Papenburg, House in the suburbs, same night
Mathias Hartwig did not have to download a picture of Jasla from somewhere-he had made them. That any rule in the Swingers club forbade such things did not matter to him much-rules were for the common people.
Still, the sight of Jasla, bound and gagged against her will had touched something inside him he did not know it was there before. He had always liked SM-Games-the feeling of being in control spoke to him like nothing else.
Unfortunately the sight of Jasla showed him that such things would always be only one thing-games. If his partner suddenly found the game was not to her liking she could always put a stop to it. Where was the real control, the real ability to break someone's mind and mold her to his liking? Where the chance to inflict more pain than his victim could stand and watch the expression when they realized that they were at his mercy-and not going to receive it?
He went from pastoral Papenburg to the much more urban Hamburg to find what he needed but found, in the end, only more of the same. Everybody adhered to this SSC (safe-sane-consensual) shit-were they all playing in kindergarten?
When he tried to have a session to his liking he was thrown out of the Catonium in Hamburg with a vengeance and it had been made very clear to him he was not to return. It had cost him some money to make sure it did not become a lawsuit.
On top of this frustration he was becoming upset with the situation of Germany itself-finally there was a chance for Germany to grab all the resources they needed-and they were not taking them. The Hag Graef raid had shown again that the Bundeswehr could curbstomp any army on this forsaken world-and what did this country do? Talk about trade and development; ask nicely-it was enough to make him puke.
Maybe it was time to look for people who saw things like him. If he were to move outside of the constraints of Germany interesting things might be possible…
Lasbek, North Germany, evening of the same day
Henning Wulf was as happy as he could ever remember being. He was stupid. Not a little, but major league stupid, just a spit away from being admitted into an institution. He was living alone in this small village ever since his father had died and left him the house and alimony. And his secret.
As his social skills were mostly nonexistent and his personal hygiene lacked as well he nearly had no acquaintances let alone friends. All of that had changed when a man had asked him for directions when he was on one of his aimless wanderings in the flat empty countryside. He was not surprised, city folks always got lost-or so his father always said.
He had led the stranger back to the road and his car. During this time the stranger had listened politely to his jokes and stories-something that had never happened before. He even invited Henning to a restaurant and had listened further.
He had promised to call Henning. To his utter surprise he indeed called back and they had met again at his home. Over the next weeks they had met more often and Claus did not only listen but also told him such stories as he had never heard before.
He had also brought Henning better Whiskey then he ever tried before. Just a good friend, something Henning never had before in his life. Last time he had hinted that he might have a secret that he could never share with somebody else. He had not seen his friends sudden interest or the angry look when he had sheepishly stated he could not show, it would not be a secret any more, wouldn`t it.
Claus, his friend, had promised him a surprise for the next visit-and what a surprise it had been. He had brought a beautiful woman with him. He was totally unsure what this meant and was even a little afraid of her. When they were settled in his living room he was not sure what to do next when she had walked over to him and touched him there while Claus just told him to enjoy his gift. This would be just what good friends do to each other. He certainly could not protest while she was doing such things to him. After a while he did not even realize that his friend had slipped out of the room, not while she was on him and moving in such ways….
Lasbek, Barn behind the Wulff house
Claus Tolles shimmied the old lock of the barn with ease and opened the door only so much he could squeeze inside. The high-power lamp he played over the boxes stapled high in several stacks promised him that the rumors he had heard might be true and the time he had spent with that inbreed idiot was not wasted.
A little work with a screwdriver provided proof. Claus had such plans with this new world and he just had been provided with another part of the means.
When the beaten German army retreated in 1945 for many units the retreat ended in North Germany, where actually the last German government sat in Flensburg for a couple of days before they were arrested by the UK troops.
Many soldiers had just thrown away their arms at surrender and had went their ways to become civilians again, others had given them to the farmers who had sheltered them for a couple of days. Most farmers had given these weapons up after things became peaceful again or had made them a part of the foundation of the next barn they build when the penalties for having them became steep.
Old man Wulff had been different. He loved these weapons and liked to have as many of them as possible. He had bartered for these weapons with other farmers or promised them to put them into concrete in his next buying project as he had a small construction company.
