Andy Remic - Soul Stealers

Graal looked left. Kradek-ka, Watchmaker of the Vachine, gave him a single nod. He checked on Anukis, his daughter, who stood, swaying, blood-oil on her lips, her eyes rolled back, the honeyed drugs in her veins flowing thick now with a necessity of oblivion.

Graal opened his arms, and he opened his mind, and he felt the mountain beneath him within him and he felt its great veins of silver and gold, and they were one for a moment, he, Graal, and Skaringa Dak, and he knew this was the mountain of the Vampire Warlords: Kuradek the Unholy, Meshwar the Violent, and Bhu Vanesh, the Eater in the Dark. Can you hear me, children? he whispered, flowing through the mountain's vast caverns and tunnels, flitting like a ghost through the hatching chambers of his Army of Iron.

We hear you, sang the Soul Stealers.

Have you brought them to me? he whispered.

We have brought them to you, sang the Soul Stealers.

Then we have the final Soul Gem, he said. His eyes flickered open and he stared at Kradek-ka. "We have all three," he intoned, voice like a lead slab, the flesh of his face quivering as if in prelude to a fit.

"Then we must prepare," said Kradek-ka, and placed his hand gently over Anukis's chest where her heart, a heart entwined with the clockwork augmentations of the vachine, beat with the ticking of a finely engineered timepiece.

Under her skin, something glowed in response to his touch, in response to Skaringa Dak, in response to Graal and Helltop and the Granite Thrones. Beneath Anukis's skin, beating with the pulse of the clockwork machinery which kept it alive, glowed the implanted Soul Gem.

Snow whipped Vashell as he crouched, hidden in a narrow V of rock, and stared with open mouth down at the plateau of Helltop. "I cannot believe it," he hissed, and glanced back down to Alloria. She was weak with cold and fatigue, even wrapped in furs from the wolves Vashell had skinned to keep her warm. "Fiddion was right. They seek to bring back the Vampire Warlords!"

Alloria tried to creep under an overhang of rock, out of the wind and the blizzard. She was dying, Vashell knew, and guilt tore at him. But this was different. This was the vachine. This was Silva Valley. Now, in this place, he realised what evil magick they were about to perform… and more importantly, what sacrifice they needed to make it work.

Blood-oil was not enough.

Graal needed the souls of the clockwork vampires.

Thousands of clockwork vampires.

But how could he do it? None of the Old Texts spoke of the Ritual of Bringing, or the Summoning. And pages had been savagely cut from the Oak Testament, so it was said, by the First High Episcopate Engineer in order to stop evil filling the world. The pages had been burned. It was the only way.

So how did Graal know?

You bastard, thought Vashell. You would sacrifice our people.

You would sacrifice the entire vachine civilisation! And for what?

To rule beneath the Vampire Warlords? But understanding eased into Vashell's mind, then; a deep and intuitive understanding. No. Graal was too arrogant. Too power hungry. He would seek to rule the Vampire Warlords. To control them. Not to become one of them, but to be their Master.

"You are insane," Vashell whispered. And he knew what he had to do. He had to stop them. When the Soul Gems were presented to the Granite Thrones, he had to stop them – to kill the carriers. Or at the very least, to kill the Soul Stealers. For only with the Soul Stealers could the Soul Gems be extracted and used for the Summoning. So it was written in the Oak Testament.

Vashell watched, as something tied tight with golden wire was dragged onto the platform. It had black, corrugated skin and was making feeble mewling noises. It was big, and powerful, but – impossibly – subdued. Vashell felt sorrow. And he felt pride. He felt guilt. And he felt an incredible compression of the mind. He had always loved the vachine. He had been a prince of the Vachine Empire, and yes, since his impurity at the hands of Anukis he was outcast and could never return to the place he loved; the place which folded neatly around his heart and soul like a fist. But he could do something. He must do something. He was the only one who could.

He stared, through tears, at the mewling creature. And blinked as he recognised, there beside the gleaming chitinous monster, Anukis. Sweet Anukis! And the puzzle pieces fell into place. Anukis carried a Soul Gem. That was why Kradek-ka made her so special, so advanced, and used his technically brilliant vachine engineering to keep her alive; to create a prime. That was why he allowed vachine society to turn against her, so that when this time came, when the need to sacrifice so many of Silva Valley came, then Anukis -

Vashell went cold.

Anukis would be ready, he thought.

Ready to kill. Ready to murder.

Ready to sacrifice…

Vashell realised with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that the whole thing had been a game, a clever strategy, instigated and plotted by General Graal and Kradek-ka in order to bring back the Vampire Warlords. They had planned, and plotted, and hijacked the Blood Refineries, necessitating orders from the vachine to invade Falanor in search of new fresh blood-oil… when in reality what they did was gather raw materials to allow the rebirth of the Vampire Warlords.

Thousands of humans. Thousands of vachine.

All dead, and about to die, just so the Three could walk again!

He would stop them. He would halt their plans.

Vashell reached for his bow, and with freezing fingers notched a deadly arrow to the string. He turned and peered back over the ridge. Who to kill? Who was the most effective target? If he only had one shot? Kradek-ka? Anukis? Sweet Anukis… tears stung his eyes, and he brushed them away. Or Graal. If Graal was dead, surely they could not continue?

Vashell heard the tiniest of sounds, like metal claws on rock, and he turned, and went terribly cold.

Two women stood, almost nonchalant in their easy posture. Their fangs gleamed, and their claws gleamed, and one had long white hair tied back into tails, and one had short hair spiked by the blizzard. They carried swords. They were smiling.

"What on earth," said one, tilting her head so as to accentuate the beautiful curve of her face, "are you doing up there?"

Vashell moved fast, bow smashing round, shaft releasing like a striking cobra.

There was a snarl, a slam, and a tearing of flesh.

Alloria whimpered, and backed away through the snow.

The Soul Stealers ignored her as they briefly fed.

Now, weaponless and bound, a squad of ten from the Army of Iron marched Kell, Saark and Nienna without relent through the underground tunnels of Skaringa Dak. Their commander, tall and arrogant, was an albino named Spilada, and he led the way – in fact, seemed the only one in the group to know the way. They marched all day, sweat pouring down faces, muscles burning and screaming during internal tunnel ascents, many of which were scrambles, extremely dangerous scrambles when hands were tied tightly before them. At one point Nienna slipped, stumbled, and began to slide down a long slope of scree towards a gaping black chasm. One of the soldiers grabbed her by the scruff, hauling her whimpering body away from a sheer, vast, underworld crevasse.

Kell turned to Spilada. He smiled, a warm and amiable smile, only the fury raging in his eyes telling a different primal story. "Anything happens to the girl, and I'll eat your fucking eyes out," growled the old man.

"And receive ten swords in your back," came Spilada's terse response.

"Yes," grinned Kell. "But you'll have no face, and eyeballs dancing on your open cheekbones."

"Shut up. And walk."

"Whatever you say," growled Kell, and with a nod and courage-building smile to Nienna, started up the scree slope.