by Nathan Long
‘Light duty for you this morning, Grau. You will show Corporal Meyerling around the fort and familiarize him with his duties. Bring him to the parade ground after noon mess, in full kit and ready to ride. That is all.’
Grau saluted, beaming. ‘Yes sir!’
Vortmunder turned to Reiner. ‘Listen to him well, corporal. I don’t care for slow starters. A keen mind is as important as a sharp eye to a pistolier.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Reiner. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He saluted as well, then followed Grau.
When they were out of Vortmunder’s earshot, Grau grinned and nudged Reiner in the ribs. ‘I’m in your debt, old man. You’ve got me out of stable duty.’
Reiner raised an eyebrow ‘Pistoliers clean the stables? You have no squires?’
‘Gutzmann wishes us to learn discipline. No soft berths here. No buying your way out of duty, no matter who your father is. I hated it at first. But I don’t mind so much now. We’re the best army in the Empire because of it. There’s none to match us.’
‘Aye?’ said Reiner. ‘You’re not the only army to claim it.’
‘But it’s the truth with us. You’ll see this afternoon.’ He pointed to the big south wall. ‘First things first. The great south wall. Thirty feet thick, fifty feet tall. It could probably stop most armies unmanned, but we man it anyway. Gives the foot something to do.’ He lowered his hand to the gate. ‘Oak doors. Two portcullises. Murder room above, with vents for pouring oil or lead on anyone who manages to get through the first gate. The walls can be reached through the gatehouse guardroom and each of the four towers.’
‘And the only army likely to attack is that of a kingdom that has been friendly with the Empire for five hundred years?’ said Reiner. ‘No wonder you play so many games.’
‘Oh, there’s fighting, never fear,’ said Grau. ‘Nests of bandits in the hills. The occasional orc raiding party. You’ll know every goat track and rabbit trail for a hundred leagues before you’re here a month.’ He swung his arm to the keep. ‘If an army breaches the south wall—not bloody likely, but if—we fall back to the keep. Armoury and main powder room are in there, as well as quarters for all the top brass and the barracks for their personal guard. The gate is like the south wall’s in miniature. Oak doors. Murder room above, which also houses the winches that raise and lower the two portcullises. We’ve food, water and space to house five hundred men for three weeks.’ He coughed. ‘Unfortunately, there’s two thousand of us at the moment, now that you lot have joined us.’
‘Comforting,’ said Reiner.
Grau turned to the other half of the fort. ‘Stables. Smithy. Feed barn. Infantry drill yard. Barracks for the knights, lancers and pistoliers. Those new ones are for the infantry. Gutzmann built them when he doubled the garrison. And still there ain’t enough. Hence the tents north of the fort.’
‘Hence I’m sleeping under canvas.’
Grau grinned. ‘Invigorating, ain’t it?’
‘I’ll be happy to switch with you.’
Grau laughed. ‘No fear.’ He started back to the stables. ‘Come, let’s have a look at your kit. You brought your own horse?’
‘Aye.’
‘Well, we’ll see if he’s up to snuff.’
They found Reiner’s horse and his gear and Grau looked it over while he explained Reiner’s duties and what his days would consist of. Reiner grew tired just hearing it. Rise at daybreak every day, groom one’s horse and clean one’s tack. Then either drill, drudgery, or duty for the rest of the day. A third of the force was always on patrol, or escorting merchants to and from Aulschweig. A third was drilling on the parade ground, practising turns and wheels, shooting and swordplay from horseback. The last third was cleaning the stables or feeding the horses or mending tack or any of a dozen unpleasant but necessary chores. The more he listened, the more relieved Reiner was that he wasn’t actually stationed here. He didn’t know how long he would have to maintain his pistolier charade before he learned what Gutzmann was up to, but the sooner he could get away the better. Hard labour had never been his forte.
As Grau and Reiner led Reiner’s horse to the smithy to be reshod—apparently Manfred’s farrier did inferior work—Reiner heard raised voices coming from the far side of the privy shed, a low, stone building built against the canyon wall behind the stables.
‘No man puts hands on me! I’ll murder ye, ye clot!’
Reiner groaned. That could only be one man.
