ignored his kindred, and lifted the Soul Gem for Graal to see. It was small, the size of a thumbnail, and a perfect cylinder of matt black which gleamed under a coating of Anukis's blood-oil.
'And the next,' said Graal, blue eyes shining. His words, although softly spoken, carried across the surreal, impossibly quiet plateau of Helltop.
Kell's head snapped left, to Saark, then down, to Nienna, who was watching with a kind of morbid fascination as Kradek-ka approached the corrugated black creature that was Jageraw. They think one of us carries a Soul Gem! screamed his mind, suddenly. But which one? And something pierced his mind like a splinter, and he smiled a sour smile as he realised what made him special, what made him such a terrible, evil killer. There was something alien inside his flesh. Something which had corrupted him. Something in his heart, put there during the Days of Blood.
In silent shame Kell replayed his past, the horrific deeds he had committed, and surety settled in his mind like honey in a pot. The Soul Gem was inside him. It had polluted him. Turned him bad, like an alien cancer. And now they were going to cut it free. And then he was going to die… but at least die a pure man, at least die a good man. Now, he truly understood.
Kell struggled against the wires, and Nienna looked up at him and she smiled, and it was a terribly sad smile that filled him with an empty, rolling void. He could not stand for this! He would not stand for this. But the more he struggled, the more the golden wires bit his flesh until he was slick and slippery with his own blood and his own lacerated skin. 'Bastards,' he was growling, 'bastards!' he screamed, his voice booming across Helltop and the Black Pike Mountains but it did not matter, it made no difference as Kradek-ka's blade sawed through Jageraw's chitinous armour and the creature made no sound, made no struggle, even as the blade bit flesh and cut through to his heart, prising out the Soul Gem on its tip to lie, nestling in Kradek-ka's palm like an excised insect.
'The Hexels hid you well,' said Kradek-ka, and his eyes were locked to Jageraw's and he smiled, head tilting. 'The Soulkeepers gave you the weapons to live, little boy. They turned you into something… something else. So you could protect this Soul Gem, the First Soul Gem, until the time of the Summoning. We owe you a great debt.'
Jageraw nodded, and closed his eyes, and died in silence.
Something seemed to sweep across Helltop. It was an emotion, a pulse of energy. 'They can feel us,' said Graal, licking bloodied lips. 'The Vampire Warlords acknowledge us.'
'One more,' said Kradek-ka, and turned towards Kell, and Saark, and Nienna.
'One more,' nodded Graal, and walked slowly forward, the Soul Stealers close behind, their footsteps matching his, their white hair glowing in the odd light from an unseen moon.
'You were the hardest to hunt down,' said Graal, his smile crooked, his words hoarse.
'Let me fight you!' raged Kell, struggling with all his might, blood slick across his entire body and soaking his clothing as the golden wires bit. 'I'll not die like this, you fucking whoreson! Not on the end of a butcher's knife! Let me fight, I say!'
Graal tilted his head, and turned, and stared strangely at Kell. Then he laughed, a chuckle so base and evil it sent Kell into a paroxysm of fury. But his words stopped Kell dead.
'Not you,' said Graal, and reached out, and stroked Kell's bearded cheek. 'You do not have the Soul Gem, old man. Whatever gave you that idea?'
And it was like a hammer blow, for if Kell did not carry a parasitic evil within him, something which had polluted his humanity, made him carry out evil acts like no other… then the fact was, he was simply a bad man. But this mammoth shock was followed by a realisation.
'Gods, no!' he hissed, as Graal moved to Nienna and Kell's mouth dropped open and how could it have happened, how could the girl carry something like that inside? Without anybody knowing? Without showing any adverse signs? And now Graal was going to carve her up like a pig on a block, and she would die in this desolate lonely terrible place so that They might live… and Kell could not stop it.
Graal looked down at Nienna. 'Be still, little one. This will soon be over,' and he smiled and reached out and touched her skin and tears were coursing down her face, and Kell was frothing at the mouth in rage and frustration and he was the greatest warrior of Falanor, the greatest Legend of the age and he could do nothing to save his beautiful, innocent granddaughter…
Graal moved on, past Nienna, and took hold of Saark who jumped, as if waking suddenly from a dream. Graal dragged the tightly wired dandy across the platform and Kell hissed, mouth dry, eyes blinking fast.
