[Warhammer] - Ancient Blood

by Robert Earl - (ebook by Undead)

  “Don’t let them in,” Dannie yelled, running back to the fallen barricades, cutlass blurring in a bloody arc, to meet the first of the mercenaries. Chera followed behind, and behind her came the old men, women and children who had been defending the heart of their encampment.

  They threw themselves against the attackers with the courage of the truly desperate, but, without the advantage of the barricade, the Strigany were pushed back, cut down and overwhelmed. And, they were not alone. Even among the chaos of their defeat, Dannie could hear the terrible, splintering crash of other wagons crushing through other parts of the barricade, the rest of the mercenaries obviously taking inspiration from the Estalians’ success.

  As even more men poured over the barricades, the melee around him collapsed into a riot of crushed bodies, packed against each other. Dannie could smell the cloves on his opponents’ breaths, the stink of their sweat, and he could see the terror and exhilaration that shone in their eyes. He cut, twisted and stabbed.

  He did whatever he had to in order to stay beside Chera. With their line broken, and with nowhere to run, he knew that they were both dead.

  Still, he thought, with a grim fatalism, at least we can die together.

  A pair of Estalians emerged from the press, coming at him from either side. He blocked the swinging cutlass blade of the first, and twisted, as the second stabbed at his midriff. This time, he wasn’t quick enough, and the steel, which felt as cold as fire and as hot as ice, sliced neatly through his muscles and ground against his ribs.

  Dannie grabbed the man’s wrist, and brought his forehead down to crack into his face. With a crunch of gristle and a howl of pain, the Estalian staggered back, tearing his hand from Dannie’s grip. Before he could strike again, he fell, and, through a confusion of falling limbs, Dannie saw the hunched form of Petru Maria, her eyes twinkling like a crow’s, as she pulled her stiletto from the Estalian’s back and slashed it across his throat.

  Dannie had no time to witness the man’s fate, however. His friend had already raised his cutlass for another strike.

  It was a mistake. Before the Estalian could chop down, the melee around him surged, and he was knocked off balance. Dannie stabbed towards him, catching the man in the thigh as he was swept away.

  He took a glance over at Chera, and breathed a sigh of relief that she was flanked by two of the men from her caravan.

  Then, although he could hardly believe it, he felt the tide of the battle turning. He heard it in the voices of the mercenaries from the back of the melee. He felt it in their movements, and the sudden, panicked shift in their packed ranks. Then he heard the cry that began to echo through the wreckage of the abandoned camp.

  One word, as terrible and as glorious now as it had been the night before: one word that reminded him, and every other Strigany, that Ushoran was on their side.

  One word to bind them all into a single, unstoppable force: “Kazarkhan.”

  The cry came from a thousand throats, and the mercenaries turned in panic to see what fresh enemy had fallen upon their rear. Dannie realised that he might survive today after all, and, in that moment, he began to fear.

  Blyseden had long since given up on his telescope. There was too much to see, too much to take in all at once, and too much to worry about.

  Normally, Blyseden was not a man to worry about anything. After a lifetime of brutal measures and cold-blooded command, there was little in this world that he didn’t feel capable of facing. The Strigany, however, were like nothing he’d come across before. How many times, Blyseden wondered, had they seemed to be on the verge of defeat? How many times had his troops scented victory, only to have it snatched away again?

  They had trapped the Strigany within their encampment, only to have fallen into traps themselves. They had cleared the barricades with an arrow storm, just as the Striganies’ foul sorcery had brought the wild birds of this cursed place raining down around them. And, just as his encirclement was tightening around the Striganies’ last redoubt, like a strangler’s fingers, a new army had appeared to encircle his men.

  An entire new army, he thought with something close to awe, how was it possible?

  Beside him, Vespero, his even features a mask of competing calculations, was wondering the same thing.

  “Look at how many new men the Strigany have,” he said cheerfully. “Where did they all came from, do you think?”

