Von Gryphius rocked back in his chair and gave a weak snort of laughter. For
a brief moment his old, playful smile returned. “If a one handed, unarmed child
can fight these pigs, then I don’t see what you’re all so afraid of.” He climbed
slowly to his feet, wincing with pain, and lifted his rapier over the table.
“Priest or not, I make my stand here. Are you all with me?”
For a few seconds there was no response. Ratboy noticed the monocled officer
was studying him closely; taking in his scrawny frame and tattered, stained
clothes. Finally, the man climbed to his feet, drew his broadsword and held it
out over the table, so that the tip clattered against von Gryphius’ sword.
“Forgive me, captain,” he said, turning to Felhamer. “I forgot myself. It
shouldn’t have taken the bravery of a child to remind me of my duty, but if
you’ll still have me, I’d be honoured to die by your side.”
One by one the other soldiers stood and drew their weapons, creating a canopy
of battered steel over the old table.
Captain Felhamer’s handsome face cracked into a broad grin and
his blue eyes sparkled victoriously. “Let this Mormius make his move,” he said,
rising to his feet and clanging his sword on top of the others. “There’s life in
these old stones yet.”
As Wolff climbed up onto the ramparts, all eyes were on him. Felhamer had
gathered over two thousand men beneath his banner; only a fraction of the
numbers arrayed against them, but a glorious sight nonetheless. Archers,
spearmen, handgunners, greatswords and engineers stood side by side with
battle-hardened militiamen and stony-faced villagers, who gripped their clubs
and spears firmly, despite the fear written across their faces. From high above
their plumed helmets the stubborn bull of Ostland glowered down expectantly,
emblazoned across a dozen rippling flags.
As Wolff reached the top step, the soldiers nearest to him dropped on one
knee and lowered their heads in genuflection. The priest placed his right hand
on their shoulders, muttered a quick prayer from the book held in his left hand
and then strode on. As he walked along the castle wall the scene was repeated
again and again, and as each of the soldiers climbed back to their feet, the
fear vanished from their eyes; replaced with the fierce light of hope. As Ratboy
followed behind his master, carrying his hammer for him as he blessed the
troops, he recognised the light as the same force that had earlier driven him to
such frenzy. He both envied and pitied the men as they crowded around his
master, desperate for the touch of his hand. Many held, out their swords and
spears and Wolff placed a hand on every weapon that was passed his way.
As they made their way around the castle wall, Ratboy looked out over the
battlements, down into the valley below. It was now mid afternoon and there was
no hiding the size of the army moving towards them. The attack had already
begun, he realised with a jolt. Countless rows of bare-chested northmen, were
running towards the castle with shields over their heads and ladders under their
arms. As Wolff continued, the captains on the wall signalled for the archers to
take their positions, but Ratboy could not help wondering if they had enough
arrows to take down so many men. It looked like there was a whole ocean of
jagged metal and scorched wood rushing towards them. Why don’t they shoot? he
wondered, as the marauders raced closer and closer. They must be in range by
now.
Captain Felhamer was perched at the top of a bell tower that looked down over
the wall, and as the charging marauders approached, the sergeants all watched
for his signal. His hand was raised above his head, ready to launch the defence,
but as the marauders sprinted across the bloody ground towards the castle, he
kept his hand aloft, as though waiting for some invisible sign. Finally, as the
enemy were almost at the castle gates, he brought his hand down in a cutting
motion.
Ratboy immediately saw the reason for his delay.
The earth around the castle collapsed with an immense explosion of mud;
disappearing from beneath the feet of the charging marauders with a booming
groan of collapsing boards. They toppled in their hundreds down into a broad
trench, letting go of their shields as they crashed helplessly onto a bed of
thick, wooden stakes. As the marauders screamed and howled with rage and panic,
the archers finally launched their first volley from the castle walls.
“It’s the old moat,” cried Ratboy. “They’d hidden it!”
Wolff took a break from his prayers, to give his acolyte a short nod.
“Captain Felhamer has been preparing this wreck for weeks. I believe he has
quite a few such tricks up his sleeve.”
