by Nathan Long
They assembled at the edge of camp, dressed in the colours of half a dozen companies, weapons bristling from belts and scabbards, and bulging packs over their shoulders.
‘Now are we ready?’ asked Reiner.
His companions nodded, though Pavel, Hals and Franka looked a trifle uncomfortable to be wearing gear stolen from their fellow soldiers.
‘Then we march.’
They followed the path that had led them to the camp not two hours before. They were still dead tired, but their confinement had allowed them something resembling rest, and they were at least alert.
They had almost reached the village at the south end of the valley when Oskar pointed over the burned out buildings. ‘Look.’
Winding down the hill beyond the town was a column of marching men, spearpoints and helms aglitter in the morning sun. The head of the column was hidden within the town, but there was no question as to whose army they must be.
‘Albrecht,’ said Pavel.
‘Aye,’ said Reiner. ‘Come, we’ll take cover ‘til they pass.’
They hurried to a blackened barn on the outskirts of the town and hid inside it. Almost instantly they heard the tramp of marching feet and the clop of hooves. They stepped to the walls and peered through the charred boards as the head of the column emerged from the town. First to appear were Albrecht, Erich and Lady Magda, leading a company of more than a hundred knights. Erich rode between the baron and the abbess on a white charger clad in shining barding, but though Albrecht was splendid in his dark blue armour and a scarlet-plumed helm, and the company of knights was a magnificent sight that should have filled the hearts of men of the Empire with pride, the sight of the blood-red banner that Erich held aloft, couched in his lance socket, killed all emotions except an all pervading dread.
It was awesome and awful to look upon, slapping thickly against its pike, less like heavy cloth than a square of flesh cut from some umber giant, and though Reiner couldn’t take his eyes off it, it was at the same time hard to look upon directly, for it radiated gloom and dread like a black sun. He felt at once physically sick, and at the same time compelled to join the column of men that followed it. Its power was a hundredfold greater than it had been in the crypt. Held by a hero at the head of an army, it had acquired at last its full allure. It tugged at Reiner like a magnet, and as he tore his eyes from it and looked around at his companions he could see that it affected them the same way. Pavel and Hals white-knuckled their spears. Franka and Giano stared, grimacing. Oskar was standing, stepping out from cover.
‘Get down, you fool,’ hissed Reiner, pulling the artilleryman back by his jerkin. He was glad of the distraction. Anything to keep him from looking at the banner again.
‘Myrmidia,’ breathed Franka. ‘Look at them. The poor damned souls.’
Reiner reluctantly peered again through the wall. The knights had emerged entirely from the town and now companies of pike, sword and gun were marching out after them. In a way it was the most ordinary sight in the world, soldiers of the Empire on the march—simple farmers, millers, blacksmiths and merchants taking up arms in a time of war as they had done for centuries. But there was something about them, something almost indefinable, that was repulsive. They marched well enough, almost perfectly in fact, all in step, ranks dressed neat enough to warm a sergeant major’s heart, but there was something about their gait, something loose and boneless, that reminded of Reiner of sleepwalkers. They stared straight ahead, jaws slack, eyes glazed. Not one of them looked left or right, or squinted at the sun to judge the time, or talked to his companions, or scratched his backside. Their eyes seemed fixed on the banner before them. They hardly seemed to blink.
‘Zombies,’ said Giano, making a warding sign.
‘The banner has enslaved them,’ said Franka, shuddering.
Reiner nodded. ‘There is no longer any doubt of Albrecht’s intentions. He comes not as his brother’s saviour, but as his slayer.’ He whistled out a breath. ‘I’m glad we will be nowhere near when Manfred gets pinched ‘twixt that hammer and the Kurgan anvil.’
The last of the mindless troops trailed out of the town. Reiner shouldered his pack and stood, but the others hesitated, gazing after the receding column.
‘Captain,’ said Hals, uncertainly. ‘We can’t just…’ He trailed off.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Reiner.
