Kell’s Legend

FIFTEEN
Endgame

The cankers charged, howling, and the brave soldiers of Falanor marched in armoured squares to meet the attack head on. In ranks, they advanced across the plain, shields locked, a full division of 4800 men arranged in twelve battalions of four hundred, with six in the centre two battalions deep, and three battalion squares to either side of the main square, like horns, the intention being to sweep round and enclose the enemy on three sides.

As the two forces closed, so the soldiers let out war cries and increased their pace, and the cankers accelerated to crash into shields with terrifying force, snarling and biting and clawing, a thousand feral clockwork twisted deviants slamming the battalions with rage…for a moment there was deadlock, then the Falanor soldiers were forced back, their swords hammering out, hacking at heads and claws, at shoulders and bellies, but the cankers were resilient, awesomely tough, incredibly powerful, and their claws raked shields bending steel. With screams of metal, they leapt, fastening on heads and ripping them free of bodies and the armoured shield wall broke within only a few short minutes, panic sweeping through Falanor ranks like rampant wildfire…

Kell crouched beside Nienna, whose face was ashen, watching the carnage below. Terrakon and Lazaluth had rushed away to command their troops, now only Leanoric remained, eyes fixed on the battle, face ashen, nausea pounding him.

“Find a horse,” said Kell, softly, forcing Nienna to tear her gaze from the battle. He took her chin in his hand, made her look at him. “Steal one if you have to. Ride for Saark. You understand?”

“No, I can’t leave you…what will you do?”

“I must help Leanoric.”

“No, Kell! You’ll die!”

He smiled, a grim smile. “I have my Legend to uphold!” he said, and pushed Nienna away. “Now go! You hear me?” She shook her head. “Go!” he roared, and saw Myriam there beside her, and Myriam locked eyes with Kell and a silent exchange, an understanding, passed between them. Myriam placed a hand on Nienna’s shoulder, and nodded. Then they took off through the camp, towards the towering, fractured walls of Old Skulkra, and tethered horses beyond.

Kell strode to Leanoric. “Sire. It’s time we went into battle.” He lifted his axe and began to loosen his shoulder. He turned, and saw the main block of infantry being forced back yet again. The battalion horns had swung around to enclose the cankers, on Terrakon and Lazaluth’s command, and cankers were falling under sword blows…but they were slaughtering the soldiers of Falanor in their hundreds.

Below came the snarl and thud of canker carnage. Claws through flesh. Swords through muscle. Kell mounted his horse, and clicked his tongue. In silence, Leanoric followed and the two men rode down from the camp and onto the flat plain, hooves drumming the icy grassland as they both broke into a gallop and readied weapons, and the armoured ranks flowed past and Kell felt the thrill of adrenaline course his blood, and it was like the old times, like the best times and Ilanna spoke to him, her voice metallic and cool…

I can help you.

I can help you win this. No ties. No conditions.

Just let me in.

Kell flowed past the infantry, could see pale faces peering at him as he screamed an ancient war cry and in his calm internal monologue he said, “Do it, Ilanna” and he felt the surge of new power new blood-oil magick flood through him and his mind seemed to accelerate, to run in stop-motion, those around him slow and weak and pitiful flesh and meat and bone and he connected with Ilanna, connected with a force more ancient than feeble vachine clockwork deviation-Kell slammed into the cankers, his axe cleaving left and cutting a beast clean in half, and in the same sweep cutting right to remove a head, the blades thudded and sparkled with drops of blood as Kell’s mount pushed gamely on, the axe returning to complete a figure of eight, each blow crunching through bone and muscle and twisted clockwork, and the cankers fell beneath him, crushed before him, and he was laughing, face demonic and splattered with their blood, and a huge canker reared, a massive black-skinned twisted beast twice the height of a man and heavily muscled. Its first swipe broke the horse’s neck, and Kell’s mount went down and he leapt free, the huge canker rearing above him screaming and the whole battle seemed to pause, held in a timeless moment with thousands of eyes fixed on this crazy old man who’d ridden deep into canker ranks ahead of the retreating units of infantry and the canker screamed and howled and lunged and Kell’s axe glittered in a tiny black arc and cut the canker from skull to quivering groin in one massive blow that seemed to shake the battlefield. Thunder rumbled. The canker peeled in two parts and a roar went up from the Falanor men and their armoured squares heaved forward, with vigour renewed, swords rising and falling and cankers were cut down left and right, bludgeoned into the churned mud of the battlefield, arms and legs cut from torsos, heads cut from weeping clockwork necks. The main body of infantry found new hope in Kell, and they surged forward hacking and cutting, smashing blades into skulls and Kell roared from the centre of the battlefield, his axe slamming left and right with consummate ease, every single mighty blow killing with engineered precision, every single strike removing a canker from the battlefield and they converged on him, roaring and snarling, rearing above him and dwarfing him from sight and Kell laughed like a maniac, drenched in blood, his entire visage one of gory crimson with bits of torn clockwork in his hair and beard and he spun like a demon, Ilanna lashing out, cutting legs from bodies, and a pulse emanated from the axe and he held it above his head and the cankers, squealing and limping and blood-shod fell back for a moment, stumbling away in hurried leaps from this bloodied gore-strewn man, and a roar went up from the Falanor men and the cankers covered their ears which pissed blood and tiny mechanical units, whirring clockwork devices that seemed to be trying to get away from unheard noise and the Falanor soldiers charged, breaking ranks and hammering into the disabled cankers as blood pissed from ears and throats and eyes and they writhed in agony, and swords and axes smashed down without mercy. The rest of the cankers fled, stumbling back towards the waiting, silent Army of Iron, almost blind in their pain and panic and Kell stood in the midst of the final butchery, Ilanna in one hand, hair soaked with blood, his entire visage one of butcher in the midst of a murder frenzy, and when the killing was done a cheer went up and soldiers crowded around Kell, chanting his name, “Kell Kell Kell Kell KELL KELL KELL KELL!” and someone shouted, “The Legend, he lives!” and the chant changed, roaring across the battlefield to the silent, motionless albino ranks, “Legend Legend Legend Legend LEGEND LEGEND LEGEND LEGEND!” before the captains, command sergeants and division generals managed to restore order and the soldiers of Falanor reassembled in their units and ranks.

Kell strode back to Terrakon and Lazaluth. Terrakon had a nasty slash from his temple to his chin, his whole face sliced in half, but he was grinning. “That was incredible, man! I have never seen anything like it! You turned the entire tide of the battle!”

Kell grinned at him, face a savage demon mask. “Horse-shit, man! I did no such thing. I simply gave the cankers something nasty to think about; the infantry charged in and did the rest.”

“Such modesty should never be trusted.”

“Such bitterness should never be concealed.”

