The Alacrity of Gharhakh

Created by Reiteration6

Gharhakh had chafed in his recent role as guard dog, whilst more subtle members of the Bloodtide had handled a complex infiltration mission, and his foul mood had not improved after being called to Scarra, to guard it against a besieging stormhost. Defending was not his forté, any more than subterfuge was. What purpose had cavalry, during a siege?
His patience having quickly run out, he has decided to sally forth and take the fight to the enemy. Despite being a Khornate lord, Gharhakh is not quite dense enough to believe his small tribe alone can match the entire might of Kade Stormfury’s alliance, so he knows better than to fight them head on and simply hope for the best. He doesn’t actually need to defeat them, after all.
Frankly, Gharhakh isn’t too concerned about Scarra. As the largest Tithe City, its fall would certainly be a blow to the Barbed King, were it to occur… but would such a fall be a blow to Calorag?
Like many denizens of the City of Pain, Gharhakh has always looked upon Scarra’s flayers with a mix of contempt and envy. Contempt because, whilst removing a victim's skin is surely agonising, such a technique is merely one form of cruciation, hardly worthy of comparison with the manifold mutilations of Calorag's master torturers. And envy because, despite this obvious fact, Aichmos has historically favoured Scarra over all his other Tithe Cities, Calorag amongst them.
That has always rankled with Gharhakh, in whose utterly unbiased opinion, his home city is superior by far. So it would not bother him at all if the fighting over this settlement just happened to be so intense that half of it was reduced to rubble. Let the Scarrans see if they remain Aichmos’ favourites when their home is no longer the largest of the Pyrelands’ cities.
If he is being honest with himself, this pettiness is part of the reason that he is now doing what he is, along with the usual bloodlust and desire to inflict agony upon others. However, the official reason he has been giving to any who’ve enquired is that he merely wishes to keep the stormhost focused here, on the siege, lest they look away and discover the events unfolding upon a certain nearby hilltop.
Whilst the siege is ongoing, in the background, Aichmos' more intellectual subordinates are working to unleash the daemon bound to the relic that the Bloodtide recently recovered. Should Stormfury think to send his forces to scour the area around Scarra, before the ritual of release has reached its resolution, all the efforts that went into acquiring that phylactery will have been for nought. So Gharhakh has taken it upon himself to sally out, intent upon keeping the enemy focused here, buying time for his allies to work their magic.
The mighty, brass-shod gates creak, loud as a peal of thunder, as slaves heave on chains to draw them apart. They aren’t opened fully, as that would be an invitation to disaster, with the besieging force camped outside, just barely beyond the maximum range of any artillery. The gates part only barely, forcing the mounted warriors to emerge in single file. This would not have been at all practical for any ordinary knights, but with the alacrity and nimbleness of the Slaaneshi daemons that these riders sit astride, the Blood-Slicked Brass Blades have more enough time to slip through before Stormfury’s host can begin any sort of concerted advance.
Those titanic gates slam shut behind them, with a noise like the breaking of mountains. They will only re-open to admit the tribe if the defenders on the other side can be confident that doing so will not allow Stormfury’s host an opportunity to force their way in along with them. A more sensible commander than Gharhakh would likely have baulked at the prospect of taking such a risk with their soldiers’ lives, and their own life as well, of course.
Gharhakh leads his riders towards their foes, from the tip of a wedge formation. Caution is not in his nature. Seeing the apparently suicidal charge coming their way, the stormcast begin to form up, not letting down their guard, even though these bare-chested marauders seem laughably underprepared to fight such a grand stormhost, not to mention all the assorted allies assembled alongside them.
Not actually planning on dying a pointless death, Gharhakh banks at almost the last moment, his steed’s wholly unnatural legerity allowing the creature to turn and speed off faster than even the swiftest of their foes can react. Flights of arrows fall in their wake as his warriors do likewise, and their charge slams into the stormcast line.
