by Death
Wolfram pointed to either side of the oncoming warband. ‘Adler, you’ll take the blues down the south side. I’ll take the north.’
‘Hit and run, hit and run,’ Adler confirmed. Wolfram noticed that none of them addressed him as they would a commander, but neither did anyone question his orders. He remembered that they were used to fighting in smaller companies for other generals, and competed amongst themselves for glory. Perhaps none of them wanted to challenge his authority in front of the others. Perhaps that was the best he could hope for.
Langmeier accepted the reins of his mount from Drescher. Wolfram cast his gaze back into the camp, looking for men who weren’t ready yet. The western sentries crested the rise and made haste towards the remaining horses.
In the centre of the camp, still, stood the captured banner.
Like the marauders’ shields, the symbols upon it were radiant, no doubt sensing the foul stench in the wind. Wolfram knelt beside it and uprooted it. An unpleasantly sticky slime had oozed along the pole of the banner, but it unnaturally receded around Wolfram’s fingers, leaving enough room to grip it and feel its warmth.
Langmeier spat. ‘You think we should ride into battle under a piece of filth like that?’
Wolfram hefted the banner. ‘It might make them think twice before attacking us. And in a strange way, we are fighting for it.’
‘I’ll ride with Keefer,’ said Langmeier.
Only one of the saddles had been fitted so the banner could be lashed to it and borne triumphantly forward. So Wolfram sat high upon his father’s white horse, the pole strapped in front of his left leg, the fervent cloth flapping behind him in the wind.
He turned in the saddle to address his troops. ‘Rothstein’s Pistoliers! White sleeves, with me. Blue, with Adler. For Middenheim and Heiner, we ride!’
With a swift kick, he led off. The pistoliers cascaded down the slope behind him. He flicked at the reins, urging his horse into a gallop, then looped them around his wrist and pulled to the left, Horstern and Trauss at his sides. Adler and Langmeier broke off to the right, a hundred blue-sleeved pistoliers behind them.
They pounded across the scrub, keeping the marauders to their right. The white-sleeves had the advantage: they were right-handed and the marauders held their shields to the south. They drew their pistols, pointing them to the right, finding spaces between each other to pick out victims, keeping pace.
Wolfram picked out the lead marauder, gauging his distance. The warrior’s head, between the horns protruding from his helmet, seemed the most exposed part. A hundred and fifty yards, he reckoned. If the marauders intended to attack, rather than riding past, then now was the time for their leader to decide on which formation to charge. Wolfram kept pace and direction, his attention snapping between his horse and his enemy’s.
A hundred yards. A little closer. He started to drift his aim to the right, ahead of the pack. Up and down, up and down with the horse’s thundering steps.
The lead marauder veered his horse to the north. From the rear of the warband, warriors peeled off, heaving their hammers up and around. They’ve picked us, Wolfram thought, flicking his reins again. Closer, closer. He couldn’t think to the riders behind him, only trust that perhaps forty had a clear view to fire.
‘Fire!’ he yelled, pulling the trigger. A ripple of explosions thundered behind him, a startling noise for all the horses. The lead marauder twitched in the saddle, and the man to his right screamed from a shot through the chest. Wolfram kept his mount in check, allowing his pistol to swing from its lanyard and drawing the other.
The second volley fired like the first. This time it rippled along the flank of the marauders. Black steeds toppled over broken legs, pitching their masters to the ground. The pistoliers rode on, east and away from the wheeling warriors. They turned in their saddles to reload their pistols. South of them, Adler’s riders emptied their pistols at the marauders’ rear and veered north and around to get a second shot.
The white-sleeves fanned out into a long row and wheeled tightly, individually. Once more they reformed behind Wolfram, charging back towards the camp. The marauders, too, had spread out for a wider frontage. Coruscating lights drew his attention to the warrior bearing the bone staff. Sorcerer, Wolfram realised.
‘Again! South,’ Wolfram shouted. Horstern, several horses behind him, blew at his bugle, two short blasts. The pistoliers veered to the left. Wolfram furiously reloaded his second pistol, spilling powder across his thighs. Men who hadn’t fired picked out individual marauders. Wolfram trained his eye on a broad-chested barbarian with a great axe and no breastplate.
