Swords of the Empire

by Edited by Marc Gascoigne

  I raised my hands for peace and waited. The rider came clattering back, and brought with him another. This lancer was as finely amour-clad as the others, though he seemed at once to have some bearing the others did not quite possess.

  'I have read your letters,' he said, using the language of the Reik perfectly.

  'I would have ridden to you at once had I known. You carry no banner, and seemed to us to have the look of raiders.'

  'Your pardon, sir,' I replied. 'We have sought to conduct our errand as anonymous travellers rather than as a mission of the Imperial crown.'

  He nodded, and handed me back my belongings. 'These are unruly times. Welcome to Svedora, Sire von Kallen. I am named Subarin, of the rota of Svedora krug.'

  A rota, as I had discovered earlier in the summer, was the Kislevite word for banner, and every town and stanitsa had its own. Around that banner, the town's band of lancers would form, their gathering known by the symbolic word ''krug'', of which is meant ''circle''. A stanitsa's rota of lancers was sworn to protect both its own town and the community in the region round it. In return, the community of town and country funded the splendid armour and weapons of the riders. Settlements took special pride in this: a rota might be small or large, but it was always splendid. At times of great war, the rotas of all the towns in a region would form together into an army or ''pulk'', supplemented by infantry and bowmen drawn from levies.

  The Svedoran rota gallantly escorted my company up the trail and into the town itself. Subarin was not the ''rotamaster'' - the honour of commanding the lancers fell to a slender, older man named Buryan. But Subarin - who, when he removed his helm, was revealed to be a commanding fellow with close-set green eyes that seemed quick and clever - was a man of education who had spent time in the Empire, and his fluency with my language accorded him the duty of dealing with Imperial matters.

  Svedora had a commanding position above the valley, its size well disguised by the stands of myrtle and oak that lined the slopes. To its west, above the aspen-shingled roofs of the town, and the golden onion dome of its zal, the ragged foothills of the Czegniks rose away, half-hidden in garlands of cloud. The town, and its walls, were made of clay, baked into pink blocks that reminded my eye of the sugar and gelatine fancies they sometimes serve at court. The place was old indeed. On some walls were carvings, weathered by the fingers of time. They showed winged lancers with couched spears, men riding wolves, and nymphs of the myrtle woods.

  The townsfolk came out, and made loud welcome, ringing handbells, chimes and tambors. We were greeted well, and fed, and our horses were cared for. One thing above all else that may be admired of the Kislevite: he values the horse, and knows its keeping.

  We were presented to the ataman, and to sundry other estimable men, but the town's shaman we did not see. At length, Sire Jochrund and his clerk were taken to meet with the wise man in some secret place. They did not return until the next morning.

  That night, I spoke with Subarin. 'Do you always ride out in full gear at the first sign of riders in the valley?' I asked of him.

  'There had been auguries,' he said. 'Symbols in nature that the shaman warned us of. We thought evil rode with you.'

  'Just magic,' I said.

  He nodded, and swallowed a glass of samogon as a vouchsafe against ill-omen.

  We spoke then of other matters, mostly of horses, in which Subarin took a particular interest. He made comment favourably on the warhorses my company rode, especially my own great destrier, all markedly larger beasts than the lancers' mounts. 'That was the first clue I had that you were not bandits... the size of your steeds. Only knights of the Empire and Bretonnia put the spur to warhorses of such measure.'

  Subarin, it was revealed, owed his reputation and wealth to horse trading. He was esteemed across the region for his expertise in that wise, and the business had taken him as far as Middenheim in his younger days. He told me that night of the Kurgan, the ravagers who dwelt in the North. They too rode great warsteeds, he said, but there is no trade in them for they cannot be caught, let alone broken by civilised men.

  At dawn, Sire Jochrund's clerk returned to us, his narrow eyes filled with sleep from a night spent in wakefulness. He told me (quite uncivilly, for he believed the eminence of his master bestowed some rank upon him also) that Sire Jochrund would be staying at this place for another two days, for he was engaged in great discourse with the wise man, and refused to be taken from it. To his sullen face, I told him that this was not to my liking. I had already urged the wizard that we should be commencing our return journey. Sigert shrugged, as if to dismiss me, and I urged him a second time to impress upon Sire Jochrund the gathering urgency of our departure. That morning, there had been frost upon the clay walls of Svedora, and a glassy cool in the air.

