[Age of Reckoning 01] - Empire in Chaos

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  The knights thundered toward the enemy, and Karl lifted himself in the stirrups, readying for the strike. The barbarian snarled up at him and ducked to the side but the preceptor had fought for many years on horseback, and followed the man’s sudden movement with his lance tip.

  He took the marauder high in the chest, his twelve-foot lance driving through his body and bursting from his back. A second man, close behind the first, was also spitted on the lance, its length piercing his neck and killing him instantly.

  Then the knights were amongst the enemy, riding hard through their midst, and Karl released his grip on his lance to draw his broad-bladed sword. His steed lashed out with flailing hooves, crushing skulls, and more were trampled beneath the weight of the warhorse. Karl slashed with his sword as the knights ploughed through the enemy formation, hacking down warriors as they sought to bring him down.

  Their charge began to slow, and he saw several knights fall as their steeds were cut from beneath them. Horses screamed as axes and swords cleaved into their legs, and another knight was felled as he was impaled on a long sword blade, lifted out of the saddle by the shuddering blow.

  Karl shouted, trying to maintain the momentum of the charge, urging his steed and his warriors on. An enemy grabbed his armoured leg, he slashed down with his sword, opening the man’s skull, and kicked his warhorse hard, driving the stallion on.

  And then they were out of the frantic melee, bursting from the rear of the enemy formation. Karl’s eyes widened as he saw what was waiting there and his steed reared, whinnying in terror.

  A spiked club almost the length of a wagon smashed into the head of Karl’s steed, and blood splashed across the preceptor’s black and bronze armour. He saw the ground come racing up towards him as his warhorse fell.

  Annaliese stood watching the two forces embroiled in combat, their lines blurred together in the nightmare of battle. Her breath had caught in her throat as she saw the Knights of the Blazing Sun smash through the enemy lines, and she wondered briefly if Karl was amongst them. Then they had disappeared, seemingly swallowed up by the enemy, and she saw them no more.

  Her breathing was heavy, and her heart was beating wildly within her. The screams of the dying echoed dimly across the field, and the true horror of warfare washed over her. Still, she tried to maintain an exterior of calm, knowing that the soldiers around her were looking to her for strength.

  The cannons continued their barrage, belching smoke and flame across the battlefield, but she could see that the lines of archers and crossbowmen were pulling back, jogging lightly towards the village, and putting more distance between them and the enemy. The handgunners still stood in their serried ranks, each line kneeling as they reloaded, allowing those behind to fire over their heads.

  The secondary line of Empire soldiers was urged forwards, and they broke into a run to aide the faltering battle line. Annaliese found herself running with the bustling crowd of soldiers across the snow-covered field, her hands shaking as they clung to the haft of her hammer and her shield. She felt heavy and constricted by the armour she wore, the unfamiliar weight awkward and shifting as she ran.

  Eldanair moved lightly at her side, launching arrows from his longbow as he ghosted across the snow, his white fletched arrows arcing through the air to fall amongst the dark ranks of the enemy. Even his presence did little to buoy her, but she clenched her teeth and pushed her fear down, lest it overtake her. She wished that Grunwald was with her, but she had not seen him since he had entered the building in pursuit of the enemy magos. Where was he? she thought wildly.

  Hooves flashed around Karl as horses reared and bucked. He pushed himself up out of the mud and slush, his vision swimming before his eyes. His sight cleared as he raised himself to one knee and he looked upon the monstrous creatures before him.

  They stood over ten feet in height, and their hulking bodies were covered in fur and scarred with battle-wounds and ritualised markings burnt into their flesh. Their heads were heavy and bestial, and were supported by massive necks of rippling muscle. Steam snorted from their nostrils, and giant horns extended from either side of their heads, just above bovine ears. Their eyes blazed with blood-frenzy and hatred, and they carried immense weapons in their human-like, oversized hands. True creatures of Chaos, they had emerged from the forests in the north to join the slaughter.

