The Vampire Queen Saga: Books 1-3: (The Vampire Queen Saga Boxset)

by William Stacey

  Somehow, the mercenaries had gotten past her crew, setting the bonfires and creating a killing field for their crossbows. At this range, the powerful weapons could shatter shields, but the Kur’teshi weren’t pressing their advantage; instead, they simply watched her crew, keeping them back against the river. Why?

  Then, in a flash of insight, she understood: the mercenaries were a blocking force. Galas wanted her warriors. He was trying to become yarl without killing too many of them. No doubt he’d get rid of some, like her father’s house-herd, and Kora and Vory, but the others he’d leave alive to swell his ranks. Bastard!

  Her father reached over and touched her hand. His hounds lay beside him, their eyes shining in the firelight. “They don’t know we’re here,” whispered her father.

  She calculated her odds. At best, she had maybe twenty fighters—almost none wore armor. In opposition, there were almost half a hundred mercenaries—professional fighters, all armored, all carrying powerful crossbows. She and her people would have to sprint out from the woods and cross rough terrain at night to fall upon the mercenaries. The Kur’teshi would hear them coming—and at such a range, the powerful weapons would rip them apart. Her crew, seventy experienced warriors, had already tried to charge them, and proof of their failure lay sprawled upon the ground, their corpses savaged by crossbow bolts. On the other hand, she had surprise on her side, and she was much closer to the mercenaries than her crew was. She could be upon them in moments. The Kur’teshi would be trying to shoot in the dark, with the bonfires behind them. No, she realized, I’m grasping at the tiller. Even in the dark, their first volley will hit enough of us to kill our momentum. Only a handful of us—if that—will actually reach their ranks, and then we’ll be attacking a cohesive force of armored men.

  It’ll be a slaughter.

  Vory and Kora knelt down beside her. “What orders?” Vory asked.

  “The ones in town will be coming soon,” Kora said.

  “I know,” answered Fioni.

  “Even if they don’t know how we got out, they’ll guess where we went,” said Kora.

  Fioni ground her teeth. “I said I know.”

  Her father sighed. “I don’t think we have a choice, daughter, not now.”

  She nodded, a heavy, sinking feeling in her gut. She saw Owen close by, watching the mercenaries. I’m going to get the northerners killed as well. Gods damn Galas for this.

  “All right,” she said. “On my—”

  “You need a distraction,” Owen whispered.

  She paused, staring at him. “How?”

  He looked to Kora. “The horn you used to sound the alarm.”

  She patted the horn, still strapped to her belt, and smiled with sudden understanding. “He’s right. If I move farther up the beach, I can attract their attention. Then you hit them.”

  Fioni considered it. At best, it would be a brief momentary distraction, hardly worth the effort. She looked to her father. “What do you think?”

  He cast a worried glance behind them, into the dark forest. “I think whatever you’re going to do, daughter, you need to do it now.”

  Her heartbeat pounding in her ears, she reached out and gripped the back of Kora’s neck and pulled her head in close. “You have until the sun’s glow breaks the horizon, minutes at best,” she said, glancing to the east, where the sky was beginning to lighten. “No longer.”

  Kora flashed her teeth, and in a moment, she and Owen were up, silently moving through the woods, heading farther up the river.

  “Pass the word,” Fioni whispered to Vory. “When I move, everyone follows. Silently! No war cries. We need to get as close as possible before they hear us. If not…”

  Vory snorted. “Told you before, I can be sneaky when I want to.” He turned away and slipped into the trees.

  Like a bear with a toothache, Fioni thought.

  The minutes passed quickly, the eastern sky lightening with the promise of dawn. Any moment now, she knew. Kora, where are you? When the red tint of dawn became unmistakable, she realized something must have happened to Kora.

  They couldn’t wait anymore.

  Her father reached over, prodding her arm and gesturing into the woods behind them where, in the distance, torches moved through the trees—Galas and his men were coming. “We need to go now,” her father said.

