The Battle of Whitestone

Justin D Hill

I

‘I Golgfag!’ said the ogre in a voice so deep that the lobstered plates of the marshal’s cuirass vibrated against one another. ‘You go kill Brazak?’

Marshal von Rakken only just managed to keep his destrier from bolting. It took a moment to realise that this was a question. ‘Yes,’ the marshal said hastily. ‘I have been appointed by Elector Count Marius–’

It grinned yellow stumps of teeth. It was so close that the stench of its breath was eye-watering. ‘I kill Brazak. He steal from me. I kill him. You give me silver.’

‘You want to join my army?’

Golgfag looked at the camp of striped tents and horse pickets. ‘That army?’ he said.

The marshal felt his captains’ eyes upon him. He nodded. Golgfag laughed. With a motley array of salvaged weapons thrust into his boot tops, he was a walking armoury.

‘You have a licence?’

Golgfag had a giant’s bronze shield strapped about his belly. Into the top was jammed a vellum scroll. The mail over the ogre’s shoulders rattled as he pulled it out and held it out to the marshal.

The marshal plucked the scroll from the ogre’s enormous fist and gave it a cursory look. The daily rates were laid out, along with rates for death and injury, march and battle, with an extra clause for outstanding service. He checked the seals. They all seemed correct. He raised an eyebrow, noting that this ogre came with recommendations from some of the highest in the land. ‘I see you have served with Emperor Karl Franz?’

The creature gave a sound like a chuckle. ‘I never lose a fight,’ he said. ‘It makes me good to have on your side.’

The marshal seemed to be considering something. Then with an abrupt move he appeared to make up his mind.

‘There are more?’

‘Thirty-seven.’

A priest, barefoot despite the dirt, stood to the side. He leant in and said something to the marshal.

‘I do not care what the knights of the Black Bear think!’ the marshal whispered, so loudly that even Golgfag could hear. Then he turned to the ogre and spoke with his drill-ground voice. ‘Well. We intend to ride tomorrow. Can you march with us?’

‘We march,’ Golgfag said.

‘Good. Excellent!’ the marshal said and turned to the priest who stood behind him. ‘Father Wulfstan. I think these fighters will prove very useful in the coming campaign.’

The priest said nothing.

‘What is your name again?’ the marshal said.

‘Golgfag,’ the ogre said. ‘My name is Golgfag and I have a bone to pick with Brazak Ubudd. His bones!’

It took the marshal a few moments to realise that Golgfag was laughing.

II

The Thirteenth Licensed Company of Mercenary Ogres, Led by One Golgfag Sabreskin. That was the name the pen-dippers of the Imperial Scriptorium had registered them under. But the company was known to the Averlanders as ‘Golgfag’s Maneaters’.

And now they were the newest, largest and hungriest recruits to the army of the Eighth Averlanders, who marched out of Pzungzig a week after the last of the autumn wheat harvest had been brought in safely.

Rooks haunted stubbled fields as the army marched south, the Worlds Edge Mountains looming blue and snow-capped before them. The ogres came at the rear of the army. ‘They’ll make the rest of them march faster,’ the marshal joked. They didn’t seem to mind tramping through the piles of horse muck and trampled mud. Armies did not travel light, especially armies of the Empire. They had warhorses, spare mounts, barrels of shot and blackpowder and great six-wheeled carriages with teams of eight horses to pull their cannons.

There were three of the huge weapons: massive brass pieces with tarpaulins of oilskin and bright banners embroidered with the names of the smiths who had cast the guns, the battles they had fought in, and the castles they had razed.

After two days’ march from Pfungzig, Golgfag felt the thunder of horse behind him. He reached down into his boot and pulled out the first weapon he found. It was an elven longsword, notched after the fight with the greenskins of Black Fire Pass. It seemed sound enough after giving it a few desultory swipes.

Skaff, the company’s banner bearer, planted his load in the ground and pulled out a long curved ogre sabre. Dwarf-beard pennants tugged at the ogre banner crosspole as they waited to see what the knights were in such a hurry about.

The horsemen pulled up fifty feet away, and a young, smooth-faced squire heeled his horse forward. He spoke in a loud voice that did not hide his fear. Golgfag could smell it, sweet and pungent.

‘Make way!’ the lad shouted. He was not much bigger than a gnoblar. Golgfag thought he would make a good snack, fatty and plump.

‘Make way for Karel von Schwartzburg!’ the squire shouted. ‘Captain of the Fourth Rank of the Order of the Black Bears! Make way!’

Golgfag growled, a noise so low and trembling it made the lad’s nostrils itch.

‘No,’ he said.

The lad’s mouth opened and then shut.

‘Move!’ a voice boomed. Another horseman, on a white horse with plaited mane, rode forward. He was a grizzled bear of a man, as hairy and thick-necked as a moose, with a great sword strapped to his back. ‘Move to the side!’ he shouted. ‘I am Captain Karel von Schwartzburg!’

‘I Golgfag Maneater!’ Golgfag called back. ‘I will kill Brazak Ubudd!’

‘Move aside!’ Captain Karel shouted.

Golgfag did not speak, but the other maneaters crowded about him, a menacing sight of ugly monsters fingering axes the size of full-grown men, tree stump clubs and wicked serrated blades.

Von Schwartzburg pointed. ‘I shall speak to the marshal about this!’ he shouted and then yanked the horse head to the side, splashing through the full ditch. His squadron of twenty knights followed. Each wore a bearskin cloak and carried a great sword. Behind them came their squires and warhorses, then a trail of pack horses with weapons and waterproof cases for their armour. They gave the ogres hateful looks, and the ogres returned them.

‘Half-brain,’ Golgfag said.

‘Seems he dislikes you almost as much.’

Golgfag paused. ‘As long as they help me kill Brazak I don’t care.’

III

The road from Pfungzig to Whitestone Bridge ran along the west bank of the river called Blue Reach. It was no dwarf road but a human one, which meant potholes and stretches where the path had been washed away entirely. As the rain got heavier, the mud got deeper, until even the ogres were splashed right up to their gut-plates.

