Chapter Ten

 

 

Erikson awoke to the urgent sound of the company’s drum. The beat was quick and insistent, and as he rolled out of his cot and pulled on his boots he could already hear the rest of the men racing to their defensive positions. Sergeant Alter could already be heard bellowing encouragement, and the clink of metal accompanied the pounding of rushing feet.

Pausing only to buckle on his sword belt and cram his hat onto his head, Erikson went to join them.

He was surprised to find that, although the chill of dawn was still in the air, the sun had risen high enough to light the ground around them. He had expected the beasts to attack at night, using darkness to hide the beginnings of their assault.

The captain found himself wishing that he had a cannon, or even a catapult. He should have had the townsfolk build one, although it was too late for that now. He shrugged off such useless thoughts as he sprinted down to the gate and raced up the ladder to the fighting platform that rested behind the stockade. Dolf was there already, his eyes bright with excitement as he beat the alarm.

“Where are they?” Erikson asked, squinting into the rising sun.

“There,” Dolf told him without a pause in the beat. “Coming along the road.”

Erikson pulled his hat down lower so that the brim eclipsed the sun, and leaned forwards. The figures that were approaching were still indistinct, veiled by the mist that steamed from the wheat around them.

“They didn’t hang around,” Porter said. “Must have got a taste for man-flesh, eh, captain?”

Erikson glared at Porter, who smiled before moving away to busy himself with his section. By now the men were assembled on the fighting platform in units of half a dozen or so. The townsfolk were climbing up between these groups, their own weapons and garb hardly less motley than the soldiers’ own. Behind them, formed up on the parade ground, Gunter waited with his section and a dozen of the heftiest townsmen.

Not much of a reserve, Erikson thought. But then, we’re not much of an army.

Then, from along the fighting platform, a peal of laughter turned into a ragged cheer. Dolf’s drumbeat hesitated and then stopped as he joined in. Erikson gazed quizzically towards the enemy.

Except that they weren’t. Now they had emerged from the blinding light of the sun and the clinging shadows and mist of the forest he could see that they were a company of mounted soldiers. They flew no flag, but their weapons glinted in the early morning light, and a small wagon bounced along halfway down their column.

“Shall we open the gates, captain?” Sergeant Alter asked, his wrinkled features split open in a smile of relief.

“Not yet,” Erikson told him. “Let’s see what they have to say for themselves first.”

The cheering grew louder as the men cantered closer, then disintegrated into catcalls and whistles as the column drew to a halt in front of the stockade. There were perhaps a dozen riders, and although they were no more knights than Erikson’s own men were, they rode well. They also carried impressive-looking handguns.

“Silence in the ranks,” Erikson bellowed, and the men fell quiet as the leading horseman swung from his saddle and approached the stockade. He was dressed in browns and greens, and a long rifle was slung across his shoulder. There was something vaguely familiar about his face, which was sharp and pinched.

“Well, well, well,” the man said, his hands on his hips as he looked up. “I don’t believe it. You are Captain Erikson, aren’t you?”

Erikson bit back on the retort that sprang to his lips and swept off his hat instead.

“Captain Erikson at your service,” he said. “Late of Talabheim and Bretonnia, currently serving in the army of Hochland.”

“Ha!” The newcomer barked with laughter, and in the silence the noise sounded as loud as a gunshot.

“Something funny?” Erikson asked, his eyes blazing green with anger.

“Just that I thought you were late of Praag,” the man said and grinned.

Erikson was about to challenge the impudent oaf to a duel when suddenly, in a flash of recognition, he remembered where he had seen the man before.

“Freimann!” he cried. “That was your name wasn’t it? We met in that forest. Where those beasts were.”

“The very same,” Freimann nodded. “Now that we’ve got the niceties over with, can we come in? My men and horses need resting, and the baron has sent a present for you.”

