The front ranks of the orc host began shaking, and just as it seemed as if they were having some horrific seizure, a terrifying war shout erupted from every orc throat in unison.
Immense and powerful, the sound was torn from the heart of their violent core, an ancestral expression of hatred and fury that had given birth to their race in blood and fire.
As the primal roar continued, the orcs began to jog towards the army of men, hatred gleaming in their eyes, and their tusked jaws bellowing for blood.
‘Here they come,’ said Sigmar, hefting Ghal-maraz in one hand and his golden shield in the other. ‘Fight bravely, my friends. Ulric is watching.’
Ulfdar watched the advancing line of orcs through a haze of weirdroot and hemlock, their movements appearing sluggish as though they charged through sucking mud. Beside her, King Otwin beat his bare breast with spiked gauntlets, drawing blood and pushing his berserk fury to even greater heights. The king foamed at the mouth, and bled from the golden spikes hammered through his temple that formed his crown.
Ulfdar could feel her own battle fury threatening to explode from her at any moment, the bitter herbal infusions she had swallowed before battle surging through her heart and driving her into this paroxysm of rage. Her arms and neck were ringed with iron torques, her bare flesh painted with fresh tattoos to ward off enemy blades, and her golden hair was pulled into a tall mohawk with handfuls of smeared blood.
Her king raised his mighty axe, chained once more to his wrist, and let loose a wordless shout of rage and fury. Along the line of Thuringian warriors, the king’s war shout was answered, and Ulfdar felt the wild beat of her heart hammering like a frenzied drummer against her ribs.
The king screamed again, his eyes wide and his mouth pulled back in a rictus grin. His body shuddered like a tethered colt, and he leapt forward, unable to contain his berserk fury any longer. King Otwin charged towards the orcs, a lone warrior against a horde, and his lust for battle swept through his warriors in an instant.
With a cry of rage equal to that of the enemy, the Thuringian berserkers charged towards the greenskin lines. Ulfdar easily caught up to her king, her twin swords spinning in her grip as she ran and gnashed her teeth, chewing the inside of her cheeks bloody. The sharp, metallic flavour mingled with the intoxicating anger that consumed her, and she screamed as she saw the face of the first orc she would kill.
King Otwin’s axe hammered through an orc, cleaving it in two, and the king leapt amongst the foes behind it. Ulfdar’s sword plunged into a body, and tore upwards as she leapt, feet first, at another. She felt bone break and landed lightly, spinning on her heel and slashing her sword through another greenskin’s face.
A spear stabbed for her, but she swayed aside and thrust both her blades though her attacker’s throat, ripping the blades free in a spray of blood. Orcs were all around her, stabbing and chopping, but she wasted no energy in defensive strokes, simply attacking with all her strength. Her swords were twin blurs of iron, slashing throats and opening bellies as she spun amongst her foes.
A club struck her a glancing blow to her shoulder, spinning her around. She hacked the wielder’s arm off at the elbow, revelling in the pain, noise and confusion of battle. Hundreds of her fellow warriors tore through the enemy lines, a mass of screaming, berserk warriors intent on killing.
A warrior with his pelvis crushed stabbed orcs from the ground until a massive green fist flattened his skull. A berserker used his own entrails to strangle his killer, while yet another had cast aside his weapons in his fury and tore at the orcs with his bare hands. Ulfdar shrieked at the sensations flooding her body.
The blood, the violence and the noise were incredible. She bled from a handful of wounds she could not remember receiving, but even the pain was intoxicating. A sword slammed into her, cutting into the metal of her torques and breaking her arm, but sliding clear before severing the limb.
Ulfdar yelled in pain and swung her good arm to behead the orc. More and more of the greenskins were attacking, yet still her king was pushing deeper and deeper into their ranks, his huge axe sweeping out in great arcs to cut down anything in his way.
Everywhere was blood and death, her fellow warriors cutting a bloody swathe through the heart of the greenskin ranks. The pain in her arm was intense, but Ulfdar used it to fuel her anger, and she leapt into the fray once more, her sword cutting and stabbing.
More blades stabbed for her, and she felt a spear plunge into her back. She twisted and the point was wrenched clear. Her sword smashed the speartip from the shaft, and the return stroke slammed down on the orc’s helmet. The metal crumpled, and her sword was torn from her grip as the dead beast fell backwards.
