First Blood

by K. Gorman

  “Maybe he thinks I’m just a weak little underling. Too small to hurt him.”

  Doneil didn’t move. She could still feel his eyebrows arch.

  “Catrin, I don’t think anyone could mistake you for weak.”

  She ground her teeth in consternation. He was right, of course. She was a Twelfth Circle rnari warrior. Even Grobitzsnak had recognized her strength.

  Her mind twitched back to the shut-tight expression on Nales’ face, the tangle of fear she’d felt behind his mask. The slow, deliberate tone to his words. The touch of his lips murmuring into her ear.

  ‘You’ll have to find me first, underling.’

  He’d shown precisely zero romantic interest in her before—that, she knew for sure. Ever since her infamous encounter with Tarris, she’d looked for it and done her very best to shut it down. Nales had shown professional interest, yes, but, even in her wildest, most paranoid schemes, none of it had ever been even remotely romantic.

  And he’d called her Cat.

  He knew she didn’t like it.

  Something was going on.

  She growled through her teeth. “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Yes, yes. All right, rnari.” Doneil raised his hands up in mock surrender and cast an eye-roll toward the canopy. “You’re very scary. Now—sun’s holy ass—stay still and let me heal that arm.”

  Her breath expulsed in a noisy fume. She sagged against the saddle, the smoothness of its hard leather against her forehead. Doneil moved in next to her. A sharp pain rang out when he took her arm, then the healing took over. She gritted her teeth, hearing a sharp hiss as his power told him exactly how badly her wrist had been mangled.

  “You know this is the second time this week you’ve broken this arm, right?”

  She grunted, teeth grinding as the healing magic crawled through her flesh. “I think I preferred the last time.”

  “Yes. Treng, at least, broke it evenly.” He swore under his breath. “Tits, Catrin. What did this to you?”

  “The fey,” she said.

  There was a pause. She could feel his brain working.

  “They attacked you before they died?”

  She frowned. Then, she played her own speech over in her head from the beginning.

  Ah. She’d left that part out.

  “They’re undead. Reanimated and controlled by the demon lord.” A shiver ran through her when she remembered the feeling of cold flesh gripping her skin.

  Doneil swore. “Ten fucking hells. Are you serious?”

  “As a tombrat.” She spared a glance to Matteo. He was still there, playing silent guard with his gun turned toward the forest, but obviously keeping a close eye on their tone and expressions. He caught her glance with one of his, the concern clear on his face.

  “What are you going to do?” Doneil asked. “Back to Pemberlin?”

  “To Pemberlin?” She almost laughed. “Fuck me. You think I can? Without the prince? No. You can, though. They’ll need to know.”

  Doneil pinned her with a stare. “Not what I asked. What are you going to do?”

  She stopped. She hadn’t really thought of that.

  I’m going to murder him.

  Okay, so maybe she had thought of it. In rather gruesome detail. But there was still a lot that didn’t add up. Even more now that the pain wasn’t clouding her mind. Why would Nales let her go? Doneil was right—she was far too strong to be left alone. No one wanted a rnari on their trail, let alone one from the Twelfth Circle. Was this all some power play on the demon’s part? And, that aside, why would he go with the demon? What was he planning?

  Had he really betrayed them?

  Or—and this was now seeming more logical the longer she thought of it—had he pulled a fast one on the demon in order to get her released?

  Her forehead wrinkled as she thought back to the heated exchange they’d had this morning.

  They hadn’t known each other very long, but that strange play of betrayal did not seem in character for him. Rather the opposite.

  And he definitely wasn’t stupid enough to let her go.

  In fact, she could think of a multitude of things that made more sense than to have her alive and at large.

  Especially since Nales knew she’d just come back here and be instantly healed and ready to attack.

  “Fuck.” She grimaced. “I might have to go after him.” She paused. “I may or may not kill him once I find him.”

  “Oh-kay,” Doneil said. “Sounds like someone’s getting less grouchy. Next steps?”

