Bloodsworn

by Nathan Long

  ‘Divide into squads, sergeant,’ she called to Stahleker, ‘and sweep the town. Kill the guards first, then start on the rest.’

  ‘Aye, captain,’ replied Stahleker, then started shouting orders to his men. Rachman did the same.

  ‘And no decapitations!’ she called after them. ‘They must be fit to rise again!’

  ‘Aye, captain.’

  The lancers split off down side streets in packs of eight, killing any who stood in their way. Ulrika continued straight with the mounted wights as her retinue, and clattered into the square in the centre of town. Beyond a spreading oak in the middle, an ancient priest of Sigmar and his acolytes were herding weeping women and children through the broad stone doors of the temple, while sturdy stone cutters formed a defensive line, armed with mauls and spears and swords.

  Ulrika and the skeletal riders cut through the men like so much chaff, faster than their fastest and stronger than their strongest. The women shrieked and wailed as their men died, and the old priest pushed forwards to defend them, dragging a hammer he was far too decrepit to wield.

  ‘Spare them, fiends!’ he cried. ‘They are no threat to you. Take me instead.’

  Ulrika pulled up, hesitating as she looked past him to the cowering women and children. Vow of vengeance or no, she had never liked a foe without the strength to fight back. It wasn’t sporting.

  ‘Father Solkow,’ wailed a voice from behind her. ‘Aunt Ethelgard! Save me! Take me in!’

  Ulrika turned and saw a dozen punishment cages hanging from the branches of the oak tree. All were empty but the nearest, which held a little girl in a torn chemise, so thin that her bones showed through her sunburned skin. The wrist of the scrawny arm she reached through the bars was swollen and bent, and her gaunt face was covered with bruises and cuts. A sign roped to the cage read ‘Vampyre’, and a blistered V-shaped brand in her forehead declared the same. She was marked for life – however long that might be.

  ‘Save you?’ snarled a woman who hid behind the priest. ‘From yer own kind?’

  ‘Burn in Sigmar’s fire, slut!’ shouted the priest.

  The spark of pity that had briefly flared in Ulrika flickered and died. How could she have thought these ignorant savages innocent? The girl in the cage was no vampire, and anyone not blinded by fear and superstition would have known it in an instant. The wretched thing had obviously sat in the cage for days – night and day – and had not burned in the sun. Ulrika turned back to the priest and the women, snarling and showing her fangs.

  ‘Spare them?’ she said. ‘Aye, I will spare them. I will spare them the fear the rest of their miserable lives would have subjected them to. I will spare them the hate that would have poisoned their hearts! And I will spare their children too. They will not have to grow up in a world full of cruelty and stupidity. They will remain innocent to the end of their lives!’

  She turned to the mounted wights, who waited silent upon her word. ‘Kill every last one of them.’

  The ancient warriors plunged forwards, slashing at the women and children and chasing them as they scattered left and right. The priest shoved down the aunt of the caged girl and raced for the temple, his flock forgotten in his fear. Ulrika spurred after him, riding her horse up the temple steps and through the doors.

  He shrieked as she passed the threshold. ‘Stay back, fiend! Do you not fear the wrath of Sigmar?’

  Ulrika sneered as she backed him down the aisle. ‘I am from Kislev. Sigmar has no dominion over me.’

  He swung his heavy hammer and crashed back against the altar as he overbalanced himself. She stabbed him through the heart, then whipped her rapier from his chest and let him slump to the floor.

  ‘And it seems he cares little for you either.’

  She rode out into the square again to find the women and children dead, dying or fled, and the skeletal knights looking for new prey.

  ‘Dismount,’ she said, swinging down to the ground. ‘We will go calling.’

  The mounted wights stepped down from their dead horses with the jingle of chainmail and the hollow clatter of bone, and followed Ulrika as she stalked towards the rich houses that fronted the square. From every one she heard the slamming of shutters and the barring of doors. She smiled. It would do them no good. Their nightmares were here, and they were stronger than they had dreamed.

