Brettonia-Leoncoeur

AN: this branch of the story is going to a fairly slow burn one on the sex and romance front, due to setting up things and somewhat exploring the characters of those that will be important to the story first./

As the view enters a room, you can see a tall man in plate armour kneeling in front of a pond, praying for advice. ''Milady, we have repelled another invasion, fought off another Warbands attempt at taking this Haven for their own use, praise be to your support in vanquishing them. However it gets harder each time as more and more of the forces of Chaos notice our location and the assaults get stronger each time. My men and I shall be the shield of the people time and time again, however we don't know how long it will be before everything becomes too much. Please answer my call, and give me your much needed advice.''

As he sat there kneeled, Louen Leoncoeur thought about how they had gotten here, the battles fought, the blood shed. The friends and allies lost, the heroism showed by even the lowest of the peasantry in the face of destruction. Unlikely bonds formed and those that had now stood by his side for decades, fighting with all their power to keep what they could save of their people safe. He particularily remembers the last two major battles in the old world, the first fighting side by side with all that was left of Brettonia's finest, many of whom had only been knighted in the past two years of battles, and while somewhat less skilled than other knights, no man could deny their courage or ferocity as they charged alongside their former lords, now as peers as they bought time to flee for all those hundreds of thousands behind them, mainly women and children. He himself had only survived because his squire, the lad then only a teenager, had managed to help get his wounded body back into the saddle after being shot out of the air by a spell, before they and the surviving knights formed up for a last charge as the portal had already closed by this point.

Together with the other surviving knights, they charged through a weak point in the enemy lines, broke out and gathered what knights and peasants they could through skirmishes and relieving sieges of out of the way strongholds that hadn't managed to join the retreat to the portals, gathering themselves a small but capable and battle tested army before heading towards the Empire to go and re-enforce them during their own fight against the massed hordes of Chaos and hopefully make a difference while also shielding the refugees fleeing into the Empire's still untouched hinterlands. Many smaller skirmishes fought on the way to Altdorf, and once there re-enforce the city, and once there fighting with all their might against the Nurgelite and Marauder hordes, with Louen himself killing many champions and leaders during his charges down from above, before arriving at the Temple of Shallya, where he made what he thought would be his final stand as he charged.

This was the Temple of Shallya, and the greatest concentration of Daemons had surrounded it, led by a truly titanic Greater Daemon. He instantly knew that this was his prize. Time seemed to slow down around him, isolating the creature of darkness as the true quarry of his long hunt. He shook the blood from his lance, still unbroken despite the kills he had made, crouched for the strike and spurred his steed down towards the horror waiting below.

And so, within the temple's courtyard, he fought Ku'gath Plaguefather, the mightiest of Nurgle's Daemons, further empowered by the unnatural mucus-rain surrounding the besieged city. As the hulking monster prepared to slaughter the huddled priestesses and their wounded charges, Louen arrowed from the sky like a living missile. The Grail Knight's challenge rang out, causing Ku'gath to turn and face him. Plague Drones buzzed erratically through the skies to their masters defence, but they were too slow. The Plaguefather barely had time to raise his hand before the High Paladin's lance struck home. Its blessed tip sank an arm's length into the Daemon's rotting breast, with Beaquis's claws slashing in close behind.

Alas, with a speed that belied his massive size, Ku'gath grabbed the lance around its shaft and used it as a leaver to hurl both man and beast into the Temple of Shallya. Flailing sidelong, the Hippogryph and its armoured rider hit the dome with such **** that they smashed right through it in a shower of stone and ceramic shards. Luminous blood trickled down the sides of what was left of the curved dome, but the king and his mount had disappeared from sight.

Turning away Ku'gath loomed over the thin line of wounded troops protecting the white robed High Priestess of Shallya. Kicking away the half dozen warriors standing in his path, the Daemon raised his sword for the kill.

Suddenly, Louen Leoncoeur hurtled out of the temple archway, glowing blade raised. As Ku'gath brought his weapon down in a crushing overhead sweep, the warrior sprang to the side, catching the Shallyan High Priestess around the waist with his shield arm and casting her aside onto a nearby stretcher. Flagstones burst into powder where she had been standing a moment before K'ugath's blow fell. Louen leapt up, boosting off an antique table that had been pressed into service as an operating bench and leaping into the air towards his obese opponent. The old warrior's blade arced down in a two-handed blow that opened the lance wound in Ku'gath's chest still further, exposing the greater Daemon's rotting heart.

Bellowing in outrage, the Plaguefather turned his massive head round in a great scoop, catching Leoncoeur in his antler and tossing him straight upwards into the air. The Bretonnian seemed to hang suspended at the apex of his flight before Ku'gath slammed his metal sword right into the knight's midsection, sending him flying over the milling Daemon horde below to crash into a statue of Magnus the Pious. More golden liquid trickled from Louen's wounds, yet he got to his feet once more, his shield glowing with azure light as he growled a prayer to his goddess to grant him strength.

Even amid all the terror and filth, those Shallyans who had witnessed the fight were struck by the knight's sheer beauty. Louen's hair seemed to shimmer like gold, and his armour, though streaked with the blood of slain Champions, still glittered with a high sheen. He charged straight at the Daemon once more, spitting words of challenge that sounded like some strange music, working his blade in blistering arcs and hacking into its loose flesh. He moved so fast, shrugging off wounds and taking the fight straight to the titanic creature that loomed over him. Ku'gath struck Louen with his giant bronze sword, each strike capable of breaking bone into dust, but still the Grail Knight fought on.

The Lionheart soon found himself fighting against both Ku'gath and his horde of Plaguebearers, who had finally come to assist their master. Rolling under Ku'gath's sword-strike, Louen began cutting down the daemonic tide pressing against him, his flashing sword glowing bright under the comet above. At this, the Plaguefather covered his eyes with a flabby forearm, rearing back as if stung.

The battle finally ended when the knight plunged his holy blade deep into the Greater Daemon's bulbous throat. Hanging from his sacred blade, the golden blood that was drizzling from Louen's many wounds began to sear Ku'gath's flesh. Worse still, it trickled into the gaping wound in the Daemon's festering heart. The golden lifeblood, bearing the blessing of a goddess even more powerful than Shallya, began to consume the Plaguefather. Ku'gath bawled and roared and flailed, but it did no good. The with its fall former King of Bretonnia hung on grimly as his opponent was eaten away by the very fluids he had spilled.

In his struggle, the Daemon knocked into the podium bearing Magnus the Pious' memorial, and the statue of the great war leader came crashing down. As Louen leapt free, the statue's lumpen metal weight pinned Ku'gath to the ground. Second by agonising second, the Greater Daemon bubbled away into nothingness until all that was left was a simmering stain.