  With the last two words, his voice dropped its normal friendliness, switching to the hard professionalism she recognized from the ranks.

  He was walking her through it. She appreciated it.

  “Leave the horses here. We’ll bring a minimum of supplies and check out the demon lair, do some reconnaissance. See if there might be a chance of getting him out.” Her gaze slipped to Matteo. “You think we should leave him with the horses?”

  “Nah, bring him with. He can hold his own.” Doneil’s lips pursed as he considered the man. “Is the demon lair obvious?”

  She snorted. “Yes. It’s a big fucking castle with demons coming out of it.”

  “In that case, I think it will be possible to communicate our intentions. He can choose to come with, or not.”

  Her eyebrow twitched as she rubbed at her arm. “You sure that’s a good idea? He’s not exactly… one of us.”

  “He trounced me pretty good earlier,” Doneil pointed out. “And he’s got that firearm.”

  She winced, remembering what she’d read of guns. “That’d be noisy.”

  “But useful, in an emergency. We have no other ranged weapons. I’ll give him one of my blades. You’d be better off with both of yours. Deadlier.”

  She didn’t even bother arguing. From a logical standpoint, he was right. Plus, he also had a working fire spell he could use.

  “Good,” she said. “Let’s pack up and go, then.”

  Chapter 18

  “Ten fucking hells, we’ll never get into that.” Catrin grimaced, lips peeling back from her teeth.

  “It certainly does look formidable,” Doneil commented from her right. “Very, ah…” He paused, head tilting as he considered it. “Big.”

  ‘Big’ was certainly a good word to use with the fortress, though perhaps an understatement—it was huge. Massive. Near double the size of the Raidt palace, though she suspected the mountain played into a lot of that.

  And that was a whole other thing. The damned thing wove in and out of the mountain’s cracks and crevices. Every minute or so, she spotted a new tunnel or battlement that she hadn’t noticed, or a new section of crenellation etched into the shadows.

  The place had to be one big fucking maze.

  Her jaw moved, molars grinding as she scowled up at the mountain. “We’re not getting into that.”

  It was a logical statement, but she couldn’t help the slip of emotion that roughened her tone—or the quiet flutter that seized her muscles. Her wrist was healed, bones and skin and tendons mended by the buzzing touch of Doneil’s magic, and a jittery, keen energy quivered through her like the pulse of a bowstring thanks to the stimulant-based rnari tonic both she and Doneil had pounded back. Her body shivered with a desire to fight, to attack, but her mind had become a honed, grounded weapon—as cold, hard, and sharp as the edge of a ceremonial blade.

  All of which wouldn’t help her if she couldn’t actually get into the castle in the first place.

  She swore under her breath. “He’s probably already dead.”

  “No, that’s not how royalty works,” Doneil said. “He’s better as a hostage. Or to wring information about the blood sword out of.”

  “Ah, so they’re torturing him. That makes me feel a lot better.”

  “That means he’s alive, at least. We can work with that.” Doneil leaned forward, and she flinched as his shoulder brushed hers. The light caught his face askance, the gold in his eyes deep and
rich. “Do you know Feinright Castle, over on the Marbin coast? Big old tenth century brute, heavily armed?”

  She did. In fact, the place had been on the rnari Third Circle theory tests, which he had definitely completed. An example of extreme fortification, albeit a half a century old in its armaments.

  “What’s your point?”

  “Would you say it’s about the same size, give or take? Assuming some of the mountain is solid?”

  She drew her gaze back to the fortress. “Most of that place has to be solid. It couldn’t support itself, otherwise—not without magic.”

  “Precisely. Even dwarven clan-holds don’t hollow out entire structures. They tried that, back in their history—which is half the reason, eldritch deity aside, that you don’t want to explore the older areas of the Kanyp holdings—but it doesn’t work so well. Things get unstable, collapse. The humans know this well, more recently, given their industrial bent.”

