“Stuff this,” Porter said, summing up their position with an elegant simplicity. “They’re leaving us out here as bait.”
“Or as an appetiser,” Minsk added, provoking a chorus of mutinous assent.
Erikson could feel the company breaking. It was something about the level at which the muttering was pitched and the way that the men immediately behind him had fallen silent. He examined the barricade. Now that the regiments on either side had disappeared it looked ridiculous, as useless as a child’s sandcastle against an incoming tide.
Still, at least it made a good podium.
“Gentlemen,” he cried, scrambling on top of it. “I can see that you are unhappy with our place in the battle line.”
The catcalls and laughter were quickly silenced as his eyes swept over them.
“I don’t like it either. I think that we are being used as bait.”
“Let’s leave then.” Minsk called out.
Erikson waited for the applause to die down before replying.
“If we run now,” he said, “it will be straight to the headsman’s block. Desertion in the face of the enemy is a capital offence.”
“Better a nice clean axe than those things,” somebody added.
“No,” Erikson snapped. “Better neither. We’ll wait. The enemy might not come. But if they do we will run.”
“Back to the headsman’s axe?” Gunter asked. Of all the men he seemed the only one not relieved by the prospect of retreat.
“I don’t think so,” Erikson shook his head. “Breaking before a charge is shameful, but it happens. Gentlemen, I know that this is an uncomfortable situation, but I ask you to trust me. After all, I have been a soldier all of my life, and I’m still alive.”
“What did happen to your last regiment?” Minsk asked. Erikson ignored him and hurriedly carried on.
“All I ask is that you wait for my signal before we withdraw. Will you do that?”
The men looked at one another.
“When you say withdraw,” Porter asked, “you do mean run?”
“As fast as you can.” Erikson grinned.
“Then of course we’ll follow you,” the little man said, and to relieved laughter Erikson leapt off his perch and turned back to face the enemy.
The glory of war, he thought, and bit down on a cynical smile.
* * *
Gulkroth could feel their frustration. It vibrated through the herd, greasing the air with the musk of aggression, and no wonder. The smell of blood was delicious on the breeze, and the maddening order of the enemy stood barely a charge away.
The beast lord was amazed that he’d been able to hold his army back this long. Such restraint went against every fibre of their being just as it went against every fibre of his. Yet still, held them he had, relying on the shamans that lurked behind the herd leaders to enforce his will.
“You are right to wait, lord,” Ruhrkar said. “Here is no place for us to do battle. The vile humans have made of this place a desert, and within it our herds have no defence against their alchemies.”
Gulkroth glanced down at the wizened shaman. Exposed to the unbroken light of the noonday sun it seemed incredible that he was still alive. The weak throb of his pulse was visible beneath the parchment skin his moulting fur revealed, and flies feasted on the yellow pus that seeped from his nostrils. Yet despite his frailty the shaman glowed with such power that he seemed almost a living herdstone.
“No, we will fight them in another place,” Ruhrkar continued, talking as if to himself. “We will draw them to us and feast upon them at our leisure. Fighting them here is as foolish as trying to suck the marrow from a still-living bone. First it has to be caught and smashed.”
Gulkroth watched the shaman drool, and wondered how much of his authority over the herd depended on this creature and his brother shamans. It made him uneasy and he turned back to watch the humans. They were withdrawing.
At least, most of them seemed to be withdrawing. They had left one of their herds out in the middle of the field. It was a miserable-looking mix of humans, and huddled behind their makeshift barricade they looked as tempting a morsel as a deer with a broken leg.
Gulkroth felt his resolve wavering when Ruhrkar spoke again.
“Look at the bait which the humans dangle before us,” he mused. “And look at the jaws that they would close on any who survived the thunder of their alchemy.” He gestured to where the state regiments, their army ablaze in the high sun, had taken positions within charge range of Erikson’s company. “What a snare that would be to put our heads into.”
