Bloodsworn

by Nathan Long

  Ulrika inclined her head. ‘All I have wanted since my return to Nuln is to fight. I am ready.’

  The Sylvanian held out a black-gloved hand. It was dripping with rain. ‘Then welcome to your true family, Ulrika Magdova Straghov. You are home at last.’

  Ulrika shook it. ‘Thank you, my – uh…’

  He clicked his heels together and bowed in cavalry fashion. ‘Count Grigor von Messinghof, ruler of the Verbogenwald and leader of the vanguard of Sylvania Arisen.’

  ‘Lord count,’ said Ulrika, bowing in return. It felt good to bow again instead of curtsey.

  ‘Come, boyarina,’ said von Messinghof, and started up to the roofline again. ‘You wanted to find my encampment. I will take you there.’

  Ulrika hesitated, bemused. ‘General, the city gate is that way.’

  He smiled down at her. ‘There are more ways out of the city than the gates, boyarina.’ And with that he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, so high that Ulrika doubted she would have heard it without her unnatural hearing.

  The sound of heavy wings boomed above her and for a moment the rain stopped. Ulrika ducked, then stared as a monster from nightmare circled down towards the roof, a rotting horror with the flat-nosed head and leathery wings of a giant bat, but the powerful, leonine body and eagle-talon foreclaws of a griffon.

  That it resembled so noble a beast made its obvious corruption somehow more revolting. Scales like cracked yellow fingernails covered its body in place of fur, though patches of them had fallen out, revealing shrivelled grey chicken-skin beneath, while a thick mane of matted dreadlocks drooped around its head like a fringed hood, and its wide, inverted bat mouth was choked with dangling, suckered tentacles that made it look like it was half-way through eating a squid.

  At first Ulrika thought that the bat head and wings were mutations, but as it landed beside von Messinghof, she saw that they had been stitched on to the griffon with thick cord, and that the joins were seeping black ichor. The smell of the beast close up made Ulrika’s eyes burn. It stank like a sewer full of dead snakes, and the dead, empty eyes that looked out at her from under its dripping locks sent a shiver down her spine.

  The general patted the monster’s scale-armoured shoulder, then pulled himself up into a complicated saddle that was perched upon its neck so that it wouldn’t interfere with the movement of its wings. He held down a hand to Ulrika. She hesitated.

  ‘Come,’ said von Messinghof. ‘It won’t hurt you.’

  ‘I am more concerned that it might fall apart.’

  The general laughed, a rich rolling sound. ‘You needn’t fear for that. My necromancy is strong. It is not as broken as it looks.’

  Ulrika was still less than confident, but took his hand and let him pull her up behind him.

  ‘Hold tight,’ he said, then spurred the beast in the neck. It bunched itself under them, then bounded to the roof end and sprang into the air, beating its wings in powerful sweeps.

  Ulrika’s stomach plunged into her guts as the roof edge vanished and the ground dropped away below them. She had flown before, upon Malakai Makaisson’s airship, but this was an entirely different experience. There she had been encased in an iron and brass gondola, and had felt strangely disconnected from the distant ground sweeping by below its portholes, almost as if it had been a painting of the landscape. Here, with the rain lashing her face, and the muscles of the undead bat-griffon-thing straining and flexing beneath her, and nothing to keep her from falling but her arms around von Messinghof’s waist, there was no disconnection at all. She was surrounded by the world, naked to it, and unnervingly aware of how high up and how fragile she was.

  It was terrifying, and at the same time as exhilarating as anything she had ever done. She had thought that nothing in the world could compare with the joy and freedom of riding a horse at full gallop, but this might beat it. The beast could swoop and bank, rise and fall, cross any terrain at dizzying speeds. No wall could block its way. No river could slow it down. With a steed like this Ulrika might go anywhere – across the seas, to the tops of the mountains, behind enemy lines, to Praag and Altdorf and every place she had ever wanted to go.

  She looked down again, and saw the walls of Nuln passing beneath them, as well as the soldiers and cannons, wet and gleaming under the torches, and a prickle of unease disturbed her rain-whipped excitement.

