Expansion None Escapes the Horde [T.H.E. Expansion Into the Rotten Highlands]

[TheThird]

The wind atop the ruined spires howled like mourning ghosts. Below, in the fractured heart of the dwarven city, the battered remains of the defenders funnelled into the skyport. The great brass-plated airship, Varkuun’s Oath, shuddered as its steam-powered engines roared to life, one after another. Steam hissed through cracked valves. Runesteel plating was welded in haste, blackened by fire. Crew shouted over the chaos, dragging civilians aboard in desperate waves. Children, elders, wounded, all crammed beneath the vessel’s ribs.

There would be no saving the city. Only escape. From his ridge perch, Warmaster Skeerch snarled, claws tapping the stone in impatience. The signal fires had been spotted, three red flares from the far watchtowers. The airship was nearly ready.

He turned to his messengers, baring fangs. “Tell Ironclaw the prey-flesh flies. We strike now-now.” The response from the warlord was a simple rune pressed into wax: approval. Orders cascaded across the Eshkin lines. Drummers beat the tempo of the charge. Signal horns cried through the smoke. Units emerged from the ruins, sprinting toward the central district with wild fervour. Wreckage and rubble slowed their advance, but the rats were relentless.

Above, the dwarves noticed. Crossbows lined the skyport wall. Archers took aim. Below them, their last hope of survival was nearly airborne, and the rats were coming. “Too slow-slow,” Skeerch hissed. Beside him, Maschinists unboxed a harpoon ballista, an ancient dwarven relic, repurposed for filthier aims. Its projectile gleamed with oil and rust.

With a crack, the bolt soared. It struck home, burying deep into the airship’s hull. Chains unravelled, catching and pulling taut. Varkuun’s Oath jerked mid-rise, suspended between salvation and the swarm below.

The Eshkin cheered. Skeerch grinned wide. Their prize would not flee. Not yet.

 

[TheThird]

The chain groaned under the weight of a city’s last hope. Varkuun’s Oath fought against the tether, its massive turbines screaming as it tried to pull free. Steam vented in erratic bursts, runes flickered across its side, faint and fading. The ancient airship, a relic of the dwarven golden age, had not flown in decades. Now, it strained against the harpoon as if trying to lift the very bones of its makers.

Below, the Eshkin swarmed toward the skyport like vermin drawn to spilt grain. The streets pulsed with ratmen: Bloodskins, Packblades, and Sewer Sentials all surging upward. Between shattered buildings and scorched stone, they clambered over barricades, trampling the dead and dying. But the dwarves had not abandoned their gate without resistance.

Flame-belchers lined the skyport’s edge, hurling gouts of fire down the ramps. Thunderers loosened volley after volley into the mob. Crates of black powder were hurled from above, igniting in glorious bursts. Each explosion tore gaps in the advancing tide, but still they came, relentless.

Skeerch observed from a large watchtower he seized. His eyes narrowed on the airship’s straining form. The chain held fast, but it wouldn’t for long. He turned to a nearby engineer. “Second bolt. Now-now.” The rat fumbled to load a new harpoon, paws shaking from soot and fear. A sudden crack echoed overhead, a Thunderer shot had struck one of the winch operators. Blood spattered the crank.

Too slow. Too weak. Skeerch strode forward and seized the mechanism himself. With a snarl and surge of muscle, he turned it, guiding the ballista into line. He didn’t wait for a blessing. He didn’t need one.

The second harpoon launched, higher, faster. It pierced the underside of the airship’s hull, embedding in a support strut. Two chains now held the vessel fast. Varkuun’s Oath shuddered. Its rise halted completely. And the Eshkin came, like a flood.

 

[TheThird]

The sky wept cinders. Above the ruined skyline of the last dwarven stronghold, the flames from the corpse-pyres had grown wild. Entire districts smouldered in silence. Smoke billowed into the upper winds, blotting out the sun with greasy black clouds. And from them, the ash fell, soft and endless, like snow made of bone.

Skeerch stood on the upper ramparts of a seized watchtower, cloak tight around his wiry frame. His snout twitched at the acrid tang of burning dwarf-flesh. Around him, plague acolytes of the Maw swayed in fevered prayer. Their chanting was low and arrhythmic, more guttural than melodic, as if they sang in a tongue made for teeth and bile.

