01 - Empire in Chaos (37 page)

Scores of ravens fell to the ground, their wings shattered by bolt and lead
shot, their bodies broken and flightless. They flapped on the ground uselessly,
feathers drifting down in their wake, wings hanging limp behind them. One struck
Annaliese as it fell, and she cried out in shock. It cawed deafeningly and its
long beak and talons lashed out, drawing blood on her neck before she managed to
frantically hurl the creature to the ground before her. It flopped around in a
circle, its left wing and leg a bloody ruin, and it fixed Annaliese fiercely
with one beady eye. Anger burnt within the shiny orb, simmering rage and
malevolence projected from the raven that was as large as a small dog. Up close
Grunwald could see that its feathers were not truly black, but rather a shimmer
of colours could be seen on them, like the rainbow of oil on water.

It cawed and opened its beak aggressively towards Grunwald as he stepped
towards the dying creature. He killed it beneath his heavy black boot, crushing
its fragile bones and silencing its raucous, disturbing cries.

The ravens overhead circled once more before screaming back overhead, flying
low over the land towards the rise of moorland. Like a flowing carpet of black
feathers the fell birds of the enemy flowed up the rising, rocky earth and
disappeared over the crest of the moors.

At that moment, the first dark figures could be seen at the crest of the
highlands, standing dark and motionless, silhouetted against the flashes of
lightning behind them. They stood immobile, like ancient statues of long-dead,
infernal warrior-gods, a line of them that spread along the crest, dark,
imposing and deadly.

It was as if the ravens had metamorphosed into these terrible warriors.
Grunwald wondered if they would turn back into the hateful carrion birds at the
battle’s end to pick over the corpses and pluck at their eyes.

The horned helms of the motionless warriors of Chaos could be seen clearly
against the backdrop of flashing light. Huge standards were held before them,
and although the images upon the human-skin banners should have been hidden in
shadow, they could be seen clearly—twisting, blasphemous glyph-shapes of blue
fire that flickered with cold light of their own.

A ripple of fear ran through the Empire line as the soldiers saw the warriors
of the Chaos gods.

The warriors were massive, each easily a head taller than any man of the
Empire. They were raised as brutal fighters from birth, the weak amongst them
ruthlessly culled. They were taught to hold a sword or axe from the moment they
could stand, and before they had reached eight summers they were already
seasoned killers, preying on those weaker than them and offering up their souls
to the dark gods of Chaos.

Only the strongest and fiercest of them reached adulthood, and every one had
proven himself before their daemonic gods.

But as nine bolts of lighting struck the earth below the ridge
simultaneously, the figures that had been mere silhouettes were thrown into
sharp focus, and the sense of terror and pervading doom amongst the Empire lines
was redoubled. For these were not average warriors of Chaos, but the chosen
elite of the Raven Host.

Each warrior was fully armoured in dark metal, and wore an enclosed helmet
tipped with curving, daemonic horns. In the centre of every helmet was a glowing
blue gem fashioned in the shape of an unblinking eye. They hefted brutal killing
weapons—swords, axes and heavy spiked mauls—that a normal man would be
unable to lift in two hands, let alone one as many of these warriors seemed to
do effortlessly. Many bore tall shields tipped with spikes and barbs, and each
of these also had an unblinking blue eye on its centre. Cloaks of raven feathers
were thrown over the massive shoulders of these elite warriors, the chosen of
Tzeentch, and they surveyed the village and meagre lines of quaking Empire
soldiers unmoving.

To either side of the motionless chosen warriors more of the enemy appeared,
and massive stakes of metal were driven into the ground along the ridge. Each of
these was easily fifteen feet high, and upon each was spitted a man wearing the
purple and yellow of Ostermark—clearly Empire soldiers slain in an earlier
confrontation, perhaps in the fall of Bechafen itself.

No, not slain in an earlier battle, Grunwald realised—a great groan of
horror rose up amongst the Empire ranks as they saw that these soldiers were not
dead at all. The impaled figures twitched and flailed in agony, kept alive and
in torment by the fell magics of the enemy. The moans and cries of the tormented
men of the Ostermark echoed down from the ridge to the village, and Annaliese
covered her mouth as she heard their agonised, desperate wailing.

