and woodland, all peppered with snow. To the west he could make out the sprawl of Vorgeth Forest, stretching off for as far as they eye could see. But there, on the road, he could see…
Saark rubbed his eyes. His swollen eye had opened a little, but still he could not understand what he witnessed. Huge, black, angular objects seemed to fill the Great North Road; from the ancient connecting roads of Old Skulkra heading north, for as far as the eye could see. Saark stroked his moustache, mouth dry, fear an ever-present and unwelcome friend.
“The Blood Refineries,” said Kell, making Saark jump.
“What?”
“On the road. That’s what you can see. The vachine need them to refine blood; and they need blood-oil to survive.”
Saark considered this. “They have brought their machinery with them?”
“Yes.” Kell nodded. He was sombre. Below, they heard a fresh growl, a snarl, and the scrabble of slashing claws. The cankers had found a way past the collapsed stairwell. They were on their way up.
“So they’ve won?” said Saark.
“No!” snarled Kell. “We will fight them. We will fight them to the bitter end!”
“They will massacre our people,” said Saark, tears in his eyes.
“Aye, lad.”
“The men, the women, the children of Falanor.”
“Aye. Now take out your sword. There’s work to be done.” Kell strode to the opening leading to the stairwell. The cankers were growing louder. There were many, and their snarls were terrifying.
Saark stood beside Kell, his rapier out, his eyes fixed on the black maw of the opening.
“Kell?”
“Yes, Saark?”
“We’re going to die up here, aren’t we?”
Kell laughed, and it contained genuine humour, genuine warmth. He slapped Saark on the back, then rubbed thoughtfully at his bloodied beard, and with glittering eyes said, “We all die sometime, laddie,” as the first of the cankers burst from the opening in a flurry of claws and fangs and screwed up faces of pure hatred.
With a roar, Kell leapt to meet them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks must go to various people for advice and encouragement along the way, especially when the road glittered dark. Thanks to Ian Graham, author of Monument, for hardcore test reading, insightful advice and hallucinating the cankers. Cool!
Thanks to Green Sonia the Savage, for encouraging me to write for insane periods of time in order to hit those deadlines, and never moaning.
Thanks to Joe Blade and Olly Axe, for making me smile when the forest seemed dark.
And thanks to Marc Gascoigne, for giving me a fresh crossbow-shot at scribing fantasy. I owe a few tankards of honey-mead!
Finally, a big thank you to Claire and Natalie Ralph, for their original inspiration and for being such good little vampires.
Extras…
20 MINUTES INSIDE THE MIND OF
Andy Remic
As part of getting to truly know our authors, we sometimes like to throw a bunch of quickfire questions their, see if we can get a glimpse of what they really think. And then, well, we lobbed some of those questions at Rem…
One book
Legend by David Gemmell. I read it when I was 15 years old, and it was extremely influential. I later struck up a friendship with Dave, and he never forgave me for a critique I once did (circa 1990) in which I said one of his novels had elements of the “turkey” in it. He said his book had never been described as fowl before, and I was lucky not to receive a right hook.
One book to burn
I don’t really criticise other writers’ works if I can help it. Authors, without exception, work incredibly hard, even if a book is perceived as “ready to burn”, so I leave the acid to “professional critics”.
One film
This would have to be Blade Runner, extremely influential and dark, moody, violent, intelligent, and based on a superb Phil Dick source text! Although I do have a secret passion which will guarantee small children point at me and laugh—I love those old Conan films. “Conan, what is best in life…”
One film to burn
What do I hate? Hmm. I think it’s got to be The Wizard of Oz. Everybody bangs on about how brilliant it is; I thought it was a pile of sputum. Go on, burn it. As an aside, I am pretty good at burning things myself. I set fire to my decking a few weeks back using petrol on a BBQ; dumb, I know, and I nearly died, but on the upside the firemen thought it was pretty funny (especially as my brother is a fireman), and I got an invitation from Keith Flint to his annual summer party.