Broken Honour

by Robert Earl - (ebook by Undead)

  “For Sigmar’s sake,” said Brandt, who knew exactly where and on who he was going to spend his share of the money they made by buying horse meat. “Why don’t you two just agree on a price and have done with it?”

  The two quartermasters turned to look at him, identical expressions of shock on their faces. Porter was the first to recover.

  “I’ll give you four coppers.”

  Walder laughed long and hard.

  “All right then, five.”

  This time the other quartermaster said nothing. He seemed to have been struck by a sudden thought, and he was regarding Brandt with a sudden acquisitive interest.

  “Six it is,” he said. “But tell me, your friend. Can he fight or can he just hit things hard?”

  “Five,” Porter said. “As for Brandt, he can do both. He’s got all the technique of a smaller man, but when he hits something it stays hit.”

  He kicked the carcass of the horse in illustration, and Walder pursed his lips. Almost as an afterthought he spat on his hand and held it out.

  “Five and a half.”

  “Deal,” Porter said and shook. “Though why the interest in my partner? Do you have a job for a man who knows how to use his fists?”

  “Not a job, a challenge,” Walder said, then looked suspiciously around. “But look, let’s not talk about it now. Why don’t you ask Brandt to take the pony away before the officers start snooping, and me and you can go back to my quarters and discuss it further.”

  “Suits me,” Brandt said, knotting a rope around the animal’s legs and turning to drag it away. “And if you want me, Porter, I’ll be at Lilly’s.”

  “Don’t drink too much,” Walder said, then put a brotherly arm around Porter’s shoulder and led him away to a quiet corner.

  * * *

  “Sergeant,” Hofstadter asked from beneath the blanket he had wrapped like a shawl around his shoulders. “Can I have leave to go and find a doctor?”

  “A doctor?” Alter asked suspiciously. He knew that many of the men wanted to slip off to the taverns and brothels below, but he was damned if he was going to have to explain any absences to Erikson when he returned. “What do you need a doctor for?”

  Hofstadter bit back on the flash of rage that the question brought. He ground his teeth, ignoring the way that they felt too big for his gums, and spat a mouthful of blood into the dirt.

  “I’m sick,” he said. “Got some sort of damned fever.”

  Alter looked at him sceptically, then changed his mind. Beneath the thick pelt of stubble, Hofstadter’s skin was as white as chalk, and dark grey rings lined his downcast eyes. And spitting blood was never a good sign.

  “If you want to risk a doctor you can,” he decided, “although I’d stick to sleep and soup if I were you.”

  Hofstadter started to say something, but the words caught in his throat. He spat again, and this time Alter saw the pink-stained lengths of the man’s teeth. His gums seemed to be pulling away.

  “Go on, then,” Alter said. “Do you want anyone to go with you?”

  “No,” Hofstadter said and lumbered off beneath his blankets. Alter wondered how many of the things he had wrapped himself in. He certainly looked bulkier than usual. Before he could wonder any further there was a curse, the thump of a fist into flesh and a roar of encouragement from the men behind him.

  He turned to break up the fight, Hofstadter forgotten.

  Although the agony in his bones had grown, Hofstadter strode through the encampment below with an easy speed. His nose twitched and wrinkled as he drank in the countless smells of man and beast, and the blood that flowed from around his erupting gums mixed with saliva.

  He was snapped out of this appreciation by a sudden chorus of hysterically yapping dogs. He jumped back, turning to snarl at the beasts as they strained at their chains. As he did so he bumped into a man who swore as he pushed him away.

  “Watch where you’re going, you drunken fool,” he snapped.

  Hofstadter turned to him. The blanket fell from his head and he bared his pink-stained teeth as he snarled.

  “Sigmar!” the man said, anger giving way to shock. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

  Hofstadter ignored him, wrapped the blanket back around his head and loped away through the crowd. For a moment the man he had threatened considered giving chase, but only until he realised that that might entail catching the misshapen creature. Then he considered contacting the witch hunters. But no. No, only a lunatic would willingly have anything to do with them.

