[Empire Army 03] - Call to Arms Read online

  Bodies, both human and animal, were strewn all about them. The people of Kerndorf had been killed alongside their livestock, murdered in the enemy’s mad rampage. Gessler saw that chunks of flesh had been cut from some of the corpses, though whether for use as food or as trophies he could not be sure.

  He felt his gorge rise. He had been a soldier for ten years and he had seen other massacres, but the carnage at Kerndorf ranked with the worst. Everywhere he looked he saw sundered bodies. Images impressed themselves on his mind in no particular order. Most of the huts were burned out, but a few were surprisingly intact. He saw a child’s doll, made of straw. It was lying amid a pile of corpses. He couldn’t see the owner, but somehow the presence of the doll made it all seem more real.

  “Whoever they were, it didn’t take them long to get past the gate,” Walden said, his eyes casting expertly about as he tried to read the course of the battle from the evidence of its aftermath. “Otherwise, you’d expect to see more men killed at the palisade. As it is, it looks as though the enemy broke in and slaughtered the villagers as they made a last stand here, in the centre of the village. Poor bastards. They didn’t have a chance.” He turned to the sergeant.

  “It looks like I was right after all. This wasn’t done by beastmen.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “If beastmen had attacked this village, I would expect to see more damage,” Walden replied. “They would have utterly laid waste to the place: smashing the huts, trampling crops, poisoning the well—destroying everything that had any smell of civilisation about it. The walls would be covered in beastmen symbols daubed in blood, while the whole place would stink of beast piss and dung.”

  “I see,” Gessler nodded. He considered the matter. “Who, then? Chaos warriors? Greenskins?”

  “Greenskins would be my guess,” the other man answered. “I haven’t seen any tracks, and they seem to have taken the bodies of their dead with them, but the greenskins destroyed this village. I’m sure of it.”

  “I don’t think they were alone, Kurt,” Gessler said, gazing past him. He had noticed something while Walden was talking. “Look at this.”

  A corpse lay slumped in a sitting position against the wall of a nearby hut. Together, Gessler and Walden moved closer to inspect it. The body belonged to a well-muscled man in his early forties, from his clothes and leather apron perhaps the village blacksmith. It took no great understanding of medicine to see how he had died. On the lower right half of his body the flesh had been scoured from his bones as though it had been dissolved, leaving a foul-smelling puddle of liquid staining the earth around him.

  There was a corroded lump of metal lying by the man’s skeletal hand. Gessler could not be sure, but he suspected it was all that was left of the blacksmith’s hammer.

  “Merciful gods, the stench!” Pulling a cloth from his tunic, Walden clapped it over his mouth. “It smells like sour milk and rotting fish, but a thousand times worse. What do you think happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. Some kind of acid, maybe? Here, there’s something else.”

  Gesturing to the ground, Gessler pointed to the outline of a footprint by the body. Elsewhere, the ground had been baked too hard by the sun to show any tracks, but the puddle by the blacksmith’s body had softened the earth enough for the killer to have left an imprint by his victim.

  The footprint was three or four times the size of a man’s. The foot that made it had been unshod. It was shaped unusually, with a broad flat span at the ball of the foot, narrowing to a sharp, almost talon-like heel. Whatever it was, the creature possessed four claws in place of toes.

  “Sigmar protect us,” Walden said quietly, crossing his hand from shoulder to shoulder as he made the sign of the hammer. “It is the mark of a daemon.”

  “I don’t think so.” Gessler shook his head. “I’ve never seen one before, but I think it could be the footprint of a—”

  His words were cut off by the sound of a shouted alarm coming from outside the village. Recognising the voice of Schimmel, the lookout, Gessler turned and spurred his horse toward the palisade gates. Walden and the rest of the patrol were right behind him.

  Shouting an incoherent warning, Schimmel came riding toward them. Suddenly, dozens of unseen archers unleashed a volley of arrows from the trees. Most of them missed their mark, but enough struck home that Schimmel and his mount were transformed into pin cushions. The horse screamed, tumbling its rider to the earth as it collapsed and died.

