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
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?’