Magnus exchanged glances with Hildebrandt. The huge man clearly wanted nothing to do with the fields of slowly rotting cadavers. Magnus wasn’t too keen on the idea himself. The captains hesitated, regarding the mangled limbs with revulsion.
‘Damned weaklings,’ muttered Thorgad, and unbuckled his axe from its leather ties. He stomped down the ridge towards the battlefield. That was enough to shame the others into action. With a sigh, Magnus and Hildebrandt did likewise, following the dwarf down into the stinking pit, their faces pale.
‘I saw a tapestry like this once,’ said Hildebrandt, clasping a scarf to his face as he walked. ‘In the Temple of Morr in Wurtbad. A vision of the afterlife.’
‘Something to look forward to, then,’ said Magnus. Everywhere he looked, the glassy eyes of the dead stared back at him. Those which still had eyes, that was. The crows had been busy at the sockets, and every exposed flap of dead flesh was scored with peck-marks. The smell was overpowering.
‘What does he expect us to find?’ grumbled Hildebrandt, picking his way through the decaying ranks. ‘These bodies are weeks old. The battlefield has been cleared.’
Magnus shrugged, and looked up again at the steep defiles on either side of them.
‘They were ambushed,’ he said, grimly. ‘Volleys of fire from up there would cause havoc. Block the valley at either end, and you have a massacre on your hands.’
‘Why don’t they try it on us?’ he said, following Magnus’s gaze into the heavens.
Magnus shook his head, trying to avoid breathing deeply of the noxious air around him. He remembered Thorgad’s words. They’ll come at night, or when breaking camp. When we’re weak.
‘Maybe they lost more men than they’d hoped for,’ he said, knowing his words sounded hollow. ‘But I don’t trust our scouts. This place feels wrong. There are eyes on us, or I’m a greenskin.’
Hildebrandt didn’t reply, and started kicking away some of the discarded blades that littered the ground. The two men were in the thick of the ruined army, and the piles of bodies lay almost on top of one another.
‘There’s nothing to see here but death,’ he murmured, bitterly. His great face was heavy with grief.
Magnus lifted his eyes from the ranks of bodies and looked at Hildebrandt with concern. The man was in a bad way. The fall had knocked some of the spirit from him. This field of decay was doing the rest. Perhaps it hadn’t been right to bring him along. The man’s courage was not what it had been.
Magnus was about to tell him to return to the ridge when a hoarse shout came from Thorgad. The two men hurried over. Unlike the others, who had trodden lightly and with distaste through the sickening scene, Thorgad had rummaged vigorously amongst the bodies. Any remaining gear had been rifled through. The enemy had looted most of the objects of value, but such had been the scale of their victory that the defenders’ weapons lay where they had fallen. Clearly, the rebels had had no great need for more swords or spears.
‘I’ve found something,’ the dwarf said, gruffly.
Thorgad had a sliver of metal in his palm. It was about five inches long, curved like an elongated S, and artfully carved. He gave it to Magnus.
‘A serpentine,’ Ironblood said, turning the object over in his hands. It was the device used to lower the burning match into the pan, employed in long guns to detonate the blackpowder charge.
Thorgad nodded.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘The only piece of gunnery I’ve found. Whoever stripped this place has done good work. They might have had a dwarf’s eyes. There’s nothing left of them. Nothing at all. It’s as if they were never here.’
‘Apart from this,’ said Magnus, thoughtfully. He pulled a monocle lens from his jerkin, and fixed it to his right eye. He drew the sliver closer, and peered intently at it. The mechanism was familiar, and yet unfamiliar. He could clearly see how it fitted with the rest of the gun, but the shape was more angular than was common in Imperial weaponry. It was not from the north of the Empire, that was for sure. Hochland guns had their own unique workings of which their gunsmiths were fiercely proud. It might have come from Nuln, though there were also subtle differences from the products of that city’s great schools. The serpentine wouldn’t have fitted any of the guns in his handgunner companies. It was too big, and too bizarrely shaped.
Magnus paused, unsure of himself.
