Patrolling in the Hunger Woods
Rotten twigs snapped beneath Aldric's boots as he carefully combed the Hunger Woods. Gnarled and sickend trees stretched their branches above him. Thorny vines spread across the ground and trees and branches blocking out what little sunlight would have reached him. Aldric would guess it was near midday but the gloom and shadows that surrounded him made it impossible to tell. He moved his crossbow from shadow to shadow. The vampires may have been forced out but that just meant that the dangers remaining were uncoordinated. A soft cracking of twigs behind him gave him warning.
"Hey Aldric! Camp is all set up. You coming back?" Otto called out from behind through the gloom of the woods.
"Yah. Just a second. I'll do one more sweep." Aldric said.
"Alright sir. Don't complain though if there is less food for you though." Otto responded.
Aldric just laughed him off before returning to watch the shadows. Several minutes passed before he was convinced that nothing overall malicious was hiding from his sight. He shouldered his crossbow and turned around searching out the beacon of light and warmth that was his mens' campfire.
It took Aldric several minutes to find his squad but soon he was warming himself while stew simmered and hissed on the fire. It smelled great. Clean meats and vegetables cooked and their aromas reminded him of home on the farm and more innocent times. It was certainly better than the meagre portions they got during the first assaults into these accursed woods. Supplies had stretched thin during those first marches. They had never gone hungry but the thin soups had not been pleasant either. An army would normally forage from the surroundings, and some soldiers did try, but eating anything that lived in the Hunger Woods was risky at best.
As the stew simmered and the light from the fire gamely tried to drive the gloom and shadows away Aldric leaned back on his cloak and let his thoughts wander. Rose was interested in his offer but wasn't willing to marry a soldier on the front. If he could become a senior officer or perhaps…
"Sir?"
"Hmm…" Aldric refocused himself on Matthew who looked at him questioningly. "I am sorry. I didn't hear the question."
"Oh, umm, I was just asking how long you've served in the army sir." Matthew, the newest member of his squad, said. I was just asking everyone that."
Alric sighed. This question always brought back unpleasant memories. "I have marched in Stirland's armies since the push into the Hunter's Hills."
Matthew rocked back a little. "So does that mean you were there?"
Alric grimaced then answered curtly. "If you were asking if I was there at Drakenhof then yes."
Matthew leaned forward, eyes wide. "Did you see it?"
Alric groaned. "Sigmar kid, can't you take a hint? No I didn't see The Hunter Count fall. I also don't want to talk about it." He turned to the rest of his squad, who were trying to avoid his gaze. "We have a busy day tomorrow. Wake me up when the stew is ready."
Alric tried to sleep. Yet sleep eluded him as the sights and sounds of that day years ago emerged in his mind. Of muttered prayers as the Elector count was taken off the battlefield. Of tearful curses and bottomless fear as news spread of the death. The screams of necromancers and the smell of their cooking flesh as they burned on pyres, the wrath of Stirland unquenched by the blood that pooled on Drakenhof's streets. The rolling thunder of great guns that brought judgement upon a mountain.
He had seen worse things since. The great pyres from those caught trying to dredge the Hel Fenn. Forests filled with rotting meat where ghouls clawed and ate each other. The Battle of the Eisig where the rotted blood of beasts and ghouls mixed and flowed with the clean blood of honest Stirlanders and turned the river a putrid color. Yet his memories of streets covered with blood mixed ash were vivid in ways the others weren't.
A foul scream cleared any thoughts from his mind as he wiped his blade free and rolled into a crouch. Two ghouls hissed and howled at them while dancing between the light of the fire and the darkness of the trees. A hand hung by strips of flesh from the jaws of a ghoul was fresher than the rest of the putrid meat covering the ghoul. Aldric recognized the scars on the hand. Those bastards got the lookout.
Around him the rest of the squad had their swords out, or in Otto's case his mace and book, except for Matthew who was petrified and was struggling to prepare for the coming onslaught. The dark gleam of rotten blood was the only warning Aldric had as one of the ghouls surged forward towards him. It's filthy claws swept forward in a raking motion intended to disembowel. Aldric managed to move his sword in between the claws to parry and the weight of the creature caused his sword to slice through two of the beasts fingers. They went spinning away into the fire causing embers to burst from the disturbed wood. Aldric didn't have a chance to appreciate the dancing sparks as the ghoul, unburdened by things like pain, continued forward and bowled into him sending Aldric tumbling to the ground.
