Vampire Warlords: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (44 page)

  "Bastard," she said, and ran at him, and Wood's hands came up but she grabbed him, and she was awesomely strong, and she pulled him into a bear hug and Wood found the point of his own sword pressing into him, into his chest, and then driving in through flesh and bone, and he gasped and it burned and steel grated on bone. Lorna was close. Close enough to kiss. Her breath stunk like the grave, and her pretty dark eyes were fixed on Wood.

  She leant forward. "How does it feel, Command Sergeant Wood? How does it feel, not only to die,
but to see
all your old friends die?"

  Wood gasped, and pain swamped him for a moment, the world turning red and hot and unbearable. Then he caught himself from falling into the dark pit, and turned, and saw the vampires stood across the rooftops. There were several hundred. Out of the shadows rose the old soldiers of Falanor, Kelv the Axeman, Old Man Connie, Bulbo the Dull, Weevil and Bad Socks and so many more. So many men. So many soldiers. So many memories. They were surrounded, and outnumbered…

  Lorna kissed Wood, first on the lips, then on his ear. Her fangs lowered towards his neck. She jerked him tighter, into her, a metal conjugation of the blade. A hard steel fuck. And her fangs caressed his neck, as she savoured the moment of the hunt. She seemed to sniff him, and taste him, and enjoy a lingering moment.

  Below, on the rooftops, the vampires attacked…

Kell and Myriam crept from house to house, from street to street. They kept to shadows and moved with an infinity of care. Their aim wasn't to take on the vampire army. Their aim was to slaughter its Warlord.

  "You were right," whispered Myriam, close to Kell's ear, her words tickling. "He's in the tower. How did you know?"

  Kell grinned a skeletal grin in the darkness. "Intuition. These vampires. They have some fucking ego, that's for sure. Come on." They moved on through gloom, through falling snow which smelt of a distant, frozen sea. They could hear the sounds of battle now, shouting, screams, the echoing, reverberating cries of attacking vampires and
slap
of steel on flesh. Kell and Myriam did not talk about it. There was nothing to talk about. They simply pushed on, forward, further into the realm of the vampire.

  Ilanna was drawn. And ready.

  Myriam carried her Widowmaker in one gloved hand, and her vachine fangs were out. They gleamed in the darkness. She was as ready for battle as she could ever be.

  They drifted like ghosts. Somewhere, a building burned. Vampires were screaming in the flames, and the roasting of flesh smelled like cooked pig interlaced with something subtly…
human
. Kell nearly puked, so they pulled back, crept down a different alleyway. As they left the black smoke behind they could see the Warlord's Tower.

  They crouched and watched it for a while. Around the base were perhaps a hundred vampires, lounging in the snow, some walking, none talking. They seemed lethargic, sleepy, without any focus.

  "What's the matter with them?" hissed Kell.

  "Lack of fresh blood. They grow tired. Soon, they'll turn on one another. You'll see."

  "How do you know this?"

  "I feel it in myself," said Myriam, smiling and showing brass fangs. "We're not so different, them and me. No matter what they say, no matter what they think. They believe we are a deviant offspring; the Soul Stealers told me
we
were the more ancient race. We have our clans far to the north, in the cold places where humans don't travel. Me and Saark; we are parts of those vachine clans, now. Part of a distant, clockwork world. Part of an ancient heritage. One day, they will call us. And we will not be able to resist."

  Kell stared at her, then shrugged. He got a sudden feeling the vachine of Silva Valley nestled deep within the Black Pike Mountains had been just
a glimpse
of what the vachine really
were
. Of their size, their might, their ferocity. Images flashed dark in his mind. Of huge clockwork vampire armies. Vast, cold and mechanical. Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. And Silva Valley had been an offshoot, rebels almost. And the vampires thought they had birthed the vachine – when in reality, it had been the other way round.

  Kell shivered. It was too much to comprehend. Not here. Not now.

  "That's a battle for another day," he said, finally, and saw the curious look in Myriam's eye. He held up a finger. "No. Don't even consider trying to convert me to what you have become. You had a good reason for becoming vachine, Myriam. A damn good reason. But I'm happy to die like any other old man."

