Soul Stealers

by Andy Remic

  Kell laid his hand on Nienna's shoulder. "Is this what you wanted, girl?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "That day, when the Army of Iron invaded Jalder. You said you were bored. You wanted a taste of adventure. Well, you've been given adventure all right. You've been given adventures enough to last you a lifetime!"

  "It's not what I expected," she said, in a small voice, remembering the evil people she had met, the pain she had endured, the friends she had lost. And most of all, she pictured Kat, a victim at the hands of Styx's Widowmaker crossbow. Nienna realised she was glad Styx was dead. He was a bad man, and had deserved everything. "I realise now. I did not understand. It would have been better to stay at home, go to university, raise a family." She took a deep breath, and looked up into Kell's eyes as the wind whipped her dark hair. "But I am here now, and this thing is happening to our world. The Army of Iron will not stop, the vachine will not stop – not unless we stop them, right?"

  Kell chuckled. "An old man, a haunted child, a cancer-riddled woman and a foppish dandy. What chance, in the name of the Bone Underworld, have we really got?"

  "You sell us short, old man," said Saark, smiling, his eyes twinkling as his gaze moved back down the trail they had traversed. The smile dropped from his face, as if he'd been hit by a helve. Distant, by the tarn, where the pass led from the Cailleach Fortress, something moved. "We have company," snapped Saark, hand on the hilt of his rapier.

  The group turned, looked down, and stared.

  Distant, two pale-skinned figures emerged. They were tall, lithe, athletic, and moved with a balanced ease across uneven ground. Even from this great remoteness it was clear they were Graal's daughters, the vachines who had attacked Kell and Saark earlier. They were the Soul Stealers. And they still hunted Kell's blood.

  "I thought we'd scared them off," said Saark, voice little more than a whisper.

  "No chance, lad," said Kell, eyes hooded. "And look. This time they brought friends."

  Behind the two women, on long chain leashes, came the cankers. There were three of them, but these were smaller than previous beasts and appeared, almost, like bow-legged horses. Only these seemed to have no skin. Bloody, crimson flesh gleamed, even from this distance. One of the skinless cankers screeched, and the sound echoed through the basin valley like a woman being stabbed, reverberating on high spirals of wind. It was a chilling sound.

  "Time for us to move on, I think," said Saark, mouth dry, voice a whisper.

  "Let's go," agreed Kell, and they headed down the opposite side of Demon's Ridge as far below, in the valley, the Soul Stealers sniffed the air and started forward in pursuit.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Black Pike Mountains

  General Graal knelt on luxurious rugs, his body naked and oiled, and grasped the black sword in shaking fingers. He had imbibed drugs, the leaf of the Truaga Plant, and allowed his blood to be filtered through KaKa Leaves. And although he was considered an amateur in circles of magick, this simple spell taught by Kradek-ka, this simple mind-to-mind communion using blood-oil as a signal carrier was something at which Graal was becoming peculiarly adept. For he knew he would need this skill when the Vampire Warlords returned…

  Kuradek, Meshwar and Bhu Vanesh.

  It had been an age since they walked the lands. An age since they sat on the Granite Thrones. But their time was about to return, and Graal could feel their apprehension in the Blood Void; could feel their frustration and eagerness, and ultimately, their desire to return with their toxicity, with their plague.

  "Kradek-ka?" he whispered.

  "I am here," said Kradek-ka, the telltale tick tick tick of his vachine clockwork filling Graal's mind and making it difficult to concentrate over such distance.

  "I am finished here. Falanor is a conquered land."

  "Yes. You have conquered it, Graal; you have brought a bloody retribution for their past; for the times of Ankarok. Servants they again shall be! And, as a consequence, we have enough blood-oil for the Summoning. But still, we need the third Soul Gem. Without it, we will have no control of the Vampire Warlords. With all three Soul Gems, we will be Masters." He laughed, a cold cruel laugh.

  "Does Anukis know?" said Graal.

