As the orcish horde thundered forward, a chilling realization settled in the hearts of every warrior still standing—they were outmatched.
The Black Sun Clan, their flames dwindling, stared in awe at the sheer numbers before them.
The Priests of the Deep Sun, usually unwavering in their faith, felt their spirits tremble.
The Sorcerers of the East, their magic still potent, knew even their firestorms would be swallowed by the sea of iron-clad orcs.
The Sand Surfers, fast as they were, saw nowhere to run.
The Iron Foot, their siege engines still standing, understood that walls meant nothing to beasts that could tear them down with their tusks.
They had no choice. For the first time in history, the five warring factions turned their weapons not on each other—but toward the orcs.
A silent agreement passed between the warlords, a single glance that spoke more than words ever could. They would stand together—if only to ensure they lived long enough to kill each other another day. And so, they charged. The desert trembled as two colossal forces collided.
The Black Sun Clan warriors sprinted into the fray, their flaming weapons carving arcs of fire through orcish flesh. Yet for every orc felled, two more took his place.
The Priests of the Deep Sun unleashed their divine warriors, golden war-beasts clawing through orcish ranks. But Sky Rippers dived from above, talons ripping through even the mightiest of Sun-Lions, their golden fur soon darkened with their own blood.
The Sorcerers of the East rained fire and lightning, their molten revenants burning through armor and bone. But the orcs, with their sheer resilience, pushed through the flames, flesh charred but spirits unbroken.
The Sand Surfers weaved through the battlefield on their iron-plated sand skimmers, their harpoons impaling orc riders, dragging them from their beasts. But Warlord Khadag himself tore through them, cleaving warriors and skimmers alike with a single swing of Dreadfang.
The Iron Foot, once fortified for siege, held their ground behind their towering shields. But the Dune Crushers crashed into their formations, scattering them like twigs before a storm.
The battlefield became a nightmare of steel and flesh. Orc war-cries mixed with the screams of the dying. Blood flooded the sands—black, red, and molten gold.
A Sand Surfer, his body half-crushed, was dragged screaming into the jaws of a War-Warg.
A Black Sun warrior was split in half by an orc berserker's great axe.
A Priest of the Deep Sun, calling for divine protection, was impaled through the chest by a speartip the size of a man's leg.
A Sorcerer, desperately summoning fire to protect himself, was trampled underfoot by a Dune Crusher, his spell dying on his lips.
And above it all, Warlord Khadag, the Breaker of Hosts, stood unchallenged.
Dreadfang, now slick with blood, tore through warriors as though they were made of paper.
He laughed as he killed, his voice a deep, guttural boom.
"LOOK UPON ME, YE PATHETIC SCAVENGERS! THOU THINK'ST THYSELVES WARRIORS?! I AM WAR INCARNATE!"
He gripped a struggling Black Sun warrior by the throat and crushed his windpipe with a single hand.
With a mighty swing, he sent an Iron Foot captain flying, his body snapping like dried twigs.
"DIE WELL, OR DIE FOR NOTHING!"
The desert, once golden under the sun, had become a festering wound, a battlefield soaked in the lifeblood of thousands. The very air reeked of burnt flesh, wet iron, and the foul stench of ruptured entrails.
The warriors of the five factions fought like madmen, their bodies driven not by hope, but by the sheer instinct to survive. And yet, the orcs—an unstoppable tide of muscle and steel—drowned them in unrelenting carnage. Screams split the heavens as flesh was rended from bone.
Dromak the Ash Walker, his body drenched in the blood of his fallen brethren, let loose a savage roar. He hacked through an orc's neck with his flame-etched scimitar, but before the body could hit the ground, another hulking green brute drove a spear through his thigh.
Snarling through the pain, Dromak wrenched the spear free with his bare hands, splitting his own flesh in the process. He shoved the broken haft into the orc's mouth and twisted, shattering the beast's jaw and forcing shards of bone into its throat.
The Black Sun warriors fought as demons, but their fire could not burn through sheer numbers.
A war-warg lunged, its steel-reinforced fangs crunching through the skull of a skirmisher, splattering black ash and brain matter across the sand.
A rider fell from his sand drake, screaming as an orc cleaved through his spine, his body twitching even as his entrails spilled onto the blood-drenched dunes.
The sacred banners of the Deep Sun fell one by one, trampled beneath orcish war-beasts.
Bal-Haresh, the Archpriest, stood amidst the corpses of his most devout warriors, his golden robes now drenched in crimson. He raised his crescent-bladed axe, chanting a desperate prayer, but an orcish berserker caved his face in with a war hammer before the words left his lips.
The Sun-Lions, their manes burning like dying embers, fought valiantly, their fangs ripping orcish throats open. But even they could not hold against the monstrous Dune Crushers. One lion was impaled upon blacksteel chains, dragged screaming across the battlefield before being ripped in half by the orcs' war-beasts.
