[Empire Army 01] - Reiksguard

by Richard Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  Siebrecht turned to his brothers. “Standard bearers, do you think?”

  “Amidst the woods?” Gausser shook his head.

  “They look like winged lancers, down on their luck,” Bohdan remarked dryly.

  Ahead of them, Delmar turned about in his seat. “I have seen longrifles that length in the hands of hunters in Hochland.”

  “Perhaps,” Siebrecht carefully replied. He felt the eyes of the other young knights upon them, watching what would happen between the two, and suddenly could not think of anything else to say.

  No one else had any other suggestions to make and so Delmar turned back around.

  “Ready for landing,” the boatman announced, and the knights took hold of the side of the boat with one hand and the hilt of their swords with the other.

  The knights left their boat as soon as it hit the bank, and made for the cover of the trees. They had left their horses behind; they carried all they needed. The sergeants took the boats back across the river so as to leave no trace of them for a goblin scout to see.

  Led by the bergjaegers, the knights cut directly away from the bank, straight into the forest. They kept to the low ground, where the tree canopy was thickest, and skirted around the lower slopes of the Predigtstuhl. The rain over the previous few days had made the forest floor treacherous; dips in the ground that had filled with water slowed their progress, but threatened no more than the dignity of any knight who slipped into them. Siebrecht was thankful that they were not fully armoured. The knights wore only partial plate, as with such a trek before them, the weight was not worth the protection. As ever, the bergjaegers led the way, searching out the driest paths, but the five pipebearers stayed in the middle of the column. The orders were that these men were there to be protected.

  Siebrecht, never at home in woodland, quickly lost his bearings. There was nothing to see but the trees ahead, which looked remarkably similar to the trees behind. The grey light that filtered through the clouds and the leaves did little to help him distinguish between them. All the knights stuck close together, hemmed in by the forest on either side. At some arbitrary moment, about an hour or so into their trek, Jaeger Voll called them to a halt, then led them off again sharply to the right.

  “I am glad someone has a clue where we are going,” Siebrecht muttered under his breath.

  “We’re to the north-east of the Predigtstuhl, we’re about to climb the eastern face,” Delmar supplied.

  Siebrecht had not meant his idle thought to be overheard, and felt a touch of resentment at Delmar’s presumption. “You sound pretty certain of yourself, Reinhardt.”

  Delmar shrugged. “I am.”

  Sure enough, not ten minutes passed before the ground started to rise, the mud giving way to stone. The canopy began to thin and, in a gap, the knights saw the eastern side of the peak of the Predigtstuhl. Siebrecht forwent comment.

  The forest of the lower slopes had been dark and gloomy, but as they climbed, the woods took on an added air of malevolence. The trees were thinner, their bark as black as cannon metal. Their lower branches had been hacked away; a few even had crude glyphs daubed upon them, though they were old and faded. Marks of their goblin owners, Siebrecht guessed, and realised for the first time how deep into enemy territory the knights had come. No one unsheathed a weapon, though, as they needed both of their hands free for the difficult path ahead. They had left the mud behind, but now the knights had to clamber up rocks, slick with the rain. The bergjaegers took turns standing watch over each obstacle, ensuring every knight made it safely up. Jaeger Voll somehow managed to be everywhere at once, climbing up and down the side of the path with the ease of one born to it.

  The sound of the rain was soon drowned by the ragged breathing of the knights. Gausser, to Siebrecht’s surprise, was the first of the squadron to start to lag behind. Siebrecht dropped back to help him, but the Nordlander swatted him away, ashamed of his own weakness. Siebrecht himself, though, could not maintain the pace for much longer, and he and Alptraum gradually slowed and watched Delmar obstinately pull ahead, keeping up with the leaders. Inexorably, and despite Voll’s best efforts, the column began to stretch out back along its path.

  Finally, Siebrecht rounded a tight corner and saw the lead knights leaning against the boulders ahead of him. He flopped down beside Delmar, chest heaving.

