Forged in Battle Read online

  “Will you be partaking of our Helmstrumburg hospitality for long?”

  “I doubt it,” Eugen replied, and Theodor laughed.

  Sigmund was reliving the argument with the burgomeister when he stepped inside the Crooked Dwarf inn. There were a couple of regulars, sitting at the bar, tall steins of beer in front of them. Sigmund acknowledged them as he walked up to the bar.

  “Now then, Guthrie,” he said and leaned his arms on the smooth wood of the bar. “What’s new?”

  “Nothing new.” Guthrie continued drying his tankard. “I hear you brought my lad back alive.”

  “I did,” Sigmund said.

  “Coming home with living men is a good habit for a captain to have,” Guthrie said. “Keep it up.”

  “I intend to,” Sigmund snapped, surprised by the animosity of the jolly ostler. Turning round, he saw Edmunt sitting in the corner with a steaming platter of beef, bowls of pickled cabbage and good thick trenchers of rye bread. Sigmund walked over to him, pulled out a stool, and sat down.

  Edmunt nodded to Sigmund to help himself. The two men had been friends long before they’d enlisted. That feeling still blurred the distinctions between captain and halberdier.

  “I saw Frantz,” Sigmund said.

  “How was he?”

  “Good.”

  They ate in silence for a few moments.

  “The burgomeister refused to ask for more men.”

  “Did you expect anything else?”

  Sigmund shook his head and kept eating.

  “Did you deliver our friends to him?”

  “I did,” Sigmund said and smiled. “Strange pair.”

  “They are.”

  “What do you think?”

  Edmunt took another bite of bread. “Who can tell,” he said at last, cut a piece of meat and began to chew.

  Sigmund put his beer down. “I don’t trust them.”

  Edmunt nodded. They ate in silence for a while. After they’d finished wiping their bowls clean, Edmunt let out a belch of satisfaction.

  “How’s Elias’ cut?”

  “We cleaned it. He’s resting.”

  Sigmund nodded. “I’ll go see him,” he said and stood up. On his way out of the door he paused and looked back at his friend. Edmunt had grown up in the high country. He’d known Osman, and even more than that he’d known the trader’s daughters. He watched his friend take a long swig of his tankard. After what they’d seen in the hills they were all a little shaken. Getting drunk was one way to forget.

  The Helmstrumburg barracks backed onto the river. Ringed by a stone wall, meant as much to keep the soldiers in as angry fathers out, there was a wide drill ground and then a “U” of buildings with their back to the river, the long draughty barrack formed the right wing. The left housed kitchens, the armoury and a stable, which was used to store grain and blackpowder, and the two nags that the soldiers used to collect their provisions from the docks.

  Across the top were the officers’ rooms, sick room and shrine, with its small statue of Sigmar. While Sigmar may have cleared the forests of greenskins, it was Taal who created them, and Taal who had named this land, and Taal who owned the hearts of the men of Talabecland. He shared his shrine with his brother, Ulric, at the base of a tree near the river. It was a crude thing, which passing soldiers had built up over the years. The coloured strips of cloth upon which they’d written their prayers were completely faded.

  The barracks had been strange at first to Sigmund, but now the smell of oiled metal, sweat and waxed cuirboili breastplates seemed like home.

  Sigmund hailed Vostig, sergeant of the handgunners, who was sitting with his men, cleaning their guns. They’d been shooting that morning and their clothes and faces were dark with soot.

  “You should try washing your clothes some day,” Sigmund told them and Vostig grinned.

  “When you get proper uniforms,” he bantered, “then we’ll wash!”

  Sigmund was still chuckling as he stooped to pass through the sick room doorway. There were five beds, crammed together, and on one of them sat Elias, looking bored.

  “How’s the arm?”

  “It’s alright,” Elias said but he didn’t look good.

  Sigmund felt the young man’s forehead. The lad was feverish. The wound must have gotten infected. “Let me have a look at that,” Sigmund said and began to unwrap the bandage.