  He was right, she knew. They were going to get caught between two forces. She rose, motioning for the others to do so as well, steeling herself for what was to come. “Fight well, father,” she said.

  “And you, daughter.”

  Chapter 15

  Owen

  Owen followed Kora through the dark woods as they moved around the Kur’teshi blocking force, heading farther up the tree line. Then she abruptly stopped in place, sniffing the air. “I smell fresh pitch,” she whispered.

  So could he, he realized.

  She took only another few steps before stopping again and staring at a shadow on the riverbank. In a moment, Owen saw why she had stopped—a longship lay pulled up onto the shoreline, its shape unmistakable in the pre-dawn light.

  Kora’s head bobbed. “Blood Raven. Galas’s prized serpent-ship. That’s how the Kur’teshi snuck their men behind us. They must have slipped right past our camp in the night, probably hugging the far bank. They must have used Blood Raven to carry the pitch-soaked wood they set ablaze on the riverbank. That’s how they set the bonfires so quickly.”

  “I can smell the pitch from here. I bet they missed some.”

  She snorted. “In the dark, moving quickly, I’d be amazed if they hadn’t left some of the pitch-soaked wood on the ship.”

  “Do you have—”

  “Flint and stone? I always have flint and stone.” Her teeth flashed in a smile.

  “We have to be fast,” he said, glancing at the lightening sky in the east.

  “Let’s go, then,” she said as she rose and began to trot toward the longship.

  He followed, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, wondering how it had come to this, how he might die far from his northern home, fighting for people he had always believed to be barbarians.

  And then there was no more time to wonder.

  A shadow rose from the darkness—a sentry. Kora smashed into him, and he fell back with a grunt. More men suddenly came into view, rising out of the darkness like ghosts. Owen charged one of the men, bringing his fighting axe up and down, feeling the satisfying crunch of bone. Men were all around him now. He caught a spear thrust with his shield before stabbing the attacker in the face with the horn of his axe head. Nearby, a man screamed in pain, his cries cut off a moment later by Kora’s swords.

  “Push on, Owen. Push on.”

  He smashed his shield into the face of another man, throwing him down. And then—unbelievably—he and Kora were at the prow of the longship. Blood ran down his forearm, making his grip treacherous on the haft of the fighting axe. With their backs to the longship, he and Kora squared off against the enemy. In the darkness, they had cut right through the men left to guard the ship, but now at least six men edged closer, watching Owen and Kora warily.

  “Owen, can you hold?”

  “Go!” he said without taking his eyes off the approaching men.

  He heard Kora pull herself up onto the prow of the beached longship behind him. The men edged closer, and Owen attacked, swinging his axe in a powerful lateral arc. One man fell back, his neck spraying blood. The others hesitated only a moment before rushing him. Now, Owen fought defensively, desperately trying to keep them bunched together so they got in each other’s way. He blocked two thrusts with his shield, but a third slipped past, scoring a hot line across his thigh. He felt the warm flush of blood soaking his leg, followed a moment later by the pain. He moved back and to the right, back and to the right, always circling away from them, always keeping his shield between them. They paused, yelling at one another to coordinate their attacks to strike at the same time. Knowing he was dead when they did, he charged once again,
surprising them and knocking at least one more man down. He dodged beneath a powerful sword swing that whistled over his head, and then rose up, ramming the edge of his shield into the swordsman’s shoulder, hearing bone crack. Then Owen’s feet hit something—a body, maybe—and he tripped and fell, dropping his axe. They were all around him. In desperation, he grasped at his shield, holding it in two hands above him as he lay on his back. An axe head cut deeply into the shield, the wood splintering under the impact. Another blow like that, and the shield would be nothing more than kindling. Someone kicked him in the ribs, and he yelped in pain.

  Then bright light lit up the night, followed by the stench of thick smoke. Someone blew a horn—Kora! The men attacking Owen paused, staring about themselves in sudden fear. The fire aboard the longship lit up Kora as she leaped from its prow, her two swords shining in the light of the flames as she fell upon the men.

