Forged in Battle

by Justin Hunter - (ebook by Undead)

  Elias was on the end, his knuckles white on the halberd shaft. He could see the beastmen charging up the slope in ones and twos, and prayed that he would not get charged, lust as he had this thought, two of the smaller beastmen came sprinting out of the gloom straight towards him. As the left wing connected with the beastmen the whole line began to wheel to the right. The beastmen were a little shorter than him, but they had goats’ legs and human upper bodies, man and beast blending at the waist. They carried wicker shields and had the heads of women and children slung from their belts. Short straight horns stuck straight up from their temples. The two that had singled him out had leathery brown skin all over, the only difference between them being that one had a white patch on its chest, like a farm animal.

  Patch had a club and a wicker shield, No Patch a spear.

  Elias felt they had singled him out from the whole line. His hands shook terribly as the screaming creatures charged straight at him.

  Time seemed to warp and he could see Patch’s sharp fangs as it opened its mouth and then they were upon him.

  Elias thrust forward at Patch with the point of his halberd, felt it connect and realised he had shut his eyes at the last moment. He expected to be stabbed or clubbed by No Patch, but when he opened his eyes he saw Gaston delivering the coup de grace to No Patch with the point of his halberd. The creature spasmed as the foot of steel stabbed down between its ribs. A gout of fresh red blood sprayed up and Elias saw that Patch lay at his feet, the white patch now torn open with the force of his blow.

  Elias laughed at the ease with which he had cheated death. He wanted to speak to Gaston but there was no time for even the briefest of comments as three more beastmen raced up towards him.

  * * *

  A huge beastman, taller than any man, was almost upon him when Richel flicked open the pan again. He didn’t even wait for the order to give fire but pointed his handgun at the creature’s chest and pulled the trigger, striking the pan with the glowing fuse.

  The creature had its axe lifted up in the air when the blast of Richel’s gun knocked it back. It regained its balance, unaware that the handgunner’s shot had gone straight through its heart, and took another stride forward, roaring in fury and swinging its axe.

  Richel barely had time to see it reappear through the blackpowder smoke—and cursed himself for missing at such short range—a curse that was cut abruptly short as the creature’s axe caught him under the chin and split his face open in a spray of snot and blood and gore. It threw the body back into Vostig, who was desperately trying to clear his barrel.

  When the body hit him and Vostig felt the warm slap which he later realised was part of Richel’s scalp on his cheek, he looked up and saw the striding monster take a step towards him.

  The enormous beastman opened its bloody snout and roared, and Vostig realised that there was nothing he could do to defend himself. He stood paralysed as the great axe lifted high above his head. Holmgar ran at the creature, screaming at the top of his lungs, and the creature’s attention was diverted for an instant. It batted Holmgar away, and turned back to Vostig, but Richel’s shot had been true—and as Vostig stared at the thing that was about to kill him, he saw some strange wave of understanding hit the maddened beast that its time had come.

  The creature fell to the floor with a moan of dismay. Its horned head fell at Vostig’s feet and the handgunner felt a warm sensation running down his legs.

  Osric’s men took the brunt of the initial beastmen attack. They came in pairs at first, but it wasn’t long before a large group of fifteen warriors charged his line all together and Osric felt his men waver under the ferocity of the assault.

  Kann was caught by a spear thrust and fell with a low, surprised moan. Baltzer caught the creature with the blade of his halberd and almost cut its arm from its body. Freidel stepped up into Kann’s place and rammed his halberd blade down the throat of a small cream-skinned beastman.

  Gunter’s men continued to wheel round, sweeping up beastmen until there was fighting all along the line.

  Sigmund stabbed one creature in the throat and pulled its wicker buckler from the dead fingers. As he pulled its fingers free he was struck by the warmth of its dead fingers, the rough feel of the creature’s fur, and the long filthy talons. He fought until the buckler was a shredded mess of twigs, and there was beastman blood running down the blade onto his hand.

  “Steady now, boys,” Gunter called out as his men wheeled round. “Keep in rank!”

