Soul Stealers

CHAPTER 8
Blood Taint

Kell's mind was spinning and he could taste silver – just like during the Days of Blood. Poison pulsed through his veins, through his organs, through his system, pulsed with the steady beat of his heart and the whiskey was negated, and he was sober again, and she was kneeling above him, beautiful, stunning, deadly, with her bright silver sword and bright fangs gleaming that vampire gleam in the starlight. This burned Kell. Burned him with shame. The king was there, old, serious, his eyes boring into Kell and the other warriors as they made the bloodpact, and blood pulsed from the wounds in their wrists, mingling in the golden bowl and flowing down channels, seeping down narrow tubes to infuse the weapons which seemed to glow with an inner black light. Kell stooped, lifting Ilanna, and with this dark blessing she was his and she whispered, It will never be the same again, and, I will be with you forever, and I will never let you down, Kell, trust me, I will never leave you and this touched a chord, touched every tingling nerve in his strung out, drug-infused body for she had left his bed, left his house, left his life, despite their vows and their promises and there and then Kell wrenched free the wedding ring and tossed it away in the darkness of the cellar beneath the temple in Vor. "I will never be a slave again," he whispered, unaware of the irony of his promise even as he spoke the words, for to become bloodbond with a weapon, to follow the Old Lore and the sap veins in the Oak Testament, a man ensured he was a slave for eternity.

"No," hissed Kell, back in the present, and he was young and strong and immortal once again, and he twisted fast, a blur, a subtle shift and Tashmaniok's sword scored a bright fire line down his cheek and struck the floor with a grinding squeal and Kell reached almost leisurely beneath his arm, drawing out his slightly curved blade, his Svian, and he thrust it up into Tashmaniok's groin and she gasped, and went rigid, and he held her there impaled on his knife and slowly crawled from beneath her straddle, so that his bearded face came level with hers. Her sword slashed at him, but he batted it aside and jerked the Svian knife, and Tash gasped again, for eight inches of steel were deep inside her flesh, deep inside her womb and holding her tight to Kell in an embrace. Her fangs gleamed. Kell smiled. "I was born in the Days of Blood," he hissed, and stood, and Tash rose with him for she had no option, and her vachine blood-oil ran down her legs and Kell's free hand grasped her throat and squeezed and her face, beautiful and pale and with eyes wide, crimson wide and fixed on Kell with a mixture of hate and admiration, they narrowed and Kell lifted her above his head, suspended by blade and throat, and her sword clattered to the ground, and her blood pattered like falling rain and with a scream Kell hurled the vachine across the chamber and she bounced from the wall, fell and landed like a cat, on all fours, then in a blur she was gone into the darkness; through the wall with a crash of buckling timber, and away into the night.

Kell staggered, then righted himself, and took several deep rushing breaths. He moved to Ilanna, aware she had saved him again and it felt bitter in the back of his mind; like an old betrayal.

He took up the great axe, and moved to Tashmaniok's spilled blood. She was a strong one, he realised. One of the strongest he had ever faced. And yet there was something else there; something more subtle. An element of the ancient.

"Saark," Kell breathed, suddenly realising his danger, and he rushed to the broken boards where Tash had made her exit, out into the snow. What greeted Kell's vision was a confused tableau, a scene from a tapestry of nightmare. Fire roared through the town. Men charged with swords. People ran, screaming. Everything seemed a sudden chaos. Kell's eyes narrowed. These were no albino warriors, no Army of Iron; these were Blacklippers, the amoral – no, the immoral criminals who once kept the trade of Karakan Red flowing into the vachine empire in Silva Valley. This, Kell knew. But why attack this village? Why now?

Starvation, realised Kell. The Army of Iron had invaded. Power politics had shifted. The Blacklippers could no longer ply the same trade; and they were criminals at heart, the diseased, the outcast, the toxic. Would they sit back and wait for a new harvest? Or would they flood from the Black Pike Mountains in their hundreds and take what they could?

