[Heroes 01] - Sword of Justice

by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)

  Verstohlen looked at him steadily before responding. He was one of the few men who dared to meet his gaze. Schwarzhelm could see the counsellor was unhappy.

  “Very well,” Verstohlen said at last and rose from his chair. “I’ll do what I can.”

  He turned to leave, then hesitated. “My lord,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically halting. “I mean no disrespect, but is all well with you? You do not seem… quite yourself.”

  Schwarzhelm did his best to look equable. In truth, he felt terrible. His headache was now ever-present, and he’d grabbed only the barest snatches of sleep for the past three days. When he did drift off, his dreams were terrifying. The stress of the legal work also bore down heavily. He could feel himself starting to fray. It was another reason to bring this thing to a conclusion as soon as possible.

  “I’m fine. I could do without this heat, but I’ve been in worse.”

  “I have some sleepwort with me,” said Verstohlen. “Perhaps a tincture of that, now and again, would help? The nights are humid in the Averburg.”

  It was a tempting offer. He’d considered it earlier. Verstohlen knew his poisons, as well as the cures.

  “I’ll ask you if I need any,” Schwarzhelm said. “Now I need to finish reading these papers. Report back when you hear anything certain of Grunwald.”

  Verstohlen bowed and left the chamber. With his departure, the scriptorium felt more like a prison cell than a reading room. The door closed with an echoing thud. Schwarzhelm looked around. The books looked down at him from their shelves. It was like being surrounded by enemies he couldn’t fight.

  With a weary sigh, he pulled the parchment towards him, and starting reading all over again.

  Dawn had broken. Grunwald looked around him in desperation. The orcs were everywhere. In the distance, he could see a fresh mob, mixed in composition and running steadily, making its way to his position. How had they coordinated so well? This was getting difficult. Very difficult.

  The greenskins had attacked all through the night, throwing themselves at the increasingly exhausted defenders with the fearless abandon typical of their race. Until the dawn, he hadn’t been able to tell whether the waves of attackers were different tribes, or whether the same bands had been charging the rise again and again. With the rising of the sun, the truth became apparent. This was no isolated collection of warriors. It was a major incursion, and fresh reinforcements were arriving all the time. His forces on the ridge were already outnumbered. They would soon be heavily outnumbered.

  He looked west, as if some help might come from that direction. There was nothing. Just the endless rolling fields, empty of anything but the beating sunlight.

  Bloch came to his side. His armour was dented in several places. For a moment, Grunwald recalled Ackermann. He’d looked similar, back on the ridge. Everything was horribly similar.

  “They’re preparing to charge again,” Bloch said grimly. “What are your orders?”

  “We have no choice,” Grunwald replied. “We’re too far out. We’ll hold them here.”

  Bloch looked exasperated.

  “If we stay, we’ll soon be outnumbered two to one.” Grunwald noticed he’d stopped using “sir” automatically.

  “What do you suggest, Herr Bloch? That we withdraw across the fields? They’re not going to let us walk out of this.”

  “Then we’ll fight our way back to Heideck!” Bloch spat. “The men need some direction. Keep us here and we’ll all die on this hill.”

  The man’s voice was raised. Troops nearby started to look around. There was a murmur of assent from the ranks further down the slope.

  “We have the high ground,” insisted Grunwald, keeping his own voice low. “I’ll not see my men cut to pieces as they try to run for safety. I have my orders.”

  “Damn the orders!” Bloch was now red-faced and angry. “We’ve been drawn out here by cock-and-bull stories. Even you can see that this has been planned.”

  Grunwald hesitated.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you seen the weapons those orcs are using? Have we heard a thing from Averheim since we set off? We should have stayed at Heideck. We’re useless this far out.”

  The man was beginning to ramble. It was probably the lack of sleep, or the heat. It was getting to them all. Even Grunwald could feel it begin to affect his judgement.

  “Keep your voice down,” he growled. “I’ll not give you orders twice. We’ll hold the ridge. My instructions were to meet the incursion head on. I won’t run back at the first sign of trouble.”

