The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  ‘Did he die with a weapon in his hand, Keller?’ asked Karlich, fighting hard not to show emotion. Varveiter had been a father to them all of sorts by the end.

  Keller nodded meekly, afraid his voice would give away the lie.

  ‘Then it’s as he’d have wanted.’

  ‘Likely we’ll all die in this Sigmar-forsaken place anyway,’ said Volker, grabbing the mastiff by its scruff and dragging it close. The beast had bonded with the Reikland hunter and snarled at the approaching orc horde.

  ‘Shut up, Volker,’ snapped Karlich. ‘Speak like that again and you’ll be lashed when this is over. Stahler will come,’ he said. ‘We just have to hold out long enough for it to matter when he does.’

  There was no more time for talk or grief, only time for fighting. The greenskins had arrived.

  Chapter Six

  A captain’s duty

  Blösstadt village, Averland,

  319 miles from Altdorf

  The warning bell pealed long and loud beyond the stockade wall of Blösstadt and fed all the way to Stahler’s position a few hundred feet from the gate. The captain recognised its urgency and shouted the order to march. Von Rauken’s Carroburg Few took the lead, the greatsworders keen to face danger but still highly disciplined as they advanced. A block of handgunners followed them, then the spearmen and finally the second regiment of gunners. Stahler joined the spearmen to better view the entire line and not be too far from any one element of it. Besides, he knew that Von Rauken was a capable leader and didn’t need the morale-boosting presence of a captain. The militia units, a few scattered free companies and archers, ran alongside and to the rear of the column. Most stayed with the baggage train and camp followers a few yards behind the professional soldiers.

  They were only fifty feet or so from the looming stockade wall when the air was split with the sound of battle cries. The harsh and ululating timbre of those cries told Stahler that the greenskins had planned more than one ambush. Shading his eyes from the sun that was beginning to dip behind some cloud, Stahler made out a patch of dust billowing on the horizon. From a shallow valley, large enough to hide a cavalry force, a horde of orc boar riders barrelled forth. The greenskins hooted and brayed, banging shields with their crude weapons, whilst their shaggy mounts snorted through ringed snouts. Another cry echoed across the flat land – a hidden dip on the opposite side of the column concealed further riders. As the orcs crested a small, grassy rise, Stahler raised his sword aloft.

  ‘All troops to the village! Run for the stockade wall!’

  Out in the open, surrounded by the greenskins’ shock cavalry, the Empire troops were severely outmatched. At least in Blösstadt there were buildings and lanes to defend, walls to impede an otherwise devastating boar charge.

  Armour plates clanked and scabbards slapped, regimental sergeants bellowed frantic orders and the column began to move. For a time the Empire force lost its coherency in the mad dash for the walls. The gaping gatehouse offered salvation, a promise of possible survival within the confines of the stockade that surrounded Blösstadt. That promise was shattered abruptly when a fully laden lumber cart rolled into the gap, blocking off the gate, and burst into flames.

  Arrows whickered through the fire, the silhouettes of goblins just visible through the haze and smoke. One of the greatsworders was struck in the armpit and cried out; others took the crudely-feathered shafts against their full plate armour and marched into the arrows stoically.

  They were trapped with the orc boar riders bearing down on them, and had only a few minutes to do something about it. As Stahler marshalled his thoughts and tried to devise a plan that wouldn’t end with them all dead on a bloody plain outside Blösstadt, a discordant war horn reverberated in his ears. He winced at the noise, a whining and tuneless clamour, and saw more riders. This time they were goblins, clinging maniacally to giant, slavering wolves. One of the diminutive greenskins was so fervid that it fell, and several wolves broke from their loose formation to feed on it. The act of wanton savagery barely slowed them. They were heading for the baggage train.

  ‘Signal the militia to surround the carts, archers behind free company men,’ he snapped to the spearmen’s standard bearer, a soldier named Heiflig. The banner went up and in concordance with the regimental horn blower conveyed the message. Stahler didn’t wait to see if they’d respond. He couldn’t do any more for them. If they failed, they were dead – it was that simple. Instead he yelled loudly.

  ‘Break column and form square!’

