The Fourth Battle of Ypres and the Assault on the Dark Portal

Part 1

Sergeant Nicholas Howard, British Expeditionary Force

The Ruins of Vlammertinge, Belgium, June 15th, 1918

3:25 AM

Nicholas eyed the charred ruins of Ypres from his post. It was a quiet night, the creatures of night having long fled the field of battle. The occasional shell still bombarded Ypres but it truly was one of the quieter of times on the front so far. The BEF had been stockpiling material in Vlammertinge for the final assault on Ypres since the 10th but due to the attack on London, many of the supplies slated for the front had been diverted and thus delayed. News travelled quickly along the front: apparently East End was a smoking ruin because massive flaming demons of stone had initially landed there. Had it not been for the force of Mark II tanks that were supposed to be here several days ago, the Infernals, as they were called, might have completely wiped out London. And there had been the subsequent battle in the sewers. It was like something out of Mr. Well's stories: invaders from the sky except it was the invaders hiding in the sewers rather than the human survivors. Apparently the constables had held their own fairly well, only losing around a hundred men during the entirety of the infestation. They also managed to recover the orcish infiltrator or rather, the human body of the orcish infiltrator responsible for the entire mess. The army had been put on high alert for particularly pale-faced men in their ranks. The problem was that so many boys from old blighty were so damn pale, the weather conditions of the isles making the average Briton paler than their continental cousins. Nicholas had only seen Death Knights up close during the retreat from Ypres last month. The boys they left behind there never came back, probably raised to undeath like so many others before.

Nicholas' thoughts were interrupted when a great reverberating boom sounded from the German position several kilometres off. Now he knew why it was so damn quiet, the Germans were preparing to attack. He had to let his superiors know at once. Calling a member of his squad to replace him, Nicholas rushed to the command tent.

Blackhand the Destroyer

The Dark Portal

4:30 AM

Blackhand smashed off the arm of the human soldier in front of him before making pulp of the body. Pure rage emanated from the warchief as he looked upon the treachery of the humans wafting in front of him. Gas. The blasted humans dared to use such a weapon in order to weaken the Horde so that it was ripe for reaping. Truly they had no honour.

"Saurfang! Deadeye! On me!" Blackhand bellowed.

The two orcs quickly dispatched their human assailants and hurried to the side of their leader.

"What is your command?"

"Follow me, we'll destroy these pests before the sun rises."

A storm of bullets burst from behind a building, mostly missing their marks or pinging off the heavy armour of the orcs. In light of the devastating effectiveness of these firearms, the orcs had been very slowly outfitted with heavy armour created by Blackhand's Blackrock clan. As proof of their superior craftsmanship, the little lead pellets rarely if ever breached the thick plates of blackened steel.

Roaring in rage, Blackhand raised his hammer and charged the hiding humans. Three puny humans fired their weapons while backing away. Breaking one gun with a swipe of the hammer and grabbing another, Blackhand then smashed one of the disarmed humans over the head. Saurfang lunged forward, skewering the other disarmed human in the throat. Deadeye was meanwhile engaged in a fierce duel with the remaining human, who was amazingly holding his own. He wielded a 90 centimetre long serrated blade with a large yellow gem embedded slightly above the hilt. It was most definitely looted for Blackhand had seen the quality yet boring swords of the humans and this was not one of theirs.

Saurfang stepped forward to assist but Blackhand stopped him, "Let him sate his thirst for honourable combat."

Deadeye swiped at his opponent with the sabre blade in place of his missing right hand, drawing blood on the lower leg. The human darted forward to the left but pulled his blade to the right in a feint but was blocked by a timely upward slash by Deadeye. Using he left hand, the orc heavily shoved the human backwards, causing him to stumble and fall. Rolling backwards quickly, the human got back to his feet before Deadeye could reach him. As Deadeye rushed forwards, the human unveiled his surprise: ten humans stepped from the shadows, five behind Blackhand and five behind the human.

Slashing diagonally with his sword but blocked yet again by Deadeye's sabre, the Human roared in his language: "Jetzt! Anschlag für das Vaterland!"

Feldwebel Tobias Reiniger, Stormtrooper

Somewhere in the Orcish base

"Now! Attack for the Fatherland!"

The three black armoured orcs before him looked uniformly angered, but how was that different from the typical? The trap had been a success; Tobias had managed to draw the apparent leader of the orcs into a carefully placed ambush where it would hopefully die in the overlapping field of fire. Leaning back, Tobias dodged an incoming slash for his throat. It was very difficult fighting with a sword while wearing a gas mask; the eyeholes did not provide a large field of view.

