Keen
to reinvent the wheel as often as possible, I thought I’d try something a
little different for the Beard Bunker’s third battle report. I’ve pretty much
written a short story. With a narrative that, er, extends beyond the battle
itself. Somewhat. I might’ve gotten carried away. It was fun, but very time
consuming, so it won’t be happening again unless people are very vocally in
favour of this sort of thing.
Now,
since the Beard Bunker is allegedly a hobby blog, as opposed to a place for fiction,
there will occasionally be notes about the actual, you know, game in this thing. The notes are in
green, and will be anecdotal or talking about the balance of the scenario (as described
in my last post). Why are these bits green? Well, if you find yourself
getting immersed in the story, you can just skip the green parts and move on to
the next bit in black so as not to break rhythm.
A
note on the setting/timeline: Oskar Brandt will, as previously mentioned, act as a sort of protagonist for my Hochland army in the Bunker's campaign (even though he isn't actually the general). I’ve taken this as an opportunity to explore the story of his first ever command (aww). Please note, however, that his model represents him later in his career. Hence the slight dissonance between his appearance
in the photos and the description in the text.
One
final warning: this bad boy is about twice as long as When Dwarfs go Bad
or Between a Rok and an 'Ard Place. There are things like a protagonist,
a B-movie monster, a story, a dribbling assistant, and... stuff. It's a bit less serious than the sort of epic stabbyness generally published by the Black Library. Get the kettle on, put your feet up, and hit the jump
if you’re feeling so inclined...
* * *
Oskar
Brandt assumed that his first assignment as a captain would be an easy one.
Something to break him in. After all, he had no training, or strategic experience.
He hadn’t even asked for the promotion, it was simply heaped on him after his success
as the Powderkegs’ sergeant. Now that he was here, though, he wanted to
do a good job, or at least, to do a better job than some of the officers he’d served
under.
When summoned, he rose from the chair outside Marshal Godric
Fallschturm’s office and stepped through the door, one hand resting on the hilt
of his longsword. This was only the second time he’d ever seen the marshal, and
the first time he’d conversed with him. It was said that Fallschturm, like many
nobles, had little time for the common soldiery, much less men who’d been
promoted from them. Oskar hoped that whatever his first assignment would be, he'd prove Fallschturm wrong.
‘Ah! Brandt,’ Fallschturm said
from behind a grandiose white moustache. ‘How are you? Excellent. Captain’s pay
not affording you better cloth?’ he asked, looking disapprovingly at Oskar’s
outfit. He was still dressed as he had been as the sergeant of the Powderkegs.
‘Never mind. You’ll sort yourself out in due course, I’m sure. Now, I have
something for you.’
‘Yes, sir?’ Oskar asked,
ignoring Fallschturm’s complaint about his clothing. Had the old man been a
young woman, Oskar might have seen fit to make an effort. As it was, he looked
no more shabby than the bulk of Hochland’s common soldiers.
‘We keep on getting letters from
the Sheriff of Lüthorst,’ Fallschturm said. ‘Things trying to get into peoples’
homes at night. Naturally, we paid no attention. You know what those superstitious
rural types are like. Then we got a
message by carrier pigeon from a priest of Sigmar. Something about a vampire
near Lüthorst. Whoops, thought I. Can’t be having that. Go and kill it, there’s
a good chap.’
Oskar blinked, and hoped the
colour wasn’t draining from his face. He’d never seen a vampire, but he’d heard
stories. None of them ended well. ‘A vampire, sir?’
‘Indeed,’ Fallschturm said. ‘Don’t
worry, you’ll have help.’ Good,
thought Oskar. A few regiments of well-trained men might have the situation in
hand. ‘You’ll be glad to know that you’ll be working with your old regiment,’
Fallschturm said.
‘The Powderkegs, sir?’ Oskar
asked, excited at the prospect of seeing his comrades again.
‘No, no, your old regiment. You served with the Blades
of Taal, didn’t you? Before making sergeant? I’ve pulled ten of them off their
Reprieve Month. Family time is idle time, after all. I’m sure they’ll be
overjoyed to see one of their own doing so well.’
Oskar doubted it.
He would be the face of Fallschturm’s orders, and he suspected it wouldn’t make him popular. Besides, he wasn't quite sure how ten tired and demoralised swordsmen were supposed to kill a vampire.
He would be the face of Fallschturm’s orders, and he suspected it wouldn’t make him popular. Besides, he wasn't quite sure how ten tired and demoralised swordsmen were supposed to kill a vampire.
