Marks of Chaos

by James Wallis

  At the edge of the forest the terrain broke for a hill that rose above the valley floor, its steeply contoured sides abrupt and alien. Between it and the river the hand of a celestial architect had drawn a great square on the landscape, imposing geometrical rigidity and rules onto the world. Karl could make out the ramparts, rows of tents, the stockade, even the figures of the soldiers moving between them. Around three thousand men, he estimated: a thousand more than they’d had in the Grey Mountains. A formidable force, and more to come. They had cut a new road across the plain and carts and cattle progressed along it in trains. It took a lot of food to sustain an army that large.

  Karl nodded to himself. The camp was in a good position, easily defensible, protected on two sides by the hill and the river and far enough from the forest to make ambushes and surprise assaults difficult. The officers had made their quarters on the hill itself, for greater protection and to let them plan the defence and set pieces of any battles that might come. That would be where he would find Duke Heller.

  He focused his gaze on the hill. There were buildings there, more substantial than a summer encampment would erect. Old stone walls stood white and solid between the tents, and the banner of the army flew proud and high from a crenellated tower at one end. It looked like a ruined fortification, a large one, but he could not remember ever having heard about such a thing up here. But then he was from the Reikland, the south. Ostland was a foreign country to him. Things were different here.

  He spurred his horse and started down the side of the valley, descending to meet the road below.

  The gates to the camp were almost identical to the ones he had passed through nine months ago, probably built by the same tools, wielded by the same carpenters, following the same plans. As before, two Reiklander pikemen were standing on guard, their white and red uniforms emblazoned with a campaign medal from last summer’s wars against the orcs. He didn’t recognise them.

  He rode up and they crossed their pikes in front of him. “State your business,” one said.

  He should have anticipated that, but he had been thinking what he would say to Duke Heller. Of course they would stop a man in civilian clothes, on a strange horse. “I am Lieutenant Karl Hoche, formerly of the Fifth Reiklanders,” he said. “I need to see the duke.”

  “Papers,” the guard said.

  “I have none,” said Karl.

  “Can’t let you in without papers.”

  “He doesn’t need papers, you oafs,” said a familiar voice behind them. “Haven’t you heard about Lieutenant Hoche, who saved the battle of Wissendorf?”

  “Sergeant Braun!” said Karl.

  “Well met, sir,” Braun said, walking over. “And a surprise it is too. We heard you’d got caught up in the affairs of the city and wouldn’t be back. Are you rejoining us?”

  “That depends on the duke,” Karl said, and paused. He didn’t know what to say: of all the conversations he had rehearsed on the long ride from the Reikland, first along the Reik and then up through Talabecland, Hochland and Ostland, this had not been among them. How could he talk to old friends and comrades when the man they had known was so greatly changed? He had nothing to say to them.

  “I heard you were in the wars,” he added finally.

  “You too, sir, by the looks of your face,” Braun said.

  Karl started, his hand rising involuntarily to his collar. Then he caught himself and deliberately continued the movement, lifting his fingers to his nose. “This? Not a war. Hardly more than a skirmish.”

  “Jealous husband? Angry father?” Braun said, laughing.

  “Six mutants in the forest,” Karl said, and Braun stopped.

  “Six?” he said. “Blimey. How many were you?”

  “Alone.”

  “What happened?”

  “I killed them all.”

  Braun’s mouth hung open. “That must have been some fight,” he said.

  “It was,” said Karl, “though it took longer than you’d think.”

  His cover story was simple: riding back to the regiment he had been attacked on the road and badly wounded. He had sought sanctuary in a village temple where a priest of Shallya had brought him back to health. It had taken months. Once healed, he had learned where the army was and had returned. It was a simple story but hard to disprove. He told it to Braun, practising the details as the two of them walked through the camp towards the hill and the duke’s tent. The sergeant led Karl’s horse and Karl walked beside him, glad to stretch his legs after the long morning in the saddle.

