The End Times | The Lord of the End Times Read online

  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 Kin
g 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 own
er’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.’