Fire roared. Sparks glimmered in snow-heavy skies. Chaos roamed the streets. Violence stalked, screaming, on legs of iron, and arrows whistled through the gloom, punching villagers from their feet, hands clawing at fletches.

Kell squeezed from the hole, and ignoring Tashmaniok's footprints in the snow leading away, out into the forests, out into the wilderness where, within a short distance the blood droplets from her punctured wounded body ceased… instead, Kell moved forward into the chaos of the village, face grim, fire shining in his eyes, and with the Days of Blood reverberating in his soul like… a blood echo.

Saark screamed like a girl as Shanna's fangs descended for his throat, and he kicked and struggled and punched at her face but she held him in an impossible grip, a vice of steel, and a terrible vulnerability flooded Saark and he went suddenly limp, submissive, accepting his fate.

Fangs touched his neck. They were impossibly cold. Like ice.

"No," he whispered.

"Yes," she said, and her breath tickled his flesh.

Subliminally, he heard the door open. Kell! he thought, in a sudden triumph, with a desperate surge of energy which rushed his system like an emetic. His eyes flickered open, and Shanna's fangs sank deep, through skin, through muscle, and Saark screamed and started to struggle once more, a fish on a hook, unwilling to give up and die and a voice, a cool cold young voice spoke.

"Put him down," said Skanda, in little more than a whisper.

With a snarl, Shanna hurled Saark across the room and dropped to a crouch, blood on her fangs, on her chin, on her talons, and her eyes were narrowed and she hissed, "You!"

Saark hit the wall, hit the floor in a heap, moaning. His fingers came to his throat, saw his blood, and he whimpered. Outside, there came a roar, and a whoosh of flames. Armed men charged down the streets, and the sounds of battle swept through Creggan. Saark was confused, his mind swirling. Something pulsed in his neck like a second heartbeat. He imagined he heard a tiny tick tock, tick tock, like the smallest of mechanical engines. He shivered in premonition.

Skanda moved into a half-crouch, and he circled Shanna, the vachine snarling at him, Saark's blood on her teeth. She licked it, delicately, until it was gone. "You should have died a long time ago," hissed Shanna.

"We are back," said Skanda, the young boy looking out of place, sounding out of place, as the sudden battle raged outside the tavern and people screamed in the street below. Metal clashed on metal. More fire snarled through lantern-oil soaked thatch.

"You will die again," pointed Shanna, her claw bloodied, her face more feral than human, now.

"Whatever you say, Soul Stealer, daughter of Graal," smiled Skanda with full understanding. And he clapped, and with the clap came a sound like thunder, and from beneath the floorboards flooded a surge of insects, of beetles and lice, of worms and maggots and weevils, and they spread across the floorboards as the window was suddenly battered by flies and wasps, by crawling things and flying things and spiders and hornets and the room was suddenly alive as cockroaches swept the floor and walls like a tide erupting from the dark places of the filthy town, and this surge of insects swept around Skanda's feet, swirling like a fluid, a fluid of carapace shells and wings and claws and legs and fangs and Skanda pointed at Shanna whose face was drawn in horror, in revulsion, and the tide of insects flowed to her and up her legs and she turned and screamed and leapt for the window, crashing through glass which splintered and drove into her flesh in long jagged shards, and the insects stung her and bit her and she fell, landing heavily, glass daggers driving deep into her body so that blood gurgled at her mouth and she groaned, and yet still she stood, and ran, dodging through the battling influx of Blacklippers who fought a cruel battle with villagers in the streets.

Skanda moved to the broken window, and tasted her blood, wiping a smear down his tongue. Then, as the sudden calling of insects began to dissipate, crawling into walls and back under floors and squeezing above rafters, heading back for the shadows and the damp places, places of rotting food and rotting flesh, so Skanda moved to Saark and helped the man to his feet. Skanda touched his fingers to Saark's throat, where twin puncture marks glowed like molten metal.

