Vampire Warlords: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (7 page)

  Three generals. Two definitely dead. And a hammer blow to the face for the attacking bastard. A blow which should have cracked the vampire's skull in two like a fruit on a chopping block, had simply stalled it for seconds.
What have they done to you, Old Terrag? What did they make you?
But Ferret knew. He'd read the stories. He'd heard the old tales, warped and twisted fantasies passed down through generations. Old Terrag was a
vampire
. And much, much stronger than the albino soldiers who patrolled the streets of Jalder making Ferret's life miserable.

  There came a roar, and Dandig attacked with his axe. Ferret squinted, saw something squirm through the dust and still spilling rubble from the hole in the roof. The two figures clashed, one a huge bear of a man, his neck as wide as Ferret's thigh, his biceps not much thinner, a black-hearted bastard of a killer who only obeyed Ferret because he didn't know where the gold was kept – or in fact, that there was no gold at all. The axe swept for Old Terrag, who swayed back, changing direction, leaping, bouncing from the wall and launching at Dandig from above. Clawed hands took hold of Dandig's head, as the axe on its return sweep made a
humming
noise lashing under Old Terrag's elongated, stretched out body. And whilst still airborne, the vampire twisted Dandig's head, and Ferret waited for the
snap
of breaking neck but it was worse, much worse as the vampire kept on twisting and tendons crackled and popped and the head
came clean off
. Blood fountained. Dandig's confused body collapsed like a sack of sloppy shit.

  Ferret tried to lick his lips, but could not. Fear had drained him of spit.

  Old Terrag straightened,
damn, he'd always been a tall bastard
, and stared for a while at the pumping body on the floor. The head had rolled off into the shadows, and Ferret knew the man would have been completely pissed off. Dandig wasn't a man used to losing.

  Ferret fought down the urge to splutter a histrionic giggle.

  Old Terrag turned that blood gaze on Ferret and his balls retracted to pips. "Your turn, Ferret," hissed the vampire and Ferret was frozen, a statue, a carving from ice, and the vampire launched at him and he wanted to scream and curl up in a ball, to crawl away to some dark recess and lie there until he decomposed.
There there, Fador, soothed his mother and tucked him under the thick sheep-wool blanket but the dark was all around, those tales from Uncle Grimmer still vivid and bright in his child's colourful imagination, the clockwork vampires and clockwork werebeasts creeping through the dark with talons longer than a man's forearm… prowling… ready to strike…

  He blinked, and Old Terrag was on him, flying at him, arms outstretched and he jerked up his sword in sheer panic, no timing, no skill, just a flurry of scrabbling and movement and the blade flashed and Old Terrag impaled himself on the blade. Ferret heard steel bite through flesh, through bone, through muscle, sliding through Old Terrag's chest, through his heart, to exit on shards of spine.

  They squatted there, together, like lovers, and Old Terrag's outstretched clawed fingers took hold of Ferret's face and their eyes met. Ferret licked his lips. The vampire was shivering on the sword, impaled, and Ferret could see the tip of his blade on the other side of the vampire's body. Old Terrag trembled, and hatred etched the drawn back skin of his face,
its face
. Ferret thought he was dead, then. It still had the strength to twist off his head. Like it did with Dandig. Shit.

  Then Old Terrag closed his eyes, and smiled, and died.

  Ferret waited for a minute, waited to see what would happen. Then he scrambled from underneath the body and put his boot on the vampire's chest, withdrawing the short sword. Its heart. He had pierced its heart!

  He leant against the wall for a few moments, breathing heavily, then wiped sweat mixed with brick-dust from his brow, leaving a muddy red smear on his sleeve.

  "You can cut off their heads, as well," came the gentle voice of Rose, as she emerged from the dust.

  Ferret coughed, and snorted snot to the ground. "You've seen them killed?"

  "A few," she said. "The eastern quarter of the city is all but overrun. All your rebels." She smiled, sadly. "All of them…
changed
."

  "How are they changed? With magick?"

  "With a bite. To the neck. Then they seem to die, and they come back to life and are quick, and strong, and hard to kill. As you saw." She glanced at the three twisted corpses of Ferret's Generals; three hardy men, grim men, men who had slaughtered albino soldiers for fun. But one vampire had killed all three. And would have killed Ferret, if not for a twist of fate. Of luck.

