[Empire Army 01] - Reiksguard

by Richard Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  “On! On!” Falkenhayn called to the squadron. “The standard, take the standard!”

  One of the mobs of Death Caps had finally broken and their standard was exposed. The knights could see the horrible thing, being passed frantically back to the rear of the goblin tribe. It was almost within their grasp, and they all knew the glory that went with it. Their fatigue disappeared and they spurred their horses on to charge after the running bearers, ignoring the rest of the goblins cowering to either side. A few of the greenskins who had bows had the instinct to fire an arrow at the passing knights. Most of the arrows, fired in haste, spiralled wildly; some hit Reiksguard armour and skimmed uselessly off; others flew past the knights and struck goblins on the other side. One, however, hit its mark.

  Delmar’s horse had just pushed off with its hind legs when the point of the arrow burst through its eye and stuck in its brain. The hind legs had pushed, but the front then simply failed to move. Delmar felt the animal beneath him die and readied himself for the fall; as the horse crashed down he was thrown over its head. He curled himself up as tight as his armour allowed and hit the ground rolling. He blinked away the dirt that had been driven through his visor into his eye and levered himself up from the ground. He had no thought but that he was in danger and he must escape.

  Only two of the other knights saw his horse collapse. Falkenhayn, though, considered a single knight an acceptable loss for this chance at glory. The other knight did not even think of glory; he saw Delmar fall and, in an instant, reined his horse in to turn back.

  “Delmar! Delmar!” he called. “Give me your hand!”

  Delmar looked ahead and there saw Siebrecht galloping back towards him, hand outstretched.

  “No, Siebrecht,” he tried to shout. “You can’t…”

  He held up his arms to ward his brother off, but instead Siebrecht grabbed one of them and heaved to swing Delmar onto the back of his saddle. Siebrecht, though, as he quickly learned, was no Helborg, and found himself dragged from the saddle and onto the ground.

  “Taal’s teats, Delmar,” Siebrecht spluttered from the mud, “you never do make anything easy for yourself.”

  Delmar hauled him up, “What kind of fool…”

  “Apparently, my kind of fool, Delmar. I assure you I will berate myself…” Siebrecht trailed off. The goblins had reformed and now there were dozens of them, maybe a hundred, and they were all staring back at Siebrecht.

  “Delmar,” he whispered, “get your sword. I’ll be damned if I’m going to fight here alone.”

  The massed ranks of the goblins hissed and edged forwards. The odds were impossible, Siebrecht knew, but then he did not have to win, he merely had to delay the inevitable long enough for his brothers to come.

  “Hear me!” he bellowed at them. “For I am the great Siebrecht von Matz, the finest swordsman of the Empire!” He swept his blade through the air, its edge making a threatening swish. The goblins paused. Good work, Siebrecht told himself, now keep it going. “You may feel brave because you are a multitude, but I tell you now: I may not kill you all, but I shall cut in two the first of you who approaches, and the second, and the third!”

  Siebrecht paused for dramatic effect. “So! Whichever of you wishes to be the first to die, step forwards!” He spun his deadly sword twice around his body for emphasis.

  “A brilliant ploy,” Delmar muttered, standing at his back, sword in his hand.

  “Thank you,” Siebrecht replied, his gaze never wavering from the beady red eyes of his adversaries.

  “It might have worked as well,” Delmar replied, “if only goblins understood a single word of our Imperial tongue.”

  “Ah…” Siebrecht began, and then the goblins charged.

  “Haaaaa!” Siebrecht yelled, and charged right back at them. He whipped his sword at them, moving it faster than any of them had ever seen. Sheer speed! Being faster than the rest, this was what true swordplay was about!

  Siebrecht lunged at the first goblin in his path and, as it went to defend itself, he turned the lunge into a cut that took its head off. The goblin beside it blocked the blow as Siebrecht followed through, but Siebrecht spun the blade about its head and cut straight down through its shoulder. He felt something strike his side, but his armour held and Delmar, behind him, hacked the attacker down. Siebrecht flicked his point up and ran the next goblin through. He quickly pushed it back to pull his blade free, and brought it up and around like a windmill’s sail and cut a greenskin behind Delmar in two.

