Soldiers, soldiers, we lucky bastards,

Stomp your feet and sing your songs; Tomorrow is a dream we lost.

Wet your blade and kill your friends, lay them into hallowed rest,

Booze is cheap, and life is cheaper,

In the Northlands, we honor the Reaper.

Oak rushed across the open ground towards the Carcani manor at the head of thirty men, Geezer by his side. The poem slithered back into his unconscious mind like a snake searching for a nice stack of rocks to winter under. He could not remember where he had first heard it, but the verse fit the moment.

Shutters opened on the second floor, and crossbows twanged. A man on his left went down, clutching at his throat and spewing blood. The warriors running behind the wounded man jumped over him in their rush to get at the enemy.

To someone unused to war, it might have seemed cruel, but Oak knew better. No one present could un-pierce that man's throat and trying to help just put you in needless danger.

They made it to the manor with only one other casualty. Oak pressed his back against the wall next to the main door and thanked Ashmedai for the porch. The Carcanis could not shoot bolts at him and Geezer because the porch roof was in the way. The hellhound stood next to him, red eyes gleaming in the darkness. In the gloom of the early morning, Geezer looked like a living shadow with sharp teeth.

"How are we getting in?" Oak shouted.

"Halit will open the way!" Behar replied and shouldered his way past a few men to get closer to Oak. Zef followed in the young man's wake, grumbling about his old knees.

"Fighting I can do, but all this running around is not for me anymore, I tell you," Zef complained. "Growing old is a raw deal. I haven't gotten any wiser and now it hurts to get up in the morning."

"Shucks, Zef," Oak replied and took two steps back from the door. "How can that be? You are practically a spring chicken."

Behar's declaration had sent everyone scooting away from the doorway. Standing between a spellsinger and their chosen target was not conducive to your health.

"Oh, fuck you, northerner." Zef stretched his legs and winced.

Oak looked back towards their staging ground. Halit Dushaj stood tall on top of the stone fence surrounding the Carcani compound, chanting a spell. Robes billowing in the damp wind blowing from the lake, the Ensi of Kesh slapped his hands together and a silver wedge as tall as a grown man shot out of them.

In the blink of an eye, the spell crossed the yard and crashed through the manor's front door, splintering it in half.

An explosion of sound and bright light sent Oak reeling. For the Corpse-God's sake, Halit. Ears ringing, he blinked after images from his eyes and shook himself, trying to get his head on straight. If he felt under the weather, the Ferhati warriors around him looked even worse. More than one man had dropped to their knees and now they held onto the porch for dear life, clearly waiting for their bodies to remember how to stand up again.

"By the Mother!" Behar shouted, an astonished look on his boyish face. "If that is how it felt out here, I wonder–"

Soldiers, soldiers, we lucky bastards. Oak pulled his cleaver and short sword from their sheaths and sprang through the doorway. This was no time for caution. His engine hungered for souls. Roaring loud enough to surpass the ringing in his ears, Oak charged across the spacious atrium, stepping over the corpses of dead Carcanis.

Three men armed with crossbows and axes lay on the floorboards behind the remnants of a dining table, blood dripping from their ears. A fourth man stumbled back to his feet on top of the staircase leading to the second floor.

The man on the stairs had a loaded crossbow in hand.

Oak leaped over the splinters of a table and put his blades to use. Hack, slash, and a chop. Severed head, slit throat and a missing cock.

"No, wait–"

All it took was a little thrust and Oak skewered the pleading man's heart with his sword. His victim's brown eyes widened comically, and the man spluttered, grabbing hold of the sword with fingers that had lost their strength.

Geezer pounded past him like greased lighting. Using the last of the three men as a springboard, the hellhound jumped right up to the top of the winding staircase and latched his jaws around the crossbowman's throat. With a muffled yelp of pain, the man lost his balance and Geezer rode him down hard.

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Wild growling and the clear sound of tearing flesh filled the air.

By the Chariot, I love that dog.

Thanks to Geezer's acrobatic maneuver, the last enemy alive in the atrium had fallen on his face and smashed his crooked nose on the wooden floor. The young man struggled to his knees and moaned, staring at the blood dripping onto his shirt.

"That beast broke my nose!" the man shouted in a nasally voice filled with outrage.

Stomp your feet and sing your songs; Tomorrow is a dream we lost.

"Tough break, lad." Oak jumped over the cadavers his blades had created and split the man's skull down the middle with a brutal chop of his cleaver. Blood and brain matter speckled his beard like warm rain. "That's what happens when two hundred pounds of dog jumps on your back."