“Of course,” Erikson said, and gestured to Sergeant Alter. His eyes were already fastened on the covered wagon. It was too small to carry one of the great cannons he had seen on the battlefield, but it could contain handguns, or perhaps swivel guns to mount on the stockade.

As the riders entered Nalderstein, Erikson climbed down the ladder to greet them. He and Freimann shook hands, and as they did so the man leaned in towards him.

“We have to talk immediately,” he said, “and in private. Orders.”

“Come to the granary,” Erikson told him, then paused as the tarpaulin that covered the wagon was lifted from within. A plump, bespectacled figure who was as wide as he was tall sat up, yawned and climbed down off the vehicle.

“This is Horstein,” Freimann said with a roll of his eyes. “He’d better come with us.”

“Do you have anything to eat?” asked Horstein. For a moment Erikson thought that he was about to salute, but he was only scratching his head with a pair of pliers.

“Maybe later,” Erikson said, and led the way to the granary.

 

“No.” Erikson shook his head as he studied the map that had been unfurled on the table. An oil lamp held down one corner, and he could feel the warmth from the glass in the chill of the granary. “No, it can’t be done. It’s not possible.”

“It has to be done,” Freimann told him. “And of course it’s possible.”

“He’s right, you know,” Horstein said, and pushed his thick-lensed spectacles back up on his nose. “I spent five years at the engineers’ school, and I know what blackpowder can do. It really is a simple enough job. Just a matter of getting the angles right. Perhaps a bit of drilling so that we can really pack it in. And I’ve got three whole barrels of the stuff.”

The engineer’s eyes glittered beneath his glasses and he rubbed his podgy hands together in anticipation.

“I’m not talking about that,” Erikson said. “I’m talking about this.”

He waved at the parchment. Hergig was represented by a stylised sketch, a mass of turrets and crenellations. A dozen inches to the east Nalderstein was a mere dot, and a dozen inches further to the east than that, their target was marked with a small, neatly drawn cross.

“It’s not that far,” Freimann told him. “Fifty or sixty miles at most. I talked to the woodsman who knew where it was myself, and he seemed a pretty reliable chap. We can just follow the river to the ford, then pop straight up.”

“I don’t care about all that,” Erikson said impatiently. “Look at the forest we will have to cross. Not a road, not a track, nothing. Oh, I beg your pardon, not quite nothing. ‘Here be Monsters’ it says.”

“That’s just a mapmaker’s trick,” Freimann told him. “It means they don’t know what’s there.”

“Except in this case,” Erikson countered, “they obviously did. You’ve seen those things. You know what they’re like. Here, we have a chance. We have the stockade, the townsfolk, clear lines of approach. But in the forest…”

He trailed off and chewed his bottom lip as he regarded the map. The blotch of green ink gave no hint of the real nature of the forest it represented.

“Don’t worry about the forest,” Freimann told him, and Erikson’s face hardened as he detected a trace of contempt. “That’s why the baron is sending us long riflers out with the demolition parties. We’re here to guide you. The forest has been my regiment’s battlefield for generations. As you saw.”

“I don’t underestimate you,” Erikson said. “But my men are not trained for this. Besides, who will guard the village while we are away?”

Freimann shrugged indifferently.

“We are soldiers. We follow orders. These are our orders. You don’t strike me as the kind of man to mutiny, Erikson.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Erikson snapped. “Of course we will follow orders. I’ve been a soldier for long enough to know that only a fool expects orders to make sense. These, though. They seem particularly ridiculous. Tell me again, why are we supposed to be destroying this stone?”

“Because we’ve been ordered to,” Freimann told him with impeccable military logic.

“I think what he means,” Horstein said, “is that we are not privy to that information. All we know is that these stones have to be destroyed, and that their destruction is our priority. We also know that they are dangerous although,” he chuckled happily, “they will be a lot more dangerous when they explode into a thousand pieces of shrapnel.”