Their eyes met.

"You have a long life ahead of you," said Skanda, voice sour.

"I understand," said Saark.

"I do not think that you do."

"I am still human," said Saark, fear in his eyes, in his voice, as if by voicing the fact he could somehow make it real. He touched his neck again, self-consciously.

Skanda nodded, features dark and hooded. "For a little while, at least," he said.

"What will happen to me?"

"It will take time. It was not finished. You will see."

"You are age-old enemies? The Ankarok, and the vachine?"

"Yes. But we are coming back, Saark. We have been called. And there is nothing they can do."

"You can help us!" hissed Saark, suddenly. "Help us drive the albinos back, beyond the Pikes!"

"We have something more radical in mind," said Skanda, and then the small boy whirled about, and was gone, and Saark was confused but through his confusion he knew one thing was certain: this was a parting of the ways, as if Saark and Kell had brought him far enough, and now Skanda was strong enough to travel and fight alone, and Saark was reeling, and vomiting, kneeling there amidst broken shards of glass and the crushed shells of a hundred insects, vomiting onto the floor of the room.

Finally, he gained his feet, and found his rapier, and sheathed it on the third attempt. He staggered to the jagged window. Outside, chaos rampaged through the streets. The Blacklippers, the vagabonds from the Black Pike Mountains, were on a raid. Fire savaged the town. Saark smiled a very bitter smile; the villagers had done everything to evade the searching eyes of the Army of Iron – and in so doing, had left themselves open for a closer, just as evil, threat.

As Saark watched, he saw a great figure striding down the street. He had a full beard and wore a bearskin jerkin which made him look even larger than his natural size, which was huge enough to begin. Saark saw two Blacklippers charge Kell, swords out, glittering, and Saark wanted to shout "Watch out!" but the words stuck in his throat like vomit and Kell turned at the last moment and his eyes were dark death and his axe swept up, cutting one man from groin to sternum in a spray of entrails and half-digested slurry, and bone shards glimmered white in the glow of the burning houses, then the axe twisted and cut sideways and a Blacklipper's head rolled, black dead lips tasting frozen mud. But then Saark fell to his knees, neck pulsing, blood pulsing, his veins burning from the inside out, and on a blanket of glass and crushed insects, he passed into a realm of blissful unconsciousness.

Saark coughed, and floated in honey, and the world was perfect and he was perfect. He sat up. His vision swam. And then the world seemed – so clear. He stood, crunching glass, and pain jabbed him in the neck and he remembered the bite but even as he remembered it, so it started to fade, as if the memory was a drift of smoke. He had heard stories of the savage marshes to the east of Falanor, where tiny blood-sucking creatures swam the waters. They attached themselves to a man, or to a stricken donkey or cow, and injected a local anaesthetic before beginning a long, hard feast, gorging on the creature's blood. The man, or animal, unaware of anything amiss, was bled dry by the blood-suckers; if three or four attached, then weakness, porphyria, vertigo and death would occur. What struck Saark now now was that he felt as if a blood-sucking little bastard had attached to him; but he did not realise it. And even as the thought entered his mind, so it became clouded, and vanished, and he could see Kell outside and he checked his rapier and ran to the stairs and out through the deserted tavern.

"Where's Skanda?" snarled Kell, upon seeing Saark.

"I'm very well, thank you," snapped Saark, eyes flashing with anger.

"Where's the boy?"

"He's gone," said Saark, suddenly weary. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Around him, fire roared and Kell grimaced at three Blacklippers, who saw his gorestained axe and thought better of attack. "I was – ambushed, by a vachine. Skanda helped me, cast some weird ancient magick shit, and all these insects came from nowhere. I got a feeling he no longer needed us. He left."

Kell nodded. "We need our horses."

"And the donkey," said Saark.

Kell gave him a sour, twisted look. "And the donkey," he said.

