Vampire Warlords

CHAPTER 4

Kell fell, air rushed past him, and he prayed the hefty raft didn't hit him in the back of the skull. Rocks smashed to his left and right, and clutching Ilanna to his chest he managed to angle his body into a dive. He dreaded the impact with ice-chill water, dreaded that harsh impact slam to face and body and soul. He knew it was enough to kill a man, and he knew armour and weapons could drag a man to his death – he'd seen it before, several times, watched warships settle into the ocean like dying dragons, watched men flail and scream, panic invading them as quickly as any ice waters, only to be sucked under heaving green waves and never return. But Kell would never give up Ilanna. He would never give up the Sister of his Soul. Not even if his life depended on it…

Saark screamed like a woman, flapped like a chicken, and did not care that the world could and would mock him. He hit the water with a gasp, went under deep and surfaced flailing like a man on the end of a swinging noose – only to see something huge and black and terribly ominous tumbling toward him – and he realised in the blink of an eye it was the raft the fucking raft and he leapt back and twisted, swimming down, down, and something made a deep sonic thump above and Saark knew the bastard would hit him, push him down, drown him without any emotion and he swam, bitterly, secure in the knowledge that he was cursed and he was a pawn and the whole bloody world was an evil gameboard designed just for him. Bubbles scattered around like black petals, and eventually, as pain lacerated his lungs and bright lights danced like flitting fish, he struck for the surface, gasping as he emerged in a burst. He bobbed there for a while, in the gloom, listening to the roar of the waterfall, and then his eyes adjusted and he saw Kell, Myriam and Nienna on the raft, dripping, frowning, and staring at him. He scowled.

"Come on, lad," urged Kell. "What you waiting for?"

"What happened, did you all nail yourselves to the bastard thing?" spat Saark, and struck out through the undulating water.

"No," said Kell, taking Saark's wrist and hauling the man onto the raft, which bobbed violently. " You simply spent too much time paddling down there with the fairies. What were you doing, man? We thought you'd drowned!"

"Hah. I was simply counting my money." Saark looked up. They'd fallen a considerable way, and behind them the base of the waterfall churned. Steam rose, and ice crackled on rocks. Saark shivered, and then realised he wasn't dying from the cold. "Wait. Something's wrong," he said.

"It's a geyser," said Myriam. "The water here is heated from thermal springs deep below Skaringa Dak."

Saark scowled. "It smells odd."

"Sulphur," said Kell. "You should be thankful for the bath, mate. You were beginning to stink."

"Amusing, Kell. If you didn't have that big axe I'd put you across my knee and spank you. And we all know how you'd enjoy that!"

Kell stared at him. Hard.

"I take it back," said Saark, and watched Kell deflate. "Was only a little joke. At least we're not dead." He brightened. "So many women! And so few days left on this world!"

Kell handed him a broken plank. Saark stared at it.

"What's this?"

"I meant to say. Don't get too happy. It's time to paddle."

"You want me to paddle?"

"Yes, Saark. Paddle. Before we get sucked back into the waterfall's undertow, and dragged down to a real watery grave."

Swallowing, Saark began to paddle. His efforts did not draw comment, although they probably should have.

They sailed through more darkness, a deep and velvet black that brought back childhood nightmares of vulnerability and despair; and the tunnels soon turned chill again, making all four shiver and regret leaving the warmth of the underground spring. After more peaks and troughs, the sailing started to become rough.

"We're vibrating," said Saark. "What's that supposed to mean?"

There was ambient light again from mineral deposits, and it outlined Saark in stark silver making him appear as a ghost. He was shivering uncontrollably, thin clothing sticking to him like a second skin.

"It means we're in for a rough ride," said Kell. "Get a good hold onto something. And for your own sake, Saark, do not let go."

In the eerie silver light, the river became more and more choppy. Occasionally, they saw rocks appear like shark fins and glide past. Another roaring came to their ears, a gradual escalation of chattering sound as of a thousand insects, and the raft started to rock wildly. Kell clung on grimly, and Saark, with a start, ejected brass claws and stared at them in horror.

