by Warhammer
It had been four days since he had eaten anything other than a biscuit, and he felt hollow inside. His head spun. The wall and the hoarding and the sky reeled around him, refusing to stay in their proper places. Beside him, Kat weaved and staggered like she had drunk a whole keg of brandy. The only reason either of them was still alive was because the space was narrow and Gotrek was taking the brunt of the attacks – but Felix was beginning to wonder how much longer the Slayer would last.
As he fought, the Slayer’s wheezing and coughing came back worse than before, and his face grew as red as a poker. Even so, his mighty arms never stopped moving and his axe remained a flashing steel streak that chopped tirelessly at the encroaching horde. The ghouls fell before him in pieces – heads, arms and legs flying every which way – and their bodies toppled left and right. Their blood added to the blood that fell from the sky and ran in the gutter along the battlements to pour out through the rain spouts.
The cannon crew at the far end of the wall unfortunately had no Gotrek to protect them, and Felix saw them go down under a swarming mass of pale flesh, defending their gun to the last, then the ghouls were hurtling down the far stairs and into the courtyard. Felix’s blood chilled as he glanced after them. They were not the only undead who had made it over the walls.
Zombies were everywhere, left to crawl unopposed over the battlements as the men tried to deal with the more desperate threat of the siege towers and the ghouls. But the ghouls had fought their way in too. The knights on the eastern wall were overrun, and the horrors were scrambling over their corpses to leap to the roofs of the residences and drop to the harbour-side. More were loping towards the knights who had gathered to defend the gatehouse’s lower doors, and billowing black shapes floated amongst them – shades and banshees that drove the defenders back with their unearthly shrieks.
‘Gotrek, they’re in,’ said Felix. ‘And they’ll be through the gatehouse’s lower doors before they get through us.’
The Slayer nodded and started forwards, his axe blurring. ‘To the stairs, then,’ he wheezed.
Felix and Kat crept along behind him, stabbing and swiping over his shoulders as he cut down the fiends in a whirlwind of blood and steel. The ghouls’ claws and bone daggers could not stab past his flashing blade, nor could they defend themselves against it, and after a handful were reduced to meat and splattered brains, the rest fled in terror, but the way was not yet clear. There were zombies behind the ghouls now, spewing up out of the bowels of the siege tower and clogging the wall in a mindless mass.
Gotrek ploughed into them like a bull crashing through a cornfield, and they died dismembered, headless and trampled underfoot. Before he and Felix and Kat fought halfway down the wall, however, a cry and splintering crash from below told Felix it was all for naught.
The banshees had sent the knights fleeing in terror from the gatehouse’s lower doors and a hulking beast-corpse was ramming its way through the left-hand one, using horns like a balled fist to splinter the wood. Bosendorfer and von Volgen and the other remaining defenders ran across the courtyard to stop them, but they were too late. The ghouls swarmed around the beast-zombie as the door caved in, and poured through the door like terriers down a rat hole.
Gotrek cut down the last of the zombies and reached the stairs only a second later, and he, Kat and Felix plunged again into the bloody downpour and down to the courtyard to join the others. A huge hollow boom rocked them as they got close, and the portcullis shot up in a clattering whine of gears and chains. Felix cursed. The ghouls had done it. They had killed the handgunners and reached the mechanism. The drawbridge was down, and the main gate was swinging open.
‘Fall back!’ shouted von Geldrecht from somewhere across the courtyard. ‘Up the stairs! To the keep!’
From much closer, von Volgen countermanded the order. ‘Hold! Hold! Block the gate!’
Both were drowned out by the rumble of hooves pounding across the drawbridge. Felix looked around. Thundering through the gate four abreast were the armoured skeletal riders that had chased down von Volgen’s column as they had raced for Castle Reikguard five days earlier. They had a new leader, a skeletal, unarmoured wight with long blonde hair fixed to its skull by a golden crown and the decaying kirtle of some barbarian queen around its pelvis. The dead war queen rode a flame-mouthed black horse and held aloft a flanged mace that burned with viridian fire.
She and her riders smashed through von Volgen’s hastily assembled line like it wasn’t there, trampling knights under their flashing hooves and fanning out across the courtyard to ride down fleeing men as a black tide of dire wolves flowed in after them to tear out the throats of the fallen.
