Kell’s Legend cvc-1

by Andy Remic

Graal frowned. “A little excessive, my friend.”

  “I want him stopped. His life extinguished. Now!”

  Graal gave a single nod. It was rare he’d seen a Harvester so ruffled. He walked to the window, wondering if there was some unwritten bond here; some information to which he was not privy. Graal signalled to an albino soldier, who disappeared. Dagon Trelltongue used the time to pull himself to his feet, removing a tissue from one pocket and dabbing at his bleeding throat. He could feel the flesh, bruised, swollen, punctured, and he knew he would struggle to speak for the next few days.

  Distantly, there came a sound, savage, brutal, a snarling like a big cat only this noise was twisted, and merged with metal. Dagon shivered involuntarily, and found General Graal’s eyes locked to him again. The general was smiling, and gestured idly to the doorway. “A canker,” he said, by way of explanation, as six soldiers pushed a cage through high, ornately-carved double-doors.

  Dagon felt piss running down his legs as his eyes fastened on the cage, and he was unable to tear his gaze free from the vision.

  It was big, the size of a lion, but there the resemblance ended. Once, it had been human. Now it raged on all fours, pale white skin bulging with muscle and tufts of white and grey fur. Its forehead stretched right back, mouth five times the size of a human maw, the skull opened right up, split horizontal like a melon and with huge curved fangs dropping down below the chin like razor-spikes. Everywhere across the creature’s body lay open wounds, crimson, rimmed with yellow fat, like the open, frozen flesh of the necrotic, and inside Dagon could see tiny wheels spinning, gears meshing, shafts moving and shifting like, like…

  Like clockwork, he realised.

  Dagon blinked, and tried to swallow. He could not.

  The creature snarled, shrieked and launched at the cage wall. Huge bars squealed, one rattling, and the creature sat back on its haunches with its strange open head, its twisted high-set eyes, one higher than the other, staring at Dagon for a moment and sending a spear of ice straight to his heart. Inside that skull he saw more clockwork, gears and levers stepping up and down, tiny wheels spinning. He fancied, if he listened carefully, he could hear the gentle, background tick tick tick of a clock.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  “A canker,” repeated Graal, moving over to the cage and putting his hand inside. Dagon wanted to scream Don’t do that, it’ll rip your fucking hand off! But he did not. He stared, in a terrible, dazed silence. “When vachine are young, little more than babes, they go to the Engineer’s Palace for certain, necessary, modifications. However, the vachine flesh is occasionally temperamental, and suffers, shall we say, a set-back. The muscle, bone and clockwork do not meld, do not integrate, and as the vachine grows so it loses humanity, loses emotions, loses empathy, and becomes something less than vachine. It twists, its body corrupting, its growth becoming an eternal battle between flesh and clockwork, each component vying for supremacy, each internal war filling the new-grown canker with awesome pain, and hatred, and, sadly, insanity. Eventually, one or the other-the flesh, or the clockwork-will win the battle and the canker will die. Until that point, we use them for hunting impure vachine. The Heretics, the Blasphemers, and the Blacklippers. “

  Graal turned, then. His words had been soft, a recounting of Engineer Council Lore, the Oak Testament, and he blinked as if awaking from a dream. “This is Zalherion. Once, he was my brother. The vachine process was good to me. But not, I fear, to him.”

  The canker moved forward, and licked at Graal’s hand like a dog would its master. The canker growled, then, head turning, its eyes fixed again on Dagon and Graal gave a laugh, a sweet sound, his blue eyes sparkling. “No, not him, Zal. We have another one for you.” The canker growled, a distorted lion-sound, and with a squeal of bolts Graal opened the cage.

  The canker leapt out, brass claws gouging rich carpets. It moved with an awesome power and feline grace despite its twisted frame and open wounds, towering over the men, even the Harvester, and gazing down at Graal with something akin to love.

  Graal’s head turned, and the Harvester moved forward, eyes closing, five bone fingers reaching out towards the canker. It growled, backed away a step, hunkered down. Then a moment later, it stood and sprinted from the room leaving grooves in the stone.

  “What did you do?” whispered Dagon, aware that if he survived this encounter, and the one soon to follow, it would be a miracle of life over insanity; of luck over probability.

