Battle of the Golden Gate

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Battle of the Golden Gate
Era Arcanum Optimar
Location Chamon
Outcome Decisive Legion of the First Prince victory
Destruction of the Gate of White Gold
Destruction of the Sigmarite Brotherhood Stormhost
Combatants
Legion of the First Prince

{{{3}}} Legion of the First Prince

{{{3}}} Daemons of Khorne
{{{3}}} Daemons of Nurgle
{{{3}}} Daemons of Tzeentch
{{{3}}} Clans Eshin

{{{3}}} Legion of Grief

{{{3}}} Emerald Host
{{{3}}} Reikenor's Condemned
Vindicarum

{{{3}}} Sigmarite Brotherhood
{{{3}}} Free Peoples

{{{3}}} Collegiate Arcane
{{{3}}} Dispossessed
{{{3}}} Freeguild Guard
{{{3}}} Lost Souls
{{{3}}} Penitent Legion
{{{3}}} Steel Sanctors
{{{3}}} Gildmarked
Commanders
{{{3}}} Be'lakor
{{{3}}} Karzakos
{{{3}}} Gebbolax
{{{3}}} F'tanax

{{{3}}} Lady Olynder

{{{3}}} Reikenor
{{{3}}} Axemar Diocis

{{{3}}} Ceridium Ghorle

Losses/Survivors
Heavy Annihilated


Battle of the Golden Gate was a battle fought for the Realmgate known as the Gate of White Gold between the forces of Vindicarum and allied Stormcast Eternals of the Sigmarite Brotherhood against the Legion of the First Prince and their temporary allies from Legion of Grief.[1]

Background

Be’lakor had finally gathered the might of the Legion of the First Prince which been secretly spreading across the forces of Chaos. Lesser Daemons of different gods had gathered as one, foes that would flay one another, were it not for the shadowbrand stitched into their flesh. This was the mark of Be’lakor, a dark sigil powerful enough to bind even the children of the Ruinous Powers into his service. Even several greater daemons had sworn fealty to the Dark Master albeit through manipulation and coercion rather than force, for such beings could not be bound as easily as their minions. Many others, such as the feared Daemon Princes of Orb Infernia had temporarily set aside their mutual hatred and answered the summons of the First Prince, further swelling his power. Be’lakor proclaimed that the Archaon, the False King, had failed as Archaon was still a mortal, lacking both the desire and the power to break the realms to his will. It was time for a true chosen of the Dark Gods to take command of the great apocalypse and to destroy the God-King’s armies in a single, devastating blow. With the destruction of the Silver Tower in Chamon final part of the puzzle had been found. Instead of merely destroying a Realmgate through sheer arcane power it was possible to cause a chain reaction that would overload and detonate other realmgates linked to that same mystical pathway to tear open the skin of the Mortal Realms and spill the energies of Chaos into reality, turning the very skies into a churning maelstrom of cursed magic. This would sever the connections between Azyr and the other realms, leaving the Stormcast Eternals stranded in the field where they could be worn down and destroyed.[1a]

However during since the Siege of the Eightpoints when Be'lakor had slain Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief he had been afflicted by sensations of a cloying paranoia and a bitter cold that he could not quite dismiss, colour had drained from the world around him, save for a sinister, emerald glow at the edge of his vision. Be’lakor knew he had been cursed. With Lady Olynder as an enemy, his careful plans were at risk of being thrown into turmoil without warning if she were to seek vengeance. Thus the Legion of the First Prince laid siege to Dolorum, spilling out of ancient shadow-gates known only to Be’lakor. The Dark Master himself led the assault, guarded by a quartet of greater daemons who all bore his brand. While a tide of daemons poured down the ashen slopes of the Screaming Wastes to besiege the mausoleum-palaces of Sylontum, Dolorum’s ancient capital Be’lakor and his most vaunted daemonic champions plunged into the depths of the capital. The inner sanctums of Sylontum were twisting and treacherous, guarded by the fiercest spirits in thrall to Lady Olynder. The aura of tragedy that hung over the place was choking in its intensity, and a heartstopping chorus of wailing banshee-song echoed through its crystalline spires. Many of Be’lakor’s lesser servants faded into nothingness as emotions that gave them physical form were entirely suffocated by grief. Olynder who was fighting the daemonic invaders alongside Sorrowmourn Choir only noticed the potent daemonic presence drawing nearer to the Sanctum of Anguish when it was too late. The Dark Master had found the remains of the Lady Olynder, the Mortarch’s fatal weakness and the very source of her tortured being. Be’lakor swept the Blade of Shadows down but instead of finishing off the Mortarch he offered the souls of the Stormcast Eternals from his future campaign for an alliance. Lady Olynder agreed, creating a spectral hourglass that showed the time left of the alliance.[1a][1b]

