His legion was dust and salt.
He met them a week out from the island, a crumbling band of militia in the rain, far from home and chilled to the bone. They had settled up camp near the mouth of maw reaching into the depths, a weary sentry set up by its entrance while their mates were huddled round campfires. Thick looming shadows concealed the whole host, making them seem a black mass among the rubble, undefined, uncountable. Though Costain knew there were hundreds of them. They wore a motley of different uniforms, plainclothes or patched and armored dusters slung with bandoliers and gunbelts. Grave faces, somber, pallid and dark; short hair, long hair, feral manes and close kept ponytails; men from half a hundred different places, the only thing connecting them the number one stitched on their shoulders and breasts.
Three generals met him on the landing site. They saluted with respect as the high-paladin and his squadron stepped out of the virtibird. A tall man in a blue and white trimmed revolutionary tailcoat, his hair newly washed and pulled behind his head, said, "Welcome to the deathtrap, High-Paladin Costain. My name is Colonel Michael Jones, 1st Sanctuary regiment."
"Well met, sir." the paladin greeted him.
Another man, a tanned beast of a thing wearing a suit of yellow boiled leather armor decorated with swirls and lines in geometric forms. A large, weeping tumor growing out of what used to be his left eye twitched whenever he moved. He held it with a cloth as he made a curt bow but said nothing.
"This is Mal Horrigan" Colonel Jones explained, "He doesn't speak much English, tribals and all, but you can't find a more loyal man in the legion. And finally—"
"Finally you're here and we've work to do." the last general croaked. He was a squat, high shouldered ghoul whose flesh had almost all fallen off his bones, leaving a strange skeletal monster where once there had been a man. He wore an ancient set of fatigues, faded patches and rusted badges showed on its breast along with the newer ones of the legions. The paladin resisted an urge to fire on the general. Too much time among ferals. He tried to remind himself. But he kept a hand on his sidearm all the same.
Colonel Jones looked at the man with shock, but he was already making his way towards camp. Costain and his knights followed close behind.
The knights towered over the men. Heads turned from cookfires, conversations were hushed into silence as the thunder of steel broke the calm of night. Costain surveyed his men, some forming up and saluting, others staying at their fires, their eyes attentive and wearily waiting. They're dreading what is to come. the paladin observed. That's good. It will keep them alive. The farther along they went the tighter the tents and shacks crept together, till at the command tent they formed a fortress of canvas and hide.
The place was alive, reeking with the stink of humanity. Anywhere you turned there were local traders in thrown together stalls; whores in tattered rags or nothing at all wandered the paths between tents as dogs ran barking loudly underfoot. The soldiers milled about, sharpening blades, swilling drinks and swapping stories. Some of them fired off rounds at the ruins or bullet strewn targets though most huddled about one another, shivering and trying to keep dry. There was a river of black filth slithering ever downwards. Shit and piss, disease and the fluids of decaying corpses The three commanders save only the ghoul, held their noses tight and hurried on ahead. Costain thanked god for his helmet.
Ahead the lonely sentinels stood, accompanied now by five stern men and one woman Costain took for the other commanders. They all saluted or bowed when they saw him, though their focus was on the chasm before them. The paladin bent to examine it, a deep fissure in the earth a hundred miles wide, swallowing crumbling ruins and all the street with it. Steel beams and towering shards of concrete jutted out of it on all sides. Rain fell down it dully and almost silently, as if the darkness stretched on forever. Suddenly he felt claws reaching at his soul, and stepped aside.
They were all introduced and they were all greeted. There was Markus Lear, the Trip Twins, Tom and Alice, in their scrap armor; Logan McNeil in his worn greatcoat, Horrigan's brother, Frak the Goodkiller stood, his myriad braids drenched and thick at his back; then there was Erica Thorne.
She was a tall, well built young woman in a weathered black leather duster patched and armored in battered old kevlar at the shoulders and chest. She had a curt smile and catlike eyes that seemed strange set in that angular, hard face and military cut black hair. At her side dangled a sawed off shotgun, the shells lining her belt slick and gleaming in the light from the camp. "Thought you'd never get here." she said, regarding him and his men. "That it?"
Costain looked behind him. "Twenty brothers not enough?"
"More than that died in the first week." the ghoul said.
