CHAPTER NINE

 

 

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.”

Gunter nodded and his men started to go into the houses on either side of the street and carry pieces of furniture out.

Edmunt nodded to the family sitting at the dinner table as he came in and started to drag a heavy oak cupboard towards the door.

“Not my cupboard!” the woman of the house said, her pink cheeks flushing, but Edmunt took no notice. The choice was simple: her oak cupboard or the future of Helmstrumburg.

 

As Sigmund returned to the barracks he walked into the marketplace to check on the various bands of free companies who were training there.

Blik Short and the retired soldiers of the Old Unbreakables had taken it upon themselves to drill the other companies, and now they were marching up and down, or duelling with each other.

The men marched out of step. Half of them turned to the left when ordered to right turn, and when they wheeled round the bottom of the market square they lost their ranks and ended up a jumbled mess of men.

Blik Short smoothed down his waxed moustache.

“No! You three-legged bunch of apes!” he bellowed. He reminded Sigmund of the drill sergeant who had trained them when they were first enlisted; he and his friends hadn’t known their right foot from their left. Until this point he hadn’t realised how used to army life he had become, and how much he had learned, but now he and his men marched in their dreams.

Marching did more than teach men how to walk in step: it trained them to accept orders and most importantly—it built up the unit spirit. A unit couldn’t march if one man was out of step. When all the men could walk together, then there was a hope that they could fight together too.

Sigmund left Blik to his business and started to cross the marketplace to the Crooked Dwarf inn. The pub sign had been taken down and the place looked odd without it. His heart was racing, and his mouth was dry. He had not seen his mother and brother since they had come to town. Now his father was dead and he felt it was his fault and he dreaded seeing them.

“Captain Jorg!” Sigmund heard his name called and stopped.

Vasir, the trapper was running up to him. “Captain, sir!” the man said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Sigmund paused for a moment.

“Captain—when you called for free companies to be raised, I brought together a few trappers and hunters I knew,” he nodded in the direction of a motley collection of fifteen skinny, bearded men in simple jackets and trews of crudely stitched leather and fur, squatting in the shade of an abandoned cart. All of them had large skinning knives at their belts, short hunting bows and quivers of arrows at their sides. A disgruntled member of the Old Unbreakables had given up trying to drill them. “We wanted to be given a spot to defend, sir!” Vasir said hopefully.

“I do have a job,” Sigmund said. “But it is more important than defence. I need you to go out and find out where the beastman are and what their numbers are.”

Vasir grinned his gap-toothed grin.

“Oh—and Vasir,” Sigmund said and he spoke more quietly now. “I want you to go to my father’s mill. I want you to…” he started but he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. They both knew what happened to those that the beastmen took alive.

Vasir nodded. “I will look,” he said.

 

Sigmund’s heart was pounding as he pushed open the bar door. The place was empty except for a boy who was sweeping the floor.

It was Josh.

“Captain Sigmund!” Josh said. “Are you looking for your mother?”

Sigmund nodded.

“They’re in the back room!”

Sigmund nodded.

“And Captain Sigmund!” Josh said as he put down his broom and hurried around the tables. “I want to fight!” he said, “but Guthrie says I’m too young! Please will you talk to…”

“Josh,” he said. “You must listen to Guthrie and stay here and look after the other boys. If the fight comes to you then strike with all your courage. Until then, do what Guthrie says.”

Josh nodded. He turned away and went back to his broom and swept slowly.

 

As he climbed up the stairs, Sigmund kept thinking how he should have forced his father into town.

He paused on the fourth stair, remembering the time he had gone to tell Arneld’s mother that her son had been cut down in the defence of Blade’s Reach. He had stopped at the gateway and had not gone in. The old lady had faced him down and he had turned away and walked home. It was not enough for a captain to be brave in the face of the enemy, he also had to be brave in harder situations like this when the sense of failure was almost overwhelming.

Sigmund pulled himself up, the stairs creaked as he climbed the stairs. This was not only his job but also his family. He turned right at the top and followed the corridor to the rear room, but paused at the doorway. He could hear the muffled sound of people talking. Yellow candlelight flickered under the door.

