It had been a bloody battle and the carrion birds circled the deserted battlefield. Their harrowed song echoed in the silent valley. Everywhere you looked, mangled bodies lay strewn in the mud. The blood had soaked into old seabed, making it a nightmarish quagmire of mud, weapons, and bodies. In the bluish light of the morning the landscape was grim and unforgiving.

The Armies of Order had broken through the northern defences leading down into the valley early in the day. But as they had engaged the guard protecting the structure, they quickly realised that they had another problem. From the seabed bodies had started to rise, and the undead forced them fight on two fronts. But Garlock had quickly regrouped his army, letting the Order of Azyr spearhead a counter attack. They targeted the vampires, weakening the deadwalker hordes to the point that they aimlessly wandered the battlefield without engaging the enemy. With the fury of a hundred men, the vengorian lord Forian Borsch, leader of the Soulblight gravelords, stood his ground. The soldiers of Sigmar closed in around the huge vampire. But as they moved in to finish the job, the war cries of the orruks took them by surprise, and in the universal confusion, Forian Borsch once again managed to escape his fate.

Both the stormcasts and the soulblights had been taken by surprise as the orruks came out of nowhere. In the north, the main crusade fighting force had been tied up trying to defend the supply train. Waves of boar-riding greenskins managed to drive a wedge through the soldiers separating the lesser-armoured contingent from the heavily-armoured knights resulting in a bloodbath.

As the sun stood at its highest, the greenskins threatened to run over the stormcasts. Only the cool-headed decisions of Garlock Suresteel managed to turn the battle around for a second time. He focused his presence in the north, letting the frenzied orruks fight both the garrison of warriors and his own men and women.  

South of the canyon a battle at the strategically important fort raged as all sides tried to claim it for their own. Waves and waves of attacks were repelled by the warriors from the local clans who fought savagely, enraged by the blood-oath to their god. As the sun set they had held their flank even if the walls were stained with the blood from both human and orruk alike. 

Odessa Twiceborn, the stormcast leader of the southern flank, had been carried back grievously wounded. As much could be said about Arabella Moarte, who had led the undead army to take the fort. She had been sent to torpor by a well-aimed spear and was thrown back into the night from whence she came.  

In the chaos and confusion outside the fort, Gorm Skullbreaker had managed to best his greenskin counterpart in an epic duel. Both leaders were fierce fighters and only as the sun set did Gorm emerge victorious, sending the orruk leader flying down from the wall.   

In the lakebed below, the sun set fast, and as the last sliver of daylight painted a stark line of gold on the enormous ruin the gates fell and greenskins poured by the hundreds into the tower bringing mayhem and slaughter with them. The clansmen managed to stop the intrusion by the first courtyard and closed the gates to the inner sanctum behind them. Frustrated, Teefsplitta ordered some of his boys to start climbing up into the structures above to find a way in. 

With no clear enemy in sight, the ard boys began fighting amongst themselves. The violent energy of the battle drove them into a rage and Teefsplitta had to send them away chasing the remaining stormcasts. As the night fell the orruks started to roam trying to find more enemies to fight. But Garlock had pulled back too far and left in the dark valley was only the dead.