Death's Angels

Chapter One

“I hate those bastards. They think they are better than us just because their ears come to a point,” said the Barbarian. He chewed at the drooping strands of his long walrus moustache and glared at the scarlet-coated Terrarch courier striding away down the hill.

“No offence, Halfbreed,” the Barbarian added almost as an afterthought. He scratched his bald pate then ran his fingers through the fringe of long blonde hair surrounding it as if checking to see whether any had grown back since the last time he had done so.

“None taken,” Rik assured him. He was only nineteen years old and the Barbarian was pushing forty but that was his only advantage. Although he was tall, the Barbarian was a head taller still and almost twice as heavy. Most of that extra weight was muscle. On top of that the big man was the regimental bare-knuckle champion.

Leon gave Rik a supportive wink and then returned to packing his gear. As always, he had a clay pipe stuck jauntily in his mouth. It looked ludicrous when combined with his pinched street urchin’s features. Leon had watched his back since they were children in the rough streets of Sorrow, and Rik was glad of his presence now.

“They think they are better than you because they are immortal and wise and the chosen of God,” said Gunther, his lean face constricted with passion. “It is something you’d do well to remember.”

“If I hear one more word out of you about the chosen of your God, I’ll send you to him,” said the Barbarian. Gunther showed no fear. He was as tall as the Barbarian, and although much skinnier he had a wiry strength that made him a formidable fighter. And, of course, he had God on his side. He would need all the divine assistance he could get if he was going to fight with the Barbarian, Rik thought.

Toadface and Handsome Jan looked on with keen interest. Any moment now they would start making bets on the outcome of the fight. Toadface’s protuberant eyes bulged even more than usual now that he was excited. His long tongue licked his thick lips, making him look like a glutton contemplating a feast. Handsome Jan had stopped contemplating his profile in the shard of mirror he always carried, for a moment.

“You’d both better speak a bit lower,” said Sergeant Hef, moving between them. The top of his three-cornered hat only came up to the middle of the big men’s chests, but he had an undeniable authority. “If the pointy ears hear you, it’s a taste of the cat you’ll be getting.”

“Will it now?” said the Barbarian. “And do you think that bothers me?”

“It will if it happens,” said the Sergeant, sucking his teeth, his lined face and wrinkled expression making him look more like a monkey than ever.

"I am not one of you soft Southerners," The Barbarian said but his voice was softer now.

The Sergeant shook his head and went back to getting his gear in order in obedience to the lieutenant’s order. His long-barrelled rifle lay propped up on his rucksack.

“Have you so soon forgotten the last lashing you took?”

Rik doubted that anyone could forget a lashing. He would never forget the five lashes he had got a couple of months back, nor forgive Lieutenant Sardec for ordering it. The lick of the cat was not something that easily slipped from the mind.

The Barbarian put his finger in his mouth and became a study of a simple-minded attempt at remembrance. His blank-faced stupidity made everybody laugh, even the Sergeant, but it slipped no one’s mind that it had been less than a year since the Barbarian’s last encounter with the whipping post. He had been dragged away from that with his back bleeding, and barely conscious. The scars were visible when he took off his green tunic. He would carry them to the grave.

“I still hate the pointy eared bastards,” the Barbarian muttered. But of course he didn’t, not really, Rik thought. He disliked their Terrarch masters, resented their authority and power, and grumbled about it, but he did not truly hate them, not the way Rik did. Then again, the Terrarchs had not ruined the Barbarian’s life the way they had ruined his.

Rik hefted his heavy pack. The pot and cup and anything that might clank were wrapped inside his change of clothes. His greatcoat, not needed in the mild early spring weather, was rolled up and fastened to it by leather straps.

Before lifting the rifle he made sure all his pockets were full of wax paper cartridges, both pistols were in his belt and his tricorn hat was clamped down firmly on his head. Whatever had glory-mad Lieutenant Sardec so keen to get them out of camp was most likely not something to meet with unprepared. All the talk of war had everybody on edge, and they were far too close to the Kharadrean border for comfort. The flintlock felt reassuringly heavy in his hand.

Having made his point the Barbarian went about his business. He heaped what little gear he had into his pack and tested the heavy hill-man fighting knife he always carried on the air before sheathing it and picking up his own rifle. The knife was the size of a short-sword. The Barbarian was from Segard and like most of the denizens of his cold northern homeland he had little faith in gunpowder weapons. Having had his own share of misfires and damp powder during his four years with the army, Rik could understand that.

Off in the distance Corporal Toby bellowed orders to the rest of the Foragers. Since Toby’s speech was like an ordinary man’s shouting, the noise was not to be ignored.