  “Schimmel!”

  Moved by a vague notion of rescuing the wounded man, Gessler galloped through the gate. It was too late. As he drew nearer, he saw that Schimmel was dead. One of the arrows had hit under the browline of his helmet, the shaft sprouting from the ruin of Schimmel’s eye like the stalk of some pitiless fruit.

  “It’s no good, sergeant!” Walden had kept pace with him all the way. “You can’t save him! Quickly, we have to retreat! Sweet Sigmar! Look! They’re in the trees! They’re coming!”

  Alerted by Walden’s warning, Gessler spotted dozens of stunted figures emerge from the forest on either side of them. He saw a succession of inhuman faces as they poured from the forest in ever greater numbers.

  Goblins!

  Sizing up the situation, he realised he and his men were already surrounded. They were outnumbered. Ready for the kill, the goblins charged forward.

  “Patrol, form a line!” Gessler shouted at the top of his voice, straining to be heard above the strange whoops and cries of the approaching enemy. “Form up on me! Get into position!”

  Manoeuvring his horse to face the charging mass of goblins, Gessler drew his sword as his men urged their horses forward to take up position on either side of him. The goblins were close now, close enough that he could see their red eyes, close enough he could almost feel their eagerness. Granted courage by numbers, they were sure of their victory, certain there was no way Gessler and the patrol could escape.

  Weighing his options, Gessler had immediately realised the patrol had only two choices. One, they could retreat to the village, taking cover behind a palisade wall which had already proven incapable of keeping out the enemy.

  Preferring to risk danger against certain death, Gessler decided on the second option.

  “Patrol!” He shouted, pointing his sword in the direction of the onrushing horde. “For Hochland! For your lives! Charge!”

  They were infantrymen on horseback, rather than true cavalrymen, but at that moment the distinction seemed irrelevant. Taking steel from their sergeant’s example, the patrol charged forward. Crossing the short distance before the goblin archers had time to loose another volley of arrows, they ploughed into the enemy ranks.

  Caught by surprise, the greenskin attack faltered as the goblins at the front turned and tried to get out of the way of the onrushing horsemen.

  Gessler felt a shock run up his arm as he brought his sword down on the head of a goblin. He struck out again, and again, his sword rising and falling in a bloody arc of destruction as he cut a swathe through the enemy.

  He heard goblins screaming, squealing, and shrieking as they were cut down by flashing blades or trampled beneath iron-rimmed hooves. In the madness of melee it was almost impossible to judge the rest of the patrol’s progress, but he caught glimpses of Walden and Duhr either side of him, following his lead as they carved their way relentlessly through the enemy ranks.

  The sergeant and his men were still outnumbered ten to one, but the change in their fortunes was readily apparent. The goblins had attacked expecting an easy kill, but the patrol’s charge and the casualties they had taken had given them second thoughts. Even as Gessler slashed his way deeper into the enemy’s massed ranks, it was clear they were on the brink of collapse. The goblins’ confidence was visibly draining away, leaving them on the verge of panic.

  It was what Gessler had hoped for. The goblins might not fully rout; they might only retreat a little way before their leaders could rally them, but for Gessler’s p
urposes it made no difference. All he needed was for the enemy to falter long enough for him and his men to get away.

  A shiver passed through the goblin ranks. Striking his sword down with even greater ferocity into the enemy morass, Gessler redoubled his efforts. The moment he had tried to create was close now. The goblins were wavering. Another second and they would break and run.

  Abruptly, he heard a terrifying roar and his plans were left in tatters.

  Bellowing in bestial fury, an enormous shape came lumbering from the forest. It took a moment for Gessler to see it clearly, but as the creature emerged from the shadows he realised his earlier guess as to the identity of the blacksmith’s killer had been right.

  It was a troll. Gessler had never seen one before, but there was no mistaking it. The monster easily stood more than twice as tall as a man. It was bluish grey in colour, covered in thick warty lumps that gave its skin a rocky texture almost as though the creature was made of stone. It carried a roughly-hewn wooden club, but one glance at its claws and fangs suggested it had no real need of the weapon.

