Death's Angels

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Looks like we are expected this time,” said Sardec, as the bridgebacks headed downslope. Hill-men had lined the ridge top, lying flat with readied weapons. Their ambush might have been successful too, had not the ripjacks hissed a warning and then loped forward obeying the unspoken command of their mistress. The battle had been short and sharp. There had been only a few dozen riflemen up there against almost eighty wyrm mounted Foragers and the ripjack pack.

Looking through the telescope Sardec could see windows of the manor house were crowded with more men, as was the roof. There were scores of tents set up around the building and the ground between swarmed with warriors. There were an awful lot more hill-men this time. They were outnumbered. Sardec spoke reluctantly, knowing it was in the best interests of his force, and the First he guarded, even though he knew it made him sound like a coward. “It might be best to send back for reinforcements.”

“We do not have the time,” said Lady Asea. “Powerful magic is at work below the mountain.”

“Magic, Lady?”

“A great and unholy ritual is being enacted. It would be in the best interests of the Realm if we stopped it.”

“Perhaps so, Lady, but we are outnumbered by three to one, at very least.”

“We need to get into that mine.” There was a look of horror on her face that was visible through the mask. It seemed sculpted onto her metal features. Sardec did not like to think about anything that could frighten one of the First.

“You have sorcery that can aid us now?”

“I need to preserve as much power as I can for the main battle but I will give you such help as I can.”

Sardec considered this. They had the wyrms, bridgebacks and ripjacks. And perhaps they had the element of surprise if they did the unexpected. He looked at his men and saw expectancy written on every face.

“Forward!” he said. “Attack the camp. Scatter the bastards. Lady Asea’s sorcery will protect us!”

Sardec prayed to the God of Light that it was true.

Zarahel spoke the words of the spell. Bertragh echoed them from his position at the edge of the pattern. Power swirled through the pattern that surrounded him. Magic flowed through his veins. His blisters moved in time to the rhythm of his words. The monstrous egg-sacs on the walls mimicked them. Overhead faint flickering images spun through the air, taking on shape, forming a mirror of the pattern on the floor. Faint lines of fire converged above his head, just above the altar, forming the centre of the portal. Beyond it, Uran Ultar waited to come through.

The great beast’s muscles surged below Rik. The bridgebacks spread out, moving line abreast in long rows in order to allow the men in the howdahs to bring the maximum amount of firepower to bear.

He crouched as low as he could, clutching his rifle in his bandaged hands, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. He did not envy the mahout ahead of them, an obvious target for the hill-men’s fire.

The ripjack pack loped forward, hissing defiance, gnashing their teeth, mad keen to get to grips with their prey. Up ahead the hill-men massed. They had no grasp of formation. They merely kneeled or stood where they wanted and made ready to fire. Rik did not delude himself. The hill-men were excellent shots. He was not sure the Foragers could match them from their rolling platforms on the back of the bridgebacks. From where he crouched Sardec’s decision looked like monumental insanity. He only hoped that Lady Asea’s sorcery was as potent as everybody supposed it was.

She stood erect on the back of her massive black bridgeback. The air around her shimmered faintly. She looked poised and confident. In her hand something metallic glittered. She looked glorious, a figure from an earlier, more epic age. Just the sight of her brought a catch to Rik’s throat, although he knew that it shouldn’t.

Musket fire crackled in the evening gloom. Some of the hill-men had opened up with a volley. Somewhere someone bellowed for them to stop. The wyrms were still out of range.

Closer and closer they came, skirting the edge of the ruins of Achenar, moving ever nearer to the mansion. Rik felt a faint glimmer of hope. If they could just reach the camp and get among the hill-men they would have a chance. In close combat nothing human could match a wyrm. Weasel gave him one of his fearless grins. The Barbarian checked his musket. Leon squatted at the back of the howdah out of sight. The rest of them hunkered down and made ready for battle.

Musket fire began in earnest now, spattering the earth around them, kicking up small clouds of dust that mingled with the huge ones raised by the bridgeback’s claws. Their wyrm bellowed. Rik saw blood glistening along its side. Some scales were missing. The enemy had gotten first blood. A triumphant roar from the hill-men told him they knew it too.

