He saw Alarielle at the battle’s heart, jade life-magic flowing from her hands, healing wounds and restoring her fallen warriors to fight anew. Even so, it was plain enough to Vlad that Alarielle was growing weaker. She was pale and drawn, and her limbs trembled with fatigue… or perhaps pain. He suspected that she would have fallen long since, had the ancient creature fighting at her side not supported her. The vampire recognised Durthu easily enough – the treeman was hard to forget. The indomitable creature stood like a breakwater against the forces which lapped about them, and his mighty fists and gleaming sword brought death to any who sought to harm the Everqueen.
Vlad had commanded enough armies in his time to recognise when one was doomed. Alarielle’s forces were being steadily ground down, and even his power was not so great as to turn the tide. An army was required, and he was but one man. He sank to his haunches and watched. He could not save them, and he had no intention of dying with them, but even so, he could not make himself depart. Alarielle fought on, despite her weakness, and Vlad could not help but be enthralled.
It might be possible, he thought, to save her. Her warriors were doomed, but if he were fast enough, he might be able to extricate her from the slaughter. She would not thank him for it, he suspected, but the other Incarnates certainly would. He readied himself to lunge into the fray, but before he could so much as twitch, the air was split by the roar of cannons and the entire eastern wall of the Middenplatz blew apart. Chunks of jagged stone flew across the square, pulverising beastmen and blood-cultists in their dozens.
Vlad was nearly knocked from his perch by the force of the explosion. As he regained his balance, he heard the crack of gunfire. Bullets punched through the spiralling dust and gromril armour gleamed in the smoke. Dour and dolorous voices erupted into song, and the sound of heavy boots on the march filled the air.
Alarielle and her forces had needed an army, and it seemed an army had come. Vlad smiled as he recognised Gelt, standing tall among the runic banners of the Zhufbarak. Hammerson was with him, looking none the worse for wear. That they both had survived was a surprise, but a pleasant one. Vlad drew his sword and readied himself to join the fray as, with a great shout, the armoured ranks of the dwarfs started forwards, and battle was joined.
The Sudgarten
Wendel Volker threw back his head and howled. His sword flashed, cutting down a skaven in mid-leap, and he led his followers forwards. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he caught glimpses of what had befallen Middenheim in his absence. The air stank of ash and ruin, and rage warred with sorrow in him as he led his motley band of priests, flagellants, foresters and knights into the heart of the skaven horde to avenge the city he had fought for and failed.
Teclis had brought them back, somehow. The last Volker recalled, he and his men had been hurrying towards the King’s Glade, to lend aid to the embattled Incarnates. Now they fought through the tangled streets of the Sudgarten, against ratmen rather than daemons. He and his men loped in the wake of the Emperor and those knights who still had horses to call their own – banners bearing the emblems of the Reiksguard, the Knights Griffon and the Knights of the Twin-Tailed Comet rose above the wedge of armour and horseflesh that charged into the teeth of the jezzail-fire. Clouds of gun smoke rolled across the street, momentarily obscuring the enemy battle-line. A bullet plucked a howling flagellant off his feet and knocked him sprawling. Volker felt a shot whizz past his cheek, but didn’t slow.
He longed to lose himself in battle, to join the ghosts he saw swirling about him everywhere he looked. Goetz, Dubnitz, Martak and others, including faces he had not seen since the fall of Heldenhame, like the brutal Kross or old Father Odkrier. They watched him from the windows and doorways, from behind the enemy ranks and just out of the corner of his eye. They coalesced in the smoke, and their faces rose through the blood that trickled between the cobbles. They spoke to him, but he could not hear them. Ulric’s snarls drowned them out.
The fury of the wolf-god burned in his breast, driving him on through the stinking powder smoke despite his fatigue. Gregor Martak’s parting gift had been less a blessing than a curse. Volker had not slept since he’d escaped Middenheim the first time, leading those survivors he could to the dubious safety of Averheim, thanks to the godspark nestled within him. Most of those he’d saved were now dead, so perhaps it hadn’t mattered either way.
He felt his bones shudder in their envelope of flesh, and knew Ulric was lending him strength. He pivoted as the god growled a warning, and caught the crashing blow of a rat ogre on his shield. The force of the impact drove him to one knee. A burst of light blinded him as he readied himself for a second blow. He heard the rat ogre shriek, and saw it turn and rear back, pawing at its eyes, as a golden, glowing shape rose up before it. A blade flashed, and the creature toppled like a felled tree.
