Bloodchild

by Anna Stephens

  ‘Thank the gods we’re safe,’ Silais babbled as the other slaves began whispering. ‘Thank the gods for Second Valan and his quick thinking. It’ll be carnage on the streets, you mark my words.’

  ‘Lord Silais.’ He turned to face her. ‘You don’t remember me, my lord? During the siege, at the tunnel entrance leading to the East Gate just before you let in the invaders and damned us all. Your friend Lord Lorca called me “woman”. He should have called me Major.’

  Silais gaped, then gaped some more when Tara slid the stolen skinning knife out of her sleeve. He held up his hands in front of his face. ‘No, no, don’t! Guards, guards!’

  The knife went into his neck and back out, an effortless puncture that nonetheless went deep, and a thick scarlet jet pulsed into the air when the blade unplugged the wound. Tara leant away from the blood and lowered him to the floor with a muffled thud. His mouth was opening and closing like a fish’s and Tara felt nothing. It was an effort to say the words: ‘Dancer’s grace, Lord Silais.’

  She stepped away before he was dead, back to the door to listen – still quiet. Valan had taken the guards, presuming the lock on the door was enough. Tara undressed while the other slaves watched in mute horror, probably expecting her to begin bathing in the man’s blood or something. She hadn’t realised how heavy her skirts were until she slipped into an old shirt and pair of trousers belonging to Valan and secured them with a belt. The freedom was exhilarating. She bundled up the gown, secured it in a roll by tying the arms around it, and then wrapped a short scarf of blue linen around her neck to cover her slave collar. A half-cloak with a hood completed the disguise. She was armed, just, she was in trousers, and she had her orders: she was a soldier again.

  Tara cleaned the knife on Silais’s shirt and then knelt and slid the point into the lock. It was a slender blade, made for getting in beneath the legs of game, and the lock was big. It didn’t take long to slip the catch.

  She faced the slaves bunched together at the back of the room, as far away from her as they could get. ‘Listen to me. This whole city is going to explode into violence any minute. You can join the uprising and help to overthrow the Mireces. If we fight back together, they won’t be able to stop us. We can take the city, take these fucking collars off, end the war.’ She held out a bloody hand, imploring. ‘Come with me. Fight with me, fight for our new – our rightful – king.’

  They shrank back together, a herd instinct she couldn’t break. ‘Y-you can’t,’ one stuttered. ‘They’ll k-kill you.’

  Tara flipped up her hood. ‘We all die. This is my chance to die free, on ground of my choosing and not at another’s whim. I’ll leave the door open – even if you don’t fight, try and run. Get out while you can. Dancer’s grace.’

  She didn’t have time for any more. The Rankers would push through First Circle and into Second, working their way towards the centre of the city and encouraging every slave they found to fight back. They’d free Vaunt and Dorcas from the south barracks to co-ordinate the uprising. They’d kill every Mireces they found without mercy and without regret. The whole city was going up in righteous fury and Tara had a mad priestess to kill and a heavily pregnant woman to rescue. Thrumming with energy, she slipped the gown under one arm and left Valan’s apartments.

  The city was full of running figures, some in Mireces blue, some in collars. Screams and shouts spilt across the sky from far behind her, thin and high and distant. Tara ignored it all, slipping from house to shadow to building to wall, sliding through the district gates like mist.

  Wearing the hood up in the streets was conspicuous, but so was her hair so she had no choice, hoping the blue of her shirt would stop anyone looking too closely.

  She was in Third Circle and moving steadily, not in the centre of the road but no longer skulking through the shadows now she was away from the main action. She strode as if she had orders to be somewhere.

  The gate into Second Circle was unguarded but locked. Tara checked her surroundings. Gosfath’s tantrum in the city had caused a lot of damage around here and it didn’t take long for her to find another way through; part of the wall had collapsed behind the ruins of a burnt-out building.

  Second Circle was the one Vaunt should be even now lighting up, far around its circumference to the west. Random shouts up ahead, co-ordinating movement, and she broke into a run. She only needed to cross Second Circle and reach the gate into First and the temple district, then lose herself among the buildings until she reached the grand temple. She was close, but if she was mistaken for a Mireces at a distance and they ordered her with them to help quell the rebellion, she was dead and those even now dying were doing so for nothing.

