“I will cut out your eyes,” said Anu.
“Then do it! And stop yapping like a clockwork puppy.”
The mist, cold and brilliantly white, spread across the ground, rolling out onto the river and masking the currents. It covered the corpses of the slain albino soldiers, and Vashell pushed himself up onto elbows as it rolled around him, and he sighed, and his eyes alighted on Anu and there was a glint of triumph there…
“The Harvesters move quickly,” he said, voice a lullaby, and filled with the honey of blood-oil narcotic; his system was overloading on the substance, in lieu of his savage beating. “There must have been one close by.”
Anu felt panic slam her breast. “No,” she said whirling around, eyes scanning the open spaces. She pointed at Alloria. “Get into the barge!” she snapped, and then turned back to Vashell, her claws and vampiric fangs emerging. “It is simply mountain mist!” she hissed, but her voice was cracked, there was a splinter in her heart. They both knew how savage the Harvesters were; and how strange, even to the vachine whom they deigned to help. They were creatures of the Black Pike Mountains, creatures from far beneath the stone; and they had their own esoteric agenda.
When the Harvesters drained corpses for Blood Refinement, it was suspected that they themselves received something by way of a bonus. When they husked a human, they took a little part of the soul. But no vachine ever voiced these theories; not if they valued their own life. The Harvesters were above the gods, as far as the vachine society were concerned; and even though Anu would never voice this sentiment, she felt they were the Puppet Masters, and the vachine simply actors on another creature’s stage.
Vashell shrugged, and watched Anu closely.
“You have grown strong,” he said, voice slurring a little, so infused was his damaged system with blood-oil. “But do you think you have grown strong enough?”
There came a hiss, like snow on a forest canopy, and from the swirled ice-smoke came the Harvester. The oval face stared at Anu as it seemed to glide over the ground, and it stopped for a moment by the slain albino warriors.
“Sacrilege?” it said, voice high-pitched, merging in an odd way with its fast-paced breathing. Then it looked at Vashell, who shrugged, almost dreamily, and returned its gaze to Anu. “So. The daughter of Kradek-ka. You have discovered your gift, I see.”
“He would have killed me,” said Anu, pointing to Vashell, her finger shaking.
The Harvester drifted a little closer, head bobbing, tiny black eyes without emotion fixing hard on Anu’s soul. She felt like she was being eaten, from the inside out, by a tiny swarm of parasites. She shivered, as a feeling passed through her, and she was sure the Harvester could read her thoughts.
“I see,” said the Harvester, and she could not read the black eyes. Fear tasted copper on her tongue. She felt urine dribble between her legs. She pictured the husks of the slaughtered; men, women, vachine, children, dogs. The Harvester had no empathy, no remorse, no understanding. It could not be negotiated with. It would do what it wanted, protected by vachine law, and practically indestructible…
“I am going to look for my father,” she said, voice trembling.
“You are going nowhere, child.”
Anu hardened her resolve, through her blanket of fear. More ice-smoke swirled around her ankles, with a biting, icy chill. This fuelled her strength. The Harvesters controlled everything…
“I will find my father,” she said, again.
“You disobey me?” said the Harvester.
She considered this, and knew she had embarked upon a path of mystery, a journey she could never have foreseen, understood, nor prophesised. She had stepped sideways from the vachine of Silva Valley; she was an outlaw, yes, and she was totally alone. She realised in a flash of understanding that things would never, could never, be the same. And if she defied this Harvester, she broke every law of the Mountain. Of the Valley. Of the Oak Testament.
“Yes,” she said, meeting the Harvester’s gaze and holding it.
Long bony fingers emerged from the robe, and the Harvester lifted its arms in a gesture at the same time a little bizarre, a little ridiculous, but containing a thrill of raw terror.
“Then you must die” he said, in a monotone.
Anu felt strength flood her. Confidence bit through fear. Pride and necessity ate her horror. She smiled at the Harvester, and flexed her claws, and lowered her head, and snarled, “Come and take me, then, you bone-headed freak,” as she leapt to the attack.
TWELVE
The Jailers
Saark watched the axe, Ilanna, in Kell’s mighty hands; watched her sing in dark prophecy as she rushed towards his skull. And as he observed that crescent razor approach, an utter calm descended on him and he reflected on his life, his early goals, his mistakes, and on his current self-loathing; and he knew, knew life was unfair and the world took no prisoners, but that ultimately he had made his own choices, and he deserved death. He deserved the cold dark earth, the sombre tomb, worms eating his organs. He deserved to be forgotten, for in his life he had done bad things, terrible things, and for these he had never been punished. With his death, his end, then the world would be a cleaner place. His scourge would be removed. He smiled. It was a fitting end to be slain by a hero such as Kell; poetic, almost. Despite the irony.
The blade sliced frozen earth a hair’s-breadth from his ear, scraped the ice with a metallic shriek, then lifted into the air again and for a horrible moment Saark thought to himself, the old bastard missed! He’s pissed on whisky, and he damn well fucking missed!
But Kell glared at him, face sour, eyes raging, and held out his hand. “Up, lad. It’s not your time. We have a job to do.”
Saark turned, rolled, and sprang lightly to his feet, his injuries pushed aside as he watched, with Kell, Nienna, Kat and the others; watched the albino soldiers drifting from wreaths of ice-smoke.
Kell whirled on the gathered crowd. “You must run!” he bellowed. “The ice-smoke will freeze you where you stand, then they will drain you of blood. Stop standing like village idiots, run for your lives!”
A knife flashed from the darkness, and Ilanna leapt up, clattering the blade aside in a show of such consummate skill Saark found his mouth once again dry. The old boy hadn’t missed with his strike; nobody that good missed, despite half a bottle of whisky. If Kell wanted Saark dead, by the gods, he’d be dead.
Saark sidled to Kell. The advancing albinos had halted. They seemed to be waiting for something. The mist swirled, huge coils like ghostly snakes, as if gathering strength.
“What do we do, old horse?”
“We run,” said Kell. “Tell Nienna and Kat to get the horses.”
Kell stood, huge and impassable in the street as the albinos arrayed themselves before him; yet more drifted from the shadows between cottages. They wore black armour, and their crimson eyes were emotionless, insectile.
Like ants, thought Kell. Simply following their programmed instructions…
There were fifty of them, now. Off to the right a platoon of soldiers emerged, and a group of villagers attacked with swords and pitchforks. Their screams sang through the night to a musical accompaniment of steel on steel; they were butchered in less than a minute.
“Come on, come on,” muttered Kell, aware that some spell was at work here, and he growled at the albino warriors and then, realised with a jump, that they watched his axe, eyes, as one, fixed on Ilanna. He lifted the great weapon, and their eyes followed it, tracking the terrible butterfly blades.
So, he thought. You understand her, now.
“Come and enjoy her gift,” he snarled, and from their midst emerged a Harvester, and Kell nodded to himself. So. That was why they waited. For the hardcore magick to arrive…
Iron-shod hooves clattered on ice and cobbles, and Nienna and Kat rode free of the stables, the geldings sliding as they cornered and Saark whirled, leapt up behind Kat, taking the reins from her shaking fingers.