PART ONE Rock of Ages Autumn 2527

ONE

Middenheim, City of the White Wolf

Gregor Martak, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, took a pull from the bottle of wine and handed it off to the man standing beside him atop the battlements of the Temple of Ulric. The temple, fashioned as a fortress within a fortress, dominated the Ulricsmund and the city of Middenheim itself, and was the highest point of the Fauschlag. Martak’s companion – clad in the dark armour of a member of the Knights of the White Wolf, albeit much battered and in need of a good polishing – took the bottle grudgingly, after the wizard shook it invitingly. Martak scratched at his tangled beard and looked out over the city. From the temple battlements one could see further than anywhere else in Middenheim, almost to the ends of the horizon. And what Martak saw now chilled him to the bone.

Rolling banks of black cloud had swept in from the north, and hung over the city, blotting out the sun. Every torch and brazier in the city was lit in a futile effort to hold back the dark. Sorcerous lightning rent the clouds. The crackling sheets of lurid energy lit the streets below with kaleidoscopic colours, and mad shadows danced and capered on every surface. But the darkness was no barrier to what now approached the city.

The pounding of drums had been audible to Martak and the rest of the city for some hours before the arrival of the horde which now seethed around the base of the Fauschlag in an endless black tide. The wind had carried the noise of the drums, as well as the guttural roars and screams of the damned who made up the approaching army. Flocks of crows had darkened the rust-coloured sky, and the roots of the mountain upon which Middenheim stood had trembled.

The front-runners of the horde had emerged first, from the edges of the forest to the city’s north. Trees were uprooted or shattered where they stood, the groans and cracks of their demise joining the cacophony of the army’s arrival as they were battered aside by hulking monsters the likes of which Martak had hoped never to see. Behind the savage behemoths came numberless tribesmen from the far north clad in filthy furs, armoured warriors and monstrous mutants. They poured out of the forest like an unceasing tide of foulness, and the thunder of the drums was joined by the blaring of war-horns and howled war-songs, all of it rising and mingling into a solid roar of noise that set Martak’s teeth on edge and made his ears ache.

Now, the horde stood arrayed before Middenheim, awaiting gods alone knew what signal to launch their assault. Thousands of barbaric banners flapped and clattered in the hot breeze, and monstrous shapes swooped through the boiling sky. Beastmen capered and howled before the silent ranks of armoured warriors. The horde’s numbers had swelled throughout the day, and even the most sceptical of Middenheim’s defenders had realised that this was no mere raiding band, come to burn and pillage before fading away like a summer storm. No, this was the full might of the north unbound, and it had come to crack the spine of the world.

‘I hate to say I told you so, Axel, but… well,’ Martak grunted. He swept back his grimy fur cloak and gestured with one long, tattooed arm towards the walls beyond which the foe gathered in such numbers as to shake the world. Or so it seemed, at least, to Martak. His companion, despite the evidence of his senses, didn’t agree.

Axel Greiss, Grand Master of the Knights of the White Wolf and commander of the Fellwolf Brotherhood, used the edge of his white fur cloak to wipe the mouth of the bottle clean, and took a tentative swig. ‘What is this swill?’ he asked.

‘A bottle of Sartosan Red. Some fool had hidden it in the privy,’ Martak grunted.

Greiss smacked his lips, made a face, and handed the bottle back. ‘It’s a rabble out there, wizard. Nothing more. You’ve spent too much time amongst the milksops of the south if that’s your idea of a horde. I’ve seen hordes. That is no horde.’ He sniffed. ‘Middenheim has withstood worse. It will withstand this.’ He gestured dismissively. ‘Ulric’s teeth, they’ve even chased off the ratmen for us.’

Martak took another pull from the bottle. ‘Have they?’ The skaven who had been besieging the city prior to the arrival of the horde had abandoned their siege-lines, like scavengers fleeing before a larger predator. Some of the ratmen had gone south, Martak knew, while others had surely scampered into the tunnels below the Fauschlag. Not that he could get anyone to listen to him on that last score. It was Altdorf all over again. What good was being the Supreme Patriarch if no one listened to him? Then, it wasn’t as if the Colleges of Magic still existed, he thought bitterly.

Greiss, as if echoing Martak’s thoughts, eyed the Amber wizard disdainfully. ‘They’re gone, wizard. Fled, like the cowardly vermin they were. Do you see them out there?’

‘Doesn’t mean they aren’t there,’ Martak grunted. It was an old argument. He had ordered scouts sent into the depths of the Fauschlag, despite the vigorous protestations of Greiss and his fellow commanders. What they had reported had only confirmed his fears of an attack from below. The skaven hadn’t fled. They’d merely given over the honour of the assault to Archaon. No, the ratmen were massing in the depths, preparing to assault Middenheim from below. He could feel it in his bones.

‘Doesn’t mean they are, either,’ Greiss said. He shook his head. ‘And if they are, what of it? Middenheim stands, wizard. Let the hordes break themselves on our walls, if they wish. They will fail, as they have done every time before. As long as the Flame of Ulric burns, Middenheim stands.’ Martak made to hand him the bottle, but Greiss waved it aside. ‘Stay up here and drink the day away if you will, wizard. Some of us have duties to attend to.’

Martak didn’t reply. Greiss’s words stung, as they had been meant to. He watched the Grand Master descend from the battlements, his armour clanking. Greiss didn’t like him very much, and if he were being honest, Martak felt the same about the other man. He didn’t like any of his fellow commanders, in fact.

Men of rank and noble birth from Averland, Talabheim and Stirland, as well as Middenheim, were all somewhere below in the city, jockeying for position and influence. The world was collapsing around them, shrinking day by day, and men like Greiss thought it was just another day. Or worse, they saw it as an opportunity. The world was ending, but men were still men. Martak upended the bottle, letting the last dregs of wine splash across his tongue. Men are still men, but not for much longer, he thought.

He shuddered, suddenly cold, and pulled his furs tighter about himself. He’d thought, just for a little while, that victory was possible. Just for a moment, he’d seen a ray of light pierce the gathering dark, and a spark of hope had been kindled in the ashes of his soul.

He’d seen that light – the light of the heavens – ground itself in the broken body of Karl Franz, and restore him to life in the ruins of Altdorf. He’d seen the foul gardens of plague and pestilence scoured from the stones of the city, and the monstrous things that had grown within them struck down. He’d seen more besides… The broken body of Kurt Helborg, his proud face stained with blood; the regal figure of Louen Leoncoeur, King of Bretonnia, as he stood against daemons in doomed defence of a realm not his own; the shattered statue of Sigmar, weeping blood. The light had washed it all away, in the end.

But only for a moment. Then, the dark had closed in once more. With the Auric Bastion no more, and Kislev turned to ashes, the armies of Chaos had swept south, burning and pillaging. Names out of black legend had returned to bedevil an Empire that had thought itself free of them. And not just the Empire. Bretonnia was shattered into warring fragments; Tilea had been erased by the chittering hordes of ratmen; Sylvania had swollen from boil to tumour, and the unbound dead roamed the land, attacking the living.

Martak stuck a finger into the mouth of the bottle, feeling around for any remaining droplets. Altdorf had survived one assault only to fall to another. Now it was a haunt for scuttling vermin. Karl Franz had fled to Averheim, the only city other than Middenheim yet remaining to the Empire. And soon it’ll be down to one, unless Averheim has already fallen, Martak thought sourly. Greiss’s overconfidence aside, Martak knew a losing battle when he saw one. He’d lived most of his life in the wilderness, and Middenheim reminded him of nothing so much as a wounded stag, surrounded by hungry wolves. Oh, the stag would gore a few. It’d put up a good fight, but in the end… the outcome wasn’t in doubt.

Regardless, he had his own part to play. He would see to the tunnels beneath the city, since no one else thought they were worth defending. He could do some good there, he hoped. He had ordered barricades to be pulled into place at the top of the winding stairs that led down into the guts of the Fauschlag, and had demanded, and received, a levy of men from the walls to guard key tunnel junctions. Soon enough, he would go down to join them, in the dark, to wait for the attack.

There were thousands of skaven massing in the depths, whatever Greiss thought. That was where they had all gone when Archaon arrived, but they wouldn’t stay below for long. And when they decided to come up, there would be little Martak could do to stop them.

He stuck a finger in his mouth and sucked the liquid from it. He’d never been much of a drinker before all of this, but now seemed as good a time as any to develop a few bad habits. Martak hefted the bottle in preparation to hurl it out over the city, when something made him stop. A voice, strong and sonorous, rose from somewhere below him. He could not make out the words, but he recognised the timbre easily enough.

Valten.

The Word made flesh. The Herald of Sigmar, come to light their darkest hour. He had been a blacksmith once, they said. Martak’s father had been a swineherd, and he saw no shame in humble beginnings. Especially when the end result was so… impressive. He lowered the bottle and set it on the battlement. Then, picking up his staff from where it lay, he made to descend. As he headed for the steps, he heard a soft growl behind him.

Martak stopped. He turned, heart thudding in his chest. Something that might have been a wolf, or the shadow of a wolf, sat where he’d stood only a few moments before. It regarded him steadily for the span of a single heartbeat, and then, like a twist of smoke, it was gone. Martak stared at the spot, mouth dry, hands trembling. He was suddenly very, very thirsty. He turned away and left the battlements as quickly as his legs could carry him.

When he at last reached the main rotunda of the temple, Valten’s speech was coming to a close. His voice swelled, momentarily blotting out the noise from outside the walls. Martak moved through the large crowd of refugees that had occupied the main chamber of the temple, towards the main doors and, beyond them, the steps that led down into the close-set streets of the Ulricsmund. The huddled masses gave way before him, and whispers of worry preceded him, as well as murmurs of disgust for his unkempt presence. Even the basest peasant had standards, Martak supposed; standards which he obligingly failed to meet as often as possible.

Valten had given some version of this same speech several times since the arrival of Archaon’s forces outside the walls. The streets were thick with panicked citizens, and frightened refugees crowded every temple and tavern. But where Valten passed, Ghal Maraz balanced across his broad shoulders, calm ensued. He spoke to crowds and individuals alike, with no preference or bias for province or station. His voice was measured, his words soothing. Be at peace, for I am here, and where I stand, no evil shall prevail, Martak thought as he trudged out towards the vast steps of the temple. It was an old saying, attributed to Sigmar. From what little Martak knew of the man behind the myth, he doubted the veracity of the phrasing, though not the intent.

He watched the tall, broad figure of Sigmar’s Herald speak words of comfort to the massive crowd of soldiers and refugees occupying the steps, and felt the burden on his heart lift, if only slightly. Valten was taller than any man Martak had met, but he moved with a grace that an elf would have envied. He’d grown a beard since the fall of Altdorf, and now looked more at home in Middenheim than even an old wolf like Greiss.

That was the trick of him, Martak had learned. Valten simply… fit. Wherever he went in the Empire, he found a home. Talabeclanders, Averlanders, Middenlanders, they all claimed Valten as one of their own. He spoke their dialects, he knew their history; he could even sing their songs. It was as if the burly, bearded young warrior were the Empire made flesh and bone. He was everything that was good and pure about the land and its people incarnate.

As he spoke, Valten seemed to shine with an inner radiance that warmed a man better than any fire. His voice rose and fell like that of a trained orator, and he spoke with a passion that would have put even the late Grand Theogonist, Volkmar, to shame.

Martak paused in the entrance to the temple, so as not to interrupt the speech. The great iron-banded doors had been flung wide at the start of the ratmen’s siege, and they yet remained open, welcoming any who sought sanctuary. The entrance itself was a vast stone archway carved in the shape of a wolf’s upper jaw, complete with great fangs, and as it rose over him he thought again of the shadow-shape he’d seen on the battlements, and shivered. It hadn’t been a daemon; that much he was sure of. While the Flame of Ulric burned, no daemon could set foot inside Middenheim.

He glanced at the Flame, where it crackled in the centre of the immense temple rotunda. The fire burned silver-white, casting its light throughout the main chamber of the temple, warming the crowd and illuminating the enormous bas-reliefs depicting Ulric’s defeat of the bloodwyrm, his breach of the stormvault and countless other deeds of heroism performed by the wolf-god. More and more people had begun to seek the comfort of its presence as the unnatural darkness fell. Martak couldn’t fault them for it. It was the embodiment of Ulric’s strength and rage, and for that reason it provided a beacon of hope to the wolf-god’s chosen people. It was said that should the fire go out, winter unending would grip the world.

As the thought crossed his mind, he caught sight of a low, lean shape prowling through the legs of the crowd. The shadow-wolf had followed him, it seemed. Its yellow gaze met his own briefly and then it vanished into the forest of humanity. He was about to follow it, when he heard a voice say, ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

Martak turned, and looked up at Valten. He grunted and shrugged. ‘One fire is much like another, to one used to doing without.’

‘I grew up in a forge,’ Valten said, simply. ‘There’s a strange sort of beauty in fire, I think. It is all colours and none, it provides comfort and light, but can kill or blind the unwary. A tool of both creation and destruction… rather like a hammer.’ He hefted Ghal Maraz for emphasis. ‘Sigmar built an empire with this weapon, and destroyed the works of his enemies.’

Martak smiled sourly. ‘Very pretty. Will that homily go in your next speech?’

Valten chuckled. ‘I doubt there’ll be time for one. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come to tell me that you’re about to go below.’ He looked at Martak, and the wizard shifted uncomfortably. Valten had a way of staring right into a man’s soul. He never judged what he saw there, though that only made the feeling worse.

‘Yes, it’s time,’ Martak said, leaning on his staff. ‘Scouts have reported that there are ratmen massing in the depths. And Archaon’s rabble didn’t walk all the way here just to sit outside and look menacing.’

‘I know,’ Valten said. He looked up, and closed his eyes. ‘It’s almost a relief.’

‘Not exactly how I would put it,’ Martak said.

Valten smiled. He looked at the wizard, and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Then, you’re a gloomy old bear, and there’s no denying it.’

Martak snorted. ‘And you’re a cheerful lamb, is that it?’

Valten’s smile faded. ‘No. No, I can feel the weight of this moment, Gregor, as well as you. It has pressed down on my soul and my mind since I first swung my father’s hammer in anger at the Auric Bastion. It has sought to forge me into the shape it wishes, the shape it requires, but sometimes… I do not think it will succeed.’ He dropped his hand and hefted Ghal Maraz. ‘This is part of it, I think. Burden and blessing in one,’ he said, turning the ancient warhammer in his hands. ‘Sometimes, this hammer is as light as a feather. Other times, I can barely lift it. I am not certain that it is my hand which is meant to wield it.’ He looked at Martak. ‘Sometimes I wish Luthor were still here, to tell me that I am wrong, and that my course is set.’ He smiled sadly. ‘No offence, Gregor.’

‘None taken,’ Martak said, waving aside the apology. ‘I wish Huss were here as well. And while we’re wishing, I’ll add the Emperor, Mandred Skavenslayer and Magnus the Pious. Because Taal knows that we could use them now.’

Valten’s smile turned fierce. ‘We shall just have to act in their place, my friend. We can do no less. Middenheim stands. The Emperor and Graf Boris charged me to keep this city and her people safe, and I will do so or die in the attempt.’

Martak was about to reply, when he felt something stir in him. He clutched his head, and heard a great cry which seemed to echo up from every stone in the temple. It was as if a legion of wolves had howled as one, and then fallen silent. Valten grabbed him as he stumbled. ‘Gregor, what is it, are you–’

Wordlessly, Martak moaned. He felt as if there were something missing in him, as if someone had carved a portion of his heart out. He heard Valten gasp, and blinked blearily as he tried to clear his head. As he forced himself erect, he saw that the crowd had moved back from the Flame of Ulric. Men and women were wailing and moaning in fear. Valten raised his hands, trying to calm the growing panic. Martak pushed away from him and staggered towards the Flame, staring at it in disbelief.

As he watched, the Flame of Ulric guttered, flickered and died. The chamber was plunged into darkness, and the crowd began to stream away, seeking safety elsewhere. He heard the screams of the trampled, the wailing of lost children, and Valten’s voice, rising above it all, trying vainly to impose order on the chaos. And beneath it all, beneath the cries and the shouts, beneath the fear… laughter. The laughter of the Dark Gods as Middenheim’s hope faded, leaving behind only ashes.

Martak closed his eyes. Something itched at the back of his mind, like someone speaking just at the edge of his hearing, but he couldn’t catch it for the laughter that echoed in his head. He gripped his staff so tightly that the wood creaked in protest. He felt cold and hot all at once, and his skull felt two sizes too small as images crashed across the surface of his mind’s eye. There were shapes squirming in the dark behind his eyes, impossibly vast and foul, and they were scratching eagerly at the roof of the sky and the roots of the earth. He saw a shadowy figure confronted by wolves of ice, and heard the moan of a god as the Flame dimmed. He heard the bray of horns and the rumble of drums, and felt his guts clench in protest as the moment he’d feared came round at last.

A hand gripped his shoulder, shaking him out of his fugue. ‘Gregor – it’s time. The enemy are advancing,’ Valten said. ‘I must go to the walls.’

‘And I must go below,’ Martak croaked. He looked at Valten, and as he did, the daemonic laughter crowding his thoughts suddenly fell silent. There were some things that even daemons could not bear to look at. ‘The gods go with you, Herald.’

‘I know that one, at least, walks with me,’ Valten said. He lifted Ghal Maraz and saluted Martak. ‘Middenheim stands, Gregor. And so do we.’

‘But for how long?’ Martak murmured, as he watched the Herald of Sigmar depart.


Northern Gatehouse, Grafsmund-Norgarten District

‘That, my friends, is nothing less than a bad day wrapped in fur,’ Wendel Volker said, indicating the army that was on the march on the plain below, as he upended the jug and gulped down the tasteless Kislevite alcohol. It was the last of its kind, since Kislev no longer existed, and he intended to enjoy every foul drop in the hours before his inevitable messy demise. He only wished he had a bottle of good Tilean wine to wash it down with.

He stood atop the gatehouse, having shooed the men who were supposed to be on duty back down into the structure. He stood on the trapdoor, so that he could have a few moments of uninterrupted drinking. The taverns were packed, and every wine cellar and beer hall in the city had been drunk dry three days ago. He’d managed to squirrel away the jug of Kislevite vodka, but it was almost as bad as being sober.

Volker had come up in the world since his days as a captain in the fortress of Heldenhame. Now he wore the armour and regalia of a member of the Reiksguard, given to him by Kurt Helborg himself as a reward for salvaging what was left of Heldenhame’s garrison and bringing it to Altdorf just in time to bolster the city’s defences. It wasn’t exactly the sort of reward that Volker had hoped for, but one couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially in times like these. And the armour had come in handy more than once, for all that it was dratted heavy and rubbing him raw in all the wrong spots.

Volker handed the jug off to one of his companions, a big man clad in sea-green armour, decorated with piscine motifs where it hadn’t been battered into shapelessness. ‘A bad day, Wendel, or the bad day?’ the latter said, as he took a swig. Erkhart Dubnitz was the last knight of an order that wasn’t officially recognised by anyone with any sense. The Knights of Manann had fought to the bitter end when the plague-fleets had sailed into Marienburg’s harbour, but Dubnitz alone had escaped the freistadt; he’d been sent to Altdorf, bearing tidings of warning that had, sadly, not been heeded until it was far too late. Now he was a man without a country, fighting to preserve a nation not his own. It was in Altdorf that Volker had made the acquaintance of the Marienburger, and found a kindred spirit, of sorts. At least where it concerned spirits of the alcoholic variety.

‘What’s the difference, Erkhart? Either way, we’re the ones it’s happening to,’ the third man standing atop the gatehouse said. He waved aside the jug when it was offered to him. ‘No, thank you. I’d rather die with a clear head, if it’s all the same to you.’ Hector Goetz had the face of a man who’d seen the worst the world had to offer, and hadn’t come away impressed. His armour bore the same hallmarks of hard fighting that Volker’s and Dubnitz’s did, but it was covered in the signs and sigils of the Order of the Blazing Sun. As far as Volker could tell, Goetz was the last templar of the Myrmidian Order left alive. Most, it was said, had died with Talabheim. Goetz had been there, but he refused to talk about it. Volker, a native of Talabecland himself, resisted the urge to press him.

In truth, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. He’d left his parents, his kin, and several enthusiastic and entertaining paramours behind in Talabheim when he’d been given a commission in the Heldenhame garrison. That they were all likely dead had yet to pierce the armour of numbness which was the only thing protecting his sanity at this point. It was either numbness or madness now, and Volker had seen too much to think that there was any sort of relief in madness these days.

‘Suit yourself, Hector. More for me and young Wendel,’ Dubnitz said, with a grin. He passed the jug to Volker, who took another swig, and then gave a mournful burp.

‘It’s empty,’ he said. ‘Dubnitz, be a friend and go get another one.’

‘There isn’t another one,’ Dubnitz said. ‘Gentlemen, we are officially out of alcohol. Sound the retreat.’

Volker cradled the empty jug to his chest. ‘Why bother? There’s nowhere to go.’

‘Nonsense. The horizon is right over there.’

‘He’s right, Erkhart. There’s nowhere to go. The gods are dead,’ Goetz said softly. His expression became wistful. ‘I thought, for a moment, that they were still with us.’ His face hardened. ‘Then Talabheim happened, and I knew that they were gone.’