"Welcome to the world of the vachine," said Myriam, with a smile, and dug her own claws into the lashed timber planks. Saark stuck his claws into the wood, and hung on grimly, looking sick, looking miserable.

The raft slammed onwards… and the river suddenly dipped, into a vast slope with twists and turns, and Saark was screaming and Nienna clung to Kell whose face was grim and scowling, and they flowed past rocks, and chunks of ice, and the river suddenly widened and hit wild swirling pools, gulleys and troughs, and they were pulled first one way, then another, water splashing over them, drenching them to the bone with freezing ice needles and Nienna screamed. They were spun around again, almost capsized, then accelerated down a wide tunnel past sharp rocks and Saark felt as if he was falling, falling down an endless tunnel of vertical water streams and he knew he would die there, knew he would die after all the pain and suffering he'd been through and it felt bitter on his tongue, wildfire in his mind and he was scowling and shouting and clinging on for life and then -

Then it was calm.

They flowed out into cold winter light. The river swirled through a forest of towering conifers, hundreds of feet high and suffocated by snow. An icy wind bit their cold wet bodies.

Kell laughed, a deep rolling rumble. "We're out!" he breathed, and hugged Nienna, and gazed around, a man filled with wonder, a man seeing daylight for the very first time. He glanced at Myriam. "Well done, girl. You were right! You did well."

Myriam seemed to glow under the praise, and Saark looked down at his damp clothing, ragged, torn, mud- and blood-stained, and then he looked up at the sun. "Are we… safe, in the sunlight?"

"Hardly sunlight, Saark."

"I thought vachine…"

Myriam shook her head. "No. A fiction. The brightest of sunlight might cause you pain in your transformed state, but that is all." Myriam leant closer. "What you have to worry about, Saark, my sweetness, is the fact that you have blood-oil flushing round your veins, but no real clockwork to control it."

Saark gave a swift nod, and wary glance at Kell. "The Big Man said as much. Said I would need to bind with clockwork, although I do not know how such a thing will be achieved. Or, even if I'd want such a thing." He shuddered, and flexed his brass claws.

"You have no choice," said Myriam. "Without clockwork integration, without the skills of the Engineers, you will die."

"Thanks for that," scowled Saark.

The raft swept downriver, and Kell ripped free a plank from the edge of the ragged platform and used it to guide them to the shore, huge neck and shoulder muscles bulging as he fought the heavy flow.

Saark grinned, breathing deep the fresh cold air. After what felt like an eternity in the tunnels under Skaringa Dak, it was good to be free of them again; good to be free of the Black Pike Mountains. Good to be back in Falanor. Good to be alive.

" 'Kell stared melancholy into great rolling waves of a Dark Green World, and knew he could blame no other but himself for The long Days of Blood…' " Kell turned sharply, scowling at Saark.

Myriam tilted her head. "The poem?"

"Aye," said Saark, and as the raft grounded on a bank of snow, he leapt from it and stared back, as if it was some great sea beast recently slaughtered. "Thank the Halls I'm on stable land!" He placed hands on hips, and watched Kell step from the raft with Nienna clinging to one arm. She looked frail and weak, and his heart went out to her at that moment.

"We need a fire. Food. Shelter," said Kell, matter-offactly. His eyes were burning. "Or we will die."

"I like a man who doesn't mince his words," said Saark.

"And I like a man who fucking pulls his weight! Now get out there and find us firewood, and find us a shelter, or I swear Saark, you'll be wearing another wide and gaping smile on your belly before the sun is down."

"Fine, fine, a simple 'please' would have sufficed." Saark turned to hunt for firewood, a dandy in rags, but the look on Kell's face halted him. He frowned, turning back. "Yes, old man? Is there something else? Maybe I should stick a brush up my arse and sweep the floor whilst I'm at it?"

"One more thing. No more poetry. Or I'll cut out your cursed tongue, and be glad I done it."

Saark snorted, and headed into the gloom-shadowed forest, muttering, "All these threats of violence are so low born, lacking in nobility, so uncouth and raw. Threats truly are the language of the peasant."

