Soul Stealers: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (32 page)

    "Just what I need," said Saark.

    "I'm just warning you."

    "Well, don't! I'd rather have a sour, nasty, bad surprise."

    Again, they picked up the trail of glowing passageways, this time rising steeply until the tunnel emerged onto a small platform overlooking a cavern. As they approached, they could see the slime-glow increase in intensity, and this warned the group; they moved slow, hunkering down as they broached the rise. The small platform was just wide enough for the three of them; and what they saw left them crouched in stunned silence.

    Below, in what appeared to be a naturally carved cavern, a massive affair strewn with stalactites and stalagmites, there were pods; corrugated, white, each pod about the size of a horse and divided into six or seven bubbled segments. They lay, motionless, not glowing but pale white, almost luminescent. And there were hundreds of them. Thousands. Littering the cavern, many of them packed in tight, crammed together.

    "What," said Saark, with a completely straight face, his voice low and carefully neutral, "are those?"

    "I don't know," said Kell.

    "But you said you've been here before!"

    "Yes, but I've never
seen
those before!"

    "Are they, you know, something to do with the worms? Maybe they hatch, or something? Like eggs?"

    "Possibly," said Kell, giving a small shiver. If they hatched, the group would be immediately overrun.

    "Look," said Nienna, pointing. Kell lowered her finger.

    "I can see it, girl."

    They were
pulsating
. As if they were breathing.

    "What now?" whispered Saark.

    "I reckon we could go down there and cut one open," said Kell. "Then we'd know exactly what was inside. Exactly what we're dealing with."

    "
What?
" snapped Saark. "Are you out of your mind, you crazy old fool? You might set them all off, then we'd be fucked for sure. And here's another thought – if they are eggs, then what in the name of the Grey Blood Wolf laid them?"

    Kell nodded. "I suggest we circumvent."

    "I would second that," agreed Saark.

    They moved to the right, still watching the thousands of pulsating, segmented cocoons, or eggs, or whatever the organic objects were. They looked dangerous, and that was enough for the party.

    Taking a right-hand tunnel, Kell led the way once more, wary now, Ilanna in his great fists. He was more alert, eyes straining to see ahead, ears listening for sounds of any approaching enemy. He wouldn't let Saark or Nienna speak now, and they travelled in morbid silence, ears pricked, nerves suspended on a razor wire.

    The tunnel wound on, ever upwards, crossing many more in a complex maze. Kell chose openings with a sure knowledge, and Saark made a mental note not to get lost down here. The Valentrio Caves were a maze like nothing he had ever witnessed.

    Eventually, the low-ceilinged corridor ended in a small chamber. It glowed. There were eight of the slowly pulsating, slowly
breathing
pods blocking their path.

    Kell halted, and held up his fist. Saark and Nienna froze, peering past him. The chamber, floor lined with sand, was small. The pods filled it entirely, leaving nothing but narrow passages between each throbbing slick body of luminescent white. Nienna shivered.

    "I don't want to sound like a pussy," whispered Saark, "but is there another way around these… these
blobs
?"

    "It'll be all right," said Kell. "I'll lead. Nienna, stay close behind. Saark, bring up the rear."

    "Why do I always have to go at the back?" he whined. "What if one of the quivering little bastards wakes up and jumps on me?"

    "Well," smiled Kell, "it won't be the first time you've taken it from behind."

    "You are a jester, Kell. You truly should be capering like an idiot in the King's Court."

    "Can't do that," growled Kell. "The king is dead."

    They moved into the narrow spaces between the segmented bodies. Each cocoon was tall, as tall as a man, and most at least as long as a horse, high in the centre and then tapering down in staggered segments towards the tips, which seemed to glow, changing suddenly from pale white fish-flesh to jet black, and then back.

    Saark shivered. Kell moved with his jaw tight. Nienna desperately wanted to hold somebody's hand, for she could feel the fear in the air, smell the metallic scent of these pulsing cocoons. Kell brushed against one, and for a moment the pulsating ceased. In response, Kell, Saark and Nienna froze, staring in horror at the huge bulbous thing.

    "You woke it!" mouthed Saark, urgently, face screwed into horror.

    Kell gripped Ilanna tighter, but after a few moments the regular rhythm of the creature resumed. The group seemed to breathe again. They crept past, six, seven, eight of the cocoons, and then Kell stepped out into the opposite tunnel and breathed deeply, shoulders relaxing. Nienna stepped out behind him, and Saark turned to stare back at the corrugated pods. "Well thank the bloody gods for that!" he grinned, as his rapier swung with him, tip at knee level, and the point of his decorative scabbard cut a neat horizontal line across the nearest pod's fleshy surface. There came a hiss, a bulge, then a thick tumbling spill of white splashing out like snakes in milk. A scream rent the air, so high-pitched the group slammed hands over ears and grimaced, then ran down the tunnel as the scream followed, perfectly in rhythm with the pulsing of the
thing's
body.

    "You horse dick!" raged Kell. "What did you do that for?"

    "I didn't do it on purpose, did I? Can I help it if their skin is as flimsy as a farm maiden's silk panties? I barely touched the damn thing!"

