3 the heart of chaos

by ich du

  Mursk itself could be seen in the distance, straddling the glittering waters of the Urskoy. It was surrounded by a high wall of thick wooden stakes, and beyond, the roofs of the houses could be seen, interspersed with the occasional golden dome of a temple.

  'Look, more gold for the Skaldings,' said Hors with a laugh, pointing towards the minarets glimmering in the sunlight that was now breaking through gaps in the thinning cloud.

  'And how do you suppose to loot a temple dome?' asked Jakob, sharing the Norseman's enthusiasm. 'Will you carry it away on your back?'

  'If I have to,' Hors replied. 'I'll find a way, I always do.'

  'Do you think they'll surrender?' asked one of the other warriors in the group, a tall, blond-haired man with a plaited beard.

  'I hope so,' Hors said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. 'My wives are complaining that their slaves are too lazy, and I need some new ones.'

  'More slaves or more wives?' Jakob said.

  'Both!' said Hors with a wink.

  'Kislevites don't surrender,' another of the warriors remarked. 'They're stubborn bastards, usually have to kill every last one of them.'

  'They don't surrender, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're already heading south,' Hors said. 'Look at this fine army!'

  The drumbeats were joined by discordant, blaring horns as the warbands announced themselves to the enemy in the town, now less than half a mile away. Figures could be made out on the wall, gathering in groups to look at the approaching horde.

  Battle cries were shouted out over the clamour, and chants of praise to the gods could be heard. Some of the warbands clattered their weapons on their shields, trying to discomfort the foe with the rhythmic beating.

  A bell could be heard tolling in the distance, resounding out over the walls of Mursk, warning of the nearness of the foe. To Hors it sounded like sweet music, a ringing declaration of the defenders' fears. Many times over the years he had heard similar alarms as his longship had glided along the coast of the Empire. To his ears, it was the sound of victory.

  NEAR THE FRONT of the army, Vlamdir walked alongside Orst, who growled and snorted in anticipation. Vlamdir's own excitement was rising as they neared the town. He could sense the eyes of his bloodthirsty god upon him, willing him on to the coming slaughter.

  He pulled a stitched bladder from his belt and with his sharp teeth tore a hole in it. Horse's blood, from the mare Vlamdir had sacrificed the night before, poured through the gash and over his face.

  It cascaded down his chin and chest, gathering in the cracks of his skin-armour, seeping into his body in a luxurious wash of crimson. The scent was strong in Vlamdir's nostrils and he began to feel the battle-frenzy rising up within him.

  They were now less than a quarter of a mile from the walled town, and Vlamdir began to shake with excitement. He dragged his sword from its scabbard and swung it above his head, flinging droplets of blood across the snow and Orst's pale fur.

  'The head harvest begins!' he screamed, breaking into a run. Orst gave a roar and bounded forward, keeping pace with the young Kurgan tribesman.

  Around him other warriors succumbed to their battle lust as well and they charged forward yelling and screaming, followed by the brutish beastmen uttering their bestial cries and brandishing crude, looted weapons.

  Vlamdir saw the first volley of arrows arc over the parapet of the wall in a ragged cloud. They soared high into the air and then dropped down, plunging into the ground and warriors alike. A few of the possessed berserkers fell, others that were struck ignored their wounds and continued their sprint.

  Vlamdir's heart pounded in his chest as he charged forward, energy pulsing through his body, driving him onwards. His vision was blurring as the blood dripped into his eyes and he could taste it on his tongue. Licking his lips he cried out again.

  'Skulls for the skull lord!' he screamed.

  He could hardly see now, but it didn't matter, the wall was barely a hundred yards away. He could feel the ground trembling underfoot as the army thundered forward behind him, their hoarse shouts and the cry of horns growing ever louder.

  Vlamdir could dimly see more dark shapes on the walls above as more arrows sailed past him. Great Kharneth would keep him safe from their cowardly weapons. He felt as if his legs were strong enough for him to leap to the top of the wall in one great bound. He laughed as he ran.

