“There is every rationale,” Adele said. “I'm here and we must take Grenoble. It has the greatest clan in southern France, save Lyon. We dare not bypass it.”
Anhalt saw so much of the late emperor Constantine in Adele, in her words and her stance. She was as bold and uncompromising as he on matters close to her heart. If Adele thought she could prevent more bloodshed, she would not hesitate to sacrifice herself.
“How do you propose to take the city?” Greyfriar asked.
Anhalt turned on him. “No! Do not even ask! This matter is closed.”
Greyfriar's cold, mirrored glasses regarded him. “We can no more control her now than we could before she was empress. She will do as she pleases the moment we turn away. It's better to be at her side protecting her.”
Anhalt's fists trembled at his side. “I beg of you, Your Majesty, don't be so foolish.”
Adele stepped up to her former protector, her voice softening. “My dear colonel,” his old rank an endearment rather than a criticism, “I am no longer a silly girl playing at games. I have the ability to break this stalemate and I intend to use it. I can save lives here and now.”
There was a knock on the door and Adele gave permission to enter, eager for an interruption. Captain Hariri swept into the small room, his face beaming. Clearly, he was happy to be back in the thick of action.
“The supplies have been unloaded and secured,” he said with a bow. “Your special diversion is being readied, my lady.”
“Excellent.” Adele turned back to Greyfriar and Anhalt, her eyes sparking with mischief. “Gentlemen, I didn't come alone.”
“EACH OF YOU must kill ten of them.”
Flay's order spread through the gathered vampire packs in a hissing whisper that, if the humans at St. Etienne could hear, sounded like wind in the desiccated night-shrouded trees. There was much excited chatter and cackling as the horde shifted restlessly waiting for the command to attack.
Flay was tall and pale with long black hair braided straight down her back. She exuded strength, with a fury that seemed barely contained by her long scarlet frock coat and buff knee breeches. As was typical, she was bare breasted under the unbuttoned woolen coat. She pointed a long finger at her counterpart, the war chief from Lyon, Murrd. “Take four of your packs and come at the enemy from the south. I will storm their north with the main force.”
Murrd nodded, his bald head shining in the night.
“Primary targets in this attack are the beasts. Horses. Oxen. Kill them and the humans are hamstrung. They have some mechanical wagons, but not enough to carry all their large guns and their food. Airships should be damaged on the way out only. Do not be distracted by them. We will destroy them in time.”
“Yes,” said Chambrai, the Lyonnaise sub–war chief, with a hint of mockery. “Flay will use her human troops to fight their airships.”
Flay moved swiftly and caught Chambrai by the throat. In a spray of blood, the young Lyonnaise dropped dead. The packs froze in surprise. The Lyon vampires stood gaping at the body of their colleague, and then turned to Murrd for reaction. Flay went back slowly without apparent concern, content with her response to an underling's slur. She had no intention of letting some little cur from Lyon make snide comments about her because she had once been commanded, against her will, to lead the fanatical human Undead.
Murrd looked at his deceased lieutenant and nodded to Flay. “We're ready, War Chief.”
“Excellent,” said Flay. “You are also tasked with striking the center of the city. If you can locate the human war chiefs, kill them. Take out all the large guns you can. We will spread across the front and kill. Now, go.”
Several Lyonnaise packs lifted into the night air with their chief.
Flay waited for them to vanish into the starry sky. It was a cold and breezy night. She could hear rustling and voices from the Equatorian camp beyond a low rise.
Flay had known the humans' war strategy from the beginning thanks to Cesare's spy in Alexandria, and she had authored the counter-tactics. First, the vampires had sent the Undead to damage the port facilities at Marseilles to limit the number of troops and weapons that the humans could pour into the battlefield in the opening months of the offensive. Flay did not harry the humans' landing, knowing the Equatorians would be eager to gain ground before winter set in. She lulled them into a sense of ease with every uncontested mile they marched, and even allowed them to take St. Etienne with token resistance.
