by JANRAE FRANK
"No. But she was delicious."
Because he had moved when he did, the blade caught him more to the right and missed his spine. His attacker jerked the spear from his back to stick him again. Yukiah twisted, stumbling as he forced himself to come about and face them. "Ambrose ... and Milady. I should have known."
Ambrose gave him a curt nod, licking his spear point clean with his fangs showing in clear contempt. "Delicious, Yukiah."
Anger and adrenaline bought Yukiah a grace period. It would not last. He backed away, one slow step at a time, gauging everything, not wanting to rush head long into worse than what he faced already. His sword came from his shoulder in a smooth motion. He had no idea what lay in Westli's diary, but he was willing to die to find out. And they were willing to make him. They may have already... No sense thinking about it. No time to stop and think about Jarisse either. A rush of feet sounded to his left. Yukiah's eyes slewed to the side and he palmed a vial from his belt, clear glass, double-chambered, with a thin membrane in the middle that would shatter allowing the pale green to mix with the murky brown, producing Iradrim fire. Lesser bloods ... a dozen of them ... at least.
Yukiah threw the bottle hard at the lesser bloods. Glass shattered mixing the chemicals, which exploded, igniting the bloods, the bushes and leaving a crater in the ground. The ground shook hard and nearly sent Yukiah to his knees. The vampires screamed. Ambrose threw his arms over his eyes, dropping his spear as the flash temporarily blinded him. In the firelight, Yukiah could see four more, all lesser bloods running up behind Milady who had turned back to check on her husband. He ran down the path outside the guardsmyn's wing. It seemed like only every other lamp was lit. So he was moving constantly from darkness into light and back again. The darkness favored the monsters: their night vision was better than his and he knew it. So better the monster he could see than the monster he could not. There was no question in his mind that, as good as he was, they would still pull him down. His hand went to the wound in his side; it caught at him like taloned fingers.
* * * *
"Freeeeeeeeeeeee," wailed the ghost in the darkness. "I have been named in an act of vengeance by a paladin of the nethergod! I am freeeeeeeeeeeee!" She swirled in dancing silver motes around the bodies of Westli and Philomea, wishing vaguely they were Galee and Wrathscar. But happy nonetheless. At least one of her rapists was dead and his soul sent to the uttermost hells of Hadjys. Three soldiers came pounding at the door when they heard her wailing, and opened it.
Arruth recognized them, and rushed upon them. They screamed, backing away from her. One bolted and ran. She reached the nearest one, sliding her torn bloody arm around his shoulders. "There is a lovely window here," she murmured. "A very lovely window."
He tried to pull back as Arruth walked him forcibly into the room. He saw her and did not see her, in the half-light of the shivering candle flames. When he looked at her fully Arruth was not there. Yet when he turned his face away there she stood, the dead little girl with her body all torn and nude, the way she had been when he threw her in the bushes for his lord. Westli and Wrathscar had killed her. He could feel her even when he could not see her. A shriek rose in his throat, but he could not get it out; for his throat had constricted too tightly around it. The soldier, who had once tied her down for them, saw his lord's body and then a long howling cry of near madness finally came free.
"Yes, scream," Arruth told him. "It's a lovely sound. Come to the window."
"No. Please." But he could not stop his legs from walking. "Let me go. Please let me go."
"You did not let me go. I begged you. I begged you nicely."
"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry."
They reached the window and the soldier's hands caught the edge, his knuckles whitening as Arruth's cold, ghostly hands prodded him. When he fought her harder, she slipped inside his body, possessed him, and jumped. As the mon tumbled through space from the third floor window, Arruth left him and went looking for Yukiah. She wanted to know who else the armsmaster might intend to kill that night.
