[Empire Army 04] - Grimblades

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  The cannon thundered again, rocking on wedged wheels. Karlich winced, dipping his head against the noise. When he opened his eyes, he noticed the pommel of his inherited blade glinting. It brought back the memory of Stahler. He’d be laughing at him, no doubt. Karlich drew comfort from the imagined presence of his old captain embodied by the sword. Some of the smoke had cleared a little when he looked up again and saw Stahler’s replacement, Vogen, fighting hard on the east flank.

  Fortunately the greenskins had yet to right themselves. The smoke added to their disorder and confusion, and they fought at a disadvantage. Without more manpower, though, the Empire couldn’t press it. Attrition governed the battle at that moment. With the greenskins’ superior numbers, it meant the balance would soon shift as the casualties mounted on both sides. They needed to find a way to break the orcs, and soon.

  Ledner’s choke-rasp shouting above brought Karlich from the throng below and back up to the ridge. He was directing some of the cannon fire for Engineer Meinstadt, picking out targets in the fog. Somewhere in the distance, a goblin chariot exploded in a shower of wooden splinters. They’d navigated the rocks intended to foul them and were roaming the flanks. There was little room, but the narrow machines snuck through.

  Shifting his gaze, Karlich found the centre of the battlefield to be almost occluded but the smoke was slowly beginning to dissipate. He recognised the Carroburg Few and wished they were side-by-side. Von Rauken’s men slowly resolved in the fog, fighting hard against a mob of massive, dark-skinned orcs. Something even bigger bellowed and hollered in their ranks before a belt of fog veiled them again.

  Karlich said a quiet prayer that it wasn’t the last time he’d see them alive.

  The irony wasn’t lost on Ledner. Despite his stern words to the spymaster on the road to Altdorf, Wilhelm had offered himself up as bait to draw the Paunch out. He suppressed a wry smile at that thought, allowing only a moment of reflection, before turning his attention back to the cannon. The goblin king, his death or serious injury, was key to victory. As it so often did, greenskin supremacy depended on the strength and willpower of its warlord. Without Grom, the disparate tribes would quickly fragment, lesser chieftains would vie for the leadership of the army and the Waaagh would slowly dissipate.

  Bloody their nose… It was a phrase Ledner had heard much of in the intervening hours since leaving Kemperbad and before the battle.

  The Paunch was shrewd, far shrewder than any goblin had a right to be, he would not be goaded easily. Wilhelm had to offer up a trophy for his rack the greenskin could truly savour. The only bargaining piece that the prince had, though, was himself. It was a risk Ledner didn’t like. Using Wilhelm to reveal an assassin, with potential benefits resulting from either outcome, was one thing; the prince’s death on this fog-choked field would mean the sack of Altdorf. The spymaster could see much at stake, and much that could go wrong. It wasn’t a game he liked playing, when the odds were evenly stacked.

  These machinations had been flooding through Ledner’s mind like irritated moths bouncing off the glass of a lantern. Worse still, Wilhelm had ordered him to the ridge. War machines were dangerous, the province of madmen, but it was the fact that he couldn’t be by the prince’s side that bothered him the most. Ledner suspected their earlier “words” had something to do with that. Or perhaps it was a less emotionally-driven decision than it first appeared, and Wilhelm was merely being practical. If he fell in battle, then it would be up to Ledner to rally the troops or marshal the retreat. Either way, leadership would be needed.

  It didn’t matter. Fate was not yet done with the Prince of Reikland, nor was it done with Adolphus Ledner.

  He waited for a short subsidence in the cannonade before turning in his saddle to address Meinstadt.

  “Engineer, how long can we keep this up?”

  The cannons bellowed again, their iron cargo buoyed on fat streams of powder smoke spat from fire-blackened mouths.

  Meinstadt hollered at one of the gunnery crew with the volley gun to rotate its barrel array—Ledner eyed the so-called “wonder weapon” suspiciously, glad he was well away from it—before replying.

  “We’re low on ball and powder,” the engineer said, leaving an oil smear across his forehead after mopping his brow. Most of the gunnery crew had shed their tunics and let the sweat sheathe their brawny, smoke-stained bodies. They were as black as coal miners, and twice as grim. “When that’s done, we’ll go to grapeshot. Hope you’ve a few coins in that expensive-looking attire you’re wearing, captain,” he added wryly. “We might need them.”

