by Andy Remic
"Fine words," smiled the leader, but then the smile fell like plague rain. "Restrain them."
They had hands tied tightly before them, Kell grumbling and growling all the time, facing out into the great hatching chamber where yet more newborns were eased from their larvae pods and into the cool air of the chamber; into the real world. Like insects, thought Kell with a shudder. They are hatched like insects.
He was spun round by surprisingly strong hands, and a huge white-skinned soldier smiled at him, crimson eyes fixed on his, hand on the hilt of his short black sword. "You'll be cracking skulls will you, Fat Man?" he hissed.
Kell's head snapped forward, delivering a terrific head-butt that dropped the albino warrior in a second, and had him crawling around in circles, blinded.
"There's the first one," growled Kell. "Any more fools want to try me out for size?"
The leader pressed a razor dagger to Nienna's throat. He still retained his air of calm, of clarity, as he stared down at his disabled soldier who – even as he watched, died on the floor. His skull was indeed cracked. Broken, like a raw egg.
"Anything else, Kell, anything at all, and I'll cut her up. A piece at a time."
"You've made your point, lad," said Kell, showing no surprise that the leader knew his name. "Just as I have made mine. So tell me – what happens next in this vile and acid-stinking albino piss-hole? You got any more surprises for us?"
"Just one," said the leader, words soft as he caressed Nienna's trembling throat with his blade. "Somebody wants to meet you."
"And who would that be? My mother?"
"No," said the leader. His crimson eyes twinkled. "His name is Graal. He's been expecting you."
CHAPTER 15
Soul Gems
Skaringa Dak was a huge, evil mountain, even by the usual standards of the Black Pikes which in themselves had a reputation for being huge, evil, merciless and downright impenetrable. Skaringa Dak towered over surrounding peaks, and to one side, between hooked crags and violent obstacles, if one was to stand just right between jagged teeth, a person might, when the mists and snowstorms cleared, see the distant, widening spread of Silva Valley, home of the vachine, home of the engineered vampire race.
Near the summit, surrounded by glossy knives of rock sat ragged slopes containing millions of glossy, polished marble daggers, impossible to traverse on foot and a natural – or maybe not so natural – barrier to the flat circle of Helltop, five hundred metres beneath the mountain's true summit.
Helltop.
A place of mystery and magick for ten thousand years, surrounded by walls and fissures, crevices and crags, hooks and knives, and accessed only by a narrow, sloping tunnel which led deep inside the bowels of Skaringa Dak, and welcomed the foolish to explore.
Helltop.
A five hundred-metre circle of flat rock, polished marble, inlaid with natural lodes of silver and gold so that it twinkled under snow-melt. The surrounding peaks lay deep in snow, but not so the circle of Helltop. Helltop was immune to snow. Some said it was a volcanic fissure from deep within the mountain that channelled heat from unfathomable places; others said it was acts of evil magick which had taken place there over the centuries, ranging back past even the Vampire Warlords of Blood Legend – and which lingered, invisible, like esoteric radiation.
Set in the centre of Helltop and criss-crossed with thick bands of gold and silver in the glossy floor, sat the three Granite Thrones. They were ancient, and hewn by primitive hand-tools centuries before. They were jagged, and rough, and basic. And they were old beyond the comprehension of modern civilisation. Before the three Thrones there was a small, circular pool of liquid, like a glass platter of black water. This natural chute fed down, down through a thousand vertical tunnels, natural fissures and chutes and stone tubes cutting through the rock to the very roots of the mountain. These were the arteries of the mountain. These were its life.
Graal stood beside the Granite Thrones dressed in a white robe. Wild mountain winds whipped his fine white hair, and his unusual blue eyes surveyed this, the scene he had awaited for nearly a thousand years.
A mournful howling echoed through the mountains. Graal smiled. He could feel the pull of so much bloodoil and its associated magick of the soul. Now, all they needed were the Soul Gems and the Sacrifice to finalise and bind the spell. To bring back the Vampire Warlords. To control the Vampire Warlords.
Graal looked left. Kradek-ka, Watchmaker of the Vachine, gave him a single nod. He checked on Anukis, his daughter, who stood, swaying, blood-oil on her lips, her eyes rolled back, the honeyed drugs in her veins flowing thick now with a necessity of oblivion.
