First Blood

by K. Gorman

  He let out a low sigh, hands sliding into his pockets. “You’re a trickster, aren’t you?”

  “Must be the wine,” she tittered, the smile surfacing on her face again.

  She frowned, giving the goblet in her hand a more-careful examine—it really was strong stuff. After a moment, she took another sip and wandered to join him at the railing. About fifty people spread across the dirt, gravel, and flagstones of the courtyard, most of them castle staff in various states of conversation and repose across the benches, though a few clung together in a slow-moving dance toward the side by the lutist. Her gaze slid over the lanterns, watching one of the kitchen maids approach a group of off-duty guardsmen, a sticky dumpling clutched in her hand.

  “You were asking me about mercari,” she prompted.

  The prince’s attention lifted. He looked at her sidelong, studying her face again. Though his posture was still reserved—not boisterous or taking up room as she’d seen others do—and his actions careful, it felt as though a door had opened on his personality, bringing him a little closer to the surface. His gaze dropped to her dumpling.

  “You aren’t eating.”

  She flashed him an irritated look and, very deliberately, brought the dumpling up and took a large bite.

  What was with people being so obsessed over her eating habits?

  “I know about fey mercari,” he went on, looking back over the crowd. “But how does the slidnepi mercari differ from common kimbic? They’re derived from the same source, correct?”

  “They are, and it doesn’t,” she answered. “Not really, anyway. Some argue that mercari works better for elves because it was made by us, but the kimbic spells I’ve tried all worked fine. Bright ti—” She cut herself off from finishing the word ‘tits’, transforming the i into a strange, elongated veer that, by the sudden, amused dance in his eyes, fooled precisely no one. “I know a guy who swears by the kimbic firebending spell.”

  Giones li Trenan, an old-guard former bladesworn that wandered through the Raidt training grounds like a drugged ghost, the bright scar of a northern battle wound across his face almost as recognizable as the seven-tipped nitya maple of the royal house. He kept paper kimbic spells in his back pocket for practice.

  “I haven’t tried mercari myself—” Of course he hadn’t. He wasn’t an elf. “—but I’ve studied a couple of the spells closely. They had a slightly different wording, and not just in inherent grammatical structure and usage. The root was similar, but the branching had a different tone, even with the code-switching kimbic does. If…”

  He kept speaking, but a low drone rose in the back of her mind. It didn’t so much catch her attention as seize it—like a hungry dog snatching a scrap of red meat. She froze, drawing inward, focusing. It sounded like a thousand bees, but quickly curved in pitch—blaring, almost. The breath stalled in her chest, eyes widening.

  A ripple of tension swung through her gut.

  It felt like something, somewhere, was about to break.

  Slowly, she became aware of someone calling her name.

  “Catrin? Catrin?”

  Prince Nales’ voice was strong, loud. His hands waved, brows furrowed in concern, as if he’d been trying to get her attention for a while. A few faces from below turned up at them, their expressions curious.

  She stepped back from the railing, and something crunched under her boot. Pieces of shattered crystal glittered on the flagstone, along with a dark slosh of spilled wine—the remnants of her goblet.

  She stared at it, then back at him, uncomprehending.

  A second later, she snapped back into the present like a crack of lightning.

  She straightened, switched into her guard, swept her gaze past him, up the castle walls, across the empty veranda, over the familiar walls and shadows of the outer battlements, then up to the sky. She backed away from the railing, hands going instinctively to her rnari blades.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said. The skin between her shoulders crawled, uneasy. Her senses were sharp and alert, nostrils flaring, eyes darting back over the scene. She found nothing, but she trusted her instincts.

  And right now, every single one of them was screaming at her.

  “Get inside,” she said, noting all the vulnerable positions, all the shadows she couldn’t cover, every alcove where a bow could be drawn, a knife thrown, a dart blown.

  The prince was a target. She needed to protect him.

