“No, your throat,” hissed a voice in his ear.
“Oh sh—” Karlich began, hurrying over. Brand had crept up on the Middenland sergeant. His serrated dagger was pressed against the northerner’s neck.
“Grimblades!” yelled Karlich. “Men of the Reik, stand down.”
The Middenlanders had drawn swords as soon as they’d seen the blade at their sergeant’s throat. Some were shouting. Blond-beard merely glared at Brand, his eyes conveying murderous intent. More were coming, too: Grimblades and Middenlanders. A few more minutes and a regiment against regiment brawl would be in prospect. Stahler would hang those responsible if he found out.
Only the Carroburgers looked unmoved by the whole affair, sitting just a few feet away in their own private encampment, supping pipes and talking quietly over cups of steaming broth. They could have interceded at any time, and likely broken up the impending brawl before it had escalated—none with any sense would challenge a soldier of the greatswords—but they chose to keep to their own.
“Brand!” Karlich bawled. “Put up your blade or face charges.” The threat of charges was moot. Karlich knew that Brand cared little about facing military discipline, but the sergeant hoped he respected him enough to do as he’d told him.
Reluctantly, Brand edged his blade away from grey-hair’s throat and backed off a step with hands raised.
“And the rest of you,” Karlich added. “Back to your pitch. Get your arses ready to march. I want you all armoured with halberds by the time I get there.”
Volker looked reluctant to go. Brand merely waited impassively for the rest, watching blond-beard. He’d do whatever his brother halberdiers did.
“Do it!”
Volker acceded, and they sloped off, casting dark looks at the Middenlanders as they went.
Freed from Brand’s blade, the grey-haired northerner walked up to Karlich, still rubbing his throat at an imagined wound.
“If he’d meant to cut you, he would have,” the Reiklander told him.
The Middenlander smiled, and left it alone. “Well met,” he said, offering his hand. “Vankar Sturnbled.”
Karlich declined his handshake.
“Feder Karlich,” he answered curtly. “Do you mind telling me what you and your men were doing, sergeant?”
Sturnbled let his hand fall. His comradely mood went with it.
“Just sport, sergeant, is all it was. Surely, as a fellow warrior, you can appreciate that. Or do they not have sport in Reikland?”
“Aye, we have sport, and we have bastards like you and your men too, so I shan’t judge your entire state on the example you’ve set,” Karlich replied. “Give the huntsmen back their meat. Take a strip each to save face, but leave the rest.”
Sturnbled’s face darkened and he lowered his voice so only Karlich could hear him.
“We’ve never met before, Reiklander, and I’m a forgiving man, so I’ll consider this a mistake,” he said. “But address me or my men like this again and you’ll see just how inhospitable the north can be to soft southerners like yourself.”
Karlich kept his silence and looked Sturnbled in the eye. With his men gone, he was surrounded by Middenlanders.
Sturnbled held his gaze for a few moments more, and when it became obvious that Karlich wasn’t about to look away, turned to his men.
“Steel Swords! One strip each and back to camp,” he snarled. “Give ’em back the rest.”
Blond-beard’s face was sour enough to scorch steel, as the other swordsmen sheathed blades and went back towards their camp amidst disgruntled mutterings.
“You too, Torveld.”
The stern-faced Middenlander put away his sword and stalked off.
“He doesn’t like backing down,” explained Sturnbled as he turned to Karlich again. “None of us do.”
Karlich was still deciding if it was meant as a promise or a threat, when Sturnbled took his leave.
One of the huntsmen nodded curt thanks in the Reikland sergeant’s direction, which he reciprocated.
Bad enough that there were orcs abroad, now the Grimblades faced an enemy within as well. As he went on his way, Karlich wondered if Rechts had any more hooch. He needed a strong drink right about now.
As he passed the greatswords on his way to the encampment, Karlich caught the eye of their leader.
“Why didn’t you stop it?” he asked. “None of them would dare challenge a greatsworder. You could’ve ended it before it had begun. Blood could have been shed and men lost their lives to a fellow soldier’s blade or the noose.”