  Ledner’s retort was lost in the gunfire, and he gave up repeating it. Before he returned his attention to the field, he bemoaned the lack of ammunition to which Meinstadt gave the equivalent of a vocal shrug then went back to his labours.

  One saving grace was that at least the prince had arrayed some decent troops around him. Though now he looked more intently, through the spyglass Wilhelm had given him to observe the field, Ledner saw the Griffonkorps had thinned to almost nothing and the greatsworders were struggling against a mob of hulking black orcs. Their banner dipped and swayed frantically as they tried to reach the prince. They had good reason—Wilhelm was facing an absolute monster. Ledner had only seen ogres as big. Had the beast not been green, he would’ve assumed it was an ogre.

  Something caught Ledner’s eye, just at the periphery of his vision. He angled the spyglass eastward and caught sight of the prince’s prey. It was Grom, ranging along the flank, content to let the battle unfold and develop, so he could better read it.

  Ledner shook his head, disbelieving.

  Truly, this fat brute was unique—he could think! He plotted and planned like a man! Mercy of Shallya, not all greenskins are created thusly or the Empire would drown in its own blood. It might yet!

  Fascinated, Ledner watched the Paunch catch and commandeer a chariot that was slow to build momentum after stalling on the rocks. He hauled the crew off and took their place. As he climbed aboard, the carriage of the chariot dug into the earth like a wooden plough, dragged down by Grom’s heavy body. The wolves pulling it strained at their crude tresses, struggling to ferry the obese goblin king. Under his fierce goading, they picked up speed. Fear lent them vigour.

  Greenskins in the Paunch’s path either stepped aside or were crushed under the chariot’s ironbound wheels.

  Ledner guessed at Grom’s direction. He followed the path suggested by his erratic journey on the chariot and found Wilhelm at the end of it. The prince was engaged with the giant black orc and hadn’t seen the goblin king approaching.

  A pang of something resembling anxiety twisted Ledner’s gut. It was a fleeting emotion, hard to discern. He seldom felt anything but calm detachment.

  “This is why I never leave your side, my lord,” he muttered bitterly. Ledner urged his steed forwards, heading for the slope and Prince Wilhelm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE VALUE OF SACRIFICE

  Reikland hills, on the Bogenhafen road,

  34 miles from Altdorf

  Feint. Evade. Strike. The words of Kogswald entered Wilhelm’s mind from the past: remember these three rules when fighting a foe bigger and stronger than you. Move quickly and attack when your opponent tires, victory by a thousand cuts is still victory.

  But the giant black orc showed no sign of tiring, nor would it die by a thousand cuts. One chance, one cut, was all that Wilhelm would get, if that.

  A small arena of dirt had grown around the two combatants, despite the efforts of the Empire troops to reach their lord. Wilhelm was glad of it; at least he didn’t feel like a drowning man anymore. When the black orc attacked, it charged like a bull. When it passed for a third time, Wilhelm heard deep grunting before its bulk was reduced to a shadow in the fog. It struck a glancing blow to the prince’s pauldron. Only the virtue of the armour’s forging kept his shoulder from shattering. The monster came again, turning quickly on its heel and resolving through the gloom. Something
hot struck Wilhelm’s face. Belatedly he realised it was freshly shed blood from the black orc’s axe.

  This time the prince stood his ground. Dragontooth had taken on a strange, dull glow in the fog. An overhead swipe drove towards his head. He only just parried it, jarring both arms, but deflecting the blow downwards. The axe was buried deep in the ground. Pounding greenskin feet had loosened the soil at the valley bottom and the earth received the blade gratefully.

  Wilhelm took his chance. The effort of parrying sent his runefang away from the black orc, but he used the momentum of the attack to carry on the swing. It went full circle in the time it took for the black orc to realise his axe was snared, and impaled the monster’s skull.

  The black orc shuddered, the pathetic halfling corpses around his neck quivering as if they were dancing. Wilhelm pushed hard against bone until his runefang pierced the greenskin’s tiny brain. The black orc let go of its axe, still refusing to yield and acknowledge it was dead. Wilhelm wrenched Dragontooth free. The enchanted blade tore through the monster’s head, decapitating it from the chin upwards. The slab of stinking skull and meat sloped off the ruddy stump like a cut from a butcher’s block. Its claws stopped grasping, inches from the prince’s throat and the giant black orc slumped into a heap.

