Schwarzhelm raised an eyebrow.
“You think I’d be swayed by a woman?”
“Many men have. She’s poison.”
Verstohlen noted the man’s vehemence. That hatred was not feigned. Schwarzhelm remained unmoved.
“Your warning has been noted. Was there anything else you wished to tell me? From dawn tomorrow the court of succession will be convened. Thereafter, we’ll have no chance to confer in private.”
Grosslich looked at Ferenc, but the Alptraum heir said nothing. The smaller man looked crestfallen.
“Only this,” said Grosslich, turning back to Schwarzhelm. “All looks well in Averland. The harvest has been good and gold is plentiful. The war is not much more than a rumour to us. Do not be fooled. There is a sickness here. No one knows where all the gold comes from. The law is laughed at and honest men suffer. I know your reputation, Lord Schwarzhelm. Perhaps you can bring an end to this. But beware. There are traps here for the unwary.”
Schwarzhelm maintained his implacable expression. Perhaps only Verstohlen saw it. The faintest flicker of uncertainty, swiftly extinguished.
He’d never seen that before, not from Schwarzhelm.
“Fear not,” the Emperor’s Champion said, pulling his steed’s head around and kicking it into a walk. “I do not waver, and the Emperor’s will shall be done. But there’s been enough talking. My limbs need stretching. We came here to hunt. Are you with me, counsellor?”
Verstohlen nudged his horse to follow Schwarzhelm, as did the rest of the party.
“Yes, my lord,” he said, though there was little enthusiasm in it. Chasing after boars in the deep forest was not his idea of a well-spent morning. And the longer he spent in Averland, the more he began to suspect that something darker was at work beneath the sunlit facade. Only time would tell.
Chapter Seven
“Form up!” roared Bloch.
On either side of him his men shifted into position. Just like the detachments strung out along the rest of the ridge, Bloch’s men had arranged themselves in the time-honoured Imperial defence formation. A rectangle of men, each of them armed with a halberd, four ranks deep. Bloch and the most experienced troops stood in the centre of the front rank. The rest of the soldiers clustered close by, shoulders grazing one another as they shuffled into their stations.
Bloch could smell their anticipation. After days out in the wild, they were filthy-looking. Their faces were streaked with dirt and sweat. Though night had fallen, the heat still rose from the earth in waves. Averland was like a furnace and the darkness brought little respite. He could feel the slickness of his palms against the rough wood of his halberd shaft. His heart was thumping. Not long now.
“Blades up!” he bellowed. “Hold your positions!”
All along the Imperial lines, steel flashed as halberds were hoisted. Bloch stole a look along the ridge. The moon was full and high, and the land around was bathed in silver. Not a cloud in the sky.
Grunwald had driven the army hard to reach the ridge. As they’d marched towards it, the truth had become slowly apparent. The orcs had been engaged in a sophisticated exercise, drawing them further and further east while never letting themselves be detected. That was astonishing. Bloch had never heard the like. Now the greenskins were closing. From all directions. They were at the centre of the storm. Grunwald had barely had time to arrange the regiments along the ridge before the first of them had been sighted. He’d done well to get them into formation, and the few artillery pieces they’d brought had been assembled and primed. It was a good position to occupy, and the Imperial army had the high ground. It’s what Bloch would have done.
Now it all came down to numbers. Just how many of the bastards were there?
He’d find out soon. The front ranks of greenskins were coming into view, charging up the slope towards them. The artillery cracked out, flaring across the battlefield.
“Pick your targets. Remember you’re men! No quarter for these Sigmar-damned filth!”
That brought a half-hearted cheer from his men, but they were busy watching the charging figures tearing towards them. In the moonlight, the orc skin looked sickly and pale. Like green-tinged ghosts, they surged up the incline. The gap closed.
Behind the front ranks, more and more orcs streamed into view. This was bad. There were more than he’d imagined. Where had they been hiding?
