The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  Good news for Rechts, he thought bitterly, and wondered if a drunken stupor would ease his pain.

  The sheer scale of the defeat at Averheim was barely just setting in. Fighting for your life, even trudging down the Old Dwarf Road, ever fearful of greenskin attack, tended to occupy the mind. Now, in the quiet and the solitude, the dust had begun to settle. It smelled of the grave and itched with despair. Suicides had already been reported by several sergeants. Mercifully, desertion was scarce. It was mainly Averlanders, sneaking back across the border, wanting to meet the end in their own lands. Karlich couldn’t blame them. He felt a long way from home.

  In the aftermath, Wilhelm’s quartermasters had taken a tally. The death-books were growing into quite a compendium. He’d lost a large body of troops at Averheim, together with nearly all the knights. Middenland had almost none of its original contingent.

  It gave Karlich no pleasure that the Steel Swords had not returned from the plains. Even though they had left his Grimblades vulnerable to a flank attack and were, in no uncertain terms, the biggest whoresons he had ever met, Karlich could not bear a fallen soldier ill will. For all their faults, Sturnbled had led his men bravely, fighting in a war they didn’t understand or believe in. They deserved to die in the land of Ulric with their forefathers, not in some foreign field.

  True survivors that they were, the greatsworders and von Rauken still lived, though ‘Carroburg Fewer’ might be a more appropriate name now. At his last count, Karlich gauged there were no more than ten of the greatsworders left. They bore it all stoically, of course.

  That left mainly citizen levies and those infantry regiments raised in Reikland townships and trained as professional soldiers. Then there were the few remaining Averlanders, dwindling by the day. It wasn’t much.

  Most of the war machines and engineers made the journey. Meinstadt was one of the few officers Karlich had met that was still breathing. Stahler was gone – it left a hole in his stomach and a chill down his back to think of it. Karlich pushed the memory of what he’d seen – or had he? – on the plains outside Averheim to the back of his mind. No good could come of digging there. Lenkmann had refused flat out to acknowledge it. To him, it never happened. The banner bearer was right at home with the superstitious Stirlanders. Of the rest, Hornstchaft was assumed slain in the initial charge, though his body remained unrecovered, and Preceptor Kogswald had met his end protecting the life of the prince, or so the propaganda went. Ironically, Blaselocker of Averland had died when the cannon misfired on the embankment. By seeking refuge behind the massive iron gun he had actually doomed himself. The demise of Father Untervash, Karlich had witnessed himself. The sight of the warrior priest being bitten in two still haunted his nightmares.

  Thankfully no one had questioned the death of Vanhans. With the witch hunter gone, the funds from the temple dried up. Without coin, the mercenaries left the following morning. Most of Vanhans’s faithful horde disbanded too with no shepherd to guide the fervent flock.

  Karlich had the blood of two templars on his hands. Both were madmen to his mind. After the campaign, assuming he survived, he might have to move on again, lest the spectre of Lothar Henniker catch up with him.

  Bleak. Yes, it was the only word Karlich could think of to describe their situation as he sat outside an inn with too few customers and sipped at hot ale.

  ‘Apparently, it’s the custom,’ said a familiar voice behind him.

  ‘Eh?’

  Masbrecht came into view and gestured to the clay tankard Karlich was cradling.

  ‘I’ve heard they use a poker from the fire to warm it.’

  Karlich smacked his lips and scowled. He’d been holding the tankard so long, the heat had long since stopped emanating off it. ‘Tastes like soot.’

  There was a long pause. Masbrecht looked uneasy and rubbed his chin.

  ‘Spit it out then,’ said Karlich.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Whatever it is you’ve come to speak to me about, say it.’ Karlich set his tankard down on the stumpy table beside him. The two men were alone.

  ‘It’s not right,’ Masbrecht uttered simply.

  ‘What isn’t? The ale, the war, our defeat? There’s much in the world that isn’t right, Masbrecht. You’ll need to narrow it down.’

  Masbrecht barely moved. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Karlich, stretching his legs and pulling his pipe from his tunic pocket. ‘That.’ The cup was already packed with tobacco. It was late, night was drawing in. Karlich leaned over to a candle stuck to the table with its own wax and coaxed his pipeweed to life.

