How hungry for nice, red meat.
“Hofstadter, on your feet or we leave you,” Alter barked. This time Hofstadter responded, rolling up his few possessions in his ragged blanket and tying it into a pack. When he was sure nobody was looking he opened the top of his shirt and peered down to make sure that it was still there. He had known that it was. Over the past few days the warmth of the stone against his chest had started to throb in time with his own heartbeat. Still, he thought as he looked at the faint green glow, it was good to be sure.
“Leave those fleas alone and get a hold of this,” Porter said, and thrust a sack into Hofstadter’s arms. Again a growl came unbidden to his throat, but this time his tormentor heard it.
“Here you go.” Porter smiled wickedly. “You can carry the bacon, too.”
Hofstadter glared at him and tried to say something, but somehow the words wouldn’t come.
“Problem, quartermaster?” Brandt grumbled as he loomed up behind Porter. With a bark of disgust Hofstadter slung the weight of the provisions over his shoulder. Despite the feverish pain in his bones the load felt surprisingly light as he joined the column which Sergeant Alter was forming up.
“Next time I have to give an order twice, I’ll kick your arse,” the sergeant said, not without a trace of good humour. Hofstadter turned his head away and bit back on the murderous rage that welled up inside him.
The sergeant frowned, then called out to Erikson.
“Ready for the march, captain.”
“Company,” Erikson called back from his place at the head of the column. “March!”
After the desperate haste of the past few days, the column now moved at an easy stroll. It gave Erikson time to talk to Freimann. The rifleman walked beside him even though his men had already disappeared off into the wheat.
“Tell me again how these things work,” Erikson said, gesturing to the weapon that Freimann carried in the crook of his elbow.
“Ah, the long rifle.” Freimann smiled and patted the stock. “They are the latest, the very latest, invention. Some say the secret of them comes from Nuln. Others credit the dwarfs of the Worlds Edge Mountains. But wherever they came from, they are ours now. With one of these one of my men can put a shot wherever he wants to within half a mile.”
Erikson regarded the weapon. Despite the earlier display he remained sceptical.
“And all it fires are little balls of lead?”
“Eight ounces a shot,” Freimann agreed.
“Well, even if it won’t work against armour it did a hell of a job on those beasts.”
Freimann raised one eyebrow.
“It’s a shame that cavalry squadron I sent your way didn’t turn up,” he said. “They could have told you how useless our rifles are against armour.”
“I wonder what happened to them?” Erikson mused. “Three days across open ground. They should have been here before you.”
“That’s war,” Freimann shrugged. “For all I know the idiot I spoke to sent them to the wrong Nalderstein. Your villains are hardly the most fragrant men I’ve met, but even the most villainous is worth a dozen of that perfumed ponce. Viksberg, he was called. What?” Freimann paused as he saw Erikson’s expression. “Have you heard of him?”
“Oh yes. He had some sort of run-in with one of the lads.”
“Did he now?” Freimann said, and the two of them fell into a silent contemplation that lasted until they saw a plume of dust rising in the distance. It hung in the still, heat-baked air ahead of them.
“Maybe that’s your cavalry now,” Erikson suggested, but Freimann shook his head.
“No,” he said. “It’s probably a single rider, or at least no more than two or three. His horse is tired, too, even though he isn’t carrying much armour.”
“How the hells can you know that?” Erikson asked as, in the distance, a dark shape appeared from beneath the column of dust.
“Magic,” Freimann winked.
“I’ll tell that to the witch hunters,” Erikson grinned, and Freimann barked with uncomfortable laughter.
“You can feel the way the horse is running through your feet. The ground’s hard enough. And the column of dust, it’s too straight to come from more than a couple of riders. And please, don’t joke about the witch hunters. They’ve been even more twitchy of late.”
“Sorry,” Erikson said, and he meant it. It was easy to forget the fiery-eyed fanatics and the power they wielded. For one uneasy moment he even wondered if the approaching rider might be one of the accursed creatures, but soon he was near enough that they could see the plume bobbing on his helmet and the glint of sunlight on a polished cuirass.
