03 - Call to Arms (5 page)

The beastman attacked once more, swinging its axe on the backstroke as it
came at him remorselessly. Dieter jumped backward just in time to avoid the
blow. Dodging to one side as the creature swung the axe again, he tried to stop
himself being pushed back against the cart.

It was hopeless. The monster was relentless. It was all Dieter could do to
stay clear of the blade—the axe strokes came too quickly to allow him to
escape. He had managed to steer away from the cart itself, but instead his
retreat had pushed him toward the dray team hitched in front of it.

From the corner of his eye he could see the horses fidgeting, frightened by
the violence going on around them. So far, only the narrowness of the trail and
the fact there was another cart parked directly in front of them had stopped
them from bolting. If the beastman forced him back any closer to them, the
animals would panic. Squeezed between them and the advancing beastman, it was a
question of whether Dieter would have his head whipped from his shoulders by an
axe or have his skull split by a kicking hoof. As matters stood, he had precious
few other choices.

“Hoist!” Dieter called out, hoping to at last rouse the sleeping man in the
cart. “Help me! I need you, dammit!”

His words brought no response. Risking a quick glance to see if there was
anyone else nearby who might help him, Dieter was disappointed to find there was
no one close enough for him to call to. All along the trail, dozens of men were
engaged in their own individual battles, each too busy trying to survive to help
or even notice him. To Dieter, it felt like he might as well have been the last
man in the world. In the middle of battle, surrounded by bloodshed, he had never
felt so alone.

Desperately, Dieter took a gamble. Trying to read the rhythm of the
beastman’s attacks, he timed it to the gap between axe strokes and leapt
forward, thrusting his sword out with all his strength. Making a target of the
creature’s throat he thrust diagonally upward, praying the unexpectedness of the
attack would give him an opening.

It worked. The beastman tried to defend itself with its shield, but before it
could close the gap Dieter’s sword struck home. The blade stabbed through the
bottom of the monster’s chin, spearing up through the tongue and palate into the
brain. Briefly, the beastman stood transfixed, a look less of pain than of
surprise on its face. The eyes went blank. Like a puppet cut free of its
strings, the monster collapsed, pulling Dieter’s sword after it.

Feeling naked without his blade, Dieter bent forward and tried to remove his
sword from the dead beastman. It was wedged fast. Afraid the blade might snap if
he tugged too violently, Dieter wriggled it from side to side, trying to work
the weapon free.

Suddenly, he heard another roar, close at hand. Looking up, he saw a second
gor emerge from the forest and start to stride purposefully down the trail
toward him. It was even more monstrous than the first, its mutated body bearing
a third arm jutting freakishly from the top of its shoulder as a sign of some
dark god’s favour. Two of the creature’s hands held axes, the third held a
spear. As it moved closer, it opened its mouth, uncoiling a length of barbed,
leprous tongue dripping poison like the tail of some hellish insect.

Despairing of freeing his sword in time, Dieter pulled a knife from his belt
and backed away. Compared to the beastman’s arsenal, it seemed a pitiful weapon:
a single-edged blade with a cloth-bound handle, made more for skinning rabbits
and cutting twine than killing enemies. It was all he had.

“Hoist!” Dieter called out again, more in hope than expectation. “Where are
you? I need help!”

Careful to keep one eye on the approaching monster, Dieter cast about for a
better weapon. His gaze alighted on the axe belonging to the gor he had just
killed. It was a massive thing with a broad, heavy blade—a two-handed weapon
by human standards, although the beastman had wielded it in one. Dieter had
never wielded an axe against anything more dangerous than a tree trunk, but it
had to give him a better chance than the knife.

The beastman came closer. Making a show of its dexterity, it simultaneously
tossed its two axes from one hand to the other so they crossed past each other
in flight. The monster seemed to be taunting him, daring him to make a dive for
the weapon of its comrade. The fallen axe was barely a few feet away,
agonisingly close. Calculating the odds, Dieter decided his only chance was to
leave it to the last possible instant, dive for the axe and hope for the best.

The beastman extended its tongue further. Glistening with venom, the
appendage whipped and snapped in the air as though it had a mind of its own.
Dieter felt like a rabbit watching the dance of a snake, waiting for the strike.

