The Goretide

The Goretide is less an army than an avalanche of red iron, the vast mortal horde raised by Korghos Khul when he set out to drown the Great Parch of Aqshy in blood. Through the long night of the Age of Chaos it did precisely that, toppling kingdom after kingdom of the Fire Realm until scarcely a free banner remained — and when the killing was done, the Goretide did not disband. It never has. It simply marches on from one slaughter to the next, a horde that treats peace as a wound waiting to be reopened.

Its warriors are clad in plate the colour of dried blood and old rust, advancing in numbers that grind lesser hosts beneath sheer weight of axes. Yet for all its size the horde is animated by a single obsession, and that obsession is its master's. Korghos Khul hunts one skull above all others — the skull he believes would complete his tally and raise him beyond mortality — and the Goretide is the instrument of that hunt, a whole nation of killers hurled across the realms after one denied prize. Those who face it describe a thing that cannot be discouraged: break its front and another rank of red iron steps over the dead; kill its champions and Khul's brand marks new ones by nightfall. It is a wound that will not close, walking.