Sigmund took a deep breath and turned the handle. His mother was sitting on the bed knitting, Hengle sat next to her. As Sigmund came in, his mother looked up. Her eyes were dry, but her lower lip was trembling. She looked for Sigmund to give her good news, but he slowly shook his head. She put her knitting down and put her hand to her mouth.

“I tried to help,” he said, and put his arms around his mother and brother together. “I’m sorry. But I was too late.”

Sigmund’s shoulders started to shake and the three of them held each other tight, as if it were some protection from the loss they all felt.

 

Roderick had refused to leave his house since Sigmund’s men had taken control of the gates but at last he set off to the guild hall to talk to the burgomeister and plan to return the power to themselves.

The docks were strangely empty. All the boats had left. A few dockers stood around, but most of them had enlisted in the free companies and were marching up and down the market square.

Roderick’s blue coat was unmistakable—the dockers laughed as he passed. No one listened to the town watch anymore.

He strode towards the guild hall, but the front door was shut.

He shouted up to the windows but there was no answer. His skin prickled: it was strange seeing the centre of the elector count’s authority in Helmstrumburg locked up and deserted. Where could the burgomeister have gone?

From the side of the guild hall to the banks of the river ran a short wall, seven feet tall and made of red brick.

Roderick jumped and caught the top of the wall and hauled himself up then dropped down onto the other side. The guild hall’s private jetty was twenty yards away, jutting out into the river water. The burgomeister’s ceremonial barge was still moored there, bobbing violently. Roderick waded through the deep mud, heard voices and ducked down against the side of the guild hall, even though it offered him no cover.

Despite the danger of discovery, Roderick crouched down and edged forward. He could hear footsteps and the scrape of boxes being dragged over wooden planks. He tried to move silently through the mud, but it was so thick as to be impossible, so he stopped and peered up.

It was the burgomeister, pulling crates onto his barge. There was a man with him—and Roderick peered up to see who it was. Of course, he thought, who else! He was about to stand and make his presence known, when he heard the two men exchange a joke and the note of their laughter made his skin shiver. Instead, he huddled low until it was safe to flee.

 

Sigmund’s mother had brought all kinds of supplies with her: a ham, a sack of flour and a couple of large cottage loaves with a freshly hung cheese. She insisted that she did not need anything, but Sigmund gave her a purse full of coins. At last his mother accepted the money.

“I will be back as soon as I can,” Sigmund said, and his mother forced a smile.

“Son, your job is with the town. If the town falls then we will all die. If you save it then we will also be saved,” she said and fumbled for a chain that her husband had given her, years before. It was a silver hammer of Sigmar, strung on a steel chain. She held it out and the hammer swung back and forth. “Your father gave me this when we were betrothed,” she said. “And now I give it to you. Sigmar be with you, my son!”

The hammer was worn with age. Sigmund imagined it coming all the way from Ortulf Jorg, the man who slew the beastman lord a thousand years earlier. He had tears on his cheeks as he took the amulet from his mother and fastened it round his neck. Then he kissed his mother and brother, and hurried from the room.

 

In the barracks there was a long queue of volunteers trailing all the way across the drill yard. The queue ended in the “U” of buildings, where Edmunt stood at the doorway of the armoury as each man came up to be equipped with old weapons and armour that had been stored there. Much of the equipment was broken or simply forgotten by the many units that had been stationed here: but broken straps could be repaired, rivets could be fixed and sword and spear handles could be re-strapped. Old spearheads were mounted on freshly cut shafts.

“Sword and cap!” he called and Gaston and Elias tried to find something suitable from all the old weaponry stored there.

Gaston found a sword, with no scabbard, that the volunteer thrust through his belt.

“You’ll need to sharpen that thing,” Edmunt told him and the man’s cheeks reddened as if he had not realised.

“It’s for killing,” Edmunt said. “Not for impressing the girls!”

“Don’t listen to him,” Gaston said. “It’s just that he doesn’t have a girl!”

The men who were queuing laughed, but not too loudly. Edmunt was bigger than all of them.

“Next!” he scowled and the next man stepped up.

“Did you think that was funny?” Edmunt demanded.

“No,” the man said.

“Good.” Edmunt looked the man up and down. He had a sword of his own: a machete blade such as some of the farmers used to clear scrubland. “Cap!” Edmunt shouted and Elias brought out a plain steel cap, rusted in a number of spots. Edmunt tried it onto the man for size. “There you go!” he said. “Next!”