Rik held his fire. It was one thing hitting something the size of a wyrm at this range. It was another hitting a man. A horn sounded. The wyrms picked up speed. The bridgeback’s stride lengthened. Their bellowing increased and still the ripjack pack loped ahead. Rik held onto the side of the howdah grimly. Inside it, Foragers were being tossed about like dice in a cup. There was no way anyone could even think of shooting now.

Clouds of smoke partially obscured the foe. The sound of musketry filled the early evening. Off to the left, a flower of blood blossomed on a mahout’s brow. He fell sideways, tugging the reins as he went. His wyrm veered out of the formation. It smacked into a bridgeback on the far side. The two of them stumbled in a tangle of thrashing necks and limbs. The screams of crushed Foragers echoed in Rik’s ears. Hill-men cheered and jeered.

This was not going well, Rik thought. Where was the sorcery that was supposed to protect them?

Bullets cracked the wood of the howdah and bit into the side of the wyrm. The mahout bellowed encouragement to his mount. Rik tried to raise his rifle but the movement of the howdah made it impossible to get a bead on any target. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lady Asea raise the metal wand, and bring it forward.

A bolt of lightning sprang from its tip. Thunder accompanied it like the crack of a whip. The bolt smashed forward into a hill-man, catching the barrel of his rifle, making his hair stand on end and his flesh fry. The bolt leapt from rifle barrel to rifle barrel. Rik saw a man walking briefly on stilts of lightning before his blackened corpse hit the ground.

The hill-men’s cheering turned to screams. The whip of lightning flickered again and again. More hill-men fell; others turned and fled, more from fear of the unknown power that wielded heaven’s fire than from their casualties.

The wyrms smashed through the tents, uprooting stakes, cracking the central posts. Rik winced as one of the great beasts seized a man in its jaws, raised him on high and snapped him in two with one bite. He could see others being trampled underfoot. Over to his right swarmed a closely packed mass of men. He snapped off a shot hoping to hit something in the crowd. The motion of the bridgeback swept him off his feet and by the time he regained his balance there was no opportunity to see if he had hit anything or not.

Not that it mattered now. The ripjack pack was loose among the hill-men. Not even those long knives were a match for the jaws of the beasts. Here and there a group of hill-men surrounded one and by sheer weight of numbers dragged a ripjack down despite its advantage in weight and strength and ferocity. For the most part they died where they stood, slaughtered by the ravening mass of teeth and fury that fell on them.

The hill-men broke. Some raced for the mansion, others for the slopes. From the top of the building came a steady stream of fire, until Asea raised her glowing wand and swept men from the rooftops with its lightning. How could anything human stand against that, Rik thought? He could see how with the aid of wyrms and dragons, the First had overcome his human ancestors.

Soon the enemy fire was silenced. They huddled cowed within the mansion, waiting for the Foragers to come and get them.

“Leave them,” he heard Asea shout. “We must get to the mine before it’s too late.”

Zarahel screamed. Something was wrong; pain filled him along with power. The blisters on his flesh burst. Something was hatching from them.

He ripped at his robe, desperate to see what was happening to him. Small Ultari wriggled forth all wet with blood and slime. They looked at him with their evil eyes. He wanted to run from the pattern now, but he could not. Something held him in place. Something compelled him to keep chanting the words, just as it compelled Bertragh to echo them. The factor had already tried to run away once but the Ultari guardians had forced him back. They moved round the edges of the pattern, as if performing some intricate mating dance.

The small Ultari began to move. Their slime covered his wounds and began to harden. They slithered over him, laying more slime. Some bit at him, sending the euphoric venom through his veins. The moment of doubt and horror passed. They were protecting him, he knew. They were giving him a new skin, hard enough to resist weapons. They were making him immortal. Reassured, he chanted with renewed vigour.

The wavering lines of fire steadied and grew stronger. Tendrils of energy reached out from him flowing down the pattern, outward and away through the walls of the city. He felt connected to every living machine, to every Ultari. More knowledge flooded into him. Something told him not to be afraid. He was needed here, and no harm would befall him. He began to understand why.