  Bloch gave a bitter laugh.

  “So that’s it,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re trying to make up for Turgitz. Schwarzhelm’s ordered you to hold the ridge and you’re damn well going to hold it. Even if it kills us all.”

  “Enough! Get back to the front, lieutenant. I’ll not tell you again.”

  Bloch was still smiling, but there was no humour in his face. He looked as bitter as wormwood.

  “Yes, sir,” he said sardonically. “I’ll do my duty. But don’t come running to me this time when you need bailing out.”

  Grunwald’s hand leapt to his sword. That was too much. But then fresh shrieks of alarm rose up from the lower slopes of the hill. The orcs were back in the assault. With a final backward glance of despair, Bloch ran to his position amongst the halberdiers. He didn’t say another word. Grunwald called his personal guard to his side, drawing his sword as he did so.

  “Watch for the breach,” he said, trying to push the dispute to the back of his mind. “On my mark, we’ll enter the melee.”

  The artillery spat out again, spinning shot high over the ranks of the defenders and into the advancing orcs. It did little to halt the tide. On every side, greenskins surged towards the defensive lines. Grunwald watched them as they came, looking for a weak point to exploit. The orcs were unusually tightly-formed. He had a sick feeling in his stomach. There were so many. They looked well armed indeed. Perhaps Bloch was right.

  He grasped the grip of his broadsword with both hands. There was no time to reconsider now. Battle had come again.

  The long day waned over Averheim. It was still hot. Verstohlen looked up into the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in it. The sun remained strong. He’d never known a summer like it. Now he realised why southerners were so flaky. It was the heat that did for them.

  He was standing on one of the seven bridges across the Aver. Long ago, Averheim had consisted solely of the Averburg and its attendant residences. As the Empire had grown, the city had sprawled out across the whole valley. As a rule, the richer dwellings were still on the southern shore. The poorer quarters,-some of them legally inside Stirland, were on the north-west bank. They were crammed close together, like all impoverished tenements in all cities of the Old World. There were none of the wide parks and elegant avenues the graced the Old City on the east side. That made it far less edifying to spend time in, but, for his purposes, much more interesting.

  Verstohlen walked across the bridge and into the maze of streets beyond. The air was thick and unmoving. Out of the evening sun, beggars slumped in the shadows, their mouths open like dogs. Flies droned lazily in the open doors to shops and taverns. There was no sign of the militia that seemed to patrol the Old City’s streets incessantly. Verstohlen made sure his pistol was safely stowed under his jacket, ready to be withdrawn quickly. The atmosphere seemed reasonably benign, but it did no harm to be careful.

  He pressed on, walking away from the river and further into the rows of mean houses. The more he walked, the less obviously cared-for the architecture became. The streets passed from having stone flags and proper gutters to being dirt tracks. Piles of refuse were deposited at the ends of streets. Rats openly scuttled across them. Everything looked slumped, weary. The heat didn’t help. The people dragged their feet as they walked, leaving trails behind them in the dust. They looked shabbier than he’d expected. There was an air of casual degradation about the place.

/>   Verstohlen walked further into the suburb. He knew what he was after. After a long trail up a winding cobbled street, he turned into a narrow alley and found himself in an enclosed square. On the far three sides, old stone buildings lurched haphazardly into the air. They’d seen better days. Clothes hung from the windows, heavy in the listless heat. If they’d been laundered and left to dry then the washerwomen had done a poor job, and there were still stains all over them. Naked children squatted at an open sewer, playing some kind of game in the filmy water. Their parents were nowhere to be seen. The only visible adults were in a shadowy doorway on the far side of the square. One of them, a fat man wearing no shirt, stared at Verstohlen with little interest. He looked half-asleep.

  Verstohlen walked up to the doorway. There was a strange aroma on the air, detectible even over the reek of the sewer and clumps of refuse. One didn’t need to be a bloodhound to be able to follow it.

  “Greetings, friend,” said Verstohlen, taking off his hat. “Can a man can get a drink here?”

