Bloodsworn

by Nathan Long

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it isa land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forestsand vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reignsthe Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of thefounder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands ofthe Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  chapter one

  THE PRODIGAL RETURNS

  The smoke from a burning woman stung Ulrika’s eyes as she rode through Nuln’s western gate.

  ‘Leech!’ a shopwife cried.

  ‘Sigmar strike her down!’ roared a foundryman.

  ‘Burn the fiend!’ shouted an apprentice. He threw a rock and hit the woman in the face.

  Ulrika looked from under her broad-brimmed hat at the poor wretch who writhed and shrieked on the pyre in the middle of the rutted street, fearing it might be one of her sisters, but the woman was no vampire. Ulrika could hear her heart hammering from across the street. She was only a girl who’d had the misfortune to be born with black hair and pale skin.

  ‘Let this be a warning to all bloodsuckers who seek to enter the city of Magnus the Pious!’ shouted a wild-eyed witch hunter to the mob that thronged around the pyre. ‘This is your welcome here! This is your doom!’

  Ulrika was tempted to bare her fangs at him, just to see the look on his face, but instead edged her horse around the crowd, her head lowered, and continued on. Now was not the time to stir up trouble. There was too much of that already. Far too much.

  For five weeks, as late spring turned into a swamp-hot summer, Ulrika had raced as fast as she could from Praag to Nuln, killing horses and bleeding gold in an effort to outrun the doom the von Carstein spy, Stefan von Kohln, had told her was coming to Countess Gabriella von Nachthafen, Ulrika’s mistress, but almost from the moment she had crossed from Kislev into the Empire, she had known she would be too late. In every city and town on the way south it had been the same – a vampiress quartered and burned in Wurzen, a plague of zombies in Kusel said to have been raised by a little dead girl in the woods, a cult that worshipped a vampire goddess in Talabheim exposed and hung en masse on a gibbet that served fifty at a time, the mayor of Wurtbad’s wife beheaded while the mayor wept and scratched at the scabs on his neck. And everywhere, everywhere, mobs and witch hunters and vampire hunters burning girls and houses and whole families on the merest rumour of unnatural hungers.

  This was the doom Stefan had warned Ulrika of – the wholesale exposure of the Lahmian sisterhood that his Sylvanian masters had engineered in order to create a rising tide of hysteria that would throw the Empire into chaos and make it ripe for a Sylvanian invasion. And it was working. In every town and at every coaching inn, Ulrika had heard whispers of conflict and conflagration – Carroburg in flames, Kurt Helborg and his Reiksguard sent to quell riots in Middenheim, the River Aver running red from Sauerapfel to Streissen. There were even rumours that Emperor Karl Franz had been turned into a vampire and was going to war against the Elector Counts.

  For Ulrika, the weeks on the road had been an agony of unknowing. Would Gabriella be alive when she at last returned to Nuln? Or had the Sylvanian spies, who had failed in their first attempt to kill and expose the countess, succeeded at last? Stefan had spoken of a ‘decapitating stroke’. Would Ulrika find Gabriella and Hermione and Famke headless? Would there be no Lahmian leadership at all in Nuln?

  To make the torture worse, Ulrika had travelled most of the way at a crawl. The towns and cities were filled with roving mobs of torch-wielding fanatics, and the roads between the towns patrolled by citizen militias who stopped anyone travelling alone at night. Ulrika had been forced to abandon the coach Galiana had given her when she’d come to a road block just north of Averheim, and after that her speed was cut in half, for while she had been able to travel days as well as nights within the enclosed carriage, on horseback she’d only been free to move at night, and cautiously at that.

  This last day had been the most maddening of all, for she had come within two hours of Nuln just as dawn was breaking, and had to stop. She’d spent the day wedged inside the cramped cellar of a recently burned shack on the edges of the Stirwood, kept awake by fears that only a few miles away, Gabriella might be facing her doom while the tyranny of the sun kept Ulrika from her side. At last, when the light through the cracks in the cellar door finally faded, she sprang out and rode off in a frenzy, desperate to reach Nuln’s gates before they were closed at full dark.