  It was as she was pulling a fat, gibbering merchant from the attic of the third house that she heard the distant thunder of massed cavalry at the gallop – the templars of Morr had answered the call of the temple bells.

  ‘They’re coming,’ she said as she broke the man’s neck.

  She started down the stairs, whistling for the wights, who were busy butchering the servants where they had taken refuge in the kitchen. They turned from their grisly work without a word and followed her back into the square.

  The lance squads were pouring into it from every side street, and Stahleker and Rachman trotted up to her, saluting, as she mounted Yasim.

  ‘All dead?’ she asked.

  Stahleker’s face twitched. ‘Not all,’ he said. ‘We had little time to be thorough.’ He looked pale and grim.

  ‘The work doesn’t suit you, sergeant?’

  ‘I prefer battle,’ he said.

  ‘Then you’re in luck.’ She wheeled her horse around. ‘They’re coming for the east gate. Put your men in the side streets. I and the wights will take their charge. You will flank them.’

  ‘Aye, captain. Move your arse, Rachman.’

  They rode off again, shouting to their squads, as she led the skeletal knights to the mouth of the street that led to the east gate. The gate was flung wide, opened by the town guards in anticipation of the templars’ coming, and Ulrika had no wish to close them. For Kodrescu’s plan to work the Black Guard had to be trapped inside the town, and she and the wights were the bait that would lure them in. A shiver went up her spine as she wondered how often the worm was eaten before the fish was hooked.

  A mournful horn, like the howl of a grieving dog, sounded from the road, and the templars of Morr thundered through the gate, a four-wide column of dark-visaged knights, as grim and intimidating in their way as her own, bearing down upon her in a perfect line. They were encased head-to-toe in heavy black plate, with slotted visors hiding their faces and making them look more like automatons then men. Devices of ravens, skulls and black roses decorated their shields and pauldrons, and black plumes bobbed above their helms.

  ‘Steady,’ said Ulrika, as they came within a hundred paces, then realised she was being ridiculous. The skeletal knights she stood with knew no fear. They would not need reassurance in the face of the Black Guard. She was the only one who was nervous.

  Eighty paces away. She raised her sword. The first law of cavalry was that standing riders would not survive a cavalry charge. Force must be met with force, and speed with speed. At the same time, she wanted as many of the templars through the gate as possible before she stopped their advance.

  Sixty paces away, but the tail of the column had not yet appeared. It didn’t matter. She could wait no longer. She dropped her sword.

  ‘Charge!’

  The wights kicked their skeletal war horses into a gallop and lowered their lances. Ulrika rode with them but hung back. She had no interest in risking herself here. Let the mindless constructs take the charge. She had to survive the battle and make her play for Kodrescu’s head.

  The fronts of the houses blurred by on either side, the noise of hoofs deafening in the confined street. A wild eye glinted through the visor of the leader of the Black Guard. Then, impact.

  With a sound like a steam tank crashing off a cliff, the mounted wights and the Black Guard slammed together. Lances buckled and splintered and punched through breastplates. Living and dead horses smashed chest to chest, and knights both human and skeletal were thrown from their saddles, pauldrons and hel
mets spinning away.

  The weight of numbers and flesh gave the templars the advantage, and they drove the wights back, snapping femurs, skulls and ribcages as they trampled downed horses and fallen riders underfoot.

  Caught in the second rank, Ulrika was swept back with the rest, Yasim almost lifted off her hooves in the tide, but at least they were both whole and unhurt. Ulrika slashed at a knight who was pressed stirrup to stirrup with her in the crush, but even with her inhuman strength, her rapier was not heavy enough to pierce his blessed black armour. Still, there were always openings.

  As he raised his long sword, she thrust for the gap between his breastplate and vambrace and impaled his armpit. With a grunt, his arm dropped, useless, and she stabbed him through the eye, then took the long sword from his hand as he toppled from the saddle.

