The sun crept through the bare branches, illuminating the ground in droplets of light, revealing the past slaughter of the camp. After taking his watch, Valten had fallen asleep against a tree, Ghal Maraz resting in his lap gently. Looking up, he saw most of the knights were up before him, some oiling blades, others readying their horses and yet more keeping watch out into the forest.
The pyre had burned out by now, a few lengths of bone all that indicated that bodies once lay there. Well, the ashes and the stench of cooked flesh.
He closed his eyes and thought again of Erich. His friend had been with him through all the running battles on the Nordland Coast, was one of the few survivors when Luthor Huss had found them, had fought at his side at Alderfen, now taken and butchered by beastmen, like an animal. He curled his fingers into a fist around the golden haft of Ghal Maraz. He was supposed to stop this, wasn't he, he was supposed to protect them, to stand between them and those who would do them harm. But if he couldn't protect even his friends...
"We should get moving, the Emperor can't wait for us, and the longer we wait the greater the danger between us and him."
Emil nodded, glancing at the shadows of the trees. "I agree, we should move before noon."
"Lord Valten," one of the Templarshad approached him, bowing his head in respect. "Lord, if it please you... my horse is yours to ride back to the camp."
"It does not please me," he muttered, getting to his feet. Be nicer. "Keep your horse, knight, my own is in the camp, and I'm not so sure he would forgive me were I to ride another."
The knight chucked. "So be it, my lord."
The horse had been a gift from the Emperor, the finest steed in the Imperial Menagerie some said, he doubted it, but the pure white stallion had proven it's worth to him on the retreat, it knew and was unafraid of war, and was capable of holding his significant armoured weight with ease.
Still, it was fitting that the armoured knights towered over his form as they made their way out of the ruined camp and towards the road which headed south, he was still their prisoner in invisible chains.
They walked for hours, the trees seeming to stare at them as they passed, and he kept Ghal Maraz ready, who could tell whether it was the trees or darker forces lurking within them. "Hold!" Came a call from the head of the column, "make ready, disturbance on the road."
Before any of the knights could stop him, Valten strode forwards. Four men of the empire lay on the road, bloody and broken. "Soldiers of Hochland," Emil muttered, swinging down from his rough brown courser and approaching the men. "Scouts by the look of them, still warm too, this happened recently." He knelt beside one man lying face down on the road. "Poor bloody waste, wouldn't you say?"
"I'd say they were probably killed by the beasts we drove from the camp," Valten muttered. He approached a different man who lay propped against a tree, a spear sticking from his stomach. Even in victory I cause death, what am I doing wrong?
He reached out to touch the man's forehead. When he did so, his eyes fluttered, only a little. "Hey," he said, reaching out and shaking the man gently on the shoulder. A definite flutter. "This one's still alive." He needed help. He pressed on the wound, trying to staunch the damage a little. "I need help?"
"This one's on death's door Herald, there's nothing to be done."
"Damn you all!" He cursed. Why wouldn't anyone do anything about this, Chaos, anything?!
The soldier was gasping lightly, his lips fluttering, wisps of breath pushing between them. He was trying to say something. Valten leant in close, pulling his hair behind his ear.
"Hergig," the soldier whispered. "Hergig... surrounded... help..."
"Hergig?" Valten asked.
The soldier gave one last twitch before his head lolled forward. "Damnation!" He got to his feet.
"Come sir, we should keep moving the things that did this could still be-" Valten swatted the knight's armoured gauntlet of his shoulder.
"Hergig?" He demanded, turning to the knights. "What is it?"
"A... city," one replied hesitantly.
"I gathered that much fool, I doubt a scout would be coming to plead for help for a village with his dying breath. What city?"
Emil came forward on his horse. "Hergig is the capital of Hochland, probably three day's march, as the crow flies."
"This man said the city was surrounded," Valten said, gesturing to the corpse.
"Surround Hergig?" One knight said, shaking his head. "Hergig is not over large, but to surround and truly threaten it, it must be quite a force. Thousand strong at least."