Banks of arrows arced down into the writhing mass of stranded, thrashing
figures. The dazed marauders tried to crawl back out of the moat, but the
archers fired with incredible speed and accuracy, loosing arrow after arrow into
the river of flailing limbs. The moat quickly became clogged with the dying and
the dead.
The enemy were charging forward in such massive numbers, that the men further
back had no idea what had happened at the foot of the castle wall. Waves of them
rushed unwittingly towards the trench. As the first group tried to clamber back
to safety, their comrades crashed into them from the other direction and the
crush of bodies, spears and ladders all tumbled down into the moat, to the
cheers of Felhamer’s archers.
Ratboy looked down on the confusion in amazement. The scene quickly took on
the appearance of a slaughterhouse as the moat filled up with broken weapons and
bodies. Despite their aching arms the archers kept up the furious pace and it
seemed as though the whole army was going to pour into Felhamer’s trap.
Finally, Mormius saw what was happening and horns began to sound along the
enemy lines, calling a retreat. The warriors nearest the castle were so enraged
by the waves of arrows, that they continued trying to reach the walls,
clambering over the mounds of skewered corpses and slamming their ladders
against the old stone. A few of them even managed to start scrambling up towards
the archers, but before they had climbed even a few feet, Felhamer brought down
his hand a second time and barrels of hot oil poured down from the embrasures,
sending the marauders screaming and gambolling to their deaths.
The horns continued to blow, but the northmen were now so consumed by rage
and bloodlust that many of them broke ranks and continued ploughing forwards
through the mayhem. The charge quickly became a directionless rout and still the
endless clouds of arrows rained down on them.
Finally, Wolff blessed the last soldier in the line and turned to stand
beside Ratboy. They both looked down on the massacre below. “Barbarians,” the
priest muttered, shaking his head in disgust. “If only all our enemies were so
undisciplined.” He held his hand up to shield his eyes against the light and
then cried out in alarm. “Down!” he yelled, throwing Ratboy to the ground as a
cloud of arrows whirred angrily over their heads.
All along the wall, soldiers howled in pain as the enemy’s arrows found their
mark. Dozens of men tumbled back from the wall, spinning down towards the
courtyard below, or dropping to their knees and clutching at pierced throats and
chests.
Ratboy looked up at the crumbling bell tower. Felhamer and the other officers
had vanished from view and he prayed they had ducked in time. His fears were
quickly allayed. As the clouds of enemy arrows dropped away, Felhamer rose up
and held his two-handed sword aloft, signalling for his archers to return fire.
Ratboy peered out through a loophole and saw that the marauders were finally
backing away from the trench and staggering towards their own lines. Before they
had got very far, the Empire archers loosed another volley down on them,
dropping dozens more of the northmen in their tracks. Ratboy counted no more
than fifty or so survivors who reached the safety of the main army.
A roar of victory erupted all along the walls of Mercy’s End. Almost a
thousand marauders lay dead or dying in the ditch below them, and only a handful
of Ostlanders had fallen.
Ratboy noticed that his master did not join in with the celebrations. The
priest was peering out over the battlements and frowning. “Something else is
coming,” he muttered.
Ratboy followed his gaze and saw a vague shape break away from the bulk of
the enemy army and start rushing across the valley floor towards them. “What
is
that?” he asked. The shape was charging towards them so fast and with
such strange, spasmodic movements that he could not be sure what he was looking
at. Strangely, as it neared the castle, the shape became harder rather than
easier to define. Ratboy had an impression of limbs and maybe even faces, but
rather than troops, it seemed more like a mass of pink and blue energy, rippling
across the ground. Ratboy turned to his master for an explanation, but Wolff had
opened one of his holy books and was leafing through the pages with such a grim
look of concentration on his face that Ratboy didn’t dare interrupt him.
The cheers along the wall faltered as the soldiers noticed the strange sight
rushing towards them. As the pink and blue shape reached the trench, the ground
seemed to warp and bulge, as though reflected in a curved mirror and even the
corpses appeared to writhe and shift like smoke.
