01 - Empire in Chaos

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  “There must be another way!” the witch hunter shouted.

  “There is none!” came Thorrik’s bellowed reply, as he smashed his axe into the back of a fallen orc, severing its spine. “This is the only way!”

  Bodies were piling up on the floor, and more friends and foes alike were falling with every passing second. Karl drove the point of his sword through the face of a leering orc, though the blade got stuck and he could not immediately dislodge it. A cleaver slammed into the pauldron protecting his shoulder and he staggered, losing his grip on his weapon. An armoured fist cannoned into the face of Thorrik’s helm, and the dwarf staggered back a step, losing his footing on the corpses underfoot. With a curse, the dwarf toppled backwards, and the greenskins surged forwards.

  He heard the chanting of the greenskin shaman, and he tensed himself for whatever horror would be unleashed. They needed a miracle to win through these foes, or even to survive, Grunwald saw.

  “Sigmar, lend me strength!” came the cry and Annaliese stepped over the prone figure of Thorrik, her hammer held high in her hands. The voice of the shaman stumbled, and petered out into a garbled curse. Annaliese smashed her weapon into the first orc before her, driving it back with a strangled cry. Bones were shattered and a smell like burning flesh rose from the mortal wound. Grunwald thought he saw a glowing halo of light surrounding the warrior-woman for a moment, but he blinked and it was gone.

  The orcs backed away in a semi circle from this fury of battle, and with a cry she was amongst them, wielding the hammer two-handed. It hissed through the air, and smashed aside a crude wooden shield, breaking the arm holding it.

  The Knights of the Blazing Sun pushed to her side, their blades slashing out, clearly inspired and awed by her fearless attack. Karl was at their fore, having picked up a fallen weapon, and he skilfully deflected blows aimed at the girl, protecting her from harm. Eldanair stood at her other side, a long, thin blade of elven design in his hand, the point darting back and forth in a blur.

  With skilful swordsmen protecting her from both sides, Annaliese pushed on, her hammer rising and falling, crushing bones and shattering swords.

  “For Sigmar!” she roared as she shattered the skull of a goblin that turned to flee, its head crushed like a ripe fruit, splattering blood and brain-matter. Gore dripped from the head of her weapon, and speckled her cheeks and brow. Where before the expression upon her face had been serene, now she was vision of righteous anger.

  The fury and aggression soon drained out of Annaliese and she slumped, exhausted and weary, but the damage had been done. The greenskins were falling away from the vengeful knights, and Karl and Eldanair stood protectively over the girl as she knelt on the ground, her eyes closed and her cheeks wan.

  The orcs and goblins were cut down mercilessly, and it was Grunwald who clubbed the life out of the small, hunchbacked goblin sorcerer, breaking first its limbs and then its neck with a last, savage blow. He cut the pallid, purplish tongue from the creature’s rancid mouth so that even in death it could not utter any of its vile magic, and set its corpse ablaze so that nothing but ashes would remain of its passing.

  Three hours later the battle-weary warriors stumbled from the mine, out into the cold, clear night. The gibbous silver moon of Mannslieb shone brightly in the heavens above, overlapped by the smaller, green-hued moon of ill omen, Morrslieb. That glowing green orb seemed surrounded by distant flames of viridian, and Grunwald made the sign of Sigmar as protection against its malevolent effects.

  There were only a score of Karl’s knights remaining, the others having been lost in the nightmare darkness of the abandoned dwarf mine. Of those, all sported injuries and wounds of varying seriousness. Indeed, none had escaped unharmed. Annaliese was bleeding from several cuts, including one deep wound upon her left cheek. Eldanair’s left arm was strapped where a crooked blade had pierced his bicep, and Karl’s shoulder was bleeding profusely beneath the twisted gash in his pauldron. Even Thorrik had suffered wounds where the enemy had found gaps in the nigh on impenetrable suit of armour he wore. Grunwald’s head was still ringing, and his legs were shaky beneath him as he walked out into the night.

  They walked over the snow-covered ground, an icy wind whipping at them as it roared across the immense Kadrin valley spreading out before them.

