“For just a few years.”
“Three at most. Enough to establish yourself, to get yourself known for more than drinking, impertinence and wild gunmanship. There is no purpose in exposing you to needless risk.” Herr von Matz gave an honest smile. “You and I, Siebrecht, we’re the ones on whom the family name depends.”
Siebrecht said nothing. His head stayed downcast, his sight fixed on the grain of the wood in the table, not wishing to meet his uncle’s gaze. He knew his uncle was right; he’d known for years. Something he knew but could never admit.
Herr von Matz was satisfied with the impression he had made upon his nephew. He sat back in his chair and wiped his mouth.
“Emperor Wilhelm,” he began, “as much as any good man of Nuln should detest him, I cannot but admit that his creation of the Reiksguard was a masterstroke. Other emperors had founded knightly orders before, but none of them ever saw their true potential. Other orders…” Herr von Matz waved his hand dismissively. “The Order of the Black Bear want the strongest, the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood want the learned, even our own great Emperor Magnus, when he founded the Knights Griffon, asked only for the most devout. It was only Emperor Wilhelm who ever asked for the eldest. The heirs. More than any of the others, Wilhelm looked to the future; for after ten or twenty years, once their fathers were dead, the heirs were the nobles themselves. And each of them had been taught and drilled to have absolute loyalty to their Emperor. To leave the rule of the Empire to him. To shun politics altogether! Everyone knows that the Reiksguard have vowed to never interfere in the political world. Loyalty, first, last and always, isn’t that right? And an end to civil wars as well, because it is so much harder to shed the blood of one you have called brother.”
Herr von Matz paused a moment to catch his breath, the ancient wiles of a long-dead emperor exciting him far more than any scheme of his own.
“Yes, Siebrecht. Emperor Wilhelm was a very clever man.” His meal finished, he wiped his cutlery clean and replaced them in their box. “And it behooves clever men like Wilhelm and you and I not only to know the world, but also to understand how it works. There are the spoken reasons, and then there are the unspoken reasons. And it is the unspoken reasons that are by far the most valuable.”
Herr von Matz stood, ending the interview. Siebrecht was most relieved to be away. His uncle, however, insisted on walking him back to the barracks. Once there, Siebrecht thought he would leave. However, he blithely strolled up to the same guardhouse from which, an hour before, he had been so roughly ejected. The sergeant was less than pleased to see him return, but Herr von Matz laid on such a spectacular display, alternating between profuse apologies for his earlier conduct and the highest praise for the close attention that the guards had taken in ensuring the safety of his nephew, that even the stoniest of them could not help but mellow a little.
When he finally took his leave, he asked both Siebrecht and the sergeant to walk him back out onto the street, where he engaged the sergeant in a few minutes more of animated, good-natured conversation, so that to any passer-by the two of them might have appeared as the warmest of acquaintances. Herr von Matz then bid them a friendly farewell and crossed over the square to his next interview: a timber supplier who, impressed by Herr von Matz’s ostentatious connections within the prestigious Reiksguard, found himself agreeing to a far greater discount than he had originally intended.
“These, novices, are the files.”
Master Talhoffer had brought the novices in their awkward plate armour down to the far end of the practice field. Set up there were lines of thick wooden fence posts, each one six feet high, arranged in neat rows a pace or so apart. The novices had assumed the posts had been set up for building or cultivation. They were wrong.
“You have been taught how to march in formation. Some of you even manage not to fall over your own feet while you do so. You have been taught the drills to use so that you do not strike your brothers beside you. But rehearsing drills is very different to facing another man in the crush of combat. We could simply pack you together and let you go swing at each other, as I see you do each day with your wasters, but then we would flood the sanatorium with unconscious novices, brained by their fellows in the battle line. Therefore we have this. The files. Each one is a corridor, roughly the width of what you might have to fight in battle proper. We will begin here, and when you have all eventually mastered the art of not smacking your blade in a wooden post, you will finally have the chance to embed it in your fellow’s skull. Split into two groups, one man at the end of each corridor. When I say begin, you will all enter your corridor; the first one out the other side is the victor. Understand?”
