03 - God King (31 page)

Alaric heard the change in her voice and shook his head.

“Give me a hundred lifetimes and I’ll never understand you manlings,” he
grumbled.

* * *

The third night of attacks on Marburg’s citadel walls ended with the dawn,
the dead melting away to the shadowed eaves of the lower town and docks. The
base of the walls were thick with bones and decaying corpses, the detritus of
the night’s battle which would, come sundown, rise once more to claw their way
up the pitted stone.

Though the loss of the lower town was a blow, Marius’ rescue of Aldred had
given the defenders fresh hope, and the tale of his magnificent ride circulated
throughout the city, becoming ever grander and more adventurous as it went. Each
day saw the warriors defending Marburg working in shifts to rebuild broken
defences, shore up gates that withered and rotted under the effects of wasting
sorcery, stitch wounds and pray to the gods for salvation.

Marius shook his sword free of ash from the grinning, skull-faced dead man
he’d just killed, and sheathed his blade. The warriors around him cheered, and
he smiled modestly as he accepted a towel from a nearby lancer to mop his brow.

“We may fight at night, but it’s still damned hot work,” he said, loud
enough for the warriors along this stretch of wall to hear. A few dutiful
chuckles greeted his remark, but most of the men were too exhausted and drained
by fear to acknowledge his words. Few had slept since the battle had begun.
Terrible visions plagued every man’s dreams and phantoms haunted the streets in
ghostly processions of long dead comrades.

Looping the towel around his neck, Marius rested his elbows on a projecting
merlon of the walls, scanning the lower town for any sign of a fresh attack. A
dank fug of lingering smoke and mist hung over the abandoned district, rendering
its buildings blurred and its inhabitants ghostly. At a distance, the docks of
Marburg could almost be normal; hundreds of indistinct figures filled its
streets, shuffling from one shadow to the next, milling with apparent purpose,
but really just meandering like ants from an overturned nest. Most of the
corsair ships that had brought the dead to Marburg were wrecked now, their hulls
holed by long shafts of iron hurled from the citadel’s war machines or burned
with flaming arrows.

Marius glanced skyward, looking for the dragon that had attacked the walls on
the first night. It swooped over the fighting, filling the air with a drifting
miasma that reeked of putrefaction and caused many of the wounded to sicken.

He turned as he smelled a scent of wildflowers, recognising the fragrant oil
Marika liked to rub on her skin. She hadn’t spoken to him after his rescue of
Aldred, and Marius was intrigued to hear what she would make of that act. Marika
wore leather buckskin, elegantly cut yet practical, and a quilted leather
jerkin. Her bow was slung over one shoulder and a slender rapier was sheathed at
her side. Marika’s blonde hair was tied back in a severe ponytail, yet she was
still devastatingly feminine.

Which was a welcome sight in a citadel defended by burly, seafaring men.

“Princess,” he said with a languid bow. “It gladdens my heart to see you
well.”

“Count Marius,” she said. “Would you walk with me awhile?”

“It would be my honour,” replied Marius, hiding his amusement at the
simmering anger he saw lurking behind her facade of courtesy. He proffered his
arm and she hooked her own around it as they walked the length of the ramparts,
looking like a courting couple out for a promenade along the seafront. A pair of
Jutone lancers and four Raven Helms followed them, chaperones and bodyguards all
in one.

When they had put enough distance between themselves and their warriors,
Marika tilted her face towards him and said, “What in Manann’s name did you
think you were doing?”

“I assume you’re referring to my rescue of Aldred?”

“What else would I be referring to?” she snapped. “It was perfect. He’d got
himself cut off and all you had to do was watch him die. Why did you ride out?”

Marius smiled as they passed a band of Endal warriors gathered around a
glowing brazier. He nodded to them as they tapped their fists against their mail
shirts. Marika was cunning in a vicious, feral way, but he had been manipulating
others for years and knew the way people’s minds worked.

“What’s so damn funny?” she said, seeing his smile.

“You, my dear,” he said. “You think you’re a wily schemer, but you’re not
looking at the big picture.”