  Karl rose to his feet as one of the monsters leapt into the air. The beast brought its massive axe smashing down onto one of the knights, splitting him from the shoulder to the waist. The dead warrior slid from the saddle as his steed reared, ripping the axe from the creature’s hands and it lashed out with a balled fist. The blow caught the horse on the side of the head, and it collapsed to the ground, a tangled mess of limbs.

  A knight urged his baulking steed forwards and drove the point of his sword deep into the beast’s chest, and it bellowed in pain and outrage. It grabbed the knight around the throat and lifted him from the saddle before slamming him forcibly into the ground.

  “Myrmidia!” shouted Karl, hefting his sword over his shoulder. He stumbled forwards and brought it down into the beast’s neck, severing the arteries there. Blood fountained from the wound, but the creature did not die. It shook its heavy head from side to side, foam flying from thick lips, its red eyes focused on Karl.

  With a snort it surged forwards and hooked one of its horns between his legs. In one violent motion it flicked its head up and hurled him into the air, his arms and legs flailing, He smashed into one of his fellow knights, and they both toppled to the ground.

  He came up groggily, and as a massive cleaver flashed downwards he threw himself backwards. The blade smashed down into his fallen comrade, who was cut in half by the blow, Karl staggered to his feet.

  A riderless horse reared next to him and blindly he reached out and grabbed at the reins. He caught hold of them, and swung himself up into the saddle. It was mayhem all around him as his knights battled the bestial creatures vainly, being butchered by the brutal monsters.

  “Blazing Sun!” he cried, his voice cutting across the din of bellowing beasts and screaming horses. “With me!” he shouted, and kicked the horse hard. It broke into a run, and Karl raced free of the one-sided battle. “With me!” he roared again.

  Less than a third of the Knights of the Blazing Sun rode clear, and they rode hard back across the field. The battle-crazed minotaurs raced after then, bellowing in anger and baying for blood.

  The knights veered off to the south suddenly, leaving the way clear for the handgunners. The first rank of guns barked and the soldiers dropped to their knees. The second rank of handgunners fired, and they too dropped down to their knees, frantically reloading their long weapons as the third rank opened fire.

  As the smoke cleared, there were few of the minotaurs still standing, and those that were staggered unsteadily, their bodies pierced dozens of times, blood seeping from their wounds and matting their thick fur.

  The knights, having wheeled around upon the open field, thundered back towards the massive beasts, and the last of them were hacked down beneath their swords.

  Dietrich bit his lip, tense and alert. He knew that four miles to the south battle was underway—he could hear the pounding of cannons—and he prayed for the men there. But he had seen the scale of the army arrayed against the Empire, and he could see little chance of victory.

  Such a fickle thing, chance. He thought that somewhere in the heavens above Ranald, the god of chance and trickery, was chuckling to himself, and Dietrich swore that he would dedicate a year’s pay to the trickster’s acolytes if the god smiled upon him today.

  Luck was all that would save them, he thought. If the enemy cavalry took a wider arc around the battlefield and attacked from the rear, then any chance of victory would be dashed. If the oil of the engineers had soaked too deep, or the snow deadened its effect, then hope was lost. If the enemy noticed something strange about the snow ahead of them, if they noticed that the snow here was more melted than it w
as elsewhere—an unexpected side-effect of the oil—then the ambush would fail even before it had been launched. Ranald, he prayed, give us just this chance.

  One of his men shouted, and he looked up.

  “Dietrich! They come!”

  The scout scrambled to the edge of the high ground, crawling forward to look down into the narrow defile below. It was perhaps three hundred yards wide, and the snow hid the cobbled road beneath.

  In the distance to the north a shimmer of movement could be seen, and Dietrich’s heart leapt. The enemy were on the road, riding hard in their direction.

  “Thank you,” Dietrich muttered, casting his eyes to the sky.

  He squirmed back away from the lip—scrambling and running down the slope on the other side.

  “Get them fires blazing, boys!” he shouted, and dozens of braziers were stoked. Dietrich watched the sky carefully for any hint of smoke. He had instructed his men to use only the driest tinder, for any hint of smoke in the sky might warn the enemy, and they could easily avoid the trap if they suspected anything. Little smoke drifted up from the braziers, and he let out a slow breath that he had not realised he had been holding.

