Nagarythe, Ulthuan, Brunntag, 20th Vorhexen

Bruglier Henbane woke up in what was nearly total darkness even for him. Despite the cold, despite limbs that seemed as heavy as lead and joints that refused to move smoothly he did not swear. He had slept to this time ever since the invasion in Ulthuan began and it was far too normal for him. Besides swearing would take energy and that was something he was in short supply of.

He put on the few parts of his armor he shed at night, put his sword inside the scabbard at his belt and went on a quiet inspection. He did not expect to find anything as his morning tour was so well known by his Druchii and slaves now that nobody was surprised.

Isha, his right hand had everybody stand to at sunrise and as in the last months nothing happened. The Druchii patrols, their dogs and the Dragon riders had decimated the Shadow Warriors to the point where they rarely attacked bigger caravans like his anymore. He was quite close to the Dragon Gate now and expected to meet guides that would lead him around the new battles tomorrow so increased vigilance was still important. The laager shook itself into marching formation after a hurried breakfast and the weary trek towards Malus Darkblade'sarmy resumed. The way they were taking was not paved and the only improvement had been to put the tree trunks and bigger branches across the muddy path to form a primitive curdory road. By now a lot of the wood had rotten or sunken, so the slaves that accompanied the caravan had to push the wagons past the worst spots when the oxen were not able to do so alone.
Bruglier saw that the carefully cut back brushes were also making a comeback at the sides of the road, he would have to speak to Malus` liaison about this. He had mentioned this before and was told that the brushwork would not grow so fast in winter that "Hooooooot"

The caravan leader was still wondering what the sound meant when many of these bushes rolled away and revealed a host of Shadow Warriors that took the time to form in line before rushing his caravan. Fuck-how could so many of these evade the Druchii patrols?
"Form the laager-form the laager"
He did not have to think about shouting the order, and his warriors did not need to hear it. All too often this drill had happened and the wagons were starting to shape into the defensive circle that had worked so well. Bruglier was about to join his spear-carriers when he heard the shout of alarm. Turning his head he saw a veritable cloud of arrows settling on his men, another one on its heels. Even the screams of the wounded and the bellows of the oxen could not keep him from wondering what made the elven archers wear the subdued clothing of their Shadow Warrior brethren and since when did they hide themselves in ambush. This was so unlike his arrogant cousins.

His armor deflected two missiles that would otherwise have killed him, but many of his warriors were not so lucky. Even worse in some ways was that many oxen had been hit and either dropped or ran amok in the pain they could not understand, making forming the laager impossible.
"Spears on me-gather around your commander" brought the Druchii spear-carriers into line with Bruglier in their middle. Even that was not without cost as the archers continued to fire as the crossbow shooters employed by Bruglier did not have the range. They needed to advance-and that they could only do behind the spear-carriers.
That the units formed at all was testament to the discipline their commander had instilled in them. Yet by the time they had made that they had lost a fair part of their number already and had not closed with the Asur at all. Bruglir was not too worried-his spearelfs would charge as a block and would blow through the Shadow Warriors who were skirmishers and the archers like a stake through an eyeball. He still sometimes wondered if skirmishing really suited the Shadow Elves fighting style better or if their hate of anything that smelled of the true Elves just kept getting the better of them.

The adrenaline rush of the charge made the world constrict itself into a narrow tunnel from Bruglier`s helmet to the Shadow Warriors in front of him. The high-pitches war cries of his Druchii filled his ears and the urge to maim and kill blotted out all other thought.
He did not even wonder why the Shadow Warriors did not charge on their own as they usually did until his charge was brought short. The ground under his feet just gave-not much just half a meter or so-and his foot was inexplicably tangled in something that that would hold him faster the more he pulled. His boots and training stopped him in time but many of his warriors suffered from torn ligaments and knees from the sudden stop. The Asur had made a small trench and filled them with sticks to slow him down-when did they stoop to such low tricks? The Druchii behind them never stopped in time so a nasty pile-up developed into which the Shadow Warriors finally charged. Now all formation was gone, the first rank was injured and hardly able to fight-this was not a battle but a slaughter. Bruglier fended off the first attack and managed to get his foot from the trench but ended up with a limp. He struck around him ferociously and for all his pains got a scimitar straight through the back plate od his armor.

