01 - Empire in Chaos (36 page)

“I see,” said Karl, nodding his head and laughing softly to himself. “I see
what’s going on here.”

“There is nothing going on here except you being a lecherous drunkard,”
snarled Annaliese.

“You refuse me because you already have a lover,” said Karl stabbing a finger
at Annaliese.

“You are a fool,” she snapped. “You see nothing.”

“Oh no, I see it all now,
Maiden
of Sigmar,” he said mockingly.
“You’ve been parading yourself as some virtuous, devout woman, and all the time
you have been rutting with this one. Not even a true man!”

“You go too far, Karl,” said Annaliese dangerously.

“Was she good?” the preceptor asked the elf, speaking loudly and slowly as if
he were deaf rather than did not understand Reikspiel. The elf regarded him
coldly, no emotion showing on his face. The knight made a crude gesture, and
Annaliese stepped towards him, her fists clenched.

He blinked then, as if realising his actions, and he wiped a hand across his
brow, swaying slightly. He half-fell, half-sat back down and reached for his
bottle, taking a long swig.

Annaliese and Eldanair stood there still.

“What?” Karl said eventually. “Was there something else?”

Annaliese shook her head in disgust.

“You were a man I regarded with high esteem, Karl Heiden. It seems I was
wrong to have thought so highly of you,” she spat, before turning on her heel
and storming off into the night, Eldanair following.

Karl took another long swig from his bottle, staring into the fire. He gulped
down the last of it and threw it onto the flames. He swung around to see if
Annaliese had gone. She had.

“Well that went well,” he said to himself.

A moment later, he was on his knees, emptying the contents of his stomach
onto the ground. He heaved and brought up everything, until he finally sat
gasping, and wiped at his face.

He stood unsteadily and walked to a barrel of water nearby, plunging his
hands into it. Ice had begun to form on its surface and it cracked beneath his
fingers. He washed his face in the freezing water. Scooping water, he drank
deep, until his fingers were numb. More sober now, he thought back over the last
half an hour.

“You are a fool,” he said to himself, realising the damage he had done. But
then the image of Eldanair’s face popped into his mind, and once again he felt
anger, hot and fierce.

Curse them both, he thought, and staggered back towards his tent.

Dietrich crept forward in the snow, worming his way through the darkness. His
every sense was alert; he saw the silent form of an owl as it passed overhead
and could smell the unmistakable stench of burning flesh on the wind. The glow
of fires lit up the perfect darkness of the night over the hillock just ahead.

The elector had hand-picked a group of scouts and sent them out earlier to
judge the strength of the enemy and gauge its approach.

The elf was somewhere up ahead, an invisible ghost in the darkness. They were
in awe of his skills. They had moved out as the silver moon had reached its
zenith overhead, moving swiftly into the night toward the enemy. Dietrich knew
that he would never have dared to approach had the elf not been leading them—dozens of times through the night they had been saved by the elf, who urged them
down into the snow. Moments later, enemies had passed by them, moving through
the darkness with no torches to light their way.

They took two of these enemy bands, their shafts hurling the warriors from
their horses, leaving none alive. The elf had led them through the enemy patrols
and they climbed up a hillock to overlook the enemy encampment.

Dietrich crawled on, ignoring the biting cold. He almost cried out when
Eldanair appeared before him like a phantom, a finger placed on his lips.
Dietrich quickly signalled for his men to freeze, and they sank into the snow,
motionless at his command. The elf disappeared up ahead, and Dietrich lay there
unmoving for long minutes, wondering what was going on. Had they been
discovered? No, there had been no warning shouts, or sounds of alarm.

A moment later the elf was back, beckoning him forwards. Edging around an
ancient rock, Dietrich came upon the first corpse. The body of the enemy warrior
was huge, and his powerful arms were covered in golden torcs. Countless rings of
metal pierced the flesh of his bearded face, and he wore a circular black iron
breastplate over his heavily muscled torso. A helmet lay in the snow beside him,
tall horns cut from an animal that Dietrich did not recognise rising from it.

