[Empire Army 02] - Iron Company

by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)

  “What…” he began, but his mouth was dry and his throat constricted.

  Two of Kossof’s men came up out of the darkness. The warrior priest handed Magnus to them, and he felt their rough hands prop him up. Kossof turned to head back into the fighting, hefting his warhammer with intent. Before he left, he fixed Magnus with a strange look.

  “Perhaps I was wrong about you, Ironblood,” Kossof said. “You started this. We will finish it. In all events, Sigmar will be honoured.”

  Then he was gone, tearing back towards the press of fighting men, wielding his hammer like a scythe.

  Magnus could barely see a thing. His vision was cloudy, and his whole side felt numb. He had the vague impression of being dragged into the darkness. The sounds of fighting died away. Around him, he could feel the swish of rough woollen cloaks. There were torches, and the noise of men rushing to and fro. Someone brushed past him, and the wound in his side sent out fresh spears of pain.

  Then he was out. The night air was chill. Suddenly, his senses revived. Magnus shook off his helpers, and shivered weakly. He was back at the cleft in the rock, at the head of the tunnel. There were men milling all around. Kruger was there.

  He looked up. The vast bulk of Morgramgar loomed up into the night. Its battlements were aflame. Great gouts of crimson fire soared up from the ramparts. Cracks had appeared in the walls. The green lights at the summit burned fiercely. The hum of machines still throbbed against the earth, but they sounded strained and labouring.

  “What’s happening?” Magnus asked, his voice cracking.

  Kruger rushed over to him.

  “You’ve been wounded, Ironblood,” he said, grabbing his arm to shepherd him away from the scene.

  Magnus shook him off impatiently.

  “Why’s Kossof here?” he snapped, feeling the cold air restore his awareness. The pain in his side was crippling.

  “He saw your handiwork from the camp,” said Kruger. “Scharnhorst thought you might need some help getting out.”

  All around them, men were being pulled from the tunnel entrance. Deep within the earth, the sounds of fighting continued, resounding outwards from the narrow cleft.

  “Come with me,” said Kruger, taking Magnus’ good arm again and dragging him from the tunnel.

  “Wait!” cried Magnus, struggling weakly against the knight’s iron grip. “Hildebrandt’s still in…”

  Before he could finish speaking, there was a huge, thudding explosion. A mighty plume of smoke burst from the tunnel entrance, showering the men around with debris. Kruger was knocked from his feet. He dragged Magnus down with him, who fell painfully on his side. The shards of agony returned, and he almost passed out.

  Desperately, filled with a terrible fear, Magnus pulled himself onto his hands and knees. The men around him were regaining their feet. The smoke from the tunnel continued to rise. There were further distant booms, and the sound of cascading stone. Magnus looked at the ruined cleft in horror. Whoever had been in the tunnel was surely dead. He felt sudden, fearful tears spike at his eyes.

  “So you made it too,” came a familiar voice.

  Magnus looked up. Hildebrandt was at his side, cradling a bleeding forearm and looking pale. Beside him, Thorgad was limping as were several of the survivors from the raiding party.

  A combination of relief and surprise washed over Magnus. He staggered to his feet. The pooled tears ran down his cheek. He felt himself becoming faint again. His left side was drenched in blood. Every time he moved he could feel it sticking against his flesh. “What happened?”

  “Kossof,” said Hildebrandt, his voice hollow. “His men filled the breach. They pushed the guards back. That got us out. I saw him. He was like a man possessed. Then…”

  He stopped speaking, and looked at the tunnel.

  “They blew it up behind them, Ironblood,” said Thorgad. Even his stoic dwarfish face looked shaken. “They sealed the breach with their own men, then set off more charges.”

  Magnus followed Hildebrandt’s horrified gaze. The last of the smoke curled lazily into the night air. The tunnel had become their rescuers’ tomb. And they had done it deliberately.

  Kruger came over to join them.

  “We need to leave,” he said more urgently. “It’s not safe, so close to the citadel.”

  Magnus ignored him.

  “Of all the unexpected…” he started. “Kossof.”

