a steep rocky slope filled with flat plates of granite and slate, boots stomping and sliding to send yet more rocks scattering and clattering to the valley below. Kell pushed them hard, and after fifty minutes or so all were streaming with sweat, pain flashing bright patterns through their brains. Saark paused, and gazed down the scree slope.
'I can see Mary!' he said, almost triumphantly. Then stopped dead, as from a narrow chimney in the opposite wall of rock loped the three cankers. They stopped, snarling and drooling, and spread out, circling the donkey, great paws padding and claws drawing sparks from the hard ground, eyes fixed, travelling in lazy pendulous sweeps. Mary eeyored in panic, eyes wide, ears laid back on her terrified skull. Saark found his heart in his mouth, terror running through his veins. 'No,' he muttered, gripping his rapier as Mary hunkered down in terror, bunching her hind quarters to do the only thing she knew how; to kick. 'Not the donkey!' wailed Saark. But, after a few brief circles, the cankers broke away like a squadron of hunting falcons, and padded along the bottom of the valley floor.
'Shh!' said Kell, motioning for the others to lower themselves to the ground, killing their skyline. Then he glanced up. Above them reared a high wall of granite cut through with lodes of glittering quartz, diagonal bands that gleamed and sparkled. He fancied he spied a narrow aperture. A narrow squeeze would be good to slow down the cankers – or at least force them to come through in single file. But they hadn't been spotted yet; if they stood and ran now, it would draw the cankers to them immediately. If they were lucky, the cankers would lose their scents.
'They're heading off down the ravine,' whispered Saark.
Kell nodded.
Myriam shifted, and a rock rolled down the slope, bouncing as it reached the bottom to send a hollow clatter reverberating through the rocky wilderness. The cankers stopped, a sudden movement, and all three heads turned to stare up at the hiding adventurers.
'Well done, bitch,' hissed Saark.
Kell stared at the cankers. He had never seen anything like them. Their skin was translucent, showing the crimson of thick muscles cut through by clockwork machinery within, all twisted and deformed just that little bit – a characteristic which set them apart from pure vachine. It was a twisted merging of clockwork technology and flesh made real.
Their eyes were blood red, faces elongated almost into horse muzzles but much wider, much larger, showing curved fangs which twisted and bent in seemingly random directions. They moved on all fours like huge lions, but as they turned and bounded up the slope Kell and Saark blinked, realising they had hooves.
'Mother of Mercy,' whispered Saark, drawing his rapier.
'Run!' screamed Kell, suddenly, breaking the spell. Nienna and Myriam sprinted, sliding up the scree, with Saark and Kell close behind. Kell pulled free Ilanna and kissed her butterfly blades. 'Don't let me down this time,' he muttered.
I am here for you, Kell. Here to kill for you. As you know I always will.
They sprinted up, as best they could. The cankers moved fast, faster than a human, and spiked brass claws emerged from hooves sending showers of sparks scattering down the scree slope. Myriam reached the narrow aperture first, and lifted free her long bow. She notched an arrow and touched a fletch to her cheek in one swift movement. An arrow flashed through the gloom, hitting a canker high in the shoulder. It squealed then, with a high-pitched whinny, twisted and corrupt. The cry of a dying horse.
Nienna ran into the gap in the rocky wall. It was the width of a man, the walls green and slick and slimy. Moss lined the floor in a thick layer, and above, about twelve feet from the ground, several large fallen rocks had formed a wedged, uneven roof.
'Come on!' shouted Nienna, fear etching her face and voice like acid. She pulled free a long knife, and stood, waiting, watching.
