Soul Stealers

CHAPTER 16
Warlords

Vor, capital city of Falanor, sat in silence, desolate, a ghost town. Fine snow whipped along the dead streets. Darkness bled into corners like leaking ink. Occasionally, lightning cracked the sky like a bad egg.

On a hill overlooking the city squatted the Blood Refineries. They were dark, brooding, terrible in their monstrous design and purpose. The wind hummed around the huge vachine-built edifices, as if conveying a lament for the slaughtered, the drained, and the desecrated.

Above this gentle storm of snow, there came a crackle of high electricity. Not lightning, but a web of incandescent fingers which trailed across the sky in bursts, illuminating the clouds, melting the snow, filling the sky with a lightshow of wonder and bestial primitive ferocity. The only audience were encamped soldiers from the Army of Iron left behind to guard the Blood Refineries, and they emerged from tents and shielded eyes, gazing up in wonder, heads tilting, mouths forming lines of compression… and of understanding.

"So it begins," said one, his words a whisper in the storm.

More crackles leapt across the sky, this time blood red and turning the night into an electric storm of crimson. The Refineries started to hum, to vibrate like caged animals in shackles desperate to break free. The horizontal bursts of electricity filled the sky, no longer bursts but sheets of sparks and webs and fire, which finally discharged with tornadoes of bright burning light against the Blood Refineries… and the world was filled with noise and concussion and raw energy as General Graal, hands raised in the Black Pike Mountains, on Helltop, on the Vampire Warlords' Seat of Power, so he drew this source of blood-oil magick and allowed it a channel home.

They had assembled on Helltop, and Graal walked along the line of Granite Thrones, his back to them, showing contempt for their weakness, but also hiding his joy at their capture. Kell was dumped to the slick smooth ground, and he grunted as he hit the floor and glared up at Graal with undisguised loathing. Nienna was weeping, the wires which bound her cutting into flesh and drawing blood, and Saark said nothing, his mouth a bloodless slit. Graal turned.

"Stand them up."

Unceremoniously, the Soul Stealers dragged Kell, Nienna and Saark to their feet, and they shivered as the cold mountain wind kissed them, and gazed around at the silent dark gathering. There were soldiers from the Army of Iron, a silent honour guard for their General and Watchmaker, Kradek-ka. Of the three Granite Thrones, two were occupied. The first, by a young woman with long, golden curls and the fangs of the vachine. Her face was slack, drugged, her eyes rolled back in a skull which showed the marks of a beating. Her throat still sported a huge puncture wound, halfhealed by advanced vachinery, and softly through the silence, the tick-tick-tick of her clockwork could be heard. On the second throne was a strange, crumpled, black-skinned creature, his skin more like insect chitin than real flesh. He was tied, as were Kell and Saark, with tight golden wire and although they could read no expression in his face, his eyes held a deep and ancient rage… and yet also understanding, and submission, and cooperation. For Jageraw, this was the culmination of his purpose and his existence. This was his destiny, and they needed no bonds.

Kell hawked, and spat on the ground. Distantly, thunder rumbled through the mountains, the Black Pikes displaying unease and raw, limitless power. He scowled at Graal, and looked slowly around, at the soldiers, at Kradek-ka who displayed a facial expression of intense focus, and then to the Soul Stealers and Myriam, their vachine subordinate, who had helped capture them and truss them like goats ready for sacrifice.

"At last. Kell. You have arrived. We have been waiting for you."

Kell growled something incomprehensible, and spat again. "I made a grave mistake the last time we met, Graal. I should have carved you out a skull-bucket and pissed in it. However. The error is mine, but one I'll not make again."

Graal gave a low, level laugh, but his eyes held no humour. He looked up at the torn sky. Then back to Kell. "Can you not feel the shift in power, Kell? Old man, can you not feel the vibrations in the air, and smell the sickly-sweet blood-stench of a hundred thousand victims? They are coming back, tonight, and all we lacked was the final Soul Gem. My beautiful daughters, here," he moved around Tashmaniok, his hand sliding around her hips as he walked, and she tilted her head to smile at Kell, a dazzling show of beauty, "they did well to find it and deliver it to evil."

"What horseshit is this?" snarled Kell. "We have no Soul Gem!"