The elf, Tyrion, galloped past, shining like the sun, and behind him came the knights of the elves, moving more quietly, but no less swiftly, than their human allies. The elves had appeared near the western gatehouse of Middenheim alongside the Emperor and his followers. Now they fought side by side, as they had centuries past, against the forces of another Everchosen. Volker rose to his feet and turned, Ulric muttering in his head. He cannot be trusted, the wolf-god snarled. He is the thief’s brother!
‘Shut up,’ Volker hissed. A crude spear dug for his vitals and he smashed it down with the bottom of his shield, before driving his sword into the throat of the skaven who held it. He drove forwards, forcing skaven aside with his shield, and cutting down those who would not be moved. Around him, men and elves moved up, whether on horseback or on foot, and the skaven steadily retreated, falling back through crossroads and squares.
You dare? I am Ulric!
‘You’re bloody annoying is what you are,’ he muttered. The god had been in his head since Martak had given him up, and he hadn’t shut up since. Sometimes, Ulric talked so much that Volker had trouble telling which thoughts were his, and which belonged to the wolf-god. Every day, there was a little less of the man he had been, and a little more of the thing Ulric was turning him into. The wolf-god had eaten him hollow.
He heard the scream of the Emperor’s griffon and saw the beast swoop low over the melee, scooping up skaven in its talons as it went. It dashed the unlucky ratmen against the cobbles as it banked and turned. The Emperor clung to the beast’s back and swung his runefang out, lopping off limbs and crushing skulls.
He is tiring, Ulric rumbled. He is but a man, with a man’s frailties. Volker felt a moment of panic, and muttered, ‘Is that what you were waiting on, then? To jump from me to him, the way you left Martak?’ He knew, without knowing how, that if that occurred, he would die not long after. Part of him was even looking forward to it.
I did not leave Martak. I died with him. As I will die with you, Wendel Volker. I have split myself again and again, until I am but a sliver of the god-that-was, all to survive, to reach this moment, when I might sink my fangs into the flesh of the one who took my city – my people – from me. I am Ulric, the god of battle, wolves and winter, and I will have my vengeance!
‘For all you know, Teclis is dead,’ Volker growled. He hacked down on an armoured stormvermin, knocking the black-furred skaven off its feet. It lashed out at him with a heavy, serrated blade. He felt the tip scrape across his cuirass, and dodged back. Before the skaven could get to its feet, his sword hammered down to split its skull. ‘And if he’s not, we might need him,’ he added, desperately.
I will have vengeance, Wendel Volker. Whether the world lives or dies, Middenheim will be avenged. You will be avenged, Ulric growled.
Then his head ached with the mournful cry of innumerable wolves, and he threw back his head and howled again and again, as he fought on. And as he fought, Wendel Volker’s tears turned to ice on his cheeks.
The Merchant District
‘Waaagh!’
Orcs spilled through the st
reets like a green tide of violence, and unprepared northmen and panicked skaven drowned beneath them. They hacked, thumped and head-butted their way through the ruins of Middenheim’s merchant district and with every foe who was pulled down by the brawling horde, be they armoured Chaos warrior or skittering skaven jezzail team, the war cry only grew louder. It was a deep, feral rumble that rose and spread ahead of the onslaught, louder even than the sounds of battle.
‘Waaagh!’
Crude blades smashed down through iron shields and crumpled steel helms as the orcs hacked at their foes with a wild abandon, inflamed by a force beyond their comprehension. They chopped at the enemy until their blades blunted and broke, and then continued to pummel their foes with bloody fists.
The greenskin warlord fought at the head of the horde, his axe spinning like a bloody whirlwind about him as he bellowed challenge after challenge. Massive, broken-toothed and clad in battered armour, where Grimgor Ironhide went, the enemy shield-walls split and Chaos champions died, the names of their gods still on their lips. Monstrous beasts, strong with the stuff of Chaos, fell dismembered, and their remains were trodden into pulp as the horde rampaged on through the streets, tireless and relentless.
