screamed and fell, slipping on his own unspooling entrails, and Saark spun to shout at Skanda to run – but the boy had vanished. Good, breathed Saark as he prepared himself. The armoury was full of the enemy, so many he couldn't count them; what had it been? A platoon? Twenty men? Or… Saark paled, even in the gloom. If a company waited, there'd be damn near a hundred soldiers. And even Kell could not battle such odds. There were seven down, now, and outside the sun dipped below the horizon. Darkness flooded the room. Swords gleamed. Boots stamped. The only light was a surreal glow, the sun's dying rays reflected off smashed glass; more soldiers ran at Kell and Saark, and the men defended themselves with skill, sword and axe rising and falling, deflecting blades and cutting into flesh with savage, sodden thumps. More albino warriors fell, and Kell slapped Saark's shoulder and pointed. They backed away across the chamber, only to hear boots thudding outside a short corridor. They were surrounded! Saark tasted fear. At the end of the day Saark was a swordsman, and an incredibly skilled one – once, he had been the King's Sword Champion, and although Saark had fought in battles before, he much preferred the consummate test of skill during one-on-one combat. In war, he hated the randomness, the chaos, the unpredictability; the threat of an axe in the back of the head when you least expected it. No, for Saark the honour and prestige was in single combat – where the victor took the spoils, wine, gold, women. But here, now… this was fast turning into a charnel house. It was out of control.
The soldiers hung back, wary. Saark could just make out their ghost-white faces in the gloom. He reckoned on about thirty, but that didn't include those coming round behind.
Thirty! If Kell and Saark had been caught on open ground, they would have been slaughtered. Surrounded and butchered like dogs. But the albino soldiers, perhaps knowing the inherent skill of their quarries, had sought subterfuge and covert attack; this had backfired, for close quarters combat meant Saark and Kell could fight a tight battle and not easily be surrounded. 'They're coming in,' snapped Kell through gritted teeth. His face and beard were covered once more in blood and gore, only this time white, and glistening in what little ambient light remained. Ilanna filled his terrible hands, the edges of the butterfly blades glimmering. 'You cover this side, I'll-' but his words were left unfinished, as a blast of blackness, of energy, a series of pulses in concentric circles like the spreading ripples in a lake after heavy impact cannoned through the confines of the armoury, and Kell and Saark were picked up amidst a surging charge of debris, old hammers, bits of battered armour, tools and dirt and even an anvil, and they seemed to hang for a moment before being accelerated in a swirling chaos across the room to hit the wall. Saark felt like his head was turned inside out, his teeth rattled in his skull, strings of bowels ripped out through his arse-hole. Kell groaned, and staggered to his feet with blood pouring from his nose. He lifted Ilanna, teeth grinding as the wall of albinos advanced… and at their core there was a tiny, ragged albino woman, with straggly white hair and bright crimson eyes and a face that was ancient, and lined, and haggard, and Kell knew upon what he looked for this this was an albino shamathe, a dreaded white magicker, and Kell shook his head and knew he had to kill her fast and put her down in an instant for her magick was awesome, potent, a product of earth and fire and blood and raw wild dark energy Ilanna slammed up, blades gleaming, but the second energy impact picked Kell up and pulped him against the wall, where the entire brickwork buckled and collapsed outwards in a shower of rubble and dust and broken beams. The armoury croaked and sagged, walls groaning, and Kell was half- buried under a pile of bricks as the air around him and an unconscious Saark rippled and surged and then was seemingly sucked back into normality like a rubber band returning to its original shape.
The albino shamathe cackled, and capered forward like a jester, but a tall soldier stepped to the fore, placed a hand on her cavorting shoulder and calmed the witch. 'Well done, Lilliath,' he spoke, words gentle, and drew a long black blade. 'But… I will finish this.' Lilliath nodded, hair wild and wavering.
