By the gods, he’d take some more of the bastards with him before he fell.
Six against one.
The first of the goblins emerged from the smoke and mist, its pointy nose cutting through it like a knife.
Stahler levelled his pistol and fired.
Make that five.
Kogswald was dead. Bludgeoned by a huge iron ball, the spikes upon it had ripped his armour apart. The preceptor was lying on his slain horse with a chain wrapped around his crushed neck and torso. He hadn’t even lifted his sword. It was an ignoble end for a noble warrior.
Several other knights, both Griffonkorps and Order of the Fiery Comet, joined him in grim repose. Their limbs were twisted, tangled together with one another and their horses, mashed beyond recognition by the deadly goblin weapons.
Cavalry killers. Wilhelm had heard of goblin fanatics before. Intoxicated on cave fungus, they were insane and utterly immune to fear and doubt. He had never fought against them, though.
‘Ride through!’ urged the prince. What was left of the knights charged on. Babbled hooting from the whirling goblins assailed them through their battle-helms as they thundered past.
In the frantic dash to escape, Wilhelm noticed one of the demented greenskins spin off wildly and into a patch of rock. It left a messy stain against the grey stone as it died. Another collided with one of its comrades and the two wrapped around each other in a fatal embrace. A fourth ran out of fervour and collapsed, its overworked heart giving out convulsively.
That left only two. The gauntlet was at least now runnable. Hot air whipped past the prince’s face, displaced by a heavy ball and chain. Shards of debris carried along in its wake stung at his skin. He resisted the temptation to lash out. If he did, he’d lose his arm to one swing of the deadly weapon.
Despite the damage inflicted by the fanatics, Wilhelm and his charges cut through the night goblins that had harboured the fanatics with relative ease. Ploughing through the greenskin ranks was akin to butchery, not battle. By the time they’d reached the other side, the knights were less than half their original strength. Around fifty remained and even they were bruised and battered. Cracking flintlocks erupted from the few surviving pistoliers. Tiny plumes of blackpowder smoke erupted from their firearms before the last of the fanatics were shot and killed.
Relieved, Wilhelm turned to look at Kogswald. Lifting his visor, he gasped for breath. He’d known the man all of his life. He’d been his retainer and protector for almost thirty years. The sight of him so cruelly slain, bereft of glory, was almost too much.
‘He’s gone,’ Ledner’s snake-rasp banished the prince’s nostalgia. Nothing could be done for the preceptor. Ledner’s pragmatism outweighed sentiment every time. There was no love lost between the two men. Neither, to their credit, had pretended otherwise. But Ledner recognised the great shame in what had happened to his sparring partner.
Ledner was wounded too. He held his reins gingerly with one hand, the other clutching his sword. His arm was either twisted or broken, possibly at the shoulder. Ledner didn’t let it show, despite his bloodied face. A cut above his right eye drooled gorily, but he was defiant as ever.
When the prince didn’t reply, Ledner rode up alongside him and leaned in close so he could whisper. ‘Marshal your knights!’ he hissed between clenched teeth.
They’d stalled a little, the impetus of their charge faltering once free and clear of the night goblins. ‘They need you to lead them. Do it!’
As if waking from a dream, Wilhelm came around. The knights were milling around, lacking in purpose. The prince reined his horse about, facing the enemy ahead. The briefest of nods in Ledner’s direction acknowledged the service he’d just performed for his master.
‘Onward,’ cried Wilhelm, raising his sword. ‘The gates of Averheim are close. We’re nearly there. For Kogswald and our slain brothers!’
The knights cheered, though it was a dark and vengeful cry. Even in the face of death, their spirit was indomitable. It was what made them better than ordinary men.
Under fifty knights, just two and a half lances, to take the gate and release the Averheim army – Wilhelm had Sigmar’s name upon his lips as they charged again.
His steed had saved his life, or at least prolonged it for another, perhaps more peaceful death. Unlike most soldiers, Stahler had no wish to die on the battlefield. It was a lonesome, depressing place. Death and death alone belonged there, not glory. He wanted to meet his end in the arms of a beautiful woman; or in a tavern, surrounded by friends and comrades; or old aged before a slow burning hearth, a smouldering pipe in his hand and a contented smile on his face that said: I’m ready now, I’ve lived.
