by Warhammer
Gotrek started towards Gargorath, growling low in his throat. ‘Time to finish what I started,’ he said.
‘Snorri wants to fight the big one,’ said Snorri, turning towards the massive minotaur.
‘Not if I get there first,’ said Rodi, hurrying after the old Slayer and trying to get ahead of him.
Felix knew where he should be, and followed Gotrek. Kat came too. But as they moved down the back of the spear line to reach von Volgen, Felix saw a familiar figure fighting at the head of a sword company that was retreating hastily before a press of beastmen.
‘Sir Teobalt!’ Felix cried.
The gaunt knight was unable to fall back as fast as his terrified companions, and he was in danger of being surrounded. Felix and Kat pushed through the ranks of the fleeing swordsmen and ran to him.
The old templar was wheezing terribly as they fell in to either side of him, and seemed to be favouring his right leg. A heavy axe blow from a beast splintered his shield, sending him stumbling back, and he barely turned a spear thrust from another with his sword.
Felix stabbed at the axe-wielding gor while Kat swung at the head of the second. Felix’s beastman turned on him, snarling, and the axe blade crashed against Karaghul’s crossguard, nearly driving the sword back into his face.
It was reprieve enough. Teobalt thrust forwards with his long sword and drove it through the beastman’s neck. Felix hacked through its ribs. It fell and he turned to the other beast.
Kat had left her axe in its back, and was dodging away from the questing point of its spear. Teobalt backhanded the thing with an off-balance slash and Felix sliced through its hamstrings. It fell shrieking, and Kat rolled aside and retrieved her axe.
The old templar fell against Felix, sucking air in great gasps. ‘Thank… thank you, Herr Jaeger,’ he said. ‘I… have not the… breath I once had.’
‘Keep your feet, sir,’ said Felix, trying to walk him back to the sword line as he lashed out at encroaching beasts. ‘We must get you to safety.’
Kat put Sir Teobalt’s sword arm over her shoulder and they carried him back through the line, shoving the swordsmen aside.
Sir Teobalt groaned as they set him down behind. ‘There is no safety. We will not… leave this place, thanks to those two… young fools.’
‘Why did they attack like this?’ asked Kat, opening her canteen and giving it to him. ‘It was madness.’
‘Madness?’ said Teobalt after he had taken a drink. ‘More like possession. I’ve never seen the like. One moment they stared at the flashes on the hill, biting their hands in fear like the poltroons they are. Then, when the bright light went out and the thunderclap came, they started raging like berserks, screaming for the attack to be sounded and howling for the blood of the beasts.’ He shook his head. ‘I urged them to wait for von Kotzebue, or at least hold to a defensible position, but they would have none of it, and led their knights in at a gallop, leaving all the rest to follow as they might.’ He spat on the body of a dead beastman. ‘Never have I seen lords show such flagrant disregard for the lives of their troops.’
To the west, Felix heard Gotrek’s roar and looked up. The Slayer was charging Gargorath’s retinue from the rear as the black-furred war-leader continued to trade blows with von Volgen. Gargorath looked back as his lieutenants screamed and fell, and von Volgen took advantage, hacking at the war-leader’s neck with all his might. Had Gargorath stood still, it would have been a clean strike, but the beast lunged at the Slayer, enraged, and von Volgen’s blade only glanced off his steel and gold armour, leaving the young lord half off his saddle and overbalanced.
With an annoyed bray, Gargorath lashed out behind him with the bird-headed axe. Von Volgen was fighting to stay on his horse and could not defend himself. The evil weapon ripped through his armour and bit deep into his chest. Felix shivered as he heard the axe scream like a vulture and saw its sapphire eyes glow bright blue. Von Volgen shrieked and clawed the air as the notched beak of the axe seemed to inhale the life out of him. The young lord’s eyes collapsed into their sockets like dried peas and his face grew hollow and gaunt.
‘Sigmar preserve us,’ said Teobalt, making the sign of the hammer.
‘It eats what it kills,’ whispered Kat, her eyes wide with horror.
‘And feeds its master,’ gagged Felix, staring aghast.