  "You can live forever," she whispered, and kissed him on the cheek.

  "Sometimes, I think it's better to die," he said, with an inherent wisdom he did not feel. Then he blinked, and shrugged off her vachine spell. He grinned. "Come on, lass. How do we get in?"

  "Up there." She pointed to another tower, and between the two ran twin cables. "It's for passing messages, from the Warlord's Tower to servant quarters. We can climb across that."

  Kell looked at the awesome height, with an equally awesome fall to iced cobbles below. "I can't bloody climb across a cable like that!" he scowled. "I'll fall! I'll die!"

  "No," smiled Myriam. "You won't. You're Kell, the
Legend
."

  "I wish people would stop saying that," muttered the old warrior, and sheathing Ilanna on his back, followed Myriam to the second, smaller tower. It was unguarded, and they entered through a doorway that looked like a broken mouth,

  
Into the breach
, thought Kell, and chuckled.
Somebody up there has a fine sense of humour!

  They climbed a massive circular stone staircase for what seemed an age. Kell's knees complained. His back complained.
He
complained, but in an internal muttering monologue which had served him well for many a decade in the army. Years of running through mud, carrying logs, wading through rivers, staggering under heavy armour, fighting with a heavy shield on one arm, axe in hand, bodies falling before him, beneath him, carved like fine roast beef…

  Kell blinked. A chilled wind scoured him.

  The view from the tower ledge was incredible, spreading away through a fine haze of snow. Fire burned throughout the Port of Gollothrim. Vampires screamed and shrieked. Again, he could hear the sounds of battle, but could not determine the armoured units of Falanor men, of Blacklippers and criminals he had created.
Here to fight for you. Here to die for you. So get on with it! Kill the Warlord. Then we can go home.

  
Is it ever that easy?

  
It always begins with a small step.

  Kell moved to the edge of the precipice, and grabbed the cable. It seemed ridiculously thin, woven from slippery metal, and he scowled and looked down to the distant courtyard. The vampires still lounged. It felt wrong. Like Kell was stumbling easily into a trap like a courtroom jester. Would they
really
leave such an opening unguarded? Or were there vampires with crossbows waiting from him to swing out onto the wire?

  "I can't do this," said Kell.

  "Why not?" hissed Myriam, who was tying her weapons to herself. "Secure that bloody axe. If you drop anything, the bastards will hear us and they'll look up. Then we're dead."

  "This is too easy."

  "You call
that
easy?" snapped Myriam, gesturing to the expanse of swaying cable – perhaps five hundred strides in all, and a good height. Good enough to turn the vampires on the ground far below into stick-men.

  "We'll be vulnerable."

  Myriam shrugged. "That's how us normal mortals feel all the time." She saw Kell's look, and pressed at one of her vachine fangs. "Well. You know what I mean."

  Myriam took hold of the cable, and it was cold to the touch. Freezing. She grimaced. "Come on, axe man. We have a job to do."

  "One thing."

  "Yes?"

  Kell grinned. "I like you, Myriam."

  Her eyes glinted. "I know you do. You showed me that in oh so many different ways. Just proves what an old man has still got left inside him, if he really tries."

  "No. I mean, we've had our differences. And I still don't trust you for spit." He held up a finger to silence her complaint. "But you've come good, Myriam. You may be as unpredictable as a violent raging sea storm, but by the Chaos Halls, I think I like that in a woman."

  "What you're saying is, despite what we've been through, if I betray you now, you'll still lop off my head with that bloody axe?"

  "You know I will," said Kell. "Now let's move. Before I change my mind."

  Myriam took hold of the cable and swung her legs up, crossing them. Then she began to haul herself along the icy length, hand over hand, with smooth effortless strokes.

  Kell took hold, Ilanna strapped tight to his back, and hoisted his legs up. The whole cable sagged, and Kell bobbed, and he cursed, and his muscles ached already. It was one thing in battle to be a huge, stocky, ironmuscled warrior – but such mass did not lend itself well to supporting one's own weight from a high cable.

