CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

The weapon’s haft was sticky with blood. Butcher rose and fell again and again, dealing out death to any that came within reach. A dappled beastman ran through a pitchfork-wielding farm lad next to Edmunt, and the young boy gasped and clutched the spear and fell back with it still impaled in him. The beastman had just started to grab a broken sword when the blunt end of Butcher caught it beneath the chin and snapped its mouth shut, crushing its teeth together. Blood spurted from its nose, eyes and ears, and the creature’s head flew back as it fell into the ranks of those beyond.

Anyone else’s arm would have refused to rise again, but Edmunt had spent all his life chopping wood, and if the truth be told, he thought grimly, the beastmen heads broke more easily than many pieces of wood. As he fought, he felt the men around him beginning to tire of death and killing—even after so many hours, and he called out in a hoarse voice. “Have courage!”

But even as he spoke, the beastmen began to back off. Edmunt stared in disbelief, and laughed out loud, called out insults on the goat-men’s courage.

Why would they back off at this moment, when the defenders were almost spent?

There was a moment’s pause in the fighting. The men had barely had time to draw breath when a man sprinted up a side street and screamed: “They’ve broken through on Altdorf Street!”

There were cries of horror and dismay. Edmunt leaped from the barricade and led fifty men down a side street where dead and wounded were piled in the shade. But in Altdorf Street the ragged defenders stood on the wall staring down the street with the same astonishment.

Edmunt hurried to Tanner Lane, but the beastmen had fled from there as well.

“Have we won?” Gaston asked but Edmunt shook his head. He had no idea.

Guthrie misheard the two men’s conversation and clapped his hands. “We’ve won!” he shouted, but no one wanted to believe that it was true. All of a sudden Gaston found tears on his cheeks. He turned away and wiped his cheeks and nose. He had no idea how he had survived when there were so many men around him who had been killed.

 

Sigmund felt a pain in the small of his back. He managed to move his hand under the weight of the beastlord and feel about behind him. He winced as he moved and then his hand brushed a curved wooden object.

His stunned brain took a moment to work it out: a barrel.

Sigmund frowned. For a moment he had thought he was lying in his bed at the barracks, and he couldn’t understand what the weight on him was, or why his leg hurt, or why there was a barrel in his bed—then he remembered. He was about to be killed.

Sigmund held his breath. At any moment he expected the beastlord to pick him up and to tear him apart as it had done Theodor, but the huge stinking body on top of him lay still.

Sigmund reached for his sword, but his right hand was stuck. He tried to push himself up but the dead weight of the body pressing down on him was too hard to shift. He managed to get a little purchase and tipped the beastlord away, wriggled to the side, then dragged himself free.

The dead beastlord was an awesome sight. Its head lolled to one side, snout open and pink eyes glassy in death.

Sigmund found it hard to believe that he had survived the fight until he saw three inches of sword blade sticking out of the back of the beastman and understood. The impact of the creature had driven the sword through its body with a force that Sigmund could never have matched. The blade had impaled the creature’s heart, killing it instantly.

Sigmund managed to push himself to his feet and mumbled a prayer of thanks to Sigmar. He swayed for a moment, thought he might pass out, and had to put his hand out to steady himself.

He could see that the fuse and the barrel were still in place. All he had to do was light the fuse and the whole mound would go up in smoke. For a moment he felt a wave of elation. They had won!

Then he remembered that he had nothing to light the fuse with and he felt a moment’s panic, followed by a sense of crushing defeat.

A band of beastmen had come over the top of the mound. The cruel twist of luck made him fierce and ferocious. Sigmund was determined to sell his life as dearly as possible. He picked up a fallen halberd, but staggered against one of the stones and it felt warm to the touch, throbbing with some arcane pleasure, making his head spin. The touch revolted him. He fell back and felt hands supporting him.

“Now then!” Frantz said. “I’ve got you.”

“Frantz!” Sigmund hissed. “We don’t have a light!”

“I have it here,” Frantz said and lifted the lantern they had carried all the way from Helmstrumburg.

Sigmund was weak from blood loss. He laughed weakly. “Then light the cursed fuses!” he hissed, “and help me get out of here!”

They started to move, then Sigmund grabbed Frantz. “The sword!” he said and insisted they go back to where the albino beastman leader lay dead.

With Frantz’s help Sigmund pushed the dead beastman over so he could reclaim the sword.

“Light the fuses!” Sigmund hissed as he dragged the sword from the beastman’s body, and Frantz bent to the nearest fuse. In the distance, his blurry sight could make out band after band of beastmen rushing towards the standing stones.