From the far side of the ridge, sounds of battle broke out. They were surrounded. Then the time for speculation ended. The first of the orcs hurled themselves forward, swinging their cudgels and cleavers. Bloch saw their red eyes burn as they raced towards him. They chopped the turf up under their heavy feet, now mere yards away.
“For Sigmar!” he roared, watching the eyes come for him.
Then the lines crunched together.
Bloch punched his halberd forward viciously. The orc before him staggered backwards. Those on either side of it crashed into the defenders. One man was sent hurtling back into his fellows by the force of the impact. Fresh men struggled to take his place. Halberds thrust up and out. The detachment buckled, but held. Bloch worked his own blade expertly, using the cover at his shoulder to maintain the wall of steel.
More greenskins joined the attack. Bigger warriors shoved their way to the front, panting heavily from the run up the slope. Their stench stained the air, their bellows filled it. The warriors hurled themselves forward, hammering away at the defences. Still the detachment held. When a man fell, another took his place. They knew their business.
Bloch worked hard, feeling the sweat pool at his back. It was heavy fighting. The orcs were at least as big as the gors he’d faced at Turgitz, but their armour was better than he’d ever seen greenskins wearing. It was close-fitting and heavy. Their blades were good, too. He’d seen orcs bearing rough axes and cleavers before, but these had broadswords and halberds. Sigmar only knew where they’d got them. They were as good as his own men’s.
The force of the assault began to waver. For all their ferocity, the orcs were still attacking up the slope and the determination of the defences had blunted the full force of the charge.
“No mercy!” Bloch roared, feeling the shift of momentum. He lowered his halberd and prepared to push back. To his satisfaction, the men around him immediately shifted their weapons to compensate. The orcs may have had savagery and strength, but the Empire troops had iron discipline. The long line of halberds, each trained on a target in the gloom, was a formidable obstacle.
“Hurl them down!” Bloch bellowed, and the line of men surged forward. The footing was treacherous on the churned-up grass, but the row of halberds stayed in formation. The orcs responded to the challenge in the only way they knew how, with a counter-thrust of their own. The larger greenskin warriors lumbered to meet the blades, smashing the metal aside and roaring their defiance.
The slaughter was immediate. Well-directed halberds lanced through the orcs’ defences, skewering their victims. Other blades glanced from the heavy plate armour, the staves shattering from the impact. Any defenders pulled from the lines were torn apart in an instant, their blood thrown high into the night air. The order of the assault was soon lost in a frenzy of hacking and slashing.
Bloch thrust his own weapon straight through the face of an oncoming monster. The orc dragged the halberd from his hands in its death throes, so he drew his shortsword. Another warrior came for him, its distorted mouth agape and eyes flaming red. He deftly stepped aside, blunting the force of the charge, then slashed with all his might. The aim was good, and he drew thick blood. Further enraged, the greenskin came at him again, its mighty axe whirling. Bloch parried the blow and nearly lost his sword to the force of it. He stumbled back, and the greenskin leapt after him. In its eagerness to crush his skull, it left a gap between those grasping arms. Bloch ducked sharply under them, switching his sword to his left hand. He plunged it upwards. He felt it bite deep, then blood cascaded all over him. The roaring orc slumped across his shoulders, its fire extinguished
.
With difficulty, Bloch shrugged the heavy corpse off and it crashed into the ground. He stepped back, sword raised, looking for a fresh challenge.
It never came. The assault had been broken. In every direction, the orcs were falling back.
“After them!” came a voice from further down the line.
“Hold your ground!” panted Bloch. To charge off into the gathering gloom would be madness. The orcs had withdrawn, but had not been routed. That in itself was strange. It wasn’t their style.
From further up the hill, a lone trumpeter gave the order to maintain position. From his command position, Grunwald had obviously seen the danger too. Slowly, reluctantly, the defensive perimeter re-established itself. His breathing heavy, Bloch backed up the slope with his men. The detachment re-formed. The orcs passed into the shadows, their fury abated for the time being. They’d left behind a score of human dead, but hadn’t dented Grunwald’s defences. Yet.
