[Empire Army 04] - Grimblades

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  The goblin wolf riders broke first. The sight of such enemy numbers bearing down on them from the west—the serried ranks of pikes, halberds and swords all eager for blood—was enough to put them to flight. The militia regiments protecting the wagons cheered and jeered at the fleeing greenskins but knew, deep down, how close they had come to being food for the worms.

  Prince Wilhelm was at the tip of a gleaming lance head, driving his knights forward from the back of a barded steed. Captain Ledner was at his right hand, Preceptor Kogswald at his left. With their banner unfurled and a blazing clarion call bursting from a silver bugle, the Griffonkorps rode onto the bloodied field like avenging warrior angels laying waste to the foul and the wicked.

  Trapped between the doughty spearmen of Bogenhafen and the irresistible charge of Wilhelm and his knights, the orc boar riders were split apart like rotten kindling and scattered to the wind. Only the chieftain and his loyal bodyguard cadre stayed, recognising the prospect of a good fight and unafraid of death.

  Griffonkorps lances skewered the first, splintering shields, piercing armour and flesh. Orcs were flung from their mounts as if punched by a cannon ball and those boars not kicked to death by the knights’ armoured horses, were stabbed with longswords.

  Even after penetrating the first greenskin line, the impetus of Wilhelm’s charge was not spent. It rolled on, gathering momentum like a tidal wave. As its apex, the Prince of Reikland met the orc chieftain in single combat. Storm clouds were billowing across the heavens, as if the elements heralded the battle about to unfold, and dry lightning raked the sky in jagged forks.

  “In the name of the Empire and Reikland!” shouted Wilhelm, his gleaming runefang held aloft as the thunder answered.

  He struck just as the lightning cracked, a close heat drenching the field in a feverish sweat. Haze flickered in the distance and the air thickened. The ancient rune-fang descended like a comet and cut the chieftain down. Axe hafts splintered, armour parted, flesh and bone were cleaved—nothing could stop it. The chieftain died, split in two, both halves of his body spilling gore and viscera onto the earth.

  It proved the end for the greenskins. Fear ran through them. In that moment, the heat broke and the clouds, as if they had been holding their breath, let go and the rains came. Wilhelm rode into Blosstadt like a warrior-king of old. Orc blood ran down off his armour, washed away and purified by the rain.

  “Victory to the Empire!” he cried, as the fires around him died and the last death throes of the battle with the greenskins played out. “For the Reiki.”

  “For Prince Wilhelm!” the men of the Empire replied, and Wilhelm knew then that his people loved him.

  Perhaps they could win this war and send the Paunch back over the mountains to the east.

  Little could Wilhelm have known the futility of that dream and the dark days that lay ahead.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GOOD COUNSEL

  Prince Wilhelm’s encampment, Averland,

  324 miles from Altdorf

  It was claustrophobic in the war tent, and the air was thick with pipe smoke. Sergeant Karlich didn’t mind the latter, but he found the presence of the great and good a little hard to bear. He was not a politic man; he was a soldier, plain and simple. He knew how to fight, how to command men and get the best from them. He understood tactics and he feared death—any man that didn’t was not to be trusted—but here, in this war tent, before his lords and masters, he felt profoundly out of his depth.

  “You are all known to me, so I’ll speak plainly,” Wilhelm began. The Prince of Reikland was still wearing his golden breastplate but had removed his greaves and tassets. The vambraces on his wrists carried the symbol of a rampant griffon. His blond hair, slightly damp and unkempt from wearing his helmet, shone like fresh straw in the lamplight, and his blue eyes flashed like sapphires. Noble blood was obvious in his features and bearing.

  “No aid comes from Altdorf.” The prince’s conclusion landed like a hammer blow.

  Preceptor Kogswald bore this statement with knightly stoicism and gave nothing away, but the others present, Captains Vogen of Kemperbad and Hornstchaft of Auerswald, Engineer Meinstadt and Father Untervash of the Holy Order of Sigmar, balked at this news. All had thought Altdorf would respond to the threat, that its vast armies would march in support of the prince. If Altdorf had closed its gates, then Nuln had too and that meant the Emperor was content to hole up behind the walls of Prince Wilhelm’s former domain.

