Forged in Battle (2 page)

Though he’d been trapping in these hills all his life, Vasir
never tired of the view: The Old Bald Man, Galten Hill and the snow-clad slopes
of Frantzplinth—the three mountains sat high above town, their ridges
descending to the valley, where the ancient stone-walled town of Helmstrumburg
stood beside the river.

Helmstrumburg had grown rapidly in the past few years, now
spilling over the western wall, rambling along the banks of the River Stir.

Vasir watched fat barges push their way downriver a thousand
feet below, their sails tiny squares of white in the distance. He had heard it
from boat hands in the inns in Helmstrumburg that it was nine days’ sail to
Altdorf. Maybe when he had enough money saved he would go and see the capital
city of the Empire, Kemperbad and the miraculous bridge at Nuln. He would travel
all through the lands that Sigmar had cleared for humans, a thousand years ago
or more.

That night, alone in his cabin, Vasir threw a few pieces of
split wood onto the fire. The wood smoke eddied round the simple room as it
searched for the hole in the thatch that served as a chimney. He ate a few
slices of stale pumpernickel and dried sausage then lay down to sleep. Outside,
the trees whispered to each other in the evening breeze.

Vasir slept as the trees whispered back and forth. Even if he
could have heard them he would not have understood. But there were many that
could. On the rocky crags, from the mouths of mountain caves, in the bleak pine
forests, high on Frantzplinth—many ears heard the whispers and looked to the
west, where they had long waited the sign.

A twin-tailed star. Burning red on the horizon.

Announcing the End of Times.

Elias shouldered his pack and struggled to keep up with the
other forty men of the Helmstrumburg Halberdiers as they struggled along the
forest track. When he joined up he had expected glory and excitement and a fine
uniform. He’d had no idea how much marching there would be, and how little
fighting. And the uniforms were old and faded and ill-fitting—and to make it
worse there were not enough to go round: some of the men wore the uniform trews;
others the jackets: once quartered with red and gold—but now so patched with
leather that they were more patch than original.

A ragged company other men had dubbed them, but for the
Helmstrumburg Halberdiers it was a symbol of pride. They were
The Ragged
Company.

When Elias had heard that the Helmstrumburg Halberdiers were
returning to town to refill their ranks, he had joined up. That first day he had
sworn service to the count and felt tall and strong: now as he hunted through
the dark forests for the third day, all that courage and confidence had gone.

His sword slapped awkwardly against his thigh. He put his
hand down to touch the hilt and reminded himself that he was a soldier now, in
the pay of the Elector Count of Talabecland.

“Keep in rank!” Osric called as they passed through the
scattered forests, and Elias hitched up his pack. His halberd caught on a branch
above his head and nearly pulled him over. Osric gave him a shove to move him
along. “Get on you useless bastard!”

Elias felt his face redden. His shame increased when Sergeant
Gunter stopped and waited for Osric. “If you have a problem with one of my men
then come to me.”

Osric nodded without a word. Gunter pushed Elias forward,
next to Gaston and took his place.

“Now get going!” Gunter hissed. “And don’t mess up again.”

That night the halberdiers bivouacked in a wooded hollow, lit
a fire and mixed their hard-tack with water and fried it for flavour.

“I’ll be glad to get back to town and get some real food,”
Osric said as he chewed. “And some beer.”

“I’ll be happy when the captain feels like leaving these
cursed hills,” Baltzer, one of Osric’s men and the company drummer, said. “I
joined up to see Talabecland, not the woods round Helmstrumburg!”

A few men smiled, but Elias kept his mouth shut.

Their banter was interrupted by a sudden shout from the
trees. “Sigmar save us!”

Gaston was on his feet immediately, sword drawn. Sigmund
looked in the direction of the shout. It was one of the men they had posted at
the edge of the camp to keep watch. “Freidel?” he called.

“Oh—Sigmar save us!” the shout came again. Osric shook his
head: Freidel was one of his men, but he was tired, and had only just got
comfortable by the fire. It was probably just a false alarm.