  "No. She is a simple fool. She believes me, and she trusts me; after all, I am Watchmaker, I am Engineer! She was polluted by her mother as a child, I fear, fed simple morals and indoctrinated in the way of vachine; she wishes to see the vachine society expand and prosper, despite what they did because of her impure nature; despite what Vashell was forced to do – by coercion, and by magick. But she will come round, Graal. She will deliver the Soul Gem voluntarily… And if she does not? Well, I will rip the Gem from her chest with my own teeth. The Engineer Religion must end here. It is time for a new Empire. An Empire based on Blood and Sacrifice and Vampire Plague!"

  Graal said nothing for a moment, and thought of his own daughters, Shanna and Tashmaniok. If they had carried a gem of infinite power, of destructive soul magick buried deep within their own flesh, if they had carried a key to controlling the ancient vampire gods – would he sacrifice them? He smiled then. Of course he would. For they were only flesh, and bone, and what Kradek-ka and Graal planned… Well, that was immortality. Power. And total control.

  "What of the second?" said Graal, then. "Have the three moons aligned?"

  "The moons are aligned," confirmed Kradek-ka. "And even as we speak, Jageraw is in the mountains on his strange deviant course. As the Book of Angels decreed, the Gems had to be implanted in Guardian Souls. When released, only then would they have the true power to control the Vampire Warlords."

  "So we have Anukis. We have Jageraw. Our lady, our contact implanted the third… have you found her, yet? Have you found the Guardian?"

  "Yes." Kradek-ka's voice was soft. Clockwork gears stepped and clicked with a vague, background buzz. "I know the Guardian now."

  "Did she choose well? Is the Guardian known to me?" said Graal, voice grave.

  "Let us just say this answers a puzzle which has haunted us for many a day, General Graal."

  The brass chamber in the Engineer's Palace was cold, and eerily quiet at this hour of the night. Sa entered, pulling a high-collared shimmering iron gown tight. Her eyes burned with annoyance. "This had better be good," she snarled, striding across the metal floor, boots ringing. Then she stopped. She stared at Walgrishnacht and the three remaining members of his platoon.

  The Cardinal and his vachine warriors were in a sorry state. Their flesh was cut and burned, by weapons and by ice, and their armour and clothing was in tatters showing signs of many a battle. The vachine warriors wore bloodied bandages with pride.

  "You came through the mountains?"

  "Through the Secret Paths," said Walgrishnacht.

  "And you have news," said Sa, briskly.

  "Princess Jaranis is dead. General Graal had her murdered. I assume this precludes invasion."

  "It is not your duty to assume," snapped Sa, eyes narrowed. "You were pursued?"

  "By cankers," said Walgrishnacht, voice level. Tagortel gave a short hiss, air rushing past his vachine fangs. He gestured to Sa, who nodded. For cankers to attack vachine was unheard of. Unbelievable! Even to utter such a breath was heresy in the Engineer's Palace.

  "You can prove this?" said Tagor-tel, voice low and filled with poison.

  Beja stepped from the shadows, and he carried a sack. Unceremoniously, he upended the cloth and a huge, deformed canker head rolled out, leaving bloodoil smears on the chamber floor.

  Sa took an involuntary step back. She met Walgrishnacht's steel gaze.

  "We are not the enemy here," said the Cardinal, and she noted his hand was on his sword-hilt. He had a finger missing.

  "Do you realise to whom you speak?" hissed Sa, invoking her Watchmaker status.

  "Yes," said Walgrishnacht. "But it looks to me that Graal intends to invade. You must call the War Council. If you do not pull our troops, and our Ferals back from Untamed Lands, we wi
ll be defenceless. Silva Valley will be defenceless!"

  Sa gave a nod. She turned to Tagor-tel. "Any news from Fiddion?"

  "No. He has been strangely silent."

  "Then call the War Council," said Sa, voice bleak. "Come the spring, it appears we go to war."

  Kell and his fellow travellers made a hasty descent into a narrow pass which led through the mountains. Tension was eating them, now. On their trail were two cross-breed vachine albino killers. Which meant… what? That the vachine and albino soldiers were breeding? Saark shivered at the thought as he moved lithely across rocky ground, and a cold wind laced with ice caressed him.

