by Andy Remic
It had taken two nights.
Now, they would ease out into the city like a brass medical needle penetrating a succulent vein.
And they would hunt. They would convert. They would feed.
Until no humans remained.
CHAPTER 3
Zone
"I hope you're not going to use that?" Nienna's voice was gentle. And very, very close.
Myriam started, and turned, her movement reflected in the Svian blade. "Child. You move quiet for a… mortal." She smiled. The irony was not lost on Nienna. Myriam glanced down at Kell, snoring gently, face relaxed in sleep, just another old man. Another retired soldier. How easy it was to be deceived, for Myriam knew he was the greatest killer on the continent. She moved to replace the knife in Kell's under-arm sheath, and with a slap her wrist was enclosed in Kell's mighty fist. Despite her accelerated vachine strength, the power of the clockwork, Kell's grip was like a steel shackle and she could not move. He opened one eye.
"Finished your game?" he growled.
"No game," said Myriam.
"I wondered if you'd try."
"Maybe I'm not that foolish," she said, and winced as the grip tightened, forcing her to drop the blade – which Kell took from her, neatly, and sheathed it with a whisper of oiled steel on leather.
"Maybe you are," he said, sitting up and releasing her. She rubbed her pale flesh, glancing at the angry-red welts where his fingers had crushed her.
"You're still strong, for an old man."
"Better believe it," he grunted, and stood. He kicked Saark, who opened an eye to observe Kell like a lizard from a hot rock.
"Come on, dandy," he growled. "We're moving out."
"You could have just told me."
"I find a boot up the arse infinitely more persuasive."
"I was having such sweet dreams, of a buxom young tavern wench I once entertained. She could do amazing things with fresh cream and cracked eggs. You should have seen the foam!"
Kell stared at him. "So then, even your new vachine blood has done nothing to kill your wayward libido?"
"If anything, Kell, it has made me more rampant!" Saark stood, and smiled, and stretched himself, muscles aching from an uncomfortable, cramping sleep. But at least he could stand. At least he could stretch. "Now, my old and bedraggled friend, I can do it all night." He touched his chest, tenderly, remembering the savage wound and his near-death experience. He cast it from his mind. It no longer mattered; he was not dead. He was alive. And he was going to drink deep from the cup of hedonistic fulfilment.
"Yes." Kell coughed. "Well. Be careful where you stick it. You've gotten in enough bloody trouble already."
"Like I always prophesied," announced Saark, brightly, "you are the miserable, moaning voice of doom! You should learn to lighten up, Kell. Look at me, heroically skipping along the jaws of death and you don't hear me whining like a little girl with a broke skipping rope. But you, Kell, Kell the mighty Legend, after all we've been through and lived and endured, still you're bleating like a lamb on a cliff ledge without its mama. It's like adventuring with my fucking grandma. What next? A stick? Incontinence trews? Senility? Oh, but you're already holding hands with that old goat." He winked.
Kell snorted, and scowled, but did not reply. Saark was right, but Kell could not help but have dark thoughts. It was simply the way he was built. With age came great wisdom. It also came with a great amount of moaning. Kell snorted again, and cursed the day he'd met the dandy.
Nienna moved to Saark, and touched his breast lightly. "How do you feel? How's the wound now?"
"Healing," said Saark, and pressed his own hand to the chest-wound. "Myriam's drugs helped me sleep." His eyes moved to the now-beautiful vachine, with her long dark curls and flashing, dangerous eyes. She stepped out into the tunnel, surveying the route ahead. Her hips were wide, legs powerful, waist narrow, breasts full beneath a tight leather jerkin. Saark licked his lips. "I had very sweet dreams," he said, finger lifting to touch his tongue, and then dropping to touch his chest unconsciously.