He saw her anger threaten to spill out and raised a placatory hand. “Let us
assume for the moment that Aldred had died on the first night. You think that
would be the outcome you desire, but you would be mistaken.”

“How so?” said Marika.

“If Aldred had died then, nothing would have changed in your tribe’s
perception of me. They would still hate me, and would never consent to our
marriage. But look at how they see me now. Jutones are fighting and dying
alongside Endals, and I have saved the life of their beloved count. Now I am not
hated, now I am seen as a sword brother to Aldred. This battle isn’t over, and a
lot can happen between now and its end, including your brother’s untimely end.
If we play this game well, you and I will be heroes by its conclusion.
Then
we can marry and make this city the greatest seaport in the Empire. Now doesn’t
that sound like it’s a plan that’ll catch a fair wind?”

Marika listened to his words with a growing admiration, and Marius wanted to
laugh at how simply she was impressed. He patted her hand and she turned to face
him, giving her most winning smile. He saw through it, but it was a pleasant
view nonetheless.

“I’m beginning to think I underestimated you, Marius,” she said.

“Most people do,” he replied with a self-satisfied smirk. “It must be the
cultured, debonair appearance of wealth I project. Though anyone with half a
grain of sense would realise that you don’t get to be this rich and powerful
without having a head for intrigue and a heart for murder.”

“So what happens next?” asked Marika, pulling him on towards one of the
towers flanking the citadel gates. Endal archers were stationed here and two of
the bolt throwing war machines stood on elevated wooden platforms that could be
turned in any direction.

Marius shrugged and leaned on the timber steps that led up to the war
machine. “We fight the dead and, like I said, this battle is far from over.
Anything can happen, or anything can be
allowed
to happen.”

“Enemy!” shouted a voice from further along the ramparts, and Marius looked
over the lower town, searching for what had triggered the warning. Archers
loosed shafts into the grey skies as a vast shape moved through the mist, like a
great undersea creature viewed from the deck of a ship. Marius prided himself on
being afraid of nothing, but as the great dragon flew from the haze, he found
himself rooted to the spot in terror.

A juggernaut of decaying meat and loose flaps of draconic hide, the colossal
monster flew over the ramparts of the city with crackling sweeps of its ragged
wings. Chains rattled and gears rasped as the war machines were hauled around
and eight-foot barbs were loaded into bronze-sheathed firing grooves.

The dragon circled the Raven Hall, its wings beating the air in a parody of
flight, for its mass was surely kept aloft by foul sorcery. Astride its neck,
the black-robed sorcerer hurled a stream of baleful energies at the Raven Hall,
wreathing it in crackling arcs of scarlet light from top to bottom.

Marius grabbed Marika and dragged her behind the war machine as the Raven
Hall cracked and groaned, its structure aged a thousand years in the space of a
breath. Crumbling stone poured like sand from its joints and a rain of powdered
obsidian wept from the raven’s eyes as the mighty structure sagged to the side.
Booming cracks echoed over the city as the tower’s stone split as cleanly as
though struck with a giant mason’s hammer.

The circling dragon roared with the rasp of a million plague victims’ death
cries, and beat its wings as it hurled itself at the tower. Its hind claws
slammed into the Raven Hall and its enormous weight completed what the
sorcerer’s spell had begun. The top of the great tower of Marburg exploded in a
rain of blackened stone, and its lower reaches keeled over like a felled oak.
Vast blocks, each the size of a hay wagon, rained down upon Marburg, smashing
buildings flat and wreaking untold damage throughout the city.

Thunderous booms shook the citadel as the rain of blocks hit in a series of
percussive hammer blows, and billowing dust storms surged from the impacts.
Marius pulled his cloak up over his face as the debris cloud rolled over him. He
edged his way along the platform and threw off his cloak. Choking dust made him
cough, and gritty fragments scratched his eyes. Marika huddled behind the war
machine, her knees drawn up to her chest and her hands covering her face and
mouth.

“Marika!” he yelled. “Are you hurt?”

