midpoint of his chest across his shoulder and down to his elbow, there were panels of black chitin, glossy like spider armour, and woven deep into his flesh, indeed, deep into his very muscle and bone.
The queen entered, and settled down before him. Then a foreleg reached out and touched Jage's face, and he closed his eyes and he could… he could flow with her thoughts and feel her desperation for she was a Soulkeeper of Species and they were at war and hunted and reviled and the battle had raged for thousands of years with the Trallisk, who came with fire and poison to burn them and sting them, and battles had been fought, huge underground wars in tunnel and cave systems ranging for thousands of leagues to destroy the Sacred, and the Soulkeepers had finally been defeated in a huge bloody scourge, and since that day they moved from cave system to cave system, always running, always hiding, taking the Sacred with them, but one day they would conquer for it was their way, they were a warrior species descended from a warrior species and Jage, Jage was a human exception, a conundrum for he had shown them kindness and a form of understanding and she knew he was different and unique and they needed something unique to beat the Trallisk in war and this, this meant acceptance, for he was young and in him they could find an ally and they would strengthen him and had built him a spine from cuticle containing proteins and chitin built up in layers and fed with long protein strands into his own flesh and own spine and nerves and his body had accepted it as his own. And now. Now, after the incident with the wolf, the Soulkeepers had repaired his shoulder in a similar fashion, building him a new shoulder blade, for the wolf's fangs had torn muscle and powdered bone and they were part of him now, all a part of him, and he was part of them, and they were happy to accept Jage into their family for they knew there was no evil in his body, mind or soul and he could help them, help them protect the Sacred for its purpose was important to the world, and he, Jage, was important to the world… and one day, he would understand why they gave him the Sacred to protect.
Jage's eyes opened, with a start. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, coughed, and sat up. He flexed his new shoulder experimentally, and pressed at it with his free hand. It felt as strong as steel. On a flat rock by his feet sat a platter of rock, with some fruit, and vegetables, and a long, slick, grey slab of meat. Jage reached out, picked up the meat, which slithered against his fingers as if trying to escape. He knew what he had to do. He had to get strong. He had to grow, and feed, and become powerful; only then could he repay the kindness of the Hexels and help them with their age-old war against the Trallisk; help them protect the Sacred. Help them deliver it. Jage ate the meat, rubbing absently at his chest which itched, just over his heart, and at that moment knew he needed a new name. Something to reflect his merging with the spiders; his acceptance not just into their society, but into their very genetics.
From this point, he decided, he would be known as Jageraw.
General Graal rode the black stallion to the top of the hill and turned, gaze sweeping the snowy wilderness and desolate, crumbling city of Old Skulkra. 'I know you,' he said, eyes narrowing. 'I remember you. I remember you well, Old One.'
Graal was half vachine, half albino. Accepted by the vachine society and culture because of his age, his prowess in battle, his tactical expertise as a general, and because – although their history no longer recorded it – he was one of the blood of the first vachine to walk the world, under the watchful gaze of the Vampire Warlords, Kuradek, Meshwar and Bhu Vanesh. Graal was ancient. More than a thousand years old. Ancient slave to the Vampire Warlords. And Graal was pissed. He attempted to calm himself, tried to slow the thunder of clockwork in his breast. But he could not. His teeth ground together, and he tasted his own blood-oil.
A Harvester approached, eyes fixed on Graal, drifting through the fresh fall of snow like a ghost.
'You should calm yourself, Brother,' said the Harvester. 'I am fucking sick of this charade. I want the vachine dead. I want them slaughtered! I know my destiny, by right of conquest, of kindred, of birth! I know my place, Harvester!'
'It will come,' soothed the Harvester. 'It will all come. You have shown great patience to this point; why do you grow so agitated? What has disturbed your mind, general?'
Graal was silent for long minutes, pale lips compressed, white face shaded by shadows, gloom, and a cascade of falling snow. His stallion stamped, snorting steam, and he turned the beast to stare across Old Skulkra. The ancient towers and palaces were rimed with snow; its cracked tenements, crumbling plazas, disintegrating bridges, all were sprinkled with a sugary ash and if Graal narrowed his eyes enough, he could imagine the city as it was a thousand years ago, when it was the centre of the Vampire Warlords' Empire, when it had been a Seat of Power… and of death, misery, and human desecration.