Skaff was bored of marching. He was hungry, and he looked around as they splashed along, trying to work out how easy it would be to ravage this land. ‘I reckon these towers come every ten miles,’ he said. ‘If we took one or two out, we could range off the road for miles, and no one would ever know about it.’

Thorgrott the Belly laughed. He and Skaff liked to talk about ravaging. They’d been together since before Golgfag’s time, eating halflings, roasting oxen, sleeping in cattle pens with the herd largely inside their enormous guts.

‘See the horse-boys riding back and forth. They change their horses at the fort. We could just sit in one tower and eat every horse that came our way. If we kept travelling south, we could stay ahead of news…’

Skaff laughed, an unpleasant sound even to other ogres. He stopped to look at the fort as they cleared the last stands of oak. The towers were all of a universal build: squat, solid, three-storey constructions with the ground floor of fitted stone blocks and the upper storeys of split trunks, overlapping each other at each corner.

This one was garrisoned by a nervous company of halberdiers and crossbowmen, with yellow comet badges sewn onto their lapels. They were all on edge. Brazak’s outriders had passed by three days before and burnt the local village. By the side of the well the freshly dug graves filled the Garden of Morr.

Golgfag went quiet when he heard that Brazak’s men were so close.

‘I go see marshal,’ he said. ‘I speak to him. Brazak close!’

Skaff let him go. He didn’t care much about killing Brazak. All he wanted was a good fight and a belly full of proper food.

Thorgrott sat down on a whitewashed milestone. ‘They don’t look too hard to storm,’ he said.

‘Look. There’s nothing worth stealing,’ said Sorrutt the Destroyer, an enormous and stupid ogre. ‘Brazak’s emptied the place.’

Thorgrott yawned. ‘Do you think we’ll catch him?’

Skaff sniffed the air. ‘Sure of it,’ he said.

IV

Five days out of Pfungzig the maneaters stopped abruptly.

‘What is it?’ Thorgrott the Belly asked, shoving through the maneaters.

‘Look,’ Skaff said.

One of the cannon carriages had stopped moving and as the rest of the army trudged south, it was left farther and farther behind.

Skaff stood and waited, expectantly.

The carter was a thin-faced man with grey in his beard. He pulled his hood over his head as he climbed down, not noticing the ogres just a few feet away.

He jumped down into the puddles and waved his whip. ‘Yah!’ he shouted at the horses. ‘Yah!’

The horses stared up with wide eyes. Their sides heaved. They did not move. ‘Come on,’ the carter tried, in a coaxing voice. ‘Look, we’re nearly there. Warm straw, bags of oats.’ He pointed towards the next watchtower, only a mile or so away, promising warmth and dry stabling. The carter threw his hood back and bent over them to stroke their steaming necks. ‘Poor things are done in. There.’ he said, patting the lead horse, a stout grey with an amber mane. ‘There, get your breath back. We’ll get you out of here. Get some fresh horses in to help.’

A shadow fell over him and he jumped.

‘They not push?’ an ogre said in a voice that seemed impossibly deep.

‘No,’ the man said. There was a terrified whinny. One of the ogres had grabbed the grey horse by a hoof and was dragging it free of the harness. ‘No!’ he shouted. But it was too late. An ogre promptly broke its neck with a quick twist.

It was over in a minute. The ogres bullied in, fighting and scrapping and it was all the carter could do to scramble under the wagon. Death did not come so quickly or easily for many of them. They were cut open, and devoured alive. He shut his eyes and pressed his hands to his ears as the exhausted horses screamed and whinnied. As the last of the horses died, there was the deep and inhuman sound of content chomping, grunts and bones being snapped open, before the gory marrow was sucked out.

When they were done, there was nothing except three immobile cannons, without horses to pull them.

The scouts had found Brazak’s camp. Golgfag had been forward with the marshal, listening to their report. When he heard about the attack on the cannon cart, he marched back and found his maneaters tramping the last hundred feet towards the watchtower.

‘Why have you left the carts behind?’ he asked.

The ogres turned back. All three of the six-wheeled carriages stood, horseless and stranded on the road behind.

‘The horses were tired,’ Skaff said. ‘It needs more.’

Golgfag barred their way. ‘Who ate the horses?’

Skaff said nothing.

Thorgrott the Belly started chuckling. ‘Who ate the horses!’ he said.

Golgfag’s look hardened. ‘You’ve eaten the horses for all three cannons? We need them for the battle. Do you know how many men Brazak has?’

Thorgrott laughed again, until a giant fist squeezed his laugh into a strangled squeal. Golgfag didn’t often stand his full height, but he did now, lifting the other ogre from the floor by his fat neck. Skaff was suddenly aware of each drop of rain that fell from the overhanging branches.

No one spoke.

‘You eat cart horses, then you go back and push cannons,’ Golgfag ordered. He dropped Thorgrott the Belly onto the floor. ‘Understand?’

The ogres rolled their eyes. None of them were ready to challenge Golgfag today. They swallowed their pride and turned and stomped back along the road.

‘It doesn’t take eight of you to push that little thing!’ Skaff called to Hraggred Brainsticker, who was chief among those pushing the short squat piece named ‘Shouter’.

Hraggred Brainsticker patted the mortar. ‘It looks lighter,’ he called back. ‘But it makes up for length with girth!’

Skaff cursed his gut. He nodded to Vraggs Bloodbather and Bozarth the Tinopener. ‘Come on,’ he said. They bent to their work, their legs powering and timber creaking alarmingly before the cart suddenly lurched forward.

Step by step they got the cannons moving. It wasn’t too hard, as long as the road was smooth, but this was a human road after a long summer, and it was pouring rain.

Skaff pushed until his back ached. ‘I worked hard to be a maneater,’ he said. ‘We’ll be Golgfag’s donkeys soon.’

V

The next afternoon the rain lightened as they arrived at Whitestone Bridge. The river had cut a deep chasm here, and the ancient bridge – surely built in the years long before the men of the Empire learned how to smelt iron – leaped the narrow defile in a single dizzying arc of stone. The bridge was wide enough for two ogres to march side by side, but there were no railings, and the thing seemed to sway in the evening breeze as if it were made of a substance as light as wood.

At the Averland side of the bridge, a human watchtower had been burned and plundered. The gate now hung from the hinges, empty windows staring like blank eyes.

