Marks of Chaos

by James Wallis

  He wanted to dive forward, to protect Huss or Valten. But if he was seen the witch hunters would signal an attack, and they would all be taken. He must not move. He could not. He did not.

  It was a moment that stretched into a thin line running from one of the open windows in the tall tenement building opposite, to its target on the temple steps. With a spray of blood time snapped back into focus. Oswald lurched, his moving hands fell, and he dropped to the ground, a crossbow bolt buried in his throat. Blood sprang from the wound in torrents, cascading down the steps. Karl watched as Huss and Valten stepped back, looking down at Oswald’s twitching body. The pikemen stared at the body. Everybody stared as Oswald gasped the last of his life away and died. Then all hell broke loose.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tilt

  The pike is not a glamorous weapon, nor one that is easy to use, but its simplicity and functionality has earned it the respect of generals and philosophers alike—the latter praising it for its honesty and lack of guile and claiming that it and the short sword are the only weapons fit for a gentleman’s use; the former understanding its strategic potential and the fact that a row of pikemen can hold their own against almost any other force on the battlefield.

  For such a simple weapon, its development and history are long. It originates in Tilea, where the armies of the city-states have been using spears and pole-weapons as their primary weapons since the days of the Remans. But it was the mercenaries of the Border Princes who recognised the true potential of the pike, adopted it and made it feared across the Old World. This was several hundred years ago, at a time when heavily-armoured cavalry were the most powerful and respected part of any army’s force, and the undisputed rulers of any battlefield. After the mercenaries showed that a square of pikemen could not only withstand a charge by a full force of mounted knights, but could actually break it, the shape of the Empire’s armies and the face of its wars were changed forever.

  The pike’s simplicity of design is deceptive. It is a pole of ash, between fifteen and twenty feet long and less than two inches thick. One end is blunt, the other is finished with steel—the “pike” itself, shaped like a dagger-blade and as much as eighteen inches long: sharp-tipped and with honed sides, so it can be used to slash as well as to stab.

  It is a cumbersome weapon, and not just in combat. If carried horizontally it vibrates uncomfortably in the hand in time with its bearer’s steps and whacks the thighs of anyone walking nearby; if carried vertically it snags on the branches of trees. It is too long to be thrown with any accuracy, or to be used as a quarterstaff or close-fighting weapon by anyone except an expert—though they do exist.

  The pike is the great leveller. It makes a peasant the equal of his mounted and armoured lord. The key to its use is discipline: a lone pikeman with some skill and some luck may be able to bring down a horseman, but when formed into a square with several hundred of his fellows, four ranks deep, their pikes lowered to form a forest of steel-tipped shafts, protecting ranks of archers or artillery behind him, and he can stand almost anything. The length of the pike means that several ranks of men can lower their weapons at once, butting the blunt end into the earth, the front ranks kneeling, supporting the haft of their pikes at an angle of around twenty degrees, presenting the enemy with an impenetrable mass of fierce steel blades, all pointed at their throats.

  It is worse than madness to charge a square of pike-men, either on foot or on horseback, it is suicide. Two-handed swords and heavy blunt weapons like warhammers may be able to smash some of the shafts, but not enough of them, and most pikemen carry short swords to hack at the few who penetrate the wall of stakes. Any attacker weighed down by enough armour to be protected from the blades is slow enough to be an easy target for longbows, crossbows or the handgunners who often protect the ends of ranks of pikemen.

  Moreover, the pike is not an entirely defensive weapon. With training, discipline and officers who know what they are doing, a well organised force of pikemen can launch charges of their own against slower-moving groups of troops. Even with the recent advances in warfare that the Empire has seen: steam tanks; the machines of the dwarfs; the elves’ magic and the weird devices of the skaven, one truth remains: about the only thing that can match a square of pikemen on the battlefield is another square of pikemen.