“You’re a vile, moaning goat, Kell.”

Kell rolled his shoulders. “That’s a nasty gash to your face, Kon. Might need a few stitches.” He grinned again.

“Fuck you, you old bastard.”

“Old? I’m ten years younger than you!”

“Ha, well it’s all about condition, Kell, and I look ten years younger than you.”

Around the two men soldiers were chuckling, but the sounds soon dissipated.

“Here come the infantry,” said Terrakon, humour dropping like a stone down a well. He switched his blade from one hand to the other, rolling his wrist to loosen it. “Damn arthritis to hell!”

“Now’s a good time to bring in those archers,” said Kell, prodding Lazaluth. “Go and tell the king.”

The albinos marched out, in perfect formation. Their black armour gleamed. It began to snow from towering iron-bruise clouds, and the battlefield became a slurry of blurred men. A pall of fear seemed to fall across the soldiers of Falanor; they realised they had lost hundreds due to slaughter at the claws of the cankers; they were now at the disadvantage. It would be a hard fight.

“Chins up, lads!” roared Kell, striding forward to the head of the centre battalions. They had reformed, most with shields, all grasping their short swords in powerful hands. These were the veterans, the skilled soldiers, the hardcore. Hard to kill, thought Kell with a grim smile, and he bared his teeth at the men.

“Who’s going to kill some bastard albinos with me?” he roared, and a noise went up from the Falanor men.

“WE!” screamed the soldiers, blood-lust rising, and slammed swords on shields as behind Kell the albino battalions spread out into a straight line. Kell turned, and laughed at their advancing ranks.

“BRING IT ON, YOU HORSE-FUCKING NORTHERNERS!” he roared, and behind him the Falanor men cheered and roared and banged their swords, as Kell moved back and slipped neatly into the front ranks at the centre, taking up his position alongside other hardy men. He looked left, then looked right, and grinned at the soldiers. “Let’s kill us some albino,” he said, as the enemy broke into a charge in perfectly formed squares, their boots pounding across churned mud. They did not carry shields, only short black swords, and each had white hair, many wearing it long and tied back. None wore helmets, only ancient black armour inscribed with swirling runes.

The snow increased, filling the battlefield with thick flurries. I hope them extra divisions arrive soon, thought Kell sourly to himself; the snow would be superb cover to hit the enemy from behind, to crush them between sea and mountains, hammer and anvil. But then, nothing in life was ever that easy, or convenient; was it?

The albinos charged in eerie silence, and Kell again felt fear washing through the ranks. This was no normal battle, and every man could sense a swirling essence of underlying magick; as if the very ground was cursed.

Distant drums slammed out a complicated beat. Kell tried to remember his old military training, but realised it would be useless. They would change the codes before any battle in order to confuse the enemy, and hopefully negate any information passed on by spies. But Kell realised what was going to happen; Leanoric had explained. They were going to fight, then retreat; draw the albino army back into the ruined city of Old Skulkra, fake a panicked break of ranks and charge through the ancient abandoned streets where nearly a thousand archers waited, hidden in high buildings and towers to rain down slaughter from above.

Kell smiled, dark eyes locked to the charging albinos.

It was a good plan. It could work. At first, it had been a plan nearly devastated by the unexpected cankers and their attack. The panicked breaking of ranks had very nearly been a reality; if that had happened too early, before archers took their positions, the battle would have been lost…

Kell could see the charging men, now, and picked out his first four targets. His butterfly blades would soon taste blood, and he licked his lips, adrenaline and…something else pulsing through his veins. It was Ilanna, like an old drug, a bad disease, her essence flowing through his veins and mingling in his brain and heart and his sister of the soul, his bloodbond axe strengthened him beyond mortality and he laughed out loud, at the savage irony, for he would suffer for this betrayal of his own code.

A roar went up from the Falanor men, but still the Army of Iron charged in silence. Kell could see their eyes now, could see their bared teeth, the jewelled rings they wore on pale-flesh fingers, the shine of their boots, the gleam of their dark swords and he tensed, ready for the awesome massive impact which came from any slam of charging armies…

The albinos suddenly stopped, to a man, and dropped to one knee. The charging ranks of soldiers, in their entirety and with perfect clockwork precision, halted. A surge of warning sluiced through Kell’s system, and he realised with a sudden fast-rising horror that it was a trick; they had no intention of infantry attack, it was a stalling tactic to allow…

The ice-smoke.

It poured from the Harvesters in the midst of the albino ranks, and within seconds flooded out towards the Falanor army. “Back!” screamed Kell, “Back!” but the battalions were too tightly packed, their lack of understanding a hindrance, and they began to stumble, to turn and retreat but ice-smoke poured over the men, slowing them instantly, making many fall to knees choking as lungs froze and Kell roared, unable to retreat, and surged forward alone cleaving into the albino ranks who remained, immobile, eyes fixed with glowing red hate on the soldiers of Falanor as Kell’s axe thumped left and right, scattering bodies and limbs and heads, and he screamed at the albino soldiers, screamed at the Harvesters but ice-smoke flowed and froze swords to hands, shields to arms, sent crackling ice-hair in shards to the ground, and men toppled over in agony, many dying, but most locked in a dark magick embrace…

Kell’s axe slammed left, embedding in a soldier’s eyes. He tugged it free, sent another head rolling, and saw the Harvesters converging on him. “Come on, you bastards,” he roared with the surge of Ilanna through his veins and he realised, realised that Ilanna kept him pure from the dark magick, as she had done all those days ago during the attack on Jalder, and he revelled in the freedom and whirled, beard-flecked with crimson, blood-soaked snow, and stared in horror at the falling ranks of Falanor men. The ice-smoke had spread, through the main division and the reserves before the walls of Old Skulkra. Even as he watched, tendrils crept like oiled tentacles into the city. And Kell thought about Nienna. And his face curled into a snarl. He turned back as the Harvesters, heads tilted to one side, surrounded him and he blinked, saw General Graal marching towards him to smile, a knowing smile, as his eyes locked to Kell.

Kell placed the blades of his axe on the ground, surrounded by dismembered corpses, and leant on the haft, his dark eyes fixing on Graal. Graal stopped, and smiled a narrow smile without humour.

“We should stop meeting like this, Kell.”

Kell laughed, a brittle hollow sound. “Well well, Graal the Coward, Graal the Whoremaster, using his petty little magick to win the day. It’s nice to see some things will never change.”

“This is a means to an end,” said Graal, eyes locked.

“Remember what I said to you, laddie? Back in Jalder?” Graal said nothing, but his eyes glittered. “I told you to remember my name, because I was going to carve it on your arse. Well, it seems now’s a good time-”

He leapt into action so fast he was a blur and Graal stumbled back as Harvesters closed in, and a blast of concentrated ice-smoke smashed Kell and he was blinded in an instant and chill magick soaked his flesh and heart and bones and everything went bright white and he was stunned and falling, and he fell down an amazing sparkling white tunnel which seemed to go on…

Forever.

