One man was tossed from his saddle. Horses reared. Ahead of them, men died. Just as suddenly, the Kislevites were broken. The lightly armoured lancers were no match for the heavily armoured Chaos warriors.

Knowledge of this did not affect Gotrek’s determination to be part of the combat. With a mighty roar, he threw himself forward, diving into the battle like a swimmer leaping from rocks into dangerous water. Felix followed, knowing that his own chances of surviving the fray would be greatly increased if he stayed close to the Slayer. A black-armoured figure broke through the mass, cleaving the skull of a Kislevite rider with a massive ebony rune sword, and came racing towards them. Gotrek laughed and bellowed a challenge in dwarfish. The rider seemed to understand and touched spurs to the armoured flanks of his mount, goading it directly at the Slayer.

In the brief moments it took the rider to close the gap between them, time seemed to stretch for Felix. Everything appeared to happen with acute slowness, like in a nightmare. He picked out the elaborate metalwork on the Chaos warrior’s armour, depicting the snarling heads of beastmen and daemons. He saw the strange evil runes blazing along its blade, and the ruddy molten glow from inside its elaborate bat-winged helmet that illuminated the space where eyes should have been. Small jets of sorcerous flame emerged from his steed’s nostrils, reminding Felix all too uncomfortably of the dragon he had so recently faced. Its eyes glowed red.

The Chaos warrior raced towards them. Felix did not think he had ever seen a horse that looked quite so big. It looked more like a moving hill of muscle than a riding beast. He could see enormous sinews contract and twist beneath its night-dark skin as it raced towards them. Small clouds of dust erupted from under its hooves. Sparks flew where its black-iron shoes struck pebbles. Somehow, Felix found his blade already in his hand. He felt all the strength was draining out of him, but he had been in enough battles to know that this was an illusion. He knew that when the time came, he would move as quickly and forcefully as he needed to. At least he hoped he would.

Gotrek stood slightly ahead of him, axe raised high, glaring fearlessly at their oncoming foe. The rider laughed contemptuously as he saw the two of them attempt to bar his way. His horse thundered closer. Bloody foam erupted from its lips. Its yellow teeth were stained red, and Felix could see that they were not horse’s teeth, they were sharp like the fangs of wolves. He did not know why that surprised him. He had seen far stranger mutations among the followers of Chaos.