The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  ‘A good day for you at the Brigund Bridge,’ said Torveld. He was armed. So were his compatriots. The Grimblades just carried dirks. Their halberds were stocked at an armoury in the town. Sturnbled must have dished out the blades to his men.

  ‘What do you want, northerner?’ Volker got straight to the point. Dog was with him and growled at the Middenlanders.

  ‘Him,’ Torveld snarled, pointing at Rechts.

  Eber gave his slumbering comrade a shove. Unfortunately, the big Reiklander didn’t always know his own strength and Rechts was dumped off the chair and onto the ground.

  ‘Whoreson! Wha–’ he began, scrambling to his feet and reaching for his dagger before he saw Eber. Then he noticed the others, and Torveld glaring at him. Indignation became mockery on the drummer’s face. ‘Ah, the Yellow Baron’s lackeys have come to schlow their courage, have they?’

  Wode balled his fists, prompting Eber to step forward, but Torveld kept the Middenlander back.

  Rechts was steaming drunk. He slurred his words and belched loudly. Three empty bottles of hooch rolled around his feet as he stumbled a little before standing straight.

  ‘What have you been saying, Rechts?’ hissed Volker, one eye on the belligerent Middenlanders.

  The drummer looked offended. ‘Jusht the truth,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘They schwagger about, arrogant bashtards,’ – he imitated the movement by swaying his shoulders and putting on a disdainful sneer – ‘but when push comes to shove, they run like milkmaids.’

  ‘Shut up, Rechts,’ Volker warned him.

  Torveld was shaking his head. He and his countrymen had heard enough.

  Eber made fists. Keller looked relieved that the attention was no longer on him. He wrapped his hand around the half empty whisky bottle. Brand just stood with his hands by his sides, taking it all in, planning to kill Torveld first.

  ‘I’m going to gut you like a pig, southerner.’ Torveld was looking at Rechts.

  ‘Shure, you are…’ he replied, before promptly passing out and crashing to the floor.

  The Middenlanders had half drawn their blades when the tavern door opened again. Everyone turned to see who it was. Captain Stahler stood in the doorway, ashen-faced and looking far from pleased. Von Rauken and several of his greatsworders accompanied him.

  ‘Put up your blades,’ he said calmly to the Middenlanders.

  ‘This is a matter of honour, they’ve–’ Torveld began.

  ‘Put ’em up! Do it now!’

  The Middenlanders obeyed, stepping aside as Stahler stalked into the room appraising all present with a filthy look.

  ‘Get to your billet,’ he said to the Steel Swords, ‘and tell Sergeant Sturnbled I want words. Go on, get out!’

  Torveld was livid, but he held on to his temper. He nodded with a last look in the Grimblades’ direction before storming out with his men.

  ‘Now you lot…’ said Stahler, once the Middenlanders were gone. The captain wore his breastplate, but had yet to don his helmet. He walked with a limp and the effort clearly pained him, but he was still formidable. The greatsworders stood behind him like plate-clad sentinels. Von Rauken was doing his best to keep the smirk off his face. Concealed behind his beard, no one could see it anyway.

  The Grimblades were downcast, suddenly ambivalent about their captain’s return. Volker was about to speak when Stahler cut him off.

  ‘Not a damn word!’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Karlich, get in here.’

  A stern-faced Sergeant Karlich entered the tavern, Lenkmann and Masbrecht in tow. He was shaking his head and scowling. He looked more annoyed than Stahler. ‘It appears my return was timely,’ said Stahler. ‘Blaselocker is gone,’ he added flatly. ‘I’m back and this kind of behaviour in my regiments won’t be tolerated. If we weren’t so short of bodies you’d be flogged. Some of you would swing. Do your killing on the battlefield. Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance, we all bloody will.’ He glared for a few moments, regarding each man in turn before facing Karlich.

  ‘I’ll leave this rabble to you.’

  Karlich saluted, waiting for Stahler and the greatsworders to leave, before turning his attention on the Grimblades.

  ‘Captain Stahler has recovered well enough to fight, praise Sigmar,’ he recounted deadpan. ‘We are heading out. On patrol. Now.’ Karlich punctuated the last word firmly.

