At the gate
Capitaine Lambert`s mind had gone numb, which was hardly surprising. It might be good practice to believe in six impossible things before breakfast, but today had broken that quota decisively. First an unbreakable dome of air, an attack by beings that rifles could not kill,and being saved by a couple of mages. Next he had seen something open which looked like a window into the depths of space which disgorged things that might come from a HieronymusBosch painting-only to have that move and then discard something like the biggest frog in the universe borne by two legged dinosaurs. Protected of course by something which looked a lot like a German army from the future.
Which was topped off by the stream of light returning, and this time accompanied by beings that were less ghostly, but seemed to come from the depths of some hell. Some days it really did not pay to get out of bed at all.
The stream of light was about a kilometer away when the tanks opened fire. He had seen it before; he had used firepower enough to wipe out a small army just to see it pass harmlessly through the wraiths. This time was different; wherever the tracers met the glowing shapes they flared up and burst before vanishing without a trace. The winged beasts approached more cautiously as if watching the wraith`sfate before committing themselves. Still one obviously got too close for the Germans for comfort and a burst from the autocannon of one tank pierced its chest and sent it to the ground, making the others retreat inside the dome.
He was still standing there, trying to gather his bearings, when one of the newly arrived tanks opened a hatch on the hull and a man climbed out. The tank looked off to Lambert`s eyes-the turret was comparatively small but sported a huge gun. It looked a bit like artists impressions of future tanks the officer had seen before. The man wore a tanker`soverall together with what seemed to be an armored vest, yet moved as if he wore a t-shirt. Walking towards the French Capitaine he provided the impetus for Lambert to do something. Pulling himself straight he saluted the newcomer who wore the rank tabs of an "Oberleutnant". He hailed from Molsheim, so speaking to the Germans should not be too difficult-he hoped.
"Capitaine Lambert, 4e régiment d'hélicoptères at your.." There should have been a "service" at the end of that introduction, yet that was killed by the German`s eyes. He looked human enough, but his eyes were those of a wolf. Wrong sized pupils stared out of irises of the purest yellow. And they did not have the small involuntary movements that human eyes always have. When they fixed themselves somewhere they stayed, currently on him. They were the eyes of a predator.
"Oberstleutnant Ulrich Stoiber at you service Capitaine. I lead the "Advanced Weapons Troop" in this mission. That being over there is Lord Mazdamundi, the mage who brought us here and his bodyguard. Keep a couple of meters away from him and you`ll be fine. I take it that you are in charge of the French units here?"
"Yes Oberleutnant I am. Thank you for showing up in time and foryour assistance. Nevertheless I have to ask why you are here and what are your intentions?"
"No problem Capitaine. We are here because Lord Mazdamundi foresaw that whatever is under the dome would be a grave danger to this world and asked us to come."
"This thingcommands you?"
"We are allies."
"Still I do not…" And that was when he was no longer at the roadblock in front of something that might be a German tanker. That was when he was inside a space filled with colors he had no name for, sounds that he prayed not to remember when this was over and a skin that burned and tickled at the same time. He did not hear a voice per se, neither with his ears nor his mind. The information just appeared inside his head."
"This is where I spent the time after the attack. The attack on me that brought the Germans to us and gave you the Wasteland."
"What is this place?"
"This is the Warp, or the parts of it that you can perceive without damage."
"What is the Warp?"
"The place outside of what you call reality. The place where your dreams go and where your nightmares come from. What you do, what you think and feel, that is reflected here. But what the ones who live herefeel and think has repercussions also. Time has no real meaning in the Warp and this is where I saw this."
MathisLambert watched the dome in front of him, saw the pillar of light. He saw it bridging the "warp" he was in, saw it reaching for a different world and observed it reaching for the North Pole of that world. Monstrous beings entered the pillar and emerged together with the glow of energies he could not place. He saw vast battles on the surface of the earth. He saw French forces that mowed down ranks of things with too many teeth and claws, boils and lesions just to succumb to horrifying illnesses later. He saw another something that must be a submarine with ballistic missiles, saw an interior that looked like an unending orgy and missiles rising from it.
He saw red-furred monsters appear in the middle of vast crowds, saw them rip apart humans limb from limb before succumbing to rifle fire that killed violator and victim alike.
