by Andy Remic
"We need to work together," said Vilias.
"But then the prize is shared between sixty, not twenty!"
"But we still win the prize," grinned the charismatic thief. "One bottle of wine is better than none, right mate?"
Vilias set several men to smashing up crates, and they fashioned several large, crude shields. Then, with five men at a time using the wide wooden shields they worked under protection to build a bridge, crossed the river and stormed into the cart fortress with swords raised and battle screams filling the air.
Afterwards, Saark and Grak called Vilias to them.
"You showed great courage," said Saark, smiling at the man.
Vilias saluted. "Thank you, sir. But it was just common sense."
"Common sense has got you promoted to Command Sergeant, lad. That's extra wine and coin for all the platoons under your new command."
"Thank you… sir!"
"You understand that an army is all about working together," said Saark, with his chin on his fist. With his dark curls and flashing eyes, with his charisma and natural beauty, he cut a striking figure now he no longer wore fancy silk shirts and bulging pantaloons. Grak had persuaded him to don something more fitting for the Division General of a new army.
"Yes, sir!"
Vilias returned to his men to share the good news, and Saark sagged, glancing over at Grak who grinned a toothless grin of approval.
"Well inspired!" boomed Grak. "Any army indeed works – and wins by all the gods – by the simple act of cooperation. Soldiers watching one another's backs; spearmen protecting shield-men, archers protecting infantry, cavalry protecting archers."
Saark chuckled. "I only know because you told me last night after a flagon of ale."
"Still," said Grak. "You sounded like you knew what you were talking about! And that's what matters, eh lad?"
"I'm not cut out for this," said Saark, displaying a weak grin. "Only yesterday the smiths came with technical questions about the shields; what the fuck do I know about shields? Succulent quims, yes! Breasts, I could talk all day about the size and texture and quality of many a buxom pair of tits. But shields? Shields, I ask you?"
"With things like that," said Grak, "just refer it to me. Say you're too busy to deal with it. Last thing we need," he bit a chunk from a hunk of black bread, "is a shield with the shape and functionality of a woman's flower."
Saark paused. "A what?" he said.
"A flower."
"You mean the slick warm place between her legs?"
"Don't be getting all rude with me," snapped Grak. "I won't take it, y'hear?"
Saark stood, and stretched. Then grinned, eyeing the ranks of men who were now practising with wooden swords as newly appointed Command Sergeants strolled up and down the lines, shouting encouragement and offering advice. Grak had appointed those with soldiering experience, he'd said.
"I suggest we go to the quartermaster," said Saark.
"Why?"
"I suggest we get two flagons of ale and retire to my quarters. You can teach me about warfare, about units and field manoeuvres, and I, well," Saark grinned, and ran a hand through his long dark curls, "darling, I will teach you about women."
Kell and Jagor rode into the narrow pass. It was quiet, eerie, and very, very gloomy. Kell eased his mount forward, and the beast whinnied. High above, there came a trickle of stones.
Jagor turned in the saddle, and motioned to Kell to halt. "This place," he said, speaking quietly, "they call the Corridor of Death. It is the only way to reach the Valleys of the Moon, and is always, I repeat always conducted in silence."
"Why?"
Jagor glanced up, fearful now. "Let us say the slopes and rocky faces are far from stable. I once witnessed a hundred men crushed by rockfall; it took us three days to dig them out. Most died. Most were trapped, and as we dug, and hauled rocks, and had our horses drag boulders in this narrow shitty confine, all the time we could hear them crying for help from down below under the pile. They cried for help, they screamed for mercy, and eventually they begged for death."
"That is a very sobering tale. I will keep it in mind," said Kell, and glanced upwards. The sheer walls and steeply slanted inclines were bulged and rocky, covered in snow and ice and fiery red winter heathers. Kell licked his lips and shivered. He had no desire to be imprisoned under a thousand tumbling rocks.
They moved on, in silence, whispering soothing words to the horses. Sometimes the trail widened so that three horses could walk side by side; sometimes it narrowed so the men had to dismount, walking ahead of their mounts to allow them to squeeze flanks through narrow rough rock apertures. It did nothing to improve Kell's mood.
