”
In a swift movement Saark slid free the jewelled dagger, lifted his arm-and froze. The door behind Marianne had opened revealing a tall, lithe warrior with shoulder-length white hair and crimson eyes. The albino stepped forward in a sudden violent movement, and his sword-tip burst from Marianne’s chest in a blossom of spurting blood. Marianne’s eyes met Saark’s. They were filled with confusion and pain and for a moment there was a connection, a symbiosis deeper than words, deeper than souls…she opened her mouth to speak, but a deep arterial blood flooded out and ran down her breasts, stained her flat toned belly, and dripped with a spattering of rainfall to the warped uneven floor. Marianne toppled over, trapping the albino’s sword.
Saark’s hand slammed forward, and the jewelled dagger entered the soldier’s eye. The albino stumbled back, sitting down heavily. Incredibly, he lifted his hand and pulled free the blade with a slurp, letting it tumble to the wooden planks with a deafening clatter.
Saark leapt forward, kicking the soldier in the face and scooped his rapier from Marianne’s dead grip. The soldier grappled for his own sword, milk-like blood running from his ruined eye-socket; Saark slammed his sword hard into the soldier’s neck, half-severing the head. Saark staggered back, watching milk-blood pump from the limp corpse, and he tripped over Marianne’s body, slipping in her blood, hitting the ground hard. His eyes met her glassy orbs. Her face was still, and awesomely beautiful, like frozen china. “Damn you!”
Saark stood, slick with Marianne’s warm blood, and moved across the room and, ever the thief, retrieved the jewelled dagger that had saved his life. With rapier tight in his fist, he stepped onto the stairwell and glanced down where ice-smoke drifted lazily. Frowning, Saark descended, and felt the bite of a savage cold on his legs. He retreated, and rummaged through the wardrobe, finding heavy furs and leathers. Wrapping himself up, Saark descended again, and stepped warily out onto the cobbled road.
Here, property displayed affluence with open vulgarity, the houses, villas and towers wearing wealth and privilege like jewels. The street was deserted. Even through thick clothing Saark could feel the cold nipping at him, stinging his skin, and he hurried down the street and towards the river-stopping only to gaze at small child lying face down on the cobbles. Saark moved forward and knelt gingerly by the boy. He prodded the child, then rolled the boy, who was only four or five years old, onto his back and drew back with a gasp. The face and limbs were shrivelled, shrunken, the shirt opened over the boy’s heart and deep puncture wounds showing clearly, gleaming under drifting ice-smoke. Saark reached forward and counted five holes, his hand hovering above the wounds. “What did this to you, child?” he whispered, horror suffusing his mind. Then his jaw clenched, his eyes hardened, and he stood, hefting his rapier. “Whatever did this, I’m going to find them, and kill them.” Rage swam with his blood. Anger burned his brain. Hatred became his fuel, and death his mistress.
Saark, the outcast.
Saark, the jewel thief!
Once proud, once honourable. No! He had stooped low. He had traded his honour and pride and manhood for a handful of worthless baubles. Saark laughed, his laughter brittle and hollow…like his self-esteem. Yes, he was beautiful; powerful and muscular and dazzlingly handsome. The women fell over themselves to bed him. But deep down…deep down, Saark realised he despised himself.
“Kill them? You will not have to look far, little man,” came a soft, ululating voice from the ice-smoke. Saark turned, and there towering over him and wearing snakes of smoke like drifting charms stood the stooped, white- robed figure of a Harvester.
The Harvester’s tiny black eyes glowed, and it lifted its hand allowing the sleeve to fall back, revealing five long, bony fingers…pointing at Saark, gesturing to the man’s unprotected chest, and the heart, and the pumping blood-sugar within…
Saark took an involuntary step back. A sudden fear ate him.
“Come to me, little one,” smiled the Harvester, black eyes glowing. “Come and enjoy your reward.”