Hals scratched his neck and made a face. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. ‘Captain. I know what I said before. I care not a fig what happens to Manfred. I hope he and Albrecht tear each other to pieces, but those lads back there in the camp…’
‘And the ones in the column…’ said Franka.
‘Aye,’ continued Hals. ‘Them too. Enslaved or not, they’re our mates. It’s them who’ll be pinched ‘twixt hammer and anvil. It’s them what will die in their thousands.’
‘It ain’t right to see Empire men fighting one another,’ added Pavel. ‘Brother against brother. It’s wrong.’
‘This is no war to protect Empire lands,’ said Franka. ‘Those men go to die so that Lady Magda can be a countess. So that Albrecht can take from his brother what he was not given at birth.’
Reiner swallowed a curse. He didn’t like where this was going. ‘So, do you say that we go and die as well? What side do you suggest we fight on?’
‘I say that we do what Captain Veirt was trying to do when he died,’ said Franka. ‘Destroy the banner.’
Pavel and Hals nodded emphatically.
‘Maybe we get our rewards then, hey?’ said Giano.
‘But what about freedom?’ asked Reiner. ‘What about Marienburg and Tilea and all the rest? What about drinking the world dry?’
The others shrugged uncomfortably. Even Giano wouldn’t meet his eye.
‘Sorry, captain,’ said Hals at last.
Reiner groaned and looked longingly toward the path that rose up out of the valley. On the far side of that hill was the road to freedom. He had only to climb it and Albrecht, Manfred and Lady Magda would be mere unpleasant memories. What did he care about the fates of a few thousand peasants? It wasn’t he who was leading them to their doom. All he wanted was a quiet life, free from evil banners, power-hungry nuns and mad barons. All he wanted was to be back in Altdorf or, if he must, Marienburg or Tilea, parting fools from their money by day and dallying with delicious doxies by night.
And yet…
And yet, though he was reluctant to admit it, the banner and the mindless marchers who followed it had sickened him as well. He had always had a problem with authority. That, more than any faintness of heart was the reason he had done his best to avoid serving in the army. He valued his individuality too much to obey orders without questioning them. He knew too many noble idiots—his beloved father came to mind, not to mention Erich von Eisenberg—to think that a lord was always right just because he was a lord. The idea of some eldritch relic that could remove one’s ability to question an order, that took away one’s individuality entirely and made of one a mindless drone, enslaved to the will of one’s leader, filled him with outrage.
The banner was an abomination. He could imagine the whole Empire falling under its sway. A whole nation blindly following the whims of its leader, taking over its neighbours until there were no more Marienburgs or Tileas to escape to, until at last Reiner too marched along with all the others, just one more sheep happily following the butcher to the slaughterhouse.
‘Right,’ he said suddenly. ‘On your feet. We’ll need to cut wide to avoid their line of march, then hurry back on the double to beat them there.’
Pavel and Hals let out great sighs of relief. Franka smiled. Giano nodded. Oskar looked upset, but fell in line with the others as they started across the muddy stubblefields north of the village.
EIGHTEEN
The Claws Of The Manticore
THE JOURNEY CROSS-COUNTRY was harder than they expected. Climbing fieldstone walls and hunting for openings in high hedges slowed them down, and they were still
as sore as they had been the evening before. Hals winced with each step, not just from the pain of his broken leg, but from the raw skin under his arm from the rubbing of his makeshift crutch.
Reiner shook his head as he surveyed them. What chance had the likes of them to destroy the banner? They would most likely have to fight Albrecht to do it, not to mention Erich and a host of knights. It was ridiculous. They were like beggars planning to storm Middenheim.
They lost sight of Albrecht’s column as they stole back through Manfred’s deserted camp and came at last upon the battlefield. From their position far behind Manfred’s lines it was difficult to see anything, just a confusion of men and horses and horned helmets appearing and disappearing through drifting streamers of smoke. Reiner couldn’t tell which, if any, were Albrecht’s men or if they had even arrived yet.
‘We need a better view,’ he said. The steep hills to the right of the camp seemed a good vantage point. ‘Up there.’