Nienna urged the horse on, hooves galloping across snow, steam rising from the beast’s flanks as it laboured uphill towards the woods where Saark, Styx and Jex waited. Myriam was close behind, her own horse lathered with sweat, and the two women flashed through early morning mist as snow swirled about them, obscuring the world.

Nienna reined her horse into a canter as she neared the woods, then stopped, stooping to stare under the trees. She could see nothing. “Saark?” she hissed, then louder, “Saark?”

A little way up, Styx emerged, smiled and waved. Nienna cantered over to him and dismounted, her eyes never leaving the mark of the Blacklipper, his stained dark lips.

“Where’s Saark?”

“Further in the woods. We’ve set up camp. Come on, before enemy scouts see you.”

Myriam dismounted behind, and they led their horses into the gloom of the Silver Fir forest. Pigeons cooed in the distance, then all was silent, their footfalls muffled by fallen pine needles.

“Up here.” Styx led them along an old deer trail, and they emerged in a small clearing where an ancient, fallen pine acted as a natural bench. Jex was cooking stew over a small fire, and Nienna looked around.

“Where is he?”

The blow slammed the back of Nienna’s head, and she felt her face pushed into needles and loam, and there was no pain. She remembered scents, pine resin, soil, old mud and woodland mould. When she blinked, groggy, and came back into a world of gloomy consciousness, she realised she was tied, her back leant against the fallen pine. She groaned.

“We have a live one,” grinned Styx, crouching before her. Nienna spat in his face, and his grin fell, his hand lifting to strike her.

“Enough,” snapped Myriam, voice harsh. “Go and help Jex pack the horses.” Styx departed in silence, and Nienna ran her tongue around a mouth more stale than woodland debris.

“Why?” said Nienna, eventually, looking up at Myriam.

“You are my best bartering tool. When Kell has finished playing battleground hero, he will come looking for you. By taking you north, I guarantee he will follow.”

“Is it not enough to poison us?” snapped Nienna, eyes narrowed and full of hate.

“It is not enough,” said Myriam, gaunt face hollow, eyes hard.

Nienna’s gaze transferred to Saark, seated, slumped forward, face heavily beaten. He lifted himself up a little, drool and blood spilling from his mouth, and smiled at her through the massive swellings on his face. One eye was swollen shut, and blood glistened in his dark curls. His hands were tied behind his back, but even as he shifted he winced, in great pain.

“Saark, what happened to you?”

“Bastards jumped me.” He grinned at her, though it looked wrong through his battered features. “Hey, Nienna, fancy a kiss?”

She snorted a laugh, then shook her head. “How can you joke, Saark?”

“It’s either that or let them break me.” His eyes went serious. “And I’d rather die. Or at least, rather die than be ugly.” He glanced up at Myriam, and winked at her with his one good eye. “Like this distorted bitch.”

Myriam said nothing, and Styx and Jex returned with their horses. Styx grabbed Nienna roughly, and she kicked and struggled. He punched her, hard, in the face and she went down on her knees gasping, blinded. He dragged her back up again. “We can do this awake, or unconscious. I know which one I’d rather choose,” growled the Blacklipper.

Nienna was helped into the saddle, and Styx mounted behind her. His hands rested on her hips, and he grinned, leaning close to her ear. “This is intimate, my sweet. The first of many adventures between us, I think.”

“You wave your maggot near me, and I’ll bite it off,” she snarled.

Styx’s grin widened, and he squeezed her flesh with strong fingers. “Like I said. We can do this awake, or unconscious.”

Myriam crossed to Saark, and crouched before him. “Look at me.”

“I’d rather not. The cancer has eaten your face. There’s nothing the vachine can do for you now, my love.”

“Bastard! Listen, and listen good. We’re taking Nienna north, to the Cailleach Pass. The poison will take three weeks to kill Kell. The ride is around fifteen days. He can meet us by the Cailleach Pass northwest of Jalder; there, I have a partial antidote that will extend his-and Nienna’s-lives. Enough to get us through the mountains at least. You understand all this?”

“I understand, bitch.”

“Good.” She smiled with tombstone teeth. “And here’s a little present to remember me by.” She pulled free a dagger, and slammed it between Saark’s ribs. He grunted, feeling warm blood spread from the embedded blade, and as Myriam pulled it free he gasped, toppling onto his side where he lay, winded, as if struck by a sledge hammer. “Nothing fatal, I assure you. Unless you choose not to move your arse, and lie there like a stuck pig. It’ll be a while before you use that pretty sword again, dandy man; Sword-Cham-pion.” She knelt and cut Saark’s bonds, then turned and leapt with agility into her horse’s saddle.

The group wheeled, and galloped from the forest clearing.

Silence fell like ash.

Saark lay, panting, bleeding. There was no pain, and that scared him. Then the lights went out.

King Leanoric knelt in the mud, heavily chained. Beside him were his Division Generals and various captains who hadn’t died in either the battle, or from the savage effects of the invasive ice-smoke. Despair slammed through Leanoric, and he looked up, tears in his eyes, across the battlefield of the frozen, the ranks of the dead. His army had been annihilated, as if they were stalks of wheat under the scythes of bad men.

Distantly, the remaining cankers growled and snarled, but the albinos were curiously silent despite their easy victory. There were no battle songs, no drunken revelry; they went about building their camp in total silence, like androgynous workers; like insects.

Tears rolled down Leanoric’s cheeks. He had failed, unless his divisions further north surprised Graal’s Army of Iron and destroyed them in the night; they were commanded by Retger and Strauz, two wily old Division Generals, strategic experts, and Strauz had never lost a battle. Leanoric’s heart lifted a little. If their scouts realised what had happened, that the king’s men had been routed, frozen, and slaughtered like cattle…

Maybe then he would see his sweet Alloria again.

His tears returned, and he cast away feelings of shame. There was nothing wrong with a man crying. He was on the brink of losing his wife, his realm, his army, his people. How then did simple tears pale into comparison when so much was at stake?

King Leanoric needed a miracle.

Instead, he got General Graal.

Graal walked through the camp and stopped before the group of men. He drew a short black sword, gazed lovingly at the ornate rune-worked blade for a moment, then cut the head from Terrakon’s shoulders. The old Division General’s head lay there on frozen mud, grey whiskers tainted by droplets of blood, and Leanoric looked up with hate in his eyes. “My people will kill you,” he snarled. “That’s a promise.”