Nienna saw the look and gesture, and said nothing, but frowned, and turned away. Back to Kell. "Do you trust Myriam?" Her voice was quiet, and she watched Saark move down the tunnel towards the newly changed vachine. She felt a sudden bitterness then, for they had a connection now; a bonding. They were both newly changed, both a different breed to the human. Myriam and Saark were vachine. Whereas she, Nienna, was human. Human, and young, and weak. Too young for Saark. Her eyes narrowed again. For a fleeting moment she wished Shanna and Tashmaniok, the Soul Stealers, had bitten her, changed her into vachine. Shared their blood-oil. Shared their clockwork. Infected her with their disease. Then Saark would have shared with her. He would have looked at her in a different light. Nienna's eyes gleamed.
Kell rubbed his neck, and rolled his shoulders, then his hips, groaning as he worked at the stiffness which came after sleep. "I trust her as much as I've always trusted the conniving bitch. Which is to say, not at all. But what option do we have? She says she can guide us from this place. If she lies, well then, I'll cut her head from her vachine shoulders and we'll make our own way out."
"That would be… interesting," said Nienna.
"So you want her dead, now?"
"Not dead. Just out of the picture." Nienna crossed to Saark, and touched his arm. He turned to her, lightly, a laugh on his handsome face. The gaunt look of the near-dead was fading. His accelerated vachine healing was kicking in fast. He no longer looked like a walking corpse; health and strength had returned. He took Nienna's hand, but was still talking to Myriam.
Kell watched all this, and growled a low growl as realisation struck him. There was something there, between Nienna and Saark. Or at least, there was something there from Nienna. Previously, Kell had always focused on the dandy and his machinations towards Kat, Nienna's older friend, for that had been the obvious flirtation. It had taken his eye from the more subtle approaches of his granddaughter.
"Horse shit," said Kell, and spat on the tunnel floor. "Come on!" His voice was loud and brash. "Let's get moving. You sure it's this way, Myriam, my sweet little angel?"
Myriam gave him a strange look. Her lips curled into half-smile, half-grimace. There was a question in her eyes but Kell stared back, a hard look, a dark look. The same look Dake the Axeman got shortly before his head was cut from his mighty, heroic shoulders.
Myriam shrugged. "Yes. Two days, by my reckoning. Although I'm not sure what we'll do when we get there, the river is too fast to swim, although there are some albino storerooms nearby. Let's hope they're not full of soldiers, hey?"
"Makes no odds to me," grunted Kell. "One way or another, we'll be passing through." He lifted Ilanna, and his meaning was obvious. Myriam did not miss the inherent threat.
"Let's move, then," she said.
When they stopped for the night, it was warmer, and Myriam found some shards of crate for a fire. "It'll be smelt for miles around," muttered Kell unhelpfully, but did not stop her lighting it. They all needed heat. More. They needed the light and morale-boost of a good fire. There was something about the tunnels which invaded a person, chewed its way down into a person's internals… and sucked out their life and guts and soul. The tunnels, indeed, Skaringa Dak itself, was a huge tomb. Being inside the mountain was like being buried alive. Being inside the mountain was like being dead and buried.
Nienna found herself a quiet corner, and using a thin blanket given to her by Myriam, tried as best she could to make herself comfortable. Saark approached and knelt beside her, offering her a cup of water. "Myriam found it, down yonder. A pool which doesn't taste of sulphur and shit. It's fresh. Try it!"
"Such small pleasures in life," said Nienna, "that we are reduced to this. Thankful and rejoicing for a simple taste of fresh water."
"Yes, hardly beats the honeyed wine and whorehouses of Vor!" grinned Saark, then looked immediately contrite. He glanced at Kell. "Sorry," he said. "I was forgetting your youth. And my big mouth."
Nienna touched his arm. "I'm not as young as you think," she said.
Saark's eyes glittered. They were dark and entrancing, and Nienna gazed into their rich depths. "Too young, my sweetness, I think," he said with an easy, disarming, friendly smile. And under his breath, "Far too dangerous."
