~Aedan Vaelor POV~
The orc camp had become a howling sea of green panic and confusion.
Aedan's earlier detonation charges, standard-issue Imperial Guard det-packs, ridiculously overpowered for this primitive world, had done far more than ignite a few tents. Every mountain of flammable junk the orcs hoarded like treasure had gone up like a promethium refinery. Barrels of fungus-brew exploded in wet, fiery geysers that smelled like burning socks and regret. Heaps of squig-feed detonated with rotten-gas bursts. Dried hides, grease-soaked tents, and piles of who-knew-what slime fed the inferno until the entire rear camp roared like a living furnace.
Orcs ran in circles, bellowing and swinging clubs at flames that refused to die. Burning squigs bounced madly through the rows of tents, screeching and spreading fire wherever they slammed into something. The night air was thick with black smoke, the crackle of flames, and the constant roar of confused, furious Boyz.
Aedan walked through the chaos like a man taking a casual stroll through a badly organized parade. The Orcs failed to notice the stealthy Aedan for a second time, the first when he came into the camp to place the explosives, and now after killing their Warboss.
Magdoof da Chompa's severed head swung heavily from Aedan's belt by its coarse black hair that supposedly was a type of Squig, a really fancy hair Squig. The warboss's face was frozen not in the usual orkish battle-grin, but in a twisted, wide-eyed expression of pure horrified realization, as if the brute had finally understood, in his last moment, that the "tastiest snack ever" was the one thing he would never get to eat.
Aedan didn't particularly care what the expression meant. Severed orc head was often froze in strange shapes. What mattered now was what was up ahead. The prisoner pens. The cages were ugly things, rusted iron bars twisted together like crude ribs, salvaged long ago from dwarf-forged caravan wagons. Strong enough to hold even the sturdiest dawi, even now pitted and decaying from years of greenskin neglect the bars seemed to have held up strong, containing the prisoners within. Aedan was half surprised that the dawi did not try to force their way out, but seeing their injured state changed that.
Inside, nearly four hundred dwarves were crammed together: bruised, soot-streaked, beards matted with filth and dried blood, but still breathing. Their eyes widened in terror as the skull-helmed figure approached.
Aedan's helmet, bone-white ceramite sculpted into a grim, predatory death-mask, add in the horror of how it looks when firelight flickering of the golds trim and bloody reds stains, and Aedan looks just about horrific. In the swirling smoke, the cold blue-white glow of his helmet's eye-lenses burned like twin coals from the deepest forge of the after life.
To the dwarves, he looked like something torn straight from their oldest cautionary sagas of mad unstoppable undead rulers of decay.
"Grimnir's beard… some cursed wight," one muttered.
"An ancient doom-spirit risen from the depths, be gone foul specter." growled another.
"No living man looks like that… 'Tis no beardling, that is a lich."
Aedan ignored the fearful whispers. He stepped up to the first cage, gauntleted hand closing around the heavy rusted lock. With a sharp, metallic crunch, he tore it clean off its hinges as though it were cheap tin.
Gasps rippled through the pen as Aedan move from cage door, to cage door, breaking the lock, but letting the dwarves open the door and walk free.
He moved to the next cage. Then the next. Then the next. Each lock came away with the same dispassionate, inhuman strength that barely inconvenienced the overpowered Psyker. Slowly, fear began to shift into stunned confusion.
By the time he reached the largest pen, packed with the wounded and the elderly, the dwarves no longer shrank back at the presence of the strange revenant. They simply stared, wide-eyed, as he ripped the final lock apart and held the gate open with one hand.
From the shadows of that cage limped a broad-shouldered young dwarf with fiery red braids and a stubborn spark still burning in his eyes despite the bruises and limp.
"I am Torik Grundadrakk," he announced, chin lifted proudly. "Son of Lord Rurik Grundadrakk, ruler of Barak Varr. Ye've freed us, stranger… but the urks still swarm thicker than lice on a goblin. We've no weapons, no strength left for a proper breakout. What's yer plan... manling? Assuming yer a Manling?"
Aedan said nothing at first. He simply raised one gauntleted hand and whispered. "Gate of Infinity!"
Reality itself answered.
The air tore open with a sound like heavy cloth ripping. A shimmering portal of blue-white light unfolded, revealing the solid, rune-lit stone of Barak Varr's inner gatehouse on the other side, dwarf-made lanterns glowing warmly, familiar ancestral carvings on the walls, and the unmistakable safety of thick mountain stone. The dwarves froze in absolute horror seeing Aedan so causally cast the dangerous psychic manifestations with ease.
