*****
“We’re wasting time.”
“It’s called passing time while Luther does his job.”
“Clyde could be . . . Okay, I know I shouldn’t worry, but I do.”
“Just let him do things his way.”
“Can his way move a little faster?”
“You’re only angry that you’re losing.”
“I don’t even know what game we’re playing, Bob.”
The lanky elf is about to explain the rules of his favorite card game when a barrel rolls into the small table. With the borrowed cards knocked into the nearby river, the Dawn Fangs can only stare at the broken furniture. They consider fixing it, but the thought vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared. Having nothing else to use as a distraction, they move away from the sparring match that has trampled the clearing. Mab clicks her tongue and taps her fingers on her crossed arms as she takes a seat against a tree. She is about to sweep Bob’s legs to make him sit down too, but stops when she realizes that her actions are about to be driven by her anger and frustration. Gently banging her head against the tree, she ignores the growing bruise and tries to focus on the battling forest trackers.
Even though it has been three hours, the impatient burglar still has no idea how the contest works. All she can figure out is that Luther is holding back against the mortal, who has yet to break a sweat. The warrior’s blonde hair is tied back to reveal his pointy ears and he moves with a spinning style that reminds Mab of a whirlwind. The longer she watches, the more she considers that the shirtless elf is restraining himself against her friend. She watches as his cutlasses clash with Luther’s sickles and sparks fly from the polished metal. The pair leap onto stacks of oaken barrels, which wobbles under their steady feet. Continuing to push against each other, Mab wonders if the forest trackers can feel the unstable towers begin to buckle. Her attention locked on the battle, she nearly cheers when they flip off the collapsing structures and hurry to stop the containers from bouncing into the river. Luther is the first to dart back into the fight, but he skids to a stop when his opponent raises both hands and turns away.
“Sweat before blood, so I lose,” the elf states before pointing to a tiny droplet on his shoulder. Taking a seat on a barrel, he takes out a heavily dented flask of water, which is icy to the touch. “Thanks for sparring with me again, old man. I don’t find many challenges in caravan work, so I’m truly honored that one of your kind is willing to grant me such favors from time to time. Now, what is it that you’re looking for again? Some kind of Vampire Queen?”
“She might go by the name Jewelz too, but I doubt it,” Luther explains while he works out the nicks on the edges of his sickles. Whistling for his friends to join him, the Dawn Fang sits on another barrel and accepts an offer of jerky. “I know this is a long shot, Edwin, but you travel a lot, so I believe you are an excellent source to visit. More than likely, you will only know her as the Vampire Queen. If she used her real name then my friend over here would have already hunted her down and put an end to our troubles. Wherever this woman is living, I’m fairly certain she hasn’t left it in centuries. She has a love of jewels and is involved in the death and disappearance of several vampires. You’ve worked with a few of our kind over the years, so have you heard anything?”
The forest tracker rubs his angular chin and rocks on his perch, his green eyes occasionally falling on Mab. “I can believe what you said about this one. There’s a lot of aggression coming off of her, which is why the birds are staying quiet. Given the hydra-skin jacket, I assume you’re Mab. If this woman has angered someone with your reputation then she must be either very brave or stupid. Wish I could point you in the direction of your enemy, but I’ve only heard rumors. Nothing about disappearances and murders, but recruitment. Starting a few years back, I began to see these odd fliers in taverns around the Ralian coast. Nobody could figure out the language, so I took one to a Knowledge Priest who owed me one. He didn’t have any luck since it was a code, which seemed to change with every delivery. It was never the same twice. At the time, I thought it was from a cult or thieves guild, but now I think otherwise.”
“Why do you say that?” Mab asks, cutting Luther off. Hearing him clear his throat, she bows her head and takes a step to the side. “Sorry, but I’m getting impatient. Do you happen to have one of these fliers? Jewelz and I trained together, so I might be able to figure out the code. I promise to give it back.”
