Forged in Battle (13 page)

Patch had a club and a wicker shield, No Patch a spear.

Elias felt they had singled him out from the whole line. His
hands shook terribly as the screaming creatures charged straight at him.

Time seemed to warp and he could see Patch’s sharp fangs as
it opened its mouth and then they were upon him.

Elias thrust forward at Patch with the point of his halberd,
felt it connect and realised he had shut his eyes at the last moment. He
expected to be stabbed or clubbed by No Patch, but when he opened his eyes he
saw Gaston delivering the coup de grace to No Patch with the point of his
halberd. The creature spasmed as the foot of steel stabbed down between its
ribs. A gout of fresh red blood sprayed up and Elias saw that Patch lay at his
feet, the white patch now torn open with the force of his blow.

Elias laughed at the ease with which he had cheated death. He
wanted to speak to Gaston but there was no time for even the briefest of
comments as three more beastmen raced up towards him.

* * *

A huge beastman, taller than any man, was almost upon him
when Richel flicked open the pan again. He didn’t even wait for the order to
give fire but pointed his handgun at the creature’s chest and pulled the
trigger, striking the pan with the glowing fuse.

The creature had its axe lifted up in the air when the blast
of Richel’s gun knocked it back. It regained its balance, unaware that the
handgunner’s shot had gone straight through its heart, and took another stride
forward, roaring in fury and swinging its axe.

Richel barely had time to see it reappear through the
blackpowder smoke—and cursed himself for missing at such short range—a curse
that was cut abruptly short as the creature’s axe caught him under the chin and
split his face open in a spray of snot and blood and gore. It threw the body
back into Vostig, who was desperately trying to clear his barrel.

When the body hit him and Vostig felt the warm slap which he
later realised was part of Richel’s scalp on his cheek, he looked up and saw the
striding monster take a step towards him.

The enormous beastman opened its bloody snout and roared, and
Vostig realised that there was nothing he could do to defend himself. He stood
paralysed as the great axe lifted high above his head. Holmgar ran at the
creature, screaming at the top of his lungs, and the creature’s attention was
diverted for an instant. It batted Holmgar away, and turned back to Vostig, but
Richel’s shot had been true—and as Vostig stared at the thing that was about
to kill him, he saw some strange wave of understanding hit the maddened beast
that its time had come.

The creature fell to the floor with a moan of dismay. Its
horned head fell at Vostig’s feet and the handgunner felt a warm sensation
running down his legs.

Osric’s men took the brunt of the initial beastmen attack.
They came in pairs at first, but it wasn’t long before a large group of fifteen
warriors charged his line all together and Osric felt his men waver under the
ferocity of the assault.

Kann was caught by a spear thrust and fell with a low,
surprised moan. Baltzer caught the creature with the blade of his halberd and
almost cut its arm from its body. Freidel stepped up into Kann’s place and
rammed his halberd blade down the throat of a small cream-skinned beastman.

Gunter’s men continued to wheel round, sweeping up beastmen
until there was fighting all along the line.

Sigmund stabbed one creature in the throat and pulled its
wicker buckler from the dead fingers. As he pulled its fingers free he was
struck by the warmth of its dead fingers, the rough feel of the creature’s fur,
and the long filthy talons. He fought until the buckler was a shredded mess of
twigs, and there was beastman blood running down the blade onto his hand.

“Steady now, boys,” Gunter called out as his men wheeled
round. “Keep in rank!”

Gunter’s men kept going forward, their ranks tightening as
each man came closer to the other for protection.

Suddenly there was a goat-horned beast in front of Edmunt and
he swung his hatchet, felt the heavy blade cut deep and snag in the creature’s
spine. As the beastman fell the axe was almost dragged from his hand, but Edmunt
put his foot onto its chest, twisted his grip and yanked the hatchet blade free.

Fifth! Mother, another soul for you!

On the wing, where the handgunners stood, now twenty feet
behind the advancing halberdiers, there was a fierce battle going on between the
human soldiers and eight of the smaller beastmen.

