“Call them off,” said Nienna, voice so dry she could hardly speak.
“Why, me sweets?”
“You saw the axe,” said Nienna, voice turning hard. “It’s Ilanna.”
Barras narrowed his eyes then, scowling at her. “Where did you hear such a name?”
“It’s true,” she hissed. “It’s my grandfather’s axe. He’s coming. Soon. He will kill you all.”
“What’s his name?”
“You know his name, you heap of horse-shit.”
“Speak his name!” snarled the woodsman.
“He is Kell, and he will eat your heart,” said Nienna.
This impelled Barras to move, and cursing (cursing himself, he knew he had seen the axe before), he stepped forward to talk to the woodsmen; but something happened, a blur of action so fast he blinked, and only as a splatter of blood slapped across his face and dirt-streaked stubble did he leap into action…
The creature slammed across the clearing from the darkness of the trees in an instant, picking one man up in huge jaws, lifting the man high at the waist and crunching through him through his muscle and bones and spinal column and he screamed, gods he screamed so hard, so bad, as the canker shook him and gears spun and wheels clicked and turned and gears made tiny click click tick tock noises, and it threw him away like a bone into the forest.
Barras ran forward, screaming, his sword raised…
The canker whipped around, a blur, and leapt, biting off the woodsman’s head in a single giant snap.
His body stood for a moment, still holding a tarnished sword, an arc of blood painting a streak across the forest in a gradually decreasing spiral. Then a knee buckled; the fountain of blood soaked the pine needle carpet, and the body crumpled like a deflated balloon.
Nienna struggled against her ropes, and she could see Kat crying, pulling on her vest and trews.
“Kat! Over here! Get the axe!”
The remaining four woodsmen had grouped together, pooling weapons. With a scream, and as a unit that displayed previous military experience, they charged across the fire at the canker which growled, hunkering down, crimson eyes watching the charge with interest, as a cat watches a disembowelled mouse squirm.
Kat grabbed the axe and, still sobbing, half crawled, half ran towards Nienna. She swung at the rope, missed, then swung again and the sharp blades of Ilanna sliced through with consummate ease. Nienna hit the ground, and Kat helped her get the ropes from her wrists to the backing track of screams, thuds, gurgles, and most disturbingly, the solid crunches of impact, of gristle, of snapping bones.
The girls half hoped the woodsmen had won; but then, they’d have to face the prospect of rape and murder.
But what would happen with the canker?
Kat pulled on her boots, and something smashed off into the forest, a woodsman, picked up by the canker, slamming an axe into its back again and again and again as it charged through the forest with his legs in its jaws. There came the smash and crack of breaking wood. A gurgle. Another crack; this time of bone.
Nienna and Kat stood, shivering, wondering what to do.
Slowly, the canker emerged from the gloom, lit only by the flames of the fire. Blood soaked its white fur, and congealed gore interfered with fine cogs and gears, splashed up its uneven, distended eyes. Skin and torn bowel were caught in long streamers between its claws, and it made a low churning sound as if about to be violently sick…
“Back away,” mumbled Kat, as Nienna hefted the axe and they started to retreat into the forest.
Nienna stood on a branch, which snapped.
The canker turned, slowly, red eyes watching them.
“Is it going to charge?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t move!”
“It’s already seen us!”
“Stop talking!”
“You’re talking as well!”
They stopped. The canker stopped. They eyed each other, over perhaps fifty yards. Then, with a wide grin- which looked like the creature had peeled the top of its head right off-it let out a howl, a howl to the fire, to the forest, to the moon, and lowered its head with a grinding snarl and with a shift of gears, a mechanical grind of cogs, the canker leapt at the girls…
SEVEN
The Watchmakers
“Don’t do this,” said Anu, backing away, her face an image of horror as Shabis’s fangs gleamed, her claws flexed and she leapt. Anu somersaulted backwards, away from the attack, landed lightly, and as Shabis leapt again, claws tearing the carpet, oil gleaming in her eyes, so Anu leapt, kicked off from the wall and flipped over Shabis’s head. She landed in a crouch, unwilling to reveal her own killing tools, unwilling to fight her sister.
“Shabis!”
Shabis whirled, mad now. “You will die, bitch!”
“With what poison has he filled your head? What lies?”
Shabis charged, claws swiping for Anu’s throat. Anu swayed back, brass and steel a hair’s-breadth from her windpipe, then punched her sister in the chest, slamming her back almost horizontally where she hit the carpet on her face and coughed, clutching her chest, pain slamming violent through heart and gears and clockwork…
Anu’s eyes lifted to Vashell. “Call her off.”
Vashell backed away, tongue wetting his lips. She could see the bulge in his armoured pants. He was getting a thrill out of this: out of watching two sisters fight to the death.
“Stop her!” shrieked Anu, as Shabis crawled to her feet, the corners of her mouth blood-flecked.
“No,” he said, voice barely more than a growl. “This is the final trial. Don’t you see? This is the final… entertainment. A repayment, if you like, for all the pain and suffering you have caused. Shabis.” Shabis looked at him, the rage in her eyes flickering to love. “If you kill her, then we will marry, we will spend a glorious eternity together; you will never have to work again, we will languish in a blood-oil rapture; just you and I, my love.”
Shabis turned to Anu, head low, eyes dark. She let out a snarl and charged at Anukis who was crying, great tears flowing down her cheeks, soaking her golden curls, and Shabis leapt like a tiger, both sets of vachine claws coming together to crush Anu’s head and Anu swayed, ejecting a single claw which swiped down, sideways, as Shabis sailed past. There came a tiny flash, an almost unheard grinding sound, and Shabis hit the ground hard, rolling, wailing, her clawed fingers coming up to her face where blood and blood-oil mingled, leaking from her severed…fangs.
Anu had cut out Shabis’s fangs. The ultimate symbol of the vachine.
“No!” wailed Shabis, blood-oil pumping as the cogs in her head, in her heart, ejected precious blood-oil. “What have you done to me, Anukis?” She climbed to her feet, ran to Vashell, who put out his arms to comfort her as she sobbed, her blood-oil leaking into his clothing and his eyes lifted to read Anukis who stood, face bleak, as she retracted her single claw.
“Now you need another assassin,” said Anu, triumph in her eyes.
Vashell nodded. “You are correct.” With a savage shove, he pushed Shabis away, drew his brass sword, and with a swift hard horizontal swipe, cut Shabis’s head from her body. Blood and blood-oil spurted, hitting the ceiling, drenching the walls and bed in a twisting shower of sudden ferocity. Shabis’s head hit the sodden carpet, eyes wide, mouth open in shock, pretty features stained. Anu could see the clockwork in her severed neck, between the fat and the muscle, the veins and the bone, nestled and intricate, bonded, and it was all still spinning happily, now slowing, as cogs could not mesh and a primary shaft failed in its delicate spin. Shabis’s eyes closed, and her separated body folded slowly to the carpet, as if deflating. Her vachine aborted. Shabis died.
