Forged in Battle

by Justin Hunter - (ebook by Undead)

At the barricade on Eel Street there was a spray of blood as Edmunt lashed about him with Butcher, but the beastmen seemed impervious to pain and ran into the whirling axe-head as if they wanted to be killed.

  Again, Edmunt’s blind ferocity steadied the men about him, but they were exhausted and the beasts began to overwhelm them.

  The barricade on Altdorf Street was breached first. Gunter strode into the gap meaning to plug it himself, but he was gored and cut down. The tide of beasts drove straight through the reinforcements and most of them were cut off and slaughtered as the beasts charged the second barricade.

  Vostig and his men were holed up on the second floor of the buildings between the first and second barricades. They had been firing at the massed beastmen until their guns were too hot to shoot, but suddenly the sea of horned heads was through the barricade and washing around the feet of the buildings they were in.

  Holmgar was in a narrow house above the barricade with two of Vasir’s trappers. He put his handgun down and stared in horror: stunned at the speed with which the beastmen had broken through—but the men on the barricades had been fighting beyond the point of exhaustion. He heard windows smash downstairs. Hooves sounded as the beasts began to rampage through the ground floor and then he heard the sound of many hooves on the stairs. The gun barrel was too hot to hold. He drew his sword, but he was never much use with it. The trappers looked at him, as if expecting him to know how they could get out of this.

  Holmgar gave a wan smile. He knew his time had come.

  “It will be a pleasure to die with two such fine men,” Holmgar said rather politely, but the trappers grinned and the three men shook hands.

  The sound of hooves came closer. They paused at the door. Holmgar stared at the handle as it turned to left, then right. The door opened, then he charged for the last time.

  The men on Tanner Lane began to shout in horror as they saw a Chaos spawn come slithering down the street. It was higher than a man on horseback, but its body was an enormous sack of pulsating flesh. It slithered forward like a slug, squeezing its bulk between the buildings, feeling its way with round, slug-like probosces. Sucker-rimmed orifices along the length of its body opened and closed without reason.

  Gaston tried to hold his men but there was no way that they were going to stand and fight a creature that had crawled from the Realm of Chaos itself. The wounded men who lined the streets shouted out in terror but no one stopped to save them.

  The defenders ran to the second barricade, but Gaston turned north into Altdorf Street, hoping to alert Gunter. Seeing beastmen spilling down the street towards him, he turned south towards the river where he saw the pretty girl he had noticed earlier leading three younger girls down the street.

  Gaston caught them up. The older girl was terrified; the younger ones were hysterical with fear.

  “Follow me!” Gaston ordered and kicked open the door of one of the tanneries that lined the river. The stink of ammonia was overpowering, but he forced the girls to the back of the building, where the sluice gates ran straight out into the river.

  As they hurried round the stinking vats Gaston turned and saw the great slithering creature pass the front of the tannery. It blotted out the light for a moment and he had a terrible feeling that it would turn in after them. They could make out a white proboscis taste the air, but the scent of urine was so strong it masked their scent.

  “Jump!” Gaston shouted, but the girls were too terrified.

  “The river will take you downriver. Stay afloat and you will be fine!”

  “We can’t swim!” Beatrine said and her sisters nodded in agreement.

  “Shit!” Gaston said.

  Floss saw men running past her and ran to the window of the makeshift field station—and then saw the spawn flow over the barricade as if it were a branch in the stream.

  It moved so quickly there was no time to get out of the house. Apothecary Gustav’s apron was completely blood-soaked. A pile of legs and feet and arms lay at the floor. Flies buzzed over the blood and dead men.

  “It won’t be able to get in!” Gustav said but Floss was in a complete panic. She tried to duck through the door, but a proboscis darted towards her and she screamed and ducked back into the room.

  Men were crying out in horror at the creature.

  “Be quiet!” she screamed at them, but there was nothing they could do. There was a horrific sound of slobbering as the spawn slithered over the wounded men outside. They held their breaths, willing the creature not to notice them, then a tentacle reached in through the doorway.

