Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 4)

by Ilona Andrews

  “I don’t have anything to trade.”

  Everyone stopped and looked at her. She realized she had spoken out loud.

  Before she could explain, a half-dressed Arland rounded the corner, somehow managing to look angry and confused at the same time. “What the hell is going on?”

  Soren blinked. “Why are you out of armor?”

  “Maud?” Arland closed in on her.

  She looked up at him, feverishly rummaging through the list of her meager possessions in her head.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Helen has been poisoned, and I don’t have anything to trade.”

  “Will someone explain this to me?” Ilemina demanded.

  Understanding sparked in Arland’s eyes. “But I have things to trade. They will trade with me or I’ll twist their heads off.”

  “Who?” Ilemina snarled.

  “Explain things to your mother,” Otubar boomed.

  “No time.” Arland grabbed Maud’s hand and pulled her down the hallway. Behind them the sound of a pissed off Preceptor shook the air. Arland sped up.

  “How are you still walking?” Maud squeezed out.

  “Booster. Activated it before you took my armor off. I had plans. None of which involved a sedative.”

  “Arland Roburtar Gabrian of Krahr!” Ilemina roared. “Stop this instant!”

  Arland ignored her. They were almost to the bend in the hallway.

  Suddenly Arland braked, and then the lees flooded all available space, their veils swirling, their jewelry shining, tails and ears twitching. Maud saw Nuan Cee in the center of the lees mob and reached out to him. “Helen…”

  Nuan Cee took her hands into his furry paw-hands. “I know.”

  The rest of the lees rushed past them, washing over them like a wave, and rolled down the hallway, parting around Ilemina, Otubar, and Soren.

  “I have nothing to trade,” she said.

  Nuan Cee’s turquoise eyes shone. He grinned, displaying sharp, even teeth. “I am sure we can come to an arrangement.”

  “Get out of my medward, vermin!” the medic screamed.

  “Do not worry yourself.” Nuan Cee patted Maud’s hands as a mob of lees carried the medic out of his medward. “All will be well now.”

  15

  Maud slumped in an oversized chair in Lord Soren’s study. She felt wrung out like a piece of wet laundry about to go in the dryer. The lees had treated Helen for the better part of an hour, and when Nuan Cee finally emerged from the medward, Maud felt ready to tear her hair out. He had announced that the danger had passed, Helen would be up in a few hours, and there was no need to worry.

  Maud had been allowed to see her daughter and to kiss Helen’s warm forehead, and then the enraged vampire medic kicked everyone out. She wanted to be back in the medward, sitting by the bed, watching for minute signs of improvement, but it would accomplish nothing and Ilemina had requested her presence in her brother’s study.

  The Preceptor of House Krahr sat in a chair by Lord Soren’s desk, looking grim. Otubar sat on his wife’s right, Arland sat on Maud’s left. He had put on his armor and his booster kept him awake, but she could tell by the slightly feverish look in his eyes that a crash was coming. Karat took a spot at the opposite end of the room. Soren presided over it all, sitting behind his huge desk as if it were a castle wall and he was watching a horde of invaders gather for a siege. Except this time the invaders looked back at them not from a field before the castle but from a massive screen, where the recording of the events on the mesa played out.

  Maud had picked the farthest chair from the screen, maybe twenty feet away. It felt like miles. The room contained the Krahr, not the huge House, but the small nuclear family who ran it. She didn’t really belong here.

  “So we have no useable footage,” Arland said.

  Karat frowned. Her fingers danced across the tablet in her hand. The recording zoomed in past the game of krim, showing distant figures at the edge of the mesa. The image sped up and the figures jerked around in a slightly comical dance as knights mulled about.

  “We know members of both Kozor and Serak were at the edge of the game grounds and had opportunity to fire the shot at Helen,” Karat said. “We know none of them had a gun on them, so they had to have assembled it on location. See how they keep crowding each other? They could’ve assembled a small space craft and we would’ve been none the wiser.”

