For a moment, it seemed that the savagery of the Brotherhood had been matched, then exceeded. Although the marauders braced for the counter-charge, they could not restrain the terrible momentum of the Gundanbard lines. Hulking alien warriors crashed into their ranks, then
through them, scattering their front line - often in a spray of gore as giant weapons tore them apart. The Mongrel himself, with no time to reload his scattergun, managed to bring down two of the oncoming horde with his pistol...
... and then he was tossed aside, a Gundanbard warrior's heavy mace sending him flying to land in a heap on the rubble-strewn ground.
The Mongrel stared up at the sky, disoriented, watching the flames and the crash of bodies through bleary eyes. It was a struggle just to breathe, and the sounds of the battle that raged all around him seemed distant. He had landed hard, bruising his back where he'd struck the rubble, but that was by far the lesser injury; he could feel his ribs grinding together where the Gundanbard mace had struck him, bringing fresh agony with every attempted breath. With fumbling fingers he felt his way down his leatheris jerkin and found it soaked with blood.
One of his shattered ribs had broken through the skin.
Out of the corners of his eyes, The Mongrel could see more Gundanbard advancing, scything their way through the survivors of the rapidly-collapsing left flank of the Brotherhood troops. One of the hulking warriors stalked over to where the marauder lay. Tossing down its crude sword, the warrior scooped The Mongrel up by the neck, and agony blossomed all through his body with every movement. His pistol was gone, lost when he'd been thrown through the air by the mace hit. His scattergun was still empty. His knife was in his boot, out of reach.
The Gundanbard laughed in his face, a horrible snarl pulling up the corners of its fanged mouth. Its breath reeked of rotten meat. It had proven that its people, born to war, were superior to those whom the Maw had merely reforged, and now it would end this insult to its homeworld... or would it? With a final burst of defiant hatred, the Mongrel struggled. Reaching down into the satchel at his hip, he pulled out the trophy helmet he'd taken from the dead warchief... a helmet topped with a three-inch spike. It was meant to be decorative, but it was sharp.
With the last of his strength, and a scream of pain and rage, The Mongrel thrust it through the Gundanbard warrior's neck.
Choking and gurgling as its throat filled with blood, the warrior dropped The Mongrel back to the rubble-strewn battlefield, where he landed in an agonized heap. The Gundanbard managed to stay standing for an impressive twenty seconds, tugging at the helmet as it slowly drowned in its own vital fluids. Finally it collapsed, falling beside its intended victim. It twitched for another thirty seconds, then lay still, its hate-filled eyes turning glassy. The Mongrel pulled the helmet free in a spray of gore, clutching it to his ruined chest.
It hurt to laugh, but he cackled weakly anyway.
And then, all at once, the battle changed.
Lirka Ka
charged in, a storm of death and darkness that shattered the Gundanbard advance. A burst of terrible power from
Ssloak-Goa and his cultists shattered the great Gundanbard war god's monument, and a cry of rage and despair filtered up from their ranks. And
Syrenno Maraan
's tribe, led by
Alars Keto
and
Gren Blidh
, found their momentum again. The left flank, on the verge of disaster and collapse, suddenly turned their rout into a brutal advance. At least, so it appeared from the ground.
Forcing himself to focus, The Mongrel dragged himself out from beneath the clashing feet of the combatants. He needed to find a way to survive his terrible wounds, and to get himself back into the battle...
