by Jackson Lear
All of us southerners were left dumbstruck by it. Most focused on the sky, trying to bridge the sight of the unearthly display with what we knew of it, but no one had any idea how such lights existed or what they meant. Others retreated completely, staring at the ground and being ever so careful not to trip up as we made our way across the vampire infested land.
The northerners stopped to rest, the strain now too much for them to continue. The vanguard came to a stop as well. The baying continued.
“I want eyes all around,” mumbled Jarmella. “Gaynun and Menrihk to see what’s beside us. Adalyn to the front. Odeh to the rear. Wilbur? Find Torunn. See how long the northerners are going to be. Everyone else? If I haven’t called your name you get ten minutes.”
Everyone eased themselves onto the ground, sitting on their packs for padding to help keep the cold ground from seeping into their clothes.
Jarmella trudged over to see Dalo lying in the stretcher. “How are you?”
“I’d like that stupid vampire to stop.”
“We all would. How’s the leg?”
“I’d like to test it if that’s all right.”
“It’s only been one day.”
“I know, but I drank a lot of the vampire blood, so …”
“No. Superficial wounds might heal that fast but bones don’t. Just rest up and we’ll get you back to Anglaterra in no time.” Jarmella moved on to Benar, repeating the same conversation. He too tried to convince her that his leg wasn’t as bad as first feared. At last she came to see Saskia and – by proxy – the person she least wanted to speak to on the whole mountain. She looked to Odalis. “How is she?”
“What’s the word where you’re frozen and no longer ‘there’?”
“Catatonic?”
“Well, she’s pretty much that.”
Our vampire had been rigidly still for hours. Eyes open but glazed over, staring up at the sky without registering anything in her field of vision. Every so often her stomach rose with a sharp breath, but that was the height of her movement.
I stared off to the south. The northerners warned us that it if we slipped there wasn’t much to do from that point except to pray, because after tumbling out of control you had a quarter of a mile free fall to the ground. Somewhere to our right lay Orkust. Perhaps on a clear day it was even visible. I had to wonder if Alysia and Zara were ashore by now, perhaps thanking their ferrymen this very moment before heading back to Commander Lavarta’s camp a hundred miles away. They would’ve turned one last time. Might even be staring at our exact spot right now with no idea that their escort had not only survived Draegor’s cavalry but were trying to beat them back to Ice Bridge. ‘My lady?’ Zara would say, urging Alysia away.
‘Do you think they’re all dead?’
Jarmella knelt down next to Saskia. Dabbed a cold sweat from her brow. Finally looked to me. “How exactly is she going to help us find Berik?”
“Mikael told us a story in the dungeon, admitting that he had been intercepted by a vampire south of Lietsmar. He was convinced that she was psychic when in fact it was Desdola using ghosts to whisper to her from afar. The vampire simply relayed what she heard to Mikael. Saskia can do the same. Desdola will be using the ghosts to figure out what happened in Brilskeep and where everyone is. She’ll be the one to find Berik and she’ll use that information to taunt us. With some careful prodding and listening she’ll tell us if he’s still alive, where he is, and what’s to become of him.”
Jarmella nearly dropped in utter defeat. “You want Saskia alive so that you can interrogate Desdola?”
“Yes. I want Berik back and I think this is the quickest way of learning where he is and what’s happening in Brilskeep.”
“This is going to expose us all to Desdola’s eyes. She’ll know where we are and we won’t be able to stop it.”
“She can’t look at everything at once and the whole kingdom is now in disarray. She has sixty noble families to keep track of, Miss Kasera Lavarta, whatever Agnarr is up to, Draegor’s cavalry, Elizandria’s mercenaries … and us. Right now we’re not an immediate threat. She might know where we are but how much of an immediate threat are we compared to all of the nobles still in Brilskeep?”
Jarmella closed her eyes. Started to realize that it was a comfort she couldn’t afford and snapped them back open again. “You’re never going to know if she’s telling you the truth.”
“Perhaps, but listening to how your enemy taunts you – what they say and what they leave out – is more useful than people realize.”
“If Desdola is still alive.”
Saskia wheezed. Jarmella drew her hand back. “…essica …” murmured the vampire from behind the gag.
Jarmella froze. “I thought she was catatonic.”
“She was,” said Odalis.
“…Murrowhill …”
“Murrow …” Jarmella’s face dropped in a split second. “They’ve taken her to Murrowhill?”
Tears started to stream down the side of Saskia’s face.
Jarmella lifted an edge to the gag free. “They took Jessica to Murrowhill?”
“It’s a trick,” I said.
“Devril …” murmured Saskia.
Jarmella withdrew completely. Gone was the soldier in charge. Here was the scared woman realizing that she was utterly powerless while someone else relayed devastating news. “Devril’s gone as well?”
“Couldn’t walk on his own …”
Not once did Saskia blink or give any indication that she was aware of what she was saying, not even when Jarmella shoved Saskia’s shoulder and jostled her from side to side. “Wake up!”
“It’s a trick,” I repeated.
