Blood of Heirs

by Alicia Wanstall-Burke

  ‘What children have we between the five of us?’ Yorrell asked, opening the question to the daaris. ‘I have my eldest, Cole, four younger sons and three daughters.’

  ‘My eldest is Trenor,’ Daari Allin of the Wolban announced. ‘I have six more sons and two daughters.’

  ‘Brandt is my eldest,’ offered Merk of the Marsaw, clapping his son on the shoulder. ‘He has…’ the older man leaned towards his son, who whispered in his father’s ear, ‘… five sisters!’

  Horice, daari of the Daylin clan, drained his wine and held the cup out for the tine-woman to refill. ‘Harran is the heir to my range, unless one of his brothers is stupid enough to challenge him.’ The young man beside Horice beamed, his blond hair shining in the torchlight, announcing the northern blood in his veins.

  Then their attention turned to Lidan’s father and silence fell across the room. Her cheeks flushed with heat, embarrassed on her father’s behalf and utterly powerless to save him the shame of admitting his heir was a girl. To his credit, Erlon turned to her and placed a solid hand on her shoulder, a genuine smile lighting his eyes.

  ‘My heir is Lidan. She has nine sisters, all as beautiful as their mothers and as fierce as their father.’

  The swell of pride filling Lidan’s chest deflated when Daari Yorrell snorted a laugh. ‘My cousin has yet to give you a son?’

  On her shoulder, her father’s hand tightened, his fingers digging into the fabric of her tunic as if to funnel his rage away from his face.

  He shrugged. ‘Not for lack of trying.’

  The other leaders laughed and Erlon grinned, nodding and winking at his fellows while Yorrell merely raised his brows and turned his cup idly on the table.

  ‘Still,’ Yorrell continued as the laughter died, ‘such a failure on Farah’s part should be rectified. It reflects badly on my clan.’

  The men and boys turned to Yorrell, leaning forwards in silence, unwilling to miss a single word. Breathing deeply, Lidan tried to calm her hammering heart.

  Please don’t…

  ‘If my cousin won’t give you a son, I shall give you one of mine.’ Yorrell smiled and bile rose in Lidan’s throat. ‘In exchange for Lidan, of course.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The Parry Farm, Southern Orthia

  ‘Sasha, wake up!’ Ran shook her by the shoulders. ‘Come on, you have to wake up!’

  ‘Wassit?’ muttered Sasha, starting from her sleep and shielding her eyes against the light of the dawning day.

  ‘Time to get up,’ Ran pulled her to sit and shoved a handful of dried meat at her.

  She blinked at him in weary confusion. ‘Is the sun even up?’

  ‘Barely, but we have to go.’

  ‘Go where?’ she asked, her voice growing stronger as the daze of sleep disappeared.

  ‘Anywhere,’ he said, hurrying to collect their things and stuff them into the packs. ‘We can’t stay here.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Sasha caught his arm as he passed and locked her gaze on his face. ‘Has this got to do with you barring the door? What happened yesterday? Did you see something out there?’

  The angle of her brows and the way her fingers held his coat told him she wasn’t going to let him brush away her questions this time.

  Ran sighed. ‘It came back last night. Whatever killed the Parrys came back. It knows we’re here, and it’s marked us.’

  ‘Marked us?’ she repeated. She let him go and he returned to packing the few possessions they had.

  ‘It pissed on the barn like a dog marking a tree.’ He nodded when Sasha screwed up her face. ‘Surprised the smell didn’t wake you.’

  ‘Well, now you mention it, there was something…’ she muttered and collected her blanket, folding it into a pack.

  ‘If I’m right, we have today to get a head start. If it thinks we’re staying put then it will come back. We can—’

  ‘You think we can outrun it?’

  Her question halted his hurried packing. Ran looked at Sasha as she came to her feet, her injured knee wrapped with a strip of cloth beneath her trousers, her hair a mess of red curls and straw. Could they, with her knee and his ankle, against the snow and the wind and the mountains?

