eyes seemed distant, and as he spoke his voice was lilting, a low growl, almost musical in its harmony. 'Allow your mind to drift back, like drug-smoke, for a millennium, my sweet; there were once three Vampire Warlords, maybe you have heard of them? Their names are written in iron on the Core Stone of Silva Valley, carved into the back cover of the Oak Testament with a knife used to slit the throats of babes.' His eyes grew hard, like cobalt. 'They are Kuradek, Meshwar, Bhu Vanesh – Kuradek, the Unholy. Meshwar, the Violent. And Bhu Vanesh, the Eater in the Dark.' He glanced at Jaranis, then, head tilting. With tight lips Jaranis shook her head, and frowned, seeking to understand Graal's direction. 'These warlords,' continued Graal, 'were, shall we say, all powerful. I am surprised you have limited knowledge of their prowess, for they are a pivotal part of baseline vachine history.' He smiled. 'That is, your vachine history. For as we all know, the Engineer Council seek to strongly enforce a true vachine culture in which nobody strays from a pure and holy path. Is that not so?'
'That is so,' said Jaranis, voice little more than a whisper. She was trembling now, and Graal felt a trickle of lust ease through his veins like a honey narcotic. Sex, fear and death, he thought, went hand in hand, and were always a turn-on.
'The warlords, they had clockwork souls,' said Graal, eyes blazing with a sudden fury. He calmed himself with intricate self-control, and finished strapping on his armour with tight, sudden little jerks. 'But then, you may not know this, for the High Engineer Episcopate practice and preach rewritten histories and a fictional past.' Jaranis shook her head, and Graal gestured to the two albino soldiers, who stepped forward, grabbing the young vachine woman and dragging her out into the freshly falling snow. All through the war camp tumbled jarring sounds, the snort and stamp of horse, cankers snarling, the clatter of arms, the low-level talk of soldiers around braziers. Jaranis was thrown to her knees, her fine silk robes stained with saliva, and just a little blood. Graal emerged, striding with an arrogant air that made Jaranis want to rip out his throat. Her fangs ejected fully, eyes narrowing and claws hissing from fingertips. They gleamed, razor-sharpened brass. She considered leaping, but caught something in her peripheral vision: two figures, both female, both albino subordinates. She snarled in disgust, and turned to stare at these… soldiers.
They were tall, lithe, athletic, and wore light armour of polished steel unlike the usual black armour of the albino Army of Iron. Both women wore sleek longswords at their hips, and one had her long white hair braided into twin, wrist-thick ponytails, whilst the second had her hair cropped short. It was spiked by the snow. Their skin was white, almost translucent, and they had high cheekbones, gaunt faces, and crimson eyes. When they smiled, their beauty was stunning but deadly, like a newborn sun. And when they smiled, they had the fangs of the vachine.
Princess Jaranis hissed in shock. Albinos could not be vachine! It was not permitted. It was illegal. It was unholy. Graal stepped forward, and touched one woman behind her elbow. She smiled at him. 'This is Shanna, and this is Tashmaniok. Daughters, I would like to introduce the vachine princess, Jaranis.' The two albino vachine warriors gave short bows and moved to stand erect, one at either side of Graal. They took his arms, as if enjoying a stroll down some theatre-lined thoroughfare in one of Silva Valley's more respectable cultured communities, and their eyes glowed with vampire hate. 'You will not get away with this… blasphemy!' snarled Jaranis, voice dripping poison and fury. 'Not for giving White Warriors the clockwork, nor for betraying the vachine!'
'But, my sweetness, I think I already have,' said Graal. He smiled down at Jaranis. 'You vachine are so trusting, and so beautifully naive. These girls, they are not some simple blending. Some back-street black-market clockwork abortion!' His voice rose, a little in anger, blue eyes glinting as his focus drilled into the vachine princess. 'Don't you understand to whom you speak? Don't you recognise the birth of your death?' 'The Soul Stealers?' whispered Jaranis, in horror. Graal smiled. He gave a slight, sideways nod, and Shanna detached from his linked arm and in one smooth movement, drew her sword and decapitated the vachine princess.
Jaranis's head rolled into the snow and blood, and blood-oil, spurted from the ragged neck stump. The body paused for a moment, rigid, then toppled like a puppet with cut strings. As blood-oil ran free, so clockwork machinery grew noisy, it rattled and spluttered until it finally faltered, and came to a premature clattering halt with a discordant note like the clashing of swords in battle.