Now, Flay had surrounded the sadly unprepared Equatorians with the full force of the Lyonnaise packs, along with St. Etienne reserves and a British spearhead. As soon as she had obliterated the army at St. Etienne, she would crush the Equatorians faltering at Grenoble. Flay would suffocate the grand Equatorian invasion in the mouth of the Rhone Valley, and Cesare would voice his praise.
Blood would spill.
Flay screeched and rose. The packs followed, filling the sky with thousands. She loved the sound of the wind fluttering the clothes of vampires around her. She hadn't led an army so large since the Great Killing. Since the slaughter of Ireland. Since the battles beside Prince Gareth.
Below was the northern edge of the ragged Equatorian camp. The hard winter earth was scarred by a network of trenches and earthen bastions. In the distance were the yellow lights of St. Etienne itself, and several airships hovered in the sky over the town, lashed to buildings. In the darkness, soldiers huddled around small fires, shivering in their too-thin coats. The flames would impair the humans' night vision, which was poor in any case.
Gunfire came from the south as Murrd's forces struck. Sleepy disturbed voices rose from the trenches below. Flay whistled commands that sent the vampires plummeting on the unprepared men, and confused murmurs turned to screams.
Flay's vision went red. Bodies wrapped in overcoats stirred. Rifles swung clumsily. Soldiers scrambled for long-handled pikes, ducking and plunging the blades toward the sky. Flay struck, and cloth tore and blood flowed. Stunned eyes stared out from under khaki helmets. Vampires, someone screamed and then died. Questions were shouted. Pistols rose. Swords flashed wildly.
Lithe figures leapt along the edges of the trenches, dropping to strike, then springing up into the air, dodging blades, and falling on others farther down the line. Soldiers flailed around in the dirty pits, firing in all directions, and swinging pointless steel at vague shapes.
Flay slashed at a man and hit something hard. She saw a glimpse of chain mail on the man's chest. The man's head had no armor, however, so he was soon dead. A bullet entered her shoulder without great effect. She spun and smashed another soldier to the frozen ground before bounding high into the air to scout the situation again.
Thudding blasts filled the air, and shards of metal whizzed past Flay. She saw the flaming of the humans' heavy guns. A vampire to her right disintegrated into bits in midair. Flay followed the flashes back to the ground and dove like a stone, slamming into the three men operating a cannon. They shouted and reached for weapons. A short sword slashed at her. She struck once, twice, three times. All the men fell to the frozen mud.
Flay turned to see a young man, a boy really, staring at her from under a comically outsized helmet and coat that draped over him. His unsteady rifle pointed at her. He fired one shell after another and disappeared behind a curtain of white smoke until the trigger clicked empty. Flay stepped toward him.
The boy dropped the rifle and raised his hands. “Don't. Please. I surrender.”
She laughed. Her first swipe nearly took the flesh from his face. He tried to ward her off, and called for his mother. Then he was dead. Flay drank briefly from him, and found the lingering terror delicious. All around her, vampires huddled over bodies. She kicked several and urged them back into the fight.
A bright light caused Flay to flinch. A flare, and then another. The humans were finally sending their star shells overhead to illuminate the battlefield. Gunfire sounded regularly now, as well as the brutal staccato of machine guns and the repetitive
boom of small cannons. A few vampires dropped from the sky, hit by the barrage. Others crouched low against the ground and scuttled like bugs.
Flay vaulted from trench to trench, killing with each hand. Then she felt a sharp edge push into her brain. She grabbed her head, but there was no wound. It was a sound that assaulted her. Shriekers. She had first experienced it when an American ship attacked the Tower of London. The sound was coming from a nearby airship where crewmen turned the crank on a machine that spit out a horrendous high-pitched wail. She wasn't damaged, but was disoriented. Vampires staggered, and one fell victim to a soldier's pike. Several more shriekers started up from other airships or ground stations around the camp.