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is.’ Ran glanced at the barn wall as if he could see through it to the day outside, the hills and snowy mountains. ‘I do know it’s coming back, and I don’t want to be here when it arrives.’

  Sasha nodded and hefted her bag onto her back with a wince of discomfort twisting at her features. She waved Ran away as he moved forwards to help. ‘I’m all right, Ran, really—I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, shouldering his bag. ‘I wish we could stay longer but it’s not safe here anymore.’

  ‘If we stick near the roads we’ll make better time,’ she suggested, pulling her knitted hat down over her hair.

  Ran nodded and went to the door of the barn, ignoring the shiver of fear threading along his spine. He despised the exposure of the road but agreed with Sasha’s assessment. It was unlikely that any ordinary folk would be out and about after the recent storms, but he couldn’t say the same for his father’s soldiers.

  Had they persisted in following him after he escaped Graupen? Had Sasha’s father told the townsfolk about his daughter’s mysterious patient and sent word back to the city? For every foot of snow that fell in the path of the soldiers, another fell in his, hindering his progress as much as theirs. For all he knew, they were only a few miles behind them, with more provisions and better equipment.

  Still, he didn’t fear them as much as the creature that tore the farmhouse apart and marked the barn in the night. If all else failed and he was captured, he had some chance of mercy in a trial. He might escape execution if he could argue he was cursed by the magic and therefore, not at fault. He could not hope to reason with a beast such as the one that massacred the Parry family.

  Sasha helped pry the nails from the door with a hammer, while he unwound the wire and released the door handles. From the tool store beside the door, Ran retrieved a pair of knives he assumed were once used to butcher animals, and handed one to Sasha. She looked at the blade with a raised brow and eyed the rust and nicks along the cutting edge.

  ‘Better than nothing, I guess,’ she muttered as she tucked it into her belt and Ran smiled.

  He shoved his shoulder into the barn door and pushed out into the day. Their stolen knives were in terrible condition, but they were also large and sharp enough to do a lot of damage to anything they were thrust into. If that proved enough to give them time to escape a pursuer, or even kill them, he would gladly take his chances with a rusty butcher’s knife.

  *

  The sunlight seemed to linger a little longer than it had in the preceding days, affording Ran and Sasha a few more precious hours of travel before their escape was uncovered. They hurried along the road, heading southwest as fast as their stolen snowshoes could carry them. Thankfully, the fair weather held, and only as the sun dipped behind the peaks did the wind begin to moan through the trees and catch its icy claws in the seams of their coats.

  Sasha kept pace with Ran as they tramped across the snow, her limp growing more pronounced as the day dragged on. His lungs and legs screamed for rest, but his head warned him that every moment stopped by the roadside was a gift to the creature behind them. Even as night crept up the valley at their backs, his mind demanded they carry on and follow the road into the darkness, despite the dangers lurking in the shadows.

  When the sun finally dropped from sight, they fell at the base of a broad tree trunk, sheltering beneath its wide canopy of thick branches and worked to catch their breaths. Ran’s shoulders burned from the effort of carrying his bag, the straps digging into his skin through the layers of fur and fabric as if they weren’t there at all. He’d be surprised if he could lift his arms by morning, let alone move his legs. It was possible they’d covered more ground in their haste than any day previous—and it was
a good thing, too. The further they got from the farm, the greater distance the creature had to cover to find them. With the weather and wind on their side, the slope not too steep and the help of the weight-distributing snowshoes, they’d had a successful day of running away.

  Sasha shivered beside him, her hands balled into tight fists, and suddenly Ran’s elation at the gains of the day faded. Once more they were in the wilds of the world, surrounded by snow and ice and pursued by an unseen foe. It felt like he’d failed her.

  ‘We can’t light a fire, can we?’ she asked through chattering teeth.

  Ran shook his head as the darkness deepened. ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Ah, shit,’ she muttered. She pulled her blanket from her bag and shuffled closer. ‘You’ll just have to hold me, then.’

  He laughed a little and lifted his arm to let her curl in under it, wrapping it around her shoulders. ‘Reckon I can manage that.’