Abruptly, the tongue stiffened. It shot back into the beastman’s mouth as the
creature opened its jaws wide and screamed in pain. To Dieter’s surprise, the
monster’s weapons dropped from nerveless hands. It fell to its knees, eyes
wondering how it could have been brought so low. It pitched forward, face down
into the dirt.

“Well? Are you going to get your sword? There’s plenty more beasts where that
one came from.”

It was Hoist. He was standing behind the fallen beastman, its blood fresh on
the blade of his sword. With the layer of white flour dusted over Hoist’s face,
he looked faintly ridiculous—although, at that moment, Dieter was overjoyed to
see him no matter what he looked like.

Scrambling to follow Hoist’s advice, Dieter hurried to get his sword. Having
retrieved it, he found Hoist following close behind him.

“We’ll make a stand here,” Hoist said. “Some of the guards seem to be making
a good fist of fighting off the beastmen near the head of the caravan, but we’re
too far away from them to get there. They’d run us down before we took a dozen
steps.”

As Hoist talked, Dieter became uncomfortably aware of movement in the trees
nearby. Something was watching them.

“You see them?” Hoist asked, spotting the direction of his gaze. “A
beast herd. They held back to let their champions have a go at you. I take it
those three dead ungors are yours as well? That piece of work is probably what
attracted the champions’ attention. Anyway, now they’re dead, the rest of the
herd won’t mess about. There’ll be no more single combat. They’ll rush us in one
mass, try to take us through weight of numbers.”

The movement intensified. Dieter saw a number of beastmen emerge from among
the trees. They were of the smaller kind, the ones Hoist called “ungors”.
Watching the enemy gather, Dieter was struck by how much he and Hoist were
outnumbered.

“We fight back to back,” Hoist told him. “That way, we cover each other. I’ve
seen your sword-work, lad, and it’s fine. But this isn’t the time for fancy
moves. This is war, not fencing. A beast comes at you, you kill it. You keep
things hard, fast and simple. You don’t worry about the next beast, or the one
after that. They’ll come at you in their own good time, and you’ll get them
then. You understand me?”

“I understand,” Dieter answered.

“Right then, let’s get to business.” Turning his back so he and Dieter faced
in opposite directions, Hoist called out in a loud voice to the beastmen. “What
are you waiting for, you bastards? We killed your champions. Come get what they
got.”

The enemy hardly seemed to need the encouragement. Having gathered their
forces in sufficient quantity to counteract the nervousness they felt at facing
the men who had defeated their champions, the beastmen charged toward Dieter and
Hoist. In the long seconds as they waited for the ungors to reach them, Dieter
felt a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He counted more than a dozen of
the enemy, even as yet more ungors emerged from the forest to join the attack.
Looking from face to face of the creatures charging towards him, Dieter saw a
succession of features all set in the same general lines of savagery, rage and
hate. He wondered how he and Hoist could ever hope to hold them back.

Then, the enemy was upon them and the time for misgivings was past.

As before, one beastman ran ahead of its fellows, more eager for the kill.
Dieter met it with cold steel, deflecting its spear thrust with his open hand as
he jabbed the point of his blade deep into its chest. The next beastman followed
hot on the heels of the first. Dieter parried its attack with his sword,
responding with a swift riposte that left his enemy clutching a wound in its
throat. The third one Dieter unbalanced with a skilful feint, before
disembowelling it with a flash of his blade. He snatched the dying beastman’s
shield as it fell, experimentally testing its weight as he prepared to face his
next opponent.

“Don’t get cocky,” Hoist growled from behind him. “Keep it simple.”

In battle, Hoist was a revelation. For weeks, Dieter had only known him as
his snoring companion on the dull journey northward. Now, in his element, Hoist
was like a tiger. Where Dieter was a fencer, Hoist was a street fighter. He made
war a matter of brutal practicality. He fought with sword, shield, elbow and
knees: Dieter didn’t doubt the other man would be willing to use his teeth if
that was what it took to kill an enemy.

