Forged in Battle (30 page)

Sigmund’s head span. He gripped his sword to help his mind
focus. He was glad that they would be able to hold up the beastmen long enough
to let the knight escape. But then two more knights appeared. And two more.

“Warn them!” Sigmund hissed. “Warn them that the beastmen are
coming!”

His face was white and Frantz put out his arm to support the
captain, and Sigmund’s fingers clenched on the docker’s arms.

“Warn them!” he hissed and Frantz laughed.

“What did whitey do to you?” he said and patted Sigmund
gently on the back. “These aren’t beastmen!”

Sigmund didn’t understand for a moment. His head span as he
tried to understand that there were no more beastmen. The hooves they had heard
were horses’.

At last it sank in and Sigmund started to laugh and the noise
was like a hacking cough. He spat up blood and wiped his mouth. Looking up he
saw a column of Knights Griffon, their squires and porters coming behind on
speckled horses laden down with packs.

After them came a group of twenty men with black and gold
painted breastplates and jauntily cocked hats with dyed pheasant feathers
trailing behind them. Their legs were protected by greaves. The leader had a
handgun strapped to his saddle; his men carried holsters on their saddles. Each
man had a cavalry sabre slung over their back.

Their horses were five or more hands shorter than the
knights’ warhorses. They tossed their manes as they cantered behind the trail of
knights.

Sigmund struggled to stand up as the foremost knight
approached.

He saluted the man slowly. “Captain Jorg, Helmstrumburg
Halberdiers! We are glad to see you!”

The knight pulled the reins and looked down from his great
helm at the blood-stained captain.

“Have they still not given you lot a proper uniform to die
in?” the man said with the hint of a smile.

The man spoke with an aristocratic accent that made Frantz
stand to attention. Sigmund strained to see the face and then grinned. It was
Marshal von Dvornsak, of the Valkenburg Kommondaria, the knight who had ridden
to save them from the greenskins at Blade’s Reach. The pistoliers’ captain rode
up, a handsome man who looked down with curiosity at the halberdier. “This is
Captain Jorg,” he continued, explaining to the captain. The marshal gave Sigmund
a wink. “If it wasn’t for him getting his men into trouble then my men would
have nothing to do!”

The old marshal’s lips had the hint of a smile, but Osric
disliked both him and the pistoliers’ captain. They were all arrogant
blue-blooded bastards.

Sigmund struggled to keep himself upright. “How did you know
to come?” he gasped.

“We had word from Talabheim,” the marshal said.

Sigmund understood. Theodor said that he had sent word out
for reinforcements. He wished that Theodor had lived to see this moment. Of all
men, it seemed that he had done most to save Helmstrumburg.

“Now, where are the vermin, what are their numbers and their
disposition?”

Sigmund tried to explain, but was still weak and dizzy. Osric
took over, telling the knights’ commander what had happened, and as much
information as he could about the layout of the town, and the number and type of
the beastman forces. Marshal von Dvornsak nodded and waved his men on.

The pistoliers moved alongside them. A few of them gave the
halberdiers curt nods, but most of them passed by without even an
acknowledgment.

“And those bastards will probably claim they liberated
Helmstrumburg,” muttered Osric, as the mounted column trotted past.

An order was given and the squires spurred their horses
forward to take the lances from the knights. Marshal von Dvornsak split his men
into three squads of ten—sending one each down Tanner Lane, Altdorf Street and
Eel Street, swords drawn. Behind the knights’ massive warhorses came the
pistoliers, their light geldings chomping and tossing their heads at the stink
of blood and the musk of the beastmen.

The horses moved slowly through the shattered remains of the
barricades, picking their way carefully through the heaps of dead men and
beastmen. On Tanner Lane they came across the Chaos spawn, still inside the
field station, contentedly digesting the remains of over thirty men.

The Chaos creature’s pulsating flesh flared blue and sickly
green as the first pistol shots punctured its overblown carcass. The horses
started to panic as it began to squeeze back out of the door, following its own
sticky trail of slime, but the pistoliers casually reloaded and then fired
again; it was impossible to miss at such short range. It was a deadly fusillade,
riddling the Chaos-spawn with lead shot.

Within twenty seconds the fearsome beast stopped moving. Its
flesh began to deflate and change colour, until it was translucent, then
sections tore open, the half-digested forms of the people it had devoured
spilling out onto the street.

The captain of the pistoliers commented as he pointed at one
of the forms—“What a shame…” he said and the men looked and saw the remains
of a young girl with dark black hair.

With a shake of his head, the captain spurred his horse on
and the pistoliers turned their horses down the street after the knights.

As soon as the beastmen realised that the roads out of town
had been blocked they began to scramble for a way out of the tight and alien
confines of the townscape—back into the wild woods.

The only ones that did escape were those that managed to
break through to the docks and leaped into the river. The rest were cut off by
the knights and pistoliers, and then slaughtered.

One band managed to hide from the knights and flee out of
town along Eel Street, but the knights’ squires gave pursuit with spears and ran
them to ground, one by one, as if they were hunting wild animals.

* * *

Sigmund limped into town and found his way to the
marketplace, where the survivors were gathering. Edmunt picked Sigmund up in a
bear-hug that was as gentle as he could make it, considering Sigmund’s wounds.
Elias nodded politely and even managed a smile. Vasir was there: a dirty bandage
around his thigh. Guthrie was sitting on a barrel; he looked ten years older.
Hengle saw his brother and sprinted to embrace him in a fierce hug.

