by Nathan Long
Ulrika stumbled back, wide-eyed and gasping.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Stefan, slashing furiously at her with it. ‘I thought you were ready to die.’
‘That is not death,’ she growled, edging away from the thing. She could not imagine being trapped and conscious forever in such a prison, with nothing to do, no one to talk to, no air, no wind, no movement. If there was a hell on earth, that was it. And it Stefan’s hands, it might be worse, much worse.
‘Do you know what happens to vampires when they die?’ asked Stefan as he pursued her. ‘This is preferable.’
‘That depends on who holds the shard, doesn’t it?’ said Ulrika.
A movement in a window above caught her eye and she glanced up. Someone in the safe house was watching the fight from behind a heavy curtain.
‘True,’ said Stefan. ‘A cruel man could torture you for eternity. That is why my master bid me use them on the Lahmians – so he could have them for his “experiments”. He will be angry I killed the boyarina with mere silver, but I had to hide the shards before revealing myself at her mansion, and had no chance to recover them before the concert.’
‘And so you will make up for it by giving him my essence instead,’ said Ulrika.
Stefan shook his head, grave. ‘I would not do that. If you will not be with me, I will keep your shard next to my heart.’
‘I hope it cuts you,’ said Ulrika, and hacked at the hand that held the onyx blade.
He avoided the stroke and came in again, slashing with both weapons. She blocked the shard, but his rapier tore open her left sleeve just above the glove. The cut barely grazed her, but it didn’t matter, for the rip in the cloth bared her flesh to the day.
Ulrika staggered back, yelping in pain, as the exposed skin boiled and steamed like white stew. Stefan darted in again, and in her panic, she fumbled her parry. His sword found her shoulder, and another line of molten agony seared her.
She stumbled to the other side of the fountain, hissing and cursing. She had been so afraid of the Blood Shard it hadn’t occurred to her that simple steel was just as deadly in a daytime duel. What a fool! The sun wouldn’t just weaken her. It was going to kill her. It would do Stefan’s work for him!
She pulled her cloak forwards, covering the hole on her shoulder, but there was nothing to be done about her left arm. If she held it out to attack or parry, she would show it to the sun and it would burn again, and even out of the sun, the pain of the wounds did not fade. It felt like swords, glowing from the forge, pressing against her flesh.
‘Please, Ulrika,’ said Stefan, coming around the fountain. ‘Give this up. I don’t want to hurt you further.’
‘You couldn’t,’ she snarled, then charged, slashing and thrusting though every move exposed more skin to the sun.
He parried it all easily and forced her back, lunging for her eyes with his sword and slashing for her arms with the shard. She retreated before the onslaught, and tripped over the coping of the fountain. His rapier chopped her thigh as she fell, splitting cloth and flesh.
She screamed and crashed into the dry pool, her vision blurring as the sunlight cooked the wound. He stepped in and slashed down at her. She rolled behind the statue of Salyak, sobbing with rage. It was impossible. She was too weak, and he was too strong. She couldn’t win. She would either have to flee or give in, and in either case, Galiana would die, and Stefan would have his victory. The liar and manipulator would win. The bitterness she felt at that hurt almost worse than the sun.
Stefan stepped around the statue, his face hard and sad. He seemed truly reluctant to kill her. Ulrika almost smiled to see it. In that at least, she was strong and he was weak. As much as she lusted for him, it would not keep her from finishing him. She froze at the thought. That was how she could win!
Stefan stood over her, lowering his point to thrust at her throat.
With a sobbing wail, Ulrika crabbed back, dropping her rapier and dagger. ‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘No more. It hurts too much! I don’t want to die!’
Stefan paused, suspicious. ‘You have changed your mind, then?’
Ulrika held out her arm, showing the boiling wound, then snatched it back as it began to smoulder. ‘Do you wonder at it? Nothing is worth this!’ She cradled her arms against her chest, trying to hide all of herself under her cloak. ‘Please. Take me out of the sun. Share your blood with me. I will be yours if you stop the pain.’
