[Empire Army 01] - Reiksguard Read online

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  REIKSGUARD

  Empire Army - 01

  Richard Williams

  (An Undead Scan v1.0)

  For Graham,

  One day it shall be the name for heroes, and not merely the name of heroes.

  With thanks to Jules, McCabe, Marc Harrison, and in remembrance of the Thirtieth.

  PART ONE

  “Our history teaches us that the heart of the Empire once beat in the chest of a single man. His name was Sigmar. On the day of his coronation, the creation of our Empire, he planted that heart in Reikland. Since that day, that heart has been uprooted and carried to each corner of our nation. On its long journey it has gained great victories and suffered terrible scars; it has been split into pieces and been reformed; it has learned fortitude, defiance, justice and nobility.

  “Now it has returned to Reikland. Sigmar grant that it may be sustained here and its stay be so pleasing that this honour never depart.”

  —Emperor Wilhelm III, Elector Count of Reikland,

  Prince of Altdorf, Founder of the Reiksguard, 2429 IC

  PROLOGUE

  HELBORG

  The Nordland coast, near Hargendorf

  2502 IC

  Twenty years ago

  Kurt Helborg guided his horse carefully through the frozen mud up the side of the ridge where the Imperial army had set its positions. As he climbed, he risked a glance beside him, down the snow-covered slope. The land was grey, muffled under the blanket of the morning fog, which was only now, grudgingly, beginning its retreat. Helborg could see the bleak coastline starting to emerge, and the shape of the Norscan tribe’s encampment that lay out near the beaches. He could not make out individual figures at this distance, but he could sense the tribe beginning to stir.

  He crested the ridge. Spread out before him, the Empire’s army was also making its preparations. The tents of the Nordlanders were clustered in their regiments. The state troops, their blue and yellow uniforms faded and ragged, had congregated around the cooking fires. Long lines of men had formed before the armourers, each wanting a new edge for their swords and halberds, and they traded old stories to pass the time. Their gravelly voices were loud and boisterous, even this early in the day. The militia companies were quieter; fewer of them were yet out of their tents, but those few who were awake were conscientiously sighting their bows and testing their arrows. Even for these woodsmen, levied soldiers though they were, a battle against sea-raiders was no unusual event.

  “You had best bring up the rest of your brothers, preceptor, if you plan to fight the day,” a sonorous voice chided. Theoderic Gausser, the Elector Count of Nordland, had emerged impatiently from his tent half-dressed to admonish the Reiksguard knight. His page and attendants hurried out after him, garments and pieces of armour piled in their arms. Nordland ignored them, directing his belligerent stare straight at Helborg.

  “Good morrow, my lord,” Helborg replied as he brought his steed to a halt. There was a moment’s pause as Nordland waited pointedly. Courtly ceremony demanded that a knight dismount rather than remain at a higher level than an elector count; however here on the battlefield, when the army was at such risk, Helborg was in no mood to pander to Nordland’s misplaced sense of propriety. The elector count scowled.

  “Good morrow, indeed. Now answer me, preceptor, will the Reiksguard stand or will they flee?”

  Helborg bridled at Nordland’s insinuation, but held his temper in check. He had come here for a reason.

  “The Reiksguard will stand, my lord, as your shield-bearer, but not as your pallbearer.”

  “What?”

  “My brothers and I have ridden out already this morning to test the ground. It will not hold your attack.”

  “Again with this? You had your say last night. We have heard all these words before—”

  “And they have been borne out, my lord.” Helborg cut the elector count off. “There the enemy stands exactly where I said they would. Proceed as I advised, fall back to Hargendorf. The enemy must follow for there is no other escape, their ships are sunk, there is no route west but through Laurelorn…”

  “I need no aid from those of Laurelorn,” Nordland spat.

  “When that sun rises…”

  Nordland jammed his fist into a gauntlet and held it up at Helborg.

  “Hear me well, Preceptor Helborg. You may well be ordained to become the captain of your order, you may be a favourite of your Emperor; he may even make you Reiksmarshal one day. But until that day, you do not tell me how to command an army of Nordland on Nordland soil.”