The engineer laughed uproariously at his own joke. Erikson grinned at Freimann, who rolled his eyes, and for the first time he realised that he liked the man.

“First thing tomorrow morning?” he asked.

“First thing tomorrow morning,” Freimann said.

 

Flies buzzed around the gnawed wood of the empty stockade. It remained standing where the townsfolk had planted it, the squat iron-and-timber construct hunched in the very shadow of the forest.

There was no sign of the occupant. Traudl had vanished, every last scrap of him, but not even the most optimistic of his former comrades could find reason to be thankful for that. The blood and churned-up dirt around the stockade indicated that, wherever Traudl had gone, he was never coming back.

“Looks like it was done within the last day or so,” Freimann said. He had paused, halting the column while he examined the ground around the empty stocks. He was bent almost double, and he sniffed at the mud and hoof prints as though he were a hunting dog.

“That would make sense,” Erikson told him. “He was one of ours. We had to give him to the Naldersteiners for dishonouring one of their women.”

Freimann examined the captain with a look of cool appraisal as he swung back up into the saddle.

“Well, he won’t be dishonouring anybody anymore. Those are boar tracks. Mostly boar tracks, anyway. Let’s just hope that they got to him first.”

“Mostly boar tracks?” Erikson asked. Freimann nodded and gestured towards the forest.

“Have your men been taught to fight in the forest?” he asked.

“No,” Erikson told him, resisting the urge to boast. “Never.”

“Mind if I speak to them before we go on?”

“Be my guest.”

Freimann turned his horse and stood up in his stirrups. The company had been marching in a column of fours when it had stopped by the stocks, and now virtually every man was gazing at the splintered signs of Traudl’s doom. Those that weren’t were gazing into the dark immensity of the forest beyond. They looked even less happy.

“Gentlemen,” Freimann said. “Soon we will enter the forest. There are no roads here, so we will use whatever animal tracks we may find. That means single file. It may be,” he continued, ignoring the unhappy murmuring that greeted this announcement, “that we find ourselves under attack. If that happens, attack back. Attack back fast, and hard. This is no battlefield we are entering. It is a confusion of timber and thorns, and in there aggression is all that counts. So remember. If we are attacked, you attack back.”

A sullen silence greeted his words. Erikson took over.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “What Freimann here tells us is all good sense. It is also to our advantage. In the open we still struggle to maintain formation, but in the forest, we are at no disadvantage. We meet any enemy that comes at us on equal terms, and on equal terms we will thrash them. That’s why we have been chosen for this mission. Chosen by the baron himself.”

“Would that be the same baron who chose to put us in gaol, captain?” Porter asked, and earned himself a smattering of sarcastic laughter.

“Not at all.” Erikson grinned with all the good humour of a wolf that has had its tail tweaked. “It’s the same baron who set you free.”

“Three cheers for the baron!” Sergeant Alter cried, and so the men cheered. But the only ones who did so with any gusto were those who sounded the most ironic.

“Let’s go,” Erikson told Freimann and so, miserable and strung out, the Gentleman’s Free Company of Hergig entered the forest’s embrace.

 

The forest canopy was so thick above them that the track felt more like a tunnel than a path. The air was damp and humid, a claustrophobic stillness that was ripe with the smell of rotten vegetation. Although the forest had at first been deathly silent it now buzzed with biting insects. They followed the column of sweating men, feasting upon the unexpected bounty of so many thin-skinned creatures.

The track twisted around trees that grew broader and more ancient the further into the forest they went. The massive trunks were gnarled by uncounted centuries. They crowded so close together that the only light was a permanent, green-tinged dusk.

Occasionally, very occasionally, one of the trees had fallen to let in a waterfall of sunlight, golden and alive with a myriad of glistening insects and flitting sparrows. But for the most part the crushing weight of the forest remained as unbroken as the surface of the sea, a seemingly endless hell of ankle-breaking roots and grasping thorns.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Freimann asked as he paused on the crest of a slope and waited for the column to close up behind him.

