Soul Stealers: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (13 page)

    "Yes," came the rich, powerful voice of the vachine. "It is I."

    "Have you followed me?"

    "Let us say we travel the same path," came his words, at once soothing and deeply terrifying. Alloria had witnessed his cruelty first hand; and his violence. She was afraid.

    "How can you see in the dark?" she murmured, heart beating a rampage in her chest. She realised, then, that she needed her blue karissia; just to help her sleep. Always to help her sleep.

    "I have special vision," said Vashell. "I have clockwork eyes. Now, come, the snow is growing heavy; in an hour we will be trapped on this narrow path. I know of a cave a distance ahead where we can take shelter. By the gods, woman, you are freezing! Have you no cloak?"

    Alloria struggled to free her cloak from the satchel she carried, and Vashell helped. Once encapsulated within fur and leather, she felt better; a little better. But the death of Leanoric still bit her, like wolf fangs through her heart.

    "This way. Hold my hand. I will lead."

    Alloria stumbled along the trail, with Vashell leading the way. She did not trust the man – she smiled, and corrected herself. The
vachine
. But then, she had little choice, and in all actuality, no longer cared. If he was going to rape her, slit her, toss her ragdoll body down the mountain, then so be it. Surely, she deserved no less? Alloria had lost the fight and fire in her heart.

    They struggled on against worsening weather. The wind howled like a stabbed banshee. The snow pummelled them with padded fists. At one point Alloria fell, with a grunt and a small cry, and she felt herself reeling and sliding towards a violent chasm – but Vashell was there, strong hands pulling her back, and he held her, and she shivered and knew it was not from the cold; she was impervious, now, to ice. It was for the loss. The deep, drowning, terrible loss of her dead husband, her dead children. She knew she would never be sane again.

    "Here. We are here."

    Alloria could see nothing but white and gloom, but felt a sudden lessening of the wind and horizontally lashing snow. Vashell led her far back into the cave and it was curiously warm. He sat her on a stone, and using a bundle of small sticks, lit a tiny fire in a circle of blackened rocks. This place had been used by many travellers, it would seem.

    Firelight filled the cave, and although little heat was produced, the illusion was enough for Alloria, for now. She moved closer, stretching out fingers to the meagre flames, and then her head snapped up as she remembered the vicious fight between Vashell and Anukis (so long ago,
drifting through ancient dreams
)… a fight which had ended with Vashell losing his
face.

    Even in the darkness, in the flickering firelight, his face was nothing less than a terrible mess; strings of flesh covered cords of tendon and visible bone; some scar tissue showed where the vachine's accelerated healing was trying frantically to compensate for such a savage wounding. But it hadn't done enough.

    Vashell lowered his face; his eyes were full of pain, and shame. With head lowered, he said, "Once, my Queen, you found me beautiful." She said nothing. He looked up, glittering eyes meeting hers. "But not any more, I think."

    "Beauty is more than the skin on your bones, Vashell. It is here, in your heart, in your soul, and mirrored by the things you do. And no, sadly, from what I have seen of you, and the horror of which I heard you speak, I am not prepared to think of you as a beautiful soul."

    "I have done… questionable things," said Vashell, head lowered once again. His hand held a dagger. It glinted, blade black in the firelight. Suddenly, Alloria's eyes fixed on that blade, and she swallowed, tasting a thrill of raw metal fear.

    She realised, with a dawning like a virgin sun, that she was antagonising a tormented man. He shuffled back a little, and breathed deeply. Here was a vachine warrior not to be trifled with. According to Alloria, he had slain children – impure, Blacklipper children – in their beds. He had no qualms about killing women. He was a predator; the ultimate predator. And he killed not to survive; but because he had an intrinsic enjoyment of the concept, and indeed, the act.

    Outside, in the darkness, distant through the snow, a wolf howled.

    Alloria shivered, and stared at the cave opening. She was no match for a wolf. When she had decided to head off through the mountains after her release by Anukis, she had never considered such things as wolves, or bears, or even now, as she thought about it, wild men, brigands, outlaws on the mountain trails. She shuddered. Maybe death was still the answer? But on her own terms. By her own hand. Not ripped apart by the wild.

    Vashell stood and moved to the cave entrance. Then he turned to her. His destroyed face was creased in… in what? She could not tell whether it was humour, or hatred. Vashell had lost the ability to display facial expressions. Indeed, Vashell had lost the ability to show his face.

    "The wolves are coming," he said.

    "How do you know?"

    "I can hear them. A winter pack. White wolves. They are the worst."

    "Why the worst?" Her voice seemed, to her own ears at least, incredibly small.

    "Because they are the most hungry," he said, with a twisted smile that showed teeth through the holes in his cheeks.