  “We should upgrade the surveillance,” Otubar said.

  Soren grimaced. “Do you want to assign each of them a personal drone?”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Otubar said.

  “We would be breaking every rule of hospitality,” Soren said. “They would accuse us of cowardice and paranoia and claim we made the wedding impossible. We already failed to protect a child in our care and we were almost too late to prevent a confrontation between our other guests and these…ushivim.”

  Karat jerked. “Father!”

  Maud blinked. Of all the words she had expected the Knight Sergeant to use, the expletive meaning the bloody diarrhea of diseased vermin was the last on the list.

  The corners of Otubar’s mouth rose a couple of millimeters. It was the closest she had ever seen the Lord Consort come to a smile.

  “It was planned and premeditated,” Karat said. “As I pointed out, they had to have brought the weapon in pieces, assembled it on the spot, shot her, and disassembled it after. We scoured that entire area, on top of the mesa and down by the beach. If they had dropped any part of it, our scans would have picked it up. Each of them must have carried a small piece of it. It’s smart.”

  “They switched targets,” Arland said. “They must have planned to take me out after the krim match in a final effort to uncover the Under Marshal, but they allowed for the possibility of failure. So, when I won the bout and walked away, they shot Helen.”

  Maud turned to him. “Why her? She’s just a child.”

  “Not her,” Ilemina said. “They used Helen to target you. If the tachi had truly injured the child, would you still negotiate with them on our behalf?”

  “If she survived, yes,” Maud said. “But if she died, everything would be over for me.”

  “And what would the tachi and lees do if Helen had been injured by one of them?” Ilemina asked.

  “They would evacuate,” Maud said. “Neither delegation has the numbers to oppose a large attack and neither party wants to antagonize you. They want the trade station and access to your space. If their presence became an issue or caused any inconvenience, they would remove themselves from the situation rather than risk aggravating you. They would wait the wedding out and resume negotiations after the other guests left.”

  “You see now?” Ilemina leaned forward, resting her hands on Soren’s desk. “You are the key to the tachi and lees. Without your intervention, the tachi might have left already and Nuan Cee, who loves money above all things, dotes on you as if you were his own child. Congratulations. You’ve made enough of a difference to become a high-value target.”

  “Yes,” Soren agreed. “The Kozor and Serak stooped to attacking a child just to remove you. They are willing to weather the shame if it means running off the lees and the tachi.”

  Otubar leaned forward. “The ends justify the means.”

  “But we’re back to why,” Karat said. “What possible detriment could the lees and the tachi be to their plan?” She turned to Maud.

  Great. “I don’t know.”

  “That reminds me,” Ilemina said. “Could a lees have poisoned Helen? They are devious enough to injure her and then magnanimously provide the cure. It would put Maud in their debt.”

  Maud shook her head.

  “It needed to be said,” Otubar said.

  “No,” Arland said. “That was the first thing I checked. None of the lees were anywhere near the game grounds or the lake. Their equipment is sophisticated and can render them practically invisible, but I have seen their disruptor in action and Nuan Cee know
s it. The disruptor relies on a maa emitter, and once you know what to screen for, it’s not hard to find. They’ve been using plain stealth to get around the castle and record candid videos of us, but they had nothing to do with poisoning the child. It would be too heavy-handed for them anyway.”

  “Why?” Karat asked.

  “The lees seek balance,” Arland said. “A good bargain is the highest honor they could strive for. Saving a child and collecting a favor from the parent satisfies the need for balance. Hurting a child to save it and then collecting the favor is not a balanced transaction.”

  Maud almost did a double take. He flashed her a grin.

  “Is he right?” Ilemina asked.

  “Yes. The lees pride themselves on being clever. To set us up by hurting Helen would go against Nuan Cee’s clan’s code.” Maud took a deep breath. “However, I do owe him a favor. He will collect, which means he will ask me for something and I won’t be able to refuse. I am now a security risk.”

