by Thunder_downunder
Barton sat in his sadle, filled with both anxiety and frustration. He turned to the other young pistolier, Galway, mounted next to him, and asked,
"Why wont they let us ride out?"
Barton glanced around him. He was in the middle of one hundred and thirty five other pistoliers, most of them young noblemen like himself, and saw the frustration and fear on their faces, that he knew showed on his. None of them had ever been in a big battle like this before. They had sat on this rise, watching the battle unfold before them. The Greenskin forces descending on the massed infantry below, the infantry fighting viciously, then the Greenskins withdrawing again, only to regroup and attack once more. There had been nearly eleven thousand infantry at the bottom of the rise. Now well over a thousand men had been removed, either dead or dying.
"We must wait for an order to ride. The General must have a plan." it was just like Galway to trust the general. Barton had much less faith in other men.
From their vantage point, the pistoliers watched as the infantry began to part in the center, making room for the knights positioned behind the main body to ride through. Pendants snapping in the wind, plumes bobbing with the trot of their horses, they rode through. This was the sign most of the Pistoliers had been waiting for. Barton turned to Galway.
"This must be it. We'll ride in with the knights."
But as the pistoliers waited, the knights formed up in front of the infantry, making ready, and still no messenger came from the generals staff to herald a glorious charge.
The greenskins were making preparations to repell the charge, but the General was holding back. A rider broke away from the generals staff, galloping back up the slope towards the massed cavalry. To the pistoliers dissapointment, the rider sheered off to the artillery battery. A minute later the cannons and mortars boomed out, crashing into the Greenskins ranks. But there were so many of the cursed things that the artillery only muddied up the ranks a little, blowing the orcs out of their formations. After a few minutes a horn from the Generals staff signaled the Knights to advance. A moment later, after the leader of the knights had rode out in front, yelling something to his men, the heavy war horses began at a trot towards the Greenskins, in an effort to end this stalemate and break the horde.
A pistolier somewhere infront of Barton said loudly,
"Why wont they let us ride? The Knight's will break them and we will have been wasted! I haven't even fired a shot yet."
Nobody answered. Everyone was watching the knights increase their pace to a gallop. In perfect usion the Knights lowered their lances. It definitely looked impressive. A few orcs let fly with bows as the knights entered range. Barton could only see one knights horse fall. The knights kept going, faster and faster towards the wall of green muscle, teeth and sharp, pointy metal. The knights' trumpets began sounding. Dozens of them. From across the battleground the pistoliers could hear the cheering of the knights.
The impact of the knights on the Greenskin infantry was like water over sand. They hit the orcs, and kept riding over them, eventually losing momentum and slowing to a stop. The melee that broke out was difficult for the onlookers to watch. You could see knights cutting down orcs, but you could also see knights plumes disappearing under orcs, who were mercilessly pressing in on the attackers. Horses were dying, knights were getting wrenched from their saddles, or hideously falling under huge swings of the orcish swords. Greenskins were dying by the dozen, yes, but the cost was horrifying. The pistoliers watched on jelously.
Finally the Generals horn signaled the retreat, and the knights who were still able, swung their horses around and galloped away from the Orcs. Many knights had had their horses killed under them; so they began to run. The Greenskins were heartened by their success and chased the knights with enthusiasm.
Whoever was in charge of the Greenskins was clearly having trouble with controlling his troops, because many of them were trying to follow up the knights' retreat, while others were holding the line.
In a flurry of movement, the Empire Generals staff broke into movement. Riders galloping everywhere. Including one towards the pistoliers. Clearly the General had seen the weakness in the enemies line that he had been looking for.
Up came the messenger. It was a the Duke of Arschel. Barton knew him well. Arschel was near Bartons home town of Wahnfurt, the closest town to Nuln. He was the leader of the Pistoliers.
The Duke screamed out to his troops,
"Men! We ride to the Greenskins center body! We're to break them there, or hold them, while the infantry fights through the 'skins who're following up the knights, and catch up to us. We'll have to hold for ten minutes of hard melee or more! Ride on!"
It was the kind of suicide mission that every young nobleman dreamed of. They had ten minutes of combat to either break the enemy, stop them from reinforcing the other orcs, or to die gloriously.
Everyone seemed to have forgotten that a few moments before, triple the number of knights as to the pistoliers had just been handily beaten by the orcs. But as the pistoliers checked their weapons, nobody seemed to think of defeat. Just glory and promotion.
The horn sounded and the lightly armoured pistoliers kicked their horses into a gallop down the slope, swinging out to the right flank of the Empire infantry, who were marching double-time towards the advancing orcs. A cheer went up from the spearmen as the pistoliers rode past.
The orcs saw the pistoliers riding past but made no attempt to attack them. They kept going. They wanted another shot at the infantry.
