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Ulriczeit, 2510

The world stood on a cusp of a new era- though most of its inhabitants did not recognize the change just yet. For most, the change was undetectable as the great nations and races of the world fought petty conflict after conflict against each other. Here, in the West, the Dwarfs entered the mystical forest of Athel Loren for the 85th time, only to be repulsed once more with less numbers and more grudges. There, in the Far East, the leading shogun of the Land of the Rising Sun sought to annex the capital of his fabled neighbor, only to be held at bay by the vast terracotta legions of the Dragon Emperor.

Only the mad and the damned recognized the truth of the world. Though the history of this planet was written in mortal blood, ultimately its fate lay in immortal hands, for every act of conflict, depravity, treachery and despair served only to feed those who sought to devour the world. The prophets of the civilized nations responded with desperate action, pleading to all who would listen on their desperate street corners that the end was nigh only to be dubbed as madmen, doomsayers and fools as a result. Many ended their days in an asylum, still screaming portents of doom to bored ears.

The damned, however, responded in an entirely different manner. Rather than fear the rise of the Dark Gods they embraced the prospect. All across the varied lands of humanity thousands of citizens, otherwise ordinary in appearance, committed terrible deeds of depravity and murder first in secrecy and then in ever greater acts of brazenness. In Nuln, a mother sacrificed her own children to Slaanesh in exchange for eternal beauty while in Araby, the schemes of a chaos corrupted sorcerer briefly created a portal to Tzeentch's realm through which thousands of cackling creatures poured out. Other, perhaps more daring individuals, fled north to seek the mighty Warlords of that impossible realm who wielded small fragments of the might of their patrons. However, in the entire world a few of the damned proceeded cautiously, reluctantly, for they felt the time was not yet right. And of those only one had the power to delay the dawn of the new age.

Enter Be'lakor, the Prince of the Damned, he who was first to draw the dark bargain and ascend to a position beyond the mortal calling. Currently he sat in his ancient shadow-lair, The Forsaken Fortress, brooding. The ancient daemon lord had helped bring along the downfall of those who had been rulers of this realm and then had been cursed in turn by his own fickle benefactors. Be'lakor still remembered his own boundless glory days when he had had indisputable command of the army of Chaos and had directed his legions to wipe out many of the nascent races of the land. He had, among other achievements, brought ruin to over a dozen temple-cities of the Slann, despoiled the capital of merethings, scoured the four ancestral cousins of modern man, participated in the despoiling of Ulthuan, sacked two of the mightiest Dwarf holds of the land and drove a third into the arms of ruin. Even those achievements, however, paled in comparison to the pivotal act that had earned him blessing from the four in the first place, an act of such villainy that its repercussions would be felt to the end of time.

Yet the glow of glory would always fade and fury would threaten to overwhelm him when he considered the events that occurred after. Memories of the jealousy of the gods, particularly the Changer, when they had learned Be'lakor's overriding ambition. Of the faltering of fortunes that followed thereafter, the treacherous deals Be'lakor's own lieutenants had made that had ascended them to daemonhood at the cost of their former master's power, the military setbacks as a result of that diminished power and, finally, The Final Treachery, where the gods themselves turned their back upon him. Then the memories would fade into eons of incomprehensible madness punctuated by brief periods of lucidity during which he was forced to crown his own successors, lesser men with lesser ambitions, over and over again. Such was the curse of Tzeentch, the most despised of the gods.

Not this time, Be'lakor vowed. To break the cycle Be'lakor had rewritten fate and history to ensure his candidate, a hollowed out doll of flesh named Archaon, would assume the mantle of 'Everchosen'. Oh how Be'lakor hated this Archaon! His son-in-flesh who he had fathered with a nameless empire sow during a Northman raid! The man-puppet would be allowed to enjoy only a precious few moments as Everchosen before the son's soul would be violently snuffed out to make room for the father's. Thus, circumnavigating the curse.

Yet Bel'akor needed more time. Archaon had not yet ascended to his destined position and what schemes lay beyond the rise of the Everchosen had run into delays of their own. A most disconcerting development, for his mortal agents had reported the followers of the Dark Gods moved with a new urgency. Pawns would have to be moved to direct the warlords of chaos into the most defensible of positions of the fortifications of Sigmar or the Dragon Emperor, or else against each other.

As Be'lakor brooded on his throne of darkness his final and greatest spy- a living shadow that had offered its servitude years ago in exchange for the ability to take corporeal form- approached the throne. With a dismissive wave of the hand, Be'lakor gestured the shadow-creature forward. It bowed low and there, before its contemptuous master, it delivered the fateful report. Scorn turned to apprehension turned to anger turned to, for the first time in several thousand years, horror. The Dark Gods did not merely seek to conquer the planet; they sought to destroy it utterly, to deny Be'lakor his rightful and long earned kingdom! The Everchosen was to be tasked not just with the destruction of the so-called civilizations of the world but the destruction of all!

Be'lakor fumed and raged, which in his magical fortress of shadow raised the temperature from frigid winter to the scorching heat of a volcano. The world was his, Be'lakor's, by right! Only he had any right to end it and only at a time of his choosing! With restrained rage Be'lakor listened to the rest of what the spy had to say before casually casting it aside with a contemptuous hand-wave. The magic of the Forsaken Citadel forced the spy to alter its form into an immovable suit of knight armor, to be called upon once more in the distant future at the daemon's leisure. Such was the fate of all of Be'lakor's minions, for the First-Damned was possessive of his treasures but uncaring of their wishes so long as they were his. Besides, this living shadow was but one of two such minions that Be'lakor possessed.

