Max was on his second tankard of the surprisingly mellow mead when the smiling young serving girl came to his table. Her hair was golden, and her brown eyes were so dark, they almost appeared to be black. Her smile was friendly, although Max suspected an ulterior motive. She probably hustles all of her male patrons for a few denarii.
“What can I get you for dinner, sir?” she asked in a slightly accented voice.
“Beef,” Max replied slowly. “Rare beef this thick.” He held up his fingers, five centimeters apart. “Wave it over a candle and put it on a plate.”
The waitress gave him a pretty little laugh, which lasted right up to the point where she saw his eyes and noted his dangerous expression. She backed away from the table quickly. “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” She turned and nearly ran.
She returned with the meat in the time it had taken the cook to slice it off the haunch and put it on a plate. Max cut off a chunk the size of his thumb with his boot knife, dipped it in the bloody drippings, and popped it into his mouth. With an appreciative sigh, he began to chew.
Replete for the first time in days, Max leaned back in his chair, sipping mead and listening to the flow of conversation around him. With his exceptional hearing, or the magical spell he’d cast, he could pick up every conversation in the room, including those conducted in whispers.
Some of the things he overheard were interesting: the large unoccupied building was the Traeliorn Thaumaturgic Guildhall, the place where magic was revered and studied. Said guildhall had been raided only days before by soldiers of Drusus Cantius Perperna, the new governor of the province of Sanerona. Other things he heard were even more than interesting: the six men sitting by the wall were planning to sneak up to Max’s room after he went to bed, murder him, and steal his ring. The innkeeper was paying them a small fortune to recover the ring and keep their mouths closed. Their true intention was to kill Max, steal the ring, then kill the innkeeper. Max finished his mead, picked up his staff and pack, and headed for the door. From the rapid scraping of chairs, Max knew that the six would-be assassins were following on his heels.
They were no more talented than the clumsy robbers, though. After waiting in the shadows until they were nearly by him, Max found that a titanium staff swung moderately quickly broke bone and tore muscles quite easily. Except for the man with his brains leaking from his ears, he left the men lying groaning in the street… after he’d relieved them of their sizeable pouches of blood money.
Traeliorn Guildhall was a dark and ominous shadow in the night, even with the assistance of Max’s vampiric sight. Moving soundlessly, he discovered a small broken window at the rear of the building and grinned. Someone else had the same idea as he. Max drew a rune in the air, mumbling a single word. The skin on his hand faded to a nearly invisible mottled gray black. He slipped through the round window without a sound.
A flicker of light drew him through looted rooms filled with shattered furniture, until he finally came to a vast library, where the other thief was intent on studying books and scrolls scattered about a large and decoratively carved wooden table. He frowned as an inner tension drew him like a leash, past the thief and through a small side door. The office within had been looted. Moving of their own volition, his fingers touched a spot on the bare wall, which shimmered to reveal an untouched bookcase. Of the dozen tomes, two seemed to glow, and Max plucked them from their shelf and stuffed them into his pack. Two books lying on the floor caught his eye, one simply entitled Magik, and the other The Perilouse Historie of the People of Aeyaqar. These two went into the pack just as the sound of a stealthy footstep caught his ear.
Max was more than a little surprised that his fellow thief hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps, but he quickly noted that she was deeply engrossed in her books. The light she was using, a small, dimly glowing orb that floated a hand’s width above the table, quickly revealed that the other robber was a petite, finely boned woman who was pretty in an ethereal sort of way. Sliding from shadow to shadow, Max noted that there were eight men in the new party, spreading out to encircle the unaware thief. Leaning his staff against the wall, he removed his burnoose and pack then drew the Ka-Bar fighting knife from its sheath. This is going to get messy.
The group of men had eyes only for the thief, and it was their undoing. As two big soldiers grabbed her arms to slam her to the table with a crash, Max stepped forward, snaked a hand over the mouth of the most-distant soldier, and shoved the knife into his back. The soldier sighed and sagged as the life went out of him. Max started in surprise as he noted the man’s well-kept Saracen blade, which he removed and tucked under his own belt. He wiped and resheathed the combat knife, and after drawing the heavy razor-sharp blade, he turned toward the others. The woman was shrieking as four men held her spread-eagle on the table; their intentions were clear. The fifth man was unbuckling his pants and making obscene comments to his companions while the sixth, wearing a long black hooded cloak, and a seventh soldier looked on raptly. The last soldier never noticed the robed man stiffen as a sword pierced him from behind or the shadowy arm that dragged the dead man into the darkness. The fifth man ripped the woman’s shirt open at the same time the last unoccupied soldier died. His pants down around his knees, Number Five mounted the table over the woman and began jerking at her belt. The woman opened her mouth to let out another scream of terror... and stopped as the man straddling her froze, a surprised expression on his face, before his head came loose from his body and bounced off her chest before landing on the floor. The body, pumping hot blood over her face and half-naked form, followed quickly. The four men holding the woman released their victim as one, turning their backs to the table to stare into the dark. The woman lay frozen in fear.
“What is it?” one man said, squinting into the dark.
