by Jackson Lear
Alysia’s face contorted, her eyes scrunching up and her forehead crinkling. “Did he suffer?”
“Yes,” I muttered.
“We don’t know that,” Lavarta said quickly.
“We do. Saskia was turned as well. She suffered a great deal.”
Alysia flopped even lower. “How many did we lose?”
“Loken, Saskia, Helga, Vyfred, Haraj, Diomiro, Ludvyk, Volbrig, and Ewen. Might be more. But we killed a few of Desdola’s vampires. Two in Faersrock. Four up on the mountain. One in Ice Bridge. Another on the lake last night. And Saskia. So with twelve more of Desdola’s gone they might re-think their alliance.”
Lavarta muttered something in Telucian. Alysia looked over, puzzled, then acted on his behalf. She smiled gratefully at the medics. “I can take over. Please see to the other wounded.”
“Yes, m’lady.” The pair climbed to their feet and hurried away.
“Can they come back?” I asked. “It’s just … I’ve seen your needle work.”
Alysia gave her husband a, ‘okay, now what?’ look.
“Jarmella told me to ask you about the vault,” said Lavarta.
“Oh, yeah, you’re rich. Well, richer. We intercepted Agnarr and his people walking off with presumably the entirety of Draegor’s vault. A lot of silver. Some gold. A fair amount of imperial coins from Lessius’ time. I don’t know how much, but: lots. I’d like to discuss a finder’s fee.”
Alysia craned her head to one side. “I’ve missed something. What happened?”
“Agnarr betrayed us so he could stage a heist,” I said. “And credit where credit is due, I actually like his plan. He timed our arrival to coincide with all of the nobles paying their share of taxes and wealth from the year’s raids to Draegor. We arrived when his vaults were at their fullest. Agnarr used us as a distraction, knowing that his people could push us into breaking out and drawing all of Draegor’s people away from the castle to chase us. If we escaped they could blame the heist us on. If we died then Agnarr could claim responsibility and use the notoriety and wealth to establish his own kingdom while mocking Draegor and disparaging us at the same time.”
Alysia shook her head. “No, we saw his son die. No one would do that to their own family.”
“I’m guessing he sent away his least favorite son.”
Lavarta added, “I agree with Alysia, no one in their right mind would draw that much attention to themselves, not with the risk of being killed for treason.”
“Remind me how many emperors we’ve had lately, and how many of those usurpings were violent.” I tried to shrug but I was bandaged up pretty tight. “Anyway, you can ask Agnarr yourself because he did exactly that.”
Alysia searched the battlefield behind me. “He’s here?”
“I figured your negotiations were interrupted so now you have a second chance. He might still be the best person to put on the throne. Except now he owes you his life. I don’t know, it’s up to you.”
She looked up to her husband. He shrugged with a, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’
The second wave of drug-induced light-headedness swept through me. “Anyway, there’s a whole lotta money lying in the barn house over there. Won’t be hard to find, just look for dead bodies. It was liberated from raiders who betrayed you, had you kidnapped, and … I don’t know – other crimes. You decide. The bonus is there’s a lot of injured members of the vanguard. They deserve a lot of awards and promotions. And you should shake their hands. They seem to like that.”
“I’ll do what I can,” said Alysia.
“Good. And don’t forget about the ships. Wait … shit, you now have ships! How many are on the beach?”
“Twelve.”
“Sell them. And vampires … get their blood.”
“Most of them are dead.”
“Sell blood. Very pricey. Make good money. Give me some first.”
“Not in your condition.”
“Hundred marks per pint. Never be poor again. There’s a …” I tried to lean up, my senses leaving me as the full weight of the drugs kicked in, sending me from a happy buzz to a full-blown high. “Where’s my blade?”
Lavarta lifted up Razoz’s sword.
“The short one. Zara?”
Zara stepped forward, gesturing with her hands. “The kukri looking thing. About yay long.”
Lavarta called out, summoning six hundred people’s attention all at once. It took forever for my ears to stop ringing.
One of the soldiers trundled forward. “Is this it, sir?”
With a heavy heart, Lavarta handed over the remains of my blade. “It’s broken.”
I tried to take it. Couldn’t even move my arm. “Why?”
“Looks like it split along here.”
He wasn’t wrong. A solid third of the blade was missing. “I need the rest.”
“We’ll get you a new one.”
“No, that one has senta … senti … value … to me.”
“The new one will as well,” said Alysia.
“I want the old one.”
Alysia glanced behind her.
“I know what to look for,” said Zara.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t let it wash away,” I said.
“… I mean I know what to look for in getting you a new one.”
I had a few colorful phrases to offer after that, mostly cursing everything that Galinnia had ever done for me. “And there’s another problem.”
Alysia seemed understandably hesitant. “Because you weren’t busy enough over the last few days?”
“Desdola’s alive.”
Given the blank responses, I did my best to fill them in. Jarmella was brought along and helped for when my words failed me.
