"Why not piss in a bucket?" snapped Wood, as usual becoming irate at the old man's obstinacy.
"I'm not doing that, boy. It'd stink."
"You risked certain death because of a piss stench?"
"Not certain death. You turned up. Eh?" He slapped the younger Command Sergeant again, and grinned a mouthful of bad teeth.
"Stop calling me 'boy'. I'm fifty years old!"
"Still a boy to me," said Pettrus, then his mood turned a little sour, and he surveyed the corpses. "We need to do something about this outrage. We need to sort this shit out."
"I agree. They've taken over the whole damn city, and worse than that, it's spreading quicker than the Red Plague!"
"Yes." Pettrus rubbed his side-whiskers. "We need to get rid of them, because unless we do, all the good restaurants will remain closed. And how will I get my steak and port then, eh?"
Wood stared at the old man. There was a twinkle in his eye.
"You always liked a challenge, didn't you?"
"When the Gold Loop Tribes of Salakarr mounted a charge on elephants with spikes attached to their legs, and tigers straining on golden leashes, and with arrows which flamed and spears which had mechanisms to cut a man in two, well, me and the lads did not flinch! We stood our ground, shields high, spears and swords ready, jaws tight and with good hard Falanor steel, good old Falanor backbone, and a bit of Falanor spunk, we turned back those screaming hordes. We did that."
"And your point?"
Pettrus stood straight, as if to attention on a parade square. He held his sword, and ignored the blood, and with proud whiskers quivering, said, "I'm not going to let some dirty blood-sucking youngsters ruin my city. We need to get to the Black Barracks. That's where all the old soldiers know to go in times of crisis. The Black Barracks! And when we've got a few of the old boys together, well, Command Sergeant Wood…"
"Yes?"
"We'll give these damn vampires a bloody nose to remember," he grinned.
Graal sat in the high stone tower, head in his hands, mind pounding. It was the worst headache he'd ever had, a flowing river of thumping tribal drums that seemed linked to his clockwork, to his inner gears and cogs, a rhythm in tune with the tick-tock of his twisted clockwork heart.
Reaching out, Graal took a glass of brandy and drank deep. He had started to drink more and more, usually just before he was required to see Bhu Vanesh and give the Vampire Warlord an update on progress. Certainly, he drank after every meeting. Because, and he knew this to be true, General Graal was now little more than a slave. He had worked so hard to summon the Warlords, with the mistaken belief he would be in control… when in reality they were so powerful as to be beyond physical retribution.
Graal had tried to kill Bhu Vanesh. Just the once.
On the second night, he had crept to the darkened bedchambers where Bhu Vanesh slumbered. The room was filled with blacks, and purples, and crimson colours, candles burned stinking of human fat and corpses littered the floor at the bottom of the bed – evidence of Bhu Vanesh's supper.
Normally, Lorna and Division General Dekull would be standing in attendance; but Graal had witnessed them leave the chamber, and decided it was time to strike.
He drew his thin black sword, and with blue eyes glinting in his pale, white face, Graal stepped daintily over husked corpses, their flesh shrunken and shrivelled over grotesque twisted skeletons thinking all the time how this reminded him of the Harvesters, and the way they drained the blood for the Refineries… his mind snapped to the present. Bhu Vanesh reclined on black satin sheets, stained with pools of dark, dried blood. He slept, breathing rhythmical, body still coiling and twisting, each limb fashioned from dark smoke, red eyes closed in dreams of… what did a Vampire Warlord dream of? World domination? World slaughter? An end to fear of imprisonment? Graal had grinned, then, a slightly manic grin. Remove the head, and the body dies. Such was the vampire mantra.
He crept with all the agility and silence he knew he possessed. His sword lifted, so gentle a butterfly could have landed on its razor edge and not been disturbed by its fluid movement. Then, it slashed down, angle and force perfect for removing a head, and Graal watched in lazy-time slow-motion as if through a shimmering wall of treacle and the air felt suddenly muzzy with a discharge of magick and Graal realised too late the charms which surrounded this ancient creature. His blade struck Bhu Vanesh and simply stayed there, a hair's-breadth from severing his neck, and slowly Bhu Vanesh rose from the bed in one rigid arc of movement and his red eyes opened and he stared down at General Graal as his sword thumped to the satin sheets.
"You had one chance," said Bhu Vanesh, his voice a portal to the Chaos Halls, smoke oozing from the terrible orifice as he spoke. "That is now gone. Betray me again, and I will suck your bones. Go now."
Graal turned, shaking, and walked past Lorna and Dekull who stood either side of the door, fangs gleaming, red eyes watching him with hunger. He returned to his tower with a panicked tick tick tick in his ears as he acknowledged he was vachine, and he was weak, and he was a slave, and he did not know what to do.
There came a knock at the door. Graal drank the brandy and placed the solid glass down with a clack.
"Enter."
The man was small, stocky, with thick black hair, shaggy eyebrows, frightened eyes. Once, Graal would have relished the terror in this little man, but not now, not today, not in this life; because Graal was subject to the same rules and the same slavery. He was shackled by fear. Strangled by power. Bhu Vanesh was Warlord. Graal was a worm.
"What is it?" snapped the General.
"I… I've been sent here, because of the ideas I had, I'm a designer, an engineer. I… I…"
"If you stutter again, I'll rip out your throat and eat your spine. Now. Continue."
Graal focused on the man, watched him swallow, could smell the ooze of piss in his pants, could hear the rumbling of his churning guts, smell the acid of his fearfilled reflux. That made Graal smile. To add a razor edge to any conversation always filled Graal with an almost sexual delight. To put the pressure of death on a simple exchange of words made Graal feel strong again, powerful, in control. Ha! But he knew it was a false feeling, the imitation of an imitation. So… the feeling of elation dropped like an avalanche from his soul.
"You are building new ships?"
"No, I have a thousand carpenters and riggers carving piss-pots. Of course we are building ships."
"I have a new design."
"I have hundreds of designs. They work well. We have corvettes, frigates, galleons and merchant hulks. We have everything we need, armed with the biggest damn crossbows I've ever seen and capable of punching a hole the size of my whole body through the side of an enemy vessel. What could you possibly offer me?" sneered Graal, and poured himself another large glass of brandy. Below, the shipwrights, caulkers and carpenters worked on, their noise adding to Graal's pounding head and rising temper. Who was this little man? Why did he plague Graal so? And what fucking idiot had sent him up? Graal would kill this fucker, then make sure whoever was responsible got to clean out the sewers for the next year.
"I can build you a metal ship," said the man.
"Ridiculous! It would sink."
The man watched Graal carefully, then shook his head. "No. I have designs, and I have made models. A metal ship will not burn, and is armoured by natural design; it will be smaller and more manoeuvrable than any war galleon you care to pitch against it."
Graal considered this. "What is your name?"
"Erallier, sir. Just think, if I can do this for you, if I and my family are looked after, and not turned into…" He shuddered. Then composed himself. "You will please your," he considered his words carefully, "your master, yes? You will have an incredible warship the like of which has never been seen."