Vampire Warlords: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (17 page)

  Normally, Lorna and Division General Dekull would be standing in attendance; but Graal had witnessed them leave the chamber, and decided it was time to strike.

  He drew his thin black sword, and with blue eyes glinting in his pale, white face, Graal stepped daintily over husked corpses, their flesh shrunken and shrivelled over grotesque twisted skeletons thinking all the time how this reminded him of the
Harvesters
, and the way they drained the blood for the Refineries… his mind snapped to the present. Bhu Vanesh reclined on black satin sheets, stained with pools of dark, dried blood. He slept, breathing rhythmical, body still coiling and twisting, each limb fashioned from dark smoke, red eyes closed in dreams of… what did a Vampire Warlord dream of? World domination? World slaughter? An end to fear of imprisonment? Graal had grinned, then, a slightly manic grin. Remove the head, and the body dies. Such was the vampire mantra.

  He crept with all the agility and silence he knew he possessed. His sword lifted, so gentle a butterfly could have landed on its razor edge and not been disturbed by its fluid movement. Then, it slashed down, angle and force perfect for removing a head, and Graal watched in lazy-time slow-motion as if through a shimmering wall of treacle and the air felt suddenly
muzzy
with a discharge of magick and Graal realised too late the charms which surrounded this ancient creature. His blade struck Bhu Vanesh and simply stayed there, a hair's-breadth from severing his neck, and slowly Bhu Vanesh rose from the bed in one rigid arc of movement and his red eyes opened and he stared down at General Graal as his sword thumped to the satin sheets.

  "You had one chance," said Bhu Vanesh, his voice a portal to the Chaos Halls, smoke oozing from the terrible orifice as he spoke. "That is now gone. Betray me again, and I will suck your bones. Go now."

Graal turned, shaking, and walked past Lorna and Dekull who stood either side of the door, fangs gleaming, red eyes watching him with hunger. He returned to his tower with a panicked
tick tick tick
in his ears as he acknowledged he was vachine, and he was weak, and he was a slave, and he did not know what to do.

There came a knock at the door. Graal drank the brandy and placed the solid glass down with a
clack.

  "Enter."

  The man was small, stocky, with thick black hair, shaggy eyebrows, frightened eyes. Once, Graal would have relished the terror in this little man, but not now, not today, not in this life; because Graal was subject to the same rules and the same slavery. He was shackled by fear. Strangled by power. Bhu Vanesh was Warlord. Graal was a worm.

  "What is it?" snapped the General.

  "I… I've been sent here, because of the ideas I had, I'm a designer, an engineer. I… I…"

  "If you stutter again, I'll rip out your throat and eat your spine. Now. Continue."

  Graal focused on the man, watched him swallow, could smell the ooze of piss in his pants, could hear the rumbling of his churning guts, smell the acid of his fearfilled reflux. That made Graal smile. To add a razor edge to any conversation always filled Graal with an almost sexual delight. To put the pressure of
death
on a simple exchange of words made Graal feel strong again, powerful, in control. Ha! But he knew it was a false feeling, the imitation of an imitation. So… the feeling of elation dropped like an avalanche from his soul.

  "You are building new ships?"

  "No, I have a thousand carpenters and riggers carving piss-pots. Of course we are building ships."

  "I have a new design."

  "I have hundreds of designs. They work well. We have corvettes, frigates, galleons and merchant hulks. We have everything we need, armed with the biggest damn crossbows I've ever seen and capable of punching a hole the size of my whole body through the side of an enemy vessel. What could you possibly offer me?" sneered Graal, and poured himself another large glass of brandy. Below, the shipwrights, caulkers and carpenters worked on, their noise adding to Graal's pounding head and rising temper. Who was this little man? Why did he plague Graal so? And what fucking idiot had sent him up? Graal would kill this fucker, then make sure whoever was responsible got to clean out the sewers for the next year.

  "I can build you a metal ship," said the man.

  "Ridiculous! It would sink."

  The man watched Graal carefully, then shook his head. "No. I have designs, and I have made models. A metal ship will not burn, and is armoured by natural design; it will be smaller and more manoeuvrable than any war galleon you care to pitch against it."