"Elgi sorcery!" one of the oldest dawi prisoners spat the words.
"Chaos-tainted trickery!" snarled another, backing away from Aedan with a death glare that promised retribution against Aedan's entire bloodline. "No true dawi should step into such a devil's maw—!"
Aedan's voice came out flat and cold through the skull-helmet's vox-grille, carrying the weight of absolute authority.
"You can stay here and wait for the camp fires to be put out by Orcs, who will then get hungry and check up on their favorite snacks… or you can walk through and go home. Choose quickly."
Muttering and anxious oaths rippled through the dwarves. Many clutched at ancestral amulets or muttered prayers to Grungni, Valaya, and Grimnir.
Aedan turned his glowing eye-lenses directly on Torik.
"You're the son of Barak Varr's ruling family. Act like one."
Torik's beard bristled like an angry badger. He glared up at the towering skull-faced figure.
"If this cursed gate flings us into the Realm of Chaos, I swear by every ancestor in my bloodline and every grudge in the Dammaz Kron — I'll kill ye myself before any dark god gets its claws on us."
"I serve no dark gods." Aedan's reply was laced with unfiltered disgust, but seeing as it did not move the prince into acting, Aedan switched tactics. "I give you my word, on my families honor that I do not seek neither your demise nor damnation. This is the best chance of you and your people escaping alive, I give you my oath by the will of my God-Emperor. May he strike me down if I am false of intent."
The certainty in Aedan's oath silenced the murmurs better than any shout could have. Torik stared hard for a long moment, then spat on the ground, straightened his back as best he could with his injured leg, and stepped through the portal. He vanished. A heartbeat later, his voice echoed back from the far side, filled with raw disbelief and joy.
"BY THE STONE AND ALL THE ANCESTORS — IT'S BARAK VARR! WE'RE INSIDE THE GATES! THE MAGE SPEAKS TRUE!"
That was all it took. The dwarves surged forward in a desperate wave. Some limped. Some staggered on broken legs. Some had to be half-carried by their kin. But every last one of them crossed the threshold into the safety of dwarf stone.
When the final straggler had passed, Aedan closed the portal with a casual flick of will. The shimmering tear sealed shut as cleanly as breath fading from cold steel. He turned his gaze eastward, toward the front lines where the remaining twenty-five dwarven hostages were still chained and used as living shields for the night assault.
The fires behind him continued to roar. The surviving orcs were still shrieking, running in circles, slipping on burning squigs, and smashing into each other in their panic.
Aedan rolled his shoulders, the dark carapace armor settling comfortably against his frame. He checked the purity seals, the stealth systems, before focusing on his force sword and muttered to himself with dark amusement.
"Well… time to go full mole man."
With Magdoof's head still swinging from his belt like a grotesque trophy, Aedan shimmered out of existence as he strode into the thickening smoke, heading straight toward the front-lines, where the hostage were chained and used as living shields by the main Waaagh!, and whatever was left of the greenskin assault. The night was far from over.
~Thrain Stonebrow POV~
Thrain Stonebrow knelt in the dirt and filth of the front lines, chained like an animal between two iron stakes. His scalp burned where the goblins had ripped out fistfuls of his hair. His face felt naked and raw, the proud thick beard that had taken decades to grow torn away in bloody clumps by orc hands. He could still feel their laughter as they did it.
A beardless dwarf was no dwarf at all. He stared at the high walls of Barak Varr, so close and yet unreachable. The cannons of his ancestors sat silent, their crews unwilling to fire while their kin stood as living shields. Thrain's throat tightened with shame so heavy it threatened to crush him.
Just open fire, he thought bitterly. End it. Send me to the ancestors and be done with this disgrace of a dawi.
He wanted to pray for it, to beg Grungni, Valaya, and Grimnir to let the artillery roar and wipe his shame from the world. But every time the words rose in his chest, he looked left and right at the other twenty-four dawi chained beside him. Comrades. Friends. Warriors who had trusted him.
It was Thrain fault. All of it. He had been Prince Torik's scout and trail-finder during that desperate sortie to finding the missing dawi of Barak Varr. He should have seen the false trail. He should have smelled the ambush. Instead, his pride and incompetence had led them straight into the greenskin trap. Because of him, the prince was captured, good dawi were dead or chained, and Barak Varr itself now bled from a thousand small wounds.