She heard a rumbling thunder around her, but her world had shrunk to the foe in front of her and its death. She swept up a fallen axe and threw herself forward, the blade biting flesh and armour alike as she laughed and screamed with hysterical fury.
Her copper hair streaming behind her like a war banner, Queen Freya pulled back her bowstring and let fly with deadly accurate arrows. She gave a whooping yell with every orc she felled, though there were so many it was impossible to miss. One might as well applaud an archer for hitting the sea.
The queen’s chariot was high-sided and armoured with layered strips of baked leather, its wheels rimmed with iron and fitted with deadly blades. Maedbh held the reins loosely in one hand, holding a throwing spear aloft in the other.
Two hundred chariots thundered towards the orcs in a staggered line, a swarm of arrows slashing from each one as Asoborn warriors loosed their shafts into the enemy. The sandy plain of Black Fire Pass was ideal ground for chariots, and Freya felt a delicious shiver of pleasure as Maedbh drove them ever closer to the enemy.
Otwin’s berserkers had broken ranks, and charged forwards as soon as the orc line had twitched, but that was no surprise. Sigmar himself had bid her protect the Thuringian king, fully expecting him to charge wildly at the enemy. The berserkers fought magnificently, their fighting wedge plunging into the enemy army and driving deep into its heart.
The greater numbers of orcs was now telling, however, and, like the jaws of a trap, the greenskins were surrounding and butchering the Thuringians. Freya could see King Otwin atop a mound of dead monsters, his huge, chained axe cutting down foes by the dozen. Hundreds of berserkers pushed ever deeper into the orcs, but their pace was slowing, and more and more were being dragged to their deaths.
Across the battlefield, Freya could see a furious exchange of missile fire between the armies. Black-shafted arrows flew from darting goblins, but most of these thudded into wooden shields or bounced from shirts of iron mail. In contrast, the arrows of the Unberogens and Cherusens were wreaking fearful havoc amongst the orcs, thousands of iron-tipped shafts slashing downwards and punching through orc skulls.
Galloping horsemen rode in wild circuits before the charging greenskins, riding in close to loose frantic volleys before galloping clear. Some were swift enough, others were not and were brought down to be torn limb from limb by vengeful greenskins.
‘Be ready, my queen!’ shouted Maedbh, dragging Freya’s attention back to her portion of the battlefield. The orcs were close, and she loosed a last arrow before dropping her bow and drawing her broadsword. A spear was a better weapon for use in a chariot, but Freya’s blade had belonged to an ancient hero of her blood, and she could no more wield a different weapon than she could stop loving her sons.
Freya lifted her sword and swung it around her head. The foetid odour of the orcs was strong, and the billowing clouds of dust caught in her throat.
She saw the gleam of hatred in their red eyes and felt the hot reek of their foul breath.
‘Now, my brave warriors!’ she yelled.
Freya braced herself against the side of the chariot and looped a leather thong around her wrist, as Maedbh wrenched the reins, and the horses veered to the side.
Almost as one, the Asoborn chariots turned to run parallel to the orc lines, the sc
ythe blades on their wheels tearing the front ranks of their enemies from their feet in a storm of blood and severed limbs. Freya hacked through skulls as Maedbh skilfully guided the chariot along the front of the greenskin horde.
Bellows of pain followed the Asoborn queen as her host of chariots cut the front ranks of the enemy down. Spears stabbed the survivors, and hissing arrows slashed into the orcs further back. Without a word from her queen, Maedbh turned her chariot away, and those following behind followed her example.
Roaring orcs leapt forward, and a handful of chariots were brought down, splintered to matchwood by enormous axes.
Freya laughed with the joy of battle and waved her bloodied sword in the air once again.
The chariots of the Asoborns wheeled and turned back towards the orcs.
Sigmar swung Ghal-maraz in a looping arc, and smashed the head into a bellowing orc that had its hand wrapped around his horse’s neck. The greenskin collapsed, its skull a splintered ruin, and Sigmar kicked the dying beast from him as he guided his horse forward once more. Beside him, Pendrag held his banner high in his silver hand, the sight inspiring all those around him to greater effort.
