[Vortar the Mad]

His own labored breathing and and the screams of the dying were all Vortar could hear as he looked down upon the carnage from his nightmare, Tyrant. Broken demon carcasses lay upon the corpses of undead and legionairs alike. Deep pools of blood and demon ichor blended together atop the battlements and ran in rivulets from the spaces in the crenelations making it look as if the very walls themselves were bleeding. Vortars arm hurt from swinging his massive blade, gore in every color of the rainbow covered him from gauntlet to shoulder and he and his steed both bled from a score of minor wounds.


He and the other defenders had pushed back wave after wave of assailants from the walls and gates. From the ground mercenaries and undead had come scrambling up the walls on siege ladders. Vampires had coalesced from an evil green mist that had flowed up to the battlements. Drakenbeasts had flown in mass to the walls and over them. Demons had sprung forth from thin air.. vomited from the very bowels of the underworld in flashes of brimstone and evil power. Even the harbor had been an avenue of attack when the waves washed up hordes of sea devils who had fought bitterly to secure a beach head upon the docks. All had failed...Grimly and with one mind, mercenaries and legionairs, red wizards and thieves, elf , orc, human, hin and half dragon alike had stood shoulder to shoulder and thrown the invaders back.


Now...as dawn threatened to break, all was quieting. The invading army had pulled back out of range of the siege weapons and was remassing. A grim silence had fallen on the wall as battered defenders took a moment to stem the worst of their bleeding and looked out grimly at the invaders who flew no banners.


Vortar knew that dawns approach would cause desperation in the attackers, Demons and the undead were stronger foes when the world was dark, dawn would see that turned to weakness. They would have to come again...and soon. Perhaps in their last attempt...spurred on by desperation they would finally find the strength to crush Bezanturs defenders....but not If he could help it. Urging his nightmare forward, the beasts flaming hooves raising evil hissing as they found purchase in the pools of gore, Vortar grimly set his jaw and hefted his blade again. He would see the attackers pay for each inch they tried to take in blood and pain.


The sharp staccato voice of the Protector rang out upon the battlements breaking the silence as surely as if he had cracked his evil whip. Heads of weary defenders turned towards the tower the Protector of Bezantur was comanding the cities defense from. The supreme military commanders black and silver cloak flapped in the sea breeze as he called out his commands. "The invaders mass for a final push, Hold them at the northwest wall one final time and the day is ours...All of you men most experienced, meet me at the north gate we will END this!"


Soldiers rushed into action clearing the dead from the siege weapons and reloading them as their highest ranking officers headed to the north gate to meet the protector and their fates. Grinning murderously beneath his massive black helm, Vortar spurred his steed and went to join them.


Arriving at the north gate Vortar saw the bleeding edge of the legions steel. The ill tempered tribune Diego San'draxus sat atop an armored nightmare, Captain Durn also was mounted, none of his normal jovialness apparent in his manner, all buisness on this day. Dread lord Maurin himself rode amongst them, radiating magical power in waves. To his right the eerily well manerred necromancer Kaiser sat quietly. Riding hard from the south Vortar saw the unmistakable sillouette of Captain Cain and smiled, long had he known the man and had hoped to see him in the fighting, his greatsword cut a bloody swathe before him a mile wide and his legend cut a path wider still.


The ringing of spurs upon the flagstones drew the huge knights attention as the protector marched towards the assembled captains. More stalwarts strode up and joined those assembled and edged closer to hear the Protector. Hard men all, soldiers and mercenaries some of them unknown to him joined Vortar in awaiting the portectors commands. "We will end this now!" The Protector shouted, "The enemy will attack our walls once more but this time we shall ride out from the north and flank THEM. Drive them towards the defenders on the wall and we shall cut them down, wait outside the gate for my signal and be ready to bring hell...and an end to those that would attack the priador."


A racous cheer went up amongst the men and Vortar smashed his greatsword against his breastplate in salute and shouted, "We will crush them protector! We shall drive them before us to the walls and much will be the lamentation of their women!" Chuckliing darkly the protector turned on his heel and shouted back, "Then await my signal to charge." before climbing atop the wall to command the battle once more.


The ranking Legionaire Diego bellowed orders, commanding Vortar and Cain to be the jackknife vangaurd of the assault, twin juggernauts to split the enemy forces asunder so that the rest could gut the enemy with blades and spells. As the rest fell in step behind them, Vortar rode out the gates, Cain to his right and death over all of their shoulders.


If the walls had appered to be bleeding...the ground outside the northwest wall looked like giant open wound. Broken and mangled bodies littered the field like a macbre carpet. Corpses were stacked taller than Vortar against the walls themselves. Blackened, exploded limbs and less recognizeable portions of half a hundred monstrosities were scattered upon the blasted field. It was as if the collossal hands of a mighty and grotesque god had thrown them like a child throws a hand full of jacks. Undeterred, the mighty warriors assembled rode out into the charnel pit and reigned in.


Dread lord Maurin and the Kaiser of necromancy bruised the air around them as they called forth power from the beyond to ensorcel the weapons of the company and protect it from all manner of magical and visceral attack. Humming with power...the hammer of Priador awaited the protectors call to bring them crashing down upon the enemy and pound them into dust against the anvil of Bezanturs walls.


Vortar shifted his weight and held his "wife" The scarlet whore at the ready. "One more round of kisses for these bastards my lascivious old girl" he thought "and they will have had their fill....OR we feast with Gruumsh and and I will kick the all father in all seven of his holy scrotes for letting his favored son fall!".


