by C. L. Werner
More than the effect Puskab’s profane magic had upon his verminous minions, it was the effect it had on Ar-Ulric’s own guards that incensed the priest. Where but a moment before the warriors had been viciously throwing the ratmen back, now they recoiled before the monsters, falling back step by tremulous step. Ar-Ulric strangled the fear inside his own breast. Hefting his axe, he brought it cleaving through the neck of one plague monk and broke the jaw of a second with the return sweep of the weapon. Throwing back his head, he howled the name of Ulric.
The howl was answered by a white-furred fury. A great white wolf with pale eyes leapt out from the darkness, lunging into the ratmen with tooth and claw. The creatures, only a moment before emboldened to the point of frenzy by Puskab, now squealed in fright. Ar-Ulric froze, gazing in open wonder at the wolf’s avenging assault. Alone among the stunned men who watched the wolf butcher a path through the plague monks, he recognised the creature as the other self of Hulda the Ulricskind. Horror at the witch’s transformation warred with gratitude for her defence of Ulric’s shrine in the old priest’s heart.
Puskab Foulfur spun around at the onset of Hulda’s attack. The plague priest drew away from the rampaging white wolf, seizing one of his acolytes and holding the squirming monk between himself and the huge animal. At the same time, however, Puskab began to work his own magic. Grisly green flames erupted from the tips of his branching antlers; his blemished eyes glowed with a spectral light. Throwing open his jaws, Puskab spewed a stream of corrosive magic at the wolf. Instead of his foe, his foul magic caught two of his skaven instead, melting the screaming monks into steaming puddles of fur and bone.
Ar-Ulric rushed at the plague priest before he could send a second bilious gout at Hulda. His axed hewed into the monk Puskab was using for his shield, striking the wretch down. Even as Ar-Ulric drew back his arm for another attack, Puskab opened his jaws and sent a stream of caustic filth splashing into the old man’s face. Ar-Ulric’s scream became a liquid bubble as he collapsed to the ground, his face reduced to the smoking ruin of a skull.
A low growl brought Puskab spinning around. The plague priest squeaked in terror as the white wolf pounced at him. Exhibiting ability far beyond his wasted appearance, Puskab leapt back into the hole, hurtling down into the blackness of the burrow below. As he did so, Hulda’s jaws clamped tight about the plague priest’s naked tail. A twist of her lupine head as Puskab fell into the burrow and the scaly appendage was torn out by its roots.
The other plague monks quickly followed their leader in retreat. Hulda and the Teutogen Guard let them flee. Men and wolf alike gathered about the corpse of Ar-Ulric. While the warriors gathered up the priest’s body, the wolf sank down onto her haunches and raised her head to the heavens.
Hulda’s mournful howl echoed above the encampment, ringing out above the din of battle, commending the spirit of a brave man into the keeping of his god.
Mandred sank down onto his knees, pounding his fists into the bloodied ground inside his tent. Beside him, Kurgaz and the other warriors who had fought with him in the battle kept silent.
The plague monks had been driven from the encampment, routed before they could wreak much havoc. The purpose of their attack seemed to have been to get at the food stores, but in this they had been thwarted by the fast action of Captain Aldinger and his Knights of the Black Rose. Overall, the ratmen had inflicted few casualties, with fewer than a hundred dead and not many more than that wounded. Among the casualties, however, was the spiritual centre of the Middenheim host, Ar-Ulric, the grizzled old High Priest of Ulric. His loss was one that shook the entire complement, a loss scarcely alleviated by the tales of the Teutogen Guard, stories about a great white wolf that had suddenly manifested and tried to save Ar-Ulric.
Mandred was stunned by the death of his old councillor and spiritual mentor, and even more alarmed by the eerie manifestation of the white wolf associated with the priest’s death. The animal that had so often crossed Mandred’s path once again appearing from nowhere and returning just as suddenly into the aethyr. It was a circumstance that vexed his mind with both regret and dismay. He’d thought the wolf a sending of Ulric, yet the beast hadn’t been able to save the old priest from the skaven.
Within Mandred’s tent, however, was the mute evidence of the cruellest cut the monsters had inflicted upon the army’s leader. It was difficult at first to make out precisely what the gory heap of meat lying on the floor was. When the outlines of a body revealed themselves, few were grateful for such resolution.