  ‘Those northern scum–’

  Karlich cut Volker off.

  ‘Are out for blood, I know. But it’ll be Stahler who has it if you carry on like this. All of you, with me, right now,’ he said. As Karlich was leaving, he added, ‘Eber, get him up and make sure he’s sober by the time we reach the gate.’

  Eber nodded and hauled Rechts onto his back, carrying him like a sack of grain. The big Reiklander remembered seeing a horse trough a little way from Mannsgard’s gate. Rechts would either be sober or drowned by the time he was done.

  Chapter Eleven

  A dark discovery

  Outside Mannsgard, Averland,

  386 miles from Altdorf

  Several miles outside Mannsgard, the land grew wilder. Though still largely flat and open, the Averland forests were thicker here. Men had not come with fire and axes to clear them. There were no other towns. Even villages were sparse, just smoking shadows on a distant horizon.

  Volker noticed an isolated farm up ahead, not reported by the other patrols. The eight Reiklanders had met the last party on the way out, a tired-looking band of Averland pike. They had nodded and exchanged muted greetings as they’d passed one another, but that was all. The Averlanders had been south-east but found nothing. Volker had brought them westward and to the farm. He stopped a few hundred feet from it, waiting for the others.

  ‘Looks deserted,’ said Masbrecht as he joined the huntsmen.

  The farm was ramshackle, comprising a small stone house, a barn and some stables. There were wooden fences and several fields could also have been part of the farmer’s land, but no animals grazed in them and there weren’t any crops either. A stream ran through the land, its banks coloured by blood. Volker had followed the watercourse all the way to the farm.

  ‘Best be sure,’ said Karlich. The sergeant’s mood hadn’t improved. He had other things on his mind, too. Like the witch hunter’s encampment they’d passed when leaving Mannsgard. Of the templar, there’d been no sign. Small mercies. He looked at Rechts. ‘You first, soldier.’

  Hung-over and red-eyed, but sober thanks to the liberal dunkings in the horse trough by Eber, Rechts nodded and headed up to the farm. The regimental drum and banner were back in Mannsgard, so at least he didn’t have anything to weigh him down. As Rechts came within the farm’s boundary line, he drew his short sword.

  Volker looked nervously at his sergeant.

  Karlich sighed. ‘Try and make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.’

  The huntsman saluted and jogged after Rechts.

  ‘The rest of you, come on,’ added Karlich, and continued tramping through the high grass after the scouts.

  Up close, the farm and its buildings looked even more wrecked than at a distance. Much of the wood from the barn was rotten. Several of the stones that made up the house had slipped or were cracked. After Rechts and Volker had scouted out the land around the buildings to check for ambushers, Karlich had divided them into three groups to take the house, barn and stables respectively. A shallow wind howled across the plains. As it passed through the open buildings, it took on an unnatural sound. It disturbed Lenkmann greatly, who paused as he was about to enter the stables.

  ‘Do we really need to go in?’ he asked.

  Brand shook his head and walked right past him.

  ‘Orcs or goblins, more likely, could be hiding inside,’ said Masbrecht. ‘Part of a vanguard or a splinter from the horde besieging Averheim. Either way, we have to know. How would Prince Wilhelm r
eact if his troops allowed the greenskins to sneak up on us, waking up to find the walls of Mannsgard surrounded, as well as those of Averheim?’

  ‘The prince is in Wissenland, or on his way at least.’

  As they’d left the town behind, they’d seen Prince Wilhelm and his Griffonkorps riding hard for the provincial border. They needed to move swiftly. Not only were greenskins abroad, but with every day that went by Averheim was squeezed further by Grom the Paunch. If Wilhelm’s army didn’t march soon, the goblin king might have crushed the Averland capital to rubble by the time they arrived.

  ‘Come on,’ Brand called from inside. He lingered just beyond the stable threshold, not willing to commit himself in case he found a goblin dagger in his back.

  Lenkmann gave the skeletal structure a sour look. The wasted timbers reminded him of bones. Shadows loomed within the stable’s creaking confines and he could hear the buzzing of flies against the wind. Lenkmann was not a cowardly man. He’d do his duty to the Empire, fighting greenskins or beastmen. Even marauders from the north held no true terror for him. But the unquiet, the revenant scratching at its coffin lid, digging through its earthy grave, that did unsettle him.

