hunt, a large vaguely feline beast the size of a rhinoceros with dark green
fur marked by splotches of deep rust red. The House Krahr Huntmaster
was tracking it, but the main hunting party, and she, had no idea where
it would come from. The vampires didn’t like hunts with training wheels.
It really was a beautiful planet, Maud decided. The soft green grass with
flashes of turquoise and gold lined the floor of the plain. The mesas rose
on both sides, the grey stone of their walls weathered by rain and sun to
almost white. The sky was tinted with emerald green, the golden sun
shone bright, and the wind smelled of wildflowers. It was so easy to lose
herself in it all and just breathe.
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The mesa on her left curved, protruding. Maud rounded it. Far ahead a
long procession trotted across the plain, the massive vihr stomping
forward like they were trying to crush the ground with every step like
oversized tan Clydesdales. She was too far off to hear the hoof beats,
but her mind supplied the sound all the same, boom boom boom. They
were moving kind of fast. They must have sighted the prey.
Her personal unit chimed, synchronizing and projected a stylized map,
tagging the individual vampires in the party. Eight people in the lead
represented by red triangles, followed by a larger group of white
triangles, followed by a smattering of green circles. Red signified the
killing team, white indicated adults, and green was reserved for children.
“Tag Helen.”
Among the green circles, one turned yellow. She was in the center of the
child group. Likely protected by several sentinels and perfectly
safe. Still, the fights were unpredictable.
I really am getting too paranoid.
As if on cue, the hunting party split. The red group at the front peeled
off, the slow vihr speeding up. The white group remained steady,
holding to their original course.
If she didn’t hurry, she would miss the kill. She couldn’t offer
congratulations to the soon-to-be-married couple unless she actually
witnessed them bringing the beast down.
Maud gave a short harsh whistle, and Attura surged forward.
A distant roar shook the air. A huge creature burst from between the
mesas, running for the killing team, his green fur blurring with the
grass. Damn it.
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The killing team fanned out, seeking to flank the beast. It would be over
in a matter of minutes.
Her personal unit screamed, the shriek of alarm piercing her. Something
was happening in the main procession. The formation broke, too chaotic
to see. On her display, a big red dot appeared in the mass of green
circles.
Panic punched her. Maud threw her weight forward almost lying on
Attura’s neck. The beast galloped with all its might.
Individual riders shot out of the procession in all directions. She chanced
a quick glance at the projection. There were three red dots now. The
children were fleeing, while the adults bunched at the center, trying to
contain the threat. The yellow circle indicating Helen angled south west,
another green circle in her wake.
Maud shifted her weight to her left, and the savok angled west.
The group of vampires broke, bodies flying, and through the gap Maud
glimpsed a creature. Enormous, mottled grey and stained with dirt and
reddish clay, the hulking beast bellowed, swinging its huge scaled head
side to side. It caught a knight and the force of the blow hurled him off
his mount. The orphaned vihr screamed. The beast’s great jaws
unhinged and shut on the vihr. The creature swung away and a bloody
half of the vihr toppled to the ground.
What the hell was that? It looked like a dragon. A huge scaled dragon.
She had to get to Helen. She had to get to Helen now.
Another dragon, this one pale and yellowed like an old bone, tore out of
the clump of the vampires, and charged south west. The two riders on
juvenile vihr kept fleeing, oblivious to the danger.
It’s going after the children.
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Maud screamed. Helen’s head whipped around. She looked over her
shoulder and shrieked.
Maud fused with Attura as if they were one creature, willing him to go
faster.
The vihr were running for their lives, the kids bouncing in the
saddles, but they weren’t fast enough. The dragon came after them,
paw over paw, like a sprinting crocodile, jaws gaping, a forest of fangs
wet with its drool.
It was gaining.
Faster. Faster!
They were almost there. Almost. A few dozen yards.
The dragon lunged, roaring.
The little boy’s vihr shied, screaming in panic, and stumbled. The boy
and the beast went tumbling into the grass. The dragon loomed over
them. Maud saw it all as if in slow motion in painful clarity: Helen’s
terrified face, her eyes opened wide, her hands on the vihr’s reins, the
vihr turning, obeying her jerk, and then she was on the ground, between
the boy and the dragon.
Twenty yards to her daughter.
A sound ripped the air around Maud, so loud it was almost deafening. A
small clinical part of her told her she was howling like an animal, trying
to make herself into a threat.
Helen drew her blades.
The dragon opened its mouth. Its head plunged down and Helen
disappeared.