Battle of the Golden Gate

Prelude

The assault upon the realms by the Legion of the First Prince was not a grand offensive, but a series of strikes and betrayals of such complexity that to the majority of onlookers they would seem random in nature. His prime targets remained those realmgates that had been significantly destabilised by the detonation of the Silver Tower in the Rusted Wastes. Some were already in the hands of the Dark Gods’ followers, others were fortified by Sigmar’s agents or their allies and all were to be destroyed. Be’lakor’s alliance with Olynder was not formalised beyond their fleeting covenant in the Sanctum of Anguish and would not join their forces. The Dark Master communicated with the court of Olynder through Furies that haunted the spires of Mordikar in thousands. The Nighthaunt would sow fear and confusion to divert armies away from the key sites that Be’lakor had marked for destruction. Only when the time came for the final blow against the God-King’s champions would Olynder fight beside him, an event that Be’lakor knew no Stormcast Eternal would ever anticipate. The assault began with with daemons flowing out of corrupted sites or when necessary, through paths opened mortals loyal to the Dark Master, through rituals. The skies darkened and soured with sinister magics as the Legion marched forth. At the Shining Portal of Guttica, three Lords of Change routed of its Lumineth guardians and collapsed the realmgate. The Viridian Pathpools were befouled with horrendous toxins that the underwater gateways imploded, causing a tsunami that engulfed an entire enclave of Ironbark Sylvaneth. In the lands bordering the crater that had replaced the Rusted Wastes, Be’lakor’s daemonic sorcerers channelled volatile magic into the fractured foundations of realmgates setting off more chain reactions that rippled out across reality. Daemon turned against daemon creating a grand anarchy that transcended all hierarchies of command and servitude as they betrayed their kin and destroyed corrupted realmgates that allowed them passage into realms. Lady Olynder’s Legion of Grief fell upon mortal garrisons and unprepared settlements, striking isolated outposts, strongpoints and columns of troops marching at desperate speed to relieve their besieged comrades. As confusion and paranoia spread the Dark Master watched over his campaign from his fortress of Mordikar using flocks of furies as his observers. Only the Gate of White Gold was left located amidst the ruined city of Prosperia. This granted passage between the city of Vindicarum and its northern frontier holdings. Time was running short literally in the case of the phantom image of the Mortarch’s hourglass, its ghostly sand trickling away moment by moment and Be'lakor was already stressed by the sheer scale of his campaign. Thus he called forth his most unsavoury allies, the Skaven. [1c]

Assault Begins

The ruins surrounding the Gate of White Gold had been fortified by Freeguilders from Vindicarum, transformed into static defences interspersed with cog-forts and lined with Helblaster batteries. The destruction of many portals linked to the gate had caused seismic ruptures to emanate from the realmgate causing deaths of several dozen soldiers, who were swallowed by the yawning cracks or disintegrated by gouts of energy that spat from their depths. Freeguilders under the ruthless General Cerdimun Ghorle included the Steel Sanctors, the Lost Souls, the Penitent Legion and the thousands-strong Flagellant warhost of the Gildmarked. In addition they were reinforced by duardin of the Dispossessed and a cadre of Chamonic battlemages, who were together responsible for creating the murderous defences of the gate. [1d]

The Dark Master had chosen a force commanded by three of his foremost generals. At the head of the host’s Khornate daemons was the Bloodthirster Karzakos, the main body of the force comprised daemons of Nurgle in the hands of a Great Unclean One known as Gebbolax. Finally, the Lord of Change F'tanax, was tasked with leading a cabal of Tzeentchian Heralds to oversee the destruction of the realmgate. The daemon hordes threw themselves against the gate’s defences no fewer than six times only to be beaten back each time with thunderous artillery bombardments and desperate counter-charges. Daemons had killed thousands but still the Vindicarians did not falter. When the outer walls were taken, gunnery crews made makeshift barricades out of their dead comrades to maintain the bombardment and after the dual cogforts known as the Silver Martyrs were overrun by a charge led by Karzakos, who also destroyed three Steam Tanks, hundreds of gunners and engineers took up spears and muskets and began bellowing war hymns throwing themselves towards the enemy so their comrades can fall back to the final perimeter. The Daemons had not anticipated such a vigorous defence, and the sheer faith of the Vindicarum Freeguilds was a constant pain in their skulls increasing their fury. Karzakos and his Bloodletters charged for the inner defences as gun batteries unleashed hails of blessed shot, and mage-engineers turned the silvery ground into a boiling quagmire. The Bloodthirster’s attack was supported by squadrons of fly-riding Plaguebearers and the sorcery of F’tanax, who enveloped the Gate of White Gold in a raging arcane vortex, causing its metallic surface to contort under the roaring mutative energies.[1d]