This had of course waned over the years, but his collection had become a major going concern again when he obtained a contract to demolish an old Soviet barracks in former East Germany. When his men broke into a sealed storage room they found a wealth of arms. Promising his men to bring them to disposal and giving them a healthy bonus he had brought two trucks full of arms and ammo to his home.
When he died suddenly he had left this to his idiot son before he could do something about it.
Claus was looking at an amazing assortment of machine guns, assault rifles and other militaria. This was going to be great.
Great Forrest, the Empire
Ernst Hermann watched the Transall fly over the expanse of the Great Forrest from a window of the "Hind" helicopter he was in. The Transall had the ramp open and a parachute pulled a cylindrical object out of the rear ramp.
The cylinder quickly disappeared below the canopy before a flash and smoke signaled the explosion of several tons of low-grade explosives. It was the fastest way make a clearing in the forrest sufficient to put his men down.
The Hinds overflew the newly made Landing Zone and then came in for approach. The two Hinds deployed the 4th Platoon KSK quickly and Hermann exited the Helo without looking back.
Assembling his Platoon the Lt. waited for his wireless operator. "Sir, the signal is still there, direction 095. Signal strength is consistent with estimated position, should be about 600 meters."
Lt. Hermann gave the go ahead soon thereafter and his Platoon entered the Great Forrest. This part of the Forrest had not been used by humans ever and was as Chaotic and full of vibrant Life as any Forrest could be. At ground level the light was very low, the air still, humid and smelled of decay. The sounds that reached the ears of the soldiers were muted and strange.
When the point man lifted his hand everybody stopped in his tracks and tried to make something out. First came the sounds, many different kinds of running, cries which had more to do with the animal kingdom than intelligent life, seemingly all around them.
A group of Beastman vaulted a fallen tree and assaulted the KSK members, ending the waiting. There seemed to be no coordination in the attack, just the outbreak of aggression and a willingness to kill. First squad fired on them, quickly downing the Ungors with 3-round bursts.
Only one of them made it into hand-to-hand range with the point man who managed to deflect the spear strike with his rifle before putting another burst through the head of the beatman.
Hermann forced himself not to watch the fight too closely but to pay attention on other quadrants as well, a precaution which paid off when a number of smaller, quicker beasts tried to sneak on the Germans. As they had bunched up too much the Grenade from his AGS launcher took out half of them, the rest died quickly enough from rifle fire.
Sporadic attacks continued until they had nearly reached their Target, then they ceased. The Platoon used the break to reload and adjust their alignment while several scuts tried to sneak closer for a better look.
The scream that ripped the relative silence apart could never have come from a human throat-it was much too loud, much too raw and vital. It seemed to come from a brass horn. The creature owning this voice suddenly stepped in front of the soldiers like it stepped through a door-nothing one second, there the next.
Everything seemed to freeze when Hermann watched the huge Minotaur rearing up to his more than 3 meters height, brandishing his crude weapons and screaming another noisy challenge. It obviously expected one of the Soldiers to come forward and engage in single combat.
It did not take the small ball that was leisurely thrown in his direction as any threat-the flight path terminated less than a meter in front of him and the ball just trundled a small distance forward from there. Looking curiously at the foreign object and still trying to make up its mind it did not even notice the German dropping down – but the explosion of a Frag Grenade right between his legs caught his attention just fine.
That he survived the explosion long enough to issue another scream of a totally different note was testament to his vast strength, the headshots which ended it showed what it was worth.
From there fighting was very sporadic and mostly consisted of shooting those beastmen which by chance ran in their direction.
When they arrived at their designed target area it took their breath away. While it was not a clearing with open sky there was no brushwork or fallen trees so that there was some open space. The trees in the middle of this zone were twisted and turned, covered by strange protrusions and of sickly colors. From the largest tree several cages were suspended seemingly overlooking a huge stone which was covered with crude smbols.
The ground before Tree and stone was rich with offal in various stages of Decay giving off a huge stink and attracting clouds of insects.
While two squads secured a perimeter Lt. Hermann and the rest of the soldiers checked the contents of the cages. They all only contained skeletons, mostly free of their flesh and crudely reassembled with sinews, some even had been reclothed with Garments in bizarre fashions. The centerpiece of one group of Skeletons was a small black box which showed a red light every now and then.