Moving into the forest, they found a natural shelter from the wind, and in a small alcove surrounded by holly trees and ancient, moss-covered rocks, built a fire. Myriam was gone for two hours, and returned with a dead fox brought down by a single arrow from her bow. As she went about skinning and gutting the creature, Saark stripped off his wet shirt and laid it on a rock by the fire to dry. He flexed his fast-repairing body, and Kell looked up from where he was sharpening Ilanna's blades with a small whetstone.

"You're repairing well, lad," he said, eyes fixed on the chest-wound cut from above Saark's heart by Kradekka on the plateau of Helltop. "I still find it hard to believe you carried that Soul Gem inside you for so long – and realised nothing."

"I was bewitched. Once. And only once." Saark sighed, and stretched out, like a cat in the sun, and ran his hands up and down his arms and flanks, checking himself. "It'll never happen again, I promise you that! And by all the gods, I've taken a battering since I met you." His eyes sparkled with good humour. His pain had obviously receded, and he was more his old self. "Look at all these new scars! Incredible. One would have thought keeping company with The Legend would have brought me nothing but women, fine honey-wine, rich meats and incredible fame. But now? Now, I'm stuck in a forest after the, quite frankly, most abominable adventures of my entire life, I'm riddled with bruises and scars, been beaten more times than a whore's had hot fishermen, stabbed, burned, chastised and abused, and to top it all the only company I get is that of a grumpy old bastard who should be crossbow whipped in the face for his taste in clothes, whiskey and women." Saark sighed.

Kell looked up. "Shut up," he said.

"See? Where's the witty banter? The dazzling repartee? I wish to discuss literature, philosophy and women. Instead, I get to grub in the woods for mushrooms and onions, dirty my nails like the lowest working man instead of being ridden like a donkey by a buxom farm lass!"

Kell sighed. And looked to Myriam. "Is the meat ready? The stew's bubbling."

Myriam crossed to him carrying a thin metal plate, and scraped a pile of fox meat into the pan. "I'll dry the rest, roll it in salt. We can take it with us."

"Good girl," said Kell, nodding his approval. Saark scowled, and started to remove his trews. "And what are you doing?" snapped Kell.

Saark, half bent, glanced up. "I'm sick of wearing wet clothes."

"You're not removing your stinking trews here, lad. Get out into the forest."

"But it's cold in the forest."

"I am not staring at your hairy arse whilst I cook," said Kell, face like thunder. "I, also, have been through much recently. And it's bad enough seeing your homeland torn asunder and your friends murdered by ice-smoke magick and insect-born albino soldiers, without some tart wishing to dangle his tackle over my fox stew. So get out into the forest, and try not to sit in the pine needles. They sting, you know."

Saark stared hard at Kell. "Kell, you're worse than any old fish wife," he snapped, but pulled his trews up and sauntered away from their makeshift camp, swaying his hips provocatively, just to annoy the old warrior.

An hour later, with the winter sun dying in the sky and pink tendrils creeping over the horizon chased by sombre, snow-filled storm clouds, Kell sat back with hands on his belly, and closed his eyes.

Saark was mending his torn shirt with needle and thread supplied by Myriam's comprehensive pack; a woman used to living in the wilds for weeks at a time, the provisions she carried were lightweight but necessary. Salt, arrows, thread, various herbs, and several spare bowstrings. As she pointed out, her bow was her life. It was her means to a regular food supply, and with fox stew in their bellies, it was hard for anybody to disagree.

Nienna was staring into the fire, lost in thought, holding the binding on her severed finger. Myriam moved and sat beside her. "Do you want me to look at that? It should be ready for a fresh dressing."

Nienna sighed, and nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

As Myriam unwound the bandage from Nienna's hand, examined the stitched flesh above the cut finger, and applied fresh herbs to the wound, Nienna found herself looking away, face stony.

The albino soldier under Skaringa Dak had taken her finger to punish Kell for an escape attempt. Now, she felt she was less than a full woman. No longer beautiful. No longer whole. Nienna looked down, and flexed her hand, wincing as pain shot up the edge of her hand and arm.

"Still hurts, yes?" smiled Myriam.

"Like a bitch," said Nienna.

