Soul Stealers

by Andy Remic

  "Watch your step, girl. That's a three thousand foot drop. And I bet you don't bounce much on the way down."

  "Thank you."

  "Pleasure."

  They moved on. "Imagine," said Myriam, "if you suffered a horrible scarring to your face. Or you were trapped in a fire, and ended up with face and hair on fire leaving you brutally burned and ugly. How would you respond?"

  Saark shivered. "It is a fate worse than death," he conceded. "I would be an easy victim for a torturer. This is my weakness, I admit. The minute he touched my face, I'd whimper like a girl and spill any and all secrets I carried."

  "Vanity is a curse," said Myriam.

  "Ahh, but only when you're not as beautiful as I."

  "You are a real romantic," said Myriam, voice hard.

  "I try," preened Saark, missing the irony – or choosing, at least, to ignore it. "I try, my sweet."

  At the top of the climb they came to a plateau coated in hard-packed snow. Their boots crunched and, despite their ascent, a world of further, higher peaks spread around them in a glorious, full panorama. Nienna spun in circles, giggling, and Kell breathed deep. The wind was curiously still on this mountain summit, and Kell pointed with Ilanna, across a high ridgeline peppered with ice.

  "Wolfspine," he said, simply.

  "Looks dangerous," muttered Saark.

  "It is," replied Kell, darkly. "We must take great care." He ruffled Nienna's long, dark hair. "And especially you, little monkey." But Nienna did not reply; her eyes were wide at the sight of the ridge they were to traverse.

  Wolfspine. A half-league in length, a narrow, undulating ridge perhaps a foot in width, and with sheer four thousand foot drops to either side. The path itself was an inverted V of stone, black, slippery, frosted with lace patterns of ice.

  Kell led the way, across a slightly curved plateau of snow, boots crunching. The air was still, and calm, brittle and cold, and bright light glared painfully from white snow.

  Saark caught him up. "We are wonderfully illequipped for this," he said.

  "You think I don't realise that, lad?"

  "Just thought I'd mention it."

  "Just try not to fall off, eh?"

  "I'll certainly do my best on that account."

  They stopped, where the mountain plateau rose and narrowed to the Wolfspine. Distant, through a haze of low cloud, they saw the next peak, the next Black Pike connected by this insane walkway of treacherous, icy rock.

  "Is there no other way?" whispered Saark.

  "No. The next five peaks are impossible to climb, and this ridge rises and dips, but links each peak together; without it, there would be no way to Silva Valley. The mountains form a protective barrier. In deep winter, this place is impassable – to all but the mad."

  "Ha, and I suppose you're going to tell me you've done it?"

  "I have," said Kell, voice low. "But I had ropes, and boots with spikes, and proper ice-axes."

  "Can we do it now, do you think?"

  "We're going to find out, Saark. There's no point going back. And… I want you to go first."

  "Me?" squeaked the dandy, his fear palpable. "Why not you? You've all the damn experience. What do I know? I just drink wine and fuck pampered plump beauties. This is out of my bounds, Kell old horse. This is so far out of my world I should be paddling among the stars."

  "I must take the rear," said Kell.

  "Why?"

  "In case those bastard cankers come back."

  "Oh. Yes. A fine reason."

  Kell stood, staring along the ridgeline. He glanced back at the near-flat plateau. It stretched off, then fell away into a darkness of seemingly endless valleys and tumbling mountain slopes. Beyond, he could see Falanor stretching away, see her hills and distant villages, her frozen rivers and snow-covered forests. Here, he knew – here was the point where Falanor fell behind, vanished, was eaten by the mountains. Here was the point of no return.

  He remembered his time before, in the Black Pikes, hunting vachine.

  "Damn," he said, and his gaze swept the world. Everything was clear and still and unbearably dazzling. It was like the gods had painted the world in pastel shades. Kell watched Falanor, and felt as if Falanor stared back. Help me, she said. Purify me. Make me proud.

  "I'll be back," growled Kell, turned his back on Falanor, and started to climb up to the Wolfspine ridge.

