The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  Several minutes passed before they felt comfortable enough to return to the circle. No one spoke of the wyvern again, nor did they look in the direction of its heading if they could help it. In the end, it was Rechts who broke the fearful silence.

  ‘What are we doing out here, sergeant?’

  It was a valid question, one Karlich had asked himself several times already. But it wasn’t what Rechts really meant. What he really meant was: why us? Karlich’s answer, as he’d already told himself, was simple.

  ‘Our duty to prince and province,’ he said.

  ‘To Ledner, you mean. That bastard doesn’t care if we live or die. He probably hopes we don’t survive.’ Rechts was emboldened by his anger, grateful to it for smothering his fear. ‘And if we succeed? What then? What recompense will we get?’

  Karlich was tiring of the drummer’s belligerence. He knew he was only scared, just like the rest of them. But this wasn’t helping.

  ‘Nothing! We get nothing, save the knowledge that we prevented the murder of our liege-lord and prince,’ he snapped. ‘Is that not enough? It should be enough.’

  Rechts bowed his head, shamed.

  ‘Aye, I thought so,’ muttered Karlich and instantly regretted it.

  After that the rest of the night without incident, but it was long and uncomfortable, filled with the shadows of monsters and the howl of wolves.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ghosts

  Averland plains,

  411 miles from Altdorf

  The dawn brought little comfort for the Grimblades, despite the rising sun. It had yet to warm the plains or their aching bones. Breath still ghosted the air. It came out in white gusts as Karlich had coughed and wheezed. They’d slept sitting up, and there was nothing to pack, though Lenkmann had leaned over onto Eber’s shoulder and was profoundly embarrassed when he woke.

  ‘Didn’t even buy him a drink!’ Rechts had chortled with uncommon good humour. He’d obviously slept off the booze at last.

  Brand had stayed awake all night. Volker, who’d been the first up, would later say how he rose to find the cold eyes of the man regarding him through the twilit mist. Volker didn’t stay to chat. In minutes he was gone, scouting off into the distance with Dog.

  Few words were exchanged when the others stirred and began to move. No one felt like talking after a harrowing night. It was a while trudging through the long grasses before the grim silence was lifted.

  ‘Who would want to kill the prince?’ asked Eber, unaware of the sour mood and more out of exasperation than any desire to actually know. ‘I can’t understand it.’

  ‘All political figures have enemies, Brutan,’ Lenkmann replied. ‘Wilhelm is no different. It could be one of a hundred or more men.’

  ‘It’s poor timing,’ muttered Keller, his displeasure at the mission currently outweighing his other ‘concerns’.

  ‘So there’s a good time to try and kill a prince of Altdorf?’ asked Karlich. He looked towards the sun, gauging its position and therefore the time. By his reckoning, they had maybe three hours before the prince could arrive at the valley. The pace suddenly didn’t feel fast enough. ‘Hurry it up,’ he said, eyes front, hoping to see Volker. The huntsman was still ranging ahead with the mutt, keeping them away from any greenskins that might be roaming nearby, and leading them to the hills. His last report had been some time ago.

  ‘When his back is turned and his guard is down,’ said Brand to the sergeant’s first comment.

  Karlich scowled at the dry humour, finding it inappropriate.

  ‘I wish Varveiter were here,’ said Lenkmann, to Karlich’s right. ‘We could use his wisdom now.’

  ‘Aye, he might’ve been canny enough for us to get us out of this shitheap we currently find ourselves in,’ said Rechts, his humour fleeting.

  Masbrecht looked affronted. ‘Saving a prince is an honour, brother. It is Sigmar’s work we go to do this day.’

  Rechts was livid. ‘He calls me “brother” one more time and it won’t be Wilhelm’s assassin you’ll be stopping.’

  ‘Shut up, Rechts,’ snapped Karlich. ‘Whatever it is between the two of you, deal with it. This is the most important deed you’ll ever do in your entire life, don’t wreck it,’ he warned, before turning his anger on Masbrecht. ‘And you. Save the sermons. You know he doesn’t like it. Not all of us are willing converts.’ He wanted to say more, but saw Volker running back towards them.

