[Empire Army 01] - Reiksguard

by Richard Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  At an order from Talhoffer, the sergeant released the lock on his arm and the pressure of the sergeant’s knee lifted. Feeling humiliated, Siebrecht clambered to his feet.

  “You still have your sword in your hand at least, Novice Matz, though you would find it of little use where you were.”

  Aware of the mocking stares of the other novices who were enjoying his defeat, Siebrecht did not say what he wished and instead muttered something under his breath.

  “What was that, Novice Matz?”

  Ah, curse them, Siebrecht thought, he had a legitimate grievance.

  “I thought this was sword sparring, master, not wrestling.” If he had known that he would have to defend himself against wrestling moves as well, he would not have been taken off guard.

  Talhoffer considered the novice from Nuln. “Did I ever say that this was sword sparring, Novice Matz?”

  No, he hadn’t, Siebrecht recalled. They had all simply assumed.

  “No, master,” he admitted.

  “Was it simply because you were given a sword that you thought a sword was the only weapon with which you could fight?”

  Siebrecht did not speak, but gave a half-nod.

  “Though it is true that you will learn sword from me, and wrestling from Master Ott, we draw no distinction between them in combat. We fight with the whole of our body, Novice Matz. Every resource at our disposal.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  FALKENHAYN

  “I am Master Lehrer,” the grey knight announced from his throne behind the solid oak desk in the depths of the order’s library. “You will have heard already that before you may become a brother of this grand order you must prove yourself in three disciplines: strength of body, strength of mind and strength of spirit. Of these three, strength of mind is the most important, for without a strong mind and the ability to reason, even the strongest body is easily outwitted or dumbfounded. This is what you will learn from me.”

  “In this place,” the master continued, “you shall learn the full meaning of knightly duty, to the Emperor, to his people and to yourself. You shall also learn judgement; for if you are to be a knight, rather than merely a soldier, you shall have to be a judge, of your own actions and the actions of others. For there is no better judge than an honourable knight, who has truth in his words, duty in his heart and a sword in his hand.”

  Beneath his shaggy beard, the old master’s mouth slowly twisted into a smile. Delmar listened closely. He thought of Griesmeyer; aye, there would be a knight Delmar would trust as a judge.

  “As well as that, we shall also examine the Empire’s greatest victories and its greatest defeats, for our ability to reason and learn from our mistakes is what sets us apart from beasts. We shall study the Empire’s most successful generals and its most terrible foes. We shall begin today with Emperor Wilhelm III.”

  Behind Delmar, at the back of the novices, someone scoffed.

  “Novice Matz,” Master Lehrer called, “you wish to speak?”

  Delmar turned around, as did every other novice, and stared at Siebrecht.

  “No, master,” Siebrecht replied. “A cough only.”

  Delmar once again found himself growing angry at the Nulner’s disrespect towards the order’s masters.

  But Master Lehrer, who took a degree of malicious enjoyment in hooking impertinent novices, was not to be disabused.

  “Well, Novice Matz, you are called upon now. So we will sit silently until you share your thoughts with us.”

  Delmar watched as Siebrecht paused for a moment, testing the master’s pledge, but Lehrer’s amused expression was impenetrable.

  “My only thought, master,” Siebrecht began, “was that there might be emperors worthy of study before more recent times.”

  “You mean, before the Reikland emperors?” Lehrer replied, dryly. “Go on then, novice, who would you suggest?”

  Delmar could see Siebrecht’s cockiness return to him. “I, for one, master, have learnt much from the great Emperor Magnus the Pious,” he said, then adding, “of Nuln.”

  Master Lehrer sat satisfied. “I take your meaning, novice. I prefer to start with Emperor Wilhelm because that is where our order’s own records begin. But Emperor Magnus’ reign was two centuries ago, long before our order was founded, and there are precious few contemporary accounts of his great victories.”

  “Master,” Falkenhayn spoke up, giving Delmar a wink, “I feel I must say that is greatly unfortunate. For if we are only to study the last hundred years I scarce think we will find any general of Nuln of note.”