“Sadly, I threw it out since I didn’t see a point in keeping it,” Edwin admits, his palms rubbing against this sword hilts. Closing his eyes, he tries to remember any details of the flier, but comes up blank. “The only reason I know it involved vampires was because it had a crude picture of one. Guess it could have been calling for hunters too. It was strange since the image was obviously an attempt at drawing a woman with a crown, which is why my mind went to cult first. This is why I’m starting to believe it has to do with your Vampire Queen. Now that I think about it, the ink was rather colorful too. My friend suggested it had crushed gems in it. Would this enemy be foolish enough to make a public request that any of you could have stumbled onto?”
“He has a point,” Bob says from where he is balancing a barrel on the end of his lance. He puts his weapon on his nose and stands perfectly still until the urge to sneeze forces him to end his fun. “What if she wanted Mab to find them? This new plan could be bigger because she couldn’t get a subtler one to work. Although, I don’t see why she didn’t have them posted around Nytefall. If she has agents there then she could have gotten a message across. Something smells like a summer cow pie, which is much worse than a horse one. Not as bad as hooded lion or elephant, so we’re in the clear there.”
“None of us have powers that can help here,” Luther mutters to himself. Licking at the air, he tries to ignore Mab’s overpowering fury, which leaves him with a bittersweet taste along his tongue. “It’s possible that we did see the fliers, but they were masked. Given her name and interest, I’m going to suggest that Jewelz has gemstone-based powers. I don’t know what they can do, so I’m assuming anything. What if she created ink that made these messages appear coded to mortals and blank to those she is hiding from? Only those who met certain requirements would see the actual message. It’s a stretch and probably more nuanced than that, but she needed some way to recruit.”
Edwin hops off the barrel and hurries to his backpack, which has fallen over and had half of its contents emptied onto the grass. He tries to clean the mess while searching for a charcoal pencil and paper. The forest tracker returns to his guests and uses his former perch as a table, but the wind threatens to send the parchment flying. Before he can look for rocks to hold it down, Mab stabs it in the four corners with thin daggers and nods for him to continue. Feeling a little nervous around the cold-eyed Dawn Fang, Edwin closes his eyes again and lets his hand move on its own. He fights to think of only the flier without forcing the image to appear while he draws the symbols, most of which are oddly slanted and smeared. Some of what he draws are stretched and arched, which makes him fear that his recollections are even worse than he imagined. After he draws a circle inside the larger shape, the forest tracker gives up and drops the pencil before he makes a bigger fool of himself. He can barely look at Luther when the Dawn Fang hands him a waterskin.
“I can do this recall trick with maps and thought I could make it work for this too,” Edwin admits with shrug. Taking a look at his creation, he cannot stop himself from laughing at how badly he failed. “Not even sure what this is. Looks like a ring with trees and buildings on it. At least I started with symbols. This could just be an island that I saw in passing since I did a bunch of Cerascent work last year. Most of that area is still uninhabited and full of mysteries, so forest trackers get called in as guides all the time. You should take a few jobs, Luther, and help foster that secret reputation your leader wants to create.”
“That’s a pretty good idea,” the Dawn Fang replies, his attention stolen by a str
onger taste of rage in the air. He wipes crimson sweat from his forehead as the sensation rises to a point where he fears it will crush his soul. “Somebody here is getting angrier by the second. I know it isn’t you and Bob doesn’t really do rage. What’s going on, Mab? You’re the only one who could be . . . Do you know what that’s a picture of?”
“Apelios . . . The place where Jewelz and I were reborn,” the burglar growls before shredding the paper.
*****
Mab fights the urge to tear up the maps that cover the wooden floor and decorate the sparring room’s walls. She has been poring over all of them ever since both groups returned to the Scrumptious Siren. The fact that her friends and tentative allies are able to relax among the patrons drives the burglar to work harder. Lighting more candles, she goes back to the first detailed drawing of Cerascent and hunts for any island that resembles Apelios. In the back of her mind, she knows it is a pointless hunt and she is only driving herself beyond the point of exhaustion. Not for the first time, Mab wishes she had Chastity’s unbreakable stamina and could work nonstop, but she eventually succumbs to her fatigue. Flopping onto her back, she closes her eyes and immediately has her pupils emerge from a shadow near another map. The strain is still too much and she is forced to give up, which only makes her angrier. Sprouting her claws, she stretches to swipe at the bottom of a punching bag until it opens and spills the dusty stuffing onto the floor.