  “Get inside,” she repeated when he didn’t move. He was still by the railing, in the open, vulnerable. “There’s—”

  The sky exploded above them. Immediately, her summoning runes burned cold on her skin. She flinched, then lunged as magic ripped through the surrounding air. A crash of white light erupted from the great hall, blazing straight through the glass. Her body felt on fire, shivering, vibrating, every cell tuned high with energy. Shoulders burning, she bowled into the prince, caught his head and neck in her hold, and shoved him to the floor.

  “Get down!”

  He fought her—briefly, more surprise and shock than anything conscious—then she felt him move. Stone slammed into her knee guards, and she reorganized her grip as she fell on top of him, protecting his back with her body and armor.

  As the sound returned to her ears, shouts of panic and alarm came up from the courtyard below. Around them, the white light expanded, going through the trees like a shock wave. More lights erupted in the forest and beyond, as if some god had skipped a handful of stones across the planet’s landscape.

  A massive one lit up on her left, miles away, like some kind of supernatural blast. She watched, wide-eyed, as it spread.

  Below her, Prince Nales shifted. His head came round, eyes wide and reflecting the glow. She kept a protective grip on his shoulder, but allowed him to sit up into a crouch, ready to run.

  “Gate flare,” he identified, tone hesitant. Shaken. His eyes widened further as he took in the rest of the sky, disbelief and shock warring across his expression.

  Her jaw slackened. Gate flare? Here?

  The closest gate was more than a day’s ride away. From what she knew, there shouldn’t be gate flare anywhere near here. She’d seen a world gate once before—to the fey world, but goblin-made. They weren’t supposed to be this numerous. There were at least twenty ripples of light she could see. More, by the undulation of glows beyond the trees.

  A great, rending crack scraped across her magic—like the rip of a falling tree shuddering in her chest—and a presence filled her senses.

  Dark, burning, malevolent.

  A low, keening growl came from the great hall, making all of the hairs rise on her arms.

  Chapter 4

  Energy snapped like storm tide. She lunged for the door, aware of the prince running behind her. Three runes burned cold on her shoulders, like spots of mountain ice embedded into her skin. Inside, the crowd was half-frozen, half-moving, surging, beginning to run, men and women with panicked faces and in fancy dress holding onto skirts, plates, glasses, stumbling.

  She dodged through the first few, then had to angle herself and shove. People attempted to jump out of her way, moved too slow. She thumped straight into a noble, twisted, and kept going. Ahead, people were screaming, shouting. Someone—Treng—was calling her name.

  “Catrin! Catrin! To me!”

  A second growl—dark, angry, ancient—shook the air. The dark energy ramped up like a wave, tripping down her spine. Glass shattered. Another scream, more a whimper, quickly cut.

  When she broke through the front of the crowd, she stopped dead in her tracks.

  The hound was the size of a horse. Huge, snarling, with coarse, wiry brown hair and great claws that clicked and scraped on the checkered marble as it moved. It looked like someone had taken the meanest, mangiest wolf they could find and given it the muscles of a beef cow. Rough slabs of muscle rippled with tension, lean and hard, crisscrossed with bumps and scars. A particularly long and nasty one sliced across its bony hip, leaving a pale, twistin
g mark. Its long snout curved downward into a cruel jaw, showing two sharp rows of elongated teeth.

  And, on its shoulder, branded so deep it seemed like the skin would never heal, was a symbol.

  It looked like a Janessi ‘h’, except the top had three extra branches, two going straight out and one curling back over the left-side of the letter like the horn of a ram.

  Though crude, even she could recognize the curve of the rentac.

  Her eyes went wide.

  Demon.

  Black mist poured off its body, caustic to look at, dissolving like ground fog several inches from its body. The smell of sulfur caught at her nose, along with the fetid, overpowering scent of rotting gore.

  Bellfort faced off against it, the broken shard of a glass punch bowl in his hands as a weapon and a flimsy metal serving tray for a shield. A rivulet of blood slipped down his hand where he held the shard, standing his ground.

  Geneve stood behind him, shaking, cornered to the wall.

  Another growl rose from the hound’s throat, the sound like a great, dragging stone, so loud and strong that it made the air tremble and sent vibrations through her bones. Bellfort dodged back as it snapped, lifting the shard and the platter, his steps quick and sure, face a mask of gritty concentration.

