Forged in Battle (19 page)

The squire opened his mouth to argue but Sigmund cut him off.
“Do I make myself clear?”

Squire Becker’s cheeks reddened. He was not used to being
spoken to like this. His mouth opened but nothing came out.

“Good!” Sigmund said, and kicked his horse through the
deflated crowd. There will be enough time to fight, Sigmund knew. And then
Squire Becker and his rabble could have all the glory they wanted.

Sigmund’s horse was too exhausted to carry him back to the
barracks. He had to dismount and lead it slowly back through the streets, and as
he went he felt the eyes of all the people on him. Riding out had been the
stupidest thing he could ever had done. He was Captain Jorg of the Talabecland
army. The army was his family. He had responsibilities to the whole town.

But however much he told himself this, Sigmund couldn’t help
thinking that he might have been able to save his father. He imagined his
father’s screams as he was flayed alive—and had to struggle to fight back a
wrenching sob.

When Sigmund reached the barracks he could see from the men’s
faces that they had heard what had happened, but he couldn’t bring himself to
speak to them.

He led the horse back to the stables, took off the saddle and
rubbed it down. He washed the smell of horse sweat from his hands and crossed
the yard to the barracks.

Sigmund fell onto his bed, kicked off his boots and then
pulled the sheets over his head and bit back his grief.

The flames at the mill burned all night. People were still
standing on the city walls as Sigmund’s men came home, watching the spectacle.

Dawn came early and only a thin trickle of smoke climbed into
the sky. The sentries on the walls looked for flames in the hills, but the air
was clear. Not a single fire burned—but the very absence of flames was
ominous. The forests and hills: for so long home to so many of them had become
suddenly evil and threatening. No one knew what the forests held: but all were
clear—whatever it was it was now very close.

In the barracks Sigmund had barely slept. The whole night had
been a torment. If he had not gotten so angry with his father he might have
persuaded him to come to town. If he had not been so busy with the free
companies he might have sent men out to bring his father home. Not only had his
father died, but also the six men at the mill. All of their deaths weighed upon
him.

And on top of all his worries, there were the beastmen moving
inexorably towards town. When the dawn reveille sounded, Sigmund was glad to
roll out of bed and dress for parade. Anything was better than being alone with
the endless and revolving list of “what ifs”. There was work to be done, and he
was in charge.

The beastmen came face to face in a clearing at the foot of
Galten Hill. The forest was silent as Red Killer waited. The scent of musk hung
in the air, an unmistakable challenge to the white figure that stepped into the
clearing.

A fallen branch snapped beneath Azgrak’s hoof. The pink eyes
focussed on the challenger and blinked with recognition and fury.

The animal lips formed crude, bestial words: a challenge.

The sound of Dark Tongue was harsh in the stillness.

Red Killer did not respond, but hefted his axe and charged.

Soldiers and civilians alike stood on the eastern wall and
watched the sun rise over the ridge, silhouetting the smouldering ruins of the
Jorg family mill. The most long-sighted among them could make out lone timbers
thrust up from the ruins, blackened and charred. The waterwheel was a half-burnt
skeleton, the machinery that had been the wonder of Helmstrumburg had devoured
by the rapacious flames.

Unseen at such a distance was the gruesome fate of the
mill-hands who had stayed with Andres. Nailed to an apple tree in front of the
house were four flayed human skins. The skinless bodies lay abandoned in the
grass not far off, crude runes carved into their flesh. Their eyes and tongues
had been ripped out.

Despite the proximity of the mill, no one dared to venture
out to see for themselves. People looked to the hills with a sense of dread, but
this morning there were no fires. A few people began to celebrate, but most saw
the stillness with dread. The silence seemed to grow ominously. No one seriously
believed that the beastmen had retreated into the hills. They felt that they
were being watched.

The free companies—the Old Unbreakables, Squire Becker’s
Helmstrumburg Guard and the Crooked Dwarf Volunteers—assembled at their
meeting points, the men edgy and eager in the early morning chill. If there had
to be a fight they would rather get it over with. The long wait was a trial of
courage.

