Kell's Legend (34 page)

“You didn’t answer the question,” he said, when the fit had passed.

“What would I do in Silva Valley? They have…machines there. Machines that could heal me.”

“They would change you,” said Kell. “I have seen the result of their experiments. It was not good.”

Myriam was closer, now, had edged closer so that Kell could smell the musk of her body. She pressed herself in to him, and he felt something he had not felt for a long time; a rising lust, surging from a deep
dark pool he had thought long vanished with age. It had been a long time. Perhaps too long.

Kell’s eyes shone, and he licked his lips, which gleamed, and calmed his breathing.

“I would make it worth your while. I would do anything to live,” she said, her gaunt face inches from Kell’s, her arms lifting to drape over his shoulders. Her body was lean against his, her small breasts hard, nipples pressing against him.

“You don’t understand,” Kell said, voice low, arms unconsciously circling her waist. “They are called the vachine. They would change you. They would…kill every part of you that is human. It is better, I think, to die like you are, than to suffer their clockwork in-dignities.”

Myriam was silent for a while. She was crying.

“I’m sorry,” said Kell. “The answer is no.”

Myriam kissed him.

Back in the cabin, Saark sat back, aloof, watching the two men with open distaste. They were exactly the opposite of Saark; whereas he was beautiful, they were ugly; whereas he was elegant, they were clumsy. He dressed like a noble, Styx and Jex dressed like walking shit.

“Can I get you a drink?” said Kat, approaching the two men.

“You can sit on my lap, pretty one,” said Jex, grinning through his tattoos.

“Ahh, no, just…”

“She’s with me,” said Saark, eyes cold.

“Is that so, dandy man?” Jex smiled at Saark, and he knew, then, knew violence was impending. These
were dangerous, rough outlaws. They knew no rules, no laws, and yet by the scars on their arms they had survived battle and war for a considerable time. They were good, despite their savage looks and lack of dress-code. If they weren’t good, they’d be long dead.

“It’s simply a fact,” said Saark, eyes flicking left to where the four refugees were unpacking meagre belongings. There were two men, two women, the youngest woman only sixteen or seventeen years old, hair braided in pigtails, pink skirts soiled from her forest escape. His eyes flickered to the two men. They were plump, hands ink-stained: town workers and bureaucrats, not warriors.

Styx leant forward a little, and drummed his fingers on the table. Saark saw they were near to Kell’s Svian, and he blinked. It was unlike Kell to leave behind this weapon; it was his last blade, what he used when parted from his axe. A Svian, so the unwritten rule went, was also used in times of desperation for suicide. For Kell to have left it was…foolish, and meant that something had touched him; had rattled his cage. Did he know these people?

“You’re a pretty little man, aren’t you?” said Styx. He smiled through blackened stumps of teeth, which merged nauseatingly with the stained lips of the Blacklipper. I bet his breath stinks like a skunk, thought Saark.

“What, you mean in contrast to your own obviously handsome facial properties?”

Anger flared in Styx’s good eye, but he controlled it with skill. Saark became wary. There was something more at stake here than a simple trading of
insults. This was too controlled, too planned. What did they want?

“What I meant to say,” said Styx, tongue moistening his black lips, “is that you’re a pretty boy.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, it’s like this. I love fucking pretty boys, so I do. In more ways than one.”

Jex laughed, and Saark caught a glimpse of steel beneath clothing. A hidden blade. Saark’s hand strayed towards his own sword, a tentative crawl of edging fingers, eyes never leaving the two men exuding hate and arrogance and dark violent energy.

“I like to hear them squeal, you understand,” smiled Styx, “only because pretty boys take so much better to the knives, to the scars. They scream, high and long, like a woman, and when you fuck them, later on as they’re bent over a log or table, oh that feeling, so tight, so much resistance,” he laughed, a low grumble of mirth, “what I like to call a good tight virgin-fuck, well man, that brings tears to old Styx’s eye. But not as much as flowing tears to the weeping eyes of a pretty boy.”

Saark smiled easily. “Well then, gentlemen, you seem to have me mixed up with somebody else. Because I fuck women, I fuck men, I fuck anything that moves. I’m used to taking it, so would offer little sport as your…how do you say? Virgin-fuck? But what I will offer…” He launched up, sword out, a movement so quick it brought the room to a sudden standstill and caught Styx and Jex with their mouths open…“Well, if it’s a little sword-sport you want, I’m all yours, gentlemen.”

