“Let’s take away your pretty toy,” said the Harvester, stepping close, and Elias saw the skin stripped from his fingers leaving several with nothing more than bone and a few strips of dangling, pink flesh. And as Elias dropped into a descent of terror and disbelief, and pain and raw burning agony, he could still hear the Harvester talking as it worked, and remembered those five bony fingers hovering over his heart…“Come to me now, boy, come to the Harvester, we’ll look after you, we’ll take you to the Watchmaker and you’ll have such a pretty time, you’ll have the time of your life…”
Elias opened his eyes. It was dark, and cold, and wooden walls surrounded him. For a terrible long moment he thought he was in a coffin, buried alive beneath fetid soil with worms struggling to ease through cracks and eat his eyes as he still breathed…a scream welled in his throat, bubbling through phlegm as his hands slapped out, thudding against wood…
“Where am I?” he croaked, realising he was terribly dehydrated, blinking, coughing, and he sat up and realised he wasn’t in a box, but a cart, and it bumped over rough ground and he stared down at his hand where two fingers were nothing more than torn and shattered bone, and he screamed, even though there was no pain, he screamed and his screams echoed out through the darkness…
“Quiet!” snapped a soldier, his sword prodding Elias in the chest and forcing him back to his rump in the cart.
Elias said nothing, but cradled his wounded hand and gazed around through veils of red sweet nausea. Darkness and mist filled his vision, and through the vapour like ghosts walked soldiers, ten, a hundred, a thousand, and each one had a pale face and crimson eyes and white hair; their armour was black, and Elias leant forward and vomited into his own lap, and stared for a long time at strings of saliva and puke as he rewound his brain and played through the meeting with…the Harvester? So. He had found the army. But how long had he been unconscious? How far from Leanoric was he now? He could have travelled a hundred miles, or a thousand. No, he thought to himself,
staring again at his flesh-stripped fingers. Realisation struck him worse than any axe blow to the back of the head.
His hand was crippled; a deformed relic.
He could no longer hold a sword.
Tears ran down his face then, and all dignity and pride fled him. He knew, deep down, that all men feared something more than all else; each man had a breaking point, whether it be cancer, loss of sight, the death of children or parents. But for Elias, Sword-Champion of Falanor, it was a loss of his right to swordsmanship.
Random images flickered through his mind, and he realised he was delirious.
He was a boy again, practising with a wooden blade…
He was a man, teaching his own children the art of the sword…
He was standing, shivering, behind the curtains as Leanoric killed his father, King Searlan…
Time flowed like black honey; with no meaning. The cart stopped and he was given bread and water, but did nothing more than vomit when it hit his stomach. A harsh voice snapped, “Leave him, if he dies, he dies.”
“No. Graal will have the entire fucking army flogged!”
“Damn that Harvester; if he’d done his job a’right, we wouldn’t be having these problems.” There came a curse in another, guttural, almost mechanical language, and harsh hands with smooth skin forced more water down his throat. This, Elias managed to retain,
and after another few miles bouncing in the cart, which he now realised was drawn by two pale, milk-skinned geldings, they halted and Elias was dragged from the platform, his hands bound tight behind his back with thin gold wire which bit his skin and made him cry out…it felt like he was being eaten by insects. Glancing back, he watched the wire moving constantly, with tiny blades, like tiny teeth, all made of copper and brass and continually sawing.
Elias was forced through the camp. They were on high moorland. Trees formed a solid black wall to the north. Above, the stars were obscured by bunching snow-clouds. Mist swirled around his boots. His hand throbbed, fingers stinging him like nothing on earth; and tears still flowed like acid down his cheeks. How had he been taken so easily?
Elias grimaced. If this was the sort of magick they were using, if an icy blast could take out the best Sword-Champion of Falanor in a few seconds of confusion, of utter cold, then this new threat, this new menace, this terrible foe was going to roll over Leanoric’s Eagle Divisions like a hot knife through butter.
We’re doomed, he realised.
I must get to the king. I must warn the king!
Elias was dropped to the ground, and he realised he was prostrate within a circle of men. He looked up, around at their faces which showed no empathy, no emotion, and then a black armoured warrior, tall and elegant, wearing a black helm obscuring his long, flowing white hair, turned and gazed at him.
“You are Elias,” he said. “The Sword-Champion of Falanor.”