Far below, the Eshkin columns pushed up the central causeways, inching their way toward the skyport and the anchored airship. But the tempo had slowed. The fires had warped the stone roads, turned courtyards to ovens. Rubble blocked many of the natural chokepoints. And every step forward meant another ambush from a last dwarven holdout: a barricade of crossbows here, a final shield wall there. The dwarves were not broken, not yet.

Skeerch gripped the railing tighter. Victory was within reach, yet it still clawed and bled like a cornered beast. Behind him, the black-robed Maw emissaries continued their chant. One turned, eyes wild with soot and ecstasy. “It is time, yes-yes” he rasped. “The fire speaks-screams. The will Maw listen-listen to me-me.”

Skeerch gave a grunt. He didn’t like the priests, never had. Too slow, too obsessed with rituals and rot. But he needed their support, and more importantly, their weapon. Below, in the ruins of a once-grand plaza, a shape sat covered in tarps and chains: the prototype. A Sturmkanone. New, imperfect, but full of potential.

The ash settled on its frame like a burial shroud. Skeerch stared into the blackened horizon. Soon, this war would end in thunder.

 

[TheThird]

It crawled on wheels of groaning iron and dragged chains thick as tree trunks. The Sturmkanone was a horror reborn. Mutated by Eshkin hands, rebuilt with stolen Dwarven ingenuity, and blessed in filth by the Brotherhood of the Maw. The “God killing Machine,” they now called it.

Its arrival silenced the front for a moment. Even battle-hardened Bloodskins stepped back as the monstrosity was hauled into position just behind the breached outer wall. Its coils pulsed faintly, veins of green lightning flickering through half-melted steel. Its snout, pointed directly toward the skyport.

The Mawite priests moved first. Dozens of them, draped in disease-stained robes and barbed chains, swarmed the war-engine like insects to a corpse. They chanted, snarled, and wept. Vials of rot-fat were smashed on its flanks. Blood was poured into the reactor vents. One priest, either brave or mad, climbed onto the chassis and carved sacred glyphs into the warped plating using his own claw, howling the entire time.

Skeerch stormed through the crowd. “This is folly-lunacy!” he snarled, eyes locked on the machine. “It’s ready-ready. Fire it now-now. Burn them. Kill-kill them.” The priests hissed and hunched away. One stepped forward, older, spines draped in holy fetishes of bone and brass. “No-no, Warmaster. The Maw must-must bless-curse the strike. Without the rite-ritual, the machine-weapon is doomed, blind-blind, yes-yes''

“I's don’t-don't care!” Skeerch snapped, bile flecking his lips. “It is a weapon-weapon, not a god-esh!”

A silence fell. At the edge of the platform, Warlord Ironclaw stood with his arms folded, watching everything unfold. He didn’t speak. Didn’t interfere. He was measuring. Judging. Behind them, the airship’s silhouette loomed in the smoke, almost ready to break free and rise. The Sturmkanone pulsed again. The rite continued. The storm gathered.

 

[TheThird]

The chanting reached its apex. The Maw encircled the Sturmkanone in perfect formation, thirteen concentric rings of plague-robed zealots, their bodies swaying like reeds in a toxic wind. One by one, they raised their sacrificial knives and plunged them into their own bellies, bleeding out onto the cracked earth. The Machine drank.

Skeerch stood just beyond the outer ring, tail lashing violently. His claws twitched on the trigger relay. Warlord Ironclaw approached slowly, eyes narrowed, voice low. “Will it fire-destroy, now-now?”

Skeerch’s answer was a snarl. “It will burn-kill the sky-sky itself yes-yes.” The Sturmkanone groaned. Pipes hissed. Coils spasmed with green light. The metal screamed like something alive. High above, storm clouds churned, a reflection of the weapon’s hunger.

