by Andy Remic
Myriam stood, and watched Saark writhing on the bed, his eyes rolled back and white, froth at his lips.
Kell burst in, Ilanna in his great fist, eyes roving. "What's happened? Shit, Saark? Saark?" and he rushed to the bed and Myriam stood back. Saark thrashed, in agony, his body rolling and bucking and a smile was on her lips. Slowly, she dressed.
Kell turned on her. "What did you do to him?"
"I saved his life," she said.
"He doesn't look very well to me!"
"Listen. He was bit. By Shanna. You know how it works, Kell; I know you do. If he didn't get the clockwork, eventually the blood-oil would poison him; like the Blacklippers, but worse, for with them it's not in their bloodstream, only in their flesh. Here, he would have been dead within a week, no matter how strong he said he felt."
"Clockwork? But, how? How did you… " Kell's voice trailed off.
"Use your imagination, old man," said Myriam, and pushed past him, but he grabbed her upper arm. She struggled for a moment, but even despite her vachine strength, Kell was stronger. His grip was an iron shackle, his thunderous face doom.
"If you have hurt him…"
"Yes, I know, you'll plant that huge fucking axe in my skull. But just remember your complete lack of trust in a couple of hours when he comes round, and feels better than ever. Just you wait, Kell! I look forward to your apology. I look forward to that stupid pig look on your stupid flat face!" She shook off his hand and stalked from the farmhouse, looking for somewhere to wash. Her anger was tangible. Like blood mist.
"I don't understand," said Nienna, as Kell pulled blankets over Saark's naked body. "She said she gave him… clockwork? So that means now he's a full vachine? How did she do it?"
"I'll explain later," muttered Kell, and checked Saark's pulse. He had settled down, was still, although his eyes were still rolled back in his skull. His breathing was regular. Kell placed his hand on Saark's chest. Within, he could feel a heartbeat, but also a steady ticking; like a clock.
"Is he well?"
"Shit," muttered Kell and left the room.
Nienna moved to the edge of the bed, and sat beside Saark. She stared down at his face, and her hand moved, tracing down his beautiful features and coming to rest on his naked chest. She gave a shiver. And then she realised, both he and Myriam had been in here together. Naked. Now everything clicked into place. Now everything fit together.
Nienna's face changed, and the vision that swam across her young, pretty features turned her ugly for just a moment.
Composing herself, and biting her lip, and pushing away images of violence, Nienna stood and left the bedroom.
Myriam sat by a bubbling stream. Ice froze the edges, but it flowed down the centre, pure and fresh and icecold. Small blue flowers grew along one bank, where the snow had been held at bay by a line of dark green pine. Her gaze followed the trees up, up to distant heights; she reckoned them to be a couple of hundred years old. Magnificent. Kings of the forest.
She sighed, and dipped her hand in the stream, thinking back to the night, and their love-making, and the absolute total pleasure. Then her eyes grew bright, and she thought now of the clockwork, and Saark's acceptance of the clockwork – for she knew, if it did not work his death would have been instant. He would have died inside her. But that had not happened, and Saark was, now, for the very first time, true vachine.
" 'A creature of blood-oil and clockwork,' " she quoted. " 'A child of the Oak Testament.' " She had spent precious little time with Shanna, and Tashmaniok, the Soul Stealers who had turned her into vachine – and so robbed the parasitic cancer which riddled her of another dark victory. But during that short time, she had learned from them.
And the rest – well, Myriam smiled. The rest was instinct.
A hand touched her shoulder. She had not heard him approach, and she turned, and smiled up at him, and winter sunlight highlighted her hair and her smile.
"Myriam," said Saark, and crouched down. Now, his skin was more radiant. Now, he was at the peak of physical strength; of fitness; of clockwork enhanced life.
"You feel well?"
"Incredible," he said. And inside Saark, something went tick tick tick. His eyes glowed. He reached down and kissed Myriam, and they stayed there for a while, kissing, holding hands, listening to the burbling of the stream.
"We should leave soon," said Myriam. "In case more soldiers come."
"Of course. Kell will be shitting buckets."
"Did I do the right thing?"
