Forged in Battle (9 page)

“Agreed!” the shaman told him, its face so close to Eugen’s
that he could see the goat lips curl back from the teeth in a gruesome smile.

“I will do what we agreed,” Eugen said slowly and
deliberately.

The shaman shook its horns and started to stamp backwards.
“Waiting for you!” it called out and Eugen saw the circle of warriors disappear
as well.

Eugen let out a long sigh of relief. He hated dealing with
creatures like these. They had different understandings of a pact. They were
just as likely to eat you as wait to eat a hundred people tomorrow.

When Eugen turned his horse it reared up in terror.

Eugen had to fight to bring it back under control and then he
saw what had terrified the animals so. Standing not two feet behind him was a
huge beast, almost tall enough to look Eugen in the eye. The creature had bull’s
horns which swept forward in a deadly curve and a shaggy mane of knotted fur
hung down over monstrous knotted shoulders. What made it most terrifying of all
was that the whole creature was an albino: head to foot it was stark white.

The snout opened in a snarl, and Eugen swallowed. As if in
answer to his prayers, the beast took a step backwards, still facing him as it
paced away until its ghostly white form disappeared from sight into the
shadows.

For a thousand years, under the dripping stalactites and the
crude cave paintings, legends had been told about that which had been stolen.
From the high peaks of Frantzplinth, beastmen warriors had stood on the rocky
crags, their manes ruffling in the mountain winds, their horns stark against the
thin, blue heavens: staring down at the curve of the river, and the brown
irregular shape of fields and farmsteads, and the semi-circle of the
thousand-year man-camp.

Now, as the sun’s rays caught the peak of Frantzplinth, those
warriors took their shields from the crude racks. Ancient banners of stretched
manskin were taken from the cave walls. The poles of heads, some dried and
crinkled with age, stared with sightless eyes as the migration gathered pace.

The beast herds moved down ancient mountain paths and began
to flow together, ancient animosities laid aside for the common cause. They
flowed together like streams running into a river, growing in strength and
momentum, until a mighty flood flowed silently through the high mountain
forests.

In the Jorg family mill, a few miles east of Helmstrumburg on
the Kemperbad Road, Andres Jorg woke with a start and found that he’d fallen
asleep across the kitchen table. Bright sunlight streamed in through the open
shutters.

His neck was stiff, his back ached, his mouth tasted of stale
spirits and his head felt as if a dwarf had been hammering it all night. To top
it all his leg was aching. Not his actual leg, but the leg he’d lost more than
twenty years ago on a surgeon’s table while stray cannon and gunshot whizzed all
around. From his knee downwards, there was no shin: just a finely polished piece
of oak, shod with a steel cap.

Andres pushed himself up, stumped over to the water barrel
and took the dipper and drank it dry. He drank another one, and felt a little
better, cursed the spirits he’d been drinking.

Never again, he told himself, as he’d sworn so many mornings
before.

Andres stumped through the kitchen, past where a kettle hung
above the cold fire, to the open doorway, where the sunlight streamed in. He
blinked in the sudden light and shut his eyes for a moment. It made his head
feel worse.

The mill stood at the edge of the Stir. There was a sluice a
quarter of a mile up the river that channelled water out of the river and took
it to a holding pool. From the pool the water ran over a weir and down a steep
stone-sided shoot. The force of the water turned the enormous water wheel, which
ground the stacked sacks of wheat to a fine white flour.

He had to stop drinking like this, Andres told himself, but
each night he’d have a small measure and begin to think about the days of his
youth, then he’d get lost in drink and memories of his time as a greatsword.

The greatswords were the largest men in the army, with
greatest physical strength. They were paid twice the salary of the other
soldiers: they lived hard and died young. Always leading charges; always the
last to leave the battlefield: dead if need be, their motto ran.

There was no scabbard long enough for the sixty-inch blades
so they carried them wherever they went, resting on the shoulder. But, when
wielded in battle, there was nothing cumbersome about them. Perfectly balanced,
the ten-pound blade could out-reach any other swordsman and could smash through
shields and armour with ease. They were used as shock troops to smash the enemy
lines. Often they charged halberdiers, the blades easily cutting through the
shafts of the weapons and leaving the halberdiers defenceless. And then there
was a long leather ricasso, allowing the zweihänder to be used up close.

