03 - Sword of Vengeance by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead) Page B

carried their standards
proudly, both those which Schwarzhelm had raised in Averheim and the men of
Grenzstadt and Heideck who’d been drafted into action. Amongst them were the
Reikland detachments that had marched from Altdorf. They were tougher men,
hardened by years of ceaseless combat, proudly wearing the white and grey of the
richest Imperial province. The tall staves of the halberds glinted in the severe
light.
    At the front was Bloch’s own detachment. To a man, they were
survivors of Grunwald’s army. All of them were Reiklanders, tempered in the
fiercest of fighting, as unyielding and hard-bitten as any regular troops in the
Emperor’s armies. No fear showed in their grizzled faces, just a grim
determination to see the campaign through. Many of their comrades lay in the
rich earth of the pastures below, and the deaths required vengeance.
    Bloch looked over the heads of the massed troops to the
baggage train at the rear. Reserve companies stood ready, as silent as the main
body of the army. Teams of horses stamped nervously, steam snorting from their
nostrils as they shook their heads against the chill. Behind them were the few
artillery pieces of any size that he’d been able to commandeer. Not much, and
little danger to the Keep.
    Finally, there were Drassler’s mountain guard. No more than
two hundred or so remained, the others having been killed or harried into the
high peaks by the tide of orcs. The survivors looked as hard-edged as Bloch’s
own men, their beards ragged and their faces unsmiling. This was their chance
for revenge, and perhaps for some measure of atonement.
    All were watching him, waiting for the words of command. As
they stood unmoving, the harsh wind rippled across the army.
    Bloch turned away from them, back to the fortress. He
couldn’t make out much from that distance. There was no movement on the plain.
The Keep rose tall and stark from the stone, a block of solid rock thrust from
the core of the earth. Though there was no sign of the infestation, he knew that
the place was swarming with greenskins. Schwarzhelm’s orders, given so lightly
after the rout on the grasslands of Averland, would not be easily fulfilled.
That mattered not. He’d been given them, and he’d carry them out.
    He took a deep breath and turned to Kraus. The captain’s face
was as bleak as the granite around him.
    “Give the signal,” Bloch ordered. “Let’s do it.”

 
 

CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    Noon has passed, and the afternoon sun began to cast long
shadows from the branches of the trees. The seemingly endless pastures of long,
whispering grass had given way to higher country, dotted with straggling
woodland and uncultivated scrub. This was poor land. The soil was thin and the
undergrowth tangled. Ever since the devastation of Ironjaw the people of the
region had been slow to return to their farms, and abandoned buildings, their
roofs white with age, dotted the horizon. Gorse had replaced grass on the
verges, and the roads petered out into stone-clogged tracks.
    Skarr pulled his horse up and the column of knights came to a
halt. He rode at the front of it, accompanied by Eissen, who in the aftermath of
the fighting at Averheim had assumed the position of his lieutenant by default.
Leitdorf was close behind. Further down the column, protected by ranks of
Reiksguard, lay Helborg. He’d been placed in a carriage taken from Leitdorf’s
last country residence. It was absurdly ornate, decked with florid coats of arms
and a golden image of the Solland sun on its flanks. If there had been any less
ostentatious choice, Skarr would have taken it. As it was, he was stuck with the
late count’s extravagance.
    He looked over the line of troops with a commander’s eye,
checking for signs of weariness or indiscipline. There were none. Though they
now numbered less than fifty, the company held its order impeccably. The
Reiksguard, drilled from their teens to embody the perfection