Thrain lowered his head, the raw skin of his face stinging in the smoky wind.
Even if I live… I will kill until I cannot kill anymore. I will take as many urks and grobi with me as Grimnir allows die in the attempt to free my prince. That is all that remains for me now.
Explosions suddenly tore through the night behind the orc lines.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Great pillars of fire and black smoke erupted far in the rear where the main Waaagh! had been massing for the night assault. The orcs and goblins around the hostages immediately began bellowing in confusion.
"Wot's dat?!"
"Where's da Boss?!"
"Magdoof! Where's Magdoof an' Snik'Tongue?!"
Panic spread like wildfire among the stupid greenskins, they rushed around for almost an hour screeching for their warboss or fighting among themselves. Any amusement Thrain had at the urk's expense ended when one particularly enraged urk, eyes wild with fury, suddenly spun and drove his crude choppa straight into one of the Hostages. The Dawi in question was Grimnor's son of Gunther, and a huge chuck of his side was carved out.
"Dis is yer fault, stunties!" the orc roared.
Grimnor gasped, blood bubbling from his mouth as he collapsed, had it not been the chains that held him in place the proud dawi would have fallen into the dirt. Thrain's eyes widened in horror.
"Grimnor!" he shouted, straining uselessly against his chains. Rage and grief boiled up inside him. "I swear on every ancestor, ye filthy green bastard, I'll have yer head for that!"
The orc laughed and moved to strike again, but more explosions rocked the camp. The orcs were turning on each other now, swinging wildly in their confusion and fear.
Thrain clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. He closed his eyes and began to pray silently, voice breaking inside his mind.
Ancestors… Grungni, Valaya, Grimnir… anyone… if ye still hear a beardless wretch like me… send someone. Anyone. Save them, even if I must die here.
The ground beneath them suddenly trembled.
Then it moved.
The earth itself opened like a living thing womb. A giant hand of dirt and stone wrapped around all twenty-five hostages at once. Thrain felt himself dragged downward, swallowed by cold, crushing soil. Dirt filled his mouth and nose. He couldn't breathe. The pressure was immense, painful, suffocating. His heart hammered as blackness closed in.
This is it, he thought. The ancestors have come for us after all.
Just as darkness threatened to take him completely, the earth spat them out.
Thrain gasped desperately for air as he collapsed onto cold, blessedly solid flagstones. Stone walls rose around him, familiar rune-carved walls glowing with ancestral lanterns. They were inside Barak Varr. Safe. Behind the gates.
Before he could even whisper a prayer of thanks to the gods, Thrain saw him.
A tall, armored figure stood a short distance away, calmly sealing the tunnel of earth behind them with a casual wave of his hand. The figure wore dark, ornate other worldly armor trimmed heavily in gold, and upon his shoulders and chest gleamed an eagle of some unknown empire. But it was the helmet that froze every dwarf's blood, a grim, bone-white skeletal death-mask with glowing cold blue-white eyes. Upon sealing the floors with his unholy magics, the creature moved towards Grimnor, still barely holding onto life, the revenant grabbed hold of the dying dawi. This lich, or necromancer, or doom-spirit made of metal did some sort of unholy Ulgi style magic upon the near dead dawi hostage, resulting in the rage filled reaction from the other 24 hostages.
"Undead!" one of the dwarf hostages screamed.
"Sorcerer! Slave of Daemons!" another roared.
"Kill it before it claims Grimnor's soul!"
The freed hostages scrambled back in terror, many reaching for rocks or broken chains as improvised weapons. Thrain himself felt ice flood his veins when the creature turned his head, the pale blue embers burning in the sockets of where the creatures eyes should have been locked with Thrain's gaze. Any words that Thrain had died in his throat, as the revenant released Grimnor, now healed, holding his injured side and gasping loudly. This thing that had dragged the dawi through the earth like worms, was surely some foul student of Nagash or a fool of chaos, or worse an Ulgi.
Shouts of the recently freed hostages echoed so loudly it got a group of Barak Varr's guards rushing in to check on the commotion. Axes and hammers raised, the Barak Varr defenders looked on confused at first, not understanding what was going on until they saw the armored figure and reacted with crossbows leveled at it.
"What in Grimnir's name—? Aim! Ready! Fi-" one sergeant bellowed. Battle was about to erupt when a familiar voice cut through the chaos like a hammer on anvil.