TWO
A Dark Shroud Falls
Kell reached Jalder University’s huge iron gates and stopped, panting, wiping sweat from his eyes. He listened, eyes darting left and right. Screams echoed, distant, muffled by ice-smoke. And more, off to the right, down the hill from where he’d emerged. Kell’s teeth clamped tight, muscles standing out along the ridge of his jaw- line; the bastards were murdering everybody! And for what? What petty purpose of slaughter? Invasion? Wealth? Greed? Power? Kell spat, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
I thought I’d left the Days of Blood behind?
I thought my soldiering was done. He smiled, a grim bloodless smile with coffee-stained teeth. Well, laddie, it seems somebody has a different plan for you!
Hoisting his matt-black axe, Kell glanced momentarily at the twin butterfly-shaped blades, like curved wings. It would have been a very dark butterfly: poisonous, deadly, utterly without mercy. This was Kell’s bloodbond. The Ilanna. Sister of the Soul, a connection wrenched from him by ancient rites and dark blood-oil magick, flowing with his lifeblood, his very essence. Ilanna had many tales to tell. But then, the horror stories of the axe were for another day.
Kell moved warily up a well-kept path. He could barely see past low bushes and winter flowers which lined the walkway beyond neatly trimmed grass. He stopped, as something loomed from the mist: it was a circle of corpses, young women, each a shrivelled dry husk with faces stretched like horror masks, skin brittle like glass. Kell’s heart-rate increased and his grip tightened.
If they’ve hurt Nienna, he thought. If they’ve hurt Nienna…
He reached the entrance, past more corpses from which he averted his eyes. Up stone steps, he rattled the large oak doors. Locked. Kell’s gaze swept the mist, his senses singing to him; they were out there, the soldiers, he could feel them, sense them, smell them. But…Kell frowned. There was something else. Something ancient, stalking the mist.
Shivering with premonition, Kell moved warily around the edges of the building. He found a low window, and using his axe-blade, prised the jamb and struggled inside. It was cool and dark. Ice-smoke swirled around the floor. No candles were lit, and Kell’s boots padded across thick rich carpets, past fine displays of silverware and ceiling- high shelving containing an orgy of books. Kell seemed to be in some kind of office, and he reached the door-with its ornate arched frame-and eased out into a carpeted corridor lined with small statues. He listened. Nothing…then a scream, so loud and close-by it rammed Kell’s heart into his mouth. He whirled around the nearest corner, to see a young woman on her knees, hands above her face, palms out, skin blue with cold. An albino soldier stood over her, a short knife in his hand. He turned as Kell’s eyes fell on him…despite Kell making no sound.
The albino smiled.
Kell launched his axe, which sang across the short expanse and thudded through armour and breastbone, punching the soldier from his feet to sit, stunned, a huge butterfly cleaving his heart. His mouth opened, and milk- blood ran over pale lips and down his chin. Kell strode forward and crouched before the albino.
“But…you should be powerless against us,” whispered the man, eyes blinking rapidly.
“Yeah, laddie?” Kell grasped the axe-haft, put his boot against the soldier’s chest, and ripped the weapon free in a shower of waxy blood. “I think you’ll find I’m a little different.” He bared his teeth in a skull smile. “A little more… experienced, shall we say.”
Kell turned and crouched by the woman, but she was dead, skin blue, eyes ringed purple. Her tongue protruded, and Kell touched it; it was frozen solid, and he could feel the chill through his gloves.
A distant memory tugged at Kell, then. It was the ice-smoke. He’d seen it, once before, as a young soldier on the Selenau Plains. His unit had come across an old garrison barracks housing King Drefan’s men; only they were dead, frozen, eyes glassy, flesh stuck to the stone. As the cavalry squad dismounted and entered the barracks, so tiny wisps of mist had dissipated, despite sunlight shining bright outside. Kell’s sergeant, a wide brutal man called Heljar, made the sign of the Protective Wolf, and the inexperienced men amongst the squad imitated him, aware it could do no harm. “Blood-oil magick,” Heljar had whispered, and they’d backed from the garrison barracks with boots crunching ice.