  “What of the other states? What of Talabecland and Stirland? Does Wissenland answer the call to arms? Its borders are under threat too,” asked Vogen, a portly man with thick plate armour, and a feathered helmet sat in the crook on his arm. He sported a dark brown beard to hide his jowls and double chin.

  “None are coming. Middenland, too, has sent what troops it is willing to commit,” said Wilhelm before his expression darkened. “We are alone in this.”

  “Ha!” scoffed Hornstchaft. “So Middenland waits for the storm to vent its wrath against our bulwarks, only to then see it dashed upon its own when it rolls over the eastern Empire and the Reik. I’m surprised the northerners sent men at all.”

  Where Vogen was all bulk and flab, Hornstchaft was hawkish and slim. Slightly taller than his counterpart, he held himself straight like a rod, and wore light chain armour. A small breastplate, emblazoned with a laurel and skull, finished the ensemble. He preferred a wide-brimmed hat over a helm. His had three griffon feathers sticking out of it.

  “If our brothers do not come, then why are we marching out to Averheim? Why aren’t we looking to our own borders? Tell me that,” said Meinstadt. The engineer was a fastidious man, his buttons and buckles polished and pristine. His face was pale and narrow from too much time spent in his workshops, and his hands bore powder stains like faded lesions. He wore a monocle with what appeared to be a targeting reticule placed over it in thin strips of brass. Leather, part smock, part armour, covered his upper body and carried an icon of the College of Engineers, a sideways image of a cannon. Evidently, Meinstadt was a gunnery captain. Karlich had seen no artillery in the camp, though.

  “By marching to Averheim, we are defending our borders,” countered Wilhelm. The frustration of the prince was obvious, but he had encouraged his officers to speak plainly. He reminded himself of the fact that he already knew this news and that he had asked the very same questions himself during the long ride from Altdorf.

  Another figure stepped forward from the shadows. This man, Karlich knew, was Adolphus Ledner. He held the nominal rank of captain, but most who knew him were aware of other services he provided for the prince and the Empire. Ledner was a scary bastard. Thin-faced like a blade, with hooded eyes that could pierce a man’s soul and an aura of inscrutable intensity that made his mood impossible to gauge. Whenever Karlich had seen him, Ledner had always been wearing a red scarf around his neck. Some in the army suggested it was to cover a neck wound from where one of his many enemies had tried to slit his throat. Karlich could believe that. Exploitation, assassination and intimidation were Ledner’s forte. He was as secretive as a witch hunter, and twice as resourceful. He traded in information, lies and half-truths and Wilhelm, for the good of the Reik, was content to turn a blind eye to most of it.

  “Uncontested, it will not be long before the orcs drive westward,” he said. Ledner’s voice reminded Karlich of a snake. It was harsh and rasping, but when he spoke all in the tent listened. “And as they rampage, burning villages and murdering as they go, other tribes will gather to their banner.” He leaned forward on the table in the middle of the tent that was covered in maps and hastily written reports, and shadows pooled in his face from the lamps, making him appear ghoulish. “This ‘Grom the Paunch’ is like no other greenskin we have fought in recent times. It has an army large enough to sack Altdorf and if we do not meet it now and stop it, then that is exactly what it will do. Irrespective of whether the Emperor can see the danger or not, we must preserve our greatest cities. Nuln too
, is under threat and we cannot allow the capital to fall without a fight. This goblin king must not cross the Averland border. It must not reach the Reikmark.”

  Meinstadt’s jaw clamped shut like a trap. Ledner, and therefore Prince Wilhelm, had spoken—it would not be wise to contest further.

  Karlich cleared his throat, breaking the sudden silence. “So what must we do?”

  All eyes turned to him, and he felt suddenly very small and insignificant.

  Wilhelm’s was the first face to soften. “I am glad there are some soldiers in our midst,” said the prince. “How is your captain, Sergeant Karlich?”