"You did the right thing," said Saark, and he could feel it, he knew, inside himself, that without the clockwork he would have died; and it would not have been a good death. What Myriam had done was save him. She had given him a part of her own clockwork engine. Her own machine had divided, and grown, and become a part of Saark, golden wires and brass gears worming into him, meshing with his flesh, building him into full vachine. Real vachine.
"I love you," said Myriam.
"And I love you," said Saark, amazed at himself how easy the words came; although, in all fairness, he'd spoken the words a thousand times to a thousand different ladies. This time, did he mean it? Saark filed that away for later analysis.
"Now, you will never die," said Myriam. "And we will live together, be strong together, forever."
Saark frowned, but Myriam was looking across the stream. She did not catch his face.
"Just think," she continued, eyes distant, "we are so strong, we are like royalty, Saark! We could have anything we wanted! Gold, jewels, land, titles, we could take anything our hearts desired!"
"Wait," said Saark, his voice soft. But Myriam continued, pushing on, unheeding of the tone of Saark's voice…
"If we conquered the Vampire Warlords, just think what we could do with their power, Saark?" She turned and looked up at him, and misread the confusion in his face. "We could use Kell, get to the Warlords, slaughter them. We could absorb their power, or use their legions – for that is what they will be doing, right now, as we sit here by this stream. They are creating vampires, creating armies! But we are superior, Saark, we are vachine and we could rule the world together!"
"Wait," snapped Saark, pushing back from Myriam and standing. She followed him up, and now it was her face that held confusion. "What the hell are you talking about? Taking anything we want? Ruling the Vampire Warlords? What kind of horse shit is this?"
"We are all-powerful vachine, can't you see? Together, we can do anything!" said Myriam, and he caught a glimpse of her brass fangs. They had slid out a little. And he knew; that was a sign – of attack.
"I think you get ahead of yourself, Myriam."
"You said you loved me."
"And I do. But I didn't realise that meant ruling the whole fucking world with you." There was heavy sarcasm in his voice, and Myriam's face flushed with anger.
"Don't turn against me now!" she hissed.
Saark held up his hands. "Whoa! Hold on. We had some great sex last night, and I like you, Myriam, really I do, but I didn't realise I was signing a contract! I didn't think we were becoming partners in the destruction of Falanor!"
"What's that supposed to mean? We'd save Falanor!"
"What, and rule in the place of the King?"
"The King is dead!" snapped Myriam.
"Yes, and we are not able to take his place. What's got into you, girl? What the hell is this madness?"
"It's not madness," she hissed, eyes flashing dangerous, "it's ambition. All my life I have been looked down upon, spat at, sneered at, misjudged, pitied, and then the cancer sought to end it all with a mocking final dark salute. But the vachine saved me. And with that salvation, I realised I'd been given a gift. And so have you. And we can use that gift to ascend in power. And to rule."
"I don't want to rule," said Saark, voice quiet.
"I thought we were in this together," said Myriam.
"You mean you thought I was a tactical manoeuvre?" snapped Saark, his own anger rising. "Is that what happened last nig
ht, Myriam? Was I just a fuck to get the clockwork inside me, so you claim the credit and use me to do your bidding? I've seen women like you, at court, thinking all men are weak-minded and easily controlled with their cocks. You think you can control us, and get absolutely anything you want. And yes, many times we are; we are weak, and gullible, and we think with our dicks and not our brains. But I tell you something now, Myriam, and you listen to me, and heed my words. I am not weak-minded. And greater than you have tried to turn me against Falanor; but I love my country more than I love life, and I will give my last breath to save this place, not condemn it; and certainly not to place some second-rate vachine Queen on the fucking throne!"
Myriam snarled, and leapt at Saark with claws out, slashing for his throat. He side-stepped, back-handed her across the face and knocked her to the frozen soil.
Myriam wiped her mouth, looked at blood-oil on the back of her hand, and snarled up at Saark.
"You'll regret that," she hissed.
"Show me," he said.
She leapt, and Saark punched her but she bore him to the ground, where he hit hard, grunted, and they both rolled down the bank and into the stream, crushing the swathe of little blue flowers. Myriam's claws slashed for Saark's face, and he caught her hands but one razor tip cut a neat line from his temple to his jaw. "I'm going to slice you open, a flap at a time!" she raged, struggling.
