Bloodsworn

by Nathan Long

  A gap appeared between the lockplate and the door frame, and she could see the tang of the deadbolt bending. She braced her foot on the frame and pulled harder, clenching her teeth so hard they creaked.

  With a tortured screech, the deadbolt sheered clean, and the door flew open, sending her flying back onto her posterior. She rolled to her feet then picked up Schenk’s dagger and stalked through the door, straight to Stahleker. She slapped his face.

  ‘None of that from you,’ she growled. ‘It doesn’t suit you.’

  Stahleker nodded and rubbed his reddening cheek. ‘Aye, captain,’ he said, then shook his head, bemused. ‘Quite a feeling, though. Quite a feeling.’

  ‘Well ignore it! Pull yourself together. You’re an Ostermark man, not some soft southern skirt-sniffer.’ She started down the corridor towards the stairs, still limping. ‘Come on, we’ve got an Emperor to kill.’

  Behind her, Stahleker’s men put him on his feet and he followed after her with them, a little wobbly, but under his own power. Ulrika swallowed, guilty. Had she weakened him too much to fight? Would he be able to take care of himself out there? Well, she would look out for him until he recovered. He had saved her. She would save him.

  The bottom of the stairs was littered with dead witch hunters, pierced with pistol balls and sabre cuts. She looked for Schenk, but didn’t see him among them. Good. She wanted him for her own.

  As she started stepping through them up the stairs a cold, gunpowder-scented breeze from above reminded her that she was nearly naked. She paused. The cold had ceased to trouble her since her death, but she could certainly use some protection from sword cuts. She stooped and tore the leather greatcoat from a tall corpse about her size. There was no time to strip him entirely, but the coat should help a little. She shrugged into it, then took up his sword, a basket-hilted broadsword with a long, heavy blade. She wrinkled her nose. It all smelled much too much of witch hunter, but that couldn’t be helped. She continued up the stairs, her new coat flaring behind her and her lancers loping after her like a pack of wolves.

  At the top of the stairs was a dark entry hall, all hanging chains and torches and skull-faced statues, and more dead witch hunters sprawled across the dirty stone flags, as well as some dead lancers. The doors to the outside were wide open, and through them came the orange glow of fire and the din of battle. Steel clashes and pistol shots cracked over the roars and screams of fighting men.

  Then, through it all, Ulrika suddenly heard von Messinghof, bellowing at the top of his voice. ‘The barge! To the barge! Hurry!’

  She picked up her pace. What did it mean? Was the count retreating? Was the battle over? Had she missed it?

  Halfway across the hall, running footsteps thudded outside and a handful of witch hunters ran in, panting, then leaned on the heavy doors to close them.

  ‘Quick!’ said the smallest of them, clutching his chest. ‘They must not get in!’

  Ulrika recognised him as the grand master, and then saw that the man to his left was Schenk. The rest were Schenk’s men. She grinned and strode forwards.

  ‘They are already in,’ she said.

  The witch hunters spun, dropping into guard, as she and the lancers stepped out of the shadows of the dark hall behind them. They outnumbered the witch hunters two to one.

  ‘You!’ gasped Schenk, stepping back.

  ‘Aye. Me. And I’ve brought you your dagger.’

  The grand master jerked a flintlock pistol from his coat and aimed it at her, but one of Stahleker’s men was quicker on the draw, and the old templar fell back as the shot boomed, a red crater appearing in his chest.

  Schenk didn’t turn at his superior’s death. He edged forwards, eyes only on Ulrika, as his men tried to keep the lancers in front of them.

  ‘Shall I answer your questions now, captain?’ asked Ulrika. ‘My name is Ulrika Magdova Straghov, daughter of a boyar, and daughter in darkness to Countess Gabriella of Nachthafen.’

  She beat at his blade, knocking it aside, and cut his arm as he tried to parry.

  ‘You know her as cousin to Lady Hermione von Auerbach, and you were right. They are vampires. Lahmians.’

  To her left and right, her lancers were pressing back his witch hunters. She thrust again and sliced his cheek.

