Forged in Battle Read online

  “Agreed!” the shaman told him, its face so close to Eugen’s that he could see the goat lips curl back from the teeth in a gruesome smile.

  “I will do what we agreed,” Eugen said slowly and deliberately.

  The shaman shook its horns and started to stamp backwards. “Waiting for you!” it called out and Eugen saw the circle of warriors disappear as well.

  Eugen let out a long sigh of relief. He hated dealing with creatures like these. They had different understandings of a pact. They were just as likely to eat you as wait to eat a hundred people tomorrow.

  When Eugen turned his horse it reared up in terror.

  Eugen had to fight to bring it back under control and then he saw what had terrified the animals so. Standing not two feet behind him was a huge beast, almost tall enough to look Eugen in the eye. The creature had bull’s horns which swept forward in a deadly curve and a shaggy mane of knotted fur hung down over monstrous knotted shoulders. What made it most terrifying of all was that the whole creature was an albino: head to foot it was stark white.

  The snout opened in a snarl, and Eugen swallowed. As if in answer to his prayers, the beast took a step backwards, still facing him as it paced away until its ghostly white form disappeared from sight into the shadows.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For a thousand years, under the dripping stalactites and the crude cave paintings, legends had been told about that which had been stolen. From the high peaks of Frantzplinth, beastmen warriors had stood on the rocky crags, their manes ruffling in the mountain winds, their horns stark against the thin, blue heavens: staring down at the curve of the river, and the brown irregular shape of fields and farmsteads, and the semi-circle of the thousand-year man-camp.

  Now, as the sun’s rays caught the peak of Frantzplinth, those warriors took their shields from the crude racks. Ancient banners of stretched manskin were taken from the cave walls. The poles of heads, some dried and crinkled with age, stared with sightless eyes as the migration gathered pace.

  The beast herds moved down ancient mountain paths and began to flow together, ancient animosities laid aside for the common cause. They flowed together like streams running into a river, growing in strength and momentum, until a mighty flood flowed silently through the high mountain forests.

  In the Jorg family mill, a few miles east of Helmstrumburg on the Kemperbad Road, Andres Jorg woke with a start and found that he’d fallen asleep across the kitchen table. Bright sunlight streamed in through the open shutters.

  His neck was stiff, his back ached, his mouth tasted of stale spirits and his head felt as if a dwarf had been hammering it all night. To top it all his leg was aching. Not his actual leg, but the leg he’d lost more than twenty years ago on a surgeon’s table while stray cannon and gunshot whizzed all around. From his knee downwards, there was no shin: just a finely polished piece of oak, shod with a steel cap.

  Andres pushed himself up, stumped over to the water barrel and took the dipper and drank it dry. He drank another one, and felt a little better, cursed the spirits he’d been drinking.

  Never again, he told himself, as he’d sworn so many mornings before.

  Andres stumped through the kitchen, past where a kettle hung above the cold fire, to the open doorway, where the sunlight streamed in. He blinked in the sudden light and shut his eyes for a moment. It made his head feel worse.

  The mill stood at the edge of the Stir. There was a sluice a quarter of a mile up the river that channelled water out of the river and took it to a holding pool. From the pool the water ran over a weir and down a steep stone-sided shoot. The force of the water turned the enormous water wheel, which ground the stacked sacks of wheat to a fine white flour.

  He had to stop drinking like this, Andres told himself, but each night he’d have a small measure and begin to think about the days of his youth, then he’d get lost in drink and memories of his time as a greatsword.

  The greatswords were the largest men in the army, with greatest physical strength. They were paid twice the salary of the other soldiers: they lived hard and died young. Always leading charges; always the last to leave the battlefield: dead if need be, their motto ran.