  He shook his head. The pain was getting worse. He could feel the bleeding start up again. Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter.

  “Ironblood,” said Kruger again, his voice commanding. “We need to leave.”

  Magnus turned at last to face him. The knight was beginning to annoy him. He was tired, and good men had died. Even men he hadn’t thought of as good had died.

  But then the last waves of fatigue and pain came crashing down. When the end came, it was sudden.

  Magnus fell back to his knees, barely feeling the sharp stone as it dug into his flesh. The whole world seemed to tilt on its axis, and his vision went dark. For a moment, he had the impression of falling, falling wildly, deep into a pit that went on forever. He thought he caught a last glimpse of Kossof’s face, set grim against the light of torches, and then it was gone. Magnus slumped to the ground, and knew no more.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  What are the origins of the Engineers? None know for sure. It is true that the great Leonardo came from Tilea, as have many of the finest minds in our field. There are numerous others who could lay reasonable claim to founding the new science. But my judgement is that all of these are wide of the mark. There is little under the sun that men have truly created. We have learned our arts of magic from the elves. We have learned our ways of battle from our ancient enemies, the greenskins and the beastmen. If you ask me where the roots of our engineering lie, you must look under the mountains themselves. For the fathers of our art, there can be little doubt, are the dwarfs.

  —Some Principles of Battlefield Gunnery,

  as Observed by a Practitioner, Ludwig von Meinkopt

  With the coming of the dawn, the fires on the ramparts had died out. The sun brought a cold, grey light to the dry valley before Morgramgar. The wind, the never-ceasing scourer of the land, continued to blast away at the thin grass and dry rock. The south walls of the citadel were dark and charred. Huge rents had been opened in the parapet. Thick black smoke continued to churn from some of the blasted holes. It drifted heavily from the damaged walls, before dissipating slowly into the pure, high airs of the mountains.

  Magnus looked at the scene dispassionately. His side ached horribly. He shifted slightly to one side, and spasms of pain ran through him. He winced, and clutched at the bandages swaddling his ribcage.

  “You’ve been lucky,” said Thorgad, munching on a cold chicken leg. Juice ran down his chin and into his voluminous beard. “I thought you’d been stuck good.”

  Magnus knew the truth of it. When he’d awoken with nothing more than a bad headache and a painful torso, the extent of his luck had become apparent. The apothecaries had done well, for once. He’d lost a lot of blood, but nothing vital had been pierced. If the blade had been just a few inches higher, then things might have been very different.

  The engineer was sitting with Hildebrandt and the dwarf on the ground in front of the artillery train, enjoying an improvised breakfast of cold meat and stale bread. Before them, the whole of Scharnhorst’s army was aimlessly preparing for the labours of the day ahead. There was little urgency about their movements. One of the great misconceptions about life in the armies of the Empire was that it was filled with constant action. In reality, most of the time was spent in either backbreaking labour or mind-numbing boredom. The moments of extreme danger or glory were rare. None of which made them less overwhelming when they came. And, as danger went, the raid into Morgramgar had been pretty extreme.

  Magnus sighed, and chewed gingerly on the last of his bread. Every movement of his jaw seemed to create an echo of dull pain i
n his ribs.

  “If it’s luck,” he said, “it doesn’t feel much like it.”

  He squinted into the distance. Beyond the ranks of slowly moving men and the half-mile of bleak, windswept valley floor, Morgramgar still lurked. If anything, the pall of smoke hanging over it seemed to amplify the sense of quiet dread that infused the place. After everything, all the bloodshed and explosions, still the citadel made no external sign of life. The battlements were empty. The chamber at the summit of the highest tower continued to glow a lurid green. The fires in the wolfs head over the gate burned. And beneath them, low and at the edge of hearing, the wheels still turned. It was impossible to escape that noise. The machines hidden deep within the vaults still ground and hummed. Their brief foray inside now seemed like a strange and unreal daydream. Even now, Magnus had trouble reconstructing what had happened.

  Thorgad followed his gaze for a few moments, then lost interest.