Attack was the best form of defence, and Sigmar watched with pride as King Otwin led his berserk warriors in a screaming charge. The furious melee had halted the orcs in their tracks, and though Otwin was surrounded, Freya’s chariots were cutting a bloody path towards him.
As the arms of the trap had closed around Otwin, Sigmar had raised his hammer high and led his Unberogen riders forwards in a charge to glory. Armoured riders slammed into the orcs and trampled them beneath iron-shod hooves as swords cleaved through crude helmets and spears stabbed unprotected backs.
Arrows arced overhead in a constant rain, and the swelling roar of battle was building into a rolling wave like the boom of surf on cliffs. Sigmar blocked a sword blow with his shield, smashing his hammer down and feeling its joy singing in his veins. Blood sprayed him, and his horse reared, the stink of blood a foul stench in its nostrils.
Sigmar gripped his horse’s flanks with his thighs as it lashed out with its hind legs and crushed a handful of goblins that sought to hamstring it. The warhorses of the Unberogen were trained to fight and defend themselves as well as any warrior, and this horse, the roan gelding King Siggurd had gifted him, was just as ferocious as any bred by Wolfgart.
Sigmar’s sword-brother rode alongside him, his mighty sword swooping around his body in deadly arcs that smashed through iron plates and shattered shields. Arterial blood sprayed around him, and, though he carried no shield, Wolfgart appeared unwounded.
‘Unberogen!’ shouted Sigmar. ‘To me! Onwards!’
A roar of approval followed Sigmar as he rode deeper into the orcs, bludgeoning a path with Ghal-maraz and killing any foe that dared come near him. A dozen fell before his fury, and then a dozen more. His every strike was death, and the orcs before him saw their doom in his eyes as he rode through them like a vengeful god.
Ahead, Sigmar could see King Otwin fighting for his life in the centre of a mass of howling foes. Perhaps a score of berserkers fought alongside him, and Sigmar saw that one was Ulfdar, her left arm hanging useless at her side. The orcs pressed in, scenting victory, but the crash of horses and the whooping yells of Asoborn women were drawing ever closer.
If Otwin knew his warriors were surrounded, he gave no sign, and simply kept on hacking his way through as many orcs as he could reach. His body was a mass of deep wounds, a long gash on his thigh pouring blood down his leg, and a broken sword blade jutting from his shoulder.
Most of the berserkers were similarly wounded, but fought on regardless. Sigmar saw Freya’s flame-coloured hair, and felt a flush of excitement at the sight of her standing proud and fierce atop her chariot, lopping heads like ears of corn with her long, golden-hilted broadsword.
The greenskins were being crushed between the Unberogen horsemen and Asoborn chariots, yet there was no give in them. Dying orcs were trampled beneath thundering hooves or crushed beneath iron-rimmed wheels. Ghal-maraz reaped a fearsome tally of dead, the hammer of the dwarfs crushing skulls, shattering shoulders and smashing chests with every stroke.
Sigmar took the head from a roaring orc, and slammed his shield into the face of another as it leapt for him. Reeling from the force of the impact, he did not see a monstrous orc rise up behind him, towering above him with its cleaver raised to split him in two.
A terrifying scream sounded behind Sigmar, and he twisted in the saddle to see a hulking orc in battered plates of iron armour struggling with one of Otwin’s berserkers. As the orc twisted around, Sigmar saw Ulfdar clinging to the orc’s back, an arm that was clearly broken wrapped around its massive neck as she plunged her blade into its throat like a dagger.
The monster fought to throw her off, blood squirting from its neck in a geyser of sticky fluid. Ulfdar screamed as she was thrown around, and Sigmar could only imagine the agony of her shattered arm.
Sigmar kicked his feet from his stirrups and leapt from his horse, swinging his hammer for the orc’s face. Bone shattered beneath the blow, and Ghal-maraz smashed clear of its head. Sigmar landed beside the corpse as it fell, and Ulfdar was thrown clear.
Amid the chaos of fighting orcs and men and thrashing horses, Sigmar ran over to the berserker woman. She struggled to rise, but her arm was twisted in ways an arm was not meant to bend, and her body was covered in blood, though Sigmar could not tell how much of it was her own.
‘Here!’ he cried over the din as he hooked an arm under her shoulder. ‘Come on.’