Sergeant Blaskovics would never learn of it, but he would be quite proud of Herleas who had made much of the punji stakes which the KSK soldier had introduced the Shadow Warriors to. Bruglier was not killed immediately, he would live to see the Asur carrying off his supplies and burning the rest before succumbing to blood loss.

Bay of Drusilla, Ulthuan, pre-dawn Bäckertag 22. Vorhexen

The sound was unlike anything the Druchii in the bay had ever heard. It was a low-frequency thrumming with some harsh undertones. It came from an airborne source and moved quickly over the bay and the beachhead beyond.
Even in the dark it was obvious that the source of the sound had dropped many white small white sheets which were discovered to be a very white very even paper printed in Druchii script. They were gathered by slaves at the orders of their masters and quickly brought to the Black Arks that guarded the entrance to the Bay of Drusilla.
No two Black Arkswill ever be exactly the same. They were the fortresses that belonged to Malekith`s followers when he lost the civil war in Ulthuan. In a desperate gamble Malekith had loosened the bonds of magic that kept this part of Ulthuan from drowning, keeping just the fortifications afloat by the same magic. Able to navigate under their own sorcerous power their size ranged from somewhat bigger than a Dragon Ship to mountains afloat. The bigger ones were big enough to house other Druchii ships inside caverns and were studded with enough bolt throwers and other ranged weaponry to fend off any attack. Even when these floating rocks were boarded their immense size meant that the attackers often lost themselves in the labyrinthine interiors, eventually becoming slaves themselves.

If the Arks would have been more and faster the seas of the Warhammer World would have belonged to the Druchii and wherever they went the Dark Elves rules the waves-till the Germans came along.
The sheets that brought the captains of the "Eternal Torment" and the "Praise of Agony", the two Black Arks that guarded the entrance into the Bay. Both were important Dread Lords who were very much used to getting their way and for that reason alone they would have been enraged at what they read. By now the two were meeting with others and the mood towards humans in general and Germans in particular was as ugly as it got.
Hartmut Klawitter again cursed his fate in being one of the few Germans in the Bay and the only one who had learned the Druchii language fluently. Currently he was the focus of a meeting of a lot of Druchii who were so enraged that he was not sure they would remember that he was supposedly working for them.
"What is that supposed to mean: Total Exclusion Zone for warships…leave anchorage until Angertag…lethal force..? And how did the Germans drop these sheets at all?"
"Mighty Lord, the sheets were dropped from a helicopter, a flying machine that can take-off and land vertically. They can be placed on German warships and one of them has to be nearby as the range of these machines is not very great, just a couple of hundred kilometers. As to the contents of this sheet: They have simply declared a blockade of the North-East coast of Ulthuan for all warships. They state that we are free to remove our troops with unarmed ships, but all warships have to leave in three days at the most."
"And you think they can make good on that boast?"
"That very much depends on what they send here. If there is just a Frigate or two they can make our lives very difficult indeed, but they will not be able to intercept everything. These ships could sink anything but a Black Ark. But if they have send a bigger fleet, especially with the helicopter carrier then it will be nearly impossible to breach the blockade"
"And out Arks are safe?"
"From what I have seen your Arks have meters-thick walls from granite and similar. Mere warships cannot scratch them and even the helicopters that the "Seeadler" carries cannot do more than damage the defensive works. And boarding the Arks will be difficult even for German soldiers as they would have to fight at short ranges inside pathways that only you know. Even a torpedo from a submarine should not do much damage. There is one plane that has the range to come out here, but if they have bombs which can breach so much rock I doubt. But I have been away from Germany for nearly two years-maybe they changed something."
"So you think we are safe for the moment if we stay here?"
"As far as I can tell, yes. The Germans will have one weapon that could breach an Ark, but they are very unlikely to use that, especially if they are not fully could talk to your mages-in case the Germans attack with planes they could hide us in a thunderstorm, that will make attacking us much harder."
"We will look into that. The arrogance of you Germans is astounding."
"I beg your pardon Dread Lord, I am no longer a German."