"How quickly love turns to hate," mocked Saark, and kicked her between the legs. She grunted, and Saark's elbow slammed her face, but failed to dislodge her; instead, her hand shot out and thumped Saark's face under the water.
Myriam shifted her body forward, and put her full weight on Saark's face. He struggled, kicking, bubbles erupting in a stream through the ice-cold waters. Myriam smiled, applying as much pressure as she could muster, and she watched him squirm as if through frosted glass, face distorted by the water, and by his struggles, and by his furious anger. He spluttered, and bubbled, and Myriam wondered how long it would take to drown a vachine…
"Up you get, lass." The voice was Kell's, and it was colder than an ice-filled tomb. Myriam leapt backwards, twisting into a somersault to land nimbly on the opposite bank of the stream. She glared at Kell, and her eyes dropped perceptibly to the matt black Ilanna nestling in huge bear paws. Kell smiled, and gave a narrowlipped grimace. "Why don't you come over here," he said. "I have a gift for you."
"Fuck you!" snarled Myriam, and for a second her eyes moved from Nienna, standing pale and shocked, hands clasped before her, eyes wide, to Saark, glaring up at her from the stream and coughing up lungfuls of water. Then back to Kell.
He could see the fear in her eyes. A fear of the axe.
Then she was gone, sprinting through the Iron Forest, and in the blink of an eye she'd vanished through the trees.
Kell jumped down into the stream and Saark took his proffered hand, wrist to wrist in the warrior's grip, and was hauled to his feet. He brushed water off his jerkin.
"If I'd been quicker, I would have said I already had," said Saark, with a painful grimace.
"What? Fucked her?" Kell fixed him with a beady eye. "Lad, it's you who got a good fucking, that's for sure." Kell scratched his beard. "What, in the name of the Seven Gods and the Blood Void, was that all about?"
"A power trip, I think," said Saark, and stumbled up the slippery bank where Nienna reached out and helped him up. He smiled into her face, but she did not return the expression.
"Thank you, Little One."
Nienna scowled, turned, and disappeared through the forest.
Saark lifted his hands in the air. "What? What? Why are women so bloody complex? And what did I do to deserve all of this?"
Kell whacked him on the shoulder as he came past, and gave a bitter laugh. "You know exactly what you did, lad. And there's a hundred pregnant wives across the whole of bloody Falanor to bear witness to that one! However, we have more serious matters at hand."
"More serious than getting drowned?" mumbled Saark.
"Better come pack your stuff," Kell said, and his voice was serious. "There's soldiers out in the woods. Lots of soldiers. I reckon they're looking for something."
"Like us?"
"Yeah, lad. Like us."
CHAPTER 6
Vampire Plague
Command Sergeant Wood sat on the rooftop, hidden by a chimney, and watched the vampires drifting through the mist-tinged streets below. There were eight of them, a mixture of men and women, and one young girl who reminded him so much of his own dead daughter it brought tears to his eyes. She had long, golden curls, but only the pale face and blood eyes brought Wood crashing back to the present and the world and reality. She was a child no longer. No, she was a killer!
Watch. Think. Learn. Act!
In the army thirty damn years. Never seen nothing like this. Give me a man with a sword any day! Give me a stinking Blacklipper with a rusted axe, give me a raw recruit with anger in his eyes, spit in his mouth and a dagger in his fist 'cos he thinks I'm a bastard on the parade ground! But this? This… abomination?
Wood considered himself a religious man. He had always thought of the gods as higher beings in control of his life, and always done his utmost never to piss them off, well, as best he could. Wood tried his utmost to be a fair and honourable man, sometimes in battle he slashed his sword across the back of an enemy's neck, maybe stabbed a few through the back of the kidneys as well, but in the scheme of things he didn't lie, cheat, rape or murder. And this was despite being dealt a rough hand in the game of life. For the grey plague to take his wife had been painful beyond bearing; hanging on to her withered hand, weeping, not caring if he died by her side and went down the long grey path to the black waters of the Chaos Halls. No. He'd been ready for that. Sort of. Could bear it. Just. But for his nine-year-old daughter to follow two weeks later… it had been too much to bear. Three days after Sazah's death, Wood tried to take his own life. Tried to hang himself from the polished oak banister of a house now devoid of life and warmth, and love and laughter… and stinking that plague stink, with two corpses filling the beds.