“What is?” Erikson asked, lifting his hat to wipe a smear of sweat from his forehead, then swatting at the fly that had just fastened onto the back of his hand.

“The forest,” Freimann said. “It’s what makes Hochland.”

Erikson was surprised to see that the rifleman wasn’t joking. He didn’t seem to be sweating, either. Despite the fact that the two men had dismounted, the better to lead their horses through the undergrowth, Freimann appeared cool and relaxed. Even the insects which swarmed over Erikson and his comrades seemed to avoid the man.

“I’ve known prettier places,” the captain said, and took a swig from his canteen. Although it was probably only a little after midday the canteen was almost empty. In this close, sweltering heat he was sweating out everything that he drank. From the little he could see of his men, they were suffering even more.

“I’m thinking about the water supply,” he told Freimann. “We need to find a stream or something.”

“Yes, I’ll end the day’s march on one,” Freimann promised. He was sniffing the air, and seemed to be enjoying the foetid fragrance.

“Perhaps we should start looking now,” Erikson insisted.

“No need,” Freimann told him. “This is a boar path we’re on. They’re as thirsty for fresh water as dwarfs are for ale. All we’ve got to do is follow one of these paths to the bottom of a valley and we’ll find one of their watering holes.”

“If you say so,” Erikson said, and with a last wistful look at it, put the cork back into his canteen.

“Don’t worry,” Freimann told him as he idly felt the bark of a tree. “I won’t see you die of thirst. Horseflies, maybe, but not thirst.”

He was smiling at his joke as he took a deep breath and, as the last of the exhausted men staggered to a halt behind him, set off again at the same punishing pace.

 

* * *

 

Of all the men in the company, Porter had taken to the military life with the most enthusiasm. For years he and Brandt had kept body and soul together by any means necessary. From extortion to housebreaking to good old-fashioned robbery, the two men had tried the lot. But even during their richest years the two had never been more than a few weeks away from starvation, or a single mistake away from the gibbet.

Now, as company quartermaster, Porter had finally found the niche nature had created him for. He hardly even had to steal.

Over the weeks the company had been together he had been making a constant profit, be it by saving some of the coin Erikson had given him for supplies or by selling the surplus on to hungry civilians. But his real genius, as he saw it, was his ability to keep the men happy with their food. It was amazing what you could do with flour and herbs and animal feed, especially if you could find the occasional bit of meat to add to it.

That was why, when the herd of deer charged the company, he was the first to react.

They had been toiling up a shale slope, clinging to trees for support when, through the curses and falling stones, he heard the distant snap and crash of something big coming through the undergrowth.

A chorus of warnings and orders had come from the men who suddenly found themselves spread out amongst a confusion of trees, thorns and shifting ground, but even as they cried out the first of the animals had burst out of the cover beside Porter.

It was almost as tall as a man. Taller, if you counted the six pointed antlers that jutted up from the thick bone of its forehead. Its dark, liquid eyes rolled with panic, and even though it paused when it found itself confronted by the men, it was only for a second. Then it was bounding through them, ignoring their cries of protest as it raced through their line.

“Shoot it!” Porter called to the men on either side of them, but before any of them could react the animal was crashing into the forest beyond.

“Don’t let it get away,” he called and charged after it. As always Brandt was at his side, the greatsword slung across his back in the crude leather sheath he had stitched for it. The two men barrelled through the undergrowth, following the trail the deer was ploughing through the thorns. If it had followed one of the tracks that crisscrossed the forest it may have survived but, sure-footed though it was, the undergrowth slowed and tangled it, and within a few minutes Porter saw his chance.

“That’s a week’s worth of meat,” he gasped to Brandt as he slipped the cleaver from his belt and hurled it like a throwing axe. The fat steel blade tumbled through the gloom towards the deer. It ended with a shriek of pain and a gout of blood, and to his delight Porter realised that the blade had hit with the sharp edge.