In the shadows of a church tower, Jageraw watched it all. As snow fell, he'd seen the fat old warrior with the terrifying axe which spoke to him, which knew him, and he watched the slick dandy and the two death-cold Soul Stealers… oh how he knew them, knew them from Graal, Graal the bad man the wicked man!

Jageraw rubbed his chest, rubbed the burning there, and it was getting more urgent and it would never stop until he reached his destination. But that was a long way a terrible way, no pretty there, no pretty at all!

For hours he watched the Blacklipper raiders finishing up, and only when the cold dawn arrived and the town was deserted except for corpses did Jageraw climb steadily from the old church tower. He crept through the streets with his bag, pulling free a heart here, a kidney there, a spleen here, and some tasty precious lungs there.

Then, with his sack full of organs, full to the brim with squelching delights, he slung it over his shoulder and headed for the forests and trails no longer used by man.

It was hours later, and it was dark, and cold. Kell and Saark had rode hard for what seemed an eternity, until the blazing cottages and the vachine killers and the danger seemed, at least for now, far behind. It was Kell who finally pulled rein, and they sat on a low wooded hilltop, the distant fires obscured by snowfall and the haze of a welcome distance. Finally, Saark said, "How are you, Kell, old boy?" There was no mockery in his voice. Only concern.

"I have felt better. Much better."

"Back at that town, one came after you? A vachine, I mean?"

"Yes."

"Me also. She… scraped out my emotions like offal from a sack, and left them glistening on the road like so many spilled entrails. I feel unclean, Kell. I feel like she polluted my soul."

Kell turned to Saark. "They were sent by Graal, and the bastard wants us dead. Or he wants… something. Something else, although I cannot figure what." He lowered his head, and for long moments looked like nothing but a weary old man. He rubbed at his eyes, his cheeks, his beard. He sighed, and in so sighing gave in to decades of weariness, to decades of a hard life, and a harder fight.

"Are you injured?" said Saark, at last.

"Only my ego, lad. She was fast, by all the gods." He grinned then. "But if I am to be slain, then let it be by one so beautiful! She was stunning beyond belief!"

"Mine also. She hooked me like a fish. I fear I am becoming predictable." He sighed, and touched unconsciously at the collar of his cloak, beneath which lay the indelible fang-marks. He could feel them, burning. "Once, even such a beauty would have made me snarl and pucker, and flirt and push away; make her work for the privilege, you understand? Now, I fear, I am a slave to my trade."

"And what trade's that, boy?"

Saark smiled, and rubbed again at his neck. "The trade of dishonesty," he said.

They made a rough camp before nightfall, deep in the woods, and Kell risked a fire. With little food between them they ate sparsely, but took comfort in the flames.

Kell fell into a brooding silence, and winced occasionally. Saark realised it was the poison in his veins, in his organs, in his bones, and he made no comment; instead, he fell into his own weird and deviated brooding.

As Kell fell asleep, watching the fire, so Saark took a little time to move away from the camp seeking solitude. His side was still incredibly sore where Myriam had stabbed him, a bitter event which still filled his mind with dark fury and images of an almost sexual revenge. His fingers traced across the dried blood mask which caked his skin. He winced, and pulled up his shirt. His fingers traced the contours of the wound and he jumped, eyes growing wide, then narrowing. The wound had healed. Completely. There was not even the ridge of a fresh scar.

Saark fumbled in the darkness for a while, trying to see the wound, but he could not. And fear touched him, then. Shanna had bitten him. His fingers came up to his neck, and he realised these two wounds, also, had gone. What had she done top him? What strange vachine magick had she poured into his veins?

Saark returned to the camp, and wrapped himself in a fur-lined cloak, and watched the fire and tried to sleep, but he was infused with a strange bubbling energy and sleep would not come. So, instead he watched Kell snoring by the fire, and wondered what powered the man: blood and gristle, like the rest of humanity? He smiled grimly. Or maybe Kell, too, was an esoteric meshing of flesh and clockwork?

