Soul Stealers: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (36 page)

    Kell blinked. The gold wires fell away, eaten by insects.

    Kell looked down, at Ilanna grasped in his mighty, lacerated, blood-drenched hands. Slowly, he looked up, and saw the Soul Stealers, and Graal, staring at him. Skanda danced on, a mournful dance, insects still pouring from his mouth and his little boy's feet slapped pitifully on the slick ground. Graal pointed at Kell. "Kill him!" he screamed, with a sudden insane fury and the Soul Stealers stood, then leapt at Kell who brought Ilanna up in a savage sweep and stream of sparks, batting aside both swords and knocking the two female killers back.

    Kell took a step forward. He lowered his head. "I am Kell. And I am mightily pissed off."

    The Soul Stealers leapt again, and Kell moved with awesome speed, a blur, an age of pent-up rage and frustration unleashed in a few swift heartbeats. Swords struck Ilanna, were cast aside and she sang as she cut for Tashmaniok's neck but the Soul Stealer back-flipped away, too fast, and her fangs came out and her claws grew long and they could hear the
tick tick
of stepping gears and clockwork wheels. She leapt at Kell, snarling, and was caught on the flat blades of Ilanna but twisted, one boot between the axe and herself, and pushed herself away into a roll as Ilanna sang a finger's breadth from her throat. Shanna attacked, sword slashing, claws trying to gouge Kell's eyes. He stumbled back, and she came on, snarling and spitting and Kell was forced further back until the rock wall halted him and he fought a short, furious battle, axe and blurring sword flickering to a discordant song-clash of steel. Kell ducked a sword strike, jabbed with his axe but Shanna shifted, avoiding the blow. Tashmaniok came in on Kell's right, and sweating now, slowing, the old warrior back-handed an axe strike at her face which she easily avoided.

    "You're getting slow, old man," taunted Tash.

    "You're going to die, old man," laughed Shanna.

    "Then we'll eat your granddaughter," said Tashmaniok, all humour gone. She was neither sweating, nor panting; she showed no signs of exertion. Kell, on the other hand, was a sack of shit. He was covered in his own blood, in lacerations from the tight cutting wires, and his sweat was stinging his many wounds and fuelling his fury. But the vachine killers were right; he was old, and he was tired, and he was tiring. Fury and rage could only last so long. Kell had only minutes…
seconds
… to live. They knew it. And he knew it.

    "Catch," said Skanda, from between the two Soul Stealers, and he threw the twin-tailed scorpion and Kell tried to dodge but the scorpion landed lightly on his chest, just under his throat, and before he could do anything both tails flexed and struck like the twin heads of a striking snake. The scorpion stung Kell, who yelled in surprise as the Soul Stealers turned on Skanda for a moment, distracted, swords a blur as they frantically attempted to kill this boy of the Ankarok, but he danced, tantalisingly, forlornly, between their blades. Then there came a sharp
crack
, and Skanda smiled an ancient blood-oil magick smile and watched as
time
cracked and Kell stepped in two, and looked at himself, looked at his twin, his clone, his double, one a few steps out of time meaning he was not one, but two. The Kells stared at each other, stunned into silence, and the Soul Stealers stood still with mouths hung agape. The two Kells turned, like a mirror image, and with roars that shook the air launched themselves at the Soul Stealers, twin Ilanna axes singing a curious humming chorus of axe-blade death. Swords and axes shrieked, and now that each Kell fought only one enemy his confidence and speed and agility returned, and with savage necessity the original Kell forced Shanna back against a wall, his axe strikes accelerating as she grew more and more frantic, and she called out for help, "Tash!" a shriek of the condemned as Ilanna batted aside her sword blade for one last time and with a mighty roar, a bestial battle-scream Kell lifted the butterfly blades of his bloodbond axe and they came down in a savage vertical strike that cut Shanna from skull to quim, and slopped her bowels and clockwork components to the Helltop plateau. "No!" wailed Tash, distracted by her twin's destruction, and Kell's axe cut through her neck, sending her head rolling along the stone ground, slapping slowly to a halt by Graal's boots.

