The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  His thoughts were interrupted by Ledner, the captain approaching silently despite his armour and other trappings.

  ‘We must join our forces, Ledner. Victory can come no other way,’ said Wilhelm without looking at him. ‘But it cannot work like this.’

  ‘Then what must be done?’ asked Ledner in his rasping voice.

  Wilhelm looked around. There were Altdorf soldiers and Dieter’s lackeys everywhere.

  ‘Walk with me.’

  After passing through a number of corridors that led them back out of the palace and into the wide esplanade of a courtyard, Wilhelm spoke again.

  ‘Dieter was meeting with more nobles after we left,’ he said. ‘Marienburgers, I think. He’s up to something. The rest of the Empire is slowly being crippled by the greenskins, yet funds are coming into Altdorf from somewhere to gild his rooms and furnishings.’

  ‘I saw no less than five mercenary companies pass through the palace gate whilst you were gone,’ offered Ledner in a shadowy tone. ‘High price too, by the looks of them. No rabble or criminal sell-swords, they were professional soldiers. Some from Tilea, and with Marienburgers in their ranks to boot.’

  ‘What is he planning?’ Wilhelm asked as they reached the stable yard and their horses. Word had reached the Griffonkorps that their prince was ready to depart and they were already mounted and vigilant.

  ‘I don’t yet know, my lord,’ admitted Ledner, helping Wilhelm into his saddle.

  ‘Find out for me. Do whatever is necessary.’

  Ledner nodded slowly. ‘As you wish, my prince.’

  Chapter Four

  First blooding

  Captain Stahler’s encampment, Reikland border,

  190 miles from Altdorf

  Rechts woke to a murderous hangover. After leaving the campfire, he’d found two more bottles of Middenland hooch in his belongings and drunk them both. Masbrecht’s presence, his predilection towards religion, had stirred up some uncomfortable memories for him. Crackling thatch, plaintive screams and the stench of burning flesh had come to him in his drunken dreams. His tunic and hose were sodden, and not just from alcohol sweats.

  ‘Walk it off, Rechts,’ growled a deep voice.

  The Grimblades’ drummer looked up. Through bleared vision he saw Karlich, sitting on the hewn stump of a tree, pipe in hand. The sergeant looked as grey and ragged as he felt.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Rechts replied, surprised to find his voice so hoarse, adding, ‘Karlich?’

  Blowing a long plume of smoke, the sergeant regarded him.

  ‘Have you even slept, sir?’

  ‘Worry about yourself, soldier. Walk it off. Go on.’

  Rechts did as ordered, aiming himself in the vague direction of cooking smells emanating from the camp. He suspected Volker was up already and preparing breakfast before they marched. Dawn was still a couple of hours off, or just a little less. Rechts would eat and sober up as much as he could.

  Karlich watched him go, taking a long draw from his pipe to still his nerves. He’d watched the witch hunter until he’d finished talking with the priest and entered the village through its stockade wall. After that, he’d found the tree stump, taken a seat and waited the night out. He’d seen daemons in the darkness, heard them whispering to him on the breeze as the boughs of the Reikwald shifted. They were not real, of course, just apparitions from his past, coming back to taunt him, as they always did, when the world was still and peace within his grasp.

  No peace for you, Feder. Peace must be earned and you have yet to pay its price.

  He waited there for another hour, until the camp followers came to pack up tents and clear the pitch for the baggage trains. Stiff from staying in one place for too long, Karlich stretched his unyielding bones and rubbed his legs to get the circulation going again. Wiping the tiredness from his eyes and running a hand through his mousy hair, he started walking to the Grimblades’ pitch.

  On the way, he saw the encampment was busier than before. Several regiments had joined them in the night from the north. Their banners could be seen hanging low, stirred by the faint pre-dawn breeze. Karlich recognised the red and black of Carroburg, their famed greatswords no less, and the deep blue of Middenland. He heard the latter northerners before he saw them, boasting and pushing their weight around.

  ‘Swordsmen…’ he said beneath his breath, noticing their swagger and arrogant nonchalance as they barracked a group of militia huntsmen for some cooked pheasant.