Stefan stood over her, still hesitant, then put the tip of his rapier to her neck. The hand that held the Blood Shard hung at his side.
‘Stand,’ he said. ‘We will go into the house. I will lock you up until I have dealt with Mistress Galiana.’
Ulrika nodded and pushed up to one knee, then lost her balance and grabbed for the statue of Salyak to catch herself, and for a brief second, Stefan’s point left its place at her throat. That was all she needed. With a grunt, she drove forwards, grabbing for the shard and shouldering him back.
Stefan barked in surprise and slashed her across the shoulders with his rapier as they fell against the base of the statue. Burning agony striped her back, but she kept her focus, slamming Stefan’s hand against the statue’s stone feet.
The shard leapt free. Ulrika snatched it up and pressed it against his throat, just under the jaw. ‘Now you know how it feels,’ she rasped, ‘to be betrayed.’
‘Wait!’ he said, his eyes showing white as he tried to look down at the black knife. ‘You don’t want this.’
‘More than anything in the world,’ said Ulrika.
‘You don’t understand,’ Stefan cried. ‘You have nothing without me. There will be nowhere for you to go. Only I can keep you safe!’
Ulrika sneered and pressed the shard harder against his flesh. She was enjoying his squirming. ‘Can you keep yourself safe?’
‘Listen to me!’ he said. ‘The world is changing for our kind. My master sends his agents to every city in the Old World, readying them for his coming. Your mistress may have foiled his Strigoi dupe in Nuln, and you may foil me here, but others will come, and he will win eventually, as he has already won in many other places.’
Ulrika frowned. What was this about Nuln? What was he talking about?
‘There will be no rebels in my master’s empire,’ Stefan continued. ‘No lone wolves. All will be brought to heel or killed. Only I can protect you. Under my wing, no harm will come to you, but if you kill me, there will be nowhere for you to run. Please. Let me save you.’
Ulrika pulled herself up and knelt on his sword arm. The sun burned into her back and shoulder, but the pain was suddenly faraway. ‘The Strigoi in Nuln was a dupe, you say? There will be others? Mistress Gabriella is in danger?’
Stefan nodded. ‘Even now, my master’s agents begin his greatest play there. The decapitating stroke.’
‘Not if I can stop them,’ Ulrika growled. ‘Who is this master of yours?’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ hissed Stefan. ‘Your mistress will be dead before you reach her. You will have no home to return to. Stay here with me as my consort. I will shield you from what is to come.’
Ulrika shook him and raised the Blood Shard threateningly. ‘Enough! Who is your master?’
Stefan wrenched his arm from under her knee and swung his rapier. She ducked as the hilt struck her ear, and stabbed reflexively with the shard, burying it in his throat. Stefan bucked and shrieked, eyes wide, as the black onyx did its work. His face collapsed in on itself and his clutching hands shrivelled to bony claws. His body, under her, shrank inside his clothes.
Ulrika staggered to her feet, horrified, and gripped the statue for support, watching as the light in Stefan’s sunken eyes died and he fell still at last. A wave of pain washed over her that had nothing to do with the sun. She wished… But it was always foolish to wish things had been different.
She reached down and pulled the now-glowing Blood Shard from his withered throat. It throbbed through her gloves as she tucked it into her belt pouch. There was only
one more thing to do. She recovered her rapier and cut off Stefan’s skeletal head, just to be sure, then picked it up and stepped wearily from the fountain.
The door to the safe house opened as she approached it, and a man-at-arms bowed her in. Ulrika shuffled past him, then groaned with relief as he closed it behind her and shut out the merciless sun.
Galiana was standing on the bottom step of the stairs to the upper floor, her face and figure once again wizened and doll-like. Ulrika dropped Stefan’s head at her feet, then tore off her mask and veil and threw them on top of it.
‘The assassin is dead,’ she said. ‘The comedy is finished. I…’ She weaved, dizzy with pain, then continued. ‘I apologise for not seeing through him before he killed Sister Raiza and Mistress Evgena. I have failed in my vow.’