 

When Sigmund got back to the barracks there was still a queue of men waiting to be armed.

There was a group of men standing together who were short and thick-looking. Their banner was the sign from a tavern that was frequented by dockers, and supervising their arming was a man with a short stabbing sword at his belt and a leather jerkin with metal plates stitched on. He had a stiff leather cap on his head, metal bands riveted onto it, but he was smoking a clay pipe and under the martial exterior Sigmund recognised his friend.

“Frantz!” Sigmund said and laughed as he embraced him.

Frantz grinned as he waved the mouthpiece of his pipe along the line. There were forty dockers: strong and hard men. Edmunt was sizing them up for spare breast-pieces and steel caps that cluttered the armoury. Each man was issued with a sword and most of them were given bucklers.

“We want a hot spot!” Frantz said and Sigmund smiled.

“They’ll all be hot!” Sigmund promised.

 

Sigmund was busy all afternoon. At the palisade gate Osric had deepened the ditch by over two feet. He spat on the floor as Sigmund approached. Sigmund didn’t look at him.

“I need this finished by evening,” Sigmund said, “then I need your men to make sure the barricades on Eel Street, Altdorf Street and Tanner Lane are secure.”

Osric nodded. “We will do that, sir. Don’t you worry.”

Sigmund was surprised at Osric’s manners.

“Good,” he said. “Keep it up.”

Sigmund walked out of earshot, inspecting the depth of the ditch.

Osric watched him go then turned to his men. “Get working you lazy bunch of whore-mongers!”

Baltzer stared at his sergeant. “What’s all that about?”

“What?”

“Yes-sirring that bastard,” he nodded with his chin towards Sigmund.

Osric wasn’t going to admit that he felt sorry for Sigmund. “I thought I’d give him a day off,” he said. “Now get digging!”

 

Helmstrumburg had boomed under the care of the burgomeister, but precious little had been done to keep up the city defences, Sigmund thought as he climbed up the bank to the palisade. It was about eight foot high: fine against man-sized warriors, but many of the taller beastmen they had fought were nearly seven feet tall. It would not be difficult for them to clamber over. If the enemy came here in force then they would not be able to defend this stretch. The gate was solid enough, but there was no gatehouse from which the men could rain down missiles on the enemy. Osric had two teams of carpenters hastily erecting a covered walkway over the top of the gate so that men could throw rocks down onto anything that tried to assault the gate, but it was rudimentary at best.

“There will be a fierce fight here,” Sigmund said. “I want your men to be ready.”

“They’ll be more than ready,” Osric said and refused to look at Baltzer.

 

Sigmund walked all the way around the town wall. There were cracks running through the long straight sections. Some of the battlements had fallen off, but the walls should hold, Sigmund thought, as long as there were enough men to defend them.

Hanz’s spearmen were stationed on the north gatehouse. The discipline of the professional soldiers was a fine example to the volunteers. They were calm and assured, but well-honed and disciplined.

Everywhere he went, Sigmund encouraged the men. When he got to the east gate the men had found a crack in the crossbar and they were busy hammering strips of iron around the circumference.

Sigmund encouraged them. “That’ll never break now!” he said, and his upbeat tone disguised the doubts he had. He tried to ignore the smouldering ruins of his family mill. The Guild of Blacksmith Hammerers had been assigned this stretch of wall. They looked to Sigmund as he passed them by and he nodded to each man.

Strong-arm Benjamin was standing at the end of the wall, staring up at the water tower, which marked the wall’s end. The tower stood twenty feet above the walls and there were a number of arrow slits in the stonework, but there was a number of inch-wide cracks running up it.

“It’s a sorry sight,” Strong-arm said, nodding towards the stonework.

Sigmund nodded.

“One cannon ball would bring this tower down.”

Sigmund nodded. “Luckily beastmen do not have cannons,” he said.

 

Sigmund returned to the barracks as the sun began to set, and realised how tired and hungry he felt: but there was no time for exhaustion—he had to check the state of preparation.

“We have armed all the men we could,” Edmunt said. “There are maybe three hundred volunteers, by my count.”

