‘They’re here.’
Her mind instantly retracted and she stared down in the gorge through her own eyes to see two arrows fly out from Brutus and Xerxes. A bloodcurdling scream reverberated off the black sides of rock; first blood had been drawn.
Suddenly the vampires were everywhere, swarming into the gorge, their unnaturally pale bodies luminous in the gloom. Snarls and growls rent the air, mingling with the shouts of the warriors leaping from their hiding places and the whine of arrows raining down. The fight had begun. Mistral fired, hearing the twins’ crossbows release a split-second after hers. She reloaded and leaned further over the edge, firing again. Dark figures were moving across the gorge floor beneath her, made tiny by her elevated position but still achingly familiar; Grendel’s bulk, wielding the huge double headed battle axe he still favoured, Cain moving swiftly out of the shadows behind him only to be instantly knocked to the ground by one of the vampires. Mistral hastily reloaded and leaned over to fire a bolt into the vampire; it jerked sharply then slumped forwards. She paused only long enough to watch Cain roll out from beneath its prone body before fitting another bolt to her crossbow. The twins fired continually into the tumult of white-skinned creatures. Mistral matched each shot, aiming, firing and reloading with mechanical detachment until she was abruptly thrown by the sight of Fabian emerging from the shadows, fighting for his life against two vampires. She gave an enraged shout and instantly fired; reloading and firing again into the same creature before its dead body had crumpled to the ground. Her shout had been drowned out by the noise of the fight but Fabian immediately lifted his head to look up in her direction. The fleeting moment of distraction was all the second vampire needed, it lunged for him, reaching out with sinewy arms to lock him in a deadly embrace and bite down into his neck.
‘NO!’
Mistral’s scream echoed through the narrow gorge as the vampire recoiled from Fabian with a pained shriek.
‘They’re wearing collars Mistral!’ Phantasm yelled furiously.
Mistral cursed, realising that she’d given away their position. Eyes glowing like hot embers turned to stare hungrily up at them. Vampires began to swarm up the walls, seeming to run up the sheer rock rather than climb. Mistral and the twins fired frantically, unleashing bolt upon bolt into the creatures streaming up the rock. Brutus and Xerxes joined in to help, leaving the warriors on the gorge floor battling for their lives without the protective cover of their fire.
The vampires were fast and agile, but the paleness of their skin made them easy targets and soon white bodies were falling, screeching as they crashed to the ground below. The others quickly turned around, heading back for the gorge floor. Mistral shifted her position, angling her crossbow to follow one of the fleeing vampires. It moved in erratic bounds, seeming to change direction mid-leap. She rose up onto her knees, trying to keep it in her sights. Samson was ahead of it, fighting with another vampire, his back was turned; he wouldn’t stand a chance ... a sudden gust of wind rocked Mistral. Dropping her crossbow, she grabbed at the ledge to steady herself. The wind had changed direction to drive into the gorge, distorting the sounds of the battle below. Pulling her back from the edge with one hand, Phantom leaned over and fired a bolt, catching the vampire mid-leap. It’s suddenly slack body crashed down onto Samson, causing him to stagger. The vampire he was fighting squealed and lunged. Samson whirled around; the dead vampire sprawled across his shoulders and head blinding him. His sword arm swung out, the long blade slicing the vampire’s head cleanly from its shoulders. The headless body weaved unsteadily then fell to the ground, thick blood streaming from the gaping hole. Samson grunted and flung the dead vampire from his back, dropping it onto the slain body of its brother.
It’s nearly over!
Mistral didn’t respond. She was scouring the white bodies strewn across the base of the gorge. Not one of them had the distinctive cropped dark hair of Malachi Nox.
‘We need to get down there!’ she shouted to the twins. ‘I can’t tell if any of those are Bellicose or Malachi from up here!’
Phantasm gave a small shake of his head, his eyes not leaving the scene in the gorge, ‘You’re staying here with me until it’s definitely over. My brother can go.’
Phantom nodded and slung his crossbow over his back, dropping nimbly over the side of the ledge he began to climb swiftly down. Phantasm moved closer to Mistral and levelled his crossbow down into the gorge once again. Mistral ignored the restraining hand he laid on her arm and leaned out over the edge, staring yearningly down at the lean frame of Fabian. He was moving amongst the fallen vampires, prodding them with his sword tip to ensure that none still lived. She would give anything to be with him now and put her arms around him, to breathe in his scent and celebrate that fact that he was alive and whole; instead she was left perched on a cold ledge staring uselessly down at him. Mistral sighed and studied the lifeless forms scattered across the gorge floor then suddenly frowned. Even from the distance of the ledge she could tell that they looked subtly different to the creatures she had Seen through Bellicose’s eyes. Thinner. Older.
