by Jason Soles

(read part 1 here)

The invaders made landfall in vast numbers north of Brone’s Point, arriving under an unnatural darkness seeping through from the abysses of the infernals. The Orgoth host stormed the Vescheng Highlands, unleashing ravening hordes of reavers, warwitches, and savage ulkor to devastate anyone unfortunate enough to stand in their path. Breaking into a three-pronged assault, they moved northwest to cut off Icewatch and to destroy any villages in their path, east to pacify the highlands while reopening their cave networks and hidden fortresses sealed during the Scourge, and south to seize Skrovenberg.

The attack had taken Khador utterly by surprise. Though news spread quickly amongst the lightly populated volozk and beyond, it took days for Khador to organize a concerted military response. By the current time, the threat of Orgoth invasion lingered only in the pages of dusty tomes, long dismissed by the practical considerations of the day. Disconcertingly, not even the signs and omens so carefully observed by mystics and priests of the continent presaged the invaders’ arrival. In truth, the gods of Immoren had long had a blind spot for the Orgoth, perhaps as a result of the invaders’ blasphemous association with the Fellgoeth infernals to whom they owed allegiance. Further complicating matters, Khador had yet to recover from the previous infernal war and was still in a state of rebuilding. Once news of the attack spread, however, Khador immediately began to muster its forces in Khardov and sent word across the Iron Kingdoms, demanding aid to repel the ancient enemy from the Motherland’s shores.

In the meantime, garrisons initially dispatched from Khardov by rail to reinforce the highland defenders were quickly overrun. Then came news that Icewatch had fallen, despite a heroic last stand by Great Prince Kulver Drohzsk and his forces. Drohzsk’s severed head was left to adorn the ruins of the great lighthouse as the Orgoth forces moved north across the Severed Reach and into Vilcan Bluffs en route to Ohk.

As word of this terror spread across western Immoren, the rest of Iron Kingdoms set their defenses into motion. While Ord, Cygnar, and Llael braced their people for yet another existential war, Khador sent its warships at Port Vladovar north to reinforce Skrovenberg and the farm country surrounding it. By the time the fleet passed the Kulvorn Hills, they were beset by a second great Orgoth fleet and were forced to retreat back to port. Here, too, the Orgoth made landfall and marched on Borstov Landing from the north, silencing its guns within two days albeit at a great cost of life.

Thus, Skrovenberg, Ohk, and Port Vladovar fell in rapid succession, ceding Khador’s most valuable and accessible coastline to the Orgoth. The invaders rapidly reinforced these conquered territories and sacrificed many thousand prisoners to their Fellgoeth allies, to whom they paid homage and a tithe of souls. The whole of the volozkya of Kos, Razokov, and Borstoi, three of the great provinces of Khador, had fallen to the Orgoth. The reavers also claimed much of Khardoska, uprooting rail lines and marching on Khardov, where their advance was halted—at least temporarily—by the Khadoran artillery.

And so within days, the maps of western Immoren were rewritten, and ancient orders stemming from the last great Rebellion were shattered…

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