Andy Remic - Kell’s Legend

“You don’t understand,” Kell said, voice low, arms unconsciously circling her waist. “They are called the vachine. They would change you. They would…kill every part of you that is human. It is better, I think, to die like you are, than to suffer their clockwork in-dignities.”

Myriam was silent for a while. She was crying.

“I’m sorry,” said Kell. “The answer is no.”

Myriam kissed him.

Back in the cabin, Saark sat back, aloof, watching the two men with open distaste. They were exactly the opposite of Saark; whereas he was beautiful, they were ugly; whereas he was elegant, they were clumsy. He dressed like a noble, Styx and Jex dressed like walking shit.

“Can I get you a drink?” said Kat, approaching the two men.

“You can sit on my lap, pretty one,” said Jex, grinning through his tattoos.

“Ahh, no, just…”

“She’s with me,” said Saark, eyes cold.

“Is that so, dandy man?” Jex smiled at Saark, and he knew, then, knew violence was impending. These were dangerous, rough outlaws. They knew no rules, no laws, and yet by the scars on their arms they had survived battle and war for a considerable time. They were good, despite their savage looks and lack of dress-code. If they weren’t good, they’d be long dead.

“It’s simply a fact,” said Saark, eyes flicking left to where the four refugees were unpacking meagre belongings. There were two men, two women, the youngest woman only sixteen or seventeen years old, hair braided in pigtails, pink skirts soiled from her forest escape. His eyes flickered to the two men. They were plump, hands ink-stained: town workers and bureaucrats, not warriors.

Styx leant forward a little, and drummed his fingers on the table. Saark saw they were near to Kell’s Svian, and he blinked. It was unlike Kell to leave behind this weapon; it was his last blade, what he used when parted from his axe. A Svian, so the unwritten rule went, was also used in times of desperation for suicide. For Kell to have left it was…foolish, and meant that something had touched him; had rattled his cage. Did he know these people?

“You’re a pretty little man, aren’t you?” said Styx. He smiled through blackened stumps of teeth, which merged nauseatingly with the stained lips of the Blacklipper. I bet his breath stinks like a skunk, thought Saark.

“What, you mean in contrast to your own obviously handsome facial properties?”

Anger flared in Styx’s good eye, but he controlled it with skill. Saark became wary. There was something more at stake here than a simple trading of insults. This was too controlled, too planned. What did they want?

“What I meant to say,” said Styx, tongue moistening his black lips, “is that you’re a pretty boy.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, it’s like this. I love fucking pretty boys, so I do. In more ways than one.”

Jex laughed, and Saark caught a glimpse of steel beneath clothing. A hidden blade. Saark’s hand strayed towards his own sword, a tentative crawl of edging fingers, eyes never leaving the two men exuding hate and arrogance and dark violent energy.

“I like to hear them squeal, you understand,” smiled Styx, “only because pretty boys take so much better to the knives, to the scars. They scream, high and long, like a woman, and when you fuck them, later on as they’re bent over a log or table, oh that feeling, so tight, so much resistance,” he laughed, a low grumble of mirth, “what I like to call a good tight virgin-fuck, well man, that brings tears to old Styx’s eye. But not as much as flowing tears to the weeping eyes of a pretty boy.”

Saark smiled easily. “Well then, gentlemen, you seem to have me mixed up with somebody else. Because I fuck women, I fuck men, I fuck anything that moves. I’m used to taking it, so would offer little sport as your…how do you say? Virgin-fuck? But what I will offer…” He launched up, sword out, a movement so quick it brought the room to a sudden standstill and caught Styx and Jex with their mouths open…“Well, if it’s a little sword-sport you want, I’m all yours, gentlemen.”

Slowly, Jex pulled a weapon from beneath his clothing and pointed it at Saark. It was small, little bigger than his hand, and made from polished oak. Saark tilted his head, frowning. He had never seen such a weapon. There came a tiny click.

“You are familiar, of course,” said Jex, “with the workings of a crossbow? This is similar. It can punch a fist sized-hole through a man at a hundred metres. It works on clockwork, was created by the very enemy who now advance through our land.” He stood, chair scraping, and Saark licked suddenly dry lips. Styx stood as well, beside Jex, and pulled free a similar weapon.

“We call it a Widowmaker,” said Styx, single eye gleaming. “But rather than cause unnecessary bloodshed, I see you need a demonstration.” His arm moved, there came a click and a whump as the clock-work-powered mini-crossbow discharged. The sixteen year-old villager was picked up and slammed across her bed, an impact of red at her breast, a funnel of flesh exploding from her back and splattering up the wooden wall with strips of torn heart and tiny shards of bone shrapnel.

“No!” screamed the older woman, and ran to the dead teenager, sobbing, mauling at her corpse which rolled, slack and useless and dead, to the floor. The room fell still; cold and terrifying.

“Damn you, you could have fired at a target!” raged Saark.

Styx nodded, gaze fixed to Saark. “Aye, I did. I find the horrors of the flesh have more immediate impact.”

Kat stalked forward, eyes furious, hands clenching and unclenching. “You cheap dirty stinking bastards! She was an innocent villager, she meant no harm to you; why the hell would you do that? Why the hell would you kill an unarmed girl?”

Styx smiled, showing blackened stumps. “Because,” he said, eye narrowing, all humour leaving his face to be replaced by an innate cruelty, the natural evil of the predator, the natural amorality of the shark, “I am a Jailer,” he said, “and I thrive on the pleasure of killing sport.”

“The Jailers,” said Saark, voice barely above a whisper, sword still poised.

Styx nodded. “I see you have heard of us.”

“What the hell are Jailers?” snapped Kat, eyes moving fast between Jex, Styx and Saark. She willed Saark to attack. She had seen him in battle, seen him kill with his pretty little rapier; she knew knew he could get to them in time, could slaughter them like the walking offal they were…

“They spent five years in Yelket Jail,” said Saark, speaking to Kat but not moving his eyes from the two men with their clockwork crossbows. “They are very, very dangerous. They were put inside because of Kell. And six months ago, they escaped, and have been terrorising travellers on the Great North Road, killing Leanoric’s soldiers and innocent people up and down the land…they are destined to be hanged.”

“See, you do know us,” smiled Styx, and his weapon settled on Kat. “Now, Saark, my queer little friend, I want you to place your sword very slowly on the ground. One wrong move, and I blow a ragged hole through Kat’s pretty, pouting face.”

Saark tensed…and from outside, heard a shout Myriam kissed Kell, and he allowed himself to be kissed, but his thoughts flowed back to his long dead wife, so long ago, so distant and yet so real and images flickered through his mind…getting married under the Crooked Oak, Ehlana with flowers in her hair and she kissed him and it was sweet and they were young and carefree, not knowing what troubles would face them over the coming years…and here, and now, this kiss felt like a betrayal even though she was dead, and so long ago gone, and cold, and dust under the ground. Kell pulled away. “No,” he said.