“Take this and go!” Sigmund told Frantz, and held out the sword, but the docker hurried back, grabbed Sigmund and helped support his weight as they dashed down towards the bank of the river.

“Leave me and go!” Sigmund yelled at his friend, but Frantz kept dragging him along. He looked over his shoulder and saw more and more beastmen swarming over the mound. Sigmund’s arm was weak. He brandished the sword but it was unsteady in his hand. There was no way that they could escape.

Osric and his men were crouching in the bushes. The beastmen began to swarm after Frantz and Sigmund and Osric cursed. “You’re going to hate me for this,” he told Baltzer and leaped from cover and shouted to distract the pursuing beastmen. Baltzer swore at Osric, but he leapt from cover and all the men charged.

At that moment the first barrel exploded. In a split-second three more explosions followed, throwing earth and debris and beastmen bodies up into the air.

Osric had no idea where his sword went, but suddenly he was off his feet and tumbling through the air. He landed heavily in a prickly bush. The thorns ripped into his skin and clothes and he felt a hot blast scorch his head and face.

Sigmund grunted as he was flung face forward into the grass. Frantz barely had time to put his hands over his head before clods began to rain down, and then a fine rain of dirt, as a great cloud of smoke and dirt fell back to earth.

“Sigmar’s balls!” Osric swore.

Stones, beastmen, even the mound had disappeared. The force of the explosions had stripped the trees of branches. Their naked trunks stood, the nearest ones on fire with a fierce crackle as the rising resin turning them into enormous torches. At that moment there was an unearthly, haunting and ear-splitting scream.

The unearthly howl of pain lasted for nearly five seconds, then it was gone. Sigmund sat up and stared at the devastation. The lack of blood was making his head dizzy and the pain in his leg was almost overwhelming. Worst of all, the echoes of the scream made his insides shiver.

He felt someone sit up next to him.

“We did it!” Frantz laughed and clapped him on the back. Sigmund felt pains shooting all through his body, but despite the pain he started to laugh.

 

The silence along the streets of new town was disconcerting. How could an army disappear so quickly?

Edmunt sent runners up Tanner Lane and Eel Street to see what the beastmen were up to. They were barely fifty feet from the barricades when the ground shook and they heard a distant rumble, like thunder, and saw a cloud of dirt and smoke erupt from the site of the burial mounds further down the river.

“They’ve done it!” one of the spearmen shouted, and Edmunt climbed up onto the barricade to see the huge cloud of debris that climbed hundreds of feet into the air, then began to dissipate and drift out over the Stir.

Edmunt picked up Vasir and crushed the trapper in a fierce bear hug.

 

On Tanner Lane Beatrine heard a boom and had no idea what it meant. Someone shouted that it was the signal that reinforcements had arrived; another that the captain’s men had succeeded in finding cannons.

Whatever the noise meant, a wave of relief swept through the defenders. She clapped her hands and felt tears rolling down her cheeks. Gaston turned around, looking for the pretty girl with blood stains on her dress—and picked her up from the ground and swirled her round, kissing her cheeks.

 

On Altdorf Street Gunter saw the cloud of dirt that rose into the air and nodded in satisfaction: it appeared that Sigmund had accomplished his mission.

Then there was a sudden gust of wind and with it came a howl—as if there were maddened spirits blowing through the town. The sound was so unearthly and terrible that it made the weak-minded shake with terror but Gunter’s presence kept the rest to their posts.

In a moment it was gone—and the people began to wonder what it meant.

“I think we’ve seen the end of these beastmen!” Gunter shouted. “Clear this barricade away!”

The people, soldiers and civilians alike, began to pull the jumble of furniture and carts apart but the individual pieces of furniture and cart had been so compressed by the beastman attack that it bowed in at the centre, and they saw to their amazement that the barricade had been moved three yards from its original point.

The pressure of the beastmen had also locked the individual pieces of furniture into a solid mass that was almost impossible to pull apart.

Gunter clapped his men on the back and sent Josh and Hengle to the marketplace to bring a barrel of beer for the thirsty defenders when he heard a low rumble, almost too deep for human hearing, that grew steadily louder.

Gunter thought he was imagining it at first, but the sound was distinctive and he climbed up onto barricade to take a look.

“Shit!”

There was a horde of horned warriors charging down the road. Maybe they hadn’t blown the stones after all? “To arms!” he bellowed, and punched one man who was busy offering thanks to Sigmar. “They’re coming!”