From the corner of his vision, he saw Hoist head butt an ungor, striking with
the brow of his helmet to smash the creature between the eyes. As that beastman
fell, he lashed out at another, striking with his shield rim at its throat
before finishing it with a quick stab of his sword. In his own way, he was as
relentless and purposeful as any back-alley brawler. He made sure when he hit
someone, they did not get up.

Despite the two men’s best efforts, the position was hopeless. Even as he
dispatched another beastman with a thrust of his sword, Dieter realised they
were only delaying the inevitable. There were too many beastmen. For every one
they killed, another moved forward to take its place. Already, he and Hoist were
being hemmed in, forced to fight in the ever-decreasing space afforded by the
press of beastmen around them. Soon, they would be overwhelmed.

Relief when it came was sudden and unexpected. Dieter heard a voice cry out.

“Forward! Forward the 3rd! Forward for Hochland!”

A trumpet sounded nearby, signalling a charge. Other voices joined it. Almost
before Dieter could work out what was happening, the mass of beastmen around
them dissipated as the creatures fled. He saw a group of swordsmen come charging
from the forest, clad in the same grey and red uniforms as Hoist.

Dieter’s heart caught in his mouth as he realised their identity. They were
the Scarlets. Seeing them in the flesh brought to mind the childish dreams of
his younger years, when he had idled his days at the mill looking forward to the
time when he would come of age and could become a soldier.

The Scarlets attacked with controlled ferocity, cutting through the beastmen
like a scythe. As they swept the enemy before them, Dieter heard the same battle
cry repeated, taken up by the chorus of dozens of voices.

“Forward the 3rd! Forward for Hochland!”

Before he knew what he was doing, he had taken up the cry himself. With Hoist
beside him, Dieter joined the Scarlets in pursuing the fleeing beastmen. The
finesse he had used earlier in fighting the enemy was gone. Caught up in the
moment, he lashed out at the beastmen as they ran. With the battle turned in the
caravan’s favour, he was eager for vengeance. He fought without thought of
strategy or tactics. His sword rose and fell, lost in a haze of blood.

Too soon, there were no more enemies left to fight. As the last of the
beastmen fled from the trail into the forest, Dieter made to follow them.

Hoist stopped him. The big man stepped in front of Dieter, sword sheathed and
his hand held out in a warding gesture.

“Leave them. We’d be fools to chase them through the forest and the beastmen
know it. The woods are theirs. Anyway, they’ve been put to flight. It’s over,
lad. Cool your fires.”

Coming back to his senses, Dieter realised he was breathing heavily.
Sheathing his own sword, he glanced down at the thick wooden shield he had taken
from one of the dead beastmen. In the aftermath of battle, it seemed an unclean
thing, carved with strange and sickening runes. He threw it away.

Wiping at the sweat staining his face, he turned to inspect the men and carts
of the caravan. It was difficult to judge from where he was standing, but he
gathered more had survived than he would have expected. He supposed the
victuallers and their guards were hardy men, accustomed to the threat of ambush
on lonely roads.

He looked toward the cart he and Hoist had been riding in. Otto was still in
the same place, pinned to his seat, the haft of the beastman spear jutting from
his chest.

“Aye, it’s a shame,” Hoist said, following the direction of Dieter’s gaze.
“He seemed an all right sort. But, that’s war for you. You never know when
you’ll get it. All you can hope is that your comrades give you a good send-off.
With that in mind…”

Having apparently decided a suitable period of mourning had passed, Hoist
began to move toward the cart.

“You have to be sharp about these things,” he called over his shoulder. “If
we wait too long, the other victuallers will have picked the cart clean. Otto
had some good wine and food. And, besides, I’m sure it’s what he would have
wanted.”

Vaguely appalled by other man’s behaviour, even though he could recognise its
practical bent, Dieter watched as Hoist jumped into the back of the cart and
disappeared under the canvas as he started tossing out items. Soon, a heap of
provisions lay on the ground.

“You there!” a voice called out from behind Dieter. “Don’t you know that
looting is a crime?”

“Personally, I’d say it’s only a crime if you get caught,” Hoist replied,
smiling as his face peeked out, still covered in flour, from under the canvas.
“And that’s hardly likely with useless bastards like you serving as sentries.”