"I'm only a few months younger than Katrina," pointed out Nienna. "And her youth wasn't a problem for you."
"Yes. And look how that ended!" snapped Saark, the smile falling from his face. He sighed, and rubbed at tired eyes. "Sorry. Again. I'll not forget what that bastard Styx did. Such a waste. Such a sorrow."
"Yes." Saark pulled gently away from Nienna, and she lay under her blanket, looking at him. His hair was long and black and curled. Even without oils and perfume, he was a picture of masculine beauty. Well balanced. Perfectly formed. Yes, he had been through the wars, but recent travel, exercise and constant battle had simply enhanced his athleticism, making him even more of a naturally powerful warrior than when they'd first met. That, and the vachine enhancements… His skin now glowed. His eyes glittered like jewels. He was like… a god.
"I'm cold," said Nienna.
Saark gave a long, lazy pause, eyes locked to hers. "That's a shame. That's what it's like, down here in this wasteland." He glanced to Kell again, then back to Nienna meaningfully. "I, too, miss warm and cosy beds, and the easy living. Maybe one day, I'll be able to warm you. But not tonight, my precious." And then he was gone, and Nienna could smell his natural perfume, and she bit her lips and rubbed her eyes and stared at her grandfather. Saark's fear of the old man was palpable. Nienna scrunched herself under her blanket, and tried to think pleasant thoughts. Instead, she dreamed of Bhu Vanesh, hunting her, hunting her through dark citadels… and nobody could hear her screams. Nobody could ever hear her screams…
For three days they journeyed through narrow, winding, underground tunnels. Sometimes they had to climb across savage vertical drops, and on several occasions they came to guard outposts: small wooden buildings, usually empty of everything except wooden cots without bedding. At least this meant they had firewood, and Kell broke up the cots and they burned them at night, as much for the comfort of living flames as for any real heat they produced.
On the fourth day, Kell stopped and tilted his head. Then looked to Saark. "You hear it?"
"Yes. You have exquisite hearing for a human," smiled Saark.
"Helps me to kill," grunted Kell, and carried on.
"What can you hear?" asked Nienna.
"Water. A river."
They continued for another hour, until the tunnel spat them out on a gentle rocky slope. It was littered with rubble, and a sloping shingle bank led gently into a wide, fast flowing and very deep underground torrent. Back by the tunnel entrance there was another guard outpost, which Kell approached warily, Ilanna ready in huge fists, and down along the shingle black moss grew, and black vines twisted and turned amongst the stones like narrow, skeletal fingers.
"I'm amazed anything grows down here," said Nienna, crunching down to the water's edge.
"Don't go too close," said Myriam, and placed her hand on Nienna's shoulder. "To fall in, that would be to die. The cold and ice would chill you in minutes."
Nienna twisted away from Myriam's grip. "I don't need your advice. I'm not stupid."
Myriam looked to Saark, who shrugged.
"It's empty," called Kell from the guard hut, then stepped inside. He emerged after a few minutes. "There are some supplies. A sack of grain and weapons."
"Swords?" said Saark.
"Aye," nodded Kell, and threw Saark a thin military rapier.
Saark caught the weapon, and swished it through the air several times. "Well balanced. Good steel." He lifted eyes and met Kell's gaze. "Maybe our luck is improving?"
"Yeah, well don't get too horny. This place is a dead end." He nodded to the river.
Saark glanced up and down the shingle slope, and saw Kell was right. The only access was via the river. Then he noticed a short jetty, in black wood, half rotten and listing to one side. It had been repaired with old rope, but threatened at any moment to crash into the river.
"I get the impression this place isn't used often," said Saark.
"I think the damn albinos have more things to worry about than us, lad. You remember back on Skaringa Dak? The sky going out like a candle? The appearance of those pretty boys, those Vampire Warlords?"