The novices split, once again into Reiklanders and Provincials. However this time it meant that instead of sparring between themselves as they usually did, they would face each other.
“Reinhardt,” Falkenhayn whispered to Delmar, “come, let us stay together and fight side by side.” Falkenhayn indicated the file to his right and Delmar took up the position there. He looked down the column and realised that Falkenhayn had matched him against Gausser again. He checked the files beside him: Falkenhayn himself was facing Siebrecht, who, even aside from his cavalier behaviour that first day, had failed to impress Delmar. This training was wasted on him, he truly did not care to be here and rarely bothered to stir himself to action even when sparring. He would happily fall if it was less effort than fighting. No doubt Falkenhayn would have an easy time against him. Beyond him, Proktor faced Krieglitz. There, Delmar considered, was a proper fighter. He did his province proud, though as Falkenhayn said, a man should be judged not only by prowess but by the company he chooses, and Delmar considered that Krieglitz’s friendship with Siebrecht had firmly held the Talabheimer back.
Talhoffer called on them to be ready, and Delmar concentrated once more on his own column and the hefty Nordlander at the end of it. Talhoffer ordered them to begin and the novices entered the files. Delmar saw Falkenhayn sprint forwards on his left, charging Siebrecht down. He had decided to approach Gausser more cautiously. He had charged the last time they fought and little good it had done him. Gausser was slower than he, but the plate weighed Delmar down far more than the Nordlander. The two warriors walked steadily towards each other until they met in the middle. Already Delmar heard the crunch of armoured bodies hitting each other from either side and the yells of success of those who had already emerged. He ignored them and kept his focus.
He and Gausser exchanged a few stabs, each testing the other’s guard. However Delmar quickly realised that in confined quarters such light blows against an armoured opponent were insignificant. What counted was strength and weight, and in both Gausser would best him. Gausser obviously came to the same conclusion, for he reversed his wooden sword and swung the hilt in a murder stroke at Delmar’s head.
Instinctively, Delmar gave ground; he would ordinarily have gone to the left or right, but in the files there was nowhere to go but back. He brought his own sword up with both hands and blocked the murder stroke. Gausser had no fear of Delmar’s retaliation and no thought of relenting, so he swung again to batter his way past Delmar’s guard or force him back out of the file. Delmar let the Nordlander crash against his sword once more, but on the third stroke he stepped back even further and allowed the murder stroke to knock his weapon out of his hand completely. Gausser had expected to meet solid resistance, and so for a second was left off-balance, overextended. Delmar grabbed the hilt of Gausser’s sword and pulled his opponent hard, forwards and down. Gausser refused to release his own blade and so as Delmar pulled, Gausser came with it.
They stumbled back together a few steps and Delmar almost had Gausser trip, but the Nordlander twisted his body and killed his forwards momentum by slamming into a post with his shoulder. Delmar was ready for it. As Gausser reared up to steady himself, Delmar dropped low, wrapping his arms around Gausser’s knees and gripped them tight in a bear hug. Gausser was solid, but in the mud even he was not s
trong enough to keep his stance. Delmar heaved his legs together and shoved hard against them as low as he could. Unable to bend down and grab the Reiklander without falling over himself, Gausser held tightly to the fence post, but with one final surge Delmar finally took the legs out from under him. Gausser toppled to the ground with all the majesty of an oak felled in the forest. Delmar ran for the exit and did not look back until he was out. Only then did he turn around. Gausser was still picking himself up. Delmar went to Falkenhayn beside him to congratulate him as well, but his friend had a face of thunder.