The man to Wolfram’s left fired, sudden and alone. Wolfram swivelled. Keefer Adler, far to his left, slid from his horse mid-wheel. He could not close his eyes before Langmeier’s horse inevitably trampled him.
Herzkluge – Herzkluge? – smoothly swapped his pistols and pointed the second past Wolfram’s back, at the sorceror.
Wolfram’s fingers tightened around the reins. His head was pounding, pounding again. He held his own pistol out to the right, aiming for the marauders’ right flank. He could hear chanting. He fired, fired wild, and it continued. He heard the discordant reverberations of forty more shots, and forty more, cracking, cracking to the right. A howl and roar of heavy cavalry riding into battle; the screams of anguished riders and their steeds suffering burns to the head and face.
Then
silence.
No sound of hooves, nor crack of gunfire. No battle cries, nor cries of pain. No chants.
He could smell heather, thick and fragrant.
‘The veil is lifted,’ he heard.
The cacophony of battle returned, as suddenly as it left, in all its screaming glory. The damned banner burst into flames. Thick, burning amber pus splattered over him, scorching his face. He clutched at his eyes to clear his vision, pulling hard at the reins. His horse, shrieking in agony, careened from the formation.
‘You can hear me,’ Wolfram heard.
He whirled in his place, seeking the origin of the voice. Hurriedly he waved his sleeves across his horse’s back, wiping the foul liquid away. He drew his knife from his boot, and razored it swiftly across the banner straps. They were bound tight, and hard to cut.
‘I can see the colours of Rothstein beneath that foul banner.’
He heaved the horse to a halt and looked around. The pistoliers, their divisions indistinguishable, surrounded the marauders’ position on all sides. He could see Langmeier to the north, drawing his sabre. Horsten, blasting his bugle, sounding the call to break away again. Brave, stoic Drescher at the south, aiming his pistol at Trauss’s back.
Keefer Adler, impossibly alive, riding once more into the fray.
A cold chill took him, turning his breath to steam. An awareness of things not right. The banner still sat, warm in the saddle, urging him to surrender his awareness and return to battle.
Magic, he thought, cursing. Sorcery. ‘Show yourself!’ he demanded.
‘Look upon us,’ he heard.
He sought the bone-white staff above the wall of riders. A rod, gleaming white, rose and fell, here and there. A gap appeared briefly among the pistoliers, and thirteen great horses penetrated it. Thirteen great warriors rode them.
Twelve wore wolfskin pelts over their shoulders, grey and dusty. Their armour shone silver. Fur tails hung from their immense warhammers, which were hooded in black cloth. Their breastplates were blue, their livery red. The last wore a black cloak over black armour, and bore a great sword.
White Wolves.
Red Company, to be specific, and a templar of the Black Guard of Morr.
‘Do you see your crime, Rothstein?’ the voice accused. ‘Can you perceive the pain you have wrought, the wrath invoked, the vengeance demanded?’
The sorcerer emerged into view: a haggard wizard, his amber cloak ragged and blackened by shot. His white staff crackled with power.
The banner erupted once more. Wolfram shoved the banner away, s
taggering the horse to one side. The oily fluid singed and bit at his wrists and his steed’s mane, but most of it splashed harmlessly to the ground.
‘Surrender your illusions, Rothstein!’ ordered the wizard. ‘Cast aside your taint. It is not foul marauders you have hunted and slain these past four months. They were innocents! Foresters and woodsmen. Timber merchants and their wagons. Travellers across the Middenland. Men! Women! Children!’
‘Lies!’ Wolfram snarled. They had hunted the warriors who had preyed on the innocent. They had slain them all. They had been glorious.
Yet now they were killing Ulric’s own templars. He couldn’t deny it.
No marauders, he realised. Sorcery. He sawed frantically at the straps now, severing one, starting another.
No honour, he cursed. Four months!
A second cord split. The banner pitched to his right, spewing in protest.
What atrocities have we committed under you, he fumed. How many dead?
‘It is not enough to discard the standard, Rothstein,’ said the wizard. ‘It must be destroyed utterly. Bring it to me.’
