03 - God King (17 page)

They listened intently, and Maedbh was pleased with their progress. With
their midday meal eaten, they broke into smaller groups, practising with their
spears and posture. Ulrike ran to join them and Maedbh watched the young
Asoborns with a fierce maternal affection. They were
all
her children,
not just Ulrike.

She rested her head on the side of the chariot, letting the sounds of the
wilderness wash over her: the burble of the water, the sigh of the wind through
the trees and the distant caw of a carrion bird over something dead. It had been
a long day and she closed her eyes briefly, letting a warm lethargy sneak up on
her.

Again the carrion bird cawed, and Maedbh opened her eyes.

The sound was closer than before, louder and more strident, which was
strange, as food for crows didn’t normally move. She didn’t react, but let the
sensations of the world come into sharper focus. The wind was coming from the
north, the carrion bird was to the south and getting closer.

Maedbh rose to her feet as the wind changed and the horses’ heads came up,
their ears flat against their skulls and their eyes wide with fear. They snorted
and tossed their manes, walking back towards the yokes of the chariots. A wolf
howled to the south, and Maedbh tensed. Such a sound would normally be
auspicious, but there was something wrong with this howl, it had a hollow,
hungry edge to it that no animal servant of Ulric would possess. An answering
howl answered the first, this time from the west. A wolf pack was circling them,
and Maedbh fought down her rising fear.

“Get the horses yoked back to the chariots,” she shouted, authoritative, not
frightened.

The young Asoborns moved to obey, too slowly.

“Get a move on!” she cried. “If you were under attack, is this how fast you’d
move?”

Maedbh gathered the two horses of her own chariot and swiftly harnessed them
to the yoke with quick tugs of the bronze buckles. A shadow flitted across the
chariot’s frame and she looked up to see a flock of circling birds with black
feathers. Eaters of the dead.

“Hurry it up, for Ulric’s sake!” she said, scooping up Ulrike and depositing
her in the chariot. She unlimbered her bow from the side of the chariot and
quickly bent it back to string it.

“String yours too,” she said to Ulrike. “And keep a wary eye out.”

“What’s going on, mother?” said Ulrike, sensing a measure of her mother’s
unease.

“Nothing, my dear,” she said. “Just do it. Hurry.”

She climbed onto her chariot seeing that the rest of her group were almost
ready. The birds cawed again and another wolf howl echoed over the desolate
wilderness. That one was unmistakably from the north, and as the wind changed
again, Maedbh caught the reek of dead flesh, of mangy, maggot-ridden fur and
stagnant, bloody saliva.

Someone screamed and she looked up to see a line of huge timber wolves on the
ridge above them. Their fur was rotted and patchy over yellowed bone and torn
muscle. Vacant eye sockets glimmered with emerald light and drooling ropes of
bloody saliva hung from their exposed fangs.

Some dead things
did
move, it seemed.

“Ride!” shouted Maedbh.

Though he had faced the horror of the living dead before, Sigmar’s soul
rebelled at the sight before him. Once Ostengard had been a prosperous,
well-populated logging village, home to two hundred Cherusen woodsmen and their
families. Now it was a charnel house, a field of blood and death.

“Ulric’s bones,” swore Count Aloysis, his face pale and the tattoos that
curled across his face bleached of colour. His shaven head was criss-crossed
with scars and his long scalp lock was more silver than black, bound with
circlets of cold iron. “Those were my people.”

Aloysis’ scarlet cloak flapped in the cold wind and his hand twitched on the
hook-bladed sword at his side. His eyes were wide with fear at what lay below
them.

“Not anymore, they’re not,” grunted Count Krugar, trying to mask his own
fear. “Now they’re dead meat for hewing.”

The Taleuten count was wide and powerful, clad in a shimmering hauberk of
silver scale. He hefted Utensjarl from hand to hand. The ancient weapon of
Talenbor was slender-bladed, but Sigmar had seen Krugar hew Norsii like saplings
with its lethal edge. Despite Krugar’s bluster, Sigmar knew both counts were
afraid. He didn’t blame them.

“Krugar speaks the truth, Aloysis,” said Sigmar. “These are not your people.
Remember that.”

“Aye, I know,” said Aloysis. “That doesn’t make it any easier to take a blade
to them.”

