by Jackson Lear
If there really was a hell, then having to tell my life story to each and every person I was going to meet was probably a fine instrument of torture. “I expected to join the army. I didn’t want to but I grew up getting kicked out of one job or another so my prospects were limited. I definitely didn’t want to join the city watch and the army seemed a little too similar but as much as doing drills all day sounded like the highest form of boredom imaginable, I did hear of some of the more lesser known regiments. Digging tunnels beneath city walls under siege and being the first inside, sneaking through enemy territory and freeing prisoners of war, catching spies and assassins … that sort of thing. When you’re fourteen that sounds like a lot of fun. But one thing led to another and I joined a mercenary company instead.”
“And they took you in? Straight off the street?”
“I was eager, stubborn, and small enough to be useful.”
“How is being small useful?”
“Does the army ever use squeezers?”
She peered back at me, lost. “Like in kitchens? Squeezing juice out of fruit?”
“Not quite. Squeezers crawl through tiny spaces or are thrown up sheer walls so they can climb in through a window. That was my first job. Fifteen years old – fast, light, and skinny – climbing into wherever they wanted me so I could open the door from the inside. Then a growth spurt kicked in and I could no longer fit through most chimneys. After that I spent a few years as an enforcer, rattler … never a swift talker, though.”
“What about a mage?”
“Nah. I preferred doing things instead of meditating. I liked our mages, though. We had a similar ability to irritate the fuck out of people whether we intended to or not.”
Jarmella smiled and nodded, realized I had seen her, and forced a hardened exterior to the front.
“Anyway. You’re smart and bookish. Why are you in the army?”
“Do you really care?”
“Hmm, maybe I should tell Adalyn that this morale thing was a bust.”
Jarmella fell quiet.
“Right. The army wasn’t a lifelong dream of yours.”
She sighed. “My parents told me they didn’t spend all that money for me to learn how to read unless I was going to do something with it. Every day was practice, practice, practice. Instead of doing my final exams I cried all the way through them. Parents were livid. I got drunk. Words were exchanged ... Army.”
“Why not be a steward?”
“Because a week into basic training someone showed us what mages can do.”
“Fair enough.”
Jarmella drew in a deep breath. Exhaled just as loudly. “I thought we were doing an honorable thing up here – help save the north from creatures of hell. So why do they continually refuse our help?”
“Very few people help others and expect nothing in return. And no matter how you look at it, we’ve come to fuck with their lives.”
“For the better.”
“Not necessarily. If the north imposed their will upon us, that we had to adopt their laws, customs, and alliances for our own good, would you give up your way of life to a kingdom that frequently threatens to eradicate your rulers and enslave the rest of you?”
“That’s different.”
“Not by much. We’re all the bad guy in someone else’s story. Even the heroes of Ispar are known for killing thousands of soldiers, enslaving ten times that, and burning foreign cities to the ground.”
Jarmella fell into silence. A long one at that, broken only by the growling vampire behind us.
Saskia groaned, a long rising snarl from behind her gag. Ten seconds. Twenty. Louder still. Thirty seconds. Odalis slapped her in the face. Saskia carried on like nothing had happened.
“Shut her up!” snapped Dalo.
She yanked on one of her restraints, still snarling, now swarmed by the entire vanguard. I squeezed through. Squatted down next to her with Jarmella by my side. Saskia’s eyes locked onto mine. The snarling died down. Breathing resumed. Labored breathing at that.
“What?” I asked.
She lifted one finger to point directly at my face.
“We should kill her,” someone murmured. “Before she escapes.”
I whispered to Saskia. “You’re here right now, aren’t you?”
Her lips curled into a smile.
“Where’s Berik?”
She angled her finger down to the east.
“Where’s Loken?”
She pointed south east.
“Do you have any idea what Ispar is going to do to this country as soon as the snow thaws?”
She squinted. Pointed back to my face, then to hers, then to a nearby tree. I looked to Jarmella, waiting for the go-ahead. “You’re sure about this?”
“Might as well be reasonable and see what she has to say.”
Jarmella turned to the vanguard. “Menrihk? Go tell the northerners we’re stopping for ten minutes to interrogate the vampire. Infantry? Help secure Saskia upright to a tree. Stay close. Archers? Bows nocked.”
We strapped Saskia and her stretcher to a tree. Her pupils remained enlarged, adjusting easily to the darkness while I had just the faint lantern glow. I freed the gag from her mouth. She yanked on the ropes, testing their resistance, but her transformation was hardly complete and she had barely consumed any blood. At this point she would still be as weak as her former self. The soldiers crept back, forming a line ten yards away.
I stood in front of her. Sword drawn. Fully prepared to use it. “All right Desdola. Here’s your chance to parlay.”
Saskia snarled, kinking her head to one side as though someone was whispering into her ear. “Only if you come closer.”
Chapter Forty-Two
The vampire stared back at me, tired and weary, still fighting between the human conscience and the demon taking her body for itself. I closed the distance.
“Careful,” wheezed Saskia.
