black of insect chitin. 'Your race?' said Kell, voice gentle.
'I am Ankarok,' said Skanda, looking out over Old Skulkra, over its ancient, deserted palaces and temples, tenements and warehouses, towers and cathedrals. All crumbling, and cracked, all savaged by time and erosion and fear. 'This was our city. Once.' He looked again at Kell, and smiled the shiny black smile. 'This was our country. Our world.'
Saark moved to the edge of the crumbling tenement, staring over the low wall. Below, he could see the retreated cankers had gathered; there were more than fifty, some sitting on the ancient stone paving slabs, some pacing in impatient circles. Many snarled, lashing out at others. At their core was Nesh, seated on powerful haunches, almost like a lion, regal composure immaculate. 'They're waiting below,' said Saark, moving back to Kell. He glanced at Skanda. 'Seems their fear only extends so far.'
'I will show you a way out of this building,' said Skanda, and started to move across the roof, dodging holes and loose joists.
Saark stared at Kell. 'I don't trust him. I think we should head off alone.'
Ignoring Saark, Kell followed the boy, and heard the battered dandy curse and follow. 'Wait,' said Kell, as they reached a segment of wall where a part of the floor had appeared to crumble away revealing, in fact, a tunnel, leading down through the wall. Kell could just see the gleam of slick, black steps. It dispersed his fears of magick, a little. 'Wait. Why would you do this for us? I have heard of the Ankarok. By all accounts, they were not, shall we say, a charitable race.'
Skanda smiled his unnerving smile. Despite his stature, and his feeble appearance of vagrancy, he exuded a dark energy, a power Saark was only just beginning to comprehend; and with a jump, Saark recognised that Kell had not been fooled. Kell had seen through the – disguise – immediately. Saark snorted. Ha! he thought. Kell was just too damned smart for an old fat man.
'Why?' Skanda gave a small laugh. 'Kell, for you we would attack the world,' said the little boy, watching Kell closely. His dark eyes shone. 'For you are Kell, the Black Axeman of Drennach – and it is written you shall help save the Ankarok,' he said.
His name was Jage, and they left him to die when he was six years old. He couldn't blame them. He would have done the same. The blow from an iron-shod hoof left his spine damn near snapped in two, discs crushed in several places, his bent and broken body crippled beyond repair – or at least, beyond the repair of a simple farming people. Nobody in the village of Crennan could bring themselves to kill the child; and yet Jage's mother and father could not afford to feed a cripple. They could barely afford to feed themselves.
His father, a slim man named Parellion, carried the boy to the banks of the Hentack River where, in the summer months when the water level was low, the flow turned yellow, sometimes orange, and was highly poisonous if drank. It was completely safe, so it was said, in the winter months when the flow was fast, fresh, clear with pure mountain melt from the Black Pikes; then, then the water could be safely supped, although few trusted its turncoat nature. Most villagers from Crennan had seen the effects of the toxins on a human body: the writhing, the screaming, flesh tumbling from a bubbling skeleton. Such agony was not something easily forgotten.
Jage's father placed him gently on the bank, and Jage looked up into his kindly face, ravaged by years of working the fields and creased like old leather. He did not understand, then, the tears that fell from his father's eyes and landed in his own. He smiled, for the herbs old Merryach gave him had taken away the savage pain in his spine. Maybe they thought they'd given him enough herbs to end his life? However, they had not. Parellion kissed him tenderly; he smelt strongly of earth. Beyond, Jage could see his mother weeping into a red handkerchief. Parellion knelt and stroked the boy's brow, then stood, and turned, and left. In innocence, naivety, misunderstanding, Jage watched them go and he was happy for a while because the sun shone on his face and the pain had receded to nothing more than a dull throb. The sunshine was pleasant and he was surrounded by flowers and could hear the summer trickle of the river. He frowned. That was the poisonous river, yes? He strained to move, to turn, to see if the waters ran orange and yellow; but he could not. His spine was broken. He was crippled beyond repair. For a long time Jage lay amongst the flowers, his thirst growing with more and more intensity. The herbs had left a strange tingling sensation and a bitter taste on his tongue. I wonder when father will come back for me? he thought. Soon, soon, answered his own mind. He will bring you water, and more medicine, and it will heal your broken back and the world will be well again. You'll see. It will be fine. It will be good. But Parellion did not return, and Jage's thirst grew immeasurably, and with it came Jage's pain beating like a caged salamander deep down within, in his body core, white-hot punches running up and down his spine like the hooves of the horse that kicked him.
