Andy Remic - Soul Stealers

With the stealth of the vampire the Soul Stealers vanished, like ghosts, through the snow.

Kell grinned. "Tell Graal he can shove my axe up his arse!" Saark groaned… and readied for attack…

"As you wish," said Nesh, lowering its strange, bestial, wrenched clockwork head, red eyes shining, mouth full of juices in anticipation of the feed to come. Muscles bunched like steel-weave cables, fangs jutted free with crunches, and behind it the other cankers growled and the growl rose into a unified howl which mingled and merged forming one perfectly balanced single note that held on the air, perfect, and signified their reward. Kell's eyes were fixed on the lead canker, his body a tense bow-string, senses heightened into something more than human. He was the delicate trigger of a crossbow. The impact reflex of a striking snake. It was going to be a damn hard fight.

But then… the incredible happened. Nesh settled back on its haunches, eyes meeting Kell's, and the old warrior was sure he saw a corrupt smile touch the beast's lips like a tracing of icing sugar on horse-shit. Nesh stood, turned, and pushed through the cankers. The howling subsided into an awkward silence; then the cankers slowly filed after their leader, one by one, until only their rotten oil stink remained – alongside five canker corpses, bleeding slow-congealing lifeblood onto the stone roof.

"What happened?" breathed Saark, his whole body relaxing, slumping almost, into the cage of his bones. Kell shrugged, and turned, and fastened his gaze on the small boy standing perhaps twenty feet away, by the low wall overlooking Old Skulkra's ancient, crumbling remains. Kell pointed, and Saark noticed the boy for the first time. He was young, only five or six years old, his skin pale, his limbs thin, his clothing ragged like many an abandoned street urchin easily found in the shit-pits of Falanor's major cities. The boy turned, and looked up at Kell and Saark, and smiled, head tilting. It's in his eyes, thought Kell, his cool gaze locked to the boy. His eyes are old. They sparkled like diseased Dog Gems, those rarest of dull jewels left over from another age, another civilisation.

Kell stepped forward, and crouched. "You scared them off, lad?" It was half question, half statement. The air felt suddenly fuzzy, as if raw magick was discharging languorously through the breeze.

The boy nodded, but did not move. He shifted slightly, and something small and black ran down the sleeve of his threadbare jacket. It was a scorpion, and it ran onto the boy's hand and sat there for a while, as if observing the two men.

Saark let out a hiss, hand tightening on rapier hilt. "The insect of the devil!" he snapped.

"Look," said Kell, slowly. "It has two tails." And indeed, the scorpion – small, shiny, black – had two corrugated tails, each with a barbed sting.

Saark shivered. "Throw it down, lad," he called. "Our boots will finish the little bastard."

Ignoring Saark, the boy stepped across loose stone joists, moving forward with a delicate grace which belied his narrow, starved limbs. He halted before Kell, looked up with dark eyes twinkling, then slowly plucked the twin-tailed scorpion from his hand and secreted the arachnid beneath his shirt.

"My name is Skanda," said the boy, voice little more than a husky whisper. "And the scorpion, it is a scorpion of time." "What does that mean?" whispered Kell.

The boy shrugged, eyes hooded, smile mysterious. "You scared away the cankers!" blurted Saark. "How did you do that?"

Skanda turned to Saark, and again his head tilted, as if reading the dandy's thoughts. "They fear me, and they fear my race," said Skanda, and when he smiled they saw his teeth were black. Not the black of decay, but the black of insect chitin. "Your race?" said Kell, voice gentle.

"I am Ankarok," said Skanda, looking out over Old Skulkra, over its ancient, deserted palaces and temples, tenements and warehouses, towers and cathedrals. All crumbling, and cracked, all savaged by time and erosion and fear. "This was our city. Once." He looked again at Kell, and smiled the shiny black smile. "This was our country. Our world."