Dubnitz’s grin faded. He sighed. ‘It’s a sad thing, when a man outlives his gods.’

‘Aye, and we’re soon to join them,’ Goetz continued. He glanced at Volker. ‘Unless, of course, that Herald of yours has some divine trick up his sleeve.’

‘Not that he’s shared with me, no,’ Volker said. When he’d first seen the Herald of Sigmar in the flesh, he’d been duly awed. The man was everything the priests of Sigmar had promised. A demigod, come down amongst mere mortals to fight at their side and lead them to victory against the enemy. That awe had not faded, in the weeks since, so much as it had matured. There was something about Valten that chased away despair and neutered fear. But he was a man like any other, Volker knew. A good man, a just man, but a man all the same. He was about to elaborate, when Goetz suddenly stiffened and cursed.

‘Well… here we go,’ Dubnitz breathed softly. ‘Time’s up.’

Volker saw a flash of polychromatic light below, rising above the horde. The air took on a greasy tang, and he tasted something foul at the back of his throat. He recognised it easily enough, though he wished he didn’t. The clouds began to thicken and twist, and howling gales of wind rippled across the city. Goetz’s face was pale as he backed away from the ramparts. ‘Daemons,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘They’re calling daemons.’ He clutched at his side, as if in memory of an old wound. ‘I can hear them screaming…’

‘That’s not all,’ Dubnitz said. He pointed out across the city. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that where the western gatehouse is?’

Volker turned and saw a column of smoke rising over the city to the west. His mouth felt dry. ‘Oh, gods,’ he rasped. He twisted about as a dull rumble filled the air, and saw a second cloud, this one a sickly greenish hue, rise over the city’s eastern gatehouse. Then, a half-second later, the world gave a sickening lurch as the whole gatehouse shook, nearly knocking him from his feet. He heard screams from below, and thin trickles of green smoke began to creep around the edges of the trapdoor. ‘What the devil–?’

Dubnitz suddenly reached out and grabbed the back of his cuirass, hauling Volker back, even as a blade hissed through the air where his head had been. ‘That’s the devil,’ Dubnitz said conversationally as a strange apparition, hunched and wrapped in black, landed on the rampart and sprang towards them, a serrated blade clutched in its verminous paws.

Volker acted instinctively, bringing the jug up and catching his attacker in the skull. The clay jug exploded and the creature fell twitching. ‘Skaven,’ he said dumbly, staring down at it.

‘Really, and here I thought it was a halfling with scabies,’ Dubnitz said, drawing his sword as more of the creatures appeared, scrambling over the edge of the ramparts. ‘Where are the blasted guards?’ he growled, as he hacked down a leaping ratman.

‘Dead, if that gas is what I think it is,’ Goetz said. He had his own blade in hand, and effortlessly blocked a blow from one of the black-clad skaven. ‘It’s poison. Don’t let it touch you.’ As he spoke, he moved away from the trapdoor, which was fuming steadily.

‘That’d explain why the vermin are wearing masks,’ Volker grunted as he booted a skaven in the chest and off the rampart. He swung his sword about in a tight arc, driving his opponents back. He heard the muffled squeal of chains and cranks, and knew that the gas had only been a means to an end. ‘They’re lowering the drawbridge. They’re going to let the northmen into the city!’

‘Well, sod this for a game of sailors, then,’ Dubnitz said. He rushed towards the inner rampart which overlooked the courtyard of the gatehouse below, and, in a rattle of armour, vaulted over the edge, taking a squealing skaven with him. Volker looked at Goetz, and then, as one, both knights followed their companion over the rampart, leaving the astonished skaven staring after them.

Volker screamed until he struck the hay cart, and from there it was curses. He rolled off the cart, every limb aching, and hit the cobbles with a crash. The body of the skaven that Dubnitz had caught up flopped to the ground beside him. The big knight grinned down at him, and offered him a hand. ‘On your feet, young Wendel – we’ve got unwelcome visitors on the way, and our swords are needed.’

Spitting hay, Volker allowed Dubnitz to haul him to his feet. ‘Did you know this hay cart was here the whole time?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ Dubnitz said. ‘You learn a lot, being a drunkard. For instance, always make sure you have a soft place to land handy, just in case. Now help me extricate Goetz, before we’re knee-deep in murderous daemon-fondlers.’


Northern Viaduct

‘Horvath, have you ever wondered about the choices that brought you to this point in your life?’ Canto Unsworn rumbled to his closest companion in the press of Chaos warriors, northern tribesmen and howling beastmen moving steadily up the viaduct. There were hundreds of them, moving in a slow but steady lope towards the gatehouse above. An ugly green smoke rose from the ramparts of the wall and the drawbridge had thudded down not a handful of moments before, a sign that their verminous allies had delivered on their promise to knock out the gates.

That the Three-Eyed King had seen fit to trust such creatures was still a matter of some disbelief among the gathered warriors who had flocked to his banners. That the skaven had, in fact, followed through on their promises was even more unbelievable, at least as far as Canto Unsworn was concerned, and it made him wonder what further marvels awaited him, should he survive the carnage to come.

‘Blood for the Blood God!’ Horvath roared, echoing the cry of the men around him. He glanced at the other and frowned. ‘What are you nattering about now, Unsworn?’

‘Never mind,’ Canto said.

Horvath eyed him suspiciously. The two warriors were a study in contrasts. Both were big, as befitted men who had survived the numberless dangers of the Chaos Wastes, and clad in baroque armour too heavy to be worn by any man not touched by the breath of the Winds of Change and the light of the Howling Sun. Horvath’s armour was the hue of dried blood, and bedecked with grisly sigils of murder and ruin. A trophy rack wobbled on his back, cradling an intact skeleton, every bone of which was carved with a blasphemous litany. Canto’s black armour, while as heavy and imposing as Horvath’s, bore neither sign nor sigil, and he carried no trophies save for the yellowing skulls with strange marks carved into them which hung from his pauldrons and cuirass.

‘Why must you always talk, Unsworn? Why must you chatter like a nurgling?’ Horvath growled, shaking his head.

‘The gods gave me a voice, Horvath. Blame them,’ Canto said. ‘Crossbows.’

‘What?’

‘Crossbows,’ Canto said and raised his shield as crossbow bolts punched into the front rank of warriors moving up the viaduct. Dozens of men and mutants fell. One, however, remained on his feet. Crossbow bolts jutted from his all-encompassing and faceless armour, but still he staggered on, dragging his sword behind him. As he neared the gatehouse, he seemed to gain strength, and he swung his sword up to clasp it with both hands. With a hoarse cry, he began to run towards the enemy. ‘That one is looking to catch the eyes of the gods,’ Canto muttered as the lone warrior charged towards the smoky ruins of the gatehouse.

‘He already has, Unsworn,’ Horvath grunted, plucking a bolt out of his arm. ‘Don’t you recognise him?’ He snapped the bolt in two. ‘That’s Count Mordrek.’

‘The Damned One?’ Canto murmured. ‘No wonder he seems in such a hurry.’ Mordrek the Damned was a living warning to all those who vied for the favour of the Dark Gods. He walked at the whim of the gods, never knowing rest, oblivion or damnation. Mordrek, men whispered, had died a thousand times, but was always brought back to fight again. He was the plaything of the gods: beneath his ornate armour, his form was said to change constantly, as if he were the raw stuff of Chaos made flesh.

‘He just wandered into camp last night. He wasn’t alone, either. We wage war accompanied by the heroes of old, Unsworn. Aekold Helbrass might be content to play in the ashes of Kislev, but others have come in answer to the Three-Eyed King’s challenge – Vilitch the Curseling, Valnir the Reaper, a dozen others. All rallying to the banner of the Everchosen,’ Horvath continued. He slammed his axe against his shield with every name he rattled off. ‘To march in Mordrek’s wake is an honour, Unsworn. We follow in the footsteps of legend!’

Horvath’s cry was swallowed up by the roar of the warriors around them. Mordrek’s charge had roused the horde, and Canto found himself carried along as the warriors around him and Horvath began to press forwards up the viaduct once more. As they moved, hatches banged open on cannon embrasures to reveal the hollow muzzles of guns ready to fire. Canto felt his heart quicken with anticipation of the noise and fury to come. He was not afraid; not precisely. He knew what cannons could do. He’d seen the war-engines of the dawi zharr first-hand, and knew that these guns were but a pale shadow of those terrible devices. Men would die, but not him. Not if his luck held, as it had so far.

Canto had fought his way south with the rest of Halfgir’s Headsmen, as they called themselves, when the thrice-damned sorcerous bastion the southerners had erected had come down at last. He’d fought living men and dead ones, and rival champions seeking the favour of the gods as well. The sky was the colour of blood and the moons were crumbling, and sometimes, when he looked up quickly enough, he could see vast faces, leering down at the world from whatever lofty perch the gods regularly crouched on.

The thought gave him no pleasure. They were just watching now, but if it truly was the end of days, if the Last Hour was finally upon them, then the gods might start taking a more direct hand in the affairs of mortals, and Canto didn’t want to be around when that happened. The gods were unpredictable and malignant, and no man could survive their attentions.

Middenheim’s walls came alive with blossoms of fire. Bolts, bullets, cannonballs and mortar shells fell among the throng. Canto saw a bouncing cannonball carom off Count Mordrek, knocking the Damned One from his feet. A moment later Mordrek was shoving himself upright, the buckled plates of his armour reshaping themselves even as he staggered back into motion. ‘He is truly blessed,’ Horvath said.

‘Don’t let him hear you say that,’ Canto grunted. All around them, blood and torn flesh sprayed into the air as cannonballs and mortar shells struck the massed ranks of men moving up the viaduct. Canto grimaced as blood spattered across his armour. He’d counselled the others against this, but they hadn’t wanted to hear it. No, they wanted the glory, the honour of first blood. And he’d had no choice but to go along with it; to do otherwise was to risk death. They would have cut him down where he stood, and then gone anyway. Story of your misbegotten life, Canto, he thought.

Despite the barrage from the walls Mordrek reached the gatehouse intact, Canto and the others dogging his heels. The Damned One struck the defenders like a wolf attacking sheep. His sword arced out, lopping off limbs and opening bellies. Even as the wounded men fell, their bodies began to writhe and change. New, monstrous limbs erupted from them as the newly awakened things within them shed their human flesh. Monsters sprang up in Mordrek’s path, and launched themselves at their former comrades.

Monsters within, monsters without, Canto thought, as he broke into a run. He beheaded a whey-faced halberdier, and then he was inside the walls of the City of the White Wolf, an army of the lost and the damned at his heels.

TWO

The Depths of the Fauschlag

Beyond the flickering light of the torches, beady red eyes gleamed. Gregor Martak peered into the dark and frowned. He reached out with his mind, grasping the strands of Ghur which inundated the tunnels. The Amber Wind flowed wild throughout Middenheim, rising from the god-touched stones. The Fauschlag seemed to reverberate with the howling of wolves that only Martak could hear, and he felt a wild, terrible power settle into the marrow of his bones.

‘Well, wizard?’ Axel Greiss grunted, hefting his hammer. Greiss had come to observe the defence of the tunnels, and had brought reports of enemy contact at the other junctions. A cadre of armoured knights surrounded him, each one a glowering, bearded beacon of Ulric’s favour. The presence of the knights and the Grand Master had done much to stiffen the resolve of the common soldiers. Rumours about what had happened in the Temple of Ulric had spread like quicksilver through the city, and Middenheim was in turmoil as priests and templars of Ulric sought to calm the panicked citizenry and soldiery both.

‘Hush,’ Martak said absently. ‘I need to concentrate.’ Greiss flushed and growled something, but Martak ignored him. He set his staff and pulled that savage influence into himself, drawing it up, and with a whisper he set it flooding into the packed ranks of troops standing before him, granting courage and strength where there was a deficit of either. As the power flowed out of him, he thought he saw something low and white slink through the legs of the soldiers before him. He felt a wash of hot breath on his neck, and something growled softly in his ear. He shuddered, and the feeling fled.

The skaven poured out of the darkness, a chittering, squealing mass of mangy fur, rusted armour and jagged blades. Men recoiled in instinctive horror, but the whip-crack of a sergeant’s voice, loud in the confines of the tunnel, was enough to steady most of them. A second order saw crossbows clatter. A volley of bolts tore through the rapidly diminishing space between the defenders and the encroaching enemy. At such close range, in the narrow tunnel, it was impossible to miss. ‘Ha! That’s the way,’ Greiss bellowed.

Martak watched as the front rank of skaven were punched from their feet. Their bodies, some still twitching, vanished beneath the talons of the next rank as the horde pressed forwards. A hurried second volley proved no more an obstacle than the first, and the skaven ground on, over their own dead and dying, until Martak could hear nothing save their squealing. An order rippled up and down the Empire line and shields were hastily locked, even as the enemy reached them.

‘Now you’ll see, wizard,’ Greiss said. ‘This is how a true son of Middenheim fights. With iron and muscle, not sorcery.’

His words stung. Martak looked away. Born in Middenheim he might have been, but he was as much a stranger here as Valten. More so, in fact. Valten wasn’t a sorcerer. In the City of the White Wolf, there was no such thing as a good wizard. There was only Chaos, and anyone who practised magic was destined for a fiery end, tied to a witch’s stake in a market square, unless the Colleges of Magic got to them first. Even now, they looked at him with suspicion. Even now, they thought he was as bad as the enemy battering at their gates.

If I had my way, I’d tell you to go hang, and take this cesspool with you, Martak thought, watching the battle unfold. He’d always hated cities, and as far as he was concerned, there was no difference between Middenheim and Altdorf. Let them fall. The world would be the better for it. He leaned against his staff, letting it support him for a moment. But who are you to decide that, eh? he thought, not without some bitterness. The gods decided your lot long ago, Gregor Martak. They might be dead and gone to dust, but the course they set for you still holds true. And you’ll follow it to the bitter end, because there’s no other way out of this trap.

Screaming ratmen crashed into the shield-wall, and paid a deadly toll. Snouts were smashed to red ruin, and furry bodies were impaled or hacked down by thrusting spears and jabbing halberds. Martak saw a frothing skaven scramble up the surface of a soldier’s shield and fling itself onto the man behind him in an effort to escape the deadly press.

Everywhere Martak looked, men and skaven strove against one another. The press of battle swayed back and forth, but the ratmen could not break the shield-wall. Soon, they began to falter. Martak gestured and strengthened flagging sword arms. Unbloodied state troops moved in to bolster the line, and Martak stepped back, pulling his cloak tight about himself, grateful he’d had no cause to enter the fray directly. Ever since the winds of magic had begun to blow so strongly, he could feel the boiling rage that accompanied the Wind of Beasts – a need to tear and bite, to eat and eat and eat. He closed his eyes and shivered. When he opened them, he could see Greiss looking at him sidelong, though whether in concern or disgust, he couldn’t say.

Pushing the thought aside, he turned his attentions to the battle. As glad as he was that the skaven were being held at bay, he wondered at the absence of the strange weapons which they had used to such devastating effect during the battle for Altdorf. Where were the gas weapons, the warpstone-fuelled lightning guns? Where were the rat ogres, or even the armoured, black-furred elite of the chittering horde?

‘Chaff,’ he muttered. ‘They’re throwing chaff at us. Why?’ He stepped back as more troops flooded into the tunnel. Over-enthusiastic commanders were throwing their men into battle with the skaven, stripping them from the garrisons above, trusting in the walls of Middenheim to hold the enemy without while they destroyed the enemy within. And that hadn’t been an unreasonable assumption, while the Flame of Ulric had burned. But the fire that stirred the blood of the men of Middenheim and kept daemons out of its streets had been snuffed. ‘It’s a trick,’ he grunted.

‘What?’ Greiss asked.

‘These are the dregs,’ Martak said, gesturing. ‘They have better troops than this. So where are they? Now is the perfect time to strike, but they are not here.’ He looked at Greiss. ‘Was it the same in the other tunnels?’

‘What’s the difference? One rat is much like another,’ Greiss said.

‘It’s a trick,’ Martak said. ‘They’re bleeding us, drawing our eyes away from something else, some other point of attack.’ He hesitated. ‘We need to fall back. We’ll strip men from the reserves in the tunnels above, and bolster the defences along the walls. They’re up to something, and we can’t let ourselves get trapped down here.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Greiss said dismissively. ‘This is no trick. You said it yourself, man… They’re attacking from below, as Archaon attacks from without.’ He looked at Martak. ‘You were right, wizard,’ he said, grudgingly.

‘Then how do you explain it?’ Martak demanded, knowing that whatever he’d thought earlier, and whatever Greiss now believed, there was more going on than he could see. He could feel it in his bones.

‘I don’t have to,’ Greiss snarled. He hefted his hammer warningly. ‘They attack. So we must defend. Middenheim stands, and while it does, we fight.’

‘But what if you’re defending the wrong spot?’

‘What other spot would you have me defend, wizard? Here is where the enemy is, and– Eh?’ The tunnel shuddered violently, interrupting Greiss’s outburst. Dust drifted down. Martak looked up. The northern gatehouse was somewhere above them. He blinked dust out of his eyes. Cracks ran along the roof of the tunnel, and his eyes widened.

‘By the horns of Taal,’ he muttered, as he realised too late what had occurred. He looked back towards the skaven hurling themselves on the swords and spears of the state troops, distracting them, occupying them. He looked back at Greiss. The old knight looked confused. ‘Don’t you understand? I was wrong! This is a feint! The enemy is in the city,’ Martak snarled. ‘If you would save your city, Greiss, then you’d best shut up and follow me.’


Northern Gatehouse

Smoke filled the courtyard. Not the greenish cloud from earlier, but black, greasy smoke which vented from the gatehouse and its attached structures. Someone had set fire to something somewhere. The skaven had vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Small favours, Wendel Volker thought, as he followed Dubnitz and Goetz across the courtyard. He could still feel the echoes of the drawbridge thudding down in his bones. The sound of it had reminded him of a death-knell, but whether it was for him, the city or the world, he didn’t know and feared to guess.

O Sigmar, please take some other poor fool today if you must, but not me, Volker thought as he coughed and staggered towards the raised portcullis that marked the way to the drawbridge. The gatehouse was, in many ways, a small fortress in its own right, and it was far bigger than it first looked. It would take the enemy several minutes to traverse it. He could hear the thudding of feet on the drawbridge, and the creak of the outer portcullis as the enemy sought to rip it from its housings. Stone buckled and burst with a shriek, and men roared in triumph and fear. ‘At least we’re not alone,’ he rasped, drawing his sword.

Those soldiers who had survived the skaven attack on the gatehouse had apparently mustered in the inner causeway between the portcullises, and he could hear some unlucky sergeant screaming for them to hold fast, even as the enemy butchered them. He heard shrieks and cries, and the roars of monsters. Handgunners and crossbowmen on the walls above fired down into the melee. Volker took some comfort in the belch of gunfire, though there was precious little of it to his ears. Where were the reinforcements? Why wasn’t anyone coming?

‘Probably heading for the eastern gate,’ Goetz said. Volker blinked. He hadn’t realised that he’d spoken aloud. ‘That stuck-up wolf’s hindquarters Greiss stripped half the garrison to reinforce the tunnels.’

‘Now is that any way to talk about the Grand Master of our honoured brethren in the Order of the White Wolf?’ Dubnitz asked. ‘What would he think, if he were here to hear you?’

‘I wish he was here,’ Goetz shot back. ‘It’d be one more body between us and whatever is bloody well coming across that gods-bedamned drawbridge.’ He plucked a shield from the lifeless grip of one of the bodies littering the courtyard and ran the flat of his sword across its rim with a steely screech.

‘I’ll tell you who I wish were here – a priestess I knew by the name of Goodweather. That woman and her magic shark’s teeth would come in handy right about now,’ Dubnitz said. His smile faltered for a moment, and his eyes tightened, as if he were seeing something he’d rather not. Then he shook himself. ‘Ah, Esme,’ he said softly. He shook his head. ‘No use wishing, at any rate. We’re what’s here, and we’ll have to make do.’

‘Or we could leave,’ Volker muttered. ‘Make a strategic redeployment somewhere else – preferably Averheim.’ Despite his words, he didn’t mean it. Not really. He wasn’t a coward, though he felt like one at times. He simply wanted the world to slow down, for just a moment, so he could catch his breath.

Unfortunately, the world didn’t seem to care what he wanted. Men began fleeing through the courtyard, past Volker and the others. They were bloodied, and looked as if all the daemons of the north were on their heels. Which, Volker supposed, they were. Clawed, incandescent flippers abruptly emerged from the gateway and gripped either side as something squamous and bloated squeezed itself out and gave a deafening screech. A multitude of colourful tendrils moved across its oily skin as it flopped after a fleeing swordsman and scooped him up with an eager grunt.

Before the knights could move, the unlucky man was stuffed kicking and screaming into the monstrous thing’s wide maw. Scything fangs reduced the man to silent ruin, and the orb-like eyes of the beast rolled towards them. ‘Chaos spawn,’ Goetz spat. He swatted his shield with the flat of his sword. ‘Come on, ugly. Come to Hector. Come on!’ Sword and shield connected again, the sharp sound drawing the monster’s attention.

‘Goetz…’ Volker began.

