[Empire Army 02] - Iron Company

by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)

  Though Lukas didn’t know why Ironblood was quite so set against the use of his master weapon, he could take an educated guess. Like all experimental projects, the thing looked horribly dangerous. A standard cannon, with its relatively simple firing mechanism, was liable to blow up at any moment, scarring or killing its crew and showering debris across the battlefield. This monster, which could in theory hurl round after round of heavy ammunition through the air with barely a pause, using only the power of steam and mechanics, was liable to be an absolute nightmare to keep under control. And that was assuming they could put it together remotely correctly. As Messina’s frequent cursing testified, that couldn’t be relied upon either.

  The Tilean emerged from under the chassis looking harassed. His normally glossy locks were matted and tangled. His olive skin was marked by blotches of grease and powder-burns. His fine clothes were ruined.

  “How’s it going?” asked Lukas, tentatively.

  Messina gave him a dark look which spoke volumes.

  “Have you deciphered secondary lubricant system yet?” he said by way of reply. His voice was tired and clipped.

  Lukas pulled one of the many sheets of parchment from the jumbled pile on the floor. It was scored with notes and hastily scrawled diagrams. Deciphering it was like trying to read elvish. Not impossible for a human, but close to being a lifetime’s work.

  “I think so,” he said, cautiously. “When you’re finished working on the turret traction, I could attempt to fix it in place. We might be able to get shot-loading working then.”

  Messina took a deep breath, and looked back at the half-finished machine. There was hatred in his eyes.

  “By Luccina,” he spat, wiping his hands on his expensive clothes. “If I’d known how complicated the damned thing would be…”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, but walked over to a low bench by the entrance to the tent. There was a flagon of watered-down wine. He picked it up and took a hefty swig.

  “What time is it?” he asked, slumping onto the bench and looking exhausted. Lukas shrugged.

  “Mid-morning, I’d say. We’ve not got long before Scharnhorst’ll want to know if it’s ready.”

  Messina shot him a poisonous look.

  “Really?” he said, sarcastically. “So that is news to me.”

  He took another long swig. When he wiped his mouth, a long trail of some dark, oily substance was left against his cheek. Lukas kept a diplomatic silence.

  “Do you think we’ll make it?” the boy said, frowning as he looked over the semi-complete structure.

  Lukas’ moment of doubt seemed to galvanise Messina. He let out a derisive snort, and got up from the bench.

  “By all the lawful gods, yes,” he said, putting down the flagon firmly. “This is our chance, boy. He’s had a success, that drunk man, with his tunnelling. We need one of our own. This will be it. When we advance, I will be sitting in that chair, sending death into the ranks of the enemy. There’ll be no standing against us. That is all that matters.”

  There was a familiar dark fire in his eyes as he spoke. Lukas knew better than to contradict him.

  “Then we’d better get back to work,” he said, picking up his tools wearily. They had already been at it for hours. With a dreadful certainty, Lukas knew that the night ahead would be a long one.

  * * *

  Rathmor was consumed by a cold, malevolent rage. He stalked down the long corridors of the citadel, his black robes fluttering behind him as he went. His guns, his beloved guns, had been destroyed. There was no humiliation greater for an engineer. They should have been safe. They were within the walls. Someone would suffer for it. They would all suffer.

  He pushed the door to Esselman’s chambers open roughly. A startled guard standing in the antechamber raised his sword briefly in challenge before recognising who it was.

  “Sir,” he said, nodding his head in acknowledgement.

  Rathmor ignored him and ploughed on into the inner sanctum. There was a pair of metal-lined doors ahead of him. He pushed them both open, and they slammed back against the walls on either side.

  Beyond was a large torchlit room. From far above, daylight weakly filtered down from windows high up on the eastern walls. Esselman’s room was near the summit of the soaring citadel.

  Only two men were in the room. One was Esselman himself. The other was one of the insurgents. A warrior priest. He was tied tightly to a wooden chair with leather straps. His robes were torn and singed. His severe face was bruised and lacerated. Either he’d picked up those wounds in the fighting, or Esselman had not been kind to him.

