The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  Ratboy nodded vaguely, but he was only half listening to the baron. As they raced down the hill, with the enemy hordes at their backs, he scoured the crowds of fleeing soldiers for any sign of a white-robed girl or an old man with pale, staring eyes.

  If there were any officers left alive, Ratboy saw no sign of them as the reached the valley floor. The Ostlanders were less an army than a terrified, demoralised mob. For months, Fabian had been the cornerstone of their faith: the incredible luck and charisma of the Iron Duke had made the impossible seem possible, but now he was gone the full horror of their situation had hit home. Handgunners, swordsmen and halberdiers all piled together in a desperate, headlong stampede through the narrow valley. The Knights Griffon brought up the rear of the fractured army, but all they could do was flee with the others as Mormius swooped down into the ravine at the head of his daemonic host.

  ‘They must stand and fight,’ snarled Maximilian, as they raced after the receding army. ‘Where’s that wretched traitor, Fabian? If no one turns this army around, they’ll just spill out onto the plains and be butchered. At least in here we’ve some a chance of seeing the dawn.’

  Ratboy nodded weakly, but could think of nothing to say in reply. He had scoured the terrified faces that surrounded them, but had seen no sign of Wolff or Anna. His oath to protect Wolff, whatever the cost, had been proven worthless and he had failed the priestess too. He looked down at his beautiful sword with disgust. What use had it been, in the end? As they fled from Hagen’s Claw, all his earlier doubts returned to him. The Empire had raised an army of incredible size, thousands of good men had abandoned their lives in the name of Sigmar and what had it achieved? What began as a noble crusade was about to end as a pitiful farce. He realised his dreams of following in Wolff’s footsteps were nothing more than a romantic fantasy. As the army neared the end of the valley, he shook his head in despair and let the sword slip from his hand.

  A rolling boom, like the sound of thunder filled the ravine. The horrified Ostlanders looked back over their shoulders to see what fresh horror had been summoned to assault them. The whole army stumbled to a halt and gawped in shock. The far end of the canyon was collapsing in on itself. The walls were engulfed in smoke and dust as a curtain of crumbling rock hurtled down onto Mormius’s men. The champion flew clear of the explosion, beating his wings in a desperate attempt to escape the avalanche, but the great host beneath him vanished, as the walls of the valley slid downwards in a lethal, deafening storm of granite.

  As the dust and stones settled, the Ostlanders stared in bewildered silence at the huge, silvery cloud rippling towards them. Then a movement far above it caught their eye. All along the sides of the ravine, rows of soldiers began to appear, led by a proud, slender figure clad in dark plate armour and wearing a helmet styled to resemble a wolf’s head. Behind him fluttered a black and white banner, showing a wolf and a bull.

  A chorus of shocked voices erupted from the men around Ratboy. ‘It’s the Iron Duke,’ they cried. ‘He hasn’t abandoned us.’

  Maximilian tugged at his stiff, silver beard and gave out a bark of laughter. ‘The old devil must have planned this. He intended for us to retreat into this ravine.’

  Ratboy peered through the thinning smoke and saw the surviving marauders climbing from the rubble. They made a pitiful sight as they dragged themselves clear on twisted, broken limbs while howling up at their champion to save them. Grey dust covered their bodies, giving them the appearance of ghosts, or revenants, crawling from a rocky grave. ‘But how could Fabian have predicted the avalanche?’

  ‘He didn’t predict it, he created it,’ replied Maximilian with a nod of grudging respect. ‘I thought it was scouts he sent out here all those weeks back, but they must have been engineers.’ He waved along the top of the canyon, where the ranks of soldiers had appeared. ‘This whole area must have been lined with blackpowder, primed and waiting for us to lead the marauders to their doom. And meanwhile Fabian kept back a reserve of soldiers, waiting here to strike.’

  He shook his head at the pitiful state of the Ostlanders that surrounded them. ‘He really must be made of iron though. Rather than let his men know the plan and risk it being discovered by spies, he let them fight on, oblivious to his intentions, until so many had died they were forced to pull back in a genuine retreat.’