  “It’ll be good to have you back, sir,” Braun said. “The lieutenant who they brought in to replace you is, if you don’t mind my language, a bit of a nob. Lieutenant Knopf. Not a pikeman at all. Doesn’t understand the tactics and can’t be made to learn them. Be nice to have a Reiklander in charge again. The men still talk about you. They would do anything for you if you gave the word.”

  Karl shook his head. “I don’t know if Duke Heller will give me my command back,” he said, “or even if he has a job for me. There’s been to be some bad blood around after what happened with the Knights Panther.”

  Braun looked across at him. “I’d been wondering,” he said. “What did happen with that?”

  Karl stopped so abruptly that the horse, walking behind him, bumped his back with its nose. “What do you mean?” he said. “Wasn’t there an investigation?”

  “Oh yes,” said Braun. “It lasted two days and decided that some cook had picked a wrong mushroom for the Panthers’ stew or they’d eaten some mildewed grain and all gone mad or something. That was the last of it. They didn’t even send out a patrol to find them.”

  “That was all?” Karl was horrified. “But I took the news to Altdorf about what Schulze and I found in the wood… Nobody came? No witch hunters, no Imperial agents? Priests of Sigmar? Nobody at all?” He could tell from Braun’s expression that his fears were correct. There had been a cover-up. Perhaps the council of the Knights Panther had managed to hide the truth and protect their reputation after all, he thought. Perhaps Braubach had even been in on the scheme, keeping him from the witch hunters so they could not investigate properly.

  No. He was overreacting. He needed to find how the land lay before he could start guessing where his enemies were hidden.

  “I’m surprised to see you again, lieutenant,” Duke Heller said. “Pleasantly so, but still surprised. I had feared that the delights of Altdorf had robbed the army of a good man.”

  The duke’s tent was the largest in a semicircle beside the main part of the ruined fort, a maze of foundations and crumbled walls. From the style, Karl guessed it had been built around three or four hundred years ago and by human hands: a dwarf-built fort of the same age would still be standing strong. He and the duke sat outside the tent on camp stools, next to a low table with a flagon of wine on it. Spread out below them, the camp lay quiet in the afternoon sun.

  “Why is the army here?” Karl asked.

  Duke Heller drank wine and sniffed. “An oracle in Altdorf reckons there’s a Chaos force coming in from the north-east. We’re here to meet them,” he said.

  “So you’re waiting for them to come to you?”

  “Essentially yes. We’ve got scouts out in the field, looking for their outrunners, and the men train, build fortifications and get accustomed to the terrain every day. But it’s a waiting game, and a damned tedious one.”

  “What type of Chaos force?” Karl asked.

  “Not specified. You know oracles. Can’t ask them if they want a drink without getting three stanzas of metaphysics. Bloody things.”

  Karl sipped his wine. “What happened with that business last summer?” he asked, choosing his words carefully. “I handed in my reports in Altdorf and that was the last I heard of it.”

  The duke drummed his fingers on his empty goblet in a basic staccato rhythm and paused. “Well,” he said at last, “it seemed our suspicion was right: some drug had been slipped into their food. Not an accident, b
ut we hushed that up, though we got the villain responsible. Not the dread hand of Chaos, more the dread hand of Tilean agents. I know,”—he held up a hand to silence Karl’s unspoken question—“that you were sure it was your Chaos God theory. No evidence for it, I’m afraid. When in doubt apply Occam’s Broadsword: the simplest explanation is usually the one that’s right. And with respect you’re a low-ranking layman in these things, whereas Johannes Bohr has had some training.”

  The Chaos worshippers burnt all the evidence, Karl thought, and a good man along with it, and they did cover it up. I begin to smell the reason why Bohr was so eager to pack me off to Altdorf with news that would get me killed, and handle the investigation himself. The answers I seek are here but they are patches on a cloak, hiding something larger beneath.

  “Is there a place for me here?” he asked.

