Vampire Warlords: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (10 page)

  In the eerie silver light, the river became more and more choppy. Occasionally, they saw rocks appear like shark fins and glide past. Another roaring came to their ears, a gradual escalation of chattering sound as of a thousand insects, and the raft started to rock wildly. Kell clung on grimly, and Saark, with a start, ejected brass claws and stared at them in horror.

  "Welcome to the world of the vachine," said Myriam, with a smile, and dug her own claws into the lashed timber planks. Saark stuck his claws into the wood, and hung on grimly, looking sick, looking miserable.

  The raft slammed onwards… and the river suddenly dipped, into a vast slope with twists and turns, and Saark was screaming and Nienna clung to Kell whose face was grim and scowling, and they flowed past rocks, and chunks of ice, and the river suddenly widened and hit wild swirling pools, gulleys and troughs, and they were pulled first one way, then another, water splashing over them, drenching them to the bone with freezing ice needles and Nienna screamed. They were spun around again, almost capsized, then accelerated down a wide tunnel past sharp rocks and Saark felt as if he was falling, falling down an endless tunnel of vertical water streams and he knew he would die there, knew he would die after all the pain and suffering he'd been through and it felt bitter on his tongue, wildfire in his mind and he was scowling and shouting and clinging on for life and then –

  Then it was calm.

  They flowed out into cold winter light. The river swirled through a forest of towering conifers, hundreds of feet high and suffocated by snow. An icy wind bit their cold wet bodies.

  Kell laughed, a deep rolling rumble. "We're out!" he breathed, and hugged Nienna, and gazed around, a man filled with wonder, a man seeing daylight for the very first time. He glanced at Myriam. "Well done, girl. You were right! You did well."

  Myriam seemed to glow under the praise, and Saark looked down at his damp clothing, ragged, torn, mud- and blood-stained, and then he looked up at the sun. "Are we… safe, in the sunlight?"

  "Hardly sunlight, Saark."

  "I thought vachine…"

  Myriam shook her head. "No. A fiction. The brightest of sunlight might cause you pain in your transformed state, but that is all." Myriam leant closer. "What you have to worry about, Saark, my sweetness, is the fact that you have blood-oil flushing round your veins, but no real clockwork to control it."

  Saark gave a swift nod, and wary glance at Kell. "The Big Man said as much. Said I would need to bind with clockwork, although I do not know how such a thing will be achieved. Or, even if I'd want such a thing." He shuddered, and flexed his brass claws.

  "You have no choice," said Myriam. "Without clockwork integration, without the skills of the Engineers, you will die."

  "Thanks for that," scowled Saark.

  The raft swept downriver, and Kell ripped free a plank from the edge of the ragged platform and used it to guide them to the shore, huge neck and shoulder muscles bulging as he fought the heavy flow.

  Saark grinned, breathing deep the fresh cold air. After what felt like an eternity in the tunnels under Skaringa Dak, it was good to be free of them again; good to be free of the Black Pike Mountains. Good to be back in Falanor. Good to be
alive.

  "
'Kell stared melancholy into great rolling waves of a Dark Green World, and knew he could blame no other but himself for The long Days of Blood…'
" Kell turned sharply, scowling at Saark.

  Myriam tilted her head. "The poem?"

  "Aye," said Saark, and as the raft grounded on a bank of snow, he leapt from it and stared back, as if it was some great sea beast recently slaughtered. "Thank the Halls I'm on stable land!" He placed hands on hips, and watched Kell step from the raft with Nienna clinging to one arm. She looked frail and weak, and his heart went out to her at that moment.

  "We need a fire. Food. Shelter," said Kell, matter-offactly. His eyes were burning. "Or we will die."

  "I like a man who doesn't mince his words," said Saark.

  "And I like a man who fucking pulls his weight! Now get out there and find us firewood, and find us a shelter, or I swear Saark, you'll be wearing another wide and gaping smile on your belly before the sun is down."

  "Fine, fine, a simple 'please' would have sufficed." Saark turned to hunt for firewood, a dandy in rags, but the look on Kell's face halted him. He frowned, turning back. "Yes, old man? Is there something else? Maybe I should stick a brush up my arse and sweep the floor whilst I'm at it?"

  "One more thing. No more poetry. Or I'll cut out your cursed tongue, and be glad I done it."

