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 crashed 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 throug
h 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 of the blade.
“Yes,” said Markus. “I think I may keep this weapon after I kill you with it.”
——
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 flesheater’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.
Maedbh rolled to her feet, the pain of her wounds forgotten as the vital energies of the sword filled her body with strength and lustful thoughts.
“Mother!” shouted Ulrike, hauling Sigulf from the wreckage. The boy was bloody, but conscious, and gripped his sword tightly.
“Can you fight?” Fridleifr asked her.
Maedbh’s lip curled in anger. Of course she could fight! With this blade she could fight for a year and never get tired. Dimly she recognised this was the sword’s anger and battle fury talking. Maedbh let it come, knowing she would have need of it before the day’s end.
Fridleifr fought with his spear in one hand and a hammer in the other. His skill and strength were beyond compare, each powerful blow caving in a skull or opening a belly. His blond hair shone in the low light, and his features were the image of his father’s. Garr and the Queen’s Eagles rushed to surround their fallen queen, as yet more of the undead pressed in.
Wolves circled them and the eaters of the dead squealed and chattered as they darted in to slash with their decaying claws. Ulrike stood over Freya, wiping blood from her face and speaking to her in soft tones. Cuthwin emptied his quiver and drew his hunting knife, but Maedbh knew he’d need more than that to survive this fight.
“Can we hold them?” shouted Cuthwin.
Maedbh nodded, then saw the mass of skeletons atop iron-clad steeds riding towards them. The Asoborns were scattered and disorganised, gathered around their queen and without cohesion. A cavalry charge would ride right over them.
“Shieldwall!” shouted Fridleifr.
Sigmar battered through the ranks of the dead, his hammer clearing a path with every thunderous blow. Nothi
ng could stand against its power, living or dead, and though every yard gained was a struggle, the Unberogen horsemen fought like heroes from the sagas beside their Emperor. He could feel the power of the crown straining at the edges of his control, pleading and begging to be allowed to help him.
Part of Sigmar wanted to let it, to use the power of its maker in the fight to defeat him, but he knew the crown’s greatest strength lay in the lies it could spin. It had ensnared him atop Morath’s tower with such blandishments, and he knew better than to trust its honeyed words.
The dead clawed at them in a frenzy, a host of biting, clawing corpses and armoured warriors of bone. His warriors fought them back with crushing blows from hammers, swords and axes, their fighting wedge pushing deep into the enemy ranks. The dead were slowing them down, but not enough to prevent them from breaking through.
At last the skeletons were smashed aside and the Unberogen circled, ready to reform and charge onwards. Sigmar reined in his horse and the rest of his warriors brought their horses to a standstill. Their horses were blown and lathered, exhausted by their ride. Sigmar’s breathing was laboured, for the fight had been a hard one, and his hammer arm ached from such destruction.
Wolfgart rode alongside him, his face bloody and his mighty sword notched from the many blows he’d struck. His mail was torn and plate dented, but none of the blood coating his flesh was his own. Wenyld lifted the banner high and a roaring cheer burst from every Unberogen throat. Sigmar saw Wenyld’s face was ashen, and blood streamed down his leg.
“Can you ride?” he asked the younger man.
“Aye, my lord,” said Wenyld, breathlessly. “I was careless. Took a spear thrust a moment ago. It’s nothing.”