“It was a trick, Reinhardt, he won with a stupid Nulner trick,” Falkenhayn railed. Falkenhayn had charged, as Delmar had seen, and Siebrecht, ever insolent, had stepped out of his way rather than bother with the exercise. Falkenhayn had run for it; he would be out of the files before any other. But as he passed, Siebrecht had kicked out, and Falkenhayn had lost his footing and slammed the side of his head into a post.
It had been a trick, Delmar decided, but it had been a fair one, only accomplished because of Falkenhayn’s own mistaken assumption. Proktor too had, predictably, lost against Krieglitz and the two victorious Provincial novices stood at the other end of the files commiserating Gausser on his comeuppance.
Delmar raised his hand in salute.
“What are you doing, Reinhardt?” Falkenhayn bristled. “Put that hand down.”
Delmar let his friend pull his arm down. The Provincials had seen it, but did not return it.
That day was only their first at the files. They continued to train there each day, sometimes sparring with sergeants armed with long spears or pikes, sometimes packed three, five or even ten novices to each file. The novices learned how, even stuck in the rear ranks, they might aid the fighter at the front to win his combat, while those at the front learned how to maintain the pressure on the enemy, knock down their opponents and then step over them to allow those behind to finish them off. All of them learned the danger of falling in the middle of a melee, and Delmar was not the only one of them to suffer the indignity of being kicked around on the floor for several minutes before he could finally crawl clear.
In armoured combat, Gausser continued to dominate, though Delmar gave a good enough account of himself to regularly best the other novices. Where the sergeants sparred with them intentionally without armour, however, Delmar noted that it was Siebrecht, with his new determination, who began to demonstrate the greatest ability. His technique still included some remnants of his Tilean instruction, but now that he was used to the heavier weight of the Reiksguard’s swords his skill became apparent. His sheer speed, in particular, led him to fare far better than the rest in exercises where a single fighter was left to face multiple opponents. Though Talhoffer did not go so far as to praise Siebrecht for his improvement, the fightmaster relented in his previous criticism.
When they weren’t performing close-order drills on foot, the novices were doing so on horseback. In this, Alptraum had great proficiency. Averland was renowned for its horses and riders, and indeed most of the Reiksguard’s own mounts bore Averland markings.
Delmar, though, surpassed even him. At last, Delmar prayed thankfully, after being bested in every other way, he had at least one discipline in which he could be proud. A discipline in which he could be the one to help others.
Horsemanship was inherent within the noble classes. They had all learned to ride as children, but to ride so close as to be stirrup to stirrup with your brother beside you, whilst carrying a heavy lance and shield and controlling your mount with your knees, required a higher level of experience entirely. These urban nobles who visited their horses twice a week in their stables and took them for a jaunt outside the city walls simply had not developed the same familiarity that Delmar had on a country estate where he rode Heinrich out every day between village and town and was responsible for every aspect of his horse’s care.
Delmar had not been allowed to use Heinrich in the Reiksguard’s training; Talhoffer had told him that a knight of the order had to be able to control any mount owned by the order, which were all specially trained to carry the weight of a man in full armour. As hard as battles were on men, they were far worse for horses and a knight might find himself changing mounts as many as half a dozen times; his control could not rely on a personal connection with his steed. Therefore a novice was given a different horse for each exercise, and he was personally liable if his mount bit or kicked at another as they walked or practised their charges. A kick, if it struck the other animal badly, had the potential to cripple the leg and render a hugely expensive warhorse useless, and so all of Delmar’s friends were eager to learn the danger signs of an agitated steed and the correct preventative measures.
The danger was not only to the horses. In a close formation charge, Harver’s horse misstepped. In trying to right his steed’s course, Harver barrelled into Breigh beside him. Both horses fell, Harver was knocked from his saddle and was left bruised, Breigh was caught in his mount, his horse fell hard upon its side and Breigh’s leg was snapped.
Breigh spent a night in agony while the order’s healers worked upon him; Falkenhayn and the distraught Harver stayed with him. Breigh went home the next day, forgiving Harver with every breath, and vowing to Falkenhayn that he would return as soon as he was able to walk once more.