Kell dreamed of Nienna. She was seated beneath the arch of the Cailleach Fortress. Strange rocks littered the ground. The Black Pike Mountains grumbled in the background, like an angry father. "I am sorry," said Kell, walking towards her, both hands outstretched, but she opened her eyes and they were blood red, and she opened her mouth and it was a vachine abomination, and her fangs crunched free and she hissed the bestial hiss of the vampire… and leapt for him, and he batted her aside, watched her roll in the dirt and dust, cracking her head against a rock. Blood flowed, but instantly healed, blood rolling backwards up her flesh as skin and bone melded, hot wax running together. "What are you?" he screamed at his granddaughter, "What the hell are you?" and she leapt again, long claws stretching to tear free his throat…

Kell sat up. He spat. He noticed Saark watching him and scowled. "What you looking at?"

"A grumpy old stoat?"

"Fuck off."

"You did ask."

"You didn't need to answer."

"What are you thinking about?"

"Rescuing Nienna."

"What about the poison in your veins?"

"DAMN THE POISON IN MY VEINS!" Kell screamed, face almost purple with rage, and then he realised he was standing, axe in hands, glowering down at Saark who had leant back, hands out, face open in shock. "Calm down," said Saark, eventually, as Kell subsided.

"I am… sorry," said the big man.

"You need to learn to lighten up a little."

"You can always fu… Yes, yes, I see." Kell made a growling noise. "I am sorry. I will attempt to be more amenable. I will talk with you, Saark, and I will be a gentleman." He gave a rough cough, and pain shivered through his features.

"You are dying," said Saark, gently.

"Yes. It grows unbearable. Excuse my rage."

"We need to find this Myriam bitch."

"Yes," sighed Kell, weary with the world.

"I am looking forward to some payback," said Saark, with a narrow smile.

They rode for hours. The clouds dissipated, and the sun, although weak, was warm and pleasing on their skin. On this morning, heading north, the world seemed a much happier, warmer place.

"Talk to me," said Saark, after a while, hunched over his saddle, face lost in distant dreams.

"About what?" grunted Kell.

"Anything."

"I'm not in the mood for talking."

"I need you to take my mind off… something."

Kell stared at Saark, hard. But said nothing.

"I'll begin then," coughed Saark, and thought for a moment. "Don't you think," he paused, contemplating a myriad montage of memories in his laconical mind, "that's there's nothing sweeter in this world than a ripe, eager quim?"

Kell considered this. "Meaning?" he growled.

"It means what it says."

"Meaning?"

"Come on Kell, talk to me, confide in me, I'm bloody bored, mate, and you need some cheering up. I nearly died back there at the fangs of Shanna or whatever the shit she was called, and I want some fun. I want some philosophising. I want some banter, my man – it's what I thrive on! I want some life!"

Kell stared at him. He cleared his throat. "After all we've been through, after all the things we've seen, after all the battles we've endured; how can you be bored?"

Saark spread his arms wide, and grinned. His humour had returned. Pain no longer seemed to trouble him. He was bright as a button; brighter, in fact. So bright he shone. "Hey," he said, "you know me. I am a hedonist. Drink. Women. Gambling. Fighting. Thievery. Debauchery. It's a dull day when the Bone Underworld shuts its gates."

Kell coughed again, and looked away to distant mountains. Then he returned his stare to Saark. "Do you not think," he said, slowly, one great hand holding the reins of his horse, the other nestled almost unconsciously on the saddle-stashed Ilanna, "do you not think I, also, enjoy such things?"

Saark considered this. "Pah! You are Kell the Hero. Kell the Legend. You're idea of a good time is rescuing fair damsels in distress, hunting down vagabonds and returning stolen monies to the authorities, hell, you probably even clean your teeth before you go to bed."

"You met my granddaughter, yes?"

"Of course, a fine fillet of female flesh, she was." He coughed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "If you don't mind me saying so."

"I do, as a matter of fact," said Kell, voice hard. But he let it pass. "Obviously, I have a granddaughter. So then, where did she come from?"