Even as his warhorse had staved in the skull of the last goblin, the other four dispatched between them, Stahler knew that was not his fate. He’d die here in the mire, alone yet surrounded by his men. As if to punish him for his killing efforts, the pain in Stahler’s arm and side returned. He stifled a cry. The tears in his eyes were from agony, not anguish.
Stay alive, he kept repeating to himself. Stay alive and make it count for something.
The rain brought him around. It tinkled against his armour. Rivulets inveigled their way down his back, chilling him. The effect was mildly reviving. It wasn’t to last.
Only shortly after it had begun, the rainstorm stopped abruptly. The clouds persisted but they no longer shed their tears. Mist followed in its wake, rising swiftly like an ethereal tide, smothering the battlefield. The smoke from the hillside rolled into it, turning it into dense smog. He’d experienced foggy nights in Altdorf, the mist creeping off the Reik, when you could only just see the hand before your face, where visibility had been better than this. The battle had just become many times more treacherous.
It was as the grey smog clawed its way across the plain that everything began to go wrong.
An almighty flash ignited the heavens just as the Grimblades were about to engage yet another greenskin mob. Something plummeted from the sky, blazing like a falling comet.
Whether it was denial or the simple fact of distance, it took Karlich a few seconds to realise it was Sirrius Cloudcaller.
Blacktooth had won. The Celestial wizard was dead.
A bizarre after-flare was frozen against Karlich’s eye. As he blinked he again saw Sirrius etched upon the clouds in agonised silhouette.
‘Fight on, fight on for the Empire!’ Von Rauken had seen it too and was doing his best to rally them.
Without the wizard… Karlich dare not contemplate further. The crash of blades was coming fast, so he bellowed as hard as his lungs would allow and lost himself to the madness.
Wilhelm’s knights were riding at the orcs’ backs now. Charging along the rear of the greenskins engaged with the Empire troops, it was tempting to wheel off and gut a mob from behind. Wilhelm felt sure even the hardest orcs would crumple beneath their lances and their righteous anger. Part of him wanted to, needed to, vent his frustration at the death of noble Kogswald. It would be an outpouring of grief. Averheim demanded his attention, though. He would be its saviour. He would save the Empire and take Dieter to account for his lassitude, feathering his nest as he brokered deals with greedy Marienburgers and the rest of the Empire burned. It made the prince’s blood hot that an Emperor could abandon his lands to despoliation. If he survived this, there would a reckoning. All the mercenaries and sell-swords in Tilea couldn’t prevent it.
With thoughts of vengeance plaguing his mind, the prince failed to notice the shadow in the clouds growing above them. It wasn’t until Ledner cried out, an oddly strangled shriek due to his old neck wound, that Wilhelm knew of the danger in their midst.
‘My lord, get down!’ Ledner threw himself at the prince, leaping off his own steed to do it. The two men slammed into the earth and rolled as something large and scaly raked overhead, a pair of screaming knights gripped in its clutches. It w
as a miracle they weren’t killed or seriously injured in the fall. Several more knights were scattered across the ground, their bodies and their horses broken. Trying to heave the air back into his chest, the ache of sudden bruises from the fall muddying his senses, Wilhelm looked into the sky and saw the wyvern turn. It tossed a dangling figure from its mouth as it dove for them.
The prince rose unsteadily before Ledner tackled him again, grunting as he jarred his injured arm. Warm air and the foetid stink of the beast washed over them. Ledner yelped in pain as a talon clipped him, tearing a bloody gash in his wounded shoulder.
‘It wants you,’ he snarled from the agony. ‘Get your wits first then face it.’
He rolled off from where he’d pinned the prince. Wilhelm nodded curtly, found his breath at last and got to his feet.
The wyvern was circling around for another pass. The shaman on its back cackled wildly, enjoying the spectacle.