  Eventually he contented himself with a shrug, and walked on.

  Hofstadter, meanwhile, had reached the city gates. They were wide open, and the guards were pressed back by the tide of humanity that washed back and forth between them. Soldiers, merchants and refugees pushed and jostled as they fought through to whatever destination the war had sent them to, and Hofstadter let himself be carried along in a stream of people who were entering the city. It wasn’t until he was halfway down Hergig’s main thoroughfare that he started elbowing his way towards the side streets.

  Half an hour later he was alone in the crumbling darkness of a back alley. After taking a last, furtive glance around him, he pulled the neck of his tunic away from his chest and gazed down at the pulsing green glow of the pendant he wore on his chest.

  Over the past days the fur that it rested upon had grown coarse and thick, and the muscle beneath it had grown. Perhaps that was why he was so constantly, constantly hungry. His stomach rumbled at the thought and, with a last loving look at the pendant, he began to prowl quietly through the filth and the shadows.

  Rats scurried away as they smelled his approach. Dogs barked in distant streets. Hofstadter ignored them. He knew what meat he craved, and it was neither rodent nor canine.

  He clambered from the alleyway down into a sewer, slunk through a dozen yards of filth and then back up into the gloom of a forgotten courtyard. That was where he first heard the baby crying.

  His ears twitched at the sound and his nostrils flared. With his eyes half-closed Hofstadter leaned back and inhaled the soup of scents that filled the air here. There was stale sweat and cooking food and rotting refuse and jasmine and, yes. Yes, there it was.

  The sweet, ripening smell of the sweetest of meats.

  Hofstadter followed the scent and the sound of his quarry over to the far wall of the courtyard, and then started climbing. The gaps between the crumbling masonry made it an easy task, as did the effortless strength which seemed to glow within his aching muscles. When he reached the roof he paused, squatting like a blanketed gargoyle on the slate, and listened intently. For a moment he feared that his quarry had fallen silent, but then it started mewling again. It was a low, miserable sound, but even above the other voices of the city it was clear enough for Hofstadter to track.

  There was a brief moment, just when he was swinging down from the guttering into the room below, when something twitched in the back of his mind. It made him wince, and as the sobs from within the crib turned to screams he rubbed at his head. The nubs of horns that had started growing there seemed even bigger than they had this morning.

  Then he looked down into the crib and saw the soft flesh and wide, frantically staring eyes of his prey. A rope of drool fell from his fangs as he reached down and, with a single twist, snapped the neck as easily as if it had been a rabbit’s.

  In the sudden silence that followed he felt some nagging doubt pull at him again, but with the aroma of fresh meat filling his nostrils it was easy to ignore.

  With a grunt of hunger Hofstadter squatted down over his victim and began to feed. As he slavered over the flesh the amulet he wore about his neck throbbed so brightly that it cast a muted green light over the glistening red that spilled across the floor, but before he could notice a woman burst in the door and started to scream.

  That evening was perhaps the most contented time the company had ever spent together. It was certainly the most contented they would spend for a long time.<
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  After handing over their wounded to the sisters of Shallya they had assembled for their first pay parade. Erikson, who was still basking in the warm feeling of being in profit for the first time, had decided to give each man advance payment of a silver coin. Then, with enough for a good two days of drinking in their pockets, the men had feasted on a rich stew of horse-meat, flatbread and a ration of wine. Porter, ever anxious to make sure that his budget wasn’t scrutinised, even gave them baked apples with which to finish the meal.

  He had been deep in thought ever since returning from his meeting with Walder, and it wasn’t until the guards had been posted and the bulk of the men had made off to spend their money that he sidled over to Brandt. The big man had been in a mood of silent good cheer ever since returning from the brothel, and Porter handed him a tankard of wine and sat down beside him by the fire.

  “Walder was impressed by that punch you threw today,” he began, poking at the dying flames of the cooking fire with a stick. The air was thick with the smell of a thousand campfires. They twinkled in the ground below them, as bright and numerous as the stars in the sky above.