"In our world these energies directed into Winds of Magic. Here they are uncontrolled, would cause untold damage."
And then he saw things moving back through this pillar of light. Saw tanks that moved without a crew that bled when they were hit and screamed in joy when they killed. Watched bombers unload over a crowded city and grin.
"Knowledge would come back to our world. Be very bad. This is not the plan of the Old Ones. Needs to be stopped. Needs to be stopped by me, by these Germans. Needs to be stopped by you."
"This is horrible"
"This is what I saw for two years and an eternity"
And then he was back inside his head, back in front of the Oberleutnant with the eyes of a wolf and a mission.
"What are your intentions Oberleutnant?"
"Lord Mazdamudi will take care of that dome. We go in, kill everything that moves, drop that castle down that well that is supposed to be somewhere in there and go home."
"And how do we figure in there?"
"Let me guess-your weapons could not kill the wraiths?"
"Qui, nothing could but the staffs and swords the mages used."
"Ah, you need weapons that reach into the warp to kill those. Well, we brought you some G3 rifles that have the rune of fire, they will do nicely. I suggest that you coordinate yourself with LieutenantVos, who has the infantry component of this. Do you have any plans of that fortress over there?"
"None I am afraid."
"Then we will need to establish some recon first. I will see to that, you go to Vos, he can also help of your men need more first aid."
"Where do I find that lieutenant"
"He is next to that stumpie over here."
"Thank you."
After seeing the warp through Mazdamundi`s eyes what was another improbable thing? That the armored soldiers moved like they were not encumbered with what had to be heavy armor? That one of them was far shorter and broader across the shoulders than a human and was armed with an axe? Accompanied by what should be a human armed with a rifle and a sword that was slung across the back?
He went to the armored figure, saluted in front of it and resolved himself not to flinch when the visor came up. The extraordinary armor gave way to a very ordinary handsome face.
"Capitaine Mathis Lambert at your service. Oberleutnant Stoiber told me to contact you."
"Lieutenant Joakim Vos at your service. Do your men need medical aid?"
"Yes, the clearing station is over there. My medics should cope, but any further help would be appreciated."
"No problem, give me a second. Meister Jagd, kindly bring your team to the French clearing station. Jens, Ulrika-the boss needs a recon of that place, get to it."
The French officer watched while several of the newcomers went for the casualties while a small number of what appeared to be quadcopters rose to the air. Two unarmored humans made for the dome at the same time and while they appeared normal enough they moved with a speed that Lambert found hard to believe.
"Capitaine, if you would send some of your men to that Boxer over there. We had few days to prepare and did not know exactly whom we`d contact so we brought some G3 rifles with the rune of fire with us for you to use. Any ammo you shoot from it will hurt even those beasties that can be killed only with magical weapons." The armored officer must have seen Lambert`s eyebrow rise.
"You think that the G3 is a bit long in the tooth?"
"Err-I know it is dependable, but you seem to carry something different."
"Yes, we do. We thought that anybody we encounter should be familiar with the MP5 and the G3 has exactly the same controls, so you should do well with them."
"Ah-good thinking. I`ll instruct my men then and come back to you."
"Please do that."
Lambert made sure that the rifles were distributed to the best marksmen the survivors in his unit had and reorganized them into two platoons. One would be the "shooters" the rest would either do duty as medics-or wait until one of the precious rifles was available for them to use. He made his way back to the Lieutenant who seemed to just stand there. The closed visor made it impossible to guess what he might be doing or watching.
When he came closer the helmet opened so he could watch the reassuringly normal eyes again.
"Lieutenant Vos, one question-actually some of them if I am allowed."
"Certainly."
"What year is it where you come from?"
"2524-err 2016 by the old calendar."
"How is that possible?"
"Why-what year do we have here?"
"Also 2016. But your equipment seems very advanced, Germany certainly did not have that four years ago."
"Ah, that. Well we had to adapt quickly or else. But to give you an idea-the two tanks are prototypes, and are cobbled together from various bits and pieces. Hull from the Panzerhaubitze 2000, guns either the old 140 mm experimental gun or the 35 mm millennium. The suits are well-magic."
"What?"
"We found that some Technici in the Warhammer World can build machines that violate the rules of mechanics. They helped build these together with some Dawi and our technology. Don`t ask me how that works exactly, but it does work very well. So you might say we cheated."
