03 - God King (44 page)

“Clarion! Reform and wheel right!”

A trilling trumpet blast sounded behind him and he caught a glimpse of the
red banner of his troop as the rider carrying it rode alongside him. No one man
ever had the singular honour of being the Red Scythes’ banner bearer; it was
passed between his warriors with every fight. Today it was borne by Yestyva, a
man with a deadly lance and powerful sword arm.

The Red Scythes formed up with Leodan at their centre, and he snarled to see
the inviting flanks of the ranked-up warriors of bone. They would roll up this
line and tear the unlife from this host. To think that they had feared these
creatures was ridiculous; they fell more easily than any mortal man.

Leodan kicked his spurs back and held his sabre aloft and urged his warriors
onwards. The rain shifted and he heard a faint clatter of bone and jangle of
trace. The trumpet blew again and his warriors went from a trot to a canter,
steadily building speed as they rode to glory.

He heard the rattle of bone and iron again, louder this time. The darkness
and rain lifted for the briefest moment as an arcing bolt of lightning streaked
across the sky. In that moment of brightness, Leodan saw his worst nightmare.

Hundreds of skeletal horsemen, heavily armoured in shirts of black mail,
black breastplates and heavy caparisons of iron. The horses were fleshless,
skeletal and quite dead. Green light burned in their eyes and their chamfrons
were fitted with long, barbed spikes. Each of the riders leaned low across the
necks of their horses, a long black lance aimed for the hearts of the Red
Scythes. Too late, Leodan saw he’d been lured into this easy attack.

Their shields were long and kite-shaped, emblazoned with skulls and images of
ancient kings, their banner a ragged, torn scrap of leathery flesh with a
leering jaw spread wide. They came on in a thunder, lances lowering with hideous
precision.

“Ware cavalry!” shouted Leodan, though he knew it was too late.

The black knights smashed into the Red Scythes, lances tearing through their
armour and into their flesh. Men were hoisted from their saddles, screaming as
the frozen iron of the enemy lances impaled them. Though seemingly fragile, the
black steeds were as powerful as any mortal horse and punched into the centre of
the Taleuten horsemen.

Leodan swayed aside as a lance speared past him, slashing his sword into the
face of the black knight who bore it. His sword smashed the helmet from the dead
warrior’s skull, and sent him spinning from his horse. He wheeled as the two
groups of horsemen became hopelessly entwined, a throbbing mass of warriors
hacking one another from their saddles.

He plunged his sword through the neck of a dead man’s horse, taking grim
satisfaction as it fell apart beneath him. Leodan spun in his saddle as the
clamour of battle thundered in his ears and the sky split apart with yet more
lightning. Rainwater streaked his face and all he could see were flashing
blades, grinning skulls beneath iron visors and blood spraying from mortal
wounds. The bloody banner of the Red Scythes still flew proudly and he spurred
his mount towards its glorious colours.

Before he could reach it, a thundering juggernaut of red iron and black-edged
death smashed into his horse and hurled him from the saddle. He landed badly,
slamming into the ground with a crack of breaking bone and the breath driven
from his lungs by the fall.

Dizzy with the impact, Leodan knew at least one of his ribs was broken. He
tried to stand, but pain shot up his leg and he crumpled onto one knee as the
splintered ends of his shinbone ground together. Gritting his teeth, Leodan
looked up and saw the enemy that had unhorsed him.

A monstrous, hulking warrior in blood-red armour towered over him, its
frost-limned armour burning with a glaring rune of an ancient, bloody god. Its
horned helm covered a grinning skull face with burning fire in its dead eyes.

A dread battle cry roared from the warrior, a chant and a mantra from the
beginning of time, but no less potent for the vast span this champion had been
dead.

Blood for the Blood God!

“Ulric save us…” wept Leodan.

* * *

The Great Hall Guard smashed into the ranks of skeletal warriors and tore
through their front ranks in a hammering thunder of beating iron. Alfgeir’s
sword sliced down through a bronze pot helmet and into the skull beneath. He
wrenched the blade free and beheaded another two skeletal warriors, their armour
no protection against his rune-forged weapon.