* * * *
Yukiah heard them gaining on him. He whirled and spitted the first lesser blood to reach him, kicked the corpse off the blade. Claws ripped his calf, sliced down through his boot leather and the flesh beneath like it was warm butter. He stumbled twisting to strike with the pommel of his blade. Yukiah shattered the lesser blood's nose, driving the fragments into the creature's brain and broke its hold on his leg, tearing himself in the process. Another kicked him in his wound, the pain nearly causing him to black out. The armsmaster resisted it grimly, managing to stagger to his feet. Yukiah grasped his sword two handed and beheaded the creature with the kenda'ryl blade. Claws ripped across his ribs, tearing deeply into his flesh. He suspected that he would not make it to safety. He stabbed that one through the heart. It was not in him to give up.
"Hadjys, my god, keep Jysy safe. And the others ... I tried ... I tried."
Yukiah tossed another bottle of Iradrim Fire into the trees, watched the explosion, and heard the creatures scream. Then he started on at a limping run, half-swinging the injured leg to make it move. His pants leg grew quickly wet and Yukiah could tell it was bad, but he dared not stop to check it. They would be on him too fast. "Jynny ... wherever you are ... I tried."
The path opened onto the quad as he rounded the southwest wing. If he entered the palace there would be too many questions asked and he had just slain the Knight-Commander of the Guard, even if Westli had been sleeping with vampires it would not matter to the guard. And if the guard intercepted him before he could reach the Guild Wing? What chance would he have then? They would be mustered and waiting for him. The same ones that had murdered Dynanna's prisoners and their Guildsmyn guards that night. No, Yukiah needed to reach the temple where Eshraf would shield him while matters could be sorted out. Which meant he had to cross the quad.
* * * *
Arruth watched from the trees. The gardens were burning. The palace would catch fire, but even more important why would Yukiah head for the temple, which was farther? Too few people are awake at this hour and he won't trust the guard, Arruth reasoned. She did not trust the guard. Wake everyone up. Yes. Yes, indeed. Wake everyone up.
She threw her head back, her neck elongating into a banshee's throat and she shrieked in long, mournful wails like the one which she had used to torment her sister's dreams when Arruth had not yet been freed to move and speak. It echoed and keened across the grounds, it pierced the sleeping minds and sliced through the deepest slumbers. Queiggy heard it in his cellar and sat up in alarm. Eshraf bolted upright in his bed. Leeza clutched at Channadar and shivered. It tore through the halls with grief and fury and here and there it even shattered glass.
* * * *
Sculptured bushes formed an island ahead of him, breaking the path into two. Benches with floral curved backs lined the right and Yukiah took that fork. Sharp pain lanced up from his calf and he stumbled, grabbing at a bench as he went down.
Yukiah forced himself up, shoved away from the bench and staggered on. A weight hit him between the shoulder blades, sending him skidding face down along the cobblestones. He skinned his cheek and nose, rolled with a curse, and threw the creature off. Claws sliced his leathers along his biceps and opened a shallow wound. Then he shoved the blade through its ribs with a sharp twist that ended its existence. Another slammed into him, again he struck face down, breaking his nose and opening a bone deep tear from the outside of his eye across his cheek to the corner of his mouth. Yukiah rolled and threw himself against a tree, hearing the satisfying thunk and squish of a crushed melon breaking open that betrayed the shattering of the creature's skull. Yukiah saw three more coming and moved on. He could see the side of the temple where the Guild student annex extended. Lights shone in the lancet-arched windows of orange-strained glass lining the building ahead of him, which threw a fire-like glow across the low shrubs of the garden. Safety beckoned if he could reach it.
The sound of pursuit ended ab
ruptly and that set off alarms. There was a reason for everything, and since he saw no lights ahead to suggest temple units had emerged, he suspected something else. And then it grabbed him: a royal. Milady caught him by the arm, spun him about as if he weighed nothing, and threw him to the ground on his back. Yukiah struck his head hard and his vision grayed. She began kicking and stomping him, picking her targets, getting his wounds with each blow until he couldn't breathe for the anguish, breaking ribs and cracking bones. She straddled him, her hands pinned his arms to his sides as she bowed her head and breathed along his neck.
"Did you really think I wouldn't get you?" Milady hissed. "Ambrose still can't see. He was too close to the blast." She bit deeply, angrily.
