The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  Magnus sighed, and put it away. Messina and Herschel were coming

  towards him. The Tilean had recovered most of his habitual self-

  assurance, but the lad from Averland looked uncertain whom to defer to. Ironblood almost felt sorry for him.

  ‘We are in place, sir,’ said Messina. ‘Will you give the order to fire?’

  Magnus looked along the line of cannons. The crews gazed back at him expectantly. The fuses had been lit, and the first volley of Silvio’s strange shot had been loaded and rammed. Thorgad and Hildebrandt stood some distance away, looking unconvinced. Neither spoke.

  ‘Very good,’ said Magnus, and glanced up at the silent walls of Morgramgar. There was still no movement visible on the high walls. The dark citadel remained entirely silent, entirely still. Only the slight movement of the death’s-head standard and the swaying of the strange chains broke the impression of implacable hostility. It was an unnerving construction. The walls looked as smooth and unbroken as ever. If he didn’t know that the citadel was swarming with troops deep inside, Magnus might have presumed it had been abandoned.

  From several yards away, Scharnhorst stood peering at the ramparts through his spyglass. All other eyes were on the artillery rank.

  Magnus pushed that out of his mind, and raised his hand.

  ‘On my mark!’ he cried.

  The master gunners shuffled to their positions. Magnus could feel his breathing begin to speed up. There was an air of stifled expectation across the whole army. This was what they had come for.

  He muttered a brief benediction to Sigmar, then raised his eyes to the walls once more.

  ‘Fire!’ he cried.

  The wicks fell. Almost immediately, the cartridges in the cannon exploded. In a ragged line, the great guns leapt back on their chassis, and the air was filled with the noxious stench of blackpowder. Messina’s ingenious shells were blasted high into the air.

  Magnus followed their progress intently, shading his eyes against the white of the sky. The master gunners had done their job well. Only one shell spun off target, smashing into the rock in front of the gates. It exploded messily, spreading an orange carpet of flames across the stony ground. The rest sailed over the tops of the ramparts. They ignited against the dark walls, spreading their deadly cargo across the battlements.

  There was a roar of appreciation from the men of the army. Fists were raised. Lines of ink-black smoke began to coil from the citadel’s lower levels. Still there was no sign of movement from within.

  ‘Reload!’ cried Magnus.

  Messina was standing close to him, watching the progress of his inventions with concern. Thorgad and Hildebrandt came closer, each staring intently at the walls.

  The gunnery crews worked quickly. Sponges were loaded with cold water and rammed into the smoking barrels of the guns. Men slopped more water over the ironwork, watching anxiously for any signs of overheating. Fresh cartridges of compressed blackpowder were delivered, and hastily thrust back against the breeches. Then more shot was delivered. The men carried Silvio’s bundles of death warily, walking slowly across the uneven ground and taking care where they trod. The loads were placed in the cannons, and the crew pressed them against the cartridges gingerly.

  Magnus stole a last look at the walls of the citadel. The fires did not seem to be catching. There was some smouldering somewhere behind the towering walls, but not the inferno Messina had promised. He didn’t know whether to be pleased by that or not.

  He turned his attention back to the row of artillery. They were ready to fire again. One by one, the gunners finished their preparations and looked up at Magnus, waiting for the word.

  ‘Fire!’

  Again, only one misfire. One of the cannons recoiled too heavily, spinning on its axle and slewing to the left. A young lad was caught by the rebounding iron. His scream was drowned by the heavy detonation along the line. Fresh shells soared into the air. They were well aimed. All cleared the first line of battlements, and the sound of their explosions cracked across the valley. The men cheered again. More smoke rose.

  ‘Reload!’ cried Magnus. ‘Get that man out of there!’

  Something was wrong. The fire wasn’t kindling. Morgramgar remained defiantly unharmed. The fires were being put out as soon as they started. There was still no visible movement on the walls.