Gulkroth growled with frustration and wished this day over. They would not come to him and he could not go to them. The torment of unsatiated bloodlust coursed through him so much that when the minotaurs broke lose he could hardly blame them.
They broke from the formation with a roar, a black avalanche of hate-fuelled muscle. Gulkroth caught a brief glimpse of the shaman that he had set to hold them crushed underfoot, bleeding even as he hit the ground, and the herds of gors on either side swayed as if caught in the minotaurs’ wake.
Gulkroth bellowed at them, venting his fury on those who dared to defy his order. They turned and cowered at his voice, hunkering down as the minotaurs charged off across the churned-up mud of the battlefield. A moan of yearning rose up from the herd at the sight, and that was when Gulkroth knew that without the shamans he would have lost them long ago.
“Here they come,” a voice cried out, and Erikson felt the company shifting behind him like wheat beneath strong wind.
“Hold your damned ground,” Sergeant Alter snarled.
“But he said that we could—”
“I said hold your ground,” Sergeant Alter said, turning on the man. “Wait for the captain’s order.”
Erikson peered over the top of the barricade and prepared to give the order to flee. Then he hesitated. This wasn’t the onslaught he had expected. The enemy still remained out of cannon shot, their obscene standards foresting the horizon even as they howled and moaned in some unholy chorus.
No more than a dozen shapes were galloping towards them. The creatures were as misshapen as the others, but whatever forces had twisted their forms had also given them an immense size. They stood taller than any two men, and their heads seemed to have been made in mockery of a bull’s. The horns they bore were stout, simple juts of bone, each as wide as a man’s outstretched arms, and as they ran great slabs of muscle moved beneath their thin fur.
But still. There were only a dozen of them.
As Erikson considered this, the first of the cannon roared out. The grey smear of its projectile flashed towards the creatures and the rest of the artillery opened up.
“Hold your ground, lads,” Erikson said. “The gunners will see to them.”
Cannon balls sliced through the ground, searing through the soil and sending up great divots of turf. Mortar bombs, their trajectories traced by goose-down trails of smoke, arced easily across the clear blue of the sky to land in volcanoes of smoke and debris.
By the time Erikson realised the gunners were not hitting the monsters they were already halfway to his regiment. Whereas the cannon had smashed through the densely packed mass of chariots, these bull-headed horrors were too nimble to be caught. They sped through the storm of iron, bounding through the gunners’ art with an effortless grace.
“Oh damn,” Erikson said as they closed in. It was too late to run now. If they did they would be caught in the open and…
Behind him, the men began to run. At first it was only a couple, but even as Erikson called to them the rest were going, the formation crumbling with a terrifying speed. He watched them, caught sight of Sergeant Alter’s uncertain face, and did the only thing he could do to stop the company from mutinying.
He joined them.
“Retreat!” he cried, signalling with his sword. “Retreat! Back to the lines.”
They needed no further encouragement, and the desertion became a stampede, ea
ch man trying to outdistance the next. Erikson snatched a last glance at the approaching horrors as they bellowed, venting their frustration as their prey fled. Then he turned to flee himself but before he could he saw the wounded that had been left by their comrades.
There were half a dozen who couldn’t join the flight. Some lay silent and bleeding. Others, crippled with shattered limbs and torn ligaments, were less fortunate. They were conscious of the fate that was upon them, and they cried out in their anger and their fear.
Even then he might have run, but before he could he saw that Dolf had dropped his drum and armed himself with an abandoned sword.
“Go on!” Erikson shouted at him. “Retreat! That’s an order.”
“Can’t leave our comrades for those things, captain,” the lad said with a simple certainty.
Erikson looked at him, then turned back to the slavering beasts that were bounding towards the barricade.
“No,” he decided, and it seemed that somebody else was speaking with his voice. “No, I suppose we can’t.”
He cast a last look towards the retreating rabble of his company then went to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Dolf. As he did so the first of the beasts vaulted the barricade, its obscene bulk blocking out the sky, and hurled itself towards them.