"STOP!" Prince Torik Grundadrakk pushed through the crowd of guards and hostages, limping but alive, his red braids still intact without a single strand missing.
"Lower your weapons!" Torik commanded, voice ringing with authority. "This masked one has saved us all! He freed every prisoner from the rear pens and slew Magdoof da Chompa himself!"
Torik pointed at the severed urk head swinging grotesquely from the stranger's belt. The massive, ugly Black Orc warboss's face, still frozen in shock, left the dwarves stunned into silence. Even Thrain only noticed it now that his prince had pointed it out.
Before anyone could speak, the armored figure reached up and began a strange process of removing his helm. With a hiss of air that seemed to be coming from the joints of the alien armor, the sorcerer pulled off the skeletal helmet to reveal what lay bellow. Beneath the death-mask was no undead horror, but a manling, a human, beardless, and even more youthful than any dawi beardling. The lad's eyes were sharp and somehow it matched his oddly casual expression.
The dwarves stared in stunned amazement. The manling looked around at the sea of armed, suspicious dawi, then shrugged as if he had merely delivered a package rather than ended the worst Waaagh! Barak Varr suffered by saving two groups of hostages in one night.
"Your welcome for the rescue," he said plainly, voice carrying easily in a haughty tone. "Now… who here can get me a ship to Lustria?"
~Lord Rurik Grundadrakk POV~
Lord Rurik Grundadrakk stood upon the sea-bastion, hammer gripped tight, eyes fixed on the night sky where the ancestors had sent their sign. He had expected a breach, a thunderbolt, perhaps even the ghostly hammers of Grimnir himself striking the urk lines, but nothing happened for several moments since seeing the legendary sight.
It was only after a long while when the gift of the ancestor gods finally manifected, as the entire rear lines of the greenskin horde erupted in a cataclysm of fire and thunder.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Great pillars of flame roared skyward, brighter and fiercer than anything Rurik had ever seen from dawi black powder. Entire mountains of orkish scrap and fungus-brew went up like a promethium sea. The night turned orange and black as explosions chained together with unnatural fury.
For one heartbeat, fierce hope surged in Rurik's chest.
By Grungni's forge… a blast of divine powder, only something like that could surpass our own.
He raised his hammer high, ready to order the charge, ready to lead every Ironbreaker, Hammerer, and Longbeard out through the gates to rescue the hostages and carve a path of vengeance through the confused urks. Yet, his men had failed to find his son among the line of hostages. Worse his engineers and captains held him back with urgent shouts.
"My lord, wait! The front lines are untouched! If we sally out without softening the horde we'll barely retrieve any of the hostages."
Rurik's jaw clenched as he looked down. The explosions had devastated the rear camps, a perfect opportunity for a counter attack, yet not a single urk from the main fighting force, the thickest part of the Waaagh! directly in front of the walls, was harmed. Thousands of orcs and goblins still stood, bellowing and confused, but very much alive. And worst of all, the twenty-five hostages, including Durvar Stonebrow's brother Thrain, were still chained there, exposed and helpless and within reach of urk reprisal. Rurik's knuckles whitened around the haft of his hammer.
How do I save them without condemning them? Ancestors please give me another sign.
Then his eyes caught something impossible. Far below, among the chained dawi, a tall figure stood like the very personification of death, ready to claim souls of the hostages. This skeletal metallic creature had eyes glowing with cold, unnatural light, obsidian-black armor trimmed in gold moved in an inhuman manner past the confused urks. It looked like something out of the darkest sagas, a wight or doom-spirit walking among the living. Rurik's blood ran cold.
Before he could roar a warning, the figure moved. And the twenty-five hostages vanished.
One moment they were there, chained and bloodied. The next, gone. As if the earth itself had swallowed them whole. No scream. No struggle. Just empty stakes and broken chains.
Rurik blinked hard, wondering if grief and rage had finally stolen his sight and sanity.
Then the first messenger came sprinting up the stairs, breath ragged.
"My lord! Prince Torik is safe! He's inside the walls, him and the other prisoners appeared within the inner gatehouse, they claim a sorcerer of great strength had saved them!"
Rurik's heart slammed against his ribs. Before he could demand answers, a second messenger arrived, eyes wide with disbelief that matched the first messanger.
"The twenty-five front-line hostages are safe as well, my lord! They appeared inside the hold near the lower barracks... but they're with a stranger! A manling, mayhaps from the empire! Some say he dragged them through the very stones, other scream of ulgi magics upon him!"