  ‘Just beyond the next rise,’ he said. ‘The land slopes downward and lifts again to a set of hills. That must be the place.’

  ‘You sure?’ asked Karlich.

  ‘As I can be. The map was quite well detailed and there are few hills in Averland, especially so close to the road.’

  ‘Makes you wonder why the prince came this way at all,’ said Lenkmann. ‘A valley is a good place for an ambush.’

  ‘The road is the most direct route, I suppose,’ said Karlich, ‘but who’s to say the prince even chose it.’

  None of it really mattered. The morning sun was high and its rays were creeping steadily across the plains. Time was running out.

  Cresting the rise, the Grimblades had the sloping plain laid out below them. A short distance and the flat land rose up again, the road bending with it, and there were the hills. Strewn with rocks, hollows and wild bracken, it was a rugged place full of shadows.

  ‘Lots of places to hide,’ observed Volker.

  They came at the hills from an oblique angle, ever watchful for movement, keeping the sun behind them all the way.

  ‘He’ll be up high,’ added Brand, ‘probably with a bow or harquebus. He’ll want to kill the prince from a distance, so he doesn’t have to fight his Griffonkorps.’

  ‘So we’re looking for a marksman, then,’ said Karlich. ‘Perhaps we’ll be able to stop him, after all.’

  ‘A marksman, yes,’ said Brand. ‘And a swordsman and a knife-wielder, and a pugilist. Assassins are killers. They’re trained well in the art. Don’t make the mistake of thinking just because he wants to shoot the prince that he can’t execute him, or us, in ten or more other ways.’

  Yet again, Karlich felt a cold shiver but couldn’t deny the sense in what Brand was saying. He decided to change tack.

  ‘He could be anywhere, behind any rock, hunkered down in any hollow, hidden in the long grasses or crouched upon any ridge, as still as the earth,’ said Karlich. ‘We root him out before the prince gets here. He cannot know of it. To do so would mean this whole dirty business gets out and, alive or dead, the prince and his cohorts can’t ignore it. You heard Ledner – the Empire would fracture under the strain. We’d have civil war.’

  Karlich eyed his men and felt a surge of pride, even for Keller who he considered a bastard of the highest order.

  ‘We’re not assassins or spies; we’re just men, soldiers of the Empire who face a difficult duty. This is an enemy like any other. At Blösstadt you gave me your resolve, at the Brigund Bridge your courage. Now I ask for cunning. Find this whoreson, stop him and stay alive into the bargain.’

  He allowed a short pause to think, how in Sigmar’s name did we ever get here? and then deferred to Volker, who knew the ways of hunting better than any of them.

  ‘We split into pairs, four groups, one compass direction each. Start wide and move in slowly. Stay low and keep your eyes open. Chances are, he’s already in there, waiting.’

  ‘Sobering thought,’ muttered Rechts.

  ‘Just as well, where you’re concerned,’ said Karlich, before addressing his men. ‘No heroics,’ he said, looking at Brand in particular. ‘Find him, signal your comrades and we’ll silence this cur together without our blood being spilled to do it. Faith in Sigmar,’ he added.

  The Grimblades echoed him, all except for Rechts.

  ‘And Morr be damned,’ said Karlich to himself, trudging down towards the
road where the hills loomed with quiet menace.

  Eight against one. So, why did it feel like they were the prey?

  Up close the hills were vast, easily sprawling a half mile either side and along the road. They dipped, rose and undulated as if in a pact with the assassin to frustrate the Grimblades’ search. Patches of scree and loose rocks made the ground treacherous. There were small ravines and caves. Crags and sheltered gullies were everywhere. Each and every nook had to be searched. Other creatures might lurk along the hillsides. It wasn’t unknown for trolls or even larger beasts to make their lairs in such places. Keller, for one, hoped that wouldn’t be the case.

  Maintaining his concentration was hard, what with the other looking on and dogging his every step.

  ‘Leave me be,’ he hissed. A side glance revealed his plea had gone unheeded. ‘Plague me no more!’ he said louder, prompting an angry look from Volker who he was paired with. Even Dog looked annoyed, but then that little bastard always did.