  His point made, the elector count turned his back to the knight and motioned one of his attendants to fix his neck-guard.

  “He is your Emperor as well, my lord,” Helborg replied firmly, and then waited for Nordland to explode at him.

  Nordland’s shoulders rose and his attendants backed away, but he did not turn around. Instead, he exhaled and then clipped the neck-guard in place himself.

  “Karl Franz is a pup,” Nordland said, quietly but clearly. “Elected no more than one month, he brings his cannon and his mages to save us all from these raiders. He picks his battle, burns their ships and turns the sea to blood. And then no sooner does the tide go out, than he takes his toys and his mages back to Altdorf to garner his laurels and enjoy his triumph. And while he has gone home, I am still here, to finish what he started. He is my Emperor, yes, but how long he will last we shall see. The men of Nordland have been fighting this war long before the Reikland princes took the throne, and we will be fighting here still, long after it slips through their fingers.”

  Nordland finished speaking. The air around him was still. He took up his helmet from the paralysed hands of his page. Helborg had not moved, but he felt as though his body must be shaking with rage. Carefully, he unclenched his jaw.

  “You will never speak of the Emperor in that manner again.”

  Nordland gave a bark of laughter and then half-turned to look Helborg in the eye. “Or what?”

  Helborg held his gaze as easily as he held a sword in his hand.

  “I do not say what will happen; I only say that you will never speak of the Emperor in that way again.”

  Nordland pulled the helmet over his head and stomped away.

  “Just be ready, Reiklander, if you are called.”

  A troop of horsemen galloped into the camp, young noblemen to Helborg’s eye, and Nordland hailed the lead rider and beckoned him over. The rider pulled his horse up and fair leaped out of the saddle, the frost on the ground cracking as he landed.

  “My boy!” Nordland exclaimed. “You made it in time.”

  Helborg knew that there was nothing to be gained by pursuing Nordland further, and he turned his steed away.

  The sun was rising and the battle had begun. The soldiers of Nordland stood ready in their disciplined regiments of halberdiers and spearmen; the woodsmen with their bows stood in groups of skirmishers down the frosted slope. The Norscan tribesmen, Skaelings he had heard they called themselves, had sorted themselves into a rough line and formed a shield wall. They had used the long beams from their wrecked dragon ship to build a crude war altar to whatever petty sea-god it was that they worshipped. Obviously, it was there that they intended to make a final stand. Some of them wore armour, a few were as completely encased in plate as a knight, many wore barely anything at all. The cold was nothing to them.

  The cold was something to him, though, Helborg reflected, as he sat in the saddle in the front line of the Reiksguard knights. The interior of his helm was near frozen enough that his cheek might stick to it. Still, better too cold than too hot. He had boiled under a hot midday
sun in his armour too often to resent the frost. The cold would allow him to fight all the harder.

  Nordland had positioned the Reiksguard out on his right flank in the midst of a scrub of dead trees. The elector count had said that this position might conceal them, so they could ambush the foe. However, Helborg knew that such a strategy relied upon the enemy advancing close enough to be surprised. All the Skaelings need do was sit and wait for the Empire regiments to come to them, and the Reiksguard knights would be left too far from the battle to do any good. When the Emperor had returned to Altdorf, he had left Helborg and his Reiksguard knights behind deliberately to ensure that his great victory would not be reversed. How could Helborg carry out these instructions if he was not allowed into the fight?

  The woodsmen began to pepper the Skaeling shield wall with arrows, and the Empire drummers took up a marching beat. Helborg looked to his side to check the front line of his knights. The young knight beside him, Griesmeyer, sensed his concern.

  “Perhaps, Brother Helborg, this show is meant to entice them towards us.”

  “No, Brother Griesmeyer,” Helborg sighed, “the elector count means to win the battle without us.”

  “Then, with such a commander, we are sure to fight this day indeed,” Griesmeyer responded lightly.

  Helborg could not find it within himself to chuckle. Instead, he turned to the younger knight.

