‘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.