"Be that as it may-how about this "No flyers will be allowed between…."
"Let me see…ah there it is. Ok this is a so-called "no-flight zone" where nobody but the Germans is allowed to fly. The question is if they can make it stick. If the Germans have bases in Nagarythe then they could base helicopters or even planes there, but I have not heard about such a thing, you do not do that overnight and I do not believe the Asur would agree to such a base. If they want to use the helicopter carrier they have a range problem. In short-we should avoid flying from here, but if we restrict ourselves to close to the Dragon Gate it should be safe enough. But as I say-if the Germans bring their fighter planes along all bets are off."

"And you can do nothing to defend us against your former countrymen-or don`t you want to?"
"We cannot help here. The helicopters are too well armored against our rifles and the ships can kill from such distances that you could not see them."
"What-you are jesting"
"I am not. The guns they put into the Frigates when we arrived in this world can fire more than 30 kilometers, some of the missiles can do better than a hundred. We have nothing which can do this and never promised that we could."
"But the Arks are safe you say."
"As far as I can tell yes. Put the Dragons close to the Gate and pull the ships into the Arks and we should be fine."
"Then we will do this and upon your head be it."

Close to Neustadt, Naggaroth, afternoon, 25. Angertag Vorhexen

Silvar Bloodcrest had indeed worked together with the Germans successfully. He had been the first Dread Lord who had used the German mercenaries and even he had to admit that his victory was mostly due to them.
He had worked with them but he hated them nevertheless as he hated theirguts. Mercenaries occupied the lowest possible rung in the Druchii armed forces-just that this particular batch had the favor of Malekith and had to be treated nicely. They went so far and assumed that they had equal worth with a true Elf!
And besides that he had seen what the German weapons could do and ever since then he desired these weapons so much that he could taste them. Now Malekith had obviously removed his protection-why would he reign in the Germans otherwise-and had given Silvar the opportunity to gather some. Yes, Elric Straker had stressed that the Germans were to be back unharmed-but he had never said something that they were allowed to keep their arms. He would have to make sure that the majority were rendered to the Witch King-but he doubted that there was any inventory in Druchii hands that could show him wrong.

Currently he was leading a column of his own warriors down the road that lead to Neustadt and could not arrive too soon. The awful winter of Naggaroth was driving a strong wind, sometimes mixed with snow seemingly right through his clothes. He would never show any outward discomfort but had to get his troops under cover soon, otherwise they would risk frostbite. Another of the short snow showers reduced visibility markedly and when it returned Silvar found himself face to face with a small mounted troop of Germans who seemed as surprised as him.

"Who goes there?" Went out from both sides pretty simultaneously and in when recognition arrived the two leaders rode forward to speak.
"Lord Silvar Bloodcrest, well met. I am.."
"Miroslav, Son of Weit, I know. What are you doing here?"
"Looking for a lot of escaped slaves and some of our members that may have lost the way. We have not seen them since yesterday-did you meet anybody?"
"No, we have not, that happens a lot lately I have heard."
"Will get better when we get this bunch for sure. And you are out in this weather because…?"
"I will state this to your leader, not his hirelings."
"To do so you have to meet him. Last time I checked we can choose who comes and who goes not you. So again, what is your business."
Silvar Bloodcrest was unable to answer for full five seconds or so as he had to gnash his teeth in an effort to control himself.
"We are here, human, as the Witch King has decreed that you all move to Naggarond. You are to secure your workshops, give up your arms and surrender yourself to the mercy of the Witch King."
Well, he had not spoken to Malekith directly but Elric Straker, and the part of surrender had not been said at all, but that was what the Witch King surely wanted wasn`t it?

"You can discuss this all with Claus Tolles, but rest assured that you will get my weapons from my dead hand and not otherwise."
"That can be arranged, but I´ll discuss it with Claus, son of Tolles."
The Dread Lord had always resented the way the German had pointed his rifle close to him, but when the Germans horse whined and move some it was practically shoved in his face. He could not stand that at all.

Druchii are far faster than humans, are they not? Silvar`s left hand sneaked forward like a striking snake and gripped the weapon that the German had not yet pointed his way. He grabbed the tube and pulled as hard as he could when the bang and the feeling of a hot iron on his lower arm surprised him.
All around him the bangs of the German weapons drowned out all other sounds while he fought for control with the burly German.