  The crews worked hard. The man who had taken the brunt of the misfire was dragged back from the ranks. His leg was a mangled mess of blood and tendons. His screams continued, only ebbing as he was pulled away from the vanguard and towards the makeshift apothecary’s tent.

  Messina was looking worried.

  ‘The lower levels should be now on fire…’ he muttered, looking at the walls with suspicion. ‘Why isn’t it catching?’

  Magnus ignored him, and prepared a fresh volley.

  ‘Fire!’

  The shells rose up once more. No misfires. All found their target. Briefly, flames licked the flanks of the citadel. Smoke rose. Then it died, extinguished by the ever-present wind. The cheers lost some of their vigour. The troops could see that the volleys were having little effect. Still Morgramgar remained implacable. The standard still hung. The chains still revolved. The silence was unnerving.

  Magnus looked over at Scharnhorst. The general gave no sign.

  ‘How many of these things do you have?’ Magnus hissed to Messina.

  ‘As many as we have need of,’ said Silvio, looking distractedly at the fortress. ‘Keep it going! It only takes one to catch.’

  Magnus doubted that. It wasn’t working. He considered ordering a halt, drawing the cannons back to a safe range. He dismissed the idea. One more round. Scharnhorst would expect him to give the strategy a fair shot.

  ‘Reload!’ he shouted, feeling his voice begin to hoarsen.

  As he did so, something began to change on the walls of Morgramgar. A sick feeling took hold of him. He knew it. There was machinery there, embedded in the stone. Plumes of steam escaped from the ramparts, billowing into the air and drifting across the battlefield. The red fires in the wolf’s eyes burst into a full blaze. The unnatural light in the citadel windows glowed more fiercely. Massive clangs echoed from deep within the fortress. Signals, perhaps. Or maybe the operation of giant machinery.

  ‘Hurry it up!’ bellowed Magnus, not liking the look of what was happening at all. The crews rushed to comply. The rest of the army, lined up some distance behind them, had ceased making any noise. They were looking at the walls.

  There were resounding booms from the citadel. High up in the outer ramparts, stones suddenly seemed to withdraw and slide to one side. The scrape of wheels against iron was clearly audible. From the gaps in the wall, round muzzles were thrust forward. There were over a dozen of them. They were huge. Sculpted wolf’s heads and skulls had been placed over the cannon shafts. From the holes behind them, smoke boiled and ran down the walls, collecting at the base of the citadel. With more grinding, the guns were run out. The largest extended at least six feet over the plain below, hanging precipitously.

  Magnus knew at once that they were within the range of such monsters. The guns were a third bigger than his own largest iron-belchers. Not only were their own guns within range, but the rest of the army was as well.

  ‘Get back!’ he cried, hoping Scharnhorst would hear him. ‘The troops must withdraw!’

  The crews around him kept working. They had little choice. There were more ominous rumbles from Morgramgar. There was still no sign of any human activity. The terrible row of wall-mounted cannons seemed to operate as if possessed of a morbid will of its own. Smoke continued to pour from the gaps around the barrels, draping the walls in a curtain of foul-smelling gloom. Echoing booms sounded from within the structure. Whatever had been unleashed was coming to fruition.

  ‘Fire when ready!’ yelled Magnus, desperate to get the shot away.

 
From behind him, he could hear men scrabbling to retreat. The troops weren’t stupid. They knew they were in too close. Messina’s strategy was unravelling fast.

  In a ragged, undisciplined sequence, Ironblood’s cannons fired again. Just as before, their deadly cargo hit the target. The flames recoiled from the dark stone as if it were glass, cascading back to earth in rapidly cooling gouts. The plan had failed.

  ‘That’s enough!’ cried Ironblood. ‘Pull back! Get those guns moving!’

  It was an impossible task. The cannons took time to move. Even working flat out, there was no hope of getting them all away. The crews complied as best they could, dousing the steaming barrels, kicking the wedges from the wheels, dragging horses over to haul the guns from danger.