  Saark snorted, and headed into the gloom-shadowed forest, muttering, "All these threats of violence are
so
low born, lacking in nobility, so uncouth and raw. Threats truly are the language of the peasant."

Moving into the forest, they found a natural shelter from the wind, and in a small alcove surrounded by holly trees and ancient, moss-covered rocks, built a fire. Myriam was gone for two hours, and returned with a dead fox brought down by a single arrow from her bow. As she went about skinning and gutting the creature, Saark stripped off his wet shirt and laid it on a rock by the fire to dry. He flexed his fast-repairing body, and Kell looked up from where he was sharpening Ilanna's blades with a small whetstone.

  "You're repairing well, lad," he said, eyes fixed on the chest-wound cut from above Saark's heart by Kradekka on the plateau of Helltop. "I still find it hard to believe you carried that Soul Gem inside you for so long – and realised nothing."

  "I was bewitched. Once. And only once." Saark sighed, and stretched out, like a cat in the sun, and ran his hands up and down his arms and flanks, checking himself. "It'll never happen again, I promise you that! And by all the gods, I've taken a battering since I met you." His eyes sparkled with good humour. His pain had obviously receded, and he was more his old self. "Look at all these new scars! Incredible. One would have thought keeping company with
The Legend
would have brought me nothing but women, fine honey-wine, rich meats and incredible fame. But now?
Now
, I'm stuck in a forest after the, quite frankly, most abominable adventures of my entire life, I'm riddled with bruises and scars, been beaten more times than a whore's had hot fishermen, stabbed, burned, chastised and abused, and to top it all the only company I get is that of a grumpy old bastard who should be crossbow whipped in the face for his taste in clothes, whiskey and women." Saark sighed.

  Kell looked up. "Shut up," he said.

  "See? Where's the witty banter? The dazzling repartee? I wish to discuss literature, philosophy and women. Instead, I get to grub in the woods for mushrooms and onions, dirty my nails like the lowest working man instead of being ridden like a donkey by a buxom farm lass!"

  Kell sighed. And looked to Myriam. "Is the meat ready? The stew's bubbling."

  Myriam crossed to him carrying a thin metal plate, and scraped a pile of fox meat into the pan. "I'll dry the rest, roll it in salt. We can take it with us."

  "Good girl," said Kell, nodding his approval. Saark scowled, and started to remove his trews. "And what are you doing?" snapped Kell.

  Saark, half bent, glanced up. "I'm sick of wearing wet clothes."

  "You're not removing your stinking trews here, lad. Get out into the forest."

  "But it's cold in the forest."

  "I am
not
staring at your hairy arse whilst I cook," said Kell, face like thunder. "I, also, have been through much recently. And it's bad enough seeing your homeland torn asunder and your friends murdered by ice-smoke magick and insect-born albino soldiers, without some tart wishing to dangle his tackle over my fox stew. So get out into the forest, and try not to sit in the pine needles. They sting, you know."

  Saark stared hard at Kell. "Kell, you're worse than any old fish wife," he snapped, but pulled his trews up and sauntered away from their makeshift camp, swaying his hips provocatively, just to annoy the old warrior.

  An hour later, with the winter sun dying in the sky and pink tendrils creeping over the horizon chased by sombre, snow-filled storm clouds, Kell sat back with hands on his belly, and closed his eyes.

  Saark was mending his torn shirt with needle and thread supplied by Myriam's comprehensive pack; a woman used to living in the wilds for weeks at a time, the provisions she carried were lightweight but necessary. Salt, arrows, thread, various herbs, and several spare bowstrings. As she pointed out, her bow was her life. It was her means to a regular food supply, and with fox stew in their bellies, it was hard for anybody to disagree.

  Nienna was staring into the fire, lost in thought, holding the binding on her severed finger. Myriam moved and sat beside her. "Do you want me to look at that? It should be ready for a fresh dressing."

  Nienna sighed, and nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

  As Myriam unwound the bandage from Nienna's hand, examined the stitched flesh above the cut finger, and applied fresh herbs to the wound, Nienna found herself looking away, face stony.

  The albino soldier under Skaringa Dak had taken her finger to punish Kell for an escape attempt. Now, she felt she was less than a full woman. No longer beautiful. No longer whole. Nienna looked down, and flexed her hand, wincing as pain shot up the edge of her hand and arm.