Beck pushed aside the flap of the tent and hurried to his master’s side. He stopped short when he saw the butchered corpse on the floor. ‘The skaven,’ he said, his voice less than a whisper.
Mandred looked up, his eyes blazing with rekindled hatred, with the malignance of unbridled vengeance. ‘Form the men into their companies,’ he ordered. ‘Let every soldier gird his armour and take up his sword. I want anyone able to bear a weapon ready to march at first light.’
The graf turned his eyes back to the mutilated body that had been Mirella less than an hour before.
‘We ride with the dawn,’ Mandred growled. ‘Woe to the man who shows these vermin any mercy, for he will find none in me.’
Stirland, 1122
The Great Host’s battle-line faltered as the ancient wights marched forwards. An aura of unspeakable and primordial evil clung to the Styrigen dead, the accusation of ancient revenge and forgotten outrage. Ghostly fires blazed from the sockets of each skull, shining with the infernal hatred of a vanquished race.
Terror closed upon the hearts of the Stirlanders, Grand Count von Oberreuth’s army stood upon the edge of panic. It needed but a moment more to rout the entire force.
From the Great Host’s right flank, a small company of riders emerged. Foremost among them was a bearded man, the open face of his helm resembling the jaws of a wolf. The crest that rose above that helm was a new symbol, that of a rampant wolf holding a great hammer in its paws. It was the symbol of the leader who had rallied the whole of the north to his cause, the man who styled himself the Wolf of Sigmar. With Graf Mandred rode two old men, one dressed in the vestments of a Sigmarite arch-lector, the other wearing the high robes of Ulrican priesthood.
‘Men of Stirland!’ Mandred’s voice rang out as he drew rein before the faltering Great Host. Some trick of acoustics or magic magnified that voice, projecting it deep into the forest, causing it to ring even in the ears of Count Malbork’s Sylvanians far on the left flank. ‘Fear no darkness, sons of Queen Freya! The blood of the Asoborns burns pure in your veins! Do not betray that legacy! Show Ulric and Sigmar, Taal and Rhya that you are worthy of your ancestors!’ With a flourish, Mandred threw back his cloak, exposing the bared length of Legbiter. The runefang shone with arcane brilliance as he held it aloft. Grimly, he pointed the blade at the advancing undead. ‘Do not fear these grave-cheating ghouls! Remember it was your ancestors who sent them there! Remember that Sigmar gave this land to you, not to them!’
From throats that had been frozen in fear a moment before there now rose a thunderous cheer. Peasant conscripts and armoured Dienstleute brought spear and sword crashing against their shields, a sound of such violence that it boomed like the bellow of an avalanche. Upon his spectral throne, Vanhal gazed in wonder at the spectacle. For an instant, the entire deathless legion was still as the master necromancer puzzled over this mere mortal who would defy all the powers of Old Night.
The cheering army fell silent when Vanhal raised a wizened hand and pointed his bony finger at Graf Mandred. All could sense the hideous power when it erupted from the sorcerer’s talon. A phantasmal force sped towards the Middenheimer, gathering a miasma of shape and form as it hurtled towards him. As it swept through the ranks of unmoving skeletons, bones exploded into dust, the decayed powders drawn into the morbid cyclone.
Mandred’s panicked horse threw its master from the saddle and galloped away. The
steeds of both priests bolted as Vanhal’s deathly spell came hurtling onwards, withering the grass beneath it as it flew towards its victim.
Rising from his sprawl, Mandred poised himself upon one knee and held Legbiter before him. There was no fear in the graf’s eyes, no doubt upon his countenance, only the grimmest resolve.
The necromantic bolt crashed against the ensorcelled blade of Legbiter, evaporating like so much mist and fog. A patina of bone powder drifted to the earth, sizzling for a moment before the last dregs of arcane power faded into nothingness. Mandred stood, glowering down at the ectoplasmic residue. Then he glared across the field, locking eyes with the ghoulish gaze of Vanhal. Defiantly, Mandred again pointed his runefang at the necromancer.