  Duke Heller leaned forward and clapped him on the shoulder. “For a man with your experience? We couldn’t do this without you, Karl.” He stroked his moustache. “Of course we can’t give you your old command, that’s with a new fellow, Lieutenant Knopf—a good man but hasn’t been properly blooded yet—but there’s a company of mercenaries and sellswords, fifty or sixty of ’em, locals and itinerants mostly, who have been scouting for us. They’re an absolute shambles and they need to be shown some discipline. Job’s yours. Knock them into shape. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

  The duke stood, up, and Karl jumped to his feet and saluted. The gesture felt strange: on one level it was a reflex, automatic and reassuring, but on another it belonged to the life he had deliberately cut off months ago. He felt like an interloper, here under false pretences, his movements false and his every word a lie. I am not the Karl Hoche these men know, he reminded himself, but for now I must put on his mask and pretend to be him. These familiar ways must not become too comfortable. I must not forget what I have been through and what I have become.

  He touched the high collar on his jerkin. Little danger of him forgetting that.

  The sellswords’ rows of tents were in the far corner of the camp, between the stable and the latrines. It showed the low regard the regular soldiers held for the mercenaries. Karl walked down, examining the empty tents, the unwashed cooking pots, the clothes and equipment left strewn on the damp earth. He wasn’t impressed. This was a force without discipline or the right attitude. Men who didn’t take care of their living quarters wouldn’t look after their comrades in the field. He wondered how they’d do in battle, and suspected it wouldn’t be good. He’d seen sellswords break and run too often.

  A whistling was coming from one of the tents. Karl rounded its end and saw a short man with dark, close-cropped hair sitting on a camp-stool, a bandaged leg set out straight. He was polishing a sword but looked up as Karl approached.

  “Nobody here,” he said, his northern accent strong. “They’re off scouting. Be back before dusk.”

  “What happened to your leg?” Karl asked.

  “Nasty cut. Sword-practice. Can’t put any weight on it.”

  “How long have you been invalided out?”

  “Two weeks,” the man said, “and I think the surgeon might give me another week if I slip him a shilling.”

  “Who’s your senior officer?” Karl asked.

  “Ralf Langstock,” he said and there was contempt in his tone, “but he’s dead. So we don’t have one.”

  “You do now,” said Karl. “And you stand up and salute when an officer approaches, you address him as ‘sir’ and you call him by his proper rank when talking about him. Is that clear?”

  The man grinned. “Yes, all right,” he said.

  “Stand up,” Karl said.

  “What, with this leg?”

  “Stand and salute.” Karl’s voice was iron. The man stumbled to his feet, planting the tip of his sword on the ground to use as a crutch. Karl kicked it away.

  “Never abuse your weapon like that,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Tobias Kurtz.”

  “Sir.”

  “Tobias Kurtz, sir.” When the salute finally came, it was surprisingly sharp.

  “Good,” Karl said. “Smarten up. You’re taking the Emperor’s shilling and fighting in his army, you obey his rules and respect his kit. Remember it and tell the others. I’m going to the quartermaster for my uniform and equipment. When I come back I want that tent in the middle pitched properly and empty except for a bed and one storage trunk. Got that?”

  As he returned, his arms full of new clothes, he could hear Kurtz complaining as he worked but the tent had been cleared, its poles were straight and its guy-ropes were taut. He walked past Kurtz’s salute into its cool interior. Inside, the tent was spotless. Karl changed into his uniform, taking care to button the collar tight and high, not daring to take off the grubby cloth that gagged his mutation. It felt good to have a sword on his hip again.

  Kurtz was a classic malingerer, doing as little work as possible, but if given the right challenge he would set to the task with a will. He was probably in on every scam and scheme going on in the camp. Such a man could be a valuable ally, or a brutal enemy, depending on how he was handled. If the sellswords were as bad as Karl had been told, he thought, then he would need all the allies among them that he could make. He was here to find answers, not to spend his time butting his head against a bunch of recalcitrant mercenaries.

  “Kurtz, come in here,” he said. The soldier came to the tent entrance and saluted. Karl looked for a trace of irony or insolence in the gesture but couldn’t find it.

  “I need an orderly,” he said. “Someone I can trust. Someone who’ll give me straight answers and not abuse their position too much.”