Chariot riders tried to break the orcish lines, their scythe-wheeled vehicles cutting through flesh and bone. But orcish pikes skewered their horses mid-charge, sending riders crashing to the ground, where they were torn apart by waiting claws and axes.
Zanthur the Molten Eye stood atop a pile of charred corpses, his body wreathed in hellish flames. He raised his iron staff, uttering words of forgotten power. The earth split open, swallowing orcs in molten pits, their dying shrieks forming a ghastly chorus. But magic alone was not enough.
A Sky Ripper, its razor-sharp beak dripping with fresh gore, descended upon a warlock, tearing out his spine in one swift motion before casting his body into the throng of orcs below.
Molten revenants, spirits of the damned bound to burning corpses, dragged screaming orcs into the abyss, but for each one that fell, two more took their place.
Zanthur tried to conjure another spell, but a massive orc smashed through his defenses, grabbing his head in both hands. The warlord wrenched, twisting his skull clean off his shoulders, spine still dangling from the severed neck like a grisly trophy.
The Sorcerers, once the masters of fire, were reduced to charred remains and cooling corpses.
Ra'Zir al-Sol, the jackal-headed warlord, fought with an animal's ferocity, his claws tearing through orc flesh. But even he knew the battle was lost.
His warriors, once swift and untouchable, now lay broken beneath the boots of their enemies.
A Sand Surfer, his body impaled by an orcish spear, still had enough strength to grin and spit blood into his killer's face before being disemboweled with a cruel twist.
The iron-plated sand skimmers, once the pride of the desert nomads, now burned, their pilots gutted and left as carrion for the scavengers.
A rider, struggling to reload his flintlock rifle, was tackled by a warg. He screamed as the beast's jaws clamped down on his leg, then fell silent as its claws ripped open his belly, spilling his organs into the sand.
Boris Thorson, Iron Vein, stood firm, his tower shield dented, his war hammer slick with gore. He was the last of his captains, his entire battalion reduced to corpses.
His battle rhinos, once unstoppable engines of war, lay slain, their massive bodies riddled with spears and arrows.
The orcs pressed forward. A massive Dune Crusher, its tusks wrapped in blacksteel chains, charged toward him.
Boris braced himself—but the impact shattered his ribs, sent blood exploding from his mouth. He stumbled back, barely able to lift his hammer.
An orc warlord stepped forward, gripping a sword as long as a man's height.
Boris gritted his teeth, raised his hammer one last time—And then the orc's blade split him in two. The Iron Foot had fallen.
Khadag, Breaker of Hosts, stood in the center of it all. His massive battle-axe, Dreadfang, dripped with the blood of champions. His crimson war paint was now indistinguishable from the gore that coated him.
He grinned, watching as the last of his enemies were cut down. "THIS BE THY END, YE FRAIL SCAVENGERS!" he bellowed. "YE WHO THOUGHT THYSELVES STRONG! WHERE IS THY MIGHT NOW?"
A Black Sun warrior, gasping, his legs broken, tried to crawl away. Khadag stepped on his back, driving his ribs into the sand, and raised his axe. "NO GODS, NO KINGS—ONLY WAR!"
With a single swing, the warrior's head rolled across the battlefield.
The battle had long surpassed the limits of mortal endurance. The sun, once radiant, now bled through the haze of fire and carnage, casting the battlefield into a false twilight.
The sands were no longer golden—they were thick with corpses, steaming entrails, and lakes of blood so deep that boots stuck with every step.
The war had lost all strategy. There were no more formations, no more battle lines—only slaughter. The dead outnumbered the living. And still, the orcs came.
Dromak the Ash Walker had lost count of his wounds. His left arm hung uselessly, his ribs shattered from an orc's hammer.
A warrior next to him, his eyes gouged out, screamed blindly before an orc warlord split him in two from shoulder to hip. His torso flopped onto the sand, his innards spilling out like wet rope.
Dromak raised his charred scimitar one last time—and an orc's massive cleaver cut through his collarbone, sinking into his heart. His warriors fought as demons, but they were only men.
A war-warg tore out the throat of a dying soldier, his windpipe dangling from the beast's fangs as it moved on to the next victim.
A sand drake, bleeding from a hundred wounds, tried to lift its rider away—but a Sky Ripper descended, its hooked talons piercing through both their skulls at once.
Only a handful of Black Sun warriors remained, but they could no longer fight.
Some collapsed from blood loss, some clawed at their own wounds in agony, screaming for death to take them.
Their bodies would soon become just another layer of the battlefield's endless carnage.
Bal-Haresh's body was now little more than a broken altar for his gods.His headless corpse still knelt where he had fallen, golden blood painting his holy vestments.
The Sun-Lions fought to their last breath, but the orcish Dune Crushers were bigger, stronger, crueler.