The plan of attack was simple: the Stormtroopers were to release a particularly deadly looking neurotoxin in strategic places all over the orcish base. They were then required to hold down the enraged orcs within their base until a massive artillery bombardment shredded the barrier protecting the area. The only problem they had encountered so far was that the gas didn't work as prescribed. Rather than outright killing the orcs, it managed to either put them to sleep or cause them to fly into a blood rage like the three prime specimens before him. Another slash. Parry and strike. Tobias scored a hit, slightly denting the armour of his one-handed enemy.

For this attack, Tobias had retrieved the enchanted sword he had… appropriated… on the first day of the attack. It had some interesting properties such as magnifying his strength ten-fold and increasing his agility. Tobias hoped to one day discover how to replicate these magics, God knows how much more easier cutting his dinner steak would become.

Knocking his assailant on the head with the flat of the blade, Tobias took a moment to take stock of the situation. The two other orcs had taken down one of his men but were wearing down under the unrelenting tide of bullets from five MP-18 SMGs. The large one did not have a helmet and thus was bleeding profusely from multiple near misses. It was only due to the bloodrage and its thick skull that it hadn't crumpled to the ground with mush for a head. The five other men behind Tobias were busy either shooting or reloading. Their assistance was very useful, keeping Tobias' assailant from capitalising on his admittedly flawed sword work. Had they not been there, their commander would have most likely been killed.

The one-handed orc, bleeding from multiple wounds yelled something in their foul tongue and charged forward. Tobias held his blade before him, hoping to spear the orc in his reckless charge. The orc's left shoulder suddenly snapped back, the force of the bullet pushing it counter to its momentum. Then the same happened to the right shoulder. As dozens of rounds found their mark, the enemy orc took the appearance of a puppet billowing in the wind before collapsing into a heap before Tobias' feet. With its final breath, the orc brought itself to one knee and took one final, hateful look at Tobias before falling to its side.

Tobias turned his attention to the remaining two orcs, now having killed the stormtroopers assaulting them. The smaller looked near to death but the larger one was filled with a fire that needed to be doused if the mission was to be successful. The eight humanoids stared down each other, unwilling to make the first mistake.

The smaller one took a step forward and pointed its sword at Tobias and said in heavily accented German, "You will die for your treachery, human for the strong shall inevitably smite the weak."

"You came to this world to rend and tear like you have done so before and succeeded beyond all expectations. But I say unto you, you have come to the wrong neighbourhood. Retreat back to whence you came from if you value your lives."

The larger one snorted, "Retreat? We've only just begun."

One of the stormtroopers began firing upon the orcs and soon the other four opened fire. The smaller of the orcs was quickly felled, his armour no longer capable of defending its wearer under the unstoppable tide of metal but the larger one charged forward, his hammer held to the side, ready to strike a final blow. Bullets pinged off the pitch black armour, no doubt of the highest quality for the leader of the Horde.

The orc swung his hammer in an upwards diagonal, contacting Tobias' waiting blade, which promptly shattered. Tobias was flung back, past the stormtroopers, and smashed against the wooden façade of another building. Reeling in pain, Tobias brought his gaze to where his men were hastily moving towards him, firing at the slowly approaching orc, its expression a mask of fury.

Then an orange glow danced across Tobias' face. Looking to the sky, Tobias realised that night had changed to morning over the course of the battle. As the first rays of sunlight cut across the charred battlefield and thick smoke, a great crack like a cabinet of china falling to the ground blasted throughout the base. Tobias had heard that sound many times over the course of his battles against the orcs and praised the heavens for this final reprieve: the barrier over the orcish base had finally cracked.

Meanwhile, the orc seemed to realise the same thing and his face screwed itself into the most hate and rage-filled expression Tobias' had ever seen. Roaring in anger and a bit of anguish, the orc charged forward like a doomed man as artillery shells began falling all over the place. Just before the orc could reach the remaining stormtroopers, he was crushed underneath an artillery shell.

One of the stormtroopers looked at Tobias' his gasmask giving him an otherworldly quality. "Herr Feldwebel, you must be the luckiest man on Earth to be saved by so many coincidences."

"Yes, its almost like something up there is watching out for all of us."

One of his men moved to the smoking impact zone, the shell still intact. "Looks like a dud, sir."

Tobias got to his feet, "See if you can't set it off once we're in the clear. Also, what about that other orc."

"He's not quite dead. Do you want us to take him with us?"

"Too much weight. Put him somewhere where we can collect him after this whole thing is over."

"On it sir."

Tobias looked over the collapsed roof a circular building and gazed at the looming purple gate that was the source of this mess. Once the threat was over on Earth, Tobias vowed to take the fight to the orcs.

End of part 1.