Slowly, Jex pulled a weapon from beneath his clothing and pointed it at Saark. It was small, little bigger than his hand, and made from polished oak. Saark tilted his head, frowning. He had never seen such a weapon. There came a tiny
click.

“You are familiar, of course,” said Jex, “with the workings of a crossbow? This is similar. It can punch a fist sized-hole through a man at a hundred metres. It works on clockwork, was created by the very enemy who now advance through our land.” He stood, chair scraping, and Saark licked suddenly dry lips. Styx stood as well, beside Jex, and pulled free a similar weapon.

“We call it a Widowmaker,” said Styx, single eye gleaming. “But rather than cause unnecessary bloodshed, I see you need a demonstration.” His arm moved, there came a
click
and a
whump
as the clock-work-powered mini-crossbow discharged. The sixteen year-old villager was picked up and slammed across her bed, an impact of red at her breast, a funnel of flesh exploding from her back and splattering up the wooden wall with strips of torn heart and tiny shards of bone shrapnel.

“No!” screamed the older woman, and ran to the dead teenager, sobbing, mauling at her corpse which rolled, slack and useless and dead, to the floor. The room fell still; cold and terrifying.

“Damn you, you could have fired at a target!” raged Saark.

Styx nodded, gaze fixed to Saark. “Aye, I did. I find the horrors of the flesh have more immediate impact.”

Kat stalked forward, eyes furious, hands clenching and unclenching. “You cheap dirty stinking bastards! She was an innocent villager, she meant no harm to you; why the hell would you do that? Why the hell would you kill an unarmed girl?”

Styx smiled, showing blackened stumps. “Because,” he said, eye narrowing, all humour leaving his face to be replaced by an innate cruelty, the natural evil of the predator, the natural amorality of the shark, “I am a Jailer,” he said, “and I thrive on the pleasure of killing sport.”

“The Jailers,” said Saark, voice barely above a whisper, sword still poised.

Styx nodded. “I see you have heard of us.”

“What the hell are Jailers?” snapped Kat, eyes moving fast between Jex, Styx and Saark. She willed Saark to attack. She had seen him in battle, seen him kill with his pretty little rapier; she knew knew he could get to them in time, could slaughter them like the walking offal they were…

“They spent five years in Yelket Jail,” said Saark, speaking to Kat but not moving his eyes from the two men with their clockwork crossbows. “They are very, very dangerous. They were put inside because of Kell. And six months ago, they escaped, and have been terrorising travellers on the Great North Road, killing Leanoric’s soldiers and innocent people up and down the land…they are destined to be hanged.”

“See, you do know us,” smiled Styx, and his weapon settled on Kat. “Now, Saark, my queer little friend, I want you to place your sword
very slowly
on
the ground. One wrong move, and I blow a ragged hole through Kat’s pretty, pouting face.”

Saark tensed…and from outside, heard a shout-

Myriam kissed Kell, and he allowed himself to be kissed, but his thoughts flowed back to his long dead wife, so long ago, so distant and yet so real and images flickered through his mind…getting married under the Crooked Oak, Ehlana with flowers in her hair and she kissed him and it was sweet and they were young and carefree, not knowing what troubles would face them over the coming years…and here, and now, this kiss felt like a betrayal even though she was dead, and so long ago gone, and cold, and dust under the ground. Kell pulled away. “No,” he said.

“Help me,” breathed Myriam.

“I cannot.”

“You
will
not.”

“Yes.” He looked into her torture-riddled eyes. “I will not.”

“I think you will,” she said, and pushed the brass needle into his neck. Kell grunted in pain, taking a step back as he slammed a right hook to Myriam’s head, making her yell out as she was punched into a roll, coming up fast, athletically, on her feet with a dagger out, eyes gleaming, triumphant, a sneer on her lips.

Kell staggered back, fingers touching at the brass needle poking from his flesh like a tiny dagger. “Bitch. What have you done to me?”

“It’s a poison,” said Myriam, licking her lips, her eyes wide and triumphant. “Very slow acting. Comes
from a brace of Trickla flowers, from way across the Salarl Ocean.” She tilted her head. “I’m sure you’ve heard of it?”