  He heard a cheer from among the goblins. They seemed to draw strength from the troll’s appearance, redoubling their efforts. Hearing a human scream, Gessler turned to see Duhr being dragged from his horse, too far away to be helped.

  He heard other, more guttural cries as hundreds of orcs began to emerge from the forest to support the goblins.

  In an instant, the complexion of the battle was changed entirely. The orcs were made of sterner stuff than their lesser brethren; it would take more than the best efforts of a few men on horseback to put them to flight. With their arrival, any hope of causing a panic in the enemy ranks was lost.

  Meanwhile, the Hochlanders’ own charge had lost its momentum. Pushed forward by the orcs behind them, the goblins were pressing in more fiercely, making the weight of numbers tell.

  Hemmed in, it was only a matter of time before Gessler and his remaining men were killed. Worse, the swelling enemy ranks cast the greenskin presence in a different light. There were too many of them for this to be a raiding party. Horrified, Gessler realised it was more than likely he was looking at the beginnings of a full-scale invasion.

  Spurring his horse, he committed himself to a last, desperate gamble. Fighting his way through the goblins standing in his path, he yelled a battle cry and charged his horse toward the troll.

  The monster seemed to recognise his challenge. It turned to face him, mouth widening in a hungry smile.

  Gessler knew it was suicide. If he had been armed with a lance, he might have stood a chance of impaling the creature, spitting it like a piece of meat before it could reach him. As it was, he had a sword. He was as good as dead, but the concerns of the moment banished thoughts of fear. If he could distract the troll long enough, he might buy enough time for one of his men to get away and warn the fort of the enemy presence.

  Reacting before the man could get close enough to strike it, the troll lashed out with its club. Gessler felt a searing pain in his thigh. He was thrown from his saddle, the world spinning crazily for a second before he landed jarringly on the hard sun-baked ground.

  Dazed, he tried to stand, only to find he seemed strangely unable to support himself. Looking down, Gessler saw his left leg had been reduced to a pulped mess by the troll’s blow.

  He heard his horse whinnying in terror. Glancing behind him, he saw the poor animal lying on its side. Its back was broken, the splintered bones of the spine sticking out from underneath the saddle. He was moved to try to help it, to end its suffering, but it was a forlorn thought. Unable to walk, he could hardly help himself, never mind administer a mercy stroke to the dying animal.

  A shadow fell across him. Looking up, Gessler found he was face-to-face with the troll. The monster was standing over him. Grinning, it leaned forward to inspect its prize, saliva drooling from its mouth and leaving discoloured patches in the grass as it dripped to the ground.

  Time seemed to slow. As he faced the last moments until his death, Gessler found the world grew distant. He could hear the sounds of battle, the roar of orcs and the screams of men, but they felt far away, drowned out by the noise of the troll’s breathing.

  Gessler’s final thoughts were of a beautiful girl with laughing eyes and hair like spun gold. He did not blame her for his misfortunes. He had known her only a few hours, but he supposed he loved her. In another world, perhaps they could have been happy.

  The troll opened its mouth. The last thing Gessler saw was its teeth. Then, darkness swallowed him.

  PART ONE

  RED HARVEST

  (Geheimnistag—Nachgeheim—Early Erntezeit)

  From

  The Testimony of General Ludwig von Grahl

  (unexpurgated text):

  It began in late summer. As the month of Vorgeheim drew to a close, a vast army of orcs and goblins emerged from the Middle Mountains. Sweeping past the network of forts and watchposts that guarded the frontier, the greenskins pushed deep into northern Hochland.

  At their head was a new leader. Through a mixture of brutality and cunning, an orc chieftain called Morgoth Ironfang had managed to combine the fractious orc and goblin tribes of the Middle Mountains into an effective army. In time, it would become clear Ironfang was a far more able opponent than most of his human adversaries were inclined to credit, but for the moment that revelation still lay in the future.

