The orc vanguard was breaking. Keller felt it from the second rank as surely as the wood of the Brigund Bridge beneath his boots. Blaselocker’s determined push up the centre was actually working. Panicked, huge swathes of orcs and goblins fled backwards through their own ranks. Too slow to turn and join the flood, some were crushed underfoot. Others tumbled over the sides of the bridge to a watery doom in the Aver below. Suddenly an ever-widening streak of daylight began to emerge between the Empire forces and the retreating greenskins.
‘Tighten formation!’ The order reverberated down the line to the tune of trumpets and drums. As they gained the bridge, running past its midpoint in pursuit of the greenskins, Keller felt the files narrow and the ranks thicken. To his right and left, men withdrew to make additional ranks and deepen the Grimblades’ formation. The spears and swords on either side did the same. Von Rauken’s Carroburg Few and the Middenland Steel Swords closed in and the entire Empire battle line became a giant stopper, plugging up the bridge along its width.
‘Advance!’ shouted Karlich, screaming to be heard above the din of the battle. The greenskin vanguard was in full retreat. Other regiments on the far side of the Brigund Bridge were closing fast to seal the gap but were slow and unruly to respond. Bickering had broken out amongst several mobs, so all that stood between the Grimblades and the greenskin catapults was a thin line of goblins wielding short bows.
‘Forward now! Charge you whoresons, charge!’
It was like breaking the surface of the sea having been submerged below its watery depths as the Grimblades burst from the battle line and headed straight for the goblin archers. Arrows whickered into them from the goblins’ vantage point on the lowest step of a shallow hill. At the summit, the war machine crews looked on helplessly, the Empire men too close to target with the catapults. The Grimblades’ momentum had carried them a long way across the short tract of plains that led up to the hill. Behind them, the other regiments had closed the gap, effectively ‘shutting the gate’ back onto the bridge for the other greenskins.
Eber felt an arrow glance his arm. He grimaced as it tore his tunic and opened a wet, red line in his skin. Another Grimblade fell somewhere behind him, gurgling blood from a neck wound, trampled to death in the maddened dash for the hill, but this was the only casualty. Seeing their arrows were ineffective, the goblin archers balked and some even started to run as the Grimblades charged them.
Ascending the hill in long strides, the Empire soldiers fell upon the hapless goblins in a hacking, lunging wave. The entire front rank of the greenskin archers was butchered in seconds. The few that remained squealed and ran. Some were swept up by the triumphant halberdiers as they drove on to attack the catapults; others were sent sprawling down the hillsides, breaking their necks and limbs. Fewer still just kept on running, abandoning the field and Averland for good.
The war machines were no greater challenge. Mainly crewed by goblins with the occasional orc overseer, the ones that didn’t flee on sight of the massacred archers soon fell beneath the halberdiers’ blades. The fight had lasted only minutes, but the catapults were silenced and as they took stock of the carnage around them, the Grimblades realised just how far from the battle at the bridge they had come.
Marshalling some order at last, huge mobs of orcs and goblins had started to converge on the bridge, determined to take it back. Massive brutes wielding double-bladed axes and feral beasts with bones through their noses, wearing furs and carrying stone clubs, roamed amongst the throng. Trolls lolled between the mobs, goblin overseers prodding them enthusiastically with long, barbed tridents. One of the witless creatures took offence at being goaded and ate one of its tormentors in a single bite. An armoured orc with a spiked whip took the dead goblin’s place and the troll was driven forward again. Other, smaller beasts scurried between the unruly ranks. Reddish-orange, bulbous and festooned with warts, Karlich recognised them as squigs. Little more than fangs on legs, squigs were vicious creatures, the absurdity of their appearance belying their ferocity.
Von Rauken and the others faced a stern challenge to hold the bridge, but at least the war machines had been silenced. At least Prince Wilhelm and the knights were not far off, now the way was open.
Karlich looked to the east. A storm raged there, cerulean lighting clashing with green fire in the heavens. Clouds boiled up in anger, summoned by their masters as an unseen magical duel took place. Wilhelm and his entourage would be in its eye.
