03 - God King (18 page)

Ulrike loosed an arrow at the creature behind it, the shaft punching through
the beast’s eye socket, and its body writhed as the unnatural energies that
bound it together faded and it dropped without a sound. The other creatures
cared nothing for the deaths of their pack brothers, and drove the chariots
onwards. Maedbh saw three wolves closing on Osgud’s chariot and steered around a
patch of rocks to sweep in behind him.

“Bloody fool never could keep his spacing,” she hissed. The wolves saw her
coming, but too late, and she drove over the rearmost creature, flattening it
beneath her wheels. The second loped away, but the third was too fixated on its
prey to pay her any mind.

“Osgud! Hard right!”

The terrified youth obeyed instantly, his training making the movement
automatic. The two chariots slammed together, crushing the wolf between them.
Ulrike screamed as she was jolted from her perch. Maedbh reached back and
grabbed her daughter’s arm as she slid off the chariot.

Ulrike flailed with her free arm, desperately clawing her way back on board.
Spying a target of opportunity, a ravaged wolf with a spectral gleam in its eyes
and a hollowed skull bounded towards her, stinking grave dirt spilling from its
fang-filled jaws. It leapt towards Ulrike, claws outstretched.

A heavy spear slammed into its side, punching through its ribs and skewering
it in mid-air. The blade twisted and the wolf fell away, its bones dissolving
and its fur rotting to ash in the wind. Daegal drew back his spear as another
wolf leapt for the back of his chariot. The blade stabbed into its skull, and
the wolf howled as it died anew.

Maedbh hauled Ulrike back into the chariot, pleased at least one of her
students had listened to her. She lashed her horses to greater speed, pulling in
close to Osgud’s chariot and making sure Daegal’s was close by too.

Eight wolves remained, but one of those was slain by a pair of arrows that
pierced its chest and skull. Another died when it dared to come too close to
Daegal’s chariot, and ended up beneath its wheels. Six left, and the ground was
rising towards the hills where they would find sanctuary. She heard the howls of
wolves from ahead, and knew that was just where the wolves were driving them.

“Circle up!” she cried, and the chariots rolled around, each moving in a
smooth arc until they had formed an ad-hoc fortress with one another. The wolves
surrounded them, wary at this change of strategy on the part of their prey.
Ulrike dropped one wolf with an arrow to the head, and Daegal hurled his spear
into the flank of another. Both yelped as their bodies crumbled away to stinking
ash.

Realising they could not afford to wait, the remaining wolves hurled
themselves at the Asoborns. Freed from the need to control the chariot, Maedbh
loosed a quick arrow that tore the throat from a leaping wolf. She threw her bow
aside and drew her sword as the rest of the wolves attacked.

Osgud killed a wolf with a spear thrust, and was borne to the ground by a
second. Ulrike stabbed a throwing spear into the side of a snapping beast as it
climbed over the sides of the chariot. The shaft snapped off in the creature’s
ribcage, but Maedbh stepped in and hacked the wolf’s head from its shoulders
with one blow.

The last wolf backed away from the Asoborns, its fangs bared and its eyes
alight with killing fire. A living wolf would have slunk away in defeat, but
this dead creature circled the chariots at speed before finally leaping onto
Osgud’s chariot and plucking the fallen youngster from his position there. Its
jaws closed with the sound of two spars of wood slamming together and Osgud’s
body came apart in a spray of crimson.

Four arrows sliced into its body and a heavy throwing spear all but severed
its spine. Its rotten bones fell apart and Osgud’s remains flopped into his
chariot, little more than torn limbs and ruptured meat.

Maedbh cast a wary look north. She saw no signs of wolves and let out a pent
up breath.

“Gather up your arrows!” she ordered. “Quickly, there’s likely more of these
things out there.”

Ulrike and the others ran to obey and she was proud of them all. Maedbh
retrieved her own bow, constantly scanning the horizon for fresh threats. The
darkened skies to the south worried her, more than they had before. Something
evil was coming to the lands of the Asoborns, and this was just a foretaste.

The youngsters ran back to the chariots, and they mounted up.

“We ride west!” shouted Maedbh.

“No!” protested Ulrike. “We can’t go west. Three Hills is north.”