On the far side of the river was Brazak’s sprawling camp, a distant anthill of tents and campfires, ringed with wagons. Golgfag stared across, as if trying to pick Brazak out from the distant figures.

‘This is the big fight then?’ Skaff asked. ‘What we’ve walked so far for? To force that bridge against Brazak’s army?’

Golgfag grunted. It was clear that the marshal had not told him the whole story. Crossing the bridge would be murder.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Golgfag said. ‘Brazak’s lot will scatter like hens when we give our battle-roar!’

‘What if they have cannons?’

‘Brazak doesn’t have cannons,’ Golgfag said.

‘What is he does?’

‘He doesn’t.’

There was a low moan from the ruined watchtower. The whole place seemed haunted. Skaff didn’t like it at all.

‘It’s just the wind,’ Golgfag said.

Skaff noted that even though the wind had stopped, the low moans continued. ‘Hear that?’ he said.

Golgfag laughed at him. He laughed so hard the swords in his boots rattled. ‘It’s not the moaning creatures you need to be careful about, it’s the ones you don’t hear coming!’

VI

Hraggred Brainsticker’s two nose-rings rattled as he fretted over his arbalest, tugging at the steel wire to check that the repairs were holding. The nose-rings were heavy gold dwarf torcs. They pulled the nostril down, giving his face a lopsided look. He rubbed his nose thoughtfully, and when he was satisfied he took the rattle-bag of rusty iron bolts and held each up to one eye to check that they were true.

There was a cold draught as Skaff stepped inside the barn where the maneaters were sheltering. ‘So,’ Hraggred said. ‘What did he say?’

Hraggred was a newling from the hills who had joined them after they had stormed the Kragsburg Keep and murdered the mad spell-caster there. ‘Nothing,’ Skaff said. He lumped himself down, knocking the other ogre to the side. He got a growl in response, though Skaff pretended he hadn’t noticed.

‘Did you tell him?’ Hraggred asked.

‘What?’

‘That this is no place to fight.’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He laughed,’ Skaff said. Hraggred looked about the room at Sorrutt and Thorgrott, who returned his hard conspiratorial look.

‘You said you could change his mind. Can you hear that howling?’

‘It’s the wind.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘Well, he said it’s the creatures that you don’t hear coming that you should fear,’ Skaff said.

Skaff’s comment had brought a few chuckles from some of the more scarred maneaters. Hraggred looked to the younger ones for support, but supporting him was one thing and speaking up was quite another.

‘What we want to know,’ Hraggred said, as if a spokesman for them all, ‘is why we are fighting Brazak. We had good fights when he rode with us. Why not join him and raid Averland?’

‘We can’t join him,’ Skaff said. ‘He stole a sword.’

‘Who from?’

‘Golgfag.’

Hraggred snorted so hard his nose-rings clanged. ‘Doesn’t he have enough swords? He’s got more scrap than a gnoblar.’

Skaff didn’t bother looking at him. ‘What’s your big name?’ he asked.

Hraggred sat up and swelled his chest out. ‘Hraggred the Brainsticker.’

Skaff scoffed. ‘Brainsticker’ was no big name. ‘What tribe you from?’

‘Slavetakers.’

‘Pah!’ Skaff spat. ‘Thieves and cut-throats. I’ve killed more Slavetakers than I can count on my toes.’

‘Good,’ Hraggred said, refusing to rise to the bait.

‘Good,’ Skaff said. He hoped for a comeback, but it never came and Skaff was disappointed. A fight would have relieved the boredom.

VII

At the centre of the camp, the marshal’s yellow and red striped tent glowed from within with warm dry light. It was a beacon for Golgfag as he wound between the campfires, a huge black shape stumping through the darkness, his armour rattling as men scurried to keep out of his way.

About him the air was thick with the smell of evening fires and echoing sounds: the steady thud of stakes being driven into the sodden ground, shouts, arguments and men chuckling as they wafted life into the bits of kindling they had salvaged from piles of damp firewood. His nose read all the scents. Likewise, he could smell bread, sword-oil, damp blackpowder, wet leather, the stale stink of lice and the unmistakeable scent of fear.

At the gateway to the marshal’s tent stood two guards, their faces grim and severe. They stood with their hands crossed on the pommels of their flame-wavy great swords.

‘Halt!’ one called out as the shadow loomed out of the night.

‘Golgfag,’ he growled.

‘State your purpose!’ one guard called out.

‘Getting dry,’ Golgfag said and pushed through the hanging flaps. He stepped into a space too soft for any warrior. There were braziers, a sickly rosewater perfume, woollen carpets and a wooden stand where a white eagle sat, jessops jingling as it adjusted its grip.

Golgfag sniffed. There was an open book on a carved stand. There were pictures. A dragon caught his attention. Golgfag frowned as he tried to understand what the picture was showing. There was a maid who looked like she would taste good and a knight who was a fool, about to be a dead fool. The dragon would eat him and his horse, and the maid as well.

It was too hot. He threw back his cloak. It was like a barn in here, the tent was so large. What did one man do inside such a tent? Golgfag sat on the table. It creaked alarmingly. He ignored it, absent-mindedly picking up one of hams and taking a bite, using his molars to crunch through the thick bone.

A human appeared from the inner tent. He carried the marshal’s polished armour to its stand.

‘Oh!’ he said as he saw the giant figure sitting on the table. ‘M-my lord!’ he called out in a quavering voice. ‘The ogre is here!’

There were footsteps, soft on the carpets. Golgfag rose, but it was not the marshal who appeared but his priest, Wulfstan. He gave the ogre a sour look, eyes ranging from his muddy, weapon-filled boots to his freshly shaved scalp. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘I go see Brazak’s army,’ Golgfag said. ‘Smell him, smell not good.’

‘Yes. We can all see his army,’ Father Wulfstan said. ‘Tomorrow we shall send his soul to Morr, if Morr will have him.’

‘Don’t like bridge,’ Golgfag said. ‘We cross that bridge, many maneaters die.’ Golgfag dragged a barrel over from the doorway and put a foot up on it. ‘Rethink battle plan,’ Golgfag said. ‘If we take bridge, Brazak might escape.’