“How many ghosts are surrounding us right now?”
“Three.” She hissed in agony, like someone had just jabbed her with a needle. “She says you’re more problematic than she first thought.”
“Thank you. You knew we were coming and you allowed it to happen. Why?”
Saskia squinted. Listened. “The nobles were breaking apart.”
“So you had your own king killed to stop a civil war? Why not just end the vampire alliance?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because your people hate them.”
“Then it says a great deal about your kind that they chose an alliance with vampires over one with you.”
“Still, it’s a big risk. Your kingdom is in tatters. Everyone has turned on everyone else. It’s going to take a while to get them to pick a side and by then you’ll have Ispar crossing the lake.”
Saskia shook her head. “That’s why these people need vampires. And it’s not my kingdom.”
“You’re not the queen?”
“I don’t want it.”
“What do you want?”
Saskia grinned, blinking slowly, the intoxication had taken her over completely. “I see the spirit world clearer than whatever reality you think you see. I have eternal friends here. You don’t. They help me, I help them. I see the souls of the damned blaming you for their misery. I even see your Saskia right here. She begged to be killed before being turned into one of them and you refused.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I haven’t slept since I was a girl.”
“That would kill you.”
“A dagger through the heart should’ve killed you, yet here you stand.”
“So you’ve been drinking vampire blood ever since, to continually heal you?”
She gave me another grin. “Razoz was right about you. You would make an excellent vampire.”
“Thank you. I want you to release Loken unharmed.”
“That will not be possible. What he knows could save us all.”
“If you release him and Beri
k, I promise you that I will do everything I can to keep General Kasera from bothering you again.”
“He won’t be much of a threat if I keep Loken for myself.”
“I’m not so sure. You might be able to see and hear over great distances but that doesn’t mean you can see and hear all. Releasing your prisoners will go a great ways in assuring the Isparian generals that you can be reasoned with. Reasonable enemies stand to make a great deal, usually something far better than what they were expecting, because being reasonable deserves a reward whereas refusing to listen to any of their demands just means you’ll have to face the same fate as Draegor.”
The vampire grinned once again. “You’re threats are empty. Mine are less so. Do you want me to speak to Día on your behalf? I could send her a message, to sneak out and hurry to see you. She would come right away, wouldn’t she? All those hundreds of miles, hurrying as fast as she could with no idea of what else is out there, who might be watching her, and who might snatch her off her feet. You could see her every night. Just as you’re drifting to sleep, that moment when you slip towards slumber and the ghosts are at their strongest, you’ll remember that you failed her. The one you could’ve saved, if only you had left us alone.”
It took all the strength I had to curl a smile back towards the vampire. “You still don’t know, do you? You tried my father. A fair enough attempt since not everyone who grows up in an orphanage is an orphan and those like me might harbor some ill-will towards their dead-beat parents. Día is a girl I met once. No matter how hard you try you still can’t get in here,” I tapped my head. “You don’t know who I think of or dismiss. Must be hard, cracking a perpetual liar and shit-stirrer. You can stand there as much as you like, swaying in some unseen breeze in a windowless castle. But as someone who has broken into those types of places before, set traps for others to fall into, and have tracked desperate people from one city to another, let me offer you some advice: just because you think you know who someone is, it doesn’t mean you can get them to act the way you want them to.”
“Miss Kasera then. I wonder … how often do you think about her? Everyone desires what they see and can’t have. Perhaps I can help you. If you lure her husband into an accident then she will have to turn to someone to lean on.”
“Not going to happen.”
“But if it does you will thank me for it. I can have the spirits leave her alone while you’re together. She would find unusual comfort in your presence. She won’t know why, but she’ll feel it. You will be the only safe place she has left.”
“Ladies of Ispar do not fraternize with mercenaries.”
“Oh, they do. Mercenaries, gladiators, thieves, rogues. If that is the only thing holding you back then how long would it be until your great service to Ispar is recognized and you not only become a citizen, but perhaps a commander of the army in your own right? Maybe even a general.”
“I’ll always be a mercenary.”
“All it takes is a whisper from the spirit world into a governor’s ear – maybe even the emperor’s ear – and you could have everything you ever wanted. Everyone you’ve ever wanted as well.”
I smiled back at her.
“Who will you have first?”
“That’s not why I’m smiling. You speak of these things like a rank amateur. You think you know the ways of the heart when you’ve been alone your whole life?”
“I’m not alone.”
“Or how to overrule the experience and wisdom of cutthroat politicians or generals with a simple whisper? Oh, I’m sure you’ve tried. But if you prefer the company of ghosts to the living then how are you going to know what’s going on inside someone’s mind without ever facing them? Just because you have those doubts and desires in your head doesn’t mean everyone else does. You said I was going to die on a black shore.”
“There is still time,” said the vampire.
“Not if I’m supposed to become a commander or general and you throw some poor widow into my arms. Is this really what you want to do with your life? To be stuck in some cold castle, watching others from afar and trying to scare them into cooperating?”