  As the last wet wrapper came away he saw that the wound was oozing green pus. Sigmund frowned. “Who cleaned this wound?”

  “Freidel.”

  Sigmund shook his head, stood up and moved to the doorway. He could see Schwartz coming back from the latrine. “Get Freidel!” Sigmund shouted. “I want him to fetch the apothecary. And run!”

  Vasir did not dare sleep, but at some point he must have dropped off and jerked awake as dawn began to bleach the sky. Beneath him he could see shapes moving: horned shapes.

  Vasir was so frightened he stopped breathing. They have come for you, he told himself as the enormous figures passed not more than a hand’s reach beneath his perch. They’ve tracked you here, he told himself, but that was impossible. He’d crossed streams, ducked through stinking patches of wild garlic, taken circuitous routes through rock fields. It was impossible to follow a scent through all that.

  Impossible, he told himself. If they’d tracked you then one of them would be looking up this tree straight at you. Ill fate has brought them here. Nothing more. Don’t move, don’t breathe, and don’t let them smell me!

  It was several minutes before all the beastmen had passed. Vasir thanked Taal for his benevolence.

  The beastmen knew a different world to that of men: found their way by sacred rocks or twisted and macabre trees that were imbued with a dull sense of hatred for living things. They’d lived in the hills since time immemorial: had ranged right down to the river—until the Great Slayer came and killed their chieftain, and destroyed their most sacred herdstone.

  Since then they’d brooded, nurturing their hatred as carefully as a flame: feeding it, letting it grow. Deep in the hills they’d been gathering their strength, and now the two-horned star had been seen, the prophecies were true.

  It was time for the gathering.

  This sacred shrine had once been in the heart of beastman country, but now humans had come up even into these hills: cut down trees and planted seeds in the ground. The beastmen could smell their fires, smell cooking meat, and knew that the time had come.

  Azgrak knew that this was his time. As soon as he’d seen the two-horned star, animal impulse had compelled him to follow the summons. He stood, stark albino white, glowing in the half light of dawn, his fingers flexing over and over in some mad impulse. Behind him his bodyguard stood, bearing the banners they’d found on their way to the gathering: the skinned bodies of men. Around the circle he saw the other tribal leaders. Fat Potgut—the Red Killer, whose belt was made of linked human heads, their hair plaited to form a gruesome belt.

  Brazak—the bloated beast, whose skin bubbled with suppurating sores that boiled and popped and oozed a sticky white pus.

  And of course, Uzrak the Black who had ruled the plateau since Azgrak was weaned from his mother’s udders. But Uzrak’s fur was starting to grey. If the star had come a few winters earlier then Uzrak might be the undisputed leader but now…

  Azgrak let out a low growl. It was involuntary: the bloodlust was coming onto him again as the shaman strode into the middle of the square. All the tribe leaders knew what they were here for: to choose a leader. Any who contested leadership had to fight for it, or die.

  The shaman shook his man-skull rattle. It was time.

  Uzrak stepped into the crude ring of stones—daring any to challenge his leadership.

  Azgrak growled again, unable to keep the fury inside. He snorted and flexed his hands, his muscles so tense that tendrils of veins stood out from his arms and neck and forehead, right up to his horns.

  Uzrak the Black glared at the display of dissention. H
e’d fathered this whelp ten years before on the brood-goat of some dead chieftain. He put back his horns, snout to the sky, and let out a roar that made the trees above his head shake—but when he looked back down he saw that one challenger had stepped into the ring. The contester glowed white in the dawn.

  Neither of the beastmen moved for a moment, but all around the circle the other beastmen began to snort and stamp their hooves, tense and excited.

  Blood would be shed tonight.

  In the clearing the two combatants—black and white—were locked together. The white shape thrust his horns in one more time, and the black body slid slowly to the ground, to lie at his feet like a pool of darkness.

  There was silence. In the memory of all there, there had never been such a fast and brutal fight. And none imagined that Uzrak the Black’s thirty-year reign had ended on the horns of one of his son—this cursed albino—that should have been smothered at birth.

