Stan Nicholls: Army of Shadows

"It's not over yet," Stryke told him, looking over his shoulder.

Their pursuers had reached the wreckage and were bodily shifting it. Those on horseback weaved around.

The orcs' wagon picked up speed again.

"One more turn!" Brelan shouted, indicating a road coming up on their left.

They took the bend at a fast clip, and found themselves in a narrower, much less crowded street. The humans were still at their backs.

As they progressed, Stryke and the others gave no sign of noticing the shadowy figures positioned in alleyways, in upper windows and on rooftops. They did drop speed, allowing the depleted pack of humans to catch up, but adopted a meandering course to prevent them overtaking.

Once the humans were bunched and slowed, the trap was sprung.

From their hideaways and high places, the resistance loosed a torrent of arrows on their cluster of targets. The cascade of bolts instantly struck down over a score of men. As many were wounded. Some took shelter behind their halted wagons, or used shields to deflect the shafts. Those who tried retreating found their escape route blocked; resistance confederates had rolled hijacked carts across the entrance to the street. Archers were stationed there too, adding to the storm.

Pounded from all sides, the militia lost interest in their quarry.

"Get us out of here," Stryke said.

Haskeer lashed the horses and they made off at a trot.

Under Brelan's direction, they weaved through Taress's back streets, keeping to a pace and demeanour they hoped wouldn't attract attention. After a number of twists and turns, taken partly to throw off anyone who might be following them, they arrived in a particularly ill-lit and dilapidated blind alley. It terminated at an apparently solid wooden wall, which to even a close observer passed for the rear of a building whose frontage presumably stood in an adjoining street. It was an illusion. The wall held cunningly concealed doors large enough to admit the wagon. It rolled in, and the doors were hastily secured behind it.

They got out of the wagon in an area the size of a barn. A couple of dozen resistance members were milling around, and several moved in to tend to the sweating horses. Somebody brought Dallog a flask of brandy and dressing for his wound. Brelan went off to report to his comrades.

Stryke jabbed a thumb doorward. "That gave 'em something to ponder."

Coilla stretched her back, fists balled. "Yeah. Went well."

" 'Cept for him," Haskeer complained, glaring at Wheam.

The tyro quaked and started babbling excuses.

"Ah, shut it," Haskeer growled.

"I was only trying to explain."

"Dribbling bullshit's what you're doing. As usual."

"Give the kid a break," Dallog said. "He's a tyro."

"And you're not?"

"I'm saying he's young. We should — "

"We? Not with us long enough to wipe your arse and you're telling me what's what." He was beginning to seethe.

"No," Dallog replied evenly, "I'm just telling you he needs to find his feet."

"He needs a backbone! He could've fucked the mission!"

"But he didn't."

"No, I didn't," Wheam echoed.

"I've had it with you two," Haskeer said menacingly. He took a step in Dallog's and Wheam's direction.

Stryke put himself in his path. "You running this band now?"

Haskeer took in his captain's expression. He said nothing and looked away.

"I've had enough of this shit," Stryke went on. "So cut the sniping." With a tilt of his head he indicated the resistance members busy at the far end of the room. "If any of these local orcs get wind of where we're really from — "

"Yeah, yeah," Haskeer muttered.

"I mean it, Haskeer. I won't let this thing get screwed by you or anybody else in the band. Got it?"

"Why we doing this?"

"What?"

"Why're we fooling around with these rebels when we should be trying to get the stars back?"

It was quite a speech for Haskeer, and for a second Stryke was stymied. In part, his hesitancy was due to the fact that he held himself responsible for the instrumentalities' loss. "We help the resistance 'cos it's right," he said at last. "As for the stars… I'm gonna find 'em."

"Well I wish you'd get on with it."

Haskeer held Stryke's gaze this time, and neither looked likely to back off.

"Lighten up," Coilla told them. "We've been in spots tight as this before."

"Have we?" Haskeer said.

Then he turned and walked away.

There was turbulence throughout Acurial, and particularly in its most densely inhabited sector, the capital city of Taress. Responding to civil unrest with a heavy hand, the human occupiers had further increased their repression. Known or suspected dissident haunts were torched. Public gatherings of any size were brutally dispersed. Wayward opinions were silenced. Arrests were arbitrary, torture routine, executions commonplace.

It was what the resistance wanted. Their attacks on the invaders were designed to bring about retribution, in hopes this would goad the citizens out of their passivity and reawaken their slumbering martial spirit. Fed by whispering campaigns, clandestine meetings and daubed slogans, sedition spread. And now the comet Grilan-Zeat hung in the sky for all to see, promising hope for those who believed.

Events balanced on a knife edge, with revolution possible but by no means inevitable. To speed it on, the rebels determined to continue throwing oil on the smouldering embers. To this end the Wolverines had pledged their support.

Early morning saw the warband gathered in one of the resistance's growing number of safe houses. Though under the circumstances "safe" was a word they used loosely.

The humans Standeven and Pepperdyne were there, as were Brelan and his twin sister Chillder. Because of the latter pair — and in some minds the former — the warband were cagey while they were present. But once the twins left, tongues were loosened.

"I'm worried about what she's thinking," Jup said.

"Who?" Stryke wanted to know.

"Chillder. Her attitude's been different to me ever since she saw me using the farsight. Haven't you noticed?"

"No."

"Well, you haven't been stuck in these hideouts with the rebels as much as Spurral and me." There was more than a hint of resentment in the dwarf's tone.

"We told her you just had a hunch."

"But did she buy it?"

"Your warning stopped us walking into a trap. I reckon that made Chillder grateful enough not to question how you came up with it."

"I'm not so sure. Like I say, she's been cooler toward me ever since."

"She's a lot on her mind."

"Shit, Stryke," Jup flared, "it's bad enough that me and Spurral stand out so much as it is without them thinking I'm… odd."

"You are fucking odd," Haskeer muttered.

"There's no call for you to chip in on this," Spurral said, fixing him with a look of flint.

"Gods forbid I should take the piss out of somebody called Pinchpot," Haskeer mocked.

"Lay off," Jup warned, "I'm not in the mood."

"Fuck you."

"In your dreams."

Seeing the heat building, Stryke stepped in. " You," he said, pointing at Haskeer, "rest that jaw or I'll break it." He turned to Jup. "And you stop taking the bait. Any more bullshit and I'll be cracking skulls. Got it? "

They nodded, sullenly.

"All of us are wound up," Stryke continued, his tone mollified. "But there's a rebellion coming and we've gotta be united." The band's grunts, lounging at a distance, were listening attentively. He looked at Jup. "Way things are going, you'll be out in the thick of it soon enough."

"You keep telling me that."

"It'll happen. That thing in the sky, the prophecy, the rallying call Sylandya's going to make: it'll all rouse the orcs in these parts. We've got to get behind 'em. That's the main thing for us."