The marauders tore through the snow, marauding as they went.
Like most of their kind, they were nomadic; there's precious little time to establish crop rotation and a decent irrigation system when you spend the vast majority of your day trying to figure out how to attach more spikes to your armour.
Sadly, this also placed a certain amount of strain on their abilities to pillage, raid and murder in the name of Khorne the Lord of Skulls, since the places with the most maraudable resource (e.g., helpless villages, isolated farms, comely and shrieking maidens) also tended, these days, to be inhabited by a certain number of unwelcome residents (e.g., plucky heroines, stout heroes, those giant seven-barreled cannons on wheels).
As a result, they'd found themselves forced to hunt for worthwhile prey out in the frozen, inhospitable depths of Norsca - the uncharted continent.
It hadn't gone terribly well so far. Yesterday, they'd sadistically dismembered a small silver birch. This morning, they'd shouted 'Aaargh' at an arctic hare, which ran away.
More than one of them was relieved when they caught sight of something peculiar, high up in the crags and steppes of the mountain range just beyond their encampment.
Smoke rising, over the hills.
Closer inspection revealed a peculiarly-angled structure; a kind of stone temple, protruding from the mountain range, its approach marked by a thousand winding steps down the face of the cliff.
Braziers, set in burnished gold, were blazing blue flame at the building's entrance.
The heavy stone doors were wide open, leading into darkness.
Drawing their axes and lighting their torches, the marauders boldly entered, shouting "Blood for the Blood God" to nobody in particular.
Venturing down the black, dripping corridors, and losing quite a few of their number to the expected pits and deathtraps (including one rather younger marauder who was actually secretly quite a three-dimensional and sensitive soul and was still working up the courage to show his colleagues just how talented he was at woodworking, but that's peer pressure for you), the band finally stepped out into something like a central chamber.
An impossibly high, rounded ceiling, marked by strange engravings. A single pool of blue icy light descended from an oculus in the very centre.
And not empty, either.
At the farthest end of the room, on a raised platform of stone, eleven identical figures stood in a perfect line.
Their armour was golden, rounded - almost chubby-looking, marked out by enormous shoulder pads. Their faces, too, were golden; blank-faced masks set into smug smiles. Beneath the eye-holes, only darkness.
They looked, frankly, a little ridiculous.
The lead marauder, snarling beneath his breath, climbed the platform and glared at the line of immobile opponents.
Raising his axe without warning, he slammed the blade against the nearest figure's stomach.
An empty, hollow clunk. The figure remained still; its armour unbroken.
The marauder's face creased in confusion.
He hit it again.
Another clunk. Sparks flew off the axe blade; a single chip formed in the iron's edge.
No reaction. Shrugging, he spat towards the statue's feet, turned, and leapt back off the platform.
"Nothing here-" he began.
"PLAY."
The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, reverberating around the chamber.
And then there were two voices. And three. And four.
"PLAY. PLAY. PLAY. PLAY."
The marauder chieftain gazed, bewildered, at his clustered warband - and then turned to stare back at the golden figures.
Their fat golden masks, slowly, creakily, turned to face him.
"PLAY. PLAY. PLAY. PLAY."
Their joints contorting with explosions of ancient dust, their eyes shimmering with terrifying blue lightning, the eleven statues took a step forward. And another.
Their fists clenched. Golden blades leapt forth from every arm.