Flay screamed commands that were only partially heard over the mechanical din. She fell back, and her packs started to draw away with her. They had done enough damage for now. Humans were easily surprised, but after the initial wave of shock and terror, they were quick to their guns and knives. Sustaining the attack now was unnecessary, and would expose the packs to concentrated fire. Vampires had the advantage of speed and mobility and surprise, as well as the ability to attack at night. Flay's tactic was to hit the humans, kill as many as possible in a short time, then withdraw to come again when she felt it was useful.
Her mission was to destroy this army by holding them in place and winnowing them away. If they attempted to come out of their defenses and move in force, either toward Lyon or to the relief of forces at Grenoble, Flay would cut them to pieces. Human armies could do two things relatively well—move or fight. They found it difficult to do both at the same time. They had too many things to carry.
Flay knew she would have to destroy the shriekers. Plus, the machine guns and shrapnel cannons were dangerous. Over the last 150 years, the humans had improved their claws. They could kill better now, but they still died easily.
She landed beyond a low hillock, out of sight and beyond the range of human weapons that continued to chatter, wasting ammunition since most of the vampires had withdrawn. That made Flay smile. The whine of shriekers was a dull hum now. The packs surrounded her; male and female celebrated their slaughter with bloody mouths while sharing stories of their kills. Flay allowed it; she would count her losses later, but she doubted it would be a high number. The wounded would still be dragging themselves back from St. Etienne for hours to come, unless they were unlucky enough to be caught by human soldiers hunting for them.
“War chief!” Murrd shouted as he settled beside her. “A success!”
“You killed their commander?”
“Their cowardly war chief must have hidden deep inside, but I struck several of their officers. Still, we killed thousands of their men, and left thousands more crippled. And I killed hundreds of horses myself.”
Flay rolled her eyes at his inflated figures. “Hardly the stuff of epics.”
Murrd laughed. “The humans will surely retreat. The Equatorians are nothing to us now.”
“Idiot.” The British war chief lifted off into the clean cold air as the Lyonnaise stared after her with shock and insult. She growled to herself as she watched the celebrations of the vampires. They didn't understand. She knew how to win this war if only they would listen to her. But she wasn't sure whether her words held the same authority with Prince Cesare in London as they once did. The prince was a politician, not a warrior.
If only Prince Gareth ruled London.
Flay thought of Gareth and clenched her fists without thinking.
Gareth the traitor.
She still could barely believe that moment in the crypt below Alexandria when she discovered that her most hated enemy—the Greyfriar—was actually Prince Gareth. It wasn't just implausible; it was impossible. A vampire using weapons, wielding swords and pistols. A vampire helping humans.
Flay had returned to Britain after that event, unsure of her path. She had told Gareth that she had some sort of cunning scheme, but that was just to freeze him so she could escape. She had no idea what to do with the incredible information. It had to have some value, some use.
Flay had once tried to cajole Gareth into striking down his brother, Cesare, and taking his rightful place at the head of the clan. He had rejected her, which clearly had to do with his twisted obsession with humans and particularly with the wretched princess, Adele. Flay couldn't pretend to understand it.
Somehow, Flay would find a way to save Gareth from whatever madness had gripped him after the Great Killing and drawn him into isolation from his people, leading to his lunatic life behind the mask of the Greyfriar. Flay smiled at the thought of his gratitude once he shook his head clear of the spell Princess Adele had placed on him.
The Great Killing had, in many ways, been a disaster for vampires. They had grown soft and lazy like humans. And some, like Gareth, had gone insane.
This war would save them all.
Prince Cesare sat in a spotless wooden chair in the corner of a dark chamber beneath Buckingham Palace. He was well dressed in an impeccable grey suit and shined black shoes. He was short and lithe, with close-cropped hair and a sharp face. His blue eyes stared hard with no movement. Cesare was a thinking creature, and liked any who might observe him to know he was always in thought.