    Alloria looked away.

    "They are following your scent. They must have been tracking you for hours. There's precious little meat on these bare hills."

    "Then I will die," said Alloria, lifting her head, eyes blazing.

    "We all die," said Vashell, turning back to the cave entrance.

    Outside, there came a fast padding, and a snarl. Slowly, Vashell backed towards Alloria; his athletic frame partially blocked the cave entrance, and she suddenly realised that Vashell had no sword, only the knife which she had seen him with earlier, a blade stolen from the Engineer's Barge during his escape several days ago.

    Then she saw the wolf. It was large-framed but scrawny, lean and athletic and hungry-looking; its fur was a mix of shaggy white streaked with grey and black, its eyes a wide-slitted yellow, its fangs old and yellow and curved like daggers. It was far bigger than any wolf Alloria had ever seen in Falanor, and its claws rasped on the cave's floor. It stopped, head tilted, surveying the two people. Vashell, poised, did not move. He seemed frozen to the spot – either in fear, or gauging his enemy.

    Then more wolves arrived, and they were snarling and hissing, drool spooling from ancient fangs as they moved as a pack into the cave which, with its too-wide opening, allowed them in three abreast. There were five, now; then eight. Then twelve. Their fur bristled with snow melt, and each wolf had a narrowed, hungry look. A haunted look. They were willing to die in order to feed.

    Alloria heard herself utter a small whimper. Vashell did not turn, but she saw his muscles tense.

    The lead wolf snarled, a sudden, aggressive sound, and leapt at Vashell in a blur…

CHAPTER 6

Stealers' Moon

Jageraw travelled with care, avoiding men, avoiding albino soldiers, avoiding cankers and avoiding anybody he thought might be a threat – which meant anything
alive
. The pain in his chest was worse now, and often made him gasp and he would mutter to himself, "Not pretty, not pretty," and rub at his armoured chitin as if by rubbing the area he could ease away the pain.

    The canker Jageraw had saved back at Le'annath Moorkelth was gone, fled through the forest. He was an odd one that canker, yes, thought Jageraw, bitter for a moment that none wished to share his company. Did he stink? Was that it? Stink of fish? All Jageraw got out of the twisted clockwork creature was its name: Elias. Then it was gone, floundering and stamping through the forest, easy meat for soldier's crossbows yes yes. He regretted now not eating the Elias. It was a pain, spitting out the cogs, but cankers could taste quite prime.

    As he moved, so he thought of the Hexels.

    They had saved him.

    They had honoured him.

    Now, Jageraw knew his task.

    Muttering, he stumbled on through forests and snow, stopping occasionally to hunt down some unsuspecting traveller or refugee, but even the slick feeling of raw kidneys or liver on his tongue, or even – the
joy!
– a succulent lung, did nothing to ease the pain in his chest. And the further north he travelled, the more the pain burned.

It was late afternoon, sky darkening, as Kell rode his steed up a steep hill, reins in one hand, the other on the haft of his saddle-sheathed axe. He drew rein atop the summit, and Saark came up beside him, silent, considering. Mary the donkey brayed, the noise loud and echoing, and Kell threw back a bitter scowl.

    "Don't even think it," said Saark.

    "What?"

    "She's invaluable. And Skanda is enjoying riding her. You wouldn't take such a simple pleasure from the boy?"

    Kell stared hard into Saark's eyes, and what he saw there he did not understand. Kell knew that he was good at reading men, but Saark was a true conundrum. Complex, unpredictable, Kell knew deep in his heart he would make better progress if he left Saark behind. And that was the answer, he realised. Singularity.

    Pain lashed through his veins, and Kell gritted his teeth, swooning in the saddle. The world blurred and reeled, and he grasped the saddle pommel with both hands, face pale, eyes squeezed shut, and focused on simply breathing as the world in its entirety swirled down in wide lazy blood circles. He heard Saark's voice, but it was a garbled, stretched out series of meaningless sounds. And in the middle of it all there was a taste, and the taste was whiskey, and he knew that if only he could have another drink then everything would be all right again, and the pain would go away again, and no matter that it made him violent because he was in a violent world on a violent mission and the whiskey would
help him
achieve his goal; waves of pain pulsed through him, and then a moment of darkness, and then he was breathing, gasping at the cold air like a drowning man coming to the surface of a lake.

    The world slapped Kell in the face, and he was gasping, and Saark was asking him if he was well. Kell took several deep, exaggerated breaths, and looked right to Saark. He gave a nod. "It's the poison, lad," he managed, voice hoarse. "When she bites, she bites real hard."

    "We need to rest," said Saark. "Somewhere warm, some hot food, a good sleep. We've been through a lot." He winced, clutching his wounded side instinctively. "And we stink like a ten day corpse."

