Chapter 58
A hatchet-blow from the shoulder, a hatchet-blow from the shoulder, brace with the shield, and again a hatchet-blow from the shoulder. Heads, arms, ribcages—nothing could survive a focused impact from a Dawi-Zharr choppa.
I was no longer "lucky" enough to run into Chaos Warriors. All my opponents during the third wave of the northerners turned out to be either common Marauders or Beastmen Pestigors. I even took a risk by consuming the contents of the Blood Chalice and starting to fill it anew. It wasn't difficult, given the slaughter unfolding all around.
Liandra, with the help of one of the dwarfs and a well-placed shot from Erik, worked over a Nurgle Chosen, hacking off his head. Magg clashed with a Bile Troll that vomited a stream of acid onto him, but the Ogre didn't even flinch. Healed by Gerard's magic, Gutrom grabbed the opponent by the shoulder with his left paw and then split its head in half with a mighty axe blow. Despite such a wound, the Troll began to regenerate. Magg then tore off half of its noggin, taking a bite and chewing it right there in the middle of the fight.
Eh... Even for an Ogre, it's dangerous to eat raw Troll meat. Grom the Paunch benefited from it, but he is more of a rare exception than the rule. Troll fragments can start to grow and regenerate even after being eaten.
The third enemy wave ended just like the previous ones. The cavalry, led by Lietpold, caught the Chaos followers in a pincer. And then it was all according to the classics: severed heads, point-blank shots, grenades tossed straight into the crowd, and northerners trampled by hooves.
How many have I finished off during this second deployment from the ship? Thirteen Chaos-worshipers? Seems so. Or maybe fourteen.
— They can't possibly be this incapable of learning... — I thought, underestimating the stubbornness of the Nurglites.
There was to be a fourth wave! No sooner had the participants of the previous one scattered or stopped writhing in agony than a unit of Plague Ogres took an interest in us. About fifteen of the rotten behemoths, with horns on their heads and spikes protruding from various parts of their bodies. This was getting serious. It was a good thing that by then I had accumulated three bars of the Blood Chalice again.
The onslaught of the Plague Ogres was set to be supported by some forty Nurgle-worshiping Norscans, a dozen Pestigors, and a Chaos Spawn. The latter caused me particular concern. It felt like that thing weighed more than Magg. A huge, bloated bladder of festering flesh, with appendages and tentacles poking out in all directions.
Have we finally fucked around and found out? Given the attack the enemies were preparing, I wasn't sure even a cavalry strike would help here.
Furthermore, Loom-Pia decided to add some optimism to the situation:
— Though I cannot fully sense the Winds of Magic while bound by the limitations of your shell, by external signs I can say that a major rift in the fabric of reality is being prepared. I see the signs in the heavens.
— Are you sure? What does it threaten us with?
— If I were not certain, I would not speak of it. Demonic legions of the Ruinous Powers may arrive here through a rift in reality. I observed this repeatedly when I participated in the ancient war of which the warm-bloods are unaware.
So, demons were going to crawl out of every crack. Shit. But right now, I was more worried about the squad of horned fatties that were about to come for our souls. We needed to retreat back to the ships. Let them storm us there. It would clearly be easier to fight back that way. However, no such order had reached us yet. Although... I am a captain too, after all. And Lietpold's example demonstrated that sometimes it's better to shout out the right decisions loudly than to wait until the situation hits the "We're in deep shit!" mark.
— To the ships! — I roared as loud as I could. — We fight them off there! To the ships!
As I shouted this, I expected a confrontation with one of the surviving Imperial officers, but no one attempted to challenge my decision.
So, we'd manage without getting physical.
Our makeshift line began an organized retreat. This served as the trigger for the Plague Ogres' attack. They charged forward, their bellies wobbling like a squad of damn Obelixes from an old cartoon. Except each of them had fallen not just into a cauldron of magic potion, but into the cesspit of a village outhouse.
The Ogres were closing in fast when the sounds of battle were suddenly eclipsed by thunderclaps of monstrous power. Multicolored lightning branched across the sky, and from the flank opposite ours, something akin to the northern lights flared up. Red, purple, blue, green. Such a set of colors boded nothing good for us. Loom-Pia was right. The forces of Chaos had created a rift in reality.
Sigmar preserve us.
INTERLUDE. Jubal Falk
This day had been hard for Castellan-Engineer Jubal Falk. More than once today, the barbarians and their monsters had tested the strength of his armor. Javelins, arrows, spells, marauder axes, and the teeth of huge mutant hounds had all tried to reach him. Unfortunately, some had succeeded. The field commander of the Nuln Ironsides was limping on his right leg. The wound was unpleasant, and due to blood loss, Jubal felt dizzy, weak, and thirsty.
The Castellan-Engineer had led the Ironsides in a counterattack near the Raven's Dike, where northern savages on mammoths had broken through the Imperial defense. The situation was near-catastrophic, but the River Patrol vessels appeared just in time. They managed to distract the enemy, giving the Imperial troops time to organize a counterattack. Besides the Ironsides, it involved two companies of Reiksguard Halberdiers, four companies of Pikemen, a composite militia unit, a hundred Knights, and several wizards from the Gold Order, who shared a long-standing partnership with the Nuln engineers.