  Now that she had arrived, however, Ulrika had no idea where to go. She knew that Lady Hermione, Gabriella’s superior in the Lahmian sisterhood, had given her the running of a brothel from which to gather pillow-whispered secrets – fuel for the Lahmians’ never-ending political intrigues. Unfortunately, Hermione had shut down the old brothel, the Silver Lily, when the witch hunters had discovered its madam was a Lahmian, and Ulrika had never been to the new one. She didn’t know where it was. She didn’t know its name. All she could be certain of was that it wouldn’t be in the same location – if it existed at all.

  Ulrika growled under her breath. If she was too late there would be slaughter done. She would discover who had killed Gabriella and hunt them to the ends of the earth. They would pay tenfold for–

  She clamped down on her rising rage. No need to start sharpening her claws until she knew Gabriella was dead. She must find the new house first. But how? Searching blindly wouldn’t work. Nuln was a big place, and had many brothels. She needed to ask someone.

  She glanced around at the crowds that filled the Handelstrasse. At this hour, the shopkeeps, bankers and merchants were locking up their shops, offices and exchanges and heading home, while the barkeeps, broadsheet sellers and harlots were opening their doors, staking out their patches and displaying their wares. Lawyers and bookkeepers from the courts and counting houses hugged the edges of the streets as apprentices and students poured from the workshops and colleges and shoved merrily past them. Street-corner demagogues shrilled doom and death and ruin for all, while charm sellers offered garlands of garlic and witch root and phylacteries they claimed – somewhat dubiously – contained shavings of wood from the handle of Sigmar’s hammer itself to protect the wearer against the predations of bloodsucking fiends.

  Who among these would know Gabriella’s house? More importantly, who was safe to ask? A Lahmian house would be a discreet, high-end establishment, far beyond the means of the hoi-polloi, for its purpose was stripping rich and powerful men of their secrets, but asking a nobleman where he wet his wick was likely to win only indignant denials and calls for the watch. Better on the whole to ask the competition.

  She turned her horse south and made her way to the waterfront where the taverns were seedier and the vice more open. In an alley next to an establishment called the Blind Pig, she at last found what she was looking for and dismounted
.

  ‘Hello, love,’ said the woman, sauntering out of the shadows and revealing an ageing face trying to look young. ‘Fancy a–’ She cut off with a scowl when she got a better look at Ulrika, and her voice lost all its sultry charm. ‘Whose drake are you, then? I don’t play that field.’

  Ulrika held a crown up between two fingers. ‘Nor do I, fraulein. I’m only looking for a place you might have heard of.’ She held out the coin. ‘This is for hearing me out. There’ll be another for answering.’

  The woman’s eyes widened at the gold, then flicked over Ulrika’s shoulder, her heart beating fast. She snatched the proffered coin and tucked it into her cleavage. ‘Ask, then.’

  Ulrika sensed another heart-fire behind her, edging around her horse, which waited patiently at the mouth of the alley. She took out a second coin and held it up like the first, but let her other hand drop idly to the hilt of her rapier. ‘There was a place called the Silver Lily. My sister used to work there. I hear a lot of the girls moved to another place when it shut down, but I don’t know the name, or where it is.’

  ‘Yer sister, eh? She a Kislevite like you? What’s ’er name?’ asked the harlot.

  ‘Why should you care?’ asked Ulrika. ‘Do you know the place or not?’

  ‘Trouble, Millie?’ asked a rough voice behind Ulrika. The smell of beer and sausage came with it.

  The harlot sneered. ‘Just a nosy drake asking questions, Gunter. Ready enough with the Karls, though.’

  ‘Is she indeed?’ asked Gunter, and Ulrika heard the creak of a leather glove tightening its grip on a weapon.

