Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  Bachmeier’s breathing became thick. He stopped trudging and turned around, trying to get some sense of the battle’s shape. From his vantage, less than a hundred yards back from the heaviest fighting, he could see all across the battlefield. What he saw didn’t improve his spirits.

  Ten thousand men were locked together, stretched out in two long, broken formations. The Empire troops fought in their squares, maintaining formation, holding ground with typical tenacity. The Bretonnians were less disciplined but there were more of them.

  Bachmeier didn’t think much of the quality of the enemy foot soldiers. The front-rank fighters were little more than villagers, sent into combat bearing farm implements and kitchen knives. Those in the second wave were tougher, but still no match for a well-trained pikeman or halberdier.

  For all those mismatches, the engagement was grinding slowly to a stalemate. Daylight was failing fast, running quickly from a pale to a dark grey—it was only a matter of time before the signals for withdrawal would ring out.

  The Bretonnians hadn’t committed their full strength yet. Their plate-armoured knights waited out on the flanks, ready to sweep along the full width of the battlefield when required. They were the reason Helborg hadn’t been able to deploy his artillery, probably the only thing on the field capable of making a decisive breakthrough. The Reiksmarshal knew perfectly well how devastating Bretonnian cavalry was on the charge—in such empty terrain, he had no chance of deploying guns without risk of them being destroyed before they were ready.

  So there it was. The guns would not be deployed for fear of the knights, and the knights would not engage in case the guns deployed while they were wrapped up in fighting. Stalemate.

  Only as the sunlight dribbled away toward the tower-studded western horizon were the cavalry units riding out at last—a show of strength, a final attempt to break the deadlock before nightfall forced an end to the day’s curtailed brutality.

  Bachmeier, with his three decades of service and experience, knew the attempt would fail. Too many infantry formations were still intact and the essential core of each army was solid. The charges would be a chance for the horsemen to get their swords bloody, but that was all.

  He leaned on his sword, letting the tip of it puncture the earth at his feet. The spectacle would give him something to watch before duty called him away again.

  The Reiksguard moved first, far out along the rear-west flank of the battlefield. They charged down a long, shallow slope, churning up the sodden earth as they came. Their banner streamed out as they rumbled into contact. Helborg was at the forefront, a yard ahead of his nearest supporting warrior and with his cloak snapping and whipping about his broad shoulders.

  The knights’ armour was pristine in the dull light, and the gaudy feathers atop their helms caught the last of the sun’s rays. They wheeled around a beleaguered unit of Empire halberdiers, riding hard and fast, before careering straight into a thick knot of Bretonnian peasant soldiers beyond.

  The infantry stood no chance. Bachmeier watched them scatter, breaking from the front and fleeing headlong for the rear of their army’s formation. The Reiksguard rode among them at will, first using their long lances, then switching to broadswords as the long shafts splintered.

  Bachmeier turned away from the carnage, sweeping his gaze across the enemy lines towards the opposite, eastern flank. The Bretonnians had already responded. Their knights were more heavily armoured and their steeds were huge, shaggy-fetlocked beasts that looked more like carthorses than destriers. They took longer to build up speed, but when they did the momentum was huge. Bachmeier could feel the heavy beat of their hooves thrum along the earth as they galloped down the opposing slope towards a long front of Empire pikemen. Ramshackle masses of Bretonnian peasantry before them scurried to get out of the way. Some of them didn’t make it in time, and were ridden down by the remorseless wall of steel and muscle bearing down the incline.

  Bachmeier felt his heart stir. He knew he was supposed to loathe them—they were, after all, the enemy—but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Their armour was spectacularly ornate, their colours dazzling, their horsemanship superb. They rode with a pounding, full-blooded commitment that even the Reiksguard couldn’t match.

  The pikemen responded well. They dug their long pikes into the yielding earth and a forest of staves sprung up, angled to punch into the warhorses’ chests or take the riders out of the saddle. They braced themselves, gripping the shafts of their pikes and planting their boots into the earth.