Sigmar knew that only too well, having fought against dead things that had
once been men of the Empire in the Middle Mountains. This would be hardest on
Aloysis, but it would be a test every one of them would have to face soon, of
that Sigmar was certain.

A thousand warriors lined the hillside above Ostengard, a mix of Cherusen
axemen and foresters, the Red Scythes of the Taleutens and Unberogen swordsmen.
Though the Cherusens and Taleutens had almost gone to war a few years ago, their
leaders had since become staunch allies, their bond forged by the nearness of
their death at Sigmar’s hands when the dread crown of Morath had poisoned him
with its evil.

In the wake of Khaled al-Muntasir’s appearance in Reikdorf, Sigmar had
gathered a sword host of five hundred warriors and ridden with all speed towards
Taalahim, the great forest city of the Taleutens. If the dead were on the march,
then it seemed their first move was in the north. Both counts had sent desperate
missives asking for the Emperor’s troops to quell the rising dead, and Sigmar
had answered their calls.

The Unberogen had ridden hard, meeting the Cherusens and Taleutens in the
rugged southern skirts of the Howling Hills. Too late to save the people of
Ostengard, but not too late to avenge them.

Clustered around a central thoroughfare that led to the river, Ostengard had
been built in a horseshoe shape, with a grain store and carpentry building at
its centre. Numerous dwellings were built around these structures, and an
elaborate shrine to Taal stood at the riverside. Vast swathes of the forest had
been cleared around the village, and much of that had been given over to
cultivation, with fields of golden corn and barley waving in the gentle breeze.

The village seethed with activity, unnatural activity. Pallid-skinned
creatures with thin, wiry limbs and enlarged skulls feasted on the dead, loping
from corpse to corpse to fight for the choicest shanks of meat. Shambling
corpses in muddy rags gathered together in moaning bands of rotting flesh,
stumbling and dragging themselves towards the hillside where the warriors of the
Empire watched.

The dead had risen from the mulchy earth and devoured Ostengard, and a
gathering darkness held sway over the day, though the sun was only just past its
zenith. The horde of dead things, sensing the warm meat of the living, came for
them in an inexorable march of dread patience and insatiable hunger.

Sigmar guessed they faced at least five hundred living dead, a number that
could normally be easily overcome, but this was a foe that fought with fear as
their greatest weapon.

“Aloysis, you and your axemen are with me. Krugar, split your horsemen and
ride around the enemy to hit them from behind,” said Sigmar. “Ride down to the
village and come up through its main street.”

“They won’t break and run,” pointed out Krugar, mounting his horse, a
powerful, grain-fed stallion of midnight black. “The dead don’t fear anything.”

“They fear this,” said Sigmar, lifting Ghal-Maraz from his belt. The dwarf
runes etched into its surface shimmered with silver light, and he could feel the
weapon’s ancestral hatred of the living dead. “Somewhere down there is a will
that is controlling this horde. Ghal-Maraz will find it and I will destroy it.
With its destruction this horde cannot exist.”

“Then let me be the one to fell it,” begged Aloysis. “My people demand their
count’s vengeance.”

Sigmar nodded. “So be it, but enough talk, it’s time to fight.”

Krugar dug his heels into his mount’s flanks and said, “May Ulric give your
arm strength, brothers.”

The Taleuten count wheeled his horse and joined the Red Scythes. At a curt
command, the horsemen split into two groups with the smooth ease of practiced
warriors. They rode with incredible skill, crouched low over their mounts’ heads
as they moved to encircle the host of the dead.

Aloysis offered Sigmar his hand, and he shook it, feeling the clammy sweat
coating the Cherusen count’s palm. The man was terrified, but he was facing that
terror with iron courage. Sigmar had always respected Aloysis, but this was a
level of courage beyond simple bravery.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No,” answered Aloysis honestly. “But let us fight together, my Emperor.”

Sigmar took Ghal-Maraz in a two-handed grip and raised his voice so that
every warrior on the hillside could hear him.

“Men of the Empire, you fight a terrible enemy today, but know this. The dead
can die. Lay them low as you would slay any foe. Sword and axe will fell them as
surely as any living man. Fight in Ulric’s name and we will prevail! For Ulric!”

