The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  ‘What are you doing, old man?’

  ‘Readying for a fight,’ he answered, rolling up his sleeves and rotating his shoulders. ‘Come on, son, don’t disappoint me.’

  Keller caught another twinge as Varveiter moved. The old soldier betrayed the weakness in his bruised leg and stood awkwardly.

  Fair enough, he’d dump the geriatric on his arse and then see what he had to say about ‘cowardice’.

  ‘You should’ve hung up your blade a long time ago, Varveiter. And now I’m going to show you wh–’

  Varveiter lunged forward and punched Keller hard in the gut. The mouthy halberdier doubled over and heaved up his guinea fowl.

  Backing up, he raised a hand.

  ‘Bastard!’ he managed through hard breaths. ‘I wasn’t ready.’

  ‘I was,’ replied Varveiter, and swung again. This time the move was slow, and Keller saw it coming. Dropping his shoulder, he took the punch on his back, most of the force lost through the extra distance the blow had to travel. Varveiter wasn’t done, though, and threw in a left hook that Keller had to step back from to avoid.

  The old man was breathing in short, sharp gasps. That last combination had taken something out of him. Keller smiled thinly, like a snake sizing up a mouse, and leant in with a quick jab. He struck Varveiter on his upper torso then he rained in another blow that clipped the side of the old man’s head. It was like striking iron.

  Much to Keller’s delight, Varveiter was backing up. A space had cleared around the campfire, Masbrecht, Volker and Lenkmann moving from the ‘arena’ to avoid getting hit by a stray blow or a falling body. Eber was on the other side of the flames and well out of it. Brand just kept his seat and watched. If Karlich had been there, he’d have put a stop to it. Lenkmann, however, had lost the reins of the situation long ago, before he’d even realised it was brewing.

  ‘Not so bullish, now, eh?’ Keller goaded.

  Krieger Keller was a small man. Not physically, but mentally and morally. And he was a coward, just like Varveiter had said. It was the truth of his remarks that set Keller off in the first place. He didn’t like feeling small, and any chance to vent his wrath, his sense of inadequacy on something smaller, frailer, he took it. Eber was an easy target. A big man but a dumb man, without the resolve to fight back. Keller had heard his wailings in the night, about his mother and his abusive father. Eber was easy meat. And now he’d prove his superiority over Varveiter, too.

  The old man didn’t reply, just kept his guard up and spat out a gobbet of blood from where Keller had caught him in the mouth. He beckoned the younger man on scornfully.

  Filled with over-confidence, Keller came forward again. He feinted with a punch to Varveiter’s strong side then aimed a kick at his bad leg when the old soldier’s guard was down.

  Varveiter cried out, and the pain was there on his face for all to see. Lenkmann went to intercede but something in the old soldier’s eyes told him not to. It had gone beyond a brawl. This was personal. Even Brand kept his seat, but his gaze never left the two pugilists.

  ‘Aiming for a weak spot…’ gasped Varveiter. ‘Good tactic…’

  ‘With you, your whole body is a weakness,’ Keller snarled and threw an overhand meant to finish the old man off.

  Varveiter was ready for it. He ducked beneath the punch, sending an uppercut into Keller’s stomach at the end of the move.

  ‘Yours is your pride, lad,’ he hissed.

  He followed the uppercut with a heavy jab to the man’s ribs, not so hard as to break one, but hard enough to bruise and hurt like hell. The air was blasted from Keller’s lungs as if he’d been hit with a hammer. The hammer came next.

  As Keller bent over again, spewing up his empty guts, Varveiter smashed his elbow against the younger man’s back, flooring him. By the end, it was Keller that was gasping for breath, puking bile and crumpled in a heap. Varveiter stood over him, all of his feigned fatigue abruptly gone.

  When he leant down to pick up his breastplate, he whispered in Keller’s ear.

  ‘Don’t let’s you and me have this talk again, you little shit, or I will break something next time. Permanently.’

  Keller scowled through his agony, having finished dry heaving, and nodded meekly.

  ‘See?’ said Varveiter out loud as he yanked Keller to his feet. ‘Good for camaraderie.’ He slapped the other halberdier hard on his back, a little harder than he really needed to.

  Keller smiled thinly. His eyes conveyed all of his shame and impotent rage. They said something else too, a message just for Varveiter.

