03 - God King

by Graham McNeill

  A wild series of horn blasts swept the hillside as a dozen ululating brays came from the trees behind the Asoborn battle line. What new horror had appeared behind them without warning? She had been so sure the dead would come at them head on that she hadn’t even considered the possibility that their flank could be turned.

  The horns blew again and Maedbh’s heart leapt as she recognised the sound of Unberogen war horns. Shapes moved through the trees, galloping horsemen in their hundreds, but far from being riders of the dead, these were living, breathing warriors atop wide shouldered, powerful steeds clad in heavy hauberks of iron scale.

  The riders thundered over the brow of the hill and Maedbh let loose a wild Asoborn war shout as she recognised the warriors at the head of the Unberogen horsemen. One she called Emperor and the other she called husband.

  Sigmar and Wolfgart rode over the brow of the hill, weapons unsheathed and ready to fight to save those they held dear. Hundreds of Unberogen riders streamed past Maedbh, along with scores of horsemen armoured in mail shirts and bronze breastplates with blood-red cloaks. Maedbh recognised them as Taleuten Red Scythes and their crimson-pennoned lances lowered in glittering unison.

  Ghal-Maraz swept up, a shaft of brilliant sunlight breaking through the unnatural gloom to strike the Emperor’s mighty warhammer and banish the darkness. Sigmar rode through the trees with his long hair unbound and his armour glowing with impossible radiance. Such was the skill of his riders that they rode through the Asoborn battle lines without trampling those they had come to rescue.

  The charge of the Unberogen and Taleuten cavalry was ferocious and it struck the line of the dead with unstoppable force. The Red Scythes leaned into their stirrups and their lances punched into the ranks of the dead, skewering skeletal champions and hoisting them from the ground. Lances splintered with the impact and the riders drew heavy maces and morning stars as they plunged into the undead host.

  Wolfgart’s vast sword, forged by Govannon less than a year ago, swept from its shoulder scabbard and no sooner was its blade bared than it clove through the chest of an undead warrior clad in a rusted shirt of mail. Swords and axes smashed through bone and patchwork plates of bronze and iron. The dead reeled from the sudden attack, but did not break. Though hundreds were destroyed in the opening moments of the Unberogen charge, hundreds more remained to fight. Sigmar’s cavalry plunged into the heart of the dead, breaking them apart as they split the host in two.

  The dead cared nothing for the suddenness of the attack and merely turned to face the horsemen whose charge began to slow with the press of skeletal bodies. Sigmar fought at the centre of the dead army, the Skull-Splitter living up to its name as it shattered bone and pulverised armour with every blow. The dead tried to pull away from Sigmar, but he rode into them with ever greater force, destroying half a dozen with every blow.

  Maedbh lifted her sword and charged after the horsemen, and the Asoborns followed her.

  Alaric’s dwarfs marched towards the dead, cutting through their mouldering ranks like loggers in a forest of saplings. The fear that touched mortal hearts seemed not to have so strong a hold on the dwarfs, and they broke through with sweeping strokes of their axes. Though the dead outnumbered the living by nearly two to one, the dead could not match the skill of those ranged against them.

  Sigmar aimed his horse toward the white-cloaked vampire, but if he sought a duel with the blood drinker he was to be denied satisfaction. Sensing defeat for his host, the blood drinker turned and rode away, his black horsemen galloping south as the allies turned to fight the remaining undead warriors.

  Attacked from the front and rear, and abandoned by their maker, the host of the dead began to waver, their physical forms unravelling in the face of mortal courage and vitality. The battle was far from over, but without the power of the vampire to bind the dark energies that held them together the dead were falling apart with every passing moment, like ice before the summer sun.

  Horsemen rode through the dead, hacking them down with brutal sweeps of their swords, while the Asoborns hemmed them in and the dwarfs trampled them with the pounding force of their relentless advance. Sigmar and Wolfgart rode pell-mell through the diminishing host, their weapons reaping a magnificent tally of the dead.