  There are disadvantages to using a pike. Its wielders need space to manoeuvre and time to form up their ranks. Something as minor as uneven terrain can throw off the formation of a rank of pikemen and make them vulnerable; and if their flanks are not properly defended then they are vulnerable to attack from the side. If ambushed, surprised, or taken in small groups, they are useless. Pikes depend on quantity and density for their effectiveness, and they are not quick to respond to the changing flow of battle, or attacks from a different direction. While pikes can break a charge, they are in trouble if they come under concerted attack; once the square is breached, it falls apart, collapsing outwards around the breach like a cliff collapsing from the onslaught of the inrushing sea.

  Altdorf is an old city, swollen over two thousand years from the town of Reikdorf where Sigmar was first crowned. Its buildings have grown, pushing closer to the thoroughfares and streets, the upper storeys overhanging the cobbles below and blocking out the sunlight. It is an urgent, bustling place, hard enough to get a cart through the crowded streets, let alone two thousand crusaders and priests. There is little room to manoeuvre, the small square outside the temple of Saint Botolphus crowded with Reiksguard soldiers and witch hunters as well as the pikemen of the crusade.

  The pikemen have not had an easy day. Their twenty-foot weapons had to be tilted to bring them through the city’s south-west gate, and though the soldiers are used to carrying the poles so they do not catch on branches overhanging the road, it is a different matter where the street itself is more like a tunnel, and less wide than their weapon is long. They have kept good discipline in difficult circumstances. They have done their best.

  But they have no room to manoeuvre, or to form up. There is a statue in the middle of the square that blocks their pikes and breaks up their formation. Their commander is on the temple steps, too far away for his orders to be heard above the chaos and carnage. The space is so crowded that they cannot even lower their pikes far enough to defend themselves.

  History does not record who started it. History, in fact, erases all records of this massacre; this brutal and unnecessary destruction in Saint Botolphus’ Square. In the shadow of the other events of this day, this one is just an awkward detail, to be briefly noted and forgotten. In a year nobody will refer to it; in twenty years nobody will remember it; in a century not a single record will show that it ever happened. The crusade’s pikemen are being slaughtered.

  Karl watched men he knew, men he had trained, cut down like wheat by the blades of the Order of Sigmar. There were fewer of the black-hatted witch hunters but they were trained for street-fighting, and their wits and weapons were better suited for this kind of battle. The two black-clad forces merged, spilling over each other, one pack slicing through the other like wolves into sheep, or lions into dogs.

  Beyond them, crusaders milled frantically down the packed length of Hermannstrasse. In the distance, bringing up the rear of the line, the Hammers of Sigmar fought their way forward through the panicked crowd.

  On the steps, Huss seemed transfixed by the unfolding chaos. A warrior-priest he might be, but one not used to this kind of carnage. Yards away, above the heads of the fighters, Theo Kratz clutched the stone arm of Saint Botolphus and screamed orders, pointing with his sword at the group at the door of the temple.

  Karl reached to his hip for a sword that wasn’t there. He cursed his decision to give the blade to Holger with a monosyllable, then turned back into the lamp-lit interior of the temple. There had to be something he could use as a weapon.

  There was. Above the altar, a great warhammer—a real one, not a painting or a carving. And suddenly the legend of Saint Botolphus snapp
ed into his mind and he knew what it was: the saint’s hammer itself, rescued from where it had been embedded in the skull of the dragon he had killed with his dying blow, his scorched corpse still clutching its handle. A holy relic, an object of veneration, but a weapon all the same.

  Dare he use it? That would surely be heresy. But he was already guilty of that, and worse.

  He ran down the aisle, leaping from the ground onto the top of the altar, and reached up to lift it clear of the brackets that held it in place. The weight of the great square head pulled it down into his hands, and he grasped the leather-wrapped shaft with both hands to steady it, swinging it down. It was perfectly balanced, a master’s weapon. It was also about a foot too long and twenty pounds too heavy for him. He could carry it, but he could not wield it.

  But he knew a man who could.

  He jumped down from the altar and ran down the aisle, through the doorway and into the daylight beyond. It did not matter if the witch hunters saw him now: getting Huss and Valten to safety or to their destination was more important than protecting himself. The three men were where he had left them. Gottschalk had knelt by Oswald’s corpse, and was praying over it. The roar of the battle ripped his words away like petals dropped in a torrent.