  A knight on her right swung a mace at her head. She parried with her rapier and hacked at his arm with her stolen sword. It chopped through his armour and knocked him to the ground – a weapon much more suited to the occasion. She sheathed her rapier and looked around. The mounted wights had been pressed back almost to the town square, but the templars’ advance had been stopped at last. All around her the skeletal riders fought the Black Guard in a swirling, clanging mess that was utterly familiar to her, and at the same time, utterly foreign – for it was silent.

  Usually a melee such as this was filled with battle cries and curses, shouts and challenges, but the wights did not speak for they hadn’t tongues, lips or breath, and the templars of Morr had taken a vow of silence which they apparently didn’t break even in battle. Both sides fought with the eerie quiet of black beetles going to war.

  Then the silence was broken.

  With a roar, her lancers poured from the side streets and slammed into the flanks of the templar column, Stahleker’s squads on one side, Rachman’s on the other, lances lowered and sabres flashing. Ulrika breathed a sigh of relief as knights fell and died and the lancers howled and swore. This was war as she knew it – loud and bloody and savage.

  She fought towards Stahleker, leaving the wights to fend for themselves. There was neither thrill nor skill to leading mindless troops. They did not rally to you because they trusted you. They did not fight harder when backed into a corner. They did as they were commanded, without question or passion.

  She stabbed a Black Guard through the backplate and he slumped over his horse’s neck, revealing Stahleker fighting sabre to broadsword against a hulking templar. The mercenary was cut in a dozen places and sweating like a cook over a stove, but grinning like a madman.

  ‘More to your liking, sergeant?’ asked Ulrika.

  ‘Aye, captain. Much more.’

  Ulrika blocked the Black Guard’s slash, allowing Stahleker to chop through his visor and send a spray of crimson down his breastplate. Ulrika finished the knight with a thrust through the gut and they turned to look for fresh targets.

  There were plenty. Too many. Though Ulrika’s

  draw-and-flank manoeuvre had been a success, and the front of the Black Guards’ column was in bloody ruins, the warriors of Morr had not stopped pouring through the gate. Behind the vanguard of armoured knights, perhaps fifty strong, was a company of younger, lighter-armoured men in the tabards of initiates. They were not hidden within full plate, nor were their faces covered, but they were intimidating nonetheless – as silent as their elder brethren, and as fervent in their loathing of the undead and those who served them.

  The situation was turning bad, and getting worse. Everywhere the templars and initiates were driving the lancers back down the narrow streets from which they had burst, and if they managed to push them to the ends, they would be able to encircle them and wipe them out. Where was Kodrescu? He should be falling on their rear by now.

  Beside her, Stahleker grunted as if he’d been hit, and Ulrika followed his gaze in time to see Rachman pitch from his saddle in the middle of a melee on the far side of the street. Stahleker held his position as his friend vanished from view, but Ulrika could see that his heart was across the street.

  ‘Kodrescu means to let us die to weaken the templars,’ he growled.

  ‘A pox on that,’ said Ulrika as she gutted a knight with a silvered sword. ‘If Kodrescu won’t attack them from behind, I will.’

  She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled, too high for humans to hear, then began to fight free of the press. ‘Help Rachman, then hold,’ she said. ‘It’s time for the bait to bite back.’

  chapter twenty-two

  MORR’S MERCY

  The terror, which had been hunting down townsfolk, flapped over the spire of the temple of Sigmar and whumped down beside Ulrika as Yasim shied away, terrified. Ulrika patted the horse’s neck, then leapt from her saddle onto the ugly beast’s back and grabbed the reins. Kodrescu had expressly forbidden her to ride the beast, saying he didn’t trust her not to abandon him, and Stahleker was supposed to mind her and kill her if she tried, but Stahleker was hers now.

  ‘Up!’ she cried, and dug her spurs into its neck.

  The thing kicked up and rose into the air with ponderous wing strokes. She was tempted to drop it right back down in the middle of the templars, but the battle was strung out all along the main street and the initiates were forcing back the lancers at every intersection. If she attacked in one place, they were sure to break out in another.