"And you've met a few of those, right?"

Nienna laughed. "I didn't mean you."

"I did," said Myriam. She sighed. "I've done… questionable things." She stroked her own cheek, then rubbed at her eyes. "I'm tired of doing bad things. I have been given a gift. A second chance. I am strong now, and fit, and although in the eyes of the people of Falanor I am…"

"Outcast?" said Kell, softly.

They looked up. He was reclined, his body a shadowy bulk in the gloom of fast approaching night. Firelight glinted in his beard, in his glittering eyes. He may have looked like a big friendly bear, ensconced as he was in his tatty battered tufted old jerkin, but this was a big friendly bear that could turn nasty and insane in the blink of an eye.

"Yes. An outcast. Alien. The enemy." Myriam smiled at Kell, and shrugged. She turned back to Nienna. "Once this is all done, once this game is played out, I will be hunted to my death in Falanor. By every man with a bow or knife. The vachine are seen as evil. I cannot change that."

"They drink the blood of others," said Kell, voice still soft.

"And you eat the flesh of beasts," said Myriam.

"Not human flesh," said Kell.

"To the east, past Valantrium Moor, past Drennach, past the Tetragim Marshes, there are tribes who eat the flesh of men. They see it as no different to cow, or dog, or pig. It's just meat."

"They, too, are evil."

"Why so?"

"It goes against the teachings of the Church. Human flesh is sacred."

Myriam shrugged. "So you mean to tell me if you were ever put in a position where you were going to die of starvation, and human flesh was on the menu, you absolutely would not eat? Not even to save your own life? To save the lives of your children?"

"I would not," lied Kell, throat dry, remembering the Days of Blood, where he had indeed eaten human flesh, and much more, and much worse. "I would rather die," he said, voice husky, eyes hidden.

"Well that's where we differ, then," snapped Myriam, voice hard. "But you should not judge so readily, Kell. I guided you and Nienna and Saark out from that bastard mountain; I saved your lives. This time."

"Lucky for us," nodded Kell, dark eyes glinting in the firelight. And now he didn't look like such a friendly bear. Now he looked far more dangerous. "But enough talk. What are your plans now, Myriam?"

"I will attempt to kill the Vampire Warlords."

This was met with momentary silence. The wind hissed through the trees, and it sounded like the roll of the ocean against a beach. It was hypnotic. Somewhere, snow clumped from high branches. Conifers creaked and sighed.

"Why?" said Kell, eventually, head tilted to one side. It was such a simple question, Myriam was speechless for a few moments as she composed her thoughts.

"It is the right thing to do," she said, eventually, and looked into the fire, refusing to meet his gaze.

"You will die, then," he said.

"So be it."

Kell growled. "This thing is too big for you," he snapped. Graal's Army of Iron is invincible; you know how they took Jalder, and Vor, and the gods only know which other Falanor cities. And I was there at Old Skulkra when the Army of Iron came from the Great North Road, came from Vorgeth Forest like ghosts." He spat, and rubbed his beard viciously, as if angry with himself. "Those bastard Harvesters cast their ice-smoke magick. No soldier could stand against them!"

"But you still live," said Myriam, softly.

"I am different," snapped Kell.

"Yes, you have your magick axe," she said, halfmocking.

"There is nothing magick about this axe. And before you say it, no, she is possessed by no demon; let us just say Ilanna has an attribute none of you could ever guess."

"So you will not help?"

"I cannot fight Falanor's battles forever," he said.

"It looks like you've stopped fighting full stop," said Saark.

Kell looked at him, and pointed with a powerful finger. "Don't you bloody start," he said.

"Well," scoffed Saark, "look at you, look at everything we've been through, all the fights and the murder and the bloodshed. And the mighty Kell would turn his back now? Just as things got worse? The time he is needed the most!"

"That's the point, lad. We made things worse. Don't you see? We're pawns in another man's game. Every step we've taken since meeting up in Jalder in that cursed tannery has seen us step closer and closer to the resurrection of the Vampire Warlords. We made it happen, Saark. We fucking made it happen."