As they watched, the blue glow from the axe’s eyes spread across Gargorath’s body and his myriad wounds knit together as if they had never been. Only the gash on his snout and the severed horn that Gotrek had given him did not heal, but all the rest were gone. He appeared at full strength again.
‘Filthy magic,’ Felix heard Gotrek shout as he swung at the huge war-leader. ‘I’ll give you a cut you won’t recover from.’
Gargorath ripped the vulture-headed axe from von Volgen’s chest and blocked Gotrek’s attack with a deafening clang. The fight was on. Behind them, von Volgen toppled from his horse, nothing more than a parchment-covered skeleton in armour, as his knights wailed and cursed and called his name.
‘I must go to Gotrek,’ said Felix, standing.
But before he could take a step, a handful of beastmen broke through a line of spearmen to their left, roaring in triumph and attacking a company of unprepared archers who had been firing over the spear company’s heads.
‘Shore up! Shore up!’ came a sergeant’s cry, and Felix and Kat started forwards to help close the hole before any more gors could enter the square.
But Sir Teobalt stopped Felix and pointed at the beastman who led those who had smashed the line – a huge goat-headed gor that fought in a battered breastplate and a filthy loincloth made of some heavy mat-erial. Not so different than the rest, but what set the monster apart from ten thousand others was its weapon, a thick wooden club with a sword stuck sideways through it like a spike. Felix blinked. The sword was on fire, its flames blackening the wood of the club.
‘The beast wears the armour of Baron Orenstihl, the grand master of the Order of the Fiery Heart,’ said Teobalt. ‘And that which it has driven through its club is the Sword of Righteous Flame. And the cloth belted around its waist is our banner.’ The old templar fought to his feet and stood tall, readying his sword and shield. ‘If the beast has stolen these things, I will have my revenge upon it. If the beast is Baron Orenstihl himself, I will put his poor tortured soul to rest.’
And with that, Teobalt charged at the gor and its followers as they pressed the archers back against the nervous mass of abandoned cavalry mounts that strained and squealed behind them.
‘Wait, Sir Teobalt!’ called Felix, racing after the limping knight with Kat at his side. ‘We will help you.’
‘No!’ said Teobalt. ‘This is my fight alone.’
Felix gave Kat a look and she nodded in agreement. They continued after Teobalt. The old templar was going to get their help whether he liked it or not.
‘Grand Master Orenstihl!’ cried Teobalt as they neared the melee.
The big gor turned from the retreating archers, its black eyes glaring, though Felix couldn’t tell whether it recognised the name or was just responding to the noise.
‘If it be you that wear yon sacred banner,’ said the old templar, striding towards it, ‘then lower your club and let me free you from your curse.’
The beastman cocked its head, as if confused, and dim recognition clouded its goatish face.
‘It is you,’ quavered Teobalt. ‘Sigmar save us.’
‘I prayed to Sigmrr,’ snarled the beastman as Teobalt came on. ‘He wss weak! He did not save me!’ He raised the club with the burning sword stuck through it. ‘The changrr is strongrr!’
‘We shall see,’ said Teobalt, and rushed to meet him, bellowing a prayer.
Orenstihl roared a response and a few of his gors turned from pursuing the archers to see what threatened their leader. Felix and Kat ran to block them as Teobalt and the bestial templar slammed together, swinging hard. The gor’s sword-pierced club smashed against the old kni
ght’s blade with the force of an avalanche, and Felix thought the fight was over before it had begun. But Teobalt had been a knight for more years than Felix had been alive. He knew something of swordplay. He gave way before the blow, letting it take his sword around, then came up over the top of his shield and hacked down into Orenstihl’s shoulder, chopping through his pauldron and finding flesh.
The other gors howled with fury and surged forwards to help the corrupted templar. Felix blocked a spear thrust aimed straight for Teobalt’s head. Kat hamstrung a beast who was raising a mace.
Felix cast a swift look around as he and Kat fought to keep the knight from being flanked. Things looked grim. Beastmen were pushing back a spear company to their right, as their captain screamed, ‘Hold the line! Hold the line!’ as his soldiers tossed away their weapons and fled. Beyond that, a dozen gors tore Lord Plaschke-Miesner from his saddle as he slashed weakly at them. Near him, Rodi stood over the body of Snorri Nosebiter, defending it against a circle of beastmen. Was the old Slayer dead? The massive corpse of a minotaur lay beside him, its skull a red crater, so if he was, he had gone as a Slayer should. To the left, Gotrek cursed as Gargorath’s axe fed on another soldier and restored its master’s wounds once again.
