Far from holding the line and giving up their blood for the Empire, Wilhelm and his army fled.
They had seen the sheer strength of Waaagh! Grom and quailed.
It only goaded the Paunch all the more. His prize was running up the valley ridge, directly away from his horde. Urging his mobs to greater efforts, he was determined to catch the ‘humies’ before they reached the summit.
Wilhelm, cantering in order to keep pace with the foot troops, did not get to the valley peak, nor did he intend to. Instead, he came up about twenty feet short. Another banner went up, more clarion calls echoed on the dead air. The Empire line reformed, became much tighter, much denser than before, its ranks packed and deep. Shield walls were raised and locked, spears levelled. A ragged band of defenders became a tough and determined rectangle of soldiers. The second part of Wilhelm’s plan happened a moment later.
Imperial war cries spilled down over the east and west ridges, thousands of men followed them, two flanking forces comprised of state regiments and citizen militia. The western force contained the Hornhelms, the flower of Stirland’s cavalry. Several stern-faced state regiments accompanied them. The slowly-dipping lances of the knights sent a shiver of fear through the greenskins they barrelled towards. The eastern force was on foot, led by Captain Vogen. Stolid dwarfs joined the Empire ranks of swords, pikes and militia. Mootlanders ranged their flanks.
Behind the prince, who had resumed his position in the centre of the battleline, a fourth force appeared. The remnants of Meinstadt’s war machines and all of the harquebuses were suddenly levelled at the onrushing green horde. The goblin frontrunners faltered in places and there was a collision of bodies. The larger orcs remained uncowed and hacked through their more timid brethren if they held them up.
Like a piece of meat, Wilhelm had dangled the prospect of a quick and bloody win before the Paunch. He was greedy, this Grom, and he had taken the bait readily. Though still outnumbered, the Empire had trapped the greenskins in the narrow defile and could attack on three aspects at once. Victory was far from assured, but at least now they had a fighting chance.
Karlich’s shoulders ached from heaving the carriage of the great cannon up to the ridgeline. Several regiments were positioned with the war engines, partly to defend them, partly to get them where they needed to be. The first task was done – blackpowder smoke already laced the air from the opening salvoes, and set ears ringing with thudding reports – the second, keeping the machines from harm, would not be as easy.
The Grimblades made ranks quickly, stationed just below one of the two great cannon. Meinstadt still had the volley gun and one of the mortars left too. The latter was aimed at the rear of the greenskin lines, where its explosive shells would cause maximum damage but pose minimum risk to friendly troops. A deadly barrage landed deep in the valley, throwing greenskins and dirt plumes into the air with brutal ease.
Lenkmann pumped his fist, thrilled at the ingenuity of the Empire taking such a toll on the beasts, but the hole in the mobs was quickly filled and his optimism disappeared with it.
‘It’s as if it never happened, just like at Averheim,’ he said, holding onto his banner with both hands as if it supported him. ‘They’re endless.’
‘You expected any different,’ grumbled Volker, sticks held fast against his pigskin drum. The instrument still felt awkward, as if he were wearing a dead man’s coat that didn’t fit. Rechts had been the Grimblades’ beating heart. To carry his drum felt like a transgression, not an honour. Volker wondered if it was time to leave the army.
Karlich intruded on his thoughts. ‘We don’t need to beat them,’ he said, rotating his shoulder blade where it was still sore, ‘just bloody them enough to force the greenskins out of Reikland.’
‘I thought orcs liked to fight?’ queried Eber. The big man was a welcome presence in the ranks, though the bindings around his chest suggested he might not have much fight left in him. ‘Won’t that just make them want to fight more?’
‘Anything that lives doesn’t want to die,’ Brand told him. ‘Greenskins are no different.’
‘There’ll be much dying this day, before it’s out,’ said Volker.
Karlich adjusted his shield straps, looking down at the throng below. ‘Be thankful you’re up here and not amongst that.’
Farther down the valley from the Grimblades’ position, Wilhelm’s baiting force made a slow advance. With higher ground and Imperial discipline to gird them, the ragged soldiery could effectively ‘bung’ the valley. They were so closely packed, they’d be hard to rout. Wilhelm’s presence, shining in his gilded armour plate, would galvanise them further. Even still, it was a meat grinder.