  There was no scabbard long enough for the sixty-inch blades so they carried them wherever they went, resting on the shoulder. But, when wielded in battle, there was nothing cumbersome about them. Perfectly balanced, the ten-pound blade could out-reach any other swordsman and could smash through shields and armour with ease. They were used as shock troops to smash the enemy lines. Often they charged halberdiers, the blades easily cutting through the shafts of the weapons and leaving the halberdiers defenceless. And then there was a long leather ricasso, allowing the zweihänder to be used up close.

  Andres’ zweihänder hung over the fireplace. It was the best polished thing in the house. Made of the finest Reikland steel, decorative swirls were etched into the steel. The cross-piece curved towards the hilt, each guard ending with a closed fist. The heavy round pommel balanced the blade perfectly, allowing the blade to be spun round with ease. The undulating flamberge blade glimmered with a dull light. The edges had long since lost their sharp edge, but zweihänders didn’t rely on the edge of the blade, the strength of the wielder was multiplied ten times by the weight and length of the blade.

  Andres smiled as he remembered the first time he had cut a man in half. The power of the greatsword was formidable. It had saved his life a hundred times. He revered it like a lover: hard and cruel and deadly to his enemies.

  He patted the weapon and then stumped across to the open doorway, and watched the water wheel creaking round and round. And now he was a fat, drunk miller.

  The clamour of excited voices woke Sigmund. He threw off the woollen blankets, slung his jacket over his undershirt, and strode to the door.

  The sun was rising over the barrack walls. He saw Edmunt come out of the sick room with a wide grin on his face.

  Sigmund dared not feel hope. “How is he?” he asked.

  “Taal be praised!” the woodsman laughed. “You should come and see this!”

  Sigmund strode down to the sick room to see for himself. He pushed into the room where Elias was lying and—by Sigmar—there he was! Sitting up as if he were a lord waiting for his breakfast in bed.

  “Sigmar be praised!” Sigmund said. “I never thought to see you looking so well!”

  Elias grinned sheepishly. He could hardly remember anything after the fight with the beastmen; he couldn’t even remember getting wounded.

  “I remember falling over into some brambles,” he said, looking at the scratches that still covered his hands and arms. “But other than that…”

  Sigmund shook his head. “Well, you’ve saved the count three gold coins!” he said. “We should all be glad of that!”

  Later that morning, when the apothecary arrived, he was so astonished to see the young man’s recovery that his spectacles fell off the end of his nose. “I never expected to see you so alive and well!” he said, recovering his spectacles. He removed the bandages from Elias’ arm and inspected the wound. Where there had been rotten flesh there was now a dull red scab and the reddening around the edge of a healing wound. He peered more deeply and stabbed the end of a knife through the scab.

  Elias winced as the apothecary pressed but no pus came, just thick red blood.

  Again the apothecary shook his head.

  “I have never seen anything quite like this,” he said. “To be sure.”

  Sigmund nodded. “So he’s not going to die quite yet?”

  The apothecary didn’t like to state anything he could not be absolutely sure about. He thought of the twin-tailed star and shook his head. “Not from this wound, anyway.”

  One day a week the men were given an afternoon off. At the end of the morning the men lined up for a parade and kit inspection. Afterwards Sigmund dismissed all the men except for Vostig’s handgunners, who were on sentry duty.

  The other men had been in the hills for days. They
needed a break. As for the spearmen—well—it seemed good to let the two companies out to get to know each other.

  The men were all laughing and joking as they strode through the barrack gates. As they jostled into the street, the townsfolk stepped out of their way. Osric saw this as respect, but Sigmund knew their behaviour was more down to fear. Soldiers were fine as long as there was an enemy to fight or they were safe in barracks. Loose in the town they were something to avoid.

  Behind Osric’s men came the scattered groups of Gunter’s company heading for the Blessed Rest.

  Elias, miraculously recovered, so it seemed, went to the Crooked Dwarf where Guthrie started crying with joy.

  “I never saw you looking so ill!” he said. “And I never thought I’d be so happy to see you walking around with bandages on!”

  They were still hugging each other when Osric and a group of halberdiers wandered in and sat down. Guthrie brought the soldiers a tray full of beers.