He saw Eldanair rise to his feet like a shadow behind another sentry and
clamp his hand across the man’s mouth and nose. A blade flashed in the night as
he stabbed through the heavy fur cloak of the enemy warrior, again and again.
The hulking figure was easily twice the weight of the elf, but he was dead in
seconds, and the elf lowered the body into the snow.

Dietrich inched through the snow to the elf’s side, and his eyes widened as
he overlooked the enemy encampment.

The size of the army was immense. Campfires spread as far as the eye could
see. There must have been tens of thousands of enemy warriors here. And not just
men—chained in long pickets were massive hounds covered in thick fur, beasts
almost the size of ponies. They lay sprawled on top of each other as they slept,
jaws hanging open to show huge fangs and lolling tongues. Further away from the
encamped warriors were other, larger shapes. Their forms were hidden in
darkness, but they were huge, easily the size of the largest bears that Dietrich
had even heard of, but he instinctively knew that these were not natural
creatures. No, their shapes were perverted and mutated from decades of exposure
to the warping effects of Chaos.

Eldanair got his attention with a light touch on his shoulder, and pointed
into the distance, to the north. At first Dietrich could see nothing, squinting
over the glowing remains of five thousand fires, but at last he saw movement.
Mounted figures were riding across the open land away from the camp.

There must have been around three hundred of them, riding for the north.
Heavy chariots pulled by midnight steeds rolled out amongst the mounted
warriors, snow kicking up behind their metal-studded wheels.

Dietrich knew that this was vital information that he needed to get back to
his commander, for it certainly appeared as though the enemy was sending a fast
moving force to circumvent the Empire line—and quite possibly attack it from
an unexpected angle once battle was met. He knew that such a move could tip the
balance of the battle.

Taking one last look over the enemy encampment estimating their number, he
began to crawl backwards down the hillock away from the enemy. Once in open
ground, the scouts began to move as swiftly as it was safe to do, dogging the
enemy horsemen. They would follow them for a few hours to gauge their direction
before turning back towards the Empire lines.

It was dawn, and Grunwald, sitting just outside his tent, was stripping down
and meticulously cleaning his weapons. They were laid out on an unrolled sheet
of leather, and he polished and oiled the mechanisms of first his wheel-lock
pistols, then his heavy, black metal crossbow. The barrels of the guns he
cleaned out with a fine cloth and a ramming rod, gazing along the barrels to
ensure not a speck of dust or dirt was within.

He was angry, and the simple act of maintaining his weapons calmed him
somewhat. His night’s work of scouring the citizenry had garnered nothing, and
the dull thumping of a pressure headache made him even more irritable and tense.

He was angry with himself for taking his eyes off the man, and was frustrated
that he had been unable to discover his whereabouts. He had even begun to doubt
himself—perhaps the man had been nothing more than a frightened peddler—but
he knew deep inside that he was not. The fact that the man had clearly hidden
himself was evidence enough of his guilt.

Annaliese found him there, and sat alongside him in silence as he worked. The
witch hunter enjoyed the quietness of early morning, and made no effort to talk
to the girl, and he was glad when she too seemed content to remain in silence.
“I am scared about the battle,” she said at last.

“It’s only normal,” he replied, blowing an errant speck of dust out of the
wheel-mechanism of one of his guns.

“You don’t seem too worried.”

“It would be a fool indeed who didn’t have some fear in him on the day of a
battle,” said Grunwald, casting his careful gaze over his weapon, turning it in
his hands, seeking any fault or tarnish. “Either that, or a madman.” Finding no
defects, he turned his attention to the black metal bolts of his crossbow,
studying the tip of the first. Satisfied, he lifted the bolt and stared along
its length, ensuring that it was perfectly straight, with no deviation in it
that would effect his aim.

“I am neither a fool nor a madman,” continued Grunwald. “And so, I fear the
coming battle. But it is what that fear does to you that is the important thing.
Either you master it, and use it to your advantage, or you let it master you.
Let it master you and it will grow and grow within you, until you are nothing
but a slave to it.”

“Use fear to your advantage?” said Annaliese, furrowing her brow. “How is
fear an advantage?”

“Fear keeps us alive. It is fear that tells us not to walk on the cliff edge
in a billowing gale.”

“But only a fool would do that.”