  An hour or so presently, Sire Jochrund himself reappeared, and took me to one side for quiet words. There was an almost unseemly excitement about him, and his golden eyes darted all about. In his soft voice, he assured me we had to stay a while, for which news he was sorry.

  'If we ride away now, Jozef, we risk losing the very worth of our mission. There is lore here, young man, that the Colleges of Magic must possess.'

  He had begun to call me Jozef most frequently, as if I were his son, and perhaps it should have flattered me that he thought so. But it rankled me. I was ever courteous to him, calling him most formally ''Sire'', yet he showed my office of knighthood no comparable respect.

  Still, I consented to his wishes. I imagine it is hard for an ordinary mortal man, even a trained warrior of the Reik, to say no to a wizard, and to this soft-voiced, golden-eyed magician, it was impossible.

  Sometimes, I fancied he had put some conjuration on me.

  So, we waited for two days. The horses were glad of the rest, the men too. Some took the time to wash clothing or repair their wargear and trappings and resharpen their blades. Others shaved their cheeks and chins of beards that had grown on the journey. I did not. My hair, which usually I wore shaved up about the nape and ears, as is the custom beneath bascinet helms, had grown out, and my face was decorated with a bristle of beard. I had vowed not to cut nor trim the hair of my head until my return, as a mark of dedication to my mission, in Sigmar's name.

  Subarin noticed that I was ill at ease and, in company of some of his fellow lancers, diverted my mind with hunting trips into the forest. We caught nothing but a few dapple-deer, for it was an excuse to ride free and fast, and forget troubles. The men of the rota had put off their fine armours, and dressed themselves in leathers and furs, but I noticed that Subarin still carried a fine saddle-sword, broad and straight, of the most exquisite damascened working, with all finery of lions and horsemen upon the golden scabbard. He saw me admire it, and showed it me, claiming it was many generations old, though the blade seemed new struck. A Scythian sword, he said, forged and owned by the great horse people that had once roamed these regions before the Gospodar khans led the Kislevite tribes to mastery of the land. Beside it, my Imperial blade seemed crude and dull.

  In the landscape about Svedora, there were many curious places, shown to me by the worthy Subarin. A heathland upon which great stones stood in a ring, into which area no bird or animal made noise or motion. Other stones, graven with weather and lichen, had all but worn smooth, stood in glades of the woodland, and amongst the dense steppe thistles that choked the ravines of fast, falling streams.

  In another place, very deep in the darkest belt of the woodland, my companions drew me to a ruinous tower that lingered amidst many tall maple trees. It was made of a black stone, finely dressed so as to be smooth, and was fully twenty horse lengths around about the base. At the height of a goodly oak, the tower was split asunder and broken, suggesting that once the tower had soared unto the sky. No fallen blocks or splinters of black stone remained around its base to attest to the disaster that had befallen it, nor did any of the fine maples grow within ten lengths of it, and further, no ivy or mosses lived upon its smooth, cyclopean walls.
We rode about it thrice, widdershins as Subarin insisted, and I remarked that no door or window slit could be found in its sides. It was a mystery, he agreed, and it seemed that was why he had chosen to show it to me. None could say who had raised it, or when, or by what mischance it had come to be destroyed. When I asked him if any man had ever assayed to climb the walls and enter the tower through the broken top part, he laughed, as if such a thought was madness. I thanked him for showing me such a strange wonder, but were happy in my heart to ride away from that eerie glade.

  In the early part of the morning of the third day, without reference to Sire Jochrund or his mealy-mouthed clerk, I roused the men and set the company for departure. All drawn up, we waited the length of an hour, and then, as I was about to send for the wizard, he appeared with Sigert in tow. His work in Svedora was done, he proclaimed, and for a moment, my heart was happy.

