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 his neck and ears.
“Looks like we got ourselves a wizard for company,” muttered the Barbarian, as the newcomer joined Sardec in his howdah. The rest of the men groaned almost audibly. “Master Severin is coming with us.”
The mage’s presence made Rik nervous. He had his own secret reasons to fear them. Why was the wizard accompanying them? Mages usually did not go with patrols. They were too busy studying the stars, brewing spells and potions, and scaring the hell out of lesser mortals around camp.
“Move out!” shouted Lieutenant Sardec.
Chapter Two
The lead mahout blew his signal horn. The drivers gave their strange hissing call and struck their beasts on the back of the neck with their pike-length staves. With a stomach-sickening lurch the bridgeback rose and Rik found himself twice the height of a man above the ground. He felt the usual moment of fear. Sometimes straps snapped or buckles on howdahs gave way and they tumbled to earth, leaving their contents to be trampled under the claws of the wyrms. Another prod, another hiss and the beasts strode towards the distant hills.
Rik had heard a great deal about the sense of power being astride a bridgeback gave. It was nonsense. He felt very much at the mercy of the twenty ton creature carrying him. He had no control over the thing whatsoever, a fact brought home to him with every uncomfortable step. He felt like a sailor on the deck of a ship in a choppy sea.
Occasionally the wyrm turned its long, long neck to look at the occupants of the howdah and he felt as if he was being weighed up as a snack. He could almost feel the hunger that burned like fire in the creature’s belly.
He was embarrassed by the sense of relief he felt as it gave its attention back to the leaves of passing trees. Occasionally the huge tail whipped upward and long snakes of turd emerged. They turned into pungent pancakes as they smacked the ground. There was a lot of farting as well, which the Barbarian claimed was probably how alchemists produced the fatal gas they captured in their glass grenades. He should know, Rik thought, since he was a master producer of flatulence himself.
As they marched he thought about how many people were misled by the great parades they saw in Place of Sorrow, Tower of Joy and other cities of the Realm. Like so many others he had always thought of wyrms as moving in lock-step like Guards on parade, disciplined as elite soldiers. He now knew that most of the time, those wyrms were controlled by Terrarch sorcerers using leashes, sorcerous adjuncts that allowed their wearer to dominate the beast by force of will.
When under the direction of a mere mahout, a bridgeback’s progress was more like a meandering stroll. They left the track to seek choice morsels from the branches of nearby trees and returned to it only in response to a great deal of prodding, hissing and chanting by their drivers.
Still, for all the maddeningly erratic nature of their progress, they moved very swiftly. The wyrms' long stride ate the ground quicker than guards marching at double step. The foothills of the mountains came closer with alarming speed.
“This is the life,” said Weasel, fumbling in his pocket for a stick of biltong. The Lieutenant was far from their howdah, leading from the front as he always liked to do. With him were the wizard and Vosh. Rik shared the howdah with the Barbarian, Leon, Weasel and several others including the Sergeant. “No marching. No climbing any bloody hills. Just a nice, relaxing excursion into the countryside.”
“You call these hills?” said the Barbarian. “In the Northlands we would call them molehills, just as we would call those things you say are mountains hillocks.”
“Perhaps you would care to get down from the back of the beast and jog along beside us up them, as you were wont to do as a youth back in your rugged homeland?” said Leon in deliberate mockery of the Barbarian’s manner. The pipe had moved to the far left corner of his mouth and bobbed up and down cynically at every word.
“They are not steep enough to give me any exercise.”
“You’ll be getting exercise soon enough when we get where we are going,” said the Sergeant. They all looked at him, suspecting that, as he usually did, he had a better idea of what they were about than the rest of them.
“What do you know, Sergeant?” asked Weasel. “Don’t keep us in the dark. Spill the beans! Who is the little rat up front?”
The Sergeant gave one of his dry chuckles. A look of amusement made his little cheeks pinker and his small eyes even more monkey-like than usual. “You don’t think they have given us the use of their precious wyrms so that we can sample the fresh country air hereabouts, do you?”
“You never know,” said Weasel. "The Exalted may be feeling generous today."
“Why have they given us ten bridgebacks?” Rik asked.
“To get us where we are supposed to go quickly, and it must be some distance away. Ask yourself why they send out a company of Foragers on wyrms into these hills? Ask yourself which direction we are heading?”
“Towards the sun rise,” Rik said. “Towards the border.”
“Nice to see you are awake, Halfbreed,” said the Sergeant.
“You think there is going to be some incident with the Kharadreans?”
“I don’t know, but something big is afoot. Vosh was brought to the Colonel in the wee hours, and the Lieutenant was rousted from his bed along with a few others. Look up ahead now, what do you see?”