Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  There seemed to be no end to the mutants, horrors and dead-eyed mortals looming up out of the dark, faces blank and blades swinging. The assault on Grosslich’s flank had almost stalled. Bloch’s men were capable of holding their own but the Averlanders were less accomplished. Schwarzhelm had seen dozens of them running from the field, crying with fear and leaving their weapons in the mud behind them. Those that remained were now surrounded, enveloped in the endless ranks of Grosslich’s legions. The mutants exacted a heavy toll for any forward progress. Only Schwarzhelm kept the drive going, hauling his men forwards by the force of example.

  “No mercy!” he roared, stabbing the Rechtstahl through the wheezing throat of a mutant and ripping it out. “Keep your formation! Fear no traitor!”

  He knew time was running out. They were too deep in to disengage.

  “Where now?” panted Kraus, fresh from felling his man. His armour looked big on him, as if the weeks in the wild had physically shrunk the honour guard captain.

  “This is the right course,” said Schwarzhelm, dragging a halberdier back out of harm’s way before crushing the skull of his looming assailant. “Unless the Empire army has fallen back to—”

  With a scream, something dark and clawed flung itself from the enemy lines. It was cloaked in rags and had talons for fingers. The halberdiers shrank back, bewildered and terrified.

  Schwarzhelm brought the Rechtstahl round quickly. Steel clashed against bone, and a flash of witch-light burst out from the impact. Kraus leapt forwards, blade at the ready.

  “Get back!” roared Schwarzhelm, his sword dancing in the firelight, parrying and thrusting at the scuttling creature. “Your blade will not bite this.”

  Kraus fell away, blocking instead the advance of a slavering dog-soldier. Schwarzhelm worked his sword with speed, matching the spider-sharp movements of the horror. Every time the Rechtstahl hit, a blaze of sparks rained to the ground. The creature leapt at him, screaming with frustration, talons lashing.

  Schwarzhelm ducked under the scything claws, shouldering his mighty pauldrons to the assault and swinging the blade fast and low across the earth. The horror reacted, spinning back on itself to evade the strike, but too late. The Sword of Justice sliced through sinew and iron, taking off the creature’s legs and leaving it writhing in the blood-soaked mud.

  Schwarzhelm rose to his full height, spun the sword round and plunged it down, pinning the horror’s torso as he’d done with Tochfel in Averheim. It let out a final screech of pain and fury before the light in its eyes went out.

  With the destruction of Natassja’s pet, the dog-soldiers began to withdraw. None of them could stand against Schwarzhelm. In the shuffling confusion the halberdiers were finally able to push them back.

  “Morr’s blood,” spat Kraus, looking at the twisted carcass still twitching in the slime of the field. “What is that?”

  “Another one I failed to save,” replied Schwarzhelm grimly, stalking back to the front line. At his approach, the dog-soldiers fell back further. Soon his massive shoulders were busy again, hacking and parrying, driving the mutants inwards.

  “Reikland!” came a voice then from further down the line of halberdiers. Schwarzhelm recognised it at once. Bloch. The halberdier commander was still unstoppable, as tough and enduring as old leather.

  Schwarzhelm whirled round, hope rising in his breast. Drifts of smoke still obscured the battlefield beyond a few paces and the ash-choked darkness did the rest, but he could see the shadows of men running towards them.

  “Hold your positions!” he bellowed, his gruff voice cracking under the strain. He couldn’t afford for his troops to get strung out.

  Then, suddenly, there were halberdiers around him. They weren’t Bloch’s men, but wore the grey and white of the Reikland. They looked exhausted, their faces streaked with blood and their breastplates dented.

  “Against all hope…” one of them stammered, limping towards Schwarzhelm like he was some shade of Morr.

  Bloch burst from the right flank after him, grinning like an idiot.

  “We’ve broken through, my lord!” he cried, exposing the bloody hole in his smile where something had knocked half his teeth from his jaw. “These are our men!”

  Even as he announced the news, more Imperial troops emerged from the gloom. There were dozens, possibly hundreds.