‘This is new to me,’ he said at last, putting the eyeglass away and holding the metal up to the meagre light. ‘There was a time when I could have told you where every bearing from every working in the Old World came from. Now I’m no longer so confident. But I’d say this is new. From a new mechanism, too. I’ve never seen its like.’
Hildebrandt took the serpentine and examined it intently. Thorgad nodded his squat head in agreement.
‘You should ask yourself something, Ironblood,’ the dwarf said. ‘Those peaks on either side of us are high. Very high. Could your gunners hit a target from there? If the ambush was raised from those cliffs, their guns can shoot a long way. I don’t think any umgi weapons are that good.’
Magnus squinted as he gauged the distances. The dwarf might have been right. If they had fired from so far, the range of their weapons must have been good. Worryingly good.
‘There’s something else,’ said Thorgad, taking the piece back from Hildebrandt. ‘This design has something of the dwarfs about it, or I’ll shave my beard off. Your race would never carve something this way. You don’t have the tools for it. See the angle here, where the pin is fixed? That’s dawi design. I’d stake my hold on it.’
Magnus took another look. He was no expert on dwarfish manufacture, but Thorgad had a point. It had the mark of the stunted folk. The quality, too. He frowned, thinking hard.
‘Are there dwarfs in these mountains?’ he asked.
‘There are dwarfs all over the Empire,’ said Thorgad, dismissively. ‘But in numbers? Not here. There’s nothing of value to us in these hills. In any case, my people wouldn’t be getting involved with your fights. Why would they risk their necks for Anna-Louisa when there are grudges to avenge in the east?’
Thorgad stowed the serpentine safely in a pouch at his belt.
‘No,’ he said. ‘If dwarfs are involved, then there are few of them. Perhaps some smiths, working for hire.’
Thorgad didn’t look at Magnus as he spoke, and Ironblood thought the dwarf wasn’t telling all he knew. He pondered pressing him for more, but decided against it. If Thorgad had his secrets, no amount of cajoling would prise them from him. They would come out in the end, one way or another.
‘So we know this,’ said Magnus, resignedly. ‘They have good guns. Of their own design, by the look of it. I don’t like that. You’re right about their range. We have nothing to match it. I should tell Scharnhorst.’
‘He won’t be happy,’ said Hildebrandt.
‘Have you ever seen him happy?’ asked Magnus. ‘I’ll tell him myself. The scouts must be forewarned.’
Magnus looked out over the scene of desolation. Whatever guns the enemy possessed, they had wreaked terrible destruction. The thought of it sent a tremor down his spine.
‘They’re not perfect,’ he murmured, thinking of the serpentine. ‘They didn’t erase all the evidence. That’s something.’
As he spoke, Magnus found that he didn’t believe his own words. The more they discovered about the unseen enemy, the more Magnus found himself full of misgiving. Why hadn’t they shown themselves? Were they tormenting them? Letting the army exhaust itself in the ascent before letting their full force loose on them? He felt his stomach begin to rebel. The noxious odour of death was intensifying. There was little more they could do in such a place.
‘Come,’ Magnus said to Thorgad and Hildebrandt. ‘We should go back. This battlefield sickens me. We’ll think more on it once we’re marching. Messina might know more – it could be a Tilean design.’
With the valley route denied them, the army had to take a circuitous path to their eventual destination. They had been barely a day’s march from Morgramgar on discovery of the site of the massacre, but Magnus guessed that the detour would take them at least twice that. With no sign of their goal, the men had become fractious and restive. The endless cold, poor diet and lack of decisive action were all playing their part. Fights broke out for the smallest of reasons. The harsh regimen of the sergeants was redoubled, and it became common to see soldiers dragged from their companies to face the lash for insubordination. As with all the campaigns Magnus had ever been on, the longer it lasted without combat, the more the cohesion of the army was put under strain.