  “Luthor!” Karl shouted. “Give me your hammer! I have a new weapon for you.”

  Huss turned and Karl thrust the hammer at him. He stared down at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, then looked back up.

  “Is this what I think it is?” he asked.

  Karl nodded. Huss reached over and wrapped one hand around the shaft, lifting its weight, feeling its balance.

  “I cannot carry this,” Huss said. “This hammer is blessed. Sacred.” He paused for a second, then turned round to face Valten, reversing the weapon and presenting him with the handle. Valten hesitated for a second, then put down the hammer he had taken from Gottschalk a few minutes before and received the new one. He studied it, then swung it experimentally. Its great granite head whistled through the air.

  “This is a better hammer,” he said, and raised it up above his head, one-handed, in an unmistakable rallying-sign. A second later he was charging down the steps into the throng of battle before him. Karl caught Valten’s old hammer before it hit the ground and followed a step behind him, Luthor Huss and Gottschalk at his side. They threw themselves at the forces of the Empire, weapons first.

  To his right Gottschalk was shouting, “Rally! Rally! Draw swords!” and to his left Huss was whirling his hammer around his head, two-handed, clearing space and acting like a battle-standard, a focus for the remaining pikemen. A Reiksguard soldier turned and swung a sword at him but Karl was already raising his hammer, knocking the blow back and smashing the man’s upper arm with the wet crack of breaking bones. Ahead of him—

  Ahead of him was an elemental force of battle. Valten strode through the fight like a god. The huge warhammer of Saint Botolphus swung ceaselessly in his hands, now left, now right, switching and spinning, and with every blow a Reiksguard or a witch hunter dropped, stunned, bloodied or dead.

  If Karl had not been fighting for his life, he would have stood and watched. Around Valten the soldiers began to fall back. Theo Kratz was still on the statue’s plinth, yelling orders that were inaudible over the tumult of warfare. Then another Reiksguard thrust at him and Karl was duelling again, hammer against sword, using the thick wooden handle to parry, the butt of the weapon to thrust, and the iron head with its dull point to swing, to make space. The warhammer was not a weapon for close-in fighting but at least it was more use here than a pike.

  The Reiksguard soldier blocked his swing and brought his own sword in for a thrust but it was clumsy. Karl grabbed his wrist with his left hand and yanked it down, bringing the handle of the warhammer up to meet it. Knuckles cracked across woodwork and the man dropped the sword. Karl let go of the wrist and caught it in a single move, then as the man was looking up, hit him with the warhammer. He went sideways, his shattered jaw spilling blood.

  Killing the Emperor’s own soldiers. Nobody in the Empire would ever trust him after this. But at least he had two weapons now. He shifted the sword in his left hand. It was a nice blade—not as nice as the one that Holger had now, Duke Heller’s one, but good enough. A part of his mind wondered how he could get the duke’s sword back from the witch hunter.

  He almost slipped over. The cobbles were slippery, awash with blood.

  A few steps away a pikeman was using the shattered stump of his weapon to fend off a witch hunter’s blade, and not doing it well. Karl took two fast steps towards him but as he did the man jerked, twisted and fell forwards. The witch hunter tried to sidestep the falling corpse but was blocked behind. The body knocked him over and carried him down to the ground. A crossbow bolt protruded from the pikeman’s upper back, blood beginning to soak the cloth around it.

  “Crossbows!” Karl shouted. “Crossbows above!” Of course they had crossbows. He had been carried away by the heat of the battle, had forgotten how Oswald had died. Where was the cool-thinking officer of yesteryear? Had the rages of Chaos devoured him so completely that he had lost all his sense of tactics? He glanced up, calculating which of the high windows the crossbow-men must be in, and headed for the side of the street, the shadow of the wall, the only cover there was.

  Someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. He raised his sword to strike but it was Gottschalk. He looked panicked and his face and forehead were badly cut. The warhammer, Karl recalled, was not his weapon of choice. He started to say something. Karl cut him off.

  “How many men do you have left?”

