Harmen hesitated, a trace of uncertainty in his eyes. A second passed, then another, and finally he shook his head roughly, “You’re a lying bitch. He promised.”
“Just like you did?”
Abruptly, the Bloodless—who’d been eerily still up to this point—stirred like puppets whose strings had been pulled and, without any signal that Memory saw, two raised their blades and turned to her and Cameron while the third started toward Anna.
Memory swallowed back a lump of fear and crouched low in a fighting stance, knowing, even as she did, that she was going to die. She’d trained for years with the knives she carried and few men could match her with them, but these weren’t men at all but monsters, and she’d seen how they shrugged off wounds that should have been fatal. What hope did she have of standing against creatures out of nightmare?
The Bloodless were almost on her when, suddenly, Cameron rushed into her from the side, and she cried out in surprise, stumbling away. In another instant, the creatures were on him, swinging their blades in vicious arcs. Their strikes were a blur, impossibly fast, but the Harvester matched them speed for speed, deflecting each attack in a shower of sparks as his midnight blade met theirs in parries and counter thrusts, the barrage coming so quickly that Memory couldn’t keep up with what was happening.
Cameron sidestepped a thrust from one of the Bloodless, knocking the blade aside with his own so that it fouled the attack of its companion. The first never hesitated, its free hand shooting toward Cameron, but somehow his blade was there, slicing cleanly through the creature’s wrist as if it was made of paper, and the hand fell to the ground, lifeless. The Bloodless, however, showed no sign that it had so much as noticed the injury, swinging its blade again in a savage overhand cut.
Memory watched in awe as the Harvester’s feet glided across the floor, dodging to the side or back, parrying then lunging forward in an attack, always moving in sure, precise steps, as if he was performing the moves of a dance he’d practiced a thousand times. She was struck by how different the Harvester fought than any of those men she’d trained with, for if they had been fast like the wind, he was fluid like water, each counter or rejoinder of his own seeming only a logical, natural progression of his economic movements.
He scored dozens of blows on the Bloodless, wounds that would have been fatal for normal men, but the creatures fought on unaffected and, as good as he was, Memory saw that the Harvester was bleeding from what looked like a deep cut on one arm and that his movements were growing more sluggish, less sure. He’s going to lose.
The realization broke her out of her near-trance, and she took advantage of an opening to lunge at one of the Bloodless, her blade going for its throat. The Bloodless didn’t so much as glance in her direction as it pivoted, and its leg shot out. The blow caught Memory in the stomach, and she flew across the room, her head slamming against the wall.
Groaning, dazed, she glanced to where the third Bloodless was going for Anna, saw Harmen grab it by the shoulder from behind, “Just wait a damned minute,” he said, “Marek said you weren’t to h---“ his words changed to a shocked howl as the Bloodless turned and plunged its blade through his chest in a shower of blood. Harmen looked down at the length of steel impaling him, and his face twisted in pain and anger. His own sword fell from his fingers, and he brought his hands together and slammed them down on the Bloodless’s shoulder with a feral shout. Powered by the big man’s thickly muscled arms, the strike crashed into the Bloodless like a mace, and the gray-skinned creature was knocked to the ground.
Harmen turned to Memory where she lay on the ground, and she thought, perhaps, there was an apology, a sudden understanding, in that tortured, bestial gaze. Then, with a grunt, he bent over and grabbed the Bloodless’s tunic with one hand, its leg with the other, and, with a hoarse yell, hurled it into the wall.
The wood creaked and shattered as the Bloodless flew into it, leaving it lying halfway in and halfway out of the house, its upper body impaled on the broken, jagged wood. There was no blood, of course, but the creature did not stir. Memory turned back in time to meet Harmen’s gaze as he sank to both knees, then fell to the ground and was still.
Memory stared at Harmen’s body, at the peace—the first time she’d ever seen it—on the big man’s face, feeling numb.