“I’ve got it!” he exulted, and tried to charge forwards, but before he could move he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait,” Brandt said.

“Don’t be a fool!” Porter yelled at him, shrill with outrage. “Think about how much we can make from that. We can sell the steaks, pad out the gruel… Oh. Oh damn.”

The two men listened to the screams and yells that were echoing from where they had left their comrades. There was the unmistakable ring of metal against metal, and a deep, bellowing roar that sounded like no deer Porter had ever heard.

“What were the deer running from?” Brandt asked.

“More to the point,” Porter wondered, “should we run too?”

The drumbeat sounded, the beating heart of the company, and Porter thought that he could detect Erikson bellowing orders.

For a moment Porter stood on the precipice of flight.

“We could always slip away,” Brandt suggested, the thought seemingly just occurring to him. From the distant battle there was a crash as though one of the trees had been felled.

“To what?” Porter asked. “We’ll never find a cushier number than this.”

“This is cushy?” Brandt asked, but Porter was already moving, stepping silently through the undergrowth on the balls of his toes, his dagger and short sword already drawn. Brandt, content in the knowledge that the decision had been made by a wiser head than his, followed him.

They were almost back to the track when there was a burst of movement from the undergrowth and three men raced towards them. They were looking behind them as they ran, and only the harsh snap of Porter’s voice prevented them from running into him.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he barked.

“Away,” one of them barked back.

“Hold your ground,” Porter snarled at him. “You heard what the officer said. We stand and fight.”

The man’s look of terror gave way to one of defiance, and he made as if to push past Porter. Before he could do so Brandt drew his greatsword. It hissed from the rough leather with murderous intent, and the men stopped and turned back to where they had come from.

It wasn’t until the thing from which they had been fleeing exploded out of the undergrowth that Porter realised what a mistake he had made.

For the first horrified seconds he took it to be some monstrous horseman and, even in the midst of his horror, some small, forgotten part of him was calculating what the price of horsemeat might be out here. Then he saw the hideous knuckles and grasping talons that clawed at the ground beneath it, and the seamless join of filth-matted fur between what he had taken to be the horse’s body and its rider’s. It reared up, baring a jaw full of fangs in a savage bellow of glee as it lunged towards its prey.

It took its first victim with an axe stroke to the head. The metal crunched through bone and brain. The skull popped open like an overripe fruit, and the beast’s blade was tearing back out through a shrapnelled collarbone even as the corpse fell forwards.

When it turned its weapon was already raised again, but this time the blow missed, merely slicing a line down the back of its fleeing victim. With a snarl of impatience it bounded forwards and grabbed the man with one of the talons on its forelegs. It leant forwards, pinning its victim beneath it like a cat with a mouse, and this time when it struck the blade tore off the man’s head in a single, ragged stroke.

“We should have run,” Brandt said, but Porter, who knew that there was no longer any chance to outrun this horror, was moving to one side.

“Go the other way,” he cried to Brandt and the remaining soldier, but the remaining soldier was beyond taking orders. He merely stood there, his sword dangling loosely at his side as he watched the sinuous grace with which the beast lifted the headless corpse of its victim, tore a mouthful of flesh from the muscle of the shoulder, then flung it away as carelessly as a man who has finished a drumstick.

It wasn’t until the body hit the ground, blood splattering out, that the man pulled himself together enough to turn and run. The beast’s yellow eyes glittered in the green murk of the forest, and with a predator’s instinct to pursue it bounded after him.

“Get it!” Porter cried as the beast slipped between him and Brandt, and the two of them struck.

Neither man was courageous. Nor did they have anything but contempt for those who were. But if their long career had taught them anything, it was a respect for the vicious gamble. They were unhesitating in their attack, and when they struck it was with a street fighter’s instinctive grasp of his enemy’s vulnerability.