"Ok-I think. And what is that…."
"Oh that is Lord Mazdamundi, a Slann. Very very old, very powerful and brought us here."
"You trust him?"
"He never did anything that made us not do so-except taking Germany to his world. And that was supposedly an accident. He even said "sorry" or so I am told."
"And these things that look like angry dinosaurs?"
"Are his Saurus bodyguard. Don`t go near them unless Mazdamundi invites you. The results would be messy otherwise."
"I do believe that. So what`s next?"
"We have a command conference in five and then we go and kick some Tzeench ass."
"Who is Tzeench?"
"Oh well, we should have that much time. You know there is a warp already, right? So in this warp there are a lot of things that people believe to be Gods and…
His mind had to process the next set of impossibilities when he made his way to the tanks where several people already gathered. He was nearly there when he felt a light tap on his shoulder and found himself face-to-face with Ulrich Stoiber.
"Could you spare me a minute Capitaine?" Lambert had asked himself when this moment would come.
"Certainly Oberleutnant."
"I am very much aware that we are in territory controlled by France and that you outrank me. You also command a bigger unit. Yet there is this problem…"
"That I just command a platoon of effectives, that I have next to no knowledge about your capabilities and the nature of the enemy, is it that?"
"I`d tried to word that a differently, but yes."
"Thanks for the attempt to save my ego. Unfortunately these things over there do not care, so I shouldn't care. And your Lord Mazdamundi can be quite persuasive you know."
"I think I know what you mean. So?"
"So I will command my people as a part of whatever operation you want to mount against this dome and its denizens."
"Thank you very much."
A few minutes later the Capitaine looked at a piece of white tarpaulin that was stretched on the floor between the unit leaders. The helmet of Joakim Vos projected pictures on it while holding unnaturally still.
Mathis Lambert took part in a meeting that comprised a two-ton frog, a 2.5 meter tall Saurus carrying a cudgel tipped with wicked-looking obsidian blades, soldiers straight from a Japanese SF-flic and led by a human with wolf`s eyes. What was one more impossible thing, he would quite likely encounter a dozen more before the day was done or his mind finally succumbed.
The first pic was a video that displayed the dome from above.
Ulrich Stoiber indicated various points with a small laser dot.
"This is the outline of the castle. Nine sides, pretty equal. Entrance is secured with two towers. There is a moat, but it is dry and the bridge seems solid. There is a parapet to the walls, but currently we see no shooters. We have no plan of the interior, no idea on the strength of the defenders or their armament.
We have to mount two different ops here. One is to protect Lord Mazdamundi and this end of the gate.
The other is to go in there and kill whatever tries to control this gate.
The first part goes to the Saurus bodyguard, Wolfpack 02, the first squad of the Capitaine Lambert`s 4e régiment d'hélicoptères and of course the Games Workshop plus a couple of mages from Marienburg. Wolfpack 02 can provide anti-aircraft fire from here and this will be the rally point if things go seriously south, we will also put casualty clearing here.
The second ops is getting into the fortress. This goes to the armored infantry, the second squad of the French forces and the rest of the Marienburg mages. We will proceed to this point, 500 meters from the gate. Lord Mazdamundi will see to the dome and Wolfpack 01 will take down whatever gate is in our way. We will take the gate and the two towers next to it and recon the fortress with the drones. We will take it from there then. Supply is what we have with us, and communications have been set up on the two-meter band. Any questions?"
There were some, but that was to be expected from such a diverse group. Things got moving 15 minutes later.
Karak de Redemption, same time
Alan Crowlair`s back hurt and his throat chafed miserably which was to be expected. He had been kneeling around a ritual circle with the well at its center ever since the ritual began and been chanting something that was definitelynot meant for human throats. Ever since he did that he could feel energies moving through and around him that he could not fathom. It was exhilarating, it was frightening, he feared it would be the end of him and hoped that it would be the beginning of his ascension which Zuseranz promised him so often. He would be so much more than human yet would he still be Alan Crowlair-and was that a good thing?
Something seemed to disturb the Demigod that had stepped to Earth, made him angry to the extreme. His displeasure burned through the human veins and cramped muscles to the point where breathing became nearly impossible. And then the voice filled his head again, filled it to the point where nothing but Zuseranz`svoice, his wishes and commands had any place.