  ‘Are you really surprised we lost at Averheim?’ Masbrecht continued. ‘Even the greenskins can form an alliance. We are at each others’ throats!’

  ‘Hardly,’ Karlich said through piping smoke. ‘We’ve been left to our own protection, Masbrecht. There’s a difference.’

  ‘Someone within Wilhelm’s camp, someone who could be here, now, wants our prince dead. How can you stand idly by and let it happen?’ Masbrecht sat down next to Karlich. ‘At Averheim, it was different. Surrounded by the army, the prince was safe. But here, now–’

  ‘Ledner said he’d take care of it. We’ve done our part for prince and province.’

  ‘You trust him?’

  ‘Not as much as a goblin, but what other choice is there?’

  Masbrecht’s body language was beseeching. ‘Let’s tell the prince, warn him of the danger he’s in.’

  ‘We don’t know he’s in danger. The assassin’s dead, remember.’

  Masbrecht’s expression darkened. ‘Eber’s blood was all over my hands and he’s still not fit to fight. I remember well enough.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. Morals are all fine and good but they’re not always practical. If word got out…’ Karlich sucked a breath in through his teeth. ‘Well, let’s just say the consequences could be ugly.’

  ‘Or the culprits could be found and brought to justice,’ said Masbrecht. ‘The prince’s reputation is reinforced and would-be betrayers will think twice before plotting against him. Moreover, we’d be rid of the traitors in our midst!’ He was agitated, breathing hard. Karlich had seldom seen him so passionate about something other than religion. He saw it for what it really was though. Refutation. Disbelief.

  That men could turn on their own, on someone as pure and noble as Prince Wilhelm, dented Masbrecht’s faith. Belief in Sigmar was really all he had. Without it, he was a shadow. Karlich saw that now, just as he saw the look that flashed across Masbrecht’s face when he’d regarded the cup of ale. It was need. The absence of one thing meant its replacement by another. Small wonder he was so puritanical about Rechts’s drinking.

  Karlich leaned forward and hissed: ‘We stopped an assassination. I wouldn’t say we rested on our laurels, Masbrecht. What more would you have us–’

  The inn door slamming open interrupted him.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ a surly voice asked. It was Rechts, nursing his own hot ale, one of several he’d already imbibed by the look of him. ‘I said I didn’t want to drink alone, but I’d rather that than share ale with this naysayer. The mood is grim enough.’

  ‘Drunkenness will do that to a man,’ Masbrecht replied. Anger underpinned his voice. He was already in a pugnacious mood.

  ‘Voice of experience, brother?’ Now Rechts was goading him.

  Karlich went to intercede but Masbrecht cut him off.

  ‘Are you a heretic, Torsten, is that it?’

  Karlich quickly got to his feet. ‘That’s enough!’

  Rechts had just sat down and was about to get up again when Karlich pushed him back onto his stool. There was silence as the drummer gritted his teeth and rode out his anger.

  ‘They were burned,’ he said eventually. ‘All of them, my entire village.’

  Masbrecht found he was wr
ong-footed. ‘Wha–’

  ‘A templar came to us, a servant of Sigmar, or so he claimed. A boy was found with a webbed toe. Fearful of mutation, the villagers took him before the witch hunter.’ As darkness crept across the sky, the shadows pooling in Rechts’s face made him look cadaverous. Too much drink and lack of proper sleep had worn the man down. As he spoke, it didn’t appear to lessen his burden. ‘I never saw the boy after that. Trials followed, then executions. Soon the trials were abandoned altogether and it was just about the burning. Our village preacher let him do it. His voice was loudest in the mob. I only survived because my mother hid me. When I came out, they were all dead. My mother, my whole family were ash. The witch hunter and his cronies had moved on. So, forgive me if I do not trust those that preach the word of Sigmar as readily as you do.’

  Rechts stood up. Karlich let him, showing his palms in a gesture for the drummer to stay calm. He did. Until Masbrecht opened his mouth again.