  Messina’s eyes were staring. The man was losing his composure.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed. ‘We can still make it all work!’

  Ironblood gave him a weary look.

  ‘Forget it, Silvio,’ he said, curtly. ‘I counselled against this from the start. We’re exposed. Help me withdraw, or get out of the way.’

  Messina hesitated for a moment, clearly torn. But the crews needed no urging. They were working hurriedly, shouting orders to one another, desperately trying to pull back before they were covered in shot.

  Magnus stole a look towards Scharnhorst’s position. Even the general was pulling back, surrounded by his escort of knights. Only the flagellants were staying put. Their leaders were hurling invective at the citadel, utterly undaunted by the bizarre mechanisms being unveiled before them.

  Then, it happened. The entire valley was rocked by a huge row of explosions. Men fell to the ground, covering their ears. The blasts echoed from the rock around them, booming and amplifying. The air was filled with the screaming sound of iron tearing through the air. Magnus fell to the ground immediately.

  The shot impacted. It was grape, bags of leather stuffed with twisted fragments of iron and bursting gobbets of blackpowder. When it hit, storms of metal flew through the air, tearing apart anything it passed through. Men screamed, clutching faces and torsos. Blood stained the rocks.

  The retreat instantly became a rout. There was no standing up against such a withering volley. The front ranks of the army were sliced apart, their ordered ranks dissolving into ruin instantly.

  Magnus got to his feet shakily. If the enemy cannons were as quick-loading as their guns, a second round would be imminent. His palms were sweaty with fear. He should have withdrawn sooner. The signs had been there.

  He took a hurried look around him. Some of the cannons had been hitched to their steeds, and were being dragged back. Others had been abandoned. There was no hope of retrieving them. They would be isolated, free for the enemy to pound into scrap at their convenience. Even as he ran from the scene, Magnus’s fists balled in frustration. After so much effort, so much time, to lose guns in such a manner was a bitter blow.

  The booms rang out from Morgramgar again. The grape fell shorter. They were going for the artillery lines. There were fresh explosions as the shells of the cannons, still hot and steaming from their bombardment, were blasted apart. The acrid stench of burned metal and blackpowder wafted from the ridge, mixed with the sickening aroma of roasted flesh. Not all the crew had got away.

  The army continued to withdraw. All across the plain, the bodies of the slow and the unlucky were strewn, twitching weakly or torn apart. Gradually, the range of the defenders’ guns was exceeded. Even the flagellants were forced to flee from the scourging grapeshot, screaming curses incoherently as they staggered from danger.

  More booms rang out from Morgramgar. The echoing blasts were like nothing Magnus had come across before. Even seasoned warriors cowered under the resounding report. The waves of noise rebounded staggeringly from the valley walls around them.

  Magnus stopped running. Like the bulk of the men around him, he knew he was now clear of the enemy guns. He turned, watching the grim evidence of the botched deployment. The abandoned artillery pieces were being turned into worthless shards. As the defenders’ cannons found their range, every last item was pounded into the hard ground. The approach to the citadel was turned into a pitted morass of blood and churned earth.

  It seemed to go on forever. Even once the army had been driven away, the bombardment continued, ramming home the message of their inadequacy and futility. The surviving troops looked on, horror-struck. Any satisfaction in their minor successes had been entirely erased. The scale of the task now became horribly apparent.

  Magnus limped across the ranks of disheartened men to Scharnhorst’s retinue. The expressions of the captains were grim. Kossof had been silenced by the thunder of Morgramgar’s arsenal. Kruger’s face was pale.

  Scharnhorst saw Ironblood approach, but said nothing in greeting. He looked shaken by what he had seen. Magnus waited for him to speak. He felt little emotion. Vindication had arrived, but at a terrible price.

  ‘How many pieces did we lose?’ Scharnhorst said at last. His voice shook, and this time not from anger.

  Magnus took a deep breath.