  “On the house!” he grinned and the men cheered. Elias felt embarrassed to think that the man who had rescued him from the streets and raised him was now serving him.

  “Here!” Guthrie said and put a stein down in front of Elias. “This will help you get better!”

  When a band of tall Vorrsheimers in their smart uniforms came in and began to make their way across the bar, a few of the local women looked at them with interest.

  “I hope you’re not going to steal our women!” Osric shouted across the room, and the Vorrsheim men laughed nervously.

  “I don’t think they realise he’s not joking,” Freidel said. Kann and Schwartz laughed. They’d soon find out about Osric’s sense of humour.

  By the time Eugen came back from his visit to the burgomeister, the soldiers were quite drunk. He noticed the halberdiers sitting in the bar and walked towards the stairs, but looked back. When the halberdiers noticed him staring he half smiled then turned away and hurried up stairs.

  He and Theodor shared a room overlooking the street. It was noisy, but served their purposes, and it wouldn’t be for long.

  Eugen knocked three times and the door was opened.

  Eugen slipped inside and then shut the door behind him. Their room was small and cramped, with two simple beds on either wall and a window overlooking the street.

  Their crates were stacked under the window. On the left-hand bed Theodor was cleaning his pistols. The ram rod and oiled cloth were set out on a cloth on the blankets. The bores had been unscrewed and polished. The broad barrels were fearsome. The balls they shot could stop a charging bull.

  “I saw something downstairs,” Eugen began.

  Theodor looked up from the barrel he was cleaning. “What?”

  “That boy. He is downstairs.”

  Theodor didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what Eugen was talking about. “I saw him too.”

  Eugen sat on his bed and put his hands together as if he was praying, then put them to his lips. “I do not understand how he has survived,” he said, “unless you were somehow involved.”

  Theodor did not look away. “I was,” he said.

  Eugen pursed his lips and shook his head. “Why?”

  Theodor peered down the barrel to make sure that it was clean, and then began to screw it back onto the firing mechanism. “He helped save us.”

  Eugen frowned. He didn’t understand this peculiar sense of honour.

  “I cannot think that you chose to endanger our mission by bringing such attention to us.”

  Theodor aimed the pistol out of the window and pulled the trigger and the wheel-lock snapped down on the pan.

  Satisfied that all was working properly, he put that one down and began to screw the other back together.

  Eugen hated to be ignored. “This is endangering us,” he said, his voice rising in pitch. “Endangering me!”

  Theodor nodded. “It will be fine,” he said. “I bribed the man. He was one of the burgomeister’s men. It will be fine.”

  Eugen paused for a long time as if considering whether to say more on the matter.

  “I suppose it was because of us that he was wounded.”

  “Just what I thought,” Theodor said. “If anyone intervened that would have been my line.”

  Eugen nodded, opened his mouth to say more, but relented. There were more important matters at hand. And once those were completed it would not matter about the burgomeister or any of his men. And then he could also deal properly with this insubordination.

  “So now we go onto the next phase,” Eugen said. Theodor dry-fired the second pistol out of the window as he’d done with the first. “You understand what you have to do?”

  “I do. Four barrels.”

  “Good. And tomorrow I will light the fires around the Sacred Heart so we are sure that they get the right man.”

  “Which one?” Theodor asked and slipped both his pistols into their holsters and hung the belt from a peg on the wall.

  “The one with the water mill,” Eugen said.

  Theodor nodded. The water mill it was.

  Downstairs in the bar Osric pushed his way unsteadily across the bar to where four of the spearmen were sitting with the women. The stein in his hand sloshed beer over his hand. He licked it clean then pointed his tankard at the men’s striped uniforms.

  “So, how did you get this fancy rig?”

  “Vice-Marshal Trappe paid for it,” one of the men said, “for our bravery.”