“Old Toby surely likes the sound of his voice, doesn’t he?” muttered Leon, fitting his lucky goose’s feather into his tricorn the way he always did before action.

“He’s the only one,” said Rik. Leon’s laugh came out as small whistling noises vented through the pipe.

“Why is it always the poor bloody Foragers who get the hard work?” the Barbarian said.

“Because it’s our job,” said the Sergeant. “When you want rows of musketeers all marching in step you go to the line infantry; when you want things scouted it’s to the light companies you go. I would have thought that even you would have got that through your thick head by now.”

Sometimes the Sergeant took the Barbarian’s rhetorical questions too literally, Rik thought.

Soon, they had formed up in a line and were wending their way towards the great Redoubt. As they did so other squads joined them. All in all there were about ninety men, all light infantry and rangers: pretty much all the Foragers in camp at that time. Corporal Toby stood at the side of the path, his great chubby ruddy-cheeked face redder than ever as he checked off the name of every ragged-uniformed soldier who passed.

The camp was situated on a range of hills overlooking the town of Redtower. The great peaks of the Giant's Shield Mountains marched away north and south. From the hillside they had a good view of the town below and the open fields surrounding it. The great dragonspire of the Temple of the Terrarchs dominated the skyline. Leathery-skinned devilwings circled it on huge bat-like pinions, skimming over the red-tiled roofs to catch rats and pigeons and other prey in their long, serrated-toothed beaks.

All the flyers avoided the massive crimson tower of Lady Asea’s palace, as if afraid of it. They were probably right to be scared of that ancient structure. Most people were, even though the town took its name from it. They said the sorceress was two thousand years old, and steeped in sin. She was already ancient a thousand years ago when the Terrarchs conquered this world with their dragons and their wyrms, and she would probably live to see the end of it.

As ever, curiosity about what she was like warred with fear in his mind. The intrigues of Lady Asea were said to have been one of the prime causes of the civil war that had torn the Terrarch Empire apart and left it a patchwork of warring realms.

Lines of wagons converged on the town from all over. In the year they had stationed here, Rik had never seen the roads so busy. He reckoned it must be true. The army was preparing to move into Kharadrea. And in far more force than the one regiment that was normally stationed at this border post.

As they strode along, the mocking shouts from the Skywatchers distracted him.

“Going for a little walk, are we?”

“Taking a stroll in the woods?”

“Lieutenant going to teach you to shoot?”

The last was an allusion to the marksmanship contest that the Foragers had lost to the Skywatchers the previous week. Most people still could not understand how it happened. Weasel and Leon were the two best shots in the regiment. Rik had his own suspicions. There was very little Weasel would not do to win money even if it meant betting against himself. Rik was certain that the former poacher had somehow persuaded Leon to go along. The scrawny little lad had always been malleable by any evil influence, particularly when ill-gotten gains were involved.

“I’ll teach you how to sit on a bayonet,” bellowed the Barbarian, who had lost quite a lot of copper betting on his friends. It was still a sore spot with him.

“Hush,” said the Sergeant. “There will be time enough to pay them back in months to come.” It sounded like he had a plan.

Weasel loped towards them from the tent village of the camp-followers. His tatty green uniform looked worse than ever as it clung to his long lean frame. He appeared to have lost his hat again, and his narrow, bald head on its long neck made him look even more rodent-like than ever. The nostrils twitched in his huge nose as if scenting for danger.

“Nice of you to join us,” said the Sergeant. “Any later and you would be competing with the Barbarian and Gunther for a place on the whipping post.”

“Just making sure your wife was satisfied,” said Weasel. He was one of those who, without having any rank whatsoever, still managed to wield a great deal of influence in the regiment. It came by way of his involvement with the Quartermaster’s countless black-market schemes. Still, he must have been feeling particularly cocky today, or even he would not have taken that tone with the Sergeant.

Sergeant Hef raised an eyebrow. Such talk was water off a duck’s back to him. He and Marcie had been together as long as anybody could remember, had numerous sprogs and, as far as anyone knew, had never even looked at anybody else from the day they met. It would take more than Weasel’s leering insinuations to upset him.

“With the rabbits,” said Weasel, with a comedian’s timing, his tone all wounded innocence. “With the rabbits I sold her. Not what these dirty-minded louts were thinking at all.”

The Sergeant shook his head. “One day you’ll dig your own grave with that tongue of yours,” he said.

“It’s the only digging he’ll ever do,” said Gunther. “Never seen that one do a lick of work.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Weasel. “Tupping your girlfriend is work.”

Gunther’s face congested with rage. His hand went to the butt of his pistol but somehow Weasel’s long bony fingers already contained a knife.

