by C. L. Werner
'Yes, very unfortunate, yes.' said the count. He turned his watery eyes towards von Kessel. 'And so you disobeyed my order. Explain yourself.' All eyes in the tent turned towards von Kessel.
'I took the best course of action under the circumstances.' said the bristling captain.
'Your orders were to hold Deep Pass,' rasped Gruber, 'and to ensure that none of the enemy advanced towards the undermanned city of Ferlangen, or towards the foothills of the Middle Mountains.'
'And no enemy has done so. I routed them at their camp, and slew their war leader personally.'
'Yet you did not hold your post, as ordered.'
'My men would have been slaughtered. We were outnumbered five to one. I had not enough troops with me to hold the pass. We would have been surrounded and butchered. Once I realised that the reinforcements were not coming, I had to improvise, or be lost. I took the fight to the enemy, hitting them before dawn.'
The ageing elector count seemed suddenly distracted. He inclined his head to one side to watch a trio of flies buzzing lazily around the tent above his head. Bubbling spittle welled in the slack corner of his mouth, and his lazy left eye rolled inwards. The young man with the cloth stepped forwards, dipping his head respectfully, and dabbed at the counts mouth. Stefan's revulsion and pity were displayed clearly on his face.
'I did not raise you to improvise.' Gruber said suddenly. 'I raised you to be a loyal subject of Ostermark, despite your treacherous heritage.'
'Ferlangen and Deep Pass are secure.' snarled von Kessel. 'My loyalty is beyond question.'
'So you say, and so you return in triumph, having slain the war leader yourself. The hero once more, eh Stefan? Do you see yourself as the brave, triumphant hero?'
'I am no hero, my lord, and I have not returned in triumph. I have returned to find out why those despatches for reinforcements were never sent!' 'The despatcheswere sent, were they not, Andros?' The advisor nodded his head. 'That is true, my lord. The despatches were sent.'
'There.' stated Gruber. 'You are mistaken. The order was sent. Be careful what you say, von Kessel.' said the elector count dangerously. 'Your future could be bright, and I have protected you as much as I can thus far. You have displayed your skills at war, time and time again, but at times like these, you remind me of your grandfather. Watch yourself. Do not insult me or my grandnephew, or cast doubt upon my word. My word is law, and yours is just the word of a decorated and competent captain, the grandson of a treacherous, daemon-worshipping cur.'
Not a breath stirred in the tent as Gruber's court waited to see the young captain's reaction. His face was grim, and he stared at Gruber.
Apparently unaware of the stare he was receiving, Gruber pulled something from a pocket within his jacket, and began to stroke it. Stefan saw that it was a toad, long-dead and stiff. Gruber stroked its lumpy back tenderly, and began to giggle to himself, a high-pitched, girlish sound. 'Isn't that right, Boris? His grandfather was a daemon-worshipping, treacherous cur.' Several of the courtiers shifted their weight, exchanging glances. One of them stepped forwards and bent to whisper in the elector's ear.
'What? I'm fine, get away with you,' said Gruber, waving a pudgy hand at the attendant. He looked back at Stefan. 'Do you know where my physician is?'
The captain looked at the count's advisors, but they were refusing to meet his gaze. 'No, my lord, I do not know where Heinrich is. He has been missing for some weeks, has he not?' asked von Kessel, warily.
'Ah yes, he has, hasn't he. Never mind. The old fool is probably lost somewhere.' The sick man coughed. 'I could have had you strangled at birth, you know, for your grandfather's crimes. They wanted it so. People were afraid that you would turn into a traitor too, that you would have infernal dealings. You do not, do you?'
'No, my lord. I pray to our Lord Sigmar every dawn for his protection.'
'Good, good, that is good, but prayer is not always enough. Always remember that it was I who saved you, Stefan.' Gruber paused to cough before continuing. 'If only I had been able to save your dear grandfather. He was a good man, a dear friend, and a proud and noble elector count. The people of Ostermark loved him, and I loved him too.' said Gruber wistfully, smiling weakly. Then his smile faded.
'It only goes to show that the taint of Chaos is seductive, dangerous. The taint must have been in him from birth, but it was hidden well. Always be wary of it, Stefan, for it may also be in you.'