  But he was clearly no match for it. The snap had been a feint, a test.

  She watched in horror as its hindquarters bunched, gathering for a leap.

  “No!” She threw out an arm, intending to defend him, for the instinctual mercari spell to spark through her runes and shove several spears of ice straight through the hound’s chest.

  Instead, searing pain slammed through her skin. She yelled as it burned into her body. Her hand jerked to her arm, finding a slick of blood over the summoning runes.

  She couldn’t feel Kodanh.

  Helpless, she watched as the hellhound sprang and tore into Bellfort.

  He didn’t stand a chance. With Geneve at his back, he could only retreat, not sidestep. He slashed the jagged piece of glass up and forward, shoved the tray into the beast’s snapping mouth, but it only aimed its jaws lower.

  The hound’s teeth closed over his chest. Bone crunched. He went down with a strangled shout, the creature following him with another grating growl. Geneve shrieked, eyes wide in horror.

  In the next second, Catrin was there. Its acrid stench beat at her eyes and mouth—sulfur, gore, and stale sweat that reminded her of an infected wound. She sliced a solid gash through the hound’s hamstring and danced away. A pained howl ripped the air like thunder. Its hindquarters dropped and flailed, the limb collapsed, flopping, claws scraping across the marble, muscles bunching grotesquely in its haunch. Black blood splattered the floor with a hiss.

  She darted away another few steps, watching it, studying its movement. Then, when its biting jaws proved too slow, she raced in to take its other side.

  The second hamstring snapped under the stroke of her blade, pulling a scream from the beast. She met its snarling backstrike with a twist and stab close to its eye, making it flinch, then went for its neck. It had thick skin, and she had to push harder, but she severed the tendons along its back and side in a smooth arc, then stabbed a blade deep into the side of its throat.

  Its howl switched to a gurgle. Blood like liquid obsidian gushed from the wound, spreading across the floor, hot, sizzling where it touched the marble. She pulled her knife out and jerked out of its way. Wisps of thin smoke came from it, stinking like a foul river.

  The dog thrashed like a mismanaged puppet.

  Death throes. Her gaze went to the brand on its shoulder, now smeared with blood, staring at the symbol.

  Where had it come from?

  She kept her blades raised, just in case.

  After half a minute, it was dead.

  An unearthly silence spread over the hall. She felt eyes on her. Nobles and upper class merchants stared, shock clear on their faces. Most hung at the opposite end of the room where the veranda let out, bunched near the exits, but a dozen stood closer, makeshift weapons—broken bottles, table knives, the splintered-off leg of a chair—in their hands.

  To her left, Treng had pulled Bellfort out of range and was hurriedly unwrapping his sash to use as a bandage. Geneve was there, too, cushioning his head with one hand, the other shaking as she helped Treng undo Bellfort’s jacket.

  From this far, she couldn’t see enough to detail his injuries, but he didn’t look good.

  She found Prince Nales in the crowd and pointed a bloodied finger to him.

  “Go to the kitchens, get the elf. He’s a healer.”

  His face had gone a stark white, mouth slack in shock. He’d already taken several steps toward Bellfort, but his head snapped to her, eyes wide.

  Then his boots were clomping hard on the marble, racing for the door.

  As he left, it occurred to her that she’d just issued an order to a prince. And that she’d just sent him off alone.

  Elrya’s tits.

  On cue, a blood-chilling shriek reverberated through the castle.

  She stopped dead, grip tightening on her blades.

  Treng’s fierce gaze met hers across the room.

  “Go!” he snarled. “Kill it.”

  She offered up one of her blades as she skipped back. “Knife?”

  It wasn’t his usual Sarasvatani short sword, but it was better than nothing.

  He gave a curt nod. She pressed the hilt into the hand of the nearest noble—an older man with a strong, determined expression who, after a quick flinch of surprise, clasped it with a firm grip.

  “Give this to him,” she directed, then sprinted for the door.