Yukiah gasped sharply and stopped moving in a jumbled rush of mental confusion and weakness as his blood rose into her mouth. Agony twisted through him from both her feeding and her efforts to get into his mind – she kept slamming against the walls that Talatiel had built there when he was a youth, walls too strong for her to breech. He cried out and then went still. After a few moments Yukiah's chest heaved up in convulsion and then again with a terrible groan as a cold presence swept into his body and he heard Arruth say, "Be ready."
Peace and a transcendent clarity filled the armsmaster and he did not question how he could be hearing the voice of a dead child.
Milady made a satisfied noise deep in her throat in response to his stillness and relaxed her grip on his arms now that he appeared to be too far gone to resist her. She tore the rings from his fingers and placed them under a bush in a little pile, and then tore the locket from his neck and threw it away. She pulled out of his neck with a swipe of her tongue to stop the bleeding.
"Ambrose will want your rings. He collects those," she sneered. "I'll take them to him when I'm finished. We killed your brothers. He has their rings." Milady bit into him again.
Cold hands gilded Yukiah's fingers in a shimmering auric pattern of silver in the black of night. Arruth flexed them in a tiny twitching that passed for a seizure, testing her control of Yukiah's body. She hated Milady and those the vampire served – those who were killing Yukiah for trying to protect her sister Jysy. Again Arruth flexed Yukiah's fingers. The ghost dared not wait any longer; she had to make Yukiah do it now. Yukiah slipped a blade from his harness and thrust it under Milady's breastbone hard, angling it up into her heart. He pulled it back a quarter length and shoved it in even harder, this time with a twist, driving the quillons grating against the bones and she fell across him, her fangs still inside him.
"Dip your finger in her mouth," whispered the ghost in his mind. "Use her saliva to close the wound. That's how they did it with me. Or you'll bleed out. Try not to tear yourself too much." It was an old trick of the Lemyari themselves to close a feeding wound that was not too badly torn. And only some of them ever did it well. But it would only work for a feeding wound where blood mixed with their saliva.
Very carefully he drew the blade out and then used his thumb to pop her loose from him. He ran his finger along her tongue and spread the moisture across the wound to close it. He pushed her off him and dragged himself to his feet using the edge of a bench. The calf would not support him, but he grabbed a sturdy stick and used it as a cane. Yukiah could not see in the limited light that Milady had broken the bone and it now protruded from the flesh beneath the ripped artery. He would be lucky to make it the two yards into the annex.
Arruth put the compulsion in Yukiah's mind of where to go for help, knowing that he was probably too far gone to reason it for himself and nudged him in the proper direction before sliding from his body, leaving him with a tiny bit of herself and hoped it would be enough to save him. Then she went back to the hunt. There were other Guildsmyn out this night and no more of them would get hurt if Arruth could help it. Especially if helping them would allow her to feed on their enemies.
There was no further sign of pursuit and Yukiah staggered the last few feet into the temple yard. He found concentration difficult, knew only that he had to reach the temple, cross that last small distance to safety. Yukiah reached the postern door and fumbled with his key. He leaned his head and shoulder against the edge of the wall near the door to support and steady himself. It took three tries before his trembling hand could get the key in and that was only by using his other hand to steady it. Once inside, he turned and dropped the bar. By then he could barely stand. He used the stick and placed his other hand firmly against the wall, digging his nails into the uneven spots on the stones. He dragged the broken leg, shambling forward until he reached the first door and fell inside unable to cross the distance of a door's length. A long trail of blood marked his line of travel. Two students sitting late in the Common Room started to their feet, seeing him collapse, and came to his side.
"It's Master Yukiah," Isen exclaimed, dropping her book.
Darhm jerked his belt off and made a tourniquet around Yukiah's leg. "I'll get a priest."
"No." Yukiah reached for him. "Can't help ... me..." His head moved weakly, and he swallowed. "Listen... Names... Let me tell you names." His voice was whispery and hoarse, his lips dry and cracking. He struggled to wet them with his tongue, but could get no moisture to them although his skin was sweating.