“That’s enough the pair of you,” said the Sergeant, in a voice that let them both know the fun was over. For such a small man he had a lot of authority. “It’s stripes on both your backs you’ll be getting if you keep up this nonsense.”

Weasel gave him a wink. Gunther subsided into the muted fury that was almost perpetual with him when he was not quivering in awe and fear of his angry god.

“What the hell,” said the Barbarian.

“Look, Rik, a dragon,” said Leon. Somehow despite his veneer of streetwise sophistication, something in Leon’s voice made it sound as if the dragon was something wonderful he was seeing for the first time.

“I see it, Leon,” said Rik. He was a little annoyed. Like most of the Foragers he preferred his nickname to his real name. The other one brought back far too many bad memories.

The whole unit looked up as a dragon passed overhead, silhouetted against the greyish clouds. The wind of its passage ruffled their jackets. Its vast wings, massive as the sails of a caravel, cast a huge shadow on the land below. Its long serpentine neck stretched forward at full extension and the great triangular head briefly gave it the look of a spear in flight. Its rider’s polished armour glittered in the dim sunlight. It was moving at quite a pace as it spiralled in to land within the massive stone walls surrounding the Redoubt.

A mutter passed up the line of Foragers. It had been a long time since any of them had seen a dragon, since before they had been dispatched to this benighted strip of borderland, and Rik wondered what message its courier brought. He knew they were all thinking the same thing: war.

The Sergeant just shrugged and said; “We’ll know soon enough.”

They passed the camp followers washing linen in the stream and carrying buckets of water back to the patched tents and hastily built hovels that were home. Small dogs and spine-backed wyrmhounds romped in the muck. Mud clung to the women’s bare feet, and dirty-faced urchins to their shawls. Most looked hungry. It was not much fun being a soldier’s brat. Still, Rik thought, most of them had it better than he did at their age. The streets of Shadzar, the Place of Sorrow, had been hard on orphan boys, particularly on one thought to be the bastard get of a Terrarch.

Shoulders straightened and even Weasel stopped whistling as they reached the village around the Redoubt. Most of the regiment’s officers were quartered in the Inn or the low stone built houses and the Terrarchs were always sticklers for discipline. The ten storey fortress loomed above them, rising from a walled promontory that added thirty feet to its height.

Atop its tower the huge black banner from which the regiment took its name flew proudly beside the Red Dragon of Talorea. The regimental flag showed a beautiful naked woman with the wings of a dragon and a rune-encrusted scythe in her hand; Arazaela, the Angel of Death. Beneath her were inscribed the words Death’s Angels All Are We in the high tongue of the Exalted. Rik could not make out all the details at this distance but he could picture it well enough. Its replica fluttered on the standards of all nine companies.

Those banners had flown over a thousand battlefields in the five centuries since the regiments founding and would doubtless fly over a thousand more but Rik’s heart did not lift at the sight. In this he knew he was among the minority of the men. He took no great pride in walking among the Angels.

Tall scarlet-jacketed officers strode back and forth, stick-lean, their narrow ageless triangular faces covered in that expression of bored haughtiness that seemed moulded onto their features at birth. Their long pigtails of fine hair swung like the tails of stalking cats as they walked. He fought down old hatred and old fear at the sight. His own face bore a resemblance to theirs, the same finely sculpted features, the same cold purple eyes, the same ash-blonde hair, the same narrow chin; a gift from his unknown father, the only patrimony he ever got from him.

He was not sure whether the frosty looks directed at him were a product of his imagination or simple reality. Perhaps it was merely in his mind. The Terrarchs looked that way at everybody. They were the lords of creation, and had been since they conquered Gaeia a thousand years ago.

The acrid smell of wyrm filled the village air. As the men passed, ferocious hunting ripjacks lashed their long tails and slammed themselves against the bars of their iron cages, each a wingless, blood-mad, bi-pedal dragon in miniature. Hunger and hate burned in their tiny snake eyes. They raised themselves to the height of a man on huge hind legs that ended in massive claws and razor sharp dagger-like spurs. They made what looked suspiciously like obscene gestures with their tiny vestigial forearms.

Their long necks undulated serpentinely. Rik smelled the stale blood and meat on their breath as it emerged from enormous snap-toothed mouths that could take off a man’s arm at a bite. He felt the furnace blast of their ferocity. Their alien masters loved these hunting wyrms. Years before, Rik had seen a group of Terrarchs run down condemned prisoners with a pack of them. It was something he had never forgotten. There had not even been enough of the bodies left over for burning.

