society. You have no rights, no purpose, and offer no benefit to House
Krahr.”
“Aside from sexual amusement for the Marshal,” Seveline added.
“In other words, you are being kept around as a source of comfort, much
like a dog.”
“That’s not true,” Seveline said. “Dogs serve a purpose. They warn you
of intruders and add to your safety.”
“Very well, not a dog then.” Onda waved her arm. “A bird. A pretty,
ornamental bird.”
Maud raised her eyebrows. “So, what you are saying is, I am here for the
Marshal’s sexual amusement like a pretty bird? Are members of House
Kozor in the habit of copulating with their pet birds? I had no idea you
had such exotic tastes.”
The two women blinked, momentarily derailed.
Seveline switched to Ancestor Vampiric. “I’m going to wring her neck.”
The bride chose that moment to float by, all smiles. She smoothly
turned, rested one hand on Seveline’s shoulder, and still smiling, said,
“Do it and I will personally jab a knife in your eye. You will not ruin this
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for us. You have a simple job – provoke this bitch. How hard could this
be? The Hunt is about to start. Get on with it.”
Interesting.
The bride offered Maud a bright smile. “Are you enjoying
yourself? These two aren’t bothering you, are they?”
The temptation to answer in Ancestor Vampiric was almost too
much. “Not at all. They’ve been the soul of courtesy.”
Onda looked like she was about to have an aneurism.
The bride’s smile sharpened. “So glad to hear it.”
She floated away.
“So, you’re content with being a bed warmer?” Onda asked. “How will
this reflect on your daughter? Or do you expect her to learn by
example?”
“What a good question,” Seveline said. “Perhaps you have already
selected a client for her?”
Amateurs.
“What a disturbing thought,” Maud said. “Sexual contact with a child is
forbidden. It is incredibly damaging to the child. I am surprised that this
is tolerated within House Kozor. This is turning out to be a very
educational conversation. Birds, children… is anything off limits to your
people?”
Onda turned grey, shaking with rage. Seveline glared. “We do not have
sex with children!”
Vampires at other tables turned to look at them.
“So, just birds, then?” Maud asked.
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Seveline picked up the pitcher of coffee, jumped to her feet, and hurled
the contents at her. There was no time to dodge. The coffee was barely
warm, but it drenched her completely.
Onda’s eyes were as big as saucers. The room went silent.
Seveline stared straight at her, anticipation in her eyes.
Maud looked back. It’s still your move, bitch.
Seveline unhinged her jaws. “Coward.”
Under the table, Maud sank her fingernails into her palm. In her mind,
she flipped the table, gripped her sword, and drove her blade into
Seveline’s gut.
A moment passed.
Another.
The sticky coffee slid down her neck, dripping from her hair.
Another.
Seveline bared her fangs in a vicious grimace, spun on her heel, and
stomped off. The door hissed shut behind her.
Maud sat very still. This could still go bad. If they came at her now, her
best bet would be to jump out the window. It was a thirty-foot fall to the
ledge below, but she could survive it.
The bride opened her mouth. Every pair of eyes watched her.
“My Lady, we are dreadfully sorry. I do not know what came over her.”
“Clearly,” Maud said, her tone dry, “some people just can’t handle their
coffee.”
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A light ripple of laughter spread through the gathering.
“You are most gracious,” the bride said.
Oh you have no idea. “I implore you, think nothing of it. Please excuse
me, I must now change.”
“We wouldn’t dream of keeping you.”
Try it and you’ll regret it.
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Chapter 15 part 3
September 27, 2018 by Gordon 759 Comments
Maud grit her teeth as the long elevator sped downwards, through a
shaft carved in the heart of the mountain. Getting the sticky coffee mess
out of her hair took forever. Getting it off her armor took even
longer. She had no time to apply any cosmetics or make herself in any
way presentable.
She was never fond of caking makeup on her face, but she always loved
the eye shadow and mascara. In exile, mascara became an unattainable
luxury and often a hinderance. Having mascara bleed into your eyes
while you sweated buckets trying to kill an opponent twice your size
before she did you in wasn’t exactly a winning strategy. But as soon as
Maud got to the Inn, Dina invited her to raid her makeup stash. Maud
had worn eye shadow, mascara, and a light lipstick every day since
landing on this planet. Now, her face was bare, her hair was wet, because
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she didn’t dare to waste three minutes drying it, and she still, somehow,
smelled of that damn coffee.
Maud tapped her foot. The elevator refused to descend faster.