‘Stay back,’ Goetz said warningly. He spread his arms, as if inviting the creature to attack. It duly obliged, bounding towards him with a thunderous croak. Its jaws spread like a hellish flower as it flung itself towards him. ‘Chew on this,’ Goetz snarled as he rammed the rim of his shield into the creature’s mouth. He hacked at its protoplasmic flesh, ignoring the lashing tendrils that sought to pull him apart. It grunted and moaned as his sword bit into it. Volker moved to help him, but Dubnitz grabbed his arm.

‘Don’t worry about Goetz, my friend,’ Dubnitz said. ‘He once killed a troll with nothing but a broken shield and harsh language. Man was touched by the gods – when there were gods, I mean.’ He snatched two fallen shields from the ground and tossed one to Volker, who caught it and slid it on just as the first of the enemy exploded out into the courtyard.

Volker’s shock and fear fell away from him as he blocked an axe-blow and brought his sword around and down on the northman’s skull. For a moment, the world shrank to the weight of the blade in his hand and the sound of metal biting flesh and bone. He remembered Heldenhame and the long, gruelling march to Altdorf; the retreat north, with roving warbands of skaven and beastmen dogging their heels; the promise of safety which was never quite fulfilled; the faces of friends who’d died on the way.

He stamped forwards, ramming his shield into a marauder’s chest, shoving the man back. He drove his heel down on the man’s instep, and caught him in the throat with the tip of his sword as he jerked back. In his mind’s eye, he saw bodies left lying in the snow and the mud. He heard the crying of children without parents, and the screams of parents without children. And above it all, he heard a booming laughter which he wanted to believe was simply distant thunder, but in his heart knew was anything but.

Nearby, Goetz backhanded a screaming tribesman with his shield, knocking the warrior flat. His sword was a blur of steel, and for a moment, Volker thought that the last Knight of the Blazing Sun might throw back the hordes of Chaos on his own. But more of the howling, wild-eyed northmen slipped past him and charged towards Volker and Dubnitz, the names of their vile gods spilling from their lips.

‘There are too many of them for us to hold here,’ Volker said. ‘Not alone – we can’t do it without reinforcements.’ He looked around, hoping to hear the tramp of boots or the clop of hooves, but all he saw were the bodies of the dead, and all he heard were the blasphemous cries of the enemy as they made their way over the drawbridge and through the gatehouse. Volker realised with a sinking sensation that he and his fellow knights were the only defenders left. ‘This isn’t fair,’ he whispered, his guts roiling as he lifted his shield to block a wild blow from a frothing beastman. He thrust his sword out instinctively, gutting the creature. He’d come all this way, survived so much – just for it to end here?

‘Way of the world, my friend,’ Dubnitz grunted, hewing at a Chaos marauder. Blood spattered the big man’s face and glistened in his wide, spade-shaped beard. He thrust his knee up between another opponent’s legs and opened the warrior’s skull from pate to chin.

‘What world?’ Goetz said, his bronze-hued armour dulled by dust and blood, as he whipped his blade out in a tight arc and opened the throats of three of the shrieking warriors pressing towards them. ‘Everything’s gone, Dubnitz, and we’re fighting over the damned ashes.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Dubnitz growled. ‘I’m fighting for that last bottle of Sartosan Red I’ve got chilling in the privy. I’ll be damned if one of these barbarians gets to enjoy it before I do. I didn’t fight my way out of what was left of Marienburg with it stuffed down my cuirass, just to miss out now!’

‘I’m sorry, did you say Sartosan Red?’ Volker asked, as he caught an axe-blow on his shield. ‘What year is it, then? And you told me we were out!’

‘Does it matter?’ Goetz asked. ‘It’s not like any of us will get the chance to drink it.’

‘Pay him no mind, Wendel, he’s a Talabeclander. Got the taste buds of a radish,’ Dubnitz said. He snagged the braided beard of his opponent and jerked the northman towards him. Their heads connected with a dull sound and the Chaos marauder staggered back, eyes wide. Dubnitz gave a laugh and lunged, spitting the man on his sword. He whirled and smashed aside the shield of another warrior, opening the man up to a skull-splitting blow from Goetz. ‘There we go – look at that. Just like old times, my friend,’ Dubnitz chortled.

‘Erkhart – look out!’ Volker reached for Dubnitz, even as the Chaos warrior’s blade erupted from the other knight’s chest. Dubnitz coughed and lurched forwards, pulling himself off the blade. He sank down to one knee, his hand clamped to the wound. Goetz caught the Chaos warrior a blow on the head, staggering him.

‘Get him up and out of here,’ he snarled, as he moved to confront the warrior who’d felled Dubnitz. The Chaos warrior came at him, roaring something in a guttural tongue. His sword seemed to drink up the blood that coated it, and it glowed with pale flames. Goetz moved quicker than Volker thought possible for a man in full plate, blocking his enemy’s blow and countering with one of his own. The two warriors traded blows in the breach, neither giving ground. Behind the Chaos warrior, more northmen mustered, ready to rush the gatehouse when the contest was over. Volker could see that Goetz was tiring, despite his spirited defence. He felt a grip on his arm and looked down into Dubnitz’s bloody grin.

‘Second privy from the left,’ Dubnitz said.

‘What?’

‘The wine, Wendel. Just in case you live through this,’ Dubnitz wheezed. He levered himself to his feet with Volker’s help. ‘Fall back. They’ll need you out there, and no sense in you dying here. Two will do as well as three. We will hold them here, as long as possible.’

‘You’ll die,’ Volker protested.

‘Really? Hadn’t thought of that. You’re right. You stay, we’ll go.’ Dubnitz caught the back of Volker’s head and gave him an affectionate shake. ‘Don’t be an idiot. My guts would trip me up before I took two steps, and poor Hector has been looking for a place to die since Talabheim.’ He smiled weakly. ‘It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? I thought I’d die at the hands of an irate husband. At the very least, I’d do it in Marienburg. Still, one place is as good as any other. Like Hector’s late, lamented brothers were wont to say, we do what must be done.’ He pushed away from Volker. ‘Remember – second one from the left. Don’t let it go to waste,’ Dubnitz called, as he staggered towards the gatehouse. Along the way he snatched up one of the braziers the sentries had used for light, and hefted it like a spear.

As Volker began to back away, he saw Dubnitz give a shout and lurch into the Chaos warrior, smashing the armoured brute from his feet with the brazier. Goetz was too busy to capitalise on his foe’s predicament, as the massed ranks of the enemy gave a roar and charged into the courtyard. Goetz hefted his shield and readied himself to meet them.

The first of the invaders reached him, and their shields slammed together. Goetz was shoved back, but his sword slid across the top of both shields and through his enemy’s visor. He wrenched the blade free and shoved the body back, even as a number of slavering Chaos spawn bounded towards him and Dubnitz out of the smoke, their jaws wide. Dubnitz shoved himself to his feet, and for a moment, his eyes met Volker’s. He grinned briefly, displaying blood-stained teeth, and winked before he swung around, catching the first of the spawn in the side of its malformed head with the brazier.

Volker turned away. He heard Goetz cry out the name of his goddess, and then he was staggering out of the courtyard, chest heaving. A rank of levelled spears awaited him, protruding from within a wall of locked shields. He stopped short, and then turned as a wild scream caught his attention. A northman charged out of the courtyard, axe raised. And then another, and another. Volker backed away, shield ready. He killed the first of them, grief and anger adding strength to his blow. The second slammed into him, and they fell in a tangle. Volker slammed the pommel of his sword against the warrior’s head, and then opened his throat to the bone.

Before he could get to his feet, the third was upon him, axe raised for a killing stroke. Volker tensed to receive the blow he knew was coming. Sorry, Erkhart, he thought. I guess that wine will go to waste after all.

Moments before the barbarian’s blow landed, a warhorse interposed itself, and a hammer sang down, driving the warrior to the ground in a broken heap. Volker looked up into the eyes of the Herald of Sigmar himself, and felt the despair of only a few moments before begin to give way before a surge of hope. ‘Are you the last?’ Valten asked, his voice carrying easily above the din of battle.

‘I… yes,’ Volker croaked, trying not to think of the others. I’m sorry, he thought again.

Valten nodded brusquely, and turned his head towards the gatehouse. ‘Then on your feet, Reiksguard. I need every man who can stand. The enemy is coming, and I would welcome them properly.’


* * *

Canto Unsworn strode over the tangle of bodies that blocked the way into the gatehouse courtyard. Dead Chaos spawn, tribesmen and the armoured figures of several of Halfgir’s more eager Headsmen were in evidence, as were the bodies of the defenders, one clad in bronze, the other in green. Two men, he thought. Horvath strode past him, kicking a plumed helmet aside. ‘Two men did all of this,’ Canto said, keeping pace with him as they headed for the shattered portcullis at the far end of the courtyard at a fast lope.

‘Khorne will welcome their skulls,’ Horvath growled. They stepped out of the courtyard and into a melee. Canto saw Count Mordrek wading through the enemy with casual disregard, his blade shrieking in pleasure as it tore the humanity from its victims.

‘Maybe so, but I’m not very keen on this invasion if that’s the sort of welcome we can expect,’ Canto said as he parried the blow of a desperate halberdier. ‘These sorts of things have a way of – well, let’s be blunt, shall we? – spinning out of control.’

‘Silence, Unsworn,’ Horvath growled as he chopped through an upraised shield and into the man cowering beneath it.

‘All I’m saying is, this just proves that things could go very badly, very quickly. Pivotal moments, Horvath. They’re an unsteady sort of foundation to build future endeavours on.’

‘By all of the names of all of the gods, would you be silent, Canto? You’ve been yammering incessantly since Praag,’ Horvath hissed. ‘If Halfgir were to hear you…’

‘Halfgir caught a cannonball in the gut coming up the viaduct. He’s not hearing anything any time soon,’ Canto said, not without some humour. ‘I suppose that means you’re in charge of the warband now – Horvath’s Headsmen, they’ll call us.’

‘I said be silent,’ Horvath snarled, slapping a swordsman aside. ‘By the brass balls of Khorne, do you ever shut up?’

Canto didn’t reply. An Ulrican priest circled him, moving lightly across the blood-slick cobbles, hammer raised, wolf-skin cloak flapping. Canto concentrated on the man’s sweaty, snarling features, waiting for that oh-so-familiar tightening of skin around the eyes that would betray his next move. Flesh crinkled, and the Ulrican stamped forwards, hammer whirling. Canto twisted aside at the last moment, and the hammer smashed down, shattering cobbles. Before the priest could recover, Canto drove his sword through the man’s side. The Ulrican howled, and Canto twisted his blade and shoved, chopping through the man’s spine and out of his back in a spray of blood.

He was already moving forwards as the body flopped to the ground. Swords and spears sought him from every direction, and he chopped and slashed, trying to clear himself room. The Empire troops were beginning to waver. Already the rear ranks were retreating. But there were still enough of them to prove troublesome. Tilea, Estalia, maybe even Cathay, but no – Kislev. You chose to go to Kislev, he thought. But that was a lie. There had been no choice. He and Horvath and all of the others, the whole innumerable horde-to-end-all-hordes, were like drowning men caught in a maelstrom. There was no way to break its pull, no way to escape. You could only go with the tide, and hope you drowned later, rather than sooner.

Or, in the case of some men, that you drowned at all.

Count Mordrek lashed out with the flat of his blade and his fist, driving back his own allies. Marauders stumbled back in confusion as Mordrek cleared a space between the two sides. The soldiers of the Empire, in contrast to their enemies, seemed only too glad for the momentary respite. Mordrek whirled about and pointed at a figure on horseback with his sword. ‘Herald of Sigmar! I see thee, I name thee and I demand thy presence!’ he roared, in archaic Reikspiel. ‘Count Mordrek challenges thee, son of the comet.’

Canto lowered his own blade. ‘So that’s why you were in such a blasted hurry,’ he muttered. Around him, Horvath and the others had realised what was about to happen. Gore-encrusted weapons began to smash against shields, or thump against the cobbles. Canto examined the warrior that Mordrek had called to, and felt a stirring of recognition as the man urged his horse through the ranks of the state troops. He’d seen that face before, during the battle at the Auric Bastion. And he recognised the heavy warhammer clutched in his hand, as well. ‘Skull-Splitter,’ he hissed.

‘What?’ Horvath grunted.

‘That’s Sigmar’s hammer, dolt,’ Canto said. ‘The Skull-Splitter itself. I saw it used once, a long time ago. Some self-righteous prig from Nuln was using it to put the fear of his god into the enemy at the battle of the Bokha Palaces. Like a thunderbolt wrapped in gold,’ he murmured, lost for a moment in images of the past. That was when he’d first set his foot on the path to immortality and ruin. In Kislev, when another Everchosen had been knocking on the door of the world, Canto had been given a choice. And he’d made the wrong one. But who knew old Wheezy von Bildhofen would become Emperor? Not me. How was I to know? Not a sorcerer, am I? I did my bit, he thought, centuries of bitterness welling up as fresh as the day he’d chosen not to slip a knife in the back of his old school-mate, out of some misguided sense of – what? – friendship? Pity? Or something else… Fear, maybe.

And now here we are again, Canto. Part of the Army of the End Times, only this time you’re being honest about whose side you’re on, aren’t you? he thought, watching… Valten, that was his name, riding towards them, carrying the weapon of a god. Unease gnawed at his gut as Valten drew closer. It wasn’t just the hammer; it was everything about him – the set of his shoulders, the armour he wore, the look in his eyes. All of it screamed ‘danger’, the same way von Bildhofen had, so many centuries ago.

‘On this day, I at last see clearly. The world is once more real to me. The voices of the gods have guided me to this moment. Time, fate and destiny grow thin, and there is only the now. A chance to feel alive,’ Mordrek continued as Valten approached. His voice, rusty with disuse, began to grow stronger as he spoke. ‘The gods demand that I kill you, Herald, and then they will free me. But they lie. They always lie, even when it serves no purpose.’

Valten slid from his horse and strode towards Mordrek, hammer in hand. As he drew close, Canto felt a quiver of fear blossom in him. He looked around and saw that he was not alone in feeling out of sorts. A shape, larger than any man, at once ghostly and somehow more real than the world around it, crouched within that husk of flesh, and it was hungry. It was so terribly hungry. It hungered for split skulls and splintered bones, for battle and cleansing fire. In Valten’s footsteps, Canto could hear the rattle of spears, the roar of warriors, the howl of wolves and, above it all, the dull, ponderous rhythm of a hammer slamming down on an anvil. He’d heard that sound before, at the Bokha Palaces, in the words of a man named Magnus. It rang in his skull like the stroke of doom, and he began to edge back.

‘What is that? What is it?’ Horvath growled hoarsely, eyes wide. ‘Is it a daemon?’

‘Did you think we were the only ones with gods, you blood-drunk fool?’ Canto snapped.

A warrior, unable to control himself, broke from the ranks and charged towards Valten, howling out a prayer to the Skull Throne. Mordrek cut his legs out from under him before he’d gone far, and then beheaded the writhing spawn that erupted from the dying man’s tattooed flesh. He spun, arms spread, driving them back with the force of his fury. ‘This day is mine! I have been waiting for it always. I will not be denied. Not by gods or men or even the Three-Eyed King himself,’ he roared.

Point made, he turned back to Valten, who had stopped some distance away, hammer held low. Mordrek lifted his sword. ‘I know the fire which snarls in me, Herald. Even in death, it burns. It cannot be extinguished, not even by the gods themselves. It can only be snuffed by the hand of the one fated to do it. By your hand! Never more to be raised up, never more to be kindled anew. Kill me if you can, Herald of Sigmar,’ the tall warrior intoned. ‘And Count Mordrek, once-lord of Brass Keep, once-elector, once-son of a forgotten Emperor, shall sing your praises in the world to come.’ He struck his cuirass with a clenched fist.

‘Gladly,’ Valten said. That single word sent a ripple of unrest through the men around Canto, and he could not blame them. The word was a promise, and a prophecy. Mordrek made a sound deep in his throat, like an eager dog, and he sprang forwards.

Cursed blade and godly hammer connected in a shower of sparks. A shriek, like that of a dying goat, echoed through the streets as the daemon trapped in Mordrek’s weapon felt the touch of Ghal Maraz. They duelled back and forth, moving almost too fast for Canto to follow.

Mordrek lunged, stamped and thrust, wielding his sword two-handed. Valten blocked every blow but launched few of his own, content to prolong the fight for as long as possible. A moment later, Canto realised why. Past the fight, he saw that the Empire ranks were beginning to thin. He felt a smile creep across his face. Clever, he thought. No wonder Valten had agreed to the duel. While they were occupied watching Mordrek work out his frustrations, the enemy were slipping away. He considered bringing it to someone’s attention, and then dismissed the thought. He wasn’t in charge, and it wasn’t as if there were anywhere to go. If those men didn’t die here, they’d die somewhere else. At this point, it was a foregone conclusion.

Mordrek’s blade screeched as it skidded across Valten’s pauldron, drawing smoke from the metal. Valten turned into the blow and his hammer smashed into Mordrek’s belly, catapulting him off his feet. Mordrek hit the ground and rolled. Valten stalked forwards as Mordrek levered himself up, one arm wrapped around his stomach. Mordrek, still on one knee, extended his sword towards Valten, holding him at bay.

‘Pain,’ Mordrek rumbled. ‘I have felt so much pain. Pain will not kill me, Herald. My will is strong, and I will not be denied.’ He lunged to his feet, sword whirling over his head. Valten ducked aside as the blade snarled down, cleaving a cobblestone in two. Mordrek spun, and his sword lashed out again. It connected with a hastily interposed hammer. Even so, the force of the blow nearly knocked Valten from his feet. ‘Fight, damn you,’ Mordrek roared. ‘Fight me, Herald. I am here to kill you – to spare the Three-Eyed King your wrath, and see that the desires of the gods are not thwarted. But I do not care about Archaon, or the petty wants of fate. What shall be or would have been is not my concern. Fight me. Kill me!’

Valten did not reply. He swatted aside Mordrek’s next blow and sent Ghal Maraz shooting forwards through his grip, so that it crunched into the visor of Mordrek’s helmet. Mordrek staggered back. The terrible hammer licked out and smashed down on Mordrek’s sword arm. His blade fell from nerveless fingers and clattered to the ground, where it screeched and wailed like a wounded animal. Valten stamped down on it and kicked it aside before Mordrek could retrieve it.

The hammer snapped out, and Canto winced as one of Mordrek’s knees went. Mordrek sank down with a groan, and the world seemed to shudder slightly, as if it were out of focus. The hammer dropped down, crushing a shoulder, then a clawing hand. Canto risked a look up at the howling sky, and saw no leering faces. The gods had turned away from this battle now. Were they disappointed, he wondered? Part of him hoped so. Part of him hoped that here and now Mordrek would slip their leash. He turned his attentions back towards the duel.

Mordrek knelt before the Herald of Sigmar, head bowed, his armour shuddering slightly, as if what it contained were seeking escape. Mordrek made no move to stand. He looked up as Valten’s shadow fell over him.

‘I never had a chance,’ Count Mordrek said. He sounded happy.

‘No,’ Valten said.

Mordrek began to laugh. The eerie sound slithered through the air, and even the most slaughter-drunk warrior fell silent at its approach. Mordrek bowed his head again. The hammer rose. When it fell, the mountain shuddered. The sky twisted, and the wind howled. An empty suit of armour rattled to the ground. Thus passed Count Mordrek the Damned, wanderer of the Wastes and exile of the Forbidden City.

The Herald of Sigmar turned to face the ranks of the invaders. In his cool blue gaze was a promise of death and damnation. He raised his hammer, and the closest of them drew back. Their gods were not here, and there would be no help. Canto shivered inside his armour, and wondered if there were any champion among them who was equal to the man before them.

Valten held their gaze as the moment stretched. Then he turned, caught his horse’s bridle, and swung himself into the saddle. He turned the animal around without hurry, and rode away, after his retreating troops.

The northern gatehouse had fallen to the enemy.

THREE

The Manndrestrasse, Grafsmund-Norgarten District

Gregor Martak flung out his hand. Shards of amber coalesced about his curled fingers and shot forwards to puncture the dark armour of the Chaos knights charging towards the embattled soldiers. He spun his staff in his hands, his fingers bleeding where they had been scraped raw by the rough wood, and a whirlwind full of amber spears roared across the plaza, sweeping up tribesmen and reducing them to red ruin. But it wasn’t enough. The enemy pressed his threadbare force from all sides. The air stank of smoke and blood, and the battle cries of Talabecland and Middenland warred with idolatrous hymns to the Lord of Skulls and the Prince of Pleasure. Courtyards and junctions were swept clear of the enemy by cannonades, only to be filled anew moments later.

Guns boomed around him, banners fluttered bravely overhead, and his own magics threw back the enemy time and again, but it wasn’t enough. Still the enemy ground on, showing no more concern for their fallen than the skaven had in the tunnels. Black-armoured figures chanting praises to the Dark Gods poured with undimmed enthusiasm towards the men of the Empire. Mingled among them were the hairy forms of loping beastmen, and the abominable, contorted shapes of mutants and worse things besides.

Rage surged in him and he slammed the end of his staff down. Cruel spikes of amber burst through the street, impaling a knot of snarling, scarred Aeslings. His breath shuddered in his lungs, and he cursed himself for the third time in as many minutes.