  Bachmeier watched, transfixed.

  Hold fast, lads, he breathed to himself.

  The knights hit the line, and it dissolved into a storm of screams, snaps, thuds and whinnies. The first row of pikes did some damage, unhorsing knights and sending their steeds crashing back to earth. Behind them, though, the force of the charge was unhindered. Knights broke through the reeling resistance like a storm-tide sweeping aside crumbling sea walls, hammering down the fragile resistance and going after the survivors.

  Bachmeier saw the Empire men fall back, reeling from the impact of the charge. They didn’t run witlessly—a few of them kept their cohesion, evading the worst of the charge and waiting for the horsemen to lose momentum.

  With their lances broken, the knights cast them aside and reached for longswords. They swung their horses round, surging back into the Empire lines and causing more havoc. They lashed out on either side of them, crashing through the mass of broken defenders like galleons bucking through slate-grey swells.

  For a moment, Bachmeier saw the potential for the two cavalry forces to come together. Just fleetingly, he wondered if he had been wrong. If the mounted Reiksguard fought their way into contact with the Bretonnian cavalry then the encounter could yet have some kind of resolution.

  He pulled his sword from the ground, feeling his heart begin to pump heavily. Perhaps the action was not yet over. All around him, his retinue hoisted their weapons back into position.

  Then the trumpets rang out. The cavalry—Reiksguard and Bretonnian—drew up in their saddles, pulled hard on the reins, and began to withdraw. All along the battlefront, weary troops disengaged or were dragged back from combat by their sergeants.

  The light was fading fast. Bachmeier’s first judgement had been right. No result could be forced that day, and neither general wished to provoke a slaughter of valuable warriors. No commander, not even one with Helborg’s reputation for risk-taking, would countenance throwing away an army for such a miserable tract of worthless border country.

  Bachmeier began to move again, heading back to where the units under his command still laboured. They’d need his guidance to achieve an orderly withdrawal, and he had no intention of letting his sections of the line break into disarray.

  As he did so, he caught sight of one of the Bretonnian knights, already in the distance and riding hard back to his lines. The warrior’s armour glinted warmly in the last of the sun, as if lined with silver. His charger, its caparisons still vivid despite the splatters of grime, powered up the slope with a ponderous, weighty grace. Before quitting the field, the knight brandished his sword with a final flourish—a gesture of arrogance, of self-assurance, of superiority.

  Magnificent, thought Bachmeier.

  The fire crackled in its pit, sending oily smoke snaking around the tent’s central pole and out through vents in the canvas above. From outside, the noises of the camp settling down for the night were clearly audible: cooking pots being swilled out, soldiers singing, the rattle and chink of dice being thrown against pewter.

  Within, the mood was colder. Helborg sat in a wooden chair near the fire, slumped like a warrior chief of old. He’d taken his helm off but otherwise wore his full plate armour. His body ached from riding, but at least the exercise had driven some of the frustration out of him.

  ‘We cannot do this again,’ he said, staring into the fire as he spoke. His captains sat in a circle before him, each of them similarly attired. Most had dents in their armour
or bloodstains on their jerkins. One man had a stained bandage across one eye and others displayed hastily stitched wounds across their exposed flesh.

  Skarr nodded, gnawing at a stringy piece of chicken.

  ‘We could take them,’ he said. ‘We’d need to move fast—get in among the knights before they were ready, bring the guns up.’

  Helborg sympathised. He’d toyed with ordering the same thing after the midday skirmishes. It had been too risky then, and it would be again. Things were evenly balanced, and losing the Reiksguard on a reckless charge against equally skilled cavalry, all for the sake of a few blackpowder pieces, would be a disaster. If the enemy had been different—if it had been the Great Enemy hammering at the gates of Nuln or the hated greenskins threatening to overrun Averland—then he might have taken the risk. As it was, for a piece of land worth nothing and for the sake of men he’d once fought beside as allies, the waste was unconscionable.

  ‘We can’t break them quick enough,’ said one of his captains.