“Where is mother?” Sigmund asked.

Hengle pointed to the Crooked Dwarf.

“She stayed there the whole time?”

“Yes! The beastmen never made it to the marketplace. Edmunt
and the others were magnificent!”

Sigmund gave Edmunt a look, but the woodsman shook his head.

“But how are you?”

“I am alive,” Sigmund laughed, and then saw a pretty blonde
girl—her skirts torn and singed—make her way through the startled crowd and
stand next to Gaston. Sigmund smiled. He was glad that Gaston was still alive.
He didn’t know why but the handsome warrior’s presence reassured him.

“Where is Gunter?” Sigmund asked, but the men looked down.
The list of the fallen was too long to dwell on. Sigmund shook his head. He
never thought that Gunter would be killed. The old sergeant seemed to have
survived so much. He had been old and wise when they were just raw recruits.

“What time is the Crooked Dwarf open?” Sigmund said, forcing
a smile through his exhaustion and shock.

The men laughed, but the laughter was weak.

Four days after the battle of Helmstrumburg, the knights from
the Valkenburg Kommondaria rode out of town with the Kemperbad Pistoliers and
the long train of squires.

The town stank of blackpowder and smoke still hung over the
rooftops. Most of the new town had been burnt down; the blackened stumps of
rafters and beams were stark against the skyline as people picked their way
through the rubble, looking for food or for the bodies of their brothers or
mothers or children.

The beastman bodies had been piled up in the moat and burnt:
the land reconsecrated by the priests of Sigmar.

Sigmund’s chest and shoulders were bruised black and blue—the hand prints of the beastlord neatly printed into his skin. The cut on his
thigh was healing well. There were new patches on his uniform.

He saluted as Marshal von Dvornsak rode past and followed his
men out along the Altdorf Road.

If it hadn’t been for the knights, the town would have been
lost. Sigmund knew that, but he disliked being indebted to another soldier twice—even if it was the handsome old marshal.

Sigmund stood on the steps of the Crooked Dwarf then ducked
back inside the tavern, sat down at the table with Edmunt, and put his feet up
on the table.

He had lost thirty-three halberdiers including Gunter, eight
handgunners, thirty-four spearmen, including Hanz and Stephan. He had chosen a
bright young man called Verner to be their sergeant now. He was liked by his
men, and seemed to have a good head for leadership. He had certainly earned
their respect in the battle and had rallied a band of thirty men in the street
fighting. As far as Sigmund was concerned, there was no better test for a man.

There was a clatter of hooves in the marketplace and Sigmund
pulled his hat down over his face.

“One of the pistoliers has probably forgotten a feather,”
Edmunt said.

Sigmund took a sip of his beer. Josh brought a new barrel up
the stairs. Guthrie was polishing the tankards. Unfortunately he had lost most
of his regulars, but if you ignored the bandages and the missing faces, you
could almost forget that there had even been a battle.

They heard a horse stop outside the Crooked Dwarf. There were
footsteps outside as someone came up the stairs to the inn. The door opened and
a uniformed man came inside.

Sigmund pulled his hat down over his face. He couldn’t bear
to talk to one of the pompous Kemperbaders.

“Captain Jorg?” someone said in a Talabheim accent.

Sigmund pushed his hat back and looked up at the new arrival.
He was smartly dressed, with pistols at his waist and a sword at his belt—but
he was not one of the men from Kemperbad.

Sigmund nodded.

“I have a message for you!”

Sigmund took the scroll and tore it open. It was from
Landsmarshal Pesl.

“Your relief has been sent to Helmstrumburg. You are
commanded to move with all possible haste to Fort Wilhelm on the Upper Talabec.”

At the bottom was a subscript: “Andres Jorg sends his warm
greetings.”

So his father was alive, after all. Sigmund put the message
down and let out a long sigh.

“New orders?”

“Yes,” Sigmund replied.

“Do we have time for another drink?”

“Just one,” Sigmund said.

He had floated all the way from Helmstrumburg, but an eddy
brought the man ashore on the mud flats outside Altdorf.

The man barely had the strength to crawl a little way up the
bank, before passing out again and lying there—his once-fine clothes stained
and drenched beyond recognition.

In the afternoon Old Mother Scultzen made her way to the mud
flats to see what she might find. There were often a few beached fish that the
herons had left, or perhaps a piece of wood that she could dry out and burn. But
today she saw the body of a man lying with his feet in the gently lapping water.
She hitched up her skirts and moved closed.

“Now then?” she said. “What have we here?”

The man let out a whimper.

“What’s that?” Old Mother Scultzen said. “You’ll have to
speak up! I’m a bit deaf in that ear!”

“Help me!” the man repeated, louder this time and Old Mother
Scultzen shuffled closer. “I’ve been robbed!”

She backed off in fear, but Eugen held up his hand. “I have
rich… relatives who will reward you well!”

Old Mother Scultzen shuffled forward and saw the quality of
the clothes he was wearing. Maybe he did have family who would pay for his
safety? She shuffled another step forward, and peered down at the dishevelled
figure.

The man feebly tugged a ring off his fingers and held it out
towards her. She snatched the ring and bit it to make sure it was real before
she decided to help him. She would get men from the village to help carry the
man back to her hut. She knew just the thing that would cure him: fish head
broth! And then she would see about the relatives.

“Wait there!” she shouted at the prostrate man. Eugen shut
his eyes and nodded, lacking the energy to move his legs out of the water. There
was nowhere else he could go.

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