by Warhammer
‘Leave it, manling,’ said Gotrek, hurling his pole and bending for another.
Snorri snorted. ‘Snorri could do as well as that.’
Felix recovered, flushing, and drew the pole back, letting the weight rest on the bench.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘That’s a better idea.’
‘What?’ asked Kat. ‘Not falling off?’
Felix ignored the dig and slid the pole out to the side of the cart, resting the weight of it on the side boards like it was an oar.
‘Ah!’ said Kat. ‘I see now.’
The skeletal riders leapt a low stone wall and came parallel with the cart. Gotrek and Rodi swung their poles left and right at them, denting bronze helmets and knocking them out of their saddles.
Felix lowered the end of his close to the ground and swept it at the knees of a skeletal horse as Gotrek bashed at the rider. The pole ripped from his hands as it got tangled in milling forelegs, but the horse went down and the rider fell under the wheels, armour crumpling and bones snapping.
‘Good work,’ said Gotrek as Felix bent for another pole.
‘Now this Snorri can do,’ said Snorri.
The old Slayer grabbed a pole and came up on his knees, then hung it out over the right side of the cart while Felix did the same on the left, but by the time they were in position, most of the dead riders had already passed by, converging on the head of the column. Only a few of the loping wolves remained behind, dodging the Slayers’ swipes and trying to leap up onto the cart.
Snorri punched one in the eye with the butt of his pole and sent it stumbling into a tree trunk. Gotrek knocked another off the tailgate and lanced a third, but the knights were faring less well. The undead riders cut them down at the gallop, but when the knights slashed back, their swords rang harmlessly off the skeletons’ armour. Only a knight with a warhammer did better, shattering skulls and femurs, but he went down too, brought low by a dire wolf that tore his horse’s left hind leg off with its exposed jaws.
Another knight went down right in front of a supply wagon, sending it vaulting into the air as its right wheel bounced over the falling corpse. The wagon crashed down on its side, pulling its draught horses with it and throwing its driver and cargo men into a field. The wagons behind it barely swerved aside in time, and Geert nearly ran into the ditch.
‘Pull up! Pull up!’ roared von Volgen as his bugler blared distress calls. ‘Form a square!’
The lord might be a blind man who couldn’t tell his son from a corpse, but Felix had to admire his courage and tactical sense, and the training of his men. When it was clear they wouldn’t outrun the undead cavalry, he did not panic and keep fleeing. He ordered a defence, and his men obeyed neatly and without question, despite their mortal terror of the enemy they faced.
The echo of von Volgen’s order had not died away before the column of knights had split – two files to the left, two to the right – and pulled up smartly, allowing the surviving wagons to slot between them so they were soon in the middle of a hollow square of knights, all facing out and fighting for their lives.
Geert and Dirk let out relieved breaths as they pulled the cart to a stop, but then Geert turned on Gotrek, Felix and the others. ‘You shouldn’t have broke them chains! I told you I’d…’ He sighed. ‘Well, I’m glad you did, though. Saved our bacon and no mistake. But I’m begging ye,’ he added as he and Dirk took up their weapons, ‘stay on the cart. If von Volgen sees you free, it’s my hide.’
Gotrek shrugged. ‘It’s your hide if we do nothing.’ He turned to Rodi. ‘You seek a doom, Rodi Balkisson? Now is the time.’
‘I don’t need your permission, Gotrek Gurnisson,’ snapped the young Slayer.
The two Slayers jumped from the cart and started towards the head of the column.
‘Aw, now, gentles,’ whined Geert after them. ‘Don’t do this to me. Haven’t I done my best for ye?’
‘And we go to do our best for you,’ said Felix, heading after the Slayers with Kat.
‘Snorri wants to come,’ said Snorri.
‘You can’t walk, Snorri,’ said Kat. ‘Defend the cart.’
Felix and Kat hurried on, edging between the wagons and the shifting, surging battle line of knights and warhorses as Geert and Dirk called after them and the blasts from von Volgen’s bugler were finally answered by an echoing horn from the castle.
