Nick's Warriors of Chaos - Part 2

After weeks of campaigning in the World's Edge Mountains, Zubaz Chukai was more certain than ever that the vision the gods had given him was a true prophecy he needed to bring to fruition. His troops, however, were less certain. After a victory against a tribe of marauders, Chukai had led his men into grueling, bloody, uncertain battles against some human armies- a force from the Border Princes of Tilea, and an errantry crusade from Bretonnia. Both clashes had produced many casualties and not much in the way of plunder.

Licking their wounds around their fires one night, a hulking figure emerged from the shadows. Clad in heavy chaos armor that leaked grease and ichor, a champion surrounded by slavering war hounds stood before the veteran warriors. As one, they stood and saluted with their swords. Zima Susi, former commander of the Brotherhood of the Black Sun, had survived his trip far into the Chaos Wastes. Now accompanied by a pack of wolves and some reinforcements he accumulated on his trip southwest, he wordlessly held his sword at Zubaz Chukai's throat and reclaimed his birthright.

The newly expanded army marched westward and immediately found a new foe- a band of elves from Chrace, scouting the passes of the World's Edge Mountains far from their island home. Zima Susi assumed they would be easy pickings and ordered his hosts to engage.

However, the elves proved themselves to be a fell and disciplined foe. Rather than scattering after being attacked on unfamiliar ground, they did not budge and inflicted grievous casualties with their skillfully wielded heavy weapons.

After an afternoon of dusty, bloody, exhausting combat, Zima Susi finally ordered his army to fall back, narrowly beaten by the elven forces. That night, Zubaz Chukai held a ritual to his dark patron with a small handful of trusted warriors of the host, burning scraps of bone, flesh and blood from the battlefield mixed with mystic herbs he had harvested from the Dark Lands. The offering was accepted, the traces of elven blood and bone slipping through the veil of reality and changing the nature of the prophecy Zubaz had received. That night, he did not dream of a sun burning in the west, but instead a great eye in the heavens, observing a whole constellation of stars slowly moving into terrible alignment...