looked on in awe and shock at the Stormcast and Dracoths. The Orruks quickly rallied and surged forwards once more, seeing that they still massively outnumbered the Concussors still. By their reckoning, they would hack down the flashy Stormgitz and their mounts, and despoil Hammer’s End for their own sadistic pleasure.
However, the Concussors were not alone. Two more strikes of lightning stabbed down into Hysh’s luminescent earth; one bore the Fulminators T’gihan and Wyttige riding Borrilos and Jaxigar upon one flank of the Orruks, while the other struck perilously close to the Murknob leading the Kruleboy warband. From it stepped forth Ahvria, bearing the Lord-Celestant Tcimmera Skybrow herself, her eyes fixed squarely upon the Murknob’s sins. The trap had been sprung.
Without a command needing to be said, the Wardens of Burden charged into the Kruleboys, and like an implacable vice crushed them entirely. The Orruks were slaughtered in their entirety by the sheer force of the unleashed Dracothian Guard, with only serious wounds recieved by the Stormcast in return. The Murknob fought viciously against Tcimmera, but in the end his nerve broke and he attempted to flee, only to be run down and mauled to death by Ahvria.
But the peril was not yet over. Tcimmera turned to the Freeguild, frozen in shock at the carnage, and bellowed at them to move. With a jolt they instinctively obeyed her, running towards the Stormcast, and not a moment too soon. Ramshackle grenades soared through the air and detonated to where they’d been standing, prompting cries of anger and dismay from the Hobgrot Slittas who had spent the battle sneakily sidling up to the Freeguild, anticipating ambushing them. Before the smoke and fumes of the grenades were even spent, the Concussors launched themselves past the Freeguild and erupted onto the Hobgrots with such a force that they were destroyed before they could even think to retreat.
Thus ended the siege of Hammer’s End. As the Freeguild recovered from the ordeal, they found that to their amazement not a single one of Sigmar’s faithful had fallen since the Stormcast’s arrival. Such was the power of the Wardens of Burden, the Sky-That-Touches-The-Horizon’s grim judgement.