  Though it took another hour, the dead could not long linger, and as the last of the sepulchral twilight faded from the sky, the field belonged to the living. Sigmar turned his horse and it reared up, pawing the air in triumph, but Maedbh cared nothing for the sight.

  She threw her weapon aside and ran towards her husband with her daughter in tow.

  Wolfgart saw them coming and leapt from his horse, sweeping his wife and daughter into his arms and holding them so tightly she thought he might break them. He kissed Maedbh over and over and the intensity of the kiss was magnified tenfold by the nearness of death. Weeping with relief and the fear of what might have been lost, Wolfgart, Maedbh and Ulrike laughed and cried to be reunited, the bitterness and rancour of what had driven them apart forgotten in the rush of joy sweeping through them.

  “You came for us,” said Maedbh, between breaths. “I wished for it and you came.”

  “Of course I came for you,” said Wolfgart, unashamed tears spilling down his face. “You’re my woman and I love you. And you’re my little girl,” he added, dropping to his knees to hug Ulrike.

  “I thought we’d never see you again,” cried Ulrike.

  “Never think that, my beautiful girl,” said Wolfgart. “No matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you. Not even death can stop me from coming to you.”

  They stayed locked together for many minutes, savouring this moment of reunion until a horseman rode up to them and Maedbh knew who it would be before she even opened her eyes.

  “Sigmar,” she said, only reluctantly releasing her grip on Wolfgart and giving a short bow to the Emperor. “Your timing couldn’t be better. You saved us and you have my undying gratitude.”

  Sigmar smiled and said, “It’s your husband you should thank. I was riding for Reikdorf when my outriders saw them heading east. I wanted to know where he was going with six hundred of my best horsemen and he told me you were in danger.”

  “The Oathstone showed me this battle,” said Wolfgart. “I don’t know how, Maedbh, but it did. We hand-fastened over it, so maybe there’s some lingering magic from that moment, something that brought me to you when you needed me most. I gathered up everyone I could to ride east. Turns out a lot of people wanted to help me.”

  “I know,” said Sigmar, seeing her look of confusion. “I didn’t believe him either, but he swore he’d ride east alone if need be, so I thought I’d best keep him safe for you.”

  “I’m grateful,” said Maedbh.

  Sigmar was about to reply when she saw a shocked expression freeze upon his face. He was looking past her, and Maedbh knew what it would be before she turned around. At the top of the hill, Sigulf and Fridleifr laughed and cheered as Garr and the Queen’s Eagles blooded their cheeks.

  “Who are those boys?” demanded Sigmar.

  Wolfgart caught up to Sigmar by the river. The Emperor’s head was bowed and his arms were folded across his chest as he stared off into the distance. This was going to be difficult, and Wolfgart took a deep breath as he approached. Right here, right now, Sigmar was not the Emperor, not the ruler of the lands from the Grey Mountains to the Sea of Claws, he was simply his friend.

  Sigmar turned his head as he approached, but said nothing.

  They stood by the fast-flowing river, enjoying the sights and sounds and smells of a land resurgent after the touch of undeath. Water splashed over rocks and gurgled in pools by the riverbank. Birdsong had returned to the world, not the raucous cawing of ravens and crows, but the wondrously refreshing and hopeful warbling of songbirds. Wolfgart hadn’t realised how much he’d missed the birds until now. The sky was a shimmering canopy of blue, the clouds scattered and white.

  It was the perfect day but for the tension in Sigmar
’s body.

  “They are Freya’s sons, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I am their father,” stated Sigmar.

  Wolfgart nodded, though there was no need. It hadn’t been a question.

  “You knew about them, didn’t you?” said Sigmar.

  Wolfgart knew there was no need or good to be served by lying. “I did, but Maedbh swore me to silence.”

  “And you don’t break an oath to an Asoborn woman,” said Sigmar.

  “Not if you want to keep your manhood intact,” agreed Wolfgart, knowing he had let Maedbh down once already with his oaths.

  “I understand why she wouldn’t want me to know,” said Sigmar. “Freya’s not the family type. Not for her a husband and a doting father.”

  “No,” agreed Wolfgart. “She’s not really cut out to be the faithful wife either.”

