Forged in Battle Read Online Free PDF Page A

his hands
shaking uncontrollably.
    “You can put that away now,” Sigmund said. Elias nodded but
did not move. “The sword,” Sigmund said, “you can put it away now.”
    Elias reddened and slid the blade into his scabbard.
    “Where’s your halberd?”
    Elias looked back towards the carriages, where the beastman he had killed was
still pinned to the painted woodwork.
    “Let’s go get it,” Edmunt said and led the boy back to the
farthest carriage, where the beastman had been impaled through the shoulder. The
body hung off-centre, Edmunt pulled the blade free and clapped Elias on the
shoulder.
    “Looks like you got one!” Sigmund said and gave him back his halberd.
    Elias nodded. I got two, he thought. I got two, he told himself and
grinned.
     
    When the beastmen corpses were dumped to the side of the
road, Elias could not resist going to have a look. They were not much larger
than children, with the beginnings of horns through the matt of fur, like young
kids. Apart from the vertical pupils and the needle-sharp teeth, they had a
strange beauty about them.
    “Just wait till you see the big ones!” Freidel told him as he
threw the last corpse onto the pile. “There’s nothing pretty about them!”
    Edmunt took a cloth and dipped it into the blood of a beastman.
    The men chuckled as the new boy was pushed forward. Edmunt smeared blood on
both Elias’ cheeks.
    “Now!” he said. “You’re a real halberdier!”
     
    Gunter’s men were assigned the job of burying the dead. They
set to with crude picks, scraping away half a foot of dead leaves and then
moving away as much earth as they could before they hit a tangle of roots.
    “That’s enough!” Gunter said. The halberdiers took each dead
man by the feet, dragged them over to the pit and dropped them in. The dead
coachman’s neck had been cut through almost to the bone. His head flopped
unnaturally as they put him down.
    Gaston leaned down to straighten the head.
    “Why did you do that?” Schwartz said as they walked to get
the next. “It won’t make any difference where he’s gone.”
    “I’ll remember not to do it for you.”
    “Now I didn’t say that,” Schwartz said as they lifted the
guard from the back of the coach. The dead man’s hands still gripped the
blunderbuss. He looked to have been in the process of reloading when a spear
thrust had run him through.
    He was fatter than the coachman. Gaston and Schwartz lifted
him like the others, but there was a grunt, and they dropped the body in
surprise.
    “He’s still alive,” Gaston said.
    “Never!”
    The man’s guts were spilling out from under his shirt. Belly
wounds were the slowest and most painful sort. Better cut your throat than wait
to die of a gut wound.
    Gaston drew his knife and held the blade over the man’s mouth
for a few moments. When he took it away there was a film of condensation.
    “He’s breathing,” Gaston said.
    “Poor bastard,” Schwartz said.
    Gaston sighed. There was no point taking the man with them.
He’d die if they tried to move him. If they left him where he was then he’d die
anyway.
    “We can’t bury him alive,” Gaston said, and bent over the
man’s head.
    When Gaston stood up the man’s neck had been slashed. The
deep cut oozed fresh blood. Gaston wiped his knife on the guard’s coat. He and
Schwartz mumbled a quick prayer to Morr, then lifted the dead man and laid him
on top of his erstwhile companions.
     
    The last to go into the pit was Petr. Baltzer went through
his pockets and took out a silver hammer from the thong on his neck.
    “For his family,” Baltzer said but no one took much notice.
None of them knew who his family were. As long as Baltzer didn’t go near their
pockets they were fine.
    By the time they had finished disposing of the bodies,
Morrslieb was rising up through the dark trees trunks.
    “Hurry now!” Gunter shouted as they shovelled the dirt back
over them all, then they piled up stones and