And as Reiner and Grau passed the shed, he was proved correct. Dag flew out of the door and fell across their path, his nose streaming red. He bounced back up into the face of a hulking crossbowman, who was cursing and shaking a filthy mop at him.
‘Y’filthy little maggot, I’ll shove you down the jakes and piss on you.’
‘Touch me again and y’won’t have nothing to piss from, y’great bullock!’ shouted Dag.
‘Hoy!’ cried Grau. ‘Stand down the both of you!’
The men looked up. The crossbowman stepped back, cowed by the presence of junior officers, but Dag, seeing Reiner, held out pleading hands.
‘Captain Reiner, help me!’ he called. ‘This oaf tried to push me in the piss trough.’
Grau looked around at Reiner. ‘You know this fellow?’
‘Hardly.’
‘I only bumped him, sirs,’ said the crossbowman. ‘The man’s mad.’
‘Mad!’ Dag turned back to the crossbowman. ‘Y’call me mad? I’ll show ye mad! I’ll eat yer liver!’
‘Archer!’ Reiner barked. ‘Come to heel, curse you! What is the meaning of this!’ He spun Dag around by the shoulder. Dag’s eyes flared, but before he could speak, Reiner jabbed his finger in his face. ‘You are mad, you horrible man! Starting fights for no reason! Calling on me as your captain! Do I look an archer? I am a corporal of pistoliers, footman! Your better in every way! And you would do well to remember it! Now stop this foolishness or you’ll wind up in stir and be of no use to anyone! Do you understand me, cur?’
Dag hung his head, but Reiner was certain he saw a smile on the archer’s lips. ‘Aye, captain, er, corporal. I understand. Aye.’
‘You will keep your fists, and your insults, and your liver eating to yourself, do you hear?’
‘Aye, corporal.’
‘Good.’ Reiner stood back. ‘Now be off, the both of you, and if I hear any more of this I’ll string you up myself.’
He turned away with Grau and they continued towards the stables as Dag and the crossbowman slouched sulkily back into the privies, giving each other dirty looks.
Reiner breathed a sigh of relief. The damned madman had almost given the game away. Why had Manfred cursed him with command of such a fool? He shrugged as Grau gave him a questioning look. ‘I did the fellow the kindness of letting him fetch me some water in exchange for a few coins one night on the march here, and now he thinks me his master. He’s moon touched.’
Grau grinned. ‘Well you gave him a proper scolding. You’ll make parade corporal with that tongue. Strewth!’
NOON MESS FOR officers was served in the keep’s great hall, where Reiner had supped the night before. This time, however, he did not sit on the dais with the captains, but mucked in with the other corporals on the long tables that ran the length of the room. It was a noisy affair, with much banter and horseplay once the oath to Sigmar had been pledged and the bread broken.
But the tensions he had felt elsewhere were here as well. There was very little mixing between the sergeants of the infantry and the corporals of the cavalry. They sat at separate tables and shot suspicious glances at each other. And under the cheery cacophony of insults and jokes he heard darker mutterings.
As he passed a table of sergeants he heard one say, ‘We might lead ‘em. But it’s him and his cursed centaurs they love.’
One of the man’s companions came to Gutzmann’s defence. ‘And why not? He’s the best leader you’ve served under.’
‘Aye, but where does he lead us? That’s the question, ain’t it
?’
The question indeed. But though all around Reiner the cavalry officers exchanged sly glances and made veiled references to ‘the future’, they were cagey in his presence. It maddened him. Their smug smiles and sly looks spoke of a conspiracy, but Reiner could learn nothing.
He could tell Grau itched to tell him what was afoot. After his lambasting of Dag, the corporal had decided Reiner was a good egg. He spent the whole of their meal cautiously feeling him out, trying to determine his loyalties, but afraid yet to betray himself, just as Matthais had the night before.
‘But you’ve seen it close hand, haven’t you, Meyerling?’ he asked as they sat with the other pistolier corporals. ‘How it is titles that win promotion, not ability. That is the problem with the Emperor’s army. Noble lackwits become generals while men with real talent can’t rise above captain.’ He sighed, perhaps a little too theatrically, ‘If only a man like General Gutzmann ran things. We’d have professional soldiers leading us, men with experience in battle instead of politics.’