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Something broke inside Maud. Something almost forgotten that lived
deep in the very center of her being, in the place where Innkeepers drew
their power when they connected to their Inn. She had no Inn. She had
nothing, except Helen and Helen was inside the dragon’s
mouth. Everything Maud was, every drop of her will, every ounce of her
strength, all of it became magic directed through the narrow lens of her
desperation. It tore out of her like a laser beam and she saw it, black,
and red, and ice cold, committed to one simple purpose: stop!
Time froze. The dragon halted, locked and immobile, the bulge about to
travel up its neck stopped in its tracks. The vihr, one fallen, the other
about to bolt, stood in place, petrified. The vampire boy sprawled in the
grass, unmoving.
This is the magic of ad-hal, that same clinical voice informed her. You
shouldn’t be able to do this.
But she was moving through the stillness, her sword in her hand, and as
Attura tore into the dragon’s hide, Maud slit a gash in its cheek. Blood
gushed, red and hot. Maud thrust her arm into the cut. Her fingers
caught hair and she grabbed a fist full of it and pulled. She couldn’t move
it, so she planted her feet, dropped her sword, and thrust both arms into
the wound. Her hands found fabric. She grasped it and pulled.
The weight shifted under her hands.
The edges of the gaping cut tore wider.
Her daughter fell into the grass, soaked in spit.
Is she dead? Please, please, please, please…
Helen took a deep, shuddering breath and screamed.
The magic shattered.
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The dragon roared in pain and swiped at Attura clinging t
o his neck. The
savok went flying, flipped in mid-air, landed on all fours like a cat, and
charged back in.
The realization slammed into her like a train. There were two children
behind her and she was the only thing between them and the dragon.
Maud attacked.
She tore at it with all the savagery of a mother forced into a corner. She
stabbed it, she cut it, she pierced it, her blood blade the embodiment of
her rage. There was no fear left. She’d burned it all in the terrifying
instant she saw Helen swallowed. Only fury remained and icy
determination.
It struck at her and she dodged. When it caught her with a swipe, she
rolled to her feet and came back in, her teeth bared in a feral snarl. She
stabbed it in the throat. When it tried to pin her with its claws, she cut
off its talons. She wasn’t a whirlwind, she wasn’t a wildfire; she was
precise, calculating, and cold, and she cut pieces off of it one by one,
while Attura ripped its flesh.
The dragon reared, a bleeding wreck, one eye a bloody hole, paws
disfigured, and roared. She must have lost her mind, because she roared
back. It came down on her, trying to trap her with its colossal
weight. She had a crazy notion of holding her blood blade and letting it
impale itself, then something hit her from the side, carrying her out of
the way. The dragon smashed into the ground, and in a lightning flash
of sanity, Maud realized she would have been crushed.
Arland dropped her to her feet. His mace whined. He charged the
dragon, huge, his face a mask of rage, she laughed and dove back into
the slaughter.
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They cut and slashed and crushed together. At some point she caught a
glimpse of the children stabbing at the crippled dragon’s legs. Finally, it
swayed like a colossus on sand feet. They drew back and it crashed to
the ground. Its eye closed. It lay unmoving.
Maud gripped her sword, unsure if it was over. She had to make
sure. She started forward, aiming for its face.
Arland rose out of the gore, jumped up onto the dragon’s head, and
raised his mace gripping it with both hands. They hit it at the same
time. She sank her blade as deep as it would go in its remaining eye,
while he crushed its skull with repeated blows.
They stared at each other, both bloody.
Helen hugged Maud’s leg, her lip trembling. Arland slid off the dragon’s
ruined head and clamped them both to him. Nearby, Attura raised his
head, pawed the ground and bayed in triumph.
Arland’s voice came out strained. “I thought I lost you both.”
Maud raised her head and kissed him, blood and all, not caring who was
watching or what they thought.
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Chapter 16 Part 1 and 2
October 15, 2018 by Gordon
We are gently reminding you that because of the nature of this story
being posted on the internet, where minors can read it, we keep things
PG-13 until the story is revised for publication.
Maud knocked on the door separating Arland’s quarters from the tunnel
leading to her rooms. Yesterday she would have hesitated. Today she
didn’t even pause.
The door swung open. Arland stood on the other side, barefoot and out
of armor, wearing a black shirt over loose black pants. His hair was
damp, and he’s pulled it back into a loose horse tail. He must’ve just
stepped out of the shower. The afternoon had turned into an evening,
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and the light of the sunset tinted the room behind him with purple, red,
and deep turquoise.
