Sword of Vengeance, page 32
The Theogonist felt the rage well up within him, the desperate mania that had afflicted him since Middenheim. Like a tide pushing against a dam, cracking it and poised to overflow, the currents of his fervour rose to breaking point. Streissen had unlocked it, and Averheim had pushed wide the door.
There was no point in suppressing it now. Frenzy had a purpose, and he had to use it.
‘Follow me,’ Volkmar growled, planting the Staff of Command firmly in the soil. As he did so it roared into life, blazing with a swirling golden aura. ‘We’ll find the bastard who caused this. I want his eyes.’
Seen from five miles to the east, the column of fire was shrouded in a thick grey pall of smoke. It rose from the base of the city like a rolling sea mist, dousing the angry blood-red of the pillar until the shaft of it pierced the obscurity again a hundred feet up in the air. The very earth vibrated with its muffled roar, thrumming under the hooves of the horses.
Helborg had driven his forces hard. Leitdorf’s decision had been vindicated by the obvious signs of battle around Averheim. Judging by the drifting shreds of blackpowder smoke in the air, the Empire had arrived to the north of the city. Despite the presence of the looming Tower, hope had spread across his own men like a fire through dry scrub. Eager to join up with the besieging forces from the north, the infantry columns had speeded up and left the lumbering baggage train far behind.
Helborg rode with his Reiksguard escort at the vanguard, willing the miles to pass quicker, itching to draw the runefang in anger. If they went as quickly as they were able, his men would arrive at Averheim before the day’s end and in time to make a difference. All depended on Skarr being at the designated muster, now imminent. Helborg had no doubt he would be.
As the vanguard rounded a long, shallow bend in the road, his expectations of the preceptor were vindicated. Under the lee of a sweeping curve of grassland the reinforcements waited, Skarr at their head, the banners of Leitdorf and the Reiksguard fluttering in the swirling, unnatural winds.
The Marshal kicked his horse on ahead, casting a critical eye over the ranks of soldiers as he approached them. Some looked very useful, standing in ordered ranks and with the proper air of belligerence. Others looked little better than flagellants. Still, that was to be expected. The numbers were impressive, given the time in which they’d had to work. Helborg estimated the combined total under arms at five thousand on foot, plus a hundred or so horse.
‘Preceptor,’ he said gruffly.
Skarr saluted, fist on breastplate.
‘My lord,’ he replied. ‘The men are ready to be led.’
‘Very good. Take up the rearguard and ensure they keep the pace tight. I’ll be at the spearhead. We leave at once – I don’t want to arrive when this is over.’
Skarr bowed and made ready to take up his place when he suddenly pulled up.
‘My lord,’ he started hesitantly. ‘Is that... but forgive me.’
‘Is it what?’ snapped Helborg.
‘Your sword. It’s the...’
As the words left his mouth, Ludwig Schwarzhelm loomed up from amongst the column of men at Helborg’s rear. The Emperor’s Champion was unmistakable, a massive and brooding presence even among the escorting Reiksguard. Skarr’s jaw fell open. For a moment he looked like he might draw his blade and charge. Then he whirled back to the Marshal, confusion etched on his face.
‘The runefang, yes,’ said Helborg, his expression as hard as ever. ‘Much has changed since you rode north. You’ll have to learn the rest on the ride.’
As Schwarzhelm drew closer, some of the halberdiers under Skarr’s command recognised him and rushed forwards in greeting. In the forefront was a thick-set man with a bruised face and the look of a tavern brawler.
Skarr shook his head in disbelief, hand still on the pommel of his sword.
‘I thought...’
‘Did you not hear me, Skarr?’ asked Helborg. ‘Your vengeance can wait.’
The preceptor snapped back into focus.
‘Forgive me,’ he said again. Then he reached around his neck and unhooked the trophy he’d been wearing ever since the last battle of Averheim. The shard of the runefang, salvaged from the Marshal’s own wounded cheek, kept safe even while the blade itself had been taken hundreds of miles away.
‘At least let me give you this.’
