Kell's Legend

to the backing track of screams, thuds, gurgles, and most disturbingly, the solid crunches of impact, of gristle, of snapping bones.
    The girls half hoped the woodsmen had won; but then, they’d have to face the prospect of rape and murder.
    But what would happen with the canker?
    Kat pulled on her boots, and something smashed off into the forest, a woodsman, picked up by the canker, slamming an axe into its back again and again and again as it charged through the forest with his legs in its jaws. There came the smash and crack of breaking wood. A gurgle. Another crack; this time of bone.
    Nienna and Kat stood, shivering, wondering what to do.
    Slowly, the canker emerged from the gloom, lit only by the flames of the fire. Blood soaked its white fur, and congealed gore interfered with fine cogs and gears, splashed up its uneven, distended eyes. Skin and torn bowel were caught in long streamers between its claws, and it made a low churning sound as if about to be violently sick…
    “Back away,” mumbled Kat, as Nienna hefted the axe and they started to retreat into the forest.
    Nienna stood on a branch, which snapped.
    The canker turned, slowly, red eyes watching them.
    “Is it going to charge?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Don’t move!”
    “It’s already seen us!”
    “Stop talking!”
    “You’re talking as well!”
    They stopped. The canker stopped. They eyed each other, over perhaps fifty yards. Then, with a wide grin—which looked like the creature had peeled the topof its head right off—it let out a howl, a howl to the fire, to the forest, to the moon, and lowered its head with a grinding snarl and with a shift of gears, a mechanical grind of cogs, the canker leapt at the girls…

SEVEN
The Watchmakers
    “Don’t do this,” said Anu, backing away, her face an image of horror as Shabis’s fangs gleamed, her claws flexed and she leapt. Anu somersaulted backwards, away from the attack, landed lightly, and as Shabis leapt again, claws tearing the carpet, oil gleaming in her eyes, so Anu leapt, kicked off from the wall and flipped over Shabis’s head. She landed in a crouch, unwilling to reveal her own killing tools, unwilling to fight her sister.
    “Shabis!”
    Shabis whirled, mad now. “You will die, bitch!”
    “With what poison has he filled your head? What lies?”
    Shabis charged, claws swiping for Anu’s throat. Anu swayed back, brass and steel a hair’s-breadth from her windpipe, then punched her sister in the chest, slamming her back almost horizontally where she hit the carpet on her face and coughed, clutching her chest, pain slamming violent through heart and gears and clockwork…
    Anu’s eyes lifted to Vashell. “Call her off.”
    Vashell backed away, tongue wetting his lips. She could see the bulge in his armoured pants. He was getting a thrill out of this: out of watching two sisters fight to the death.
    “Stop her!” shrieked Anu, as Shabis crawled to her feet, the corners of her mouth blood-flecked.
    “No,” he said, voice barely more than a growl. “This is the final trial. Don’t you see? This is the final…entertainment. A repayment, if you like, for all the pain and suffering you have caused. Shabis.” Shabis looked at him, the rage in her eyes flickering to love. “If you kill her, then we will marry, we will spend a glorious eternity together; you will never have to work again, we will languish in a blood-oil rapture; just you and I, my love.”
    Shabis turned to Anu, head low, eyes dark. She let out a snarl and charged at Anukis who was crying, great tears flowing down her cheeks, soaking her golden curls, and Shabis leapt like a tiger, both sets of vachine claws coming together to crush Anu’s head and Anu swayed, ejecting a single claw which swiped down, sideways, as Shabis sailed past. There came a tiny flash, an almost unheard grinding sound, and Shabis hit the ground hard, rolling, wailing, her clawed fingers coming up to her face where blood and blood-oil mingled, leaking from her severed…fangs.
    Anu had cut out Shabis’s fangs. The ultimate symbol of the vachine.
    “No!” wailed Shabis, blood-oil pumping as the cogs in her head, in her heart, ejected precious blood-oil. “What have you done to me, Anukis?” She climbed to her feet, ran to Vashell, who put out his arms tocomfort her as she sobbed, her blood-oil leaking into his clothing and his eyes lifted to read Anukis who stood, face bleak, as she retracted her single claw.
    “Now you need