  This isn’t over between us.

  Varveiter stared back, as stoic as stone. He’d had more than one run in with a fellow soldier in his career, men much tougher than the one before him now. Keller was just a jumped up little snot who needed taking down a peg. He wasn’t even slightly worried. Other concerns were on his mind right now.

  ‘I reckon that’s enough excitement for me for one night,’ the old man said. ‘I’ll bid you all a fair evening. You too, Krieger,’ he added with a final glance in the seething halberdier’s direction. Varveiter walked away in the night, heading for one of the tents.

  After Volker had bid the old man good night, and Masbrecht had muttered a benediction to Sigmar for him, the familiar silence returned.

  Keller decided he couldn’t take it and, clutching his stomach and snarling, stomped away in the opposite direction to Varveiter.

  ‘An eventful evening,’ Lenkmann began after a minute or so, trying ineptly to leaven the heavy silence.

  Volker chewed on his guinea fowl, but set the strip down after a few bites. He’d suddenly lost his appetite. Eber looked as sullen as ever, his brawny arms and legs tucked tight into his body despite the fact it wasn’t a cold night. Masbrecht nodded to Lenkmann, just as awkward as the banner bearer, before his eyes dropped and he fumbled at the Sigmarite talisman hung around his neck.

  Another silent minute passed before Brand got to his feet and went off without a word. Before he left the fireside, he leant down to put a dagger in Volker’s guinea fowl, pausing to look at the hunter with the blade barely an inch away.

  ‘Eat up,’ invited Volker. ‘No sense in it going to waste.’

  Brand took the meat, devoured a strip off the blade, and walked on.

  ‘Just we four then,’ Lenkmann said optimistically after a few more seconds.

  No one answered him.

  The small stream babbled along with the placid night sounds of the forest. With the taint of the beastmen scoured from its boughs, at least the small tract of trees within sight of Hobsklein, the sinister pall that had lingered there had gone. In its place was life; good, wholesome, natural creation.

  Varveiter liked listening to the nocturnal movements of the Reikland. It brought a small measure of peace, especially in a land that saw so little. If the coming war was as bad as he suspected it would be, he would likely not experience peace for some time after. He made the most of it and drank in the atmosphere of the night.

  He’d come to the stream deliberately, picking out a secluded spot safe from prying eyes. After the fight with Keller, he’d only loosely strapped his breastplate back up. Now, by the water’s edge, he shrugged it off his body. Fresh spikes of agony, worse than those he’d felt at the fireside, clawed at him. The injury he’d feigned in front of Keller hadn’t been feigned at all, it was the outward strength he’d been lying about.

  Next came the leg, and here Varveiter was afraid to even look. Easing himself into the stream, feet first once he’d struggled off his boots, he allowed the cool water to numb his thigh before he rolled up his hose. Varveiter hissed with pain as he did, forced to keep his tongue behind a cage of his own teeth lest he cry out. An ugly, black bruise showed itself as he peeled the garment back. There was some crimson too, where the blood vessels had burst painfully below the surface of his skin.
Feeling daggers of fire with every step, Varveiter shuffled a little deeper and bent down as far as he could to splash the bruised leg. It was scant relief, but it was something.

  When he was done, he clawed his way back out of the stream – he couldn’t remember how – redressed and collapsed on the bank next to his discarded armour.

  ‘Siegen?’

  Varveiter was only semi-conscious. He’d slipped into a sort of fugue state, his body’s reaction to the pain. Shadowed images of green trees and golden fields of corn filled his mind. Wood smoke carried on the breeze and somewhere a woman was singing.

  ‘Siegen?’

  Her voice was like warm fires on a cold day and cooling wind in the summer heat. She lifted him with her siren-like song. The sun was streaming through her auburn hair, and in his vision it blazed with the flames of her passion and spirit.

  ‘Siegen?’

  A hand was shaking him, it felt firm but tender. Varveiter opened his eyes and saw Brand looking down on him.

  ‘Sigmar’s arse!’ he swore, and would have flinched had he been able.

  ‘I brought some meat,’ said Brand, offering the last strip of guinea fowl he’d taken from Volker’s plate.

  ‘Thank you, lad,’ Varveiter said, pushing himself up into a seated position.

  ‘Are you all right, Siegen?’ Brand asked when he saw the discomfort in the old soldier’s face.