One lion, its skull caved in, twitched violently before a war-warg clamped its fangs into the beast's exposed ribcage and pulled free its steaming heart.
A priest, his leg missing below the knee, tried to crawl away, chanting prayers with what little breath he had left.
An orc drove a spear into his back, impaling him to the ground. The priest wheezed, coughing blood, his lips still forming holy verses even as his life drained away.
The sacred phalanx, once unbreakable, had been reduced to a pile of mutilated bodies. Bronze armor cracked, shields shattered, bones turned to paste beneath orcish warhammers. There were no more warriors left. Only dying men who would never see the sun again.
Zanthur the Molten Eye was gone, his body crushed into the dirt, his head mounted on a spear. Hisnecromancers had become part of the dead they once commanded.
A molten revenant, its face locked in an eternal scream, collapsed into a pile of blackened bones as its binding magic shattered.
A warlock tried to summon another firestorm, but an orc warlord grabbed his skull and slammed it against a jagged rock until it caved in.Chunks of brain splattered onto the sand, sizzling in the lingering heat.
A lava serpent, its molten scales cracked and bleeding fire, was strangled to death by iron chains, its body dragged through the battlefield as a trophy. The sands were cooling. The fire was dying. The Sorcerers of the East had burned away.
Ra'Zir al-Sol, his jackal's snout split and broken, gasped for breath. His warriors, once the fastest in the desert, lay pinned beneath broken sand skimmers, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
A Sand Surfer, his ribs caved in, vomited blood and tried to stand—only for a war-warg to rip out his intestines and start feasting while he was still alive.
Another tried to reload his rifle with shaking hands, but an orc grabbed him by the neck and slammed him face-first into the ground until his skull split open like an overripe melon.
The last remaining Sand Surfers mounted their remaining sand drakes, trying to escape—But the orcs had been waiting for this.
Archers loosed volleys of blacksteel-tipped arrows, piercing through beasts and riders alike.
One warrior, an arrow buried deep in his throat, choked on his own blood as he fell from his saddle. His body hit the sand, already lifeless, and was instantly trampled into unrecognizable pulp.
Boris Thorson had died standing, his war hammer embedded in the skull of an orcish champion.
His tower shield, once a symbol of unyielding defense, was now warped, covered in deep gashes, its bearer's arm still strapped to it even as the rest of his body was missing. The battle rhinos lay in heaps, their armor torn, their guts spilling onto the sand.
One of the last Iron Foot warriors, his jaw missing, held up his shield against a massive orc—but Dreadfang, Warlord Khadag's axe, came down, splitting him from shoulder to groin.
Warlord Khadag, Breaker of Hosts, stood atop the mountain of corpses. His armor dripped with the blood of kings, priests, and warlords. His warriors still roared in triumph, their weapons slick with gore.
Khadag turned his gaze upon Dhalmok the Black Brand and Vekram the Stormcaller—two of the fiercest Sand Surfer captains. Even in their monstrous forms, they had proven no match for the relentless tide of orcish fury.
"Chain them!" Khadag bellowed.
Massive iron shackles, lined with jagged spikes, were slammed around their throats, forcing them to the ground. Orcish beastmasters yanked at the chains, pulling the once-proud warriors forward like rabid hounds. Dhalmok growled, his body still bearing the glowing runic scars of his cursed transformation, but even his defiance wavered beneath the brute strength of the orcs.
Vekram, the stormcaller, thrashed violently, sparks crackling across his fur. But the orcs had prepared for this. A dozen warriors thrust massive iron rods into his flesh, each inscribed with ancient sigils that drained his power. His howls turned to whimpers as his body convulsed, his monstrous form shrinking back into something more human, more vulnerable.
"Good dogs," Khadag sneered, kicking Vekram in the ribs, sending him sprawling in the sand. "You will learn to serve. Or you will die whining."
Khadag's gaze then shifted to Ismara, the elusive specter of the dunes. Her dark veil was torn, revealing her bruised and bloodied face. She knelt before him, panting, her once-mystical presence reduced to exhaustion and pain.
He crouched, gripping her chin roughly, forcing her to meet his gaze.
"A phantom no more," he growled, his voice thick with mockery. "You are flesh and blood, and flesh and blood can be broken."
He yanked her up by her hair, dragging her toward the center of the battlefield where the orcs had erected crude iron pikes as makeshift trophies of war. He forced her to stand as his warriors roared in laughter, reveling in their conquest.
"You will serve the horde," Khadag declared. "Your cunning, your tricks—they belong to me now. If you try to run, I will hunt you myself."
Ismara clenched her jaw, refusing to speak. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of her fear. But her silence only made the orcs laugh harder.
Khadag leaned in close, his breath hot against her ear. "You will learn, little shadow. All do, in time. Next, you'll breed us all"