“What are we going to do, Kat?” said Nienna eventually, voicing that which they were both thinking.
“I don’t know. Kell will find us.”
“Maybe he…” She left it unsaid.
“I’ve read about your grandfather,” said Kat, staring into the fire. “He’s a survivor. He’s a…killer.”
“No he’s not. He’s my grandpa.” Nienna scowled, then glanced at Kat. “What do you mean? A killer?”
“His legend,” said Kat, avoiding Nienna’s gaze. “You’ll see. He’ll come looking for us. For you, I mean.”
“He’ll come for both of us!” snapped Nienna, frowning at the tone Kat employed. “He’s an honourable man! An old soldier! He would always do the right thing.”
Kat said nothing.
“Well well well,” came a strange voice from the trees. It was a twisted voice, full of friendly humour and yet mocking at the same time. “What have we got here?”
Both girls leapt up, and Nienna lifted the axe. From the gloom of the forest emerged six men, drifting slowly from the black. They were a rag-tag bunch, dressed in little more than rags and stained, matted furs. They wore heavy scuffed boots and carried tarnished swords; two men hefted fine yew longbows.
“What do you want?” snarled Kat.
The man who spoke was tall and lean, his face pock-marked, his eyes large and innocent. His hair was long and dark, tied back beneath a deerstalker hat
with furred edges. He was grinning at the two young women, showing a missing tooth.
“We don’t want anything, me sweets. You’ve made yourself comfortable in our camp, is all.”
“Are you robbers?”
The man held his hands apart, and he carried no weapons. “Tsch, just because I lives in the forest, me sweets, doesn’t make me a robber. Has been a hard time for us all I think. This winter is a harsh one, for sure. Only now, we were out hunting for meat.” He gestured, to where one of the forest-men carried a pole containing two dead hares. “Pickings are lean,” he said, eyes narrowing, but then he smiled again. “Don’t let us worry you. You got the fire going; that’s got to be worth a mouthful of rabbit meat.”
Kat nodded, and the men moved around easily, leaning weapons against trees with two of them sitting by the fire, holding out chilled hands. The leader seated himself and gestured to Nienna and Kat, still standing, to have a seat.
“I won’t bite, me sweets. Honest. Come and sit yourself down here. Keep yourself warm. You both looks like you’ll die from the cold! I’m Barras, and I’d wager you’re a long way from your homes. City girls, are ye?”
“From Jalder,” said Nienna, and Kat kicked her on the ankle. Nienna threw her a dark look.
“Jalder’s a fine city,” said Barras, smiling broadly, friendly, as one of his companions began to skin and gut the rabbits. “I have a lot of good friends who live there. Well, people I owe money to, anyways.”
“It was overrun! By an army. An army of albinos!” hissed Nienna, her eyes wide.
Barras rubbed at his chin with a rasping sound. “Is that so ways? That would be bad news, if I hadn’t owed so much silver to the Hatchet Man.”
“Who’s the Hatchet Man?” asked Kat, intrigued.
“Runs the gambling dens. When you don’t pay, he cuts off your hands with a hatchet. Chop!” He roared with laughter, as one of his men brought a large pan of water and set it on the fire. Barras leaned forward, then, his lips pouting as he considered a question. Almost instinctively, Kat leaned forward to listen; but Nienna found her hands tightening on Ilanna. Something wasn’t right. The atmosphere felt…just wrong.
Nienna glanced about. And it hit her. All of the men still wore weapons. They had removed some for show; but they still wore short swords. They were behaving like they were winding down, making camp, but nobody skinned a rabbit with a sword sheathed at his side. Or was she simply looking for trouble where none should be found? She stared at Barras. His face was filthy, yes, but honest. Why not trust him? He was a simple woodsman enduring a harsh winter…surely they would have a house or cottage nearby. A wife? Three children to feed?
Barras edged a little closer. He licked his lips. “What’s your name, me sweets?”
“Kat.”
“I was a-wondering, Kat, if you taste as good as you look?”
There came a moment of silence, and both Nienna and Kat surged to their feet but one of the woodsmen had circled behind and a club cracked Nienna’s skull, sending her sprawling sideways, fingers losing grip on
Ilanna, and two men grabbed Kat, bearing her to the ground where she screamed, until one punched her, a heavy blow that silenced her in an instant.