  Ratboy gasped at the brutal logic: to sacrifice so many men on a gamble made his head spin. What if they hadn’t retreated? What if the explosives hadn’t detonated? Then he remembered: Fabian would have no qualms about sacrificing Empire soldiers if he was worshiping at the altar of some dark, ancient power.

  As Mormius flitted back and forth above his screaming, broken wreck of an army, Fabian led ranks of fresh men down into the valley. With a pounding of drums and hooves they charged into the crowds of wounded marauders.

  The soldiers around Ratboy lifted their tired heads and cheered. Then, forgetting their fear and exhaustion, they rushed back down the gully, eager to join the slaughter. Maximilian led his men after them in a slow, stately trot.

  At the sight of Fabian, Mormius let out a strangled wail and dived towards him. His wings blurred and he drew his greatsword from his back as he fell. He smashed into the ranks of the Oberhau with the force of a comet, sending a plume of dust from the side of the ravine. For a few minutes, Ratboy struggled to make out what was happening. Then, as the haze cleared, he made out the two men, locked in a fierce duel on an outcrop of rock. The colossal, winged champion dwarfed Fabian, but as he swung his greatsword at him in a flurry of wild, furious blows, the Iron Duke danced easily out of the way, wielding his own sword with calm, controlled skill.

  As the lines of fresh, eager-faced soldiers charged down towards them, the surviving marauders turned and fled, limping and clambering back up towards Hagen’s Claw. Many of them were too crippled to run and the vengeful Ostlanders fell on them with undisguised glee.

  As the clouds of dust folded and banked through the moonlit canyon, Ratboy caught brief glimpses of the carnage. Most of the Empire soldiers had thought themselves as good as dead, and their relief now manifested itself in an orgy of bloodletting. Swords and knives plunged into the struggling marauders as they reached up pathetically towards their embattled champion.

  As the Knights Griffon approached the bloody scene, Ratboy saw a familiar face and cried out with delight. The broad-chested shape of his master was striding purposefully though the clouds of dust, still screaming his litany and pounding his two-handed warhammer into the crumpled bodies of his foes.

  ‘Master Wolff,’ cried Ratboy, leaping from his horse and sprinting towards him.

  At the sound of his acolyte, Wolff looked up from his work with a fierce expression on his face. The ornate scrollwork of his cuirass was glistening with blood and his dark eyes were burning with rage. As he saw Ratboy his eyes cleared a little and his expression softened. He looked down at his gore-splattered chest and limbs in confusion. Then he lowered his hammer to the ground with a thud and took in the shocking brutality that surrounded him. In their fury the Ostlanders had become as bestial as the marauders, tearing through the wounded northmen like rabid dogs. As Wolff’s fury waned, so did his strength. He had only taken one step towards Ratboy when his legs collapsed beneath him. He dropped to his knees with a grunt of exhaustion.

  Ratboy rushed to his side and, taking his arm, helped him to his feet. ‘We’ve won,’ he gasped, trying to sound cheerful despite the horrific sights that surrounded them. He gestured to the crowds of figures scrambling back up towards the obelisks. ‘The marauders are retreating.’

  Wolff’s face remained fixed in a grim scowl. ‘Where’s my brother?’ he croaked, through bloody teeth.

  Ratboy pointed up to the duelling figures, lunging and slashing at each other on the rocky outcrop. It was an incredible sight. They seemed to Ratboy like gods, locked in a contest to decide the fate of all humanity. Even at this distance tho
ugh, it was obvious that Mormius was struggling. The whole of his blackened left side looked twisted and deformed and his leg kept buckling beneath him as Fabian forced him closer to the edge of the precipice.

  Wolff’s amour rattled as he fought through the bloodthirsty mob, trying to get a better view. He and Ratboy both gasped as they saw Fabian plant his boot into the champion’s deformed leg and send him stumbling back towards the chasm. Mormius’s wings thrashed one last time as he crumpled to the floor, but before he could lift himself, Fabian turned on his heel and sliced his sword cleanly through his neck.

