[Empire Army 01] - Reiksguard

by Richard Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  It had been because of Bohdan.

  “Not this way,” Bohdan said when his vigil-brothers turned to go back. “Up. We must go up.”

  “What? Why?” Delmar asked.

  The Ostermarker’s eyes flared. “Evil is there.”

  “Look!” Siebrecht shouted, pointing above them. Nearly hidden within the mouth of a cave above them, a robed goblin stood alone. Its head bobbed as it chanted, its voice raising to a familiar screech. It was that same noise the knights had heard before the rock-fall, and now it was once again channelling its power.

  “Shaman!” Bohdan blurted, and ran towards it. Monstrous green shapes were forming around its body as it readied to strike again.

  Bohdan shifted his grip upon his sword and then hurled it like a javelin at the shaman. One of the green shapes became an arm, and shot from the goblin knocking the flying sword to one side. Then it formed a fist and struck Bohdan hard, lifting him from the ground, knocking him twenty feet down the slope and leaving the indentation of four bony knuckles on his helmet.

  Bohdan fell, but his attack had broken the shaman’s concentration. The green shapes faded, and it ran back into the darkness of the cavern. The knights followed it, Bohdan stunned but waving them on, and they stepped into the gloom.

  “Look at this place,” Falkenhayn whispered, his eyes adjusting quickly. “It’s a throne room.”

  Hardenburg was the first who chanced to look up. “In Sigmar’s name,” he gasped.

  “What are those things?” Proktor asked.

  The ceiling of the cavern went high and was crisscrossed with taut cables and rope; the sloping roof was embedded with steel rings right to the top.

  “It’s a web,” Delmar said.

  “If that is a web, then where is the spider?” Gausser intoned, ominously.

  “You just had to ask…” Siebrecht muttered, but his eyes did not stop searching for the threat. The knights slowly backed towards each other, each of them feeling the darkness bear down upon them.

  “Enough! We are not here to fear the monsters. We are here for the monsters to fear us!” Delmar declared, and the oppressive moment passed. “The shaman came in, it must be here. Search about and find it before it brings the mountain down again upon us.”

  The squadron divided, but there were at least half a dozen passages leading away from the central chamber. These goblins evidently did not like to be backed into a corner. Delmar even saw light at the end of some of them and heard the echoing sounds of the assaults on the other faces of the mountain. The shaman could be hiding down any of them.

  “Here, brothers! Look at this,” Hardenburg called from behind them. He motioned to Falkenhayn and Proktor to join him and peeled away the surface of lichen from the wall to reveal a pink, fleshy nose.

  “It’s a dwarf,” Hardenburg said. It was strung up against the wall, covered with fungi feeding off the body.

  “Is it dead?” Falkenhayn asked.

  Hardenburg raised his visor and held his face close to the dwarfs. He felt the wisp of breath against his cheek. “He’s alive,” he exclaimed.

  Falkenhayn and Proktor used their blades to cut through the binding ropes, and Hardenburg took hold of the dwarf and eased him gently from the parasitic arbour.

  As they lowered him, Siebrecht saw the shaman. It had climbed into the web, and was crouching across two of the ropes, gorging itself on the toadstools growing on that section.

  “There,” he whispered to Delmar.

  “Where?” Delmar replied, looking around.

  “There!” Siebrecht shouted as the shaman began to glow with power once more. Siebrecht threw his sword as Bohdan had done, but the weapon went wide. The shaman turned and hissed down at them, except the hiss turned into a roar, a roar that shook the cavern, that shook the very base of the mountain.

  “It’s going to come down right on top of us!” Falkenhayn yelled. “Anyone? A bow? A pistol?”

  Siebrecht drew his pistol, took a moment to aim and fired. The shot flew true, heading straight between the shaman’s eyes, then struck a shield of energy about the goblin and ricocheted away. Both Falkenhayn and Siebrecht swore. Delmar looked around, searching through the web of ropes illuminated by the shaman’s light. One of them that the shaman stood upon was buried in the wall just above Delmar’s head. He took up his sword and swept it up. The blade bit into the rope, but it cut only halfway. The rope shook and the shaman shifted off it and onto another. Delmar looked to see where the rope ran.