Galiana stepped down and took her arm, then guided her to a chair in the hall. ‘You have done much to repair the fault,’ she said, ‘and fought bravely just now in my defence. Now rest, I will summon someone so you may drink.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ulrika, and closed her eyes.
Sometime later, Ulrika woke naked in a cool, clean bed. She did not remember having fed, but she must have, for her wounds, though still blistered and painful, were greatly healed, and she felt strong enough to move.
After a while a maid came in and offered her her neck, and a while after that, when the sun had gone down, Galiana entered, carrying her freshly laundered and mended clothes. She set them on a table, then came and sat by Ulrika’s bed.
‘I owe you an apology for the way we treated you, sister,’ she said. ‘And if Mistress Evgena lived, I am sure she would apologise as well. You were right about the cult. We should have listened. I’m afraid we have grown too insular in the last centuries.’
Ulrika shook her head. ‘And you were right about Stefan. I should have listened, too.’
Galiana smiled and patted her hand. ‘We have all made mistakes of that nature, at one time or other.’ Then she looked down, suddenly subdued. ‘It – it seems I am our Queen’s sole representative in Praag now, and… I have never led before. I have always been Mistress Evgena’s pet – an advisor sometimes – but never more than that.’ She looked up at Ulrika. ‘I don’t think I can do it alone. I want you, therefore, to be my second-in-command – my Raiza.’
Ulrika blinked, nonplussed, then bowed as best she could while in bed. ‘You honour me, sister,’ she said. ‘But I cannot. I have urgent business in Nuln. In fact, I had hoped to beg a coach from you, so I might speed there as quickly as possible.’
Galiana’s face hardened. ‘It was not a request,’ she said. ‘You are still bound here by your oath.’
‘But – but Boyarina Evgena is dead,’ said Ulrika.
‘And as I have inherited her properties,’ said Galiana, ‘so have I inherited her vassals. You are now beholden to me.’
Ulrika stared, panic rising in her throat. ‘But I must go back! My mistress is in danger!’
‘What’s this?’ barked Galiana. ‘You have no mistress but me.’
‘No.’ Ulrika pushed back the covers and tried to get out of the bed, but fell to the floor, still dizzy from her wounds and her time in the sun. ‘I shared no blood with you! You cannot hold me!’
Galiana stepped to her and pulled her to her knees with just her left hand, then let out the claws of her right. ‘Can I not?’
Ulrika spread her arms. ‘You will have to kill me then, for I will not stop trying to run. Sylvania threatens my mistress, just as it threatened you, and all Lahmians. I must return and protect her.’
‘What do you say?’ asked Galiana, her clawed hand lowering unconsciously. ‘What is this threat?’
‘Stefan von Kohln told me of it before he died,’ said Ulrika. ‘Sylvania has sent agents to all the cities of the Old World and set them to destroying the Lahmian influence there – the Strigoi in Nuln, Stefan here – and many others, all in preparation for some great invasion or attack.’
Galiana’s hand sank to her side. ‘This is true?’
‘I fear it is,’ said Ulrika. ‘He said his master makes his greatest play in Nuln as we speak, and that my mistress will die of it. That is why I cannot stay.’
Galiana let go of her and stepped back, her face clouded. ‘This is calamity,’ she said. The Queen must be warned. The sisterhood must ready itself.’
‘Then – then, you’ll release me?’
Galiana turned back to Ulrika, eyes flashing. ‘Release you? Are you mad? With Sylvania attacking? This is precisely when I need you most. No. You must stay by my side.’
Ulrika stood, stiff with pain, then bowed to her. ‘Mistress, if you allow me to return to Nuln, I will praise you to your sisters, and through them, to the Queen. I will tell them of your bravery and foresight in our battle against the cultists and Stefan von Kohln. I will tell them you saved Praag, and deserve every assistance in keeping it safe in the future. But if you try to hold me, I will give you no help. I will fight to leave with all the strength I have left. I will kill you, if necessary, for I will allow nothing to stand between me and my true mistress.’ She shrugged. ‘The choice is yours: glory and the promise of help, or strife and the possibility of death. Which will it be?’