  Kell started to haul himself along. Within minutes the tower fell away, and he was far across the expanse. A cold wind whipped him. His muscles screamed. His bones creaked. His knees and back pummelled him with pain. And worse, the worst thing of all, the cable was freezing, and his hands were frozen. They were rigid, like solid brittle steel cast wrong in the forge, and Kell was struggling to move his fingers, struggling to pull himself across the vast drop.

  Kell paused for a moment, and glanced down, just like he knew he shouldn't, but perversely revelling in the danger. If he fell now, he'd make a mighty dent in the cobbles. He grinned. Bastard. Bastards! He wanted to scream into the wind, into the snow, but instead he gritted his teeth and forced iron resolve to tear through him and he continued onwards. Onwards.

  Half way.

  Kell paused. His hands were as numb as they'd ever been. As numb as ice. As numb as Saark's brain.

  "Donkey shit."

  He clamped his teeth shut, blinking fast. He realised the cold was now numbing his
brain
. He looked up. Myriam was getting close to the portal, and he watched her flip over the lip. She disappeared, and Kell searched for her to reappear with a smile, and an encouraging wave. However, she did not. Kell scowled.

  
Shit.

  He moved, as fast as lethargic muscles would allow, as fast as frozen bear paws would grapple. But the ice was winning. The cold was beating him down, no question.

  Three quarters of the way, and Kell could not go on. He could not move and he hung there on a cable, high above vampire hordes and a city at war, and he listened to the wind, and wondered what the hell he was going to do now. And then, worst of all, he heard the sounds of battle from inside the tower. Steel on steel. The clash of blades. Myriam was in trouble!

  Kell struggled to move on. To drag himself on. He glanced down. The vampires below had heard the battle as well, and they were looking up at him. One pointed. Several pale faces seemed to be grinning. Some vampires emerged, and they carried bows and Kell groaned. An arrow sailed up, missing him by inches. There came laughter, like a ripple of metal across ice.

  Kell tried to force his fingers to move. They would not.

  Kell was stuck…

Saark stared at Nienna as if she'd struck him.

  "That's the single most incredibly stupid idea I've ever heard in my entire life."

  "But you can't stop me," she said, voice low, and purring, and dangerous.

  "I
can
stop you," snapped Saark, "and I bloody will!"

  "No. You'd have to force me down, sit on me, pin my arms to the icy ground. Because I'm going after them, Saark. I'm going to help them. They need my help, I can feel it in my bones!"

  "What a load of old rampant horse shit," snapped Saark, and grabbed Nienna's arm. Her hand flashed up, and it held a blade. The blade touched Saark's throat.

  "See? I'm good enough to get past
your
guard."

  Saark stepped back, hands out, and shook his head. "Kell told me to keep you here. In the forest. To make sure no harm came to you. He made me
promise
."

  "This is unbelievable!" stormed Nienna. "Everybody has gone down to Gollothrim, even the women, to fight! And I'm expected to sit on my hands and play with myself? Well, I won't do it. I'm going after Kell and Myriam. The only way you'll stop me is by killing me."

  "The women are trained archers!" wheedled Saark, and Nienna strode off down the forest trail. Saark ran after her. "Wait, wait! At least let me grab my rapier."

  "So you're coming with me?"

  "Aye, bloody looks like it, doesn't it?"

  "Well, a woman should always get what she wants."

  "In my experience, she always does. Only most of the time she learns to regret it."

  Nienna shrugged. "You know I'm right, Saark. You know we need to be part of this. We can make a difference. We can help Kell."

  "Have you heard yourself?" snapped Saark. "
Help
Kell? Have you bloody
seen
him fight? That rancid old lion needs no help from a little girl like you."

  "Watch your tongue, lest I cut it out."

  "Girl, if Kell learns I allowed you to follow him into
that hell hole
, then he'll cut out more than my damn tongue."

  "Well let's make sure we make a difference, then," said Nienna, eyes hard, and by her stance Saark could see she meant trouble. She'd come a long way from the day he'd met her in the tannery in Jalder; then, she'd been soft like a puppy, her eyes gooey and lustful, her skin like virgin's silk. Now, she was hard, and lean, and her eyes were dark. She'd seen too much. Her innocence had been flayed from her, like skin strips under a cat o' nine.

  Saark trotted after Nienna through the woods. There seemed little other option.