She looked up at him with a snarl of rage, not seeing him for who he was, and stabbed with her sword. There was no strength to the blow, and Sigmar blocked it easily, hauling Ulfdar to her feet.
‘Stay your hand!’ he yelled. ‘It is Sigmar!’
His words cut through the red mist of her rage, and she slumped against him.
Sigmar backed away from the fighting, the triumphant yells of Unberogen and Asoborn warriors telling him that the first orc attack had been broken. He looped Ulfdar’s unbroken arm around his shoulders, and hooked his own arm around her waist as he half carried, half dragged her to safety.
‘Climb up here, Sigmar!’ said a voice, and Sigmar looked over as Freya and Maedbh’s chariot skidded to a halt beside him in a cloud of dust.
‘My horse is somewhere here!’ shouted Sigmar.
‘It ran off,’ replied Freya, ‘back to our lines.’
Sigmar swore, and dragged the wounded warrior woman onto the chariot. Freya helped lift her, and Sigmar climbed up to join them. The chariot was cramped with the four of them in it and Sigmar found himself pressed up against the warm, naked flesh of the Asoborn queen.
‘Just like old times,’ smiled Freya.
The day had opened well for his army, but Sigmar had fought enough battles to know that such things were rarely decided in the first clashes. The initial orc advance had been defeated, split apart by the wild charge of the berserker king, and then crushed between the hammer and anvil of the Unberogen and Asoborns.
Sigmar let his warriors cheer as they saw him returned to his army in the Asoborn chariot, but quickly hopped down when Ulfdar had been carried to the healers at the rear of the army. His horse had been caught by Wolfgart, and he vaulted back into the saddle.
‘We’ve bloodied their nose,’ said Sigmar, watching as the scattered survivors of the orc vanguard limped back to their lines, ‘but this is just the beginning.’
‘Aye,’ agreed Wolfgart, his armour dented and torn, but all the blood dripping from him was that of slain orcs. ‘This is work for the infantry now.’
The main body of the orc army was advancing, a solid wall of green flesh, brazen armour and hatred. Tall monsters with grey flesh and wiry hair advanced with the army, and rumbling chariots, heavy things with baying crew, were thrown out in a ragged screen before them.
‘The next portion of the battle will not be so easily won.’
‘Easy?’
asked Pendrag as he rode over with Sigmar’s banner clutched tightly. ‘You thought that was easy?’ Like Wolfgart, Pendrag appeared to be unharmed, though his horse bore several slashes to its hindquarters.
‘That charge was just to test our strength,’ said Sigmar. ‘Our enemies will know now that they will need to bring their entire force to bear to crush us and take the pass. Still, it has given us a victory, and that will lift the men’s spirits.’
‘It will need to lift them high indeed,’ agreed Wolfgart. ‘For if this is how the battle is to go, we’ll be lucky to see out the day.’
Asoborn chariots wheeled in circles before the army, the warriors of Queen Freya standing tall, their spears jabbing the air as Taleuten horsemen rode towards the flanks of the enemy army in search of a gap to exploit. Sigmar knew that such were the enemy numbers that they would not find one.
‘Come on,’ said Sigmar, turning his horse. ‘This is a fight to be made on foot.’
This time the orc army advanced en masse, an army as wide as the pass itself, and the hearts of men quailed before such an awesome spectacle. No warrior gathered beneath Sigmar’s banner had witnessed such a sight, and to see so many orcs gathered in one place was to believe that the entire greenskin race had come to destroy the lands of men.
Goblins mounted on slavering wolves sped forward and the Taleuten horsemen were caught unawares by their incredible speed. A volley of arrows felled several of the wolves, punching through their fur and pitching them to the ground, but many more survived. Fangs and talons flashed, and blood sprayed as men were clawed to death and horses’ necks were bitten open.
Some warriors tried to flee, but great spiders leapt from the high cliffs, pouncing onto the horses’ rumps and tearing the riders from their saddles to feast on their flesh.
The valley echoed to the tramp of marching feet and the rumble of chariot wheels. Orc chariots were nothing like as elegant or as masterfully created as those of the Asoborn. Heavier and festooned with blades, no horse pulled these ungainly contraptions, but filthy, matted boars with sharpened tusks like sword blades. Each was as large as Blacktusk, though none had the nobility of spirit possessed by that mighty beast.