"I remember," said Saark. He glanced up and down the river, and shivered. Then he looked over to Myriam, then back to the thickly churning waters. He could see lumps of ice. "I know what you're going to suggest."
"You do?" Kell looked impressed.
"We have only one option."
"Which is?"
"The river." Saark's eyes were dark. "If we don't build it right, we'll drown, Kell."
"I know that, lad. But if we stay here, we'll either freeze or meet another group of Graal's arse-kissing gigolos. It's one of those risks we'll have to take."
"I'm not a boat-builder," said Saark, eyes narrowed, voice suddenly wary with suspicion. "What do you want me to do?"
"Go and cut that rope free from the old jetty. We'll need it for bindings. And I'll sort out some timber."
"What will I cut it with?"
"There's knives in the hut."
"Are they sharp?"
Kell stared at Saark. "I don't know, lad. Go and have a bloody look."
Muttering, Saark moved to the guard shack and peered in. It was dark, and damp, wood mouldering, the sack of grain rotten. Saark curled his lips into a sneer, and crept in as if afraid to touch anything. He found one of the knives, blade rusted, hilt unravelling, and stepped back out to the shingle. "This knife is rusty," he said.
Kell looked up. He sighed. "Just do your best, lad."
Saark moved to the jetty, muttering again about being rich, and honoured, and noble, and how manual labour was a disgrace to his ancestors and so far beneath Saark he should live on a mountaintop. He stopped and peered warily at the treacherous footing. Water gushed around the jetty with gusto, bubbling and churning. Reaching out, Saark touched the wood with a grimace, and it was slick with mould. The whole structure shifted under his touch, shuddering.
"Great," he said, hefting the rusted knife and starting to saw at one piece of rope.
Back at the shack, Kell pried free several planks using the tip of Ilanna's butterfly blade, whilst whispering an apology to the axe. She was a killing weapon. A weapon of death. To use her for simple carpentry was total sacrilege.
Myriam built a small fire, and with Nienna's help cooked thin soup. They used a little of the grain, and watched in amusement as Saark fought with the rope, the rusted knife, and even the whole shaking jetty. Despite his usual visual elegance, his élan and poise and balance, the minute he touched any form of menial task it was as if Saark's thumbs had been severed. He growled and cursed, and finally cut free a length of rope, arms waving for a moment as he fought not to fall into the river. Myriam leapt forward, grabbing the back of his shirt and hauling him back.
"Thanks," he said.
"You dance a jig like a criminal in a noose."
"The only crime here," he said, smoothing his neat moustache, "is having to perform basic peasant labour." He stopped. He was close to Myriam, and her hand had slipped from a handful of shirt to the base of his spine. It was as if she held him. Close. Like a lover. He turned, into her, and breathed in her natural perfume. She was sweet like summer trees. Ripe like strawberries. As dangerous and tempting as any honeyed poison.
Myriam was as tall as him, and their eyes met only inches away, and their lips were close. Myriam licked hers, leaving a wetness that glistened. Saark stepped back, breathing out deeply, and saw that both Nienna and Kell were watching them.
"What's the matter?" he growled. "Never seen an artist wrestle with a rope before?"
"A piss-artist, maybe. Let Myriam do it," said Kell. "That way you won't bloody drown."
"The cheek of it
!" But Saark handed Myriam the dagger, and retired to the fire. He watched her move elegantly, and climb out onto the jetty to the far end. It trembled and he felt his heart in his mouth. Swiftly, she made a cut and began uncoiling the old, blackened rope. To the left, Kell was gathering a formidable supply of planks, at the expense of the shack's rear-end wall where the wood was more sound.
Saark looked back to Nienna, and was surprised to find her glaring at him.
"Something the matter, little monkey?"
"I'm not your fucking little monkey," she snarled, and Saark lifted his hands, palms out, and shook his head a little, face confused. Nienna calmed, and gazed into the fire. Then she snapped back to Saark. "You enjoy touching her, did you?"