claws slashing left and right sending severed limbs flying, and long fangs descending on throats, ripping out windpipes in a sudden harsh attack. Swords hissed from sheaths as the two vachine paused, hunkered on all fours like beasts, heads rotating, eyes glittering, tiny cogs and wheels humming in their skulls. The Blacklippers converged, sword and axes drawn, spears held in clammy hands, faces grim with a need to kill these invaders Preyshan ran forward, his own sword held in one great paw, his face merciless in the cold glow of brass lamps. The vachine leapt, fangs tearing at arms and throats in a mad flurry of ripping flesh and savagery and inhuman speed; swords slammed, spears stabbed, and Preyshan, as if with some primeval instinct, turned back towards the iron gates-open, now, with this sudden breach of violence.
His soul fell from his world.
In the tunnel, more vachine eyes glittered. And with a roar they flooded the chamber, ten, twenty, fifty of the clockwork vampires, bowling over and through the Blacklippers ripping at flesh tearing heads from bodies steel fangs and brass claws tearing easily through unprotected flesh and succulent raw bone…
Preyshan skidded, turned, sprinted back towards Anukis who stood, shocked, mind not registering what her eyes could see. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he screamed at her, pounding across stone, but as he reached her he faltered, and his eyes met hers, and there was confusion there, and sudden pain, and he glanced down at the brass blade emerging from his chest. Blood bubbled around the wound, and his mouth opened allowing blood to roll through his thick beard. He reached out towards Anukis, and their fingers met, but Preyshan carried on falling to the floor and hit with a heavy slap. He lay still.
Anukis fell to her knees amidst the sounds of slaughter, tears on her pale cheeks, and she stroked Preyshan’s beard. Gradually, a presence drifted through her confusion, and into her consciousness. Sobbing, she glanced up.
Vashell smiled, placed his boot on Preyshan’s back, and pulled free his short brass sword, weighing the weapon thoughtfully.
“What a surprise, finding you here in this den of iniquity. And I see, you’ve drank your fill of Karakan Red. And left none for me? Tut tut, sweetheart.” He shook his head, eyes mocking. “No wonder you could never marry me, Anukis.” He squared his shoulders. Took a deep breath through fangs stuck with torn flesh. “I see now, with your impurity, with your taint, with your fucking sacrilege, how we could never be compatible.”
“Damn you, Vashell! What brought you here? Why kill these-”
“Blacklippers? Why? You ask me why?” He pressed the heavy brass blade against Anukis’s throat and lifted her, panting, from her knees using the point. “Because, my darling, they are illegal smugglers. Because, sweetheart, they undermine our core vachine society. And because, my beautiful little Anukis, they are the unholy, the impure, and the damned.”
He glanced over his shoulder, to where savage vachine warriors had finished off the last of the Blacklippers in a bought of savagery that had sprayed the walls with blood. The chamber was littered with mangled corpses. The vachine started a low, metallic keening, and with fangs prominent, savoured the kill.
Vashell leant close. His breath was sweet. “Just like you,” he said.
FOUR
Canker
Kell drifted in a world of darkness, a sea of dark oil, lantern oil, fish oil, blood-oil, unrefined, a tar mess like offal and the thick syrup from which butchers fashioned their tasty black puddings…and his eyes closed, and opened, in a languid breath for this was a dream and he knew it was a dream, and as a dream it could not be real. But if it was not real, why the hell was Ilanna so damned cold in his hands?
You must let me in, she said.
Her voice was cool, a metallic sigh, the voice of bees in their hive, the voice of ants in their nest, and Kell shivered and felt fear, not the adrenalin fear of a sudden bar brawl, nor the terrifying heart-gripping fear of hanging from high places, boots trying to scrabble on ice-slippery rock, sure as hell that when you fell the rocks and jagged natural spikes and the mountain herself would have no mercy, no pity, just a hard fast cold death. No, this fear was different, strange, an educated fear; this was the fear of knowledge; this was the fear of loss. This was Ilanna, the bloodbond axe, and she was in control. But more than that. She knew she was in control, and that she would always win the battle.