Dragon Tooth was in the prince’s hand as he took up a swordfighting stance. Since he’d been a boy, Kogswald had taught him how to fight. As the wyvern knifed through the clouds at him, Wilhelm recalled a lesson where the preceptor had tutored him in the art of engaging a horseman on foot. It required balance and timing. The prince adopted those sage tactics now.
‘See this blade,’ he muttered to the beast as it grew in his eye line, ‘do you remember it?’ They were just moments away from impact. ‘It remembers you…’
Dragon Tooth caught an errant shaft of sunlight and flashed in agreement.
The sunlight died when the wyvern eclipsed it, hurtling at Wilhelm like a thrown spear but with all the force of a battering ram. Its eyes glinted like malevolent rubies, its claws and fangs promised gruesome death. Saliva drizzled from its open mouth as the beast savoured the scent of royal flesh.
Purge your mind of all doubt. You and your blade are as one. Kogswald was with him again, only fifteen years ago.
The rising mist swept up in front of the beast, masking it from sight. Wilhelm closed his eyes until the beat of its wings nearly deafened him, then he pivoted his body aside in a wide arc and lashed out with Dragon Tooth.
He was buffeted hard by the wyvern’s bulk as it arrowed past him. A ribbon of heat opened up in his thigh and he realised it had cut him. Almost simultaneously he felt the enchanted blade dragging through hide and flesh, eliciting a bestial screech of agony.
Dragon Tooth hissed and spat as the wyvern’s blood touched the blade as if whispering a curse. The wound went deep. Wilhelm knew it by instinct. Dizzy, one hand clutching his injured leg, he turned in time to see the wyvern careening off into the distance. The membrane from its right wing hung like a ragged sail. It made the beast flail in the air like a stricken ship on invisible waves. Blood threaded the earth like a red, throbbing vein from where Wilhelm had cut the wyvern to a furrow in the ground where it eventually pitched. It wasn’t dead, a terrible mewling sound reverberated from its nose, but it was down and so was the shaman.
‘Nicely done, my lord,’ said Ledner running up beside him. Even he couldn’t hide his awe at what the prince had just done.
Wilhelm was breathless with effort. ‘It’s a little different with horses.’
Ledner didn’t know what he meant, so ignored the comment. ‘Can you walk?’
The prince nodded.
‘Then you can ride.’ Ledner turned and hailed two of the knights.
Wilhelm paled. They numbered less than twenty. Some were injured and would never fight again. Many were dead. The wyvern’s monstrous strength was awesome to behold.
Across the plain towards Averheim, whose hopes were fading like a candle at the end of its wick, several bulky shadows were plunging through the mist. The grey veil was thinnest near the city, without the powder smoke to pollute it, and Wilhelm made out a squadron of chariots heading towards them.
When the two knights reached Ledner they dismounted.
‘Here, my lord,’ Ledner invited.
Wilhelm frowned. ‘Where is my steed?’
‘Dead. Now take the saddle.’
Ledner helped the prince up and then mounted the other horse.
‘Come, my lord,’ he said, reining his borrowed horse towards the Imperial line. ‘There’s little time.’
‘What are you doing?’ Wilhelm didn’t bother to hide his anger. ‘Averheim–’
‘Is lost,’ snapped Ledner, ‘and so will we be if we delay further. This way, my lord. The knights will cover our retreat.’
‘Sacrifice their lives you mean.’
‘If that makes you follow me now, then yes, they will. Don’t let it be in vain.’
The proud remnants of the Griffonkorps and the Order of the Fiery Comet aligned their steeds in a long fighting line. Many had lost their lances. A lone survivor of the pistoliers mixed in with their ranks, a templar in all but name for his bravery. Those on foot stood either side of the horses. Some men were praying. More than one kissed the blade of his sword and showed it to the heavens. The shaft of sunlight that had lit up Dragon Tooth returned to bathe them briefly in its lustre but then was gone.
Wilhelm made to ride up alongside them, but Ledner snatched his reins and stopped him.
The chariots were closing all the while. They’d been held in reserve for this very purpose. Grom was as wily as he was obese.
‘You are the prince of Reikland. You must not fall!’
