03 - God King (27 page)

“You are a cunning fox, aren’t you?” said Marius.

“Takes one to know one,” she said.

Redwane crushed skeletal warriors in crumbling iron armour beneath his horse,
swinging his hammer in a mighty underhand arc that smashed collarbones, broke
shoulders apart and sent skulls flying. His horse trampled the dead beneath its
hooves. To either side of him, Leovulf, Ustern and Holstef fought with brute
ferocity as they battered a path down the viaduct, winning Myrsa and Renweard
time to move up fresh warriors and relieve those who had fought to exhaustion.

“Holstef, spearhead!” bellowed Redwane, and the clarion blew a long rising
blast.

The White Wolves smoothly formed a wedge on Redwane, pushing hard into the
choking massed ranks of the dead. Redwane lost himself in the simple purity of
this fight, bludgeoning the dead with his hammer and letting his horse kick and
crush its enemies with wild abandon. He heard screams around him as grasping,
skeletal hands dragged warriors from their saddles or screeching things with
elongated jaws and red eyes tore the throats from horses to spill their riders
to the ground.

Their charge was slowing, the press of dead warriors too great for even the
mighty White Wolves to smash through. And as they slowed, more of Redwane’s
warriors were falling to the blades of the dead. A fiery-eyed wolf leapt towards
him and Redwane swayed in the saddle, intercepting the beast’s opened jaws with
his hammer. Its head split apart and its corpse slammed into him. Its dissolving
body unravelled, looping, rotted guts spilling into his lap and stagnant fluids
hissing as they burned his armour.

“Time to go!” shouted Leovulf.

Redwane nodded and turned to shout at Holstef to sound the retreat, but the
saddle next to him was empty. He circled his horse, finally seeing Holstef
pinned to the ground by a scabrous ghoul with foam-flecked jaws and needle-sharp
talons. Holstef screamed as it tore his guts out, its arms bloody to the elbows
as it disembowelled the White Wolf. Redwane hauled back on his reins and his
horse reared up onto its hind legs. Its hooves flailed as it came down, crushing
the creature beneath its weight, though it was too late to save Holstef.

The White Wolves fought on, the dead pressing in from all around as the sheer
number of skeletal warriors finally arrested their charge. The viaduct was
choked with the debris of the fighting, a welter of bones, rusted armour and
leering skulls.

Though it was probably suicide, Redwane leapt from the saddle and dropped to
the ground beside Holstef. The man was already dead, his ruptured stomach
steaming in the cold air. Redwane reached for the war horn. Unless he blew the
retreat, the White Wolves were as good as dead.

An armoured foot slammed down on the horn, shattering it into fragments, and
Redwane leapt aside as a black sword slashed towards him. He rolled to his feet,
swinging his hammer up to block a descending blow. The force of the blow rang up
his arms and emerald sparks flew from the impact. He backed away, taking in the
measure of his opponent as he fought the rising tide of fearful bile in his
throat.

Redwane’s heart chilled as he saw he faced a dead knight in black armour who
was shawled in a cloak woven from nightmares and woe. Its sword and armour were
archaic, coated in grave dirt and rust, though the lambent glow that surrounded
the ancient warlord told Redwane that this was a champion of the dead, a supreme
killer of the living. It wore an open helm, and the green fire in its eyes
promised a death as quick as it would be meaningless.

Its sword swung for his neck and Redwane threw himself back as it attacked
with a speed and skill no living swordsman could match. Without a shield,
Redwane could only block and parry with his hammer, but no matter how skilful, a
fight between sword and hammer could only end badly for him.

The champion’s blade slipped past his guard and Redwane screamed as its icy
tip punched through his armour and slid between his ribs. Numbing waves of cold
spread from the wound, and Redwane’s heart stilled as the blade twisted in the
wound. He staggered away from the champion, and no sooner had its sword scraped
free of his armour than his heart thumped painfully in his chest.

The dread champion came at him again, but before it could strike him down, a
black horse slammed into it, sending it crashing back against the viaduct’s
parapet. Leovulf reached down and extended his hand towards Redwane as the
champion climbed to its feet, broken bones knitting together once more and its
grinning skull welcoming fresh meat to slay.

“We can’t fight it…” gasped Redwane.

“I know!” shouted Leovulf. “Get on!”