  ‘Masbrecht…’ he said.

  The other Reiklander smiled and made the sign of the hammer.

  ‘I always feel better when you do it,’ Lenkmann admitted.

  ‘There’s nothing to fear, brother. Sigmar is always with us.’

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ snapped the banner bearer. ‘Just being careful,’ he added, striding into the stables with unnecessary gusto.

  The farmhouse was quiet except for the creaking of its only door on broken hinges. Karlich was the first inside, pushing the door with his sword tip so it was wide enough to enter.

  The stench in the room had faded, but Eber still wrinkled his nose.

  ‘That’s a foul reek,’ he said, peering over Karlich’s shoulder to get a better look.

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ snapped Keller. He held his arm low instinctively, trying to conceal the stain on his hose. The tang of it still lingered in his nostrils, even though it had long since gone. Like Karlich, his mind was also on other things. He kept his gaze ahead, not wanting to look at the lonely cart dumped next to the house with no mule to pull it. Something else was standing by it. Keller had glimpsed its presence in his peripheral vision before looking away. He didn’t want to see it directly. It had… changed in the last few days. To look upon it now… Keller feared he’d cry out in spite of himself.

  Though he’d secured the door, Karlich still heard creaking. It got louder as he went inside. The house had one room. There was a simple bed, table and chair. A wool rug, dirty from use, covered a small patch on the stone floor. A thatch roof overhead filtered the sun in thin, grainy beams. Though gloomy, there was enough light to see the farmer hanging two feet from the ground.

  ‘Sacred Morr,’ breathed Eber when he noticed the corpse.

  Keller made the sign of the hammer, determined to make the penitent streak stick.

  ‘How long?’ he asked.

  ‘A while,’ said Karlich, approaching the body. Its sunken flesh was grey and ghoulish. Empty sockets remained where the eyes had been. Rigor mortis curled the farmer’s toes and fingers into claws. Rough clothes hung off the body like flaying skin.

  There was no sign of greenskins, none at all. Karlich supposed the farmer had heard of the invasion while in town for market day, returned to his farm and decided it was better to take his own life than face possible torture and certain death by the orcs. How could he have known the greenskins would miss him? At least the house was clear. It was bitter compensation.

  ‘Shallya’s mercy,’ Karlich muttered. He sounded weary. ‘Cut him down.’

  Rechts was still dizzy. The open air was doing nothing for him. About to enter the barn, he staggered and would have fallen if not for Volker catching his arm.

  ‘Easy does it,’ said the huntsman in a low voice. ‘Let me go first.’

  Rechts gladly moved aside and followed Volker in through the half-open barn door.

  Despite the shafts of sunlight lancing the cracks in its roof, it was dark inside the barn. The air was stale and smelled of hay and dung. Bales were bound up with string in the two far corners. Stacked on top of one another, they stretched halfway to the door. Vertical beams supported the roof, hung with chains, sickles and scythes. It didn’t look like they’d been used for a long time. A loft loomed above. It was the perfect place for an ambush, so Volker kept his eyes on it.

  ‘Something’s off,’ he said to Rechts, who had just sidled through the door.

  ‘Hot in here.’ The drummer looked nauseous.

  ‘Quiet!’ hissed Volker. The huntsman had moved under the trapdoor that led up to the hayloft. A length of rope dangled to the ground from it. Volker wrapped the rope around his fist and pulled. The trapdoor doubled up as a ramp, and an entire section of the loft floor came down to rest on the ground. Standing near the foot of the ramp, Volker secured the rope on a hook attached to a wooden beam and waited.

  Now Rechts could smell it too. Something was definitely off in the barn, and it was coming from the hayloft. Hangover forgotten, he edged closer to Volker. They needed to be careful. Karlich had split them up to search all three structures at the same time. Help, if they needed it, would be a little way off.

  Volker whistled sharply. A few seconds later, Dog trotted into the barn from where it had been told to wait outside. After a gesture from its master, the mutt ran up the ramp and into the hayloft.

