The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  Rechts stretched his legs, and rubbed at the fading wound in his shoulder. He winced, but the pain was not nearly as bad as it had been. It had been a long march from Reikland and now, closing on Averheim and the enemy, the soldiers of the Empire were starting to feel it. Even Volker, a seasoned ranger and hunter used to trekking the wilds, rubbed at his back and grimaced.

  ‘How much farther to Averheim?’ said Rechts.

  Though he’d asked no one in particular, Lenkmann took it upon himself to answer.

  ‘Another thirty miles or so, just over that next rise,’ – he pointed to the distant horizon – ‘and we should see it. From there, I’d guess a day’s march, maybe two.’

  ‘Are you keen for a fight or something, Torsten?’ asked Volker of the drummer.

  ‘Not especially, but anything is preferable to this.’

  ‘Maybe Eber could carry you,’ laughed the Reikland hunter, one eye on Dog who was scurrying around the long grasses chasing imagined prey.

  ‘Strap a cart onto his back and we could all travel in relative comfort,’ scoffed Rechts, before leaping onto Eber’s broad back. ‘To Averheim, beast of burden!’ he cried.

  The big halberdier laughed loudly, seizing Rechts’s ankles and then dumping him to the ground. ‘This beast is not for riding,’ said Eber, helping the drummer back to his feet, who was rubbing his sore rump.

  By now, most of the Grimblades were laughing. Even Lenkmann managed to snigger. It was a welcome relief after the sombreness of Varveiter’s death. Brand was nowhere to be seen, having wandered off. Likely he was sharpening his blades by the edge of the stream where a good number of soldiers were dunking their heads and washing their filthy pits, or refilling skins. The latter seemingly unbothered by what the former were doing in their future drinking water.

  ‘Keller…’ Masbrecht began, noticing the down-turned face of his comrade, ‘are you all right? Not in the mood for banter? If you wish, I can bless you with–’

  ‘Go away!’ hissed Keller, risking a glance at a lonely tree a little way in the distance. Its limbs were swaying as if beckoning and a leaf cascaded forlornly from one of its branches. ‘Leave me alone… please.’

  ‘Sorry, brother. I didn’t mean to cause offence,’ said Masbrecht and walked away to join the rest.

  When he was gone, Keller looked up.

  ‘What?’ he asked of Masbrecht’s departing back, only just realising he hadn’t been alone.

  Karlich had a sour look on his face as he returned to the regiment and his men. He’d been listening to one of Prince Wilhelm’s messengers, who related some change in orders directly from a scroll. The sergeant had neglected to even look at the parchment, let alone keep it, and instead nodded curtly to the runner before showing him his back and walking away.

  ‘News doesn’t look good,’ whispered Rechts.

  Even from behind him, Masbrecht could smell the alcohol on the drummer’s breath but chose to hold his tongue. It awakened something in him, an old dependency and desire he thought was long buried. Clenching his jaw, Masbrecht pushed it back down into the deep places of his soul where it belonged. Lenkmann, standing rod-straight alongside the Grimblade drummer, failed to notice Rechts’s booze breath. His gaze was fixed on Karlich.

  ‘It will be what it will be,’ he replied. ‘We’ll perform our duty all the same.’

  ‘Definitely not good,’ hissed Volker.

  They were back in formation and arrayed in column with the Averland regiments. A few of the officers had received messages from the prince and the army was awaiting their return to the ranks before marching on to Averheim.

  ‘Who is that overstuffed peacock riding behind him?’ asked Keller. His voice was a little hoarse; he’d barely spoken at all in days.

  They all saw the corpulent noble atop his stubby-legged steed swaying behind Karlich. Even mounted, the man was slower than the Grimblade sergeant by a good two strides. Karlich reached the men first as the noble slowed and then came to a stop a few regiments ahead of them, next to von Rauken’s Carroburg Few. The stern greatsworder champion looked about as pleased as Karlich to be in the mounted noble’s presence, but then his mood was perpetually dour.

  ‘Sergeant,’ said Lenkmann, addressing Karlich with a clipped salute.