  "They're coming."

  Nienna's voice was high in panic. Kell turned, glanced back over the undulating ridge. They were picking their way carefully over the narrow ribbon of stone, and clouds had shifted, a mist enclosing the small group, muffling sounds and at least, for a while, hiding the heart-stopping sheer drops to either side.

  Kell drew Ilanna, and stood. He heard the snarls. The mist moved in patches, sometimes clearing, sometimes thickening. Then it cleared on their back-trail, and Kell saw the two crimson equine cankers. They moved fast along the ridge, sure-footed, drooling, their eyes fixed on their quarry, on fresh meat, on palpable fear.

  There came a whoosh by Kell's ear, and an arrow punched into the lead canker, just below its face. It roared, feathered shaft erupting from its flesh, and pawed at the buried arrow for a moment, snapping the shaft. It roared again, and charged, pace increasing.

  "Saark," growled Kell. "Go on. Get Nienna to the next peak. There is a resting place on the top of the mountain, a stone shelter. It would be easier to defend than here."

  "And what about you?"

  "I'll stay awhile, see what happens."

  Another shaft hissed from Myriam's bow, and hit the lead canker in the eye. It reared then, screeching an impossibly high screech, and toppled from the mountain, sliding down the terrible slope at first, then connecting with a large rock and soaring out into the void. The mist swallowed the canker, and the monster was gone.

  Now, as the mist cleared in patches, from further down behind the cankers strode the Soul Stealers. One lifted her bow, and too late Kell focused and realised. An arrow flashed, and Ilanna rose – but too slow. The arrow nicked his cheek, leaving a fine line of blood as it continued its trajectory… behind Kell, and into Myriam's throat. She gurgled, gasping, clawing the shaft and staggering back. She hit the ground, pitched sideways, and before Kell could grab her, slid off the ridgeline and into the vast, swallowing mist of the mountain void.

  Nienna screamed.

  Kell scowled, and turned back. Another arrow flashed for him, but with a rising rage and casual arrogance Ilanna snapped up and the arrow was deflected, cracking off into the mist.

  Kell faced the final, charging canker.

  And the Soul Stealers beyond.

  "Come on," he growled, lowering his head. "Come and eat my fucking axe."

  CHAPTER 13

  Kindred

  Vashell stared at the three vachine warriors, and heard Fiddion's Harvester head crackling in the fire as flames consumed flesh, and felt Alloria move away, behind him, giving him combat space. Vashell breathed deep, and settled into a rhythm of battle. They were underestimating him, he knew, because he had no face or claws or fangs, but Vashell was a warrior born. He hefted his knife, and stepped forward as the first of the vachine attacked…

  It moved fast, leaping almost horizontally at Vashell who dropped his shoulder in a blur, knife ramming up into the vachine's belly and ripping savagely sideways as he took the vachine's short black sword in his fist, and twisted allowing the moving body to slam against the wall with a splatter of blood. With a short hack, he severed the vachine's head and blood-oil flowed free from the neck stump. Nobody else had moved. Vashell squared himself to the other two creatures who stared, stunned at what they'd just witnessed. They separated as far as the cave would allow, and as the wind howled mournfully outside, Vashell caught sight of his brother from the corner of his eye; Llaran was smiling.

  "What's funny?" snarled Vashell. "The fact I'm going to sever your spine?"

  "You cannot stand against us."

  "Watch me."

  With a battl
e shriek Vashell attacked, ducking a sword strike and slash of claws, elbowing the vachine in the face and front-kicking the second, leaping figure back to the wall. He leapt himself, and sword blades clashed, and he reversed his sword thrusting it under his own arm and into the chest of the vachine leaping at his back. The creature gurgled, and clockwork whined and clicked, and Vashell withdrew the blade, turned fast and lopped off the second man's head… continuing the fluid move with a roll of hips, drop of one shoulder, his left arm bearing the knife coming up, a clash of steel sending sparks scattering through the cave as the short black sword came high overhead to slam through the third vachine's shoulder, and deep down into lungs. Clockwork machinery, spinning and moving, could be seen through severed, wide-open flesh. Vashell tugged free his blade, and split the vachine's head clean in two showing a cross-section of skull and brain – closely meshed with fine gold wire and tiny, micro-clockwork. The head peeled in two, like fruit-halves, and Vashell heard the sounds and turned fast – but Llaran had gone. Fled, into the snow.

