by Sarah Ash
Gavril heard the distant crack and rattle of carbine fire, far-off but unmistakeable. He was on his feet in an instant, listening intently. “What’s that?”
“Gunfire.” Pavel leaped up.
“Sounds as if the Tielens have reached Anisieli before us.”
Had the Tielens been shadowing Iovan and his men all this time? Or had they just run into a raiding party by chance? Whatever the circumstances, Gavril didn’t rate the rebels’ chances too highly. And RaÏsa would be caught in the ambush.
“Come on.” Pavel hurried toward the horses.
Gavril hung back, torn. If he rode with Pavel, he would never reach the rebels in time to help.
“Ahh!” He clutched his head with both hands, half-acting, half in earnest. He dropped to his knees, doubling up as if in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Pavel was in the saddle already.
“You go ahead. I’ll—catch up.”
“You look dreadful.”
“Head wound. It’ll pass. Just go!”
The sound of shots came again, echoing through the green valley.
Pavel hesitated another second, then kicked his heels into his horse’s glossy flanks. Gavril opened one eye and saw him ride down the other side of the hill.
“Drakhaoul,” he muttered as he got to his feet, “can you hear me? They need us.”
Even now he might be too late to save them. He cast aside his water bottle and hat and ran toward the edge, leaping up into the air, arms spread wide.
“Khezef!” he cried. “Now!”
The air whirled about him, dark as a tornado. He felt a tremor go twisting through his whole body.
“I hear you!”
Wings burst from his daemon-altered body, wrenching his shoulders and arms until he felt they would be torn from their sockets. Flight, as he powered upward, was utter agony, working every strained sinew and muscle till they burned.
And then it became sheer ecstasy as he forgot the physical pain and skimmed into the blue of the summer sky, riding the air currents, swooping down over the hill he and Capriole had toiled up in the heat, with the cool wind behind him.
The crack of carbines rose from far below. He spotted little puffs of white smoke first—and then a sight far worse. The rebel column was surrounded. He smelled blood, and the horribly familiar acrid stink of Linnaius’s alchymical gunpowder.
There were at least a hundred Tielens in the raiding party, and from the air, he knew instantly that they had sprung their ambush with military precision. He could see bodies on the road, horses and men. Some were trying to crawl away; others had adopted defensive positions in a ditch.
RaÏsa. Where was RaÏsa?
He circled high above, searching for a glimpse of her bright hair, dreading to see her slender body lying sprawled among the dead. Then he saw her. She was crouched behind an upturned munitions cart, frantically ramming shot into her pistols.
“Fire!” a Tielen voice yelled, and another round of mortar shells exploded among the fleeing rebels.
“Get down, RaÏsa!” he cried out. Buffeted by the rush of burning air as shrapnel burst in the air, he turned, readying himself to strike back.
Had she survived that last blast? Smoke billowed across the road. The upturned cart was on fire; it had taken a direct hit.
Rage burned through his whole body. If they had killed her—
His powers were still not fully restored after Vermeille Bay. But in the heat and smoke of the melee, no one had noticed him overhead. He had that advantage, at least.
The Tielens had positioned their mortars behind a dry stone wall, all that remained of a shepherd’s summer hut.
The Drakhaon narrowed his eyes. Take out the artillery.
As he dove down, the air rushing past him, his Drakhaon-body snaking through the sky, he felt nothing but the fierce, exultant joy of battle.
Blue fire seared the row of mortars. Smoke filled the air.
Splinters of stone exploded as the wall collapsed. The blast blew him off course; he slewed around in midair, shadow-wings beating a hot, dry wind toward the fleeing Tielens.
From below he heard screams of fear.
A Tielen trumpeter blew a ragged retreat. A few soldiers, their uniforms besmirched and tattered, staggered away.
“Let them go.” Already he knew he had overstretched his resources; he felt weak and dizzy, his power spent. “Let them tell the Emperor what they saw. Much good it will do him . . .”