  ‘But you are wrong to think the Lahmians are behind the current troubles. They are the work of my new master, Count Grigor von Messinghof of Sylvania.’ She cut Schenk’s arm, then gashed his leg. ‘It is he who masterminded the vampire revolt, and he who attacks Karl Franz – as precursor to the army of Sylvania mounting an invasion on the Empire that will bring it to its knees and make Mannfred von Carstein its new Emperor.’

  The lancers superior numbers had overwhelmed the beleaguered witch hunters. Schenk was the only one still on his feet. Ulrika smiled at him as she smashed his sword from his hands.

  ‘Now you know everything,’ she said, putting her point to his neck. ‘If you could only warn the Emperor, you would be the hero of the day, but alas…’

  Her left hand blurred as she stabbed forwards with Schenk’s dagger and buried it between his ribs on his right side. He gasped and jerked in pain, then shrieked like a child as she twisted the blade so that the razor edges wedged tight between his ribs, flexing them.

  He sank to his knees before her, deep red organ blood spewing from the wound.

  She sighed as she looked down at him. ‘I wish I could let you relish the pain, as you did for me, but you have taught me that it is unwise to leave your enemies alive behind you – and with access to a dagger.’

  She raised her borrowed sword, then slashed down with all her strength. The blade chopped through Schenk’s breastplate at the shoulder, then snapped his clavicle, and came to rest last in his heart. A sick shiver of satisfaction came over her as she felt it touch the tip of the dagger where it was still buried in his lungs.

  She leaned forwards and whispered in his ear. ‘But if you go now to the reward you deserve, then your torment is just beginning. I hope you burn as you burned Famke, for eternity.’

  She wrenched the blades from his body and let him fall, then kicked wide the doors and strode out onto the broad stone steps of the tower with Stahleker and the lancers following.

  The scene that spread before her was a confused jumble of fire, ruin and scattered fights. The two bridges that had connected the Island of the Iron Tower to the north and south bank of the Reik were gone, their crumbling ends still occasionally dropping fragments of masonry into the rushing water. The thick wall that surrounded the tower, separating it from the cobbled embankment that encircled it, had been breached near the main gate, its granite blocks spilled into its yard. Had this been more sorcery? The work of some massive beast? However it was done, the hole had been the site of heavy fighting. The bodies of Reiksguard knights, zombies, vampires and lancers lay strewn on both sides of the gap.

  The fighting had moved on, however. Through the breach, Ulrika could see Reiksguard knights battling Blood Knights and armoured wights on the rugged, wave-lapped rocks beyond the embankment, as giant bats and other winged monsters wheeled overhead. The knights seemed to be trying to keep the Sylvanian troops from boarding von Messinghof’s barges, which had been driven up onto the rocky shore. It seemed a hopeless retreat. One barge was swiftly burning to the waterline, its smoke and flames reaching to the clouds overhead, while the other was beginning to catch fire as well.

  The third barge, to Ulrika’s surprise, was a hundred yards down the river, drifting in the grip of the current, and also starting to burn. There were men on it, running to and fro, but with the smoke and the distance she couldn’t see who they might be.

  ‘Come on!’ she called to Stahleker, then ran down the steps of the Iron Tower and bounded over the rubble into the gap in the wall, still peering towards the drifting barge. Had von Messinghof left them behind? Was it Lassarian?

>   A hulking figure loomed out of the smoke on the barge’s deck and put his massive armoured shoulder to the tiller, trying to turn it towards the shore. Ulrika grunted when she saw him. It was Schwarzhelm! Karl Franz had escaped!

  Now she understood the battle on the rocks. Von Messinghof was fighting to reboard his barges and pursue, while the Reiksguard were trying to stop them. She looked back in time to see branching forks of black lightning shoot into the Reiksguard, staggering them, and the wights and Blood Knights surge through them to the barges. Von Messinghof leapt onto the deck of the smouldering one, Nuncio Emmanus floating up beside him as their troops followed.

  ‘Hurry!’ cried Ulrika, turning back to Stahleker and his men. ‘They’re leaving! We–’

  Something huge swept down from the sky, ploughing through the lancers and smashing Ulrika to the ground. Heavy wings beat overhead as a stinking body dragged her across the cobbles.

  Ulrika groaned under a massive paw as the thing came to a stop at last. It was her old mount, the undead griffon, but it had a new rider, who snarled down at her from the saddle on its neck.