Stupid old man. Thought you were so clever, didn’t you? Well look at where that cleverness has got you now, ran the refrain. It was, he had to admit, not without merit. After realising what the skaven were up to, he had hurried back to the surface, stripping reserves of state troops from the staging points in the upper tunnels as he went. The way he’d seen it, those men would be more useful on the surface, than waiting for an attack that might never come below.

And they had been. He’d led them up onto the streets, and they’d thrown back the Chaos vanguard. Martak had led the way, flinging spears of sorcerous amber, and bellowing orders in his best imitation of Grand Master Greiss. The halberds and crossbow bolts of those following him had butchered northlander tribesman by the score. Knights of the White Wolf galloped down cobbled streets, hammers swinging, driving entire tribes of the enemy before them. Men from every province fought together as one, united in their desire to drive the northlanders from the city.

Unfortunately, his decision to strip the garrisons had proven to be less than inspired when a fresh wave of skaven reinforcements had driven the token force that remained in the tunnels out. Even now, a seething wave of chittering ratmen was flooding down the broad avenue of the Manndrestrasse towards his lines, driving the remainder of the tunnel garrisons before them. He caught sight of Greiss, as the latter crushed a rat ogre’s skull with a brutal blow from his hammer. As the beast fell, the old templar glared at him, fury in his eyes.

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ Martak muttered, though he knew the old man couldn’t hear him. If both of them survived this, Greiss would kill Martak himself, and the wizard wouldn’t blame him. He thrust his staff out like a spear and a tendril of amber shot from the tip, plucking a Chaos knight from his mutated steed.

Hundreds of ratmen had followed Greiss and the others into the streets, and these were no fear-crazed vermin, but the elite of that fell race. Bulky, black-furred rats clad in heavy armour marched alongside lumbering rat ogres with belching fire-throwers strapped to their long arms and metal plates riveted to their abused flesh. More skaven, Martak fancied, than even had laid siege to the city before Archaon’s arrival. By the time he’d understood the full enormity of his error, the skaven had struck his lines from behind.

Now, they were making a last stand on an avenue named for the Skavenslayer himself as the skaven swept through the city, their forces joining those of Archaon to isolate the remaining gatehouses. While the north and east had already fallen, the south and west gates had remained barred to the enemy. But Martak could see the smoke, and runners had brought him word that the gatehouses were surrounded and cut off.

Middenheim would fall. It was not his fault, but that didn’t make it any better. Not everyone agreed, of course. Greiss’s horse thrust its way through the fighting towards him. ‘Was this your plan, then?’ Greiss snarled. ‘We’re cut off from the rest of the city. The enemy is before us and behind us.’

‘As they would have been had we stayed below,’ Martak rasped.

‘So you say,’ Greiss snapped. The old man looked fatigued, and blood streaked his features and armour. ‘You’ve doomed us, wizard. We should never have abandoned the Ulricsmund.’ He twisted in his saddle and swatted a leaping mutant from the air. The creature fell squalling amongst a group of halberdiers, who swiftly dispatched it. ‘And where is the so-called Herald of Sigmar, eh? Where is Valten, when we need him?’

‘Fighting for the city, as we are, I imagine,’ Martak said. He felt the winds of magic tense and flex beneath the clutch of another mind. He turned, seeking the source of the disturbance. A cloaked and hooded figure crouched atop a nearby roof, worm-pale hands gesturing tellingly.

Martak shoved past Greiss and shouted a single word. The air before them hardened into a shield of amber even as arrows of shadow launched themselves from the curling fingers of the sorcerer towards the Grand Master of the Order of the White Wolf. The amber barrier cracked and split as the shadowy missiles writhed against it. Martak gestured, and the barrier collapsed about the darkling projectiles, sealing them inside. A second gesture sent the amber sphere hurtling away at speed, back towards the sorcerer on the rooftop. The man leapt gracefully from the roof a moment before impact. He dropped to the cobbles, where he was engulfed by the battle and lost to Martak’s sight.

A moment later, that part of the street erupted in a flickering balefire. Bodies were hurled into the air or slammed back against the buildings that lined the street. Warriors from both sides screamed as the coruscating flames consumed them. Men fell, wracked with sickening, uncontrollable mutations, their bodies growing and bursting like overripe fruits. The sorcerer, his robes askew, strode through the conflagration, his hood thrown back to reveal a golden helmet covered in leering mouths. ‘Malofex comes…’ the mouths shrieked as one. ‘Bow before Malofex, master of the Tempest Incarnate, freer of the First Born, bowbowbowbow.’

‘No,’ Martak said. He slammed his staff down, and the street rumbled as a ridge of amber spikes sprouted and stretched towards the sorcerer. Malofex stretched out a hand, and the amber turned liquid and rose into the air, becoming globules which began to spin faster and faster about the sorcerer’s head. Then, with a sound like the crack of a whip, the globules shot back towards Martak.

Martak’s eyes widened and he whipped his staff up and around in a tight circle, carving protective sigils on the air. The globules of amber struck the invisible barrier and exploded, casting razor-edged shards into the melee around him.

‘Malofex, who freed Kholek Suneater, Malofex, who uprooted the Gibbering Tower, bids you cease and kneel, hedge-wizard,’ the mouths on the sorcerer’s helmet ranted. ‘Bow to Malofex, and live.’ As the sorcerer moved towards Martak, colourful flames sprouted on his robes, rising about him like an infernal halo. The flames swept out and struck the ground, towering around them like the walls of a keep.

Martak set the butt of his staff on the ground, and gripped the haft in both hands. Shards of amber formed and darted for the sorcerer, and were melted by the flames, or caught and crunched by the hateful mouths. He could feel the other’s will pressing down on his own. He had surprised his opponent before, caught him off-guard, but now the full force of the sorcerer’s attention was on him, and Martak found himself slowly but surely buckling beneath the weight of it. He was tired. He had been since Altdorf. There was no time to rest his mind or body. The war had been gruelling and his strength was worn to the nub. But he would not surrender, not now, not here. He hurled spell after spell at his opponent, and each was blocked or dispelled easily.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Greiss trying to break through the flames that had risen to isolate him and his opponent from the battle going on around them. In the flames were faces, moaning, screaming, laughing, and they licked at Martak’s flesh, raising weals of strange hues and sending shivers of pain through him. He could hear the chuckles and whispers of the mouths, and the sibilant crackle of the flames rising from his opponent’s frame as the sorcerer drew close. But, then, a new sound intruded and the world grew slow around him. The flames seemed to freeze in place, and the colour drained from them as they fell silent.

In their place was the howling of wolves. Martak’s breath frosted as the temperature dropped. His skin felt cold and clammy, and he heard the snarls and growls of beasts on the hunt. Lupine shadows stretched across the ground towards him. And then, as it stepped through Malofex’s fire, he saw it.

The wolf loped towards him, seemingly unconcerned by what was going on around it. It moved effortlessly, as if it were a thing not of flesh but instead a ghost or phantom. Its jaws sagged in a lupine grin, and the howls grew louder, threatening to rupture Martak’s eardrums. He could no longer hear Malofex, and the roar of battle sounded as if it were far away. All he could hear were the howls, and the harsh panting of the white wolf as it closed in on him.

It leapt past the sorcerer, sparing him not a glance. Martak wanted to move out of its path, but some force held him frozen in place. The wolf grew larger and larger, its mouth expanding until its upper jaw blocked out the sky and its lower tore furrows in the street, and then Martak was between them and they snapped shut.

Martak was enveloped in darkness. Frost formed on his shaking limbs, and icicles grew in his tangled beard. The howling grew thunderous, and he sank down to one knee, hands clasped to his ears. White specks swam through the dark, faster and faster, and he thought that they might be snow. He heard the crunch of footsteps: human ones, not the padding of paws, but somehow more terrifying for all of that.

Get up.

Martak peered into the swirling snow. The voice had been like ice falling from the face of a cliff, or the stormy waters of the Sea of Claws as they smashed into the shore. It reverberated about him, surrounding him and filling his head.

Get up, Gregor Martak. A man of Middenheim does not kneel.

Martak shoved himself to his feet. Something massive and terrible lunged out of the whirling snow, and caught his throat in a cold grip. He felt claws digging into his neck, and found himself flung down onto hard stones.

He does not kneel. But he will bare his throat, when it is demanded.

The curtain of snow parted, revealing not a beast, but an old, stooped man crouched over him, one hand locked about his throat. The old man’s nostrils flared and he tilted his worn, hairy features up, as if tasting the air. He was clad in white furs and bronze armour, of the kind worn by horse-lords and the barrow kings who had ruled what was now the Empire in the centuries before the coming of Sigmar. His eyes glinted like chips of ice as he dragged Martak to his feet. ‘Who–?’ Martak croaked.

The old man threw back his head and howled. The sound was echoed by the unseen wolves, and its fury battered Martak like the blows of an enemy. He would have fallen, but for the old man’s grip on his throat.

Quiet. Listen.

Martak shuddered, as the gates of his mind were burst asunder and a wild host of images flooded into him. He saw a vast cavern, somewhere far beneath the Fauschlag, though he did not know how he knew that, and saw the roaring light of the Flame of Ulric, stretching upwards towards the Temple of Ulric above. He saw a figure clad in flowing robes step from the shadows and saw ancient wolves rise from the sleep of ages to defend the Flame from the intruder.

In the flashes of sorcerous light which accompanied the short but brutal battle, the figure stood revealed. An elf, Martak thought, confused. His confusion turned to horror as he watched the elf thrust his staff into the Flame. The fire shrank away as the head of the staff touched it, and the guardian wolves howled as one and collapsed into shards of bone and ice. A moment later, the chamber fell into darkness.

And in that darkness, something moved and grew. In the ashes of the Flame, something began to stir, and Martak felt fear course through him. ‘What is it?’ he groaned as he squeezed his eyes shut. There were stars in the darkness, not the clean, pure stars of the night sky but rotten lights which marked the audient void, strung between sour worlds. He could hear voices, scratching at the walls of his mind, and heard the cackling of daemons.

Chaos, Ulric said. The thief stole my flame, and now the world aches as old wounds open in her flesh. Our mother dies, Gregor Martak, and I die with her. I am the last of the Firstborn, and my power, my rage… fades.

Martak looked up into the old god’s face. There was fear there, but anger as well. The anger of a dying wolf as it snaps and snarls at its hunters, even as the trap crushes its leg and the spears pierce its belly. Ulric released his throat and laid a hand on his shoulder.

But it is not gone yet.

Ulric was not one to waste time. There was a moment of pain, of a cold beyond any Martak had felt, and a tearing sensation deep in his chest, as if something had eaten out his heart to make room for itself. And then, the world crashed back to life around him.

Martak opened his eyes. He could hear the crackle of Malofex’s flames, Greiss’s shouts, the din of battle. And beneath it all, the heartbeat of a god. Frost slipped from between his lips as time began to speed up. His staff vibrated in his grip as the ancient wood was permeated with rivulets of ice. He released it and it exploded into a thousand glittering shards, which hovered before him. The temperature around him dropped precipitously, and Malofex’s flames were turned to ice. The sorcerer stopped and looked around, confused.

The hungry smile of a predator spread across Martak’s features. The shards of icy wood shot forwards, punching through Malofex’s hastily erected mystical defences as if they were not there, and smashed into the sorcerer’s body. He was hurled backwards, and where he crashed down, ice began to creep across the cobblestones.

Malofex tried to pull himself upright, his many mouths cursing and screaming. The shards burrowed into him and tendrils of ice erupted from his twitching frame, coating him in frost and covering the street. Soon, there was nothing left of the sorcerer save a grisly sculpture. Martak turned his attentions to the northmen.

As the Chaos worshippers charged towards him, he raised his hands. He snarled a string of guttural syllables, and the air hummed, twitched and then exploded into a howling blizzard. Those closest to him were flash-frozen where they stood, becoming ice-bound statues, much like Malofex. Martak brought his hands together in a thunderous clap, and the newly made statues exploded into a storm of glittering shards. Hundreds fell to the icy maelstrom. Beastmen, skaven and Chaos warriors alike were ripped to shreds by Ulric’s wintry fangs.

Martak lifted his hand, drawing the newly fallen snow and ice up in a cracking, crunching wave, and a moment later, the Manndrestrasse was blocked by a solid wall of ice. The wizard lowered his hand, and turned. Frightened men stumbled away from him, their breath turning to frost on the chilly air which emanated from him. Only Greiss did not fall back as Martak approached. Even so, the old knight flinched as Martak’s eyes came to rest on him.

‘Your eyes… they’ve changed,’ Greiss said.

‘Yes,’ Martak said. ‘We must fall back. To the Temple of Ulric, where the heart of the city still beats. Valten will meet us there, as will any other survivors.’ He strode past Greiss without waiting for a reply.

‘How do you know he’ll be there?’ Greiss demanded. ‘How did you do whatever it was you just did?’ He lumbered after Martak. ‘Answer me, wizard!’

Martak stopped, and turned. Greiss froze. The old man stared at him, and his face paled as he began to at last comprehend what he was looking at. ‘Your eyes are yellow,’ Greiss murmured. ‘A wolf’s eyes…’

Martak said nothing. He turned away. A moment later, the first of his men followed. The ranks split around Greiss and flowed after Martak, leaving the Grand Master of the Order of the White Wolf staring after them.


The Ulricsmund

Wendel Volker beat aside the rough wooden shield and drove his sword through the northman’s stinking furs. The warrior uttered a strangled cough as he folded over the blade. Volker set his boot against the dead man and jerked his weapon free.

Panting, he looked around. The battle, such as it had been, was winding down. A few dozen had tried to ambush his small troop of handgunners and halberdiers, and had fared accordingly. His mother had always said that northmen had neither fear nor sense, and that combination was what made them dangerous. Volker was forced to agree, given what he’d seen of their conduct so far. It was as if they had all been driven mad, all at once, and unleashed by some ill-tempered caretaker.

Then, perhaps their madness was merely acceptance of the inevitable. The horizon glowed with witchfire, and strangely hued smoke rose above the eastern section of the city. He could hear strange sounds slithering through the streets, like cackling children and grunting hogs. Shadows without bodies to cast them moved tauntingly along the walls to either side of Valten’s battered column of men, and sometimes, when Volker glanced at them quickly enough, they seemed to be reaching for him.

Ghosts, he thought. The city was full of ghosts now. Would it become like they said Praag had been, before its final razing, or like Talabheim was now – a haunt for monsters and daemons, unfit for normal men? That was always the bit of the old stories that had stuck in Volker’s craw as a child. Even when men won, they lost. It hadn’t seemed particularly fair to a lad of six, and the world hadn’t done much to change his opinion since.

‘Right, lads, back in line,’ he called out to the others. They wore a collection of uniforms from various provinces and carried a motley assortment of weapons, and there was at least one woman among their ranks, a narrow-faced sneak-thief named Fleischer. ‘Close ranks, wipe the blood off your faces and don’t get separated. If you get lost, I’m not bloody well coming to look for you.’

‘Not unless we’re in a tavern,’ one wit grunted, a formidable looking man by the name of Brunner. He wore a dented sallet helm that covered most of his face, and a battered suit of brigandine armour. Bandoliers of throwing knives and pistols scavenged from gods alone knew where hung across his bulky torso.

Volker pointed his sword in Brunner’s direction. ‘And if you find one that’s still standing, and not drier than the Arabyan desert, be sure to let me know.’ The others laughed, as Volker had known they would. Even Brunner cracked a smile. He’d known men who commanded through fear, like the late, unlamented Captain Kross with whom he’d shared duties at Heldenhame, and others who seemed born to it, like Kurt Helborg. But for the Wendel Volkers of the world, who were neither particularly frightful, nor authoritative, humour was the lever of command.

A jape and a jest served to keep you surrounded by friends, rather than resentful underlings. Discipline was required, but a bit of honey helped it work its way down. It was especially useful given that he and his motley coterie were the merest nub of the hundred or so men who had followed Valten from the northern gatehouse or been picked up en route. The northmen were pressing into the city from all directions now, and the shattered remnants of the defensive garrisons were retreating before them.

Why exactly he’d volunteered to lead the way and act as the point of the spear, Volker couldn’t say. Valten hadn’t asked, and there were other men likely better suited to the task close to hand. But he’d needed to do it. He’d needed to prove something to himself, perhaps, or maybe he’d simply needed to do something. Something to occupy his mind, something to focus on, to keep him busy while the darkness closed in. When the end came, Volker didn’t want to see it. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t be any more pleasant for seeing it coming. Not for him a hero’s death. Something quiet and relatively painless would suit him fine.

He reached up to rub his shoulder in an effort to ease the ache growing in it, and swore under his breath as his armour snagged painfully. He still wasn’t used to it. He didn’t know why he’d accepted the commission into the Reiksguard. The Volkers had always been staunch Feuerbachists, rather than supporters of the Holswig-Schliestein family. ‘Up Talabecland,’ as his father had often used to say, loudly and at inappropriate times. Then, what did political divides matter when the wolf was at the door of the world?

Volker swept his sword clean on his defeated opponent’s furs, nose wrinkling in disgust. As he sheathed his blade, he thought again of Goetz and Dubnitz. He wished they were here. Bravery had come easily in their presence. They had been like him – normal men, trapped in abnormal times. A dying breed, he thought, as he looked back at the column as it advanced down the boulevard, Valten at its head.

He caught the other man’s gaze and nodded once, briskly. Valten returned the nod and raised his gore-stained hammer, rousing his men to the march once more. He spoke of the Temple of Ulric as if it were a source of salvation, rather than a place to make a final stand, and his words instilled courage and drove back fatigue. He wasn’t like Volker. Volker had been wrong, before. He saw that now. Valten was something else – not just a man, but an idea made real. Hope given form, and authority. The Empire made flesh. Abnormal times bred abnormal men. Only gods and monsters could survive what was coming, Volker thought. Where that left him, or any of the rank and file, exactly, he didn’t know, and didn’t care to think about.

He shook himself, and looked at his men. ‘Let’s go. We’ve got half the Ulricsmund between us and the temple, and the wolves of the north are snapping at our heels. It’ll take the Three-Eyed King time to get them all moving in the same direction, but I’d like to be behind a cannon when that happens. Brunner, take point.’ The big man nodded and moved forwards through the smoke, along the ruined boulevard, falchion in one hand and a pistol in the other. Volker had heard somewhere that Brunner had been a bounty-hunter, before the natural order had been overturned. Whatever he’d been, he was a born scout – stealthy, sneaky and utterly vicious.

Volker and the others followed as Brunner loped ahead of them. Volker kept his eyes on the surrounding buildings and alleyways, alert for anything that might signal an attack. He could hear the sound of battle echoing up from the city around him, and the air stank of a thousand fires. A mass of men as large as the one behind him was bound to attract attention. It wasn’t a question of if an attack would come, but when – not to mention what form it would take.

Besides attacks by random warbands of northmen, out for slaughter and pillage, the column had had to deal with worse things. The creature calling itself Count Mordrek had been but the first. Others, champions of the Dark Gods all, had hurled themselves at Valten out of the press of battle as he led his men through the reeling city. Volker could not help but keep a tally, for some of those names were nightmares which had frightened him as a child: names like Ragnar Painbringer, Sven Bloody-Hand, Engra Deathsword, Vygo Thrice-Tainted and Surtha Lenk. Names to conjure with, warlords and near-daemons, all of whom seemed intent on taking Valten’s head before he laid eyes on Archaon.

Whatever their names or titles, Valten fought them all. Ghal Maraz took a steady toll of shattered skulls and broken bones, and through it all, the light within him shone brighter and brighter. It was as if whatever force drove him was growing stronger. Vashnar the Tormentor fell on the steps of the Middenplatz, and a burly, boisterous warrior calling himself Khagras the Horse-lord was left broken in the ruins of the Dragon Ale Brewery. The most recent of them, Eglixus, self-proclaimed Executioner of Trechagrad, had fallen mewling and broken-backed in the dust of the Freiburg, as Valten led his men steadily towards the Temple of Ulric.

Volker heard a whistle from up ahead. Brunner appeared out of the smoke, his taciturn features pale beneath his helm. ‘How many?’ Volker said.

Brunner held up three fingers. ‘Three,’ he rasped.

‘Three what? Three dozen? Three hundred?’

The former bounty hunter shook his head. ‘Just three.’ He looked at Volker, and then past him. Volker turned, as Valten rode towards them.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Three men,’ Volker said. He looked up at Valten. ‘Do you want us to go ahead?’ he asked, even as he prayed that the other man would say no.

Valten shook his head. ‘No.’ He smiled, and for a moment, it was as if something older and infinitely more savage looked out at the world from behind his eyes. ‘No, I think they are waiting for me.’ He turned and signalled for the column to wait. Then he urged his horse forwards, into the smoke. Volker looked at Brunner and the others, shook his head and gestured.

‘Well, we bloody well can’t let the Herald of Sigmar ride off alone, now can we?’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Brunner muttered. But he followed Volker as the latter led the others in pursuit of Valten. They didn’t have far to go. They just had to follow the sound of weapons meeting, and the harsh curses of the combatants. A large edifice, once regal, now smashed and defiled, rose up before them through the smoke.