  ‘That boy could not have burned for no reason, he must–’

  Rechts exploded. Spittle was flying from his mouth, ‘Whim, brother. That was all. Whim and the will of a raving mad man, clad in Sigmar’s cloth. Preaching fear and doubt, an entire village turned on itself. The hammer is not a death warrant, yet there are those who brandish it like one.’ Rechts was clenching and unclenching his fists. The old pugnacity had returned. Karlich edged around the table so he could get between them if he needed to.

  ‘Reason!’ Rechts went on. ‘Reason doesn’t come into it. An innocent boy burned, an untainted village destroyed, all at the hand of our self-proclaimed protectors. Show me the reason in that.’ In a much smaller voice, he added, ‘I can still smell my mother’s ash on my hands…’

  Masbrecht was indignant. ‘I still don’t–’ he began, Karlich already frowning and about to tell him to close his trap before Rechts interceded.

  ‘Speak further and I’ll cut out your tongue.’ He’d ripped a dirk from its scabbard and held it levelly, especially considering he was well inebriated.

  ‘Put it away, Torsten,’ said Karlich in a firm voice. ‘Trooper Rechts!’ he added a moment later.

  Rechts obeyed, looked at Masbrecht once more, who was paling a little by then, and left.

  Karlich watched him wander off down the street. Come the morning, he’d send Volker to look for him. He turned to say something to Masbrecht but he was leaving too, heading in the opposite direction. That was something, at least. Karlich sat down, his bones never more weary. As he sipped at his tepid ale, he scowled.

  ‘Definitely tastes like soot.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Festering wounds

  Wurtbad, capital of Stirland,

  398 miles from Altdorf

  Two concessions were made concerning the admittance of foreign troops into Wurtbad. The first allowed a few regiments at a time, no more than two hundred men, to spend a night in town away from the pitched encampment outside the border walls. The second instructed that all injured men in need of care beyond the skill of army chirurgeons would be housed under the auspices of the Temple of Shallya until such time as they could return to their regiment.

  These hospitium were not merely found in the temple itself. The badly wounded and the dying were in such numbers that it would not have coped. Inns, stately abodes, barracks and even barns were given over to the ministration of the sick and ailing. Locals avoided such places; they were grim and unpleasant to look upon. The stench of necrosis and old rot made the air inside them rank and noisome. Wailing and moaning was a common, morale-eating chorus. Few soldiers emerged alive, let alone whole. Several of the town’s sawbones had already earned tidy profits from the Prince of Reikland’s coffers for their diligent labours over the gangrenous and diseased. Shallyan priestesses moved between sweaty cots with a tireless grace and brought blankets from the recently deceased for the newly admitted. Steamed over the hot springs which Wurtbad was famous for, the blankets were damp and reeked of latent death. Dingy, so as to hide the horror of it from their inmates and nurses, the hospitium maintained an air of the desolate and gladly forgotten.

  Eber was one of the fortunate. He would live and escape with all his limbs. Strong as an ox, determined as an Ostland bull, his natural stamina and phlegmatic humour had seen him through the worst. Masbrecht had applied bandages expertly on the heath and likely saved the burly Reiklander a lot of blood, possibly even his life. The battlefield was still beyond him, but a few more days of healing and rest would see Eber take up his halberd again. He longed to be back amongst his brothers.

  Sitting up in his cot, Eber bowed his head as a grey-faced priest of Morr drifted by. Cadaverous and silent within his black robes, he was more wraith than man. A quiet prayer of warding and the sign of the raven would have to keep the God of Death and Dreams at bay. At least, Eber hoped it would.

  Once the priest was gone, off to perform the final rites of soul binding for some poor wretch, Eber looked around. It was almost smoky in the dim lantern light but his heart spiked painfully in his wounded chest when he saw someone he recognised just a few cots away from his.

  Torveld was sitting over the edge of his cot wearing a blank expression. He was being attended by a Shallyan matriarch. Her robes were grimy and stained with blood but she still managed to look pure. She carried a candle, perfectly poised, in one hand. She was discussing Torveld’s condition with one of the army’s quartermasters, a slightly corpulent man who dabbed his forehead with a rag every few seconds and whose leather hauberk strained at the gut. Eber wondered how long before he was being ministered by the sisters of mercy. They spoke in low voices, but Eber still overheard them.