Graal opened his arms, and he opened his mind, and he felt the mountain beneath him within him and he felt its great veins of silver and gold, and they were one for a moment, he, Graal, and Skaringa Dak, and he knew this was the mountain of the Vampire Warlords: Kuradek the Unholy, Meshwar the Violent, and Bhu Vanesh, the Eater in the Dark. Can you hear me, children? he whispered, flowing through the mountain's vast caverns and tunnels, flitting like a ghost through the hatching chambers of his Army of Iron.
We hear you, sang the Soul Stealers.
Have you brought them to me? he whispered.
We have brought them to you, sang the Soul Stealers.
Then we have the final Soul Gem, he said. His eyes flickered open and he stared at Kradek-ka. "We have all three," he intoned, voice like a lead slab, the flesh of his face quivering as if in prelude to a fit.
"Then we must prepare," said Kradek-ka, and placed his hand gently over Anukis's chest where her heart, a heart entwined with the clockwork augmentations of the vachine, beat with the ticking of a finely engineered timepiece.
Under her skin, something glowed in response to his touch, in response to Skaringa Dak, in response to Graal and Helltop and the Granite Thrones. Beneath Anukis's skin, beating with the pulse of the clockwork machinery which kept it alive, glowed the implanted Soul Gem.
Snow whipped Vashell as he crouched, hidden in a narrow V of rock, and stared with open mouth down at the plateau of Helltop. "I cannot believe it," he hissed, and glanced back down to Alloria. She was weak with cold and fatigue, even wrapped in furs from the wolves Vashell had skinned to keep her warm. "Fiddion was right. They seek to bring back the Vampire Warlords!"
Alloria tried to creep under an overhang of rock, out of the wind and the blizzard. She was dying, Vashell knew, and guilt tore at him. But this was different. This was the vachine. This was Silva Valley. Now, in this place, he realised what evil magick they were about to perform… and more importantly, what sacrifice they needed to make it work.
Blood-oil was not enough.
Graal needed the souls of the clockwork vampires.
Thousands of clockwork vampires.
But how could he do it? None of the Old Texts spoke of the Ritual of Bringing, or the Summoning. And pages had been savagely cut from the Oak Testament, so it was said, by the First High Episcopate Engineer in order to stop evil filling the world. The pages had been burned. It was the only way.
So how did Graal know?
You bastard, thought Vashell. You would sacrifice our people.
You would sacrifice the entire vachine civilisation! And for what?
To rule beneath the Vampire Warlords? But understanding eased into Vashell's mind, then; a deep and intuitive understanding. No. Graal was too arrogant. Too power hungry. He would seek to rule the Vampire Warlords. To control them. Not to become one of them, but to be their Master.
"You are insane," Vashell whispered. And he knew what he had to do. He had to stop them. When the Soul Gems were presented to the Granite Thrones, he had to stop them – to kill the carriers. Or at the very least, to kill the Soul Stealers. For only with the Soul Stealers could the Soul Gems be extracted and used for the Summoning. So it was written in the Oak Testament.
Vashell watched, as something tied tight with golden wire was dragged onto the platform. It had black, corrugated skin and
was making feeble mewling noises. It was big, and powerful, but – impossibly – subdued. Vashell felt sorrow. And he felt pride. He felt guilt. And he felt an incredible compression of the mind. He had always loved the vachine. He had been a prince of the Vachine Empire, and yes, since his impurity at the hands of Anukis he was outcast and could never return to the place he loved; the place which folded neatly around his heart and soul like a fist. But he could do something. He must do something. He was the only one who could.
He stared, through tears, at the mewling creature. And blinked as he recognised, there beside the gleaming chitinous monster, Anukis. Sweet Anukis! And the puzzle pieces fell into place. Anukis carried a Soul Gem. That was why Kradek-ka made her so special, so advanced, and used his technically brilliant vachine engineering to keep her alive; to create a prime. That was why he allowed vachine society to turn against her, so that when this time came, when the need to sacrifice so many of Silva Valley came, then Anukis -
Vashell went cold.