  Ulrika drew her rapier and swept it behind her without looking, pressing it to Gunter’s thudding neck vein by sound alone. With her other hand she spun the second coin at the harlot’s face, then whipped out her dagger and had it to her throat before she had recovered.

  Gunter dropped his cudgel as Ulrika looked back. He was big and broad, but sloppy, with a drinker’s nose and rotting teeth, and his eyes were crossed from staring at the blade under his chin.

  ‘Mercy, lass,’ he whimpered as blood trickled down his dirty neck. ‘Mercy.’

  ‘We wasn’t gonna scrag ye, honest!’ said Millie. She was bleeding too.

  Ulrika licked her lips. Their fear was intoxicating, and the scent of their blood was making her dizzy, but there was no time. She had to find Gabriella.

  ‘You certainly weren’t,’ she said. ‘Try as you might. But I’ll not hold it against you if you answer my question. I’ll even let you keep the Karls.’

  Millie swallowed, her eyes like saucers. ‘What… what did ye want to know again?’

  ‘The name of the brothel where all the Silver Lily’s girls went.’

  ‘The Chalice of Caronne,’ whispered Gunter. ‘Madame du Vilmorin’s place. On Mandredstrasse.’

  Ulrika’s chest swelled with hope. Was that it? It had to be! She withdrew her rapier and dagger from their necks and wiped the blood off on their clothes before sheathing them.

  ‘There now,’ she said as they sagged against the walls of the alley in relief. ‘You see how it pays to be civil?’

  She bent and picked up Gunter’s cudgel, a sturdy length of oak with an iron band around the business end. She was tempted to snap it in half with her bare hands, just to give them one more scare, but tales of that sort of trick got back to the witch hunters. Instead she only handed it back to Gunter, then swung up onto her horse and rode in the direction of Mandredstrasse.

  Ulrika finger-combed her thatch of cropped white hair and tried to knock the dust off her mud-crusted travelling clothes as she waited for someone to answer the bell at the Chalice of Caronne. She wished she’d had time to change. The men she had seen coming out of the genteel townhouse’s front door and getting into their carriages had all been dressed in the finest court fashions, and all immaculately clean and turned out. She, on the other hand, looked like she had been sleeping in haystacks and graveyards, which, indeed, she had.

  The door swung open at last, and a voluptuous middle-aged woman with auburn hair piled upon her head smiled out at her. ‘Welcome to the Chalice of Caronne, gentle–’ Her smile vanished. ‘We only serve gentlemen here, madam,’ she said in a clipped Bretonnian accent. ‘And you are neither.’

  ‘I’m not here for that,’ said Ulrika. ‘I must speak to the madam of the house. It is urgent.’

  The woman started to close the door. ‘She is not at home. Goodbye.’

  Ulrika thrust her hand forwards and stopped the door from closing, though the woman pushed with all her strength. ‘Wait. You must listen to me. I am her–’

  The woman looked over her shoulder. ‘Hugel! Lemarne!’

  Through the gap in the door, Ulrika saw two sedately dressed mountains stepping out of the shadows and balling their firsts.

  ‘Lady, please!’ she said. ‘I am a relative. Er, blood kin. I seek she who was once called Countess Gabriella.’

  The woman paused at the name, then looked behind her as if consulting with someone. After a nod, she waved the guards back and opened the door. ‘Come in. Quickly.’

  Ulrika breathed a sigh of relief and slipped through into the opulent entry hall, taking off her cloak. ‘Thank you. My horse is in the street. Can you–?’

  She froze as she found a silvered dagger at her belly, held by a pale young beauty in a modest grey dress who had been hiding behind the door. She had black hair and green eyes – and no pulse. ‘Do not move, sister.’

  ‘What – what is this?’ asked Ulrika. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Madame has asked,’ said the auburn-haired woman, ‘that any of her “kin” who call be put under lock and key until she is free to speak to them. Please remove your swordbelt.’

