by Andy Remic
Now, down by the docks, Wood could hear a riot of activity. Carpenters were sawing and hammering, carving and sculpting, labourers carting huge planks of wood, and ship builders in their hundreds were at work. Wood stood a little, holding onto the chimney, aware that if he slipped and a piece of slate went tumbling to the ground the bastards would be over him like a swarm of insects. He shaded his eyes, trying to see the docks; he could catch glimpses, of bodies hard at work. And of course, their noises echoed through the light mist which had seemed, ridiculously, to have lingered for the past three days now. Or at least, since Bhu Vanesh and his vampire demons had invaded the Port of Gollothrim.
Think. Think. What to do?
Reach Pettrus. But then what?
He shook his head. After all, why were they building ships of all things? Wood moved off across the icy rooftop, lowering himself over a stone lintel and down to another. He eased tenderly across ridge tiles, hunched over and trying not to pose a large target, and below in the streets he caught peripheral glances of the creatures, the vampires, call them what you will, drifting like ghosts, almost regal in their lazy decadent dawdling.
After another few hours of subterfuge, of careful travel, Wood crouched by a stone gargoyle, glancing past ugly twisted features wearing a stubble of moss and haircream of seagull shit. There. He could see Pettrus' house, a narrow terraced stone building on a steep, cobbled road leading down to the southern docks. The door was open. Wood grimaced. That was bad. Even as he watched, he saw two vampires move to the doorway and pause, looking around. There came a subtle crack from inside, and the creatures moved in; vanished from sight.
"Bollocks." Wood leapt down to a lower roof, then scrambled to a pipe, swinging his legs over and dangling precariously for a moment, cold fingers clawing, nails dragging on stone, boots kicking uselessly until they found purchase. Wood half climbed, half slid down the iron water-channel pipework, and landed in a heap on the cobbles. He stood, drew his army-issue iron short sword, and approached the door…
Inside, darkness beckoned like a bad nightmare. Wood glanced behind him, licked his lips, and thought better of calling out for Pettrus. It would bring a city full of blood-sucking vermin to the door, that was for sure! But then, he did not need to call out – he heard Pettrus' voice, as grumpy and scratchy as ever.
"Get out, you filthy bastards!" he was snarling, and Wood heard the rasp of steel.
He ran, into the lower quarters where he'd spent many a happy evening drinking brandy and sherry and port, and recounting endless old war stories, tales of campaigns in Anvaresh and Drennach, Torragon and Ionia. Then Pettrus would break out the black bread and cheese, and they'd wash it down with more fine brandy and watch the sun come up over misty rooftops, hearing the call of gulls and distant cacophony of ships unloading their foreign wares at the docks.
Wood ran for the stairs. There came a thud, and a gurgle, and Wood stopped in his tracks. At the foot of the stairs was a dead vampire, chest awash with a flood of crimson, face a rictus mask, fangs gleaming, eyes blood-red and wide and dead. Through the heart. It had been stabbed straight through the heart.
Wood stepped gingerly over the corpse, and eased up the stairs. He heard Pettrus again.
"Come on, you blood-puking bastards! Let's see what you've got!"
"You will not be underestimated again," came a soft, feminine voice, followed by a crunch of wood, and a growl, and the sound of smashing glass.
Wood ran, reaching the landing and spinning into the modest bedroom. Pettrus' sword was on the floor, stained with blood, and he had been flung across the room, hitting the wall, one arm smashing through the window. Blood trickled over his wrist, and his face was slapped, stunned, dazed. Before him, back to Wood, stood a slim girl, no more than eighteen, with long blonde hair and hands focused into claws. She was hissing, a low oozing sound, and hunched ready to spring. To the right, there was another creature, crumpled in a foetal position, hands clasped to chest, panting fast like a heart-attack victim. Pettrus had not been taken easily. But even now, the slim girl was readying to pounce.
Wood leapt forward, shouting "Hah!" as his sword thrust out, but the girl moved fast, too fast, spinning as the blade struck, aiming for her heart but missing, and it scored a line under her arm, parting her flowered dress and opening a huge wound but she did not scream, did not moan or cry out in pain but simply took the blow, flesh parting like razored fish-flesh and no blood came out, just flapping bulging muscle revealing yellow ribs within. Wood's blade came back, and she leapt at him, and in reflex his sword shot up and she knocked it away, fist slamming out to thump his chest, the impact a crushing blow that threw him back against the wall, his head ramming back, stars fluttering and she leapt again, pursuing him, and Wood's head twitched sideways where the vampire's fist skimmed his cheek, punching a hole clean through the stone wall. Dust rose, Wood choked, the girl struggled for a moment with fist trapped and Wood side-stepped, glared at her in temper, pain pounding through his chest with hammer blows and realisation in his dark eyes that if her punch had connected, she would have crushed his head like a ripe fruit. His blade lifted, and he struck her a savage blow across the skull, which split her open revealing skull and brain within, a cross-section down halfway to her nose. She did not die. Wood stared with his mouth hung open at the large V of wound, the open skull, the struggling creature who should be dead as a corpse, but was still mouthing obscenities, flapping and fighting, and her fist came out of the wall grey with powdered stone and her fingers were twisted and mangled, snapped and bent in order to retrieve her fist and she turned on Wood, face a horrific open V, eyes split wide apart but still staring at him with recognition, understanding, hatred, and Pettrus against the far wall croaked, "Cut off its head!" and Wood's blade lifted wide, and slashed at the girl, and there was a thud as her decapitated split head hit the thick carpet. The headless corpse stood for a moment, and Wood watched it, wondering if the bastard thing would still attack him. What would he do then? Cut off the arms and legs? And what if each body part came after him? He felt an insane giggle welling in his chest and he forced it down with a grunt. Focus! You've seen worse than this! But when? When, really?