Brandt swung the heavy blade of his two-handed sword with the powerful, hunch-shouldered sweep of a peasant with a scythe. The arc of the blade was in a perfect angle to slice off both of the beast’s hind legs at the joint above the fetlocks.

Porter, his own sword little more than a two-foot-long stub, got closer in. Close enough to take a stab upwards into the dung-matted fur that covered the beast’s belly.

Against a cavalryman the attack would have been crippling. But the abomination before them was something more than that. Even as the two men closed in it twisted with an effortless, drunken grace, then bunched the mighty muscles in its hind legs and leapt upwards. For a moment Porter and Brandt found themselves looking stupidly into each other’s faces as the beast which had been between them jumped high into the air. Then they were moving, their own wiry bodies blurring with the gutter acrobatics which had kept them alive for so many brutal years.

The beast howled with rage, and struck at them both at once. It sent the dull metal slab of its axe down towards Brandt, who was sent spinning away by the impact of the last quarter-inch of the curved blade. Meanwhile it turned with a liquid grace that was more feline than equine, and snatched at Porter with the talon of its back legs.

The man turned, and for a moment thought that he had avoided the attack. But then the talons closed with a rib-snapping suddenness, and he felt the air squeezed from his lungs even as he was pulled back and spun around. He felt his sword whiplashed out of his hand and he cursed himself for a fool as he was smashed into the ground, then crushed beneath the beast’s weight.

He scrabbled at the iron-hard knuckles that held him, and the green murk of the forest was suddenly tinged pink as the beast brought more of its weight down on him. His hands slipped from the knuckles then down to his belt. Nothing there but empty scabbards, and a ladle. And a small, wooden box.

The beast snarled in triumph and lifted the blade of its axe. Porter, suffocating beneath its weight, clicked open the brass clasp of the spice box and hurled it upwards.

A cloud of pepper burst from it as it hit the beast’s snout. It paused, grimaced and made the mistake of breathing in. Then it sneezed, the explosion of mucus spattering down into Porter’s face, and blinked. Tears soaked into the fur around its muzzle, and its nose wrinkled up some more, but it had recovered from the surprise and lined up another blow.

There was a chunk of steel biting into flesh.

The beast leapt forwards, shrieking with pain, and Porter felt the glorious, delicious rush of air into his lungs. He scrambled to his feet as the beast galloped away, blood splattering from the long, bone-deep wound in its hindquarters. It paused only to snatch up the body of one of its victims before barrelling away through the undergrowth, apparently impervious to the vicious barbs of the thorns.

Brandt, his greatsword black with blood, grinned down at his comrade.

“It’s run off,” he said.

“Never mind,” Porter said, unbuttoning his shirt and examining the bruising on his chest. “I don’t think even the lads would have eaten that without complaint.”

“Not without plenty of pepper, anyway,” Brandt agreed and Porter, despite the agony from his bruised ribs, laughed.

They made their way cautiously back to the path upon which the company still remained. By now the attack seemed to be over. Here and there bodies lay amongst the undergrowth, dark and broken in the gloom. Men wailed as they were tended by their comrades. Other voices were jagged with hysterical laughter, the men still half-crazed with the rush of combat.

“Looks like we’ve won,” Porter said, stepping over a corpse to inspect the dent in the huge brass kettle that lay amongst the remains of the company’s rations.

 

The same thought occurred to Erikson. He was still breathless from the attack, and his sword was chipped and bloodied from the six-limbed monstrosity that had hit his part of the column. It lay across the track, its fur matted with blood and its body a butcher’s block of stab wounds and hacked flesh.

“I don’t think they knew we were here,” Sergeant Alter said. His sleeve had been cut away and, as he spoke, Dolf was sewing closed the gash that ran down his biceps. The beast had caught him with the edge of its crude spear.

“You could be right,” Erikson agreed. “They could have been hunting deer. Even so, I want to get a move on.”

