First Blood

by K. Gorman

  It was dark, but her elf eyes easily adjusted, used to the deep forest. Though the tilework had chipped and worn over the hundred years since the terrace’s commissioning, it still gave a soft, ambient reflection. The mosaic had been done in a series of dark stripes and bars, mottled with black, twelve-pointed stars against the paleness of its striking white background. It looked like jagged teeth, she thought, or a rough representation of a river valley. The square stonework curved over her head, forming a concave, domed ceiling. Thick supports crossed overhead every twelve feet, blocking her view of the other domes, but her caution, the smell, and the emptiness of the corridor kept her glancing up.

  A knot of tension tightened across her shoulders when she came to the next pillar and spotted a smear of blood on the ground. She halted, feeling the warning churn into her gut like a wayward shiver. Fear coiled through her like a snake. She fought the urge to gag, straining to hear the slightest sound. To her left, and back, the distant murmur or the great hall came to her—but in the terrace, the air remained dead silent. Her breath hissed through her teeth, slow and shallow. The smell of sulfur had grown overpowering, pungent with death, clotting in the back of her throat. The demon’s presence lay thick in the air.

  Dark. Choking.

  Heavy.

  Her gaze roved slowly over the scene, taking in every last inch and detail, following the smear to a second on the balustrade and a tangle of torn ivy at the side, then up.

  A shock went through her as she spotted it—cold, like a punch of ice that seared her system then dissipated.

  It stared straight at her, folded into the ceiling like a massive, grotesque bat. About the size of Lord Stanek’s elkhound, it had two—perhaps four?—leathery, segmented wings that wrapped around its body, and a scruffy blend of fur and strange, stick-like protrusions on its hips and shoulders. Its head followed a bat-like design, with large, sensitive ears and a nose that flared like the taper of a heart-arrow. Its muzzle was wrinkled in the semblance of a permanent snarl, though she didn’t detect any animosity coming from it. Instead, it was oddly silent on that front. Its eyes—large, staring, strangely luminous despite their inky blackness—stared at her with a hard precision. Like a predatory insect following instinctual commands rather than the more complex realm of emotions she’d seen on the hound demon’s face.

  But it was intelligent. She could tell that much by the tilt of its head, the way its focus shifted from one portion of her body to another, sizing her up.

  Footsteps fell in the courtyard next to her. In her peripheral vision, a dark figure ran into the space, then stopped, looking around. The prince, she recognized from a combination of footfall and silhouette. He was out of breath, a drawn sword in his hand, its tip low and steady.

  Trained, then.

  Useful.

  She didn’t drop her gaze from the demon, and its gaze never dropped from her, but she did shift back, move her free arm in a slow, deliberate manner.

  The prince’s attention skipped her way. She and the demon watched each other as his footfalls made their way to the dark, roofed terrace and up the worn tile behind her.

  “You should be in the great hall.” She held out an arm behind her—the same one she’d signaled him with—and he halted at her warning.

  “Bellfort is dead.”

  Cold swept her chest. Her jaw locked. For a brief moment, something wavered inside her. She forced herself to breathe through the emotion, never taking her eyes off the demon. The prince’s smell, smooth and subtle, like smoke over a river bed, came to her. It reminded her of the smell of rushlights in the temple behind the castle. A dark, woody scent.

  “You should still be in the hall.”

  The sword at his side twitched. She felt eyes on her. His head turned up, following her line of sight, and spotted the demon.

  Like her, his breath left him in a soft whoosh.

  Every line of his body froze. Then he recovered. Re-animated.

  “Temi demon,” he identified. “Second Circle. Middling class. Watch for the venom barb on its tail.”

  Her jaw slackened, but she quickly molded the surprise away from her expression. Her eyes slid along its torso until she found the tail in question, folded into the corner like the rest of it. Part of it did indeed turn into a barb, like a rose thorn.

  “It hasn’t moved since I got here,” she said.

  “They do that. Hunting reflex.”

  Elrya. Demons have been cast out of the realms for two hundred and fifty years, and he’s talking about them like they’re common wildlife.