"Your daughter would be the logical conclusion," said Saark, smugly.

"Yes. My daughter. Proof of my prowess, surely?" "Ha. I am sure I have many daughters! One is not proof of prowess, simply a proof of simple, common luck."

"Meaning?" Kell's voice was cold.

"All I'm saying is that ale has a lot to answer for."

"And your meaning?"

"Well," said Saark, losing a little of his comfort zone, "I know many an ugly bastard who's sired a child. The Royal Court wine is strong, and when drank in plentiful consumption can lead, shall we say, to amorous connections best left to the annals of dreams." He considered this, as if through experience, his mouth twisting a little. "Or maybe nightmare."

Kell coughed, eyes glittering with a dangerous shine. "You trying to say something, lad?"

"Only that alcohol has sired many children. One daughter, and hence granddaughter, is no display of excellence in the art of amorous seduction."

"I'm not talking about seduction. I'm talking about love… no, no I'm not." Kell frowned, rubbing his beard. "I always was rough around talk of such things. What I mean to say is, I obviously had a wife."

"Yes?" Saark smiled politely. There were many responses he could have made, but wisely chose to utter none.

"Well," struggled on Kell, "I had a wife, and I was married, and we had a child. A girl. A little angel. I loved her with all my heart, and I was a brute I know, but it was the first time in my life I realised I would kill for somebody, and I would also die for somebody. That was a new one on me. That was something unique."

"I have heard it is a magical experience," said Saark, a little stiffly. "Although I have never experienced it firsthand, myself. Despite being a father many times over."

Kell grinned, and it looked wrong on his face, Saark observed. Where was the scowl? The hatred? The fury?

"Well lad, you missed out on a rare experience, for all your talk of hedonism. For nothing beats a high like childbirth – and I should know," his voice dropped to a dark realm, "I've taken every bastard drug in Falanor."

They rode in silence for a while, whilst Saark digested this information. We ll, he thought, there's more life in the old donkey than I realised! "Go on," he said, finally. "What happened to your wife?"

"How did you know I was treading that particular territory?"

"I have spent an eternity in courts, with nobility, and royalty, and peasants who thought they were nobility. One thing they always want to speak about is their wives. Too fat, too thin, small tits, tits like a pig's bladder, carping, harping, moaning, whining, legs always open, legs always shut. It's all water off a greased duck's back." Saark smiled. "So, what's your story?"

"I was illustrating a point," growled Kell with a nasty look.

"Am I supposed to understand the point? Or does that bit come later?"

"Just listen," growled Kell. "The point is, I am no longer with my wife. She is not dead. We separated. It was the best option."

"What did you do?" asked Saark, voice a little more understanding now.

"I was a bad man," said Kell, words so soft they were almost lost in the sigh of the wind. "I was the toughest, meanest fucker you ever did meet. I maimed, I hurt, I tortured, I killed. I was infamous. My name was feared throughout Falanor. And I… I revelled in it, in the notoriety. Many a time we would stop at an inn, and I would leave my wife in the room and come down to the drinking bar, and drink whiskey, drink far too much whiskey, and as the night progressed so I would lie on the bar, bare-chested, laughing off challenges as a host of women rubbed ale into my hairy chest, or drank fine wine and passed it by mouth to my mouth, and then, when I was ready, I would pick out the biggest, meanest, hardest village bastard and take him outside and humiliate him. I'd never kill him, no, I was not a complete animal – although nearly, lad, nearly. But I'd always leave him with something to remember me by. Once, I punched a man so hard, when he came round he snorted two teeth out of his nose. Another time, I indented my knuckles on a man's skull; damn lucky I didn't kill him. He was unconscious for five weeks."

"And you waited by him for his recovery? Surely that was, at least, a fine and noble gesture! You showed that you had some modicum of honour. You cared enough to find out the result."

