by Nathan Long
Ulrika slowed as he aimed them, then sprinted for the back fence as he fired one over her head. As she leapt it and trotted for the rendezvous point, a coldness crept into her guts. The image of the barman’s body lying on the wooden floor while his head sizzled in the fire returned to her, and she found it hard to push it out.
She snarled and ran faster. Fool! How could she feel sorry for him? Would he have stayed his hand against Famke? Of course not. He was a savage like all the others. He deserved to die.
They rode back to von Messinghof’s camp as they had come, along narrow lanes and back ways, and avoiding towns and villages as much as possible. Captain Gaebler was bound and gagged and slung over the back of a pack horse, a blanket hiding him, and Ulrika and Otilia wore heavy cloaks that made them indistinguishable from Ruger’s rough troopers.
It was not a comfortable ride. The rain of the day before had been replaced by a thick, muggy heat, and Ulrika’s hunger had been enflamed in the frenzy of slaughter and burning at the inn. She began to scan the rutted lane they hurried along for a house or farm or lone traveller.
‘What are you sniffing after?’ asked Otilia after a while. ‘Are we followed?’
Ulrika shook her head. ‘I must feed.’
‘You can’t hunt here, fool,’ said Otilia. ‘We want no suspicions raised about Gaebler’s “death”. No tales of disappearances or chewed necks anywhere near that inn. There can be no connection.’ She turned and snapped her fingers. ‘Ruger. Stop and bare your neck.’
‘Aye, lady,’ said Ruger, reining up. The thought of being blooded was making the man shake with desire.
‘No,’ said Ulrika, revolted. When she had seen Ruger dealing with Klostermann he had looked as hard as nails. Now he was quivering like a virgin. It was disgusting. ‘Ride on. I do not drink from swains. I want prey.’
‘Then go hungry,’ said Otilia.
Ulrika grunted. ‘I shall.’
But after another hour she could stand it no more. The need was making her dizzy, and she kept looking at Ruger and his men and finding it hard to keep her fangs from extending. Finally, when she found she was bleeding because her claws had pierced her palms, she spurred her horse to the front of the line.
‘Ruger. Stop.’
The captain pulled up, licking his lips. ‘You wish my neck, lady?’
‘No, damn you,’ said Ulrika. ‘I want his.’
She pointed to Gaebler under his blanket.
‘Aye, lady.’
Ruger obediently began to get off his horse, but Otilia trotted up on her mare.
‘No. She must not.’ She glared at Ulrika. ‘The count may want him unharmed.’
‘He said nothing,’ snapped Ulrika.
‘Maybe he assumed we had some common sense.’
Ulrika glared at her for a long moment, then looked at the blanket that covered Gaebler. She couldn’t stop her trembling now. She couldn’t keep her fangs in.
‘Captain Ruger,’ she said at last. ‘Dismount and follow me.’
‘Aye, lady,’ said Ruger.
Otilia gave Ulrika a smug smile as she led the captain into the darkness beneath the trees at the roadside. Ulrika fought the urge to bound onto Otilia’s horse and tear her throat out. Did she think she was abandoning her principals? She had no choice here. It wouldn’t happen again.
‘Your neck, captain.’
‘Aye, lady.’
Ruger pulled off his morion helm and tucked the collar of his doublet down inside his breastplate, revealing his powerful neck. There were bite marks there, but old and faint. He hadn’t been bled often.
Ulrika stepped close to him and gripped his arms. He stiffened. There was shame in his eyes, and fear, but she could smell his arousal. Ulrika’s nausea returned. This is what Friedrich Holmann would have been had she bled him. Hard on the outside, but weak on the inside. It infuriated her. She wanted to–
She did.
She sank her fangs into his neck with an angry snap, and had to catch him as the pain buckled his knees. She crushed him to her as she drank, losing herself in the rich strength of his blood, in the strains of rage and grief and self-loathing that wove through it. They echoed and amplified her own rage and grief and loathing, and though they hurt her, she fed hungrily upon them, like a flagellant salting her own wounds.