The Foragers fell into a neat line in the square across from the Inn. Just beyond it was the ditch with its earthwork bridge that surrounded the Redoubt. A group of Terrarch officers mounted on destriers jogged across it and rode by. Servant girls came and went carrying burdens of laundry and food under the appreciative eye of the soldiers.

Lieutenant Sardec emerged from the Inn. He moved along the line inspecting the humans with those curious cat-like Terrarch eyes. In his red uniform with its gold braid, he looked less like one of the Chosen of God and more like an emissary of the Shadow. Try as he might, Rik could not push that particularly heretical thought from his mind. He told himself it was merely his own dislike talking; the product of the endless vendetta the officer seemed to have with him.

Sardec must have sensed the thought passing through his head because he paused in front of Rik. “A button missing here, Sergeant,” he said, pointing at the open eyelet in Rik’s tunic. “See that this…soldier is given extra duties this evening. Perhaps that will teach him to take better care of her majesty’s property. If that does not teach him, there is always the lick of the cat.”

“Aye, sir,” said Sergeant Hef, his face an expressionless mask.

It annoyed Rik that he flinched when Sardec had mentioned the cat but at least he had held his mouth firmly closed. He had wanted to protest. If missing buttons were a cause for disciplinary action more than half the men in this troop should be punished. Of course, that was not what he was being singled out for. His real crime was that he looked like a Terrarch and wore the uniform of a common infantryman. Shaking his head Sardec took up a position in front of the entire regiment.

“All right, men,” Sardec said, turning the word men into a sneer in the way only one of the Elder Race could. “Listen to me. We are heading out into the hills to catch some of the raiders that have plagued these lands. We’ve got word where we’re going to find them, and we’re going to take some and hang them from the trees as an example to their brethren. No more kidnappings. No more ambushes. No more travellers going missing.”

He spoke loudly almost as if he hoped he would be overheard by hill tribe spies. That was typical of his vanity. Sardec probably thought mere word of his coming would send the tribesmen running in panic. No one said anything. The company had that much discipline in the presence of an Exalted, Foragers though they were, but a rustle of excitement passed along the line.

Despite his pique over the punishment detail, Rik noticed Weasel stiffen a little — he suspected that, at least in part, the raiders had eluded the patrols for so long because of Weasel’s efforts and the Quartermaster’s, and maybe the Barbarian’s. If there was a dishonest penny to be made, Weasel would find a way to make it.

Rik did not really blame him. All of them were dirt-poor, despised by the local farmers for stealing their sheep and their daughters, sometimes for the same purpose or so the farmers affected to believe. Until recently it had not mattered to any of them if the hill-men got away, just so long as they did not take any pot-shots at the patrols.

To be honest Rik had the impression that the Terrarchs had not really cared all that much either. They all seemed to think the Regiment had been sent here for another purpose. It had not escaped anyone's notice that they had been billeted below the mouth of Broken Tooth Pass. Across the border lay Kharadrea and beyond that the ancient enemy, the Dark Empire of Sardea. For weeks there had been rumours going back and forth about their reasons for being there. Since the death of Lord Orodruine, the struggle for the Kharadrean succession had been bitter.

Kharadrea had been a buffer between Talorea and the Dark Empire for over a hundred years. Before that it had been a battleground between the two warring factions of the Terrarch civil war for over five centuries. Now every peddler, every refugee and every mendicant monk brought stories that the regime in the East had been spending gold like water, seeking to bring Kharadrea under its wing, bribing voters in the Kharadrean parliament and paying for mercenaries to support their chosen contender.

The Legion of Exiles, a deadly force of renegade Sardean nobles and sorcerers was said to be supporting Prince Khaldarus. The Queen of Talorea and her Council could not afford to allow a Blue ruler to come to the throne. With King Aquileus of Valon ever hungry for conquest on her western border, Queen Arielle could not afford to have Kharadrea fall to the Dark Empire. That would mean Blue nations on both borders, and a two front war against a pair of the strongest land powers on the Ascalean continent. It had always only been a matter of time before the drums rolled and the trumpets sounded. It looked like that time had come.

Rik’s eyes were drawn to a small figure lurking in the door of the Inn. The Lieutenant beckoned to the man, who fell in beside him. The newcomer was armed with a very long barrelled musket, and dressed in the rough sheepskin jacket and fur hat of a mountain man. His trousers and scarf were of some blueish plaid. One thing was for sure, he was no soldier. He must be a local guide of some sort then. Perhaps the Terrarchs really were going to do something about the disappearances.