  ‘But, I mean her no harm,’ said Ulrika. ‘She knows me. I am her–’

  ‘If you will come with me,’ said the green-eyed vampiress. ‘You will be given the opportunity to explain yourself.’

  Ulrika looked around at them all, judging her chances. She might be able to disarm the Lahmian, but the two huge guards had silver blades as well. She sighed and unbuckled her belt. She supposed, in the current climate, Gabriella’s caution was understandable. How was she to know who might try to walk through her door?

  ‘The countess is alive then?’ Ulrika asked. ‘Will you at least tell me that?’

  A knock came on the door as the auburn-haired woman took her rapier and dagger. She motioned urgently to the Lahmian while she placed the weapons in a cloak room and turned to the door. ‘Please, mistress, take her away. We have customers.’

  The beauty motioned Ulrika to a side door, and she went without protest, the behemoths following. Disrupting Gabriella’s business would not be a good first impression for a prodigal daughter to make.

  At the top of a dark stairwell, the Lahmian stopped at a door and made a hard-to-follow motion with her hand before turning the knob. It opened into a carpeted, sconce-lit hallway with doors on either wall. From the floors below, Ulrika could hear the muffled sounds of laughter, lovemaking and song, but here all was quiet as the grave. The girl led Ulrika around a corner to a door, unlocked it and held it open. Ulrika hesitated at the threshold, for though it looked like all the other doors, behind the wood panelling it had a core of iron plate.

  ‘So nice to be home,’ she sighed, then stepped through and let the Lahmian close it behind her.

  The room was small, windowless and warded. She could feel the power of the spells and see their shimmer in the corners of her eyes. It had a bed and a chair and that was all. No lamp, no candle, no water for washing. Ulrika didn’t mind the lack of light. She could see well enough without it, but it would have been nice to wash off the road grit.

  She threw her cloak and hat on the chair, then lay back on the bed and unbuttoned her doublet, preparing for a long wait, but as she propped the pillow behind her, she heard footsteps hurr
ying down the hall, and a familiar voice raised in anger.

  ‘Kislevite? And short hair? Foolish girl! You have locked up Madame du Vilmorin’s daughter! Let her out!’

  Ulrika sprang from the bed and stepped to the door. ‘Famke! I’m here!’

  There was a clicking of locks, and a murmuring of apologies, and then the door swung open and Famke was standing there, as slim and beautiful as ever, her honey-blonde hair like a half-parted golden veil, behind which peered her anxious blue eyes.

  ‘Ulrika! It is you!’

  They fell into each other’s arms and clasped tightly for the length of a minute while the dark-haired Lahmian looked on. At last they stepped back to look at one another, laughing and grinning. Famke was in the clothes she favoured in private, a Cathay robe of deep green and slippers to match, and though she looked no older than she ever would, there was a weariness and a worldliness in her eyes that Ulrika did not remember being there before.

  Of course, there were some changes in Ulrika as well.

  ‘Your hair!’ cried Famke, reaching for it. ‘It’s white! What happened?’

  ‘I… I don’t know – not exactly. I fell in a river. Though the memory…’ She chuckled. ‘That went with the colour of my hair.’

  Famke shivered and took her hand. ‘Sister, we feared you dead. I… I didn’t think you would ever come back.’

  Ulrika looked down, embarrassed. ‘I feared for you too. All the way from Kislev I have heard of sisters being killed and exposed. I thought sure I would find you and the countess–’

  ‘She lives,’ said Famke. ‘Fear not. Though you were right to worry. It has been terrible here. The Strigoi and the murders were just the beginning.’ She looked into Ulrika’s eyes. ‘There is war, with the Sylvanians.’

  Ulrika nodded. ‘I know. I fought one of their agents in Praag. I returned to warn you. I was told that Nuln would be the site of a “decapitating stroke”, and I feared that you and the countess and Lady Hermione–’

  ‘It isn’t us,’ said Famke. ‘We are not the target. At least not the primary target.’