  The hallway enveloped her in a wave of warmth and dimness. Outside the great hall, wall sconces cast a shivering, tinted light over the hall’s finery. She paused by the first set to inspect the blood on her arm.

  As far as she could tell, she hadn’t been hit. Though blood slicked the entire outside of her bicep, there were no obvious wounds or scratches—not that she saw, anyway. No obvious breaks.

  But the rune still burned. It felt as if every piece of mercari was biting into her skin, needle-sharp, the pain prickling like the aftermath of a branding.

  She called on it experimentally, attempting to pull the power of Kodanh to her as she ran—an act as natural as breathing.

  The runes screamed in response. Pain smashed through her nerves, cold as an arctic frost. She snarled, stumbling to the side, clutching at the arm awkwardly with the hand that held her knife.

  Okay, no magic, then. Not that spell, at least.

  That was fine. She still had a blade.

  The shriek sounded again—closer, this time, eerie, tipping up in pitch like a saslani deer. More to the left.

  In the outer bailey?

  She pushed more speed into her sprint, feeling her muscles stretch out. Her breaths came even and calm, the weight of her greaves and pauldrons snug and flexed to her body—Elrya, she longed for her breastplate. She dug in and angled for the next corner, almost smashing into a castle servant, female, blond hair, eyes wide with fright, one of the wine servers. She jerked only slightly and bowled past, heading for the back.

  “The terrace!” The woman’s voice followed her up, breathless, shaking. “It’s on the East terrace!”

  Catrin checked her pace and swerved, taking the next stair down—a servants’ niche, tight and cramped. At the base, she ripped into the next long, straight hallway, veered to the outer door, and slammed through.

  The night opened around her.

  Adrenaline shuddered through her body. Most of the light from before had gone, though some remained—like echoes of the northern aurora, except pure and pale, ghosts. Above, stars glimmered, cold and distant. Her breath huddled up in a chilled cloud of vapor. The air was still. Tense. Quiet. As if every stone and insect held themselves, waiting. Though she could still hear the mutterings and buzz of panic from the great hall and courtyard, the sound came to her from a distance—like
it belonged to a different world.

  The breeze lifted, pricking her skin, cooling the blood on her arm. The smell of cinnamon and roast lingered, still warm, along with the bitter cut of triskan wine.

  Then, sulfur.

  She tightened her grip on the knife, steeled herself, and stalked toward the terrace.

  The castle was old. Very old. Seven hundred years’ worth of additions had bumped and bungled their way into its design, leaving some serious quirks. The terrace was leftover from Lord Stanek’s great-grandfather, who had courted himself a bride from Verona and built it to give her a piece of home. It stood against the inner wall, sculpted pillars catching the light like piano teeth, holding darkness between them. A smoothed balustrade rounded its far end where the garden dropped off, allowing a small lookout over a landscaped pond. Ivy ringed the structure. The fountain gurgled a quiet splash.

  The smell of sulfur grew stronger.

  The first body was a lump in the grass twenty feet from its entrance. A stablehand. Male. Young. Hardly past fifteen. His face, neck, and torso had been mauled beyond recognition, a wet, tattered, glistening mess. She only knew him by his clothes, which now lay bloody and shredded.

  The moist scent of gore slid into her nose, so thick she could taste it. Around him, the dirt and grass had been trampled.

  The second body lay only a few yards away, limp like a discarded doll, with long brown hair that splayed like a whip. She had a thick face, slack and untouched, as if she were asleep. A braided crown of triskan sat askew on her temple. Her throat and part of her chest had been slashed, blood darkening her clothes in a sheet. A wrapped sticky dumpling sat in the grass close to her abdomen.

  Ahead, the entrance of the terrace loomed in darkness.

  Catrin sank into the shadows of the castle wall and slipped toward it.

  As she approached its threshold, the night quietened even more.

  The dusty, green scent of Teilanni ivy came to her. She brushed under its overhanging leaves with barely a whisper, only the soft tap of her soles, the subtle creak of her armor, and the gentle slosh of water from the fountain at the end of the terrace breaking the tense quiet.