 

* * *

 

The destruction of the stones had sent the beastmen into a berserk fury. Whatever order the warbands had once possessed was gone. They were like a stampede of terrified animals, their eyes rolled wildly in their heads—but they didn’t flee—they were in a frenzy of hatred and fury that went beyond all reason or understanding or even concern for their own safety. It had but one purpose: destroy Helmstrumburg.

 

Edmunt helped the scouts he had sent out to clamber to safety. “Stand fast, men!” Edmunt called out. “Stand fast!”

His men stepped up to the fighting steps, but having believed that they were saved many of them could not bear the thought of returning to battle one more time. Their numbers had been severely weakened during the repeated assaults and the beasts were charging with more ferocity than ever now.

Only the halberdiers and spearmen stepped up without hesitation. This was their job. They gripped spear, shield and halberd shaft and waited grimly.

The horde of beastmen flowed over the barricades in a crashing wave, overwhelming the defenders by sheer reckless force of numbers.

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 outer 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.

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?”

Sigmund tried to explain, but was still weak and dizzy. Osric took over, telling the knights’ commander what had happened, and as much information as he could about the layout of the town, and the number and type of the beastman forces. Marshal von Dvornsak nodded and waved his men on.

The pistoliers moved alongside them. A few of them gave the halberdiers curt nods, but most of them passed by without even an acknowledgment.

“And those bastards will probably claim they liberated Helmstrumburg,” muttered Osric, as the mounted column trotted past.

 

An order was given and the squires spurred their horses forward to take the lances from the knights. Marshal von Dvornsak split his men into three squads of ten—sending one each down Tanner Lane, Altdorf Street and Eel Street, swords drawn. Behind the knights’ massive warhorses came the pistoliers, their light geldings chomping and tossing their heads at the stink of blood and the musk of the beastmen.

The horses moved slowly through the shattered remains of the barricades, picking their way carefully through the heaps of dead men and beastmen. On Tanner Lane they came across the Chaos spawn, still inside the field station, contentedly digesting the remains of over thirty men.

The Chaos creature’s pulsating flesh flared blue and sickly green as the first pistol shots punctured its overblown carcass. The horses started to panic as it began to squeeze back out of the door, following its own sticky trail of slime, but the pistoliers casually reloaded and then fired again; it was impossible to miss at such short range. It was a deadly fusillade, riddling the Chaos-spawn with lead shot.

Within twenty seconds the fearsome beast stopped moving. Its flesh began to deflate and change colour, until it was translucent, then sections tore open, the half-digested forms of the people it had devoured spilling out onto the street.

The captain of the pistoliers commented as he pointed at one of the forms—“What a shame…” he said and the men looked and saw the remains of a young girl with dark black hair.

With a shake of his head, the captain spurred his horse on and the pistoliers turned their horses down the street after the knights.

 

As soon as the beastmen realised that the roads out of town had been blocked they began to scramble for a way out of the tight and alien confines of the townscape—back into the wild woods.

The only ones that did escape were those that managed to break through to the docks and leaped into the river. The rest were cut off by the knights and pistoliers, and then slaughtered.

One band managed to hide from the knights and flee out of town along Eel Street, but the knights’ squires gave pursuit with spears and ran them to ground, one by one, as if they were hunting wild animals.

 

* * *

 

Sigmund limped into town and found his way to the marketplace, where the survivors were gathering. Edmunt picked Sigmund up in a bear-hug that was as gentle as he could make it, considering Sigmund’s wounds. Elias nodded politely and even managed a smile. Vasir was there: a dirty bandage around his thigh. Guthrie was sitting on a barrel; he looked ten years older. Hengle saw his brother and sprinted to embrace him in a fierce hug.

“Where is mother?” Sigmund asked.

Hengle pointed to the Crooked Dwarf.

“She stayed there the whole time?”

“Yes! The beastmen never made it to the marketplace. Edmunt and the others were magnificent!”

Sigmund gave Edmunt a look, but the woodsman shook his head.

“But how are you?”

“I am alive,” Sigmund laughed, and then saw a pretty blonde girl—her skirts torn and singed—make her way through the startled crowd and stand next to Gaston. Sigmund smiled. He was glad that Gaston was still alive. He didn’t know why but the handsome warrior’s presence reassured him.

“Where is Gunter?” Sigmund asked, but the men looked down. The list of the fallen was too long to dwell on. Sigmund shook his head. He never thought that Gunter would be killed. The old sergeant seemed to have survived so much. He had been old and wise when they were just raw recruits.

“What time is the Crooked Dwarf open?” Sigmund said, forcing a smile through his exhaustion and shock.

The men laughed, but the laughter was weak.