‘At any rate,’ Fallschturm
continued, ‘we can’t have a vampire lurking about.’
‘Of course not, sir,’ Oskar
said. ‘The people of Lüthorst are in great danger.’
‘Yes, yes, absolutely. That’s a
very valid concern. Absolutely. That, and we can’t have something like a
vampire so close to Fort Denkh. Just not strategically sound, is it?’
‘Um... no sir,’ Oskar replied.
‘Now, off to Lüthorst with you,
there’s a good chap. Find Brother Marten when you get there, assuming he’s not
been bit.’
‘Yes sir,’ Oskar said. Go and sit on a spear, Oskar thought.
Ten
slump-shouldered Blades of Taal stood in the drizzle-flecked courtyard of Fort
Denkh, the red feathers of their hats sagging with rainwater. Oskar strode out
onto the parade ground, fixed a smile on his face, and said, ‘Remeber me,
lads?’
There were a few half-hearted
grunts of recognition. Keen not to become one of those officers who commanded
respect by shouting loudly, Oskar pushed on. ‘It’s only twenty-five miles.
Sigmar willing, we’ll be back tomorrow evening,’ he said, belatedly cursing his
failure to name the patron god of the Blades’ regiment instead.
They were already formed into a small column, and he fell
in at the gateward end. ‘By the left,’ he said, trying to sound upbeat. The
heavy wooden gates of Fort Denkh juddered open before them, and cla-thunked shut behind them.
The
drizzle slowly intensified into rain, and wore itself out. By mid-afternoon,
the cloud cover broke apart. They were almost dry when they marched into
Lüthorst at dusk.
The town was typical of southern Hochland: muddy streets
and dilapidated houses in dire need of fresh roofing. As if to emphasise the
point, a gust of wind broke a wooden roof tile off its last rusty nail. The
tile sailed through the air and narrowly missed a young boy running down the
street to gawp at the soldiers.
There were heavy shutters on most of the windows. Unlike
everything else, they looked new. Most of them were being closed against the
gathering dark, snuffing out the rectangles of firelight spilling onto the
street one by one.
A peasant woman’s hands reached out to close the shutters
on a window immediately to Oskar’s left, and he turned to ask her, ‘Is there a
priest of Sigmar in the village? Brother Marten?
She took in his uniform. The fear in her face appeared
un-quelled by the sight of Hochland’s soldiers. ‘In the chapel, I should
think,’ she said. Oskar raised an eyebrow enquiringly. She pointed down the
street and closed the shutters.
In the outskirts, they found it: a small Sigmarite chapel. Its
dark red walls were pitted with age, half-strangled by ivy, and embellished
with holy sigils and carvings. A warhorse was tethered outside, shifting its bulk
beneath barding belonging to the Order of the Silver Drakes. Oskar knocked and
entered. Inside, a young priest with a scarred face was blessing a knight
before the altar. They both looked up as Oskar entered, and after they
exchanged greatings, the priest – Brother Marten – explained that he and Sir
Anselm had given up waiting for reinforcements and were about to head out to
meet the vampire alone.
‘Shouldn’t we at least wait until dawn?’ Oskar asked.
‘It’s unlikely that Dragomir has failed to notice your arrival,’
Marten replied. ‘We must go now, before he has time to prepare, or worse, to escape.
I’ve hunted this bastard all the way from Burgenhof, and I don’t mean to waste my
best opportunity.’
‘Shallya’s oath, that’s—’
‘Hundreds of miles, yes. I’m the
only one left. Thought I’d lost his trail after what happened in Estorf, but by
Sigmar’s grace—’
‘And my Order’s contacts,’
Anselm interjected.
Marten gave a tired, acknowledging nod. ‘The Silver Drakes
have their ears to the ground in these parts, that much has become clear to me.
Perhaps, now that we have help, we might prevail.’
‘Or draw more attention to ourselves,’ Anselm said. ‘I
liked this plan more when we had a chance of sneaking up on him.’
‘You hoped to sneak atop a barded warhorse?’ Marten asked,
sounding amused. Oskar smiled. ‘Were it Sigmar’s way to wager, I’d say you’ve a
thirst for glory, Sir Anselm.’
‘As must any man of substance,’ the knight replied without
shame. In Oskar’s experience, a thirst for glory created little more than an
inflated body count, but he was disinclined to ruffle feathers before a fight
and kept the thought to himself.