Bloch took up a fresh halberd as he resumed his position in the front line. First blood had been drawn. But the greenskins would be back. This fight had just got started.
Schwarzhelm’s temples throbbed as he studied the parchment before him intently. It was the thirteenth document he’d been asked to read that morning. He’d been sitting at the same desk in the Averburg’s scriptorium for what seemed like hours. At least the place was cool. The chamber was buried deep within the lower levels of the keep, and only a weak light entered via narrow windows. The walls were lined with leather-bound tomes of law and the chronicles of the province. Some looked older than the stone behind them. Beyond the bookshelves, passages led to further repositories of scrolls and sealed cases of documents.
After a while, the narrow blackletter legal script had started to swim before his eyes. The depositions and statements were all written in the kind of dense language that seemed to defy sense and encourage obscurantism. Wading through this stuff was its own kind of torture.
He could see the loremaster waiting impatiently for him. He decided to let the man wait. Like Tochfel, Uriens Achendorfer was grey and insignificant. He looked marginally healthier than the Steward, but that was only due to his less advanced years. A few more winters locked in his cloisters scratching out contracts on parchment and his last bloom of health would disappear. Schwarzhelm loathed men like that. Officials. They were all mean creatures, the least of the Empire’s many servants. Give him an illiterate spearman who knew how to hold his ground in the face of an enemy any day.
He kept reading, trying to keep his irritation and fatigue under wraps. The text was something to do with the claim against Leitdorf’s legitimacy. Several witnesses’ reports had been collated by a Verenan arbiter who had visited the Leitdorf estate in eastern Averland some years ago. The accounts were contradictory and vague. Not for the first time, Schwarzhelm began to suspect deliberately so.
“I can’t admit this evidence,” he said at last, putting the script down on the desk in front of him.
Achendorfer cleared his throat nervously. He’d already been on the wrong end of some choice words that morning. “May I ask why, my lord? It is a warranted document and has been catalogued in the—”
“This testimony is years old,” said Schwarzhelm. “The arbiter is dead. It cannot be verified. The verdict is inconclusive.” He fixed Achendorfer with a withering look. “Everything is inconclusive. There’s not a single document you’ve given me with an unambiguous claim. No account is complete. The authority is always disputed. A more suspicious mind than mine would conclude that a deadlock has been allowed to develop here.”
Achendorfer looked genuinely offended, despite his fear. “We’ve done what we could within the boundaries of the law,” he complained. “We are required to conduct ourselves with an even hand. Much depends on the result of this appointment. The traditions of Averland require that all competing claims are heard in full.”
“The traditions of Averland be damned,” muttered Schwarzhelm. “Money has changed hands here for too long. How many more of these submissions are there for me?”
“There are twenty more depositions to cast judgement on. Then there are six cases of genealogical research carried out by the College of Heraldry. This sets out the case for the two candidates as clearly as we’ve been able to establish. Then there are the credentials for the Grand Jury to be cleared and some ceremonial documents that require your seal to ratify. To start with.”
Schwarzhelm looked at the wizened man carefully. Was he deliberately doing this to rile him? Or were all of his kind so in love with parchment? Achendorfer must have noticed the dark look cast in his direction and stammered an apology.
“You see, my lord, it is highly irregular for the Emperor’s representative to intervene in such matters. The Averland Estates would normally pronounce itself. To transfer the authority, protocol must be followed.”
Schwarzhelm was about to say exactly what he thought of Averland’s protocol when there was a knock at the door to the chamber. The sequence of beats was unusual. Verstohlen. And he had news he wished to keep private.
“Go,” snapped Schwarzhelm. “Deliver the scripts I’ve ratified to the Estates secretariat. I’ll do the rest later.”
Looking grateful for the excuse to escape, Achendorfer scuttled away. He passed Verstohlen as he slipped through the door, his arms full of parchment rolls. The counsellor took his place in the chamber, closing the door behind him firmly.
“Is this place secure?” he asked, sitting on Achendorfer’s chair and pulling it closer to the desk.
“As much as anywhere. What do you have for me?”
