by Barb Hendee
The nobleman pulled the quarrel from his stomach much in the same manner Leesil had seen Ratboy do on the road to Miiska. Chap rushed by Leesil in a blur. The dog's feet struck the ground only twice before he closed enough to launch himself at the nobleman.
As Leesil turned away, he heard rather than saw Chap connect with the nobleman-snarls, the clattering of metal as a sword tumbled to the ground, followed by a half-intelligible scream of anger. He focused his attention on Ratboy.
Blackened and bleeding, the small undead battered out the last flames from his shabby clothing where Brenden's torch had struck. Brenden was already charging with the longer of his garlic-soaked stakes in both hands. The blacksmith dropped his full weight down onto his smaller opponent and drove the stake through Ratboy's chest.
Ratboy's mouth snapped open to scream, but no sound came out. The undead did not fall limp, or die. He thrashed, striking at Brenden's head and shoulders with one hand while trying to grasp the stake with the other. Even with his size, it was all Brenden could do to keep his small opponent pinned to the ground.
"You missed the heart," Leesil shouted. Then he whispered, "We're going to die… We're going to lose this… Magiere!"
Everything was falling apart around him. He could grab the falchion and try finishing Ratboy-or the nobleman with Chap's help-but he didn't see how he could get both of them quickly enough. He'd never trained to use a sword. It was not his kind of weapon. And even if he were that lucky, Magiere could die before he got to her.
Leesil reached into his bag, pulled out an oil flask, and smashed it against Ratboy's broken coffin. He had to kick the coffin's base hard, twice, to get it to slide over against the nobleman's own sleeping place, forming a low barrier around the blacksmith and Ratboy struggling on the floor against the cave wall. As he hurdled over the coffins, crossbow still in his other hand, he pulled a stiletto from his sleeve and slashed the remaining waterskins filled with garlic water hanging from the back of Brenden's belt. There was no way he could try a fast use of a stake with Brenden on top of his target, and he hoped luck was with him now.
Water splashed out across both struggling forms on the ground, and Leesil saw the smoke begin to rise. He grabbed Brenden by the shirt and jerked the blacksmith upright with all his strength.
"Get Magiere!" he shouted to Brenden. "Get her out of here, now!"
Free of the blacksmith's weight, Ratboy clutched with both hands at the stake, off-center through his chest. His body shivered as the garlic water burned into him. Brenden pulled away and hurried off in Magiere's direction.
Leesil grabbed Brenden's torch from the ground in the same hand as his stiletto, and moved outside the coffin barrier. As he turned, Ratboy was climbing to his feet, body still quaking in pain, though the smoke had now dissipated into a thin haze around him. Leesil didn't hesitate. He pointed the crossbow at Ratboy and fired. Then he struck the oil-coated coffin with his torch. The aging wood ignited like a pyre, trapping Ratboy behind. Leesil did not bother to see if his quarrel had struck the charred undead, and threw down the crossbow so he could fumble in the sack for another oil flask.
Across the room, a bloodied Chap tried to corner the disarmed nobleman, or at least force him farther away from the cave opening and Magiere. Chap's strategy against Ratboy had been to knock the undead off his feet and land on top, but even wounded, the nobleman was too large and strong for that ploy. The dog was limited to snapping and biting at the nobleman's legs and hands, doing little more than holding him at bay. And that would not last for long.
Brenden already had Magiere in his arms, having ripped off one of his shirt sleeves to bind her bleeding neck. He grabbed her falchion as he stood up.
"Go, now!" Leesil ordered him, then backed into the tunnel's mouth behind them and smashed another oil flask on the ground. "Chap, come on!"
Chap snapped at his opponent one last time, then wheeled and headed for the tunnel at full speed. The nobleman was immediately behind the dog, but Chap was too quick. As the dog rushed by into the tunnel, Leesil struck the oil on the floor with his torch and backed hastily into the tunnel. The cave opening went up in flames.
"Run!" Leesil yelled.