  The man looked as if he didn’t understand Reikspiel. After a pause, he granted and motioned for Verstohlen to enter the house. They went in together. If the stench had been bad outside, it was worse inside. Used cooking pots had been discarded at the back of the room. Scraps of food, rags and other clutter littered the floor. A flight of wooden stairs led up to the next floor, and a doorway at the rear of the room indicated there were more chambers set further back.

  As Verstohlen had guessed, this place served as an inn of sorts. It didn’t sell ale, but that wasn’t what the patrons were after. The strange aroma he’d detected outside permeated the place.

  “You’re a stranger here,” said the man, bluntly. As he spoke, his jowls quivered. There were a few others in the room, mostly propped up against the walls. Their eyes were blank. One of them, an older man in reasonably expensive clothes, looked like he’d been there a long time. A glittering line of drool ran down his chin from his open mouth. Every so often, his fingers would twitch.

  “I am,” said Verstohlen coolly. He’d need to keep his wits about him, though none of the residents of the den looked capable of sudden movements. “Just passing through. I’d heard about the fine ale you people sell. Perhaps I could try some of it?”

  The man’s senses seemed to have been permanently damaged. He’d obviously forgotten the first rule of the peddler of contraband and had indulged himself. After a while, he realised what was being asked of him and ducked under the doorway. From the chamber beyond there was the sound of something heavy being dragged from its place. Verstohlen looked around him. The clientele were lost in another world. It was as if he wasn’t there at all. He squatted down and waved his hand in front of the old merchant’s face. Nothing. The man was still breathing, but he might as well have been dead.

  The owner came back. He had a collection of objects in his hand. They looked like ginger roots, but were a darker brown. Even from a couple of yards away the aroma was pungent.

  “How many?” he asked.

  Verstohlen picked one up and rolled it between his fingers. The outer skin came off in his hands easily. It felt strangely caustic. Underneath, the flesh of the root was a pale pink colour.

  “How much do I need?”

  The fat man laughed, a strangled sound that had little mirth in it.

  “First time? Half a root. You’ll be back. Three schillings.”

  The price was low. That was a worry. If such dissolute characters could get hold of it, then it was more widespread than Brecht had believed.

  Verstohlen gave him the money and took one of the roots. He slipped it into his pocket. The fat man laughed again.

  “You’ll love it,” he gurgled. “You’ll love her.”

  Verstohlen paused.

  “Who?”

  But the fat man couldn’t stop laughing. He shuffled back into the rear of the house, shaking his head at some joke. Verstohlen watched him go. He suddenly felt nauseous. The squalor around him was overwhelming.

  He walked back out into the sun. Once in the courtyard, he drew in a mouthful of air. It wasn’t the purest in the world, but it was less noxious than it had been inside the house. The last of the sunlight still lay golden on the stone. The light was fading quickly. With more purpose than he’d shown on the way out, Verstohlen began to retrace his steps. He knew it would be unwise to be on the west bank when night fell.

  His haste was not just a matter of prudence. This thing needed to be investigated. An uncomfortable thought had occurred to him. The words were still etched on his mind.

  You’ll love her.

  That could mean nothing. It could be innocuous. It could have been mistaken. It could be horrifying.

  Schwarzhelm woke suddenly. His eyes flicked wide open. For a moment, he had no idea where he was. Then the real world clarified. He was in his bedchamber in the Averburg. As ever, he was plastered in sweat. As ever, the dream had been bad. The sheets were clammy, wrapped up around his powerful legs like bonds. He looked down at his hands. They were still shaking. He took a deep breath, forcing his heart to stop racing.

  Schwarzhelm swung his feet on to the floor, shoving the flimsy silk coverlet from his body. He rubbed his eyes roughly. The last of the images, Bloch’s accusing face, steadily receded. He felt like he was losing his mind.

  As he had done in Altdorf, he walked over to the window of his tower room. He stood at the open sill, waiting for his heart to stop thumping. He looked out and down, willing the images in his mind to recede. He could see all of the Old City laid out before him. The night had done little to cool it down, but the place slumbered. The streets were silent, and the river ran quietly under the moon.

