“WAAAAGHHH!”
It was like a primal invocation, bursting from greenskin mouths in a tumult of sound. Men fell, as if struck by a physical thing. A soldier in a sword regiment from Streissen dropped dead from fright. Several others soiled themselves, unable to control their bowels. Behind the Grimblades, a militia band broke and fled.
Several others turned, thinking about desertion too. Karlich saw them out the corner of his eye. They held, for now.
“Merciful Sigmar, even the sky is turning…” Masbrecht pointed to the heavens where dark, myrtle-tinged clouds had begun to boil. Fell voices wreathed the air, now thick with unnatural heat. The sun was smothered, snuffed out like a candle and a gloom sullied the field of war, tainting everything green.
Shadows lingered in the firmament. Karlich saw the suggestion of a sloped brow, a jutting chin. Eyes like malevolent red stars burned in those clouds. There were two of them, two hulking figures so massive and terrible that he knew if he looked upon them any longer his mind would shatter.
Suddenly, Karlich felt a tremendous weight upon him. His arms and armour seemed heavier than before. He realised it was despair, sapping at his strength and resolve. The others felt it too. Volker had shut his eyes. Masbrecht was praying under his breath. Rechts licked his lips, in need of a drink. He’d never felt so dry. Even Brand twitched as he experienced the oppressive presence of the entities in the storm above.
“Faith in Sigmar…”
Karlich heard it distantly.
“Faith in Sigmar…”
Louder now, he recognised the voice of Father Untervash.
“Faith in Sigmar!” On the third time, Karlich shouted too. “Give me your courage, men of the Reik!”
The shadows above chuckled at his defiance. It sounded like malicious thunder. A spit of green lightning threaded the clouds. Karlich bit his lip, drawing blood, and used the pain to shut it out.
“Grimblades!” He roared it like a call to arms.
Across the line, other regiments were refinding their purpose too. Empire men gripped their hafts a little tighter, brought their shoulders closer to one another. Together they were strong. Sigmar had taught them that. Banners that had dipped rose again. Drums and pipes struck up against the orcish din crashing into them like a disharmonious wave.
Above, the clouds began to recede. The shadows there grew fainter.
“He is with us…” Masbrecht was weeping. He clutched a talisman of a hammer in his left fist. Even Rechts was moved.
A clarion sounded from somewhere near the army’s centre. Other horns took up the call that spread slowly down the line. More than two dozen banners thrust into the darkling sky. Wilhelm’s banner was proudest. It rose like a rallying cry. Eldritch wind buffeted it but it snapped and thrashed defiantly.
We shall not be bowed. We are Empire. Sigmar is with us.
Though the prince himself was not riding alongside the army banner, all who saw it recognised its authority and the order to march.
“We are to meet them then,” Volker hardly sounded pleased.
“You hoped to cower behind pikes and spears?” said Karlich.
“Stay together, brothers,” said Greiss. “They can’t break us if we keep to our bonds of soldiery.”
Nodding, Volker looked girded by the newcomer’s words.
Karlich peered over his shoulder at Greiss, who was part of the second rank next to Volker. “Well spoken,” he said. “You sure you’re not a Reiklander?”
They all laughed, even some of the rear rankers who were in earshot.
Levity was good before battle.
Captain Stahler bellowed above the throng. The din of over two thousand tassets and breastplates rattled into movement. The Empire began to march.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BATTLE IS JOINED
Outside Averheim, capital city of Averland,
483 miles from Altdorf
Wilhelm’s warhorse had caught the scent of battle and strained at the bit before the prince reined it in.
“Easy now…” he soothed, patting the beast’s armoured flank.
They were all eager, not just the steeds, but the men too. The orcs had been goaded by Meinstadt’s cannon and though mauled by guns and bows, they had engaged the infantry. The skirmishers were either fled or consumed. Only the plucky halflings and a few isolated groups of huntsmen remained. Even now, they were being harried by goblin scouts. Sensibly, the Mootlanders had found a rocky outcrop on which to stage a desperate defence. The huntsmen were in the open though. A large band of wolfriders swept over them. When they’d passed, the Empire men were dead.