  "Still hurts, yes?" smiled Myriam.

  "Like a bitch," said Nienna.

  "And you've met a few of those, right?"

  Nienna laughed. "I didn't mean you."

  "I did," said Myriam. She sighed. "I've done… questionable things." She stroked her own cheek, then rubbed at her eyes. "I'm tired of doing bad things. I have been given a gift. A second chance. I am strong now, and fit, and although in the eyes of the people of Falanor I am…"

  "Outcast?" said Kell, softly.

  They looked up. He was reclined, his body a shadowy bulk in the gloom of fast approaching night. Firelight glinted in his beard, in his glittering eyes. He may have looked like a big friendly bear, ensconced as he was in his tatty battered tufted old jerkin, but this was a big friendly bear that could turn nasty and insane in the blink of an eye.

  "Yes. An outcast. Alien. The enemy." Myriam smiled at Kell, and shrugged. She turned back to Nienna. "Once this is all done, once this game is played out, I will be hunted to my death in Falanor. By every man with a bow or knife. The vachine are seen as evil. I cannot change that."

  "They drink the blood of others," said Kell, voice still soft.

  "And you eat the flesh of beasts," said Myriam.

  "Not human flesh," said Kell.

  "To the east, past Valantrium Moor, past Drennach, past the Tetragim Marshes, there are tribes who eat the flesh of men. They see it as no different to cow, or dog, or pig. It's just meat."

  "They, too, are evil."

  "Why so?"

  "It goes against the teachings of the Church. Human flesh is sacred."

  Myriam shrugged. "So you mean to tell me if you were ever put in a position where you were going to die of starvation, and human flesh was on the menu, you absolutely would not eat? Not even to save your own life? To save the lives of your children?"

  "I would not," lied Kell, throat dry, remembering the Days of Blood, where he had indeed eaten human flesh, and much more, and much worse. "I would rather die," he said, voice husky, eyes hidden.

  "Well that's where we differ, then," snapped Myriam, voice hard. "But you should not judge so readily, Kell. I guided you and Nienna and Saark out from that bastard mountain; I saved your lives. This time."

  "Lucky for us," nodded Kell, dark eyes glinting in the firelight. And now he didn't look like such a friendly bear. Now he looked far more dangerous. "But enough talk. What are your plans now, Myriam?"

  "I will attempt to kill the Vampire Warlords."

  This was met with momentary silence. The wind hissed through the trees, and it sounded like the roll of the ocean against a beach. It was hypnotic. Somewhere, snow clumped from high branches. Conifers creaked and sighed.

  "Why?" said Kell, eventually, head tilted to one side. It was such a simple question, Myriam was speechless for a few moments as she composed her thoughts.

  "It is the right thing to do," she said, eventually, and looked into the fire, refusing to meet his gaze.

  "You will die, then," he said.

  "So be it."

  Kell growled. "This thing is too big for you," he snapped. Graal's Army of Iron is invincible; you know how they took Jalder, and Vor, and the gods only know which other Falanor cities. And I was there at Old Skulkra when the Army of Iron came from the Great North Road, came from Vorgeth Forest like ghosts." He spat, and rubbed his beard viciously, as if angry with himself. "Those bastard Harvesters cast their ice-smoke magick. No soldier could stand against them!"

  "But you still live," said Myriam, softly.

  "I am different," snapped Kell.

  "Yes, you have your magick axe," she said, halfmocking.

  "There is nothing magick about this axe. And before you say it, no, she is possessed by no demon; let us just say Ilanna has an attribute none of you could ever guess."

  "So you will not help?"

  "I cannot fight Falanor's battles forever," he said.

  "It looks like you've stopped fighting full stop," said Saark.

  Kell looked at him, and pointed with a powerful finger. "Don't you bloody start," he said.

  "Well," scoffed Saark, "look at you, look at everything we've been through, all the fights and the murder and the bloodshed. And the mighty Kell would turn his back
now
? Just as things got worse? The time he is needed the
most
!"

  "That's the point, lad. We made things worse. Don't you see? We're pawns in another man's game. Every step we've taken since meeting up in Jalder in that cursed tannery has seen us step closer and closer to the resurrection of the Vampire Warlords. We made it happen, Saark. We fucking made it happen."