“It’ll be difficult without the guides,” Alter said, and for the first time Erikson realised what had been bothering him about the fight. The riflemen had vanished, slipping away so quietly that he hadn’t even noticed their disappearance in the face of the charge.

“What a bunch of cowards,” Dolf said, grimacing as he bit off the thread and knotted the last inch of Alter’s wound. “Will they be hanged for desertion?”

“That’s the way it would have been in the regiments, lad,” Alter said and inspected the youngster’s handiwork. “Not bad stitching, that.”

Dolf beamed with pride as he turned to find more of the wounded to practise his skills upon.

“That lad’s the best bloody drummer I’ve ever seen,” Alter said with an avuncular air.

Erikson just grunted. Now that he had noticed that their guides were gone, he was starting to notice other things too. Things such as the way that the beams of light that pierced the canopy were slanting to the east as afternoon wore on to evening. And the smell of blood. The humid breeze was slow but steady, and there was no telling to which hungry nostrils it would carry the scent.

Most of all, Erikson noticed that they were lost in the tangled heart of the forest. Even if they turned back now, and even if they could follow their trail back towards where they had come from, night would catch them before they could escape.

“Shall I give the order to start back, captain?” Alter asked. Before Erikson could answer a voice rang out.

“I should say not,” it said cheerfully and Freimann emerged from between the trees.

“Where the bloody hell have you been?” Erikson barked at him.

Freimann’s grin stayed on his face, but his eyes hardened.

“Making sure none of them escaped,” he said.

“How very heroic of you, sir,” Alter said sarcastically, and this time the smile did fade from Freimann’s face.

“Yes,” he said. Then he unslung the satchel which he wore around his shoulder and upended it. The contents clicked together as they tumbled to the forest floor, the gloom making them seem as green as everything else in the forest.

“We always take the tip of the left horn,” he explained, his tone still chill. “For the bounty. But perhaps you would like to check that these are fresh?”

So saying he reached down and lifted one of the hacked-off horns towards Alter. Flies were already gorging themselves on the dark gore which smeared the bone.

“Not at all, sir,” Alter told him as he took a step back. “Wouldn’t dream of doubting the word of an officer.”

“That’s settled then,” Erikson said. “Now I suggest we put the wounded on the horses and carry on to that water you promised us.”

Freimann shook his head.

“No, the wounded are no good to us. The enemy will be able to smell their blood for miles around, and we need stealth. I’ll second two of my men to lead them back to the town. They’ll be there by morning.”

Erikson caught Alter turning to hide the neatly stitched gash on his arm, and winked. A drop of blood wasn’t going to do them any harm, and over the last few weeks he had come to rely on the old soldier.

“Very well, then,” he said. “Let’s see who we have left.”

 

Only a few score of the company remained unscathed. Although they had only suffered three fatalities, many more had been wounded in the ferocity of the beasts’ onslaught. Gunter was one of the worst off. He had received a deep claw-wound across his already unlovely features, as well as a snapped arm and three shattered ribs.

“How are you doing?” Erikson asked him as he watched one of Gunter’s company strapping the man’s arm to his torso.

“Blessed by Sigmar,” Gunter told him without the slightest trace of irony. Porter, who was counting the cost to his food stores, sniggered behind him. Everybody pretended not to notice.

“I see what you mean,” Erikson said, and as so often was the case when dealing with the faithful, felt himself at a complete loss.

“My injuries will heal, and during that time I will learn the lessons from this combat,” Gunter explained patiently. “Attack from below seems to be the best way to deal with these beasts. Take them in the belly.”

“I had a wench like that once,” said Porter.

“Have you assigned a man to carry that kettle yet?” Erikson snapped, and Porter was suddenly no longer there. Turning back to Gunter he said, “I’m going to have to send all the wounded back. You will be in command of the column. That is, if you think you are strong enough?”

“With Sigmar’s help,” Gunter told him, “we are all strong enough.”