Gotrek set his eye on the queen and started through the red rain with a growl as she dashed out a spearman’s brains with her mace. Felix and Kat followed as the Slayer cut down everything between him and her – zombies, ghouls, wolves and the mounted wights that slashed at him as they galloped by.
Before the gatehouse, von Volgen was bowing to the inevitable as he picked himself up and looked around. His line had been smashed and the gates could no longer be held. The zombies were spilling through after the wolves a thousand strong to spread like grey, slow-moving lava across the courtyard.
‘Fall back!’ he called. ‘Bring the wounded! Protect the inner gate!’
His knights rallied around him and moved in a well-formed square for the stairs that rose to the keep. The household spearmen and knights and handgunners, abandoned by von Geldrecht – who was nowhere to be seen – rallied to von Volgen too, and began to retreat in good order.
Bosendorfer and his greatswords were not retreating. In a mad display of courage, they were plunging into the heart of the dead riders’ ranks, their greatswords carving synchronised figure-eights in the air before them like the blades of some oversized threshing machine.
Gotrek ploughed into the ancient warriors’ centre from another angle, shattering bone horse legs and ripping through bronze armour with each swing of his axe. Kat and Felix staggered and fought at his flanks and were soon joined by Snorri and Rodi, who were head to toe in blood, brains and bile.
‘Snorri thinks we guarded the wrong doors,’ said Snorri, chopping through the neck of a skeletal horse.
Gotrek decapitated a wing-helmed rider and took another step towards the wight queen, who was sowing crimson death amongst a knot of spearmen only a few paces away. ‘They would have got in wherever we weren’t.’
‘Aye,’ said Rodi. ‘If we’d had a Slayer at each door, the gates would still stand.’
Beneath the blood that covered him, the young Slayer looked as pale as an elf, and he weaved as if drunk as he fought. He had a knight’s surcoat tied around his middle that bulged, wet and red, just above his belt.
‘Rodi,’ said Kat, ‘you’re hurt.’
Rodi shrugged. ‘A ghoul got lucky. Hooked my guts out. Had to stuff them back in.’
Felix and Kat blanched at this revelation, but Rodi fought on undisturbed.
Gotrek brought down another rider and the ancient queen was at last before him, slashing around with her mace as her flame-mouthed mount kicked in heads with its hooves and crimson rain flung from her golden hair.
‘Turn, bone hag!’ roared Gotrek. ‘Turn and die!’
But as the queen wheeled to face him, Bosendorfer and his greatswords chopped through the riders on her right and crashed into her from the side, their two-handed swords rising and falling. The war queen shrilled with fury and swung her flaming mace, shattering a handful of long blades and clubbing Bosendorfer to the ground. Her riders and her wolves surged around her, slashing and snapping at Bosendorfer and his men.
Gotrek roared and bulled ahead, as if angry at being upstaged, and Kat, Felix and the Slayers slogged after him, smashing through the riders to the queen. She swung down at Gotrek with her mace, and he slashed up with his rune axe to meet it. The evil weapon shattered as if it had been made of ice, flaming green chunks spinning everywhere, and she fell back with an unearthly
wail.
Gotrek’s next blow took the queen’s arm off at the elbow, and she turned her horse, trying to flee, but Snorri and Rodi cut the legs out from under it and the three Slayers chopped her into dust as she fell to the ground.
Her riders howled, and fell upon the Slayers and the greatswords in a frenzy.
‘Protect the captain!’ shouted Sergeant Leffler, standing over Bosendorfer, who lay unconscious on the red wet ground, his breastplate crushed and his leg a bloody ruin.
Felix looked around as he and Kat fought their way to them and the Slayers traded blows with the ring of riders. They were almost the last men in the courtyard. Von Volgen and his knights were protecting the bottom of the stairs that rose to the keep, while Classen and the household knights were escorting Sister Willentrude and a line of limping wounded from the underkeep. Almost everyone else had retired.
‘Get him up,’ said Felix to Leffler. ‘Make for the keep.’
‘Aye, mein Herr,’ said the sergeant. ‘I don’t know what got into him, but it was brave work. Damn brave.’
Felix turned to Gotrek, Rodi and Snorri. ‘Slayers, lead us to the stairs.’
