"Silence , blaspheming no-name." said the leader of the bluecoats.
"You wish to prove your courage, do you? Perhaps we should return to the old ways, drunkard, and practise the
Weasel Claw ritual on you."
The old man coughed blood. "Do what you will, I am Morning Star of the line of Running Deer and Silver Elk. I have the Witching Sight. I tell you that the spirits walk. Ancient powers stalk the land. The red star burns bright in the sky. A time of trouble is coming."
"Is that why you chose to start ranting this night? I had thought the only spirits that talked to you came from a bottle," said another bluecoat, kicking Morning Star in the ribs. The old man groaned. Two Heads Talking made his way forward through the mist, till he emerged into the lantern light.
'The bluecoat leader spoke to him. "Go away, buck. This is Warrior Lodge business. If you don't want to join this drunkard in the river, you'll leave now."
"You dishonour the idea of the Warrior Lodge," said Two Heads Talking quietly. "Depart now, and I will spare you. Remain a heartbeat longer, and I will surely grant you death."
The old man looked up at him. awe-struck. Two Heads Talking could see the winged skull tattoo of a Shaman on his forehead. A few bravos laughed. Some, the wiser ones, heard the soft menace in the Marine's voice and backed away.
The leader gestured for the bluecoats to attack. "Take him!"
Two Heads Talking parried the swipe of a truncheon with his forearm. There was a metallic ring as the bludgeon snapped. He broke the bravo's nose against the butt of his force axe then lashed out with his foot, driving it into another bluecoat's stomach with inhuman force. As the man bent double the Librarian chopped down on his neck. breaking it.
The bluecoats swarmed over him now. Their truncheons were as ineffective as twigs against a bear. A few tried to grab his arms and immobilise him. He shrugged them off easily, swinging killing blows with weapon and elbow. Where he struck, men died.
As the battle lust swept over him, he felt the bound spirits slip away. He knew that he stood revealed in his true form. The last of the bluecoats turned to ran. Two Heads Talking hooked an arm around his neck and twisted. There was a
crunch of shattering vertebrae.
The old man gazed on him with religious intensity. "The spirits spoke truthfully," he said, as if he did not quite believe it. He reached out and touched him. making sure he was real.
"You have come at last to free the People from their bondage to the false Emperor and lead them back to the plains. What is your name, Sky Warrior?"
"In my youth, it was Two Heads Talking, apprentice to Spirit Hawk. When I entered the service of the true Emperor, I
took the name Lucian." He could see tears running down the old man's scarred cheeks.
"Tell me, old man, what has happened to our folk? How did they come to fall so low?"
"It began when I was a buck." said Morning Star, wiping his face. "One summer night, the sky burned, and there was a great roaring. A trail of fire raced across the sky, and there was an explosion. Where we are now was a vast crater, and in the centre, where the Temple of the Four-armed Emperor stands, was a great, red-hot pile of metal.
"Some people thought the Sky Warriors had returned, that the roaring was the voice of their thunderbird. The Shamans knew that this could not be so, for Deathwing returns only once every hundred years, in autumn, and it had been only fifty years since the red star was last visible."
"We were pleased because we thought that we might ride Deathwing. Most of us had reckoned on being old men when the Sky Warriors came again.
"Those who met our chiefs were not the armoured warriors of legend. They were feeble, pale-skinned men who claimed that they had come from the Emperor to show us the way to build an earthly paradise. They preached the virtues of tolerance and brotherly love and an end to warfare. The chiefs sent them packing, which was a mistake, for when honeyed words did not succeed, they tried force of arms. They allied with the Hill Clans and gave them metal blades which our weapons could not withstand.