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Colonel Konrad von Curze is a tall, rangy man with unruly black hair, a wiry physique and, at this particular moment, a monumental amount of drugs and alcohol working their way through his system.
"I'm so fucking sick of this," he says, glaring at us as our staff car judders its way through the French countryside. "Sick of you, Sevatar," he continues, pointing at his First Captain before turning his attention to me, "and I don't know who the fuck you are, but I'm definitely fucking sick of you as well."
He leans forward as if to examine me. "Who actually is he, Sev?" he asks. This is the fourth or fifth time he's forgotten me since I joined his unit just under a month ago.
"He is Lieutenant Gendor von Skraivok," Sevatar says. "The latest addition to our merry band."
"Count Gendor von Skraivok," I add, since Sevatar has once again deliberately omitted my title. "I believe our fathers used to hunt together on your family estate at Schloss Nostramo."
"How wonderful," Curze replies, throwing himself back into his seat. "I fucking hate Schloss Nostramo too. Tell your worthless shit of a father he's welcome to show up and shoot my deer or my peasants whenever he pleases."
A cold smile spreads across Sevatar's scarred face. "And with Lieutenant von Skraivok's arrival, the Nachtherren are now back up to our full complement."
Curze doesn't reply for a long time, his head leaning against the car window. I begin to wonder if he's even still awake. "But I hate the Nachtherren," he says suddenly, sounding like a petulant child.
Not for the first time I find myself wondering what the hell I've volunteered for. Sturm-Regiment Nr. 8, the Nachtherren, are supposed to be among Imperial Jermani's greatest fighting units, expert infiltrators in their famed skull-painted helmets who effortlessly shatter the otherwise static front lines of the Great War.
So far they seem to consist of a barely-functional commander and an ugly, smirking peasant of a First Captain with a cavalcade of liars, criminals and misfits to do their bidding. And now I am one of them.
"Your feelings about us aside," Sevatar says, "we nevertheless stand ready for battle once more. You may remember we've moved to a new area of the front, one we've never operated in before."
"Of course I remember, Sev. We were on the train for hours. I hate trains."
"Is there anything you actually like?" I say, mostly to myself. This is a mistake. Curze is back upright in an instant, the full crazed intensity of his gaze drilling into me.
"Yes," he hisses. "I like when people I don't know and don't trust are smart enough to keep their worthless mouths shut instead of chattering away like a parrot. Are you a parrot, Skraivok?"
"Am I... what?" I ask.
"Your commander has asked you if you are a parrot," Sevatar says unhelpfully, as if he's addressing a child. "One squawk for yes and two squawks for no."
My stomach twists. I know, with absolute certainty, that he will not lift a finger to help me if I push Curze any further into a rage.
"Is it the parrot aspect that bothers you?" Sevatar continues blithely. "I suppose other bird sounds are permissible."
Curze settles blearily back into his seat once again, satisfied to watch events unfold. That's something at least.
"This is ridiculous," I say.
"No, the war is ridiculous," Sevatar replies. "This is amusing. I'm terribly amused."
I glare at him. "Squawk squawk, damn you."
He smirks at me as our car turns off the road. We crunch our way up the gravel driveway of an elegant chateau which currently serves as the local headquarters of the Jerman war effort.
At some point on the drive Curze falls asleep, slumped awkwardly against the window. He's twitching and muttering as though reliving some horrible experience.
"Should we wake him up?" I ask quietly as I opening the door.
Sevatar shakes his head. "No. Asleep is better for him, Skraivok. He's lucid when he needs to be."
The First Captain of the Nachtherren leaves the car and stands for a moment in the cool evening air, making a few last adjustments to his midnight-blue uniform and scarlet leather gloves.
"They place great value on appearances here," he says to me by way of explanation. "So let's try to look like a pair of Kaiser Horus's neatly painted little toy soldiers rather than what we really are."
He strides towards the building without waiting for me. "And what are we really?" I ask, rushing to catch up.
"Murderers, Lieutenant," Sevatar calls back over his shoulder. "Every one of us."
We pass by the sentries and enter the faded but still luxurious chateau. Despite our efforts we're still out of place as the only two men in the midnight-blue combat gear of the Nachtherren amidst a sea of immaculate purple and grey dress uniforms.
