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
