I awoke amongst the bodies of my fellow greatswords, the sun in my eyes, blinding me. My body was sore in the places where the elfin blades had stung me and blood, my blood, was caked onto my armour at the joints. In fact I think that every point on my platemail, doublet and face was tainted red with blood, of friend and foe. Needless to say the stench was overpowering and the first thing I did as I rose to my feet was vomit into the open wounds of Klide, a new recruit out of the Brazen Swordsmen. His face and the faces of all the men of the second unit of the Nordland Greatswords stared up at me in a silent moan of agony. Or maybe that’s just how I felt at the time.

            My name is Dietrich Gottfried; I was a member of the greatsword regiment of the <st1:place><st1:placetype>Province</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename>Nordland</st1:placename></st1:place> of the Holy Empire of Sigmar. That’s a pretty convoluted sentence but it covers all the bases. The year was 2520, the year before the great war of Chaos. It was also the year I first encountered these elfin raiders from the west.

            The battlefield was littered with bodies from both sides. Although, as I looked around, I could not find any trace of the female warriors I had slain. They had fought with the fervor of a worshiper of Khorn from the distant north. Many men of my unit were struck down around me as we fought. I myself killed three, maybe four, of the half naked women. As the last few moments of the battle leading up to my passing out flashed before my eyes, I became grief stricken. Tears began to flow from my eyes as my heart sank into my stomach.

            The bodies before me were, all of them, lifeless and rotting. The crows had already come to pick at the flesh of the dead. I had to keep them from being eaten; I could not allow the memory of these men of Sigmar to be sullied. But I didn’t have the strength to bury them all. Looking down at the men of my unit and decided to build a pyre. The first thing I did was collect the bodies. One by one I went through each of them. Pironz, Alf, and Gregory. <st1:place><st1:city>Salizar</st1:city>, <st1:country-region>Kent</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and Morty. Each of their death wounds was worse than the last, I wept as I pulled away what armour I could, closed their eyes and placed them in a pile a few feet from where they had died. When the work was done I found myself making two very disturbing realizations; the first was that I had no fire with which to burn the bodies, and the second was that several of my unit were missing. I had not the energy to solve both of these problems so I went in search of a flame.

            After an hour of searching I found the lonely artillery train. The gunners long since abandoning their posts or else dead, though there were no bodies. The torches used for firing the cannons still burned and were staked into the ground. In fact I noted a number of horses used to move the cannons off in the edge of the field, loitering in the trees that bordered it. The men had gone, but nothing else seemed amiss. If they had fled surely they would have had the sense to go for their horses, riders or not.

            I took the torch back to the pile of rotting and carrion flecked corpses. This was all that remained of the greatest unit of swordsmen to come out of Nordland. I said a prayer, commending their souls to Sigmar and Ulric in the hopes that they would see fit to return these men to fight along side the Emperor’s holy armies in the End of Times. Then, in the face of the setting sun, I lit the Pyre and stood back.

            I fell asleep that night choking on the fumes of my former comrades in arms.

We had been mustered in the town of Ferraville, just one week prior to the battle. It was a small backward village, used to the militarised nature of the north. Despite its distance from the coast it had been destroyed several times by invading marauders. We were sent there by the Elector Count in defence of a prophesied assault by the Norsii. On the first night the greatswords had enjoyed an invitation to General Otto Von Richter’s table. He had appropriated the Mayor’s manor, a humble building built of wood and stone, but it suited the General’s purposes.

            Geoffery, Karl and I had entered the dining hall with the intention of sitting as far away from the nobility as possible. We were each born of farmers and, though we had come far in the noble traditions of the Empire military and wore our dress uniforms with pride, we were still peasants at heart. We sat far from the head of the table and found ourselves joined by some of the Reiksguard knights. Three of them sat down opposite us, their armour gone and replaced by rich linens and leathers. Even in the clothes of rich merchants they had the bearing of soldiers and killers.

            Karl, ever the optimist, had smiled at them and nodded to them in greeting. “Hail to the knights of Karl Franz,” he said.

            The smallest of the three, a small man by no other means, answered first. “And the same to you brave warrior,” he said. “My name is Cedric Geldenhoff, this is Claude Regdar on my right, and Aaron Von Hampton on my left.” Each knight nodded, unsmiling to Karl.

            “I have the honour of sharing the Emperor’s name, Karl Saninguous, to my right is Dietrich Gottfried and to my left Geoffery Galdhielm,” said Karl.

            Sir Cedric smiled at Karl’s enthusiasm. The six of us shared the mayor’s wine and talked into the night. They were brave humourless men, having seen battle again and again. The houses of Geldenhoff and Regdar were not even of noble origin, the two knights having once been part of the Reikland Greatswords, eventually knighted upon the personal recommendation of Kurt Helborg. They shared with us the tale of how our general obtained such high standing with both the Elector Counts and the Emperor.

            As we returned to the barracks that evening, the three of us passing a wine skin between us, both Geoffery and I thanked Karl. “We would never have had the brazen to speak like that to the Emperor’s personal guard,” Geoffery said.

            “Everyone like to have their praises sung,” said Karl. Then he added in darker tones, “Beware of those who speak highly of you.”

            I tossed the skin to Geoffery who nearly dropped it in the dirt of the road. “Soldiers have no fear of praises,” I said. “Those who wish us ill must attack with a sword, not words.”

            “Yes,” Karl shouted. “And with a sword we will defeat all who wish us ill.”

            With that note Geoffery vomited into a ditch, and nearly fell in for his troubles. We laughed, and then blacked out. Somehow we made it back, but I cannot remember how.

I awoke amongst the bodies of my fellow soldiers. The pyre had burned itself out but still belched acrid smoke across the bloody field.

more to come soon….