Sir Gerhardt Schleismann had spent his whole life training for war. He had been able to ride as soon as he had been able to walk, and he had started learning the basics of the lance and the sword soon after. He and his brothers had spent most of their days practising these arts, and they had grown as burly as any labourer with the constant use of steel.
When he had been old enough Schleismann had started riding in tournaments, and soon after that had come the proudest day of his life. He had been sworn into the Knights of the Silver Order.
And yet, despite the darkness of the forests that circled these lands like a wolf’s jaws around a lamb’s throat, he had never found true battle. He had arrived late, or been sent to the wrong flank. Even a gang of bandits which had made the mistake of attacking a caravan of which he was a part had escaped his blade, fleeing into the impenetrable undergrowth before he had slain any.
Now, at almost twenty years of age, he was beginning to wonder if he was the victim of some sort of terrible curse. It seemed that he was to spend his entire life in limbo, hovering like a hawk over a field without once being able to fold his wings and dive.
At first today’s battle had done little to dispel the superstition. Even in a field containing thousands of foul horrors from the woods beyond, it seemed that his sword was destined to remain dry, his lance unbroken.
So now, when he saw the minotaurs charging at Erikson’s lone company, he took it as a gift from Sigmar.
“Sound the advance,” he told his squadron’s bugler, his voice sharp with excitement. As the note rang out he touched the spurs to his horse’s flank and cantered forwards. Only when the rest of the squadron had matched his pace in a perfect razor’s edge of a line did he turn back to the bugler and, through a wide smile, order him to sound the charge.
The minotaur’s axe buried itself in the soil between Erikson and Dolf. The men sprang to either side as the creature prised its weapon back out of the sucking wound it had made in the earth.
Dolf stabbed wildly at the solid bulk of its ribcage, but although the blow was enthusiastic it lacked finesse. The steel bounced off hide and bone, and the beast’s roar was of outrage rather than pain. It spun towards the youngster, the stained steel of its axe a blur, but Dolf had already ducked and rolled backwards.
The creature raised its axe again, its muzzle peeled back in a snarl of murderous joy as it struck down, but Dolf twisted away. Although he had never handled a sword in his life, he had dodged a thousand blows, and it showed as he scuttled and raced around the creature’s assault.
Erikson, meanwhile, had been taking his time. While Dolf distracted the creature he had worked his way behind it, and although the urge to strike was strong he spent priceless seconds studying the roll of muscles across its back. He studied the thickness of the pelt and the width of its ribs. Only when he was sure did he strike. With a grunt of effort he slid the sword point between the back ribs, through a kidney and then into the liver.
The beast screamed with agony and leapt away Erikson’s sword, which had buried itself up to its hilt in the beast’s flesh, was torn from his hand. In the brightness of the rush of combat which pulsed through him he snatched a weapon from one of the wounded who lay sobbing to one side.
It was a butcher’s cleaver, heavy and unbalanced, but it was better than nothing. Floating on the balls of his feet Erikson watched as the stricken beast choked up a lungful of blood and staggered backwards, clawing ineffectually at the blade which still skewered it.
“Look behind you, captain,” Dolf cried out. Erikson turned, twisting away from the lunging spear thrust that would have pinned him as neatly as a butterfly on a pin. Although he was fast he lacked Dolf’s grace, and even as the crudely forged weapon sliced past him the ridge of black-furred bone which lay between the beast’s horns crashed into his skull.
There was a crack and he fell backwards. He saw a sparkle of galloping lightning with his last blink, but then there was nothing but darkness, painless and silent.
In the second before his charge connected with the monsters before them, Schleismann was numbed with a sensation that he was watching himself from some far distant place. He could still feel the beat of the horse’s heart between his legs, and the weight of the perfectly balanced lance in his mailed fist. He could even hear himself roaring a challenge, the cry echoing in the throats of his brother knights as they fell upon the beasts, but until the impact none of it seemed real.