In recent months it had not just been sheep and cattle that had gone missing, but children and solitary travellers. There had been no demands for ransom which made people uneasy. The old ways had died hard in the mountains, and there were said to be some who still followed the ancient ways of worship. The mountain men had been among the most fanatical worshippers of the old Demon Gods, and had never been fully converted. Recently there had been word of some new Prophet of the elder ways rising in the hills, stirring the tribes up to new heights of religious craziness.

“This is Vosh. He is our guide,” said the Lieutenant. “Protect him with your lives.”

Sure, we’ll do that, thought Rik. Like any Forager would risk his life for somebody not in the regiment, a hill-man in particular.

The Lieutenant guided them and his new friend towards the wyrm corrals. Under the gaze of the other Exalted the squad remained silent. Privileged as the Foragers were, the Terrarchs would still take the cat to them if they thought them disrespectful, and no one could ever really be sure what one of the pointy ears would find an assault on his dignity.

The dry reptilian odour of their skin and the odd acrid stink of wyrm dung smote Rik’s nostrils as they approached the lair. He felt himself grow tense as he usually did in their presence. Bridgebacks were far less given to sudden blind rages than their winged draconic cousins or even other wyrms like ripjacks or shieldhorns, but he found them terrifying enough in their own way. He had always thought it best to exercise a healthy caution in the presence of a creature that could squash him beneath its taloned foot.

Each great scaly quadruped was as tall as a house. Their wedge-shaped heads were smaller in proportion to their bodies than a ripjack’s and their necks longer even than their upright hunting cousins. There was still a great deal of the dragon in them even if it was a dragon grown fat and slow and stupid. Their enormous beaked mouths, so like those of a snapping turtle, could take off a man’s limb as easily as a seamstress’s scissors snipped cloth.

There were about twenty of the great wyrms in this corral. Some of the females in must were leagues away in a separate corral lest their scent get the males all upset and fighting. The others were out on patrol or had been loaned out to various local farmers for work clearing the land of tree stumps and such.

The Queen’s army liked to keep its components busy, be they man, beast or Terrarch. And it liked those components to turn a profit if they could. It was an article of faith among the Supreme Command that war must finance itself. In peace too, an army must pay its way if it could. Of course most of the gold would find its way into the pockets of the officers but the Queen did not grudge them it. It helped pay for their fine scarlet uniforms and their truesilver blades.

Lieutenant Sardec strode forward and lectured the mahouts. Sardec made a point of letting everybody know he came of old dragon-riding stock, lack a dragon though he currently might, so his manner was frosty.

It appeared he was expected. Ten of the bridgebacks were ready, kneeling on all four great columnar legs, with howdahs strapped on their backs. The wyrm's heads turned to survey the Foragers as they approached. There was a strong suggestion of brute curiosity in their small reptilian eyes.

As the men got closer one of wyrms hissed like a boiling kettle steaming on a fire. It made as if to rise, and some of the Foragers flinched back and raised their rifles. Bridgebacks had been known to run amok. One of the drivers said something in the low secret language of his caste. The wyrm subsided again, and became peaceful save for the way it tasted the air with its long flickering tongue. Occasionally it felt for its drivers face with it, and he let it do so with every sign of affection. Rik was not sure he could have stood that himself.

“Mount up,” said the Lieutenant, and the soldiers swarmed up the rope ladders into the howdahs. Somehow a dozen got onto one wyrm and eight onto another and they spent a couple of minutes getting the numbers balanced while the drivers prepared their beasts for the off, snapping metal clips into place within the beast’s sensitive ear-holes. By pulling the reins attached to the ears and shouting commands they guided their massive charges to and fro.

The noise of the bridgebacks was so loud it almost drowned out Corporal Toby’s shouts. Eventually all the mahouts had taken up their position on the high partially enclosed prow of the howdahs, screened off from the soldiers within by thick wooden walls designed to protect them from enemy fire.

As they made ready to depart another figure appeared, one that Rik was not in the least glad to see. It was a Terrarch, dressed in a long jewel-buttoned red greatcoat, but even leaner and thinner than usual and with the top half of his face obscured by a moulded silver mask. Instead of having his white hair long and pigtailed, his head was shaven and tattooed with Elder Signs. They matched the inscribed bits of runestone that dangled from his neck and ears.

“Looks like we got ourselves a wizard for company,” muttered the Barbarian, as the newcomer joined Sardec in his howdah. The rest of the men groaned almost audibly. “Master Severin is coming with us.”

The mage’s presence made Rik nervous. He had his own secret reasons to fear them. Why was the wizard accompanying them? Mages usually did not go with patrols. They were too busy studying the stars, brewing spells and potions, and scaring the hell out of lesser mortals around camp.

“Move out!” shouted Lieutenant Sardec.