"What did you do?" screamed Kell, and leapt forward, Ilanna in his fists and Jagor stepped backwards fast, his own sword coming up with a hiss. Ilanna swung down, and Jagor deflected the powerful blow with a grunt and a squawk.
"Nothing, Kell! Nothing! I did nothing!"
"I'll fucking eat your heart, you whoreson!" he screamed.
"Drop the axe, Kell!" shouted the girl. An arrow slammed between his boots, and Kell stared at that arrow, stared at it hard. A moment earlier, his horse's bulk had protected him. Now, he had no such protection.
Kell glanced up. "What's to stop you peppering me like a fucking deer in the woods?" he snarled.
"I am," came a deep, bass rumble, and from a cave which blended into the gloom of the rocky wall stepped a man bigger than any Kell had ever seen in his life.
The figure walked forward, dwarfing Kell and even Jagor. His skin was pasty and white, the black webtraces of Deep Blood veins marking him out as an addict of blood-oil; but more, his eyes were black with the oil, his lips, his nostrils, even his fingernails had been polluted by the toxin of his chosen drug. He carried a huge flange mace, matt black and nearly the size of Kell's entire torso. To be struck by such a weapon…
"And you are?" snapped Kell, slowly lowering Ilanna but keeping the beloved axe close to his body; a barrier between himself and the unknown; a last resort between Kell walking the world and walking the infinity of the Chaos Halls.
"My name is Dekkar. I am one of the Kings of the Blacklippers."
Kell bowed his head a fraction, and lowered Ilanna. "I knew Preyshan. I knew him well."
"Yes. But still you must drop the axe and back away," said Dekkar, and flexed his mighty chest. Muscles writhed like dying eels. "I guarantee my children will not kill an unarmed man."
Kell nodded, and Ilanna thunked to the snow. He backed away. Dekkar watched, and Jagor Mad moved forward and with an evil grin, placed his short sword – the very short sword Kell had given him – against Kell's throat.
"What's this?" said Kell, softly.
Jagor looked at Dekkar, and his grin widened. "Do you want to tell him? Or shall I?"
Dekkar moved forward, looming over Kell. The huge flange mace lifted, and Kell saw himself reflected as smeared, dulled, featureless colours in its merciless grim finish.
"Jagor is my brother," said Dekkar, his voice laced with irony. "And here, Kell, your name is indeed a Legend – for all present in the Valleys of the Moon are instructed that the Prime Law is that you must die!"
CHAPTER 11
Command Sergeant Wood was having a bad morning, it had to be said. He stood in the stone tunnel, Pettrus unconscious on the floor behind him, a cold breeze blowing through with the stink of old sewers, and he watched the two vampires picking their way towards him over the twisted corpses of their brethren.
One was a girl, young, beautiful, with slender limbs and high cheekbones and curly golden hair. But her eyes were narrowed in a look of hatred and bestiality that shouldn't have resided on such a pretty child's face. Blood rimed her lips and vampire fangs.
"Shit," muttered Wood. "Shit!"
The second vampire was an old man, crooked and bent and moving in a twisted way, as if something was wrong with his spine. He had a white, bowl haircut, ragged and uneven, that was, perhaps, one of the worst haircuts Wood had ever seen – on mortal or vampire. Then recognition hit Wood like a mallet between the eyes.
"Langforf!" he exclaimed, stepping back, his short sword wavering in his grasp. "Langforf, it's me, Wood! Don't you recognise me, man? We fought together in five campaigns!"
Langforf, along with his very bad haircut, growled and leapt at Wood, claws slashing for his throat. Wood stepped back fast, stumbling over Pettrus' unconscious body and hitting the ground hard on his arse with an "oof" that would have been comedic, if it hadn't been for impending death looming over him. Langforf leapt at Wood, landing atop the soldier as if they were old lovers on a secret tryst and eager for sex. Foul breath swept over Wood, into his mouth and lungs making him choke. It was rotting meat combined with dried, old blood. Wood screamed. Claws scrabbled for him, and he grabbed Langforf's throat, bad haircut bobbing to tickle his own forehead, and they struggled for a few moments with Langforf hissing and spitting foul stuff into Wood's open maw.
"Get it off, get it off!" he shrieked, but of course there was nobody to help him get it off and he realised he would have to help himself. He got one hand free, and Langforf's fangs brushed his throat making him squirm. His strength was failing, and for an old bowl-cut, Langforf was surprisingly strong. Wood managed to get a dagger free from his belt and he rammed it between Langforf's ribs. No blood came out, and indeed Langforf continued to struggle with the same strength and determination. Again and again Wood plunged the dagger into Langforf's side, until there was a large squelching hole and something round and slick and evil slid out, nestling in a pool of slime in Wood's lap and making his life just that little bit more uncomfortable.
"Aie!" he screamed, and got the dagger high, between him and Langforf at throat level. Then Wood simply let Langforf descend with his fangs, pushing his own throat onto the dagger and cutting his head nearly clean in half.
Wood scrambled out from under the twitching old revenant, and grabbed his short sword – just as the young girl leapt. Wood hit her, hard, breaking her clavicle and shearing his sword down into her lungs – where it wedged under her ribs and was wrenched from his grasp.
Wood stood there, feeling like an idiot, as the girl took a step back and prodded at the sword as if she'd never seen such a weapon before. She tried to tug it free as Wood looked frantically about for another blade, then skipped back, grabbing Pettrus' sword – too long and fanciful for Wood's normal liking – and leaping forward he slammed the blade through her neck. It jarred, cutting through her spine, and her head came away, lolling grotesquely to one side and held in place by skin and tendons. Her red eyes glared at him, accusingly, as she continued to tug at the embedded sword. Wood shuddered, and hacked again, detaching the head. Slowly, a black smoke escaped from her neck as if released from a clockwork pressure valve, and the vampire collapsed.
Wood rubbed his beard with the back of his hand, and crept forward, tugging free his own sword. Then he moved back to Pettrus, who was gradually coming round.
"Got the drop on us, the bastards," he said, surveying the carnage. "But you did well, my friend. Very well."
"I'm getting tired of this," said Wood, grimacing. "I just want my old life back."
Pettrus grabbed him by the shoulders, looked into his eyes. "You know that's never going to happen. Right?"
"I know. I know. I just wish. In a sane and normal world, beautiful young women shouldn't try to bite your throat. Or at least, not until they've had a few drinks."
Pettrus chuckled. "Glad to see you've still got that sense of humour," he muttered.
"Yeah, me and most of the city. Come on. We're not far now. And it's still safer travelling down here under the rock than across the rooftops."
"Until you meet bastards in the tunnels."
"Until you meet bastards in the tunnels," agreed Wood.
They moved on, warily now for they had grown lax and complacent in the past few hours, coming upon the previous gathering of vampires with their weapons sheathed and minds tired and blank and definitely switched off. It had been a short, hard, savage fight, and Wood and Pettrus both knew they were lucky to be alive. Luck, and combat instinct honed over decades was what saved them. Now, they did not want to run the risk of a second encounter; not when they were so close to the Black Barracks.