Felix looked up at the noise. Help was coming, but would it be soon enough? On every side of the hollow square, knights were falling to the ancient swords of the undead riders. Von Volgen’s men might outnumber them three to one, but the skeletons fought with a relentless mechanical savagery that knew no pain or panic, while the cold wind of fear that breathed from them paralysed the knights and made them falter. It would be mere minutes before the formation collapsed completely.
The Slayers found von Volgen at the far end of the square, cursing and standing over a dead horse as his chosen knights held back the undead riders and his squires scrambled to bring him a remount.
‘Lordling!’ barked Gotrek. ‘Return our weapons if you want to live!’
Von Volgen glanced over his shoulder as his squires led a horse forwards. ‘Go back to your chains, murderer,’ he said, swinging into the saddle.
Gotrek’s brow lowered and Rodi balled his fists. Felix could see they were an inch from returning to the cart and sitting on their hands while the knights died all around them. Felix couldn’t stand by and let that happen. He stepped forwards.
‘My lord,’ he called. ‘Will you let good men die while we sit safe behind them?’
Von Volgen drew his sword and turned his horse back towards the melee, and Felix wondered if he had heard or cared, but then, as he made to spur forwards, he looked along his line and saw how close it was to collapse. His lantern jaw clenched and he called towards the wagon that carried his baggage. ‘Merkle. Give them their weapons.’
And with that, he sank his spurs into his horse’s flanks and punched back into the line, severing the head of a recently-dead knight in black and gold as he shouted a challenge to the spike-helmed warrior who led the riders.
Gotrek and Rodi grunted with satisfaction, then turned with Kat and Felix as the driver climbed into the back of the wagon and unlocked a chest. He threw back the lid and tried to lift something out, then tried again.
‘Leave it,’ said Gotrek.
He climbed onto the wagon, then reached into the trunk and pulled out his rune axe with as little effort as it took Felix to lift a pen. He slung it over his shoulder, then handed down Rodi’s hammer, Felix’s sword and Kat’s hatchet, bow and quiver. Felix felt emboldened as he strapped Karaghul on again. Now he was ready to fight.
Without another word, the Slayers shouldered through the stamping, side-stepping warhorses of von Volgen’s line, and plunged swinging into the mass of skeletal riders. Kat watched as they were buffeted this way and that by the maelstrom of surging bone and horseflesh, and shook her head.
‘I wouldn’t last a minute in all that,’ she said.
‘Nor would I,’ said Felix, looking around. A few yards away was a steed that had lost its rider. ‘Here!’
He ran to it and pulled himself into the saddle, then hauled Kat up behind him and drew Karaghul as she drew her hatchet. The warhorse seemed to know where its duty lay and plunged into a gap between two knights with only the lightest touch of the heel, and Felix and Kat found themselves suddenly in the middle of the swirling, clattering melee.
A dire wolf snapped at the horse’s neck. Felix chopped through the beast’s spine, then decapitated a bronze-helmed rider that trampled over it to lunge at him. Kat shattered the skull of another rider with her hatchet, but it got caught in its helmet, and as she tried to yank it free, a second wolf clamped its jaws around her wrist and almost pulled her from the horse.
‘Kat!’ shouted Felix, slashing awkwardly at the thing.
Kat pulled against its teeth, trying to free herself, and stabbed left-handed at its skull with her skinning kni
fe, popping one of its eyes. Felix finally twisted around enough to get a strike at its neck, and half-severed it. It fell away, twitching, and Kat righted herself behind the saddle.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Felix, looking back.
She nodded, hiding a wince as she slashed at another rider. ‘It got mostly coat, I think.’
Felix nodded, hoping she wasn’t being brave, and they fought on.
To their left, Gotrek and Rodi were hewing like woodsmen through a forest of bone and flesh horse legs. Despite their recent arguing, the Slayers were an effective team. Rodi would smash through the forelegs of a horse with his hammer, bringing it crashing to the ground, and Gotrek would chop off the rider’s head, then on to the next. They were getting kicked and kneed and crushed by both sides, but they just took the pummelling and kept on killing.
Then, with a tantara of horns, two score knights appeared, galloping over the fields, the white and red banner of Castle Reikguard cracking above them in the wind. Von Volgen’s knights gave a great cheer at the sight, and renewed their attacks on the dread riders. Von Volgen himself, however, didn’t look like he would live long enough to be saved. He was in desperate trouble. The heavy black sword of the spike-helmeted skeleton had cut his plate to ribbons, and he was reeling in the saddle.