Mistral swore loudly, ‘They’re not the ones we were after! Get down there and tell them to get back into position! I think we’ve been fooled!’
‘What?’
‘Look at them Phantasm! The vampires! They’re old. Bellicose has sent a decoy in!’
Phantasm frowned at her but Mistral continued to stare down into the gorge. Xerxes and Brutus had climbed down to join Phantom and the other warriors. She could hear Samson laughing as he strolled over to greet them, absently wiping his sword clean on his trousers. They were all too relaxed, believing that the fight had been won. Only Fabian was motionless, gazing up at her, too far away for her to see the expression on his face. She resisted the pull of his thoughts and turned to Phantasm again.
‘I need to read Bellicose! You must warn Fabian that it’s a trap!’
He read the panic in her expression and nodded tensely. Swinging his body over the side of the ledge, he dropped out of sight. Mistral sat back against the cliff face and closed her eyes. Breathing in deeply she forced the persistent moan of the wind to fade, focussing her mind on Bellicose La Monte, falling through his lurid red eyes into his mind. She opened her eyes, seeing not through them but his, and immediately recoiled in surprise.
She was staring at herself, but seen from above. The wind had teased her hair from its tight knot and was blowing around her in long tendrils. A cruel laugh escaped her lips.
‘Trapped like rats!’
The unnatural harshness of her voice jerked Mistral back into her own mind. She leapt to her feet and spun around to stare up at a sight that made her blood run cold.
Bellicose La Monte was standing above her with his vampires lined up on either side of him, leering hungrily down into the gorge. Staring at the line of cadaverous faces Mistral instantly knew two things; the warriors were vastly outnumbered, and she had somehow managed to find herself alone and unarmed with a tribe of vampires. Well, almost unarmed. The butterfly knives Fabian had bought her were secured in either boot, plus she still had her crossbow, discarded near the base of the ledge. Keeping her eyes on the vampires above her she began to edge towards it.
‘Finish them!’
The vampires responded to Bellicose’s barked command with a chorus of low growls, bounding over the edge and pouring down the sides of the gorge.
‘Fabia –’ Mistral’s scream choked off as a hand clamped over her mouth.
‘Silence Seer!’ Bellicose pressed his hand harder against her mouth to pull her sharply backwards. Grabbing a fistful of her hair he wrenched her head back. ‘You smell good –’
Mistral gagged at the fetid stench of his breath, hot against the exposed skin of her skin.
‘We need her alive!’
Malachi’s curt shout rang down from the top of the gorge, halting Bellicose. Unable to move her head, Mistral swivelled her eyes up to see him. He was standing at the edge of the gorge l
ooking down at her. As they locked stares his thoughts rushed into hers; flooding her mind with a torrent of information. She saw the mistakes they had made, so obvious in hindsight. The easterly wind had blown their scent right to the vampires, but not to the satiated hunting party Mistral had Seen. It had been the elder members of the tribe who had smelt the enticing scent of living beings close by. No longer able to make the long hunting trips they were always hungry; relying on the scraps of life Bellicose saw fit to bring back for them. Bellicose had been only too happy to permit them to hunt the warriors, for sake of the old ways, his act of benevolence cleverly disguising his true intention of using the tribal elders to draw the warriors out, callously sacrificing them in order for his plan to succeed.
In the second it took Mistral to hear Malachi’s thoughts, the vampires had reached the gorge floor. High up on the ledge all Mistral could hear of the fight were broken fragments of sounds born on the wind; discordant vampire shrieks and shouted warnings from the warriors. She struggled desperately against Bellicose’s grip, her neck still stretched out at a painful angle.
‘We do not need her!’