"Humans are coming, together with others. I need to get the gate back, you hold them off long enough."
"Master, we are few and they will be many. We have only few weapons and none of great might."
"So you are useless to me in your current shape. Let me give you gifts then so you can serve me better."
"I only wish to serve you Master."
"You only wish to serve yourself Crowlair. But you will receive the gifts anyway. Use them wisely or they will use you."
So far Alan had endured the pains and exhaustion without breaking the chant. Within seconds he could no longer participate on the ritual as he was too busy screaming-as long as he still had the sentience and vocal apparatus to do so. Zuseranz had poured energy and lore into him like wine into an empty skin. Had Alan been an accomplished mage, had the lore been fedthe lore had been fed to him over the course of many years under intense tutelage he would have become a frighteningly powerful magic user.
The way he was now he had not the slightest chance to cope with the bounty he was force-fed. Bones and muscles grew within minutes into new shapes, ripping skin and nerves apart. New knowledge and energies changed brain patterns so they could rest there without any regard to the existing structures. Alan Crowlair ceased to be and something else took its place.
The huge malformed shape that had been the Grand Master slouched back while smaller equally ugly shapes climbed from the well.
The dome in front of Gotrek shimmered like a heat wave and was interspersed with crackling lighting. It lent a greenish tint to whatever was behind it and from what the former Slayer had seen impenetrable to anything but light and magic. The shockwave from the tanks gun rattled him even in his power armor and he saw an intense flash at the point where the shell impacted the dome. Some molten pieces dropped to the ground while much more lightning radiated from this point outwards and the shimmer seemed less for a second. The tank was firing grunge shells, at least that was what he had been told, but even that seemed insufficient to bring that barrier down. Another shot went out before the lightshow ended, the lightnings multiplied and then were fed by another source. Looking behind himself Gotrek saw a stream of actinic energy that emerged from the arms of the Slann that terminated at the impact point of the gun. A third shell slammed into the spot and even more lightning spread-and then it was gone.
The lightning and the dome vanished as if they had never been. There was a small pause before the tank went at it again and this time the effects were far different. Whoever had taken over the castle had repaired and reinforced the old gate. Sturdy wood was held together by steel bands and huge screws and Gotrek would have bet that it would have withstood several shots by a Grudge Thrower. Now it disintegrated when it was hit by Ulrich Stoiber`s ride. Two more shots blasted the remains away and revealed a grate that blocked the gateway behind that. The next shot bend that to the side, but enough of the blast could pass so it did not go completely.
His short legs pumped into a sprint when the speaker in his helmet started to crackle and he was half-way across the bridge when Ulrich Stoiber had finished his order to the assault party. He was nearly through the gate when blue flickering flames erupted slightly behind the dwarf`s feet and the vicious crackle of automatic fire from the tanks behind him indicated that the parapet nor held shooters of some sort. He vaulted the gate`s remains and bodily slammed into the forward-leaning grate before anything could connect with his armor. Felix was a step behind him and Gotrek watched him train his new rifle at the murder holes above them. The former Slayer was pretty sure that their armor would have been proof against whatever could be poured from them but could do without a test. Two more member of the armored infantry joined them and started placing charges at the places where the grate was still fixed to the wall and ceiling.
They were about to retreat when the first wraiths passed the grate like flies through a fence. He met the first one with a stroke from above that nearly struck the pavement as the enemy did not offer resistance. Which did not mean that he did not feel the strike. The runes on his axe glowed ever so slightly and the wraith cringed in ways that would mean pain if he still were human. A second stroke banished the attacker to the warp, yet it was replaced by another one. Gotrek made two steps back to gain room and swung his axe in the basic figure eight that he had learned shortly after learning to walk. The axe went through all attackers with equal ease, yet these were not bound to the same rules than the dwarf. Diving into the ground one of them came up below Gotrek`s feet and tried to gain entry into the armor. It was not present enough in the material reality, but if it would have been its screams would have been terrifying. All suits were equipped with the best magical wards the Light Order could provide. As Zuseranz had not counted on opposition with serious magical capabilities the wraiths lacked the ability to cope with them.
