Forged in Battle (28 page)

Sigmund laughed bitterly. Trapped, wounded and defenceless.
This was not how he had imagined his death. He could see the beastman’s nostrils
flare as it strode up the hill towards him.

Sigmund’s hand slipped on the halberd shaft and he half fell
into the open grave of Ortulf Jorg. Catching his balance, one of his hands fell
on the hilt of a weapon. He looked down in amazement and saw the sword of
Ortulf, slayer of the beastlord.

The leather bindings on the grip had long mouldered away, but
the weapon itself was sound. Sigmund lifted the weapon from its thousand
year-old rest and it balanced perfectly in his hand.

The beastlord saw its foe arm himself and roared as it raced
up the final yards.

Sigmund rested on one knee. He only had time for one blow. He
waited until the last moment then drove the sword forward. He felt the blade
bite, then clawed hands tore into the flesh of his side and shoulders. The
weight of the beastman hit him and he was picked from his feet and rolled down
the mound, his enemy’s body crushing the wind from his lungs. He slammed against
one of the standing stones and everything went black.

The weapon’s haft was sticky with blood. Butcher rose and
fell again and again, dealing out death to any that came within reach. A dappled
beastman ran through a pitchfork-wielding farm lad next to Edmunt, and the young
boy gasped and clutched the spear and fell back with it still impaled in him.
The beastman had just started to grab a broken sword when the blunt end of
Butcher caught it beneath the chin and snapped its mouth shut, crushing its
teeth together. Blood spurted from its nose, eyes and ears, and the creature’s
head flew back as it fell into the ranks of those beyond.

Anyone else’s arm would have refused to rise again, but
Edmunt had spent all his life chopping wood, and if the truth be told, he
thought grimly, the beastmen heads broke more easily than many pieces of wood.
As he fought, he felt the men around him beginning to tire of death and killing—even after so many hours, and he called out in a hoarse voice. “Have courage!”

But even as he spoke, the beastmen began to back off. Edmunt
stared in disbelief, and laughed out loud, called out insults on the goat-men’s
courage.

Why would they back off at this moment, when the defenders
were almost spent?

There was a moment’s pause in the fighting. The men had
barely had time to draw breath when a man sprinted up a side street and
screamed: “They’ve broken through on Altdorf Street!”

There were cries of horror and dismay. Edmunt leaped from the
barricade and led fifty men down a side street where dead and wounded were piled
in the shade. But in Altdorf Street the ragged defenders stood on the wall
staring down the street with the same astonishment.

Edmunt hurried to Tanner Lane, but the beastmen had fled from
there as well.

“Have we won?” Gaston asked but Edmunt shook his head. He had
no idea.

Guthrie misheard the two men’s conversation and clapped his
hands. “We’ve won!” he shouted, but no one wanted to believe that it was true.
All of a sudden Gaston found tears on his cheeks. He turned away and wiped his
cheeks and nose. He had no idea how he had survived when there were so many men
around him who had been killed.

Sigmund felt a pain in the small of his back. He managed to
move his hand under the weight of the beastlord and feel about behind him. He
winced as he moved and then his hand brushed a curved wooden object.

His stunned brain took a moment to work it out: a barrel.

Sigmund frowned. For a moment he had thought he was lying in
his bed at the barracks, and he couldn’t understand what the weight on him was,
or why his leg hurt, or why there was a barrel in his bed—then he remembered.
He was about to be killed.

Sigmund held his breath. At any moment he expected the
beastlord to pick him up and to tear him apart as it had done Theodor, but the
huge stinking body on top of him lay still.

Sigmund reached for his sword, but his right hand was stuck.
He tried to push himself up but the dead weight of the body pressing down on him
was too hard to shift. He managed to get a little purchase and tipped the
beastlord away, wriggled to the side, then dragged himself free.

The dead beastlord was an awesome sight. Its head lolled to
one side, snout open and pink eyes glassy in death.

Sigmund found it hard to believe that he had survived the
fight until he saw three inches of sword blade sticking out of the back of the
beastman and understood. The impact of the creature had driven the sword through
its body with a force that Sigmund could never have matched. The blade had
impaled the creature’s heart, killing it instantly.