  ‘This is my night, whore!’ cried Otilia, raising a hunter’s spear. ‘Mine!’

  chapter thirty-three

  ASSASSINATION

  Otilia stabbed down with the spear. Ulrika batted it aside with a weak hand and it pierced her coat, not her flesh. She grabbed for the haft. Otilia jerked it back, but before she could thrust again, there was a loud bang and she flinched sideways in the saddle, red spraying from her shoulder.

  Stahleker and the lancers swarmed in, howling and hacking with their sabres and calling Ulrika’s name. Otilia cursed and stabbed at them as the griffon spun and lashed out with claws and tail. Her spear struck the man closest to her – Stahleker, who stood directly over Ulrika, protecting her.

  It was a clumsy strike, made off balance and in panic, and the sergeant should have blocked it easily, but he was reeling on his feet and raised his blade too late. The point tore through the side of his neck and blood gouted from his main artery as he toppled backwards.

  ‘Stahleker!’ cried Ulrika, struggling to break the griffon’s grip.

  Her cry was echoed by his men, who surged around Otilia, slashing and thrusting at her with the strength of rage. Blades cut her arms and back and chopped scales from the griffon’s hide. Otilia shrieked in fear and jammed her spurred heels into its flanks, and with a bound and a flare of its wings it sprung into the air and swept away.

  Stahleker’s men immediately crowded around him, calling his name. Ulrika pulled herself to her knees and crawled through them, dread pounding at her like a hammer. The sergeant’s face was as white as a vampire’s. She clapped a hand over his haemorrhaging neck, but the hole was too big. He didn’t have long.

  ‘You fool,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you stay back? You were weak. I weakened you.’

  He looked up at her with glassy eyes. ‘Didn’t… didn’t even occur to me.’

  Ulrika balled her fists. ‘This is what happens. You shouldn’t have let me drink.’

  Stahleker snorted, then choked, and Ulrika had to lift his head so he could spit blood. He looked up at her again, and gripped her arm with hard fingers.

  ‘Ye… y’don’t win an Ostermark man’s loyalty with… with filthy blood magic,’ he slurred. ‘I didn’t do it as yer swain. I did it as yer… sergeant.’

  Ulrika choked and would have wept, could vampires shed tears. ‘Aye, sergeant. Aye.’

  With a fumbling hand, he reached up and tore the braid of ginger hair from his head, then held it out to her. His own hair had come with it. ‘Would… would y’give this back to Mags? Tell her… next time, she should find a better man t’give it to.’

  His hand sank to the ground as Ulrika reached for the braid, and by the time she pulled it from his fingers, he was gone. Ulrika closed her fist around the light hair and the dark and hung her head.

  ‘I don’t think she could.’

  And nor could Ulrika. Horse thief, renegade, mercenary, willing to switch sides at the drop of a hat if it meant more money, willing to ride against the Empire in the ranks of its greatest enemies, and yet in all his dealings with her he had been as true as oak. His loyalty had never wavered, not in the face of threats, insurmountable odds, or death.

  Heavy wings flapped above her. She looked up, Otilia was swooping down for another pass, aiming straight at her, spear raised.

  ‘Look out!’

  Ulrika shoved the lancers out of the way as the winged horror streaked down, its claws spread. On its back, Otilia howled in triumph. Ulrika dived aside as Otilia hurled the spear. It struck the cobbles to her left, and the griffon skimmed over her head to land skidding behind her in the midst of the men.

  Ulrika rolled up and snatched her sword from where she had dropped it, then charged for the griffon and Otilia. Otilia twisted away as she slashed, and Ulrika’s blade glancing off the griffon’s scales. The beast clubbed her with its wing, and she fell against Otilia, stunned. Otilia kicked her in the teeth and flailed a dainty dagger at her. Ulrika knocked it aside with her sword, then swung for her neck. She was not alone. The lancers had recovered and were crowding in again, hacking at her and the griffon from all sides.

  ‘Get away, you fools!’ shrieked Otilia as she ducked and spurred the griffon’s sides. ‘It’s not her that pays you! You follow von Messinghof!’

