—<EIGHT>—

The First to Die

 

 

Though he had faced the horror of the living dead before, Sigmar’s soul rebelled at the sight before him. Once Ostengard had been a prosperous, well-populated logging village, home to two hundred Cherusen woodsmen and their families. Now it was a charnel house, a field of blood and death.

“Ulric’s bones,” swore Count Aloysis, his face pale and the tattoos that curled across his face bleached of colour. His shaven head was criss-crossed with scars and his long scalp lock was more silver than black, bound with circlets of cold iron. “Those were my people.”

Aloysis’ scarlet cloak flapped in the cold wind and his hand twitched on the hook-bladed sword at his side. His eyes were wide with fear at what lay below them.

“Not anymore, they’re not,” grunted Count Krugar, trying to mask his own fear. “Now they’re dead meat for hewing.”

The Taleuten count was wide and powerful, clad in a shimmering hauberk of silver scale. He hefted Utensjarl from hand to hand. The ancient weapon of Talenbor was slender-bladed, but Sigmar had seen Krugar hew Norsii like saplings with its lethal edge. Despite Krugar’s bluster, Sigmar knew both counts were afraid. He didn’t blame them.

“Krugar speaks the truth, Aloysis,” said Sigmar. “These are not your people. Remember that.”

“Aye, I know,” said Aloysis. “That doesn’t make it any easier to take a blade to them.”

Sigmar knew that only too well, having fought against dead things that had once been men of the Empire in the Middle Mountains. This would be hardest on Aloysis, but it would be a test every one of them would have to face soon, of that Sigmar was certain.

A thousand warriors lined the hillside above Ostengard, a mix of Cherusen axemen and foresters, the Red Scythes of the Taleutens and Unberogen swordsmen. Though the Cherusens and Taleutens had almost gone to war a few years ago, their leaders had since become staunch allies, their bond forged by the nearness of their death at Sigmar’s hands when the dread crown of Morath had poisoned him with its evil.

In the wake of Khaled al-Muntasir’s appearance in Reikdorf, Sigmar had gathered a sword host of five hundred warriors and ridden with all speed towards Taalahim, the great forest city of the Taleutens. If the dead were on the march, then it seemed their first move was in the north. Both counts had sent desperate missives asking for the Emperor’s troops to quell the rising dead, and Sigmar had answered their calls.

The Unberogen had ridden hard, meeting the Cherusens and Taleutens in the rugged southern skirts of the Howling Hills. Too late to save the people of Ostengard, but not too late to avenge them.

Clustered around a central thoroughfare that led to the river, Ostengard had been built in a horseshoe shape, with a grain store and carpentry building at its centre. Numerous dwellings were built around these structures, and an elaborate shrine to Taal stood at the riverside. Vast swathes of the forest had been cleared around the village, and much of that had been given over to cultivation, with fields of golden corn and barley waving in the gentle breeze.

The village seethed with activity, unnatural activity. Pallid-skinned creatures with thin, wiry limbs and enlarged skulls feasted on the dead, loping from corpse to corpse to fight for the choicest shanks of meat. Shambling corpses in muddy rags gathered together in moaning bands of rotting flesh, stumbling and dragging themselves towards the hillside where the warriors of the Empire watched.

The dead had risen from the mulchy earth and devoured Ostengard, and a gathering darkness held sway over the day, though the sun was only just past its zenith. The horde of dead things, sensing the warm meat of the living, came for them in an inexorable march of dread patience and insatiable hunger.

Sigmar guessed they faced at least five hundred living dead, a number that could normally be easily overcome, but this was a foe that fought with fear as their greatest weapon.

“Aloysis, you and your axemen are with me. Krugar, split your horsemen and ride around the enemy to hit them from behind,” said Sigmar. “Ride down to the village and come up through its main street.”

“They won’t break and run,” pointed out Krugar, mounting his horse, a powerful, grain-fed stallion of midnight black. “The dead don’t fear anything.”

“They fear this,” said Sigmar, lifting Ghal-Maraz from his belt. The dwarf runes etched into its surface shimmered with silver light, and he could feel the weapon’s ancestral hatred of the living dead. “Somewhere down there is a will that is controlling this horde. Ghal-Maraz will find it and I will destroy it. With its destruction this horde cannot exist.”

“Then let me be the one to fell it,” begged Aloysis. “My people demand their count’s vengeance.”

