The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  A burly man, the captain, grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and brandished a blade in his face. Lukas’s vision swam. He was still shaken from the blast, and his grip on his surroundings was weak.

  ‘You’ll get yourself killed out on your own,’ snapped the captain, taking a spare sword and pressing it into his hands. ‘Stick with us. We’re going back in.’

  As the man spoke, Scharnhorst’s trumpets blared out once more. From all along the lines of attackers, answering blasts rang. On either side of the halberdiers, ranks of soldiers began to advance. In the distance, on Lukas’s left, disorganised bands of flagellants tore towards the citadel, shrieking and howling with incoherent rage. In their wake, rows of footsoldiers came onwards more cautiously. Some order had been restored to their detachments. Men who had been cut off from their companies like Lukas were absorbed into the oncoming formations and carried along with the advance.

  There were none left behind. Scharnhorst had finally committed the reserves, and the entire army pressed forward, rank after rank of soldiers moving in concert.

  Lukas grasped the handle of his sword, and gripped it tight. The feel of the blade in his hands was comforting. It was an honest weapon, not like the crazed constructions of his fellow engineers. For the first time in a long while, Lukas felt like he was among equals. The men on either side of him were from similar stock. There were no handguns, spyglasses or mortars here. Just faith and steel, the bedrocks of the Empire.

  Across the pitted battlefield, the enemy had formed up too. With a yell, Anna-Louisa’s men rushed forward, their blades flashing in the sun. Lukas’s company didn’t hesitate. To a man, they let rip a ragged answering shout, and charged towards the approaching enemy.

  Lukas was carried along. As he ran, a kind of exhilaration took hold of him. He joined in with the chorus of war cries, feeling his hot blood pound through his body. His blade felt light in his hands. His injuries were forgotten.

  The lines closed in on each other. As the fighting broke out once more, the last thing Lukas thought was how simple the way of a non-engineer was. How much better it was to be amid a company of proper soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, wielding the weapons of Holy Sigmar, with only a natural and honourable death to fear. It was the life of an Imperial soldier. It was the life of a man.

  Then the detachments crashed together. All was forgotten save the desperate struggle of arms. Lukas was lost in the melee, his blond head just one in a crowd of dozens, hundreds of others. Steel rang out against steel, flesh against flesh. The final push had begun.

  Scharnhorst smiled. Slowly, bitterly, the defenders were pushed back to the citadel walls. Bereft of the imposing presence of Rathmor’s war engine, they were beaten back by the Hochlanders’ superior numbers. The close fighting gave no opportunity for them to bring their superior long guns to bear. Men grappled with men, fighting with swords, pikes, halberds, clubs, fists and teeth. There was little glory in it. Apart from the knights, who launched glorious charges into the heart of the boiling mass, the rest of the combat was brutal and ugly. Soldiers were dragged down to the ground by weight of numbers alone, throttled in the press and suffocated in the shadows. Eyes were gouged, fingers broken, scalps ripped, any mean or vicious trick to gain an extra yard of ground.

  The greatest losses had been among the flagellants. They had flung themselves at the defending lines with utter abandon. Many had been mown down remorselessly with gunfire. Once they came too close for the enemy guns to be effective, they were sliced apart by the disciplined ranks of the defending halberdiers, working in concert like a team of harvesters before their crop. But it mattered not. Though the flagellants were slain in droves, they punched holes in the regiments of defenders through the sheer force of their charge. These were then exploited by the ranks of state troopers behind. Time and again the zealots would be hurled forward, only to be followed by orderly lines of soldiers ready to pile in and finish the task.

  Across the rest of the field, the story was the same. Anna-Louisa’s men, well drilled and superbly equipped, were borne down by the volume of bodies coming at them. The deathmask bodyguard of the war machine, the best close-combat troops in the defending army, cut down three men for every one of their number they lost. But it was still not enough. Inexorably, they were harried back towards the shattered gates of their citadel.