  She cringed. Yes, that had been going around. Farmers’ sons heading south to the mines. Nowadays, they tended to go to the factories, as well. Work there, send money back to the homestead—though the latter didn’t always happen.

  “Your point?”

  “Knew a crew who stole a fork from the main dining hall. Part of a dare. They planned for over a month to do it. Went right around security like ghosts.”

  Ah. Now she was seeing the parallel.

  “A fork is not a prince. And we don’t have a month.”

  “No, but—”

  “Do you see a way in? Because unless we scale a good portion of the mountain and, I assume, brute-force a door, I don’t think we’re getting in there.”

  And, besides that, they didn’t know where the prince was in there, or if he was even in there at all—it was just their best guess.

  She sighed. They never should have left the camp. Hells, they never should have left Pemberlin.

  Matteo knelt on Doneil’s other side, nestled next to a young birch. Wherever he came from, he was proving a reliable soldier. Human-blind, yes, but doing surprisingly well for it—and near-silent in movement when he wanted to be.

  He had uttered what she suspected had been a swear when the fortress had come within sight. She had no idea what, precisely, he was able to see of it, but his eyebrows had shot up as soon as it had come into sight.

  And, by the way he was looking the castle over, and the serious frown on his face, she guessed that Doneil was right—this was a situation that could be communicated.

  Still, though, a team of two might be better if they were going to attempt this mad rescue. Matteo may have bested Doneil in sparring, but the elf had far better senses than he did. And Doneil’s rnari training would work well with her.

  “I’m just trying to say,” Doneil went on, dragging her attention back to him. “It isn’t impossible. And I am perfectly capable of scaling a mountain.”

  “That mountain has zero cover.” She grimaced, tilting her head to better see around the bush. “They’ll shoot us off before we get halfway. Hells, they’ll shoot us before we get halfway to it. The approach is completely open.”

  Nothing but bare scrub and dirt led to the mountain. Mostly flat but for the broken line of a low fissure that turned through the plains halfway, and the rough, pushed-up edges from where it met the rest of the forest. A kind of scrubbly grass poked out of the rough, coarse dirt, giving it a semi-furred appearance that reminded her of the mange on the hellhound’s coat.

  She didn’t know how old the fortress armaments were—they looked similar to Feinright, but gods knew that even Feinright was more up to date in its arms. She’d read up on the arms the humans had been making, and of the contraptions the goblins had hybrided into existence.

  Who knew what demons had cultivated in the two and a half centuries since last contact?

  She pushed out a disgusted, frustrated sigh and stood. “Come on. No point in staying here. Let’s circle around. Maybe we’ll find an entry point.”

  “Yes. Looking at the front of castles isn’t usually the best.” Doneil shifted on the ground, shoulders sagging as an uncharacteristic grim expression stole his face—he didn’t think they could get him, she could tell. “He may have to wait for rescue.”

  “He may be dead by then,” she said.

  “Maybe. But the daylight will help us look. It helps against demons, too, I hear.”

  Her jawline tensed, and a shiver passed through her body. Yes, she had heard that, too—something to do with the demons living under a different sun in their world, being unused to the brightness here.

  But it still rubbed her wrong.

  “He may be dead by then,” she said again.

  Doneil patted a hand against her knee, a friendly gesture. She didn’t flinch this time. “I know, Catrin. Just providing analysis.”

  She let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her mind and body were getting too wound up, but at least, the tonic was helping.

  “Yes. I know. Sorry.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, ducked her head, and closed her eyes, trying to rein the tension back in. A raw combination of regret, grief, and desperation gnawed at the bottom of her lungs, but she quickly tamped them back down.

  Yes, she should have done things differently. But that was in the past, and she couldn’t change it.

  All she could focus on was the now.

  “Right,” she said, blowing out another breath and making to rise. “It’s useless standing here. Let’s go around. We—”

  A leaf cracked about twenty feet behind them. A footstep. Someone creeping.

  She exploded into action.