  “Gah,” he said, wiping his mouth. “You’re lucky you have me, for a start. You’d never have got in otherwise.”

  Hildebrandt looked at Thorgad with disapproval.

  “You should watch your mouth,” he said, spitting a knob of gristle onto the ground beside him. “We did what we set out to do. The guns are silent. And some men didn’t come back.”

  Thorgad raised a bushy eyebrow, but didn’t seem perturbed.

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t a success,” he said. “It damn well ought to have been, as well. That was a lot of digging, even for me.”

  Magnus didn’t join in the banter. He felt a conflict of emotions within him. It had been a long time since he’d been as close to death. He could still see the face of the arrogant soldier, his expected executioner. If Kossof had been a few moments later, then the result would have been different. He let a long, slow sigh escape his lungs, and tried to sit back on his hands. With difficulty, he managed it. Perhaps his ribs were knitting back together after all.

  Of all the strange things about the assault, the role of the flagellants had been the most perplexing. Like all good folk of the Empire, Magnus had always looked down on them. Crazies, they were called. Morrslieb-touched, Sigmar’s idiots, lash-lovers and worse. Kossof had seemed to Magnus just another in a long list of fanatics. To a man of science, the Sigmarites were the ultimate expression of the Empire’s barbarism and backwardness. In every college of learning in the Old World, from Nuln to Wulfgard, they were regarded as little better than madmen and criminals.

  Perhaps that view would have to change. In all his years as a soldier and engineer, Magnus couldn’t remember anything braver. Now many of them lay dead, their bodies buried under the mountain. If any had been taken alive, their fate was probably much worse. Those that had not been part of the desperate rescue, the bulk of the many hundreds in the army, had taken the losses in their stride. They had appointed a new leader, Kossof’s deputy, a man with bloodshot eyes called Johann-Mark Leibkopf. The sounds of whipcord and frenzy rose into the cold air of the camp just as they had done the day before. The regular soldiers still looked at the religious contingent with suspicious eyes, but there was less open scorn in their expressions now.

  “We should have planned better,” said Magnus, a bitter tone creeping into his voice. “It was foolish to think we’d get out on our own.”

  Hildebrandt looked at Magnus carefully. The big man carried his arm in a sling. Just like Ironblood, he’d been lucky. The wound wasn’t deep.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Tobias said, his voice rumbling warningly in his barrel chest. “Scharnhorst made the right decision to send them after us. And you delivered what you promised. The guns are silent.”

  “Yes, so you keep saying,” said Magnus.

  He found he couldn’t stay bitter for long. The taste of fresh air and the knowledge that he’d cheated death once more was as effective a tonic as anything else. He reached down to pick up the iron tankard by his side. There was still a slop or two of small beer in there. He raised it in the direction of the tunnel, and saluted.

  “I never thought I’d say it,” Magnus said. “But thank Sigmar for Kossof and his fanatics. Who knows? Perhaps they’re on the right track with all that holiness. In any case, I’m glad they came along.”

  Hildebrandt raised his tankard too, though with less conviction. Thorgad gave them both a contemptuous look, and shook his head. When he saw the dwarf’s sour face, Magnus laughed.

  The mirth didn’t last long. His sides were too painful.

  “So, what’s next for this glorious campaign?” he said, changing the subject. “We’ve bloodied them twice, but we’re still no nearer taking the walls. Any news from our esteemed general?”

  Hildebrandt tore off a fresh hunk of bread.

  “From what I hear, the assault will be soon. Scharnhorst wants another council before letting the army loose. He’s worried about how few guns we have. And the experience of being too hasty with the iron-belchers has taught him to take his time. You’ve got a day or two for your bruises to go down, I reckon.”

  Magnus winced. He could already feel his stitches begin to itch.

  “Well, if he wants someone to sort out the rocket launchers, he’ll have to wait a few hours at least. After last night, I’m not moving general or not. He’ll have to come to me.”

  Hildebrandt grinned. Thorgad squinted at him while eating.