"But you do," said Graal, voice lover-soft, moving close to Kell, "and it is buried inside," he touched his own chest, "integrated with the heart, and it will be such a shame to cut it free because, sadly, a side effect of removing the Soul Gem is… death."

He turned and moved back to the Granite Thrones. He reached out, and touched the huge solid artefacts, face serene, for he knew everything was ready, everything aligned, in place, and nothing – not even Kell – could stop them. Nothing on earth could stop the Vampire Warlords.

Graal raised his arms to the sky, and the sky crackled with horizontal sheets of crimson electricity. The Soul Stealers moved to him, stood slightly back, pale faces bathed in a glow of blood-oil magick. The wind shrieked through Helltop like a million banshees. The snowstorm whipped and snapped, and the sky, still full of awesome primal power, an awe-inspiring Summoning, turned red and black as it filled with blood-oil streaks of energy. The snow itself turned red, into frozen blood snowflakes, and crimson flakes fell around Helltop like tears from the slain, which is what they surely were.

"They are coming," said Graal, and looked to Kradek-ka. "Are you ready?"

"I am ready," said Kradek-ka, face impassive.

Kell struggled against the wires which held him, then glanced across at Saark. "Lad? Can you hear me?"

Saark looked at Kell, weariness and defeat shining in his eyes like emerald tears. He gave a single nod.

"Can you help me get free?"

"I doubt it," whispered Saark. "And even if I did, you would slay me."

"What are you talking about?" hissed Kell, face a contortion of effort and fury. Around them, the bloody snow thickened, and more discharges rent the sky. The wind howled like death, moaned like a widow, screeched like a castrated priest.

"I was bitten. I am changing. I will become like her." He gestured to Myriam with a nod of his head. His voice was as bleak as a midwinter sacrifice. Then he looked at Kell, full in the eyes, face contorted in fear. "You are the Vampire Hunter," he said, voice almost sardonic. "I will never sleep soundly again." His eyes dropped to the floor, his dark curls whipped by the savage wind.

"Listen, lad," growled Kell, trying to control his temper, "the only one I'm going to kill around here is that annoying fucker Graal. So get your claws out, or your vampire fangs or whatever, and get me free of this fucking wire! You hear?"

"I cannot," said Saark. He was filled to the brim with melancholy. He had resigned himself to death. He sighed, like a tumbling fall of worlds.

"You will not!" snapped Kell, and watched uneasily from the corner of his eye as Kradek-ka drew a long, curved, matt black blade. "Help us get free, you dandy bastard! Look. I promise I'll not kill you. There. I've said it. You can't let them do this…"

Saark shook his head, tears running down his cheeks. "Truly, Kell, it is out of my control."

Kell stopped his struggling. The gold wire bit his flesh like razors. He was pinned to Ilanna, the greatest of slayers, and the irony was he could not get a hand free to wield the mighty weapon. If only I could get one arm free, he thought. I would welcome the orgy of violence! I would bathe in blood again. Just like the Old Days.

Suddenly, the energy and horizontal sheets of lightning and fire died, along with the wind and the snow. The sky was a terrible, flat black, as if they gazed up into a slab portal of nothing, a huge and endless void. Silence settled like ash. The world became an incredibly still place.

"What's your next trick?" shouted Kell. "You going to pull a rabbit out of a horse's arse?"

Graal stared at Kell, as if seeing him for the first time. Then he gazed down, down at a small pool of black which nestled at floor level before the Thrones. The Arteries of Skaringa Dak. The life-blood of the mountain itself. Kell blinked, seeing the pool for the first time; it was black, black as ink, black as moonlit blood, black as the Eternity Void.

Graal spoke, and when he spoke it was as if he communed with the mountain, with Skaringa Dak Herself. "Mighty Vrekken, hear my call, rise up for me, rise up and do my bidding!" and his hands crackled with bloodoil magick and Graal knelt, and plunged his hands down into the pool and his eyes were closed and blood ran from his eyes and ears, staining his pale white skin red, and his body vibrated and twitched as if in violent epileptic spasm, and then Graal kicked backwards, sprawling to the ground at the foot of the three Granite Thrones, but quickly stood, coughing up blood and spitting it to the rock. He grinned over at Kell, teeth stained, then towards the motionless figure of Kradek-ka.

