William King - The Serpent Tower

“Anything else?” said Sardec.

“There was a large fortified manor near the ford, sir,” said Weasel. “The gates were open and only a few men were inside. Everybody else seemed to have headed down to the river to watch the fun.”

“Where did you get the chicken, soldier?” Sardec asked.

“It was on a spit, sir. I helped myself to it when I walked into the enemy camp.”

“You walked into the enemy camp?” Incredulity was evident in the Lieutenant’s voice.

“I took the colours from a sentry and decided to have a sniff about, sir. Nobody paid me the slightest attention. They were all too busy listening to Kalmek howl.” Rik did not doubt that Weasel had done exactly that. He was fearless to the point of madness, and doubtless his sheer nonchalance had helped him carry the bluff off. “Would you like some chicken, sir? It’s very good.”

Sardec looked at the proffered roast as if Weasel’s hand were full of excrement. No Terrarch would want food that a human had nibbled at. He shook his head slowly and shifted his attention to the Barbarian. The big man chewed at the end of his moustache and then said; “It’s like Weasel says, sir. There was about fifty of them. All in colours too.”

Sardec raised an eyebrow. “What colours.”

“They had blue armbands.”

“That seems a little unlikely,” said Sardec.

“They all had them, sir,” said Weasel. He stuck his hand in his pocket and took out a long strip of grubby blue cloth. It could indeed be a makeshift declaration of allegiance to the cause of those who supported Queen Emperor Arachne of Sardea.

“This is news,” said Sardec. Indeed it was. No one had supposed a Blue army to be within a hundred miles. It seemed their intelligence was very out of date. This did not really surprise Rik. Even with scrying crystals and dragon-mounted scouts, the army could always manage to make mistakes. It seemed not even famous Generals like Azaar were immune to them.

“You are sure there are only fifty of them?”

“Well, sir, the Barbarian here has some difficulty counting more than his fingers, but I reckon there was at least fifty, maybe more.” The Barbarian scowled but there were faint chuckles from the woods, which doubtless explained why Sardec did not discipline Weasel. So close to combat anything that raised morale was good. Sardec looked round at monkey-faced Sergeant Hef. The two seemed to be reading each other’s minds.

“Let us go and free our prisoners,” said Sardec. “And take a few ourselves. Doubtless the Lord Azaar will want to talk to them.”

The word rippled down the line. The Foragers prepared to advance. Up ahead there were enemies. Rik was glad when Weasel and the Barbarian dropped into the line beside him. They were dangerous men but he had been through many a desperate scrape with them.

“Want a bit of chicken?” Weasel asked. He ripped off a drumstick and offered it Rik.

“Why not?” Rik said. It tasted succulent. He tried to ignore the thoughts of condemned men and last meals that flickered through his mind.

Silently the Foragers moved through the dim forest.

Ahead Rik heard screaming and the cheers of men and the flow of water. He slapped a mosquito on his hand, splattering it in a bubble of red blood. Sweat stained his clothes. His heart raced. His mouth felt dry and he was aware of every speck of dust drifting in the columns of sunlight between the trees. He tasted the odd rich air of the woods. Moist fern fronds brushed his legs. He felt truly and utterly alive, as he always did when he knew that he might soon be dead. His whole life had shrunk into a narrow tunnel. Ahead of him lay violence and bloodletting and a terrible place he would need to pass through to get to any future he might have.

A small animal part of his mind gibbered that he could still turn and flee, run off into the woods and wait for the eye of the coming storm of violence to pass over him. Another equally animal part lusted to run forward and plunge his bayonet into warm living flesh. His true self hung suspended between the two poles.

He was not going to run. Not while his whole unit advanced. He was not scared so much of the Sergeant’s boot or the lash that waited for cowards as he was of letting down his comrades, of the shame he would feel if he ran off now in plain sight of them before things had even started. Every man around him felt the same way. He had seen forces of hardened veterans flee once the first man turned tail and ran, but no one wanted to be that first man.

He scuttled up the last ridge, threw himself flat on his belly and looked down on the enemy. Most of them stood around a large tree in a clearing by a slow-flowing river. They were not well organised, more like bandits than soldiers. There were few sentries. A bloody figure was tied to the bole of the oak, head slumped to one side, shirt torn from chest. It howled. There was another figure nearby who had stopped moving altogether.

The men below laughed too loudly and shouted too enthusiastically. There were several broached barrels of blood-red liquid sitting in the middle of the clearing. Some of the enemy soldiers ladled the wine into wooden goblets and swilled it down.

“The bastards are drunk,” the Barbarian muttered. “I am not going to stand by and watch enemies of the Queen be drunk when I am not.”

Rik cast his eye down to the ford. The Mor was wide here and its bed was paved with stones. Beyond was a large walled building on a slight rise. It dominated the whole area. From its walls, a small group of men could stand off an army while supplies held out.

Rik glanced in the direction of the Lieutenant and could see that he was not the only one who had noticed this. Already Sardec was giving orders to Sergeant Hef and Corporal Toby. A moment later the big, blonde, ruddy-faced Corporal slid into the position where Rik, Weasel and the Barbarian lay.

“Once the shooting starts we’re going to cross the ford and attack the manor house,” Toby said. “Over there — the overhanging trees will give us some shadow and some cover. The bastards have left the gate open so we’re going to grab it if we can.”

Rik measured the distance. It seemed like madness to try and sweep by a large group of armed men and take the building, particularly when there were sentries on the wall. Sardec had thought of this too.

“Weasel, reckon you can pick off those sentries?” Weasel sucked his teeth as he considered.

“Yup. If the Barbarian and Halfbreed leave me their muskets I reckon I can get them one after the other, before the wankers know what’s going on. If one of this pair will reload for me I can pick off anybody else that sticks their head above the battlement.”

“I don’t want to be your bloody loader,” said the Barbarian. “I want to fight.”

“Give it a couple of minutes and there will be enough fighting to go round,” said Weasel. The Barbarian shook his head and laid a massive hand on the hilt of his hill-man fighting knife. “There’s killing to be done and I want to do it.”

Corporal Toby looked at the pair of them. His blue eyes were cold. He did not have time for arguments. “You’ll get to use your shortsword, northman. Leave your musket here and join the assault party. Rik will do all the reloading. You don’t have any objections do you, Halfbreed?”

His tone told Rik that he’d better not have. Rik nodded. It was a job that needed to be done and Weasel was the man to do it. He had been the runner up in the regimental shooting championship, and would have won it if he had not placed a bunch of secret bets on himself to lose.

“Good,” Toby scuttled off along the ridgeline to gather the assault group. The Barbarian went with him, long- knife bare in his fist. Rik took out his cartridges, unclipped the ramrod from beneath the barrel of his musket and made ready.