“Show me where they are and I will show them how stupid I am.”
“Why this sudden interest in religion?” Weasel asked. “It’s never bothered you before.”
The Barbarian considered voicing what was on his mind. He felt ashamed. It was not the sort of thing a man was supposed to admit to. He kept a wary eye on the praying family and eventually managed to force the words out. “I am worried,” he said at last.
“About what?”
“Things.”
“What bloody things?”
“I’ve heard folk talking. Some of them think the end of the world is coming- what with the dead men walking and the Elder demons waking and all.”
“I could see where they might get that idea,” said Weasel. “But it’s not like you to allow an idea to force its way into your head uninvited.”
“I know and that’s one of the things that’s bothering me. What if they are right? What if the end of the world is here?”
“Not much the likes of you and me can do about it, is there? I doubt God or his Shadow are going to pay much attention to what we think.”
“That’s it you see, maybe they would if we prayed to them.”
“If you think it would help, maybe you should give it a try.”
“What about you?”
“I am not much of the praying kind.”
“But it might help. Maybe a couple of extra prayers might swing the balance. They say in the balance of power between the two is very close.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll pray with you.”
“I thought you have to be sincere when you pray.”
“Believe me when I ask God to spare us and give us some loot, I will be sincere.”
“Fair enough, let’s get started then.”
“What now?”
“No time like the present.”
Weasel gave him a nasty grin. “I just thought of something.”
“What’s that?”
“You never prayed before any other battle and you’re still here, right?”
“Right.”
“What if that’s why you have luck?”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Well you never prayed before and you survived. Why break a winning streak, that’s what I am saying.”
“You think if I pray I might die in the next battle?”
“You said yourself that you’ve seen it happen to lots of others. Do you really want to risk it happening to you?”
“You’re winding me up right?”
“No- I am just asking you to think about it.”
“You’re winding me up.”
“All right, I admit it. Do you want to pray or not?”
“I’ve gone off the idea now.”
“Somehow I thought you might.” Strange witchfires burned on the distant hills. It was a long time before the Barbarian dropped off to sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
A red dawn burned over the distant hills. A rising cloud of dust announced the presence of the Sardean army. It approached on a long front. Overhead bonded devilwings flapped across the cloudy sky. Batteries of cannon were emplaced on hills near the village of Weswood. A huge mass of infantry deployed onto the plain in the shadow of the guns.
Drums beat, eerie, monotonous, deeper-toned than any marching drum he had ever heard, resonant with strange sorcery. There was something about their noise that set the pit of his stomach to fluttering and made his own heartbeat sound louder in his ears.
Sardec raised a spyglass to his eye, awkwardly because of his hook and focused it on the distant enemy. Dozens of colourful banners rose above the Eastern companies. There were thousands of blue-tunicked Sardeans arranged in regiments but it was what lay between those formations that worried him.
Legions of dead men marched to the beat of those awful drums. Burning eyes glared out of pale faces. Rotting flesh curled away from sere muscle and grinning lipless mouths. The walking dead were unarmed but threatening nonetheless in their sheer alien strangeness.
Oddest of all was the way they were drawn up in ordered ranks. Always before, the restless dead had been nothing more than a mob of hungry, savage monsters, showing no more grasp of discipline than a pack of feral wyrms. These were different. They had the semblance of an army, with cohesion and order. They obeyed a will greater than their own, and it was troubling to think of what might be able to command the obedience of such a gigantic inhuman host.
The stink of rotting flesh left too long in the sun wafted across the space separating the forces and slammed into the nostrils with the force of a punch.
“Looks like we’ve found all the missing deaders,” he heard the Barbarian say.
“They’ve all joined the Sardeans, I notice” said Weasel. There was a note of worry underlying the jocular tone. There was sorcery at work here of a very nasty sort. If even the Foragers, who had encountered dark magic before, felt this worry, it could be having no good effect on the moral of the rest of the Talorean force. How did you fight against an army of the already dead?
Sardec let his gaze move on over the seemingly endless ranks. There were squadrons of cavalry on the flanks near the hills, as far away from the dead men as possible, presumably to avoid spooking the horses. Closer to them were human infantry and massive war wyrms, too stupid to be dismayed by the presence of the magically animated. As far as he could tell none of the beasts had been reanimated themselves.
It was hard to say what the odds were. The actual Sardean army might have been no larger than the Talorean force except for the presence of the walking corpses. Those gave it the appearance of a tidal wave of sorcerously animated flesh that would sweep over the red ranks with irresistible force. His own troops appeared pitifully few compared to the numbers of their enemy.
Sardec did not like this at all. He fought against a feeling of rising hopelessness, wondering of the breeze carried some dispiriting magic along with the stench of rotting bodies. He did not rule out the possibility although he suspected that the simple sight of such unwholesome sorcery was enough to dampen the spirits of any sane creature.
He let out a long breath. Finally the real enemy was in sight. It was relief in its way. Soon the battle to decide the fate of the West would begin.
The headquarters bustled with activity. Azaar and his suite stood on the hills overlooking the battlefield at the centre of a swirling hive of activity. The old General studied his dispositions through a spyglass and calmly gave orders to his adjutants.
Rik watched the armies begin to marshal. The huge formations of the Sardeans lumbered into position, a massive sea of walking dead surging forward in advance of the regiments of the living. Overhead dragons circled. There were at least a score of Sardean ones keeping a watchful distance. Their Talorean counterparts, fifteen strong held formation crucified on the wind above the red line of battle. The monstrous wyrms bellowed challenges that were loud as thunder but above everything sounded the eerie inhuman beat of the alien drums calling the dead to war.
He had heard some of the older Terrarchs complaining about the Army of the Dead. This was not how wars were fought. It was contrary to all the principles of decent warfare. They did not seem to have grasped that someone was in the process of rewriting all those rules with a view to winning a final victory over all opposition, not just acquiring personal glory and renown. It seemed that Terrarchs were learning the lessons of war that humans had known from the very start. He could not bring himself to feel any sympathy but he could not find it in himself to gloat either. He had a vested interest in seeing the Talorean army win this battle and anything that reduced the chance of that happening was not something he could approve of.
Asea was now garbed in full battle gear. Ancient armour made from mobile strips of enchanted leather swathed her form. A liquid silver mask, its forehead bespangled with a glowing gem, shielded her face. In one hand, she held a long white wand carved in strange runes. A lightning lash and a truesilver blade were scabbarded on her belt. Karim stood nearby scanning the area as if some terrible threat might emerge even from the command tent.