Sigmund, their leader, drew his sword and started running up
the hill. Dark branches whipped his face as he pushed through the trees to the
rocky outcropping that Freidel had been posted on. From here, there was a fine
view down to the Stir River below, and the twinkling lights in Helmstrumburg.

“What’s the matter, Freidel?” Sigmund demanded, and the
halberdier pointed to the western horizon.

“Look!”

Sigmund kept his sword unsheathed as he turned to look. The
Stir River was a ribbon through the darkness, rippling with moonlight. Low in
the sky on the left hung a star with two tails. It glowed with a dull red light,
menacing and sinister.

Sigmund shook his head. It was the star of Sigmar.

“What is it?” Osric called when Sigmund returned.

“The sign of Sigmar, the double-headed star!” Sigmund said,
and rammed his sword back into its sheath. He looked shaken.

“I don’t believe it!” Osric retorted but Baltzer, who had
followed Sigmund, confirmed what the other men had seen: it was definitely a
twin-tailed star.

The firelight caught Gaston’s face, casting half in shadow.
“What does it mean?” he asked.

No one answered.

“Will Sigmar come again?” Schwartz asked, finally.

Osric laughed at them all. “If he has, there’ll be some to-do
in some far flung place and the news will take six months to reach
Helmstrumburg,” he said, his thin face half lit by the dying firelight. The men
nodded. That was how it always happened.

Baltzer tossed a stone into the fire. “I tell you what it
means—it means that bastard—” he nodded towards the fire where Sigmund sat
“—will be taking us on a lot more of these damned patrols!”

Osric laughed and threw a stone at Baltzer. He was always
bitching about something.

The next morning the men of the Ragged Company were up early:
hitching their heavy packs onto their shoulders, halberds resting on their left
shoulders. It was damp in the early morning mist, and the woods were strangely
quiet.

Gunter’s men assembled on the left of the clearing; Osric’s
on the right.

“All present?” Sigmund called and Gunter replied, then Osric.

“All present and correct!”

“Gunter!” Sigmund commanded. “Lead your men out!”

* * *

For the rest of the day, the Ragged Company pushed on along
forest paths and high mountain roads, where it was said that beastmen had been
seen—but they saw nothing except a crazy old trapper, who was carrying a
freshly caught badger.

Baltzer moaned about the endless walking. When the men paused
by a stream for a lunch of cold hard-tack and water he pulled off one of his
boots and socks to examine his foot.

“Sigmar’s balls!” he cursed, and took out his dagger to pop
an enormous blister that covered half his heel. “How much more walking do we
have to do?”

“Shut up for once!” Freidel snapped. He spoke for a lot of
them.

“Since when did you become the model trooper?”

“I’m just sick of your bitching!”

“I’m sick of wearing my feet out!”

“Well,” Freidel said, “I’m sure the captain has good reason.”

“Bollocks!” Baltzer said. “He’s just tired of the
burgomeister telling him what to do.”

“Who isn’t?” Edmunt said and the men all laughed. The
burgomeister had done much for Helmstrumburg: bringing in trade and expanding
the town outside its historic confines—even barges from the port of Marienburg
called into Helmstrumburg now—but he hadn’t made many friends in the process.
His manner excited even less admiration. He had turned the town watch into his
private army, raised taxes, and was rumoured to be involved in all manner of
dubious business deals, possibly even smuggling. “Except of course,” Edmunt
smiled, “those who take his coin!”

Baltzer and Osric and many of the halberdiers had been part
of the town watch before they joined up. “Used to!” Baltzer snapped.

“Oh—I didn’t realise you’d stopped,” Edmunt said and pushed
the drummer off the log, sending him sprawling into the ferns.

“Dumb log-splitter!” Baltzer spat.

* * *

Late on the following day of their patrol the halberdiers
found the Old Post Road, an ancient track that led towards more civilised parts.
The road was overgrown with weeds but it allowed the men to move quickly under
the leaf-cover.

Sigmund wanted to reach the cabin of Osman Speinz before
nightfall. Osman kept a boarding house of sorts, selling ale and food, and he
had stables which he rented out as lodging. If there were any rumours going
around the trappers about beastmen gathering, Osman would know them.

“How much further?” Elias asked Gaston.

