Hildebrandt looked at Magnus, startled. Then his big face creased into a laugh, and it rolled out into the chill morning air. Even Thorgad was tickled, and his strange, gravelly chuckle joined Tobias’s. It proved infectious. In the middle of the camp of war, surrounded by the weapons of death and the cries of the wounded, the three engineers gave up their habitual reserve, and laughed. For a moment, just a fleeting moment, the cares of battle lifted from them.
Magnus joined in, heedless of the pain in his ribs. It was good to feel the layers of care fall from his shoulders for a moment. Soon they would be back again. The assault couldn’t be far away. And then all smiles would be banished, perhaps forever.
Messina cursed floridly. A stream of Tilean expletives, most involving the parentage of the Empire’s ruling class, emerged from the wooden framework around him. Lukas looked at him anxiously. This was not going well. The Averlander scratched the back of his neck, and stood away from the carcass of the Blutschreiben. It was still far from complete, and time was running out.
The two men were hidden under one of the larger canvas coverings at the back of the artillery encampment. Messina had hired several of the gunnery crews who had lost their great weapons to act as guards. A few pieces of exotic ‘silver’ pieces from Luccini had been enough to buy their loyalty. They would only discover the coins were a worthless tin alloy when the campaign was long over.
Under cover, and with a constant guard stationed outside to prevent casual spies, Ironblood’s plans, long in the devising, were finally coming to fruition. The design was fiendishly complex. In essence, the Blutschreiben was a massively powerful mobile repeating cannon. It used two standard iron barrels, mounted on an elaborate wooden chassis. The genius of it, though, lay in three particular things.
First, the gunner was mounted on a seat on top of the structure and could direct the firing of the mechanism with consummate ease. A series of ropes, pulleys, brass dials and levers controlled every aspect of the gun’s movement and detonations. The complicated and finely wrought gear mechanisms for this had been made by Ironblood himself. Like all the detailed sections of the machine, they had been taken from the great chests and bolted on to the crude wooden frame.
Second, there was an ingenious system for loading ammunition. Unlike the laborious process of sponging, ramming, firing and cleaning required for an ordinary cannon, in the case of the Blutschreiben everything was automatic. The complexity here was quite astounding, and the barrels of the cannons were surrounded with a lattice of greased ropes and linked chains, each with a specific function. Should any part of the system not work as expected, then the whole was liable to collapse. Given the amount of blackpowder contained within the machine’s innards, a malfunction was not something the gunner would welcome.
Third, the barrels could be swivelled around on a great brass-lined turret. When the chassis had chugged its way into position, the gunner could dispense with any further movement, and spin his position around in a ninety-degree arc by using the steam-powered controls. A mighty furnace, perilously close to the blackpowder caches, provided the locomotive power for the pistons which drove the targeting. As ever, Ironblood’s machinery for delivering such power was monstrously involved. A maze of copper piping sprouted from the rear of the gun platform. Only half of this had been connected thus far, and it already looked like a nest of baby snakes. The rest lay on the floor of the tent, jumbled in a heap where a frustrated Messina had dumped them.
Lukas looked over their handiwork so far, and sighed a weary sigh. He hadn’t slept much since Messina had convinced Scharnhorst to let them build the damned thing. While Ironblood had been busy with the tunnelling, it had been relatively easy to keep the construction under wraps. Now that the engineers had returned, it was only a matter of time before they discovered what Messina and he were up to.
Though Lukas didn’t know why Ironblood was quite so set against the use of his master weapon, he could take an educated guess. Like all experimental projects, the thing looked horribly dangerous. A standard cannon, with its relatively simple firing mechanism, was liable to blow up at any moment, scarring or killing its crew and showering debris across the battlefield. This monster, which could in theory hurl round after round of heavy ammunition through the air with barely a pause, using only the power of steam and mechanics, was liable to be an absolute nightmare to keep under control. And that was assuming they could put it together remotely correctly. As Messina’s frequent cursing testified, that couldn’t be relied upon either.