  “Bravery, huh?” Osric sloshed more beer down his front. He tried to rub it away with his sleeve, but the wet stain only made his uniform look more dishevelled. One of the girls, Fat Nadya, laughed. She’d squeezed her ample bosom into a garish pink dress. She had too much face powder and rouge on her cheeks.

  Osric had had a brief thing with Nadya when Osric was still a lowly town watchman. As soon as he’d been promoted to officer of the watch he’d dumped her straight away—and she’d held a grudge ever since.

  “When you lads have earned it maybe you’ll get a proper uniform!” Fat Nadya cackled and looped her arm through that of the nearest spearman.

  Osric couldn’t hit her so he hit the spearman instead. The man barely had time to turn to face the blow before the fist crashed into his chin with the force of a hammer. He crashed against the wall and Fat Nadya screamed. Two of the other spearmen jumped in but instead of punching Osric they held his arms and stopped him hitting anyone else.

  Baltzer, Freidel and a few other men were sitting on the other side of the room. They leapt up, but Guthrie stepped forward and held up his arms.

  “For the love of Sigmar, stop!” he shouted and the halberdiers paused.

  The spearmen held up their hands.

  “Cowards!” Baltzer cursed, but Osric dusted down his uniform.

  “That man insulted me and I have paid him back! No need for any further fighting!” he said and his men returned to their seats and the spearmen carried their friend out.

  The men came home, loud and drunk. Lying on his bed, Sigmund listened to each group return: the unsteady footsteps and the loud banter of drunk men.

  A long time passed. He didn’t hear anything, and dozed off. He was woken by the sound of footsteps coming across the yard, the sound of a door squeaking, then more footsteps coming up to his door. There was a loud knock.

  “Yes?”

  The door opened. Sigmund blinked. The lantern was so bright he could not see who was holding it.

  “Sir!” a man said. “There’s a man just in from the hills. He says he’s seen beastmen.”

  The voice sounded familiar. “Is that you Holmgar?” Sigmund asked.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Then take that damned lantern from out of my face!”

  “Sorry sir!”

  Sigmund followed Holmgar out into the yard. There was a light on in the kitchens. The kitchen door was open. Sigmund took the lantern from Holmgar, and went in. The kitchen had the lingering smell of pickled cabbage. In the gloom Sigmund could make out the huge c
ast iron cauldrons that were used to cook the daily rations, hanging from the beams. The walls were hung with brass dippers and knives. There was a platter of bread and cheese on the table, next to the lantern. A man stood there. He was short and dirty. He certainly looked and smelt like a trapper.

  “Who are you?”

  “Vasir,” the man said. “I am a trapper. Up in the hills. Under Frantzplinth.”

  “What have you seen?”

  “I went to Goethe’s place, and—”

  “Jonn Goethe’s place? On the western spur?”

  Vasir nodded and carried on with his story. “They were all dead. Skinned—like hunted animals! I ran. When I came to Burhens, the village was silent. Human skins hung from the trees. There were strange symbols.” The man clutched himself. “I never thought I would make it here alive!”

  Sigmund shook his head and seemed to make up his mind. “Alright, rest here tonight. Holmgar—look after this man. He can sleep in the stables.”

  Holmgar nodded. Sigmund walked back to his room and lay down. Burhens was on the slopes of The Old Bald Man. It was twenty miles from there to Osman’s shack on Galten Hill. He must bring the people down, he told himself and lay down to sleep with that single thought in mind.

  The next day at morning parade the four sergeants came to get their orders for the day. Vostig’s men were to clean the stables and count the supplies of food and blackpowder. Hanz was to supply the sentries for the day. The rest of his men were to cut up the loads of firewood that were stacked by the docks. Gunter’s men were to practise their sword-play. Osric was to take the cart to buy wheat for the stores.

  When he was finished, Sigmund set out to the guild hall. The streets were busy with morning traffic as farmers brought their goods into the marketplace.

  When Sigmund got to the guild hall there were four watchmen on guard. They eyed Sigmund warily, but made no move to approach him. He strode past them and knocked on the oak door.