his shoulder. Acrid smoke made his eyes water. He hit his mark more by luck than judgement. The sentry slumped backwards out of sight.
Others began firing, most likely shooting at shadows, but that’s what happened once the madness started. Rik saw several faces he recognised, illuminated by muzzle flash and then obscured by the billowing of powder smoke. Some Foragers kneeled to begin reloading. At least he thought that was why they had done it. There’s always some who don’t want to be the first into the breach. He did not bother to reload but fixed his bayonet, jamming it on the end of the rifle.
The lads started howling like an army of devils as they reached the walls. Ahead of him, the Sergeant ordered one of them to open the door. It was locked. Somebody with some presence of mind shot out the lock and kicked the door in.
Rik caught a brief glimpse of a long shadowy corridor. The Sergeant produced a bulls-eye lantern and went in. He was brave. A man with the lantern was always the easiest target.
Everybody else hung back. The Sergeant stopped, looked back at Rik and gestured for him to go forward.
“Lieutenant Sardec picked you to lead the assault,” he said, not without sympathy.
There was no helping it. Everyone knew about Rik’s night sight. He went in first, bayonet at the ready. That was all it took, the rest of them swarmed in behind him.
Wonderful, Rik thought, knowing he would be the first to stop a musket ball when the defenders opened fire. Maybe he would get the chance to die a hero's death.
It was another thing he had Lieutenant Sardec to thank for.
Chapter Five
Rik ran along the corridor, expecting at any moment to feel a musket ball blast through his flesh. Dead bodies sprawled everywhere, their flesh stained a strange vivid crimson.
He kicked a door. It crashed open. Scared and panicked hill-men filled the room. They had long beards and drooping greasy moustaches and were garbed in sheepskin jackets and plaid trews. All of them bore a family resemblance. There was a strange inbred look to the lot of them that Rik found disturbing. Some bore tattoos with spider patterns on their faces and arms; others had webs inked on their flesh. Maybe they had something to do with the fact that the Crimson Shadows had missed this room.
Several of them held weapons. One of them raised a pistol to fire.
Rik charged forward spearing the would-be shooter on his bayonet. The blade pierced flesh and scraped against the stone wall as it passed right through the body. The hill-man screamed. His limbs thrashed. Rik drew his bayonet free and slashed the throat of another man as he reached for the fallen pistol. Blood gushed forth, covering the man’s sheepskin jacket.
“Wait! I surrender! Don’t kill me,” someone shrieked. “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”
Rik lunged at him, cutting his face with the bayonet. All was madness and confusion. The smell of blood and faeces filled the air. Screams and the thunder of musketry in a confined space echoed through the building.
Although it has been cold outside, Rik felt unaccountably warm. He stabbed at another man who grabbed the barrel of his rifle and tried to twist it from his grip. Rik wrestled with him. He had time to notice the man’s scarred face, and the great veins standing in his neck before the Barbarian passed his big knife through the body, and the hill-man dropped to the ground, gurgling and taking Rik’s rifle with him.
The press of the melee forced him away from the rifle. He drew one of his own pistols and unloaded it into the face of a man charging at him. He saw bits of bone and brain fly everywhere for an instant then a cloud of acrid smoke enveloped the scene. He flipped the pistol into the air, caught it by the still warm barrel and used it to club the nearest hill-man.
A few heartbeats later the room was cleared. The only foes present were the dead and wounded. Already Weasel and the Barbarian, with their usual presence of mind, were stripping the corpses of anything valuable, stuffing pouches into their britches for later inspection, grabbing any weapons that looked serviceable.
The rest of the squad began to do the same. Rik reclaimed his rifle from Pigeon who seemed inclined to call it the spoils of war, until Rik pointed to his mark carved into the butt. The Sergeant watched the operation with an eagle eye. He would claim his share later. Not even Weasel and the Barbarian would try and cheat him.
Rik cursed because he was too late to stake any claim. The bloodlust and the fear had gotten to him. Hopefully, he thought, there would be more. The sounds of fighting echoed all around him. He noticed the Sergeant’s eye was on him.
“What?” he said.
“Looks like it’s all over here.”
“So?”
“Not exactly a hard fought encounter, was it?”
“Speak for yourself. I was leading this assault, remember? One of those bastards almost killed me.”
“I mean considering these are the bodyguards of a dark sorcerer and a renegade prophet.”
Rik noticed that the others were listening now, even as they thrust stuff into their packs. It was down to soiled blankets and clothing now. Well, you never knew when those might prove useful. “Maybe we should be grateful for that.”
“Maybe we should consider where the wizard keeps his treasure,” said Weasel.
“There’s that, certainly,” said the Sergeant.
“Most likely cursed,” said the Barbarian. He had a justifiable fear of the dark arts.
“Pass on the curse when you spend the treasure,” said Weasel attempting more cheerfulness than he appeared to feel. The atmosphere in the room had changed now, Rik noticed. The stillness of death had settled on it, and a kind of clammy fear. It was amazing how quickly it happened. If one of them bolted for the door, the rest of them would follow.
The Lieutenant appeared. Vosh was with him. Master Severin was not. Sardec did not look pleased. From outside came the bellowing of wyrms. The sounds of combat had died down around the building now. It looked like the Foragers had won, and scored an easy victory too. Vosh avoided the glances of the prisoners being dragged outside. They spat when they saw him until cuffed into sullen silence by the Foragers.
Sardec glanced in through the doorway, did not appear to find what he was looking for, and then moved on. Vosh disappeared along with the Lieutenant.
“They are all dead,” said the Barbarian. “Every last bloody one of them.”
They were all appalled by what they had found in this one room. The Crimson Shadows had entered through the chimney and emerged from the fireplace. Corpses filled the chamber, not one of them killed by any human agency.
Rik inspected another body, that of a grizzled oldster, long bearded, lined of face. His eyes and mouth were wide. His tongue protruded. A faint trickle of blood stained the corners of his lips and his nostrils. His skin had an odd pinkish tinge, like that of a man who had spent too long in a very hot bath, except that the discolouration showed no signs of fading. Rik prodded the body with his boot, not wanting to touch it with the flesh of his own hands, in case somehow, death should prove contagious.
The mansion had been filled with armed men. Aside from a few who had survived the massacre on the lower floor not a single one of them remained alive. Most had died by sorcery. The Crimson Shadows had sucked the life out of them. Why had they taken some and not others? There did not seem to be any logic to it.
Revulsion twisted Rik’s stomach as he looked at this evidence of uncanny magic, revulsion and something else. Here was a type of power he had always coveted.
Would he really want power like this? No, shrieked most of his being. But in one small, sick, ambitious corner of his mind, he knew the answer was yes. To have such power, even at peril of his soul, would be an awesome thing.
The squad fell to discussing their spoils. As ever they were not nearly enough for the risks run. A few minutes later, Sardec returned. His face was icy calm, a sure sign that the Terrarch was enraged. The soldiers all