  She decided not to send him back to the hall.

  Arguably, he was safer with her.

  Not very arguably. Treng was in the hall, likely with a sword by now, and the castle guards would also be armed by this point. Same with any fighters who’d been in attendance.

  But she technically was the deadliest on the premises.

  “My spells are down,” she said. “My main one, at least.”

  “Mine aren’t,” he informed her.

  She frowned. “Only mercari, then? Is that why Doneil couldn’t—”

  “No,” the prince interrupted. “His spell worked. Bellfort was too far gone.”

  His words came quiet and breathless. Too quick. The air tightened around them, and she felt a tension pass through his shoulders. The demon watched them. Its dark eyes, like clouded obsidian, never lifted from her.

  “What do you have?” she asked quietly.

  “Kimbic fire. Second level.”

  More than just a campfire start, then.

  “Good.” Her teeth bared. “Then let’s kill this thing.”

  She stepped forward—bold, deliberate—and the demon twitched.

  Like a Kitani paper puzzle, it unraveled from the ceiling and slid down the pillar, its movements slick and soundless. A spindly paw touched down on the tile, the single, protruding claw bumpy with clots of recent blood, then it rose into a bipedal stance, towering tall and thin in front of them, ears nearly scraping the support truss. Its wings stayed close to its back, like a fly’s.

  She eyed it, decided on weak points—joints, tendons, a potential low amount of blood on its thin frame—spared a brief mental grumble at her lack of spells, then slid fluidly into an attack.

  Elves were fast. Fey-blooded. Few humans could attack a rnari royal guard and win. They were the best of the best and stood far above humans in terms of raw ability. Her knife flashed like a gleam on water, sliced upward.

  The demon was faster.

  It jerked like a spider. A talon slashed at her face.

  Fire bloomed between them.

  Half-expecting it, she ducked as the flames crackled against her forehead, a sudden heat on her face. Warmth smoothed over her back. Golden light darted, flickered, bright, making the scene jump. The demon’s wings flared—too late.

  The keen edge of her rnari blade cut through the tendons behind its leg joint. She shredded through a wing membrane, too. Its upper limb jerked for her, but she was already rolling, blade slick with blood.

  It growled at her and gave chase, quick as a whip snake. A surprising maw of needle-like teeth snarled from its jaws, the spines on its head standing up like a crest.

  Nales stabbed it in the back.

  It roared, but he was already sliding out of range. By the time it turned back, she had already moved in.

  Her blades caught it in the chest and gut. Using her strength, she shoved it around and slammed it into the terrace’s stone walls. Blood gushed from its wounds, pouring over her arms, her bracers, her skin. The gurgle of its next snarl, and the blood that choked from its mouth, told her she’d found whatever it used as lungs.

  Its upper limbs snaked around her. One smacked hard into the leather at her hip. She angled her body when she felt the other go lower, turning it away so that it couldn’t rip through the back of her leg. Its chest jerked under her hold as it tried to snap at her, hot breath and saliva hitting her face—then Nales came from the r
ight for a second stabbing.

  His sword pierced through what would have been a rib cage on a human, sliding nearly all the way through. A raw, trapped scream gurgled through the demon’s chest and throat, and it bucked weakly under her hold. Its wings flared and jerked, trying to get away. The prince stepped in, under her lifted arm, angling it in deeper. Fire bloomed a second time. The air filled with the strong, acrid scent of burning hair and flesh, and its shoulder bloomed into a bed of embers. Heat seared over her knuckles, but she held tight, digging her knife in further as an anchor point. Its head tilted back in a silent scream, jaws agape, needle teeth on full, pained display.

  They held it against the wall as its struggles grew weaker and weaker.

  After a minute, it stopped.

  Its chest exhaled underneath her. Hot breath fell over her hair, rank and stinking, clotted with the scent of old gore and bile. Its head lolled forward, jaws slack, a long, slender tongue hanging out. Black wings slid down the wall, leaving bloody trails.