But then, just as the dread knight knocked von Volgen’s sword from his hand and raised its black blade for the killing stroke, its skull-headed horse shuddered beneath it and staggered sideways. The sword missed von Volgen by a hair’s breadth and the dead rider turned to aim a cut at something below it.
The strike never landed. Instead, the bone horse toppled forwards and the ancient warrior fell with it, vanishing under the seething combat. Felix saw an orange crest of hair bob up and an axe-head flash down, and a shout of triumph burst from von Volgen’s men.
It was immediately echoed by the war cries of the Reikland knights as they slammed into the flanks of the dead riders, lances lowered. A score of ancient warriors went down under the charge, smashed from their horses and ridden over in a splash of shattered bones. Felix and Kat surged forwards with von Volgen’s knights, yelling and slashing at the dead riders from the front as the Reiklanders bashed at them from behind.
In the face of this double assault, the ancients turned and raced back the way they had come, but not like any living troops Felix had ever seen. They didn’t break in ones and twos, nor throw their weapons away in panic. Instead, it was as if an unheard voice had whispered a single order for, as one, they and the wolves wheeled and fought free of the melee to race away without a backwards glance or any attempt to rescue their fellows who had been laid low behind.
Felix exhaled grimly and slid from the borrowed horse, then helped Kat down as all around them von Volgen’s captains called for perimeters to be set and for the wounded and dead to be counted and collected.
‘How is it?’ asked Felix, as he saw Kat pressing her arm.
Before she could reply, Rodi’s booming voice rose from nearby. ‘By Grimnir!’ he shouted. ‘Do humans have no honour at all?’
Felix and Kat exchanged a glance, then hurried around a knot of knights to find von Volgen, his powerful frame hunched with pain, supporting himself with the aid of his sword and standing before Gotrek and Rodi while his men moved in to surround them. Rodi was sputtering with fury, while Gotrek was staring at the wounded lord with cold, silent menace, his rune axe at the ready.
‘Curse them,’ said Felix, then hurried forwards with Kat running beside him.
‘You are still my prisoners,’ von Volgen was saying as they reached the confrontation. ‘You will not be allowed your weapons.’
‘You don’t trust our word,’ growled Gotrek, ‘after we saved your life?’
‘I don’t trust your restraint,’ said the lord. ‘You might kill anyone in your frenzy.’
Gotrek’s eye got colder still, and Felix’s heart lurched. He had to say something before there was bloodshed, though he had no idea what.
‘My lord!’ he called, pushing through von Volgen’s men. ‘My lord, I–’
He stumbled over the body of a knight in red, black and gold and glanced down to step around it. The knight’s severed head lay staring up at the sky from under his left arm. Felix stopped. He knew the knight’s face, and all at once knew what he would say to von Volgen as well.
‘My lord,’ he called. ‘If you intend to try my companions for the murder of your son, then perhaps you should submit yourself to trial as well – for the murder of your nephew, Viscount Oktaf Plaschke-Miesner.’
All heads turned his way.
‘What is this nonsense, vagabond?’ the lord snarled, wincing as he turned to face Felix. ‘I haven’t killed my nephew. I was told he died at Tarnhalt’s Crown.’
‘And yet he is here, my lord,’ said Felix, indicating the body over which he stood. ‘And cut down by your hand, if I recall, only moments ago. Perhaps he didn’t die at Tarnhalt after all. Perhaps he was trying to escape these skeletons when you struck him.’
Von Volgen paled and stumped forwards to stare down at the boy in black armour. He wrinkled his nose. Oktaf smelled like a week old corpse, which of course he was. His blond hair was matted with filth and his beautiful face marred by a terrible wound, black and rotting at the edges, that showed his back teeth. Flies crawled around his lips.
‘You did not recognise him when you cut off his head, my lord?’ Felix asked. ‘You didn’t wait to be sure he wasn’t still alive? From where I fought, it looked like he was coming to help you, not kill you. Were you so certain he was a zombie? Will you be able to look his mother in the face and tell her–’
Von Volgen’s fists clenched. ‘Enough, curse you! You’ve made your point!’ He glared at Felix, his bulldog face flushed. ‘I concede that my son may have… that he might possibly have been…’
‘He was, my lord,’ said Kat, stepping up beside Felix. ‘He was dead before you arrived at Tarnhalt. We saw him die, killed by the beastmen’s war-leader.’