‘Enough!’ barked Otilia. ‘He still has to ride.’
Ulrika returned to herself, unsure how long she had been feeding. She stopped with difficulty and let go of Ruger’s neck with her fangs, then set him on his feet. He swayed and stared at the ground as he pulled his collar up and settled his helm on his head.
Ulrika glared at him, then turned and started back towards her horse.
‘Thank you, lady.’
Ulrika spun back and slapped him. ‘Don’t thank me for that! Are you a sheep? Have you no–?’
She cut off as she realised she was making a fool of herself, then turned and stomped back to her horse. Ruger followed more slowly, weaving like a drunk, and mounted with great care.
‘Ride,’ said Otilia.
‘Yes, lady.’
As they followed him, Otilia glanced at Ulrika, her infuriating smile back on her lips. ‘You will not be with us long, I think.’
Ulrika curled her lip. ‘What do you mean? I want to tear out the throats of every last human in the Old World.’
‘Yet you will miss the one you seek.’
Ulrika gave her a sharp look. ‘My own, you mean? Aye, I blame myself. But…’ She cast a cold eye at the humans. ‘But not entirely.’
Otilia just smiled and rode on.
They returned to von Messinghof’s camp near dawn, and found it quiet with tension. The human troops went about their morning routines in hushed whispers, while their officers stood in tight knots, whispering to each other and shooting nervous glances towards the vampire glade.
‘What has happened?’ Otilia asked one of the spearmen at the gate.
He coughed, nervous. ‘You’d best hear it from the count, lady.’
Otilia paled and went through, and Ulrika followed, Captain Gaebler slung over her shoulder. Within the glade’s red cathedral the tension seemed even worse. Almost none of von Messinghof’s undead captains and champions were outside their tents, and those that were stood murmuring together just like their human counterparts and glancing at the general’s tent.
Otilia and Ulrika crossed to it with some trepidation, but before they reached it, the curtain opened and the white-robed figure of Emmanus stepped out, then looked back.
‘I will report this to the master,’ he said in his lifeless voice. ‘It is too big.’
‘Do what you must, nuncio,’ said von Messinghof’s voice from within. ‘But your assistance would be more welcome than your wagging finger.’
‘I am here to observe and report, lord,’ said Emmanus, ‘not help you find rabid dogs that have slipped their leashes.’
Emmanus bowed obsequiously, then turned and brushed by Ulrika and Otilia without a look, while inside, von Messinghof burst into a torrent of cursing.
Otilia swallowed and went in, and Ulrika followed, bending a little to get Gaebler’s body through the flap. Von Messinghof was pacing beside his map table, spitting invective, and did not look up as they entered.
‘Withered little eunuch! He is supposed to be my advisor, not my tattle-tale!’ He picked up a golden goblet and hurled it at his suit of armour, splashing blood everywhere as the breastplate rang like a gong. ‘The master does not need to know about every minor setback!’
Blutegel stepped out from the back and retrieved the goblet, then began wiping the blood from the filigreed breastplate. ‘My lord,’ he murmured politely, ‘Lady Otilia and Boyarina Ulrika have returned with their prize.’
Von Messinghof frowned, as if the words were in a foreign tongue, then spun to face
them.
‘You are back! Gods of Khemri, I thought I had lost you as well.’
Otilia curtseyed as Ulrika set Gaebler down by the map table. ‘Forgive me, lord count, but – but what has happened?’
Von Messinghof bared his teeth. ‘Kodrescu has betrayed me. That is what has happened. And Nuncio Emmanus goes to tell on me to Mannfred rather than coming to my aid, the neutered cur!’
Otilia’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Kodrescu betrayed you? So he has attacked Karl Franz after all?’
The count let out a weary sigh. ‘Nothing so foolish as that, praise fortune. At least not yet. No. He has done nothing against my orders, or so my spies have told me. He continues to march on the Monastery of the Black Rose. He makes plans to take it, and he prepares the road back.’
‘Then, how do you know–’
‘Because Morgenthau, his closest ally, has left the camp and taken his troops with him.’
