by Death
Jubal was here, beside him, and Garnedd and Kyriel his standard-bearer. Galloran had gone down in the muck and murder of the roaring press, never to rise. The army was breaking free, galloping by the hundred back up the slope behind them, while the Chaos warriors struggled over mounds of their own dead to follow, shrieking like demented animals.
They were out, Arion at a canter. The big animal had taken a slash along the neck and, as his muscles worked the blood sprayed back in Gabriel’s face, masking him in scarlet. He reined in back up the hill and stood up in the stirrups, waving the vermilion length of his sword.
‘On me! On me! To me, brothers!’
They gathered on him, and their surviving officers set them back in rank. Dozens were afoot, and stood at the rear, gasping, vomiting with the effort it had taken to run up the slope in full armour. Gabriel looked around and with a dozen years’ experience knew at once that he had lost a third of his men.
Back down at the river, the Chaos regiments which had crossed the ford were milling in a crumpled wreckage of corpses, all order lost, and perhaps half their number now lying broken and gutted upon the ground and in the red-running shallows of the ford. Those who were still on their feet were busy mutilating the corpses of Gabriel’s men who had fallen there. One Chaos champion reared up the dismembered head of a great warhorse on a pole, and danced under it as the blood rained down from the stump onto his face. None of the enemy showed any great inclination to continue their advance however.
‘We gave better than we got, at least,’ Jubal said, teeth bared. ‘Think it’ll bring him out?’
‘It’s got to,’ Gabriel replied, wiping his face. ‘Look at them. We’ve cut the head off this chicken, and now it’s doing a dance. If he wants them to come up this hill after us, he’ll have to lead the way himself.’
Jubal spat a tooth into the snow along with a gobbet of scarlet phlegm.
‘I hope you’re right, because we’ve maybe one more charge left in us, and then we must say goodnight.’
The two men looked at one another. ‘It’s been a long road,’ Gabriel said at last.
‘Aye, but we’ll have rest soon enough. One way or another.’
They leaned over on their horses and grasped each other’s forearms in the warrior salute, their vambraces clinking together.
‘You didn’t have to do this,’ Gabriel said quietly. ‘Jubal, I would have thought no less of you had you walked away.’
Jubal spat again, wincing. ‘My arse, walk away. You are my friend, as was your brother. I do not walk away from friends. A man does that, and he’s not much of a man at all.’
Garnedd joined them, doffing his helm to show a face streaked black with his sweat-soaked hair. ‘Warm work for a winter’s day.’ His moustaches were drooping and crusted with filth, but he was smiling. The smile faded as he looked down the slope to the river. ‘Sigmar! Do you see that, Gabriel?’
The ranks of the Chaos host were opening, and their commander was now splashing through the icy waters of the ford on his great beast, as casual as though he were out for a morning’s ride. In his wake fresh regiments were mustering and waiting to cross, thousands strong. As the thing which had once been Michael Morgan set foot on the southern bank, so they set up a great clamour, a sneering, triumphant roar which seemed to shake the very landscape. The broken lines began to reform, and the enemy army seemed to take fresh heart at once.
‘This is it then,’ Gabriel said. ‘One last charge, brothers, and the thing is done.’
‘What of
Michael?’ Jubal asked.
‘You leave him to me.’
Jubal leaned over. In a low voice he said, ‘That thing is no longer your brother – remember that, Gabriel. You kill it any way you can.’
‘I know, Jubal. And I will.’
In later years, men of the northern Empire would speak of that last battle of the eagles. They would conjure a picture of the swift onslaught of Morgan’s grey horsemen, riding down to meet their doom. In the story, the great horses would thunder into the enemy with the force of a thunderbolt, and make of the Urskoy Ford a fabled battlefield.
In reality, three hundred exhausted and bloodied men, most on horseback, but many on foot, threw themselves down the hillside to the bloody ford with a kind of resigned despair. They did not waste breath on battle cries, for they had none to spare. They did not appeal to the gods, for they no longer expected an answer to any of their prayers. If there was one thing in each man’s mind as they made that final charge, it was a determination to die well. And that, the storytellers got right, as they told the tale in hushed and crowded taverns in the years to come. For what man does not wish to make a good end of his life?
