heavy clouds vied for sovereignty. They threatened more snow against the world of Men.
Reaching the cell, Kell saw Sara was alone. The two vampires had been separated through basic mistrust. A wise choice. She watched Kell approach, eyes yellow and narrow, but she did not move from where she lay on the floor, curled like a lizard on a rock in the sun.
Kell sat down an arm's length from the bars, and placed his chin on his fist.
'Sara. What am I going to do with you, eh girl?'
'Knowing you, you'll use that great axe to cut off my head!'
'You are vampire-kind now. Maybe that would be a kindness?'
'My master will find you!' she hissed, suddenly, and leapt at the bars, claws raking out. Kell stayed motionless, and the sharp points of her talons skimmed the end of his nose. For a few moments Sara thrashed and hissed, trying to get to him, to his throat, to his jugular, to spill his blood and drag him like torn offal into her cage where she could gorge and feed… but she could not reach. Kell had judged his distance well. Gradually, she subsided, glancing at him like a sulky child.
'Your master is Kuradek the Unholy?'
'Yes.'
'And he has taken Jalder?'
'Go to Hell!'
'You're already there, girl. Help me!'
Kell and Sara stared at one another.
'You know nothing about how I feel,' she snapped, eventually, and Kell sat back a little, listening. She eyed him warily. 'You were a bad man, Kell. I know your secrets. My mother told me all about you, before she… died.' Her eyes narrowed. 'And even that event is shrouded by mystery, is it not, great Legend?'
'What happened during the Days of Blood, happened,' said Kell, softly. 'I am not proud of myself. Not proud of my actions. But I tell you now, there's no need to bring your mother into this. You have reason enough to hate me yourself.'
'I can still feel the handprint,' she hissed, jabbing a finger at Kell. 'Here!' She placed a hand against her face. 'It burns me, like a brand, making me a slave to the Great Man, the Great Hero, ha ha! If only the people of Falanor knew the real Kell. The bastard. The wife-beater. The child-beater.'
'It was not like that,' said Kell, darkly.
'Oh, but it was! You see, it's all about perspective, it's all about purity, and you had neither, you fucking old bastard. You turned on us. All of us. And not just your family, your King and country! Don't you remember? Or has the whiskey rotted your mind as well as your fucking teeth?'
'It was not like that,' growled Kell, and his fists clenched. He forced himself to stay calm. 'That is in the past. Now, Sara, we must talk about the present.'
'What? About how you'll beat my little girl? Nienna never did see past your mask, did she, the little fool. Dragged in by the stories of glory, dragged in by the myth but not the man. I'm surprised you haven't bruised her yet, Kell. Or maybe you have. I'm amazed she's still walking in a straight line. It was my leg you broke though, silly me for forgetting.'
'Still the acid tongue, I see,' snapped Kell. 'Just like your mother! There are bigger things at stake here, now, in this time. Like Falanor! Like the world!'
'Pah! Like you give a damn about anything but your own horse-shit ego and petty desires. Can't you see, Kell, I am part of something bigger, now, part of something powerful! I am strong, Kell. I could take you, in battle, I could rip your arms from their sockets and piss on your face as you stumbled slipping in the mud.' Her eyes were gleaming, cheeks flushed in triumph. 'Go on Kell, let me out, let me show you! Or are you still the pathetic, weak, moaning coward you always were?'
'Tell me of Kuradek.'
Sara laughed. 'What would you like to know? He controls Jalder. We have turned, between us, many thousands into vampires! There is little of the resistance left.'
'So they did resist you? That's good. Their spirits still live.'
'No! It is foolish! Kuradek is Master, he is incredibly powerful and he knows you, Kell, oh yes he knows you, he remembers you from Helltop and he has sworn to hunt you down, to change you into one of us! Imagine it, Kell, imagine how powerful you would be! Increased strength, speed, and you could never die!'
'You die,' snapped Kell. 'You die just like everybody else. All we need do is cut off your head, or ram a sword through your necrotic heart.'
Sara went quiet.
'You forget,' said Kell. 'I know your kind.'
'You hunted vachine,' sneered Sara. 'They are weak, spineless, mechanised with their pathetic ticking clockwork! They are an aberration of the pure; they are the weak, the diseased, the freaks.' She chuckled. 'The vachine are a corruption.'
'I hunted vachine,' said Kell, and met Sara's gaze. 'But I hunted your kind, too. Me. And Ilanna. Do not think I haven't killed true vampires. It was a long time ago, but I remember the taste like it was yesterday.'
'Impossible! Vampires were extinct until the Vampire Warlords returned!'
Kell shook his head. 'Oh no,' he said, eyes glittering. 'You are so wrong, with your little mind from little Falanor. You never did travel, did you Sara? Never saw the world and all its mysteries. Well I did. I saw enough to make any sane man crazy. And that's why I know… I know your Master, Kuradek, Kuradek the Unholy – if I kill him, if I remove his head, then I may save all those he has tainted with his evil.'
Sara remained silent, staring at him. Eventually, she said, 'How could you know that?'
'I do,' growled Kell. 'Because I have seen things you people could never comprehend. I have walked the dark magick paths to the Chaos Halls. Do you think the Vampire Warlords are the only creatures touched by evil? Sara. I have done… many, sobering things. I believe I am touched by darkness. But I am trying to be good. Trying so hard.'
'Well don't! Don't fight it! Come with me, come to Kuradek! He does not want you dead, Kell, he wants you as his General! He knows your power, he knows what you and he could do together! You could overthrow the other Vampire Warlords! You could rule the world! We could be together again… father. We could walk the roads again, father.'
Kell had lowered his head. Now his eyes lifted, and there were tears on his bearded cheeks.
'You would take me back?' he said, voice a husky low growl. 'After all that I did? To you and your mother?'
'Yes! We could be a family again.'
Kell stood, and turned his back to Sara. She stood, in her cage of rock and iron, and stepped forward, grasping the bars. 'Come with me, Kell. Come to Kuradek. He waits for you!'
Kell turned back. His knuckles were white around Ilanna. 'I'll go to him all right. I'll cut his puking head from his shoulders!'
'No, Kell, no! Wait!' but Kell was striding away, across the rocks, to the cell which held Jagor Mad.
Behind, in her cell, Sara sat cross-legged on the floor. She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply, and the feeling of Kuradek filled her, filled every muscle and every atom. She seemed to float, and she breathed deeply, and the world took on a surreal quality, a haze of witch-light, clouds rushing across the skies, dark ghosts walking the rocks beyond her cell like jagged, black cut-outs, holes in the raw core of the Chaos Halls.
'You did well,' hissed Kuradek.
'I failed you.'
'No. You gave him something to think about.'
'He will come for you.'
'Yes. And I will be waiting.'
'He will try and kill you.'
'Yes. But I am all-powerful. He will crumble. Like dust between my claws.'
'Are you sure?'
Hundreds of miles away, on his throne in the Blue Palace at Jalder, Kuradek opened his dark crimson eyes and smiled. 'Yes, my sweet,' he said, smoke oozing from his mouth, skin writhing with corrupt religious symbols that squirmed as if fighting to be free of his dark-smoke skin. 'They always do.'