The First-Damned knew he had to move fast. With the Dark Lords orchestrating events so rapidly there was only a limited amount of time to infiltrate Middenheim and avert the apocalypse. And yet the daemon lord had to acknowledge the challenges. Sneaking into a mortal city was easy enough however getting past a god, even as one as weakened as Ulric, would prove difficult. To that end he would need assistance from one of the most treacherous forces on the planet ..

With a wave of his fingers Be'lakor entered the Shadow-Place- the space between realities, an ancient construct created long ago by the forgotten rulers of the world. Through this magical domain his journey to far off Middenheim would be far shorter than any form of mortal transportation.

Back in his Forsaken Fortress the statue of the shadow-spy shimmered, shook and broke. Accusing eyes, their movement frozen in time, glared at it from hundreds of eyes. Yet the shadow cared not. Be'lakor had no more claim to ownership of it than the daemon-prince had over this world, Mallus, itself, regardless of Be'lakor's delusions of grandeur. Still the Prince had taught it much of this world and the shadow had taught it powerful cantrips of the True Masters, claiming they were spells stolen from developing mages of the world.

The Shadow uttered a brief incarnation and then it too slipped through the cracks of reality to enter the Void from which it came through a portal as black as a daemon's iris. The strange creature had much to report on this realm to its True Masters.

Through the broken pathways of the Old Ones Be'lakor traveled over a thousand miles in less than an hour- from the lower reaches of the Chaos Wastes to the silent dark forest of Drakwald. Reality clashed with that of what-lay-beyond and Be'lakor's form- and power- were altered as a compromise of sorts was reached. With hatred, Be'lakor hissed, knowing that no daemon could achieve anywhere close to their true potential while Caledor's damned vortex existed.

Still Be'lakor had more than enough power needed for his mission. At will, his daemonic body morphed into that of a ratkin, for a deal must be struck with the twisted vermin that infested this land. Much would be promised to the greedy Skaven with little of it, likely, being delivered. Nor were the Skaven the only creatures he had to meet in this hateful forest.

From the night sky, the Empire would appear to be a vast board of mostly empty forest and plains illuminated by innumerable smaller candles intermixed with a few great bonfires- the lights of towns and cities, respectively. Yet in the whole of the Empire there were a few areas darker than most and one section in particular where only a tiny handful of guarded, broken lights illuminated the region.

The cursed forest of Drawkald had always been a region where humanity struggled to survive. However, in recent years, the rise of Khazrak the One Eye made life all the more hazardous. The cunning Beastlord had isolated and ambushed a dozen armies sent to annihilate him in the last two years, devastated all but six of the region's towns and forts and waylaid countless traffic on Middenheim's roads. To date all armies, hired killers and even wizards sent to find and slay the Beastlord had failed, with most never returning from the dark shadows of the forest. Some said the elector count, Boris Todbringer, had given into madness over his obsession to find and destroy his region's despoiler though all were careful not to voice such sentiments in earshot. The last three to do so still hung from the walls of the city.

Every year, every season, the Beastlord sought to outdo himself. More forts were put to the flame, more caravans were waylaid, more armies were ambushed. It was the Beastlord's hope to one day sack and destroy Middenheim itself, before moving onto the other Empire provinces. Such a goal was motivated not only by sheer hatred of humanity but also the impossible personal aspirations of Khazrak himself.

The hatred Beastmen felt for Humanity was well known and documented throughout thousands of years of history. In short, Beastmen were resentful of their uncorrupted kin, who they viewed as weak, an affront to the Chaos Gods, cheaters with their technology and perverters of the (un)natural order. Yet, what was not commonly known, was that Beastmen hated Chaos corrupted men nearly as much as the civilizations that they had left behind. Beasts and Men of Chaos might find common cause and ally, under the directives of the gods, yet they never had anything more but grudging, hateful respect for the other. While Men of Chaos believed Beastmen were little better than dumb beasts of innate and unsubtle violence, to be directed into war at their leisure, the truth behind the Beastman's hatred of their allies in damnation was this: they were jealous. Jealous that though Beastmen may be the children of chaos they never had any hope of attaining that vaunted position which all mortal servants of Chaos sought: Daemonhood.

Khazrak sought to be the unobtainable: the first ever Beastman Daemon prince. It was his hope that, if by extent of conquest he could surpass any feat of man, he could prove the superiority of Beastkind to the gods and ascend to that vaunted position. To the beings of the aether, such ambition shone like crystals in the moonlit light and no few daemons had sought to manipulate those aspirations to their own end however Khazrak was no dumb beast. Those lesser daemons who had tried had found themselves bound into the bodies of pleading human captives. Possessed and held tight by sorcerous chains, these daemons were used to infiltrate human towns and open their gates from within. Those that survived were sacrificed to the gods to summon more daemons, this time as foot soldiers.

All this was known to the Be'lakor from the moment he entered the Beast encampment through the shadow realm. At just a glance of the stunned Braylord, who had never before met a Daemon of his stature, the Daemon Prince knew everything he needed to know of the creature that stood before him. The Daemon saw his past, weaved before his eyes like a great, flayed tapestry from the skins of man and rival beasts. Motivations shined like bright, sanguine filled cherries, ready for the picking. Myriad futures, some faint others clear as crystals, shone before his eyes in a discordant series of moving images that reminded the daemon of the paintings in caves created by the primitive savages of his birth clan.

