After the terror of their first battles together, Maedbh had made peace with Ulrike riding to war. Wolfgart appeared to have done likewise, though she knew neither of them would ever lose their fear of her going beyond their protection. They knew the dangers that lurked everywhere in the world, but with this invasion of the dead there were few mortals who did not. She wished she could have fought this foe alongside her husband, but the back of a chariot was no place for someone unschooled in such a demanding form of warfare.
A dozen chariots, all that had survived the battle at the river, followed Queen Freya as she led the charge towards the rabid packs of death wolves and their disgusting companions. Now fitted with spinning iron blades at their hubs, the Asoborn chariots had already torn through scores of the undead wolves, slicing them and their ghoulish brethren apart. The Queen’s Eagles and hundreds of Asoborn warriors, their skin painted in the manner of the ancient queens and their hair stiffened with resin, followed in the wake of the chariots.
Maedbh hauled on the reins, sweeping her chariot in a sharp turn as a pack of pallid-skinned flesheaters ran towards her. They ran with loping, bandy-legged strides, hissing as they clawed at her chariot. Ulrike put an arrow through the nearest creature’s eye, and Cuthwin put another through the throat of the one behind it. Maedbh swept up her spear and slashed it around in a wide arc, opening the top of one of the hideous cannibals’ skulls.
Freya loosed an ululating Asoborn war shout and climbed onto the upper lip of her chariot’s armoured frame with her ancient broadsword unsheathed. Maedbh’s heart swelled with pride to see her queen fight, a fiery goddess of war sent from the violent times before the Empire, when none dared to travel in Asoborn lands for fear of the warrior women said to dwell there with sharp knives and cruel hearts. Sigulf steered the chariot with great skill, and Fridleifr killed wolf and cannibal with graceful sweeps and thrusts of his spear.
‘Mother!’ shouted Ulrike.
Maedbh saw the flesheater too late and felt its claws slash down her back in lines of fire. She cried out in pain as it vaulted into the chariot. Keeping one hand on the reins, Maedbh slammed her elbow into its fanged jaw. Ulrike hammered her knife up and under its ribs. It squealed horribly as it died, and Cuthwin kicked it from the back of the chariot.
‘Are you hurt?’ asked Ulrike.
Maedbh couldn’t answer. Already she could feel filth from the creature’s claws entering her body and bit the inside of her mouth bloody against the pain. Her flesh burned where she had been cut and her side was sticky with fresh blood, but Maedbh was Asoborn and this pain was nothing to one who had given birth.
‘I’m fine,’ she hissed through gritted teeth.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ she snapped, harsher than she meant to. ‘Watch our backs…’
Ulrike nodded, and Maedbh turned back to the fighting ahead of them.
They had cut deep into the swirling mass of wolves and flesheaters, and the hideous monsters fought all around them as the Asoborn infantry caught up with the slowed chariots. To anyone but an Asoborn there was no easily discernable shape to this battle, just a confused mass of circling chariots and intertwined warriors on foot, but Maedbh knew better. She saw how close they were to being overrun. Freya should command them to withdraw, reform and charge again, but Maedbh knew the queen would never give that order.
Maedbh looked over at Freya’s chariot, so proud to be a servant of this magnificent woman and glad the gods had granted her this last chance to fight alongside her. She turned her chariot around, cutting the throat of a wolf with her wheel blades and looked to see where the queen was heading.
Maedbh saw the danger before Sigulf. Years spent anticipating threats to a chariot had given her a preternatural sense for when to charge and when to evade. She saw the enormous wolf, twice as large as its brethren, as the exposed muscles on its powerful back legs bunched and hurled it through the air.
‘My queen!’ she screamed, but it was too late.
The giant wolf’s forepaws smashed through the chariot’s armour as though it was dead wood. Freya flew through the air as the chariot flipped onto its side, dragging the horses down with screams of pain as their legs shattered. The queen landed hard, cracking her skull against a rock, and lay still. Sigulf vanished amid the wreckage, but Maedbh saw Fridleifr thrown clear, the boy rolling as he hit the ground and coming to his feet like a tumbler.
‘Asoborns!’ ordered Maedbh. ‘To the queen!’
