That Helborg had come on such a mission was soon made clear. As I was taken
to an anteroom to await my audience with the Count, the Reiksmarshall contrived
to arrange an “accidental” meeting between us in the corridor. Greeting me as
an old comrade, he insisted we should go for a walk in the palace’s ornamental
gardens, to “catch up on old times”. Wary of provoking an incident, the
Count’s servants were powerless to dissuade him. They waited unhappily, out of
earshot, as Kurt and I walked in the gardens.
“It’s a mess and no mistake,” Kurt said to me, once he was certain no one was
listening. “I needn’t tell you the Emperor is furious. Naturally, he respects
the Elector’s independence, but he thinks your Count has made a right pig’s ear
of the situation. Who was this idiot von Nieder, anyway? I don’t remember him
from the old days. Someone’s brain-rotted cousin or bastard son, no doubt?”
I said nothing. Reading my mood, Kurt smiled.
“Heh, it’s all right, Ludwig. I know how loyal you are. I don’t expect you to
say anything against your Count or his officers—not in public anyway. But this
is just two old comrades having a private conversation.”
His face changed, growing more serious.
“Tell me, how bad is it? Can the situation be saved?”
“You have to understand I am no longer part of the command staff,” I replied.
“I haven’t seen any of the dispatches from the front, nor read the scouting
reports. All the information I have is second or third-hand, most of it gossip.”
“Yes, yes,” Kurt waved a hand impatiently. “But you must have an opinion?
You’re forgetting I know you of old. You’ll have been following the progress of
the war, even if you have to interrogate some general’s wife’s scullery maid’s
husband to get information.”
“We stand on the brink of disaster,” I said. There seemed no reason to coat
the facts in honey. “Von Nieder’s cavalry have been slaughtered, while his
infantry are broken and scattered. With this defeat, the better part of the
province’s standing army is no longer available. If we are going to fight on
against the orcs, the Count will have to call a general muster, conscripting
every able-bodied man between the ages of sixteen and forty. Of course, such a
muster creates its own problems.”
“Go on.”
“It is autumn. Harvest time. If the Count calls all the men away to fight in
the army, the fall in manpower will affect the harvest. Crops will rot in the
fields. The Count has no choice—if he doesn’t call a muster, the orcs will
overrun the province and it won’t matter about the harvest. But, by calling the
muster, he risks creating a famine.”
“Agreed,” Kurt nodded. All through my speech he had looked at me intently as
though trying to read something in my face. “But you said there were problems.
Plural.”
“I did. The other problem is that it may all be too late. You don’t create an
army overnight. Even if the Count musters every man he can, it will take time to
train and equip them. And time is the one thing we don’t have at present. Based
on his behaviour so far, the orc chieftain Ironfang isn’t stupid. Having
defeated Hochland’s army in the field, he’ll press south. It’s only a matter of
time before his army is at the gates of Hergig.”
“Is there no way to stop him?”
“Certainly. The orcs may have been victorious against von Nieder, but they
are hardly invincible. Hochland will need help from her neighbours, however. If
the surrounding provinces agree to create an expeditionary force and come to
help us…”
“No.” Kurt shook his head. “It won’t happen. Count Aldebrand has already
contacted the neighbouring provinces, asking for help. He has also contacted the
grand masters of several of the knightly orders. So far, all he has received are
apologies and excuses. Frankly, your neighbours realise Hochland is on its
knees. They don’t want to commit troops to what may be a losing cause. Then,
there is the matter of self-interest. They are hoping the orcs will exhaust
themselves and sate their bloodlust on Hochland, then disappear back into the
mountains with their booty. I wouldn’t expect help from anyone, at least not
anytime soon. Do you have any other ideas?”
“Perhaps. Strictly speaking, defeating the orcs is not the issue at the
moment. We need to buy time for a muster to be called, and for the new recruits
to be trained and equipped.”
“And if the Count asked you for an opinion on this? If he asked you how he
should buy this time, what would you tell him?”