  A spike of dissolution shot through the other black orcs, stunned at the chieftain’s death. Sensing a turn in the fight, the Carroburg Few drove even harder at the greenskins. Together with a large regiment of Auerswald spearmen, they broke the black orcs and sent them reeling. Several goblin mobs which had previously been eager to join the winning side lost heart and fled too. Wilhelm ordered the line to hold and reform.

  “Draw out the warlord,” he shouted. The prince was still stranded in the open, unaware that he already had.

  He was marshalling his strength when a spectacular explosion lit the ridge behind him, sending burning shrapnel into the ranks below. Men standing several feet away were struck and killed. Wilhelm turned, along with others in the army, to witness a massive fireball ignite the ridge.

  Karlich tasted earth as he was thrown down and scattered with the other halberdiers by a tremendous blast wave. Heat pricked the hairs on the back of his neck and despite the grubby tang of soil in his mouth, he embraced the instinct to sink his face down further.

  It had come from the vicinity of the volley gun, he guessed, though it was hard to tell with his senses momentarily shredded. He still couldn’t see or hear properly. Soot stained the air black, making it hard to breathe. Somewhere amidst the deafening explosion of blackpowder a horse shrieked.

  “Come together, come—” Karlich’s voice was choked by coughing. Smoke filled his lungs and he brought up thick black phlegm. Wiping his mouth, he looked around. Shapes emerged as the black clouds slowly cleared. He was still dazed, only vaguely aware he was alone, when he noticed dead men strewn upon the ridgeline. War machine crew and harquebus gunners were the main casualties. Meinstadt’s voice rose above the panicked clamour, attempting to restore order. Karlich thought the engineer had been with the volley gun and wondered briefly how he’d managed to survive the blast before he saw the dead horse.

  Though peppered with hot metal from the sundered cannon, its insides now its outsides, Karlich recognised the steed as Ledner’s. Following the unfortunate beast’s path, he found its master not far away, rolling on his back, dazed. He was quite far from the summit of the ridge. Ledner had been moving away when the volley gun misfired. If not, he’d surely be amongst the dead.

  The world had dimmed into a narrow half-blur, as if he was seeing it through an underwater tunnel. Karlich’s hearing was still affected too, but he didn’t let it stop him stumbling towards the spymaster.

  “On your feet,” he snarled, feeling his hate for the man anew. Karlich seized Ledner’s hand, almost got him level, then slipped, sending the two of them back down again.

  A bestial cry echoed from farther down the valley, tinny with the explosion still reverberating in Karlich’s skull. Orcs had broken through the first line, part of the east flank crumpling when one of the militia regiments had made for the edge of the valley in utter terror. They were big, not the size of black orcs, but burly and thickly armoured.

  “Get up!” said Karlich with more urgency than bile this time. His hearing came back in a crash of sound. He staggered at first, but quickly composed himself. “I said up, you bastard.”

  Ledner smiled, drooling blood from where he’d lost a couple of teeth. He had a cut across his forehead, too, and held his wounded arm gingerly as he rose.

  “Here’s your chance, Lothar,” he said. “I’m at your mercy. I can see it in your eyes!”

  Karlich had his dirk and Ledner was injured and unarmed. A swift glance behind revealed they were separated from the rest of the men, a belt of thick smoke clouding the view.

  No one would ever know.

  All the things Ledner had done, the way he’d manipulated them. He’d cost Karlich friends and comrades, forced them to compromise their own morals to serve his shady ones. This was a man willing to sacrifice his prince and liege-lord. However noble the cause, nothing could excuse that. Karlich had him by the scruff of the neck.

  It would be easy.

  All this flashed through the sergeant’s mind before he made his decision.

  “No.” He pulled Ledner up, helped him onto his shoulder. “I killed in cold blood before,” he said, walking him back up the ridge. “I did it for love. I won’t do it for hate, not for you. And in any case,” he added, whispering into Ledner’s ear, “your death will come soon enough. I saw the blood on your lip in the alley. Lung rot is a painful way to go.”