  “Maintain the assault!” growled Schwarzhelm, glowering at Bloch and pushing his way past the limping Reikland troops. “You pox-ridden dogs, form up like you’re in the army of the Emperor.”

  Bloch’s men immediately responded, swinging back to face the dog-soldiers and charging the disarrayed lines. Their commander disappeared with them, in the forefront as ever, hefting his halberd with brutal enjoyment.

  Schwarzhelm turned on the nearest Empire halberdier. Everything was in flux. They were still heavily outnumbered, and their only hope lay in restoring discipline.

  “Who’s the senior officer here?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know, my lord. Kleister is dead, and Bogenhof is—”

  “You’ll do then. Get these men into detachments. Four deep, ten wide. Do it now. Follow my lead, and we’ll clear some space around us. This isn’t over yet.”

  The halberdier looked back at him, first with surprise, then with a sudden, desperate hope.

  “Yes, my lord!” he cried, before rushing to form his men up as ordered.

  Schwarzhelm turned back to the fighting. If there were any more of those creatures, he knew he’d be the only one who could take them on.

  “What now?” asked Kraus, hurrying back to his side.

  “Get in amongst these men,” said Schwarzhelm, striding without break to catch up with Bloch’s men. “Get them organised and follow me. There’ll be more of them as we go, and they all need leading.”

  “So where are we taking them?”

  Schwarzhelm turned back to shoot Kraus a murderous look.

  “Grosslich must have seen us by now,” he said, his eyes narrowing under his helmet. “He’s here somewhere, and when I find him, he’s my kill.”

  Then Schwarzhelm stalked off, massive and threatening, his sword thirsting for the blood that followed it whenever it was drawn.

  The walls of the city soared up into the sky, braced with iron and crested with thirty-foot-high sigils of Slaanesh. The curving symbols glowed red, throbbing in the darkness and spilling their unnatural light across the storm-born shadows.

  Volkmar was close enough now. He could taste the tang of corruption streaming from Averheim, locked in the column of rumbling fire. There were presences in the aethyr, darting shapes swimming in the currents of translucent crimson. He could see their outlines, a twisted fusion of woman and Chaos-spawn.

  “I am coming for you,” he growled, swinging his staff round to blast a lumbering mutant from his path.

  Volkmar knew neither fatigue nor fear now. As truly as he knew his own name, he knew the Lord of End Times had come back to face him again. This time, the result would be different. He’d seen the other side of reality, had gazed across the planes of immortal existence and felt their cold embrace. Now enclosed in the sinews and blood of a man once more, he would not return there. Not until the Everchosen lay at his feet, drowning in his own betrayer’s gore.

  Volkmar felt a sudden hand on his shoulder, huge and heavy. He spun round, the Staff of Command responding instantly with a blaze of sparkling faith-fire.

  “This is enough.”

  Maljdir stood before him. The huge man was covered in sweat, blood and grime. The battle-standard at his shoulder was charred and ripped. The warrior priests surged onwards around the two of them, driving the enemy back further.

  “What d’you mean?” hissed Volkmar, eager to return to the slaughter. “He’s in there. We’re almost on him.”

  Maljdir looked agonised. Perhaps it was fear. The old Ulrican had never displayed fear before. That was disappointing.

  “Look around you.” Maljdir forcibly turned the Theogonist
to face the following troops.

  It took a moment for his eyes to clear, dazzled as they were by the splendour of his Staff.

  “Where are my men?” he asked, suddenly filled with doubt.

  There were fewer than three hundred left, all bunched together, fighting to keep up with the charge of their leader. Most of those that remained were warrior priests. The wizards were gone, and there was no sign of Roll. Even as Volkmar watched, a swordsman in the rear of his column was torn apart by a ragged thing with talons for hands, his flesh flung over the heads of his comrades as he screamed.

  “They couldn’t keep up!” cried Maljdir. “You’ve dragged them to their deaths. We must pull back.”

  Volkmar hesitated, and the light of his staff guttered like a candle-flame. He couldn’t withdraw. Not now, not with the city so close.

  “We’re almost at the gates,” he insisted, shaking off the priest’s hands. “I can feel his presence in the city…”

  “You’re deluded!” roared Maljdir. “Chaos is here, but not the one you seek.”