“Or a madman. But another example—if controlled, fear lends you strength,
speed and crystal clear clarity of mind. If it is left unchecked and controls
you, it will work against you—cause you to react slowly, if at all.”

Annaliese nodded. “I remember being out hunting with my father once. We were
surprised by a bear. I froze—unable to run, to shoot, to do anything but stare
at it. It would have killed me had my father not been there.” Annaliese’s eyes
were glazed over as she remembered. She looked up at the witch hunter, snapping
herself out of her reverie. “What happens if I freeze up today?”

“Then you will die,” said Grunwald simply. “My advice? Don’t freeze up.” He
lifted one of his pistols quickly, testing the wheel-lock mechanism. “It doesn’t
matter if you are scared—you just must ensure that the Maiden of Sigmar does
not show it.”

Thorrik appeared from amidst the bustle of soldiers busying themselves before
battle, stamping heavily to get the snow off his boots. His face was thunderous,
and he sat down heavily and pulled his dragon-headed pipe from a pouch.

Grunwald raised a questioning eyebrow to the dwarf.

“North!” Thorrik spluttered. “My clan has gone to the north!”

“North? We are in the north,” said Grunwald.

“Kislev! They have marched into Kislev with an army from Reikland!”

“Kislev? But the war is here, in the Empire. What the hell are armies doing
marching there?”

“Seems that this so-called Raven Host is massing north of Kislev. What is
here already is only its vanguard. Your Emperor has sent an army into Kislev to
fight it and my kinsmen have marched with them!” The dwarf harrumphed loudly,
and began muttering to himself in his own language.

“So, if we survive the day, you will march northwards then? What, to the city
of Kislev itself?”

The dwarf snorted. “Further than that—the army marches on Praag.”

Grunwald’s eyes widened. Praag was far to the north of the Kislev, thousands
of miles north of their current position. It would take weeks, months to travel
there. He whistled in awe.

“Ah well,” said Thorrik. “We have this battle to get through first. You will
be fighting too I hear, lass?”

“I will,” said Annaliese.

“I will be in the front ranks. That’s where an ironbreaker fights. I just
hope you humans will stand firm alongside me.”

“We will,” said Annaliese with grim determination. “We have to.”

The clear blue morning sky was slowly overtaken by the relentless, brooding
dark clouds clawing their way across the heavens. Shadow engulfed the Empire
lines and Grunwald shivered as the temperature dropped. He was alert and wary
for the reappearance of the magos he had seen in the crowd the previous day,
certain that he would rear his head before the day was out.

Lightning crackled through the heavy clouds, rippling back and forth with
intense flashes, accompanied by the relentless dull rumble of thunder. Bright
bolts seared down to the ground beyond the crest of the moorland, jagged lines
of power and light that were followed a second later by deafening booms that
made the knights’ horses whinny in fear.

The storm was moving forwards like a living malevolent being, and it seemed
to carry with it powerful, hateful emotions that promised death and destruction.

Grunwald noted that Annaliese was breathing heavily, her face pale, as she
watched the cloudbank rolling towards them.

It was like a black mountain spur, its tip heading inexorably in their
direction—a thick wedge of darkness that slid ever closer. The apex of this
elemental force halted above the crest of the high moorland, just beyond the
shadowed village, as if it had hit an invisible barrier. The weight of the
clouds built and they darkened so that they were now almost black and began
spilling around the sides of the village like a pair of giant horns, surrounding
it menacingly.

A great shadow of darkness that seemed to ride before the cloud mass detached
itself from the storm and flew low towards the village. Grunwald saw that it was
a mass of black-feathered birds, thousands of them flying together, and they
filled the air with their raucous cries. Diving low, they flew over the heads of
the Empire soldiers, their harsh cawing a deafening chorus and the beating of
their wings disorienting. As a single living mass flying as one, the ravens
blocked out the sky completely, and they flew low enough that men were forced to
duck their heads, and many of those who did not wear helmets suffered cuts from
stabbing black beaks and lashing talons. The living mass wheeled again, a
maddening maelstrom of black feathers, and dozens of soldiers fired crossbows
and handguns into the mass before their sergeants restored order with harshly
barked commands.