  “They must have been hiding,” Blyseden said, too concentrated on the confusion below to wonder why Vespero seemed so sanguine. From this distance, it was impossible to see if there were any real military formations left in the bloody melee. There didn’t seem to be any. Here and there, mercenary banners were still held aloft, their companies huddled around them like shipwrecked sailors around the flotsam of their misfortune. There were already far fewer banners than before, Blyseden thought, a lot fewer.

  He started chewing his lip.

  “I don’t see how the enemy could have hidden so many men,” Vespero said. “There must be a thousand of them, at least, probably more. Of course, if they were Tileans they would be easier to count. They would have the pride in their appearance that makes a true warrior stand out from his surroundings, a beacon of chivalry in the drabness of this northern squalor. I mean, look at them.”

  Vespero seemed genuinely offended by the inelegance of his adversaries.

  “Look at that one hacking through your men with an axe: no finesse, and no style. He works like a butcher, and he looks as though he might have been created out of mud.”

  Vespero’s second-in-command, who had risen to his position through his skill with a quill rather than a sword, seized the opening.

  “Even so, I am sure that a man of our commander’s experience would have spotted this outflanking manoeuvre, if it had been done without the use of magic,” he said, smoothly. “What do you think, commander? Is this more Strigany sorcery?”

  Blyseden waved the question away distractedly.

  “Maybe, I don’t know. By Sigmar, look at those fools on the left. They’ve abandoned their standard.” His fists clenched with frustration, and he jabbed an arm towards where one of the companies, surrounded and divided, had dropped its standard and disintegrated into a fleeing mob. Even as Blyseden watched, he saw their leader tripped and brought down. The Strigany fell upon him like a pack of terriers onto a wolf.

  “Serves you right, you damned fool,” Blyseden snarled.

  “It’s a shame,” Vespero sympathised. “Your planning was sound, commander. You just lacked the tools, and obviously, as the Strigany are using sorcery, our contracts are—”

  “Ah, there they are,” Blyseden cried, his rage turning to savage triumph. “Look, down there, the ogres. By all the gods, those beasts are worth their weight in gold.”

  “Ah yes,” Vespero said, pursing his lips, “the ogres. Good.”

  Dannie had no idea how long it took for the mercenaries to break between the hammer of the Striganies’ attack and the anvil of their defence. There was no sense of time, just the constant, mindless rhythm of strike and counter strike, of dodging and of stabbing, and of the burning pain of his overused muscles, which grew even brighter than that of his wounds.

  There was also the knowledge that Chera was beside him, and that his life meant nothing compared to hers. Where losing his caravan had almost destroyed him, losing her certainly would.

  That knowledge of it throbbed in his heart like a beacon, and he fought as fearlessly for her as she fought for him. It was one of the reasons they survived.

  The other reason they survived was the dark, ragged shape of the Petru Maria, who flitted unnoticed among their attackers. Her stiletto punched in and out of unsuspecting backs relentlessly. Of the dozen men who could have caught Dannie and Chera unawares, not a single one managed to strike his blow before the lethal agony of the crone’s blade shot through their livers or kidneys or spines.

  Then, it was over.

  It took Dannie a while to realise that he had
no enemies left, and that the men he was now facing across their tangled corpses were his own. As he recognised Brock, he dropped his guard, every muscle in his body singing with relief. He relaxed and saluted his Kazarkhan.

  Brock looked the Kazarkhan too, every inch of him. He was covered in blood and mud and filth, as if birthed from the same ground that hid the Old Fathers, and the blades of his weapons were chipped and dark with gore.

  More than that was the holy fire that burned in his eyes. It was so intense that Dannie stepped back from the figure that strode towards him. For a moment, he was sure that Ushoran was peering out of his skull, at the carnage that lay all around, and, in a flash of memory that seemed more real than the world around him, he remembered his own brush with the divine.

