The Legend of Sigmar

by Graham McNeill

  Krell…

  Rivers of blood had flowed from Krell’s axe, all in service to a dread god of the north, a squatting devourer of blood and skulls. Slain by one of the mountain folk thousands of years ago in an age known by some as the Time of Woes, Krell’s thirst for blood and death was undiminished by the passage of uncounted centuries since his death.

  Leodan fumbled for his sword, watching as five of the Red Scythes charged towards the giant warrior.

  ‘No,’ he croaked. ‘Don’t!’

  His warning went unheeded, and Krell’s axe swept out, chopping up through the horses and cleaving the riders in two. The return stroke hacked another two to the ground and before the others could strike, Krell was amongst them. One rider died with his head torn from his shoulders, the other as Krell thundered his fist into his chest and crushed his torso to a pulpy mess.

  Taleuten warriors surrounded Krell, hacking at his blood-covered plate, but no blade could penetrate his damned armour. Swords scraped over his shoulder guards, axes bounced from his spiked helm and spears shattered upon his breastplate. Nothing could stand against this monstrous force of destruction, and warriors died ten at a time as Krell hacked them down, chopping bodies in two and mangling flesh with every blow from his black-bladed axe.

  Leodan crawled away from Krell, weeping in pain and for the loss of his beloved Red Scythes. His leg was afire, the broken ends gouging the meat of his leg with every yard he dragged himself from the slaughter.

  His world shrank to the rain-soaked ground, his muddy knuckles dragging his pain-wracked body and the sound of his men dying. Horses screamed in pain as Krell’s axe butchered them too, and men cried in fear as they turned to flee. None could escape Krell’s deadly blade and those terrified cries turned to death screams as the Red Scythes were cut down.

  Leodan’s fingers clawed the ground, the earth too sodden for him to gain a purchase. He could go no further and he rolled onto his side. His breathing was coming in shallow gasps, and he coughed blood. His broken rib had nicked his lung and few survived such a wound, least of all those in the middle of a battle with no hope of rescue.

  He heard the sound of marching steps behind him, regular and perfectly in time. Metal clashed as armour moved against armour and Leodan smelled the reek of strong beer and pipe smoke. Who would be drinking and smoking in the middle of such a fight?

  Someone knelt beside him and he looked up through a haze of tears and rain to see a hundred warriors of the mountain folk armed with heavy axes and hammers. The warrior beside him was armoured head to foot in plates of iron and bronze. The dwarf’s breath smelled of strong beer, and a wooden pipe carved in the shape of a long cavalry horn jutted through a hole specially crafted in his helmet’s visor.

  ‘Rest easy, manling,’ said Master Alaric. ‘We’ll handle this big fella. We killed him once before, and we can do it again.’

  Daegal watched the black riders charge the Asoborn shieldwall and heard the crash of splintering lances, breaking shields and the clang of swords. His mouth was dry and his bladder tightened. The riders of the dead surrounded the Queen’s Eagles and he couldn’t see any way they could survive.

  ‘I am a warrior of the Asoborns,’ he said, repeating the words like a mantra. ‘I will not fear this foe. I will not fear this foe.’

  The dead streamed around the shieldwall, a host of shambling corpses and skeletal warriors marching towards the city. Scores of wolves loped alongside them, accompanied by darting packs of white-bodied flesh-eaters. Daegal could not count them, but he knew there were too many for them to handle.

  Mutters of fear passed through the assembled people, the men and women of Reikdorf suddenly regretting their choice to march into this arena of warriors. Daegal could feel their fear and recognised the teetering panic that could unman them in a heartbeat. He had felt it before at the defeat by the river and knew how devastating it could be. Warriors on the brink of victory could flee a battle believing it lost if they saw their fellows

  running from the enemy. Sergeants said battles weren’t won or lost by individuals, but Daegal knew better.

  His fear had hollowed him out at the river, but as he watched the wolves and carrion eaters coming towards him, that fear was replaced by anger. These monsters had taken his honour, stripping him of the one thing he had been assured was his right and destiny as an Asoborn.

  Though he had seen only twelve summers, his anger burned like an inferno in his heart.