He cut the final strap, and looked again to the fight, the spiralling riders, indiscriminate now in their carnage. Reiniger shot at a Wolf and hit Langmeier. Horstern cleaved his sabre at Adler and decapitated a Wolf. Petty feuds perpetuated, amplified. Tainted.
The White Wolves fell, and Rothstein’s Pistoliers endured.
No more, he decided.
He drew both pistols, aimed them into the air, and discharged them. He tore open the saddlebag of black powder and let it spill. Then he hefted the banner pole under his arm like a lance, and kicked his heels against the flanks of his steed.
I shall shoot both moons, he had said to Adler and Herzkluge. Now he would bring them down upon their heads.
He charged towards the wizard. The whitebeard lowered the staff and cast an invocation. The staff crackled once more with white lightning, and struck out at him. The banner, defiant, pounded in resistance in his head. Wolfram held true. With every juddering step his horse took, a piece of flaming leather snapped off and fluttered to the ground.
He remembered. He remembered the pain.
The axeman who severed Drescher’s head from his neck. The warrior who broke Langmeier’s shoulders and ribs with his great snaking sword. The dying marauder with no teeth, throwing with his last breath the almighty hammer which had crushed his own skull. All these and more, the pistoliers had killed.
He let it all burn away.
The horned totem atop the pole roared with fury, screeched its last, and died.
His head felt clear, elated. He rocked back in his saddle, victorious. The sounds of tankards thumping on oak tables and of hearty salutations filled his mind. This was a tale worthy of Ulric’s halls, he thought. He would enjoy telling it to his father.
The pistoliers’ ghosts, as one, vanished.
Leaving one pistolier still riding.
The banner pole lanced the sorcerer through the chest, thudding between his ribs, and snapped. He cannoned from the horse and struck the ground, his limbs suddenly slack. The bone staff whirled away into the scrub.
Heiner Rothstein tossed the broken stick aside and looked around for more enemies. When he couldn’t see any, he swore, turned his horse around and whipped the reins, kicking it into a gallop. His scarlet cloak thrashed in the wind.
The sorcerer’s mount, a chestnut creature, heard the pounding of hooves behind it and accelerated. He urged his horse to match its velocity, and drew his pistol from his belt. He couldn’t get closer than fifty yards; his steed was tired.
Heiner fired and the chestnut fell, driving its nose into the earth.
He returned to the field of carnage and picked a warhammer from the weapons of the fallen. It didn’t do to leave a horse suffering. As he pulled the black cloth from the warhammer he heard a deep voice behind him. He turned. Perhaps there was still a chance.
A pale-skinned man wrapped in a black cloak knelt beside a dead warrior, performing rites over the body. A dark helm, resembling that of a templar of the Black Guard, sat at his foot. Heiner concentrated on it, disturbed by the lack of corruption. It had no horns or teeth.
The man looked at him and then stood, the flow of his robes betraying the outline of his black breastplate and a scabbard, at his left side. Surprisingly he made no attempt to draw the sword, or attack. He stood still. In the man’s left hand, Heiner recognised the shard of the banner pole he had discarded only minutes earlier. The loss of the standard was fresh in his mind and he roiled at the thought of even a piece of it being recaptured.
‘The sorcery has ended,’ said the man. ‘The unquiet souls are free.’
Heiner gripped the warhammer’s haft more tightly. ‘Draw your weapon,’ he challenged.
The man’s voice was soft and measured, entrancing and without anger, rejecting him without confrontation. ‘This foul artefact has ended enough lives already. We will not serve it further.’
What new marauder trick is this, Heiner thought?
‘My duty, Rothstein, is to those deceased who were denied Morr’s peace by this ruinous standard, and enslaved to battle by your desires for glory. I must ensure their final rest, and you are my best chance of finding and consecrating their remains. But make no mistake: this is your only chance for penance, and if you make any other choice I will send you to the father of Death myself. Will you yield your quest?’
The question hung in the air between them. Heiner’s eyes narrowed, his gaze hunting in the other man’s eyes for the twitch before the inevitable attack.
‘Rothstein, for the sake of your son, will you yield?’