The last attackers vanished when Felix`s rifle went through them and then he had to step back against the wall. The charges the engineers had planted did not make impressive bangs, yet Gotrek`s armor still had to stop some fragments. The grate dropped into the courtyard and Gotrek was the first to storm into it. He was greeted by blobs of fire that rained from the walls around the yard as well as from the tower besides him. He ignored it for the moment and drove his axe into a vicious two-handed strike against the small door in front of him. Muscles that were already fearfully strong combined their might with actuators powered by electricity and magic. A blade that was old when the world was young impacted Oak that would have resisted most hasty attacks but not this one. Gotrek hardly registered that the Warp flames missed him again and again, that the Armored Infantry`s second squad arrived and that their fire raked the parapet from below.
He pushed the door`s sorry remains aside and forced himself into the room behind it. There was a spiral staircase that wound upwards and that was currently undefended. The dwarf went for it without a second thought. Of course the stairs angled to the right to make the attackers job more difficult and of course Gotrek did not care. He managed about a third of the way before something tried to stop him.
Whatever it was it had too many limbs tipped by sharp claws, a mouth at least two sizes too big for a body that blocked the stairs completely and breathing fire. The fire washed over the armor with the same effect than water would have had while the dwarf pushed his axe forward. Unable to get a proper swing the point on the axes haft and the tip of the blade punched through glowing skin and half-formed organs alike. This monstrosity was able to scream and so it did. Shrill, dissonant and full of hate the shrieking turned to a gurgle when Gotrek managed to push the axe`s head inside the gaping mouth.
The monster collapsed into a puddle of something that even the former slayer was loath to step in. He was about to jump over it when the puddle reformed into two smaller entities, smaller and blue this time. Hacking with his sword and stamping with his armored boots Gotrek swore as only a dawi could.
Joakim Vos was at the peak of his fitness and encased in a suit that provided more power when he needed it. Yet he had to work hard to keep pace with Ulrika who was in front of him, had no power armor and ripped apart horrors with her bare hands. Joakim managed to insert his rifle besides her at times and cleaned up the blue beasties that appeared whenever one of the pink ones bought it. The pair managed to scale the turret they were in within two bloody minutes and those who followed them had to step into a stream of ichor that ran down the stairs. The door at the top of the stair managed to stop even Ulrika. Joakim anchored his boots in the stairs, extended a sturdy baton past his arm and triggered one of the many apps of his suit.
Using a speed and power his natural muscles could never provide the baton was hammered against several places with brutal force. When he was pretty sure that the door would come open when prompted he inserted the muzzle of his rifle into one of the holes he had punched and triggered a couple of long bursts that went through whatever was behind the door.
Ripping the door aside he stepped forward and turned to the right immediately followed by Ulrika who had the other side. He pushed his bayonet into the body that had hidden there and watched the strange flesh burn around the stab marks. Skavenblight had shown the value of them, and now both his rifle as well as the bayonet had the rune of fire. Two more stabs made sure that the blue monsters that wanted to emerge would never form fully, and then it was time to secure the corridor that extended from the stairs he had just helped secure.
Jens Neugebauer joined a minute later and it did not take long for a swarm of droned to fly, crawl and skitter through the fortress and provide pictures of what lay within.
At the gate
The beings looked like manta rays with tentacles and far too many teeth. It should not been able to fly but did so gracefully while it screamed its hunger to the world. Between the giants were more wraiths which darted here and there. The screamers had used the dome to cover their approach as much as possible and now made their best speed towards the gate and Lord Mazdamundi.
Wolfpack 2, the air defense tank used by the Germans, had acquired them as soon as the radar would get a bearing and had released two missiles before the gun sent salvos downrange. Whatever was in their way died quickly and messily, but there were so many of them. When they got closer assault rifles joined the fray and firebolts rose to meet the enemy.
They got a lot but not enough. Two of the French soldiers were taken up by the whipping tentacles to be fed into gaping mouths, a Saurus that was headed the same way kept bashing his cudgel against the unnatural creature again and again till he was consumed. Between them the wraiths assaulted the small group around the Slann. Blades and staff met ethereal bodies, sometimes banishing them in time, sometimes the wielder died before he could defend himself.
Phil Kelley had picked up one such staff and punched it right through the open mouth of a wraith while a pistol behind him banged away uselessly at the screamer which had just picked up another Saurus.