Andres’ zweihänder hung over the fireplace. It was the best
polished thing in the house. Made of the finest Reikland steel, decorative
swirls were etched into the steel. The cross-piece curved towards the hilt, each
guard ending with a closed fist. The heavy round pommel balanced the blade
perfectly, allowing the blade to be spun round with ease. The undulating
flamberge blade glimmered with a dull light. The edges had long since lost their
sharp edge, but zweihänders didn’t rely on the edge of the blade, the strength
of the wielder was multiplied ten times by the weight and length of the blade.

Andres smiled as he remembered the first time he had cut a
man in half. The power of the greatsword was formidable. It had saved his life a
hundred times. He revered it like a lover: hard and cruel and deadly to his
enemies.

He patted the weapon and then stumped across to the open
doorway, and watched the water wheel creaking round and round. And now he was a
fat, drunk miller.

The clamour of excited voices woke Sigmund. He threw off the
woollen blankets, slung his jacket over his undershirt, and strode to the door.

The sun was rising over the barrack walls. He saw Edmunt come
out of the sick room with a wide grin on his face.

Sigmund dared not feel hope. “How is he?” he asked.

“Taal be praised!” the woodsman laughed. “You should come and
see this!”

Sigmund strode down to the sick room to see for himself. He
pushed into the room where Elias was lying and—by Sigmar—there he was!
Sitting up as if he were a lord waiting for his breakfast in bed.

“Sigmar be praised!” Sigmund said. “I never thought to see
you looking so well!”

Elias grinned sheepishly. He could hardly remember anything
after the fight with the beastmen; he couldn’t even remember getting wounded.

“I remember falling over into some brambles,” he said,
looking at the scratches that still covered his hands and arms. “But other than
that…”

Sigmund shook his head. “Well, you’ve saved the count three
gold coins!” he said. “We should all be glad of that!”

Later that morning, when the apothecary arrived, he was so
astonished to see the young man’s recovery that his spectacles fell off the end
of his nose. “I never expected to see you so alive and well!” he said,
recovering his spectacles. He removed the bandages from Elias’ arm and
inspected the wound. Where there had been rotten flesh there was now a dull red
scab and the reddening around the edge of a healing wound. He peered more deeply
and stabbed the end of a knife through the scab.

Elias winced as the apothecary pressed but no pus came, just
thick red blood.

Again the apothecary shook his head.

“I have never seen anything quite like this,” he said. “To be
sure.”

Sigmund nodded. “So he’s not going to die quite yet?”

The apothecary didn’t like to state anything he could not be
absolutely sure about. He thought of the twin-tailed star and shook his head.
“Not from this wound, anyway.”

One day a week the men were given an afternoon off. At the
end of the morning the men lined up for a parade and kit inspection. Afterwards
Sigmund dismissed all the men except for Vostig’s handgunners, who were on
sentry duty.

The other men had been in the hills for days. They needed a
break. As for the spearmen—well—it seemed good to let the two companies out
to get to know each other.

The men were all laughing and joking as they strode through
the barrack gates. As they jostled into the street, the townsfolk stepped out of
their way. Osric saw this as respect, but Sigmund knew their behaviour was more
down to fear. Soldiers were fine as long as there was an enemy to fight or they
were safe in barracks. Loose in the town they were something to avoid.

Behind Osric’s men came the scattered groups of Gunter’s
company heading for the Blessed Rest.

Elias, miraculously recovered, so it seemed, went to the
Crooked Dwarf where Guthrie started crying with joy.

“I never saw you looking so ill!” he said. “And I never
thought I’d be so happy to see you walking around with bandages on!”

They were still hugging each other when Osric and a group of
halberdiers wandered in and sat down. Guthrie brought the soldiers a tray full
of beers.