  ‘You’re probably wondering who that is,’ began Karlich, not deigning to wait for questions. ‘It’s Baron Ernst Blaselocker of Streissen. His Averland regiments are the reason for our swelled forces.’

  ‘Why is he riding with us?’ asked Volker.

  ‘He has replaced Captain Stahler,’ Brand replied, prompting a glance over the shoulder from Karlich.

  ‘Is he leading us now then?’ asked Rechts, failing to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

  Karlich was stoic in response. ‘The baron has command of the Reik and Averland foot, until such time as Captain Stahler is fit to retake the field.’

  ‘And how long will that be?’ asked Masbrecht.

  ‘How am I to know!’ snapped Karlich. ‘I have yet to visit the chirurgeon’s tent and enquire after the captain. His screams suggest it will not be before we reach Averheim, if at all.’

  ‘Let’s hope it’s soon…’ mumbled Volker.

  ‘I heard that!’

  Volker bowed his head contritely at the sergeant’s reprimand.

  ‘Tender mercies of Shallya, can he even fight?’ hissed Lenkmann, as surprised as anyone at his own impropriety.

  Karlich knew something of the noble who now led them. He’d heard talk in the Averland camp and knew that some called him the ‘Yellow Baron’ and not on account of his allegiance to the province either. Together with the appearance of the witch hunter, Stahler’s injury and now this, it was turning into an arduous campaign.

  Karlich sighed. It was a question to which he suspected he knew the answer already but, for the sake of morale, chose not to voice. Instead he replied with as much tact as he could muster.

  ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

  Chapter Nine

  Rivers of blood

  Brigund Bridge, Averland,

  409 miles from Altdorf

  Though not as long or wide as the Reik, the River Aver was still a formidable waterway. Its silvery expanse hugged the northern border of Averland and was as much a defensive barrier as it was a route for trade and commerce coming out of the east. Beyond the capital Averheim and along the edges of the Moot, the land of the halflings, it divided into two large tributaries, the Aver Reach and Blue Reach. Crossing it was a simple matter of securing passage upon a barge or finding a bridge or a ford near one of its narrower junctions. For a large force of men, together with baggage and beasts of burden, it was a more difficult prospect. The fact of the greenskin invasion made that prospect doubly problematic.

  Out of tactical acuity or simple wanton destruction, the orcs and goblins in the Paunch’s horde had destroyed most of the major crossing points over the Aver. Bridges were left fire-blackened ruins, ferrymen and their barges slain and burned, fords clogged with rotting corpses and the wreckage of the greenskins’ violent rampages.

  The search for a suitable crossing, large enough to accommodate his army, drove Wilhelm north-east. They shadowed the mighty river all the way. Every step closer to Averheim brought increased atrocities visited upon its people by the orcs. Isolated greenskin warbands were spotted across the far side of the Aver. Many of the men, particularly the Averlanders, wanted to engage them but Wilhelm forbade it – they had to reach the capital. Every moment wasted was time for another nail to be driven into Averheim’s coffin. If the city was nought but a smoking ruin when they arrived then everything they’d endured so far would have been for nothing. The greenskins hooted and jeered at the passing army, loosing arrows ineffectually to land in the river’s midst or break on the rocks of its bank. Angered, but maintaining discipline, the army of the Empire ignored them an
d marched on.

  ‘Our fight will come soon enough,’ Wilhelm had told them. ‘Save your blades and your fury for that.’

  It was to come soon, upon the Brigund Bridge, and the river below would run red with the blood of both man and orc.

  A chunk of Averland stone barrelled through the air, twisting slowly like a leaf caught in the wind. Empire men watched it as it turned. They looked with morbid fascination, wondering bleakly if they would be struck or spared. Reaching the end of its parabola, the rock crashed into the ground with a shower of earth, chalk dust and grit. A regiment of Averland pike was crumpled by it, their shields and their screams doing nothing to prevent the rock trammelling their ranks. Men were crushed to paste. Some became tangled around the rock as it rolled onwards, using its momentum to furrow the earth and churn up soldiers like they were dolls.