"We need the Soul Gems," he whispered.

Kradek-ka approached Anukis, and her eyes seemed suddenly normal and sane as she gazed into the face of her father, the father who had nurtured her from womb to womanhood and whom she had trusted with all her heart. "No," she said, golden curls trembling, vachine fangs baring as the dagger plunged into her chest, tearing through white cotton and cutting deep through to her heart… Anukis screamed, and started to thrash madly despite her golden bonds, splashing blood upon the Thrones, and Kradek-ka grasped her throat, steadying her, and cut a deep circular hole in her chest, the tip of the knife slicing through skin and breast-bone to prise free the Soul Gem which had lain dormant inside her, a parasite, beating with her heart since birth.

Kradek-ka took the Soul Gem, and turned to Graal, and behind him his daughter writhed on the Granite Throne in the throes of death, blood bubbling up her throat and down her chin like a crimson mask. But Kradek-ka ignored his kindred, and lifted the Soul Gem for Graal to see. It was small, the size of a thumbnail, and a perfect cylinder of matt black which gleamed under a coating of Anukis's blood-oil.

"And the next," said Graal, blue eyes shining. His words, although softly spoken, carried across the surreal, impossibly quiet plateau of Helltop.

Kell's head snapped left, to Saark, then down, to Nienna, who was watching with a kind of morbid fascination as Kradek-ka approached the corrugated black creature that was Jageraw. They think one of us carries a Soul Gem! screamed his mind, suddenly. But which one? And something pierced his mind like a splinter, and he smiled a sour smile as he realised what made him special, what made him such a terrible, evil killer. There was something alien inside his flesh. Something which had corrupted him. Something in his heart, put there during the Days of Blood.

In silent shame Kell replayed his past, the horrific deeds he had committed, and surety settled in his mind like honey in a pot. The Soul Gem was inside him. It had polluted him. Turned him bad, like an alien cancer. And now they were going to cut it free. And then he was going to die… but at least die a pure man, at least die a good man. Now, he truly understood.

Kell struggled against the wires, and Nienna looked up at him and she smiled, and it was a terribly sad smile that filled him with an empty, rolling void. He could not stand for this! He would not stand for this. But the more he struggled, the more the golden wires bit his flesh until he was slick and slippery with his own blood and his own lacerated skin. "Bastards," he was growling, "bastards!" he screamed, his voice booming across Helltop and the Black Pike Mountains but it did not matter, it made no difference as Kradek-ka's blade sawed through Jageraw's chitinous armour and the creature made no sound, made no struggle, even as the blade bit flesh and cut through to his heart, prising out the Soul Gem on its tip to lie, nestling in Kradek-ka's palm like an excised insect.

"The Hexels hid you well," said Kradek-ka, and his eyes were locked to Jageraw's and he smiled, head tilting. "The Soulkeepers gave you the weapons to live, little boy. They turned you into something… something else. So you could protect this Soul Gem, the First Soul Gem, until the time of the Summoning. We owe you a great debt."

Jageraw nodded, and closed his eyes, and died in silence.

Something seemed to sweep across Helltop. It was an emotion, a pulse of energy. "They can feel us," said Graal, licking bloodied lips. "The Vampire Warlords acknowledge us."

"One more," said Kradek-ka, and turned towards Kell, and Saark, and Nienna.

"One more," nodded Graal, and walked slowly forward, the Soul Stealers close behind, their footsteps matching his, their white hair glowing in the odd light from an unseen moon.

"You were the hardest to hunt down," said Graal, his smile crooked, his words hoarse.

"Let me fight you!" raged Kell, struggling with all his might, blood slick across his entire body and soaking his clothing as the golden wires bit. "I'll not die like this, you fucking whoreson! Not on the end of a butcher's knife! Let me fight, I say!"

Graal tilted his head, and turned, and stared strangely at Kell. Then he laughed, a chuckle so base and evil it sent Kell into a paroxysm of fury. But his words stopped Kell dead.

"Not you," said Graal, and reached out, and stroked Kell's bearded cheek. "You do not have the Soul Gem, old man. Whatever gave you that idea?"

