The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  ‘Because it is, Lenkmann,’ Karlich told him. His tone was slightly wistful. ‘It probably is.’

  Thunder trembled in the heavens. Lightning drew jagged arcs across a steel-grey sky a moment later. Karlich’s eye was drawn to a desolate heath, a mile or so from the town. There he made out the wizard he had met in the war tent. He was channelling the storm in and out of his body, like a lightning rod. His hair stood on end, ablaze with celestial fury. A tempest was growing to the east. The faintest echoes of it whirled around the army and tore one of the banners free from its pole. Karlich watched some men reach for it, but it got caught up in the wind and gusted away. Ragged and forlorn, it sped back towards the Reikland.

  The thunder came again with renewed vigour, filling Karlich’s world with noise.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Besieged

  Outside Averheim, capital city of Averland,

  483 miles from Altdorf

  The earth trembled under the hooves of Wilhelm’s horse. Loud and deafening, the guns reminded him of thunder.

  The great cannons fired one after the other, each fresh report adding to the resonance of the ones before it. Smoke spewed from their iron barrels, the ends fashioned into the mouths of mythical beasts, and thronged the air with the stench of blackpowder. A second percussive blast provided a deeper chorus, just beneath the sound of the cannon. These were the mortars, their fat shells whining overhead to land in the packed greenskin ranks.

  Wilhelm tried to follow the destructive course of the war machines but was too far away. Together with the cavalry, amounting to six lances of templars and a roving band of pistoliers, Prince Wilhelm occupied the far right flank of the battleline. He was nearly a hundred feet from what could be considered the war front. The refused flank was a well-known military theorem in the Empire. Here, on the killing fields before Averheim, it would be tested in practice.

  Averland’s capital looked like a broken silhouette in the distance. Like most large cities, it was surrounded by a wall. It had suffered badly under the attentions of the greenskins. Their crude catapults were too far advanced to be hit by the Imperial cannonade. Mangonels and onagers loosed relentlessly. Walls and towers, even sections of the heavily fortified gatehouse, resembled the nubs of broken teeth. Even at a distance, Wilhelm could tell that men hung dead in some of the ruins. The clouds of flies made it gruesomely obvious.

  At other parts of the wall, the orcs launched continuous assaults with ladders, ropes and log rams. Through a spyglass, the prince made out an orc slavemaster urging a band of trolls to heave a battering ram against Averheim’s main gate. The ornate carving that had once adorned it had been bludgeoned into oblivion. Dust and grit from the neighbouring gatehouse walls shook loose with every fresh blow. Wilhelm could already imagine it splintering. It was making the wait worse, so he lowered the spyglass.

  To his left, he knew, was the rest of the army.

  The rear was anchored by Meinstadt and his war machines. Two brace of cannon and a pair of mortars comprised the battery. The remaining engines were primed but left unfired.

  Five regiments of handgunners stood sentinel before the larger guns above and behind them. Little did Wilhelm know, but Utz and his sergeant, Isaak, were amongst them as part of the Grünburg contingent. Due to their longer range, four regiments of Averland crossbowmen were stationed a step above them.

  In order to accommodate the blackpowder troops and the gunnery crews, Imperial sappers had been forced to raise earth embankments. They did this by digging trenches and then heaping up the mud. It had to be packed hard so the weighty machineries didn’t sink. It also needed shoring with timber along its sides. Palisades were erected at the base by way of a makeshift rampart to protect the handgunners. The trenches were filled with abatis as a final deterrent. It was backbreaking work and the labour gangs earned their bread and coin that day, but it was also necessary. The land around Averheim was very flat and Meinstadt needed elevation for his guns if the plan was to succeed.

  Militia were interspersed between the blackpowder troops. Their ranks were much deeper, their frontage narrow by comparison. They were to act as foils should the greenskins break through to the guns.

  In front of them came the infantry.

  A huge wedge of Empire soldiery dominated one half of the plain beyond the ersatz embankment. Three lines, ten regiments each, made up the infantry throng. Swordsmen and halberdiers took the back line. The dwarfs from the Grey Mountains were deployed here too, together with large groups of militia. No regiment was less than six ranks deep.