“I sent men to Heideck, as you commanded. I’ve had word back today. Grunwald passed through the town some days ago. He pressed on towards the mountains, where there are now many reports of orc attacks. No one can explain how they’re getting through the passes.”
“Why hasn’t he sent reports back?”
“He has. Messengers were sent from Heideck to Averheim. Perhaps more were dispatched later. There are witnesses who can attest to it. They never arrived here. Some of my own men are missing. Though I’m loathe to believe it, it may be that someone’s watching the roads.”
Schwarzhelm frowned. There were many dangerous roads in the Empire. Losing messengers was not unheard of. But in Averheim?
“What news of Grunwald after he left Heideck?”
“None. I’ll keep working on it, but we must accept that the countryside is a dangerous place for us now. At least until some other explanation can be found.”
Schwarzhelm felt his inner weariness begin to reassert itself. This was a complication he could do without.
“I don’t like it. Grunwald has a large force, but we know little of the orcs. This business here is killing me. I should ride out to aid him.”
“Perhaps,” said Verstohlen. “But consider the motives of those who wish to see no resolution. For such men, this is a very helpful incursion. They’d rather see you chasing greenskins across the countryside than forcing the Estates to come to a decision.”
For a moment, Schwarzhelm had a vision of himself riding across the wide fields of Averland, the wind in his hair, scattering the orcs before him and scouring the land of their foul presence. It was an appealing image. He could feel himself going stale, cooped up in the dungeons of the Leitdorfs.
“Maybe you’re reading too much into this.”
Verstohlen reached into his clothes and handed him a scrap of parchment. It had been part-burned, but a few words remained legible.
“I’ve been making enquiries in Averheim too. We’ve made some progress. Messages have been sent from the Averburg to Altdorf. It’s been going on for some time. The replies were burned before Kraus could track down their source. The man responsible took a draught of deathflower before I could get to him. We don’t know what was passed on. These scraps are all we have. But they’re getting help from outside.”
On the fragment, beside some illegible scrawls, was a single word. “
Schwarzhelm”. He looked at it dispassionately.
“This proves little,” he said. “My visit here has hardly been secret.”
“Maybe. But if the communication was innocent, then a man’s died for no reason. These are all small things. Messengers may be waylaid. Correspondence on the Estates may be kept secret. There are even stories of youths disappearing from the streets. People are scared, my lord.”
Schwarzhelm pursed his lips, pondering the news. Verstohlen was usually reliable in these matters. “What do you recommend?”
“I do not think we have the forces we need. Grunwald should be sent reinforcements immediately. The road from here to the east should be guarded. We can’t do that without help. I’ve taken the liberty of making enquiries. There’s a garrison of Reiksguard at Nuln. Helborg is with them. We could—”
“Helborg?” The name was like a shard of ice. “What’s he doing there?”
“I’ve no idea.”
Schwarzhelm felt old suspicions suddenly stir. “So he’s waiting there. For what, I wonder? What if the messages weren’t going to Altdorf, but to Nuln? Can he really be so jealous?”
Verstohlen gave Schwarzhelm a startled look.
“I’m sure there’s a reason for his being there,” he said, carefully. “Whatever it is, it gives us an opportunity. Ask for his aid. A regiment of Reiksguard to secure the Averburg and the roads would release the troops we need to make contact with Grunwald. I’m sure he’d agree, given the situation.”
“No.” Schwarzhelm felt a surge of anger building up within him. He kept it down, but only barely. Helborg was unreliable. A glory-seeker. If he arrived now, fresh from his last-gasp charge at Turgitz, they would all say that Schwarzhelm couldn’t handle the Emperor’s bidding. That had to be avoided. At all costs, that had to be avoided.
Verstohlen made to protest, but Schwarzhelm cut him off.
“These are rumours. Fragments of information. I’ll not divert the Grand Marshal for such trivia. We have the men we need. Maintain your enquiries, but the decision on the succession will not be delayed any further.”
[Heroes 01] - Sword of Justice Page 14