Edan disgusted her. His idle manner, his weak will and his pathetic attempts to play politics. That the people of the tribe still put stock in the words of nonsense he spouted infuriated her. Out of respect for them, she kept her tongue stilled when she really wanted to shout that he was nothing more than a charlatan. But he claimed, as he always had, to be the mouth of the gods and without proof otherwise the Schwarzvolf did not dispute the matter.
She had always suspected his hand in her sister’s untimely death. Had she been able to prove it, she would have executed him publicly. His head would have made a delightful addition to the front gate of the camp.
Eris lightened her darker thoughts with this image for a while, her hand still stroking the whetstone down her sword edge. She was snapped out of her reverie, the moment broken by the shout of a single word.
‘Enemy!’
The Schwarzvolf fell easy prey to the charge. So much so that Valkia was almost embarrassed for them.
Almost. She would have been embarrassed had she cared about the fate of her former people, but their laxity and idleness fatally revealed their flaws and weaknesses. And those were all she cared about.
She had dispatched a group of the berserker war-riors to act as a herald for the arrival of the rest of her bloodthirsty horde and had taken the decision to fly at their back. A group of no less than fifty battle-hardened Chaos warriors charged at the Schwarzvolf line with screams on their lips and murder in their eyes.
The numbers were not great, but what the berserkers lacked in quantity they more than made up for with their insane ferocity. For them, all that mattered was the kill. They flung themselves at the Schwarzvolf without any care for their own safety or survival. Armed for the most part with battleaxes, some pitted and rusty with age, the berserkers fell upon the outermost group of Schwarzvolf before they could even get to their feet.
Three of Eris’s warriors were cut down immediately, the enemy’s axes buried in the soft meat of their brains. Those who were not hacked apart instantly retaliated by closing ranks around the rampaging wild men. The clash of weapons broke the eerie silence that Eris had noted and from her vantage point atop the hill, she could see the unfolding mêlée. She watched without emotion as the berserkers tore some of her people limb from limb and watched as her own people answered the call to battle in kind.
The enemy was attacking in small numbers, she noted, and knew that this was nothing more than a vanguard, a swift thrust driven in to test their defences. This mob was nowhere near the size of army she had been anticipating. This was just the tip of the blade. Behind it would come the mailed fist.
‘Eris!’ The voice calling her name was high pitched and she didn’t recognise it at first. She ran lightly down the hill to join the rest of the army and make ready for the inevitable second wave.
‘Eris!’
The call came again and she turned in irritation to see who demanded her attention at such a time. Her uncle stood a few feet away from her, practically weeping in terror as he pointed towards the fight.
‘Eris, see there. She comes for me. For you. For us!’
The young woman turned to follow the line of Edan’s finger and her eyes widened in disbelief. Descending from the skies on leathery wings of darkest night was a monster clad in red armour.
From such a distance, Eris could not make out the monster’s features, but could tell from the form-fitting armour that it was female in gender. Edan was on his knees, repeating the same words over and over.
‘She comes for me… she comes for me…’
‘Who is it? Edan! Damn you, you fat fool, answer me! Who is it? What do you know of such daemons, Godspeaker? Who is it?’
The Godspeaker, once so proud and arrogant, raised his tear-streaked face to his niece.
‘Your mother,’ he wept. ‘Valkia comes!’
The warm copper smell of fresh blood was attracting the attention of the rest of Valkia’s army, who were still perhaps half a mile away from the slaughter below. The warrior queen, from her vantage point in the skies above the battlefield, could see them creeping forward, defying her order to hold. She could not restrain them much longer, neither did she truly want to.
Her own lust for bloodshed was stoked to bursting with the scent of death that rose from below her. Holding aloft Slaupnir and her daemonic shield, she began the descent to join her warriors. She felt eyes upon her: eyes of both the Schwarzvolf and the eyes of her own army. She basked in the attention.