The priest looked at him. ‘You’re afraid?’

‘No,’ Golgfag said, picking up a freshly baked rye loaf. ‘Just not stupid.’

The priest nodded to himself, as if this were all he expected of inhuman sell-swords. ‘I think the marshal knows what he is doing.’

‘Good. Then he talk to Golgfag of battle plan. I tell him my plan.’

‘The marshal will speak with his captains, and give you your orders.’

Golgfag’s chin jutted out. ‘I talk with marshal, not you.’

‘The marshal is bathing,’ the man-priest said.

‘I wait,’ Golgfag said, and reached out for another loaf of bread.

When the marshal appeared he was dressed in a velvet jacket, one half red and the other yellow, with an orange pomander pressed close to his nose. ‘Golgfag’ he said. ‘Welcome!’

He walked to the table and poured himself a goblet of wine, which he sipped thoughtfully. ‘Loningbruck. Primitivo, an eighty-nine,’ he said. He paused and savoured it, staying well away from the ogre. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow you will have your vengeance. How does that feel?’

‘We talk battle,’ Golgfag said. ‘Crossing bridge is dangerous. Too dangerous. Stone falling. Whole bridge might crash down.’

‘I do not think so. That bridge is older than Averland, so it is said. Men say it was older even than the dwarfs. It will bear all our weight, if needs be. And you will lead the attack. Don’t you want vengeance?’

The word ‘vengeance’ word brought a fierce light to Golgfag’s eyes. The marshal continued. ‘Brazak Ubudd is across that bridge. My cannons will clear any defenders and your maneaters will have the honour of forcing the crossing. The Knights of the Black Bear insisted they be allowed to lead the charge. Was I wrong? Should I let the knights take the honour?’

Golgfag narrowed his eyes. He didn’t know if he was being lied to or not. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I will lead the attack.’

The marshal smiled. ‘Good. I have seen ogres fight, each one a terrifying whirl of strength and steel. Your maneaters will smash Brazak’s army. They are raiders and thieves, not disciplined soldiers. Courage they might have, but little training. Brazak has plundered remote towns with scattered garrisons, but he has no hope of beating us tomorrow. Assure your maneaters, there will be a fine battle on the morrow. They can each earn – what do you call them – “big names”?’

Golgfag’s scowl did not soften. ‘My ogres not happy. Push carts. Push carts not in licence.’

‘Yes,’ the marshal said, and decided not to mention that the ogres were the ones who had eaten the horses. ‘The rains. We are very appreciative of your labours. Without your help, I doubt we could have brought our cannons. They will be invaluable tomorrow. Have no doubt!’

Golgfag did not understand half of what the marshal was saying. He went on and on using big human words about the injustice Brazak had done, the great service Golgfag had done for the men of the Empire and Karl Franz himself.

Golgfag’s head hurt. It was too hot and soft in here. He felt hungry. In the end, he couldn’t stand being talked down to. ‘Ogres drag cannons five days. No ogres – no blackpowder! Ogres eat horse. Horse taste good. But now ogres hungry.’

‘I will arrange for supplies to be sent over. Father Wulfstan, what do we have?’

The priest stepped forward. ‘They ate all the stores we had for them in the first day.’

‘Ah.’ The marshal put his glass down on the table. ‘Do we have anything else?’

‘We had to leave the supply train behind with the coin. They will be here tomorrow. Perhaps.’

‘Ah,’ the marshal said again. ‘The coin. You sent back riders to guard them?’

The priest nodded.

‘Are there any mules we could spare for Golgfag’s Maneaters?’

‘Mules?’ Golgfag asked.

‘It is all we have left. We shall need our horses tomorrow for the battle. Then you can eat as you desire. Now get some rest. In the morning we shall all have vengeance on Brazak Ubudd!’

VIII

Golgfag broke the barn doors as he shoved them open. Skaff had a hogshead of butter held between his knees. He grabbed a hunk of stale bread and reached across and used it to scoop out a thick dollop of butter. Golgfag snatched it from his hand, stuffed it into his mouth and looked about. He could smell blood, but didn’t want to ask where it had come from.

No one looked up. The moaning began again. Burrog Foulmouth was hammering new nails into the end of his club. He stopped and looked up. ‘Skaff said you went to see Brazak’s army.’

‘I did,’ Golgfag said, still chewing.

‘Any ogres?’ he said.

‘No,’ Golgfag said.

‘Trolls?’

Golgfag shook his head.

‘Greenskins?’

‘No.’

Burrog nodded. He seemed satisfied and went back to fingering the spikes on his club. Many of them were garnished with impaled skulls. Burrog was the oldest maneater amongst them. He had been fighting his way across the Empire since before some of the little guts were whelped. He liked to remember his battles. ‘Manlings are easy,’ he said. ‘We eat Brazak then find more fighting. This marshal got more enemies?’

Skaff scraped the last of the butter out, and tossed the empty barrel onto the fire. It cracked and spat. ‘Why fight for him? He doesn’t even feed us properly. Pox-ridden mules and rancid butter I had to find myself.’ Skaff yawned a wide-toothed yawn. ‘What use is that licence? Pah!’

‘Yeah,’ Hraggred said. ‘And he still hasn’t paid us.’

Golgfag sat down. His stomach growled. The smell of blood only deepened his pangs. ‘I am glad for Burrog. He doesn’t grumble. The rest of you, I give you war and battle and great names and this is all I hear. Complaints. Grumbling. Coin.’

‘Maybe we should just go back and find the coin carts and take our pay,’ Rotgrobb Khan said. He was a tall, lean ogre with long moustaches, who had gone east as a young bull, and now sported a great curved halberd blade mounted on a short staff. Rotgrobb was working out a notch in the vast blade with a fist-sized whetstone.

The howl sounded again. It set Golgfag’s nerves on edge. He stood up. ‘What is wrong with you all?’ he demanded.

The maneaters stopped and looked up. ‘We don’t like this big fight,’ Hraggred Brainsticker told him.

‘We’ve not been paid anything,’ Thorgrott Belly said.

‘The marshal will not need to pay us after tomorrow’s battle. We’ll all be seeing the Great Maw.’