  There was a thunderous detonation from ahead and a moment later something round and metallic slammed into Vlamdir's chest, punching through his fused armour and exploding out of his back, shattering his spine. His legs gave way beneath him and he fell head first into the snowy ground. As his lifeblood ebbed away, he barely registered the claws and hooves and boots of the warriors sweeping forward over him.

  JAKOB SAT UP with a start as the black and white uniformed troops appeared at the walls, handguns ready. In a single ragged salvo they fired, a ripple of fire and smoke engulfing the parapet. At such short range the volley was lethal, cutting down a swathe of warriors. Behind them the marauders and beastmen began to falter.

  Hors was swearing, staring at the shaman with angry eyes.

  'You told me that the town would be barely defended!' he growled.

  Jakob could not understand it. In the morning he had seen the army marching to the east, obviously headed for Eskivaya. And now the Ostlanders were here, at Mursk. He shook his head in confusion.

  'They shouldn't be here...' he muttered but Hors was not listening. He pressed forward, bellowing at his warriors to press home the attack.

  More flashes caught Jakob's attention, this time from a hill to the right, on the far side of the river, half a mile from the town. He counted six blossoms of fire and realised what it meant.

  The cannonballs screamed into the packed mass of warriors as they closed ranks to assault the walls. The spinning balls of hot iron smashed men apart, flung ragged corpses into the air and tore off limbs, spraying blood and snow in their wake.

  Hors and his hardened champions drove forward, pushing the tribesmen ahead into the attack. A constant stream of arrows now descended from the walls, cutting down even more of the men around Jakob.

  With sickening realisation, the shaman thought back to the night before, and the encounter with the weakling sorcerer. Jakob cursed himself for his arrogance, and then cursed the other man for the illusion he had placed in Jakob's mind.

  Jakob dismissed the worrisome thoughts easily. It did not matter that the town was defended. This left the ford at Eskivaya free for Undar and his men to cross without opposition. When combined with the Kul and other Kurgans who were even now closing from the west, these two forces were enough to crush the Empire army like an egg in a vice.

  Another volley of musket fire tore through the attackers, sending them reeling backwards. Though he knew that victory was assured, casualties were mounting rapidly. Sutenvulf would not thank Jakob for getting half his army slaughtered.

  Jakob dismounted awkwardly and slapped his horse on the rump to send it away. He ignored the warriors pouring past him towards the town and focussed his mind. As he had done so many times before, he allowed the breath of the gods to sweep into him, building a reserve of power.

  He held the energy longer than he had ever done before, the magic crackling from the rune-stones in his body, earthing itself in bursts of purple lightning. The pressure was growing almost intolerable and Jakob fought to control the magic coursing through his body. His anger at the deception that he had accepted gave him renewed strength and he pulled at the magical winds, twisting them together, fusing them into a densely packed mass of raw Chaos.

  He was surrounded by a visible corona of energy now, a churning sphere of coloured flames that sparked and hissed. With a shout, Jakob released his grip on the magic, hurling it forwards with the power of his mind.

  The gigantic magical fireball roared towards the town wall, tearing through the men in front of Jakob, igniting hair and hurling charred corpses in all directions. It impacte
d on the wall with an explosion that flung shattered logs and flaming bodies a hundred feet into the air, ripping a breach a dozen yards wide.

  As flaming debris fell to the ground, the forces of Sutenvulf charged once again towards the stunned defenders, their battle cries louder than ever. At the forefront were Hors and his chosen warriors.

  THE BREACH WAS choked with bodies and burning wood, and through the smoke Hors could see the defenders gathering again. Limbs protruded from the ragged mess, and the groans of those unfortunate enough to have survived Jakob's spell mixed with the crackle of flames.

  'Come on you dogs!' Hors bellowed, gripping his axe in both hands and running forward.

  A stuttering roar of cannon fire heralded another artillery salvo. As Hors jumped over the bodies scattered on the melted snow, dozens of men behind him were bludgeoned to gory masses and crushed beneath the weight of iron falling upon them.