‘I am the Blood Queen,’ she screamed. ‘I am the Bringer of Glory! I am the avatar of my beloved on the field of battle and I am here for the prize of your skulls. I am vengeance and I am death!’ Her wings were spread wide as she plunged towards the battle. ‘Fear my presence. I strike terror into the darkest recesses of your treacherous hearts and drive you from me like vermin.’ She held up the shield of Locephax.
‘Fear me!’ The two words rang out clearly and echoed around the foothills. There was a fraction of a pause and then the eyes of the daemon flared open as Locephax awoke. Compelled by the arcane shackles of his bondage to Valkia, he responded to her bellowed command without question. The twisted mouth distorted in a scream that was so high-pitched as to be almost inaudible and the Schwarzvolf warriors who still stood turned tail and fled in all directions. Valkia’s feet touched down on the icy-cold ground and she held Locephax before her.
Green, virulent light spilled from the daemon prince’s eyes and she laughed spitefully.
‘Run, Schwarzvolf,’ she called after the terrified warriors. ‘Flee before me so that I might better hunt you down and tear your hearts from your bodies for my lord’s pleasure!’
From the scramble of feet and the shrieks of abject terror, they were heeding her words in earnest.
‘Be silent, slave.’ Valkia addressed this to the shield. Locephax’s mouth snapped shut and the wailing scream died away. He looked as though he would speak again, but Valkia cut in. ‘Say nothing. I will not listen to your words this night.’
She strode amongst the mangled bodies, a tangled mass of limbs and corpses made up from her own warriors and those of the Schwarzvolf who had already fallen. She stooped to grasp the hair of one of her own dead warriors. With no more difficulty than tearing a piece of parchment, Valkia tugged hard. The berserker’s head parted company with his body instantly and Valkia held it up, the ragged strips of flesh hanging from the still-warm neck. Blood oozed and dribbled onto her armour, where it was absorbed instantly.
‘This warrior died well, serving the will of the Blood God,’ she said, holding the grisly trophy aloft so that the remaining berserkers could see it. They were barely keeping themselves in check, obviously desperate to resume the battle. ‘His skull will adorn Khorne’s throne. Fight well… die well… and you too will earn this honour.’ She attached the berserker’s head to her belt, its eyes wide in the moment of death.
‘Will you fight and die for my master here this night?’ There was a roar of assent. Valkia’s berserkers were fired up and ready to pursue the retreating tribesmen. She spread her wings and rose once again from the battlefield. She pointed Slaupnir at the warriors who gazed up at her in adoration.
‘Will you fight and die for me here this night?’
There was a brief hesitation and then one of the warriors began repeating her name over and over like a mantra. Others picked up the rhythm of the war chant and it increased in volume until they cried out their queen’s name so loudly that, had there been any doubt in the Schwarzvolf’s mind as to the identity of their nemesis, it was resolved.
‘Valkia!’
‘What do you mean, my mother?’
Eris had crossed quickly to the quivering Godspeaker and smacked him around the face in an effort to bring sense to his babblings. It had not been a delicate slap, but a punch so hard that at least one tooth was loosened in Edan’s gums. He staggered backwards with a cry of pain, his hand going to his mouth.
‘Answer me, and make it swift!’ Eris’
s temper was incandescent and his ears still ringing from the blow, Edan could do little more than just stare at her. His jaw moved as though he would speak, but no sound came out.
She went to strike him again and he shook his head. Eris scowled and drew her weapon.
‘My mother is dead, you bastard. How can she be leading this attack? Unless you lied to me. Unless you lied to me!’ She sprang at him in absolute fury, ready to take his life there and then, but Edan demonstrated a surprising show of agility, dodging her attack nimbly. He squeaked a few times and then finally found his voice.
‘She was dead,’ he said, the tears still running unchecked down his cheeks. His voice was choked with fear and emotion. ‘There was no way she could have lived through the horrors... Hepsus saw...’
What it was that Hepsus saw was lost in the distant battle-cry that reached Eris’s ears. Her blood ran cold.
‘Valkia! Valkia! Valkia!’
