Forged in Battle

by Justin Hunter - (ebook by Undead)

  Theodor whispered, so quietly it was almost inaudible. “Why were we attacked?”

  The pale eyes turned down to him slowly, as if Eugen was in a meditative state. There was something disconcerting in his companion’s manner.

  “I thought everything was agreed!” Theodor said.

  Eugen moved silently, and Theodor felt a hand rest on his cheek.

  His companion’s eyes were dark as he turned towards him, but his teeth glittered with malice. “Do not question me again.”

  The voice was sad, but as his companion spoke he ran a fingernail across Theodor’s throat, then the Reiklander lay back, and did not speak again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A jagged skyline of three and four storey buildings lined the broad cobblestoned marketplace of Helmstrumburg.

  One of the many watering holes was Crooked Dwarf inn: a crooked timber-framed building with ferns growing in the gutters. Its owner, Guthrie Black, a portly bachelor, was standing in the doorway. He wiped his hands on his apron and smelled the fine morning air. There was a strange hush. Not even the town crier sounded as pompous as usual. It was all this talk of the fiery star. Guthrie’s gut swelled as he took in a deep breath, and let it out in one long sigh.

  “Josh?” he called. Where was that boy when there were jobs to be done? “Josh!”

  Josh didn’t reappear for an hour. By this time Guthrie had swept the bar himself, carried three barrels of ale up from the cellar, and now rested in one of the chairs, mopping sweat from his brow.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded as Josh slunk into the room.

  “Nowhere,” the lad said. If Guthrie hadn’t been so tired he would have stood up and boxed the boy’s ears. “If you were a little closer!” he said and shook his fist as he always did, but he never did hit any of his boys. He said “his boys”, but they were no one’s boys really.

  The lad scuffed his foot against the oak bar. “I wanted to join the town watch,” he said at last.

  “And?”

  “And they said I was too young.”

  Guthrie tousled the lad’s hair. Since his oldest, Elias, had left, all the others wanted to join up. “Whatever this fiery star means,” Guthrie reassured the boy, “it’ll have nothing to do with us here. Even if you could join the halberdiers, all the excitement would be over before you even got there!”

  Josh pouted. “Promise?”

  Guthrie smiled and pinched the boy’s cheek. “Promise!” he said

  The halberdiers were up before dawn. The eastern sky was already paling, but in the west, late stars still glimmered above the tree-line. The two-tailed star was nowhere to be seen.

  The air was still, and their breath misted in front of them. The halberdiers lined up in the courtyard of Farmer Spennsweich’s house, dark shapes in the half-light. Osric yawned as he pulled his backpack higher on his back and leaned on the halberd shaft for support. There was no sound from the cabin. Not even the dogs were awake.

  Sigmund stood to the side, silently watching his men rank up. They distributed the merchants’ crates and packs amongst themselves, and then stood, halberds on their shoulders, ready to march.

  “All ready?” Sigmund called and the men hurried to their ranks. They waited for a moment as the parade roll call was called. Each man answered to his name.

  “All present!” Osric called first, then Gunter.

  Sigmund nodded. “Halberdiers—forward!” Sigmund called and Osric’s men began to tramp out of the courtyard.

  They were a third of the way down the hill when the sun rose on their left. There was no warmth, just brilliant light that made the shadows deeper and more impenetrable. Elias was sweating and tried to adjust his pack. High above him the crags of Frantzplinth began to catch the first rays of sun, the snow shone brilliantly and clouds began to run aground upon the sheer peak.

  Below them the River Stir was a gold ribbon, sparkling with reflected sunlight. None of them paused, but they all looked down to see the magnificent curve of the river: the orchards that lined the banks and the dark brown patch of Helmstrumburg, its tiled roofs gleaming in the morning light.

  The halberdiers kept a fast pace all morning, making Eugen and Theodor hurry to keep up with them.

  “Captain, would you slow your men down?” Eugen called but Sigmund took no notice.

