Sweep of the Blade

by Ilona Andrews

  If they stood, they would be slightly taller than her, right around six feet. They had two main legs with shins that curved too far backward for human comfort, and two short vestigial appendages, pointing backward from their pelvises, false legs, a reminder of evolution. The vestigial legs had two joints and a very limited range of movement, but when a tachi sat, they gripped the seat, anchoring them in place, which greatly helped them in spaceflight and aerial combat. A tachi was just as comfortable upright as upside down.

  Their bodies narrowed at the waist, developing into an elegant thorax that could almost pass for a very thin human clad in segmented armor. Their backs curved backward, the thick exoskeletal plates hiding their wings. Two arms, joined to the body not at the sides, like in humans and vampires, but slightly forward, a neck, and a round head shielded by three chitin segments, each with slits for a pair of glowing eyes. Nine tachi in all. The female in the center wore a crystal bracelet filled with gently glowing fluid. Pale green flecks floated within it, shifting every time the tachi moved. A royal. The rest were bodyguards, likely elite.

  They should’ve never been seated that far from the host table. She couldn’t even see it from here. It was an insult and the tachi were sensitive to such slights. Vampires were somewhat xenophobic, especially toward aliens who didn’t look like mammals, so the fact that the tachi were permitted here at all meant something significant was on the line. An alliance, a trade agreement. Something of value. This was a tactical blunder. She would have to mention it to Arland.

  Where was Arland? She didn’t expect him to sit with her – that would be pushing against all Holy Anocracy customs – but he could’ve at the very least strolled by. Just to see that she was actually present.

  The tachi had left only one seat open, that directly across from the royal. She would be sitting between two sets of bodyguards, with the other four watching her. Maud bowed her head and sat.

  “Greetings.”

  “Greetings,” the royal replied, the bottom segment of her face rising to reveal a slash of a mouth.

  The ten plates were clean. The vampire cooking utensils, small four-pronged forks, lay untouched. Nobody had eaten. The moment she sat down, she saw why. The two large bowls on the table contained a salad.

  They served them salad. Maud almost slapped herself.

  The tachi were on a mission among other species, which meant they would not consume meat, so at least House Krahr had gotten that right. But they were notoriously fastidious in their preparation of food. It was an art as well as sustenance. Every ingredient had its place. Nothing could touch. The vampires served them a salad. Drenched in dressing. Ugh.

  Mom would turn purple if she saw this. Orro would probably commit homicide.

  The tachi would never say anything. They would just sit there and quietly fume. If that royal got up from the table without consuming any food, House Krahr could kiss any hope for cooperation good-bye.

  Maud turned to the nearest server. “Bring me bread, honey, a variety of fruit, a large platter, and a sharp knife.”

  The server hesitated.

  She sank ice into her voice. “Am I not a guest of House Krahr?”

  The server flashed his fangs at her. “It will be done, lady.”

  The tachi watched her with calm interest. Nobody spoke.

  The server arrived with a massive wooden cutting board, bearing a loaf of freshly baked bread. A second server set a large bowl of fruit in front of her and glass gravy-boat-like vessel of honey. The two servers parked themselves behind her. They didn’t bring the platter. No matter. She would have to make due.

  Maud sliced the crust off the bread, trimming the round loaf into a square shape. At least the knife was sharp. That was one thing one never had to worry about with vampires.

  The tachi watched her with calm interest.

  She cut the bread into precise half-inch cubes, placed five of them together onto the plate, one in the center, and four in the corners, so they formed a square. She picked up honey and slowly dripped a few drops onto each cube, until the bread soaked up the amber liquid.

  The tachi at the edges of the table leaned in slightly.

  Maud plucked the blue kora fruit from the bowl, peeled the thin skin and carefully cut the fruit into even round slices. She managed eight slices, seven even and one slightly thicker. She placed the seven slices around the cubes. The eighth was a hair too thick. She pondered it.

  The tachis pondered it with her.

  Better safe than sorry. She reached for another kora.

  The tachi to her left emitted an audible sigh of relief and then crunched his mouth shut, embarrassed.

