Hand of the Wicked

Prologue

Major Dryden stood looking out at the city of Vurun that lay on the plain below. The old red fortress of Vurun stood wreathed in smoke. The city burned. The old cantonment was in ruins. The palace was ransacked. The old bazaar was looted and pillaged. Everywhere he looked he saw a city devastated by siege and defeat. This was not liberation, it was slaughter. He turned away from the mayhem and flames and strode through the huge broken gates of the fort on the hill that overlooked the dying metropolis. The fort had only recently fallen, the last bastion of rebellion. Bodies of Vuruni warriors in their gold armour littered the ground. Inside the fort, a few troopers milled around on guard duty, though there was nothing to guard. Most of them would rather have been down in the city looting what riches they could find, but the soldiers of the 13th Dragoons had been assigned to clear out the old fort. A glum-looking soldier in a dirty black uniform looked at him, “This way, sir.” He said, gesturing to, “You’ll want to see what we found, I think.”

“What is it?” Dryden demanded.

“Prisoners, sir.”

“What prisoners?” He asked, interested.

“Ours, I think. They’re in bad shape, see, more like skeletons than men. They’re down in the dungeon, sir.”

The trooper took a lantern and led him down a set of stone steps, then into a stone tunnel that led to the jail under the fort. Dryden had been there once or twice before the fall of Vurun. It seemed a lifetime. As they went, he began to smell an awful smell somewhere between urine and gangrene. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and put it to his face. Then they came to a heavy wooden door that was inset with a small window blocked by metal bars.

“In here, sir.” The man fumbled with a set of keys.

“Open it, please.” Dryden said, exasperated with the slowness, “You say these are our men, we should have let them out by now.”

“We didn’t know what to do, you see.”

The door opened. The stench was ten times worse. Inside it was dark. Dryden took the lantern from the guard and moved into the room. The whole room was packed with dark hollow figures. Black soulless eyes glittered in the dark. Ragged men that looked more like undead summoned back to life than they did the living. They shuffled their feet and moved towards Dryden. He took a step back, recoiling in horror at the sight. He put a hand to his sword hilt, wondering if these were some new horror dredged up by the necromancer Aisa.

Then one of them spoke, a hollow whisper, “John, is that you?”

Dryden nodded, “It is sir, just tell me your name.” He did not recognise the man in the slightest. The privations these men had endured were beyond any he could imagine. Yet they were here, alive.

“It’s Jack.” The man said.

“Havor,” Dryden whispered the name in a kind of awe. His mind broke and tears flowed down his cheeks. He turned to the trooper who had brought him, “How many cells are there?”

“A dozen, at least. All the same as this.” The colonel replied sadly.

“We must get these men from these cells. Send runners. Get the surgeons. Find General Haddock. We need help here and we need it now. These men need care. Find stretchers and bearers, all you can find. Make more stretchers if you must. Quickly now!” He nearly shouted the last bit as the man stood there slack-jawed. Finally, the man turned and ran back up to the surface to follow his orders.

Havor put a hand on Dryden’s shoulder and he nearly flinched, “That’s the Major I remember.” Then the sickly skeletal man started to fall. Dryden caught him and helped him down to the ground gently. Then he sat next to his old colonel and cradled him.

“Who else is here with you?” Dryden asked.

“Lieutenant Brine. Sergeant Flint. Captain Pugh. Colonel Hood and Brigadier Belfair are in one of the cells further down. The brutal bastards always live, don’t we?” He tried to grin, but his face looked ghastly and skull-like, “Pugh told us what happened. He was captured when they stormed the hill. They killed the rest, I suppose. They only wanted the officers for ransom.”

A figure that looked something like Captain Pugh came and sat next to them. All his movement was slow and his face had the same gaunt, deathly look that Havor’s had, “Did you fulfil your promises, Major?” He asked Dryden.

“I did, Captain, I most certainly did.” Dryden replied, his tone grim, “Though I wish for some parts that I had not.”

“So you had your vengeance, then, eh?” Pugh replied.

“Yes.”

Other men leaned in, skeletal starved figures, yellow eyes, and the stench of rot and dying closed in around him oppressively. The remaining officers of The Bloody 13th. The Butchers of Vurun.

“Tell us.” A man said. Was it Lieutenant Brine? He could no longer recognise them apart from one another. They no longer looked like men. They were ghosts from another life.

“Aye.” Another man said, and he could see that it was Sergeant Major Flint, “Tell us of vengeance.”

And in that cramped cell, by the light of a lantern, he told those hollowed-out soldiers of the bloody vengeance that had been wrought for them.