by Nathan Long
Ulrika snatched another stake from Top-Knot’s bandoleer and sprang. The big woman spun, laughing, and batted Ulrika out of the air with the ghoul leg, sending her crashing into a tree trunk. Ulrika sagged to the base of the tree, groaning. The ribs she had bruised dropping onto the branch felt broken now, and her head rang like a bell.
The ground shook. Yusila was closing in, her bulk eclipsing the whole forest.
‘Your blood is strong, traitor,’ she said, reaching for Ulrika. ‘I want it for my own.’
Ulrika tried to roll away, but Yusila tore her stake from her hands and raised her to her gaping mouth. Ulrika dug her heels into Yusila’s belly, trying to hold herself away, but the behemoth’s strength was inexorable and her skin slick with rain.
‘Now, now, girl,’ she said. ‘It’ll all be over in a–’
Ulrika kicked her in the teeth, snapping a fang, and Yusila flung her away.
‘Little bitch!’ she roared, stomping towards where Ulrika had landed in a heap. ‘I would have done it gently. Now I’ll tear your arms off first.’
Ulrika dived for her rapier, lying a few yards away, and came up on guard, her legs wobbling.
Yusila laughed and came on. ‘You think that will serve you any better this time?’
Ulrika dodged left, slashing at Yusila’s arms as they reached for her, then tried to dart behind her back, where her long wooden spear still hung, but she was too hurt, and Yusila too fast. The behemoth turned with her, the wounds in her arms already healing.
She chuckled. ‘You are broken, traitor, and I am whole. My wounds heal. Yours do not–’
Ulrika feinted right, then darted straight in, thrusting high. Yusila swiped at the rapier, but in point-work at least, Ulrika was faster. She raised the blade over Yusila’s hands and jammed it between her fat lips.
Yusila roared as the blade burst from the back of her neck, and staggered away from Ulrika, reaching up to try to pull out the rapier.
Ulrika stumbled behind her and tore her wooden spear from her back. Yusila whipped around, but too late. Ulrika sprang and thrust. The fire-hardened point sank into Yusila’s belly and she screamed and stiffened. Ulrika leaned on the spear, driving it in deeper, then rode Yusila down as she toppled onto her back and lay gasping and transfixed on the forest floor.
The wood had not pierced Yusila’s heart, and so she still lived, but as Ulrika knew from experience, the pain would be paralysing. She rolled off Yusila’s bloated belly and stepped to her head, then wrenched her rapier from her mouth. Yusila’s wounds did not seem to be healing now, and a gush of blood erupted from her mouth.
Ulrika raised her sword high. ‘It will take the rest of your life for me to cut through your neck.’
‘You can’t do this,’ gargled Yusila as rain pelted her face. ‘I can’t die. I am Yusila the Immortal! I have lived for a thousand years! I–’
‘A thousand years too long,’ said Ulrika, and chopped down with her rapier.
It would have been fitting and dramatic if she had severed Yusila’s neck in one blow after such a statement, but it took another three strikes before the Lahmian’s head separated from her heavy shoulders and rolled so that her blind eyes stared up past Ulrika into the trees.
Ulrika sagged to her knees in the muddy mulch as a thousand years caught up with Yusila’s headless corpse and it began to collapse into gelid decay. She felt nearly as battered as when she had fought Murnau, but at least it was over and she had not died or called for help. She could hold her head high when she returned to–
A movement in the trees to her right brought her head up. Was it Rukke? No. He was to the left. Then who? Another glimpse as the figure passed between two trees revealed a woman’s shape – and no heart-fire. Another Lahmian! The initiation wasn’t over.
Ulrika pushed herself up, groaning, then ran after her, as silent as she could. She was not silent enough, however, for as she closed, she heard the woman curse and pick up speed. Ulrika’s blood, already roused by slaughter, coursed at the sounds of flight. She snarled and surged ahead, darting around trees and bounding over fallen logs.
The woman stumbled and Ulrika closed the distance, then sprang and hit her between the shoulder blades. They went down in a flooded ditch and Ulrika flipped her over, pinning her arms beneath her knees and clamping her off hand around the woman’s throat as she raised her rapier.
