Stryker and the Angels of Death (Ebook) (3 page)

Innocent Stryker heard his blade hit the ground before he was aware that it was no longer in his grip. He stared down at the churned earth and the blade that lay at his feet like a glowing serpent in the firelight.

‘That’s Proverbs, sir,’ Sykes said. ‘Summink to live by.’

Already Stryker could feel the blood rush to his face and the knot of sickness tighten in his guts. He braced himself for the jeers, but instead the wiry corporal offered him a quick bow.

‘That was good, sir,’ Sykes said.

Stryker looked up, startled. ‘Corporal?’

‘A good fight, sir. You did well.’ He winked. ‘Stupid move at the end, mind. I’d have slain you easy if it were a real brabble. But clever, sir. Very nice footwork, I’ll give you that. Work on your defence for next time, sir. And don’t get too high and mighty. You thought you was winning and your mind wandered. The good Lord was right, sir. Pride’ll get you killed.’

Stryker watched his corporal stride into the gloomy edge of the clearing, no doubt off in search of some of the bacon that spat and hissed over the fires. He noticed a ripple of applause had broken out from the watching soldiers.

‘You did well.’

Stryker turned on his heels to face Captain Loveless. ‘I did poorly, sir.’

Loveless had evidently been engaged in his own sword practice, for he was stripped to his shirt and his face shone with sweat. ‘You lose focus too easily. You are too angry. You have good hands, fast feet, yet you fight like a butcher with a cleaver.’

Stryker gritted his teeth as he remembered the insults. ‘He mocks me.’

Loveless laughed. ‘Aye, that he does.’

‘I do not like how he addresses me, sir,’ Stryker persisted.

The captain shook his head impatiently. ‘This is not the king’s household guard, Lieutenant. The rules of polite society do not hold here.’

‘But I am an officer, sir,’ Stryker went on belligerently. ‘He is a bloody corporal.’

Ferdinand Loveless held up a big hand for silence. ‘Colonel Skaithlocke needs leaders, lad, not strutting debauchees. He needs fighters out here. Men who have skill with their blade as well as their prick.’

‘I would fight well, sir, you know I would.’ A simmering annoyance boiled to the surface of his mind then. ‘
I
am no dandy.’

‘If you speak of young Forrester,’ Loveless retorted sternly, wagging a finger of reproach in Stryker’s face, ‘I suggest you have a care. He is not so pathetic as you imagine.’

Stryker rolled his eyes. ‘He would rather be bumpsy in a brothel than fight a war, Captain.’

‘As would I, Lieutenant. Look past his rakish manner, lad.’ The captain turned away, stalking back to whichever fire he had ordered lit for his comfort. ‘And as for Sykes,’ he called over his thick shoulder, ‘he is here to teach you.’

‘Teach?’ Stryker blurted, trotting in his commanding officer’s wake. ‘He humiliates, sir. Names me puny, stripling, whore’s babe. It is no way to speak to an officer.’

Loveless stopped. ‘Then tell him, Lieutenant,’ he said in exasperation. ‘When next you fight, stick him on his arse and show him you are in command.’

Stryker bit his lip. ‘He is too good, sir.’

‘And that is why Colonel Skaithlocke and I would have you drill with him. You are young, and you are already a good soldier. With Sykes’s help you will be a proper killer, Stryker. Your men will follow you to hell and back, and your enemies will fear you.’ He placed a heavy hand on Stryker’s shoulder. ‘But not yet.’

Stryker stared into Loveless’ dark eyes, watching the flames swirl across them. ‘You want leaders, sir. Give me a chance. Let me lead the men.’

Loveless smiled. ‘Your chance will come, Stryker. Of that you can be certain.’

* * *

The wagon appeared around mid morning, as the last of the night’s fires cooled and the stubborn vestiges of river mist had been seared to nothing by the gathering sun. It creaked and lolled out of the forest along a desiccated bridleway on the Oder’s east bank, big wheels bouncing from one dried rut to the next, a pair of disgruntled palfreys braying in discord out front as taut traces jerked and slackened in time with the vehicle.

The pickets had sent for Loveless as soon as they had heard the wagon’s approach, and the captain, along with his lieutenant and a score of dusty musketeers, was now on the east bank. He held a perspective glass to his right eye, training it on the vehicle that struggled beneath the suffocating canopy, jaw moving frantically as he chewed another wad of sotweed. ‘Just two.’