Marten took up his warhammer,
and a finely-engraved shield bearing the icon of the twin-tailed comet. The
three of them stepped outside. Seeing a warrior priest appeared to lift the
Blades’ mood, as did the sight of Anselm mounting up into his saddle. Oskar’s sense
of impending doom began to dissipate.
A
quarter of a mile away, Dragomir awoke. The Sylvanian smiled, his fangs
pressing against his lower lip. Times were easy; it had been weeks since he’d
last caught wind of the one surviving hunter, and the people of Lüthorst were
an easy feed. There was little knowledge left to glean from Van Hel’s Mortis in Abstentia, or the many other
books and scrolls strewn about his lair. Learning how to unlock the old tower’s
doors had borne incredible fruit, even if the ancient walls lacked the charm of
a well-appointed mausoleum.
There was a rustling outside his
door; a familiar stench heralded the arrival of Filthy Bogdan, his long-serving
assistant. The door swung open, and a wan, scrawny creature loped into the
chill air of the room. Its silhouette had changed.
‘Bogdan!’ Dragomir exclaimed, ‘vhot
is that new decoration? Is that... you... is that deliberate? The bones I
understood, but vhy chain a log to your back? Vhy, Bogdan?’
Bogdan’s wrinkled face emitted a
childish giggle, and he bounced from one foot to the other. ‘Doth it pleathe
you, mathter?’ he wheezed.
‘You have a creative spirit. Now
bring me Gottlieb’s Die Rote Körper.’
Bogdan skittered off across the flagstones, motes of candlelit dust coiling
behind his footfalls. ‘We will soon be ready, Bogdan. My hour is at hand.
Tomorrow night, I think. Yes. Lüthorst’s dead shall consume the town, and the
living will join their ranks.’
‘Yeyth mathter,’ Bogdan said. He
scampered back over to Dragomir with an ancient tome in his filth-caked hands,
offering it with the adoration a good child might show their father. ‘I’m
hungry, mathter,’ he said.
‘Then find food, Bogdan. Dine
upon the past!’
‘Yeyth mathter. Thankyou,
mathter.’
Bogdan grabbed his favourite
spade, and went outside.
The air began to clear of his stench. Dragomir devoured the
words on the page in front of him, mouthing some of them, committing them to
memory. Just reading the incantations made him thirsty with anticipation.
Suddenly, Bogdan returned, far too quickly to have eaten.
‘Mathter, mathter! Men come!’
Dragomir cursed, and went to the gate. Sure enough, a party
of armed men had gathered by the chapel and were now walking out onto the
moonlit grass of the commons, their weapons drawn. The priest was with them.
Dragomir cursed again. He wasn’t ready to enact the plan, but that didn’t
matter now. He wasn’t about to leave his newfound library in the hands of these
book-burning mortals.
The men of the Empire leave the chapel. |
As
much as Oskar was grateful to have help, he could sense the Blades were
rallying around the scarred warrior priest instead of deferring to him.
Moreover, the knight was a law unto his own.
‘Dragomir
won’t face us alone,’ Marten was saying. ‘Be ready; he will bend the dead to
his will. Have any of you faced the reanimated before?’
There was some hesitant shaking
of heads.
‘Amateurs,’ said Anselm.
‘It matters not; trust to the
Gods. You are defending Taal’s ground with Sigmar’s strength in your arms and Ulric’s
courage in your hearts. Whatever should come your way in the next few moments
can be met with faith and the good, honest steel you hold in your hands.’
Then Oskar saw them: a loose
crowd of figures shambling through the moonlight. Their movements were stiff,
as though an invisible hand moved their limbs. Blank, milky eyes and broken
teeth flashed white. The Blades faltered.
‘Form up!’ Oskar commanded. The
Blades just stared at the shambling dead.
‘They are unnatural, but they
are no match for a soldier,’ Marten said. ‘Do as your officer commands, and
you’ll see the night through.’
The Blades formed two loose
ranks huddled around Marten. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an improvement.
Oskar fell in at the end, alongside Anselm. They advanced cautiously past the
watchtower at the end of the road, and upon rounding the corner, more of the
creatures were revealed. They shambled towards each other, forming a group,
their soft moans drifting through the air. Even from a distance, the smell of
rotting corpse-meat went straight to the back of Oskar’s mouth. Now gathered,
the zombies turned and stumbled towards the Blades.
Oskar had faced bandits, forest
goblins and beastmen since joining the state soldiery, but this was different.
His enemies had no wants or desires. No agenda. No heartbeat. They simply
existed, and they were coming to kill him.