And it was like a hammer blow, for if Kell did not carry a parasitic evil within him, something which had polluted his humanity, made him carry out evil acts like no other… then the fact was, he was simply a bad man. But this mammoth shock was followed by a realisation.

"Gods, no!" he hissed, as Graal moved to Nienna and Kell's mouth dropped open and how could it have happened, how could the girl carry something like that inside? Without anybody knowing? Without showing any adverse signs? And now Graal was going to carve her up like a pig on a block, and she would die in this desolate lonely terrible place so that They might live… and Kell could not stop it.

Graal looked down at Nienna. "Be still, little one. This will soon be over," and he smiled and reached out and touched her skin and tears were coursing down her face, and Kell was frothing at the mouth in rage and frustration and he was the greatest warrior of Falanor, the greatest Legend of the age and he could do nothing to save his beautiful, innocent granddaughter…

Graal moved on, past Nienna, and took hold of Saark who jumped, as if waking suddenly from a dream. Graal dragged the tightly wired dandy across the platform and Kell hissed, mouth dry, eyes blinking fast.

"Kell, hey, what's going on?" yelled Saark, starting at last to try and struggle, shocked from his reverie and maudlin coma by the very real events about to unfold. "What are you doing?" he shouted into Graal's face. "Get off me you fucker!"

Graal paused, then sat Saark on the Granite Throne, stepping back as if to admire a fine sculpture. "Didn't you realise?" said Graal, voice little more than a whisper but carrying clear across the silent, reverent platform. "I thought she would have told you?"

"Who? What the hell are you talking about?"

From the cave entrance came Alloria, only now her skin glowed and her eyes dazzled and her fingers ended in brass claws. Tiny fangs protruded over the Queen's lower lip and she walked slowly, languorously to Saark, to the King's Sword Champion, to her ex-lover, and she moved beside the Throne and looked down at him with a mixture of pity, and love, and understanding.

"I'm sorry it was you," she whispered.

"What have you done?" said Saark, voice dropping low, dangerously low. "Oh Alloria, you have betrayed everything, what have you done?" And it fell into place, puzzle pieces tumbling into position, and that was why Graal went for her after the initial invasion of Falanor – not just as a bartering tool against the King, but because… she was his.

"It took a while for her to love me," said Graal, crossing to Alloria and kissing her, and she responded, one hand coming up to rest against Graal's cheek. "But once infected with blood-oil, once a slave to the clockwork, once she became vachine she grew to know her place, she grew to understand the world with open eyes. She was a great tool in leading Vashell here, and in finding the traitor, Fiddion. But then, I digress." He motioned to Alloria, who moved to stand alongside Myriam – both women changed by the blood-oil bites, the infection of the Soul Stealers. Both watched, fascinated, as Kradek-ka approached Saark with his small black knife.

Saark glanced over, at the other thrones. Anukis was dead, slumped to one side. Jageraw was a motionless mass of bloodied insect-armour woven with dark human flesh. And now… now it was his turn!

"No!" he yelled, and started to struggle. "Kell, Kell do something! But Kell could do nothing, and their eyes met and Kradek-ka reached forward and with his iron vachine grip, pinned Saark back against the Granite Throne. Saark could not move. He was motionless, not just in Kradek-ka's hold, but in horror, and terror, and his eyes were on the tip of the curved blade which moved slowly, inexorably toward him; and he thought back, thought of Alloria and what they had together, the love they had together and it had all been fake, all been an act and she had been charged with implanting the Soul Gem into a host for safe-keeping, and he had been that host, their love a mask to hide her real intentions, and Alloria had been a spy for Graal and a traitor to her husband and the people of Falanor and hate ran deep through Saark's veins, then, as he understood; maybe she had not been willing at first, but what had fuelled her? What in the name of the Seven Witches had fuelled the Queen of Falanor to betray everything she loved? As the knife cut deep, and Saark gasped, and ice forced into his flesh and cut into bone with a grating, grinding sound Saark's eyes met with Alloria's and she smiled at him and there was no sorrow there and she was completely vachine, she was no longer human and rage and hate flowed strong in Saark but he could not move and pain flashed up and swamped his mind and the knife cut deep and carved a circle the size of a fist from his flesh, and he gasped, unable to breathe as he was mutilated, and he did not struggle and did not scream and the pain and ice were everything, all consuming, swamping his vision and he gasped, again, and saw as if through a veil of blood the Soul Gem excised from his own savaged body and he coughed, and blood splattered from Saark's mouth, and he felt everything and the world fall away and down into a blood red pool of darkness.