If Scharnhorst realised the scale of the unrest, he gave no sign of it. The pace remained punishing. Kruger and his Knights of the Iron Sceptre rode ceaselessly along the flanks of the marching companies, urging greater efforts for the glory of the Emperor. The captain and his men became hated by the common infantrymen, who had little in common with the noble riders on their powerful steeds. At the rear of the entire host, the trail of carts and wagons crawled onwards painfully slowly. No matter how hard the drivers whipped and goaded the straining horses, there was only so much progress the beasts could make. Several of them had collapsed from the strain. When resuscitation proved impossible, their necks were cut, and they were left for the wolves. There were now no spare horses to pull the great guns. If any others failed to make it, the engineers would have to commandeer replacement steeds from the cavalry units. That would be neither easy nor popular.
The day waned to dusk. In the far north, strange shapes could be seen flying low on the jagged horizon. Birds, perhaps. But they were big ones, and their wings were like those of a bat. As the light died, they passed from view.
Scharnhorst’s men cleared a series of rubble-choked gullies and emerged onto a wide plain several hundred feet above their starting position. The land was flat, stony and scored with great cracks. Little grew on it but lichen, clinging to the underside of great boulders. With nothing to break its path, the wind tore across the bleak landscape, whipping at the clothes of the soldiers and making the standards snap and ruffle. When the order to cease marching and form camp was given, men fell to their knees with exhaustion, heedless of rank, deployment or the need to organise sentries. As the heavy wains were hauled up the last few hundred yards, campfires were lit on the bare stone, and thin gruel slopped into tin pails. The dark was coming quickly, and the shadows were long.
Magnus and the engineers were, as ever, busy with the rearguard. Corps of handgunners had been called back to assist the safe mooring of the gunnery train. Messina and Herschel rode amongst them, threatening and encouraging as necessary. There was work to be done before night fell, but few of them could think of anything but their bellies and a snatched night’s sleep. The gruel was little better than water, but at least it was hot.
As the sun sunk towards the serrated west, Magnus looked at the scene before him wearily, feeling a heavy tiredness eke away at his bones. It had now been days since he’d had a proper drink. Up in the barren wilderness, even the sparse comforts of Frau Ettieg’s homestead suddenly took on a strangely wholesome aspect. He found himself salivating at the prospect of a tankard full of frothy, well-drawn beer. Once, it had been such a common pleasure. Now it had become the stuff of dreams. For a moment, just a moment, he forgot about the burden of command, the endless complaints of the wain drivers, the worry over the state of the big guns, and imagined sipping a warm, thick, foamy draught of properly bitter, malt-soaked home-brewed ale. Magnus half-closed his eyes, and let the reins of his horse fall slack. His fingers crept towards the gourd.
The first shot rang out.
‘Cover!’ came a panicked voice, and immediately the camp burst into action. Men scrabbled for their guns. Fires were doused. Pails of gruel were knocked over. Some men lay on the floor and didn’t move. The shots had been well-aimed.
Magnus slid from his horse. He looked around quickly, trying to see where the others were. There was no sign of them. This was bad. The troops were exposed, and the light was almost gone. Picking out the enemy snipers was going to be difficult.
Keeping his body low, Magnus ran over to the nearest company of handgunners. Several of them had been felled. The rest were frantically pulling their long guns from leather holsters and striking flints to light the matchcord.
‘Keep calm!’ cried Magnus. ‘Remember your training. They can’t fire again for a moment. Load your guns and wait for my signal.’
As the words left his lips, the dusk was lit with a barrage of light. The sound of blackpowder cracked in the air. On Magnus’s left hand, a man crumpled heavily, clutching his eyes and screaming. He rolled away, blood pumping from the wound. Magnus looked down in horror, transfixed.
‘That’s impossible,’ he breathed. ‘No one could reload that quickly. How many ranks have they got?’
His mind was racing. This was dangerous. He turned to the handgunners.
‘Form a line!’ he shouted, seizing the stricken gunner’s weapon from where he’d dropped it. ‘Wait for my mark!’
The men around him hurriedly finished loading their guns, blowing powder from the sealed pans and replacing the scouring sticks. They crouched down in a long, ragged line facing away from the lines of carts. Elsewhere in the camp, the sound of gunfire echoed. Shouted orders and screams of pain rose up from the length of the column. It sounded disorderly. This was a shambles.
