100 meters AGL, Above the Great Forest, same time

Van Horstmann was totally surprised about the explosions that ended the life of 6 Dragons and a mage. He had seen some ripples of light at the horizon and some streaks of fire reaching into the sky far above him a minute ago but could explain neither. He had started to look around with his magical senses but found nothing when a series of bangs ended the life of several beasts.
As any experienced Dragon and Rider his Dragon had taken higher into the sky-it gave him more room to maneuver and put more distance between him and the ground-pounders. His Dragons had already started to fan out so they could attack the quarry from several angles. Even without that it would have been difficult to change anything about the attack-and the mage would have no idea what to change anyway.
The second set of explosions happened somewhat later, Horstmann`s magical senses told him that this time even more Dragons had died-but then he was about to fly above the quarry and finally fight back. He was looking for viable targets in the dark area before him when he was blinded by a brilliant light that stabbed the Dragon flying to the left of him.

Fast moving lights came up from several places below and connected with the beast. It had time to scream-once and then a huge lump of lifeless matter dropped downward. Ehgrimm`s Dragon was already too far past the sources of destruction that he could attack them so he looked for other targets. A row of low wooden houses looked inviting, so he directed the flames of his steed there. There was a satisfying fire starting up immediately. Pulling up from his dive the mage saw something like a steam tank roll forward and rapid-fire a small cannon on its top. The Dragon at the receiving end of the fusillade burst into flames itself. Ehgrimm marked this as his target for the next attack before his Dragon got him over the cliff that marked the end of the quarry.

From the FAZ special edition "Two years on Warhammer" - The Economy = Once more with a feeling

It is not without irony that if the Iron Chancellor could visit Germany, he would feel a bit more at home than say a Frenchman back on Earth.
The car industry, once (and still) the pride of Germany, has limited production on a massive scale. To survive the producers branched out, while the people losing their jobs were taken over by new or resurgent industries.
For example, Daimler and BMW went back to design aircraft motors and build very rugged trucks. Suddenly Germany needed people able to make nails or barrels again en masse, so getting work was not a problem anymore. Friedrich List, one of the fathers of our economic system would be happy to see that after a time of globalisation, Germany goes back to the roots. One of List´s basic ideas was that an industrial nation no matter the circumstances should have inland construction of nearly anything it could produce, so that nation could not be bullied much.

The biggest problem on the road are the energy ressources. The first year was very hard, with strict rationing, the second better. Oil could be bougt at a high price, but basically the needs could be met. This was possible in part due to the reduced consumption of the industry and rationing. For users of oil and gas heatings a special oil/gas ration had to be made by the government, because in the beginning the oil supplies very so limited and logically expensive. Going into the third year on this new world, the strain on energy is consistently lessening.
Coal/Oil conversation refineries have been build in numbers and large oil deposits have been found. With rising tapping of these deposits, Germany´s situation becomes more "normal" each day. Most important source of oil and gas are the wells in Sylvania, those are also the most secure, comparatively. Other sources are in Araby and several prospector ships search in the Sea of Claws.
Electricity was never that much a problem, but today the supply is secure. Renewable energy is a big factor, since after the Weltensprung green activists could not stop the construction of new power lines from already exisiting sites for political gains. Coal power plants, half of the nuclear reactors back online helped with energy generation and Germany has enough of it now.

Among construction materials Aluminium became one of the easiest to aquire, ironically. For one, Germany recycles almost anything, giving back a lot of aluminium. There is even a big producer of recycled aluminium in northern Germany. New aluminium comes mainly from the Dwarfs, Karak Norn especially, since they never had much use for Bauxit, making it one of the cheapest raw materials, since it is a "waste" product for the "little people".
Wood and timber from the Empire has become a niche part of construction again, because the vast forests of the Empire make it a cheap, but quality material.
Bricks are equally easy to make, one not so obvious source is the part of the former Wasteland
which became German after arriving here. Brick-baking there has a long tradition and helps to replenish our old stores.