Kradek-ka turned, in silence, as Saark slumped to one side behind him, blood running down the Granite Throne and onto Helltop. "No!" screamed Kell, struggling pointlessly, and Nienna was weeping and Kradek-ka handed the three Soul Gems to General Graal, who took them, took the three small matt black cylindrical jewels – the source of so much agony and pain and blood and death and power.

"Now, we call the Vrekken," he said.

Skaringa Dak was huge and brooding and ominous, once volcanic with a million natural arteries and channels and tunnels and veins, now dormant but home to the swirling underground whirlpool, the Vrekken; it overlooked Silva Valley to the North, dominating the skyline of the vachine civilisation and controlling the flow of the Silva River from deep inside the Deshi caves and beyond, where the Silva River flowed deeper into the heart of the Black Pike Mountains.

Now, as General Graal's blood sacrifice and blood-oil magick Summoning sent ripples of energy through the natural arteries of Skaringa Dak, so the Vrekken, that mighty underground whirlpool, roared a noise so loud it made the mountain tremble and there came a distant boom boom boom as water pressure increased a millionfold and with the power of the ocean, the power of the mountains, the fury of the land, the Vrekken reared from its deep bottomless pit and water heaved through tunnels millennia deserted, black and cold and shimmering like blood. It pounded through corridors and caverns, smashing up through a hundred breeding nests of Graal's white-haired soldiers, up up up through thick arteries as the mountain trembled and the world trembled and billions of gallons were forced under enormous pressure into the Silva River, out through the gaping maws of the Deshi Caves, out with such incredible pressure and a wall of water reared like the rising head of a striking cobra and slammed at once down Silva Valley crushing houses and temples, warehouses and palaces, and thousands of vachine were slammed with such force they were crushed, compressed down into a mash of flesh and corrupted clockwork components. Thousands ran, streaming down pavements and jewelled roadways, but the wall of water pounded along and they were gone in an instant. The Engineer's Palace was torn in two, one half picked up like a toy and dashed along the expanse of Silva Valley, bounced from mountain wall to mountain wall as tens of thousands of screams rent the air and the mighty force of the Vrekken crushed the occupants of Silva Valley… and the vachine civilisation therein.

The roaring seemed to last a thousand years. It echoed deafening through the Black Pike Mountains, like mocking laughter. And… as soon at it had come, the might of the Vrekken was gone, leaving Silva Valley flooded, a churning platter of dark black waters. Where once the valley had sat, now was a surging, seething lake.

Slowly, the violence faded and the new lake settled, calming, to be still.

Silva Valley was no more.

And the dead screamed unto eternity.

On Helltop, they stood in silence. The roaring of the Vrekken, the flooding of Silva Valley, the extinguishing of the vachine civilisation had taken perhaps five minutes. Kell, eyes narrowed, stared hard at Graal. "What have you done?" he said.

"It was a necessary sacrifice," said Graal.

"You exterminated their colony like insects."

Graal's eyes gleamed. "And soon, you will see why!" He gestured to the Soul Stealers, and Shanna and Tashmaniok moved to Anukis, and tossed her corpse aside. Then they did this to Jageraw, leaving smears of dark blood on the Granite Thrones. Finally, they grabbed Saark, who was wheezing, eyes closed, the huge fistsized hole in his chest showing shattered breast-bone and the open cage of smashed ribs. Within, his heart beat with a slow, irregular rhythm – like a fist opening, and closing, and opening, and closing. They tossed him to one side, where he rolled over and Nienna ran to him, and nobody stopped her.

"Saark!" she said, face wet with tears. But she could not hold him, for she was bound too tight.

"All is well, Little One," he grunted, and forced himself into a sitting position. He looked down at his open chest in horror, and when he smiled blood glistened on his teeth.

"Saark, don't die," she wept.

"I don't think I have much choice in the matter," he managed, voice hoarse. Then he winked at Nienna, and coughed, eyes closing in pain. "Did I ever mention you're a stunning young lady? A real catch."