  Taken aback that Wilhelm even knew his name, Karlich faltered before replying.

  “Fighting for his life in the chirurgeon’s tent, your majesty,” he said at last, unsure if he should bow and instead producing a sort of half nod.

  Stahler had been dragged off the battlefield by what was left of the Bogenhafen spearmen. His bravura had saved many of their lives, but left the captain badly wounded. Most of the blood that soaked his clothes had been his.

  “Then we should all pray to Sigmar that he recovers to fight again.” Wilhelm half glanced at Father Untervash as he said it. The bald-headed warrior priest, who was even thicker set than Eber, gave a barely perceptible nod and touched the hammer icon hanging by a chain over his breast.

  “Sigmar does not abandon his fighting sons,” he intoned, his voice full of sepulchral import. “Your captain will take up his blade again. It is the will of the Hammer.”

  Somewhere in the shadows, Karlich thought he heard someone cough, though he couldn’t see who made the sound and realised there was another present whom he had yet to meet.

  Wilhelm made the sign of the hammer before addressing the room. “Averheim is under siege and we go to lift it if we can.” He gestured to some of the reports written by his scribes from the findings of the army’s scouts. “Greenskins push north, south and west. Stirland’s borders are breached in a dozen or more places, entire tribes move on Wissenland despite its watchtowers and walls. None are untouched. But Averland is overrun and needs the aid of its brother states. We march on to the state capital and will meet with whatever provincial forces remain outside the city.”

  At this remark, Preceptor Kogswald stepped forward.

  “A local baron has marshalled a small army and moves westward,” said the knight commander, his tone as hard and haughty as his bearing. “There are other temple knights with him and a small portion of state troops. We will intercept them, gather what information we can of Averheim’s plight and march to the capital.” He brushed aside a clutch of scattered reports to get to the provincial map underneath. Kogswald’s gauntleted finger pressed down on a dark blue band running along Averland’s north-east border. “The river Aver,” he said. “We are currently on its north-east side. If we are to enter Averheim, we must find a large enough crossing to get us to the south-east side. That is our first obstacle, for the greenskins will be guarding the bridges, most likely destroying all but the few they require to move up from Averland and into Stirland.”

  “Do we know how our military assets compare to that of the orcs?” asked Vogen, striking up his pipe.

  “We are fewer by at least ten to one,” Ledner answered flatly, causing Vogen to almost choke.

  “Breath of Myrmidia…” uttered Hornschaft. He failed to notice the raised eyebrow from Father Untervash at the invoking of a lesser deity’s name. “How can we prevail against that?”

  “With faith in Sigmar, captain,” said Untervash.

  Hornschaft turned on the man. “We will need more than that, priest. I hear the Paunch’s forces are not merely restricted to greenskins,” he added. “That there are trolls and other beasts amongst the horde. I even hear tell of a shaman, one that rides a flying lizard!”

  “A wyvern,” said a deep voice. It rumbled low and steady like an undercurrent of thunder. Karlich looked again to the shadows from where the voice had come and saw a cerulean flash light up the darkness, which came from a man’s eyes. He was hooded and wore dark robes, but Karlich sensed they merely hid some grander attire underneath. Though the mysterious man was illuminated only briefly, Karlich saw he carried a jagged silver staff with a comet symbol at its tip. He had a forked beard that jutted impossibly from his chin, and there was the suggestion of a skullcap beneath his voluminous cowl. When he spoke again, Karlich felt a charge in the air and was put in mind of tempestuous storms and raging winds.

  “The goblin’s pet sorcerer rides a wyvern,” he confirmed. “Do not fear it, though…” he added, opening his palm flat. Within, a tiny ball of lightning coruscated and forked, “we are not without magic of our own.”

  Karlich swallowed audibly. Truly, he was rubbing shoulders with gods and giants. When the council of war was finally over, he couldn’t wait to get back to his men.