"Tin-men know death," Frak Goodkiller laughed. "Want death. Better to show them where to find it than have them go looking, eh?" he pointed to the chasm and laughed again. The paladin eyed him warily.
"Don't listen to that savage, my lord." Markus Lear said disdainfully. He was a short man with a slight hair lip and the tortured voice of a heavy smoker. He rested an arm over the shotgun slung over his shoulders. Spat. "The beast's men are good against the muties but there's little brains in them. Or respect."
"What's the situation?" he asked. Ignoring this exchange. He was eager to get to business. The generals grumbled amongst themselves and started to walk closer to the chasm.
"What do you know?" Erica asked.
"I understand there is an unusually large number of ferals in the subway tunnels and sewers. I know we've lost a lot of men and haven't been past a few meters deep. I know you've called for reinforcements twice in the two months you've been here and I know you never received them."
"Until now, right?" Logan McNeil said with a grunt.
"That's right."
The chasm dipped lower and lower into the bowels of the old city. Suddenly they were in the blasted remains of a subway station. Soldiers had taken up positions at the ticket stations, made a beracade out of benches, bathroom stall doors and here and there sandbags. A paltry few electric lights, those either salvaged from the station or somewhere else, glowed dully in the gloom though for the most part the flickering light of torches and fires was the only thing that cut through the darkness.
"Well there's the demons," Erica smiled as she said the word but there was something in her eyes that said she wasn't joking.
"Demons?"
"Aye, demons. Massive things that hide in the shadows and strike when a man isn't paying attention. Or charge in the shadows of the ferals, though they don't see them, then they rip men apart," Markus' eyes were wide, he reached for a cigarette as he told it; "Limb from limb. Shouting and laughing all the while. I saw one once. Glimpsed him in between gunfire in darkness. He was a large hulking thing, fucking abomination leapt at one of my men and tore him to shreds." he threw the rest of his cigarette, lit another.
Monsters in the shadows, Costain thought. Something about that seemed familiar but he couldn't quite place it.
"Besides these 'demons' there's also the deathclaws." the ghoul said.
"Yes...the deathclaws." Jones agreed uneasily.
"Frak like deathclaw. Test worth, eh brother?" Goodkiller elbowed his brother who let out a pained laugh.
"How in the hell are there deathclaws down here?" one knight asked another.
"They're not really deathclaws. At least they don't look like deathclaws. Fuckin' act like it, though." the ghoul said.
"Most of the lizards live deeper into the sewers. We tend to keep away from them." Said Erica Thorne.
One of the sentries followed them deeper into the darkness, a makeshift lantern held high in his hand. The headlights from the knights' helmets shone brightly in the gloom and the echoing sound of their feet was like thunder. All around them they heard the creaking of steel, the crumbling of stone. The shadows felt alive; twisting and breaking apart as the flickering light washed over it, only to fill back again. The generals were calm but the sentry was terrified. Costain fought back nervousness as he walked. Soon they came to the station proper. A cramped line of ticket stands, turnstiles and two still trains that was filled with soldiers.
Somehow they had restored electricity down here, the brightness of ancient light bulbs flooded the chamber, revealing tents and bedrolls scattered everywhere from the tracks to the benches. Here and there soldiers milled about, waiting for orders, sitting by cookfires or tending to their weapons. Lazily, they formed a line when they saw the knights approaching. The generals looked over them, shouting and setting them to work. The knights went about securing the area and Costain wondered the station.
Briefly looking over the soldiers he saw nothing but weary faces and bone thin frames. Like all the other men he'd seen these were tired, angry and homesick men that wanted nothing to with this place. Many of them were afraid, after so long he knew what fear looked like; but as the knights moved about them, he noticed a glimmer of dim hope lighting of their faces, and he was hopeful himself.
The station was well taken care of. The train that was forever waiting in at the platform had been striped to its bones for fortifications and part of the reenforced ceiling had fallen into itself but for the most part it was exemplary work from the restoration teams.
"You're going to die," the voice was a croaking chortle behind him. Costain turned and found the ghoul staring back at him. His ruined face turned to a grimace, and that throaty chuckled echoed down the station.
"You don't believe in my ability to lead?"
"I don't believe it'll matter." He said simply.
"What's your name?" The paladin asked.
Another chuckle."Live through the night and I'll tell you." He walked off down the over darkening tunnel till he was a shadow in a sea of shadow.
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