Hope, what there was of it, seemed very far away.
‘Should we make our farewells now?’ asked Lenkmann with genuine regret.
Volker went to reply, when Karlich stopped him.
‘Leave it unsaid. It’s a bad omen to honour the dead before they’re in the ground,’ he added. ‘Tends to end up putting them there.’
Another blast of powder smoke obscured the footsloggers before they met with the first of Grom’s orcs. Karlich was still wiping soot from his eyes when the clash of arms resolved itself on the low breeze.
At the valley sides, on the east and west slopes, similar struggles played out. The high ridge and the backline afforded a strong vantage point from which to see the entire battle. Maybe that’s why Wilhelm appointed Ledner to marshal the rearguard force. Karlich had seen the spymaster only once after deployment. Even as he surveyed the carnage below, as the Hornhelms split off from combat and reformed for another charge, as pike and sword met with cleaver and club, as skulls were split and bodies sundered, Karlich knew Ledner was close by. It felt like a blade against his back, poised to thrust.
Smoke rolled down into the valley like fog. It was not so different to Averheim, but here it gathered in the valley’s low trough. Wilhelm’s horse fought the reins a little as the grey-white mist engulfed them. With the weak breeze unable to shift it, the smoke lingered at the valley bottom in a thick pall. It smothered the greenskins, making them appear numberless as they emerged from it in droves.
The element of surprise was spent. The fighting was fast and dirty now. Wilhelm’s runefang was well bloodied as the giant black orc loomed into view. It appeared as a shadow at first, like a beast of the deep oceans slowly surfacing. He felt the Griffonkorps close protectively around him. The axe, too large and heavy for a man to wield, cut through the mist first. One of the Griffonkorps fell away with hardly a sound but minus his head. The carpet of fog swallowed him like he was just a memory.
A second knight managed to angle a sword thrust before the black orc’s claw snapped out and seized him by the helmet. The Griffonkorps elicited a sort of squeak as his skull was crushed.
In the intervening seconds, Wilhelm pushed forward ahead of his protectors. The black orc emerged fully from the pooling smoke. It was huge. Eye-to-eye with the prince, despite the fact he was mounted, it snarled and bit off the horse’s head. Part of the poor creature’s skull remained as it collapsed to the ground, gushing blood, taking Wilhelm with it. The horse’s demise was slow enough for the prince to leap free and still keep his feet, after a fashion. All around him, the desperate fighting went on. Parts of the shield wall nearby crumpled against the enemy’s savagery. Spears were snapped like twigs but the Empire line held.
The shadow of the axe swept over Wilhelm, hard to discern in the press of bodies and the tumult of battle. Another Griffonkorps gave his life so the prince might live, horse and knight cleaved almost in two. Wilhelm used these seconds to get a solid footing. The black orc beast was not alone. Its slightly smaller, but no less brutal, brethren crowded out the other Empire soldiers near the prince’s side. He would face the beast alone. Somewhere, probably during the fall, he’d lost his shield, so he held Dragon Tooth two-handed. Wilhelm knew he’d only get one c
hance at the monstrous black orc and he’d need all of his strength to kill it, even with the magical dwarf blade.
Obviously a warlord and one of Grom’s chieftains, the orc’s skin was like dark leather only more rugged. Thick mail armour swathed a heavily-muscled body that heaved with barely fettered rage. The axe was the size of a cart wheel, notched with use and stained crimson. Spiked boots added unnecessary height, while the black orc’s skull was stitched with scars. Around its neck it wore a ring of desiccated halfling corpses as a man might wear a charm of wolf’s teeth. The beast bellowed, showering the prince with foul spittle. Its rancid breath stank of rotten meat.
The clash of arms surrounded Wilhelm. He was in the eye of a massive storm but the war had narrowed into this one fight, this moment of kill or be killed. The prince tried to step back, telling himself it was for a better fighting stance and not because he balked at the ferocious creature, but found there was no room. It didn’t matter anyway. The black orc had issued its challenge. Now it advanced, axe swinging like a deadly pendulum.