  “They are getting close, sir!” came the shout from the lip, and Dietrich ordered the braziers to be carried up the slope. Each was borne by a pair of men, the metal urns carried on a pair of wooden poles.

  One of the men slipped on his ascent and a brazier toppled sideways with a crash, the burning embers falling into the deep snow. A cloud of steam rose where they fell, and a sharp hissing filled the air. Smoke began to rise as the coals touched the wet grass beneath the snow.

  Dietrich swore and leapt through the drift, whipping the cloak from his shoulders. He leapt at the steaming circle, throwing his worn cloak over it to dampen it. Leaping to his feet, he stamped on the area until the coals had been put out, soaked by the melting snows and driven into the moist earth. Standing back, Dietrich looked at his blackened, muddy cloak and turned to the scout who had stumbled with a sour expression.

  “We get out of this, and I’ll be having your cloak,” he said.

  The other braziers were in position, just behind the lip of the hillock and Dietrich took his position. The forty men lay unmoving, just behind the rise, and he prayed that no enemy scouts had seen them. If the enemy just turned off the road and travelled for a hundred yards along the higher, rougher ground, then this risk would come to nothing.

  But on they came, riding hard. In the lead were around two hundred and fifty horsemen riding stout steppes ponies, hulking hounds of terrifying size loping alongside them. The riders were cloaked in furs and carried spears. Their steeds were swift—not as fast over a short distance as the big destriers that the Knights of the Blazing Sun rode, but they could run for hours on end without tiring. Over a day, the distance these horsemen could travel would far outstrip the noble templars.

  Behind them came the heavy knights of Chaos. They rode midnight steeds that stood easily twenty-five hands tall at the shoulder, massive beasts whose eyes blazed with unholy light. The knights were ensconced in black armour, and they carried deadly weapons of war. They each wore a flowing cloak of feathers, and an eye of brilliant blue shone in the centre of their black helmets.

  Alongside these dread warriors of Chaos rolled deathly chariots, barbed scythes rotating on their steel-rimmed wheels. A pair of giant black steeds pulled each of these heavy war machines, and fully armoured warriors stood on their armoured platforms, nail-studded whips cracking.

  There were no more than fifty of the monstrous knights of the enemy, but the aura of terror they exuded was palpable.

  “Stay on the road, stay on the road,” Dietrich willed them, every muscle tense. Closer and closer they came, and he waited for the moment when they would spot something amiss, something that would alert them to the ambush. But still they came, registering no alarm or knowledge of the threat they were riding towards.

  With a nod, Dietrich held his first arrow to one of the braziers, and the oil-soaked rag tied around its tip lit instantly. Along the line of the hillock, fifty archers did likewise.

  “Now!” he shouted, and rose to one knee. He pulled his bowstring taut and loosed in one smooth motion. The weight of the oil-soaked rag threw the balance off the arrow, but he had compensated for this, and it flew true.

  He heard yells from the enemy as they spotted the archers up on the ridge, but they had come too far to avoid what was to come next.

  Fifty arrows sliced through the air around the horsemen, and around a dozen of them were struck. Other arrows sank into the flesh of their horses and the brutal hounds, and they bucked and kicked in pain and fear, and filled the air with their deep growls and yelps. But it was the arrows that struck the ground itself that did the real damage.

  Flames raced as the oil that had been doused across the area in the hours before dawn caught. The flames burnt hot and fierce, and scores of men were thrown down as their horses bolted, their tails and the long hair around their hooves catching fire.

  The long shaggy fur of the hounds caught fire, and they barked and roared, and snapped at anything nearby. Horses’ legs were crushed in their massive jaws, and fallen men had their throats ripped out by the frenzied beasts. Other war hounds ripped at each other, rolling over through the blaze, further spreading the fire.