  “Gausser!” he shouted, and pointed to the other rope’s anchor. The Nordlander drew his blade in a mighty arc and cut it with a single blow. The rope whipped back at the shaman, but it leaped up and caught hold of another. This one though, its anchor loosened by the tremors rippling through the mountain, came loose in its hand. Desperately, the shaman clawed out and grasped another, dangling from it by its nails, all the while burning brighter and brighter with the power building up inside.

  Delmar traced the rope back, but it was too high.

  “Gausser?” he shouted in desperation. The Nordlander swiped as high as he could, but it was just out of his reach.

  “Siebrecht?” Delmar called, but Siebrecht shook his head. His spare powder and shot were in his saddle.

  Frustrated, Falkenhayn whipped his sword up at the rope, but it struck without effect. Then Delmar saw it.

  “Gausser! Falkenhayn!” The two knights looked back as Delmar rushed over. “Proktor,” he said, motioning up.

  Proktor looked at Delmar and understood. The three knights seized him by his legs and lifted him from the ground. Gausser took the strain, while Delmar and Falkenhayn pushed the legs of the smallest of their number as high as they could. The rocks fell down around their feet, but they ignored them. Proktor swung, and cut, but not hard. He swung again and the shaman began to twist to try and swing to another rope. Proktor swung a third time, and the blade skimmed away.

  “Come on, Laurentz,” Falkenhayn shouted. “For your brothers!”

  Proktor swung up and hit the spot of his first cut, shearing the rope through. It spiralled away. Proktor overbalanced and the tower of knights tumbled. The shaman dropped down and bounced upon the floor, the power dissipating through the stone.

  “I have him!” Hardenburg shouted and plunged his blade twelve inches through the shaman’s black heart.

  The shaman burst and a cloud of red spores ripped from its body. The other knights could only watch as the red spores hung in the air for a moment, glistening with unholy magic; then they were suddenly sucked up into Hardenburg. They flew into him, slipping through every hole and chink in his finely crafted armour.

  Hardenburg’s eyes bulged wide. Then he clenched and twisted, and he gave a great wail of pain as the spores went to their vicious work. He collapsed, tearing at his helmet and his collar; his armour trapped the spores against the skin, their protection rather than his own.

  The knights clustered around their fallen brother. Hardenburg gave another agonised cry and slipped from consciousness.

  “We must get him down to the sergeants at once,” Proktor said, and this time no one disagreed. The virulent red spores gave the fair-faced Reiklander the look of having been butchered. Delmar reached to lift him.

  “Proktor and I shall carry him, Reinhardt.” Falkenhayn’s tone brooked no disagreement. “You may carry the dwarf.”

  But none had a chance to lift either of them, for beyond the throne they heard the commotion of more men coming down a passage. The leading knight bore the markings of one of Helborg’s personal guard. It must be Griesmeyer! Delmar’s hand grasped his sword. But the knight raised his visor and Delmar realised his mistake. It was not Griesmeyer, but another of the guard.

  The knight looked at them and then turned to his brothers who were following behind him. “Pass the word back, the Karlkopf has already been taken!”

  Helborg felt the trembling stop and then saw the Reiksguard flag fly from the top of the Karlkopf. He felt a surge of his ol
d excitement at a battle won. The militiamen struggling in the valley against the goblin tribes saw it too and raised a rousing cheer, just as the goblins gave a creaking moan and turned to retreat.

  The ogres had never appeared.

  While Gausser and Bohdan took the dwarf down the mountainside, Siebrecht followed Delmar as he passed through the tunnel and out onto the eastern face. There he found Griesmeyer amongst the rest of Helborg’s personal guard.

  “We should talk, you and I,” Griesmeyer said. Delmar nodded, and Griesmeyer led him by a rough path onto a plateau near the peak itself. Siebrecht reluctantly let the two knights go.

  To the west Delmar saw the Stadelhorn Heights and beyond those the Achhorn ridge. To the north was the wooded Predigtstuhl stretching down to the Dragon’s Jaw below. To the east were only the frosted peaks that hid Karak Angazhar from sight, and the deep blue mountain lake that fed the Reik. Although there were thousands of men all about them, on the mountain slopes and on the flats below, here they were alone. They would have privacy enough to fight.