‘None in the rear?’ Stryker asked.

Loveless shifted the leather-bound cylinder a touch so that he could inspect the back of the wagon. It was clear that the vehicle was packed tightly with its cargo of hogsheads, for they barely moved as the platform rocked violently below, but still he lingered for another second. Eventually he lowered the glass. ‘No one else. Just the driver and the fellow beside him.’

They waited as the wagon came closer. It seemed to hit a deep rut, for it lurched violently to one side, the opposing flank rising into the air, wheels spinning manically. The hogsheads moved now, rattling like powder flasks on a bandolier as the horses whinnied in fright. The driver cursed viciously in German, lashed the reins at the beasts’ backs with an expert flick of his wrists, and somehow regained control, the flying wheels hitting the hard ground and carrying the wagon from its predicament with a jerk that had the two men grasping the driver’s bench for dear life.

Loveless issued an amused snort. ‘That one’s looking nervy.’

Stryker let his gaze slide from the angry driver to the man seated to his left. He was middle-aged, bald as an egg and broad as one of the barrels at his back. His eyes, Stryker now noticed, were shut tight, and his lips worked in what looked to be silent prayer. ‘Aye, sir. That our man, d’you reckon?’

‘I’d place a few ducats on it.’ He turned to his second-in-command. ‘Go and fetch ’em, Lieutenant.’

Stryker’s heart turned into iron, its pulse like a hammer against his ribs. ‘Me, sir?’

Loveless spat a long stream of tobacco juice on to the hard earth. ‘You’ve done well for me so far, lad. You wanted a chance. Here it is. Take the men, get down the road and bring this bugger back to me.’ His small eyes flickered back to rake across the twenty musketeers standing implacably by. ‘Not a difficult assignment, Lieutenant, but I should like to see how you command these ruffians.’

Stryker glanced furtively at the ranks. Ruffians they were. Mercenaries now, but God only knew what they had been before, back in England and Wales and Scotland. Murderers, thieves, rapists to a man, he did not doubt. That was what had brought them here, after all. Plucked out of the gutter by Vincent Skaithlocke, the formidable English warlord, promised as much plunder as they could carry, and a chance to evade King’s justice at home. They were not righteous men. No gallant knights or holy warriors. They were the very lowest form of humanity, hard and cruel, fit for nightmare.

Stryker was one of them. He had been in the process of lifting Skaithlocke’s purse when the man had snatched his wrist away with that big paw of his, near snapping it in half, and offered him an opportunity he could not refuse. Soldier or noose. It had been as simple as that, and Stryker had taken the colonel at his word. What he had never fully understood was why Skaithlocke had seen fit to offer him a commission. Perhaps, he often wondered, the mercenary had seen some spark of potential, or was it simply the fact that Stryker had received a modicum of education? At the time, Skaithlocke had said it had been like looking through a window at his own past, but Stryker could not fathom such whimsy.

Now, with the River Oder rushing in his ears, he stared into the faces of the men he was to command. He might have come from the same place as many of them, but he had seen just nineteen years, while most were in their thirties. Experienced, granite hard and hostile.

He swallowed hard. It felt like thorns had grown in his gullet. ‘Aye, sir.’

Loveless raised a single black eyebrow. ‘Or you may step aside if you are not a match to the task. Ensign Forrester waits with the rest of the men on the far bank, but he’d seize the reins, I’m certain.’

‘No,’ Stryker snapped, and immediately felt himself colour.

But Loveless simply grinned. ‘Good. I’ll return to the company and await your arrival.’ He clicked his tongue as though coaxing an animal. ‘To it then, lad.’

Stryker adjusted the wide hat so that it sat atop his head at a suitably rakish angle, planted his left hand on the hilt of his sword, and strode purposefully forwards. For a heart-stopping moment he wondered if the twenty weather-beaten musketeers would so much as move, but then he heard the telltale jangle at his back as they made to follow. He did not turn, lest they saw the trepidation etched into his cheeks and brow.

The wagon was eighty yards off, still lumbering up through the trees. Stryker did not wish to be so far from the main force but, as he hoped, the wagon trundled the final distance in a matter of a minute or two, and Stryker’s unit had advanced to meet them. The driver waved, a gesture Stryker acknowledged with a tight bow, always keeping his gaze on the passenger. ‘The river runs deep this time of year.’