The corpse collapsed, and lay still. Wood gave a sigh, and glanced right to the fast-panting vampire. Its eyes were watching him, and blood was pooling under it.
"I winged it," said Pettrus, pushing himself to his feet and brushing broken glass from his dressing-gown sleeve. "Go on. Kill it, lad."
Wood moved to the thing, wary, sword gripped in a heavily sweating palm. He could feel droplets in his moustache, and on his shining pate. Damn his thinning hair! How would he woo the young ladies now?
His sword slammed down, separating the creature from its head, which rolled a short way and stared up at him, tongue protruding and purple like a great bloated worm.
Pettrus moved to Wood, and slapped him on the back. "Thanks, boy. I had it under control, but you arrived just in time, all right." He coughed, and grinned, and bent to retrieve his own sword.
"Why are you wandering around in your dressing gown?"
"I was asleep, wasn't I?"
"What, here? Didn't you have the bloody sense to hide, man?"
"Of course I hid, you buffoon!" chortled Pettrus, and rubbed at his sliced wrist. "I was in the attic! What did you think I'd be doing, painting my arse blue and parading it up and down the docks? I just needed a piss, is all."
"Why not piss in a bucket?" snapped Wood, as usual becoming irate at the old man's obstinacy.
"I'm not doing that, boy. It'd stink."
"You risked certain death because of a piss stench?"
"Not certain death. You turned up. Eh?" He slapped the younger Command Sergeant again, and grinned a mouthful of bad teeth.
"Stop calling me 'boy'. I'm fifty years old!"
"Still a boy to me," said Pettrus, then his mood turned a little sour, and he surveyed the corpses. "We need to do something about this outrage. We need to sort this shit out.
"
"I agree. They've taken over the whole damn city, and worse than that, it's spreading quicker than the Red Plague!"
"Yes." Pettrus rubbed his side-whiskers. "We need to get rid of them, because unless we do, all the good restaurants will remain closed. And how will I get my steak and port then, eh?"
Wood stared at the old man. There was a twinkle in his eye.
"You always liked a challenge, didn't you?"
"When the Gold Loop Tribes of Salakarr mounted a charge on elephants with spikes attached to their legs, and tigers straining on golden leashes, and with arrows which flamed and spears which had mechanisms to cut a man in two, well, me and the lads did not flinch! We stood our ground, shields high, spears and swords ready, jaws tight and with good hard Falanor steel, good old Falanor backbone, and a bit of Falanor spunk, we turned back those screaming hordes. We did that."
"And your point?"
Pettrus stood straight, as if to attention on a parade square. He held his sword, and ignored the blood, and with proud whiskers quivering, said, "I'm not going to let some dirty blood-sucking youngsters ruin my city. We need to get to the Black Barracks. That's where all the old soldiers know to go in times of crisis. The Black Barracks! And when we've got a few of the old boys together, well, Command Sergeant Wood…"
"Yes?"
"We'll give these damn vampires a bloody nose to remember," he grinned.
Graal sat in the high stone tower, head in his hands, mind pounding. It was the worst headache he'd ever had, a flowing river of thumping tribal drums that seemed linked to his clockwork, to his inner gears and cogs, a rhythm in tune with the tick-tock of his twisted clockwork heart.
Reaching out, Graal took a glass of brandy and drank deep. He had started to drink more and more, usually just before he was required to see Bhu Vanesh and give the Vampire Warlord an update on progress. Certainly, he drank after every meeting. Because, and he knew this to be true, General Graal was now little more than a slave. He had worked so hard to summon the Warlords, with the mistaken belief he would be in control… when in reality they were so powerful as to be beyond physical retribution.
Graal had tried to kill Bhu Vanesh. Just the once.
On the second night, he had crept to the darkened bedchambers where Bhu Vanesh slumbered. The room was filled with blacks, and purples, and crimson colours, candles burned stinking of human fat and corpses littered the floor at the bottom of the bed – evidence of Bhu Vanesh's supper.
Normally, Lorna and Division General Dekull would be standing in attendance; but Graal had witnessed them leave the chamber, and decided it was time to strike.