  The mask slipped for a moment before Karlich looked away again, all of Ledner’s insecurities and fears revealed to him. Let him die in agony; Karlich’s conscience would be clear.

  Ahead of the two men, the Grimblades were reforming. Mercifully, it looked like no casualties had been sustained in the blast, just pounding heads and grazed knees. Karlich was already shouting up to the great cannon, warning them about the approaching orcs when Ledner found his wits and pointed to the opposite side of the valley.

  “No, there!”

  Meinstadt never saw Ledner. His eyes were on the orc mob advancing on the war machines. Fearing they’d be overrun, he ordered up pails of coins, nails, spoons and anything else they could find to stuff the cannon with and fire grapeshot. It would render the weapon useless for the rest of the battle but at least they’d survive a little longer. The beasts were bearing down on them. By the time the cannon was turned and primed, they’d be too close for an iron ball.

  Karlich followed Ledner’s outstretched hand. He saw Grom, riding a lop-sided chariot, heading for the prince who’d just despatched a monstrous black orc and hadn’t seen the goblin king.

  He looked back down the ridge. The armoured orcs were clanking up the slope, gathering momentum. They looked tough. The Grimblades were still shaken from the explosion. Across the valley, Prince Wilhelm stood in the path of the goblin king’s chariot. The cannon couldn’t pepper the orcs with grapeshot and fire on the chariot. The latter was a risk, but without intervention the prince would be run down.

  Grom was getting close…

  Karlich made up his mind. He had to shout to be heard.

  “Save the prince, we’ll hold off the orcs.”

  Meinstadt, a dishevelled, slightly blackened figure, nodded and ordered the great cannon turned about. He was already giving out miniscule adjustments to elevation and amounts of blackpowder when Karlich resumed his position in the Grimblades’ front rank.

  Ledner was alongside him.

  “This is my captain’s sword,” he told the spymaster. He drew the blade and it shone star-like in the light. “I don’t plan on dishonouring it today, nor should you.”

  Ledner had picked up his own sword when they’d staggered back up the ridge. He held it in one hand, shakily due to his injuries.

  “I knew you had balls, sergeant,” he
rasped. “That’s why I’ve always liked you. That’s why I haven’t had you killed.”

  “Sigmar be praised, then,” Karlich replied. The orcs were close enough to taste their foetid aroma on the breeze.

  Ledner gave him a quizzical look, to which Karlich answered, “That you spared me long enough for this bloody end.”

  Behind them, the great cannon boomed.

  Wilhelm was alone when the chariot burst out from the greenskin ranks. Grom had weaved around the back of his mobs, waiting until the last moment to charge. Bearing down on Wilhelm now as it did, there was no time to mount a defence against the deadly machine. Its spinning scythed wheels were mesmerising… The cries of Wilhelm’s men rushing to try and save him were moot, their desperate actions fated to always be too late.

  In the wake of the fleeing black orcs, a mob of tattooed greenskins with bones through their noses, wearing animal hide and wielding crude stone axes charged into the open ground, wailing.

  Caught between a goblin king and a sea of frenzied green, thought the prince.

  Wilhelm saluted his forefathers and then his enemy. He levelled his runefang at Grom and prepared to meet him.

  “Deus Sigmar…” he murmured, and closed his eyes.

  At the sound of splintered wood and half-heard goblin curses, he opened them again.

  Grom’s chariot was wrecked. The Paunch was flattened underneath its carriage in a heap. One of the scythed wheels was still spinning, but pointed harmlessly in the air. The other had broken off and rolled away somewhere out of sight. The wolves were dead, crushed or impaled. A cannonball was lodged in the ground nearby, exuding smoke. It had upended the machine, flipping it dramatically to land just short of the prince.

  When Grom didn’t move at first, Wilhelm dared to hope the goblin king was dead. But then a piece of debris trembled atop the wreckage and fell off. Other larger pieces followed until the Paunch was back on his feet. He wrenched a stake of wood from his chest. Wilhelm’s eyes widened as the wound closed behind it, and he saw all of Grom’s cuts and bruises heal as if they had never been there. He recalled Ledner’s words about the rumour the warlord could not be killed. Despite the evidence of his own eyes, he forced himself not to believe it.