  He drew his sword as the first wolves clawed into the line of people, hurling themselves forward with fangs and claws tearing. Blood sprayed and men and women died as the wolves tore them apart. The carrion eaters came on their heels, dragging men to the ground where they were pounced upon by yet more and eaten alive as they screamed in pain.

  A creature with black beads for eyes and a mouth filled with broken teeth threw itself at him, and Daegal swung his sword for its neck. It bit deep into the beast’s flesh, and Daegal kicked its corpse from the blade as another came at him with its claws outstretched. He cut its hands off and stabbed it in the throat. Blood spattered him, and the reek of it drove him to even greater heights of fury. He plunged his sword blade into the flanks of a dead wolf chewing on the entrails of a man Daegal had spoken to moments before. His name had been Eoland. He had been a baker of bread, but his days of preparing loaves and sweetbreads were now over.

  Daegal fought with all the courage and strength he had forgotten by the river, killing a dozen enemies with as many blows. All around him, the people of Reikdorf took heart from his steadfast courage, holding their ground in the face of these monsters. The tide of flesh-eaters and wolves broke upon the line of ordinary men and women. Blood soaked the earth, and hundreds had died in the opening moments of the fighting.

  Daegal ducked the snapping jaws of a wolf and jammed his sword down its throat. Its mouth snapped shut as it died and broke the blade in two. He swept up a fallen spear, a coloured rag tied just behind its iron tip. He heard screams of pain and terror, and knew the courage of these people hung by a thread.

  As it had at the river, a moment’s heroism or courage would decide the outcome of this fight. Daegal raised the spear above his head, letting the chill winds catch the fabric tied to the spear. Blue and red streamed above him, not a flag, but merely two rags in the colours of Reikdorf. Though the day was grim and dark, they shone as bright as though freshly dyed and lit by the noonday sun.

  The flesheaters saw him raise the makeshift banner and he saw their uncertainty.

  This was his moment. This was his one and only chance to reclaim the honour these monsters had taken from him.

  ‘People of Reikdorf, with me!’ shouted Daegal.

  Daegal plunged the spear into the belly of a snarling wolf and charged from the bloodied ranks of citizen warriors, an Asoborn war shout on his lips.

  And the people of Reikdorf followed him.

  Twenty-Two

  Champions of Life and Death

  The Asoborn shieldwall splintered and buckled against the charge of the black knights. Men and women were hurled from their feet by the impact of the dead riders, but more Asoborns rushed to pick up the fallen shields and plug the gap. Skeletal horsemen plunged through the shieldwall, hacking with darkly glittering swords. Garr swept his twin-bladed spear through a black rider’s horse, bringing him down in a clatter of bone and plate. Maedbh’s bronze blade stabbed down, plunging through the rider’s helm and extinguishing the green light shimmering beyond his visor.

  Garr nodded his thanks, but Maedbh was already on the move, spinning around as the thunderous sound of horsemen slamming into iron-rimmed shields boomed once more. Cuthwin now fought with a spear, wrenched from a dead man with his spine all but severed. Beside him Fridleifr rammed his own spear through a rusted gap in a dead knight’s breastplate. Sigulf protected his brother’s flank, holding a heavy shield and slamming it forward along with the rest of the Asoborns.

  Ulrike loosed carefully aimed shafts into the dea
d, sending arrows through the eye sockets of those warriors whose helmets had been knocked off in the charge. Maedbh took a two-handed grip on the sword as three dead riders smashed through the shieldwall. Their defence was shrinking with every passing second, the Asoborns unable to resist the unnatural power of the black knights. One rode towards her with a curved black sword raised above its head.

  Maedbh ran at the dead warrior, her own sword hungry to slay this champion of the knights. She dived forward, rolling to her feet as the rider’s weapon swept over her head. She slashed her sword across the skeletal mount’s rear legs, shattering the bones and toppling the rider to the ground. A host of Asoborns pounced on the dead warrior, stabbing and clubbing his bones to destruction. The second warrior rode straight for the fallen Freya, dropping from his horse and striding towards the fallen queen with murderous determination burning in his eye sockets.

