03 - God King (4 page)

He paused by Teon’s desk and fished a lump of chalk from the pockets of his
grey scholar’s robes. He scratched the problem on the slate once more.

“Now let’s try again,” he said.

The lesson continued for another twenty frustrating minutes, with the
youngsters seemingly incapable of grasping the concept of numbers and solutions
that couldn’t be calculated on their fingers. Eoforth pinched the bridge of his
nose between his fingertips and took a deep breath. Everything was easy when you
knew how it was done, and it was hard to remember what it was like not to know
these things.

He was in the process of chalking a simpler problem on the board when an
excited shout went up from one of the boys seated by the window. Eoforth heard
the sound of metal and the whinny of horses from beyond the walls of the
schoolhouse.

“Look!” shouted a girl with corn-coloured hair and petite features, pointing
at something beyond the window. She bounced on her stool with excitement,
clapping her hands together.

“Erline!” snapped Eoforth. “Your attention please.”

“Sorry,” said Erline. “But look!”

The rest of the class hurried over to the windows and an excited babble broke
out as the boys cheered and the girls blushed and scolded one another at their
whispered suggestions. Eoforth stooped to look through the window and knew there
would be no more lessons today.

While part of him was angered at that fact, he could not deny his Unberogen
heart was stirred by so formidable a display of martial power.

Fifty horsemen rode down the thoroughfare, each armoured in a heavy shirt of
mail and gleaming iron breastplate. They bore crimson and white shields bearing
the hammer of Sigmar, and each carried a lance supported in a Taleuten-style
stirrup cup. Spitted upon each lance tip was a rotting greenskin head. A
glorious banner of white silk emblazoned with a black cross and wreathed skull
flew over these warriors, and Eoforth smiled as he recognised the
bronze-armoured warrior who rode at the head of these horsemen.

Alfgeir, Grand Knight of the Empire.

Sunlight filtered through the forest canopy in thin bars, leaving much of the
silent spaces beneath cloaked in shadows. Cuthwin slid through the trees towards
the road, a seldom-used track that ran south from Reikdorf all the way to the
Grey Mountains. Hardly anyone used these roads anymore; the settlements at the
foot of the mountains had been destroyed by greenskins ten years ago, and the
wilderness had risen up to claim them back.

But someone was using them now, someone who was in trouble.

He moved with an arrow nocked to his bow, a magnificent weapon of yew and ash
inlaid with lacquered strips of rowan. Blessed by a priest of Taal, the weapon
had never once let him down and had saved his life more times than he could
count. The string was loose, but could be drawn in an instant. Sounds of battle
were coming from the road, the clash of iron weapons and the screams of wounded
souls. Normally Cuthwin would give such sounds a wide berth, for the monstrous
denizens of the deep forests were as fond of making war amongst themselves as
they were on humanity.

He’d been about to carry onwards to Reikdorf when a loud bang echoed through
the forest. Birds fled the tree-tops and he darted into hiding to string his
bow. Another booming echo rolled through the forest. Cuthwin knew that sound, it
was a dwarf weapon; one of their thunder bows. He’d seen the mountain folk use
them at Black Fire Pass and knew how lethal they could be. His mind made up, he
swiftly followed the sounds to their source.

Clad in hard-wearing leather and fur, Cuthwin was the colour of the forest, a
ghost moving from shadow to shadow with carefully weighted footfalls. Dead
leaves pressed softly into the dark earth without sound and twigs were pushed
aside by his buckskin boots. His long hunting knife was sheathed in a leather
scabbard, and his pack was hung from a high tree branch a hundred yards behind
him. He kept his hair long, though it was pulled back over his ears and held by
a leather cord around his temples. He scanned the forest to either side, his
peripheral vision alert to anything moving on his flanks.

He heard the clang of swords, the howls of wounded creatures and more of the
banging reports of thunder bows. The wind carried their smoke to his nostrils,
acrid and reeking of hot metal, like Govannon’s forge on a hot day. Beneath that
there was a familiar smell of rank, unwashed bodies and rotten food.

Cuthwin knew that smell. He remembered it from the days before Black Fire
Pass, when he and Svein had scouted the mountains and discovered the vast host
only days from descending into the Empire.