  “Walder.” Brandt spat into the embers and made them hiss. “I wouldn’t trust that dog an inch.”

  “Nor would I,” Porter agreed. “That’s why I told him, unless things are exactly, and I mean exactly, as he says, then the fight’s off.”

  “You’re entering a fight?” Brandt asked with feigned surprise.

  “I offered,” Porter said. “But he said only you would do. Said he’d been looking for a man like you ever since he rolled into camp. Said he’d pay ten gold crowns. More if the audience is big enough.”

  “You’re boxing?” Sergeant Alter asked and sat down besides them. He had a jug of wine in his hand and the hard, hawk-faced lines had softened into something approaching friendliness.

  “Sounds like I might be, sergeant,” Brandt said.

  “Good,” Alter said, and slapped the big man on the back. “In the regiments our company always had a boxing champion. You’ve got a good fighter’s build, too.”

  “I’m still trying to organise something,” Porter said, “but I don’t know if we’ll have time.”

  “Make time,” Alter said. “We’ve got to help bring the best out of each other. That’s what being a soldier is all about. What being a family is all about. I remember my family.”

  The old man trailed off and he blinked back a tear. For the first time Porter realised just quite how drunk he was.

  “Maybe we should get down to the city,” he said, but Brandt shook his head.

  “No, the sergeant’s right. I wouldn’t know much about boxing, though. It was all teeth and kneecaps where I learned to fight.”

  “Don’t worry about that, lad,” Alter said, his mood swinging back towards the euphoric. “I’ll teach you. Used to be a bit of a boxer myself. Handier with a sword, though. We’ve done some fighting together, haven’t we?” he cackled happily. “Just like the good old days.”

  “That we have,” Brandt said, and smiled as Alter collapsed backwards onto the flattened grass and started to snore.

  “Right then, where were we?” Porter asked. “Oh yes, I remember. The fight. Right, well it’s a bit unusual, which is why it will pay so much.”

  “Unusual?” Brandt asked as Porter paused to refill his tankard.

  “Yes. Your opponent will be muzzled, and chained to one side of the ring.”

  “So what you’re saying,” Brandt drank deeply and belched, “is that I’ll be fighting a bear, like that time last summer?”

  “No,” Porter hedged. “Not quite a bear.”

  “You can’t mean what I think you do.”

  “But think of the money!”

  “Where did they get it from?”

  “Who cares?”

  “Wouldn’t it be illegal?”

  “Illegal!” Porter scoffed. “Since when have we worried about that?”

  “Since you went mad and decided to organise a boxing match against a beastman.”

  “Sssshhhhhhhhh!” Porter hissed, and looked around to make sure that nobody was in earshot. Then the two men lapsed into silence, broken only by the crackle of the fire and Alter’s snoring.

  “I’m not doing it,” Brandt said.

  “You have to. I already took your advance. Look.”

  With another surreptitious look around, Porter reached into his tunic and drew out a purse. He counted out five thick golden coins. They glowed like captured sunlight in the gloom. Both men looked at them reverently.

  “If I do it,” Brandt said, “I want twenty gold crowns, win or lose.”

  “I might be able to swing it,” Porter said. “Just make sure that you go down when I tell you to. I’ve seen the thing, and there’s no point in you trying to beat it.”

  “Oh good,” said Brandt, and helped himself to another drink.

  When Sergeant Alter spoke both men froze.

  “I’ll put a copper coin on Brandt,” he said as he struggled back up into a sitting position. “Better not to tell the captain about his opponent, though. You know how finicky officers get.”

  Porter realised his mouth was open. He snapped it shut.

  “Just as you say, sergeant,” he agreed.

  “And if the damned thing isn’t properly muzzled, you’ll swing for it,” Alter said as he used Brandt’s shoulder to hoist himself to his feet. “Now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me I must check the sentries. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, sergeant,” both men chimed and watched disbelievingly as Alter staggered away, beginning to sing as he did so.