  The captive priest barely seemed to notice Rathmor’s entrance. His eyes flickered weakly towards him, then went back to blankly staring into space. He had a strange, resigned expression on his face.

  Esselman slammed a fist against the wall in frustration.

  “These damned priests!” he spat, and turned away from the captive. He walked over to a side table, and poured a tankard of dark ale. He drank deeply before lifting his head to acknowledge Rathmor.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Rathmor controlled his anger with some difficulty. After all that had happened, to be forced to treat with such insolent fools was almost beyond toleration.

  “The lady is furious,” he snapped back. “She’s been tearing her chamber to pieces. Her staff don’t dare enter.”

  Esselman gave a hollow laugh.

  “You think I don’t know that?” he said, and a faint sliver of fear entered his words. “By Sigmar, this is a damned mess.”

  “Dare not take his name in vain, heretic,” hissed the priest, defiantly.

  Esselman strode over to the bound man and struck him hard in the face. Unable to protect himself, the priest’s head cracked sickeningly against the frame of the chair. For a moment, the man’s eyes went glassy, and a trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth. He recovered his poise with effort, and fixed a gaze of controlled hatred at Esselman. Even in his current predicament, the priest seemed unbowed.

  Esselman cradled his fist in his other hand gingerly, and looked at Rathmor sourly.

  “These damned priests,” he said again. “I hate them. Ask any question you like, and all you get back are platitudes about the coming wrath of the comet. They disgust me.”

  Rathmor looked at the priest with renewed interest, and a greedy look passed across his face.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked, his mouth twisted into a leer. “I have special instruments down in the forges. They would soon loosen a reluctant tongue, blessed by Sigmar or not.”

  The priest gazed back at him fearlessly, as if daring him to bring on the tools of torture. Esselman regarded Rathmor coldly.

  “What do you think I am?” he said, disdainfully. “I’m a warrior, not a bastard witch hunter. There’ll be none of your perversions while I’m in charge of the citadel.”

  He rubbed his hands wearily across his face and took another long swig of ale.

  “We’d learn nothing much in any case,” Esselman said. “What’s there to find out? That the army is intent on driving us out of here? That we know. There are no secrets in this war. They’ll attack the gates soon. We have no guns to repel them. You’ll have to trust to force of arms sooner than you would wish, Rathmor.”

  The engineer shook his head reluctantly.

  “It’s still too soon,” he whined, looking at the priest with hatred. He would have loved to have spent some time alone with the wretched man, if for no other reason than to work out his frustration on some unwilling flesh. Esselman’s warrior code could be inconvenient and frustrating.

  Esselman spat on the ground contemptuously.

  “You’ve run out of time, my friend,” he said. The word “friend” was intoned coldly. “She won’t stand for it any longer. You’ve had months to get this army ready. Now we’ll see how good it really is.”

  Rathmor had to stop himself from bursting into an incoherent rage. It w
asn’t fair. Things were conspiring against him. Just as always, the ignorant were rushing his work. When it failed, as it always might, he would get the blame.

  “You have no idea what’s at stake here!” he cried, and spittle flew from his pale lips. “There are still things I don’t understand! The book…”

  Then he stopped, as if an invisible hand had clamped itself over his mouth. Esselman looked at him warily.

  “What book?” he said.

  “Forget about it,” snapped Rathmor. “That’s not important. What is important is getting rid of this army of fools and fanatics.”

  He shot an acidic look at the priest as he spoke.

  “You know as well as I that the charade of gold will only last so long. We must move on. Von Kleister can keep the men fooled for a month or two, but it won’t last. Everything depends on getting the machines together, and taking the fight to Ludenhof. Everything!”

  Esselman gazed down at the hunched body of Rathmor with disgust.