  A second line of halberdiers and swordsmen stood in front of the first. Here the Grimblades were stationed. Von Rauken’s greatsworders were nearby, occupying a central position. His smaller regiment was in addition to the main body of troops but no less imposing for its smaller size.

  The front line had the pike and spears. Vanhans’s mercenaries and desperadoes pitched their banner here too. It would fall to all of these brave souls to bear the brunt of the greenskin attack and weather it if they could. Once battle was joined, they’d narrow their formations and allow the rear line to engage.

  Roaming just in front of the formal infantry wedge were free companies, huntsmen and archers. The halflings were amongst them. It was the job of this skirmish line to frustrate and disorganise the orcs as much as possible before they charged. By pulling and dividing them, it was hoped the greenskins wouldn’t attack as a cohesive mass, thusly making it easier to resist them.

  Across the line, drums beat and horns blared. They were challenges, designed to goad the greenskins and bolster the Empire’s fighting men.

  They will need it, Wilhelm thought grimly, donning his helmet as the orcs began to turn.

  The greenskin army was like a tide.

  ‘Have you ever seen such a horde?’ Lenkmann uttered from the front rank. Even the banner he carried sagged in assumed defeat.

  ‘I can feel Morr’s breath on my neck,’ said Volker, one rank behind him. His mood had turned maudlin ever since the death of Dog.

  ‘Enough of that!’ snapped Karlich. ‘It doesn’t matter if there is one orc or a hundred thousand. You can still only kill them one at a time.’

  But even he had to admit the enemy was vast. Unlike the precise and militaristic order of the Empire army, the greenskins were a densely packed rabble.

  Through gaps in the Empire’s own ranks Karlich made out tribal banners that appeared to unify certain mobs. To his dismay, several carried the desiccated remains of Imperial soldiers. Other greenskins could be identified by markings and tattoos. Brawling was mandatory. Smaller goblins bickered continuously, whilst their larger cousins engaged in more violent acts against their own kind. Rival clans fought tooth and nail in the rear masses.

  Even as the cannon balls bounded through their ranks, chewing up bodies and ripping off limbs, they still brawled. Only when explosive mortar rounds blasted them apart, separating combatants, did the orcs stop fighting one another and turn to the ‘humies on the hill’.

  It was slow at first, like a boulder rolling down a lightly canted slope. It took time to build and spread like an angry flame through the greenskin ranks. But gradually, and with fearsome momentum, the orcs began to charge.

  Bellows and war cries accompanied the shuffling gait of greenskin feet. The dark sea surrounding Averheim rippled. They thumped their chests and smashed cleavers against chipped wooden shields. Standard bearers rattled totems, cursing the weakling men who had chosen to pick a fight with them. Huge flesh-skinned drums beat. Raucous pipes screeched. The ocean of green was moving.

  Amongst the bestial mob were larger beasts, creatures that shared the greenskins’ desire for carnage and cruelty. Lumbering trolls, pugnacious ogres and gangling giants roamed alongside orcs and goblins of every tribe.

  Hooded in black cowls and cloaks, festooned with bone charms, armoured with thick dark plate �
�� the one known as ‘the Paunch’ had allied a massive and diverse horde together. With guile, intimidation, sheer strength or perhaps all three, this warlord, this ‘Grom’, had overcome the single greatest weakness of the greenskin race, the one thing that had, until now, prevented their wanton destruction of the Empire – animosity. Gathered in warbands, orcs were fearsome and tough enemies. Amassed in their tens of thousands, they were nigh on unstoppable.

  The end of times, indeed, thought Karlich with a morbid smirk.

  As the greenskins came on, surging full pelt at the waiting Empire infantry, riding beasts broke out from the ranks. Wolves and boars scurried and snorted in packs, but Karlich also caught flashes of other things bearing greenskins to battle. Hulking cave spiders carrying tattooed goblins scuttled hideously. Ovoid squigs, all fangs and rough, red hide bounded on two legs, their hooded riders hanging on by their claws. Karlich hadn’t realised the monsters grew to be that big.

