03 - Call to Arms (6 page)

“Is that right?” the voice asked. “Well, in that case, I have an observation.
You, sir, are a damnable, pox-ridden cur. Your mother, assuming any woman would
admit to that offence, was a harlot with carnal knowledge of every dung-seller,
ratcatcher and body snatcher in the Greater Hergig area. Also, your face appears
to be covered with a light dusting of flour, making you appear even more of an
idiot than you already are. I call you out. As does my colleague.”

Turning, Dieter saw two soldiers approaching in the uniform of the Scarlets.
The first, evidently the one who had spoken, was a dark-haired man of medium
height, with a hawkish nose and quick, grey eyes. His blond-haired comrade was
taller and thinner, with an ascetic, intense air about him that seemed to sit
uneasily with his profession. If it were not for his uniform, Dieter might have
taken the second man for a scribe or a priest.

“Call me out, you say?” Hoist jumped out of the wagon, landing beside his
pile of stolen goods. “The two of you? I accept the challenge. Do you want me to
fight you one after the other, or both at once? Frankly, given the fact you look
like a pair of pus-dribbling simpletons, I can’t imagine it’d make any
difference.”

His grin widening, Hoist advanced and embraced the men, first one, and then
the other.

“Gerhardt! Rieger! It’s good to see you. So, the orcs haven’t killed you?
What news of the war?”

“Slow going,” the dark man shrugged. “We haven’t seen any greenskins yet,
though if you listen to rumours they’ve been laying waste to settlements all
across the frontier. So far, the only action we’ve seen is against beastmen like
the ones that attacked your caravan. Naturally, of course, that’s all because of
the orcs.”

“How could that be?” Dieter asked him. “Beastmen and orcs don’t work
together.”

He regretted speaking almost immediately. Until then, the two new arrivals
had ignored him, but now they turned to regard him with dispassionate eyes.
Although he did his best to maintain his composure, Dieter felt distinctly
uneasy under their scrutiny.

“Who’s this?” the dark one asked Hoist. “It’s not like you to pick up waifs
and strays on the road, Hoist.”

“Not unless they’re female,” the blond man offered, speaking for the first
time.

“Indeed,” the dark man nodded. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Dieter.
“What about it, boy? You’ve got the bright-eyed, eager look of a would-be
recruit about you. Have you come to make war on Hochland’s enemies? Or are you
just lost in the woods, like the rest of us?”

“My name is Dieter Lanz,” Dieter said, refusing to be intimidated. “I have
come to join the Scarlets.”

“Really?” The dark man turned away to look at Hoist. “Where’d you find him?
Is he some illegitimate son that you fathered on a doxy, come to track you down?
Or a creditor, perhaps? There’s a few of them who’d be willing to follow you all
the way to the Chaos Wastes if they thought it’d make you pay what you owe.
Certainly, he can’t be a soldier.”

“Ah, leave the lad alone, Gerhardt,” Hoist said. “He did all right. Granted,
he asks stupid questions, but he pretty much does what you tell him. And he’s a
dab hand with a sword.”

“In that case, he’d better come with us.” The dark-haired one, Gerhardt,
turned toward Dieter. “To answer your question, the orc advance has forced some
of the beastmen tribes to flee their territory like animals running from a
forest fire. That’s why these beastmen here attacked your caravan—the orcs
have driven them away from their usual hunting ground, so they’re hungry. Any
more questions?”

“Uh… no…” Dieter found himself almost squirming at the intensity of the other
man’s gaze. At the same time, he wondered at the ferocity of the orcs that they
could send terrifying monsters like the beastmen scurrying before them like
frightened rats.

“Good.” Gerhardt turned away. “Well, come on then. We haven’t got all day. We
will escort this caravan back to our encampment, then you can see Captain
Harkner, our regimental commander. If you want to be a Scarlet, boy, he’s the
man you need to impress.”

Dusk was falling by the time they reached the Empire encampment. Having left
behind a detachment of men to build pyres to burn the beastmen’s bodies, the
Scarlets had transferred the human dead to the back of one of the carts and
escorted the caravan back to the camp without delay. Despite the poor quality of
the roadway, they made good time and the journey passed without further
incident.

