Bloodforged (33 page)

He dropped the silver knife with a hiss of distaste. ‘Not vengeance,’ he said. ‘Duty. And Kiraly is two hundred years dead. I only used his name to try to lure out the boyarina.’

Ulrika shook her head, trying to stop it churning. Nothing made sense. ‘This can’t be! You spared her! That is why I trusted you. You had a chance to kill her when we fled her mansion and you did not!’

‘Aye,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘A difficult decision. When I led the cultists to the house, I expected Evgena to destroy them, freeing me to kill her, but slaying Raiza was a mistake I shouldn’t have made. I realised immediately the fight would go the other way, and I could not allow that. Praag is to be mine. I am to claim it in my master’s name. I could not let these dupes of Chaos steal it out from under me.’ He looked down at Evgena’s head. ‘I was forced to let the Lahmians live until they helped me defeat the cult. Now they have.’

Ulrika went on guard at last. ‘And now you mean to kill me.’

Stefan’s face fell. ‘No, beloved. Not at all. I meant what I said. We will rule Praag together. We will live here forever.’

‘What?’ cried Ulrika. ‘You expect me to believe that? The moment I turn my back, I will die like all the others.’

Stefan’s eyes flashed. ‘I have lied in many things,’ he said. ‘But not in that. We have shared blood. We have a bond.’

‘And you broke it, here, with this!’ said Ulrika, pointing at Evgena’s corpse. ‘Blood of eagles! You think I could love you now?’

‘I don’t understand you!’ Stefan snapped. ‘You despised her! You said before you didn’t care if I killed her!’

‘I – it doesn’t matter if I despised her,’ said Ulrika. ‘You said you weren’t here to kill her. You lied to me. You–’

She cut off as memories came back to her – a hundred little things Stefan had said, seemingly insignificant at the time, but now so clear. It had been his comment about gossiping women that had turned her mind to asking the Lahmians about the cult, thereby drawing Raiza out where he could attack her. It had been he who had put the idea of a meeting on neutral ground into her mind. Ha! If Evgena had agreed to it, she and Raiza and Galiana would have been dead that very night!

‘You used me to get to them!’ she said. ‘You used what I felt for you! Ursun’s teeth! I handed them to you!’ She raised her blade and advanced on him. ‘I had no love for Evgena, but I am no one’s cat’s-paw. I will die before I allow you to succeed through me.’

Stefan’s grey eyes grew cold, and he knelt to pick up the silvered knife again with his wrapped hand. ‘Your answer was yes,’ he said in a voice like ice. ‘Do you not remember? You said you would be with me, no matter what happened. You have broken your word.’

Ulrika sprang, trying to run him through before he grabbed the knife, but he turned her blade with his rapier and scooped it up, then rolled and came up slashing with it.

She snarled and scrambled back from the shining edge. ‘I said those things to a man I trusted,’ she said. ‘You are not he.’

Stefan lunged, gashing her arm with his rapier as she parried the knife. She fell back and crashed into a crate full of prop swords and shields.

‘Perhaps you should fight with those,’ said Stefan, sneering. ‘They are false as well.’

Footsteps clicked on the stairs, and Galiana’s voice whispered into the room.

‘Sister? Ulrika?’

Stefan turned his head, alarmed, and Ulrika hacked at his wrapped left hand. The silvered knife bounced across the floor as her blade cut him to the bone. He staggered back, cursing. She thrust for his neck, but he ducked under her blade and stumbled past her to fall amongst the wooden swords.

‘Galiana! Here!’ called Ulrika, lunging again. He knocked the thrust aside with his rapier, then grabbed a prop sword from the pile and stabbed wildly. Ulrika’s block was too late, and the dull wooden point punched through her abdomen and ripped upwards to wedge between the ribs of her back.

She froze, transfixed with agony. It hurt like no sword cut she had ever taken. It was more like the pain of falling in the river – like the wood had impaled not just her body, but her essence. Now she knew why the stake was the preferred weapon of the vampire hunter. It was poison to her kind.

‘I… I’m sorry,’ said Stefan, stepping back.

She toppled to the side, unable to move a muscle. Had the sword pierced her heart? She could not tell. Her whole body screamed. There was no distinguishing one part from the other.

From across the room came a gasp of surprise. Through her dimming eyes, Ulrika saw Galiana staring from the doorway.

‘What have you done?’ she cried, then saw Evgena’s headless corpse. ‘Mistress!’ she shrieked, and ran to her, falling to her knees.