The creatures had come upon them unawares, and it was only
the intervention of the two halberdier scouts, who drew their swords and fell
upon the rear of the beastmen, that stopped more of the handgunners being cut
down.

Vostig brought the butt of his gun down on the face of the
last beastman, crawling towards him. There was a sickening crunch as the
half-human face shattered under the impact, but Vostig brought the gun-butt down
again, driving the face of the creature back into its head, and brought it down
again splattering the legs of his trews with gore.

Three of his men were dead, and another two were wounded too
badly to fight. There was no time to tend to their wounds.

The last nine men ranked up.

“Prime your guns!” Vostig said, limping forward to take his
place. The handgunners worked quickly and silently. When all were ready he led
them down the hill, angled so that they could fire on the beastmen that were
still coming up the slope.

“Blow on your coal,” Vostig ordered.

“Prepare to fire.”

All nine handguns were brought up as one.

“Give fire!”

The guns fired again, round balls of lead whizzing through
the cool morning air. Three hit their mark, shattering bone and flesh and
punching running beastmen back onto their backs.

Sigmund led Gunter’s men round onto the flank of those
attacking Osric’s men. Trapped and outnumbered, the few remaining beastmen
fought as if they were possessed. Elias had to stab a wounded black and white
beastman, fully seven foot tall, over ten times before it finally crumpled onto
the ground.

Edmunt pushed Gaston aside to get to a short brown beastman
that had a band of dark fur down its back. Its vertical pupils were wide with
fear and it sprayed pungent urine as Edmunt caught it by the hoof and tripped it
up. The thing bleated with terror as Edmunt put a foot in the small of its back
to hold it steady, and Elias looked away—heard the bleat cut short as Edmunt
split its skull.

Vostig’s men followed the halberdiers down the hill, their
empty powder pouches flapping against their bandoliers, their handguns
shouldered.

“That one’s still alive!” Holmgar said, pointing. Vostig took
his handgun by the barrel, swung it and caught the creature on the base of its
skull, shattering the bone and snapping its neck.

The last beastmen stood their ground and fought furiously,
but isolated they were cut down.

Sigmund was limping when Vostig found him. His sword was
notched and he held a battered brass buckler in his hand that looked like it had
been looted from some murdered swashbuckler years earlier.

“What happened to your leg?” Vostig asked.

“A club,” Sigmund said, by way of explanation.

Vostig nodded. There was a halberdier from Osric’s company on
the slope below them whose guts had spilt out over his knees. Freidel had
propped the man up and was giving him water, but there was nothing to be done.
He would soon be in the kingdom of Morr.

“Unlucky,” Vostig said and Sigmund nodded. Luck said that the
man next to you caught the blow that should have killed you.

When the final wounded beastmen had been dispatched, Sigmund
posted sentries around the battlefield, and then walked down to the bottom of
the hill.

The mound was a little way in front of him, but where there
had once been a bare mound, now it was surrounded by a ring of standing stones.

Sigmund stopped a few yards away from the stones to examine
them. They were black granite, with facets of crystal embedded in their surface
that glinted wickedly. On one side they were covered with strange glyphs that
seemed to shift and twist in front of his eyes, pulsing with unholy energy.
Sigmund’s head began to ache as if an invisible hand was slowly crushing it.

Charred bones and skulls stared out from the glowing embers.
Sigmund had been too distracted to see them earlier. He started towards the ring
of stone, but the closer he got the worse the pain in his head became and he
began to lose his balance.

Someone caught him and dragged him back. Sigmund blinked open
his eyes and saw Edmunt.

There were footsteps as someone came up, and Sigmund saw that
it was Osric, staring at the pulsing stones.

“Sigmar’s balls!” he swore. “How did those get here?”

The sun rose as the halberdiers tended to the wounded.
Vostig’s trews were uncomfortably wet. He walked down to the river and stripped
them off to wash out his urine and the gore of the enemy. Now the battle was
over the shock of fighting came over him and he felt his stomach wrench, and
vomited up a thin bile.

Gunter lined his men up and checked the numbers. He had lost
four men.