This time the Chaos host surged up the hill to meet them, and the lines crashed together south of the ford. Once again, the heavy cavalry smashed deep into the enemy lines, and once again the Chaos host recoiled from that fearsome impact. But this time they had the numbers on hand to soak up the charge. Gabriel’s men were drawn deep into the enemy formation, and more warriors fanned out to left and right along the river, seeking to outflank the cavalry whilst they were embroiled in a savage melee to their front. This time, there would be no withdrawal.
In the forefront of the charge were Gabriel, Jubal Kane, Garnedd and Kyriel, the young standard bearer. These four stayed together, whilst behind them their line was chopped to pieces, and the warhorses were brought down neighing and screaming one by one, their riders pulled from their backs and torn to pieces on the ground. Dismounted men fought back to back with sword and pistol-butt and finally with their fists and teeth. The enemy mobbed them, dragging them down by sheer weight of numbers. Four and five of the Khornate warriors would attack a single trooper at a time, and though one or two might go down, the rest would smash blow after blow into the beleaguered soldier until he was on his knees. Then he would fall to the ground to be mutilated, his innards spread far and wide, his limbs amputated and held aloft as trophies.
Arion had taken a deep stab wound in his stomach, from which a rope of intestine was protruding, but still the valiant animal kicked and fought and answered his master’s rein. Atop him, Gabriel fought as he had never fought before. He had never felt so alive, so in tune with his surroundings, so aware of each and every movement of his blade. Never in all the years he had been a soldier had he ever known such savage joy in battle. All his life, he felt, had prepared him for this. It was the culmination of his existence.
‘Michael!’ he bellowed out the word with a kind of happiness. His brother was mere yards away, and turned his head. He took off his helm, and the thing which was underneath was indeed Michael Morgan, and yet it bore little resemblance to the handsome, dark-haired knight that Michael had been. The hair was gone, the skin was sallow and ridged with scars, the lips were blue and hacked, drawn back from long yellow teeth, and in the eyes there was a light like that of a wolf’s eye caught in lamplight. But the essential bones were still there; the face was still a shape that Gabriel knew.
‘Gabriel!’ the thing shouted, grinning horribly. Its tongue was long and black, and seemed to have changed the voice also. There was nothing human about it.
‘Come, make way there for my brother, you scum! I wish to embrace him!’
The ranks of the enemy opened out before Gabriel. He kicked Arion forwards, hardly aware of the cataclysmic roar of the battle all about him. Behind him, Jubal and Garnedd and Kyriel and a few others were still fighting desperately for their lives, but no enemy warrior raised so much as a knife against Gabriel Morgan as he rode forward to meet with his brother.
Michael dismounted from his misshapen steed and drew a sword, a crooked, uneven blade with a serrated edge. He wore red armour trimmed with fur and hung about with chains, and seemed taller than he had ever been before. He towered over Gabriel as his brother dismounted also, old Arion wheezing and grunting with pain.
‘You have come a long way,’ Michael said, still grinning, his black tongue slipping in an
d out from behind his teeth like a snake.
‘As have you,’ Gabriel said calmly. He rested one arm on Arion’s neck. In his other hand was his sword, and blood was dripping from the point of it to make a dark circle in the muddied snow. The tiredness was seeping into his bones now, but he stood up straight, taking strength from the dying horse beside him.
If Arion can stay on his feet, then so can I, thought Gabriel.
‘I have missed you, brother,’ Michael said, and stepped forward. ‘I cannot tell you how much I have wanted this moment, how I have desired to see your face again.’
‘And I yours,’ Gabriel said, and meant it.
What did they do to you, for the love of all the gods, my brother, what did they make of you – what agonies did they inflict to bring you to this?
Despite himself, Gabriel felt the heat of tears start behind his eyes. He had not expected that – he had not thought he could still speak to his brother.