From Jubal Falk's perspective, most mages were not fully men of science. Their knowledge was either very narrow-focused or purely theoretical. But the wizards of the Gold Order were markedly superior to their colleagues. Some of them were practically comparable to engineers in the natural sciences.
The counterattack began quite successfully. Meeting minimal resistance from scattered enemy units, the Imperials reoccupied part of their lost positions. It would take a bit more time to restore their defensive capability.
By Jubal Falk's order, several artillery crews were formed from people with suitable skills to replace the dead and put the surviving guns back into use. Only cannons could help them fight off the large monsters.
Shots rang out. The accurate, coordinated fire of the Ironsides drove off a crowd of Beastmen and several skin-shifters. Jubal himself discharged his long Hochland long rifle into a four-horned shaman. The Beastman collapsed with a hole in his head before he could complete some dark incantation.
— Thank Sigmar for a lucky shot, — Falk thought.
However, it was too early to celebrate. The barbarians were clearly preparing a new onslaught. Mammoths were approaching. Around these living mountains, riders and infantrymen were gathering, including well-equipped warriors.
There was something else causing Jubal concern.
Thunder crashed and multicolored lightning streaked across the heavens. Cursed heretical magic! The enemy was far more dangerous than initially assumed. With a sinking heart, Falk saw how in places where especially many corpses lay, the air seemed to begin to glow. Dark spirits of the Warp were tearing into the world of men.
Jubal shook his head, driving away the hallucination. Let the priests and wizards deal with the demons. Jubal's task was to command, and when orders had already been given—to shoot. But at whom?
And then Falk spotted him. Atop one of the largest mammoths sat some savage shaman in a horned helmet. His single eye, located in the middle of a face covered by the helm, glowed brightly.
— Thinking of casting, you heretic!? Well, I'll show you...
Falk decided it was time to spend a rather valuable resource—a gift from the Gold Order mages. It was a special bullet. A perfectly smooth sphere of dark metal that glowed slightly in total darkness. The bullet was hollow inside. There, the master-alchemists had enclosed a super-potent acid compound. A substance capable of melting flesh, iron, and stone. Only the enchantments of the metal mages kept the acid from destroying the bullet itself.
Falk carefully took out the magical projectile, wrapped in oiled paper. Jubal knew how to reload rifles quickly, making up to 3-4 shots per minute, but now he carried out all operations with extreme care. He didn't even strike the butt against the ground for better powder packing and worked the ramrod like a jeweler with his tool.
Jubal stepped out of the trench onto the rampart. The Castellan-Engineer took aim. His long Hochland rifle was equipped with a special optical device involving magnifying lenses. This, and the special rifling in the barrel, allowed for incredible accuracy of which owners of ordinary muskets dared not even dream. However, such equipment was highly dependent on the skills of the marksman himself. He had to estimate the distance, correctly use the scale on the sight, and account for wind direction.
All these calculations took Jubal a few seconds. And then, a few words of prayer, hold the breath, and...
Crack!
The recoil went into his shoulder. How Jubal had grown accustomed to this sensation. He had been shooting for almost his entire conscious life.
— Take that! — the Castellan-Engineer grunted when he realized his bullet had reached the target.
Sprawling his limbs in a comical and absurd fashion, the one-eyed shaman fell first onto his mammoth's tusk and then flopped somewhere into the mud. The glow around him extinguished.
— A good mutant is a dead mutant, — Jubal thought with clear satisfaction, immediately switching to other tasks.
He had to check if messengers from the city or from other commanders had reached them. Jubal had sent for reinforcements and would very much like to see them as soon as possible.
The Castellan-Engineer had no idea what a dangerous sorcerer his bullet had struck. A hero does not always understand the scale of his deed.
The enchanted projectile had been able to pass through the protective veil of mist, striking Sayl the Faithless directly in his sorcerous eye. This shattered the Chaos-worshiper's concentration. It broke his ritual. Hundreds of demons, already prepared to manifest in the world of men, were cast back into the Warp. The dark spirits were gripped by impotent rage. Sayl would never again win their favor. Decades of cunning intrigue, power struggles, and the mastery of the secrets of the Immaterium were crossed out by a single shot. The sorcerer, who could potentially have risen to become a Daemon Prince, had lost that chance.
After giving a few more orders, Falk glanced at the sky. No more multicolored lightning. Just smoke and scraps of gray clouds.
— Probably the priests did their best, or our mages helped. Praise Sigmar! — thought Jubal, reloading his rifle.
The Battle for Nuln continued.
---
— Hey you! Come down and let us eat you! — demanded a Plague Ogre standing at the base of the ramp.
Twice already these clumsy monsters had tried to take our little ship by storm, but lead, magic, and calculated strikes had prevented them from reaching us. However, of the fifteen Chaos Ogres, not one had been destroyed yet. Even a cannon hit didn't kill them outright.