Saark reached Myriam's side and turned. He was an agile and quick man, made faster by his bite at the teeth of the albino vachine. He had left Kell behind, labouring, for once his prodigious size and strength working against him. Kell was panting hard, sweat running in rivulets down his face, into his beard, and he powered on, Ilanna in one mighty fist as the first of the cankers came up fast behind him… at the last minute Kell screamed and whirled, Ilanna slamming through flesh and knocking the canker back down the slope, where it rolled and thrashed past its sprinting comrades. Kell came on a few more steps. He was twenty paces from the aperture, but the cankers were too close. Another arrow flashed, close over Kell's shoulder and into a canker's throat – the beast reared, emitting the strange screaming horse-shriek, but dropped to the ground and charged on. Kell's axe slammed in an overhead sweep, connecting as the canker leapt for his throat with long brass claws, and Ilanna bit through muscle and flesh, snapping bones with terrible crunches. The canker twisted, trapping the axe and rolling away, tearing the great butterfly blades from Kell's sweating grip. The third canker leapt, but Myriam's arrow flashed, striking the beast through the eye. Kell shifted left as the beast hit the ground beside him, thrashing, and he leapt on its back, great hands taking hold of its long equine head and wrenching back with all his strength, his muscles writhing, and for a long moment they were locked, immobile, a bizarre double-headed creature from a deformed nightmare – then there came a mighty crack as Kell snapped the beast's neck. The canker fell limp, mewling, and Kell ran back to his embedded axe, taking hold of the shaft and wrenching the weapon free. Panting, and covered in huge globules of canker blood, he turned and ran for the crevice.
'Well done, old horse!' beamed Saark, as Kell reached the wall of rock. The old warrior glanced up, lips tight, saying nothing. He turned, and watched the two injured cankers climb to their feet. Even though Ilanna had cut a huge chunk from the beast, breaking bones within, it shifted itself and they could see the huge open wound – enough to fell any bull or bear – and watched as inside the wound thin golden wires seemed to flow, twisting and entwining around broken bones, pulling them with little cracks back into place, into alignment, then wrapping around and around and around, binding, strengthening, as all the time the ominous tick tick tick of slightly offbeat clockwork clicked across the empty rock space.
'Inside,' growled Kell, squaring himself up.
'They can fit,' said Saark. 'The cankers are smaller than others we've met. Kell, the bastards can follow us.'
'Not if I have my way!' he hissed, eyes like glowing coals. Myriam and Saark followed Nienna into the narrow gap, and Kell lifted Ilanna above his head as the cankers orientated themselves on the man and dropped their heads, growls emitting on streams of saliva.
Kell swung his axe, striking the rocky wedge above. The wall boomed, sparks spat in a shower, and above the rocks trembled. Again Kell struck the wall, and again, his huge muscles straining, Ilanna shrieking and singing in simple joy and the cankers charged, their brass claws raking the rocks and for a final time, Kell slammed his axe into the wall and above there came a rattle, followed by cracks as three huge rocks shifted, and one fell, the second fell atop it, and their combined weight brought a wall of granite tumbling into the gap as Kell leapt back, stumbled back, dust billowing out and slamming him like a wall of ash. Kell coughed, choking for a moment, blinded, dust in his beard and eyes. He dropped his axe, rubbing at his eyes and coughing some more, and Saark patted the old man on the back.
'Well done, old boy.'
Kell picked up Ilanna and surveyed the blockage, his eyes following it upwards. He grunted in cynicism. 'Let's see how long that holds. Not long enough, I'd wager.'
'You're ever the sweet voice of optimism.'
'Get to chaos, Saark. And next time, try using that pretty little rapier instead of standing by watching me fight!'
'Hey!' Saark spread his hands. 'You seemed to be doing such a fine job! You didn't need my little prick in the middle of your hero battle; after all, you are Kell the Legend. They wrote poems about you.'
Kell stared beadily at Saark, then pushed him heavily in the chest. 'Go on. Follow Nienna and Myriam. Let's get out of this shit hole before a mountain of rocks comes down on our heads.'
'Don't push! You'll wrinkle the silk.'
Kell shook his head and sighed. 'Some things will never change,' he rumbled.
They moved as swiftly as they could through the gloom, and more snow began to fall. They found a cave, and Kell allowed Myriam to build a small fire. 'They know where we are, anyways,' he said. 'And I think we all need something warm inside us.'
Myriam made a thin soup in a shallow pan she carried in her pack, and as they sat shivering in the small