  ‘Drive on, Grimblades!’ bellowed Karlich, ducking instinctively as another chunk of masonry spiralled into the sky. Beyond the waves of orcs and goblins holding the bridge, he made out distant batteries of catapults. The launching arm of one snapped, sending three of its goblin crew into the air instead of its stone cargo, which was dumped onto its orc overseer instead. He smiled grimly at the greenskins’ misfortune, but knew it meant little. The Paunch had not only burned and ravaged on his bloody way through the Empire, he had constructed and fortified too. Much of the material, including its ammunition used to build the catapults, had been taken from barns, homesteads and watchtowers. Crude, certainly, but effective and deadly too, and in abundance. Through glimpses between the ducking and rallying, Karlich counted at least ten onager and mangonel-like war machines. The barrage was almost unceasing. It was making a real mess of the foot troops.

  Blaselocker had no answer, even though his objective was a simple one: take and hold the bridge, and do not yield it until Wilhelm and his knights arrive. Karlich had seen the tactic used by the Empire many times. The foot regiments drive the army’s centre, claiming a strategic position by sheer weight of numbers. Once taken, they must then keep it until a smaller, but more powerful, force attacked from the flank. The idea was to frustrate an enemy into throwing everything at the defenders to try and break them. Whilst he vented his strength and his wrath to his front, he would be vulnerable to his flank and rear. The flanking force would tear into that weakness and rip out the enemy’s heart. A determined push from the hitherto static foot soldiers would press the enemy to his front aspect and thusly surrounded would result in the enemy being broken and routed.

  Military theory was one thing. Textbooks and scrolls relayed the tactic in impersonal terms, with the added benefit of strategic maps. They did not tell would-be generals of the reek of blood, the stench of men as they piss and shit themselves before the first push, the deafening clamour of steel or the wailing of the dead. They did not reveal how your heart beat louder than a drum in your chest, so violent it felt like it would burst right out of your ribcage. Nor did it make reference to the enemy launching chunks of rock the size of cattle at you, or of air so thick with arrows and powder smoke it was as if the sun had been permanently eclipsed. It told of none of these things, because to do so would stop any young officer from taking to the field and likely have them seek out a softer profession as a merchant or craftsman.

  So it was that Karlich and the Grimblades, together with the rest of the foot regiments, were to be the rock around which Wilhelm’s plan depended, holding long enough for the prince to launch his crippling counter punch at the head of an armoured wedge of charging steel. Only before they could hold the bridge, they had to first take it. In the way of that were the orc war machines. Two waves comprised the assault: the Grimblades were in the first. Smash a hole through the greenskin ranks, drive on to the machineries and destroy them. A simple enough plan with one subtle flaw, how can you fight back against a chunk of hurtling stone?

  Yet another rock thudded into the ground just to the Grimblades’ right. It sank down into the earth and didn’t roll, but still spread a clutch of charging militia across the ground like crimson butter. Chips of broken stone spat out from the impact like pistol shots. One hit Gruber in the shoulder, making the Grimblade from the back ranks cry out and fall; another scythed Brand across the cheek, but he merely grunted and took the pain without slowing down.

  A slow jog built to a flat out run from the Empire foot troops as the greenskins came within charging distance. The soldiers roared until their lungs burned, dredging courage from within. The war machines had to be destroyed. Wilhelm and his knights could not flank attack until they were gone, for even the formidable armour of the Griffonkorps and the Order of the Fiery Comet was as linen against several tons of falling masonry.

  To his right, Karlich saw the shadow of a great flying beast passing across the smothered light of the sun. The air around it crackled, promoting the gathering of storm clouds tinged an ugly dark-green. Fell voices filled the air. Their bestial words were indiscernible to the sergeant but their meaning was clear.

  Bring war and death to men.

  As quickly as he had seen it, the shadow of the beast was gone, lost beyond Karlich’s peripheral vision, taking its master with it towards where he knew Wilhelm and his knights were riding. Karlich mouthed a silent prayer to Sigmar for the prince’s triumph and forged on.

  Regiments closed on either side of the Grimblades, the anchors to their flanks. On the immediate left, Averland swordsmen began to raise shields; on the right the remnants of the Bögenhafen spearmen, who had overrun the broken militia unit formerly attached to them, now levelled their polearms. On the extremes of the formation were the Steel Swords and Carroburg Few, to the left and right respectively. Blaselocker led from the rear, urging his men to charge behind a solid wall of shields and blades.