“Halt!” Erikson said and raised his hand. The men watched as the rider galloped towards them. He led a second horse on a halter behind him, and when he reached the column he leapt off the one he had been riding and started unbuckling her saddle as he talked.
“I am Falsmir, herald of the baron of Hochland,” the man explained, the grandeur of his title an odd contrast to the peasant skill with which he changed his saddle from one horse to another.
“And I am Captain Erikson, leader of the Gentleman’s Free Company of Hergig,” Erikson said. Freimann said nothing, merely slouching in the shadow of the other man.
“The Gentleman’s… You’re the prisoners, aren’t you?” Falsmir asked as he adjusted his saddle on the second horse, and suddenly, beneath the sunburn and stubble, he looked a lot younger than Erikson had first thought. “The ones who fought the minotaurs at the Battle of the Gates? You’re heroes!”
For a moment Erikson had no idea what the man was talking about. Then realisation dawned.
“The Battle of the Gates. Yes, that was us.”
“Then I am glad to find you alive, sir,” Falsmir smiled, all of a sudden finding the time to stand to attention and salute. “Rumour has it that you were wiped out in the forest.”
“Rumours of their deaths have been somewhat exaggerated,” Freimann said.
Falsmir looked at him for the first time, his eyes skittering over the hunter’s ragged garb in search of some medal or token of rank. When he found none he dismissed him and turned back to Erikson.
“The baron will be pleased you’ve made it,” he said. “The enemy are on the march. Coming to have another crack at us, apparently. That’s why I’m out here, spreading general field order seventeen to any straggling units.”
Erikson decided not to ask what the previous sixteen general field orders had been about.
“General field order seventeen,” Falsmir said, taking a moment to check the strap beneath the saddle of his fresh horse, “is that all men, companies, regiments and other formations are to assemble before the gates of Hergig with immediate effect. Captain Erikson, do you accept this order, as given to me by the baron himself?”
“Willingly,” Erikson said.
“And yourself… sir?” Falsmir asked Freimann, who tilted his head in what might have been agreement.
“Good,” Falsmir said. “Then I’ll be off. Have you seen any other formations around here?” he asked, swinging into the saddle.
“Only the enemy’s,” Erikson told him. “You would do well to stay clear of the forest, Falsmir.”
“Wouldn’t we all?” The herald grinned, his teeth gleaming white in the sunlight. “Fare thee well, captain. And may Sigmar be with you!”
“With you too,” Erikson said. The company watched as the herald galloped past them and back towards the forest.
“Well, well, well,” Erikson mused after he had gone. “So we’re the heroes of the Battle of the Gates. Should be worth a bonus.”
Falsmir spent the rest of the day following the path Erikson’s column had tramped through the wheat. He had been riding for days, pausing only to snatch a few hours’ sleep in the darkest part of the night, but although his muscles ached and his skin was desiccated by the dry winds that played across the wheat fields, he had no desire to slacken his pace.
The baron himse
lf had given him his orders, and even now the great man’s confidence in him made him glow with pride. If he was worthy he would soon join the pistoliers, just as his brother had before him. If he was worthy.
The sky bruised with the onset of night, and Falsmir slackened his pace as Morrslieb rose. It cast a sickening glow over the land, and Falsmir made sure that he didn’t look directly at the cursed orb. That way madness lay. Madness and worse.
When the horses began to stumble he dismounted, slipped off the saddle and hobbled them. Then he gave them both a quick rub down with his shirt and let them drink from the leather bucket. He was thirsty himself but he allowed himself only a mouthful before corking the canteen. There was no knowing when he would find water again, and the horses must come first.
After that he settled them down, lay against the warm bulk of one of them and slipped into an instant sleep.
When he awoke he found his blanket damp with dew and his horses staggering to their hooves behind him. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stood up, squinting around in the grey light of the predawn. There was nothing but the endless expanse of wheat, and for a moment he felt a childish terror at how completely alone he was out here.
