by Nathan Long
Ursun’s teeth and claws! Von Messinghof hadn’t just tricked her into betraying the Lahmians and joining the Sylvanians. He had tricked her into betraying every ideal she had ever held! With the burning of Famke, he had turned her into a fiend more completely than Adolphus Krieger ever had.
The shame of it was unendurable – not just for the countless deaths that now weighed upon her, but for how easily she had been fooled, and how swiftly she had abandoned her principles. Von Messinghof had offered her an excuse to give in to the beast within her, and she had jumped at it. She had revelled in it!
Nausea overwhelmed her as the memories flooded back. This was what undeath had made of her, a rabid, impulsive animal, as easily goaded as a bull. She had been a grown woman before her death. Now she was a child, an infant monster spreading ruin and death wherever she went.
She reeled out of an alley and found herself at the river, already bustling with stevedores and merchants two hours before dawn. The Great Bridge that crossed the Reik to the Faulestadt was to her left. She ran to it and thudded onto its span, but as she neared the middle, with the dense river fog closing in on all sides so that she could see neither end of it, her steps faltered and she leaned across the stone railing, sobbing.
Below her, the glossy black water flowed and rippled like liquid basalt, mesmerising her. Her sobs quieted. Perhaps this was the answer. She had turned away from ending herself many times before, but that had been before she knew just how vile she could become. Now she knew she was a monster. Now she knew that the world would be better off without her. She should have died beneath the blade of Gotrek’s axe the night Adolphus Krieger turned her.
Well, here was her chance to do what the Slayer had failed to. One leap and the current would tear her essence from her body. One leap and the eternal torment that she deserved would commence.
‘Don’t do it, child.’
Ulrika turned, hand on the hilt of her borrowed sword. Countess Gabriella stepped out of the fog behind her, ten paces away, dressed in modest skirts and a high-collared bodice. Her face was calm, and she made no move towards Ulrika, only watched her coolly, her hands folded together.
‘What else is there for me to do?’ Ulrika asked bitterly.
‘Come back with me, as I offered before.’
‘I cannot!’
Gabriella’s stern look softened. ‘Daughter, your crimes against us are many, but they pale in comparison to the vile deeds of others we have welcomed back into our sorority. You will of course have to submit to punishment and a time of imprisonment, but I think I may be able to–’
‘It isn’t that,’ interrupted Ulrika. ‘If that was all, I would come back and gladly. But – but Famke. I – I cannot–’
‘Ah,’ said Gabriella. ‘That. Personally, I think she takes too little blame upon herself. And, knowing you, I would guess you take too much.’
‘I should not have run from you!’ cried Ulrika.
‘She should not have followed,’ said Gabriella.
‘I should not have left her alone.’
‘She should have been more cautious.’
Ulrika snarled. ‘Don’t counter everything I say! You can make anything not my fault. Your tongue can justify any action. But it is my fault. I cannot return to face her.’
‘Daughter–’
‘It isn’t only that! I have done worse things, things I cannot forgive myself. I murdered an entire town! I am what I swore I would never be!’ Ulrika closed her eyes and backed against the rail. All she had to do was lean back and it would be over. ‘I cannot live with myself. How can I live with you?’
A hard hand closed around her wrist and pulled her back. Ulrika opened her eyes. The countess had been ten paces away. Now she was beside her, gripping her tight.
‘It isn’t a matter of how. You must. You have no choice.’ Gabriella looked into Ulrika’s eyes. ‘Our Queen is our absolute ruler. She decides how we live, and when we may die. To take your own life is an act of treason against her. If you wish to make penance for your crimes, then do good. When your internment is over, you shall have an allowance.’ She shrugged. ‘You may give it to the poor if that will ease your pain.’
Ulrika moaned. ‘Why can’t you just let me be? I have betrayed you, run away from you, wounded you! Cast me out! Banish me from the sisterhood! I beg you!’
‘You have also killed a great enemy of the Lahmians, and foiled his plans, making you an asset the Queen would not care to lose.’
Ulrika looked up at her, startled. ‘You know I killed the count? I told no one.’