Stupid! His mother told him never to walk behind a horse. The eighteen-hand great horse, or draught horse as they were also known, was a huge and stocky, docile, glossy creature, bay with white stockings, prodigious in strength and used predominantly for pulling the irontipped plough. Jage had been concentrating on little Megan, flying a kite made from an old shirt and yew twigs, and her running, her giggling, the way sunlight glinted in her amber curls… He ran across the field to speak to her, to ask if he, too, could fly the kite and impact threw him across the field like a ragdoll, and for a long time only colours and blackness swirled in his mind. Everything was fuzzy, unfocused, but he remembered Megan's screams. Oh how he remembered those! Now, the copper coin of the sun sank, and bright fear began to creep around the edges of the young boy's reason. What if, he decided, mother and father did not return? What if they were never going to return? How would he drink? How would he crawl to the river? He could not move. Tears wetted his cheeks, and the bitter taste of the herb was strong, and bad, in his desiccated mouth. But more, the bitter taste of a growing realisation festered in his heart. Why had they brought him here? He thought it was to enjoy the sunshine after the cramped interior of their hut, with its smell of herbs and vomit and stale earth.
And as the moon rose, and stars glimmered, and the river rushed and Jage could hear the stealthy footfalls of creatures in the night, he knew, knew they had left him here to die and he wept for betrayal, body shuddering, tears rolling down his face and tickling him and pitifully he tried to move, teeth gritted, more pain flaring flaring so bad he screamed and writhed a little, twitching in agony and impotence amongst the starlit flowers, their colours bleached, their tiny heads bobbing. Suddenly, somewhere nearby, a wolf howled. Jage froze, fear crawling into his brain like an insect, and his eyes grew wide and he bit his tongue, tasting blood. Wolves. This far south of the Black Pike Mountains? It wasn't unheard, although the people of Crennan were keen to hunt down and massacre any wolves sighted in the vicinity. The mountain wolves were savage indeed, and never stopped at killing a single animal. Their frenzies were legendary. As was their hunger.
The howl, long and lingering and drifting to silence like smoke, was answered by another howl, off to the east, then a third, to the west. Jage remained frozen, eyes moving from left to right, his immobility a torture in itself, which at this moment in time far outweighed the physical pain of his broken spine.
If they found him, they would eat him, of this he was sure.
Eat him alive.
Jage waited, in the darkness, in the silence, with pain growing inside him, his severed spine pricking him with hot-iron brands of agony, his heart thumping in his ears. I will be safe, he told himself. I will be safe. He repeated the phrase, over and over and over, like a mantra, a prayer-song, and part of him, the childish part, knew that if danger truly approached then his father, brave strong Parellion, would be waiting just out of sight with his mighty wood-cutting axe and he would smash those wolves in two, for surely the village was near enough for them to hear the howls? The villagers would not tolerate such an intrusion by a natural predator! But another part of Jage, a part that was quickly growing up, an accelerated maturity and a consideration to survive told him with savage slaps that he was completely alone, abandoned, and if he did nothing then he would surely die. But what can I do? he thought, fighting against the urge to cry. I cannot move!
He wanted to scream, then. To release his frustration and pain in one long howl, just like the wolves; but he bit his tongue, for he knew to do so would be to draw them like moth to candle flame.
Jage waited, tense and filled with an exhaustive fear; he eventually drifted into a fitful sleep. When his eyes opened, slowly, he knew something was immediately wrong despite his sensory apparatus unable to detect any direct threat.
Then, grass hissed, and Jage's eyes moved to the left and into his field of vision stepped the wolf. It was old, big, heavy, fur ragged and torn in strips from one flank; its fur was a deep grey and black, matted and twisted, and its eyes were yellow, baleful, and glittered with an ancient intelligence. This creature wasn't like the yelping puppies in the village; this wolf was a killer, a survivor, and it knew fresh, stranded meat when it saw it. 'Oh no,' whispered