Sigmar nodded. “So be it, but enough talk, it’s time to fight.”

Krugar dug his heels into his mount’s flanks and said, “May Ulric give your arm strength, brothers.”

The Taleuten count wheeled his horse and joined the Red Scythes. At a curt command, the horsemen split into two groups with the smooth ease of practiced warriors. They rode with incredible skill, crouched low over their mounts’ heads as they moved to encircle the host of the dead.

Aloysis offered Sigmar his hand, and he shook it, feeling the clammy sweat coating the Cherusen count’s palm. The man was terrified, but he was facing that terror with iron courage. Sigmar had always respected Aloysis, but this was a level of courage beyond simple bravery.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No,” answered Aloysis honestly. “But let us fight together, my Emperor.”

Sigmar took Ghal-Maraz in a two-handed grip and raised his voice so that every warrior on the hillside could hear him.

“Men of the Empire, you fight a terrible enemy today, but know this. The dead can die. Lay them low as you would slay any foe. Sword and axe will fell them as surely as any living man. Fight in Ulric’s name and we will prevail! For Ulric!”

A ragged cheer erupted along the hillside and Sigmar led the warriors forward in two solid blocks, Sigmar in command of the left, Aloysis the right. They marched towards the enemy, and Sigmar felt the fear of the dead spread through the ranks.

He raised Ghal-Maraz and the man next to him hoisted the Imperial standard high, a magnificent banner of red, blue and white. A glorious beast of legend was picked out in gold, with a silver crown encircling its breast, and the sight of Sigmar’s new heraldry filled the hearts of all who saw it with fresh courage.

Closer now, the dead were a truly horrific sight, a collection of all degradations time could wreak upon the frailty of human form. Decomposing flesh hung from the bones of those who had clawed their way from earthen graves, loose jawbones hanging like grotesque ornaments from splintered skulls. Those more recently dead were bloody and raw where grasping hands, grave-dirt claws and broken teeth had torn the meat from their bones.

Worse than that, the dreadful aspect of their very existence sent cold spikes of unreasoning fear through every man who stood against them. A man could face another man with courage and know that he could prevail by the strength of his sword arm alone. To face the dead was another matter entirely, for to look into their eyes was to see your own death, to know that your existence in this world was fleeting. To face the dead was to face mortality itself.

Sigmar increased his pace to a loping ran, lifting Ghal-Maraz over his shoulder and letting loose a fearsome Unberogen war-shout. His warriors echoed him, bellowing the name of Ulric and matching his pace. The Cherusens whooped and hollered, their painted faces recalling the days they had fought near-naked and chewing on wildroot and bane leaves.

Where the Unberogen marched in close-packed ranks, the Cherusen fought as individuals, their mighty felling axes requiring space to swing without hitting a fellow warrior. Aloysis had his sword drawn, a long cavalry sabre more useful on the back of a horse, but a fine enough weapon to strike down the dead on foot.

Less than twenty yards separated the living from the dead.

Sigmar shouted, “For Ulric!” and broke into a furious charge.

The Unberogen and Cherusen came with him and they struck the dead with all the force and vitality the living could muster.

 

Maedbh hauled the reins left as a savage beast with blood-red eyes leapt towards her, its taloned paws slashing. The feral wolf slammed into the side of the chariot with a heavy thump, its claws tearing down through the wooden sides. Ulrike screamed in terror and Maedbh risked a glance back to check her daughter was safe.

Ulrike loosed a poorly aimed shaft. The arrowhead scored through the wolf’s fur and bounced from its skull. It howled and fell away from the chariot.

“Keep them back!” shouted Maedbh.

Only three of the chariots had escaped the riverbed, breaking through the encircling packs of wolves. The horses yoked to Yustin and Kreo’s chariot were torn apart before they could get moving, and the youngsters were brought down moments later. A huge, black-furred wolf snapped its jaws on Yustin’s head, killing the youth instantly, while two wolves with bare skulls and exposed musculature tore Kreo’s arm off with brutal sweeps of their claws.

Henia and Torqa got their chariot moving, but a pair of wolves leapt from the ridge straight onto them. Torqa skewered the first with her spear, but the second wolf bit her in two and smashed Henia’s spine with one slash of its claws.

The rest of them had broken free and rode with all speed to the north.