One of Germany´s biggest problems are computers. Most parts for them were made outside Germany before, so Berlin had to jumpstart Computer building again. AMD has factories in e.g. Dresden, so CPUs are there. To hinder a monopoly from forming, after 1 1/2 years of re-engineering, Siemens-Intel have begun to produce "Core"-CPUs again. Hit hardest by the Weltensprung was the german division of Apple. With no source code and most "secret" stuff only saved at the Apple HQ, Apple has begun the slow downslide into oblivion.
The BASF is busy upgrading freed facilities to produce for instance more harddrives, the chemical giant making a full turn back into computer business, mainly data storage, but other crucial parts as well.
In the area of operating systems, Microsoft is battling it out with Android and Linux. Unlike Apple, the German facilities of Microsoft had a source code for their Windows 7 OS, enabling them to continue on.
A cooperation of Sony, Siemens-Intel and Zeiss finally bore fruits two months back, with the first Tablets and Playstations produced on Warhammer.
But this bootstrapping of Computertech showed that new research into computers will be slow, but at least the processing power of the available devices is high enough to stop a general downslide. Still, the changes are already visible. Germany has gone back to "Tower"-PCs at home, while Tablets with attachable keyboards have become the mobile device of choice for most. Research is focusing on better monitors, more powerful Tablets and finetuning PCs.

Heinz Albers pulled the straps of his mask fast behind his head and put his hand over the filter. When he inhaled the mask was pulled against his face indicating a good seal. Turning around he faced a sight that seemed to combine a film about the Second World War with a fantasy flick. There were a number of searchlights which illuminated monsters which should only exist in nightmares chased by streams of tracer ammo from several sources. Fireballs and black glowing clouds appeared in the switchyard and showed where the Dragons had penetrated the human defenses. Smoldering corpses indicated where they had been unsuccessful.

A Dragon was making a beeline for the quadmount that was the centerpiece of the redoubts defenses. It did not flinch when two streams of 7,62 ammo impacted on it from an oblique angle and to his horror some of the bullets bounced off the iron-hard skin of the monster. The quadmound had taken longer to get its bearing but the effect was very different. One of the 4 tracer streams found the head and converted it into something even uglier than before. The huge body dropped on the outside of the redoubts palisade and for a second Heinz Albers was angry at having to redo the barbed wire belt again. This train of thought was stopped by the screaming and shooting caused by another beast who had approached quietly from the outside and came into view too late to do much. The black cloud belched forward by it engulfed the position completely. The Captain had to remember to breathe smoothly and not to let panic win. Gradually his panic receded at the same pace his vision returned-and then he wished that it had not. Two of his soldiers had not taken the pains to fasten their masks well and were writhing on the ground for that.

Still he had enough warm bodies to man all his machine guns and they continued to fire on all the beasts they could spot. On the floor of the quarry various vehicles had joined the fight. The two air defense Boxers should have been the stars of the show but the dragons were above the quarry for such a short time that the fire control had few time to work on a solution. Still, any Dragon which kept in the airspace for too long got a lethal dose of 35mm ammo.
As the Dragons were able to fly very low and turned close to the Quarry they never left the zone around the Patriot launchers were they could not fire as their targets were too close.

Some of the Boxers with the Puma turrets were also using their 30 mm autocannons with telling effect and some enterprising souls were firing the machine guns atop their Fuchs transports. A lot of that ended when a really huge two-headed Dragon went into the quarry behind a couple of lesser monsters. As the time to engage them all was too short he managed to get into range and smothered several of the defenders in a cloud of poisonous smoke and magical energies. While the poison was mostly stopped by the NBC systems the magical attack shortened the exposed electronics of the radars and some of the fire control equipment.
To their horror some drivers found that the Dragons breath was even strong enough to dissolve their tires to the point where they were nearly useless.

From the redoubt a missile was launched, the shooter had to keep the target in sight until a hit was achieved. The Stinger MANPADSs had been modified to look after the reflections of an infrared laser that was now mounted in the already heavy launcher. The missile managed to hit one of the great Dragons directly and caused a fireball from which various bits and pieces emerged.
In revenge the Great Dragon changed course and breathed death on both the missile shooter and the quadmount that did not manage to shift fire in time. Hein Albers kicked and screamed at his gunners to keep this monster in their sights while trying to reorganize his machine gun teams to cover the rest of the angles. This was bad, really bad.

