‘Traggot,’ said Thorgad. ‘Broiled wolf hide. Dried over peat. Not many umgi get to try it.’
Magnus grimaced.
‘They’re missing out,’ he said, still chewing.
‘We’re nearly there,’ said Thorgad, letting gouts of smoke drift up into the grey air. ‘Whatever your general says, we haven’t lost much time. The loss of one cannon will mean little when we get to Morgramgar.’
Ironblood gave the dwarf a sidelong look. Was Thorgad trying to make him feel better? That was out of character, and something to worry about. When a dwarf turned his hand to sympathy, then things were truly bad.
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Magnus, attacking the chunk of meat. It remained solid and unmoving in his mouth.
‘Tell me,’ said Thorgad. ‘Your name is a famous one among your people. I’ve asked around. Ironblood brings respect. And yet, when I met you, you looked like you were ready for the dung heap. What went wrong?’
Ironblood looked at him sourly, swallowing the meat at last with some difficulty. It had been hours since he’d allowed himself even a sniff of ale, and his mood had soured.
‘Are you always this direct?’ he said.
Thorgad smiled bleakly.
‘Aye, manling,’ he said. ‘No point in beating about the grobi nest.’
Ironblood felt the lump of wolf gristle slide down his gullet slowly. He’d be digesting it for the rest of the morning. Dwarf stomachs were strange and terrible things.
‘I’ll say it again, then,’ said Ironblood. ‘Mind your own damn business.’
He pulled his cloak tight around him, feeling the blood beginning to pump back into his feet and fingers.
‘We’ll be on our way soon,’ Magnus said, changing the subject to something more immediate. ‘And I’m glad it’s not far. This whole campaign can’t end soon enough for me.’
Thorgad spat on the ground, and looked disdainful.
‘You really don’t understand, do you?’ he said, his voice growling with displeasure. ‘You and that idiot general think you’ll arrive at the citadel, lob a few pounds of iron at the walls and then come merrily home again when they fall down. Believe me, it’s not going to be that way.’
Ironblood felt sure he didn’t want to hear what was coming next, but kept listening. The dwarf seemed to know what he was talking about. You could never tell when one was just boasting for the sake of it, but Thorgad had an air of casual knowledge that held his attention.
‘You’ve forgotten a whole army’s been lost up here already,’ said the dwarf. ‘That doesn’t happen by accident. Even an umgi general couldn’t massacre the men under his command single-handedly.’
The dwarf’s eyes shone. He seemed to be taking a kind of sadistic pleasure in recounting the tale of human weakness.
‘This country will get very hard. Very hard, very soon,’ he said. ‘We’ll be passing through the perfect terrain for an ambush. Do you think this von Kleister will let you walk up to her gates without a fight? No. She’s not stupid, that woman. I’ll wager she’s got more sense than your man Scharnhorst, at any rate. Expect an attack, and soon. Her troops know the country. They’ll strike by night, or when we’re breaking camp. When we’re weak.’
Ironblood looked sceptical.
‘There are four thousand men in this command,’ he said. ‘It’d be brave to attack us in the open. We have archers and handgunners to guard the flanks. Some of them know this country too.’
Thorgad shrugged.
‘So you say,’ he said. ‘We’ll see what happens.’
Then he leaned over to Ironblood, and fixed him with a level stare.
‘But just remember,’ he said, and his voice was low. ‘I’ll say it again, so the importance of it isn’t lost on you. There was a whole army sent up here ahead of you. None of them came back. None of them. Does that sound like something to take lightly? You should be more afraid, master engineer, and not just for the axles on your precious carts.’
Thorgad sat back, looking grimly satisfied. Magnus wanted to say something to puncture the dwarf’s insufferable pride, but nothing came to mind. If he was honest, Thorgad’s words had unsettled him. The mountains were a cold, unforgiving place. He looked up at the peaks around them, pale in the morning air. Mist rolled lazily down their flanks, wreathing the valleys in shadow. They were silent, cold, inscrutable.
