Vampire Warlords: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page A

bought me time. But the evil liquor is still there: in my veins, in my organs, in my bones. I can feel it. Eating me, slow and hot, like an apothecary's acid."
      "I am so, so sorry about that," said Myriam, but knew her words meant nothing. She had been dying, from a cancer riddling her every bone. To coerce Kell into helping her, she poisoned him with a rare toxin from a breed of Trickla flowers found far out west beyond the Salarl Ocean. Her antidote, however, had not been enough; or maybe the poison had been rampant in Kell's system for too long. What did he have now? Weeks? Months? A year? By saving herself, Myriam had effectively condemned Falanor's greatest hope. Falanor's last true hero. Myriam felt this irony slide through her like honey through a sponge, and she smiled a dry smile, a bitter smile. By her actions, Myriam may have condemned the world.
      "I do not believe it," said Nienna finally, placing hands on hips. Her eyes were narrowed, brows dark with thunder. "Are you sure, grandfather? Sure about all this? I watched you fight those Soul Stealers. You killed them! Like they were children!"
      Kell laughed sharply. "Oh, how the young do so romanticise. They almost had me, girl; if it had not been for Skanda's help, I would be slaughtered horse-meat on a butcher's worn wooden slab." His gaze transferred to Myriam. "You came here for help. To help yourself, yes, through fear of your new masters; but to help Falanor was an after-thought. I am sorry, Myriam. Battle weighs heavy on my old body, and my twisted mind. There is nothing I can do. For once, Falanor must help Herself."
      Myriam bowed her head. Tears lay like silk on her cheeks. "So be it, Kell," she whispered.
     
    They travelled for hours down narrow tunnels barely wide enough to accommodate Nienna. Eventually, when exhaustion crept upon Myriam, the hardy and seemingly tireless vachine, and Nienna was like the walking dead, they called a stop in a small alcove. It was cold, and damp, but then so were all the tunnels under Skaringa Dak.
      Nienna lay, wrapped in a thin blanket, her finger stump throbbing. After an albino soldier amputated her finger in retaliation for Kell's defiance after they had been taken prisoner, events had moved so fast, so frantic, she had barely a moment to consider her new severance. But now. Now, despite her exhaustion, sleep would not come. Her eyes moved through the darkness lit by strange mineral lodes, and came to rest first on Kell, snoring, lost in the realms of distant dreams and memories and battles; then on to Myriam, breath hissing past her small, pointed fangs. Vampire fangs. Vachine fangs. Nienna rubbed at her finger, and winced as pain flared up her hand, up her arm. Kell had expertly stitched the wound, the amputation , slicing a flap of skin and pulling it over the neatly cut bone. He had tears in his eyes. Tears of sorrow, but also of guilt. He blamed himself. He felt completely responsible. And Nienna supposed he was, to a large extent; but then, if he was to blame for the loss of Nienna's little finger, he was also to blame for saving her life time after time after time. She could forgive him one small mistake, if mistake it was. She grimaced. In war, they all had to make sacrifices. And at least she was still alive.
      Nienna rubbed her finger. It had been the most painful moment of her life, and the act of butchery, the look on the albino soldier's face – well, it was something she would never forget. Just like Kat's murder was something she would never forget. The vachine, the cankers, the soldiers, the battles – her grandfather striding with axe in hand, with Ilanna in hand, and turning from an affectionate old soldier, a retired old soldier, white-haired, funny, loving, ruffling her hair, cooking vegetable soup, polishing her boots with spit and polish and hard elbow grease, chastising her for neglecting her studies, nagging at her to smarten up her clothes, eat better food, be nice to her