'I will, my lord.' said Stefan, uneasily. He said nothing for a moment, the silence feeling awkward and tense to him. 'By your grace, I shall take my leave.'
Stefan, his scarred face dark, turned on his heel and left the tent. He cursed himself inwardly - he had not left with any of his suspicions confirmed. Johann's acid gaze followed him as he walked out.
CHAPTER THREE
'The ladder, Mathias! Pull up the ladder!' Hensel shouted, loading the heavy crossbow with shaking hands. The enemy was streaming from the trees, their war cries filling the night. Fur-clad warriors raced down the hill through the coiling fog that swirled around their legs. The giant red-armoured warrior of Hensel's nightmares led the charge, roaring as he ran, his massive axe held in two hands over his head.
Raising the crossbow, Hensel aimed it hurriedly at the blood-red figure. The bolt hissed towards the warrior, flying towards his chest. Impossibly, the warrior swatted it aside with a sweep of his axe. Hensel's eyes widened and he swore, scrabbling for another bolt. 'The ladder, damn it!'
Mathias tore his terrified gaze away from the approaching marauders, and scrambled towards the ladder. An axe, spinning end-over-end through the air, slammed into his back. The force of the blow knocked the young man out of the back of the watch post, and he fell to the muddy ground below, dead.
Hensel swore again, and dropped his weapon, scrambling back to pull up the ladder himself. As he gripped it, a gauntleted fist smashed into his face, and he was knocked backwards, blood spurting from his nose. A sneering warrior appeared at the top of the ladder, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl.
Drawing his short sword, Hensel lunged forwards, plunging the steel blade deep into the marauder's throat. Blood bubbled up the blade of the sword, but the warrior did not fall. His eyes gleaming hatefully, the marauder reached out and gripped Hensel around the throat. The strength of the man was astounding, and Hensel struggled frantically against the crushing power. Straining, he twisted his sword, and a great gush of blood spurted from the fatal wound. Still the warrior did not release his death-like grip, and Hensel's vision began to blur. His life slipping rapidly from his body, the fatally wounded Chaos tribesman fell backwards off the ladder, pulling Hensel after him. They fell fifteen feet, striking the ground with bone-shattering force.
All the breath was knocked from Hensel's body, and he struggled to dislodge the grip around his throat. The warrior beneath him was dead, the fall driving the sword deeper into his neck, almost severing his head from his shoulders, but the warrior's death-grip was still strangling him. Managing to pry the fingers loose one by one, Hensel gasped for breath, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. Pulling his sword from the dead warrior's neck, he rose unsteadily to his feet.
A massive axe smashed into his chest, shattering ribs and embedding itself deep in his body. Blood rose up into his throat, and he dropped to his knees, staring into the eyes of his killer. The massive red-clad warrior stood before him, the pitiless orbs of his eyes rippling with inner fire. He bared his pointed teeth, and his face twisted with savage joy as blood gushed over him. He wrenched the axe clear of Hensel's chest, and the Empire soldier crumpled to the ground.
The warrior raised his axe to the heavens, and roared in his ungodly tongue. The words were incomprehensible to the dying Hensel, lying broken in the mud. Lightning lit up the night in a series of bright flashes. As darkness consumed Hensel, it seemed to him that the flashes were the Dark Gods expressing their pleasure at their minions' work.
'Blood for the Blood God!' Hroth roared to the heavens, raising his bloodied axe
high in the air for the gods to witness his tribute.
His heart was pumping with excitement, and he relished the surge of energy and power that suffused him now that battle was joined. Hroth knew that the great god Khorne, Lord of Battles and Collector of Skulls, was gazing down upon him, and he could feel that the god was pleased. The veins in Hroth's bulging arms strained with power as the rage grew within him.
Turning his fiery gaze upon the doomed Empire town, Hroth saw people running from their homes, their faces full of terror and their wails reaching up to the sky. The gods would enjoy that sound. With a roar, he broke into a run, heading straight down into the town. Dozens of his warriors ran a step behind him.