  Graal considered this. "What is your name?"

  "Erallier, sir. Just think, if I can do this for you, if I and my family are looked after, and not turned into…" He shuddered. Then composed himself. "You will please your," he considered his words carefully, "your
master,
yes? You will have an incredible warship the like of which has never been seen."

  Graal nodded. "Yes. You have a month to deliver plans and begin work. See Grannash below, he will issue you with coin and a…
mark
."

  "A mark?"

  "A ward. To protect you, like those out there," Graal waved a hand in the general direction of the thousands of workmen on the docks. "We can't be having all our workers
changed
, can we? How then would the ships be built? Now. Go. Please me, and I will personally guarantee your family's safety."

  "Yes, General. Thank you, General."

  Erallier departed, and Graal considered the proposal. A metal ship. The greatest warship ever! Enough to beat the Vampire Warlords? Graal shrugged, and stood, and stretched his back, and stared out at the Port of Gollothrim. Beyond the docks, the navy of Falanor was being gradually recalled. Now, four hundred vessels lay at anchor along the docks and for as far as the eye could see; and to the south in the city's shipyards, another two hundred skeleton vessels were in building progress. Graal had been given a year. One year to build up the navy. And then the Vampire Warlords would seek to… expand. They would travel. And they would conquer. They would take their plague to every corner of the modern world. They would build a new empire!

  Graal smiled. And sighed. And pondered. And waited for news. And plotted against Bhu Vanesh.
One day, you fucker, I'm going to eat your heart and take your place. One day. One day!

To the north of Falanor, where the Selenau River flowed through the Iron Forest and entered the vast realms of the Black Pike Mountains, there was a wall of rock, a half-league wide, jagged and black, sheer and vast. Impassable, and yet beyond there was a road, a black road, a wide road, built over a hundred years by the White Warriors, the soldiers of the vachine, the soldiers of the Harvesters, a secret road from whence the Army of Iron arrived at Falanor's northern borders and thence to the city of Jalder, and beyond.

  This mammoth wall of towering rock was a barrier, a shield of sorts, between the world of men and the world of albino soldiers. Between men and Harvesters. Men and vachine.

  Snow fell from a bruised sky. The wind howled mournfully from the edge of the Iron Forest, and whipped up in little dancing eddies, creating complex patterns in the snow before scattering and merging once more with undulating fields of white.

  Everything was still, and calm – a perfect watercolour of serenity.

  Then the black wall shimmered, each chimney and vertical ridge hung with rivers of ice sparkling for a moment as if hoarding a million trapped diamonds… And then the wall was not a wall, but a veil, like a shimmering black curtain. And beyond, a black road stretched away, edged with ice and snow, a blasted road, a desolate road. And as the mountain rock shimmered like insubstantial lace, so there came the stamp of marching boots, and the rattle of armour, and beyond the wall as if seen through mist came ranks of soldiers, their flesh pale and white, their armour matt black, carrying spears and wearing swords and maces at belts. They wore highpeaked battle helmets, and their shields bore silver insignia. The sign of the White Warriors. The sign of the Leski Worms, from whence they were once hatched.

  The front battalion approached the wall, then stopped with a stamp of boots. Slowly, they walked forward, and
eased
through solid rock, out onto the snowy drifts. Rank after rank came, until the battalion was free of a rocky, blood-oil magick imprisonment, and they moved out across the snow in a square unit formation – to be followed immediately by a second battalion, another square group of four hundred soldiers, marching out into the cold crispness of Falanor from the black road beyond the Black Pike Mountains. More battalions came, until they made a brigade, and the brigade doubled into a division of four thousand eight hundred soldiers, and eventually, through churned snow and mud, the battalions finally formed into an albino army. The Army of Silver, the silver on their shields glinting with reflections from a low-slung winter sun.

  The Army of Silver, led by General Zagreel, moved west from this secretive rock entrance, and they were trailed by a hundred Harvesters, bone-fingered hands still weaving the magick of
opening
and long white robes drifting through snow, tall thin bodies ignoring the bite of the Falanor wind.