    Skanda smiled, and clapped, and the twin-tailed scorpion ran onto his hand and up his arm. He clapped again, and there was a second
crack
. The air felt greasy, full of smoke, and the second Kell disappeared as time jigged into synchronisation, into a linear snap of reality.

    "Don't ever do that again!" snarled Kell, turning in rage, his head pounding as if struck by a mallet, but Skanda had gone. He ran to Nienna, and Graal was shouting orders to the soldiers surrounding the Granite Thrones. Even now, dark smoke was coalescing on all three Thrones, and Kell shook Nienna, dragging her away from Saark's body. "We must go," he growled, eyes wild.

    "Bring Saark."

    "I reckon he's dead!"

    "Bring him!" she shrieked.

    Kell grabbed the limp body of Saark, grunting as he slung him over his shoulder for the dandy was heavier than he looked, then dragging Nienna behind, he sprinted for the only exit available – the empty pool, the hole, sitting stagnant before the three Granite Thrones. Graal had drawn his sword, and as Kell charged so he turned and his face was death, his eyes twinkling sapphires, and the sword came up and Kell screamed and hurtled towards him, axe coming up and smashing Graal's sword aside as Ilanna cut a long streak down Graal's left cheek, peeling his face open like a fruit, and Kell's last glimpse before they were swallowed by the hole was that of three tall, smoke-filled figures seated on the Granite Thrones. Their eyes were blood red, and they were watching him. Kell, Nienna and Saark fell into the chute, into the vertical tunnel below, and in the blink of an eye vanished from Helltop.

    They fell.

    Fell, towards the distant, booming Vrekken.

On a high peak above the flooded Silva Valley sat four Vachine Warrior Engineers and two Watchmakers. Walgrishnacht's eyes were bleak, his face drawn and haggard as he surveyed the destruction of Silva Valley below. Their escape had been a miracle. Many had died following.

    "Nobody could have predicted this," said Sa, voice gentle.

    Tagor-tel placed his arm around her shoulders, and they sat for a while, thinking of the thousands who had died, smashed and drowned below them in the echoing caverns of the Vrekken.

    "We must call what remains of the vachine armies," said Walgrishnacht, standing, and he turned and stared at the distant peak of Skaringa Dak. Above it, blackness swirled like evil personified. "We must summon the Ferals."

    "It is too late!" wailed Sa. "Can you not feel it? Can you not feel
them
?"

    "I do not understand," frowned the Cardinal.

    "Graal has summoned the three Vampire Warlords," said Sa, tears running down her cheeks. "With or without our armies, this means the end of our civilisation."

    Walgrishnacht drew his sword, which gleamed black in the moonlight. "Only when I am dead, and my proud blood-oil stains the battlefield, will I believe this is so," he said, and gestured to the few remaining members of his massacred platoon. "Let's move out," he said, brass fangs gleaming.

The wind crooned across the peak of Skaringa Dak. Graal, pushing his peeled cheek back into place with a squelch, turned and faced the Vampire Warlords. They were huge, and dark, their skin swirling smoke, their eyes raging blood, and they stood – in unity, as one – and first Kradek-ka knelt, and then, slowly, General Graal knelt and a chill terror flooded him like nothing he had ever felt. For the Vampire Warlords were terrible, and they were death, and they had changed and brought something
else
back with them from the Chaos Fields, from the Blood Void, from the Halls of Bone. All around the platform soldiers knelt to show terrified obeisance, and Myriam and Alloria knelt also, the wave of total fear washing over them and making piss run down their legs.

    "General Graal," said Bhu Vanesh, the Eater in the Dark, and blood eyes tilted in a smoke face to survey his subordinate, to survey his slave, and Graal nodded, unable to speak, the terror like thick flowing ash in his mouth and his brain and he was a child again – how had he thought they could control these ancient, bestial, primitive Warlords?