The flesheaters surrounded the fallen queen as Maedbh whipped the reins and drove her horses on. Arrows flew from Ulrike and Cuthwin’s bows as hurled javelins skewered yet more wolves and eaters of the dead. Hundreds more pressed in, scenting easy meat and knowing on some primal level that they had the chance to earn their master’s favour with this prey.
Leodan’s warriors wheeled expertly around the advancing blocks of Unberogen infantry, feeling the ground grow soft beneath their horses’ feet. This close to the river, the ground was already muddy, but the cold rain was in danger of turning it into a quagmire. The Red Scythes were the elite cavalry of the Taleuten kings, and though they owed fealty to the Emperor, it felt wrong riding into battle without Count Krugar in their midst.
The mass of dead opposing them was a limping, shuffling horde of corpses, unworthy of a blade, and without skill. Yet the sheer number of them, their hunger and their mindless aggression, could drag even the noblest warrior to his doom. Leodan tried to keep that in mind as he rode towards them with his lance lowered.
He kicked his spurs back, driving his horse to charging speed, and his riders followed suit, charging in a disciplined line. To maintain cohesion in such terrain and weather was nothing short of miraculous, but the Taleutens had been masters of mounted warfare since before their earliest ancestors had been driven across the eastern mountains.
‘Strike fast and ride them down!’ he shouted, lowering his lance and aiming it towards the chest of a dead man with a jawbone sagging on one rotten sinew. It was a waste to use lances on such dregs, but it wasn’t as though they could sling them for later use.
The Red Scythes slammed into the corpses with a wet slap of hard wood on bloated meat. Leodan’s lance punched his target into the air, ripping open its chest and splintering apart with the impact. His steed slammed through the press of bodies behind the dead man, trampling them to pulp beneath its weight. In a matter of seconds, Leodan was ten deep in the mass of enemy warriors. He dropped the broken lance and unsheathed his curved cavalry sabre, slashing it through the throat of a dead man clawing at his horse’s face.
He slashed left and right as the dead pressed in, cutting off heads and lopping off rotten limbs held on by little more than glutinous tendons and scraps of gristly cartilage. His blade hewed dead flesh with ease, and his horse crushed bones with every kick. His warriors were unstoppable, riding through the mass of undead as though they were nothing more than a fleshy annoyance. The blood thundered in his ears as he destroyed these vile corpses. To ride into battle like this was to be a god, to tower over the enemy and slay them with impunity.
Leodan could imagine nothing worse than fighting on foot.
‘Ulric damn you all!’ whooped Leodan as the mass of corpses thinned and he knew they had broken through. This was the golden dream of every cavalryman, to break through the line before wheeling around to smash into the flanks and rear of the enemy army. He hauled on the reins and punched the air twice. Sheets of rain and the bleak darkness hid what lay beyond, but Leodan had no intention of continuing eastwards.
‘Clarion! Reform and wheel right!’
A trilling trumpet blast sounded behind him and he caught a glimpse of the red banner of his troop as the rider carrying it rode alongside him. No one man ever had the singular honour of being the Red Scythes’ banner bearer; it was passed between his warriors with every fight. Today it was borne by Yestyva, a man with a deadly lance and powerful sword arm.
The Red Scythes formed up with Leodan at
their centre, and he snarled to see the inviting flanks of the ranked-up warriors of bone. They would roll up this line and tear the unlife from this host. To think that they had feared these creatures was ridiculous; they fell more easily than any mortal man.
Leodan kicked his spurs back and held his sabre aloft and urged his warriors onwards. The rain shifted and he heard a faint clatter of bone and jangle of trace. The trumpet blew again and his warriors went from a trot to a canter, steadily building speed as they rode to glory.
He heard the rattle of bone and iron again, louder this time. The darkness and rain lifted for the briefest moment as an arcing bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. In that moment of brightness, Leodan saw his worst nightmare.
Hundreds of skeletal horsemen, heavily armoured in shirts of black mail, black breastplates and heavy caparisons of iron. The horses were fleshless, skeletal and quite dead. Green light burned in their eyes and their chamfrons were fitted with long, barbed spikes. Each of the riders leaned low across the necks of their horses, a long black lance aimed for the hearts of the Red Scythes. Too late, Leodan saw he’d been lured into this easy attack.