‘Hold,’ he said, hoping that
habit and training would keep the Blades from running. These men were supposed
to be in bed with their wives at this moment, sleeping off an over-large
dinner. ‘Hold,’ he repeated, not even reassuring himself. The only comforting
thing about their enemy was their slowness. Oskar was thoroughly disheartened, then,
when the zombies started running towards them. ‘Hold!’ he shouted, cocking one
of his pistols and taking aim.
Bogdan
offered up the aetheric lens, his head bowed with deference. Dragomir snatched
hit from his earth-blackened talons and concentrated. The foci were working, he
could tell. The air grew cold; the candles snuffed themselves out. Dragomir
felt his reach extend beyond its normal limits. Meat and bones lay inert beneath
the ground: buried parents, dead children, forgotten cadavers. Dragomir’s
fingers twitched, drawing at the threads. Dead flesh moved.
Oskar
lopped the rotten arms off the corpse in front of him and heard a scream to his
right. A zombie had bitten into one of the Blades’ necks, and the two of them
fell to the ground clawing at each other. Everyone was too busy fending off
their own opponents to help him. That was the third man down, now. Cold bodies
crowded up against them, reaching out with fingers that ended in exposed bone
or torn fingernails. Marten gave a furious cry, and for a split second Oskar
feared the worst and looked right again. The warrior priest shoved his foe back
with a shield bash, and held his warhammer aloft. Its head began to glow, as
though fresh from the forge, and he brought it down on his foes in a broad arc
that left twin streaks of flame in its wake. The portent was undeniable: Sigmar
was with them.
The men cheered with renewed
hope, hacking into the zombies like men possessed. Oskar felt his movements
quicken, and his sword grow lighter. The tide turned. To his left, Anselm's hammer connected with a zombie's sternum and sent it flying. To his right, one of the Blades batted a zombie's hands away with his shield before hacking furiously at its head. Ere long, they stood at
the end of the road with a heap of bodies in their wake. Marten’s hammer
dimmed. Men drew ragged breaths. They had survived.
Oskar looked ahead as he
reloaded his pistols. An old tower on the hill loomed above them, blotting out
the stars. In front of it, the ground appeared to be breaking. No, rising.
Hands and faces appeared in the upturned earth, followed by bodies.
‘Until we find the vampire,
their numbers will only grow,’ said Anselm, calmly surveying the scene from his
saddle. As he spoke, yet more ground began to shift to their left. Bones shone
white amidst the gloom. Before their eyes, the bones drew together to form skeletons.
From the earth, they lifted up ancient weapons. Unlike the zombies, the
skeletons moved with silent purpose, and formed up into ranks, ready to march. The
sight of an organised foe was a demoralising one indeed, for the zombies ahead
already outnumbered them. ‘I shall deal with them,’ Anselm said. Oskar looked
incredulously from the knight to the eight armoured warriors on the hill. ‘They
form up to protect the tower. Go and find the bastard,’ Anselm said, spurring
his horse into a charge.
Oskar was about to issue orders
to that effect when Marten shouted, ‘They can’t stop us reaching the tower!
Have at them!’
The men were so fired up that
they started charging before they’d even had time to think about what they were
doing. It was all to the good, Oskar conceded; the undead were clearly
protecting the tower. He almost managed to make himself believe that it didn’t
matter if he or Marten issued the order. Running forwards with everyone else,
he fired a shot through the forehead of the nearest zombie. Its head snapped
backwards. As he charged, Oskar flipped the pistol in the air, caught it by the
barrel, and brought the metal pommel down on the skull of the closest monster.
After that, it became a tangle of rushed sword strokes and grasping limbs lit
by the orange glow of Marten’s hammer.
In the early
stages of the game, Maisey’s casting rolls were great, as were the zombies in the
first few rounds of combat. By the end of game turn two, there were three summoned
units on the table, and three of the state troops had died to the first of those
units. We both worried that the game balance was completely off.
It turns out, nope,
my dice were completely off, and were
giving a misrepresentative idea of how dangerous zombies are to state troops. For
a good few rounds after that, the men of the Empire proceeded to batter the snot
out of the undead. This came as something of a relief.
The last of the zombies was
skewered into the floor by no less than three sword points. Oskar glanced over
to Anselm. The knight’s horse lay dead on the slope, but Anselm still fought
on, using his armoured forearms to block the rusty blades. It was only a matter
of time before one of the skeletons managed to stab at his exposed head.