Helborg extended his gauntlet and took the fragment of steel. He held it up to the glowing red of the sky. It twisted on its cord of leather, winking in the dull light.
‘The final piece,’ he mused, watching the metal turn.
Then, reverently, he hung the shard around his own neck, threading it under his breastplate for protection. The metal was cold against his skin, a reminder of what had been warded for so long, preserved against the day when the Sword of Vengeance would be united with its wielder.
‘You did well, Skarr,’ Helborg said, taking up the reins. This time his voice was a little less harsh. ‘When this is over, I will explain. Until then, trust my judgement. We ride together, Schwarzhelm and I. That very fact should give you hope.’
He looked up then, gazing west across the heads of his men towards the Iron Tower, visible in the distance as a spear of darkness at the foot of the shaft of fire. Clouds of smoke billowed around it, driven into great eddies by the unnatural storm. There were blackpowder plumes among them.
‘Enough talk,’ he said, and his expression was dark. ‘The threads gather on the loom. We’ve done what we can to prepare. To the city.’
Gruppen wheeled his steed around under the shadow of the Averpeak and prepared for the charge. It would be his third foray into the enemy ranks. Of his original squadron, only six remained. He quickly commandeered more troops from two of the other depleted detachments, making up a restored line of twenty-two knights.
‘One more time!’ he yelled, his voice cracking. The resistance around the big guns was tough, far tougher than he’d expected. Two more of the bronze-bound monsters had been destroyed by cannon fire but the rest still thundered out, reducing any exposed Imperial positions to scorched earth and scraps of bone.
In order to survive, the bulk of the Empire troops had piled forwards, locked in close melee combat with the enemy infantry. They fought bravely, but they were outmatched by Grosslich’s troops. Things had been done to the defenders. The Averheim troops fought without fear and their formations never broke, no matter how savagely they were mauled.
That was just the human soldiers. There were others among them, more like beasts than men. Gruppen had nearly been felled by one such creature on the last withdrawal, a vast armoured brute with a face like that of a dog. Rumours ran wild along the ranks that there were worse horrors along the east flanks: scuttling fiends with talons for hands, unstoppable killing machines tearing a swathe through horrified Imperial companies.
Gruppen shook his head. No point in worrying about that. The battle was on a knife edge. The enemy had been hurt by the initial barrage of cannon fire, but now the field was swinging back their way. Above it all, the Tower glowered, dark and forbidding.
‘Stay close!’ he bellowed at the knights mustering around him. The men were gathered at the base of the ridge where the squires had hurried to avoid the worst of the artillery punishment higher up. ‘Tight formation, keep on my shoulder. We strike fast, we strike hard. Remember who you are! For Myrmidia!’
The knights shouted back the name of their goddess, fists clenched, their martial spirits undaunted. The Knights Panther were the finest soldiers in the Imperial ranks and they knew it.
‘Come about!’ bellowed Gruppen, kicking his charger into position. ‘Charge!’
Just as before, the line of riders tore across the battlefield, lances lowering, accelerating towards the enemy lines with a thunderous chorus of hooves.
Those lines were closer than they had been. Gruppen had barely made full gallop before the first defenders came into view. A company of the hideous dog-soldiers was loping up towards a beleaguered regiment of Empire swordsmen, halberds held two-handed and faces hidden behind iron masks.
‘Take them!’ Gruppen roared, spurring his horse even faster, feeling the beast’s muscles strain as it propelled the burden of man, armour and weapon. His men remained at his shoulder, lances down, visors closed, all moving as a single body. As he ever did, Gruppen whispered a prayer to his patron goddess before bracing for impact, teeth clenched, heart pounding.
Impact came. The line of knights slammed into the dog-soldiers, knocking the foremost aside and riding them down. Six of the mutants took lances full in the chest. The wooden shafts shattered as their victims crumpled to the earth. One knight was unhorsed as his lance shattered against a breastplate, spinning through the air before crashing headlong into the ranks of fresh terror troops. The rest tore onwards.