"Seems like you should have paid more attention to the Imperial Scholars who told you beastmen are dangerous, Professor. And no Father, the beastmen did not just wait for your attempts at bringing them to Christ. But why did you two have to waste so many others for this…?"
Talking to the dead is normally not associated with mental health but seemed fitting here. Hermann snapped out of it soon enough and organized the retreat, taking pictures and some samples for proof.
The Platoon took off in a different direction after that , a new clearing would be bombed for them soon in order to prevent ambushes.
Fruchthalle (Congress hall), Kaiserslautern, Germany
The historical savvy among the people in and around the renaissance flavoured Fruchthalle, once erected as a market hall, now a hall for concerts and congresses, could not stop the feeling of a deja-vu. The flags of Rhineland-Palatinate were a distinct minority or fully absent, most flags showed the Palatinate Lion or the Flag of the Elector Palatinate of old, even some bavarian flags could be seen.
The Palatinate had seen much over time. During the Middle Ages the Palatinate had been one of most important regions of the Empire and well off. But from the double hit of the 30 Years War and the french pillaging in 1689, the Palatinate never recovered. Literally razed to the ground, her early manufactories destroyed, having lost more than 2/3 of all people, the region became an impoverished shadow of what once was.
During the industrialisation, being part of Bavaria at that time, it got better a bit, but the majority of the territory stayed agricultural, not being a central region anymore. When after WW2 the allies wanted to create Rhineland-Palatinate, the vote in the Palatinate was the last one and the vote was against going back to Bavaria. To this day rumours persist that that vote was rigged, because in the population of the Palatinate returning to Bavaria had been favoured.
Had the vote gone for Bavaria, the Allies would have had a problem, because the other votes in the Rhineland had been a no as well.
A second, later vote about the return to Bavaria was a no as well, but this not because of alleged rigging, but because more than a generation had gone by at that time and Rhineland-Palatinate had stabilized.
It had started inconspiciously and small. When the shock of the Weltensprung had been finally shrugged off, some people recognized the chance that Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg now had with the nipponese splinter at their doorsteps. But the red-green government in Mainz hesitated. Needing the votes, Prime Minister Dreyer had to take into account the rather dogmatic Greens and their opinions, which were strictly against new roads and railroads in the Palatinate, despite now being on a planet with an intact eco-system. And more, unlike on Earth where Alsace-Lorraine was not the most strongly settled or important region of France, the Nipponese splinter was nearly as populous as Bavaria. A big potential was there.
The Palatinate, unlike the rest of Rhineland-Palatinate, was still having a regional assembly, the Bezirkstag, which was guaranteed in the constitution of the state and being a remnant of Bavarian times. This Bezirkstag, mainly responsible for cultural things in modern times, was flooded with petitions from the mayors and regional MPs for a reversion of the state government´s stance. One had to be blind and deaf not to see the possibilites, especially for the Palatinate and Baden, in the coming decades.
It came to a head after, with lots of frustration, one palatinatetian MP in Mainz said: "The Palatinate would be better off without the meddling of pig-headed, smug wanna-be politicians - politicians who are mostly not even from the Palatinate themselves!"
How much of it was show or something which slipped through in the heat of the moment, cannot be said for sure, but it created waves. In a mixture of political opportunism and truly felt unease about the sluggish, dogmatic state government, MPs and mayors from the conservative opposition and even some from the government began to rally in favour of a new vote about the status of the Palatinate. In light of the Berlin-annouced major, soon to be reform of the federal states this became an unintended wildfire. Under normal circumstances it would not be much more than a footnote in history, but now a "Away from Mainz"" movement with substantial support had formed.
While her hometown of Bad Kreuznach had been prussian for a time, it had been a part of the Elector Palatinate once as well, so opposition leader Julia Klöckner became the slightly unwilling face of the movement. The Irony was not lost on her, since even among the revisionists only a minority was hardline against Rhineland-Palatinate, but the state government was in the process of flundering a big chance. A chance with not only big potential for all of RLP, but a security question as well, since the state had borders with the new wilderness outside Germany.
Julia Klöckner essentially wanted to preserve RLP, but knew that would not be possible with this government. Even after the return of the KSK from a rescue operation, the gruesome details, the Greens among the govenrment like Lemke still spouted nonsense about the preservation of the lands outside Germany in the current form. An idiocy even the "Realo"-Greens led Baden-Württemberg put into the rubbish box soon after Hof.