A ragged cheer erupted along the hillside and Sigmar led the warriors forward
in two solid blocks, Sigmar in command of the left, Aloysis the right. They
marched towards the enemy, and Sigmar felt the fear of the dead spread through
the ranks.

He raised Ghal-Maraz and the man next to him hoisted the Imperial standard
high, a magnificent banner of red, blue and white. A glorious beast of legend
was picked out in gold, with a silver crown encircling its breast, and the sight
of Sigmar’s new heraldry filled the hearts of all who saw it with fresh courage.

Closer now, the dead were a truly horrific sight, a collection of all
degradations time could wreak upon the frailty of human form. Decomposing flesh
hung from the bones of those who had clawed their way from earthen graves, loose
jawbones hanging like grotesque ornaments from splintered skulls. Those more
recently dead were bloody and raw where grasping hands, grave-dirt claws and
broken teeth had torn the meat from their bones.

Worse than that, the dreadful aspect of their very existence sent cold spikes
of unreasoning fear through every man who stood against them. A man could face
another man with courage and know that he could prevail by the strength of his
sword arm alone. To face the dead was another matter entirely, for to look into
their eyes was to see your own death, to know that your existence in this world
was fleeting. To face the dead was to face mortality itself.

Sigmar increased his pace to a loping ran, lifting Ghal-Maraz over his
shoulder and letting loose a fearsome Unberogen war-shout. His warriors echoed
him, bellowing the name of Ulric and matching his pace. The Cherusens whooped
and hollered, their painted faces recalling the days they had fought near-naked
and chewing on wildroot and bane leaves.

Where the Unberogen marched in close-packed ranks, the Cherusen fought as
individuals, their mighty felling axes requiring space to swing without hitting
a fellow warrior. Aloysis had his sword drawn, a long cavalry sabre more useful
on the back of a horse, but a fine enough weapon to strike down the dead on
foot.

Less than twenty yards separated the living from the dead.

Sigmar shouted, “For Ulric!” and broke into a furious charge.

The Unberogen and Cherusen came with him and they struck the dead with all
the force and vitality the living could muster.

Maedbh hauled the reins left as a savage beast with blood-red eyes leapt
towards her, its taloned paws slashing. The feral wolf slammed into the side of
the chariot with a heavy thump, its claws tearing down through the wooden sides.
Ulrike screamed in terror and Maedbh risked a glance back to check her daughter
was safe.

Ulrike loosed a poorly aimed shaft. The arrowhead scored through the wolf’s
fur and bounced from its skull. It howled and fell away from the chariot.

“Keep them back!” shouted Maedbh.

Only three of the chariots had escaped the riverbed, breaking through the
encircling packs of wolves. The horses yoked to Yustin and Kreo’s chariot were
torn apart before they could get moving, and the youngsters were brought down
moments later. A huge, black-furred wolf snapped its jaws on Yustin’s head,
killing the youth instantly, while two wolves with bare skulls and exposed
musculature tore Kreo’s arm off with brutal sweeps of their claws.

Henia and Torqa got their chariot moving, but a pair of wolves leapt from the
ridge straight onto them. Torqa skewered the first with her spear, but the
second wolf bit her in two and smashed Henia’s spine with one slash of its
claws.

The rest of them had broken free and rode with all speed to the north.

Maedbh looked around. The wolves were loping alongside them, their decayed
bodies ravaged and wasted, yet powerful and untiring. Six followed them and
another four ran on each flank, content to drive them into the path of wolves
Maedbh knew were lying in wait somewhere up ahead. These were dead creatures,
but they hunted like living ones.

A steady stream of arrows flew from the backs of the chariots. Of all the
youngsters, Ulrike had the best eye, and her arrows struck home more than anyone
else’s. Already she had brought down two wolves. Even amid this desperate chase,
Maedbh was proud of her.

The wolves howled and closed in. A slavering beast loped in from the right,
its eyes fixed on Maedbh’s throat. She pulled the reins in hard, almost tipping
the chariot, and its right wheel came off the ground. The wolf hit the spinning
wheel and its momentum carried it under the chariot. It gave a mournful howl
before its bones were crushed and whatever animation empowered it was
extinguished.