  Tens of thousands of fires blazed in the night—an army of greenskins that was beyond comprehension. And yet, if the dwarfs’ information was correct, and Grunwald had no reason to doubt them, this was but a fraction of the immense army of destruction that was pushing ever nearer to the Empire.

  In the distance, battle raged, even though it was long past the witching hour of midnight, and the moons were sinking towards the horizon. The immense bridge leading to the mighty gates of Kadrin Keep that spanned a vast chasm was heaving with bodies, tiny figures moving in the distance. Fire burst from cannons high in the cliff face, and giant winged beasts armoured in green scales turned in the skies. As they watched in silence, a giant wooden siege engine, the crude carved representation of a greenskin deity’s head at its top, toppled from the bridge to fall into the darkness of the chasm beneath, flames blazing up its side. Hundreds of dark figures fell with it into the gloom, and a distant cheer went up from the dwarfen defenders.

  Thousands of warriors fought against each other, the lines surging, and hundreds would be dying with every passing minute. Had they been fighting without rest since they had descended into the mines? Grunwald presumed that this was so.

  The arms of trebuchets of immense scale flicked forward, driven by giant counter weights of carved stone, hurling rocks lit with sorcerous green fire towards the dwarf keep. They shattered against the mountainside, showering those below with burning shards.

  A pocket of perhaps a thousand dwarfs could be seen fighting in a large square formation on the far side of the bridge. As they watched they saw the formation inching towards the enemy war machines.

  But the foe arranged against them seemed utterly limitless in number. As the knights turned away from the epic battle zone, Grunwald could not fathom how the dwarfs could hold such an enemy at bay. Karak Kadrin would fall, and the Peak Pass would be held by the greenskin hordes. And without the dwarfs blocking their progress, the savage tribes would descend on the Empire, slaughtering and butchering everything in their path. They did not come for land, or for food, nor even for the spoils of war. They came to destroy, driven by the urge to kill and to maim, to rip down the cities and towns of the civilised and to wipe mankind from the face of the world.

  The witch hunter could sense the tension and anger in Thorrik, and he placed a hand upon the ironbreaker’s heavily armoured shoulder.

  “Come,” he said at last. “We must move with swiftness into the Empire.”

  “Kadrin will not fall, manling,” said Thorrik, as if he had been reading the witch hunter’s mind. Still, his voice did not sound convinced, and Grunwald was shocked to hear the doubt in the resolute dwarfs voice.

  “I pray that it will not, for all our sakes,” said Grunwald.

  “If Kadrin falls, it heralds the end of the dwarfs,” continued Thorrik.

  “The end of us all,” added Grunwald.

  The pair turned their backs on the war being waged within Kadrin valley. To the east they marched, towards the rising dawn and the lands of the Empire.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Three hours into the march away from Kadrin Keep, Eldanair sighted the first of their pursuers. The elf stood tall on a rocky bluff, a silent and brooding sentinel staring to the west. Dawn had risen, bathing the land in cold light, and a freezing wind howled up the mountainous slopes, blowing his long ebony hair around him like a dark halo.

  Little grew on the sharp crags of the valley save for low, hardy grasses and thorny bushes—there were few places to hide. With narrowed eyes Eldanair watched as the greenskins picked their way down a slippery slope of shale, a path treacherously close to a sheer drop that they themselves had descended but an hour earlier.r />
  The elf cursed as he saw the greenskins were gaining on them, and that there were too many to be able to face in battle. There was a spindly goblin leading the group as a scout, a pair of bulbous beasts straining at chains wrapped around its hand. They were similar to the massive-jawed creatures that had been unleashed against the dwarf steam engine far beneath the ground, being little more than balls of muscle dominated by massive slavering jaws, with a pair of powerful, short legs that carried them forward. These appeared to have large, overdeveloped slits for nostrils, and they snuffled on the ground, no doubt following the scent of those they pursued.

  Behind this goblin and its pets came other greenskins, a motley array of goblins and orcs—Eldanair could see over fifty figures picking their way down the treacherous slope. Even as he watched, one of them, a bare-armed, hulking giant of an orc wearing a furred hat, lost its footing on the loose shale and slid over the precipice. It caught itself before it fell, gripping a sharp outcrop of rock while its legs swung over the thousand foot drop below.