Volker stifled a gasp as he recognised the Temple of Verena. The dome of the roof had been cracked wide open, and what appeared to be a Norscan longboat now rose from it. How it had got there, Volker couldn’t imagine. The wide avenue before the steps was littered with bodies in the livery of three provinces, all buried beneath clouds of humming flies. The bodies were already beginning to bloat and burst, as if they had been out in the sun for days, rather than hours. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, and tried to control the surge of bile that suddenly filled his throat.

Two men duelled amid the heaps of bodies. One was a monster of a man, clad in black, ruined armour, wielding a triple-headed flail. The other, a hairy northman wearing battered armour and more skulls than any self-respecting human ought, fought with a Norscan longsword and a heavy kite shield. They paid no heed to the newcomers, seemingly occupied with their duel.

‘They’ve been fighting for just hours,’ a languid voice said. Volker’s spine itched as the words reached his ears. For the first time, he noticed the golden-haired man sprawled across the steps of the temple, a polished shield propped up beside him and his feet crossed on the broken body of a priest of Verena. The man was inordinately handsome. Too handsome. Volker felt something in him twitch away from the sheer, monstrous beauty of the speaker.

‘You’ll have to forgive Valnir and Wulfrik,’ the man continued. There was a glow about him, as if thousands of fireflies were flitting about his head and shoulders. ‘They are otherwise occupied. Selfish brutes that they are, they have little thought for the boredom such games inflict on others.’ He smiled widely and sat up. ‘Lucky for you, I am unengaged.’

Valten straightened. He laid his hand on the hammer where it lay balanced across his saddle, as if to calm the ancient weapon. The man on the steps frowned, and Volker felt his guts turn to ice. ‘Are you not going to ask who I am?’ the man said.

‘I know who you are, Geld-Prince. Sigvald, boy-prince of an extinct tribe, monster, cannibal and daemon.’ The strange lights surrounding the other man seemed to dim as Valten spoke, and when he took hold of Ghal Maraz’s haft and lifted the weapon, the lights faded entirely, leaving only a ghostly afterglow.

‘Not a daemon. Not yet. Perhaps never. Such ugly things, daemons. Function over form, as they say,’ Sigvald said. His smile returned. ‘The gods have tasked we three with killing you, but, well, that is not an honour lightly bestowed,’ he purred, admiring his reflection in the polished surface of his shield. He glanced at them, and Volker felt a chill as those radiant eyes swept over him and dismissed him in the same instant. ‘I, of course, felt it should have been mine, but, well, my… comrades disagreed. So, the Reaper and the Wanderer fight. Winner gets you, Herald of Sigmar.’

‘And you?’ Valten asked.

Sigvald laughed, and Volker cringed. He wasn’t alone in that reaction. Even Brunner looked uncomfortable, and Fleischer unleashed a flurry of curses beneath her breath. The sound of Sigvald’s laughter was too perfect, too beautiful, and nearby, one of Valten’s men wept bloody tears as he dropped his weapon and clutched at his ears. He sank down into the dust, and began to whimper. Sigvald smiled, as if the sound were for his benefit. ‘I have no interest in you, son of the comet. You are but the appetiser to the glorious banquet to come, and one does not gobble such morsels. This is a very tasty world, and one must pace oneself, mustn’t one?’

He sniffed and rose gracefully to his feet. ‘No, the Chosen Son of Slaanesh shall not sully himself on the Herald, when he might yet taste the real thing. Am I not deserving of such an honour?’ His lips twitched. ‘The answer, by the way, is most assuredly yes. I am perfection, and I do not waste my gifts on the imperfect. Thus do I take my leave. There are still pleasures yet to be plumbed in this moving feast of a city, and I shall wallow in them to my heart’s content, while I wait the coming of the king.’

Valten watched as Sigvald strode off down the avenue, whistling a cheerful tune. Only when the creature had vanished into the clouds of dark smoke rolling across the street did he turn his attention to the duel. The battle had continued even as he and Sigvald had conversed, and neither warrior seemed to have noticed the new arrivals or have the upper hand.

Every time the armoured hulk wielding the flail battered the hairy giant from his feet, the latter was up again a moment later, cursing and slashing at his enemy, his blows glancing from the other’s maggot-ridden suit of Chaos plate.

Finally, the flail tore the heavy kite shield from its owner’s grasp. The latter staggered back, apparently off balance. His opponent closed in, stomping forwards. ‘Fall, Wanderer, for the glory of Father Nurgle,’ the Chaos champion rasped.

‘You first, Valnir,’ Wulfrik said. He twisted aside, avoiding his opponent’s next blow, and drove the broad blade of his sword into the pustule-lined gap between Valnir’s helmet and cuirass. Wulfrik leaned into the blow with a grunt, forcing the sword all the way through his opponent’s neck. The tip of the blade emerged in a burst of stinking gas and leprous filth. Valnir squawked and dropped his weapon as he reached up to claw at the blade. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ Wulfrik growled. He set his boot against the other champion’s hip and wrenched his blade free, out through the back of Valnir’s neck.

Valnir’s head dropped from his bloated frame and bounced across the cobbles. Wulfrik shoved the twitching body aside and spat after it. ‘Say hello to the Crowfather for me, eh?’ he said, as he retrieved his shield. Wulfrik turned towards Valten. ‘Well, I like a man who’s prompt,’ he said in crude Reikspiel, spreading his arms. ‘Herald of Sigmar, I, Wulfrik the Worldwalker, the Inescapable One, demand that you face me. The gods want your skull on their fire, and I’m of a mind to give them what they wish.’

Valten said nothing. He slid from the saddle, and waved back Volker and the others. It was a command Volker was only too happy to obey. Wulfrik grinned. ‘I heard you did for old Mordrek. I killed him once myself.’ He blinked. ‘Twice, actually, now that I think about it.’

‘This time, he will stay dead. Is that what you wish for yourself?’ Valten asked, as he moved to meet the Chaos champion. ‘Death? I know you, Wanderer, though I do not know how. I know your name, and your fate. I know why you are here, and I know that you cannot stop me. My doom is… already written.’ Valten hesitated, as if uncertain. Then, he said, ‘And it is not by your hand.’

‘No, it wouldn’t be, would it?’ Wulfrik grunted. He sucked in a deep breath, and released it loudly. ‘Ahhhhh. No, I feel the weight of your weird from here, Herald. Not a grand doom, for you. Just a doom. Stupid and small.’ He looked up. ‘Do you think, at the end, there will be anyone left to sing our sagas?’

Valten was silent. Wulfrik laughed. ‘No, I thought not,’ he said. He slapped his shield with the flat of his sword. Valten raised his hammer. Wulfrik attacked first. He bulled forwards, attempting to smash Valten flat with the face of his shield. Valten pivoted aside, but before he could bring his hammer around to strike, the other’s sword was screeching across his armour. Valten stumbled back, eyes narrowed in surprise.

Wulfrik flashed his grin again and moved round warily, blade balanced on the rim of his shield. ‘Come on, boy… Long fights are the stuff of poets’ dreams,’ he growled.

Valten whirled Ghal Maraz about, and advanced. Wulfrik gave a harsh laugh and raised his shield, but Valten didn’t alter the trajectory of his blow. A moment later, Volker realised why – Ghal Maraz connected with the broad face of the shield, and the latter exploded into red hot fragments. Wulfrik was flung back by the force of the blow, and he skidded through the bodies. He was on his feet a moment later, his necklace of skulls rattling.

Now it’s a fight,’ Wulfrik roared. He caught his sword in two hands and bounded in, hurdling the piles of corpses. Valten met him halfway. Sword and hammer connected again and again, the sound echoing through the streets. Valten made a wild swing, driving Wulfrik back. The Wanderer retreated, but only for a moment, twisting in mid-step to bring his blade around in a blow meant to decapitate his opponent. Valten fell, avoiding the sword’s bite but losing his balance. He crashed to the ground, armour rattling, and rolled aside as Wulfrik’s blade came down again, drawing sparks from the cobblestones.

Valten, still on his back, swung Ghal Maraz. The head of the hammer smacked into Wulfrik’s waiting palm. Volker heard the bones of the man’s hand splinter and crack from where he stood, but Wulfrik gave no sign that he felt any pain. Instead, his broken fingers folded over the hammer as his foot lashed out, catching Valten in the chest. As Valten fell back, Wulfrik tore the hammer from his grip and hurled it aside.

Valten shoved himself up on his elbows as Wulfrik approached. ‘That hurt,’ the champion grunted. ‘Maybe your weird wasn’t so heavy after all, eh?’ He raised his blade in one hand, and brought it down.

Valten’s hands shot up, catching the blade. He gripped it tight, even as it bit into his palms. Thin rivulets of blood ran down the tip of the blade. Wulfrik was forced back a step as Valten gathered his feet under him and slowly rose, still gripping the sword. Metal cracked as Valten and his opponent faced one another across the length of sharpened steel. Wulfrik’s grin became a grimace of effort.

The sword shattered. Wulfrik fell forwards, eyes wide. Valten, a chunk of the sword still in his hand, slid it into the Chaos champion’s throat as he stumbled past. Wulfrik toppled, clutching at his neck. Valten retrieved his hammer and turned back to his enemy. Wulfrik, gasping and choking, lowered his hands and lay waiting. He was smiling again, his teeth stained with blood. ‘Good fight,’ he gurgled as Valten stood over him. He closed his eyes. Ghal Maraz struck.

Valten made his way back to the others. The blood on his hands had already dried. Volker was possessed by the sudden urge to kneel. An urge shared by his men, and one by one, they did so. Even Brunner. Valten looked down at them silently. Then, a slow, sad smile crept across his face. ‘Up,’ he said softly. ‘The Temple of Ulric is just ahead. And for good or ill, that is where we will make our stand.’


Grafsmund-Norgarten District

Horvath died slowly, and angrily if his frustrated howls were any indication. The Knights Panther, clad in their swirling, spotted skins and dark armour, had ridden out of an isolated cul-de-sac as the horde passed by, moving in pursuit of the retreating state troops. Horvath had been one of the unlucky ones, caught and spitted on a lance in that first charge. But it wasn’t until the Knights Panther were joined by halberdiers, spearmen and crossbowmen, all flooding the wide boulevard, that Canto realised that the Headsmen, and the warbands following in their wake, had been drawn into a trap.

Middenheim, for all that it was undone and doomed, was still a battleground. Every house, every temple, every guildhall and tavern, was a fortress filled with desperate, deadly enemies, all determined to make Archaon’s followers pay in blood for every stretch of street. Helblasters vomited volleys of shot from open doorways, and handgunners fired from behind overturned wagons and toppled stalls at the other end of the boulevard.

The warriors of Chaos pressed forwards, into the teeth of the fire, because there was little else they could do. And because the eyes of the Everchosen were upon them. Canto parried a halberd and hacked down its owner, even as he caught sight of the battle-standard of the Swords of Chaos rising above the melee. He couldn’t say where they’d come from, or when they’d arrived, but they were here now, and where his Swords went, the Three-Eyed King would not be far behind.

A lead bullet struck his armour and caromed off into the press of battle. Canto spun and rammed his sword through an open doorway, killing the handgunner. He forced his way into the structure beyond, the taproom of a mostly empty tavern. Women and children cowered behind a barricade of tables, as men in the livery of Stirland raced to intercept him. Canto gutted the first to reach him, and beheaded the second. A sword shattered on his daemon-forged armour, and he turned, grabbing its wielder by the throat. He shoved the man back and slammed him against a support beam.

Canto tilted his head, looking up. He smelt smoke, coming from above. Some fool had set fire to the thatch. He looked back at the man he held pinned. The swordsman struggled uselessly in his grip. Ineffectual fists pounded on his arm. Canto considered snapping his neck. Then, without quite knowing why, he released him. ‘Get your women and children and go. Out the back. Find a hole and hide, if you can. Or die. It makes no difference to me,’ he said, stepping back. The swordsman stared at him. Canto turned away, and stepped back out onto the street. As his foot touched the cobbles, he was already regretting his mercy.

Then, it wasn’t really mercy, was it? Middenheim was doomed, and its people with it. There would be no door strong enough, no hole deep enough to keep out the followers of the Dark Gods when the battle was won. When the last defenders fell, then the true horror would begin. Archaon had promised this city to the gods, and the word of the Everchosen was law.

As if the gods had heard his thoughts and wished to punish him, a lance slammed into his side, knocking him to one knee. His armour had been forged by the daemonsmiths of Zharr Naggrund and the mortal weapon merely splintered, peeling away as it struck him. Even so, the force of the blow was enough to rattle his brains, and he reeled, off balance. The knight galloped past, freeing a heavy morning star from his saddle as he did so. The spiked ball crashed down on Canto’s helm. He lurched back, slamming into the doorway of the building. The horse reared over him, hooves lashing out. Canto snarled a curse and lunged forwards, driving his shoulder into the animal’s midsection.

The horse toppled with a squeal, carrying its rider with it. Canto dispatched both swiftly. But even as he wrenched his blade free of the knight’s shuddering body, he saw that his attacker hadn’t been alone. The Knights Panther had ploughed through the jammed ranks of the horde, leaving a trail of carnage in their wake. It was a suicidal endeavour, but it had a purpose. Most of them had already been pulled from their saddles, but some still rode on, intent on their quarry – Archaon himself. One of the knights roared a challenge as he spurred his horse forwards, and raised a single-bladed war-axe in readiness for a killing blow.

The Everchosen was mounted upon a coal-black nightmare of a beast, with eyes like burning embers and hooves which split the stones they trod upon. Its fanged maw champed hungrily at its iron bit as Archaon hauled back on the reins and turned the animal to face his challenger. The menace of the steed was nothing compared to that of its rider. It was the first time Canto had seen the Everchosen in the flesh.

Archaon was taller and broader than most who fought under his banner and his armour was far more ornate, its plates covered in lines of scrawled script, strange runes and abominable sigils which made even the most puissant sorcerer weep with fear. Too, it seemed to be of all colours and none, shifting as it caught the light through a vast spectrum of hues wholly unknown to man. Canto had heard that the armour had belonged to Morkar the Uniter, First Chosen of Chaos, in the dim, ancient days of the past.

In his hand, Archaon held a heavy sword – the infamous Slayer of Kings. The blade writhed with barely contained power, and leering faces formed and dissolved on its surface as he brought it up and sent it slamming down through his challenger’s shield and into the body below. The knight fell from his saddle as his horse thundered past. His death did not deter his comrades, however. Indeed, it seemed to only spur them on.

Canto watched in incredulity as the Everchosen was surrounded and separated from his bodyguards by the remaining knights. Those chosen to keep the Swords of Chaos at bay did so with reckless abandon, fighting furiously, with no thought for their own well-being. The remaining trio engaged Archaon. Two came at him from either side, while the third hung back. As soon as Archaon had turned to deal with his companions, the knight kicked his steed into motion and galloped towards the Everchosen.

Time stopped. The world grew still and silent. Canto held his breath. Archaon was the Chosen of Chaos, the man before whom all the daemons of the world bowed. But he was still a man. He could still be killed, and a blade to the back would do the job as easily as a cannonball or a warhammer in the hands of the Herald of Sigmar himself.

Against his better judgement, Canto looked up. The sky still moved. The clouds writhed and became faces, before breaking apart and becoming just clouds again. The gods were watching. Now would be a good time to pretend he hadn’t seen anything, that he was elsewhere. Pretend you’re not here, he hissed to himself. Let the gods look after their own.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, Canto hurled himself forwards. His blade hewed through the horse’s legs, and the animal fell screaming. Its rider toppled from the saddle, but came to his feet a moment later. His sword slammed into Canto’s and they duelled over the body of the dying horse, but only for a moment. The man was hurt, and perhaps even dying, even as his sword arm faltered and Canto’s sword landed on his shoulder, driving him to his knees. The dawi zharr-forged blade cut through the knight’s heavy armour with ease and he flopped across the body of his steed, dead.

Canto jerked his weapon free of the body. ‘You have my thanks, warrior,’ a voice rumbled. Canto turned. The Three-Eyed King looked down at him, and Canto wondered how far away Kislev was. Archaon looked down, at the body of the knight, and then back up, taking in Canto’s unadorned armour. Canto stepped back, suddenly conscious of the lack of devotional markings on the baroque plates of black iron. He was called ‘Unsworn’ for a good reason; he had never climbed the eight hundred and eighty-eight steps to the Skull Throne, or hacked his way into Nurgle’s Garden looking for a patron. The gods couldn’t be trusted. They gave a man everything he wanted, even when he begged them to stop.

‘Kneel,’ Archaon rumbled.

‘Rather not – trick knee,’ Canto said, but he was already sinking down even as the words left his lips. The battle still raged about them, but here, in this moment, he felt the weight of a terrible silence descend on him. The clangour of war was muted and dull. He refused to look up, because he knew that if he did, something would be looking down at him from the wide, hungry sky. For the first time, the gods would see him. You’ve done it now, fool, he thought. You’ve got their interest now, and you know what that means.

Except he didn’t, not really. Oh he’d seen what could happen, but he’d spent centuries avoiding the gazes of the gods. He’d done just enough, but never too much. Just enough to survive, but never enough to prosper. A rat hiding in a midden heap. His heart stuttered in its rhythm, and his armour rattled.

‘Canto the Unsworn,’ Archaon said. He sounded amused. Canto didn’t bother to wonder how Archaon knew his name. The gods had likely whispered it in his ear. ‘You rode with the Gorewolf, and before him, Tzerpichore the Unwritten.’ Archaon cocked his head. ‘They say Tzerpichore’s great tortoise of iron and crystal still walks the Wastes, searching for its master.’

‘Yes, they do,’ Canto said. ‘And it does.’

‘There are few men these days who do not find sanctuary in one god or another’s shadow. But you stand apart. Is that due to fear or pride, I wonder?’

‘Fear,’ Canto croaked. Archaon’s eyes shone like stars, and he felt the strange heat of a cold fire wash over him. It was as if he were being flayed from the inside out, opened up so the Everchosen could examine every nook and cranny of his black and blasted soul.

‘What do you fear?’

‘Death. Madness. Change.’ The words slipped out before Canto could stop them. They hung on the air, like the notes of a song. He felt the hideous interest intensify, and knew what a mouse must feel when it is caught by a cat. Several cats, in fact. And their king was glaring down at him, considering where to insert his claws.

‘I was damned from the first breath that I took. All men are,’ Archaon said, almost gently. ‘We change from what we were with every moment and hour that passes, losing ourselves the way a serpent loses its skin. To hold on to the old, that is madness. To strive against the current, that is madness. There is nothing to fear, Unsworn. Not now. The worst has happened. The horns of doom have sounded, and the pillars of heaven and earth come crashing down.’ His great blade stretched out. Canto closed his eyes. He saw his life – a life of running and fighting and colours and sounds and somewhere, out there, far away, he thought he could feel the slow rumble of the tortoise as it continued on its way through the Chaos Wastes, and he felt a moment of inexplicable sadness.

There was a soft sound, and he opened his eyes as the flat of Archaon’s blade touched his shoulder. ‘Rise, and be fearless. Rise, and find sanctuary in my shadow, Unsworn. We ride for ruin, and our victory is assured.’ Then the sword was lifted, and Archaon’s steed reared, pawing the air with an ear-splitting shriek.

Time snapped back into focus. Noise washed over Canto, staggering him. A howling, wolf-cloaked warrior charged towards him, hammer swinging out, and he rose to his feet smoothly. He swept his sword out and disembowelled his attacker. A riderless horse, its flesh writhing with thorns and its eyes made of smoking gemstones, galloped past, snorting and kicking. Like a gift from the gods, Canto thought, even as his hand snapped out to catch hold of its bloody bridle.

FOUR

The Temple of Ulric

Gregor Martak climbed the broad steps of the Temple of Ulric, looking about him with satisfaction. Whether that satisfaction was solely his or was shared by the power now inhabiting his body, he couldn’t say, but he thought Ulric must approve of Valten’s preparations. The Herald of Sigmar was no fool, whatever his origins.

He had garrisoned the cloisters and processionals of the eastern and western wings of the temple with bands of state troops, ensuring that the flanks and rear of their position were well defended. The bulk of the surviving forces under his command now occupied the northern edge of the vast cobbled square which sat before the temple’s main entrance. Deep ranks of troops stood before the steps, their lines anchored by the wings of the temple. Men of Averland, Ostermark and the Reikland stood ready to the east, their fire-torn standards whipping in the unnatural wind that curled through the streets of Middenheim. To the west, Talabheimers stood firm alongside the musters of Altdorf and Stirland. The honour of the centre position had been given to their hosts, who stood in the shadow of their god, halberds and crossbows ready for the storm to come.

The survivors of the various knightly orders who had chosen to make Middenheim their burying ground stood behind the centre. The Knights of the White Wolf, the Gryphon Legion, the Knights of the Black Bear, and the Knights of the Broken Sword were all in evidence. There were others scattered throughout the city, fighting a desperate holding action or mounting suicidal counter-attacks. The knightly orders had ever been the mailed fist of the Empire, and in these final hours most seemed determined to get in as many blows as possible, even if that meant their own annihilation.

Deployed at the top of the steps, before the doors of the temple, were the remnants of Middenheim’s once-proud Grand Battery. Every gun that could be salvaged from the walls and keeps of the city had been, and they were now arrayed so as to belch fire and destruction into the enemy whose approach even now caused the street to shake slightly.