  Arrows and bullets from the men still on the remaining parts of the wall whirred past Hors as he advanced, and he heard the grunts and cries of those behind him as the missiles found their marks. Unperturbed, he rushed towards the smoking gap.

  Bounding up onto the pile of debris and corpses, Hors was confronted by a wall of spear points. He lashed out with his axe, the blade smashing through the shafts of the soldiers' weapons.

  On either side of him, his chosen warriors ran up, hurling themselves towards the enemy. Many died on the spears of the Empire soldiers, heads and chests transfixed by the iron-tipped demi-pikes, while others cannoned into the mass, their thick armour brushing aside the defenders' attacks.

  Hors fended off a thrust towards his stomach and threw himself forwards, burying the head of his axe into the shoulder of the frightened young man at the other end of the spear. Wrenching his weapon clear, Hors swung to the right, the axe chopping through the armour of another man.

  The clatter of steel and wood surrounded him as he pressed forwards, hewing left and right, his foes unable to use their long weapons at such close quarters. Their screams and howls echoed in his ears.

  'Die, you sons of whores.' he spat between gritted teeth, decapitating a grey-haired veteran with one sweep. 'May the worms enjoy your flesh!'

  The spearmen held firm against the charge, the shouts of their sergeants urging them forwards again when they began to falter. As more and more warriors from both sides pressed into the breach it became a matter of brute strength.

  With no more room to swing his axe, Hors let go of it, leaving the weapon buried in the back of the last man to have felt its bite. He smashed his large fists into the faces of those around him, breaking jaws and noses. He grabbed one soldier by the throat and squeezed hard, crushing his windpipe. As he let go of the body, kept upright by the weight of people around it, he drove his forehead into the face of a man trying to wrap his arm around the Norseman's throat.

  Hors felt someone grabbing at his face from behind and he snatched the arm in his strong grip and twisted. There was a scream and Hors pulled hard, the limb coming away in a spray of blood. Ignoring the punches raining onto his back and shoulders, he turned to face the man who had attacked him. He was gibbering madly, staring at the ragged stump of his shoulder.

  'This is yours.' snarled Hors, smashing the severed limb into the man's face, breaking his neck with the blow.

  The Norseman rammed his elbow into the throat of another soldier, and then drove his fist into his chest, buckling his thin breastplate. Choking, the man staggered back, giving Hors enough time to pull a knife from his belt. He rammed it point first into the injured man's eyeball.

  Gouging and slashing, Hors drove ever deeper into the spearmen, leaving a trail of dismembered dead and injured in his wake.

  The brutal, unrelenting assault of the Chaos warriors proved too much for them in the end, and the spearmen turned to flee. Hors snatched up one of their fallen weapons and drove its point into the back of one southerner as he tried to run. With inhuman strength he lifted the flailing man into the air and then flung him after his routed comrades. Spear in one hand, knife in the other, Hors led his men onwards into the town.

  The buildings were built mostly from wood, with stone foundations. They had high sloping roofs of dark slate and narrow windows, and as Hors advanced more archers and musketeers appeared on the vantage points, firing into the streets below.

  A bullet smashed off a wall next to Hors, filling his face with wooden shards. As blood dribbled down his cheek, the warlord spat and turned to his warriors behind him.

  'Bring fire,' he shouted at them. 'We'll burn them out!'

  The army spread out through the streets in their hundreds, fighting building by building, pouring into the beleaguered town in a ferocious wave. Burning torches brought from the shattered ruins of the wall were used to set fire to houses and shops and soon a dark pall of smoke hung over Mursk, blotting out the light of the sun.

  Choking on the fumes from the fires below, defenders in the buildings were forced to climb from the windows and haul themselves up to the roofs. They looked on aghast as flames and smoke crept up the walls towards them. Where they could, they retreated along the rooftops, jumping over the narrow gaps between some of them when necessary.

  All the while that the warriors of Chaos advanced, they were met by a hail of crossbow bolts, shot and arrows. Their dead littered the streets, marking the routes of their attacks. Hors stopped half a mile from the wall and allowed his howling fighters to advance past him.