  Gunter’s men kept going forward, their ranks tightening as each man came closer to the other for protection.

  Suddenly there was a goat-horned beast in front of Edmunt and he swung his hatchet, felt the heavy blade cut deep and snag in the creature’s spine. As the beastman fell the axe was almost dragged from his hand, but Edmunt put his foot onto its chest, twisted his grip and yanked the hatchet blade free.

  Fifth! Mother, another soul for you!

  On the wing, where the handgunners stood, now twenty feet behind the advancing halberdiers, there was a fierce battle going on between the human soldiers and eight of the smaller beastmen.

  The creatures had come upon them unawares, and it was only the intervention of the two halberdier scouts, who drew their swords and fell upon the rear of the beastmen, that stopped more of the handgunners being cut down.

  Vostig brought the butt of his gun down on the face of the last beastman, crawling towards him. There was a sickening crunch as the half-human face shattered under the impact, but Vostig brought the gun-butt down again, driving the face of the creature back into its head, and brought it down again splattering the legs of his trews with gore.

  Three of his men were dead, and another two were wounded too badly to fight. There was no time to tend to their wounds.

  The last nine men ranked up.

  “Prime your guns!” Vostig said, limping forward to take his place. The handgunners worked quickly and silently. When all were ready he led them down the hill, angled so that they could fire on the beastmen that were still coming up the slope.

  “Blow on your coal,” Vostig ordered.

  “Prepare to fire.”

  All nine handguns were brought up as one.

  “Give fire!”

  The guns fired again, round balls of lead whizzing through the cool morning air. Three hit their mark, shattering bone and flesh and punching running beastmen back onto their backs.

  Sigmund led Gunter’s men round onto the flank of those attacking Osric’s men. Trapped and outnumbered, the few remaining beastmen fought as if they were possessed. Elias had to stab a wounded black and white beastman, fully seven foot tall, over ten times before it finally crumpled onto the ground.

  Edmunt pushed Gaston aside to get to a short brown beastman that had a band of dark fur down its back. Its vertical pupils were wide with fear and it sprayed pungent urine as Edmunt caught it by the hoof and tripped it up. The thing bleated with terror as Edmunt put a foot in the small of its back to hold it steady, and Elias looked away—heard the bleat cut short as Edmunt split its skull.

  Vostig’s men followed the halberdiers down the hill, their empty powder pouches flapping against their bandoliers, their handguns shouldered.

  “That one’s still alive!” Holmgar said, pointing. Vostig took his handgun by the barrel, swung it and caught the creature on the base of its skull, shattering the bone and snapping its neck.

  The last beastmen stood their ground and fought furiously, but isolated they were cut down.

  Sigmund was limping when Vostig found him. His sword was notched and he held a battered brass buckler in his hand that looked like it had been looted from some murdered swashbuckler years earlier.

  “What happened to your leg?” Vostig asked.

  “A club,” Sigmund said, by way of explanation.

  Vostig nodded. There was a halberdier from Osric’s company on the slope below them whose guts had spilt out over his knees. Freidel had propped the man up and was giving him wa
ter, but there was nothing to be done. He would soon be in the kingdom of Morr.

  “Unlucky,” Vostig said and Sigmund nodded. Luck said that the man next to you caught the blow that should have killed you.

  When the final wounded beastmen had been dispatched, Sigmund posted sentries around the battlefield, and then walked down to the bottom of the hill.

  The mound was a little way in front of him, but where there had once been a bare mound, now it was surrounded by a ring of standing stones.

  Sigmund stopped a few yards away from the stones to examine them. They were black granite, with facets of crystal embedded in their surface that glinted wickedly. On one side they were covered with strange glyphs that seemed to shift and twist in front of his eyes, pulsing with unholy energy. Sigmund’s head began to ache as if an invisible hand was slowly crushing it.

  Charred bones and skulls stared out from the glowing embers. Sigmund had been too distracted to see them earlier. He started towards the ring of stone, but the closer he got the worse the pain in his head became and he began to lose his balance.

