Forged in Battle Read online

  On either side the trees were like silent sentinels. When she had been growing up they had seemed green and full of light and adventure. But now they were dark, sinister and frightening. Shona started to cry and Valina hugged her harder.

  And the horns kept drawing closer.

  * * *

  While the others ran back to raise the men, Sigmund ran to Frantz’s home and banged on the door until a candle was lit in an upstairs window and a woman’s face peered down.

  “I need Frantz!” Sigmund shouted up and the woman nodded sleepily and ducked back inside.

  It took a few minutes for Frantz’s face to appear, and Sigmund could barely contain his impatience.

  “Sigmund?” Frantz croaked.

  “Frantz,” Sigmund interrupted. “I need boats that will carry eighty men and I need crews.”

  Frantz took in one long deep breath and shook his head.

  “And Frantz—I need them now!”

  When they got to the moonlit docks Frantz took a look at all the boats moored up along the jetties. It was a confusing tangle of masts and rigging and boats of all sizes and descriptions. Sigmund had no idea where to start.

  Frantz rubbed his chin as he appraised the boats that were moored closer to the harbour entrance. When he had made up his mind he set off along the long wooden jetties. Sigmund could see the water lapping dark through the gaps between the slats. The jetty was uneven in places, and he marvelled at Frantz’s and his men’s ability to carry loads up and down these jetties, day in, day out.

  At the end of the jetty was a thirty-foot barge called the White Rose. It had a single mast and a small cabin aft, where the crew ate and slept. There was a canvas stretched over the rest of the boat. Frantz lifted it and Sigmund peered down. Empty.

  “We unloaded this beauty this evening,” Frantz said. “And I know the captain. He’s a good sort. I’ll speak to him.”

  Frantz stepped from the jetty onto the gunwale and walked quickly up the boat to the cabin. Sigmund saw him bend to knock on the cabin door and then go inside. There was a long pause. Sigmund looked to the mountains, fires slowly descending. Then he looked to the west and saw embers climbing into the sky.

  It seemed like an age before Frantz came back—followed by the captain of the ship.

  “Congratulations. You have your first boat! Captain Jorg,” Frantz allowed himself a little joke, “meet Captain Ehab!”

  Ehab was a short, bow-legged man with a knitted cap pulled down over his head and a grizzled grey beard that covered the lower half of his face, leaving bright eyes twinkling. His gait gave him the appearance of an ape, but he held out his hand and shook that of Sigmund.

  “I need to take my men downriver,” Sigmund began and Ehab mumbled something in the broad sailor’s lingo, which Frantz had to translate.

  “I told him all about it,” Frantz said, and then he leant into Sigmund and whispered, “and of course I said there would be a reward afterwards.”

  Ehab’s crew slept on the boat. They got up and began to organise the boat for sailing. Frantz found two more barges, one called Myrmidia’s Grace, which was a little larger than the White Rose, and one about half its size called the Heidi.

  Their rigging had to be sorted and the sails and yardarms made ready for hoisting. It took nearly an hour to get the boats ready for sailing. Sigmund paced up and down the dock front waiting for his men. Come on, he said to himself. Come on!

  But the night streets were silent and dark and empty. lust as he was beginning to think that something had gone wrong he heard the sound of a marching tune. Baltzer was bringing them on in style.

  The sound of drumming and tramping feet grew louder and louder until it filled the empty streets.

  It was a magnificent sight seeing the men come on through the gloomy street, like a ghostly regiment of men, repeating some final march. Edmunt was in the front rank, carrying the company’s banner, Baltzer was drumming and Osric was two paces ahead of the unit. Behind them came Gunter’s men and at the back were Vostig’s handgunners. The men’s halberds glittered with reflected moonlight. Their steel caps shone, their black cuirboili breastplates seemed to suck in whatever light there was and throw back a distant glimmer.

  Sigmund’s heart swelled with pride to see his men, and to know that he was to lead them into combat.