  The soldiers ceased their butchery for a moment and an eerie silence descended over the canyon; then, there was an explosion of cheers as Fabian strode calmly into view, with Mormius’s severed head dangling from his upraised fist.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Shadows and Ghosts

  Anna awoke with cool liquid trickling into her throat. She swallowed it thirstily but immediately gagged. It was thick and tasted of iron and she realised her mouth was filling with someone else’s blood. She groaned and struggled to rise, but a heavy weight held her firmly in place. Upon opening her eyes she found that the weight was a dead marauder. The full mass of his stinking flesh was pushing her down onto a wooden floor that was jolting and bouncing painfully against her back. She gasped in disgust. The man’s pale, clammy face was pressed right against hers and she could see his eyes rolling in their sockets. His limbs were cold and already stiffening and she guessed she had been trapped under him for some time.

  As Anna wrestled with the dead man, a low, guttural voice rang out nearby and she froze. The words meant nothing to her, but she immediately recognised the fierce language of the northern wastes. A second voice replied in the same language, but this one whined in a higher register than the first, speaking in a babbling torrent of bleats and snorts.

  The first voice replied with an angry, dismissive grunt and they both fell silent.

  Fear crippled Anna. The voices had sounded very close: just a couple of feet away at most. She lay still for a second and tried to calm her breathing. She was surrounded by broken limbs and weapons but through a gap in the corpses she saw a tiny square of sky and realised she was moving. Low, moonlit clouds were rushing overhead and she guessed from the lurching movement beneath her that she was on some kind of cart. As she listened more carefully, she heard the sound of creaking wheels and horses’ hooves and the loud, heavy breathing of the two marauders.

  The wheels bounced up over a ridge and as the vehicle slammed back down onto the ground, the corpse’s head knocked against Anna’s, spilling a fresh load of semi-congealed blood over her face. She groaned and rolled quietly to one side, finally freeing herself from the weight of the corpse. Other bodies lay over her, but she managed to carefully disentangle the mass of torsos and limbs and brought her face up to the surface, gasping for air like a tired swimmer. Luckily for her, the moonlight was too weak to illuminate most of her fellow passengers, but from what little she could make out, the scene resembled an immense butcher’s slab. Ostlanders and marauders lay where they had fallen in a confused jumble of broken bones and severed arteries.

  Other shapes were travelling beside the cart, slipping through the darkness like ghosts. With a thrill of horror she saw that she was surrounded by marauders: some riding ferocious-looking steeds and others sprinting on foot, but all racing with grim determination from the distant silhouette of Hagen’s Claw.

  We must have won, thought Anna with a shock. This is no victory parade – they’re running away. She nestled back down into the pile of damp bodies, relieved to be unnoticed for the moment. As the cart bounced wildly over the uneven turf of the valley, she saw that huge crowds of northmen were fleeing from the stone towers with no pretence of order. It was a complete rout and Anna’s head reeled. The last thing she could remember was fleeing for her life as the hordes of enemy soldiers overran the command tents. She had tried to escape down into the canyon with the others, but as she dashed between the struggling soldiers something had cracked against the back of her head. She must have dropped into the back of this cart and then been gradually covered by the dead and dying.

  The hopelessness of her situation suddenly hit her. If she stayed where she was, the marauders would carry her to whatever ungodly destination they were racing for, but if she tried to escape, she would be seen immediately. She shuddered, wondering why the marauders had not detached the cart. What foul purpose did they have in mind for the bodies?

  The higher, whining voice cried out again and she felt hands pressing down near her head. She realised one of the drivers must be looking back over her, towards the hill. She froze, doing her best to look like a corpse. The marauder whined again, pointing to something as he leant over her. His face was so close to Anna’s that she could smell his rancid breath. Then the other marauder bellowed furiously and wrenched him back onto the driver’s seat.

  Anna looked cautiously where he had pointed and saw that several of the marauders were dropping to the ground. As she strained to see more clearly, she saw flashes of black and white moving amongst them: Ostlanders, pursuing the defeated army and hacking them down as they fled.