Otilia stared. ‘You are certain?’
Von Messinghof nodded. ‘Under the ruse of clearing the forest of beasts in order to keep his men in fighting trim, he has marched north, and has not returned.’
‘It isn’t possible he has met some trouble?’ asked Ulrika.
The general shook his head. ‘I sent bats to seek him out when he did not return an hour before sunrise. They showed me that he has marched straight for the Altdorf road, and now camps only a few miles from it. He has suffered no casualties.’ He chewed his thumb again. ‘No, he is running to Kodrescu with a fifth of my strength. And worse–’ He glared towards the door of the tent. ‘The others are whispering. They are wondering if I can hold the army together. They are wondering if they should follow Morgenthau. If I don’t nip this here…’
Von Messinghof leaned over the map, glaring at it, then nudged a black knight an inch closer to the white knight that represented the Morrian monastery. ‘By dawn,’ he said, ‘Kodrescu should be here, still a few days away from the templars, while Morgenthau will be…’ He picked up a black rook and placed it an inch or so north of the camp. ‘Here, two days behind him. Will Kodrescu wait for him? Will he attack the monastery on his own?’ He pointed to the white king, still more than a week away from Nuln. ‘Will he pass it by and attack Karl Franz? Do they merely go against orders, or do they mean to usurp me entirely? I must know.’
Otilia straightened. ‘My lord, I would be honoured to discover these things for you.’
But when von Messinghof raised his head, he looked not at her, but at Ulrika. ‘Boyarina,’ he said, ‘I had hoped to season you yet a while before letting you out on your own, but it seems I haven’t the luxury. You will go to Kodrescu, and you will learn his plans.’
Ulrika blinked, surprised, but Otilia spoke first.
‘You can’t send her!’ she exploded. ‘She’s a babe! She can’t control herself! You don’t even know if she’s loyal! I–’
Von Messinghof raised a hand. ‘You are indeed more experienced in spycraft, beloved, and better know the players, but you are the wrong tool for the job.’
‘But–’
Von Messinghof talked over her interruption. ‘There will be no seductions here. Kodrescu has had the same lover for four hundred years, so your greatest powers are useless. If anyone can win his trust, it will be a fellow horse soldier – a noblewoman born in the saddle, who epitomises those things he values most: bravery and prowess. Besides, Otilia,’ he said, turning to the bound body of Captain Gaebler on the floor, ‘I need you in Nuln. You must deliver the boy’s note and finger to his father, and seduce him as well.’
Otilia still looked put out, but nodded. ‘Of course, general.’
‘And you may begin now,’ said von Messinghof. ‘Take the boy and get him to write the letter. Then take his finger. With your skill, I am sure he will quickly be begging you to be allowed to cut it off for you.’
Otilia smiled at the compliment, then crossed to Gaebler, and despite her small frame, bent and picked him up in her arms as if he were a child, then walked out of the tent with him.
‘Now, come,’ said von Messinghof, turning to Ulrika when she had gone. ‘We have only until sunset to prepare you for your journey.’
chapter seventeen
KODRESCU
Ulrika stared up at the massive bat-winged, bat-headed, tentacle-mouthed griffon with a mixture of excitement and unease. ‘You would give me this?’
‘Well, I’d like it back, but you may borrow it,’ said von Messinghof, patting the monster’s scaled, scrofulous flank. ‘You must reach Kodrescu as quickly as possible and return to me swiftly when you have learned his plans, and there is no swifter way. Besides, what would endear you to the traitor more than to hear that you stole my own mount when you decided to abandon me?’
‘But – but I have never held the reins before.’
‘It is little different from guiding a horse, only, pulling down and back commands it lower, while pulling up and back commands it higher. Do not fear. It is well trained to the bit.’
Ulrika tugged at the cinch straps that held the saddle in place, making sure they were secure and trying to get used to the beast’s appalling reek. The sun had just gone down over the camp and the sky was still red in the west. The general had spent the whole sleepless day telling Ulrika about Kodrescu and his lieutenants – their strengths and weaknesses as leaders and warriors, who she might be able to con into giving her answers, who it would be better to intimidate, and who it would be wise to avoid entirely. It had been so much that she wasn’t sure any of it had sunk in, and she was feeling less than confident, not so much about flying – she was actually looking forward to that – but the rest of it, the dishonourable deception.