Eventually, the passage started to widen and they emerged in a valley devoid of rocks. It was just a huge, long, sweeping channel and Kell instinctively glanced upwards where high above, on narrow ledges, he could spy the openings of small caves.
"I don't like this," said Kell.
"The Watchers live here," said Jagor. "This is where we will be challenged."
"And what do we do?"
"We do nothing," said Jagor, forcing a smile that looked wrong on his face. "If you draw your weapon, they will shoot you down. Let me do the talking. You have been warned."
They cantered horses across the snow, hooves echoing dully, and in the gloom of the valley where high mountain walls – perhaps two thousand feet in height – towered over the two men and cast long dark shadows, so gradually Kell became aware of movement…
Jagor held up a hand and they halted, side by side. Along the ridges scurried small figures, and it was with surprise Kell realised they were children. But as the figures halted their scurrying, and lifted longbows and drew back bowstrings, so Kell realised with sinking horror that these were no normal children. These were Blacklipper children – which meant they had drunk, and continued to drink, the narcotic refined drug, blood-oil, the substance which the vachine needed to survive. But when it was imbibed by a human, it caused a drug high like nothing in Falanor, or even beyond the Three Oceans.
Kell watched carefully, making no move towards his weapons, his eyes gradually adjusting to the gloom. There were perhaps fifty children in all, and each was what he knew could be described as a Deep Blood. They had drunk so much of the powerful narcotic, were so entrenched in the liquid's power and dark magick, the essence of the refined blood-oil so necessary to vachine survival – and so condemning of human flesh – that their lips were stained black, and their veins stood out across pale flesh like strands of glossy spider webs on marble skin.
Soon, Kell knew, these children would die.
Soon, they would travel what Kell knew they called the Voyage of the Soul. To an afterlife all Blacklippers believed in. To an afterworld that justified narcotic slavery.
"Throw down your weapons!" shouted one girl, no more than thirteen years old. Her hair was long and black, braided in heavy strips. She was naked to the waist, and her veins stood out like a river-system viewed from mountain crags at night. She carried an adult longbow, a weapon Kell had seen punch an arrow through a hand-thick pine door. The arrow fletch touched her cheek. As far as Kell could tell, her hand did not shake.
Slowly, Jagor and Kell complied.
"Now get off the horses and speak your names, and nothing funny, or you'll have fifty arrows through you!"
"Nice place," muttered Kell.
"Wait till you meet the parents," said Jagor.
"What's that?" cried the girl. "What are you saying? Speak quickly now, or you will die!"
"You are the Watchers," said Jagor, his voice booming out, "and I am Jagor Mad. Your people know me well."
"Yes," said the girl. "Welcome home, Jagor Mad. You may take up your weapon. Who is the man alongside you?"
"His name is Kell."
"Kell, the Legend?" said the girl, her voice painfully neutral.
"Yes," said Jagor, and threw Kell such a strange look the large warrior was moving before he heard the sound of the arro
ws. Shafts slammed all around him, peppering the snow and thudding home into his horse which reared, suddenly screaming a high-pitched horse scream, and Kell leapt for his axe, leapt for Ilanna as the charcoal gelding staggered back on hind legs, front hooves pawing the air, blood pumping from ten wounds and arrows protruding like the spikes on a spinehog. There was a devastating thump as the gelding hit the snow, a huge pool of red spreading fast around the creature and Kell's head slammed up, eyes narrowed, fixed on Jagor as he realised realised the bastard had led him into a trap…
"What did you do?" screamed Kell, and leapt forward, Ilanna in his fists and Jagor stepped backwards fast, his own sword coming up with a hiss. Ilanna swung down, and Jagor deflected the powerful blow with a grunt and a squawk.
"Nothing, Kell! Nothing! I did nothing!"
"I'll fucking eat your heart, you whoreson!" he screamed.
"Drop the axe, Kell!" shouted the girl. An arrow slammed between his boots, and Kell stared at that arrow, stared at it hard. A moment earlier, his horse's bulk had protected him. Now, he had no such protection.
Kell glanced up. "What's to stop you peppering me like a fucking deer in the woods?" he snarled.
