03 - Call to Arms (27 page)

“Who goes there?” Hoist called out loudly as the first of the riders came
closer.

“The bodyguards of His Excellency Aldebrand Ludenhof, Count of Hochland and
all related territories,” came back the gruff reply. “Why? Who’s asking?”

The riders appeared out of the rain, revealing a half a dozen knights wearing
the Count’s livery on their shields and panther skins around their shoulders.
Coming to a stop before the Scarlets, the knights’ leader raised a hand in
salute and lifted his visor to look down at them.

“I am Graf Ernst von Toppel of the Knights Panther, leader of the bodyguard
to His Excellency the Count of Hochland. Who’s in charge here?”

“I am,” Captain Harkner stepped forward. “Captain Harkner of the 3rd Hochland
Swordsmen. Well met, sir knight.”

“Well met, captain,” the knight nodded. “Count Aldebrand travels with us. He
wishes to be taken to meet General von Grahl at once.”

“The Count is with you?” Harkner appeared surprised. Catching himself, he
began again more calmly. “Forgive my question. It is a matter for the Count as
to where he goes and when. I speak only as a soldier, to whom the Count’s
presence here seems a good omen.”

“Let us hope so,” the knight said. “It is a good time for omens, I think. The
latest reports we have received say the orc army is only a few leagues north of
here. Let us hope the Count will lead us to victory. Alongside General von
Grahl, of course.”

“Of course,” Captain Harkner agreed. He gestured to his men to clear a path
for the Count and his entourage. “If you will follow me, I will send a runner to
tell General von Grahl that the Count has arrived.”

From

The Testimony of General Ludwig von Grahl

(unexpurgated text):

“…You have a plan to defeat the greenskins?” the Count asked, once we were
alone in my command tent. “You will forgive our surprise, von Grahl, but we
thought your plan was to contain the enemy, not destroy him. I thought you
didn’t have enough men to achieve that grandiose aim.”

“It is true I don’t have as many men as I’d like, Your Excellency,” I
replied. “And, certainly, the plan is not without its risks. But circumstances
have come together in a way which I believe will allow us to defeat the orcs in
open battle, not just hold them.”

“Ah, yes, the rain.” The Count turned back to the maps spread out on the
table before us,
his quick sharp eyes taking in the details. “You think
it will make the difference?”

“I think it presents us with our best chance. I have chosen the battleground
with the conditions in mind. The men have been drilled with a specific battle
plan in mind. Nothing can ever be guaranteed in war, but they are as ready as
they will ever be.”

“Good.”

Upon his arrival, the Count’s servants had left a long wooden case on the
table. He laid his hand across it now.

“You have done well, von Grahl. Whatever the outcome of the battle tomorrow,
it will never be said that you shirked in your duty. You are a credit to
Hochland. With that in mind, I wish to reward you.”

He opened the case, taking a sword from inside it. Removing the sword from
its sheath, he revealed a rune-encrusted blade of obvious dwarf workmanship. It
was no match for the runefang at his hip, but still the sword was a magnificent
weapon.

“I took this from the province’s armoury before I left Hergig. It is a mighty
weapon, given to the Counts of Hochland some centuries ago in return for a
service the Count of the time had performed for one of the dwarf holds. It
seemed fitting that our general should ride into battle with such a blade.”

He handed the sword to me. Testing its weight, I found it light and
responsive. At the same time, I could feel the power inside it, like a coiled
serpent ready to strike.

“My liege… I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing. Know only that this gift is a sign of my faith. I believe in
your plan, von Grahl. It will be our honour to ride by your side tomorrow.”

He turned to look back at the plans. “The battle lines are drawn. Now, the
fate of Hochland is in the hands of the gods…”

“Men of Hochland,” the general had said earlier that morning as he delivered
a final speech to the assembled troops under his command, “today is a day that
will live long in the memory of our people. Today is the day when we will sweep
the greenskins aside. Today is the day when we will win a crushing victory.”

At those words, a cheer had rung out among the men. In his place among the
ranks of the Scarlets, Dieter heard a word repeated by the soldiers around him,
chanted almost, until it became like a heartbeat to which the entire army
responded.