  ‘Won’t we be seen?’ she asked.

  Von Messinghof smiled slyly over his shoulder. ‘No one sees what I do not wish them to see. I was chosen to lead this army because I know how to hide things. I can hide my face, my spies, my true nature, a thousand men in the heart of the enemy’s lands. Hiding a winged beast and its riders is not so difficult. They won’t even hear us.’

  And with that he turned the beast and sent it into a dive, so that it swooped over the heads of the soldiers on the walls. They didn’t look up, even when the wind of its passage ruffled their hair, and von Messinghof spurred away again, laughing, towards the endless dark line of the Stirwood, far to the north beyond the pale patchwork of Nuln’s cultivated fields.

  Later, after they had flown over the dense steaming carpet of the forest for so long that Ulrika could not see its edges in any direction, von Messinghof pulled on the reins of the winged horror and it began to descend in slow spirals. There was no break or clearing that Ulrika could see, and she feared they were going to crash into the tops of the trees, but as they dropped closer to them, she saw that some were like the ghosts of trees, gauzy mirages through which she could just make out rows of tents and campfires.

  Ulrika’s head spun as they dropped through the illusory canopy, then all became clear, and she could see and hear and smell the camp below them, a small city of tents, exercise grounds, corrals, smithies, kitchens and wagons that filled the hidden clearing and extended under the trees on all sides. Her chest tightened with emotion as the sights and smells overwhelmed her – the steady clang of the blacksmith’s hammer, the cosy stink of horse and hay and piss, the sight of soldiers hunched around their fires in the rain, cleaning their tack and weapons. After so long in Lahmian society, where all was perfumes and velvets and stuffy parlour air, this was paradise. She had grown up in camps like these, following her father on long patrols to Black Blood Pass or into the Troll Country to put down raiding marauders. She had slept in such tents, and woken to the bugle and the call to action. She had eaten by such fires, and shared jokes with such men. This was home to her, and she nearly wept to know that she was returning to it.

  A handful of men came out to meet them as von Messinghof set the winged beast down in the exercise ground and swung down out of the saddle. He offered her a hand down, but she disdained it, and hopped to the ground on her own. She knew how to dismount, no matter what the steed.

  ‘Welcome back, lord,’ said an old man in the sober robes of a steward – and he was a man indeed, for Ulrika heard his heart. ‘I am pleased to see you safely–’

  A leather-clad blond vampire with hideous scars on his face stepped in front of the man, cutting him off. ‘More Lahmian patrols, lord count,’ he said. ‘And they have a crone with them that can see through your shadows.’

  ‘You should not have stayed so long away,’ intoned a wraith-thin figure in a hooded white robe who hunched under an umbrella. Though Ulrika couldn’t see its face, it had no heart-fire. A vampire, then, though its voice gave no clue as to its sex. ‘Things here require your urgent attention. Kodrescu is threatening–’

  ‘Lord,’ said another vampire, this one tall and thin and imperious, with a fall of silver hair lank in the rain. ‘The honour you give Kodrescu should be mine. I am loyal where he is wilful.’

  A heavy-browed human sergeant in the breastplate and boots of a lancer stepped forwards with a dented sallet helmet under his arm. ‘Lord, that feed y’brought from Nuln was rotten through. If y’don’t find us some decent fodder my horses are gonna–’<
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  Von Messinghof stopped them all with a raised hand, then turned his back on them to speak to Ulrika. ‘Boyarina, forgive these clods their discourtesy. An army at war has little time for politesse, but I will make time.’ He bowed to her. ‘Welcome to my camp. It is an honour to have you here. May I introduce my advisor, Emmanus.’

  The white-hooded figure gave Ulrika a dismissive nod, and looked about to speak again, but von Messinghof turned to the silver-haired vampire. ‘Lord Lassarian, one of my ablest generals.’

  The general gave Ulrika an appraising look as she inclined her head, and von Messinghof moved on to the dignified older man and the scarred blond vampire.

  ‘And these are Blutegel, my steward, and Rukke, my… my captain of the guard.’