His position was so exposed that he was not even surprised when several Dragons augured in on him at the same time. The heavy machine gun mount got another one and was about to switch targets, yet the German blaster-cum-officer saw it would be too little too late when two other monsters were engulfed by explosions.
The other veered off, unsure what had happened.

Eurofighter 012, 3000 meters AGL, close to Quarry, same time

Colonel Hoppe was happy-3 of his 4 AMRAAM missiles had found a target and none of them were on the Radar any more. His Wingman had also scored and the rest of his planes were not doing badly as well.
Getting closer to the battle he switched to his short range missiles. The latest mod of IRIS-T had a very sensitive IR seeker that could discern the body heat of a flying "biological"-at least it could when tested on imperial Griffons.
His radar had picked another target against the forest and the missiles seeker head, slaved to the radar immediately steered for it. Both the flashing diamond around the target on his HUD and the steady warbling tone in his earphones showed a missile which asked permission to fly.
Pressing the trigger the pilot shouted "Fox 4" into the wireless and closed his eyes for the fraction of a second that allowed him to keep his night sight.
The missile wobbled a bit after launch but tracked well enough and impacted on the shoulder of the Great Dragon who served as Hoppe`s target. The Dragon`s trajectory immediately converted to that of a brick and his huge body tore a new glade into the Great Forest.

Suppressing a whoop that he would have allowed any of his pilots the Colonel looked for another target-nothing like making ace in a single night. The two-headed monster that filled his view came as a rude surprise, his hands and feet working on the evasion before his mind saw any need. Machine and monster missed each other by few meters. Craning his neck the Colonel used the tactics he had been though to combat helicopters. Throwing his fighter in a curve that combined a minimum-radius turn with a parabolic arc he inverted his plane so that his target remained in his sight always. Coming down from attitude his HUD showed him a point to steer which he did. Pressing the trigger this time released a stream of 27 mm ammo. Within the half-second that he could keep the Dragon in his sight nearly 4 kg of steel and explosives went downrange and enough of it impacted to sever one of Galrauch`s necks, ripping off a head.

The German pulled his plane up into the vertical before turning the fighter around his axis and then completing the other half loop that brought him back into the into the fight, Max Immelmann would have approved.
Where his radar had before shown two targets there was only one now-YES, he was an ace, the first Germany had after a very long time. It was tempting to go after the last remaining Dragon but calls from the quarry made it clear he would be needed elsewhere. Switching the arms selector to his remaining IRIS heatseeker he pointed the nose of his craft in a different direction.

Galrauch was dying, there could be no doubt about it. Even the greatest of all Chaos Dragons could not loose a head and survive. But the injury had brought a blessing with the pain-freedom. Since 5000 years he had unwillingly shared his mind and body with a Lord of Change. Unable to hide any thought or to do anything by himself their personalities had semi-merged into a hateful, spiteful whole. Now he was rid of him and found his body mutated so far from the ideal that he had been to be beyond loathing and remembering deeds that were beyond redemption.
The worst of these was siring the breed of abominations that had shared the clean sky with him this evening. He could not do much in the time remaining to him, but what he could do he would. It was just fitting for a mind so wounded that his last act would be one of hate.

Ehegimm van Horstmann was gripped by utter disbelief. The attack by such a might of Great Dragons had to succeed, especially when applied against such a puny target. When the planned massacre became a real fight he had been gripped too much by the pleasure of the battle to retreat and he just knew he had been winning it a few minutes ago. Win despite the losses, win despite the unexpected resistance the victory would have been so much sweeter for them. And then within the space of maybe 30 seconds everything changed. He could sense no special threat but for the minds of many angry humans and saw nothing except maybe some flashes at the horizon. Just that within the spans of seconds more explosions killed most of his monsters and allies. He had not yet wrapped his mind fully about this but sensed that his only hope at survival was flight as fast and far as possible.