‘Brother Marten,’ Oskar said, ‘take the
Blades and gain entry to the tower. If we’re going to face a vampire, I’d
rather do it with a knight at our side. Well fought, men,’ he added. Oskar realised that it was, effectively, the first order he'd made, and they were already knee-deep in the fight. His earlier hope, that of making a fine commander, now felt hopelessly naive. Commanders were supposed to pit their wits against their enemy, not fight their troops like any other soldier of the rank and file.
‘Sigmar guide you,’ Marten
replied. As the men began running uphill, Oskar made a dash for Anselm’s
position. Here and there, all over the hill, he could see tussocks of grass and
patches of earth starting to shift. He accelerated to a sprint.
Anselm’s hammer splintered a
skeleton’s ribcage to his left, and the blow kept going, knocking an incoming
sword aside. Oskar closed on them. Another skeleton’s weapon clanged off the
back of Anselm’s cuirass. In response, the knight knocked the skeleton’s jaw
off its head. Oskar almost tripped when his boot dropped halfway into a burrow,
but he kept his footing. Anselm was surrounded; Oskar could see his armour
glinting through the empty ribcages of the skeletons. One of them was knocked
away from the fight, leaving a trail of bone shards in the air.
Then came a cry of pain, swiftly
cut off. Oskar launched into the skeletons, his sword smashing through joints
and vertebrae, his pistol pommel caving in skulls. Without men at either side
of him, he could fight as he’d done as a duellist: ducking, weaving, rolling.
Always moving. The skeletons moved slowly, methodically. It was their downfall.
The last skeleton blocked Oskar’s sword, but in so doing exposed its legs. A
sharp kick to its knee broke one of its legs and sent it down. Placing a boot
on the wrist of its sword arm, Oskar drew his second pistol and shot the
skeleton through its empty eye socket. He was dismayed to see that this seemed
to have no noticeable effect. The skeleton struggled against his boot, unable
to lift its sword. Its shield waved at the young captain in a vague attempt to
hit him with the rim. Oskar caught the shield, pushed it to one side, and
stamped on its skull. The bullet hole had, at least, weakened the bone.
He looked around. Anselm lay
amidst the broken bones, his head almost completely severed from his body. His
blood soaked into the grass, appearing black in the silver-blue light. Oskar
spat a curse, and looked uphill. Marten and the Blades were nowhere to be seen,
but the faint orange glow emanating from the tower’s ground floor suggested
they’d gained entry. Oskar started running up the hill, barely noticing that
the tussocks and cracks around the hill had stopped moving.
‘The power stone, Bogdan! The
power stone!’ Dragomir yelled. That damn priest. It was like pushing against an
old wall. If he could find a weak point, he could break through, but at the
moment, straining with all his might, he was stuck, held in check by the sheer
power of some ignorant mortal’s blind faith. A spectral wind whipped around the
room, whipping up scrolls and flicking the pages of open books. The lid of the
coffin rattled. The candles suddenly burst into flames and melted completely,
covering Bogdan with flying wax as he rummaged through upturned arcane
eclectica in his search for the power stone. It was a small object, easily
missed in the dark.
‘Now, Bogdan!’ Dragomir yelled. He could sense that the
Priest was surging up the tower, seven beating hearts in his wake. All he
needed was a little more time. To find the chink in the priest’s shield of
faith. He wished he knew the full incantation; he would have been unstoppable.
Perhaps the rival of the famous von Carstein, given enough time. But right now,
he just needed a boost. Just something; something to push him through this
wall. This wall that Nagash would’ve laughed at.
Oskar
leapt up the stairs two at a time, but the others were way ahead of him. Why
hadn’t they waited for him? He pushed his resentment aside and kept moving.
‘The power stone, you foetid
swine!’ Dragomir screamed. His voice cracked. His arms shook. He needed blood.
‘Thorry, mathter!’ Bogdan
spluttered. ‘Thorry!’
Brother Marten and the Blades enter the old tower. |
Oskar passed the first floor.
Book shelves, some of them half-empty. The second floor: empty, but for a pair
of manacles trailing across the rotten floorboards. The third floor: more books
and broken furniture. He clambered up the ladder and burst onto the roof to
find Marten standing in the centre, his shaking arms outstretched. Both his
hammer and the twin-tailed comet on his shield burned like torches. The Blades
were all backing off. There was no vampire in sight.
Dragomir’s
eyes shot open. Something cracked.
Marten
fell to the ground with a cry.
The upside
of having a building with interior detail is being able to storm it like a medieval
SWAT team. The downside is finding nothing there. Damn you, Maisey! By positioning
units to defend the tower, he had completely suckerpunched me, and given himself
loads more time to Raise Dead.