    Kuradek stood on the Granite Throne, and peered off across the desolation of Silva Valley. He smiled, face swirling gently, every feature a blur, every breath a rattle of chaos. "Silva Valley is destroyed."

    "Yes," managed Graal, forcing words between clenched teeth.

    "You have done well, slaves."

    "Yes," forced Graal.

    Meshwar the Violent stepped away from the Granite Throne, and for a moment Graal thought he might disappear; like this whole Summoning was a bad nightmare, and the magick which had brought the Warlords back might restrict them to the Thrones. But it did not.

    "Gather your soldiers," said Meshwar, surveying the warriors from the Army of Iron, heads bowed, fear and chaos worms in their rotten, spinning brains. Meshwar's gaze was bleak. His voice was an intonation from a different realm. From a world of chaos. "Gather them all. Now is time. Now we go to war."

    "Against whom?" trembled Graal.

    Blood eyes glowed. "Against
everyone
," he said.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This novel was a hard one to write due to many elemental factors. My gratitude goes to Sonia, for being such a little prima donna in front of (and away from) the camera lens; to Ian Graham for the helpful and highly amusing "Stinkling" sessions, and his esoteric windswept Facebook comedy; to Marc Gascoigne, for his encouragement, faith and witty banter; to Lee Harris, for his perverse humour and lack of military comms; and to all those fellow writers and fans who attend the cons, making life so very entertaining. And thanks, finally, to all those who take the time to write with words of encouragement. In this cynical world of negativity, it does make a difference.

   ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Andy Remic is a British writer with a love of ancient warfare, mountain climbing and sword fighting. Once a member of The Army of Iron, he has since retired from a savage world of blood-oil magick and gnashing vachine, and works as an underworld smuggler of rare dog gems in the seedy districts of Falanor. He is hard at work finishing Va
mpire Warlords
, the next bloodsoaked instalment of the life (and legend) of Kell.

www.andyremic.com
   

Extras

An exclusive extract from

VAMPIRE WARLORDS

The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles III

    PROLOGUE

    
Portal

The wind howled like a spear-stuck pig. Black snow peppered the mountains. Ice blew like ash confetti at a corpse wedding. The Black Pike Mountains seemed to sigh, languorously, as the sky turned black, the stars spluttered out, and the world ceased its endless turn on a corrupted axis. And then the Chaos Halls flickered into existence. Like an extinguished candle in reverse.

    A sour wind blew, a death-kiss from beyond the world of men and gods and liars, and smoke swirled like acid through the sky, black and grey, infused with ancient symbols and curling snakes and stinging insects. The smoke drifted down, almost casually, to Helltop at the summit of the great mountain Skaringa Dak. The Granite Thrones, empty for a thousand years, were filled again with substance. With flesh. 

    The three Vampire Warlords, as old as the world, as twisted as chaos, formed against the Granite Thrones where they were summoned. Almost. Their figures were tall, bodies narrow shanks, limbs long and spindly and disjointed, elbows and knees working the wrong way. Their faces were blank plates on a tombstone, eyes an evil dark slash of red like fresh-spilled arterial gore, and yet their worst feature, their most unsettling feature, was in their complete physical entirety. For in appearing, they did not settle. Did not solidify. Their nakedness, if that was what it was for the Vampire Warlords wore no clothing, was a diffusion of blacks and greys, a million tiny greasy smoke coils constantly twisting and writhing like an orgy of corpse lovers entwined, cancerous entrails like black snakes, unwound spools of necrotic bowel, and their flesh relentlessly moved, shifted, coalesced, squirmed as if seeking to strip itself free of a steel endoskeleton forged from pure hate.