  Azgrak glared round the ring, sensing the disquiet, but no others dared challenge him. They looked towards the shaman to ban this abomination but the shaman shook the man-skull rattle and began the rites of lordship; after what they’d seen, there was no doubt that the albino had been blessed by the gods.

  CHAPTER THREE

  That afternoon Vostig’s men were drilling. Sigmund stood to watch, making sure they were lined up close together.

  “Prime the pan!” Vostig shouted. The men moved as one, filling the pans with powder.

  “Close the pan!” The men flipped the pans closed and blew away any loose powder.

  “Charge with powder.” The men poured a measure of blackpowder down the barrels.

  “Prime with shot!” A lead ball the size of a walnut was dropped down the barrels. The bullet and charge were rammed home. Each gun had a slow-burning fuse attached to the trigger. They blew on the fuse to make the end glow and then when the order came to “Present handguns” the handgunners lifted the butt to their shoulders.

  “Prepare to fire!” Vostig shouted. The men flipped the pans open.

  “Give fire!” Vostig called. The men pulled on the triggers and the fuse struck the powder in the pan, which belched and ignited the charge within the barrel. The guns flared flame and smoke in a ragged fusillade.

  As the smoke cleared Sigmund turned to look at the length of cloth, a foot high and ten foot long, that had been pinned up along the back of the barrack wall, at chest height. Twelve ragged holes showed where the lead shots had ripped through. Three men had missed. There were new chips on the brickwork, well over head height.

  Vostig cursed. “Again!” he shouted, and the men scrambled to remove the fuse from their guns and use the ram rod to clear any embers from the barrels. “Damn your hides!” Vostig cursed. “I want fifteen holes each time! Now—prime the pan!”

  Sigmund left the handgunners to their practice and walked through the barracks to the sick room.

  Elias did not look any better. His face was pale and sweaty. As he inspected the young man, Sigmund smiled to hide his concern. Where was that damned apothecary?

  “How do you feel?”

  “A little sore.” Elias seemed exhausted by the effort of speaking. His ragged breaths filled the room. He looked suddenly frightened. “If I die will you tell Guthrie that—”

  “You’re not going to die,” Sigmund told him, quickly.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” Sigmund said, trying to hide his concern. Surely no normal infection could have taken hold so quickly and so violently? And there were no medicines for the supernatural.

  As Sigmund sat with Elias, keeping him company, the sick room door creaked open. The woodsman, Edmunt, stood uncertainly by the door, his lips moving silently in a prayer to Taal.

  Sigmund bowed his head. He knew why Edmunt had come. The woodsman’s face was white. He stared at Elias and nodded.

  “The same,” he said, and then turned to go.

  * * *

  Osric’s men looked up as Edmunt came out of the sick room and walked past where they were polishing their halberds. Edmunt didn’t meet their gazes but walked straight past, across the drill ground to the barrack gates.

  Baltzer spat. “What’s up with him?”

  “Give it a break,” Freidel said. To anyone who knew the woodsman’s history, it was obvious.

  The apothecary arrived at the barracks just before dinner. There was a fine smell of lentil broth coming from the kitchens and the men were standing around expectantly.

  The apothecary nodded to them as he walked up to the door of the sick room. He paused at the door before knocking and stepping inside. Sigmund left the side of Elias’ bed to make way for him. The apothecary walked over to the bed, where the young man was dozing listlessly. He leant over, adjusted his spectacles, and pulled back the blanket to inspect Elias’ arm.

  “He has been wounded by a poisoned blade,” Sigmund said and the apothecary nodded. Slowly and carefully, he unwrapped the bandages which were sticky with fluids. The wound was swollen and putrid, and a green pus oozed out.

  The stench made both men’s eyes water. The apothecary took a pomander from his robes and held it close to his nose.

  “Can you fetch me a bucket?” the apothecary asked. Sigmund hurried out to the kitchens and came out with one of their buckets, which the apothecary signalled he should put by Elias’ bed.

