Kell's Legend

me, and believe me, I am willing to die, then he will be gone from you forever.” He snarled at her, through torn and ragged lips, from a face of rancid horror, from a face that was no longer a face.
    “I will cut out your eyes,” said Anu.
    “Then do it! And stop yapping like a clockwork puppy.”
    The mist, cold and brilliantly white, spread across the ground, rolling out onto the river and masking the currents. It covered the corpses of the slain albino soldiers, and Vashell pushed himself up onto elbows as it rolled around him, and he sighed, and his eyes alighted on Anu and there was a glint of triumph there…
    “The Harvesters move quickly,” he said, voice a lullaby, and filled with the honey of blood-oil narcotic; his system was overloading on the substance, in lieu of his savage beating. “There must have been one close by.”
    Anu felt panic slam her breast. “No,” she said whirling around, eyes scanning the open spaces. She pointed at Alloria. “Get into the barge!” she snapped, and then turned back to Vashell, her claws and vampiric fangs emerging. “It is simply mountain mist!” she hissed, but her voice was cracked, there was a splinter in her heart. They both knew how savage the Harvesters were; and how strange, even to the vachine whom they deigned to help. They were creatures of the Black Pike Mountains, creatures from far beneath the stone; and they had their own esoteric agenda.
    When the Harvesters drained corpses for Blood Refinement, it was suspected that they themselves received something by way of a bonus. When they husked a human, they took a little part of the soul. But no vachine ever voiced these theories; not if they valued their own life. The Harvesters were above thegods, as far as the vachine society were concerned; and even though Anu would never voice this sentiment, she felt they were the Puppet Masters, and the vachine simply actors on another creature’s stage.
    Vashell shrugged, and watched Anu closely.
    “You have grown strong,” he said, voice slurring a little, so infused was his damaged system with blood-oil. “But do you think you have grown strong enough?”
    There came a hiss, like snow on a forest canopy, and from the swirled ice-smoke came the Harvester. The oval face stared at Anu as it seemed to glide over the ground, and it stopped for a moment by the slain albino warriors.
    “Sacrilege?” it said, voice high-pitched, merging in an odd way with its fast-paced breathing. Then it looked at Vashell, who shrugged, almost dreamily, and returned its gaze to Anu. “So. The daughter of Kradek-ka. You have discovered your gift, I see.”
    “He would have killed me,” said Anu, pointing to Vashell, her finger shaking.
    The Harvester drifted a little closer, head bobbing, tiny black eyes without emotion fixing hard on Anu’s soul. She felt like she was being eaten, from the inside out, by a tiny swarm of parasites. She shivered, as a feeling passed through her, and she was sure the Harvester could read her thoughts.
    “I see,” said the Harvester, and she could not read the black eyes. Fear tasted copper on her tongue. She felt urine dribble between her legs. She pictured the husks of the slaughtered; men, women, vachine, children, dogs. The Harvester had no empathy, noremorse, no understanding. It could not be negotiated with. It would do what it wanted, protected by vachine law, and practically indestructible…
    “I am going to look for my father,” she said, voice trembling.
    “You are going nowhere, child.”
    Anu hardened her resolve, through her blanket of fear. More ice-smoke swirled around her ankles, with a biting, icy chill. This fuelled her strength. The Harvesters controlled everything…
    “I will find my father,” she said, again.
    “You disobey me?” said the Harvester.
    She considered this, and knew she had embarked upon a path of mystery, a journey she could never have foreseen, understood, nor prophesised. She had stepped sideways from the vachine of Silva Valley; she was an outlaw, yes, and she was totally alone. She realised in a flash of understanding that things would never, could never, be the same. And if she defied this Harvester, she broke every law of the Mountain. Of the Valley. Of the Oak Testament.
    “Yes,” she said, meeting the Harvester’s gaze and holding it.
    Long bony fingers emerged from the robe, and the Harvester lifted its arms in a gesture at the same time a little bizarre, a little ridiculous, but