  When he’d been a boy, many years ago, Schwarzhelm had called this place his capital city. Growing up in rural Averland, the word Altdorf meant little. Though it was hard to recall now, he’d only had the vaguest idea what the Empire was or who ruled it. His life had been permeated by simple things. The rhythm of the harvest. The intense politics of village life. The need to learn a trade.

  His father had wanted him to be a blacksmith. Even as a lad, he’d had the arms for it. If he’d taken that advice, he’d no doubt still be in the village. Wenenlich. He barely even remembered the name. When he’d first come back to Averland to rein in Marius, he’d not visited. That kind of sentiment had never been his style. For all he knew, the villagers might still boast of their famous son. They might have forgotten he ever came from there. Either was possible. It didn’t really matter.

  He leaned further out on the sill, letting the warm breeze run across his skin. Since those days, he’d travelled the length of the Empire and beyond. He’d fought marauders on the far shore of the Sea of Claws, orcs in the Grey Mountains, rat-men in the sewers of Middenheim, traitors in Ostland, undead in Stirland, beastmen all over the Empire. Now nowhere was his home—and everywhere was. He’d become one of that select, strange band for whom the whole Empire was their concern. Few men ever achieved such a feat. Karl Franz, of course. Gelt, Volkmar, Huss. And, of course, Helborg.

  The name reminded him of his recent sensitivity. It was unworthy. He’d allowed himself to get caught up in the game of prestige. Wasn’t that what Lassus had warned him against? The old man’s lesson was simple. He’d served his time. When it was over he’d allowed himself to leave the stage, honoured by all and hated by none. That was the way a man’s life should be. Getting drawn into these rivalries was foolish and dangerous.

  Perhaps Schwarzhelm’s own time was drawing to a close. Maybe, after thirty years of constant service, he’d become trapped in that endless, fruitless struggle for mortal honour. All things came to an end, after all. Maybe that was what the Emperor was testing for. Whether the old dog had any life left in him.

  The memory of the nightmare began to fade. Schwarzhelm felt his equilibrium gradually return. The still of the night brought a certain clarity to his thoughts.

  Lack of sleep was getting to him. The nightmares were unnatural.
He’d had them in Altdorf, but they’d been worse since getting to Averheim. He’d seen enough of the world to know that such things always had their causes. There were forces at work, hidden for the moment, determined to see him fail. Maybe they were already in the city. Maybe they would show themselves in the days to come. But, as surely as he’d known that Raghram would come to the Bastion, he knew his enemies would scuttle from their cover at the last. Until that moment, the torment would continue. His spirit knew what his mind could not. It sensed their presence.

  “You will not break me,” he whispered. His words melted into the night. “You cannot break me.”

  For a few moments more he remained at the window’s edge, watching the city sleep, reflecting on its fate. Then, finally, he felt the drag of weariness again. The dawn was still hours away.

  Schwarzhelm walked back to the bed and lay on it. Eventually, slowly, his eyes closed. Hung in the corner of the chamber, the sheathed Rechtstahl looked coldly, silently on. Outside, high in the night sky, the full moon rode untroubled above Averheim.

  Chapter Eight

  Bloch roared his defiance. The men around him did the same. They were brave lads. They hadn’t given up. But the situation was getting hopeless. Hundreds of men now lay trampled into the turf. All around the beleaguered army swarmed a maelstrom of greenskin fury. The artillery rounds had given out, the last of their shot spent in a futile effort to stem the rising tide. Two nights of fighting stranded on the ridge and no let-up in sight. The rotations had become unbearable. Sleep had been nigh impossible amid the constant series of assault and counter-assault.

  The second dawn, hot and humid, brought no comfort. Grunwald’s army, sent so proudly south from Altdorf, was facing ruin. The orcs came at them again. They scented victory.

  “Hold your positions!” bellowed Bloch, though his voice was beginning to crack. His halberd felt heavy and blunt. “Pick your targets!”