Ledner’s anger shook Wilhelm into understanding. His defiance crumpled into an expression of profound sadness.
‘Sigmar be with you…’ he murmured to the knights. He nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly, before he and Ledner rode for the Imperial line as if all the hounds of Chaos were at their heels.
It was over. Wilhelm had failed.
Chapter Twenty
The better part of valour
Outside Averheim, capital city of Averland,
483 miles from Altdorf
The sight of Wilhelm quitting the field sent shockwaves through the rest of the army. They couldn’t reach Averheim and free the elector count’s army. A full retreat was ordered almost immediately. The orcs fighting the Grimblades seemed to sense the sudden weakness. It intensified their strength and with the burly greenskins pressing hard against them the halberdiers gave and broke.
Somewhere between running and shouting orders, Karlich fell. The damned smog was everywhere, choking the plain in a charcoal shroud. It was a curse and a blessing. For some, it meant they could retreat without fear of pursuit; for others, it meant getting lost in the darkness and stumbling into the enemy, or worse, the blades of their own panicked kinsmen.
Panic was the only way to describe it. Monsters lived in the mist and smog, some real, some imagined. Their grunting bootsteps thudded behind… or was it in front? Their snorting rage was omnipresent.
Karlich didn’t know how far they’d already run. He went to get up when he was kicked in the stomach and fell down again. It wasn’t a greenskin. The immediate view was hazy, but he thought he saw an Imperial uniform disappearing eerily away from him. He was suddenly disorientated. Perspective and direction lost all meaning in the smog.
He tried to rise again, this time managing to get to his feet and realised he was alone. Something came at him swiftly from the murk. He gutted it on his blade, belatedly glad it was a goblin. The greenskins too were running scared. Though entirely natural, the smog had taken on an eldritch quality. Snaps of harquebuses were muffled by it. Karlich thought he saw the vague blossom of their flaring flintlocks as the handgunners fired, and headed for them.
His sword wouldn’t move. Karlich wrenched at it but it wouldn’t give. It was stuck fast in the dead goblin’s body. With no time to pull it free, he left it. He didn’t know what had happened to the other Grimblades but, with only his dirk to protect him, hoped they were close. One moment they had been running together, trying to maintain some form of good orde
r, the next he was tumbling into the hard earth and all was grey and dark around him.
He thought about shouting out for his comrades, but decided against it. There might be more greenskins, bigger ones, lurking in the smog and he didn’t want to risk attracting them.
Warily, he trudged towards the flare of guns. He remembered it was only about a hundred feet to the rear line and safety.
It might as well have been a hundred miles.
The going was slow. Littered with fallen blades and the dead and dying, the ground was treacherous. Karlich saw the shadow of an Empire soldier rushing blindly through the smog and impaling himself on a discarded spear jutting from the earth. The poor sod gurgled once and then died. It was only when Karlich saw the hulking silhouettes drifting ahead of him, too large and broad-backed to be men, that he realised he was really in trouble.
In their eagerness to chase down their defeated enemy, some of the orcs had got in front of him. Briefly fixated on the orcs, he heard the light thud of charging feet too late.
Karlich turned, just as a black-swathed figure rammed into him. He gasped as the air was smashed from his lungs. The sergeant kicked out and was greeted with a satisfying grunt of pain. Despite the fact he was gagging for breath, he tried to shove the body off him but his arm was pinned beneath what felt like his attacker’s knee. The scuffle came in flashes – a whipping cloak, black but dirty with caked mud; a silver talisman, gleaming and forbidding; the snarling face of a man he feared but barely knew. Vanhans straddled Karlich, locking his arms with his knees, and seized the sergeant’s neck in both hands.
‘Murdering heretic,’ he snarled, his venting spittle wetting Karlich’s cheek.
Karlich jarred a knee into Vanhans’s back and he relented enough for the Reiklander to take a breath.
‘What are you talking about, maniac?’ he hissed through clenched teeth before the witch hunter reasserted his position but this time pushed the flat of his hand under Karlich’s chin.
‘Lothar Henniker,’ he said. ‘You know.’
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