The warrior raised his axe to the heavens, and roared in his ungodly tongue. The words were incomprehensible to the dying Hensel, lying broken in the mud. Lightning lit up the night in a series of bright flashes. As darkness consumed Hensel, it seemed to him that the flashes were the Dark Gods expressing their pleasure at their minions' work.
'Blood for the
Blood God!' Hroth roared to the heavens, raising his bloodied axe high in the air for the gods to witness his tribute.
His heart was pumping with excitement, and he relished the surge of energy and power that suffused him now that battle was joined. Hroth knew that the great god Khorne, Lord of Battles and Collector of Skulls, was gazing down upon him, and he could feel that the god was pleased. The veins in Hroth's bulging arms strained with power as the rage grew within him.
Turning his fiery gaze upon the doomed Empire town, Hroth saw people running from their homes, their faces full of terror and their wails reaching up to the sky. The gods would enjoy that sound. With a roar, he broke into a run, heading straight down into the town. Dozens of his warriors ran a step behind him.
They were all of the Khazag tribe, hailing from the far northeast, months' upon months' ride away, and all had sworn oaths of blood to him as their chieftain. The massive, bald figure of Barok loped along, to his left, holding Hroth's banner high, and to his right ran Olaf the Berserker, a pair of swords grasped in his meaty fists.
Surging down the hill through the clinging mud, Hroth saw that enemy warriors were moving through the chaos, roughly pushing the frantic commoners out of their way. As they saw Hroth and his warriors storming down the hill towards them, they halted. The front rankers dropped to their knees, raising handguns to their shoulders. Those behind wielded halberds, lowering them as one to create a rippling wall of spiked steel. Other soldiers joined them so that they blocked off the entire street.
Hroth growled in pleasure at seeing enemies that would stand and fight, and picked up his pace. His warriors ran at his side, screaming and shouting. Shots rang out, and Hroth felt a burning lead ball scrape his left cheek, drawing blood. Several Khazags fell under the first volley, but he did not care.
Racing closer, he saw the puny enemy warriors frantically trying to reload their cowardly weapons. Several of them raised their guns once more and fired point-blank into the Chaos warriors, and then Hroth was on them.
With a sweep of his axe, he smashed aside three halberds aimed at him, the blow knocking the weapons from numbed hands. Reversing his strike, he cleaved his axe into the neck of one soldier, decapitating him cleanly. The axe blade carried on into the head of another, crumpling the steel helmet he wore in a spray of blood and bone.
Backhanding his fist into the face of another, feeling the skull crush beneath the blow, Hroth began to laugh. He waded into the midst of the enemy's formation, swinging his axe before him. With each blow another enemy died. In these close quarters, the enemy's halberds were useless, and they reached for short swords and daggers. Each blade that flashed towards Hroth was met with brutal force - arms were hacked from bodies, chests caved in and heads smashed to bloody ruins. Those weapons that did reach him shattered against his flesh, or were turned aside by his armour. Olaf the Berserker had dropped or lost his weapons, and ripped a man's throat out with his bare hands. The other Khazags laid about them with abandon, their brutal axes and swords carving through the Empire men with ease. Blood splattered all over Hroth, and he felt the hot metallic taste on his lips. He rejoiced at the slaughter, hacking left and right.
With a roar, he raised his axe above his head in both hands and brought it smashing down onto the shoulder of an enemy soldier, the blow carving its way through breastplate and bone, cutting him almost in two. Kicking the body away, Hroth swung around in search of a new enemy, but could find none. He stood, drenched in gore, breathing heavily. The ground was littered with severed limbs and broken Empire soldiers, and the air was heavy with the stink of death. Several dozen soldiers had been slaughtered for the loss of three of his own. He resisted the urge to swing his axe into a Khazag standing nearby.
Hroth stepped over the slain towards the fallen bodies of his tribesmen. One of them was still alive. Hroth knelt before him, seeing the growing red stain at his belly.
'Your blood will feed great Khorne this night, warrior of the Khazags,' said Hroth. The warrior, his face pale and drawn, nodded fearlessly, refusing to utter any sound of pain, for to do so would show weakness in front of his chieftain and the gods. Hroth stood and swung his axe down, hacking the warriors head from his shoulders. Picking the head up by the hair, he tossed it to a large, bearded warrior wearing a helmet made from a wolf skull.