They were all of the Khazag tribe, hailing from the far northeast, months' upon months' ride away, and all had sworn oaths of blood to him as their chieftain. The massive, bald figure of Barok loped along, to his left, holding Hroth's banner high, and to his right ran Olaf the Berserker, a pair of swords grasped in his meaty fists.
Surging down the hill through the clinging mud, Hroth saw that enemy warriors were moving through the chaos, roughly pushing the frantic commoners out of their way. As they saw Hroth and his warriors storming down the hill towards them, they halted. The front rankers dropped to their knees, raising handguns to their shoulders. Those behind wielded halberds, lowering them as one to create a rippling wall of spiked steel. Other soldiers joined them so that they blocked off the entire street.
Hroth growled in pleasure at seeing enemies that would stand and fight, and picked up his pace. His warriors ran at his side, screaming and shouting. Shots rang out, and Hroth felt a burning lead ball scrape his left cheek, drawing blood. Several Khazags fell under the first volley, but he did not care.
Racing closer, he saw the puny enemy warriors frantically trying to reload their cowardly weapons. Several of them raised their guns once more and fired point-blank into the Chaos warriors, and then Hroth was on them.
With a sweep of his axe, he smashed aside three halberds aimed at him, the blow knocking the weapons from numbed hands. Reversing his strike, he cleaved his axe into the neck of one soldier, decapitating him cleanly. The axe blade carried on into the head of another, crumpling the steel helmet he wore in a spray of blood and bone.
Backhanding his fist into the face of another, feeling the skull crush beneath the blow, Hroth began to laugh. He waded into the midst of the enemy's formation, swinging his axe before him. With each blow another enemy died. In these close quarters, the enemy's halberds were useless, and they reached for short swords and daggers. Each blade that flashed towards Hroth was met with brutal force - arms were hacked from bodies, chests caved in and heads smashed to bloody ruins. Those weapons that did reach him shattered against his flesh, or were turned aside by his armour. Olaf the Berserker had dropped or lost his weapons, and ripped a man's throat out with his bare hands. The other Khazags laid about them with abandon, their brutal axes and swords carving through the Empire men with ease. Blood splattered all over Hroth, and he felt the hot metallic taste on his lips. He rejoiced at the slaughter, hacking left and right.
With a roar, he raised his axe above his head in both hands and brought it smashing down onto the shoulder of an enemy soldier, the blow carving its way through breastplate and bone, cutting him almost in two. Kicking the body away, Hroth swung around in search of a new enemy, but could find none. He stood, drenched in gore, breathing heavily. The ground was littered with severed limbs and broken Empire soldiers, and the air was heavy with the stink of death. Several dozen soldiers had been slaughtered for the loss of three of his own. He resisted the urge to swing his axe into a Khazag standing nearby.
Hroth stepped over the slain towards the fallen bodies of his tribesmen. One of them was still alive. Hroth knelt before him, seeing the growing red stain at his belly.
'Your blood will feed great Khorne this night, warrior of the Khazags,' said Hroth. The warrior, his face pale and drawn, nodded fearlessly, refusing to utter any sound of pain, for to do so would show weakness in front of his chieftain and the gods. Hroth stood and swung his axe down, hacking the warriors head from his shoulders. Picking the head up by the hair, he tossed it to a large, bearded warrior wearing a helmet made from a wolf skull.
'Your brother was a brave warrior, Thorgar,' growled Hroth. 'His skull will bring you power.' The bearded warrior raised the bloody severed head of his brother in both hands, touching it to his forehead.
More handgun shots rang out through the night, and Olaf turned towards the sounds snarling, foam dripping from his lips. Without a word, Hroth and his warband broke into a loping run, heading deeper into the town, towards the sound.
CHAPTER FOUR
'So, did you let the fat old man have it? The reinforcements were never sent, were they?' asked Albrecht. The grizzled sergeant was standing just under an awning, sheltering from the drizzling rain. He was smoking a pipe, blue-grey smoke wafting out into the cold evening air.
Stefan, stomping towards the tent in the rain, frowned at his sergeant. 'You'll get yourself hanged speaking of the count like that.'
'Pah, none of the boys round hear would speak out against me. Would you lads?' snarled Albrecht, turning towards the group of Ostermark soldiers playing dice behind him. They muttered under their breaths. 'Course they wouldn't. They know I'd make their lives much more painful if they did. Besides, it was their arses out there on the line with no reinforcements coming as well as yours and mine.'