  “But they are my sons,” said Sigmar, finally turning to face Wolfgart. “I had a right to know them, to watch them grow up and become men! They are the sons I never had with Ravenna. Who will carry on my name when I’m dead, Wolfgart? Who?”

  “There’s still time, my friend,” said Wolfgart. “You’re not too old to sire sons, and there’s plenty of strong women who’d be proud to bear them.”

  Sigmar shook his head and knelt beside the riverbank, plucking a flat stone with a smooth face from the earth. He skimmed it across the water, watching as it skipped over the surface a number of times before sinking.

  “I remember doing this as a child, and it still makes me smile.”

  Wolfgart picked up a similar stone and skipped it across the water. His throw was better and made it farther across the river before sinking.

  “You always were lousy at this,” said Wolfgart, stooping to pick up another stone. “It’s all in the wrist you see. Here, like this.”

  Once again the stone skipped across the river, but Sigmar shook his head.

  “I am who I am, Wolfgart, and it’s too late for me to change. Ravenna was my love, and I swore that there would be no other.”

  “You can change that, Sigmar,” said Wolfgart. “You can get to know those boys. They’re good lads, strong and brave, reckless and full of the same fire that drove you to build the Empire. Who knows what they might do with you as their father to guide them?”

  “I wish it could be that easy, my friend,” replied Sigmar, “but I am on a path that does not allow change. Others have that luxury, but I do not. The Empire needs me as I am, a warrior Emperor.”

  “And what about what you need? Love, companionship, family?”

  “I cannot be the man this land needs if I am drawn to hearth and home,” said Sigmar, looking over his shoulder to the Asoborns as they prepared to march west to Reikdorf. Freya’s boys and Ulrike gathered around Maedbh, like chicks around a mother hen.

  “Those boys don’t need me, they’re Asoborns,” said Sigmar. “Their mother would never allow me to take them from her. That’s what she fears, that I’ll take them to Reikdorf and make them my heirs.”

  “You should,” said Wolfgart. “They are your sons after all. Doesn’t the Empire need heirs, strong rulers to carry your name into the future? You said so yourself.”

  Sigmar turned to look out over the landscape, and Wolfgart saw the beginnings of a smile crack his features.

  “Aye, the Empire needs heirs,” said Sigmar, slapping a hand on Wolfgart’s shoulder and walking him back to the column of people. “And you are all my heirs. Everyone who lives in this land is my heir. Everyone who fights and bleeds to protect the Empire…”

  The Emperor smiled. “They will all be Sigmar’s heirs.”

  ——

  Murder Most Foul

  The dead attacked Marburg again and again, clawing at the walls with thin fingers of bone digging into the stonework to pull themselves up. The entire lower town thronged with rotten corpses, shambling cadavers and skeletal warriors, and all of them threw themselves at the walls of the citadel every night. Marius and his lancers held the shorter stretch of wall between the main gate and the eastern shore, while Aldred held the western stretch of the walls and the barbican towers.

  Marius swept his sword through the neck of a moaning corpse with green fire in its eyes, kicking the rotting body back down the walls. His sword was proving to be anathema to the dead, and he silently thanked the eastern king who had gifted it to him so long ago. It had saved his life in Middenheim, and was saving him again now. His lancers fought at his side, pushing the dead from the walls, stabbing them with spears, hacking at them with axes and bludgeoning them with heavy maces.

  A skeleton came at him with a notched sword, and he stabbed it through the jaw, wrenching its head from its shoulders. The animation went out of the long dead warrior and it collapsed over the stone parapet. Another clambered over its remains and a rusted axe swung down at him. Marius brought his sword up, but the force of the blow turned it aside and the dead warrior’s axe slammed into his shoulder.

  He grunted in pain and sent a reverse stroke into the creature’s neck. The blade parted the bone easily and the warrior dropped to the ground. Marius stepped away from the wall and shouted, “Take my place!”

  Another warrior filled the gap Marius had left and he stabbed his sword into the earth at his feet, rotating his shoulder and prodding the flesh to feel how badly he’d been hurt. The skin was bruised and swollen, but he couldn’t feel any blood pouring inside his armour, and he took a moment to survey the fighting.