Inwardly, the Daemon grinned maliciously: in no vision that he could see did the Braylord achieve his dreams. Most saw him dying beneath the blade of his mannish rival or else perishing of sustained wounds even as he stood over the corpse of the Other.

Still, the Daemon told none of this to the Braylord. Instead he spoke of his own transition to Daemonhood, speaking in few words (for the Braylord has little patience for long speeches) of his glorious rise to power, how he had impressed the gods themselves that he had been the first mortal ever elevated to daemonhood. Above all the kingdoms of the world, the lords of ruin hated the Empire of Man the most. Once the Dark Gods had offered Daemonhood to Gorthor if he destroyed it; surely they would offer the same to Khazrak? Be'lakor would make sure they would.

Khazrak knew that the words of daemons were as brittle as mannish bones however it was his shaman, Malagor, who laughed, throwing the daemon prince off-guard. Even if the words of daemons could be taken at their face value, Malagor said, what weight would the words of Be'lakor hold to the lords of the dark. For Malagor knew much of Be'lakor's standing with the gods. "Be'lakor friendless, Be'lakor reject, Be'lakor weak now! Gods HATE Be'lakor. " All around the duo the Bestigor bodyguard either snickered or, for a bold few, took up the open laughter completely of their warlord.

Be'lakor reminded the assembled Beastmen of his power in the most gruesome possible way. Laughs turned to screams as flesh melted off into gelatinous liquid. The rest of the Bestigors drew their weapons, hands quivering, as the Shaman and Braylord eyed their guest with wary eyes.

Mustering his rage, Be'lakor spoke once more, telling Khazrak of the importance of Middenheim to the Empire of man, how the ancient city had always stood as a shield and last bastion of the Empire against Chaos, Orcs, Dead and Vermin. Should it fall, the daemon said, the Empire would lose hope. And Khazrak would be the one to snuff it out.

Most beastmen warlords would have leapt upon the opportunity to destroy the mightiest bastion of their most hated enemy but Khazrak was smarter. He did not achieve his position through suicidal stupidity, but, rather, through cunning and caution. He knew his forces were yet inefficient to breach the walls of Middenheim and said so, much to the discontent of many of his wargors. And that, unless Be'lakor brought a daemon army, he wouldn't either.

The Daemon Prince acknowledged this and stated that while Be'lakor could not conquer the city for the braylord, he could make it so the conquest of the city was actually possible. He spoke of mystical powers beneath the city that kept a fire going that, if snuffed out, would destroy the morale of their inhabitants. Prophecy had proclaimed that so long as that flame burned, the city would never fall. So long as the Braylord kept Todbringer occupied above, and lent him a small force to assault the tunnels, Be'lakor would claim Middenheim's great prize.

Khazrak's eyes narrowed, and then summoned his shaman over. He would help the Daemon if it would give an oath to lead his forces down the tunnel and not abandon them before they had reached the flame. Khazrak had tried to lead his forces through the tunnel before, and had long since discovered them to be a labyrinth haunted by goblins, vermin and worse things. The oath was given freely, for Be'lakor proclaimed that he had need of certain treasures buried beneath the flame and needed Beastmen help else he would have gone independently. The deal was struck seemingly.

It was only later that the Beastmen, lacking human finesse, would later wish they had added more words and conditions to the bargain, for daemons had long made a specialty out of cheating more cleverly worded deals. And Be'lakor was the greatest daemon of them all.

Just before dawn of a morning a week apart from the meeting, Khazrak's herd emerged from the forests surrounding Middenheim to attack the farthest flung caravans and houses from the city. Farmers out tending the crops were butchered like the pigs they raised while their families huddled, helplessly, in doomed dwellings. Screams tore through the air as those closest to the mountain-fortress fled towards it and the city guard was roused.

Through this commotion the Daemon Prince Be'lakor, leading a pack of the most silent Ungors (who were still relatively noisy by the standards of any other race), raced to the entrance of the mines, there to meet other allies who had been enlisted by the Daemon Prince.

From the shadows emerged Be'lakor's chief agent in the region- a Dark Emissary of distant Albion. The agent had been busy, by Be'lakor's request, enlisting a local cult of Tzeentch to the cause of his Dark Master. The magic of the magus and his followers would suit Be'lakor well, and the fact that Be'lakor hated Tzeentch more than any other god made the end result even more desirable.

The sight of Be'lakor in the flesh was too much for many of the cultists; the vision of what all ultimately sought to attain drove many to their knees in sheer adoration. Contemptuous but nonetheless empowered by their act of worship, Be'lakor peered into the futures of the cult and found an individual who had the slightest chance of actually attaining daemonhood. Per Be'lakor's command, this pleading cultist was promptly sacrificed to the First-Damned's glory.

Leading his company of the damned into the pitch-black caverns, Be'lakor strode through the darkness as if he knew the steps instinctively. Indeed, this had not been his first incursion into the depths of Middenheim. During the first great Chaos war, when the powers of the gods- all gods- was significantly greater than they ever had since- he had led his legions against armies of frostbitten wolves and werecreatures of the Winter God. Once he had even pushed all the way to the innermost cavern of Middenheim. There he had fought the weakened god-aspect to a draw! However in those days the gods had resolved already to damn the First-Damned and ascended the first four into daemonhood, which diluted Be'lakor's power even as he dueled the Winter God. What could have been an unholy success turned into a fantastical failure- something that still irritated the daemon prince to no end.