  ‘You’d be doing a service for the Empire, lad,’ a brawny-looking Middenlander was saying to a huntsman with downy hair instead of thick stubble around his chin. The boy must have been all of sixteen and was obviously terrified of the bearded northerner. To the youth’s credit, he was steadfast.

  ‘Get your own meat,’ said another boy brave enough to speak up. ‘This is ours, we caught it.’

  ‘Ask yourself one question,’ invited a different Middenlander, a grey-haired veteran with a bare chin and long moustaches. He was the regiment’s sergeant. ‘When we meet the orc on the road to Averheim, who will be doing most of the fighting?’

  The youth shook his head and pulled the meat close to his chest as a third Middenlander, blond-bearded with a shaven scalp, spoke up.

  ‘Hand it over, boy,’ he warned in a deep voice. When the youth protested still, blond-beard cuffed him hard around the ear and took the meat anyway.

  ‘Now we’ll take all of it,’ declared the grey-haired sergeant in a low voice.

  ‘Stay seated,’ ordered the brawny Middenlander as one of the huntsmen made to stand. Four more northerners stomped over their camp, taking the cooked pheasant, together with what the huntsmen had flensed onto their clay plates, with them. One raised his voice in anger, pulling a dirk halfway from its sheath only to stop when he felt the touch of cold, Middenland steel at his neck.

  ‘Don’t make me blood you, peasant,’ said blond-beard.

  Karlich was almost to the camp and about to intervene when someone else beat him to the punch.

  ‘Give it back,’ said Volker. He had Rechts and Eber with him.

  ‘It’s only vittels for the Empire’s fighting men,’ explained grey-hair coolly. Karlich saw the Middenlander’s hand had strayed to his pommel. ‘What need have scouts and peasants for food?’ he added. ‘Let them eat when battle’s begun.’

  ‘Don’t make me ask you again.’ Volker patted the dirk at his belt.

  Grey-hair laughed. ‘What are you going to do with that? Cut my thumb?’

  ‘No, your throat,’ hissed a voice in his ear.

  ‘Oh sh–’ Karlich began, hurrying over. Brand had crept up on the Middenland sergeant. His serrated dagger was pressed against the northerner’s neck.

  ‘Grimblades!’ yelled Karlich. ‘Men of the Reik, stand down.’

  The Middenlanders had drawn swords as soon as they’d seen the blade at their sergeant’s throat. Some were shouting. Blond-beard merely glared at Brand, his eyes conveying murderous intent. More were coming, too: Grimblades and Middenlanders. A few more minutes and a regiment against regiment brawl would be in prospect. Stahler would hang those responsible if he found out.

  Only the Carroburgers looked unmoved by the whole affair, sitting just a few feet away in their own private encampment, supping pipes and talking quietly over cups of steaming broth. They could have interceded at any time, and likely broken up the impending brawl before it had escalated – none with any sense would challenge a soldier of the greatswords – but they chose to keep to their own.

  ‘Brand!’ Karlich bawled. ‘Put up your blade or face charges.’ The threat of charges was moot. Karlich knew that Brand cared little about facing military discipline, but the sergeant hoped he respected him enough to do as he’d told him.

  Reluctantly, Brand edged his blade away from grey-hair’s throat and backed off a step with hands raised.


  ‘And the rest of you,’ Karlich added. ‘Back to your pitch. Get your arses ready to march. I want you all armoured with halberds by the time I get there.’

  Volker looked reluctant to go. Brand merely waited impassively for the rest, watching blond-beard. He’d do whatever his brother halberdiers did.

  ‘Do it!’

  Volker acceded, and they sloped off, casting dark looks at the Middenlanders as they went.

  Freed from Brand’s blade, the grey-haired northerner walked up to Karlich, still rubbing his throat at an imagined wound.

  ‘If he’d meant to cut you, he would have,’ the Reiklander told him.

  The Middenlander smiled, and left it alone. ‘Well met,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘Vankar Sturnbled.’

  Karlich declined his handshake.

  ‘Feder Karlich,’ he answered curtly. ‘Do you mind telling me what you and your men were doing, sergeant?’

  Sturnbled let his hand fall. His comradely mood went with it.