Maedbh looked around. The wolves were loping alongside them, their decayed bodies ravaged and wasted, yet powerful and untiring. Six followed them and another four ran on each flank, content to drive them into the path of wolves Maedbh knew were lying in wait somewhere up ahead. These were dead creatures, but they hunted like living ones.

A steady stream of arrows flew from the backs of the chariots. Of all the youngsters, Ulrike had the best eye, and her arrows struck home more than anyone else’s. Already she had brought down two wolves. Even amid this desperate chase, Maedbh was proud of her.

The wolves howled and closed in. A slavering beast loped in from the right, its eyes fixed on Maedbh’s throat. She pulled the reins in hard, almost tipping the chariot, and its right wheel came off the ground. The wolf hit the spinning wheel and its momentum carried it under the chariot. It gave a mournful howl before its bones were crushed and whatever animation empowered it was extinguished.

Ulrike loosed an arrow at the creature behind it, the shaft punching through the beast’s eye socket, and its body writhed as the unnatural energies that bound it together faded and it dropped without a sound. The other creatures cared nothing for the deaths of their pack brothers, and drove the chariots onwards. Maedbh saw three wolves closing on Osgud’s chariot and steered around a patch of rocks to sweep in behind him.

“Bloody fool never could keep his spacing,” she hissed. The wolves saw her coming, but too late, and she drove over the rearmost creature, flattening it beneath her wheels. The second loped away, but the third was too fixated on its prey to pay her any mind.

“Osgud! Hard right!”

The terrified youth obeyed instantly, his training making the movement automatic. The two chariots slammed together, crushing the wolf between them. Ulrike screamed as she was jolted from her perch. Maedbh reached back and grabbed her daughter’s arm as she slid off the chariot.

Ulrike flailed with her free arm, desperately clawing her way back on board. Spying a target of opportunity, a ravaged wolf with a spectral gleam in its eyes and a hollowed skull bounded towards her, stinking grave dirt spilling from its fang-filled jaws. It leapt towards Ulrike, claws outstretched.

A heavy spear slammed into its side, punching through its ribs and skewering it in mid-air. The blade twisted and the wolf fell away, its bones dissolving and its fur rotting to ash in the wind. Daegal drew back his spear as another wolf leapt for the back of his chariot. The blade stabbed into its skull, and the wolf howled as it died anew.

Maedbh hauled Ulrike back into the chariot, pleased at least one of her students had listened to her. She lashed her horses to greater speed, pulling in close to Osgud’s chariot and making sure Daegal’s was close by too.

Eight wolves remained, but one of those was slain by a pair of arrows that pierced its chest and skull. Another died when it dared to come too close to Daegal’s chariot, and ended up beneath its wheels. Six left, and the ground was rising towards the hills where they would find sanctuary. She heard the howls of wolves from ahead, and knew that was just where the wolves were driving them.

“Circle up!” she cried, and the chariots rolled around, each moving in a smooth arc until they had formed an ad-hoc fortress with one another. The wolves surrounded them, wary at this change of strategy on the part of their prey. Ulrike dropped one wolf with an arrow to the head, and Daegal hurled his spear into the flank of another. Both yelped as their bodies crumbled away to stinking ash.

Realising they could not afford to wait, the remaining wolves hurled themselves at the Asoborns. Freed from the need to control the chariot, Maedbh loosed a quick arrow that tore the throat from a leaping wolf. She threw her bow aside and drew her sword as the rest of the wolves attacked.

Osgud killed a wolf with a spear thrust, and was borne to the ground by a second. Ulrike stabbed a throwing spear into the side of a snapping beast as it climbed over the sides of the chariot. The shaft snapped off in the creature’s ribcage, but Maedbh stepped in and hacked the wolf’s head from its shoulders with one blow.

The last wolf backed away from the Asoborns, its fangs bared and its eyes alight with killing fire. A living wolf would have slunk away in defeat, but this dead creature circled the chariots at speed before finally leaping onto Osgud’s chariot and plucking the fallen youngster from his position there. Its jaws closed with the sound of two spars of wood slamming together and Osgud’s body came apart in a spray of crimson.

Four arrows sliced into its body and a heavy throwing spear all but severed its spine. Its rotten bones fell apart and Osgud’s remains flopped into his chariot, little more than torn limbs and ruptured meat.