Mainz did not get that the times and things to be done had changed profundly. The people of Rhineland-Palatinate on the other hand did. Indicated not only by the tens of thousand demonstrators in Kaiserslautern, but by the calm of the other parts of RLP as well. They accepted the frustration of the Palatinatetians and more, in the Eifel, another region with a border to local "flora and fauna", movements for more security had popped up.
So with a heavy heart, but sure to do the right thing, Julia Klöckner had told the Chancellor, her party friend, that she championed a partition of Rhineland-Palatinate in the upcoming reform of the federal states. Now the CDU-woman walked into the Fruchthalle for her speech. To prepare the people and win more votes for the coming end of the federal state.
Quarry close to Altdorf, 4 Weeks after Seeadler Raid
A series of detonations engulfed the whole cliff-like side of the quarry in sound and smoke, causing a substantial proportion of it to slide down in a huge debris cloud.
Heinz Albert did not look at this spectacle at all, he had closed his eyes to listen better. By his experienced ear the demolition had gone well, the stones formed by the explosions would contain an acceptable proportion of material which could be used as ballast for the ever expanding net of imperial railroads.
The exact amount, placement and timing of explosions to get the best proportion of gravel, stones or whatever was needed was part science and part art, he excelled in both.
He liked working here, the flesh pots of Altdorf were not too far away, the money was good and he worked well together with his team-but unfortunately things were coming to an end.
There was a new Railroad to be built to Middenheim and the distance from this quarry to the moving railhead was becoming too long. A new quarry was already designated and he had to work from there. As this quarry was within the Great Forrest life was about to become less comfy and more dangerous.
Wilhelmshaven, Quay
Christine Winkler stood at the Quai of the military part of the Wilhelmshaven harbour. She was just allowed here as she could show that her husband was aboard the fleet coming into the harbour-the harbour and it`s entrance were packed with spectators, press, Busses and whatnot.
And there was something to see even for those who did not wait for a loved one to come back-the return of a victorious German fleet. This was only the second time since roughly a century that this happened in Germany-and the first time the return was such a public spectacle.
All ships of the fleet passed through a water gate formed by two fire ships and the ships horns drowned out the cheering of those who looked at them-mostly. There were signs and placards decrying the "Pirates" and "Murderers"-but for every one of them there were 10 which welcomed the Slave Liberators. Being stranded on this world was remarkable for setting the priorities of a lot of people right.
The fleet seemed to take an eternity to reach the quay and make fast and even longer for the sailors and soldiers to come down the gangways. While "Papenburg" unloaded the wounded and slaves by one gangway she was waiting at the other were the Soldiers and Sailors disembarked, many of them to be greeted by relatives.
Christine had to wait-and to wait-and to wait. While her husband was not on the list of the wounded or killed of the battle she had no personal confirmation that he was well. When less and less people left the ships she was close to tears and started looking for help when she was embraced in a bear hug.
"Hi Darling, here I am."
"What-why did you not leave that ship-you were supposed to be there?"
"In this mans army you go where they tell you. Long story, I tell you later."
Railway close to Dampflokwerk Meiningen (Meiningen Locomotive Works) same week
Kurt Müller was a happy man, which was quite often these days. He used to be a volunteer railroad engineer test-driving Steam Locomotives for associations which owned a historical peace after they were finished their maintenance at the Meiningen Locomotive workshops.
Now he was the Chief Railroad engineer for checking out the newly build Steam Engines and one of the chief trainers for new personel.
These days the Meiningen shops were already the stuff of Legend, especially in the Empire which was having a severe case of the railroad craze. Not only that the railways could do so much, but they were actually understandable and gave the feeling of NOT being magic-just grand accomplishment.
The Meiningen workshop was actually able to build steam locomotives from scratch and was undergoing an expansion normally only seen under wartime conditions. Too many German railroads were still running on Diesel, which was still strictly rationed despite the supply situation getting better, whereas Coal was mined in Germany and accessible via the Empire as well.
The needs of the Empire were greater still. Most of the Steam Engines build were comparatively pedestrian cargo haulers but his current steed was different.