  The steward bowed politely, while Rukke just glared at Ulrika with undisguised impatience.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ von Messinghof concluded, indicating Ulrika with a sweep of his hand. She noticed that he had neglected to introduce the human lance sergeant. ‘May I introduce Ulrika Magdova Straghov, late of Kislev and the cloisters of Lahmia, at last restored to her rightful heritage, a daughter of Sylvania.’

  Ulrika felt their eyes upon her, weighing her, as they bowed again and muttered curt welcomes. She bristled under the cold scrutiny, but tried not to show her discomfort. It would be seen as weakness. She bowed in return, stiff and precise.

  ‘Now,’ said Von Messinghof, turning back to her. ‘If you wish to accompany me, we will discover how best to use your talents. Or if you would rather rest, I will have quarters found for you.’

  Ulrika bowed again. She could not admit weariness either. She must be perfect from the start. ‘Thank you, my lord. I will come with you.’

  ‘This way, then.’

  Von Messinghof turned towards the north edge of the clearing with his cloud of petitioners trailing after him, and started for a gap between two massive oaks. The gap had been fitted with an arched gate of twisting wrought iron, like the entrance to a Garden of Morr. Spearmen in grey and black livery flanked it, and grey banners hung from the branches above. Upon each was a simple insignia – a pair of red daggers crossed over a crenellated tower.

  The spearmen hauled open the gates and von Messinghof strode through with Ulrika at his side. The older man and the vampires followed them through, but the spearmen crossed their weapons in front of the grizzled lance sergeant and would not let him pass.

  ‘We’ll be no good to you on dead horses, my lord,’ he called as von Messinghof walked on.

  Von Messinghof ignored him and continued down a narrow corridor of overarching trees that hid the sky until they entered another open space. Ulrika stared as she stepped into it, for she had never seen the like. It too was a camp, but not like any she had ever been in before – certainly not like the honest, human bivouac in the clearing behind her. In the space of twenty paces she had entered another world.

  Though trees had been removed to make a spacious glade, it was not open to the sky. Enough remained so that their branches still closed overhead, and to further ensure than no light reached the ground, an overlapping mosaic of blood-red draperies had been stretched between them, making a multilayered roof, on which the rain boomed like surf. Red-flamed iron lanterns hung on long chains from the branches, and their pulsing flicker beating against the roof silks made Ulrika feel like she was inside a giant heart.

  Under this crimson canopy were a number of elaborate tents, each fashioned like a knight’s pavilion in the grandest chivalric style, with high, conical peaks and decorative trim and heraldic banners upon pikes stuck into the ground beside their curtained entrances. But where the tents of chivalry were every colour of the rainbow, here they were all red or rust, with trim of gold or black or violet. Suits of black filigreed plate were displayed under their banners, and finely wrought furniture of ebony and ormolu were arranged before them – chairs, tables and weird constructions of gears and chains and shackles that Ulrika didn’t care to guess the use of.

  As strange as the clearing was, however, Ulrika found its occupants stranger. She saw a knight as tall and fine-boned as an elf, but with cold white skin and the white-blue eyes of a snow-wolf. A human boy, beautiful as a girl, combed the vampire’s blood-red hair as he lounged in a chair, while another boy manicured his nails, and a third polished his red lacquered armour. A female vampire, beautiful and dark, but with the ears of a bat, fed upon a half-conscious man who was slumped in her arms. Her servants were carrying away another, bled white and apparently dead. Three male vampires in rich robes stood around a young girl who had been hung upside down from a branch with a catheter inserted in her artery. They unpinched the tube and filled wine glasses with her blood, drinking as they talked. A far corner held an iron cage, filled with more young men and women, all naked and terrified.

  Ulrika swallowed. ‘Is this why you don’t let in your human troops?’

  ‘Aye,’ said von Messinghof. ‘Even among the most loyal, few care to see us at our leisure. Do you find it shocking?’

  ‘It… it is not what I am used to.’

  He smiled. ‘You will get used to it. It takes some time to accept that you can do exactly as you please. Here. This is mine.’