This was not the way she intended to appear at the hunt. If the hunts
she’d attended were anything to go by, this would be an almost
ceremonial occasion. Everyone would look their best, as they rode in a
procession. Armor polished, weapons ready, hair styled. When they
finally tracked down whatever they were hunting, the strikers would
move forward and close in for the kill. The strikers were determined in
advance. To be chosen was an honor, and she was sure the strikers for
this hunt would be the groom, the bride, possibly Arland, Otubar, Ilemina
or Karat. Whoever was chosen from House Krahr would be there solely
to make sure the bride and groom got the kill. Everyone would cheer
and record the event, so later it could be shown to family and
friends. Then, the whole party would turn around and go home.
All she had to do was get to the stables on time, ride in the middle of the
procession, exchanging pleasantries and looking well put together,
express admiration at the strategic moment, then ride back. She couldn’t
even manage that. She was at least ten minutes late. More like
fifteen. And that’s if they left on time.
Maud tapped her foot again. The elevator kept going with a soft
whisper. She’d checked the message from Helen again. Her daughter’s
excited face flashed before her, projected from her personal
unit. “Hurry up, mommy. We’re going on a hunt.”
A message from Ilemina had followed. “I have your child with
me.” Which didn’t sound ominous at all. Maud heaved a sigh. Damn
vampires.
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The elevator finally stopped. The doors parted, revealing a tunnel
leading to wide open doors. Daylight flooded the doorway. Maud broke
into a jog and emerged into the sunshine.
A wide pathway, completely straight and paved with flat stones, rolled
&
nbsp; out before her, leading to a gate. On both sides of her, large corrals lined
the path, secured by massive fences. Behind each rows of corrals, lay a
large stable.
The corrals were empty.
The vihr, the big-boned massive mounts that vampires preferred, were
gone.
She spun around and saw the Stablemaster off to the side. Middle aged,
huge, grizzled, with a mane of reddish hair going to grey, he scowled,
checking something on his personal unit. A younger male vampire with
greyish skin and jet-black hair stood next to him with a long-suffering
expression. Maud strode to them.
“Salutations,” Maud said. “Where is the hunting party?”
The Stablemaster didn’t look up. “Gone.”
“Gone where?”
He stopped and gave her a flat look. “Hunting.”
“In which direction?”
“North.”
“I need a mount.”
The chatty Cathy of the vampire world favored her with another look. “I
don’t have any.”
“You were supposed to hold a vihr for me.”
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“Someone took it. Hunting. North.”
Maud summoned the last reserves of her will power and kept her voice
calm. “Do you have any other mounts that I could ride?”
“No.”
Okay. “Do you have any mounts at all here? Anything that can run fast?”
The young stable hand glanced at her. “We have savoks. But you can’t
ride the damn things.” He looked at the Stablemaster. “Why do we even
have them?”
“They were a gift from the Horde, after Nexus,” the Stablemaster said.
Maud’s heart sped up. The otrokar of the Hope Crushing Horde lived in
the saddle. They prized mounts like treasure. They wouldn’t offer a gift
of anything less than spectacular.
“I’ll take a savok,” she said.
“The hell you will,” the Stablemaster growled. “They will throw you,
trample you, gut you with those claws, and bite your head off. And then
I’ll never hear the end of it from the Marshal.”
That did it. She didn’t have time to argue this. “You had orders to
provide me with a mount. Bring the savoks or I’ll get them myself.”
“Fine.” The Stablemaster flicked his fingers at his personal unit. The
closest gate in the stable on their left opened. Metal clanged and three
savoks galloped into the corral. Two were the typical rust red and one
was white, an albino. Incredibly rare. The sun caught the velvety, short
hair of their pelts, and they almost shone as they ran. If they were
horses, they would be at least eighteen hands at the withers. Muscular,
with four sturdy but lean legs, they moved with agility and speed. Their
hind legs ended in hoofs, their front had three fused fingers and a raptor
like dew claw. Their thick, short necks supported long heads armed with
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powerful jaws that were not seen on Earth since the extinction of bear
dogs and hell pigs.
They thundered past her, the white male flashing her a vicious look from
its emerald green eyes, and kept running along the fence, testing the
boundaries of the enclosure, their narrow long tails whipping behind
them.
They took her breath away. Growing up in her parents’ inn, all three of
the Demille children had their own chores. Klaus, with his encyclopedic
knowledge of thousands of species, served as the concierge, Dina
oversaw the gardens, and she was responsible for the stables. Maud had
seen hundreds of otrokar mounts, but none quite like these three.
The savoks came around again, snapping their fangs at them as they
passed. The big male drove his shoulder into the fence and bounced
off. They galloped on.
“Told you,” the Stablemaster said. “Unrideable.”