  Chapter 16

  Fioni

  When the flames suddenly appeared farther up the riverbed, illuminating the beached longship, the Kur’teshi troops turned and called out to one another in alarm. Then, when the horn sounded, several of them broke ranks and began to run toward the ship. Others, officers most likely, began to scream at them angrily in Kur’teshi. Fioni stared in surprise—but only for a moment. Kora, you bloody marvel!

  She charged forward, praying the others were with her. Surprisingly, she felt calm, lightheaded almost in a surreal way, as if time had slowed down. She was so close, she could make out individual details, each soldier’s odd foreign armor, their long, curved swords, and the fire glinting off the gleaming steel heads of the crossbow bolts.

  A soldier turned and stared, his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. His crossbow rose to his shoulder, and a crack resounded in the night as his bolt whipped past her head—and then she was on him, swinging her sword at his face, hitting him just below the nose, feeling the impact all the way through her arm.

  Then she was among their ranks—many of whom were still unaware they were under attack. A Kur’teshi soldier, his back to her, was pointing at the burning ship, revealing the unarmored space beneath his armpit. She drove the point of her sword deep beneath his arm and then twisted her sword savagely, opening the wound. He fell forward, likely already dead.

  Nearby, Vory smashed into the ranks of the Kur’teshi soldiers, swinging his two-handed battle-axe in wide arcs, scattering all those around him and sending a helmeted head flying free through the air. The Kur’teshi mercenaries, professional and armored though they were, reeled under the surprise attack.

  But their inaction didn’t last.

  A Kur’teshi soldier came at Fioni with his curved sword, and she danced back, catching his sword blade with a hanging guard before stepping forward and to his left, disengaging her blade and cutting down at his now-exposed forward leg, biting deeply into the muscle above his knee. He fell screaming.

  Something smashed into her back, and she fell forward into the dirt, landing upon her hands and knees, intense pain running down her spine. A Kur’teshi soldier stood above her, his sword held in both hands before him. Before he could strike, Ekkie, one of her father’s two prized wolfhounds, bit into the back of his knee. He screamed and fell forward, and then Wud, the male wolfhound, tore into his groin.

  A moment later, her father was there, offering her his hand, helping her to her feet. “Are you all right? Can you fight?”

  Her back hurt, but nothing felt broken. The ring mail must have stopped the blow. “Aye. I’m fine.”

  He barked in laughter and then darted away, seeking someone else to fight, Ekkie and Wud at his heels. He should have waited, because just then two Kur’teshi soldiers came at her together, both thrusting with spears. She stumbled back, only just managing to deflect their spears. They came at her again, first one and then the other, and she kept moving back, knocking their spearheads aside with increasingly frantic swings, praying she wouldn’t trip. She couldn’t keep this up, she knew. One of them was going to get past her sword.

  Then one of the men jerked in place, a spearpoint coming out his mouth. He fell forward, exposing Sif standing behind him, still holding her spear. Fioni went after the second spearman. Whipping her sword forward, she let her grip slide to the very end of the sharkskin-bound hilt, extending the range of her attack. The end of her sword blade struck the man’s forearm, and she heard the bone crack. The man stumbled back, dropping his spear as she slid forward, thrusting her sword point into his face. A jolt coursed through her arm as she drove her sword through his face so hard, the tip came out the back of his skull. A third soldier darted in at her, and she used her sword to swing the dying man at him. They hit, falling to the ground together, and her sword slid free. Fioni cut down at the third man, who tried to ward off the blow with his open hand, but she severed all four of his fingers free before cutting deeply into his skull. Yanking her blade free, she looked about, assessing the situation.

  All around her, her small force battled the mercenaries. A handful of Waveborn were already down, some shot by crossbow bolts, others cut down in hand-to-hand combat. The Kur’teshi had lost a score of men in the initial assault, but now they were using their numbers, armor, and discipline to press their advantage. A young boy in her father’s household—Rudo, who couldn’t have been more than thirteen—awkwardly swung an axe at a Kur’teshi soldier, but the blow was weak, easily deflected by the much larger man. Fioni darted forward, but before she could make two steps, the Kur’teshi soldier had cut open Rudo, spilling the boy’s intestines onto the ground. Rudo stood in place, staring in horror. Then he fell forward, smashing into the ground. Fioni swept past him to engage the Kur’teshi, her mind screaming for revenge.