The Tilean emerged from under the chassis looking harassed. His normally glossy locks were matted and tangled. His olive skin was marked by blotches of grease and powder-burns. His fine clothes were ruined.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Lukas, tentatively.
Messina gave him a dark look which spoke volumes.
‘Have you deciphered secondary lubricant system yet?’ he said by way of reply. His voice was tired and clipped.
Lukas pulled one of the many sheets of parchment from the jumbled pile on the floor. It was scored with notes and hastily scrawled diagrams. Deciphering it was like trying to read elvish. Not impossible for a human, but close to being a lifetime’s work.
‘I think so,’ he said, cautiously. ‘When you’re finished working on the turret traction, I could attempt to fix it in place. We might be able to get shot-loading working then.’
Messina took a deep breath, and looked back at the half-finished machine. There was hatred in his eyes.
‘By Luccina,’ he spat, wiping his hands on his expensive clothes. ‘If I’d known how complicated the damned thing would be…’
He didn’t finish his sentence, but walked over to a low bench by the entrance to the tent. There was a flagon of watered-down wine. He picked it up and took a hefty swig.
‘What time is it?’ he asked, slumping onto the bench and looking exhausted.
Lukas shrugged.
‘Mid-morning, I’d say. We’ve not got long before Scharnhorst’ll want to know if it’s ready.’
Messina shot him a poisonous look.
‘Really?’ he said, sarcastically. ‘So that is news to me.’
He took another long swig. When he wiped his mouth, a long trail of some dark, oily substance was left against his cheek. Lukas kept a diplomatic silence.
‘Do you think we’ll make it?’ the boy said, frowning as he looked over the semi-complete structure.
Lukas’s moment of doubt seemed to galvanise Messina. He let out a derisive snort, and got up from the bench.
‘By all the lawful gods, yes,’ he said, putting down the flagon firmly. ‘This is our chance, boy. He’s had a success, that drunk man, with his tunnelling. We need one of our own. This will be it. When we advance, I will be sitting in that chair, sending death into the ranks of the enemy. There’ll be no standing against us. That is all that matters.’
There was a familiar dark fire in his eyes as he spoke. Lukas knew better than to contradict him.
‘Then we’d better get back to work,’ he said, picking up his tools wearily. They had already been at it for hours. With a dreadful certainty, Lukas knew that the night ahead would be a long one.
Rathmor was consumed by a cold, malevolent rage. He stalked down the long corridors of the citadel, his black robes fluttering behind him as he went. His guns, his beloved guns, had been destroyed. There was no humiliation greater for an engineer. They should have been safe. They were within the walls. Someone would suffer for it. They would all suffer.
He pushed the door to Esselman’s chambers open roughly. A startled guard standing in the antechamber raised his sword briefly in challenge before recognising who it was.
‘Sir,’ he said, nodding his head in acknowledgement.
Rathmor ignored him and ploughed on into the inner sanctum. There was a pair of metal-lined doors ahead of him. He pushed them both open, and they slammed
back against the walls on either side.
Beyond was a large torchlit room. From far above, daylight weakly filtered down from windows high up on the eastern walls. Esselman’s room was near the summit of the soaring citadel.
Only two men were in the room. One was Esselman himself. The other was one of the insurgents. A warrior priest. He was tied tightly to a wooden chair with leather straps. His robes were torn and singed. His severe face was bruised and lacerated. Either he’d picked up those wounds in the fighting, or Esselman had not been kind to him.
The captive priest barely seemed to notice Rathmor’s entrance. His eyes flickered weakly towards him, then went back to blankly staring into space. He had a strange, resigned expression on his face.
Esselman slammed a fist against the wall in frustration.
‘These damned priests!’ he spat, and turned away from the captive. He walked over to a side table, and poured a tankard of dark ale. He drank deeply before lifting his head to acknowledge Rathmor.
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
Rathmor controlled his anger with some difficulty. After all that had happened, to be forced to treat with such insolent fools was almost beyond toleration.