  Someone caught him and dragged him back. Sigmund blinked open his eyes and saw Edmunt.

  There were footsteps as someone came up, and Sigmund saw that it was Osric, staring at the pulsing stones.

  “Sigmar’s balls!” he swore. “How did those get here?”

  The sun rose as the halberdiers tended to the wounded. Vostig’s trews were uncomfortably wet. He walked down to the river and stripped them off to wash out his urine and the gore of the enemy. Now the battle was over the shock of fighting came over him and he felt his stomach wrench, and vomited up a thin bile.

  Gunter lined his men up and checked the numbers. He had lost four men.

  Gaston took three men and went up to fetch the dead men and carry them down to the bottom of the slope.

  “Cover their faces!” Gunter said, but there was nothing to cover them with so they stripped off the men’s breastplates and put them over their staring eyes.

  Elias squatted a little way away from the main group and spat into the grass. A rivulet of blood trickled down his halberd blade and fell onto the grass in front of him. Quite suddenly he found tears on his cheeks and wiped them away before anyone could see them.

  As dawn broke, the snowy crags of Frantzplinth were painted with a ruddy light. Plumes of black smoke drifted up from the upper reaches of Galten Hill, Frantzplinth and The Old Bald Man. It seemed that fell beasts were swarming through the forests: burning and pillaging.

  The eastern sky was pale enough to silhouette the scattered clouds by the time the distant patter of shooting told the boat crews that the battle had begun. The sound of gunfire lasted nearly fifteen minutes, then there was silence.

  “Are they dead?” one of the crewmen asked.

  No one spoke.

  “I’ll go see,” Frantz said, and leapt onto the jetty and hurried up the slope after the soldiers. The further he went the more exposed he felt. He paused and looked round—just in case—then wiped the sweat from his hands and hurried up to the crest and topped the rise that the halberdiers had marched up, just fifteen minutes before.

  The ridge sloped gently down to the old burial mound but now four standing stones thrust up from the grass: so dark they seemed to suck in the dawn light.

  The slope was strewn with dead. Clawed fists and knees broke through the grass. Here and there a sword, spear or shield stood up in the air. Half way down the slope a beastman was attempting to stand up, but it was tripping over its own pink intestines, disembowelled.

  The halberdiers and handgunners were ranked up at the bottom of the slope, under the scattered trees. He could see Gunter and Osric going from man to man, checking on their wounds. Behind them, fourteen men were lying in the grass, their heads and legs and arms all crooked. They lay still and Frantz realised they were dead. He looked for Sigmund and saw him, standing staring up at the ring of hills where a hundred fires burnt.

  There were seven men wounded. They would heal, except for Schwartz, who’d been stabbed just beneath his breastplate. The sharpened stick had gone through muscle and intestine and had punctured his liver. For him it was just a matter of time.

  “I’m cold,” he said. Freidel put his flask of water for him to drink. “I don’t want water,” Schwartz said, and the colour started to drain from his face. “I can’t feel any pain. Do you think I’ll make it?”

  “Of course you’ll make it,” Freidel said. “We’ll get you back to town and the apothecary will see you right.”

  A little way off, standing by the Altdorf Road, Sigmund, Gunter and Osric stood and looked through the dawn orchards. It was a three-mile march back to Helmstrumburg, along the Altdorf Road, but they had no idea whether there were more beastmen blocking their return.

  “I say we risk it!” Osric said. His men were tired and many were wounded, but he was still fired up with the thrill of killing.

  Sigmund thought for a moment. “I think not,” he said. If there were more beastmen then his party, already weakened, could be decimated, even within eyeshot of Helmstrumburg. “We will take the boats.”

  Baltzer struck up a cheerful tune and all of them were glad to turn their backs on the pulsing stones. The healthy men took the dead by the feet and the shoulders and the rest helped the wounded as they climbed back up the slopes. Freidel and Elias helped carry Schwartz. Every few steps his breathing became ragged and they had to keep pausing to let him recover his strength.