  "Shit. We have gone to the Bone Graveyard!"

  "No. We are in Jalder. You must tell your people. They will listen to you. You must tell them how to fight. How to kill…" She glanced at the corpse of Old Terrag. Already, it had gone black, crinkled as if cooked, and the stench was unbearable. "How to kill these creatures."

  "I will," said Ferret. "Come with me, Rose."

  "No."

  "It's death out there!"

  "I know." She smiled. "But I have things I must do."

His name was Vishniriak. He was a Harvester. He was a leader amongst the Harvesters. He came from under the Black Pike Mountains and was tall, wearing thin white robes embroidered with gold religious symbols and threads. His face was flat and oval, his head hairless, his nose tiny slits which hissed when he breathed. And eyes… small black eyes without emotion, but glittering with a feral intelligence.

  He stood on the battlements overlooking the city of Jalder, and the wind howled, and his robes flapped and whipped, snapping viciously. He turned to his left, and stared at Kuradek the Vampire Warlord with tiny black eyes.

  Hate flowed through him.

  Vishniriak, and the Harvesters, hated the Vampire Warlords. But he knew they were tools. And a good workman uses the best of tools.

  To the Harvesters, the Vampire Warlords were the best of tools.

  "Send them," said Kuradek, his flesh swirling, flowing, and Vishniriak knew that one day there would be a reckoning, and one day they would fight; but now. Now they were allies. With a single goal.

  Vishniriak looked down into the courtyard, the same place where months earlier a flood of albino soldiers, the Army of Iron, had marched down into the city of Jalder under cover of ice-smoke and slaughtered most of the population, corpses ready for the
Harvest.

  Now, there were nearly a hundred vampires, pickings from the hardiest men and women and children who had stood against the albino soldiers still active in the city. But not now. Not now.

  It had been fascinating for Vishniriak to watch, and no matter how much he hated the vampires in principle the domino effect of their transformation had been stunning and swift. Kuradek had found three humans, infecting them, making them his primaries, his ghouls, then sent them out to find and infect others. Like a plague they swept through the eastern quarter of Jalder. Until none were left.

  It had taken two nights.

  Now, they would ease out into the city like a brass medical needle penetrating a succulent vein.

  And they would hunt. They would convert. They would feed.

  Until no humans remained.

CHAPTER 3

Zone

"I hope you're not going to use that?" Nienna's voice was gentle. And very, very close.

  Myriam started, and turned, her movement reflected in the Svian blade. "Child. You move quiet for a… mortal." She smiled. The irony was not lost on Nienna. Myriam glanced down at Kell, snoring gently, face relaxed in sleep, just another old man. Another retired soldier. How easy it was to be deceived, for Myriam knew he was the greatest killer on the continent. She moved to replace the knife in Kell's under-arm sheath, and with a
slap
her wrist was enclosed in Kell's mighty fist. Despite her accelerated vachine strength, the power of the clockwork, Kell's grip was like a steel shackle and she could not move. He opened one eye.

  "Finished your game?" he growled.

  "No game," said Myriam.

  "I wondered if you'd try."

  "Maybe I'm not that foolish," she said, and winced as the grip tightened, forcing her to drop the blade – which Kell took from her, neatly, and sheathed it with a whisper of oiled steel on leather.

  "Maybe you are," he said, sitting up and releasing her. She rubbed her pale flesh, glancing at the angry-red welts where his fingers had crushed her.

  "You're still strong, for an old man."

  "Better believe it," he grunted, and stood. He kicked Saark, who opened an eye to observe Kell like a lizard from a hot rock.

  "Come on, dandy," he growled. "We're moving out."

  "You could have just told me."

  "I find a boot up the arse infinitely more persuasive."

  "I was having such sweet dreams, of a buxom young tavern wench I once entertained. She could do amazing things with fresh cream and cracked eggs. You should have seen the foam!"

  Kell stared at him. "So then, even your new vachine blood has done nothing to kill your wayward libido?"