Gruppen speared his victim, feeling the sharp recoil as the lance bit deep. He dropped the shaft and reached for his sword. A dog-soldier, eerily silent as it moved into position, swung at his horse as it charged on. Gruppen leaned out, switched grip on his sword and plunged it into the creature’s neck before wheeling away, kicking at his mount’s flanks to maintain momentum.
‘Onwards!’ he roared, pointing his bloodstained blade ahead. ‘To the engines!’
His horse bounded forwards, leaping over the grasping hands of another dog-soldier and riding down a second. The surviving knights thundered along beside him. Three more had been felled, but the dog-soldier column had been utterly torn apart. The charge remained strong, sweeping resistance before it as the Knights Panther bore deep into the heart of the defenders.
Gruppen knew the danger. If they plunged in too far, they’d not be able to cut their way back out. Despite all that, he was unwilling to withdraw just yet. The enemy continued to fall back before him, dropping under the advance of the knights’ hooves and blades, opening up a road to the towering war engine ahead.
Gruppen surged onwards, slashing left and right, heedless of his personal danger. The engine had to be taken down. He held his speed and the horrific machinery drew nearer. The enemy melted away before him.
They were drawing him in.
The realisation hit him too late. Gruppen pulled his horse up sharply, twisting around in the saddle, trying to gauge his position. Only ten of his squadron had followed him so deep. They formed up around him, facing outwards, swords held ready. On every side, dog-soldiers and mortal troops recovered their structure and began to turn back in. The space around the knights shrank. They’d come too far. The nearest Imperial ranks were distant, kept busy with desperate combat of their own.
‘Easy, men,’ growled Gruppen, keeping his nervous, bucking steed under control. ‘We’ll cut our way back. Take the–’
‘Leave him.’
The new voice came from up ahead. It dominated the sounds of battle, slicing through the bedlam like a knife through cooked flesh. It was thick with a world-weary scorn, echoing into the night and resounding from the iron belly of the war engines close to hand. It was no human tongue that spoke the words, though it belonged to a speaker who had once been a man.
Gruppen wheeled round, feeling a sudden chill strike his breast. The ranks of dog-soldiers parted. In their midst was a figure on a dark horse, clad in crimson armour and carrying a black sword. The rider came forwards slowly, deliberately, singling out Gruppen and lowering his blade towards him.
‘You can take the others,’ Grosslich snarled to his men. ‘This one’s mine.’
Volkmar strode down the slope and into the thick of the fighting, his staff burning with a corona of golden flame, his face locked into a mask of mania. The Bright wizards flanked him, pouring bolts of screaming orange brilliance into the ranks before them. Warrior priests came in their wake, deadly and unbreakable, swinging their warhammers to crack the skulls of any who survived the magisters’ barrage. Maljdir was among them, holding the standard aloft, bellowing hymns to Sigmar and rousing the troops in earshot. Behind came the columns of regular infantry, pulled along by Volkmar’s spearhead, sheltering behind the white-hot path he carved through the sea of enemy blades.
None could stand before the Grand Theogonist. Working from afar, the Light wizards had cast at last, and their protection was on him. He shimmered beneath an aegis of swirling luminescence. Those closest to him in the Imperial ranks could see that he’d lost all semblance of control. His whole being was suffused with the searing drive of faith. His armour blazed like the morning sun, throwing spring-yellow beams of dazzling brilliance into the heart of the horde. Grosslich’s troops, immune to fear, blundered into his path only to be blasted apart limb from limb, ripped into flapping shreds of flesh by the power of the Staff.
Stride by stride, the golden vanguard ploughed deep into the massed ranks, an isolated pool of streaming light amid the spreading cloud of ash-streaked darkness.
‘There!’ roared Volkmar, pointing ahead.
A war engine loomed out of the fiery gloom, surrounded by ordered ranks of iron-clad infantry. It was preparing to fire again. Coils of steam rose from the furnace at its base and a dozen Stone-slaves crawled across its surface, adjusting levers and mumbling prayers to the Lord of Pain. The daemon-bound machine soared into the night, vast and terrible, as large as a siege tower and glowing with the angry sigils of the Dark Prince.