  ‘Just sport, sergeant, is all it was. Surely, as a fellow warrior, you can appreciate that. Or do they not have sport in Reikland?’

  ‘Aye, we have sport, and we have bastards like you and your men too, so I shan’t judge your entire state on the example you’ve set,’ Karlich replied. ‘Give the huntsmen back their meat. Take a strip each to save face, but leave the rest.’

  Sturnbled’s face darkened and he lowered his voice so only Karlich could hear him.

  ‘We’ve never met before, Reiklander, and I’m a forgiving man, so I’ll consider this a mistake,’ he said. ‘But address me or my men like this again and you’ll see just how inhospitable the north can be to soft southerners like yourself.’

  Karlich kept his silence and looked Sturnbled in the eye. With his men gone, he was surrounded by Middenlanders.

  Sturnbled held his gaze for a few moments more, and when it became obvious that Karlich wasn’t about to look away, turned to his men.

  ‘Steel Swords! One strip each and back to camp,’ he snarled. ‘Give ’em back the rest.’

  Blond-beard’s face was sour enough to scorch steel, as the other swordsmen sheathed blades and went back towards their camp amidst disgruntled mutterings.

  ‘You too, Torveld.’

  The stern-faced Middenlander put away his sword and stalked off.

  ‘He doesn’t like backing down,’ explained Sturnbled as he turned to Karlich again. ‘None of us do.’

  Karlich was still deciding if it was meant as a promise or a threat, when Sturnbled took his leave.

  One of the huntsmen nodded curt thanks in the Reikland sergeant’s direction, which he reciprocated.

  Bad enough that there were orcs abroad, now the Grimblades faced an enemy within as well. As he went on his way, Karlich wondered if Rechts had any more hooch. He needed a strong drink right about now.

  As he passed the greatswords on his way to the encampment, Karlich caught the eye of their leader.

  ‘Why didn’t you stop it?’ he asked. ‘None of them would dare challenge a greatsworder. You could’ve ended it before it had begun. Blood could have been shed and men lost their lives to a fellow soldier’s blade or the noose.’

  The greatsworder straightened. In his black plate-mail he looked massive and imposing. His shaven head was grey with stubble and his silver moustaches immaculate. A leather eye patch gave him a grizzled appearance that suggested he was a campaign veteran. ‘Not our fight,’ he answered simply.

  Karlich scowled, continuing on his way.

  ‘Bloody Carroburgers…’ he muttered.

  Smoke marred the Averland horizon, too thick and black to be cook fires. Somewhere up ahead, over the grassy rise, a village was burning.

  Stahler’s army had crossed the border into Averland at dawn, just as the captain had predicted. The camp had broken up, all tents and trappings secured on the modest baggage train and the troops, except the militia levies, organised into marching order by their sergeants.

  A small stone bridge over a stream had conveyed them into the province, a wide and open plain known for its horses. Much of Averland was flat with little undulation. It made for perfect equine breeding terrain. So far, they had seen no horses save for a forlorn pair of dead horses, rotting and alive with flies, across the width of the Aver. The mighty river, almost as thick as the Reik and just as impressive, barred the way into Averland proper. Most of the byways and ferry crossings were burned or abandoned. Some supposed the Averlanders had done it after fleeing their borders to prevent pursuit or to stop enemies from crossing the river on the Stirland side. For Stahler and his men, it made life difficult. The few fords and crossings they had encountered were unsuitable for the baggage train, so the order had gone down the line to follow the river until a more substantial bridge could be found.

  It wasn’t only dead horses that they’d passed on the other side. Trains of refugees spilling from undefended villages trudged vacantly along the river’s course, heading for the border, clutching their meagre possessions. One little girl, her face blackened by smoke, clung to a wooden toy. It was hard to tell what it was supposed to be, so bad was the fire damage. The Middenlanders had ignored them, treating the miserable wretches with the same disdain as the grass under their feet or the hot sun on the backs of their necks.

  Masbrecht and Lenkmann had wanted to go and help the Averlanders, but Karlich had forbidden it. He did allow Rechts to break ranks and holler directions to the border at them. The drummer had an excellent singing voice and could project loudly. Even still, the refugees looked not to notice his words and trudged on indifferently.