Wood took a length of old rope, and with hands frighteningly steady, formed it into a noose. He tied it with a blood-knot he'd learned when fishing with his brother as a boy; a good, strong knot, not likely to fail. Then he dragged a heavy chair from the bedroom, his daughter's corpse nagging at the edge of his vision, and tied the remaining end to the banister. He stood on the chair, then climbed up onto the banister, one hand against the wall to steady himself. He looked down, to the polished terracotta tiles, and it looked a long way down, looked a long way down into the welcoming well of his own death.
No fear. He smiled. No fear.
He would join Tahlan, and Sazah, and they would be together and that would be the end of it. Wood smiled, nodding to himself. He felt himself shift on the chair, and he passed the noose over his neck. The rope had been coarse on his skin, chafing him a little, irritating him – he was a man of small irritations, as his army recruits knew all too well. But this time he did his best to ignore it. After all, he was about to make that final leap…
Then, the door to his house opened, and a wizened old man stepped across the threshold. He was stooped, wearing brown robes and carrying a gnarled, polished walking stick. The old man's name was Pettrus. Once, just like Wood, he'd been a Command Sergeant and the two had met at an old soldier's drinking evening, down at the Soldiers' Arms, a dockside tavern of ill repute. The night had been a long one, and when Wood stepped outside for a piss, shuffling down a narrow alley to avoid prying eyes, he'd spotted Pettrus standing by the dockside, staring down into the black, cold, lapping waters, the churned scum and detritus of a busy city port.
"Pettrus? What are you doing, man?"
"I want to die."
"Don't be insane! You're a Command Sergeant in the King's Army! You've got everything a man could want!"
Pettrus turned then, and it was the haunted look in his eyes, the pain, that made Wood realise he was about to
jump. There was anguish in the lines of the man's face; pure anguish. He was in mental turmoil. A psychological hell.
"I have nothing!" he snarled, and went to jump… but Wood was there, powerful fist around the older man's bicep, straining to pull him back. They fought for a few moments, struggled and scuffled, and fell back onto the dockside in a slightly drunken heap. They started laughing, and Wood stood, hauling Pettrus up after him.
"I'll buy you an ale. You can tell me all about it."
Pettrus nodded, and they went into the Soldier's Arms, through the smoke and crowds to a quiet corner. Wood brought two jugs of frothing ale, brown, bitter and intoxicating.
"Why the hell did you want to do that?" said Wood, slamming his jug down, a creamy moustache atop his real one.
"My wife."
"What's wrong with your wife?"
"Nothing. That's the problem. She's perfect. She's beautiful, well proportioned, long silky black curls, a perfect physical female specimen."
"However?"
"She'll open her legs to any man willing. I caught her, last night, with a young soldier from my own platoon. You hear that? My own fucking platoon. I beat him, of course."
"Of course."
"He ran around that bedchamber, trews round his ankles, squawking like a chicken with each punch until I knocked him down the stairs. That shut the bastard up. Then I turned on Darina…"
"You didn't…"
"No, no." Pettrus waved his hand. "We argued. She told me about them. About her lovers. Every week, a different man. Every night I was on sentry duty, she'd come down here, to the taverns, drink her fill and find somebody for comfort. She said she didn't want to be lonely, but we both know that's horse shit."
"Yes."
They drank in silence for a while, then Pettrus looked up, intense, and grabbed Wood's arm. "Thank you. Thank you for saving me."
"Ahh shit, Pettrus. Don't be ridiculous. I did nothing."
"No. No. You saved my life. I owe you."
And from that day they had become good friends, talking often, and helping Pettrus overcome his destroyed marriage. Until the plague hit. Until Tahlan and Sazah died, weight dropping away, skin turning grey, huge sores forming under armpits and in groins, gums peeling back from teeth and forcing them to protrude like on a five-week corpse…