  “It is fitting enough,” Delmar decided, as he looked about.

  “Fitting enough for what?” Griesmeyer asked.

  “For what other reason are we here?” he said, raising his sword and taking his guard.

  “Reiksguard do not fight Reiksguard,” Griesmeyer declared.

  “You wish to hide behind that, do you?” Delmar had been calm, but the older knight’s stubborn impenitence reignited his rage. “Very well. Here.”

  Delmar reached inside the collar of his armour. He pulled off his Reiksguard insignia and threw it to the ground. “I hereby quit the order. There, now, let us go to it; for since Wolfsenberger told me his tale I cannot endure both our existences. One must end. And it must end now.”

  “To quit the order? And seek to kill me?” Griesmeyer was angering as well. “You’ve placed great belief in that knight’s words.”

  “Why should he lie?” Delmar challenged the older knight.

  “Why should I?” Griesmeyer shot back.

  The sharp exclamation hung fixed in the frozen air between them. Delmar weighed his sword in his hand, as he weighed Griesmeyer’s words in his mind.

  “Whether you have lied or not… you have not told me the truth,” Delmar said.

  “I have told you all the truth it is safe for you to know.”

  “And who are you to judge that for me?”

  At last, Griesmeyer’s restraint shattered completely and he thundered: “I am a knight of the Reiksguard, ordained of the inner circle; I have faced daemons and beasts beyond your imagination, and I carry the Emperor’s life as my greatest honour and my constant burden.” He sucked in a breath of the cold air. “That is who I am. Who are you? Answer me that, Delmar, who are you?”

  Delmar had never felt such anger from Griesmeyer before. The calm, tempered knight he knew was gone, replaced by a savage warrior filled with heat. His sudden rage struck Delmar like a blow.

  “I am his son.” It was all Delmar could answer and Griesmeyer found he had no reply to that.

  “Then listen, Heinrich’s son, to what I say,” Griesmeyer began. “For I now, here, break the oath that I once swore, never to reveal what I am to tell.”

  “Take the boy!” Reinhardt ordered. The young knight, Wolfsenberger, held Nordland’s son tight and spurred his horse away through the reeling Skaeling horde.

  Griesmeyer cut down another too-eager northern warrior and then looked back to his brother.

  “Give me your hand!” he cried. “Brother, your hand.” Griesmeyer reached out to pull his friend up onto his horse.

  “No, brother,” Reinhardt replied, calmly, hefting his sword still by its blade. “Here I will stand. Here I will fall.”

  Griesmeyer swore. “Do not be a fool, Heinrich. Just take my hand. Think of your wife! Think of your son!”

  “They have never left my thoughts.”

  Griesmeyer yanked his horse around. “I shall not tell them, Heinrich. I shall not be the one they despise, the one they shall blame for taking you from them.”

  “Yes you will, brother. For you could not bear for them to hear it from another,” Reinhardt said. “And I shall beg one more favour.”

  Reinhardt raised his sword high, handle first, to his brother, and Griesmeyer instinctively caught its grip.

  “Give it to Delmar. Give it to my son.”

  “Gods damn you! Gods damn you!” Griesmeyer’s sight began to blur with frustration.

  “They have already, my brother.”

  “No!” Delmar cried. “It was not so! My father would never…”

  Delmar screamed his denial, raised his sword and charged. Griesmeyer drew his own and held it straight. Delmar’s cut crashed down and the old knight’s guard gave way. But Griesmeyer had already stepped aside and Delmar’s swing went wide. Griesmeyer’s blade spun and whirled across his brow; the knight uncoiled and struck Delmar square in the back of the head.

  Delmar staggered. His fingers went numb. His sword slipped from his grasp. The blow was with the flat; it had not penetrated his helmet, but it had been delivered with such force as to knock him senseless. Delmar’s legs buckled and he collapsed upon the rock.

  With the tip of his blade, Griesmeyer raised the young man’s visor. Delmar blinked up into the cloudless sky.

  “Just lie still, Delmar. Just lie still,” the old knight soothed. “And listen to your elders.”