It took the bone-jarring thud of his lance impacting into flesh to snap him out of the daze. As the lance snapped, splintering before the bones in his arm did, reality rushed back over him, and he was roaring with the terrifying joy of battle.
The creature he had hit staggered back, its horned head level with his horse’s as he turned it with his knees and unsheathed his sword. The steel hissed from the scabbard, and he stabbed down even as the beast lunged at him.
His blade pierced the column of its spine, slipping through the boulders of its vertebrae with the precision of a bull-fighter’s strike, but it was too late for his mount. Even as the beast died its horns were tearing through the flesh of his horse’s belly. It screamed and Schleismann, though he had known it since it had been a foal, leapt free without a single glance back. He had already identified his next target.
Its hide was as black as sin and its eyes were as red as hell itself. He barrelled towards it, closing the distance to deny it the advantage of reach. The thing swung a misshapen axe at him, but he angled his shield to deflect the blow and thrust upwards, cutting through dewlaps, through the throat, through the base of the skull and, with a final cry of effort, into the brain.
The beast fell back and Schleismann, who found that he was laughing with the joy of battle, kept his sword wedged in the shattered bone of his kill so that the pull of it propelled him forwards into the next target.
Around him his brother knights were plying their trade with the same joyous abandon. The creatures they faced were monstrous, and the power behind their blows was awesome, but they had neither art nor the weaponry of the men.
Still, the beasts knew how to kill. Armoured carcasses littered the churned-up ground as well as furred ones. The blood was as bright against their steel carapaces as the beasts’ blood was dark against their hides, and Schleismann felt a moment’s sobriety as he recognised one of the fallen.
But only a moment. His training left no room for hesitation, and he had already marked his next victim. It was larger even than its fellows, probably the bull of the herd, and it was flailing around at some ragged, scampering target. Schleismann leapt onto the remains of a barricade and saw that it was roaring with frustration as it tried to kill a boy. He was unarmed and barefoot, but still agi
le as he harried the monster. He danced between its blows as he hurled abuse at it, his red hair flashing in the sunlight.
If the spectacle had been within a fighting pit Schleismann would have enjoyed watching it. But here and now his instincts had him moving already, shield first and sword held back like a scorpion’s sting. The beast heard the clatter of his approach, spun around with a terrifying speed and angled an axe stroke towards him.
This time Schleismann didn’t angle his shield neatly enough, and the bound leather and hide of its construction shattered as the crudely forged blade bit through steel and into his shoulder and knocked him to his knees.
He ignored the pain and staggered back to his feet, lunging in through the beast’s guard to deliver a killing blow. Before he could the creature lunged down, moving with such a speed that the spread of its horns blocked Schleismann’s vision. He turned but the blow caught him on the helmet. He collapsed backwards, stars exploding beneath his dented steel visor as he fell heavily.
Numbed fingers fumbled for his sword as he blinked to clear his vision. When the world came back into focus he saw that his death was upon them. Disdaining weapons, the monster clutched him by his arms and lifted him towards its stinking maw. Schleismann’s stomach rolled with nausea as he inhaled the rotten meat stink of the creature’s breath and saw the chipped blades of its teeth.
Before it could bite it screamed, a surprisingly high-pitched shriek of agony, and dropped the knight back down to the grass. Schleismann saw two things. The first was the hideous wound in the monster’s groin, and the second was the youth retreating from his handiwork, his knife as red as his hair with fresh blood.
Then Schleismann saw his sword. He grasped the hilt and struck up, a lifetime of training sending the steel into a cluster of nerves and arteries inside the creature’s leg.
It bellowed as it fell, arterial blood fountaining into the air, and Schleismann scrabbled away from its death throes. He caught a glimpse of the youth dragging an unconscious man away, then wheeled around to see how the battle was going.
Broken Honour Page 10