  After the kora, she cut the red pear, then the think yellow stalks of sweet grass, slowly building a mandala pattern on her plate. The kih berries followed, prefect little globes of deep orange. She carefully arranged the berries and took one last look at the plate. It was nowhere as perfect as it should’ve been, but that was the best she could do with what she had.

  Maud got up, lifted the plate, and offered it with a bow to the royal.

  “Lady of sun and air, it is my great honor to share my food with you. It is humble, but it is given freely from the heart.”

  The table was completely silent. The royal looked at her with her six glowing eyes.

  Color burst on her exoskeleton, the pale neutral grey turning a deeper azure of the morning sky. She reached out her long elegant arm and took the plate.

  “I accept your offering.”

  Maud exhaled quietly and sat. The color around the table darkened slightly. She could tell the shades of blue, green, and purple apart now.

  The two vampire servers behind her took off at a near jog.

  She reached for the next fruit and began peeling it.

  The royal speared a cube of honey-drenched bread with her claws and popped it into her mouth. “My name is Dil’ki. What is yours?”

  “Maud, your highness.”

  Dil’ki clicked her claws. “Tch-tch-tch. Not so loud. The vampires do not know. Where have you learned our customs?”

  “My parents are innkeepers on Earth.”

  A deeper blue blossomed on Dil’ki’s segments. The tachi around the tables shifted, their poses less stiff.

  “How delightful. Do you speak akit?”

  Thank Universe for dad’s insistence on a superior speech implant. “I do.”

  Maud arranged another, less complex mandala and passed it to the tachi on her right.

  “We will speak akit,” Dil’ki declared, switching to the dialect. “Do you understand me, lady Maud?”

  “I do,” Maud said.

  “Yes.” The royal leaned closer and popped a berry into her mouth. “Tell me, what are you doing here, among these barbarians?”

  “One of them asked me to marry him.”

  “No,” the green tachi from the right gasped. “You mustn’t.”

  “They can’t even make proper seats,” another green tachi said. “Some of them are joined into benches.”

  “You must be very brave to come here,” a purple tachi said from the left.

  “Did you say yes?” Dil’ki asked.

  “I said I would think about it.”

  The vampire servers arrived, bearing platters of precision sliced fruit and cubed bread. The tachi fell silent. The food was placed on the table and the server backed away.

  “You may serve yourselves,” Dil’ki said. “If poor Maud has to feed us all, we will be here all night.”

  The tachi clicked the mandibles inside their mouths, chuckling. An instinctual alarm dashed through Maud. Every hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

  Claws reached for the platters, each arranging their own small masterpiece of fruit on their plate.

  “Which one asked you?” Dil’ki asked.

  Maud craned her neck. If Arland was anywhere, he’d be at the host table, but she couldn’t really see him. “The big blond one. The son of the Lady Illemina.”

  Dil’ki leaned
in and the other tachi mirrored her movement, as if they had choreographed it.

  “Tell me all about it,” Dil’ki said.

  Maud opened her mouth and saw Seveline walking toward her, two male vampires in tow.

  “Enemy?” Dil’ki guessed.

  “I don’t know yet,” Maud said. She realized she had pushed her chair back from the table slightly, on pure muscle memory. When an enemy is approaching, it paid to make sure getting up didn’t cost you a precious fraction of a second. “I think she might be.”

  The tachi went light grey, as one.

  “There you are!” Seveline grinned at her. “I was wondering where they hid you.”

  No proper address. An insult. It would’ve been fine if they were friends in private, but they were neither friends nor alone.

  Maud plastered a smile on her face. “Lady Seveline.”

  “I expected to have to search, but at this table, really?”

  Another insult. She really was enjoying herself.

  “And I see they forgot to bring you meat. Do they think you are a herbivore, honestly? Are humans herbivores, Lady Maud? I only ask because of your small teeth.”

  A third insult. The dark-haired vampire at Seveline’s right flashed a quick smile. Couldn’t help himself.