  Helborg flicked his gaze over to the man who’d spoken—a minor infantry commander. For a moment, he struggled to remember the man’s name.

  Bachmeier. That was the one.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Helborg, surprised that he’d spoken out. ‘I don’t think, sir, that we can break them quick enough,’ said Bachmeier. They know what we need to do to beat them.’

  Helborg looked at the man carefully. He knew the type—solid enough, probably passed over for promotion, not the bravest or the most diligent, possibly nearing the end of his career. No doubt that was why he dared to speak so freely.

  ‘And what would your counsel be then, captain?’ asked Helborg, humouring him.

  Bachmeier shrugged.

  ‘I have none,’ he said. This terrain gives us nothing. We could dance around the edges of a fight, hoping that they lose their minds and break formation, or we could meet them head on, nothing held back, no sweet manoeuvres. We can win that way, but it’ll cost us.’

  Helborg nodded, agreeing with the man’s assessment even as he found it depressing. He had come to the same conclusion two days previously; perhaps it had been foolish to think that any of his officers was likely to find a better way to win.

  He sat back in his seat and placed his fingers before him in a loose pyramid. He’d hoped that a quick, clean punitive raid into the Bretonnian marches in response to repeated skirmishing along the Empire borders east of Marienburg would have been an end to the matter. He’d not wanted to get drawn into a protracted campaign while far more serious threats waited along the Empire’s northern borders, but that was precisely what was now at risk. Retreat would be a serious embarrassment and would weaken the hand of the border commanders; staying put risked sucking precious resources into a petty and pointless war.

  The whole thing had begun to make his head ache.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last, snapping his fingers closed. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do.’

  Before he could go further, the entrance flaps to the tent were pulled aside. A grey-faced sentry entered, bowed, and stood awkwardly before the council.

  ‘Your pardon, lord,’ he said, looking at Helborg nervously. ‘I did not think this could wait.’

  Helborg looked at him sharply.

  ‘What couldn’t?’ he asked.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ came a third voice.

  Its owner stepped out of the sentry’s shadow. He was tall, fair-skinned and with a sharply cut thatch of blond hair. He wore fine robes cut in the archaic Couronne style, lined with gold thread and held at the waist by a thin belt of leather knots. His features were clean, his manner assured and his bearing formal.

  He bowed low, finishing the gesture with a flourish of his slender hand.

  ‘Gascard d’Alembençon, lord,’ he announced. The viscount, may the Lady preserve him, sends me as embassy, with all rights of safe passage under the conventions of ordered nations.’

  Helborg’s brow furrowed. The man’s Reikspiel was fluent but his manner was off-putting. He knew from experience that noble-born Bretonnians were fearsome warriors—as brave as any he’d known and often more skilful than their Imperial counterparts—but that didn’t stop them coming over as… fey.

  ‘Your brother is a bandit,’ said Helborg. ‘His men have raided our settlements, causing loss of both life and property. I’ve come to punish him, and that’s an end to it—there’s nothing to discuss.’

  Gascard smiled coolly.

  ‘Then we clearly have different interpretations of what has been happening here, my lord,’ he said. ‘The viscount protects his own. If there has been raiding, then it has come from one side of the border only.’

  Helborg rolled his eyes, in no mood to debate the history of the whole miserable affair again.

  ‘You wish to make restitution?’ he asked. ‘That can be arranged.’

  The ambassador lost his smile.

  ‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘The viscount has a proposal. If you will hear it, then I will convey your answer.’

  Helborg observed the man carefully. Such gestures were typical of the Bretonnian high classes. They revelled in the theatrical display, the courtly dance of promise and counter-promise. The code they lived by had long since died out in the Empire, a code that placed personal conduct above political consideration and made everything of a man’s word, his bloodline and his honour.

  Helborg had always found it a tedious philosophy. The world was a harsh place, beset by beasts of darkness and hordes of ruin; there was scarce enough room in it for survival, let alone politesse.

  ‘Speak, then,’ said Helborg, jadedly.