Redwane grasped Leovulf’s hand, hauling himself painfully onto the horse’s
rump. The dead were closing in, and Redwane feared that Leovulf’s horse would
never make it with two heavily armed warriors on its back.

The dead champion strode towards them, but it had taken only a handful of
steps before it halted, as though sensing a greater threat than the two warriors
before it. Redwane’s entire body was cold, his flesh icy and grey from the wound
dealt to him, but a deeper cold swept over him as the sound of winter gales
howled from the forests. Swirling snowflakes and fragments of ice slashed from
the sky, and the dead paused in their relentless attack, as a surging wind
roared up the viaduct, echoing with the howls of wolves.

The chorus of lupine fury was utterly without mercy, and Redwane watched in
amazement as a blizzard of winter wind blew over the dead warlord who had so
nearly slain him. Ice formed on its ancient armour and decaying flesh as the
chill wind froze the champion in place. A bitter squall of hail tore at it like
a storm of razored glass, and a deafening howl of winter’s fury broke its bones
apart in an explosion of long dead remains.

The dead parted as something pushed its way up from the ground, a hulking
figure in thick wolf pelts and cloaked in a blizzard of freezing ice. He carried
a long staff that shimmered with hoar frost and was topped with a glittering
blade of ice. A wolf-skull mask obscured his face, and his heavily muscled limbs
were bare to the elements, though he seemed to feel no ill-effects from the
deathly cold. Two wolves loped through the motionless dead as he stalked towards
them, one pale as moonlight, the other black as jet. The fighting on the viaduct
ceased, and the White Wolves drew together as the wolf-clad warrior stopped
before them.

“The fire of Ulric calls me,” he said, his voice echoing as though coming
from the furthest reaches of the frozen north. Redwane had seen this warrior
once before, at the coronation of Sigmar in Reikdorf, and a wave of frozen pain
washed through him.

“Ar-Ulric!” cried Leovulf. “Ar-Ulric has come!”

Maedbh ran towards the centre of Three Hills, hearing the shouts of the
sentries and their cries of alarm. Fear clamped her heart and she looked back
over her shoulder to make sure Ulrike and the boys were with Garr’s Eagles.
Asoborns armed with bows and spears were pouring from their homes, dwellings
cunningly secluded within hidden arbours and sunken hollows. Any enemy would
have a difficult time in locating their homes, but it sounded like someone had
done just that.

Her own bow was slung over her shoulder, but she carried a long, leaf-bladed
spear that normally sat in the queen’s chariot. A priest of Taal had blessed its
blade, and its keen edge never failed to find its prey. A thousand possibilities
flew through her mind, the living dead had found a way to locate Three Hills,
the greenskins were invading from the mountains, the forest beasts had followed
a scent trail to the Asoborn homeland…

None of those made sense. Queen Freya’s army was between Three Hills and the
living dead, and though the greenskins had been more active of late, the
mountain scouts had reported no signs of a gathering horde. That just left
beasts…

Freya had entrusted the care and safety of her sons to Maedbh. Bad enough
that she couldn’t have marched with the queen, but to allow enemies within Three
Hills would be unforgivable. Maedbh rounded a grassy hillock, overgrown with
trees and nettles, finding a line of Asoborn women with bows lined up with their
backs to her. Their bowstrings were taut, yet their arrows remained unloosed.
Children scampered around their mothers’ legs, but there was no sense of fear,
no sense that something dangerous had come amongst them.

“What in Taal’s name is going on?” said Garr, coming alongside her with the
children in tow. Ulrike held his hand, while Sigulf and Fridleifr had their
hunting knives bared. Clad in baked leather armour and a bronze-reinforced kilt,
Garr was handsome and strong, with a cropped scalp of fine black hair. One of
the youngest Queen’s Eagles, Maedbh had heard enough stories of Garr’s stamina
and prowess to know that he was a true Asoborn in all areas the queen required.
He had taken to the children well, and they to him, which made their confinement
to Three Hills marginally less troublesome.

“I don’t know,” replied Maedbh, resting the spear over her shoulder and
walking towards the line of Asoborns. She heard gruff voices and the clank of
metal beyond, and her trepidation turned to curiosity with every step. The
Asoborns parted before her and she found herself looking at a hundred armoured
dwarfs, clad from head to foot in armour of silver, gold and bronze. Stained
with the dust of many days travel, the dwarfs seemed unconcerned by the bent
bows aimed at them or the assembling chariots rumbling around their flanks.

