Andy Remic - Soul Stealers

She stopped, suddenly. She turned to face the vast drop. She could no longer see it, for night in the mountains was darkness as she had never before experienced; a total immersion of vision, and senses, and soul. But she knew the drop was there; she could feel the gaping presence, the mammoth opening of space and cold, snapping air. Snow landed in her hair. She ignored it. She stepped up onto the lip.

I should die, she realised.

There is nothing left to live for.

General Graal has won.

"Wait there, little lady," came a soft whisper.

Alloria jumped, startled by the gentle voice. However, she recognised the tone, and yet the words seemed alien to her at the same time. She shook spastically, with fear, with adrenaline, with apprehension at her impending suicide.

"I cannot see you!" she hissed.

"But I can see you," came the voice, at once gentle and powerful and harsh and merciless. Strong hands took hold of her, and eased her back from the slash of precipice. Before her, waves of ice crashed down onto invisible rocks of awesome destruction.

"Vashell? Is that you?"

"Yes," came the rich, powerful voice of the vachine. "It is I."

"Have you followed me?"

"Let us say we travel the same path," came his words, at once soothing and deeply terrifying. Alloria had witnessed his cruelty first hand; and his violence. She was afraid.

"How can you see in the dark?" she murmured, heart beating a rampage in her chest. She realised, then, that she needed her blue karissia; just to help her sleep. Always to help her sleep.

"I have special vision," said Vashell. "I have clockwork eyes. Now, come, the snow is growing heavy; in an hour we will be trapped on this narrow path. I know of a cave a distance ahead where we can take shelter. By the gods, woman, you are freezing! Have you no cloak?"

Alloria struggled to free her cloak from the satchel she carried, and Vashell helped. Once encapsulated within fur and leather, she felt better; a little better. But the death of Leanoric still bit her, like wolf fangs through her heart.

"This way. Hold my hand. I will lead."

Alloria stumbled along the trail, with Vashell leading the way. She did not trust the man – she smiled, and corrected herself. The vachine. But then, she had little choice, and in all actuality, no longer cared. If he was going to rape her, slit her, toss her ragdoll body down the mountain, then so be it. Surely, she deserved no less? Alloria had lost the fight and fire in her heart.

They struggled on against worsening weather. The wind howled like a stabbed banshee. The snow pummelled them with padded fists. At one point Alloria fell, with a grunt and a small cry, and she felt herself reeling and sliding towards a violent chasm – but Vashell was there, strong hands pulling her back, and he held her, and she shivered and knew it was not from the cold; she was impervious, now, to ice. It was for the loss. The deep, drowning, terrible loss of her dead husband, her dead children. She knew she would never be sane again.

"Here. We are here."

Alloria could see nothing but white and gloom, but felt a sudden lessening of the wind and horizontally lashing snow. Vashell led her far back into the cave and it was curiously warm. He sat her on a stone, and using a bundle of small sticks, lit a tiny fire in a circle of blackened rocks. This place had been used by many travellers, it would seem.

Firelight filled the cave, and although little heat was produced, the illusion was enough for Alloria, for now. She moved closer, stretching out fingers to the meagre flames, and then her head snapped up as she remembered the vicious fight between Vashell and Anukis (so long ago, drifting through ancient dreams)… a fight which had ended with Vashell losing his face.

Even in the darkness, in the flickering firelight, his face was nothing less than a terrible mess; strings of flesh covered cords of tendon and visible bone; some scar tissue showed where the vachine's accelerated healing was trying frantically to compensate for such a savage wounding. But it hadn't done enough.

Vashell lowered his face; his eyes were full of pain, and shame. With head lowered, he said, "Once, my Queen, you found me beautiful." She said nothing. He looked up, glittering eyes meeting hers. "But not any more, I think."

"Beauty is more than the skin on your bones, Vashell. It is here, in your heart, in your soul, and mirrored by the things you do. And no, sadly, from what I have seen of you, and the horror of which I heard you speak, I am not prepared to think of you as a beautiful soul."

"I have done… questionable things," said Vashell, head lowered once again. His hand held a dagger. It glinted, blade black in the firelight. Suddenly, Alloria's eyes fixed on that blade, and she swallowed, tasting a thrill of raw metal fear.

She realised, with a dawning like a virgin sun, that she was antagonising a tormented man. He shuffled back a little, and breathed deeply. Here was a vachine warrior not to be trifled with. According to Alloria, he had slain children – impure, Blacklipper children – in their beds. He had no qualms about killing women. He was a predator; the ultimate predator. And he killed not to survive; but because he had an intrinsic enjoyment of the concept, and indeed, the act.

Outside, in the darkness, distant through the snow, a wolf howled.

Alloria shivered, and stared at the cave opening. She was no match for a wolf. When she had decided to head off through the mountains after her release by Anukis, she had never considered such things as wolves, or bears, or even now, as she thought about it, wild men, brigands, outlaws on the mountain trails. She shuddered. Maybe death was still the answer? But on her own terms. By her own hand. Not ripped apart by the wild.

Vashell stood and moved to the cave entrance. Then he turned to her. His destroyed face was creased in… in what? She could not tell whether it was humour, or hatred. Vashell had lost the ability to display facial expressions. Indeed, Vashell had lost the ability to show his face.

"The wolves are coming," he said.

"How do you know?"

"I can hear them. A winter pack. White wolves. They are the worst."

"Why the worst?" Her voice seemed, to her own ears at least, incredibly small.

"Because they are the most hungry," he said, with a twisted smile that showed teeth through the holes in his cheeks.

Alloria looked away.

"They are following your scent. They must have been tracking you for hours. There's precious little meat on these bare hills."

"Then I will die," said Alloria, lifting her head, eyes blazing.

"We all die," said Vashell, turning back to the cave entrance.

Outside, there came a fast padding, and a snarl. Slowly, Vashell backed towards Alloria; his athletic frame partially blocked the cave entrance, and she suddenly realised that Vashell had no sword, only the knife which she had seen him with earlier, a blade stolen from the Engineer's Barge during his escape several days ago.

Then she saw the wolf. It was large-framed but scrawny, lean and athletic and hungry-looking; its fur was a mix of shaggy white streaked with grey and black, its eyes a wide-slitted yellow, its fangs old and yellow and curved like daggers. It was far bigger than any wolf Alloria had ever seen in Falanor, and its claws rasped on the cave's floor. It stopped, head tilted, surveying the two people. Vashell, poised, did not move. He seemed frozen to the spot – either in fear, or gauging his enemy.

Then more wolves arrived, and they were snarling and hissing, drool spooling from ancient fangs as they moved as a pack into the cave which, with its too-wide opening, allowed them in three abreast. There were five, now; then eight. Then twelve. Their fur bristled with snow melt, and each wolf had a narrowed, hungry look. A haunted look. They were willing to die in order to feed.