Meanwhile on the surface world the beastkin capered and howled. Mocking challenges and lewd gestures designed to enrage were leveled at the garrison. Human captives were sacrificed by sadistic ungors. Behind the walls Boris mustered his armies and studiously ignored the advice of his more cautious advisers. Boris had cleared away the trees for miles around the city for a reason- Khazrak had no means here to conduct an ambush. At least, none visible. Bitter experience had taught the old count not to underestimate his rival's ingenuity. Eagle masters and wizards of the Amber Order- the three that resided in the city- were employed to scout for potential traps as Boris, never patient at the best of times, waited testily.

Elsewhere, a third force congregated. Clan Eshin had been persuaded to lend its shadowy might to the daemon's cause, persuaded by a combination of promises, threats and outright daemonic beguilement. The daemon wasn't subtle in his persuasion and the most learned of the local Eshin cell knew both the history of this particular daemon and his nature. Fearing retribution as much as lusting for any promise of reward, Eshin somewhat reluctantly committed itself to the task at hand.

Fortunately, the daemon had indeed paid at least part of its price. From the daemon's whispered words the Skaven received the locations of the warpstone stashes of every major Chaos cult in Middenheim, along with useful intel on how to bypass their magical defenses. Some of the despots were already known to the masters of the shadows, who had been siphoning off portions in secrecy whenever they could do so without notice. Other stashes had yet been penetrated by the Skaven and some few had lay beyond even their awareness! How the daemon acquired such a wealth of knowledge, observations that even Eshin struggled to acquire baffled the Skaven clan.

Eshin could assassinate, could infiltrate and could sabotage yet, to get to the position where they could indulge in their clan's specialties; sometimes the aid of other clans was required. With this newfound wealth, Clan Eshin hired contractors from Clans Skyre and Moulder at truly excessive sums, for only the warp-engineers and fleshcrafters had the tools needed to carry out the daemon's mysterious designs. Warp-grinder teams and specially trained rat ogres, even drilling machines and burrowing behemoths- the pinnacle of each clan's equipment- were recruited without hesitation.

Such excessive spending from a clan known for their relative frugality would no doubt have attracted attention from the rest of the council- if Eshin allowed it to be shared. Eshin were the eyes and ears of the council. The great rulers of Skavendom heard what Eshin allowed them to hear, saw what the masters of shadow allowed them to see. Eshin desired neither and already the lord of the expedition, the newly anointed assassin Sneakblade, maneuvered to seal the fates of his so-called allies once the mission was finished.

For the first time in ages the Skaven leader dug to assault not those on the surface, but a force of the deeps. The Daemon had been coy, mysterious and non-descriptive about the force that awaited the Skaven in the depths of Middenheim, only that it was neither Dwarf nor man. When an Eshin representative attempted to press the daemon, even delicately, about the nature of said force the daemon held up a hand and with that gesture fur and skin of the questioner ran like a immolated skavenslave. Understandably, further questions were stifled and the daemon left with but a single promise – the attentions of said force would be occupied by the Daemon Prince himself, and the Skaven need not worry about a prolonged fight.

Sneekblade had. This whole mission reeked of suspect motives and aethyric half-truths. His superiors had ordered him to lead the assault, so he had to obey, but the Skaven leader had made sure to take every precaution. Even now thirteen clawpacks- the sacred number of the Great Horned One- frantically dug through the earth towards the target destination. Two hundred Skaven in total, comprising of specialists from Skyre, Moulder and Eshin, the various beasts of Hell Pit, and a small horde Skaven slaves, each grouping led by a deathrunner. The Daemon had asked for a 'small discreet force 'and Sneekblade had provided….by Skaven standards of course.

Deeper and deeper Be'lakor and his cohorts went. The age worn and crumbling architecture of man gave way to the grimed but still functional artifices of Dwarfs. The Runes of the mountain dwellers temporarily drove the cultists into agony but they were built to keep out far lesser creatures than Be'lakor. After allowing his cohorts to suffer for a few moments of delicious suffering, he snarled an incarnation that caused runes to simmer and shatter. Not giving his followers any time to recover, the Daemon pressed forward.

The cult and the ungors- numbering in the hundreds- struggled to keep up with the daemon prince, who radiated the only light source in the tunnels. Some were not fast enough and were lost to the tunnels. Occasionally screams would echo off the walls as one of these stragglers met one of the terrible and mutated creatures that lived within the dark confines. Those who managed to keep up with the Daemon Prince were, of course, safe- even the maddened monsters of the dark recoiled in fear from the aura of sheer malevolence and hate that the shadow prince exuded.

Eventually, the Dwarf works began to fade to be replaced by designs that were significantly older and colder. Made of unmeltable ice and nearly unbreakable rock formation the tunnels radiated antiquity that predated even the mortal lifespan of Be'lakor. The Tzeentchi cultists marveled at the sensation of old magic as Be'lakor momentarily allowed himself to relieve more glorious times, when he had led a vast legion of daemons and corrupted men through these very tunnels.

