03 - God King (46 page)

“Looks like you were luckier,” said Alfgeir.

“Luckier than who?” asked Teon, tearing off his cloak and wrapping it around
Alfgeir.

“Never mind…”

Teon lifted Alfgeir into his arms and he grunted in pain. He looked at the
young man, seeing the grief for his fallen father, but also a strength of
character his father had not possessed. Despite the pain, Alfgeir smiled,
wondering if this newfound clarity was a result of his near death.

Teon looked down at him. “Chosen by Ulric you are,” said the boy.

“What? No, I was lucky is all.”

“No,” said Teon, lifting Alfgeir onto a horse and climbing up behind him with
the white gold banner tucked in the crook of his arm. “Look at your eyes, man.
You’ve been chosen.”

Alfgeir lifted his sword blade as Teon turned the horse back to Reikdorf. His
face was gaunt and pinched with pain, his leathery skin ashen from exhaustion.
He looked into his reflected eyes and a cold breath escaped him.

His eyes were pure white, the hue of northern snows.

Leodan threw himself to the side as the titanic warrior’s black axe swept
down, cleaving his fallen horse in two with one blow. Searing pain flared up his
leg and he crawled away from this towering slaughterman. Its black axe came up
and a hissing name burned itself into Leodan’s mind, a name that was a byword
for death on an undreamed of scale in ages past.

Krell…

Rivers of blood had flowed from Krell’s axe, all in service to a dread god of
the north, a squatting devourer of blood and skulls. Slain by one of the
mountain folk thousands of years ago in an age known by some as the Time of
Woes, Krell’s thirst for blood and death was undiminished by the passage of
uncounted centuries since his death.

Leodan fumbled for his sword, watching as five of the Red Scythes charged
towards the giant warrior.

“No,” he croaked. “Don’t!”

His warning went unheeded, and Krell’s axe swept out, chopping up through the
horses and cleaving the riders in two. The return stroke hacked another two to
the ground and before the others could strike, Krell was amongst them. One rider
died with his head torn from his shoulders, the other as Krell thundered his
fist into his chest and crushed his torso to a pulpy mess.

Taleuten warriors surrounded Krell, hacking at his blood-covered plate, but
no blade could penetrate his damned armour. Swords scraped over his shoulder
guards, axes bounced from his spiked helm and spears shattered upon his
breastplate. Nothing could stand against this monstrous force of destruction,
and warriors died ten at a time as Krell hacked them down, chopping bodies in
two and mangling flesh with every blow from his black-bladed axe.

Leodan crawled away from Krell, weeping in pain and for the loss of his
beloved Red Scythes. His leg was afire, the broken ends gouging the meat of his
leg with every yard he dragged himself from the slaughter.

His world shrank to the rain-soaked ground, his muddy knuckles dragging his
pain-wracked body and the sound of his men dying. Horses screamed in pain as
Krell’s axe butchered them too, and men cried in fear as they turned to flee.
None could escape Krell’s deadly blade and those terrified cries turned to death
screams as the Red Scythes were cut down.

Leodan’s fingers clawed the ground, the earth too sodden for him to gain a
purchase. He could go no further and he rolled onto his side. His breathing was
coming in shallow gasps, and he coughed blood. His broken rib had nicked his
lung and few survived such a wound, least of all those in the middle of a battle
with no hope of rescue.

He heard the sound of marching steps behind him, regular and perfectly in
time. Metal clashed as armour moved against armour and Leodan smelled the reek
of strong beer and pipe smoke. Who would be drinking and smoking in the middle
of such a fight?

Someone knelt beside him and he looked up through a haze of tears and rain to
see a hundred warriors of the mountain folk armed with heavy axes and hammers.
The warrior beside him was armoured head to foot in plates of iron and bronze.
The dwarf’s breath smelled of strong beer, and a wooden pipe carved in the shape
of a long cavalry horn jutted through a hole specially crafted in his helmet’s
visor.

“Rest easy, manling,” said Master Alaric. “We’ll handle this big fella. We
killed him once before, and we can do it again.”