  Watching all of this unfold with an expression of impassive flint, Scharnhorst stood with his retinue on the low mound that served as his outpost. Every few minutes, reports were brought to him by red-faced functionaries, detailing the progress of the assault. The news was mostly good. Where changes needed to be made, trumpets sounded in a series of signals, and the captains reassigned regiments and redeployed companies. Though every step was paid for in blood, the noose was closing in.

  The Knights of the Iron Sceptre were continually in the thick of the fighting. On a rare lull between charges, Kruger rode up from the field and dismounted beside the general. His cheeks were heavily flushed from his exertions, and he wore a bloodied bandage on his left arm. Otherwise, he looked the same as ever. Haughty, aristocratic, implacable, deadly.

  ‘We near the gatehouse, sir,’ he said, pulling his helmet off and walking up to the command retinue. ‘Your orders?’

  Scharnhorst put his spyglass down. Though it was now almost imperceptible, the faint smile still played across his lips.

  ‘They’ve been playing us for fools for days,’ he said, a vicious edge in his voice. ‘We’ve lost too many good men to their cowardly guns. Now they’ll pay for every drop of blood spilled. Let us finish this. Take your knights and marshal the final charge. We’ll assault the gates and push on within the citadel. Slay them all. We will make an example of this little rebellion, and the fear of it will resonate to the Talabec and beyond.’

  Kruger looked over his shoulder at the battlefield. For a moment, he seemed hesitant.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said in his unconsciously arrogant way. No other member of the army would have dared to question Scharnhorst. ‘Ironblood thought there would be hidden dangers inside.’

  Scharnhorst turned and made a signal to one of his aides. A horse was led up the hill, a huge chestnut stallion with an armoured faceplate and the colours of Hochland emblazoned on its tabards.

  ‘The order has been given, master knight,’ the general replied, reaching for the reins of his steed. ‘I have been ordering the siege from the rear for too long. I myself will lead this charge. Muster your company. You will be my escort.’

  Kruger bowed, and rushed back to his mount. In moments, the heavily armoured Iron Sceptre knights were assembled for another charge, their horses stamping at the ground and whinnying impatiently. Scharnhorst and his personal guard mounted. The finest armour Hochland could produce was on display. The general himself donned a heavy steel helm, emblazoned with Ludenhof’s family emblem, the boar’s head, and crowned with green and red plumes. He drew his broadsword, and its blade glinted in the sun. The day was waxing fast, and noon was now long past. The battle would be decided before it rose again.

  ‘Men of Hochland!’ the general bellowed, bringing his huge steed around to face the citadel. Before him, his entire army was laid out, locked in a pitiless battle with the beleaguered defenders at the walls. ‘This is the turning point! Show no mercy! Death to the traitors! Forward! For Ludenhof, Karl Franz and the Empire!’

  The men closest to the general cheered wildly, and surged forward. The knights kicked their horses. With a noise greater than the machines still churning in the bowels of the earth, the charge began. They swept down towards the gates, swords shining, hooves drumming. Behind them, trumpets gave the signal for the final assault, and fresh cheers rose from the furthest reaches of Ludenhof’s army. The tide of men pressed towards the fortress. Notched blades rose and fell, throwing blood high into the air. The final push had begun.

  Magnus and Hildebrandt fought together, their shou
lders touching, their weapons working in unison. The time for gunnery was long over. Artillery still fired sporadically from the ridge far behind them, but the combat was now so close that there were few clear targets for them. The handgunners had put down their long guns and picked up swords. The final hundred yards of ground before the gates were contested in hand-to-hand combat, close, visceral and brutal.

  After the reserves had been mustered and all men had been thrown into the fray, the two engineers had ended up in the forefront of the attack on the right-hand flank. Around them were ranks of state troopers, most armed with halberds, swords and spears. The going was hard. The close press of men meant that swinging a blade properly was difficult. The fighting was a cramped, stabbing affair with little skill and plenty of trust to luck. Amid the grasping, thrusting morass, Hildebrandt towered like a giant. Men rallied to him, and he stood at the centre of a remorselessly advancing knot of soldiers.

