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 orcs, 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 orcs 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 orcs in battered plates of iron armour struggling with one of Otwin’s berserkers. As the orcs twisted around, Sigmar saw Ulfdar clinging to the orcs’ 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 orcs’ 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 orcs 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 orcs 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 orcs 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 orcs 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 orcs 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. Orcs’ 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.
Hundreds of arrows arced towards the orcs line, most thudding into the thick wood of the chariots’ armour, or embedding themselves in heavy iron shields. Several chariots were smashed on the rocks as some arrows plunged home in the flesh of the boars and drove them mad with pain.
Most of the chariots survived the hail of arrows, however, and the orcs crews drove their beasts to even greater speed with cracks of their whips. Where the Asoborns had mastered the use of the chariot throughout a battle, the orcs cared little for subtlety, and simply drove hard and fast for the enemy line.
The chariots smashed into King Siggurd’s warriors, ploughing through rank after rank of them. Blood sprayed as scythe blades severed limbs and the heavy chariots crushed men beneath them. Boars squealed and snapped, razor-sharp tusks goring men to death even as they bit and stamped through their enemies.
Shuddering like a wounded beast, the line of warriors folded in around the orcs’ chariots, stabbing and cutting at the encircled orcs. Even as the chariots were surrounded and destroyed, the main strength of the orcs was advancing at a rapid pace. Before the Brigundian warriors could redress their lines, however, the latest orcs’ weapon was brought to bear.
Enormous boulders sailed overhead and crashed into the earth with teeth-loosening force, crushing a dozen warriors beneath them and exploding into whistling fragments that killed a man as surely as any arrow. Huge holes were torn through King Siggurd’s men as orcs catapults hurled more and more boulders through the air.
Terrified of these enormous missiles, some men turned and ran, and only the shouted cries of their king steeled their hearts once more.
&n
bsp; The damage was done, however, and ragged holes opened up in the centre of Sigmar’s army.
King Kurgan Ironbeard was first to see the danger, and pushed his warriors forward beyond the battle line to cover the gap. On the other side of the Brigundian warriors, Sigmar shouted a command to King Wolfila, who marched his clansmen forward and planted his sword in the earth before him.
The king of the Udose spat on his hands and took his banner from the warrior next to him. He rammed it into the earth beside his sword, and the meaning of the gesture was clear.
This was where he would fight, and this was where he would stay.
No sooner had the king retrieved his sword than his warriors were embroiled in battle.
A swelling roar of hatred burst from the orcs as they charged the last gap between them and the combined line of dwarfs and Udose clansmen. The dwarfs were a dam of iron and courage, and the orcs broke against it like a green wave, hurled back again and again by the stoic resolve of the mountain folk.
No brute ferocity could compete with the bloody-minded determination of the dwarfs, their axes cutting through every green-skinned foe that came before them. Like one of the machines of the dwarf craftsmen, the warriors of King Kurgan slaughtered the foe mechanically, never tiring and never flagging in their killing.
In contrast, King Wolfila’s clan warriors battled with heart and fire, their war songs lusty and full of lurid tales of past heroes. The Udose king fought without care for his own defence, two kilted giants in black breastplates protecting him from his own reckless ferocity.
The two armies met in a heave of strength and iron, both charging in the last few moments before contact. The early stages of the battle had been move and counter-move, but this was raw courage against hate and aggression. Swords stabbed and axes fell. Shields splintered and spears were thrust into gaps.
Both armies shuddered as their front ranks were killed almost to a man, the sheer ferocity of their meeting a killing ground where only the strongest or luckiest could possibly survive.
Howls of pain and hate. The screaming clash of handcrafted iron and crude pig iron. The grunts of men pushing shields and the bellows of unthinking brutality were all mingled into one almighty roar of battle, the like of which this world had never yet seen, nor would again for a thousand years.
As the centre of the army struggled, the flanks met, and the sound of tearing fangs added to the din of battle. Blood-maddened wolves charged into King Markus’ warriors, tearing, snapping and biting with animal ferocity. The king’s hunting hounds leapt to defend their master and dour Menogoth spearmen lowered their polearms and marched forward in solid lines. The handful of surviving wolves were impaled on iron speartips, and the Menogoths offered no quarter to their riders.
There were no cheers from the Menogoths, for they had suffered too much in the previous year to take any joy in slaughtering their foes, only grim revenge. Their vengeance was to be short-lived, however, for a hail of monstrous iron javelins, hurled from enormous war machines, slashed through the air to punch through their ranks. Each bolt killed a dozen men, skewered by the powerful barbs, and scores were hurled towards the Menogoths in every volley.
The carnage was terrible, and the Menogoth warriors fell back before this dreadful hail of spears, leaving the flanks of the Merogens unprotected. Orcs warriors streamed forward, pouring into the gap the flight of the Menogoths had opened, and, though Sigmar had ensured that each sword band had a smaller group of warriors to protect its vulnerable flanks, these detachments were soon butchered and overrun.
Scenting victory, the orcs advance was angled towards the open flank, and the shape of the battle began to change. Where before, two armies had faced each other in an unbroken line, the battle now swung like a gate, with the solid left flank as the hinge.
The Merogens were crumbling beneath attacks from the front and side, and it was only a matter of time before they broke.