“Really?” said Graal, almost idly, wandering over to Lazaluth and throwing Leanoric a cold, narrow-lipped smile. He reached up, ran a hand through his white hair, then fixed his eyes on the king. “So often I hear these threats, from the Blacklippers I slaughter, from the smugglers of Dog Gemdog gems, from the kings of conquered peoples.”

His sword lashed out, and Lazaluth’s head rolled to the mud, a look of shock on the death-impact expression. The body slumped down, blood pumping sluggishly from chilled neck arteries, and Leanoric watched with fury and cold detachment and he knew, he realised, he would be next but at least death would be swift…but hell, it wasn’t about death, it was about his people, and their impending slavery. And it was a bad thing to die, knowing you had utterly failed.

Leanoric prayed then. He prayed for a miracle. For surely only a god could stop General Graal?

Graal moved to him, and hunkered down, slamming the black blade into the frozen mud. “How does it feel?” he asked, voice almost nonchalant. “Your army is destroyed, your queen sent north to my Engineers, your people about to become…” he laughed, a tinkling of wind chimes, “our supper.”

“You will burn in Hell,” said Leanoric, voice a flatline. He tried to estimate how long it would be before his returning battalions marched over the hill; for example, now would be a most opportune moment. A surprise attack? Rescued at the final second? Just like in a bard’s tale.

Graal watched the king’s eyes. Finally, their gazes locked.

“You are thinking of your army, your divisions, your battalions, your cavalry and archers who at this very moment march south, towards this very location in order to hook up with your army and smash the enemy invaders.”

Leanoric said nothing.

Graal stood, and stretched his back. He glanced down at King Leanoric, as one would a naughty child. “They are dead, Leanoric. They are all dead. Frozen by the Harvesters blood-oil magick; slaughtered and sucked dry as they knelt. You have no army left, King Leanoric. Face facts. You are a conquered, and an enslaved race.”

“No!” screamed Leanoric, surging to his feet despite the weight of chains and around him unseen albino soldiers in the mist drew swords as one, the hiss of metal on oiled scabbard, but Graal lifted one hand, smiled, then stepped in close, lifting Leanoric from his feet, and Leanoric kicked and saw a mad light in the General’s eyes and he dragged Leanoric into an embrace and fangs ejected with a crunch and he bit down deep, pushing his fangs into Leanoric’s neck, into his flesh, feeling the skin part, the muscle tear, rooting out that precious pump of blood, injecting the meat the vein the artery, closing his eyes as he sucked, and drained, and drew in the King’s royal blood.

Leanoric screamed, and kicked, and fought but Graal was strong, so much stronger than he looked; chains jangled and Graal held Leanoric almost horizontal, mouth fastened over his neck, eyes closed in a final revelation; a final gratification.

Graal grunted, and allowed a limp and bloodied Leanoric to topple to the soil. Blood streaked his mouth and armour, and he lifted his open fangs to the sky, to the mist, to the magick, and he exhaled a soft howl which rose on high through clouds and spread out across the Valantrium Moor beyond Old Skulkra, across the Great North Road, across Vorgeth Forest and that howl said, This country is mine, that howl said, These people are mine, that guttural primal noise from a creature older than Falanor itself said, This world is mine.

Saark awoke. He was terribly cold.

He stared up at towering Silver Firs with his one good eye, and tried to remember what had happened in the world, tried to focus on recent events. Then reality and events flooded in and cracked him on the jaw, and he blinked rapidly, and his hand dropped to his ribs-and came away sticky.

“Bastards.”

With a grunt, he levered himself up. He was incredibly thirsty. The world swayed, as if he was drunk, his brain caught in a grasp of vertigo. Saark crawled to his knees, and saw his horse, the tall chestnut gelding, still tied where he’d left him. Saark crawled slowly to the gelding, feeling fresh blood pump from the dagger wound and flow down his flank, soaking into his groin. It was warm, and wet, and frightening.

“Hey, boy, how the hell are you?” Saark use the stirrups to lever himself up, and grasping the saddle, he pulled himself to his feet with gritted teeth. Pain washed over him, and he yelped, dizziness swamping him, and he nearly toppled back.

“No,” he said, and the gelding turned a little, nuzzling at his hand. “No oats today, boy.” Saark struggled with the straps of his saddlebags, his fumbling fingers refusing to work properly, and finally he found his canteen and drank, he drank greedily, water soaking his moustache and flowing down his battered chin. He winced. He face felt like a sack of shit. He probed tenderly at his split lip, cracked nose, cracked cheekbone, swollen eye. He shook his head. When I catch up with them, he thought. When I catch up with them…

Saark laughed, then. Ridiculous! When he caught them? Gods, he could hardly stand.

He stood for a while holding the saddle, swaying, watching the falling snow, listening to the rustle of firs. The air, the world outside, seemed muffled, gloomy, a perpetual dawn or dusk.

Focus. Find Kell. Rescue Nienna. Kill bad people.

He smiled, grabbed the pommel of the saddle, and with a grunt heaved himself up on the third attempt. He slouched forward, and realised he hadn’t untethered the gelding. He muttered, drew his rapier from behind the saddle, and slashed at the rope, missing. He blinked. He slashed down again, and the rope parted.

“Come on, boy.” He clicked his tongue, turned the horse, and set off at a gentle canter through the trees.

The whole world spun around him, and he felt sick. He was rocking, an unwilling passenger on a galleon in a storm. His felt as if his brain was spinning around inside his skull, and he slowed the horse to a walk, took in deep breaths, but it did not help. His mouth was dry again. Pain came in waves.

After what seemed an eternity of effort, Saark reached the edge of the woodland. He gazed out, over grass now effectively blanketed by snow. Slowly, he rode through the gloom, across several fields and to the top of the nearest hill. He stared out across a decimated battlefield. His eyes searched, and all he could see was the black armour of the Army of Iron.

Cursing, Saark kicked the horse into a canter and removed himself from the skyline. He dismounted, leaning against the horse for support, his mind spinning. What, was the battle over already? But then, how long had he lain unconscious? The Army of Iron had won?

Holy mother of the gods, he thought, and drew his rapier.

That would mean scouts, patrols-and where was Kell? Had he been captured? Worse. Was he dead?

Saark turned his horse and slapped the gelding’s rump; with a whinny, he trotted off down the hill and Saark crawled back to the top on his belly, leaving a smear of blood on the snow, but thankful at least that from this position the world wasn’t rolling, his eyes spinning, the ground lurching as if he was drunk on a bottle of thirty year-old whisky. Saark peered out over the enemy camp, spread out now before the battered city walls of Old Skulkra. To Saark’s right, the ancient deserted city spread away as far as the eye could see, with crumbling towers, leaning spires, and many buildings having crumbled to the ground after…Saark smiled, sardonically. After the troubles. He fixed his gaze on what was, effectively, a merging of two war camps. The corpses of Falanor’s soldiers had been laid out in neat lines away from the new camp and, with a bitter, grim, experienced eye, Saark looked along row after row after row of bodies.