‘The lady is furious,’ he snapped back. ‘She’s been tearing her chamber to pieces. Her staff don’t dare enter.’
Esselman gave a hollow laugh.
‘You think I don’t know that?’ he said, and a faint sliver of fear entered his words. ‘By Sigmar, this is a damned mess.’
‘Dare not take his name in vain, heretic,’ hissed the priest, defiantly.
Esselman strode over to the bound man and struck him hard in the face. Unable to protect himself, the priest’s head cracked sickeningly against the frame of the chair. For a moment, the man’s eyes went glassy, and a trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth. He recovered his poise with effort, and fixed a gaze of controlled hatred at Esselman. Even in his current predicament, the priest seemed unbowed.
Esselman cradled his fist in his other hand gingerly, and looked at Rathmor sourly.
‘These damned priests,’ he said again. ‘I hate them. Ask any question you like, and all you get back are platitudes about the coming wrath of the comet. They disgust me.’
Rathmor looked at the priest with renewed interest, and a greedy look passed across his face.
‘What do you want to know?’ he asked, his mouth twisted into a leer. ‘I have special instruments down in the forges. They would soon loosen a reluctant tongue, blessed by Sigmar or not.’
The priest gazed back at him fearlessly, as if daring him to bring on the tools of torture. Esselman regarded Rathmor coldly.
‘What do you think I am?’ he said, disdainfully. ‘I’m a warrior, not a bastard witch hunter. There’ll be none of your perversions while I’m in charge of the citadel.’
He rubbed his hands wearily across his face and took another long swig of ale.
‘We’d learn nothing much in any case,’ Esselman said. ‘What’s there to find out? That the army is intent on driving us out of here? That we know. There are no secrets in this war. They’ll attack the gates soon. We have no guns to repel them. You’ll have to trust to force of arms sooner than you would wish, Rathmor.’
The engineer shook his head reluctantly.
‘It’s still too soon,’ he whined, looking at the priest with hatred. He would have loved to have spent some time alone with the wretched man, if for no other reason than to work out his frustration on some unwilling flesh. Esselman’s warrior code could be inconvenient and frustrating.
Esselman spat on the ground contemptuously.
‘You’ve run out of time, my friend,’ he said. The word ‘friend’ was intoned coldly. ‘She won’t stand for it any longer. You’ve had months to get this army ready. Now we’ll see how good it really is.’
Rathmor had to stop himself from bursting into an incoherent rage. It wasn’t fair. Things were conspiring against him. Just as always, the ignorant were rushing his work. When it failed, as it always might, he would get the blame.
‘You have no idea what’s at stake here!’ he cried, and spittle flew from his pale lips. ‘There are still things I don’t understand! The book…’
Then he stopped, as if an invisible hand had clamped itself over his mouth. Esselman looked at him warily.
‘What book?’ he said.
‘Forget about it,’ snapped Rathmor. ‘That’s not important. What is important is getting rid of this army of fools and fanatics.’
He shot an acidic look at the priest as he spoke.
‘You know as well as I that the charade of gold will only last so long. We must move on. Von Kleister can keep the men fooled for a month or two, but it won’t last. Everything depends on getting the machines together, and taking the fight to Ludenhof. Everything!’
Esselman gazed down at the hunched body of Rathmor with disgust.
‘Don’t try to tell me my duties,’ he said irritably. ‘If your precious guns had been less fragile, we wouldn’t be in this situation.’
That was almost the final straw. Guarding the gunnery was Esselman’s province. It was bad enough that the man’s negligence had let a raiding party in to blow them up. To be blamed for their fragility was an insult too far. Rathmor’s eyes bulged, and his thin fists clenched. He could feel his rage boiling to a climax. He tried to find the right words, but it was as if his jaw had been clamped shut. The veins on his temples bulged, and sweat broke out across his forehead.
Esselman must have seen the signs. He shook his head in resignation, took a final draught of beer, and some of the belligerence left him.