Martak joined a group of men at the top of the steps, before the battery. A ragtag group of captains, sergeants, and mercenary commanders stood in tense discussion. Martak recognised a few of them, including the raven-haired Torben Badenov, the peg-legged Marienburger Edvard van der Kraal, and the loutish Voland, a hedge-knight from Tilea. Nearby, Axel Greiss was arguing with two of his fellow Grand Masters, Nicolai Dostov of the Gryphon Legion and Volg Staahl, the Preceptor of the Order of the Black Bear. The latter nodded to Martak and said, ‘Look, Martak’s here. The day is saved.’

Greiss whirled. He glared at Martak, but only for a moment. ‘Glad you could join us, wizard,’ he muttered, turning back to the others. ‘Tell him what you told me, Staahl.’

Dostov and Staahl shared a look. The other man’s dislike of Martak was well known, and the wizard wondered if Greiss’s sudden desire to include him in their hastily convened war council surprised them. Like Greiss, they were older men. Dostov, a white-moustachioed Kislevite clad in the banded mail and back banner in the shape of a pair of wings which marked a warrior of the Gryphon Legion, was lean and hard-faced. Staahl, on the other hand, was a keg with legs. With his ash-smeared plate armour and ragged bear-skin cloak, he resembled nothing so much as a particularly fat, disreputable bear.

‘Achendorf is dead. Took his knights and made a try for the head of the beast, poor fool,’ Staahl rumbled. Dostov frowned, but said nothing. Greiss snorted.

‘Do not pity him. He gambled, and lost. Would that he had succeeded,’ he said.

‘It’s not him I pity,’ Staahl snapped. ‘It’s us. We could have used him and his men, Axel. Instead, he sacrificed them in a foolhardy attempt at glory. Every sword counts, and he took good men into death with him.’

‘Does it matter where they die?’ Greiss growled, bristling. He gestured at the men below with his hammer. ‘That is why they – why we – are here, you fat old fool. To fight and die, so that the Emperor might live one more day. We are bleeding them. Nothing more.’

‘No.’

They all turned as one, Martak included. The fragment of Ulric within him twitched as he caught sight of Valten ascending the steps. Down below, more men hastily squeezed into the ranks. ‘No, we are not just a sacrifice, Master Greiss. In the end, perhaps. When the war is done, and scribes record the events of this day, that is what they might say of us. But here and now, we are so much more.’ The trio of Grand Masters stepped aside as Valten strode past them. He looked up at the temple for a moment, and then turned back to them. ‘Here and now, we are the Empire of Sigmar. Here and now, we are the City of the White Wolf. Middenheim stands. And while it does, so too does the world.’ He raised his voice, pitching it to carry. Down below, the noise of men preparing for war had dimmed. Martak realised that almost every eye in the square was upon them.

As cheers rose up from below, Valten turned back to Martak and the others. Greiss and his fellow knights were staring at him as if, for the first time, they suddenly understood that Valten was not merely a jumped-up blacksmith in borrowed armour, but something else entirely. Valten met Martak’s gaze. The part of the wizard which was Ulric recognised the spark of… otherness in the man before him. It was only a spark, but it might grow into a roaring flame. One to cleanse the stones of the Fauschlag of the filth that crept over them. If it was given the time.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, Valten’s smile faded, becoming sad. He shook his head slightly, a gesture so infinitesimal that Martak knew he alone had seen it. And in his soul, Ulric howled mournfully.

Greiss cleared his throat. ‘A very pretty speech, blacksmith. But speeches alone won’t see us safely to another sunrise.’

Valten turned to the old knight. ‘No, for that we’ll have to trust in Altdorf steel, Nuln gunpowder and Middenheim courage.’ He paused, as if taking stock of the situation. Then, he continued. ‘We hoped that the Fauschlag would protect us. That the walls of Middenheim would keep the enemy at bay for weeks, if not months.’ He looked at each of the gathered officers in turn. ‘We hoped that the Emperor might rally the rest of the Empire from Averheim, and perhaps even relieve us here. That together, we could drive the enemy back into the Wastes.’ He grinned. ‘Doesn’t seem very likely now, does it?’

Staahl snorted, and several of the captains chuckled. Greiss and Dostov frowned. Martak couldn’t restrain a harsh cackle. He felt Ulric growl unappreciatively within him; the wolf-god wasn’t, by nature, fatalistic. Nor did he have a sense of humour.

‘The enemy is inside the walls. All we can do now is hope to bear the brunt of his fury, and break his back when he exhausts himself,’ Valten continued. He looked at Martak. ‘If we can bring Archaon to battle, then we have a chance. If the Three-Eyed King falls, his army will disintegrate. Middenheim might well be consumed in that conflagration, but that is a small price to pay for victory.’

Ulric snarled in agreement within Martak’s soul, and Valten smiled slightly, as if he’d heard the god’s voice. Martak wondered just how much Valten saw. If they survived the coming conflict, he intended to ask him. He heard the winding howl of a war-horn, and turned. ‘It looks like we’ll have no trouble with the first part of that plan,’ Martak murmured.

Along the southern edge of the square, the foe had begun to arrive. Black-armoured northlanders chanted and bellowed, clashing their weapons and shaking their shields in furious tumult. Drums boomed back, deep in their ranks. Daemons capered about them, hurling incoherent threats at the men standing before the Temple of Ulric. Beastmen paced at the fringes of the gathering horde, throwing back their heads to add their roars and wildcat screams to the dreadful clangour. But, even as their numbers swelled, they did not move to cross the square and attack.

‘They’re waiting for their master to arrive,’ Valten said. He stared at the gathering ranks of the enemy, as if in search of Archaon.

‘Biggest dog gets first bite,’ Martak grunted. He could feel the essence of the wolf-god gathering itself in him, ready for the fury to come. His breath came in pale puffs, and those men closest to him stepped back nervously.

Suddenly, the air was split by the sound of beating wings. It was as if a hundred thousand crows had chosen that moment to fill the air above the square. The men on the steps cried out in alarm, and clapped their hands to their ears as the thunderous wingbeats threatened their eardrums. Even Valten staggered slightly as the air rippled with the shadows of diving, swooping birds. Martak alone stood tall.

His eyes narrowed, and his hand shot out to catch hold of the end of a spear moments before it lanced through Valten’s chest. The whirring, shifting shadows parted, and the spear’s wielder was revealed – a snarling beastman, with wide, black-feathered wings rising from his broad back. Malagor, the Dark Omen, Best-Loved of the Dark Gods, Ulric’s voice growled in his mind. Martak’s lips skinned back from his teeth, and he returned Malagor’s snarl in kind. The tableau held for a moment, as man and beast stared at one another. Martak’s arm trembled as he slowly forced the spear back. Malagor’s wings beat heavily, as it tried to drive the weapon forwards. Then, in a clap of darkling thunder, the creature was gone.

On the other side of the square, the gathered beastmen suddenly broke ranks and pelted forwards, as if Malagor’s attack had been a signal. They brayed wildly and brandished crude weapons as they charged in a scattered, undisciplined mass towards the gleaming ranks of spears and halberds.

Valten shook himself, as if emerging from a dream. He raised his hammer. ‘To your places, brothers, captains, masters… May Sigmar and Ulric both watch over you,’ he said, looking at the others. They snapped into motion, hurrying to their positions, as down below orders rang out along the Empire battle-line, drums rattled and horns blared. Valten looked at Martak. ‘They want me dead,’ he murmured. ‘They do not want their chosen weapon to meet me in combat.’

‘Well, let’s disappoint them, then,’ Martak growled. He looked out over the square, eyes narrowed. Whatever madness had seized the beastherds had not consumed the rest of Archaon’s army. Unsupported as they were, and out in the open, the beastmen were being cut to ribbons by volleys of crossbow bolts and gunfire. Behind Martak, the great cannons began to bellow, and soon cannonballs bounced across the square, ploughing into the frenzied ranks of charging beastmen. Mortar shells and rockets hammered the disorganised herds, hurling broken corpses through the smoke-stained air. A looming ghorgon, massive jaws snapping hungrily, toppled backwards as a cannonball smashed through its skull, and crushed a dozen of its lesser kin.

A shriek from above tore Martak’s attentions from the carnage being wrought in the square. He and Valten looked up, to see a swirling murder of crows descend on the artillery at the top of the steps. Gunners cried out in fear and pain as Malagor swept through them, plucking eyes and raking flesh. The Dark Omen was monstrous and unstoppable, and his body dissolved into a shower of feathers only to reform elsewhere to wreak more havoc. Even as the bodies of those he’d slain tumbled down the steps, Malagor vanished, the thunder of wings echoing in his wake.

Valten started up the steps, hammer in hand. Martak grabbed his arm. ‘No. I’ll handle the beast. You see to the battle.’ Valten opened his mouth, as if to reply, then nodded and turned to race down the steps. Martak cracked his knuckles, and then closed his eyes. His nostrils flared as he inhaled the stench of Malagor’s magics. The creature was ripe with the stink of the swirling energies which permeated the clouds far above. Martak, eyes still closed, turned one way, and then another, following Malagor’s twisting, turning pilgrimage across the battle-lines of the Empire. Men died wherever the beast settled, and it seemed to be unconcerned with the savage slaughter being inflicted on its kin, for its attacks were random, rather than calculated to ease the advance of the beastmen.

Nonetheless, the beastmen were possessed by an unmatched ferocity, and down in the square they hurled themselves through the teeth of the artillery and crashed home at last, smashing into the ranks of the state troops. The creatures were outnumbered, and almost ridiculously so, but Martak knew that such concerns no longer held sway over them. The Children of Chaos had been driven into a killing frenzy, and they were determined to taste the blood of their enemies.

There!

The thought sliced through his consciousness, and Martak’s eyes snapped open. His head ached with the pounding of wings as he turned and saw a mass of whirling feathers dropping towards Greiss and his knights. Martak raced down the steps, one arm flung back. He stopped, and his arm snapped forwards. A jagged spear of amber, coated in ice, cut through the air with a whistling shriek.

The mass of shadow-crows gave a communal scream and something hairy dropped from their midst to crash down on the steps. Martak pounced, his hands seizing the length of his conjured spear, and he shoved his prey back down as it tried to rise. Malagor howled in agony as it pawed uselessly at the ice. Its blood had splattered out across the steps like the wings of some great, malignant bird. Martak leaned against the spear with his full weight. Malagor’s flesh blackened with frostbite, and its froth became frozen slush. It glared at Martak, and he matched that gaze, even as he had before.

Then, with a frustrated whimper, Malagor flopped back and lay still. Martak shoved himself back, and stood. Down below, the fury of the beastmen was mostly spent. Martak watched with grim pleasure as Valten struck a minotaur, the force of his blow driving the monster to its knees. His second blow took its head completely off, sending it rolling across the cobbles. The surviving beastmen were beginning to flee.

Valten wheeled his horse about and rode back through the lines, speaking calmly to the soldiers. A joke here, a word of comfort there… The god in Martak watched in wonder as men who had only moments before been filled with fury and fear straightened their spines and locked shields once more. The ragged holes carved in their ranks by the beastmen vanished as fresh men moved to fill the gaps. Fallen standards were lifted high as Valten passed along the shield-wall, meeting the gaze of each man in turn. He began to speak, and his words were almost immediately drowned out by cheers.

What is he? Ulric murmured. Martak smiled. ‘A blacksmith,’ he said, softly. War was Valten’s anvil, and, were the world a kinder place, perhaps he could have made something stronger from the raw materials the End Times had provided him. For a moment, Martak could almost see it… a world of shining towers, and prosperous peoples. Where no woman would have to abandon her deformed child to the forests; where no man would so fear the touch of tainted water that he chose a slow death by alcohol, rather than risk the waters of the Reik. Where the cities of men were not threatened by howling hordes of northmen or orcs.

Ulric growled within him, and Martak felt his smile slip. Such a world was not a pleasant thought for a god of war, winter and woe. ‘Well, it’s not as if we have to worry about it, eh?’ he asked himself. ‘The wheel of the world is slowing, and soon enough it will stop.’

Valten rode up to the bottom of the temple steps, and Martak went down to meet him. ‘Do you hear the drums, Gregor? I think we’ve caught their attention,’ Valten said. His eyes strayed to the remains of Malagor, and then he turned in his saddle, peering out across the square. ‘Which is all to the good, I think. The men have had a victory. They’ll be hungry for another.’

Martak followed his gaze. The horde gathered along the southern edge of the temple square had grown to massive proportions. It was a seething tide of black armour, cruel weapons and ragged banners. The latter stretched back into the gloom which dominated the narrow streets and crooked avenues of the Ulricsmund beyond. A wave of noise rose and spread from the ranks of the Chaos worshippers, tortured syllables crashing down and flowing over the men of the Empire. The raw surge of noise rose to mingle with the thunder that rocked the strange clouds overhead, to create an apocalyptic cacophony which drowned out all thought and sense.

Then lightning flared across the sky, and the horde fell silent. The sudden quiet was almost as bad as the noise had been. Martak felt Ulric bristle within him, and he looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of the monstrous, ghostly shapes which moved behind the clouds. They are here, Ulric growled. They come to watch.

Eyes as wide and as hot as the sun washed over him, through a tear in the clouds, and Martak shuddered and looked away. There had been nothing recognisable in that gaze – nothing save an eternity’s worth of hunger and madness. The Chaos Gods were not as the gods of men. They had known the world as dust in the aeons before creation, and they would know it as dust again before they were finished.

Out across the square, the host of the lost and damned parted like split wood. Chaos warriors, scarred tribesmen and squabbling daemons all pushed and thrust against their fellows to create a wide corridor. And down that corridor, riding at an unhurried pace, came the architect of all the world’s pain himself.

Archaon, Lord of the End Times, had arrived.


* * *

Wendel Volker wished he had time for a drink. He wished he had time for anything. He stood amid the lines of the state troops, his armour stained with gore and his shield hacked almost to flinders. Brunner stood nearby, his falchion resting on his shoulder. The former bounty-hunter looked almost at ease, as if the carnage of only a few moments before had been nothing at all. The rest of Valten’s men had spread out among the ranks, filling in gaps or simply seeking out friends and comrades to stand with. Volker had neither. Not any more.

He closed his eyes, and tried to relax. The worst was yet to come, and a Volker couldn’t be found wanting. Behind him, he heard the murmurs of healers and warrior priests as they worked to stiffen spines and bind wounds. Servants of Sigmar, Ulric and even Ranald, all were present. Whether their gods were was another matter.

‘He’s a big one,’ Brunner grunted.

Volker opened his eyes. The Chaos horde had fallen silent. Their master, the Three-Eyed King himself, had arrived. Volker lifted his visor to get a better look at the king of all monsters. Brunner wasn’t wrong – Archaon was big, bigger than any of his followers, save for those who loomed over buildings. His armour shone with a terrible light, and the air about him shimmered as if the weight of his presence caused reality itself to stretch and fray. Archaon was wrong, Volker thought. He was the very essence of wrongness, of the foulness that crept in through the cracks in the world, and Volker felt his stomach twist in agonised knots as he watched the Lord of the End Times ride through his followers and into the square.

‘How much do you think they’d pay me for his scalp?’ Brunner said.

‘They’d make you bloody emperor,’ Volker said, not looking at him. Archaon was in no hurry. His daemonic steed pawed the ground as it moved forwards. The ground cracked and steamed where the animal’s hooves touched. The Three-Eyed King was surrounded by a bodyguard of Chaos knights, each of them a monster in his own right. Archaon, his great sword balanced across his saddle horn, stared at the forces arrayed before the temple.

Volker fought the urge to shrink back into the ranks. He felt soul-sick and weary as Archaon’s inhuman gaze swept over him. Overhead, the roiling clouds had thickened and darkened as the storm redoubled its fury. A hot rain had begun to fall, softly, slowly at first, and then with hissing fury. The sword in Volker’s hand felt heavy, and his breathing was a harsh rasp in his ears. Archaon straightened in his saddle. His armour creaked like the wheels of a plague cart, and when he spoke, Volker felt each word in the marrow of his bones.

‘I am the Final Moment made flesh. I stand here on this mountain, and I will sit on its throne. I will be the axis upon which the wheel of change turns, and the world will drown in the light of unborn stars.’ Archaon looked up. ‘Can you feel it, men of the Empire – can you feel the air tremble like a thing alive? Can you feel the heat of the fire that rages outside the gates of the world?’ He lowered his head, gazing at them, his expression unfathomable, hidden as it was within the depths of his helm. ‘The End Times are here, and there is no turning back. There is no past, no future, only now. Time is a circle and it is contracting about the throat of the world,’ Archaon said, making a fist for emphasis. ‘Why do you cling so to the broken shards of Sigmar’s lie? There is no afterlife. There is no reward, no punishment. Only death, or life.’

Volker blinked sweat from his eyes. Men to either side of him shifted in obvious discomfort. Archaon’s words ate at his resolve like acid, stripping him of courage and will. Archaon gazed at them for a moment, as if to let his words sink in, and then he began to speak again. ‘Look to the sky. Look to the street. Cracks are forming in what is, and what was. That which shall be presses against the threshold of time itself. This world is, and always has been, but a moment delayed. A single drop of blood, hanging from the tip of a sword. And now, it splashes down.’

Archaon swept his blade up, and fire crawled along its length. ‘This sword. Your blood. Your age has passed. The pallid mask of human existence has begun to peel back, revealing the canker within. Why not rip it off at once, and glory in these final hours – shout, revel, kill, and taste the blood of the world as it dies.’

Men murmured. Fever-bright eyes blinked. Tongues caressed lips. Volker shuddered, trying to push his way through the numbing fog that had engulfed his thoughts. Archaon seemed to glow with a sour light, like a beacon calling all of the world’s children home. Part of Volker wanted to follow it wherever it led, to give in to despair and rage and wash away the memories of Heldenhame and Altdorf in blood. He looked down, and caught sight of the crowned skull emblazoned on his cuirass, with the ‘KF’ sigil of Karl Franz.

The sound of hooves shook him from his reverie. Men stood straighter, and looked about, as Valten eased his horse through the press. He looked tired, the way they all did, but not weak. Not exhausted. When he spoke, his voice carried easily through the rain, and across the square, from one wing of the army to the other.

‘He is right, brothers,’ Valten said. ‘All of history has come down to this place. Every story, song and saga, they have all led up to this day, this hour, this moment. We stand in the shadow of heroes and gods, and their hands are on our shoulders, urging us in one direction… or another.’ As the words left his mouth, he turned towards Archaon.

‘But it is up to us to choose who we listen to. We have been given this day to make our stand. To bar the door of the world against the beast that would devour everything we hold dear. We have been given this moment to show our teeth. To show our anger, and let it light the flames of the world’s wrath.’ Valten looked out over the massed ranks of soldiery. ‘Let its heat warm you, and its light drive back the dark. Let that fire light the way to the ending of the world, if that is what the gods will. Let it scour the rock, and consume the stars themselves. Let the heat of our pyre scorch the Dark Gods cowering in the shadows, if that is the will of Sigmar.’

He paused. And smiled. It was a gentle smile. The smile of a blacksmith at his forge. ‘But either way… let the fire burn, brothers.’ The words were delivered quietly, but they carried nonetheless. Volker was not alone as a cheer ripped its way from his throat. Hundreds of voices rose, mingling into a single roar of defiance. The sky ripped wide, as if the cacodaemoniacal gods above had been driven into paroxysms of fury by the sound.

Archaon raised his sword. Lightning shrieked down, striking the blade and casting a sickly light across the square. The cheers ceased as the Lord of the End Times reminded them of his presence. Volker hunkered down behind his shield as stray sparks of lightning spat and crawled across the ground at his feet.

‘This is the way the world ends,’ Archaon rumbled. ‘This is the way the world begins. Let my name ring out, and let the very mountains tremble. I have come for the rotten heart of your Empire, and I will not leave until I feel it grow still in my hand. Run and die, or stand and die, hammer-bearer, but die all the same.’ He spread his arms, as if inviting attack.

‘Death is a small price to pay for victory,’ Valten said. He spoke steadily, with certainty, and his voice carried easily across the square. ‘And our victory is writ in the heavens themselves. You are not the one to unravel the weave of the world. Ride home, ride back into the darkness.’ He gestured with his hammer.

‘I am home,’ Archaon snarled. ‘And I will not be denied.’ He hauled back on the reins of his monstrous steed, causing the beast to rear. He raised his blade up and then swept it down, as if it were a headsman’s axe and it were Middenheim’s neck on the block.

With a roar to shake the Fauschlag itself, Archaon’s army charged.


* * *

The moment the Slayer of Kings swept down, Archaon was in motion. Bent low in the saddle, the Lord of the End Times led the attack. Canto, surrounded on all sides by the grim, armoured figures of the Swords of Chaos, had no choice but to follow in his wake.

Canto ducked his head, and bent almost parallel to the neck of his newfound mount. The animal gibbered ceaselessly in what sounded like Tilean, spewing what were either curses or recipes as it pounded along, its hooves eating ground at a relentless pace. He’d tried hitting it, but that only made it talk more loudly, and it had tried to bite him to boot. He’d decided to settle for holding on and letting the beast do as it willed.

