Kell surged from the bath, knocking the bottle of whisky over. It glugged amber heaven to the rugs and
Kell ignored it. He wrenched on his trews, boots and shirt, grasped his axe, and stormed out and down the stairs.
Ilanna had been right. The inn was even more crowded, now, noisier, rowdier, no longer a place for a genial meal; now this was a pit in which to drink, get drunk, and flirt with whores.
Nienna sat, back to the wall, face a little slack. Three men sat around her in a semi-circle; even as Kell strode down the stairs one pushed a glass to Nienna, feeding her drunken state, and she giggled, throwing back the liquor as she swayed. The men were young, late twenties, in rough labourers clothing and with shadows of stubble.
Kell stopped behind them, and placed his hands on hips. Nienna could barely focus.
“Grappa?” she said, and grinned.
The three men turned.
“I suggest,” said Kell, face dark like an approaching storm, “you move away. I wouldn’t like to cause a nasty scene in the inn where I sleep; it often increases my lodging bill. And if there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s an extortionate bill for broken furniture.”
“Fuck off, grandad, this girl’s up for some fun,” laughed one young man, turning back to Nienna, and thrusting another drink at her. This meant he’d turned his back on Kell. Later, he would realise his mistake.
Kell’s fist struck him on the top of the head so hard his stool broke, and as he keeled over and his head bounced from floorboards, it left a dent. He did not move. Kell glared at the other two men, who half stood, hands on knives.
Kell drew Ilanna, and glared at them. “I dare you,” he said, voice little more than a whisper. Both men released knives, and Kell grinned. “I’d like to say this wouldn’t hurt. But I’d be lying.” He slammed a straight right, which broke the second man’s nose, dropping him with a crash, and a powerful left hook broke the third man’s cheekbone, rendering him unconscious. It took less than a second.
The innkeeper stepped in, holding a helve, but took one look at Kell and lowered the weapon. “We don’t want no trouble,” he said.
“I intend to give none. You should allow a better class of scum into your establishment,” he said, and gave a sickly smile. “However, I am a fair man, who has not yet lost his temper. Get your daughters to escort my granddaughter to her room, and tend her a while, and I won’t seek compensation.”
“What do you mean?” asked the innkeeper, touched by fear.
“My name is Kell,” he said, eyes glowering coals, “and I kill those who stand in my way. I’m going outside for fresh air. To cool off. To calm down. When I return, I expect these three piglets to have vanished.”
At the name, the innkeeper had paled even more. There were few who had not heard of Kell; or indeed, the bad things he had done.
“Whatever you say, sir,” muttered the innkeeper.
Still furious, more with himself than anybody else, and especially at invoking the vile magick of his own name, Kell strode to the door and out, away from the smoke and noise now rumbling back into existence after the fight. He took several deep lungfuls, and
cursed the whisky and cursed the snow and cursed Saark…why hadn’t the damn dandy kept an eye on Nienna as he’d promised? And where was Kat?
“The useless, feckless bastard.”
Kell glanced up and down the street, then moved to the corner of the inn. Snow fell thickly, muffling the world. Kell stepped towards the stables and thought he heard a soft moan, little more than a whisper, but carrying vaguely across the quiet stillness and reminding him of one thing, and one thing only…
Sex.
With rising fury and a clinical intuition, Kell stomped through the snow towards the nearest stall. He stopped. Saark was lying back on a pile of hay, fully clothed, his face in rapture. Kat stood, naked before him, stepping from her dress even as he watched. Kell was treated to a full view of her powerful, round buttocks.
“You fucking scum,” snarled Kell, and slapped open the stable door.
“Wait!” said Saark.
Kell lurched forward, kicking Saark in the head, stunning the man who fell back to the hay. He turned to Kat, face sour. “Get your clothes on, bitch. You’ll be having no fun tonight.”
“Oh yes? Why? Haven’t you a hard enough cock yourself?”
Kell raised his hand to strike her, then stared hard, glancing at his huge splayed fingers; like the claws of a rabid bear. He lowered his hand, instead grabbing Saark by the collar and dragging him through the hay, back out onto the street and throwing him down.
“What did I tell you?” he snarled, and kicked Saark in the ribs. Saark rolled through the snow, grunting, to lie still, staring at snowfall. He gave a deep, wracking cough.