‘They’ve met them…’ said Lenkmann, proudly holding the banner aloft.
All eyes went to the Brigund Bridge where the greenskin mobs had finally clashed with the Empire defenders attempting to hold it.
‘Madness,’ breathed Masbrecht upon witnessing the carnage. ‘Sigmar protect them.’ He made the sign of the hammer.
‘We fought in something similar,’ Rechts shot back, but realised von Rauken and the others were in a fight for their lives.
‘Where is Prince Wilhelm?’ asked Volker, looking to where the magical storm cracked and thundered.
Karlich had his eyes on the battle for the bridge. ‘Waylaid,’ he muttered. He looked around him. The orcs and goblins were leaving them alone for now, a wide gulf of open ground churned by booted feet but empty of foes, encircled them.
‘We should hold the hill, sergeant,’ said Lenkmann, guessing what Karlich was thinking. ‘Those are our orders.’
Karlich grit his teeth. ‘I know.’ His gaze went eastward again. There were no trumpets, no calls to arms, only sorcerous thunder. All the while, more and more greenskins poured into the forces at the Brigund Bridge. It was impossible to see anything in the chaos. Did the orc mobs advance a step? Karlich couldn’t be sure.
‘What shall we do?’ asked Brand. Several other Grimblades around him looked eager to hear the sergeant’s answer.
Again, Karlich looked to the east.
‘What if he doesn’t come?’ asked Eber, frowning at the thought of what might happen if Wilhelm didn’t arrive.
‘Something’s happening!’ said Lenkmann, pointing his sword towards the bridge.
Karlich went a few steps down the hill. ‘What’s he doing?’ His eyes narrowed as he tried to see.
Masbrecht saw it before the rest. His voice was cold and distant.
‘He’s ordering a retreat…’
Scowling, Karlich turned to face him. ‘What?’ He looked back. Masbrecht was right. The troops in the rear ranks were pulling back. Blaselocker had taken his fill of bloodshed and death and decided he didn’t like it.
‘Von Rauken won’t give up the bridge,’ said Keller, blinking hard as if trying to shake off the sight. ‘Have you ever known a Carroburger to relinquish anything?’
‘Then he’ll die,’ said Rechts. ‘They’re fatalists, as well as stubborn bastards.’
‘Aye, and for nothing!’ snapped Karlich, then muttered, ‘Blaselocker you spineless cur…’ He strode back up the hill to address his men.
‘We’re going down there, aren’t we?’ said Lenkmann, his tone resigned.
‘We are,’ said Karlich. ‘Into formation!’ he cried to the regiment.
Rechts beat out the order on his drum.
‘Tight ranks, narrow frontage,’ hollered Karlich. ‘We’ll punch through like a lance.’
‘Not wishing to speak out of turn,’ muttered Rechts, ‘but this is suicidal, sergeant.’
‘Have some faith,’ Karlich replied, deliberately bitter. ‘Prince Wilhelm will come. Succour isn’t only found at the bottom of a bottle, Torsten.’
The drummer shut his mouth and waited for the order.
Karlich gave it swiftly.
‘Forward, in the name of the Reik and Prince Wilhelm!’
Unimpeded by the open terrain, the Grimblades marched quickly to the battle site. Karlich steered them on an oblique route that would see them hit the weakest flank of the greenskin line, using t
he river itself as a natural anchor to their own flank.
A ragged band of goblins were the first enemies to oppose them. Karlich and his men fell upon the smaller greenskins with fury. The Grimblades cut the goblins down ruthlessly, the greenskins’ bloodied-eye banner soon crushed underfoot by the rampant halberdiers. Karlich finished the goblins’ champion himself, severing the creature’s neck and head. It proved too much for the greenskins, who turned and fled into the packed ranks before they’d barely struck a blow in reply. The large mob of orcs behind them, swathed in metal scale and carrying broad wooden shields and spears, were a different foe altogether. They killed their cowardly goblin cousins as they ran into the unmoveable line of their shields. It only set off the orcs’ bloodlust. They whooped and hollered at the prospect of a real fight presented by the overrunning Grimblades.