'Kell, hey, what's going on?' yelled Saark, starting at last to try and struggle, shocked from his reverie and maudlin coma by the very real events about to unfold. 'What are you doing?' he shouted into Graal's face. 'Get off me you fucker!'
Graal paused, then sat Saark on the Granite Throne, stepping back as if to admire a fine sculpture. 'Didn't you realise?' said Graal, voice little more than a whisper but carrying clear across the silent, reverent platform. 'I thought she would have told you?'
'Who? What the hell are you talking about?'
From the cave entrance came Alloria, only now her skin glowed and her eyes dazzled and her fingers ended in brass claws. Tiny fangs protruded over the Queen's lower lip and she walked slowly, languorously to Saark, to the King's Sword Champion, to her ex-lover, and she moved beside the Throne and looked down at him with a mixture of pity, and love, and understanding.
'I'm sorry it was you,' she whispered.
'What have you done?' said Saark, voice dropping low, dangerously low. 'Oh Alloria, you have betrayed everything, what have you done?' And it fell into place, puzzle pieces tumbling into position, and that was why Graal went for her after the initial invasion of Falanor – not just as a bartering tool against the King, but because… she was his.
'It took a while for her to love me,' said Graal, crossing to Alloria and kissing her, and she responded, one hand coming up to rest against Graal's cheek. 'But once infected with blood-oil, once a slave to the clockwork, once she became vachine she grew to know her place, she grew to understand the world with open eyes. She was a great tool in leading Vashell here, and in finding the traitor, Fiddion. But then, I digress.' He motioned to Alloria, who moved to stand alongside Myriam – both women changed by the blood-oil bites, the infection of the Soul Stealers. Both watched, fascinated, as Kradek-ka approached Saark with his small black knife.
Saark glanced over, at the other thrones. Anukis was dead, slumped to one side. Jageraw was a motionless mass of bloodied insect-armour woven with dark human flesh. And now… now it was his turn!
'No!' he yelled, and started to struggle. 'Kell, Kell do something! But Kell could do nothing, and their eyes met and Kradek-ka reached forward and with his iron vachine grip, pinned Saark back against the Granite Throne. Saark could not move. He was motionless, not just in Kradek-ka's hold, but in horror, and terror, and his eyes were on the tip of the curved blade which moved slowly, inexorably toward him; and he thought back, thought of Alloria and what they had together, the love they had together and it had all been fake, all been an act and she had been charged with implanting the Soul Gem into a host for safe-keeping, and he had been that host, their love a mask to hide her real intentions, and Alloria had been a spy for Graal and a traitor to her husband and the people of Falanor and hate ran deep through Saark's veins, then, as he understood; maybe she had not been willing at first, but what had fuelled her? What in the name of the Seven Witches had fuelled the Queen of Falanor to betray everything she loved? As the knife cut deep, and Saark gasped, and ice forced into his flesh and cut into bone with a grating, grinding sound Saark's eyes met with Alloria's and she smiled at him and there was no sorrow there and she was completely vachine, she was no longer human and rage and hate flowed strong in Saark but he could not move and pain flashed up and swamped his mind and the knife cut deep and carved a circle the size of a fist from his flesh, and he gasped, unable to breathe as he was mutilated, and he did not struggle and did not scream and the pain and ice were everything, all consuming, swamping his vision and he gasped, again, and saw as if through a veil of blood the Soul Gem excised from his own savaged body and he coughed, and blood splattered from Saark's mouth, and he felt everything and the world fall away and down into a blood red pool of darkness.
Kradek-ka turned, in silence, as Saark slumped to one side behind him, blood running down the Granite Throne and onto Helltop. 'No!' screamed Kell, struggling pointlessly, and Nienna was weeping and Kradek-ka handed the three Soul Gems to General Graal, who took them, took the three small matt black cylindrical jewels – the source of so much agony and pain and blood and death and power.
'Now, we call the Vrekken,' he said.
Skaringa Dak was huge and brooding and ominous, once volcanic with a million natural arteries and channels and tunnels and veins, now dormant but home to the swirling underground whirlpool, the Vrekken; it overlooked