Saark shook his head. "That's so much horse shit Kell, and you know it. If it hadn't happened the way it did, it would have occurred another way. Yes, maybe we were set up to some extent – because Alloria had that Soul Gem implanted near my heart by the dark gods only know what deep and ancient magick. But the outcome was always written in stone, written in blood. Now we have to stop it."

"No." Kell ground his teeth.

"Why not?" said Saark. "I don't believe the mighty Kell has given up. Or maybe he's just turned soft, heart turned to butter, muscles to jellied jam, maybe the mighty Kell's dick has finally gone limp and he can no longer fuck young boys. But you still suck, don't you Kell?" Saark stood. Kell's head was down. "Is that all you want from life now, you dirty old bastard? To suck horse dick and bury your head in the ground? Wallow in self pity?" Saark sang, and his voice was a beautiful, haunting lullaby:

" He dreamt of the slaughter at Valantrium Moor,

A thousand dead foes, there could not be a cure

Of low evil ways and bright terrible deeds,

Of men turned bad, he'd harvest the weeds,

His mighty axe hummed, Ilanna by name,

Twin sharp blades of steel, without any shame

For the deeds she did do, the men she did slay,

Every living bright-eyed creature was legitimate prey."

Saark laughed then. His eyes glittered like jewels in the gloom of the snow-enslaved forest. "What a load of old donkey shit. You should complain. You've been misrepresented in legend…"

Kell slowly stood, boots crunching old pine needles. His eyes burned with fury. With killing rage. His fingers were curled around Ilanna's steel shaft and he lifted her, almost imperceptibly. "You better be careful what you spout, laddie," he growled, and he was gone from the world of humans, he was teetering along a razor blade looking down into a valley of madness. "Somebody might just cut out your tongue."

"What? For speaking the truth? If you don't help us, Kell, if you leave us to face the Vampire Warlords alone, then we will die. And the problem still remains."

"I SAID NO!" thundered the old warrior.

"ARE YOU MAD YET?" screamed Saark suddenly, stepping forward.

Ilanna swept up, a blur, and stopped a hair's breadth under Saark's chin. The dandy grinned. "You good and mad now, old bear?" he said, voice a little calmer.

"Yeah, I'm fucking mad," snarled Kell.

"Then let's go and kill these Vampire Warlords before they do any more damage!"

Kell stared into Saark's eyes for a long minute. Then he seemed to deflate a little. "I will not put Nienna at risk," he said.

"What, I am the reason for all of this?" snapped Nienna. The stump of her finger had been neatly bound, and she was sat, rubbing it thoughtfully. "You wish to protect me? Well, you'd better come with us then. Because I'm going with Saark."

"No, you are not," growled Kell.

"Yes, I bloody am. I am a woman. I have my own mind. You do not control me. Or is that what this is all about? It's not about me. Now, I'm your surrogate daughter… but you couldn't control your real daughter, oh no, and she went wild and now you seek to pass off your impotence and lack of control and lack of fatherhood on me. Well, I won't have it, grandfather. I am my own person, and to stop me you'll have to kill me."

Kell sat down by the fire, and stared into the flames, chin on his fist. Firelight glittered in his eyes and Myriam, Saark and Nienna exchanged glances.

Finally, Kell looked up, and stared at each of his companions in turn. Slowly, one by one, he met their gazes, and they stared back, defiant, heads high, proud. "I simply want to save Nienna," he said.

Nienna knelt by his side. "To do that, grandfather, you'll have to help us. This thing is wrong, and you know it. We have to do the right thing. We have to kill this evil. I was there, on Helltop; I saw them brought back from the Chaos Halls, just like you, and the terror nearly ripped me in two. These Warlords have not come to Falanor so they can go sleep in comfy beds and have sweet sugary dreams. They are here for blood and death."

"Just like the vachine," said Kell, sharply.

"Yes," said Saark. "Just like the vachine. But I fear we are in the middle of something far more complex than we could ever understand; we are in the middle of some ancient feud. Unfortunately, we're the bastards being persecuted, used as pawns, and I cannot sit by and watch good people slaughtered."

"It will be a hard fight," said Kell, looking around at their faces.