Gabriella smiled. ‘You didn’t have to, dearest. The entire episode bore your signature. Lahmia owes you a debt of thanks.’
‘Then Lahmia can repay the debt by letting me go,’ said Ulrika. ‘Please, mistress. Two steps and I will never trouble you again.’
Gabriella’s smile faded. ‘It seems I have failed to make myself clear. None of us is allowed to leave the sisterhood. No vampire is allowed to live – or die – outside its hierarchy. By our Queen’s reckoning, all of the deathless, no matter what bloodline they claim, are her subjects and owe her service, and she is at eternal war with any who deny her sovereignty. So far, at my urging, she has been willing to forgive you your youthful rebellion, but her patience is at an end. If you do not come now of your own accord, you will be our enemy, and I will bring you back to be tried for treason.’
Ulrika rolled her eyes. ‘Why not just let me jump and save yourself the trouble of a trial?’
‘Traitors do not die in the Silver Mountain,’ said Gabriella, her voice cold. ‘There is one I know of who has been spitted upon a red-hot skewer since before Sigmar was born.’
‘And you wish me to come back to that?’
‘If you come willingly I will speak in your defence, and your slaying of von Messinghof will stand in your favour. Your punishment will be minimal, and your–’
‘No.’ Ulrika closed her eyes. ‘A moment ago I wanted to come back more than anything in the world, but when you offer me no choice? When not even my death is mine to choose?’
‘What ruler would demand less?’ asked Gabriella. ‘Can a peasant say no when his lord calls him to war? Can a lord decline when his king demands his service? Your objection baffles me. You are a leader by birth and a soldier by inclination. Obedience should be in your blood.’
‘Obedience is in my blood!’ said Ulrika, tearing her wrist from the countess’s grasp and stepping back. ‘My blood! The blood of my father! The blood of my country! To them I owe loyalty! To them I owe obedience! I owe you much, countess, but you are not my blood. Lahmia is not my country. Neferata is not my Queen. I am her subject by misadventure. Why then should I obey her?’
‘Neferata became your Queen, and you her servant, the moment you rose from the dead,’ said Gabriella.
‘You speak as if I chose it!’ cried Ulrika. ‘Krieger turned me against my will. You took me in without my consent. I had no choice in those things, but I will have a choice in this. If you and your Queen want my service, then ask for it, and accept my decision, whether it is yea or nay.’
‘That is not our way,’ said Gabriella, stepping after her. ‘No matter how you came to undeath, no matter your loyalties before you died, you are hers, to do with as she pleases.’
Ulrika edged back. Despite the measured tone of her words, the countess’s fangs were showing.
‘Now,’ Gabriella continued. ‘Will you come, or must I drag you back?’
Ulrika snarled and drew her sword. She could have dodged past Gabriella and jumped into the river, but she was too angry now to think of ending her life. What the countess was demanding wasn’t the loyalty a lord owed to his king. She wanted the submission a she-wolf gave to her pack leader. She wanted Ulrika to roll over and offer her neck.
‘Take me if you can,’ she said, and went on guard.
The countess stepped past Ulrika’s blade with blinding speed and punched her in the solar plexus as hard as she could. Ulrika folded up, gasping in pain and shock. Her sword dropped from nerveless fingers. She had never felt Gabriella’s true strength before. It was terrifying.
‘Little fool. What did you think would happen?’
The countess threw Ulrika over her shoulder and started towards the Neuestadt end of the bridge as easily as if she were carrying a baby. At the same time, her left hand moved in a hypnotising fashion while she murmured strange syllables under her breath.
Through a tingling fog of pain, Ulrika felt strands of lethargy begin to wrap around her. Her arms were growing limp, her eyelids heavy. Gabriella was wasting no time in senseless brutality. She was putting her to sleep and taking her to her imprisonment.
Ulrika fought against the soft web of slumber. Her head and torso were hanging down Gabriella’s back and growing heavier by the second. Her arms dangled by Gabriella’s legs. She clawed at them weakly, then saw a better way, and gathered up the full skirts of Gabriella’s dress and pulled them tight.