The greatsworder straightened. In his black plate-mail he looked massive and imposing. His shaven head was grey with stubble and his silver moustaches immaculate. A leather eye patch gave him a grizzled appearance that suggested he was a campaign veteran. “Not our fight,” he answered simply.
Karlich scowled, continuing on his way.
“Bloody Carroburgers…” he muttered.
Smoke marred the Averland horizon, too thick and black to be cook fires. Somewhere up ahead, over the grassy rise, a village was burning.
Stahler’s army had crossed the border into Averland at dawn, just as the captain had predicted. The camp had broken up, all tents and trappings secured on the modest baggage train and the troops, except the militia levies, organised into marching order by their sergeants.
A small stone bridge over a stream had conveyed them into the province, a wide and open plain known for its horses. Much of Averland was flat with little undulation. It made for perfect equine breeding terrain. So far, they had seen no horses save for a forlorn pair of dead horses, rotting and alive with flies, across the width of the Aver. The mighty river, almost as thick as the Reik and just as impressive, barred the way into Averland proper. Most of the byways and ferry crossings were burned or abandoned. Some supposed the Averlanders had done it after fleeing their borders to prevent pursuit or to stop enemies from crossing the river on the Stirland side. For Stahler and his men, it made life difficult. The few fords and crossings they had encountered were unsuitable for the baggage train, so the order had gone down the line to follow the river until a more substantial bridge could be found.
It wasn’t only dead horses that they’d passed on the other side. Trains of refugees spilling from undefended villages trudged vacantly along the river’s course, heading for the border, clutching their meagre possessions. One little girl, her face blackened by smoke, clung to a wooden toy. It was hard to tell what it was supposed to be, so bad was the fire damage. The Middenlanders had ignored them, treating the miserable wretches with the same disdain as the grass under their feet or the hot sun on the backs of their necks.
Masbrecht and Lenkmann had wanted to go and help the Averlanders, but Karlich had forbidden it. He did allow Rechts to break ranks and holler directions to the border at them. The drummer had an excellent singing voice and could project loudly. Even still, the refugees looked not to notice his words and trudged on indifferently.
The soldiers saw other Averlanders huddled around roadside shrines. A priestess of Shallya tended to one ragged mob, leading them in a prayer for succour from her goddess. So far, it appeared that Shallya’s mercy was absent from these lands. The devastation was a shock to all. No one in the army, even Stahler, had suspected the greenskins had advanced this far into the Empire, and so quickly. It showed a determination and purpose the beasts were not known for. It was reasoned to be a vanguard, for they would have seen the greenskins had they been it a full army.
A short while after this the Reikwald huntsmen had spotted the smoke. Another mile and they could all see it, heavy and dark like a storm cloud but promising death instead of rain.
“So, I heard you had a run in with the northerners,” Varveiter said quietly to Brand. The old soldier had been sleeping when the ruckus had broken out, but Lenkmann had told him everything that happened. “That you put a blade to one of their necks.”
“Sergeant,” Brand replied without emotion. “I put a blade
to their sergeant’s neck.”
“Ah yes, their sergeant…”
Brand gave Varveiter a side glance, expecting to be chastised.
“Sorry I missed it,” the old soldier admitted with a chuckle.
Brand allowed himself a mouth twitch that for him approximated a smile, before his sergeant’s voice interrupted.
“Can you smell that?” Karlich asked Lenkmann.
The banner bearer marched doggedly at the head of the group, he and Rechts on either side of their sergeant in a rank of three. He sniffed loudly.
“Whatever it is, it reeks like old boots left out in the sun,” offered Rechts as he too detected the stench. Lenkmann nodded as he wrinkled his nose. It was coming from up ahead, from the same direction as the smoke. As far as the Grimblades knew, it was the smoke.
“Are you saying it’s worse than Eber’s feet?” chimed Volker, from two ranks behind.
Karlich cast a look over his shoulder. “Or your breath.”