Darhm shook his head, refusing to believe the armsmaster, who had always seemed so invincible, could not be saved. He threw his cloak over Yukiah. "Tell Isen, she's eidetic. Ommy's got the desk this night. You take care of the rest?" He glanced at Isen and a tacit understanding ran between them. Darhm did not need to tell her what he meant. Then he ran off.
"Tell me the names," Isen said while her nimble fingers quickly undid the buckles on Yukiah's harness.
"Ambrose... Milady..." A groan rose with a stiffening in his body and Isen slowed in her efforts to stroke his face for several heartbeats, tracing the edges of the tears, her eyes large with concern. "Deirgun..." Yukiah coughed, bringing up some blood-flecked foam. Isen wiped it away with her handkerchief. "Tolyg... ahhhrgg." His eyes closed and he twisted up in her arms. She got him out of the harness and slid the equipment under an aging couch covered by a throw that brushed the floor.
"Hold on, Master Yukiah," Isen pleaded, her fingers tracing along the edges of his blood-crusted face.
Then as suddenly as it had begun, he eased again as the world grayed. "Don't worry, Isen ... I'm tough."
Isen nodded, her teeth gnawing her lower lip anxiously, her eyes narrowing against the tears. She shifted around so that she could better cradle his head in her small lap and kept stroking her fingers around his damaged face in a futile gesture that was as much to comfort herself as for him. He was pale and sweating in the cool air. His blood spread through Darhm's cloak, so she pulled her own off and added to it.
The world started to go still grayer and Yukiah fought that, struggling to remain conscious. There were things he needed to tell people. He wanted to know if the rest of his teams had returned alive and whole. Dark Judge! I'm cold. Yukiah wondered if Arruth's voice had been a hallucination. A death dream. The damned bitch had sucked him too close to the edge before he managed to kill her. His mind circled round that thought, although it was actually the other wounds through which his life was leaking out.
"Isen?"
"Yes, Master Yukiah?"
"You'll get ... my things to my room? ...When no one's looking?" He drew Westli's bloodstained diary from inside his shirt and placed it in her hands.
"I promise." Isen put the diary inside her shift.
His mind had started to drift, and then he was looking up at someone else, someone older, hearing her say:
"I can't stay, Yukiah. I'm a Rider."
"It's a hard life," Yukiah told her, holding her, not wanting to let go, searching her eyes for some sign of what they had had before.
"It's the one I have chosen."
"It's been fifteen years, Alysyn. You can't still be thinking about Rygen."
"I can't go back... Every time I looked at Derryl I would think about w
hat I did to his brother."
"It wasn't your fault."
Yukiah blinked, his head listed to the side. His eyes had become heavy lidded, nearly impossible to keep open. Then he knew what it was about Isen's face that bothered him. He reached up and touched her cheek lightly. "You have her eyes ... you have Alysyn's eyes... Jynny's eyes."
Isen caught his hand as it started to fall from her face. "She's my mother."
"Your..." Yukiah swallowed and tried again to speak, but found it harder still this time. "Your father ... who is?"
"You are."
Then he understood why she had kept following him around, why she had said that time that she was protecting him. "Why didn't you... Why?"
"She wanted me confirmed first ... into the Guild."
"She would." Then he couldn't hold on any longer and his eyes closed. His head fell back against her leg.
"Master Yukiah? Master Yukiah!" Isen shook his shoulders, her voice growing frantic. "Father."
Ommy rushed in with Darhm and they dropped to their knees at her side. The priest took Yukiah's wrist and Read him, then turned his head to the side, revealing the wound in his neck. "Damn the hellspawn to perdition in the deepest of Hadjys' hells. Darhm, go to the temple and sound the alert, have the Patriarch meet us in Yukiah's rooms. Isen, sound the Guild-student alert and get me some healers, not in that order. Quickly, quickly, off you go!"
Even as they ran off, the alarms began to peel. Someone else had scented the trouble and the alert was going out as they moved.