‘Lord count, I only fear I will fail you. As I have said before, I am no spy. I am afraid that Kodrescu will see through me,’ she said. ‘I am afraid he will know you sent me after him.’
Von Messinghof nodded. ‘Then perhaps we should make it appear you fought your way out – tear your clothes, scruff them up, and–’ He shot her a look. ‘Are you willing to bleed for the cause?’
Ulrika hesitated. Cut herself as part of a deception? Again it hardly seemed a warrior’s part, and she wasn’t sure it would work. ‘I am willing, but surely Kodrescu knows as well as any vampire that a wound means nothing to our kind. A feeding or two and we are healed.’
Von Messinghof held her eye. ‘There are wounds that do not heal so quickly.’
Ulrika blinked. ‘You – you mean silver.’
‘I will not order you to do this,’ he said. ‘You may refuse.’
‘I – I…’ She swallowed. She had felt silver’s pain before. The merest scratch had nearly crippled her, and he was asking for more than that, she was sure. She should refuse. She should hate him for even suggesting it. On the other hand, why shouldn’t she take the pain? For failing to protect Famke she deserved that and more. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. ‘I will take it.’
Von Messinghof clasped her shoulders. ‘You are brave, boyarina. A braver soldier than I deserve.’ He looked in her eyes for a long moment, a soft, sad expression on his face, then turned away abruptly. ‘Come, I have a silvered blade in my tent.’
Ulrika soared above the world, the wind in her face and the two moons making a sea-foam froth of the ocean of green trees below her, but she could not enjoy it – could hardly acknowledge it existed. The pain in her thigh and on her arms and face was too great. The general had apparently admired her bravery too much, for he had not spared her in the slightest.
They had fought in the vampire glade, rapier and dagger against sword and silver knife, so that the wounds would look taken in battle, and he had not pulled his blows. There were cuts from his sword across her legs and chest, and a black bruise from where he had kicked her in the ribs, but the worst were the cuts made by the little knife – a cut just below her hip, another on her right arm, and mos
t terrible of all, a slice from temple to cheek not an inch from her left eye.
A wound to the face, he had said, would be proof, for the scar might never fade. No vampire would willingly allow herself to be cut in such a way, and he was right. If he had asked, she would have said no, but he hadn’t asked, and cut high when she had been expecting him to score her arm again.
She hunched over the winged horror’s broad back, shaking with sickness and pain as the wind stung the wound. The general was playing a dangerous game. Such a trick could turn her against him in truth, and indeed, she almost wanted to betray him out of revenge for the agony. If Kodrescu offered her a fighting position instead of all this damned skulking, she just might take it.
She rode on, staring dully at the forest as it scrolled by endlessly below her. She was glad the winged horror needed little guidance. She was too sick to give it. Her biggest fear was that she would faint from the pain and miss Kodrescu’s camp. Von Messinghof had told her roughly where to look, but in truth he had no more idea than she did where he might actually be. Last night his bats had shown that he was continuing towards the Monastery of the Black Rose, but if he had changed direction tonight, she might search a long time before she found him. Indeed, she might not find him before dawn, in which case she would have to find a place to wait out the day.
Hours later, she saw Mannslieb’s silver glint in the broad curve of the Reik far to the west, and began to angle north. Kodrescu should be marching under the cover of the woods along a course that paralleled the river road. The question was how to find him. From her years in her father’s rota, she knew that moving cavalry through dense forest was a nightmare. If the vampire wanted to make any time at all he would have to find a path of some kind, no matter how narrow or faint. She searched for grooves or gaps in the canopy of trees, looking for one that went vaguely north. There were more than a few, though most turned or vanished or trailed off to nothing. Eventually, however, she found a promising track, overgrown but deeply rutted, that wandered on without ceasing, always within a few miles of the river road.