——
The Death of Heroes
Sigmar saw the right flank collapsing, and raked his spurs back. Orcs were pouring into the gap created by the flight of the Menogoths, and fearful slaughter was being wreaked upon the Merogens. The great strength of this battleground was that the orcs could not bring the full force of their numbers to bear upon his army, but that advantage would be for nought if the greenskins were able to get behind them.
Thanks to the courage of the dwarfs and Udose warriors, the centre was holding, and the left flank of the army, held by King Adelhard’s warriors was untouched. The Ostagoth warriors were yet to fight, and Sigmar could see their eagerness to spill orcs’ blood.
“We have to get over there,” said Sigmar. “If Henroth’s warriors break, we are lost.”
“Aye,” agreed Pendrag. “The Merogens have courage, but they won’t last long attacked on two fronts.”
“Pendrag, you and I will plug the gap,” ordered Sigmar. “Wolfgart, take five hundred men and reinforce the centre. Wolfila’s men cannot keep fighting as they are for long, and they will need the strength of our warriors to hold.”
Wolfgart nodded and ran over to gather his warriors as Sigmar and Pendrag dismounted and ran to join the nearest sword band. Sigmar quickly outlined his orders. The clarion’s war horn gave three short blasts followed by one long blast, and the Unberogen formed up around Sigmar’s banner, six hundred warriors in mail shirts, carrying wickedly sharp swords. Each warrior carried a kite-shaped shield and wore a helm of iron or bronze.
With all the discipline worked into them over the long years of campaigning, the Unberogen marched towards the collapsing flank with Sigmar’s banner rippling in the wind and their king at their head.
Sigmar could feel the pride these men had in him, and he returned that pride. They could not know the honour it was to lead them, and his heart swelled to see them marching towards battle with fire in their hearts.
“King Henroth’s warriors have the hearts of heroes, but they need our help!” cried Sigmar as the clarion blew the note for war pace. His warriors shouted, and broke into a steady jog.
Sigmar could see that the orcs were rolling up the flanks of the Merogen forces, butchering warriors who could not fight as they had trained. Menogoth warriors were reforming further along the pass, under the wrathful cries of King Markus, but they would not return to battle in time to save the Merogens.
Some of the orcs were turning to face the Unberogen, but most were too busy killing Merogens to bother with what was happening around them. The carnage was terrible, and Sigmar could only marvel at the courage of the Merogens to have kept fighting in the face of such horrendous butchery.
The clarion gave a last strident blast of his horn, and Sigmar raised Ghal-maraz for all his warriors to see as they broke into the charge. The orcs before Sigmar fell back, ancient fear of his weapon causing their hearts to quail before it.
With a cry of fury and pride, the Unberogen warriors smashed into the orcs, and great was the slaughter. Sigmar cleaved left and right, and no armour was proof against his blows. Plates of iron were sundered before his might, and blood spattered his armour and flesh as he killed orcs by the score. His warriors slammed into the orcs, shields battering their opponents to the ground with the momentum of their charge, and swords stabbing for throats and groins.
The orcs turned to face their new enemy, and great axes smashed Unberogen shields and bore their bearers to the ground. The charge slowed, and, for one terrible moment, Sigmar feared that the orcs would not break.
Roaring with anger, Sigmar hurled himself forward into the mass of orcs, punching deep into the packed mass of enemy warriors. His warhammer was a blur of striking iron, the rune-forged head breaking open skulls and chests in equal number. Swords and spears stabbed at him, and his shoulder guard was torn away by a stray axe blow.
Orcs fell back around him, and Unberogen fighters poured into the space he had created. Sigmar fought onwards, driving the wedge deeper into the orcs, heedless of the fact that he was pushin
g ahead of his warriors.
A spear stabbed into his unprotected shoulder, and Sigmar grunted in pain as the orcs pressed in around him. His pace faltered, and a looping club slammed into his helmet, driving him to his knees as starbursts exploded behind his eyes.
Blood streamed down the side of his head, and dizziness swamped him.
The metal of his helmet was buckled across his eyes, and he dragged it clear, hurling it into the face of a charging orcs. The beast smacked it aside with its fist, but then Pendrag was beside him, his sword plunging into the orcs’ throat. The crimson of Sigmar’s banner caught the light, and Pendrag held it high in his silver grip as he stood over his king.
“Sigmar!” cried Pendrag, leading the Unberogen onwards. “For Sigmar and the empire!”
Bloody warriors pushed past Sigmar, cleaving into the orcs, the pace of their charge unrelenting. Brutal momentum carried them onwards, and within moments the greenskin attack on the Merogens was all but destroyed.
Sigmar pushed to his feet and wiped blood from his eyes.
The Unberogen were pushing ever forward, chasing down the fleeing orcs with great fury, but even as Sigmar exulted in the victory, he saw the danger.
Thousands more orcs were charging towards the right flank of his army, and his warriors would soon find themselves isolated and alone, crushed as they had crushed the orcs.
“War!” he cried. “Hold! Hold!”
The noise of the battle was overwhelming, and his cries fell on deaf ears. Sigmar looked for the clarion, desperate to call his warriors back from their peril, but he saw the crushed and broken form of the horn blower lying in the dirt. The man’s war horn was shattered, and nothing Sigmar could do would quell his warriors’ battle fury.
King Marbad of the Endals rode as though the daemons of the mist were at his heels, his black horse lathered with sweat as he whipped it to greater speed. His son, Aldred, rode at his side, and eight hundred Raven Helms galloped across the plain behind their king.