“Wait,” Saark managed, lifting his hand.
Kell strode forward, rage rushing through him, an uncontrollable drug. Deep down, he knew it was fuelled by whisky. Whisky was the product of the devil, and it made him behave in savage, evil ways, ways he could not control…
“You would abuse a young, innocent girl?” he screamed, and swung a boot at Saark’s face. Saark rolled, catching Kell’s leg and twisting it; Kell stumbled back, and Saark crawled to his feet, still stunned by the blows, his face twisted as he spat out blood.
“Kell, what are you doing?” he shouted.
“You went too far,” raged Kell, squaring up to Saark. “I’m going to give you a thrashing you’ll never forget.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, old man.”
“Don’t call me
old man
!” Kell charged, and Saark side-stepped but a whirring fist cracked the side of his head. He spun, and returned two punches which Kell blocked easily, as if fending off a child. Kell charged again, and the men clashed violently, punches hammering at one another in a blur of pounding. They staggered apart, both with bloodied faces, and every atom of Saark’s good humour disintegrated.
“This is crazy,” he yelled, dabbing at his broken lips. “She’s eighteen years old! She knows what she wants!”
“No. She knows what you tell her! You’re a womaniser and a cur, and I swear I’m going to beat it out of you.”
They clashed again, and Kell clubbed a right hook to Saark’s head, stunning him. Saark ducked a second blow, smashed a straight to Kell’s jaw, a second to his nose, a hook to his temple, and a straight to his chin. Kell took a step back, eyes narrowed, and Saark realised a lesser man would have fallen. In fact, a great man would have been out in the mud. Saark may have come across as an effeminate dandy, with a poison tongue and love of female sport and hedonism, but once, long ago, he had been a warrior; he knew he could punch harder than most men. Kell should have gone down. Kell should have been out.
Kell coughed, spat on the snow with a splatter of blood, and lifted his fists, eyes raging. “Come on, you dandy bastard. Is that all you’ve got?” He grinned, and Saark suddenly realised Kell was playing with him. He had allowed Saark the advantage. But Kell’s face turned dark. “Let’s see what you’re fucking made of,” he said.
Saark started to retreat, his head pounding, his face numb from the blows, but Kell charged, was on him and he ducked a punch, spun away from a second, leapt back from a third. He held out his hands. “I apologise!” he said, eyes pleading.
“Too late,” growled Kell, and slammed a hook that twisted Saark into the air, spinning him up and over, to land with a grunt on the snow, tangled. He coughed, and decided it was wise to stay down for a few moments.
“Get up,” said Kell.
“I’m fine just here,” said Saark.
“Grandfather!” Nienna was standing in the inn’s doorway, sobered by the spectacle, and surrounded by others from the inn who jostled to watch. She ran down the steps, silk shoes flapping, and placed herself before the fallen Saark and the enraged figure of Kell.
“What are you doing?” she shrieked.
“He was trying to rape Kat,” said Kell, eyes refusing to meet his granddaughter’s.
“I was doing no such thing,” snapped Saark, crawling to his knees, then climbing to his feet. “She needed no persuasion, Kell, you old fool. Have you no eyes in your head? She was lusting after me, even back in the tannery. You just can’t stand the thought of a young woman desiring a man like me…”
Kell growled something, not words, just primal sounds of anger, and a continually rising rage, and Nienna stepped forward, slapping both hands against his chest. “No!” she yelled, voice strong, eyes boring into her grandfather. “I said NO!”
Viciously, Kell grabbed Nienna and threw her to one side. She stumbled, went down in the snow with a gasp, then rolled over to stare in disbelief at the man she had known for seventeen years, from babe to womanhood, a man she irrefutably knew would never lay a hand on her, would never pluck a hair from her head.
“That’s it!” laughed Saark, voice rising a little as he saw the inevitability of battle, of destruction, of death rising towards him like a tidal wave. “Take it out on a young girl, go on Kell, what a fucking man you are.” His voice rose in volume, tinged by panic. “Is this really the hero of Jangir Field? Is this truly the mighty
warrior who battled Dake the Axeman, for two days and two nights and took his decapitated head back to the king? Go on Kell, why don’t you just kick the girl whilst she’s on the ground…after all, you wouldn’t like her to fight back now, would you, bloody coward? You’re a fucking lie, old man…the Black Axeman of Drennach?” Saark laughed, blood drooling down his chin as Kell stopped, and unloosed his axe from his back. The old man’s eyes were hard, harder than granite Saark realised as a terrifying certainty flooded his heart. “I spit on you! I bet you cowered in the cellars during the Siege of Drennach, listened to the War Lions raging above tearing men limb from limb…whilst the real men did the fighting.”