  The spearman musician blew again, this time accompanied by the beating of drums from the Grünburg gunner regiments. Cavalry were deadly to long lines or unguarded flanks. They could reap right through them, cutting men asunder with no reply, come about and then charge all over again. Blocks of infantry facing every aspect were a much tougher prospect, where weight of numbers and the reassuring presence of rear ranks would count for something. Stahler knew it, as did every Empire captain worth his salt, and watched with grim satisfaction as the units in his command reformed.

  Only the greatswords differed in their formation, making a tight circle of blades, every man three feet apart. The gaps in the line were risky, but necessary as they provided clearance for the swings of the Carroburg Few’s mighty double-handed blades. It also made the most of the greatsworders’ prodigious fighting strength – every one of von Rauken’s men would face an enemy.

  With the appearance of the greenskin riders, the greatswords had allowed the handgunners to pass them and close on the gate. It meant von Rauken was close enough to Stahler to be heard as he shouted.

  ‘We need to get inside. We’ll be slaughtered out here, in squares or not!’

  Stahler knew he was right, and was about to shout back when a percussive bark erupted from the handgunners closest the gate. The goblin archers disappeared from view. No more arrows whickered from the flaming cart.

  Deciding he didn’t wish to debate strategy across their regiments, Stahler broke off from the Bögenhafen spearmen and jogged quickly over to the greatsworders. He kept low and behind the regiments. Some of the wolf riders carried short bows and he couldn’t risk being killed by a lucky arrow. He needed to make it fast. The greenskins had started far off, using distance as well as terrain to hide their ambush, but now they were closing.

  ‘I agree,’ said Stahler, a little breathlessly. He had one eye on the advancing greenskins and one on von Rauken who glowered at him like an armour-plated juggernaut. The greatsworder was easily a head taller than Stahler and his eye-patch and thick moustaches made him look imperious. But Stahler wasn’t intimidated; he’d faced off against lords and counts before now. ‘Hit and run tactics will decimate us,’ he added. ‘But we aren’t getting into the village until that obstruction is out of the way.’

  Von Rauken nodded and gestured to a pair of handgunners who had joined them whilst Stahler was talking.

  ‘Sergeant Isaak and his best marksman, Utz,’ said von Rauken by way of introduction. The two Grünburgers nodded curtly. ‘Tell the captain what you told me,’ he invited, fixing them with his iron-hard glare.

  To his credit, Sergeant Isaak didn’t wilt, but his marksman looked a little peaked.

  ‘My lord,’ Isaak began, thumbs tucked into a thick weapons belt off which hung two large pistols, ‘Utz here,’ – he nodded towards the marksman, who had his harquebus slung over his shoulder and was wringing a leather cap in his hands – ‘believes he has a way we can breach the gate.’

  Stahler regarded the man at once, as did they all.

  ‘Then speak, Utz, the enemy will be upon us in short order.’

  ‘Grenades, m-milord,’ Utz stammered in a thick accent, reminiscent of the Grünburg boatyards.

  Stahler raised a questioning eyebrow at Isaak.

  ‘His father is an engineer,’ the sergeant explained. ‘Lad’s picked up a thing or two. There’s nothing he doesn
’t know about blackpowder, sir.’

  The hooting cries of the orcs and the bray of their boars was coming closer. Peeling off from the main horde, the wolf riders had already engaged the militia, circling the baggage train like predators circling their prey. Out of the corner of his eye, Stahler saw three men were dead with black-shafted arrows sticking out of their bodies.

  ‘How quickly can you do it?’ he put to Utz.

  ‘We’ll need socks and caps for the powder, more than just the bags we carry,’ Utz replied. ‘Then twine. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, my lord.’

  ‘Get to it then.’

  Utz and Isaak hurried off to the regiment, the sergeant already calling for every man to relinquish his socks or cap if he had them.

  Left with the burly greatsworder, Stahler had one thing left to say before he ran back to the Grünburg spearmen, who were looking anxious in his absence.

  ‘Keep them safe, von Rauken. If we don’t break though that barricade–’

  ‘Then you and I will be dining in Sigmar’s longhouse before the day is out,’ the greatsworder replied.