Stefan picked up the silvered knife Ulrika had knocked from his hand, then started cautiously towards Galiana, cupping it. ‘Ulrika killed her,’ he said. ‘I tried to stop her, but was not in time. She was a Sylvanian assassin, sent to destroy your sisterhood from within.’

Galiana looked up from staring at Evgena, seeming to hear him for the first time. ‘
She
was the assassin?’ she asked. ‘Not you?’

‘I swear it, mistress,’ he said, edging closer. ‘She meant to kill you all and rule in your place.’

Galiana stood, backing away from him warily and extending her claws. ‘Is that so? But then who killed Sister Raiza?’

‘She had an accomplice,’ said Stefan smoothly, still advancing. ‘And he remains at large. But worry not, I will protect you. We will rule Praag together.’

Footsteps and the rattle of scabbards came from the stairway.

‘Down there, you four,’ barked a voice. ‘We’ll search further on.’

Stefan froze, but Galiana’s eyes lit up.

‘Gentles!’ she cried, running for the stairs. ‘Gentles, help me! This way! There are cultists!’

Stefan tensed like he meant to spring after her, but boots were thundering down the steps. He would not reach her in time. ‘Lahmian cow!’ he rasped. ‘You will not live to see another sunset!’

He glanced back at Ulrika, raising the silvered dagger, but men were pouring into the room. With a curse he leapt to the hole in the floor and vanished from sight.

Ulrika’s head sagged to her chest as Galiana fell into the arms of the first man through the door, a soldier in the uniform of the duke’s private guard. ‘Praise Ursun you arrived, sirs!’ she sobbed. ‘I fear they meant to sacrifice me! Quick! They have fled through that hole!’

The last thing Ulrika saw as her vision faded entirely, was the soldiers looking around with wide eyes at the bodies of Evgena and the dead and dying cultists as they ran for the hole, and her last thought before her consciousness faded was that Stefan’s threat had not been idle. He could walk by day, and he knew where Evgena’s safe house was.

He was going to kill the last Lahmian of Praag in her sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

GIRDED AGAINST THE DAY

Ulrika jolted awake as something wet splashed her in the face. At first she thought it was water, but then it burned her eyes and made her gag. She coughed, then gasped in pain, for it felt as if she had been run through the guts. The agony was indescribable. She forced her eyes open, blinking away the burning liquid, then grunted as she looked down at herself. She
had
been run through the guts. A wooden sword stuck from her belly, and the liquid, it smelled like lamp oil. Why would anyone throw lamp oil on her?

She turned her eyes left and right, then froze in horror. She lay among robed and hooded and mutated bodies – some still moaning – which were piled upon a mound of timber, and soldiers were walking around and around, soaking the whole assemblage with oil while a crowd of richly clad onlookers watched. It seemed the authorities were preparing to burn the cultists of Slaanesh and the victims of the daemon, and she was on the pyre.

In a paroxysm of panic, she tried to thrash her way off the mound, but her limbs would not answer her. They did nothing more than twitch. She stared down at the silly wooden sword that impaled her. It might not have pierced her heart, but it had somehow paralysed her. She could not move. Not an inch.

She looked around again. She was in the centre of Windlass Square, with the duke’s palace ablaze with light off to the south, and soldiers still bringing bodies out of the Opera House and throwing them on the pile. She had a little time, then, but what did time matter if she couldn’t move? It would only give her leisure to anticipate her burning. She shivered in fear. She could imagine no worse death.

A pair of soldiers was coming her way, dragging a cultist by the legs. She licked her lips. A chance! She would use her Lahmian wiles on them. She would trick them into removing the sword.

The men threw the cultist down beside her, then turned away as he groaned and mumbled incoherently.

‘Sirs,’ she whispered, then tried again, louder. ‘Sirs! I beg you! A small mercy!’

The soldiers looked around, scowling. They did not look the merciful sort. She smiled, trying to look sultry.

‘Sirs, please,’ she murmured as they slouched closer. ‘I would not burn alive. Pull out the sword, so I may bleed to death before the flames find me.’

The soldiers looked at each other and laughed. The first kicked her in the face. The second spat on her.

‘You want mercy, daemon-lover?’ he asked. ‘I’ll give you mercy!’

He grabbed the wooden sword and twisted it in her guts. Ulrika cried out in agony, but he wasn’t done. He ripped it out of her and beat her with it, smashing her head and shoulders and arms until it splintered and snapped.