They look at us with something like disdain, as though our mere presence is an unpleasant reminder of the war going on elsewhere.
"The command staff," Sevatar says in the same tone as he might use to describe an unsightly lesion. "Purple for the III Corps led by Prince Fulgrim and grey for Rakator Perturabo's long-suffering artillerymen. Tonight we'll be meeting both."
"I spoke with Prince Fulgrim at a formal event once," I comment. "I wonder if he'll remember me."
For some reason this, of all things, suddenly drives the First Captain into a burst of anger. Sevatar grabs me by the shoulder and uses me as a battering ram to force open the door of the nearest empty room before pinning me against the wall.
"Do you know who I am fighting, Skraivok?" Sevatar snarls at me, his scarred face a mask of scorn.
"Franc?" I say desperately. "Albia? Parrots?"
"No. I kill the Francish and the Albians because it's my job, and although I much prefer crows I have no great antipathy towards parrots. I am fighting the war itself, in all its forms. At this moment the war takes the form of those gilded shitheads in the next room."
You're mad, I think. Delusional. "You can't fight a concept."
"Really? In 914 we all started fighting for many different concepts. Patriotism, homeland, justice, other fantasies of that nature. Why can't I fight against one instead?"
He leans intimately close to me and I can see the same madness in his eyes as I did in Curze's.
"Death to the war," he whispers. "I intend to put an end to it before it puts an end to me, and I will use the Nachtherren to make that happen. Do not fuck it up for me with your inane stories about waltzing with Fulgrim."
Suddenly he lets me go and takes a few steps back as though embarrassed by revealing so much. "Just keep quiet," he says, "and let me do the talking. We need to be friendly and polite to these worthless bastards."
"Fine," I reply, scowling and trying to rearrange my uniform into something approaching tidiness. "And I suppose Curze is happy with you turning his regiment into your personal army?"
Sevatar looks at me coldly. "Why do you think I keep him doped up?"
We enter the chateau's conference room to find its long polished-wood table already occupied by our audience. On one side sits Perturabo, alone, grey-uniformed, hunched silently over a notepad with a stub of pencil. On the opposite side of the table are Prince Fulgrim and his numerous purple-clad entourage.
From there the contrasts only deepen. Prince Fulgrim is tall, willowy and fair, built like the aristocratic fencer he is. Rakator Perturabo is short and stocky by comparison, dark-haired and broad-shouldered with the weatherbeaten hands of a manual labourer. He has built himself up from nothing, and he will never allow himself or anyone else to forget it.
"Good evening, gentlemen," Sevatar says, making the smallest possible effort towards a salute before striding directly to the head of the table with utter confidence. "I am First Captain Sevatarion. Colonel von Curze is indisposed, so Lieutenant von Skraivok and I will be representing him this evening."
Now he adds the von, when there's some favour to be won from the nobility. A reasonable tactic in the circumstances, I suppose.
"A moment, please," Fulgrim says, holding up a hand. One or other of his flunkeys leaves the room and we spend a short time waiting until he returns wheeling in a piano. Perturabo stops scribbling in his notebook and makes a face as if his stomach ulcer has finally burst.
"I take in new information most effectively when it has a musical accompaniment," Fulgrim explains as though it's the most obvious thing in the world and we're all uncouth barbarians for thinking otherwise. "I'm sure you feel the same way."
"Of course," Sevatar says imperturbably. I see one of his scarlet-gloved hands clench into a fist behind his back. The piano starts to play and Fulgrim gestures elegantly for him to continue.
"This has been a war planned and directed by gentlemen," Sevatar says, placing just the slightest emphasis on the final word. "Their spectacular intellectual and strategic prowess have allowed us to advance by precisely zero kilometres in the past two years."
The piano clunks to a halt and the room suddenly starts to feel very, very cold. Perturabo looks murderous while Fulgrim's attendants start to whisper among themselves and their leader stares directly at Sevatar, all good humour vanished.
"Do you consider yourself an expert in military matters, Captain Sevatarion?" Prince Fulgrim asks.
"I consider myself a simple man in a complicated world," Sevatar answers with total calm. "Colonel von Curze is the military expert among us, but I believe I have a reasonable understanding of his ideas."
"The infamous Nachtherren," Prince Fulgrim replies archly. "Do go on. I promise to listen in as gentlemanly a manner as I am able."