  “You want me to recommend someone, sir?”

  “No, Kurtz, I want you.”

  The short man’s mouth hung open for a second in surprise, but he shut it swiftly. Karl guessed he’d never been given a position of responsibility in his life. Good. It meant he’d work harder to keep this one.

  “You’ll have to tell me what to do, sir,” Kurtz said.

  “You’ll pick it up soon enough. When the others get back, spread the word that this group will sharpen up. I know you’re irregulars but that’s not an excuse for slackness. Right now, every soldier up the hill thinks you lot are a disgrace and not worth the gold you’re paid. That is going to change. Am I clear?”

  Kurtz grinned. “As the air, sir.”

  “Good. Make them believe it. And while you’re waiting for them to get back, you can start clearing up this section of the camp.”

  Kurtz saluted again and turned away. After a step or two he turned back. “Sir?”

  “What is it?”

  “Do I get more pay?”

  “No, but you get more respect.”

  “Yes sir!” Kurtz walked off. His limp had disappeared. Karl watched him begin to pick up the mercenaries’ detritus and throw it into the tents, or onto a nearby fire. The man would never be close to what Schulze had been, he thought, but it was a start.

  The sellswords came back before the sun had touched the horizon, a motley crew with a mix of clothes and equipment, unkempt, surly and hungry. Karl made them practise drilling and defensive formations for two hours until the gong sounded from the mess tents below the hill and the soldiers formed queues in front of the great iron cooking-pots, carrying their tin bowls and spoons.

  There was grumbling among the men, some of it within Karl’s earshot. He joined the queue with them, took his food with them and sat with them, talking, learning who was experienced, who was dependable, who was trustworthy and who wasn’t.

  The food was thick stew and coarse bread. Its taste was familiar but he couldn’t place it.

  “One thing in the army never changes,” he said, “the food’s always slop.”

  “Tastes like prison food,” said Johan, a hulk of a man with a Middenheim accent and bad tattoos. Karl grinned. Under the bandage on his neck, he felt his second mouth move, as if it was chewing.

  Tha
t night he lay in his tent and refused to sleep, listening. The men murmured around their fires for an hour after he had retired, speaking of him in low voices. He knew they didn’t mix much with the regular soldiers, but in a day or so one of them who did would speak to a Reiklander of their new officer, the disciplinarian with the smashed nose, and would hear about Lieutenant Hoche and his reputation. Until then, let them murmur.

  A couple of the men snored. In the stables the horses snorted and coughed. The night breeze carried a stench from the latrines; in the morning he would talk to the camp’s engineering officer about digging a water-course through the camp so the river sluiced the filth away. In the forest owls hooted, calling to each other on their dark hunts, and in the distance the low rushing of the Eiskalt suffused the night with cool sound. It seemed to call to him.

  Around midnight he heard a clatter and an oath. Tent-fabric rustled. He crept to the mouth of his tent and watched. The moon was slim, giving little light, but it was enough to show two figures emerge from their quarters and steal through the silent ranks of canvas towards the camp gate. He let them get around twenty yards, then threw open the tent-flap and strode out.

  “Where in hell do you think you’re going?” he said loudly.

  One of the men started and dropped the bundle he was carrying. The other stopped and turned, but did not say anything.

  “Where are you going?” Karl asked again.

  “We’re leaving,” the second man said. Karl recognised him: a tall Talabheimer who had sat and glowered throughout supper, not saying a word.

  “Why?”

  “We don’t like you.”

  Karl threw his head back and laughed. “Then go,” he said. “Go at once. You don’t have what it takes to make a soldier. If you want to serve someone you like, get a job with your father or your uncle. Marry some girl who’ll get fat, raise children who hate you because all your stories of bravery are lies, and die knowing nothing of honour or glory, or what it takes to be a man.”

  The first man stooped to pick up the contents of his bundle. “Leave it,” Karl said. “That belongs to the Emperor. You leave this camp with nothing but what you brought to it. Being a soldier takes more than wearing a sword, swaggering and swearing.