Their shields were long and kite-shaped, emblazoned with skulls and images of ancient kings, their banner a ragged, torn scrap of leathery flesh with a leering jaw spread wide. They came on in a thunder, lances lowering with hideous precision.
‘’Ware cavalry!’ shouted Leodan, though he knew it was too late.
The black knights smashed into the Red Scythes, lances tearing through their armour and into their flesh. Men were hoisted from their saddles, screaming as the frozen iron of the enemy lances impaled them. Though seemingly fragile, the black steeds were as powerful as any mortal horse and punched into the centre of the Taleuten horsemen.
Leodan swayed aside as a lance speared past him, slashing his sword into the face of the black knight who bore it. His sword smashed the helmet from the dead warrior’s skull, and sent him spinning from his horse. He wheeled as the two groups of horsemen became hopelessly entwined, a throbbing mass of warriors hacking one another from their saddles.
He plunged his sword through the neck of a dead man’s horse, taking grim satisfaction as it fell apart beneath him. Leodan spun in his saddle as the clamour of battle thundered in his ears and the sky split apart with yet more lightning. Rainwater streaked his face and all he could see were flashing blades, grinning skulls beneath iron visors and blood spraying from mortal wounds. The bloody banner of the Red Scythes still flew proudly and he spurred his mount towards its glorious colours.
Before he could reach it, a thundering juggernaut of red iron and black-edged death smashed into his horse and hurled him from the saddle. He landed badly, slamming into the ground with a crack of breaking bone and the breath driven from his lungs by the fall.
Dizzy with the impact, Leodan knew at least one of his ribs was broken. He tried to stand, but pain shot up his leg and he crumpled onto one knee as the splintered ends of his shinbone ground together. Gritting his teeth, Leodan looked up and saw the enemy that had unhorsed him.
A monstrous, hulking warrior in blood-red armour towered over him, its frost-limned armour burning with a glaring rune of an ancient, bloody god. Its horned helm covered a grinning skull face with burning fire in its dead eyes.
A dread battle cry roared from the warrior, a chant and a mantra from the beginning of time, but no less potent for the vast span this champion had been dead.
Blood for the Blood God!
‘Ulric save us…’ wept Leodan.
The Great Hall Guard smashed into the ranks of skeletal warriors and tore through their front ranks in a hammering thunder of beating iron. Alfgeir’s sword sliced down through a bronze pot helmet and into the skull beneath. He wrenched the blade free and beheaded another two skeletal warriors, their armour no protection against his rune-forged weapon.
Orvin fought at his side, hacking down the dead with furious blows of his heavy broadsword. The man screamed as he slew, using his fear and turning it to anger. Teon fought at his side, his own sword arm rising and falling like a blacksmith at the anvil. The youngster had not the ferocity of his father, but he had speed and skill beyond anything Orvin could muster.
A spear jabbed at Alfgeir. He twisted in the saddle to cut the point from the shaft, following through with a lancing blow that split the dead warrior’s ribcage apart. Like the shambling corpses, these dead were no match for Alfgeir, but where those first foes had little ability in battle, these dead had been warriors in life and fought with remembered skill. Swords flashed, spears thrust and the enemy plucked men from their mounts with every passing moment.
The momentum they had won from their charge was quickly spent, and every yard would now be paid for in blood. Alfgeir bellowed the name of Ulric as he fought, driving his aged body to heights of aggression and fury he had never known. The dead surrounded them, a mass of grinning faces, leering jaws and eyes filled with green balefire. Their rusted swords cut and slashed, bringing down horses and men with their unearthly magic.
He heard a wild horn blast, seeing Sigmar over to his right. The Emperor’s band of horsemen crushed a path through the ranks of skeletal swordsmen. Wolfgart rode at Sigmar’s side, cleaving a path with his enormous
two-hander, and Alfgeir wished he could have ridden with the Emperor.
‘On, damn you!’ shouted Alfgeir as thunder boomed overhead and the rain beat down with ever greater force. ‘The Emperor rides on and we should be with him!’