  “The Harvester imprinted an image of Kell inside the canker’s mind. Now, Zal will not stop until Kell is dead.”

  Dagon lowered his head. Tears ran down his cheeks.

  The small boat sped down the river, but eventually the banks widened and the urgency and violent rocking slowed. Nienna sat, stunned, huddled close to Kat for warmth, and also the mental strength of friendship. She had watched her grandpa, Old Kell, fight the Harvester in something like a dream state, aware at any moment that the creature might smash him from existence, suck the life from his shell with those long razor bone fingers…and yet it was like she was watching a play on a stage, because, to see her grandpa fight was unreal, surreal, something that just wasn’t right. He was an old man. He cooked soup. He told her stories. He moaned about his back. He moaned about the price of fish at the market. It wasn’t right.

  “Are you well?” asked Kat, hugging her briefly.

  Nienna looked up into Kat’s blood-spattered, toxin-splashed face, and nodded, giving a little smile. She took a deep breath. “Yes, Kat. I think. Just. Everything has been crazy. Wild! I can’t believe Grandpa is so…deadly.”

  Kat, remembering her perceived savagery back in the tunnel, her cold realisation that Kell would leave her to die, said nothing, simply nodded. An ice-veil dropped over her heart, smothering another little piece of her humanity with bitter cynicism.

  “We’ll be all right,” said Nienna, mistaking Kat’s inner turmoil and total fear-not at the world outside, but at the man in the boat. “We’ll get through this, you’ll see. We’ll go to university. Everything will be all right.”

  Kat gave a small, bitter laugh. “Yeah, Nienna? You, with your sheltered upbringing, your loving mother, your doting grandpa, all caring for you and holding you and being there for you. I never had any of that.” Her voice was astringent. Filled with acid. “I’ve been alone in this world, alone, for such a very long time, sweet little pampered Nienna. I fought every step of the way just to gain entry to Jalder University; I lied, I cheated, I stole, in order to try and crawl up from the stinking gutter, to make a better life for myself, a better future. Nobody has ever been there for me, Nienna.”

  “What about your aunt? The one who raised you after you parents died? The one who baked you bread, and washed your clothes, and braided your hair with beads?”

  Kat gave another laugh, and gazed off along the frozen river banks. The trees were full of snow, the air full of mist from the fields, and they were leaving the city fast behind, the Selanau River carrying them south. “My aunt? She never existed. I used to live in taverns, haylofts, anywhere I could find. I would sneak into merchant’s houses and use their baths, steal clothes from servants, steal bread from the ovens and soup from bubbling pans. I was a ghost. A thief. An expert thief.” She laughed again, tears running down her cheeks. “I’ve always been alone, Nienna. Always been a fighter. Now…it’s gone, isn’t it? The university? Life in Jalder? All I fought to build, it has been taken away with a click of some dictator’s scabby fingers.”

  “I’m there for you, now,” said Nienna, voice small, and hugged Kat.

  “Everybody leaves me in the end,” she said.

  “No! I will be there for you. Forever! Until we die.”

  “Until we die?”

  Nienna squeezed her friend, took her hands, pressed her cold skin, her frozen fingers, and hugged her like the sister she’d never had. “I swear on my soul,” she whispered.

  The boat ride had slowed, and within a couple of hours they fi
nally left the clinging veils of ice-smoke and mist behind. A new world opened before them, fresh and bright as they drifted from wreaths of haze into a landscape of rolling fields crisp with frost and patches of snow. Large hills lined the horizon, many thick with great scars of conifer forest, junipers, yews and blue spruce, great green and white swathes that stretched in crescents across the undulating hillsides peppered with teeth of rock and littered with pink and magenta winter heather giving bright splashes of colour.

  Eventually Kell guided the boat to the banks of the river lined with towering silver fir, and they cruised for a while in silence, each huddled in their own damp clothing, stinking from the tannery, lost in thought at the recent, savage events that had overtaken Jalder.

  “There,” said Saark, pointing.

