Book One – Chapter 13

As they climbed higher, they crossed paths with another scene of violence, stark and brutal slaughter — a horde of orks, fifty-nine in number, was scrambling up the steep mountain slope. Their movements were erratic. They were a ragged, battered and bloodied force, struggling through the onslaught of snow and hail towards a natural crevice in the rock, a desperate attempt at shelter. The crevice, extended crudely into the mountainside, seemed to have once been intended as a tunnel or a hideout, but for the horde it was but a poor excuse for refuge. The orks were severely injured and agitated, pushing, pulling and trampling each other as they ran, climbed, collapsed, slipped and fell down the slope.

The reason for their terror became clear moments later. Ahead, Midnight encountered their pursuer, the creature that had turned their retreat into a massacre — a voltera, a monstrous predator resembling a panthera but far more massive, was tearing through the remnants of orks that had fallen behind. His muscles rippled beneath a scarred hide of thick brown fur; his rampage the realisation of raw carnage. In the face of such primal power, the orks were decimated. Their strikes barely left a mark on the voltera’s hide, blades breaking and axes splintering as they connected. Trying to gain distance, the majority of the horde retreated, regrouped and switched their various handheld weapons to their metal spears. It took the voltera but a few moments to slaughter the three fighters that had remained to grant the remaining sixteen the time needed to mount their defense; his claws slashing through flesh, sending bodies flying. Blood and snow mixed beneath the voltera’s claws, drowning his growing territory in crimson as he surged forward and swiped at their spears.

Atop the voltera’s back sat a twisted figure. A bearded wizard, gaunt and sickly, clung to the beast’s fur, hunched over the voltera’s massive shoulder blades. His body sagged as if on the brink of collapse, barely able to remain conscious, barely able to hold on.