“On the house!” he grinned and the men cheered. Elias felt
embarrassed to think that the man who had rescued him from the streets and
raised him was now serving him.

“Here!” Guthrie said and put a stein down in front of Elias.
“This will help you get better!”

When a band of tall Vorrsheimers in their smart uniforms came
in and began to make their way across the bar, a few of the local women looked
at them with interest.

“I hope you’re not going to steal our women!” Osric shouted
across the room, and the Vorrsheim men laughed nervously.

“I don’t think they realise he’s not joking,” Freidel said.
Kann and Schwartz laughed. They’d soon find out about Osric’s sense of humour.

By the time Eugen came back from his visit to the
burgomeister, the soldiers were quite drunk. He noticed the halberdiers sitting
in the bar and walked towards the stairs, but looked back. When the halberdiers
noticed him staring he half smiled then turned away and hurried up stairs.

He and Theodor shared a room overlooking the street. It was
noisy, but served their purposes, and it wouldn’t be for long.

Eugen knocked three times and the door was opened.

Eugen slipped inside and then shut the door behind him. Their
room was small and cramped, with two simple beds on either wall and a window
overlooking the street.

Their crates were stacked under the window. On the left-hand
bed Theodor was cleaning his pistols. The ram rod and oiled cloth were set out
on a cloth on the blankets. The bores had been unscrewed and polished. The broad
barrels were fearsome. The balls they shot could stop a charging bull.

“I saw something downstairs,” Eugen began.

Theodor looked up from the barrel he was cleaning. “What?”

“
That
boy. He is downstairs.”

Theodor didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what Eugen
was talking about. “I saw him too.”

Eugen sat on his bed and put his hands together as if he was
praying, then put them to his lips. “I do not understand how he has survived,”
he said, “unless you were somehow involved.”

Theodor did not look away. “I was,” he said.

Eugen pursed his lips and shook his head. “Why?”

Theodor peered down the barrel to make sure that it was
clean, and then began to screw it back onto the firing mechanism. “He helped
save us.”

Eugen frowned. He didn’t understand this peculiar sense of
honour.

“I cannot think that you chose to endanger our mission by
bringing such attention to us.”

Theodor aimed the pistol out of the window and pulled the
trigger and the wheel-lock snapped down on the pan.

Satisfied that all was working properly, he put that one down
and began to screw the other back together.

Eugen hated to be ignored. “This is endangering us,” he said,
his voice rising in pitch. “Endangering me!”

Theodor nodded. “It will be fine,” he said. “I bribed the
man. He was one of the burgomeister’s men. It will be fine.”

Eugen paused for a long time as if considering whether to say
more on the matter.

“I suppose it was because of us that he was wounded.”

“Just what I thought,” Theodor said. “If anyone intervened
that would have been my line.”

Eugen nodded, opened his mouth to say more, but relented.
There were more important matters at hand. And once those were completed it
would not matter about the burgomeister or any of his men. And then he could
also deal properly with this insubordination.

“So now we go onto the next phase,” Eugen said. Theodor
dry-fired the second pistol out of the window as he’d done with the first. “You
understand what you have to do?”

“I do. Four barrels.”

“Good. And tomorrow I will light the fires around the Sacred
Heart so we are sure that they get the right man.”

“Which one?” Theodor asked and slipped both his pistols into
their holsters and hung the belt from a peg on the wall.

“The one with the water mill,” Eugen said.

Theodor nodded. The water mill it was.

Downstairs in the bar Osric pushed his way unsteadily across
the bar to where four of the spearmen were sitting with the women. The stein in
his hand sloshed beer over his hand. He licked it clean then pointed his tankard
at the men’s striped uniforms.

“So, how did you get this fancy rig?”

“Vice-Marshal Trappe paid for it,” one of the men said, “for
our bravery.”

“Bravery, huh?” Osric sloshed more beer down his front. He
tried to rub it away with his sleeve, but the wet stain only made his uniform
look more dishevelled. One of the girls, Fat Nadya, laughed. She’d squeezed her
ample bosom into a garish pink dress. She had too much face powder and rouge on
her cheeks.