The Ambassador Chronicles

by Graham McNeill

  He could hear a distant vibration through the cold ground, the tramp, tramp, tramp of tens of thousands of approaching warriors. The morning mist conspired to hide them from view for now, and Kaspar just hoped that it would lift soon to enable the cannons and bombards placed on the crest of the valley to fire. He yawned, amazed he could feel so tired and yet so tense, and thought back to his dream of the previous night.

  He had seen a twin-tailed comet blazing across the heavens and a young man fighting a host of twisted creatures that bore the bestial features of animals yet walked upright like men. With a pair of blacksmiths' hammers, this young man had smote the beasts and Kaspar's heart had swelled with fierce joy.

  But then his dreamscape had moved on, and he had seen the Empire in flames, its cities cast to ruin and its populace burned to death in the fires of Chaos.

  It was an omen, of that he was sure, but for good or ill, he did not know.

  Kurt Bremen and the red and blue liveried embassy guards surrounded him, his gold and black standard carried by Leopold Dietz. A dozen young men on horseback waited behind him, runners who would carry his orders to the regimental captains on the front line.

  A magnificent-looking troop of Kislevite lancers, their feathered banner poles whistling in the wind, rode past and Kaspar saw Pavel at their head, his vast frame carried on an equally massive steed. Red and white pennants fluttered from their lances and each carried a quiver of iron-tipped javelins slung from their saddle horns.

  He had shared a mug of tea with Pavel this morning to say their goodbyes and silently wished his former comrade luck as he passed out of sight behind a block of Kossar infantry. The tall, burly men were laughing and joking while smoking pipes and resting on their axes. Kaspar admired their calm.

  Regiments of infantry covered the gently sloping plain before him, the Empire armies holding the centre of the line, thousands of men in huge blocks sixty wide and forty deep. Kaspar and Spitzaner had arranged their forces in a staggered formation, each regiment able to support another, with smaller units of arquebusiers and spearmen attached to every one. Individually, each regiment was a strong fighting unit, but working together, they were amongst the steadiest soldiers in the world.

  Knights of both Kislev and the Empire sat on the flanks of the army and ahead of them, galloping groups of yelling Ungol horsemen and the light cavalry of the Empire were strung out in front of the main body of the army. When the time came to unleash them, they would harry the flanks of the enemy in an attempt to draw off warriors from the main attack.

  High on the ridge behind him, braziers smoked behind gabion-edged firing pits, dug from the frozen ground by Imperial pioneers during the night. The bronze barrels of the mighty cannons and bombards of the Imperial Gunnery School protruded from the emplacements, frustrated engineers wandering along the edge of the ridge, desperate for the mist to rise.

  The Ice Queen herself rode a white horse with shimmering flanks of sparkling ice and eyes like the bluest of sapphires. Her loyal guards surrounded her and she carried Fearfrost already drawn. Her cloak of swirling ice crystals hugged her tight and a ghostly mist gathered around the feet of her mount. She turned to Kaspar and raised her sword in salute to him before looking expectantly at the tall black stones atop the valley sides.

  Kaspar followed her gaze, seeing the great standing stones that gave this valley its name and hoped that the Ice Queen was right to risk everything for them.

  A swelling roar built from the mouth of the valley, guttural chanting from the High Zar's warriors that echoed in time with the clash of their swords and axes on iron-bossed shields.

  'So it begins...' said Kaspar.

  II

  The wind picked up as the sun climbed higher and within minutes of the Kurgan horns being blown, the morning mist vanished and the enemy they had been preparing to fight all winter was suddenly revealed.

  A line of armoured warriors stretched from one side of the valley to the other, their black furs, horned helmets and dark armour making them look more like beasts than men. They marched in a loose line, no discipline to their advance as screaming horsemen wearing nothing but furred britches and swirling tattoos streamed forwards. Packs of snapping hounds with long fangs and furry hides stiffened with matted blood ran forwards with the horsemen, their baying howls chilling the blood.

