business. There is no sense in looking guilty. Just relax, behave naturally and be ready to run at the slightest sign anything is wrong.
He tried to take their advice now but he knew that running would be difficult. The Queen’s Army did not take kindly to deserters. That thought brought home to him just how much his life had changed since they found the books. Not a week ago he would never even have contemplated desertion. He had found among the Foragers something of the home he had never really known when he had been growing up. And that made him think of the strange alchemy of circumstance. When he had taken the Queen’s crown, the last thing he had expected was to find a home. All he had been looking for was protection from Antonio’s bully boys and a quick way out of Sorrow with all his limbs still attached.
Leon ditched his gear and strode out to get some water. Rik ducked his head as he entered the billet. It had been a shepherd’s bothy once and it was full with four men’s gear. He shrugged. It was nothing compared to the slums of Sorrow where families lived ten to a room in cramped tenements. At least here the air was clean and did not smell quite so much of sewage. They were far away from where the men squatted over the latrine trenches.
He took the books from his pack, stuffed them into a leather sack and reached up and put the sack into the shadows atop the rafter beams. No one would see them there and no one would think to look there. He would try and find a better hiding place later.
It was time to visit Karl Mandrake. If anybody could give him a clue to what had gone on back there in the mountains, it would be the Wyrm Hunter.
Karl sat outside his shack sorting through his box of gear. It lay on the ground before him atop several old blankets. It did not seem possible that one man could possess such a large supply of equipment but Karl was a Wyrm Hunter, and these were the tools of his trade. It was his job to kill wyrms and even dragons on the field of battle, and that was a thing that required all the tools modern alchemy could supply, as well as a stock of insane courage.
He looked up as Rik approached and nodded in greeting, then returned to oiling the crossbow he held in his hands. A look towards the jug of ale that sat nearby told Rik that he was welcome to take a slug, and then he gave his gaze back to the plains below.
Some sort of exercise was taking place. Infantry marched and wheeled to the beat of a drum. They were moving towards one of the emplacements, practising storming drill. It looked like someone among the Terrarchs had decided it was time for the men to throw off their winter sloth, and reacquire some discipline. Overhead a devilwing paced the infantry, some staff officer watching his troops through a Leash no doubt. What was it like to link your mind with that of a flying wyrm and look out through its eyes, he wondered, then resigned himself to the fact he would never know.
Karl pointed to the jug with the crossbow. Rik considered the booze for a moment. All alcohol was forbidden during the period of Mourning. A glance around told him that nobody nearby seemed to care. He slumped down with his back towards the hovel’s wall and took a drink.
“How is it going?” Karl asked. He had a surprisingly light voice for a man so huge. “You look like a wyrm just shat in your dinner and the Terrarchs made you eat it.”
Rik told him Pigeon was dead.
There was a sympathetic expression in Karl’s brown eyes that was at odds with his beetling brow, bald tattooed head, and barbaric-looking plaited beard. Rik was not surprised. Like most Wyrm Hunters, Karl was an unusual man. He could read and he possessed a fund of strange lore, not all of it merely useful for his job. He set down the crossbow and cloth with great care, picked up the ale jug and took a long swig. His massive belly wobbled with every gulp. He passed the jug to Rik.
“To the departed,” he said. Rik drank.
“To the departed.”
Rik watched the soldiers below marching towards the earthworks. The company belonged to the Seventh. He could see the Death Angel fluttering on its battle-flag. Another company waited for them, weapons ready. Someday soon, he thought, we are going to be doing this for real.
“Death’s part of a soldier’s life,” Karl said.
“It’s part of everybody’s life,” said Rik. “Unless you’re one of the Terrarchs.”
“No,” said Karl with an air of great deliberation. “They die too. They just live a lot longer than we do.”
Rik took another swig and looked at him.
“I’ve seen Terrarchs die,” Karl said. “On the battlefield, from the Grey Sickness, from accidents. Their corpses stank same as a man’s. Hey, it’s Mourning Time, remember. What do you think they are mourning for?”
“The loss of the Blessed Land, the destruction of their Patron Adaana, their defeat by the Princes of Shadow and their flight to a new world; our world. I seem to recall the Book of Prophets mentions all this.”
“Nice to know you’re familiar with Holy Scripture but you’re missing my point. They die, same as us.”
Rik could see what he was getting at. “Their souls go to the Higher Paradise though.”
Karl gave him his slow smile and went back to polishing one of his glass grenades. Strange chemicals swirled inside. Rik watched a little nervously, wondering what would happen if the Wyrm Hunter dropped it. One of those things could probably kill half the company storming the fortifications down there. Karl seemed untroubled though, and probably with reason. For all his massive bulk he moved with a careful deliberation. Still, Rik thought, everybody makes mistakes. There’s always a first time.
“Do they?” asked Karl. “How can you be so sure? Nobody has ever come back to tell us what happens after death. No human. No Exalted. Not even one of the Elder Races as far as I know.”
“The Prophets tell us.”
“So they do. Ever met any of them? Did they die and come back?”
“Erewen did.”
“You sure? You see it?”
“You’re verging on blasphemy.” Rik was at little shocked. Wyrm Hunters were given a lot of leeway even by the Terrarchs. Many of them went more than a little crazy due to all the poisons and chemicals they worked with. Still, Karl was going a little too far. He seemed to appreciate this himself.
“I tumbled over the edge of blasphemy some time ago. Or maybe it’s heresy, whatever. What you gonna do? Report me to the Inquisition?”
That was exactly what he should do, Rik knew, and exactly what Gunther would, but he knew he was not about to do it. He valued his friendship with the big man. Had done ever since they had run into each other drunk in some roadside tavern and he had been surprised to notice the Wyrm Hunter reading one of the histories of Azalus. All knowledge was useful to a man in his trade Karl claimed, and Rik did not doubt he was right.
“What do you know about a demon called the Ultari?”
“The Ultari or an Ultari?”
“Either. Both.”
“It’s Ultari singular or plural. They were one of the Elder Races, some sort of connection with the Spider King Uran Ultar according to Ostarch. Strode this world on their six legs in the ages before men and Terrarch, spreading darkness, devouring souls; the usual sort of thing. They were supposed to hate daylight and fire and truesilver, the usual stuff. The Terrarchs did for the last of them about a thousand years ago, or so they say. Buried them beneath that big mountain up there.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the glittering cloud- capped peaks. “Why do you ask?”
“According to the Lieutenant one of them killed Pigeon.”
“You see it?”
“With my own eyes.”
“Touch it?”
“I hacked it with a sword.”
“You sure it was an Ultari?”
“How the hell should I know? That’s what the Lieutenant called it.”
“He would most likely know. So you saw an Ultari. I would give my right nut for that.”
“I almost did.”