Sigmund nodded. The armoury of weapons and shields and every scrap of amour. The stone-floored room had an empty echo to it as Sigmund walked up and down, looking at the empty racks. There were a lot of men wondering if this was their last night around town. Simple, honest men who never wanted to lift a sword in anger, now forced to defend their homes and family.

It was different for professional soldiers. This is what they were paid to do: kill or be killed, and not to worry about death, shadowing them day and night.

 

When Sigmund came out of the armoury Edmunt had his whetstone and was sharpening his axe. He rubbed the steel dust away and the axe head had a fresh curve of polished steel along the edge, like it was smiling.

Edmunt kissed his blade. “I’ve given it a name,” he said.

Sigmund stopped to listen.

“Butcher,” Edmunt said.

 

Osric’s men had been billeted in the houses along the palisade, many of which had been emptied of furniture already. Hanz’s men were billeted at the north gate. Only Gunter’s men were still sleeping at the barracks.

The drill yard was quiet with so few men here. As the sun began to slip out of sight, Sigmund took in a deep breath. He needed to be alone for a few minutes.

He went into his room and swung the door shut. He put his feet up on his camp bed and put his arms behind his neck and tried to clear his mind of all the small details.

Who was the enemy leader, he wondered and what was he doing now?

Sigmund shut his eyes and tried to imagine where he would attack Helmstrumburg, were the situations reversed.

The palisade, he thought. Obviously it was the place most easily stormed.

But was that too obvious?

If he didn’t attack the palisade then where would he attack?

It was hard to say. The water tower? Maybe he would send rafts in, and try to gain entry into the harbour.

There were so many weak places that the beastmen could attack, and he didn’t have enough men to cover them all. Where will the beastmen attack, he asked himself again and again? He was sure they would attack the palisade. He had no liking for Osric, but he had a hard bunch of men. They would hold up any attack, for a while at least.

 

After Sigmund had finished a simple meal of bread, cheese and ale, he put his feet up and lay down on the bed, eyes shut, working through the list of all the things he had done that day, searching in case there was something he had missed.

There was a knock on his door but Sigmund did not move.

“Yes?” he called.

The door opened. “There is a man to see you,” a voice said. It was Edmunt.

Sigmund opened his eyes, pushed himself up from the bed and walked to the door. Outside, he saw one of the trappers standing in the yard.

Sigmund recognised Vasir and gave a tired smile.

“Vasir!” Sigmund said, feeling that the man had been sent at this opportune moment to give him insights into the enemy. “What news?”

“Many tracks. All my men found spoor.”

Sigmund nodded and Vasir licked his lips. “From the signs there must be more than five hundred, but I’d say they were waiting for something. I’d say they were expecting more, if you was to press me sir.”

Sigmund nodded. Some power seemed to be organising the beastmen. Was it the stones?

Vasir seemed to hesitate. “And one of my men went to your father’s mill,” he said. “He found three skinned bodies. Not one of them was your father.”

Sigmund nodded. He had grown up with the men who worked in the mill. They were real country folk: hardworking with little to say, unless pressed. Their deaths should never have happened. It was his father’s fault, and he felt his anger flare up. But there was no point in being angry at a dead man.

Vasir’s eyes flicked back and forth as he watched the captain. Vasir took a bundle from the inside of his jacket, and unwrapped it and held it out to the captain. “And he found this!”

Inside there was a silver pistol with a curiously wide barrel. Sigmund took it and stared at it incredulously. There was only one man in Helmstrumburg with a pistol like this.

Sigmund rushed over to Gunter and let him know that he would be out for half an hour.

“Do you need help?”

Sigmund shook his head. “No. It is a personal matter,” he said, his face dark.

Sigmund hurried across the drill yard and into the evening streets where a hush seemed to have fallen. He hurried through the dark streets, picking up speed as he went, and ended up running across the marketplace. He ignored the calls from Blik Short and his Old Unbreakables and took the stairs of the Crooked Dwarf two at a time.

Guthrie was out, but Josh was there.

“The two Reikland merchants!” Sigmund demanded. “Where are they?”

Josh pointed to the front of the inn. Sigmund sprinted up the stairs and pounded down the corridor. He kicked the door open and drew his sword.

The room was empty, except for Theodor, who saw the naked foot of steel and jumped from the bed, his hands outstretched.