The rest of the Greenskin army who had held their ground saw the pistoliers coming and began to prepare again. Barton didn't notice the infantry clashing behind him. Or the mortars hitting the infantry infront of him. He was only aware of cocking his pistols, and watching as the front of the pistoliers formation firing their weapons and crashing into the Greenskins. Like the knights before them, the pistoliers had enough momentum to ride over the orcs for half a minute of so. Barton saw men engaging orcs all around him. He saw one infront of him, swing an axe at a pistolier, Barton fired a shot at the greenskin, puncturing its chest. The orc cut the pistolier down, but fell on the ground, writhing in bloody pain. Barton dropped the pistol and fired another into an orc further to his right. He drew another two pistols from the holsters and tried to find new targets. Galway was firing away to his left. Orcs were far more aggressive on that side, and were hacking down pistoliers, pressing forward, trying to cut the riders formation in two. It was working. Barton fired two shots into an orc that was trying to tear a man from his saddle.
Far behind the Pistoliers, the Empire infantry was tangled up with the Orcs who had chased the Knights. The Empire infantry had long ago lost their pretty lines and square formations, now they were fighting viciously or uselessly, often being killed in four against one fights. However, the orcs were losing. The Empire had enough weight to drive the Orcs backwards on the edges of their halberds. They had a goal in mind. Push the orcs back, and keep up the momentum to drive the main body back. And the noblemen leading the infantry reminded them all the time.
"The pistoliers would hold the main orc body back! Just keep pushing forward!"
And the infantry responded. They threw the orcs into a retreat, and chased them down, killing them by the scores. As the infantry ran, the scene of the outnumbered and surrounded pistoliers fighting the main body ahead filled their minds. As they ran towards the riders, they (like the well disciplined troops on Nuln that they were,) unconsciously regrouped into their detachment and parent unit formations. When they hit the main Orc body exactly 6 minutes after the pistoliers had engaged, most of the riders were dead, dismounted, or wounded.
Barton had fired all of his pistols ages ago. He had drawn his sword as was desperately trying to fend the Orcs off. His beloved horse Brunhild had been cut down underneath him, but he had wounded the Orc who had done it, sending it reeling backwards, as Barton threw himself back to his feet. For a few panicking and disoriented moments, Barton thought he was the only Pistolier left, but he glanced behind him and saw more.
With the same glance he had seen the Infantry on its way from having routed the Orcs they were sent against.
Barton was no hero with a sword. He was a fair shot with his pistols, but with a sword he was feeble at best. The orcs pressing in on him seemed to realise this, and several tried to lunge towards him. A dismounted man who Barton didn't know, fired a pistol from behind, and moved forward to help, as Barton slashed wildly, trying to keep the Orcs at bay. Luckily the man next to him knew his way around a sword, and brought his sword down across an Orcs face. The pistoliers were backing into a defensive group, with no more than half still mounted.
With a cheer the Empire infantry crashed into the Orcs, instantly relieving the pressure from the Pistoliers. A Major General who was leading the Infantry came galloping up the the pistoliers,
"The General says to withdraw! Good show! You boys did a hell of a job!"
The Major General was pointing to the piles of Orc bodies before the Pistoliers. The young noblemen didn't wait around. The men still mounted helped the others to double up on their horse. Barton was looking around for Galway, who had lost eachother in the fight. Without success, he took the proffered hand from a Amosstein nobleman named Count Alois.
They rode away from the fighting, back to the slope next to the artillery. The Duke of Arschel, the leader of the Pistoliers had been slashed across his leg, several times, but he rode around, dripping blood, making sure the remainder of his men were in order. Many were wounded in similar ways to Arschel. As Barton looked around he became aware of how few Pistoliers were returning. Out of the one hundred and thirty five pistoliers who had ridden out, now only fifty of sixty were here. And only about thirty of them had their horses with them. The rest were either dead or so badly wounded that they had been unable to climb upon a horse. Barton looked around once more for his friend Galway. But he already suspected the worst.
A man laying on the ground near Barton, said,
"With so many dead, so early in the campaign, how can we go on?"
Barton agreed. With so many Knights, and Pistoliers dead or wounded, how could they continue their expedition into the Badlands? Even as he thought this, a scream of pain from a man clutching his wounded chest made Barton harden his features. He was supposed to be the proud son of Baron Evert of Wahnfurt.
He turned his back on the dying and wounded. He saw the Empire infantry turn the tides against the Orcs, and turn a hardfought battle into a rout. Barton said a small prayer to Sigmar, not for preserving him through that day, no. But to end this campaign. As the infantry chased down the Orcs, he saw the hundreds and thousands of black Nuln uniforms laying in the grass.
A few cannon crewman were wondering over from the battery, no longer having anything to do. They were all commoners, and hesitant about talking to the young noblemen. One saw Barton.
"Sire, you men had a hell of a fight, beggin' your pardon, sire."
"For the Emperor, the Empire and for Sigmar."
Barton said the words. But he didn't believe them. It had been a useless expedition, all to win glory for a few favourite noblemen from Nuln.