Maedbh cast a wary look north. She saw no signs of wolves and let out a pent up breath.

“Gather up your arrows!” she ordered. “Quickly, there’s likely more of these things out there.”

Ulrike and the others ran to obey and she was proud of them all. Maedbh retrieved her own bow, constantly scanning the horizon for fresh threats. The darkened skies to the south worried her, more than they had before. Something evil was coming to the lands of the Asoborns, and this was just a foretaste.

The youngsters ran back to the chariots, and they mounted up.

“We ride west!” shouted Maedbh.

“No!” protested Ulrike. “We can’t go west. Three Hills is north.”

“And so are the wolves,” answered Maedbh, coming down to Ulrike’s level. “If we go west through the hills, no wolves will be able to find us. When it’s safe, we’ll cut back north.”

“I was scared,” said Ulrike, holding onto Maedbh’s arm.

She saw the fear behind her daughter’s eyes, a fear for her own life, but also that of her mother. Only now, with the immediate danger averted, did Maedbh realise how close she had come to losing Ulrike. The thought terrified her, and a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach sent a dreadful nausea through her entire body.

“I know you were, my dear,” said Maedbh, fighting to keep her voice even. “So was I, but you were very, very brave, my girl. You were scared, but you didn’t run, you fought like a true Asoborn. I’m so proud of you.”

Ulrike smiled, but Maedbh saw the fear hadn’t left her entirely. She stood on trembling legs, and took hold of the chariot’s reins. Her hands shook and she gripped the leather tightly to keep her terror from showing.

“Perhaps Wolfgart was right,” she whispered, fighting back tears.

 

Sigmar slammed his hammer into the face of a long dead man in mouldering rags. The skull caved with a wet, tearing sound and his hammer broke through the corpse’s collarbone and burst from the ruined chest cavity. He jabbed the butt of the hammer through the throat of a nearby corpse and kicked out at a fallen dead thing that grasped his legs with broken fingers. All around him, the battle raged with one-sided fierceness. The dead clawed and bit at the living, but there was no passion or courage to their violence. An animating will filled them, but did so without the spark that drove living warriors to risk their lives for something greater than themselves.

Yet for all their monotonous rigour, the blows of the dead were no less fatal. The flesh of the living was a choice sweetmeat to them, the craving for the warmth and softness of their flesh a hunger that could never be satisfied.

Sigmar’s armour bore numerous dents and scars from viciously wielded clubs and cleavers, and blood flowed from a deep cut on his shoulder where a dead logger’s axe had smashed the pauldron from his armour and bitten through the links of his mail shirt. He fought alongside Unberogen veterans of the battle of Middenheim, each hacking a path through the dead while watching for threats Sigmar could not see.

He ducked a slashing axe and drove Ghal-Maraz up into the pelvic cavity of a skeletal warrior clad in ancient armour of corroded bronze. The head of the hammer shattered the dead warrior’s spine and broke the body in two. It collapsed in a rain of dusty bone and Sigmar swung his hammer around, knocking three more revenants to the ground. Hoarse cries of Ulric’s name echoed from the hillside as the Cherasens hewed a path into the dead, felling them like dead wood with every crushing blow of their axes.

Sigmar’s warriors fought as one, each pushing forward with the support of the man next to him. Only Unberogen discipline allowed such close-quarter fighting, and it was paying dividends, as few were falling to the blades of the enemy. Lone Cherusen axemen fought until their arms grew weary and they were overwhelmed by the dead, dragged down and torn apart by the voracious enemy.

The pallid cannibal creatures darted through the trees in cowardly packs, skulking at the edges of the fighting and darting in for opportunistic slashes and bites. Sigmar paid them no mind, forging a path onwards towards Ostengard as he saw the Red Scythes ride along the arms of the horseshoe shaped settlement and form a deadly wedge of cavalry in a magnificent display of horsemanship.

“Hold them!” shouted Sigmar, spotting a black-cloaked warrior in the heart of the enemy host, a warrior with the bleached bone of a skull beneath a full-faced helm of bronze. Jade light burned in the sockets of his eyes, and Sigmar felt monstrous will gathered there, a black sorcery of abominable darkness that was holding this dead host together.

He smashed a pair of skeletal things aside with one blow of his hammer, angling his course towards the Cherusens.