Kell lifted his axe. His face was terror. His eyes black holes. His visage the bleakness of corpse-strewn battlefields. He was no longer an aged, retired warrior with arthritis. He was Kell. The Legend.
“Go on,” snarled Saark, hatred fuelling him now, spittle riming his lips, “do it, kill me, end my fucking suffering, you think I don’t hate myself a thousand times more than you ever could? Go on, bastard…kill me, you spineless gutless cowering heap of horse-cock.”
“No!” screamed Nienna.
“You speak too much,” said Kell, his voice terribly, dangerously low. “Here, let me help you.” He hefted Ilanna, huge muscles bunching, and only then did Saark glimpse, from the corner of his eye, a tendril of white mist drifting across the street. His head twitched, turned, and he watched ice-smoke pour from a narrow alleyway, to be joined by another from
a different alley, and yet another from a third…like questing tendrils, wavering tentacles of some great, solidifying mist-monster…
“The albino soldiers!” hissed Nienna, eyes wide as Kat skidded around the corner, face flustered, dress hitched up in her hands. “They’re here! Kell, they’re
here
!”
Kell lifted Ilanna, face impassive. His body flexed, and twisted, and the mighty axe sang as she slammed in a glittering arc towards Saark’s head.
Anu revelled in the cold air gusting from mountain passes as Vashell led her on her chain through the town. As they walked down metal cobbles towards the Engineer’s Docks, many vachine stopped to stare, eyes wide at this utterly humiliating and degrading treatment. Anu grinned at them, sometimes hissed, and once, when a young man protruded his fangs she snarled, “Stare as much as you like, bastard, I’ll be back to rip out your throat!”
Vashell tugged her tight, then, and she fought the chain for a few moments until Vashell back-handed her across the face, and she hit the ground. She looked up, eyes narrowed in hatred, and Vashell lifted his fist to strike another blow…
“Stop!” It was a little girl, a baby vachine, who ran across the metal cobbles, clogs clattering, long blonde hair fluttering, and she placed herself between Anu and the enraged Engineer. “Have you no shame, Engineer Priest?” she said in her tiny child’s voice.
Vashell glowered at the girl, no more than eight or nine years old, in a rage born of arrogance. She turned
her back on him, reached down, and took Anukis’s hand. She smiled, a sweet smile, and her eyes were full of love. Inside her, Anu heard the
tick tick
of clockwork. Inside the girl, the vampire machine was growing.
“Thank you.” Anu stood. She reached out, ruffled the girl’s hair. “Thank you for being the only one in the whole valley to show me kindness.”
“Everybody is scared of you,” said the girl. “They’re scared you’ll bring down the wrath of the Engineers.”
“And we call this a free society?” mocked Anu, casting a sideways glance at Vashell. He snarled something, tugged her lead, and Anu followed obediently…but strange thoughts of her father flowed through her blood and flashed in her mind, and she felt, deep inside her own twisted and failed clockwork, the very thing which made her impure, the very thing which made her different to the vachine around her and unable to take in the gift of blood-oil which kept them alive and fed their cravings and lubricated their clockwork…she felt a tiny, subtle
twist.
Something clicked in her breast, and she felt nauseous, the world spinning violently, and she glanced back and saw the little girl watching her, a curious look on her face, and Anu tilted her head unable to place that look, unable to decipher what it actually meant…
A cold wind blew, peppered with snow.
Huge, perfectly sculpted buildings flowed past, and the vachine population continued to stare as Vashell strode proudly down the centre of the street with his dominated, subdued prize. Above, beyond, to either side, the devastatingly huge Black Pike Mountains reared, black and grey and capped with white, and
splashed down low on their mighty flanks with occasional scatterings of colourful green pine forest.
I know what that look meant, realised Anu. Snow whipped her, and she shivered.
It was a look of friendship, of memory, of a link. She knows me, thought Anu, but I do not know her. How is this possible? What does it mean? Where does she come from?