  Keller allowed himself a smirk, the first for some time – Volker loved that mutt more than he did his own family. Back in Mannsgard, he’d seen the beast lick the huntsman’s feet. Volker slept in his boots. He was not one to take them off regularly. Keller assumed the affection between mutt and man was probably mutual.

  The sliver of his old self passed, like a flash of sun on metal, as the other reasserted its presence again. Still no sign of the assassin. The two men carried on.

  Lenkmann stumbled and cursed through his teeth. He’d jarred his ankle. It was painful as he felt down at it, but he could still move well enough. The sun was high now, and he had to squint when he looked up. Morning was nearly done. Brand was leaving him behind, hurrying through the hills like a wolf hunting deer, or maybe another wolf.

  There was something of the bloodhound in the man, so driven to find the assassin was he. Lenkmann noticed he’d left his pistol unloaded. Brand wanted to face his adversary up close, push steel into his flesh, so the assassin knew who had killed him, who was his better. It was as if need compelled him. Lenkmann had seen Brand in battle before, the man was frightening, but this was different. This was a whole other side to him. And as he struggled to catch Brand, so intent on his prey, so utterly possessed with scarcely restrained violence, Lenkmann thought this was the truest side of the man. Brand had been a mystery until then. Now Lenkmann saw him for what he really was and it scared him more than the wyvern.

  A green ocean stretched before them and the hills were its waves, and the rocks its shore. Here they trawled for a single fish, one with hollow eyes, black and lifeless as a doll’s. Karlich felt those eyes upon him. Ever since entering the hills, he’d not been able to shake the feeling of being watched. Paranoia was becoming an unwelcome bedfellow for the sergeant.

  The sun was rising and though it warmed his face, it also sent the shadows fleeing into the deeper crevices of the land, filling them with darkness. Karlich began to imagine enemies lurking there: a masked assassin, wraith-like and undefeatable; Vanhans the witch hunter, armed with murderer’s noose and a traitor’s brand.

  Karlich gasped when he felt Rechts’s hand on his arm.

  ‘Sergeant, you all right?’

  He found his composure quickly, hiding his surprise behind annoyance.

  ‘Fine! Never mind me, Rechts. Keep your eyes on the hills. He’s here, I can feel it.’

  They forged off together in silence.

  Karlich was annoyed at himself for allowing his mind to wander. If the assassin had been watching then he would have loosed an arrow or shot in the sergeant’s back and ended him then and there.

  Idiot!

  He didn’t mean to take his anger out on Rechts, either. At least the drummer was sober and alert. It was more than could be said for him. Rechts needed watching closely. If nothing else, he needed keeping apart from Masbrecht. He’d developed a passive loathing for the man, taking umbrage at his piety. Karlich had no desire to see that become more than angry words. Honestly, he wasn’t sure what Rechts was capable of. He knew something of the man’s past. He’d spoken of it once after their first battle together. Rechts wasn’t a drummer back then and Karlich only just a sergeant. The Reikland border was under attack by beastmen out of the Reikwald. It had been a tough fight and many good men had not seen the sunrise. Perhaps being faced with mortality, so close and immediate it could be felt as a shiver in the bones, Rechts had decided to talk of his troubles. It had just been the two of them, huddled over mugs of strong spirits in a booth in some tavern, the name of which Karlich could no longer remember.

  Through slurred whispers, Rechts had told of the day a mutant was discovered in his village. A boy back then, he’d been fishing in a stream nearby his village when a girl had cried out. A sullen child, who kept to himself, was being bullied by the edge of the stream. He scuffled with his attackers: a blacksmith’s son, his head full of soot, and a farrier’s lad who’d been hit on the head with too many horseshoes. There was low cunning in these boys, who pulled at the sullen child’s clothes, intent on first stripping him then dumping him naked into the stream. They’d succeeded in removing his boots and leggings when the girl, skimming stones on the bank, had noticed something terrible. The sullen child had fleshy webs between his toes and a small tail of bone protruded from the base of his spine.