  She turned the horror in a wide circle to gain altitude and speed, then banked it into a swooping dive along the length of the street. Knights and initiates alike flinched and ducked as she brought the beast into a head-level glide, its wings crushing helms and its claws raking shoulders and backs. At the gate she pulled it up and into a steep arc for another pass and saw her gambit had had the effect she’d hoped for. All along the street the shaken templars were falling back before Stahleker’s men.

  ‘Again!’ cried Ulrika, and swept down at them for a second pass.

  They were ready this time, however, and swords, axes and maces flashed up as she shot over their heads. The beast took the cuts and heavy impacts with the stoicism of the dead, and the scaled skin of its body and heavy leather of its wings took little damage, but as she approached the end of the street, Ulrika saw a Black Guard snatch up an unbroken lance and aim it straight for the horror’s breast.

  She hauled up on the reins, but too late. The lance punched through the beast’s ribs and jolted it out of the air – crushing the knight and his horse to the ground as it fell, then ploughing a swath through the templars and skeletal knights around him.

  Ulrika vaulted clear of the wreckage and skidded to a stop in the middle of the melee as the horror flopped and floundered beside her. So much for being everywhere at once, but perhaps she had done enough. Stahleker’s men seemed to be holding now, while the initiates looked shaken and afraid, and her crash had wiped out a handful of Black Guard.

  The rest, however, were surrounding her, a towering circle of faceless black knights on jet-black destriers, turning from reducing the skeletal knights to bone dust and dented armour, and now focussing all their silent attention on her.

  Ulrika dropped into guard and turned in a slow circle, her stolen long sword in both hands. ‘Who leads you?’ she called. ‘I call him out. Single combat!’

  The knights made no answer, only crushed in as one, chopping down at her and trying to pin her between their horses. Ulrika ducked and parried, but there were too many, and she was too hemmed in. A sword dented her left pauldron. Another cut her forearm. With a howl and a flailing sweep, she caught the wrist of a knight as he slashed at her and levered herself up onto the rump of his horse. He tried to hack backwards at her, but she caught him around the neck and dragged him to the ground on the far side, out of the circle of knights.

  ‘Grand master!’ cried a knight as she hooked her claws in the slot of the fallen man’s visor and tore off his helm.

  His beard was grey and his
bald head lined with wrinkles, but though old, he looked in no way weak. The strength of faith and years of training burned in his eyes as he glared, not at her, but at the knight who had spoken.

  Ulrika raised her sword and showed him her fangs. ‘Grand master, is it? An honour to–’

  The shriek of banshees and the thunder of hooves interrupted her and she glanced up. Von Graal and his Blood Knights were at last pouring through the eastern gate and falling upon the back of the initiates of Morr, and there was more thunder behind her. Kodrescu and his retinue were surging across the square from the west as the rest of Stahleker’s four hundred spread out to the side streets, moving to join their brothers and close in on the Black Knights from all sides.

  A mailed fist cracked Ulrika in the jaw and she fell back. The grand master had taken advantage of her distraction. She recovered and hacked at him, but he beat away her sword and regained his feet.

  His templars started to come to his aid, but he waved them angrily towards Kodrescu’s knights and they turned to face the onslaught as he squared off with Ulrika.

  ‘Come, templar,’ said Ulrika. ‘I’ll show you Morr’s portal–’

  ‘Stand away, girl,’ came Kodrescu’s voice. ‘He is mine!’

  Ulrika sprang aside as the general rode his hell-steed between her and the grand master and dismounted without reining in. He strode towards the templar and drew Wolf’s Fang. It was the first time Ulrika had seen the dread blade unsheathed and it sent a chill up her spine. Freed from its scabbard, the sword’s animal presence was unmistakable. Though there were no flames nearby, its blade glinted like a wolf’s eyes reflecting a fire, and she could sense its ancient hunger hunting for prey.

  ‘Hold all others back,’ said Kodrescu. ‘I will fight him alone.’

  Ulrika ground her teeth. Kodrescu’s arrogance was infuriating. She couldn’t wait to kill him, but maybe the templar would do her job for her.