“I am!” Pride flared in his breast. They could torture him, but he would not talk. He spat at the soldier. “Damn you, what do you horse-fuckers want?”
“I know you think me sadistic,” spoke the soldier, looking up at the sky. “You are incorrect. When I punish, I punish without pleasure. When I torture, I torture for knowledge, progression, and for truth. And when I kill…I kill to feed.”
“Then kill me, and be done with it!” snarled Elias, fury rising. He tried to surge up, to attack this arrogant albino, but only then did he realise hands pinned his soldiers, holding him to the ground.
“No,” said Graal, dropping to one knee and staring into Elias’s face. “Today is not your day. This time, it is not your time.” He half-turned. “Bring her.”
Queen Alloria was dragged, kicking and struggling, to the centre of the circle. She was beaten, her face bloodied, her arms tied behind her back with wire, blood covering her bare arms and wrists and hands. But she did not cry. She held her head high, eyes fierce, and she spat at Graal as she was thrown to the heather. She struggled to her knees and glared at her captors, glared at the albino soldiers around.
“Elias?” she hissed, almost disbelievingly, voice filled with an agony of recognition.
“I came to find you,” smiled Elias. “Leanoric sent me. Even now he musters the Army of Falanor. We will wipe this pale-skinned scum from the face of the world!”
“You don’t understand,” said Alloria, eyes filled with tears.
“Hush now,” said Graal, and kicked her in the head, a movement of gentle contrast as he sent her spinning
violently to the heather, stunned, blood leaking from smashed lips, mouth opening and closing from the sudden shock of the blow.
Elias looked up. “I’ll kill you, fucker,” he said.
“Later, later,” said Graal, waving the Sword-Champion into silence. “I had bad news this morning. It would appear my…brother, is dead.” Graal’s crimson eyes were locked to Elias. Elias smiled.
“Good. I hope the maggot suffered.”
“He suffered, my boy. He was a twisted vachine, you see. A canker. A creature who could not absorb the clockwork, whose body betrayed his heritage, a living rejection constantly at war with his own internal machinery.” Graal sighed. “But I see you don’t understand; I see you need…an education.”
Graal stood, and waved beyond the circle of soldiers. A handcart was dragged by four men, and aboard it lay…Elias, knelt, was stunned by the vision, his eyes wide, failing to recognise, or at least comprehend, what they saw. It was big, a twisted lion-shape, with pale white skin, tufts of white and grey fur, a huge head split wide with long curved fangs of razor-brass. The body was torn open in places, and Elias could see fine machinery moving inside, tiny wheels, miniature pistons. Elias coughed, and tilted his head, failing to comprehend.
The stench washed over him. Elias vomited on the heather.
Graal moved to the carcass, in two pieces, and placed a hand on bloated flesh. He looked almost fondly into small dark eyes, lifeless now, despite the moving machinery inside the canker’s flesh. “Dead,
but not dead. Alive, but not alive. Poor Zalherion. Poor Zal. You never thought it would be this way, did you? You never thought it would be like this.”
Graal turned, and pointed at the ground. The flat of a blade slammed Elias’s head, and he went down with a grunt. Stars spun. He opened his eyes, and heard a sound of hammering as stakes were driven deep into the frozen earth. His hands and legs were staked out, and as he came round he began to struggle. “What are you doing?” he screamed, voice rimed with panic. “What the hell is going on?”
“You will help us,” said Graal, voice cool.
“What do you want to know?” panted Elias.
“Not that way. You see,” Graal turned, and moved back to the cart. Drawing his sword, he slit the dead canker, his brother, from groin to throat. Skin and muscle peeled back as if the carcass had been unzipped, intestines and organs tumbled out, most merged with tiny intricate machinery, still moving pistons, still spinning gears. Some parts had tiny legs, and they began to walk rhythmically, like the ticking of clockwork, across the heather…“You see,” continued Graal, “when a canker dies, then usually the machine within him dies at the same time. But at times a phenomenon occurs which we do not understand; the machinery becomes parasitical and self sustaining…it lives on after the death of the host, and can be transferred to another living creature. Watch.”
“No!” hissed Elias, voice barely a whisper.
“Watch this, it’s unique,” said Graal, smiling, stepping back as machinery moved across the heather towards Elias’s staked out figure.