  It tasted the air and it smelled good. The spawn began to feel for an opening.

  Gustav’s blue-crystal spectacles fell from his nose, and the knife fell from his numb fingers as the creature began to morph and squeeze itself through into the room.

  Floss backed up against the wall. The tide of suppurating flesh expanded to fill the front wall. It pulsed with pleasure as it devoured all the meat—living and dead—in the room. Gustav never left the surgeon’s table. The Chaos spawn enveloped him, spectacles and all. The colour of the beast reddened as the digested blood started to flow through its membranous tissue. Its orifices opened and closed with increasing rapidity.

  Floss screamed and squeezed her eyes shut as if this was a terrible nightmare she could wake herself from, but she felt something warm and jelly-like slither up her body, and her screams were muffled as the creature enveloped her in a warm and deadly embrace.

  Desperate townspeople banded together and managed to ward off the lone beastmen by sheer weight of numbers. Here and there, there were soldiers who managed to retain some order. There were running battles through the streets with the beastmen. But where the beastmen outnumbered the humans then they fell on them with quick and savage brutality: cutting off heads as gruesome trophies.

  As the barricades began to fall, Hengle ran across town. He sprinted up to the north gate where fifty men nervously waited for news. Twenty of them were spearmen and the rest were free companies. “The barricades have fallen!” he shouted and the spearmen marched towards the nearest intersection with the new town, shields locked, spears levelled.

  Hengle then ran to the east gate. “The barricades have fallen!” he gasped. “The beastmen are in the old town! Come now before all is lost!”

  * * *

  When the surviving men of Sigmund’s party went down to the river they found that the raft had broken free and drifted away out of sight. There was no choice but to brave the woods and walk back to town.

  Frantz helped Sigmund keep up as the two remaining dockers and Osric’s eight men marched along the Altdorf Road towards the east gate of Helmstrumburg.

  “I need a beer!” Sigmund said, wincing from his cracked ribs.

  Everyone except Baltzer laughed. He looked at Osric and shook his head in wonder. Then Baltzer suddenly remembered the money he had stolen the night before. He put his hand to his belt and felt the pouch still there, despite all that had happened.

  It was a long walk, but the closer they got the more concerned they became. As they approached the town they walked past a gruesome banner of a human skin, left as a warning, or maybe a statement of conquest. The hands and feet were still attached, the head been flayed and scalped, tied to the crossbar by its hair.

  They kept their distance, but as they filed past, the face of the skin came into view. The mouth was little more than a distorted hole, the eye sockets were empty—but the face was unmistakably that of the burgomeister.

  None of them spoke. What promises had he been seduced with? What lies had eaten his soul to fall in with Chaos?

  When they came within sight of Helmstrumburg, instead of familiar faces running out to greet them, they saw plumes of smoke billowing up all across the town.

  Exhausted and demoralised, they stopped at the tree-line to assess the situation, and take a brief rest. The sounds of shouting men and screaming woman; the clang of steel on steel drifted out to them—they could see that the out
er defences had been overrun. For a long moment none of them spoke.

  “They’ve broken through,” Osric said at last and the men stood and stared in disbelief.

  * * *

  One by one the bands of human defenders were overwhelmed by the sheer number of beastmen. The attack stalled as the creatures satiated themselves on a festival of brutality.

  As the beastmen penetrated deeper into town, terrified families ran towards the docks, thinking to throw themselves onto the mercy of the Stir, but beastmen ran them down. The lucky ones were slaughtered straight away. The screams of old men, women and children filled the streets as all manner of bestial torture was meted upon them. When they saw what was happening, some people threw themselves to their death from the upper windows of their houses rather than be taken alive.

  Gaston hid in the tannery until the beastmen had passed on into town.

  “Stay here!” he ordered, but the girls clung to him. “You will be safe—I promise! If the beastmen come, then jump into the river! Understand?”

  The girls nodded.