‘Strength of Sigmar,’ Wilhelm muttered, kissing his blade in the manner of the old ways, and went to meet the beast.
Staring into nothing was getting maddening. For the last few minutes Karlich had watched the belt of thickening smoke, alert for the first sign of a greenskin breakthrough. He blinked away several imagined horrors in the mist, before realising all was well. Sweat sheened his forehead, though he wasn’t hot. With the pale cloud wreathing the field, tendrils of it reaching up to them on the ridge, a nervous tension gripped the valley. There was little to see now, even from on high, just half-shadows moving in the false fog and the sounds of battle.
It was eldritch, unsettling. Lenkmann clamped a hand over his mouth to still his chattering teeth. The grey-white smoke played on his fears, reminding the banner bearer of something unnatural. Lenkmann saw ghosts in that growing cloud. In some respects, it wasn’t so far from the truth. Some of the shadows were soon just echoes where once they’d been lives. The smoke deadened, evoking a sense of the strange and disquieting. It was made worse by the presence of the great cannon so nearby.
The fate of Blaselocker was put into Karlich’s mind as the war machine boomed only feet above them. The baron’s shredded remains had to be portioned away in separate sacks when the cannon had exploded alongside him. The raven-keepers were still removing iron shards from his flesh when poor Blaselocker was half assembled on a slab in the Temple of Morr.
The cannon thundered again, rocking on wedged wheels. Karlich winced, dipping his head against the noise. When he opened his eyes, he noticed the pommel of his inherited blade glinting. It brought back the memory of Stahler. He’d be laughing at him, no doubt. Karlich drew comfort from the imagined presence of his old captain embodied by the sword. Some of the smoke had cleared a little when he looked up again and saw Stahler’s replacement, Vogen, fighting hard on the east flank.
Fortunately the greenskins had yet to right themselves. The smoke added to their disorder and confusion, and they fought at a disadvantage. Without more manpower, though, the Empire couldn’t press it. Attrition governed the battle at that moment. With the greenskins’ superior numbers, it meant the balance would soon shift as the casualties mounted on both sides. They needed to find a way to break the orcs, and soon.
Ledner’s choke-rasp shouting above brought Karlich from the throng below and back up to the ridge. He was directing some of the cannon fire for Engineer Meinstadt, picking out targets in the fog. Somewhere in the distance, a goblin chariot exploded in a shower of wooden splinters. They’d navigated the rocks intended to foul them and were roaming the flanks. There was little room, but the narrow machines snuck through.
Shifting his gaze, Karlich found the centre of the battlefield to be almost occluded but the smoke was slowly beginning to dissipate. He recognised the Carroburg Few and wished they were side-by-side. Von Rauken’s men slowly resolved in the fog, fighting hard against a mob of massive, dark-skinned orcs. Something even bigger bellowed and hollered in their ranks before a belt of fog veiled them again.
Karlich said a quiet prayer that it wasn’t the last time he’d see them alive.
The irony wasn’t lost on Ledner. Despite his stern words to the spymaster on the road to Altdorf, Wilhelm had offered himself up as bait to draw the Paunch out. He suppressed a wry smile at that thought, allowing only a moment of reflection, before turning his attention back to the cannon. The goblin king, his death or serious injury, was key to victory. As it so often did, greenskin supremacy depended on the strength and willpower of its warlord. Without Grom, the disparate tribes would quickly fragment, lesser chieftains would vie for the leadership of the army and the Waaagh would slowly dissipate.
Bloody their nose… It was a phrase Ledner had heard much of in the intervening hours since leaving Kemperbad and before the battle.
The Paunch was shrewd, far shrewder than any goblin had a right to be, he would not be goaded easily. Wilhelm had to offer up a trophy for his rack the greenskin could truly savour. The only bargaining piece that the prince had, though, was himself. It was a risk Ledner didn’t like. Using Wilhelm to reveal an assassin, with potential benefits resulting from either outcome, was one thing; the prince’s death on this fog-choked field would mean the sack of Altdorf. The spymaster could see much at stake, and much that could go wrong. It wasn’t a game he liked playing, when the odds were evenly stacked.
