by Andy Remic
Then eyes turned, and looked up towards him. Wood gave a single wave of his hand as he swayed, wheezing, blood dribbling from his jaws with strings of vampire flesh, and he watched the old soldiers moving across the icy rooftops. Despite their age, they were iron. They were ruthless. They were unstoppable. It filled Wood with a little bit of shame at his own moaning. After all – he was still alive. He gritted his teeth, and ignored the hole in his chest, he regained his sword, tugging it from the vampire corpse. But as he turned to leave… he glanced down at Lorna's face. Her eyes were shining. She was watching him. She was still alive…
Her hand moved. Slow, like a white worm in the moonlight. At first Wood thought she was pointing at him, but she made a motion across the gaping hole where her throat had been. It was clear and simple. She wanted him to finish her.
"Not sure you deserve it, girl," he grunted, but lifted the short stout blade anyway. Their eyes met, and there was a curious moment of connection. Strangely, Wood felt like Lorna was thanking him. Thanking him – for removing the plague curse.
The sword slammed down, and cut her head from her torso.
Lorna's eyes closed, and she was at peace.
Wood checked Fat Bill, but he was a fast-cooling corpse on the snowy roof. Wood closed the man's eyes, and wincing like a man with a sword wound in his chest, limped from the roof to join the old soldiers in the alley below.
From there, they headed for the docks…
Saark's sword slammed down. The vampire dodged. "Help me, Saark!" squealed Nienna, and Saark speared his rapier through the vampire's eye and kicked off from her chest, somersaulting backwards to kick the second vampire in the back of the head. She went down on one knee, Saark going down with her and his hand came back – paused for a moment – then scooped out her throat with his vachine claws. She thrashed for a while on ice-slick cobbles, then lay still, eyes glassy, blood puke on her chin and soaking her chest and belly.
Saark's head came up. He glared at Nienna. "Now we turn back."
"No. Now we go on." She frowned at him, stubborn as ever.
"You will take us to our doom!"
"Then that's the path I choose," she snapped.
"By all the gods, I can see you carry Kell's blood."
"Better the blood of Kell than the blood of a whining coward!"
"Me? I just saved your life!"
"Yes, that's physical skill! What I'm talking about is determination. Now come on!"
Nienna stalked down the cobbles, stepping on a vampire corpse as she passed. Saark followed, head hung a little low, wishing he was back in the Royal Palace like it used to be, dancing to fine tunes, swigging fine wines, fucking fine succulent wenches. Saark had come from the gutters, worked his way swiftly to a place of eminence – and then the damn royal rug had been pulled from under his lacquered boots in an instant!
"I must have been a bad man, in a former life," he muttered.
You've been a pretty lowly shit in this one, too, replied his mocking conscience.
Nienna led the way, almost by intuition. Certainly she seemed linked to her grandfather. As if by a miracle they slid between groups of vampires, eased between units and squads. Many times they heard fighting, and saw glimpses of armoured units, the brave criminals and Blacklippers of Falanor, battling ferociously against groups of screeching vampires. Swords and spears slammed out, piercing hearts and throats. Swords hacked and cut. Men fell to the ice and mud, screaming and gurgling on blood and entrails.
At one point they spied Grak and Dekkar, back to back, from the confines of a narrow alley. Their sorrowful collection of remaining soldiers were surrounded. Saark tugged to move forward, but Nienna grabbed his arm, holding him back.
"No, Saark, no! " she hissed. "Kell may need us! We have to focus!"
Saark glared at her, but allowed himself to be drawn along, feeling like a back-stabber all the way but knowing, deep down, bedded in reality, that the greater mission was the destruction of the Vampire Warlords. And Bhu Vanesh, in particular… the leader. The Prime.
Through alleys they crept, in gutters filled with corpses. They moved through desecrated houses, across dead people's furniture and belongings, their flesh creeping, their breathing ragged. Closer and closer they got to the Warlord's Tower, and only as they came through a long, low house, and stopped by the smashed doorway filled with the splintered remnants of a battered door, did they peer out onto the courtyard and see the hundred-strong horde of vampires lounging around, lethargic, almost decadent in their casual manner.
