Elias grimaced. If this was the sort of magick they were using, if an icy blast could take out the best Sword-Champion of Falanor in a few seconds of confusion, of utter cold, then this new threat, this new menace, this terrible foe was going to roll over Leanoric’s Eagle Divisions like a hot knife through butter.
We’re doomed, he realised.
I must get to the king. I must warn the king!
Elias was dropped to the ground, and he realised he was prostrate within a circle of men. He looked up, around at their faces which showed no empathy, no emotion, and then a black armoured warrior, tall and elegant, wearing a black helm obscuring his long, flowing white hair, turned and gazed at him.
“You are Elias,” he said. “The Sword-Champion of Falanor.”
“I am!” Pride flared in his breast. They could torture him, but he would not talk. He spat at the soldier. “Damn you, what do you horse-fuckers want?”
“I know you think me sadistic,” spoke the soldier, looking up at the sky. “You are incorrect. When I punish, I punish without pleasure. When I torture, I torture for knowledge, progression, and for truth. And when I kill…I kill to feed.”
“Then kill me, and be done with it!” snarled Elias, fury rising. He tried to surge up, to attack this arrogant albino, but only then did he realise hands pinned his soldiers, holding him to the ground.
“No,” said Graal, dropping to one knee and staring into Elias’s face. “Today is not your day. This time, it is not your time.” He half-turned. “Bring her.”
Queen Alloria was dragged, kicking and struggling, to the centre of the circle. She was beaten, her face bloodied, her arms tied behind her back with wire, blood covering her bare arms and wrists and hands. But she did not cry. She held her head high, eyes fierce, and she spat at Graal as she was thrown to the heather. She struggled to her knees and glared at her captors, glared at the albino soldiers around.
“Elias?” she hissed, almost disbelievingly, voice filled with an agony of recognition.
“I came to find you,” smiled Elias. “Leanoric sent me. Even now he musters the Army of Falanor. We will wipe this pale-skinned scum from the face of the world!”
“You don’t understand,” said Alloria, eyes filled with tears.
“Hush now,” said Graal, and kicked her in the head, a movement of gentle contrast as he sent her spinning violently to the heather, stunned, blood leaking from smashed lips, mouth opening and closing from the sudden shock of the blow.
Elias looked up. “I’ll kill you, fucker,” he said.
“Later, later,” said Graal, waving the Sword-Champion into silence. “I had bad news this morning. It would appear my…brother, is dead.” Graal’s crimson eyes were locked to Elias. Elias smiled.
“Good. I hope the maggot suffered.”
“He suffered, my boy. He was a twisted vachine, you see. A canker. A creature who could not absorb the clockwork, whose body betrayed his heritage, a living rejection constantly at war with his own internal machinery.” Graal sighed. “But I see you don’t understand; I see you need…an education.”
Graal stood, and waved beyond the circle of soldiers. A handcart was dragged by four men, and aboard it lay…Elias, knelt, was stunned by the vision, his eyes wide, failing to recognise, or at least comprehend, what they saw. It was big, a twisted lion-shape, with pale white skin, tufts of white and grey fur, a huge head split wide with long curved fangs of razor-brass. The body was torn open in places, and Elias could see fine machinery moving inside, tiny wheels, miniature pistons. Elias coughed, and tilted his head, failing to comprehend.
The stench washed over him. Elias vomited on the heather.
Graal moved to the carcass, in two pieces, and placed a hand on bloated flesh. He looked almost fondly into small dark eyes, lifeless now, despite the moving machinery inside the canker’s flesh. “Dead, but not dead. Alive, but not alive. Poor Zalherion. Poor Zal. You never thought it would be this way, did you? You never thought it would be like this.”
Graal turned, and pointed at the ground. The flat of a blade slammed Elias’s head, and he went down with a grunt. Stars spun. He opened his eyes, and heard a sound of hammering as stakes were driven deep into the frozen earth. His hands and legs were staked out, and as he came round he began to struggle. “What are you doing?” he screamed, voice rimed with panic. “What the hell is going on?”
“You will help us,” said Graal, voice cool.
“What do you want to know?” panted Elias.
