Command Sergeant Wood observed the city below. The Port of Gollothrim. The city of his childhood. A city he loved with all his heart, all his soul. As a boy he had run riot through the narrow cobbled streets, stealing from market traders, organising other orphans and vagabonds into a tight unit that preyed on rich merchants and dealers in silks, spices and diamonds. He was caught at the age of sixteen after robbing a spice magnate, who died from a heart attack during the robbery, and Wood was sentenced to hang. But he'd been rescued from the gallows by a kindly old Captain, Captain Brook, and afterwards joined Brook's Company as a helper, sharpening swords, oiling armour, cooking for the men. Now, here, Command Sergeant Wood had risen as far through the non-commissioned ranks as a soldier could go. He was tough as an old boot left for months in the desert sun, harder than the thick steel nails which held together the Falanor Royal Fleet. But Wood had a soft spot for his men, and even more so, his city. The Port of Gollothrim. His fucking city! Which was under attack from within…
Command Sergeant Wood had fought cankers and vachine, so he was not averse to surprises. The speed with which the High Fortress was taken was hard for Wood to comprehend, and to accept. But even more so, was the changing of people into these… creatures.
Wood spat on the high roof, and his eyes tracked a vampire through the distant streets below. There came a tinkling, the smash of glass, and the vampire entered through the window. Wood heard screams. He shook in rage, his fists clenched, eyes narrowed. Then, silence flooded up to him through the icy darkness.
"You were a hard one to find," said Lorna, and Wood uncurled smoothly from his crouch on the edge of the High Fortress roof. His eyes moved beyond her, but she was alone.
Despite his size, his barrel chest, his large hands powerful enough to crush the spine of any man he'd fought, Wood leapt nimbly down to the flat roof, slick with damp and ice, and slashed his sword several times through the air.
"You come here for me to teach you a lesson, girl?"
She laughed at that. A pretty, tinkling sound. She ran a hand through her fine blonde hair, and her claws lengthened, her fangs gleaming under the baleful yellow moon.
"I think it's the other way round, Command Sergeant Wood."
"So you know my name."
"You will make an extremely useful addition to our ranks. After I play with you. After I suck you." She grinned at him, eyes mischievous, and he reddened. Wood was not a man comfortable with sex. Never had been, never would be.
He smiled grimly. Join your ranks? I'd rather die first. Rather cut my own throat with a rusty fucking razor. Rather string myself up by the balls! But… Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.
She attacked, fast, in the blink of an eye – and came up short, almost impaling herself on the point of Wood's sword. She back-flipped way, then moved sideways, and Wood tracked her.
"You move fast for a fat man," she said.
"Come closer, girl. I'll show you a little bit more."
She snarled, and her gloss black eyes narrowed. Then she charged, in a series of bounds, and leapt ducking under Wood's slashing sword, but he slammed a left hook that pounded her head, knocking her sideways into a straight right that spread her nose across her face. Wood's boot smashed her head, and even as she hit the stone he stamped on her chest, then her face. She lay stunned, and Wood moved swiftly, picking her lithe, seemingly frail body up and lifting it high above his head. He leapt onto the battlements edging the roof of the High Fortress, and gazed down to the distant cobbles of the courtyard.
"Bhu Vanesh will kill you for this!" Lorna mumbled through broken teeth. Her shattered, swollen cheeks changed the shape of her face. Wood gave a short nod.
"He should come find me himself, then," snapped the old soldier, in the same military bark that had sent hundreds of men scuttling across many a desolate parade ground. His powerful shoulders bunched and he launched Lorna into the air. He watched her fall with interest, and when she hit the cobbles it was with a sickening crack. Wood fetched his sword, then returned to the edge of the roof. Glancing down, he watched Lorna start to move, her broken, snapped shape starting to writhe, beginning to squirm. Somebody ran to her, and she gradually climbed disjointedly to her feet and glared up at him.
"Hell's balls!" Wood snapped, and ran for the far end of the roof. Here, he knew, there was a tunnel he could use to escape. But what to do? Where to go? How could he fight such creatures? How could they die?
And it came, in a flash of brilliance. Of inspiration.
He would travel the city, and gather to him those who still lived. The criminals, the smiths, the soldiers, the market traders. And they would arm themselves.
And they would fight this scourge.
With a new objective, a military objective, Command Sergeant Wood loped off into the darkness.
Jalder was Falanor's major northern city and once a trading post connecting east, south and west military supply routes, known as the Northern T. Sitting just south of the formidable Black Pike Mountains, and separated by the Iron Forest, Jalder had been the first city hit when the vachine invaded south from the mountains and their stronghold, Silva Valley, and using their albino ranks, the Army of Iron.
Since that invasion, where General Graal had used a mixture of blood-oil magick and cunning, first to take out the northern scouts and guards, then to infiltrate Jalder's Northern Garrison and slay the entire regiment based there with not a single loss of life to his own army – since those days, months earlier, since the flooding of magick summoned ice-smoke which chilled and killed, and allowed soldiers to run riot capturing and murdering the vast majority of Jalder citizens – well, for those that remained, life had been unbearably hard.
It could have been expected that all would die, such was the hardship in Jalder. The ice-smoke froze people in their beds, froze traders selling wares at market stalls, murdered children playing in the street. And those not killed had been rounded up by the Army of Iron, and even worse, many were eaten when a unit of rogue cankers broke free and rampaged through the streets, ripping out throats and snapping off heads.
The Army of Iron had moved south, leaving behind a token garrison of three hundred albino warriors and five ethereal, ghostly Harvesters in order to patrol the deserted city of Jalder, mopping up stragglers and warning Graal of any military activity behind his advancing lines.
Twelve weeks had passed.
And incredibly, some people had survived.
They lived in sewers, and attics, in the tanneries and deserted fish-stores, they scuttled like cockroaches beneath the floorboards of once-rich, proud dwellings, they hid in the towers of Jalder University, in the dungeons of Jalder's Marble Palace, in the Dazoon Clocktower and the old guild spice-houses. They scrabbled for food like vermin, dressed in rags, their weapons rusted. But they survived. They existed. And slowly, warily, they began to fight back.
The resistance was led by a small, narrow-faced man known simply as Ferret. He was slim, wiry, but incredibly strong for his size after a life of hardship as a thief, a pit-fighter, and later in His Majesty's Prisons, including a stint in the terribly harsh Black Pike Mines. What Ferret lacked in brawn he made up for with speed and accuracy, dirty-fighting and the ability to use his mind. In those first days when the ice-smoke rolled through Jalder, he had been safe in the dungeons – until two albino soldiers went through the cells systematically killing all prisoners. When they came to Ferret, he'd been curled in a ball in the corner of his cell, crying, begging for his life, covered in snot and sores. The two soldiers opened the cell, and one studied his nails whilst the second moved in for the kill – gurgling as Ferret leapt forward, out-stretched fingers punching through and into the soldier's throat. He took the dying warrior's sword, hefted it thoughtfully, and split the second albino's skull straight down the middle with a single blow. Turning back to the first man, with finger-holes through his oesophagus pouring white blood, Ferret took hold of his hair and hacked free his head.