  Gaston hurried to the half-open doorway. The street was full of dead. There were no wounded men left in the street, the beastmen had made sure of that. A man who had lost his leg had had his throat cut. His body lay slumped against the opposite wall. There were a couple of men who had been cut down as they ran. One of them had dropped a halberd. Gaston snatched it up. He turned into Mad Alice Lane, a narrow alleyway, no wider than a hand-cart, that led towards the docks. He crept forward—in case any beastmen were ahead—but the alley was quiet and empty.

  Gaston hurried on. If he could get to the docks he might be able to find some sort of boat, and at least save some lives.

  On the Altdorf Road, the survivors of Sigmund’s band stood and stared at the ruined town. At last Sigmund’s strength began to ebb. Frantz lowered him onto the grass at the side of the road, and he winced as adjusted his position. “Osric—if you find any survivors you might be able to bring them out on the Kemperbad Road.”

  “You want us to march survivors through the forest all the way to Kemperbad?” Osric demanded. “They’ll never make it.”

  Sigmund struggled to see more clearly. “We can’t just sit here and wait!” he declared and tried to force himself to his feet—but he had bruised ribs, a cut along his thigh and his shoulder was bruised from where the beastman lord had seized him.

  “That’s exactly what I propose we do!” Osric said. His men remained silent but Sigmund could tell from their expressions that they all agreed with him.

  As they stood watching the palisade gate they heard the drum of hooves on the ground and Osric’s face blanched. Beastmen reinforcements!

  The vibrations increased and they could hear the hoof beats, hurrying down the Altdorf Road, growing closer and closer.

  “Looks like we’re going to die after all,” Osric said. His men stood up and Sigmund smiled. He didn’t like Osric at all, but he respected him.

  “Port arms!” Sigmund gasped and his men took whatever weapons they had to hand and stared through the scattered trees, waiting for the stampeding herds of beastmen.

  They could see flashes of steel between the trees. Frantz helped Sigmund to his feet and put his sword into Sigmund’s hand.

  “It will be good to die with you!” Sigmund hissed through clenched teeth and as he spoke a trickle of blood ran from his left nostril.

  They stood—nine ragged halberdiers, and three dockers—waiting to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

  In the streets of Helmstrumburg, Edmunt was alone. He paused for a moment, then turned the corner on Franke’s Lane—right into the path of thirty beastmen. The creatures recognised the giant human who had killed so many of their number and let out hoots and calls of excitement as they sprinted after him.

  The beastmen shook their spears and blew their horns as they galloped after Death Bringer, as they called the giant. He was only yards ahead of them when he suddenly took a left turning. The beasts followed and found that they had run their prey to ground.

  Edmunt stood in the courtyard of a brewery: the gates and windows all shut and boarded up. There was nowhere else to run.

  The creatures stamped their hooves with glee as their quarry turned to face them. They spread out to surround him. They would take their time with this one. His head would adorn their banner poles. His skin would make a fine rug for their caves high on Frantzplinth.

  When Gaston got to the docks there were hundreds of people seizing barrels or pieces of planking and jumping into the river.

  Mixed in with them were a number of fighting men. Gaston seized the men around him and dragged them back from the water’s edge.

  “Fight!” he shouted. “Fight!”

  He pulled seven men back, but by his actions he managed to shame or shock nearly twenty men. If someone would lead they would follow. There were a number of boys who wanted to come, and if they could find weapons then Gaston welcomed them.

  Trapped in the cul-de-sac of the brewery yard, Edmunt took Butcher from his belt and smiled. Death comes to all of us, and the best way to face it was with a weapon in hand. Taal, give me the strength of a bear, Edmunt prayed and waited.

  The beastmen came forward, weapons ready. One of them barked something in a crude language, and they spread out wider. Edmunt had his back to the wall. He waited for them to come closer.