‘Oh, don’t get worked up, Rathmor,’ he said disgustedly, walking over to the table and replacing the tankard. ‘That’ll do no one any good.’
Esselman leaned against the stone wall, and looked uninterestedly over towards the bound priest. Slowly, painfully, Rathmor suppressed his anger. One day, when he was at the head of a reformed New College of Engineers, his wrath would be feared across the entire Old World. He would be able to lash out, unrestrained, whenever the mood fell on him. For now, though, he needed men like Esselman. For now.
‘We have things to do,’ Esselman said, curtly. ‘I don’t care what the dangers are, we need your infernal machine. Now. And I want your traps laid, just as we agreed. If they’d been in place earlier, that little raiding party wouldn’t have got far. You promised to turn the lower levels into a firestorm.’
Rathmor shivered with anger, but kept control of himself. Just.
‘The machine will be ready,’ he said, his voice shaking slightly. ‘When they attack the gates, I’ll let it loose. And fear not for the traps. If they breach the walls a second time, none of them will get out alive.’
Esselman seemed satisfied with Rathmor’s vehemence.
‘Good,’ he said. He turned back to the warrior priest, who had been listening in silence, his eyes alert and his expression intent.
‘Did you hear that, you damned zealot?’ Esselman asked, a grim smile on his lips. ‘I should have you killed. But I might just let you stay alive long enough to see your comrades burn. It’ll be a fitting end to your doomed campaign.’
Esselman loomed over the warrior priest, his fists bunched. It looked like he might strike the man again, either out of spite or from simple frustration.
But then, a chime sounded. Just as before, the childlike noise echoed down the corridors. Both men froze instantly. Rathmor forgot his bubbling anger, and looked at Esselman, wide-eyed.
‘What do you think she wants now?’ he hissed.
Esselman swallowed, and looked suddenly uncomfortable.
‘No idea,’ he said, his voice quavering slightly. ‘But we’d better not keep her waiting.’
The chime sounded again, quiet but insistent. Esselman looked at the priest sourly.
‘We’ll continue this conversation another time,’ he said, and turned on his heel. He left the chamber, and Rathmor scuttled along at his heels. They were like curs summoned by their mistress. The door opened and closed with a slam. Their footfalls echoed through the antechamber and out into the corridor beyond. Then they were gone. With their absence, the room fell into silence.
Seemingly forgotten, the warrior priest Kossof sat as immobile as a graven image. Despite his ordeal, his body remained upright and his eyes glittered with a keen light. In the dark and the quiet, his lips began to move soundlessly.
‘Vengeance,’ he breathed, lips curling into a smile. ‘Vengeance.’
The sun sank towards the western horizon. The peaks began to cast their long, jagged shadows over the valley floor. Despite being wrapped in layers of clothing and encased in his long leather coat, Magnus was cold. His wound ached dully. The thirst had returned and every movement provoked a fresh spike of pain. It made him irritable and easy to anger. After the euphoria of the attack, the campaign, the lull before the storm. Though he could see the benefit of planning properly, he was itching to get back into the thick of things. The men were tired, driven into a sullen sluggishness by the endless cold, the moaning of the wind and that terrible, maddening throbbing that seemed to shake the very earth under their feet.
He wrapped his arms about himself, and stamped to try and generate some circulation. Perhaps he was still short on blood. He stalked off to find some more meat and drink. As he walked towards one of the provision wagons, he met Hildebrandt coming the other way.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked the big man.
‘Not too bad,’ Magnus replied. ‘I’ve had worse.’
Hildebrandt looked preoccupied.
‘Do you have some time to spare?’ he asked, looking around him.
‘Bags of it,’ he replied. ‘We’re not doing anything until dawn.’
‘Then come with me.’
Magnus followed Hildebrandt to the shadow of a row of artillery wagons, each still covered with canvas and kept under tight wraps. When they were out of sight of most of the soldiers, Hildebrandt took a bundle of rags from under his cloak and unwrapped it. Inside there were pieces of metal. They glinted weakly in the failing light.
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