Greenskins.

He heard malicious, squealing voices, squawking war cries and vicious wolf
barks, answered by deep, rumbling voices that sounded like they came from the
deepest pits of the earth. Cuthwin eased through the forest, keeping his back to
the trees and altering his approach every time the wind changed.

Cuthwin was travelling alone, a dangerous pastime in the forests of the
Empire, for all manner of peril lurked within their shadow-haunted depths. He
knew the risks he took, but was confident enough in his skills to see such
dangers as a challenge. To Cuthwin there was nothing as liberating as spending
time alone in the deep forests. To survive by his skill with a bow and an innate
empathy with the seasonal lore of the wilds was what made him feel alive.

The sounds of battle were growing louder, and Cuthwin pressed himself to the
thick bole of a larch, easing his head around it and peering through its
branches to the clearing below.

The ground sloped down to the road, a rutted track almost obscured by high
grass and gorse. Bodies lay strewn around four wagons arranged in a loose circle
on the road. Six dwarfs in long mail shirts fought from the backs of the wagons,
armed with a mix of hammers and short-hafted axes. The mules hauling the wagons
were dead, and a dozen wiry creatures with pallid green flesh wrapped in
filth-encrusted rags surrounded them.

Smaller and weaker than orcs, goblins were cunning little runts that had
learned to strike from ambush and kill with the backstab and the low blow. A man
or a dwarf was more than a match for a goblin in a straight contest of arms, but
that wasn’t how these vicious creatures fought. Half bore compact bows of horn
and bone, while others swung curved blades with rusted and serrated edges. They
rode emaciated wolves that howled with bloodlust, their fur matted and their
jaws dripping with saliva.

Two dwarfs emptied fine black powder into the barrels of their thunder bows,
while the others slashed at any goblins that came too close. As things stood,
the dwarfs would be overrun, but like Sigmar before him, Cuthwin would aid the
beleaguered mountain folk.

He hauled back on the string of his bow and sighted on a goblin with a
skullcap of bright red leather.

Eoforth dismissed his class, knowing there would be no more work done today.
He was disappointed, but remembered the excitement he had felt when the royal
brothers, Bjorn and Berongunden, had ridden through his village behind their
father, Redmane Dregor. The king had been magnificent that day, clad in his
burnished bronze armour and leading a host of Unberogen horsemen from the back
of a tall dappled stallion of grey and white. His white bearskin cloak fell like
a mantle of snow from his armoured shoulders and his hair was the colour of
fire.

Powerful and elemental, Dregor had stopped beside him.

“You are Eoforth?” asked the king.

“I am, my lord,” he said, surprised the king knew his name.

“And this is your village?”

“I am the elder of Ingaevon, yes.”

“I have heard of you, Eoforth of Ingaevon. The other village elders say you
have no taste for war. Is that true?”

“It’s true I have no love of killing, but I know it is sometimes necessary.
That is why I have trained men under arms quartered here. It is also why I had
our carpenters construct a high palisade wall and the village’s stockade. I may
not carry a sword in this world, but I know how to stay alive in it.”

“Aye, they said you were a sly fox,” said the king, surveying the lines of
the hilltop fort and the well-built and nigh-impregnable walls of the
settlement. “You may not swing a sword, but you wield that mind of yours like a
weapon.”

The king sighed, looking him in the eye, and Eoforth had been surprised at
the marrow-deep weariness he saw in his gaze. The king leaned down and lowered
his voice so that only Eoforth could hear his words.

“This world is changing, but the Hag-Mother of the Brackenwalsch tells me I
will not live to change with it. That will be for those that come after me. I
have need of men like you, men who know that not all battles are fought by
warriors, that men of peace will one day be as important as men of war.”

“I would hope that such a day is already here,” Eoforth had replied.

Dregor laughed, a rich, wholesome sound that lifted the hearts of all who
heard it.

“For a clever man you are naive, Eoforth, but I like your optimism.”

“What is it you want of me, my lord?”

“I want you to come to Reikdorf,” said the king in a tone that suggested this
was not a request that could be ignored. “My boys are good lads, but like their
father, they are headstrong; all too eager to rush into battle without
considering what other options may be open to them. When Berongunden is king, he
will have need of a wise man at his side. I want you to be that wise man.”

