Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North by Luke Scull Page A

after a moment’s hesitation grasped it in his own. The crushing grip made the old Highlander wince. He cleared his throat uncertainly. ‘I, ah… don’t suppose you mind if we call you Grunt?’

The Butcher King
     
    The town reeked of death.
    Yllandris hurried towards the western gate, the hood of her purple shawl pulled tight around her head. The silk garment was filthy, stained with old blood and still wet with tears. The sounds of battle grew audible as she neared the gate. The cries of dying men and the howls of the Brethren echoed from beyond Heartstone’s walls.
    Even with her hood pulled up, Yllandris had to raise a hand to her mouth as she skirted the edge of the great pit just outside the gates. Bodies had been piled within, Highlander and beast and even the odd demonkin, foul creatures the colour of raw meat that putrefied hours after death. Though thick black flies swarmed over the corpses of the fallen warriors and Brethren, even they steered well clear of the liquefying remains of the demonkin.
    Yllandris caught a glimpse of the small pile of bones stacked in the corner of the pit and stifled a sudden sob. She glanced away, struggling to hold back fresh tears. The faces of the three children she had been forced to round up for the Herald forced their way into her mind.
    ‘Are you crying?’ asked a young voice. Yllandris quickly wiped her face and saw that the speaker was Corinn, a girl of around twelve winters who had recently been orphaned after her father had perished fighting the Shaman’s forces a week earlier.
    ‘Just dust in my eye,’ Yllandris lied. ‘What are you doing here? This place is not safe for children.’
    ‘I’m not a child,’ Corinn said. ‘I’m a woman near grown.’
    You’re a girl, Yllandris thought angrily. You have no idea what it means to be a woman. The sacrifices we must make.
    ‘You have experienced your first blooding?’
    At Corinn’s hesitant shake of the head, Yllandris pointed towards the south and east. ‘Then you are a child. You should be at the Foundry.’
    The ancient factory had become a refuge of sorts for Heartstone’s increasing population of orphans. The forges burned day and night, churning out weapons and armour to supply the warriors that continued to flood into Heartstone from the Lake Reaching. The orphans had found new purpose within the Foundry’s smoky walls, offering their assistance to the smiths that toiled within. It was hard and dangerous work, but it earned them a meal of an evening and a spot on the floor at night. Even during the short summer months, sundown in the Heartlands saw temperatures fall to near freezing.
    ‘I went to help our men,’ Corinn said. She dropped her blue eyes to the ground and bit her lower lip. ‘My mother taught me how to clean and stitch a wound.’
    Yllandris stared at the girl, noting the blood on her dress, which was tattered and torn. Even so, Corinn, with her warm eyes and blonde hair, was pretty. She reminded Yllandris of her younger self. ‘You should leave the healing of the wounded to the sorceresses,’ she said sternly.
    Corinn pushed a strand of hair from her face and frowned. ‘No one helped my father,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly.
    Yllandris knew what the girl was thinking. The men Krazka spared when he seized Heartstone have been sent out here to die. They are sacrificial pawns, a distraction meant to slow the Shaman’s forces while Krazka marshals the Reachings that have declared for him.
    She searched for words, something to soothe the obvious hurt in this young woman’s eyes. This was unfamiliar territory. She had never given much thought to how others might feel before now. ‘Your father was a brave man,’ she ventured. ‘Honour his memory by staying out of harm’s way.’
    Yllandris hurried past Corinn and the scowling warriors guarding the gate and ascended the hill that rose just beyond the high wooden palisade. This distraction had cost her precious time. She