"No man should read," emerged Meshwar's guttural voice, as around him his vampires bowed and nodded and wondered when they would be fed. "He does not have the ability to utilise any such knowledge with wisdom and clarity. The only use for a human, is that of a slave."
Now, Meshwar watched the Three Temples of Salamna-shar burn, huge shooting flames of orange and yellow roaring at the night sky illuminating the huge piles of rubble and snow throughout the city on all three sites. Fireflies danced over the once magnificent domes, towers and crystal spires. And Meshwar smiled again. Kuradek the Unholy would have liked this moment. This utter destruction of Falanor religion. The annihilation of man's petty gods and their base vanities. After all, the only religion now would be of their own making… worship of the Vampire Warlords.
Meshwar moved to the high iron gates of the Rose Palace. He reached out, touching the ancient, pitted iron, and looked up at the incredible artistry thousands of years old. Then he glanced back to the Rose Palace, in all its glory, and violence flooded his brain but he calmed himself, with small breaths, as a man would calm himself before ejaculation. "No. Not yet." He would destroy the Rose Palace, but it was the single largest symbol of freedom and the Royal spirit of Falanor. It would have to die last. But die it would.
Meshwar pointed at a young vampire girl, and she padded over to him. His talons caressed her face, then he lifted her from her feet and clamped fangs over her throat, and bit, and fed, her arms and legs kicking spasmodically as he fast-drained her to a husk. He allowed her skin-filled bones to drop with clacks, and rattle off untidily down the steps.
Meshwar turned, fast, to see the Harvester watching him with a smile on his curious, blank face. Small black eyes were fixed on Meshwar and his own blood-red gaze narrowed.
"You want something, Vishniriak?"
"My clan master would speak with you, Meshwar, great Warlord. It is most urgent."
"I will speak with him when I am good and ready. Not now. Not tonight. I have much work to… attend."
Vishniriak nodded, but the Harvester did not break the connection. Despite looking odd, with his tall angular frame, pale oval face, small black eyes and perfectly white robes embroidered with fine gold wire – despite the filth, and smoke, and fire filling the city of Vor – Vishniriak still carried an air of power, and an air of authority. The Vampire Warlords considered themselves superior to the Harvesters; but the Harvesters did not share the same sentiment.
"It's about the cankers. They have gone."
"I thought they were destroyed? Like all vachine filth?"
"No. There was a leader amongst them. And, against all odds, he has rallied the cankers and they have fled together, north, it is believed."
Meshwar considered this. "I did not think they had it in them; their bestiality is too far removed from any logical thought. Who commands them?"
Vishniriak smiled, head tilting to one side. "He is one of General Graal's impromptu clockwork creations. A second-hand canker impurity with far too many slices of humanity remaining. His name is Elias, once the Sword Champion of King Leanoric. Now, ahh, a much altered beast."
"Send a hundred slaves. Hunt them down. Kill them all."
"Yes, Master." Vishniriak bowed his head, an inch away from actually showing respect, turned with a billowing of white robes and disappeared towards the Rose Palace.
Meshwar scowled, face swirling with images of rape and torture and murder in the smoke. Then he relaxed, and decided what violence to inflict on Vor that night.
It was past midnight. General Graal sat at the table, staring into the solitary flame of a candle and thinking of Bhu Vanesh, thinking of Helltop and the Summoning of the Vampire Warlords. So much effort. So much blood-oil magick. So many dead. And all for what?
Graal smiled a crooked smile, and mocked himself. He had harboured such plans! He had thought he, and Kradek-ka, could rule the Vampire Warlords, use them as puppets to build an army and take control of the world! And yet things had turned out different. Things had become… distorted. And now, they were as much slaves as those poor lost souls turned down on the streets below.
The door opened, and a draught drifted in like plague. Wood slammed with a rattle, and Kradek-ka sat down opposite Graal and glared at the man, at the albino, at the vachine.
"I cannot believe it's fucking come to this! " he snarled, and bit the top from the bottle with a crunch of breaking glass. "I sacrifice my own fucking daughter, I sacrifice the vachine civilisation of Silva Valley, and here we are, locked in a tower like two old men waiting to die."
Kradek-ka poured two generous glasses of brandy, taken from the looted and ravaged city below. Even now, at this late hour, they could hear the hammering of ship-builders. Frantic work on the new navy continued. And the ships' skeletons were growing. Slowly, imperceptibly, but they were growing.
"We should kill Bhu Vanesh," said Graal, drinking the brandy. It glistened on his pale lips; glistened against his brass fangs. "We should kill him. It. Now. Tonight." He glanced up, and Kradek-ka was staring at him. "We should send the fucker back to the Chaos Halls."
"We tried. We failed."
"We should try again!"
"We only get one more chance." Kradek-ka smiled weakly. "You know how to do this, and not die in the process?"
"I have an idea."
"Blood-oil magick?"
General Graal nodded, and drank more. "When we opened the gate to the Halls they followed a path between that place and this; every path has a resonance. A bond, if you like. The Vampire Warlords were bound to the Chaos Halls; being here is an unnatural balance. All we need do is give them a push, and they'll be dragged back, kicking and screaming. I think. I believe a killing blow will do this."
"Bhu Vanesh is mighty indeed," said Kradek-ka, with fear etched into his face and voice.
"We must attack when he is at his weakest."
"Which is?"
"When he feeds," said Graal, eyes gleaming.
• • • •
Bhu Vanesh stood and stretched, and stepped down from the dais, staring at the three chained girls. They were shivering in terror, eyes staring at the ground, huddling together like sheep. Bhu Vanesh smiled at that. For, like sheep, they were about to become food. He moved swiftly, grabbing the first girl by the throat and pulling her close, almost as if to kiss. Then his maw stretched wide and the girl screamed, a wavering long high note, and Bhu Vanesh's fangs sank into her throat and started to suck her dry as the other two girls vomited, and squirmed, and moaned and thrashed with horror.
Out of the shadows came Kradek-ka, moving fast, and the spear thrust into the Warlord's back with as much force as the old vachine could muster, born of fear and hatred; the spear rammed through the Vampire Warlord, through his heart and through the girl on which he fed, making her go rigid, puking blood as her limbs twitched spasmodically. Even as the spear thrust struck, so Graal leapt from the high beams of the roof, sword slashing down to open Bhu Vanesh's throat and the Vampire Warlord dropped, pinned to the girl, gurgling and Graal stood, his curved blade dripping blood and looked down with a sneer and spat at Bhu Vanesh, until he realised that the Vampire Warlord wasn't gurgling in his death throes, he was laughing and he slammed upright and rigid in a splinter of time, and fire seared the girl to which he was attached, crisping her instantly to ash. What remained of the spear Bhu Vanesh grasped, and pulled it smoothly through his smoke-riddled body, as the smoke-flesh of his throat ran together and Graal screamed, and attacked in a blistering display of sword skill but Bhu punched him in the chest, caving in his breastbone and ribs with one mighty blow and sending him slamming backwards to roll amongst scattered tables and chairs until he hit the wall, his clockwork pounding, several wheels rolling from the massive open wound. Kradek-ka attacked from behind, and Bhu Vanesh turned, grasped the old vachine's head between both sets of talons, and with a wrench twisted his head clean off. Kradek-ka looked surprised. His mouth worked soundlessly, as blood dripped from his severed neck stump. The body spewed blood and tiny brass cogs, then one knee folded, and Kradek-ka's corpse settled to the ground like a deflating balloon.