They had no idea of these animals’ value. By otrokar standards, these
were priceless.
The vampires, with their crushing physical power, evolved on a planet
rich in woods. They were ambush predators. They hid and sprang at
their prey, overpowering it. They were not great runners or great riders,
and their mounts, huge, sturdy vihr, who had more in common with bulls
and rhinos then racing horses, served their purpose perfectly. They
could be loaded with staggering weight, carry it for hours, and they were
guaranteed to deliver you from point A to B. They wouldn’t do it quickly
or gracefully, but they would get you where you needed to go.
The otrokar home world was a place of endless plains. The otrokar were
lean and tireless, and they could run for miles to exhaust their
prey. Their mounts were like them, fast, agile, and tireless. They would
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eat anything, grass, leftovers, prey they could run to ground, and they
were as smart as they were savage.
The savoks kicked the fence. They seemed stir crazy. “When was the
last time they were even out?”
“We let them out once a week,” the stable hand said.
Maud resisted the urge to scream. She had to resist very hard.
“Did they provide you with saddles?”
“Yes,” the stable hand said.
“Bring me one. The one that came with the white one.”
“How will I know which one it is?”
She closed her eyes for a few painful seconds. “The one that has white
embroidery.”
The stable hand looked at the Stablemaster. The older vampire
shrugged. “Go get it.”
She didn’t wait for the saddle. The savoks had halted at the far end of
the corral. Maud climbed the heavy metal fence.
“Hey!” The Stablemaster roared.
The white savok saw her and pawed the ground, preparing for a charge.
Maud inhaled and stuck two fingers into her mouth. A shrill whistle cut
through the air.
The savoks froze.
The Stablemaster had lumbered over to the fence and was obviously
trying to decide if he should grab Maud and pull her back.
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When Dina told Maud about brokering a peace on Nexus, she’d
mentioned the Khanum, the wife of the Khan and her children. They
were northerners; they would train their savoks in the northern
way. Maud whistled again, changing the pitch.
The savoks dashed to her. The Stablemaster made a lunge for her, but
she jumped off the fence, down into the corral.
The white savok reached her and reared, pawing the air with
forelegs. Behind her, the Stablemaster swore.
“So beautiful,” Maud told the savok. “Such sharp claws. Such a pretty
boy.” He wouldn’t know what she said but he would recognize and
respond to the tone of voice.
She whistled again, a soft ululating sound, and the savoks pranced
around her, nudging her with their muzzles and showing off impressive
sharp teeth. The white male hopped in place like a wolf dancing in the
snow to scare the mice out of hiding.
“So good. So, imposing.”
She whistled again. The white savok bent his knees, laid his head down,
and waited. She vaulted onto his back and hugged his neck. He leaped
up and took off in a dizzying gallop circling the corral. It took all of her
strength to stay on his back. Finally, she whistled him to a slow trot.
The Stablemaster and his helper, a traditional otrokar saddle in his
hands, stared at her, open mouthed. She rode the savok and
dismounted. “The saddle.”
The stable hand passed it to her through the fence.
“Does the white one have a name?”
“Attura.”
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Ghost.
Let’s hope he can fly like one. She was so late.
Chapter 15 part 4
October 8, 2018 by Gordon 922 Comments
The green plain flew by as Attura dashed through the grass. The savok
hadn’t run for a while, because the moment she gave him free reign, he
burst into a gallop. For a few happy breaths, after they had started off
from the stables, Maud let all of her anxiety go and lost herself to the
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exhilaration of the wind, speed, and the power of the beast below
her. Attura ran, fueled by the pure joy of it, and she felt that joy, and,
swept up in his need to run free, she let him do it and shared in it.
Eventually reality came back like a heavy blanket wrapping around
her. She checked her personal unit. They had swung to far to the west,
nearing the mesas rising on her left. The hunting party rode through the
center of the plain, to the east and just about four miles
ahead. Reluctantly, she shifted in the saddle, whistling softly. Attura
whined, slowing.
“I know, I know.” She promised herself that the next time she had a few
hours, she would bring Attura back out here and let him run himself
out. But now they had a hunting party to catch.
The savok settled into a fast canter, which wasn’t really the best
term. The canter of Earth horses was a three-beat gait, while the savok
launched himself forward with his powerful hind legs and pawed at the
ground with his forelimbs. It was a stride more reminiscent of a wolf or
a greyhound. But it was one rung slower than his sprint, so she called it
canter. Maud steered her mount on an intercept course and soon they
found a comfortable rhythm.
She checked her personal unit. It obediently projected the target of the
Innkeeper Chronicles 3.5: Sweep of the Blade Page 23