She looked up, numbed by the sight of the ancestral seat of the Endal kings
so comprehensively destroyed. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes free of
dust. Marius pulled her to her feet. She was in shock, but he didn’t have time
to play nice.

He slapped her across the face, and said, “Snap out of it, princess! The dead
will be attacking any moment. If you want to rule this city, then you have to
get your people ready to fight! Do you understand me?”

“I understand,” she said, her eyes filled with anger. “And if you hit me
again I’ll kill you.”

Marius smiled and said, “That’s my girl. Aren’t we a pair of lovebirds?”

The sound of clashing swords and clattering bone sounded from the lower town
as the army of the dead marched towards the citadel once more. Endal sergeants
and battle captains shouted at their warriors to stand to as the flapping of
leathery wings filled the air. The howls of cursed wolves echoed over the black
sea, and over everything came the bellowing, deathly roar of the skeletal
dragon.

“Shall we?” said Marika, notching an arrow to her bowstring.

“We shall,” agreed Marius, drawing his blade.

Hollow footsteps, cloaked by night

of sadness known through tortured sight;

The willow weeps its tears of woe as

Owl moans the twin moons’ glow.

Wind whispers through the willow’s leaves, and

Owl, perched high, eternal grieves.

Raven drinks the blood of Sigmar’s dead,

But soon flies off to hidden bed.

Weary ’neath death’s black spell,

The dead know pain that none can quell.

Cursed to fight those they loved,

Forever lost, each journey taken,

plagues the mind; the nights awaken.

Troubled visions, thoughts of yesterdays,

that seem like beacons; lives away.

Random comforts cannot ease their soul,

For knowledge takes its weary toll

’Pon one who suffers with each breath,

Who slept once in peace, then awoke in death.

Though the sun was newly risen, light was already bleeding from the sky. The
Asoborn battle line was silhouetted on the brow of the hill, three hundred men
and almost a hundred women and children. Boys as young as six held long daggers,
and men in their seventies gripped felling axes as they awaited the coming of
the dead.

Maedbh kept Ulrike and Freya’s boys close, trying to hide her fear from them.
The desire to flee smouldered in the hearts of everyone, and all it would take
to ignite would be one spark of fear. The Queen’s Eagles held the centre of the
line, thirty warriors in leather armour and golden winged helms. Each bore a
long spear and carried a short, stabbing sword. Their presence was all that gave
Maedbh hope they might withstand one attack at least.

Alaric had split his warriors into two groups of fifty, placing one on either
flank. These redoubtable warriors bore wide-bladed axes slung across their
backs, though each was presently armed with a heavy crossbow and bolts as thick
as Maedbh’s thumb.

Five hundred against four thousand; it was the odds of which sagas were made.

After five days of forced marching, it felt strange to be simply waiting for
the enemy to reveal itself. The Asoborn way of war was to strike hard and fast,
wreaking as much damage as possible before withdrawing and dragging the enemy
onto the blades of the spearmen. To wait for the enemy to attack felt wrong, but
what else could they do?

Maedbh felt a small hand tugging at her sleeve and saw her daughter looking
up at her with wide, determined eyes. Maedbh’s heart ached to see Ulrike afraid,
but this was what it meant to be an Asoborn. Battle had to be given and courage
earned in the face of fear. As much as Maedbh hated the idea of Ulrike fighting
this foe, it would be the making of her.

“Are the bad wolves coming for us?” said Ulrike.

“Yes, dear heart, they are,” said Maedbh.

“But we’ll see them off won’t we? Just like we did before?”

“Yes, just like then, but this time we’ll make sure they don’t come back.”

Ulrike nodded and gripped her bow tightly. “Good,” she said, nocking an arrow
to her bowstring. “I wish my father was here. He’d ride over them on his horse
and that’d be the end of them, wouldn’t it?”

“I wish that too,” said Maedbh, “but the gods have already blessed us today,
so we must be grateful for what they have given us.”

“How do you come to that conclusion?” said Sigulf, his features pale with
worry. “The gods haven’t blessed us, they’ve forsaken us.”