  The prince stood by her, tense and rigid, his shoulder and upper arm solid where they bumped her body. The air hung still around them. Quiet.

  Then, with one smooth, fluid movement, he retracted. The sword made a wet sound as it slid from the demon’s body, and the fresh scent of its foul blood hit the air. Once he was clear, she pulled her knives out, stood to the side, and let the demon’s body fall forward onto the floor.

  It was a truly ugly thing. Stick-thin legs, large talons, teeth like fish spines—and real spines, black and hollow, bristling from its neck and back like a porcupine’s quills. Blood soaked its chest, the combination of her two rnari puncture wounds and Nales’ sword strike making it bear a partial semblance to the raw, wet-meat mess it had made of the stablehand’s torso.

  Cold emotion poured through her body. She nudged it over with her toe, upper lip curling. The stench of burning redoubled, tiny pieces of char flecking off its shoulder onto the terrace’s Veronese tiles.

  The prince stood beside her, rigid, dead-still, a mix of subtle emotions playing across his hard face. His jaw was tense, tight, the muscles working. His nostrils flared wide. He looked down at the demon with an intense expression in his eyes.

  The sound of their breaths rose loud in the quiet. She caught his smell once more—somehow, over the stench. Temple smoke and river stone.

  She shifted. The blood was cooling on her skin, along with a thin, prickling layer of sweat. Her muscles shook. The pain from her runes had ebbed, slipping into a constant nag, like the aftermath of a fly bite.

  Bellfort was dead. Demons were back.

  The cold in her poured thicker. She tightened her grip on her blades, the blood making them slippery around the hilt. The urge to hunt took her again. Dark and electric, a command that echoed all throughout her body.

  Nales glanced up when she stepped away, his movement quick and snappy, a jerk. She met his eyes, found the same icy, quiet need for violence reflected in him.

  She curled her lip again and turned, leading the way back up the terrace.

  “Let’s go find more of these things to kill.”

  Chapter 5

  She stalked through the castle’s lower corridor, her strides slow and ragged, squinting whenever the morning light hit her face through a window.

  It felt like her head was stuck in a glass jar. Slow, pounding, the world moving like oil around her.

  She’d been up all night, hunting, killing, organizing patrols, keeping the perimeter, and half her mind was still there, filled with the smell of sulfur and death, the cool touch of the forest, torchlight on the trees. Thick brambles and undergrowth breaking under her feet, rushes of adrenaline as she chased down demons, the blunt ache of muscles and bruises as she’d scrambled and rolled through dodges and defense, the holler of the hunting party as they’d rushed to keep up.

  The morning light felt too much like a dream.

  Eighteen dead. Three of them nobles, six from the village, and the rest either temporary or permanent castle staff. Doneil had survived, as had the lord and lady, Geneve, and Prince Nales. They’d lost a horse in the stable. Killed in its stall, gutted like a wolf kill, blood and entrails pulled out, flesh shredded. Two others had broken out, been recovered. Nales had stayed with her throughout the hunting party, never wavering.

  Only one of the demons had been marked with the same symbol as the hellhound.

  Two of her spells still worked. She could still call wind, and she could still encourage the growth of a very specific tree—for all the good that would ever do her. Her ice, however, led to crippling bouts of pain and renewed blood loss whenever she tried to use it.

  She shoved a hand through her now-loose braids, grimacing at the next blade of light to fall over her face.

  Gods, what had happened to the world?

  “Catrin?”

  The voice, warm and raw, but lilted upward in surprise, came like a splash of fresh water over her skin. She glanced up as someone stepped into her path. Geneve stood like a forest doe—frozen still, eyes forward, as part of the castle as the polished timber and textured plasterwork that framed her. Someone had changed her clothes, put her in something more practical—a simple, solid, faded green dress that ran straight to the floor over her hips—but her hair looked rough, frayed, still holding last night’s complicated weave. Her entire manner appeared shaken, hesitant.

  Tired. Haunted.