Von Volgen turned his terrible eyes on her, and Felix gripped his sword, ready should the lord try and strike her, but instead he turned away, shoving his men aside to limp on his own back towards his horse.
Gotrek and Rodi and the knights remained on guard as he lurched unsteadily across the muddy, trampled harrows, then, halfway to the horse, he staggered to a stop and closed his eyes.
‘Release them,’ he rasped.
The knights relaxed, lowering their swords and hammers, and Gotrek and Rodi nodded, smug.
‘But, hear me!’ cried von Volgen, turning and standing straight. ‘I will have my vengeance! Before Sigmar and Taal, I swear the foul necromancer who defiled my son’s corpse and disturbed his eternal rest will die for his depredations, and all his works shall be cast down!’
His men cheered, raising their swords high. ‘Death to the necromancer! Long live Lord von Volgen!’
‘Well spoken, my lord,’ came a new voice. ‘But please tell me what trouble you have brought into the domain of Graf Falken Reiklander.’
Von Volgen and the others looked around to see two armour-clad noblemen in red and white approaching on a pair of sturdy warhorses. The one who had spoken was a tall, trim knight of middle years, with a jutting black beard and fierce brows, who rode ramrod-straight in his saddle. At his side was a florid, heavyset older man, whose breastplate bulged over his saddlebow to accommodate his belly, and whose face and neatly-trimmed beard were running with sweat. The rest of the Reikland knights gathered behind them.
‘You are Reiklander, then?’ asked von Volgen.
‘I am General Taalman Nordling,’ said the black-browed knight, bowing from the waist in his saddle. ‘Acting commander of the castle until Graf Reiklander can resume his position.’
The red-faced lord mopped his jowls. ‘The graf is recovering from wounds he received during Archaon’s invasion,’ he said, then bowed as well. ‘Bardolf von Geldrecht, his steward, at your service. And to whom do I have the honour
of speaking?’
‘I am Rutger von Volgen, vassal of Count Feuerbach of Talabecland,’ said von Volgen, returning the bow. ‘And I thank you, my lords, for your timely intervention.’ He looked around at the wounded and the dead and the skeletons that littered the field, then sighed. ‘I did not wish to bring you trouble, but to warn you of its coming. These are but the vanguard of an army of the undead some ten thousand strong, which is led by a necromancer of great power who marches on Altdorf, and means to swell his ranks with the corpses of every garrison in his way.’
Nordling blinked. The knights around him murmured amongst themselves. Von Geldrecht’s red face paled a little.
‘Ten thousand?’ he asked. ‘You are certain?’
‘Perhaps more,’ said von Volgen. ‘Many of my men now walk with them, turned against me in death. They are less than two days behind us, perhaps only one. We–’
He cut off as a spasm of pain made him wince and he nearly fell. His men rushed to him and steadied him.
Felix saw von Geldrecht whisper to Nordling as von Volgen recovered himself, and wondered if the men were going to turn them away, but finally General Nordling turned back to von Volgen and bowed.
‘Forgive me, my lord, for ignoring your wounds,’ he said. ‘You and your men are welcome to Castle Reikguard. Enter and bring your wounded. The graf will be informed of your grave news.’
Von Volgen waved weakly, and his retinue picked him up and carried him to his baggage wagon while his knights and servants gathered their wounded and dead. Felix and Kat helped, guiding or carrying maimed men to their horses or the wagons, and the Slayers did the same, picking up fully armoured men with ease. Gotrek and Rodi also cut off the heads of those knights who had been killed in the battle. Von Volgen’s men, long since aware of the necessity, did not object, but Steward von Geldrecht was outraged.
‘What are you doing, you horrible savages?’ he said, trotting up on his horse. ‘You defile the bodies of my men!’
Gotrek glared up at him as he moved to the next body. ‘Better now than later.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ insisted von Geldrecht, and turned his horse to block Gotrek’s way. ‘By Sigmar, I should have you slain on the spot.’
