Blight leapt to his feet, cursing and slashing his claws across the snout of a nearby slave. He shook his fist at the arena below.
The ogre-rat had managed to free itself from the scorpion’s pincers, its brawn such that one of the claws had been torn in half. Now the brute had its arms wrapped about the deathwalker’s tail. While the arachnid scrambled to escape the hairy hulk’s grip, the ogre-rat’s powerful muscles flexed. With a ghastly popping noise and the rending of fibrous tendons, the brute tore the scorpion’s tail from its body.
Blight snapped commands to his entourage, his taste for the Abattoir lost with the turn of battle. ‘Think well upon my offer, priest,’ he snarled down at Puskab. ‘I will not make it again.’ The Wormlord clashed his paws together and his retinue began to scurry for the closest exit.
Puskab turned his eyes back to the arena, watching as Clan Moulder’s new monstrosity beat the huge scorpion with its own severed tail. The plague priest’s rotten face pulled back in a gruesome leer. Hurriedly he scrambled after Blight Tenscratch.
The Poxmaster had decided he would accept Blight’s offer of alliance.
Chapter VI
Altdorf
Kaldezeit, 1111
Erich von Kranzbeuhler shifted uneasily in his saddle, watching as the morning fog rolled in from the Reik. He could just see the trees of the Altgarten — those the marchers hadn’t cut down — and the murky glow of campfires shining from the shantytown. The young knight reached down to his sword, his heart sickening as he felt the pommel between his fingers. He could not easily forget the motto engraved upon the blade of his sword. ‘Honour. Courage. Emperor.’
Today he would betray one of those solemn oaths. He would ask the knights under his command to break faith with the vows they had undertaken. It was an enormous responsibility, one the young captain still wasn’t sure he was equal to. He closed his eyes and prayed to Sigmar to lend him that strength.
‘They don’t really expect us to ride down our own soldiers, do they?’ The whispered question came from the knight beside him, a tall, stalwart warrior named Aldinger.
For one of the Reiksknecht’s veterans to ask such a question made Erich decide he had made the right decision. The only way the Reiksknecht could respect the first two oaths was to betray the last.
The captain peered through the grey veil, staring across at the massed ranks of cavalry. The entire strength of the Reiksknecht had been called out to supplement the Kaiserjaeger and the Schuetzenverein in quelling what had been termed ‘rebellion’ in their orders. The plan, as laid out by Adolf Kreyssig, was for the Reiksknecht to spearhead the attack, with the Kaiserjaeger and Schueters following on the flanks. The commander had made his intention clear. The knights were to drive Engel’s rebels into the river. No quarter was to be given.
Grand Master von Schomberg’s face had grown pale when he read the orders, but it had only made him even more determined to defy the Emperor. The plans he had discussed with his officers were much different from those Kreyssig had drawn up. The Reiksknecht would lead the charge, but only for a hundred yards. Once their backs were to the trees, they would turn about and stage a counter charge against the Kaiserjaeger and the Scheuters. It was hoped the surprise attack would throw the other forces into such confusion that they would disperse and retreat into the city.
After that, Engel and his people would have to fend for themselves. The Reiksknecht would have their own problems. The plan was to withdraw into the Reikschloss. There were food and provisions there to endure a lengthy siege. The longer they held out, the more embarrassment it would cause Emperor Boris and bring unwanted attention to the reasons why the Emperor’s most loyal order of knights had turned against him.
Erich turned around, trying to find Grand Master von Schomberg in the fog. He could just make out the figure of Othmar, the Grand Master’s standard bearer, but he couldn’t see his leader. It was just as well. If he saw doubt in the old baron’s eyes, he didn’t know what he would do.
‘Ernst,’ he called, looking over to see if his adjutant was close. He saw the burly knight lift a gauntlet to his visor in reply. ‘Stay close to me,’ Erich told him, pointing at the horn tied to the dienstmann’s belt. ‘I may need to signal changes in formation after we begin the charge.’
Again, the spectre of doubt tugged at Erich’s mind. Could he really go through with this? Was he really going to betray a direct command from his Emperor?
Still fighting his inner daemons, the sound of pounding hooves brought a curse to the captain’s lips. Some fool had started the charge early! Up and down the line, he could hear the other officers shouting in confusion, wondering who had given the order. Grand Master von Schomberg’s fierce tones barked out, ordering the rest to support the knights that had started the attack.
Like a single creature, the twenty knights under Erich’s command urged their warhorses into a gallop. The steel-clad destriers lunged forwards, charging out from the plaza where they had mustered into formation. Erich felt the thrill of the charge course through his veins, saw the fog break apart before his leaping steed.
Then, disaster! The plaza which had only a moment before echoed with the clatter of charging knights now descended into a bedlam of screaming men and horses. Animals crashed to the earth on broken legs, crushing their riders beneath them as they floundered upon the cobblestones. Men hurtled through the air as their mounts threw them, smashing into the earth like plummeting gargoyles. It was like listening to the roar of an avalanche, the maddened shriek of a volcano.
Erich’s horse buckled beneath him, pitching onto its side. The only thing that saved the captain from being pinned beneath his animal was the second floundering horse that reared up and pushed his own animal away. He was able to drop down from the saddle of his stricken destrier, scrambling away before the flailing hooves and hurtling bodies of the other warhorses could smash him down.
Like a great steel rat, the knight scurried away from the grotesque bedlam. As he did so, Erich saw the cause of the havoc. Under cover of the fog, someone had strewn spiked caltrops across the mouth of the plaza, leaving a field of jagged iron to impale the hooves of anyone trying to ride out.
He ripped his sword from its sheath, his first instinct being to place blame upon the obvious enemy. Wilhelm Engel and his Marchers! The scum had done this, used this churlish trick to cripple the Reiksknecht’s horses and maim the Reiksknecht’s men! Well, if Emperor Boris wanted a massacre, then Erich would be happy to oblige him now!
Then the captain saw the furtive figures stealing out from the buildings facing the plaza, peeking down from the rooftops and slinking down alleyways and side-streets. Kaiserjaeger! The horrible truth dawned upon Erich. It had been Kreyssig’s men who had strewn the road with caltrops. Many of them had been hunters and woodsmen, they would have the skills to sneak in and leave such a hideous surprise under cover of the fog!
In the hands of each of the black-clad soldiers the slender curve of a bow was held at the ready. The Reiksknecht inside the plaza were hopelessly surrounded; the only way open to them lay across the field of caltrops and the bodies of their own injured comrades.
Kreyssig had plotted well. Somehow he had learned of Grand Master von Schomberg’s intention to stop the massacre. With murderous planning, the commander had neutralised an entire order of knights. Screams rising from the Altgarten, raging fires blazing from the squalor of Breadburg showed that Kreyssig had even reserved enough of his forces to still carry out his original mission.
‘Knights of the Reiksknecht,’ a grating voice called out. ‘Lay down your weapons and submit to the Emperor’s justice!’