Finally the Daemon Prince and his entourage emerged from the darkness into sudden light. The cavern was vast, shaped like the jaws of a snarling wolf. Eight crudely wrought pillars lined the cave and in the center of that was a great billowing flame even taller than the daemon prince, emerging from an impossibly frozen altar. In all, the room was as large as one of those antiquated stadiums that crumbled in the Southern Realm of Tilea.

Be'lakor grinned at how far his nemesis had fallen. Once, the cavern would have been the size of the city above, the flame itself the size of the Empire's largest cathedral. As close as Be'lakor was to it now, the daemon knew that all of his followers would have been immolated instantly and even in his heyday the Daemon Prince would have been wounded by it. The daemon began to circle the fire, like a wolf waiting for the bear to bleed out.

"At the Dawn of Time that flame would have been the great beating heart of a vast colossus of ice. Now it is all you have left. The Empire that you helped build now regards you as an obsolete relic. Spurning your worship for that of the boy-god, the very fleshling you helped ascend in the first place. "

Ulric recognized his old foe, felt hate ten thousand years distant swell in his old bones. A voice, colder than the bitterest winter, returned the daemon's hateful taunts.

"So speaks Be'lakor the friendless, Be'lakor the hated. Abandoned by his lieutenants, abandoned by his legions and abandoned by the gods he once served. He who has spent the last ten millennia capering in the ruins of his own glory, maddened beyond reason, a laughingstock across creation. I have not sunk to your depths, creature. "

Be'lakor bristled at his public humiliation before contenting himself with the knowledge that none of the mortals who overheard would live for much longer. At the altar wolves began to form, creatures made of incorporeal bone and ice. Most carried with them the lupine forms of the creatures of the nearby forest however a few were a mixture of wolf and men- Ulric's own creation of mixing his worshippers with that of his favorite beast. Be'lakor remembered that the Chaos Gods had loved that the concept so much that they had blessed whole tribes of men with the 'gift' in the Dawn days.

"No, wolf god, you have sunk deeper than I ever could. For I contain the essence of every Chaos god- the only Daemon Prince to achieve such a feat- and not even my former benefactors can take that away from me. The faith of their worshippers empower me as much as any other of my kind. Scraps at times, I admit, but enough to rebuild my power and strength. Already I stand on the verge of reclaiming not only my former glory but expanding it beyond your comprehension. Meanwhile your worshippers are dying or abandoning you for more...relevant gods."

The wolves, dozens of them, were fully formed now. They began to circle the cultists, who brandished primitive swords and axes of steel that would ultimately do little against the magical wolves. Only the cult's magus and the dark emissary had the power to properly challenge the wolves.

"You refer, of course, to that fallen Templar of Sigmar who you hope to elevate as Everchosen."

Surprised, Be'lakor paused.

"Oh yes, I know, as does the hammer god and, likely, your cursed masters. The tendrils of your filthy influence were already present when the young templar visited my city and if I can see your filthy soul-stench your masters likely could, too. Everything you try, every plan you scheme, fails. You think the templar as a vessel but in reality, he is your final replacement. "

"You have grown asinine and senile, old god. The fleshing you mention is nothing more than armor waiting to be worn. A sword waiting to be wielded. With the boy's destiny fulfilled the world will be mine. And your power will help me claim that destiny. "

With a wave of his hand he ordered the Tzeentchi minions and accompanying ungors into battle. The humans gave a cry as they rushed the Ice Wolves, who gave a howl of their own. As the Daemon Prince had predicted, the humans and beasts were insufficient to the task. Triumphant cries and mocking laughter turned to shrieks and pleas very quickly, as enchanted ice tore through flesh like a butcher's cleaver. Blades and arrows either passed through or only made the smallest dents, as if the creatures were made of solid stone. Only two among them had the power to withstand the arctic onslaught. The Magus and Dark Emissary each launched a volley of dark magic that blasted apart the wolves.

A thousand feet below, Sneekblade and his cadre arrived at the designated coordinates, the first to arrive. His cautious eyes darted around his destination, taking in the chamber with the ease and speed of one used to quickly assessing a new environment. From outer appearances it was a vast, frozen cavern, easily the size of a full burrow-den, glistening at the top with stalactites made of crystalized ice. A curious notion, for temperature was often warmer underground than above. However, with Sneekblade's hidden gift, a ability that Eshin denied to the wider Skavendom, Sneekblade could see the presence of the Aethyr rampant here.

Other Skaven clawpacks rapidly arrived, the deathrunner leaders alternating between insincere flattery for Sneekblade's quick arrival and petulant excuses over the inefficiency of Skyre creations and Moulder monstrosities. Sneekblade paid them little heed and instead opted to count the accompanying battlegroups. He reached ten, before pausing. Two absences were expected, for the Warplock Engineers had maintained contact with one another through those strange, speaking devices 'known as 'Farsqueekers".

One, or the survivors of one, had complained of their tunneling behemoth going frothing mad with overstarved hunger. From what Sneekblade had heard, some Beastmasters deliberately starved the beasts to heighten aggressiveness and ferocity, arrogant in their presumptions of control. Evidently, that assumption had proven false and if the Sneekblade's Skyre attendant Skizzlekob could be believed, it that the Beastmaster was the first to fall victim to the beast's appetites followed by many others before a well-placed jezzrail round ended its rampage.