“Get the door!” She turned at the Harvester’s shout and saw that one of the Bloodless was down, its head severed neatly from its body. Cameron himself was bleeding from a fresh cut on his shoulder, but when the remaining Bloodless attacked, his midnight blade was there, knocking the sword away. He kicked the creature in the stomach hard before it could respond, and it rolled backward, tumbling across the ground, then he spun to Memory again, “The door. Now!” He shouted, turning back just in time to parry another blow as the Bloodless charged back at him.
Memory turned to see what he meant and gasped in surprise and fear. In the orange glow of the street lanterns outside, she could see two more Bloodless approaching, their strange strides deceptively fast, their gray skin making them look like specters of the damned in the near-darkness. She rushed to the door and slammed it shut, sliding the large wooden crossbar—a common enough security measure in the poorer parts of the city—home in its latch.
She’d no sooner fastened the latch than something struck the door from the outside and the wood creaked in protest. She saw a nearby dresser and grabbed hold of it, gritting her teeth, as she dragged it in front of the door. She’d only just got the dresser in place when a blade tore through the door and dresser both, exploding out of the wood only inches from her face.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“—have to hurry!”
Cameron would have laughed at the woman’s obvious words if he hadn’t been too busy concentrating on keeping his head in its proper place, namely on his shoulders. He’d heard stories of the Bloodless before, of course, they all had, but until tonight he’d thought them nothing more than a children’s tale, something to be told around the campfire to scare your friends. This one’s real enough, he thought, grunting as he was forced to throw his sword up at an awkward angle to block the creature’s attack, and his arm shook with the strength of its blow.
Despite what he might have believed, the night’s work had given him an ample education on the creatures. They were fast, no question of that, and they were strong, but their technique was lacking. They had none of the grace, the smooth agility, of professional swordsmen, and although their strange, jerky movements were unnerving, they also served to telegraph their attacks.
Cameron parried a strike, saw where the next one was coming from and as the creature brought its blade down with both hands, he jerked to the side, his foot lashing out into the Bloodless’s knee. It may not have felt the pain of its knee give way—it seemed to him that the bastards felt nothing at all—but one of the things about the human body is that, no matter how impervious to pain you are, a man can’t balance on a broken leg.
The creature crumpled to its knees, and Cameron flicked aside its next attack before his backswing sent its head flying across the room. He stood, panting, swaying on his feet. He’d been able to ignore the pain of his wounds while in the middle of fight, but now that it was over, it was all he could do to keep standing. He shook his head to clear his blurry vision and looked at the cut on his arm and the blood coming out of it. Too much blood.
“Get away from her!”
Cameron turned at the sound of Memory’s scream and saw that the remaining Bloodless—the one that big bastard, Harmen, had thrown through the wall—had crawled to the girl and pulled her out of her hiding place. Its head flopped around sickeningly, its neck obviously broken, but that didn’t stop it from raising the knife above its head and preparing to plunge it into the terrified child.
Cameron’s mind, the mind of a trained swordsman, assessed the situation in an instant. Too far. Even had he not been wounded and struggling just to stay upright, the distance between him and the doomed girl was too great. No, n
ot the child, he thought, taking a stumbling, halting step forward, his mind railing against what he knew to be true.
It’s not alive. A voice he knew. His father’s voice. It’s not alive, Cameron. So let it die, son. Let it die.
The voice sounded so real, so alive, that Cameron spun to look behind him only to see that no one was there. He turned back to the Bloodless and the girl, and time seemed to stop, caught in one frozen instant, the creature’s dead eyes staring at the struggling child, its hand raised above her, the blade that would take her life glinting in the fitful orange light.
He was just beginning to take another step when an invisible force slammed into him. He grunted in surprise, stumbling as knowledge and thoughts that were not his own poured into him, a world of it, a river of it, coursing mercilessly into him and, for a moment, it felt as if his mind would snap under the pressure like some child’s dam pitifully overmatched against the force flowing into him.