Nienna’s last sight was of Barras, lifting Ilanna and frowning a little as his eyes scanned the delicate faded runes along the black haft. He shook his head, then stared at Nienna in a curious way; before a second vicious blow from behind rendered her unconscious.
Nienna awoke to pain, pain in her fingers, hands, and running like fiery trails along her forearms and biceps, to end like pits of coal deep within her shoulders. She moaned, and her eyes flickered open. Her head pounded. A sour taste filled her mouth, and she realised she had vomited down her shirt.
She was moving, swaying, and at first she thought it a reaction to being hit over the back of the head. Then she realised the awful truth; she was tied up, and hung from the branch of a tree. She scowled, anger charging to the front of her mind. Bastards, trussing her up like a chicken! She heard laughter, and shouting, the crackle of the fire, and as she gently moved around on her length of rope she saw Kat. She was in a state of undress. Six men had ripped free her shirt and trousers, and she stood in her underwear and boots, a long stick in her hands, face a curious mix of hatred and fear as the men spread out, surrounding her, and she jabbed at them with a stick.
“Watching them, me sweets?”
Nienna looked down, saw Barras standing close to her, not looking at her, but watching the spectacle with Kat.
“Let us go,” she said.
“Why? We’re going to have a pretty fun with you two for, oh, I’d say the next month. You can get a lot of use out of a young woman like yourself; you have so much stamina, so much passion, so much anger. But, finally, when we’ve fucked you, and beaten you, and broken your spirit worse than any high-bred stallion, when you no longer scream during orgasm, when you no longer scratch at faces and pull at hair…when your spirit is gone, me sweet little doll, then, and only then, do we slit your throats.”
Nienna stared down at the man, tasting vomit, and wondering how she could kill him. His words frightened her more than anything she had had ever heard, or ever seen; worse than the albino army, worse than any canker. For here, and now, this was personal, not just an invasion, and this man was evil, a total corruption of the human shell. She was still stunned that she had not been able to see it. To smell it. It was a sobering life experience.
“How could you do that to us?” she asked, in a small voice.
Barras glanced up, then reached out, his hand creeping up the inside of her trouser leg. His fingers were rough on her skin. She squirmed, but he was stronger than he looked; he grinned as his fingers groped her inner thigh, her soft flesh, her young flesh, and his eyes were old and dark and deeply malevolent.
“Not everybody in this world has the same morals as you, little honey. You little rich girls; well, you deserve every fucking you get.”
The men, laughing, got the stick from Kat and bore her to the ground. One kissed her, and when she bit his tongue in a spurt of bright blood he slapped her hard, across the face, then again with the back of his hand. Blood trickled from her nose and she lay, stunned, fingers clenching and unclenching. The man pulled free her vest revealing small, firm, breasts. He squeezed them, one in each hand, to the cackling of his companions…
“Call them off,” said Nienna, voice so dry she could hardly speak.
“Why, me sweets?”
“You saw the axe,” said Nienna, voice turning hard. “It’s Ilanna.”
Barras narrowed his eyes then, scowling at her. “Where did you hear such a name?”
“It’s true,” she hissed. “It’s my grandfather’s axe. He’s coming. Soon. He will kill you all.”
“What’s his name?”
“You know his name, you heap of horse-shit.”
“Speak his
name
!” snarled the woodsman.
“He is Kell, and he will eat your heart,” said Nienna.
This impelled Barras to move, and cursing (cursing himself, he knew he had seen the axe before), he stepped forward to talk to the woodsmen; but something happened, a blur of action so fast he blinked, and only as a splatter of blood slapped across his face and dirt-streaked stubble did he leap into action…
The creature slammed across the clearing from the darkness of the trees in an instant, picking one man up in huge jaws, lifting the man high at the waist and crunching through him through his muscle and bones
and spinal column and he screamed, gods he screamed so hard, so bad, as the canker shook him and gears spun and wheels clicked and turned and gears made tiny
click click tick tock
noises, and it threw him away like a bone into the forest.
Barras ran forward, screaming, his sword raised…
The canker whipped around, a blur, and leapt, biting off the woodsman’s head in a single giant snap.
His body stood for a moment, still holding a tarnished sword, an arc of blood painting a streak across the forest in a gradually decreasing spiral. Then a knee buckled; the fountain of blood soaked the pine needle carpet, and the body crumpled like a deflated balloon.