  Ilemina waved her hand. “Eh.”

  “You are a security risk if we don’t know about it,” Soren said.

  Arland leaned back in his chair. “What do the lees and tachi have in common? Why do Kozor and Serak want them gone?”

  Maud sighed. “The two species couldn’t be more different. The lees live in clans, the tachi are a monarchy. The lees prize wealth, the tachi seek knowledge. The lees are secretive ambush predators, the tachi swarm their target. The lees encourage personal achievement and strive to earn individual recognition, the tachi win or lose as a whole. They don’t have much in common. They’re both omnivorous species. They are both interested in a trade station and an alliance with Krahr. They both arrived in spaceships…”

  “Battle station,” Karat said.

  Everyone looked at her.

  She hit her fist on her father’s desk. “The scum. They want the battle station.”

  Arland sat up straight. “The battle station has limited personnel and a central control point. Two hundred wedding guests, the elite of their Houses, would pose a real threat.”

  Karat nodded. “Once they have control of the battle station, they can pound the planet to dust. Even the full power of our fleet might not be enough.”

  “They don’t have to face the fleet,” Otubar growled.

  “He’s right,” Arland said. “If they gain control of the station, they can hold the planet hostage while they clear the system.”

  Maud blinked. “Did you actually put a warp drive on that thing?”

  “Of course we did,” Ilemina snapped. “What good is a weapon if you can’t move it where your enemy is?”

  “It’s a bold plan,” Soren said. “If they pull this off, they would be untouchable. The bragging rights alone would guarantee them a seat at the big table.”

  “They would still have to take it from us,” Karat reminded him. “The only way for them to get on to the station is through the wedding boon.”

  According to tradition, the couple about to wed could request a small favor from their hosts. To deny the boon was the height of rudeness.

  “They will request that the wedding be held on the station,” Karat continued. “We deny the request. Problem solved.”

  “On what grounds?” Ilemina asked.

  “On the grounds that we know they’re up to something.”

  Soren heaved a sigh. “So, you want to accuse our honored guests of plotting behind our backs. With what evidence? Do you have any proof to support your baseless claims?”

  Karat opened her mouth and shut it.

  Her father nodded. “Silence that speaks volumes. We have no proof, only guesses, deductions, and suspicions. Furthermore, we already permitted them to tour the battle station when they arrived. We can’t claim that it’s forbidden, unfinished, or secret now, because we invited them for wine and pastries on the observation deck.”

  Of course they would invite the rival Houses to tour the battle station. Look at our big new super-awesome weapon. Behold the might of Krahr. We are the greatest and you could never compare. Ugh.

  “If we refuse to grant the boon,” Soren continued, “we would have to do so without any explanation. At best, we would be viewed as discourteous and uncouth. At worst, timid and cowardly. How could we, with all our might and our planet only a shuttle flight away, be so wary of two hundred wedding guests? Even if we do refuse to step into the trap, they score a wounding blow.”

  He was right. Reputation was everything. It wasn’t enough to stop the scheme. House Krahr had to do it in a way that brought them credit.

  “There has to be more to their plan,” Arland said. “Some scheme, some ploy to minimize the risk. There’s something we don’t know that makes them think they could win. And they view the aliens as a wildcard.”

  “Both the lees and tachi have battle ships in orbit,” Maud said. “Between the two of them, they pack a lot of fire power. The tachi have the technological superiority, and the lees fight dirty and hold grudges for generations.”

  Ilemina bared her teeth. “The pirates are afraid the aliens will come to our aid. What kind of world is it that a vampire from another House is my enemy and bugs and Merchants are my allies?”

  Soren turned to Maud. “Would they help us?”

  “Hard to say,” Maud said. “I’m leaning to yes. If you promise them the trade station, then definitely.”