Hals groaned, but with Pavel assisting him he gamely limped up the slope behind the others. After a while, they found a goat path that made the climb easier and led them along the side of the hill to a spot where the battle was laid out before them like a painting.
They stood facing west above the branching of the Y-shaped valley. Nordbergbruche castle was a little to their north, rising from the promontory between the angled arms of the Y. Manfred’s camp was to the south, well within the stem of the Y. From the armies’ current positions, it was easy for Reiner to picture how the battle had begun. The Chaos troops had spilled out of the castle’s gate and formed a long line that spanned the valley just below the branching arms. Manfred had lined up to face them in the mouth of the stem. He was outnumbered two to one, and was downhill from the Kurgan force, but he had two minor advantages: the steep hills on either side of the valley made it difficult for the Kurgan to flank him, and a rocky hill with a small wooden shrine of Sigmar at its top jutted up out of a thicket of bare-branched trees just inside the mouth of the stem, further narrowing the front that the Kurgan could attack him on, as well as providing a perfect platform for his mortars and cannon. The hill was virtually a cliff at its northern end, but sloped away gently to the south, and Manfred’s army was split, one half on either side of it.
Unsurprisingly, Manfred’s army had been giving ground. The Chaos force were forcing them into the stem like a hand-gunner packing wadding into the barrel of his gun. They had not yet pushed Manfred so far south that he had lost the advantage of the rocky hill, though this looked likely on the east side of the hill, where Manfred’s forces were stretched thinner and the Kurgan forces were heaviest. If this happened it would be disaster for Manfred, for the Kurgan would then be able to sweep around the little hill from the south and attack the forces on the west side of the hill from the rear.
Hals sucked air through his teeth. ‘Looks grim.’
‘Aye,’ said Reiner. ‘But imagine how much worse it would be if we hadn’t tipped the northers’ cannon into the river. If they were firing that monster from the castle ramparts it might be over by now.’
‘Where’s Albrecht?’ asked Franka.
‘There,’ said Oskar.
Reiner and the others looked where he was pointing. Through the haze of smoke that wafted over the battlefield, Reiner could just see a troop of knights riding out of patchy woods on a hillside on the far side of the valley. Albrecht was at their head, a vexillary holding aloft his family banner beside him. Several companies of swordsmen and handgunners followed the knights, and four cannon crews began to wheel their pieces into position. Somehow the baron had found a path through the hills and had come out north of the battle line. A charge down the steep hillside and he could take the Chaos force in the rear.
‘And there,’ said Oskar again, pointing south.
Reiner looked left. Out of Manfred’s camp came company after company of spearmen, all marching in the disturbing loose-limbed gait Reiner’s companions had seen before. They formed a broad front two hundred paces behind Manfred’s lines.
‘Does he support Manfred after all?’ asked Pavel, confused. ‘Have we been wrong all along?’
A great cheer went up as Manfred’s beleaguered army noticed Albrecht’s forces, and they began to fight with renewed vigour. The Kurgan saw the fresh troops as well, and began frantically trying to manoeuvre men into position to meet Albrecht’s knights. But the elation of the men and the terror of the Kurgan were both short-lived, for strangely, though they were in excellent positions to attack and support, Albrecht’s troops, both on the hill and behind Manfred’s lines, remained where they were, silent watchers to the bloody battle before them.
‘What is he waiting for?’ asked Hals angrily. ‘He could have ‘em on the run.’
‘Where is the banner?’ asked Reiner.
They looked for it, but couldn’t see it.
Meanwhile, the few feet of ground Manfred’s troops had won back when the Chaos force had become confused by the new threat were rapidly being lost again as the northers fought desperately to beat the foe they faced before the new foe attacked.
Beside Reiner, Franka choked. ‘There it is! On the little hill.’
Reiner and the others followed her gaze. Riding up the rocky hill in the centre of Manfred’s line was Erich, mounted on his white charger and holding the vile banner in his lance socket.