The Ultari were a damaged race. Their sentient sorcerer caste was dead, wiped out during the ancient pre-human wars. Those that were left were little better than living machines, mere bundles of appetite and reflex without the will of Uran Ultar to guide them. And the Spider God could only enter this world when summoned. That took a sorcerer, like him or his ancestors, the Priest Kings.

Uran Ultar had known they would be needed again when he had fled through his doorway to escape the wrath of the Terrarchs. He had compelled them to write down their secret rituals, knowing one day someone would come, seeking power, and be drawn into his web. No, that was not right. They would come and summon the god and gain ultimate power and immortality. That was the truth of it.

The armour hardened. The wrigglers moved over him. Part of him wanted to scream. Another image had entered his mind and it was not one of power and immortality. It was of a host body being prepared from within from which the mortal body of Uran Ultar would be hatched. The host body he had in mind was his own. The image remained but a moment until it was burned away by waves of pleasure and power and knowledge as more and more venom found its way into his veins.

More images flickered through his mind coming from dozens of pairs of eyes, from the dancing Ultari, from the human eyes of the sacrifices, and the inhuman eyes of the smaller aliens that swarmed through the city. He had the awareness of a god and soon he would share its consciousness.

The doorway was opening. The Scuttler in Shadows started to come through.

Sardec brought his wyrm alongside Asea’s beast. He did not like this breakneck riding around the lake with an enemy at their back, even if that enemy had been defeated.

“What is going on?” Sardec asked. He studied the sorceress carefully. It was obvious that she was deeply disturbed.

“Something is happening below the mountain. Something dreadful.”

“You wouldn’t care to be more explicit, would you?”

“Someone is waking an old and evil power.”

“How do you know?”

“I am surprised that you do not — although come to think of it, the presence of that blade of yours might insulate you from things.”

“You can feel the spell being cast?”

“Yes, and if we do not stop it, we shall soon have something worse than the Ultari to deal with.”

“Adaana’s Scales, how can we prevent it?”

“It might already be too late but we will do what we can. I have prepared something. We must go below the mountain.”

“Another fine bloody mess, Halfbreed” said the Barbarian. He was not best pleased by the way things were going, Rik could tell. “Leaving a won battle behind when there is plunder on the ground, to go traipsing around a lake. And will anybody tell us what’s going on? I don’t think so.”

“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?” Rik suggested. The Lady Asea’s beast strode at the head of the column accompanied by Sardec’s, and the ripjack pack. A long line of wyrms bearing Foragers straggled out behind her, weapons at the ready. Most of the soldiers looked no more happy than the Barbarian. From behind them, he could hear the bellows of wounded wyrms and the screams of the dying.

“I think I can guess,” said Weasel.

“So can I,” said Rik.

“I don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten me,” said the Barbarian.

“Look at the path we are following around the lake. I am sure you can remember where that leads.”

“Not the bloody mine! Why are they going there?”

“The Lieutenant’s a tactical genius,” said Weasel. “Nobody expected it. Least of all us.”

“A surprise attack? On a bloody mine?”

“He’s being sarcastic, you stupid northern bastard,” said a voice from the gathering dark.

“I’ll give you bastard,” muttered the Barbarian. “When I get my hands on you.”

Rik did not like this at all. Something felt very wrong. A strange chill filled the night and it was not merely physical. It was like the sensation he had experienced when Severin summoned the Crimson Shadows, only far, far stronger.

Worst of all, the sensation grew stronger the closer they came to the entrance to the old mine. He had a feeling that he knew what was going on. Zarahel had begun his ritual. He felt sure that he could almost track the Prophet simply by heading in the direction that made him feel most uneasy.

He looked at the others, wondering why they did not feel it like he did. Perhaps because they lacked his tainted heritage, perhaps it was because they were of pure human blood. Another thought struck him, and made him uneasier still. Or perhaps it was because they had not tried to read the forbidden books as he had.