There was one problem,
though: in the first version of the scenario, the vampire could only cast each spell
once (as per normal WFB), so when I managed to kill all the dead things on the table,
Maisey just had to throw six dice at Raise
Dead and hope for the best. Inevitably, this eventually resulted in a miscast
that summoned a bunch of zombies outside the tower, but also destroyed Dragomir’s
wizarding abilities. In many ways, the game was over at the point where Maisey really
deserved to win, hence my changing the rules to allow multiple castings of Raise Dead each turn so long as there are
no summoned units on the table.
It should also be
noted that, of course, models like Warrior Priests don’t specifically dispel magic,
but in my head, it’s much cooler if someone’s pitting their will against the enemy
caster, and that’s pretty much what used to happen in the previous version of the
Empire army book. I enjoyed the image of Marten striding up the tower’s stairs,
his burning hammer held in front of him like a torch of righteousy righteousness,
although sadly we don’t get to see that in this story as it’s limited to the perspectives
of Oskar and Dragomir.
The
air grew still. Scrolls fluttered to the floor. Dragomir staggered back until
he bumped into a wall. Gone. Completely. He couldn’t even sense the whereabouts
of the humans any more, never mind the empyrean. He was null. Inert. But for a
little more power, and he would’ve broken through the priest’s will, but
instead, he had been rendered impotent.
‘Found it!’ Bogdan shouted,
holding aloft a small, intricately-carved pebble.
If the useless little puke had
been only ten seconds faster... ‘Come here,’ Dragomir whispered.
‘Ith Bogdan going to get a
reward?’
‘You’ve no idea,’ Dragomir said,
clenching his fist in the darkness.
Oskar
shook the priest’s shoulder. Beads of sweat shone on his shaven head. The
Blades gathered nervously around. ‘Brother Marten?’
‘He’s stopped,’ Marten said.
‘Stopped?’ Oskar asked.
Marten said he was unsure as to whether Dragomir was
holding back, or had simply scarpered, having fooled them into climbing all the
way up the tower. This much was clear: in pitting his will against the
vampire’s sorcery, Marten was barely able to stand, much less fight.
‘If we’re going to catch him, we’d best be quick,’ Oskar
said. ‘Down the stairs, you lot. Quickly!’ The blades hesitated, clearly hoping
that the vampire had fled, and their work over. With Marten’s collapse, their
fighting spirit had gone.
‘We let Dragomir go now, and he’ll be back with an army,’
Marten said. The men knew this was true, but it did little to kindle their fighting
spirit.
‘If he’s fled, then there’s nothing to be afraid of,’ Oskar
said, ‘and if he hasn’t, then you’ll not be sleeping safely tonight, will you?’
he asked, looking through one of the windows at the silvery landscape far
below. Over on the small hill to the west was Lüthorst’s graveyard. ‘If he’s
not here, Brother Marten, I assume we’ll find him in Morr’s Garden?’
‘A safe bet,’ Marten said, leaning on his hammer.
Hearing noises, Oskar leaned over the windowsill and looked
down at the tower’s base. ‘There are more zombies gathered around the tower’s
gate. Be ready,’ he said. The men looked about as ready as an Ox in a
slaughterhouse. Marten took a few deep breaths, clenched his jaw, and went for
the ladders back into the tower. Seeing the most exhausted member of the party staggering
towards the fight embarrassed the men into following, and while they all
gathered around the two ladders, Oskar took the opportunity to reload his
pistols.
Dragomir
slumped against the wall, his fury momentarily spent. Whimpering, Bogdan
retreated into the corner to nurse his new dents. What was left of the
vampire’s humanity conceded that it hadn’t been Bogdan’s fault that they were
unprepared. It was just misfortune, plain and simple, and it should be that
damn priest, not Bogdan, who suffered the consequences. What few zombies
remained outside the tower would provide no real resistance, but perhaps they
would afford enough time for him to... no, he couldn’t leave all this lore
behind. What if his abilities returned in time? What if he wished to buy his
way into Drakenhof? The mortals were hubristic enough to believe themselves his
equal in combat, and he would prove them wrong. Dragomir rose, strode across
the floor of the mausoleum, and took up his swords.
He paused. The priest had shown
remarkable resilience, and he’d heard gunfire. Perhaps it would not be such an
easy thing to dispatch them. Looking back, he saw Bogdan still snivelling in
the corner. The wretch was a mortal, but a faithful one. They had journeyed a
long, long way together, but for the first time since the Blood Kiss, he wondered
if this place, this pitiful human settlement, might be his final resting place.