"Is there any other kind?" grinned Saark.

"We may all die," said Kell.

"As I pointed out, you're ever the happy face of optimism. But we're used to you now, Kell. We can put up with your strange ways."

"You'll have to do what you're told, lad," Kell snapped, pointing with a stubby rough finger. "You hear me?"

Saark spread his hands, face filled with pain and hurt. "Do I ever do anything else?"

"Hmph," said Kell, and rubbed his beard, then his eyes, then the back of his neck. "I will regret this. I know it. But if you want to bring down the Vampire Warlords, if you want to spread their ashes to the wind, all of you," again he fixed Saark, Myriam and finally Nienna, with a little shake of his head, fixed them all with a deadly stare, "all of you must do exactly what I say."

Saark shrugged. "Whatever you say, old horse. You have something in mind, then?"

Kell stared at him. And he gave an evil smile which had nothing to do with humour. "Yes. I have a plan," he said.

They rode for two days, both Kell and Myriam realising that they had emerged northeast of Jalder, quite close to the huge dark woodland known as the Iron Forest. The Iron Forest was a natural northern barrier which separated Jalder from the Black Pike Mountains, and rife with stories of rogue Blacklippers, evil brigands and ghosts. Kell waved this idea aside when Saark brought it up one evening, just before dusk.

"Pah," said Kell, the skinning knife between his teeth as he ripped flesh from a hare brought down by the skill of Myriam's archery. Now, as a vachine, she was even more deadly accurate with the weapon. What the cancer had taken away, vachine technology had improved with clockwork. "There's nothing as dangerous in the Iron Forest as me, lad. So stop quivering like a lost little girl who's pissed in her pants."

"Little girl? Piss? Me?" Saark placed a hand to his chest, and winced a little. The wound from Helltop at the hands of Kradek-ka, now nearly fully healed, still stung him occasionally. "I think you'll find that when brigands avoid you, it's nothing to do with your notoriety, nor your mythical axe. It's to do with the great stench of your unwashed armpits which precedes you."

"Boys, boys," said Myriam, holding up her hand. "Please. Stop. Enough." Nienna giggled. Since the pain in her hand had receded, partially due to the natural healing process, partially due to herbs which Myriam mixed into a creamy broth every night and which eased pain and gave sweet, beautiful dreams filled with vivid colours, she had found herself mellowing incredibly. Imminent danger was far ahead, the travelling not so hectic, and she found she was a far different girl from the slightly plump and naive creature who'd been about to enter the academic world of Jalder University. Now, Nienna's muscles had hardened, toned from weeks of marching and climbing, even fighting; her hands were calloused from chopping wood and gathering branches, and there was a toughness about her eyes. This was a girl who had witnessed death, observed horrors beyond the ken of most Falanor nobility. The experiences had strengthened her. Built her in character and resolve. Turned her from girl, to woman.

Kell snorted. "You're a dandy peacock bastard."

"You're a stinking old goat with a prolapse." Saark laughed, his laughter the decadent peal of raucous enjoyment found at any hedonistic Palace Feast.

Myriam shook her head again, somewhat in despair. "Saark! Stop! Listen, we passed some wild mushrooms back down the trail. Please please please, stop arguing, go back there and collect them for me. It would add a great deal to the meal."

Saark sighed. "Well, that depends on my reward." He winked.

Myriam tilted her head. Her eyes shone, but before she could answer Kell butted in, voice harsh. "You'll get the back of my hand if you don't, lad," he growled.

"Ahh, but I know you love me truly," smiled Saark, making Kell's scowl deepen further. Grabbing his sheathed rapier, he trotted off down the fast darkening path. "How far?" he shouted back.

"Ten minutes' walk," replied Myriam.

Saark nodded, and was gone. A ghost, vanished into the angular, bent trunks of the Iron Forest.

"Will he be all right?" said Nienna, face a mask of worry.

"The glib fool can look after himself," snorted Kell, returning to skinning the hare.