  Gruff Spennsweich’s horses foamed with sweat as he drove them on at a furious pace. “We will stop at Struhelflossen,” he said, which was the nearest village, grown up around a tin mine, now long exhausted.

  The cart rattled along and his girls were thrown back and forth as they prayed to Shallya and Sigmar for protection. The horns had fallen behind him now, but the night forests were no less terrifying. Valina shut her eyes and pretended to sleep—hoping this was all a dream.

  Gruff didn’t talk until the road started to flatten out, and he could hear the rushing water of the Struhelflossen waterfalls.

  They sat up, and saw lights through the trees, and Gertrude began to clap when she thought of arriving somewhere safe.

  Gruff let the reins go slack and the horses slowed down to a walk. From the windows, yellow light spilt out into the main street. Gruff said a prayer to Taal for bringing them here safely: then he saw something on top of the village sign, and realised it was a head.

  The street was full of heads: impaled on stakes. The glowing windows took on a sinister air, the twins started crying. Struhelflossen had become a village of the dead.

  Dawn was still a few hours off as Gunter’s men made their way onto the White Rose. Osric’s men were sent up the next jetty to the Myrmidia’s Grace, while Vostig’s men followed them and climbed aboard the Heidi.

  “Quickly now!” Osric said as his men clambered aboard. His men sat in the waist of the boat, their heads below the gunnels, only their halberds sticking out above the water line.

  Freidel was last in. He sat at the back, on top of the simple cabin where the crew usually slept. He hated boats and water and sailing and shut his eyes as the boatmen cast off, praying that he would feel dry land soon.

  As the boat moved out into the middle of the river small waves began to lap against the side of it, but to Freidel they seemed like crashing breakers. He put his hands out to steady himself, a cold sweat on his forehead and upper lip.

  “We’re going to capsize!” he said and reached to steady himself, unable to comprehend how no one else understood this fact—but Osric laughed.

  “Don’t you worry! We’ll have you on dry land in no time!”

  It took half an hour to pack the men onto the barges, but the stubby thick-waisted salt barges were perfect for carrying heavy loads. The barges barely moved as the men stepped aboard. Gunter’s men squatted in ranks in the Myrmidia’s Grace, six men across, their halberds stacked against the side of the boat. In the Heidi, the handgunners were more cautious. Water would make their weapons useless, so they rested against the sides of the boat, keeping their handguns across their knees.

  Frantz joined the boatmen poling the barges out from the jetty. As they inched towards the harbour mouth they threw ropes across to one another, and lashed the three craft into a long chain, fifty feet of rope, as thick as a man’s arm, between each craft.

  As they cleared the harbour mouth the current of the river took hold of the boats and began to turn them downstream. The sailors began to tug on the ropes that hoisted the sails. The broad canvas sheets flapped uselessly for a moment, then the tillers were turned and the boats turned into the wind and the sails filled.

  With the current of the river and the sails full with the evening breeze they made good time. Sigmund stood on the prow, staring at the green glimmer. However fast Frantz told him they were going, they seemed to be going far too slowly.

  The boats steered to the far side of the river, and Sigmund had all the men keep their heads down. He could not be sure that there no enemy eyes watching the river.

  It took an hour for them to reach the point where the mysterious fire was bu
rning. For a long while the site was obscured by the orchard trees, but as they got closer he saw they had reached the site of an ancient burial mound. At the top a fire was burning, but unlike a normal fire the flames were green, and they seemed to coil and lick around each other, spiralling up in a column of sorcery. Silhouetted around the fire were horned figures, moving round in some macabre dance. Sigmund tried to count the numbers, but it was impossible to tell. There could be anything between fifty and a hundred.

  As he watched he saw a struggling figure being dragged towards the fire. This figure did not have horns and Sigmund realised with a stab of disgust that it was the figure of a woman. He knew what was going to happen, but was unable to stop watching. He could see the woman being forced to her knees, and then she was obscured by the dancing figures. The next thing he saw was a round object being tossed into the flames.