  “Not very wise, I should think,” the dwarf said. “You’ve forgotten about your problem with Messina. He’s been hanging around the general for a while now like a penniless harlot. I think Scharnhorst likes the idea of an engineer he can manipulate. You’d better watch your back.”

  Magnus snorted bitterly, forgetting again how much it tortured his wounded flank.

  “That womanish bastard?” he said. “I’d forgotten all about him. Frankly, with all that’s gone on, I don’t really give a damn what he’s up to. We’ve shown General Ironguts what we’re made of, and he’ll have to pay attention to rank from now on. As for that Tilean pretty-boy, he can hang himself up by his glossy locks and swing in the wind for all I care.”

  Hildebrandt looked at Magnus, startled. Then his big face creased into a laugh, and it rolled out into the chill morning air. Even Thorgad was tickled, and his strange, gravelly chuckle joined Tobias’. It proved infectious. In the middle of the camp of war, surrounded by the weapons of death and the cries of the wounded, the three engineers gave up their habitual reserve, and laughed. For a moment, just a fleeting moment, the cares of battle lifted from them.

  Magnus joined in, heedless of the pain in his ribs. It was good to feel the layers of care fall from his shoulders for a moment. Soon they would be back again. The assault couldn’t be far away. And then all smiles would be banished, perhaps forever.

  Messina cursed floridly. A stream of Tilean expletives, most involving the parentage of the Empire’s ruling class, emerged from the wooden framework around him. Lukas looked at him anxiously. This was not going well. The Averlander scratched the back of his neck, and stood away from the carcass of the Blutschreiben. It was still far from complete, and time was running out.

  The two men were hidden under one of the larger canvas coverings at the back of the artillery encampment. Messina had hired several of the gunnery crews who had lost their great weapons to act as guards. A few pieces of exotic “silver” pieces from Luccini had been enough to buy their loyalty. They would only discover the coins were a worthless tin alloy when the campaign was long over.

  Under cover, and with a constant guard stationed outside to prevent casual spies, Ironblood’s plans, long in the devising, were finally coming to fruition. The design was fiendishly complex. In essence, the Blutschreiben was a massively powerful mobile repeating cannon. It used two standard iron barrels, mounted on an elaborate wooden chassis. The genius of it, though, lay in three particular things.

  First, the gunner was mounted on a seat on top of the structure and could direct the firing of the mechanism with consummate ease. A series of ropes, pulle
ys, brass dials and levers controlled every aspect of the gun’s movement and detonations. The complicated and finely wrought gear mechanisms for this had been made by Ironblood himself. Like all the detailed sections of the machine, they had been taken from the great chests and bolted on to the crude wooden frame.

  Second, there was an ingenious system for loading ammunition. Unlike the laborious process of sponging ramming, firing and cleaning required for an ordinary cannon, in the case of the Blutschreiben everything was automatic. The complexity here was quite astounding, and the barrels of the cannons were surrounded with a lattice of greased ropes and linked chains, each with a specific function. Should any part of the system not work as expected, then the whole was liable to collapse. Given the amount of blackpowder contained within the machine’s innards, a malfunction was not something the gunner would welcome.

  Third, the barrels could be swivelled around on a great brass-lined turret. When the chassis had chugged its way into position, the gunner could dispense with any further movement, and spin his position around in a ninety-degree arc by using the steam-powered controls. A mighty furnace, perilously close to the blackpowder caches, provided the locomotive power for the pistons which drove the targeting. As ever, Ironblood’s machinery for delivering such power was monstrously involved. A maze of copper piping sprouted from the rear of the gun platform. Only half of this had been connected thus far, and it already looked like a nest of baby snakes. The rest lay on the floor of the tent, jumbled in a heap where a frustrated Messina had dumped them.

  Lukas looked over their handiwork so far, and sighed a weary sigh. He hadn’t slept much since Messina had convinced Scharnhorst to let them build the damned thing. While Ironblood had been busy with the tunnelling, it had been relatively easy to keep the construction under wraps. Now that the engineers had returned, it was only a matter of time before they discovered what Messina and he were up to.