No, said Kell, scowling, fists clenching hard. He breathed her in; breathed in her metal, the musk of her iron- oil, the stench of old blood clinging like a parasite to her haft, her blades, her edge. He breathed in the perfume of the axe. The aroma of death. The corpse-breath of Ilanna.
But you must, she pleaded, I am Ilanna, I am the honey in your soul, I am the butter on your bread, the sugar in your apple. I make you whole, Kell. I bring out the best in you, I bring out the warrior in you.
No, he snarled. You bring out the killer in me.
That’s what you always wanted, she said.
I never wanted what you had to offer.
You lie! If I was flesh and blood and bone you would have been in my bed quicker than a drunk husband after a whore. But I am steel, with sharp blades and a taste for blood. And you took what I had to offer, Kell, my sweet, you took my gift of darkness, my gift of violence, and you saved your own life. But there is a price, a price for everything, and you know you must let me free, out into the world again.
Kell laughed. “Must?” Words like “must” ring sour in my head like corked wine; they crack my skull with their…he savoured the word, instruction. What if I climbed the highest Black Pike peak, Ilanna? Dropped you into a crevasse, one of the mile deep pits guaranteed never to see anybody but the most foolhardy explorers? You’d be fucked then, my lass, would you not? Kell grinned to himself. Never again a taste of blood. Never again the splinter of bone. Just darkness, ice, the drip of water, the passing of centuries.
So you wish to die, Kell? Her voice was a beautiful lullaby, so musical in better times happier times it would have lulled Kell to his bed. Often Kell had pictured the woman behind the voice. He corrected himself. The demon behind the voice, for Ilanna was anything but human, a thousand leagues from mortal. He pictured her as tall, beautiful, elegant; but also haughty, arrogant, filled with a self-love that made her despise all others. A cruel woman, then. And a deadly foe.
I do not wish to die, he said, and the words shamed him.
The Harvester is a terrible, deadly enemy, Ilanna said, and Kell felt the axe vibrating in his fingers, growing hot with a million tiny judders. You cannot kill it, so do not ever try. Even I could not sever his head, crush his bones. The best you can do is slow him down, for every cell in his alien body is infused with blood-oil magick. He is a creature of blood, and nothing mortal can break him.
How do I slow him?
He is tall, off-balance; a creature of mechanical motion. Aim for his knees, strike his knees and ankles with all your might. You may buy yourself a minute at best. But be quick, Kell. Her voice rose to a shriek as their sliver of time, their slice of twisted reality started to accelerate in sudden violence into the real World.
The bone tubes slammed for Kell’s heart and he rolled, fast, slamming the ground and coming up, teeth bared in a grimace, axe clenched tight to his breast. The Harvester chuckled, frame bobbing as he turned on Kell who charged, axe swinging for the Harvester’s chest. The creature made no move to protect itself, but instead attacked, clawed hands lashing out at Kell who altered his strike at the last moment, his charge turning into a low roll as the axe swept for the Harvester’s knees…there came a crunch, a compression of bone, and the Harvester shrieked and buckled, toppling like a sack of dry twigs and Kell was up and running, pushing Nienna and Kat along towards the stunned figure of Saark, who was crawling to his knees, clutching his head. Blood tricked from a cut at his temple, and he looked ashen, about to be sick.
“Is it dead?” breathed Nienna, and they all glanced back.
Across the gloom of the tannery, the Harvester rose to its feet and turned to face them. Its eyes burned like tiny black holes of hatred. It pointed at Kell, and started forward, and the group ran between huge tankers, rusted and smeared with shit, making the girls gag and vomit. Down a brick slope they ran, and Kell pointed with his axe, in silence, almost afraid to speak. There was a wide tunnel, which led out and down…