  Magnus was happy to fight in his shadow. The knowledge that Rathmor was in the citadel had thrown all thought of fatigue from him, and he hacked and stabbed at the men before him as if he were in the prime of his youth. His wits hadn’t entirely left him, though. He knew he was wounded, and that he needed to conserve his strength. If Rathmor was the same man he had been so many years ago, he would have made precautions for an assault on the citadel. There would be devices in place to frustrate the attack. Even though the defenders of Morgramgar were reeling, there was still danger.

  Hildebrandt roared like a bull, and ploughed on, bringing down two men in front of him with the sheer mass of his body. Magnus rushed to support him, thrusting expertly with his sword and parrying the return blows. The years of indolence and drunkenness were falling from him, and his muscles were remembering how to wield a blade once more. Though his arms ached, he carried on pounding and hammering at the defenders. It was as if they were pieces of metal on the anvil, ready to be smashed into shards. If Frau Ettieg could see him now, his eyes shining with a grim ferocity, she wouldn’t have dared to call him a disgrace.

  The gate was nearing. Over to the left, the knights had almost fought their way to the shattered pillars. Scharnhorst was with them. Magnus caught a glimpse of the general’s cloak rippling in the wind, surrounded by the glittering armour of his bodyguard. Kruger was wielding his mighty longsword with a roaring, concentrated fury. Few could stand against him. The end would not be long now.

  ‘We have to be at the front of that assault,’ hissed Magnus, pushing his hapless opponent backwards and head-butting him viciously.

  Hildebrandt brought his blade down with a crunch on the shoulder of the soldier before him. He smashed another in the face with his free fist. He was splattered in gore, and his face was crimson.

  ‘Morr’s teeth, Magnus,’ he muttered, his lungs labouring. ‘We don’t belong here. Leave the hacking to the knights.’

  A defender crept beneath Magnus’s guard and flashed his sword upwards. The man was felled by the spearman on Ironblood’s left, skewered from neck to stomach, leaking intestines and gibbering horribly. Magnus nodded quickly in thanks, wiped the gore from his face and pushed on.

  ‘He’ll be down below. Down where those machines are. We have to find him.’

  Hildebrandt grunted something inaudible in reply, and strode powerfully ahead. His mere presence seemed to daunt the defenders, and the lines wavered. Anna-Louisa’s men were being pounded hard on every front, and now held only a small patch of land in front of the gatehouse. They were being driven in.

  When the break came, it was sudden. The defenders’ rearguard seemed to crack all at once, turning and bolting through the crushed gates. The ranks in front of them buckled. Scharnhorst saw the change, and the knights wheeled their horses around and hurled themselves directly at the breach. A fresh cheer rippled through the attacking forces, and the pressure built.

  For a moment, Anna-Louisa’s remaining men held the line, the heavily armoured bodyguards bellowing defiance. But it couldn’t last. The ranks broke, and attackers poured into the breaches. Caught in the stampede, the defending troops were trampled underfoot or cut down where they cowered. Many of those fleeing were hacked apart by the knights. Kruger made the gates, and rode under them with a great roar of triumph. His fellow knights surged after him, Scharnhorst among them. The last defenders were swept aside, and the citadel was breached. With shouts of both scorn and triumph, Ludenhof’s men piled into the gap.

  ‘This is it,’ said Magnus. ‘Keep with them.’

  Faced with nothing but fleeing defenders, Hildebrandt did his best to slow down, but the pressure of men moving all round them kept him and Magnus heading for the breach. It would have been near impossible to turn round, even if they’d wanted to.

  ‘Back inside again,’ he said, resignedly, wiping his sword blade as he pressed forward. ‘This time by the front door.’

  As they approached the gates, the ground became choked and pitted. The evidence of the earlier artillery fire was everywhere. The craters at the base of the ruined gatehouse were full of corpses, most of them still warm. Blasted remains of shot and cartridge casings were everywhere. It was hard to keep a secure footing, and Magnus felt himself stumble often as the baying crowds around him carried him onward.

  The gate itself was the width of two carriages. Its span had been reduced by the piles of debris, and Scharnhorst’s men had to squeeze themselves through at no more than four men abreast. From the far side of the walls, inside the citadel, the sounds of fighting could already be heard. The defenders may have been driven in, but there was clearly resistance still.