I want to grab him by the collar and shake him. You're losing them already, you lunatic. Do you enjoy saying things just to see what effect they'll have on impact?
"The Nachtherren do not fight fairly and we do not fight like gentlemen," Sevatar says. "As you are no doubt aware, the conventional method of attacking an enemy's trench line would involve a lengthy softening-up bombardment to break down their defences before attacking in strength along the largest possible front."
"That's obvious," Perturabo says acidly. "It gives the best possible chance of a breakthrough at some point along the line."
Sevatar smiles at him, the expression something akin to a skull's grimace. "But it rarely does. Bombarding the same area for days on end merely tells the enemy exactly where you're about to attack. Spreading one's forces as widely as possible leaves nothing in reserve to reinforce whatever successes may arise."
Perturabo makes a disgruntled face and opens his mouth to speak, but Fulgrim interrupts him before he can say anything.
"This has been part of the learning process for everyone," the Prince says grandly, apparently unaware of Perturabo glaring at him and stabbing his pencil into his notebook over and over again.
"Does Curze genuinely believe he's discovered a new method of warfare? You'll forgive me for saying he doesn't strike me as an innovator. As I recall from our time together at the Kriegsakademie his main talents are making baseless predictions and starting fights at the slightest provocation."
I can see Sevatar make a fist once again, seemingly offended on behalf of the commander he manipulates so ruthlessly. Somewhere across the room the piano plunks cautiously back to life.
"Curze's methods work," Sevatar replies. "They have worked in the past and will work in the future at even greater scale. Given sufficient freedom of action, we will break through the enemy's line in our preferred manner and open the way for your own forces to advance."
Finally, there's the bait. The prospect of being the general to make the final great breakthrough, to finally break the enemy's lines and overwhelm them. It would be a heroic achievement, bought for the small price of allowing the Nachtherren free rein and with no consequences for them if we fail.
Fulgrim pauses, hand elegantly on his chin as though sitting for a portrait - Aristocratic Prig in the Act of Contemplation. I hope he's bright enough to reach the desired conclusion.
"Let's say we do agree to support you," Perturabo says, taking advantage of Fulgrim's silence, "what would that involve from our side? I have no more guns or shells to spare."
"We would need far less artillery support than a conventional unit," Sevatar says. He moves over to the nearest wall where a blackboard has been installed and draws the blocky zigzag shape of a trench line.
"A short preliminary bombardment would suffice," he says, tapping the chalk along the front edge of a small section of the trench. "From there we'd only require a bracketing fire of the appropriate size."
He turns the chalk sideways and slides it up on each side of the section being attacked, then uses another swipe of chalk to connect the lines some distance behind the enemy's front.
"A curtain of fire on three sides to block the enemy from reinforcing the area you're attacking," Perturabo says pensively. "That could work."
Sevatar inclines his head in as gracious a manner as he can manage. "It will work."
"And what would your men actually be doing inside Perturabo's walls of shrapnel?" Fulgrim asks. "What if, for example, the enemy had a strongpoint in the area?"
He's interested now. No more clever remarks.
"On the assumption that we must attack there and not somewhere weaker," Sevatar replies in an almost scholarly tone, "we would infiltrate past the first defensive line as quietly as possible, concealed by fog, rain or darkness. Having done so, we could either ignore the obstacle and leave it for the conventional troops following behind us or, if it had to be destroyed, attack it from the sides and rear at very little risk to ourselves."
"I have seen this done," Sevatar adds emphatically. "I have done it myself. The effect on the enemy is devastating."
Prince Fulgrim glances at Perturabo, who shrugs and goes back to his notebook.
"Very well," the Prince says. "Choose a sector of III Corps' front to take over and run wild to your hearts' content. My staff will keep a close eye on your progress or, as it may be, the lack thereof."
He says it in the tone of a medieval lord throwing scraps to a peasant, but it's good enough all the same. The Nachtherren have been given a blank cheque for mayhem.
A short time later we're back in the hallways of the chateau, watching as Fulgrim's precious piano is wheeled out of the conference room. Sevatar closes his eyes and sighs.
"That's the longest I have spoken for a very long time," he says distantly. "It was quite draining."
For just a moment there's a kind of wordless understanding between us, a brief spark of connection as fellow human beings. And then it passes.
