Kell's Legend

knees, then climbing to his feet. “She needed no persuasion, Kell, you old fool. Have you no eyes in your head? She was lusting after me, even back in the tannery. You just can’t stand the thought of a young woman desiring a man like me…”
    Kell growled something, not words, just primal sounds of anger, and a continually rising rage, and Nienna stepped forward, slapping both hands against his chest. “No!” she yelled, voice strong, eyes boring into her grandfather. “I said NO!”
    Viciously, Kell grabbed Nienna and threw her to one side. She stumbled, went down in the snow with a gasp, then rolled over to stare in disbelief at the man she had known for seventeen years, from babe to womanhood, a man she irrefutably knew would never lay a hand on her, would never pluck a hair from her head.
    “That’s it!” laughed Saark, voice rising a little as he saw the inevitability of battle, of destruction, of death rising towards him like a tidal wave. “Take it out on a young girl, go on Kell, what a fucking man you are.” His voice rose in volume, tinged by panic. “Is this really the hero of Jangir Field? Is this truly the mightywarrior who battled Dake the Axeman, for two days and two nights and took his decapitated head back to the king? Go on Kell, why don’t you just kick the girl whilst she’s on the ground…after all, you wouldn’t like her to fight back now, would you, bloody coward? You’re a fucking lie, old man…the Black Axeman of Drennach?” Saark laughed, blood drooling down his chin as Kell stopped, and unloosed his axe from his back. The old man’s eyes were hard, harder than granite Saark realised as a terrifying certainty flooded his heart. “I spit on you! I bet you cowered in the cellars during the Siege of Drennach, listened to the War Lions raging above tearing men limb from limb…whilst the real men did the fighting.”
    Kell lifted his axe. His face was terror. His eyes black holes. His visage the bleakness of corpse-strewn battlefields. He was no longer an aged, retired warrior with arthritis. He was Kell. The Legend.
    “Go on,” snarled Saark, hatred fuelling him now, spittle riming his lips, “do it, kill me, end my fucking suffering, you think I don’t hate myself a thousand times more than you ever could? Go on, bastard…kill me, you spineless gutless cowering heap of horse-cock.”
    “No!” screamed Nienna.
    “You speak too much,” said Kell, his voice terribly, dangerously low. “Here, let me help you.” He hefted Ilanna, huge muscles bunching, and only then did Saark glimpse, from the corner of his eye, a tendril of white mist drifting across the street. His head twitched, turned, and he watched ice-smoke pour from a narrow alleyway, to be joined by another froma different alley, and yet another from a third…like questing tendrils, wavering tentacles of some great, solidifying mist-monster…
    “The albino soldiers!” hissed Nienna, eyes wide as Kat skidded around the corner, face flustered, dress hitched up in her hands. “They’re here! Kell, they’re here !”
    Kell lifted Ilanna, face impassive. His body flexed, and twisted, and the mighty axe sang as she slammed in a glittering arc towards Saark’s head.

ELEVEN
A Secret Rage
    Anu revelled in the cold air gusting from mountain passes as Vashell led her on her chain through the town. As they walked down metal cobbles towards the Engineer’s Docks, many vachine stopped to stare, eyes wide at this utterly humiliating and degrading treatment. Anu grinned at them, sometimes hissed, and once, when a young man protruded his fangs she snarled, “Stare as much as you like, bastard, I’ll be back to rip out your throat!”
    Vashell tugged her tight, then, and she fought the chain for a few moments until Vashell back-handed her across the face, and she hit the ground. She looked up, eyes narrowed in hatred, and Vashell lifted his fist to strike another blow…
    “Stop!” It was a little girl, a baby vachine, who ran across the metal cobbles, clogs clattering, long blonde hair fluttering, and she placed herself between Anu and the enraged Engineer. “Have you no shame, Engineer Priest?” she said in her tiny child’s voice.
    Vashell glowered at the girl, no more than eight or nine years old, in a rage born of arrogance. She turnedher back on him, reached down, and took Anukis’s hand. She smiled, a sweet smile, and her eyes were full of love. Inside her, Anu heard the tick tick of clockwork.