Gabriella fell forwards as her legs were pinned together by the cloth, and let go of Ulrika, her whispering cutting off with a curse. Ulrika hit the cobbles hard, but the sleepiness was gone. She rolled up and clambered onto Gabriella, claws sprung and reaching for her throat.
Gabriella grabbed her wrists, sinking her talons to the bone. Ulrika cried out and pulled away. Gabriella’s claws shredded her arms and the backs of her hands.
Ulrika crabbed back, bleeding and shaking, as Gabriella tore away her skirts and crinolines in a single jerk, then crouched, slippered and bare-legged, in a wrestler’s pose.
‘I told you once that I had been many things in my thousand years,’ she said. ‘Pit fighter was one.’
She pounced, silent, just as Ulrika pushed to her knees, and took her down in a roiling, slashing tangle. There was no attack and parry, no move and counter-move. There was only mad animal savagery. Ulrika could barely follow Gabriella’s hands. They blurred like hummingbirds and hit like punch-daggers, gouging deep trenches in her arms, back and legs. The countess’s teeth tore flesh from her shoulders and neck. Yet, through it all, her face was as calm as when she had been speaking.
Ulrika got a leg up between them and pried the countess away with knee and hands. That was one small advantage at least. Ulrika was not quicker or stronger, but she had reach. She could keep Gabriella’s claws from her neck by holding her away. Unfortunately, that did nothing to keep Gabriella from raking her arms to bloody tatters.
With a hoarse cry, Ulrika flung Gabriella aside, slamming her face first into the bridge’s stone balustrade. Another advantage, then – mass. She could use her weight to her advantage.
Gabriella came up bleeding from the mouth and nose, but still composed, as Ulrika staggered to her feet, snorting and spitting blood. There was an annoying trickle running down the left side of her neck. She slapped at it, and found her left ear had a chunk missing from it the size of a gold crown.
Ulrika charged, roaring with rage, and tore into Gabriella with both hands. She still had a dagger, but that was forgotten. She had become a beast, incapable of using any weapons but those her nature had given her. Her vision was reduced to a crimson tunnel with Gabriella’s face at the end of it, and she tried to claw her way to the end so she could tear it off.
A stiff right brought her back to herself, and she woke from her rage in the middle of staggering back towards the balustrade, her head ringing and Gabriella flying at her, claws dripping red.
Ulrika caught her in mid-leap and flung her into the balustrade with a thud she felt through the soles of her feet.
Ulrika stormed in as the countess sagged, stomping down at her with the heavy boots she had stolen from the witch hunter. Gabriella caught her foot and kicked the other out from under her. Ulrika fell ribs-first across the balustrade, and Gabriella was up in an instant, one hand at her throat, pressing her backwards over the black water that glittered forty feet below.
Ulrika clutched at Gabriella’s fingers for dear life as they constricted around her neck. Another inch and she would topple to the death she had been resigned to only moments before. It did not seem so appetising any more.
Gabriella looked her in the eyes. ‘Daughter. It is not too late. No one has seen this. Submit and I will say you came without a fight.’
‘I’ll die first,’ rasped Ulrika, as blood bubbled between her teeth.
Gabriella shook her, her composure cracking at last. ‘Fool! Can’t you see that I am trying to save you? I love you! I could not bear it if you were taken to the mountain!’
Ulrika fought to force her words through her constricted windpipe. ‘Will… will you let me leave if I say no?’
Gabriella bared her teeth. ‘You know that I cannot!’
‘Then – I say no,’ said Ulrika.
With a growl of fury, Gabriella slammed Ulrika’s spine against the balustrade and sank her claws deeper into her neck as she pushed her further out over the drop. It took all of Ulrika’s courage to let go of those claws, but she had to take the chance. She released Gabriella’s fingers and caught the rail, then jerked her knee up between Gabriella’s legs, lifting her off her feet and tipping her head-first towards the water.
Gabriella shrieked and scrabbled to the side, letting go of Ulrika’s neck to cling to the balustrade as her legs swung over the edge and dangled over the waves.
With a desperate twist, Ulrika righted herself, then caught Gabriella’s neck in one hand and pushed her away from the rail while tearing at her clutching hands with the other.