Saark trotted along, quite happy, vachine eyesight vivid in the darkness. He pondered the gift of the bite from Shanna, one of the Soul Stealers sent, not to kill him, as he had at first thought, but to bring him to Skaringa Dak for the resurrection – or summoning – of the Vampire Warlords. What had Myriam said? He'd been injected with blood-oil, which partially turned him into a vampire. Gave him many of the benefits, but without clockwork to make him truly vachine, then he would die. Saark snorted. He felt far from dead. In fact, he felt more alive than ever! Stronger, faster, tougher, with a higher tolerance to pain and an amazing rate of healing. Saark wondered what sort of match he would be for somebody like… Kell.

He grinned. No. Kell would still kick him down into the Bone Graveyard. After all, Kell was something special.

Saark stopped. He'd wandered a little off the trail, and rotated himself, eyes narrowing. There it was. In his meandering thoughts, he'd started through the twisted trunks of the Iron Forest.

"Damn."

The Iron Forest sprawled for perhaps ten or fifteen leagues, a haunted barrier between Jalder and the Black Pikes. This reputedly haunted stretch of woods was made up from ancient towering conifers, spruce and red pine, birch and blue sarl, and huge sprawls dominated by even more ancient oaks, perhaps five or six hundred years old, crooked and black as if their ancient trunks had been burned in savage forest fires. But the trees still managed to live on, in twisted blackened husks.

This woodland was the reason Jalder's walls had never spread far north. And it had also been one reason the Army of Iron, led by General Graal, had managed to covertly approach the city's northern defences without detection.

Saark shivered, suddenly looking around. It was a damned creepy place.

Even though the winter sky was still filled with witch-light, the forest was black. Long shadows and branch-filtered gloom did little to brighten the path. Saark shivered again, picking his way to the trail from which he had so foolishly strayed. He hated forests. And he especially hated forests at night. Saark was a creature of Palace Courts, of feasts and banquets, of jesters and music, laughing and dancing, long silk clothes and powdered wigs, thick white make-up, rouged lips, pungent perfume and slick eager quims. Saark's world was one of money and liquor, and endless long nights of drunken debauchery. Woods were for woodsmen. Forests were for peasants. The whole of the outdoors, in fact, the more Saark considered it, were a peasant's playground. How could one enjoy life grubbing for potatoes? Chopping wood? Slaughtering chickens? He shivered. Surely, that was a life worse than death? But here he was, ironically, stinking like a pauper and probably looking as bad as any vagrant who wandered the back-street gutters of Vor. Saark didn't dare look in a reflective pool; he was afraid of what he might see. Afraid of how far he'd fallen.

Reaching the path, Saark stopped. To his left, he heard a crack . He froze.

Horse shit, he thought. There's something there!

An animal? Or a man? He gave a little involuntary shiver, which tickled up and down his spine. He drew his rapier, and the steel shone cold in what trickles of light leaked through the forest canopy.

Saark breathed, a stream of chilled smoke.

Or… was it something worse?

A soldier. An albino soldier. Or maybe even a vachine. Maybe even a canker.

"Double horse shit," he muttered, his own unexpected utterance startling him. To his right, a clump of snow fell from slumped branches. It crunched through the woods in a subdued way, echoes bouncing back and forth from ancient gnarled trunks.

Saark swished his blade. Well, whatever it was, it'd better stay away from him! He'd gut it like a fish! Carve it like a duckling!

Saark looked left, and right. He decided wild mushrooms weren't such a culinary necessity after all, and what he really needed to do right at this moment in time was hurry back to the security and light of the campfire.

Above, snow started to fall.

Darkness finally drew a veil across the sky.

"You old bastard," he muttered, and began to pick his way back down the trail. Something moved, in the undergrowth to his right. It was something large, ponderous, and as Saark stopped, so the thing stopped.

It has to be a canker, thought Saark. His imagination flitted back, to those towering, powerful, snarling evil creatures, huge huge wounds in their flanks showing the twisted corrupted clockwork of their deviant manufacture. Kell had killed a fair few, the mighty Ilanna ripping through towering flesh and muscle and gears and cogs. But Saark? With his pretty little rapier? Against such a creature he was less than effective.