  ‘Fine, lad. You just disturbed a pleasant dream, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t dream,’ said Brand flatly. The coldness returned to his eyes like hard steel. ‘As long as you’re all right,’ he added, before heading off deeper into the night.

  Varveiter watched him go and thought again of the enigma that was Brand. Whenever encamped, he would often wander out into the dark and only return again come morning. No one ever asked him about it. Karlich didn’t care enough to bother, and Varveiter thought a man’s business was a man’s business and the others were too scared.

  Still, it did perplex him.

  As rested as he could be, Varveiter was pulling on his boots when he got his second visitor of the evening. When he heard the crunch of grass nearby, he thought of Keller at first and went to grab his dirk.

  ‘As bad as that, was it?’

  Varveiter realised it was Karlich and he moved his hand away again.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Don’t play coy with me, you sly goat,’ said Karlich, as he stepped into view. ‘And don’t call me “sir”. You’ll make me feel as old as you are.’

  The burn scar on the left side of the sergeant’s face looked livid in the moonlight, and he’d taken off his hat and helm to reveal the shaven scalp beneath it. Karlich still wore his breastplate, though, and had a long dagger strapped to his left leg.

  ‘A lesson was needed, is all,’ Varveiter explained, getting to his feet and stretching out the fresh aches.

  ‘Long as that’s all it was.’ Karlich cracked his knuckles. He wore leather gloves. In all the years under his command, Varveiter could never remember seeing the sergeant without them. ‘Keller’s a whoreson bastard,’ he went on, ‘but he’s our bastard and I like to keep him on a tight leash. Last thing I need is you stirring the hornet’s nest.’

  ‘It won’t happen again, si– Karlich.’

  ‘Good, now share some of that meat with me. I’m bloody starving.’

  ‘Volker left a place for you by the fire,’ Varveiter returned, passing a piece of now cold guinea fowl to his sergeant.

  ‘Needed some time by myself,’ said Karlich. His gaze was on the distant village of Hobsklein. The stream ran right up to its stockade walls. As they’d been talking, a Taalite priest had emerged from behind the gates, ushering out a small group of villagers bringing barrels of ale, sacks of grain for the horses and raw vegetables. One youth even dragged a sow by a rope, such was the Hobskleiner’s gratitude at ridding their patch of forest of beastmen. They’d obviously waited until all the tents were pitched, the men settled and sentries posted before coming out. They probably wanted to be sure all of the beastmen were dead, too.

  ‘I feel old,’ Varveiter confessed out of nowhere.

  ‘Eh? What are you talking about? You’re a warhorse, Siegen, proud and strong.’ Karlich clapped him on the back.

  ‘Am I? I don’t feel it. It’s like my muscles are ropes that have been stretched too tautly and left to sag. And the bruises linger, and the blood. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t go through a day without tasting blood in my mouth.’

  ‘You’re just tired,’ Karlich replied. ‘We all are. It was a hard fight in the forest. In any case, I need you to help me keep the rest in line,’ he laughed, though it failed to convey much mirth.

  Varveiter faced him, a terrible sadness coming over his face.

  ‘If I could no longer soldier, Karlich, I don’t know what else I would do.’ His voice cracked a little with emotion.

  ‘You’ve many good years left in you, yet, warhorse,’ Karlich said, doing well to hide the lie in his words. ‘Go back to camp and get some sleep,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll be along in a while. We march at first light.’

  Varveiter nodded, before saluting his sergeant and heading back to camp.

  When he was alone, Karlich looked back at the procession of villagers. He’d seen another figure abroad in the night, but moving away from him and towards the village itself. He rode an armoured steed and wore a black, wide-brimmed hat. As he stooped to address the village priest, the figure’s coal-dark cloak drooped downwards, revealing a studded hauberk the colour of burnt umber and a brace of pistols cinched at his belt. An icon hung from his neck, too. It was of a silver hammer, the sigil of Sigmar and the holy seal of his templars, the witch hunters.

  Karlich’s eyes shadowed as he saw him. Rubbing his gloved hands reflexively, he shivered at first, before a hot line of anger came to quash his fear.