The crunch of a heavy impact brought Felix’s head around. Sir Teobalt was staggering back, his shield split in two, as Orenstihl advanced on him. With a curse, Felix disengaged from his opponent and lunged at the beast-templar, gashing his shoulder. He grunted and swiped the sword-pierced club at him without turning from Teobalt. Felix threw himself to the ground, the flaming blade flashing an inch above his head.
‘Felix!’ cried Kat.
Orenstihl’s gors stabbed down at him. He flung himself aside inches ahead of their points. Kat hauled him to his feet and they danced back, blocking desperately as the beasts hacked at them.
‘Hold on, Sir Teobalt!’ Felix cried, trying to edge around the gors and get back to the templar.
Suddenly a handful of arrows thwacked into the beastmen and they screamed and twisted. The archers had rallied!
Kat cheered, and she and Felix cut down two of the pin-cushioned beasts before they could recover. Kat shattered the teeth of a third with her axe and it fell back spitting blood.
Together she and Felix leapt the dying gors and ran for Sir Teobalt. They were seconds too late. With a sickening thud, the beast-templar slammed his club into the old knight’s breastplate and folded him up like a rag doll.
‘Sir Teobalt!’ cried Felix.
The knight’s sword fell from his limp fingers as Orenstihl lifted the club, and Teobalt with it. Felix gaped, his stomach churning as he saw that a foot of flaming steel jutted from the back of Teobalt’s cuirass. The beast had impaled him on the club’s sword-spike, and was now raising it to shake him off.
‘Sir Teobalt!’ cried Kat. ‘No!’
Felix charged forwards with her and slashed at Orenstihl’s head as she hacked at his knees. The changed templar stumbled back, wrenching the club’s burning blade from Teobalt’s body, and nearly decapitating Kat with a backswing. She ducked and dodged behind his legs.
Felix shouted to the archers. ‘Shoot it! Shoot the beast!’
But unfortunately the corrupted templar was too closely engaged with Kat for them to shoot. In fact, the damned girl had leapt on the beastman’s back, and was clinging to his breastplate with one hand while trying to bury her remaining axe in his skull with the other!
Orenstihl roared and reached for her. She hacked at his fingers and sent one spinning. The beast howled, but still caught her wrist and flung her down on the ground in front of him. She landed hard on Sir Teobalt’s body and bounced to the dirt, dazed, her axe flying from her hand as the beastman raised his terrible club to strike her.
‘No, you cursed goat!’ cried Felix, running forwards and slashing for the thing’s unprotected waist.
Orenstihl turned his swing and the flaming sword-spike whipped towards him like the point of a scythe. Felix blocked the blade, but the end of the club glanced off his shoulder and slammed him to the dirt beside Kat.
‘Are…?’ he said, unable to draw a breath to finish the question.
‘I’m…’ She stopped and nodded, also unable to breathe.
They crabbed back from the beast-templar as he advanced, then scrambled to their feet as he swung at them.
‘Now!’ shouted Felix, glancing towards the archers. ‘Shoot it!’
But the bowmen had turned to fire on another fight and didn’t hear.
Kat made a desperate lunge for Orenstihl’s ankles, but his club swung down and she dived aside, crying out.
‘Kat!’ called Felix. Was she hurt? ‘Keep away from her!’ He slashed at the beast-knight, trying to keep him from turning to finish her.
It worked too well. Orenstihl gave Felix all his attention, swinging the pierced club at him in an impenetrable X pattern that smashed away Felix’s every attempt to stab through. Each blow felt like it was breaking his arms, and forced him back and back.
Then, just as Felix felt he couldn’t raise his sword to meet another strike, the corrupted templar cried out and stumbled, throwing his left arm out to one side for balance. Felix took the opening, and stabbed him in the armpit through the gap between his vambrace and his breastplate. Orenstihl howled and raised his club for a last strike, but something flashed between his legs from behind and buried itself in his crotch with a sickening chunk.