“It is strange that we find ourselves on the same side again,” Nadia says as she slides down the golden pole in the corner. The noblewoman wrinkles her nose at the smell of sweat and waves her hand to create an aromatic golem from the fruit basket she is carrying. “You can eat him once his job is done. As I was saying, I’ve been thinking a lot about how all of us have fallen into old habits. The hate and animosity we’ve been carrying for twenty years has been put aside because our loved ones are in danger. Makes me wonder if there’s a lesson to be learned here, but I can’t find it.”
“I’m not in the mood, Sylvan,” Mab replies, her hand rummaging in a shadow. Pulling a bottle of perfume out of a cabinet in Chastity’s bedroom, she sprays herself and coughs at the energizing scent. “Apelios is the island lair of my maker. It’s where Jewelz and I were turned and trained. I never went back after Rellan was killed because he never wanted me to live in the past. It’s a lesson that I threw away when the world changed. Right after the Great Cataclysm, I tried to find Apelios and see if anything strange had happened there. The island was gone, so I thought it had sunk. With Stephanie hearing his name and Luther’s contact drawing a decent picture, I know that’s where Jewelz is hiding. She might have been there this whole time and it simply got moved.”
“And you wanted to see if a mapper had inadvertently located it,” the vampiric orc states with a nod. Unslinging a waterskin of blood from her shoulder, she slides it to the other woman and walks around the room. “I’m sure anyone who did find Apelios was eliminated or converted by the Vampire Queen. She’s been too careful to let herself be discovered early. By the way, I wonder if the lesson is that there are bigger problems we must deal with before finishing our personal business. Windemere is still full of ambitious vampires and hateful mortals who wish genocide on our kind.”
“Maybe this is a once in a lifetime event where we have a mutual enemy,” the burglar declares, her fangs already piercing the bag. The taste of horse blood nearly makes her retch, but her hunger forces her to finish the insulting meal. “If you want me to consider that this is the start of peace then you’re ridiculous. After what you and Xavier did to me, I’d sooner worship Durag than agree to anything more than this temporary truce. Before you argue, I won’t deny that there may be other times that we have to work together against a common threat. The rest of the world doesn’t know the old-worlds and Dawn Fangs are having a slow and patient war. Still, to even hint that we’ll go back to being friends is foolish.”
Nadia chuckles as she comes to a punching bag that she casually pushes back and forth. “I am not that naïve. The two of us were never friends in the first place, so there’s nothing to go back to. I had respect for your abilities, but I always knew your loyalty was to the gang instead of Nyte. People like you and Clyde are not to be fully trusted, which is why I think this war will continue until one side is utterly destroyed. It may have started out of fear, anger, and revenge, but I believe it has transformed into a different kind of battle.”
“One of strategy and patience?”
“Not the tactics, but the goal.”
“Enlighten me before I toss you into the abyss.”
“This is all about control.”
Unimpressed with the answer, Mab flips to her feet and stretches her arms high above her head. She keeps her back to the noblewoman and scratches the side of her neck as if she has recently woken up. Still hungry, the burglar eyes the golem and considers taking a chunk out of the colorful construct. The sudden thought of eating something that Nadia has manipulated kills the rest of her appetite, but she refuses to let the creation remain. A few precise swipes severs its limbs and she tosses the rest into a nearby towel hamper. Turning around, Mab is amused at the scowl she has earned from the other Dawn Fang. In the hopes of driving the woman away, she belches and yawns wide enough to reveal the back of her throat. The tired sigh that she receives is enough to help her forget her anger and focus on prodding the sensitivities of the red-haired vampire. Scratching an itch on her belly, the burglar takes a seat on top of a wooden sword rack and spreads her legs.