What are they doing? he thought, idly. Why aren’t they burning the bodies? Or burying them? What are they waiting for? Why risk disease and vermin? The image sat uneasy with Saark, and he changed tactic, moving his gaze back to the camp. If Kell was alive, and with a sinking feeling Saark realised it was improbable, then he was down there.

Saark scanned the tents, and eventually his gaze was drawn to a group of men, mist curling between them. They were a group of albino soldiers with swords unsheathed, and Saark squinted, trying to make out detail through the haze of distance, gloom and patches of mist. There came some violent activity, and Saark watched a man picked up kicking, struggling, then dropped back to the frozen mud. Saark’s mouth formed a narrow line. He recognised Graal, more by his arrogant stance than armour or looks. There was something about the way the general moved; an ancient agility; an age-old arrogance, deeper than royalty, as if the world and all its wonders should move aside when he approached.

Saark watched Graal walk away from the small hill, walking down towards…Saark’s breath caught in his throat. There were cages. Lots of cages. Cankers. Shit. Saark’s good eye moved left, and he saw a huge pile of canker bodies-a huge pile. His heart swelled in pride. At least we got some of the fuckers, he thought bitterly. He tried to spot Graal again, but the general had disappeared in the maze of cages and tents. Where had he gone? Damn. Saark searched, methodically, up and down the rows where cankers snarled and hissed and slept; eventually, he caught sight of Graal. The general was observing…a man. A man, in a cage. Saark grinned. It had to be! Who else needed caging like a canker? There was only one grumpy sour old goat he could think of. Then Saark’s heart sank. What else had they done to Kell? Was he tortured? Maimed? Dismembered? Saark knew all too well, and from first-hand experience, the horrors of battle; the insanity of war.

At least he is alive, thought Saark.

He lay back. Closed his eyes against the spinning world, although even then the feeling did not leave him. He moved a little down the hill, then searched in his pockets, finding his tiny medical kit, and as he waited the long, long hours until nightfall, he busied himself with a tiny brass needle and a length of thread made from pig-gut. He sewed himself back together again. And afterwards, after vomiting, he slept.

Kell came back into a world of consciousness slowly, as if swimming through a sea of black honey. He was lying on a metal floor, and a cold wind caressed him. He was deeply cold, and his eyes opened, staring at the old pitted metal, at the floor, and at the mud beyond streaked with swirls of snow. He coughed, and placed both hands beneath him, heaving himself up, then slumping back, head spinning, senses reeling. And he felt…loss. The loss of Ilanna. The loss of his bloodbond axe.

Kell flexed his fingers, and gazed around. He was in a cage with thick metal bars, and outside, all around him, were similar cages containing twisted, desecrated cankers. Most slept, but a few sat back on their haunches, evil yellow eyes watching him, their hearts ticking unevenly with bent clockwork.

Kell rolled his shoulders, then crawled to his knees and to the corner of the cage, peering out. He was back in Leanoric’s camp, only now there were no soldiers of Falanor to be seen; only albino guards, eyes watchful, hands on sword-hilts. Kell frowned, and searched, and realised that the two camps had been made to blend, just like a canker and its clockwork. The Army of Iron had usurped the Falanor camp.

Darkness had fallen, and Kell realised he must have been out of the game for at least a day. He peered out from behind his bars, could just make out the edges of Old Skulkra, with her toothed domes and crumbling walls. Beyond lay Valantrium Moor, and a cold wind blew down from high moorland passes carrying a fresh promise of snow.

Kell shivered. What now? He was a prisoner. Caged, like the barely controllable cankers around him. “Hey?” growled Kell to the nearest canker. “Can you hear me?” The beast gave no response, just stared with the baleful eyes of a lion. “Do you realise you have a face like a horse’s arse?” he said. The canker blinked, and its long tongue protruded, licking at lips pulled back over half its head. Inside, tiny gears made click click click noises. Kell shivered again, and this time it was nothing to do with the cold.

“Kell.” The voice was low, barely above a whisper. Kell squinted into the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Saark. Wait there.”

“I’m not going anywhere, laddie.”

There came several grunting sounds, and a squeal of rusted metal. The side of the cage opened, and Saark, skin pale, sweat on his brow, leant against the opened door.

Kell strode out, stood with his hands on his hips, looking around, then turned to Saark. “I thought you would have come sooner.”

Saark gave a nasty grin. “A ‘thank you’ would have sufficed.”

“Thank you. I thought you would have come sooner. And by the way, you look like a horse trampled your face.”

“I ran into a bit of trouble, with Myriam and her friends.”

Kell’s brows darkened; his eyes dropped to the bloodstains on Saark’s clothing. He softened. “Are you injured?”

“Myriam stabbed me.”

“She had Nienna with her.”

“She still does. I’m sorry, Kell. She’s taken Nienna north, to the Black Pike Mountains. She said to tell you she will wait at the Cailleach Pass. She knows you will come. I’m sorry, Kell; I could do nothing.”

The huge warrior remained silent, but rolled his neck and shoulders. His hand leapt to where his Svian was sheathed; to find the weapon gone. “Bastards,” he muttered, looked around, then turned and started off between the cages.

“Wait,” said Saark, hobbling after him. “You’re going the wrong way. We can head out through Old Skulkra; I think even the albinos won’t travel there. It’s still a poisoned hellhole; stinks like a pig’s entrails.”

“I’m going to find Graal.”

“What?” snapped Saark. He grabbed Kell, stopping him. “What are you talking about, man?” he hissed. “We’re surrounded by ten thousand bloody soldiers! You want to march in there and kill him?”

“I don’t want to kill him,” snapped Kell, eyes glittering. “I want Ilanna.”

Saark gave a brittle laugh. “We can buy you another axe, old man,” he said.

“She’s…not just an axe. She is my bloodbond. I cannot leave her. It is hard to explain.”

“You’re damn right it’s hard to explain. You’d risk your life now? We can escape, Kell. We can go after Nienna.”

Kell paused, then, his back to Saark. When his words came, they were low, tainted by uncertainty. “No. I must have Ilanna; then I find Nienna. Then I kill Myriam and her twisted scum-bastard friends.”

“You’re insane,” said Saark.

“Maybe. You wait here if you like. I’ll be back.”

“No.” Saark caught him up, his rapier glittering in the darkness. “I may be stuck like a pig, but I can still fight. And if we split up now, we’re sure to be caught and tortured. Damn you and your stupid fool quest!”

“Be quiet.”

They eased through the nightshade.