‘Sorry, sister,’ she said. ‘You will not return to your–’
Ulrika froze as she recognised the face that snarled up at her. Though the hair was loose, and years had fallen from her fine-boned face, there was no mistaking the cold, haughty eyes. She had her hands around the neck of Lady Hermione’s treacherous housekeeper, Otilia Krohner, the woman who had betrayed Hermione, Gabriella and Famke to the murderous Murnau, as well as Meinhart Schenk and his witch hunters.
chapter fifteen
BLOOD RELATIONS
‘Turncoat shrew!’ hissed Ulrika, crushing Otilia’s neck. ‘I’ve dreamed of this day. I’ll tear you to–’
The thud of running boots brought her head up. More Lahmians? She would have to kill Otilia quicker than she wanted to.
Rukke burst from the trees, eyes wide, as she raised her rapier again.
‘Stop, fool! That is von Messinghof’s lover!’
Ulrika blinked at him, then looked again at Otilia as the world changed shape behind her eyes. She had been so thrilled to finally have the traitorous housekeeper at her mercy that she hadn’t even thought to consider what she was doing here. Of course Otilia wouldn’t have been with the Lahmians. Not after she had betrayed them. And of course she would be allied with von Messinghof. He had been the secret hand behind Murnau’s attacks, and she had been his spy. Ulrika remembered now how Otilia had railed at Hermione for not giving her the dark kiss, and how she had said that her master had promised it to her in exchange for betraying the Lahmians. And he had fulfilled his promise, it seemed, for here she was, youthful, beautiful and without a beating heart.
Otilia reached up out of the muddy water and removed Ulrika’s hand from her throat with a fastidious finger and thumb. ‘You have turned the same coat as I, stray,’ she said. ‘Will you tear your own throat out as well?’
Ulrika pushed up off her and stood, rage and confusion making it hard to speak. ‘I… I did not turn against the Lahmians until they turned against me!’
Otilia rose and scraped mud from her skirts. ‘Nor did I. I would have been loyal unto death had Hermione dealt honestly with me, but she did not.’
‘It’s not the same!’
‘In what way?’ asked Otilia, as cool as she had always been.
Ulrika opened her mouth, but then paused, trying to think. Before she could form a response however, Rukke stepped in.
‘Leave off, both of you. We are to return to the count.’
It was a long, silent walk back to the camp.
‘And your conclusion?’ von Messinghof asked.
Otilia shot a cold glance at Ulrika. They were standing, dripping, before him in his tent with Rukke off to one side and Blutegel, the count’s servant, brushing a coat in the background. The count sat at his desk, a book closed over a placeholding finger. He was dressed in a dark robe and Cathay slippers.
‘It was not a conclusive test,’ said Otilia. ‘She faced no one she knew or cared for. Had she fought Countess Gabriella or Lady Hermione–’
‘How did she fight against these?’ asked von Messinghof.
Otilia looked reluctant, but spoke at last. ‘She fought without hesitation or mercy, and did not give up when the odds were against her.’
‘Sound tactics too,’ said Rukke, then grinned. ‘And she spotted Lady Otilia when she was trying to hide.’
‘I was not trying to hide. I–’
Von Messinghof held up his hand. ‘She has proven herself to my satisfaction. You may go. Both of you.
I will speak to her alone.’
Rukke saluted and departed, but Otilia hesitated, apparently surprised to be dismissed. She set her jaw, then curtseyed and stalked out.
Von Messinghof smirked. ‘I anticipated some friction there. You were surprised to see her?’
‘I – I shouldn’t have been,’ said Ulrika, remaining at attention. ‘But, yes.’
‘She is loyal and cunning and brave in her fashion, and I will make her my queen. But she is not suited to every task. Nor are my other officers.’ He waved a hand to indicate the tents beyond his canvas walls. ‘Great warriors and necromancers, every one, and with the pride and intelligence that will make them strong leaders when our master has conquered the Empire. But they have been too long in dark castles and ancient crypts. They no longer think like the living. They can no longer walk among them. You can.’
‘I don’t want to walk among the living!’ said Ulrika. ‘I despise them.’