Undeterred, the Theogonist raised his bare arms into the air and swung the tip of his staff at the mighty construction.
‘Shatter!’
His staff exploded in a nimbus of blinding light. A ball of golden fire kindled in the heart of the cannon barrel, shining in the well of darkness like the full face of Mannslieb. The florescent sphere grew, rushing outwards, bulging at the iron flanks of the massive machine and cracking its metal hide.
The infantry around it surged forwards, crystal-bladed halberds lowered, lumbering towards the bellowing Theogonist. From within their narrow visors a lilac glow bled out, and a low canine growl rumbled in their iron-cased chests.
‘Forward!’ roared Maljdir, rushing into the fray to protect his master, swinging the standard aloft as he went. Warrior priests swept around Volkmar and crashed into the advancing ranks of masked dog-soldiers, their warhammers coming into play with devastating, neck-breaking force.
The Bright wizards stood back and sent a hail of crackling bolts spinning into the flanks of the war engine. The bolts caught and kindled on Volkmar’s holy fire and exploded in their turn. The cannon barrel expanded further, stretched almost to breaking point by the vast forces unfurling within it. A filigree of cracks, each leaking golden light, rushed across the beaten iron. The furnace began to stutter, sending rolls of soot-clogged smoke coughing into the night.
‘Shatter!’ Volkmar roared again, eliciting a fresh inferno from the Staff of Command.
Still the war engine resisted, somehow maintaining its structure in the face of the onslaught. The swirling maelstrom within it bulged further, bleeding golden incandescence from the growing web of cracks. Metal, hot as coals, showered down from the hulking barrel as the iron fractured. Bronze bindings broke and spun free. The furnace choked out and flared back up again, knocked out of rhythm by the ceaseless, grinding power of the Theogonist.
Then there was a great crack, a rolling boom. The air shuddered, and the earth rocked. With titanic force, the vast war engine blasted itself apart.
The huge shell of iron flew high into the air, pursued by a deafening explosion of shimmering gold. The carcass of the monster was cloven into pieces, reeling in all directions as the heart of the cannon was torn asunder. Men and beasts alike were blasted from their feet, lost in the whirling storm of consuming power.
Volkmar’s fire flared up against the daemonic energies locked in the core of the device, flattening the troops beyond and tearing up the earth on which it rested. Priests were bowled over alongside the creatures they grappled with. The wizards were hurled back and the Imperial standard ripped from Maljdir’s desperate grip. A backdraft of green-tinged flame rushed out in a corona of destruction, spiralling into the night and blasting aside all in its path. Men were thrown up like leaves in a gale, their armour shattered, and hurled into the cowering forms of their comrades further back.
Only Volkmar stood firm, his robes rippling against the howling aftershock of the cannon’s demise. He kept his arms raised, defiantly screaming his wrath amid the shards of spinning iron. The halo of unleashed power expanded further, ripping through the ranks of soldiers, shaking the ground and echoing out across the plain.
As the worst of the backwash passed, Maljdir clambered to his feet and staggered back to Volkmar’s position. All was confusion. Bodies, twisted and broken, were heaped up against the steaming hide of the ruined war machine. Dog-soldiers lay amongst warrior priests, steeped in a cocktail of their own blood. The Empire spearhead was in ruins. The device had been destroyed, but at a massive cost.
‘What are you doing?’ Maljdir roared. This was no strategy, no tactical advance, just a headlong charge into the heart of darkness. Already the vast hosts of enemy soldiers were coalescing around Volkmar’s position, drawn by the destruction of one of their totems. Elsewhere across the plain the Imperial forces were being driven back. Only Volkmar pressed forwards, carving his way deeper into peril. The unity of the army was fracturing.
The Theogonist looked back at Maljdir, hardly seeming to recognise him. His eyes were wild and staring. His knuckles were white from grasping the Staff of Command and a sheen of glistening sweat covered his exposed flesh. His torso shivered with hatred.
‘I will find him, Odain,’ Volkmar hissed. ‘Do you not see it? He is here.’