Felix pulled his sword from the monster’s ribs and jumped back as he whimpered, then toppled forwards onto his face. Kat was standing behind him, barehanded. Her axe was sticking up from beneath the beast-templar’s loincloth like a wooden tail.
‘Well struck,’ said Felix, swallowing. It was the first time he had ever felt sympathy for a beastman.
She gave him a weary grin as she recovered the axe.
They hurried to Teobalt, and Felix was surprised to see that the old templar still clung to life.
He lifted his trembling head, looking blindly around. ‘Is… is it slain?’
‘Aye, Sir Teobalt,’ said Felix. ‘It is dead.’
‘And the banner? The sword?’
Felix looked back, grimacing. The banner was soaked in gore and caked in filth. The sword was stuck up to the hilt through a heavy wooden club and bent halfway along the blade. A more degraded set of regalia Felix could not imagine. Nonetheless, he went back and cut the belt that held the banner to the beastman’s body, while Kat grasped the heavy club that held the sword and dragged it back.
‘I’m afraid they are… beyond repair,’ said Felix, returning to kneel beside the dying templar. He held the banner out to him as Kat turned the club so that the hilt of the sword was at his side.
Teobalt shook his head as he clutched the banner and gripped the sword. ‘That matters not. They are returned. The honour of the order is restored.’
He coughed wetly, spraying blood, then drew a painful breath and looked up at Felix with his pale blue eyes. ‘The Order of the Fiery Heart is… grateful, Herr Jaeger. You have done well. You are… worthy of Karaghul.’ He patted Felix’s arm with a delicate hand. ‘All is well,’ he said. ‘All is well.’
Then he laid his head back on the hard ground, folded his arms across the banner, and allowed himself to die.
Felix and Kat bowed their heads over him.
‘Morr watch over you, sir,’ said Kat.
‘Sigmar welcome you,’ said Felix.
A thunder of bestial hooves interrupted their prayers. A company of spearmen had broken, and a rush of beastmen was charging into the square. Felix and Kat jumped up, then tried to lift Sir Teobalt’s body and drag it back. There was no time. The beasts were too swift. Felix and Kat turned and ran with the fleeing archers in amongst the herd of screaming, rearing cavalry horses behind them.
Felix looked around as he shoved between the surging beasts. The square was close to collapsing on all sides. The two young lords were dead. The companies were shattered, and the beasts were bre
aking through everywhere. The day was lost. It would be over in minutes now. He searched for Rodi again and could only see a heap of beastman corpses taller than Kat. He turned in Gotrek’s direction and saw the Slayer still battling Gargorath while a scrum of beastmen and von Volgen’s men-at-arms fought all around them. The black-furred war-leader was staggering from a dozen wounds. The Slayer looked little better.
‘We must help him,’ said Kat.
Felix shook his head. ‘He will want no help. But I’d like to be at his side at the end.’
‘Then let’s go to him,’ said Kat.
Felix looked at her smiling, bloodied face, then out at the roiling sea of slaughter that was between them and the Slayer. They would die in the attempt – but on the other hand, they would die standing here just as certainly.
He smiled back. ‘Aye, let’s.’
He pulled her to him and kissed her as they were knocked this way and that amid the surging horses. Though tinged with blood and dirt, it was as sweet as any kiss he had ever tasted.
They broke apart.
‘See you in Sigmar’s halls,’ said Felix.
Kat grinned. ‘I’ll race you there.’
With twin battle cries they charged from between the horses and dived into the press of beasts and men, sword and axe whirling. Felix cut through a beastman’s neck on his first stroke, and gutted another on his second. Kat severed the spine of a third. It was easy to fight when you had no fear, when you knew the outcome was inevitable, no matter what you did. A strange, savage joy welled up in Felix’s chest as he fought on. Perhaps, he thought, this is what the Slayers felt. Perhaps this was why they longed so fiercely for battle.
Ahead of him, through the mad jumble of murder that the battle had become, Felix saw Gargorath knock Gotrek back with a brutal blow, then sink his axe into the back of one of his own gors. The surprised beastman screamed, but not as loudly as the vulture-headed axe, which drew its life force from it and fed it to Gargorath.