Gabriella’s claws scratched white lines in the stone as they tried to hold, but Ulrika pried away first one then the other. All at once, Ulrika was holding all of Gabriella’s weight by the neck. It almost overbalanced her, and she braced against the balustrade for support.
Gabriella clung to her arm with claws like hot needles, but Ulrika knew she only had to drop her arm and slam her against the side of the bridge and she would fall away. The more pressing question was whether she could hold her up at all. Gabriella had shed a lot of her blood, and her muscles were torn and weakened. Her arm was trembling.
‘Daughter,’ whispered Gabriella. ‘Do not let me go. I beg you.’
Ulrika laughed, spraying blood. ‘You beg? Then I ask again. Will you let me go? If I spare you, will you let me choose my fate?’
‘I – I…’ Gabriella struggled at the end of Ulrika’s arm, her eyes bulging. She grimaced and shook her head. ‘I cannot. Even with – tables turned, I cannot. I do the bidding – of my Queen.’
Ulrika stared at her, maddened and yet filled with grudging admiration. With unthinkable death sweeping past below her, the countess remained loyal to her ruler and her principles. She was doing right according to her laws, and trying to save Ulrika at the same time. It was too bad Ulrika no longer wanted to be saved.
‘Mistress,’ she said, shaking. ‘Mother…’
A sob racked Ulrika’s body and her arm gave out, but she threw out the other and hauled Gabriella back over the balustrade then fell in a heap with her on the cobbles next to Ulrika’s dropped sword.
They lay panting together for several seconds, but then Gabriella circled her wrist with her hand in an iron grip. ‘Daughter, I am sorry. I wish–’
Ulrika caught up her sword and put it to Gabriella’s throat, then pulled her trapped hand free as the countess froze. ‘I am sorry too, mistress. And I also wish. But I cannot go with you. Not now. Not yet.’
Gabriella looked like she was going to cry. ‘Ulrika, there is only now. You will not have another chance.’
‘Not ever, then.’ Ulrika took Gabriella’s hand in hers and kissed it with her bloody lips, then stood and raised her boot, and broke Gabriella’s right knee with a savage kick.
Gabriella gasped in pain a
nd surprise as Ulrika stumbled back from her.
‘So you will have an excuse not to stop me,’ Ulrika said, then turned away.
For a second Ulrika considered jumping over the side as she had nearly done before Gabriella interrupted her, but the moment was gone. She still felt guilt for all the atrocities she had committed, still knew herself to be a monster, but something – Gabriella’s bravery perhaps, her loyalty – made her feel that killing herself now would be gross selfishness.
Ulrika had promises that she must keep. She had promised Famke she would find a way to heal her, she had promised Stahleker she would return the lock of hair to Mags, and the souls of all the innocents she had killed weighed upon her shoulders as well – murdered for sins committed by another. There were hundreds of them – thousands. Could she kill herself now, before making amends for killing them?
With a grunt of determination, she wheeled clumsily in the direction of the Faulestadt, using her sword for a cane.
‘There are guards at both ends,’ said Gabriella behind her. ‘Lahmians. You won’t survive.’
Ulrika stumbled to a stop and looked north and south into the fog. It was impossible to tell if the countess was lying. She cursed, and turned, then turned again, thinking of a hundred things she could do if she wasn’t too wounded to move. She could climb down to the bridge’s understructure and sneak to the embankment under their noses. She could run and leap over their heads before they knew where she was. She could–
A slap of water and the groan of rope against rope made her pause, then step to the balustrade. The dark shape of a river boat was materialising out of the fog. She heard men aboard it and felt their heart-fires. It was a municipal craft, a salvage boat with winches and cranes at both ends, going to clear the wreckage of von Messinghof’s barges, no doubt. Well, it was going beyond the city walls at least. Ulrika stepped up on the rail as it came closer.
‘Daughter, please…’
Ulrika looked back at Gabriella, still lying on the cobbles nursing her shattered knee. ‘Mannfred von Carstein lives, countess. The war was to pave the way for his waking, and his invasion. Perhaps that is stopped now, but he is not. He will come, sooner or later. Tell your Queen to be ready.’