"You'll never change," laughed Nienna through tears.

"I wish…" he winced again, the agony plain on his face, "I wish I had just a few more years. So… so many women, still left, to please." His head slumped forward, and breath rattled from his lungs.

Kell gazed out over the distant, flooded Silva Valley, and turned back to Graal. Graal and Kradek-ka stood before the Granite Thrones. The pool before the Granite Thrones – down through which Graal summoned the Vrekken – was an empty hole, deep and bottomless, all water sucked free when the Vrekken threw its hydraulic fury at Silva Valley.

Graal and Kradek-ka stood, either side of the hole. They faced the Granite Thrones. They seemed to be waiting. Kell glanced left, to Myriam and Alloria; both were entranced by the sight, by the Summoning, and the air crackled with dark energy. The Vampire Warlords were coming. It was written in the sky. Written in the stone. Kuradek the Unholy. Meshwar the Violent. Bhu Vanesh, the Eater in the Dark. The world would descend into chaos. And the Vampire Warlords would build a new Empire.

Kell looked right. The Soul Stealers were entranced, their bright crimson eyes fixed on the Thrones. This was the moment. This was the time. If Kell could break free now, he could… what? A cold realisation dawned. The Summoning magick had been cast. The spell was done. All the deaths, the blood-oil, the sacrifice… the Soul Gems had done their work, summoned the Vrekken, destroyed the vachine, killed enough vachine souls to bring back the Vampire Warlords from the Chaos Fields – from the Blood Void.

What could Kell possibly do? Even if he murdered Graal and Kradek-ka, it would make no difference. The Summoning was happening. It was an unstoppable Force of Nature. Of Chaos. Of Magick.

I can help you, said Ilanna.

No, you cannot, said Kell.

He is coming, be ready, said Ilanna. Kell scowled. His gaze swept the platform. He could see the stars again, but a blackness like smoke rolled out against the night sky, blocking out the stars in three hazy patterns. Kell blinked. Was he imagining this haze-filled sky? He lowered his eyes, and shook his head, and all the fight had gone out of him. They were here, Saark was dead, he and Nienna had failed. They had thought they were so powerful, so clever, bringing the fight to the enemy – when in fact, all they did was deliver Saark and the Soul Gem to Graal.

And he came, from the edge of the scene, from between the rocks where before there was no passage, and he stepped from smoke and he was barefoot and danced on the glossy slick surface of Helltop. He was six years old, with thin limbs and pale skin, he was ragged and tattered, wore torn clothes and had black, shiny teeth. His eyes, also, were black, and they shone with an ancient wisdom, with the decadent wisdom of the Ankarok. Skanda danced, twirling and weaving, a slow dance to unheard music, perhaps the music of the stars and the magick and the Summoning itself, and Kell watched the little boy with his mouth open, and a sour needle split his brain and Kell scowled, for Skanda was part of this evil too and if Kell could get his axe free he would make them all pay, for the blood and the death. Kell watched Skanda dance, and the Soul Stealers turned and fixed eyes on the little boy, and they drew their silver swords and leapt at him with sudden violent snarls and the world seemed to tilt and come rushing back into place and Kell watched in awe as Skanda danced between the impossibly whirling sword blades, and he leapt and twirled and danced, and the blades hissed and sang around him, a glittering web of death and Skanda lifted his eyes and they met with Kell's, there was a connection and Skanda smiled and he lifted his hands and from his hands flowed… insects. They came in a flood, crawling and skittering, flying and buzzing and stinging, they poured from Skanda's hands and now his mouth opened and they flooded from his throat and rushed past the startled Soul Stealers who dropped to their knees in defensive crouches as Graal suddenly turned, realised what was happening and his face turned from bliss to fear, his eyes darkening, his mouth opening to scream but the insects flooded out, over the plateau and over Kell who panicked, squirming in his bonds as worms and maggots and cockroaches and wasps flowed over him, smothering him with their insect noise and acid and…

Kell blinked. The gold wires fell away, eaten by insects.

