03 - God King Read Online Free Page B

knowledge of your letters?”
    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