  She ducked out of sight as another shout went up, unsure whether it was aimed at her and not waiting to find out. Two rights into a small alley, sprinting its length, out the other end and an immediate left, in through a broken window and down, pressed against the wall out of eyeline. A scrape and shuffle in the darkness and she was up and in a corner of the room, knife in hand and wishing it was a sword. A huddle of faces and protective arms, the glint of metal at their necks.

  Tara hid the knife, then tugged at the scarf to show them her own collar. She held her finger to her lips. ‘Head for the South Gate after I’m gone. Get out and run and don’t look back. Dancer’s grace.’

  She waited a little longer and then slid back out through the window, catching her shirt on splintered wood and ripping it, grazing the flesh beneath. She retraced her steps and peeked from the mouth of the alley; the road looked clear and the gate into the temple district was right there. Tapping her fingertips against her heart, Tara went for it, bursting out of the mouth of the alley and running hard.

  She was across the open space in seconds and through the gate, turned immediately left and wove into the temple complex, thinking only of losing any potential pursuit. Within minutes the grand temple loomed into view, its pale marble columns formerly a beacon for the faithful and now degraded by the foul rites that were performed inside its once-hallowed walls.

  Whatever Vaunt was doing, he was making enough noise about it to have drawn off most of the Mireces. Five were stationed outside the temple’s main doors, but Tara wasn’t going in that way. She moved towards the back. There was a smaller entrance the priests used to and from their accommodation.

  Sure enough it was there and it was guarded, but only by a single Mireces: a mistake, but a fortuitous one for Tara. She threw a stone that attracted his attention to his right, his sword side, then leapt out on his left and ripped the skinning knife through the side of his neck. The return strike thudded into his chest. The blade was wicked and tore him open easier than breathing. Tara clapped her free hand over his mouth and wrestled him down to the ground, punched the knife through his ribs two, three, four more times until he was too weak to make a sound.

  No point dragging him out of sight – there was blood everywhere. It was about speed now. Tara unclipped his scabbard and fitted it to her own belt, the weight on her hip an almost religious comfort. She drew the sword and tested its balance: not great, but serviceable.

  She slid the knife back into her sleeve, then slipped into the temple’s gloom and the stink of fear and the overwhelming, gagging stench of old blood. Her nose wrinkled and bile rose; she forced it down, mouth watering. The temple’s main space was for devotions, but there were almost a dozen smaller rooms for private ritual and consultation and Lanta could be in any of them. Rillirin too. She scanned the open space and saw nothing, so she moved towards the first of the private rooms. She’d have to clear them all, one by one, to kill the bitch.

  And there she was, in a small devotional room, kneeling in prayer with bandaged hands outstretched in supplication to evil. Even better, she had her back to the door. Tara checked both ways along the corridor, but the Mireces didn’t go in for candles, it seemed, and she could barely see anything. Still, the longer she waited the more chance of being discovered, so she pushed the door just wide enoug
h to slide through – bastard thing creaked like a ship in a storm – and slipped in.

  Fortunately, Lanta’s prayers consumed her and she didn’t hear. Tara crept forward, ignoring the tremble in her sword hand. Part of her wanted Lanta to hear her and make a fight of it; it’d be easier to kill her if it was self-defence. Tara blinked sweat and doubt from her eyelashes. The Fox God had given her this mission, had trusted her with these assassinations. All Rilpor needed Lanta to die. All Gilgoras. She took another step, focused on the angle between neck and shoulder, down behind the collarbone to sever the big veins and open the lung, nick the heart.

  ‘Forgive my intrusion, Blessed— Who are you?’

  Tara spun and lashed out, her boot catching a man in the gut and flinging him into the wall by the door. She didn’t wait for him to get up. Lanta got a bandaged hand in the way of the first blow and screamed as the sword took off a finger and opened up whatever wound was already there. She punched with her other hand, a glancing strike off Tara’s cheek that did nothing but make her a little warier. She fell into a fighting crouch and began to circle, Lanta twisting to keep her in front and pulling a hammer from her belt. She was grey with surprise and pain, breath coming in sharp hard pants, and though her eyes glittered with unshed tears, they danced with fury, too. Tara kept circling until she could see the man, Gull, over the priestess’s shoulder.