‘You are here to kill me,’ Michael said. ‘I know that, and do not blame you for it. It is what you are. You are the best of men, little brother, the very best of men. It is for that reason I speak to you now. Gabriel–’ Michael drew closer, until Gabriel could smell him. He stank like a beast, and there seemed to be a heat off him, something unearthly, preternatural. The light in his eyes was hard to meet. Gabriel dropped his gaze.
‘I wish to have my brother back again, at my side,’ Michael said. ‘You and I together again, riding at the head of an army – it is what we were born to do, Gabriel, is it not? Join with me. Cast aside your delusions, the half-baked fancies we had bred into us from childhood. The hard, real world is not what we think it is. Reality is not all that it seems
’
He drew closer. ‘There are great and wonderful powers within and without this petty little world we stand upon, powers which are eternal, and who know how to reward good service. We could rise very high, you and I. Gabriel – listen to me! We could become immortal.’
Gabriel raised his head, and met his brother’s bright eyes. A tear ran down his face, cutting a streak of white through the blood. It must be done now.
‘No,’ he said.
His sword came up, as quick as an adder’s strike, the point aimed at his brother’s throat. He put all of his remaining strength into the blow, and felt the pure, perfect movement of his arm as his thrust went home–
And was beaten aside. The sword was flicked out of his hand in a movement too fast for the eye to follow.
Michael shook his head. ‘You disappoint me, Gabriel. You are a grave disappointment. I had not thought my brother to be a fool.’ He backed away. For a tiny moment, a flicker of something like grief passed over his face. Then it was gone. To the warriors who stood clustered around he snapped: ‘Kill him. Kill him now, and that damned horse beside him.’ He turned his back on his brother, and walked back to his monstrous beast.
Gabriel swayed on the balls of his feet. The Chaos warriors around him hacked at Arion. The big horse was too far gone to fight back, but he strove stubbornly to stay on his feet. Then he fell to his knees on the ground, and Gabriel leant against him as a sword-blow took him on the shoulder, numbing his left arm. He bowed his head, seeing Arion blow bright bubbles of blood out into the snow as they stabbed him in the lungs, feeling the cold steel enter his own body as they thrust at him, and saw under his nose the worn leather of the saddle-holster. He opened the flap, gripped the pistol within, raised it and cocked it all in one smooth, fluid motion. A nub of match remained, still smouldering a dull red on the wheel.
In a clear, cold voice, he called out: ‘Michael.’
His brother turned.
Gabriel pulled the trigger.
The Chaos host opened out and broke like a rotten apple. A small group of still fighting men, all on foot, held together as something like a wave of panic engulfed their enemies. These men cut their way south, away from the river, as mobs of the enemy flashed past them, somehow bewildered, lost, hardly caring to even make a fight. At the top of the hillside upon which the cavalry had formed up that morning, Jubal Kane finally called a halt. He looked around him like a man who had woken up in a strange room.
‘Who have we here? Garnedd, Harpius, Arundel? How many are we?’ he closed his eyes, swaying.
‘The general did it,’ Garnedd said. ‘Their leader fell. They fell apart straight after, like ants when you kick open their nest.’
Jubal straightened, and looked down into the valley below, a charnel house where the dead were more populous than the living. The enemy companies were wading in disorder back across the river, disappearing into the trees of the dank forest beyond. It was hard to make them out as anything else than a dark stain on the snow, for darkness was finally upon them, and in the dark the snow was thickening.
Perhaps a dozen men stood around him, all of them bloodied in some fashion or other, all with that look in their eyes, the tired resignation of men who have seen enough. Even as he noted their features, they seemed to fade into the darkness, faceless men who had expected to die today, and were somewhat taken aback to find themselves still alive.
‘The brothers Morgan are no more,’ Jubal said in a stronger voice. ‘One of them undid the sin of the other. Both were my friends, whatever became of them. They were the finest men I have known.’
