03 - Call to Arms (25 page)

Dieter tried to call out for help, but it was too late. Trapped as surely as
the scorpion under the weight of fallen stone, he lost consciousness.

“Damned lucky if you ask me,” a voice intruded into his black, dreamless
sleep. “I’ve seen some foolish heroics in my time, but that was absolute
madness.”

“I wonder,” a second voice said. “I don’t argue that it was foolish. But I
suppose he knew what he was doing, after a fashion. He did grow up in a mill
house, after all.”

“That’s as may be,” the first voice retorted. “But I’m guessing he never went
out to collapse a mill wheel before. Assuming that’s what he went out to do, of
course. I’m still not convinced the whole thing wasn’t just blind luck.”

“Who cares if it was?” a third voice joined the conversation. “It worked,
didn’t it? Bravest thing I ever saw. I told you, right when I first introduced
him to you, the lad has stones the size of a young bull’s.”

“Actually, I believe you only said that later,” the second voice disagreed.
“When you first introduced us you said he was a dab hand with a sword, nothing
else.”

Recognising the voices as belonging to Gerhardt, Rieger and Hoist, Dieter
opened his eyes to find he was staring up at the sky. It was daylight and the
sun was high overhead.

“Careful, lad,” Gerhardt said solicitously. “I wouldn’t try to move just
yet.”

“What happened?” Turning his head to look around him, Dieter saw he was lying
on a makeshift stretcher outside the mill house. He saw other wounded men around
him, being tended to by their comrades. Looking further afield, he saw the
courtyard of the mill was littered with goblin bodies.

“You were knocked about pretty bad when the mill wheel collapsed,” Gerhardt
told him. “A broken timber fell on you. I’ve done my best to bind your ribs, but
I think you’ve broken a couple of them. You’ll live, of course, but I wouldn’t
be surprised if there are times over the next few days when you’ll wish you
hadn’t. It’s always hard going when you’ve broken a rib. Even breathing hurts.”

“But, what happened to the goblins?” Finding his skull felt like it was
filled with old rags, Dieter tried shaking his head to clear it. He quickly
regretted it, as the movement caused a shiver of pain to run through his ribs.

“They fled,” Hoist said. “After the mill wheel collapsed, burying the
scorpion and their chieftain, the goblins turned tail and ran. Of course, we did
our best to make ’em pay for attacking this place. By the time the general got
here it was all over, bar the mopping up.”

“The general?” Dieter looked at him quizzically. “What are you talking
about?”

“Come and see,” Hoist said. Then, when he noticed Gerhardt glowering at him,
he shrugged. “All right, I know you said he shouldn’t move. But it can’t hurt
that much, not if he takes it slowly. And it stands to reason, he’ll want to
know what’s going on. And, besides, good news makes a man heal more quickly -
ask any surgeon.”

Despite further protestations from Gerhardt, Hoist and Rieger carefully
helped Dieter to his feet. Supporting him between them, they began to lead him
toward the mill gates. After they had gone about a dozen paces, Dieter had them
pause for a few seconds so he could look around him.

Now he was up on his feet, he could see the dead scorpion buried beneath a
mound of bricks and timbers, the shattered mill wheel lying on top of it.
Glancing at the other wounded men nearby, a sudden thought occurred to him.

“How is Kuranski?” Dieter asked.

“He didn’t make it,” Gerhardt answered. “He died while the rest of us were
fighting the goblins. We were going to bury him in a little while, along with
the others.”

Gerhardt turned to gaze at some of the human bodies lying among the dead
goblins littering the courtyard.

“We lost some good men last night,” he said. “We have to hope it was worth it
- that, finally, things have turned the corner and we’re going to start winning
this war.”

“They will do,” Hoist predicted confidently. “Now we’ve got Old Iron Britches
leading us, everything will be better. Just you wait and see.”

“Iron Britches?” Dieter asked.

“Come on,” Hoist urged him forward. “I said we had something to show you.”

Leading him slowly to the open gates, the three men helped Dieter prop
himself up alongside one of the gate posts. Hoist pointed to one of the areas of
open ground on the other side of the mill’s walls.