  Eber shovelled the last of the earth onto the grave and wiped his brow with the back of his forearm. His back was sore from all the digging, but he had insisted on doing it alone. Varveiter’s final rest was upon a grassy hill, radiated by shafts of sunlight. Eber had made it deep and buried the old soldier face down. He’d wept as he’d dug, the other Grimblades who knew Varveiter best looking on silently.

  Rechts had left before Masbrecht could utter a benediction, walking away from the site with a bottle in hand and a scowl on his face. Keller had followed soon after, a dark mood over him that veiled his ordinary good humour. The other mourners thought it was grief. Only Brand, as still and lifeless as stone, knew it was actually guilt. When it was done and the others had started to walk away, Brand remained. None questioned it, or intervened in any way. They knew better.

  Lenkmann did look back though and saw the man kneel and mouth a silent vow to the dead. Before he turned away, he watched Brand pull out his knife and cut his palm. He didn’t know the ritual. To him it looked barbaric, but each of them would have to deal with Siegen Varveiter’s death in a different way.

  The old soldier was not alone, of course. Others joined him in death. A way outside Blosstadt tiny mounds littered the grassy knolls and plains. They were marked by blade hilts, broken helms or shields. Father Untervash blessed every single one to ward away necromantic interference. The village itself was no more. Greenskin spore blighted it. Fire had ravaged many of its buildings and destroyed large sections of the gate and stockade wall. Blood soaked its lanes and violence tainted its memory and spirit. Its people were dead. All of them. Wilhelm had ordered it burned down and razed from existence. Nothing good could come of its lingering ruins. Dark creatures, carrion and bandits would be drawn to its rotting shell as parasites are to a corpse. There were enough shadowed places in the Empire already without adding to them.

  * * *

  “Looks like the war council is over,” said Masbrecht, nodding towards the distant figures emerging from Wilhelm’s tent. The encampment had been erected hastily, a few miles from Blosstadt and upwind so the smell of burning flesh from the pyres didn’t infect it. The village was just an orange smudge on the horizon that no one cared to look at for the dark memories it held.

  “So, does this mean Karlich will be leading the footsloggers in Captain Stahler’s absence?” asked Volker. He’d knelt down to pet the mastiff, his newfound companion that he had named “Dog”. The creature licked his face eagerly.

  Lenkmann opened his mouth to answer when another spoke in his stead.

  “The beast likely has pox or worms.” It was Torveld, passing by the Grimblades’ pitch with two other Middenlanders. “You’d do well not to let it lap at you, southerner. Better still, let me slit its throat so it can’t spread disease.”

  Volker stood and drew his dirk. “Try it,” he warned. Dog knew its enemies, and growled.

  Torveld had stopped to level his threat and laughed out loud at the Reiklander. “Still have the stomach to fight, eh?”

  Eber stepped forward, balling his fists.

  “Move on,” he said in a low voice. Var
veiter was dead. His comrades in arms were dead. But they had fought and lived. That meant something. He would be cowed by bullies no longer. His strength was not just in his arm, it was in his heart too. Varveiter had taught him that. To do anything less than stand up would besmirch his memory. Eber took another step forward but kept his weapons sheathed. For the honour of his regiment and the memory of the dead, he would crush the Middenlander’s skull with his bare hands if he had to.

  “Hold your bear back, southerner,” Torveld warned Volker, all the sarcasm and cruel mirth disappearing from his face.

  “Please, we are all allies here,” said Lenkmann, hands raised plaintively. “We fought alongside one another. There is no need for this. We are all at war together, on the same side.”

  Torveld snarled. “It is not our war, though, is it Reiklander?”

  Lenkmann was slightly dumbfounded. “It will come to us all if we do not act now and together. We are all sons of Sig—”

  “We are not,” Torveld cut him off. “We are winter wolves and our borders are far from here to the north. Don’t forget that.” The Middenlander looked like he wanted more, that he wanted to vent his wrath against the southerners. His fists clenched. There were only a few feet between the two groups and now more swordsmen had joined Torveld and his companions.

  “Bury your dead,” came Brand’s voice from Torveld’s left. The swordsmen turned to see him walking slowly towards them. “Before they start to rot,” the Reiklander added.