02 - The Broken Lance

by Nathan Long - (ebook by Undead)

  Reiner looked back. Oppenhauer’s round, rosy-cheeked face was gazing at the sky, an expression of horror frozen upon it. It was missing an eye, and his beard was matted with clotting blood. His breastplate was pierced with the heads of three halberds. The jolly old fellow didn’t look right without a grin on his face. Reiner swallowed as he ran on. “They’re in full kit. They tried a sortie.”

  “A sortie? But that is madness! A single company?”

  Reiner looked darkly at the keep. “Maybe they were ordered to.”

  Karel goggled at him. “But… but why?”

  Reiner shrugged. “Shaeder continues to remove all who might challenge him.”

  Ahead of them, the sea of ratmen surrounded the keep, and lapped halfway up it like drifts of dirty brown snow. Some mounted ladders, but just as many were climbing the great piles of their dead that hugged the walls. The defenders fired down into them from the battlements, killing many, but never enough. The keep’s gate burned with a weird green fire.

  To the right, the stables and some of the other outbuildings were aflame as well, painting the scene a garish orange. From above, cannons roared, and stones and masonry exploded from the walls of the keep. Reiner could see ratkin crews silhouetted on the main battlements as they worked the fort’s great guns.

  “Our own cannon, turned against us,” said Gert, bitterly.

  As they ran through their fellows, the fleeing ratkin alerted their besieging brethren to the threat at their back, and they turned, rat commanders laying about them with whips and staves and squealing orders. In seconds, what had been the rat-men’s unprotected flank bristled with spears and swords.

  The cavalry slammed into them first, but armed only with swords now, and facing a prepared enemy, the charge was not as successful. Reiner saw men and horses go down, impaled on the ratmen’s polearms.

  Next came the pikes and swords. As the Blackhearts raced toward the ratmen with their pike company, Reiner fired into the seething mass with both pistols, then holstered them and drew his sword. Gert shot his crossbow before tossing it aside to pull his axe. There would be no time to reload. Pavel and Hals began pushing up with their spears to the first rank.

  Reiner cursed. “Stay back, fools! Let the pikes make the charge!”

  They ignored him.

  The company hit the rat-wall as one, pikes punching their first line back into their second, but there were more behind them, and more behind those. The vermin swarmed forward, trying to overwhelm the men’s line with sheer numbers.

  “Don’t let ’em through!” cried Reiner.

  Reiner and the Blackhearts slashed and thrust from the third rank, stabbing at the vermin who attempted to get behind the front line. It mattered not where they struck, there was a furred body there to receive their blades. The ratmen went down like wheat before the reaper, but there were always more—an endless tide of monsters: yellow teeth snapping, curved swords slashing, gashing arms, biting fingers, clawing eyes. Reiner was almost instantly bleeding from a dozen wounds, and pikemen fell all around him. Hals and Pavel were stabbing and thrusting like machines. Jergen spun his sword around him with deadly grace. Gert cleft rat skulls with his axe. Dag flailed like a drunk with a fire iron. Franka lost her dagger in a ratman’s ribs and was punching rats with her off hand as she blocked attacks with her short sword.

  All along the line, the men of the Empire slowly brought the ratmen to a standstill, and then started to press them back. The gate of the keep was coming into reach. But just as Reiner thought they might break through, men and rats began dropping all around him, screaming and writhing, as exploding bullets ripped through them. The jezzail-rats who held the great south wall had found them. Worse, they had turned the fort’s artillery away from the keep. A cannon boomed and a horse reared, its head missing. Another collapsed, legs gone. Another cannon fired and ploughed a trench through the front lines, dismembering man and ratman alike.

  “Do they not care about their own troops?” asked Franka, horrified.

  Reiner shrugged. “Would even a ratman like another rat-man?”

  The knights and lancers redoubled their efforts to reach the keep’s gate, in a frenzy now to get out of range of the gunners on the great south wall. They hacked a bloody path through the carpet of ratmen as more and more men fell under the deadly barrage. And the ratmen were flowing around the ends of the men’s lines now, trying to surround them. To protect their flanks, the pike companies folded back like two wings, at last meeting behind the cavalry to form a rough square, pressed on all sides by ratmen.