    "Speak for yourself," barked Kell.

    "Kell?" It was Skanda. His eyes glittered. Again, now they had stopped, the scorpion sat on his hand and seemed to be watching proceedings. Kell eyed the insect uneasily, and made a mental note to tread the bastard underboot at the first opportunity.

    "What is it, lad?"

    "There is a village, yonder. Creggan. I have travelled there before. It is getting late, we should move."

    "Where?" Both Kell and Saark squinted, looking off over gloom-laden, snowy hills which dropped in vast steps from their position, like folds in a giant's goosedown quilt.

    Skanda pointed. "Come. I will show you." He reached out, and the lead between Saark's horse and Mary fell away. Skanda cantered the donkey forward, and the usually stubborn beast (on several occasions, Saark had had to practically wrestle the donkey into ambulation) obeyed Skanda without hesitation, nor braying complaint.

    Saark shrugged, and Kell scowled. Skanda set off in a seemingly random direction from the high ground near the Great North Road. Saark followed, his gelding stamping and snorting steam. Kell waited for a few moments, pulled free the unmarked whiskey bottle, and drained the last few drops. He licked his lips, and despite hating himself for it, hoped to the High Gods that there was a tavern.

The village was small, a central square with hall and tavern and a few shops. All seemed closed and empty and dead on this cold winter evening, another apparent victim of the Army of Iron. Kell and Saark had Skanda wait by the outskirts as they rode in, weapons drawn, eyes wary as they searched for albino soldiers. Nobody walked the streets. Most of the houses seemed deserted.

    "Has the Army of Iron been through, do you think?"

    Kell shrugged, and pointed to the tavern where thin wisps of smoke eased from a ragged, uneven chimney. "I don't think so. No bodies in the road, for a start. But let us find out." He dismounted at the tavern, and thumped open the door. Inside was warm, a fire crackling in the hearth. A long bar supported three men, all stocky and dour, who jumped as the door opened, their eyes casting nervous to the intruders, hands on sword hilts. A tall, thin barman gave a nod to Kell, and Kell entered.

    "Do you have rooms?"

    "How many?"

    "Two."

    "Yes. It'll be five coppers a night. Will you be wanting warm water? 'Cos that's another copper."

    "Warm water is a prerequisite to cleanliness and holiness, my man," said Saark, entering the tavern and smiling, leaning forward over ale-stained timbers.

    The barman stared at the ragged, bruised, tattered dandy, without comprehension.

    "He said 'yes'," grunted Kell, and dropped coins on the bar. Then to Saark, "Go and get the boy, and stable our horses."

    When Saark had left, Kell eyed the barman. "You have a cosy little town, here, barman."

    "And we would keep it that way. An army passed through, killing everyone in surrounding towns," his eyes were bleak, his mind full of nightmares, "of this we know. We would ask you to keep your knowledge of Creggan to yourselves. We have nowhere to run, you understand?"

    Kell nodded, and ordered a whiskey, which he downed in one. Then, when Saark returned after stabling the horses and Mary, Kell pushed past him on his way to the door.

    "Hey, where are you going?"

    "Out."

    "Out where?"

    "Just out," grinned Kell, but it was a grin without humour.

    "Old horse, I have a question. Why did you only purchase two rooms? A little odd, I thought."

    Kell's grin widened. "You love that damn creepy Ankarok boy so much. Well. You can bunk with him. Maybe he'll stop you behaving like an idiot!"

It was later. Much later. Darkness had fallen, and with it a fresh storm of snow. Kell had returned, brushing flakes from the shoulders of his heavy bearskin jerkin, and now sat eating a meal at a corner table in the tavern. It was a pie filled mostly with potatoes, a little ham, and thick gravy. Kell also had a full loaf of black bread, which he sliced thickly, smothering each slice with butter. Skanda sat, facing Kell, eyes fixed on the old warrior, watching the man eat. On three occasions Kell had offered the boy food, but the thin-limbed urchin waved it away.

    "You need something warm inside you, lad," said Kell, relaxing with a full belly, eyes kind now he was out of the cold, the wind, the snow, and immediate threat of battle. He was getting old, he realised. Damn it, he
was
old! And, thinking of their pursuit after Nienna, he realised just how ancient and worn he really felt. To the core.

    "I am not hungry," said Skanda.

    "You must eat something."

    "If you could ask for a little warm milk?"

    Kell nodded, and called over a serving girl. She returned shortly with a cup of warm milk, and a tankard of ale for Kell. Both Kell and Skanda sat, drinking their drinks and watching the tavern gradually fill. The village of Creggan was not as deserted as it first seemed.