“Does she have an army?” asked Alysia.
“I don’t think so.”
“A fleet?”
“Most of her fleet is now your fleet.”
“What about twenty vampires allied to her?”
“I think she just lost sixteen of them.”
“What about the money to pay her people?”
“Not for another year.”
Alysia started to blur in my vision. “Let’s question the survivors and see who’s now on the throne and what they know about them. If necessary we can send Agnarr back and pit one king against the other. Jarmella, can you do that?”
“Yes, m’lady.”
As soon as we were alone, Alysia said, “Zara? Make sure Draegor’s money is secure. We’ll be bringing it back privately.”
“And the money we brought for Agnarr?”
Alysia took a moment to think through her former deal with her betrayer. “Let’s keep that close by.” She climbed to her feet. Dusted off her hands. “Okay. Let’s see if Agnarr is finally willing to honor his deal with us.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
I opened my eyes to one of the most unfortunate sights I had ever seen. Zara was asleep in the cart next to me, leaning up against one of the roof-top supports while I lay in my cot, bandaged like a circus spectacle. I willed Zara to wake up right then, realizing that I had caught her with her arms crossed, mouth ajar, and a reasonable amount of drool running down her chin.
I got my wish. The cart rocked to one side. Zara snorted, jolting herself back to the present and looking all around her. Then she found me, checked outside, and settled back. “What?”
Drool central, that was what. “Nothing.”
She peeled the drape to the cart back to show me the great outdoors. I was greeted with a smell I had managed to avoid for most of a year – the Erast dye house of my youth. It turned my stomach worse than the Vasslehün cuisine.
I pulled the blanket away and inspected my chest and belly. I was a mess of stitches and bandages with some wounds still worthy of concern. As much as I try to brush it off, wounds do actually bother me a great deal. Wounds on other people? Not so much. Causing them? Even less. But lying there made me feel more like an old man than I ever cared for. I had
fallen apart and was stitched back together, hopefully in the right order, and none of it with any vampire blood to heal me. Lavarta’s know-it-all surgeon agreed that once bitten I was too much of a risk to consume blood. Perhaps in a few years I would be strong enough to survive it without becoming one of them. So for most of the last month I’d been lying as still as possible in a winter infirmary while a private brought me soup and wiped my ass.
A month. All I wanted to do was leave, but no. How about a drink? No. Oh, look, I popped another couple of stitches – back into surgery I went.
I sat myself up. Winced more from the stiffness than anything else.
“You’re allowed to ride in lying down,” said Zara. “That’s the whole point of arriving in a cart.”
“I thought it had something to do with secrecy.”
“A precaution for now, until I have a chance to get the feelers out to see how icy your return home will be.”
I stretched, pulling my limbs back into alignment. “I’d like a horse.”
“To eat?”
I strained a look at Zara. “No, to ride.”
“I see, so you do care about appearances.”
“Every battle is won and lost by how afraid of you your opponent is.”
“No it isn’t.”
“So I’d like to ride in instead of being carted along like an invalid.”
“Doctor’s orders.”
I offered a moment of desperate silence. Zara ignored me as best she could. Started squirming. Eventually rolled her eyes and groaned. “Wait here.”
We came to a stop a hundred yards out from General Kasera’s estate on the outskirts of Erast. My eight day journey from Anglaterra had been a misery of boredom second only to the infirmary. I had only two reliefs during the whole trip: The first – Zara helped me to mentally map out some of the wealthiest homes in the empire and bombarded me with anti-theft countermeasures that were intended to stop someone like me from pulling off the perfect break in.
I slid out of the cart, climbed onto a horse, steadied myself, and rode through the gates towards Kasera’s fortified villa. Two youngsters came hurtling down the pathway towards me.
The second relief – I had finally been able to convince Zara to read to me the rest of Día’s letter.
Thank you for reading!
Thank you for reading!
Being an independent author has quite a few perks. One in particular is that I can spend all day in fluffy slippers if I want. Sometimes, though, I have to ask for help: if you could find it within you to write a review, even just a few words, you would really be helping me out a lot. Honest reviews is one of the hardest things to get as an independent author. It’s also invaluable for being able to afford to write the next book.
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Also by Jackson Lear
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Acknowledgments
A huge thank you to Karen for her meticulous notes, revisions, and patience. She really is the best editor you could hope for.
A big thank you to Andrew Boots for his lightning-fast turn around, picking out a lot of Britishisms, and coming up with some pretty good suggestions.
Graphic Design by Karen Rachel Wood.
Author photo by Nicola Bernardi.
About the Author
Jackson Lear grew up around the world and has developed an accent that can sometimes be described as mostly Irish, a fair whack of English, and a hint of American. That's pretty handy for someone who lives in Australia. He considers 8am to be the middle of the night, has a habit of buying more books than he can ever read, and still considers becoming Batman as a viable career option.
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Copyright © 2019 Jackson Lear
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