Magnus rammed the shot home, checked the burn of his matchcord and hoisted the gun to his shoulder. He was lucky. It was a genuine Hochland long gun. It would fire true.
‘Raise your weapons!’ he shouted. On either side of him, muzzles fell into line. It was slow, though. Far too slow.
There was nothing to aim at. Nothing to see. The shots had come from the murk beyond the camp perimeter. They would have to shoot blind. It would be a miracle if they hit a thing.
‘Fire!’ cried Magnus.
The guns recoiled as the serpentines snapped back and blackpowder burst into flame. With a ragged snap, a volley of shot was sent sailing into the gloom. Smoke from the ignited powder floated across the camp. There were similar jarring cracks from elsewhere in the camp. The defenders were slowly responding. Magnus wondered if any of them could see more than he could.
‘Reload!’ he yelled, knowing that time was of the essence.
He crouched down low. The matchcord was taken off and pan exposed. He spilled a leather pouch of iron balls into his palm, drew out the scouring stick and rammed one into the barrel expertly, keeping a close eye on the spare powder. This was complicated, dangerous work. If something hit the stores, they would all be immolated. Best not to think about it.
Magnus raised himself to one knee.
‘Quicker, damn you!’ he growled. The handgunners were taking too long, fumbling as the light failed. This was going to be a massacre. He remembered the grey faces in the valley. They never stood a chance. ‘Sigmar flay you, load the damn guns!’
There was a flash of light from far off. Magnus ducked. A fresh volley of shot slammed into the camp. Men were hurled from their feet. Shot ripped through leather and ricocheted off iron. Fresh cries of sudden agony rose up. The lines were wavering. To their left, the defence was broken, and men were fleeing from the danger. Magnus pushed himself back into a crouch. How in the name of Morr were the attackers loading so fast? They’d released three heavy, disciplined volleys so far, and the defenders had barely got one away.
‘Raise your guns!’ he shouted. ‘Aim for where the powder flashe
s!’
It was almost useless advice. They were firing blind, hoping against hope that their shot would somehow hit the right target. The enemy had no such worries. They knew where to aim, and their target was huge. Every volley would hit something or other. The dark was their ally.
Slowly, clumsily, the handgunners assumed the firing position. There were fewer of them. Some of the gunners’ matchcord had extinguished, some had shattered scourers, others lay face down against the rock, blood pooling.
‘Fire!’ bellowed Magnus.
The guns cracked once again, sending the iron balls screaming into the dusk. It wasn’t clear that they’d hit anything at all. The position was hopeless. Where was the cavalry? Why hadn’t the scouts secured the area?
‘Reload!’ croaked Magnus, his voice breaking and going hoarse. With trembling fingers, he reached for more shot. The barrel of his gun was hot, and the stench of blackpowder was close in his nostrils. He kept low, heart beating hard. At the rate the bastards were firing, it couldn’t be long before…
The muzzle flashes came again, and more shot whined over his head. With terrible repetition, more men cried out in pain as the shot found its targets. The rate of fire was unbelievable. How many attackers were there? Were they advancing? How far away were they? It was impossible to tell. It was a fiasco. They were being picked off like grouse.
At last, Magnus heard the bugles ring out. Someone had taken charge. The order to advance was given. There was no option but to take the fight to the enemy. Torches had been hurriedly lit, and Magnus heard the thunder of hooves as the knights charged in the direction of the incoming fire. Kruger was there, his voice raised in dreadful anger. It was horribly dangerous in the low light, but it was the right tactic. The only tactic.
‘Take up your guns!’ cried Magnus, lifting his own to his chest and cradling the all-important cord. ‘Follow me!’
At last, the men had some direction, something to get their teeth into. With a roar of aggression and rage, they rose up as one and charged across the broken stone. Magnus was at the forefront, eyes wide, sweat starting from his skin, expecting to hear the blast and whine of gunfire at any moment. He muttered a quick prayer to Sigmar. All there was now was luck, or grace. The light had almost gone entirely, and every black shape against the earth looked like an enemy soldier. His heart banged in his chest, his lungs laboured. Battle had come at last.
The Empire Omnibus Page 10