“I’d tell him that even after the defeat of von Nieder’s army, Hochland still
has men under arms. All the major towns and forts have their own garrisons.
Then, there is the garrison of Hergig itself, as well as the city watch, the
Count’s greatswords, the Talabec river patrol, the sewerjacks, the road wardens,
and so forth. Add in the local militias. If you scoured the taverns and brothels
in this city you’d find a fair number of men who know one end of a sword from
the other—adventurers, bounty hunters, mercenaries, criminals and the like.
Put them all together and you’d have a pretty sizeable force. You could march
them north, with orders to press-gang every man they meet along the way—most
villagers out in the wilds know how to use a bow to hunt with, if nothing else.”
“And you think an army like that could defeat the orcs?”
“Not defeat them, necessarily. Remember, all they have to do is slow the
greenskins down in order to create more time for the muster. At the same time,
if you sent a new army north, they should be able to collect up the remnants and
survivors from von Nieder’s force.”
“A rattlebag army, then. A ragtag force of garrison troops, undesirables,
peasants, never do wells, and the demoralised, exhausted soldiers of a defeated
army. Not a very promising prospect for their commander. Who would you recommend
to lead them?”
“I don’t know. He’d have to be charismatic, a good leader and a good
tactician. And he would need to be tough. A man ready to do whatever it takes to
achieve his objective.”
“That’s what I thought,” Kurt smiled again. “That’s why I recommended you for
the job.”
I should have seen it immediately, but I was not summoned to Hergig to be
consulted on matters of strategy. I was summoned to be given a new command.
By the time they ushered me into the Count’s presence, it was clear he was
quietly furious. I do not know how much of the new strategy was of the Count’s
devising, and how much was forced on him by Kurt Helborg acting in the Emperor’s
name, but it seems I am to get everything I spoke of in my conversation with
Kurt.
Whatever the reasons, I am reinstated to active duty. The task ahead of me is
dangerous and onerous, but still I rejoice. I am a soldier once more.
Before he sent me on my way, the Count made a couple of grand gestures—
perhaps hoping to reassure me my plans had his blessing. He assigned me an
escort—a dozen templars from the Knights Panther. There is a long-standing
pact between Hochland and the Panthers, whereby the order sends a group of
knights to act as the Count’s personal bodyguards. Effectively, the Count was
giving me his own bodyguards—a brave gesture in time of war.
Secondly, he has ordered his personal prognosticator—a wizard of the
Celestial Order named Emil Zauber—to travel with me. Zauber seems a shy,
bookish man, more a scholar than some mighty wizard, but I am assured he is a
powerful mage. I hope he will prove useful.
Given the scale of the task ahead, I fear I shall need all the help I can
get…
The wolf stood at the head of the trail, its nose raised as it warily sniffed
at the air. The goblin rider on its back waited patiently, eyes darting quickly
from left to right as it scanned the forest on either side of the trail.
“Move, you bastard,” Hoist said, whispering quietly so neither the wolf nor
its rider would hear him. “Get a move on, before the wind changes and it ruins
everything.”
Finally, the wolf came to a decision. Satisfied, it lowered its nose. Taking
its behaviour as a sign, the goblin spurred his mount on down the trail,
simultaneously turning to signal to the other unseen riders behind him that the
way ahead was clear.
“Now we wait,” Hoist said, his voice barely audible. “Give them time to draw
abreast of us, then it’s wolf stew on the menu.”
Crouched beside him as they hid concealed in the undergrowth at the side of
the trail, Dieter waited with bated breath. The situation brought back memories
of the times in his childhood he had spent on hunting trips with Helmut Schau,
stalking deer and other wild game through the forest in the lean seasons when
the summer was over and the harvesting was done. The difference was he had never
known such danger when they were hunting deer, nor been so hungry as he was now.
“Nearly there,” Hoist spoke in a barely audible murmur as the goblin scout
and his mount padded past them. “Let Rieger take the scout. We’ll take the
leading riders in the war party, and let the others take the rest.”
