Karl Franz walked over to the platform’s edge and stared out across the windswept vista. His entire field of view was filled with the vast, sluggish movements of men. Whole contingents were advancing into the grinder of combat, trudging through an increasingly ploughed-up mud-pit to get to the bitter edge of the front.
The bulk of the fighting was concentrated in the centre, where the Reikland detachments held firm. Some infantry squares had already buckled under the force of the first charge, but others had moved to support them, sealing any breaches in the defensive line. The Chaos horde beat furiously at a wall of halberdiers, causing carnage but unable to decisively break the formations open.
With the enemy charge restricted to the centre, both Empire flanks had cautiously edged forward. Mecke’s gunners continued to launch their barrages, winnowing the reinforcing Norscan infantry before they could reach contact. Karl Franz fancied he could even hear Huss’s wild oratory rising over the tumult, urging the fanatics under his command to hold fast. The eastern flank had come under a weaker assault than the centre thus far, but an undisciplined charge by the flagellants so early would undermine the integrity of the whole defensive line.
Karl Franz gripped the rough-hewn edges of the platform’s railing, waiting for what he knew was coming. Then he heard the harsh bray of war-trumpets, and saw Helborg’s Reiksguard charge out at last.
He caught his breath. As ever, the Imperial knights were magnificent – a surge of pure silver fire amid the bloody slurry of battle. The packed beat of the warhorses’ hooves rang out as they powered through the very heart of the battlefield.
Karl Franz leaned out over the edge of the platform railing, peering into the rain to follow their progress. He saw Helborg’s winged helm at the forefront, bright and proud, glittering amid a flurry of Reiksguard pennants. His knights hit the enemy at full-tilt, cracking them aside and driving a long wedge into the horde beyond. Lances shattered on their impaled victims. Any who evaded the iron-tipped wave were soon dragged under by the scything hooves of the warhorses.
‘Glorious,’ murmured Karl Franz.
Shouts of joy rang out from the Empire ranks. The Reiklander infantry squares pushed back, given impetus by the Reiksguard charge. Huss at last relaxed the leash, and his zealots entered the fray from the east, followed more implacably by Talb’s state troopers. Mecke’s gunnery continued to reap a swathe from the west, now angled further back to avoid hitting the advancing contingents of Empire infantry.
The enemy reeled, struck by the coordinated counter-attacks. From west to east, Empire defenders either held their ground or advanced. The foot soldiers marched steadily through the angled cavalry stakes, held together in tight-packed formations by the hoarse shouts of their captains.
‘Not too far,’ warned Karl Franz, watching the detachments begin to spread.
Schwarzhelm nodded, and passed on the order. Runners scampered out again, tearing from beneath the stockade and out towards the command positions. An army of this size was like a giant beast – it needed to be constantly reined-in, or it would run away with everything.
Schwarzhelm rested a heavy gauntlet on the wooden parapet. His watchful eyes roved across the scene, probing for weakness. Like Helborg, he would have preferred to be in the thick of it, though his duty as the Emperor’s bodyguard prevented him entering the fray – for the moment.
‘They’re holding,’ the huge bodyguard said, cautiously.
Even as the words left his mouth, the sky suddenly darkened. Lightning flickered across the northern horizon, and the jagged spears were green and sickly.
A sigh seemed to pass through the earth, as if giants rolled uneasily underneath. Men lost their feet, and the beleaguered Norscans found fresh heart. The Reiksguard charge continued unabated, crashing aside swathes of Chaos foot soldiers and crunching them down into the mire.
‘Call him back!’ cried Karl Franz, watching Helborg’s momentum carry him deeper into the gathering shadow.
The storm curdled further, dragging ink-black clouds across a tortured sky and piling them high. More lightning skipped and crackled across the horizon, now a violent emerald hue and boiling with unnatural energies.
Shrieks echoed across the invading army – not mortal shrieks this time, but the fractured, glassy voices of the Other Realm. Karl Franz felt his heart-rate increase. No matter how many times he faced the creatures of the Outer Dark, that raw sense of wrongness never dissipated. No other enemy had such power over men’s souls. To fight them was not just to fight physical terror, it was to face the innermost horrors of the mortal psyche.
Schwarzhelm tensed as well. ‘The damned,’ he growled, balling his immense fists.
It was like the very ground vomited them up. They boiled out of the earth, seething and hissing with foul vapours. Tiny malicious sprites swarmed from the mud, clutching and snickering at the legs of mortal men. Stomach-bloated horrors lurched into existence amid gouts of muddy steam, their jaws hanging open and their lone rheumy eyes weeping.
Such apparitions were the least of the denizens of the Other Realm, mere fragments of their gods’ diseased and febrile imaginations. Maggotkin, they were called, or plaguebearers, or Tallymen of Plagues. As they limped and slinked into battle they murmured unintelligibly, reciting every pox and canker their addled minds could recall.
Beyond them, though, the skies drew together, laced with febrile flame-lattices. A crack of thunder shot out, shaking the earth, and the crows scattered.
Somewhere, far out across the boiling hordes of enemy troops, something far larger had been birthed. Karl Franz could feel it as a cold ache in his bones. The rain itself steamed as it fell, as if infected by the torture of the heavens themselves.
Karl Franz called for his helm-bearer.
‘My liege–’ began Schwarzhelm.
‘Say nothing,’ snapped Karl Franz. A servant brought over the Imperial helm – a heavy gold-plated lion-mask with sun-rays radiating out from the rim. ‘What did you expect, Ludwig? I fought at Alderfen. I fought at the Bastion. I am Sigmar’s heir, and by His Immortal Will I shall fight here.’
Schwarzhelm glowered down at him. Despite the vast gulf in rank, the grizzled bodyguard was physically far bigger than his master. ‘That is what they wish for,’ he reminded him.
Karl Franz glanced back towards the stockade behind him. He could hear Deathclaw raking against his prison. The creature was desperate to take wing, and instinctive war-lust permeated through the driving squalls.
With difficulty, he turned away. The battlefield sprawled before him again, shrouded in churning clouds and punctuated by the screams of men and the clash of arms. The stink of blood rose above it all, coppery on the rain-drenched wind.
He swallowed down his fury, and remained where he was. Schwarzhelm, satisfied, took the war-helm again.
‘For now,’ murmured Karl Franz, watching the clouds swirl into grotesque tumours. ‘For now.’
The impact of the first lance strike nearly unseated Helborg, but he dug his heels into the stirrups and pushed back, driving the iron point through the heart of a barrel-chested Norscan champion. The force of his steed’s momentum carried the creature of Chaos high into the air before the lance broke and the broken halves of its body crashed to earth again. By then, Helborg’s warhorse had already carried him onward, treading down more disease-encrusted warriors under its churning hooves.
The charge of the Reiksguard was like a breaking tide, sweeping clean through the very centre of the raging tempest and clearing out the filth before it. Helborg’s knights rode close at his side, each one already splattered with bile-tinged gore. Their pennants snapped proudly, their naked swords plunged, the horses’ manes rippled. There was no standing up to such a concentrated spearhead of fast-moving, heavily armoured killing power, and the enemy infantry before them either fled or were smashed apart.