  Chapter Three

  The Emperor’s New Court

  Along the River Reik, near the Bögenhafen road,

  7 miles from Altdorf

  They stuck to the banks of the Reik, keeping the river in sight at all times and watching the boats, skiffs and trawlers as they plied the waterways in packs. It was a light evening, but the mood was heavy. The prince wore a severe expression, as impenetrable as a mask, and rode his steed intently. The other riders with him, plate-armoured Griffonkorps whose own faces were hidden behind shining war helms, were as cold and impassive as statues. It was not their lot to question or to challenge; they obeyed, protected without pause. It was the job of others to probe the prince’s mind.

  ‘We could have taken a river barge, you know,’ said Ledner. He rasped when he spoke, an old neck wound covered by a Reikland-red scarf affecting his voice. Riding at the front of the retinue with the prince, Ledner was able to turn and look at his patron directly.

  Prince Wilhelm, the third Wilhelm after his father and grandfather, glanced askance at his captain.

  ‘And be caught behind Dieter’s gilded barges from Nuln? I think not.’

  The captain looked again at the mighty river. Even this late, the Reik was thronged with waterborne traffic, bearing the many trappings and fineries of their glorious Emperor Dieter IV. The ‘Golden Emperor’ some called him, on account of his gilded palace in the capital at Nuln. Perhaps ‘Yellow Emperor’ would have have been more apt given the current state of affairs.

  ‘War brews in the east and Black Fire is broken through, and what does he do?’ continued Wilhelm. ‘He moves his court farther west to Altdorf.’ The prince knew he spoke out of turn to discuss his lord Emperor so disparagingly and in open company, but he was exasperated at Dieter’s reaction. Lines of barely restrained anger marred his handsome features, a noble bearing born of pure Reikland stock. He wore his gilded breastplate with its lion rampant proudly. The colours of his state, the red and white of the Reikmark, were entwined
in his elegant riding tunic and leggings. Even his black, leather boots carried an eagle icon. It represented Myrmidia, patron deity of the art of war and one Reiklanders held in great reverence, second only to their progenitor, Sigmar.

  As he rode with greater impatience, his crimson cloak billowed behind him. Ledner found it hard to keep up.

  ‘Altdorf will still be there if we tarry a little, my prince.’

  Ledner wore a breastplate, too, but it was unlike those worn by the rest of Wilhelm’s charges. He was no Griffonkorps, no warrior-knight. Ostensibly, Ledner’s rank was that of captain, but his influence and importance to the prince went much deeper than that.

  ‘It’s not Altdorf that concerns me,’ returned the prince, casting a weary eye on the vessels ferrying chests, barrels and even servants down the wide, black ribbon of the Reik. ‘It’s what my cousin is doing to the rest of the Empire.’

  Prince Wilhelm spurred his horse to a gallop. Over the next rise, the great city of Altdorf loomed. It had been some time since he’d last entered the capital. At least that’s how it felt to him. When news had drifted west that a huge army of greenskins had broken through Black Fire Pass and were invading the Empire, bound for its heartlands, two things happened almost simultaneously: Emperor Dieter moved his court west, away from the battles; and Wilhelm relocated his princely lodgings east to the town of Kemperbad, where he could keep a better eye on Reikland’s border. Given all of his letters and petitions had fallen on deaf ears, and his messengers had been ousted back to Kemperbad, Wilhelm had had little choice but to return. It was hardly a chore. Altdorf was a city he loved dearly, warts and all. The only thing that might mar his homecoming was the man who sat upon its palatial throne.

  Late into the evening, the smoke from tavern fires and smiths still plumed into the night air, settling over the city in a grubby pall. Towers reached up like clawing fingers, trying to scratch out the moon. Tenements and warehouses, revealed on the higher contoured islands above the wall, squatted on top of one another. In the distance, the shadow of one of the Colleges of Magic could be seen. Eldritch lightning crackled in the clouds around its borders, evidence of the wizards and magisters at work within its clandestine halls. Rising proudly above the squalor of the lower, lesser districts was the University of Altdorf, a seat of learning and enlightenment like no other in the entire Old World. There were other landmarks, too: the recently commissioned Imperial Zoo, the austere and forbidding Temple of Sigmar and the many marvellous bridges fashioned by the School of Engineers at Nuln, spanning the numerous waterways flowing through Altdorf from a confluence of the Talabec and the Reik upon which the city sat. Wilhelm felt its presence as surely as his own thumb or finger.