Skeerch stood at its trigger. His fur was slick with sweat, his breath heavy with triumph. “Now-now!” he hissed. “Burn-break! Melt-melt!” Warlord Ironclaw gave no command. He only nodded once. The shot split the world. A beam of pure doom-lightning surged forward, not toward the skyship, but through the city’s heart. Buildings exploded into clouds of dust and flame. Stone melted. Metal turned to liquid. A corridor was carved through the dwarven defences, cutting a scorched path from the siege lines straight to the gantries where the airship was preparing to launch.

A gasp, then a howl. The Eshkin army surged forward. Through smoke, fire, and rubble, they poured, skittering Eshkinruts, flailing plagues, rat ogres with eyes alight. The corridor was narrow, chaotic, but it was open. The dwarves’ shield lines, already battered, were now split in half, struggling to react.

In the distance, the skyship lifted slightly after breaking free of its first harpoon, its great engines beginning to churn. Hope was still alive. But the rats were coming. Ironclaw watched from a rise, eyes reflecting the green-glow ruin. “We finish this before it flies,” he muttered. Behind him, the Brotherhood collapsed in heaps of gore and exhaustion. The ritual had succeeded. Now came the slaughter.

 

[TheThird]

Molten stone hissed beneath iron boots. The Sturmkanone's fury had carved a straight line of death through the dwarven city. Smouldering wreckage littered the ground, the air thick with smoke, ash, and the stench of charred stone. It was through this inferno that the last dwarven general stood his ground.

General Thrain Emberkeep, battered, bloodied, defiant. He and what few warriors remained had taken position at the mouth of the molten corridor, shields locked, axes raised. Behind them, smoke-wreathed figures stumbled onto the trembling airship gantries using its inability to leave to evacuate even more refugees, smiths, and children. The last of a dying people. They did not scream. Not yet. But they cried.

The Eshkin came like a black tide, fur and claws, blades glinting green in the ashlight. They poured through the corridor with unholy fervour, stepping over fallen kin and shattered stone alike. Emberkeep roared. His hammer broke skulls. His shield caught blades. But it was not enough. It could never be enough. For every rat he felled, ten more surged past him. His warriors were butchered around him. Still, they stood. Still, they fought and died

Above, the airship engines groaned and sparked. The last harpoon was being pushed back. The ship began to rise, slowly, painfully, toward the thick, black sky. Skeerch watched from a vantage point, eyes twitching. “Charge again-again! Burn-kill them all!” he spat. The Sturmkanonen crews scrambled. Power cells crackled. Slaves screamed as coils were rewired. The Brotherhood of the Maw had collapsed in their own gore, but the weapon still hummed, eager for another taste of destruction.

Targeting glyphs were redrawn, warped runes burning into the dirt. The cannon shifted, its maw now locked on the airship, rising like a ghost above the flames. Ironclaw gave no cheer. Not yet.

 

[TheThird]

A low hum, deeper than thunder, rippled across the valley. The Sturmkanone shuddered on its tracks. Its coils glowed an ugly, pulsating green. Skeerch stood atop a mound of charred earth, frothing at the mouth as he shrieked the final order. “FIRE-FIRE!” The sky split. A bolt of light, not natural, not sane, screamed into existence. It carved through smoke and ash like a divine spear, too fast for thought, too loud for silence. It hit the rising airship dead-centre.

For a heartbeat, the ship seemed to pause. Then, light. A bloom of sickly green fire engulfed the vessel, shredding its outer plating like parchment. The explosion lit up the entire valley in a grotesque halo. Every twisted ruin, every scorched corpse, was bathed in flickering emerald. The echo of the blast bounced from crag to crag, louder than war drums, louder than screams. Fragments of the hull spun away in jagged spirals. Burning beams. Shards of brass. A shattered gear the size of a millstone.

And then they began to fall. Not just steel, but bodies. Falling like meteors from the heavens, dwarves and debris alike. The airship’s remains, still aflame, sagged in the sky, its main hull sheared in half. One side crumpled inwards. The other groaned as fires ripped along its spine.

The Brotherhood of the Maw howled in ecstasy, throwing themselves to the ground in praise. Skeerch raised both arms, tail lashing with manic delight. “See-see! Even the skies burn for Eshkin!”

Ironclaw turned from the sight. There was no joy in his eyes. This was a victory, yes. But not the end. The rats howled beneath a burning sky. And from above, the dead began to rain.