Galiana glared up at her like an angry doll, her tiny fists balling at her sides, but at last, after a long, simmering moment, she turned away with a disgusted snort and stepped to the table where she had set Ulrika’s clothes.
‘How do I know you will really do this?’ she asked. ‘How do I know you will speak well of me when you are beyond my reach?’
Ulrika bowed again. ‘I’m afraid, mistress, that I can give you no assurance but my word.’
A few hours later, Ulrika left Praag by the south gate in a closed coach, with a driver and a change of clothes and a maid to feed upon, all reluctantly provided by Galiana. Faced with Ulrika’s unwavering determination to defy her, the vampiress had eventually agreed to let her go, but she had only sneered when Ulrika had asked for help in returning swiftly to Nuln. Fortunately, Ulrika had another weapon in her arsenal.
In the end it had taken everything in her purse – fifty-six golden Reikmarks, plus a fistful of rings, necklaces and bracelets, all taken from the highwaymen Ulrika had preyed upon on the road to Praag – to get Galiana to part with the coach, driver and willing maid. Ulrika doubted the price would have been sufficient had Galiana not been in such reduced circumstances, but the loss of Boyarina Evgena’s mansion and all the treasure stored in its coffers had left her bankrupt, and so she had made the trade at last.
Now, as her coach rumbled south, Ulrika put thoughts of Praag behind her, and began to think what awaited her in Nuln. She felt somewhat hypocritical running back to Gabriella after calling her despicable and dishonourable, and setting off to start a new life in order to prove that the Lahmian way was not the only way, but how could she not? No matter their differences, Gabriella was still the woman who had been mother to her, and protected her when she would have died, and the thought of her facing unknown dangers with no one to watch her back was more than Ulrika could bear. Her rebellion could wait. Family came first.
Her thoughts grew black with wild imaginings as she wondered what form the Sylvanian attack upon Nuln would take. Would it be an army of the night? Would it be a witch hunt? Would it be some new Stefan, kissing Gabriella’s hand while poisoning her blood with ancient magics? Would the countess fall for such a ruse? Would she allow herself to be lulled by soft words of love and promises of an eternity without loneliness?
Ulrika shuddered and threw open the window to banish the vision and to feel the bracing air of the cold Kislev night on her face. The road paralleled the River Lynsk here, and she watched the moonlight rippling on its waters, then shivered as the sight brought back memories of plunging below the waves of the Reik. The pain of her recent wounds had been nothing compared to the agony she had felt as the river had torn at her soul.
The thought sparked another, and she paused. She must return
home as quickly as she could, but there was time for this. She rapped on the wall of the coach.
‘Driver! Pull up by the river.’
‘Aye, mistress.’
The coach slowed and stopped as her maid blinked and woke on the bench opposite.
‘Is everything all right, mistress?’
‘Yes, Svetka. Go back to sleep.’
Ulrika stepped out of the coach, then crossed a swathe of dead grass and scrub to the bank of the river. She opened her belt pouch and took out the pulsing Blood Shard that contained Stefan’s essence. There were many reasons for wishing him an eternity of excruciating, eviscerating pain – for using her, for lying to her, for killing Raiza – but one stood out over all the others.
‘This is for showing me the dream,’ she said, holding up the shard. ‘Then taking it away.’
And with that, she drew back and threw it as far as she could. It glittered in the light of the two moons as it spun, then plopped into the waves and was gone. Ulrika stood and watched the river drift by for a moment, then returned to the coach and got under way again, racing through the night on the long road to Nuln.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NATHAN LONG was a struggling screenwriter for fifteen years, during which time he had three movies made and a handful of live-action and animated TV episodes produced. Now he is a novelist, and is enjoying it much more. For Black Library he has written three Warhammer novels featuring the Blackhearts, and he took over the Gotrek and Felix series, starting with the eighth instalment, Orcslayer.
He is currently writing the Ulrika the Vampire series.
For Lili, because she liked the first one.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Winona Nelson.