Nienna struggled against her ropes, and she could see Kat crying, pulling on her vest and trews.
“Kat! Over here! Get the axe!”
The remaining four woodsmen had grouped together, pooling weapons. With a scream, and as a unit that displayed previous military experience, they charged across the fire at the canker which growled, hunkering down, crimson eyes watching the charge with interest, as a cat watches a disembowelled mouse squirm.
Kat grabbed the axe and, still sobbing, half crawled, half ran towards Nienna. She swung at the rope, missed, then swung again and the sharp blades of Ilanna sliced through with consummate ease. Nienna hit the ground, and Kat helped her get the ropes from her wrists to the backing track of screams, thuds, gurgles, and most disturbingly, the solid crunches of impact, of gristle, of snapping bones.
The girls half hoped the woodsmen had won; but then, they’d have to face the prospect of rape and murder.
But what would happen with the canker?
Kat pulled on her boots, and something smashed off into the forest, a woodsman, picked up by the canker, slamming an axe into its back again and again and again as it charged through the forest with his legs in its jaws. There came the smash and crack of breaking wood. A gurgle. Another crack; this time of bone.
Nienna and Kat stood, shivering, wondering what to do.
Slowly, the canker emerged from the gloom, lit only by the flames of the fire. Blood soaked its white fur, and congealed gore interfered with fine cogs and gears, splashed up its uneven, distended eyes. Skin and torn bowel were caught in long streamers between its claws, and it made a low churning sound as if about to be violently sick…
“Back away,” mumbled Kat, as Nienna hefted the axe and they started to retreat into the forest.
Nienna stood on a branch, which snapped.
The canker turned, slowly, red eyes watching them.
“Is it going to charge?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t move!”
“It’s already seen us!”
“Stop talking!”
“You’re talking as well!”
They stopped. The canker stopped. They eyed each other, over perhaps fifty yards. Then, with a wide grin—which looked like the creature had peeled the top
of its head right off—it let out a howl, a howl to the fire, to the forest, to the moon, and lowered its head with a grinding snarl and with a shift of gears, a mechanical grind of cogs, the canker leapt at the girls…
“Don’t do this,” said Anu, backing away, her face an image of horror as Shabis’s fangs gleamed, her claws flexed and she leapt. Anu somersaulted backwards, away from the attack, landed lightly, and as Shabis leapt again, claws tearing the carpet, oil gleaming in her eyes, so Anu leapt, kicked off from the wall and flipped over Shabis’s head. She landed in a crouch, unwilling to reveal her own killing tools, unwilling to fight her sister.
“Shabis!”
Shabis whirled, mad now. “You will die, bitch!”
“With what poison has he filled your head? What lies?”
Shabis charged, claws swiping for Anu’s throat. Anu swayed back, brass and steel a hair’s-breadth from her windpipe, then punched her sister in the chest, slamming her back almost horizontally where she hit the carpet on her face and coughed, clutching her chest, pain slamming violent through heart and gears and clockwork…
Anu’s eyes lifted to Vashell. “Call her off.”
Vashell backed away, tongue wetting his lips. She could see the bulge in his armoured pants. He was getting a thrill out of this: out of watching two sisters fight to the death.
“Stop her!” shrieked Anu, as Shabis crawled to her feet, the corners of her mouth blood-flecked.
“No,” he said, voice barely more than a growl. “This is the final trial. Don’t you see? This is the final…entertainment. A repayment, if you like, for all the pain and suffering you have caused. Shabis.” Shabis looked at him, the rage in her eyes flickering to love. “If you kill her, then we will marry, we will spend a glorious eternity together; you will never have to work again, we will languish in a blood-oil rapture; just you and I, my love.”
Shabis turned to Anu, head low, eyes dark. She let out a snarl and charged at Anukis who was crying, great tears flowing down her cheeks, soaking her golden curls, and Shabis leapt like a tiger, both sets of vachine claws coming together to crush Anu’s head and Anu swayed, ejecting a single claw which swiped down, sideways, as Shabis sailed past. There came a tiny
flash,
an almost unheard grinding sound, and Shabis hit the ground hard, rolling, wailing, her clawed fingers coming up to her face where blood and blood-oil mingled, leaking from her severed…fangs.