‘Into them!’ Karlich was hoarse from battle, but made his voice heard above the clash of steel and the grunt of beasts.
Hitting the orcs was like driving at a stone wall; hard and unyielding. They had the greenskins in the flank, robbing them of much of their fighting strength and stopping their chieftain from bringing his axe to bear, but still they fought ferociously. So intent were the greenskins on getting to the bridge that their ranks were utterly rammed, like forcing an apple through the eye of a needle. The smaller beasts were crushed by the bigger ones. Karlich saw trolls, slime-skinned monsters with manes of lank seaweed-like hair and scales like fish, looming head and shoulders above the brawling mobs. Occasionally one would reach down and pluck a greenskin from the mob, biting off its head or swallowing it whole before it was brought to heel again by spears and whips. Patches of animosity broke out amidst the clamouring horde, so in the end it was hard to tell who was fighting who.
Through the carnage, Karlich could see von Rauken and his men fighting like heroes to hold the bridge. He saw too that the greatsworders noticed the allies in their midst and redoubled their efforts. The Carroburgers were not alone, either, and it sent a shiver of fear down Karlich’s spine when he recognised the mercenary rabble of the witch hunter. Whether to hold the bridge or simply to bring death to the enemies of Sigmar, or even for the templar’s promised coin, the sellswords, flagellants and seekers stuck doggedly to the task when everyone but the greatsworders had already fled.
Madmen… thought Karlich, but perhaps the templar would be slain?
He dared to hope, then felt a heavy blow against his shield. Karlich was battered back but stuck out his sword and was rewarded with a porcine squeal of pain. He then righted himself, parrying a cut that would have cleaved his own head, and jabbed again. Steel met flesh and the orc assailing him, seen only in flashes from behind Karlich’s shield, before it crumpled to the ground with its throat slashed open. After that, Karlich forgot about the witch hunter and put his mind wholly on staying alive.
With their brutish kin around them, the orcs were not giving an inch. The Grimblades had killed several and, fighting the beasts to their unprepared flank, had taken few casualties in reply, but the orcs were digging in and more were coming.
Rear rankers, impatient to get into battle, had now seen the flank attack by the Empire soldiers. Horns brayed and hooted and drums pounded out the order to reform and manoeuvre around the flank. Locked in combat, Karlich realised with rising horror that the Grimblades were exposed.
‘Push them back, break through!’ he urged, but it was like telling the wind not to blow or the mountains to part ways – the orcs were implacable.
Glory was not something that had ever concerned Karlich. He was a soldier, content with a soldier’s lot. But throwing away the lives of his men because of a rash decision did not sit well with him. Suddenly, he wished they had stayed on the hill and the bridge be damned.
Blaselocker, you bastard, he thought. You’ve doomed us all with your cowardice.
Eber anchored the end of the line with Brand behind him, then Leffe and Gans in the rear ranks. His halberd was slick with greenskin blood and his muscles burned from the killing. Corpses littered the ground at his feet but for a moment there was respite as the orc back ranks had been despatched and others were still struggling over the dead to fill the gaps. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed another mob approaching. They were the biggest greenskins he had ever seen, as broad as oak trees with skin twice as thick as bark but just as gnarled. Huge black metal plates covered their bodies, dripping with swathes of chainmail. Horned helmets rose up in exultation to their heinous gods, a challenge and an invocation in one. Gauntleted fists, as large as a horse’s head and studded with spikes, wrapped around thick-hafted glaives that glinted dully in the half-light. Graven totems, tiny skulls and rings of brass and copper, jangled against the metal like cruel laughter.
‘Monsters…’ Eber breathed, and for the first time in his life found something that frightened him more than his father. ‘Brand!’ he cried.
‘I see them,’ said Brand, levelling his halberd at the onrushing greenskins. They were like charging bulls, and lowered their horned helms as they closed.
‘Do you believe in the power of Sigmar, Brand?’ asked Eber. The other two Grimblades, Leffe and Gans, had swung around too but kept quiet.
The bull-like orcs were just twenty feet away.
