[sub]Roland Axis
New Stratton[/sub]
[hr]

If Roland hadn’t had reason enough to hate Caleb Losthill before, he had it now. Five minutes in the New World was more than enough time for a man to grow to hate it. From the piss-angry seas that had tried to batter their boat into submission more and more the closer they got to landfall, to the corpse grey clouds that filled the sky and didn’t look like they were planning on abating any time soon, from the rotting and stinking town of New Stratton, to the dead eyed veterans who looked at him like they figured he was just so much more meat for the grinder. The sooner Roland found a way off this Gods-forsaken rock and back home the better.

He and the other recruits and conscripts were quickly led to their barracks, his new home for the foreseeable. On the way, they passed a corpse cart that seemed to be transporting one of the New World’s native demons to its final resting place. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in seeing what the fabled monsters looked like, but he didn’t get too close. Tales went that the things were damned hard to kill, and even when they were seemingly dead they could still have some life in them, enough to gut a foolish recruit with those wicked-sharp talons of theirs. No way he was risking that just to satisfy his curiosity. 

Roland didn’t have any belongings to store, and even if he did he wouldn’t have gotten much time to put them anywhere. He’d barely had time to lay claim to a pallet that looked marginally less louse-infested than the others when he and the other recruits were being ushered out of the barracks. They were led to what he assumed was the parade ground, then goaded, shoved, and whipped into formation by a pack of overly enthusiastic officers. One especially weasel-ly looking sergeant, sporting a set of protruding teeth the colour of dried shit, took quite a savage delight in kicking Roland in the back of the legs to make him stumble, then hammering him with a marching baton to get him back into formation.

“Back into line, swine-humping conscript!” Weasel features screeched, spittle flying from his open mouth. Roland said nothing, knowing it would earn him nothing but another beating, but marked the man’s face in his memory. When he got the chance, he was going to shove the fat end of that baton up the sergeant’s arse, then plant the fucker like a flag. He wasn’t going to let this lie, oh no.

Thoughts of his colourful revenge were put on hold when the tall, gaunt officer got up on the podium and started to talk at them. The old fellow didn’t mince his words, and that Roland could respect, even if he did forget to introduce himself, though his speech wasn’t exactly doing wonders for morale, if the former-thief was any judge. Still, there was one bright spot that Roland picked out. Twenty kills. That’s how much it was going to cost him to get home if he couldn’t find a way to smuggle himself back to Holden. Twenty kills. All that stood between him and settling the score with Caleb Losthill. It seemed simple enough.

Then again, judging by the expressions worn on the faces of the veterans he’d seen on the way in, despondent and haunted in equal measure, and all the stories he’d heard about just how short life expectancy was for the average grunt here in the New World, the number might as well have been two hundred. Couldn’t let that get to him though. Theron needed him back in Holden, and there was no way Roland was going to let his old friend down.

The speechmaking was over as quickly as it began, then it was just a matter of being sorted into squads. Roland kept an ear out for who he was being grouped with, groaning audibly when he found out. He’d been on the boat over with most of them. Kept clear of them too, for that matter. A bounty hunter mage, and a former inquisitor, if the rumours were true. Didn’t do for a known criminal to be consorting with the likes of those, even if they were ostensibly on the same side now. He consoled himself with the fact that there were a few other conscripts on his squad, even if one of them was an Akivir. Theron had always said they were an untrustworthy people, which was really something when judged by the standards he kept. 

Their sergeant was a thickly built fellow named Hoff. Roland was silently impressed by the man. He looked like the kind of bruiser who could quite handily beat an orc into submission barehanded if he put his mind to it. When things got hairy, he’d be letting Hoff and his veterans do the lions-share of the work, and by the sounds of it they were going to get their chance soon. 

Surely, they weren’t setting out already? Roland and the rest of the recruits had just arrived. He was going to voice his opinion, but then realized that Hoff probably wasn’t the kind of man who cared for such minor details. Better to keep his peace and try to work his way into the middle of the squad, and therefore the furthest away from danger, than to complain and risk being punished by being put on the scouting detail, or something equally dangerous. He did have one thing he wanted explained though, and it didn’t seem like the kind of query that would see him punished for asking.

[color=steelblue]“Just one thing. What the hell are shamblers? Folk have been tightlipped on just what we’d be facing out here, and I don't fancy running into these things unprepared.”[/color]