Even that ignoble end seemed too much to achieve when a screaming, fire spitting something dropped out of the sky and tore into the Dragon flying alongside him just to disappear before finishing the job on him. Not knowing what to make of this the mages confusion reached new heights when the wounded Glarauch attacked his ride. Even in its wounded state it was a terrible enemy and his remaining set of jaws had firmly fixed themselves around the neck of his dragon.
Winding themselves around each other like a bunch of snakes the dragons lost their ability to fly and crashed into the primeval woods below them. Their fight would know no victor-not that Ehegrim cared in any way.
He lay on a rock, face up and found that he could move no limb and could not feel his body below his neck. The next morning the first crows closed hi despite his hoarse screams. He only started feeling their work when they started working on his face.

Two days later, Quarry in the late morning

Uli Stoiber saw the last Boxer combat vehicle leave the Quarry to take its place as tail-end Charlie in the last convoy to leave the Quarry for Middenheim. While a lot of work had to be done at the Quarry again the bulk of Combat Group Loy had escaped destruction and was now on the path to Middenheim.
Time for what was probably an exercise in futility. "Driver, start engine. Platoon, follow me." 6 heavy Leopard tanks and their supporting trucks started their engines and followed their faster brethren on the way to battle. His departure had been delayed long enough so that he could see the arrival of the latest arrivals at the airport he had tested not so long ago.

Of course he was happy that the Reiksbund applied real firepower to the coming fighting, yet these planes had been expressly constructed to kill tanks. Not only did this hit home a little too close, the Tank Commander asked himself what kind of targets could be worthy of their cannons.
The 81 Fighter Squadron had finally moved all their supporting equipment into the newly fangled air field and now flew in 12 A-10 Warthog planes.

Middenheim, same time

The NT mod Zeppelin closed slowly with the docking tower that had been erected in the exercise fields next to the Wolf Guard barracks. Many strong arms moved the airship the last meters until the hook gripped the eye at the tip off the envelope.
Inside Joakim Vos stretched his legs and fetched his bag from the overhead locker. He was still asking himself why he had volunteered himself and his squad for this mission-he should have been to experienced for such stunts.
After the usual hassle everybody was herded into a hall inside the Middenheim palace. The splendor of the hall led him to believe that it usually served as a ballroom, yet the current inhabitants were about as far from a ball as possible.

A lot of dwarves were there, both from the Landwehr who had accompanied him on the flight and from Middenheim`s Wynd district where many Dwarves lived since before Sigmar`s time. Germans were there, both the stone-cold soldiers who by now had seen enough combat to last them a lifetime or two, a couple of stocky engineers and some techno geeks. Wolf Guard warriors represented the Middenheim government and could be recognized by their pelts over plate and mail armor. A more diverse mixture of men-at-arms were hard to imagine and yet they were in the same room.
A middle-aged trim German officer climbed up on a desk as no lectern had yet been erected for him.

"Gentlemen, if I may have your attention" was definitively not a military way to get everybody, yet the respective traditions of the assembly forbid anything more straightforward.
"Gentlemen, I am Oberst Stein. As most of you know I recently led the cave raiders into during the raid on the Beastmen`s Shamans lair. This experience has convinced the governments who pay our lavish salaries to lead the mission into Middenheim`s underground network.
To get everybody to speed here: As of two days ago we have detected a really large mass of Warpstone that is moving very slowly below Middenheim-but while it does not break any speed records it is definitely coming closer. As the only known users of large amounts of Warpstone are the Skaven we have to assume that the Ratmen are planning to do something with it-and we can be very sure that we will not like their plans. Therefore it is necessary that we take a Combat Group into the tunnels and take care of them before they do the same to us.

This Combat Group`s core are the Cave Raiders that already did a similar job once. As we had losses during our last mission we enlisted the help of a squad from the 1st Kaiserlich-deutsche Landwehr to add firepower. We will also need the services of the Dawi militia as they know the tunnels below this city better than anyone and we welcome the fighting power and spirit of the Wolf Guards.
It is a German tradition to name a temporary Combat Group after the officer leading it. As we are not in Germany I suggest we do differently and in order to honor the last mission we will call us "Gruppe Gotrek"-and yes we have the permission of him. Let`s hope we can live up to that name."