"Nonsense!" thundered Kell, filled with rage for a moment. "I met him, ten years later, when I was drunk. He showed me my knuckle imprints on his skull. Said he'd been a pit fighter for nigh twenty years, and never known a man punch as hard as I had."

"Well, your infamy was well placed, then," said Saark, coldly.

"You're missing the point, lad. The point is, I was a bastard to my wife. No. The point is, I was a hedonist, much like you; I disrespected my wife, I wallowed in violence, and ale, and whiskey, and the women threw themselves at me in those days, when I was the hardest fucker in the tavern and willing to take on any man in the village or town or city – and beat them all! The women were mine, they were at my disposal, they were there to be used and I used them. And my wife left me. And my daughter hated me. And I am lucky to have even a simple contact with Nienna. I am lucky to have my granddaughter."

Kell fell into a brooding hunch, and his eyes were hooded, his face dark.

"And the outcome of your sermon is?" said Saark brightly.

"Appreciate what you've got," snarled Kell, bitterness at the forefront of his mind. "I was like you, Saark, although you have only a limited intelligence to realise it; I was a mad man, a bad man, and I took no prisoners. Ale, whiskey, drugs, women, I took it all with both hands. But it did me no good. Ultimately, it left me hollow and brittle and broken."

"You look far from broken to me," said Saark, voice soft.

"You only see the shell," snapped Kell. "You don't see the empty cancerous holes inside. Now, be as you will, boy, do what you will with no respect for others; but I swear, one day, when you're old, and your time is spent, and you are riddled with arthritis and have no children to weep your passing, and no grandchildren to sit on your bouncing knee and ask with bright wide eyes, aye," he laughed, "they'll ask for stories of your travels with Kell the Legend; well, Saark, my lad, if you have been nothing but a dishonourable fellow – one day, one day you'll realise that your bloody time ran out. And you'll die, sad, and unloved, and alone. Even more alone than me." Kell smiled then, and kicked his horse forward, breaking free of the snow-laden forest and looking out and on to the looming Black Pike Mountains.

Saark scowled. Kell had touched a nerve, and his thoughts swirled like a winter storm. "You miserable, miserable old bastard," he muttered, and cantered after the old warrior, hands tight on the high pommel of his gelding's saddle.

Saark called a halt, and they sat under snow-heavy conifers, staring across a bleak landscape. Distantly, the Black Pike Mountains mocked them. They were getting close. As Kell grew weak, so they were getting close. And he knew Nienna was out there, just as he knew thousands of enemies were out there. Kell raged inside, and wanted to tear out his beard and his hair. It was a bad situation; a bitter situation! The world had become a savage place. But then, wasn't that what his victims thought as his great axe, his great demon-possessed axe, clove them from crown to crotch? You are an old man, and yet you walk with demons. You are an old man, and you converse with evil. You stalked the streets of Kalipher during the Days of Blood…

"Do you hate all vachine," said Saark, suddenly, looking back to Kell.

Kell grunted. "Eh?"

"No. Really. Do you hate them?"

"I hate what they stand for."

"Which is?"

Kell considered this. "They are not of this world by choice. They merge with machines, and in doing so, drink the refined blood narcotic of those they have slain. I reckon that's an unhealthy place to be, don't you, lad?"

"What happens when a vachine bites you?" said Saark, voice soft, but Kell, preoccupied with his own pain from the poison in his bones, and thoughts of finding Nienna, missed any subtleties or nuances which may have emerged from Saark's voice or facial expression.

"Well lad, it starts to turn you," said Kell.

"What does that mean? Turn you?"

Kell shrugged. "They give you blood-oil, and take your fresh blood. It's, not a poison exactly, but more a chemical that works in harmony with the clockwork machines inside any clockwork vampire. Without the clockwork…"

"Yes?"

"You suffer. Suffer long and hard. Until you beg for the clockwork to be inside you."

"Great. And how do you get this damn clockwork?" scowled Saark.