  The roar of the guns intensified, as desperate as their firers. Cannons boomed, loud and dissonant behind the infantry. The sharp cracks of harquebus accompanied them in a ballistic symphony. Though they were far from the front, overlooking the battlefield on the embankment, the artillery batteries and their ranks of gunners could still hear the rage.

  ‘WAAAAGHHH!’

  It was like a primal invocation, bursting from greenskin mouths in a tumult of sound. Men fell, as if struck by a physical thing. A soldier in a sword regiment from Streissen dropped dead from fright. Several others soiled themselves, unable to control their bowels. Behind the Grimblades, a militia band broke and fled.

  Several others turned, thinking about desertion too. Karlich saw them out the corner of his eye. They held, for now.

  ‘Merciful Sigmar, even the sky is turning…’ Masbrecht pointed to the heavens where dark, myrtle-tinged clouds had begun to boil. Fell voices wreathed the air, now thick with unnatural heat. The sun was smothered, snuffed out like a candle and a gloom sullied the field of war, tainting everything green.

  Shadows lingered in the firmament. Karlich saw the suggestion of a sloped brow, a jutting chin. Eyes like malevolent red stars burned in those clouds. There were two of them, two hulking figures so massive and terrible that he knew if he looked upon them any longer his mind would shatter.

  Suddenly, Karlich felt a tremendous weight upon him. His arms and armour seemed heavier than before. He realised it was despair, sapping at his strength and resolve. The others felt it too. Volker had shut his eyes. Masbrecht was praying under his breath. Rechts licked his lips, in need of a drink. He’d never felt so dry. Even Brand twitched as he experienced the oppressive presence of the entities in the storm above.

  ‘Faith in Sigmar…’

  Karlich heard it distantly.

  ‘Faith in Sigmar…’

  Louder now, he recognised the voice of Father Untervash.

  ‘Faith in Sigmar!’ On the third time, Karlich shouted too. ‘Give me your courage, men of the Reik!’

  The shadows above chuckled at his defiance. It sounded like malicious thunder. A spit of green lightning threaded the clouds. Karlich bit his lip, drawing blood, and used the pain to shut it out.

  ‘Grimblades!’ He roared it like a call to arms.

  Across the line, other regiments were refinding their purpose too. Empire men gripped their hafts a little tighter, brought their shoulders closer to one another. Together they were strong. Sigmar had taught them that. Banners that had dipped rose again. Drums and pipes struck up against the orcish din crashing into them like a disharmonious wave.

  Above, the clouds began to recede. The shadows there grew fainter.

  ‘He is with us…’ Masbrecht was weeping. He clutched a talisman of a hammer in his left fist.

  Even Rechts was moved.

  A clarion sounded from somewhere near the army’s centre. Other horns took up the call that spread slowly down the line. More than two dozen banners thrust into the darkling sky. Wilhelm’s banner was proudest. It rose like a rallying cry. Eldritch wind buffeted it but it snapped and thrashed defiantly.

  We shall not be bowed. We are Empire. Sigmar is with us.

  Though the prince himself was not riding alongside the army banner, all who saw it recognised its authority and the order to march.

  ‘We are to meet them then,’ Volker hardly sounded pleased.

  ‘You hoped to cower behind pikes and spears?’ said Karlich.

  ‘Stay together, brothers,’ said Greiss. ‘They can’t break us if we keep to our bonds of soldiery.’

  Nodding, Volker looked girded by the newcomer’s words.

  Karlich peered over his shoulder at Greiss, who was part of the second rank next to Volker. ‘Well spoken,’ he said. ‘You sure you’re not a Reiklander?’

  They all laughed, even some of the rear rankers who were in earshot.

  Levity was good before battle.

  Captain Stahler bellowed above the throng. The din of over two thousand tassets and breastplates rattled into movement. The Empire began to march.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Battle is joined

  Outside Averheim, capital city of Averland,

  483 miles from Altdorf

  Wilhelm’s warhorse had caught the scent of battle and strained at the bit before the prince reined it in.

  ‘Easy now…’ he soothed, patting the beast’s armoured flank.