  "You're going to have to leave the donkey," said Kell, finally, as they stumbled through a narrow inverted V, leading to a rocky ravine.

  "No."

  "It's not up for debate, Saark. With those bastards on our tail, we need to put down more speed. She's slowing us down." Kell placed his hand gently on Saark's arm. "My friend. If Mary is with us when the cankers come, they will tear her to pieces. You know this."

  Saark nodded, and with a tear in his eye he patted the donkey's muzzle, removed the heavy load from her back and took a few essentials from the bags, before slapping her rump with the hilt of his rapier. With a startled "eeyore", Mary cantered back down the trail, then turned and stared at Saark reproachfully with large, baleful eyes.

  "Go on. Shoo!" he yelled. Looking back to Kell, he grinned. "I love that beast," he said, and Kell nodded, eyes hooded, hand on the Ilanna's matt black shaft.

  "Let's move," said Kell, eyeing the high ridgeline above. Distantly, he fancied he could hear canker snarls, but shook his head. It was the wind in the crags. But they were coming, he knew. The albino women and the cankers. They were coming, all right. He could feel it in his bones. In his very soul.

  Kell had been right to abandon Mary. They moved with more speed now, although both Nienna and Saark complained bitterly at the pace; and Saark more-so than the young woman. On Kell's direction, they angled right, up a steep rocky slope filled with flat plates of granite and slate, boots stomping and sliding to send yet more rocks scattering and clattering to the valley below. Kell pushed them hard, and after fifty minutes or so all were streaming with sweat, pain flashing bright patterns through their brains. Saark paused, and gazed down the scree slope.

  "I can see Mary!" he said, almost triumphantly. Then stopped dead, as from a narrow chimney in the opposite wall of rock loped the three cankers. They stopped, snarling and drooling, and spread out, circling the donkey, great paws padding and claws drawing sparks from the hard ground, eyes fixed, travelling in lazy pendulous sweeps. Mary eeyored in panic, eyes wide, ears laid back on her terrified skull. Saark found his heart in his mouth, terror running through his veins. "No," he muttered, gripping his rapier as Mary hunkered down in terror, bunching her hind quarters to do the only thing she knew how; to kick. "Not the donkey!" wailed Saark. But, after a few brief circles, the cankers broke away like a squadron of hunting falcons, and padded along the bottom of the valley floor.

  "Shh!" said Kell, motioning for the others to lower themselves to the ground, killing their skyline. Then he glanced up. Above them reared a high wall of granite cut through with lodes of glittering quartz, diagonal bands that gleamed and sparkled. He fancied he spied a narrow aperture. A narrow squeeze would be good to slow down the cankers – or at least force them to come through in single file. But they hadn't been spotted yet; if they stood and ran now, it would draw the cankers to them immediately. If they were lucky, the cankers would lose their scents.

  "They're heading off down the ravine," whispered Saark.

  Kell nodded.

  Myriam shifted, and a rock rolled down the slope, bouncing as it reached the bottom to send a hollow clatter reverberating through the rocky wilderness. The cankers stopped, a sudden movement, and all three heads turned to stare up at the hiding adventurers.

  "Well done, bitch," hissed Saark.

  Kell stared at the cankers. He had never seen anything like them. Their skin was translucent, showing the crimson of thick muscles cut through by clockwork machinery within, all twisted and deformed just that little bit – a characteristic which set them apart from pure vachine. It was a twisted merging of clockwork technology and flesh made real.

  Their eyes were blood red, faces elongated almost into horse muzzles but much wider, much larger, showing curved fangs which twisted and bent in seemingly random directions. They moved on all fours like huge lions, but as they turned and bounded up the slope Kell and Saark blinked, realising they had hooves.

  "Mother of Mercy," whispered Saark, drawing his rapier.

  "Run!" screamed Kell, suddenly, breaking the spell. Nienna and Myriam sprinted, sliding up the scree, with Saark and Kell close behind. Kell pulled free Ilanna and kissed her butterfly blades. "Don't let me down this time," he muttered.

  I am here for you, Kell. Here to kill for you. As you know I always will.