  ‘Now we wait,’ said Volker, the sound of snuffling and rooting coming from above them. Then Dog barked, low at first but building in pitch with each successive sound.

  Volker moved up the ramp, keeping low.

  Rechts followed, amazed at his comrade’s stealth. Volker barely made a sound.

  The hayloft was almost full. A pitchfork stuck out of the loose stacks like a marker, but Dog wasn’t interested in this. It was scratting at the far end of the loft, pushing its muzzle eagerly into the piled hay. It was a gloomy spot. The loft’s open window was on the opposite side. Glancing at it only seemed to make the patch where Dog stood even darker.

  ‘Come!’ said Volker, and the mastiff stopped rooting to rejoin its master.

  Crossing the loft to the site of Dog’s interest felt farther than it actually was. Volker kept his eyes on the stack the entire time, his dirk held low and close to his body. A faint crunch of hay assured the huntsman that Rechts was right behind him.

  ‘Grab that,’ he said, indicating the pitchfork.

  Rechts went over and took the implement. He then passed it to Volker, who hadn’t moved and was waiting for him. Stalking the last few feet to the haystack, Volker prodded carefully with the fork. The first attempt went straight through, the second hit something. He lunged harder and the pitchfork came back with blood on it. Using the pitchfork in a scraping motion, Volker dragged away some of the hay. There was a body lying beneath, dead a few days but no more. The seal on its tunic was familiar. It was the griffon rampant of the Emperor.

  ‘Go find Sergeant Karlich,’ Volker said, stepping away. His hands were shaking, but he couldn’t explain why. ‘Right now!’ he snapped, when Rechts didn’t move straight away.

  Stumbling a little at first, and not from the hangover, Rechts ran out of the hayloft and across the barn. Only when he reached Karlich at the house, did he stop to puke. An already long day was about to get much longer.

  The dead messenger lay on the floor of the hayloft in full view. After Rechts had gone to get the others, Volker had carefully cleared away the hay concealing the body.

  ‘Altdorf colours,’ said Karlich, under his breath. Under a long tan cloak, the dead messenger’s tunic was red and blue. His garments looked fine and unroughed. His boots were expensive and polished. One of them lay on the floor alongside the body. E
ven the man’s stockings were clean and white. He looked lean and healthy, except for the dagger sticking out of his chest.

  ‘From the royal house,’ said Masbrecht. He noted the dead messenger’s hands: they were clean, his nails manicured. ‘An aide, perhaps?’

  ‘This is how you found him?’ asked Karlich, weighing up Masbrecht’s theory with some of his own.

  Volker was crouching next to the body, examining the wound, and nodded.

  Except for Brand, who knew something about dagger wounds himself, the rest of the Grimblades were down in the barn. Rechts was sitting on a hay bale, nursing his head and stomach. Keller kept to himself, his eyes on the ground, whilst Lenkmann and Eber watched the door.

  ‘That’s no orc blade; it’s Empire,’ said Karlich, stooping to get a better look at the dagger.

  ‘Greenskins didn’t kill him,’ said Brand, lurking in the shadows. ‘The cut is too precise, one thrust right into the heart.’

  Karlich turned, suddenly feeling a little colder. ‘And?’

  ‘It’s assassination work.’

  And you would know, I suppose, thought Karlich. Sometimes he wondered how they all slept at night with Brand around, then he remembered the man was on their side and that was how. Since Varveiter’s death, Brand had retreated further into himself. They all missed the old warhorse, Karlich especially. But for Brand, Varveiter had been the one stable element in his life. Now he was gone, bloodily, and that bothered Karlich, more than he wanted to admit.

  ‘You search him?’ he asked Volker.

  ‘Found this.’ The huntsman gave Karlich a scroll of parchment. ‘Hidden in his boot.’

  ‘What’s on it?’ Karlich asked, noting the broken seal as he unfurled it. The scroll was actually a map that showed Averland and Wissenland. Several landmarks were detailed, including Mannsgard and Pfeildorf, the capital of Wissenland and Prince Wilhelm’s destination. A route was marked out between the two locations with a line that ended in an arrow leading back to Mannsgard. A small red ‘X’ fell about halfway along it where some hills were also sketched.