woman snored softly, face lost in a haze of tranquillity that softened her features, made her more feminine. Nienna realised that when Myriam was awake her face was a constant scowl, as if she hated the world and every waking moment upon it.
Nienna turned to her left, and nearly leapt from her skin at the face mere inches from her. She felt the edge of the Wi dowmaker crossbow prod her under the blankets, and she nodded quickly as if to say, 'I understand'. Styx moved his mouth to her ear and whispered, 'Scream, and I'll blow a hole through you, then I'll slaughter Myriam in her sleep and make my own way to Silva Valley.'
'I won't scream,' panted Nienna, fear a bright hot poker in her brain.
Styx pulled free the blankets, and lifted Nienna up by her elbow. Her eyes fell, and locked on that wood, brass and clockwork weapon. She was sure she could hear a tiny tick tick tick from within the stock. As if it was somehow powered by clockwork.
'What do you want?' she whispered.
Styx ignored the question, and eased her away from Myriam. Nienna gazed back at the sleeping woman, confused; it had been Myriam who, on both of Nienna's escape attempts, had heard the flight. Myriam slept light, like a dozing feline. Now, however, she continued to snore.
'Don't worry about her. I drugged her soup. She'll not be troubling nobody tonight.'
Nienna felt icy fingers claw her heart. Realisation sank from her brain to her feet. Styx meant to rape her. Tonight. Now. And there was nothing she could do about it; not a thing on earth.
Styx marched Nienna through the woods, and he was panting hard, and he stunk of sweat and… something else. Liquor? Gin, like they used to sell in the Gin Palaces of Jalder?
Nienna was numb, not from the cold, but from fear. She allowed herself to be manhandled through the woods, stumbling. She did not complain. She could not complain. Fear had become her Master. Fear had stolen her tongue, and seemingly, her recent will to fight.
Finding a spot, Styx threw her to the ground. She landed heavy, a tree root slamming her spine and making her cry out. Even this was not enough to snap her from her cold embrace. She watched, with a mixture of horror and revulsion as Styx struggled from his leggings, one hand still holding the Widowmaker pointed loosely at her prostrate form.
Then, with the lower half of his body naked, he grinned at her and she hated him, there and then; she wanted him dead like she had wanted no other person dead in the world, ever. This man had killed her best friend. And now, this man sought to remove her chastity by force.
'If you touch me, I will kill you,' she said. She wanted her words to come out strong and proud, like a sneer of contempt for this petty hateful specimen. But her words dribbled out, a mewling from a kitten, the slurred and feeble trickle of the wanton inebriate. Kell will come, she thought with tears in her eyes. Kell will rescue me!
But he didn't come. Here, and now, Nienna was on her own.
Styx dropped his Widowmaker to the frozen woodland carpet, and pulled out a knife. The blade gleamed. He smiled, showing stubby black teeth. 'I think it's time we got to know each other a bit better, pretty one,' he said.
CHAPTER 5
Dark Vision
In the hills above Old Skulkra a small squad hunkered behind rocks. One, the tallest of the men, a soldier with broad shoulders and narrow hips, held a long tube filled with a series of finely shaped lenses to his eye. The delicate mechanism glittered when it caught the dying rays of the winter sun.
'Can you see him?' asked Beja.
'Yes. He returns,' said Cardinal Walgrishnacht. His voice was even, devoid of emotion, but his dark vachine eyes shone. He watched, apparently impassive, as the scout approached. The man bowed low, as befitted somebody as exalted and dangerous as Walgrishnacht.
'You saw what happened?' snapped the Warrior Engineer.
'Yes,' said the scout, eyes lowered to the snow. 'General Graal called out his daughters, the Soul Stealers. Our Princess was…' he swallowed, then lifted his head and met Walgrishnacht's powerful clockwork gaze. 'She was beheaded,' he said.
Walgrishnacht stood, stunned, and when he looked around there were tears in his eyes, tears staining his pale cheeks. Never, in twenty years of combat and murder, had Walgrishnacht cried.
Beja watched the Cardinal of the Vachine Warrior Engineers, that specially chosen and infinitely deadly elite squad who had followed – secretly, in reserve – in order to protect Princess Jaranis should events turn sour. A violent blizzard had separated the two groups, and stubbornly the proud Princess pushed on regardless, no doubt eager to observe General Graal's progress and report back to the High Engineers instead of making textbook camp until the storm broke.
Now, she was dead. And Walgrishnacht could not quite believe the turn of events. General Graal was, and had been, a servant of the vachine religious culture for nearly three centuries. With Kradek-ka, he had helped usher in a new age of advanced clockwork technology, which elevated their race from savagery to high art. Graal was a founding member of Engineer Council Lore, and a harsh advocate and defender of the Oak Testament. Graal had been instrumental in the taming of pale-skinned creatures, the alshina, from beneath the Black Pike Mountains, and of training these soldiers in warfare and tactics; thus, he was the strategy behind many successful invasions and harvesting north past the Heart of the Mountains in Untamed Lands. After the recent breakdown of several Blood Refineries, it had been Graal who spearheaded Council and carried the vote to invade south. In High Engineer Philosophy, Politics, Ethics, History and Honour, Graal was unquestionable, and untouchable. He was Core to the Vachine Society. Integral. Like a Heart Cog.
Walgrishnacht chewed his lip, and wiped tears from his face with a long, brass talon.
'What shall we do?' said Beja, voice soft. He fidgeted. His body echoed uncertainty.
Walgrishnacht stood and stretched with a tiny tick tick echoing from his clockwork internals. He stared off across distant snow-fields, to the camped army of albino warriors; and he knew, in his heart, in his soul, that in an unprecedented move they were betrayed. But what was Graal's plan? What were his goals? Whatever they were, they did not involve saving the vachine race from blood-oil extinction…
Walgrishnacht shook his head. Confusion spun like a snowstorm. The whole situation was… inconceivable! Impossible! Unwarranted! And yet there had been murder, and worse, betrayal.
Walgrishnacht turned on Beja. 'We must take the platoon back to Silva Valley. We must explain that General Graal has betrayed the vachine, and everything our world stands for.'
'We may not survive the mountains,' warned Beja, not through fear but tactical understanding. He was aware they may never deliver the message, and thus warning, to the Engineer Council.
Walgrishnacht nodded. 'We will give our lives to cross,' he said. 'The High Engineers must reconvene the War Council and assemble the Ferals – for if Graal plans an invasion after the snows have passed, and Silva Valley is unprepared…' He left the sentence unfinished. They both understood; without warning, Graal with his highly trained, disciplined, and experienced Army of Iron would roll through Silva Valley like a tidal wave. In an ironic twist, it was the General who commanded the army, not the Council. But then – the General was incorruptible, was he not? Walgrishnacht's face fell into a maelstrom of hatred. 'Instruct the men. We move in ten minutes.'
'As you wish, Cardinal.'
The Warrior Engineers readied their packs and weapons, a sombre mood descending on the platoon. Then, as they headed back north through deep snow, away from Old Skulkra and the sour betrayal that had occurred, so in the distance a howl rent the air, a long, high-pitched note that seemed to linger in the deep forests and dark places of the night.
Beja looked to Walgrishnacht. 'Wolves?' he said.
The Cardinal showed no emotion. 'Maybe,' he said. 'Move out.'
Anukis, of Silva Valley, had been born to Kradek-ka, one of the founding fathers of modern vachine society. Kradek-ka, like his father before him, had risen through Engineer ranks until he attained the exalted position of