  Fatigue took Sasha quickly to sleep, but nothing could tempt Ran’s eyes from scanning the darkness as she rested in his arms. The moon peered through the clouds and trees, full and shining its silver light on the world below. It wasn’t bright enough to travel, but it was enough to see the road and the woods clearly for several feet in either direction. The patches of moonlight and shadow danced, spinning and weaving against each other like lovers, bound in a waltz played by the wind.

  He found himself staring at the play of light and shadow, wondering how long they had until their peace was broken. It seemed inevitable that someone, or something, would find them. It was merely a matter of who and when. Was he ready for the fight? For the consequences of being discovered?

  Sasha murmured against his chest and he pulled her a little closer, ever more aware that if his father’s soldiers captured them, she would face the executioner just for helping him. He could claim her as a hostage, an unwilling guide forced to take him through the mountain passes to Isord. He could try and get her to stay behind or return home, but something in the way she recalled her father’s treatment of her brothers made him think that was impossible. She wasn’t ever going back to that house.

  Could he leave her in the next town, safe among Orthian people, rather than dragging her further into dangers that only the gods knew? Perhaps if he left her at an inn while she slept and stole away into the night he could put enough distance between them that she couldn’t track him down. She’d never forgive him if he did that, but if he were hundreds of miles away and across the border, he would never see her again to face her wrath.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The Southern Reaches, Orthia

  Shuffling footsteps woke Ran as they had the night before, scraping across the snow in quick spurts, then stopping, before moving slowly and stopping again. His eyes flew open and he registered the pale light of dawn in the east.

  Fuck.

  Sasha’s hand pressed against his chest once, twice, then a third time—a signal that she was awake. Unfortunately, the relief wasn’t enough to slow his heart. The creature was near; so near he heard it breathing and dragging itself across the icy crust on the snow, pausing every so often to sniff the air.

  It was the same sound he heard from outside the barn and down in the mine, the same long, drawn-out inhalation that spoke of a creature tracking prey. Had his fall woken the creature from the darkness of the tunnels? Had it been following them since then?

  He closed his eyes and tried to calm down, feigning sleep as Sasha’s hand moved slowly under the blankets to pass him a knife. She pressed it into his hand and closed his fingers around the hilt, rolling her head as she did to draw attention away from the movement. To anyone watching, she remained asleep, resettling against his chest and growing still once more.

  Under the blanket, Ran gripped the knife so hard his arm shook. Tension and fear shivered along his muscles, down to the tight fist clenched around the worn wooden handle. The rusty blade might not stand a chance against the thing stalking them, but it was all they had—two butchering knives and some magic. He felt the power stir under his skin, warmed by the fear in his blood.

  It rose from a dark place in his soul, spiralling up to his shoulders and down his arms, pooling in his fingers and tingling like insects crawling across his flesh. Sasha drew a sharp breath and stiffened. At such close quarters, it wasn’t surprising that she sensed the gathering power.

  The creature moved closer, approaching with slow, purposeful steps. It sniffed and exhaled, snuffling hurriedly as though it caught the trail of its prey and didn’t dare lose it.

  Sweat rolled down Ran’s brow, past his ear and under his collar, leaving a trail of ice in its wake. Panic and the heat of his magic burned across his skin, feverish in the snow and ice of the roadside. The creature had tracked them all night, following their scent to this place beside a tree as broad as a horse was long, and now it stood but a few feet from Ran’s right shoulder.

  He knew it had found them when the sniffing stopped with a satisfied gasp. To his left, still curled under his arm, Sasha slowly raised her head. Her body tensed, preparing to fight for her life.

  ‘Ready?’ Sasha whispered.

  He squeezed her hand under the blanket in reply and heard her swallow her fear.

  ‘Now!’ she screamed and threw back the blanket.

  She rolled away from the tree and Ran hurled himself forwards, kicking off the trunk into a roll. He came to his feet and spun, knife raised, to meet the attacker.