Every last drop of blood drained from Eris’s face and she gave Edan one last, vicious look. ‘If I somehow live through this battle,’ she said between clenched teeth, ‘then I will tear your throat out. Do you understand me? There is nowhere you can run that I will not find you!’
She did not wait for his response, but sprinted lightly towards the bulk of her own warriors in an effort to corral them and prepare them for what could only be the true horror that lay ahead.
How could she tell them that the enemy they faced were led by their former queen? How could she even hope to explain that to them? As it happened, she didn’t need to. They had heard the enthusiastic battle chant raised in adulation as the daemonic legion approached.
They stared at her as she approached and she felt shame for their obvious fear. Several of them were visibly shaking in terror at the echoing cry of Valkia’s name. Eris turned her eyes from the younger warriors to some of those who she knew had gone with the party north over ten years previously. Most of Valkia’s chosen entourage were long dead, but a few survived.
One of them met her gaze directly but could not maintain it. The challenge and accusation in Eris’s eyes was too much. The way he turned from her gave silent reply to the unspoken question.
The resounding chant of Valkia’s name was still audible as Eris raised her voice to be heard over it. She had planned to give a rousing speech, an encouraging last-minute bolster, but she could not find positive words. Eventually, she spoke from her heart.
‘The Schwarzvolf are dead,’ she said with harsh bitterness in her voice. ‘Whether or not we are victorious here today, the heart of this tribe has been torn from us. There are traitors amongst us. Liars. Cowards. Weaklings. We fight for the survival of a people who died ten years ago far to the north in Gods’ Home.’
She gave a humourless smile. ‘But for all that... for all the Schwarzvolf are ended, we fight today for the chance to be reborn. The chance to carve out our own existence and start again. We fight for glory. Above all else, we fight for victory!’
Her words were a spark in a powder keg of tension. Despite the negativity of what she was saying, the passion with which she spoke her piece ignited the energy and battle lust that had long marked the violent Schwarzvolf. They roared their defiance, brandished their weapons and bar one or two who shot looks of venomous hatred at the young woman, they all shouted her name. It created a curious counterpoint to the words being bellowed elsewhere. An unholy chorus that was a prelude to the coming slaughter.
For a fleeting, wonderful and uplifting moment, Eris truly believed that they might actually stand a chance. Thoughts of her deceitful uncle and the revenge she would take on him were pushed to the back of her mind. Right now, her only concern was the battle and surviving the next few minutes.
‘To arms! Warriors of the Vale... we attack!’
The army swarmed together and began to advance in surprisingly even formation with Eris, Valkia’s daughter, at their head.
Valkia’s army moved with a surging, unnatural life that reached for their enemy with hungry jaws. The moment the daemon princess heard her victims voices raised, she brought Slaupnir down in a sweeping stroke, indicating that the butchery should commence.
They rushed forward in their countless numbers. The second wave of crazed berserkers were bolstered by horrors of a kind that the Schwarzvolf had never before witnessed. Bloodletters, their cloven hooves thundering across the cold ground as they ran, brandished rune-encrusted swords of ebony. Flesh hounds tore along at their heels, slavering rivulets of drool and blood in equal measure.
At the rear and flanks of the army lumbered the warped and distorted creatures of the mountains: a throng of towering trolls, packs of ravening wolves and screeching monsters of every stripe.
Valkia waited until the last of the beasts had passed her and beat her wings vigorously, rising into the air and exalting her consort’s name to the night sky.
The horde was finally unleashed and Valkia’s bloody army did not hesitate.
The two sides struck one another with a force that shook the very ground beneath their feet. The strong, rigid line of Eris’s warriors was practised and tempered by countless battles, but softened by the latter years of idleness. They stood their ground with grim determination however, the shield bearers at the front bearing the brunt of the enemy’s initial charge.
Long gone were the days when only women bore the shields of the Schwarzvolf. Now men and women fought alongside one another as equals. And now they died as equals, falling beneath the serrated blades, axes and teeth of the inhuman enemy with alacrity.