By then, Hoist had introduced Dieter to several of his comrades. The blond,
thin one was named Rieger, Dieter learned, while the dark-haired one called
Gerhardt turned out to be the de facto leader of the group of soldiers who had
saved the caravan. The Scarlets had been posted to patrol the camp’s outer
perimeter, hence their timely rescue. The forest landscape was misleading, but
it turned out the caravan had actually been much closer to the camp when the
beastmen attacked than Dieter expected.

The army was camped in a wide clearing by the side of a babbling forest
stream. Dieter caught his first sight of the encampment as the descending sun
turned red as it reached the horizon. Given the company Dieter was keeping, it
gave the scene an appropriately scarlet cast.

“Red sun is falling, old Morr is calling,” Hoist said, indicating the sunset.
“I remember I heard that once, from a farmer or shepherd—I don’t recall which.
I suppose it’s what you’d call a country wisdom. Farmers and shepherds are full
of such sayings. It’s always beware ye this, or beware ye that. And who knows
what any of their nonsense means? Granted, you hear these things and they stick
with you. But most of these sayings are meaningless.”

“And yet you decided to share one with us anyway?” Rieger asked, his voice
friendly but gently mocking. “I suppose your mind is so full of wisdom, it
should come as no surprise that something occasionally spills out.”

“Kiss my arse, Rieger,” Hoist grunted back. “I didn’t say it was important. I
was just trying to make conversation. I take it you’d prefer it if we trudged
along in silence?”

Hoist had become somewhat crotchety since they had resumed their journey.
With the arrival of his regiment, he now walked by the side of one of the carts,
guarding its flank as it trundled slowly toward camp. Hoist had been compelled
to give up his comfortable position in one of the carts by the fact he had now
returned to duty, but Dieter had given his own place up willingly to allow a
wounded man to ride in his stead. Beside which, now the Scarlets were there, he
wanted to be in their company.

They were not quite as he anticipated. Dieter had not given much thought to
it on his way from Hergig, but he supposed he had expected something more in
line with his childish imaginings. He had thought the members of the 3rd would
be well groomed, their uniforms immaculate, their armour and weapons polished to
a gleaming shine.

The reality was less impressive. The sword was a weapon that required more
skill to use effectively than a spear or halberd, and, as swordsmen, the
Scarlets were counted as an elite among the infantry. They walked with a natural
swagger as befitted their status, but their uniforms were hard-worn, even
threadbare in places. Their breastplates and the blades of their swords were
blackened, daubed with mud he supposed so they would not reflect the sun in
situations when stealth was needed.

Dieter understood the realities of campaigning. He knew war was a harsh,
dirty business that bore little resemblance to the fine tales of the
storytellers and the balladeers. Still, he had idolised the idea of the Scarlets
since childhood. The realisation they were simply soldiers, no different from
fighting men anywhere else in the Empire, seemed almost disappointing.

“Hoist says you are the son of Helmut Schau?” Gerhardt said to him.

“Not his son. But he raised me. My mother died when I was an infant. Helmut
and his wife Marta took me in. They brought me up alongside their own children.”

“A good man,” Hoist said. “Did you know I saved his life?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Rieger interrupted. “Hoist didn’t serve with your
foster father, any more than the rest of us did. Helmut Schau was retired by the
time we joined the regiment. We only know of him because his name lingered on in
the tales of some of the old-timers.”

“You are mistaken, Rieger,” Hoist shot back. “I remember the event clearly.
It was at the Battle of Tannesfeld—”

“Again, another lie,” Rieger shook his head. “I have heard Hoist tell the
same story of the Battle of Tannesfeld more than two dozen times. Depending on
who’s listening, he claims to have saved the life of Helmut Schau, Captain
Harkner, Ludwig Schwarzhelm, the poet Felix Jaeger, or even the Emperor Karl
Franz himself. The story is usually followed immediately by an attempt to borrow
money from the victim.”

“You know, you talk too much, Rieger,” Hoist frowned petulantly. “How’s a man
to keep himself in the style he’s accustomed to when you keep scaring people
off? ‘Oh, don’t lend money to Hoist,’ you say. ‘He’ll only go and spend it.’

“It’s got so there’s no one left I can turn to when I’m a bit short.”