  ‘By my reckoning, half the big guns,’ he said. ‘Those we salvaged don’t have enough range to hit the walls without being blasted apart. If you want to break this citadel, general, we’re going to have to think of something else.’

  Scharnhorst pursed his lips, and his gaze passed back to Morgramgar. The guns had fallen silent at last. The fortress returned to its air of horrifying stillness. Smoke idly drifted across the pockmarked battlefield. The moans of the wounded and dying rose weakly into the air. None ventured forth to try and retrieve them. For the time being, the battle was over.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Gah! The umgi have never understood warfare. They think the whole world is flat. Their minds work in two dimensions. If they had ever defended holds from grobi and thaggoraki, they would know that battle may be joined from above and below. I do not ever expect them to master mechanical flight, for their minds are weak and limited. But I cannot understand their aversion to tunnelling. Perhaps they are afraid. Yes, that must be the explanation.’

  Hadrin Yellowbeard

  Ironbreaker Champion,

  Karak Azgal

  The sun set. Scharnhorst withdrew the army back down the valley, and a guard was set on the approaches to Morgramgar. Sealing the citadel was easy. There was only one way in and one way out. For as long as the besiegers stayed out of range of the monstrous guns, they were masters of the land around the fortress. Mindful of the possibility of a sortie, Scharnhorst trained his remaining cannons on the land immediately before the gates. Companies of halberdiers and handgunners were rotated regularly, keeping a close watch on the eerily quiet walls.

  Quiet they were, but not silent. As the evening darkened into night, men became aware of the low hum emanating from the dark towers. Some even felt the earth drumming under their feet. The series of throbbing vibrations was not always audible. It ebbed and flowed. But when the muffled rhythm made itself known, a sense of dread filtered across the entire army. The noise was unnatural, like massive wheels turning endlessly down in the roots of the mountains. Combined with the strange, glowing lights high in the topmost pinnacle, it was enough to make the hardest hearts quaver. Some openly questioned whether Morgramgar was inhabited by humans at all, or whether some other nightmarish force had taken roost in its angular towers. Few of the soldiers planned to sleep much during the night, whatever their superiors instructed them to do.

  Once the wreckage of the initial bombardment had been cleared away, Scharnhorst called a fresh council of war. By the light of huge bonfires, the captains of the army gathered together. The mood was grim. They had been given a lesson in the power of the cannon. Hundreds had been killed by the whirling grapeshot. Several battalions had lost nearly all their men. The flagellants had been decimated. The largest guns had been destroyed. What was left was clearly incapable o
f breaching the walls.

  All sat around the fire outside Scharnhorst’s tent with slumped shoulders, speaking little. Tensions between the various factions within the army had subsided. Now that the scale of the task before them had been made clear, the mood for infighting had dissolved.

  Eventually, Scharnhorst himself arrived. He had been touring the defences on the perimeter of the camp. Despite the long, grim day, he looked as vigorous as ever. Unlike some of his commanders, his bearing remained proud and upright. He still wore his ceremonial dress, and the iron symbol of the Grand Army was displayed prominently on his breast. All could see that he was angry, though the rage was buried deep. When he spoke, his voice was as controlled as ever.

  ‘So,’ he said at last. ‘We have come through peril and extremity to this. The enemy is content to remain in the citadel. We do not have the guns to trouble him. Is there any way around this?’

  Kruger spoke first, as always.

  ‘We don’t have the means to break the walls,’ he said, simply. ‘Our only option is to starve them out. We do have the numbers to ensure than none within can escape.’

  Scharnhorst shook his head.

  ‘Did you not listen to Grotius’s assessment?’ he said. ‘Morgramgar has its own sources of water which we cannot interfere with. They have stores for months. How will we keep ourselves supplied? It would be ruinously expensive.’

  Kruger looked a little stung.

  ‘We have to show them we’re committed to the long haul,’ he said. ‘A siege will be drawn-out and difficult. But the count has resources. He must raise more money, send more supplies.’