  “Thank Shallya you stopped,” Siebrecht gasped, then realised Delmar was staring at him with urgent warning.

  “What?” Siebrecht asked. Delmar urgently put his finger to his mouth. Siebrecht peered over Delmar’s head. There was a deep cavern, hidden behind a great flat stone. Voll had crept towards its entrance, his pick ready in his hand, and was preparing to go inside.

  “What is it?” Siebrecht whispered. “Is it goblins?”

  “We don’t know,” Delmar replied. “But the bergjaegers don’t think so. There are no markings, no totems around the sides.”

  “What is it then?”

  “Maybe trolls, something wild for certain. Maybe it’s the reason the goblins don’t come here anymore.” Delmar shifted so as to have easier access to his sword. “Maybe Dragon’s Jaw isn’t just a name.”

  “You are so great a comfort to me, Reinhardt.”

  One of the knights ahead of them shot them both an angry look and they quietened. Voll disappeared into the cavern’s mouth. And what if he doesn’t come out again, Siebrecht found himself thinking, what then?

  But Voll did come out again, his weapon stored back in his pack. He gave the knights a brief shake of the head and then led them on. The bergjaegers began to range further ahead of the knights, determined to discover any further threats before the column chanced upon them. Siebrecht kept close to the vanguard now, and saw the bergjaegers appear and disappear amongst the trees. The knights passed a few more caves, these ones clearly goblin dens, though long abandoned.

  Then, the trees thinned and the knights emerged onto the crest of a ridge. The storm had finally moved on and Siebrecht could see the dark thunderhead clouds slide east in the direction of Black Fire Pass. To the south, there was the distinctive crater of a dormant volcano and beyond that a tantalising glimpse of the corner of some great lake from which the highest reaches of the River Reik flowed.

  Preceptor Jungingen wasted no time admiring the view; even while the rest of the banner arrived he began addressing his knights.

  “Brothers, we hold here. I cannot tell you how long, only that in the next few hours we may have every single foe upon this mountain at our throats. The Reiksmarshal himself told me that the fate of our campaign relies upon us keeping them back until we are finished. Prepare yourselves, my brothers, for today we prove our Marshal’s trust.”

  The other knights solemnly concurred, but Siebrecht had already begun looking past his preceptor at the pipebearers who were now carefully unwrapping their strange burdens.

  “Are they horns?” Siebrecht asked, approaching the bergjaegers after Jungingen had finished speaking.

  “If horns can be twelve feet long,” Gausser said, “then that they can be.”

  “Aye,” Jaeger Voll answered them. “The sighorns of the Black Mountains they are.”

  “And what can they do?” Siebrecht continued. “Will they bring the mountains crashing down upon the goblins’ heads?”

  “Perhaps,” Voll replied. “In their way.”

  Like many of the devices of man, the sighorns of the Black Mountains had their origins in war. The human tribes of the region, aping their dwarfen betters, blew horns as they charged into battle to frighten their enemies. It was the Averlanders’ great hero Siggurd, according to their legends at least, who fashioned a warhorn so long that he could sound the news of the great victory at Black Fire Pass to all the tribes of the mountains at once.

  Other legends, however, say that the language of the sighorns came from the dwarfs of Karak Angazhar who, notorious for their isolationism, gave the mountain men a means by which messages could be passed without the need for physic
al meeting or revealing the location of their hold.

  Whatever the truth of its creation, and though Averland soldiers now marched to the drum and the trumpet, the tradition of the sighorn messages to the dwarfs of Karak Angazhar had survived. Voll merely hoped the dwarfs would be listening.

  Delmar heard the low, mournful notes of the sighorns doled out in careful measure down the slope of the Predigtstuhl, through the valley of the Upper Reik and towards the peaks where, somewhere, Karak Angazhar was hidden. Now he understood Jungingen’s words. Before they reached dwarfen ears, those notes would be heard by every goblin in between. The knights were exposed there on the wrong side of the mountain, waiting for a reply, and they had just announced their presence to anyone who cared to listen.