Kell looked down, at Ilanna grasped in his mighty, lacerated, blood-drenched hands. Slowly, he looked up, and saw the Soul Stealers, and Graal, staring at him. Skanda danced on, a mournful dance, insects still pouring from his mouth and his little boy's feet slapped pitifully on the slick ground. Graal pointed at Kell. "Kill him!" he screamed, with a sudden insane fury and the Soul Stealers stood, then leapt at Kell who brought Ilanna up in a savage sweep and stream of sparks, batting aside both swords and knocking the two female killers back.

Kell took a step forward. He lowered his head. "I am Kell. And I am mightily pissed off."

The Soul Stealers leapt again, and Kell moved with awesome speed, a blur, an age of pent-up rage and frustration unleashed in a few swift heartbeats. Swords struck Ilanna, were cast aside and she sang as she cut for Tashmaniok's neck but the Soul Stealer back-flipped away, too fast, and her fangs came out and her claws grew long and they could hear the tick tick of stepping gears and clockwork wheels. She leapt at Kell, snarling, and was caught on the flat blades of Ilanna but twisted, one boot between the axe and herself, and pushed herself away into a roll as Ilanna sang a finger's breadth from her throat. Shanna attacked, sword slashing, claws trying to gouge Kell's eyes. He stumbled back, and she came on, snarling and spitting and Kell was forced further back until the rock wall halted him and he fought a short, furious battle, axe and blurring sword flickering to a discordant song-clash of steel. Kell ducked a sword strike, jabbed with his axe but Shanna shifted, avoiding the blow. Tashmaniok came in on Kell's right, and sweating now, slowing, the old warrior back-handed an axe strike at her face which she easily avoided.

"You're getting slow, old man," taunted Tash.

"You're going to die, old man," laughed Shanna.

"Then we'll eat your granddaughter," said Tashmaniok, all humour gone. She was neither sweating, nor panting; she showed no signs of exertion. Kell, on the other hand, was a sack of shit. He was covered in his own blood, in lacerations from the tight cutting wires, and his sweat was stinging his many wounds and fuelling his fury. But the vachine killers were right; he was old, and he was tired, and he was tiring. Fury and rage could only last so long. Kell had only minutes… seconds… to live. They knew it. And he knew it.

"Catch," said Skanda, from between the two Soul Stealers, and he threw the twin-tailed scorpion and Kell tried to dodge but the scorpion landed lightly on his chest, just under his throat, and before he could do anything both tails flexed and struck like the twin heads of a striking snake. The scorpion stung Kell, who yelled in surprise as the Soul Stealers turned on Skanda for a moment, distracted, swords a blur as they frantically attempted to kill this boy of the Ankarok, but he danced, tantalisingly, forlornly, between their blades. Then there came a sharp crack, and Skanda smiled an ancient blood-oil magick smile and watched as time cracked and Kell stepped in two, and looked at himself, looked at his twin, his clone, his double, one a few steps out of time meaning he was not one, but two. The Kells stared at each other, stunned into silence, and the Soul Stealers stood still with mouths hung agape. The two Kells turned, like a mirror image, and with roars that shook the air launched themselves at the Soul Stealers, twin Ilanna axes singing a curious humming chorus of axe-blade death. Swords and axes shrieked, and now that each Kell fought only one enemy his confidence and speed and agility returned, and with savage necessity the original Kell forced Shanna back against a wall, his axe strikes accelerating as she grew more and more frantic, and she called out for help, "Tash!" a shriek of the condemned as Ilanna batted aside her sword blade for one last time and with a mighty roar, a bestial battle-scream Kell lifted the butterfly blades of his bloodbond axe and they came down in a savage vertical strike that cut Shanna from skull to quim, and slopped her bowels and clockwork components to the Helltop plateau. "No!" wailed Tash, distracted by her twin's destruction, and Kell's axe cut through her neck, sending her head rolling along the stone ground, slapping slowly to a halt by Graal's boots.

Skanda smiled, and clapped, and the twin-tailed scorpion ran onto his hand and up his arm. He clapped again, and there was a second crack. The air felt greasy, full of smoke, and the second Kell disappeared as time jigged into synchronisation, into a linear snap of reality.

"Don't ever do that again!" snarled Kell, turning in rage, his head pounding as if struck by a mallet, but Skanda had gone. He ran to Nienna, and Graal was shouting orders to the soldiers surrounding the Granite Thrones. Even now, dark smoke was coalescing on all three Thrones, and Kell shook Nienna, dragging her away from Saark's body. "We must go," he growled, eyes wild.