150 Kilometers North of Middenheim, same time

Ernst Hermann again watched the Chaos Army through his Binox-just that this time it was on the move. The floor of the valley below seemed to be completely covered with somebody or something marching ever forward.
The light Cavalry which brought up the front enjoyed still fresh air and a good view, the rabble at the unseen end of the column must march in unspeakable conditions of dust and an air full of the shit of so many animals-not the this army would care in any way. Between these parts were various types of infantry, some keeping formation, some moving like an unskilled mob, but at speed. Various draft animals pulled carts of all descriptions while bigger beats pulled cannons and wagons which might contain the parts for siege engines. But however their condition-march they did-and too fast. By no longer fortifying their camps, by using every hour of light for marching and by ruthlessly weeding out those who could not keep up they had made good progress.

As they were getting too close to the columns of refugees that made their way into hopefully safe harbors it was necessary to slow the army down-and he was part of the troops who got the smelly end of the stick. His KSK team had shed their Reiksguard attachment for the duration and another KSK team had joined their party instead. Additional troops had been provided from the recon battalions of the Paratroopers and everybody was truck mounted.
Ernst had been uneasy about this mission even before he had the Chaos Army in his sights as the diverse parts of the delaying force had not practiced together and lacked cohesion. He suspected who ever had cooked up this plan at very short notice had a tendency to underestimate the armies of Warhammer.

This could be disastrous at the best of times and the army in his sight was not an indicator of the best of times. On top of that his close escape from a fiery death only few days ago left him skeptical of the claim that there were few of these flying monsters left.

As nobody had asked him about his opinions here he was. His responsibility together with another KSK group was a branch of the valley that was used by the Chaos Army as a highway. As the first cavalry was closing with the mines buried last night it was time.

"Brake 6 actual from Brake 2"
"Brake 6 actual hears you" Captain von der Marwitz voice was clear and crisp, he knew the value of projecting calm via the wireless.
"Enemy will reach the mines in about 5 minutes tops-recommend we engage"
"I see it the same-engage on my mark in 30 seconds"
"Acknowledged"
"Folks, get ready to engage…Now Now Now"

The so far calm march of the light cavalry disappeared in a whirlwind of destruction. Horses dropped and riders ripped off their mounts when 14 assault rifles opened fire at 600 meters. The surviving riders milled around for a few blood-filled seconds before they spotted the muzzle flashes of their assailants.
It was a picture anybody with Old Earths medieval history would have found familiar-the old Mongols would have looked similar. Shaggy looking ponies carried lightly armored warriors forward at a speed nobody would have imagined in such small mounts. Sabers and composite bows were presented at their enemy to wreck fast havoc-just that the enemy offered scant targets. The German soldiers had well-camouflaged foxholes and only the rifles gave an indication where they might be.
The charge of the cavalry had just gotten its momentum when several machine guns opened fire. Ripping through the Chaos Warriors like the proverbial scythe through wheat they produced a tangle of dead horses and men that did as much to stop the first charge as the losses.

The survivors of the light cavalry went as fast backwards as it had come forward. It took some time for any Chaos response to mount and Ernst Hermanns binox showed him hints of a mass of heavy cavalry forming up. He reported this upwards and his reports and the picture send by a drone motivated the Paratrooper Captain into using something heavier. Great fountains of dirt and flame showed where a 120 mm mortar was doing its work.
This just seemed to spur the enemy into faster action and a mass of heavy cavalry went into a charge even when it was probably less well formed up than intended by its commanders. This was not a picture a student of Earth`s history could well appreciate. The basics were there-heavy plate armor covered practically all skin on the riders and much of the horses. Banners flew above the units and horns brayed their challenge to the world. Yet the details gave a different impression-many of the Horses were far too big to be normal members of the equine family and many of them did not seem to have normal eyes. The teeth shown by the already heavily breathing horses indicated a diet that was not strictly herbivore and their riders were at least as far off the human norm as their steeds. Glowing lights from eye slits and other crags in the armor showed that many of them were no longer made up by normal matter and their weapons were shaped for pain and misery as much as for military purpose. Not to speak of the fact that some weapons screamed at least as loudly as their wielders.