“Not that way. You see,” Graal turned, and moved back to the cart. Drawing his sword, he slit the dead canker, his brother, from groin to throat. Skin and muscle peeled back as if the carcass had been unzipped, intestines and organs tumbled out, most merged with tiny intricate machinery, still moving pistons, still spinning gears. Some parts had tiny legs, and they began to walk rhythmically, like the ticking of clockwork, across the heather…“You see,” continued Graal, “when a canker dies, then usually the machine within him dies at the same time. But at times a phenomenon occurs which we do not understand; the machinery becomes parasitical and self sustaining…it lives on after the death of the host, and can be transferred to another living creature. Watch.”
“No!” hissed Elias, voice barely a whisper.
“Watch this, it’s unique,” said Graal, smiling, stepping back as machinery moved across the heather towards Elias’s staked out figure.
Pistons whirred, accelerating, as if sensing new blood, new flesh. Gears clicked in quick succession. Wheels spun and golden wires writhed like snakes, flowing through the heather until they reached Elias and crawled up his body as he began to scream, and shout, struggle and kick and thrash but the wires edged up his skin, up his hands and feet and arms and legs, worming under his clothing and dragging behind them small intricate units, machine devices, all clicking and whirring and stepping gears. Wire crawled over his face like a mask, and Elias screamed like a woman, but the wires wriggled into his mouth and wormed up his nose, they squirmed into his eyes making him thrash all the more, screams suddenly halting, a cold silence echoing across the moors as the first machinery unit arrived, scampered up his cheek and wedged into his mouth amidst muffled cries. It forced itself into him, down his throat, cutting off his airways and, subsequently, noises of pain. More machinery arrived, and tiny sharp scalpels sliced the flesh of Elias’s belly, opening his stomach wide and amidst spurts of blood and coils of bowel, with tiny brass limbs and pincers they dragged themselves inside him to feed and to merge and to join with his flesh in a union of muscle and artery and machine…
“They’re so independent,” said Graal, unable to disguise his wonder. “Even as Watchmaker, I do not understand. It is a miracle! A true and awe-inspiring sight, to stand here, mortal, bowed, subservient, and observe this sentience! This metal life! It is a privilege not bestowed by the Oak Testament.”
Around him in the mist, albino soldiers stood uneasily, eyes wide, watching the staked out figure of Elias squirm, their faces forced into neutrality as the metal-wreathed man, now seemingly more machine than human, thrashed and struggled, kicking and wriggling, and thrashing with such violence they thought he might tear off his own arms and legs…
Alloria opened her eyes, face-down on the heather, and turned, watching Elias consumed by metal, by wire and pistons, by gears and cogs. The clockwork ate into Elias, severing and savouring his flesh like ripe fruit, entering him, raping him, melding him, joining him, and Alloria watched with all blood flushed from pale cheeks, unable to speak, unable to scream, unable to vomit, as Graal stood amiably by and revelled in the clockwork creating a second-hand vachine.
TEN
Jajor Falls
Kell met the canker head on, both snarling, both leaping through witch-light on the snow-laden woodland. They hammered together, canker claws clashing a hair’s-breadth from Kell’s face as his axe slammed the beast’s neck, and he felt blades bite through thick corded muscle and into whirling clockwork deep within; their bodies thumped together and all was madness; even as they collided, Kell’s free hand grasping a huge claw-spiked canker paw, something huge and dark sailed over their heads and the Stone Lion landed snarling, elongated face stretching to roar and with fangs clashing, it collided with the two cankers, and the three figures smashed together, claws raking, teeth gnashing, and blood and wheels went spinning off into the undergrowth. One canker kicked back, crouched, then leapt atop the Stone Lion, fangs fastening on its head. With a massive crunch it bit the Stone Lion’s head in two, pulling back, claws fixed in the Stone Lion’s torso as it shook its prize like a dog with a bone and the Stone Lion went down on one knee; but even as the canker chewed, spitting out chunks of wood and stone, so the Stone Lion’s fist whirred up, over, and down with a whump that shook the woodland and crushed the canker into a mewling heap, spine broken, and claws flexed and ripped out its lungs in a bloody spray of mechanical parts and still pumping organs. The Stone Lion smacked the second canker against a tree, as Kell hit the ground, Ilanna embedded in the canker’s neck, but a high shriek filled the woodland and the canker turned from Kell, leaping on the Stone Lion’s back as its companion attacked the Stone Lion from the front, and both fastened huge jaws on the Stone Lion which spun in a fast circle, long arms flailing, trying to dislodge the beasts from its body.