The smile vanished off Volker’s face and he was silent. Eber jabbed him playfully in the ribs as he marched alongside him, which drew harsh mutterings from the scout. Unusually for him, Keller stayed quiet. He was in the second rank with Varveiter and Brand. That left Masbrecht in the third rank next to Volker, and the other Grimblades behind them, marching in time to Rechts’ drumming.
The halberdiers were third in the line of march. Ahead of them were the handgunners from Grünburg. The Middenlanders—the Steel Swords—took the lead with Captain Stahler. Behind the Grimblades marched fifty Bogenhafen spearmen, their spear tips pointed towards the smoke-stained sky. The greatsworders kept the rearguard, arguably the most dangerous part of the column. Karlich had learned their champion’s name was Reiter von Rauken and his men the so-called “Carroburg Few”. It was an apt way to describe them; aside from the militia levies that ranged either side of the column or with the dawdling baggage train as bodyguards, the Carroburgers were the smallest regiment in the army at only eighteen heads. It didn’t make them any less fearsome, or Karlich like them any more or less than he already did. Rauken and his men could have stopped the fight that was brewing between his men and the other northerners, but they didn’t. That was a black mark in the Reiklander’s book, and he didn’t strike them out easily.
“It doesn’t smell like any meat I’ve ever tasted,” said Eber. The stench was really noisome now, and infected the breeze like a miasma. The Grimblades were just cresting the grassy rise after the handgunners. Karlich noticed that some of the Grünburg men had stopped to gag. He heard another retch up his trail rations shortly afterwards.
“That’s because it’s not any meat a man would ever feed himself with…” Varveiter’s expression was grave as he came over the hill and saw what had upset the Grünburgers.
Eight wooden stakes lined the road ahead, fashioned from charred timbers. At first it was hard to tell just what was fastened to each because it moved in the sunlight.
“Carrion,” uttered Brand, as if that explained everything. The marching column had ground to a halt and several of the rear rankers, including the Bogenhafen spearmen, had started to complain about the hold up.
“Quiet your men!” Karlich snapped to the Bogenhafen sergeant, calling down the line. Something in the other Reiklander’s eyes told the leader of the spearmen that he should do as asked.
Feathers. It was feathers that were moving on the wooden stakes, crows mainly and the odd raven. Carrion birds, just as Brand had said.
When Lenkmann realised what they concealed, he retched too and only just held on to his breakfast. In the valley below the rise, Captain Stahler stepped out from the Middenlanders and fired his pistol into the air.
The birds scattered, a living carpet of darkness sent fleeing by the report of blackpowder, to reveal the corpses of eight roadwardens. The men were obviously dead and horrifically picked at by the carrion crows. Every one had red-rimed sockets where their eyes should be. The eyes were always the first to go: easy meat, full of nourishment and quick to reach for snapping beaks. The dark cavities that remained seemed to go on forever as if the manner of such a death had condemned these poor men to eternal torture in limbo. A wooden crossbar bisected the upright stake, and the roadwardens’ arms had been hung over them to look like gruesome scarecrows. The irony of their appearance was not lost on Karlich. If anything, the corpses had enticed the hungry birds.
Thick, crude iron spikes had been hammered into the men’s torsos, some even in the groin; the wrists and ankles too. Their skin was flayed in places, their bodies opened up by a ragged blade just below the stomach so that their entrails spilled out like so much offal. Karlich hoped that this last torture had been done after death, and heard Masbrecht mutter a prayer to Sigmar at the sight of such degradation.
“Bring axes!” A weary-looking Captain Stahler called from the base of the valley. “Cut them down… cut them all down.”
Militiamen came with axes, and together with volunteers from both the Reikland and Middenland regiments, the dead roadwardens were cut down. Baggage train trenchers and sappers dug shallow graves alongside the Aver, just deep enough to keep casual predators away, and the men were laid to rest. Masbrecht said a few words over the corpses, as the army possessed no priest. Rechts was absent from the short ceremony.
After that, the Empire army carried on their way. On the flat Averland plain the village was still visible, despite the smoke wreathing it like a funeral veil. The same stench that had emanated off the poor roadwardens was coming from there too.