  As Stahler nodded and then went to his men, von Rauken rejoined his own.

  ‘Carroburg Few…’ he called, taking his place between standard and drum, ‘we bloody few. Steep your blades this day. Steep them in the red of your tunics. Steep them in greenskin blood. Let all remember the Siege of Carroburg and how our courage was measured and made.’

  A clash of blades, the slip of steel on leather greeted von Rauken’s proclamation as the Carroburg Few drew swords and prepared to meet the enemy.

  Thick, black smoke was visible from his vantage point on the hill. Karlich was familiar enough with Blösstadt’s layout to realise it was coming from the gate. He’d also heard the faint echo of horns – not the trumpets and clarions of the Empire, but the throaty, strident blaring of greenskin pipes – and knew that Stahler was cut off. It changed nothing, only his resolve to dig in harder and make the orcs pay for every inch they took.

  ‘Hold together!’ Karlich shouted, blocking the swipe of a rusty cleaver before stunning the orc he faced with a stiff punch to the nose. It was like striking granite but the beast felt it too and backed off just enough for Karlich to finish it with his sword. Respite was brief, more of the porcine brutes were clamouring to the battle.

  The sheer swell of it was incredible, like the pitch and yaw of a ship in a stormy sea. With the initial charge, the halberdiers’ line bent, but then reasserted itself like steel flexing back after being tested. They braced hafts into the hill soil and levelled blades outwards in a dull, grey metal palisade. Orcs were skewered, goblins kicked and split by swords but still the greenskins came. Gazing through the gaps in the fighting, Karlich dared not make a headcount – beyond the Grimblades’ front rank, there appeared to be no end to the orcs.

  Backing up the slope with the massive press of the horde, Keller slipped. Brand was beside him immediately and kept the soldier on his feet. Keller only had time to flash a brief glance in his direction. It was met with icy cold and if it wasn’t for the greenskins to his front, he’d have been reluctant to turn away.

  ‘It won’t be in your back,’ he heard Brand whisper, before he was lost from view in the melee.

  Lenkmann and Rechts fought doggedly by Karlich’s side, protecting his flanks and hacking furiously with their blades. The drummer closed his ears to the sound of Masbrecht’s vocal devotions, concentrating on the scrape of metal, the grunts of the embattled and the cries of the dying.

  Volker felt the line thinning. The front rank was dug in hard, a core of strong men, he knew, that had fought many battles together and lived to tell of it. No doubt they missed Varveiter, the old soldier was the source of much inspiration, but they were holding. Volker’s keen eyes picked out goblins creeping through the orcish wall of muscle and fury. He’d slain two already, the corpses had rolled down the hill to be crushed underfoot. Another pair had dragged a Grimblade, Jorgs, to his death by first stabbing him in the legs when his attention was on the orcs. Once Jorgs was down the malicious creatures had gone to work with their knives. Volker had seen the man collapse and heard him screaming as the goblins took him. Keeping his eyes low and high at the same time was impossible, but the mastiff guarded his master’s legs, tearing out goblin throats and keeping them at bay with its frothing bark and bite.

  The edges of the line were being hit hard. Eber felt it like a physical blow. Several men had lost their lives on the flanks as the greenskins levelled most of their strength at the ‘hinges’ between the regiments. Though Eber couldn’t really see that well, he realised the Middenlanders were struggling to hold off the beasts just as they were. Cutting down another orc, splitting its skull with a roar, he vowed to make the greenskins fight for every step. Eber was strong and his harsh upbringing, first at his father’s hand and then as part of the circus troupe, had made him tough but the orcs were testing his limits. He buried his halberd into the face of one, imagining it was his abusive father and the killing came easier.

  ‘Retreat two steps,’ hollered Karlich. ‘In good order, Grimblades.’

  Eber moved with the rest of the line. He could feel the summit of the hill getting closer.

  A raking discharge from the Grünburg guns filled the air with a flurry of smoke. Another crack of flintlocks immediately followed it as the second of the handgunner regiments fired its weapons. This was a much lesser discharge, as a quarter of its number was preparing grenades under the tutelage of marksman Utz. Sergeant Isaak stayed with the greater regiment, unleashing his pistols one at a time to maintain a steady rate of fire.

