Kell's Legend

earth; and tears still flowed like acid down his cheeks. How had he been taken so easily?
    Elias grimaced. If this was the sort of magick they were using, if an icy blast could take out the best Sword-Champion of Falanor in a few seconds of confusion, of utter cold, then this new threat, this new menace, this terrible foe was going to roll over Leanoric’s Eagle Divisions like a hot knife through butter.
    We’re doomed, he realised.
    I must get to the king. I must warn the king!
    Elias was dropped to the ground, and he realised he was prostrate within a circle of men. He looked up, around at their faces which showed no empathy, no emotion, and then a black armoured warrior, tall and elegant, wearing a black helm obscuring his long, flowing white hair, turned and gazed at him.
    “You are Elias,” he said. “The Sword-Champion of Falanor.”
    “I am!” Pride flared in his breast. They could torture him, but he would not talk. He spat at the soldier. “Damn you, what do you horse-fuckers want?”
    “I know you think me sadistic,” spoke the soldier, looking up at the sky. “You are incorrect. When I punish, I punish without pleasure. When I torture, I torture for knowledge, progression, and for truth. And when I kill…I kill to feed.”
    “Then kill me, and be done with it!” snarled Elias, fury rising. He tried to surge up, to attack this arrogant albino, but only then did he realise hands pinned his soldiers, holding him to the ground.
    “No,” said Graal, dropping to one knee and staring into Elias’s face. “Today is not your day. This time, it is not your time.” He half-turned. “Bring her.”
    Queen Alloria was dragged, kicking and struggling, to the centre of the circle. She was beaten, her face bloodied, her arms tied behind her back with wire, blood covering her bare arms and wrists and hands. But she did not cry. She held her head high, eyes fierce, and she spat at Graal as she was thrown to the heather. She struggled to her knees and glared at her captors, glared at the albino soldiers around.
    “Elias?” she hissed, almost disbelievingly, voice filled with an agony of recognition.
    “I came to find you,” smiled Elias. “Leanoric sent me. Even now he musters the Army of Falanor. We will wipe this pale-skinned scum from the face of the world!”
    “You don’t understand,” said Alloria, eyes filled with tears.
    “Hush now,” said Graal, and kicked her in the head, a movement of gentle contrast as he sent her spinningviolently to the heather, stunned, blood leaking from smashed lips, mouth opening and closing from the sudden shock of the blow.
    Elias looked up. “I’ll kill you, fucker,” he said.
    “Later, later,” said Graal, waving the Sword-Champion into silence. “I had bad news this morning. It would appear my…brother, is dead.” Graal’s crimson eyes were locked to Elias. Elias smiled.
    “Good. I hope the maggot suffered.”
    “He suffered, my boy. He was a twisted vachine, you see. A canker. A creature who could not absorb the clockwork, whose body betrayed his heritage, a living rejection constantly at war with his own internal machinery.” Graal sighed. “But I see you don’t understand; I see you need…an education.”
    Graal stood, and waved beyond the circle of soldiers. A handcart was dragged by four men, and aboard it lay…Elias, knelt, was stunned by the vision, his eyes wide, failing to recognise, or at least comprehend, what they saw. It was big, a twisted lion-shape, with pale white skin, tufts of white and grey fur, a huge head split wide with long curved fangs of razor-brass. The body was torn open in places, and Elias could see fine machinery moving inside, tiny wheels, miniature pistons. Elias coughed, and tilted his head, failing to comprehend.
    The stench washed over him. Elias vomited on the heather.
    Graal moved to the carcass, in two pieces, and placed a hand on bloated flesh. He looked almost fondly into small dark eyes, lifeless now, despite the moving machinery inside the canker’s flesh. “Dead,but not dead. Alive, but not alive. Poor Zalherion. Poor Zal. You never thought it would be this way, did you? You never thought it would be like this.”
    Graal turned, and pointed at the ground. The flat of a blade slammed Elias’s head, and he went down with a grunt. Stars spun. He opened his eyes, and heard a sound of hammering as stakes were driven deep into the frozen earth. His hands and legs were staked out, and as he came round