  “I did not say so before, but I am glad you could persuade Brother Reinhardt to rejoin us.” Helborg nodded over at another knight, Heinrich von Reinhardt, who was sitting intently at the far end of the squadron.

  “I am glad also,” Griesmeyer replied carefully, “but the credit is not mine to claim.”

  “You have not spoken to him of late?”

  “Not since the campaign began, preceptor.”

  “The two of you were very close as novices.”

  “And after, preceptor.”

  “Indeed. And after. A pity.” Helborg turned away. “Perhaps you will change that after today.”

  Griesmeyer paused. “Yes, preceptor.” But Helborg had already returned to watching the battle.

  The uneven slope had frozen hard during the night and the sun had yet to rise high enough to begin to melt it. Despite the steady beat of their drums, the Empire regiments advanced slowly, the officers working hard to keep the ranks in order. Even the normally sure-footed woodsmen slipped and slid on the ice-covered ground.

  At the bottom, the Skaelings stood quiet behind their shield wall. They did not shout or chant as Helborg had seen before. Norscans were normally impetuous; their shield wall was an imposing defence indeed to an army without cannon or gunners, but once they had worked themselves into a frenzy, it was easy to goad them to attack and to break their line. These Skaelings, however, even with their backs to the sea, stood calm as the Empire’s drums carried the regiments towards them.

  The sun finally rose clear above the ridge; Helborg imagined that many of the Nordland soldiery were grateful for its warmth on the backs of their necks. They did not know, as Helborg did, that that warmth would doom their attack.

  The regiments advanced and the woodsmen fell back, unable to scratch the Skaelings behind their solid shields. As they ran to the sides, a flurry of movement went through the Skaeling line. Lightly armed young-bloods, stripped to the waist to display their woad, burst through the shield wall and ran a dozen paces forwards. They skidded to a halt and hurled their weapons into the face of the tightly packed Empire regiments. Barbed javelins, razor-sharp axes and knives all whistled through the air. The spearmen regiments instinctively raised their shields, knocking the missiles aside. The halberdiers had no such protection and the brightly uniformed men in the front ranks fell, feebly groping at the blackened shafts of the weapons buried in their bodies.

  Shamans, cowled in furs and feathers, flung bloated heads at the Nordland soldiers. The heads burst apart as they hit shield or weapon, enveloping the ill-fated soldiers they struck, leaving them clawing at their throats and eyes.

  The cries of the wounded and the dying rang out. The woodsmen lifted their bows and sighted the young-bloods who had abandoned their shield wall. Without that protection, the woodsmen’s arrows easily found their marks. The reckless youths died where they stood, even as they reached back to throw again. Most of the survivors scampered back from the killing ground, but some, incensed by the proximity of their enemy, ran instead for the regiments, shrieking oaths to their dark gods.

  The Nordlanders were unimpressed and held firm, catching the youngbloods’ first wild blows and then chopping them down without breaking step. And all the while the Imperial drums marched them on.

  Their advance down the hill had been painfully slow; it had taken the better part of an hour. But their discipline had held their formation together over the broken ground. The slope dipped sharply two dozen paces in front of the shield wall and then flattened out before rising slightly to the Skaelings’ line. So for a moment, as they closed on the foe, the front lines of the regiments disappeared from sight as though they were swallowed by the earth. It was at that instant that the Skaelings gave a mighty roar, all together, and hauled their profane standards high.

  Helborg felt a tiny jab of alarm and he could see that the elector count far to his left shifted uneasily. But then the blue and yellow banners fluttered back into view; the regiments were on the flat. Over the last few yards, the halberdiers raised their blades high and the spearmen lowered their points. The Empire regiments struck the enemy line in a single hammer blow, and the battle proper commenced.

  All down the line, weapons swung, clanging against shields and slicing into flesh. The regimental banners dipped and rose as their bearers struggled forwards, urging their men on. The spearmen bashed their shields against the wall and then stabbed low, impaling the legs of the Skaeling warriors and bringing them crashing to the ground, opening a gap in the wall. The halberdiers, meanwhile, were more direct and hacked down with their heavy blades, splintering apart wooden Norscan shields. The Skaelings struck back; their strongest warriors, in their heavy armour, bullied their way through the soldiers who opposed them. Spear stabs skittered off their greaves and the halberd blades merely dented their metal shields instead of smashing them to pieces. These champions fought past the soldiers’ polearms and cleaved Nordlander men apart with each blow from their massive swords.