Von Messinghof nodded. ‘If you didn’t you would be useless to me. But that is what makes you unique. You hate them, yet you are still of them. Even Otilia, who is more recently turned than you, lived cloistered with the Lahmians for too long to be comfortable in the outside world. Not you. You can go where the others can’t, and talk to humans who would run screaming to the witch hunters if my older companions were to speak to them. At the same time, because you are of the blood, you will not be subject to the jealousies that blood-swains are so often subject to.’
‘I am glad to be thought more useful than a blood-besotted dog,’ said Ulrika, very stiff. ‘Thank you.’
The count chuckled. ‘I originally thought to have you return to the Lahmians, so that you might pass me your mistress’s secrets. You could have replaced the spy you exposed.’
Ulrika looked up. ‘Mistress Ludwina was caught?’
‘And killed,’ said von Messinghof. ‘Your letter did its work well. Fortunately, I was careful to tell her almost nothing, so they got little out of her before they poured molten silver down her throat.’
‘How do you know this? They wouldn’t have–’
‘Another spy. One of several.’ He shrugged. ‘And they will have to be enough, for you would no longer be any use to me there. The sisters would kill you if you tried to return. Instead you will be my spy in the world of the living.’
Ulrika stiffened. ‘Lord count,’ she said, keeping her voice calm with difficulty, ‘you offered me vengeance when I came to you, against men. You offered me battle. I do not care for this sort of work. I want to fight. I want to ride men down and set fire to their cities, not skulk among them and slit their throats one by one.’
Von Messinghof looked at her for a long moment, as if weighing a decision. ‘It occurs to me,’ he said at last, ‘that I have not told you the full scope of our plans.’
‘A Sylvanian named Stefan von Kohln told me you planned to found an empire,’ said Ulrika. ‘That you would conquer all the Old World.’
‘The Old World is but a beginning,’ said the count. ‘My master is not content to rule only the dominions of men. Once Sylvania supplants Karl Franz’s Empire, it will become a target, and we must therefore quash those who would strike it, and whose blood is useless to us – the asur, the druchii, the dwarfs, the greenskins, the hordes of Chaos. When the time comes, your sword will never rest. We will not stop until the whole world is ours.’
Ulrika thrilled at a vision of never-ending battle, but something else the count had said jarred her.
‘Your master,’ she said. ‘You have said that before. So, you are not the future Emperor?’
Von Messinghof laughed. ‘If I am lucky, I might be given a city or a province to rule. No, I am merely the herald for one greater than myself. I serve the strongest and most noble of the lords of night, Mannfred von Carstein.’
Ulrika blinked, thinking that he mocked her. She knew of Mannfred von Carstein. She had heard of his reign of terror before she died, and read more of it since. Mannfred was the von Carstein who had led his army of fiends against the Empire during the time of the civil wars and nearly conquered it. He had reached the walls of Altdorf and the flanks of Middenheim, and was only driven back when the feuding provinces had united against him.
‘But – but Mannfred is dead,’ she said. ‘He was defeated at Hel Fenn three hundred years ago. Even vampire historians agree on that.’
‘Oh yes,’ said von Messinghof, smiling like a satisfied cat. ‘Mannfred is dead. There is no doubt about that. But death is not so fixed a thing when one is a von Carstein. He sleeps beneath the earth, dreaming of his return, while we, his servants, strive to make his dreams reality. When the way is finally prepared, he will wake, and his army will be waiting for him.’
Ulrika stared. He was not mocking her. Mannfred von Carstein would rise again! For a moment, her human instincts overcame her, and she felt the urge to go warn someone, to tell the Empire to defend itself, to send word to Kislev to prepare for invasion from the south. The most ancient and evil of man’s enemies was returning from the grave to drown them all in an ocean of blood.
But then, as if suddenly seeing the trick in an optical illusion, her perspective flipped, and her bloodlust began to rise. Von Messinghof’s war was not just some mad scheme by a few ambitious Sylvanian counts. It wasn’t just a pack of fiends hiding in the woods north of Nuln. It was what Stefan von Kohln had promised – the utter domination of mankind, and she was to be a part of it! The most ancient and evil of mankind’s enemies was returning from the grave to drown them all in an ocean of blood, and Ulrika would be riding in his train! She would never stop killing. Mankind would never stop paying. Her vengeance would be glorious.