  Matthais’ bugle blew the rally again and again as Halmer bellowed up at the keep. “Open up! Open the gates!”

  Reiner wondered if that was even possible, for behind the portcullis, the huge wooden doors were a roaring green inferno. Teams of ratmen stood before them, aiming weapons that Reiner recognized from his adventure in their tunnels. A brass tank carried by one rat, connected by a leather hose to a gun aimed by the other that painted the door with flames that stuck like syrup. The great oak beams were being eaten away, and Reiner realized with horror that the ratmen might be thin enough to fit through the iron bars of the portcullis.

  “Pistoliers! Handgunners!” came Halmer’s cry, and the gunners fired into the flame-crews. Four of the rats jerked and twitched as the bullets smashed into them. A flame gunner dropped his gun as he fell, and it sprayed fire all around, catching his tank-carrying comrade on fire. The burning rat danced and screeched, trying desperately to unbuckle the straps of his unwieldy canister.

  The flames spread to his back, and with a blinding explosion, he was no longer there. A boiling ball of flame erupted where he had stood, and knocked the other ratmen in the vicinity flat, catching them on fire.

  The first rank of knights were pushed back into the second by the blast, shrieking in pain, bits of red hot brass sticking out of their breastplates and faces. Their horses screamed as well, similarly wounded.

  The way to the gate was clear, though it was still aflame. Matthais blew the rally blast again, as Halmer’s force pushed forward. Halmer and the other cavalry men screamed up at the keep. “Open the gate! Open the gate!”

  The portcullis didn’t move.

  Matthais blew his bugle again, then shook his fist at the keep’s walls. “Let us in, curse you!” he cried. His forehead exploded in gore, and he sagged back in his saddle.

  Halmer cried out. Reiner looked up. The shot had come from the keep. Someone in the murder room above the gate was shooting at the knights. Another shot fired, and another. Two hit Gutzmann, one in the head, one in the chest. The general never wavered. Matthais, however, toppled slowly off his horse and crashed to the ground, face first, his bugle rattling across the flagstones. Reiner swallowed. The poor lad. A shame for one so faithful to be so faithlessly cut down.

  Another shot took Halmer in the shoulder. He gripped his arm and spurred his horse into the lee of the gate. “What are playing at, y’madmen?” he cried. “We come to your aid!”

  Reiner groaned. He had a fair idea of who was firing on them.

  More shots came, but the target was still Gutzmann. The worse problem was that if the portcullis stayed closed Halmer’s force would remain completely exposed to the guns on the great south wall, which were picking them off in twos and threes. Halmer rose in his saddle and bellowed at the square of troops. “Around the keep! Put it between you and the walls!”

  The square began to shift around obediently, pressing against the wall so the pikemen only had three sides to defend. Reiner swallowed as he saw one of the giant rat-monsters wading toward them through the rat army.

  “Hetsau!”

  Reiner turned. Halmer was waving at him.

  Reiner hurried to the captain, hunching low, though what protection that was from bullets from above he didn’t know.

  Halmer was in a heated discussion with the other captains as Reiner stepped up to his horse. “It’s the only way!” he barked, then turned to Reiner. “Hetsau, you
broke out of our keep. How would you like to try breaking in?”

  “Er, if it’s all the same to you, captain…”

  “It wasn’t a request, Sigmar take you! Someone must enter the keep to stop those guns and open the cursed gates, someone who ain’t afraid to disobey Shaeder.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Reiner. “But how am I…?”

  “There’s an underground passage from the gatehouse in the great south wall to the keep dungeon.”

  Reiner looked back to the gatehouse in the southern wall—the distance they had just come. There was a roiling mass of ratmen in the way. “Sir…”

  “Yes, I know,” snapped Halmer. “We are discussing that. Someone must get you to the gatehouse, then try to retake the south wall’s battlements.”

  “Captain,” said a voice behind Reiner. Everyone turned. It was Nuemark. He was almost as pale as his hair. His greatswords were behind him. He swallowed and squared his shoulders. “Captain. I… I have much to make up for. Let me and my Carroburgers do this thing.”