 

[TheThird]

From the deck of the airship, everything looked like death. The city below was vanishing into flame and ruin, streets swallowed by smoke, towers collapsing like brittle twigs, once-sacred halls blackened to hollow shells. Fires raced along the rooftops, chasing shadows and screams.

Then the cannon fired.

They saw the green bolt before they heard it. It tore through the sky, impossibly fast, impossibly bright. For a moment, silence held. Then the world split open. The explosion threw half the ship into the sky, the other into the city. Metal screamed. Wood burst. Men, women, and elders all were flung from the deck, their bodies snatched by gravity and flame.

Thrain Emberkeep’s daughter, standing near the railing, vanished in an instant. The survivors clutched whatever they could as the ship listed and cracked. No screams. Just stunned silence, broken by sobs. The sky, their last hope, was falling. Below, the Eshkin cheered. Above, the dwarves wept.

There would be no escape. No rescue. Only fire. Only ash. Only death.

 

[TheThird]

The sky groaned. The dwarven airship, once a vessel of salvation, now a wounded beast, listed violently in the smoke-choked air. Flames licked across its hull, its engines belching sparks and oil. With every passing moment, altitude bled away.

Inside, chaos reigned. Screams echoed in the broken corridors. Families clung together, crushed by fear. The crew, bloodied and frantic, tried to right the ship, but their hands were burned, their controls shattered. And still it fell.

From the ruined city below, the Eshkin looked up in awe. A false hope. A tomb in the clouds. Then, impact.

The ship struck the heart of the city like a hammer from heaven. The explosion ripped through stone and steel, a towering bloom of fire and shrapnel that flattened buildings, cracked mountain walls, and vaporised everything beneath. A shockwave followed, hurling bodies like paper in a storm. Screams, then silence. Entire bloodlines ended in a flash.

The Great Hall of Emberkeep, once carved into the rock to outlast ages, split open and collapsed, burying its final defenders alive. Ash rained in great curtains. Molten beams twisted skyward. Fire spread like a tide, devouring the last breath of the Rotten Highlands.

Above it all, Ironclaw stood still on the far ridge, his cloak smouldering at the edges. Skeerch at his side, mouth twisted into a triumphant grin, his claw raised in reverence. The Mawites howled and sang, their rituals fulfilled in full flame and annihilation.

And for the dwarves, there was nothing. No survivors. No song. No memory left but ruin. And as the fires settled, the Eshkin banners rose. The Rotten Highlands had fallen.

 

[TheThird]

The fires still burned. Great pillars of smoke rose into the evening sky, casting the ruins of the dwarven city in hues of rust and blood. The valley stank of char and death, exactly how Ironclaw liked it. He stood on a scorched ledge overlooking the devastation, gauntlet resting on the pommel of his blade. Beside him, Warmaster Skeerch approached, his fur matted with soot, his snout still twisted in a smile.

“A glorious ending, yes-yes?” Skeerch chittered, gesturing to the crater where the airship had fallen. “The Father-lord will be pleased-pleased. He will-will hear of my victory-plan. My cannon. My plan-plan.” Ironclaw didn’t look at him. He watched the fires, the dying embers of a people. “Yes-yes,” he said after a pause. “He will hear-hear of it yes-yes.”

Skeerch's tail flicked with excitement. “You-you will tell-tell him yes? Speak my name-name when you deliver the-the news-news?” Ironclaw’s eyes narrowed, golden in the firelight. “Of course yes-yes.” A long silence stretched between them. Skeerch turned to leave, already imagining his rise through the ranks. Ironclaw remained behind.

He waited until the Warmaster was gone, then drew a strip of parchment from his armour. Already half-written, already sealed with the crest of Clan Ferrus. In it, there was no mention of Skeerch. No Maw. No ritual. Only Ironclaw. Only triumph.

He rolled the parchment, whistled for a courier-rat, and handed it over without a word. As the runner scurried off into the dark, Ironclaw stared once more at the ruin below. “The highlands are ours-mine,” he muttered to no one. Behind him, the Eshkin began to dig. Already, foundations for the airbase were being marked in ash and bone. The war never ended. It simply moved forward.