    "Come on," said Nienna, pale from the screaming, and she led them on a fast pace up a steep corridor. Suddenly Kell lurched forward, grabbing Nienna and bundling all three into a side-tunnel. They stood, in the gloom, and watched the albino soldiers pounding past. Kell counted them. There were fifty of the very same black-clad albino warriors who'd invaded Falanor. "So, this is where they hide," whispered Kell, face grim.

    "I am assuming," said Saark, in a quiet, affable voice, "that this place wasn't crawling with
either
egg-pods, nor albino soldiers, the last time you came through?"

    "It was twenty years ago," snapped Kell. "I've slept since then."

    "And got drunk many times," responded Saark, voice cool, eyes shaded in the gloom. "You've brought us into a hornet's nest, old friend. How many albino soldiers are here?"

    "Let's find out," said Kell.

    They moved back up the tunnel, which rose yet again on a steep incline that burned calves and sent shivers through straining thighs. They travelled for an hour, and three times more they came across squads of albino warriors wearing black armour and carrying narrow black longswords. And several times they passed along the lips of vast caverns, each full of pulsating segments, glowing, quivering cocoons. The third time they did so, Saark called for a stop. Down below, they saw several albino soldiers moving through the chamber, and one stopped, resting a hand on a quivering flesh segment.

    "They're changing colour," said Saark.

    "Eh, lad?" said Kell.

    "The pods. They're no longer translucent. Now they are a deep white. Like snow. Look."

    Kell peered. He shrugged. "So what?"

    "And their pulsing is slower," said Nienna.

    "So what?"

    "You're an irascible old goat," snapped Saark. "The point is, each chamber seems to be some kind of birthing pit. That's my opinion. And these things are looked after by the albinos."

    "Why would they do that?"

    "Maybe they like to hatch worms," said Saark. "Maybe they are building a worm army!"

    "That isn't even funny," said Nienna, eyes wide.

    "Who said I was joking?"

    "Shut up," said Kell. "Look. Something is happening."

    They watched. A hundred soldiers marched into the cavern, and arranged themselves around a circle of five pods. A tall albino warrior stepped forward, and drawing a short silver dagger, he cautiously inserted it into the nearest pod and, with intricate care, cut a long curve downwards. Flesh bulged, and was followed by a flood of white which sluiced across the stone floor. There followed a tumble of cords, like thin white tree roots, and then there was a shape nestled amongst the mess, amidst the thick strands and gooey white fluid. It slopped, spread-eagled to the floor, and several of the soldiers stepped forward and…

    "Holy Mother," said Saark, mouth open.

    "So this is where the bastards emerge," growled Kell.

    "What are they?" whispered Nienna, stunned by what she saw.

    The soldiers wrapped the newly born, nearly-adult albino soldier, naked, flesh white and pure, scalp bald and glistening with milk, limbs shaking and unable to stand without support, in a blanket. The man was like a newborn foal, weak and quivering. The surrounding soldiers led the blanket-trussed newborn down a corridor in almost reverent silence.

    "They're hatching," said Saark, without humour. "The human maggots are hatching."

    "They're not fucking human," snarled Kell.

    "Well," continued Saark, in the same cool, level voice, detached and not quite believing as he tried to comprehend the magnitude of what he was witnessing, "what actually
are
they, then?"

    "They're the enemy," said Kell, "here for us to kill."

    "An interesting viewpoint," came the smooth, neutral voice of the albino warrior. He stood, and behind him were thirty soldiers. All had bows bent, arrows aimed at the three peering intruders. "They are, in fact, our alshina larvae. As you so quite rightly put it, young man, we are not human. This is where we are hatched – eggs laid, implanted, and hatched by our queen." He drew a short black sword, and used it to point. "Ironic, that you refer to us as the
albino
. That would be
your
arrogance speaking. To think we are simply humans without pigmentation. Man, we are a different
species
."

    He turned, then, and surveyed the bent bows of his warriors. Several smiled.

    "What do you want?" growled Kell, and slowly stood. He flexed his shoulders, and his face was thun der. Saark stood next, and he placed a warning hand on Kell's shoulder.

    "Look," said Saark. "They have Widowmakers."

    The dandy was right; some of the warriors carried the same weapon that Myriam and her little band had used back in Falanor; the same weapon which had taken Katrina's life.

    "If you know what these Widowmakers
are
," said the leader, smoothly, with no hint of fear or panic, "then you obviously know what they can
do
. I suggest you drop your weapons. My soldiers have been primed to kill the girl first."

    "Why, you bastards," frowned Kell, stepping forward. The Widowmakers lifted in response to his antagonism. They were surrounded, heavily outnumbered, and even the mighty Kell could not fight with thirty arrows in his chest.

    "We have to do it," urged Saark, and was the first one to lay down his rapier. Nienna, wide-eyed, fearful, threw down her own sword and reluctantly Kell knelt and placed Ilanna reverently on the rocky ground.

    "Take care of her, lads. I'll be wanting her back real soon. And if there's a single mark on her, I'll be cracking some skulls."

    "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."