03 - Call to Arms (15 page)

The line was breaking.
That panicked thought leapt into Dieter’s head as
an enormous, scarred orc loomed up before him. Ducking underneath the swipe of
the creature’s axe, he thrust his sword up into the orc’s chin, the blade
stabbing through the soft portion behind the line of the jaw and burying itself
in the monster’s brain.

Pulling his sword free with an effort as the orc fell, Dieter hurried to help
an unknown Scarlet defend himself against another orc. In the wake of the
veterans’ charge, everything was confusion. At times, he found himself fighting
side by side with Gerhardt, Rieger, Hoist, even Krug, the tides of battle
throwing men together like flotsam washed ashore on a beach.

The situation was so desperate, Dieter had no idea who was winning.
Similarly, he was blind to the progress of the wider battle around him and his
comrades. His war had become one of simple survival.

He could not swear to it, but he had the feeling the Scarlets were holding
their own. The shield wall had broken, but the regiment had not crumbled with
that reverse. They had held their position, willing to fight to the last man to
prevent the orcs from gaining any more ground. Caught in the thick of the
conflict, Dieter hoped it would not come to that.

Then, suddenly, just as it seemed the pressure of the orc attack was
irresistible, the Scarlets’ fortunes took a turn for the better. Dieter heard a
great commotion come from his left: a cacophony of Hochlander battle cries and
shouted voices raised in the praise of Sigmar. With unexpected suddenness, the
orc advance began to ebb as the enemy came under attack from their flank.

For long seconds, Dieter had no clear idea what was going on. He heard orcs
scream out in pain. He smelled the stench of burning flesh. The ranks of bestial
orcs in front of him abruptly turned and ran, their threat evaporating like
early morning dew in the face of the rising sun. Dieter stood uncertainly,
watching with his mouth opened as he wondered what could have possibly put the
enemy to flight. Then, he saw them.

A warrior priest of Sigmar strode across the battlefield with a hammer in
each hand. He was clad in burnished plate mail, his armour shining with a
shimmering golden light as though some heavenly power had set its sign upon him.

Evidently, the priest had taken it upon himself to lead a counter-attack. He
moved at the head of a rag-tag band of warriors. Dieter saw free company men,
halberdiers, swordsmen, spearmen, flagellants, even cooks and ostlers, all
following the priest’s lead.

More remarkably still, a wizard walked beside them. It was clear he was a
member of the Golden Order. He wore gold-coloured robes covered in runic
inscriptions, while he had long strands of gold and silver wire woven into his
long beard and hair. With a gesture here, an enchantment there, the wizard
unleashed carnage on the enemy, releasing sprays of acid and showers of molten
metal from his open palms and directing them at the orc horde.

Together, the priest, the wizard and their followers tore into the
greenskins. Heartened by their display, the Scarlets and the other units around
them redoubled their efforts. With all thoughts of strategy and tactics
forgotten, they gave chase to the fleeing orcs.

For a moment, it seemed victory was near. It was clear the enemy morale was
crumbling. The orc veterans had been forced to flee. Soon, the rest of the
greenskin army would likely follow their example.

Emboldened by the sight of the enemy in disarray, Dieter raced to be at the
head of his regiment as they gave chase to the greenskins. After all the
hardships and terrors of the battle and the day so far, he wanted nothing more
than to have vengeance for the comrades he had lost, for the innocents the orcs
had slaughtered, for all the terrible things the enemy would do to the province
of Hochland and its people if they were not stopped.

In that instant, it seemed to him the war was won. Human arms had been
victorious. The orcs were beaten. They were broken, running. There could be no
coming back for them.

In another instant, everything changed and he learned how wrong he was.

In their eagerness to get to grips with the enemy, the warrior priest and his
followers had moved far in advance of the rest of the army. Supported by the
wizard’s magic, they were almost at the tree line. Dieter was still some
distance behind them, but he could see a new force of orcs had emerged from the
trees to try and stem the greenskin retreat. At their head was the most
horrifying creature Dieter had ever seen, more terrible even than the beastmen
he had fought the day before.