Reiner could see Manfred’s gun crews advancing toward the young knight, weapons drawn, but they didn’t attack. Instead, the men fell to their knees before the banner and let him pass.
Erich reached the crest of the hill and raised the banner high over his head. It flapped thickly in the wind. Though there was no change in the weather, a pall seemed to fall across the whole valley, as if the banner sucked up light. Reiner felt a chill shiver through him. Franka moaned. The effect on the troops in the valley was even stronger. Manfred’s men faltered and fell back all along his line, stunned into inaction by the banner’s dread influence.
The Chaos troops hesitated as well, confused by this strange symbol, but they seemed not to fear it as the men of the Empire did, and took advantage of their foes’ numb horror to press their attack. Manfred’s army defended itself, but it was clear that their morale was at low ebb, and they fought as if distracted.
‘We’ve got to reach that banner before it’s too late,’ said Franka.
‘Is already too late,’ said Giano. ‘I want to help, but they dead men. We go, hey?’
Reiner shook his head. It was strange. He could hear the screams of the dying and the bellowing of captains and sergeants trying desperately to rally dispirited troops. He knew the situation was hopeless. He knew riding into that mess was suicide. If he did what was in his best interest, he would be slinking over the hill with his tail between his legs, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t let that stiff-necked clot Erich win the day. He couldn’t let Lady Magda and that overstuffed sausage Albrecht have their way either. ‘No. We stay. Come on. Straight for the hill.’
He started down the steep hill with his companions limping and grunting behind him. They reached the valley floor just south of Manfred’s line, where field surgeons and camp followers were dragging the dead and the wounded away from the fighting, and broken men moaned on the ground. A hundred paces to their left, standing in eerie silence, was Albrecht’s infantry: rank after rank of spearmen and archers gazing blankly forward like flesh statues. Reiner’s companions began picking their way across the body-littered field. Dressed as they were in Empire colours, none of Manfred’s troops paid them any mind.
Halfway across, a movement out of the corner of his eye made Reiner look up. On top of the rocky hill, Erich was standing in his stirrups and waving the evil banner in a circle over his head.
‘Sigmar’s hammer!’ grunted Hals. ‘Here they come.’
Reiner looked to his left. Albrecht’s infantry were advancing in perfect unison, spears lowered, eyes dead. Behind them, the archers aimed at the sky and loosed their arrows.
‘Run!’ Reiner cried. ‘Run for the hill!’
The company ran as fast as they could, hobbling and stumbling and cursing as a cloud of arrows arched overhead, momentarily blocking out the sun, then fell to earth like black rain. Fortunately, the archers’ target was Manfred’s line, and only a few that fell short landed near them. It wasn’t so fortunate for Manfred’s men, who screamed in surprise and terror as the arrows cut them down.
‘The traitor!’ cried Franka.
Over the shoulder of the rocky hill, Reiner could see that Albrecht and his knights had answered Erich’s signal as well. They were charging down into the valley, lances levelled. From Reiner’s vantage, it was impossible to see who they were attacking, but the barbaric howl of rage that echoed across the valley gave the answer. Albrecht had lowered the boom on the Kurgan at last.
‘He attacks both sides!’ barked Hals as he limped on. ‘What is the mad fool about.’
‘Mad?’ gasped Reiner. ‘He has more genius than I credited him with. He wants the castle for himself, so he waits until each side has weakened the other, then attacks both.’
They reached the thin woods that surrounded the rocky hill just as Albrecht’s spears overran their latitude. Manfred’s battle line, already much depleted, had divided into two back-to-back fronts, one line continuing to face the Kurgan, the other turning to face their ensorcelled brothers, who at the last twenty paces broke into a charge.
It was a disturbing sight, for Albrecht’s troops showed no emotion as they rushed forward. They raised no battle cry, snarled no challenge, only stared dead ahead as they drove their spears into Manfred’s ragged line in perfect unison. And yet for all their lack of emotion, they were savagely bloodthirsty, slashing and hacking like butchers, biting and clawing and gouging eyes as they came to grips with their foes, and all the while gazing blankly into the middle distance.