  Wild horns skirled in time with their screams, but were soon drowned out as the Imperial guns opened fire. Kaspar watched as a cannonball slammed into the ground before the enemy and slashed a path through the densely packed warriors. Blood sprayed as men were smashed to a red mist by the missile, but within seconds, they had closed ranks and continued onwards. A rippling series of booms sounded and yet more bloody furrows were torn through the enemy warriors.

  Kaspar felt a great pride in the men of Nuln as they loaded and fired again and again, sending iron cannonballs slashing into the enemy and huge shells that exploded in the air and sprayed them with lethally sharp fragments of red hot shrapnel. Men and horses screamed as the fearsome Imperial artillery killed them in their hundreds.

  But Kaspar knew that guns alone would not win this fight as the artillery positions were once more wreathed in smoke. The wind was favouring the gunners, blowing the roiling banks of smoke behind their positions and allowing them to better target their victims.

  'Those horsemen are getting too close.' he muttered to himself.

  The tattooed riders galloping ahead of the enemy army stood high in the saddle, their trailing topknots streaming out behind them as they rode in close before expertly wheeling their mounts away. Each time, they would loose shafts from their powerful, recurved bows and each time a dozen men or more would fall to the ground, pierced by black fletched arrows.

  They rode in again and again, tempting the warriors they fired on to charge them, but Kaspar and Spitzaner had issued clear orders that these horsemen were not to be engaged. Scattered gunfire from arquebusier regiments felled a number of the wild men, but they left behind few dead when they finally pulled away.

  But as the horsemen retreated, the baying hounds hit the Imperial line. Few had fallen to the black powder weapons and they attacked in a fury of claw and fang. Those regiments attacked shuddered as men were torn from their feet, but the majority of the hounds were soon despatched by disciplined ranks of lowered halberds. Drummer boys began dragging the wounded back as the remaining soldiers closed ranks.

  The black line of enemy warriors kept coming, hordes of them, and Kaspar felt a shiver of fear as he grasped the sheer scale of the High Zar's force. They came in a never ending tide of black iron and horns. Monstrous men in thick furs and brazen axes and swords. Hordes of armoured warriors on horseback rode alongside the infantry, their black steeds snorting and pawing the ground in anticipation of bloodshed. Their riders were giants of men, carrying huge-bladed war axes and pallaszes and Kaspar feared for when these awesome killers entered the fray.

  A pair of massive totems on great, wheeled platforms followed them, dark idols dedicated to the terrible gods of the north. The bodies of a dozen men hung from their tops, their entrails swinging from opened bellies and feasted upon by carrion birds.

  Shaggy creatures bearing enormous axes loped before these idols and hulking monsters with great clubs tramped amongst them. Three times the height of a man, these distorted creatures had oversized muscles and looked capable of tearing their victims apart with their bare hands. Something huge and dark marched before the idols, its shape indistinct and blurred, a dark umbra of lightning-pierced cloud wreathing its terrible form.

  Its concealing cloud lifted and Kaspar could see the huge creature in all its terrible glory. Surely this must be the beast of ancient times the Tzarina had spoken of, a horrific monster with a dragon-like lower body of dark, leathery scales and the grotesquely muscled upper body of a man. Its torso and chest were scarred with ancient tattoos and pierced with rings and spikes of iron as thick as a man's wrist. A mane of shaggy fur ran from its crown to where its
body became that of a monster. Lightning flickered around its grotesque head and huge tusks protruded from its enormous jaws.

  'Sigmar preserve us,' whispered Kaspar.

  'Amen to that,' added Kurt Bremen and Kaspar was surprised to hear fear in the Knight Panther's voice.

  A host of armoured chariots rumbled through the army, the chanting warriors and beasts parting before their advance. Cruel, hooked blades protruded from the wheels of the chariots and Kaspar shuddered at the havoc he knew they would wreak amongst the Imperial soldiers.

  He tore his gaze from the huge monster at the centre of the High Zar's army and turned to one of his runners, saying, 'Send my compliments to Captain Goscik, and order him to fire on those damned chariots as soon as he can. Tell him to aim low, I want the horses pulling them shot down.'