"I am," came a deep, bass rumble, and from a cave which blended into the gloom of the rocky wall stepped a man bigger than any Kell had ever seen in his life.
The figure walked forward, dwarfing Kell and even Jagor. His skin was pasty and white, the black webtraces of Deep Blood veins marking him out as an addict of blood-oil; but more, his eyes were black with the oil, his lips, his nostrils, even his fingernails had been polluted by the toxin of his chosen drug. He carried a huge flange mace, matt black and nearly the size of Kell's entire torso. To be struck by such a weapon…
"And you are?" snapped Kell, slowly lowering Ilanna but keeping the beloved axe close to his body; a barrier between himself and the unknown; a last resort between Kell walking the world and walking the infinity of the Chaos Halls.
"My name is Dekkar. I am one of the Kings of the Blacklippers."
Kell bowed his head a fraction, and lowered Ilanna. "I knew Preyshan. I knew him well."
"Yes. But still you must drop the axe and back away," said Dekkar, and flexed his mighty chest. Muscles writhed like dying eels. "I guarantee my children will not kill an unarmed man."
Kell nodded, and Ilanna thunked to the snow. He backed away. Dekkar watched, and Jagor Mad moved forward and with an evil grin, placed his short sword – the very short sword Kell had given him – against Kell's throat.
"What's this?" said Kell, softly.
Jagor looked at Dekkar, and his grin widened. "Do you want to tell him? Or shall I?"
Dekkar moved forward, looming over Kell. The huge flange mace lifted, and Kell saw himself reflected as smeared, dulled, featureless colours in its merciless grim finish.
"Jagor is my brother," said Dekkar, his voice laced with irony. "And here, Kell, your name is indeed a Legend – for all present in the Valleys of the Moon are instructed that the Prime Law is that you must die!"
CHAPTER 11
Blood Temple
Command Sergeant Wood was having a bad morning, it had to be said. He stood in the stone tunnel, Pettrus unconscious on the floor behind him, a cold breeze blowing through with the stink of old sewers, and he watched the two vampires picking their way towards him over the twisted corpses of their brethren.
One was a girl, young, beautiful, with slender limbs and high cheekbones and curly golden hair. But her eyes were narrowed in a look of hatred and bestiality that shouldn't have resided on such a pretty child's face. Blood rimed her lips and vampire fangs.
"Shit," muttered Wood. "Shit!"
The second vampire was an old man, crooked and bent and moving in a twisted way, as if something was wrong with his spine. He had a white, bowl haircut, ragged and uneven, that was, perhaps, one of the worst haircuts Wood had ever seen – on mortal or vampire. Then recognition hit Wood like a mallet between the eyes.
"Langforf!" he exclaimed, stepping back, his short sword wavering in his grasp. "Langforf, it's me, Wood! Don't you recognise me, man? We fought together in five campaigns!"
Langforf, along with his very bad haircut, growled and leapt at Wood, claws slashing for his throat. Wood stepped back fast, stumbling over Pettrus' unconscious body and hitting the ground hard on his arse with an "oof" that would have been comedic, if it hadn't been for impending death looming over him. Langforf leapt at Wood, landing atop the soldier as if they were old lovers on a secret tryst and eager for sex. Foul breath swept over Wood, into his mouth and lungs making him choke. It was rotting meat combined with dried, old blood. Wood screamed. Claws scrabbled for him, and he grabbed Langforf's throat, bad haircut bobbing to tickle his own forehead, and they struggled for a few moments with Langforf hissing and spitting foul stuff into Wood's open maw.
"Get it off, get it off!" he shrieked, but of course there was nobody to help him get it off and he realised he would have to help himself. He got one hand free, and Langforf's fangs brushed his throat making him squirm. His strength was failing, and for an old bowl-cut, Langforf was surprisingly strong. Wood managed to get a dagger free from his belt and he rammed it between Langforf's ribs. No blood came out, and indeed Langforf continued to struggle with the same strength and determination. Again and again Wood plunged the dagger into Langforf's side, until there was a large squelching hole and something round and slick and evil slid out, nestling in a pool of slime in Wood's lap and making his life just that little bit more uncomfortable.