  Delmar bashed another goblin’s nose in with his hilt, lifted it up bodily and threw it back upon the spear-points of its fellows. Delmar and Siebrecht fought back to back, shoulder to shoulder, brother to brother. Siebrecht’s heart raced; he glanced this way and that, looking for the next threat.

  “Step back, foul fiend,” Siebrecht found himself exulting at the next goblin who approached them. Foul fiend, Siebrecht madly wondered at his own turn of phrase, where did that come from?

  “I have grim news, Delmar,” Siebrecht shouted as he changed a high thrust into a low cut and took the goblin’s leg. “I’m beginning to talk like you.”

  “Just shut up and fight!” Delmar snapped back as he drove his blade through a goblin’s belly.

  The goblin, though, was not finished. Its claws scrabbled at Delmar’s visor and its fingers took grip, dragging Delmar down with it in its death throes. Siebrecht whirled his blade around to keep the goblins at bay for a moment and reached down to Delmar.

  “Here,” Siebrecht ordered. “Quick. Get up.”

  “Quick! Get down!” That same hand shoved him hard and Delmar fell flat in the dirt. The sounds of charging knights thundered over their heads.

  “Siebrecht!” Alptraum called from atop his steed. “Take heart!”

  “Your brothers are with you!” Bohdan cried.

  “That is certain,” Gausser finished.

  They and a squadron of Wallenrode’s knights carved their path clear. Delmar and Siebrecht hauled themselves up, ready to stumble after, but as they did so they realised that the goblins were falling back, not in flight. Thorntoad had descended to the floor of the Dragon’s Jaw and had recalled all his warriors. When they looked at the conglomeration of tribes before them, both Delmar and Siebrecht knew they could not pass.

  For two hours now, the armies of the Empire and of the Ten Tribes of Thorntoad had hammered against each other in the Dragon’s Jaw. The battle left a trail of its dead behind on the banks of the riverbed as it staggered onwards through the pass: mostly greenskins, but some Reiksguard as well. The sergeants had done their best to recover those fallen, but the goblins swarmed each knight that fell and so precious few still lived to be rescued. Helborg could feel his army’s exhaustion, and as his brothers grew weaker so their losses would mount. Thorntoad had succeeded. The cost had been great: eleven thousand goblins began in his great horde and half of those now lay upon the field, and more had scattered, taking their chance to run into the mountains and escape both the Death Cap prods and the knights’ lances. But in throwing the goblin warriors’ lives into the grinder, Thorntoad had managed to wear the knights down to the point where the day was in its grasp. And now standing at the very end of the pass, in the throat of the Dragon’s Jaw, he had gathered the full Black Ear tribe and, at their centre, the ogres of Burakk the Craw. The ogres roared that the battle might continue, that they might fill their bellies to bursting, and the horde advanced to drive the Reiksguard from the pass and, perhaps, wipe them from this earth.

  If the circumstances had been ideal, Helborg would have retreated. Their achievements that day should have been enough for any army. But the truth of this day was that they had to pass through the Dragon’s Jaw, or retreat and be harried all the way to Averland. Helborg had known retreats before; they were terrible things, far costlier in lives than the fighting itself. A generation of the Empire’s eldest sons might be lost in these mountains if he turned his back upon this foe. Helborg arranged his own forces to make his s
tand. Most of his knights were dismounted, their horses too weak to carry them. These wearied foot-knights held the right, the militias the left, and in the centre all the cavalry that remained to him. His own guard and, perhaps, five score knights from a mix of banners.

  Burakk watched as his enemy stood before him, waiting to be ended. He had seen it before many times: the foe, so exhausted that he accepts his own death. Well, Burakk would oblige. Before him, the men had placed their horses; perhaps they would have one last charge in them, but it would be slow, and once they did, his ogres were ready to take their lives.

  As they closed, he heard the man general shout an order, and then suddenly the knights turned their horses around and walked back. That will not save you! Burakk thought to himself with glee.

  But as the knights retreated, they stepped around something else behind them. It was a sight he had seen before, and wished he would never see again. As the knights stepped back, they revealed a line of cannon. Cannon, whose black mouths gaped like death.

  “Fire!”