Orvin and Teon pushed next to him, fighting to clear a path through which they could match the Emperor’s charge. The noise of the storm overhead sounded like a great battle was being waged in the heavens, echoing the conflict being played out in the mortal realms below. For all Alfgeir knew, that might well be the case. Perhaps they were all merely pawns of the gods, cursed to fight their wars on the face of the world while the gods were embroiled in their own nightmarish battle for survival.
‘We’re with you!’ shouted Orvin, and Alfgeir nodded as more and more of the Great Hall Guard pushed through the mass of slashing blades, rallying for another push into the ranks of the dead. If they could recover their momentum, they could still reach Sigmar.
Orvin cried out as a black sword plunged into his stomach, a plate-clad champion of the dead driving it through his body with a powerful two-handed grip. Orvin toppled from his horse and Alfgeir cried out as the banner fell with him. He swept his sword down through the enemy warrior’s blade. It shattered and the weaponless champion turned its dead eyes upon him. Alfgeir froze as he saw death in those eyes. Not the prospect of death, but the exact moment his life would end. His sword arm fell to his side and his lungs failed to draw a breath. A shooting pain spiked into his left arm and he cried out as the sword fell from his grip.
The champion swept up a fallen spear and lunged towards him.
Another blade intercepted it, and Teon lanced his blade through the champion’s visor. The skull broke open and the hellish green light was extinguished from its eyes. Alfgeir’s breath returned with a whooshing roar in his ears, bright spots of light bursting before his eyes.
‘Father!’ shouted Teon, leaping from his horse and holding his father’s head.
Alfgeir tried to shout at him to get back on his horse, but his throat was tight and his chest afire. The fighting swept around them, and the youngster wept as the muscles in his father’s face went slack and Morr claimed his soul. Alfgeir felt their chance to counterattack slipping away, and shuddered as a deathly chill crept over him.
He had felt something similar when…
‘I think you dropped this, Alfgeir,’ said a voice that cut through the clash of swords and spears. ‘It’s very nice work. Careless of you to have lost it.’
Alfgeir turned his horse to see himself facing a warrior in midnight black plate, with a white, bloodless face and eyes red with blood-hunger. Count Markus turned Alfgeir’s sword in his hand, admiring the silver runes etched along the length o
f the blade.
‘Yes,’ said Markus. ‘I think I may keep this weapon after I kill you with it.’
Twenty-One
The End is Nigh
Maedbh leapt from her chariot as it came to a halt beside Freya’s body, her spear skewering a flesheater as it bent to take a bite. She swept the spear around, hurling the beast from the tip and standing over the fallen queen. Blood leaked from a wound at Freya’s temple, and pooled around her mouth. Maedbh didn’t have time to check if the queen was alive.
Ulrike and Cuthwin took up position next to her, loosing arrows into the mass of wolves circling them. Each shaft punched through a dead beast’s side, while Fridleifr and Maedbh kept those that survived the arrows at bay with looping swings of their spears.
‘Ulrike! Look to the queen!’ ordered Maedbh. ‘And find Sigulf!’
A wolf howled as it reared up over Maedbh, but before it could pounce, a leaf-bladed spear punched through its chest and it fell to the ground in pieces of rotten meat and mangy fur. Fridleifr pulled his spear back from the beast’s body and Maedbh nodded her thanks as the monsters closed in.
‘Is she dead?’ asked Fridleifr, without looking down.
Ulrike shook her head, and Maedbh felt a wave of relief that almost blotted out the pain from the wound on her back. Her limbs were aching, her head thumping with a powerful headache. Her skin was clammy and cold.
She slammed the end of her spear against a flesh-eater’s head, reversing it to plunge the blade into the belly of a wolf. Its weight bore her to the ground, and the haft of her spear snapped. Maedbh rolled, spying a leather-wrapped sword handle amid the wreckage of the queen’s chariot. She grabbed it and spun around, swinging it two-handed to cleave a flesheater in two with one blow. Amazed, Maedbh saw she held the bronze-bladed sword of Queen Freya. It had once belonged to Eadhelm, who claimed to have looted it from a secret chamber beneath a tower of the stunted ones beyond the mountains of the east.