The village’s name was Blosstadt. At least that’s what the fire-blackened sign lying before the broken gate and shattered stockade wall said. Furriers, smiths, farmers and muleskinners had all lived here once, venturing out to ply their trades and wares on market days in the nearby towns. No anvil sound rang upon a breeze, foetid and rank with decay; no horses whinnied, nor did their hooves clack against the cobbled village square as they were led to market; no voices came at all as the Grimblades passed through the gate and into a scene of utter destruction.
It was as quiet as his father’s mortuary, or so Masbrecht thought, levelling his halberd warily at every shadow. The quietude was unsettling, almost unnatural, and he was glad he wasn’t alone. Eber and Volker had joined him as he walked towards the village square, a gravel road to guide them. A strange drone pricked at his left ear and he waggled a finger in it experimentally to see if he could shift it. Then he saw the first of the bodies and realised the drone came from the flies buzzing around it, feeding off death.
“Parasites!” he raged, rushing over to the bloodied body of a farmhand and trying to shoo the flies away.
Volker gripped Masbrecht’s arm firmly before he got too far.
“Keep it quiet,” he hissed. “No telling what we’ll find here and I’d rather find it before it finds me. Understand?”
Masbrecht nodded, and Volker let him go. The scout patted his arm where he’d seized it. “Sorry, Pruder,” he said, calling the other soldier by the name his mother had given him. “Just be mindful.”
After that they continued their slow advance into the village, the flies returned to their putrid feast.
On the other side of the village, losing sight of Volker’s group each time they passed one of the large stable yards that Blosstadt had used for its horses, Varveiter led Brand and Rechts along the inner side of the stockade wall. They too found bodies, human and mutilated cattle. So far, they had also seen no sign of life.
“Quiet, but not peaceful,” muttered Rechts. He had his drum slung to one side and a drawn short sword in his fist.
“Aye,” hissed Varveiter in reply. The old soldier had seen villages ravaged before, by bandits, beastmen and orcs as well, but this looked different somehow. “It’s the stillness of the dead, a feeling the living, at least the right-minded of them, can’t abide.”
He let Brand move ahead. The other halberdier was silent too. He knew the feeling Varveiter was talking about, he’d known it man
y times, and here in Blosstadt it put him on edge.
Karlich was approaching the lookout post, a small hill near the middle of the village. There were the remains of a watchtower at the crest of the rise. The corpse of a milkmaid hung slackly over its damaged palisades, doubtless seeking refuge when the greenskins came or trying to bring a warning to her kith and kin. She’d probably known it was a lost cause, but she’d done it anyway. Karlich wondered if she was pretty under all that blood and matted hair.
The watchtower was unsafe to climb, but the hill itself offered a reasonable vantage point from which to view the rest of Blosstadt. The huntsmen Captain Stahler had sent in ahead, while he remained outside the village with the rest of the army, had reached the inn and hovels at the village’s southern end. They moved through the narrow lanes with their bows held low but nocked and ready. Nearby there were several hay barns, locked and shuttered. Farther still, Karlich made out a small mill, a waterwheel just dipping into a shallow stream that bisected Blosstadt into two uneven portions. The Grimblades took the larger east section, whilst the smaller regiment of Middenlander Steel Swords took the west.
Karlich caught Sturnbled’s eye as he led one patrol. The northerner returned his gaze without expression and then looked away. The Reiklander was glad that the stream kept the two regiments apart. The bad feeling between them had surfaced quickly but would be slow to submerge again, if at all. Where the stream broke the village in two, the Reikland and Middenland patrols did overlap, however.
Somewhere in the distance a dog was yelping. In the abject silence, its presence startled Volker before he realised what it was. He followed the noise to an outdoor privy, the handle tied shut to the doorframe with a length of fraying rope. The poor mutt’s wailing awoke something in Volker and he made for the privy at once, crossing the stream and wetting his boots to do so.
“Volker, where are you going?” asked Masbrecht. “What happened to keeping quiet?”
“A creature is in distress, maybe hurt,” Volker replied, not looking back but forging on instead, “and I intend to rescue it quietly.”
04 - Grimblades Page 6