  For all their efforts, though, they were too few. Gradually, inevitably, the Empire regiments were winning. The shield wall was weakening, disintegrating, as the lightly armoured Skaelings fell and their victorious champions pushed forwards. The Skaelings were holding their line and the shield wall had not yet moved, but the famous Norscan ill-discipline was finally showing.

  Helborg saw the elector count begin to relax, the satisfaction clear on his face. Nordland spurred his mount forwards, his bodyguard staying close behind, so he could be there for the victory.

  Helborg would not be held back any longer, and took the elector count’s advance as tacit permission for himself. He led his knights from their pointless concealment and formed them up in two lines, ready to fight. For Helborg could see, as Gausser had not yet realised, that Nordland’s battle plan was about to unravel.

  A halberdier, hefting his weapon around for another blow, suddenly had the frozen mud beneath his right foot slip away and he tumbled backwards, the head of his halberd lodging itself in the shoulder of his comrade behind. A grizzled spearman brought his opponent, a tattooed brute with teeth like a boar, wailing to the ground. The spearman lunged forwards to finish the boar-man off and felt his front foot bury itself in the sludge and refuse to move. He threw his arms forwards to break his fall and looked up just in time to see the head of an axe sweep down towards his undefended face.

  All down the line, the Empire soldiery had begun to stumble. The ground beneath them, which had appeared frozen solid by the night’s chill, had melted under the pounding of the battle, the warmth of the capricious sun and the hot, spilt blood. Wei
ghed down by their breastplates, shields and weapons, the soldiers’ heavy tread was shattering the surface ice and trapping their legs in the shifting, treacherous bog beneath. The officers still shouted their orders, but the soldiers were no longer listening as each began to look to his own safety. The advance had stalled. With every step now, each soldier edged back towards the steeper slope behind him. The blue and yellow banners themselves began to droop as their bearers fought to keep their own footing.

  In a matter of minutes, Nordland’s army had gone from a half-dozen solid, well-ordered regiments to a mass of struggling individuals, fighting for their lives. The Skaelings, who had arranged their shield wall on firmer ground, hooted at the Nordlanders’ plight. Once more, the shield wall opened and the youngbloods ran out, spinning their axes and knives at the flailing soldiers.

  The horrified woodsmen, close at hand, raised their bows again. The youngbloods, dancing their way across the bodies and rocks stuck within the half-melted ice, had sprung upon the backs of the retreating Nordlanders, and there were no easy targets. The woodsmen fired. A few hit home, catching the crowing youngbloods in their throats and faces, but most flew wide, the woodsmen unwilling to risk hitting their ill-fated comrades. Even while hundreds of soldiers were still clawing their way out of the bog, the nimble youths had crossed and scrambled up the bank, joyfully cutting and slicing as they went. In the face of this, the woodsmen too stepped back.

  The army was on the verge of collapse. The Nordlanders were a hardy and resilient stock, and were certainly no cowards, but in the great confusion none of them knew where to look for their orders. The veterans sought for the regimental banners, desperate for direction, but the flags had been left behind in the ice-bog, their bearers prize targets for the Skaelings’ blades. No soldier who had gone to retrieve them had survived.

  One banner, however, still flew. A wildly moustachioed officer, bleeding heavily from a barbed javelin in his side, had dragged himself to the foot of the bank. With the hollering Skaelings on his heels, he tried to pull himself up the steep slope. His leg gave out and he slipped back down. A young spearman above him saw his distress and turned back to aid him; with the last of his strength the officer pushed the banner up high towards the reaching arms of the spearman. He took hold and the officer sighed in relief; relief that turned to despair as a whirling axe took the top of the spearman’s head off like a knife through an egg. The banner wavered. The officer, a Norscan knife between his shoulders, groaned his last and the banner sank down with him.