“Aloysis!” he yelled, spotting the slender count of the Cherusens as he beheaded a rotten-fleshed cadaver with expert skill. “Fight with me!”

The count of the Cherusens heard him and gathered his closest warriors, cutting a path through the dead warriors towards Sigmar. They met in a ring of dead things, both blooded and both breathing hard. Yet for all the carnage around them, they both grinned with fierce battle fury.

“You’re hurt,” said Aloysis.

“Not badly,” answered Sigmar, pointing Ghal-Maraz towards the black-cloaked warrior with the bronze helm. “There yonder, that’s the source of their power. Destroy it and the host will crumble like morning ashes.”

Aloysis nodded and with a wild, ululating yell, set off downhill towards the nightmarish master of the dead. Sigmar followed him, breaking through the lumpen ranks of the dead to aid his count. Once more they were surrounded by the dead, but with numbers on their side, the strength of the mortal warriors was telling.

The thundering wedge of Krugar’s Red Scythes smashed into the rear ranks of the dead, trampling corpses and splintering bone beneath their hooves. Long lances punched into rotten bodies and the host of living dead were split apart. Krugar wielded Utensjarl as though it weighed nothing at all, its blade cleaving dead things in two with every stroke. Most mortal foes would have broken and run at this sudden attack, but the dead cared nothing for this new enemy, fighting with the same horrid determination as ever.

Sigmar and Aloysis fought their way towards the black-cloaked warrior, but with every step more of the dead seemed to rise and block their path. Bones once broken fused together and skulls split open reformed in a dreadful parody of healing. All around Sigmar, the dead pressed in, grasping with decayed hands.

“Sigmar!” shouted Krugar. “Duck!”

Knowing never to question a shouted battlefield command, Sigmar threw himself flat as something whirling and silver flashed over his head. He rolled swiftly to his feet and bludgeoned two dead warriors with quick jabs of his hammer. He looked left and right for fresh opponents. None of the dead came near him, and as he sought out the black-cloaked master of this dead host, he saw why.

The creature whose will drove the horde was dying.

Utensjarl had been bathed in the fire of Ulric in Middenheim after the great victory, and was now buried deep in the monster’s chest. Baleful energies flared from the dead thing, green fire streaming from its eyes as it sought to hold its unmaking at bay. An armoured warrior leapt towards it, a slender-bladed cavalry sabre arcing towards its bony neck. Aloysis’ blade found the gap between the dead warrior’s breastplate and helmet, his power and rage driving it through unnaturally formed sinews, bone and sorcery.

The bronze helm and skull parted from the body, falling to the ground and rolling downhill. A torrent of icy energy swept out from its disintegrating form as the bones collapsed and a spectral scream of hideous rage split the forest.

No sooner had its vile echoes faded than the dead host fell apart. The recently dead slumped over like drunks and the skeletal warriors risen from their graves fell to pieces like poorly made puppets. Sigmar blinked as the loathsome twilight they had fought this battle beneath was dispelled and sunlight returned to the forest.

Sigmar took a deep breath, feeling the air as a clean draught in his lungs, not the stale, stagnant miasma he had endured in the fighting. His warriors and those of Krugar and Aloysis stood amazed as life and vitality returned to the land. There was no cheering, no victory cries, for this was simply survival.

Krugar rode up to Sigmar and vaulted from his horse. He lifted Utensjarl from the rusted pile of armour and mouldering cloak. Its blade shone like new, and he turned it over to ensure no lingering trace of the dead warrior remained to taint its edge.

Sigmar stood next to Krugar as Aloysis joined them.

“My warriors gave me a stern lecture the last time I hurled my weapon in the middle of a fight,” said Sigmar.

Krugar shrugged. “And they were right to do so, but I never miss.”

“You’ve done that before?” asked Aloysis.

“Once or twice,” grinned Krugar. “After all, it never hurts for a leader of warriors to have the odd trick or two up his sleeve.”

Aloysis nodded and looked around the grim spectacle of the destroyed village. Sigmar felt his count’s pain, for it was his pain too. These people were Cherusens, but they were also Sigmar’s people, men and women of the Empire. This attack had brought them together as warriors and it united them as men.

“People will return,” said Sigmar. “That is what those who make pacts with the dead will never understand. Life will always return stronger than ever.”

“I hope you are right, my lord,” said Aloysis. “I fear that belief will soon be put to the test.”