Neither Brenden nor Chap needed such coaxing. The blacksmith was well down the tunnel when Leesil caught up to him, Magiere slung over his shoulder and Chap now in the lead. Leesil could see blood already staining Brenden's back from Magiere's wound.
Darkness and dust and fear ran with them.
When they reached the cave-in, Chap crawled immediately through the opening on top of the debris. Brenden crawled through and began pulling Magiere's still form after him. Leesil heard the sound of booted feet coming down the tunnel. He did not have time to wonder how anyone could have gotten through the flames.
"Hurry," he urged.
Magiere's feet slipped through the opening, and Leesil tossed the torch through and followed as well. Sliding down the other side of the cave-in, he stopped to dig in his sack. He had only one flask of oil left. Picking up the torch, he pulled the flask's stopper with his teeth, spit it aside, and poured half the oil over the boards caught in the debris. He then stuffed his oil-stained sack into the opening and lit it. The gap through which they'd crawled closed in flames.
"That will hold him for a while," Leesil said, trying not to breathe in smoke, and clutching the remaining half-empty flask. "Go."
He barely remembered the rest of the flight down the tunnel, except that every step was another drop of Magiere's blood lost. Brenden moved as fast as he could in the cramped passage, and Chap's increasing pants suggested approaching exhaustion. Leesil kept saying to him, "Keep going, boy. Just a little farther now." His own face burned from the cuts Ratboy had dealt him.
When they reached the trapdoor to the decorative sitting room, Leesil set the torch and half-empty flask on the tunnel floor and grabbed Brenden by the shoulder.
"Give her to me and jump up," he said. "You'll have to lift both Chap and her up one at a time."
Brenden dropped Magiere's feet to the ground, and Leesil caught her limp body, pulling her close. As the strong blacksmith lifted Chap under his arm and climbed the ladder, the dog whimpered softly, but did not struggle.
If there were time, Leesil would have lowered Magiere to the floor, but, instead, he leaned back against the tunnel wall so that he could free one hand to lift her face to his own. Her complexion was almost white, and her wound was still bleeding through the makeshift bandage. He held her tightly against his chest and then tilted his head to place an ear near her mouth.
Her breathing was shallow and short, but he could hear it.
"Is she alive?" Brenden leaned through the opening, reaching down with one hand.
"Yes," Leesil answered.
"Don't know how, with her neck cut open."
Leesil pushed Magiere over near the ladder. He lifted one of her arms up until Brenden could grab her by the wrist. Stepping on the first rung, he prepared to lift her as well from below, but as soon as Brenden gripped her vestment with his other hand, he raised her with little effort.
"It'll be all right," Leesil said to her unconscious form. "Just don't die on me."
He grabbed torch and oil and followed up the ladder. By the time he was out of the tunnel and had kicked the trapdoor closed, Brenden had Magiere over his shoulder again.
"Why bring the torch?" Brenden asked. "We don't need it now."
Leesil didn't answer. There was no time to argue with the blacksmith over what he planned next. Instead of heading toward the shaft they'd entered through, Leesil walked over and opened the room's main door.
"We can't get Magiere down the shaft, so we're going out the front. This hallway should lead somewhere into the warehouse. Now move."
Brenden's eyes widened slightly, but then he nodded and headed out the door. Chap followed him.
Leesil hesitated only for a blink. There was no other way to be certain no one followed them, and perhaps he'd get lucky and burn those creatures
to death. Either way, he didn't care anymore about the cost of lost livelihoods and merchant tallies-not with what this had cost Magiere.
He sprinkled the oil lightly over the rug and the trapdoor. He splashed the couches as well, lit each and the rug, and then ran out the door. He paused in his flight only to splash the walls here and there with a light stain of oil, until the flask ran out. When he reached the enormous warehouse floor, Brenden was waiting for him between the piles of crates arranged for shipping or retrieval by some local merchant.
Leesil glanced quickly around and spotted a stack of cloth bundles. Brenden's eyes opened wide as Leesil set the torch on top of the stack.
"We're out," Leesil said flatly. "Let's find a door."
Brenden looked at the slowly catching cloth and the smoke streaming out of the hallway. "Over here," he snapped angrily.