Suddenly, in that moment, he knew why he had survived wounds that would have killed other men, why he always healed fast. He knew who he was, what he was. The old healer’s dying plants, the circle of dead grass he’d woken up to, even the wound in his stomach that had healed so miraculously, were no longer mysteries, but things about which he carried intimate knowledge. He knew because his father before him had known and so he reached his free hand out toward the Bloodless, to that part of it that was still human. He reached out, and he called to it.
He called and, at first, nothing happened. He strained then, fighting back the dizziness and nausea brought on by the blood loss, fighting against years of belief in the wrong things, of disbelief in all the right ones, and he called, he demanded, and, in a moment, something answered. He perceived it as a gray, washed out version of the essences of regular people and knew, instinctively, that something of it, the greatest part of it, had been lost. But not lost, not really. Stolen. What was left was a twisted, corrupted thing that he could feel as well as see. It was a blighted, unnatural thing, and he wanted nothing more than to get as far away from it as possible. But there was Memory and there was the girl, and so he called. And, in time, there came an answer.
The wrongness materialized into a thick, somehow malevolent gray mist that thickened the air, the smell of it a reminder that all things died and in the end there was only the dirt and the worms, that all roads eventually led to the same place. Darkness. It seemed to push against Cameron, threatening to overpower him in some contest of wills he did not understand. It called to him, too, and he felt himself being pulled toward it, toward that dense fog through which nothing could be seen, yet he knew that death waited for him within that gray mystery.
He gritted his teeth as he strained against that unseen force, and it called again, stronger this time, asking of him, demanding of him. But, in that moment, the knowledge was his, the understanding was his, and so baring his teeth in a silent snarl, Cameron’s hand sliced through the air, negating its will, denying its dark truths and, as quickly as it had come, the mist vanished. As it did, the pain of Cameron’s wounds, even the small, inconsequential ones he’d taken in the last hours, doubled, then trebled, and he groaned, falling to one knee.
It was all he could do to keep his head raised to watch as the Bloodless paused, as if frozen, then collapsed on top of the girl, the knife falling harmlessly to the floor as the creature’s borrowed life abandoned it.
Cameron closed his eyes, willing himself not to pass out. For several seconds, the issue was in doubt, but after a time the terrible pain subsided to a manageable degree. Once the worst had passed, he ripped a strip of cloth from his tattered shirt and tied it around his arm, jerking it tight with his teeth. “Father?” He asked, “Are you there?” No answer.
“Cameron? What just happened? What—”
He shook his head slowly, using his sword like a cane and pushing himself to his feet. “Not now. Get the girl. I’ll get the door.”
Memory rushed to the girl, pulling her into a tight embrace, a look of such joy and relief on her face, on both their faces, that Cameron turned away, feeling somehow like an intruder.
“They haven’t tried the door for a minute or two,” she said from behind him, “We can’t go out that way. They’ll be waiting for us.”
No choice, he thought. They couldn’t stay in the house—the longer they stayed the more would come to finish the job—and the door appeared to be the house’s only exit anyway. He slid the dresser—or what was left of it, after the Bloodless’s assault on the door—aside and turned back to Memory and the child’s expectant, fearful gazes. “Then let’s not keep them waiting.”
***
“Damnit, Blinks, I told you the bastard’s dead, alright?”
The big man glanced up, holding a now battered wagon strut in his massive hands, “Something’s wrong with this guy, Nicks. I mean, apart from his head’s all dented in. He ain’t got no blood in ‘em.”
Nicks pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, “That’s why they call them—you know what, never mind.” He looked at the creature, or what was left of it, and his stomach convulsed warningly. Dented in, was being too kind, he thought. Blinks had smashed the creature’s face to pulp so badly that it couldn’t rightfully be called a face any longer. Its chest was caved in, and one of its arms was twisted at an impossible angle. “I’d say there’s quite a bit wrong with him,” Nicks said, rubbing a hand across his chin.