  Maedbh ran towards him, but the third dead rider reared up before her, his horse’s bony limbs pawing the air. One hoof caught Maedbh on the shoulder and sent her spinning. She landed badly, slashing her arm open on the blade of her sword. Blood poured from the wound onto the blade and she felt a sudden sense of power and anger flow through her.

  She rolled as the hooves stamped down, thrusting her sword straight up and into the horse’s ribs. Like a ruptured soap bubble, something intangible broke within the steed and its form came apart in a rain of bones. Iron plates tumbled to the earth, and Maedbh rolled as the beast’s rider dropped beside her.

  Maedbh brought her sword around in a move of desperation. The rider’s sword slammed into her own, barely a handspan from her face. Its armoured foot slammed down into her stomach and she doubled up as the rider reached down and lifted her from the ground. Its helmet slammed into her face and blood poured down her chin as she felt her nose break. The sword fell from her grip and the pain of her wounds seared her once again.

  She cried out as the gouges on her back flared and the slash on her arm throbbed as though dipped in boiling water. Maedbh looked through the slit in the dead warrior’s helm and into his eyes. She saw endless suffering there, a soul chained to the mortal world by dark magic and kept in enduring torment. Though nothing remained of the man this warrior had once been, his suffering was eternal and unrelenting.

  The black sword drew back and Maedbh’s eyes focussed on the notched tip, picturing how it would punch through her ribcage and split her heart in two. The skull’s grin became wider, but before its sword could stab forward, the dead warrior’s head flew from his neck and the body collapsed. Maedbh slumped to the ground, scrambling away from the warrior’s remains as a glorious figure in fiery bronze stood above her with a hand outstretched.

  ‘Thank you for looking after my sword,’ said Freya, hauling Maedbh to her feet.

  Ulrike and Cuthwin stood at the queen’s side and her daughter held a spear out toward Maedbh.

  ‘My queen,’ gasped Maedbh. ‘You’re alive.’

  ‘Never more so!’ roared the queen, turning and hurling herself into the fray.

  Together with Sigulf, Fridleifr, Cuthwin and Ulrike, Maedbh joined Garr’s faltering shieldwall. Though Maedbh’s arm and back burned with pain, she fought like never before, unhorsing dead warriors with every thrust. Together with the Queen’s Eagles they fought like the legendary heroes of old, but even with such courage there was no way the shieldwall could hold. Warriors were dying by the dozen with every passing moment and the ring of swords and spears was shrinking like a patch of snow in spring.

  A black rider thundered over a shieldbearer to Maedbh’s left and his steed, a black beast with skin like basalt, reared up as a powerful warrior leapt from its back. His black cloak unfolded like wings as he landed in the midst of the Asoborns. Maedbh had seen this man a handful of times only, and though he had changed beyond all mortal recognition, he still bore the features of Siggurd of the Brigundians.

  The black riders charged through the gap he had broken, rampaging through the Asoborns and slaughtering them with slashing blows of their black swords. Siggurd hurled Garr to the ground, the heroic warrior’s throat torn out and his head lolling on a last shred of sinew. Transformed into something evil, Siggurd’s eyes blazed crimson with thirst and his fangs gleamed in the twilight as he bore Queen Freya to the ground.

  Maedbh rushed to the queen’s side, but a backhanded blow from the vampire count hurled her back. Ulrike sent an arrow thudding into the blooddrinker’s back, and he roared in pain. His fangs bit down on Freya’s neck, but before he could tear out her throat, Cuthwin leapt onto the vampire and buried his knife in his side.

  Siggurd arched his back, his form blurring as though in mid transformation and he slashed a clawed hand across Cuthwin’s chest. The young Unberogen fell back, his chest in tatters. Siggurd screeched in anger, his fangs bared and bloody. Fridleifr stabbed the vampire in the back with his spear, the tip punching through his belly. Siggurd spun around, wrenching the spear from Fridleifr’s hands and tearing the weapon from his body. Faster than Maedbh could follow, the spear left Siggurd’s hands and plunged into the boy’s chest, punching through his armour and driving him to the ground.

  Sigulf gave a cry of loss and anger and slashed his sword through Siggurd’s arm. The vampire screeched in agony as a wash of black blood sprayed from the wound. Siggurd looked at the wound, unable to believe he had been hurt.