Blik Short, Squire Becker, Guthrie Black and Strong-arm
Benjamin reported to the barracks to receive their orders. Sigmund assigned each
of them stations of duty along the walls or in the marketplace, from where they
could be rushed to any point along the walls. Each gatehouse also had a unit of
Sigmund’s own men, and one of his sergeants.

Squire Becker wasn’t comfortable taking orders from a
miller’s son. “My men want to be at a gateway,” he declared in his aristocratic
accent. “Where they can be of most use.”

Sigmund gave the plump noble a hard stare. He was surprised
the man had not fled town. “I am in charge of the defence of Helmstrumburg,
Master Becker. And when I am not around you will all take orders from my
sergeants! Do I make myself understood?”

The squire’s face reddened. Sigmund smiled. “Good. It will be
a hard fight, but with good men like you, and with the strength and courage and
determination of the Heldenhammer we will prevail.”

The men around were heartened by his businesslike speech and
there were nervous smiles. Last week they had just been simple farmers and
merchants and artisans; this morning they were kitted out in all the
accoutrements of war. Sigmund looked from man to man, and there was something in
his fierce stare that made them feel that they could fight and that they could
win.

“Good,” Sigmund said. “When the beastmen are sighted then the
bells of the chapel will ring. Until then I want you and your men to stand
to.”

The first night in Helmstrumburg Gruff and his daughters had
slept in their cart, but in the morning he set off to find proper lodgings.
There were so many refugees in town it wouldn’t be easy, and any rooms that were
still available were way overpriced. In the end Gruff managed to find a place in
the new town.

The house was a part of a rickety row of timber-framed houses
that seemed to lean on each other for support. The street was called Tanner
Lane, and the stink of ammonia from the tanners’ vats was so strong it made the
twin’s eyes water.

“We cannot stay here!” Beatrine declared, but they were tired
and hungry and there was nowhere else.

Beatrine started to cry but still no one took any notice. “I
refuse to stay here!” she said, at which point Farmer Spennsweich turned to her
and spoke in a low hard voice.

“You will stay here, young lady, or I will put you over my
knee and thrash you like the insolent brat you are!”

Beatrine blushed and bit her lip, but Farmer Spennsweich took
no notice. He conversed with the landlady, an old widow with a hairy mole on her
cheek and agreed a price.

“Valina!” their father called. “Get everyone inside. Organise
the rooms, and when you have made everything comfortable then look after your
sisters. Keep them inside and safe! You are in charge!”

Valina nodded. “Quickly now!” he shouted and the twins
hurried to grab their packs and cases and climb down from the back of the wagon.

They helped Gertrude down and then followed Valina inside.
Beatrine made a show of holding her nose, but the landlady didn’t speak as she
showed them into the room that their father had rented. Their father took the
cart down the road to an inn, where there was room to stable his horse.

It was a ground floor room that appeared to have been used
for storage and keeping domestic animals. It stank of the tanneries, and the
corner of the room smelled as if a tomcat had sprayed all over the straw. The
floor was packed dirt. Foul-smelling straw was piled up against the front wall.
The only hint of luxury or former opulence were the two glass windows. One
looked out into the street, the other looked into the backyard where the girls
could hear a pig rooting round. Both windows had been paned with thick
bull’s-eye glass that distorted the world outside.

The twins didn’t appear to notice the smells or the dirt, but
ran to the windows. “Is this glass?” they asked. Gertrude ran after them and
they tapped the strange substance, laughing at how it distorted the world
outside with its swirls.

Valina put the bags down, pushed the hair back behind her
ears and tried to smile, but Beatrine slammed the shutters to the rear and then
glared. She didn’t think it was any better than a stable.

“Come, sister,” Valina encouraged. “We will make it better,”
but Beatrine did not move.

“Valina—tell father we cannot stay here!” Beatrine said but
Valina grabbed a hazel-twig broom and thrust it towards her sister. “Here!” she
said. “Start cleaning!”