Reiner nodded sincerely, for he knew that was what Grau wanted him to do. ‘Aye. That’s how things should be. A modern, professional army, free of patronage. Too bad there’s no chance of it happening in our lifetimes.’
Grau’s eyes widened. He sat forward. ‘You might be surprised, Meyerling. You might be surprised. Things might change quicker than you think. Perhaps not in the…’
The pistolier to Grau’s left, a round-faced fellow named Yeoder, elbowed him in the ribs. Grau looked up and followed his gaze. A hush was falling on the cavalry tables as a company of men rose from their table near the dais and walked toward the hall’s side door.
They were an impressive sight, twenty tall, stern greatswords, all in black, with snow white shirts showing at their cuffs and through their slashings. Their breastplates were black chased with silver and their kit matched down to the pommels of their swords and the buckles of their shoes. All had the twin comet stitched onto the right shoulders of their jerkins and silver hammers on a chain around their necks, which were smaller twins to the one that Shaeder wore. Their captain was a head shorter than the rest, but as powerfully built, with a magnificent square-cut white beard and eyes as blue and cold as a winter sky.
A circle of silence moved with them as they traversed the room, the conversations at the tables dying off and the cavalry officers turning to look at them over their shoulders after they had passed. Reiner could feel the hate emanating from his companions for the impassive men.
‘Who are they?’ he asked, when the men had at last left the hall and conversation had resumed.
Grau spit over his left shoulder. ‘Shaeder’s Hammer, we call ‘em,’ he said. ‘They are Bearers of the Hammer, honour guard from Averheim’s Temple of Sigmar, of which Shaeder was once a captain. Now they’re his personal guard.’
‘Gloomy lot.’ Reiner said.
‘Bah,’ said Yeoder. ‘Just stuck up. Think Sigmar is their personal property. Nobody else is good enough.’
‘They’ll find out,’ said another pistol, darkly.
Grau gave him a sharp look and quickly turned the conversation to other things.
THAT NIGHT REINER stumbled through the flap of his tent and collapsed onto his cot, utterly exhausted.
The afternoon had been one of the most gruelling of his young life. He had thought himself a veteran of the parade ground, having trained under Lord von Stolmen’s master of horse, Karl Hoffstetter, considered one of the Empire’s finest. But while Captain Vortmunder couldn’t teach Reiner anything he hadn’t learned already from Hoffstetter, what he did do was drill it into him until his limbs felt like lead and the blisters the constant repetition raised on his fingers, knees and thighs had burst and bled and burst again. No horse master back home had dared ride his pupils so hard. They were the sons of noblemen, used to being waited on and pampered. They would practise for a while and then they would retire to the taproom to boast about their prowess.
Not so with Vortmunder. He had no pity, and no deference to rank. He had his pistoliers ride and fire at targets again and again and again, until the actions became second nature and they hit the bull’s-eye ten times in a row. He barked at them for the slightest failure of form. If a pistolier was ahead or behind his fellows as they wheeled, or he took too long to reload on the fly as he circled back from the target, Vortmunder was there, cantering beside him, ramrod straight in his saddle, pointing out with his riding crop the pistol’s offence.
And Reiner had felt the brunt of his attention. He had become the captain’s target of choice.
‘Let’s have Gutzmann’s favourite out again,’ he would say when he was detailing the next exercise. ‘Show us how they do it in the north, Meyerling.’ Until Reiner thoroughly regretted his tent-pegging grandstanding the day before.
At the same time, even though by the end of the day he was cursing Vortmunder’s guts with a vehemence he usually reserved for loan-sharks and officers of the watch, when the captain pulled up beside him as they were returning their horses to the stables and clapped him on the back with a ‘Good work, corporal,’ he felt a swelling of pride that almost made him want to do the whole thing over the next day.
Franka laughed at him as she helped him off with his jerkin, for he could barely lift his arms.
‘Don’t mock me, villain,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you how weary I am?’
‘Tell me,’ said Franka.
Reiner looked over at Karel, who was already fast asleep in his cot, then leaned in to whisper in Franka’s ear. ‘Even had we the tent to ourselves, you would be as safe as if in a Shallyan convent.’
