Vashell picked up a narrow tributary, and guided the barge between silent mountain sentinels. Sheer walls of rock scrolled past, black and rugged grey, with a few sparse and twisted trees clinging for survival. It seemed cold, and gloomy, and snow whipped through the air. The barge hummed on, rocking, and Anu, exhausted with pain, fear, humiliation, and the still-present nagging sensation in her body core, felt sleep creep upon her and she leaned to the side, eyes closing, and for once she truly welcomed the deep dark oblivion of sleep.
“Wake up.”
Vashell was shaking her. Anu yawned, and sat up. Her mouth tasted of metal, of copper, and brass, and something else.
“Where are we?”
“We’ve stopped at the Ranger Barracks. I’ve been waved ashore; you will come with me, but no trouble, Anu-or I’ll cut the head from your body. Understand?”
“Why don’t you leave me here? I am exhausted.”
Vashell grinned, eyes twinkling. “What? And have you pull some clever trick, and the next moment the barge is cruising into the Black Pikes without me? No. You never leave my sight…not until the day I die.”
Anu was too tired to argue. Conversely, she was more weary than before her sleep, and checking the barge’s clock, she saw she’d had six hours. What was the matter with her? Again, she tasted metal…almost a liquid metal, and her tongue explored the weird interior of her mouth. She was not right. Something was changing inside her.
Vashell unlocked her chain, took it in his fist and climbed the steps into cold, bleak sunlight. A bitter wind blew scattered snow from surrounding cliffs, causing the weird effect of sunlight filtering through a snowstorm. Anu followed, shading her eyes, and saw a rough wooden jetty and barracks beyond, with enough accommodation for perhaps two hundred soldiers. The barracks seemed deserted, although she could have been wrong. There was a long, low building, also constructed from rough timber, and a door opened and three albino warriors stepped out, their matt black armour gleaming in the sunlight as they shaded eyes. They hated sunlight, she knew; as did the vachine. It caused them a certain amount of pain, and in really strong light caused their clockwork to slow down, overheat, and in some extreme cases even kill the host through mechanical failure. No. Vachine preferred the cold, and the dark; their albino slaves even more so.
Anu stared at the warriors, and behind them saw a woman, tousled and battered, blood dried on her face and arms, her clothing rimed in filth. She looked little more than a vagabond and Anu’s heart went out to her immediately; here was somebody mistreated, beaten, abused, as was she. There was a common link: the humiliation of the victim.
Anu studied the woman carefully, and her gaze was met by a proud, green-eyed stare, returned with a ferocity and attitude which had no doubt earned her endless pain. And, despite her recent beating, and old beatings by the look of her; despite torn clothing, naked feet covered in scabs and sores, despite her matted mane of hair, Anu saw through the agony and attitude, saw a strong woman, tall, elegant, it was in her bearing, in her manner, in her very spirit. And that had not been broken.
“The bitch is a hard one to crack,” laughed one of the albino soldiers, gesturing to the woman.
“You have been instructed to treat her thus?” Vashell seemed…vexed. Anu considered his deviated sense of righteousness.
“Yes,” replied a second soldier. “By Graal himself. He told us the more we beat and raped her, the more we abused her, the more we broke her-as long as we didn’t kill the royal bitch, then it would be a good tool in subjugating her husband.”
“Any news on Leanoric’s military progress?”
“I will leave those matters for discussion between you and General Graal,” said the soldier, who Anu realised was a captain of some sort, although she didn’t understand the complexities of the Army of Iron’s ranking system. “I was simply instructed to bring her here and await an Engineer’s Barge. We thought that was why you had come.”
“Coincidence,” said Vashel. “I have…another mission.”
Vashell tugged the chain, and Anu stumbled, and uttered a guttural growl. The three albino soldiers looked on, amused, laughter smiles touching their lips.
“A wild one, is she?”
