A scout stood on a watchtower on the edge of the fortress, holding his
overcoat close around himself as protection against the cold air of
Bohemus. He looked down at the datascreen, and brushed the dust off. The
radar had picked up some motion. Twenty-eight, no, twenty-nine blips
were slowly winding their way down the valley. He gazed out across the
valley, but could see nothing through the swirling dust.
“Damn this planet,” he muttered to himself. He listened. A slow
beat was increasing in volume as the blips got closer. As they drew
near, the beat turned to a thud, like leaden footsteps. The scout’s
heart started to beat faster. He saw shapes emerging from the storm… a
huge mammork was striding towards the fortress, its feet pounding the
earth like a battle drum. Mammorks never came this close to civilisation
of their volition. They kept to the great plains. What’s more, this
mammork was accompanied by a small herd of lesser mammorks and.. what
looked like… flesh hounds of Khorne… The scout froze for a moment. A
gift from Khorne? An illusion? He checked the radar. No illusion – the
radar was still registering their movement. He paused, then did what he
hadn’t done in months, and sounded the alarm. A great horn pealed,
piercing the air with a note that would awaken all in the fortress.
‘All’ was not many. Prostrednik had taken half the Bloodstorm and left
the fortress in the hands of Nykl, who had a platoon of cultists, three
squads of berzerkers and various daemon engines to protect the base. Gun
emplacements would fire upon intruders should they be needed. The scout
was still not sure who was approaching the gates or why, but he could
take no chances. As the horn blared, troops emerged from towers and
hangars, checking their ammo, readying their axes and forming into
squads. The scout flinched as a sound indicated Demagogue Nykl hauling
himself onto the watchtower.
“What have you seen?” Nykl spoke with the low, cracked voice of a hardened warlord.
“Look, my lord. I don’t get it. Mammorks with flesh hounds?” Nykl
looked, one bionic eye whirring as it focused on the intruders.
“It’s a gift from the Blood God. Recruits for the Bloodstorm. Flesh
hounds will appear when needed. Perhaps an enemy approaches. Open the
gates.”
“Are you sure, my lord?”
“Do you doubt the will of Khorne?”
“No, my lord.” The scout pressed a button, and the great brass
gates creaked as huge motors hummed and began to swing them open. As
Nykl watched, he noticed a shape atop the great mammork. His confidence
in his decision began to fade. His arms drooped to his side. No one
could ride a mammork, much less command it to approach a fortress… and
the flesh hounds… who could be riding this beast, but… a champion of
Khorne? As the pack emerged from the dust, the champion began to look
familiar, and began to stir in Nykl a sense of panic. It was Krev Grazl…
Krev Grazl let out a bellow, seemingly challenging the fortress.
The mammork matched him and roared. The three smaller mammorks joined
in. The entire cohort broke into a run, charging headlong at the gates.
Nykl barked in panic,
“Close the gates! Close them now! It’s Krev Grazl!”
“My lord, they cannot close during an opening command! I can’t close them!”
“By the machines of the Bloodstorm, what have you done? He… he will kill us all!”
Krev Grazl ducked his head as the great beast hurtled through the
gates. The assembled troops, blissfully unaware of who had stormed the
fortress, fired their weapons. Bolt pistol shots tore through the air,
but the beasts moved too fast. Flesh hounds leaped and pounced on
cultists, tearing heads from bodies with their razor-sharp teeth.
Cultists retaliated with auto pistols, swords, axes and various stabbing
implements. The claws of flesh hounds raked at metal body parts as the
cultists struggled to fight against the very daemons whom they had long
fought beside. Meanwhile, mammorks smashed aside berzerkers with their
tusks, goring ancient warriors with ease. The Berzerkers put up more of a
fight than the cultists, goring the limbs of mammorks with the
chainaxes as their squads were trampled underfoot. Krev Grazl, atop the
mightiest mammork any boheman had ever seen, was dealing death like
never before. All here, save the newest recruits, had seen him in
battle, and seen how he could cut armies to shreds in minutes with his
powerful daemon weapon and lightning claw. Now, riding this huge beast, a
beast equipped with brutish tusks and a great bone-tipped tail, he was
unstoppable. The beast rampaged across the fortress and crashed into a
helbrute. The helbrute, unaccustomed to fighting such a beast, was taken
by surprise, and lifted clean off its feet by the tusks of the mammork.
The mammork slammed it into a wall. The helbrute roared in agony and
warp energy crackled along its armour. The daemon inside would return to
the Warp if Krev Grazl defeated it. The mammork pulled back, before
slamming into the helbrute once more. The helbrute clawed at the mammork
with its power fists, but Krev Grazl blocked the blows with swings of
his terrifying daemon weapon. The axe roared as it cleaved the claws off
one of the power fists. The helbrute roared again and shuddered with
fierce energy. As the mammork slammed it into the wall again and again,
the daemon within began to lose its grip on reality. A tremendous blast
of red and blue flames erupted from the armour as the daemon was sucked
back into the warp. As the empty armour sunk to the floor, Krev Grazl
turned the mammork around and gazed as he saw his herd of beasts tearing
the Bloodstorm asunder. Many lay dead on either side, but the shock of
facing the daemons they had thought of as allies had shocked the
Bloodstorm. Krev Grazl commanded the mammork to advance, bringing it
round in an arc to meet the watchtower atop which Nykl stood. Krev Grazl
leaped from the back of the beast and onto the wall. His superhuman
speed and strength quickly took him along the battlements and up the
ladder to the top of the watchtower. He sprung from the ladder. The
scout fired his autopistol. It did nothing to Krev Grazl’s power armour
as he span. He swung his axe as he rotated, and sliced the scout’s head
clean off. It tumbled over the wall and into the melee below. Krev Grazl
completed his spin with his axe aimed squarely at the face of the
Demagogue, who stared at him in horror. He had no weapons, and even if
he had, no amount of Khornate fury would help him overcome a champion of
Khorne and former Lord of the Bloodstorm. It was now that Krev Grazl
spoke, his facial horns twitching as his daemonic mouth formed the
words.
“Call off your troops, or they will all die.”
Nykl’s bionic eye focused on the champion’s face. “I have no choice, do I?”
“You can choose to sacrifice yourself, or accept me as rightful
Lord of the Bloodstorm.” Anger seethed from Krev Grazl as he asserted
command over this biomechanical human.
“Bloodstorm, cease!” The remaining troops fell back to the inner
walls. As they did so, the beasts of Krev Grazl stopped their attack and
began to circle the arena, growling and licking the blood from their
lips. The mammorks gathered in a herd in the centre of the arena. Krev
Grazl lowered his axe and pulled Nykl close to his face.
“This fortress, this army, these footsoldiers of Khorne… are now mine. I am returned! I am revenant!”
The fortress fell silent.
------------
So, after a year of work, behold, Krev Grazl, Lord of the Bloodstorm, The Revenant, Great Mammork Rider.
The smaller mammorks that follow the Great Mammork into battle:
Krev Grazl on foot:
The Bloodstorm charges from its fortress to meet an invading force...
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