  Overhead, arrows and crossbow bolts soared like flocks of barbed-beaked birds. Powder cracks came and went like thunder, accompanied by smoke and the reek of fire and soot. Karlich saw a distant line of greenskins fall to the wave of missiles. Goblins span on their heels, choking with arrows in their throats or clutching stomachs where iron shot had torn them away. Several fell with bolts to the brain, transfixed through the eye as if sprouting a black-fletched whisker.

  The orcs were more resilient. Their armour was thicker, they wore helmets and carried shields – many tore out the shafts sticking from their bodies or barrelled on with them still embedded in their flesh like spines. Goblin short-bows were loosed sporadically in reply, but failed to have much of an impact. It didn’t really matter. The horde was huge. Hand-to-hand was where it excelled, where the strength and brutality of orcs found domination.

  The greenskins were coming up fast. A wall of rampant orcs and goblins was held together in ragged formations, clutching crude spears, clubs and axes. The beasts were daubed in blood and war paint, their round wooden shields smeared with orcish icons and tribal symbols. Their banners were fashioned from flesh and hide, baked black in the sun, and carried further sigils. They reminded Karlich of totems; skulls and other trophies rammed on their spiked tips in grisly stacks. Horns blared and drums beat, vying against the Empire’s own, order meeting discord in a cacophony.

  ‘In the name of Prince Wilhelm!’ shouted Karlich, and his cry was echoed by the other sergeants down the line. The clash was just seconds away. The edge of the bridge was so close, just a few feet, but swamped with greenskins. He felt his heart beating, so loud it deafened the noise around him. Gripping his sword, the earth pounding by beneath his feet, the pull of the wind and the stench of greenskins swirling, he raised his shield and met the foe.

  Several died in the initial rush, impaled on blades and spears, smothered in the crush, battered senseless against shields and unyielding bodies. It was over in moments. Then came the drive and the real killing began.

  Karlich cut to his right, severing an orc’s jugular. A fine spray of dark blood painted his breastplate. Turning towards a flash of green to his left, he impaled
another orc through the neck, nearly ripping off its head as he withdrew the blade in a welter of gore. Something smashed against his shield and he would have fallen if not for the man behind him pushing him upright.

  ‘In Sigmar’s name, sergeant!’ shouted Masbrecht from the second rank, thrusting his halberd over Karlich’s shoulder to pierce an orc’s torso. When the halberd spike was ripped free it released a gushet of blood and greenskin innards, spilling them like offal onto the ground.

  ‘Aye, for Sigmar,’ breathed Karlich, thrusting his shield forward to smash a goblin’s nose and committing back to the fight.

  At the end of the front rank, Eber grunted and blew, his halberd rising and falling like a pendulum in his thick-fingered grasp. He cut off a goblin’s head, the wretched creature was still snarling even after it was decapitated, then lunged into another orc’s body. Eber held the beast as it flailed at him, before Brand finished it with a downward cut that split its skull.

  ‘Push forward!’ the voice of Karlich was muted by the sheer madness of the battle around them. They saw Lenkmann raise the banner and heard the beat of Rechts’s drum, conveying the order to press.

  A tangible swell came from behind them as the rear rankers heaved. On either side, the flanking regiments of swords and spearmen did the same. The entire Empire battle line was making a concerted push against the greenskins. The orcs and goblins on the near side of the Brigund Bridge were only a vanguard, the bulk of the greenskins were on the other side. Still, all the Grimblades needed to do was punch a hole through the centre, surge through to the other side and assault the war machines.

  Volker was breathing hard. The greenskins were everywhere, but he tried to keep focused on those in front of him, trying to kill him. Like they had at Blösstadt, goblins sneaked through the orcish ranks, aiming for legs and ankles with their knives as they emerged amongst the enemy. The tactic was less effective this time. The Empire men had learned to look below as well as in front. Dog patrolled his master’s legs, savaging any goblins that came close, ripping out their throats and keeping pace with the push.