  Then the beastmen heard footsteps—and turned. Across the entrance of the courtyard stood a motley crowd of warriors. They outnumbered the beastmen nearly two to one. Spears, pitchforks, swords and halberds: their faces were grim as they began to advance on the beastmen, which began to snort and stamp apprehensively. The buildings reared up around them. A few of the beastmen tried to scramble up the walls, but slid down the smooth, unnatural surface. The brewery walls were too tall. There was no way out.

  “Welcome to Helmstrumburg,” Edmunt smiled and his men charged.

  While Edmunt’s men baited the beastmen into traps, Gaston’s men fought a running battle, disappearing down the snickleways and then reappearing behind the creatures.

  As the reinforcements from the north and east gates arrived, the street to street fighting actually served to diminish the advantage of numbers that the beastmen possessed. In the narrow streets, with their tall, overhanging houses, the wild beasts became disorientated. After their experience in the new town, they were apprehensive to enter the buildings—and the people took advantage of that to hurl missiles down upon them.

  “The Ragged Company!” Sigmund hissed as the moving shapes drew closer. He was light-headed from lack of blood and wished he had his full strength to fight this—his last battle.

  But the first figure that came into view was a knight on horseback, not a beastman. The knight was clad in dark steel armour, his horse’s barding was polished to a shine, the edges gleaming with gilt inlay. The pennant on his lance fluttered red and white, emblazoned with a silver griffon. Templars of Sigmar: the Knights Griffon.

  Sigmund’s head span. He gripped his sword to help his mind focus. He was glad that they would be able to hold up the beastmen long enough to let the knight escape. But then two more knights appeared. And two more.

  “Warn them!” Sigmund hissed. “Warn them that the beastmen are coming!”

  His face was white and Frantz put out his arm to support the captain, and Sigmund’s fingers clenched on the docker’s arms.

  “Warn them!” he hissed and Frantz laughed.

  “What did whitey do to you?” he said and patted Sigmund gently on the back. “These aren’t beastmen!”

  Sigmund didn’t understand for a moment. His head span as he tried to understand that there were no more beastmen. The hooves they had heard were horses’.

  At last it sank in and Sigmund started to laugh and the noise was like a hacking cough. He spat up blood and wiped his mouth. Looking up he saw a column of Knights Griffon, their squires and porters coming behind on speckled horses laden down with packs.
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br />   After them came a group of twenty men with black and gold painted breastplates and jauntily cocked hats with dyed pheasant feathers trailing behind them. Their legs were protected by greaves. The leader had a handgun strapped to his saddle; his men carried holsters on their saddles. Each man had a cavalry sabre slung over their back.

  Their horses were five or more hands shorter than the knights’ warhorses. They tossed their manes as they cantered behind the trail of knights.

  Sigmund struggled to stand up as the foremost knight approached.

  He saluted the man slowly. “Captain Jorg, Helmstrumburg Halberdiers! We are glad to see you!”

  The knight pulled the reins and looked down from his great helm at the blood-stained captain.

  “Have they still not given you lot a proper uniform to die in?” the man said with the hint of a smile.

  The man spoke with an aristocratic accent that made Frantz stand to attention. Sigmund strained to see the face and then grinned. It was Marshal von Dvornsak, of the Valkenburg Kommondaria, the knight who had ridden to save them from the greenskins at Blade’s Reach. The pistoliers’ captain rode up, a handsome man who looked down with curiosity at the halberdier. “This is Captain Jorg,” he continued, explaining to the captain. The marshal gave Sigmund a wink. “If it wasn’t for him getting his men into trouble then my men would have nothing to do!”

  The old marshal’s lips had the hint of a smile, but Osric disliked both him and the pistoliers’ captain. They were all arrogant blue-blooded bastards.

  Sigmund struggled to keep himself upright. “How did you know to come?” he gasped.

  “We had word from Talabheim,” the marshal said.

  Sigmund understood. Theodor said that he had sent word out for reinforcements. He wished that Theodor had lived to see this moment. Of all men, it seemed that he had done most to save Helmstrumburg.

  “Now, where are the vermin, what are their numbers and their disposition?”