Following behind the scout, another half a dozen goblin wolf riders rode into
view. They came down the trail at a brisk pace, unknowingly moving closer to the
ambush.
Dieter heard a sound like the cry of an owl come from further down the trail.
Confused at hearing a nocturnal bird make its call during the day, the wolf
riders looked dumbly around them. Too late, the significance of the call dawned
on them.
“There’s the signal!” Hoist yelled. “Attack!”
Dieter was already ahead of him. Leaping from the undergrowth, he attacked
the nearest target. The wolf and its rider tried to turn to face him, but he was
already thrusting with his sword. The blade caught the wolf in the side of the
neck, silencing the growl building in its throat. Raising his shield to ward off
the blows of the goblin rider, Dieter thrust his sword forward again, stabbing
the wolf deep in the heart. As the creature fell he lashed out his sword at the
falling rider, killing the goblin before it hit the ground.
Elsewhere, his comrades had been just as successful. It was over quickly.
Along the trail, the wolves and their riders were dead. The ambushers had killed
their victims without suffering a single casualty.
“All right, that’s good work,” Hoist said, casting an eye back to the head of
the trail to see if there were any more goblins following behind the ones they
had killed. “We’d better get to business. Throw the goblins into the undergrowth
at the side of the trail. We’ll take the wolf carcasses with us and butcher them
back at camp. Now, get a move on. I don’t like to be out in the open like
this.”
It was the wolves they had wanted. Later, as the men marched back to the camp
with the limp bodies of the dead animals strung upside-down from carrying poles,
Dieter wondered at the ironies that had made him a huntsman so soon after he had
finally achieved his dream and become a soldier.
He had survived the army’s defeat in battle by the orcs. He thought it did
him no credit, but by joining in the general flight and panic once the enemy got
behind them, he had managed to save his life.
Dieter and his fellow Scarlets had been lucky, he supposed. Although they had
lost men, the regiment had survived the defeat and the subsequent massacre in a
better state than most.
Of the men who had been lost, the one whose absence was most keenly felt
among his men was Captain Harkner. No one had actually seen the captain die. He
was missing, presumed killed, but currently there was no real expectation among
the soldiers of the regiment that their commanding officer would ever be seen
alive again.
In the wake of defeat the Hochlander army had scattered, its once-proud ranks
splintered into ragtag bands of survivors whose main concern was staying ahead
of the pursuing orcs and their goblin allies. In the weeks since the defeat,
questions of survival had been the most important consideration. No one talked
about fighting the greenskins anymore. No one talked of their duty to Count
Aldebrand or to the people of Hochland. No one talked of the honour of the
regiment. No one cared, or if they did care, they put the value of staying alive
above any such insolid and intangible notions as duty and honour.
In common with many of the other demoralised groups of soldiers they had met
on their journey, the Scarlets were headed southwards. There was no great
tactical thinking behind the choice; it was simply that the province’s capital
and more populous towns lay in the same direction. It stood to reason they might
find safety there, behind stone walls that they hoped would prove impervious to
orc siege. In a time of defeat it was hard to argue against even such forlorn
hopes.
It took no more than an hour for Dieter and the others to find their way back
to camp. Given that they were carrying fresh meat, they were greeted with
something approaching eagerness by the dirty-faced dispirited men who were all
that were left of what had once been a proud, imperious regiment. The thought he
had joined the Scarlets just in time to see their decline and destruction bit
painfully into Dieter’s heart. He knew it was nonsense, but some small part of
him wondered if he was somehow to blame. He had joined the Scarlets and from
that point forward everything had gone wrong.
“Well done, all of you,” Gerhardt said, striding forward to greet the hunting
party as they returned to camp. He cast an appraising eye over their catch. “At
least we won’t starve tonight. Did you have any troubles?”
“Nothing worth reporting,” Hoist shrugged. “We slew the goblin scouts and
their mounts to the last, so we’ve no worries of their carrying news of our
location to their chieftains. Still, it would be better if we move on tomorrow.
I wouldn’t like to be here longer than tonight, just in case they send more
riders to see what happened to their scouts.”