'Kell, the old warrior, turned out more resourceful than we anticipated. He was bloodbond. But more. There was something else about him, father; something we do not understand.'
'He is mortal, like the rest of them,' spat Graal, suddenly losing his cool. 'You must destroy him!'
'Is this pride speaking, father?' She smiled a cold smile, and Graal knew, then, he had raised her well.
'Not pride.' He was cool. 'Necessity. What of the other? Saark? Did he have that which we seek?'
'We could not ascertain.'
'You were fought off?'
'Saark had help.'
'From whom?'
'A little boy summoned insects from the wood, the floors, the air. His name was Skanda. I have read about him, in your Book of Legends, and in your Granite Throne Lore.'
Graal frowned. 'Impossible. Skanda is dead! The whole Ankarok race are dead! The Warlords saw to that, millennia past!'
Tashmaniok turned from the mirror, then returned to gaze at her father with unnerving, crimson eyes. Her gaze was cold; unforgiving. 'Still,' she said, smoothly, unperturbed. 'Skanda was able to toss Shanna aside as if she were a simple village girl. And he carried a scorpion.'
'Did it… have two tails? Two stings?'
'It did,' said Tash. 'Now do you believe us?'
'I believe there is dark magick at play,' scowled General Graal. 'Where are you?'
'Heading north,' said Tashmaniok. 'We picked up their trail leading away from the burning town. It's a long story. However, Skanda no longer travels with the two men. There is little between here and the Black Pike Mountains; we can only assume they head for the Cailleach Fortress.'
'I will send some help. Something special,' said Graal.
'Yes. We underestimated these men. It will not happen again. No more mistakes. We will peel the skin from their bones.'
'Do it. And Tash?'
'Yes, father?'
Graal blinked, slow and lazy, like a reptile. 'I love you, girls. Don't ever forget that.'
'We never forget it, father.'
The mirror returned to a shimmer of silver and Graal stood, stretching his spine. He moved to a narrow window in the library wall, more of an archer's slit than a true window, which had been filled with lead-lined glass. He looked down from the Rose Palace, over the vision below.
The first of the Refineries was being hauled up the main cobbled street, its darkness, and angularity, seeming to block out pink pastel light from a winter sun. Graal turned to Dagon, deep in thought.
'You know it is said this man, Kell, is blessed by the gods,' said Dagon, slowly, looking sideways at Graal.
'That is not so,' said Graal. 'He is mortal, like the rest of you… with your feeble human shells.'
'No,' said Dagon, and his voice held a splinter of triumph. 'He is Kell. He is the Legend. He carries the mighty Ilanna. He may not be a part of your culture, but he is certainly a part of ours.'
'You know something else?' Graal strode in fury to the cowering man, and hoisted him into the air by the throat. Dagon's legs kicked and he choked, and slowly Graal released the iron in his grip.
'No, I swear!'
'Speak, or I'll rip out your windpipe and eat it before your fucking eyes!'
'All I know is what Leanoric told me! He said Kell was a Vachine Hunter, way back, years ago for the old Battle King. He roamed the Black Pike Mountains, slaying rogue vachine who troubled our borders. We did not know, back then, that these were outcast, the impure, the damaged, the unholy. We did not know there was a civilisation! We did not realise vachine were a discrete species, an entire race! If we had known, we would have sent our armies!'
Graal dropped Dagon to the polished, wooden floor. He moved back to the window.
'Kell is a special man. He has special knowledge.'
'He knows how to kill vachine,' said Dagon, rubbing his throat.
'Soon he will learn to die,' said Graal without emotion, as he watched soldiers loading Blood Refineries with the first of the frozen corpses from the ravaged city of Vor.
CHAPTER 10
Echoes of a Childhood Dream
As Saark crawled towards Kell, towards his pulsing blood-stench, the hunger deep in his veins and soul, so a new devastating pain lashed through him in waves. Saark hit the ground, hard, and lay there panting, face pressing the snow, and feeling as though he was being beaten with helves. He looked up, strained to see if Kell had noticed, and then wrenched at his own face as the fangs – having made their presence known to him – retreated back into his skull. Saark screamed a silent scream of pure agony, then rolled onto his back and allowed the cold night to claim him.
At dawn, Saark awoke to Kell's whistling. He was covered by a thick blanket, and warm soup bubbled over a fire. With aching limbs, Saark stood and tested himself. Numbly, he realised there was no longer any pain. Whatever had poisoned him, blood-oil Kell called it; well, it had gone. And he still had his head, which he shook in disbelief; and that meant nothing had given him away to Kell.
Approaching the fire, he slumped down and Kell smiled. 'If you sleep out in the snow like that, lad, you'll catch your death.'
'It was the fight. In Creggan. It took a lot out of me.'
'Aye,' said Kell. 'Well, let's eat fast then saddle up. We have a long day through enemy-infested country ahead of us. And I dare say, those two bitches from the Bone Fields will be somewhere behind, sniffing on our stinking trail.'
'Do you… do you feel all right?' said Saark, softly, not quite meeting Kell's gaze.
'I feel as powerful as ten men,' growled Kell. 'Come on. I want to find Nienna.'
The canker stood in the shadow of the ancient oak woodland on the summit of Hangman's Hill, a natural chameleon on the outskirts of the desecrated, crumbling monastery. Snow fell, drifting in light diagonal flurries and adding a fuzzy edge to reality. The canker was huge, the size of a lion, but there the similarity ended. Muscles writhed like the coils of a massive serpent beneath waxen white skin, the smooth surface broken occasionally by tufts of grey and white fur, and by open, weeping wounds where tiny cogs and wheels of twisted clockwork broke free, ticking, spinning, minute gears stepping up and down, tiny levers adjusting and clicking neatly into place. Only here, in this canker, in this abnormal vachine, the movements were not so neat – because every aspect of the canker's clockwork was a deviation, an aberration of flesh and engineering and religion; the canker was outcast. Impure. Unholy.
As evening spread swiftly towards night, the sky streaked with purple bruises and jagged saw-blades of cloud, so the canker watched two men progress, like distant avatars, making their way gradually across the snowy plain. The small entourage zig-zagged between stands of lightning-blasted conifers and ancient, pointed stones, one stocky man leading two horses, the second, more slender and effete, master of a laden donkey. The canker shifted its bulk, aware it was invisible to the men, blending as it did with the ancient tumble of fallen stones and thick woodland of thousand year oaks, and doubly hidden by the haze of wind-whipped snow. It turned, superior clockwork eyes observing the trees, their gnarled trunks and branches full of protrusions, whorls and nubs of elderly bark. A product of ancient vegetative inter-breeding, a meshing of woodland technologies – of nature, and soul, and spirit. Like me, thought the canker, and smiled as far as such a bestial, twisted, corrupted creation could smile; for its mouth was five times the size of a human mouth, the jaw jacked wide open, lips pulled high and wrenched upwards over the skull with eyes displaced to the side of its head. Huge fangs, twisted and bent in awkward directions, glistened with saliva and… blood-oil. Blood-oil. And blood-oil magick. The basis for an entire vachine