  The cannon roared louder than any man, than any ogre could. The cannonballs whipped past Burakk and through his ranks of bulls, ripping limbs from their sockets, smashing through gut-plates. Three of his bulls died in that instant. Burakk heard Thorntoad shouting: “On! On! Charge them down.”

  But Burakk could not. The cannon fired again and this time Burakk did not even look to see how many he lost. He turned his back and ran for safety back at the Stadelhorn Heights that reminded him of his home.

  His ogres ran with him, and following their example, the Black Ears broke as well. Facing defeat, Thorntoad had no choice but to escape as well, though as he went he swore vengeance against the ogres who had snatched such a victory from his grasp.

  The Dragon’s Jaw was forced, and the flowing Reik washed away the battlefield of the day. Tired but victorious, the Reiksguard made camp on the flat beyond. The sergeants and the bergjaegers stood guard, but all knew that after such a defeat, the goblins would not attack that night.

  Fires were lit against the plunging temperatures, and soldiers across the army gathered around them, trading tales of their day and alcohol with which to celebrate.

  “Keep that away from me,” Alptraum said to the wineskin Bohdan offered. The other Provincials sitting around the fire voiced their dismay.

  “Brother Matz,” a voice sounded from outside the circle. The conversation stopped and all the young knights turned to look at the newcomer.

  “Brother Reinhardt,” Siebrecht said. “I am glad to see you well recovered.”

  Delmar tried to smile through his split lip and bruised cheek. “A few scrapes only. I have fallen off horses enough to know how to bounce.”

  The knights laughed, but then there was that silence again. Siebrecht glanced at Gausser and he could read the Nordlander’s thoughts clear upon his face, but Siebrecht knew that his friend would not intervene to impose a settlement. No, Siebrecht knew, Gausser wanted he and Delmar to put the rivalry behind them themselves.

  “What are you doing standing there, Delmar?” Siebrecht said. “Come, you must help. The heroes of the Dragon’s Jaw here,” Siebrecht waved his cup at his friends across the fire, “have exhausted me with tales of their victory. I need reinforcement! Sit down. Sit down.” Delmar sat, easing his injured leg to the ground. “Bohdan,” Siebrecht continued, “another cup of that fine wine.”

  Delmar noticed Siebrecht give the Ostermarker a sly wink.

  “Oh yah,” Bohdan replied. He poured a large measure from the wineskin into a cup and handed it around the fire. Alptraum’s eyes flashed with mischief and only Gausser maintained his usual solemn demeanour. Delmar took the cup and went to taste it.

  “No, no, no,” Siebrecht interrupted, “you cannot sip it. Sipping is disrespectful to the wine, and disrespectful to the one who gave it.” He nodded pointedly at Bohdan.

  Bohdan took his cue and chimed in: “Yah, most disrespectful.”

  “You must be bold, Delmar,” Siebrecht continued. “As you were in battle today, unwavering. Seize the cup and drink it bravely.”

  Delmar ignored Siebrecht and instead swirled the wine thoughtfully. He did not much care for wine, and the concealed glee in Siebrecht’s face told him that this brew would be especially potent or vile. He could tip it out on the ground and walk away. That’s what the old Delmar would have done back in Altdorf; his mother had always told him to chart his own path and not play the games of others. But Delmar was learning that life was not so simple.

  This ploy of theirs was designed to embarrass him. If it had been Falkenhayn running the scheme then Delmar would know his motivation, for Falkenhayn raised himself up by pushing others down. But Siebrecht had saved his life today, why did he now want to make him look a fool?

  Delmar thought back to the day of their duel, his shock when Gausser had knocked his friend to the ground and refused to let him rise. Delmar had thought the Nordlander was saving his friend when in fact he had been saving Delmar. The truth was that only through a man’s intentions can one discern the real nature of his actions. The only question he had to answer was whether he thought, after all they had been through, he could trust this knight of Nuln.

  Delmar took a firm grip on the cup and then swigged the wine down. The other knights watched with baited breath. Delmar licked his lips; it had not been unpleasant, more savoury than sweet. But then he felt the inside of his mouth begin to heat, his gums were on fire and his teeth about to melt.

  “Well?” Siebrecht asked. “What do you think?”