Sigmund managed to push himself to his feet and mumbled a
prayer of thanks to Sigmar. He swayed for a moment, thought he might pass out,
and had to put his hand out to steady himself.

He could see that the fuse and the barrel were still in
place. All he had to do was light the fuse and the whole mound would go up in
smoke. For a moment he felt a wave of elation. They had won!

Then he remembered that he had nothing to light the fuse with
and he felt a moment’s panic, followed by a sense of crushing defeat.

A band of beastmen had come over the top of the mound. The
cruel twist of luck made him fierce and ferocious. Sigmund was determined to
sell his life as dearly as possible. He picked up a fallen halberd, but
staggered against one of the stones and it felt warm to the touch, throbbing
with some arcane pleasure, making his head spin. The touch revolted him. He fell
back and felt hands supporting him.

“Now then!” Frantz said. “I’ve got you.”

“Frantz!” Sigmund hissed. “We don’t have a light!”

“I have it here,” Frantz said and lifted the lantern they had
carried all the way from Helmstrumburg.

Sigmund was weak from blood loss. He laughed weakly. “Then
light the cursed fuses!” he hissed, “and help me get out of here!”

They started to move, then Sigmund grabbed Frantz. “The
sword!” he said and insisted they go back to where the albino beastman leader
lay dead.

With Frantz’s help Sigmund pushed the dead beastman over so
he could reclaim the sword.

“Light the fuses!” Sigmund hissed as he dragged the sword
from the beastman’s body, and Frantz bent to the nearest fuse. In the distance,
his blurry sight could make out band after band of beastmen rushing towards the
standing stones.

“Take this and go!” Sigmund told Frantz, and held out the
sword, but the docker hurried back, grabbed Sigmund and helped support his
weight as they dashed down towards the bank of the river.

“Leave me and go!” Sigmund yelled at his friend, but Frantz
kept dragging him along. He looked over his shoulder and saw more and more
beastmen swarming over the mound. Sigmund’s arm was weak. He brandished the
sword but it was unsteady in his hand. There was no way that they could escape.

Osric and his men were crouching in the bushes. The beastmen
began to swarm after Frantz and Sigmund and Osric cursed. “You’re going to hate
me for this,” he told Baltzer and leaped from cover and shouted to distract the
pursuing beastmen. Baltzer swore at Osric, but he leapt from cover and all the
men charged.

At that moment the first barrel exploded. In a split-second
three more explosions followed, throwing earth and debris and beastmen bodies up
into the air.

Osric had no idea where his sword went, but suddenly he was
off his feet and tumbling through the air. He landed heavily in a prickly bush.
The thorns ripped into his skin and clothes and he felt a hot blast scorch his
head and face.

Sigmund grunted as he was flung face forward into the grass.
Frantz barely had time to put his hands over his head before clods began to rain
down, and then a fine rain of dirt, as a great cloud of smoke and dirt fell back
to earth.

“Sigmar’s balls!” Osric swore.

Stones, beastmen, even the mound had disappeared. The force
of the explosions had stripped the trees of branches. Their naked trunks stood,
the nearest ones on fire with a fierce crackle as the rising resin turning them
into enormous torches. At that moment there was an unearthly, haunting and
ear-splitting scream.

The unearthly howl of pain lasted for nearly five seconds,
then it was gone. Sigmund sat up and stared at the devastation. The lack of
blood was making his head dizzy and the pain in his leg was almost overwhelming.
Worst of all, the echoes of the scream made his insides shiver.

He felt someone sit up next to him.

“We did it!” Frantz laughed and clapped him on the back.
Sigmund felt pains shooting all through his body, but despite the pain he
started to laugh.

The silence along the streets of new town was disconcerting.
How could an army disappear so quickly?

Edmunt sent runners up Tanner Lane and Eel Street to see what
the beastmen were up to. They were barely fifty feet from the barricades when
the ground shook and they heard a distant rumble, like thunder, and saw a cloud
of dirt and smoke erupt from the site of the burial mounds further down the
river.

“They’ve done it!” one of the spearmen shouted, and Edmunt
climbed up onto the barricade to see the huge cloud of debris that climbed
hundreds of feet into the air, then began to dissipate and drift out over the
Stir.