  ‘The viscount has no wish to see noble men of the Empire lose their lives,’ said Gascard. ‘He supposes that you, being a just lord in your part, have no wish to see the flower of the Marches wasted. We both know the truth. Our armies are matched—even the victor cannot leave the field without grievous loss. So the viscount proposes a solution. He offers you the honour of single combat. On foot, longswords, to the death. He who stands at the end shall be declared victorious. The opposing army shall withdraw, ceding right of lawful conquest over all lands under dispute.’

  As soon as the ambassador mentioned the words ‘single combat’, Helborg felt his heart respond. In an instant, the dreary prospect of days of brutal, undistinguished fighting through the marshy hinterlands of a backwards realm was replaced with the chance of a clean, dignified result.

  Gascard waited. The assembled captains said nothing. Even the noises outside the tent were stilled—the men had seen the ambassador enter, and they waited to see him leave.

  Helborg found himself tempted, sorely tempted. He’d seen the skill at arms of the viscount’s men and the duellist within him relished the chance to test his swordsmanship against their master. Absently, his fingers strayed to the hilt of his runefang, resting lightly on the jewelled pommel.

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Wait outside while I confer. You shall have your answer shortly.’

  Gascard bowed, and withdrew. As soon as he was gone, Helborg turned to Skarr.

  ‘Can they be trusted?’ he asked. ‘Will they honour the terms?’

  Skarr nodded.

  ‘Honour is everything to them. If the viscount swears an oath, he’ll die to uphold it.’

  Helborg smiled. A sudden eagerness ran through his tired muscles. He sat up in his chair, flexing his arms.

  ‘So I have always heard,’ he said. ‘Then I am minded to do it. It’s been too long since I took on a worthy opponent. Schwarzhelm has a certain dogged ability, of course, but no finesse. This will be different.’

  He swept his gaze across the assorted captains, daring them to object. He felt reckless, and knew it was a failing, but he also knew what talent he possessed and what record he had.

  ‘Cheer up, my lords,’ said Helborg, grinning wolfishly and gesturing for the ambassador to be summoned back in. ‘This viscount will be coughing on his own blood before noon tomorrow—and we’ll be on t
he march home before dusk.’

  The morning brought fresh wind from the north, gusting clear of the megaliths and racing across the dreary plains.

  Just as they had done the previous day, the two armies lined up, facing each other across a quarter of a mile of sodden, ripped-up grassland. They remained apart, two rangy formations of brawl-battered soldiers, their weapons sheathed, their banners drifting aimlessly in the swirling breeze.

  Helborg moved into the open first, striding confidently from cover, resplendent in full battle regalia. His sword, the Klingerach runefang, clattered at his side as he walked. His gait was heavy under his armour and the soles of his boots sucked at the marshy soil.

  He wore an open-faced helm, as he always did in single combat. He liked to look his enemy in the eyes as he killed them, enjoying the knowledge that his frost-hard expression would be the last thing they would see before being ushered into Morr’s cold embrace. He’d waxed his moustache until it was almost as stiff as the leather jerkin under his breastplate, and he’d ensured the emblem of Karl Franz was as highly polished as the Imperial dining service.

  When he reached halfway, Helborg planted his feet firmly, drew his shoulders back, and waited.

  A hundred yards in front of him, the Bretonnian lines parted. Between them walked a giant of a man, similarly clad in a knight’s full plate. His armour was thicker-set than Helborg’s and looked very old. A long crimson cloak hung down from his shoulders, lined with ermine and decorated with lozenges of black and gold.

  He strode up to Helborg, coming to a standstill just a few paces away. Helborg scrutinised him carefully. The outline of a goblet had been graven into the knight’s breastplate, decorated with fine golden tracery and surrounded by an elaborate, oak-leafed halo. For all its age, the armour had obviously been reverently treated—delicate flutes of beaten metal winked in the morning sun, lending the curved steel an almost palpable glow. The warrior wore a close-faced helm, giving nothing of his features away.