Anukis would be ready, he thought.
Ready to kill. Ready to murder.
Ready to sacrifice…
Vashell realised with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that the whole thing had been a game, a clever strategy, instigated and plotted by General Graal and Kradek-ka in order to bring back the Vampire Warlords. They had planned, and plotted, and hijacked the Blood Refineries, necessitating orders from the vachine to invade Falanor in search of new fresh blood-oil… when in reality what they did was gather raw materials to allow the rebirth of the Vampire Warlords.
Thousands of humans. Thousands of vachine.
All dead, and about to die, just so the Three could walk again!
He would stop them. He would halt their plans.
Vashell reached for his bow, and with freezing fingers notched a deadly arrow to the string. He turned and peered back over the ridge. Who to kill? Who was the most effective target? If he only had one shot? Kradek-ka? Anukis? Sweet Anukis… tears stung his eyes, and he brushed them away. Or Graal. If Graal was dead, surely they could not continue?
Vashell heard the tiniest of sounds, like metal claws on rock, and he turned, and went terribly cold.
Two women stood, almost nonchalant in their easy posture. Their fangs gleamed, and their claws gleamed, and one had long white hair tied back into tails, and one had short hair spiked by the blizzard. They carried swords. They were smiling.
"What on earth," said one, tilting her head so as to accentuate the beautiful curve of her face, "are you doing up there?"
Vashell moved fast, bow smashing round, shaft releasing like a striking cobra.
There was a snarl, a slam, and a tearing of flesh.
Alloria whimpered, and backed away through the snow.
The Soul Stealers ignored her as they briefly fed.
Now, weaponless and bound, a squad of ten from the Army of Iron marched Kell, Saark and Nienna without relent through the underground tunnels of Skaringa Dak. Their commander, tall and arrogant, was an albino named Spilada, and he led the way – in fact, seemed the only one in the group to know the way. They marched all day, sweat pouring down faces, muscles burning and screaming during internal tunnel ascents, many of which were scrambles, extremely dangerous scrambles when hands were tied tightly before them. At one point Nienna slipped, stumbled, and began to slide down a long slope of scree towards a gaping black chasm. One of the soldiers grabbed her by the scruff, hauling her whimpering body away from a sheer, vast, underworld crevasse.
Kell turned to Spilada. He smiled, a warm and amiable smile, only the fury raging in his eyes telling a different primal story. "Anything happens to the girl, and I'll eat your fucking eyes out," growled the old man.
"And receive ten swords in your back," came Spilada's terse response.
"Yes," grinned Kell. "But you'll have no face, and eyeballs dancing on your open cheekbones."
"Shut up. And walk."
"Whatever you say," growled Kell, and with a nod and courage-building smile to Nienna, started up the scree slope.
At the top they stopped for a short rest on a ledge of black rock. Below, the scree slope led off to a massive drop which fell away into echoing blackness. The air was strange, at some times freezing cold making the group shiver, at others bearing wafts of raging hot air which brought them out in streams of sweat. Kell and Saark were kept seated apart, but Nienna was allowed to sit near Saark.
"How you doing, girl?" grinned Saark after he had regained his breath.
"That was incredibly hard," she said.
"Yes, we're not mountain climbers, right?"
"No." There came an awkward pause. Around them, the white-skinned soldiers sorted out their kit, all the while keeping a close eye on the prisoners. Kell sat to the left, legs dangling off a small drop, face calm but eyes murderous. They could sense his violence from a league away. "What's going to happen, Saark? I'm frightened."
"I don't know, Little One," he soothed. "What I do know is that it was a mistake coming here. Kell thinks he can take on the world; yet now, here, he's just a broken, captured old man."
"He's still Kell," said Nienna, voice soft, pride and belief shining in her eyes. "He is The Legend. He slew Dake the Axeman. He was the Hero of Jangir Field. He turned the tide at the Battle of Black Beach, carrying Dake's head back to the King. He was at the Battle of Valantrium Moor. He's a hero, Saark. He cannot be beaten!"