  He stepped to a large grey tent with black trim and held open the curtain. Ulrika ducked through and he followed, with Blutegel the steward, and the two vampires behind. The interior was not as lush or unsettling as Ulrika expected. There was no inlaid furniture or crystal chandeliers or tapestry hangings, nor were there any children in cages or strangely constructed beds. To her relief the tent looked like a soldier’s tent, with a plain desk and camp chairs, weapon and armour racks, a wardrobe and a shelf full of books and papers to one side, and a map pinned to a large table in the middle. The only nod to von Messinghof’s true nature was the sturdy oak coffin that Ulrika could see through a door to a second room behind the first. For a brief second she thought she saw movement back there, but then a closer motion drew her eyes.

  A vampire knight was rising from a chair by the map table. He was taller than von Messinghof, and more powerfully built, with a proud, cruel face and eyes like flame-lit onyx. He was dressed in blackened steel armour, as simple and perfect as a knife blade, and wore a mantled cape of red and white that draped to the ground. A sword with a red jewel for a pommel hung at his side, and even sheathed, the thing had the presence of a wild animal stalking loose in the tent.

  ‘Lord count,’ said the knight in a cold, controlled voice. ‘Your absence once again delays my going.’

  Von Messinghof crossed to his wardrobe and took off his cloak and swordbelt without looking at the knight. ‘Nonsense, Kodrescu. My absence should not have kept you. My orders were clear.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the knight. ‘But they were wrong.’

  The others tensed, and Von Messinghof turned, fixing Kodrescu with a hard stare. ‘Wrong?’

  The knight drew himself up. ‘I am your best commander, the greatest blade in your army, and you have me skulking through the woods to attack a monastery and a town of peasants to raise their dead? We have no need of more troops, lord general. We have no need of further delay. Let me strike Karl Franz’s train with four hundred Blood Knights and challenge him to single combat. Your goal will be accomplished and you will be able to start the invasion in earnest.’

  Von Messinghof smiled thinly. ‘You have no shortage of bravery, Kodrescu, I give you that. And if you were to succeed, then the ground would indeed be prepared, but if you were to fail–’

  ‘I will not fail!’ barked the knight.

  ‘If you were to fail,’ said von Messinghof, patiently, ‘then all would be lost. The alarm would be raised and the borders closed against our main force. We must only strike when the outcome is certain, and we will make it certain by gradually weakening the Emperor’s forces and adding to our own while we wait for him to walk into our trap.’

  He cr
ossed to the large map on the table and looked down at it. Chess pieces were set upon it at various places. He pointed to the white king, which stood on the river road midway between Altdorf and Nuln. ‘Karl Franz is here with his Reiksguard and many other troops. He stops the night at every noble house along the way, to assure them of the stability of his rule and to take a tithe of their men to add to his army.’ He shrugged. ‘State troops and household knights don’t concern me, but–’ He swept his finger south along the river to where a white knight stood in the woods. ‘This is the Monastery of the Black Rose, a chapterhouse for the training of the Black Guard of Morr. It is imperative that they not be allowed to join Karl Franz’s–’

  ‘I know all this,’ snapped Kodrescu.

  ‘Do you?’ asked von Messinghof. ‘And yet you believe that I was wrong to order you to destroy them and raise their dead and bring them back to me?’

  ‘My way is better,’ said the knight.

  The others in the room tensed again, but von Messinghof showed no anger. He only smiled. ‘Swifter, yes. Braver too, and with more opportunities for glory, but I am not after glory. I am after victory. If you do not share this goal with me, then I will accept your resignation here and now and you may go your way. But if you do want victory for our kind, then you will accept my authority and follow my orders to the letter. Am I clear, general?’

  Kodrescu raised his chin, defiant, and held the count’s eye, then bowed. ‘Very clear, lord count. I will follow your orders – to the letter.’

  And with that he turned on his heel and strode out of the tent. Von Messinghof stared after him, his face set and grim, until Lassarian, the silver-haired knight, stepped forwards.

  ‘You see, lord? Let me go in his place.’

  ‘He defies you to your face,’ said the advisor, Emmanus, from somewhere within his white robes. ‘He must be punished.’