His gaze snagged on her. She was wearing a white robe of fonari spider
silk, its fabric so thin and light, she barely felt it. The wide sleeves fell
over her arms like a cloud. She’d cinched the robe at the waist with the
belt, but it was cut so wide that the voluminous skirt swept the ground
behind her, the gossamer silk swirling around her at the slightest breeze
and when the light caught it just right, it shimmered, translucent.
The robe was a Christmas gift from Dina. She’d handed her the gift,
smiled, and walked away, giving Maud her privacy. Maud opened the
gilded box, touched the silk, and sank on to the floor next to it. At the
time it seemed like an unbelievable luxury. On Karhari it would have paid
for a year of water for her and Helen, and Maud had cried over it quietly,
alone. She’d cried like that the first night of her exile, when she
butchered her waist-long black hair. The dark locks had fallen to the
ground and she had mourned the life she lost, but at Christmas, when
Maud held the delicate fabric in her fingers, it had touched off something
in her, something gentle and fragile she had hidden deep inside to
survive, the part of her that loved beautiful clothes, and flowers, and long
soaks in the bath. It came aware and it hurt, and she cried from pain and
relief.
She wished so much she’d had her hair now.
Arland opened his mouth.
Nothing came out. He just looked at her. An exhilarating flash of female
satisfaction surged through her.
Silence stretched.
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“Arland?”
He closed his mouth and opened it again. “How is Helen?”
“Very tired. We washed all of the blood off and she fell asleep.”
“Understandable. She was fighting for her life.” His voice trailed off.
“Arland?”
“Yes?”
“Can I come in?”
He blinked and stepped aside. “Apparently, I have lost my manners
somewhere on the hunt. My deepest apologies.”
She swept past him into the room.
He shut the door and turned to her. “Have you sustained any inju—”
She put her arms around his neck and stood on her toes. Her lips met
his, and he held very still.
Does he not want me?
Arland’s arms closed around her. He spun her, and her back pressed into
the door. His rough fingers slid along her cheek, his fingers caressing her
skin. She looked into his blue eyes and caught her breath. His eyes were
hot with lust, need, and hunger, all swirled together and sharpened with
a hint of predatory anticipation.
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His lips trembled in the beginning of a growl. He smiled wide, showing
his fangs, and lowered his mouth on hers. Her instincts screamed in
panic, not sure if she was mate or prey, but she had waited for so long
for this and she met him halfway.
They came together like two clashing blades. His mouth sealed hers and
she opened for him, desperate to connect, to feel him, to taste… His
tongue glided over hers. He tasted of mint and warm spice. His fangs
rasped against her lip.
Her head swam. She felt light, and strong, and wanted…
He kissed her deeper, his big body bracing hers. She nipped his lip. A
snarl rumbled deep in his throat, the sound of predatory warning or
maybe a purr, she wasn’t sure. He kissed the corner of her mouth, her
lips, her chin, her neck, painting the line of heat and desire on her
skin. She was shaking with need now.
“I’ve wanted
this for so long,” he groaned.
“So did I.”
“Why now?”
He was kissing her neck again, each touch of his lips a burst of
pleasure. She could barely think, but she answered anyway. “We almost
died today. I can’t wait any longer. I don’t want to be careful, I don’t
want to think about the consequences or things going wrong. I just want
you. I want you more than anything.”
“You have me.”
“Always?”
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“Always,” he promised.
#
Maud stretched, sliding her foot along the heated length of Arland’s
leg. He pulled her tighter to his body. Her head rested on his chest.
“What were they? The creatures?”
“The closest thing to Mukama in my generation. On the vampire
homeworld, there were predatory apes, like us, but not quite us. A
distant relative, less intelligent, more feral, more vicious.”
“Primitive?”
“Yes. The Mukona, the creatures that attacked us, are the Mukama’s
primeval cousins. They are to the Mukama what feral apes are to us. An
earlier evolutionary branch that didn’t grow. This is the birth place of the
Mukama, after all. The Mukona possess rudimentary intelligence, more
of a predatory cunning, really, and inhabit caves deep below the planet’s
surface. When we took over the planet, we had hunted them to
extinction, or so we thought.”
“There were three of them,” Maud said. “A mated pair and an
offspring?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. I’d never seen one before today. I’d heard
stories.” He made a low growl. “Once this damn wedding is over, we’ll
have to send survey drones into the caverns. Find out how many of them
Innkeeper Chronicles 3.5: Sweep of the Blade Page 24