Leading the dwarfs was a broad figure in a suit of glittering gold and
silver. The visor of his helmet was shaped in the form of a stern, bearded god
and he rested his mailed fists on the haft of an axe almost as tall as he was.
The warrior flipped his visor up to reveal a craggy face like the flanks of a
cliff and eyes that twinkled like shards of obsidian. The dwarf’s beard was
plaited with iron cords and he spat a mouthful of dust.

“Which of you manlings is in charge here?” said the dwarf.

Maedbh stepped forward, planting her spear before her in the earth.

“I am,” she said. “Maedbh of Three Hills. Who are you and how did you get
past our sentries? No one enters Queen Freya’s lands without permission.”

“I am Master Alaric, Runesmith to King Kurgan Ironbeard of Karaz-a-Karak, and
your queen is likely dead,” said the dwarf, and a horrified ripple of disbelief
swept through the assembled Asoborns. Maedbh felt a cold hand take hold of her
heart. She struggled to maintain her composure in the face of such terrible
news.

“As to how we got here,” continued the dwarf, oblivious to the effect his
words were having, “Do you think the paths
over
the land are the only
ones? The roots of your manling town reach so rudely into the earth that even a
skrati couldn’t miss them. There are routes to the surface all over this place.
I’m surprised you haven’t found them and taken steps to secure them, but then
you are only manlings…”

Maedbh struggled to hold her annoyance at the dwarf’s insult, instead
focusing on the news he had brought.

“What are you talking about?” she said at last. “Queen Freya’s army set out
from here only a week ago.”

“Freya?” said the dwarf. “Tall woman with red hair, doesn’t wear enough
armour to cover a small child? Rides a chariot of black and gold?”

“Yes,” said Maedbh.

“Aye, that’s her,” said Alaric. “It’s hard to tell you manlings apart
sometimes. Anyway, the dead destroyed her army at the river crossing. It was
messy, not many escaped. A blood drinker swordsman commands the dead, and those
he slew now march north with him.”

Maedbh swallowed, grief twisting her gut into a painful knot. She knew little
of the dwarfs and their ways, but knew the Emperor counted them as his sworn
allies and that they did not lie or embellish.

To the mountain folk, truth was like the hardest stone, unyielding and
enduring.

“How many?” she said. “And how long do we have?”

“His army is near four thousand now,” said Alaric. “I reckon they’ll be here
within the day and don’t even think about hiding. They’ll sniff this place out
as sure as gold glitters.”

“Then we need to leave here,” said Maedbh. “We need to head west to
Reikdorf.”

“Aye,” agreed Alaric. “That you do, manling. And right quick too.”

The attack on Marburg came in the dead of night. Spectral fog gathered over
the marshland around the mouth of the Reik where it spilled over the treacherous
sandbars and narrow channels of the harbour. Marburg wasn’t as naturally blessed
as Jutonsryk in its geography, but it had the advantage of being on the Reik,
which meant it could control the traffic of ships to Reikdorf.

That thought alone made Marius’ mouth water.

“A city of gold,” he whispered. “That’s what this place could be.”

His lancers looked over at his words, but none spoke. Unlike some counts, he
didn’t encourage fraternisation between commoners and their betters.

Marius and a hundred of his warriors stood on the southern shore of the main
channel that led to the curving ring of the docks where Aldred and the Raven
Helms awaited. The quayside was deserted, all those ships that could flee the
city having sailed around the coast to safer ports in the south. It made for a
strange sight to see a port bereft of ships.

Despite her brother’s urgings to remain in the city, Marika commanded a host
of archers on the rooftops and forecastle-shaped towers set in the curve of the
citadel’s lower walls. From there her archers could rain down arrows upon the
dead without fear of retaliation.

Rearing up behind her archers was the Raven Hall, the monstrous tower
dominating the skyline with its beaked upper chambers and swept-back wings.
Impressive enough in its own way, Marius found it rather vulgar, like something
the ancient tribal kings might have raised to some long forgotten animal god.
Hundreds of crows and ravens alighted on its ledges and carvings, such that it
shivered with feathers as though coming alive.