It watched them. It crept low along the ground, and watched them. When they looked towards it, it hid its face, in shame, great tears rolling down its tortured cheeks as it hunkered to the ground, and its body shook in spasms of grief. Then they were gone, and it rose again, jaws crunching, and paced them through the army of tents…

Only once did Kell meet two albino guards, and the old man moved so fast they didn’t see him coming. He broke a jaw, then a neck, then knelt on the first fallen guard, took his face between great paws, and wrenched the guard’s head sideways with a sickening crunch. Kell stood, took one of the albino’s short black swords, and looked over at Saark.

“Help me hide the bodies.”

Saark nodded, and realised Kell danced along a line of brittle madness. He had changed. Something had changed inside the old warrior. He had…hardened. Become far more savage, more brutal; infinitely merciless.

They eased along through black tents, past the glowing embers of fires, and Kell pointed. It had been Leanoric’s tent, in which Kell had stood only a few short hours before. Now, Kell knew, Graal’s arrogance would make him take residence there. It was something about generals Kell had learned in his early days as a soldier. Most thought they were gods.

Kell stopped, and held up a blood-encrusted hand. Saark paused, crouched, glancing behind him. Slowly, Kell eased into the tent and was gone. Saark felt goose-bumps crawl up and down his arms and neck and went to follow Kell into the tent but froze. He glanced back again, and as if through ice-smoke General Graal materialised. Behind him marched a squad of albino soldiers, heavily armed and armoured, this time wearing black helmets decorated with swirling runes. Graal stopped, and smiled at Saark, and a chill fear ran through the dandy’s heart like a splinter.

“Kell?” he whispered. Then, louder, eyes never leaving Graal, “Kell!”

“What is it?” snapped Kell, emerging, and looking at Graal with glittering eyes. “Oh, it’s you, laddie.”

“Looking for this?” said Graal, lifting Ilanna so moonlight shimmered from her black butterfly blades.

“Give her to me.”

Graal rammed the axe into the ground. Behind him, the albino soldiers drew their blades. “Tell me how to make her mine, and you will live. Tell me how to talk with the bloodbond.”

“No,” snapped Kell.

Graal stepped forward, head lowered for a moment, then glanced up at Kell, blue eyes glittering. “I will grow unhappy,” he said, voice low.

“I have been pondering a strange puzzle for some time,” said Kell, placing his hands on his hips and meeting Graal’s gaze. “How is it, lad, that you have the face and skin and hair of these albino bastards around you…and yet your eyes are blue?” Kell scratched at his whiskers. “I see you have the fangs of the vachine, and yet the vachine are tall, most dark haired, not like these effeminate soldiers behind you. What are you, Graal? Some kind of half-breed?”

“On the contrary,” said Graal, taking another step closer. His eyes had gone hard, the mocking humour dropped from his face, and Saark realised Kell had touched some deep nerve with his words. “I am pureblood,” said Graal. “I am Engineer. I am Watchmaker. But more than this-” He leapt, arms smashing down, but Kell moved fast and blocked the blow, taking a step back. “I am one of the first vachine; the three from which all others stem.”

Kell grinned. “I thought I could smell something rotten.”

Graal snarled, and lashed out again, but Kell ducked the blow, moving inhumanly fast, and delivered a right hook that shook Graal. The general whirled, rolling with the blow, taking Kell’s arm and slamming him over to smash the ground. Kell rolled, as Graal’s boots hit the frozen earth where his face had been. Kell rose into a crouch and launched himself, grappling Graal around the waist and powering him to the soil. Atop Graal, Kell slammed his fists down with power, speed, accuracy, three blows, four five six seven, his knuckles lacerated and bleeding and Graal twisted, suddenly, throwing Kell to the ground where he grunted, and came up. They leapt at one another with a crunch, and suddenly locked, heaving, a match for one another in strength, heads clashing, and Saark who had been eyeing the five albino soldiers uneasily saw long fangs eject from Graal’s mouth and screamed, “Kell, his teeth!” and Kell twisted, following Graal’s head with a mighty blow that sent Graal reeling to the ground. Kell stood, chest heaving, blood on his face and his fists.

Graal climbed to his feet and stood, and smiled through his blood. “Your strength is prodigious,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Too prodigious. Nothing human can stand before me; and yet you have done so.”

“I’ve had lots of practise,” said Kell, fists clenching, head lowering. “Once, I worked in the Black Pike Mountains. I was part of a squad sent there by King Searlan to hunt down the vachine; to kill your kind. We did well. We were there for four years…four long, bitter, hard years…it was hard learning, Graal, but we learnt well. I think, even now, I am referred to as Legend by your perverse kind.”

“You!” snarled Graal, eyes widening. “The Vachine Hunter! It cannot be! He was slaughtered in the Fires of Karrakesh!”

“It is I,” said Kell, “and that is why you could never speak with my bloodbond axe, my Ilanna…for she is anathema to your kind; she is poison to your blood: she is the sworn vachine nemesis.”

There came a snarl, high-pitched and terrible, and something cannoned from the darkness, hitting Graal in a flurry of slashing claws and frothing fangs. It was big, a cross between human and lion, obviously a canker and yet twisted strangely, different from the other cankers under Graal’s command. The head was long and narrow, and wrapped around with hundreds of strands of fine golden wire so that only glimpses of eyes and nose and mouth could be seen. Slashes covered the tufted, half-furred muscular body, but again muscles, biceps and thighs and abdomen were all wound about with tight golden wire, and sections of clockwork could be seen outside the flesh, half embedded, clicking and whirring furiously, as if this body, this canker, was having some kind of furious internal battle with the very machinery which now, undoubtedly, kept it alive…

They fought in the gloom of the usurped camp, Graal and this twisted canker nightmare, a flurry of insane blows, writhing and wrestling and twisting in the mud, thumps echoing out, claws and teeth slashing. Graal had exposed his full vachine toolset; was biting and rending, face lost in a mask of raw primal savagery that had nothing to do with the human. They spun and punched and slashed in the mud, both opening huge wounds down the other’s flanks, sparks flying from crumpled clockwork, grunting and growling and the canker’s fist punched Graal’s face, slamming his head back into the mud and the canker glanced up, eyes masked by the wires circling its head but they fixed, fixed on Saark with recognition, then on Kell, and the canker seemed to smile, a lop-sided stringing of tattered lips and saliva and blood-oil drool…

Saark gasped. “Elias?” he hissed, in disbelief.

“Go-now,” forced the canker between corrupted flesh, and Graal’s hands grasped Elias’s arm, twisted savagely with a popping of tendons and the canker was flung to one side, where it rolled fast and reversed the trajectory with a savage snarl, leaping on Graal’s back and burying him and slamming the general into the mud.