“And so are the wolves,” answered Maedbh, coming down to Ulrike’s level. “If
we go west through the hills, no wolves will be able to find us. When it’s safe,
we’ll cut back north.”

“I was scared,” said Ulrike, holding onto Maedbh’s arm.

She saw the fear behind her daughter’s eyes, a fear for her own life, but
also that of her mother. Only now, with the immediate danger averted, did Maedbh
realise how close she had come to losing Ulrike. The thought terrified her, and
a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach sent a dreadful nausea through her
entire body.

“I know you were, my dear,” said Maedbh, fighting to keep her voice even. “So
was I, but you were very, very brave, my girl. You were scared, but you didn’t
run, you fought like a true Asoborn. I’m so proud of you.”

Ulrike smiled, but Maedbh saw the fear hadn’t left her entirely. She stood on
trembling legs, and took hold of the chariot’s reins. Her hands shook and she
gripped the leather tightly to keep her terror from showing.

“Perhaps Wolfgart was right,” she whispered, fighting back tears.

Sigmar slammed his hammer into the face of a long dead man in mouldering
rags. The skull caved with a wet, tearing sound and his hammer broke through the
corpse’s collarbone and burst from the ruined chest cavity. He jabbed the butt
of the hammer through the throat of a nearby corpse and kicked out at a fallen
dead thing that grasped his legs with broken fingers. All around him, the battle
raged with one-sided fierceness. The dead clawed and bit at the living, but
there was no passion or courage to their violence. An animating will filled
them, but did so without the spark that drove living warriors to risk their
lives for something greater than themselves.

Yet for all their monotonous rigour, the blows of the dead were no less
fatal. The flesh of the living was a choice sweetmeat to them, the craving for
the warmth and softness of their flesh a hunger that could never be satisfied.

Sigmar’s armour bore numerous dents and scars from viciously wielded clubs
and cleavers, and blood flowed from a deep cut on his shoulder where a dead
logger’s axe had smashed the pauldron from his armour and bitten through the
links of his mail shirt. He fought alongside Unberogen veterans of the battle of
Middenheim, each hacking a path through the dead while watching for threats
Sigmar could not see.

He ducked a slashing axe and drove Ghal-Maraz up into the pelvic cavity of a
skeletal warrior clad in ancient armour of corroded bronze. The head of the
hammer shattered the dead warrior’s spine and broke the body in two. It
collapsed in a rain of dusty bone and Sigmar swung his hammer around, knocking
three more revenants to the ground. Hoarse cries of Ulric’s name echoed from the
hillside as the Cherasens hewed a path into the dead, felling them like dead
wood with every crushing blow of their axes.

Sigmar’s warriors fought as one, each pushing forward with the support of the
man next to him. Only Unberogen discipline allowed such close-quarter fighting,
and it was paying dividends, as few were falling to the blades of the enemy.
Lone Cherusen axemen fought until their arms grew weary and they were
overwhelmed by the dead, dragged down and torn apart by the voracious enemy.

The pallid cannibal creatures darted through the trees in cowardly packs,
skulking at the edges of the fighting and darting in for opportunistic slashes
and bites. Sigmar paid them no mind, forging a path onwards towards Ostengard as
he saw the Red Scythes ride along the arms of the horseshoe shaped settlement
and form a deadly wedge of cavalry in a magnificent display of horsemanship.

“Hold them!” shouted Sigmar, spotting a black-cloaked warrior in the heart of
the enemy host, a warrior with the bleached bone of a skull beneath a full-faced
helm of bronze. Jade light burned in the sockets of his eyes, and Sigmar felt
monstrous will gathered there, a black sorcery of abominable darkness that was
holding this dead host together.

He smashed a pair of skeletal things aside with one blow of his hammer,
angling his course towards the Cherusens.

“Aloysis!” he yelled, spotting the slender count of the Cherusens as he
beheaded a rotten-fleshed cadaver with expert skill. “Fight with me!”

The count of the Cherusens heard him and gathered his closest warriors,
cutting a path through the dead warriors towards Sigmar. They met in a ring of
dead things, both blooded and both breathing hard. Yet for all the carnage
around them, they both grinned with fierce battle fury.

“You’re hurt,” said Aloysis.

“Not badly,” answered Sigmar, pointing Ghal-Maraz towards the black-cloaked
warrior with the bronze helm. “There yonder, that’s the source of their power.
Destroy it and the host will crumble like morning ashes.”