"What now?" muttered Saark.
"We have to get past them."
"Using what blood-oil magick, I ask?"
"We must find Kell."
"Well he's not in there," snorted Saark. "He couldn't have got through this hornet's nest without stirring up a whole bucket full of maggot shit. No. He's somewhere close, though. He'll be looking for another way in, I'd wager, the canny old donkey."
Even as they watched, the vampires started to take interest in something above. Something beyond Saark and Nienna's field of vision; a couple fetched bows, and languorously began to fire arrows at some high target…
"That has to be Kell up there," said Nienna, almost desperate with a need to leave their safe confines. "Come on. We must stop them!"
Saark took hold of Nienna, and shook her. He shook her hard. "We die as easy as the next man," he growled. "You need to use your brain, girl, or you'll get us both killed. You hear me?" He let go of her, and caught a glimpse of hatred in her eyes. Saark licked his lips. Suddenly, he realised what was wrong – Nienna was skirting along a razor edge of sanity. She had lost her touch with reality. Maybe it had been losing her mother to the vampires, maybe it was simply the act of growing up way too fast; she'd been through enough horror to last any man or woman a lifetime. But the fact remained – she was fast becoming a danger. To Saark, to Kell, and to herself.
Distantly, there came a sudden, deafening roar. There were more bangs, and clatters, and an undercurrent of strange violent crackling sounds. Saark moved to another window in the ransacked town house and stared off across the wide courtyard. The edges of the city glowed orange. Fire was raging along the docks.
Outside, the vampires had seen the fire as well. Screeches and wails echoed through their ranks, language that was guttural, feral, and definitely inhuman. With Kell forgotten, they moved as a mass of figures, running, leaping, and within seconds were gone, a flood raging out through the night… and leaving the route to the tower entrance undefended.
"They did it!" hissed Saark. "Grak's men must have reached the docks! They've torched the ships!" he beamed, misunderstanding. "The vampires are starting to panic, they need…" He turned, but Nienna had gone. He peered out of the window, and saw her disappear into the tower across the courtyard. Saark frowned. "You silly, silly little girl," he snapped, and with rapier clasped tight in his sweating fist and vachine fangs gleaming under errant strands of moonlight, Saark surged across the iced cobbles after his entrusted ward.
Wood and a group of old soldiers watched fire dance along the ships, from timber to rigging, from sails to masts. On the docks beside one vessel a store of oil had caught, a hundred barrels of flammable fish oil, and gone up with a terrible, mammoth explosion which Wood felt tremble beneath his boots like an earthquake. Flames shot out, destroying dockside buildings, smashing through four or five ships and spreading streamers of fire high into the night sky. Flames roared. Night turned to an orange, smoke-filled day. Embers fluttered on the wind, igniting yet more ships – many of which were soaked in lantern oil from casks hurled by the old soldiers of the Black Barracks. When the vampires arrived, in a pushing, heaving horde, it was too late to save their new navy, and indeed, their old navy. Even ships moored a good way out soon came under fire. Drifting sparks and glowing sections of sail, carried high on heated currents of air, drifted far and wide, igniting yet more sails which spread to masts and rigging, planks and timbers and barrels of oil in storage. More expl
osions rocked the ocean. The whole dockside became an inferno. After a while, even the ocean itself seemed to burn.
Wood could feel heat scorching his flesh as he leant against the wall. He, and the remainder of the old soldiers, had retreated here after a vicious final battle. But now the ships were burning, the vampires seemed to have more pressing matters on their hands, and the short savage skirmish had been temporarily forgotten. Vampires lined the rooftops in their thousands, eyes glowing in the reflected lights of their burning navy. They simply watched, perhaps too afraid to tackle the flames. But then, Command Sergeant Wood conceded, only the ocean could extinguish such an inferno. He'd never seen anything like it in his life.
Port of Gollothrim glowed like the Furnace in the Chaos Halls.
