Robert Earl - Ancient blood

It was Nellie who saved him from the disgraceful thought. One-eared and grey-muzzled though she was, the hound’s instinctive hatred for these abominations flared and she lengthened her whine into a terrible snarl. The sudden fire that burned within her animal heart stopped her edging back. It stopped her cowering, and, even as her master’s courage was tested, she rushed forward, silent as death as she hurtled towards the nearest of the horrors.

The beastman’s piggy eyes blinked eagerly as it caught sight of its assailant, and even as the hound closed in, it chopped the rusted crescent of its axe blade down onto her.

Another hound would have died, split in two as neatly as a rabbit on a butcher’s block, but not Nellie. Although a great grandmother, she had been dodging blows ever since she had been a pup, and when the axe bit deep, it was into earth. She was already twisting beneath the three-kneed arc of the monster’s legs, her yellowed teeth slicing into the tendons above one of its cloven hooves.

The thing screamed, as she tore out its hamstring. It was a shuddering, soulless sound, and it was enough to slap Stirland from his shock.

“Follow me!” he cried and, the boar spear tucked under his arm like a Bretonnian’s lance, he spurred his horse into a charge. “Follow me! Follow me!”

He ignored the first of the beastmen. It had already been crippled by Nellie, and her pack was closing in to finish the thing off. The elector count dodged to one side, and, roaring with the sudden exhilaration of battle, thrust the point of his spear into the hollow above the following beastman’s collar bone.

The steel tip punched through its throat as neatly as a needle through cloth. It sliced through the arteries and muscles of its neck, and only stopped when it became trapped in the vertebra of the thing’s spine.

Stirland should have released the haft of the weapon, but, in the wild thrill of the moment, his grip remained stubborn. By the time he remembered to loosen his fingers, it was already too late. The counterweight of his enemy’s collapsing body dragged the spear down swiftly enough to hoist him out of his saddle and throw him through the air.

Stirland’s horse whinnied in fright and reared back onto its hind legs. The count saw a blur of stirrups and milling hooves before the jarring impact of his fall splintered his vision into a thousand dancing stars.

He wasn’t stunned for long. The spasming corpse of the beastman filled the count’s senses with the stink of ammonia and rotten meat. The first thing he saw when his vision cleared were the parasites that had already started to swarm from the thing’s filth-matted fur.

Stirland’s gorge rose as he staggered clear. He spat out a mouthful of blood and bile even as he drew his sword. Then, blinking blood from his eyes, he squared his shoulders and prepared to take charge of the battle.

“My lord!” somebody screamed at him.

Stirland turned to see one of the hunt master’s lads waving a spear towards him. The man’s face was pale and blood spattered, and his eyes were wide with fear.

It took Stirland a split second to realise that the man wasn’t pointing the spear at him. He was pointing it at something behind him.

The count turned, just in time to see the nightmare vision of horns, fangs and rotten fur that loomed over him. It had already swung its axe back, ready to deliver a killing blow.

Too stunned to think properly, the count reacted purely by reflex. He was moving before he knew it, rolling beneath the scything blow of the beastman’s arms, and springing back to his feet behind it.

Caught off-balance by the murderous momentum of its attack, the beastman staggered as it turned, and Stirland pounced. His sabre blurred in a backhanded stroke that sent the entire length of its razor edge sawing through hair, hide, muscle and bone.

The blade finished its work in a spray of black blood and Stirland leapt clear. His enemy tried to follow him. Its cloven hoofs managed two faltering steps. Then, with a sticky inevitability, the misshapen lump of its severed head slid from its shoulders and toppled to the ground.

By the time the rest of the corpse had thudded down beside it, Stirland was already peering around him, evaluating, planning, ready to take control.

He flicked the blood from his blade with the unconscious gesture of a cat flicking water from its tail, and chewed his bottom lip as he watched the battle that was raging through the forest around him. It was like a scene from some hellish ballroom. Half-seen figures lunged and staggered through the blackness of the shadows and the stabbing columns of sunlight. Knots of combat tangled man and monster together, tighter than the participants of any quadrille. Meanwhile, the shrieking of the wounded and the cymbal rhythms of steel against steel provided a perfect, maddening music to the carnage.

Many of Stirland’s men had lost their mounts, and, even as he watched, another of them fell. He was dragged from his saddle as his horse reared up, her hooves windmilling at her tormentors, and her eyes white moons of terror in the darkness. Stirland saw the rider crash to the ground in an explosion of leaf litter. The rider’s sword flew from his nerveless fingers, and the two beasts who had felled him closed in with shrieks of glee.

By the time Stirland realised that he was charging, he was almost upon them; almost, but not quite. He saw an axe rise above the dazed rider. A beam of sunlight, catching the rusted metal, seemed to set the killing edge on fire. Before the blade could fall, Stirland roared, his challenge as wordless and animalistic as any made that day.

The two beastmen turned from their victim in time to see the lightning strike of Stirland’s sword. It crunched through the gristle of the nearest monster’s snout, and sliced deep across both of its eye sockets. The beastman leapt back too late, already blinded by blood and pain, and collided with its fellow, who snarled and pushed it away.

As it did so, Stirland struck again, a straight stab that sent the blade punching into the second beast-man’s stomach. The blow was so hard that Stirland bruised his hand against the cross guard of his sword. It was also strong enough to skewer the beast-man as neatly as a butterfly on a pin.

Stirland grinned with a terrible satisfaction as he stepped back, twisting the blade free from his victim’s falling body. Then he reached down, grabbed the fallen rider by his shoulder, and pulled him to his feet.

“No time to be laying about lad,” he said, grinning with a savage good humour, “there’s still work to be done.”

In a couple of moments, Stirland realised that their work was over. The beastmen had vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, slipping back into the vastness of the forest that had birthed them.

“Thank Sigmar,” Stirland muttered. Then, for the first time, he noticed his casualties, the men who lay bloodied among the corpses of their foes. One of them was propped up against a tree trunk, sobbing with pain, as his mate pressed a wad of moss into his wound. Another sat dazed on the ground, staring silently at the corpse of his horse, and the gutted remains of the horror that had killed it. Yet, although many were bleeding, it seemed that none had been killed. It was a miracle.

“Thank Sigmar,” Stirland muttered again, and touched the hammer-headed amulet that he wore around his neck. Then he looked up, and scowled.

“Thorvald,” he called to one of his men, who had regained his mount, and was turning the horse to pursue the retreating foe. “Thorvald!”

The rider looked back over his shoulder.

“Stay in formation,” the elector count snapped.

“Yes, my lord,” the man called reluctantly, and, reining his horse in, he turned back from his pursuit.