  None of the other creatures went to its aid, but it seemed as though they found the incident highly amusing, slapping their legs and their bodies shaking with crude laughter. The orc managed to pull itself over the edge back to safety and it clobbered a smaller orc over the head with one meaty fist before launching one still giggling goblin off the edge of the precipice. The flailing figure disappeared into the fog hugging the mountainside.

  Black carrion birds circled and weaved lazily in the air above the greenskins, riding the winds pushed up by the sheer cliffs. Clearly they followed the orcs, knowing that they would supply them with a feast of death. Eldanair regarded these birds with cold eyes, and for a moment he could hear their raucous cries carried to his sensitive ears on the winds.

  He leapt easily down from the rocky escarpment, stepping lightly on the snow, his bow held in his hands.

  With hand movements and silent actions the elf conveyed the number of the foe pursuing them to Annaliese, and managed with some difficulty and increasing frustration to communicate the idea that they were an hour behind. The girl nodded and passed on the information to the others.

  “I say we stand and fight,” growled Thorrik, and though Eldanair could not understand his crude words, he understood their meaning. “I will not run like an elf away from battle.”

  An argument developed, and strong words were spoken amongst the humans, the dwarf speaking sullenly in short, curt sentences. At last the group began moving once more, the dwarf looking angry and unhappy about the situation. Eldanair glared at the short warrior, the disdain clear upon his face.

  The dwarf said something sharp and crude as he stomped past the elf, his eyes glittering from beneath his full-faced helmet. Eldanair snapped back a retort in his own language, the words scathing and arrogant, making the dwarf round on him, hefting his axe. Eldanair stared down at the glowering warrior, an arrow nocked to his bowstring. The dwarf took a step towards him and the bow came up, the bowstring taut.

  There may well have been—blood spilt then, but Annaliese stepped in between the pair, speaking swiftly, her words laced with anger. The dwarf turned away with a snarl, and stomped away from the elf. Annaliese gave Eldanair a reproachful look, and she too turned away and continued along the path.

  The elf’s eyes narrowed as he watched the departing figure of Thorrik marching heavily through the snow. He lifted his head high, and began walking back in the direction of the orcs and goblins that were nearing the base of the shale trail behind.

  “Where is he going now?” voiced Karl as he watched the tall figure of the elf moving away and Grunwald shrugged his shoulders.

  “Probably covering our tracks, or some such thing,” he replied.

  “Makes my blood run cold, that one,” said the preceptor. “The way he haunts the girl’s steps. It’s not natural.”

  Again Grunwald shrugged. The knight was watching the figure of Annaliese as she picked her way across the rough ground up ahead. Her hair shone brightly in the rising sun.

  “She is a beauty though, isn’t she?” said Karl, his eyes locked on the figure of the girl.

  Grunwald merely grunted in response.

  The knight smiled broadly, his features handsome and unmarked. How unlike his own, Grunwald thought, scratching idly at his heavy, stubbled and scarred jaw.

  “The mountain air, a beautiful woman at my side… Under different circumstances this might have been a pleasant journey,” said the knight.

  “She’s not your woman, Karl,” Grunwald pointed out.

  “Not yet,” said the knight with a lascivious wink that made the witch hunter snort.

  “Good luck with that,” said Grunwald. “It will come to nothing.”

  “You underestimate me, my friend. Women the length and breadth of the Empire rejoice when I come to their towns and cities and cry rivers of tears when I leave. My skills in the bedchamber are legendary.”

  “Spread by you, no doubt,” said Grunwald, laughing as he shook his head. The knight gave him a look of feigned hurt.

  “We shall see,” he said, his eyes bright with passion.

  For the better part of the day the group marched, winding their way down lower as the valley began to spread out before them. Eldanair returned some hours later, silent and ghostlike, and Annaliese told them that he had been laying some sort of traps for their pursuers. They heard witness of one of these traps as the sun began to dip low towards the mountains behind them, a clatter of stones and a strangled cry, though what manner of trap the elf had constructed was unknown.