  ‘Rillirin,’ Tara bellowed in her parade-ground voice, the name echoing through the temple. ‘It’s Tara. Get your boots on; we’re leaving.’

  Lanta swung the hammer and it clanged off the sword. She leapt back from the riposte. Gull was on his feet now, one hand on the wall for balance, the other pressed to his chest.

  ‘Blessed One? Blessed One, where are you?’

  Oh, you are fucking kidding me. Valan?

  She’d been hoping to have a crack at the king’s second for everything he’d put her through, so on the one hand, it meant both Tara’s targets were in the same place. On the other hand, it meant both Tara’s targets were in the same place.

  Gull charged her and she sidestepped, raking him across the arm with her sword, but then the hammer smashed into the outside of Tara’s left elbow and she screamed as pain erupted through the joint and she and Lanta came together, chest to chest with Lanta inside her guard. Tara headbutted her, heard the crunch of cartilage and shoulder-barged her away, stepped back to bring the sword into range when Gull grabbed her ankle and jerked. She hit the ground on her left side and her elbow blazed agony at her so that her vision flashed white for a second. When she could see again, the sword was gone and Lanta was coming for her, hammer raised and blood pouring from her nose and mouth.

  ‘Tara?’ Rillirin appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Behind you!’ Tara screamed as a shadow moved. Rillirin threw herself sideways and a man stumbled into the room, arms flailing as he missed his grab at her. A converted Rilporian. Fuck.

  The distraction cost her. The hammer came in again, into her flank, her kidney, and she grunted as the hurt exploded in her, deep into her core, and stole her breath.

  ‘Valan!’ the Blessed One shouted through a mouthful of blood. She raised the hammer again and Tara knew she was going to be battered to death. Fuck!

  Rillirin grabbed Lanta’s upraised arm and yanked sideways. The convert grabbed for her again and wrestled her away, but it was enough. Tara kicked Lanta’s feet from under her so they were all a tangle on the floor, yanked the skinning knife from her sleeve and rammed it into the woman’s chest.

  ‘Valan, help,’ Gull called as Tara rolled to her feet, found her sword and ripped it across the convert’s gut as her left hand twisted a knife out of his grip, the movement triggering another searing pain through her arm. She’d probably cracked her elbow; nothing to do about it now. She shoved Rillirin through the door.

  It had taken seconds, felt like years, but the shouts and running footsteps told Tara she was out of time. She glanced back once at Lanta – the woman was slumped, gurgling, blood soaking her gown – and then she ran, following Rillirin’s lumbering form to the rear exit.

  Movement in the main temple and Tara grabbed her and dragged her down, sliding into the deepest shadow she could find, hunkered behind a pillar, fighting to calm her breathing. The girl was panting, wide-eyed, but quiet. Footsteps and their echoes, confusing the sound, making it hard to pinpoint direction. Tara held her breath and strained her ears and eyes for the furtive, malevolent creep of movement, of ambush.

  She could just see his outline now, on the opposite side of the godpool, but that left an unknown number of guards somewhere in the gloom. But if Valan was stupid enough to get between her and the exit, it’d be rude not to kill him on the way past.

  ‘Blessed One?’ he shouted again, doing the same as her and trying to locate allies and enemies among the bouncing echoes. The answering bleat was weak, but it was enough. Valan didn’t hesitate. He broke into a run, saw her and possibly Rillirin as he passed and pointed, then was gone into the rear of the temple. That’s it, go and watch the bitch die.

  Three Mireces charged her. Tara rolled to her feet and stepped into the overhead slash of the first that would have cleaved through her shoulder and punched her sword into his gut, ripping sideways and spilling his intestines. It’d take him a few minutes to die, but die he would, and he’d be in no fit state to oppose her while he did it.