The cavalry started their attack at the usual trot, working up to a full gallop quickly enough when the shooting intensified. The Germans exposed more of their heavy weapons now that a real target showed up. Heavy machine guns penetrated even armored rides lengthwise and ripped off limbs. Grenades from the GMG`s exploded on the ground, shredded legs and opened belly's covering the ground with entrails. Despite all the destruction the charge went in, until it hit the first line of mines.
Probably none of the attackers had paid any heed to the small molehill-like dirt heaps that hid the explosives. They did not bring the killing to a totally new level either, but the sight of horses that quite literally were blown up to rain down of the survivors in pieces shattered the morale of the cavalry.
The KSK officer was pulling his lips into something even a charitable observer would not call a grin. His suggestion to add a little "Nitropenta formbar" (C4 for Germans) to each mine had worked well.

Flooding back in disarray they would have paid an even steeper price, but that was not in the German plans, they could leave the battlefield as they choose.
"All units, this is brake actual. Air warning, repeat air warning"
Ernst Hermann hunkered lower into his foxhole before he had consciously parsed the warning. His close encounter with the flying monsters had left the kind of scars you cannot see. He spotted the oncoming Wyrms the same time when two missiles rose from the rear. The Paratroopers who fired them guided them well and both found a target. One of the beasts dropped unceremoniously to the ground, the other managed something like a landing, just to pull itself slowly back towards its lines. All other beasts they could see flew away from them quickly, so intelligence mightn not be so far off.

From then on the Germans could just watch as the enemy started to fan out the main body of its army. Hemmed in by the hills they could not go there as quickly as they liked and the work of Dirk Zimmermann and several other snipers cost the lives of several Champions and of two imprudent mages.
He was about to get nervous when his wireless indicated that they would leave. As the enemy could not close the distance quickly the retreat went without much of a problem. While on route the Lieutenant thought about the next stop as there was a small river in a couple of kilometers. It had a ford-which meant that it was another chokepoint which could be used to slow the enemy down. They were nearly out of mines now, but if they would just dig the same mounds as before and put the few mines they still had in the first row they could fool the other side, couldn`t they? Ernst made a mental note to contact the paratrooper captain about that.

Dungeon below the Middenheim Palace, same evening

None of her former customers would have recognized Lady Ester at first glance. Her formerly long luxurious hair had been cropped to the scalp to prevent lice. Her skin had lost color and her face mirrored her desperation. Her eyes showed the disheveled state of her mind clearly-red rimmed her pupil darted everywhere and were hard to focus. She avoided looking at the padded suit she had spent the last days in, but it was still there and threatened her sanity.

Her shivering fingers wrote very minutely on a small strip of silk paper and tried to get each letter right. When she was finished she pushed the strip over to Ottokar Proktor who had watched her in silence for the last 30 minutes.
He looked at the paper and compared it to something on a sheet of paper that was in front of him. Finally she could stand the silence no more. "Are you satisfied now?"
"Oh it is very nicely done, I`ll grant you that and says all the things that it is supposed to say. Now if that writing of yours would match up with the blotter you used it would even be better. Come on, do you really think I would not have spotted that you wrote the name of your mage right this time-after you spelled it wrong for all the copies that we still have? Make you a proposal-do it right this time and you get to spend just the next night in your beloved padding. If you try again to fool me you can stay in there until the cloth rots off."

It took a while for her incoherent screams and sobbing to slow down to the pace where the German could be sure to get through. "Come on Ester, I want to help you-but you have to help me also. I know your fingers will not obey you now-it will be better after some decent juice. And if you cooperate now I´ll throw a decent meal and a good whipping in when they take you out tomorrow-do we have a deal?"
15 minutes later Esters fingers were very still and smoothly wrote exactly the message she was supposed to send. Not much had changed in Middenheim-no big reinforcements had arrived, the nobles were getting restless as the Chaos army was advancing so fast, the airport was still unusable. She knew that sending these falsehoods would have serious repercussions, but the thought of more time in the padded suit was just unbearable. And the offer was too good to be turned down, not just food she could taste, but a whipping, that she could not refuse no matter the price. Real sensations that showed her that she still existed, to calm her and to keep her sane.

Looking forward to this she did not make much of a fuss when they put her into her bindings again.
The carrier pigeon the Wolf Guards had confiscated when they raider her home reached her contact before she was out of the suit.