'Your brother was a brave warrior, Thorgar,' growled Hroth. 'His skull will bring you power.' The bearded warrior raised the bloody severed head of his brother in both hands, touching it to his forehead.
More handgun shots rang out through the night, and Olaf turned towards the sounds snarling, foam dripping from his lips. Without a word, Hroth and his warband broke into a loping run, heading deeper into the town, towards the sound.
CHAPTER FOUR
'
So,
did you
let the fat old man have it? The reinforcements were never sent, were they?' asked Albrecht. The grizzled sergeant was standing just under an awning, sheltering from the drizzling rain. He was smoking a pipe, blue-grey smoke wafting out into the cold evening air.
Stefan, stomping towards the tent in the rain, frowned at his sergeant. 'You'll get yourself hanged speaking of the count like that.'
'Pah, none of the boys round hear would speak out against me. Would you lads?' snarled Albrecht, turning towards the group of Ostermark soldiers playing dice behind him. They muttered under their breaths. 'Course they wouldn't. They know I'd make their lives much more painful if they did. Besides, it was their arses out there on the line with no reinforcements coming as well as yours and mine.'
'Aye, it was. I don't know if the reinforcements were sent or not. The old count's mind is going. Maybe they were sent, but he recalled them. Who knows? But there isn't a damn thing anybody can do about it.'
'His mind's been going for years. He's too old by far. I reckon it's the wasting sickness what's done it - been fighting that since childhood. Weak bloodline. That's what you get when you have nobles marrying nobles for generations. That family's a bit too closely related, if you know what I mean.'
'We lost too many good men out there, needlessly, but what can be done? Call him a liar? Call him an inbred old fool whose mind is going? I'd be strung up before the words left my lips! You know as well as I that his damn courtiers would love to see me swing.'
'Well, it seemed like a bloody suicide mission to me.'
'Why would the old man want me dead after all these years? He could have got rid of me whenever he wanted. I owe him my life, Albrecht.'
'Maybe. He certainly doesn't pass up an opportunity to remind you of it.'
'Well, if the order was recalled, or never sent, it could have been someone else. That Tilean whoreson Andros for one. As trustworthy as a snake, that one.'
'Or Johann. Was that skinny runt there?'
'Aye he was, spoiling for a fight. More than usual,' Stefan said.
'He may be a decent duellist, but that wouldn't count for nought on a real battlefield,' stated Albrecht. 'It wouldn't have helped him in the mountain pass, neither, if he had been there. He would have been one of the dead being picked over by the crows as we speak, Morr save them. Would have done Ostermark a blessing, too.'
'Aye, you are probably right, but he is the count's flesh and blood, and we are but soldiers.' said Stefan, shrugging. 'I am dead tired. I'm heading to bed.'
'Rest well, captain.' said Albrecht, patting the younger man on the shoulder. He watched his captain stalk off, and blew a smoke ring into the air.
'That right, sergeant? You really think we were sent out there to die?' asked a young soldier, looking up from his game.
'Don't rightly know, lad. It's politics. Still, the captain's a canny devil. He'd be a hard man to catch off guard, and not a man I'd like as an enemy.' replied Albrecht, thoughtfully, 'although, it's definitely possible, the count being without child and all. The captain's a rival to any who would claim the throne when Morr takes the count.'
'A rival? How's that, sergeant?'
'His grandfather was the elector. Therefore, if there was no clear heir, he could make a claim. Not that he ever would.'
'Truly? I thought that was just a story! So those scars on his face - they were put there to mark his grandfather's shame?'
'Aye, burnt into him as a babe. Heartless fiend, a man who could hold a white-hot iron to the face of a newborn.'
'Don't that mean that the captain's cursed, sergeant?' asked the young soldier. 'That he's got the taint?' The soldiers he was playing with froze, halting their game. Albrecht turned to stare at him, his eyes narrowing.
'The captain's a better man than any here. There ain't no taint in him, and I'll personally cut the throat of
any man who suggests there is.' snarled the sergeant. 'You're new with our regiment, ain't you?' The young soldier nodded, eyes wide.