‘Do you remember the songs,
Bogdan?’
‘M... mathter?’
‘The songs, Bogdan. The songs we used to sing... in the mother country.’
‘Yeyth, mathter,’ Bogdan said
hopefully.
‘Sing me a song, Bogdan. Sing me
a song... from the mother country.’
‘Yeyth, mathter,’ Bogdan
wheezed, gingerly picking himself up off the floor. His voice was an
aberration, but he so loved to sing, and Dragomir knew that the words would
stir something in his chest, even if the delivery lacked charm.
In life, they begged for thcraps from our
table,
In death, they gnaw on our boneth, now able,
To shrug off their fearth,
And shed no more tearth,
All immortalth, now. Thith ith their fable.
The
sound of fighting told Dragomir that the men of the Empire had emerged from the
bottom of the tower, and were dispatching the last of his minions. He felt the
familiar weight of weapons; felt the need for blood to slide warmly down his
throat. With gusto, Bogdan launched into the second verse, stamping
rhythmically on the ground as he got into his stride. The sound was awful, but
an idiotic grin was broadening the cut on Bogdan’s bruised lip. Dragomir felt a
strange, fatherly pride.
‘Such artistic passion,’
Dragomir said. ‘Such innocence.’
‘Thank you, mathter,’ Bogdan
said, his wounds forgotten.
‘Come Bogdan, let us teach these
men the songs of the mother country.’
‘And the danthe, mathter? I like
the red danthe, mathter.’
‘Yes, Bogdan. The red dance
also. Come.’
‘Yeyth, mathter.’
Pistols
raised and cocked, Oskar walked cautiously up the path to the gates of Morr’s
Garden, expecting the vampire to leap from the trees on either side at any
moment. It came as quite a surprise, therefore, when a heavily armoured figure
and a scampering wretch came running through the rusty gates and made straight
for them. The vampire and his last minion moved with surprising speed. There wasn’t
even have enough time to form ranks. Oskar levelled his pistol, aimed, and
fired at the vampire.
With a shriek, the scampering
creature dived in front of the bullet. It hit him full in the chest. When he
landed, he was still. The vampire emitted a howl of such despair and fury that
even Marten took a step back. Oskar wasted no time in firing his second pistol.
Judging by the way the vampire stumbled briefly, Oskar knew he’d hit him, but
the vampire kept on coming, apparently able to ignore bullets.
The
pain in Dragomir’s gut only served to amplify his rage and his thirst. He broke
into a sprint, seeing nothing but terror on the faces of the men in front of
him. They were like ripe apples waiting to be picked from a low-hanging branch.
With
movements too fast to follow, the vampire was among them. Before Oskar had even
thought about where to stab the monster, it had skewered two of the Blades on
its swords. One of them, stabbed in the neck, slumped to the ground. The other
was impaled through the chest. Dragomir lifted the sword up as though the burly
Hochlander weighed nothing, and smiled as he slid down the blade. Just as the
vampire made to bite the screaming man’s neck, Oskar made his first strike. It
winged off the vampire’s ridged armour, but it got his attention. With a
furious shout, Dragomir hurled the impaled swordsman at Oskar, who ducked down
and sprang back up into a lunge as the swordsman passed overhead. The tip of
his longsword hit Dragomir at the top of the throat, and thrust up straight
through its head. To Oskar’s disbelief, this didn’t seem to kill him.
‘Cut it off!’ Marten shouted.
‘You have to cut the head off!’
Despite being pinned in place,
Dragomir was still using one of his sword arms to fend off the attacks of both
Marten and the remaining Blades with apparent ease. Oskar feinted with the
pommel of a pistol, drawing Dragomir’s other sword into a parry, before yanking his longsword out of the vampire's head and taking
a fast swing for his neck. The blade’s edge passed
straight through. Dragomir’s eyes widened in disbelief for a moment, before his
skin cracked and peeled like burning paper. His body collapsed and crumbled to
ash, leaving nothing but an empty suit of armour and two blood-stained swords
lying on the path.