  The soldiers saw other Averlanders huddled around roadside shrines. A priestess of Shallya tended to one ragged mob, leading them in a prayer for succour from her goddess. So far, it appeared that Shallya’s mercy was absent from these lands. The devastation was a shock to all. No one in the army, even Stahler, had suspected the greenskins had advanced this far into the Empire, and so quickly. It showed a determination and purpose the beasts were not known for. It was reasoned to be a vanguard, for they would have seen the greenskins had they been it a full army.

  A short while after this the Reikwald huntsmen had spotted the smoke. Another mile and they could all see it, heavy and dark like a storm cloud but promising death instead of rain.

  ‘So, I heard you had a run in with the northerners,’ Varveiter said quietly to Brand. The old soldier had been sleeping when the ruckus had broken out, but Lenkmann had told him everything that happened. ‘That you put a blade to one of their necks.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ Brand replied without emotion. ‘I put a blade to their sergeant’s neck.’

  ‘Ah yes, their sergeant…’

  Brand gave Varveiter a side glance, expecting to be chastised.

  ‘Sorry I missed it,’ the old soldier admitted with a chuckle.

  Brand allowed himself a mouth twitch that for him approximated a smile, before his sergeant’s voice interrupted.

  ‘Can you smell that?’ Karlich asked Lenkmann.

  The banner bearer marched doggedly at the head of the group, he and Rechts on either side of their sergeant in a rank of three. He sniffed loudly.

  ‘Whatever it is, it reeks like old boots left out in the sun,’ offered Rechts as he too detected the stench. Lenkmann nodded as he wrinkled his nose. It was coming from up ahead, from the same direction as the smoke. As far as the Grimblades knew, it was the smoke.

  ‘Are you saying it’s worse than Eber’s feet?’ chimed Volker, from two ranks behind.

  Karlich cast a look over his shoulder. ‘Or your breath.’

  The smile vanished off Volker’s face and he was silent. Eber jabbed him playfully in the ribs as he marched alongside him, which drew harsh mutterings from the scout. Unusually for him, Keller stayed quiet. He was in the second rank with Varveiter and Brand. That left Masbrecht in t
he third rank next to Volker, and the other Grimblades behind them, marching in time to Rechts’s drumming.

  The halberdiers were third in the line of march. Ahead of them were the handgunners from Grünburg. The Middenlanders – the Steel Swords – took the lead with Captain Stahler. Behind the Grimblades marched fifty Bögenhafen spearmen, their spear tips pointed towards the smoke-stained sky. The greatsworders kept the rearguard, arguably the most dangerous part of the column. Karlich had learned their champion’s name was Reiter von Rauken and his men the so-called ‘Carroburg Few’. It was an apt way to describe them; aside from the militia levies that ranged either side of the column or with the dawdling baggage train as bodyguards, the Carroburgers were the smallest regiment in the army at only eighteen heads. It didn’t make them any less fearsome, or Karlich like them any more or less than he already did. Rauken and his men could have stopped the fight that was brewing between his men and the other northerners, but they didn’t. That was a black mark in the Reiklander’s book, and he didn’t strike them out easily.

  ‘It doesn’t smell like any meat I’ve ever tasted,’ said Eber. The stench was really noisome now, and infected the breeze like a miasma. The Grimblades were just cresting the grassy rise after the handgunners. Karlich noticed that some of the Grünburg men had stopped to gag. He heard another retch up his trail rations shortly afterwards.

  ‘That’s because it’s not any meat a man would ever feed himself with…’ Varveiter’s expression was grave as he came over the hill and saw what had upset the Grünburgers.

  Eight wooden stakes lined the road ahead, fashioned from charred timbers. At first it was hard to tell just what was fastened to each because it moved in the sunlight.

  ‘Carrion,’ uttered Brand, as if that explained everything. The marching column had ground to a halt and several of the rear rankers, including the Bögenhafen spearmen, had started to complain about the hold up.

  ‘Quiet your men!’ Karlich snapped to the Bögenhafen sergeant, calling down the line. Something in the other Reiklander’s eyes told the leader of the spearmen that he should do as asked.