  Alloria was standing, hands before her, panting hard. Vashell leapt to the fire, and using the tip of his sword flicked Fiddion's head from the flames. It was a blackened, crisped ball, a globe of stinking fried pork and fat ran from orifices, and steam rose from the cooling, over-cooked meat.

  "Hell," hissed Vashell, his vachine blood-fury still

  raised as his eyes narrowed, and he contemplated following Llaran into the snow. To be betrayed by his own brother! He could not understand it. But then he thought about it, and he could. Vashell was no longer beautiful vachine; and he had lost his fangs and claws, that which made him holy, that which endeared him to Engineers and Watchmakers alike. If they had taken him back to Silva Valley, he would have been executed as impure. Burned, like a common criminal. Quartered, like a captured Blacklipper. Vashell spat into the fire. "Bastards." Now, he could never go home, and that burned worse than any loss of face.

  "Listen… to… me…" croaked Fiddion.

  Vashell moved to the cooling head, and knelt. He reached out, touched the scorched flesh. He shook his head. "I cannot believe it. You tough little bastard. Can you hear me, Fiddion?"

  "Listen carefully. Vashell. The Vampire… the Warlords, they will return. Kradek-ka and Graal, they will make it so. A… summoning. They will…" He coughed, then, and a tiny raw pink tongue darted against scorched, blackened lips. "They will take Anukis. To Skaringa Dak. Helltop. To sit on the Granite Thrones. She has the Soul Gem, you see? You must stop this." He coughed – or at least choked – again, ejecting a long thick black stream of gore. "Help Anukis," said the Harvester. "Help the vachine race."

  "You don't know what you ask," said Vashell, eyes full of tears which stung his tortured face. "She has taken everything from me; my fangs, my claws, my vachine life. She took my pride and my dignity – stripped me of everything and left me as outcast! Even if I saved Silva Valley, saved the entire vachine civilisation – they would still turn on me and execute. Don't you understand?"

  "That is why you must help," said Fiddion, quietly. "Now put me back on the fire. None, none must know my secrets."

  Vashell obeyed, placing the Harvester's crisped, smouldering head back into the flames. The fire roared for a moment, bright green flames soaring to scorch the roof of the cave. Then the head burnt fiercely; in minutes it was nothing more than an outline of ash, which crumbled, vanishing into glowing embers.

  Alloria was there. She placed a hand on Vashell. He looked at her.

  "What will you do?" she said.

  He glanced back at the vachine corpses, their bloodoil staining rock and ice. Then he stood, and shook free the queen's grip. He lifted his short black sword and examined the blade. Then he bared his teeth, where once his vampire fangs had sat.

  "I will fight," he said, eyes lost in shadow.

  It was like a dream. A dream watched through fog. A dream watched through refracted glass. Kradek-ka took hold of Anukis by the throat and he pinned her down, and she screamed and struggled and the Harvesters helped, long bone fingers piercing and cutting her flesh and the brass needle was long, and dripping with globules of amber fluid, of sweet sweet honey and Kradek-ka, face twisted in animal hatred, plunged the needle into Anukis's neck and her struggling slowed and ceased and she watched the scene from outside her body, and felt good, and felt warm, and memories faded and everything in the world seemed cosy and kind and simply right.

  It had taken days of preparation, but Anukis had grown strong, had grown calm, had filled herself with yet more love for her father. He sought to make the vachine strong, to accelerate their civilisation; his was a noble cause. And when he pioneered new technology, she would be accepted back into Silva Valley, no longer blood-oil impure, no longer outcast. She could return to her old life. With Kradek-ka, her father, by her side.