At the battle line, the bloodshed was even worse.
Within seconds, ranks of spear and pike just disappeared, swallowed by the green tide. So furious was the melee between the Empire’s front and the greenskin rear mobs, it was tough to discern anything of meaning. Already, the corpses had begun to pile up. Those orcs and goblins slain by the artillery barrage were lost from view, crushed underfoot by their own kin. The bodies of men, butchered and bloodied, joined them on the killing field. Heaps of them rose up like fleshy bulwarks on the churned earth.
Though at first Grom’s green horde had appeared endless, gaps were emerging between the warbands. Prince Wilhelm had been cunning in his deployment of the army. They occupied an area of the battlefield at an oblique angle to the orcs. It meant when the beasts engaged them they would have to charge away from Averheim and the gathered knights. As the seconds passed and the greenskins pressed more and more tribes into the fray, the aspect facing the Empire cavalry thinned and presented its flank.
“We should ride now,” advised Kogswald, impatient to bloody his lance.
Wilhelm lowered his spyglass for the second time.
“Hold,” he warned. “We wait until the way is almost open.”
“It may shut again if we don’t act,” Kogswald replied.
“Just wait,” said the prince, about to look through the spyglass again but stopping himself.
He’d hoped to see some sign of Grom, but had failed to find the goblin king in the masses. Likely, the beast was closer to the gate. It would show itself soon enough.
“I’ve heard talk that the greenskin warlord cannot be killed,” uttered Ledner, as if reading his liege’s thoughts.
“That it ate the flesh of a troll and has a girth to match. No less than three lords, a knight templar amongst them,” he added with a wry smile at Kogswald, “have alleged inflicting a mortal blow and yet here we are before Averheim’s ragged gates.”
“What do we do with trolls, preceptor?” Wilhelm asked.
Kogswald’s indignation turned to spite. His moustache curled up in a feral grin. “Burn them, my liege.”
“Just so…” He tapped the pommel of his runefang. Dragon Tooth it was called. Its inner fire raged with all the fury of its namesake. He slammed down the visor on his helmet. The green waves had parted. Wilhelm drew his sword and raised it high.
“We ride!”
The sky was boiling. Clouds tinged green billowed and twisted, occluding the sun. The presence of the orcish deities in the gloom had lessened but not abated. Like a looming threat they feasted on the greenskin rage swamping Averheim and the land around it. Their chanting voices bubbled on the air like a feverish sweat. They were not alone.
Another accompanied them. Not a deity but a totem of its fell gods’ power. Its shadow soared through the clouds on leathery wings, a dreaded silhouette once witnessed on a desolate plain at night.
“Wyvern!” yelled Rechts, gesturing to the sky as the Grimblades were driving forward. “The greenskin shaman is abroad.”
“Eyes ahead,” said Karlich. The pikes in front were barely holding. Just a few feet separated the two regimental lines. The Grimblades and the second front could enter the fray at any moment. Their booted feet marched in unison, matching the pace of the halberdiers from Auerswald to their right and the Middenland swordsmen to their left. Mercifully, there’d been l
ittle time to mingle with the belligerent northerners, though they’d scowled and muttered amongst themselves upon seeing their neighbours in the line of deployment.
Nearby, Karlich heard Von Rauken urging on the Imperial soldiers nearby. He sounded impatient for blood. The warrior priest in his ranks was adding fervour to his steel.
“Sigmar is my shield, the hammer in my hand. I shall not fear darkness,” cried Father Untervash, hurling dogma as if it were a spear.
Beyond a mass of cluttered pikes, Karlich made out the greenskins. Shouts of men merged with the brays of orcs into a cacophony. Though only glimpsed through a press of bodies, he could tell the fighting was fierce.
It was but a piece of a much larger struggle.