The only potential observer whose opinion mattered at the moment was mute. Across the room lay the body of Cesare's father, King Dmitri, dead for more than six months now. The king was thin and desiccated, having rotted away what soft fatty tissue he had possessed when he died. Now he was a leathery thing, empty eye sockets open and strained mouth agape as if struggling for one last breath. Cesare watched the human bloodmen slaves straightening the king's bedclothes. A dead human lay on the stones, his blood having been drained into a grate in the floor. An unfortunate victim was brought in every few days to be killed and drained, and then carted out by the bloodmen. It was an amusing fiction that Cesare maintained to imply that the king was still feeding. No one yet knew Dmitri was dead. With the exception of a few human slaves, only Cesare attended him, it was assumed out of extreme loyalty. The king's condition was to be hidden until it suited Cesare to announce his death.
And certainly no one needed to know that Cesare himself had murdered his father.
“How did you manage it?” Cesare asked Dmitri's body. “All these allies, all these clans with their pathetic quibblings. You were one of the kings of the Great Killing. Was it this much trouble? I'll admit, I have more respect for you now.”
One of the bloodmen indicated the dripping sacrifice.
“Yes, yes.” Cesare waved his hand. “Take it away.”
The king's meal was dragged out and the door shut, leaving father and son alone.
“I'm a war king now too. Perhaps once I get affairs settled here, I will visit the front. I may even lead an attack.” Cesare rose and crossed to his father's bedside. “Oddly enough, I've enjoyed these months we've spent together down here. But it will have to end soon. I'll have to use your death for my benefit. That's something I learned from you, planning, calculating, staying ahead of your enemies, and your friends too. Never trust anyone, as you trusted Gareth. And he deserted you in the end.”
Cesare patted Dmitri's dead arm with cold comfort. “What to do about Gareth? I know I should kill him, but that would create trouble now when I need it least. I don't want some of the old clan lords getting their backs up about who is or isn't the proper heir. You always favored Gareth, but he is unsuitable to be king. There's something false about him. No one else notices, but I smell it. He's all artifice. I'm real, Father. You'd see that now if I hadn't killed you. I'm your true heir, and I will unite the clans in a way even you could not. You'll see. I mean, where is Gareth now? Here we are, in a war for our survival, and he is nowhere to be found. What sort of king would he make?”
There was a solid pounding on the door. The prince exhaled in annoyance at being interrupted in conversation with his father. He shouted, “What is it?”
“Lady Hallow to see you, my lord,” came the muffled voice of
his chamberlain, Stryon, who always waited outside.
Cesare said, “Very well,” at which the door opened for him to exit and then closed behind him. Several of his vicious retainers moved in front of the door. They had constant orders to allow no one to see the king except Cesare. The prince went quickly to his conference room, a massive ballroom with festering old chandeliers cluttered with bones. The floors and walls were clotted with dried blood from decades of feasting. Lady Hallow rose as Cesare entered. Her slender figure bowed with a rustle of her scarlet gown. The moonlight reflected in her blonde hair, and her blue eyes gleamed in the dark.
Cesare boldly let his eyes rove over her. “I hope you bring me good news from the continent.”
“Word of your skill and imminence is spreading among the clans. King Lothaire of Paris is prepared to join the Grand Coalition of the North. And he will bring several notable clans with him.”
The young prince smiled and relaxed. “That's excellent. Excellent. I've received messages from Flay at the front that, with additional packs, she can destroy the humans utterly. How quickly will the Paris packs move south?”
Hallow's lustrous features went stiff. “It isn't quite so simple, my lord. King Lothaire is eager to be a part of the new era, but he made it clear that he will only ally himself with a king. He demands to meet with your father.”
Cesare replied coldly, “He realizes that my father is indisposed and I speak for him?”
Hallow inclined her head with a wan smile. “I tried to make him understand. He felt it would be injurious to his prestige, which is tenuous at best, if he appeared to be subservient to a prince.”
Cesare sneered. “Lothaire is an idiot. He's always been an idiot.”
“He was always a close friend of Prince Gareth's,” Hallow said hesitantly. “I suppose there is no way you could ask your brother to intercede?”
The prince glared at her. “No.”
“Merely a suggestion.”
“Even if I knew where Gareth was, he plays no part in the future of this clan. Did Lothaire say anything about Gareth to you?”
Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) Page 4