These machinations had been flooding through Ledner’s mind like irritated moths bouncing off the glass of a lantern. Worse still, Wilhelm had ordered him to the ridge. War machines were dangerous, the province of madmen, but it was the fact that he couldn’t be by the prince’s side that bothered him the most. Ledner suspected their earlier ‘words’ had something to do with that. Or perhaps it was a less emotionally-driven decision than it first appeared, and Wilhelm was merely being practical. If he fell in battle, then it would be up to Ledner to rally the troops or marshal the retreat. Either way, leadership would be needed.
It didn’t matter. Fate was not yet done with the Prince of Reikland, nor was it done with Adolphus Ledner.
He waited for a short subsidence in the cannonade before turning in his saddle to address Meinstadt.
‘Engineer, how long can we keep this up?’
The cannons bellowed again, their iron cargo buoyed on fat streams of powder smoke spat from fire-blackened mouths.
Meinstadt hollered at one of the gunnery crew with the volley gun to rotate its barrel array – Ledner eyed the so-called ‘wonder weapon’ suspiciously, glad he was well away from it – before replying.
‘We’re low on ball and powder,’ the engineer said, leaving an oil smear across his forehead after mopping his brow. Most of the gunnery crew had shed their tunics and let the sweat sheathe their brawny, smoke-stained bodies. They were as black as coal miners, and twice as grim. ‘When that’s done, we’ll go to grapeshot. Hope you’ve a few coins in that expensive-looking attire you’re wearing, captain,’ he added wryly. ‘We might need them.’
Ledner’s retort was lost in the gunfire, and he gave up repeating it. Before he returned his attention to the field, he bemoaned the lack of ammunition to which Meinstadt gave the equivalent of a vocal shrug then went back to his labours.
One saving grace was that at least the prince had arrayed some decent troops around him. Though now he looked more intently, through the spyglass Wilhelm had given him to observe the field, Ledner saw the Griffonkorps had thinned to almost nothing and the greatsworders were struggling against a mob of hulking black orcs. Their banner dipped and swayed frantically as they tried to reach the prince. They had good reason – Wilhelm was facing an absolute monster. Ledner had only seen ogres as big. Had the beast not been green, he would’ve assumed it was an ogre.
Something caught Ledner’s eye, just at the periphery of his vision. He angled the spyglass eastward and caught sight of the pri
nce’s prey. It was Grom, ranging along the flank, content to let the battle unfold and develop, so he could better read it.
Ledner shook his head, disbelieving.
Truly, this fat brute was unique – he could think! He plotted and planned like a man! Mercy of Shallya, not all greenskins are created thusly or the Empire would drown in its own blood. It might yet!
Fascinated, Ledner watched the Paunch catch and commandeer a chariot that was slow to build momentum after stalling on the rocks. He hauled the crew off and took their place. As he climbed aboard, the carriage of the chariot dug into the earth like a wooden plough, dragged down by Grom’s heavy body. The wolves pulling it strained at their crude tresses, struggling to ferry the obese goblin king. Under his fierce goading, they picked up speed. Fear lent them vigour.
Greenskins in the Paunch’s path either stepped aside or were crushed under the chariot’s ironbound wheels.
Ledner guessed at Grom’s direction. He followed the path suggested by his erratic journey on the chariot and found Wilhelm at the end of it. The prince was engaged with the giant black orc and hadn’t seen the goblin king approaching.
A pang of something resembling anxiety twisted Ledner’s gut. It was a fleeting emotion, hard to discern. He seldom felt anything but calm detachment.
‘This is why I never leave your side, my lord,’ he muttered bitterly. Ledner urged his steed forwards, heading for the slope and Prince Wilhelm.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The value of sacrifice
Reikland hills, on the Bögenhafen road,
34 miles from Altdorf
Feint. Evade. Strike. The words of Kogswald entered Wilhelm’s mind from the past: remember these three rules when fighting a foe bigger and stronger than you. Move quickly and attack when your opponent tires, victory by a thousand cuts is still victory.
But the giant black orc showed no sign of tiring, nor would it die by a thousand cuts. One chance, one cut, was all that Wilhelm would get, if that.
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