  Siebrecht scoffed again. “Small surprise when the Reikland princes allow scant few from other provinces to command the Empire’s armies.”

  Falkenhayn bridled at that. “The surprise is that any provincial might be given command, when it is Reikland that must provide half the men of the Emperor’s armies and all the officers.”

  “Ridiculous,” Siebrecht shot back.

  “Is it? Reikland is but one province in ten, and yet we Reiklanders here are half the novices. Truly we are called the Reiksguard for a reason!” That brought a small cheer of support from the other Reikland novices, but Delmar stayed silent. He saw the look of disquiet on the faces of the Provincial novices, and pulled at Falkenhayn to try and sit him down.

  “Oh, I do not dispute it,” Siebrecht countered. “I only say that it is ridiculous that Reikland officers prefer and advance their own kind ahead of any other.”

  If Siebrecht expected Falkenhayn to deny it he was mistaken.

  “And why should they not?” Falkenhayn declared. The room went silent. “Why should they not when it is Reikland blood being spilt on every border of the Empire? When it is Reikland lives that are lost defending each and every province?” Falkenhayn looked over the other novices.

  “We are a nation under siege,” he continued, “attacked not only by force of arms, but also by the worship of dark gods and the snares of foreign culture. There are wolves to the north, warmongering princes to the south, barbarians to the east…”

  “I hope,” Krieglitz interrupted, standing, “that you refer to those beyond the borders of the Empire.”

  “Of course, brother,” Falkenhayn responded stiffly, “those beyond the borders of the true Empire. And those within our borders who have thrown over our ways in favour of these others. With such danger riddled throughout our realm, can you blame a Reikland general looking first to those of his own province, men that he knows hold the interests of the Empire higher than any other…?”

  The quiet library burst into uproar as the Provincial novices shot to their feet in outrage, followed just as quickly by the Reiklanders.

  Master Lehrer thumped a bronze skull ornament against his desk until he could make himself heard.

  He shouted at them all to be seated once more, and, finally, continued to speak.

  “Excellent!” he chortled, as the room simmered. “I sense we may have potential for some lively debates here. Let us then begin, not with Wilhelm, nor with Magnus, but rather with that great victory which defined the Empire at its birth, the First Battle of Black Fire Pass, and in particular Sigmar’s unification of the twelve peoples of the Empire. I trust my point will be lost on none of you.”

  “I am Brother Verrakker,” Verrakker said. “You have heard many times now that before you may become a brother of this grand order you must prove yourself in three disciplines: strength of body, strength of mind and strength of spirit. Of these three, strength of spirit is the most important, for without a strong spirit one can stray from the true path. And one’s strength and one’s mind can be turned to betray all you once defended. Strength of spirit is not to be learned, and I shall not be your teacher. Only your judge.”

  “This is the Empire,” Talhoffer declared.

  One of his sergeants stood, ready, in the middle of four of the Reiklander novices. They each carried a waster in their hand wrapped in cloth. The cloth was damp from red dye so that a blow would mark the fighter str
uck.

  “The Empire is surrounded by its foes. All of whom, whether they admit it or not, desire to see us brought to our knees.”

  The novices eyed the sergeant warily and closed in on him. So far he had done nothing but casually shift his position to keep track of his opponents. He held his sword loosely by his side. From across the circle, Delmar saw Falkenhayn gesture at him to attack. Delmar stepped forwards, swiftly lifted his blade high and cut down.

  “Encircled as we are, we cannot allow our enemies the chance to strike together.”

  As Delmar swung, the sergeant moved, slipping inside the arc of the blade and using the flat of his sword to guide the cut away to the side.

  “And therefore we must allow ourselves to stay fixed to our guard, to hold on the defence.”

  The sergeant shot forwards, maintaining the contact with Delmar’s blade even as the novice instinctively drew back, keeping it off the line between them.

  “Every defence must contain an attack. And every attack must contain a defence.”