Then, just as he began to feel the full effect of the dwarf’s portentous warning, the horns sounded to rouse the sleeping army. All around them, men groaned, and rolled over in their cloaks. In an instant, the sergeants were on their feet, wiping their eyes and barking out orders. Irritably, blearily, the camp began to rise. Magnus’s thoughts were broken, and the harsh reality of the present rushed in to take their place.
He took a deep breath, and looked down at Thorgad.
‘So be it,’ he said. ‘One more march, and we’ll be right under Anna-Louisa’s petticoats. And then we’ll really see what’s been going on up here.’
With that, Magnus got up and stomped off to wake the others. As he left, Thorgad stayed seated, gently smoking his pipe. His expression was hard to read, but his eyes glittered like flints.
Chapter Six
‘The engineer can create machines to counter all foes. From the precision fire of the master-crafted pistol, to the massed volleys of the handgunners, there is little that can stand against the effective deployment of blackpowder weapons. But there is one thing he cannot counter, no matter how skilled he is with iron, steam and steel. That is fear, the devourer of men. Let terror enter the hearts of your troops, and all the guns in the Old World will not be enough to ensure victory.’
Master Engineer Lukas Grendel
Address given at the College
of Engineers, Nuln
As the army climbed ever higher, the weather became steadily colder. While the lowlands around Hergig were enjoying the first few days of spring, the mountains remained as hard and cold as marble. The snowline was still far above them, but the biting wind made the air frigid. Men, shivering in their damp clothes, bent their heads low and gritted their teeth as they marched. Several had fallen sick in the grinding conditions. There was little to be done for them. Those that could still walk were given such crude potions as existed and propped up by their fellow soldiers. A few poor souls, lost in fevers or defeated by the high airs, had been left behind. They would either have to find their way back to Hergig somehow or die out in the wilds.
For those that had made it up into the Middle Mountains, the white summits now rose around them on all sides. The army had reached the heart of the high country, and the road rose and fell constantly, winding and diving around great outcrops of grey-banded rock. The few trees that grew in such places were dark pines, grasping on to the edges of the mighty cliffs with gnarled roots. Thin grey grasses rustled endlessly in the wind, a constant susurration that set even the most experienced soldiers’ nerves on edge.
As he rode, Magnus found himself drawn to the high peaks, now ringing the horizon. The mountains gazed down at the massed columns of men as they toiled up towards their goal. They looked pitiless and bleak, crested with glittering crowns of rock-broken ice. There was an air of menace emanating from them. Every so often, as the wind moaned and eddied against the raw, jagged rocks, Magnus thought he caught the echo of fell voices, whispering malicious words just beyond mortal hearing.
There were tales about the mountains, just as there were tales about the forest. Strange things gnawed their way under the rock, it was told. All knew that high up in the snow-covered heights, far beyond the reach of mortal men, ancient creatures lived. Armoured dragons, crouching over their hoards of ice-crusted gold. Fur-covered monsters in the shapes of men, howling their loneliness to the glittering stars. Magnus had never really believed such stories. But now, looking up at the sheer flanks of the great mountains, he felt his nerve begin to fail him
. He had been dry for almost two days, and it played havoc with his nerves. There were surely secrets hidden in those terrible heights, secrets that mortal men were never destined to discover. This was not their place, no more than the deep forest was.
Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by shouts from the men in front of him. Something was going on further up ahead. Magnus rose in his stirrups, trying to make out what was happening. Bugles had been sounded, and captains of the handgunners were riding up towards the vanguard of the army.
Magnus turned in his saddle, and called over to the others.
‘Hildebrandt, Thorgad, you come with me,’ he said. ‘Messina and Herschel, stay with the guns. We’ll be back soon.’
He kicked the flanks of his horse, and broke into a canter. Hildebrandt was soon at his side, lumbering along on his giant carthorse. Thorgad broke into a run, cursing as he tried to keep up with the horses. A low stream of obscene Khazalid pursued them as they rode up through the ranks.