  The entire length of the walls pulsed with desperate combats, Endal and Jutone warriors struggling to keep the dead from getting in. A mobile reserve of Raven Helms stood behind the fighting at the ramparts, ready to bolster the defences whenever the dead punched a hole, but Marius saw they were stretched thinly. All it would take would be one too many breaches and there would be no one to stop the dead from overrunning them.

  Marika’s archers had taken up positions further back, loosing volleys of arrows over the heads of the warriors at the ramparts. The bat swarms flew overhead, circling the ruins of the Raven Hall or roosting in its tumbled structure. The mist that wreathed the lower town and docks seeped up into the citadel, a choking fog that settled in the lungs and gave every man a hacking cough.

  Just thinking about it made Marius cough, though thankfully he’d managed to avoid the worst of it by virtue of having well heated quarters that were free from damp. There was more than one benefit from a close, physical relationship with Princess Marika, he thought with a smile.

  A group of lancers formed up around him, and Marius nodded in weary appreciation of their efforts. He didn’t waste words on them, for these men were just doing their job, and if a man needed thanks or encouragement just to do his job, then he wasn’t worth employing.

  Marius heard a shout of terror and the dreadful form of the dragon reared up over the walls, its patchwork wings spread wide as it hovered over the twin towers of the barbican protecting the citadel’s gate. Arrows slashed out towards it, but only Marika’s white-fletched ones seemed to cause it harm. Two of the war machines hurled iron barbs towards the vast creature, but both splintered against its necrotic hide.

  A heaving breath of toxic vapours gusted from the dragon’s mouth and enveloped the barbican. Men staggered from the ramparts, choking and vomiting as the hellish miasma did its evil work. The road to the lower town sloped down to the gates, and from his position behind the walls, Marius saw them wither as the timbers shoring up the already weakened structure rotted away to brittle deadwood. The mass of dead warriors on the other side buckled the decayed woodwork and the gates split apart in a flurry of rotten timbers.

  A mob of groaning warriors poured through the gateway, but any thought that the dead fought without stratagems was banished the moment Marius saw what manner of undead forced their way inside. The chaff of the dead assaulted the walls, shambling corpses with no more will than to devour the flesh of the living. These new attackers were the champions of this host, warr
iors with black hearts whose dreadful malice transcended their own deaths to sustain them with pure hate.

  Armoured in ancient hauberks of corroded bronze and bearing long-bladed halberds and great axes, they surged into the citadel and split left and right to sweep the walls clear of defenders. Marius looked around for the Raven Helms, but Laredus had already led them to plug a breach further along the western walls.

  “Damn you, Aldred, you’re practically giving me your city,” said Marius, dragging his sword from the earth. He led his lancers towards the dead champions pouring through the gate as a flurry of arrows sliced into them. A dozen fell, but most simply picked themselves up again, unfazed by the two-foot shafts jutting from their bodies.

  The lancers slammed into the dead, cutting the head from the eastern push onto the ramparts. The warriors on the walls saw their danger and captains of battle sent men to stem the tide of flanking enemy. Marius ducked a ponderously swung axe, plunging his sword through a gap in a dead warrior’s armour. His sword passed into his foe’s body without resistance, its enchanted edge glowing as though heated in a forge. The champion convulsed and the magic sustaining it was broken. Marius spun away from the creature, wincing as the old wound in his side pulled painfully.

  He pushed into the mass of dead warriors, fighting with his usual finesse and elan as he beheaded enemy champions with an ease that was as much to do with his blade as his own skill. His lancers fought in a wedge with him at its point, forcing the dead back and stemming the rush of their breach through the gateway.

  A heavy halberd blade slammed into his stomach, but its edge was dulled and all it did was drive the wind from him. He doubled up, but before the halberd could be reversed, Marius thrust his sword into the groin of its wielder. The dead champion clattered to the ground as it was destroyed, and Marius surged to his feet, invigorated at yet another brush with death.