Gotrek nodded and Rodi smiled.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Then we hold them – to the death.’
‘To the death!’ repeated Snorri.
Gotrek shot the old Slayer a glowering look at this, but said nothing, only stepped in front of the greatswords with Felix and Kat at his sides, and began cutting a path through the riders and the wolves and the rain towards the stairs. Snorri and Rodi took up rearguard positions and the greatswords started forwards in double file, guarding the flanks as Leffler carried their fallen captain between them.
Ahead, Sister Willentrude was guiding the last of the line of wounded up the stairs as Classen’s knights joined von Volgen’s in protecting their retreat. A surging mass of undead crushed in on them from all sides – zombies reaching and groaning, wolves lunging, ghouls slashing, shades shrieking, dead beastmen looming above and swinging ponderous claws, while bats flashed down from above and the skeletal riders charged in with spears lowered, trampling the living and the dead alike in their homicidal desire to reach the knights.
Into the back of this murderous fray slammed Felix, Kat, the greatswords and the Slayers, axes and swords and Zweihanders flashing and spraying blood as they severed spines and necks and crushed heads and chests. On the walls, under the hoardings, the greatswords had not been at their best, but here, in the open, where they had room to swing, their effectiveness was astonishing. Nothing could reach inside the great sweeping arcs of their cuts, and they mowed down zombie and ghoul and beast-corpse alike without breaking step.
The knights around von Volgen and Classen cheered to see them coming and fought with renewed vigour, cutting a hole in the undead’s front line for them to pass through.
Von Volgen clapped Felix on the shoulder as he stumbled out of the melee after Gotrek. ‘Up you go, mein Herr,’ he said, grinning through bloody teeth. ‘I believe you are the last.’
‘We will be the last,’ said Gotrek, turning back to the wall of undead as the greatswords carried Bosendorfer through the lines with Snorri and Rodi following. ‘Tell your men to retire, lordling. We will hold the rear.’
Von Volgen nodded. ‘Very good, Slayer,’ he said. ‘A good doom to you.’ Then he raised his voice and began shouting orders to his troops.
Gotrek turned to Felix. ‘Go with them, manling, and take Snorri Nosebiter with you. Rodi Balkisson and I will hold until the gate is closed – and after.’
Snorri turned, looking confused. ‘Snorri wants to hold the gate too.’
‘Snorri has to go to Karak Kadrin before he finds his doom, remember, Father Rustskull?’ said Rodi.
‘Yes,’ said Snorri sullenly. ‘Snorri remembers.’
‘Come, Snorri,’ said Felix, and started for the stairs with Kat. ‘Guard the greatswords’ retreat.’
Snorri scowled, but took up the rear as Felix and Kat led the greatswords up the narrow, curving stairs to the gatehouse of the keep. Though the zombies could not reach them on the steps, they were open to the sky, and the huge bats swooped down at them in roiling clouds as they climbed. Felix must have cut half a dozen out of the air by the time they reached the top step, and Kat had done the same, while two greatswords had been torn from the steps by their claws, and the rest were bleeding.
More bats were attacking the gatehouse as they turned towards it, and Felix saw Sister Willentrude and a handful of tattered spearmen fending them off as the tail end of the column of wounded men limped in behind them.
‘Foul beasts!’ cried the sister, waving a broken spear. ‘Get away!’
Cursing, Felix and Kat ran to help, but just as they reached her, a bat slammed into the sister’s back, smashing her face-first into a pillar that flanked the gate, and biting her neck.
‘No!’
Felix slashed at the thing, half-severing a wing. It flailed, shrieking, and ripped away from Sister Willentrude to flap at him, clawing his forearm. Felix shoved it back as it tore mail and flesh. It was too close to hit with his sword. Then it was gone, its head caved in by Snorri’s blurring hammer, and flopping to the ground.
Felix let out a breath and wrung his bloodied arm. ‘Thank you, Snorri.’
Kat helped Sister Willentrude to her knees as the greatswords filled in all around them. Blood was pumping through the Shallyan’s fingers as she pressed them to her neck.
‘Get her in!’ said Felix to the spearmen who fought off the bats. ‘And take Captain Bosendorfer. We will hold the gate! Snorri, greatswords, form a line!’