From his vantage point mounted on a warhorse, Stahler watched the pikemen crumple and give. They’d held off the orcs as long as they could. Their defensive formations had done a lot to staunch the initial rush, but now they were shedding men like autumn leaves. Tattooed orcs, their shoulders like fat slabs of meat, hacked into them as they fled. Their snarling white faces were painted to resemble skulls and they wore no armour, save their beast-hide jerkins. The Imperial spear regiments were losing a similar war of attrition. In the end, they had to break and fall back or risk being annihilated beneath the greenskin tide.
Stahler held his sword aloft. Its single rune glowed defiantly, throwing light across the blade. He winced but tried not to let it show. His wound still ached like hot pins in his gut. It was why he rode a horse rather than went on foot. Stahler had always warred on foot. He preferred to be near his men, in the dirt and the mire. Soldiers respected a captain who was willing to bleed and stand with them. But he feared if he did, he might not stand at all. Perception was everything. He had to inspire and embolden. Stahler couldn’t do that doubled up in pain or flagging in a fighting rank.
The left flank was buckling. Spears from Kemperbad and Bogenhafen, and four blocks of Averland pike, were in danger of being overrun. Three regiments of halberdiers including Karlich’s Grimblades, of whom Stahler was fond but would never show it, and a pair of sword regiments out of Streissen and Middenland was ready to fill the gap soon to be created by the fleeing polearms. Thankfully, the infantry centre and its front line right flank were holding. Despite his loathing of the fanatics, Stahler had to admit that Vanhans’ soldiers of faith were proving resilient. They’d moved to the centre and girded it with their reckless passion. It struck him as ironic that the witch hunter fought like a man possessed. To the right of the Grimblades Von Rauken’s greatsworders moved up, eager for carnage.
“Second line…” Stahler roared, “…forward, in the name of Prince Wilhelm!”
Most of the pikes and spears retreated in good order, though they were still bloodied before the halberdiers and swordsmen could relieve them. There was the swift beat of drums to signal the charge then came the clash of steel and the grunting of men.
On the left flank, battle was joined with the second line. Stahler rode up just behind them. His face was an ugly grimace. He prayed he could stay the course.
Screaming pike and spearmen barrelled through the Grimblades and the halberdiers from Auerswald.
Karlich ordered his men to let them through and come together again once they’d passed. Panic must not spread. The broken could be allowed to flee but must not get swept up in their fear.
“Hold true,” he cried. “Maintain rank and file!”
It was hard to think, let alone speak. The clatter of arms and armour was everywhere, growing louder by the second. Blood scent reeked on the air. Steel and leather, too.
They were beyond the fleeing spearmen, a frantic blur of yellow and black disappearing in the Grimblades’ peripheral vision. A slab of orcs with bloody cleavers and studded-leather hauberks confronted them, eager for more.
Karlich roared without words. His heart pounded like a blacksmith’s hammer. Then there was the rush and the carnage that followed. He took a blow on his shield, hard enough to jar his shoulder. Karlich ignored the pain and stabbed the snorting greenskin in the face. Dark blood gushed from the wound, threading from his withdrawn blade in an arc. A line of halberds slammed down in unison, splitting two orcs apart. Someone screamed. Karlich didn’t recognise who. A rear ranker moved up to fill the gap.
Stabbing and thrusting now, the halberdiers fought hard to keep the greenskins at bay where their strength and brutality would count for less.
Karlich cut again, slashing an orc’s thigh. He barely saw the beast. His enemies were a haze of snarling slab-browed faces and jutting jaws. Taking a punch to the side of the face, Karlich nearly fell. He almost lost his shield. Strong hands behind him held him up, while a halberd blade thrust overhead into the orc’s neck. It died choking blood.
“As one we stand,” he heard the voice of Greiss saying. No one other than Brand could have applied the deathblow.
Back on his feet and fighting, Karlich felt the weight of his warrior brothers at his back and knew that Greiss was right.
The Grimblades held. The Auerswalders and the Steel Swords held. With Father Untervash, Von Rauken’s greatsworders were reaping a heavy toll of greenskins. But the orcs refused to yield. Even the goblins were undaunted.
The bloody day was far from over.
Kicking its flanks, Stahler rode his warhorse in a loop around the back of his command. The second line was holding. In the gap between it and the third, a decent amount of pike and spear had rallied and were already reforming. Their drums and horns carried orders on the air, though some had lost their banners in the panicked rush to flee.