‘There’s your mercy, you traitorous bitch!’ he cried, then flung the broken sword at her and turned away, laughing, with his mate.

Ulrika sagged forwards, groaning, her head throbbing and blood running down into her eyes. She lifted her hand to wipe it away, then stopped. She could lift her hand! She grinned to herself through bloody teeth. She might have failed at Lahmian wiles, and taken a beating for it, but the men had pulled the sword out nonetheless.

Still, she was much too weak to run away. She doubted she could even crawl, and there were hundreds of people between her and freedom. She needed strength.

She looked to the cultist the soldiers had thrown down beside her. She had heard him moan. He still lived. With a wary glance around, she caught him by the collar and pulled him on top of her. He mumbled wordlessly and his head slumped against her chest. She pulled back his hood and removed the black veil he wore over his face, then tipped up his chin and sank her fangs into his neck. He twitched and grunted, but was too broken to pull away.

She drank deeply, moaning with relief, and willing the blood to mend the torn tissues of her middle. She knew it would take more than one feeding to heal such a wound, but as long as she gained enough strength to run, she would take care of the rest later.

From nearby came a sergeant’s hoarse bellow, and more soldiers came forwards, these armed with torches and halberds. She lay still, hiding under her victim’s bulk, as two shoved their brands into the pile a few paces on either side of her. Immediately flames leapt up and she heard the screams of the not yet dead.

The soldiers backed away again, watching the flames, and she resumed her feeding. She had to heal as much as possible before her attempt. The cultist’s blood flowed again into her veins, warming them and spreading strength to the muscles of her arms and legs, but the flames were roasting her face now. There was no more time.

She shoved the man aside and looked around. The crowd stood fifteen paces back, with the soldiers in a ring just in front of them. The Opera House was directly before her, and the darkest part of the square to her right. That was where she would go.

She rolled away from the pyre, hoping the eyes of the crowd would be watching the flames. There was no outcry, so she rolled again, then pressed up onto her hands and knees. The wound in her gut grabbed her and made her arms tremble, but she fought through it and started to crawl.

‘Hoy!’ came a woman’s voice. ‘One of them’s escaping!’

Ulrika looked up. Three soldiers were coming towards her, halberds lowered. She fought the urge to run, and stayed down, crawling like she could barely move.

They spread out as they approached her, pulling back to stab her from three sides. With a shriek, she leapt up and dashed between them, though her belly felt like it was tearing asunder. They cried out and thrust at her, but she was already past them and sprinting for the hole they had left in their line.

The other soldiers converged towards her, and the crowd, filled with patriotic spirit, closed ranks to stop her. Ulrika sprang at them, snarling and shooting out her claws and fangs, and they fell back screaming. She broke through them with the soldiers after her, and sprinted for a gap between two buildings at the edge of the square. A thrown halberd skittered under her feet and almost tripped her, but she ran on, clutching her stomach.

She ran into the gap and collapsed against one of the buildings, heaving up a throatful of blood and bile that spattered her legs. It had been too much too soon. Her whole body shook with pain and fatigue.

Footsteps thudded behind her. They were coming. She looked up the side of the building. It was cut stone, loosely mortared. She grabbed for the first handhold and pulled herself up, groaning, then climbed on, closing her eyes against the pain.

The boots boomed below her.

‘There she is!’

‘Bring her down!’

‘Call for a gun!’

Another halberd glanced off the stone beside her. She flinched, but climbed on as rocks and cobbles struck all around her. A few yards further and she felt the lip of the roof. She pulled herself onto it and lay there, gasping.

‘Into the building!’

‘We’ll go up through the roof!’

Ulrika moaned and pulled herself up, then staggered, doubled over, across the flat roof. There was a gap on the far side. She gathered her strength and leapt it, then crashed down on the slanted slates of the building beyond. The world dimmed as pain blossomed inside her. She was going to black out. They would find her.

She lifted her spinning head. There was an ornamental cupola at the peak of the roof, little more than a dovecote with an onion-dome on top. She crawled for it. Tiny arched windows lined the base. Were they large enough?

She caught the sill of one and pulled her head and one shoulder in. A score of pigeons squeaked and battered her face with their wings as they fled. She shielded her eyes, then pushed in. It was tight, and her ribs and guts screamed as they pressed against the frame, but at last she squirmed through and dropped to the wooden floor within. It was inches thick with pigeon droppings and she covered her nose and mouth to keep from gagging.