  But then he gave me new instruction. From the wise man of Svedora, he had learned of a place called Kzarla, which lay up in the hills, and this place he now intended to visit also. His eagerness to reach Kzarla was even greater than it had been to come to Svedora. 'Seven days, Jozef, seven days there and back,' he told me, 'and then our work will be truly done!'

  I made protest, but it was to no avail. We were to Kzarla bound, whatever I liked of it.

  As we made to depart the gates of Svedora, the men of a mood quite downcast at the further travail, Subarin rode to us with two of his comrades. They were dressed in furs and cloaks for travel, but beneath wore the bright armour of their kind. Their lances and wings were wrapped in bundles across the backs of their steeds, and their golden spike-helms bounced at their waists. Subarin hailed me. At the advice of the town elders, he would ride in our company, so as to guide us directly to lonely Kzarla. This much he did to make as short as possible our journey, for he said the tracks of the hills were treacherous and befuddling to the newcomer. With his aid, we could make the ride as short as possible, and so speed the hour of our return. I thanked him for it, as did my sire the wizard.

  They led us away from Svedora in the morning light, turning north and west into the ranges of the Czegniks, ascending steep tracks that wound between the stands of larches and mountain ash. The air was chill and damp, and there was no colour in the sky. Svedora's pink walls vanished below us in the mist, and above, the hills rose grey and severe, with the purple threat of greater summits beyond them.

  The three Kislevites rode sure-footedly. Subarin's comrades were named Baibek and Markovo. Baibek was a small man with intense grey eyes, like a snow-owl, and his face was set always in a frown. Markovo was of larger build, with a wide jaw and half-shut eyes. He had a bright smile that he flashed like a sword blade.

  Despite our guides, the going was slow, for the track was scarcely fit for our small wagon. We laboured in dim, tree-lined vales, and crawled up the black soil paths between rock crests, passing more than once marvellous cascades of water that fell in crashing, smoking streams into dark plunges below, bright as the girl's hair in the storybook.

  Two days we laboured, up into the hills, passing so high above the table of the earth that we left all sign of trees behind. The hill country was heath and coarse grass, bramble and thistle, all swayed by the winds that blew down across these sloping pastures. Low cloud veiled the land, and brought rain and some little hail to us. Winter, I knew full well, was all but upon us.

  Half a day from Kzarla, Subarin advised caution. Baibek had been riding ahead to scout the bleak country, and had returned with word that we were not the only riders abroad in the hills. From a distance, he had sighted a band of warriors on horseback, and counted forty shields. We paused, and made secure our armour, cinching it tight and placing helms upon our heads. We eased our swords in their sheaths, and made other preparation as necessary, then moved on again, following the track into a vale swirling with mist and vapour. Strange ringing and moaning came upon our ears, but Subarin told me this was but the echo of our traces and the song of the wind amongst the peaks.

  Barely was I reassured than we were attacked.

  They were, as I learned after, warriors of a brute-clan called the Kul, one of the many fraternities of Kurgan who claimed sovereignty of the North, and who knew only the worship of the feral gods and daemons in their savage minds. They thundered out upon us on their braying nags, full tilt, raising up a din of raw voices and furious howls. Each one of them was of mighty frame, dark-haired with unruly, matted locks, and they wore great pitch-black helms fixed most fearfully with horns and tusks. Beads and shells and also scalps and talismans rattled against their painted chests.

  I gave sharp order and turned the company into their face, rising our pace to a counter-charge, for there was no wise of retreat or flight. I drew my sword and in we went, hooves clattering on the flinty soil, harnesses ringing. We shouted aloud the war cry of Sigmar to drown out their grim holler, and mingled with it I heard the battle call of the rota fly out from Subarin's lips. His glorious golden sword was flashing in his hand.

  Such impact is made when charge meets charge. There are many distinct sounds of war - the clash of sword blades, the whistle of the axe, the thump of the arrow, the crack of gunpowder - but to my mind, there is no sound more true to the spirit of battle than the bone-shaking clash of riders crossing riders. It is the sound of knightly combat, where strength and skill are contended in equal measure. And it is not merely a sound. It is an uncommon jolt, a quake, like rocks smiting against one another, like a tree's trunk splitting, like a mountain falling down upon the flat earth.