  Silence flowed for a while, followed by the stamp of more boots, and this time the approaching battalion held matt black shields decorated with insignia in brass, and they flowed from the mountain wall like a river of darkness, their pale faces impassive, their spears erect, swords gleaming black under winter sunlight, ignoring the whipping snow as more and more units and regiments filed out to stand before the mountain wall and then, with the tiniest of sighs, the mountain wall lost its sheen and became solid once more, leaving two full albino armies standing in the snow between the Black Pikes and the Iron Forest.

  General Exkavar turned his eyes to the forest, the dark iron trunks twisted and threatening, and a cruel smile crept across his narrow, white lips. Blood eyes surveyed the snow, and he removed his helmet and ran a hand through thick, snow-white hair. He glanced back at his perfectly ordered Army of Brass, and then over the snow fields to the equally professional Army of Silver.

  He turned to the bugler. "Sound the march," he said, and his eyes were distant, as if reliving a dream. "We head south."

CHAPTER 7

Black Pike Mines

Kell, Saark and Nienna moved as fast as they could down narrow trails which weaved like criss-crossing spider-webs through the Iron Forest. West they headed, constantly west, and eventually, on one dull morning with light snowflakes peppering the air, they broke free of the trees and looked out over a rugged, folded country, full of hills and rocks, stunted trees and deep hollows. Everything was white, and still, and calm. This was wild country filling in the gaps between Corleth Moor and the Cailleach Pass to the west of Jalder. They were past Jalder now, past the Great North Road; the Iron Forest had done its job, but as Myriam pointed out before her fight with Saark, and her sudden departure, the once outlaw-occupied forest had been curiously devoid of criminal activity. Dead, or just sleeping? Or fled to safer climates?

  They stared out over the undulating folds of these raw wild lands. "Looks like rough travelling," said Saark, chewing on a piece of dried beef.

  "We're going to need supplies," said Kell, ignoring Saark.

  "I
said
, it looks like rough travelling," snapped Saark.

  "I heard what you said, lad. But you're stating the obvious. We've had rough travelling ever since we left Jalder, through the tannery and down the Selenau River. What did you expect? A cushioned silk carriage waiting for you?"

  "You're a grumpy old bastard, Kell, you know that?"

  "Yeah. You keep mentioning it."

  Saark bent down, rubbing at his legs. Ever since falling into the polluted lake in the Iron Forest, his skin had flared red, all over his body, stinging him with knives of fire. But Kell had come up with a theory why his flesh had not fallen from his bones, as certain rumours would have it. As a vachine, Saark had accelerated healing. Now, his flesh was being eaten by toxins, but healing just as fast as it was being destroyed.

  "So I'll be like this, in a scratching agony, forever?" Saark had snapped, face twisted in annoyance.

  "I thought you'd be used to a bit of scratching by now," Kell had smirked.

  Now, it was irritating Saark again and he rubbed his legs, and chewed his beef.

  "Won't they have food at these Black Pike Mines?"

  "Maybe. We're not sure what we'll find, though. Maybe it'll be deserted? Maybe it was ransacked by the Army of Iron on their way through. It could be a burnt shell, smouldering timbers and blackened rocks."

  "I assume that would end your wonderful and secret plan," muttered Saark, still scratching.

  "It certainly would." Kell took a deep breath, staring up at the sky, then out across the wilderness. "By the gods, there are a thousand places out there for an ambush."

  "Hark, the happy voice of pessimism," said Saark.

  "Will you stop that damn scratching? It's like standing next to a fucking flea-bitten dog!"

  "Hey, listen, I feel like I've got a plague of ants living under my skin. I can't stop bloody scratching. It's not like I have a choice."

  "Well, if you'd not been so stupid and put the donkey first, you wouldn't have gone through the damn surface."

  "There you go, blaming Mary again. Listen Kell, it's not Mary's fault and I resent the constant implication that she's holding up your weird and unspeakable mission that is so clever you have to keep it a secret!"

  Kell leaned close. "The reason I keep it to myself, you horse cock, is so when, shall we say, certain priapic fools started sticking their child-maker into hot, sweaty and untrustworthy orifices, there's no possible chance of a blurted word at the wrong moment. You get me?"