Close to Hills of Contrition, Nagarythe, Ulthuan, same time

Hartmut Klawitter was up in the air again. By now he was happy for any flight hours that he could put in. While his fear of flying a dragon had not disappeared altogether it was far from the near-panic of the first missions. What added to the appeal besides the joy of being up in the air in the raw was that he was away from the Druchii that either wanted to hurt him or urgently needed him to explain something they could not understand. That they wanted to hurt him even more when they did not like the explanation went without saying. It was like being surrounded by barely controlled dogs. They were supposed not to bite, but they were salivating from their mouths thinking of the opportunity. Funny wise he was less afraid of Yerena these days. Yes, she would hurt him, but only to an extent he could stand-barely. That counted for something, didn`t it?

Besides a couple of other Dragons the air was empty of any fliers. The Asur had only a few Griffons and they fared badly against Dragons and their poison breath. Their number had been further reduced yesterday when two of them tried to bring some mages closer to the Auxilia and found themselves outranged by the two heavy machine guns the mercenaries had brought to Ulthuan.
Currently he was up to observe both the movements of the Druchii and German allies as well as the Asurian response. The latter was hard to judge as the High Elves learned more and more to hide among the trees and to use camouflage where they could not. Yet the infrared function of his NVG allowed a glimpse here and there as the ground was bloody cold indeed.
On the other side the army sent led by Malus Darkblade had finally arrived and had encamped itself across the Hills occupied by their cousins. They had not fortified their camp much besides some trenches in an obvious "come here if you dare" gesture, yet the High Elves knew better by now to cross the Auxilia`s fields of fire. It looked like the Druchii would be ready to assault the Hills by tomorrow as planned.

He swiveled his head about when something caught in the corner of his eye. He was about to get his binox up to inspect the small airborne spec when it became larger quite rapidly. It resolved itself into a delta-winged plane that passed at incredible speed with a tearing sound that arrived at the German`s ears only when the plane had nearly passed.
Patting his Druchii pilot on the shoulder he used the intercom between their two helmets.
"Get down to the camp-immediately."
"What was that-and why?"
"That was a German fighter plane-and if you want to live land now."
"We have no orders to..."
"You can discuss this if you live-otherwise this will be difficult."

Both Druchii and human watched the plane approach another dragon while Yerena guided her beast into a slow downwards spiral, hedging her bets. This time the plane passed the dragon even more closely and it rider turned his animal into a tight curve, facing the approaching Typhoon head-on. When the German came back the Dragon belched a cloud of noxious smoke that missed the fighter by many meters. The plane pulled up nearly vertically, topped over at the apex of it's ascend and dropped back far faster than any stone could fall. A short burst of tracer connected fighter and dragon for a second, then the plane veered off and bits and pieces of rider and beast dropped from the sky.
Yerena pushed her dragon into the steepest descend she dared and Klawitter was too afraid to even think about throwing up.

Neustadt, Naggaroth, Morning, 26. Festtag Vorhexen

The Black Company had known very well that they had made their camp in the middle of wolves and that a defense was a high priority. Among the first public works that the mercenaries had gotten underway when they took "Neustadt" for their own purposes were s series of bunkers and other fortifications. Very hard to demolish with the weapons given to the Druchii or the Hung they resembled the bunkers behind the lines used during WW1. Erected mostly underground, stabilized by wood and with few entrances that were guarded by low-slung blockhouses armed with machine guns they would be easy to defend and hell to take. Despite being primitive they held enough supplies to withstand a siege of weeks with ease and months with hardship.
The Black Company had run monthly exercises where everybody was supposed to be in his place inside within a few minutes at the sound of a Klaxon. When first the sounds of an engagement could be heard and then the high-pitched scream of the alarm most Germans had made it in record time.

„Braaaap" This time Claus Tolles did not even flinch. The first time his compound had been shot at he had thrown himself down to avoid being hit. By now he was getting used to some very bad shooting from the other side, and the observation post he was in would stand any assault by hand-held weaponry anyway. It was likely that the Druchii had taken the weapons of one of his troopers during the skirmish yesterday and had either figured out how to use them by themselves or had forced one of the missing Germans to show them.
He was left again with his musings how things could get so sour so fast. Until two months ago he had made it. The Black Company was solidly entrenched in Naggaroth with good connections to the Witch King and lots of contacts to other Druchii nobles who started to see the Germans as the path to advancement. Most of his associates were quite happy as they could follow their "special needs" to their hearts content. Many found the work of establishing industry in Naggaroth an interesting challenge and some found campaigning to their liking. Remarkably few had ever expressed a wish to go home and none had ever acted upon it in ways that would have made Claus to act on it. He could see a path for himself to the relative immortality granted by the "Ritual of Blood" and had such plans for the future.