  Eventually, after much shoving and cursing, Magnus and Hildebrandt reached the gates. On the far side, the first of Morgramgar’s many courtyards opened up. It was hewn from the same dark stone that the walls were. Even full of clatter and noise, it was a mournful space. Dreary black walls enclosed the far three sides, each studded with narrow windows.

  Beyond the opposing wall, the bulk of the citadel rose up imposingly. From ground level, the place looked like a vast cluster of broad-trunked towers, each connected to the others by a series of spiralling stairs and twisting buttresses. Everything was tall, narrow and tortured. The architects of the citadel, having had little space on which to build, had packed as much as they could into the few natural platforms. As a result, the whole place looked like a thicket of trees in a dark primeval forest, jumbled on top of one another and grasping upwards for light. Above them all, towering two hundred feet from the courtyard, the mighty central shaft rose. The summit of that tower was still crowned by the strange bulbous chamber, illuminated from within by the lurid green light.

  The first courtyard was secured quickly. Scharnhorst and the rest of the knights dismounted. The winding stairs and narrow corridors would be impossible to negotiate on horseback. All of them knew that the rest of the fighting would be on foot, locked tight in the close halls of stone.

  The few of Anna-Louisa’s soldiers that had made it through the gates were now being beaten back into the interior of the citadel. A couple of narrow doorways were still held, and arrows had begun to spin down into the courtyard from windows high up in the towers beyond. It was a barely token effort. The retreat had been disorderly, and Scharnhorst was clearly keen to keep up the momentum.

  ‘Spread out!’ he yelled, brandishing his broadsword and looking murderous. ‘Hunt them down! The traitors are up in the towers! A gold crown for the man who brings me the head of Anna-Louisa von Kleister!’

  That ratcheted the frenzy up another notch. Soldiers, their faces distorted by bloodlust, tore across the courtyard, hammering down doors and crashing their way up the narrow stairs beyond and into the towers. There were more behind them, pushing from the rear for the chance of getting involved with the slaughter. Like the sea bursting through the breach in a tide-wall, Morgramgar was filling up with men.

  ‘Are you with me?’ cried Hildebrandt, carried along with the
throng despite his vast bulk.

  Magnus held back.

  ‘Rathmor won’t be up there!’ he cried. Hildebrandt was already several yards away. Magnus kept his position with difficulty, ducking and shoving past the rows of rushing, eager bodies. Like some street urchin of Altdorf, he crouched down and scampered out of the main press. With much elbowing and jostling, he was soon at the right-hand edge of the horde, away from the main current of men surging ever upwards.

  ‘I’ll find you!’ came Hildebrandt’s roar, now some distance ahead. Magnus looked over to where he struggled. The big man had been pushed into the forefront of the assault. Fighting had broken out once more at the far end of the courtyard. A brief counter-attack from the tower beyond had been launched. The defenders weren’t finished yet.

  Magnus looked down to his right. There was a little door sunk far back into the wall. It led downwards, towards the lower levels of the citadel. The forges. If Rathmor was in the fortress, he would be there, down amongst his machines, cornered like a badger before the dogs.

  Magnus looked back up for the last time. Hildebrandt was gone, caught up in the thick of the fighting. He knew he should go after him, stand beside him. Just as the big man had done for him, so many times. It was his duty.

  But there was a stronger urge within him than duty. A cold flame had been kindled. He had long thought it extinguished, doused in ale and bitterness, but the sight of the war machines had brought it back.

  Rathmor was here. His old colleague. The one who had stolen the Blutschreiben designs. The one who had built the experimental war machine in the foundries of Nuln, and paraded it as if the drawings were his. The one who had convinced that old man of engineering, the peerless White Wolf of Nuln, to pilot the first prototype. Rathmor had somehow convinced the magisterial figure that it was safe, that the flaws had been worked out of it. And he had then watched from safety as the magazine had exploded, cascading the watching professors with burning shards of iron and burying the dream in ignominy.