  They sprinted up, as best they could. The cankers moved fast, faster than a human, and spiked brass claws emerged from hooves sending showers of sparks scattering down the scree slope. Myriam reached the narrow aperture first, and lifted free her long bow. She notched an arrow and touched a fletch to her cheek in one swift movement. An arrow flashed through the gloom, hitting a canker high in the shoulder. It squealed then, with a high-pitched whinny, twisted and corrupt. The cry of a dying horse.

  Nienna ran into the gap in the rocky wall. It was the width of a man, the walls green and slick and slimy. Moss lined the floor in a thick layer, and above, about twelve feet from the ground, several large fallen rocks had formed a wedged, uneven roof.

  "Come on!" shouted Nienna, fear etching her face and voice like acid. She pulled free a long knife, and stood, waiting, watching.

  Saark reached Myriam's side and turned. He was an agile and quick man, made faster by his bite at the teeth of the albino vachine. He had left Kell behind, labouring, for once his prodigious size and strength working against him. Kell was panting hard, sweat running in rivulets down his face, into his beard, and he powered on, Ilanna in one mighty fist as the first of the cankers came up fast behind him… at the last minute Kell screamed and whirled, Ilanna slamming through flesh and knocking the canker back down the slope, where it rolled and thrashed past its sprinting comrades. Kell came on a few more steps. He was twenty paces from the aperture, but the cankers were too close. Another arrow flashed, close over Kell's shoulder and into a canker's throat – the beast reared, emitting the strange screaming horse-shriek, but dropped to the ground and charged on. Kell's axe slammed in an overhead sweep, connecting as the canker leapt for his throat with long brass claws, and Ilanna bit through muscle and flesh, snapping bones with terrible crunches. The canker twisted, trapping the axe and rolling away, tearing the great butterfly blades from Kell's sweating grip. The third canker leapt, but Myriam's arrow flashed, striking the beast through the eye. Kell shifted left as the beast hit the ground beside him, thrashing, and he leapt on its back, great hands taking hold of its long equine head and wrenching back with all his strength, his muscles writhing, and for a long moment they were locked, immobile, a bizarre double-headed creature from a deformed nightmare – then there came a mighty crack as Kell snapped the beast's neck. The canker fell limp, mewling, and Kell ran back to his embedded axe, taking hold of the shaft and wrenching the weapon free. Panting, and covered in huge globules of canker blood, he turned and ran for the crevice.

  "Well done, old horse!" beamed Saark, as Kell reached the wall of rock. The old warrior glanced up, lips tight, saying nothing. He turned, and watched the two injured cankers climb to their feet. Even though Ilanna had cut a huge chunk from the beast, breaking bones within, it shifted itself and they could see the huge open wound – enough to fell any bull or bear – and watched as inside the wound thin golden wires seemed to flow, twisting and entwining around broken bones, pulling them with little cracks back into place, into alignment, then wrapping around and aroun
d and around, binding, strengthening, as all the time the ominous tick tick tick of slightly offbeat clockwork clicked across the empty rock space.

  "Inside," growled Kell, squaring himself up.

  "They can fit," said Saark. "The cankers are smaller than others we've met. Kell, the bastards can follow us."

  "Not if I have my way!" he hissed, eyes like glowing coals. Myriam and Saark followed Nienna into the narrow gap, and Kell lifted Ilanna above his head as the cankers orientated themselves on the man and dropped their heads, growls emitting on streams of saliva.

  Kell swung his axe, striking the rocky wedge above. The wall boomed, sparks spat in a shower, and above the rocks trembled. Again Kell struck the wall, and again, his huge muscles straining, Ilanna shrieking and singing in simple joy and the cankers charged, their brass claws raking the rocks and for a final time, Kell slammed his axe into the wall and above there came a rattle, followed by cracks as three huge rocks shifted, and one fell, the second fell atop it, and their combined weight brought a wall of granite tumbling into the gap as Kell leapt back, stumbled back, dust billowing out and slamming him like a wall of ash. Kell coughed, choking for a moment, blinded, dust in his beard and eyes. He dropped his axe, rubbing at his eyes and coughing some more, and Saark patted the old man on the back.