'The captain has saved the life of every man here with his actions. Most more than once. Not a one of them has any doubt of him. You'd best learn to respect your betters quick smart, soldier, or else you will find life very difficult here. Very difficult indeed.'
Albrecht puffed angrily on his pipe, staring out at the night. 'Sorry sir. I didn't mean nothing by it.' said the young soldier, avoiding the glares he was getting from around the dice table. Albrecht grunted.
What he had said was true. Stefan, through his actions and strategic decisions on the field of battle had saved his men from certain death time and time again. Certainly, last night in Deep Pass they would all have been massacred if not for the bold strike that the captain had ordered.
Albrecht remembered back to the first time he had met the captain. He had been dubious of the man at first. Stefan von Kessel had been young then, and no captain. No, he had been a frightened young man in Albrecht's regiment, and his horribly scarred face made him stick out amongst the other fresh-faced recruits. He was quiet and reserved, and far too sensitive for the life of a soldier. Albrecht had ruthlessly hounded him, trying to find if there was hardness at his core. Either he would quit, or he would find the strength within him to become a successful soldier.
The scars on von Kessel's face were a terrible weight on him then, and Albrecht knew that they were still; although those feelings were hidden deep within the impenetrable barriers that the captain had built over the years. Three lines crossed von Kessel's face, linked by a curving line that arced from above his left eyebrow across his forehead, passing by his right eye and over his right cheekbone, and finishing on his jaw line. These lines were each half an inch thick, and pale on his suntanned face. It was a quarter of a wheel that, had it continued, would have had eight lines bisecting it. It was an evil mark, a mark of bad omen.
For this reason, the young von Kessel had been ostracized by his peers, and shunned as a bringer of misfortune. None of them, bar Albrecht himself, knew of his cursed heritage. Albrecht hounded von Kessel relentlessly, and finally the day came when the young man had stood up to the sergeant, punching him squarely in the jaw. Albrecht had of course struck back, knocking the young man unconscious. Nevertheless, from that day forth, nobody gave the young man any more grief, and he slowly came out of himself, becoming a comrade in arms with the other soldiers. Although he would always have difficulty expressing himself, and would have no close friends, von Kessel became someone that the other soldiers trusted implicitly, and someone who they came to respect greatly.
Gradually he had progressed through the ranks until he had, somewhat reluctantly, become captain. Albrecht was not upset to see von Kessel overtake him, for he recognised the brilliance within the younger man, if only he would accept it. No, he was proud to serve the captain, and he loved him like a brother.
Stefan had said that he owed Gruber for protecting him as a babe. Some protection, thought Albrecht. The fat bastard had been present when the white-hot branding wheel had been pressed to the babe's face. Stefan had been so young and small that only a quarter of the white-hot brand had marked his face. To be raised with such a mark of shame upon his face was no way to grow up. True, Gruber could have had the babe drowned if he had wished it, all because of Stefan's grandfather's treachery, but no one who burned the face of an innocent babe should be seen as a saviour in Albrecht's book.
He snorted, and took another long pull on his pipe.
'There ain't no
taint in him', Stefan had heard the sergeant say as he had walked away. He prayed that the sergeant was right.
Hroth slammed his
axe into the back of another of the fleeing villagers, and the man fell with a tortured scream. The piteous noise was cut short as he slammed his foot down onto the pathetic Empire man's neck. The night was alight with flames - the Khazags had begun to burn the village to the ground. Those who had cowered in their homes had soon come out when the flames began to lick at the buildings. They were cut down as they ran screaming from the burning houses. To Hroth's disgust, many had chosen to burn to death in the flames rather than face his men. There was no glory in that. Facing an enemy head-on in the heat of battle, staring death fearlessly in the face,
that
was the honourable way to die. The Khazags believed that there would be no rebirth for cowards who let their fears dictate their dishonourable deaths.
The streets of the village were chaotic. Terrified men, women and children ran from the Khazags, their shouts and cries filling the air all around. The flames were reaching the upper storeys of the tallest buildings, and several began to collapse in on themselves as their supporting beams burned. The Khazags had run into two isolated groups of soldiers, and had butchered them mercilessly. Hroth himself had slain a dozen of them, but his axe thirsted for more.