  “Sixty maybe, but the pikes—”

  Karl pointed back towards the street that led to Hermannstrasse. “Get them in there. It’s narrow enough.” Gottschalk nodded, understanding. If they could get enough space to lower their weapons, the remaining pikemen could form an effective blockade against the Reiksguard and witch hunters while the Hammers of Sigmar caught up. And they’d be out of the arc of fire of the crossbowmen.

  If they had the space to lower their pikes.

  Close to him, another crusader whirled and dropped, a crossbow bolt in his skull, the long shaft of his pike dropping from his hands. Karl caught it up before it hit the ground, scanning the windows. The sniper would not be showing himself in the window but would be a few steps back in the room, out of plain sight. But if he could—

  A flash of movement from the window above and Karl hurled the wooden pikeshaft up at it with all his strength, feeling the fibres of his muscles wrench and tear with the effort, and not caring. It flew straight, like a missile from a ballista, in through the window, hit something and stuck, half its length still out of the window. The angle of the shaft changed, the blunt end of the weapon moving upwards as whatever the iron spike was in slumped to the room’s floor.

  He swung his hammer to break the sword-arm of a Reiksguard soldier approaching from his right then thrust backhand under the defence of another who had tried to take him unawares. Gottschalk was bellowing orders, and Karl could hear them repeated at the same volume by the crusaders who had heard them. He glanced around, his eyes finding Huss and Valten, back to back, at the centre of a knot of soldiers. Their hammers swung, clashing against swords and armour, the head-blocks spraying trails of blood as they whirled through the air. Above the clamour he could hear Huss’ voice. The man was singing a hymn.

  There was a crack, a shot of pain and his hammer went crashing to the ground. His arm felt numb, his shoulder as if someone had hit it with a dub. He spun on the balls of his feet but there was nobody there. Just a crossbow bolt buried deep in his shoulder, too deep for him to pull it out.

  One weapon left, and that in his wrong hand. He’d faced worse problems. It bloody hurt, but pain was the least of his problems right now. By taking out the first crossbowman, he’d made himself their primary target.

  He ducked for the cover of the closest wall.

  The pikemen were moving, falling back. The Re
iksguard did not seem to be following them, but were holding position—blocking their advance but not pursuing them. Karl wondered what their orders were. Had the pitched battle been an error—the city’s forces taking Oswald’s death as sign of a threat among the crusaders, and the crusaders taking it as the first shot of an attack?

  With a rattle and clatter of wood against wood, the ranks of the crusaders’ pikes came down. The men Huss and Valten had been fighting began to retreat towards the north side of the square, swords raised in defence. Huss turned, caught Karl’s eye and gesture, and let them go, stepping away from them over the fallen bodies of comrades and foes to move into the cover of the house walls, out of range of the unseen crossbows. Valten joined them a moment later.

  “What now?” he said.

  “Get back into Hermannstrasse,” Karl said. “We need to find the Hammers of Sigmar, to get to the Theogonist’s palace. The pikes will buy us some time to get clear.”

  Valten nodded. They began to back slowly towards the rows of lowered pikes. The men behind the fierce wall of weapons were nervous, he could see, tired and splattered with blood that might have been their own or their comrades’, but they were holding their position. In the square, in the shadow of Saint Botolphus, wounded men on the cobbles moved, crawling, groaning, pleading, praying. The smell of blood and sweat was everywhere. Karl’s skin felt clammy with it. Somewhere a temple clock rang the half-hour, a hollow metallic sound that echoed weirdly through the narrow streets.

  Why was only one bell ringing?

  Karl felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise, sensed the iron taste of adrenaline in his mouth. There was a scent on the air, of smoke and oil and hot metal. The ringing was growing louder, closer. The Reiksguard had moved right back, out of sight. Something was coming.

  It turned the corner, steering its way south into the street that led directly into the square, and for a moment Karl was lost in wonder. Fifteen feet long, eight feet high, the metal plates that banded it embossed with the Imperial crest, its upper edge bristling with viewing slits. Its front was crested, like a ship, and from it projected the muzzle of a three-inch cannon, wisps of steam emerging from its barrel. Above it, a smaller cannon on a turret. Below it, the thing’s name: Conqueror.