Daegal watched the black riders charge the Asoborn shieldwall and heard the
crash of splintering lances, breaking shields and the clang of swords. His mouth
was dry and his bladder tightened. The riders of the dead surrounded the Queen’s
Eagles and he couldn’t see any way they could survive.

“I am a warrior of the Asoborns,” he said, repeating the words like a mantra.
“I will not fear this foe. I will not fear this foe.”

The dead streamed around the shieldwall, a host of shambling corpses and
skeletal warriors marching towards the city. Scores of wolves loped alongside
them, accompanied by darting packs of white-bodied flesheaters. Daegal could not
count them, but he knew there were too many for them to handle.

Mutters of fear passed through the assembled people, the men and women of
Reikdorf suddenly regretting their choice to march into this arena of warriors.
Daegal could feel their fear and recognised the teetering panic that could unman
them in a heartbeat. He had felt it before at the defeat by the river and knew
how devastating it could be. Warriors on the brink of victory could flee a
battle believing it lost if they saw their fellows running from the enemy.
Sergeants said battles weren’t won or lost by individuals, but Daegal knew
better.

His fear had hollowed him out at the river, but as he watched the wolves and
carrion eaters coming towards him, that fear was replaced by anger. These
monsters had taken his honour, stripping him of the one thing he had been
assured was his right and destiny as an Asoborn.

Though he had seen only twelve summers, his anger burned like an inferno in
his heart.

He drew his sword as the first wolves clawed into the line of people, hurling
themselves forward with fangs and claws tearing. Blood sprayed and men and women
died as the wolves tore them apart. The carrion eaters came on their heels,
dragging men to the ground where they were pounced upon by yet more and eaten
alive as they screamed in pain.

A creature with black beads for eyes and a mouth filled with broken teeth
threw itself at him, and Daegal swung his sword for its neck. It bit deep into
the beast’s flesh, and Daegal kicked its corpse from the blade as another came
at him with its claws outstretched. He cut its hands off and stabbed it in the
throat. Blood spattered him, and the reek of it drove him to even greater
heights of fury. He plunged his sword blade into the flanks of a dead wolf
chewing on the entrails of a man Daegal had spoken to moments before. His name
had been Eoland. He had been a baker of bread, but his days of preparing loaves
and sweetbreads were now over.

Daegal fought with all the courage and strength he had forgotten by the
river, killing a dozen enemies with as many blows. All around him, the people of
Reikdorf took heart from his steadfast courage, holding their ground in the face
of these monsters. The tide of flesheaters and wolves broke upon the line of
ordinary men and women. Blood soaked the earth, and hundreds had died in the
opening moments of the fighting.

Daegal ducked the snapping jaws of a wolf and jammed his sword down its
throat. Its mouth snapped shut as it died and broke the blade in two. He swept
up a fallen spear, a coloured rag tied just behind its iron tip. He heard
screams of pain and terror, and knew the courage of these people hung by a
thread.

As it had at the river, a moment’s heroism or courage would decide the
outcome of this fight. Daegal raised the spear above his head, letting the chill
winds catch the fabric tied to the spear. Blue and red streamed above him, not a
flag, but merely two rags in the colours of Reikdorf. Though the day was grim
and dark, they shone as bright as though freshly dyed and lit by the noonday
sun.

The flesheaters saw him raise the makeshift banner and he saw their
uncertainty.

This was his moment. This was his one and only chance to reclaim the honour
these monsters had taken from him.

“People of Reikdorf, with me!” shouted Daegal.

Daegal plunged the spear into the belly of a snarling wolf and charged from
the bloodied ranks of citizen warriors, an Asoborn war shout on his lips.

And the people of Reikdorf followed him.

The Asoborn shieldwall splintered and buckled against the charge of the black
knights. Men and women were hurled from their feet by the impact of the dead
riders, but more Asoborns rushed to pick up the fallen shields and plug the gap.
Skeletal horsemen plunged through the shieldwall, hacking with darkly glittering
swords. Garr swept his twin-bladed spear through a black rider’s horse, bringing
him down in a clatter of bone and plate. Maedbh’s bronze blade stabbed down,
plunging through the rider’s helm and extinguishing the green light shimmering
beyond his visor.