Von Messinghof smiled. ‘You see it now, yes? You see what is being offered to you?’
‘I see it,’ said Ulrika. ‘And it is more than I could have hoped for.’
‘I am pleased to hear it,’ said the count. ‘But there is much groundwork to be laid before the dream can be realised, and it may require you to skulk and slit throats and walk among men before you are allowed to fight. Are you willing? Are you willing to do whatever needs doing to bring about our victory?’
Ulrika paused, chagrined. She had been selfish, saying she only wanted battle. She had been acting as if von Messinghof’s war had been staged solely for her benefit.
She nodded. ‘I am willing.’
‘Very good,’ he said, his voice suddenly harder, ‘for I can have no disobedience. Nor will I argue my orders with you. If you are with me, then you are with me completely, and will follow me without question. If you are not, then you die here and now, for you are too dangerous to live.’
Ulrika looked up and found his eyes burning into her. She swallowed. The cold monster that he usually hid beneath a veneer of charm had revealed itself entirely. It was terrifying.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Will you be a spy if I say you are a spy? Will you be a soldier or scribe or wagon master if I command it? Will you dig ditches?’
It took an act of will to return that soulless gaze, but Ulrika did it. She would not show fear. ‘I am a soldier born,’ she said, ‘and will disobey no order once my pledge is given.’
‘And do you give it?’
‘I do, lord. I am yours to command.’
Von Messinghof broke eye contact and the mask fell back into place again. ‘Excellent. I promise you won’t regret it. This war will give us both what we desire. Now, we must discuss your first assignment.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Blutegel! Find Lady Otilia and ask her to return. She will have a role in this as well.’
The old steward emerged from the shadows and bowed, then stepped out of the tent.
Ulrika stifled a protest. She had just promised to obey von Messinghof in all things, but… ‘Ah, Otilia and I will be working together?’
The count raised an eyebrow. ‘For eternity,’ he said. ‘So it is wise that you grow
accustomed to each other now.’
Ulrika clenched her jaw. She had no real reason to dislike Otilia. Indeed, their mutual hatred of the Lahmians should have made them friends, but she couldn’t help it. Well, she would have to. In any company, there was always someone one was at odds with. A good soldier ignored them and did her duty.
Otilia glided through the tent flap and stepped before von Messinghof as if Ulrika wasn’t there. ‘Yes, lord count?’
Ulrika ground her teeth. Being a good soldier was not going to be easy.
Von Messinghof beckoned them to the map table. ‘To keep spies from betraying us, I have told only my blooded officers where I plan to strike the Emperor.’ He pointed to a dot on the map that appeared to be roughly a day’s ride north of Nuln. ‘The manor of Lord von Arschel, where Karl Franz will spend his last night before riding into Nuln the next day. I intend to make it his last night on earth. But–’ He looked up at them, his face growing grave. ‘But what I tell you now I have told not even my officers.’
Ulrika swallowed. Did he really trust her so much? It didn’t seem smart.
‘It is possible,’ he continued, ‘that we may fail to defeat Karl Franz at Arschel, and he may make it to the safety of Nuln. We must therefore provide for this contingency.’ He moved his finger to Nuln. ‘There is a doctor there, Countess Emmanuelle’s personal physician, Doktor Gaebler. A man above suspicion. As you know – or perhaps you didn’t, boyarina,’ he said glancing at Ulrika, ‘we succeeded in infecting the Emperor with a wasting sickness in Altdorf. A pox.’
‘The Lahmians told me,’ said Ulrika. ‘Yes.’
‘It won’t kill him,’ continued von Messinghof. ‘We want him to die in battle, and we want the world to think it was Lahmia who killed him. Failing that, however, he must die regardless, and Doktor Gaebler will be our hidden blade.’
He smiled. ‘The Emperor’s physicians and magisters have been unable to cure the disease, but Herr Doktor Gaebler will know the remedy, and as he is Countess Emmanuelle’s personal physician, he will be allowed to see the Emperor, and when he does, he will poison him.’
