Forged in Battle (Warhammer Fantasy) by Justin Hunter

Author:Justin Hunter [Hunter, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2012-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The sun set through the haze of smoke like a ruddy ball of blood.

Andres let the dogs out for the night, then he shut the house door and sat down. The remaining four mill-hands watched as he poured himself a cup of kirsch and began to recount stories of past battles.

The first battle he fought was against the Count of Ostland. The Talabec army was outnumbered two to one, and they had lined up on the upper slopes of a broad hill: infantry in the centre and cavalry on the wings. He told how the Ostlanders had crossed the ford and lined up with the river at their backs. They’d looked garish and extravagantly dressed in their fine uniforms and feathers. They were so close that he could make out the gilt touches on the armour of the Ostland pistoliers who had pushed up to test the Talabecland right wing.

For a number of hours the armies traded cannon and musket shot. The Ostland cavalry swept the Talabec right from the field and then the Ostland infantry had struck up their marching tunes and advanced.

His memories were blurred from then. While the Ostland cavalry was looting their baggage train, the Talabec cavalry had broken the Ostland right and fallen upon the Ostland rear, which had panicked and fled. It seemed like half an hour had gone by – but when the battle ended the sun was setting and hours must have passed. How they had drunk that night!

He told them of another time when he had faced a rabble of revolting peasants from south-west Talabecland. They had formed themselves into a mock army: shoe lasts or buckets atop their banner poles. They gave themselves grand titles such as the Grand Army of Rustic Unity or the Brothers of Branbeck. They had hired the help of Tilean mercenaries and the Tilean pikemen were the only ones who put up a fight. They repulsed three attacks from the halberdiers and handgunner columns before the greatswords were sent in. Andres looked up at his zweihander and laughed as he remembered how they had cut through the thicket of pike shafts and then closed in on the startled Tileans and set to in a ferocious hand to hand struggle. The Tileans fought well, but they were surrounded and beaten and after an hour their leader limped out from their lines to surrender.

Andres spat. The fleeing peasants had looted the mercenaries’ camp during the fighting and the next day the Tileans joined in the hunt. They hung hundreds of rebels, he remembered. Taught those men a lesson they would never forget.

As the night went on and Andres drank more his memories turned maudlin. As common as the victories were battles that neither side won outright. The time his best friend, fellow Helmstrumburger, Johann Kilmar, was killed. The last story was the one in which he lost the lower half of his leg: not to an enemy’s sword, but to the surgeon’s knife and saw. There

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