  "If anything, Kell, it has made me more rampant!" Saark stood, and smiled, and stretched himself, muscles aching from an uncomfortable, cramping sleep. But at least he could stand. At least he could stretch. "Now, my old and bedraggled friend, I can do it all night." He touched his chest, tenderly, remembering the savage wound and his near-death experience. He cast it from his mind. It no longer mattered; he was not dead. He was alive. And he was going to drink deep from the cup of hedonistic fulfilment.

  "Yes." Kell coughed. "Well. Be careful where you stick it. You've gotten in enough bloody trouble already."

  "Like I always prophesied," announced Saark, brightly, "you are the miserable, moaning voice of doom! You should learn to lighten up, Kell. Look at me, heroically skipping along the jaws of death and you don't hear me whining like a little girl with a broke skipping rope. But you, Kell, Kell the mighty Legend, after all we've been through and lived and endured, still you're bleating like a lamb on a cliff ledge without its mama. It's like adventuring with my fucking grandma. What next? A stick? Incontinence trews? Senility? Oh, but you're already holding hands with
that
old goat." He winked.

  Kell snorted, and scowled, but did not reply. Saark was right, but Kell could not help but have dark thoughts. It was simply the way he was built. With age came great wisdom. It also came with a great amount of moaning. Kell snorted again, and cursed the day he'd met the dandy.

  Nienna moved to Saark, and touched his breast lightly. "How do you feel? How's the wound now?"

  "Healing," said Saark, and pressed his own hand to the chest-wound. "Myriam's drugs helped me sleep." His eyes moved to the now-beautiful vachine, with her long dark curls and flashing, dangerous eyes. She stepped out into the tunnel, surveying the route ahead. Her hips were wide, legs powerful, waist narrow, breasts full beneath a tight leather jerkin. Saark licked his lips. "I had very sweet dreams," he said, finger lifting to touch his tongue, and then dropping to touch his chest unconsciously.

  Nienna saw the look and gesture, and said nothing, but frowned, and turned away. Back to Kell. "Do you trust Myriam?" Her voice was quiet, and she watched Saark move down the tunnel towards the newly changed vachine. She felt a sudden bitterness then, for they had a connection now; a bonding. They were both newly changed, both a
different
breed to the human. Myriam and Saark were vachine. Whereas she, Nienna, was human. Human, and young, and weak. Too young for Saark. Her eyes narrowed again. For a fleeting moment she wished Shanna and Tashmaniok, the Soul Stealers, had bitten
her
, changed
her
into vachine. Shared their blood-oil. Shared their clockwork. Infected her with their disease.
Then
Saark would have shared with her. He would have looked at her in a different light. Nienna's eyes gleamed.

  Kell rubbed his neck, and rolled his shoulders, then his hips, groaning as he worked at the stiffness which came after sleep. "I trust her as much as I've always trusted the conniving bitch. Which is to say, not at all. But what option do we have? She says she can guide us from this place. If she lies, well then, I'll cut her head from her vachine shoulders and we'll make our own way out."

  "That would be… interesting," said Nienna.

  "So you want her dead, now?"

  "Not dead. Just out of the picture." Nienna crossed to Saark, and touched his arm. He turned to her, lightly, a laugh on his handsome face. The gaunt look of the near-dead was fading. His accelerated vachine healing was kicking in fast. He no longer looked like a walking corpse; health and strength had returned. He took Nienna's hand, but was still talking to Myriam.

  Kell watched all this, and growled a low growl as realisation struck him. There was something there, between Nienna and Saark. Or at least, there was something there from Nienna. Previously, Kell had always focused on the dandy and his machinations towards Kat, Nienna's older friend, for that had been the obvious flirtation. It had taken his eye from the more subtle approaches of his granddaughter.

  "Horse shit," said Kell, and spat on the tunnel floor. "Come on!" His voice was loud and brash. "Let's get moving. You sure it's this way, Myriam, my sweet little angel?"

  Myriam gave him a strange look. Her lips curled into half-smile, half-grimace. There was a question in her eyes but Kell stared back, a hard look, a dark look. The same look Dake the Axeman got shortly before his head was cut from his mighty, heroic shoulders.

  Myriam shrugged. "Yes. Two days, by my reckoning. Although I'm not sure what we'll do when we get there, the river is too fast to swim, although there are some albino storerooms nearby. Let's hope they're not full of soldiers, hey?"