  A tachi on her right leaned to her and murmured in akit. “Would you like me to kill her? I can do it quietly tonight. They’ll never figure it out.”

  Oh crap. The last thing she needs was to cause an interstellar incident.

  Seveline narrowed her eyebrows slightly. Ten to one, Seveline’s implant didn’t recognize akit. It was an internal tachi language. But if Maud replied in English, it would translate her reply. Maud cleared her throat.

  “Khia teki-teki, re to kha. Kerchi sia chee.” No, thank you. She’s a source of information.

  Argh, she’d mangled it. There were sounds human mouth just couldn’t make.

  The tachi clicked their mandibles again, in approval.

  “That was very, very good,” Dil’ki said in akit. “Good try.”

  “Is something the matter?” Seveline asked.

  “Not at all,” Maud smiled. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “As a matter of fact, there is.” Seveline smiled. “These lords with me were wondering if there was some unique aspect to human lovemaking that particularly appeals to vampires. I thought you would be a perfect person to ask, since you have used it to such great effect.”

  Quarter of a second to get up, another quarter to jump up the table, half a second to ram her fork into Seveline’s neck, piercing the windpipe. She would look so pretty with a bloody fork sticking out of her neck.

  Maud smiled and stopped. A sentinel stood at the doorway of the fest hall. A small figure in a blue tunic with a silver sash stood next to him. The beginning of a huge black eye turned Helen’s right cheek bright red.

  “Excuse me.” She jumped up and hurried through the tables to her daughter.

  Helen looked up at her, her face pinched. She was trying not to cry.

  “What happened?” Maud asked.

  The sentinel, an older male vampire, smiled at her. “Personal challenges are forbidden in the nursery. Lady Helen was warned about the consequences of her actions, yet she chose to continue as did her challenged.”

  “He called me a liar,” Helen squeezed through her teeth.

  Fear crushed Maud. Somehow, she made her lips move. “Is the other boy alive?”

  “Yes.” The older vampire smiled brighter. “His broken arm will serve as a fine reminder of today’s events. Unfortunately, Lady Helen must leave us now. She is to report tomorrow to the nursery to atone for her failure in judgement. Should I take her to her quarters?”

  “No,” Maud said. “I’ll do it.”

  “But your dinner, Lady Maud?”

  “I have had my fill.”

  Maud took her daughter by the hand and walked down the hallway, away from the feast hall.

  The long hallway of House Krahr’s citadel lay deserted. Behind Maud, the noise of the feast hall was dying down, receding with every step. Helen walked next to her, her face sullen.

  “What happened?” Maud asked softly.

  “They asked me where I came from, and I told them about how I made my room, and Aunt Dina said she would get me fishes. This boy said that houses can’t move if you think at them. He said I was lying.”

  Of course, he did. “Then what happened?”

  “Then I got mad.” Helen bit her lip with her fangs. “And I said take it back. And he said I was stupid and a liar. And then he wagged his finger at me.”

  “He did what?”

  Helen stuck out her hand with her index finger extended and waved it around, drawing an upside-down U in the air, and sang, “Liar-liar-liar.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then I said that pointing was bad, because it lets enemy know where you are looking.”

  The lessons of Karhari had stuck. No matter how long Helen would spend away from it, the wasteland had soaked into her soul. And there wasn’t anything Maud could do about it.

  “And he said I wasn’t good enough to be his enemy. And I said, I’ll punch you so hard, you’ll swallow your teeth, worm.”

  Maud hid a groan. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Lord Arland.”

  Oh goodie. “Then what happened?”

  “Then the scary old knight came and told me that if I challenged the boy, there would be ripper cushions.”

  “Repercussions.”

  “Yes. So I asked if the boy would get reper-cushions if he fought me, and the knight said yes, and I said I was okay with it.”

  Maud rubbed the bridge of her nose.

  “And then the knight asked the boy if he wanted help and the boy said he didn’t, and the knight said proceed, and then the boy punched me, and I got his arm. With my legs.” Helen rolled on the floor and locked her legs together. “I said say surrender and he didn’t say anything, he just yelled, so I broke it. If he didn’t want me to break it, he should’ve said surrender.”

