Cauldron of Blood by Leo Kessler Read Free Book Online

man lay whimpering on the floor, his hands pressed to his bloody face, he scrambled to his feet. A quick breath and his cruelly-nailed dice-breaker smashed down hard, heel first, into the man’s face. His head clicked to one side; he was unconscious — or dead.
    ‘ Come on, Sarge!’ Someone gasped. It was the Bavarian, scratch-marks disfiguring the whole left side of his face, but his bayonet was red with blood and Schulze did not have to ask how his little battle had gone.
    ‘ Untether the horses!’ he gasped, stepping over the prostrate Russian to slash at the ropes which held the excited twitching stallion.
    In an instant it was gone, mane streaming, galloping madly across the snowy waste, determined to get away from these strange creatures, who had filled its nostrils with the smell of blood.
    Now the rest of the Wotan troopers came running heavily out of the trees and were doing the same, slashing and hacking at the tethers with their bayonets and trench knives, while Matz and the Butcher covered them, lying full length in the snow, weapons directed at the kolhoz .
    ‘ Tempo ... tempo ....’ Schulze gasped, cutting another horse free and with a mighty slap on its gleaming steaming rump sending it off after the others, which were now streaming across the steppe everywhere. ‘It won ‘t be long...’
    The chatter of Matz’s machine pistol drowned the rest of his exhortation. He swung round and stared at the long low building. The first Cossacks were pouring out of the door, packed with the bodies of the cannibals, flinging themselves instantly into the snow and beginning to return Matz’s fire.
    ‘One more minute!’ Schulze bellowed above the snap-and-crackle of the new small-arms battle. ‘I want every damned nag let loose. Come on, get the lead out of yer asses!’
    He flung himself down into the snow next to Butcher and Matz and in the same instant fired a wild burst from his own m.p. He saw the slugs stitch a patter of white to the front of the prostrate Cossacks, each slug striking up a little flurry of snow.
    ‘ We won’t be able to hold them for more than five minutes, Matzi!’ he gasped, ducking as a sudden volley of Russian bullets cut the branches above their heads, showering them with snow. ‘Take off now with the Golden Pheasant.’
    ‘ Why don’t we leave the fat shit? It’s no good to us. Only a burden, Schulzi.’
    ‘ A golden pheasant is always good for something. You never know,’ Schulze cried, squeezing his trigger again, and thus in the midst of battle made the decision which one day would save their lives. ‘Now off with you!’
    Matz argued no more. ‘All right, fat-guts, let’s put some pepper in our pants and make wind.’
    Next moment they were running blindly to the west, followed by the rest of the Wotan troopers, who had now released the last of the Cossack horses, plunging through the knee-deep snow towards a dark sky, which waited for them in grey snow-heavy, anticipation.
    Schulze gave them exactly five minutes, firing quick accurate bursts every time it looked as if the Cossacks might rise and charge the woods. Then, flinging his last grenade and catching a glimpse of the angry bearded face of the giant who led them, rising to his feet and waving his sabre ordering the charge, he and the Butcher were up too and pelting after the others....

 
    SIX
     
    Stolidly, strung out in a long line, they plodded through that vast empty landscape like the last men alive in this world — a trail of insignificant ants across that blinding white carpet. But if it was empty, still that enormous steppe breathed hostility, awesome and brooding.
    The temperature was well below zero and it was unearthly cold. Time and time again an icy wind would race across that limitless plain and lash a million razor-sharp snow particles against their emaciated young faces, thrashing them so cruelly that they cried out loud with pain.
    By now their faces were shining with ice and every breath