‘Shut up,’ Volker hissed. A crude spear dug for his vitals and he smashed it down with the bottom of his shield, before driving his sword into the throat of the skaven who held it. He drove forwards, forcing skaven aside with his shield, and cutting down those who would not be moved. Around him, men and elves moved up, whether on horseback or on foot, and the skaven steadily retreated, falling back through crossroads and squares.
You dare? I am Ulric!
‘You’re bloody annoying is what you are,’ he muttered. The god had been in his head since Martak had given him up, and he hadn’t shut up since. Sometimes, Ulric talked so much that Volker had trouble telling which thoughts were his, and which belonged to the wolf-god. Every day, there was a little less of the man he had been, and a little more of the thing Ulric was turning him into. The wolf-god had eaten him hollow.
He heard the scream of the Emperor’s griffon and saw the beast swoop low over the melee, scooping up skaven in its talons as it went. It dashed the unlucky ratmen against the cobbles as it banked and turned. The Emperor clung to the beast’s back and swung his runefang out, lopping off limbs and crushing skulls.
He is tiring, Ulric rumbled. He is but a man, with a man’s frailties. Volker felt a moment of panic, and muttered, ‘Is that what you were waiting on, then? To jump from me to him, the way you left Martak?’ He knew, without knowing how, that if that occurred, he would die not long after. Part of him was even looking forward to it.
I did not leave Martak. I died with him. As I will die with you, Wendel Volker. I have split myself again and again, until I am but a sliver of the god-that-was, all to survive, to reach this moment, when I might sink my fangs into the flesh of the one who took my city – my people – from me. I am Ulric, the god of battle, wolves and winter, and I will have my vengeance!
‘For all you know, Teclis is dead,’ Volker growled. He hacked down on an armoured stormvermin, knocking the black-furred skaven off its feet. It lashed out at him with a heavy, serrated blade. He felt the tip scrape across his cuirass, and dodged back. Before the skaven could get to its feet, his sword hammered down to split its skull. ‘And if he’s not, we might need him,’ he added, desperately.
I will have vengeance, Wendel Volker. Whether the world lives or dies, Middenheim will be avenged. You will be avenged, Ulric growled.
Then his head ached with the mournful cry of innumerable wolves, and he threw back his head and howled again and again, as he fought on. And as he fought, Wendel Volker’s tears turned to ice on his cheeks.
‘Waaagh!’
Orcs spilled through the streets like a green tide of violence, and unprepared northmen and panicked skaven drowned beneath them. They hacked, thumped and head-butted their way through the ruins of Middenheim’s merchant district and with every foe who was pulled down by the brawling horde, be they armoured Chaos warrior or skittering skaven jezzail team, the war cry only grew louder. It was a deep, feral rumble that rose and spread ahead of the onslaught, louder even than the sounds of battle.
‘Waaagh!’
Crude blades smashed down through iron shields and crumpled steel helms as the orcs hacked at their foes with a wild abandon, inflamed by a force beyond their comprehension. They chopped at the enemy until their blades blunted and broke, and then continued to pummel their foes with bloody fists.
The greenskin warlord fought at the head of the horde, his axe spinning like a bloody whirlwind about him as he bellowed challenge after challenge. Massive, broken-toothed and clad in battered armour, where Grimgor Ironhide went, the enemy shield-walls split and Chaos champions died, the names of their gods still on their lips. Monstrous beasts, strong with the stuff of Chaos, fell dismembered, and their remains were trodden into pulp as the horde rampaged on through the streets, tireless and relentless.
Grimgor caught a northman by his bone-bedecked beard, and yanked the unlucky man forwards. Their skulls met with a resounding crack and the northman slumped back, his skull cracked open like an egg. Grimgor licked blood and brains from his lips as he shoved the body aside and drove his axe down on an upraised shield covered in writhing, shrieking colours. He split the shield, releasing a wailing prismatic spray, and reached through the ruins to grip the throat of its bearer. ‘Get over ’ere,’ he growled. He flung the brawny warrior into the air, and roared, ‘Lads, catch!’
Behind him, his Immortulz cheered as they hacked at the fallen human, painting themselves with his blood and howling with laughter at his screams. Ahead of Grimgor, the humans were falling back, retreating through the close-set streets, keeping their shields between themselves and the orcs. He’d fought them long enough now that he knew what they were planning. The horse ’umies, on the plains, would scatter and reform – it was like trying to bash rain. But these were the iron ’umies… They’d fall back and form a shield-wall, and wait for their bosses to send for reinforcements. He knew from experience that iron ’umies could hold out for a long time. If they didn’t want to move, they didn’t.
For some reason, that wasn’t as pleasant a thought as it might normally have been. He felt an itch, just to the left of his skull, and knew Gork wanted him to keep moving. Go fasta, the god growled, fastafastaFASTA!
Grimgor threw back his head and bellowed in frustration as Gork’s words cascaded across his brain. Why couldn’t the ’umies just take a kicking? They had to know that they couldn’t get away from him, or resist him. They were worse than the bull-stunties, with their armour and fire and whips.
A grin split Grimgor’s grotesque features as he recalled how the stunties had wailed as he’d torn down their city of pillars and pits, freed their slaves and toppled their statues. That’d teach them to break their staves on his hide. That’d teach them to try to make Grimgor a slave. The grin faded, and the old anger came back, hotter and fiercer than any stunty fire-pit. He lifted Gitsnik and pressed the flat of the great axe to his brow. His gnarled frame was a patchwork of scars, most earned properly, in the heat of battle. He’d fought stunties – both kinds – and rats and gits and big-bellies aplenty in the past few months, but it had always come back to the bull-stunties and their fire-pits. Their whips and chains and iron staves.
They had given him his first scars when he’d been no more than a runt. And he owed them for that.
Gork had shown him favour, filling him with strength enough to kick over the stunties’ towers and turn their ziggurat of black obsidian into rubble. But first, he’d broken skulls and taken heads and put together the biggest Waaagh! around – orcs, goblins, even ogres. After Gork had blessed him with his strength, he had crushed Greasus Goldtooth’s skull with the ogre’s own mace. In the years that followed, he had broken the back of the Necksnapper and shattered the lodgepoles of the Hobgobla Khan. He had cracked the Great Bastion, and burned the dragon-fleets of Nippon. The East was green, and it was his. But it hadn’t been enough. Something was pulling him west. Gork, maybe, or Mork, drawing him towards a bigger fight. A better fight. He could feel it in his veins, thrumming along, like that time Gitsnik had got hit by a lightning bolt.