Tunnel 120 meters below Middenheim, same time

Thorgim Starkorm pulled mightily on the starter cord of his Dolmar Chainsaw. The engine caught on the second try and its scream filled the tunnel-there was no helping it. Currently the cave raiders were using old mining tunnels that had been abandoned a long time ago. The wooden supports that had stabilized this tunnel had collapsed into a hovel when shifting pressure and some water had pushed them beyond their limits. They had to get rid of them, and soon so they could be on their way again and that meant making noise, even if that was not good tactics.

He had learned to use the heavy 7 horsepower saw when he started working for the railway. It was quite a handful for a human but for a stout Dawi like Thorgrim it was much easier. He marveled how quickly the saw went through even the strongest wood. He had joined the Landwehr at first because of the additional pay, never expecting to be part of any major fighting.
Then he was "volunteered" for the cave raiding in the Great Forest-and he had fought at the side of Gotrek in his final fight. That had been a turning point for him and when he was asked whether he would join a special unit specialized in caves and tunnels he did not have to think about it at all. The unit had just started the training that was to give them cohesion when the next set of orders came in-and now he was using a chainsaw again.

When he was finished cutting he put the saw back into its case and took his shotgun up again to provide overwatch for the group which cleared the cut supports. He just hoped that they would not find a similar obstacle when they were closer to the rats-that would give them away for sure.

Archarons Tent, 145 Kilometers North of Middenheim

The beings that crowded Archaron`s tent were used to violence and danger to an extend that was unthinkable to mere mortals. Having spent several lifetimes experiencing the same and dealing out even more of it they should have been immune to it and normally were.
That was not true when Archaron was concerned. He radiated a power and a willingness to do literally everything that would further the cause of his patrons and its own that even these hardened beings were cowed into at least token submission. That was the case even at normal command meetings when everything was mostly right.

Now Archaron frightened them to their bones. They were experienced, they knew the signs. Archaron was never more dangerous as when he was totally reasonable, polite and understanding. He could praise any of them as easily as making them wish they would die quickly-and the barrier between the two was only molecules thin. Nobody spoke up-being recognized was dangerous.
Archaron did not speak loudly-there was no need as nobody made a sound. He did not inject venom into his voice-the content seared into everybody like acid anyway. He did not swear-nobody he could swear at was in range-or dead.

"I think we can all agree that today`s battle did not go as planned-not at all in fact. We wanted to march 40 kilometers today-and we managed 8. We wanted to crush the resistance before us-and they got away. We wanted to kill these Germans for their impunity-and they killed a hundred times their number and suffered no losses that we are aware off. Can anybody of you tell me why this is so?"
Silence
"No, then maybe somebody can explain the disaster that must have befallen our Dragons-or did you see any of them again?"
Silence
"Come on, tell me your thoughts"
Silence
"Do you think that the warriors have no skill, no courage? No, that is good because I do not think so"
Silence
"Do you think that my planning is foolish and we suffered because of it"
Everybody tried to shout the loudest that this was not so.

"So, what is the problem then. Karloff, your riders did not catch the Germans despite my orders. Why, do you need better motivation"
"No Sire, we live to serve."
"What then."
"Range Sire. The thrice-damned Germans can kill us when we can hardly see them, let alone fight them. And their rapid fire-not only can they kill at long range, they can do it so fast. These "mines" we can learn to avoid-but how do you fight an enemy that never lets you close?"
"Good question, a very good question. So who thinks he has an answer to that."

"Sire, if I may."
"Hermier, my Chief of Spies that could not warn us-what do you have to say?"
The Tzeentch mage plaed visibly-and then did the only thing that could save his life and straightened his spine. "Sire, I warned you of the German weapons. I have told you and everybody in this very tent that the Germans have mighty weapons and kill from afar. Just none of us had an idea what that meant. We thought in terms of improved weapons like imperial cannon-bad if they hit you, but when you close quickly enough they can be killed. Here you can close, but you will not get close enough to kill before they get you."
"So you think that we should give up?"
"No Sire, I do not. The Germans have range, but you need to be able to see the enemy when you want to kill him-and that we have to talk about."
"Interesting-speak up"