“WHO ARE WE ASTRAL TEMPLARS!?” shouted Adonias Thunderheart as his warhammer split a Gor’s skull.
“FIRST TO STRIKE!” replied his Stormcast brethren, charging forward to meet the onrushing Beasts of Chaos. The warband smashed aside the first wave of Beastmen. They quickly reorganized to prepare for the impending counter.
“WHO ARE WE!?” shouted Lord-Imperitant Garbaldis as he split two ungors in half with his massive storm axe.
“LAST TO BREAK!” came the reply as the Beasts slammed into the Vindictors shield wall. Immovable like Azyrite statues, dead Gors and Ungors bounced off the Astral Templars line singed or impaled. Lightning streaked across their shields and spears as a storm of Azyrite fury was unleashed upon the Beastherd.
Nearby, lightning slammed the earth. The ayzyrite energy solidified into two Stormstrike Chariots in burgundy and gold colors. With Garbaldis’ guidance, the chariot, led by Taltalo Furyspear and Jagacia the Worthy, descended on the Beasts’ flank and carved deep into their ranks. Blood, flesh, and fur exploded where the chariots moved. Behind it, Annihilators pushed forward. Slow as they moved, everything in front of them died from their meteoric hammers.
A recent addition to the Astral Templars, Taltalo and Jagacia’s chariot crews had quickly become a fast-attack option for the Stormcasts to control the battlefield and hammer the enemy at their weak points. While their combat skills were respectable, their personalities were quite brash, even for Garbaldis.
“Try to keep up!” shouted Jagacia. “We’ll have the chieftain’s skull by the time you’re done with this rabble”
The battlefield was a storm of destruction, yet more of the Children of Chaos emerged to confront the enemies of the dark gods.
“Oh good! More beasts!” jested Garbaldis. “I was beginning to think they weren’t going to give us a proper challenge.”
“Don’t count your victory before the last blade falls,” spoke Adonias as he approached the Lord-Imperitant. “The curs hide their true strength, but we have taken them by surprise. The real fight lies ahead.”
“I have yet to begin to fight!” boasted Garbaldis. He struck down two charging warhounds then pushed forward. “With me, Astral Templars. We have a Chieftain to slay! For the God-King!”
It was just days earlier that the Astral Templars swore to remove the Beastmen and their chieftain as part of their allegiance to the Clans of the Packhome. Inside the Great Tent of Packhome, the Stormcasts were but one of many parties invited by the Huntmaster. The discussion focused on maintaining the environmental order across the Hungering Steppe and uncovering the cause of the mysterious rumblings.
Those rumblings would sometimes open chasms and were responsible for the mass migration of beasts across the plains of the Hungering Steppe. The Packhome’s clans were not immune, with some forced to leave their ancestral grounds. Yet the rumblings unintentionally drove out a Beastherd from its hidden den on the outskirts of Packhome territory near the Fangwood. The leaders had previously lost contact with several clanmates and caravans in recent weeks but could not uncover the cause of the disappearances. Now with the Beasts in the open, the time to strike was now.
The Hungering Steppes rumbled once more, breaking the fury of battle at the edge of the forest. Sensing fear among the Beastmen, Garbaldis roared a challenge.
Whether he had the desired intention or not, the Beastherd turned their back and fled into the thickening trees of the Fangwood.
“It seems they fear you more than the realm itself,” joked Adonias. “Sigmar knows how our allies put up with your pleasantries, Garbaldis.”
“Our reputation precedes us, Adonias,” he said. “We tame the realms for Sigmar and the mortal races. These Beasts know what comes for them.”
He cleaned his storm axe before commanding:
“We enter the beasts’ lair to bring Sigmar’s sanctification. The children of chaos are not defeated so easily. Be ready for the worst that chaos can throw at us. Sigmar is with us!”
The Astral Templars followed the beastmen’s scent, arms at the ready. Taltalo and Jagacia were dispatched ahead to scout the area while the rest of the warband marched as one. The forest around them appeared to warp the deeper they went. They were barely a mile into the Fangwood, but the air around them thickened with chaos magic, and the taint of corruption began to scar the land around them. The red leaves of the trees began to drip blood red, and the bone-like bark was ash in some places.
The first ambush came from the trees. Ungors unleashed countless inaccurate arrows from high branches, while Gors diving headfirst into the burgundy force. The stormcasts raised their shields and formed into a porcupine formation.
“Strike to the sky brothers!” ordered Garbaldis as he blocked an incoming arrow with his skull-shield.
A handful of stormcasts were crushed by the falling beasts, but most of the Gors were impaled or dispatched on the ground. One bold Gor aimed for Adonias, but it merely bounced off the Lord-Relictor broken. The volley of arrows ceded after a sma contingent of Vanguard Hunters and Raptors picked them off.
The column of stormcasts continued forward for several minutes. Taltalo and Jagacia had yet to return. Perhaps they had become lost in the Fangwood or worse, thought Garbaldis.
An eerie calm settled around them. Not a sound nor scent from the Beastmen could be detected. Only the taint of chaos lingered and guided the Azyrite warriors.