"Do you want your carriage pulled by a Stallion or a Plow Horse, your majesty?" was the question posed by their sales rep to Emperor Karl-Franz. His answer had galvanized the Locomotive works, THIS project was something everybody wanted to work on.
The enthusiastic monarch had given them the remit (and financing) to resurrect the Class 05 Locomotive-the fastest Steam Locomotive in the world. Officially the Mallard was the fastest Steam Engine, but everybody at Meiningen just knew that the 05 would have been faster if given a second run. The latter never happened because of the second world war.
It helped that they owned a half-sister and had overhauled her many times, so some parts and molds were already available.
Of course, being German engineers they could not leave that well enough alone. The Boiler was replaced by a welded one made from better steel, running at higher pressures and temperature. The boiler also featured a combustion chamber which made the boiler less vulnerable and an automatic stoker made the life of the crew far easier.
The engine was exhausting against a condenser, increasing efficiency again and reducing the water consumption considerably. This was a very German solution-exchanging a few percentage points of efficiency against a separate trailer full of condenser, but raised overall effectiveness.
The suspension was modified to 3-point in order to navigate the less-well-made railways in the Empire better.
Valves had replaced the sleeves of the old engine, lubrication and bearings were much improved. The shape of the train did not have to change, it was still as good as in the days it was first designed.
The train now could raise steam for more than 3200 HP and with a not too long train could go for 220 km/h easily. The Emperor was going to get his stallion all right.
The absence of a human stoker allowed him to take two understudies with him. One was an Imperial he was to recommend for further training - or not. The other was a freshly promoted "Feldwebel" from the Bundeswehr who was going to join the "Landwehr" units charged with guarding the trains.
The moderately big (for a German) towered above his imperial counterpart. Despite that he related well to him, as he spoke Dutch as well as German, so his ear for unusual Reikspiel variants was much better than most normal Germans.
Joakim Vos was formerly a Corporal in the Royal Netherlands Army on training in Germany when the Weltensprung caught him. Having enough German ancestors to "stay", he had to find a new role in life. Like so many other people Joakim wondered why Austria, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg and the german-speaking parts of Switzerland and Italy did not get transported with Germany as a whole, the majority of people there had the same ancestor tribes as the Germans did. Especially when for example Tetschen/Decin, which had only a handful of Germans after the forced expulsion in 1945, had made the jump too. There were over a dozen theories flowing around, but there was no winner up to date.
Anyway, the expansion of the German armed forces had given him the chance to join.
When the Empire and Germany decided to build the railways in the Empire they founded a Joint-Venture for that, the Kaiserlich-Deutsche Eisenbahngesellschaft.(Imperial-German Railway)
As some of the railways went through rather dangerous areas it was decided that the trains were to be armed and accompanied by Soldiers at all times. As these weapons were, among others things, remote control machine guns the armed forces of both countries insisted that they were to be manned by soldiers. Sigmar beware that some average civilian would control so much firepower.
To keep costs within reason it was decided that "Landwehr" units would be formed, combining work for the railroads with guarding the trains and manning the defenses where necessary.
That meant learning more about railways for Joakim and here he was.
The beep of the wireless set cut through the din of the locomotive. The railroad engineer listened in and started to smile even more broadly when he placed the speaker back into the receiver. "Ok folks, Center gave us clear space for the next 30 klicks and 20 minutes - lets make something out of it!"
Opening the throttle slowly, but to the stops he increased the speed gradually, all the while checking all gauges for anything untoward. And there were still gauges-no electronics in a train for the Empire beyond some cameras and screens.
The Train was doing 210 km/h easily and Kurt Müller was a happy man indeed.
Wilhelmshafen, Seeadler, 3 weeks later
Captain Werner was again at his desk late at night, even if this time the desk was on "Seeadler". His wife would not disapprove too much, she was far too happy to have him back in one piece. How long this happy state of affairs would last was open to speculation.
In one thing at least she was right, staying so long at his desk did nothing for his concentration. But since he was back, paperwork also had come back with a vengeance so he had no choice but to put even more working hours into the day.
He scanned the draft of the After Action Report that the staff had composed and which would be send to Berlin after Admiral Lerbs reviewed it. As he was the flag captain he had to make a review so a bad report would not reflect back on the Flagship.