Garr nodded his thanks, but Maedbh was already on the move, spinning around
as the thunderous sound of horsemen slamming into iron-rimmed shields boomed
once more. Cuthwin now fought with a spear, wrenched from a dead man with his
spine all but severed. Beside him Fridleifr rammed his own spear through a
rusted gap in a dead knight’s breastplate. Sigulf protected his brother’s flank,
holding a heavy shield and slamming it forward along with the rest of the
Asoborns.

Ulrike loosed carefully aimed shafts into the dead, sending arrows through
the eye sockets of those warriors whose helmets had been knocked off in the
charge. Maedbh took a two-handed grip on the sword as three dead riders smashed
through the shieldwall. Their defence was shrinking with every passing second,
the Asoborns unable to resist the unnatural power of the black knights. One rode
towards her with a curved black sword raised above its head.

Maedbh ran at the dead warrior, her own sword hungry to slay this champion of
the knights. She dived forward, rolling to her feet as the rider’s weapon swept
over her head. She slashed her sword across the skeletal mount’s rear legs,
shattering the bones and toppling the rider to the ground. A host of Asoborns
pounced on the dead warrior, stabbing and clubbing his bones to destruction. The
second warrior rode straight for the fallen Freya, dropping from his horse and
striding towards the fallen queen with murderous determination burning in his
eye sockets.

Maedbh ran towards him, but the third dead rider reared up before her, his
horse’s bony limbs pawing the air. One hoof caught Maedbh on the shoulder and
sent her spinning. She landed badly, slashing her arm open on the blade of her
sword. Blood poured from the wound onto the blade and she felt a sudden sense of
power and anger flow through her.

She rolled as the hooves stamped down, thrusting her sword straight up and
into the horse’s ribs. Like a ruptured soap bubble, something intangible broke
within the steed and its form came apart in a rain of bones. Iron plates tumbled
to the earth, and Maedbh rolled as the beast’s rider dropped beside her.

Maedbh brought her sword around in a move of desperation. The rider’s sword
slammed into her own, barely a handspan from her face. Its armoured foot slammed
down into her stomach and she doubled up as the rider reached down and lifted
her from the ground. Its helmet slammed into her face and blood poured down her
chin as she felt her nose break. The sword fell from her grip and the pain of
her wounds seared her once again.

She cried out as the gouges on her back flared and the slash on her arm
throbbed as though dipped in boiling water. Maedbh looked through the slit in
the dead warrior’s helm and into his eyes. She saw endless suffering there, a
soul chained to the mortal world by dark magic and kept in enduring torment.
Though nothing remained of the man this warrior had once been, his suffering was
eternal and unrelenting.

The black sword drew back and Maedbh’s eyes focussed on the notched tip,
picturing how it would punch through her ribcage and split her heart in two. The
skull’s grin became wider, but before its sword could stab forward, the dead
warrior’s head flew from his neck and the body collapsed. Maedbh slumped to the
ground, scrambling away from the warrior’s remains as a glorious figure in fiery
bronze stood above her with a hand outstretched.

“Thank you for looking after my sword,” said Freya, hauling Maedbh to her
feet.

Ulrike and Cuthwin stood at the queen’s side and her daughter held a spear
out toward Maedbh.

“My queen,” gasped Maedbh. “You’re alive.”

“Never more so!” roared the queen, turning and hurling herself into the fray.

Together with Sigulf, Fridleifr, Cuthwin and Ulrike, Maedbh joined Garr’s
faltering shieldwall. Though Maedbh’s arm and back burned with pain, she fought
like never before, unhorsing dead warriors with every thrust. Together with the
Queen’s Eagles they fought like the legendary heroes of old, but even with such
courage there was no way the shieldwall could hold. Warriors were dying by the
dozen with every passing moment and the ring of swords and spears was shrinking
like a patch of snow in spring.

A black rider thundered over a shieldbearer to Maedbh’s left and his steed, a
black beast with skin like basalt, reared up as a powerful warrior leapt from
its back. His black cloak unfolded like wings as he landed in the midst of the
Asoborns. Maedbh had seen this man a handful of times only, and though he had
changed beyond all mortal recognition, he still bore the features of Siggurd of
the Brigundians.