  The White Rose sailed past the fire on the Stirland side of the river, and then when the low rise had obscured the mound, Ehab swung the tiller to the left and the barge nosed across the river. Sigmund could feel the tension in the boats rising. The sailors worked silently. Unlike the soldiers, who were deep in the boats, they too had seen the fires, and for the first time they had a sense of the real danger.

  Only Ehab seemed unconcerned. He aimed his craft upstream of the jetty, and as he did so his crew dropped the yardarm and pulled down the flapping sail, then began to wrap it up and stow it amidships.

  As the White Rose brought herself nose onto the jetty, the crew of the Heidi began to haul on the rope that held her to the lead craft. It took ten minutes until both boats were lashed together, and the captain of the Myrmidia’s Grace was bringing his boat alongside.

  Freidel was the first soldier from the White Rose to jump from the boat onto the jetty. There were many planks missing and the wood was wet and slimy with a layer of algae-green scum. His foot slipped from under him and he fell half into the water with a loud splash.

  “Help him up!” Osric hissed to the next man and Baltzer put his halberd shaft down for Friedrick to grasp and then helped to haul him up. The crew of the White Rose were used to slippery wood and Ehab joined them on the jetty, helping the men out.

  In less time than it had taken to pack the men aboard they were all ashore and ranked up. Over the rise they could see the embers circling up into the sky, but they could hear nothing. Sigmund picked out two men who knew the land, and sent them out to scout from the top of the hill.

  They left their halberds and swords behind and hurried off into the gloom, keeping low to the sloping hillside. The eastern sky was beginning to pale. Sigmund went from man to man checking that they were all armed and ready. He had Gunter’s men lined up with their right flank protected by the river. Next was Osric’s company, and then protecting their flank were Vostig’s handgunners.

  Sigmund stood in front of his men, waiting for the scouts to return. The river gave off a chill damp air. He shivered.

  The flames leapt up and lit the ancient mound with a pale green light. Red Killer personally led the last prisoner to the side of the fire. He kicked the man to the floor and then cut off his head with a single sweep of his axe. The blood splashed down onto the base of the stone, and there was a strange sucking sound as the blood flowed down into the ground.

  It was done.

  Suddenly the flames died down, the dying embers crackling angrily.

  Red Killer roared and moved off north, into the forest. Some of his warband were unable to resist the call of the stones. He left those weak fools behind. He had business to attend to: to waylay Azgrak the Abomination and seize the leadership from him.

  It took half an hour for the scouts to come hurrying back. They were almost upon Sigmund before he saw them.

  “Beastmen,” they agreed. “Maybe fifty.”

  “Any scouts?”

  “We did not see any on this side. The only ones we saw were facing towards the town.”

  “Did you see any prisoners?”

  The men shook their heads.

  Sigmund nodded. He drew his sword and the men tensed, ready to march forward.

  “I want you two to keep to the left,” Sigmund told the men. “Keep in touch with Vostig.”

  The two men nodded and hurried off to the left.

  Sigmund gave the signal for the men to advance and they began to tramp forward. The night dew on the long grass softened their footfall, and they left a distinct trail through the meadow.

  The halberdiers carried their weapons over their shoulders. The handgunners did the same. Edmunt was at the front of the halberdiers, carrying the company banner—red and gold with the arms of Helmstrumburg. He looked up, the colours were limp in the pre-dawn gloom, but as they marched the light got brighter.

  As they came up the side of the rise, Sigmund signalled a halt. He hurried up alone to the brow of the rise then lay down and peered down at the beastmen. He was familiar with the spot from his youth, but the land appeared to have changed.

  Whereas before there had been a plain mound, now there was a tall circle of four standing stones, jagged splinters of black rock, at crooked angles. In the centre of the ring was the embers of the weird fire.