The wing-beats came more slowly now, each one a juddering effort that wracked his whole body. He began to spiral downward, searching for a place to land where no one would see him.
He alighted on a grassy hillside, screened from the road by tall hornbeams, thudding onto his knees and hands as the glamour faded from his body, leaving him a shuddering, defenseless man again, his clothes all torn to tatters.
“Why am I still so weak, Drakhaoul?” he whispered, toppling slowly forward onto his face in the coarse grass.
“You are weak because you refuse to replenish yourself,” came back the hoarse, smoke-voiced reply. “If you don’t find nourishment soon, you will lose the power to sustain me.”
“Must . . . be some other way.” Gavril dug his nails deep into the coarse grass as the first surge of nausea washed through his depleted body.
“You were dying when I rescued you. Even I cannot save you this time. You must feed—or die.”
“No . . .” Gavril mouthed the denial, his lips pressing into the grass.
“It’s a good thing you brought a change of clothes.”
Gavril opened his eyes and saw Pavel Velemir standing over him, holding his pack.
“Here.” Pavel threw the pack down beside him. “You’d better put these on.”
Damn. Pavel Velemir was the last person in all Smarna he wanted to find him in this condition. He tried to push himself up but fell down again.
“Water . . .”
“You’re in pretty poor shape, aren’t you?” Pavel squatted down beside him and held his water bottle to his lips. The acid taste of the watered wine made Gavril choke—but after he had swallowed a mouthful or two, his head felt less muzzy and he sat up, reaching for his clothes.
“So what happened?”
Was that an ironic question? Gavril, wearily trying to fasten his breeches, looked quizzically at Pavel.
“How about—I was caught in the blast of a Tielen mortar and my clothes were all blown to ribbons.”
“It might have to do,” Pavel said. “They’re in such confusion, they’ll probably believe you.”
“But you don’t.” Had Pavel guessed everything? How much had he seen? And what had he been told of his uncle’s death? The official version might be quite different from the facts; the Tielen clerks might have found it impossible to write that “Feodor Velemir was burned to death by a dragon-daemon.”
“I only know what I saw. Perhaps I’m suffering from heatstroke. Do you always lose your clothes when this happens? I see you haven’t brought a spare pair of boots.”
Now that Gavril had recovered a little, he realized Pavel must have gone back to fetch his horse.
“I’ll ride on to Anisieli. Someone will sell me a pair of boots there.” Bare feet were the least of his worries.
“What you did back there was pretty impressive.” Pavel grinned at him. “Those Tielens were obviously under orders to blast us off the road. They must have had quite a surprise when you came swooping down from the hillside!”
“And our side? Casualties?” Gavril forced himself to ask the question he had been dreading.
“More than a few.” Pavel’s pleasant expression grew grave.
“RaÏsa?”
“A nasty gash on the head. It’ll leave a scar. But she’s alive—and swearing at her brother. I take that as a good sign.”
RaÏsa was alive. Gavril felt the pain troubling his heart slowly melt away. He had saved her. So it had not been in vain, then, his reckless attack.
And then he r
emembered Pavel Velemir.
“Please, say nothing. If there are any questions to be answered, I’ll answer them my own way.”
“Don’t worry.” Pavel offered him his hand, pulling him to his feet and steadying him. “I value my life too much. I wouldn’t do anything to offend such a powerful dragon-lord.”
Dragon-lord. In spite of his weariness, Gavril found himself grinning back at Pavel. It had such an absurdly chivalrous ring to it.
The ragged rebel column limped into Anisieli as the sun was setting. Dusklight, violet-hued, seeped down through the steep rocks of the gorge behind. The people of Anisieli cheered and waved the Smarnan flag from upstairs windows as they entered the town, but, as Pavel said to Gavril, there wasn’t much to cheer about.
They had left behind a scene of carnage. Predatory mountain crows were already circling above the broken bodies, even as they piled their own dead onto the one remaining cart.
Iovan, left arm tied up in a blood-soaked scarf, was still directing operations. By now his voice was hoarse and cracked as he gave his orders. He said nothing to Gavril, but he cast him a suspicious, sidelong glance.