  He was covered with blood and soot, his face cut and punctured, his hair a tangled mess. Reaching into his cloak he pulled out a small silver mirror and opened it. With his knife clenched between his teeth he began to wipe the grime from his face and pick the pieces of wood and gore from his long locks. Turning his head to each side to check the results, he snapped the mirror shut with satisfaction and placed it back in its pouch.

  He was firmly of the belief that no god would ever favour a man who did not take pride in his appearance. Contented that all was well with the way he looked, he took his dagger from his mouth and advanced again.

  As he rejoined the hundreds of warriors battling through the street fighting from house to house, he realised that they were near the river. Along the street ahead he could see a long stone bridge arcing up into view.

  Knowing that this was where they had the best chance of keeping the attackers at bay, the soldiers of the Empire had formed up resolutely on the banks of the river, over a thousand fighting men. Amongst them were some of the most battle-hardened soldiers in the army, including such regiments as the Wolfenburg Heavy Spear, the Forest of Shadows Patrol and van Bronckhurst's Swords.

  The veteran warriors stood shoulder to shoulder, their faces grim, as the warriors of the Dark Gods advanced down the streets towards them. To the steady barked shouts of their sergeants and captains, the veterans readied their weapons and raised their shields. Their banners fluttered in the smoke, their many battle honours embroidered around designs of griffons and dragons.

  At their centre, defending the bridge itself, the Gold Company waited, their plate armour tarnished from the fires, their two-handed swords reflecting the firelight from the burning buildings. A trumpet sounded a single long note and they raised their swords to the guard position. In the middle of their front rank, two of the veteran soldiers stepped aside to allow someone through.

  Hors almost laughed as he saw the diminutive figure in silver and gold armour step forward and take up position. His laughter died in his throat as he strode closer, seeing her long red hair in a plait that hung down across her breast. The woman drew her sword, and Hors saw blue flames flickering along the edges of the blade.

  Hors slowed and called to his men to halt. They did so reluctantly darting questioning looks towards him. The Norse warlord needed time to think.

  How in the all the names of the gods was he supposed to take the town without harming Sutenvulf's woman?

  THE STORM HAD passed and cool wind whipped at Andar Kul's face as he r
ode eastwards along the south bank of the Urskoy. The crossing at Gobri Danesk had been held by only a few hundred Kislevites, a rearguard of the army that chased his own so far across the tundra. His three thousand warriors had swept them aside easily, though they had valiantly tried to hold against the overwhelming force that had descended upon them with the rising sun and the abatement of the storm. They had been good enemies, and as a sign of respect Kul had taken the head of their leader and it now hung from his saddlecloth so that others might see it and know the face of the great warrior.

  His horsemen moved at a fast walk, covering the ground quickly enough but without tiring their mounts. In this way, they passed mile after mile as the sun rose in the air, always the icy waters of the river a few hundred yards to their left.

  By midmorning Kul could see a column of smoke in the distance, a black cloud that rose high into the air. It could only be Mursk, he knew, but Hors was supposed to take the bridge and then move on to the true battlefield further to the east.

  The Kurgan chieftain thought that perhaps the ignorant Norseman had stopped anyway for some looting and fun. Well, Kul thought, if Hors missed the battle at Eskivaya Sutenvulf would have him tortured to death. The thought pleased the steppesman, and he imagined what pain he might inflict on his rival if his master invited him to do the honours.

  As he rode nearer the town, Kul could sense that something was wrong. There were dark shapes on a hill not far ahead, and a shadow covered the ground along the northern approaches. Flames snaked into the air above the wooden palisade surrounding Mursk and there were sounds of battle. Surely the Norseman wasn't having difficulty overrunning a poorly defended Kislevite hovel?

  Bright lights flared from the hill, blossoming against the lightening sky. Kul was not sure what this signified until he heard the rolling booms and saw the black streaks hurtling towards him. There were shouts from the others around him and he kicked his horse into a canter.