There was no word from the second, though Sneekblade's attuned hearing thought he heard a distant rumble even through the many tons of earth, a rumble distinct enough as to signify a Clan Skyre explosion. Of course Skizzlekob denied such an occurrence or even the mere possibility. "Unless a rival clan had sabotaged-broke it" the Warplock engineer said, looking pointedly at the nearest Clan Moulder representative.

As for the third…

Skizzlekob had put on his strange hat of wires and metal, which apparently allowed them to communicate back and forth. As the engineer turned knob that he said would tune the 'frequency' to allow communication with the third, piercing cries blew out of the device at such a volume that even Skaven well distant of the device could hear it. Fur stood straight up on the backs of necks as the agony of the speakers was beyond anything even the experience Sneekblade had ever heard. Melding with it in the background, lightly detectable to Skaven's trained ears, was a sort of sonorous chanting of a sort similar to what he once encountered in the north, yet different all the same. Hastily, the warplock engineer shut off the communicator.

Retchet and Skizzlekob both spoke hurriedly, the latter accusing the beasts of his rivals of deed while the former spoke fearfully, his tail quivering, of the 'Deep-Things'. Skizzlekob snorted aloud and accused Retchet of falling back on old fairy tales to hide his clan's sabotage. Moulder denied it and spoke of disappearances in the lowest rungs of Hell Pit, how the mightiest of beasts would sometimes wander off only to be discovered with strange wounds later, if they were discovered at all. Strange tunnels were sometimes found, he said, that were clearly not of Skaven make. Skizzlekob only poured more scorn on his foe in response, accusing Retchet of believing the crazed theories of Wellstalock. That old Warplock Engineer, long discredited and derided as an idiot-fool Skizzlekob added, had once claimed that the Skaven did not dominate the underealm as they so liked to think and that, further below, entire predatory civilizations waited, lusting for the day where they would rise to assault Skaven holdings.

As his compatriots bickered Sneekblade kept his silence, not wanting to speak of what he knew. There were many secrets known only to the highest rungs of Clan Eshin and this was one of them.

It was also irrelevant to the task at hand. What was was the item, a curious floating orb about four hundred tail lengths from their position. It hovered, flamboyantly, a arrogant display from one who apparently never entertained the idea of visitors this deep. Or, more likely, a fateful and obvious lure, a proverbial mouse trap for the would-be invaders. The lure was manifest now, where was the spring?

Suspicious, Sneekblade reacted the same way that virtually all Skaven commanders did when confronted with a new situation. He sent the slaves in first.

Meanwhile, up above, the wolf-godd's forces and the dwindling servants of the Dark Master clashed amidst a wintry cavern, as the Old God brought his chosen element to bear against the intruders. Joints ached and limbs stiffened as the cold dampened the mortal intruder's senses and slowed their reaction times. Bereft of any real ability to harm the ice-creatures(save for the magic users), to defend from their attacks or even react fast enough, the despairing horde made to retreat back to the tunnels. Only the most devoted cultists and the emissary stood firm.

Four wolves foolishly leapt for Be'lakor, only for the Daemon Prince to then eviscerate them with a lazy wave of his shadow-blade. Instantly, they reformed out of cold air. A dozen more- and two wolfmen- charged the Daemon Prince.

Now the Prince revealed the true reason for his entourage. Using a trick learned from the shadows Be'lakor's right hand reached back. Without looking back he cast the incarnation, draining the life and indeed very souls of the cultists, their magus and even the emissary, for what true value did an individual mortal have to a would-be god? It was fuel for the burning inferno that was the daemons own soul. With a shockwave of malevolent energy the daemon disintegrated the dozens of ice spawn poised to strike. Ice shards hit the stone walls with such force that they sunk deep into them.

However, moments later the ice reversed and reformed on top of the great flame, a contradiction only possible with the power of magic. From its depths emerged a towering man with a wolfskin helm and flowing beard. Even in stature to the Daemon Prince, the god of ice formed a great sword between his hands. Be'lakor smirked, knowing that although no immortal could truly wield the full forces of the Aethery in the mortal realms, seeing Ulric's flesh form still provided an indication of the force available in the Other realm. It was significantly reduced.

Of course, the knowledge of Be'lakor's own reduction did not even cross his mind. Pride could be a blinding force.

With speed beyond his own mortal worshipers, the sword of Ice crossed with Belakor's blade of shadow.

"You think I do not see through this feint, filth?"

Ulric leaned closer, until his weatherworn face was just a foot from Be'lakor's.

"I know about the vermin you hired to steal the godgate beneath me. They are being ...dealt with, even now. "

Slaves, trapped between their own masses and the otherworldly lupine forms that had suddenly manifested in their mists, screeched and cried as great forms of ice tore through furred flesh with incredible speed. In desperation, hey fought back with frothing strength however their desperate blows seemed only to fade through or, for the more corporal ones, leave no dent whatsoever. As the slaves realized the fight was utterly hopeless and sought to retreat from whence they came, a team of Warpflame Throwers unleashed their deadly arsenal. Screeches turned to piteous cries as the flame charred scores of slaves to a crisp but not before melting eyes in their sockets and causing skin to run like melted grease. A worthwhile sacrifice, in the calculus of pitiless Skaven minds, for the trace elements of magical warpfire succeeded in doing what the slaves could not- destroying the mysterious ice wolves. Sneekblade grinned in triumph.