Slowly, Wood became aware of another group of vampires. There were perhaps a hundred of them, which didn't make Wood feel too good; after all, the old soldiers numbered only thirty or forty, now. Wood nudged his companion, the man's white beard turned black with soot and cinders. His eyes were glowing and wild.
"We fucked them hard, eh, lad?" He grinned at Wood. "It'll take 'em years to rebuild all them ships!"
Wood nodded, and gestured to this new unit of vampires taking an unhealthy interest in the old soldiers' predicament. "I think these bastards want a bit of payback," he said, and hefted his battered, chipped, blunted sword.
"Let's make them earn their fucking blood," snarled the old man beside him, rubbing his singed beard, eyes bright and alive with the fire-glow from the shipyard inferno.
The group of old men hefted their weapons, and despite being weary, drained, exhausted, they faced the vampires creeping towards them with chins held high, eyes bright, fists clenched, knowing they had done their bit in bringing down the cancerous plague, the fastspread evil, the total menace of the Vampire Warlords…
The old soldiers had helped break their backs.
Now, it would be up to others to finish the story… the song…
The Legend.
With snarls and squeals the fire-singed vampires, their pale skin stained with smoke and soot, some bearing savage, bubbling burns and fire-scars, launched themselves at the old soldiers, claws slashing, fangs biting, voices ululating triumphant calls across the smoke-filled city…
Swords clashed and cried in the darkness.
And in a few minutes, it was all over.
Kell watched the vampires disappear from down below, taking bows and hateful arrows with them. He watched fire fill the horizon like a flood. He watched the ships burn, his aerial view perfect in witnessing the fast spread of raw destruction. Kell could not believe the fire spread so swiftly; but it did, aided by a good wind and plentiful casks of lantern oil.
Still, he heard sword blows. Then Myriam appeared at the portal. "Come on!" she cried. "I can't fight them on my own!" She disappeared, and Kell grimaced and struggled on, cursing his weight, cursing his age, and vowing never to touch a single drop of whiskey again.
He reached the ledge, panting, sweat dripping in his eyes, his hands like the hands of a cripple with slashed tendons and no strength . He jumped down, blinded by the gloomy interior. To his back, silhouetting him against a raging orange archway, the entire naval fleet – old and new – burned.
Myriam was fighting a losing battle against two vampires. She spun and danced, avoiding their slashing claws, her sword darting out and scoring hits – but nothing fatal. They were too fast for her.
Kell growled, and hefted Ilanna. Then his hands cramped, and he dropped the axe, almost severing his own toes. "By all the bastards in Chaos," he muttered, scrabbling for the axe as one vampire broke free and charged him. He lifted Ilanna just in time, sparks striking from her butterfly blades and he slashed a fast reverse cut, Ilanna chopping swiftly, neatly, messily into the vampire's face. The man fell with a cry from halfchopped lips, and Kell stood on the vampire's throat, hefted Ilanna, and did a proper job this time, cutting his head and brain in half, just below the nose. Blood splattered the flags. Myriam speared her adversary through the eye, and he fell in a limp heap.
Myriam turned back to Kell. "I thought you were going to fall off!" she snapped.
"Me too."
"Your arse would have made one mighty huge crack in the cobbles."
"I'll lay off the ale and puddings when this is over, that's for sure."
Myriam grinned, and released a long-drawn breath. "Another one's coming. It feels like they were waiting for us!"
"I didn't expect anything less," said Kell.
Division General Dekull stepped from the shadows, a large man with a bull-neck and a hefty scowl. He had thinning brown hair and large hands, each one bearing a sword. He was a formidable opponent, equalling Kell in size and weight, but carrying less fat.
Before Kell could speak, Myriam charged, light, graceful, sword slashing down. Dekull swayed slightly, a precise movement, and back-handed Myriam across the chamber where her head cracked against the wall. It was a sickening noise, and made Kell wince.
"At last, the mighty Kell," said Dekull, voice a rumble. "We've been… waiting for you. Let's say your reputation precedes you."
"I won't ask your name," said Kell. "And the only thing that precedes you is the foul, rotten-egg stench."