"He is still a man," said Saark, gently, thinking of the other side of Kell, the dark side of Kell, the murder in his eyes, the murder in his axe, and ultimately, his part in the Days of Blood. Unreported massacres. Cannibalism. Torture. The rape of the dead…
"He's more than just a man," said Nienna, hope in her breast. "He is Kell."
Saark nodded, not willing to remove her spark, her hope, but staring around at the ten warriors with a sense of painful reality. He smiled, still thinking of these soldiers as albino. But they were not. They were… Saark shivered. Shrugged. He had no idea what they were. Part insect? They were shells, he realised. Something else, something old, living inside a human shell.
Kell stood, and stretched, back still to the soldiers. He turned, and two looked up from honing swords, watching him closely. He smiled in a friendly fashion, and moved over to them. "I need a piss," he said.
"Over there," gestured a soldier, with a nod.
"And how do I get my cock out? You've tied me tighter than a fishmonger's purse strings."
"You'll not be untied, old man."
"Better come and hold it for me, then."
"No. I have a better idea." The soldier smiled, a wax, fake smile. "Just piss in your pants. You old warriors all stink of piss anyways; it's said you make incontinence pads out of leaves in the forest, but I don't believe it myself. I think you just line your britches with old shit. It all adds to the rancid stench of the legend."
Kell shrugged, easily. "No problem. If that's what you want." A pool of piss leaked out from one boot, forming a puddle of glistening yellow and Kell stepped closer to the men, trailing a stream of piss and both soldiers, with backs to the scree slope now, dropped their gazes in disgust.
"Not here, you dirty old fool!" snapped one soldier, and glanced up -
Into Kell's boot. It was a massive blow, catching the soldier under the chin and lifting him high into the air, and backwards. He tumbled down the scree slope in a clatter of rocks. The second man rose fast, started drawing his sword, but Kell stamped on his hand and he let go of the blade; twisting, Kell stamped down a second time, boot catching the pommel and striking it downwards. The sword blade punched through scabbard, a diagonal strike down through the buckling man's left calf muscle, right through flesh and into his right foot, pinning his legs together. He toppled, screaming, clawing at the bloodied blade.
At the edge of the scree slope there came a short scream as the sliding soldier was ejected into the abyss. He took a clatter of stones with him. Then silence followed his long descent into oblivion.
&
nbsp; The rest of the soldiers leapt into action, drawing swords and Kell turned on them, eyes glowing, teeth bared. "Come on, you heaps of walking horseshit! Let's see what you're made of! Let's see if the maggots fight as well as they breed!"
"No," came a soft voice. Spilada held Nienna, one hand clamped around her throat choking her, the other with a short skinning knife, blade gleaming. Even as Kell watched, face thunder, Spilada let go of her throat, grabbed her hand, lifted it before the group and with a swift, tight cut, snipped off the little finger of her right hand. Nienna screamed, there was a spurt of blood and she went down on her knees weeping, cradling the mutilated limb, rocking. Her finger lay on the ground, like a tiny white worm.
Spilada stepped forward, and as Kell surged at him he lifted a finger and placed the skinning dagger against Nienna's throat. He smiled a cold smile. Kell stopped. He lowered his face. The flat of a sword smashed the back of his skull, and he went down on one knee. Boots waded in, and they kicked him, eight soldiers kicked him, but he did not go down. He simply took the beating, blood on his teeth, eyes never leaving Spilada even under the heaviest of blows.
Saark leapt to Nienna, cradling her, tearing off a section of his shirt and binding her cut finger as best he could. He glared up at Spilada. "What are you doing? She's just a child!" he snarled.
Spilada shrugged. "Next time, I'll cut off her hands. You men, you listen, you will cooperate. This is no game we play." He turned back to Kell, who had stood now the beating ended. The soldiers backed away from him warily, as if they surrounded a wild caged bear. In the background, the man whose legs were pinned together by his own sword whimpered. Spilada made a strange tight gesture, a flicker of fingers, a signal, and another albino slit the wounded man's throat in a rush of white blood. He gurgled for a while, twitched, and was still.
"I will kill you," said Kell.
Spilada shrugged. "You will cooperate. Do I have your cooperation? Or shall I fetch my bag of razor-knives?"
"I will do as you ask," said Kell, gently. He lowered his head. He did not look at Nienna.