  “Captain, sir!” Eugen called again and his aristocratic tone made Sigmund’s teeth grind. Gunter cast a sideways glance at Sigmund, but Sigmund did not make any sign. It seemed to Gunter that he might have even lengthened his pace a little. “I must protest!” Eugen called, but then he realised how far behind he’d fallen and broke into a trot to catch up.

  The last stretch of the road led through orchards. Under the apple trees, chickens were picking though the grass. Edmunt called forward to Osric.

  “Do you think the burgomeister would miss one of those birds?”

  Osric didn’t even bother to respond, but Baltzer did. As the unit drummer Baltzer always stood in the front rank. He and Osric had both been in the burgomeister’s town watch before enlisting. The burgomeister would give them all the chickens they wanted if they did what he said. “I didn’t think you were one to accept payment from the burgomeister!” Baltzer called and Edmunt laughed the comment off.

  “It’d take more than chickens!” he laughed, but although a few of them smiled, they all knew that it paid to do what the burgomeister asked.

  As the walls of Helmstrumburg came into view the packs on the halberdiers’ backs seemed lighter, their footfall was longer. Helmstrumburg had been walled with stone hundreds of years ago, but since then the settlement had overgrown the walls along the western bank. Around the new town there was an earthen rampart, topped with a nine foot timber palisade.

  “Look smart!” Sigmund called and the usual traffic of farmers and idlers stepped aside to watch the Ragged Company march through the gates.

  Holmgar and Richel—a couple of Vostig’s handgunners—stood sentry at the gate. They stood to attention as the halberdiers marched up, but as Osric passed, Richel muttered: “You scruffy bunch of bastards!”

  Osric’s jaw tensed. He would box that idiot’s ears when he came back to the barracks.

  Despite his patched uniform, Osric puffed out his chest. He winked at a pretty blonde girl who turned and giggled with her friend. But they were pointing at Gaston. With long blond moustaches, pale blue eyes and high cheekbones, he looked good in the worst of uniforms.

  Osric’s cheeks paled when he realised. Baltzer sniggered and Osric gave him a sharp glare.

  The two files of halberdiers marched through the new town, and passed through the old stone wall, which sprouted ferns and grass from the ancient stonework. Sigmund stopped at the marketplace. “You two! Come with me!” he ordered, gesturing to the two merchants. The two men obviously weren’t used to being spoken to like this and their faces darkened with anger, but Sigmund paid them no attention. “The rest of you, back to barracks! Get some rest. No drills till the afternoon. Parade at two!”

  The men started to march off.

  “Elias!” Sigmund called. “Get that cut seen to!”

  “Sergeant Gunter!” Sigmund said and Gunter turned back for a moment. “Make sure he does.”

  “How much further?” Eugen asked after they’d been going for five minutes. The shorter man had been limping since they’d entered town.

  Not used to walking, Sigmund thought. “Not far,” he said.

  Eugen tried to hurry the captain along, but Sigmund kept a constant marching pace, and turned onto the docks.

  The cobbles here were strewn with rotting scraps of food and rubbish. Men shouted and bargained as sacks and barrels of grain, ale, meat, furs and wood were loaded onto the barges in exchange for metal pots, fine clothes, cheap knives and arrow heads, and a few precious barrels of blackpowder.

  The harbour was a hundred feet long, with a thirty-foot stone pier thrusting out into river, protecting the boats from flood or floating debris.
The long jetties were lined with barges and sail boats that plied up and down the Stir and the Reik. One boat had red-striped sails and a high prow and poop-deck, such as the men of Marienburg used to sail along the coats of Bretonnia.

  “You trade with the men of Marienburg,” Theodor noted.

  “The burgomeister will trade with anyone,” Sigmund said.

  The three men started to push through the bustle. In the middle of the pushing crowds the stink of stale sweat was overpowering.

  “Ho, Sigmund!”

  One of the labourers, a man with a sweat-stained shirt and a pot belly, pushed through the crowd.

  “Frantz!” Sigmund laughed.

  Frantz nodded towards the two Reiklanders. “Who are these two?”

