Forged in Battle by Justin Hunter - (ebook by Undead)

chuckling as he stooped to pass through the
sick room doorway. There were five beds, crammed together, and on one of them
sat Elias, looking bored.
    “How’s the arm?”
    “It’s alright,” Elias said but he didn’t look good.
    Sigmund felt the young man’s forehead. The lad was feverish.
The wound must have gotten infected. “Let me have a look at that,” Sigmund said
and began to unwrap the bandage.
    As the last wet wrapper came away he saw that the wound was
oozing green pus. Sigmund frowned. “Who cleaned this wound?”
    “Freidel.”
    Sigmund shook his head, stood up and moved to the doorway. He
could see Schwartz coming back from the latrine. “Get Freidel!” Sigmund shouted.
“I want him to fetch the apothecary. And run!”
     
    Vasir did not dare sleep, but at some point he must have
dropped off and jerked awake as dawn began to bleach the sky. Beneath him he
could see shapes moving: horned shapes.
    Vasir was so frightened he stopped breathing. They have come
for you, he told himself as the enormous figures passed not more than a hand’s
reach beneath his perch. They’ve tracked you here, he told himself, but that was
impossible. He’d crossed streams, ducked through stinking patches of wild
garlic, taken circuitous routes through rock fields. It was impossible to follow
a scent through all that.
    Impossible, he told himself. If they’d tracked you then one
of them would be looking up this tree straight at you. Ill fate has brought them
here. Nothing more. Don’t move, don’t breathe, and don’t let them smell me!
    It was several minutes before all the beastmen had passed.
Vasir thanked Taal for his benevolence.
     
    The beastmen knew a different world to that of men: found
their way by sacred rocks or twisted and macabre trees that were imbued with a
dull sense of hatred for living things. They’d lived in the hills since time
immemorial: had ranged right down to the river—until the Great Slayer came and
killed their chieftain, and destroyed their most sacred herdstone.
    Since then they’d brooded, nurturing their hatred as
carefully as a flame: feeding it, letting it grow. Deep in the hills they’d been
gathering their strength, and now the two-horned star had been seen, the
prophecies were true.
    It was time for the gathering.
     
    This sacred shrine had once been in the heart of beastman
country, but now humans had come up even into these hills: cut down trees and
planted seeds in the ground. The beastmen could smell their fires, smell cooking
meat, and knew that the time had come.
    Azgrak knew that this was his time. As soon as he’d seen the
two-horned star, animal impulse had compelled him to follow the summons. He
stood, stark albino white, glowing in the half light of dawn, his fingers
flexing over and over in some mad impulse. Behind him his bodyguard stood,
bearing the banners they’d found on their way to the gathering: the skinned
bodies of men. Around the circle he saw the other tribal leaders. Fat Potgut—the Red Killer, whose belt was made of linked human heads, their hair plaited to
form a gruesome belt.
    Brazak—the bloated beast, whose skin bubbled with
suppurating sores that boiled and popped and oozed a sticky white pus.
    And of course, Uzrak the Black who had ruled the plateau
since Azgrak was weaned from his mother’s udders. But Uzrak’s fur was starting
to grey. If the star had come a few winters earlier then Uzrak might be the
undisputed leader but now…
    Azgrak let out a low growl. It was involuntary: the bloodlust
was coming onto him again as the shaman strode into the middle of the square.
All the tribe leaders knew what they were here for: to choose a leader. Any who
contested leadership had to fight for it, or die.
    The shaman shook his man-skull rattle. It was time.
    Uzrak stepped into the crude ring of stones—daring any to
challenge his leadership.
    Azgrak growled again, unable to keep the fury inside. He
snorted and flexed his