“You!” Sigmund said and stepped forward, knuckles white on his sword handle.

Theodor leaped up. “I know why you are here,” he said, backing up to the wall as Sigmund advanced. “I know why you are here and I can explain!”

But Sigmund kept coming forward. He only stopped when the point of the sword was an inch from the Reiklander’s chest. “Captain Jorg!” the man blurted. “Your father is alive! I know where he is. If you kill me, you will never find out!”

Sigmund did not remove the sword, it pressed into Theodor’s skin.

“I was there to help your father,” Theodor said. “I helped him escape. There was a terrible fight. Look!” he pulled aside his shirt, showing Sigmund a ragged cut along the bottom of his ribs. “I got this! Your father would not have given me such a wound.”

“You could have done that yourself,” Sigmund said.

“I promise you your father is alive! I saw him last night riding away from the mill. But we cannot talk here. My companion might come back at any moment and that would be disastrous for you, me and everyone in Helmstrumburg!”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He might return at any moment!” Theodor said.

Sigmund started out of the door, but Theodor pulled him back.

“Please—I need to explain!”

 

The barge carried him out of Helmstrumburg and along the dark banks—the lights of town retreating behind him.

The burgomeister waited until he was safely past town then paddled desperately to shore. The current was too strong so he threw himself into the water. It was deeper than he thought and he took a mouthful or two of water before he found the muddy bottom and struggled to shore.

His clothes dripped as he hauled himself ashore.

“It’s me!” he shouted. “The burgomeister!”

The moonlit trees were silent. A few leaves moved in a breeze but he saw no one. Where were they?

“I have come!” he shouted, but even though he felt he was being watched, he saw nothing.

 

The trees were like a silent wall. Occasionally one of the soldiers thought he saw something, but each time it appeared that it was nothing more than a bird, flapping in the undergrowth—or sometimes a fox, bolting across the open ground.

But even though they saw nothing, the men on the walls had the feeling that they were being watched. And watched (hey were: even though the beastmen were too stealthy to be seen. Closer than any of the men could imagine, the smaller beastmen lay still, watching the preparations on the town walls.

In the shelter of the trees, a white figure stamped his hooves and snorted with barely contained rage. Only half of his force had arrived. The attack which he was to have led was late.

A stooped figure shuffled towards him, bent low in suppliance, shaking its rattle in homage to the beastman warlord.

“My lord—Brazak’s and Drakk’s herds have arrived!”

Azgrak snarled with fury and turned from the town. Drakk was the brood-brother of the Red Killer. He had inherited the Red Killer’s herd. There were fresh heads plaited into Drakk’s human-hair belt. His legs were brown with caked blood. On his snout there were fresh gouts of blood. In his left hand he dragged the headless corpse of a child.

Brazak walked next to him, his suppurating skin now accelerating to a rolling boil of pus and slime. The stink was overpowering.

Azgrak’s fingers clenched and unclenched on his axe shaft. He bared his fangs, let out a roar of fury, and the warlords stopped. It took a moment for the noise to die down. “You are late!” he snarled.

The pace of Brazak’s boiling skin slowed for a moment, and Drakk let go of the foot of his meal.

“There were many humans to kill,” Brazak snarled and Azgrak opened his snout and roared in fury.

“We were meant to attack today!” he raged. “You are late!”

He tossed the head of Red Killer onto the floor in front of them. Drakk sprayed in supplication, but Brazak was too slow to show his deference to the warlord.

Azgrak was a white blur. Brazak’s festering skin stopped all of a sudden, and his hooded head bent slowly forward as if he was bowing to the albino, but it tumbled forward, off his shoulders and onto the ground. A second later his legs gave way and the whole festering sack of flesh followed.

Azgrak turned to Drakk but the shaman crept forward, skull rattle shaking. “The omens for tomorrow are good!” the shaman hissed. “The guilty have been punished. Oh fearsome warbeast, do not kill all your finest warriors!”

Azgrak could barely restrain his anger, but instead of striking Drakk, he bent his horned head back to the moon and roared—and the leaves above his head shivered.

“Tomorrow, Helmstrumburg will burn!” the shaman hissed, but Azgrak brandished his axe at the town of the enemy.

“No,” he spat with fury. “It will burn tonight!”