Leesil followed as Brenden led the way to a plain, ordinary-looking door. It was barred from the inside, and so likely not the exit used by the workers leaving at the end of the day. Leesil lifted the bar and threw it aside, kicking the door open.
Once outside, Leesil saw Chap was panting, weak with exhaustion and numerous small wounds. He stooped down and lifted the dog in his arms. Except for his face, Leesil was unhurt but weary. The strength of panic and anger was draining out of him.
"I know little about healing," Leesil said. "We have to find them some help quickly."
Brenden looked at him, sadness and anger trading places across his face. "My home. You'll all be safer there."
Chapter Fourteen
After Brenden laid Magiere on his own bed and covered her with a blanket, his hands began to shake and he could not stop them. Leesil ripped sheets into strips and then attempted to slow the bleeding from Magiere's neck wound by using the strips as bandages. She'd been cut from one side of the neck halfway to the other. Brenden didn't know how or why she was still alive, but he had no doubt she was dying. Did Leesil know?
Chap lay just as still as Magiere, on a rug near the bed, breathing uneasily.
Brenden's small one-room cottage was built out back of his stable and forge. Once, this house had been a warm, comforting place filled with his sister's humming and the smell of baking bread. Eliza had loved candles, and he often brought her wax and oil scents from the market so that she could make her own. She was not beautiful at first sight, a bit on the thin side with plain, mouse-brown hair. But he always knew she'd one day leave him for her own husband. Her beauty was evident in other ways. Her hazel eyes had laughed at his jokes, and she exuded that cheerfulness so many men sought in a woman. She kept the house neat, helped him with work in the shop, and cooked fine meals. What man wouldn't want her? She could not, should not, spend her life caring for an older brother. Though he had no interest in marriage himself, he was well prepared for the day that she would many and leave him to raise a family of her own.
But that morning, that terrible morning when he found her by the wood stack changed something inside him.
Eliza was small and fragile, not like this fierce woman who now lay dying in his bed. Eliza could not fight for herself, and he'd failed to protect her, even after the news of so many disappearances reached their ears. They liked their home and their smith's business and chose to ignore the whispers and rumors. After all, nothing bad had ever happened to them.
And now she was gone. There would be no husband or children, and he felt no joy from having destroyed her killers. Rather, he sat on his bed, watching a vampire hunter die.
Brenden did not know how to assist, and his hands wouldn't stop shaking. He thought he should feel satisfaction, that a circle had been closed. But he didn't. Nothing about this night was as he had imagined.
The face of the filthy urchin called Ratboy kept flashing in front of him, emaciated and savage. Had this creature been the one to murder his sister? Perhaps it had been the tall one who looked noble. Or maybe the woman. Brenden closed his eyes and then opened them quickly as darkness only made Ratboy's features more clear.
Leesil finished his bandaging and then put his fingers inside Magiere's mouth.
"Her teeth are normal," he said.
Brenden was confused by the comment. What did that mean?
"She's dying, Leesil. She should have been dead before we left the warehouse."
The half-elf's head jerked up. "Are you going to find us some help or not?"
"This is beyond Miiska's healers."
Leesil sucked in an angry breath. The long scratches on his face hadn't completely stopped bleeding yet.
"She's not going to die. Think! Someone must be able to help her."
"I can," a quiet voice said from across the room.
Brenden turned in surprise, fist clenched, expecting to find something had escaped the burning warehouse and tracked them to his home. Instead, an elegant, middle-aged man with white temples stood in the open doorway. The fine fabric of his long cloak suggested wealth and culture.
"Welstiel?" Leesil asked, more a statement than a question. "Can you help?"
"If you'll do as I say."
"Anything," Leesil answered quickly. "I'll do anything."
Somewhere outside in the distance, Brenden heard shouts and ringing bells. The townsfolk had been roused with the alarm and would now be scurrying to put out the warehouse fire. He experienced a stab of guilt. Although he agreed with Leesil's decision, many people's lives would be affected for the worse.