He had not taken the changes seriously at first. Some of the engineers and chemists had started to take their "fun" quite seriously and started to exhibit eccentric behavior. At first Claus had put that down to them needing increased doses of whatever tickled their fancies and their changed circumstances. When this started to influence the bottom line as the slaves started to fear the Germans and to run he investigated more closely. When he learned that Jasla had opened her house to nearly all these cases he was about to confront the witch when she simply disappeared, taking quite a few of those she had so obviously influenced with her.
The investigation he had led into the Germans left behind and the controls he had implemented had not improved morale any but had stabilized things considerably. He was actually happy when Malekith had asked for the Auxilia to join the invasion of Ulthuan as it took many of those unhappy with the increased control away.
Things were looking up again when a few days ago the second group of slaves and Germans disappeared. He had the beginning of an idea why they had gone but not exactly where and had sent out patrols to bring them back. Which was precisely when the fecal matter hit the fan for real. Miroslav Breit had come back from a skirmish with Druchii troops that had assaulted them when they had refused to give up their weapons. What the bleeding f….had gone wrong there. He did not think that Malekith had been so angry at him about the share companies that he would be arrested.

"Knock Knock"
"Enter"
"Sir, we have the answer from Lord Silverhawk. He has no idea why these troops have attacked us either. He suggests that Silvar Bloodcrest has a deep hatred of us, so this might either be an internal matter or something that got out of hand. He promised to contact Malekith and thinks this will be over soon."
"Thanks, let`s sit tight then."
Lord Silverhawk was the only Dread Lord the Black Company trusted and had dwellings close enough so that the mercenaries had given him a wireless set. As much as Claus wanted to contact Malekith or Elric Straker directly, Naggarond was too far away for the sets that the Black Company had been able to acquire which slowed communications to a crawl at times. Tolles hoped that Lord Silverhawk would be able to use a mage for communication, that would accelerate things.
He could just hope that the Germans that had not been able to make the bunker in time would be alive when the siege was lifted, most of them were the few gifted engineers left to him. Given so many of them had absconded he needed ever one of them to deliver on his promises to the Witch King. At the moment he had done what he could do-now he had to sit tight. Fortunately he had the means to do exactly that.

Bridge of Seeadler, 200 kilometers from the Bay of Drusilla, Ulthuan, same time

Captain Werner felt the spray-leaden wind push in his face. He used his binox to have a look at the small fleet that his carrier was the center of. Farther out the Frigates "Köln" and "Sachsen" were providing protection against Sea Critters and ships that got too close. Further behind several replenishment ships followed while one of them just underwent an evolution that neither Earth nor the Warhammer World had seen in a very long time.
An airship approached the tender "Berlin" from behind; the docking point of its nose had already acquired the hook connected to a steel cable that winched the Zeppelin in to the mast newly installed on the ship. It would receive a new crew, new fuel and victuals and would discharge the garbage that had accumulated during the last 24 hours. The German navy certainly did not have the budget to develop a carrier-capable AWACS plane and had to make do with the radars mounted on its helicopters and a navalized version of the NT-Zeppelins. So far the three airships that accompanied the small fleet had stood the onslaught of the winter-time seas well and were at least as important to the upkeep of the exclusion and no-flight zone as the vaunted Typhoons.
Their radar allowed them to spot ships and dragons from a considerable distance and provided steers for his ships and aircraft.

While the remit of the total exclusion zone was much wider, (insert comma) currently the fleet mostly bothered with the approaches into the Bay of Drusilla. That they had sewn tight, allowing only a few unarmed freighters to move in and out of the bay. So far nobody had challenged the fleet and Werner was not worried if they were. Yet in an hour his ship would provide additional motivation to the Druchii to try.
Time to end his break and to get his lazy ass back into CIC where he could look at a computer monitor for hours-if he was lucky.