Holding tight to the reins, he risked a glance back. The rest of the Chaos horde was in motion behind the Swords. Chaos warriors from a hundred different warbands pounded after their warlord, shaking the square with the fury of their charge. Wild, yelling tribesmen ran alongside them. Packs of twisted, mutated hounds bayed madly as they loped across the cobbles, and daemons capered and gambolled in their wake. To the east, Canto caught sight of a massive slaughterbrute ploughing forwards, flinging aside unlucky tribesmen in its haste to get to the enemy. Gibbering Chaos spawn flailed about madly around its mighty form, screeching and screaming. Behind this vanguard came wave after wave of northmen, enough to bury all of Middenheim in corpses if that was what it took to win the victory.

He heard the roar of guns, and turned to see flashes of fire from the top of the temple steps. As soon as the horde had broken into a charge, the Empire guns had opened fire. Mortars thumped, cannons boomed and helblasters let out a staccato roar. To his right, a barrage of rockets slammed down amongst the remnants of the Headsmen, tearing his former comrades to pieces. Tribesmen fell as cannonballs pounded into the close-packed mass of bodies. Crossbow bolts hummed through the air like wasps, plucking riders from the saddles and catching leaping hounds in mid-air. Despite there being more room, it reminded Canto unpleasantly of his earlier march up the viaduct.

He jerked his mount to the side, narrowly avoiding a bounding pink horror as it was shredded into a pair of moaning blue ones in a spray of twinkling multi-coloured motes. Somewhere behind him, a Chaos-tainted giant gave a long, drawn-out death-howl as it toppled forwards like a felled tree. The ground shuddered beneath his steed’s hooves as the great body crashed down, crushing a score of inobservant tribesmen.

But none of it mattered. There were simply too many bodies to be so easily thrown on the fire and forgotten. All around Canto, bellowing Kurgan, Aeslings and Tahmaks pressed forwards over the fire-torn bodies of the dead, climbing heaps and drifts of corpses in their eagerness to reach their foes. Snarling Dolgans, mounted on shaggy horses, galloped alongside Khazags and the horse-lords of the Kul. Kvelligs, Aghols and Bjornlings forced their way up, into the teeth of the enemy fire, their broad, brightly painted kite shields bristling with bullet holes and broken crossbow bolts. Too, masked cultists from the softer southern lands charged as wildly as their hardier northern allies, robes the colour of dried blood flapping as they smashed round shields with bronze-headed maces in terrible hymns to the Lord of Skulls.

The end was as inevitable as a storm in summer, or snow in winter. Canto drew his sword as his horse vaulted the broken body of a mutated ogre, and felt a cold weight in his gut. Either way, what happened here would determine the fate of all involved. Death or glory, he thought bitterly, as the Swords of Chaos galloped on.

Even as he drew close to the Empire lines, Canto felt an old, horribly familiar tingle at the nape of his neck. Somewhere behind the enemy, a whirling white vortex took form and rose above the heads of the soldiers. A figure clad in furs rose with it, long arms gesturing frantically. A harsh voice spat out jagged words of power, and a blizzard of shimmering ice-forms erupted from the swirling vortex. Canto heard a chill shriek and saw an immense flock of white crows, with beaks and talons of glittering ice, hurtle towards Archaon, and by extension, himself.

Riders to either side of him were torn from their saddles by the birds. He ducked his head, and felt talons scrape against his helm and cuirass. A skull was plucked from his pauldron. He’d lost his shield not long after entering the city, and he cursed himself for not claiming another. With a roar, he whipped his blade about his head in an attempt to drive the flapping ice-constructs back as he urged his horse on. He caught a glimpse of Archaon moments before the Lord of the End Times struck the enemy like a thunderbolt.

The shield wall exploded, as if it had been hit by a volley of cannon fire. Archaon could not be stopped or slowed, and wherever his head turned, men died. Canto and the others joined him a moment later, thundering home with a resounding crash. Screaming soldiers were smashed off their feet by the impact, while the blades of the Chaos knights cut through breastplates and shields or hacked off heads. Canto laid about him without enthusiasm, fighting on instinct. Every blow felt like the turn of a page, bringing them closer to the end. But that’s what you want, Unsworn, he thought. An end to this madness.

It sounded like something Count Mordrek might have said. Under other circumstances, that alone might have made him dismiss it out of hand, but the act of killing brought with it a strange sort of clarity. Was it truly escape from this battle, from the eyes of the gods, which he desired, or was it an ending?

When he’d first chosen sides and taken up arms against his fellow man, it had seemed that he would never tire of battle, or of the rewards bought with blood. But a few centuries’ worth of slaughter was enough to glut any man, especially the son of a spice importer from Nuln. He’d slipped off the wheel of fate, and hadn’t looked back.

It had all seemed so clear, once upon a time. The triumph of the Dark Gods seemed a certainty. But he’d never stopped to ask himself what form that triumph might take. The gods weren’t warlords or tribal chieftains, for whom land and slaves were the spoils of victory. The gods only desired souls and destruction. Neither of which appealed to Canto, particularly.

To the west the Empire lines suddenly exploded into a lurid disharmony of light and sound, and Canto was nearly jolted from his saddle by the reverberations. The air stank of magics, and with a great roar, a firestorm exploded above the Empire army’s western flank. Men screamed as their clothing caught light and their skin ran like tallow. Weapons warped and curled, transmuted into horrible shapes or inert elements. The ripple of sorcerous destruction spread outwards, claiming the lives of any in its path.

But in the centre, the shield-wall still held, much to Canto’s frustration. He found himself surrounded by grim Middenlanders and howling, sackcloth-clad flagellants. Flails and halberd blades struck his armour from all sides, and it seemed that no matter how many men he killed, there were always more. Suddenly, the knot of death about him began to unravel as the Three-Eyed King forced his way through. He met Canto’s bewildered gaze with a terse nod. ‘You’ll have to fight harder than that, Unsworn. We have a ways to go, yet.’

Archaon’s eyes bored into him, as if the Lord of the End Times could see his earlier thoughts and had found them wanting. Canto’s sword arm twitched, and he saw an image of his blade sliding into the gap between the Everchosen’s helmet and gorget. Shadow-shapes hunched and slithered at the edges of his vision, and he felt taloned hands on his shoulders and on his forearm, ready to guide his blade – where?

He felt a kernel of panic begin to grow in him, and he recalled how the air had tasted in that far-off, but never far away, moment when he’d had a man named Magnus at his mercy, and chosen obscurity over glory. He’d had a chance, once, to earn the rewards of the gods. He had chosen their ire and indifference instead.

He had another chance now. It was as if that same moment had hunted him down through all of the ages, and now it had found him. He could hear its howl of triumph as it stalked him over the points of spears and shaking standards. Run and hide or stand and fight, Unsworn – your appointed hour has come round at last, something whispered in his head. Was that his voice, or Archaon’s? Was it a human voice at all, or something else?

And, more importantly, what was the choice it wanted him to make?

Archaon turned away, and began to fight his way forwards once more. His dreadful sword rose and fell with a sinner’s wail, cutting short destinies and devouring hope. Canto looked down at the blade in his hand. Then, with a sharp cry, he drove his knees into his mount’s flanks and charged in the Everchosen’s wake.

FIVE

The Temple of Ulric

Gregor Martak spun, and his ice-wreathed hands punched through the cackling daemon’s soft belly. The pink horror shrilled as it began to split into two smaller blue ones, but Martak’s fingers caught the creatures before they could fully form and filled their gaping maws with ice and amber. The daemons evaporated with tinny moans, as Martak turned his attentions elsewhere. Inside him, he could feel the godspark of Ulric raging and smashing against the confines of his soul.

To the west, the west, the god howled.

‘Are there not enemies enough for you here?’ Martak snarled. Ice and snow rose from his hands, sweeping forward to flash-freeze a slobbering Chaos troll. The brute toppled over and shattered into a dozen chunks. Northmen filled the gap left by the troll, and hurled themselves towards him with suicidal courage. Martak, mind reeling with the fury of the god nesting within him, hastily created a shield of amber and frost, blocking the first blow. At a gesture, the shield twisted and transformed, splitting into a multitude of stabbing lances. Several of his attackers were punched off their feet, and the rest were driven back. Martak stepped forwards, gathering his strength, and gestured again. The lances bulged, cracked and split, becoming shrieking hawks, raucous crows and even a few stinging hummingbirds.

The barbarians were forced back by the swarm of mystical constructs, even as he’d hoped. Breathing heavily, he staggered back too. The state troops closed ranks to his fore, buying him a few precious moments to catch his breath. He was tired – more tired than he’d ever been. Every muscle ached, and his body felt like a wrung-out wineskin. It was no easy thing to carry the weight of a god, and he knew, with animal certainty, that even if they won the day, he would be burned to nothing by the cold fire of Ulric’s presence. Whatever happened here today, Gregor Martak was a dead man.

He smiled thinly. Then, his life expectancy had dropped to almost nothing the moment he’d been made Supreme Patriarch. And in a time of war, no less. He’d almost died ten times over in the first battle for Altdorf, and its fall almost two years later. He shook himself all over, like a dog scattering water, and sniffed the air. He caught the rank odour – like sour milk and spoiled fruit – of fell sorcery, and peered west, as Ulric had urged.

His eyes widened as he caught sight of the eldritch inferno sweeping across the western flank of the Empire’s battle-line. He could hear the screams of men and the cackling of daemons, and knew that, unless whatever magics had been unleashed there were countered, the whole flank might collapse. He cursed and looked around for Valten.

The Herald of Sigmar sat on his horse nearby, with Greiss and the other commanders. His armour was dented and scorched, and his face was drawn and haggard. He had fought in the vanguard for those first terrible moments of the attack, but had been forced back behind the shield-wall by simple necessity. Now he was trying to organise a counter-attack with Greiss, Staahl and the remaining knights.

Martak hurried towards them. ‘We ride through them, then,’ Greiss was saying, as the wizard drew close. ‘Middenheimers are bred hard, boy, and we don’t balk at necessary sacrifice.’

‘There’s a difference between necessary sacrifice, and foolishness,’ Valten retorted. For the first time since Martak had met him, the Herald of Sigmar looked angry. He seemed to loom over the knights. ‘These are our men, Greiss, and you shall not treat them as mere impediments to your glory. They are not pawns to be sacrificed, or tools to be discarded,’ Valten growled. ‘They are men. My men.’

‘Men die in battle,’ Dostov said. It was obvious whose side the Grand Master of the Gryphon Legion was on. Then, the Kislevite wasn’t unduly burdened by sentimentality.

‘Men die, but they are not ridden down like dogs by their own commanders,’ Valten said. He raised Ghal Maraz. ‘And I will split the skull of the next man who uses the phrase “necessary sacrifice” to my face in such a way again.’ He turned in his saddle, and looked down at Martak. ‘Gregor, what–?’

Martak, about to tell Valten what he had seen to the west, felt his words die on his lips as a new sound intruded over the booming report of the artillery at the top of the steps above them. From within the confines of the temple came the scream of voices and the clash of weapons. These were mingled with the rapid chatter of gunfire and dreadful chittering. Even as Valten and the others turned to look up the steps, towards the great entrance of the Temple of Ulric, the artillery crews began to hastily pivot their guns.

‘What are they doing?’ Greiss snarled. ‘The enemy is out here!’

Martak didn’t bother to remind Greiss he’d said something similar before, and been wrong then as well. Blackened and bloodied soldiers, survivors of the temple garrisons, stampeded out through the great doors, hampering the efforts of the artillery crews. They were followed by hulking, armoured rat ogres, who tore into the fleeing soldiers and artillery crews both. Great cannons were upended and sent rolling down the steps. Gun carriages shattered to matchwood. Bullet holes stitched their way along Nuln-forged gun barrels, courtesy of the skaven ratling gun teams. Powder kegs were perforated as well, and the subsequent explosion rocked the temple to its foundations. The concussive blast killed men, skaven and rat ogres besides, and only Martak’s quick thinking and magics prevented the explosion from reaching Valten and the others.

As his amber shield crackled and fell to pieces, Martak saw a fresh tide of ratmen sweep over the burning wreckage of the Grand Battery. Stormvermin and clanrats poured down the steps of the temple in a screeching flood. Valten cursed. He looked at Greiss. ‘Hold the line. I’ll deal with the vermin.’ Without waiting for the surly knight’s reply, he looked at Martak. ‘Gregor, can you–?’

Martak shook his head. ‘The western flank is collapsing. Daemon-fire is sweeping the square there, and I am needed.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘I was coming to ask for your help.’

Valten shook his head. He hesitated, and for a moment, Martak saw not the Herald of Sigmar, but the callow young blacksmith Huss had introduced him to, so many months ago. ‘It appears our journey is coming to an end,’ Valten said, fighting to be heard over the noise of battle. ‘Since Luthor vanished, I have relied on your advice more than once. It has been a pleasure to call you friend, Gregor.’ Valten bent low and reached out his hand. It was Martak’s turn to hesitate. Then, he clasped forearms with the Herald of Sigmar. Valten smiled and straightened in his saddle. ‘I do not think we will meet again, my friend.’

Then he turned, jerked on his horse’s reins, and galloped up the steps to meet the coming threat. Martak hesitated again, for just a moment. Then, with a snarl, he turned to the west. He ignored Greiss’s shouts as he began to push his way along, moving more swiftly than a man ought. He ran smoothly, his steps guided by Ulric, and in seemingly no time at all he was bulling through the ranks towards the daemon-threatened stretch of the line. As he moved, he reached out with his mind, snagging the errant winds of magic and drawing them in his wake.

I grow weak, son of Middenheim, Ulric murmured. Soon my spark shall gutter out, and you will crumble to cold ash.

‘Then we’d best take as many of the enemy with us as we can,’ Martak growled. ‘Or would you rather crawl into a hole and die?’ He heard the indignant snap of the god’s jaws and bared his teeth in satisfaction. He shoved aside a pair of spearmen, and found himself staring at a hellish inferno of dancing, multi-coloured flames. Screams of terror filled the air as men burned and died, or worse, changed. Daemons leapt and shimmered beyond the flames, cackling and chanting.

As the line of soldiers around him fell back, Martak spread his arms, calling up what strength Ulric could spare him. The heat from the fires faded, and with a single, sharp gesture, Martak snuffed them entirely. He felt his body swell with power as he drew the winds of magic into himself, bolstering the strength of the fading godspark.

Martak threw back his head and howled out incantation after incantation. Daemons screamed as ice-coated spears of amber spitted them. Others were flash-frozen, or torn to shreds by icy winds. The daemonic assault faltered in the face of the combined fury of man and god, and for a moment, Martak thought he might sweep every daemon from the field.

Ulric howled a warning and Martak twisted around, freezing the air into a solid shield over him with a sweep of his hands as a wave of sorcerous fire lashed down at him from above. A gigantic avian shape crashed down, nearly crushing Martak. The wizard hurled himself aside, trying not to think about the men who still writhed beneath the immense daemon’s talons. He scrambled to his feet.

Two pairs of milky, possibly blind eyes regarded him, and two cruel beaks clacked in croaking laughter. The daemon’s two long, feathered necks undulated as its vestigial, yet powerful wings snapped out, casting the wizard into their shadow. He recognised the beast, though he had never seen it before. Kairos Fateweaver, dual-voiced oracle of the Changer of Ways. ‘Ulric, man and god. We see you, wolf-god. We see you, cowering in this cave of blood and meat. Come out, little god… Come out, and accept the judgement of fate,’ the daemon rasped, its voices in concert with itself.

Martak felt Ulric twitch within him. Even a god wasn’t immune to accusations of cowardice. ‘You are not fate,’ he roared, though whether they were his words or Ulric’s, he didn’t know. ‘You are its slave, as are we all.’ Frost swirled about his clenched fingers. ‘You are but the merest shard of a mad, broken dream. A cackling, senile shadow which schemes against itself because it is too myopic to recognise the wider cosmos.’ He flung his hands out, releasing a blast of wintry power.

Kairos staggered, cawing angrily. The daemon’s great wings flapped and its twin beaks spat sizzling incantations. The air about Martak took on a greasy tinge and strange shapes swam through it, passing through the fleeing soldiers as if they were not there. Motes of painful light swirled about, emerging and twisting about an unseen aleph.

‘We have seen what awaits us all, wolf-god. It is a beautiful thing, and hideous, and it will unmake all and fashion it anew. The earth will crack, the skies will burn and all will cease, before beginning again. Why do you struggle and snap so?’ the Fateweaver croaked.

A strange howling grew in Martak’s ears and he staggered as unseen hands plucked at him, trying to draw him into the Realms of Chaos. If he had been as he was, he would have been lost. But he was more than he had been. And he was not alone.

Ulric roared, and Martak roared with him. His muscles bunched and he hurled himself away from the unseen hands. Claws of amber formed about his hands and he raked them across the Fateweaver’s wrinkled chest. The raw stuff of magic poured from the wounds and the daemon snarled. Twin beaks snapped at Martak, who stumbled back. ‘What have you done, cur?’ the Fateweaver cawed. ‘You were supposed to die. We saw it!’

The daemon hefted its staff and swung it in a furious arc. Martak, his muscles filled with the power of the last god of mankind, caught the staff in mid-swing. He grinned into the teeth of the daemon’s fury. ‘What you saw, and what is, are not necessarily the same thing,’ he said. Frost spread from his fingers, curling up the length of the staff. The Fateweaver squawked as it tried to rip its staff free of his grip. The unnatural flesh of its arms began to blacken and peel away from brass bones.

With a single, thumping beat of its wings, the Fateweaver hurled itself skywards. It paused for a moment, wings flapping, and glared down at Martak. Then, with a sound which might have been a frustrated scream, or a laugh of contempt, or even perhaps both, the Fateweaver vanished.

Martak stared upwards for a moment. Then he dropped his gaze to the remaining daemons. The creatures, deprived of their master and of their advantage, cowered back. He gestured sharply and jagged chunks of ice and swirling snow struck the closest of the creatures, as the soldiers of the Empire gave a great shout and surged forwards, their courage renewed. Martak stood unmoving as the line passed him, driving into the daemonic host. Ulric growled softly in his head as Martak turned east, where he knew that even at that moment, Valten was trying to drive back the skaven.

The god sounded as weak as Martak felt, and he knew that neither of them had much time left. But he was determined to make it count for something. Though the City of the White Wolf and its god might die today, the Empire would be preserved. Whatever else happened, Martak, and the spark of godly fury within him, could do that much.


* * *

The explosion had come as another unpleasant surprise in a day already full to the brim of them. Wendel Volker fought in the centre of the Empire lines, alongside Brunner and a few other familiar faces, including a number of dismounted Reiksguard and Knights of the Black Bear. They acted as a steel core to anchor the centre, but they rapidly became an island in a sea of panic as the Grand Battery ceased to exist and Archaon’s forces attacked with renewed vigour. Volker cursed as crossbowmen fled past him, seeking the dubious safety of the temple. He thought he saw Fleischer among them, moving as quickly as her legs could carry her. He could hear screams echoing behind him, and the rising chitter of skaven.

A smaller explosion followed the first, and a keg of black powder, wreathed in flames, soared overhead. He looked up, watching it arc over the square. When it exploded, he instinctively raised his shield, and left himself open to a bludgeoning blow that catapulted him off his feet. He slammed into another knight, and they both fell in a rattling tangle. Wheezing, Volker looked up as a burly northman, wearing the shaggy hide of an auroch, swept his stone-headed mace out and drove another Reiksguard to his knees. The knight wobbled and was unable to avoid the next blow, which sent him spinning head over heels into the air. The northman spread his arms and roared, ‘Where is the Herald of Sigmar? Gharad the Ox would crush his delicate bones in the name of the Lord of Pleasure!’

‘Over there somewhere,’ Volker coughed, forcing himself to his feet. ‘Why not go look for him?’ He was shoved aside as the man he’d slammed into got to his feet and lunged towards the Ox. The stone mace came down and pulverised the knight’s head, helmet and all. Volker stared at the gory ruin of the man’s skull for a moment, and then back up at Gharad. ‘All right, then,’ he muttered, raising his sword.

The mace whipped out and Volker stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding the blow. As the weapon whistled past his chin, he brought his sword down on the brute’s arm. The blade chopped through meat and muscle, but became lodged in the bone. Gharad howled in pain, and his mace fell from his fingers. The northman clawed at Volker’s throat with his good hand, while the latter tried to pry his weapon free.

Their struggle was interrupted by the sound of horns and the thunder of hooves. Volker dragged his sword free and hurled himself backwards as, with a mournful howl, the Fellwolf Brotherhood and the Knights of the White Wolf charged. Fleeing state troops were ridden down by the templars of Ulric as they galloped through the disintegrating centre line and smashed full-tilt into Archaon’s advance. Empire and Chaos knights met with a mighty crash. Armoured steeds slammed together, crushing limbs and sending horses rearing in panic as their riders hacked and hammered at one another.

Volker scrambled away from the stomping hooves of the horses, one arm wrapped around his chest. Pain shot through him with every step, and it was hard to breathe, but he had to get clear of the press. Even his armour wouldn’t save him from being trampled to death. He’d seen men die that way, and he had no wish to share their fate.