‘I believe a man must save himself if he wants to live. Sigmar protects the strong.’
Eber muttered, ‘I wish Masbrecht were here beside me…’
The Empire men roared, prepared to meet their enemy defiantly, when a blinding flash lit up the gloom. Thunder, loud and percussive as cannon fire, erupted a split-second afterwards. Eber blinked back the after flare of lightning, the reek of ozone heavy in his nostrils, and saw a row of charred corpses where the monstrous orcs had been.
Brand noticed the hairs on his hands were standing up. His teeth ached.
‘Maybe I was wro–’
Another flash… this time they saw it come from the heavens, splitting the darkness like sun pierces cloud. Brand managed to keep his eyes open long enough to see the orcs struck, to see the lightning arc race through all that metal, burning and shocking as it went.
The storm came again, several bolts coursing from above like spears of righteous anger. They weaved and raked, splitting and coruscating through the greenskin mobs like hot, angry fingers. Wherever they touched, death followed. The stink of smouldering orc flesh was soon heavy on the breeze.
Eber was laughing, loud and booming in concert with the thunder.
Brand laughed too. It was a wicked sound, full of malice and sadistic joy.
‘Burn you bastards, burn!’
Some of the greenskins were running. Karlich felt the rout before he saw it, a sudden shifting of weight to their embattled front. He’d lost sight of the flank by then, so buried was he in blood and bodies. Something lit up the battle, too stark and short-lived to be sunlight.
Did I just hear laughter?
The tide had swung again and he didn’t need to see the banner of Altdorf snapping on the breeze to know the self-same saviour had delivered them again.
Thunder came from the east. It wracked the heavens above and shook the earth below. Hooves pounded the dirt, clarions announced a glorious charge. A sudden rush of movement came upon the greenskins as if an unseen wind was propelling them west, away from the storm of steeds and lances. They panicked as one, some flailing into the Aver to be drowned in its unforgiving depths. Others were crushed in the relentless press from the Brigund Bridge now that Blaselocker, with victory in sight, had re-committed the troops. Despite the fact they’d been fighting longer than any other regiment, the Carroburg Few led the rampant pursuers.
For his part, Karlich ordered his Grimblades to hold. The bridge was won and they would keep it that way. He contented himself with watching the enemy flee, safe in the knowledge that no more of his men would die, for the moment at least. A blur of silver, gold and red sped past them, so lon
g that he had time to strike up his pipe and stand in awe of it.
Karlich could only glance at Wilhelm riding at the head of the Griffonkorps, the horses were moving too swiftly for a longer look. The gold-armoured Order of the Fiery Comet drove alongside them, their flanged maces spitting arcs of greenskin blood when they rose and fell. The prince was majestic, his runefang like a streak of captured fire in his hand. On his left, Preceptor Kogswald, his own blade etched in enchanted sigils; on his right, the wizard Karlich had seen in the command tent, no longer wearing a dowdy cloak and cowl. Stars and comets decorated his robes of deep, cerulean blue. Silver edged the cuffs and trims. Constellations stitched into the fabric appeared to shimmer and shift. Lightning bolts and other heavenly symbols hung from chains on his belt and around his neck. Even the skullcap the wizard wore carried the image of celestial phenomena.
Hope sparked within the sergeant, kindled by the lightning that had raged from above and so decimated the greenskins. Perhaps victory at Averheim was possible after all.
‘Quite a sight, isn’t it?’ Von Rauken’s voice brought Karlich around.
The greatsworder champion was walking towards him with some of his men. The lacquered black plate of his cuirass was dented and smeared with blood. He’d removed his helmet, revealing a few strands of hair covering an otherwise bald head.
‘Comes from living in Carroburg,’ he said. Von Rauken grinned, showing a missing tooth. Evidently, the greatsworders had hung back after all and had merely moved aside to allow the fresher regiments to pass.
‘Aye, I hear you’re a serious people. A little levity and you might have some hair to warm that pate of yours.’
Von Rauken smiled and held out a gauntleted hand. It looked massive and the leather palm was well worn from sword wielding.
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