While Vindicarum had been caught off guard its military leaders had acted with decisively and had dispatched the entirety of the Sigmarite Brotherhood, under the command of Lord-Celestant Axemar Diocis, to reinforce the Gate of White Gold. While lacking the numbers or the history of the Celestial Vindicators the Brotherhood had proven themselves in many campaigns. With a great boom of thunder, Stormcast Eternals in white and royal purple smashed to earth, landing in perfect formation at the moment when defeat appeared imminent. [1d][1e]

The Brotherhood established seven Liberator shieldwalls and the surviving Freeguild garrison quickly reorganised with Lord-Celestant Diocis’ five-thousand warriors. They unleashed disciplined musket-fire from their parapets, over the heads of the Stormcasts to thin down the mass of daemons before they reached the shieldwall. When daemons crashed into the wall, sigmarite hammers swung down with bone-shattering force. Lord-Celestant Diocis fought upon his Stardrake, Raxastemes and leading the spearhead of Dracothian Guard, charged through an opening in the Stormcast line. Kazarkos met this advance head-on, bisecting two Fulminators but its hide was battered by Concussors and Lord-Celestant Diocis crashed his own hammer into the daemon's face letting Raxastemes finish it off with torrent of celestial energy, incinerating the daemon. This inspired the mortal forces of Vindicarum even further not knowing the Dark Master was enjoying their display from afar.[1e]

Ruination

In a Silver Tower far away Deathmaster Crixxit was leading an infiltration mission for Be'lakor. The Skaven reached a chamber with portals connecting to various places including the Gate of White Gold and placed a Warpstone Bomb of Skryre. Crixxit escaped through a portal just in time to see the bomb detonate in a mushroom-shaped green fireball. The explosion laid waste to the interior of the Silver Tower but stopped short of destroying it. Already destabilised and further damaged by the magic of F’tanax, the Gate of White Gold finally collapsed, becoming a howling vortex, spewing the raw stuff of Chaos into the skies. Above the Gate of White Gold, the clouds for miles around were soon soured with chaotic energies that billowed into the open air like blood in a crystal-clear lake but with leering daemon faces and sounds if laughter. Be’lakor signalled for the final assault to begin.[1e][1f]

As Stormcasts fell their warrior’s spirit were engulfed and pulled apart by the maelstrom in the sky with an otherworldly scream. The air was full of lightning-gheists, racing helplessly back and forth across the skies but unable to escape the devouring darkness. The daemon-tide surged forth, scenting their foe’s weakness but Lord-Celestant Diocis and his brethren did not cede to panic. It was then the Nighthaunt came, led by the sorcerer-wraith Reikenor the Grimhailer who had been promised by Lady Olynder a glut of secrets from those Stormcast spirits captured during the battle the Nighthaunt swept across the silver wastes of Prosperis. As the Legion of the First Prince pressed the Sigmarites towards the carcass of the Gate of White Gold, the spectral army attacked from above. Spirit Torments seized lightning-spirits within their shacklegheist chains, while Dreadblade Harrows rode down fleeing Freeguild soldiers. Worst of all were the Krulghast Cruciators, summoned from the darkest recesses of the underworlds, hidden dungeons and oubliettes where both the living and the dead were tormented in lightless prison for eternity. Stormcast Eternals were snatched by them were finished off with archaic torture implements, their flesh pierced and flayed while their souls were drawn out of their bodies and entrapped. The suffering of their victims strengthened the Cruciators, causing them to radiate an aura of death magic that caused the nearby Nighthaunt to be immune to the strikes of the Stormcasts while also creating a wave of anguish that caused the Sigmarite Brotherhood lines to waver. Diocis and his retinue battle through the army of undead banishing many but Reikenor struck from the skies, blasting the Dracothian Guard with flesh-withering hexes while his scythe, Fellreaper, descended on Diocis.[1f]

Aftermath

Not a single Stormcast escaped the battlefield of the Gate of White Gold, with the Sigmarite Brotherhood becoming the first Stormhost to be utterly wiped out as consequence. The curse laid upon Be'lakor by Olynder was not destroyed, but merely delayed. The destruction of the the Gate resulted in the Dark Master regaining the Pantheon's favour, as well as the Cursed Skies arriving in Prosperis. Under it, the Legion of the First Prince would march upon Vindicarum itself and besiege the city.[1f]

Sources

  • 1: Broken Realms: Be'lakor
    • 1a: An Infernal Plan, pg.32-33
    • 1b: In the Court of Death, pg.34-35
    • 1c: Chain Reaction, pg.36-37
    • 1d: Shadow War, pg.42-43
    • 1e: Fell Alliance, pg.44-45
    • 1f: Ruination, pg.46-47