  “Don’t try to tell me my duties,” he said irritably. “If your precious guns had been less fragile, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  That was almost the final straw. Guarding the gunnery was Esselman’s province. It was bad enough that the man’s negligence had let a raiding party in to blow them up. To be blamed for their fragility was an insult too far. Rathmor’s eyes bulged, and his thin fists clenched. He could feel his rage boiling to a climax. He tried to find the right words, but it was as if his jaw had been clamped shut. The veins on his temples bulged, and sweat broke out across his forehead.

  Esselman must have seen the signs. He shook his head in resignation, took a final draught of beer, and some of the belligerence left him.

  “Oh, don’t get worked up, Rathmor,” he said disgustedly, walking over to the table and replacing the tankard. “That’ll do no one any good.”

  Esselman leaned against the stone wall, and looked uninterestedly over towards the bound priest. Slowly, painfully, Rathmor suppressed his anger. One day, when he was at the head of a reformed New College of Engineers, his wrath would be feared across the entire Old World. He would be able to lash out, unrestrained, whenever the mood fell on him. For now, though, he needed men like Esselman. For now.

  “We have things to do,” Esselman said, curtly. “I don’t care what the dangers are, we need your infernal machine. Now. And I want your traps laid, just as we agreed. If they’d been in place earlier, that little raiding party wouldn’t have got far. You promised to turn the lower levels into a firestorm.”

  Rathmor shivered with anger, but kept control of himself. Just.

  “The machine will be ready,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “When they attack the gates, I’ll let it loose. And fear not for the traps. If they breach the walls a second time, none of them will get out alive.”

  Esselman seemed satisfied with Rathmor’s vehemence.

  “Good,” he said. He turned back to the warrior priest, who had been listening in silence, his eyes alert and his expression intent.

  “Did you hear that, you damned zealot?” Esselman asked, a grim smile on his lips. “I should have you killed. But I might just let you stay alive long enough to see your comrades burn. It’ll be a fitting end to your doomed campaign.”

  Esselman loomed over the warrior priest, his fists bunched. It looked like he might strike the man again, either out of spite or from simple frustration.

  But then, a chime sounded. Just as before, the childlike noise echoed down the corridors. Both men froze instantly. Rathmor forgot his bubbling anger, and looked at Esselman, wide-eyed.

  “What do you think she wants now?” he hissed.

  Esselman swallowed, and looked suddenly uncomfortable.

  “No idea,” he said, his voice quavering slightly. “But we’d better not keep her waiting.”

  The chime sounded again, quiet but insistent. Esselman looked at the priest sourly.

  “We’ll continue this conversation another time,” he said, and turned on his heel. He left the chamber, and Rathmor scuttled along at his heels. They were like curs summoned by their mistress. The door opened and closed with a slam. Their footfalls echoed through the antechamber and out into the corridor beyond. Then they were gone. With their absence, the room fell into silence.

  Seemingly forgotten, the warrior priest Kossof sat as immobile as a graven image. Despite his ordeal, his body remained upright and his eyes glittered with a keen light. In the dark and the quiet, his lips began to move soundlessly.

  “Vengeance,” he breathed, lips curling into a smile. “Vengeance.”

  The sun sank towards the western horizon. The peaks began to cast their long, jagged shadows over the valley floor. Despite being wrapped in layers of clothing and encased in his long leather coat, Magnus was cold. His wound ached dully. The thirst had returned and every movement provoked a fresh spike of pain. It made him irritable and easy to anger. After the euphoria of the attack, the campaign, the lull before the storm. Though he could see the benefit of planning properly, he was itching to get back into the thick of things. The men were tired, driven into a sullen sluggishness by the endless cold, the moaning of the wind and that terrible, maddening throbbing that seemed to shake the very earth under their feet.

  He wrapped his arms about himself, and stamped to try and generate some circulation. Perhaps he was still short on blood. He stalked off to find some more meat and drink. As he walked towards one of the provision wagons, he met Hildebrandt coming the other way.

  “How are you feeling?” asked the big man.

  “Not too bad,” Magnus replied. “I’ve had worse.”