It was a troll, he was sure of that at least. It stood twice as tall as any
of the orcs around it, its blue-grey hide covered in a profusion of warty,
rock-like lumps. It moved with an odd, rolling gait as though its limbs were not
quite shaped for smooth locomotion.

Despite the weirdness of its gait the troll moved forward swiftly, easily
outdistancing its orcish companions in its eagerness to close with the onrushing
human host.

Spotting the threat at once, the wizard responded. Chanting a terse
incantation, he extended an arm and pointed his palm at the troll. A stream of
fiery liquid metal materialised and shot from his hand, only to dissipate as it
made contact with the creature’s stonelike skin.

Mouth widening to show an awful row of sharp teeth, the troll changed
direction and charged toward the wizard. Refusing to flee, the mage unleashed
another enchantment and sent a globule of molten metal flying toward the troll.
It had no more effect than the previous spell: the metal seemed to disappear
even as it struck the troll, as though by some strange quirk its skin had an
ability to nullify magic that was more than the equal of the wizard’s ability to
cast it.

Seeing his doom striding towards him the wizard tried another spell, but it
was too late. The troll closed in on him and tore the man’s head from his
shoulders, bathing its face in the geyser of blood that erupted from the
wizard’s sundered neck as he was decapitated.

In the meantime, the warrior priest had met his own doom. Turning to face the
newly-arrived force of orcs as they charged forward, he was overwhelmed as a
swarm of much smaller greenskins emerged from among the trees and caught him
unawares. There were dozens of the creatures, each no higher than a man’s thigh,
armed with an array of sharpened sticks and flint knives as though they had
equipped themselves by copying the example of their larger, orc cousins.

Dieter had heard that large groups of such diminutive creatures, called
snotlings
by men, often accompanied greenskin armies when they went to war.
From Helmut Schau’s description of them he had expected them to be quite comical
beings, but there was nothing funny in the way they set upon the warrior priest.
As he struggled to shake them off, some of the snotlings leapt to hang from his
armour while their fellows grabbed at his legs. Dieter’s last sight of the brave
priest was as he fell to the ground. The snotlings swiftly covered him, their
crude weapons quickly becoming stained with blood as they took advantage of the
gaps in his armour.

With the fall of the priest, the Hochlanders’ counterattack faltered. Bereft
of their leader, the priest’s followers seemed to lose their nerve even as the
new hordes of orcs arriving from the forest smashed into them.

Within seconds, prayers and triumphant battle cries were replaced by the
sounds of panic. Fleeing as the orc veterans had done only a few minutes
earlier, the dead priest’s followers now turned to run blindly away from the
enemy, crashing headlong into the other Hochlander units moving in support
behind them. With a swiftness that Dieter would have barely believed possible,
the Hochlanders’ charge turned into chaos. All pretension to order or discipline
was lost as the battle briefly dissolved into a thousand separate conflicts of
orc against man, or man against snotling, or goblin against man.

The army had lost all cohesion. Appalled, Dieter realised the Hochlanders
were now engaging the greenskins on their own level; not as cogs in a smoothly
functioning military machine, but as individual warriors meeting brawn with
brawn, hate with hate, and savagery with savagery. In such a battle, they could
not help but lose. Once the battle became a contest of strength of limb rather
than discipline and strength of mind, the orcs held the advantage. Unless
someone was able to rescue the situation quickly, all would be lost.

But there was no rescue. Even as Dieter heard the sound of sergeants and
officers calling out commands and trying to restore discipline, he became aware
that the confusion in the ranks of the army around was growing steadily worse.

At first, he was uncertain as to its cause. Then, he realised the same panic
that had gripped the dead priest’s former followers had spread to encompass the
troops immediately
behind
Dieter and the Scarlets. Just as the priest’s
followers had turned and run blindly into the forces following behind them, now
the troops behind the Scarlets had suddenly begun to run through the Scarlets’
ranks with the same heedless abandon.