“Good,” Erikson said. “You can take my horse. Just try not to get in any trouble on the way. I want you fit. Freimann has been kind enough to send two of his men back with you. They’ll have you back in no time.”

Freimann nodded. He had been strolling through the company, an expression of vague satisfaction on his face as he studied the blood-soaked bandages and crudely bound limbs.

“They’ll see you clear,” he said. “Now, Captain Erikson. If you are ready, we should make haste.”

“Good luck,” he said to Gunter, then turned away, and Sergeant Alter bellowed the order to march.

Within minutes the unscathed members of the company had left their wounded comrades behind them, swallowed up by the gloom of the forest.

Even though the track had widened and they now travelled mostly downhill, they found the going hard. The day’s march combined with the exhaustion of battle had put lead in their feet, and it was with a feeling of genuine relief that they eventually arrived at a river.

It cut cleanly through the murk of the forest. The light that sparkled on the clear waters was almost blinding in its brightness, and the mayflies that flitted through the rainbows of mist shone like jewels.

“Have you really never been here before?” Erikson asked Freimann as he watched his men splash forwards to quench their thirst and wash the slime of sweat and crushed bugs from their faces.

“Not here,” Freimann said. “But me and my regiment have made the forest our own. We can follow its tracks almost as well as the enemy, and if we don’t have their senses we have the intelligence to make up for it.”

“Your tactics seem to work,” Erikson allowed. “But how can you match their ability to smell?”

“We don’t match it,” Freimann said. “We use it. The smell of blood, especially. It carries for miles, and when they smell it, it does something to them. It shuts down their thinking and blinds them to everything else so that they must follow it. It’s like a drug to them.”

“It seems to make them damned powerful, though,” Erikson said. Freimann just shrugged.

“They can be as powerful as they want, as long as they go where we lead them. Attack where we want them to attack.”

He turned and gave Erikson a long, cool look.

“Our injured…” Erikson began, then felt his mouth go dry. He had been seized with a sudden, nauseating suspicion. “They will be all right, won’t they? Your men will lead them to safety?”

Freimann turned away and looked down the river.

“If we have time, we will set some snares before we leave this place,” he said. “Your villain of a cook can make us some stew.”

“But the injured,” Erikson persisted. “Your men are going to lead them to safety. Aren’t they?”

“One of my earliest memories is of a snare I set one winter,” Freimann continued as if he hadn’t heard the question. “I must have been about five or six. Something like that. I’d set the snare in a hare run, but I caught a fox instead. It was a skinny thing, all fur and ferocity, but it was ablaze with life,” Freimann said with admiration as he gazed sightlessly into the trees on the other side of the river. “When I approached, it snarled and snapped. Then, as I watched, it began to gnaw at its own paw. It seemed to take an age to chew through the joint, but eventually it did.”

He trailed off, lost in the memory. Erikson listened to his men laughing and complaining and arguing as they refreshed themselves in the sunlit waters.

“The blood on the snow was the brightest red I’ve ever seen,” Freimann said at length. “I let it go, limping away on three legs. It must have died soon after, but right then it deserved to live because it understood life. It understood that life is cruel and cold and merciless, and the only way to survive is to be even crueller and colder. Even more merciless.”

“But my men,” Erikson said, trying to drag Freimann back to the point. “They are all bleeding. If the beasts can smell as well as you say they can… I have a responsibility.”

Freimann blinked as if awakening from a dream. When he spoke next it was with his usual carefree insouciance.

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m sure they will be fine.”

This time Erikson saw past Freimann’s easy charm to something that lay behind it. Something that looked a little like blood on the snow. He suppressed a shiver.

“We have to finish this job and get back,” he decided.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Freimann said. “Let’s fill our canteens and get going. I want to find a hilltop to camp on tonight. And I’m suddenly hungry.”

They made the rest of the day’s journey in silence.