Seeing the open mouth of the mine did not make him any easier. It had been cleared once more, and yawned before them like the entrance of hell. He thought of his last visit here, and his trip down below, and his encounter with the demon and the sorcerer. He was not keen to repeat it.

Get a grip, he told himself. When you get to the bottom of this you will find Zarahel and Bertragh and then you will kill them, if you can. Nothing else matters. You must prevent them telling the Terrarchs what they know about you and the books at any cost, or it’s the Inquisition’s chambers for you.

But what good would that do if he was already dead, his soul devoured by demons? And then there was Asea. What did she know? He glanced at the sorceress. Her two servants and the ripjack pack hovered near her. She was of the First. She had lived for millennia. He doubted that she intended to die here. She would have a few more tricks up her sleeve. She would not fall victim to the Ultari. But if she lived, what then? What if she went looking for the soldiers who had sold the forbidden books? What if she already knew?

“Break out your lanterns, men, we are going in,” said Sardec. There was a good deal of grumbling but no one questioned the order. Asea was there and they were all still in awe at what she had done earlier and flushed with victory over the hill-men. No one was going to object to anything while she was present. Her odd armour and her silver mask made her look like an Elder God stepped once more into the world. Perhaps, in a sense, that was what she was.

“Sir, the mine may well be dangerous,” said Sergeant Hef, surprising them all. “We torched it only a short while ago.”

“And someone has done a lot of work to reopen it in that short time, Sergeant. That should tell you something about the importance of what is going on here.” He looked expectantly at Asea. She appeared to consider for a moment and then spoke.

“Men, more rests on you now than you can guess. Beneath us, this very night, wicked sorcerers are opening the very gates of hell. If they succeed then the forces of Darkness will sweep over us all. A horde of demons will over-run us, and then sweep down like an avalanche from these mountains and crush our homes and our loved ones. There is still time to stop them, a very short time. We must act now or there will be no escape from this place for any of us. We can go into this mine and overcome the evil which seeks to break loose here. Or we can flee and be devoured by it, as we certainly shall be if we run. I am going in. Are you with me?”

It was a short effective speech and it laid out the options with frightening clarity. Perhaps the Foragers felt the strangeness of the night more than Rik had given them credit for. “Aye,” they shouted, and he was surprised to find he was shouting with them.

“Should we make it through, I shall see each and every one of you rewarded as you deserve,” she said, which got a louder cheer. “There will be gold in it for you, and more than gold. I give you my word as one of the First.”

Rik looked at Weasel and the Barbarian. “Let’s make sure Zarahel and Bertragh get the reward they deserve,” he said.

“I am with you all the way on that,” said Weasel.

“Me too,” said the Barbarian.

Sardec moved among the men, picking out those who were to go below and those who were to remain on the surface with the wyrms in case the tribesmen returned. He was not surprised when he was picked to go below. He was surprised that the Lieutenant chose to leave some men on the surface.

He’s optimistic, thought Rik. He’s making plans as if we were going to come back. Then he realised that it was all the Lieutenant could do. He noticed that one of Lady Asea’s servants had unpacked the metal flask they had seen earlier and had it strapped to his chest. Even in the gloom Rik could sense the alien power trapped within the thing. It did indeed look like the First had something planned.

He had some preparations of his own to make, and bent over to make sure the carefully wrapped package he had purchased from Karl was still intact. He checked his pistols, particularly the one with the special and very expensive bullet.

“Time to go,” said Sergeant Hef, tapping him on the shoulder. He saw that Weasel, Leon and the Barbarian were all among those picked to go below as well. He doubted that was chance. After all, they had been below before and survived.

They joined the line of men with lighted lanterns who shuffled uneasily into the mouth of the mine. Lady Asea bent and said something to the leading ripjack. Uneasily the surviving members of the pack headed into the gloom. First Lady Asea and her servants, then Sardec and then the chosen Foragers followed the beasts down into the waiting darkness below.

“I am scared, Rik,” said Leon. He was a small silhouette in the gloom at Rik’s side.

“I don’t blame you,” said Rik. “I am terrified myself.”