The door behind him creaked open, and he turned to see the Harvester, Cameron, standing in the doorway, his sword held at the ready. Damn black blade gives me the creeps, he thought, but he smiled to see the man still standing. “Light be good, you came out alive.” He took in the Harvester’s blood-soaked clothes and the make-shift bandage wrapped around his arm in two places. “Well. Mostly. That’s a good thing.”
Cameron grunted and showed a small smile, “Ask me in the morning.”
The door was flung fully open then and Memory came through holding a young, weeping child in her arms. “Nicks!” She exclaimed, “Blinks, is that you?”
“That’s Nicks,” the big man said, dropping the wooden strut like a child caught stealing candy, “I’m Blinks.”
Nicks turned to his friend and was about to speak with Memory ran to him, hugging him tightly with her free arm before doing the same to Blinks whose face lit up like a young boy being given a birthday gift. “Divines, it’s good to see you both,” she said, and Nicks saw that there were tears in her eyes.
He noted that Blinks was grinning like a poleaxed fool, but he was damned if he didn’t find himself with the same asshole smile plastered across his face. “Well, now, that’s alright then.”
Memory laughed and, suddenly, her smile faltered, “The others … I’m so sorry. I couldn’t get—”
“Yeah,” Nicks said, his own smile fading, “We didn’t get all of ‘em out, I don’t guess. But most of them. No more’n two or three didn’t make it, anyways.”
“But,” Memory said, her expression confused, “I saw Pellin. He … they killed him.”
Nicks nodded sadly, “The Magister was a brave man. A good man too. Said he wouldn’t leave ‘til he was sure all the others were safe.”
“But,” Memory persisted, “I don’t understand. How did you get them out in time? How could you know?”
Nicks nodded at Cameron who stood, a strange expression on his face. If Nicks didn’t know better, he would have sworn the man looked embarrassed, “We’ve your friend here to thank for that. We found him out in the forest … well, ‘spose it’d be more honest to say that he found us. He told us about the attack.”
Memory turned and stared at the Harvester, but the man wouldn’t meet her eyes. Then she let out another gasp and ran to him, pulling him into a tight hug and kissing him on the cheek. Nicks saw him stiffen and then, after a moment, he returned the embrace. The hug went on for a long time and, glowing devil eyes or not, Nicks recognized the look in the Harvester’s gaze. Bastard’s got it bad
, he thought, and found himself grinning again. He glanced at Blinks and saw that the big man was grinning too. “Well, now,” he muttered again, “That’s alright.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Perdeus crouched on the floor of his small office, praying to the divines for forgiveness although, he was quite sure forgiveness had long since been out of his reach, and he was much less sure the Divines existed at all. Still, there was nothing else to be done and so he prayed. A knock sounded on his door, loud and imperious, and he’d only just turned when it swung open.
Two men wearing the white armor of Church guards strode in, taking up positions on either side of the door. “What is g—” Perdeus began, then cut off as a familiar form shuffled in.
Saliander Daven’s rich purple robe hung awkwardly from his lank frame, reminding Perdeus of one of the scarecrows his father, a farmer, had put out in their fields when he’d been just a boy. “Ah, Perdeus,” the man said in his voice that always sounded somehow sly, “how good it is to see you. And I see that we’ve interrupted your prayers. Or had you lost something down there, I wonder?” The man said the last with a grin that Perdeus chose to ignore.
“Prefect Daven,” he said, grabbing his cane from the floor and levering himself to his feet, “To what do I owe the honor of such a pleasant, unexpected visit?”
“Oh please, Perdeus,” the man said, waving a hand magnanimously, “We’ve known each other since we were initiates in the Order. You may call me Saliander.”
Perdeus shuffled to his desk, trying—and no doubt failing—to keep the grimace of pain from his face. Finally, he sat in his chair, not bothering to hide his relief. The pain in his leg had grown worse of late, and he found he could spend only a minute or two standing before it sank its teeth into him. “Of course, Saliander. How may I help you?”
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