Gaston took three men and went up to fetch the dead men and
carry them down to the bottom of the slope.

“Cover their faces!” Gunter said, but there was nothing to
cover them with so they stripped off the men’s breastplates and put them over
their staring eyes.

Elias squatted a little way away from the main group and spat
into the grass. A rivulet of blood trickled down his halberd blade and fell onto
the grass in front of him. Quite suddenly he found tears on his cheeks and wiped
them away before anyone could see them.

As dawn broke, the snowy crags of Frantzplinth were painted
with a ruddy light. Plumes of black smoke drifted up from the upper reaches of
Galten Hill, Frantzplinth and The Old Bald Man. It seemed that fell beasts were
swarming through the forests: burning and pillaging.

The eastern sky was pale enough to silhouette the scattered
clouds by the time the distant patter of shooting told the boat crews that the
battle had begun. The sound of gunfire lasted nearly fifteen minutes, then there
was silence.

“Are they dead?” one of the crewmen asked.

No one spoke.

“I’ll go see,” Frantz said, and leapt onto the jetty and
hurried up the slope after the soldiers. The further he went the more exposed he
felt. He paused and looked round—just in case—then wiped the sweat from his
hands and hurried up to the crest and topped the rise that the halberdiers had
marched up, just fifteen minutes before.

The ridge sloped gently down to the old burial mound but now
four standing stones thrust up from the grass: so dark they seemed to suck in
the dawn light.

The slope was strewn with dead. Clawed fists and knees broke
through the grass. Here and there a sword, spear or shield stood up in the air.
Half way down the slope a beastman was attempting to stand up, but it was
tripping over its own pink intestines, disembowelled.

The halberdiers and handgunners were ranked up at the bottom
of the slope, under the scattered trees. He could see Gunter and Osric going
from man to man, checking on their wounds. Behind them, fourteen men were lying
in the grass, their heads and legs and arms all crooked. They lay still and
Frantz realised they were dead. He looked for Sigmund and saw him, standing
staring up at the ring of hills where a hundred fires burnt.

There were seven men wounded. They would heal, except for
Schwartz, who’d been stabbed just beneath his breastplate. The sharpened stick
had gone through muscle and intestine and had punctured his liver. For him it
was just a matter of time.

“I’m cold,” he said. Freidel put his flask of water for him
to drink. “I don’t want water,” Schwartz said, and the colour started to drain
from his face. “I can’t feel any pain. Do you think I’ll make it?”

“Of course you’ll make it,” Freidel said. “We’ll get you back
to town and the apothecary will see you right.”

A little way off, standing by the Altdorf Road, Sigmund,
Gunter and Osric stood and looked through the dawn orchards. It was a three-mile
march back to Helmstrumburg, along the Altdorf Road, but they had no idea
whether there were more beastmen blocking their return.

“I say we risk it!” Osric said. His men were tired and many
were wounded, but he was still fired up with the thrill of killing.

Sigmund thought for a moment. “I think not,” he said. If
there were more beastmen then his party, already weakened, could be decimated,
even within eyeshot of Helmstrumburg. “We will take the boats.”

Baltzer struck up a cheerful tune and all of them were glad
to turn their backs on the pulsing stones. The healthy men took the dead by the
feet and the shoulders and the rest helped the wounded as they climbed back up
the slopes. Freidel and Elias helped carry Schwartz. Every few steps his
breathing became ragged and they had to keep pausing to let him recover his
strength.

“My mother’ll laugh when she sees men limping along,”
Schwartz said.

“That she will,” Freidel told him. Elias looked at the dying
man. His head hung forward onto his chest. The stain of blood was spreading down
his left side.

As they clambered up the slope, Elias saw Patch and No Patch,
lying about six feet from one another. They were smaller than he had remembered.
A fly crawled over the dead face of Patch and crawled into the open mouth.

At the top of the hill Frantz had lit his pipe and gave
Sigmund a fierce bear-hug. “Well done!” he said, but Sigmund felt tired and
disturbed and empty.