  According to the matriarch, Torveld had lost his memory. Leastways, he had no recollection of the past few months. His head wound was well healed, though. Physically fine, he could return to his regiment and the campaign.

  At this brief summary, the quartermaster nodded and went to a large book of parchments he had in his hand. Torveld was still wearing his bloodstained uniform and the quartermaster leafed through the broad pages laboriously. It was hard to see, but Eber made out heraldries, regimental markings and banner icons as the pages were turned. Having found what he sought, the quartermaster frowned.

  His voice was a low murmur. Even though he couldn’t hear it, Eber knew what was said: Torveld’s regiment, the Middenland Steel Swords, were dead. He was the only survivor. The northerner appeared not to understand the import of the quartermaster’s words. Eber imagined a mental shrug in the man’s neutral demeanour.

  ‘Well, he can’t stay here in the temple,’ said the matriarch. Her voice was soft but her message unyielding.

  ‘It’s a return to the army then, my lad,’ the quartermaster addressed Torveld directly. ‘There’ll be a use for you there.’

  Torveld was then led away by the quartermaster, a walking husk awaiting a soul to fill it. Confident whatever choleric intent the Middenlander harboured was lost to amnesia, Eber eased back onto his cot. The pain in his chest flared. His wounds were still raw. A gentle touch soothed his shoulder. A priestess of Shallya calmly requested that he should lie down. Eber was sweating. Blood darkened his bandages in faint blossoms of vermillion. He did as asked, turning his head to watch Torveld leave the temple and his sight.

  Nothing to worry about there, he told himself, nothing at all.

  The sun hurt his eyes as Evik Torveld left the temple. He was only half listening as the quartermaster gave him directions to the town gate. Once at the encampment, he was to report to Sergeant Hauker for duties. A moment later, the quartermaster had returned inside to assess some of the other wounded and Torveld was left alone.

  He was still finding his bearings when he noticed another soldier walking through Wurtbad’s streets. The uniform triggered something buried in Torveld’s damaged mind. His hand went to the head wound out of reflex. Anger burned through the fog clouding Torveld’s memory,
a line of heat that left a core of rage and vengeance behind.

  Sturnbled, Wode… all his brothers of Ulric, all dead.

  ‘Grimblades…’ he muttered like a curse.

  Torveld clenched his fists until the knuckles whitened, then headed after the soldier.

  For the first time in years, Masbrecht needed a drink. He felt the familiar gravel taste in his mouth, the cotton tongue behind itching teeth. Sweat soaked the back of his tunic. Just a tiny patch in the small of his back, but it told him the craving was upon him. He’d fought hard to deny it, burying the little voice inside him under the weight of faith and religion. Foolishly, he thought he’d beaten it but it was there, waiting for a moment of weakness.

  The streets were quiet. Most Wurtbad residents stayed indoors after dark, fearing attack from the greenskins. Others never left the taverns, satisfied to drink themselves into oblivion until the dawn. Being insensible made it easy to forget, if just for a while. Masbrecht didn’t want to go to a tavern. He wanted to drink alone, to indulge and be damned. The brewhouses were shut and bolted. He wandered down a side alley. It was cluttered with refuse and other scraps. Urine ringed the air in an invisible pall. Drunken shapes lolled in its darkest recesses.

  Masbrecht walked over to one. The man was filthy and wore the remnants of a docker’s garb. He was snoring loudly, clutching a grimy bottle. His pepper-stubble cheeks blew in and out with every laboured breath.

  Without thinking, Masbrecht snatched the bottle. He took a quick pull. The liquor was fiery hot. It burned the back of his throat and he coughed hard, bringing up phlegm. Wiping his mouth, he took another, wincing as the liquid went down.

  All the deaths, all the lies and compromises of the last few days and weeks would disappear in a fog of drunkenness. Masbrecht embraced it, tears welling in his eyes. Cold, grey faces came to him as he closed his eyes to the pain.