  Catrin’s jaw locked as the woman’s gaze darted over her. She had come this way for a reason. With her rnari skills, she had done most of the close-combat wet work. Almost every inch of her was covered in blood, dirt, and other things she didn’t want to think too hard about. She stank. Reeked. Sulfur, death, gore, a slip of sweet-smelling venom from one of the smaller demons that had etched into part of her bracers, the protective mercari be damned. A patch of mixed piss and blood from when she’d gone down in the stable.

  She’d half been tempted to change in the barn, except people were cleaning the mauled horse’s remains out of there, and she hadn’t thought much of anyone would be in this hallway.

  She’d been wrong.

  “Lady Geneve,” she said, trying to inject some pleasantness into her strained voice, hyperaware of the blood and dirt that coated her body like a disgusting skin.

  Geneve shifted, and Catrin tensed, reading the emotions that rippled across the young woman’s face. Like watching a pond in the first trembles of a storm, fish darting under the surface. Elrya, she’d been so confident last night. Buoyant. Brimming. Mischievous.

  Now, it was like someone had smashed all of the happiness from her.

  An image flashed through her mind—Geneve, body stiff, backed into a corner, a mix of fear and horror on her face; her shriek as the hound had torn through Bellfort. Her, kneeling on the floor, cushioning his head in her palms as he lay bleeding.

  Temdin. She’d likely seen him die.

  Geneve slid forward, buckling slightly on one stride—the action made Catrin flinch, wanting to catch and steady her—gaze locked to hers like iron to a magnet.

  She expected her to stop, but she didn’t.

  She had about half a second to process Geneve’s movement before two narrow arms wrapped around her.

  The hug was surprisingly fierce. Strong. Catrin went tense as a bowstring, aware more than ever of the disgusting bits of blood and death that were now pressing into Geneve’s dress.

  “Gods.” Geneve’s voice was raw in her ear. Worn. “I was so worried.”

  Catrin froze.

  Worried? She had been worried?

  A shock of surprise went through her, and she gulped in a quick breath. The scent of lavender and rose came to her, tinged slightly by torch smoke. She inhaled deeply, dropping her head, relaxing into Geneve’s grip, a tremor going through her.

  Slowly, her hands came up. She hesitated, aware of the blood and dirt ingrained into her skin, then pressed the cleanest bits of her arms to Geneve’s back.

  Thank Elrya she’d washed
her hands.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice wavered, unused to this. To comforting. “He was a good man.”

  Geneve trembled. Her back shuddered once, twice, a small, choked sob wracking out of her.

  Gods, he’d kill me for making her cry.

  She hadn’t known Bellfort long, but she’d gotten that sense about the man.

  Another sob. Geneve sagged against her shoulder, head buried close in the crook there.

  “He gave me a dumpling.”

  “You invited him to.”

  “I know.” Geneve’s breath hitched, rapid and shallow, matching the flutter of her chest. “I’m just—I’m glad you’re all right.”

  She pushed away, and Catrin moved her hands off as she straightened. Geneve’s eyes glistened with tears, but she held Catrin’s shoulders at arms’ length and darted her gaze over her soiled armor. “Though you stink. And what have you done with my hair?”

  Catrin laughed as the other woman’s hands went to her head, wandering over the roughened twists of the warrior braids now windswept and mixed with demon blood and pieces of forest. “You should be proud. They served me well.”

  Her hand stilled. “They did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you…” She hesitated. “Did you kill many demons?”

  Catrin bared her teeth, knowing the woman would get a flash of her canines. They weren’t absurdly long, not like a dog’s, but their pointiness always threw off the humans.

  “Twelve,” she said. “And there will be many more. I’m not done with killing things.”

  Geneve stilled. “You will go out again?”

  She nodded. “Later, after I’m rested. Hunting party.”

  They hadn’t ironed out the particulars of the hunt, but Treng had been talking about it when she’d returned. One, at least, would be sent out to the nearby farms and villages—a dual purpose of protection and recon. Reports of demon activity had already begun to filter in. It was best to get on them quickly, before the creatures got their bearings.