Graal leapt lightly from his mount, and stroked his pale features, lost in thought. The skin of an albino, and yet the eyes of the vachine? How little they knew; how little they understood his lineage.
'What troubles you?' persisted the Harvester, drifting close, towering over the man. A hand reached out, five long bone needles, and rested gently on Graal's shoulder. Graal spat. 'The cankers had a simple task: to hunt down an old man and his wounded companion. More than fifty cankers I sent, and yet they came back empty in tooth and claw. How could they not possibly find one simple old man and his tart?'
'You fear this man?'
Graal glanced at the Harvester then, and turned away. 'No. Fear is not the correct word. I respect him, and respect the damage he may cause if left to run riot. This man is Kell, and once he troubled the vachine in the Black Pike Mountains. He and his soldiers called themselves Vachine Hunters – and yes, I do appreciate the irony, as sweet as any virgin's quim. They caused vachine and albino warriors alike serious trouble during a four year period. Not only did they slaughter our peoples, they disrupted the blood-oil trade and nearly killed in its entirety the smuggling of Karakan Red which, as we both know, many half-vachine rely on as part of Kradek-ka's… shall we say, experimentations.' 'You were sent to deal with this thorn?'
'Yes. To pluck it free. Many times Engineer Priests, and even Archbishops, were sent with elite squads amongst the Black Pikes to hunt down and end this… problem. They returned either empty handed, or not at all. It was said these Vachine Hunters were ghosts, demons, unsavoury spirits sent by God to remove our kind from the face of the planet. Not so. They were men, highly skilled men with a talent for death and bloodbond,' he spat the word, teeth bared like an animal, 'weapons baptised in some ancient dark magick of which we had no knowledge, nor understanding. They were sent by King Searlan, a magicker King, after he studied an ancient text and grew afraid.' 'And the text?' 'The Book of Angels,' said Graal, darkly.
'A dangerous tome indeed. I hope it was recovered?'
'No. That was part of my reason for persuading the Engineer Council to allow me to take their Army of Iron south; otherwise, I fear they may not have trusted me with so much singular authority.' He smiled. 'There was, of course, also inherent panic at their impending shortage of refined blood-oil.'
'Of course,' said the Harvester, with a sardonic smile. 'A well crafted situation. However, this… Kell? You never found him during your time In the Black Pike Mountains?'
'My soldiers tracked him, and with his few men Kell fought a retreat into the bowels of Bein Techlienain; there, the battle raged for hours in the narrow tunnels and across high bridges, until my soldiers were sure the last of Kell's men – and the man himself – were cast screaming and begging into the Fires of Karrakesh.' 'And yet, it would seem he survived.'
'Yes, he survived,' said Graal, voice bitter. 'I swear this is the same man, although I never saw his face myself under the Black Pikes.' His voice dropped an octave. 'I think some of my trusted soldiers were not quite honest with me about those long, dark weeks under the Stone.'
'Maybe this new and unfortunate series of events is merely… coincidence? Or possibly a foolhardy, arrogant warrior seeking to step like a ganger into another's skin?' The Harvester seemed to be smiling, although this was unlikely through the narrow slit of its mouth. Harvesters were renowned for having a flatline when it came to humour.
'There is no such thing as coincidence,' snapped Graal. He gave a bleak smile. 'As I will demonstrate.' He called to a young albino warrior, and sent him to find Nesh, the leader of the cankers sent to find Kell and Saark in Old Skulkra – and to bring them back. Nesh was as near controllable as one could achieve, with such an inherently uncontrollable and chaotic blend of twisted species.
Nesh arrived, huge, rumbling, mouth stretched wide open, tiny eyes filled with swirling gold as it watched Graal. The canker hunkered down, stinking of oil and hot metal. Inside, its clockwork clicked and stepped, and pistons thudded occasionally. Nesh was an example of a canker in its prime, although to be in its prime state, a canker must have regressed from both the human and clockwork that created it – to such an extent that the beautiful became ugly, the logical became parody. To be in prime canker state was to be days from death.
'Yes?' grunted the beast, its speech clipped and short. Words caused this creature, fully eight feet in height,