"Aie!" he screamed, and got the dagger high, between him and Langforf at throat level. Then Wood simply let Langforf descend with his fangs, pushing his own throat onto the dagger and cutting his head nearly clean in half.
Wood scrambled out from under the twitching old revenant, and grabbed his short sword – just as the young girl leapt. Wood hit her, hard, breaking her clavicle and shearing his sword down into her lungs – where it wedged under her ribs and was wrenched from his grasp.
Wood stood there, feeling like an idiot, as the girl took a step back and prodded at the sword as if she'd never seen such a weapon before. She tried to tug it free as Wood looked frantically about for another blade, then skipped back, grabbing Pettrus' sword – too long and fanciful for Wood's normal liking – and leaping forward he slammed the blade through her neck. It jarred, cutting through her spine, and her head came away, lolling grotesquely to one side and held in place by skin and tendons. Her red eyes glared at him, accusingly, as she continued to tug at the embedded sword. Wood shuddered, and hacked again, detaching the head. Slowly, a black smoke escaped from her neck as if released from a clockwork pressure valve, and the vampire collapsed.
Wood rubbed his beard with the back of his hand, and crept forward, tugging free his own sword. Then he moved back to Pettrus, who was gradually coming round.
"Got the drop on us, the bastards," he said, surveying the carnage. "But you did well, my friend. Very well."
"I'm getting tired of this," said Wood, grimacing. "I just want my old life back."
Pettrus grabbed him by the shoulders, looked into his eyes. "You know that's never going to happen. Right?"
"I know. I know. I just wish. In a sane and normal world, beautiful young women shouldn't try to bite your throat. Or at least, not until they've had a few drinks."
Pettrus chuckled. "Glad to see you've still got that sense of humour," he muttered.
"Yeah, me and most of the city. Come on. We're not far now. And it's still safer travelling down here under the rock than across the rooftops."
"Until you meet bastards in the tunnels."
"Until you meet bastards in the tunnels," agreed Wood.
They moved on, warily now for they had grown lax and complacent in the past few hours, coming upon the previous gathering of vampires with their weapons sheathed and minds tired and blank and definitely switched off. It had been a short, hard, savage fight, and Wood and Pettrus both knew they were lucky to be alive
. Luck, and combat instinct honed over decades was what saved them. Now, they did not want to run the risk of a second encounter; not when they were so close to the Black Barracks.
It took another hour of careful navigation and creeping through the darkness. Rounding a bend in the rock tunnel, Wood stopped and squinted. He could see a figure at the bottom of the steps leading up to the Black Barracks. To Wood's right, a heavy flow of slow sewage didn't so much move as coagulate. Pettrus squinted over Wood's shoulder.
"That's not a vampire."
"Why not?"
"It's Fat Bill."
"Maybe Fat Bill got bit? Maybe Fat Bill is now Fat Bill the vampire scourge?"
"Nah," said Pettrus, shaking his head. "He's got his sword drawn. Look. He's guarding the steps."
" Maybe he's a vampire guarding the steps from people like us?"
"I don't reckon," said Pettrus. "Vampires don't use swords."
"Of course they do! I've seen hundreds!"
"There's only one way to find out." Raising his voice, Pettrus shouted, "Hey, Fat Bill! Are you a vampire? Do we have to stick a blade through your heart and skull?"
Fat Bill, who must have weighed the same as three sacks of flower, lumbered around in a slow circle and squinted through the darkness. "Any man who tries that better be ready to have their own head crushed," he rumbled, and grinned in the gloom. "By all the gods, is that you, Pettrus? And who's that with you? That skinny gay goat, Wood? It's bloody good to see you both!"
Pettrus and Wood moved along the walkway, and looked up at Fat Bill. He wasn't just fat, he was tall, broad, and both soldiers knew he packed a punch greater than any kicking shire horse. The men shook hands, chuckling, and Fat Bill led them up the stone steps.
"The lads'll be glad to see you."
"Who's here?"
Bill stopped, and turned. He grinned, with most of his teeth missing from brawling. His hair, straggly and white, whispered around his head like cotton. "All of us, Wood. All of us."