“Have you considered I might be trying to save you from yourself?” Rieger
replied sardonically. “You borrow money easily enough, but it’s the repayment of
the loans that always gets you in trouble. What about that last tavern brawl in
Hergig? The one that left you invalided out of the regiment for a month? Wasn’t
that about money?”

“Only peripherally,” Hoist sniffed. “Those bastard halberdiers had the
effrontery to suggest I’d been cheating at cards. Of course, after that, I had
to fight them. The honour of the regiment was at stake. Anyway, who appointed
you as my conscience? If I wanted a priest to be my confessor, I’d go find one.”

“You needn’t worry,” Rieger smiled. “I’m not trying to save your soul, Hoist.
Nor dissuade you from further sin. That is a task beyond even our Lord Sigmar
himself.”

The lead elements of the caravan had reached the perimeter of the camp. While
Gerhardt went forward to consult with the sentries guarding the camp’s
approaches, Dieter cast his eyes over the camp itself.

The magnitude of the camp was the first thing that struck him. He had heard
the Count of Hochland had called up twenty thousand men, a sizeable complement.
Only now, confronted by the scale of their encampment, did he believe it.

The camp was on a low rise, allowing him to take in much of its breadth in
one vision. At its outskirts the camp was protected by a ring of pickets,
sharpened wooden stakes set close enough together to deter the attack of enemy
cavalry, guarded by a mixed sentry force of handgunners, halberdiers and
spearmen.

Reinforcing their efforts, Dieter saw that several cannons had been situated
at regular intervals in protected positions behind the pickets. All around the
perimeter, a wide corridor of the forest had been cleared, creating open
territory designed to offer no cover from the camp’s artillery. Dieter did not
doubt that any enemy assaulting the camp would be made to regret it.

Ahead, at the point where the trail they had been following crossed the
camp’s perimeter, Dieter saw Gerhardt was in deep conversation with the captain
of a unit of handgunners on sentry duty. A temporary wooden barricade had been
laid across the trail, blocking progress to the camp. With a gesture from the
handgunners’ captain, the barricade was lifted from its position and moved aside
to allow entrance.

The caravan resumed its journey. As they passed by the men guarding the
barricade, the Scarlets traded insults with the handgunners. It all seemed in
good humour, but Dieter heard comments bantered back and forth that he was sure
would make the most boorish man in his village back home blush. In particular,
the two groups of soldiers seemed to delight in insulting each others’ prowess,
whether in military matters or more private areas.

Having passed into the camp proper, the caravan moved toward a broad, flat
area set aside for carts. Finally ensconced in the safety of the camp, the
victuallers began to draw their wagons to rest, removing the dray teams from
harness and seeing to the men wounded in the beastman ambush. Surgeons were
summoned, and stable masters, to see to human and equine needs.

Having consulted at length with the captain at the barricade, Gerhardt had
returned. The Scarlets gathered around him expectantly, Dieter with them.

“All right,” Gerhardt said. “You’ve got an hour to yourselves. Clean up, then
go to the kitchen tents and see if you can scrounge some food.”

He turned to Dieter as the other men dispersed.

“Not you. You’re coming with me to see Captain Harkner.”

“So, you know Helmut Schau? What did he tell you to say to me?”

Ten minutes later, Dieter found himself in the tent of the regimental
commander, Captain Harkner. The captain was a burly man in his late forties, his
blond hair and full beard starting to grey with age. He stared at Dieter
intently, clearly trying to size him up.

“Well? Orc got your tongue, boy?” The captain’s eyes narrowed. “I asked you a
question. Obviously, the bastard Schau would have told you to say something to
me when we first met. What is it?”

“I…” Dieter had rehearsed the moment in his head a hundred times on the road,
but now it was upon him his mouth felt dry. “He told me to say you are a son of
a whore and you cheat at dice.”

For a moment, there was silence in the tent. Then, much to Dieter’s relief,
the captain laughed.

“I see nothing has changed with the old scoundrel, then? Still moaning over
his gambling losses, is he? He was so piss-poor when it came to games of chance,
it always surprised me he ever managed to build enough of a stake to retire from
the army and go into business. What profession did he choose in the end? Tavern
keeper?”