  “Well, that settles it,” Porter said. “You’ll have to fight now.”

  By the time the company assembled for the evening meal the next day, everybody knew about the fight. At Porter’s constant hectoring almost all of them had bet on Brandt winning it. He had wanted to be sure of getting their coin before they saw the creature he was going up against.

  Erikson was suspicious.

  “Tell me, Porter,” he said as the men lined up for their dinner, “why are you betting against your man winning?”

  “Oh, these bets are nothing,” Porter said, surprised that nobody else had raised the issue. “Presumably they were all still too hungover from the night before. They’re just to cover my costs until I can start taking bets against him.”

  “I see,” Erikson said and watched as Porter started slopping out the gruel. “And who is he fighting?”

  “Just some big hairy lump from another regiment,” Porter said, chasing around in the cauldron for a nice lump of juicy gristle. “He’s got muscle, but no technique.”

  “I look forward to watching Brandt hammering him into the ground,” Erikson said. “Where did you say it was?”

  “Sorry, captain,” Porter said, glaring at one of the men who looked as though he was going to take an extra flatbread. “No officers. Hosts’ rules, I’m afraid.”

  Lying rogue, Erikson thought. What he said was: “What a shame. Still, as long as no harm comes to any of the lads.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Porter said and looked at the captain for the first time. “And the sergeant thinks that it will do us good to have a boxing champion in the ranks.”

  “Very well,” Erikson said. He had led mercenaries often enough to know when not to interfere with their villainy. “Well, good luck. I’m off to find the provost marshal.”

  “We could do with more grain chits,” Porter called after him. Then, glad to see the captain gone, he finished ladling out the food and went to find Brandt. Together they walked over to the fighting pit Walder had constructed. A wide circle had been dug perhaps six feet down into the soil. It was surrounded by a wider circle of standing room and, behind that, the rickety framework of two tiers of bleachers. As Porter and Brandt made their way through the state troopers whom Walder had drafted in to build the arena, the quartermaster himself scurried over to them.

  “Where have you been all day?” he asked. “
I was afraid you weren’t going to turn up.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” Porter told him. “What about your boy? I want to check on his fastenings before the fight begins. Make sure he’s all fitted up.”

  “Why not?” Walder said. “You’ve got time. We’ve got some dog fights to get through first, just to liven everybody up. Then it’s a couple of boxing matches. Then it’s you.”

  As he spoke, the torches that lined the arena began to flare into life.

  “Quite an arrangement you’ve got here,” Porter said.

  “Oh, the lads from the regiment don’t mind helping out,” Walder shrugged modestly as he led them towards a covered wagon. “After all, the officers get their cut. By the way, you aren’t planning on taking any bets within the arena, I hope. That’s strictly my racket.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Porter replied.

  Walder stopped outside the covered wagon. It was a solid, timber-built construction with iron plates bolted over the joints. A couple of men, both as big as Brandt, stood outside it. They stood to attention as their quartermaster approached. Walder just nodded at them.

  “Here it is,” Walder said. “Take a look but try not to disturb it too much.”

  With a furtive look around, one of the guards opened the rear doors of the wagon and Porter ducked inside. For a moment there was silence. It was broken with a roar and the wagon, which must have weighed at least two tons, wobbled as Porter bolted back out of it.

  “That all seems fine,” he squeaked as he collided with Brandt.

  “Check everything well, did you?” Brandt asked, pushing him away.

  “Yes,” Porter nodded and looked guiltily away. “Oh yes. Now let’s get a drink and find somewhere to wait.”

  “And you’re sure it’s muzzled?” Brandt asked, shouting to be heard above the roar of the crowd around him.

  “Muzzled and chained,” Porter shouted back, and slapped Brandt on the hard muscle of his shoulder. He was stripped to the waist for the coming fight, and the torchlight gleamed off his skin. The company stood around him, and they roared impatiently at Walder’s men as they dragged the victim of the last fight out of the ring.