Pistons whirred, accelerating, as if sensing new blood, new flesh. Gears clicked in quick succession. Wheels spun and golden wires writhed like snakes, flowing through the heather until they reached Elias and crawled up his body as he began to scream, and shout, struggle and kick and thrash but the wires edged up his skin, up his hands and feet and arms and legs, worming under his clothing and dragging behind them small intricate units, machine devices, all clicking and whirring and stepping gears. Wire crawled over his face like a mask, and Elias screamed like a woman, but the wires wriggled into his mouth and wormed up his nose, they squirmed into his eyes making him thrash all the more, screams suddenly halting, a cold silence echoing across the moors as the first machinery unit arrived, scampered up his cheek and wedged into his mouth amidst muffled cries. It forced itself into him, down his throat, cutting off his airways and, subsequently, noises of pain. More machinery arrived, and tiny sharp scalpels sliced the flesh of Elias’s belly, opening his stomach wide and amidst spurts of blood and coils of bowel, with tiny brass limbs and pincers they dragged themselves inside him to feed and to merge and to join with his flesh in a union of muscle and artery and machine…
“They’re so independent,” said Graal, unable to disguise his wonder. “Even as Watchmaker, I do not understand. It is a miracle! A true and awe-inspiring sight, to stand here, mortal, bowed, subservient, and observe this sentience! This metal life! It is a privilege not bestowed by the Oak Testament.”
Around him in the mist, albino soldiers stood uneasily, eyes wide, watching the staked out figure of Elias squirm, their faces forced into neutrality as the metal-wreathed man, now seemingly more machine than human, thrashed and struggled, kicking and wriggling, and thrashing with such violence they thought he might tear off his own arms and legs…
Alloria opened her eyes, face-down on the heather, and turned, watching Elias consumed by metal, by wire and pistons, by gears and cogs. The clockwork ate into Elias, severing and savouring his flesh like ripe fruit, entering him, raping him, melding him, joining him, and Alloria watched with all blood flushed from pale cheeks, unable to speak, unable to scream, unable to vomit, as Graal stood amiably by and revelled in the clockwork creating a second-hand vachine.
Kell met the canker head on, both snarling, both leaping through witch-light on the snow-laden woodland. They hammered together, canker claws clashing a hair’s-breadth from Kell’s face as his axe slammed the beast’s neck, and he felt blades bite through thick corded muscle and into whirling clockwork deep within; their bodies thumped together and all was madness; even as they collided, Kell’s free hand grasping a huge claw-spiked canker paw, something huge and dark sailed over their heads and the Stone Lion landed snarling, elongated face stretching to roar and with fangs clashing, it collided with the two cankers, and the three figures smashed together, claws raking, teeth gnashing, and blood and wheels went spinning off into the undergrowth. One canker kicked back, crouched, then leapt atop the Stone Lion, fangs fastening on its head. With a massive crunch it bit the Stone Lion’s head in two, pulling back, claws fixed in the Stone Lion’s torso as it shook its prize like a dog with a bone and the Stone Lion went down on one knee; but even as the canker chewed, spitting out
chunks of wood and stone, so the Stone Lion’s fist whirred up, over, and down with a
whump
that shook the woodland and crushed the canker into a mewling heap, spine broken, and claws flexed and ripped out its lungs in a bloody spray of mechanical parts and still pumping organs. The Stone Lion smacked the second canker against a tree, as Kell hit the ground, Ilanna embedded in the canker’s neck, but a high shriek filled the woodland and the canker turned from Kell, leaping on the Stone Lion’s back as its companion attacked the Stone Lion from the front, and both fastened huge jaws on the Stone Lion which spun in a fast circle, long arms flailing, trying to dislodge the beasts from its body.
Kell sat down heavily with a grunt, all energy flushed from him. He pulled out his Svian half-heart-edly and watched the raging battle as the Stone Lion charged trees, crushing the cankers against ancient oaks, and the feral twisted vachine deviants retaliated with brass claws, opening holes in the Stone Lion’s belly to allow molten fungus to pour free…
Wearily, drained, saddened, Kell rolled his shoulders and neck, only now realising the muscles he had strained, the joints impacted, the huge bruises and many lacerations to his skin. He felt like a pit-fighter after twelve bouts, each one knocking another chunk from his prowess, as well as his sanity. He laughed a little, then, as the roaring went on, and for a few minutes Kell had a ringside seat in the most savage battle he had ever seen.