  “My mother’ll laugh when she sees men limping along,” Schwartz said.

  “That she will,” Freidel told him. Elias looked at the dying man. His head hung forward onto his chest. The stain of blood was spreading down his left side.

  As they clambered up the slope, Elias saw Patch and No Patch, lying about six feet from one another. They were smaller than he had remembered. A fly crawled over the dead face of Patch and crawled into the open mouth.

  At the top of the hill Frantz had lit his pipe and gave Sigmund a fierce bear-hug. “Well done!” he said, but Sigmund felt tired and disturbed and empty.

  Fourteen men lost in such a short time.

  When they mounted the crest of the hill Elias saw the three barges tethered to the jetty below. Mist was rising over the river, and the scene was so still and calm that it seemed impossible that fourteen men had died that morning.

  The rest of the men tramped on down the hill to Baltzer’s jaunty tune.

  The soldiers stood silently as they waited to get aboard. Dead men were passed over and laid in the waist of the boat, the water lapping over their dead hands. Schwartz’s legs were useless. He groaned when they tried to lift him into the boat, and Elias’ hands slipped and Schwartz half fell against the side of the boat.

  “Idiot!” Osric snapped and caught the wounded man.

  “It’s fine,” Schwartz hissed through gritted teeth.

  One by one the boats cast off and floated downstream until the sails were hoisted, and they began to tack back upstream. The going was painfully slow. The men huddled in the damp bellies of the barges, the dead men were laid out in the bows. Osric’s men were laughing and joking, even though they had suffered most. Osric re-enacted beheading a beastman. He could still see the expression of snarling hatred change to shock and then pain as its head flew up from the neck. Freidel was laughing that he still had nine fingers and Schwartz laughed because, although he was wounded, he was relieved that the battle was over.

  Gunter’s men were strangely quiet. Elias was still shocked—the battle felt like it had lasted mere seconds, but fourteen men were dead, and he couldn’t believe he had survived.

  Edmunt used the water in the boat to wash the blood off his hands and axe-head.

  Seven beastmen, he told himself with a grim satisfaction.

  His breastplate was uncomfortable. He undid the buckles and pulled it off and saw three deep gouges in the polished leather surface. The deepest had gone through all but the last few layers of leather. It looked
like a spear thrust that had been turned aside, but he had no idea where it had come from. He felt the bottom of his ribs on the left side and found a lump that had swelled up. He laughed to think that he had never felt the blow or the bruise until now.

  Sigmund counted the dead men again. Fourteen—and from the look of Schwartz, bent double between Freidel and Elias, he would soon be joining them. And six wounded.

  In truth, for sixty dead beastmen, fourteen dead men was not bad. If the beastmen had attacked together then the result could have been very different, but the halberdiers’ discipline had paid off. Sigmund was overcome with pride in his men, he bent over the side of the barge so that no one could see how emotional he felt.

  Ehab kept them well to the side of the river, where the current was weakest. Sigmund took a deep breath and then it struck him what they had achieved and was eager to return to the town and spread news of their win. If the journey downstream was slow then the trip upstream was much slower. It took them three hours to tack back. They didn’t see anyone on the bank—man or beastman. The orchards were empty. But as the sun rose higher and lit the hillsides, Sigmund’s emotions turned from excitement to foreboding. From Galten Hill to Forester’s Peak a hundred fires burnt—the long plumes of black smoke curling up into the morning sky, each a sign of death and destruction. In the valley where the village of Burhens sheltered, a huge cloud rose into the morning.

  On the hillside smoke from burning farmsteads crept inexorably to town. Village by village, the beastmen were purging the forests of human-kind. An army of nightmare creatures that had risen from fables and legends to terrify their daylight and conscious hours.

  Sigmund shook his head. He would have to prepare the town against this onslaught. Even if he had started to bring the people in he could never have managed to clear such a huge area, and if his men had been caught by such a large force then they would have been decimated.