The morning was taken up with work preparing Helmstrumburg
for attack. Osric’s men manned the palisade, while he personally supervised
work-parties that replaced rotting timbers and repaired those that would last.
Once, the moat had been filled with river water, but the mechanism had long
since fallen into disrepair, and the water had dried up long ago.

The people had used the dry moat as a dump. The common
practice with chamber pots was to toss the contents from the wall or the
palisade down into the ditch. The ditch was almost full of a thick,
foul-smelling black sludge, that he had the work parties scrape and dig out and
pile up outside.

Osric spat as he went along, exhorting the men to dig faster
and deeper. Freidel stopped to rest on the spade shaft. “You don’t think these
beastmen really will attack, do you?”

Osric didn’t like anyone slacking on his watch. “I don’t care
whether they attack or not—I want this ditch dug so deep that you could take a
bath in it!”

Baltzer winked at Freidel. “I joined up to have an easy life
at the count’s expense. Not to dig holes!” he cursed.

Osric span around so he could see all his men. “This is meant
to be a barricade!” he spat. “This ditch wouldn’t stop my grandmother from
storming the walls! Now quit talking like a bunch of old women and get
digging!”

Hanz’s spearmen and Vostig’s handgunners took over control of
the north and the west gates and walls. The handgunners spent the morning
loading the barrack cart up with their small barrels of blackpowder and shot
that had been stored in the stables, and transporting them to the various strong
points along the walls.

Vostig took Holmgar along the walls, checking the loopholes
that had been cut into them. They had been poorly thought out, offering limited
fields of fire to the defenders.

At one point there was a loop-hole low in the wall set at an
angle to the main gate.

“See here!” Vostig said, and he and Holmgar scrambled down
the well-worn steps to the inside of the loop-hole. There was a hole, maybe a
foot square, that fanned out to create a funnel that covered the approach to the
northern gate. There were metal fittings embedded into the stonework, which were
well rusted.

Holmgar frowned. “It’s too large for a handgun,” he observed.
“And too small for a cannon.”

Vostig nodded. He had seen similar constructions on the walls
of Kemperbad and Talabheim.

“It’s for a swivel gun!” he said, and described a short
barrelled gun that resembled a miniature cannon. “If anyone knew where one was
then we could cover this gate easily.” He peered through the loop-hole and saw
it panned a few inches left and right—but a wide enough arc to ensure that
nothing could approach the gate without being subjected to a withering hail of
grapeshot.

“Not much good it’ll do us without a gun,” Holmgar said.

Vostig nodded sadly. Then he clapped Holmgar on the back. The
day they had cleared out the stables, he had seen something that might just be
the missing gun…

A road ran directly behind the palisade all the way from the
old stone wall to the river, and from that three main roads ran in parallel
through the new town into the old town: Altdorf Street was wide enough for three
carts abreast; Eel Street was the next largest, with tall houses overhanging the
cobblestones; while the third and last was Tanner Lane, where Gruff Spennsweich
had found lodgings, from which a number of small lanes led down to the river.

Sigmund and Gunter walked these streets looking for good
place to set up a barricade should the outer defences fall. The old stone wall
had only been breached to allow traffic through Eel Street, Tanner Lane and
Altdorf Street.

“Let us build barricades here,” Gunter said, but Sigmund
shook his head and moved a little way down Altdorf Street, thinking that its
line would provide an admirable line of defence.

“We will hold the first line at the walls. If that line
should fail, then the enemy will be inside the old town and there will be no way
to stop them.”

Sigmund paced a little further up Altdorf Street, where the
houses jutted out into the road.

“Here!” he said. “We will build the first barricade. If we
have to we can fall back to the stone wall.”

Gunter didn’t seem impressed but Sigmund pointed up to the
stone wall, the parapet of which would still allow men to move unhindered
between the three main streets. “We can use the stone wall to reinforce each
other. Besides, this is the narrowest point.”