03 - Sword of Vengeance by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)

Author:Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead) [Wraight, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Warhammer
Published: 2012-01-21T03:47:55+00:00

The villagers crowded round, suspicion heavy in their dull, stupid faces. The settlement of Urblinken was as unremittingly grim as most of the hamlets on the slopes, untouched by the prosperity of the lower Aver valley and left to scratch a living on the unproductive highlands. In that respect, it resembled many of the grimy places of the northern Empire, beds of poverty, incest, disease and superstition.

Perfect recruiting grounds, mused Skarr, sweeping his gaze across the murmuring throng, gathered in what passed for a marketplace. All around him, low, mean buildings crowded. Their wattle and daub walls were streaked with filth and stained from cooking fires. Chickens pecked through the refuse and children splashed through grimy puddles. An ill-repaired wall ran around the perimeter of the houses, crumbling at the summit and with a flimsy iron gate at the opening.

The Reiksguard, all twenty-seven of them, looked like messengers from some mighty deity compared with the mean folk who’d clustered to hear him speak. Their armour flashed in the afternoon sun and the iron cross of their regiment fluttered proudly from their banner. The villagers had no real idea what Reiksguard were, but they knew the power and reputation of knights. If Skarr had told them the Emperor himself had sent them, they would have believed him readily enough.

“How many men can you muster?” he asked the headman, a slack-jawed, unshaven brute with a lazy eye and unspeakably foul breath.

“How much’re you paying?” asked the man again, fixated on the idea of gold.

“You needn’t worry about that,” said Skarr coldly. “Have you no idea of honour? Your lands have been usurped. You can be part of the campaign to take them back.”

The man looked blank.

“All recruits will be paid,” Skarr added grudgingly. “They’ll be fed too. If they fight well, the Lord Helborg will find ways to reward them.”

At the mention of the Marshal, a ripple of excitement passed through the crowd.

“Helborg!” gasped several of the men.

Skarr never ceased to be amazed by that. Even in the darkest corner of the Empire, the name was spoken with reverence.

“Is it true he can summon fire from the heavens?” blurted a hulking blacksmith. He wore a fearsome beard and his head was shaven. Piercings glinted from his muscled arms. He looked as belligerent as an orc, but at the mention of Helborg’s name his expression had taken on a childlike curiosity.

“Is he really twelve foot tall?”

“Can he level the hills?”

Skarr looked at the throng contemptuously. Just by talking to them he felt sullied, dragged down to their bone-headed level.

“Yes, and more,” he said. “If you march with him, you’ll be able to tell your children’s children of it.”

Some of the younger men gained an eager light in their eyes. Getting out of the village always appealed to the young bucks who hadn’t yet been crushed by the tedium of rural life. They had aspirations, girls to impress, dreams of riches and adventure to nurture.

Even the headman looked fleetingly interested.

“We’ve fifty men who can bear arms here.

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