Mistral could hear the edge of desire in his voice and knew he was losing control over the craving that drove him. She struggled harder, twisting in his grip, her body slamming into his as she fought to free herself. With a guttural snarl Bellicose threw her away from him. Mistral stumbled to her knees, quickly snatching a knife from her boot as she staggered to her feet. Spinning round she pressed her back against the rockface and held her knife up, glaring fiercely at the vampire before her. Bellicose merely laughed while she waved her knife at him. Without the disguise of a cloak his primitive features were frighteningly barbarous. Thick cords of muscles stood out like knotted ropes in his shoulders and his skin was so white she could see the map of blue veins beneath the surface. He did not move towards her but tilted his head slightly, pointing down at her body with one yellow-nailed finger.
‘Do I hear two heartbeats?’ he hissed. He closed his eyes and lifted his head, his flattened nostrils flaring as he drew in her scent. ‘Ah –’ His red eyes flew open and his face glowed with a sick ecstasy. ‘You are with young! It makes the blood so sweet –’
‘There’s nothing sweet about me!’ With a snarl of fury Mistral flung her knife at him. It flew through empty space and out into the air above gorge, spinning uselessly into nothing. She hadn’t even seen Bellicose move, but suddenly he was above her again, laughing coldly from the top of the gorge. Mistral immediately drew her second knife and brandished it at him, her face white with anger. ‘Come down here leech! Let me see how fast your blood runs!’
Bellicose snarled and dropped into a crouch to spring back down but Malachi grabbed his arm, hauling him back.
‘You must exercise restraint!’
Bellicose shook him off with a furious growl, ‘You forget your place! It is not you who leads this tribe but I! And I shall hunt the prey of my own choosing, not yours!’
‘We need the Seer!’
‘I say what we need!’ Bellicose thrust his face into Malachi’s, his lipless mouth drawn back in a vicious snarl.
Seizing her chance Mistral, rammed her knife back into her boot and threw herself from the ledge. She twisted round as she fell, her fingers clawing at rocky edge, boots scraping down over rock.
‘Come on! Come on!’
Desperation gave her strength. She curled her fingers in tight, gripping at the rock while her scrabbling boots found a hold. Clinging tenuously to the rock, Mistral’s head jerked left and right, frantically seeking more holds. Away from the exposed ledge the wind suddenly dropped, allowing the noise of the fight to carry clearly. Recognising a wild shout of panic as being Cain’s, she instinctively twisted to look for her brother. She could instantly see that the fight was going badly. The outnumbered warriors were fighting with two or more vampires at once. Her eyes raked the chaotic scene, desperately seeking the figure of her Mage. She saw the blonde heads of the twins, fighting back to back against three vampires, and Grendel ripping apart the vampire unwisely trying to bite into his tough skin; but she couldn’t see Fabian. Her eyes swept over the motionless bodies laid on the ground, disregarding the pallid vampire corpses to stare fearfully at the three dark-clothed figures. Giving a low cry she let go of the ledge, dragging her hands against the rock as she fell, trusting them to find a hold before she plummeted down to the gorge floor.
Clawed hands grabbed at her, jerking her to a halt. For one brief moment she dangled in the air, then she was hauled up and held aloft to stare into the face of Bellicose La Monte.
‘No Seer. You remain with us.’
Grimacing at the blast of rancid breath Mistral tilted back her head and spat into his face, ‘Never!’
With a snarl of rage Bellicose flung her down on the ledge. Mistral cried out as her head slammed into the hard rock. Stars burst before her eyes and her ears rung like a struck gong. She forced her screwed up eyes to open, staring dazedly into the snarling face of Bellicose La Monte.
‘Malachi may have persuaded me to forgo the delights of your blood, but not your child! It will be mine!’
Mistral’s head snapped up. Pain exploded behind her eyes, piercing her brain like a lightning bolt. She pushed herself up with her hands, forcing her hissed words into his face. ‘You will never touch my son! I will die before I let that happen!’ She suddenly felt something warm trickle down her face and saw Bellicose’s crimson pupils dilate. With a stab of fear Mistral realised that she was bleeding.
‘Die, Seer? Ah, but so you shall.’ Bellicose closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of her fresh blood, his bone-white face stretching into a grisly leer.
Mistral scrabbled backwards in panic. The sharp fragments of rock sliding beneath her palms drew more blood, fuelling the desperate craving burning in Bellicose’s eyes. He gave a low growl and dropped into a hunting crouch, his hungry eyes amused by her futile efforts to escape. Time seemed to slow. Mistral could suddenly hear and see everything with total clarity. The fight on the gorge floor, the blue sky overhead, the feral face staring at her with undisguised greed … but inside her mind wheeled frantically. She could run … launch herself from the ledge and hope that the fall might not kill her ... or she could fight. She still had a knife in her boot – if she could reach it she might stand a chance of killing him before he ripped her throat out.