Kell walked to his axe, Ilanna, and took her in his great hands. His head came up, eyeing the albino soldiers, who stood uncertainly, swords drawn. He attacked in a blur, each strike cutting bodies in half, and stood back with a grunt, covered in fresh gore, bits of intestines, slivers of heart, chunks of albino bone, to stare bitterly at the ten chunks of corpse.

Saark grabbed his arm. His voice was low. ‘We have to move! Now, soldier!’ Saark pointed. More enemy were gathering down in the main camp. They were strapping on swords and armour. Kell nodded, and then started to run with Saark beside him.

Saark suddenly stopped. Turned. He wanted to thank the twisted, corrupted shell of Elias; thank him for their lives. But the battle was a savagery of blows and scattered flesh.

They ran.

Through tents and paddocks of horses. Saark motioned, and they unlatched a gate, grabbing two tall chestnut geldings and leaping across them bareback. They kicked heels, and grabbing manes trotted from the paddock, then galloped through the rest of the camp towards the teetering walls of Old Skulkra…which loomed before them, vast, ancient, foreboding.

Old Skulkra was haunted, it was said. One of the oldest cities in Falanor, it had been built over a thousand years before, a majestic and towering series of vast architectural wonders, immense towers and bridges, spires and temples, domes and parapets, many in black marble shipped from the far east over treacherous marshes. It had been a fortified city, with towering walls easily defendable against enemies, each wall forty feet thick. It had vast engine-houses and factories, once home to massive machines which, scholars claimed, were able to carry out complex tasks but were now huge, silent, rusted iron hulks full of evil black oil and arms and pistons and levers that would never move again. Now, the city was century-deserted, its secrets lost in time, its reputation harsh enough to keep any but the most fearless of adventurers away. It was said the city carried plague close to its heart, and that to walk there killed a man within days. It was said ghosts drifted through the mist-filled streets, and that dark blood-oil creatures lived in the abandoned machinery, awaiting fresh prey.

Kell and Saark had little option. Either ride through a camp of ten thousand soldiers intent on their annihilation; or brave the deserted streets of Old Skulkra. It was hardly a choice.

They passed the forty-foot defensive walls, corners and carved pillars crumbling under the ravages of time. Huge green and grey stains ran down what had once been elegantly carved pillars. Despite their flight, Saark looked around in wonder. “By the gods, this place is huge.”

“And dangerous,” growled Kell.

“You’ve been here before?”

“Not by choice,” said Kell, and left it at that.

They swept down a wide central avenue, lined by blackened, twisted trees, arms skeletal and vast. Beyond were enormous palaces and huge temples, every wall cracked and jigged and displaced. Even the flagstones were cracked and buckled, as if the city of Old Skulkra had been victim of violent earth upheavals and storms.

The horses’ hooves rang on black steel cobbles. The world seemed to drift down into silence. Mist coagulated on street corners. Saark shivered, and turned to look back at the broken gates through which they’d entered. The mist made the vision hazy, obscure. But he could have sworn he saw at least a hundred albino soldiers, clustering there, swords drawn but…refusing to step past the threshold.

They’re frightened, he thought.

Or they know something we don’t.

“They won’t follow us here,” said Saark, and his voice rang out, echoing around the ancient, damp place. It echoed back from crumbling buildings, from towers once majestic, now decayed.

“Good,” snapped Kell. “Listen. If we can get through the city, we can head northeast, up through Stone Lion Woods. Then we can follow the Selenau River up to Jalder, then further up towards the Black Pike Mountains…”

“She’s safe,” said Saark, staring at Kell. “They won’t harm her. Myriam has too much to lose by angering you further. She knows Nienna is the only bartering tool she has.”

Kell nodded, but his eyes were dark, hooded, brooding. He could feel the sluggish pulse of poison in his system, running alongside the bloodbond of Ilanna. It was a curious feeling, and even now made his head clouded, his thoughts unclear. Weakness swept over him. Kell gritted his teeth, and pushed on.

They rode for a half hour at speed, the horses nervous, ears laid back against skulls, eyes rolling. It took great horsemanship to calm them; especially without reins.

And then, they heard the growls.

Kell cursed.

Saark frowned. “What is it?”

“The bastards wouldn’t come in on their own. Oh no.”

“So what is it?” urged Saark.

“The cankers. They’ve unleashed the cankers.”

Saark paled, and he allowed a breath to ease from his panicked, pain-wracked frame. “That’s not good, my friend,” he said, finally.

Kell urged his horse on, and they galloped down wide streets, angling north and east. The mist thickened, and the streets became more narrow, more industrial. The buildings changed to factories and stone tower blocks, vast and cold, all windows gone, all doors rotted and vanished an age past. The horses became increasingly agitated, and the occasional growls and snarls of pursuing cankers grew louder, echoing, more pronounced.

“We’re not going to make it,” said Saark, eyes wide, his tension building.

“Shut up.”

They slowed the horses, which were verging on the uncontrollable, until Kell’s mount reared, whinnying in terror, and threw him. He landed with a thud, rolling on steel cobbles, and came up with his axe in huge hands, eyes glowering, but there was nothing there. Darkness seemed to creep in. Mist swirled. The horse galloped off, and was lost in shadows.

There came a distant slunch, a whinny of agony; then silence.

Kell spun around, looking up at the towering stone walls surrounding him. It was cold. His breath streamed. Icicles mixed with the old blood of battle frozen in his beard.

“Get up behind me,” said Saark, reaching forward to take Kell’s arm. But his own horse reared at that moment, and he somersaulted backwards from the creature, landing in a crouch, rapier drawn, face white with pain. The horse bolted, was gone in seconds between the towering walls of ancient stone.

“Neat trick,” growled Kell, rubbing at his own bruised elbow and shoulder.

“I’ll show you sometime,” Saark grimaced.

The sounds of pursuing cankers grew louder.

“This is bad,” said Saark, battered face full of fear, eyes haunted.

“We need somewhere to defend. A stairwell, somewhere narrow.” Kell pointed with Ilanna. “There. That tower block.”

The edifice was huge, the walls jigged and displaced, full of cracks and mis-aligned stones. A cold wind howled through the block, bringing with it a sour, sulphuric stench.

“I’m not going in there,” said Saark.

“Well die out here, then,” snapped Kell and started forward.

The cankers rounded a corner. There were a hundred of them, snarling, slashing at one another with claws, and they came in a horde down the narrow street, pushing and jostling, fighting to be first to feed on fresh, sweet meat. Kell ran for the tower, beneath an empty doorway and through a sweeping entrance hall littered with debris, old fires, stones and twisted sections of iron rusted out of shape and purpose; he stopped, looking hurriedly about. “There,” he snapped. Saark was close behind him. Too close.