“I am flattered, my lord,” said Eoforth, genuinely taken aback.

“Then you’ll do it?”

“Of course. It would be an honour.”

Thus had begun his long years of service to the kings of the Unberogen. A
life that had seen the Unberogen grow in strength and prominence with every
passing year. Bjorn had readily accepted Eoforth’s counsel, but Berongunden was
a warrior cast too closely in his father’s image to listen to anyone’s voice but
his own. Proud, reckless and full of Unberogen fire, Berongunden had died in the
mountains to the north of the Fauschlag Rock, torn to pieces by a winged beast
that haunted the highest crags. A year later King Dregor followed his son into
the depths of Warrior Hill, his chest pierced by a dozen greenskin arrows, and
Bjorn had taken the crown.

The power and influence of the Unberogen had steadily increased under Bjorn’s
leadership, with many sword oaths and trade pacts sworn with neighbouring
tribes. Gold and goods from all across the land flowed into Reikdorf, and as the
fame of Bjorn’s farsightedness spread, many tribal kings came to his settlement
to meet this wise ruler.

Bjorn honoured Eoforth for his wisdom and when Sigmar eventually took the
crown after his father’s death fighting the Norsii, he had continued to advise
the Unberogen king. Sigmar was now Emperor and Eoforth knew his own span was
coming to an end. Sigmar had proven to be a greater king than any of his
ancestors, bringing all the tribes of men together under his rule, forging the
Empire of men and holding it firm in the face of all enemies.

A mix of his father’s keen mind and his grandfather’s hot temper, Sigmar was
a ruler fit for the Empire: warlike when roused to fight, diplomatic and
persuasive when called to pass judgement. Of course there had been times when
Eoforth’s steadying hand had been required, such as the incident with Krugar and
Aloysis and the dread crown of Morath.

Thankfully, Sigmar had learned valuable lessons from those moments of
weakness, a strength born from understanding that no man was infallible, that
such perfection was best left to the gods. Since then Eoforth had quietly faded
into the background, content to pass his teachings onto the next generation of
Unberogen.

He sighed, thinking back to his treatment of Teon. The lad had been rude and
arrogant, but Eoforth should have been above such retaliation. In striking the
young boy, he had already lost.

“I may not be a warrior, but I am Unberogen,” he said, smiling as his good
humour was restored at the recognition that no matter how cultured a man could
become, there was no escaping his heritage. He gathered his books and writing
tools from the desk, running a gnarled finger over the carvings around its lip.

Master Holtwine was a master craftsman and many of the pieces in the
Emperor’s longhouse had come from his workshop. His work was truly
extraordinary, and was in demand by patrons as diverse as Count Otwin and Count
Adelhard. Marius of the Jutones had several pieces, including a great bed frame
carved with his heroic deeds during the battle for the Fauschlag Rock.

Eoforth made his way from the classroom and stepped out into the warm spring
sunlight. Winter had broken early and the farmsteads around Reikdorf were being
prepared for the sowing. The warm smell of freshly turned earth filled the air,
even in the heart of the city, reminding Eoforth that it was not by swords that
empires endured, but by keeping food plentiful.

He made his way along the street, meandering between the streams of
youngsters as they gawped at the armoured horsemen. He saw Teon speaking to his
father. Eoforth wondered if he was recounting his punishment in class. He
decided that was unlikely; he knew the boy and his father were not close. Orvin
was of typical Unberogen stock, broad-shouldered and powerfully built with a
shock of dark hair. His bearing was confident to the point of arrogant, but
unlike his son he had earned the right to walk with a swagger.

Eoforth waved as he saw Alfgeir walking his horse along the cobbled street
towards him.

“Welcome home, Grand Knight of the Empire,” said Eoforth. “I take it you were
successful? The orcs are defeated?”

Alfgeir lifted his helmet’s visor and scowled at Eoforth’s use of his formal
title. Alfgeir had many titles, Grand Knight of the Empire being but his most
recently acquired. Marshal of the Reik was another, but to Eoforth he would
always simply be his friend.