woman. Kell turned, moved away from the canker's blood pools and stopped. Gazing down where Myriam had fallen, he tried to differentiate her corpse from the distant slopes and jagged rocks. He could not.
'Damn it,' he snarled, then loped across the ridge at great speed, showing no fear of heights, showing no worry at the vast slopes veering off to either side. For Kell, vertigo was something that happened to other people.
Saark and Nienna moved on, through the eddying haze, and Kell eventually caught them up as they climbed towards the next mountain top. As they breached a rise, a savage steep scramble which did its best to cast all three back down the mountainside, so a wind snapped around them and the mist cleared, and the world of the Black Pike Mountains opened like God peeling the top off the world.
'Stunning,' said Nienna, simply.
Kell grunted.
Saark helped the old warrior up the last scree of rocks, and they stood in silence staring at the black granite wilderness, and the sweeping fields of snow. It was quite light where they stood, although the wind bit into them like ice knives.
'You did well,' said Saark.
'I reverted,' said Kell.
'Meaning?'
'Something happened to me. Something happened to Ilanna. Something bad.'
'I don't understand.'
'I think only Ilanna understands. I think, sometimes, she plays her own game, Saark. She sang to the Soul Stealers – there was a connection there, what kind of connection I am not sure. But they retreated. They fled.'
'You killed the canker. Maybe they were scared of you?'
'No,' grunted Kell, rubbing his beard and leaning on the axe. Her blades gleamed black in the harsh winter light. 'No, they were frightened of Ilanna. I think.'
'Where do we go next?' asked Nienna, hunkering down in her clothing. Her face was drawn, ashen, her eyes red from crying. The death of Myriam had stunned her.
Kell pointed, to where a huge mountain reared high above the others. It was formidable, even at this distance, with twin horns of overhanging rock rearing near the summit and spreading out, so the beast in its entirety resembled the skull of a ram.
'Skaringa Dak,' he said. 'Otherwise known as Warlord's Peak.'
'That's one ugly mountain,' said Saark. 'And it's big. Too big, Kell. Look at the distance we have to cover! We can't be dragging Nienna all that way.'
'We must. But rest assured, we go through the mountain, not over the top.'
'Kell, that's Silva Valley you're talking about. It's an entire civilisation, by all the balls of the gods! You cannot fight the world, old friend.'
'One step at a time,' said Kell.
Saark sighed, and Nienna moved to him, hugged him. 'I can't believe Myriam is gone,' she said. Saark nodded, but said nothing. It did not surprise him, and he had to admit, he had wanted her dead. However, now the deed was done, guilt stabbed him like a tiny knife in the belly. She had been a victim of the cancers eating her body, her bones. She had given in to madness to chase an impossible dream. And her only reward now was lying dead and broken, a smashed doll, at the foot of the terrible Black Pikes.
'Yes,' he said, finally, and hugged Nienna tight. It was a simple connection, a simple sharing of warmth and humanity. And in this dark place of stone and ice, it felt necessary.
'Come on,' said Kell. 'We have a long way to go.'
'You're mad, old man.'
'Maybe,' he said, face dark. 'Let's get moving, before those bitches forget Ilanna's song and come back.'
She swam through darkness, and at last there was no pain. It had happened so suddenly. The arrow in her throat, rolling from the high ledge, then… a long, rattling descent. She hit rocks, and was conscious for a while of great darkness hanging over her like a guillotine blade waiting to drop. Then, she supposed, she died. There was a long period of nothing. And then fire seemed to rage through her veins, potent and raw, the most powerful injection of energy she had ever, ever felt. She felt something cold against her chest, and with a jerk she shuddered in huge lungfuls of cold mountain air. Only then did she feel the pain at her neck, and everything came rushing back and she opened her mouth to scream but a hand clamped over her face, muffling her. She thrashed for a while, arms and legs kicking in chaos, but something immeasurably strong pinned her down, holding her still, and she felt the fire raging through her and it hurt, hurt so bad, hurt worse than anything she'd ever felt and seemed to rage for a million years. Then her eyes flickered open and she stared into a gaunt, pale, beautiful face. The face of the Soul Stealer. She tried to struggle in sudden panic, but Shanna held her tight and smiled a hollow smile and showed her fangs, which were stained with blood.
'Be still, child,' she hissed. 'It will not take long.'
She looked to the left and Tashmaniok came into Myriam's plane of vision. She carried something and Myriam frowned. Then another punch of pain spun through her and she convulsed, unable to breathe, her heart filled with pure white agony as she slammed into cardiac arrest.
'Now,' said Shanna.
Tash knelt, and in her hand was a tiny device, a cross between the innards of a watch and an insect made from gold wire. It scampered from Tash's hands, and moved across Myriam's skin as she stared down at it, pain slapping her in waves, her eyes following the tiny clockwork machine in terror. 'This is the latest technology,' came Tash's soothing voice, as the clockwork spider paused over Myriam's spasming, fractured heart, lifted a leg, and with a high-pitched screeching drilled a hole through her breastbone.
Myriam screamed, thrashing, and again Shanna clamped the woman's mouth, cutting the sound off with a sharp slap. The tiny clockwork machine cut downwards, opening a dark hole in Myriam's chest, and then climbed in. It reached back, and did something – as if closing a zip. Then it crawled into Myriam's heart and long tendrils of gold wire ejaculated from tiny needles, encircling Myriam's dying, fluttering organ and encapsulating it. Tiny sections of the clockwork machine broke away, and began to travel through Myriam's body. She spasmed, and convulsed, her limbs twitching, her eyes rolling back, froth foaming from her mouth, fingers and toes clenching and then suddenly erupting with brass claws, and her teeth broke out with snaps as fangs pushed from her own gums. They were made from gold. They gleamed.
Finally, Tash threw Shanna a knife. Shanna slashed her wrist, and allowed a gush of dark blood-oil to spill into Myriam's open mouth. She convulsed again, as if taking poison, her teeth stained crimson, and black, her tongue lolling around like a fat eel. Then, finally, she went still.
Shanna wrapped a cloth around her wrist, binding it tight, then climbed from Myriam's still, lifeless body. She moved to Tash, and placed her hand on the Soul Stealer's shoulder. They waited, motionless, watching Myriam with interest.
'Did it work?' said Shanna, finally.
'If they do not bind, she will soon fall apart,' said Tashmaniok without emotion. 'Like succulent cooked meat pared from the bone. Like a desecration of all that is human.' Then she turned, and stared up the mountain flanks to Wolfspine. Her eyes narrowed, still remembering the pain of Ilanna's song piercing her skull. It had skewered her brain like a spear. Her soul. Even now, she was shivering.
We will find you soon enough, old man, she thought.
We will see how long the magick lasts in your axe!
All pain fled. It happened in an instant. Myriam sighed, and breathed out. She felt, ultimately, at peace. Devoid of the agonies which had wracked her for so long, the cancers which had eaten her and supplied constant pain. She had suffered an eternity, the pains fading to a background agony, a persistent throb which just became normal to everyday existence. Only in sleep did the fire sometimes abate; and there was always a vast disappointment in the morning when Myriam awoke to find she still suffered.
But… Not now.
She felt it, as an emotion, as injected knowledge. The clockwork had moved through her body, combining with blood-oil, combining with the virus of the vampire, and all three had worked in harmony. Cancers were