  In the meantime, Ironfang’s forces cut a destructive swathe through northern Hochland, destroying every settlement in their path.

  In Hergig, the first news of the invasion reached the Elector Counts court on the night of Geheimnistag, the so-called “Day of Mystery”—one of the most ominous dates in the Imperial calendar. None dared say it aloud, but many at court wondered whether it was a sinister omen.

  Whatever the case, Count Aldebrand Ludenhof of Hochland was not a man to be swayed by omens. Ordering that an army should be immediately dispatched to repel the invasion. Count Aldebrand made known his wish that the orc chieftain’s head be delivered to him so he could mount it on a pikestaff.

  Of course, it takes time to raise an army—regiments need to be mustered, supplies have to be organised, and so on. Accordingly, several weeks passed before the Count’s army took to the field, allowing the greenskins time to push even deeper into Hochland. Soon, the roads from the north were crammed with refugees, while the sky was black with the smoke from burning villages.

  As for my own situation, at this moment of darkest crisis for my homeland, I found myself stalking the corridors of my summer house on the Talabec, condemned to the premature retirement that had been forced on me by my enemies at the Elector’s court. I have never been a political animal; too much the old soldier to speak gladly to fools or play the dirty business of politics. Perhaps I was foolish in this. Certainly, at that moment, finding I was forced to endure long days of enforced inactivity while the land I loved was in peril, I had reason to regret some of my past actions. But wishes are the same as the dedications on tombstones: heartfelt they may be, but they can do little to change what has already been done.

  Naturally, I did my best to reverse my exile. From the instant I heard of the orc invasion, I fired off letters sent by messenger to the Count and his staff, offering my service in whatever capacity was deemed necessary. The response was always the same. My pleas were returned with felicitations as to the state of my health, alongside assurances my services were no longer needed.

  I should enjoy my leisure, the messages said. Let other men take up the strain of battle; I had earned my retirement through years of hard campaigning. It was time to let younger men put their shoulders to the stone.

  I recognised the sardonic handiwork of some of my rivals in these messages, in the way they said one thing while they meant another.

  Don’t bother us, von Grahl, was the real message hidden between the lines. Your time is over, old man. Good riddance, we no longer need you.

  And so, while war raged through nor
thern Hochland, while her people were slaughtered, I found there was nothing I could do.

  Of course, I followed the progress of the war as well as I could. Old habits die hard. In my study there was a full set of maps of Hochland and the surrounding provinces, left over from my campaigning days. As news, rumours and reports came from the front, I made marks and notations on my maps, trying to keep some sense of how the war was going.

  I was helped in this regard by the fact I still maintained some friends at court. There were a few old warhorses like myself, still in positions of command, who had not as yet been put out to pasture. By drawing on these friendships, I was even able to wheedle out the occasional piece of privileged information. I might be unable to have any effect on the campaign, but I was better informed than most.

  Not that it helped my mood, not any of it. In particular, I found myself concerned when I heard Count Aldebrand had decided to appoint General Erich von Nieder to command the campaign against the greenskins.

  I knew von Nieder of old. The two of us had clashed many times over the years on matters of tactics, strategy, protocol, even coming close to fighting a duel once, many years ago. I had always regarded the man with disdain. To my mind, he was cast from the same mould as many of the unctuous toadies who spent their lives trying to gain influence at the Elector’s court. I viewed him as an arrogant blowhard who had risen to his office on the back of political manoeuvrings rather than through any real skill as a general.

  Unfortunately, no one was interested in my opinions on such matters. Forced to follow the progress of the war from afar, I could only hope von Nieder proved me wrong. With the future of Hochland at stake, I had to trust von Nieder’s abilities and hope he could deal with the crisis.

  Otherwise, I feared the worst…

  CHAPTER ONE

  DANGERS OF THE ROAD

  “Make yourself comfortable,” the cart driver had told him once the money changed hands. “We’ve a long journey northwards and you might as well make the best of it.”