"Matt, you bleeding idiot, did you have to overpower them so much."
The all fought as hard as they could-the French soldiers firing unfamiliar rifles at targets that seemed to come from their nightmares, the mages that had to use the powers of the warp in the raw despite the terrible danger to their souls and the designers who tried their very best. Well, not everybody tried to kill-some of them tried their best to prevent the dying. Yvette Marchant darted between three wounded who had all lost consciousness. She had put them in the side position that she had been sure she had forgotten and now checked on all of their vital signs to make sure none of them stopped breathing without her noticing. Hot shells dropped on her unprotected back, one ear would only allow her to hear the annoying beep of tinnitus and people died around her, yet she did not stop.
And then the wave came, the wave of blinding light that went through them all, leaving them seemingly unharmed. And when their eyes displayed anything else then floating green dots they could see no more screamers and found no new wraiths.
Lord Mazdamundi was a two-ton frog with an attitude, but even to the humans around him it was obvious that he was annoyed.
"Is enough, need quiet to keep gate"
Karak de Redemption, a little later
The inner courtyard had probably been an unassuming place before the Templars got a hold of it. The well in its center was ordinary enough and the walls around it were covered by creepers. The cobbled floor had been worn smooth by many feet over the millennia and give itself to the arcane symbols written by the inner circle. The symbols had obviously been written by some sort of chalk, but which chalk could have the off-white color and slightly greasy composition was a question best not pondered. Currently the symbols were floating in the air, glowed slightly and turned around the well in an intricate dance.
The battle that Gotrek fought with the enemies inside the courtyard was neither intricate nor beautiful. He was wielding an axe two handed and that meant that all confrontations were short and messy, at least usually. Presently he was having a prolonged combat that managed to be quite prolonged and still messy. The Chaos Spawn in front of him was huge, had many limbs and regenerated at least as fast as he could hurt it. He had no idea where the vital organs were, if it had them at all and how to reach them. Instead he went for the clawed limbs that lashed at him, the eyes that popped out on stalks wherever he attacked and the mouths that snapped at him. The eyes were all of the deepest blue with pupils that looked like a tunnel into a field of stars. Women might have adored such eyes on a man, now they were just one more disgusting detail.
Gotrek had learned to love his new armor. The first one gifted to him by the Germans offered great protection but slowed him down. As one who fought with all-attack abandon that was a bad thing. The power armor had taken getting used to, but now he could move as fast as without and in this fight alone he would have been wounded a couple of times without it.
Cutting and screaming all the while he did not see the tentacle that wormed itself from the Chaos Spawn`s body. It wound itself around the former Slayers arms and chest, winding itself several times around Gotreks torso. Lifting the dwarf far up he kicked and writhed helplessly as he was moved ever closer to a gaping mouth that seemed the size of a tunnel. He did not see the three objects that flew past him into the waiting orifice while trailing smoke. Yet he got to admire his armor again when it protected him from his impact against the next wall where the dying spasms of the spawn flung him. Getting up he
saw a human soldier splattered with blood and other fluids that saluted him with the sword in his hand.
He tried not to wheeze when he addressed the man. "Well done manling. Who are you?"
"Capitaine Lambert Slayer. Let`s secure this courtyard, I believe the bomb is coming up."
Both dwarf and human watched the two power armored soldiers who dropped the heavy satchel charge down the well before walking away quickly, followed by the unequal pair.
Down in the well
Zuseranz was getting mad. Seriously mad. All his manipulations, his schemes and cunning had been brought to ruin by these pesky human and this miserable old amphibian. This was not right, this was an affront. He had to uphold the gate into the Warhammer World, letting it collapse would mean to start anew. This needed most of his power and concentration while his underlings managed to lose badly against such an unprepared enemy. To add insult to injury the humans had just dropped a charge on him. Not that the 20 kilograms of explosives would have inconvenienced him, but the warpstone that had been distributed around it made them hurt.
He had only one choice now, the kind of choice his master abhorred-direct action.
Zuseranz extracted the remains of his former competitors from their prison, activated all the warpstone around him and looked for suitable materials.
The bodies of those Templar who had jumped into the well would do nicely, together with the microlife that existed even at the deep level he currently lived. Pulling all of that together he merged it into a whole, gave it shape and purpose.
