Firestorm - The Dawnclad II - Eternal (part 1)
Although she would not admit it, Ania Straka was desperate. Furious, and desperate.
The past months had been met with mixed successes and undiluted failures. While she could rival and even best the other forces roaming the Flamescar Plateau, her early successes against the Ironjawz had quickly evaporated as they grew into an unstoppable force that no faction could truly eclipse for long. Each fleeting victory had become a prelude to a later defeat.
And of those victories, what cost? The destructive forces that the loathsome Karnack and his host wrought were invaluable, and it fell to her army to be their bulwark. Each battle, more and more of her sisters died, while the daemons they died to protect flickered in and out of existence in a mockery of mortality. There was no satisfaction in these victories. She bought them with the blood of her comrades, sacrificed at Tzeentch’s altar.
Even that had been insufficient. The Eternia Realmway had fallen to the Toofpullas. But Ania knew retreat was pointless. What awaited her failure, should she return, were the merciless cruelties of Archaon’s lieutenants. And so they were to throw themselves once more into a last gasp, mustering the last of their forces to take the Realmway for their own directly.
They had attempted to seek the assistance of the other factions. Ania believed that she could have brought Folkvar into a temporary alliance, at least. Surely, she had thought, they served similar purposes - leaving the Realmway in the hands of the destructive Orruks was too dangerous and unpredictable. And Karnack had agreed to it, apparently relishing in further complicating whatever long-standing feud he had with the Dwarf. Ania had gleaned, over the course of the campaign, that they both seemed to remember The World That Was, that they had met in it before. And so she trusted Karnack even less, knowing that his motives were as personal as they were ephemeral.
Of course, whatever material reward they could offer the Fyreslayers had paled in comparison to what the greenskin could offer himself. She understood the Fyreslayers’ motivations in the recovery of their ur-gold, but still it disgusted her. The stakes were too high for such triviality. But such was the way fate had aligned, and rather than submit to it, she had sought another solution.
That solution had been Ertan the Apostate. Now the forces of Death itself walked alongside her. She found it revolting. Everything Ania did, she did in the name of life, of freedom. To accept help from the scions of unlife, to rely on the forces of stasis and servitude, was a shame she almost found it impossible to bear. But she was desperate. And failure was not an option.
Her warriors assembled around her. The Eternia Realmway grew near, and the terrain before them shifted chaotically as the energies of each realm bled through at random. She bellowed to her sisters, her voice magically amplified over the sound of the planar rift.
“This is it. Before us lies the promise of power, behind us lies the promise of chains. If we are to wrest our fate into our own hands, we must seize it. Retreat is not an option, for there is nothing for us to return to. The Eternia Realmway must be seized from these mindless savages and turned towards a greater purpose. Today you fight not for Archaon, not for Karnack, but for yourselves. Our freedom lies before you. Butcher those who would deny us it!”
And so, for the final time, the Dawnclad surged forth onto the fields of Fyrescar Plateau.
The past months had been met with mixed successes and undiluted failures. While she could rival and even best the other forces roaming the Flamescar Plateau, her early successes against the Ironjawz had quickly evaporated as they grew into an unstoppable force that no faction could truly eclipse for long. Each fleeting victory had become a prelude to a later defeat.
And of those victories, what cost? The destructive forces that the loathsome Karnack and his host wrought were invaluable, and it fell to her army to be their bulwark. Each battle, more and more of her sisters died, while the daemons they died to protect flickered in and out of existence in a mockery of mortality. There was no satisfaction in these victories. She bought them with the blood of her comrades, sacrificed at Tzeentch’s altar.
Even that had been insufficient. The Eternia Realmway had fallen to the Toofpullas. But Ania knew retreat was pointless. What awaited her failure, should she return, were the merciless cruelties of Archaon’s lieutenants. And so they were to throw themselves once more into a last gasp, mustering the last of their forces to take the Realmway for their own directly.
They had attempted to seek the assistance of the other factions. Ania believed that she could have brought Folkvar into a temporary alliance, at least. Surely, she had thought, they served similar purposes - leaving the Realmway in the hands of the destructive Orruks was too dangerous and unpredictable. And Karnack had agreed to it, apparently relishing in further complicating whatever long-standing feud he had with the Dwarf. Ania had gleaned, over the course of the campaign, that they both seemed to remember The World That Was, that they had met in it before. And so she trusted Karnack even less, knowing that his motives were as personal as they were ephemeral.
Of course, whatever material reward they could offer the Fyreslayers had paled in comparison to what the greenskin could offer himself. She understood the Fyreslayers’ motivations in the recovery of their ur-gold, but still it disgusted her. The stakes were too high for such triviality. But such was the way fate had aligned, and rather than submit to it, she had sought another solution.
That solution had been Ertan the Apostate. Now the forces of Death itself walked alongside her. She found it revolting. Everything Ania did, she did in the name of life, of freedom. To accept help from the scions of unlife, to rely on the forces of stasis and servitude, was a shame she almost found it impossible to bear. But she was desperate. And failure was not an option.
Her warriors assembled around her. The Eternia Realmway grew near, and the terrain before them shifted chaotically as the energies of each realm bled through at random. She bellowed to her sisters, her voice magically amplified over the sound of the planar rift.
“This is it. Before us lies the promise of power, behind us lies the promise of chains. If we are to wrest our fate into our own hands, we must seize it. Retreat is not an option, for there is nothing for us to return to. The Eternia Realmway must be seized from these mindless savages and turned towards a greater purpose. Today you fight not for Archaon, not for Karnack, but for yourselves. Our freedom lies before you. Butcher those who would deny us it!”
And so, for the final time, the Dawnclad surged forth onto the fields of Fyrescar Plateau.
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