Aloysis nodded and with a wild, ululating yell, set off downhill towards the
nightmarish master of the dead. Sigmar followed him, breaking through the lumpen
ranks of the dead to aid his count. Once more they were surrounded by the dead,
but with numbers on their side, the strength of the mortal warriors was telling.

The thundering wedge of Krugar’s Red Scythes smashed into the rear ranks of
the dead, trampling corpses and splintering bone beneath their hooves. Long
lances punched into rotten bodies and the host of living dead were split apart.
Krugar wielded Utensjarl as though it weighed nothing at all, its blade cleaving
dead things in two with every stroke. Most mortal foes would have broken and run
at this sudden attack, but the dead cared nothing for this new enemy, fighting
with the same horrid determination as ever.

Sigmar and Aloysis fought their way towards the black-cloaked warrior, but
with every step more of the dead seemed to rise and block their path. Bones once
broken fused together and skulls split open reformed in a dreadful parody of
healing. All around Sigmar, the dead pressed in, grasping with decayed hands.

“Sigmar!” shouted Krugar. “Duck!”

Knowing never to question a shouted battlefield command, Sigmar threw himself
flat as something whirling and silver flashed over his head. He rolled swiftly
to his feet and bludgeoned two dead warriors with quick jabs of his hammer. He
looked left and right for fresh opponents. None of the dead came near him, and
as he sought out the black-cloaked master of this dead host, he saw why.

The creature whose will drove the horde was dying.

Utensjarl had been bathed in the fire of Ulric in Middenheim after the great
victory, and was now buried deep in the monster’s chest. Baleful energies flared
from the dead thing, green fire streaming from its eyes as it sought to hold its
unmaking at bay. An armoured warrior leapt towards it, a slender-bladed cavalry
sabre arcing towards its bony neck. Aloysis’ blade found the gap between the
dead warrior’s breastplate and helmet, his power and rage driving it through
unnaturally formed sinews, bone and sorcery.

The bronze helm and skull parted from the body, falling to the ground and
rolling downhill. A torrent of icy energy swept out from its disintegrating form
as the bones collapsed and a spectral scream of hideous rage split the forest.

No sooner had its vile echoes faded than the dead host fell apart. The
recently dead slumped over like drunks and the skeletal warriors risen from
their graves fell to pieces like poorly made puppets. Sigmar blinked as the
loathsome twilight they had fought this battle beneath was dispelled and
sunlight returned to the forest.

Sigmar took a deep breath, feeling the air as a clean draught in his lungs,
not the stale, stagnant miasma he had endured in the fighting. His warriors and
those of Krugar and Aloysis stood amazed as life and vitality returned to the
land. There was no cheering, no victory cries, for this was simply survival.

Krugar rode up to Sigmar and vaulted from his horse. He lifted Utensjarl from
the rusted pile of armour and mouldering cloak. Its blade shone like new, and he
turned it over to ensure no lingering trace of the dead warrior remained to
taint its edge.

Sigmar stood next to Krugar as Aloysis joined them.

“My warriors gave me a stern lecture the last time I hurled my weapon in the
middle of a fight,” said Sigmar.

Krugar shrugged. “And they were right to do so, but I never miss.”

“You’ve done that before?” asked Aloysis.

“Once or twice,” grinned Krugar. “After all, it never hurts for a leader of
warriors to have the odd trick or two up his sleeve.”

Aloysis nodded and looked around the grim spectacle of the destroyed village.
Sigmar felt his count’s pain, for it was his pain too. These people were
Cherusens, but they were also Sigmar’s people, men and women of the Empire. This
attack had brought them together as warriors and it united them as men.

“People will return,” said Sigmar. “That is what those who make pacts with
the dead will never understand. Life will always return stronger than ever.”

“I hope you are right, my lord,” said Aloysis. “I fear that
belief will soon be put to the test.”

Govannon ran his hands along the cold metal cylinder, feeling the smooth,
almost perfect finish the craftsman had applied to its surface. Even the most
highly polished metal forged by man had imperfections, a roughness to the
surface that no amount of sanding and finishing could erase. This had none of
that, and if what he believed was true, then this was no decorative piece to be
found in a king’s palace, but something far more interesting.