    Their skin coagulated into strange symbols, ancient artefacts, snakes and spiders and cockroaches and all manner of stinging biting slashing chaos welcomed into this, The Whole. They were not mortal. They were not gods. They were something in-between, and oozed a lazy power, terrible and delinquent, and none could look upon that writhing flesh and wish to be a part of this abomination. Their skin and muscle and tendon and bones were a distillation of entrapped demons, an absorption of evil souls, an essence of corrupt matter which formed a paved avenue all the way back to the shimmering decadence of the vanishing Chaos Halls.

    The Vampire Warlords turned their heads, as one, and stared down at the two men... the two vachine, who had summoned them, released them, cast them into ice and freedom. And the Vampire Warlords laughed, voices high pitched and surreal, the laughter of the insane but more, the laughter of insanity linked to a binary intelligence, a two-state recognition of good and bad, order and chaos, pandemonium and... lawlessness. 

    "You," said Kuradek, and this was Kuradek the Unholy, and his skin squirmed with dark religious symbols, with flowing doctrine oozing like pus, with a bare essence of hatred for anything which preached the word of GOD upon this decadent and putrefying world. In the history books, the text claimed Kuradek had burned churches, raped entire nunneries, sent monasteries insane so that monk slew monk with bone knives fashioned from the flesh-stripped limbs of their slaughtered companions. Kuradek's arm lifted, now, so incredibly long and finished in long fingers like talons, like blood-spattered razors. 

    General Graal, mouth hung open in shock and disbelief, hand pressed against his face where Kell's axe had opened his cheek like a ripe plum, nodded eagerly as if frightened to offend. Fearful not just of death, but of an eternity of writhing and oblivion in a tank of acrid oil. 

    "Yes, Warlord?" Barely more than a whisper. Graal bent his head, and stared in relief at the frozen mountain plateau beneath his boots. Anything was better than looking into those eyes. Anything was better than observing that succulent flesh.

    "Come here, Slave."

    "Yes, Warlord."

    General Graal straightened his back, a new anger forcing him ramrod stiff and his eyes narrowed and he stepped up onto the low plinth where the Granite Thrones squatted like black poisonous toads. Kuradek was standing, and the other Warlords, Meshwar the Violent and Bhu Vanesh, the Eater in the Dark, were seated, gore eyes glittering with an ancient, malign intelligence. 

    "You sought to control us, just as the Keepers controlled us," said Kuradek.

    Silence flooded the plateau, and all present lowered heads, averted eyes, as a wind of desolation blew across the space, chilling souls. Graal, teeth gritted, did well to maintain that gaze. Now he was close, he could make out finer details. The skin, the flesh of coiling smoke, of writhing symbols, of constantly changing twisted imagery, was glossy – as if wet. As if oiled. And now he could see the Vampire Warlord's vampire fangs. Short, and black, like necrotic bone. Not shimmering in gold and silver like the vanity of the vachine. Graal ground his teeth. Oh how they must have laughed at the narcissism of the vachine sub-species. How they must now be revelling in such petty beauties the vachine had heaped upon themselves.

    "No, I..."

    Graal stopped. Kuradek was staring at him. Foolish. He could read Graal's mind. Kuradek made a lazy gesture, and for a moment his entire being seemed to glow, the smoke swirling faster within the confines of its trapped cell, Kuradek's living flesh. General Graal, commander of the Army of Iron, was punched in an acceleration of flailing limbs across the granite plateau. 

    He screamed, a short sharp noise, then was silent as he hit the ground and rolled fast, limbs flailing, to slap to a halt in a puddle of melted snow. He did not move.

    Kuradek turned to Kradek-ka, who half-turned, as if to run. He was picked up, tossed away like a broken spine, limbs thrashing as he connected with a rearing wall of savage rock. He tumbled to the ground, face a bloody, smashed mask, and was still.

    Now, the other Warlords stood. They moved easily, fluid, with a sense of great physical power held in reserve. All three gazed up as the Chaos Halls gradually faded and the stars blinked back into existence, one by one. Now, the wind dropped. Total silence covered the Black Pike Mountains like a veil of ash.