It was premature. To Sneekblade's astonished sight, the magical bindings in the wolves, though charred, flared again to life and swiftly, in a few eye blinks, the wolves of Ulric- even those most charred- began to swiftly reform. Realizing now that conventional victory was impossible Sneekblade sent the rest of the slaves in together with Moulder Beasts, ordered his Skyre teams to open fire, and then sent his deathrunners in for a classic snatch and grab. He needn't have bothered with the last order, for the deathrunners – out of either a desire to impress their master or steal glory for themselves- were already creeping through the carnage.

Yet they didn't get far. One, climbing through the stalactites on the ceiling, had his hand frozen to one of the lesser icicles. As the skaven tried desperately to free himself, his feet were also frozen as ice rapidly spread across his lower limbs. Then, the tiny shards of ice above his belly grew rapidly, drilling agonizingly through the Eshin Agent. Another, weaving through the wolves with supernatural agility, slipped and skated as the floor rapidly turned to ice. The second Deathrunner was torn apart by the wolves even as he struggled to right himself, with the lupine beings seemingly now bothered by the slippery ground at all.

Seeing as the regular stealth tactics were also not an option, Sneekblade mustered his magics to his being, drawing upon the teachings of the Far East. He would use Skitterleap, the most staple of Eshin spells, to teleport to the artifact, and then swiftly teleport back. The act of doing so would, of course, ensure the subsequent assassination of everyone else in this mission barring the deathrunners, for the existence of Clan Eshin sorcerers was a closely guarded secret, one only the highest echelons of the command were permitted to know…

However, right as he was about to cast the spell, his whiskers- the embodiment of his heightened instincts- twitched violently. On a whim, he switched the target of his spell, teleporting instead a nearby deathruhnner through the space.

Or at least he tried to. At the last second something disrupted his spell, a gargantuan aethyric presence that dwarfed any he had ever encountered, even superseding the most learned of the Grey Seers or the Celestial magi. The Deathrunner did not manifest by the artifact, instead the unfortunate skaven was forcibly merged with the ice wall in a segregated mass of fur, limbs and frost.

Against any mortal foe, Sneekblade would be confident to the point of arrogance. However, the Skaven was quickly beginning to expect his opponent here was not mortal….

Shards of Ice exploded from the sword, tearing into the wings and face of the daemon prince. The Prince roared in agony and unleashed another shockwave of shadow energy. The ice-worn giant absorbed the energy, though with effort and grimacing. At points of the great form the Ice began to melt, or else grow a sickly grey. Still the god managed to form his ice-lips into a gruesome imitation of a smile

"In the time before time your true creators entrusted to me the artifact and I have never betrayed that charge! Neither you nor your cowardly vermin nor groveling cultists will ever steal it!"

Screaming hate and spite the sword of shadow clashed with its icy counterpart unleashing otherworldly sparks that could sear souls. Then, the blade went through its frozen counterpart, phasing rather than breaking through. Corporality returned right as it entered the god's arm.

Snarling in pain and rage, the wolf-god punched the daemon prince with the raw elemental force of an avalanche. Be'lakor was sent crashing into the opposite cave wall, the impact powerful enough to create a small crater. Ulric didn't let the prince recover. Dozens of tons of Ice crashed against the Daemon's form, crushing one of the Daemon's wings and causing another bellow of pain.

"Look at you! I may be a shadow of my former glory but you are even less! You're a Shadow's shadow, a forgotten prince turned into the lowliest pauper!"

Belakor's incorporeal claws raked Ulric's face, scoring yard deep gashes. Ulric's brutal responsive backhand dazed the Daemon Prince and the ice sword driven into the daemonic gut caused him to cry was cut off as the giant's gnarled hand closed violently around the daemon's neck. At the giant's weathered command the wounds began to freeze .

" I may no longer have the ability to destroy you utterly, filth, but I can freeze you in the coldest ice in existence! You will thaw for the rest of eternity! "

The ice began to spread rapidly now, the daemon's torso now encased in it. Be'lakor found himself utterly unable to move. Ulric's grim looked positively daemonic, the insane rictus of a dying god gifted a last opportunity of vengeance against a hated nemesis.

"Your plot with the Vermin reeks of desperation. . The wolf can devour the rat just as well as the cat- your Skaven never had a fragment of a chance. "

Though much of his body had been made numb with pain and frozen by ice, Be'lakor still maintained control of his face. Features of pain morphed into that of triumph

"I am aware….Old Wolf" Be'lakor spat, maliciously "….which is why I never relied on the Skaven for this task."

Ulric's blizzard worn features contorted into horror as, deep below, a living shadow enveloped the sanctified artifact of the Old Race.

The Skaven and the Beastmen and the Cultists had been, from the beginning, a distraction. Be'lakor had even used himself to occupy Ulric's attention though it chafed the Daemon Prince's pride to do so. All so that his servant-in-shadow, using a realm that had been hereto unknown to either Ulric or Be'lakor, could steal the artifact.

Momentarily, the Frost god broke his attention, stunned and panicked by the theft. This was a mistake, for the daemon that writhed in his grasp remained untamed. Quick as a viper, the daemon turned its free arm incorporeal and summoned the Sword of shadows to it. Then, just as the god turned back to Be'lakor, the blade cleaved through the distracted hand. As Ulric roared in horror Be'lakor gathered all his remaining might and unleashed a shockwave of shadowy magic so powerful that it slammed the god of winter into the opposite cavern wall, creating a several meter crater.