  His sword arm fell to his side and he sucked in a breath to start screaming and Tara shoulder-barged him into the second, leapt sideways away from the third and was gone, following Rillirin and her mad dash for the exit. One followed, the other racing around the far side of the godpool to try and cut them off. He was faster than Rillirin and he came on like a galloping horse just as Tara overtook her and dropped, knees slamming into the smooth marble and skidding beneath his arcing sword. She chopped her own through his shin as she passed, nearly losing her grip, and he howled as his leg shattered.

  Rillirin overtook her again, face hard with grim determination, one hand supporting the bulge of her belly, and then fingers snagged the back of Tara’s cloak and hauled. She let it take her over on to her back and brought both legs up, kicking up and back as the Raider loomed over. It was only a glancing blow with the side of one boot, but enough to spoil his aim as he stabbed down. She slashed upwards with her sword and caught the inside of his arm and the tip of his nose, sent him reeling back with a curse, flipped on to all fours and stabbed at him again, low into the gut, ripped off the cloak still in his hand and was gone.

  Tara burst out of the temple, caught a glimpse of red hair vanishing into an alley and pounded after Rillirin. She was going the wrong way, deeper into the city, not used to the twisting roads designed to confuse an enemy. Tara caught up with her and then took over, weaving back through the buildings towards the South Gate, halting at every yell and rush of running feet. Smoke drifted on the air and the sound of fighting was loud, close. They could use the confusion.

  She quartered the road, scanning the buildings and the doorways and the alleys between them, Rillirin silent at her shoulder. One last dash through the square before the gate and they’d be out. More shouting, more running and the clash of arms even closer.

  Tara gritted her teeth, sword arm wrapped around her midriff so she could clutch at her side, where the hammer had smashed into her. She’d be pissing blood for a week, she reckoned. If she lived that long.

  A final look, the sounds of fighting too close for comfort now. ‘Ready?’ she breathed. ‘Out, over the bridge and keep fucking running. Go.’

  Rillirin ran, Tara on her heels and sword and knife in hand. The gate was there, hanging open. ‘Go!’ Tara yelled and Rillirin managed a little more speed and they were strides from safety when Valan stepped into view. The girl faltered. ‘Fucking run,’ Tara screamed, and overtook her, moving to engage. More Mireces ran from the shadows but if she could distract them long enough for Rillirin to get out of the city …

  Valan’s face was cold, with a hint of
betrayal and a surplus of rage. A Mireces came in on her left and she ducked, knife opening up his thigh while she was low, came up and kept running. And then she was on him.

  His guard was high and she chopped for his ankle, forcing him to skip back as he turned the blade to catch hers. Tara let her momentum take her in close, crowding him as he stepped back again and taking a sheet of flesh from along his jaw with the dagger. Valan roared in pain and punched her in the face, knocking her back far enough to disengage his sword and step into range. Tara blinked away tears, ignoring the throb from her nose and mouth, ignoring the blood.

  Rillirin bolted past her and she attacked, stopping Valan from reaching her. They fenced, a quick flurry of four, five, six cuts during which he sidestepped, trying to spin her and she moved into it, crowding his sword arm – she had nothing to lose now Lanta was dead. May as well make the most of it.

  A sudden increase in the sound of fighting, not from Rillirin thank the gods, but behind. The slaves, maybe even Vaunt.

  ‘Protect the Major!’ came a strident shout and Tara hesitated just an instant. Valan saw it and put the two together. His face suffused with blood and icy fury, but then Rank slaves armed with stolen knives and swords and staffs and masonry chisels flowed around her.

  Valan disengaged, leaping out of range. ‘Loose!’ he roared and all of a sudden it was raining arrows.

  Tara caught a glimpse of a figure vanishing through the gate and then she was one of only seven left standing, the rest dead or dying on the stones and archers leaning from the windows to either side with fresh arrows nocked. Valan pointed his sword at her. ‘Throw down your arms,’ he said.

  Her mouth quirked in amused disbelief. ‘Fuck you.’ She brought the knife up to her throat, eyes roaming the bodies around her, desperate not to find Vaunt’s face among them. ‘Dancer’s grace,’ Tara whispered, for them and for her.

  Something smashed into the back of her head.

  CRYS