Chapter 3 Stolen and soon be battle.

Styrbjorn sees that Utvalde has been reborn as a demon, Styrbjorn goes closer to him be Styrbjorn is a little cautious. Utvalde then looks at Styrbjorn and gives a thumbs up to say he is fine, Styrbjorn and utvalde go in the wagon and travel back to Ice drake fjord.

Once they make it back to Ice drake fjord the tribe's people gathered together to greet their leader, Stybjorn greeted his people and Utvadle when to his temporary home in the camp.

Utvalde lay down in his bed and heard the giggles and some grumble and lash out saying things about ambition and power.

He was going to touch his axe but one of the mouths let loose a terrifying shriek, too tired he just slept. Then Utvalde heard a knock on his door and he when out of his bed and reached for the door and it was Styrbjorn " l see you are up ready for another grand fight" Utvalde replies " always" Styrbjorn replies "good follow me and l will tell you more."

Utvalde and Styrbjorn make it to the hall and discuss their next target for war, " we are going to attack Bretonnia near landri. But we don't have the forces to say, so need you to go to Albion and you will need to meet a dark elf there for some beasts, while l can some artillery for the battles."

Utvalde replies "so what's the dark elf name? and also what beast did look for?" Styrbjorn replies " his name is Rakarth and he is located on Albion beasts look for the biggest one!" Utvalde nogs and goes to find a long boat, he found an abandoned long boat by the dock so he took it.

days have passed at sea and Utvalde nearly got attacked on his little boat but he has made it, Uvtalde knows he made it because there are three black arks.

He looks at the ark and can see why to call it an ark it is a vast floating fortress of their city, as one black ark goes by Utvalde can hear the screams of slaves and wild beasts.

Albion is a small, windswept island off the western coast of Norsca in the Great Ocean. It is said that it rains every day in Albion, that the islands are shrouded in mist and heavy fog while the land is predominantly bogs, marshes and fens.

This damp and gloomy environment is inhabited by the dark elves, Albion is also inhabited by many unique creatures from the result of trade. That is the reason why he is here for some war beasts, you walk around the city of Albion to try and find this dark elf; Utvalde sees a dark elf with a whip.

Utvalde grabs him and puts him in a dark alleyway; The dark elf panics and starts sweating, Utvalde asks where is Rakarth the elf reveals that Rakarth is under the Dark Citadel that's where he is, Utvalde kills him and takes his clothes so hide better in the crowds.

He teleports under the Citadel and saw a warrior-lord clad from head to toe in jet-black armour. The dark elf lord's tall helm covered his features, but none could miss the balefire light shining from the eyes like coals in the night.

In one hand, the lord bore a long, coiling whip, which snaked and writhed as if possessed of some terrible inner vitality, while in his other hand he bore a shield adorned with the fell runes of forbidden magics.

The warrior turned and saw Utvalde as he turned, the sounds of beasts howling in fear and screaming in pain Utvalde ask the warrior "are you Rakarth." The warrior replies " yes I am Rakarth the beast lord and why are you here?" Utvalde replies " you have some of your war beasts."

Rakarth and Utvalde look around the Menagerie of beasts, Utvalde saw many creatures like the Feral Carnosaurs and a weird creature that caught Utvalde's eye, it was like a hydra but the creature has four small heads, each with its features and tentacles writhing with slime. Also one larger, spike-covered head with an extended lower jaw, they have a chest plate and spines on its back and legs.

Utvalde looks at Rakarth and says take this one pointing at the Kharibdyss Rakarth replies " okay we might have to supply, you a bigger ship because it might escape".

[Meanwhile at Norsca]

Styrbjorn made preparations for a massive invasion of the far southern kingdom of Bretonnia -- the realm of horsemen. Styrbjorn continued to mass a larger army, and the seer entered the hall, the shaman explained he received a blood vision from the Dark Gods of the woman destined to bear his daemonic son.