Initially, Be'lakor had sought to both steal the artifact AND finish the Wolf god off to absorb his power. However arrogance gave way to evidence as the Daemon Prince was forced to hatefully acknowledge that the Wolf God's power, though diminished, was in no way as diminished as his own. So the Prince took incorporability and fled through the shadows, taking comfort in the howls of rage and despair from Ulric. Chuckling slightly, the Daemon Prince fled through the Pathways of the Old Ones, to rendezvous with his Servant in Shadow in Norsca. The remaining Skaven, too, also made their hasty escape as the Winter God's cries of rage howled like the wind of the bitterest blizzard.

Meanwhile, the Elector Count of Middenheim had grown tired of the attempted siege of the city. With his magical scouts reporting no evidence of an ambush, the elector count prepared to match out to do battle. He needn't have been worried for Khazrak had no intention of fighting on an open field nor breaking his own army on the Empire's most fortified citadel. Moreover, he could tell, via his new shaman Malagor, that the Daemon Prince had not fulfilled his end of the bargain. The Light of Ulric still shined bright over the city and without that light extinguished the prospect of seizing the city, always improbable with the greatest of armies, was now impossible.

Still he had struck fear into the hearts of man today, and embarrassed Todbringer by sacrificing scores of his citizens on the pathways to his own capital. Khazrak knew that most men were like the cattle they lorded over, needing protection from the lords and gods that ruled them. They were weak, like sheep before a slaughter, with only a few Wolves such as Todbringer among them. Motivated by their fear Khazrak knew there would be many questions tonight about whether their one eyed count could truly offer protection. Todbringer's star would be diminished and he would be that much more determined to avenge himself on Khazrak.

Of course, what Khazrak did not know at the time was that he would face his own leadership questions, even challenges tonight. For the Skaven never offered their services for free and though Be'lakor had haggled their services down greatly through sheer fear even he knew that, to ensure Skaven would actually perform their task (or most likely perform their task) they needed to be offered something tangible. And so Be'lakor had bribed them- by offering the vermin the location of every Beastmen sacred shine around- many of which were bristling with Warpstone- and with the promise that Khazrak's horde would be too preoccupied to properly respond in defense. Unlike his promise to the Beastmen, this one was kept as the Braylord would soon find out, much to his braying rage and oaths of vengeance.

Meanwhile the Daemon Prince stepped back through the veil of reality, having narrowly evaded many of the gloating daemons that he had once led to innumerable victories across the cosmos. There would be legendary reckonings to be had, one day.

As Be'lakor looked around at the silent, frozen and, most of all, unoccupied meeting space his fury, already red hot, rose to literally boil whole yards around him. It seemed that one of those reckonings would happen sooner rather than later.

Hundreds of miles away, along the northern edge of Norsca, of the rebellious shadow-thing pulled from its insubstantial cloak a eternally swirling orb. Symbols, written in a long forgotten language by long dead hands, glowed bright gold against the shadow's pitch-black frame. It understood many of the symbols, for these were words of magical power which the daemons had long since bastardized and inspired in equal measure. Chanting words of power not uttered in centuries, the Shadow-Creature began to open the portal.

Had the shadow wished it, the world would have died then and there. By opening a third portal to the realm of Chaos it would have flooded the world with so much raw Chaos that the Great Vortex would have been hopelessly overwhelmed and those it protected would be thrown to the nightmares that waited, longingly, for them.

Yet in this one respect the shadow had been true to its alliance with Be'lakor. Neither it, nor its True Masters, sought the destruction of this world. Unlike Be'lakor, however, It did not seek to hold the world hostage to regain the blessings of the gods(like they would sincerely follow through with the request, anyway).

Faster and faster, the orb began to spin. Reality was torn, sundered and then reopened. Through a gap in the world, at first no larger than a fist, then expanding to that of man, an ogre, a mammoth, and then larger still. Another reality, whose environment and geography were vastly different from the frozen tundra, slowly materialized into being.

The shadow was roughly a featureless mass, distinguished only by the two glowing orbs that were its eyes. Yet even without a mouth to smile the triumph was palpable nonetheless. In a single act it had opened up paths and possibilities that not even the great Changer of Ways could foresee. Worlds would be bound together. The dying rot of this corpse-world would no longer just be an issue of this planet's inhabitants but another burden forced upon a far greater world, a world that had withstood everything thrown against it: Azeroth.

A/N: And that's a wrap!

Now, to address two things I think are going to mentioned based on my beta readers.

If Ulric was not distracted by a duel with a bitter old enemy, if he was not distracted by directing his forces against the Skaven, watching Beastmen above, and all the stuff a god does in the warp (fending off incursions into their warp sphere of influence), if he was familiar with the realm the shadow-servant came from or had any inkling of either the thing or its home realm's existence….than Ulric would have been able to stop the creature. As it was circumstances worked in the Shadow's favor just this once.

Clan Eshin assassins don't typically lead, however the old Eshin army list in Storm of Chaos does set up the possibility of a few individuals being capable of doing just that. Moreover, of all the great clans Clan Eshin is the least explored, as the home bases of Clan Skyre (Skavenblight), Pestilens (Lustria) and Moulder ( Hell Pit) are all well shown, while Eshin's Nippon stronghold is only ever referred to in passing. Who knows what secret units the ninja rats have at their disposal…