Felhamer signalled for the archers to open fire, but it was too late. The
pink shape washed over the moat like quicksilver and flooded up against the
castle.
“Sigmar help us,” gasped Ratboy as he finally saw what was heading towards
them. The pink mass was made up of hundreds of twisted, writhing limbs and wide
gaping mouths that oozed and coagulated with a peculiar elasticity. The figures
giggled and snarled as they billowed upwards in a torrent of rippling flesh.
Faces appeared in bellies and contorted into long arachnid limbs before bursting
and reforming into other shapes. It looked like a sea of pure Chaos was rushing
up towards the ramparts.
Screams of horror erupted from the Empire soldiers as the shapes flooded over
the battlements and washed down onto them.
“Hold your line!” cried Felhamer, as he sliced one of the creatures in two
with his greatsword. The thing immediately became two smaller shapes and leapt
up at him again. He staggered backwards, wrestling frantically as the writhing
mass enveloped his chest. Then he disappeared from view.
“Master,” screamed Ratboy, as one the shapes flew at him. It cackled as it
latched onto his neck with dozens of slippery, grasping tentacles. Pink energy
hissed around its torso and a wide mouth burst from its flesh, baring rows of
serrated teeth as it struggled to press its twitching body against him.
Wolff gave no reply, but as Ratboy stumbled past him, fighting for his life,
the priest rose to his feet and smashed his hammer down onto the ancient
stonework. White fire erupted along the entire length of the wall, enveloping
the pink creatures in a dazzling inferno of energy. As the flames touched their
jerking, snapping bodies, the creatures screeched in pain and dropped to the
ground, contorting as they floundered, trying to escape from the blinding light.
The soldiers needed no order from the tower. They fell on the stunned shapes
with knives, spears and swords, hacking the monsters limb from limb until
nothing remained but a mess of purple viscera.
The creatures’ organs continued to writhe and crawl across the ground and for
a few moments the only sound was the squelch of boots, grinding the remains into
the stone, as the soldiers ran about, stamping on rows of snapping teeth and
pulling grasping fingers from their armour.
Once the shapes had finally become still, the soldiers looked around at each
other with ashen faces. They were hardened veterans of countless wars, but none
of them had ever encountered anything quite so sickening as this.
Howls began to echo along the wall once more and Ratboy looked to see if
there was another wave of creatures coming up the walls. It was worse than that.
Some of the men who had been attacked by the monsters had begun to change. Where
the creatures had gripped them for several minutes, or sunk teeth though their
armour, the men’s flesh had become oddly deformed: sprouting serpentine growths
that quickly grew in strength and size as the soldiers looked on in horror.
One of the mutated men was standing near Wolff. The soldier groaned in
disgust as the skin on his neck and face rolled and bubbled, struggling to
contain the frantic changes occurring beneath. His groan turned into a muffled
wail, as glistening pink tendrils rushed from behind his eyes and enveloped his
face, sliding back into his head through his mouth and beginning to suffocate
him.
Wolff stepped calmly forwards and slammed his hammer into the man’s head. The
soldier was dead before he hit the floor. Writhing shapes squirmed from his
shattered skull, reaching out for something to latch onto, but Wolff stamped
down on them with his iron-clad boot until they were still. Then he looked up at
the horrified circle of onlookers. “Kill the corrupted,” he said, loud enough
for his words to carry all along the crowds of shocked soldiers. “They’re beyond
saving.”
The soldiers whose flesh had been changed raised their hands protectively as
the other men surrounded them, raising their swords but still unsure whether to
strike.
Wolff leapt up onto the wall and cried out in furious, commanding tones. “Do
it now, or we all die!”
For a second, the soldiers still hesitated to kill their former friends, but
then one of them screamed out in dismay as a forest of pink tendrils burst from
the man nearest to him and latched onto his head, dragging him towards a gaping
mouth that had suddenly opened in the mutant’s neck. The soldiers attacked the
men with axes and swords, slicing desperately at them before they themselves
became corrupted. This was the only signal the others needed. All along the wall
the Ostlanders attacked anyone who showed the merest hint of mutation, eager to
save themselves from the same fate.