Still he was so tired he found himself just scanning the highlights of the report
.
German Armed Forces:
Killed in Action: 59
Wounded in Action 103
Missing in Action 0
Ships lost: 0
Ships damaged: 0
Enemy combatants Killed in Action 5000 (est.)
Enemy wounded in Action 10.000 (est.)
Enemy ships destroyed 500 (est.)
Hag Graef Housing destroyed 38%
Of this Slave pens: 100%
Harbor Warehouse: 100%
Known Barracks: 75%
Freed Slaves: 4118, of these 3720 from Hag Graef proper
Recommendations:
Building up own magical defenses. The flags provided by the imperial mages seemed to be particularly effective. Also during transport some freed Dwarves provided plates with Runes of Protection which seem to work. Here we recommend hiring these Dwarves…..
The Magic Indicator worked fine, it should be developed further. Frau Meikle seems to be willing to accept a Seat at a German University…..
The Monarc system worked as well as could be expected. Still a navalised system with active cooling should be developed.
"Seeadler" performed past expectations, but a change to a fixed Hangar and landing deck would improve efficiency markedly….
Ventilation and fire protecting need to be upgraded…..
Several reports indicate that the G36 lacks power, especially against non-human targets. In 3 instances the old G3 worked better than the more modern gun….
Recommended for decoration:
.
Müller, Paul
Winkler, Ralf
He was fast asleep before he could finish. When his head hit the keyboard he reminded himself that this was work for another day.
Papenburg
Wolfgang Böhler had, to his surprise, not gotten rid of his initial infatuation with this Jasla "thing" and had indeed searched the net about her.
Finding that this seemed to interest a lot of groups he found one discussion forum mostly dedicated to her, her fate and her "philosophy". Strange that so many persons were interested.
The group seemed to cater a lot to people who were not so happy with the situation they found themselves in after the Weltensprung. It was strange really, he would have estimated that many of them would not have been interested-but they were.
He was much to adult to buy the Crap about Jasla as "Prisoner of War" which must be freed or stupidities like that, but he was still intrigued. There was a proposal for a real life meeting in 2 weeks' time in Hannover-that he could make. He was seeing not enough people anyway, so why not.
State Police Headquarters, Sonderkommission 14, Stuttgart
"How is it going, Inge?"
"Quite well, I have to say. This interview with the prisoner Jasla delivered interesting details. While we are still checking some of the more outragious claims, like the repulsive behaviour of that "Professor" or several disturbing stories by our elven prisoner, Jasla´s informations are worthy, needed intel. I just hope we get her to repeat it under better circumstances. As it stands, we cannot use it in court for now as we got it with electronic surveillance in a juristically high dubious situation. But we can use it internally. Our state and federal governments, not to speak of the military and our police collegues, will be very happy to get hard info for use.
I just pity this poor student Petra. A pig as a docter father and her naiveness..."
"I know, but what did she think? The rules in prison are set and if she really thought nobody would listen in... Still it might work out for her in one thing. She was not the first one this "savant" tried to force into sex. We cannot use Petra´s case, but we found another girl who will be witness in court. He does not know it yet, but Meier´s life situation will change drastically. And since he showed such interest into the Darkies, we might give him the chance to personally meet them..."
Great Forrest, 4 Weeks after the Seeadler Raid
Garek Brightfur prepared to die. In his limited understanding this was the best way to prepare for a fight-accept that you are dead already and everything becomes easier thereafter. He had already fought an inappropriately high number of duels for his age, as the wild patterns of his fur had always shown him as marked by Tzeench, a very unusual state for a Minotaur.
His herd had never accepted him right as he looked different-not only his fur coloration but this slightly mismatched horns and his shape which was going more for wiry strength than for the brute power more usual for his kind.
Having won his duels he had been granted acceptance and status, but only grudgingly. He had barely accepted that he had risen as high as he probably would and would die in one of the many duels he had to fight sooner or later when the herds shaman had caught his attention.
He had spoken to him of the bigger picture, of things he could hardly imagine but desire greatly and of a grand fate that awaited him. He had taken it for so much talk when events showed that the shaman actually knew what he was hinting about.