A second cheer erupted from the mortal army, dwarfing the first shout to insignificance. ‘For Stirland!’ Count von Oberreuth roared as he spurred his destrier forwards. The White Swords charged after him, the rest of the Stirland horse following suit. Boldly they rode towards the Styrigen wights. In a crash of armour and bone they slammed into the ghastly creatures. With lance and sword they brought the loathsome undead a second and more final death.
The Battle of Fellwald had been joined.
Malbork von Drak scowled as he watched the carnage unfold. Von Oberreuth’s horses were decimating Vanhal’s undead, exterminating them on an appalling scale. It had been his plan to have the two forces decimate each other, not have the Stirlanders simply walk over the monsters.
‘Excellency, shall we assist the grand count?’ the question came from Dregator Iorgu. Malbork clenched his fist, more angry at the appropriateness of the question than anything else. The way the battle was shaping up, the necessity of protecting the left flank was vanishing. Already Graf Mandred’s troops were closing from the right and engaging the undead. If the Sylvanians didn’t follow the Middenheimer’s example, it was certain that von Oberreuth would demand an accounting.
The voivode started to answer Iorgu, to give the order for the Nachtsheer to advance, when a cold shiver ran through him. Looking away from his henchman, he studied the battlefield. Something was happening there, something that the commanders in the thick of the melee couldn’t see. The dead that Graf Mandred and the grand count had left littering the ground behind their advance were stirring. Shattered bone was knitting itself back together; mangled skeletons were raising themselves from their own dissolution.
It didn’t take the witchsight of a warlock to see the sorcerous power exuding from Vanhal’s body. It was like gazing upon the emanations of some black and necrotic star, ebony tatters of power that snaked and slithered along the ground to restore a profane mockery of life to the undead and the mortal men they had vanquished.
Cries of terror and warning rose from the infantry still sheltering in the woods, but the alarm came too late. The fire from human archers and dwarf gunners was too little to stem the disaster. Hurtling down from the sky, a headless dragon vomited burning putrescence from the stump of its neck onto the phalanx of Middenland foot knights who would have marched to the relief of their embattled comrades. Under the dragon’s assault, the infantry fled back into the forest.
Malbork shuddered, appreciating now the diabolical tactics of the necromancer. Vanhal had allowed his forces to be decimated, drawing his mortal foes ever deeper into an infernal trap. With every yard they advanced, the cavalry left a yard of corpses behind them. Now, as the necromancer’s baleful power saturated the land, the attackers found themselves enmeshed in a solid ring of enemies. A cordon of merciless skeletons now converged upon the horsemen from all sides. As he watched, Malbork saw the second of Vanhal’s dragons come diving down, incinerating dozens of knights, indifferent to the scores of skeletons that melted beneath its breath. Even as they fell, the steaming bodies of the dragon’s victims stirred and lurched to their feet.
‘I think,’ Malbork said as he stroked his thick moustache, ‘we shall stay precisely where we are.’ The voivode didn’t bother to restrain his laughter. After today, at least von Oberreuth would no longer be a problem and if Lothar von Diehl managed his side of their compact, Vanhal wouldn’t be a worry much longer either.
So rapt was he in watching the havoc unfolding before the eaves of Fellwald that Malbork didn’t see the frantic Sylvanian scouts when they came galloping towards their voivode. His first awareness of their approach was when his bodyguards formed ranks around him, wary that some disloyal peasant might have taken it in mind to assassinate their despotic master.
The scouts, however, had a different enemy in mind. As the foremost of the riders drew rein before the voivode, he began to stammer a confused account of being attacked in the hollow they were watching. Malbork listened to the terrified babble for a moment, then spurred his steed forwards, brushing aside his protectors. ‘Make sense or I’ll hang your guts in a tree,’ he growled at the scout.
By way of explanation, the frightened man turned around in his saddle and pointed a shaking hand towards the hollow. As he did so, scurrying shapes emerged from the shadowy vale. Shouts of alarm rose from the Nachtsheer when they saw the things, watched the fading sun glisten from bleached bone and rusty steel.