  “It was the year before Emperor Karl Franz’s election,” he continued. The Patriarch’s expedition started badly. Heinrich had come with us, though I knew it pained him to leave you and your mother behind while you were still so young. In our first action, a champion of theirs, a sorcerer of some kind, cast a bolt of dark energy that fair tore our squadron to shreds. I was lucky. Heinrich was not, but he held tightly to his life and defied Morr at his very gates. Battered, we came home, and while I prepared to march forth once more, he returned to you and stayed there whilst he recovered.

  “The year progressed. The campaign was done. And then, that winter, he called me to your home. I arrived, joyous to see him so recovered, and he had a surprise for me: your mother’s belly was swelling again. She was due on any day, and he wished me there for we were family. The birthing came upon her suddenly, and it was most terrible. A day and a night she suffered in bed, whilst your father tormented himself with the thought of her loss. You were so small a child, but you were already brave. And it was you and I, together, who kept him sane. The gods, however, had already marked him down. The babe, when it came, was a hideous thing. I cannot describe its horror in mere words; it was no mortal creature, it was a darkling child of Chaos. Your mother, mercifully, was already collapsed in exhaustion. Your father though, was left to gaze upon it: its horns and claws and mottled skin, its limbs twisted, confused and too great in number. He took it away, into the chill night, and returned next morning with it gone. I had hoped, I had prayed that that would be the end of it all. A grievous shock to any family, yes, but not unknown. Your father had taken the right action, harsh, but quick. And now it was simply time to heal. Your mother improved, you made yourself her constant companion and though she hurt she never forgot what a blessing she had in you already. Heinrich, though, he slipped away, and naught that I could do would prevent it. The foe he fought was not one to be defeated with sword or lance. It was one inside him. He prayed, morning to night, to rid himself of the taint he carried; the corrupting strain with which that dark sorcerer had left him infected. I tried to talk to him, but he would not listen. The sermons of Sigmar’s priests hold a man very strong. When he said that prayer had failed him, he journeyed back to Altdorf and I went after him. I caught him steps before he declared himself to the witch hunters. I told him that if he did, then it would not only be his life that would be forfeit but yours and your mother’s as well, and he at last relented. I brought him back to the chapter house, thinking to bring him to his brothers’ care. But there we argued for days on end, until all the wo
rds had been said, and we spoke to each other no more. And then Karl Franz was elected and he led us north to fight against the Norse harrying Nordland’s coast. When I heard we were marching I feared that in my absence your father would destroy himself. Imagine my joy then, when I learned he was to come with us. Imagine my joy, then imagine what I felt when I realised that he had come north to end himself. I brought the news to you myself. Your mother, at first, accepted my words. To marry a Reiksguarder is to accept that such loss might befall you at a moment. But as the next years passed, and your father’s face appeared in your own, I saw her feelings harden towards me each time I returned. When I did visit, it was a reminder of all she had lost. And when I told you stories of my life, and duelled with sticks as swords, she only saw the true father you had been denied, the father I should have brought her home. She told me then I was no longer welcome. And thus I have not been, until my oath to your father brought me back to present his sword to you.”

  The old knight finished his tale. Delmar slowly picked himself up from the ground and walked to the edge of the plateau. There to the east was the mountain lake from which the Reik poured. Somewhere there was the well-spring that fed that lake, the source of the Reik, the greatest of the rivers from which the Empire drew its power. This was no place for endings, Delmar decided. It was where journeys commenced and the past was washed clean.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HARDENBURG

  Burakk the Craw looked out over the green and fertile plains of southern Averland. The army of men had been left well behind, distracted by the goblin fortress, assuming that the ogres were fleeing deeper into the mountains. Not a chance. Not when the Empire’s army had left this soft province undefended, with its beasts and men fattened from their harvest. No. This was Burakk’s reward from the Great Maw. Never again would he play humble before a greenskin creature. Now it was he who was their chief; the trickle of goblins who had come to give their service had become a flood once it was clear that their great stone goblin was lost. As he and his bulls had raced across the slopes that night, the goblins had sprinted after. They knew Thorntoad was lost, and their praises of him turned to curses; his plans to become goblin-king of the dwarfen hold were scattered as the dust. Instead, his goblins joined the ogres and became their willing servants.