  Even as he spoke, more mutants closed in around them. They sensed the end, and were no longer daunted by the Staff.

  Volkmar reeled, feeling his visions lift from his eyes. The anger was still there, but the mania had gone, extinguished by revelation.

  “We cannot…” he started, and never finished.

  A snarling pack of dog-soldiers charged into the line of warrior priests ahead of them, knocking them back and hacking them down. Volkmar’s forces had become a beleaguered island amid a swirling maelstrom of enemy troops. It was too late to go back, and hopeless to go on.

  “I have doomed us,” said Volkmar, his eyes widening with horror.

  Maljdir drew away then, hauled back into the fighting by the approaching mutants.

  “You still have the Staff!” he roared, wading into action and wielding Bloodbringer like a great bell, swinging back and forth. “Use it! Get us back!”

  Then he was gone, ploughing into the attack, laying into the clutching fingers and stabbing blades of the dog-soldiers around him.

  Volkmar looked up. The gates were at hand. They were open still, still choked with Grosslich’s troops. Under the massive iron lintel, the fires raged out of control. Averheim was ablaze, and daemonic forces swam in the unlocked power of the aethyr. The scene looked just like another world he’d seen once, back when his soul had been unlocked. Now Averheim was just one of those slivers of eternity, a shard of ruin embedded in the world of men.

  “No!” he roared, and his Staff rushed back into flame. “No retreat. We end this here.”

  He swung the staff round and sent a snarling bolt of fire at the talon-fingered horror still terrorising his men. The creature blew apart in a deluge of bone and dry flesh. Volkmar felt power well up within him again, fuelled by faith and fury. He span back, sending a flurry of spitting lightning into the pressing ranks of mutants. They fell back in disarray, their ranks broken by a power they had no defence against.

  Volkmar himself began to shimmer with a golden corona. No Light magister’s spell fuelled him now. A halo crested his brow, blazing into the unnatural night and challenging the fires of Slaanesh for mastery. He was Master of the Church of Sigmar, the mightiest of His servants, the head of His Cult on earth, and no power could stand against that secret knowledge.

  He took his stand, cracking the earth as he trod it down, his cloak rippling with gold. The servants of Averheim fell back, daunted by the savage forces he’d unleashed. His surging luminescence rose up into the tortured air, defiant and isolated, a shaft of pure flame to challenge the vast pillar of fire ahead.

  “Sigmar!” came a roar from his left, deep in the ranks of the enemy.

  It wasn’t Maljdir, or Roll, or any of his troops. Something had responded to the line of burning gold.

  The press of dog-soldiers on his left flank suddenly broke apart, scattered by a new force emerging from beyond them. Volkmar whirled round, ready to face a new terror. Instead, a phalanx of horsemen burst from their midst, swords flashing, hooves churning. They swept aside all resistance, as powerful and pure as a storm.

  As they came on, Volkmar’s golden light surged to greet them, bathing the oncoming knights in a cloak of brilliance.

  They were the Emperor’s own, the Reiksguard, and at their head rode Kurt Helborg. The knights surged towards the surrounded Empire troops, careering around Volkmar’s remaining men and enclosing them in a wall of steel. Caught between the onslaught of the Reiksguard and the dazzling power of the Theogonist, Grosslich’s twisted soldiers fell back further. For the first time, their eyes wavered with fear. Even the most debased servants of the Dark Gods could recognise a runefang when it came among them.

  Helborg thundered towards Volkmar, pulling up at the last minute. His charger reared, kicking its hooves high in the air. Helborg slammed open his visor, revealing the familiar hawk-nose and stiff moustache. He looked more magnificent than Volkmar had ever seen him, like a vision of Magnus the Pious reborn, severe and terrible.

  “My lord Volkmar!” he cried, controlling his stamping, shivering mount with unconscious ease. “I bring the rightful Elector of Averland to his throne. Will you join me in battle?”

  Volkmar raised his staff high and the corona blazed ever more furiously, banishing the shadows and blinding the reeling, cowering mutants. No madness remained in him then, just the righteous fury of the battlefield.