“We’re going to die,” said Saark, ever the voice of doom.

“Shut up, laddie, or I’ll kill you myself.”

They ran, skidding to a halt by a narrow sweep of steps. Kell looked up, and could see the sky far far above, perhaps twenty storeys, straight up. The tower block had no roof, and snow-clouds swirled. The steps spiralled up, wide enough for two men, and with a shaky, flaked, mostly rotted iron handrail the only barrier between the steps and a long fall to hard impact. Kell started up, thankful the stairwell was built from stone. Saark followed. They powered up in grim silence, followed by cackles and growls. It was only when Kell ventured too close to the edge that there came a crack, and stones tumbled away taking a quarter section of the staircase with it. Kell leapt back, almost sucked away in the sudden fall.

Saark stared at Kell, sweat on his swollen face, but said nothing.

“Keep to the wall,” advised Kell.

“I’d already worked that one out, old horse.”

Below, the cankers found the stairwell. They started up, jostling and snarling. Saark glanced down, but Kell powered ahead, face grim, beard frozen with ice-blood, eyes dark, mind working furiously.

The cankers ascended fast, claws scrabbling on icy steps. Panting and drenched with sweat, the two men reached a landing halfway up-ten storeys in height, halfway to the tower block’s summit-before the first canker appeared, a huge shaggy beast with tufts of reddish fur and green eyes. Kell’s axe clove into its head and Saark’s rapier sliced into its belly, and the beast fell back, spitting lumps of clockwork and spewing blood. The two men ran across the landing and onto the next set of steps, as a crowd of cankers surged onto the narrow platform and Kell screamed, ‘Run!’ to Saark, and stopped on the steps, turning with his axe, the snarling heaving mass only a few feet away as cracks and booms filled the tower. Kell lifted his axe, and struck at the landing, again and again, and the whole floor was shaking under the weight of the cankers and the impact from the axe, and they were there, in his face, fetid breath in his throat as a huge crack echoed through the tower block and the landing fell away, with a whole storey section of steps, fell and tumbled away carrying twenty cankers scrabbling and clawing down the centre of the spiralling stairwell and leaving Kell teetering on the edge of oblivion. He swayed for a moment, and something grabbed him, pulled him back and he fell to his arse, turned, and grinned at Saark.

“Thanks, lad.”

“No problem, Kell. Shall we ascend?”

“After you.”

They started up, hearing growls and snarls fall away behind as two cankers attempted to leap the chasm, and bounced from walls, dropping away clawing and snarling to be lost in dust and ice and debris. There were booms as they impacted with the floor far below, and merged component limbs with ancient lengths of rusted iron.

The two men ran, muscles screaming, sweat staining their skin, limbs burning, fatigue eating them like acid. Eventually, they reached the final set of steps, and burst out into snowy daylight, great iron-bruise clouds filling the sky. A cold wind slammed them. Old Skulkra spread out in all directions, vast, decaying, frightening.

The top of the tower block was a treacherous rat-run of stone beams and channels. Ancient woodwork had long gone, meaning the entire floor was a crisscross network where one incorrect step meant a long fall to unwelcome stone beneath. The whole tower block seemed to sway in violent gusts of wind. The wind gave long, mournful groans. Kell stepped across various beams to the low wall encircling the top floor of this vast tower. He stared off, across the ancient city, to the Valantrium Moor beyond, distant, enticing, ensconced in a snow shroud.

Saark came up beside him. He peered at another, nearby structure. “Can we make the jump?”

“I’ll let you try first,” said Kell.

“We can’t go back.”

Kell nodded. “You can see the Stone Lion Woods from here,” he said, pointing.

“We need a plan,” said Saark, eyes narrowing. “How do we get down from this shit-hole? Come on Kell, you’re the man with all the answers!”

“I have no answers!” he thundered, rage in his face for a moment; then he calmed himself. “I’m just trying to keep us alive long enough to think.” He rubbed at his beard, fingers rimed in filth and old blood. Only then did he look down at himself, and he gave a bitter laugh. “Look at the state of me, Saark.” His eyes were dark, glittering, feral. “Just like the old days. The Days of Blood.”

Saark said nothing. His mind worked fast. Kell was losing it. Kell was going slowly…insane.

“There must be a way off here,” said Saark, voice calm. “You wait here, guard the steps. I’ll see if I can find a ramp, or gantry, or some other way to the roof of another building.”

Saark moved around the outside wall of the tower block, each footstep chosen with care, with precision; below, the tower interior was like a huge, sour-smelling throat. Growls echoed up to meet him.

Saark stopped. He looked across the vast, rotting decadence of Old Skulkra. Beyond the walls he could see the enemy: the Army of Iron. A great sorrow took his heart, then, and crushed it in his fist. He realised with bitterness that General Graal had won. He had crushed Falanor’s armies as if they were children. He had obliterated their soldiers, and…now what?

Saark frowned. From this vantage point he could see the Great North Road, snaking north and south, a meandering black ribbon through hills and woodland, all peppered with snow. To the west he could make out the sprawl of Vorgeth Forest, stretching off for as far as they eye could see. But there, on the road, he could see…

Saark rubbed his eyes. His swollen eye had opened a little, but still he could not understand what he witnessed. Huge, black, angular objects seemed to fill the Great North Road; from the ancient connecting roads of Old Skulkra heading north, for as far as the eye could see. Saark stroked his moustache, mouth dry, fear an ever-present and unwelcome friend.

“The Blood Refineries,” said Kell, making Saark jump.

“What?”

“On the road. That’s what you can see. The vachine need them to refine blood; and they need blood-oil to survive.”

Saark considered this. “They have brought their machinery with them?”

“Yes.” Kell nodded. He was sombre. Below, they heard a fresh growl, a snarl, and the scrabble of slashing claws. The cankers had found a way past the collapsed stairwell. They were on their way up.

“So they’ve won?” said Saark.

“No!” snarled Kell. “We will fight them. We will fight them to the bitter end!”

“They will massacre our people,” said Saark, tears in his eyes.

“Aye, lad.”

“The men, the women, the children of Falanor.”

“Aye. Now take out your sword. There’s work to be done.” Kell strode to the opening leading to the stairwell. The cankers were growing louder. There were many, and their snarls were terrifying.

Saark stood beside Kell, his rapier out, his eyes fixed on the black maw of the opening.

“Kell?”

“Yes, Saark?”

“We’re going to die up here, aren’t we?”

Kell laughed, and it contained genuine humour, genuine warmth. He slapped Saark on the back, then rubbed thoughtfully at his bloodied beard, and with glittering eyes said, “We all die sometime, laddie,” as the first of the cankers burst from the opening in a flurry of claws and fangs and screwed up faces of pure hatred.

With a roar, Kell leapt to meet them.