Golgfag stood up. His voice grew louder. ‘If I had a schilling for every time you lot sit and grunt like a birthing rhinox I’d be a Goldtooth by now! You want to fight? Good! Tomorrow we have big fight! You want coin, I bring you coin.’

‘When?’ Hraggred said.

‘Now!’ Golgfag stepped out into the rain and disappeared into the night.

IX

Father Wulfstan was reading the marshal’s favourite passage from The Life of Sigmar when Golgfag pushed back inside the tent. The marshal grabbed his pomander. ‘You have come back. What is it?’

‘I want coin,’ Golgfag said.

Irritation was starting to creep into the marshal’s voice. ‘Please. You know as well as I that the carts are held up by the weather.’

‘I want coin,’ Golgfag said.

‘Please. My captains will be coming to dine with me soon.’

The ogre had a vicious look in his dark eyes. ‘I not captain?’

The marshal laughed as if this was a petty matter. ‘No. You are…’ He paused and looked for a word.

‘Not human,’ the priest said.

‘You are an ogre,’ the marshal put in. ‘It is good to be with your fellows on a night before battle. Do you need more food? I can have it arranged.’

‘Coin and food,’ Golgfag said. ‘Want horse and coin.’

At that moment, Captain Karel von Schwartzburg stepped into the tent, throwing his rain-splattered hood back. The knight wore chainmail and a white surcoat with a black bear on it.

The marshal put a hand up. ‘Captain Golgfag was just leaving,’ he said quickly.

‘No, I’m not,’ Golgfag said.

‘You should leave,’ the priest said, stepping forward as if to herd the ogre from the tent.

There was a sudden scream. Golgfag looked down and saw with some surprise that he had caught the priest’s head in one fist. There seemed only one thing to do. He heard the marshal shouting, but it was too late. Golgfag squeezed and felt the priest’s head come away from the rest of his body.

‘Sigmar!’ Captain Karel’s great sword sang as he unsheathed it. The flash of white steel was so bright it gave Golgfag a moment’s warning. A moment was enough. Golgfag flung the priest’s head at him. It hit the knight with a wet splat and spun off to the side, knocking over a brazier and scattering hot coals about the tent.

‘Stop,’ the marshal ordered. ‘Guards!’

The captain started his backswing.

Golgfag was across the tent in one step. He punched the knight in the chest and stove in his rib cage.

‘Disarm him,’ the marshal ordered as the guards rushed in from outside. A great sword swung in a low arc at Golgfag’s legs.

Golgfag reached into his boots. It was always good to bring the right weapon to a fight. Now he pulled a heavy orc cleaver that sparked as it blocked the greatsword.

The sword strike would have cut a horse in half, but Golgfag swatted it away and cuffed the astonished swordsman about the head. It was a soft blow for an ogre, the kind a father would give to a ill-behaved little-gut.

It killed the swordsman in an instant. Golgfag caught the great sword as it fell from the dead man’s grasp and held it up like a man would hold a rapier. The other guardsman was more cautious now. Golgfag could see the man’s eyes through the slit in his black iron helm, and their expression changed from ferocious confidence and anger to shock, surprise, horror and then the blankness of death as Golgfag took a sword blow on his gut plate then stepped on the blade, reached forward and grasped the wielder by the shoulder. With thumb and fingers on either side of the guardsman’s chest, he crushed the man’s ribs and stopped his heart from pumping.

A grunt of furious exertion gave Golgfag all the warning he needed, and he whirled around to see the marshal swinging a hammer at him.

The handle was wound with silver wire, and there was gold filigree on the steel shaft and glowing runes on the head. Golgfag’s stomach yawned again. He wanted that weapon and came forward ready to take it when something slammed into his face. It was soft and feathery, and for a critical moment it blinded him.

X

‘How about we grab some more horses?’ Skaff suggested as the maneaters looked at the empty cauldron. ‘I don’t want to die with an empty gut.’

‘Nah,’ Hraggred said, picking at his nose-ring. ‘The humans have doubled the guard.’

Skaff scoffed. ‘So?’

‘They’ll squeal and fight, and we’ll have to kill a few more of them.’

‘So?’ Skaff said.

There was a long silence.

Rotgrobb Khan said, ‘Did I ever tell you about the ruins of Taklaman?’

‘Yes,’ Skaff said.

There was a pause. Sorrutt the Devourer gave one of his occasional snorts. The fire cracked and popped. A spark landed on Skaff’s boot. He watched it sizzle on the damp leather.

‘There were more riches there than my slaves could carry,’ Rotgrobb said. ‘We barely brought back a tenth of all the gold and silver. We should go back there, not fight these battles.’

‘I like fighting battles,’ Skaff said.

‘Sounds like they’re fighting already,’ Mazog One-eye said.

Outside, there was shouting.

‘Treachery!’ Skaff shouted, and grabbed the banner staff. ‘Sounds like the big fight has begun.’

XI

Golgfag winced as the marshal’s hammer slammed against his shoulder. The eagle shrieked as it clawed at his face. He caught it by the wing and crushed it in one hand, then flung the mess of bones and feathers away from him.

‘Stop,’ the marshal said stepping back. ‘We fight Brazak tomorrow. Lay down your arms and I will pardon you for the killing tonight. We will fight tomorrow and you will break Brazak. Remember, Brazak stole from you. Take your revenge!’

A fight in the fist was worth two on the morrow. Golgfag was playing with the human. He was getting bored of all the talking, and reached down to his left boot. His fingers found the end of a Bretonnian lance. He flung it like a dart and it went through the marshal’s arm like the bolt from a giant crossbow. The marshal’s face went pale and blood poured from his shoulder.

Golgfag stepped towards the man. The smell of fear was sweet.

He picked up the marshal’s hammer. It felt good. He swung it just to get the feeling and enjoyed the look of terror on the marshal’s face. Golgfag came in close as the marshal struggled to pull himself away.

‘Don’t!’ the man whispered.

Golgfag loomed over him.

The last thing Marshal Wulfgang von Rakken saw was Golgfag’s almost apologetic look as he picked up the hammer and stepped in to finish the man off.

There followed a moment’s stillness inside the tent. Golgfag wiped brains and skull from his face. He enjoyed killing. It was a simple, intense pleasure to defeat a foe in combat. But the marshal had been a little disappointing, his death too easy.