Jarmella slapped Saskia across the face and recoiled, holding her hand as though she expected Saskia to have bitten it. Saskia didn’t even flinch. Jarmella climbed back to her feet and retreated away, head down, hands balled into fists.
I knelt down next to Saskia. “I know you’re listening. Just know: the longer you’re here with us, the less time you have to watch over your so called allies. They’ve already started to turn on you.”
Saskia’s eyes finally shifted, landing directly onto mine. I lifted the gag an inch. “Nine vampires have just found your tracks. Good luck.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The sun finally teased us with a violet sky before the rays pierced the horizon. We didn’t dare stop, not with the baying behind us. Worse still, we were half the distance I wanted if I had been able to set out on my own, but stretchers and volunteers do tend to slow down a good run.
Saskia hissed at the sunlight, blinking with wet eyes as the overwhelming brightness practically blinded her. As the sun warmed us we were back to a hustle and about to tackle the worst the mountain had to offer: climbing such a steep incline that it was more practical to use ladders than hands and feet. At several points we had two people per stretcher on their hands and knees, the stretchers lassoed to their backs, as we crawled up the steep edge like centipedes.
Half a mile after our second rest Ewen slipped, his grip failing, the stretcher slamming to the ground and cracking along one pole. Saskia wrenched her restraints down, rolled with the fall, sprung to her feet and yanked the gag from her mouth. “She dies.”
I swung the stretcher across her body, striking her shoulder. She crumpled to the ground, rolled again, and howled – my sword skewering her left leg.
Two arrows flew our way, one piercing Saskia’s chest, the other grazing her cheek.
I ran my sword through her right leg and slammed my boot into her chest, allowing another arrow aimed right for her temples to miss her. She fell back, thumping onto the ground and writhed with both hands clutching one leg.
“Easy!” I shouted to the vanguard.
The infantrymen swarmed us in an instant. The archers circled Saskia, keeping her in their sight at all times. The vampire leaned back against the shuffling snow, breathing heavily, faster and faster as the new sensation of undead life filled he
r.
I gave her a warning. “Unless you give up immediately I will take your eyes.”
Her breathing softened, her snarls subsiding.
I turned to Leif and Arvid. “She needs blood and she needs it quickly. Find something. Bring it back still alive.”
Jarmella hurried over with her short sword at the ready. “What happened?” She scanned us all, noted the broken stretcher and Ewen still trying to right himself, found me with my wrists bound together but my sword out, and her former friend bleeding out onto the white ground. She looked to Ewen. “What happened?”
“I slipped.”
Blood dripped from my sword. Saskia’s grin was long gone. “She dies.”
“We all do,” I said.
“I’ve seen it.”
Jarmella shifted her attention to me, picking out gods know what. Whatever she saw she found a new resolution inside of herself. “Someone make a new stretcher. A cage if you have to. One that she’ll never get out of.” The troops got to work. Jarmella wasn’t done with me. “Over here.” She led me five yards away, hardly private given the open mountainside but as private as we were going to get. “What was that about?”
“Nothing.”
“‘She dies,’ is not nothing. If they’re going after Miss Kasera Lavarta …”
“If they are there’s nothing we can do about it from here. It’s just a trick.”
“Has she told you where Berik is yet?”
“No.”
“Have you even asked?”
“Twice.”
“And?”
“This is the first thing she’s said in hours and it’s a trick.”
“Those vampires chasing after us isn’t a trick.”
“No, but they can’t see as well in the daylight and it slows them down.”
Jarmella glared back at me. “No more ‘it was just a trick.’ Who was she talking about?”
“She didn’t say.”
“But you think you know?”
I tried to clear my mind of the vision of Día I saw on the boat out of Brilskeep. “No.”
Jarmella’s bullshit detector was working annoyingly well at that moment. “Desdola has something on you. I need to know what it is.”
“There’s nothing there.”
“Oh really? Nothing at all? Not even whatever it was you were doing on your last trip up here?”
“As I keep having to say: I’ve never been here before.”
“No? Then how is it that a vampire you had never met before knew to single you out the moment he saw you? And that you were the first selected by Draegor’s people to go up to the rooftop? Or that you – and only you – had not one but two private conversations with the blue-eyed mercenary queen? Who then armed you and compelled you to disobey Miss Kasera Lavarta’s order so you could silence Draegor before your secret got out?”
The vanguard weren’t exactly subtle about listening in. “I deliberately pissed off Razoz so that he would target me and not Alysia. I went to the rooftop first probably because I look like an honorless thug who might be swayed by money to betray the people I’m here with. Elizandria wanted to speak to me because she was trying to avoid a massacre in Brilskeep and I had Alysia’s ear, Zara’s ear … not quite Loken’s but I was getting there. Elizandria armed me because she was up to something. I don’t know what but without her you would still be locked in the castle. And I killed Draegor because tyrants who rule with terror deserve nothing less than a brutal death.”
Even red-eyed and fighting off the specks of color dancing across her vision, Jarmella held her own against me.
I reached into my coat. Freed Día’s letter and Kel’s drawing. Handed it over. “That’s what Desdola has on me.”