Orvin fought at his side, hacking down the dead with furious blows of his
heavy broadsword. The man screamed as he slew, using his fear and turning it to
anger. Teon fought at his side, his own sword arm rising and falling like a
blacksmith at the anvil. The youngster had not the ferocity of his father, but
he had speed and skill beyond anything Orvin could muster.

A spear jabbed at Alfgeir. He twisted in the saddle to cut the point from the
shaft, following through with a lancing blow that split the dead warrior’s
ribcage apart. Like the shambling corpses, these dead were no match for Alfgeir,
but where those first foes had little ability in battle, these dead had been
warriors in life and fought with remembered skill. Swords flashed, spears thrust
and the enemy plucked men from their mounts with every passing moment.

The momentum they had won from their charge was quickly spent, and every yard
would now be paid for in blood. Alfgeir bellowed the name of Ulric as he fought,
driving his aged body to heights of aggression and fury he had never known. The
dead surrounded them, a mass of grinning faces, leering jaws and eyes filled
with green balefire. Their rusted swords cut and slashed, bringing down horses
and men with their unearthly magic.

He heard a wild horn blast, seeing Sigmar over to his right. The Emperor’s
band of horsemen crushed a path through the ranks of skeletal swordsmen.
Wolfgart rode at Sigmar’s side, cleaving a path with his enormous two-hander,
and Alfgeir wished he could have ridden with the Emperor.

“On, damn you!” shouted Alfgeir as thunder boomed overhead and the rain beat
down with ever greater force. “The Emperor rides on and we should be with him!”

Orvin and Teon pushed next to him, fighting to clear a path through which
they could match the Emperor’s charge. The noise of the storm overhead sounded
like a great battle was being waged in the heavens, echoing the conflict being
played out in the mortal realms below. For all Alfgeir knew, that might well be
the case. Perhaps they were all merely pawns of the gods, cursed to fight their
wars on the face of the world while the gods were embroiled in their own
nightmarish battle for survival.

“We’re with you!” shouted Orvin, and Alfgeir nodded as more and more of the
Great Hall Guard pushed through the mass of slashing blades, rallying for
another push into the ranks of the dead. If they could recover their momentum,
they could still reach Sigmar.

Orvin cried out as a black sword plunged into his stomach, a plate-clad
champion of the dead driving it through his body with a powerful two-handed
grip. Orvin toppled from his horse and Alfgeir cried out as the banner fell with
him. He swept his sword down through the enemy warrior’s blade. It shattered and
the weaponless champion turned its dead eyes upon him. Alfgeir froze as he saw
death in those eyes. Not the prospect of death, but the
exact
moment his
life would end. His sword arm fell to his side and his lungs failed to draw a
breath. A shooting pain spiked into his left arm and he cried out as the sword
fell from his grip.

The champion swept up a fallen spear and lunged towards him.

Another blade intercepted it, and Teon lanced his blade through the
champion’s visor. The skull broke open and the hellish green light was
extinguished from its eyes. Alfgeir’s breath returned with a whooshing roar in
his ears, bright spots of light bursting before his eyes.

“Father!” shouted Teon, leaping from his horse and holding his father’s head.

Alfgeir tried to shout at him to get back on his horse, but his throat was
tight and his chest afire. The fighting swept around them, and the youngster
wept as the muscles in his father’s face went slack and Morr claimed his soul.
Alfgeir felt their chance to counterattack slipping away, and shuddered as a
deathly chill crept over him.

He had felt something similar when…

“I think you dropped this, Alfgeir,” said a voice that cut through the clash
of swords and spears. “It’s very nice work. Careless of you to have lost it.”

Alfgeir turned his horse to see himself facing a warrior in midnight black
plate, with a white, bloodless face and eyes red with blood-hunger. Count Markus
turned Alfgeir’s sword in his hand, admiring the silver runes etched along the
length of the blade.

“Yes,” said Markus. “I think I may keep this weapon after I
kill you with it.”

Maedbh leapt from her chariot as it came to a halt beside Freya’s body, her
spear skewering a flesheater as it bent to take a bite. She swept the spear
around, hurling the beast from the tip and standing over the fallen queen. Blood
leaked from a wound at Freya’s temple, and pooled around her mouth. Maedbh
didn’t have time to check if the queen was alive.

