Still fires raged, flames crackling, and Grak couldn't tell where the snow ended and the ash began. The world was in chaos. A living nightmare madness. Grak watched the ring of vampires, their snarling faces, their blood-red eyes.
'What are they waiting for?' rumbled Dekkar.
'Beats me,' said Grak, sword before him, eyes lost to the horror . There was no way out of this. If Kell had killed Bhu Vanesh, then it would have been done a long time ago. If Kell had killed the Vampire Warlord, then his creatures would have turned to dust, to slime, to oil. But here they stood. The dawn had come.
Kell was dead, Grak knew it in his heart, in his bones, in his soul. Kell wasn't coming back.
'Shit,' he said, hawked, and spat.
'What are they waiting for?' snapped Vilias, words edged with pain. He had a long, ragged slash down his face, from one eye to his chin. He'd been moaning about how no woman would ever look at him again. Grak supposed it didn't really mattered any longer… soon, they would all be corrupt. Either that, or dead.
'Maybe they know they're outnumbered?' suggested Grak. 'They know they're beaten! After all, we're what? Three hundred? And they've…' his eyes scanned the rooftops, the roadways, the distant rubble, the edges of inferno. 'Three, four thousand bloodsucking scum? We can take 'em, eh lads? We'll give 'em a damn good kicking!' Chuckles ran up and down the ranks, and exhausted men, wounded men, hoisted their weapons and waited grimly for the end.
'Come on!' screamed Grak. 'Show us what you're made of! Fucking cowards! FUCKING VAMPIRE PLAGUE COWARDS! COME ON!'
'Hey.' Vilias nudged Grak in the ribs. 'Somebody's coming.'
'Who is it? Dake the Axeman?' He roared with laughter. 'Shall I show him my arse?'
'Better than that,' grinned Vilias. 'It's Kell.'
'No!'
'It is, I swear it!'
From the distance, and as the dawn broke like a soft ruptured egg, Kell strode. Beams of yellow winter sunlight traced lines over the horizon, and Kell was blocked for a moment by the huge edifice of the Warlord's Tower. Then he moved through the rubble, strode past corpses, past fallen shields and fallen men, and stopped before Grak with boots crunching. Eerily, the vampires had parted to let him through. Their snarling subsided. They stared at him.
Everything was focused on Kell.
On Kell, the Legend.
Kell hefted Ilanna, and Grak could see the old warrior had tears in his beard. He lifted Ilanna, and his mouth opened, and he looked out at the vampire horde.
When he spoke, his voice was soft. Gentle, almost. Like mist creeping over a battlefield of corpses.
'Time to go home,' he said, and each vampire lifted its head and smoke poured from its mouth, and flowed like lines of silver into Ilanna, into Kell's axe, in the Portal of the Chaos Halls. Kell stood, shuddering as each vampire was cleansed, each vampire purified. And now, as people, they fell to their hands and knees weeping in horror as they remembered what they had done.
It seemed to take an age.
One, by one, by one, the vampires' corruption was drawn into Ilanna. Their evil exorcised.
A cold winter wind blew over the slain, bringing ice, and making those watching shiver.
When it was over, Kell sank to the ground, rolling gently to his side and closing his eyes. Vilias moved tenderly to the old warrior, the old man, the old soldier. No longer did he look like Kell the Legend. Now, he just looked old and withdrawn and lost.
'Well?' snapped Grak, frowning.
Vilias looked up. 'Holy Mother! He's dead, Grak! Kell's dead!'
Kell stood before the Keepers of the Chaos Halls. He scowled and clutched Ilanna tight, and looked from one, to the next, to the next, and they surveyed him with eyes of silver, unspeaking, unmoving, uncaring.
Is this it, then? Is this where I die? Is this where the game ends? Is this my new eternity?
No. It was Ilanna. Her voice was honey in his brain, and she was weaving her dark magick once more. This is not punishment, Kell. This is reward. This is not where you die. This is where you choose to live!
Choose to live?
So there's a bloody choice?
Kell braced himself, staring up at the five Keepers. They exuded a lack of emotion. A neutrality. They were neither good, nor evil. They simply were. Kell scowled.
'Can I do something for you sorry-looking fuckers? Eh, lads? Or maybe you'd like a good kick to get you started?'
'You are to be congratulated,' said one of the Keepers. Its voice was low but musical, and without threat. 'Without your help, we would not have all the Vampire Warlords back in our custody.'
'What about Meshwar? He's in Vor…'
'He is with us, now,' said the Keeper. 'You are not the only creature with the power to open a portal to the Chaos Halls. Although, it would seem, you are the most… efficient.'
Kell considered this, then gave a single nod. Then he seemed to deflate. He remembered Nienna. Bitterness washed through him like a fast-flood of liquid cancer.
'Why am I here?'
'We have one last task for you.'
'And suppose I don't want to accept your task? Suppose I'm sick of these games? Suppose I'm just a bitter and lonely old man, who wants nothing more than to die?'
The Keeper moved close, and bent down until its face was a finger's breadth from Kell's face. Those silver eyes drilled into him and in those swirling silver depths Kell saw something impossible, something eternal, something truly godlike. The voice was a gentle breath across his face, and he inhaled the words, sucked them straight down into his soul… 'You are lost at the moment, Kell, lost to the sadness and for that I still grant you life for foolish words and foolish thoughts. But do not think to test us, for we are the Keepers and we hold the Key to All Life. The Vampire Warlords should never have broken free – and one day, there will a reckoning for that abomination. But still, in Gollothrim, the vampires roam, the spawn of Bhu Vanesh… you can go there, we will give you the tools to take it back. You can save thousands, Kell. Either that…' The Keeper pulled back, silver orbs still fixed on Kell who coughed, and dropped to one knee, choking as if on heavy woodsmoke. 'Either that, or you can stay here and be our guest for an eternity.'
The sky went dark, struck through with huge zig-zags of crimson. The falling corpses fell faster, and screams rent the sky, screams of pure anguish like nothing Kell had ever heard. Nor would want to hear again.
'There is always a reckoning,' said the Keeper. 'Nothing goes unseen. Nothing goes unpunished. Remember that, Kell, the Legend, when you finally seek our forgiveness.'
Kell nodded, but could not speak. The world tilted, the Chaos Halls spun away into a tiny black dot and Kell fell through light and opened his eyes, lying on his back, next to the fast-cooling corpse of Nienna.
Three horses picked their way across a pastel landscape of white, greys and subtle cold blues. The beasts entered a sprawling forest of pine, and it was half a day before they emerged again on the flanks of a hill, climbing, following old farmers' trails high into the hills east of the Gantarak Marshes. From here, the glittering, ancient sprawl of Vor could be spied far, far to the south, and Kell reined his mount and sat for a while, staring at the distant city; staring at the new home of the Ankarok.
Saark watched him for a while, then glanced at Myriam, who shrugged, pushing out her lower lip.
'You want to visit?' asked Saark, eventually.
'No.'
'Do you trust Skanda?'
'No.'
'He claims all the Ankarok want is that one, single city. He delivered Meshwar to the Vampire Warlords, turned the vampire slaves back into people, and set them gently outside the city gates. He did everything he promised. More. He gave them food, supplies, money. It's a small price to pay, I think, for saving so many lives.'
Kell said nothing, continuing to scowl. Eventually he coughed, rubbed his beard, then his weary eyes, and