  Now, they travelled ancient mountain tunnels. The walls were of purest white, and the Harvesters who travelled with Anukis and Kradek-ka, numbering perhaps thirty strong and making her shiver when they crept up behind, smiling curiously with long bone-fingers extended, carried small white globes which lit the way with a dull, feverish light.

  Kradek-ka led, with Anukis usually one step behind. Occasionally he would smile back at her, at his eldest daughter, at his special daughter, and her mind swam a little as she tried to remember why she was there. The gold liquor the Harvesters gave her in the morning and evening, it seemed to have dulled her senses and made the world flicker like beautiful candlelight, and yet it confused her at the same time. It was most strange.

  "You are a delight to behold," said Kradek-ka, remembering her earlier struggle, her fight, her animosity. But then, all emotions were easy to control with a subtle infusion of drugs. Just like all physical aspects were easy to control with a little introduction of melding clockwork.

  They walked, through endless tunnels. Sometimes the walls were smooth and curved, corridors wide and paved as if used by great armies or royalty; other times they became angular, the white tiles gleaming and slightly off centre, awkward to look at as if they were plucking to unravel your mind. Then they would walk across rough hewn stone, sometimes dry as desert sand, other times slick with water or a clear, viscous slime. But two constants remained; the walls were always white, and the tunnel floor always sloped up.

  They climbed. For hours, they climbed.

  Occasionally they would come across rest rooms, low-ceilinged and scattered with beds. Kradek-ka would allow Anukis to sleep, to regain her strength. Kradek-ka never slept and would stand at the foot of her bed, watching her, staring at her, until she drifted into a world of dreams, of before the horror and bloodshed, when she used to sneak at night through the city streets of the Silva Valley, avoiding Engineers on her way to the Blacklippers for a bottle of Karakan Red.

  When she awoke, Kradek-ka was always there, the Harvesters like ghosts in the background, or out in the tunnels, watching, drifting around, their purpose esoteric and unfathomable. Anukis often wondered if Kradek-ka stood watching all night; or if, when she slept, he would move away and entertain himself. However, he was always there when she awoke. Once, she might have found it creepy. Now, however, she found it comforting. Her father, the Watchmaker, was watching over her. He was all-seeing, all-strong; he was the backbone of the Vachine Empire. He had invented the Blood Refineries. He would save the vachine. He would expand the vachine. He was immortal. He would care for Anukis, forever.

  They travelled on, and sometimes they would pass huge caverns, high up on narrow stone walkways with golden wires to grasp in order to steady oneself. Below, the white ground appeared soft, and pulsed with an inner white light. Harvesters collected there, and looked up in their thousands. Sometimes they watched these intruders – for that was how Anukis felt – and they would pass beyond the massive cavern confines. Other times, the Harvesters would lift their long, bone fingers and Anukis could not tell whether it was in salute, or in condemnation.

  On crossing the fourth or fifth c
avern filled with thousands of soundless Harvesters, Anukis turned to her father. "There are so many of them," she said, face ashen, strange pains in her chest, deep down in her clockwork.

  "Yes. Nobody from Silva Valley, no Engineer, no Watchmaker, not even the Episcopate have seen these Halls. They are a holy place, and we are lucky indeed to pass through and remain unharmed. Usually, they would descend on us in thousands, and we would be instantly husked."

  "Why, then, do they allow us passage?"

  "Because we have something important to do," smiled Kradek-ka. "Something that will benefit them immensely."

  "What do we have to do?" said Anukis, face a little slack. The drugs were starting to wear off, and the pains in her clockwork were increasing, and so strange, she thought, so odd that she needed the honey liquor more often now. She thought of the past; had she always needed the honey liquor? She did not remember taking it before, when she was a free vachine of Silva Valley… but then, the entirety of her early life was fuzzy and just a little bit twisted, and she let the memories go, let them slide away as more of the honey drug slid down her throat and eased into her veins and she was at peace.