Andy Remic - Soul Stealers

Warlords!

He almost screamed, for he had made himself jump.

He had dreamed about them. About the Warlords, the Wild Warlords, the Vampire Warlords, the precursor to the vachine that lived in the mountains; their kindred, from baby to ape and beyond, and he laughed, a crackle of feline spider and something else dropped in there like oil in water; the cry of a child.

And now! The sheer concept made Jageraw shiver. For the Warlords were an enemy to be feared, he could sense it, he could feel it, and Jageraw had played out the dream, the events to come, the promise, the prophecy yes I did in my mind a thousand times; and despite his strength, despite his awesome killing powers, despite his supernatural abilities of skipping and murder; well, he was afraid.

"The King is dead, the King is dead, the King is dead," he crooned to himself, voice a lullaby, voice music to his own ears, on a different level of aural capability, if not to the pleasure of anybody else. He knew it would happen, for he had seen it would happen, and the mighty had fallen, the great had toppled, and King Leanoric the Battle King was dead and his army erased and fed into the machine, the nasty black machine to make the drug for vachine.

The Graverobber rocked, chitin covered in a fine layer of snow. He heard a laboured breathing, panting, something under the hunt; interesting, he thought, because usually – in these odd scenarios – he got to feed on both hunter and hunted. A double feast. Lots of food for Jageraw. Lots of food including (he winked at himself and I like it, I do like it) those slick warm organs. How he did like a bit of kidney to wash down the old claret; how he did lust after a morsel of shredded lung. Tasty as a pumpkin.

The breathing was louder now, but it was hard for the Graverobber to see through thick tumbling snow; it swirled this way, it swirled that way, it swirled every damn way, but it certainly got in the way. Jageraw hunkered down, muscles bunching, and decided to kill the hunted first. Then turn on the attackers and rip off their heads, no matter how many there were. Three or thirty, it made little difference to the Graverobber; when he was in the mood for killing and feeding, then he would take his time and savour and hunt, until all of them were dead. They left a stink trail worse than any cesspit odour; it was never hard to follow.

The thing burst through the circle of stones and stopped, stunned, when it saw the Graverobber. Jageraw half leapt, but checked himself and twisted in mid air, landing lightly, on all fours, like a cat. Jageraw stared suspiciously at what could only be described as a thing in his very own circle of stones. Surely, Le'annath Moorkelth had never been witness to such a creature? But then, Jageraw had never seen a canker, and certainly nothing as twisted with clockwork and golden wire as this specimen.

"Help me!" growled the bulky, deviant, clockwork creature. It struggled to form the words, for its mouth was wrenched back, jaws five times wider than any normal mortal man's. Thick golden wires were wound around and in its flesh. Every single breathing moment looked like an agony of pain and suffering.

The Graverobber's head tilted, and he moved lithely forward, pacing, like a cat. He stopped by the edge of the stones; there was a myth that he could not, or would not, pass beyond. But it was simply a myth; Jageraw could do what the hell he liked, especially when searching for food and a sliver of kidney which tasted so fine and slick on its way down his throat, yum yum.

The soldiers were toiling up the hill under snow; but there were many. Quickly, Jageraw counted. At least a hundred. He turned, eyes narrowing at the deformed creature in his circle his damnfire circle of stones! his home! and he had two choices; kill the creature, or hide it. If the soldiers saw him, and they looked well armed and trained and not liable to put up the weak comedy fight of the average villager with screams and skirts and pitchfork; if they saw Jageraw, they might decide he was on the military cleansing agenda.

The Graverobber turned, slowly, and eyed the canker. Damn. That would take some killing, he realised.

So, instead, he leapt, cannoning into the shocked warped creature and in a flash of connection and integration and blood-oil magick they stepped sideways through time; skipped, simply, a few seconds forward. Making Jageraw and the hunted canker, effectively invisible.

The world had been, or at least seemed, young and wild and violent, to General Graal. Wild Warlords ruled the land with gauntlets of spiked steel and fangs of brass, and nobody, nobody questioned their authority. Theirs was an authority of fang and claw, steel and fire; of impalement and decapitation, where the only rule was that there were no rules: and humans were truly the despicable cattle of legend.

Graal dreamed. And in his dream, he lived…

Graal rode the six legged stallion through tall crimson grass towards the marshes, where blue flamingos squawked and flapped heavily into the night sky, bright by the light of the moon, recognising his inherent threat upon approach. Flamingos had far better, more primal, instincts than men. He cursed, wishing he had his power lance; he would have speared a bird for supper. He grinned at that, blue eyes narrowing, fangs ejecting, and turned his mount and rode for the nearest village. This was a new area, new settlements, and they did not know him; at the gates he leapt from his mount, head high, eighteen years of life stark on his cruel, narrow face. When they saw him, his eyes, his fangs, his talons, the five men on the gate shouted and started to heave closed the heavy timber portal but Graal strode forward, slamming a hand through the thick timbers with crunches of destruction. The men screamed, shouting for help, two grabbing long spears of black ebony and steel. Graal stepped in, batted aside a spear, pulled the man towards him and snapped his neck like tinder. He lifted the man, mouth cracking open, and plunged his fangs into the flesh, rooting for the jugular. Blood fountained, coated his pale skin, soaking his white hair, and he laughed as he drank for the blood was nectar and the high took him in gossamer wings and flew him through velvet heavens Pain slammed him, and he stared down at the spear protruding from his chest. Near the heart. Too damn near the heart! Graal dropped the ragdoll corpse, cursing himself, his youth, his naivety, his greed, his addiction to blood and the high which brought recklessness to feeding. He had forgotten the second man with the spear. Such a simple omission; to assume he had fled in fear and panic.

Graal grabbed the spear, embedded in his own flesh and bubbling with black blood through his fine white silk shirt; he swung it, knocking the panic-stricken guard from his feet, then snapped the haft and strode forward, towering over the man. "You want to impale me, little creature? Like this?" Graal plunged the broken spear down, into the man's eye, and he screamed and gurgled and kicked for a while, blood a fountain, gore bubbling. Graal stood, and pulled free the broken splinter of wood, a stake he realised, from his breast. An inch. An inch away!

Graal brayed at the moon, a howl long and mournful, and when he lowered his head it was to see the line of villagers approaching. There were thirty of them, dressed like peasants, stinking of woodsmoke and shit and piss, their faces bubbled with toxic disease, their hair lank, eyes lifeless, and could they not see his sheen, could they not read the supremacy in his very fucking skin tone?

They carried weapons, and coolly Graal slicked back his hair, full of fresh blood and its heady scent, and surveyed the array of swords, daggers, sharpened stakes, and even a few pitchforks (oh, the fools!). One woman carried a bundle in outstretched, shaking hands and Graal nearly vomited with laughter. Garlic. For the love of the Bone Halls, garlic? How pure and most beautifully ridiculous! Did she not realise? Did they not realise? Graal adored garlic. Most vampires did. It helped take away the breath of the dead…