Dieter was confused at first, until he saw a glimpse of goblin wolf riders
moving behind the rearward units that were fleeing towards the Scarlets. As
cries of alarm spread through the army and the musicians began to sound the
retreat, Dieter came to a horrifying conclusion.

Somehow, the enemy had managed to flank the Hochlander troops guarding the
western approaches and get behind them.

There could be only one explanation. The rest of the encampment had fallen.
Dieter, the Scarlets and the other units around them were currently the only
Hochlander forces still holding out against the enemy.

As an almost palpable sense of panic surged through the ranks of men around
him, Dieter realised they might only be seconds away from being encircled and
completely annihilated by the greenskins. If the enemy were behind them it meant
the battle was lost. For better or worse, all that was left now were the most
basic questions of survival.

All around him, men began to break ranks. The few fifes and drums left to
signal orders to the troops began to beat out the retreat. In the wink of an
eye, every last vestige of discipline was lost. Men ran, willing to stumble over
the bodies of dead and wounded comrades in order to escape. The army had become
a frightened animal, desperate to elude its pursuers.

As for Dieter, he had long told himself he would never turn from his duty as
a soldier. If ever it came to the choice between fleeing in disgrace and facing
certain death, he would choose death every time. It quickly became apparent he
had lied to himself, however. As his comrades turned to flee around him, the
thought of staying to face a brave and noble death on his own did not once occur
to him.

The army ran. Cursing his own lack of valour, counting himself as a coward
and a traitor, Dieter ran with them.

(Late Erntezeit—Mittherbst—Early Brauzeit)

From

The Testimony of General Ludwig von Grahl

(unexpurgated text):

…It would become known as one of the blackest days in Hochland’s recent
history. Von Nieder’s army was utterly routed. Von Nieder himself escaped, but
many of his men were not so lucky. The greenskins killed thousands, spilling
enough blood to stain the earth red.

In the wake of victory, with his enemies in disarray, Ironfang decided to
press home his advantage. Splitting his forces, the orc chieftain sent his wolf
riders and other light troops to pursue the fleeing human infantry. Meanwhile,
he led the rest of his army in search of the Hochlanders’ missing cavalry.

They found them two days later. Having learned via messengers of the defeat
suffered by their comrades in the infantry, the Hochland cavalry attempted to
withdraw to safety, to regroup their forces. Ironfang was too wily to let them
elude him, however. Forcing the cavalry to meet him in battle, he scored another
crushing victory—slaughtering the knights and other riders almost to the man.

In the aftermath of the two defeats, Hochland was plunged into crisis.
Despite my fears for the province’s safety I found much to admire in Ironfang’s
generalship. Certainly, the enemy chieftain displayed a remarkable cunning and
military sophistication for an orc.

Of course, in the days that followed, many in Hochland tried to diminish the
enemy’s triumphs. It became fashionable to claim the greenskins had “just got
lucky”.

To my mind, such opinions were no more than the mouthings of idiots. A good
general must be able to recognise an able opponent when he sees him. Moreover,
it was certainly the case that part of the reason for the defeat of Hochland’s
army in the field was that von Nieder had underestimated Ironfang’s abilities.

In the meantime, the change in the military situation had led to a
reappraisal at the Elector’s court. Within days of the army’s defeat becoming
known, I was summoned unexpectedly to Hergig, ordered to report for an audience
with His Excellency Count Aldebrand with all due haste.

Naturally, I made my way to Hergig as quickly as possible. Arriving at the
palace, I heard that the Reiksmarshall Kurt Helborg was also there. We were old
comrades, having served together on several campaigns long before either of us
rose to the status of general.

Apparently, the Reiksmarshall had come to Hochland on a state visit. Although
the fact his visit had been announced suddenly, with little time for the
functionaries in the Count’s palace to prepare for it, had led many to gossip
Helborg had come in response to the province’s recent reverses on the
battlefield. It is an open secret the Emperor Karl Franz sometimes sends his
envoys on such “state visits” to the provinces in order that they can
communicate his displeasure on some matter to the local count.