‘Stop!’ a voice shouted. Golgfag saw the device of a black flame on a field of yellow as a group of state troopers charged in. There were ten, twenty of them, armed with wicked bill hooks and shields, or swords and pistols.

Golgfag gripped the hammer and growled with pleasure. This was more of a challenge. He’d have to kill them all.

XII

The men on guard that night were the soldiers of the Marshal’s Own Pikes.

Captain Jorge Weinz was inspecting the pickets around the camp when a runner found him. ‘He’s killed the marshal,’ the man panted. ‘The ogre captain!’

Captain Weinz looked to where the marshal’s tent stood in the centre of the camp. Lurid shadows played on the canvas. The shouts of men and the clang of steel carried through the night.

‘There is just one?’ he said.

The man nodded.

‘Where are the others?’

‘In the barn.’

Captain Weinz took a moment to think. ‘Ring the alarm. You lot, come with me. Quickly.’ He moved swiftly and the halberdiers fell in step behind him. He had sixty men by the time the alarm bell started to ring. They passed a campfire where men were still sitting and drinking.

‘What is it?’ a crossbowman called out.

‘The ogres,’ Weinz said. ‘They’re rioting. String your bows!’

Captain Weinz stood on the top of the camp ditch and held up the lantern. The barn, where the ogres had sheltered, was fifty feet away, next to the road that wound down to the Whitestone Bridge. The bridge was pale in the moonlight. The empty windows of the watchtower reminded him of the blank eyes of a skull. He shivered and held up the lantern. The barn door was closed and it was silent. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that the camp was rousing, men finding their regiments, pulling on their leather jerkins, picking out their halberds from the racks.

Behind him the men of the Marshal’s Own Pikes had formed up, the crossbowmen on either side, while a team of gunners were bringing up Screaming Bertha, and packing her with grapeshot.

Weinz strode forward. ‘Lay down your weapons and we shall be merciful,’ he called out. Jorge could feel the sweat on his palms. He wiped his hand on his trousers and gripped his double-barrelled pistol. ‘Who is your leader? Come out,’ he shouted. ‘There has been trouble and we wish to speak to you.’

He put his hands to his belt and checked his pistol. His men closed together. He looked back, caught the eyes of his men. They were read, their pale steel blades dripping rainwater. Soon they would drip red with blood, he thought.

There was a bang and he held up the lantern and saw that the barn doors had been thrown down. The ogres came out of the night like a stampede of bulls.

‘Men of the Empire! Sons of Sigmar!’ Weinz ran back to his men and took his place next to the standard bearer. ‘Stand firm!’

The men of the Empire trained daily in fighting as one. The world was full of creatures stronger, more violent, unearthly – and it was only by discipline, training and courage that the men of the Empire managed to keep their foes at bay.

The ogres had seen them training. It was a wonder to them that the humans trained together. Of course they sparred and fought, but never as a unit. They came out now, their banner at the fore, trailing its dwarf beard pennants.

They were a stampede, dozens of ogres loping across the open ground. It was hard to pick a target, for each was as terrifying as the others. One wielded a longsword of foreign design. Another had the skull of a great beast slashed with twisted ropes of flesh onto a long club.

At their front came an ogre dressed in a suit of armour made from the flattened discs of dwarf helms. He carried their banner, the crossbar fluttering with scraps of banners taken from across the Old World: the fleur-de-lys of a Bretonnian duke, a grinning yellow moon, the proud arms of three great Tilean houses, the white beards of dwarf kings, the horned skull of some terrible monster from the dark woods and mountains. His mouth roared open, the words incomprehensible, but the meaning – death, terror and the joy of battle – unmistakeable.

Captain Weinz lifted his double-barrelled pistol and pulled both triggers. There was a cloud of black smoke, and at its heart was a tongue of red fire. All about him crossbows twanged and there were the dull wet thuds of bolts driven through soft flesh.

Both of Weinz’s shots hit a grey-haired ogre clean in the forehead. The beast crashed down like a stunned ox. ‘Sigmar, give me strength!’ Weinz whispered. He drew his sword, unhitched his steel buckler from his belt and called to the men about him. His entire career flashed before him, his early years as a rough recruit. The sergeant – Ruskin – who had made them march up and down till they had worn through their bootsoles; a broken-nosed, hard drinking son of a daemon, who had turned them from soft street boys and farmhands to men who could call themselves State Troopers with pride.

And his first battle when he had killed his first greenskin, the terror when its wolf leapt at him and the man beside him had cut it down. All his battles, when he had faced all the threats to his race and met them with faith in Sigmar and sharp cold steel.

The stench of the ogres hit him seconds before their thunderous charge.

The ogres hit the block of humans like an earthquake. The first to die, impaled on five pikes, was Gezreth Headcracker, a hairy beast of the Skulltaker tribe who had served as a bodyguard for ten years in Tilea before boredom and the scent of war had lured him north to join Golgfag’s band. He was the only heir to his father’s crags, and now he would never avenge the tyrant who had killed his family and driven him into exile.

Behind him raged Bozalg the Tremendous, his twin greatswords cleaving left and right, cutting through men and wagons with ease. Bozalg leapt and landed on one the pike-staffs, snapping it like kindling as he raged like a bull.

Skaff came behind him, bearing the banner. He had a cleaver in his free hand and chopped down at the shaft of a blade that grazed his gutplate and ribs. The blow smashed the staff and the man who was wielding it, but Skaff barely noticed. He could kill all day, they all could, and this was like smashing dolls. The problem was that these dolls could fight. They had guns and cannons, and worse – they had Golgfag.

XIII

In the night, with the sickly light of Morrslieb casting eerie shadows, the Marshal’s Own Pikes held for a maybe fifty heartbeats longer than anyone expected.

Training, experience and knowledge told them that they were safest in a unit, together, face to the enemy, and most exposed when they turned their back and fled. This knowledge screamed at them to hold fast. But the ogres ground them down with astonishing glee and speed. Friends and fellows were eviscerated two at a time by a sword longer than a man was tall – the drum-boy crushed into bloody pulp by a cannonball mace and the standard bearer thrown thirty feet to the side by the swing of a spiked tree-trunk club.