Edmunt picked up Vasir and crushed the trapper in a fierce
bear hug.

On Tanner Lane Beatrine heard a boom and had no idea what it
meant. Someone shouted that it was the signal that reinforcements had arrived;
another that the captain’s men had succeeded in finding cannons.

Whatever the noise meant, a wave of relief swept through the
defenders. She clapped her hands and felt tears rolling down her cheeks. Gaston
turned around, looking for the pretty girl with blood stains on her dress—and
picked her up from the ground and swirled her round, kissing her cheeks.

On Altdorf Street Gunter saw the cloud of dirt that rose into
the air and nodded in satisfaction: it appeared that Sigmund had accomplished
his mission.

Then there was a sudden gust of wind and with it came a howl—as if there were maddened spirits blowing through the town. The sound was so
unearthly and terrible that it made the weak-minded shake with terror but
Gunter’s presence kept the rest to their posts.

In a moment it was gone—and the people began to wonder what
it meant.

“I think we’ve seen the end of these beastmen!” Gunter
shouted. “Clear this barricade away!”

The people, soldiers and civilians alike, began to pull the
jumble of furniture and carts apart but the individual pieces of furniture and
cart had been so compressed by the beastman attack that it bowed in at the
centre, and they saw to their amazement that the barricade had been moved three
yards from its original point.

The pressure of the beastmen had also locked the individual
pieces of furniture into a solid mass that was almost impossible to pull apart.

Gunter clapped his men on the back and sent Josh and Hengle
to the marketplace to bring a barrel of beer for the thirsty defenders when he
heard a low rumble, almost too deep for human hearing, that grew steadily
louder.

Gunter thought he was imagining it at first, but the sound
was distinctive and he climbed up onto barricade to take a look.

“Shit!”

There was a horde of horned warriors charging down the road.
Maybe they hadn’t blown the stones after all? “To arms!” he bellowed, and
punched one man who was busy offering thanks to Sigmar. “They’re coming!”

* * *

The destruction of the stones had sent the beastmen into a
berserk fury. Whatever order the warbands had once possessed was gone. They were
like a stampede of terrified animals, their eyes rolled wildly in their heads—but they didn’t flee—they were in a frenzy of hatred and fury that went beyond
all reason or understanding or even concern for their own safety. It had but one
purpose: destroy Helmstrumburg.

Edmunt helped the scouts he had sent out to clamber to
safety. “Stand fast, men!” Edmunt called out. “Stand fast!”

His men stepped up to the fighting steps, but having believed
that they were saved many of them could not bear the thought of returning to
battle one more time. Their numbers had been severely weakened during the
repeated assaults and the beasts were charging with more ferocity than ever now.

Only the halberdiers and spearmen stepped up without
hesitation. This was their job. They gripped spear, shield and halberd shaft and
waited grimly.

The horde of beastmen flowed over the barricades in a
crashing wave, overwhelming the defenders by sheer reckless force of numbers.

At the barricade on Eel Street there was a spray of blood as
Edmunt lashed about him with Butcher, but the beastmen seemed impervious to pain
and ran into the whirling axe-head as if they wanted to be killed.

Again, Edmunt’s blind ferocity steadied the men about him,
but they were exhausted and the beasts began to overwhelm them.

The barricade on Altdorf Street was breached first. Gunter
strode into the gap meaning to plug it himself, but he was gored and cut down.
The tide of beasts drove straight through the reinforcements and most of them
were cut off and slaughtered as the beasts charged the second barricade.

Vostig and his men were holed up on the second floor of the
buildings between the first and second barricades. They had been firing at the
massed beastmen until their guns were too hot to shoot, but suddenly the sea of
horned heads was through the barricade and washing around the feet of the
buildings they were in.

Holmgar was in a narrow house above the barricade with two of
Vasir’s trappers. He put his handgun down and stared in horror: stunned at the
speed with which the beastmen had broken through—but the men on the barricades
had been fighting beyond the point of exhaustion. He heard windows smash
downstairs. Hooves sounded as the beasts began to rampage through the ground
floor and then he heard the sound of many hooves on the stairs. The gun barrel
was too hot to hold. He drew his sword, but he was never much use with it. The
trappers looked at him, as if expecting him to know how they could get out of
this.