“Guess me being crude and unmannered isn’t shocking to you,” Mab says when she fails to get a response. Flipping to the floor, she crouches to check a map that she does not entirely remember. “It isn’t news that we’re fighting over control since it’s clear that the Dawn Fangs are going to survive. Neither side wants to be the loser because that means either enslavement or ostracization. For old-worlds, it could even be extinction. With that being a possibility, it’s only natural for them to fight for control of the vampire world. Kind of pathetic though since the option to be a united people was there at the beginning, but you and your husband crushed that rather thoroughly. Now, I wouldn’t trust your side at all. The only reason you’re willing to work with me is because Xavier is in trouble too. We both know you wouldn’t care if it was only Clyde and Titus who were taken.”
“And you would be celebrating the loss of my husband if he was the only victim,” Nadia swiftly counters. Sensing the tension between them rising, the noblewoman curses under her breath and reaches out to run a finger through a nearby candle. “Let’s be completely honest. The two of us never really liked each other. I find you to be a horrible creature who lacks manners, ambitions, and style. If it was not for your skills, I’d have no use or, and I use the term loosely, respect for you. Honestly, I’m confused as to why someone as powerful as my brood brother wastes his time working with a woman who is so . . . beneath his true standing. Maybe you do have more to worry about than you think, Winthrop. If Clyde wins this war then he will be the Vampire King and he’ll need a queen. You know he’s already thought about that. Would you choose a simple burglar or a woman who has already claimed the title? At the very least, he’ll help you destroy Jewelz and eventually cast you aside when you become a hindrance to his new life.”
“Speak to me like that again and I’ll feed you your own tongue,” Mab growls, her desire to save Clyde the only thing keeping her temper at bay.
Nadia grins and opens her mouth while hissing, “Give it a try, little thief.”
“We know where to go!” Stephanie shouts as she slides down the pole. Landing with an echoing thud, she immediately creates a portal of blood above her head. “Lost got a message from Kai and he wants me to create a communication mirror. He says he has the location of Apelios and exact directions if we leave from Gaia. Chastity has been told enough to help her prepare a ship, but she is staying in Nytefall. We should be making contact any minute. I don’t know how he was able to do this witho
ut leaving the city.”
The portal shimmers before it transforms into the image of a room that has clearly been the site of a recent battle. Chunks of the rear wall are missing and only Xavier’s throne is intact, its mate having been reduced to a pile of splinters. Purple mist covers the floor and sticks to the armored legs of the guards, who are hurrying to make repairs. With a grunt, Lou lumbers into view carrying a partially melted piece of the ceiling, which is still attached to a chandelier that drags behind him. Rapidly sniffing at the air, the ogre glances in the portal’s direction and immediately spits a purple glob over his shoulder. The bodyguard goes back to work as whatever is being used as a medium is turned to show Kai, who is wearing a blood-soaked apron. He leans against a table, which is covered in gore that continues to twitch and spurt. Spotting Nadia, the spymaster grabs a sheet from the floor and throws it over the remains that only partially resemble a human.
“As you can see, I’ve been busy,” Kai casually mentions with a smile. Removing his gloves, he tosses them onto the table, which he carefully shoves out of view. “I have already given the information to Lost, who has written the directions down. This meeting is more to explain what happened and apologize for the mess. Upon arriving at Nyte, Lou and I came up with a plan to draw out and exterminate the Vampire Queen’s agents. I do not wish to bore you with the details, so I will be brief. We had a fake Lady Sylvan walk around the castle to make our enemies believe you were here. The decoy was attacked in the throne room where she exploded to release the poison stored within her body. It was the one designed to weaken Dawn Fangs, which Archillious will need to make more of when he returns. The battle was not very long and we only lost four soldiers. To get to the point, we kept some of the enemy alive and I had a little talk with them. There was the usual defiance, but these Apelios agents break as soon as you begin fiddling with the gem that is lodged in their brains. I do not know what else those things do, but I learned where the Vampire Queen is hiding.”
Rivalry (War of Nytefall Book 3) Page 12