The enemy began their final assault with the remnants of their zombie legions bearing siege ladders as before...but then Vortar saw the demons inhuman forms slinking amongst their back ranks and knew the enemy was coming with all it's strength. Grunting, Vortar took Tyrants reins a little tighter and pricked him with his spurs while holding him back, this infuriated the infernal beast and when released he would charge with all his might. Looking over to Cain he said almost playfully, "Count your dead old soldier, we'll see who owes who coins in the afterlife!"


The protector assessed the enemy strategy from atop the northwest tower and with cold tactical precision determined the time was right. The enemy had commited their forces beyond recall. Taking in a huge breath of air he looked across the battlefield to his waiting phalanx and bellowed with the power only a commander of an army can muster, "Charge NOW!" Grimly he smiled as he saw his words made deeds.


Tyrants hooves threw flaming earth and gore high in the air as he tore the earth beneath him, Vortar smiled evilly and locked eyes with the first demon in his path, cleaving it nearly in twain with his strke before his "wife" spread her affections like the whore she was to a vampire at the edge of his reach and beheaded it. "TWO cain!" He bellowed and shot a glance to his right to see the human weaving a tapestry of blood in the air with his own mighty blade. He did not need to look to know that Dread lord Maurin was summoning a mighty spell, he could feel the hair standing up all over his body and the rippling in the air as a fist shaped force of magic flew from behind him to crush a hapless demon into a fountain of foul smelling ichor.

Raising his sword high Vortar brought it down again and again with inhuman force upon the heads of demons before him who tried in vain to claw him from Tyrants saddle. His draconic blood sang with power and his massive blade drew great arcing stripes of gore behind each swing while Vortars world contacted to the narrow confines of each foe before him and the grisly work of bringing it's demise.


When the last of his foes lay dead before him. He reigned in and looked around...They had swept the field of the enemy, nothing stood. Grinning in his helm he started to count the dead when the earth rumbled....Wheeling around he beheld it..


"TEMPUS' BALLS!" he heard a legionaire exclaim and thought the pitiful two testicled human god of war's nether regions far too small a blasphemy for such a horror.

Thirty feet high and comprised completely of writhing corpses, the corpse gatherer strode out from the fading darkness, each stride shaking the very gorund. The necromantic power of the thing assaulted Vortar with such force a lesser creature would have retched. Kaiser must have just befouled his robes in ecstasy Vortar thought.


Having no Idea how to combat such a creature did not stay Vortar's hand though..Cruelly he spurred his mount up to full speed and readied his blade. At the last moment before impact with the foul behemoth he released the nightmares reins and grasped the massive blades hilt with both hands, bringing his full weight and strength to back the momentum of the charging steed. The scarlet whore stuck with such force it threatened to tear Vortar from his saddle. As he clung desperately to his charging mount it nearly felled the steed as well! Though nearly unhorsed the warrior was rewarded to see that his charge had severed the grisly interlocked corses that conmprised the monsters leg! The foul giant tottered for a second..corses releasing their unholy grips upon each other and attemting to scramble over one another to reconstitute the foul abominations severed leg.

Not wasting an opportunity, Vortar reared his mount, drove his blade home in the things chest and leveraging all his prodigious strength...wrenched as he urged Tyrant to surge forward. The creature...of balance already, toppled like a giant putrescent tree!

As it struck the ground with a thunderous, but sickeningly wet sounding thud, the corses that had been interlocked broke free of each other and were tossed into the air. Vortar found himself ringed in closely by at least two score zombies pressing tight against each other in a ravenous press to get at his flesh.


Recovering from his efforts to down the creature he smiled at the odds and thought, "The thing should have brought more zombies...Cain would DEFINATELY owe me coins!". Swinging his blade In a wide arc with force sufficient to fell trees, he easily sliced through a half dozen of the naked rotting things per strike and reduced the two score of them to five score twitching pieces in blisteringly short order.


Peering above the decimated, twitching pile of dead flesh he saw Cain and the others had converged on a second of the monstrosities and downed it as well. With a mighty kick of his boot he cleared a path from the heaped putrescence and leapt Tyrant toward the others in time to slay several more of the second behemoth's profane "progeny".


Quickly he counted the dead and bellowed, "37 Cain!". The lethal Captain grunted and swore, making crude remarks about orcish math in several languages."

Having cleared the behemoths from the field the gore splattered comapny surveyed the battle.


With no more forces to command, and pinned between the walls of mighty Bezantur, the elite cadre that had just slaughtered their mightiest creatures and the approching army of the Zulkirs of Enchantment and Conjuration, the leaders of the invading horde were faced with little choice. Destruction seemed a kind fate compared to the horrors that would be visited upon them by their dread commander and so they went forth to battle.


Deathbringers and Death knights...among the mightiest of the champions of undeath went forward to face the champions of Bezantur in the last minutes before dawn...and were felled. The spells, swords and arrows destroying them in less time than the march to the field had taken.


As the leaders of the invaders fell to Mighty Vortar, Dread lord Maurin, Red wizard Kaiser and the Legions sharpest swords and hardest men...a deafening cheer broke out from Bezantur's Northwest wall.

The beaten invaders, those stragglers and wounded that could, knew they had been beaten and fled the field, the exodus turning into a full scale rout!


As the sun finally rose above the horizon Vortar lowered his blade and watched the remaining enemies flee. Cain...perhaps feeling cheated as he had been stationed in a less strongly attacked portion of the city most of the battle turned to his old friend and said, "We could chase them you know..." Vortar let out a deep rumbling laugh from inside his helm and smiled fiercly back at Cain, "We could old soldier...but if we did who would tell our tale and spread the word?...YOU DON"T FUCK WITH THE PRIADOR!"