“All I see is shadows. How about you…”
Max tossed a pebble to the far side of the table, and the four soldiers turned instinctively toward the noise. Two heads turned back to stare at their fallen comrades, blood pumping from sliced throats to join in one large puddle below the table.
“We should—” The speaker’s head left his body with a flicker of Saracen steel.
The fourth man, Max lifted and slammed against a stone column, where he held him as he calmly drank his blood until the man’s heart fluttered then stopped. The body hit the floor with a sodden thump as Max ripped a piece from the man’s shirt to wipe his face. The chill air was heavy with the coppery smell of blood. The woman on the table hadn’t moved, and Max had to look carefully to make sure she was still breathing. She was. He could see the rise and fall of her small but well-formed and blood-covered breasts. He spoke a word under his breath, and his hands changed back to their normal color, his pale skin spattered with blood and gore.
“Sorry,” he said, wiping his hands with the soiled and bloody rag. He offered to help the woman up with an almost-clean hand.
“Who… what are you?” she whispered.
“As you can guess,” he replied, still swiping at his bloody clothes, “I’m a vampire.” He tossed the rag into the darkness in disgust. “You’re lucky I just happened to be around.”
“Did you do this?” She waved a hand at the ruined building.
Max chuckled sadly. “No. I was coming here to study.” He glanced at the woman, who was struggling to close her tattered shirt. “And you?”
Her shoulders slumped. “I was coming to beg help.”
Max shook his head. “Wait a minute.” He turned back to the dark and quickly removed the shirt and undertunic of a soldier whose neck he’d broken. He tossed them to the woman. “These are fairly clean.”
Her smile was crooked. “Thank you.” She turned away, removing her shirt. Her skin had a slightly greenish cast, and her ears came to a definite point. Her long hair, the color of autumn leaves, cascaded to the small of her back. She was also quite short, not even a meter and t
wo thirds.
“I’m not a local to these parts,” he began, wondering what he should say and how much he should divulge. “Just who and what are you?”
She turned to him with a surprised expression. “My name is Shyilia Iangwyn, and I am a forest elf. How is it that you don’t know of elves? Where are you from?”
“Ahhh,” he hesitated, “can we go into that another time? We should probably get out of here.”
The elfin woman looked at the bloody mess on the floor and walls. “This will have to be taken care of.” She said in a tight voice.
“I’m not much into mopping.” Max said dryly.
She gave him a smile filled with small white teeth. “I was thinking more along the lines of a rousing fire.” She seemed to deflate a little. “It’s too bad I couldn’t find what I was looking for.”
Carrying his burnoose and staff, Max paused in the process of slipping on the pack. “I have all the money these eight were carrying. What exactly were you looking for?”
“You wouldn’t understand, but I was looking for a book.”
He opened his pack and showed her the four books. “Would that be one of these books?”
Her green eyes opened very wide. “Where did you get these?” she whispered in a small voice. “These four books are the most precious thing in the world.”
Max rubbed his jaw. “I suppose that you could say they called to me, and please call me Max. It’s a lot easier than Maximilian.”
Her smile returned. “Please call me Shy, Max.” She drew a rune in the air and murmured the word for fire before she pointed one slim finger at the nearest corpse. The fire bounced quickly to the eight corpses then began to spread across the floor and up the walls. “We should leave, probably by the back window.” She sprinted for the exit on light feet.
“I’m right behind you.”
On the hilltop, they sat watching the guildhall burn. A squad of soldiers had appeared as if by magic, and they were trying to arrange a bucket brigade of local residents to put out the fire. Max watched as people ran around in circles. “Good luck with that,” he said as one of the mushroom-shaped roofs collapsed in a rush of flames and sparks. Clouds of choking smoke wafted over the town, but luckily, not over the hilltop they were sitting on. Pulling his eyes from the flames, he turned to Shy. “Where will you go now?”
She looked up at his face. “I think that my only choice is to head for the town of Sloobork, high in the Zosk Mountains to the northeast. Five hundred forty mille passus or setting a fast pace—two to three weeks on the trail. There is another guildhall there, but the city is so remote and desolate that it should be relatively safe.”
Max grunted, not looking forward to another three weeks on the trail, eating trail food and sleeping under the trees. He’d gotten away from the people who were looking for him on Earth, and he had an untraceable credit card that Viorela assured him funneled all charges into a perpetual holding pattern—but there wasn’t a damned Hilton anywhere on the whole planet. He growled a string of curses at whatever fate might be listening. “I was told to seek out a guildhall to further my education, and the one in Sloobork should be as good as any.” He looked up at Shy. “If you don’t mind, I’ll tag along with you.”
She bit her lip. “Would you give me the four books you found?” she asked slowly.
“I don’t think so,” he said, not bothering to smile.
The elfin woman let out an exasperated breath. “I suppose we’ll have to travel together, if I ever want to see those books.”
Chapter 4
ON THE ROAD TO…
Shy set a quick pace down the forest track, Max jogging easily at her side. His endurance was one thing he hadn’t taken into consideration. As a vampire, he’d fed twice that day and could literally go for days without food or rest. Sixteen hours after their departure, he caught Shyilia when she stumbled and would have fallen. He understood her fatigue when he looked at her ashen, exhausted face.
