Vampire Warlords: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles by Andy Remic Page B

his lips, but could not. Fear had drained him of spit.
      Old Terrag straightened, damn, he'd always been a tall bastard , and stared for a while at the pumping body on the floor. The head had rolled off into the shadows, and Ferret knew the man would have been completely pissed off. Dandig wasn't a man used to losing.
      Ferret fought down the urge to splutter a histrionic giggle.
      Old Terrag turned that blood gaze on Ferret and his balls retracted to pips. "Your turn, Ferret," hissed the vampire and Ferret was frozen, a statue, a carving from ice, and the vampire launched at him and he wanted to scream and curl up in a ball, to crawl away to some dark recess and lie there until he decomposed. There there, Fador, soothed his mother and tucked him under the thick sheep-wool blanket but the dark was all around, those tales from Uncle Grimmer still vivid and bright in his child's colourful imagination, the clockwork vampires and clockwork werebeasts creeping through the dark with talons longer than a man's forearm… prowling… ready to strike…
      He blinked, and Old Terrag was on him, flying at him, arms outstretched and he jerked up his sword in sheer panic, no timing, no skill, just a flurry of scrabbling and movement and the blade flashed and Old Terrag impaled himself on the blade. Ferret heard steel bite through flesh, through bone, through muscle, sliding through Old Terrag's chest, through his heart, to exit on shards of spine.
      They squatted there, together, like lovers, and Old Terrag's outstretched clawed fingers took hold of Ferret's face and their eyes met. Ferret licked his lips. The vampire was shivering on the sword, impaled, and Ferret could see the tip of his blade on the other side of the vampire's body. Old Terrag trembled, and hatred etched the drawn back skin of his face, its face . Ferret thought he was dead, then. It still had the strength to twist off his head. Like it did with Dandig. Shit.
      Then Old Terrag closed his eyes, and smiled, and died.
      Ferret waited for a minute, waited to see what would happen. Then he scrambled from underneath the body and put his boot on the vampire's chest, withdrawing the short sword. Its heart. He had pierced its heart!
      He leant against the wall for a few moments, breathing heavily, then wiped sweat mixed with brick-dust from his brow, leaving a muddy red smear on his sleeve.
      "You can cut off their heads, as well," came the gentle voice of Rose, as she emerged from the dust.
      Ferret coughed, and snorted snot to the ground. "You've seen them killed?"
      "A few," she said. "The eastern quarter of the city is all but overrun. All your rebels." She smiled, sadly. "All of them… changed ."
      "How are they changed? With magick?"
      "With a bite. To the neck. Then they seem to die, and they come back to life and are quick, and strong, and hard to kill. As you saw." She glanced at the three twisted corpses of Ferret's Generals; three hardy men, grim men, men who had slaughtered albino soldiers for fun. But one vampire had killed all three. And would have killed Ferret, if not for a twist of fate. Of luck.
      "Shit. We have gone to the Bone Graveyard!"
      "No. We are in Jalder. You must tell your people. They will listen to you. You must tell them how to fight. How to kill…" She glanced at the corpse of Old Terrag. Already, it had gone black, crinkled as if cooked, and the stench was unbearable. "How to kill these creatures."
      "I will," said Ferret. "Come with me, Rose."
      "No."
      "It's death out there!"
      "I know." She smiled. "But I have things I must do."
     
    His name was Vishniriak. He was a Harvester. He was a leader amongst the Harvesters. He came from under the Black Pike Mountains and was tall, wearing thin white robes embroidered with gold religious symbols and threads. His face was flat and oval, his head hairless, his nose tiny slits which hissed when he breathed. And eyes… small black eyes without