Vashell looked back. “One of the wildest,” he said, licking his lips, and smiling with narrowed eyes.
“Isn’t she Anukis, Kradek-ka’s daughter?” said one soldier, peering a little closer, his humour evaporating.
Vashell changed, his manner becoming more professional-more superior-in an instant. “Mind your own business, captain. We are on direct orders from the Watchmakers; I suggest you return to your…little lady, there, and continue with your petty sport. She’s looking at you with the longing eyes of a bitch on heat…and trust me well when I say my business does not concern you.”
Anu and Alloria’s eyes met. Understanding flowed between. This was the Queen of Falanor. A bartering tool for the Engineers, and for The Army of Iron in the fast escalating conflict, the accelerating invasion. “Help me,” mouthed Alloria, and Anu saw then, saw the swirl of madness deep at Alloria’s core. She was putting on a proud front; but they had nearly destroyed her. There was only so much a human mind could endure.
Anu coughed, and again something changed inside her. She felt as if about to vomit, and instead, heard a heavy thunk. Part of her machinery changed. What was wrong with her? What had the bastards done to her?
She looked up. The world seemed…different. Almost black and white, and diffused, as if seen through a fine shattered mirror. She felt strength flood her system, like nothing she had felt before. She felt iron wires merge through her muscles, felt her heart swell, felt new claws springs from her fingertips, delicate and gleaming with silver. Silver fangs flowed through her hollow jaws, molten at first but solidifying, and new vampire fangs sprouted from her teeth, replacing the holes where her fake vachine fangs had been forcibly removed. Everything became acute; she could hear the snowfall, the distant flutter of birds in pine, the creak of rock in the Black Pike Mountains, distant avalanche falls, and she could smell the albinos, a certain metallic stink like that of insects, and Vashell reeked of sweat and shit and piss, and Queen Alloria even more so, and she could smell the resin in the timber jetty and the oil on the albino soldier’s swords, she could see the hairs in their nostrils, taste their sweat oils in the air… and Anu smiled.
She lifted herself to her full height, and took a deep breath, aware her new vachine fangs gleamed silver…an impossibility, for pure silver was a poison to vachine. But now she knew. She knew her father had made her different, created something…unique, when compared to every other vachine in Silva Valley. He had been experimenting with advanced vachine technology. And she had been the template, the upgrade, using the finest clockwork in a non-parasitic fashion…and that’s why she could not imbibe the blood-oil narcotic; she did not need it. All Anukis needed to survive was…
Blood. Pure blood.
Ironically, the sign of the impure.
But in this context, a technological advancement.
Her eyes glowed, and she sensed Vashell move and he gathered the chain, his movements slow and bulky, lethargic almost, and Anu lifted her own end of the chain and she pulled. Vashell was jerked from his feet and Anu leapt, a blur of speed, her claws slamming through the chain with a tinkling like ice chimes. Vashell stumbled back, going for his sword, but Anu whirled the length of chain around her head and it slammed Vashell’s face, knocking him from his feet with a grunt. She took the collar in her hands and wrenched it apart, bolts pinging across snow.
The albinos tensed, drew their own swords and Anu walked towards them. She heard Vashell lift his weapon, could smell his bloodlust rising and mission or no mission, instructions or no instructions, he was going to kill her and to hell with the consequences.
The soldiers, elite warriors of the Army of Iron, charged.
Anu leapt amongst them, swayed back as a blade hummed over her, and her fist lashed out, talons smashing through black iron breast plate and through the albino’s chest, exiting with his heart in her fist. She tugged him in close, as her claws shredded his heart in a blur, and she withdrew her fist with a schlup sound. Even as he fell, she flicked sideways, rolling in snow, grabbing the second albino by the head and twisting violently. His neck snapped with a crunch, and she took his sword, hurling it across the clearing where it speared the third albino through the throat, pinning him to the barrack wall. He struggled, gurgling, refusing to die, his hands scrabbling at the blood-