  Sudden explosions erupted amongst the panicking horses, for along with the oil, the engineers of the elector’s army had hidden a series of small wooden caskets packed with black power just beneath the snow. As the oil caught and flames whipped up the road to the north, it ignited these oil-soaked caskets and they exploded outwards. Horses were thrown to the ground, and men screamed as their flesh was seared by the detonations. One horse’s leg was blown off, and chunks of flesh rained down upon the others.

  Scores of them were killed in those first moments, but the destruction was not yet complete. As expected, the horsemen who had not been engulfed in fire pulled back away from the inferno, and it was then that the other group of scouts, positioned further to the north, launched their attack. More flaming arrows arced down onto the rear of the enemy column, and a second wall of fire reared up, blocking their retreat.

  The horsemen and hounds milled in between the two barriers of fire, and they were brutally cut down by wave after wave of arrows. Dietrich went through a full quiver of arrows and moved onto his second, for the enemy had nowhere to run—the ground was too steep and rough on either side of the road for them to climb, and their passage forward and back was blocked by the fire which no horse would approach.

  Dozens of men leapt from the backs of their horses and ran towards the scouts, attempting to scramble up the steep ground, but they were sitting targets to the archers, and they were mercilessly cut down, one by one.

  The hounds, however, had no such trouble ascending the broken ground, and they leapt up the precipice with frightening speed. They bore dozens of scouts to the ground beneath their weight, jaws snapping, breaking limbs and ripping flesh. One man was shaken like a rabbit in the jaws of a hulking beast, and his back broke with an audible crack.

  One of the monstrous war hounds leapt at Dietrich, jaws latching onto his forearm and throwing him to the ground. Its growling filled his ears, and its hot breath was on his face, and he cried out. He reversed his grip on the arrow in his free hand and stabbed its point into the beast’s head, but felt the tip break against the stone-like cranium of the monster. With one final, desperate stab, he pushed the wooden arrow shaft through the creature’s eye, and it released him with a snarl.

  Dietrich regained his feet, his arm a bloody ruin, and drew his hunting knife. He leapt on the wounded war hound, and plunged his blade into its neck, time and time again, until at last it was still.

  The heavily armoured Chaos knights urged their infernal steeds on, and continued to canter up the road, ignoring the mayhem around them. Chariots rumbled along beside them, dozens of arrows stuck in their armoured sides.

  Wincing at
the pain in his arm, Dietrich aimed carefully and fired, watching as his arrow cut through the smoke and fire and struck one of the knights high in the neck. The warrior barely flinched, and the arrow fell harmlessly to the ground. The scout swore.

  And then the knights rode their horses straight through the flames as if they mattered not at all.

  Swearing again, he reached for his last oil-soaked arrow, and lit it from the brazier. Drawing his string back hard, he fired the arrow straight up into the air.

  Seeing the arrow that symbolised that the ploy had failed, the Knights of the Blazing Sun kicked their steeds forwards, and a hundred templars began galloping over the rough moorland, three hundred yards further south, hidden from view from the road.

  They rode towards the rise, and saw the enemy knights and chariots cantering perpendicular to their position. They thundered down the clear slope before them, lowering their lances. Their horn blared, and their steeds were urged faster, and they smashed into the side of the enemy formation. Massive black armoured enemy knights were ripped from their saddles, and horses screamed as they were knocked to the ground by the force of the impact.

  Spiked chariots, their wheels flaming with oil, tried to turn towards this sudden threat, but they were unwieldy machines and the Blazing Sun templars were on them in seconds. Lances smashed the warriors from their chariots, and the black, hellish steeds reared and bucked. One of the chariots hit a stone as it turned, and as one of its steeds collapsed screaming, a lance buried in its chest, the entire chariot flipped over, throwing its occupants to the ground.

  The knights of Chaos fought back ferociously, their massive weapons cutting the Empire warriors from the saddle, cleaving through armour like paper. The impetus was with the templars of Myrmidia and they ploughed through the thin Chaos line, killing scores in that first charge. Almost half of their number had fallen, but they wheeled around towards the surviving, feather-cloaked despoilers of the north.