Franka’s eyes widened. ‘You are weary indeed, m’lord.’
FOR FIVE DAYS Reiner’s routine continued the same. He was put in charge of ten men, and under Vortmunder’s and Grau’s guidance, learned the orders to give them, how to lead them in their turns and manoeuvres, and how to work with the other squads of pistols so that the entire company fought as a cohesive unit. It was exhausting, arse breaking work, but though he cursed it every night and every stiff-jointed morning, he found himself enjoying it more and more. He might almost be tempted to make it his life.
He had little time to seek out the other Blackhearts, and when he did they had little to tell him. Pavel and Hals had heard rumblings among the pikemen of some kind of revolt, but no details. Giano and Gert, attached to units of crossbowmen, heard similar whispers, but what shape the revolt would take they couldn’t say. Dag had done two days in the brig for fighting and had heard nothing. Abel said he had heard that Gutzmann meant to storm Altdorf, but he said the fellow who had said it was drunk at the time, so he didn’t credit it. Jergen said he had nothing to add, and Karel hadn’t heard anything. Reiner wasn’t surprised. The boy was so wide-eyed and guileless that no conspirator would trust him with a secret.
Of course he had done no better. Several times Grau had seemed to be on the verge of letting him in on the cavalry’s secret, but something always made him hesitate at the last moment.
On the morning of the sixth day, as Reiner was saddling his horse outside the stables, Matthais approached on horseback and saluted Vortmunder.
‘Begging the captain’s pardon,’ he said, ‘but cavalry Obercaptain Oppenhauer accompanies the trade caravan to Aulschweig and requests an escort of pistoliers.’
‘Very good, corporal,’ said Vortmunder, and looked around at his men. His eyes lit upon Reiner. ‘Ah. Take Meyerling. Time he rode further than the tilt yard and back.’ He raised his voice. ‘Meyerling, assemble your men and follow Corporal Bohm. He will give you your orders.’
And so, a short while later, Reiner rode out of the north gate at Matthais’s side, their respective squads tailing behind them, accompanied by a unit of crossbowmen sitting on the back of an empty cart. The morning sun glanced blindingly off the neat rows of tents beyond the north wall, and glittered the dew on the tilting yard grass.
‘Er, isn’t Aulschweig south?’ Reiner asked Matthais. Matt
hais grinned as they headed up the north road. ‘Aye. But we’re to the mine first to pick up some mining supplies before meeting the trade caravan. Every month we bring Empire goods to Baron Caspar at his castle just the other side of the border. In return we get grain, fodder, meat, and cooking oil. All for cheaper than carting it in from Hocksleten or Averheim, and better quality too. Very fertile valley, Aulschweig.’
Reiner raised an eyebrow. ‘Aulschweig has a gold mine as well?’
‘Er, no,’ said Matthais. ‘A tin mine. But, er, the tools are the same.’
‘Ah, I see. And Obercaptain Oppenhauer comes with us?’
‘Aye.’
‘What’s a cavalry obercaptain doing riding herd on a milk run?’
Matthais shot Reiner a hard glance. ‘You are very astute, corporal. Er, well, there is another purpose for our visit. You remember I told you that Caspar has been eyeing his brother’s throne?’
‘I remember.’
‘Well, apparently his grumblings have been getting louder of late, so Gutzmann sends Oppenhauer along to whisper soothing words in his ear. And also to remind him of our might.’
‘Sounds a bit of a hothead, this Caspar.’
‘You’ll see.’
THE MINE WAS only a few hundred yards along a well-trodden path that branched westwards from the pass. Entry to it was guarded by fortifications that mirrored in miniature those of the fort—a thick, crenellated wall that blocked the canyon from wall to wall, with a tower on each side of a deep, portcullised gate.
Inside the wall were barracks, stables, and other outbuildings Reiner couldn’t guess the purpose of. A system of pipes ran through one from a small aqueduct. Crowds of dust-caked miners trooped in and out of the mine entrance, a large, square opening in the mountainside framed with tree-trunks, carrying pickaxes and wheeling barrows. Almost as many pikemen and crossbowmen watched over them, patrolling the walls and every inch of the compound.