“Victory!” they said, cheering. “Victory! Victory!”

A few hours later, he remembered those words as the Scarlets stood on a low
ridge overlooking open fields. Last night, after a conference with Count
Aldebrand, General von Grahl had abruptly ordered the army to break camp. He had
marched them north, telling his men to take up position on a line of hills and
ridges set facing a broad expanse of open country. On the other side of the
fields, the greenskin army was already massing.

Looking down at the enemy army, Dieter was struck by how greatly the
Hochlanders were outnumbered. It was hard to judge the matter with any accuracy,
but by his rough estimate he reckoned the greenskins outnumbered them at least
two to one—perhaps by as much as a factor of three to one if his estimate was
out. Whatever their precise numbers, the sheer scale of the enemy force arrayed
against the Hochlander army was terrifying.

As he waited for the battle to begin, Dieter cast his mind back to the
previous night and the encounter with Count Aldebrand. If anything, calling it
an encounter flattered the event. In reality, Dieter had caught nothing more
than a brief glimpse of the Count as a party of Scarlets escorted the Count and
his bodyguard to meet General von Grahl. The moment they got within the camp,
the Scarlets had been dismissed and told to return to guard duty while a phalanx
of greatswords took up escort duty in their stead.

Dieter supposed it was a matter of protocol. Despite their illustrious
reputation as a fighting unit, the Scarlets were apparently judged too humdrum a
regiment to be allowed the prestigious task of escorting their ruler. For
Dieter’s part, he took no offence at the snub. It was enough to him that, after
eighteen years of life, he had finally caught his first glimpse of royalty.

It had been hard to see much of the Count among the sheeting rain, but from
what Dieter had seen he seemed every bit the powerful, imperious ruler he had
been led to expect. The Count was a tall, thin man, but there was no hiding his
strength—both in his limbs and in the cold fire of his eyes. He had appeared
to be something of a haughty fellow, although in Dieter’s experience most
aristocrats were like that.

A hawk had sat perched on the Count’s shoulder. It was a hunting bird, no
doubt raised from the eggshell to obey its master. The Count had long been
famous for his collection of hunting birds. Even more impressive was the weapon
Dieter saw sheathed at the Count’s left hip. Dieter had never seen it before,
nor even hoped to, but there was no mistaking the identity of the Count’s sword.
It was a runefang, one of the twelve ancient magical blades which, according to
legend, had been forged by the dwarf runesmith Alaric the Mad at the dawn of the
Empire.

Seeing the Count’s runefang, even with the blade sheathed, had been enough to
make Dieter’s breath catch in his throat. Its very presence seemed to promise
victory.

In the cold light of morning, as Dieter waited with the rest of the army for
battle to begin, he wondered whether the promise he had seen in the presence of
the runefang was not just wishful thinking. They were facing so many greenskins
it was hard to believe victory was possible.

Once, the fields below the rise Dieter was standing on had been meant for
agriculture. Long before that, they had been forest. They had been cleared by
weeks, months or even years of back-breaking labour. Now, it seemed likely they
would be given over to more bloody labours.

There was movement in the greenskin lines. Dieter saw a large group of goblin
wolf riders detach themselves from the main body of their fellows and start to
make their way slowly up the rise. They were headed in the Scarlets’ direction.

“Stand fast,” Captain Harkner called out in a warning tone. He stood with the
men of one of the front-most ranks of the Scarlets’ formation. “Remember our
orders. We’re to hold this position. If enemy skirmishers come this way, we will
drive them off if we can. But it’s more important that we hold the position.”

The Scarlets were at the right edge of the Hochlanders’ battle line,
affording them an excellent view of the rest of their army. Given the elevated
nature of the ridge, Dieter could see almost every unit and regiment in the army
from where he was standing. He found it vaguely surprising that General von
Grahl hadn’t chosen the same spot for his headquarters, but he supposed it was
too far away from the army’s centre.