  Across the snow, the beast skittered back, surprised by their movement, then opened its jaw to snarl and hiss. Its mouth yawned twice as wide as a man’s could comfortably open, revealing broken jagged teeth, blackened by rot and dripping with slick saliva. Its lips were covered in pustules; one bursting as the flesh stretched around it, leaking blue slime down the creature’s chin.

  It roared and the branches above them shook, dislodging clumps of snow that thumped to the ground. The creature, a thing with the form of a human but the movement of a diseased, enraged hound, took advantage of the shower and sprang forward, clawed hands extended and its mouth snapping. It hit Ran in the chest and twisted, throwing him at the tree.

  He slammed into the trunk with a loud crack as something broke, echoing under branches and more ice fell around him. He heard a scream and a barking howl and scrambled to his hands and knees, sucking a breath through his teeth and clutching his side.

  Several feet away, Sasha lay sprawled across the ground, her knife knocked out of reach. The creature stalked across the snow, its lips drawn back from its teeth, circling Sasha as she dragged herself to her feet and balanced on her good leg.

  ‘Ran?’ she called and the beast paused, tilting its head to the side.

  Black orbs regarded Ran from a sunken, hollowed face. Deformed and scarred, the creature’s skin peeled away from bone and muscle as if decomposing where it stood, and what remained of its long, lank hair hung matted from its scalp like filthy curtains. It looked back at Sasha and snarled, crouching low on its thick hind legs and digging its clawed hands into the snow.

  Ran’s vision shifted, stuttering and blurring. He hesitated, and for a single heartbeat, he saw a person crouching before Sasha. Was it a woman he saw, naked and lithe, deadly and—

  It pounced at Sasha and his vision flicked back into place, the image of the living woman vanishing beneath the rotting corpse. Sasha went down under the creature’s weight and Ran screamed. His magic flared, a blast of blue power exploding in the snow beside Sasha and the creature, sending a plume of ice into the air. The monster skittered away and Ran staggered after it, launching himself at the creature through the cloud of falling ice.

  He tackled it in the side and they rolled together onto the flat width of the roadway. The creature found its feet before he got a hand under his body and it turned back to Sasha, howling and shivering with exhilaration.

  A cold shudder of terror caught Ran and he realised with painful clarity that the creature was enjoying their suffering. It saw Sasha look towards
Ran for help and spun to swat him across the face with the back of its hand. Instead of flesh and bone, cold steel ripped through the skin along Ran’s jawline, and he flew backwards, landing hard and skidding across the icy road.

  ‘No!’ Sasha cried, her voice filling his ears while his head rang like a bell struck with a hammer. Blood streamed from the wound in his face, burning as the heat of his body met the cold of the air.

  Clutching his side, Ran hauled himself to his knees in time to see the creature begin to run. Its bounding leaps closed the distance and Sasha desperately scrambled to her feet.

  She never had a chance.

  The beast leapt and caught its claws in the back of her coat, sinking its teeth into the top of her shoulder. Sasha’s scream cut the air. She hit the snow, thrashing under the weight of the creature, before she managed to turn and face it, hitting it with savage fists. She kicked and screamed, bucking under its hind legs, trying to squirm out from under it.

  Finally, the thing had enough of her efforts and laid one hard punch straight to Sasha’s face. The resulting crack made Ran’s stomach lurch as he found his feet and staggered to a stop.

  Across the road, the beast eased back from Sasha’s motionless body as a bright red stain spread through the snow behind her head, glaring in the morning light. The creature backed away and put Sasha’s prone body between it and Ran, standing behind it like a wolf displaying a kill to the pack.

  Then it lifted a foot and placed it on Sasha’s chest, right at the base of her ribcage. It put all of its weight on the foot and pressed down, her bones bending under the pressure, then opened its mouth to snarl.

  Ran replied with a scream ripped from the depths of his chest and charged.

  The beast threw itself forwards using Sasha as a springboard, launching into the air with its steel claws extended. They came together and Ran focused all his remaining magic on the tiny place between their grappling bodies. He might only have one chance to kill the thing before he spent his power and he wasn’t about to waste it on missing his mark.