Kell's Legend

simple carpets of pine and discarded branches. Here, now, in the midst of entanglements was where new trees fought for supremacy, for height, for sunlight, and Nienna realised with a pang of horror that the canker ploughed through such trees with ease. There was no halting it…
    “I’ve got to stop!” wailed Kat.
    “What is it?”
    “My feet, they’re cut to ribbons!”
    Darkness poured into the thick forest, like from a jug. That was the second downside, Nienna realised, acknowledging her own error of judgement with a sour grimace. The thicker the woods, the more dark and terrifyingly cloying it was. With bigger trees, at least some light, and snow, crept through. Here it was just icy and dark, with little ambient light
    Kat stopped, and Nienna stopped beside her. They stood still, listening to the canker falter, and halt; a bellow rent the air, and they heard the deformed beast sniffing.
    “Maybe it won’t see us,” said Kat, voice trembling. She shuffled closer to Nienna, and they held each other in the caliginous interior. They could not even make out one another’s faces.
    “Yes.”
    The canker, snuffling and grunting, came closer. Now they could hear the tiny, metallic undercurrent of vachine noise; the click of gears, the whistle of piston, the spinning of cogs.
    “What the hell is it?” said Kat.
    “Shh.”
    Even now, it came closer, and closer, and both girls held in screams and prayed, prayed for a miracle as their feet bled and they shivered, sweat turning to ice on their trembling flesh…
    Something huge moved above them and Nienna felt a great presence in the trees, as if a giant stalked the forest and the canker growled, screamed, andleapt, and there were sounds of scuffling, of claws scrabbling wood and jaws clashing with metallic crunches and then a mammoth, deafening, final thud. The forest shook, as if by a giant’s fist.
    Silence curled like smoke.
    Nienna and Kat, both trembling, looked at one another.
    What happened?
    To the canker, but also…out there?
    There came a series of sudden hisses, and clanks, and then silence again. Whatever had happened to the canker it had been immediate, and final. Some giant predator? A bear, maybe? Nienna shook her head at her internal monologue. No. A bear couldn’t have killed the—thing—that pursued them. So what, then?
    “Come on, let’s move,” whispered Kat.
    Something huge and terrible reared above them in the darkness, smashing branches and whole trunks in its ascent and making Kat scream out loud, all sense of self-preservation vanished as primeval terror took over and the dark shadow reared above, and roared, suddenly, violently, a deep and massive bass roar without the twisted undercurrents of the canker…
    “I know where we are,” hissed Nienna, clutching Kat in the shade.
    “Where?” she wept.
    “Stone Lion Woods,” whispered Nienna, her mind filled with horror.
    “I’m telling you,” said Saark, “it’s crazy to head out into the snow!”
    “Well, I’m going, aren’t I.”
    Kell opened the door, and stepped out into the storm. It had lessened now, and small flakes tumbled turning the forest clearing into a haze. Kell’s eyes swept the dark trees.
    “Get your sword.”
    Saark reappeared in his damp clothes, grumbling, and stood beside the immobile form of Kell in the snow. “What’s the matter now, you old goat? Forgot your gold teeth? Left your hernia cushion? Maybe you need a good hard shit?”
    Kell turned on him, eyes wide, flared in anger. “Shut up, idiot! There’s something in the trees.”
    Saark was about to offer further sarcastic comment, but then he, too, sensed more than heard the movement. He turned his back on the small hut and faced the trees, rapier lifting, eyes narrowing.
    Kell drew his Svian from under his arm, and cursed the loss of his axe. He felt it deeply; not just because it was a weapon, and he needed such a weapon now. But because the axe was…his. Ilanna. His.
    “Hell’s teeth,” muttered Saark, as the albino soldiers edged carefully from the trees, gliding like pale ghosts, their armour shining in shafts of moonlight tumbling between snow-clouds.
    “I count ten,” said Kell, delicately.
    “Eight,” said Saark.
    “Two archers, just inside the trees, off to the right.”
    “By the gods, you have good eyesight! I see them!”
    “Horse-shit. I wish I had my axe.”
    “I wish I had a fast horse.”
    “Very heroic.”
    “Not much use for dead heroes in these