'When he feeds,' said Graal, eyes gleaming.
• • • •
Bhu Vanesh stood and stretched, and stepped down from the dais, staring at the three chained girls. They were shivering in terror, eyes staring at the ground, huddling together like sheep. Bhu Vanesh smiled at that. For, like sheep, they were about to become food. He moved swiftly, grabbing the first girl by the throat and pulling her close, almost as if to kiss. Then his maw stretched wide and the girl screamed, a wavering long high note, and Bhu Vanesh's fangs sank into her throat and started to suck her dry as the other two girls vomited, and squirmed, and moaned and thrashed with horror.
Out of the shadows came Kradek-ka, moving fast, and the spear thrust into the Warlord's back with as much force as the old vachine could muster, born of fear and hatred; the spear rammed through the Vampire Warlord, through his heart and through the girl on which he fed, making her go rigid, puking blood as her limbs twitched spasmodically. Even as the spear thrust struck, so Graal leapt from the high beams of the roof, sword slashing down to open Bhu Vanesh's throat and the Vampire Warlord dropped, pinned to the girl, gurgling and Graal stood, his curved blade dripping blood and looked down with a sneer and spat at Bhu Vanesh, until he realised that the Vampire Warlord wasn't gurgling in his death throes, he was laughing and he slammed upright and rigid in a splinter of time, and fire seared the girl to which he was attached, crisping her instantly to ash. What remained of the spear Bhu Vanesh grasped, and pulled it smoothly through his smoke-riddled body, as the smoke-flesh of his throat ran together and Graal screamed, and attacked in a blistering display of sword skill but Bhu punched him in the chest, caving in his breastbone and ribs with one mighty blow and sending him slamming backwards to roll amongst scattered tables and chairs until he hit the wall, his clockwork pounding, several wheels rolling from the massive open wound. Kradek-ka attacked from behind, and Bhu Vanesh turned, grasped the old vachine's head between both sets of talons, and with a wrench twisted his head clean off. Kradek-ka looked surprised. His mouth worked soundlessly, as blood dripped from his severed neck stump. The body spewed blood and tiny brass cogs, then one knee folded, and Kradek-ka's corpse settled to the ground like a deflating balloon.
Bhu Vanesh sighed, and tossed away the head. He pointed at Graal, and grimaced. 'I cannot stand traitors,' he snapped, and from the shadows eased Lorna, petite and blonde and smiling, and the bulk of Division General Dekull. They lifted Graal with ease. He could not fight. He was slowly dying, with his chest caved in.
'Take him to the Black Tower,' snapped Bhu Vanesh, eyes glowing, and he waved his talons to dismiss them and turned his attention back to the two moaning girls who remained. 'I am still enjoying breakfast. I will deal with him later.'
Graal, his clockwork whining, was dragged from the chamber and out, into the cold stairwell, and up narrow winding steps.
General Graal lay on the floor, panting, pain flooding him like nothing he'd felt in his long, long lifetime. Breathing was hard, with a caved-in chest, and he knew even with accelerated vachine healing powers, this pulping at the talons of Bhu Vanesh would take him months from which to recover. If he could recover. But then, in a few short hours he would be dead. Bhu Vanesh was toying with him.
So, it was all for naught? How many men, down through the ages of history, have taken great risks only to end up, condemned and dying, in a prison cell? He smiled at that, then winced and vomited blood.
Many. Many…
And Graal had exterminated most.
Pain rocked through him in waves, and it was so bad, so painful Graal went beyond pain and into comedy. He laughed, laughed because it hurt so damn fucking much. He lifted his head, looked down at the hole in his chest. He could see his own beating heart merged with clockwork. Cogs spun, and gears stepped, but many were twisted and misaligned. The only time Graal had seen that was in the cankers. That thought made him shiver. Sobered him with a slap.
Better death, than to turn canker.