Dekull's face darkened. "You should learn some respect, feeble, petty, rancid mortal."
"Respect? For your kind? I'd rather show you my cock."
"I'm going to teach you a lesson you will never forget, boy…" snarled Dekull, vampire fangs ejecting, shoulders hunching, swords glittering.
Kell laughed, an open, genuine sound of humour. "My name is Kell," he rumbled. "Here, let me carve it on your arse, lest you forget."
Kell moved forward, wary, and Dekull charged with a roar which showed his vampire fangs in all their glory, glinting with reflected firelight from the orange glow outside.
Kell felt the killing rage come on him, and it was now and here and the time was right. He was no longer an old man. He was no longer a weary, aged, retired soldier. Now he was strong and fast and deadly; he was a creature born in the Days of Blood and he revelled in his might, prowess, superiority, and although he knew this was a splinter of blood-oil magick, a dark magick, a trick and a curse instilled from his dead wife trapped inside his mighty, possessed axe – he locked the information in a tiny cage and tossed away the key with a snort. Now, he needed this energy. No matter how dark. No matter how bad. No matter how inherently evil.
Now, he needed the Legend.
Kell needed the Legend…
Kell slapped the swords aside, left right, a fast figureof-eight curving from Ilanna with intricate insane skill, and front-kicked Dekull in the chest. But Dekull came on, crashing into Kell, who grabbed Dekull's ear and with a growl wrenched it off. Dekull screamed, a shocking high-pitched noise as blood erupted, and Kell crashed his fist – still holding the flapping ear – into Dekull's nose, breaking it with a crunch. Then Ilanna lifted high, keening with promise, and slammed down, cutting Dekull from collarbone to mid-chest allowing the huge man to flap open. Dekull staggered back, almost cut in two, his arms a good eight feet apart. Swords clattered to the stone, useless, released by limp twitching fingers.
Kell rolled his shoulders, and stared into Division General Dekull's eyes. They were glazed in disbelief, but he was still alive, still conscious. "Damn," muttered Kell, clenching and unclenching his hands. "That cold out there, it spoiled my bloody stroke. Here, lad. Let's have another go, shall we?" The second blow started where the first had ended, cleaving Dekull clean in two. Entrails and internal organs slopped to the floor, along with fat and muscle and skin and neatly severed bones. Kell turned from the dead vampire and stared through the portal.
Myriam had regained her feet, swaying and holding onto the wall. She sensed a change in Kell, and kept well back. He was different. He wasn't just dangerous; he was deadly. Deadly to everyone. She licked her lips and his terrible raging eyes fell on her. There was insanity there, wriggling, like a cor
rupt worm at the heart of a corrupt apple.
"Kell?"
"Yes?"
"Bhu Vanesh. Through there." She pointed.
"Stay here," said Kell, with a torn, sickly grimace. "I wouldn't like you to get in the way."
Kell strode forward, through the archway, up several steps and into a huge circular chamber. It was devoid of furniture, but thick rugs covered the walls and windows keeping the room in perpetual darkness. The floor, also, was completely filled with thick embroidered rugs, each showing complex patterns of blood-oil magick invocation, or scenes of rape and mutilation from ancient battles.
Bhu Vanesh sat in the centre of the chamber, crosslegged, long limbs relaxed, his smoky skin squirming with half-formed, drifting scenes of his distilled depravity; the eating of flesh, the biting of throats, acts of decadent arching screaming deathrape, the joy of giggling child murder, the orgasm in the hunt of the innocent, the frail, the stupid…
Bhu Vanesh.
Greatest of the Vampire Warlords.
The Prime.
Bhu Vanesh…
The Eater in the Dark.
Kell halted, and Ilanna clunked to the carpeted stone. His eyes burned like molten ore. He smiled a grim smile that had nothing to do with humour, and glanced down at the pile of child corpses, a small pyramid of desolation nestling pitifully beside the Warlord. There were perhaps thirty or forty babes in all, drained to husks, nothing more than bones in mottled flesh sacks.