He has purposefully avoided heading into the ranks anywhere he saw soldiers carrying anything looking remotely like a spear — given the efficacy such weapons typically have against mounted troops — instead targeting a section of the army where the eternals merely hold hammers and shields. He expects them to be easier prey. He is wrong.
Gharhakh has never fought stormcast eternals before. In fact, before the onset of this war, he and his tribe have clashed almost exclusively with other marauders, and as such, have unintentionally become specialised in facing such lightly armoured opponents.
The Blood-Slicked Brass Blades' finest warriors spin graceful glaives, capable of lacerating flesh and muscle with ease — and of severing tendons, nerves and arteries with every skillful swing, leaving trails of screaming, writhing foes, crippled and bleeding out in their wakes — which now harmlessly glance off sigmarite plates, more often than not.
Their lesser troops “wield” lance-like protrusions of bone that were once their arms, before the mutations set in. A handful of these claw-spears do manage to find gaps in the eternals' armour, but the great majority simply break upon impact with the heaven-forged metal, to the great discomfort of their owners.
Only Gharhakh’s own weapon — a two-handed, spiked mace — seems able to reliably harm their foes, perhaps simply because he is stronger than any of his subordinates. Even he, though, finds no satisfaction in these kills. After batting aside one liberator's shield with the butt of his weapon, he caves in her skull with a mighty, downwards swing. The expressionless helm she wears does not even hint at the pain he must have inflicted, and she does not utter a sound as she falls to her knees. Then, before her corpse can even finish collapsing, a bolt of azure lightning arcs upwards and away, carrying her soul back to distant Harmonia, and searing Gharhakh’s exposed skin in the process.
He howls as the celestial energies course through him, and his steed wails, rearing and almost throwing him from the saddle. Another bolt races upwards, and a third, as more cries of anguish resound around him. Gharhakh is momentarily overcome by a wave of impotent rage, as the realisation hits him that all of these anguished wails are coming from his own warriors. Even in death, the stormcast are as stoic as the blank visages of their helms, and they leave neither blood nor skulls behind when they perish.
He howls again, this time giving voice to his fury, rather than his pain, but despite the wrath that courses through every fibre of his being, he is aware that they must withdraw. Other than the minor matter of the foe proving far stronger than he had anticipated, the utter lack of satisfaction to be gained from fighting these impassive sentinels makes this a battle unworthy of the Blood God’s attention, in his opinion.
By his side, one of the tribe's glaive-wielding elites is striking repeatedly at a liberator, whose shield is raised, calmly fending off the frenzied blows, when the muscular warrior is taken suddenly by surprise, a figure with wings of light diving from the sky above, colliding with him and driving him from his saddle. Kneeling upon the chest of his downed foe, Sigmar’s soldier strikes once, a hammer-blow which lands with meteoric force, crushing the Khornate's brass mask, and the head beneath.
The prosecutor looks up, meets Gharhakh's gaze for an instant, his metal facade inscrutable, then — with a single beat of those blindingly bright wings — is airborne once more. The faster elements of Stormfury’s host are rapidly closing in on this section of the line, it seems. If he’d not already made up his mind to pull back, this would have sealed the deal.
Infuriatingly, there can be no question as to which side got the better of this encounter, yet the one advantage his tribe do have is speed — no sooner has he roared the order to withdraw than their steeds are dashing off at a breakneck pace — and he takes some small measure of satisfaction from imagining the looks of shock and disbelief which he is confident must be crossing the faces beneath those expressionless helms, as his marauders easily outstrip even the nimblest of prosecutors and vanguard-palladors, whether they be carried upon radiant pinions or riding agile gryph-chargers, none amongst them can match the speed of the steeds of Slaanesh.
Still, this is not the end. He has hardly bought much time at all, and more importantly, his bloodthirst has not been sated in the slightest. He will continue making these hit and run attacks for as long as possible, but wherever he can, he resolves to engage Stormfury’s allied forces, rather than the stormcast eternals themselves. Khorne must have his blood and skulls, after all, and Gharhakh must see pain cross the faces of those he kills, and hear their cries of suffering.