They met up with RaÏsa at the gates into Anisieli. Her forehead was bound in a makeshift, bloodstained bandage, but she still managed to smile as she came toward them, flinging an arm around each of their shoulders.
“My brave boys,” she said, hugging them. She was crying, but she didn’t seem to care. Pavel kissed her on each cheek, then full on the mouth.
Gavril breathed in the delicious scent emanating from her body.
Blood. Fresh, warm, innocent blood.
Dizzy with hunger, he pulled away.
The river ran through the center of Anisieli, cold and fresh from the gorge. The tavern owner had set tables out on the cobbled riverside and lit lanterns to welcome them. The mayor of Anisieli appeared and made a long-winded but heartfelt speech, thanking them for defeating the Tielen invaders and offering free food and lodgings for the night.
A doctor was found to attend to the wounded. Tavern girls came out with bottles of the rich, red local wine and baskets of fresh-baked cornbread. There would be lamb stewed with green plums and tarragon, to follow, they promised.
Gavril was not hungry. The smell of the lamb stew wafting from the tavern kitchen only made his stomach gripe. He sat at the mayor’s table opposite Pavel and RaÏsa, wondering how long he could stay in their company before the inevitable aftereffects of using his powers set in.
The rich wine soon loosened the tongues of the rebels and the noisy recounting of the afternoon’s ambush made Gavril’s head ache.
“One moment the Tielens had us surrounded—mortar fire everywhere, and clouds of that evil smoke they use to confuse the enemy.” RaÏsa was describing the battle, with wild and vivid hand gestures. The wine had brought color back to her pale cheeks. “And then the sky went dark—and their mortar battery exploded. Boom! My ears are still ringing. When we went to check—and God, that was a gruesome sight—there was little left. They’d blown themselves up.”
“Not quite accurate,” Pavel said. “It was Gavril’s work.”
Gavril set down his wine and stared hard at Pavel.
Don’t betray my secret if you value your life, Velemir.
“Your work, Gavril? But how?” RaÏsa asked.
“It’s not the first time I’ve done this,” he said as obscurely as he could. “It was just a case of igniting their explosives.”
“Rusta says he saw something in the sky. Dark, winged, flying down from the mountains.”
“Rusta must have suffered a bad blow to the head,” Gavril said with a dry smile.
“He’s not been so well since he was caught in the blast. Says he breathed in some of the smoke after the explosion. But then, we all did.”
They had all breathed in the smoke from his virulent burst of Drakhaon’s Fire, and none of them were protected. If they were not to fall sick and die, he must act to save them.
He stared down at the crimson wine in his mug. Stallion’s Blood, they called it in these parts, fermented from a robust dark grape grown on the southern slopes beyond the gorge. The taste was strong enough to mask what he was about to add to it.
He left the table and went around the side of the tavern, carrying his mug with him. There, beside a stinking privy, he gritted his teeth and made a quick slash in his wrist, letting the daemon-purple blood sizzle, drop by drop, into his wine.
“What are you doing?” the Drakhaoul hissed. “You have barely enough blood to sustain you. You can’t afford to lose anymore.”
“This,” Gavril said, wincing as he pressed his sleeve cuff to the raw edges of the cut, “is necessary.”
It was dark now, and from somewhere high in the wooded slopes of the gorge beyond, he heard the distant call of an owl floating down on the warm night air. As he had hoped, the tavern girls were refilling the wine jugs from a big oak barrel near the kitchen. It was just a matter of slipping some of the wine from his blood-tainted mug into each jug.
He stood, leaning against the tavern doorframe, watching the girls take the healing wine to the rebels, watching until all had refilled their glasses and drunk.
Suddenly it seemed as if the air around him was sucked dry. A wave of intolerable heat rippled through his whole body. Gasping, he buckled, grasping at the wall for support. Glitters of light flashed before his eyes, tiny darts of amethyst and sapphire that pierced his aching head like needles.