Captain Hornschaft was supposed to be leading the front line. Stahler had lost sight of him ever since the greenskins’ initial charge. He hoped, a little forlornly, that he was still alive.
A cry echoed loudly from the far right, accompanied by the shrilling of silver trumpets. Stahler’s pride soared when he saw Prince Wilhelm and his knights ride onto the field of war. Over a hundred templars and half as many pistoliers again charged with glorious voices. Break through the greenskin horde, reach the gate and free the army of Averheim. Stahler willed them on, his voice escaping as a breath. “For Sigmar, noble prince…”
He averted his gaze when another, much less inspiring, sight seized his attention.
Trolls were lumbering through the greenskin rear ranks, swinging tree trunks and the bodies of dead Averheimers like clubs. Orcs and goblins were left bludgeoned in their wake. Others, battered aside in the beasts’ eagerness to feed, flew like broken dolls over the heads of rival mobs much to their cackled amusement. Plucked from amongst its kin, a goblin squealed before being devoured, a quick morsel before the feast to come. An orc flayed by acidic bile collapsed into a pile of sticky bone. The troll responsible wiped its drooling maw with a meaty hand. Vomit hissed and burned against its craggy skin before evaporating. The beasts lived only to eat and to kill. Food was neither friend nor foe. Goaded by orc slavemasters, the trolls would reach the second line soon.
Stahler was about to spur his horse—he’d need to reach his men before the trolls—when he hesitated.
A black shadow drew over him and the Grimblades, eclipsing what little light shone on the battlefield. Evil lurked within that shadow.
Blacktooth…
The name was uttered like a curse into his mind, and the minds of those who saw it, in a guttural cadence. The breath snagged in Stahler’s throat, as if too afraid to escape. Whinnying in terror, his steed caught the scent of the monster before seeing it.
A wyvern, an old beast from deep within the mountains, loomed over them. Mounted on its back in a crude saddle was the orc shaman. Blacktooth wanted a fight.
Huge, beating wings funnelled the scent of the wyvern’s rage and hate towards the puny men who could only cower. Akin to a giant winged lizard, the monster’s hide was thickly scaled and shone with a gelid lustre. It put Karlich in mind of dank places, of ancient slime-skinned caves where men should never venture. A ribbed belly, thicker than
a cannon’s barrel, heaved and sucked with the effort of keeping it aloft and steady. Its barbed tail quivered, seeping poison. Fangs as long as swords, and broad as axe heads, were stained crimson. Trying to muster his courage, Karlich imagined the wyvern’s appetite for flesh was not yet sated.
Men howled before the beast wrenched straight from the depths of their darkest nightmares. Scenting fear, the wyvern roared. An ululating, unnatural din resounded over the battlefield. Those who heard it felt their blood freeze and their bodies stiffen in fear.
A band of militia, a detachment of a much larger regiment of halberdiers from Streissen, panicked and fled. Blacktooth snarled his displeasure. As the shaman sat up in rusted-iron stirrups, Karlich got a better look at him.
Blacktooth was festooned with skull charms and totems. He clutched a strange wand in his right fist, some bizarre daemon-head charm hammered onto a stave of dark iron. A dirty, furred jerkin of many colours swathed his body. Blacktooth was barefoot. A horned hat, crested with a halfling’s skull, covered his head. He held a notched cleaver in his other hand. One of the large fangs protruding over his upper lip was blighted with decay.
The fleeing men didn’t get far. Blacktooth unleashed a blast of green lightning from his eyes. The militia never even had time to scream before they blackened and died.
“Sigmar preserve us!” someone shouted from down the line.
“Morr’s shadow is upon us!” said another.
Masbrecht was praying in the front rank. His eyes were closed and he clasped the hammer icon around his neck as if it could make him invisible.
Karlich wanted to speak, to galvanise his men, but found his mouth was dry and his tongue leaden. The urge to run, to save himself, was strong. Burning meat was redolent on the breeze. He did not want that fate.
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