Garbaldis recalled an ancient Balitellan story that adults would tell younglings so they wouldn’t wander alone. The tale spoke of a witch who lured children to her cottage with scents of delicious food or promises of trinkets. The beguiled younglings knew no better and would enter the witch’s cottage, never to be seen again.
Of course, this wasn’t a witch luring Sigmar’s mightiest to their doom. The Astral Templars were aware they were walking straight into the beasts’ lair to root out the taint of chaos. They would have to match the beastmen’s ferocity to survive the impending conflict.
The column stopped. Garbaldis, Adonias, and their warband came across an open patch of earth that bowled at the bottom. At the center were a collection of rudimentary iconography, drawing, and trinkets of different tribes assorted around a massive herdstone. Among the numerous beasts was a tall yet decrepit creature covered in pelts and wielding a braystaff.
“The beasts’ lair presents itself,” said Adonias. “Not that impressive if I’m being honest. The Grots can sculpt better lairs. This is just-”
Seemingly out of thin air, the Beastmen sprung their trap, only now Bestigors, Bullgors, and other monstrosities assailed the stormcasts. Adonias was nearly swarmed by the initial onslaught before some Praetors came to his aid. Gors and Ungors poured through an Annihilators’ shield wall that a Ghorgan had kicked through. A handful of lightning bolts dashed to the sky, the slain stormcasts returning to azyr to await the painful reforging on the Anvil of Apotheosis.
Garbaldis parried a Bestigor’s attack and impaled it with his skull-shield, then threw its corpse into another onrushing foe. The world turned sideways as a Razorgor collided into the Lord-Imperitant’s flank. The boar creature then stomped on the stormcast’s abdomen and tried to gore him with its tusks. Garbaldis grabbed both of them and wrestled with the beast.
Suddenly Garbaldis felt strengthened by the heavens themselves. Adonias was praying nearby, invigorating the stormcasts.
“Stand your ground Astral Templars! We are the alpha predator of this battlefield! Show these curs what it means to fear us,” shouted Adonias. Azyrite energy radiated from him across the stormcasts’ ranks, reinvigorating their strength.
Garbaldis used this renewed power to throw the Razorgor back several feet. Before the Razorgor could charge once more, it was gored through the torso by Taltalo and Jagacia’s Stormstrike Chariot. The duo and their gryph-chargers slammed into several Bullgors, giving the Annihilators some reprieve to reorganize. In tandem, several Vindictors and Annihilators pressed forward to batter their beasties bullies.
“Where in Sigmar’s name have you two been?” spoke Garbaldis as he reorganized his troops. The chariots’ arrival had devastated the ambushers and helped their fellow Astral Templars gain the upper hand.
“A herd of Centigors lured us away from the beasts’ lair,” said Taltalo. “Once we rode them down, we raced back when we heard the sound of battle.”
Jagacia dispensed with an ambitious Gor who tried to sneak up on the duo. Garbaldis couldn’t see her face, but he could sense a big grin on her face.
“You also owe us a thank you,” Jagacia wittily added.
“You’ll have it when this battle is won and I have the Chieftain’s head in my hands,” answered Garbaldis.
“Leave that to us,” the charioteers said in unison.
The invigorated stormcasts drove their ambushers back towards their chieftain. The large goat figure barked orders and apparent threats to rally his troops into some coherent group.
The Beastmen rallied just as the Astral Templars marched forward. The stormcasts stalked like a predator moving in for the kill against a cornered animal.
With bestial war cries shouted from both forces, the battle lines surged towards each other. Garbaldis and Adonias led the bulk of the warband while Taltalo Jagacia and their Stormstrike Chariots drove forward, unafraid of becoming isolated from their brethren.
“Adonias!” the charioteers shouted. Behind them, the Lord-Relictor slammed his reliquary on the ground, commanding Azyr to answer his prayers.
With the stormstrike Chariots yards away, the Beastmen charged, eager for the kill. The chariots suddenly turned to lightning bolts, arced over the Beastmen’s battle line, and hit the earth several yards to their rear. Taltalo, Jagacia, and their chariots reassembled mid-charge, just as their fellow Stormcasts began theirs.
Beastial mindset turned to panic across the faces of the Beastmen. Caught between an anvil and a hammer, the children of chaos unraveled as Taltalo and Jagacia smashed into their rear. Then Garbaldis and his Praetors carved into the Bestigors in the front rank. Annihilators obliterated confused Bullgors, while the rest of the warband closed the noose.
It was a bloodbath akin to a lion ripping apart its prey. A mortal might look with pity upon the Beastmen. For the Astral Templars, it was maintaining the natural balance of order within the realms.
Even for Garbaldis, the fury of their execution was solid, yet worrying. A small dread continued to build in the back of his mind that his fellow thunderstrike brethren, worn from countless reforgings, were becoming the very beats that they hunted.
He pondered as Adonis and several Astral Templars tore down the beastmen’s herdstone, then lost his train of thought as Jagacia smacked him in the chest with an odd rock.
No. It wasn’t a rock. It was the chieftain’s head.
The Lord-Imperitant looked down, then to Jagacia. She nodded her head in a mocking acknowledgment.
“Thank you,” he finally said.
