Ray took a look at the arrowheads Adrian gave him. They do look to be made of flak armor. I seriously doubt they could produce as durable a ceramic here, though why make it into arrowheads and not use the armor as is? “Maybe our friend can tell us more about how they came into their possession.” Ray grabbed the man he crippled by the feet and dragged him, screaming in fear and pain, to the nearest tree.
“Mercy, skylord, sir.” The bandit pleaded, “Mercy.”
“What is your name?”
“Vagar Darkeye, milord skylord. Please, mercy.” He was a young man, hardly twenty, blonde and scared shitless.
“So, how did you get arrowheads like these? Answer truthfully, and there may be room in my heart to hear your pleas. And don't bother lying, my eye tell if you are.” A bluff, but he figured there was no way the bandit could understand the difference between the 'evil eye' and an augmentic.
“Th-three days ago, another flaming sky chariot landed in the sea not far from here, milord. The mutants found the skylords' bodies first, washed on the shore. They're scavengers by nature, and anything they can't use, they make into something they can. The armor didn't fit them and before we could see it, they had made them into arrowheads and other junk. Their fletchers are better than ours, so we traded for them.”
“Why are the mutants helping you?”
“They're excellent trackers and scouts, so long as they're fed. And they're not partial to what kind of meat they eat. So long as they're fed and outnumbered, they do as we say.”
“How many are you?”
“There are three score of us.” he looked at the carnage of battle. “Well, ten and two score now. And maybe a dozen mutants, and the Red Sergeant's retinue numbered ten.”
“Who is the Red Sergeant?”
“He's another skylord, like yourselves, milords. We call him the Red Sergeant but his name is Sergeant Krig or Crick or something. Six days ago, the sky palace burned,” he pointed in the general direction of the crippled Void Dock they passed entering orbit. “The next day, the Red Skylords landed, a whole army of them. They rounded us up and told us to take some of them to this island. We saw how powerful their weapons were and they promised to pay us, so we agreed. We landed here and sacked the fishing village and brought the prisoners to the Red Sergeant; he asked them about a shrine to the Iron Twin-”
“The Iron Twin?”
“The Holy King's Iron Twin, milord,” The Omnissiah, in terms a Feudal Worlder would understand. “And when they told him where it was, he ordered them all killed and took half his retinue with him to the shrine. The other half can still hear his orders and watch over us. They send us on patrols every now and then, and they sent us out when the other sky chariot landed in the sea here today. Your sky chariot, I guess.” Vagar gave directions to the shrine, the village and their camp, and then Ray asked his final question.
“What else do you know about the Red Skylords?”
“They said they was from a sky land called Thrax. That's all I can think of.” Thrax is a feudal world held by the Severan Dominate. The Red Sergeant and his retinue are without a doubt a Dominate squad.
The other prisoner, once he woke up, was not as forthcoming, despite the pleas of Vagar. Ray let the commissar interrogate that one. The few answers he gave correlated to what Vagar told them. They ended up executing him without knowing his name.
“So, what do we do with this one?” Ray asked about Vagar.
“Please let me live, I know how to get around this island, where the others are and I know good hiding places. I won't slow you down, you can kill me if I do.”
“You do realize you were working with Heretics, right?” Ray said.
Vagar's eyes grew wide at that, his pleas even more fervent. He began praying to the 'Holy King' and the 'Iron Twin' for forgiveness for unwittingly serving their enemies. Ray didn't trust him, knowing that a helpless man would say anything to escape death, but he thought he might prove useful and that his pleas seemed earnest.
“What do you guys think?” Ray addressed the rest of his companions. “What do we do with him, and what do we do next?”