But, as he made to extricate himself from the situation, a large hand fastened itself around his ankle. He looked down, into the grinning, battered features of his opponent. ‘Gharad is angry. He has been stomped on by many horses, little man,’ the northman said, as he yanked Volker off his feet. ‘Let Gharad show you how it feels.’ Gharad slammed a bloody fist down on Volker’s chest, denting his cuirass and driving all of the air from his lungs.

The northman tore Volker’s gorget loose and flung it aside before fastening his thick fingers around Volker’s throat. Gharad hunched over him as horses stomped and whinnied around them. Volker clawed at his opponent’s wrists, trying to break his grip. Gharad grinned down at him. ‘Goodbye, little man. Gharad the Ox has enjoyed killing–’ The northman’s eyes crossed, and his grin slipped. With a sigh, he slumped over Volker, revealing a falchion, three throwing daggers and a hand-axe embedded in his back.

Volker heaved the dead weight off him, and looked up at Brunner. ‘Thanks,’ he gasped, as he rubbed his aching throat.

‘Come on,’ Brunner said, jerking his falchion free of the fallen northman.

‘What?’ Volker said, shoving himself to his feet. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Cut off the head, and the body dies,’ Brunner spat. There was a dark stain on his side, and he grimaced as he pressed a hand to it. He jerked his chin towards Archaon. The Three-Eyed King was impossible to miss, despite the confusion. As they watched, he cut down a howling knight. ‘Kill him, we get out of this alive.’

‘I don’t like our odds,’ Volker wheezed. Something in his chest scraped. The blow from the northman’s mace had, at the very least, cracked his ribs.

‘I fought my way across half the Empire, through the walking dead, beastmen and worse things, all to get here,’ Brunner growled. ‘Never tell me the odds.’

Volker shook himself and looked around. The bulk of the Empire troops still held their place, despite the massed ranks of the enemy that pressed against them. But Volker had commanded enough men to see that the Middenheimers were close to collapse. The halberdiers still hacked and thrust at their enemies with grim resolve, but exhaustion was taking its toll, and Greiss and his fur-clad maniacs charging through the centre of their own lines hadn’t helped matters. The enemy, on the other hand, seemed tireless, and without number. Every northman who fell was quickly replaced by two more; but there were no fresh troops to throw into the gaps growing in the defenders’ ranks. What reinforcements there were, were busy trying to hold off the skaven pouring out of the Temple of Ulric.

That fact, in the end, made Volker’s decision for him. If Archaon fell, the Chaos attack might disintegrate, easing the pressure on the embattled defenders. Evidently Brunner thought the same. He gestured with his sword. ‘By all means, lead the way.’ You lunatic, he added, in his head. Brunner smirked, as if he’d heard Volker’s thoughts, and turned.

The bounty-hunter moved through the press of battle like a shark. His falchion snaked out left and right, cutting through legs or chopping into bellies. Volker did his best to keep up, smashing aside tribesmen with his recovered shield and sword, despite the pain in his chest. At times, through the smoke that now obscured most of the square, he caught sight of the battle going on atop the steps of the Temple of Ulric. Valten was there, his golden armour reflecting the light of the fires as he employed Ghal Maraz with lethal efficiency. The Herald of Sigmar had ploughed into the ratmen like a battering ram, and broken, twitching bodies flew into the air with every swing of his hammer.

‘There he is,’ Brunner shouted. He grabbed Volker and gestured with his bloody falchion. Volker peered through the smoke and saw their quarry. Archaon’s horse reared as the Three-Eyed King chopped through a bevy of thrusting spears.

‘What do we do?’ Volker said.

Brunner smiled, pulled one of the pistols from his bandolier and fired. To Volker’s surprise, Archaon tumbled from his saddle. ‘What–?’ Volker said.

‘Wyrdstone bullet,’ Brunner said, tossing aside the smoking pistol. A moment later, the bounty-hunter was ducking past the daemonic steed’s flailing hooves, and arrowing towards its rider. Volker tried to follow him, but he found himself preoccupied by the attentions of one of the Chaos knights who made up Archaon’s bodyguard. He caught a hoof on his shield, and felt a shiver of pain run through him. His sword sliced out, driving back a horse and rider. He saw Brunner’s falchion flash down, only to be intercepted at the last moment by Archaon’s blade.

Archaon forced Brunner back, and rose to his full height. Green smoke rose from the hole in his armour where Brunner’s bullet had struck home. To his credit, the bounty-hunter didn’t seem impressed. He lunged, and their blades came together with a barely audible screech. Volker saw Brunner’s free hand flit to his vambrace, and then something sharp flashed and Archaon roared. The Lord of the End Times stepped back and groped for the throwing blade that had sprouted from between the plates of his cuirass. Brunner drew another pistol, his last, and fired. Or tried to, at least. There was a puff of smoke, followed by a curse from Brunner, and then Archaon lunged forwards, thrusting his sword before him like a lance.

The tip of the sword emerged from Brunner’s back and he was lifted off his feet. Archaon held him aloft for a moment, and then, with seemingly little effort, swept the sword to the side and slung the bounty-hunter off. Brunner hit the street hard, with a sound that made Volker cringe inside his armour. He took a chance and darted through a gap in the press of battle, ducking a blow which would have removed his head.

Archaon was already climbing back into the saddle when Volker reached Brunner. He sank down beside the man, but he could see that it was already too late. And not just for Brunner – he heard a roar from behind him, and turned. He saw Archaon catch a blow from Axel Greiss, Grand Master of the White Wolves, on his shield. The Grand Master recoiled, readying himself for another swing as his stallion bit and kicked at Archaon’s own mount. The White Wolves duelled with Archaon’s knights around them.

Archaon swung round in his saddle, and his sword chopped down through plate mail, flesh and bone, severing Greiss’s arm at the elbow. Greiss’s scream was cut short by Archaon’s second blow, which tore through the old knight’s torso in a welter of gore. Volker looked away as Greiss’s body slid from the saddle.

He looked down at Brunner. He realised that he’d never seen the other man’s face in the little time they’d known each other. They hadn’t been friends. Merely men in the same place at the same time, facing the same enemy. Even so, Volker felt something that might have been sadness as he looked down at the dead bounty-hunter.

Panic began to spread through the ranks of the Empire almost immediately. The troops in the centre had held their ground against the worst Archaon could throw at them, but the death of Greiss was too much, even for the most stalwart soldier. Volker couldn’t blame them. He knew a rout in the offing when he saw one, however, and he was on the wrong side of it, cut off from the obvious route of retreat by the fighting. Knots of defenders still battled on, most notably around the standards of the Order of the Black Bear and the Gryphon Legion, and to the east and west the flank forces still held, but the line had been broken.

Volker looked around desperately, trying to spot an avenue of escape. If he could reach someone – anyone – he could organise a fighting withdrawal. At the very least, they might buy themselves a few more hours. Averheim, he thought. Save as many as I can – get to Averheim. The Emperor is at Averheim. The Emperor will know what to do.

‘Yes, he will,’ a voice growled. Volker looked up into a pair of yellow eyes. ‘Up, boy,’ Gregor Martak growled. His furs were scorched and blackened, and his arms and face were streaked with blood. Volker knew, without knowing how, that it was not merely the wizard who regarded him, but something else as well. Something old and powerful, but diminished in some way. The wizard hauled him to his feet with ease, sparing not a glance for Brunner’s body. Martak’s eyes narrowed. ‘Volker,’ he rasped. ‘One of Leitdorf’s lot, from Heldenhame.’

‘I–’ Volker began.

‘Quiet.’ Martak’s eyes were unfocused, as if he were listening to something. ‘You survived Heldenhame, Altdorf and everything in between. You might even survive this, where braver men did not.’ The yellow eyes looked down at Brunner. ‘The time for heroes is past, Wendel Volker. Wolves are not heroes. They are not brave, or honourable. Wolves are survivors. The coming world needs survivors.’

Volker struggled against Martak’s grip. The wizard shook himself and grinned savagely. ‘It’s the end, boy. You can feel it, can’t you?’

Volker’s lips tried to form a denial, but no words came. Men were fighting and dying around them, but no one seemed to notice them. Martak laughed harshly. He grabbed hold of Volker’s chin. ‘It’s like a weight in your chest, a moment of pain stretched out to interminable length, until death becomes merely release.’ His chapped, bleeding lips peeled back from long, yellow teeth. ‘But not for you. Not yet. You must tell the Emperor what has happened. You must show him what I now show you.’ Martak dragged Volker close. The fingers clutching Volker’s chin felt like ice. ‘You must claim my debt.’

Images filled Volker’s mind – a shadowy shape creeping through the Fauschlag; the snuffing of the Flame of Ulric; and worst of all, a pulsing, heaving tear in the skin of reality itself. Volker screamed as the last image ate its way into his memories like acid. He tried to pull himself free of the wizard, but Martak’s grip was like iron. He felt cold and hot all at once, and a cloud of frost exploded from his mouth. His heart hammered, as if straining to free itself of his chest, and he thought that he might die as his insides filled up with ice and snow and all of the fury of winter and war.

‘No,’ he heard Martak growl. ‘No, you will not die, Wendel Volker. Not until you have done as I command.’


* * *

Panic spread like wildfire through the Middenheim companies, fanned to greater fury by the bludgeoning advance of the Swords of Chaos. Canto, still astride his cursing steed, could only marvel at the sheer, dogged relentlessness of Archaon’s warriors. They fought like automatons. There was never a wasted motion or excess of force. As soon as one enemy fell from their path they moved on to the next without hesitation. They fought in silence as well, uttering no battle cries or even grunts of pain when a blow struck home.

Archaon, in contrast, was all sound and fury. He was the centre of the whirlwind, and he seemed to grow angrier the more foes he dispatched. Men were trampled beneath the hooves of his daemon steed, and banners were chopped down and trodden into the thick streams of blood which ran between the cobbles. One moment, he was amidst a desperate scrum of hard-pressed soldiers. The next, it had collapsed into a howling mass of terrified humanity, each seeking to get as far as possible from the roaring monster who had come to claim them.

The Everchosen spurred his mount through the madness, ignoring the fleeing soldiers. Canto knew who he was looking for and he spurred his own beast in pursuit, the whispers of the gods filling his mind. He tried to ignore them, but it was hard. Harder than it had ever been before. They were not asking that he follow their chosen champion – they demanded it. And Canto had neither the strength nor the courage to do otherwise.

So he galloped in Archaon’s wake, and watched as the last defenders of Middenheim parted before the Three-Eyed King, or were ridden down. ‘Where are you, Herald?’ Archaon bellowed, as his horse reared and screamed. ‘Where are you, beloved of Sigmar? I am here! Face me, and end this farce. How many more must die for you?’

Archaon glared about him, his breath rasping from within his helmet. ‘Face me, damn you. I will not be denied now – not now! I have broken your army, I have gutted your city… Where are you?

Canto jerked on his mount’s reins, bringing it to a halt behind Archaon. The latter glanced at him. ‘Where is he, Unsworn? Where is he?’ he demanded, and Canto felt a moment of uncertainty as he noted the pleading tone of Archaon’s words.

‘I am here,’ a voice said, and each word struck the air like a hammer-blow. Canto shuddered as the echo of that voice rose over the square, and the sounds of battle faded. A wind rose, carrying smoke with it, isolating them from the madness that still consumed the world around them. ‘I am here, Diederick Kastner,’ Valten said. His words were punctuated by the slow clop-clop-clop of his horse’s hooves.

‘Do not say that name,’ Archaon said, his voice calmer than it had been a moment ago. ‘You have not earned the right to say that name. You are not him.’

‘No, I am not. I thought, once, that I might be… But that is not my fate,’ Valten said. ‘And I am thankful for it. I am thankful that my part in this… farce, as you call it, is almost done. And that I will not have to see the horror that comes next.’

‘Coward,’ Archaon said.

‘No. Cowardice is not acceptance. Cowardice is tearing down the foundations of heaven because you cannot bear its light. Cowardice is blaming gods for the vagaries of men. Cowardice is choosing damnation over death, and casting a people on the fire to assuage your wounded soul.’ Valten looked up, and heaved a long, sad sigh. ‘I see so much now. I see all of the roads not taken, and I see how small your masters are.’ He looked at Archaon. ‘They drove their greatest heroes and warriors into my path like sheep, all to spare you this moment. Because even now… they doubt you. They doubt, and you can feel it. Why else would you be so determined to face me?’

‘You do not deserve to bear that hammer,’ Archaon said. ‘You do not deserve any of it.’

‘No.’ Valten smiled gently. ‘But you did.’ He lifted Ghal Maraz. ‘Once, I think, this was meant for you. But the claws of Chaos pluck even the thinnest strands of fate. And so it has come to this.’ His smile shifted, becoming harder. ‘Two sons of many fathers, forgotten mothers and a shared moment.’ He extended the hammer. ‘The gods are watching, Everchosen. Let us give them a show.’

‘What do you know of gods?’ Archaon snarled. ‘You know nothing.’

‘I know that if you want this city, this world, you must earn it.’ Valten urged his horse forwards and Archaon did the same. Both animals seemed almost as eager for the fray as their riders, and the shrieks and snarls of the one were matched by the whinnying challenge of the other. Canto tried to follow, but found himself unable to move. He was not here to participate, but to watch. The Swords of Chaos spread out around him, a silent audience for the contest to come. He felt no relief, and wanted nothing more than to be elsewhere, anywhere other than here.

Archaon leaned forward, and raised his sword. Valten swung his hammer, and Archaon’s shield buckled under the impact. The Everchosen rocked in his saddle. He parried a blow that would have taken off his head, and his sword wailed like a lost soul as its blade crashed against the flat of the hammer’s head. As they broke apart, Archaon’s steed lunged and sank its fangs into the throat of Valten’s horse. With a wet wrench, the daemon steed tore out the other animal’s throat.

Valten hurled himself from the saddle even as his horse collapsed. He crashed down on the steps of the Temple of Ulric. Archaon spurred his horse on and leaned out to skewer the fallen Herald. Valten, reacting with superhuman speed, caught the blow on Ghal Maraz’s haft. He twisted the hammer, shoving the blade aside. The daemon-horse reared up, and Valten surged to his feet. His hammer thudded into the animal’s scarred flank. The beast cried out in pain, and it stumbled away. Archaon snarled in rage and chopped down at Valten again and again. One of the blows caught Valten, opening a bloody gash in his shoulder.

The Herald of Sigmar staggered back. Archaon wheeled his steed about, intent on finishing what he’d started. His mount slammed into Valten, and sent the latter sprawling. As Valten tried to get to his feet, Archaon’s sword tore through his cuirass.

Valten sank back down, and for a moment, Canto thought the fight was done. But, then Valten heaved himself to his feet, and he seemed suffused with a golden, painful light. Canto raised a hand protectively in front of his eyes, and he heard a rattling, hollow moan rise from the stiff shapes of the Swords of Chaos.

Archaon’s steed retreated, shying from the light. It gibbered and shrieked, and no amount of cursing from Archaon could bring the beast under control. The Everchosen swung himself down from the saddle and started towards his opponent. As he entered the glow of the light, steam rose from his armour, and he seemed to shrink into himself. But he pressed forward nonetheless. Valten strode to meet him.

They met with a sound like thunder. Ghal Maraz connected with the Slayer of Kings, and Canto was nearly knocked from his saddle by the echo of the impact. Windows shattered across the plaza, and the Ulricsmund shook. The two warriors traded blows, moving back and forth in an intricate waltz of destruction. Archaon stepped aside as Ghal Maraz drove down, and cobbles exploded into fragments. Valten leaned away from the Slayer of Kings’s bite, and a wall or statue earned a new scar. When the weapons connected, the air shuddered and twisted, and each time the Swords of Chaos groaned as if in pain.

Their fight took them up the steps of the Temple of Ulric. First one had the advantage, and then the other. Neither gave ground. Canto watched, unable to tear his eyes away, though the power that swirled and snarled about the two figures threatened to blind him. Two destinies were at war, and the skeins of fate strained to contain their struggle. The rest of the battle faded into the background… heroes lived, fought and died in their dozens, but this was the only battle that mattered. The future would be decided by either the Skull-Splitter or the Slayer of Kings.

Or, perhaps not.

A figure, reeking of blood and ice, clad in scorched furs, darted suddenly through the smoke. For an instant, Canto thought it was a wolf. Then he saw it was a man, and felt something tense within him. The man radiated power – dark, brooding and wild. He sprang up the steps of the temple, bounding towards the duellists. ‘Stay your hand, servant of ruin,’ he howled, in a voice which was at once human and something greater. ‘This is my city, and you will despoil it no more!’

‘Gregor – no!’ Valten cried, flinging out a hand. The newcomer froze, half-crouched, like a wolf ready to spring. Magic bled from him, and the air about him was thick with snow and frost. ‘This is my fight. This is the moment I was born for, and you well know it, Gregor Martak. And even if its outcome is not to your liking, neither you nor Ulric shall interfere.’

The air vibrated with a growl that came from everywhere and nowhere at once. To Canto, it was as if the city itself were a slumbering beast now stirring. Archaon hefted his blade in both hands and said, ‘Growl all you like, old god. You are dead, and your city with you. And that shell you cower in is soon to join you, Supreme Patriarch or no.’

‘Maybe so, spawn of damnation,’ the newcomer growled, ‘but even dead, a wolf can bite. And when it does, it does not let go.’

‘Bite away and break your teeth, beast-god. My time is now,’ Archaon snapped.

‘No,’ Valten said. ‘Our time is now.’

Silence fell as the three men faced one another. Archaon slid forwards, blade raised. Valten moved to meet him. Canto longed to draw his sword, but he could not, nor did he know why he felt so. Who are you planning to help this time, Unsworn? What god do you serve? He pushed the thought aside. Something was happening on the steps. Something no one but him seemed to notice. He squinted, trying to see through the greasy envelope of smoke and the harsh light of the fire.

A sense of wrongness pervaded the air, as the shadows cast by the firelight seemed to congeal. A mote of darkness, which grew, like a rat-hole in an otherwise unblemished wall. Where before there had only been a conjunction of firelight, drifting ash and darkness, there was now something vast and verminous. It sprang too swiftly for Canto to get a clear look at it, but he thought it must be a skaven, although of great size. He caught only the glint of a blade. He could not even tell who it was heading for, whether its target was Archaon or Valten. His answer came a moment later.

‘Valten, behind you,’ Martak roared, flinging up his hands. With almost treacle-slowness, Valten and Archaon both turned. The triple blade hissed as it whipped through the air and struck Valten cleanly in the neck. The Herald of Sigmar made a sound like a sigh as his head tumbled from his shoulders. Archaon lunged forward and caught his body as it fell, roaring in outrage. From the darkness came a sound like the scurrying of myriad rats, and a whisper of mocking laughter. Then it was gone.

Archaon sat for a time, cradling the body of his enemy. ‘He was mine,’ he said. He looked up. The Eye of Sheerian flared like a dying star on his brow, and Canto felt a wave of incandescent heat wash over him. ‘Mine.’ Archaon’s rage was a force unto itself, burning clean the smoke and driving back all shadows. Above the city, the sky buckled and the clouds tore open as a bolt of sorcerous lightning slammed down. A portion of the temple dome collapsed with an explosive boom. Smoke billowed out through the temple doors and swept down the steps. Archaon set Valten’s body aside and rose.

‘He was never yours,’ Martak rasped. He tapped the side of his head. ‘This was never preordained, not in the way you think. It was a game. And it has been won.’ His hands twitched and he stepped forward. ‘But I have never been very good at games.’ His hands flexed and the air ruptured as a great bolt of amber and ice shot towards Archaon.

Archaon split the bolt in two with his sword. More blades followed as Martak advanced slowly, tears streaming down his face. Archaon smashed them aside one by one. Shuddering, eyes white and hoarfrost crackling across his flesh, Martak thrust his hands out and a howling blizzard, composed of a million glinting shards of amber, enveloped the Everchosen. Shreds of his cloak slipped from its obscuring pall, and Canto felt his heart lurch in his chest.

Archaon emerged from the blizzard, hand outstretched. He caught Martak about the throat and lifted him high. ‘The only game that matters is mine, wizard. Not yours, not that of the withered godspark in you which fades even now, and not even those of the Dark Gods themselves. Only mine. But you were right. It has been won.’

Martak twisted in his grip, howling like a beast. A knife appeared in his hand, and he thrust it into a gap in Archaon’s armour, eliciting a scream. Archaon dropped him and staggered back, clutching at the wound, which smoked and steamed like melting ice. Martak rose up, eyes blazing. ‘Even in death, a wolf can still bite. And what it bites, it holds,’ he growled. ‘You will not leave Middenheim alive, Everchosen. Whatever else happens, you will die here.

Martak lunged. Archaon’s sword slashed out, and the wizard’s head, eyes bulging with fury, bounced down the steps. The air reverberated with a mournful howl as something left his body, and then all fell still. Archaon sank down onto the steps, his sword planted point-first between his legs. He leaned against its length.

‘Yes, wizard, I will,’ Archaon said softly, as he stared down at Martak’s head. Nonetheless, his words echoed across the plaza. Canto, at last able to move, urged his horse forwards. The Swords of Chaos followed him. Around them, the battle was coming to its inevitable conclusion. The army that had stood with Valten was no more, its positions overrun and its few survivors fleeing through the streets, pursued by their victorious enemy.

Middenheim, the City of the White Wolf, had fallen.

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