Turning to look in the direction Hoist had indicated, Dieter saw a
grey-haired man in full plate walking among the night goblin bodies lying
outside the walls. The man looked to be about sixty years of age, with a grim,
stoic countenance and his hair cut close to his scalp in a severe, military
style. Half a dozen knights, also in full plate, walked beside the old man as an
escort. Noticing that the knights wore the colours of the Count of Hochland’s
personal livery emblazoned on their shields, Dieter’s breath caught in his
throat.

“Is that him?” he asked the others. “Is it Count Aldebrand?”

“So speaks the bumpkin,” Hoist laughed and shook his head good-naturedly.
“You can tell our poor country mouse here hasn’t spent much time in high
society.”

“The Count is a considerably younger man,” Rieger said. “The man you see over
there is His Excellency, General Ludwig von Grahl.”

“Old Iron Britches,” Hoist said. “That’s what his men call him. We must’ve
served under him in a dozen campaigns. He’s beaten the greenskins in battle
before. Not to mention the beastmen, the marauder hordes and the damn
Ostlanders. The finest general ever to have led the armies of Hochland, that’s
what they say about him. For myself, I believe it. Why, I remember at the Battle
of Tannesfeld—”

“No doubt you saved his life,” Rieger cut him off before he could finish. “I
couldn’t tell you whether he’s really the best general in Hochland, Dieter. But,
I know this. I’ve served under von Grahl before, and he knows his business. I’d
trust him with my life.”

“Aye, I see it the same,” Gerhardt nodded. “Von Grahl and his bodyguard
arrived about an hour ago, alongside some outriders and a regiment-sized group
of Kislevite horse archer mercenaries. Apparently, the General has been given
command over every aspect of the province’s defence. From now on, we answer to
him.”

Looking at the man, Dieter wondered whether the others were right about him.
His comrades’ sense of joy and excitement now that General von Grahl was in
command was readily apparent. Dieter wasn’t quite sure if he could see it
himself. Von Grahl looked to be an ordinary enough fellow in the flesh. Yet,
Dieter had to admit he had a certain something. The general had an aura about
him, an air of strength and decisiveness.

When Dieter had briefly glimpsed the army’s original commander, General von
Nieder, he had been struck by the fact the man looked like a tax collector. With
General von Grahl it was different. There was no mistaking the fact that von
Grahl was a soldier.

Perhaps it was another false dawn. But, for the first time in Dieter was not
sure how long, he had the definite impression that things were looking up.

(Late Brauzeit—Early Kaldezeit)

From

The Testimony of General Ludwig von Grahl

(unexpurgated text):

…Once I arrived in the north, it became clear the task ahead was even more
formidable than I had feared. The remnants of von Nieder’s army were spread over
half the province. They were dispirited and tired men, many of whom had
forgotten what it is to be a soldier. At the same time, the orcs were in
complete ascendancy.

The one small factor in our favour was the fact that the orc army was
likewise spread over a great distance. Apparently, it had proved beyond even
Ironfang’s power to make sure his troops held their discipline for long. In the
wake of victory, the greenskins had split back into their tribal groupings as
they pursued the fleeing human forces. Naturally, being greenskins, some of
these tribal groups had fallen to looting every human habitation in their path,
hampering their chieftain’s efforts to bring his army together so he could
continue driving southwards. We even heard reports of greenskin tribes fighting
amongst themselves as their natural animosity toward each other reasserted
itself.

Thankfully, the enemy’s lack of discipline gave me valuable time to bring my
own forces back into order. Gathering together the various bands of soldiers we
met on the way north, I ordered my troops to press-gang every man they
encountered who was capable of holding a weapon. From among the columns of weary
refugees fleeing the orcs, we recruited thousands of such conscripts—many of
them archers, already armed with the bows and arrows they used for hunting.

In the meantime, in the course of our journey northward, I had come to
realise the wizard Emil Zauber had the potential to be a valuable ally. While
most men are inclined to consult the Lore of the Heavens in the hope of divining
their personal future, I am more interested in Zauber’s ability to predict the
weather. During the long journey to the north, a plan began to form in my mind.