  His strength bled away, suddenly and completely, and he staggered as his vision grew cloudy. Then he felt a hand on his arm, a soft hand with fingers that were delicate yet strong. He looked up, and his gaze met Chera’s eyes. She was pallid after the fury of battle, and grubby with blood and filth. Still, she was as beautiful as ever, radiant even. Dannie felt his strength return as suddenly as it had left him, and the two of them gazed into each other’s eyes until the boom of Brock’s laughter ended the moment.

  “Never mind all that now,” he roared, slapping Dannie on the back. “There’ll be plenty of time for canoodling when the clay’s work’s done. At least, if her father doesn’t find out about it.”

  Dannie smiled at the enthusiasm of Brock’s greeting, and cursed his overactive imagination. The Kazarkhan, it seemed, was still the same old bear of a man he’d always been. As to the fire in his eyes, well, it flickered in the eyes of all the men who followed him too. They were hardly recognisable, any more as the craftsmen and merchants that Dannie had come to know over the months of their exile. They were as wild as their leader, and, whether grim-faced with loss or euphoric with victory, there was no doubt of their humanity.

  “Are we winning?” Dannie asked, reluctantly turning away from Chera, as he fell in behind his leader.

  “Yes,” Brock said. He paused, as a distant smash of timber was followed by a chorus of screams. “Although we haven’t won yet.”

  He pointed the blade of his cutlass to the other side of the stockade. Dannie followed the gesture, in time to see another wagon hurtle up above the ragged skyline of the settlement, an impossible flight that ended some way inside the inner stockade.

  “That will be the ogres,” Brock explained, leaping up onto the wreckage of the barricade. He raised his arms for silence, his well-used weapons outstretched, and addressed the great mob of men that had followed him thus far.

  “Listen,” he bellowed, his voice carrying across the din of the battle that still ebbed and flowed around the mercenaries’ retreat. “We have broken most of our enemies, but not all. Those of you who are too wounded or too tired, stay here. Hold this line. Defend our backs. The rest of you,” he said, “follow me.”

  Somebody cheered, and the others followed him, roaring their enthusiasm at these simple words. As one man, they followed their Kazarkhan as he barrelled through the central compound towards the ogres.

  “Stay here and organise the defence,” Dannie told Chera.

  “No, I have to look after you,” she said.

  “Will you disobey me when I am your husband?” he asked. The words were out before he’d thought of them. Chera laughed, and their fingertips brushed against each other. Then, with a grin on his face, Dannie allowed himself to be swept away in the surge of movement that followed the Kazarkhan.

  As they made their way across to the other side of the stockade, he thought about how the Kazarkhan’s speech on the barricades would grow as it was told and retold. Within a week, he guessed, Brock’s few barked instructions would have been improved into as fine a piece of rhetoric as the storytellers could come up with. Within a year, it would have become an ode, and, by the time Brock died, it would be an epic.

  That, Dannie decided, was exactly as it should be. They were passing through the ranks of those who were too old or too young, or too weak, to have fought. They sat huddled around the amphitheatre, sheltered within the eye of the storm of battle. As their Kazarkhan strode through them, there was gratitude and even adoration, in every face.

  If they think they have a hero now, Dannie thought, wait until the storytellers have told it. Wait until 7 have told it.

  Then, he saw the first of the ogres, and all thoughts of the future evaporated beneath the intensity of the . present.

  It was the first time that Dannie had seen ogres, but, even though he could only snatch glances through the battle ahead, there was no mistaking their kind. The one that he briefly saw stomping down on a man had skin as grey as slate. The shifting crowd hid him, and then revealed another, arrows bouncing harmlessly off its form. To the left, a cleaver as big as a barn door briefly arced above the crowd, before chopping down.

  Crushed within the ranks of his comrades, Dannie had no way of counting the ogres, but there were obviously enough of them to overwhelm all who faced them. As they ground all opposition beneath their steel-shod boots and iron-bound clubs, the noise of their assault grew ever closer.

  Another inhuman roar of exertion rose above the din of battle, and another unlikely missile hurtled towards the packed Strigany. It was a handcart, oak-built and iron-bound, and, despite its weight, it spun through the air as easily as a discus.