"Tens of thousands, Count Aldebrand had most of his army with him on his retreat, nothing less than that would endanger the city."
"Tens of thousands," Valten turned and looked at the bodies. Behind him the knights continued their pointless discussion about numbers and dangers. They argued over whether Hergig would be able to hold, wondered about the condition of the Hochland army, but the one thing they agreed upon was that they should return to the Emperor and inform him of the situation, that he might decide what to do.
Why bother, he already knew what the Emperor would do, he would continue the retreat, it was inevitable, he had too many soldiers to worry about to waste any traversing a dangerous forest to defend a not so important city that might not even still stand. And these knights, their attitude was just like Luthor Huss, sit, wait, learn and lose. No longer.
He turned to them. "I'm going," he said flatly.
They looked at him surprised, as though they'd forgotten he'd been standing there.
"Going?"
He nodded. "I'm going to Hergig, I'm going to save the city."
They glanced to each other like he was mad as a crow. "Sir... Herald... there are only forty of us."
"And not a man among you, I'm aware. Go on, carry on to Franz, but I am tired of refusing to fight, and I will not be held back any longer." He raised Ghal Maraz. "Hergig shall be the anvil upon which Ghal Maraz smites the enemy."
Emil swung down from his horse and strode over. "Herald," he breathed softly, placing his hand on his shoulder like a father would to an angry son. "I know you grieve for your friend, but losing yourself in the fire of a meaningless battle will not bring them back."
"I have no intention of losing myself, but if I'd been allowed to fight from the beginning, my friend may still be alive, and Sigmar knows how many others as well."
"But Herald,"
"Don't 'Herald' me, Witch Hunter, I am the head of the Cult of Sigmar, YOUR commander. I will no longer sit idle. I will go to Hergig and do all that I can to save it, if there is anything left to save. Perhaps there won't be, but I won't abandon the thousands of people there to their fate. You can either come with me, or point the way and return to the army of Franz while I go myself."
Emil looked at him curiously, clearly not expecting such an outburst. Then he nodded. "Let me speak to the men."
Valten waited impatiently as Emil talked with the knights and priests. Finally, after far too long a wait, Emil returned. "The men will return to the Emperor and report your decision. I will guide you to Hergig, just the two of us can move with speed and subtlety and hopefully avoid entanglements."
Valten nodded. "Good." As soon as they were able, the two left, Emil leaving his horse with the knights so they might traverse directly through the forest.
He smelt the smoke and blood long before they came into sight of the city itself. Every step took them deeper into danger, and Emil tried time and again to get him to turn around. But he would hear none of it, and as they got closer, and heard the sounds of battle and destruction, he was only spurred on to move faster, branches snapping and leaves crunching under his gromril boot.
They reached the end of a wooded cliff overlooking the city and he froze at the sight awaiting them.
The city was under total assault. Directly ahead was a broken bridge, stone shattered and fallen into a gulley, corpses strewn across the lengths that remained, riddled with arrows, bullets and bolts. To the south, the gulley lazily flowed down towards a stream that circles the city, the hovels and huts along the length of it, burned and broken. Up the other side an army of barbarians was trying to assault the city, moving up the hill under cover of their shields. The corpse of what looked like a great mammoth was slumped to one side. Missiles from the walls rained down on the attackers every time they got near, driving them back. To the north, another was under deadly assault, were the enemy already in? It seemed so, the enemy seemed to be moving towards it, and black smoke twisted up into the air from the city just behind. Missiles poured over the walls, explosive rockets from mortars and rocket batteries were slung out and detonated in the midst of enemy forces. At the same time, from their ramshackle camps, strange daemon engines fired back at the city, particularly at the gates.
"They're nearly lost," Emil said. "There's nothing we can do."