‘They’ll be drinking with Sigmar tonight,’ Harpius said in that clear, singer’s voice of his. ‘I honour them. They are at peace.’
‘And what about us? What do we do now?’ young Arundel asked, shivering.
Jubal sighed, and lifted his face to the invisible kiss of the snow.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
The Judgement of Crows
Chris Wraight
Johannes Kreisler kept running. He was not good at it. His fat legs laboured under his heaving frame. A thick layer of sweat pooled across his skin, flicking into the night as he swung his heavy arms. Branches whipped across his face. The marshes were no place to be at night at the best of times. And these were most emphatically not the best of times.
He ploughed through a sodden patch of bogweed and briars, staggering as he went. His hose and jerkin were ripped and caked with slime. His old heart thumped furiously.
He risked a backward glance. Nothing. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there. They were silent, right until the moment they came at you. All he could hear was his own frantic panting; all he could see was his frozen breath against the dark night air. Kreisler felt like a great panicked bull, crashing his way through the soft earth, announcing his presence to every horror skulking in the shadows. There were too many of them, scuttling in the gloom like spiders. All it took was one hand to drag him down, one claw to pull him into the thick folds of the cold earth, and he would be forgotten forever. Just like Bloch. And Ulfika. And all the others. He should have known better. You couldn’t go into the marshes. Not since they had come back.
Kreisler plunged across one of many treacherous pools of oily, freezing water. He no longer felt the sharp chill on his breeches. He was fuelled by fear alone, the kind of feral, energising fear which came from being hunted.
Suddenly, he saw lights ahead. Brief, strangled hope rose in his gullet. He’d almost made it. Pulling deep into his last reserves of strength, he pushed on. His flat feet sunk far into the sodden earth. For the first time, he began to believe he might get back, that everything might be all right.
Then they caught him.
The grip on his shoulder was crushing. A spear of cold pierced him, and he screamed, stumbling into the black mud beneath. There was a deathly clatter all around him. Kreisler fell heavily, rolling over in the grime. His hammering heart felt like it would burst. Frantically, hands flailing, he tried to push them off. Their fingers were like beaten iron, not a scrap of warm flesh on them. He felt more of them tug at his clothes. Something was dragging him back into the marshes.
Kreisler let out a second agonised scream. He couldn’t see. His eyes were splattered with mud. He
could feel them scrabbling all over him, pawing at his portly, warm body. He could hear them too. They were whispering to each other in voices that must once have been human. Even in the midst of his blind panic, he could make out a few words.
‘Come with us,’ they said, their words resonating like the memory of a nightmare. ‘You are full and hot with blood, fat man, just as we were. Come with us
’
Kreisler felt his throat constrict with terror. His screams died. Whimpering, he tried to push himself away from them, to crawl from the whispering horrors clustering over him, to push their knife-sharp fingers from his throat. Then he saw one of their faces thrust over his. There were teeth, human teeth, framed by flaps of leathery skin. A single eye hung precariously in a socket. Old blood streaked the pale skin. Fingers reached for his face; pitiless rods of bone and sinew.
His heart shuddered, his vision went black. So this is death, he thought.
But the final gouging never came. Kreisler felt the flames before he saw them. There were voices, men’s voices, and torches. A thin screaming broke out around him. He opened his eyes, and saw bone smashed, flesh ripped. There were heavy footfalls. A brazier was tipped over, and flame surged through the undergrowth beyond. Rough hands pulled him away from the inferno.
‘Mother of Sigmar,’ grunted a familiar voice close to his ear. ‘He’s a fat bastard.’
‘Just pull,’ came another, the note of panic high.
Kreisler felt his senses returning. He was surrounded by men. His own kin, Herrendorfers. In the flickering light, their faces were drawn and terrified. They were all armed. In the middle of the group was the familiar hunched silhouette of Boris.
His vision whirled back to the trees. His pursuers were still there. Some were doused in fire, twitching madly; others hung back from the flames. Their faces were pale in the shadow. Dozens of them. More than ever before. They began to shuffle forward again.