  Eugen tried to overhear the men’s conversation, but Sigmund’s Talabheim accent thickened and it was hard to make the words out. “Beastmen,” he heard, “patrols” and then he heard the word “burgomeister” and at that the labourer’s face darkened and he turned to appraise the two outlanders, then spat into the ground at his feet.

  Eugen put his perfumed handkerchief to his nose and cleared his throat loudly. The stink of sweat and rotting fruit was unbearable.

  “Please!” Eugen said, but Sigmund refused to be either intimidated or hurried. When he had finished talking to the labourer he turned to the two merchants.

  “Please, follow me.”

  The guild hall stood at the east end of the docks. It acted as both centre of power and fortification: designed to be able to withstand the mob and act as courthouse and seat of government. It was built of hard red brick and was four storeys high. In the centre of the building was a paved courtyard, around which the outside walls rose up without windows until the second floor. The windows held glass, but they were narrow and high and were bared with black rods of iron.

  On the river side of the guild hall were loop-holes for handguns. A pair of cannon had once sat atop the building, until the burgomeister had sold them. Or so the rumours went.

  The doorway of the guild was guarded by a couple of town watchmen. They wore white ribbons tied about their arms and carried long wooden batons at their belts.

  Seeing Sigmund approach, one of them slouched over to the entrance and called inside.

  Roderick, the watch commander, appeared at the doorway. He had taken over command of the town watch when Osric had enlisted. He was a tall handsome man, but there was a cruel glint in his blue eyes. Sigmund had no reason to disbelieve the rumours about Roderick: that he’d stabbed a rival merchant to death when he tried to replace the burgomeister. Of course, no one was arrested for the murder and no one talked about it anymore. Not in public anyway.

  “Captain Jorg,” Roderick smiled without warmth. “How can we help you?”

  “I have important matters to discuss with the burgomeister.”

  “Who are these two?”

  “Messenger boys.”

  Eugen bristled at the contempt with which Sigmund referred to them.

  Roderick smiled and bowed a little. “Greetings, gentlemen. Please follow me.”

  Sigmund pushed past the watch man. “I’ll see them in.”

  The outer door opened into a central courtyard. On the other side, a heavy oak door opened into the guild hall.

  Sigmund strode across the courtyard into the guild hall, where the burgomeister was sitting, at the end of a long oak table, talking with a scribe.

  “Captain Jorg,” the burgomeister said without any hint of emotion. He was a tall thin man, his bony hands folded on the table in front of him. His fingers were covered with gold rings set with all kinds of coloured stones. Around his neck hung a gold chain of his office. “What news from the hills?”

  “Not good, lord burgomeister. The rumours are true. Beastmen are banding together and they are coming lower than we have ever seen before. Osman Heinz’s house was destroyed, and—”

  “Osman Heinz? There are a hundred men who would have burnt his house with pleasure.”

  “It was beastmen,” Sigmund said. The memory of what he’d seen there made him shudder.

  “So you tell me,” the burgomeister said. “But that is just your opinion. I have other matters to take into account. Anyway, who are these people?”

  “Your captain was kind enough to help us when we were attacked,” Eugen intervened.

  “We killed all the beastmen, and I lost one man,” Sigmund said.

  “So you dealt with the offending creatures. What is the alarm? I am sure they will have learnt their lesson. They will not dare to stray back down near human settlement.”

  Sigmund was thrown for a moment. “But I do not think the beastmen we killed were the same as those who—”

  Again the burgomeister cut him off but Sigmund refused to be silenced. “Sir!” Sigmund said, his voice rising as he rested his hands on either side of the ledger and glared at the burgomeister. “I am sure that this was not the party who slaughtered the Osman and his family. I believe we must call for reinforcements and until then the outlying farmers must be brought into town for their protection.”

  The burgomeister looked up at the halberdier for a moment and then laughed. “Captain Jorg—I think you have been listening to these stories about Sigmar’s star. Meanwhile I have a town to govern. I cannot waste time with superstitions!”

  Sigmund slammed his hand onto the table. “Beastmen killed Osman. More will be killed unless we get reinforcements and bring those living in the forest down to Helmstrumburg!”