A momentary confusion passed over Jarmella before she regained her temper. She snapped the papers from my hand – “Easy,” I said, – and unfurled them quickly. There was definitely another moment of confusion as she caught sight of Kel’s drawing, of a girl on the cusp of womanhood smiling back at the artist. She flipped to the shaky scrawl covering one sheet of paper, and began to read outloud.
“‘Dear Raike, I just want to say thank you for saving my life. The Kaseras have been very kind to me and Kel since you heard about me…’” Jarmella fell silent, and continued reading to herself. At last she looked up. “What do you mean this is what Desdola has on you?”
“Up on the roof they shoved some blood wine down my throat and Desdola showed me a ghost of my father. I took the bait and ran with it, figuring that the longer I saw someone who didn’t actually matter to me then the less crap I’d have rattling through my head. Then Alysia gave me that letter. Desdola stopped showing me my father and showed me Día instead. It pissed me off.”
Jarmella nodded. “We were briefed on your rescue of Día.”
“By?”
“Loken.”
“Who heard it from?”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard a few different versions of what happened.”
“Good. The more confusion the better.”
“How you single-handedly fought off half a dozen mercenaries and half a dozen mages and did it all while they were trying to sacrifice Día.”
“It wasn’t single-handed. I had brothers in the company by my side the whole time.”
“So she’s your daughter?”
“No.”
“No one would’ve gone on that kind of rampage for someone they didn’t know.”
“If she was mine I wouldn’t have stopped at the ones I found. There are more scattered across the empire. I would’ve kept going.”
“So how come she ended up at the Kaseras?”
“They were the patrons of the orphanage she was taken from. I asked them to take her in.”
“And they accepted?”
“Yes.”
“So whose daughter is she?”
“No idea. No one important.”
Jarmella arched an eyebrow. “You’re seriously telling me that a company of – what – a hundred mercenaries risked their lives and caused so much trouble that it put all of us on a full lock down just so you could rescue one orphan none of you knew and whose parents are nobodies, and that – if I’m understanding you correctly – you did it all for free? Bullshit.”
I held my hand out for the letter. “I’d like that back now.”
Jarmella lingered for a little longer, her temper subsiding. “Ewen? How’s the stretcher coming along?”
“Nearly there.”
Jarmella turned her focus back to me. “Who’s Kiera?”
My chest must’ve thumped like the drums of war. “How do you know about her?”
“It’s written right here.”
I snapped the letter out of Jarmella’s hand. Scanned Día’s scrawl. “Where?”
Jarmella pointed it out. Kyre.
“That’s not how you spell it. That’s not even how you say it.”
“I know. But someone who’s learning how to read might spell it that way if they’ve never seen it before.”
I searched the rest of the letter.
“You can’t read, can you?”
“No.”
“So why has someone written you a letter you can’t read?”
“To show me that they’ve been studying.”
“And no one’s read it out to you?”
“‘Dear Raike, I just want to say thank you for saving my life. The Kaseras have been very kind to me and Kel since you heard about me…’ That’s as far as I got. What does the rest say?”
“She looks forward to seeing you again.”
I counted out the words Jarmella had recited. There were at least three hundred more to go.
Leif returned with a snow wren skewered in the shoulder by an arrow. “It’s all I could find this quickly.”
Jarmella dropped her mouth open, ready to chastise him for going off without her permission, but an overwhelming ‘fuck this’ kicked in. “Raike can feed her.”
With Saskia strapped to the st
retcher and a rope knotted around her throat in case she managed to lunge at me, I yanked the arrow free – agonized squawks rained upon us – and shoved the wound into Saskia’s mouth.
Honestly, I was curious to see what would happen. She was still on the cusp of life and death, more on the death side than before, but many bitten people failed to become vampires even under perfect circumstances.
Saskia snarled and sucked on the bird with such animalistic ferocity that I retreated, pulling my hands back to safety while the wide-eyed and frenzied demon ripped into the rapidly dying bird. It uttered a final desperate shriek and flap but Saskia’s tongue and lips were too powerful to release it. She sucked out everything she could, breaking the bird’s bones apart and drinking in the marrow from within. Feathers fell around her, limbs and flecks of skin dropped down the side of her mouth. At last Saskia panted, her eyes glazing over as the rush of blood overwhelmed her.
Half of the vanguard had their hands covering their mouths in shock. Foreheads glistened with sweat despite the freezing temperatures.
Saskia rolled her head to me. Grinned. “More.”
Jarmella’s voice trembled. “Some …” She grunted. “Someone else take Raike’s place. I don’t want Saskia getting lucky.”
No one volunteered.
“Leif. You take one end of the stretcher.”
“What …?”
“We’ll all take turns with her. One mile each. Ready?”
We heaved. Paused. The view ahead of us was different to how we last saw it.
The northerners were gone. Only Ithka, the fourteen year old archer, stood still, waiting lazily along the path. Menrihk wandered over to try his hand at communicating. Returned looking grim. Spoke quietly with Jarmella. Trundled towards me. “The kid says he’s only going to speak to you.”
Jarmella and I trudged forward, one of us with the permanent stink-eye, the other really appreciating the daylight that was keeping him awake. We stopped in front of the kid. “What’s up?”