She snarled back at me.
“Since you cling to all these ideals of secret love while being completely overlooked by others, I’m going to assume that life has not worked out exactly the way you wanted it to.”
She added a growl to the snarl.
“And despite a rise in power, things still aren’t going well for you. Perhaps those sixty nobles have been a lot more vocal about distrusting you than you first expected. If Draegor was protecting you then you don’t have much time because, from what I know of you, no one wants you here. You’re a freak. You don’t control the vampires, they’re using you to help them gain more power, and the nobles know this. You don’t have much time left. Maybe days. Maybe hours. But I’ll make you this offer: you release Berik and Loken into our care and you can come with us – but only if we get Berik and Loken back. You’ll receive full amnesty, a place to live, money to live off, people to meet and friends to trust. The Kaseras have done it before and they will do it again. You already speak the language so you won’t have a problem living in the south. All you have to do is come with us.”
“And betray my own kind?”
“How often do they stab each other in the back? If you really have a friend in that castle you can bring them with you. We’re not cruel people. We don’t throw our kin off the side of buildings just because we want their spouse to be available. Everything you’ve ever wanted is on our side.”
She fell quiet for a moment. “I’m not leaving. Neither are you. Do you want to know what the last thing your Alysia and Zara said before being killed? They each said a name. ‘Auron’ was one. Zara, though … she’s had an interesting life. Much more than yours. You know if she had returned to Ispar at least two of the senators would have her killed. Their own husbands as well. You have an expression in Isparian for that, no? Being a prostitute to blackmail someone?”
“Honey trap.”
“That was what Zara did. While the senators were busy she would make friends with their husbands. Sometimes wives as well. Pretending to be someone she wasn’t. You know what secrets are like, don’t you? Like a drug. They couldn’t wait to tell her. Then she betrayed them. And you know what? She still talks to two of them. They are still a thousand miles away but she still talks to them at night. Says she’s sorry.” The vampire’s lips curled into a smile. “She has a son.” She bent her head towards my chest. “I saw your heart thump with surprise. There are people are after her. Important ones. Much more important than anyone you’ve ever met. But I had both Miss Kasera and Zara beheaded. Why? Because I told Elmark’s first mate that he could see his husband again one last time if he killed them for me. So no. I’m not coming with you. Not when you can take revenge against the empire on our behalf.” She growled, an earthy guttural rumble that rose into an ear-splitting shriek.
“Stop that.”
She shrieked a second and third time, stopping only when I held my sword in front of her eyes.
“I said stop.”
A second growl bounced back towards us. A demonic baying, rising and silencing, repeating, coupled with a shriek in their voice as the agony of speaking reached us all. Too close to even make a run for it.
The vampire grinned back at me. “I’ve stopped.”
Chapter Forty-Three
I threw the stretchered vampire to the feet of the panicking vanguard and held my curved sword over her writhing body. “Everyone form a tight circle around us. Mages and archers on the inside, infantry and cavalry on the outer, elder leaves at the ready. Torunn!”
He and the rest of the northerners were hustling towards us, weapons drawn and fright rising through them quickly. “What the fuck?”
“It’s time to pick a side. Us or the vampires.”
“Okay!”
“Us?”
“Korla ... Aye.”
“Then get in here. Northern
ers in groups of three. All three are going to attack the same target. Vanguard? Time to wake the hell up.”
The troops glanced to Jarmella. Her voice shook with nerves. “Do it.”
Dalo and Benar struggled to get to their feet, argued with everyone around them, and hobbled into position.
“You guys can’t even walk,” said Adalyn.
“No, but I can do something,” said Dalo, as he spun his bow around and nocked an arrow.
We all bunched together, our breath hanging in the air while a shiver swept through us all. The mountain forest cracked and settled, the freezing wind pinching the inside of our ears, the cloud cover thick and the snow falling fast.
The baying started up again, a quiet to seismic grunt, and another, and another. Saskia’s eyes lit up like she was receiving some kind of primal command. Her lips peeled back as she learned to breathe through the corners of her mouth, tasting our scent along the underside of her tongue.
The northerners shifted uneasily in the crunching snow, searching everywhere they could and exposing themselves to a predictable ambush. The vanguard kept their attention locked on one position, each with an overlapping field of sight.
“I hope your chat was worth it,” said Jarmella.
“It was. She no longer has Berik.”
“You’re sure?”
“It’s not a foregone conclusion but she was willing to make a deal for Loken but couldn’t make one when Berik was thrown into the mix.”
“Did you find out where he is or who has him?”
“No, but I’m working on it.”
Saskia bellowed an agonized, guttural caw.
“Odalis, shut her up,” snapped Jarmella.
“Wait. We’re learning how they work.”
“We don’t have the numbers for this.”
“Neither do they. Archers? Target their face. Mages? If anything leaps through the air bring it down in front of the infantry.”
The baying returned. Saskia tried to match it, rising in pitch and shrieks but with feeble strength behind it. Jarmella held her position facing north, every exhale now a nervous jitter.