He angrily pushed the feeling away. He was seventeen, by Sigmar, and a herald of the baron himself.
The horses whinnied miserably, and danced within the confines of their hobbles. It occurred to Falsmir that if he hadn’t hobbled them they would have bolted. He made sure that they were back in harness before untying their hooves and swinging into the saddle.
“Hush,” he soothed the beast as it danced nervously beneath him. Then, as his senses cleared of the last traces of sleep, he smelt that which had so frightened the beasts.
There was no mistaking the ripe aroma of bestial musk and decayed meat that wafted towards him. Even when the wind changed and the air cleared Falsmir could still smell the stink. He knew it from the Battle of the Gates, and so, it seemed, did his mounts.
“Hush now,” he told them, and stroked the neck of his horse. After she had settled he nudged her forwards with his knees, and walked her up to the top of the nearest slope.
In the distance the black line of the forest cut across the horizon, lethal and inscrutable. The first few raptors hovered in the air above, wings working to maintain their altitude as they waited for the heat of the day to lift them. Rodents, still emboldened by the fading night, scampered greedily amongst the wheat. That was all.
Falsmir shifted in his saddle, blinking towards the east as the sun finally rose above the horizon. Suddenly the world was glowing with sunlight on golden wheat, or black with the dark shapes of the clouds which raced above it.
That was when he saw it.
It was half a mile away, and at first sight he took it for a rider, but only at first sight. Even at this distance there was no mistaking the creature’s curled horns, or the way that the almost human torso melted into a quadruped body.
“Hush,” Falsmir told his horse as the thing approached, although this time he was speaking more to himself. As it drew closer he saw that it moved with an undulating grace, more panther than horse, and he found himself loosening his sabre in its scabbard.
His orders were clear. His mission was to round up as many stray formations as possible. It was not to engage the enemy. But did this count as the enemy? There was only one of the things. A straggler, perhaps, or a messenger like himself.
“And if it is a messenger,” Falsmir whispered to himself, “then it is my duty to stop it.”
As pride kept him standing on the top of the hill the creature looked up and saw him. Although it was still perhaps half a mile away, he could hear its strangled cry of rage and see the muscles that rippled beneath its pelt as it turned to charge towards him.
“Too late to run now,” he said, and drew his sword. Then he unhitched the tether of the second horse. He would need all the freedom of manoeuvre he could get. No sooner had he done so than he realised how fast the beast was approaching. It had already covered half the distance, and he could see the froth on its lips and the glitter of sunlight on the tip of its crude spear.
“It’s got talons instead of hooves,” Falsmir said wonderingly as it bounded up the slope towards him. His horse whinnied beneath him, and he took the hint.
“Come on, girl,” he said, digging his heels in. “Charge!”
She leapt forwards beneath him, her anxiety lending a wild strength to her movements, and soon the ground beneath him was blurring as he charged down towards the enemy. He could feel the pounding of his own heart merging with the pounding of his horse’s, the whisper of the cool morning breeze on his face, the weight of his sabre as he held it ready.
It was good to be alive, he thought, and suddenly the enemy was upon him. With an explosive roar it thrust its spear at his belly, the razored steel blurring with the speed of the movement. Falsmir twisted as nimbly as a trout beneath a heron’s bill, grabbing hold of the haft of the spear as it punched past him and catching it under his arm.
“Up!” he cried, reinforcing the order with his heels, and his horse obeyed, rearing up on her hind legs. Falsmir kept hold of his enemy’s spear, using the momentum of his rearing mount to twist it free of the creature’s grip. For a moment he thought that he was going to lose it, but then the slashing fore-hooves of his horse connected with a crunch of shattered bone. The beast fell back, disarmed and bleeding, and Falsmir threw the spear away as he turned his mount to line up a sabre thrust.