He had seen what becoming a canker did to a man. After all, it had happened to his brother. The brother Kell had killed. Kell! That old bastard. Graal grimaced. Now there's a fucker who needs his head on a spike! His balls chopped off! His throat opening like a second smile! Far too much testosterone. Far too much of the fucking hero factor, the dirty stinking piece of reprobate horse-shit! Him, and that damn axe… that axe…
'I'm sorry to intrude,' said the little boy, 'but it would appear somebody left a door open.'
Graal groaned, and his eyes moved to the boy. He was five or six years old, skinny and raggedy looking to the extent he would be taken for a vagrant in any of the fine cities of Falanor. Not that many existed, in the old sense of the word city. The boy wore rags, and had no shoes, and he was smiling and his teeth were black, like insect chitin.
'You!' gasped Graal, and struggled to rise, but groaned as pain swamped him and he passed back into a welcome deep honey pool of glorious unconsciousness.
When his eyes fluttered open, Skanda was sitting on the edge of Graal's bed, staring down at him where he lay on the stone flags, still with that disarming smile stuck on his face. 'You do look rather ill,' said Skanda. 'Maybe some medicine is in order?'
'I want nothing from you!' Graal spat, and he would have screamed and attacked, but had not the strength, nor the energy. Instead, he glared with blue albino eyes at the boy.
'I disagree,' said Skanda, and he hopped from the bed and Graal cringed, as if expecting some fearful weapon. Instead, Skanda knelt down by Graal and placed his hands on the vachine's belly. Inside him, Graal felt the clockwork slow to a rhythm that was normal, not discordant, not twisted. Pleasure ran through him, tingling every fingertip, and pain fled like rats before a flood.
Graal sighed. Then he blinked, slowly, and allowed himself to breathe.
'Thank… you,' he managed, and stared hard at Skanda. 'But I haven't forgotten Helltop. I haven't forgotten your part in the deaths of my daughters!'
'Ahh. The delightful Shanna and Tashmaniok. Yes. I am sorry about them. But we need Kell alive. We need the Legend to exist. Or all our plans would be for nothing.'
'Our plans?' said Graal.
'The Ankarok,' said Skanda, softly, his dark little insect eyes fixed on Graal. 'That is why I am here. That is why I need your help.'
'There is nothing I can do for you, boy,' snapped Graal. 'Nothing I can do for the Ankarok! Nothing I can even do for myself…'
'We are alive,' hissed Skanda, 'and if you help me, Graal, General Graal, Graal the Dispossessed, Graal the Dying, Graal the Fallen, Graal the Slave, Graal the Whipping Boy of the fucking Vampire Warlords… then I will help you. We will help you.'
Graal swallowed, and he looked at the six year-old boy, but it was the eyes, the eyes were old, older than Time it seemed. They were portals, piss-holes straight back to the Chaos Halls.
'What is it you require?' said Graal, voice a little strangled.
'We want our Empire back,' said the Ankarok.
'What do you need me to do?'
'We need your blood-oil magick. Ours is trapped. Trapped in the curse that is Old Skulkra. I broke free, broke free and was aided by Kell and Saark. But now, now we are ready to return. General Graal – we will sweep aside these vampires. We will send the Warlords back to the Chaos Halls.'
'But we'll have you instead,' said Graal.
'You will not be a slave,' said Skanda. 'I guarantee you that. You will rule by my side. You will be a vassal of the Ankarok. You will be a Prince of the Ankarok!'
'How do I know I can trust you?'
'Because you have little choice. But also, I could leave you to die. There are others, Graal. But I like you.' The boy grinned. 'I like your tenacity. I like your lack of fear. I like your will to get the job done.' His smile dissolved. 'I like your ability to kill.'
'So we would exchange one evil empire for another?'
'Evil is all about perspective,' said Skanda. 'But these Vampire Warlords thrive on destruction; and what use is that? If you kill all the slaves, who then will be the slaves? It is a base stupidity. A flaw in their strategy.'
'What do you need me to do?'
'Follow me.'