  Once again the undead beast’s wings swept out, knocking the men to the ground as it bounded forwards to spring into the air. Ulrika staggered after it, clutching at Otilia’s leg and swinging again for her head. A great upwards lift threw her aim off, and suddenly she was dangling from Otilia’s stirrup by one hand as the island and the Iron Tower fell away beneath her and von Messinghof’s barge streamed after the one that carried the Emperor. Its speed was unnatural – impossible. It would catch it in minutes.

  Otilia laughed and stamped on Ulrika fingers. ‘Into the river with you!’

  Ulrika slashed awkwardly with the long sword, but Otilia turned the blow and stamped again, loosening her grip. Ulrika’s fingers were slipping. She was going to fall. With a desperate grunt, she dropped her blade and grabbed the stirrup with both hands. The sword spun towards the waves beneath her.

  Otilia leaned down, raising her dagger over Ulrika’s clinging fingers. ‘You have made a great sacrifice, sister, dying so the count could kill the Emperor. We will all mourn your death.’

  She stabbed down, gashing the fingers of Ulrika’s left hand, but at the same instant Ulrika shot up her right and clutched her wrist, then pulled as hard as she could.

  Otilia shrieked and nearly pitched out of the saddle, but grabbed the pommel and clung on with desperate strength. Ulrika clambered up her like a cat, clawing her neck and hair for purchase, then kneeing her in the back of the head as she crashed onto the griffon’s back between its pumping wings.

  ‘Leave off,’ she said, as Otilia turned after her. ‘Fly for the Emperor. We must help the count.’

  Otilia crouched backwards in the saddle, raising her dagger again. ‘Noble Ulrika, always thinking of the great plan. I know your real game. You want to drive me from him, but tonight will be my night. Tonight I will be the hero!’

  She made to leap, but Ulrika drew Schenk’s dagger and she hesitated. Ulrika pushed to her knees, straddling the griffon’s spine and clutching one of the straps that trailed from its saddle.

  ‘Nothing drives you from him but your own incompetence,’ she said, wrapping the strap around her leg. ‘He is my commander. I want nothing else from him. I serve him because he gives me battle and treats me with respect.’

  Otilia laughed, shrill and wild. ‘Does he? You poor fool. He has treated you worst of all!’

  ‘How so?’ asked Ulrika. She touched the black scars on her face. ‘Because he cut me with silver? I have forgiven him that.’

  ‘Because h
e lured you to his side as neatly as cheese lures a mouse to a trap – and more cruelly.’

  ‘Nothing turned me to his side but the vileness of man,’ Ulrika growled. ‘The count had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘He had everything to do with it! Who do you think sent me to tell those whores your sweetheart was a vampire? Who do you think tipped the witch hunters to your hideaway?’ Otilia laughed. ‘He knew you wouldn’t come without a goad. He knew you’d have to hate mankind with all your heart before you came to him!’

  Ulrika stared at her, nerveless, riven with shock, momentarily unable to comprehend her words. Von Messinghof had been behind Famke’s burning? It had been nothing but a ruse to get Ulrika to join him? It couldn’t be true. Otilia was lying to hurt her, to drive her from the count.

  Otilia laughed and leapt, slashing at Ulrika with dagger and claw. Ulrika parried the dagger and caught Otilia’s left wrist by instinct, but was too stunned to fight back. Could it be true? Von Messinghof had always seemed an honourable man – cunning, certainly – but loyal to his subordinates when they were loyal to him. Now, however, she began to remember things – things she hadn’t given a second thought to before. Von Messinghof had pretended to be a vampire hunter to goad the humans into fearful rioting. He had given Rukke the dark kiss in order to keep Blutegel at his side, never intending to let him live past his father’s death. He had tricked the addled Strigoi, Murnau, into attacking the Lahmians by making him think they had hurt him.

  Ulrika shuddered. Gods of her fathers! It was true! She was Murnau! Von Messinghof had played her exactly as he had that poor, crippled dupe, and she had fallen for it, exactly as he had!

  Another memory came back to her, of the first time she had been on the undead griffon’s back. Von Messinghof had swept them low over the walls of Nuln to show that they were invisible to the defenders. ‘No one sees what I do not wish them to see,’ he had said. What a fool she had been to believe she was the only one he was being honest with.