Their formations would be ragged, powered onward by lust for slaughter. The one defence, the only advantage possessed by mortal men, was discipline. Just as had been the case for a hundred lifetimes, raw mania would be met by ordered lines of Imperial steel.
General Talb had petitioned hard for the honour of guarding the eastern flank. His ranks of Ostermarkers stood in place, arranged into squares of halberdiers and pikemen. They were supported by units of gunners and swordsmen, including a contingent of mercenary ogres who towered over the warriors around them. Huss had taken his fanatics with him to bolster Talb’s lines, though the warrior priest’s presence alone was worth more than all the zealots he brought with him. Valten, as ever, accompanied his mentor.
Karl Franz had watched them go. It remained uncomfortable to see the holy warhammer borne by hands other than his own. Gelt had counselled against it from the start, but the decision had not been his to make.
What brought you down? thought Karl Franz, ruminating on Gelt’s disgrace and departure. Pride? Weakness of will? Or just, like so many before you, despair?
So much had changed, and in so short a time. The mighty defensive bastion Balthasar Gelt had raised across the Empire’s northern borders had been breached at last, freeing the hordes of the Wastes to pour into Ostermark like blood fountaining from a wound. The strain of maintaining it had turned the Gold Wizard’s mind in the end, damning him to association with fallen souls he would not have so much as spat on while sane.
Gelt had not deserved his sudden fall from grace, not after the service he had rendered, but then so many did not deserve the fates that had befallen them, and there was no leisure to mourn them all.
You could have fought here with us. Your spells might have turned them back.
‘You will not ride out,’ grunted Schwarzhelm.
Karl Franz smiled. His bodyguard had been fighting solidly for weeks, first on the Bastion, now as part of the long retreat south from the breach at Alderfen. He was caked with grime, much of it flecked amongst the curls of his immense beard.
‘The choice is mine, Ludwig,’ he reminded him.
‘Ludwig is right, my lord,’ said Helborg. ‘They wish to draw you out. We may fall in battle, you may not. You are the Empire.’
You are the Empire. Those words always gave Karl Franz a cold twinge of unease, though he had heard them many times before.
It was a comfort, though, to hear his two lieutenants in agreement. Such had not always been the case.
‘The judgement will be mine,’ Karl Franz said, firmly. ‘As ever, Sigmar will guide.’
The three of them stood at the very centre of the Empire battle lines, set some way back from the front ranks. Ahead of them was arrayed the main force of Reiklanders, decked in white and red. Three whole regiments of the Palace guard had been assembled, flanked by greater numbers of regular troops. Like the Ostermarkers to the east, the halberdier squares formed the backbone, supported by ranged weaponry – bowmen, handgunners, light artillery pieces. The elite of the entire army, the Reiksguard cavalry, had formed up to the left, waiting for their lord Helborg to join them. Proud banners bearing the Imperial griffon and black cross of the knightly order hung limp in the drizzle.
It looked solid. Rows and rows of steel glinted dully in the grey light, close-serried and well-drilled. Sharpened stakes protruded from the earth in steed-killing lines, dripping dankly in the morning mist.
‘And Mecke?’ asked Schwarzhelm.
The west flank was held by Lord General Mecke of Talabheim, whom Karl Franz thought was an ambitious bastard with an unseemly enthusiasm for the coming slaughter. Still, his men were as disciplined as any of the others, and he had numbers. The red and forest-green livery of his infantry squares was just visible to the west, part-shielded by fringes of foliage. The greater part of the artillery pieces were there too, lodged on higher ground and with a commanding vantage over the open field.
‘He knows his business,’ said Karl Franz. ‘Nothing more to be done, now.’
Helborg wiped a sluice of rainwater from the visor of his hawk-winged helm. Karl Franz could see he was anxious to be gone, to saddle up and join his men. That man was only truly happy on the charge, his runefang in his fist and the thunder and crash of arms around him. He would have made a poor statesman, so it was fortunate he had never been charged with that role. Killing suited him better than bartering.
‘I can smell them already,’ said the Reiksmarshal.
Karl Franz turned his gaze north. Beyond the furthest ranks of the central defence, the land ran away, bleak and empty. Eddies of rain whipped across the mud.
‘You should go, Kurt,’ said Karl Franz.
Helborg pushed his cloak back, drew his sword and saluted. ‘This day will see the line restored.’
Always confident, always brash.
Karl Franz acknowledged the salute. ‘Should we lose the field–’
‘We cannot lose,’ muttered Schwarzhelm.
‘Should we lose the field, they will press for Altdorf. We discussed what is to be done then.’
‘Middenheim is closer, and stronger,’ said Helborg, repeating what he had argued in the war council two days ago. ‘I still think–’
‘I have spoken,’ said Karl Franz, holding the Reiksmarshal’s gaze calmly. ‘These are desperate times. I have no faith in electors, wizards have proven themselves unreliable, and I barely understand Huss’s motives.’ He smiled, clapping an armoured hand on Helborg’s shoulder. ‘We are the Empire. Men. Altdorf is the key. It always has been, and they know it too.’
Helborg looked, for a moment, like he might argue the point. Then he bowed. ‘It matters not – we will drive their bones into the earth. Here is where the tide turns.’
‘Well said,’ said Karl Franz. ‘Now go in faith.’
‘Always.’
Helborg strode off. As the Reiksmarshal walked down through the ranks, attendants hurried after him. Soon he would be mounted, blade in hand, poised at the forefront of the Reiksguard’s formation.
Schwarzhelm stayed put. His unsmiling eyes strayed over to the stockade behind them, where Deathclaw had been chained. The griffon’s scent penetrated through all the others – a wild, bitter aroma, suggestive of raw meat and frenzy.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Ludwig,’ said Karl Franz.
‘Listen to Kurt, if you will not listen to me,’ grumbled the old warrior.
Karl Franz laughed. ‘I don’t know what to worry about more – them, or the fact you’re both speaking with one voice. It’s almost as if Averland never happened.’
Schwarzhelm’s face did not so much as twitch from its mask of belligerent certainty. His trials in the south were almost forgotten now, washed away by the greater war of the north. Combat with an enemy he understood had restored him to his former self, it seemed.
He looked about to say something else, no doubt some plea for the Emperor to remember his place at the rear of the army, and not to go charging off into the fray like some avatar of Sigmar reborn. Such counsel was Schwarzhelm’s duty, of course, just as it was Karl Franz’s prerogative to make his own damned mind up.
In the event, Schwarzhelm said nothing. Any words he might have uttered were snatched from his lips by a clamour rising up out of the north. It started off low, like the growl of beasts at bay, then picked up in volume, carried by the skirling winds and wafted across the empty land.
Soon it was a howl, a mass of screaming and roaring. Drums underpinned it, making the standing waters shiver. The northern horizon darkened, as if storm clouds had boiled into existence in defiance of the law of nature.