Down on the beach, past moonrise, one smooth side of the seashore bank exploded outward, shattering any illusions of peace the night still contained.
Rashed crawled out of the narrow hole, more earth breaking away from its edges as he carefully pulled Teesha after him. Years ago, he'd arranged for this secret tunnel that reached from the caves below the warehouse all the way into one of the caves along the bottom of the sea cliffs. The entrance was quite small and almost completely covered by sand. No one had ever tried entering the cave from the outside, so he'd pushed through the sand barrier from the inside and emerged into open air.
The beach was only a short drop below, but he was injured and nearly exhausted. He held Teesha tightly with his good arm and jumped down, landing on his feet.
"It's all right," he said, laying her in the sand. "I'll find blood soon."
She nodded and even smiled at him, but he knew the slash from Magiere's falchion had frozen Teesha's body from the waist down. A frightening prospect.
He left her there and climbed back up the wall.
"Ratboy, do you need help?"
Only the sound of crawling and digging answered him, and he began pushing more sand out of the way.
Ratboy appeared in the opening, looking so burned, bitten, and pitiful that Rashed assisted him without anger or rebuke. They had both failed to evade or destroy the hunter. Ratboy was not to blame this time.
"Climb onto my back," Rashed said. "I'll carry you down."
Forgoing the usual sarcastic comment, Ratboy quietly grasped Rashed's shoulders with blackened hands, and Rashed descended as quickly as he could to lay his thin comrade beside Teesha.
The sight of Teesha filled him with emotions he could not recognize or explain. Although only her hands and one shoulder were badly burned, the slash on her stomach looked deep and her life-force was leaking away into the sand. Yet she did not complain nor curse him.
"Stay here and be silent," he said. "I will return." He unsheathed his sword and dropped it beside Ratboy. "For protection."
Then he headed down the beach toward a mass of ships in the harbor. He no longer cared about sparing the lives of these Miiska mortals and hiding his identity. Such sentiment had gained him nothing in the end. As Rashed approached the harbor, he saw two sailors sitting on a small encrusted log, passing a bottle back and forth. They both looked young and healthy. There was no one else in sight.
Without a sound, Rashed rushed them from the side. Their eyes widened, and he knew himself to appear like some unearthed monster emerged from the depths, with
his blood-soaked tunic, useless arm hanging limp, and smoke-streaked face. He struck out with his right fist.
He caught the nearest sailor across the jaw so hard the man fell unconscious, barely breathing. The second one only had time to cry out once and crabstep backward before Rashed grabbed him by the hair and drove both fangs straight into his throat.
Rashed didn't feed like this. He'd never fed like this.
As he held the sailor effortlessly, draining every bit of life he could, strength and power and euphoria filled his being. In a flash of clarity, he felt a glimmer of understanding for Ratboy… for Parko. Perhaps feeding could involve more than simply replenishing necessary energies.
He finished and dropped the corpse onto the dune, leaving it where it lay. Why should he be concerned now? A little fear, a little truth might warn these mortals to leave him and his alone. How many years had he fought, struggled for absolute secrecy, anonymity? This cold woman hunter had destroyed his carefully constructed world. Well, so be it.
He remained still a moment, feeling the life of the sailor washing through his body. Then he focused the flow of life, directed it where it was needed most. The wound on his shoulder began to close, pieces of bone settling together. The burn on his hand lost its sting. Other small injuries would disappear soon, all healed by the life of one insignificant mortal. He grabbed the other, unconscious sailor by the shirt collar and dragged him down the beach. The dead weight of the sailor was nothing to him now.
Fear hit him when he reached Teesha and saw that her eyes were closed. She lay so still. He moved to her side and dropped his burden. Corische once told him that in rare cases vampires could be injured severely enough to slip away into a kind of sleeping undeath. Rashed did not know if this was true, and he did not wish to find out.
"Look at me," he ordered.
When she didn't respond, he grabbed the sailor's wrist and tore it open with his teeth. Cradling Teesha's head, he pushed the ragged wound into her mouth and let liquid drip across her tongue.