From outside came the echoes of men’s voices. They were on the other roof now. Had they seen her? Had they seen the pigeons? She tried to draw her sword so she could fight them when they came, but her limbs were too weak. She hurt too much. She couldn’t move. Her head fell back, thudding on the filthy boards, and blackness overwhelmed her once again.

Ulrika woke with a cry as something touched her shoulder. She jerked away, reaching for her sword, and a pigeon flapped away from her, spooking the rest of the flock. She rolled, groaning, as they clattered from the cupola again, and clutched her aching abdomen. How long had she been out?

She looked out the little windows. It was still night, but only barely. The sky to the east was lightening. It would be morning soon.

Morning?

Panic clutched her as memory returned. Stefan had threatened to kill Galiana before sunset today. Ulrika had to stop him – kill him. But as she rose, her wound tore at her from the inside and she flopped back, hissing and grunting with pain.

How was she to do it? It seemed impossible. Wounded as she was, and with no more than an hour of night left, she would never find him in time, and wouldn’t be strong enough to fight him if she did. But perhaps speed wasn’t so important. Perhaps it would be better to let him kill Galiana and find him afterwards. She had no particular love for the woman, nor enough loyalty to the Lahmian sisterhood to want to defend it at the cost of her life. She could hunt him later, at her leisure.

But she couldn’t. She might not care about the Lahmians, but she had made a vow to protect them, and she had failed in that vow when she had brought Stefan amongst them. Through her, he had killed Evgena. Through her, he had imprisoned the soul of Raiza, the only one of the Praag sisters Ulrika would have been honoured to call friend. Through her, his plan was one last step away from succeeding. She would not allow him to take that step, though it cost her her life. Vengeance after the fact would be not be nearly as sweet as spoiling his game.

She rose again, determined, and squeezed out of the cupola, clenching her teeth against the pain, but as she crawled down the slant of the roof, she stopped again. It was all very well saying she would stop Stefan, but she needed a plan.

She had to go to Evgena’s safe house, that much was certain. No matter where Stefan hid, that was where he would go in the end. But before that, she had to feed again, and finding a victim would take time. The sun would be up before she reached the house. And what if Galiana didn’t let her in? She couldn’t wait in the street for Stefan to come. She would burn to death.

Ulrika growled and lowered her head. It was impossible. Time and the sun were against her. Everything was in Stefan’s favour.

The mask of tragedy that still dangled around her neck mocked her with its down-turned mouth. She reached up to tear it off, then paused, a thrill of inspiration shooting through her. The mask! The mask was the answer!

She turned in the direction of the Novygrad and limped down the roof with renewed purpose. It would take a little time, but if done right, she would hopefully be able to face Stefan no matter when he struck, night or day.

Ulrika found a worthy victim on her way through the city, a pimp who did business out of an abandoned butcher-shop, then, feeling stronger, but by no means strong, she raced back to the bakery. She reached it only steps ahead of the dawn, and the first slanting shafts of sunlight were already lancing through the darkness of the basement before she had finished taking off her doublet and shirt to examine the wound Stefan had given her.

After a night’s rest and two feedings, the entry point was no more than a scabbed, star-shaped scar, but she knew from the swelling and stiffness of her abdomen that all was not yet well inside. It felt as if someone had inflated a balloon under her ribs. She had no idea how to fix this, or if it would heal itself, so she just bandaged her waist as tightly as she could with the ruined shirt, then set about preparing for battle.

First she donned her last whole shirt, then bound it tightly at wrist and neck with strips from the other. Next she put on her grey doublet and breeches, lacing them up as closely as she could, and on top of them, the leather jerkin she had worn when travelling. After that, she pulled on her thigh-high riding boots and tucked the cuffs of the breeches securely down into them.

Then came the most difficult part. The mask of tragedy would hide her face, and her heavy travelling cloak had a hood that would cover her head, but neither kept off the sun entirely. There was still her neck and forehead and the eye and mouth holes of the mask. What she needed was something like the veil the cultists wore, and she cursed herself for not having the forethought to take one while she had the opportunity.

She upended her pack and pawed through her few meagre belongings. She could drape the rest of her torn shirt over her head, but it was white. In the sun, it would be almost impossible to see through. She needed something black and thin. Then she remembered. The slaver Stefan had brought her to feed upon. He had worn a black bandana under his hat!

She hurried to the room they had disposed of him in. His body was still there. She pulled the bandana from his head and sniffed it with distaste. It smelled of three-day-old corpse and pomade, but there was nothing for it. She draped it over her face then bound it tight at her forehead and throat and tucked the ends down under her collar.