As Bhu Vanesh sucked vigorously on the plump woman, his eyes watched Graal. Graal stared back. Then Graal's gaze shifted to the slim blonde woman's eyes, and they were frightened, face contorted in pain. Her hands were clenching and unclenching, and for a moment Graal felt sympathy which was instantly dashed against the jagged towering shoreline of his cruelty.
Graal stood, and watched, and knew with a malicious joy that Bhu Vanesh was weak. Weak from the Chaos Halls. Weak from travelling the lines of blood-oil magick; the Lines of the Land.
Eventually, the plump woman closed her eyes. She shuddered. She died. Bhu Vanesh withdrew his fangs with squelches, and dropping the plump kitchen woman with a newly slashed throat, he lay the blonde on the kitchen tiles, and slit his own wrist with a talon. The black and grey smoke coiled back, and a thick syrup oozed free. He allowed this to drop into the slim blonde's mouth, and then knelt back on haunches and watched. Graal said nothing. There was nothing to say.
The blonde started to writhe and contort, her body spasming, trembling, muscles growing taut then slack, taut then slack. Black oil seemed to bubble at her mouth, then flowed out of her eyes and ears and quim, staining her white uniform and pooling under her body.
Graal looked left, out through a narrow window. He was uncomfortable watching the vampire change. It reminded him too much of his youth, and some very bad times. Bad times which had been excised from his memories – until now.
Graal observed the dawn, a wintry grey-blue sky. Distantly, he could make out the sea, and a phalanx of seagulls crying as they swept past his vision. Gollothrim. The Port of Gollothrim. The Fortress. Was it still occupied? Graal shivered. They'd soon find out…
Returning his gaze, he saw the transformation was complete. The blonde woman stood, and seemed uneasy in her shell. Her eyes were now black – jet black, and unnaturally glossy as if filled with a cankerous honey. This, this was the sign of a Vampire Warlord's servant. Graal remembered, now, his thoughts flowing back through a long history, a longer deviation.
"You." Graal was snapped back to the living, the present, and realised Bhu Vanesh was pointing at him. Graal stared for a moment, then glanced at the woman. She was smiling, showing her own vampire fangs. Dead, but alive. The undead. Not like the sophisticated clockwork vachine at all…
"Yes?" snapped Graal, anger flooding him. Anger, and bitterness, and regret. What had he done? He glanced down at the waxen figure of Kradek-ka. What had they done?
"Take Lorna to the Division General's quarters. He is here. I can smell his fear. Lorna will begin my recruitment. She is the First."
"Yes."
"And Graal?" Bhu Vanesh's voice was a low, low rumble. Those red eyes cut through Graal's nerve like an assassin's garrotte.
"Yes, Warlord?"
"Forget your manners again, and I will cut off your head and suck out your brains."
Graal paled. He bowed his head a fraction. "Yes, Warlord."
A winter sea breeze caressed the stone corridors of Port Gollothrim's High Fortress as Graal led Lorna, this newly baptised and transformed vampire, towards the central control point of this south-western Falanor city. Prior to the Vampire Warlords' resurrection, Graal's Army of Iron had not made it this far; which meant, in theory, the population of the city was sound. Those, that is, who had not fled after Vor was sundered.
Graal paused, and stared from a high window. Below, the city appeared deserted. And then he saw them, a group of rough-looking men down by the seafront. Huge walls lined the front, presumably to halt high tides or violent storms. Graal's eyes strayed, and he saw a woman, further down. She carried a babe in her arms, and walked quickly, nervously, looking often over her shoulder. She reached a small line of cottages and ducked quickly into a doorway. So. Port Gollothrim was still home to… Graal smiled. Fresh meat. Templates. Vampire templates. But where were the soldiers? Called away to fight his Army of Iron, in Vor? Possibly.
Graal rubbed his chin. His torn cheek was stinging, but even now he could feel accelerated vachine flesh knitting together. He would be healed by the next morning.
He felt Lorna's eyes on him. He turned. "What are you looking at?"
"A nervous man."
Graal stared, hard, then smiled a cold thin-lipped smile. "So, Lorna, bitch, Bhu Vanesh's First, born straight into our world of horror by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You think you are so powerful? Let us see you perform. Perform, like a dancing monkey jerking on the puppeteer's strings."
Lorna's head tilted, and she observed Graal, and he felt the clockwork of his heart accelerate a little. Then she turned, and Graal led her no more. She moved fast, bare feet padding the cold stone flags, white kitchen apron stained with blood and the black gore from Bhu Vanesh's veins. Her neck showed the twin bites of the vampire. Her skin glowed in an ironic mockery of life.
Now, Graal followed. Lorna needed no guidance.
She accelerated, and Graal had to jog to keep up. Down long corridors, up steps, until they burst into the Division General's chambers and surprised the five men there. Division General Dekull stood beside a large polished oak table, with four other men; all wore military uniforms of black and silver bearing the Falanor crest. The table was filled with maps, and several glasses of half-drained wine.
Dekull, a large man with bull-neck and over-red complexion, thinning brown hair and large hands, stared for a moment in abject confusion. "Who the hell are you?" he growled, red-face forming into the frown of a man who did not take interruptions lightly. Then Lorna squealed in sudden bloodlust, real blood lust, and a burst of energy fired her and leapt at him, fastening arms and legs around him, teeth lusting for his jugular. He staggered back, knocking the table over. Wine spilled across maps. He tried to grapple with the newborn vampire, but there came a sudden crack as she snapped his arm like tinder, and Division General Dekull screamed, highpitched and animal, and this slammed the other men into action. They drew swords and charged as Graal watched impassively from the doorway.
Four swords slashed at Lorna in quick succession, as her knees came up, bare feet on Dekull's chest and she kicked up and backwards, through a somersault, landing behind one soldier. Swords clanged together in discord. Lorna's fist punched into one man, and through him, bursting free of his chest in a splatter of blood. She stood, holding his jiggling body upright, then let him fall as the three remaining men leapt back, faces uncertain, eyes narrowed. Lorna took a long lick of slick blood from her elbow to her still-clenched fist. Her black eyes gleamed.
"Come on," she growled, voice feral and husky.
One man screamed and charged, and she deflected his sword blow on her left arm where the razor-edge peeled her skin back like flesh from soft-braised pork. Her right hand dropped, grabbed his crotch, and ripped back hard detaching chainmail trews, penis and testes in one mangled lump. The other two men edged towards the door, then one, Command Sergeant Wood, turned and kicked his way savagely through the leaded window. He climbed out onto a high ledge and disappeared from view. The final man dropped his sword with a clatter. Division General Dekull was kneeling, blood pooled around him, nursing his broken arm. Bone protruded from flesh, a savage break, a sharp stick pointing at the roof.