A thousand stakes were raised along the ridge, and larger ones too were
hefted into position with ropes and chains—each of these had five or more
soldiers impaled on them. Ravens landed on many of these tortured men, tearing
strips of flesh from them and pecking at their faces—but not one of them was
dead.

“Why don’t they attack?” said Annaliese, her voice strained.

“They are trying to scare us,” said Grunwald.

“It’s working,” said Annaliese. She swallowed with difficulty, her mouth and
throat dry.

“Or they are waiting for something,” said the witch hunter. He craned his
neck, looking back to where the citizens crowded, back behind the lines of
soldiers. His gaze passed over the mass of desperate humanity, but he did not
see the face he sought—the heavily lined face of the witch he knew was lurking
back there somewhere.

Karl sat astride a massive destrier, glad at last to be back in the saddle.
He felt the horse beneath him trembling with fear and anticipation. Leaning
forward he patted it heavily on its neck, talking in gentle, comforting tones.
He knew how it felt.

The knights’ steeds stamped their hooves, ears flat against their heads. They
were uneasy and tense. Such was generally the way before a battle, but the fear
that washed down over the Empire lines was almost like a living thing. It washed
around them, making men sweat despite the icy chill. The sky continued to
darken, the massing cloudbanks encircling the village almost completely.

Karl wished the enemy would just advance, so this waiting would end. Battle
would be met, and then the killing would start, and he could lose himself in the
melee.

He tried to push away the thoughts of the previous night’s encounter with
Annaliese, but her shocked and angry face kept appearing in his mind’s eye, the
look of fear as he had pulled her roughly to him haunted him. He gritted his
teeth and shoved the image to the back of his mind, but it kept rearing up
within him, taunting and painful.

He felt shame tear at him. What had he been thinking, he wondered? What evil
had overtaken his senses?

She had brought it on herself, said a dark voice within him. She had tempted
him for weeks, with her seductive looks and luscious eyes. She had led him on,
making him think that there was something between them. But all the time she had
been laughing at him, her and that cursed elf.

Karl closed his eyes against the maddening thoughts, striving to drive them
from his mind. Had the enemy infected him with some vile sorcery? No, he
answered—this was but jealousy and desire, very human emotions, and they had
been enflamed by drink.

What a fool he had been! He had blown his chance with the girl, and he had no
one to blame but himself.

It mattered little now though, he thought darkly, as he gazed up at the enemy
standing motionless along the ridge of moorland. Soon, he would lose himself
amid the cacophony of battle, and it would not matter anymore.

Feathers sticking up from soft caps bobbed up and down as Karl watched around
two thousand archers, handgunners and crossbowmen moving lightly forwards,
angling their lines opposite the marshy dip at the foot of the moorland crest.

Phalanxes of state soldiers marched forwards more slowly behind them,
halberdiers and swordsmen, their wildly fluttering banners flying. In the centre
of the line were the greatswords, a block of hard-bitten soldiers with massive
two-handed blades resting on their right shoulders. Great plumes topped their
conical helmets, and they stepped forwards in perfect unison, for they were the
elite foot troops of the army, its most seasoned and veteran soldiers.

Light cavalry hung back from the main line, and further regiments of spears,
halberds and pikes stood motionless along the edge of the village. An unruly
rabble of refugees was arrayed; thousands of desperate survivors from outlying
villages and towns that followed the army. They stood watching over the
battlefield from whatever vantage point they could find, waiting to see the
outcome. Karl knew that if the day were lost, then they would all be
slaughtered.

The Empire commanders had tried to force these stragglers to leave the area,
but it was an impossible task. In truth, Karl could understand that they did not
wish to be away from the army and the protection it gave them. Though how long
that protection would last would soon be determined.

Karl wondered where Annaliese was. He turned in the saddle, looking across at
the soldiers’ frightened faces. He spotted the witch hunter Udo Grunwald first—he was hard to miss standing amongst the soldiery, wearing his trademark heavy
black greatcoat and wide-brimmed hat. He stood with a small group of soldiers to
the rear of the gathered forces. He seemed to be looking for someone, staring
around him.