I find myself looking at Fulgrim's coterie of staff officers as they orbit the Prince himself. "Why do they all look so much like him?" I ask.
"Ever since Fulgrim took command, III Corps has been thoroughly colonised by the Chemosian royal family. I suppose he has to find something to do with all those cousins and nephews. Shall we, Skraivok?"
We make our way back out to the car and, against all my instincts, I put my hand on Sevatar's shoulder to stop him before he gets in. "You know he only let us onto the front because he thinks we'll all get killed."
"Probably," Sevatar shrugs, pulling away from me and opening the door. "We'll just have to not get killed."
During our absence Curze has thrashed himself into an awkward tangle of comatose limbs which takes up the entire back seat of the car.
With surprising gentleness, Sevatar lifts him up under the arms and moves him back into one corner, still unconscious.
"We're back, Colonel," he says quietly. "The meeting went very well. Are you proud of us yet?"
Curze mumbles something utterly beyond comprehension and we start the drive back to the Nachtherren encampment at a depot some distance behind our lines.
We arrive well after sunset, and as if in direct defiance of the time of day the camp seems to be far busier now than it was when we left.
Sevatar gives me a brief nod after we work together to lever the still-comatose Curze out of the car and over to his quarters. His adjutant, a highly-stressed soldier named Shang with the face of a hardened criminal and the manners of a hardened butler, hurries out to take charge of him. He exchanges a few terse words with Sevatar, who smiles nastily at him before wandering off to his own quarters.
Finding myself at something of a loose end, I make my way towards the regiment's training field. Formerly the well-tended land of some unlucky farmer, the Nachtherren have taken over the space and filled it with a series of mock-up trench systems built in the styles of our various enemies.
At the moment, a squad is running through a practice night attack on the neat, efficient lines of the Ultramar course under the direction
of Captain Malcharion, whose tall shaven-headed silhouette can be seen running on the surface alongside the Nachtherren as they moved through the trench.
"Remember this is an Ultramar position," Malcharion booms. "What are the men of Ultramar?"
"Slow, Malcharion!" comes the response, shouted in unison from the squad in training.
"Slow!" Malcharion agrees. "Slow but effective because they do everything the right way, including their counterattacks. They're not like mad Fenrisians who'll fight for every single trench. If you give them a second to think they'll retreat and adapt just like we would, and then come right back at you based on a plan they made three months ago for this exact situation. So keep the speed up and the pressure on."
I watch as the assault troops fling dummy grenades into a bunker before rushing in to clear it with ugly handmade clubs and sharpened shovels. "And what if they were Fenrisian?" I call over to him.
"Then we'd throw a few grenades and run away like sensible people," Malcharion answers with a brief nod of greeting. "Find a different way past. If they want to die bravely like good little soldiers that's their business, but it certainly isn't ours."
A short distance away at a makeshift firing range, our machine gun teams are practicing to use their own weapons as effectively in the dark as they can in daylight.
Their leader, currently observing their work with a kind of proprietorial satisfaction as he puffs on his pipe, is Var Jahan, one of the oldest and most cautious of all the Nachtherren. In a few months he will be twenty-nine.
"Good evening, Skraivok," he says amiably as I draw near. "How are things?"
I shrug. "I've spent the evening watching First Captain Sevatarion offend just about everyone and still get what he wanted somehow."
"Sounds about right," Var Jahan chuckles. "Sevatar is a very determined man. Did you know he has a daughter back home?"
That's interesting. "A daughter? No, I had no idea."
"He doesn't mention her, but I ran into them on leave once. A girl by the name of Altani. Blind since birth, sings like an angel and very much takes after her late mother in appearance."
"Lucky for her," I say, having briefly imagined a miniature Sevatar in a dress causing havoc somewhere. "Why are you telling me this?"
Var Jahan draws pensively on his pipe for a moment, his eyes fixed on his troops. "Most of us in the Nachtherren are already dead," he says. "You're dead too. You died as soon as you put on that skulled helmet. I certainly don't expect to survive the war."
I do. The alternative is unthinkable.
"Sevatar is different, though," he continues. "He'd be just as much a corpse as the rest of us except he has Altani waiting for him."
"So for him everything's just a means to that end?" I ask.