  “I will, my lord Marshal,” replied Volkmar, seeing the armoured figure of Rufus Leitdorf emerge into the light for the first time. The man looked far more commanding than he’d expected from his reputation. He rode his warhorse without fear, and the faith-fire rushed to greet him, dousing him in a cascade of gold.

  Volkmar turned again to face the iron gates, still open, still wreathed in daemonic fire. This was a new task, one for which his burning faith was aptly suited. Even in the midst of ruin, there was always redemption.

  “To the city, then,” he said, narrowing his eyes against the roaring flames, “and judgement.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The plains were dark with men. Aside from the splinter force that had followed Volkmar towards the walls of the city, the Imperial troops still occupied a long line skirting around the north edge of the plain. They had made negligible progress towards their goal, frustrated by the sheer numbers of Grosslich’s slave-army before them.

  Losses had been heavy. Of the forty thousand soldiers committed to the field, less than half still stood to bear arms. The enemy had suffered too, though their capacity to absorb casualties was greater. The defenders had maintained their positions, grinding down the advancing Imperial infantry with remorseless efficiency. They never took a step back, never withdrew, just soaked up the increasingly desperate attacks, waiting for the Empire lines to break from exhaustion.

  Along much of the Imperial battlefront, discipline had broken down. In the absence of a guiding hand at the centre, lines of communication broke. The system of supporting detachments, the pride of the Empire and its most lethal weapon, was hamstrung. Companies found themselves suddenly isolated, ripe for flank attacks. Others assaulted the same point as their comrades further down the line, leading to confusion and a muddled retreat before priority could be established. Fighting even broke out within companies as the fear and fatigue got to them, divided between those who still had the will to fight and those who only wished to save their hides. Amidst all the uncertainty, demoralisation and misunderstanding, Grosslich’s men advanced steadily, destroying those who no longer had the power to resist them and squaring up to those that did.

  Only on the eastern flank was resistance still solid. Schwarzhelm’s reinforcements had bolstered the line just as it was about to break. The men under his command were not the highest quality, but they were fresh to the field and led by the Emperor’s Champion. Slowly, methodically, shattered companies were reformed and given proper support. Assaults on Grosslich’s forces were properly coordinated, and the r
anks of the halberdier detachments were rotated in good order. Inspired by sudden hope, demoralised men stood up to be counted, and found their courage stronger than they’d thought.

  Such resistance attracted attention. The heavier elements of Grosslich’s forces began to shift across to the east of the battlefield, steadily increasing in number as the Imperial ranks staunched their horrific rate of losses.

  Embedded in the midst of the renewed surge, Bloch pulled his halberd blade from the chest of a corrupted Averlander, watching with satisfaction as the man’s eyes flickered and lost their lilac glow. In death, his victim looked just the same as any other battlefield corpse.

  He withdrew from the front rank, letting the men around him take up the strain. Bloch had no idea how long he’d been fighting. An hour? Two? More? His arms throbbed with muscle-ache and his palms, each one as tough as horse-hide, were raw and bleeding.

  “Where’s Schwarzhelm?” he muttered, cursing the smog that obscured everything further than thirty paces away.

  “With the Talabheim spearmen,” replied Verstohlen, emerging from the press of men to stand beside him. “They’re assaulting the trenches.”

  Bloch rolled his eyes. Even in the middle of a bloody battle, the man was impossible to shake off.

  “No damn use to us there,” he spat, getting ready to re-enter the front line. “We can kill these scum, but if we get another one of those dagger-fingered freaks, we’ll be in trouble.”

  Verstohlen shuddered. His elegant face was bruised, and a long streak of someone’s blood ran across his right cheek. Possibly his own, possibly his victim’s. The spy had long since run out of shot and now did what he could with his long knife. He was out of place here, and it looked like he knew it.

  “We’re going to have to withdraw sooner or later,” Verstohlen said. “We can’t drive them back. Far too many.”

  “You can tell the big man that,” said Bloch irritably. For a civilian, Verstohlen certainly liked to give his opinion on tactics. “I was told to hold this front together, and that’s what—”