  She attacked, moving from a rear guard to make an upper cut. He easily deflected her before pressing his own, coming over her blade to sweep down at her face. She swept his cut aside and came in again, flowing from attack to attack, but he moved with the sure-footed skill of a master swordsman, deflecting her sword each time before launching his own counterattacks. She began to give way, now just barely parrying his attacks as she scrambled back.

  He’s better than I am, she realized.

  She stumbled, dropping down onto one knee. The swordsman stormed forward, cutting down at her from the high guard—but Fioni, having faked her fall, was already rolling forward beneath the man’s cut. As she came out of her roll, she thrust up with her sword, stabbing deeply into his groin.

  Better, perhaps, but not as tricky.

  He screamed and fell away, curling into a ball, and she left him where he was.

  Nearby, her father was holding off three men, Vory at least another four. But all the Waveborn were fighting defensively now, concentrating on staying alive. Two more men came at her. She was out of breath and exhausted, but she braced herself for their attack.

  They never made it.

  A wave of Fenyir warriors struck them down from behind as Fioni’s crew fell upon the already-engaged Kur’teshi. The Kur’teshi, engaged on both sides now, scattered. Their missile advantage gone, they broke ranks and ran for their lives. Many didn’t make it more than a few steps before her crew cut them down from behind. Some of the faster ones raced madly away, her crew in pursuit.

  “Enough,” Fioni yelled, amazed that she had the energy to speak at all. “Leave them.”

  All around her lay the dead and dying—both mercenaries and her father’s servants—but they had won, engaging the mercenaries long enough for her crew to fall upon them. Breathless, she looked to the woods behind them. The torches she had seen earlier were almost to the edge of the woods, and she could make out shapes of men in the trees.

  Vory stood before her, his fighting axe dripping blood. “What do you want to do?”

  “Get everyone aboard, get underway.” As she looked about, she saw one of the Kur’teshi crossbows lying discarded on the sand. “And gather up as many of their weapons as we can. Leave the armor, leave everything else!”

  “Aye.” He pause
d before her.

  “What is it?”

  “Kora and the northerner aren’t back yet.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest as she stared at the still-burning longship farther up the riverbed. “Get the wounded aboard. We leave no one for Galas.”

  Vory rushed away, bellowing orders at the others, but her people needed little motivation. The danger was clear. They moved quickly, running back to Fen Wolf, their arms loaded with crossbows and bundles of bolts taken from the dead mercenaries. She saw two of her father’s herdsmen struggling with the heavy chest as they hurried down to the ship. In the east, the sun’s rays broke over the horizon, stretching long shadows across the ground. Fen Wolf was off the beach, now bobbing in the knee-high waters.

  “Fioni!”

  At the sound of Kora’s voice, Fioni’s heart soared. She spun, seeing her friend not thirty paces away—with Owen beside her, both bloodied but alive. Thank the gods. They stood beside a kneeling man—her father’s chief herdsman, Rolf Folk-Beard. When she saw Kora’s face, Fioni’s joy disappeared, and a sudden coldness washed through her.

  A large man lay on the ground next to Rolf. One of her father’s wolfhounds, the bitch, Ekkie, lay on her belly alongside the man, whining pitifully. The male, Wud, lay unmoving in a pool of blood near the man’s feet.

  Father!

  She ran, falling to her knees beside her father. When she saw the crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, puncturing right through his ring-mail armor, her hopes sank. Her father’s eyes met hers, and he feebly raised one blood-soaked hand, which she held tightly. He pushed Wave’s Kiss into her hand, closing her grip over it with his other hand. “What a yarl you’ll be,” he said, his teeth bloody.