Graal knelt in the snow, ignoring the vachine blood which stained his leather trews. He stared into the severed clockwork face of the murdered vachine; in death, she was even more beautiful.
He glanced back. The Soul Stealers were poised motionless, beautiful, deadly.
'I had a mind-pulse from Nesh,' he said, voice low and terrible. 'He says Kell and that puppet, Saark, are cornered in the maze of Old Skulkra.'
'Yes, father,' said Tashmaniok.
'Bring them to me,' he said, and shifted his gaze to the Soul Stealers' bright, focused eyes, 'It is the Soul Gem that matters, now. You understand?' 'We serve,' they said, voices in harmony.
With the stealth of the vampire the Soul Stealers vanished, like ghosts, through the snow.
CHAPTER 1
Ankarok
Kell grinned. 'Tell Graal he can shove my axe up his arse!' Saark groaned… and readied for attack…
'As you wish,' said Nesh, lowering its strange, bestial, wrenched clockwork head, red eyes shining, mouth full of juices in anticipation of the feed to come. Muscles bunched like steel-weave cables, fangs jutted free with crunches, and behind it the other cankers growled and the growl rose into a unified howl which mingled and merged forming one perfectly balanced single note that held on the air, perfect, and signified their reward. Kell's eyes were fixed on the lead canker, his body a tense bow-string, senses heightened into something more than human. He was the delicate trigger of a crossbow. The impact reflex of a striking snake. It was going to be a damn hard fight.
But then… the incredible happened. Nesh settled back on its haunches, eyes meeting Kell's, and the old warrior was sure he saw a corrupt smile touch the beast's lips like a tracing of icing sugar on horse-shit. Nesh stood, turned, and pushed through the cankers. The howling subsided into an awkward silence; then the cankers slowly filed after their leader, one by one, until only their rotten oil stink remained – alongside five canker corpses, bleeding slow-congealing lifeblood onto the stone roof.
'What happened?' breathed Saark, his whole body relaxing, slumping almost, into the cage of his bones. Kell shrugged, and turned, and fastened his gaze on the small boy standing perhaps twenty feet away, by the low wall overlooking Old Skulkra's ancient, crumbling remains. Kell pointed, and Saark noticed the boy for the first time. He was young, only five or six years old, his skin pale, his limbs thin, his clothing ragged like many an abandoned street urchin easily found in the shit-pits of Falanor's major cities. The boy turned, and looked up at Kell and Saark, and smiled, head tilting. It's in his eyes, thought Kell, his cool gaze locked to the boy. His eyes are old. They sparkled like diseased Dog Gems, those rarest of dull jewels left over from another age, another civilisation.
Kell stepped forward, and crouched. 'You scared them off, lad?' It was half question, half statement. The air felt suddenly fuzzy, as if raw magick was discharging languorously through the breeze.
The boy nodded, but did not move. He shifted slightly, and something small and black ran down the sleeve of his threadbare jacket. It was a scorpion, and it ran onto the boy's hand and sat there for a while, as if observing the two men.
Saark let out a hiss, hand tightening on rapier hilt. 'The insect of the devil!' he snapped.
'Look,' said Kell, slowly. 'It has two tails.' And indeed, the scorpion – small, shiny, black – had two corrugated tails, each with a barbed sting.
Saark shivered. 'Throw it down, lad,' he called. 'Our boots will finish the little bastard.'
Ignoring Saark, the boy stepped across loose stone joists, moving forward with a delicate grace which belied his narrow, starved limbs. He halted before Kell, looked up with dark eyes twinkling, then slowly plucked the twin- tailed scorpion from his hand and secreted the arachnid beneath his shirt.
'My name is Skanda,' said the boy, voice little more than a husky whisper. 'And the scorpion, it is a scorpion of time.' 'What does that mean?' whispered Kell.
The boy shrugged, eyes hooded, smile mysterious. 'You scared away the cankers!' blurted Saark. 'How did you do that?'
Skanda turned to Saark, and again his head tilted, as if reading the dandy's thoughts. 'They fear me, and they fear my race,' said Skanda, and when he smiled they saw his teeth were black. Not the black of decay, but the