Saark moved to the edge of the crumbling tenement, staring over the low wall. Below, he could see the retreated cankers had gathered; there were more than fifty, some sitting on the ancient stone paving slabs, some pacing in impatient circles. Many snarled, lashing out at others. At their core was Nesh, seated on powerful haunches, almost like a lion, regal composure immaculate. "They're waiting below," said Saark, moving back to Kell. He glanced at Skanda. "Seems their fear only extends so far."

"I will show you a way out of this building," said Skanda, and started to move across the roof, dodging holes and loose joists.

Saark stared at Kell. "I don't trust him. I think we should head off alone."

Ignoring Saark, Kell followed the boy, and heard the battered dandy curse and follow. "Wait," said Kell, as they reached a segment of wall where a part of the floor had appeared to crumble away revealing, in fact, a tunnel, leading down through the wall. Kell could just see the gleam of slick, black steps. It dispersed his fears of magick, a little. "Wait. Why would you do this for us? I have heard of the Ankarok. By all accounts, they were not, shall we say, a charitable race."

Skanda smiled his unnerving smile. Despite his stature, and his feeble appearance of vagrancy, he exuded a dark energy, a power Saark was only just beginning to comprehend; and with a jump, Saark recognised that Kell had not been fooled. Kell had seen through the – disguise – immediately. Saark snorted. Ha! he thought. Kell was just too damned smart for an old fat man.

"Why?" Skanda gave a small laugh. "Kell, for you we would attack the world," said the little boy, watching Kell closely. His dark eyes shone. "For you are Kell, the Black Axeman of Drennach – and it is written you shall help save the Ankarok," he said.

His name was Jage, and they left him to die when he was six years old. He couldn't blame them. He would have done the same. The blow from an iron-shod hoof left his spine damn near snapped in two, discs crushed in several places, his bent and broken body crippled beyond repair – or at least, beyond the repair of a simple farming people. Nobody in the village of Crennan could bring themselves to kill the child; and yet Jage's mother and father could not afford to feed a cripple. They could barely afford to feed themselves.

His father, a slim man named Parellion, carried the boy to the banks of the Hentack River where, in the summer months when the water level was low, the flow turned yellow, sometimes orange, and was highly poisonous if drank. It was completely safe, so it was said, in the winter months when the flow was fast, fresh, clear with pure mountain melt from the Black Pikes; then, then the water could be safely supped, although few trusted its turncoat nature. Most villagers from Crennan had seen the effects of the toxins on a human body: the writhing, the screaming, flesh tumbling from a bubbling skeleton. Such agony was not something easily forgotten.

Jage's father placed him gently on the bank, and Jage looked up into his kindly face, ravaged by years of working the fields and creased like old leather. He did not understand, then, the tears that fell from his father's eyes and landed in his own. He smiled, for the herbs old Merryach gave him had taken away the savage pain in his spine. Maybe they thought they'd given him enough herbs to end his life? However, they had not. Parellion kissed him tenderly; he smelt strongly of earth. Beyond, Jage could see his mother weeping into a red handkerchief. Parellion knelt and stroked the boy's brow, then stood, and turned, and left. In innocence, naivety, misunderstanding, Jage watched them go and he was happy for a while because the sun shone on his face and the pain had receded to nothing more than a dull throb. The sunshine was pleasant and he was surrounded by flowers and could hear the summer trickle of the river. He frowned. That was the poisonous river, yes? He strained to move, to turn, to see if the waters ran orange and yellow; but he could not. His spine was broken. He was crippled beyond repair. For a long time Jage lay amongst the flowers, his thirst growing with more and more intensity. The herbs had left a strange tingling sensation and a bitter taste on his tongue. I wonder when father will come back for me? he thought. Soon, soon, answered his own mind. He will bring you water, and more medicine, and it will heal your broken back and the world will be well again. You'll see. It will be fine. It will be good. But Parellion did not return, and Jage's thirst grew immeasurably, and with it came Jage's pain beating like a caged salamander deep down within, in his body core, white-hot punches running up and down his spine like the hooves of the horse that kicked him.