A stunned silence fell over the command bastion. Rurik's mind raced. His son was alive, the most important part of the messages that reached him. The hostages saved and a mysterious human sorcerer or whatever the ancestor-cursed being was, had done in moments what an entire hold could not. Grim hope and burning rage warred inside his chest. He turned to his captains, voice like grinding boulders.
"Then the ancestors have answered in their own way. We will not waste their gift."
Rurik raised his rune-etched hammer high, the ancestral runes blazing in the firelight.
"All batteries FIRE! Unleash every form of wrath we have, the green-skins have earned grudges and I plan to clear every single one tonight! Send these urks screaming back to their filthy gods! Break them! Shatter them! Leave none standing!"
The order rippled across the walls like thunder.
The great cliff-face cannons of Barak Varr roared to life. Organ guns chattered. Grudge-throwers hurled massive boulders carved with runes of hatred. Flame cannons belched promethium-like streams of liquid fire down into the massed orcs below.
At such close range, the dawi did not even need to aim. Entire segments of the front lines of the Waaagh! simply ceased to exist.
Entire companies of orcs and goblins were obliterated in the first salvo. The ground shook as shell after shell slammed home. Burning greenskins were hurled through the air like broken dolls. The night filled with the deafening roar of dwarf artillery and the dying bellows of a Waaagh! that had dared threaten the Gate to the Sea.
Rurik stood unmoving atop the bastion, beard whipping in the hot wind of battle, eyes blazing with ancestral fury, before finally deciding that the enemy was soften enough to lead a sortie. Placing a horned helm forged by a long distance ancestor Rurik spoke loudly and clearly
"Grungni witness me," he growled. "This night, we remind the urks why the dawi never forgive and never forget!"
The Lord of Barak Varr went out at the head of his army, and brought about a brutal carnage that even made the blood god blush with joy.
~Aedan Vaelor POV~
Aedan strode up the inner battlements of Barak Varr, arms crossed, hearing the chaos unfold outside of the dwarf hold with mild satisfaction and amusement. Prince Torik and the dwarf companion of the Prince known as Thrain Stonebrow were rushing ahead of him toward the outer walls, the young prince still limping badly attempting to refuse any and all help. Thrain on the other hand ignored his Princes bravery and kept one hand under Torik's arm, half-supporting, half-urging him forward.
Aedan allowed himself a small, private grin beneath his helmet.
Not bad for my first real intervention in this baby version of grimdark. I save the prince, save two batches of hostages, and kill the warboss. That's got to be worth at least one decent ship to Lustria, or a very large sack of gold. Maybe both.
He was still mentally calculating how much "gratitude tax" he could extract from the dwarves when the last moments of the lightshow finished in the far distance.
The entire cliff-face of Barak Varr had erupted at once, and anything and anyone on the battlefield in front of the hold were almost vaporized by the amount of medieval ballistic ammunition was unleashed.
Hundreds of cannons, grudge-throwers, organ guns, and flame cannons roared together in a single, earth-shaking thunderclap. The night turned blinding orange as shells, boulders, and streams of liquid fire rained down on the confused orc lines below. The front ranks of the Waaagh! simply disintegrated under the concentrated fury of dwarf artillery at point-blank range.
Sorties of heavily armored dawi warriors began pouring out of the gates. Aedan saw Ironbreakers, Hammerers, and Longbeards charging into the shattered greenskin ranks with axes raised and battle-cries echoing off the cliffs. Avenging themselves ten folds for every real and imagined insult done upon them.
Prince Torik nearly stumbled after several dwarven artillery started shaking the hold to its very core, the young dawi nearly tripped on the steps leading up to the battlements. Thrain Stonebrow iron grib helped right the Prince, stabilizing his footing, and not loosing any face. Both dwarves stared down at the slaughter with fierce, gleeful satisfaction, but upon seeing the orc ships in the bay trying to make it to shore to aid the orcs, their glee turned to worry.
Aedan seizing the opportunity, stepped up beside them, voice calm through the skull-helmet's vox-grille.
"That orc fleet clogging your bay and might flank your brave warriors. I can deal with it, if your are willing to swear upon your honor to rewardly greatly for all services rendered both previously and ones I am about to render."
Torik turned to look at him, eyes hard with suspicion but grateful.