  The sergeant slammed his weapon down Delmar’s sword arm onto his shoulder, then without pause drew it down his chest to his belly. Delmar looked down and saw the lurid red slash it had left across his body. The sergeant did not pause, but gripped Delmar with his free hand and pivoted around behind him, pushing the novice forwards. Falkenhayn’s charging swing, intended to strike the sergeant down from behind, instead smacked into Delmar. Still twisting, using Delmar’s body as a shield, the sergeant spun about and struck a heavy blow into Falkenhayn’s side.

  “Reinhardt, Falkenhayn, stand out.” Talhoffer ordered. The frustrated novices reluctantly stood aside and the sergeant squared off against the remaining pair. No one doubted the outcome.

  “Attack and defence are the same. That is our overriding tenet. We fight as the Empire fights. Man and nation, there is no distinction. If an enemy should strike at us, we must first try to evade the blow. If we cannot, then we must control it so that it does not hit us with its full force. And that deflection of force must itself form a riposte to strike back. Only with such a principle can our Empire stand against the myriad foes that surround us.”

  “That was preposterous,” Falkenhayn complained afterwards as he and his fellows suffered in the washing room, scrubbing the red dye from their shifts. “In any battle, we would be wearing armour. That cut would never have got through our armour and so I should not have been stood down. It was no fair test of our martial skills.”

  “It is a fairer test of your laundry skills then,” Gausser spoke up from the other pool. Falkenhayn ignored the jibe, for he never dared face the Nordlander directly.

  “We will get better, brother,” Delmar said calmly.

  Falkenhayn recommenced, “If we are to wear armour to fight, then we should practise in armour. That is obvious.”

  “Thank you, brother. We got your wish,” Hardenburg remarked bitterly, struggling to lever himself to his feet. The novices stood in the arming room, all encased in heavy grey plate.

  “It’s as heavy as a Stirlander matron! Pardon my word, Weisshuber,” Hardenburg laughed.

  “This isn’t proper armour.” Falkenhayn was still complaining. “These are just segments of strapped iron plate; they do not even fit together properly.”

  “It is so they can be adjusted,” Delmar answered, even though Falkenhayn had not asked a question.

  “It would need to be,” Siebrecht said to Krieglitz at the other end of the room, “to fit over Falkenhayn’s head.”

  “He has enough spare room down there though.” Krieglitz knocked his armoured fist against his armoured crotch. The clang of metal against metal drew the Reiklanders’ attention.

  Hardenburg thought to join in the Provincials’ banter.

  “This is the one piece I’m glad for,” he said. He and the Provincials laughed together, until Falkenhayn put his hand on Hardenburg’s shoulder. “Leave them be, Tomas,” he ordered. Hardenburg looked back, but the moment’s unity was gone and the old division between the novices was back.

  As well as the long sword, Talhoffer demonstrated the other weapons of the Empire’s armies: spears and halberds, which allowed a knight to keep a greater distance from particularly dangerous foes and, when fighting on foot, to ward away enemy horsemen; greatswords, heavy two-handed blades feared by many of the Empire’s foes; maces and warhammers, which could break limbs and skulls in a single blow; even the dagger, though with such an array of weaponry at their disposal the novices could barely imagine when they should need such a short blade.

  Though he had been introduced alongside Master Talhoffer, Ott had not involved himself in any of Talhoffer’s sword teaching. The fightmaster was something of a mystery to the novices. He barely made any sound and certainly never went to speak. And Siebrecht had seen that he wore around his neck the symbol of peaceful Shallya, the healer, similar to that beside the white gate. It was a strange god for a warrior to venerate. In training he merely stood behind Talhoffer, eyes closed, listening. Delmar had occasionally seen him make subtle gestures to the other fightmaster, the same gestures that Delmar had once seen a village girl without hearing make in order to communicate with her parents, but Talhoffer had never made them back. He replied instead with speech.