  Through the night they continued their trek, and sign of their pursuers could be seen by all—torches bright and flaming in the darkness followed their path unerringly, despite all the efforts of Eldanair to throw them off the scent.

  They ate in silence as they walked, chewing the hard, salted meat. It was strangely filling sustenance, but none of the group was at ease as the hour grew late. The air was freezing, and they struggled through a snowstorm, each step agonising and laboured. At last the storm passed by them, and then they could see the stars once more, millions of tiny lights that pierced the heavens.

  Still the enemy came after them—if anything, they seemed to be getting closer.

  “Don’t they need rest too?” grumbled one of Karl’s warriors. The group was slowed by the knights, whose heavy armour was more of a hindrance than a help on the long march. Still, not one of the knights would have considered stripping off and abandoning their armour, and no one mentioned the idea.

  They were weary and aching as the first light of dawn began to seep across the skies. They stopped for a short break, sitting down on the rocks gratefully, passing the water-skins around between them.

  “Where is the elf?” said Karl, and the others glanced around, realising that he was nowhere to be seen. Annaliese frowned and stood up, turning fully around, concern clear on her face.

  “Never know with one of them,” said Thorrik. “Probably left us to fend for ourselves while he is making a run for it.”

  “He would not abandon us,” said Annaliese fiercely.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” said the dwarf matter-of-factly. “It’s in their nature to be deceitful. No understanding of honour, elves.”

  “Thorrik, hold your tongue,” said the witch hunter, while Annaliese glared at the dwarf hotly. The ironbreaker merely shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m sure he is fine,” said Grunwald to the girl. “And it does us no good to wait here for his return. We must push on.”

  Grunwald marched at Karl’s side as the group resumed its march.

  “You really think the elf will come back?” said Karl. “I think there is something in what the dwarf said, you know.”

  Grunwald looked over at the knight. “He’ll be back.”

  “So certain?”

  Grunwald sighed. “If it were just you, me, your knights and the dwarf, then no, I don’t think he would be back. But he will not abandon Annaliese.�
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  They walked for some minutes in silence. Glancing over at the knight, Grunwald saw the warrior’s face was dark.

  Where was the elf?

  Eldanair crouched low behind the rocks, all but invisible in the darkness. His face was hard as he listened to the sounds of the pursuit drawing closer. At last he rose from his position, aiming swiftly.

  The first arrow slammed through the left eye socket of one of the foul beasts led by the goblin, and it fell to the ground heavily, stubby legs twitching.

  The creatures seemed able to follow a scent in the manner of hunting hounds their nostrils wide and flaring as they snuffled along the ground. No matter what efforts the elf took to conceal the trail, these creatures led the greenskins unerringly, and so they had to die.

  The goblin screeched loudly and released the chain of the other creature, and it began to bound up the rocks towards Eldanair, its jaw hanging open widely and a feral roar emitting from its throat.

  The goblin screeched again, no doubt calling for aid, and launched an arrow from its short bow towards the elf. Eldanair didn’t flinch as the arrow shattered against rocks at his feet. Aiming carefully, he loosed his own arrow. It thudded into the cheek of the ravening beast leaping up the rocks, though it did not slow its frantic approach.

  He sent another arrow, this one passing between its gaping jaws and cutting through the back of its cavernous mouth. Still it came on, and another arrow whistled through the air towards Eldanair. He swayed to the side and it hissed past his ear. A pair or heavy-set orcs appeared, stamping down the trail behind the goblin, roaring and bellowing as they sighted the elf.

  A final arrow sank into the bulbous head of the creature as it leapt from rock to rock towards Eldanair, though again it did not slow the blood-frenzied creature. Eldanair drew his long-bladed sword and waited for the monster to leap. Spittle flying from its expansive maw, the creature bunched its legs and propelled itself at him, thousands of curving teeth exposed within its widespread mouth. The stink of rancid meat and what smelled like rotting fungus reached his nose, and he almost gagged. As the creature snapped at him, he slashed a long cut down its thick-hide.