Andy Remic - Soul Stealers

The albino shamathe cackled, and capered forward like a jester, but a tall soldier stepped to the fore, placed a hand on her cavorting shoulder and calmed the witch. "Well done, Lilliath," he spoke, words gentle, and drew a long black blade. "But… I will finish this." Lilliath nodded, hair wild and wavering.

Jekkron, tall, elegant, a warrior born, loomed over Kell who was groaning, eyelids fluttering. The old soldier had lost his axe amidst bricks and snapped timber joists. He opened his dust-smarting eyes and snarled through bloodied teeth but the albino smiled, and gave a single nod of understanding; his black sword lifted high, then hacked down at Kell's throat.

"So, he has betrayed us?"

Silence echoed around the Vachine High Engineer Council. The two Watchmakers present squirmed uneasily, for this entire concept was anathema to everything in which they believed, and aspired. "That's impossible."

"Why impossible? A canker, by definition, should be impossible. We are the Higher Race, the Blessed; we are at the pinnacle of flesh and technological evolution. What then is a canker? A mockery of our genetics, a mockery of our humanity, a mockery of our vachine status. The vachine should be perfect; the cankers remind us we are not. How, then, can it be construed that Graal's betrayal is an impossibility?"

Another voice. Old. Revered. Serious. "He has served us for a thousand years. You… young vachine do not understand what General Graal has done for us. Without him, and without the work of Kradek-ka, we would never have achieved such an exalted state; we would never have reached our current evolutionary curve, plane, and High Altar. Graal accelerated our species.

Without him our race would be dead."

Silence met this statement. Great minds contemplated the implications of their discussion.

A voice spoke. It was young, nervous, a chattering of sparrows next to the wisdom of the owl. "The clock work is all wrong," said the voice.

"Meaning?"

"The algorithms… they tell of the Axeman."

"What is this Axeman?"

"The Black Axeman of Drennach."

Again, another pause. Around the table, some of the elder vachine lit pipes and puffed on smoke laced with the heady narcotic, blood-oil. A silence descended. Several elder vachine exchanged glances.

"The clockwork engines are never specific, but they speak of a terrible killer, an axeman named Kell – but is he friend or foe? The machines will not say. They just bring up his name again, and again, and again." "We must assume he is the enemy. Every other human to set foot in Silva Valley has had nothing but evil and destruction in their corrupt and festering hearts." "Is that not to be expected?" "Meaning?"

"We feed on them; they are like cattle to us."

"Still, we must assume this Black Axeman is evil, a scourge to our kind. But then, we are straying from the real problem here; that of General Graal, and what he is doing with our Army of Iron." Silence greeted this.

"Has the report come back, yet? From Princess Jaranis?" "There has been no communication; nothing."

This was considered. Digested. And then one of the Watchmakers stood; in the structure of the vachine religion, only the Patriarch ruled over the Watchmakers, and the Watchmakers were few enough now to make their rank a dying breed – only five of them left. General Graal was Watchmaker; this was the element of their new information which made the High Council so nervous. Nobody wished to sound like a Heretic; nobody wished their clockwork poisoned, their flesh to be torn and twisted forcibly into canker.

She was called Sa, small of stature, but with flashing, dangerous eyes. To cross Sa was to be exterminated. "We have little evidence," she said, voice smooth, eyes fixing on every member of the Engineer Council in turn. She walked around the outside of the huge oval steel table, and stopped at the head where once, in good health, the Patriarch would have sat; today, as on many days, he was confined to his bed. It was rumoured he coughed up blood-oil, and his days were numbered. "We cannot simply condemn General Graal in his absence; he should be able to defend himself against the diabolical accusations that have taken place over this table. What is happening here?" Her eyes glowed. "We used to be united. Now, we are crumbling. We will adjourn, and no more will be spoken on this matter until Graal returns in the spring after Snowmelt. Is this agreed?" There came a murmur of agreement, and the Engineer Council disbanded, the hundred or so members flooding out into the warren of the Engineer's Palace, and beyond, to Silva Valley. Finally, only Sa and Tagortel, another esteemed vachine Watchmaker, were left. Their eyes met, like old lovers on a secret tryst. "I don't think it will be enough," said Tagor-tel. "I do not trust the old General. And… isn't that why Jaranis was despatched? To keep an eye on proceedings?"

"The weather is against her." "Convenient. For Graal."

Sa puckered her lips, brooding. "I, also, have noticed changes in Graal. However, I do not see how one man could be a threat to the High Engineer Episcopate. To the Vachine Civilisation! Even with our obedient Army of Iron under his direct control. What would he do? Turn them against us?" She laughed, a sound of spinning flywheels.

Tagor-tel shrugged. "I doubt he would have the persuasion. The alshina have served for too long." He thought for a moment. "We need to discover what happened to Jaranis. She had the Warrior Engineers, did she not? Walgrishnacht? He is one of our ultimate soldiers. If anybody will return word, he will." "We will see. But let us assume, for a moment – away from concepts of heresy – that Princess Jaranis has failed. That she and her entourage are dead. What then?" "We can ask…" Tagor-tel paused, and checked the chamber, making sure they were alone. His voice dropped. "Fiddion." "You think he will cooperate?"

"He has, shall we say, passed us sensitive information before. Graal seems to have some bond with the Harvesters; and the Harvesters play by their own rules. It is worth a try. For whatever reason, Fiddion despises his own kind."

"Do it. Contact Fiddion. Let us see if the Harvesters know what Graal plots."

Sunlight glimmered between towering storm clouds, rays of weak yellow that cast long, eerie shadows over the forests surrounding Old Skulkra. Graal strode through the camp, trailed by three Harvesters, one hand on his sword hilt, his pale-skinned face unreadable. Albino soldiers moved from his path, and he stopped only once, head turning left, as the snarls from the canker cages set his teeth on edge. Damn them, he thought. Damn their perverse twisted flesh! They reminded him, painfully, of his brother. Dead, now. Murdered, so he later discovered, by the bastard Kell and his bloodbond axe. "I'll see you burn, motherfucker," he muttered as he continued through the camp and reached the edge of the tents where albino soldiers still had campfires burning.

Several soldiers looked up at his approach, glances subservient, as if waiting for instruction. Graal did not acknowledge their existence. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the three huge black towers which sat on the plain: angular, cubic, squat, their surfaces matt black, their intentions not immediately fathomable.

"Are we ready?" said Graal.

"We are ready," hissed one of the Harvesters, sibilantly.

"Is he here?"

"He is here, General Graal."

"Good. It is about time."

Graal strode out across the plain, and the closer he moved to the Blood Refineries, the larger they seemed: mammoth cubic structures, the black surface of unmarked walls flat, and dull, like scorched iron. Wisps of snow snapped in the air as Graal strode across frozen earth, and as he came near his nose wrinkled. He blinked. The corpses, four thousand in total, stripped of armour and boots, had been laid out in rows before the three Blood Refineries. Graal glanced down, but no flicker of emotion showed across his pale face. He had more important matters on which to worry.