Kell nodded, and with a hiss, pulled the needle free, stared down at it, glinting in his palm, covered in his blood.

“You have killed me, then,” he said, eyes narrow, face filled with a dark controlled fury.

“Wait!” Myriam snapped, and seemed to be listening for something. Then she stared up at the night sky. “There is an antidote.” She grinned at him, head like a skull by starlight. “I have hidden it. Far to the north. Take me to the Black Pike Mountains, Kell, and you will live!”

“How long do I have?”

“A few weeks, at most. But you will grow weak, Kell. You will suffer, even as I suffer. We will be linked, lovers in pain, suffering together in dark throes of an accelerating agony, both searching for a cure.”

“I could kill you now, bitch, and take my chances.”

Myriam stood up straight, and sheathed her dagger. She held her head high. Her hair was peppered with snow. “Then do it,” she said, eyes locked to Kell, “and let’s be finished with this fucking business.”

Kell took his axe from his back, loosened his shoulder with a rolling motion, and strode towards Myriam with a look of pure and focused evil.

Inside the cabin, Saark leapt, sword slashing down. Styx and Jex moved fast, slamming apart in a heartbeat and Styx’s Widowmaker gave another click and whump and something unseen blurred across the
open space hitting Katrina in the throat and smacking her back against the wall, pinned her to the boards as her legs kicked and her topaz eyes grew impossibly bright with collected tears and she gurgled and choked and spewed blood, and her fingers scrabbled at her chest and neck and the huge open wound and the dark glinting coil of brass and copper at her throat and quite suddenly…

She died.

Kat slumped, hung there, limp and bloodied, a pinned ragdoll, her legs twisted at odd angles.

“No!” screamed Nienna, dragging free her own sword in a clumsy, obstructed action. “No!” She charged.

THIRTEEN
Insanity Engine

General Graal, Engineer and Watchmaker of the vachine, stood on the hilltop and surveyed the two divisions below him, each comprising 4800 albino soldiers, mainly infantry; they glittered like dark insects in the moonlight, nearly ten thousand armoured men, one half of the Army of Iron, standing silent and disciplined in ranks awaiting his command. The second half of his army were north, pitched to the southwest of Jalder, different battalions guarding northern passes and other routes leading through the Black Pike Mountains; in effect, guarding the route back to the Silva Valley, home of the vachine. Graal did not want the enemy, despite their apparent ignorance, mounting a counter-attack on his homeland whilst he invaded. But…was Graal making a mistake, taking only half his army south? He smiled, knowing in his heart it was not arrogance that fuelled his decision, but a trust in technology. With the Harvesters, and the power of blood-oil magick, the Army of Iron were…invincible! Even against a foe of far greater numbers; and Falanor barely had that.

Invincible!

And he also had his cankers.

A noise echoed across the valley, and Graal turned, and with acute eyesight aided by clockwork picked out the many canker cages used for more volatile beasts. The less insane were tied up like horses; seemingly docile for the moment. Until they smelt blood. Until they felt the thrill of the kill. Graal watched, licking thin lips, eyes fixing on the huge, stocky beasts which he knew linked so very closely to the vachine soul…

Occasionally, claws would eject and slash at the belly of another canker with snarls and hisses; but other than this, they could be safely tethered. Graal was in possession of just over a thousand cankers; the rejects of vachine society. But more were coming. Many more. Graal went cold inside, as he considered their tenuous position with the Blood Refineries. He thought of Kradek-ka, and his heart went colder still, the gears in his heart stepping up, cogs
whirring
as he grimaced and in a moment of rare anger bared his teeth and swept his gaze over the land before him. Moonlight glittered on armour. Beyond, lay Vorgeth Forest, and angling down he would march on Vor.

Mine!
he snarled, an internal diatribe of hate. These people would suffer, they would fall, and his army would
feed!

Graal calmed himself, for it was not seemly to show temper—an effective loss of control. And especially not before the inferior albino clans from under the mountain. No. Graal took a deep breath. No. A Watchmaker should have charm, and stability, cold logic and
control. They were the superior race. Superior by birth, genetics and ultimately, superior by clockwork.