The Realm of Chivalry had for far too long gone unmolested by Styrbjorn and his raiders, and the mighty warlord knew at once that the gods had answered his prayers with this news. Determined to at last ensure his legacy, Styrbjorn did bid his legions of battle-hardened tribesmen to take to their dragon ships that they might make war upon the horsemen once again

Styrbjorn's longships initially made landfall on the great island of Landri, off the coast of Lyonesse, located in the far north-west of the country.

Though thousands of inlets made up the archipelago of the north-western coast, Landri was by far the most significant of these barren isles, able to support a relatively large and modestly prosperous population.

It was also reputed to have been protected by the Lady of the Lake, though this was soon proved an erroneous assertion, and though it was true that the people of Landri had often paid homage to the god Manann, offering sacrifices unto him that he might guard the seas against the fury of the Chaos raiders, whatever supplications they had made to that god proved insufficient to protect them from Styrbjorn's brutal invasion.

The Norscans had made landfall upon the isle with the coming of winter, and despite the seas having roiled and heaved with fury, their fleet had emerged unscathed by the grace of the Dark Gods. Styrbjorn's legions; composed of bloodthirsty axe-men, feral Ulfwerener and mighty Huskarls bedecked in hulking Chaos Plate fell upon the meagre defenders of Landri and slaked their thirst for death with the blood of the innocent.

Styrbjorn himself made short work of all those who dared his wrath, slaying both mere militiaman and priestess alike with terrible ease. His raiders had closed in on the isle from both sides, thus blocking off all routes of escape from their rage it was bloody massacre blood painted the place.

Those who could not fight thus clambered their way to take refuge in the only place left that could afford protection -- the Holy Abbey of the Lady, for which the Isle was so famed. Though he had raided the Bretonnian coastlines many times, Styrbjorn had paid little attention to the faith of the men there.

Having once hailed from the land himself, the shaman explained the role of the Lady, describing her as a petty deity of little true power, and her clergy as doddering women who were weak of both body and mind.

Striding into the chapel, beholding a statue of the Bretonnians' goddess, the warlord had felt all the more disgusted; here, in his mind, was a weak and degenerate god; not one of power and might like the gods of the north so why have a statue. The dying priestess who was coved in cuts and blood tended the chapel and spoke of how the Lady would defend her people and avenge the savages that desecrated her holy place.

But Styrbjorn scoffed at this disingenuous statement and retorted to the dying priestess the Norscan prophecy of the End Times, where the Dark Gods who descend from their halls and lead the men of the North in the final conquest, and of how Kharnth, God of War and Death, would strike down the weakling deity of Bretonnia.

To further demonstrate the weakness of the southern gods compared to those of the north, Styrbjorn personally destroyed the holy statue of the abbey depicting the weeping image of the Bretonnian deity, as no divine retribution fell upon him, he had established the superiority of the northern gods.

Those few amongst the people of Landri who had fought to the last were given an honourable death by the axe and the sword, in honour of Khorne, Lord of Battles.

Those far more numerous who had begged and bargained for life were left impaled upon great brazen stakes to die by inches, their foul cowardice robbing them of the dignity of honourable death. The blackened throne of Styrbjorn was taken out from his kingship and placed within the defiled chapel, his very presence so tinged with the daemonic that it further despoiled that once holy place.

The Norscans made sport of those few survivors of their raid and ransacked the wealthier homes for plunder. As the roiling of the sea had delayed the rest of his longships, Styrbjorn and his warriors thus stayed at Landri, awaiting the rest of his mighty Skaelings to join him in despoiling the kingdom further inland.

Amongst those forces were the mighty Tuskers, the hulking war-mammoths of Norsca; Though Styrbjorn had the utmost faith that his warriors would easily overcome any foe, he nonetheless wished to see the terror that would grip the horsemen upon bearing witness to those magnificent monstrosities; When the rest of his longships reached Landri, he marshalled his forces further inland, intent on finding the woman prophesied to bear his promised son.

Though the decision to wait at Landri for the rest of his forces to gather rankled some elements of his followers, particularly the Chaos Dwarfs, Styrbjorn silenced all dissenters in his ranks easily enough.