  There were maybe fifty beastmen. Most of them were the smaller type, like the ones they had found attacking the Reikland merchants. But within this number there were maybe twenty larger ones: their heads, with their curled ram horns, standing well over the tallest halberdiers.

  Sigmund shielded his eyes to see to either side, where the orchards were half-hidden in gloom. He could not see any more. The sky to the east was paling rapidly.

  Sigmund scrambled down the slope until he could see his men. As they were not fighting a ranked unit of men, but what would be little more than a skirmish line of beasts, they had spread themselves out. Instead of taking up their usual deployment of twelve men across and five men deep they were now twenty men across and three men deep. The orders had been given to advance, and the men had their halberds ready, points forward.

  Vostig’s men were arranged on the left, the fifteen men in two ranks, their handguns loaded and shouldered. This was when the hours of training would pay off. In a normal engagement, the handgunners’ role was to run alongside the halberdiers and use their guns to clear skirmish lines, or to pepper the tightly massed enemy ranks with lead shot before the halberdiers fell upon them. Now, however, in the open, the handgunners’ job was to cover the flanks and the rear of the halberdiers.

  Gunter and Osric stood at the front of their companies, waiting for Sigmund’s sign. He gave it and the men started to march up the hill towards him. He stood and waited for them to reach him. Their approach was implacable. They kept their ranks and files in order, despite the curves of the land. All together, they crested the hill, saw the beastmen beneath them, and were half way down the slope before the cavorting beasts became aware that they had been surprised, and with a terrible speed they charged up the slope.

  CHAPTER SIX

  There was no more dangerous place in battle than carrying the banner. Edmunt marched at the centre of the line, each stride bringing the enemy closer. When the first beastmen charged, Edmunt fitted the end of the banner pole into his waist belt, felt the belt take the weight, then with his right hand unhitched the hatchet from his belt.

  The first beast he killed was for his mother’s ghost. So was the second. He spat the excess saliva from his mouth, took in a deep breath, felt his chest stretch wide and flexed his fingers on the grip.

  Vostig led his men down the hill at a smart trot. They were about fifteen feet in front of the halberdiers when they paused and quickly ranked up in two lines.

  The handgunners blew on their fuses to make them glow a dull red and then Vostig gave the order.

  “Front rank, present handgun!”

  Richel raised his gun and tried to slow his breathing so that the barrel would stop waving around—but it always did this when he was just going into battle. There was nothing he could do to stop the fear
.

  “Open your pan!” Vostig shouted and Richel flicked the powder pan open with his thumb.

  The beastmen at the front were maybe thirty yards down the slope, but closing rapidly. Richel blinked his eyes to clear his vision, and made sure he was pointing his weapon at chest level.

  “Give fire!”

  There was a ragged splatter of shots. Each handgun threw out a funnel of smoke that cleared as the front rank stepped backwards, pulled out their scouring sticks and began to scrape blackpowder and scraps of cartridge from the barrels.

  Holmgar was in the second rank. He blew on his fuse and the end glowed as he fitted the butt of the handgun into his shoulder. He could hear the men of the first rank being given their orders: “Charge with powder. Charge with shot,” but concentrated on the orders that were being given to him.

  “Open your pan!”

  Holmgar lined his muzzle up at a band of ten beastmen.

  “Give fire!”

  There was another ragged splatter of fire and the familiar hum of spinning shot.

  Sigmund swung his sword as he led his men down the slope. The handgunners opened up on the left and Sigmund saw one beastman hit. Its horned head was flung back and from the back of its head came a fountain of blood and gore. Within moments the creatures were ten feet away and the next rank of handgunners fired, but in the growing confusion Sigmund didn’t see how many beastmen had been hit.

  There were no beastmen where he was but he could hear the thud as three creatures threw themselves against Osric’s men to his left. A man screamed, but the line kept advancing, trampling down the dead and dying, leaving the broken beastmen and the wounded halberdiers lying in the grass.