  Kell nodded, spotting the small stone cottage backed by yews, and guided the boat towards a shingle beach where he leapt out into the shallows and dragged the boat up the shingle with a grunt. He stood, axe in pink chilled hands, as the others jumped free and Saark joined him, rapier out, searching for any possible enemy.

  “You think they’ll follow us here?” said Saark.

  “Have you ever seen a creature like that Harvester?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. I’ve no idea what they’ll do, my friend. But for now, at least, we’ve put a good twenty miles between us and the…madness in Jalder.” At his words, he saw Nienna shudder and he moved to her, placing his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Nienna. We’ll build a fire.” He hugged her.

  ‘I was thinking. Of mam.’

  Kell frowned. “She’d gone to work at Keenan’s Farm, yes? To work on the pottery?”

  Nienna nodded, face frightened.

  “That’s eight miles out of the city,” said Kell, soothingly. “She’ll be fine. Trust me. The enemy want the garrison; it’s not worth their effort scouring the countryside for every little farmstead.”

  Nienna gave another nod, but Kell could see she wasn’t convinced.

  They approached the stone cottage warily. It was single storey, simple in construction with a thatched roof. No smoke came from the chimney, and no livestock scattered in the yard as was normal for these modest but cosy dwellings.

  “It’s deserted,” said Saark, kicking a bucket which clattered across the mud.

  Kell threw him a dark scowl, and moved to the entrance. “What’s the matter? You sorry there are no serving wenches at hand to see to your every petty whim?”

  Saark shrugged, and stood, a hand on one hip, his rapier pointing at the ground. He plucked at a tattered, stained cuff. “Well, I’m sorry there are no serving wenches sat on my hand, Kell old horse. It’s been commented in social circles how I can supply the most exquisite of pleasures to even the most buxom pigs with a face like a horse arse.” He smiled, showing neat teeth. “I have a certain way with female flesh. And with male flesh, come to think of it.”

  “Keep your thoughts to yourself,” said Kell darkly, “or you’ll have a way with my fist,” and he entered the cottage. He emerged a moment later, and gestured them inside. They stepped in. The floor was flagged with stone, and a table and several chairs, old, battered but expertly crafted, stood in one room. A kitchen bench ran down one entire wall containing wooden plates and cups, and a large jug. The second room contained a huge bed, still scattered with old blankets. Saark peered in, and tutted.

  “What’s the matter now?” snapped Kell.

  “No silk sheets,” smiled Saark, and rubbed at weary eyes. He yawned, and stretched. “Still, it’s good enough for tonight. I’m going to take a nap.”

  “No you’re not,” said Kell, turning to face him across the long table.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said,” growled Kell, “you’re not going to put down your head and leave all the work to us. We need wood for the fire, water for the pot, and I spied a vegetable patch outside with cabbages and potatoes. They need to be pulled from the frozen soil and scrubbed clean.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get on just wonderfully with such menial labour,” smiled Saark, Kell’s anger apparently lost on him. “It is, of course, no job for a nobleman and dandy of such high repute.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Of course! But alas, I cannot cook, have never chopped wood, and my lower back is a tad sore from all my romantic endeavours. Alas, your jobs, valiant and necessary as they are, are beyond a simple coxcomb like myself.” Saark turned, as if to enter the mouldy bedroom.

  “If you don’t work, you don’t eat,” said Kell, voice low.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Is there a problem with your hearing? Something, perhaps, that needs cleaning out with the blade of my axe?”

  Saark scowled. “I may be a sexual athlete, and I may dress in silks so expensive the likes of you could not afford them even if you worked a thousand years; but I will not be threatened, Kell, and don’t you ever doubt my skill with a blade.”

  “I don’t doubt your skill with a blade, boy, just the skill with your brain. Get out there, and chop some wood, or I swear I’ll kick you down to the river like an old stinking dog and drown you.”

  There was a moment of tension, then Saark relaxed, and smiled. He crossed to the doorway, both young women watching him in silence, and he turned and gave Kell a nod. “As you wish, old man. But I’d do something about that sexual tension; it’s eating you up, and alas, turning you into a cantankerous ill-tempered bore.” His eyes flickered to Kat, lingered for a moment, then he gave a narrow smile and left.

  Within moments, they heard the chopping of wood. Saark had obviously found the wood shed.

