Ruadhar slammed his staff impatiently into the ground as the gate of the newly captured fortress was reduced to so much kindling. A trio of gargants shambled into the keep, swinging improvised weapons consisting of pillars of stone and tree trunks about them with wild abandon. The fyreslayers' seraphon allies plunged in to meet this new threat head-on, whilst the lodge's fighters fought the assailing greenskins at the breach on the western wall.
'What are you doing back here?' growled Ruadhar to the battered and bloodied Ironwarden staggering up the ramp towards the Runemaster.
'I've ordered the retreat and we're trying to take what wounded we can rescue back to the keep to have their wounds tended,' puffed the gromril-clad warrior. 'The wizard has his hands full on the eastern wall and Lord Folkvar has his hands full with the orruks at the breach.'
Ruadhar grimaced but flicked the brazier head of his staff in the direction of the keep, allowing the Ironbeard to see to his men.
The Runemaster felt the earth move within the deep. He felt the presence of Grimnir within Alsvir, his apprentice. A grin cracked the Runemaster's face as he realised where the Runesmiter had been all this time and what was to come next.
The west tower of the gatehouse glowed red-hot and erupted in a great explosion of magma.
'Khazukan Kazakit-ha!' cried Alsvir from atop the gatehouse battlements, thrusting his axe in the air.
The Grongundi - the Anvil Keepers - gave a triumphant roar as they rushed out of the tunnel that the Runesmiter had bored into the earth. The air was filled with streaks of molten rock as they set their magmapikes to action, and it was not long before the bodies of the undead invaders were set ablaze and sent leaping from the gatehouse to their final resting places.
Once the gatehouse was aflood with with fiery red crests of the Grongundi, at Alsvir's command, they unleashed a fiery volley down into the backs of the gargants below. The colossal assailants howled in agony as the magma burned through their leathery hides and they crashed into one another as they flailed about wildly, trying in vain to put the duardin fires set within their bodies out. Soon the creatures tumbled into the moats or tumbled back through the ruined gates, their bodies soon little more than smoking ruin.
It was not long before the orruk besiegers were set to rout, their courage found wanting as the largest of their warriors quit the field or were consumed utterly by the flames of the scions of Grimnir. Ruadhar chuckled to himself as he made his way down to congratulate Alsvir and the Grongundi on their daring feat.
'Good lad,' he said to himself - for he would not say so to Alsvir's face.
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