It took another hour of careful navigation and creeping through the darkness. Rounding a bend in the rock tunnel, Wood stopped and squinted. He could see a figure at the bottom of the steps leading up to the Black Barracks. To Wood's right, a heavy flow of slow sewage didn't so much move as coagulate. Pettrus squinted over Wood's shoulder.
"That's not a vampire."
"Why not?"
"It's Fat Bill."
"Maybe Fat Bill got bit? Maybe Fat Bill is now Fat Bill the vampire scourge?"
"Nah," said Pettrus, shaking his head. "He's got his sword drawn. Look. He's guarding the steps."
" Maybe he's a vampire guarding the steps from people like us?"
"I don't reckon," said Pettrus. "Vampires don't use swords."
"Of course they do! I've seen hundreds!"
"There's only one way to find out." Raising his voice, Pettrus shouted, "Hey, Fat Bill! Are you a vampire? Do we have to stick a blade through your heart and skull?"
Fat Bill, who must have weighed the same as three sacks of flower, lumbered around in a slow circle and squinted through the darkness. "Any man who tries that better be ready to have their own head crushed," he rumbled, and grinned in the gloom. "By all the gods, is that you, Pettrus? And who's that with you? That skinny gay goat, Wood? It's bloody good to see you both!"
Pettrus and Wood moved along the walkway, and looked up at Fat Bill. He wasn't just fat, he was tall, broad, and both soldiers knew he packed a punch greater than any kicking shire horse. The men shook hands, chuckling, and Fat Bill led them up the stone steps.
"The lads'll be glad to see you."
"Who's here?"
Bill stopped, and turned. He grinned, with most of his teeth missing from brawling. His hair, straggly and white, whispered around his head like cotton. "All of us, Wood. All of us."
They continued, passing a couple more guards whom Wood only vaguely knew; then they emerged into a long, low-ceilinged barracks room.
The Black Barracks squatted on the outskirts of Port of Gollothrim, in what used to be an old warehouse area used for the loading and unloading of cargo; when an industrial accident had destroyed the nearby quays, the area had been pretty much abandoned and left to rot. It was a quiet place, and more importantly for the old men who ran the Black Barracks, a cheap place. Whoever said growing old made you generous was a lying bastard. The old soldiers who attended the Black Barracks for weekly drinking sessions and to regale one another with exaggerated tales of valour in their youth, well, they were uniformly tighter than any mother-inlaw's hidden purse.
Despite being located in a quiet area of the city, still the barracks had been kitted out as if under siege. All windows had been blacked out and boarded up, and the doors had been reinforced by heavy planks of steel. Lanterns were kept to a lit minimum, and the noise level was a dull mumble as Wood stepped through the door – as opposed to the normal drunken roar that greeted him.
"My God, it's good to see you old boys!" grinned Wood, and for the first time since the vampires had spread through Port of Gollothrim, his heart lifted in joy.
"Wood!" roared a few old soldiers, who stood and smiled in welcome at the two new men. "Glad to see a few bloodsuckers didn't manage to suck you dry!"
Wood strode forward, and slapped a man on the back. "Gods, who've we got here? There's Kelv Blades, never been a better man with a battleaxe or I'm not Command Sergeant Wood! And look! Well met, Nicholas. Who'd have thought The Miser would have left his Gold Vaults, even in times of vampire plague?"
"Got most of it stashed," winked Nicholas the Miser.
"And there's Old Man Connie, Sour Dog, Stickboy Pulp and Bulbo the Dull. Well met! And look, by all the gods, it's Weevil and Bad Socks! I thought you two were dead?"
"It'd take more than a rock on my head to kill me!" rumbled Bad Socks, who climbed ponderously to his feet. He was, as ever, without his boots and his socks did indeed smell bad. He was also nearly seventy years old, one-eyed and his face was so heavily criss-crossed with scars there was little original skin left. He hadn't so much retired from the army, as been forcibly ejected.
Pettrus grinned around as conversation and arguments broke out. "They're all here," he said, meeting Wood's gaze. "What's that? Two hundred of them? Two hundred! That's two hundred blades, Wood. Our own little army."
"And not a man here under the age of sixty-five, I believe," said Wood. He was still smiling though. It was good to see so many friendly old faces. Indeed, it was wonderful to realise he wasn't alone and unloved in a hostile world.
"Just think of the experience, though!" said Pettrus.
"Just think of the arthritis!" grinned Wood.
"If any man here hears you say that, you'll get a sword in the guts."
"Yeah, I know. But by the Granite Thrones, it's bloody good to see them all." He raised his voice. "I said, it's bloody grand to see you all! It's good to know I'm not alone!"
"Have you been fighting 'em?" rumbled Fat Bill. "The bloodsuckers, I mean?"
"Fighting and killing them," said Pettrus.
"Good. 'Cos we've got a plan." Fat Bill grinned, but Wood felt his heart sinking. To Wood, the word "plan" was usually synonymous with "trouble", "error" and inevitably, "massacre". "We need some handy men to help carry it out."
"It's nothing to do with robbing the Gollothrim Bank again, is it?" scowled Pettrus. "You know what happened that time."
"No," said Fat Bill, and Wood realised everybody was quiet in the Black Barracks, all eyes on Fat Bill, Wood and Pettrus. "This is something infinitely more juicy."
Graal was tired. Bone weary. He had never felt so tired before and attributed it to the wounds suffered at the claws of Bhu Vanesh. He reined in his horse at the top of a rocky, barren hill, a stolen black charger from the stables of the old Mayor of Gollothrim, and turned in his saddle. Skanda was close behind, riding side-saddle on a small, grey mare which constantly eyed Graal with nervous eyes, tosses of the head and snorts and stamps.
Skanda pulled alongside Graal, and smiled.
"You are weary?"
"Through to my bones."
"Bhu Vanesh did more than torture your flesh. I think he may have poisoned your soul."
Graal snorted. "My soul was destroyed long centuries ago." He gazed out, across a country scattered with long shadows from a low winter sun. Snow rimed the rocks and trees, frosted the long yellow grass, and clung like diamonds to huge, scattered boulders.
"It will be night soon."
"No time to camp," said Skanda, and dropped from the saddle, stretching his back. "We have too much ground to cover, and tick tock tick tock, the clockwork always moves when you wind it up."
"I'm not sure I agree with your choice of paths." Graal was still gazing into the far distance. His mouth was a narrow, bitter crease, his hands albino pale on the pommel of his saddle.
"The Gantarak Marshes? It is a straight line."
"It's a damn dangerous line. I've heard tales of whole armies lost in the murky, shitty depths. And even now winter insects will be waiting to bite and sting and feed."
"On blood?" Skanda laughed, light gleaming from his gloss black teeth. "How beautifully, deliciously ironic! A blood-sucker feeding from a blood-sucker! I am stunned that you find the concept so hateful. Surely you must empathise with the insect?"
"I despise insects," said Graal, voice a growl. "I find their lack of empathy disturbing."
"What, and you vachine are so much better?"
"We look after our own."
"Until you slaughter an entire civilisation to satiate a mammoth greed."
Graal shrugged. "I am what I am. I believe in selfpreservation and building on one's triumphs. What other goal to seek other than total domination? Total dominion? 'If one does not strive to reach the pinnacle of vachine development, then one should stay in the ground with all the other worms.'"