But although she turned quickly, she didn’t turn quickly enough. The bloody damage her hooves had done to the beast had not been enough to blunt its rage. Far from it. Even as it caught the bone-jarring impact of Falsmir’s blade on the disc of its shield, its taloned forelimbs were raking at the horse’s flesh.
She screamed with agony and jolted away, but not before the beast had torn through a bundle of her tendons. She screamed again as she fell, and Falsmir, reacting with the blind instinct years of riding had beaten into him, leapt from the saddle. He landed neatly on the balls of his feet and took a step back as the beast, its talons still buried in horse flesh, lunged past him.
He slashed at its fetlocks with the same mindless instinct which had saved him from being crushed beneath the horse. Satisfaction surged through him as he felt bone shatter beneath the heavy steel of his sabre, but before he could strike again the beast was upon him.
It had moved with a terrifying speed. At first Falsmir had taken it to be an obscene fusion of horse and man, but now he knew better. No horse could have moved with such fluid grace, especially one with a broken leg. Unarmed, the beast threw its shield to one side and grabbed hold of him.
Falsmir abandoned the slashing sabre cut he had been lining up and instead lunged blindly forwards. His steel punched through the beast’s belly just as it closed its fangs on his neck.
Pain wrapped them both in the same embrace. Blood spurted, pulsing in time with their hearts then slowing to a trickle. Man and beast fell to the ground, locked as closely together as lovers as death took them.
Falsmir tried to ignore the horror of the thing whose fangs remained buried in his flesh. Instead he looked east towards the blinding rays of the rising sun and the clouds that drifted indifferently past above. It was a lonely place to die, he reflected, shock robbing the thought of much emotion.
Then he looked into the eyes of his enemy, growing dull as its pierced heart fell silent. There was still some life in that yellow, slit-pupilled gaze. Falsmir got the impression that it was trying to tell him something, but all that came from its blood-flecked lips was the eye-watering stink of its final breath.
As the day rolled over the corpses of the two messengers the buzzards came to feed. By the time they had finished, the jumble of bones were indistinguishable from each other, so at least Falsmir was no longer alone.
Nor was his passing to be left unnoticed.
On the third day, when the sun had started to bake his bones, the enemy came across Falsmir’s r
emains.
The first to find them were a pack of thick, shaggy pelted things which walked with the grace of wolves but the swagger of fighting dogs. Razor-tipped horns erupted from their fur and their eyes glimmered with a permanent red glow.
When they came across the remains they sniffed, circling the bloodstained grass, then started to crunch the bones between their powerful jaws. Soon femur and vertebrae and skull lay shattered on the ground, and the beasts slurped out the marrowy goodness within with their long red tongues.
When they had finished they padded off, and as they did so the bone-jarring tramp of countless hooves could be heard following them. The beasts which came next were legion, a nightmare of fur and steel and horn and tusk which stretched over the wheat fields like the black blight. Falsmir’s shattered bones were kicked aside or stamped into the mud as, for over an hour, the vast herd flowed past him.
Then came beasts who neither carried weapons nor needed them. If the creatures who had cracked the bones open had been vaguely lupine, these things were more a mixture of daemon and boar. Their tusks were longer than a man’s arm, and although they bore filthy manes of black, bristling hair the rest of their hides were naked.
Muscle and bone flexed as their ravenous eyes searched the ground ahead of them. When they found the bones they rushed forwards with eager squeals, snarling at each other as they gobbled up the brittle remains before ploughing on, snouts wrinkling as they sought out fresh delicacies.
When the final phalanx of the army came to Falsmir’s resting place, there was little left. Even so, sharp eyes and nimble fingers found their reward in the coins that lay scattered about. The creatures who squabbled over the metal discs looked more like men than beasts, although there was no humanity in their yellow eyes.
When they had followed the rest of the army all that was left of Falsmir was dried blood in the trampled earth. And sometimes, on summer nights when the wheat was high, another lonely voice to whisper in the wind as it blew across the vastness of the fields.
Broken Honour Page 24