  Everything happened in a blur. With the woodcraft riding through her senses, she barely saw the tree she sidestepped off of—only felt the roughness of its bark against her sole, the slight give of its trunk. Her blades were in her hands in milliseconds. As she landed back on the ground, the smell of ozone came to her—magic—and all of her instincts pointed to a spot some ten feet to her left.

  She leapt, blades reaching, the rustle of her armor the only sound in the silent forest as she kicked off.

  Metal clashed with metal, blades scraping down and turned aside. The cloaking glamour fell like pelted rain as the fey warrior shot backwards, an expression of mixed shock and concentration on his face, his sword awkward in his hand as if he had just drawn it.

  She shoved him back, blades ringing as they shrieked against the metal of his sword. His other hand had lifted, palm out and fingers loose in surrender, jet black eyes wide with shocked focus. She recognized him—he was the same one who’d warned her about Nales, the tall, lankily muscled male with the scar on one side of his face.

  His hand lifted higher in a placating gesture. “Wait—rnari, I—”

  She didn’t wait. His stilted elven turned into a shocked squawk as she shot forward. The sword came up—too slow. She batted it aside like a training stick, stepped in, and slammed the blunt end of her hilt into the center of his face.

  His nose crunched. Blood spurted as he gave a strangled yell, turning his face away. She batted the sword away a second time and danced around.

  Then, she kicked his knees from under him, forced him down, locked a grip around his elbow, and put a blade to his throat.

  “Drop it,” she said.

  The sword fell to the ground with a metallic thump. She adjusted herself, kept his elbow and the blade to his neck. His body still shuddered from the blows she’d dealt—she could still feel it herself. She guessed that she’d broken a bit more than his nose.

  After a careful go-over, during which he remained immaculately still and compliant except for the shudder, she found a second and third sheath and relieved him of those knives. Doneil picked them off the ground where she threw them, for safekeeping. Behind him, Matteo trained his firearm on the fey.

  As the roar in her head quietened, she gave her new prisoner a good look.

  His skin was warm, at least. That counted in his favor, as did his quick attempt at
surrender. There was no sign of his mount, nor of any other fey—the forest was quiet and still around them, watchful. She sent it a quiet prayer of thanks through her woodcraft. After a few seconds, he repressed his shudders of pain into only a mild shake, and his body went utterly still, focused entirely on her and her movement.

  She recognized that tactic from her rnari training.

  “He’s alive,” she confirmed after a moment. “Not undead.”

  “Injured, too,” Doneil commented from his position several paces away. He played with the tip of one of the knives, gaze sliding down the fey’s body. The slight glow on his wrist told her he was reading the male through his healing rune. “Cracked ankle and a stab wound.”

  She glanced down. Sure enough, a makeshift bandage showed under the lip of the fey’s armor, and a trail of blood had soaked down his thigh.

  Her nostrils flared, taking in the rusted scent of blood on the air, and she resisted the urge to press her blade harder against his throat—the tonic they’d taken made her more prone to violence. Instead, she eased it off.

  As she did so, he spread the fingers of his free hand on his injured thigh, a fey sign of submission.

  “So,” she said to him. “I’m guessing you didn’t find your priestess.”

  “No,” he said. “We did not.”

  Now that the edge of battle had slowed down, she could observe him in greater detail. He was dirty. Not filthy, unless one counted the blood, but he’d definitely been in a few hard spots involving branches, dirt, and violence. A combination of blood, both his and demonic, stained his armor plates and soaked into his clothes, and his marble-pale skin was a mix of dirt smears and scratches. Dirt caked on his hair. He’d pulled it into a tail at the base of his neck, a piece of leather string woven throughout it. Some of it tickled the underside of her arm when he shifted.

  Beneath, she could feel the solidness of his body. He felt like a slab of stone—all hard muscle and blunt bone structure. Even injured, he sat upright and balanced.

  A fey version of herself.

  Her gaze slipped up. Matteo was still in the forefront, giving off an air of quiet confidence.