"Bring Saark."

"I reckon he's dead!"

"Bring him!" she shrieked.

Kell grabbed the limp body of Saark, grunting as he slung him over his shoulder for the dandy was heavier than he looked, then dragging Nienna behind, he sprinted for the only exit available – the empty pool, the hole, sitting stagnant before the three Granite Thrones. Graal had drawn his sword, and as Kell charged so he turned and his face was death, his eyes twinkling sapphires, and the sword came up and Kell screamed and hurtled towards him, axe coming up and smashing Graal's sword aside as Ilanna cut a long streak down Graal's left cheek, peeling his face open like a fruit, and Kell's last glimpse before they were swallowed by the hole was that of three tall, smoke-filled figures seated on the Granite Thrones. Their eyes were blood red, and they were watching him. Kell, Nienna and Saark fell into the chute, into the vertical tunnel below, and in the blink of an eye vanished from Helltop.

They fell.

Fell, towards the distant, booming Vrekken.

On a high peak above the flooded Silva Valley sat four Vachine Warrior Engineers and two Watchmakers. Walgrishnacht's eyes were bleak, his face drawn and haggard as he surveyed the destruction of Silva Valley below. Their escape had been a miracle. Many had died following.

"Nobody could have predicted this," said Sa, voice gentle.

Tagor-tel placed his arm around her shoulders, and they sat for a while, thinking of the thousands who had died, smashed and drowned below them in the echoing caverns of the Vrekken.

"We must call what remains of the vachine armies," said Walgrishnacht, standing, and he turned and stared at the distant peak of Skaringa Dak. Above it, blackness swirled like evil personified. "We must summon the Ferals."

"It is too late!" wailed Sa. "Can you not feel it? Can you not feel them?"

"I do not understand," frowned the Cardinal.

"Graal has summoned the three Vampire Warlords," said Sa, tears running down her cheeks. "With or without our armies, this means the end of our civilisation."

Walgrishnacht drew his sword, which gleamed black in the moonlight. "Only when I am dead, and my proud blood-oil stains the battlefield, will I believe this is so," he said, and gestured to the few remaining members of his massacred platoon. "Let's move out," he said, brass fangs gleaming.

The wind crooned across the peak of Skaringa Dak. Graal, pushing his peeled cheek back into place with a squelch, turned and faced the Vampire Warlords. They were huge, and dark, their skin swirling smoke, their eyes raging blood, and they stood – in unity, as one – and first Kradek-ka knelt, and then, slowly, General Graal knelt and a chill terror flooded him like nothing he had ever felt. For the Vampire Warlords were terrible, and they were death, and they had changed and brought something else back with them from the Chaos Fields, from the Blood Void, from the Halls of Bone. All around the platform soldiers knelt to show terrified obeisance, and Myriam and Alloria knelt also, the wave of total fear washing over them and making piss run down their legs.

"General Graal," said Bhu Vanesh, the Eater in the Dark, and blood eyes tilted in a smoke face to survey his subordinate, to survey his slave, and Graal nodded, unable to speak, the terror like thick flowing ash in his mouth and his brain and he was a child again – how had he thought they could control these ancient, bestial, primitive Warlords?

Kuradek stood on the Granite Throne, and peered off across the desolation of Silva Valley. He smiled, face swirling gently, every feature a blur, every breath a rattle of chaos. "Silva Valley is destroyed."

"Yes," managed Graal, forcing words between clenched teeth.

"You have done well, slaves."

"Yes," forced Graal.

Meshwar the Violent stepped away from the Granite Throne, and for a moment Graal thought he might disappear; like this whole Summoning was a bad nightmare, and the magick which had brought the Warlords back might restrict them to the Thrones. But it did not.

"Gather your soldiers," said Meshwar, surveying the warriors from the Army of Iron, heads bowed, fear and chaos worms in their rotten, spinning brains. Meshwar's gaze was bleak. His voice was an intonation from a different realm. From a world of chaos. "Gather them all. Now is time. Now we go to war."

"Against whom?" trembled Graal.

Blood eyes glowed. "Against everyone," he said.