"You either visit Silva Valley, or a skilled Vachine Engineer. It's a religion, apparently." Kell barked a laugh, and slapped Saark on the back. "Why lad, not been bit, have you?" He roared suddenly, at his own incredible witticism, his own great humour.

"Of course not," said Saark, face straight. "Because then I'd be a vachine, and you'd want to cut off my head."

"Nonsense," boomed Kell, his mood seemingly lightened. He leaned in close. "I like you. You're my friend. For you, maybe I'd cut out only one lung."

Kell cantered ahead.

Saark frowned, a heavy dark frown like the thunder of worlds. "Wonderful," he muttered. "A vachine killer with a sense of humour."

Snow fell heavy, drifting in great veils across the world. Wrapped heavy in furs, they rode through day and partly through night, before finding a shallow place amongst rocks to camp. They built a fire, abandoning their subterfuge for the simple act of wanting to stay alive. Mary and the horses huddled together for warmth, and Saark sat now, face illuminated by flames, watching Kell sleep. Saark did not feel tired. He could feel his blood pulsing through his veins. Eventually the snow stopped, and the sky brightened, and looking upwards the moon seemed so incredibly bright. Saark smiled, and welcomed the cold.

He drifted for a long time, analysing his life and wondering, again, why sleep would not come. Was it the blood-oil working through his veins? Creeping through his organs? He smiled as intuition nagged him. Of course it was. He was changing, just as Kell had predicted in his summary of what happened after a vachine bit. And that meant? He had to imbibe clockwork of some sort? Saark frowned. That sounded like a bucket of horseshit. Surely Kell was wrong.

Then the pain arrived, a distant, nagging pain which grew brighter and sharper and keener with every passing heartbeat. And then twin stings shot through his mouth and Saark might have cried out, he wasn't sure, but he fell to the snowy ground and smelled crushed ice and the trees and the woodland and a rabbit shivering in a burrow and the stench of Kell, his sweat, bits of food in his bushed beard, stale whiskey on his jerkin. Saark looked up, from the snow, shivering, looked up at the moon. Again, the pain stabbed through his jaws and his teeth seemed to rattle in his skull. The pain was incredible, like nothing he'd ever felt, far surpassing the stabbing at the hands of Myriam; far outweighing the feeling of any blade which had ever pierced his flesh. He wanted to scream, but the pain swamped him, and it was a strange pain, a honey pain, thick and sweet and sickly and almost welcoming… almost.

Saark heard the sounds, then, as if from a great distance. Crunches of tearing flesh and snapping bone rattled through him, and with horror he rocked back onto his arse and touched his face, touched his teeth where long incisors had pushed through his upper jaw. He touched the fangs, felt their incredible, razor sharpness; he sliced his thumb, watched blood roll down his frozen moonlit-pale flesh, and his eyes went wide. His nostrils twitched. The smell of blood awoke something animal within him; no, not something animal, something deeper, something more feral, base, primitive, something which he could not explain.

"What is happening to me?" he said, his words thick and slurred, his head spinning. Then his head slammed right. His eyes narrowed. He fixed on Kell. Not only could he smell the detritus of human stench; now, he could smell Kell's blood.

Saark moved onto his hands and knees, and crouched, and stopped, his eyes focused on Kell, the smell of Kell's blood in his nostrils. He could smell every droplet. Every ounce. It pulsed sluggishly through Kell's veins and to Saark, here, now, the world receded, changed, and the only thing in the entirety of existence was this group of rocks, this campfire, this snow-filled moment with Kell, asleep, head back, snoring, throat exposed. Saark could see the pulse in Kell's neck. It went beyond enticement, through lust and need and into another realm which meant more than life and death. Saark wanted blood. Saark needed blood. If he did not drink Kell's blood he would surely die; he would surely explode into a billion fragments of pain only to be reformed again and torn apart again over and over for ever and ever and ever unto eternity.

Slowly, Saark crawled across the snow.

Under waxen moonlight, Kell slept on.