  Dannie lost sight of it as it crashed into the crowd on his right, and, suddenly, the onward rush of his comrades staggered to a halt as their front rank hit the crushing wall of the ogres’ advance.

  Lost in the turmoil of pushing bodies and shoving limbs, Dannie fought to keep his balance. There was a shriek from above, and all eyes turned up, in time to see as a body that had been flung back into their ranks. Then the men in front of him turned and scrabbled back, their eyes wild with fear.

  Dannie, sensing their panic, tried to think of the words to calm it. He didn’t have time. Before he could do anything, he was pushed forwards.

  The ogre stood in front of him. It was perhaps twice as tall as a man, although swollen with the fury of battle it seemed even larger. Its face and chest were black with blood, and its teeth gleamed pinkly as it bellowed with joy. The iron-bound clubs, which it held in each hand, blurred as it swung them gleefully, and the men on either side of Dannie fell, their skulls crushed as easily as if they were rabbits.

  Dannie screamed as he lunged forwards, his cutlass cutting up in a disembowelling blow. He realised, too late, that, beneath the mud and the gore, the ogre’s stomach was covered with an armour plate as big as a steel cauldron.

  His blade hit the armour with an arm-numbing impact that tore it from his fingers. Unarmed and exposed, Dannie tried to scramble back, but to no avail. The press of bodies behind him was too great. So, instead of going back, he went forwards, dropping to his knees and rolling between the ogre’s legs.

  It was then, unarmed and surrounded, that he caught his first sight of the giants that lurched forward to tower over the battlefield, and, in that moment, he knew that his people were doomed.

  Vespero had always counted himself a lucky man. He had been born in the greatest city of the greatest civilisation the world had ever seen; not the largest or most powerful, perhaps, but certainly the greatest. He had been blessed with a profile as fine as any imagined by even the greatest of sculptors, in his own estimation, at least. As to his skill with the rapier, that most noble of weapons, he was second to none, even to those who occasionally bested him. After all, everybody was unwell from time to time, even if they didn’t realise it.

  However, perhaps his most fortunate attribute was the unerring instinct he had for fleeting opportunity. He could sense the changing winds of fortune that blew through the Old World as well as a leviathan can smell prey even in the blackest depths of the ocean.

  Which was just as well. Today, he had needed to be aware of every subtlety, every nuance of the battle that was unfol
ding below. More than once, he had been tempted to give the order that would have ended their contract and their commander both. Yet, even though the thought of the pay chest that awaited him was alluring, he had resisted. The time had not been right.

  As he felt the thump of the giants’ marching feet, he knew that he had been wise to be cautious. From what he knew of their kind, their stupidity often took the form of loyalty to their paymaster.

  Vespero watched them as they ambled past, the grotesque heads as high as the hill upon which he stood. They were dirty, inelegant, clumsy and perfectly suited, he thought, to this awful country.

  He sighed as he watched them lumbering towards the ruins of the Striganies’ encampment. Here and there, groups of fleeing mercenaries scurried away from their advance, flushed from amongst the detritus of the battle like partridges from a field of wheat.

  Vespero’s disappointment at his side’s impending victory found expression in his contempt for his fleeing comrades. To flee from a battle was one thing, but to do so empty-handed?

  “Barbarians,” he muttered.

  “More than that,” Blyseden told him.

  For a moment, Vespero wondered what his commander was talking about. Then he realised that it must be the giants.

  He scowled. To use such abominations was exactly the sort of ungentlemanly thing he would have expected in the Empire, of course, but even so. Apart from anything else, they were surely marked with Chaos.

  “By Sigmar,” Blyseden exulted as the first of the monstrosities stepped easily over a section of the outer barricade, “imagine having that beast bearing down on you. And look, the ogres are still pressing in from the other direction. I don’t know why I bothered to hire any men at all.”

  Vespero bridled.

  “If you had allowed us to go into battle—” he began stiffly, but Blyseden wasn’t paying attention.