‘For the sake of my son, I will not!’ Heiner yelled. Suddenly he swung the hammer upwards. The warrior threw himself backwards but it crashed against his breastplate, sending him thundering to the ground. He struggled to rise but Heiner hit him again, cracking his ribs. ‘My son. My glory. Nothing else matters! Draw your weapon, maggot!’
The man drew his sword between difficult, heaving breaths, and fought to hold it upright, towards Heiner’s heart. Heiner lifted the hammer again and brought it down, at the same time pushing his chest upon the point of the blade. Frustratingly, the man spasmed and died. The sword clattered to the floor.
He cursed. Could none of these whoresons kill him in battle?
The men were quiet tonight. It made a change. Most nights they argued constantly; it kept him awake. The boy irritated him especially, talking incessantly.
Heiner turned the leg over the fire until the smoke blocked out the smells of the carnage around him, the fumes of intestine and bowel.
The horseflesh was all he had found worth eating. It would do. It wasn’t salted beef, and he hadn’t any red wine, but such was war. The rations would only stretch so far, and the men would need to save something for the ride home. The boy in particular was fond of the port, and he’d kept a flask aside for the boy to toast his memory with after he was gone.
He chewed slowly, and swallowed with difficulty. He hoped his face wasn’t too blotchy. He was taking a strange pride in looking his best at the moment, and he was running out of wax to keep his moustache springy. His hair was getting patchier. If they couldn’t track down something to kill him soon he was sure he would go demented.
Crows flew overhead, drawing his attention to the east. There, Heiner Rothstein saw the dust of more riders cresting the horizon.
Broken Blood
Paul Kearney
They broke cover in the afternoon, just as the snow was starting again. Morgan spat over his horse’s ears as Arundel cantered up to him, as breathless as his mount.
‘Out of the trees – maybe eight score of them. They’re heading for the river.’
‘How far?’
‘Half a mile. Not more. Briscus has it in hand.’
‘Get back to him, Arundel. Hold them there. This is a feint, or I’m a lady’s maid. They’re trying to pull us out. You get back to Briscus and tell him to h
old his lines.’
Arundel, a slim, ruddy-faced youth barely out of his teens, slapped his gauntlet to his chest. ‘They won’t get by us, general.’
Off he went again, kicking the ribs of his horse. Gabriel Morgan smiled. Was I ever that young, he wondered? Methodically, he opened his saddle-holsters one by one and checked the slim matchlock pistols within. They were dry and loaded, their grips as familiar to him as the hilt of his sword.
Beside him, Jubal Kane sat impassively. ‘That boy has done some growing up these past five months,’ he said in his bass rumble. The words seemed to emerge from his beard. His eyes narrowed – the closest he came to smiling.
‘They’ve aged us all, these last months,’ Morgan retorted. He clapped shut the holster-covers. Time enough yet to light the match.
‘You think they’ll make the main move here, at the ford?’ Jubal asked him.
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘We should perhaps call in the other wings, then.’
‘Not yet, Jubal. They’re all afoot. We can dress our lines quicker than they can. Briscus and Harpius will hold where they are for now.’
A grunt in reply. Jubal Kane was not a man to waste words. He stroked the thick neck of his warhorse with one gauntleted fist. He looked old, sitting there in a cloud of his own breath. Frost had whitened his beard, giving him the aspect of an aged man, and his eyes were set in a tired mesh of lines and folds, dramatically so at the corner of the right one, where a livid scar buckled the skin in ridges. But the cold eyes were clear and bright – as hard as the icicles which hung in the lee of every rock, this high up in the Troll Country.
He and Morgan had ridden at each other’s side these past twelve years, and knew each other better than most brothers.
Most brothers.
Morgan twisted in the saddle and looked behind him. The wide white high-country extended to the horizon, a blinding snowscape dotted by black scattered woods. To the east, the Worlds Edge Mountains were a mere glimmer on the edge of sight, and to the south the open country rolled in a white waste of rocky ridges and scattered pinewoods, all the way down to the Urskoy River, perhaps some thirty leagues away. Erengrad, their base of operations, was three days, hard ride from here. If they were bested on this field, there would be no sense in retreating. They had no place to run.