  Delmar stood on sentry, expecting for a goblin horde to surge over the peak above or burst from the trees below. He kept his hand ready by his sword, his father’s sword, which would once more be wielded against the Empire’s foes, and waited.

  The sound of the horns reached even the great stone goblin, and the ears of the Death Caps there. They reached for their weapons, the strongest of them bearing swords and axes taken from the dwarfs, and looked to Thorntoad in anticipation. Thorntoad, however, snapped at them to stay still, and disappeared into his lair.

  His prisoner was still there; the shaman had kept the dwarf alive these past days, forcing him to eat scraps of meat, stolen bread and a very specific type of toadstool of Thorntoad’s own cultivation. The poisons in the toadstool were not fatal, but they attacked the mind, fuddling the senses and churning its memories. The dwarf’s beard was ragged and damp with its own sweat, for it laboured within a fever-dream, not awake, not asleep, not in the present, not in the past, but somewhere in between.

  Thorntoad used one of his nails to open the dwarf’s eye. Its pupil was as small as a pinhead. It was ready. Thorntoad hung from a hoop, so that his lips were an inch from the dwarf’s ear.

  “Hear me… Gramsson…” The prisoner’s name was the first thing he had discovered. “Hear me…”

  Thorntoad could see the dwarf struggling to wake, but failing.

  “Eye… close… Gramsson…” Thorntoad reassured him. “Speak…”

  The dwarf began to talk in its native language once again.

  “No… Man tongue… speak… man tongue…”

  The dwarf’s eyes opened and crossed for an instant. New beads of sweat formed above its eyebrows.

  “Aye, my king,” the dwarf replied. Thorntoad nodded. For some reason his prisoner’s mind had fixated upon the dwarfen king and it had addressed Thorntoad as such during their previous interrogation. Thorntoad was only too happy to encourage the drugged misconception.

  “Hear… the noise… hear the horns?”

  “Aye, my king.”

  “It is… message… from men…”

  The dwarf paused and Thorntoad feared its mind had slipped away again. But it had not, it was listening.

  “Aye, they call to Karak Angazhar.” The dwarf paused again as it translated the horn’s notes. “They wish a response.”

  Thorntoad’s spines bristled with excitement. “Hear… Gramsson… tell me more…”

  * * *

  The sighorns blew for an hour and still no goblins had been seen. Some of the knights began to relax, considering that if the goblins were to attack then they would have done so already. Others grew more concerned, believing instead that the delay gave the goblins a chance to mass together, making it all the more likely that when they did attack, Jungingen’s knights would be overwhelmed.

  Siebrecht, for the first time since leaving Altdorf, began to feel that old nervous buzz that meant his body was craving a drink. If he just had a single cup of wine, he would quite happily wait for these greenskins until the winter came. He glanced around at his companions. Gausser was like a boulder, solid, unmoving; Alptraum was humming along with the sighorns. Over with the Reiklanders, Hardenburg appeared to be in an even worse way than Siebrecht; and Delmar… Delmar was relaxed but alert, at rest but ready for action. It was the look of a hunter.

  Voll patrolled the sentries’ positions and stopped by Siebrecht. He looked up at the clouds warily. It was too early for dusk, Siebrecht knew, it was another rainstorm brewing.

  “If we are here much longer,” Siebrecht said to the bergjaeger quietly, “we shall not need the greenskins. The rain will wash us off this mountain before they will.”

  “The rain is good and the rain is bad,” Voll replied. “The goblins don’t like it. While it rains, we’re safe. Mostly.”

  “And the bad?” Siebrecht had to ask.

  “Can’t use the horns. We have to keep them covered. And even if we played on, the storm would drown them out.”

  “But then we will head home, won’t we? We cannot be meant to stay here the night.” Siebrecht felt himself give a tiny shake. He put it down to the cold.

  “It’s not my place to say,” Voll said evenly. “But I heard your leader’s words. Didn’t sound to me as though he planned on leaving until the job was done.”