Bellicose laughed when Mistral finally pushed up against the sheer wall of the gorge. She was trapped.
‘Goodbye … Seer.’
Mistral snatched at the knife in her boot then froze, her eyes widening in disbelief. For the briefest of moments she thought her death had already happened and she was seeing some outlandish vision of the afterlife, but the air buffeting her face with every wing stroke was sweet with a fiery scent that told her this was real.
‘Oh, goodbye Bellicose,’ she murmured, smiling at something over his shoulder.
He spun with a growl to follow her look and leapt back in shock at the sight of the dragon queen suspended in the air above the ledge. Mistral gazed at the terrifyingly beautiful creature and knew with unwavering certainty that everything was going to be alright. Her smile widened when Bellicose began to back away from the queen with cautious steps; the hunter had become the hunted. The queen beat the air with huge scarlet wings, her merciless bronze eyes tracking every move. Bellicose slowly backed up until he was pressed against the rock beside Mistral. Now he was the trapped rat.
Mistral turned to grin at him, ‘Any last words leech?’
Giving a furious snarl he whipped around and leapt up, reaching out with his long arms to grasp the gorge edge high above. Mistral swore in frustration; he was going to escape! She lunged for his legs as the dragon queen gave a thunderous roar and dived, her jaws closing around his body in a bone-crunching snap. She swooped away with Bellicose screaming in her jaws, her head twisting sharply from side to side, shaking the life from him like a dog with a rat. Mistral winced at the cracking
sounds of Bellicose’s bones snapping but couldn’t drag her gaze away. She grimaced when the queen tossed his broken body up into the air and let it fall helplessly into her open mouth, swallowing it whole before soaring up into the sky and vanishing over the top of the gorge.
‘I hope for your sake he tasted better than he smelled.’ Mistral muttered and braced her back against the rock to push herself upright. The adrenaline that had given her strength was gone, leaving her drained. Wiping the blood away from her face with a shaking hand, Mistral staggered a few paces and dropped to her knees, her head spinning nauseatingly. She closed her eyes, gulping in air to try and steady her reeling head. She needed to focus, get down to the ground and fight, but her legs seemed to be made of rubber, refusing to support her weight. Opening her eyes again, Mistral was taken aback to see the queen hovering alongside the ledge, looking directly at her. Mistral gazed into bronze eyes burning with the heat of a thousand smouldering fires and froze, unsure of what to do. With a gusting sweep of her wings the queen circled and returned to the same position, making her intention plain.
She was inviting Mistral onto her back.
Mistral hesitated ... Fabian. His name pulsed in her mind like a heartbeat. Where was he? For the merest part of a second her mind flew to his to See a robed figure fleeing before him … he wasn’t in the gorge … with a rush of relief she opened her eyes again and stared in disbelief at the queen, still waiting patiently for her to mount. Her doubts, her fears for her brothers, her aching exhaustion, it all vanished as Mistral sprinted for the edge and leapt into the air, carried on a wave of pure jubilation onto the queen’s back. She landed on golden scales smoother than glass, but warm and strangely pliable beneath her splayed palms. Trying not to look down, Mistral crawled up her long back and positioned herself over jutting wing-joints on the queen’s shoulders, pressing her legs against her smoothly scaled sides as she would Cirrus. The queen turned her head to look at Mistral, her bronze eyes flashing with sudden fire. She lifted her head in an ear-splitting roar and with a single powerful downward thrust of her wings she launched them up into the sky. A shout of pure joy escaped Mistral’s lips as the world dropped away to be replaced by an unending expanse of blue. They defied the strength of the wind with the speed of their flight, but the air rushing past her could have been a summer breeze for all Mistral felt. She was protected by the vast scarlet wings on either side and warmed by the fiery heat coming from the body beneath her ... and it was heaven. The majestic queen beneath her was everything she had ever dreamed of, and for one glorious moment she was permitting Mistral into her world. Adrenalin ripped like wildfire through Mistral’s veins, expelling itself in a wild shout of exhilaration. In its aftermath came a brief pang of regret; riding Cirrus was never going to be the same after this.
The Seer Page 66