Gaston shook his head. “A mile or so.”

“And what’s Osman like?”

Gaston shrugged. “He keeps a good cask of ale. Not cheap, but
better than stream-water.”

Elias nodded. He’d been orphaned earlier than he could really
remember, and had been taken in by Guthrie Black, proprietor of the Crooked
Dwarf inn, and raised as a son. He’d spent his life carrying barrels of beer up
and down to the cellars or mopping the stale beer from the flagstones in the
morning. He’d never thought he’d miss beer as much as he did when on these
patrols. A stein would take away the aches in his feet and his shoulders. He
could almost taste it as the Old Post Road twisted off the ridge down towards
the cabin of Osman Speinz.

As they walked Elias could not stop thinking about the
luxuries that Osman’s cabin offered. After eleven nights sleeping rough, a night
in stables seemed like luxury. The promise of ale made the weight of his pack
disappear.

“Do you think he’s still renting his daughters out?” Freidel
asked.

No one answered: they were all thinking the same thing.

The sun was casting long shadows when they reached Osman’s
sign, pointing towards his lodge. There was no writing, few men here could read.
The worn sign was composed of hammered planks, daubed crudely with a barrel of
beer and an arrow.

“Not far now!” Osric told them and the men lengthened their
stride, and even Gunter started to laugh and joke. The trees pressed in on
either side, then opened out to a couple of small fields, with spring-green
shoots of winter wheat starting to show. The road curved across a stream and
then they were in the clearing where Osman lived.

As they broke the tree-line they could see that something was
terribly wrong. The cabin was surrounded by a simple palisade, but the crude
timber gates of the farmstead had been torn from their hinges, the cabin door
had been broken through, and the front yard was littered with shredded clothes.

The company was silent as they followed Sigmund up to the
ruined gateway. There was a strong scent of animal musk.

“Beastmen!” Edmunt spat. It was a scent a man would never
forget.

Elias followed the men into the yard. The stink was
overpowering. There were clothes everywhere, as if the half-goats, half-humans
had gone into a frenzy of looting.

So much for the beer, or even Osman’s daughters.

“Gunter—clear up this lot!” Sigmund snapped, pointing to
the mess. “Osric check around the back. Elias, Petr and Gaston—stand guard!”

Petr had joined up with Elias. He was a tall, quiet man with
his hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had missed out on a uniform altogether,
and wore a strip of cloth tied around his right arm.

Elias leant on his halberd and stood close to Gaston. No one
spoke as they worked. Each rag hit the pile with a wet slap. Elias looked back
up the road that they had come down. The leaves rustled, but it was just a bird,
flapping through the undergrowth. He looked back at the men clearing up the
mess, then at Gaston, who was leaning on his halberd shaft.

“Beastmen?” Elias asked.

Gaston nodded.

“Do you think they escaped?” Elias asked.

Gaston pointed with his chin towards the scraps of clothes.
“I don’t think so.”

Edmunt overheard the comment. He stood up to his full height
and held out a dripping rag at arm’s length: it was not a rag at all, but a
tatter of human skin.

Elias stared back at the front yard in horror. They were not
rags at all, but body parts. Out of one torn sleeve he saw part of a hand.
Another had some nameless body part—little more than shreds of muscle and a
snapped bone sticking out of it. That was a part of a child’s head, there was a
foot. He looked down and almost yelped in shock: wedged next to the palisade was
the head of a young boy, not much younger than himself. The dead youth’s teeth
were clenched, his eyes were open and staring. No, not staring, Elias realised,
and this made his stomach lurch uncontrollably. The man’s head had been skinned—and from the terror in the eyes, and the set of the jaw, Elias could tell they
had been skinned alive.

Sigmund picked his way across the yard, pushed the broken
doorway open and stepped inside.

Osric came back round the house to find Elias bent over
retching.

The pile of body parts was almost waist high. Osman and his
family had been torn to shreds. There were strange symbols daubed in blood on
the cabin walls. He tried not to look because they made his head hurt, but they
kept drawing his attention.

Osric looked from the pile to Elias and back again. Gaston
waited for him to say something, but not even Osric could make a joke out of
this.