Karl’s eyes widened as he recognised Annaliese standing alongside the witch
hunter. She wore a close-fitting sallet helmet, though her face was bare, and
her head was held high as she stared fiercely across the battlefield towards the
motionless enemy. Her hammer was held in one hand, and she wore a circular
shield upon her arm. Plates of armour protected her arms and shoulders, and the
hem of her long chainmail coat could be seen beneath her red and cream
travel-worn robe.

She was a shining, radiant light amongst the soldiers. The Maiden of Sigmar
she was, and truly she looked the part as she waited fearlessly for the battle
to commence. He stared at her in open awe and admiration. Then the shame of his
actions pounded in at him, and he turned away, cursing himself.

“Why don’t they damn well come?” growled Thorrik, stamping his feet, trying
to get some feeling back into his cold toes. He stood in the front rank of a
phalanx of halberdiers, the other soldiers towering above him. The men around
him were silent, their faces grim. Further along the line, the purple and yellow
standard of the Ostermark whipped loudly in the rising winds.

At last there was movement from the ridge, as warriors lowered their heads
and moved respectfully out of the way of a giant figure upon a snorting black
steed. The figure wore ornate, fluted armour of gold, and its gleaming helmet
was topped with coiling horns that twisted around each other. An eye of blue
fire the size of a man’s torso hung in the air between these horns, the flames
burning fiercely with unholy light. A large black pupil hung within the centre
of the burning blue iris, and as another bolt of lightning slammed into the
earth before the Chaos lord, this pupil contracted sharply so that it was little
more than a vertical black slit, like the pupil of a serpent.

The fell steed stamped its hooves, and its eyes blazed with pale fire. It was
armoured with ornate, fluted gold barding in the same manner as its lord, and a
similar array of twisting horns coiled from its head.

The massive warrior wore a long cloak of feathers, and it billowed behind him
like a death-shroud. He hefted a huge bladed glaive one handed over his head as
his infernal steed reared up on its hind legs, and lightning arced down from the
heavens once again, striking this long weapon. Electricity coursed over the
figure, crackling over its armour before it earthed itself into the ground
beneath the daemon-steed’s hooves.

The sound of the lightning bolt striking reached the Empire lines a second
later, and it sounded like the earth had been split down the middle. Horses
reared and screamed in fear, and the knights struggled to bring them back under
control.

The last electric flickers of lightning coalesced across the Chaos lord, and
he began to speak. His words were those of a daemon, and they rolled out before
him like a deafening wave, reaching the ears of every man standing upon the
field of battle, as if the fell lord of Chaos screamed in their ears.

It sounded as though there were a thousand roaring voices bellowing as one,
and the Empire soldiers around Thorrik took an involuntary step backwards as the
wall of sound struck them. There were screams and roars of fury and pain in that
voice, and the cries of tortured souls.

The words were alien and meaningless to the men of the Empire, but great was
their power. There were moans of fear amongst the soldiers around Thorrik, and
several fell to their knees, covering their ears in a futile attempt to block
out the horrendous din. Thorrik himself gritted his teeth and gripped the shaft
of his axe tightly, grimly weathering the storm of screaming, incoherent
words.

Grunwald felt the power of the words of Chaos battering against his sanity,
and he resisted their power. Annaliese at his side grasped her pendant of Sigmar
and began mouthing words of prayer, her face defiant. The witch hunter felt the
building of power, and clenched his teeth as he felt the electric tang of magic
charge the air.

A regiment of soldiers standing some fifty paces ahead of his own position
were suddenly engulfed in a blurring maelstrom as the fabric of reality was
shredded.

A hundred men fell to the ground as a surging wave of daemonic energy
enveloped them, screaming and roaring. They convulsed madly and those nearby
backed away, horror on their faces. The men began to writhe, screaming, and
their flesh seemed to ripple and contort. Bones bulged beneath flesh as they
grew uncontrollably, bursting through skin to form giant pointed growths. Spinal
columns became twisted and erupted from men’s backs, spikes of bone growing from
vertebrae and impaling other wildly mutating men. Feathers sprouted along the
forearms of some, bloody and covered with mucous, and tentacles burst from the
chests of others, reaching to the sky like questing leeches.