  The orcs bore the brunt of the fusillades on their shields. Powder and shot left wood chips and dented plate in its wake. Despite the heavy barrage – a fact made possible by firing in ranks, whereby rear rankers replaced front rankers with fuses primed in a constant cycle of powder, shot, ram, fire – the greenskins had lost few riders and fewer boars. They circled the Empire infantry squares like carrion choosing the tastiest morsels to descend upon. Several of the handgunners were dead already, slumped in the dirt with axe and spear wounds. Every death meant one less ball of shot to unleash at the orcs.

  ‘Stay together!’ shouted Stahler, as an orc bounced off his shield and nearly felled him as it careened past. ‘Maintain square,’ he urged, once he’d righted himself.

  Boar stink and foetid orc spore had turned the air around them into a febrile soup. Several spearmen gagged, but kept their polearms steady under the gaze of the captain.

  Stahler wiped away the sweat streaking his face, sparing a glance towards the Carroburgers and Utz’s forlorn hope. The greatsworders were fighting hard and had yet to lose a man. Through the melee, the Empire captain couldn’t tell if the grenades were ready yet or not. He hoped it would be soon. They were holding right enough – even the militia were doing a satisfactory job of protecting the wagons – but holding was not enough. His instincts told him the orcs were merely toying with them and that a concerted push was coming.

  It arrived sooner than Stahler thought.

  From out of the boar riders’ ranks, which until then had been a blur of snorting, dark-furred hide and metal, emerged a massive creature too large and imposing to ever be called a mere boar. It was more like a hairy bull, thickly muscled and armoured like the caparisoned steed of a knight, albeit with crude plates and belts of chainmail. Its tiny eyes shimmered red and it snorted a long drizzle of mucus. It might have been a challenge, Stahler was unsure. The deep bellow from the dark-skinned orc upon the boar-beast’s back could be nothing other.

  Digging its spiked heels into the boar’s flank, the greenskin chieftain drove at the greatsworders and Stahler saw the orc in its full terrifying aspect. Curled rams’ horns extended from a black iron helmet; chainmail draped its obscenely muscular body like a second skin; fists the size of circus dumbbells gripped a pair of axes, notched
from the kills it had made and dark with old blood. It was a monster, a thing of nightmares and it was coming for von Rauken.

  Stahler knew the strength and courage of the greatsworders, and Carroburgers were tough men. But their thin line could not stand against this beast and his entourage. They would stand but shatter soon after, driven under hooves or before rusty blades and then there would be nothing between Utz’s men and certain death. The death of Utz meant the death of them all, and the orcish chieftain was cunning enough to realise this.

  There was little time to act, and Stahler knew if he thought too hard about what he was going to do he might falter and it would be too late. So instead, he roared.

  ‘Charge!’

  Galvanised by the presence of their captain, the Bögenhafeners went from a steady jog to a run. They barrelled into the path of the boar riders, bellowing war cries to stump up their courage.

  ‘Forward in the name of Prince Wilhelm,’ shouted Stahler, ‘and for the glory of the Reik!’

  In the path of the charging boars, there was little time to set themselves and level spears. The men of Bögenhafen did what they could before a thundering wall of fur, fangs and tusks exploded into them. It was like being struck by a battering ram full in the chest, the earth trembling underfoot.

  Stahler lost his helmet and very nearly his shield. He clung to it, this lifeline on a thread of leather, by sheer will alone. Spearmen were tossed into the air like dolls, limbs flailing. Others were ground under hoof or gored by tusks and blades. One man had his neck cleaved in twain, and the decapitated head bounced amongst his brethren like a grisly ball. Blood and screaming, the hoot of beasts and the desperate reek of combat filled the air around them. The standard almost fell, poor Heiflig gutted by an orc’s cleaver, before one of the rear rankers came forward to seize it. The war horn was forgotten, in favour of the grunts and cries of desperate battle. In the initial boar charge, the Bögenhafen spears had lost almost their entire front rank – only Stahler and the musician remained. And yet they held.