'Aye, it was. I don't know if the reinforcements were sent or not. The old count's mind is going. Maybe they were sent, but he recalled them. Who knows? But there isn't a damn thing anybody can do about it.'
'His mind's been going for years. He's too old by far. I reckon it's the wasting sickness what's done it - been fighting that since childhood. Weak bloodline. That's what you get when you have nobles marrying nobles for generations. That family's a bit too closely related, if you know what I mean.'
'We lost too many good men out there, needlessly, but what can be done? Call him a liar? Call him an inbred old fool whose mind is going? I'd be strung up before the words left my lips! You know as well as I that his damn courtiers would love to see me swing.'
'Well, it seemed like a bloody suicide mission to me.'
'Why would the old man want me dead after all these years? He could have got rid of me whenever he wanted. I owe him my life, Albrecht.'
'Maybe. He certainly doesn't pass up an opportunity to remind you of it.'
'Well, if the order was recalled, or never sent, it could have been someone else. That Tilean whoreson Andros for one. As trustworthy as a snake, that one.'
'Or Johann. Was that skinny runt there?'
'Aye he was, spoiling for a fight. More than usual,' Stefan said.
'He may be a decent duellist, but that wouldn't count for nought on a real battlefield,' stated Albrecht. 'It wouldn't have helped him in the mountain pass, neither, if he had been there. He would have been one of the dead being picked over by the crows as we speak, Morr save them. Would have done Ostermark a blessing, too.'
'Aye, you are probably right, but he is the count's flesh and blood, and we are but soldiers.' said Stefan, shrugging. 'I am dead tired. I'm heading to bed.'
'Rest well, captain.' said Albrecht, patting the younger man on the shoulder. He watched his captain stalk off, and blew a smoke ring into the air.
'That right, sergeant? You really think we were sent out there to die?' asked a young soldier, looking up from his game.
'Don't rightly know, lad. It's politics. Still, the captain's a canny devil. He'd be a hard man to catch off guard, and not a man I'd like as an enemy.' replied Albrecht, thoughtfully, 'although, it's definitely possible, the count being without child and all. The captain's a rival to any who would claim the throne when Morr takes the count.'
'A rival? How's that, sergeant?'
'His grandfather was the elector. Therefore, if there was no clear heir, he could make a claim. Not that he
ever would.'
'Truly? I thought that was just a story! So those scars on his face - they were put there to mark his grandfather's shame?'
'Aye, burnt into him as a babe. Heartless fiend, a man who could hold a white-hot iron to the face of a newborn.'
'Don't that mean that the captain's cursed, sergeant?' asked the young soldier. 'That he's got the taint?' The soldiers he was playing with froze, halting their game. Albrecht turned to stare at him, his eyes narrowing.
'The captain's a better man than any here. There ain't no taint in him, and I'll personally cut the throat of any man who suggests there is.' snarled the sergeant. 'You're new with our regiment, ain't you?' The young soldier nodded, eyes wide.
'The captain has saved the life of every man here with his actions. Most more than once. Not a one of them has any doubt of him. You'd best learn to respect your betters quick smart, soldier, or else you will find life very difficult here. Very difficult indeed.'
Albrecht puffed angrily on his pipe, staring out at the night. 'Sorry sir. I didn't mean nothing by it.' said the young soldier, avoiding the glares he was getting from around the dice table. Albrecht grunted.
What he had said was true. Stefan, through his actions and strategic decisions on the field of battle had saved his men from certain death time and time again. Certainly, last night in Deep Pass they would all have been massacred if not for the bold strike that the captain had ordered.
Albrecht remembered back to the first time he had met the captain. He had been dubious of the man at first. Stefan von Kessel had been young then, and no captain. No, he had been a frightened young man in Albrecht's regiment, and his horribly scarred face made him stick out amongst the other fresh-faced recruits. He was quiet and reserved, and far too sensitive for the life of a soldier. Albrecht had ruthlessly hounded him, trying to find if there was hardness at his core. Either he would quit, or he would find the strength within him to become a successful soldier.