  The apothecary lifted his case onto the bed next to Elias’ and took out a copper mixing bowl. In it he mixed red Tilean wine vinegar, mixed with salt, and used the mixture to clean out the wound. The procedure must have been painful, but Elias hardly seemed to notice what was happening. When the pus had been cleaned out the apothecary took a short knife from his case and bent over the wounded man. Sigmund watched with a morbid curiosity as he pared away the infected flesh and dropped it into the bucket. When true red blood began to flow freely the apothecary knew he’d hit living tissue and he washed the wound again with a fresh mix of salt and vinegar.

  Sigmund watched the apothecary mix medicinal herbs and more vinegar. He made a thick paste to spread over the wound—binding it tight with fresh bandages, then he let out a long sigh.

  “There,” he said, but his voice did not sound hopeful. “That is the best I can do.”

  The apothecary had been in the sick room for nearly an hour when Osric and Baltzer came out of the kitchen, their bowls full of steaming stew.

  Richel was just coming back from sentry duty and his stomach was screaming for food.

  “Richel!” Osric said. “Good to see you.”

  Richel smiled nervously. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said.

  Osric marched straight up to the handgunner. “I’ll give you trouble!” he said, pushing Richel roughly against the wall, then putting his hand on the handgunner’s chest. “Now,” Osric said, “who’s a scruffy bloody bastard?”

  Richel could barely breath with the weight on his chest.

  “Who?”

  “Me!” Richel said.

  “Who?”

  “Me!”

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “Me!”

  “Me what?”

  “I’m a scruffy bastard!”

  Osric took his foot off and gave Richel a kick. “Remember that—damned gun-boy!”

  Edmunt took his bowl of stew round the back of the barrack building, to the short jetty. He’d grown up with his parents high up in the hills, on the edge of the high moors. To think he needed real quiet and solitude: and here, staring out over the grey water was about as quiet as it got.

  He shovelled a spoonful of broth into his mouth, and took a bite of bread. It tasted stale, as always. He chewed it anyway, and took another spoonful of broth to wash away the taste.

  When he was a boy his mother had been attacked by beastmen. Somehow she survived, but the wound had eaten her alive, in much the same way that it was eating Elias. The smell was the same: fetid and bitter, like the stench of the red stinkball in the forests. In the end the sickness had dri
ven her mad. Her skin bubbled with boils and her tongue swelled up to fill her mouth.

  It had taken Edmunt and his father a whole morning to dig her grave at the back of their cabin. They wrapped her body in her favourite shawl: a red-dyed woollen one, with fancy embroidery around the hem.

  Years ago, when he’d first enlisted in the halberdiers, Edmunt had been wandering through the market one morning when he found a trader selling embroidered shawls.

  “Two for ten pennies,” the trader had told him, but Edmunt had just wanted one. “Seven for one,” the trader had argued.

  There was nothing Edmunt disliked more than a Reiklander with attitude—but it was the shawl he was concerned with. He paid the seven pennies and took it. The trader had assumed it was a gift for some trollop at Madam Jolie’s, but when he joked Edmunt’s glare had silenced him.

  Only seven pennies, he thought. After his mother had died his father never spoke much. His wife’s death had taken the purpose from his life. He hadn’t spoken much when she was alive. After she was gone he had barely spoken at all. Four years after they’d buried his mother, Edmunt had had to dig a pit for his father as well. Woodcutting was a hard life. He’d buried his father next to his mother, raised a cairn over him and said the prayer of Taal over his grave. And that afternoon he’d carried on cutting.

  His meal eaten, Edmunt tossed a stone into the broad, fast waters. There was a brief splash and ripples, before the current of the river swept them downstream. From here the Stir became the Upper Reik and then the Reik, and then it flowed into the sea at Marienburg. All his father had wanted him to be was a woodsman, but his mother had been more ambitious for her son, proudly imagining him in a smart uniform: feathered hat, puffed sleeves of silk and felt, an outrageous codpiece of striped cloth. He imagined her eyes filling with joyful tears as she put her hand over her mouth to laugh at her son dressed so well—then he threw another stone and stood up and turned to go back towards the barracks.