The sheen of sweat that glimmered across the passenger’s bald head might have been attributed to the warmth of the day, but the way his fingers seemed to play in his lap spoke volumes. He was very pale, his dark eyes sunken and lustreless, his broad shoulders exaggeratedly hunched as he attempted to retract his neck in the manner of a turtle. He looked sharply at Stryker, speaking in English. ‘But the fish are plentiful, praise God.’

Stryker nodded, satisfied that the requisite field words had been exchanged. ‘How now, sir. I am Lieutenant Stryker.’

‘With the Swedes?’

‘Aye. Here to see you safe across the water.’

‘My name is Matthias.’ The bald man shut his eyes as though in prayer. ‘Thank King Jesus we have reached you,’ he muttered, the words heavy with the accent of the Germanic states. ‘I have travelled far.’

Stryker flashed a deliberately confident grin. ‘And now you are safe, sir.’

Matthias’s eyes flicked open. ‘Never safe, Lieutenant. Never. This continent has plunged itself into anarchy. Whole towns fall by the week. Ravaged by one passing army, slaughtered by the next. There is no end to it.’

‘Then why fight?’

‘Because I am a Lutheran, sir,’ Matthias said, his voice made soft by exhaustion. ‘Our reformed church will be obliterated by Rome if we do not resist.’

Stryker turned his shoulder, sweeping an arm out in the direction of the tumultuous River Oder. ‘Then let us aid your fight.’

‘
Danke
,’ Matthias bobbed his gleaming pate. He indicated the man seated to his right. ‘This is Herr Sammer, my driver.’ He waited while Stryker and the driver exchanged a quick nod. ‘He speaks no English.’

Stryker let his gaze drift beyond the men. ‘What’s in the cart?’

‘Palinka,’ Matthias explained, his tone full of disapproval. He looked down to brush flecks of dust from his fine blue doublet. ‘Strong drink. Like fire. Union agents in Berlin arranged it as my cover.’ He shrugged. ‘I am a merchant, bringing my fine wares to the north.’

‘I am honoured to see you through this final step of your mission, sir.’ Stryker stepped aside, indicating for the driver to continue. He ordered his musketeers to flank the vehicle as it juddered into life behind the palfreys, a trail of steaming manure dropping in their wake. ‘And I’d thank you not to mention your precious cargo to the men,’ he called up as loudly as he dared risk. ‘For I fear it would be our undoing.’

Matthias laughed, finally seeming more relaxed. ‘Quite so, Lieutenant Stryker. Quite so!’

Innocent Stryker strode out ahead. He could see a dozen men at the ford, and the rest of the company clustered on the far bank. They watched as their mission came to a successful conclusion, aided by one young lieutenant who had taken his chance and now led a highly important spy back to the safety of Pomerania. It was only when he heard the shout at his back that he noticed the thrum at his feet. It vibrated, gently at first, but gathering strength all the while, tracing a path up his tall boots. Unmistakable, unavoidable, impossible. Even as he turned he could feel his bowels turn to water and bile singe his throat.

It was the beat of hooves.

Stryker stared down the road. It was empty, but the vibration at his feet told him of an approaching storm. He peered into the green abyss at the road’s flanks. The forest was dense, an impenetrable blanket of shadowy emerald, interspersed only by the dark colonnade of ancient, soaring trunks.

He turned to the corporal at his side.  ‘Fetch the captain, Braggs.’

‘What is it, sir?’

Stryker looked back at the forest. The vibrations were stronger now, reaching his hips. ‘Cavalry.’ He drew his sword, finding the weight reassuring in his grip. ‘Get back to the ford!’ he barked at the men behind, screwing up his face to squint along the length of the road. The woods were too thick for mounted men to negotiate, so whatever loomed on their horizon did so on the dried mud of the thoroughfare.

‘Report,’ Captain Ferdinand Loveless grunted when his second-in-command had reached the river.

In answer, Stryker stretched out an arm, finger extended in line with the narrow road. There, pouring along the pine-flanked funnel like a wave rolling up a valley, were the first of the horsemen. But this was no ordinary troop of cavalry. Stryker stared in wonder at the galloping tide, even as his men hurriedly began to coax the twitchy palfreys on to the first rocks of the ford. The locals said this forest was haunted; perhaps they were right.