  The runner nodded in understanding and galloped off as the distant crackle of musketry intensified. Arquebusiers fired rippling volleys of lead bullets into the advancing horde and soon the valley was filled with acrid, drifting smoke.

  A huge roar went up from the High Zar's army and Kaspar watched the first wave of fur-clad warriors charge forwards. They came in ragged groups, huge swords swinging wildly above their heads and berserk screams echoing from the valley sides. With a disciplined shout, the pikes of the Imperial line lowered and the first of the enemy warriors were spitted on their lethally sharp points. Screams and shouts drifted from the fighting as men died, run through with Empire steel or hacked down with steppe-forged iron.

  The Imperial line bent back under the weight of the charge, frenzied warriors hacking left and right with their massive swords and axes. But here, the very size of their weapons was their undoing. Each of the tribesmen needed a wide space around him to swing his weapon and thus avoid killing his fellow warriors, but the tightly packed ranks of the Empire allowed half a dozen men to fight a single Kurgan warrior.

  The fighting was brutal and brief, and Kaspar watched the Kurgan warriors stream back from the struggle, bloodied and broken by the stout defences of his countrymen. Jeers and ululating trumpet blasts followed them as they fled, but Kaspar knew that this was but the tip of the iceberg.

  The worst was yet to come.

  III

  General Albertalli wiped blood from his eyes and slapped the men nearest him on the back with pride as they shouted colourful insults at the retreating enemy warriors. Bodies littered the ground and he shouted at his men to close ranks. The wounded and dead were dragged to the back of the regiment and his sergeants shoved men forward with curses and the butts of their halberds.

  'Are you alright, sir?' asked one of his soldiers as he wiped more blood from his eyes.

  'Yes, lad, I'll be fine,' he said with a reassuring smile. 'I've had worse cuts shaving. Don't you worry about me, and anyway, I cut the bastard's head off who gave me this.'

  The soldier nodded, but Albertalli could see the fear behind his eyes. He didn't blame him. For all his smiles and reassurance, that last attack had almost broken them. He and his sergeants, huge Tileans with great axes who protected the standard of Luccini, had led a brutal counterattack that had sent the Kurgans reeling back, but it had been a close run thing. Smoke drifted across the battlefield and he strained to see how the rest of the allied line was holding, but he could see nothing through the thick musket smoke and press of fighting men.

  His men shouted a warning as yet more enemy warriors emerged from the smoke.

  His men had courage, that was for sure, but courage could only last for so long.

  Pavel overtook a fleeing Kurgan tribesman, sweeping his sword back into his face and splitting the man's skull wide open. His lancers chased down the remnants of a group of tribesmen that had broken from a clash with one of the Tilean mercenary regiments, but they were getting too close to the main body of the enemy and without support, that was not a healthy place to be.

  He shouted over to his trumpeter, who blew a rising, three note blast, and hauled back on the reins. The lancers on their red-painted horses wheeled expertly and rode back to their own lines, confident that they could see off any threat that came their way.

  The Kurgans threw themselves at the allied line for another hour, breaking against the disciplined lines of pikes, halberds and axes like a black tide. Each attack smashed home and killed scores of men, but was hurled back every time, leaving mounds of Kurgan dead in its wake. Dozens of heavy chariots had charged forwards, ripping into the flanks of a regiment of Kossars and scything screaming men down with their bladed wheels. Their drivers were skilled and wheeled their chariots around, driving across the front of their foes before being dragged down and hacked to pieces by the vengeful Kislevites.

  Kaspar watched these men fight with pride, but knew that the battle could not continue in this way. They were killing hundreds of the Kurgans, but their own casualties were mounting rapidly, and in a battle of attrition, the High Zar had thousands more men than they did. The centre was holding, but only just. He had ordered two regiments of halberdiers forwards, men from the towns and villages around Talabheim, and they had eventually thrown the tribesmen back. Cavalry charged into the flanks of the Kurgans, cutting them down by the score, spitting them on lances or crushing their bones with heavy hammers.