    "We are here," growled Meshwar, and as he spoke tiny trickles of smoke oozed around his vampire fangs, like the souls of the slain attempting escape.

    "Yes," said Bhu Vanesh. Also known as the Eater in the Dark, Bhu Vanesh was a terrible and terrifying hunter. Whereas Meshwar simply revelled in open raw violence, in pain for the sake of pain, in punishment without crime, in murder over forgiveness, Bhu Vanesh was more complex, esoteric, subtle and devastating. Before his imprisonment, Bhu Vanesh had prided himself on being the greatest vampire hunter; he would and could hunt anything, up to and including other Vampire Warlords. Before their chains in the Chaos Halls, Bhu Vanesh had sought out the greatest natural hunters in the world and let them free on forests and mountain landscapes, himself as bait, himself as hunter. When the hunt was done, with his captured victims staked out, he would gradually strip out their spines disc by disc, popping free of torn muscle and skin and tendons, and he would sit by the camp fire as his hunted victims screamed, or sobbed, or simply watched with stunned eyes as Bhu Vanesh savoured his trophy, licked the gristle from the spine in his fist, sucking free the cerebrospinal fluid with great slurps of pleasure. Bhu Vanesh was the most feral of the three Vampire Warlords. He was the most deadly. An unappointed leader...

    Bhu Vanesh was the Prime. 

    Meshwar pointed, to an albino soldier. "You. Soldier. Get Graal." The man gave a curt nod, and crossed to the General, helping him wearily, painfully, to his feet.

    Graal leant on the albino soldier, panting, blood and snot and drool pooling from his smashed mouth, his battered face. His pale vachine skin was marked as if beaten by a hammer.

    Kuradek strolled across the clearing, and a cool wind blew in as the world was restored to normality, as blood-oil magick eased from the mountains like a back door thief slinking into the night. Kuradek climbed up a rocky wall, his thin limbs and talons scarring the rock.

    Pebbles rattled down in the wake of his climb. Then he stood, on a narrow pinnacle of iced slate, and gazed out over Silva Valley, once home to the vachine civilisation, now flooded, thousands of vachine drowned to seal the magick that would return the Vampire Warlords to the mortal realm.

    Shortly, his brothers joined him, and the three tall, spindly creatures, their shapes a mockery of human physiology, their flesh constantly shifting in chameleonic phases of smoke and symbols, stood tall and proud and surveyed the world like newborns.

    "The vachine are dead," said Kuradek.

    "Mostly," observed Meshwar.

    "Those that live need to be hunted," said Bhu Vanesh, a smoke tongue like a rattlesnake's tail licking over black fangs. He anticipated the hunt in all things. 

    It was what gave his existence simple meaning.

    "Not yet," said Kuradek. "We are new again to this world. We are weak from escape and birth. We need strength. We need to build the vampire clans. Like ancient times, my friends. Like the bad old days."

    "Suggestions?" Meshwar turned to Kuradek, narrow red eyes glowing with malevolence.

    "I remember this country," said Kuradek, looking back over hundreds of years, his mind dizzy with the passage of time, coalescing with images of so many people and places and murders. "This is the homeland of the Ankarok."

    Bhu Vanesh made a low, hissing sound.

    "They were imprisoned," said Meshwar. "Just as we."

    "Yes. We must watch. Be careful. But until then, I feel a stench in the air. It is an unclear stench. It is the stench of people, of men and women and children, meat, unhealthy and unclean, with no pride or power or natural dignity. We must separate, my brothers, we must head out into the world and," he licked his black fangs, eyes glinting by the light of the innocent moon, "we must repopulate." 

    "So we go to war?" said Meshwar, and his voice held excitement, anticipation, and... something else. It took little for Meshwar to become aroused.

    "Yes. War. Against all those deviant of vampire purity!"

VAMPIRE WARLORDS

Coming soon from Angry Robot

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