Everything called on the men of the Marshal’s Own to hold firm, but their terror shouted louder and more insistently. They turned and fled, but the ogres leapt after them and they were trampled and eaten and destroyed.

Captain Weinz lived long enough to see his men slaughtered. He was dying. He knew that, but had to look down anyway.

Both his legs had been severed at the thigh. The blade had been so sharp that he hadn’t felt the blow. He barely felt it now, just knew that he could not move, and that his life-blood was pumping out of him. He started laughing as the ogres cut down the last of his men.

To either side of the cannons stood the men of the Hundredth Hochsleben, with their blue hats and yellow feathers that drooped in the rain. In the centre, the gunnery sergeant called out, ‘Ready!’

‘Fire!’ Weinz whispered. ‘Fire the cannon!’

The gunners smartly took their places. At least his regiment had not died in vain. It was some consolation. The ogres looked up and understood now that they had been lured into a trap as the gunnery sergeant called out. Weinz thanked Sigmar with a final rattling breath. The last thing he heard was single word.

‘Fire!’

XIV

At the top of the camp, above the marshal’s tent, on the driest ground, the warhorses of the Order of the Black Bear were being unpicketed, their steel armour quickly strapped into place, the colours of each knight displaced in the ornate reins and cheek plates that blinkered the mounts from all but the foe before them.

Wilhelm Draggul, the standard bearer, had three squires buckling on each armour plate, tightening straps, making sure the mail hung true. He breathed long and slow, willing the men to dress him quicker. He could hear his horse outside, being saddled. ‘Do not armour him,’ he called out. ‘It will take too long!’

Apparently the ogres had run amok. The marshal should never have trusted them. They weren’t even savages. They were beasts. Monsters. His horse neighed again. ‘Do not armour him,’ Wilhelm repeated as he strode out, each step clinking, scalloped like a steel crayfish. ‘There is no time!’

His voice failed him as a huge shape loomed out of the darkness and the sudden stink of rancid oil, foetid breath and mouldering furs made his eyes sting. The thing was so big it blotted out Mannslieb, rising behind Whitestone Bridge. Wilhelm didn’t even have time to draw his sword before the beast crashed into him and left him dying in the mud.

Golgfag ran straight over the knight. All he could hear was the thud of his own steel-shod boots, the squeak of his wet leather jerkins and the ragged panting of his own breath. He lumbered through the camp, clubbing aside anyone foolish enough to be in his way. He ran towards the sound of fighting, his stride lengthening as the noises of fighting diminished. A moment of dull panic shot through him. They were all dead. They had surrendered. He had lost all. Cowards and weaklings, he thought, and saw over the top of the tents his banner, unfurled.

Then Golgfag saw the torches spluttering black smoke into the night air and casting a devilish red light on the faces of the gunners. Golgfag hit the handgunners in the rear at the same moment as Skaff charged forward. The cannon’s powder pans fizzled and then failed. ‘Fire!’ the sergeant shouted again.

The cannon gave a weak cough of smoke that sprayed the maneaters with nails and balls.

‘Dry powder!’ the gunnery sergeant called out. But it was too late. With Golgfag charging from the back and his maneaters from the front, the State Troopers scattered like barnyard chickens.

Morrslieb seemed very close and bright, as if she had come to watch the night’s dreadful deeds. Both moons bathed the Whitestone Bridge and tower in sickly light. The battle joy was on Golgfag, and his eyes hunted round the toppled war wagon for a living man that he could kill, and saw, with disappointment, that there was none. The bodies of the handgunners were scattered like torn rags.

Golgfag rumbled his frustrations. Across the corpses, which lay as thick as scythed wheat, Hraggred saw the figure of Golgfag pacing towards him. ‘Got coin?’ he called out.

‘No,’ Golgfag said.

‘I said he wouldn’t pay us.’

‘You were right,’ Golgfag sniffed, looking towards the camp where drums were beating and the regiments were forming up for battle. ‘He won’t. He’s dead.’

XV

A sudden shriek rent the night air. Lightning flashed, and then a warhorn blew – not from within the camp or even from across the bridge, but south, where the road wound on towards the mountains.

‘Horsemen.’ Sorrutt the Destroyer pointed. Golgfag could always count on him to state the obvious. The howl came again, louder and bone chilling. A banner appeared as they came over the ridge. The moon cast just enough light to make it out.

It showed a man being broken on the wheel by a warrior with a club. Golgfag’s skin prickled. He knew the banner. And he knew the rider who came before them all, mouth open to howl.

He was a barrel of a man on a black horse, a single black horn jutting out from his iron helmet.

The rider and Golgfag had scoured the Badlands together. Once they had been the richest pair this side of Karak Eight Peaks. The man was the terror of the Badlands, scourge of a hundred homesteads, murderer, defiler – he had uncounted names of ill-repute.

To Golgfag he was a thief, craven, turncoat and betrayer.

‘Brazak Ubudd!’ Golgfag raged. He seized a musket from the ground and fired the long-pistol with a great puff of black smoke, and a licking tongue of flame. And then he charged.

XVI

In Brazak’s right hand he wielded the sword he had stolen from Golgfag years before. Black as the Stygian night when no moon shone, it had been forged by no living hand. It had a soul of its own, a hungry, devouring, monstrous will that mastered all who wielded it.

Golgfag had picked it from the burning ruins of a necromancer’s tower and stuffed it into his boot. It had tried to master him, and failed. And so it had reached out to another mind more malleable, more impressionable, like a lump of clay that a child might take in hand.

That mind was Brazak Ubudd, once Golgfag’s battle-brother. His human mind was putty in the sword’s hand. Stealing the sword, he fled in the night and fed souls to the fell blade. For the sword had a thirst like a parched dwarf, but its brew was not beer or any spirit other than the spirits of men.

It had long since driven Brazak mad, and madness had made him both great and fearful. That madness drove Brazak onwards, not to win great fame or wealth but with one simple impulse – to kill.

That was the Brazak who appeared from the south, riding down on them now: fearless and furious, foaming at the mouth as his fanged mouth opened and howled out his hatred, a terrible sound that made the living stand and quiver.