"Everything," Var Jahan agrees. "One day out here they'll be down to the last Albian, the last Franc, and Sevatar the last Jerman will jump out of a crater, hack them both to death with a shovel, and go home."
We laugh without much humour and then I find myself looking the never-ending flashes of artillery rippling in the sky over the front line.
"Why does Curze hate his own regiment?" I ask.
"You got an earful in the car, I suppose," Var Jahan replies, amused. "I've known him since the beginning of the war. It's just his way. Did you ever have an idea that seemed wonderful, and then when it came true it was just a bit shit?"
Far too many. "Yes," I say. "Doesn't everyone?"
"Curze did. It was fun for him at the start when everything we're doing was new and exciting. Now that we're a full-sized regiment with all the paperwork and organisation that entails, I think he's just bored. He doesn't do well with boredom."
"Does he have be such a child about it, though?"
Var Jahan laughs. "He is a child, Skraivok. We all are, and this is the world's greatest ever game of pretend. Millions of us all pretending to be heroes."
"Anyway," he says by way of a conclusion. "Just something to think about."
"I'll keep it in mind," I say, before nodding farewell and moving further into the camp. Just ahead of me, outside a large tent, sits another member of the Eighth moving lazily back and forth in a wooden rocking chair as he works on something by lamplight.
He looks up at me as I approach and I can see he has a gas mask pulled down around his neck with bright red tears painted underneath its lenses. This must be the domain of the Bleeding Eyes assault squad.
He gives me a half-hearted salute, knitting needle still in hand. The Nachtherren don't normally bother with such formalities, but clearly I'm still new enough that the ice hasn't completely broken yet.
"The Bleeding Eyes?" I ask, since sometimes it's easier to say something obvious rather than nothing at all.
"That's right, sir," he says, returning to his work.
"And what are you making just now?"
"A scarf," he says placidly. "Would you like one? We've made plenty."
He holds up his current project which has a neatly-executed pattern of interlocking bats and skulls. About halfway through he clearly ran out of suitably dark wool and switched to a jaunty combination of pink and yellow instead.
"No, thank you," I say.
"Suit yourself," he shrugs, then turns back in his chair to call back into the tent. "Lucoryphus! No scarf for the new Lieutenant."
There's a brief outbreak of clattering from within the tent as though a number of wooden boxes are being moved around hurriedly.
"Will the Lieutenant accept mittens, Vorsha?" a rasping voice replies. "Bat mittens?"
"Hold on, I'll check." Vorsha turns back to me. "Will you accept bat mittens, sir?"
"No, thank you," I repeat, feeling faintly ridiculous.
He gives me a look of barely-concealed disdain and turns back to the tent once again. "He says no mittens!"
"No mittens, Skraivok?" Sevatar says, suddenly looming out of the darkness next to me as is his custom. "That's insane. You'll get frostbite and have to saw your fingers off one by one."
"Sevatar. I didn't come here to discuss mittens," I reply. What a pathetic thing to say.
"No, I don't imagine you did," he replies, amused. "Let's talk about something else, then. A trench raid, tomorrow, as soon as we move into the line. Curze himself will be leading, along with you and a squad or two of these reprehensibles."
He leans forward, smiling in his distinctly unpleasant way, and pats me on the shoulder far too hard. "Enjoy yourself, Skraivok."
Behind me, Vorsha chuckles and carries on with his knitting.
Some time later, after all right-thinking people have gone to bed and even the Nachtherren are starting to tire, I go alone to my quarters and lock the door behind me.
I take in a single deep, calming breath and hold it for a precise count of five seconds. Then I exhale, and as easily as stepping from one shadow to another I simply cease to be Gendor von Skraivok.
I've never even met Skraivok, only seen a single blurry photograph of him. Like an actor leaving the stage I stretch my limbs, reasserting myself as myself within my own body. It's incredibly draining to be someone else.
I move across the room, quickly and silently with none of the Skraivok identity's pompous stiffness, and open up the false bottom of my travelling case to reveal a compact radio set.
I get it ready, with the aerial and battery connected just as I've been trained to, then put my finger on the telegraph key and begin to transmit, starting with the identifying codephrase of my unit:
XIX DELIVERANCE XIX
NACHTHERREN NOW IN III CORPS ZONE
MOVING FRONT LINE TOMORROW
RUSHAL