  Just then, the sighorns quietened and the players did not start the measure again. Alptraum stopped humming and started listening. From somewhere in the mountains, a dwarfen horn was replying.

  CHAPTER TEN

  GRAMRIK

  “King Gramrik Thunderhead?” Kurt Helborg asked ceremonially.

  “Aye,” the imposing ruler of Karak Angazhar replied in formal Reikspiel. “We have kept our oath to answer the call of the hunters’ horns, just as we have upheld our ancient oaths to defend the mouth of the great river.” The dwarfen lord planted the bottom of the long shaft of his axe-hammer firmly on the ground. “We are glad that the sons of Sigmar have come to destroy the grobi by our side.”

  The Reiksmarshal and the dwarfen king met on the lower reaches of the Achhorn, a razor-thin ridge on the far western side of the Stadelhorn Heights that stood apart from the mountains around. Helborg had had his wish granted. More than he had wished. The king himself had answered his call to meet. There had been a price, however. The dwarfs had opened up a new tunnel, outside the goblins’ siege lines, one whose existence they had so far kept secret. Now they had revealed it, the tunnel would have to be collapsed lest it allow the goblins back into Karak Angazhar. Preceptor Jungingen was a capable man and he had sent a squadron of his knights ahead of the rest of the banner to bring the dwarfen message back to the army as quickly as they could. But even then it had allowed Helborg precious little time. Griesmeyer had the Reiksmarshal’s personal guard to arms at once and they sent word ahead so that, as they raced west, Osterna’s banner was primed to escort them.

  It should be enough; Helborg knew that the unruly goblins needed time to gather their forces together. A hundred and fifty Reiksguard knights would be enough to brush aside any goblin warband that stumbled across their path. Helborg left orders for the rest of the army to ready themselves, but to remain where they were. It would not do to have dribs and drabs of men come after them, nor was he willing to weaken the main force so greatly that they might be assaulted in his absence.

  They rode hard. For the first time since entering the mountains each knight gave his steed its head. They journeyed up the Unkenfluss and around the goblin tribes that inhabited the Stadelhorn Heights and up onto the Achhorn. With surprise on their side, his knights had arrived at the meeting place unchallenged. Helborg doubted, though, that the journey back would be so easy.

  “Now let us talk,” King Gramrik declared.

  * * *

  Delmar and Siebrecht held the reins of the horses of the Marshal’s guard. They were most fortunate to be there: it had been the two of them who had been first to reach the Reiksmarshal with the dwarf’s message and so, when his guard had mounted up, Griesmeyer had beckoned them on as well. Now, they were present when the two commanders, one human, one dwarf, met for the first time. Their two personal guards, Griesmeyer’s knights and Gramrik’s dwarfen veterans, stayed a few paces back; this was
a meeting of equal allies, after all, and neither side wished to appear that they were imposing their will.

  Delmar stared at the dwarf veterans standing rigidly behind their lord. They wore plate armour similar to the Reiksguard’s; unsurprising, Delmar realised, as the order’s plate was forged by dwarfen armourers in Altdorf. But the knights’ armour was, for the most part, shining and new; the dwarfs’ plate bore the scars and dents of hundreds of battles and skirmishes. Their axes were notched from use, yet still carried a razor-keen edge. The warriors’ faces were covered with fearsome warmasks of plate and mail, and the eyes behind them glared out with an indomitable determination. These were warriors indeed.

  The sky was still dark. The storm which had begun to threaten whilst they were on the Predigtstuhl still had not erupted. The clouds hung low, bulging as though filled with water and ready to burst. The wind had also picked up and maverick gusts blew up and down the slope.

  “That is our position, King Thunderhead,” Helborg concluded. “We can advance to you but the bank on either side of the river through the valley is too narrow. We cannot get through without support, not without great cost at least.”

  The dwarf lord ruminated deeply and then spoke: “We will honour our ancestors, and hope that they will provide.”