Taking her arm, he led her a short distance from the beaten path, far enough that a small fire wouldn’t be seen by passersby.
“We’ll make camp here,” he said, studying the rushing brook that chuckled chilly water over rounded stones only a few meters away. “We’re far enough from the trail that we won’t be seen, and we have fresh water.” After taking off his burnoose and laying it across a tree branch, he set down his pack, staff, and sword. He drew his Ka-Bar. “I’ll fetch dinner.”
She rolled her eyes in disbelief, and he patted her cheek in a patronizing gesture that was sure to infuriate her.
“Drink some water, and rest. I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”
“I only need to catch my breath for a few minutes, and I’ll be good to go. You’ll see,” she muttered defiantly.
Max smiled back. “Of course you will.” Turning, he plunged into the shadows.
She looked up, startled, when he walked into the camp thirty minutes later with a brace of fat rabbits, already skinned, hanging from his belt. The fire was crackling merrily, tubers of some sort of woodland plant roasting in the coals at the edge. Shy had prepared two sleeping pads of leaves and pine boughs tucked up under a tree for protection from dew and all but the heaviest rain. Studying the neat campsite, he gave her a short bow.
“Very neat and tidy.” He handed her one of the rabbits and a long skewer he’d already cut. “I don’t know how you like your rabbit.”
“Cooked,” she said, studying him. “And you?”
Max smiled. “I prefer it raw”—he saw her shudder—“but I can eat it any way. For me, cooking destroys the natural substances my body needs.” Before she could say a thing, he added, “However, I ate yesterday, so I’m actually good for a week.”
Shy shook her head as he withdrew a second skewer, which he deftly pushed through the remaining rabbit. Soon, it was hissing and popping over the fire beside hers.
Later, sitting beside the banked fire, Shy gave him a curious look. “You are a vampire, and yet you fight like a warrior. You prefer your food raw, and you drink blood, yet you know how to skin game and cook food over an open fire. Where are you from, Maximilian, and what are you?”
He stared at the hypnotic flames. “I wasn’t always a vampire, Shy. I saved a couple of women where I come from, and that cost me my life. Before I could die the final death, one of them turned me, made me a vampire. It was, they said, the only way they could save me.” He took a deep breath. “Where I come from, vampires are little more than a legend used to scare small children. If I had been discovered by those in power, I would have been caged and studied for the rest of my very long life. I left my home and my wife and my entire world to come… here.”
The elfin woman frowned. “You came through a gateway… from that other world?”
“Yeah.” Max recalled his warm reception only a few days back. “Now that we have the time, perhaps you can tell me what the hell is going on here. If I hadn’t taken precautions, I would have been caught as easily as I caught our dinner.” His booted toe nudged a small pile of bones at the edge of the fire.
Shy stared into the fire for a long while before replying. “This land was ruled under what scholars called a constitutional monarchy. Do you know what that is?”
Max nodded.
“The king and queen, the parliament, and nearly all the royalty lived in the huge castle of the king in distant Laigemor. A dragon appeared nine years ago and leveled the castle, killing all within.”
“A fire-breathing dragon?” Max asked, blinking.
Shy smiled grimly. “Yes. Have you heard of them before?”
“Only in fairy tales. Please continue.”
“For several months, the entire world went mad, until a young and ambitious provincial governor sent in his troops to maintain order and declared martial law. After a time, he declared himself sup
reme governor and vowed to keep power only long enough to reestablish the monarchy.”
Max snorted a bitter laugh.
“Within a year, the supreme governor was appointing his own provincial governors, who are now building armies as fast as they can recruit the manpower with one caveat—all the armies of all the regional governors cannot, when combined, exceed the army of the supreme governor, nor can the number of trained battle mages.”
Max shook his head. “It sounds like this supreme governor is somewhat insecure on his throne. How big is his army?”
Shy frowned. “Latest spies say that his army is in excess of ten thousand men, with an additional one hundred specially trained war or battle mages.”
He shut his eyes. “That’s not much of an army. We have wars so great on my world that thousands die in a single battle. There are weapons so deadly that your governor’s entire army could be wiped out in a single blast.” Opening his eyes, his gaze caught and held her shocked regard. “One single blast,” he repeated, taking a breath. “What is the population of this world?”
She thought for a moment. “Five hundred thousand at last count, before the loss of the royalty.”
Biting his lip, he frowned. “It looks like your world has a problem. You should have a population in the millions, not just five hundred thousand.”
“But… you said that there are vampires on your world, and magic users.”
“Refugees from this world over the last few hundred years,” Max said. “The woman who turned me and trained me said that there are probably a few thousand magic users on Earth by now, hidden in plain view. Eventually, there will be more, if they survive.” He grunted a bitter laugh. “Be very glad that nobody on my world knows about this place.” He looked up at the trees surrounding them and the deep-azure sky unsullied by contrails or pollution. “This world is a ripe peach waiting to be plucked.”
Destiny of the Vampire (Adventures of the Vampire Book 1) Page 4