The ghoul snapped it's jaw. The scouts hand, hanging by strips of skin, slapped into Aldric's chest. He could see down the beasts throat as it tried again to bite into his neck. His sword dug painfully into his ribs, but by the grace of Sigmar had also trapped the beasts arm against it's chest. The beast tried to lunge forward. It's weight caused the sword to dig deeper into both its arm and Aldric's ribs. Whatever primal intellect existed inside the foul creature had decided to use its other arm to keep steady atop Aldric while it tried to bite into Aldric's exposed neck. The ghoul snapped its jaws again. Again the blade sunk deeper into both of their flesh.
One of Aldric's hands was trapped by his sword's hilt and the ground but he managed to rear his other hand back and smash it into the ghouls face. His boiled leather gloves protected him, mostly, from the boney spikes. Again! And again he smashed his fist into the ghoul's head. After the third strike the ghoul tried to pull his arm across Aldric's body to swat the fist away. Aldric's sword though had sunk in too far for the ghoul's arm to be freed by such a motion. Aldric screamed in pain as the sword shifted on his rib. Aldric punched again!
At this fourth punch the ghoul seemed to have enough. It leapt away from Aldric and peddled backwards. Straight into the campfire. The ghoul howled again as sparks danced around it and stew poured onto the ground. Aldric ripped his sword free from his side and tried to ignore the stars that lit up from the pain. A glint of steel in the quickly dying light caught Aldric's eye. It was Matthew. He had finally freed his sword and entered the fray. The swing was weak. It moved slowly and even wobbled to Aldric's eye. Yet it was enough to cause the ghoul to swing around to the new threat and move backwards again. Aldric thrust his sword straight into the ghoul's knee. The ghoul screamed and its good leg kicked backwards. Aldric released his sword and rolled with the blow despite the pain.
Aldric straightened up by a wood pile as the ghoul turned around again. It limped side to side as it dragged it's dead leg, sword still trapped by its flesh, around. Aldric knelt down and picked up one of the logs set aside for burning. The light in the clearing was nearly gone as the fire was guttering out on the few logs it had held onto when the campfire was scattered. When Aldric knelt the ghoul, no doubt sensing weakness, leapt towards Aldric again. Aldric was ready this time though. How long had it been since he had done this? He remembered as a child he thought that his life would be mastering this one thing. Then the call for adventure came. Yet even now, in the depths of the Hunger Woods, the truth remained. He was born a farmer's son. And a farmer's son quickly learned how to swing a hoe. So, despite the pain flaring in his side Aldric twisted his back and like a hoe was swung down on soil Aldric swung the firewood down on the ghouls head.
The wood splintered under his hand as it hit the ghoul. But it did the job it needed to. With the jarring impact the ghoul slumped down. Its forward momentum burying its face in the ground. It was a target not even Matthew could miss and with only a little wobbling of the blade his sword pierced the back of the ghouls head severing the spine. A small light bobbed up and Aldric could see that the job was finished. The other ghoul had apparently decided eating the organs of the man it had opened up was more important than protecting itself letting Otto cave its skull in.
Aldric coughed in pain and called out for a roll call. Otto responded first before starting the final rites of the slain men. Several others called out as they stepped back into the light provided by the floating orb and finally Matthew, his voice breaking from fear, called out. Aldric grimaced. Both from the pain and the four souls eaten by the eternal hunger of these woods.
"Alright men!" Aldric called out before coughing again. "We survived but we need to haul ass back to base. We're too bloodied to continue patrolling out here. Start gathering branches for stretchers. We won't let any necromancers get our friends." Aldric spat off to the side. Clear, thank Sigmar. Then he started to help make stretchers. The night had just begun and they would need to move fast to make it to safety.
Omake for the Omake throne
@BoneyM
Had this thought while thinking about the poor sods tasked with patrolling the Hunger Woods trying to clear it up. I am pretty happy with this piece and this is the first fight scene I actually enjoyed writing. If you have an critiques please share them as they make me a better writer.