  Halmer looked taken aback. “Er, you… you outrank me, Obercaptain. I will not command you. But if it is your wish….”

  “It is my duty.”

  “Very well.” Halmer turned to Reiner. “Gather your men. The obercaptain will escort you.”

  Reiner saluted, and returned to the Blackhearts, still fighting in the last rank of their adopted pike company. His stomach sank as if it had been loaded with rocks. Charging across the battlefield under heavy fire from the walls was certain death. On the other hand, staying here outside the fort was certain death as well. Better perhaps to be moving.

  “Blackhearts!” he called. “To me. General’s orders.”

  The Blackhearts backed out of their rank, allowing their pikeman comrades to fill their gaps, then joined him. The square had now tucked in behind the keep, out of the great south wall’s line of fire, and the shooting from the keep had stopped as soon as they had moved away from the gatehouse. In fact, here, handgun and crossbow fire from the keep was supporting them, dropping rats all around Halmer’s force.

  “What’s the job?” asked Hals.

  “There’s a passage into the keep dungeon from under the main gatehouse. We’re to go in and open the gates.” He looked up at the walls. “And discover who’s shooting at the general.”

  “A passage into…” Pavel cursed. “Would’ve been nice to know that when we was trying to break out, hey?”

  Reiner led them to where Nuemark was forming up his twenty greatswords. He looked even more scared than before, his face grey and slick.

  Reiner saluted. “Ready, obercaptain.”

  Nuemark nodded. “Very good.” He turned to his men. “Swords of Carroburg, I have dishonoured your name with my cowardice today, and you should not die that I may make amends. Do not make this sacrifice for me, but to save the lives of your comrades, the men I helped betray to these foul vermin.”

  The greatswords drew their weapons, their faces grim. Their sergeant saluted. “We are ready, obercaptain.” They fell into two rows, one on either side of the Blackhearts, shields on their outer arms. One of them growled in Reiner’s ear.

  “Y’better be worth it, boy.”

  Nuemark turned. “Gunner captain! When you are ready.”

  The captain of the handgunners nodded and signalled his men to advance to the southernmost edge of the square. Nuemark’s greatswords and the Blackhearts fell in behind them. The handgunners stopped directly behind a triple rank of pike-men. Every other man knelt. “Pikemen!” called the gunner captain. “Make a hole!”

  The pikemen looked behind them, then parted ranks. Rat-men tried to flood the hole, but they were not quick enough.

  “Fire!” called the gunner captain, and his men unloaded their shot directly into the narrow gap, slaughtering four ranks of ratmen in one volley.

  “In!” cried Nuemark. “Carroburgmen charge!”

  The greatswords ran into the opening made by the dying rat-men, swords high, roaring the name of their city. Reiner and the Blackhearts ran with them, hunched down to hide behind their massive, armoured bodies and their round shields. The greatswords hit the massed ratmen like a boulder smashing into a mud lake. The sound of steel chopping rat-flesh and rat-bone was music to Reiner’s ears.

  The party rounded the corner of the keep, a tiny raft of humanity in a swamp of vermin. The greatsword who had growled at Reiner went down beside him, a rat-spear thrust through his groin. He held his killer’s severed head in his shield hand. Another Carroburger went down on the other side. The others closed ranks.

  A third dropped, shrieking, as a bullet ripped through his breastplate. The metal of the breastplate seemed to melt away from the bullet, and the flesh beneath it boiled. The rats on the walls had found them. The Carroburgers raised their shields over their heads. Reiner wondered if that would help.

  A rat spear darted through between two greatswords and stabbed Reiner through the thigh. He stumbled as his leg gave out, but Gert caught him and hauled him up again.

  “Steady, captain.”

  Reiner looked down. The wound was deep. Blood was crimsoning his leggings. “Bollocks!” He couldn’t feel it, at least. And then he could, and he grunted. It hurt like fire. He almost fell from the pain. Gert caught him again.

  “Can you walk, captain?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  Reiner limped on, his leg jolting agony with every step. Fortunately, the ratmen thinned out the closer they got to the gatehouse, for their attentions were on the keep. But in a way this was also unfortunate, for it made the men clearer targets for the gunners on the wall. Two more greatswords fell, and Dag screamed and shook his left hand. It was missing two fingers. Blood poured from the stumps.

