Waaagh
The barge lurches beneath him. It is crude work, but strong, bristling with spikes and totems, gooey and dripping offerings to Gork (and Mork!) making the deck beneath his iron-shod feet slippery. Another wave crashes against the barge and he roars alongside his 30 or so lads beside him, huge bodies jostling against each other because of waves and eagerness to get to business. Invasion!, the tall girly-man pointy in the fancy dress had said. War!, he had promised. More scrapping than any of the greenskins would ever be able to imagine - and that has to be a lot! All the pointies they could kill (and eat), provided they settled for the right KIND of pointy. He had to be wary of that. Kill the wrong kind of pointy, and he’d see none of them pretty shinies the tall pointy had held up and proclaimed would be their pay.
In animal expectation at the prospect, he cuffs the git next to him hard over the head, triggering a savage roar and a counterpunch with a mailed fist the size of a christmas ham. He takes it straight to the jaw, chipping a tusk, and launches himself at his neighbor with an adrenaline-fueled bellow. It doesn’t take long before the crude barge is lurching from more than just waves as its interior is transformed into a gladiatorial pit, thirty 400-pound bodies in crude plate hammering each other to pulp, the majority of them laughing and bellowing with ear-shattering volume.
As he takes another blow to the head, he realises how good he feels. War! They’re going to war! He grabs the head of the younger, faster orc coming at him with both hands, and slams it against the side of the vessel, denting the metal, cracking the skull with a sickening sound. He roars, throwing the dead git on the lurching floor and hammers his plated chest. WAR! He bellows louder, and the scuffling around him starts to come to an end. WAR! Others take up the beat, blood and tooth-chips spraying from roaring maws as they join his chant. WAR! WAR! WAR!
The crude landing-barge comes to a juddering halt as it hits the shoreline. The barges next to them have taken up the chant as well, metal hammering on metal, gravelly voices shouting their zest into the air.
The gate opens with a crash and they storm out. Arrows, finely crafted and flimsy, ping off their thick armor. A git next to him takes one in an exposed spot on the neck and goes down with a disappointed bellow. Others follow. 30 gits are reduced to 25, 20, 15 before they reach the line, but when they do it is like a force of nature. Pointies in white girly-clothes go flying into the air, some in several parts. He catches an oncoming twig-thin spear in his jaws and bites through it, spits out the pointed end and laughs as he caves in the face of the astonished elf. He vaults over the corpse and goes for the next one. An arrow lodges itself in his thigh, but he doesn’t feel it. The juices of purple mushrooms and potent elixirs course in his veins, and he feels no pain, only the rush of war and breaking bone and the beating chant of his lads. WAR!
Further down the beach, Lord Sathar turns his mount, his helm high and proud in the darkling dusk. Thin lips fail to hold back a subtle smile at the childish glee with which the mercenary greenskins throw themselves into the fight. With a flick of his wrist, he gives the order to launch. Arrows, ballista-shot, and dark, seething balls of warp-fire turn the sky black above him.
The invasion has begun.