The spearmen looked relieved, and gladly took Bosendorfer and the sister as the greatswords and the old Slayer turned to defend the gate. It wasn’t until he and Kat had ranked up with them and begun hacking at the bats that Felix realised he had likely overstepped his bounds.
He glanced at Leffler, fighting at his side. ‘My apologies. I didn’t mean to order you, sergeant.’
Leffler grinned. ‘Why stop now, mein herr? Yer just gettin’ good at it.’
Felix laughed uncomfortably and fought on, swinging at the clattering bats as von Volgen’s men topped the stairs and ran for the shelter of the gate. The wounds in his forearm, which Felix had hardly felt when the bat had clawed him, were throbbing now, and his arm was stiffening like it had been beaten. Blood was running down his wrist and slicking Karaghul’s hilt.
He glanced down to the steps. A double file of armoured wights was halfway up, hacking at Gotrek and Rodi, who were backing up, one step at a time, and protecting Classen’s knights as they retired.
Felix allowed himself a tiny sigh of relief as he killed another bat. Thanks to von Volgen and the Slayers, the retreat into the keep was going as smoothly as could be hoped. There had been terrible casualties, of course, but after the initial panic, von Volgen’s orders and the Slayers’ impenetrable defence had stopped it from being a complete slaughter. It could have been much worse.
Kat’s shriek brought his head around and snapped him from his optimistic daydream. A huge shadow swept overhead, cutting off the rain for an eyeblink, then banked and shot down straight at the gate – straight at him.
Felix and Kat and the greatswords dived aside as Krell’s wyvern landed hard in front of the gate, its claws scraping trenches in the flagstones, and Krell flung himself out of the saddle to stand before them, slashing with his axe.
Felix stared, stunned. Krell shouldn’t be standing there. Felix had seen him fall into the moat just before the doors exploded. His mount too. The fireball had engulfed them, and yet here they were. Krell looked none the worse for wear. Indeed all the great gashes that Gotrek and Rodi had chopped into his armour when they had knocked him into the moat were gone as if they had never been. His wyvern, however, looked more patchwork than ever, with fresh stitches holding together the disparate hides that made up its torso, and its head and neck were burned black and showed skull and vertebrae through the charred
meat.
Two of the greatswords died by Krell’s axe before they could stand again, but the rest attacked the towering wight king as one, their long blades whirling in their customary synchronisation. Snorri led the charge, bashing at Krell’s knees with his hammer and driving him back towards the wyvern.
‘Stand back, manlings!’ he roared. ‘Snorri needs some room to swing!’
‘No, Nosebiter! You will not fight!’
Felix looked up as he and Kat joined the greatswords’ line. Gotrek and Rodi were elbowing through Classen’s knights to the top of the stairs, axes high.
‘Leave him to us, Father Rustskull!’ shouted Rodi.
The surcoat he had wrapped around himself had come loose, and his entrails were hanging out of his belly. He didn’t seem to notice.
Krell turned from Snorri and the greatswords as Gotrek leapt on the wyvern from behind and severed its long neck with a single blow, then ran on with Rodi. Krell roared and swiped as they launched themselves at him, gashing Rodi’s shoulder with his axe and cutting two inches off Gotrek’s crest.
The two Slayers rolled past him to come to their feet before the gate while Classen’s knights swarmed after them and surrounded him.
Gotrek waved them on. ‘Go in,’ he growled. ‘Close the gate. This is our doom.’
‘Aye,’ said Snorri, stepping out from the greatswords’ line to join him and Rodi. ‘This is Slayers’ work.’
Krell slashed at them and nearly took Snorri’s head off, but the old Slayer got his hammer up in time, and the cut only knocked him off his feet.
‘Curse you, Nosebiter!’
Gotrek charged forwards with Rodi to drive Krell back from Snorri, and Classen and his knights took advantage and ran for the gate. Felix and Kat hesitated as they ran past. The greatswords waited with them.
‘Will you stay?’ asked Kat, as Snorri picked himself up and the oak and iron doors of the gatehouse began to swing slowly closed.
Felix chewed his lip. The armoured wights were topping the stairs now, and surging in to support Krell, while Snorri hefted his hammer and started forwards again. Which vow did Felix honour? Gotrek had told him to keep Snorri safe, but after so many years fighting beside Gotrek, it seemed wrong to turn away.