Magnus was soon joined by other company captains, summoned by the call of the horns, each with the same look of consternation on their faces. The signal for battle had not been given, so the massed ranks of footsoldiers stood down, grateful for the rest. For some reason, Scharnhorst wanted his commanders to come together at the head of the army. That was unusual, and whatever was unusual was a cause for concern.
Passing four thousand men took some time, even on a fast horse. Eventually, Magnus and the others reached the vanguard. Thorgad arrived some time later, his cheeks blood-red. No one dared so much as smile at him.
The army had halted at the entrance of a sheer-edged valley running roughly north-west. Its flanks rose like the inside of a clay bowl, smooth and free of vegetation. The road at its base ran swiftly into shadow, for the sun failed to penetrate far down into the deep gorge. It was hard to make out much beyond the first few hundred yards, but it seemed from the curve of the rock as if the valley continued for at least a couple of miles.
Magnus looked at it with distrust. A natural place for an ambush. The enveloping cliffs could hide a whole regiment of archers. Once within the welcoming embrace of the slopes there would be little an army could do to defend itself. Within the bowl-shaped depression, the wind moaned and echoed mockingly, as if daring them to enter.
‘What is this?’ asked Magnus, bringing his horse alongside Kruger, the captain of the Iron Sceptre knights.
‘The scouts have returned,’ said the knight, peering into the valley beyond with a grim look. ‘The enemy is nowhere to be seen. But there’s… something else.’
Magnus didn’t like the expression on the man’s face. He was about to quiz him further when Scharnhorst came riding up with his retinue. He looked even more sour than usual. The cold air and dry wind suited his personality perfectly.
‘Kruger, Kossof, Ironblood, Meckled-Raus, Harrowgrim, Halsbad,’ Scharnhorst said perfunctorily. ‘Come with me. There’s something you should see.’
Without waiting for them to reply, he pulled his horse round and rode up towards the maw of the valley. The named captains broke into a canter and followed him. Many of their retainers did too.
‘You should come,’ said Ironblood to Hildebrandt and the dwarf. ‘I don’t like the look of this, but we should all see it.’
They rode swiftly from the head of the pass and into the long shadow. Once out of the light of the sun, the temperature plummeted even further. The sheer sides of the chasm soared into the pale air like battlements, cutting off the sunlight and amplifying the scraping sigh of the wind. Within those terrible walls, everything became bleak and colourless. The few trees clinging to the rock were small and stunted, their bare branches groping up into the air like crone’s fingers. Aside from clatter of the horses’ hooves, there was almost no sound at all. It felt as if they were riding into the mouth of the underworld.
Magnus looked up at the rock around them warily. He could see no sign of movement up above. It was the scouts’ task to make sure that such places would be free of snipers or longbowmen, but you could never be sure. He half-expected a hail of arrows to come spinning down from the bleak heights at any moment.
They kept riding. They had gone nearly a mile when Thorgad noticed the stench.
‘Grimnir’s beard,’ he spat, shaking his head with disgust. ‘That’s as foul as a slayer’s gruntaz.’
Soon afterwards, Magnus realised what he meant. A familiar aroma wafted up from the valley before them. For an old soldier, it was as commonplace as the smell of sour beer and sweat. Death. The reek of death. It was everywhere. His heart began to beat more heavily. There could be only one explanation.
The company rode on, eventually cresting a narrow ridge across the valley floor. Only then did Scharnhorst give the signal to halt. The captains formed a line on the rise, looking ahead with grey faces. None of them spoke. None of them needed to. They had found the army that had gone before them.
Strewn from one side of the valley to the other, corpses lay in twisted formations on the ice-hard ground. Old blood, brown and cracked into flakes, was streaked across the stones. Swords lay where they had been dropped, wedged between rocks or half-buried in loose gravel. One of Hochland’s battle-standards still stood, its tattered flag fluttering in the wind. The insignia of Count Ludenhof had been replaced by a crudely daubed death’s head. Obscene insults had been scrawled across the rocks around it.