A wheezing breath exited the man's lungs, and he fell back, crashing to the floor. Oak's engine chimed.

+ 3 Souls

+ 3 Fuel

Glory to the Demon of Wrath. Glory to thy unholy name, Ashmedai, the Last Believer and the First Apostate.

"Wrath! Wrath and struggle eternal!" Oak shouted and raced up the stairs.

***

Fear. This place is rank with it. Oak licked his lips. He could hear movement and muffled voices down the cream-colored corridor. Walking corpses, prattling away their last moments. In truth, Oak pitied the poor bastards. Most of them probably had nothing to do with Endrit's schemes, but they would pay with their lives, just like the Carcani patriarch.

Geezer sneaked down the corridor by his side, the fur around his mouth wet with blood. Together, the two of them had already sent four men beyond the veil. It was not enough. After getting a taste, Oak yearned for more, like a drunkard, following his first cup of wine.

Steps sounded behind him, and the Ears of Amdusias painted a fuzzy picture to his mind. Ferhati men, rushing to secure the atrium. Zef, rising up the stairs with Behar at his heels. The veteran poked his head around the corner and Oak turned towards him, making a shushing motion and pointing down the corridor. Tension and excitement warred on Zef's weathered face.

Oak crept onwards on his tiptoes, hugging the wall on his left. He came to a door and tried the handle. It turned without resistance and he pushed the door open.

An empty, stark bedroom stood past the doorway. Oak ventured inside and made sure no one hid under the bed before moving on. He had no interest in getting shanked because he got sloppy.

The next door felt promising. Oak could hear people breathing behind it, working themselves up to a fight. He glanced at Geezer and nodded at the hellhound. He could swear the dog nodded back.

Wet your blade and kill your friends, lay them into hallowed rest.

With more strength than finesse, Oak wrenched the door open and charged through, cleaver and sword held at the ready. A vase came flying at his face and he ducked out of the way in the nick of time. The piece of pottery sailed over his head and crashed into the wall behind him, shattering into fine shards.

The young woman responsible for trying to dome him with a flower pot leapt right after her chosen projectile, a long knife pointed at Oak's heart. A hint of perfume and oil filled his nose. Oak could not deny he had long desired a lady's company, but he preferred his women didn't wield knives when they climbed on top of him.

It really was safer that way. There were limits to what he was willing to do to spice things up in the bedroom.

Oak's cleaver blurred. He chopped right through the woman's shoulder and sliced at her knife hand with his sword, sending two digits and the knife flying. Despite his success, causality was a cruel mistress. The woman had momentum on her side. She crashed into him, screaming and hissing like an alley cat, and bit into his shoulder.

To Oak's chagrin, the fierce hellion chewing her way through his shirt had a companion. While he stabbed the flailing woman awkwardly between the ribs, a crying middle-aged man with a giant bald spot on top of his head jumped at him from the side, axe held high.

Geezer came to his rescue.

The hellhound cleared the room in a single leap and tackled the man, jaws locked around the arm that held the axe. Mister Bald Spot's skull bounced off the floorboards and he stared at the ceiling with a glassy look in his eyes. Then Geezer bit down and broke his wrist.

"Aaargh!"

Since even a sword between the ribs did little to discourage the woman, Oak pushed the blade of his cleaver under her jaw and sawed away like he was cutting timber. That finally did the trick. Her cut open throat bled as if it was a river and she let go of Oak's shoulder, bloody bubbles bursting from her narrow lips. She crumbled to the floor, struggling for a breath that would never come.

Twitching like a fish on dry land, the young lady stared at Oak from a growing pool of her own blood. She had a scared look in her wide green eyes and she clawed at her neck with the stumps of her fingers, not willing to believe this was the end of her road in Creation.

No doubt her prayers were frantic, but no help came from above or below. Not much of a surprise. Both angels and demons were capricious with their miracles. Mortal demands for aid far exceeded their mandate to act in Creation.

The young woman grew still and the light of life left her eyes. Oak took a deep, nourishing breath and cracked his neck. Unbridled wrath coursed through his veins now, and he could feel the Butcher's guiding hand on his shoulder, dripping with red.

+ 1 Soul

+ 1 Fuel

Heartbeats called to him through the walls, begging for the stillness afforded by his blades.

Geezer still held mister Bald Spot down on the floor. The hellhound yanked the middle-aged man closer to Oak by his broken wrist, eliciting another hoarse scream from his throat.

Truly, Geezer? Were you always this smart?

"Booze is cheap and life is cheaper," Oak sang. He stepped over the young woman's sliced up carcass and smiled at the crying man. "In the Northlands, we honor the Reaper."

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