The majority of the army’s small force of cannons were situated on a high
ridge to the right of the Scarlets, affording them a clear field of fire to
shoot at the greenskins as they advanced on the human positions. Dieter realised
the Scarlets had been placed on the next ridge to the artillery along with a
regiment of spearmen and several militia free companies, in order to guard the
approaches to the artillery’s position and prevent the enemy’s fast cavalry from
attacking the gunners.

To the left of the Scarlets’ position, the centre of the human line was made
up of alternating units of halberds and spearmen, as well as the occasional
mercenary unit of Tilean pikemen. Smaller detachments of swordsmen had been
positioned immediately behind the main infantry line, alongside several more
free companies. In a classic tactic beloved by Empire armies, the units of
halberdiers and spearmen were meant to hold off the orcs, while the detachments
behind them rushed out through the gaps to attack the enemy in the flanks.

Finally, General von Grahl had put the majority of his cavalry in a slightly
withdrawn position to the left of the main body of his army. Compared to the
infantry forces General von Grahl had at his disposal, his cavalry was
relatively short on numbers. The army’s heavy cavalry was made up of a small
force of knights from the Order of the Blazing Sun, alongside a few local
noblemen who had rallied to General von Grahl’s banner once it became clear he
intended to make a stand against the orcs. The general had positioned his
knights behind a screen of pistoliers and outriders, perhaps hoping to hide the
paucity of their numbers from the enemy.

Dieter was no great military mastermind, but even he could see that von Grahl
had done everything in his power to make sure he could get the best from the
forces at his disposal. The general had even held back a trump card.

Behind the Hochlander positions, a second army of several thousand bowmen had
been held in reserve, out of sight of the greenskins. They were militia archers,
mostly local peasant bowmen and huntsmen who had been press-ganged into service
by General von Grahl as he passed from village to village on his long ride
northwards. They had received no great training, but each man was at least a
middling bowman, possessing enough skill to put an arrow in the air with some
hope it would hit its target. The greenskins had no way of knowing it as yet,
but an unpleasant surprise waited for them once their army advanced to attack.

In the meantime, however, it was important that the enemy did not become
aware of the archers’ presence. General von Grahl had issued strict instructions
in that regard. No matter what the provocation, no archer was to notch an arrow
- much less loose it—until von Grahl himself gave the order.

“Here they come,” Hoist said. He was standing next to Dieter in the front
rank of the Scarlets’ formation, alongside Gerhardt and Rieger. “Did I ever tell
you the story of how I saved Count Aldebrand’s life at the Battle of
Tannesfeld?”

“Tell me later,” Dieter told him. “After the battle.”

“A good idea,” Hoist nodded. “It will give you something to look forward to.”

Ahead of them, the wolf riders had almost completed climbing the rise.
Raising their bows as they rode toward the Scarlets, the goblins prepared to
fire.

“Shields high!” Captain Harkner shouted an order as the enemy loosed their
arrows.

Acting as though with one mind, the Scarlets complied with the order. Each
man raised his shield high, angling it to form a barrier against the incoming
arrow storm as the enemy’s shots arced their way towards them. As the arrows
made impact, Dieter was reminded of the sound of hail stones striking a wood
shingle roof. Being of poor quality goblin manufacture, most of the arrows
shattered as they hit the Scarlets’ shields, although Dieter heard several
screams behind him as unlucky men were struck by arrows slipping past their
shields.

Undeterred in their efforts, the wolf riders fired another volley of arrows,
then another. Each time, the result was the same. The Scarlets lost a few men to
each salvo, but the majority of the goblins’ arrows failed to hit their marks.

At the same time, Dieter was struck by the cruel irony of the situation.
Barely a stone’s throw away, the Hochlanders had a supply of archers capable of
vastly outshooting the wolf riders. Yet, for tactical reasons, the Scarlets had
to stand and take the enemy’s punishment so as to avoid interfering with their
general’s battle plans.

The stalemate continued for long minutes as the wolf riders sent in salvo
after salvo of arrows. Eventually, a line of handgunners advanced from further
along the centre of the Hochlanders’ battle line and fired their own
counter-salvo from their muskets. The wolf riders were quickly put to flight,
while the men on the ridge cheered the sight of the enemy’s retreat.