Sigmar willing, it may help swing the war in our favour…

“Erich von Nieder, you have been found guilty of crimes against your Count,
your province and its people,” the sergeant intoned, squinting up at the man
standing on the scaffold. “Your punishment has been decreed in accordance with
army tradition and protocol. Do you have anything to say before the sentence is
enacted?”

“Only that this is a travesty,” the former general replied, glaring down at
his questioner. The rope had been fixed tight enough around his throat that he
could only speak at the volume of a whisper. Despite this, he was defiant to the
last. “I am innocent. And, even if I wasn’t, you have no power to judge me.”

Raising his eyes, von Nieder took in the situation around him. He was
standing on a roughly fashioned wooden scaffold, beneath the branches of a broad
elm destined to be the place of his death. His hands were tied behind him. Ahead
of him several regiments of infantry had been drawn up in formation to watch his
execution, while a number of the army’s knights and officers stood off to the
side of the scaffold, among them the army’s new commander, General von Grahl.

Turning his head as far to the side as he could manage, von Nieder glared
viperishly at a man he hated with a passion. Surrounded by his bodyguard and the
officers of his staff, von Grahl met his gaze impassively. Still unable to raise
his voice above a whisper, von Nieder uttered his final words before he faced
eternity.

“I am of the nobility,” von Nieder said. He knew no one except perhaps the
sergeant could hear him, but he spoke the words anyway, eager to leave some
record—no matter how transient—of the injustice that had been foisted upon
him. “By the ancient legal codes of the Empire I am guaranteed the right to a
trial before my peers. The Count will not forgive you this breach of precedent,
von Grahl. You can hang me now, but the Count will punish you for it. Mark my
words. One day soon, you’ll kneel before the headsman’s axe and wish you had not
done this thing.”

The sergeant waited until von Nieder had finished his speech. Then, he raised
his hand. Three drummers stood nearby. At the sergeant’s signal, they began to
beat a rolling rhythm.

“The sentence will be carried out,” the sergeant said. “May the Lord Sigmar
have mercy on your soul.”

Von Nieder felt rough hands behind him. He was pushed from the scaffold.

“There’s something I never thought I’d see,” Hoist muttered. “A general being
hanged. Granted, he probably deserves it. But, usually, if a general does
something wrong, the worst punishment he can expect is being sent home in
disgrace. The last thing you expect to see is them hanging a general. They save
the hempen dance for our kind—for commoners, soldiers and other assorted
undesirables.”

He was standing at attention in the front rank of the regiment, alongside
Dieter, Gerhardt and Rieger. Half an hour earlier, the Scarlets had been
summoned from their quarters along with several other regiments to bear witness
to the death of the former general Erich von Nieder—once commander-in-chief of
the armies of Hochland. For days, ever since von Nieder had been captured,
rumours had run rife throughout the army that he had been sentenced to be
hanged. No one had believed it, however—not until they were ordered to go and
watch the execution.

The army was camped in the northern forests, a few leagues west of the mill
house where Dieter and the others had made their stand against the night goblin
army. In the wake of General von Grahl’s arrival on the scene, it seemed to
Dieter that everything had changed.

The last month had passed almost as a blur, as von Grahl assembled a new army
made up of a mixture of old regiments like the Scarlets and new regiments
recently constituted via a province-wide muster. Many of the newly-mustered
regiments were still being equipped and trained further south, but General von
Grahl had managed to acquire enough men to bolster his army—even if the
majority of the new recruits had yet to see any action.

“I can’t believe how small and fragile he looks,” Dieter said, staring at the
man standing on the scaffold. “I mean, I know he’s an old man. But, it’s the
first time I’ve seen General von Nieder up close. I suppose I expected him to
bigger.”

“Ex-general,” Rieger reminded him. “And, as for hanging him, I hear it’s
because when the scouts found him von Nieder was carrying over a dozen bags of
gold with him. Apparently, when the orcs overran us back in Erntezeit, von
Nieder decided to loot the army’s pay chest before he escaped. They think he was
trying to cross the border into Ostland when the scouts found him. He probably
hoped to live out his remaining years in luxury while his soldiers were busy
running for their lives from the orcs. You ask me, hanging is almost too good
for him.”