  Maud rubbed her face some more.

  Helen looked at her from the floor, her big blue eyes huge on her face. “He started it.”

  And she finished it.

  “You weren’t wrong,” Maud said. “But you weren’t wise.”

  Helen looked on the floor.

  “You knew you weren’t a liar.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did it matter what the vampire boy said?”

  “I don’t know,” Helen mumbled.

  Maud crouched by her. “You don’t always meet an enemy in battle. Sometimes you meet them during peace. They might even pretend to be your friends. Some of them will try to provoke you so they can see what you can do. You have to learn to wait and watch them until you figure out their weakness. The boy thought you were weak. If you let him keep thinking that you were weak, you could’ve used it later. Remember what I told you about surprise?”

  “It wins battles,” Helen said.

  “Now the boy knows you’re strong,” Maud said. “It wasn’t wrong to show your strength. But in the future, you have to think carefully and decide if you want people to know your true strength or not.”

  “Okay,” Helen said quietly.

  “Come on.” Maud offered her daughter her hand. Helen grasped her fingers and got up. They resumed their walk down the hallway.

  “Mama?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are vampires our enemies?”

  That was to be determined. “That’s what we are trying to figure out.”

  “When are we going to go live with Aunt Dina again?”

  An excellent question. What am I doing here anyway? She’d had it up to her throat with all of the vampire backstabbing. There was a reason why she decided she was done. She’d promised herself she was done the moment they landed on Karhari and she repeated this promise over and over, when she lay on the hilltop, breathing in Karhari dust
, watching the blood sword flash and seeing Melizard’s head fall on the ground; when she tracked his killers; when she bargained for shelter and water, knowing that if she failed, Helen would die. It became her mantra. Never again. Yet here she was.

  Arland had abandoned her the first chance he got.

  What did you expect? Did you expect he would come and take you by the hand and lead you to a seat at the host table?

  Yes. The answer was yes. She didn’t expect it, but she wanted it. Stupid.

  It was stupid to hope for something that wouldn’t happen. It was stupid to come here.

  “Mama?” Helen asked.

  They could just go home right now. Go back to Dina. Helen would never be able to join a human school or play with human children, because there was no way to hide the fangs, but all three of them, Klaus, Maud, and Dina, had been home schooled in the inn, and none of them turned out badly.

  They could just go home, where nobody would belittle them or punch them in the face. Home to the familiar weird of her childhood, before Melizard. Before Karhari.

  But they had come all this way. She had dragged Helen here, because Arland had offered hope for something deeper than Maud had ever hoped for. A part of her rebelled at giving up without a fight. But was this even a fight worth fighting?

  I’ll do one more day. One more day. If it’s all shit at the end of tomorrow, then I’m done.

  “We have some things to do here first.”

  “I liked it at Aunt Dina’s,” Helen said. “I like my room.”

  A short figure turned the corner and was coming toward them, walking upright on furry paws. She was only three and a half feet tall, counting the nearly six-inch lynx ears tipped with tufts of fur. Two thin gold hoops twinkled in her left ear. A coat of pale sandy fur, covered with tiny blue rosettes, sheathed her small body. Her face, with a long muzzle, was a meld of cat and fox, and her big emerald green eyes shone slightly when the light caught them just right. She wore a diaphanous apron of pale pink, decorated with black embroidery.

  “A kitty,” Helen whispered.

  Ha! The Universe provided a teachable moment. “No, my flower. That’s a lees. Remember how I told you about hiding your strength? The lees hide their strength. They look cute, but they are dangerous and very cunning.” They were also excellent assassins and they would poison their enemies in a heartbeat, but that was a lesson she would deliver a few years down the road. “See her little apron? She’s from a merchant clan. The markings tell you which one. This one is from Clan Nuan. Remember how I told you that Grandpa and Grandma were innkeepers? They would buy things from Clan Nuan, and sometimes they would take me with them. Your grandpa told me to never bargain with a lees, unless I absolutely had to. He was right.”