  So far the discipline of the Urszebya pulk was holding, but Kaspar could see that the High Zar had yet to commit his most terrifying troops to battle.

  VI

  Albertalli shouted, 'Now!' and his men lowered their halberds once again as the enemy came at them. They surged forward to meet the Kurgans, bestial men in horned helms and dark armour, and the two forces met in a brazen clash of iron and flesh. He swept his heavy sword, its edge dulled by the hours of fighting, through the neck of a tribesman and kicked another in the crotch as he clambered over bodies that lay on the ground.

  An axe swept out at him and he ducked below its swing, thrusting his blade into his attackers groin. The man screamed and collapsed, dragging the blade from Albertalli's hand. He swept up a fallen halberd and blocked a downward sweep of an axe, slamming the butt of his weapon against a tribesman's temple and reversing his grip to stab the point through his chest.

  All around him, men screamed and yelled, all mores of civilization forgotten in the heat of battle. The air stank of blood and terror, ringing to the harsh clang of steel on steel and the deafening booms of cannon. He stabbed and stabbed with his halberd, sweeping it through yet another tribesman's ribs.

  The standard of Luccini waved above him and he yelled encouragement to his men as the gold finial caught the sunlight.

  And then it was over, the Kurgans retreating into the smoke once more, driven back by the courage and discipline of his warriors. Damn, but he was proud of them. He leaned on the shaft of his halberd to regain his breath, exhausted by the fighting, when another warning shout went up. Again, so soon?

  He straightened as more shapes came running at them through the smoke, and his heart skipped a beat as he saw the monstrous charging shapes. Huge, horned and shaggy beasts with slavering jaws and powerfully muscled bodies loped through the mounds of the dead with crude axes and looted swords.

  'Hold fast, men. We'll see these things off!' he shouted as cries of alarm spread from somewhere close. He couldn't see from where and had no time to check as the first of the beasts thundered into their line.

  Braying monsters ripped men from their feet with huge sweeps of their weapons, snapping fangs tearing mens' faces off, clawed limbs rending limbs from bodies. The beasts gorged on flesh, hacking their way through his men with ease. Albertalli chopped his halberd through the arm of a dog-headed creature, shocked when it roared and turned to face him without seeming to notice its wound.

  He stabbed with the point of the weapon, the tip snapping off a handspan within its belly. The creature roared, bloody spittle frothing at its jaws, and its clawed arm swept down smashing his halberd in half.

  Albertalli stumbled backwards, dragging out his pistol, but the beast was on him before he
could fire, its massive jaws snapping shut on his skull and tearing his head off with one bite.

  VII

  The screams of the Tilean regiment were piteous as the monstrous beasts devoured them, but Pavel forced himself to shut them out as he spurred his horse forward. Sixty lancers followed him, leaning forward in their saddles with their lances lowered. Smoke swirled around them, obscuring all but the closest men, but he did not need to see his prey to know where to find them - they could all hear the sickening sounds of snapping bones as the creatures feasted on human flesh.

  They rode from the smoke and saw the remains of the Tilean regiment, butchered almost to a man. Many of the beasts had charged wildly after the fleeing men, but many more remained, tearing great chunks of meat from the corpses of their victims.

  'Charge!' shouted Pavel, lowering his lance and placing his weight into the stirrups as he leaned over his mount's neck. The ground trembled to the thunder of hooves, the shrill, shrieking whistle of the wind through their back banners driving them forward with even greater fury. The horned beasts looked up from their monstrous feast, snouts bloody and teeth bared in hunger.

  The Kislevites charged into the creatures with a furious thunder of hooves and splintering lance shafts. Pavel thrust his lance into the chest of a massive, goat-headed beast, the impetus of his charge driving the tip straight through its chest. Blood jetted around the lance and the creature howled as it was punched from its feet. The lance snapped under its weight and Pavel threw aside the now useless weapon, dragging out his curved sword.