  Once the novices had been equipped with their armour, however, Ott’s sessions on close-quarter fighting began in earnest. While Talhoffer never fought with the novices directly, leaving his well-trained sergeants to provide the demonstration of what he dictated, the same was not true of Fightmaster Ott. Instead, Ott practiced the reverse, he spoke only through his sergeants and fought himself, demonstrating his staggering repertoire of grapples, locks, limb-breaks, throws and strangles upon the novices personally. They fought in practice bouts, often with small blunted stakes to represent daggers. Against a fully armoured knight who was standing and mobile, a dagger presented little threat; however if that same knight could be brought to the ground or held in position then that small blade became deadly, as it could be forced between openings and joins in the armour. The novices had all wrestled as youngsters, in horseplay with their fellow youths, and now they began to see the deadly art from which their childish games had derived.

  Delmar had been one of the first to face Master Ott in a practice bout. While Delmar did not expect to win, he thought that he would provide a fair showing, just as Siebrecht on the first day of duelling. Though Ott had experience, he was not very tall. Delmar had the advantage in both height and reach, and his skill at riding had given him a sure sense of balance. When Delmar had squared off against Ott, the master had barely even opened his eyes; the eyelids were raised only a crack and the eyes themselves hidden in the shadow. Delmar got his first hold on Ott easily, and just as easily Ott slipped out of it, taking Delmar’s arm with him. The master twisted as he went and, for all Delmar’s steady feet, he found himself forced to the ground; it was either that or have his arm ripped off at the shoulder. The master’s dagger pricked him at the back of his neck and the bout was over.

  Once Ott had “assessed” the skill of each of the novices, and left them choking on the earth, his tuition began. He took the novices through the move and then paired them off to practise, ending each session with a proper practice bout.

  Against the other novices, Delmar fared far better, winning most of his bouts. The novice who excelled was, of course, Gausser. Not only was he far larger and stronger than the others, but Nordland was infamous for settling disputes through trials of combat.

  Despite his domination, his training did not go without incident. It was near the end of one of the sessions.

  Most of the novices, exhausted, preferred to rest in wrestling clinches rather than continue to try to trip or throw their opponents. In the midst of that amiable lethargy, however, a violent argument erupted.

  “Can you not hear, Nordlander? Can anything penetrate that head of yours if it is not drummed upon it?”

  “You did not say it, Falkenhayn. I would have h
eard it if you had said it.”

  Ott had tapped Falkenhayn to wrestle Gausser. But before the bout was done, Falkenhayn had cried out loudly and accused Gausser of ignoring his attempts to concede the bout.

  “I said it again and again and you ignored it! I swear he’s broken my arm.” Falkenhayn gingerly presented the injured limb to the sergeant beside him.

  Delmar and the other novices crowded around. Proktor gently took hold of Falkenhayn’s arm, but Falkenhayn suddenly jerked it away with another cry of pain.

  Gausser now turned to the sergeant as well; he was getting uncomfortable having to defend himself.

  “If he had not been squirming so much, I would not have needed to hold on so tight.”

  “You admit it then!” Falkenhayn exclaimed. “You were holding tighter than you should to hurt me.”

  “I did not mean to hurt you,” Gausser answered, but without conviction. His dislike of the Reikland novices and Falkenhayn in particular was well known.

  “But you did not stop when I said relent.”

  “That, I did not hear you say,” Gausser stated, his accent thickening as he grew more flustered. He was not accustomed to such duels of words.

  “How convenient that you can ignore the rules when it pleases you.”

  That charge, effectively calling the Nordlander a cheat, pushed Gausser over the edge.

  “No, no, no,” Gausser bellowed, taking a menacing step forwards. Siebrecht and Krieglitz rushed to either side to prevent him going further, just as Delmar and Proktor pulled Falkenhayn behind them to protect him. “No to your clever lying words. I fight fair. You did not say relent. You carry on fighting and now you complain. It is you Reiklanders who ignore rules when it pleases! You take back what you say or we fight again! Here! To prove who is right.” Gausser stomped back a few paces to free himself of his friends’ grip and started to tear off the practice plate.