  At last they ran under the shadow of the main gate, a thick crowd of rats still harassing them. Nuemark beat on the thick gatehouse door with the pommel of his sword. “Let us in! Let us in!”

  A voice came through the studded wood. “Commander Shaeder’s orders. No one to come though this door.”

  “We are on General Gutzmann’s orders, curse you!” cried Nuemark. “Let us in.”

  There was a short pause, then Reiner and the others heard bolts being drawn and crossbars raised. Reiner’s leg was making him feel nauseous. The gatehouse door swam before him. He gripped the wall and steadied himself.

  “All right, captain?” asked Franka.

  “Not in the least,” he said. “But there’s nothing for it now.”

  The door opened to reveal a few terrified guardsmen. Nuemark shoved Reiner through. “Skirmishers. In. Hurry.”

  The Blackhearts pushed in behind Reiner and turned. It was a tiny room, already crowded with guardsmen, who had to press into the corners to make room for the new arrivals. There was a table and chairs in the centre, racks of weapons on the walls, and a spiral staircase in one corner that led to the battlements. The left wall was filled with the machinery that raised and lowered the portcullises.

  The greatswords made to follow the Blackhearts in, but the rats, seeing an opportunity to take the room, attacked furiously. Another greatsword went down. The rest faced out, chopping into the mass of rats.

  “In, curse you!” roared Nuemark. His knees were shaking. He nearly lost his grip on his sword.

  One by one the greatswords backed into the door as Pavel and Hals stabbed at the rats over their shoulders with their spears. But with each one through the door, those left outside were pressed all the harder. Another went down, and another. At last there was only Nuemark and one other, and the rats were beginning to slip around them.

  Nuemark pushed his last man through the door. “Close it! Close it, you fools,” he cried. He was weeping with fear, but he never stopped slashing with his sword.

  The greatsword sergeant slammed the door shut and the gatehouse guards dropped the heavy bar.

  Through the thick oak, Nuemark’s voice rose to a wail. “Sigmar forgive me! Sigmar forgive…” His words were cut short as the s
ound of halberds cutting through armour and into human flesh made every man in the cramped room shudder.

  Nuemark’s sergeant made the sign of the hammer as he finished his captain’s plea. “Sigmar forgive him.”

  “We could have had him in,” said Hals.

  “He didn’t wish it,” said the greatsword sergeant.

  Reiner collapsed on the stone stairs and cut at his leggings, exposing his wound. A ragged trench had been dug in his left thigh by the spear. The very sight of it made the pain worse. Franka hissed when she saw it.

  With more than twenty men in it, the room was terribly cramped. A few of the greatswords were seeing to wounds of their own. Dag was giggling hysterically as he tied his kerchief over the stumps of his missing third and fourth fingers.

  “All right, archer?” asked Reiner as he stripped out of his jacket and tore the sleeve from his shirt.

  Dag grinned glassily and held up his ruined hand, waggling his first and middle finger. “Fine, captain. Still have my shooting fingers.”

  Reiner ripped his sleeve into strips. He glanced up at the guardsmen. “Have any of you some water? Or better yet, kirschwasser?”

  A guard pulled a flask from a cupboard and handed it to him. Reiner uncapped it, and had it halfway to his lips before he remembered his vow. He cursed. Damn Ranald anyway, another nine hundred and ninety-six men at least before he could drink again. What had he been thinking? He poured the liquor on the wound. It stung like wet ice. Reiner hissed. Franka tied the strips of cloth tight around the wound. Reiner’s vision eclipsed at the pain, and he turned quickly away to avoid vomiting on her. He vomited on Pavel instead.

  “Thank you very much,” said the pikeman, recoiling.

  “Sorry lad. Surprised me, too.” He pushed himself up and faced the guard room sergeant. His leg screamed but held. “Where is this trap?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  The sergeant pointed to a rack of spears built into the wall. “Lundt. Corbin. Open the bolt hole.”

  Two guardsmen tugged four heavy pegs from the frame of the rack then lifted it away from the wall, revealing a narrow staircase that descended into darkness.