At the fore of the army, the beastmen and berserkers rampaged without thought, pity or mercy. Already whipped into a frenzy by the act of battle alone, their eyes were wild and staring as they hacked and set about themselves. To step into the path of one of these killers was to die. The cover of night did not help. Eris’s army had no blessings of a god of war. Their vision had adjusted reasonably, but they still fought against ill-defined shapes. More than one Schwarzvolf turned on one of his own in the mêlée.
Each of the berserkers took countless wounds to be felled, hacking and maiming long past the point at which any mortal warrior should have fallen. Even with the loss of limbs, and wounds so deep that white bone was visible, grisly and wet with blood and caught in the paltry light cast by the torch bearers, they fought on.
Everywhere there was carnage. Death cries and howls of rage filled the air and the clash of weapons resonated throughout the night. The berserker contingent began to steadily thin as they lapped around the stubborn tribe, the Schwarzvolf line holding firm and resolute in the face of their insanity – but they too were losing their warriors at an alarming rate. Bodies began to pile up underfoot, causing men to stumble and fall easy prey to the keen blades of the encroaching enemy.
‘Drive them back!’ Eris, in the front line with the shield bearers screamed the order. ‘Drive them back over their dead!’ It would mean treading on the corpses of their fallen, but they were dead or soon would be and it no longer mattered. ‘Shields! Advance!’
On Eris’s command, the Schwarzvolf found a thread of strength and pulled it taut. Their expressions grim, their resolve set, they stepped forward one pace at a time. The remaining berserkers flung themselves bodily into the shield line but were driven back.
They threw themselves at the shieldbearers again and again, determined to break through and cause as much mayhem as they could manage. Some had already peeled away from the pack and tore around the flanks of the tribesmen, striking from the side. The Schwarzvolf shield line, however, was well-practised and whilst they were slower to react than they may have been in their prime, they bowed the line to deal with the peripheral threat.
Their casualties were not as heavy as Eris had feared, but many of those who stood beside her were already bloody and wounded. She had fought in many battles against ferocious rival tribes, but nothing like the enemy that presently swarmed about them. In mere minutes they had suffered more than any engagement over the last decade.
When the last beastman was dispatched, bleating the name of his god to the last, Valkia’s daughter dared to feel a glimmer of hope, that maybe they had weathered the storm. Nothing could have prepared them for what was to come however. And what came next was a waking nightmare.
The earth shook at the tread of something vast and terrible that thundered toward the Schwarzvolf. Warriors stood pale and fearful in the moonlight as the titanic form of Kormak, astride his daemonic mount, charged the ragged line. At his back a host of unholy abominations with eyes of hellfire surged like a tide, their ruddy flesh alive with blasphemous runes and slick with mortal blood.
At first, the Schwarzvolf front line could do nothing but stare at this new, terrifying enemy in horror. More than one of them turned and tried to flee back through the press, but they could not. The tribe was encircled, their line forced around until the men at either end stood side by side against the night.
Raging at their cowardice, Eris ordered them thrown to the enemy. ‘Fight them!’ Every word came out as a scream. ‘Stand your ground and fight, or die by my blade!’
Many of her warriors were crying openly at the sight of their unnatural foe. The bloodletters were tall and wiry and their eyes glowed with insatiable hunger. They remained desperate to feed, despite having gorged their voracious appetites on the journey to this battle. Most were the same height as the men, but others were taller, slim and wiry. Crests ran the length of their spines and across their heads, and thin, serpentine tongues flickered in and out.
Kormak struck the line like the fist of a god, the blunt head of the juggernaut lowered into a killing ram that shattered shields and crushed men like frail saplings. The formation of the Schwarzvolf broke apart instantly, any sense of unity lost under the unstoppable assault of the murderous champion in their midst. His axe rose and fell with swift and terrible rhythm, cleaving heads and limbs and leaving a wake of gory ruin.
Valkia the Bloody Page 29