— Eat shit! — one of the Landsknechts shouted back at the Plague Ogre.
— Well, I would, — the ugly brute spread his massive arms. — It's all gone already.
— You lot are basically shit yourselves! — Magg declared with unconcealed judgment.
— Enough about the shit! — another Plague Ogre protested. — I'm starting to get even hungrier!
Actually, some of the plague-ridden were already feasting, picking up the corpses of the Chaos-worshipers we had killed.
— Eating carrion? — I smirked. — We are much tastier! We have dwarfs here, a halfling, an elf—such a rich selection! Have you ever tried an elf?
My provocation worked. The repulsive Ogres made a new attempt to storm. The ship's cannon was already ready for firing and aimed directly at the ramp. This time, the heavy roundshot hit the upper torso of the first Ogre ascending. It shattered his sternum and damaged his neck. Following the roundshot, the brute was hit by a dozen bullets. Even a Nurglite freak couldn't withstand that. The Ogre toppled over and fell off the ramp.
The brute following him was hit by an amber-colored spear created by Helena. This only slowed the Plague Ogre down. Then Magg, in the style of a nineties action movie hero, pronounced:
— Eat this!
And discharged both falconets into the horned brute's face. This, too, exceeded the limit even for a Nurglite Ogre. The second brute flew off the ramp. He was pushed aside by the third monster ascending.
— We're still going to eat you! — he threatened, climbing higher and higher.
Now it was my turn to act. Running to the side of the ship, I hacked, but not at the Ogre—at the pre-weakened fastenings. Ropes snapped, wood groaned, and the ramp collapsed down. An indignant roar rose from the Ogres, left without their treat. One of them began to batter the hull of the ship. It was no use. They couldn't break into it quickly. If anything, we could just drive away.
— How thick-headed they are, — grunted a one-eyed dwarf. — Even grobi don't seem like such cretins compared to them.
— It's all due to poor nutrition, — Magg stated while his double-barreled gun was being reloaded.
Even if we didn't finish off all the Plague Ogres, distracting their attention was already a huge help to our comrades in the center.
— By the way, Loom-Pia, the glow near the river has died down and the multicolored lightning is no longer visible in the sky. Is the Warp breach no longer a threat?
— I assume it passed. Likely, the savage sorcerer made some serious error in casting the spell. You warm-bloods are poor at concentrating on the Winds of Magic.
— You really tend to underestimate humans. What if the sorcerer performing the ritual was simply stopped by the warriors of the Empire?
— The chance of that exists, — the Hypnotoad admitted. — It is just that the version involving an error is far more probable.
Meanwhile, the artillery pieces began to sound loudly and frequently again. Likely, many barrels had been successfully moved from the direction where the Dawi-Zharr had left toward the center, where the main battle was now unfolding.
I quickly climbed onto the ship's aft tower to see the overall picture. Liandra followed behind me.
— Wow... — escaped me involuntarily.
Amidst the smoke, fire, and rising dust, an image of a slaughter of colossal proportions presented itself to us. While Tamurkhan's warriors were trying to break the center, the Nuln artillerymen had redeployed their guns capable of indirect fire. Mortars and rocket batteries began hitting right into the mass of northerners. Explosions thundered where, until recently, crowds of Chaos-worshipers had been waiting their turn to enter the fight. Every bomb took dozens of lives. Every rocket left huge gaps in the crowd of northerners. The remaining enemy sorcerers could not stop this. Their shields covered only a small part of the crowd and often simply couldn't withstand direct hits from the projectiles.
— Humans... — Liandra said in Eltharin. — For all their flaws, they have nonetheless gained the upper hand over the Chaos-worshipers. The blessings of the Dark Gods and monsters have yielded to simple tricks.
Liandra was right. Before our eyes, the Imperial army was winning.
The warriors, Chosen, and Champions of Chaos could, of course, fight even under such bombardment, but for the common Norscans, it was too much. The explosions tore their poorly armored bodies to pieces. Nothing but bits and pieces remained of the Pestigors. Hundreds died, and thousands felt fear and helplessness. The common northerners fled. The Beastmen wavered, followed by the Trolls and many other monsters. The Chaos-worshipers had lost the greater part of their army.
Only the best warriors, spawns, and demons continued the battle.
At the same time, the Imperial cavalry began hunting the retreating northerners. Lietpold the Black also led his riders into the attack. The mercenaries were excellent at finishing off the panicking enemy. It doesn't sound very noble, but it's important work. If given a chance, the northerners could recover from the shock and even attack again en masse. No. This battle had been too long and hard. No concessions to the enemy.
While the light cavalry drove the fleeing Norscan marauders and other rabble, the Imperial command decided to put an end to this battle.
— Demigryphs! — one of the "sailors" of our landship exclaimed joyfully.
Several dozen Demigryph Knights, heavy cavalry of the orders, Reiksguard Greatswords, three flying riders on Griffons—it seemed this was the main reserve and the main trump card of the Imperial army. The main trump card was laid on the table to deliver a crushing blow to those forces of Tamurkhan that still continued to resist.