Saark began to creep. In the darkness, something stomped and changed direction, heading for the path. With a start of horror Saark realised it would cut him off. He broke into a panicked run, but ahead something huge loomed out of the darkness, stepping menacingly onto the trail, and its bulk was terrifying, its eyes demonic orbs in the gloom, a swathe of black fur running across its shadowed equine flanks, and Saark screamed, turning, slipping suddenly on iced roots and hitting the ground hard with his elbow, then his skull. Dazed for a moment, he realised he'd dropped his rapier and his right hand scrabbled blindly for the weapon as the great beast moved up the path towards him, looming over him like a terrible huge smoky demon, and Saark opened his mouth to scream as terrifying huge fangs descended for his throat…

"Eeyore," said the demon, and a long hairy muzzle dropped and nuzzled against Saark's chin, leaving a long slimy path of hot saliva across his stubble and wellgroomed moustache. Donkey breath washed over him. The donkey stepped back, and there came an unmistakable and unterrifying clop of donkey hooves.

"I… I just don't bloody believe it!"

Saark sat back on his arse, found his rapier, and with shaking fingers levered himself up from the icy trail. He stood, and stared at the donkey in the gloom.

"Eeyore," brayed the donkey.

Saark squinted. Then he rubbed his chin. Then he squinted again. He moved alongside the affable beast, and looked at the basket on its back. He rubbed his chin again. "And now I just don't bloody believe it! Mary! It's you, Mary! You came back over the mountains! It's me, Saark, your faithful owner, oh I'm so pleased to see you, so pleased you got away from those cankers and Soul Stealers, you must have come back through the Cailleach Fortress, then headed south down through the Iron Forest, following the trails until, by sheer coincidence, we were reunited! Joy!"

Saark stopped. He realised he was standing in the woods, talking to a donkey.

He rubbed her snout, and Mary nuzzled him. "Still. It's damn good to see you again, old friend." He grinned, and taking her loose dangling rope, led her on the trail back towards the adventurers' makeshift camp.

Stew was bubbling over the fire when Saark stepped triumphantly from the tunnel of trees. "Look, everyone!" he cried. "I found Mary in the woods! My faithful old donkey! She's come back to me from over the mountains! What a coincidence! It's a miracle!"

He beamed around, and Kell, glancing up, continued to sharpen Ilanna. "Good. Get her killed and gutted and skinned; we can put some donkey hooves in the stew."

"Ha ha," said Saark, smile wooden.

Kell stopped his honing and stared. "I'm serious. We're at risk of starving out here. As I've always maintained in the past, there's good eating on a donkey."

Mary brayed, nostrils flaring.

"You jest, surely?" said Saark.

"Leave him be," said Myriam, moving to examine the animal. It was indeed Mary, donkey, beast of burden, and Saark's honourable equine friend. She nuzzled Myriam's hand in a friendly fashion. "Are there any supplies still left in the basket?"

Saark rummaged around, and triumphantly produced dried beef, salt, sugar, coffee, arrows and blankets. "See, Kell, no need to kill my special friend. She has brought us much needed supplies! What a brave donkey. Yes you are, a brave donkey." He rubbed her snout.

Kell grunted.

Nienna moved close, and stroked Mary's muzzle. "I can't believe she found her way back. All that way!"

"Ahh, well," Saark stroked his neat moustache, "a clever creature, is your average donkey. You may think they're stubborn, and a bit docile, but I guarantee they have more brains than the majority of idiots you find in any smalltown tavern." He gave a meaningful glance to Kell, who was studiously ignoring both Saark and the donkey.

"Still. An incredible journey for a donkey," said Nienna. "Admirable. And that she managed to find you in the woods? What a stroke of luck!"

"She could smell his awful perfume," muttered Kell.

"You be quiet, old man," snapped Saark, bottom lip quivering a little, "just because you don't have a donkey of your own."

Kell stood, and stretched his back. He stared at Saark, a broad smile on his rough, bearded features. "Well lad," he grinned, and rubbed at his beard, and ran a hand through his shaggy, grey-streaked hair, and knuckled at weary eyes, then winked, "at least you'll have something to keep you warm under your blankets tonight, eh?"

And with that, he sauntered into the woods for a piss.