  She dropped back with a sigh of relief. It looked like it would only be a matter of time before all of the marauders were overtaken and slaughtered. As long as she remained hidden beneath the bodies until then, she should be safe.

  As she shrugged herself back down beneath the corpses, she felt a movement that didn’t seem to come from the wheels below. She looked around and saw a large rat, perched on the face of one of the bodies and watching her intently. There was a spark of intelligence in its eyes that she found a little unnerving, but she decided it was too small to have been the cause of the movement.

  She turned the other way and saw that one of the marauders was also staring at her. His plaited hair was slick with blood and she could tell by the black, clotted line around his neck that his throat had been cut. As she watched the man, trying to discern whether it was he who had moved, he suddenly spread his teeth in a wide leering grin and pulled himself towards her.

  Anna stifled a scream and squirmed away from him, but she quickly felt her back press against the side of the cart and realised she was trapped.

  As the marauder crawled slowly towards her, he opened his mouth wider in an attempt to cry out, but all that emerged from his ruined vocal chords was a faint, liquid croak that was lost beneath the sound of the rattling cart. He freed his legs and lunged across the cart.

  Anna tried to worm herself away from the man, but his eyes were fixed on hers with a fierce hunger and as he moved across the mounds of damp, ruptured flesh, he wrapped his hand around the hilt of a broken sword. The blade gleamed with the same cold fire as the marauder’s eyes and he jabbed it at her face with a gurgle of amusement.

  The two embraced in a silent struggle. Anna gripped his shoulders and shoved with all her strength, but he would not give up. Gradually his grinning face bore down on hers as he forced the shard of metal towards her throat.

  Anna fought the urge to scream and reached around for something to use as a lever. Her hand came to rest on a piece of metal and she realised it was the hilt of another sword. Confusion and terror mingled in her head. She had sworn countless oaths to cherish life in all its forms, but as the marauder’s broken sword pressed up against her throat, she could not believe it right to simply submit. Everything in her rebelled at the idea of hurting another being, but the psychotic glee in the man’s eyes disgusted her. She screamed in despair as a warm fountain of blood washed over her neck.

  It was only as the marauder began thrashing about in pain that she realised what she had done. Her trembling hand was still clutching the long sword she had buried in his neck. She had murdered him. Anna closed her eyes and groaned in revulsion as he jerked and twitched violently back and forth. In her horror, she seemed unable to loose the sword, and as the m
an’s struggles grew weaker, she felt every last one of his pitiful, gurgling breaths. Finally, he grew still and, forgetting the danger, she screamed in despair. In that one second everything she knew about herself collapsed. She felt as though she were suddenly trapped inside the mind of a stranger.

  Anna did not have long to wallow in her guilt. Her scream had alerted the cart’s drivers to her presence and as she shoved the marauder’s body to one side, she saw a sinewy, fur-clad youth grinning down at her. His knotted flesh was networked with serpentine, self-inflicted scars and his greasy topknot was dyed a deep, henna red. As he stood up in the driver’s seat, he drew a long, curved knife and let out a whooping howl of pleasure.

  Anna tried to pull the sword from the corpse, but her terror had jammed it so deep into the flesh that it would not move. She raised her hands in front of her face as the marauder lifted his sword to strike.

  There was a staccato thudding sound as four arrows sank deep into his chest, leaving a row of black and white flights buried in his thick furs. He spun his arms for a few seconds, trying to maintain his balance, then he toppled beneath the wheels of the cart. His lifeless body jammed in the axle and the cart lurched out of control. The remaining driver roared in pain as the wheel shattered and the reins sliced through his fingers.

  The cart tipped and Anna flew through the air in a shower of weapons and body parts. The air was knocked from her lungs as she slammed down into a clump of long grass. Screams and howls surrounded her as the marauders nearby fought for their survival. Everywhere she looked, Ostlanders were charging out of the shadows, riding down the enemy with swords, lances and spears and howling victoriously as they trampled the northmen underfoot.