  Hildebrandt looked preoccupied.

  “Do you have some time to spare?” he asked, looking around him.

  “Bags of it,” he replied. “We’re not doing anything until dawn.”

  “Then come with me.”

  Magnus followed Hildebrandt to the shadow of a row of artillery wagons, each still covered with canvas and kept under tight wraps. When they were out of sight of most of the soldiers, Hildebrandt took a bundle of rags from under his cloak and unwrapped it. Inside there were pieces of metal. They glinted weakly in the failing light.

  “Recognise these?” said Hildebrandt, turning the fabric over and letting the pieces clink against one another.

  Magnus took one and held it up, peering at the shard of steel intently.

  “They’re gunnery pieces,” he said, looking at it with expert eyes. “Where did you get them?”

  “One of the guards in the citadel had a pistol,” said Hildebrandt. “I had time to take it with me when we left. I’ve been taking it apart.”

  Magnus drew his eyeglass out, and studied the component carefully.

  “Just like before,” he said, thoughtfully. “This is good quality. Better than I’ve seen in a long while.”

  Hildebrandt handed him some more. They were all of the same standard.

  “What else do you see?” he asked.

  Magnus pursed his lips. He handed the pieces back.

  “They’re dwarfish,” he said.

  Hildebrandt nodded.

  “Just like the one we found in the passes. They’re all the same. We’ve got to face the truth, Magnus. These men are being armed by dwarfs.”

  Magnus frowned, and took another look.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Thorgad thought they were dwarfish too, but only in origin. We don’t know where these were made.”

  Hildebrandt lowered his voice.

  “Why’s the dwarf here, Magnus?” he said. “Something’s going on in that fortress that he knows about. If his kind are arming our enemies, how do we know we can trust him?”

  Magnus let slip a cold smile.

  “If you fancy trying to prise the truth from him, you’re welcome to try,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it, though. Thorgad’s got no explaining to do to me. He’s just one of the crew. And without him, we’d never have got inside the citadel.”

 
Hildebrandt looked unconvinced.

  “He’s got his own plans here, and you know it. It’s no good. There’s some secret about the weaponry in there, and he knows things he’s not telling. We could be better prepared. I don’t want to lead men into a bloodbath like we had in the passes. You should press him for what he knows.”

  Magnus felt the smile leave his lips. He was loath to look into a man’s secrets. He had plenty of his own. Sometimes he wondered if they were all that he did have.

  “He’ll tell me nothing. You know that. If I anger him, he’ll leave. And then we’ll never find out what reason he has for being here.”

  Hildebrandt collected the pieces together, and wrapped them carefully up once more.

  “So be it,” he said, looking disappointed. “I can’t force you. But I’m keeping my eyes open around him. Messina may be a rat, but at least he’s a stupid one. There’s something about Thorgad, though. I hope you don’t live to regret not finding out what it is.”

  Magnus placed a hand on his old friend’s shoulder.

  “We’re nearly there, Tobias,” he said. “They don’t have the men to withstand a full assault. It won’t be long before we’re picking up our bag of gold and heading back to Hergig.”

  Hildebrandt didn’t smile. An unfamiliar look played out on his large, open face.

  “Don’t try to reassure me, Magnus,” he said. “I’ve been in too many campaigns for that. There’s something wrong with that place. Their equipment’s too good. They have machines. Even the troopers can hear them working. I fear for you if you enter there. I fear for all of us.”

  Magnus let his hand drop. Hildebrandt stowed the metalwork back under his cloak. Without saying anything more, he walked off into the gathering dusk.

  Magnus watched him go. Then his eyes flicked up to the mighty citadel, still silent, still lit by the series of unearthly lights. The clouds of smoke had dissipated, and now it lurked like a shadow at the base of the distant cliffs. Hildebrandt was right. There was something unnatural about it. They would assault it soon. More men would die, just to satisfy the ambition of a distant count who barely left his summer palace. Such was the way of the Empire.