"If ye truly serve the cause of order, manling, and are neither a pawn of Chaos nor one of the treacherous Ulgi, then I give ye my word as prince of Barak Varr, ye will be greatly recompensed for yer help this night."
Aedan nodded once.
"Good enough."
He reached up, resealed his skeletal helmet to the point it was sealed in place with pressurized perfection, before focusing on the forces ahead. Channeling the energies of the Warp, Biomantic energy surged through Aedan's body. From his back unfurled a pair of radiant, angelic wings of pure golden-white light that cut through perfect slots in place at the back half of his armors, exposing his wings and enabling maneuverability. With a powerful beat, Aedan launched himself into the sky above the Black Gulf.
Below him, the orc fleet, a large, ragtag collection of ramshackle black-hulled ships, crude ironclads, and bloated transport hulks, slowly raised their anchored and made their way to the shore line to aid their fellow green-skins. They moved far too slow for Aedan, looking like big fat targets floating in the bay. The surviving orcs onboard were still shouting and pointing at the flames consuming their land forces as well as the sortie of dawi now on the offensive.
Aedan hovered high above the water, one gauntleted hand outstretched.
"Wall of Fire."
A towering curtain of roaring flame erupted across the surface of the bay, a solid, blazing wall dozens of meters high and hundreds of meters long, far hotter than any natural fire. The water beneath it instantly began to boil and steam.
Then he whispered a second psychic manifestation.
"Sculpt Flame."
With a casual gesture, the massive wall of fire began to move, slowly at first, then picking up speed, rolling across the bay like a living tidal wave of incineration. The fungus threat would burn tonight.
~Captain Gorzod da Burnin' Kraken POV~
The Orc Pirate Captain of the Iron Tusk fleet looked up confused by the madness that drew near.
"Zogging hells?! Wot in Mork's name is dat?!"
Captain Gorzod da Burnin' Kraken stood at the prow of his favorite ship, choppa in one hand, half-empty keg of fungus rum in the other. His fleet, fifty-seven glorious, leaky, shooty ships, filled the bay nice and proper, ready to dock at shore, and flank the stunty. Loot whatever the land boyz failed to snatch.
Then the sky lit up.
A giant wall of fire taller than any mast suddenly appeared on the water, burning so hot the sea itself started screaming and turning to steam.
"Dat ain't right!" Gorzod bellowed. "Fire don't float on water! Dat's cheatin'!"
Before he could order the boyz to shoot it, the wall started moving.
Straight toward his fleet.
"ZOG ME— TURN DA SHIP! TURN DA—!"
Too late.
The Wall of Fire hit the first line of ships like Grimnir's own grudge. The Iron Tusk's sails burst into flame so fast the canvas melted. Orcs screamed as their green hides blistered and popped. One particularly unlucky goblin got cooked so quickly he exploded like a squig balloon.
"Me ship! Me lovely, leaky ship!" Gorzod howled, trying to beat the flames off his favorite hat with his rum keg. The keg caught fire. So did his squig beard. So did his boots.
"Dis is da worst Waaagh! ever!" he screamed as the deck buckled beneath him. "I didn't even get ta loot nuffin'!"
Nearby, the massive transport hulk Gork's Fat Gut listed hard as its entire port side turned into a roaring inferno. Orc pirates jumped overboard, only to discover the water was now boiling like a giant soup pot. They came up screaming louder than when they went in.
"Me legs is cookin'!" one pirate wailed, paddling desperately. "I'm becomin' soup!"
Gorzod clung to the burning mast as his ship began to sink.
"I 'ate 'em 'stunties!" he roared at the sky, right before the moving wall of fire rolled over the Iron Tusk completely. "Especially da glowy wingy ones wiv da fancy bone helm!"
Captain Gorzod da Burnin' Kraken, terror of anyone who ran into his horde, burned to such a point not even his spores could birth a new pirate terror of the sea. His fleet was burned down to the last, with no survivors. Protecting the dwarves sortie of Barak Varr, making their slaughter of the greenskin total, without any worries of surprise flanking maneuvers by any Freebooterz.
The Black Gulf burned for hours, long after the last orc ship had been reduced to floating ash and twisted metal. Large sections of the bay remained boiling hot even after Aedan had ended his wall of fire. The surface steamed and churned with residual heat. No ship whether it be dwarf, human, or otherwise, could safely sail those waters for nearly a full week afterward. Trade out of Barak Varr ground to a complete halt until the sea finally cooled enough for vessels to leave the harbor without their hulls cooking like stewpots.