“After you.”
They started up, hearing growls and snarls fall away behind as two cankers attempted to leap the chasm, and bounced from walls, dropping away clawing and snarling to be lost in dust and ice and debris. There were booms as they impacted with the floor far below, and merged component limbs with ancient lengths of rusted iron.
The two men ran, muscles screaming, sweat staining their skin, limbs burning, fatigue eating them like acid. Eventually, they reached the final set of steps, and burst out into snowy daylight, great iron-bruise clouds filling the sky. A cold wind slammed them. Old Skulkra spread out in all directions, vast, decaying, frightening.
The top of the tower block was a treacherous rat-run of stone beams and channels. Ancient woodwork had long gone, meaning the entire floor was a crisscross network where one incorrect step meant a long fall to unwelcome stone beneath. The whole tower block seemed to sway in violent gusts of wind. The wind gave long, mournful groans. Kell stepped across various beams to the low wall encircling the top floor of this vast tower. He stared off, across the ancient city, to the Valantrium Moor beyond, distant, enticing, ensconced in a snow shroud.
Saark came up beside him. He peered at another, nearby structure. “Can we make the jump?”
“I’ll let you try first,” said Kell.
“We can’t go back.”
Kell nodded. “You can see the Stone Lion Woods from here,” he said, pointing.
“We need a plan,” said Saark, eyes narrowing. “How do we get down from this shit-hole? Come on Kell, you’re the man with all the answers!”
“I have no answers!” he thundered, rage in his face for a moment; then he calmed himself. “I’m just trying to keep us alive long enough to think.” He rubbed at his beard, fingers rimed in filth and old blood. Only then did he look down at himself, and he gave a bitter laugh. “Look at the state of me, Saark.” His eyes were dark, glittering, feral. “Just like the old days. The Days of Blood.”
Saark said nothing. His mind worked fast. Kell was losing it. Kell was going slowly…insane.
“There must be a way off here,” said Saark, voice calm. “You wait here, guard the steps. I’ll see if I can find a ramp, or gantry, or some other way to the roof of another building.”
Saark moved around the outside wall of the tower block, each footstep chosen with care, with precision; below, the tower interior was like a huge, sour-smelling throat. Growls echoed up to meet him.
Saark stopped. He looked across the vast, rotting decadence of Old Skulkra. Beyond the walls he could see the enemy: the Army of Iron. A great sorrow took his heart, then, and crushed it in his fist. He realised with bitterness that General Graal had won. He had crushed Falanor’s armies as if they were children. He had obliterated their soldiers, and…now what?
Saark frowned. From this vantage point he could see the Great North Road, snaking north and south, a meandering black ribbon through hills and woodland, all peppered with snow. To the west he could make out the sprawl of Vorgeth Forest, stretching off for as far as they eye could see. But there, on the road, he could see…
Saark rubbed his eyes. His swollen eye had opened a little, but still he could not understand what he witnessed. Huge, black, angular objects seemed to fill the Great North Road; from the ancient connecting roads of Old Skulkra heading north, for as far as the eye could see. Saark stroked his moustache, mouth dry, fear an ever- present and unwelcome friend.
“The Blood Refineries,” said Kell, making Saark jump.
“What?”
“On the road. That’s what you can see. The vachine need them to refine blood; and they need blood-oil to survive.”
Saark considered this. “They have brought their machinery with them?”
“Yes.” Kell nodded. He was sombre. Below, they heard a fresh growl, a snarl, and the scrabble of slashing claws. The cankers had found a way past the collapsed stairwell. They were on their way up.
“So they’ve won?” said Saark.
“No!” snarled Kell. “We will fight them. We will fight them to the bitter end!”
“They will massacre our people,” said Saark, tears in his eyes.
“Aye, lad.”
“The men, the women, the children of Falanor.”
“Aye. Now take out your sword. There’s work to be done.” Kell strode to the opening leading to the stairwell. The cankers were growing louder. There were many, and their snarls were terrifying.
Saark stood beside Kell, his rapier out, his eyes fixed on the black maw of the opening.
“Kell?”
“Yes, Saark?”
“We’re going to die up here, aren’t we?”
Kell laughed, and it contained genuine humour, genuine warmth. He slapped Saark on the back, then rubbed thoughtfully at his bloodied beard, and with glittering eyes said, “We all die sometime, laddie,” as the first of the cankers burst from the opening in a flurry of claws and fangs and screwed up faces of pure hatred.
With a roar, Kell leapt to meet them.