  Nienna crossed to her grandpa, and touched his arm. “He means no harm,” she said. “It’s just his way.”

  “Pah!” snapped Kell. “I know his sort; I saw plenty of them in Vor and Fawkrin. He takes, like a parasite, and never gives. There are too many like him, even in Jalder. They have spread north like a plague.”

  “Not any longer,” said Kat, eyes haunted. “The albino soldiers killed them all.” She took the jug from the long bench and left, heading down to the river for water. Kell sighed, and placed Ilanna on the table with a gentle motion. He took Nienna by both shoulders, and looked into her eyes, deep into her eyes, until she blushed and turned away.

  “You did well, girl.”

  “In the university?”

  “All of it,” said Kell. “You were strong, brave, fearless. You haven’t been moaning and whining,” he glanced outside, his insinuation obvious, “and you have proved yourself in battle.” He smiled then, a kindly smile, and Nienna’s old grandpa returned. “Funny, you said you wanted an adventure. Well, you’ve brought us that, little Nienna.” He ruffled her hair, and she gave a laugh, but it faded, twisted, and ended awkwardly.

  This was not a day for laughter.

  Kat washed herself as best she could, then filled her jug at the river, and carrying it back towards the stone cottage she stopped, observing Saark work. He had tied back his long, dark curls, and stripped off his shirt revealing a lean and well-muscled torso. He had broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips, and although he claimed never to chop wood, he did so with an expert stroke, his balance perfect, every swing striking true to split logs into halves, quarters and eighths ready for the fire.

  Kat watched him for a while, the sway of his body, the squirming of muscles under pale white skin, and the serenity of his handsome face in its focus, and concentration. No, she decided; not a handsome face, but a beautiful face. Saark was stunning. Almost feminine in his delicacy, his symmetry. Kat licked her lips.

  He turned, then, sweat glistening on his body despite the chill, and he waved her towards him. Slowly, she approached, eyes down now, feeling suddenly shy and not understanding why.

  “Hello, my pretty,” he said with a wide friendly smile. “Would it be possible to quench my thirst?”

  “Sir?”

  “The water,” he laughed, “can I have a drink?”

  Kat nod
ded, and Saark took the jug, taking great gulps, water running down his chest through shining sweat. She saw his chest had the same curled, dark hair as his head, and as he lowered the jug he grinned at her, eyes glittering.

  “Do you like what you see?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were watching me. Whilst I chopped wood.”

  “I was not!” Indignant.

  “How old are you, girl?”

  “I’m eighteen. I’m a woman, not a girl.”

  Saark looked her up and down, eyes widening. “Well, I can see that, my pretty.” His voice deepened. “You are all woman.”

  “Have you finished with the jug?”

  Grinning again, Saark handed it back and Kat turned to leave.

  “You can sleep with me tonight, if you like? I’ll keep you warm against the ice and the snow; keep you safe against the bad men in the dark.”

  “The only bad man in the dark would be you,” snapped Kat, without turning, and stalked back towards the cottage, her cheeks flushed red. But she was smiling as she walked.

  Kell lit a fire, and within an hour warmth had filled the cottage. Darkness fell outside, and night brought with it a storm of snow and hail, which rattled off the windows as a mournful wind howled through the yew trees out back.

  Nienna and Kat cooked a large pot of stew, thick with cabbage and potatoes, and plenty of salt which Kell found in a cupboard along with dried herbs, thyme and rosemary, which they added for flavour. They sat around the table, eating. All had cleaned themselves as best they could in the ice-cold river, and Nienna found some old clothes in a chest in the bedroom. Despite being cold, and smelling mildly of damp, they were far superior to the stained items which had suffered the tannery. Each in turn changed, burning old clothes on the fire and pulling on woollen trews and rough cotton shirts. Saark went last, and when Nienna handed him the thick trousers and shirt he held them at arm’s length, his distaste apparent.

  “What would you like me to do with these?” he asked Nienna.

  She gave a short laugh. “Put them on, idiot!”

  “Are you sure? I thought they were for cleaning out the pigs.” He glanced over at Kell and grimaced. “I see you’ve settled comfortably into your new wardrobe, old horse.”