Once again, the sergeant stood at the ready in the middle of four novices. Delmar caught the eyes of Hardenburg, then Bohdan, then Siebrecht. They yelled and charged as one. The sergeant pulled no punches; Delmar only just caught sight of the sergeant’s sword as it pierced his guard and smacked him soundly on the side of the head before moving on.
“Reinhardt out. Hardenburg out.” Talhoffer paused. “Sergeant, you may stand down.”
The sergeant hauled himself back to his feet, his shift covered in bloody marks landed by the remaining two novices. He scowled at Delmar and stalked away.
“Killed again, Novice Reinhardt,” Talhoffer said to him afterwards.
“Yes, master.” At least this time it had been to his head and it would not take so long to wash the dye from his shift.
“Your skill with the sword is not great.”
“I will improve, master.”
“Still, I should not like to be you in battle.”
“No, master,” Delmar replied, unable to prevent the tinge of failure from colouring his voice.
He would never be a great swordsman, Talhoffer could tell. But he had nevertheless led the charge against a superior opponent, knowing what it would cost him but trusting that his brothers together would be victorious. And he had been right.
“No, Novice Reinhardt,” Talhoffer considered. “I would not wish to be you in battle. But I would stand beside you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
KARL FRANZ
The novices’ routine was broken one day when, after the service at the Great Temple, Verrakker did not take them back to the barracks, but rather into the grounds of the palace. The gardens themselves were not huge, as befitted a residence that had been largely carved out of the existing city, but they were beautiful. The summer had not yet reached its height and everything there was in bloom. The flowering plants were clustered around statues of heroes of the Empire, both ancient and modern, and had been carefully chosen to represent some aspect of each hero’s character or achievements. Beyond the cultivated gardens, the grounds settled into a verdant lawn bordered by the cooling shade of the trees and hedgerows, which softened the sounds of the city.
Despite the beauty on offer, there were few around to enjoy it. With the Emperor on campaign with the army in the north, the palace was quiet. Without the Emperor, or the frenzy of supplicants who typically surrounded him, the staff had little to do but keep the apartments in order. Those noblemen who were officers to the Imperial court had mostly left with the Emperor, and those who stayed preferred to perform their official duties from their own residences, where they were more comfortable and could manage their personal business matters away from pryi
ng eyes. Those administrators who were left in the palace kept themselves busy enough, maintaining the flow of correspondence between the court on campaign and the court left in residence, and had little reason to trespass out of their own domains.
The one part of the palace grounds that was still frequented was the Imperial Zoo, and it was there that Verrakker was leading the novices. Delmar had seen it before, years ago; everyone who came to the capital made sure to visit and gaze in wonder at the bizarre creatures of the Emperor’s menagerie. The zoo predated the return of the Imperial capital to Altdorf and it had displayed hundreds of different animals from across the Old World and beyond, though not all survived long once they were resident. But it was not the exotic animals that were the true draw of the zoo, it was rather the monsters. They were warped and terrifying, and Delmar, along with men, women and children alike, had queued patiently for the chance to be scared witless by such things as the Spawn of Hochland.
Verrakker walked them past the line of Altdorfers waiting outside the spawn’s tented cage, and all the other public enclosures that radiated out from the central pavilion. He took them back into the working areas of the zoo, where the grisly tasks of feeding and cleaning the animals were kept hidden from the sight of the public behind tall hedges.
“Here we are,” Verrakker announced.
The novices had been led to a set of stables, not greatly different from the Reiksguard’s own at the citadel. The horses were all fine specimens, all warhorses and mostly of Averland stock, Alptraum proudly noted, but there was nothing particularly special about them.
At the rear of them, Delmar noticed one horse that was special: a pure white charger, though Delmar could see little more than its head over the herd. Then it reared and spread a pair of giant swan-like wings.
[Empire Army 01] - Reiksguard Page 10