When the rest of his forces finally arrived after two days with Utvalde arriving, the Skaelings made the push further inland. In particular, Styrbjorn was beginning to truly pursue his goal in the southern land.

The seer had prophesied that the consort, revealed to be a sorcerous Witch, was even now making way north to meet with Styrbjorn, as the gods had decreed. They would meet on the eve of a great battle against the horsemen, where Styrbjorn would gain a great victory, and on the eve after, in sight of the daemon-moon Morrslieb, they would conceive their child together.

Concerned that the mother of his son would come to peril alone, despite the shaman's claims of her great power, he nonetheless charged the shaman to take a pack of horsemen southwards to the crow fields where the battle with the armies of the Bretonnians was to take place and bring her to him.

Meanwhile, Styrbjorn turned to plot his victory over the armies of Lyonesse; No mindless berserker Styrbjorn, the elder Warmaster embodied also the bloody tactical mastery of his Lord and had plotted the downfall of these enemies since the time of hearing of where he must invade.

He knew that the Bretonnians would, given the reputation of the Norscans, underestimate their foes, believing them limited only to a full-frontal assault. Styrbjorn had sent a force of Marauders ahead of the main horde to harry the Bretonnian forces of Duke Adalhard of Lyonesse, while the rest of his warriors moved inward, slaughtering and plundering supplies.

Duke Adalhard met Styrbjorn's vanguard but only succeeded in fighting them to a standstill. Skirmishes with the Norscans continued after that initial engagement, with the Northmen attempting to gauge the full strength of the Bretonnian defenders and to hold them off while Bjarki and Kveldulf roved the western countryside, searching for the prophesied bride.

Dispatched by the King himself, the forces of L'Anguille too marched for the defence of their southerly neighbours, despite the lingering border dispute between the two Dukedoms. The shaman soon succeeded in finding the witch, Haegtesse, pale-skinned and darkly beautiful, the sorceress had forcibly taken possession of a young Bretonnian noblewoman, supplanting the soul that had originally resided there so that she might be able to bear the Norscan's daemon-son.

She was brought into the Styrbjon's war camp, on the eve of the battle to come, under the baleful gaze of Morrsleib. Though her eyes settled hungrily upon the Skaeling warlord, their coupling had been decreed by the Gods themselves and was to take place under careful ritual, with the life-blood of Bretonnians to baptize the product of their union.

While Styrbjorn and his warriors rejoiced and celebrated their great victory in the lands of the horsemen, the Bretonnians succeeded in capturing the unborn child.

The next day the first snows of winter had come early, unnaturally so some had thought Utvadle arrived at where Styrbjon's camp was and saw him they discussed his new son, but he was nowhere to be seen.

When he realised this, Styrbjorn flew into an apocalyptic rage, his god-touched bellow carrying easily through the winding halls of the fallen temple of Landri, rallying the Norsemen to battle.

Warriors were rallied for another fight Norscan longships began sailing from their rallying point on the Isle of Landri, making beachhead upon Lyonesse's shore once again. The sight of the dreaded sails of the Skaelings, combined with the utter terror the devastating defeat suffered by the Duke's army caused, led to the peasantry almost rioting in fear, frantically attempting to book passage to the island stronghold of the count.

Their army sacked the townships of the Lyonesse mainland, plundering the settlements for supplies with which to carry out their coming siege; creating siege ladders, battering rams and makeshift catapults.

A barrier was formed around the island, created by lashing hundreds of longships together, while all the while hundreds more made beachhead, unloading their cargo of bloodthirsty warriors and feral Chaos beasts

Eyes ablaze with the fire of Khorne, Styrbjorn vented his anger upon the assailants, hacking men from crown to sternum as he frantically attempted to prevent the Bretonnians from fleeing from the castle.

Burning with fury, the Skaeling Chaos Lord swore that he would slaughter every last man, woman and child of Bretonnia to save his son.