  Into their fury we raced, and that sound of impact was made. My blade was held out wide, and through it I felt the jar of collision, turning a rider back off his steed in a wild flailing that tossed broken tatters of his shield into the sky. Then another Kul went by at my left side, and down I sat so that my head might escape his swinging axe. To the right again, and a third raider, standing in his stirrups to stab at me with a pig-spear as he passed. He had not, I fancy, met a knight of the Reiksguard before, for there was a measure of surprise upon his horrid face as my sword broke his spear and clove in through his side to the breastbone, wrenching him off his horse in one action.

  All around me, men were yelling and chargers snorting. The vale rang with the noise of traded blows. I heard the handgunners in my company volley their shots. Heavy crashes resounded as horses and men tumbled down. Two Kul spurred forward at me, both with swords, but I met them without falter, and did for one right swiftly, striking my blade across his neck.

  The other lunged and made to cut me, and for his trouble I struck of his sword-arm at the joint, causing a goodly measure of hot blood to gout into the air. Schroder flew past me, with Konstanz, Lipfert and Brendel, all four furnished with spears they had couched point forward. Their course brought them hard into a quintet of Kul riders, and spear hafts clattered and snapped as three of the enemy were bowled over onto the ground. His spear lost, Schroder swept out his own sword, and laid about him, cutting the skull-top away from one passing Kul, so that his wretched body flopped sideways and was dragged by his frantic steed, plashing the liquor of his brain across the stones.

  Near at hand, another Kul warrior, a very large creature with a ribbed hauberk of iron, was knocked from his saddle with mighty force as a javelin transfixed his torso through, front unto back. Markovo galloped past me, and I saw that it had been his sure hand that had launched the throwing spear to such fatal effect.

  A further two Kul fell to my sword as I plunged into the thick of them, and a scrape I took across the left arm for my trouble. A third then, howling like a dog-fox, seemed hungry for my blade too, so I gave it him, and thank you kindly sir, and ripped out his lights with its sharpness before he could even bring his axe towards me.

  I heard then a sharp cry aside me over the din of combat, and turned my head and horse in distress to see that Schroder had been cast off his steed onto the ground, with a wound upon his hip. Three of the enemy had dismounted in glee to rend him ap
art where he lay. I leapt from my own saddle, and ran in amongst them, killing two before they had even realised the peril at their heels. The third turned on me with his warsword, and met my blade with a loud chime of metal. Before I had yet finished him, more had run in, brandishing their filthy black swords and axes, howling for my blood and Schroder's. I put my will into my arm and my sword into their flesh, crashing them over, ripping them aside, striking them back so that, 'ere long, the ground was all of wringing wet with their heathen blood, and my vestments and armour were greatly besmirched too. Bodies piled around me, and it seemed the sight of such a number of their dead made them, in rage, strive yet more earnestly for my murder. All at once, a golden sword was cutting through their painted flesh and hairy backs, breaking spines and shattering jaws. Subarin, slight and small compared to the massive tribesmen, was yet making trophies of them, the splendid glitter of his armour seeming him to appear like a fine god amid the rude beasts.

  Through force of arms, we cut our way to each other, breaking their shields and their hopes, and found, in the space of a heartbeat, the enemy had failed and fled. A dozen or so of the Kul galloped away up the valley in frantic flight, leaving a grievous number of their kin dead amongst the gorse and thistle, their horses scattering loose, bridles dragging.

  I took quick account, and called the company to order, sending three men to round up my horse and the others that had gone free. Subarin, delighted by the victory, clapped his hands around my own, and all were bloody with our deeds.

  Three men of my company were dead. I write their names here as memorial to their courage, for their lonely graves will like as not never be found in these remote hills. They were Mannfred Kruz of Altdorf, Lodmir Ameling, also of that town, and Sigmund Manhart of Talabec. Four more, including Schroder, had taken wounds, but none that could not be salved and bound so they might continue able.