  Cries of ‘Mutant! Unclean!’ echoed across the stream and down to the village. Men with hooks and staves came running with the local priest in tow.

  The sullen boy was crying, tugging on his leggings and reaching for his boots when the village men seized him at the priest’s orders. So disturbed was he by what he’d seen, the old cleric sent messengers to the nearest town and the chapter house of the Order of Sigmar there.

  Everything changed when the witch hunters arrived. Their leader was a brutal man on a crusade that was anything but righteous. Rechts never saw the sullen boy again, but he knew what happened to him. The ‘purging’ didn’t end there. In a fit of pious rage, the witch hunter declared the entire village spoiled by Chaos. He found signs of taint where there were none and condemned innocents to the pyre and noose. When some of the villagers resisted, it only enflamed him further. Rechts’s mother could see to the end of what was happening. She took her son away from the village square where a mob was baying for blood, little realising that soon their own flesh would crispen on the pyre.

  For the witch hunters brought men with them, hard men who served the order in a grim, unspoken role. At the points of their swords, they herded the villagers one-by-one into the flames. Only the priest was spared, baying for blood and retribution, transformed by fear into a madman. From his hiding place under the floorboards of his house, Rechts could hear their screams. He covered his ears against the terrible noise and screwed his eyes shut. By the time he opened them again, the village was quiet. Smoke and the smell of cooked meat lingered on the air. The stench aroused no hunger in him; he retched and fetched up an empty stomach in the street. Rechts emerged to find his village was gone, just a burnt out skeleton of wood and scorched stone. Piles of ash and charred bones were all that remained of his kith and kin. Though he searched on his knees, tears streaking his soot-stained face, he never found his mother amongst the remains. A part of him hoped she had escaped, but knew deep down that his fingers might have brushed the ash of what she had become in the pyre’s flame.

  Desolated and alone, Rechts had wandered down the road leading from his village wishing for death. Against the odds, he reached Grünburg and lived on the streets until he was old enough to take a piece of silver and join the Emperor’s armies.

  Even as a boy, Rechts had been a survivor. It was no different when he became a soldier but he bore the mark of that day in the village deeper than any physical scar. He never trusted priests again and hated witch hunters with a passion. In that, he and Karlich had an accord. Karlich had listened to the tale quietly and consoled him at the end. It was like talkin
g to stone for all the emotion Rechts had shown him. Neither man could have known that Karlich would meet that self same witch hunter many years later, and that the zealot would not live to torture another innocent. The man was gone, but his legacy remained, and like a shadow creeping over the face of a setting sun, it was getting closer to Karlich.

  A flash of light caught Karlich’s attention. Something glinted in the morning sun.

  Metal?

  He followed a second flash south-east and what he saw turned his blood cold.

  Prince Wilhelm and his knights were on the road and heading towards them. Still several miles distant, there could be no mistaking the Griffonkorps banner and the troop of armoured men on horseback. Karlich surveyed the hills quickly out of instinct, as if the murderer would present himself now the moment drew near, but he saw nothing. Just rocks and rugged earth, patches of gorse and bracken, a hundred places where the shadows could hide Wilhelm’s would-be slayer.

  The flash of light came again. Soon it would be a flash of blackpowder and a prince’s blood would be sullied on the ground.

  Eber squinted and scowled. He rubbed at his eyes as he was momentarily blinded by something shining into them. Shielding the sun overhead with one meaty hand, he tried to blink away the after flare but it came again. He tried to follow its origin. Too late he saw the mirror being used to blind him. Too late he realised the blurry shadow figure was coming for him. Eber heard Masbrecht cry out a warning. The burly Reiklander wasn’t fast enough as he brought his shortsword up to guard.

  ‘Fat pig, you’re so slow!’ said his father’s voice, echoing in his head from beyond the grave.

  Then he felt the knife enter his body. The first few stabs were hot and sharp, but the ones that followed grew cold and numb. Even Eber with all his strength couldn’t stop the blood flowing from his body. As when his father used to beat him, his arms fell to his sides, his head went down to his boots and he could do nothing.