  The burgomeister put up his hands and closed his eyes. “Please, captain. I have heard your request and will consider it. If it is half as bad as you think then I suggest you go and find those last few beastmen!”

  “If you will not request more men then I insist that we put in place a policy to bring the outlying villagers into town for their own protection!”

  “No,” the burgomeister said emphatically. “Now I have other things to consider.”

  Sigmund bit back his anger. “Sir—” he managed.

  The burgomeister smiled politely. “My dear Captain Jorg,” he spoke as if to a child. “I do not think we need more troops around Helmstrumburg. You and your men are protection enough!”

  Sigmund was furious, but he bit his retort back, and strode from the hall.

  * * *

  In the burgomeister’s hall Eugen, Theodor and the burgomeister listened to Sigmund’s footsteps depart.

  The burgomeister rose in one fluid motion, swung the door shut, and bolted it. He glared at the two merchants. “You were supposed to come in secret!” he hissed. “In secret!” he repeated, his face purple. “I cannot think of a less ostentatious arrival than to get yourselves attacked and be rescued by that dolt and his team of drill-ground thugs.”

  “Isn’t there a better way to greet your guests?” Eugen smiled as he pulled himself a seat.

  The burgomeister’s mouth clamped shut. He flopped into his seat, his arms hanging at his side. Eugen drew a hand from under his jacket and extended it over the table. He opened his fist and there was a loud thud as the leather purse he’d been holding landed on the table top. The burgomeister stared at the purse for a long while, but did not reach out to take it.

  “Now,” Eugen said as he leaned in and spoke slowly and softly. “I trust the second part of the agreement is in place?”

  The burgomeister’s eyes did not leave the purse of gold. Theodor cleared his throat but the burgomeister’s eyes did not flicker.

  “Lord burgomeister,” Eugen said. “I trust you have fulfilled your half of the bargain.” He spoke a little more hurriedly this time, stress raising the pitch of his voice. “Lord burgomeister—” he began one last time but the burgomeister put up his hand.

  He drew in a deep breath and pulled himself erect in his seat, took the purse. “It is,” he said.

  Sigmund was still fuming as he marched across the courtyard and took the stone staircase down to the vaults, where Maximillian, the treasurer worked.

&nbs
p; Not bothering to knock, Sigmund pushed open the heavy oak door. Beyond, in a low-ceiling room, a man sat hunched over a large table covered with ledgers. Maximillian was the long-suffering treasurer of Helmstrumburg. A true-blooded bureaucrat, he ignored Sigmund for as long as possible, then put his quill back into its ink pot and let out a long sigh.

  “How can I help you?”

  “I have come to take three crowns from your chests.”

  “You lost a man?”

  Sigmund nodded, but immediately felt uncomfortable with his flippant manner. How many times had he done this now?

  Ten—eleven? He couldn’t remember. The first man he’d lost was Arneld, a childhood friend. That had been the hardest. It had been his own fault. Not only had he persuaded Arneld to join but he’d failed to save him. He still remembered turning and seeing Arneld’s horrified face—frozen forever in that brief moment before death—when the greenskin chieftain disembowelled him.

  “Name?” Maximillian said and Sigmund snapped back to the present.

  “Petr von Blankow.”

  The certificate was signed and stamped with red wax. Petr’s death would earn his relatives three crowns. That was the price for each dead man’s life. Sigmund realised how hardened he’d become to loss. It was a soldier’s bedfellow. Edmunt was the only one he would truly miss now, he thought.

  The two merchants were coming out of the guild hall when Sigmund came back up the stairs into the central courtyard.

  “Delivered your message?”

  The two men started. “Captain Jorg. Still here, I see?”

  “Indeed. I suppose you’re here for the fur?” Sigmund said.

  Eugen didn’t seem to understand.

  “The furs,” Sigmund said. “Helmstrumburg is famous for the quality of the furs.”

  Eugen nodded. “Of course. How forgetful of me. We are interested, but I have to say that there are other things that interest me more.”