"They are lost as long as we continue to think that way!" Valten declared. There had to be something he could do. There! The impetuous nature of the northmen was their undoing, only a light guard was watching over their war machines, a light guard that would be nothing before him. "Run if you want, Witch Hunter, but as long as there's something I can do to help them, I won't." Finding an easy way down would take too long, every second would be more fallen friends. Instead he crouched down and, using his hand to steady himself, slid down the cliff.
He hit hard at the bottom, tucking and rolling with a grunt. The crude enemy camp was set up before him, all animal hide, and tent props that looked to be planks ripped from ships. As he'd see above, they were all but deserted. He pushed himself to his feet, unhooking Ghal Maraz from his belt and giving it a few twirls. The weapon hissed through the air, eager to bring death to the northmen. He wouldn't disappoint it.
He made his way through the camp, towards where the enemy war machines were set up at the base of the edge of the gulley. Two of them were pouring fire towards the northern gate, where the enemy were close to breaking through. They needed his intervention more. With a crackling hiss, another blast of eldritch energy carved through the air toward the gate. The crews, a dozen stunted men, dwarfs by the looks of them, though twisted with fangs and tusks, with serrated armour carving into their flesh. Chaos Dwarfs. He'd heard of them, though never seen one. "For Sigmar," he whispered, and charged.
The first one didn't notice as he split his skull with Ghal Maraz, the shower of blood bone and brain hadn't hit the floor before he swung wide and hard with the hammer again. The next dwarf was sent flying off the edge of the gulley with a snarl. The others had turned to him by this point, but they were not match. Perhaps if they'd attacked him together, they'd have been able to swarm him effectively enough to find a chink in his armour, but they scattered, and he hunted them down one by one, ending their lives with strikes of Ghal Maraz.
The sound of metal on flesh made him turn. "Took you long enough." Emil drew his sword across the throat of the warrior he held locked in a tight grip.
"And you didn't take long enough," Emil growled. "If I hadn't followed you, and killed the sentries, the enemy army would be on its way here right now. You're good, but not that good." He dropped the warrior and strode over, blood trickling down his sword. "And what now?"
"I've stopped the artillery," Valten began.
"Have you?" With a great roar, one of the cannons let off a blast so powerful that the canon itself shot back ten feet. The blast crackled through the air and slammed into the wall by the north gate, blasting chunks of masonry to the ground. "These machines are inhabited with deamons, the crew is here to keep them in check, not to operate the weapon. It must be destroyed, or we'll be dealing with daemons as well as an army."
Valten looked at the two twisted cannons, skeins of flesh and meat pulled pulsing and twisting, writhing and shaking. The cannon still at the edge of the gulley was about to fire. He charged, placing both his palms on the metal, and pushing with all his might. His boots dug into the dirt, but with a final heave, he sent the canon over the edge of the gulley. It seemed to cry out as it spun through the air, and a great gust of hot air spiralled up from it as it shattered on the rocks in the stream.
"Sigmar's breath!" Emil cursed. "Do you want to bring the entire horde down on us?"
Valten hadn't heard, instead he'd raced to the other cannon and started pushing. He felt something lash from the pulsing war machine, deflecting off his armour but leaving buzzing warmth behind that spread to his gut. But it wasn't a bad warmth at all, more the warmth of anticipation that came before laying with a woman in a soft feather bed. It can be yours, something whispered within his very skull. Yours forever, give in accept it. "A pitiful attempt at luring me to you," he grunted back as he heaved the cannon closer to the gulley edge. "I am Sigmar's chosen, I won't be so easily swayed daemon."
Are you, the machine chuckled softly. Are you truly his chosen, if so, why could you only get one of his witch hunters to come with you? He growled as Emil joined him to push the machine to the gulley edge. They don't believe it, you're just a tool, a toy, a puppet, we can give you so much more. With a final roar, Valten heaved and the second hellcannon tumbled to its demise.
He shook his head to clear it of the last of the whispers that had turned to screams in his mind. "That should give that gate a fighting chance," he said.
"And the other one?" Emil asked, "the one that has already been broken?"
Valten cracked a smile, resting Ghal Maraz on his shoulder. "That's our way inside."