He drew his thin black sword, and with blue eyes glinting in his pale, white face, Graal stepped daintily over husked corpses, their flesh shrunken and shrivelled over grotesque twisted skeletons thinking all the time how this reminded him of the Harvesters, and the way they drained the blood for the Refineries… his mind snapped to the present. Bhu Vanesh reclined on black satin sheets, stained with pools of dark, dried blood. He slept, breathing rhythmical, body still coiling and twisting, each limb fashioned from dark smoke, red eyes closed in dreams of… what did a Vampire Warlord dream of? World domination? World slaughter? An end to fear of imprisonment? Graal had grinned, then, a slightly manic grin. Remove the head, and the body dies. Such was the vampire mantra.
He crept with all the agility and silence he knew he possessed. His sword lifted, so gentle a butterfly could have landed on its razor edge and not been disturbed by its fluid movement. Then, it slashed down, angle and force perfect for removing a head, and Graal watched in lazy-time slow-motion as if through a shimmering wall of treacle and the air felt suddenly muzzy with a discharge of magick and Graal realised too late the charms which surrounded this ancient creature. His blade struck Bhu Vanesh and simply stayed there, a hair's-breadth from severing his neck, and slowly Bhu Vanesh rose from the bed in one rigid arc of movement and his red eyes opened and he stared down at General Graal as his sword thumped to the satin sheets.
"You had one chance," said Bhu Vanesh, his voice a portal to the Chaos Halls, smoke oozing from the terrible orifice as he spoke. "That is now gone. Betray me again, and I will suck your bones. Go now."
Graal turned, shaking, and walked past Lorna and Dekull who stood either side of the door, fangs gleaming, red eyes watching him with hunger. He returned to his tower with a panicked tick tick tick in his ears as he acknowledged he was vachine, and he was weak, and he was a slave, and he did not know what to do.
There came a knock at the door. Graal drank the brandy and placed the solid glass down with a clack.
"Enter."
The man was small, stocky, with thick black hair, shaggy eyebrows, frightened eyes. Once, Graal would have relished the terror in this little man, but not now, not today, not in this life; because Graal was subject to the same rules and the same slavery. He was shackled by fear. Strangled by power. Bhu Vanesh was Warlord. Graal was a worm.
"What is it?" snapped the General.
"I… I've been sent here, because of the ideas I had, I'm a designer, an engineer. I… I…"
"If you stutter again, I'll rip out your throat and eat your spine. Now. Continue."
Graal focused on the man, watched him swallow, could smell the ooze of piss in his pants, could hear the rumbling of his churning guts, smell the acid of his fearfilled reflux. That made Graal smile. To add a razor edge to any conversation always filled Graal with an almost sexual delight. To put the pressure of death on a simple exchange of words made Graal feel strong again, powerful, in control. Ha! But he knew it was a false feeling, the imitation of an imitation. So… the feeling of elation dropped like an avalanche from his soul.
"You are building new ships?"
"No, I have a thousand carpenters and riggers carving piss-pots. Of course we are building ships."
"I have a new design."
"I have hundreds of designs. They work well. We have corvettes, frigates, galleons and merchant hulks. We have everything we need, armed with the biggest damn crossbows I've ever seen and capable of punching a hole the size of my whole body through the side of an enemy vessel. What could you possibly offer me?" sneered Graal, and poured himself another large glass of brandy. Below, the shipwrights, caulkers and carpenters worked on, their noise adding to Graal's pounding head and rising temper. Who was this little man? Why did he plague Graal so? And what fucking idiot had sent him up? Graal would kill this fucker, then make sure whoever was responsible got to clean out the sewers for the next year.
"I can build you a metal ship," said the man.
"Ridiculous! It would sink."
The man watched Graal carefully, then shook his head. "No. I have designs, and I have made models. A metal ship will not burn, and is armoured by natural design; it will be smaller and more manoeuvrable than any war galleon you care to pitch against it."
Graal considered this. "What is your name?"
"Erallier, sir. Just think, if I can do this for you, if I and my family are looked after, and not turned into…" He shuddered. Then composed himself. "You will please your," he considered his words carefully, "your master, yes? You will have an incredible warship the like of which has never been seen."
Graal nodded. "Yes. You have a month to deliver plans and begin work. See Grannash below, he will issue you with coin and a… mark."
"A mark?"
"A ward. To protect you, like those out there," Graal waved a hand in the general direction of the thousands of workmen on the docks. "We can't be having all our workers changed, can we? How then would the ships be built? Now. Go. Please me, and I will personally guarantee your family's safety."
"Yes, General. Thank you, General."
Erallier departed, and Graal considered the proposal. A metal ship. The greatest warship ever! Enough to beat the Vampire Warlords? Graal shrugged, and stood, and stretched his back, and stared out at the Port of Gollothrim. Beyond the docks, the navy of Falanor was being gradually recalled. No
w, four hundred vessels lay at anchor along the docks and for as far as the eye could see; and to the south in the city's shipyards, another two hundred skeleton vessels were in building progress. Graal had been given a year. One year to build up the navy. And then the Vampire Warlords would seek to… expand. They would travel. And they would conquer. They would take their plague to every corner of the modern world. They would build a new empire!
Graal smiled. And sighed. And pondered. And waited for news. And plotted against Bhu Vanesh. One day, you fucker, I'm going to eat your heart and take your place. One day. One day!