Marten
asked them to stay put while he fetched blessed water and purifying salts. The
ground on which Dragomir’s ashes fell was cleansed, after which the dead troops
were bound in the proper manner and taken back to Lüthorst. Come the morning,
they would find someone with a cart to help them return the bodies to Fort
Denkh, and from there, to their families. Five dead; fully half the men under Oskar’s
command. Having not even issued more than one actual command during the battle, he'd failed to measure up even to the worst officers he'd served under. He imagined that he would be relieved of his captaincy. The prospect
was not an unappealing one; he hadn’t asked to lead. He hadn’t even asked to be
a sergeant. People seemed to think that just because he could fight, he ought
to be in charge. The entire point of his joining the state soldiery – achieving
a wage and anonymity – was backfiring.
Thoroughly exhausted, Oskar and the Blades accepted
Marten’s offer to sleep in the chapel that night. When morning came, they trudged back to Fort
Denkh with a rickety corpse-laden cart in tow.
It has to
be said that Dragomir rolled poorly in his one and only round of close combat. It
wasn’t his fault that Oskar managed to take a wound off him with stand and shoot,
but five Strength 5 attacks could easily have killed more than two state troops.
Really, though, more of the Empire troops should’ve died before they even got to
Dragomir; they made up for their earlier misfortunes with ridiculous good fortune,
either thanks to the sheer incompetence of the zombies, or an uncanny ability to
use their shields like a boss.
That, and the fact
that the vampire de-magicked himself so spectacularly. Any other miscast result,
with the exception of a Dimensional Cascade, would’ve been better – losing a wound
is fine when you regenerate one every time you cast something from the Lore of Necromancy/Vampires/Whatever
it’s called.
Oskar
stood in Marshal Fallschturm’s office, one hand on the hilt of his longsword.
Two days’ stubble graced his jawline, and he stank of the road. Having finished recounting the mission to the Marshal, he awaited the reprimand. So far as he was concerned, he deserved whatever punishment he got; it had been his responsibility, and his failure.
‘Dead? You’re quite certain?’
the Marshal was saying. ‘And only five casualties? Damn fine show. Good man.
All in a day’s work.’ If the marshal was employing sarcasm, it wasn't obvious. All Oskar could think about was the scenes that would no doubt be unfolding
that evening in five previously peaceful households. That Fallschturm could reduce the events of the night before down to favourable numbers summed up all the reasons why Oskar had no business being in charge.
This was it, he realised: if he was going to resign his
commission, this was the moment. He opened his mouth to speak, but something half-remembered
stopped him. Instead, he smiled politely and hoped that his next day’s work
would consist of nothing but three hot meals and a long, uninterrupted night.
As he walked out onto the mud of
the parade ground, the memory grew clearer. It was something Marten had said as
they made ready for bed the night before. “I know that look - the look of a man
about to give up at the first obstacle. You’ll regret it if you do,’ he said. ‘When
you were just a soldier, how many times did you wish for an officer who understood
the men under his command?”
At the time, he'd been unable to take the priest's words in - the rush of the fight was still too near - and sleep had not come easily. He didn't yet know how to command, but for the men who'd died, and the ones he could still save, he was determined to learn. Smiling in resignation, he headed for the smithy’s whetstone. The secrets of command might still be a mystery to him, but he knew exactly what twenty-odd walking corpses and a vampire’s armour would've done to his longsword.
* * *
And
there you have it! I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself, and if you’ve made it this far,
give yourself a biscuit. Please. I just ate an entire packet of Fox’s Crunch Creams,
and now I feel kinda funny. My professional pride also demands that I apologise for any lack of literary quality or off-kilter tone; I'd normally write about three drafts of a story before putting it in front of someone's face, but this was just a bit of fun, and was treated only to the one draft and a few tidying edits. Sorry about that. If you have questions about the scenario,
comments on the story, or anything else to say, I’d love to hear it.
~Charlie
I really enjoyed that. Great work on the story, I liked the characters; especially the Dracula and egor style baddies. ;)
ReplyDeleteThankth, mathter. That's a relief; it would've sucked to disappoint the dude who asked for the battle report in the first place :P
Deletehehe. I enjoyed it a lot. Sounds like a fun scenario also.
DeleteIt's as if your keyboard was channelling Gary Oldman. Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteHahaha thanks :)
DeleteOctober of 2022 and this is perhaps the fifth time I have decided to re-read the saga of the Beard Bunker Hochland campaign. Truly an exceptional and inspirational collection of creative enthusiasm!
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed the depiction of young Brandt's first command, as I have Cedric's interludes and frau von Lessing's altercations with the de Crecy brothers and Templar Von Rudiger. The work of you and your friends here has shaped my vision of life in the Old World for eight years now, and I thank you all for the privilege.
This makes me, and those of us who fought in the Hochland campaign, incredibly happy. Thank you, mate ❤️
Delete