Grimgor caught a northman by his bone-bedecked beard, and yanked the unlucky man forwards. Their skulls met with a resounding crack and the northman slumped back, his skull cracked open like an egg. Grimgor licked blood and brains from his lips as he shoved the body aside and drove his axe down on an upraised shield covered in writhing, shrieking colours. He split the shield, releasing a wailing prismatic spray, and reached through the ruins to grip the throat of its bearer. ‘Get over ’ere,’ he growled. He flung the brawny warrior into the air, and roared, ‘Lads, catch!’
Behind him, his Immortulz cheered as they hacked at the fallen human, painting themselves with his blood and howling with laughter at his screams. Ahead of Grimgor, the humans were falling back, retreating through the close-set streets, keeping their shields between themselves and the orcs. He’d fought them long enough now that he knew what they were planning. The horse ’umies, on the plains, would scatter and reform – it was like trying to bash rain. But these were the iron ’umies… They’d fall back and form a shield-wall, and wait for their bosses to send for reinforcements. He knew from experience that iron ’umies could hold out for a long time. If they didn’t want to move, they didn’t.
For some reason, that wasn’t as pleasant a thought as it might normally have been. He felt an itch, just to the left of his skull, and knew Gork wanted him to keep moving. Go fasta, the god growled, fastafastaFASTA!
Grimgor threw back his head and bellowed in frustration as Gork’s words cascaded across his brain. Why couldn’t the ’umies just take a kicking? They had to know that they couldn’t get away from him, or resist him. They were worse than the bull-stunties, with their armour and fire and whips.
A grin split Grimgor’s grotesque features as he recalled how the stunties had wailed as he’d torn down their city of pillars and pits, freed their slaves and toppled their statues. That’d teach them to break their staves on his hide. That’d teach them to try to make Grimgor a slave. The grin faded, and the old anger came back, hotter and fiercer than any stunty fire-pit. He lifted Gitsnik and pressed the flat of the great axe to his brow. His gnarled frame was a patchwork of scars, most earned properly, in the heat of battle. He’d fought stunties – both kinds – and rats and gits and big-bellies aplenty in the past few months, but it had always come back to the bull-stunties and their fire-pits. Their whips and chains and iron staves.
They had given him his first scars when he’d been no more than a runt. And he owed them for that.
Gork had shown him favour, filling him with strength enough to kick over the stunties’ towers and turn their ziggurat of black obsidian into rubble. But first, he’d broken skulls and taken heads and put together the biggest Waaagh! around – orcs, goblins, even ogres. After Gork had blessed him with his strength, he had crushed Greasus Goldtooth’s skull with the ogre’s own mace. In the years that followed, he had broken the back of the Necksnapper and shattered the lodgepoles of the Hobgobla Khan. He had cracked the Great Bastion, and burned the dragon-fleets of Nippon. The East was green, and it was his. But it hadn’t been enough. Something was pulling him west. Gork, maybe, or Mork, drawing him towards a bigger fight. A better fight. He could feel it in his veins, thrumming along, like that time Gitsnik had got hit by a lightning bolt.
He’d thought, at the time, he’d found that fight in the city of the bull-stunties, but the gods hadn’t even let him enjoy the krumpin’ he’d given them before they’d scooped him up, and all his boys with him, and deposited him into the middle of a fight. A big fight, bigger than any he had ever seen. There were ’umies, rats, stunties, point-ears, and bone-men – every flavour of opponent. For a moment, Grimgor thought he’d died and gone to Gork’s hall, but then he’d got an arrow in the head and realised that they were in a human city. He reached up to scratch the wound. The arrow had got dislodged somewhere along the way, and the wound had already scabbed over. Gork clamoured in his head and Grimgor shook his head in irritation.
He lowered his axe and eyeballed the northmen. He grunted and turned. Gork wanted him to get to the heart of the city, and fast, and Grimgor wasn’t of a mind to argue with the gods… not yet anyway. This situation called for a bit of… Morkishness. ‘Oi, Wurrzag!’ he bellowed, punching his Immortulz aside to clear a path. ‘Get up here, ya git.’ He knew the crazed shaman would be close. Wurrzag was never very far away these days, not since Gork had reached down and given Grimgor a flick on the noggin.