A flank attack? Had Vanhal added such a deployment to his strategy? The thought chilled Malbork, but as he watched more of the enemy come out of the darkness, the truth seemed even worse. These were no undead, the exposed bone they saw wasn’t the skeletons of wights and wraiths but rather the macabre armour worn by living creatures, things every bit as monstrous as Vanhal’s obscene creations.
It seemed another faction had seized upon Malbork’s idea of letting Stirlander and undead exterminate one another. Seized upon it and made it their own.
The creatures lurking underneath that bony armour were unmistakable. The same monsters that had ravaged and plundered most of the Empire. The loathsome ratmen were come to destroy both armies.
The only thing standing in their way was the tiny company of Sylvanians.
Chapter XV
Averland, 1123
Graf Mandred sat upon his white destrier before the massed ranks of his cavalry. The horsemen would make a probing attack against the walls of Averheim to determine where the fortifications were weakest and where their siege engines – catapults from the human realms, cannon brought down from the mountains by dwarf mercenaries – would be most effectively concentrated. The infantry, kept busy through the night assembling the massive towers of hide and timber that would allow them to assault the battlements directly, were catching a much-needed rest. Their part would come after the cavalry and artillery had done their jobs.
Mandred stared at the sprawl of Averheim. By night it had looked like some hellish inferno aglow with daemonic fires. The sight by day was even more disheartening. The once great city looked like a blackened wound, the burnt-out rubble strewn about the landscape like a great carcass. Already a thick plume of smoke stretched into the sky from the bonfires the skaven were setting. Closer to the city, Mandred knew the smoke would blot out the sun, affording the verminous monsters the darkness that was their element.
‘Gaze upon this place, my brothers,’ Mandred enjoined the troops who followed him. ‘Lock this vision in your hearts; bury it in your souls. Look on the corpse of Averheim and know that this will be the fate of your cities and your homes. If we falter, if we fail this day, all we have fought for will be for naught. The ratkin will be resurgent, their hordes will sweep across the land in a great blight and usher in a darkness even the gods will not wipe away. We are the last shield of mankind, the last sword of the light. To us is given the honour of breaking the shadow of the rat. To us is given the glory and the burden. Let each man prove worthy of the task the gods have entrusted to him!’
A fierce cheer rose from a thousand riders, a roar that boomed across the plain like thunder. Like thunder too was the pounding of hooves as the horsemen galloped towards the blackened city.
As he rode towards
the walls, Mandred could see the skaven sentries scurrying about behind the battlements, squeaking and shrieking the alarm to their commanders. The vermin had no archers – in the blighted underworld they infested there was no need for such skill. The absence of bowmen among their swarms was keenly felt by the ratmen now. The bark and crack of a handful of jezzails was the only opposition the monsters could offer as Mandred’s cavalry swept across the plain. It was only when they got within a few horse-lengths of the walls that masses of emaciated ratkin armed with crude leather slings appeared on the walls and were able to offer any sort of challenge. Their bullets, however, were hastily loosed and poorly aimed. The skaven slaves had no hunger for battle, no great heart to defend their cruel masters. Moreover, their courage evaporated when they saw the human riders galloping straight towards the battlements, armour shining in the sun, pennants fluttering in the breeze. The awesome sight made the creatures shrink back against the crenellations, stirring themselves only when the abusive whips of their overseers forced them into action.
Across the length of the walls, Mandred saw much the same scene. Focusing upon the besieged Averburg, the skaven had left only the dregs of their army to defend the walls behind them. More, the ratkin had done little to repair the damage inflicted upon those walls in their initial attack. A gatehouse in the western approach had been so sloppily mended that one of its walls was simply a pile of rubble that had been dragged out from the city and heaped against the side of the fortification. One look at the slovenly construction and Mandred knew where his army would make its attack. Even the moat that ran along the western wall had been drained, its bottom sown with what looked like a crop of runty corn stalks. If it didn’t suit his own purposes so well, Mandred would have been appalled by the sheer arrogance of the ratkin.
‘Sound the recall,’ Mandred ordered the trumpeter riding beside him. While the knight blew into his horn, the graf turned in his saddle and motioned to the banner bearer following behind him. The knight nodded and pulled a cord on the standard he carried, unfurling a yellow flag. It was a sign that would be seen by the artillery assembled across the plain, alerting them that the graf had chosen their target.