  Delmar maintained his composure as much as he was able; he sucked in cold air but that gave him only a moment’s respite from the inferno. Summoning every ounce of his self-control he answered: “Palatable… An acquired taste perhaps,” and then collapsed into a coughing fit.

  The knights around the fire fell about laughing and Siebrecht slapped Delmar heartily on the back.

  “What is it?” Delmar gasped.

  “Ostermark pepper wine,” Siebrecht replied. “Dreadful gunk, but Bohdan seems to like it.”

  Through his watering eyes, Delmar saw Bohdan pour himself another cup and raise it to him in salute.

  “He lasted longer than you, Siebrecht,” Bohdan called.

  “He is more used to having fire in his belly,” Gausser stated.

  Siebrecht took mock offence. “I am simply more accustomed to the best,” he declared grandly, and the laughter continued.

  “Brothers!” A group of knights appeared around them. It was Falkenhayn, Proktor and Hardenburg. The laughter stopped. “This is where you have been hiding.”

  Falkenhayn looked around the circle at Bohdan, Alptraum and Gausser, and very deliberately ignored Delmar and Siebrecht. “Preceptor Jungingen sent us to find you. He wants to congratulate all the brothers who carried off the Death Cap standard, all together.”

  None of the Provincials moved. “Come on,” Falkenhayn insisted, “stand up, stand up. The preceptor’s orders.”

  Alptraum and Bohdan got to their feet at that. Gausser glanced at Siebrecht, but then did likewise. The Reiklanders welcomed them and Falkenhayn led them off. One of them, however, lingered at the fire.

  “What wine is that you’re drinking?” Hardenburg asked.

  “Ostermark pepper wine,” Delmar replied. He held his cup up to his brother-knight. “Come sit with us, Tomas, and try some.”

  Hardenburg hesitated. Delmar saw the indecision in his eyes. Hardenburg was a good man, but the privilege of his birth, his handsome face and his protective elder sisters had led him to sail through life, never having to make a decision of his own. And when he had joined the pistolkorps and then the Reiksguard, he had had Falkenhayn’s lead to follow.

  Now, though, he was troubled. Troubled by something he could not confide to his exacting and ambitious friend. He was beginning to realise what he had been missing: true brotherhood. It was not the wine he desired, it was the confidence of another troubled spirit that he saw in Delmar
. But Hardenburg found it was harder than he thought to defy the expectations of one he had followed for so long.

  “Another evening, Reinhardt,” Hardenburg said, his courage failing him. “Honour awaits.” And so he too went.

  Delmar and Siebrecht were the only ones left. It had only been seven days since the army had marched into the mountains, but Delmar felt so much had changed. Siebrecht most of all: the sly, fool-tongued wastrel that Delmar had challenged back in Altdorf was not the same man as the knight who had returned for him this day, shielding him when he was at the foe’s mercy, and giving up his own chance of glory at the same time.

  “I am sorry you cannot be with your friends,” Delmar said.

  Siebrecht turned back and looked deep into the fire. “It is no matter.”

  “It was a great service to me, and one I will strive to repay.”

  “No, no.” Siebrecht waved his finger. “You saved me once already. I have merely repaid you.”

  Delmar hesitated, but he could not accept any honour that was not rightfully his. “I should tell you, Siebrecht. I was not searching for you that morning. In truth, I did not even think of you until I saw you there. I was searching for another.”

  Siebrecht looked from the fire and stared at Delmar’s downcast, penitent face.

  “Yes. Griesmeyer. Of course you were,” Siebrecht said.

  Delmar looked up, confused.

  “Why,” Siebrecht continued, “in Sigmar’s name, would you have been searching for me? For me, more than any other knight? I was hiding under an ogre from goblins eating their dead!”

  Siebrecht threw up his hands. “But that does not impair my debt to you in the slightest. Why you were there does not matter. How you came across me does not matter. It is what you did when you found me that was your service.”

  “But, brother, a knight cannot take credit for an act he did not intend—”

  “Pah!” Siebrecht exclaimed. “Intention is overrated. My uncle told me years ago, ‘If you reward a man for good intentions, then good intentions are all you shall ever receive’. No. Reward a man for good actions. No matter your intention, your action when you saw me was to come to my aid.”