“On the contrary,” said Graal, taking another step closer. His eyes had gone hard, the mocking humour dropped from his face, and Saark realised Kell had touched some deep nerve with his words. “I am pureblood,” said Graal. “I am Engineer. I am Watchmaker. But more than this-” He leapt, arms smashing down, but Kell moved fast and blocked the blow, taking a step back. “I am one of the first vachine; the three from which all others stem.”
Kell grinned. “I thought I could smell something rotten.”
Graal snarled, and lashed out again, but Kell ducked the blow, moving inhumanly fast, and delivered a right hook that shook Graal. The general whirled, rolling with the blow, taking Kell’s arm and slamming him over to smash the ground. Kell rolled, as Graal’s boots hit the frozen earth where his face had been. Kell rose into a crouch and launched himself, grappling Graal around the waist and powering him to the soil. Atop Graal, Kell slammed his fists down with power, speed, accuracy, three blows, four five six seven, his knuckles lacerated and bleeding and Graal twisted, suddenly, throwing Kell to the ground where he grunted, and came up. They leapt at one another with a crunch, and suddenly locked, heaving, a match for one another in strength, heads clashing, and Saark who had been eyeing the five albino soldiers uneasily saw long fangs eject from Graal’s mouth and screamed, “Kell, his teeth!” and Kell twisted, following Graal’s head with a mighty blow that sent Graal reeling to the ground. Kell stood, chest heaving, blood on his face and his fists.
Graal climbed to his feet and stood, and smiled through his blood. “Your strength is prodigious,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Too prodigious. Nothing human can stand before me; and yet you have done so.”
“I’ve had lots of practise,” said Kell, fists clenching, head lowering. “Once, I worked in the Black Pike Mountains. I was part of a squad sent there by King Searlan to hunt down the vachine; to kill your kind. We did well. We were there for four years…four long, bitter, hard years…it was hard learning, Graal, but we learnt well. I think, even now, I am referred to as Legend by your perverse kind.”
“You!” snarled Graal, eyes widening. “The Vachine Hunter! It cannot be! He was slaughtered in the Fires of Karrakesh!”
“It is I,” said Kell, “and that is why you could never speak with my bloodbond axe, my Ilanna…for she is anathema to your kind; she is poison to your blood: she is the sworn vachine nemesis.”
There came a snarl, high-pitched and terrible, and something cannoned from the darkness, hitting Graal in a flurry of slashing claws and frothing fangs. It was big, a cross between human and lion, obviously a canker and yet twisted strangely, different from the other cankers under Graal’s command. The head was long and narrow, and wrapped around with hundreds of strands of fine golden wire so that only glimpses of eyes and nose and mouth could be seen. Slashes covered the tufted, half-furred muscular body, but again muscles, biceps and thighs and abdomen were all wound about with tight golden wire, and sections of clockwork could be seen outside the flesh, half embedded, clicking and whirring furiously, as if this body, this canker, was having some kind of furious internal battle with the very machinery which now, undoubtedly, kept it alive…
They fought in the gloom of the usurped camp, Graal and this twisted canker nightmare, a flurry of insane blows, writhing and wrestling and twisting in the mud, thumps echoing out, claws and teeth slashing. Graal had exposed his full vachine toolset; was biting and rending, face lost in a mask of raw primal savagery that had nothing to do with the human. They spun and punched and slashed in the mud, both opening huge wounds down the other’s flanks, sparks flying from crumpled clockwork, grunting and growling and the canker’s fist punched Graal’s face, slamming his head back into the mud and the canker glanced up, eyes masked by the wires circling its head but they fixed, fixed on Saark with recognition, then on Kell, and the canker seemed to smile, a lop-sided stringing of tattered lips and saliva and blood-oil drool…
Saark gasped. “Elias?” he hissed, in disbelief.
“Go-now,” forced the canker between corrupted flesh, and Graal’s hands grasped Elias’s arm, twisted savagely with a popping of tendons and the canker was flung to one side, where it rolled fast and reversed the trajectory with a savage snarl, leaping on Graal’s back and burying him and slamming the general into the mud.
Kell walked to his axe, Ilanna, and took her in his great hands. His head came up, eyeing the albino soldiers, who stood uncertainly, swords drawn. He attacked in a blur, each strike cutting bodies in half, and stood back with a grunt, covered in fresh gore, bits of intestines, slivers of heart, chunks of albino bone, to stare bitterly at the ten chunks of corpse.
Saark grabbed his arm. His voice was low. ‘We have to move! Now, soldier!’ Saark pointed. More enemy were gathering down in the main camp. They were strapping on swords and armour. Kell nodded, and then started to run with Saark beside him.
Saark suddenly stopped. Turned. He wanted to thank the twisted, corrupted shell of Elias; thank him for their lives. But the battle was a savagery of blows and scattered flesh.
They ran.
Through tents and paddocks of horses. Saark motioned, and they unlatched a gate, grabbing two tall chestnut geldings and leaping across them bareback. They kicked heels, and grabbing manes trotted from the paddock, then galloped through the rest of the camp towards the teetering walls of Old Skulkra…which loomed before them, vast, ancient, foreboding.
Old Skulkra was haunted, it was said. One of the oldest cities in Falanor, it had been built over a thousand years before, a majestic and towering series of vast architectural wonders, immense towers and bridges, spires and temples, domes and parapets, many in black marble shipped from the far east over treacherous marshes. It had been a fortified city, with towering walls easily defendable against enemies, each wall forty feet thick. It had vast engine-houses and factories, once home to massive machines which, scholars claimed, were able to carry out complex tasks but were now huge, silent, rusted iron hulks full of evil black oil and arms and pistons and levers that would never move again. Now, the city was century-deserted, its secrets lost in time, its reputation harsh enough to keep any but the most fearless of adventurers away. It was said the city carried plague close to its heart, and that to walk there killed a man within days. It was said ghosts drifted through the mist-filled streets, and that dark blood-oil creatures lived in the abandoned machinery, awaiting fresh prey.
Kell and Saark had little option. Either ride through a camp of ten thousand soldiers intent on their annihilation; or brave the deserted streets of Old Skulkra. It was hardly a choice.
They passed the forty-foot defensive walls, corners and carved pillars crumbling under the ravages of time. Huge green and grey stains ran down what had once been elegantly carved pillars. Despite their flight, Saark looked around in wonder. “By the gods, this place is huge.”
“And dangerous,” growled Kell.
“You’ve been here before?”
“Not by choice,” said Kell, and left it at that.
They swept down a wide central avenue, lined by blackened, twisted trees, arms skeletal and vast. Beyond were enormous palaces and huge temples, every wall cracked and jigged and displaced. Even the flagstones were cracked and buckled, as if the city of Old Skulkra had been victim of violent earth upheavals and storms.
The horses’ hooves rang on black steel cobbles. The world seemed to drift down into silence. Mist coagulated on street corners. Saark shivered, and turned to look back at the broken gates through which they’d entered. The mist made the vision hazy, obscure. But he could have sworn he saw at least a hundred albino soldiers, clustering there, swords drawn but…refusing to step past the threshold.