  ‘That stung, little one,’ hissed Siggurd, leaping forward to take hold of Freya’s son.

  He looked into the boy’s eyes and laughed, as though at some private jest, before drawing a short-bladed dagger and ramming it into Sigulf’s belly. The boy screamed, but before Siggurd could twist the knife and spill his guts, another arrow hammered the vampire’s body.

  Maedbh saw Ulrike standing behind the vampire, scrabbling to nock another arrow to her bowstring as Siggurd fastened his hungry gaze upon her.

  ‘Blessed arrows,’ he said, dropping the wailing Sigulf to the ground. ‘Little girls shouldn’t play with such dangerous things. Now I’ll have to make you scream.’

  The vampire stalked towards Ulrike, who fell to her knees before the terrifying figure, his form blurring as his cloak billowed around him like the wings of an enormous bat. Siggurd’s eyes widened as his lower jaw distended and his fangs sprouted like daggers.

  Maedbh clambered to her feet and staggered towards Ulrike, though she knew she could never reach her before Siggurd. Her pain was incredible, but she had to reach her daughter.

  ‘Ulrike!’ she begged, hearing a swelling roar around her. ‘No, please! Don’t hurt her!’

  Siggurd lifted Ulrike from the ground. The young girl’s face was a mask of tears. Siggurd turned back towards Maedbh. He sniffed the blood on Ulrike’s face and his monstrous face broke into a horrid leer of understanding.

  ‘Ah… this is your spawn,’ said Siggurd. ‘Now you will watch her die.’

  Before the vampire could say another word, the roaring in Maedbh’s head swelled as a mob of people charged into the black riders. There were hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. Most were without armour, dressed in the garb of farmers and ordinary men and women. They fought with the fury of Thuringian berserkers, tearing the dead riders from their saddles and breaking them apart with blows from clubs, felling axes and scythes.

  Leading them was a young boy spattered in blood and with the light of battle fury in his eyes. He fought with a spear tied with blue and red rags, and Maedbh saw he knew how to use it. The boy hooked the haft around the legs of an unhorsed black rider and stabbed it down into the dead warrior’s chest, twisting the blade before he withdrew it from the body. Dimly she knew she should know him, but how she could know an Unberogen boy escaped her.

  The people of Reikdorf swarmed over the undead and drove them back. Siggurd threw Ulrike down as a score of howling men and women ran at him with spears and swords. Some of these, he could kill without difficulty, but all of them… Maedbh didn’t think so. She ran over to Ulrike and scooped her up into her ar
ms.

  ‘I’ve got you, dear heart,’ said Maedbh. ‘I’ve got you.’

  ‘Mother!’ cried Ulrike, burying her head against Maedbh’s shoulder. ‘The bad man…?’

  ‘Gone,’ said Maedbh, oblivious to anything except

  her daughter’s weight. ‘He can’t hurt you now. Not ever.’

  Ulrike wept into her neck, and Maedbh held her tightly, closing her eyes and willing the fear away as her body pulsed with waves of fiery pain. They stayed like that until Maedbh heard footsteps. She looked up and saw the young boy with the spear tied with the blue and red rags looking down at her.

  ‘Is she all right?’ he asked, and Maedbh caught the strong eastern accent in his words.

  ‘Daegal?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She smiled. ‘You remembered your spear training.’

  He nodded, and suddenly he wasn’t a blood-covered Asoborn warrior, but a boy of twelve years. She gathered Daegal to her and hugged him and Ulrike close to her chest. At last, she released them both and said, ‘You were both so very brave. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. You fought like real heroes.’

  Ulrike smiled through her tears, and Daegal held himself tall, as though some dreadful weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He looked back over her shoulder and Maedbh saw Freya carrying Sigulf while Fridleifr and Cuthwin had their arms around each other’s shoulders to hold themselves upright. Both were bloody, but they were unbowed.

  ‘Siggurd?’ she said.

  ‘Fled,’ answered Cuthwin. ‘When the people came, he took to the air and flew away.’

  Maedbh nodded, looking to her queen with relief beyond words. Freya was pale and unsteady on her feet, and blood streamed from the wound at her neck. Sigulf’s eyes were closed and his belly wet with crimson. His chest rose and fell, but weakly.