‘He thought to catch us in our beds,’ Golgfag said as he saw Brazak’s horse rear up. ‘This shall be a big fight worth the name!’

In the darkness, three armies faced each other for a moment: Brazak’s horde, the Eighth Averlanders and Golgfag’s Maneaters. At the front of the Averlanders marched the Death Heads. They wore helms with black skull faces, and a livery, half pure black silk, and the other half yellow and blue chequers. They had never fled from any battle, and in the moonlight they were a fabulous sight, drawn up under their banner, a white skull biting a sword.

‘Here!’ Golgfag shouted. ‘Come and taste my steel!’

But Brazak was drawn by the will to kill. He spurred his horse towards the human ranks, an insane red fire in his eyes.

Crossbow bolts rained death into the ranks of Brazak’s riders. They punctured man and armour, pinned some warriors to their horses and killed both outright. Brazak howled. Death was in every syllable of his wordless raging. Hatred of the living. Death to all. He crashed into the ordered ranks of the Death Heads and cut about him with the blade that sucked the life from each man it touched. The white soul-lights in his thirsty black sword danced.

XVII

‘Brazak!’ Golgfag snarled as he strode over a carpet of dead. He had waited years for this, incubating his hatred like a hen with an egg. He pulled a dwarf king’s battleaxe from his boot-top, and rolled his shoulders. ‘Where are you, Brazak?’

In the centre of a pile of corpses stood Brazak. Spittle dribbled from his slack mouth. He laughed when he saw Golgfag approach. ‘Come to me!’ his stance seemed to say. Yes, come to me!

Brazak had changed since last he had seen him. He was a simple man no longer, now a thing possessed, with skin as hard as steel and a howling voice that made Golgfag’s head ache.

As Golgfag ran at him he grew in size and mass, his face bulging and distorting, as the power of Chaos exploded from within his armour, swelling him up like a toad.

Something caught Golgfag’s foot. He kicked out, looked down and saw a dead man’s arm wrapped about his leg. Then another. And another.

‘They’re coming back to life!’ Skaff shouted but his warning came too late. All about Golgfag the carpet of dead began to rise. Death Heads and raiders alike pushed themselves up from the ground, as if rising from sleep, and they reached out for Golgfag to hold him in a deadly grip. They fixed upon his arms and fastened his legs with corpses, throwing themselves in the way of his blade.

Brazak laughed, a low and inhuman sound. He came slowly towards Golgfag, who was still struggling against the dead.

Brazak stepped forward and lifted the soul-sucking blade into the air. Golgfag pulled, but his arms were held tight and it was like moving through quicksand. He gritted his teeth, groaning like mountains ground down by ice, and slowly pulled one arm free from the dead men’s grip.

The ogres were stupefied for a moment, but then there was a shout.

‘Golgfag!’ Skaff took his banner and charged into the dead foe, pulling and trampling the dead bodies into a bloody gore, desperately fighting his way through to help out his lord. Jolted from their horror, the ogres followed.

Too late.

Golgfag barely had the strength to parry Brazak’s blow. The black sword sliced through dwarf steel as if it were butter. It lodged for a moment in the dead body of a clinging Death Head, and Golgfag gave a desperate grunt as he pulled his other arm free and grabbed the first weapon he found from his other boot-top.

It was the marshal’s hammer. There was no time for an aimed blow, so Golgfag threw it with all the strength he could muster. There was a blinding flash of light and a low moan.

XVIII

Arneld Franz urged his cart forward and cracked the whip. The team of six horses strained and pulled, their haunches raw with lashing. About them the guard of Captain Stryker’s Black Company formed a picket of horsemen about them.

Captain Stryker was a one-eyed, grey-bearded veteran of a hundred battles. He had been commissioned to raise his regiment by Marius Leitdorf himself.

‘Before he went mad,’ Stryker liked to say, eyeballing the listener to dare them to mock. No one did. You didn’t need to know Styker’s reputation to know that he was an experienced killer. He slept with his repeater handgun and cared for it like a lover, and it was his desire to play his part in the battle that had made him urge the carters on through the night.

But now the silence unnerved him as he rounded the bend and saw the ruin of the marshal’s camp. Stryker had never seen such a sight of devastation and slaughter before. The scene was one of utter devastation. The marshal’s banner was broken, his army slaughtered. No… two armies slaughtered.

A few wounded men stumbled up the road towards him, stumbling in the puddles. ‘All is lost!’ they called out. ‘They’re all dead. Flee – save yourselves! They are coming!’

Captain Stryker had no idea who ‘they’ were, but he rode a little way forward to see.

He smelled them before he saw them, coming up from the bridge in a tight knot. ‘Turn the horses!’ he shouted, swinging his steed around in one swift motion and heeling it into a gallop. Someone had to bring the news to Averheim.

The horses were straining madly at their harnesses when the ogres arrived. Skaff set about dispatching them as Golgfag approached, the marshal’s hammer affectionately stuck into his belt.

Brazak’s death had been horrible. He had dissolved into putrid black slime as a storm of mad souls raged around him. And with his death, the magic had gone, returning the corpses to lumps of meat.

Hraggred had eaten those. But the thought made Golgfag shiver. He liked his meat alive or dead, not something in between. And he was hungry. It had been a long night of killing. He wanted to eat and hoped that there was good human wine here.

Golgfag tore back the tarpaulin.

‘No wine,’ he said.

‘Hams?’ Skaff asked hopefully.

Golgfag shook his head. The cart was empty except for a pair of chests. They were bound with iron and brass locks. Golgfag pulled the hammer out of his belt and used it to break one open.

He put his hand into the chest and drew out a handful of red wool bags embroidered, sewn up and sealed with a leather stamp. He tossed one towards Skaff. The weight was unmistakeable. They heard the clink of coins as Skaff caught the bag.

Golgfag smiled.

‘Hraggred,’ he shouted. ‘I told you he was going to pay us!’

About The Author

Justin D Hill is the author of Golgfag’s Revenge and Truth Is My Weapon for Black Library. He is an English writer who has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize three times. He has lived around the world and is currently situated in Hong Kong, where he teaches creative writing.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2014 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Cover illustration by Kevin Chin.

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