Ulrike and Cuthwin took up position next to her, loosing arrows into the mass
of wolves circling them. Each shaft punched through a dead beast’s side, while
Fridleifr and Maedbh kept those that survived the arrows at bay with looping
swings of their spears.

“Ulrike! Look to the queen!” ordered Maedbh. “And find Sigulf!”

A wolf howled as it reared up over Maedbh, but before it could pounce, a
leaf-bladed spear punched through its chest and it fell to the ground in pieces
of rotten meat and mangy fur. Fridleifr pulled his spear back from the beast’s
body and Maedbh nodded her thanks as the monsters closed in.

“Is she dead?” asked Fridleifr, without looking down.

Ulrike shook her head, and Maedbh felt a wave of relief that almost blotted
out the pain from the wound on her back. Her limbs were aching, her head
thumping with a powerful headache. Her skin was clammy and cold.

She slammed the end of her spear against a flesheater’s head, reversing it to
plunge the blade into the belly of a wolf. Its weight bore her to the ground,
and the haft of her spear snapped. Maedbh rolled, spying a leather-wrapped sword
handle amid the wreckage of the queen’s chariot. She grabbed it and spun around,
swinging it two-handed to cleave a flesheater in two with one blow. Amazed,
Maedbh saw she held the bronze-bladed sword of Queen Freya. It had once belonged
to Eadhelm, who claimed to have looted it from a secret chamber beneath a tower
of the stunted ones beyond the mountains of the east.

Maedbh rolled to her feet, the pain of her wounds forgotten as the vital
energies of the sword filled her body with strength and lustful thoughts.

“Mother!” shouted Ulrike, hauling Sigulf from the wreckage. The boy was
bloody, but conscious, and gripped his sword tightly.

“Can you fight?” Fridleifr asked her.

Maedbh’s lip curled in anger. Of course she could fight! With this blade she
could fight for a year and never get tired. Dimly she recognised this was the
sword’s anger and battle fury talking. Maedbh let it come, knowing she would
have need of it before the day’s end.

Fridleifr fought with his spear in one hand and a hammer in the other. His
skill and strength were beyond compare, each powerful blow caving in a skull or
opening a belly. His blond hair shone in the low light, and his features were
the image of his father’s. Garr and the Queen’s Eagles rushed to surround their
fallen queen, as yet more of the undead pressed in.

Wolves circled them and the eaters of the dead squealed and chattered as they
darted in to slash with their decaying claws. Ulrike stood over Freya, wiping
blood from her face and speaking to her in soft tones. Cuthwin emptied his
quiver and drew his hunting knife, but Maedbh knew he’d need more than that to
survive this fight.

“Can we hold them?” shouted Cuthwin.

Maedbh nodded, then saw the mass of skeletons atop iron-clad steeds riding
towards them. The Asoborns were scattered and disorganised, gathered around
their queen and without cohesion. A cavalry charge would ride right over them.

“Shieldwall!” shouted Fridleifr.

Sigmar battered through the ranks of the dead, his hammer clearing a path
with every thunderous blow. Nothing could stand against its power, living or
dead, and though every yard gained was a struggle, the Unberogen horsemen fought
like heroes from the sagas beside their Emperor. He could feel the power of the
crown straining at the edges of his control, pleading and begging to be allowed
to help him.

Part of Sigmar wanted to let it, to use the power of its maker in the fight
to defeat him, but he knew the crown’s greatest strength lay in the lies it
could spin. It had ensnared him atop Morath’s tower with such blandishments, and
he knew better than to trust its honeyed words.

The dead clawed at them in a frenzy, a host of biting, clawing corpses and
armoured warriors of bone. His warriors fought them back with crushing blows
from hammers, swords and axes, their fighting wedge pushing deep into the enemy
ranks. The dead were slowing them down, but not enough to prevent them from
breaking through.

At last the skeletons were smashed aside and the Unberogen circled, ready to
reform and charge onwards. Sigmar reined in his horse and the rest of his
warriors brought their horses to a standstill. Their horses were blown and
lathered, exhausted by their ride. Sigmar’s breathing was laboured, for the
fight had been a hard one, and his hammer arm ached from such destruction.