Jekkron, tall, elegant, a warrior born, loomed over Kell who was groaning, eyelids fluttering. The old soldier had lost his axe amidst bricks and snapped timber joists. He opened his dust-smarting eyes and snarled through bloodied teeth but the albino smiled, and gave a single nod of understanding; his black sword lifted high, then hacked down at Kell's throat.
CHAPTER 3
Clockwork Engine
'So, he has betrayed us?'
Silence echoed around the Vachine High Engineer Council. The two Watchmakers present squirmed uneasily, for this entire concept was anathema to everything in which they believed, and aspired. 'That's impossible.'
'Why impossible? A canker, by definition, should be impossible. We are the Higher Race, the Blessed; we are at the pinnacle of flesh and technological evolution. What then is a canker? A mockery of our genetics, a mockery of our humanity, a mockery of our vachine status. The vachine should be perfect; the cankers remind us we are not. How, then, can it be construed that Graal's betrayal is an impossibility?'
Another voice. Old. Revered. Serious. 'He has served us for a thousand years. You… young vachine do not understand what General Graal has done for us. Without him, and without the work of Kradek-ka, we would never have achieved such an exalted state; we would never have reached our current evolutionary curve, plane, and High Altar. Graal accelerated our species.
Without him our race would be dead.'
Silence met this statement. Great minds contemplated the implications of their discussion.
A voice spoke. It was young, nervous, a chattering of sparrows next to the wisdom of the owl. 'The clock work is all wrong,' said the voice.
'Meaning?'
'The algorithms… they tell of the Axeman.'
'What is this Axeman?'
'The Black Axeman of Drennach.'
Again, another pause. Around the table, some of the elder vachine lit pipes and puffed on smoke laced with the heady narcotic, blood-oil. A silence descended. Several elder vachine exchanged glances.
'The clockwork engines are never specific, but they speak of a terrible killer, an axeman named Kell – but is he friend or foe? The machines will not say. They just bring up his name again, and again, and again.' 'We must assume he is the enemy. Every other human to set foot in Silva Valley has had nothing but evil and destruction in their corrupt and festering hearts.' 'Is that not to be expected?' 'Meaning?'
'We feed on them; they are like cattle to us.'
'Still, we must assume this Black Axeman is evil, a scourge to our kind. But then, we are straying from the real problem here; that of General Graal, and what he is doing with our Army of Iron.' Silence greeted this.
'Has the report come back, yet? From Princess Jaranis?' 'There has been no communication; nothing.'
This was considered. Digested. And then one of the Watchmakers stood; in the structure of the vachine religion, only the Patriarch ruled over the Watchmakers, and the Watchmakers were few enough now to make their rank a dying breed – only five of them left. General Graal was Watchmaker; this was the element of their new information which made the High Council so nervous. Nobody wished to sound like a Heretic; nobody wished their clockwork poisoned, their flesh to be torn and twisted forcibly into canker.
She was called Sa, small of stature, but with flashing, dangerous eyes. To cross Sa was to be exterminated. 'We have little evidence,' she said, voice smooth, eyes fixing on every member of the Engineer Council in turn. She walked around the outside of the huge oval steel table, and stopped at the head where once, in good health, the Patriarch would have sat; today, as on many days, he was confined to his bed. It was rumoured he coughed up blood-oil, and his days were numbered. 'We cannot simply condemn General Graal in his absence; he should be able to defend himself against the diabolical accusations that have taken place over this table. What is happening here?' Her eyes glowed. 'We used to be united. Now, we are crumbling. We will adjourn, and no more will be spoken on this matter until Graal returns in the spring after Snowmelt. Is this agreed?' There came a murmur of agreement, and the Engineer Council disbanded, the hundred or so members flooding out into the warren of the Engineer's Palace, and beyond, to Silva Valley. Finally, only Sa and Tagortel, another esteemed vachine Watchmaker, were left. Their eyes met, like old lovers on a secret tryst. 'I don't think it will be enough,' said Tagor-tel. 'I do not trust the old General. And… isn't that why Jaranis was despatched? To keep an eye on proceedings?'