“Drakhaoul,” he whispered. “What’s . . . happening to me?”
“Our . . . synthesis . . . is failing. . . .”
“Failing?” Another wave of heat surged through his body, leaving his head pounding, his stomach seized with burning cramps.
One of the tavern girls came out, carrying a big pot of lamb stew. The greasy smell of the meat made him feel even more ill.
“Are you all right, sir?”
He heard her set down the pot and come closer, one tentative step at a time. And through the surging nausea, he caught a new, enticing scent—fresh and sweet—that, as she knelt beside him, he knew issued from her.
“You look really poorly.” He felt cool fingers brush his cheek. “You’re burning hot! Shall I send for a doctor?”
“Water . . .” Though even as he said the word, he knew it was not water that he needed.
“I’ll go get some.”
“No. Wait.” He reached out and caught hold of her hand. “Stay with me.”
“B-but—”
He raised his head to look at her. Through the swirls of smoke that hazed his vision, he saw a black-haired young girl with skin the ripe brown sheen of hazelnuts. “You’re very pretty. What’s your name?”
“My name’s Gulvardi.” A blush darkened her cheeks. “I’m new here at the tavern.” Even her warm breath smelled deliciously sweet.
A sudden flurry of lascivious images whirled through his mind. Desire burned through his whole body, enflamed his brain. He wanted her.
“Then take her.”
“No,” Gavril whispered.
“You fought the Tielens today, didn’t you? That was so brave.” Her eyes, dark as sloes, gazed at him, brimming with admiration.
Gavril doubled up again, clutching his arms about himself, trying to hold the pain in. And then the pain and the desire merged. He would lure her away from watching eyes, to some dark and lonely place where no one would hear her cries for help.
“Maybe—a breath of fresh air—will restore me.” He tried to straighten up. Who was speaking now, Gavril or the Drakhaoul? He no longer knew. He had lost control. “Help me, Gulvardi.”
“Here. Take my arm.”
He leaned against her as she guided him down the steps toward the sound of the rushing river. Every hesitant step they took away from the tavern led him closer to the achievement of his desire.
Ahead loomed the dark trunks of pines on the gorge edge. There would be hollows between the gnarled roots, soft with dry pine needles.
&nbs
p; “Do you feel better out here?” Gulvardi said.
“A little.”
The desire was almost unbearable, the cramping hunger a torment—the last desperate need of a man dying of famine. But he must not make his move. Not yet, not until he was sure they were well out of sight of the tavern.
The rising moon, a slender paring, touched the rushing river water far below with flickers of silver.
“Look,” she said. “The moonlight’s so beautiful.”
“But not as beautiful as you.” Gavril heard the trite words issue from his mouth as he reached for her, crushing her to him. “Kiss me, Gulvardi.”
His lips touched hers.
“No.” She resisted a little, twisting away. “Someone will see—”
He could feel the softness of her nut-brown breasts beneath the blouse—poor-quality linen that ripped open so easily beneath his questing fingers.
He pulled her closer, forcing his mouth against hers. He heard her give a little cry—and tasted blood on her lips.
The taste—warm, salt-sweet—sent him into a frenzy. He nuzzled his face against her throat, her breasts, licking, biting, sucking . . .
“No!” Gulvardi fought him, squirming and kicking, all sharp knees and elbows. She was screaming at him now, but all he could hear was the pulsing of the warm blood in her veins. All he knew was his own need to take in as much of that red, salty sweetness as he could to soothe the burning agony inside.
“Gulvardi?” Someone was calling her name.
The dark smoke-haze melted away and his sight cleared. A thin taper of moonlight illumined the scene.
He was kneeling in the soft carpet of pine needles and sandy soil. In front of him crouched a bloodstained girl, half-naked, her clothes torn, her moonlit eyes wide and terrified.
“Are you—are you all right?” he asked dazedly.
She began to edge away, shuffling backward, one arm outstretched to keep him from her. “M-monster!” she whispered. “Keep away!”
She turned and began to run, stumbling through the trees.