Orcs and ogres made way for a capering, tattooed figure, wrapped in badly stitched hides and wearing a wooden mask decorated with feathers. Wurrzag wobbled to a halt before Grimgor, twitching in time to some internal rhythm. Grimgor grimaced. The air around the shaman sparked and crackled with energy that made an orc’s blood fizz and his flesh itch. Wurrzag shook his staff under Grimgor’s nose. ‘All hail da once and future git,’ the shaman warbled. The shaman hesitated in mid-hop. ‘Werl, one o’ dem, anyways.’
‘Yeah, shut up wiv’ that nonsense and go do that fing you do, right?’ Grimgor snarled, gesturing towards the enemy with his axe. He wanted to plant Gitsnik right in the middle of the shaman’s stupid mask on general principles, but Wurrzag was too valuable. ‘They is in my way, and I want ’em gone. Gork wants me somewheres else, and I intend to go there. But that ain’t here, so go blast ’em.’
‘Yes, oh mighty git,’ Wurrzag squawked, shaking his staff.
‘And stop calling me a git,’ Grimgor roared, as the shaman twitched past him. He turned and raised his axe. ‘Golgfag, get over ’ere,’ he snarled, as he caught the ogre’s attention. Golgfag muscled aside a couple of orcs, and only had to thump one of them. They were scared of the ogre, and Grimgor didn’t like that. The only thing his lads ought to be scared of was him. ‘Get your lads up here,’ he bellowed at the ogre. ‘Me and you are breaking that shield-wall. You got a problem with that?’ He glared at the ogre challengingly. Golgfag and his ogres had joined the Waaagh! as it crossed the Worlds Edge Mountains, and he’d come close to killing the mercenary more than once. Every time, Gork had whispered to him and quelled his anger.
The big ogre had proven more useful than most of his greedy kin – he was as smart as any runt, and dead sneaky when he needed to be. It had been Golgfag who had got the gates of Zharr Naggrund open, so Grimgor’s lads could barrel in. The ogre had held the great iron gates open, despite having half a dozen stunty crossbow bolts in him. He and Grimgor had fought side by side and back to back up the steps of the black ziggurat, and had toppled the massive statue of the stunties’ bull-god, alongside Borgut Facebeater and Wurrzag. That had been a good day, even if he’d had to kill ol’ Borgut later, on account of him trying to make himself boss. He missed Borgut. Not at the moment, but in general.
‘Got no prob
lems, boss,’ Golgfag rumbled. He wore a heavy horned helm that added to his already considerable height, and for an instant, Grimgor considered cutting him off at the knees. He didn’t like standing in the ogre’s shadow. ‘Happy to bash whoever, wherever, whenever.’
‘Good,’ Grimgor grunted. He heard the air sizzle behind him, and felt his skin prickle. The light turned green, and cast weird shadows on the buildings around them. All around him, orcs, ogres and goblins set up a caterwauling and men screamed. He turned to see Wurrzag dancing a madcap jig as the shield-wall crumbled beneath a storm of crackling emerald lightning. Grimgor felt the strength of Gork rising in him, an elemental fury that outstripped even his own boiling anger. He grinned and Golgfag stepped back warily.
‘Let’s get to bashing then,’ Grimgor snarled. He lifted his axe and waved his Immortulz forwards. Golgfag roared out for his followers, and the mingled wedge of black orcs and ogres took the fore as they thundered towards the enemy lines that Wurrzag had softened up. Grimgor sped up, wanting to get the first lick in. He caught Gitsnik in both hands and lifted it. ‘I’m gonna stomp you ta dust, and break your bones,’ he roared, hurling his words towards the faltering shield-wall. ‘I’m gonna pile yer bodies in a big fire and cook ’em good! I’m gonna bash heads, break ya faces and jump up and down on the bits that are left!’
And when I get where Gork wants me ta go, I’m gonna get really mean, he thought in satisfaction. Then, he was upon the enemy, and there was no need to think at all.
SIXTEEN
The Temple of Ulric, the Ulricsmund
‘How tedious. Surely we are all capable commanders. I do not need my hand held, even if I were intending to commit myself to an afternoon of carnage,’ Sigvald the Magnificent groaned, one arm flung over his head as he reclined on the steps of the dais which led up to Archaon’s throne. ‘Dechala, my love, please inform the Everchosen that I am afflicted with ennui and will be unable to sully my fingers with the grime of battle today.’ He flapped a hand at the serpentine shape of the daemon princess known as Dechala the Denied One.
The End Times | The Lord of the End Times Page 31
