"This is unbelievable!" stormed Nienna. "Everybody has gone down to Gollothrim, even the women, to fight! And I'm expected to sit on my hands and play with myself? Well, I won't do it. I'm going after Kell and Myriam. The only way you'll stop me is by killing me."
"The women are trained archers!" wheedled Saark, and Nienna strode off down the forest trail. Saark ran after her. "Wait, wait! At least let me grab my rapier."
"So you're coming with me?"
"Aye, bloody looks like it, doesn't it?"
"Well, a woman should always get what she wants."
"In my experience, she always does. Only most of the time she learns to regret it."
Nienna shrugged. "You know I'm right, Saark. You know we need to be part of this. We can make a difference. We can help Kell."
"Have you heard yourself?" snapped Saark. " Help Kell? Have you bloody seen him fight? That rancid old lion needs no help from a little girl like you."
"Watch your tongue, lest I cut it out."
"Girl, if Kell learns I allowed you to follow him into that hell hole, then he'll cut out more than my damn tongue."
"Well let's make sure we make a difference, then," said Nienna, eyes hard, and by her stance Saark could see she meant trouble. She'd come a long way from the day he'd met her in the tannery in Jalder; then, she'd been soft like a puppy, her eyes gooey and lustful, her skin like virgin's silk. Now, she was hard, and lean, and her eyes were dark. She'd seen too much. Her innocence had been flayed from her, like skin strips under a cat o' nine.
Saark trotted after Nienna through the woods. There seemed little other option.
It did not take long to reach Gollothrim, and they stood in a darkened alley on the outskirts, listening to the sounds of horror reverberating through the streets. Many fights were erupting in the distance. Vampires screamed. Men screamed. Flames roared. The city had erupted into chaos.
"This is a bad idea," muttered Saark.
"To the tower, you said?"
"That's what Kell told me," muttered Saark, feeling like a down and dirty traitor, like his tongue would turn black and fall out of his burning mouth. He moved to Nienna, touched her shoulder. " Please . Let's turn back. This is not the time for us. Not the place."
"I am a child no longer," said Nienna, eyes hard.
Footsteps padded at the end of the alleyway, and a figure stopped, and turned. It was a woman. A vampire. She hissed, eyes glowing red, and extended her claws.
"Great," muttered Saark, drawing his sword, and turning, watched a second vampire casually close off the end of the alleyway. Two women, two vampires, working together as a small unit. To trap the unwary. To slaughter. To drink fresh blood…
Nienna had drawn her own short sword, and backed towards Saark. "There's two of them," she muttered, glancing up along the rooftops to make sure no more dropped from above.
"You reckon?" he snapped, eyes flickering between the two. They were advancing. Fluid. Too fluid. Graceful, like cats. Saark had seen vampires move like that before. These were the true predators of the pack. Deadly and swift. "Remember," he hissed, "eyes, throat and heart. Strike hard and fast, and keep hitting till the fucker's down," but there was no more time for words as the vampires shifted into a sprint and ran fast down the alley to leap at Saark and Nienna, who stood grim, blades glittering…
Grak shoved his sword into a vampire's open mouth, snapping fangs as claws scrabbled against his breastplate and slashed viciously across the steel band around his throat. But it saved him. The steel saved him.
"There's too many!" screamed Dekkar through the fighting throng. Their units of twenty-five men had been decimated, carved up, and backed together in a disorganised mass. They stood, panting, as vampires cir cled them on the wide main thoroughfare of Gollothrim. Occasionally, one would dart out but a spear would jab, and it would retreat. Grak looked frantically about. There were maybe twenty of them left, out of fifty. Most had lost shields, now. Most barely carried weapons. Dead vampires surrounded their boots. What happened to the other units? Fighting in their own shit, Grak reckoned. Down streets and alleyways. In buildings. What had he said? Stick to the main wide road, where each unit could help defend the other units. And what had they gone and done? Gone bloody running off in every bloody direction like horny young virgins at the sniff of a brothel! Grak the Bastard hawked and spat. Bloody undisciplined soldiers, was what they were. Bloody untrained, that was their curse! But… of course they were. They were never born for a life in the army.
Dekkar backed to him, and Grak stood side by side next to the Blacklipper giant. Grak glanced up.
"It's been an honour to fight alongside you, brother," he said.
Dekkar looked down. "You too. It's a shame it takes something like war to unite us."
Grak nodded. "You see how many there are? You have a slight height advantage over me."
"I reckon three hundred," said Dekkar, voice bitter.
"So, it's time," said Grak, and thought back past all the bad things he'd done. Would he go to the Golden Halls? The Halls of Heroes? He hawked, and spat again. After all the bad things he'd done? This hardly counted. No. He'd go to the Chaos Halls. With the Keepers. But at least one thing was sure and damn well guaranteed… he'd take as many fucking vampires with him as humanly possible…
"COME ON, YOU WHORESONS!" he screamed, and waved his sword, beating it against his breastplate and chanting and snarling. The others around him did the same, and their noise rolled out over the snarling vampire hordes which jostled and shifted like some huge live thing, some organic vampire snake.
Then a high-pitched squeal rent the air, and the vampires screamed, their noise rising up in waves as their claws extended, their fangs gleamed in the darkness, and with a unity uncharacteristic of their unholy race, they charged the men of Falanor…
Command Sergeant Wood snarled, and his head smashed forward, forehead slamming Lorna's nose and making her squeal, and as her head slapped back so he sank his teeth into her throat in a beautiful, ironic reversal. He bit and he chewed, his head thrashing, his teeth gnashing, and he chewed out her windpipe and bit through her skin and muscle and tendon, and Lorna's claws raked at his back but they were pinned together by the sword, and he bit and he chewed, he ripped through her flesh as hard and as fast as he could, and black glistening blood ran down his throat and it tasted foul, like decay, like death, like eternity. They fell to the side, rolled onto the stone flags which lined the circumference of the Green Church roof, and Lorna went suddenly still. Wood, in a crazed panic, in a fit of hatred and loathing, continued to bite and chew, not believing she was dead until his teeth clacked against her spine. He had chewed out her entire throat. Wood squeezed his hands between them, and pushed himself from the sword point with a cry of pain which rent the night skies like a lightning strike. Then he lay there, shivering, and with gritted teeth he grabbed the stone crenellations and yanked himself to his feet, bleeding and ragged, pain his total mistress. He gazed out across the old soldiers, but they had out-thought the vampires. Whereas the vampires had surrounded the hidden men of the Black Barracks, so this had simply been a decoy… to draw them out, into the open. Hundreds had risen from secondary hiding places, and as the vampires attacked so hundreds of iron-tipped arrows slashed through the night, through the snow, piercing eyes and throats, hearts and groins. Wood watched, saw hundreds of arrows slashing through gloom and darkness, watched vampires pierced and screaming and punctured, rolling down slates and tiles, toppling from rooftops to pile like plague victims in the alleys below.
Then eyes turned, and looked up towards him. Wood gave a single wave of his hand as he swayed, wheezing, blood dribbling from his jaws with strings of vampire flesh, and he watched the old soldiers moving across the icy rooftops. Despite their age, they were iron. They were ruthless. They were unstoppable. It filled Wood with a little bit of shame at his own moaning. After all – he was still alive. He gritted his teeth, and ignored the hole in his chest, he regained his sword, tugging it from the vampire corpse. But as he turned to leave… he glanced down at Lorna's face. Her eyes were shining. She was watching him. She was still alive…