  “The plan you’re contemplating requires a military alliance,” Ilemina told Soren. “Do you truly want this? An alliance of one House and another species against other Houses has never been done. How would this be received by the rest of the Anocracy?”

  “How would the end of our House be received, my lady?” Soren asked.

  Maud took a deep breath. “The rest of the Anocracy doesn’t have to know whether this alliance was forged before the other houses broke the rules of hospitality or after.”

  Ilemina pivoted toward her.

  Maud met her gaze. “The Kozor and Serak will request to hold the wedding on the battle station. By virtue of their presence, the lees and the tachi, honored guests of House Krahr, would be invited to said wedding. If during the ceremony, the other Houses commit an act of treachery and attack their hosts, it would be only natural for the lees and the tachi to defend themselves against a common threat. If, in the course of such a battle, they are so impressed by the might of House Krahr that they seek an alliance, who could blame them? And wouldn’t House Krahr, moved by their bravery, then be honor-bound to accept such an alliance, if for no other reason than to compensate for the danger the guests had experienced? After all, who would stand with the Houses who drowned so deeply in dishonor that even the aliens have judged them unworthy?”

  Silence claimed the room.

  “Draft it,” Ilemina said to Soren. “Maud, once it’s drafted, take it to the aliens. Tell them that if they agree, I will personally open negotiations for the trade station.”

  Otubar’s eyebrows rose a hair.

  Ilemina bared her teeth. “Kozor and Serak are wary of them, so I will use them. ‘He who is feared by my enemy is my shield.’”

  16

  Maud rushed down the hallway. The meeting with the lees and the tachi was in less than ten minutes, but her harbinger had pinged, letting her know Helen was awake. Maud tore through the castle at a near sprint. Logic told her that everything would be fine, but emotion trumped logic, and her emotions were screaming at her that something would go terribly wrong in the time it would take her to get to the medward. By the time she reached the door, she was in a near panic.

  The door whispered open.

  In a flash, Maud saw the room in excruciating detail: the bed, the white instruments, the blue readouts projected on the wall, the medic standing to the side, and Helen, upright on the bed.

  “Mommy!” Helen cleared ten feet in a single jump.

  Maud caught her and hugged her, hoping with everything she had that this was real, and her daughter wouldn’t disappear out of her arms, fading back into
the hospital bed.

  “Full recovery,” the medic said. “I uploaded a monitoring routine to her harbinger and synced it to you. If she takes a turn for the worse, which I do not anticipate, her unit will flash with yellow and you will get a warning. Should this occur, I want to see her immediately.”

  “Understood.” Maud kissed Helen’s forehead, inhaling the familiar scent of her daughter’s hair. It will be okay, she’s okay, everything is fine, she’s alive, she’s not dying… “Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome,” the medic said. “I did very little. All I could do was keep her alive for a little longer. Eventually she would have slipped away. Are you going to speak with the lees?”

  “Yes.” She was still clutching Helen tightly to herself, unwilling to let go.

  “I want the recipe for that antidote.”

  “I will try, but the lees hoard their secrets like treasure. They will only trade, for something of equal or greater value.”

  The medic pondered the wall for a moment and tapped his unit. A round ceramic tower slid out of the floor and opened, revealing a core lit from within by a peach-colored glow and rows of tubes, vials, and ampoules arranged in rings around it. The contents of the tower glittered like jewels, some filled with amber liquid, others containing glowing mists or small dazzling gems in a rainbow of colors. It was oddly elegant and beautiful, the way vampire technology often was. The medic plucked a twisted vial filled with green mist and held it out to her.

  “A gesture of good faith.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a biological weapon we developed during the Nexus conflict. It renders the lees infertile.”

  He just pulled a species-ending toxin out of the shelf like it was nothing. And he had dozens more in there, of all different shapes and sizes. How many other species could they neuter with one of those shiny bottles? She’d just watched him reach into a Pandora’s box like he was grabbing a sandwich out of a picnic basket.