His shape and his purpose.
Powered by the energies of the warp, by the remains of two demigods and his own considerable reserves he rose from the ruins of his lair.
Ulrich Stoiber could not watch the battlefield through the eyes he did not consider his own yet. He had to observe via cameras and sensors as he was sitting safe in his armored capsule inside Wolfpack 1. Yet even so the new sight made him flinch. Something just made a huge cloud of dust and debris inside the castle, the same something that made his men shout in astonishment and not too little fear. A dust cloud that had eclipsed even the Castles towers now slowly receded and revealed something not of this world. Ulrich had no real words to describe it. There was something like a great vulture there, but also tentacles and insect eyes-far too many eyes in fact. There were colors that he had no name for that shifted into others equally disgusting and never seen before. It lifted a beak the size of a boat into the sky and screamed its frustration and hate to the world.
The only things that kept the tanker calm were the fact that he was watching the monster on video-and the cold appraisal of a predator that moved inside his mind.
"Gunner, grunge. Target that thing in front of us."
There was no longer a loader on board, Ralf was their drone operator these days. Instead the status screen in front of Ulrich changed color and description in two places, something went "clunk" behind him.
"On the way"
The shell had barely dropped its sabot when it hit the chest of the monster squarely. There was a small explosion when the kinetic energy in the shell was transformed into heat and the grudge written into it had made itself known in the warp.
The monster screamed and shouted, it looked at them and opened its beak.
A stream of dirty white flame came from it and extended itself to impossible lengths. The flames covered Ulrich`s tank completely while its runes of protection glowed white hot. And then there was only darkness.
Zuseranz stretched its great wings in real air the first time in such a long time that he could no longer remember where and when that might have been. They would have been too small to lift him in any sane universe, but the demigod was far removed from such niceties.
Screaming with joy and hate Zuseranz jumped into the air and rose to flight. He wanted to enjoy himself a bit and put the fright into his chosen victims so he actually flew in a wide circle that gave them a clear view of their approaching doom.
He should not have done so. The other tank started spitting shells and missiles at him immediately. They should have been too puny to hurt a being of such might, but hurt they did. The humans had found a way to make the small shells magically active in some way and they hurt, hurt like hell.
Screaming a different tone this time he breathed another stream of energy into it and like the other vehicle it ceased to fire.
Landing before the puny party that had dared to hijack his gate he reared to his full height and gathered his might into an attack that would finish them all. He barely felt the impact of the lesser weapons and laughed at the spells by the human mages. The Slann seemed to work on a protective shield, yet he would teach him how senseless that was when confronted by Zuseranz.
"Gunner, load special. Fire till it drops or we do."
Ulrich Stoiber had been unhappy when he learned that his new tank would have an unmanned turret. His crew could not get at a jammed gun in a battle and all of his vision was via computer. The folly of that had just been proven when all of his electronics had to be restarted after their crash. Yet, when he thought about the "special" shells in the autoloaders magazine he was happy about every centimeter of armor and space between him and them.
They were fed into a one-of-a-kind gun, a 140 mm smoothbore that had been designed to kill any tank ever build or on the drawing board. It dwarfed even the mighty 120 mm on his old tank and firing it shook his new ride despite the shock absorbers. The shell that left the muzzle at 6 times the speed of sound looked like the old APDSFS shells he had used before. A slender fin-stabilized dart emerged from the sabot when it dropped away. Its metal color did not give anything about it away, yet this ended when it hit Zuseranz back`s. The stainless steel body broke upon impact and released its real payload, a four-kilogram of made of warpstone. The kinetic energy made the rod penetrate the demigods skin before the immense heat converted the warpstone into pure, raw magical energy that raged through Zuseranz`s chest.
A second hit followed the first before a fire came from the demigods beak. It did neither go for the mages nor Ulrich`s tank. It was the fire that burned in Zuseranz that burst through there, a fire that burned in this world as well as in the warp.
A scream that never moved any air was heard by everybody`s minds, and unending scream of pain and frustration. A scream that ended in an explosion that left nothing but battered looking survivors protected by a shield and a tank on the other side of it.
(Info for you dear readers: Due to real life things, it is possible that I cannot update for 2 weeks. I will try to keep my personal posting schedule, but it might not be possible.)