Many of the bodies had been stripped of their armour, their boots and even their clothes. Some were headless. A few had been cruelly hacked apart, their limbs lying like discarded toys amongst the carnage. The icy air had preserved the corpses from decomposing entirely, but the steady onset of putrescence had turned the scene into a stinking, rotting charnel house. Magnus saw Hildebrandt pull a piece of cloth to his mouth, trying not to gag. Thorgad looked on impassively, his snub nose wrinkled against the foul odour.
So this was what had become of them. Killed to a man. No survivors.
‘I don’t want the men to see this,’ said Scharnhorst. His voice was thin and unforgiving. A kernel of anger underpinned it. It was the first time Magnus had heard emotion in his speech. ‘We’ll find another route to the citadel. But we cannot pass without finding out what happened here.’
Kruger raised an eyebrow coolly.
‘We can see what happened,’ he said. ‘What good will it do us to linger over it?’
Scharnhorst continued gazing over the scene of desolation before them, as if by boring his eyes into the rocks he could bring the silent corpses back to life.
‘Look again, master knight,’ he said, coldly. ‘How many battlefields have you ridden across? When did you ever see one like this? Do not look for what is there before you. Look for what is not.’
Mutely, Magnus turned back to the ranks of broken cadavers along with Kruger and the others. To look on the scene for more than a moment was hard. It seemed somehow disrespectful. Though they were now grey-skinned and hollow-eyed, the victims had once been men like him, full of blood and clothed in flesh. For a moment, Magnus couldn’t see what Scharnhorst was going on about. He resented having to peer at the dead for longer than was necessary. Then, gradually, he began to understand.
All of the stricken men were wearing the colours of Hochland. The first army had clearly been more organised than the second. There were no mercenaries among them, and no livery from other states of the Empire. As Magnus’s eyes swept across the benighted scene, his suspicion was confirmed. There were no enemy troops there at all. All the corpses were clad in the remains of Ludenhof’s colours. It was as if an invisible enemy had come down from the heights and struck them as they marched.
Though some distance away, Magnus could still make out the look of terror and amazement on the dead men’s faces. He’d never witnessed a battlefield like it. Even in the most heinous one-sided slaughter, a few troops from both forces ended up lying in the blood-soaked mire. Here,
it looked as if the wind itself had borne death on its wings. The steady thump of his heartbeat began to quicken again. This was a silent horror beyond anything he had encountered. He reached for his gourd. It was empty. If the mountains themselves had risen up and destroyed a whole army of men, what hope did they have? They would be dead before a single shot was fired on the walls of Morgramgar. There was some bestial presence in the peaks, something they could never hope to resist. They were dead men, just like the ones lying in the dirt before them.
Magnus could sense that others were thinking the same thing. A shiver of unease passed along the line of commanders. One of them, a lieutenant of Kruger’s, started to retch dryly into a rag.
‘Do not forget yourselves, men,’ said Scharnhorst, sternly. His voice still had an edge of anger in it, and trembled as he spoke. ‘These were good folk of Hochland once. They deserved better than this, a cold grave in the mountains with no blessing or hope of burial.’
He looked at his men on either side of him, and a frown of disgust passed across his features.
‘For anyone thinking that this is the work of some unnatural spirit or vengeful shade, forget that now. These men have been killed with steel and shot, just like any other troops. The battlefield has been cleared. They’ve done it to unnerve us. Do not let them have this victory. You are men of the Empire. Find your courage.’
As Scharnhorst spoke, Magnus recovered himself. Of course, that was what had happened. The awful smell, the moaning wind, it was beginning to get to him. He shook his head, trying to shrug off the persistent feeling of doom and hopelessness.
‘It’s not a pleasant task,’ continued the general, looking back over the corpses with distaste, ‘but we have to do it. There will be clues. Things we can use. I’ll give you an hour. Move amongst the dead. Find out what happened. Then we’ll ride on by another path. Whatever happens, we must not repeat their mistakes.’
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