Soul Stealers: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles Read Online Free

which belied his narrow, starved limbs. He halted before Kell, looked up with dark eyes twinkling, then slowly plucked the twin-tailed scorpion from his hand and secreted the arachnid beneath his shirt.
        "My name is Skanda," said the boy, voice little more than a husky whisper. "And the scorpion, it is a scorpion of time." "What does that mean?" whispered Kell.
        The boy shrugged, eyes hooded, smile mysterious. "You scared away the cankers!" blurted Saark. "How did you do that?"
        Skanda turned to Saark, and again his head tilted, as if reading the dandy's thoughts. "They fear me, and they fear my race," said Skanda, and when he smiled they saw his teeth were black. Not the black of decay, but the black of insect chitin. "Your race?" said Kell, voice gentle.
        "I am Ankarok," said Skanda, looking out over Old Skulkra, over its ancient, deserted palaces and temples, tenements and warehouses, towers and cathedrals. All crumbling, and cracked, all savaged by time and erosion and fear. "This was our city. Once." He looked again at Kell, and smiled the shiny black smile. "This was our country. Our world."
        Saark moved to the edge of the crumbling tenement, staring over the low wall. Below, he could see the retreated cankers had gathered; there were more than fifty, some sitting on the ancient stone paving slabs, some pacing in impatient circles. Many snarled, lashing out at others. At their core was Nesh, seated on powerful haunches, almost like a lion, regal composure immaculate. "They're waiting below," said Saark, moving back to Kell. He glanced at Skanda. "Seems their fear only extends so far."
        "I will show you a way out of this building," said Skanda, and started to move across the roof, dodging holes and loose joists.
        Saark stared at Kell. "I don't trust him. I think we should head off alone."
        Ignoring Saark, Kell followed the boy, and heard the battered dandy curse and follow. "Wait," said Kell, as they reached a segment of wall where a part of the floor had appeared to crumble away revealing, in fact, a tunnel, leading down through the wall. Kell could just see the gleam of slick, black steps. It dispersed his fears of magick, a little. "Wait. Why would you do this for us? I have heard of the Ankarok. By all accounts, they were not, shall we say, a charitable race."
        Skanda smiled his unnerving smile. Despite his stature, and his feeble appearance of vagrancy, he exuded a dark energy, a power Saark was only just beginning to comprehend; and with a jump, Saark recognised that Kell had not been fooled. Kell had seen through the – disguise – immediately. Saark snorted. Ha! he thought. Kell was just too damned smart for an old fat man.
        "Why?" Skanda gave a small laugh. "Kell, for you we would attack the world," said the little boy, watching Kell closely. His dark eyes shone. "For you are Kell, the Black Axeman of Drennach – and it is written you shall help save the Ankarok," he said.
             

    His name was Jage, and they left him to die when he was six years old. He couldn't blame them. He would have done the same. The blow from an iron-shod hoof left his spine damn near snapped in two, discs crushed in several places, his bent and broken body crippled beyond repair – or at least, beyond the repair of a simple farming people. Nobody in the village of Crennan could bring themselves to kill the child; and yet Jage's mother and father could not afford to feed a cripple. They could barely afford to feed themselves.
        His father, a slim man named Parellion, carried the boy to the banks of the Hentack River where, in the summer months when the water level was low, the flow turned yellow, sometimes orange, and was highly poisonous if drank. It was completely safe, so it was said, in the winter months when the flow was fast, fresh, clear with pure mountain melt from the Black Pikes; then, then the water could be safely supped,