  They were all eager, not just the steeds, but the men too. The orcs had been goaded by Meinstadt’s cannon and though mauled by guns and bows, they had engaged the infantry. The skirmishers were either fled or consumed. Only the plucky halflings and a few isolated groups of huntsmen remained. Even now, they were being harried by goblin scouts. Sensibly, the Mootlanders had found a rocky outcrop on which to stage a desperate defence. The huntsmen were in the open though. A large band of Wolf Riders swept over them. When they’d passed, the Empire men were dead.

  At the battle line, the bloodshed was even worse.

  Within seconds, ranks of spear and pike just disappeared, swallowed by the green tide. So furious was the melee between the Empire’s front and the greenskin rear mobs, it was tough to discern anything of meaning. Already, the corpses had begun to pile up. Those orcs and goblins slain by the artillery barrage were lost from view, crushed underfoot by their own kin. The bodies of men, butchered and bloodied, joined them on the killing field. Heaps of them rose up like fleshy bulwarks on the churned earth.

  Though at first Grom’s green horde had appeared endless, gaps were emerging between the warbands. Prince Wilhelm had been cunning in his deployment of the army. They occupied an area of the battlefield at an oblique angle to the orcs. It meant when the beasts engaged them they would have to charge away from Averheim and the gathered knights. As the seconds passed and the greenskins pressed more and more tribes into the fray, the aspect facing the Empire cavalry thinned and presented its flank.

  ‘We should ride now,’ advised Kogswald, impatient to bloody his lance.

  Wilhelm lowered his spyglass for the second time.

  ‘Hold,’ he warned. ‘We wait until the way is almost open.’

  ‘It may shut again if we don’t act,’ Kogswald replied.

  ‘Just wait,’ said the prince, about to look through the spyglass again but stopping himself.

  He’d hoped to see some sign of Grom, but had failed to find the goblin king in the masses. Likely, the beast was closer to the gate. It would show itself soon enough.

  ‘I’ve heard talk that the greenskin warlord cannot be killed,’ uttered Ledner, as if reading his liege’s thoughts. ‘That it ate the flesh of a troll and has a girth to match. No less than three lords, a knight templar amongst them,’ he added with a wry smile at Kogswald, ‘have alleged inflicting a mortal blow and yet here we are before Averheim’s ragged gates.’

  ‘What do we do with trolls, preceptor?�
� Wilhelm asked.

  Kogswald’s indignation turned to spite. His moustache curled up in a feral grin. ‘Burn them, my liege.’

  ‘Just so…’ He tapped the pommel of his runefang. Dragon Tooth it was called. Its inner fire raged with all the fury of its namesake. He slammed down the visor on his helmet. The green waves had parted. Wilhelm drew his sword and raised it high.

  ‘We ride!’

  The sky was boiling. Clouds tinged green billowed and twisted, occluding the sun. The presence of the orcish deities in the gloom had lessened but not abated. Like a looming threat they feasted on the greenskin rage swamping Averheim and the land around it. Their chanting voices bubbled on the air like a feverish sweat.

  They were not alone.

  Another accompanied them. Not a deity but a totem of its fell gods’ power. Its shadow soared through the clouds on leathery wings, a dreaded silhouette once witnessed on a desolate plain at night.

  ‘Wyvern!’ yelled Rechts, gesturing to the sky as the Grimblades were driving forward. ‘The greenskin shaman is abroad.’

  ‘Eyes ahead,’ said Karlich. The pikes in front were barely holding. Just a few feet separated the two regimental lines. The Grimblades and the second front could enter the fray at any moment. Their booted feet marched in unison, matching the pace of the halberdiers from Auerswald to their right and the Middenland swordsmen to their left. Mercifully, there’d been little time to mingle with the belligerent northerners, though they’d scowled and muttered amongst themselves upon seeing their neighbours in the line of deployment.

  Nearby, Karlich heard von Rauken urging on the Imperial soldiers nearby. He sounded impatient for blood. The warrior priest in his ranks was adding fervour to his steel.

  ‘Sigmar is my shield, the hammer in my hand. I shall not fear darkness,’ cried Father Untervash, hurling dogma as if it were a spear.