    "Where's Saark got to?" said Kell, after a while. He was watching a group of men in the corner, and noting their ease of movement, and how they hardly touched their drinks. They seemed like military men to Kell, but one had a taint to the lips, as if he might be a blossoming Blacklipper. Blacklippers were men, and women, who had found a taste for the illegal and hard to come by
blood-oil
, so revered and necessary to the vachine. Most Blacklippers had little idea the narcotic juice they purchased was refined from human blood. Nor did they realise it was destined for a market so… esoteric: that of the vachine civilisation deep within the folds of the Black Pike Mountains. Most Blacklippers simply lived for the moment, and took their pleasure – including blood-oil – when and where they found it; the one downside, of course, being that the more a person used blood-oil, the more their lips, and eventually, fatally, their very
veins
stood out black from their skin. When a Blacklipper's veins stood out like a battlefield map in ink, one could count their remaining weeks on one hand.

    Skanda sipped his milk. "He went out."

    "Where to?" Kell frowned. "He said he was having a bath."

    "He said he had things he needed to buy."

    "Hmm," said Kell, and placed his chin on his fist. By his boot, no more than a hand-span away, Ilanna leant against the edge of the rough-sawn table. And under his left arm lay sheathed his Svian knife; usually, his last resort weapon on the few occasions he was parted from his first love. Ilanna.

    The tavern was crowded now, but curiously subdued. They all know, then, thought Kell. They understand that Falanor has been invaded and they have missed the network of searching soldiers through sheer luck. No obvious roads led to Creggan. They had been overlooked. By the villagers' demeanour, they understood what would happen if a second pass came upon this little haven.

    Kell's practised eye picked out that every man wore a sword, or long knife. Even the women who came in wearing thick woollen dresses and cotton shirts were armed. This was a town living in fear. It was palpable, like ash on their skin, like plague in their eyes.

    Skanda finished his milk, and stood.

    "Where are
you
going, lad?"

    "I'm tired. I am going to sleep."

    Kell nodded, and watched the thin boy weave his way through the crowded tavern. Smoke washed over him, and a serving girl approached. She asked if he wanted a drink. Kell looked down at his ale. He looked up at her. And he considered.

    "Bring me a whiskey," he said at last, voice hoarse.

Saark sat in hot water, the wound in his side stinging like the fires of the Chaos Halls, his limbs bruised like a pit-fighter's, but still happy as heat flowed through his damaged flesh and aching bones. He settled back with a sigh. The stench of blood, and sweat, and dirt, of battle, of cankers, of sleeping in the forest, of albino brains and albino gore, all were scrubbed from his now pink and raw skin. And even better, he had asked around, and purchased some rich bath herbs, and perfume, none of it as fine as the scents used in the Royal Court in Vor, but a damn sight more refined than stinking of horse-sweat and death.

    Saark sighed again. The water lapped the edges of the bath rimed with excised scum. He stared happily at the new clothes – clothes he knew, in his deepest of hearts, were a wasteful extravagance, and certainly not geared for travelling across the country – but still of necessity to one such as Saark. He was addicted to buying clothes and perfume as some men were addicted to whiskey, or gambling on dog fights. Because, he knew, with fine clothes and perfume matched to his natural beauty, the whole heady mix led to one thing, and one thing only: amorous meetings with pretty young ladies.

    Saark closed his eyes, picturing the many women he had conquered. And yet Katrina's face kept returning, invading his imagination, pointing a finger of accusation. I am dead, she seemed to be saying. You told me you loved me. Now I rot under the soil and you
did not
stop it happening!

    Mood soured by ghosts, Saark climbed from the bath and towelled himself dry. He stood, shivering a little and staring at himself in a full length brass mirror. The wound was healing in his side; it still leaked blood occasionally, but it
was
getting better. The stitches were holding fine. The swelling in his face had gone down, so he no longer looked like a horse had danced on his features, and many of his bruises had faded to yellow, and many, incredibly, had gone.

    I heal fast, he thought with a smile. But not mentally, he realised, with a grimace.

    He dressed, in a bright orange silk shirt with ruffles of lace around wrists and throat, and bright blue woollen leggings. He'd also bought a new
snow leopard
cloak, long down to his ankles, fine doe-leather and lined with snow leopard fur, or so he'd been told; although he doubted it. Still, it added a nice splash of white to set off the orange of his shirt. And would undoubtedly be warm on the road.

    Saark draped a cord over his neck, settling a bright green pendant at his throat, and then buckled his rapier at his side. He drew the weapon, a blur flickering silver in the mirror, a stunning display of skill and accuracy; then he winced, slowly, and held his side. "Ouch," he muttered. "Not there yet, lover. Not there yet."