The Duel

Created by Morgrimm

There he stood. The dreaded emblem of the twin-tailed comet on his shoulderplate. Bulky armor. Starsoul Mace. All very ornate. The Executor had spent enough time to know this was a Protector-Prime. All around them the battle raged. Weapons clanked, shattered. People screamed, fell, were hacked to pieces. The Executioner was elated. Blood, mud and sweat flowed into one on the fields of battle.
Still, between the two of them, it was eerily calm as they sized each other up. He felt the sounds of battle becoming more distant, almost to a whisper.
The Stormcast held his weapon out, towards him, as a challenge.
"Trust me." The Stormcast spoke, in a deep, harsh voice.
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"There are beastmen coming from the south. Demons from the west. We are all but encircled." The Executioner - no, Herthabur Silverhammer, right, that was what he was called back then - said, urgency and grim determination in his voice. He stood over a map, showing the man before him with his armored index finger.
Said man before him wore a long blue mantle held by a brooch with the two-tailed comet. His bearded face nodded gravely.
"You and your kind have done so much for me." he said, touching the bandages that covered his right arm.
"I will bring the seventh mounted brigade. We will beat them back. Your people will survive." He met the Duardin's eye, steadfast. "Trust me."
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Laughter echoed from within the Stormcast's helm. "I said what I had to so you would help me. You were so naïve. I couldn't have cared less about your kind. Me and the brigade, we made off to Azyr as fast as we could. It is beautiful in Azyr, you know?"
The Executioner tightened the grip around his hammer - and charged the Protector Prime with the weapon raised high.
Surprisingly nimble, the Stormcast evaded the powerful strike, and the hammer only splattered mud and gore everywhere.
"We celebrated while your people fought for their lives! For we were the worthy. The God-King Sigmar sat at the head of our table, as we laughed and joked about the scum left behind, struggling against their certain doom!"
Gritting his misformed teeth, the Executioner slammed his weapon into the side of his enemy, sending him reeling; but he just laughed. With a powerful blow, the Protector shattered the Duardin's left arm.
"Pitiful. We knew why we left you behind, scum. You were not fit for Azyr. You would have muddied it by your presence."
The Stormcast stepped over to him, brought his heavy mace down on his breastplate. He collapsed into the mud.
"How we feasted while your little ones starved! It was glorious. How we ate and drank - we wasted much, threw it away for the dogs and gryphons."
Something formed in the corner of the Executioner's eye. Something wet, and glittering.
The others had thought he was valiant, back then. iIn truth, he had been a coward. He could not bear the thought to face them. See them, wasting away. His wife, his daughters, his son. So he fought, hoping to die. He did not; but he did, in a way.
The Stormcast before him laughs again, a deep, bellowing laugh. Again, his Starsoul mace came down upon the broken Duardin before him, shattering his ribcage under the runic breastplate.
More tears gathered in the Executioner's eyes. All the pain, all the regret. He did not even come to see them when he heard they were dying. Weak. Coward.
Underneath his armor, something stirred. Sickly greenish tentacles expanded, strengthened, wrapped themselves over broken joints.
"I drank myself to death, you know?" The Stormcast boasted. "Not from sorrow, mind, but from happiness! I spent the rest of my life in celebration. And now here I stand before you, reforged as one of Sigmar's greatest heroes!"
With unnatural power, the Executioner sprang to his feet. Freely visible dark green tentacles now wrapped around his hammer, stabilizing his grip around the broken arm. Bulging mutations strengthened his legs. He jumped, threw himself against the Stormcast, and the sudden maneuver powered by heavily mutated muscles brought the Stormcast down into the mud.
"VENGEANCE!" His voice, not heard in decades, was an unnatural, guttural sound.
Tears streamed freely over his disfigured face as he bashed and bashed his hammer at the Stormcast's armored head. He did not stop, and did not stop to wonder when the Stormcast helm flew off and revealed a gaunt female face framed by curly blonde hair.
The Executioner did not stop when she was dead, when he had beaten her into a bloody pulp, when her head was gone, indistinguishable from the blood-soaked mud below.
He heard all their voices in his head, crying, pleading, screaming for their husband, their father - and keeping on smashing that head was the only way he could make them stop.