The Doombull who lead the herd since anybody could remember had such status that nobody had seriously challenged him in a long time. Then invaders nobody had seen before had invaded their realm, slain one of the Doombulls Champions and desecrated the herdstone.
If this did not show that the Doombulls time was over-what else would it take. Issuing the challenge was easy-surviving it was the hard part.
The Doombull had a red fur which in parts shone like brass. He was easily a head taller than him and with his great girth weighted easily twice as much. And most of this extra mass was muscles with the hardness of old oakes.
His opponent gripped a long whip studded with barbs and a huge brass axe which was so heavy that he doubted he could use two handed easily. His enemy was far beyond any words, barely containing it`s rage enough to observe the minimal etiquette demanded by such a challenge.
Garek also found it difficult to concentrate on the Shamans prattling. The shaman had summoned him before the duel and had told him frankly that he was about to die-if he were not to accept his guidance. Being so close to the duel had made Garek more amendable to reason and he had allowed the shaman to perform a ritual he did not understand which involved the shaman blowing a black-green powder into his eyes. Ever since then his eyes hurt miserably, and he saw the world in a different way. How this was about to help him win the duel he did not know.
Still he had to fight despite all misgivings he might have about the outcome and even the shamans rants were coming to an end. Both contestants were moving into the circle formed by the members of the herd and the time for words was over.
The old doombull attacked him with full force immediately by wielding his whip at his legs. He had seen this before-the doombull applying the whip around his enemies legs, immobilizing them for his axe. He managed barely to sidestep this assault. The whip still hit his leg with a force that would have ripped the limb of a human but only hurt him some and got little blood.
It was the same with the second assault, only that his axe this time even threatened to cut the whip. That was enough for the doombull to abandon all attempts at more complicated tactics and simply to try to run him into the ground.
Garek managed to sidestep the assault in time and began to see what the shaman had done-he saw not only where the doombull was, he saw where he would be! How could he loose this battle now?
The Doombull attacked again but stopped short of Garek to swing his axe in an arc which would have decapitated him if he wouldn`t have parried against the flat of the great axe. He has to be careful there, if he would have tried that against the cutting side his inferior weapon would have been destroyed for sure.
This started the pattern for the next phase of the fight-the bull attacked, he parried the strokes with apparent ease. The old bull got more and more frustrated and his breathing more labored, his attacks more violent and clumsy all the time. Garek was already looking for an opening to attack by himself and felt quite good about himself when the whip coiled himself around his legs.
Hooves are not a great way to stay on two legs so he fell immediately when the Doombull pulled on the whip, screaming his triumph at the same time. Garek cursed his stupidity at concentrating at the axe only when there was a second weapon around.
He managed to guide his fall enough to drop on his back-but that just meant he was able to see the bull lift his Axe for an overhead strike which was sure to kill him. Seeing exactly which way the axe was going he twisted his head and torso out of the way, putting his axe up in the vain hope to deflect the strike sufficiently. The blade of his axe missed the head of the onrushing weapon barely but found a different target. The roar of the doombull changed tone at the same time as a rain of severed finger parts struck Garek-who had aimed at the bulls hand, not at the axe.
His enemies weapon dropped at the ground uselessly and the Doombull staggered back clutching the ruin of his hand while Garek came back on his feet. He ignored the pain in his legs and hand when he gripped the whipcord and pulled the Doombull into his strike which parted the triceps of the arm still holding the whip. Weaponless the doombull struck at his head with his bloodied Fist but the impact just made Gareks head ring. When he came back he saw that the Doombull had accepted his fate and bowed his head so he could take it off cleanly as a gift to Khorne.
Garek was spoken for by another so he did not comply, instead using his axe to strike at the Doombull again and again, removing limbs and inflicting painful but nonlethal wounds. The Doombull was strong enough not to scream but the lesson was not lost on the heard on looking with horror.
The final stroke opened the great chest of the bull so that Garek could push his claw inside and rip the beating heart right out. Lifting it over his head he pressed it like an orange and drunk the blood before consuming the flesh.
The herd had so far looked in silent horror when the shaman brayed his masters triumph, this finally sundered the thrall which had held the tribe in silence.
Their combined scream echoed far across the Great Forrest, promising bloody tidings for everybody who challenged the mastery of the Children of Chaos in their realm.
