First Blood

by K. Gorman

  And the relocation of the demon fortress suddenly made a lot more sense. It sat right where Ulchris used to be.

  The two had likely just changed places.

  Why they would do that was beyond her. She had only the basest recollection of gates.

  But it did, at least, explain some of her magic. Spells that relied solely on this world were fine. Anything that relied on a connection to the fey world was out—until someone opened the gate.

  She couldn’t rely on Kodanh.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That is useful to know.”

  He gave a nod and continued on, moving like a ghost.

  Hearing Doneil and Matteo catch up around the corner, she tossed her light stick back for them to use—Doneil caught it with a swear, as she knew he would—and resumed picking her way up the increasingly jagged and awkward path.

  The soft, eerie glow turned into a bridgeway bearing the ruins of an old road. She hesitated when her fingers hit the top. She’d expected crude paving stones, but the quality and ornamentation of the path surprised her. A thick, woven pattern was engraved deep on the inside ledge of the bridgeway, cracked and chipped by age and wear, along with several others next to a broken support column that had fallen across a caved-in door that cut off access toward the left, and several carved statues snarled out from an alcove in the wall, bristling with stone weapons. She eyed them, noting the intricacy of the work.

  She climbed up slowly, casting a wary eye down the new pathway.

  Nales’ words from earlier came to mind.

  ‘Demons aren’t just evil, mindless thugs, Catrin. They are a multifaceted series of races with their own minds, ideas, and structures.’

  She’d been wrong to think of demons as simple, evil things. Whatever ignorance had led her to that line of thinking had done her a disservice, one she was now paying for.

  The Cizeks had subjugated her entire kingdom, rnari and all, with a demonic sword. She’d assumed it was raw power that had brought the surrender, but, logically, one would need more than simple power to craft a weapon like that, and a lot more than a normal level craftsmanship to lock its use into a bloodline.

  Temdin, she was out of her depths here.

  As Matteo and Doneil scrambled up next to her, Doneil helping the human up the straight, slippery slope, she crept away, drawing a blade. She gave the shadowy, arched ceiling a suspicious look, more than a little reminded of the arched ceiling in the terrace at Pemberlin, then turned her attention to the walls, where a series of deeply-etched stone reliefs faced the statuary nooks on the opposite side.

  The first clusters of crystals lay embedded in a carved stone frame about shoulder height on the wall. Reliefs of guardian statues and script work shaped the wall under them, much of the lettering bearing enough of a resemblance to the mercari adorning both her skin and armor that a small jolt ran through her and she had to do a double-take.

  She stepped back with a frown and took in the rest of the hallway. “Is this fey?”

  It sure looked it. Old fey, perhaps, but definitely fey. Never mind that she recognized the script as rentac, the demon language—the way it was carved here, and the way the stones were put together, had a definite fey influence.

  Caracel didn’t immediately answer. When she peered up, her heart stopped.

  Gods, he looked like a deity—perfectly balanced and composed, his body lean with muscle under the perfect fit of his armor, the mercari embedded into it catching the light with a quicksilver gleam. The air seemed to shape around him, the way it did with the Raidt’s more-powerful magic users.

  For one long second, their eyes met.

  He was quiet for a moment, his gaze sliding along the wall. He didn’t tense, exactly, but he certainly wasn’t relaxed. The carvings discomforted him as much as they did her. When he spoke, she detected a slight strain to his voice.

  “Yes. You are correct. It does resemble old fey relics. Pre-rending.”

  Ah. Score one for the elf. She let herself relax again. Pre-rending, if she remembered her history correctly, was before the purported world split, when the four realms—fey, demon, goblin, and Gaia—synchronized as one.

  She’d thought it a fictional telling, but she was beginning to question that.

  Four worlds, one path. That was the fey belief.

  But that was history. Ancient history.

  The worlds didn’t work like that anymore.

  Of course, given what she’d seen in the forest, and with this place, it seemed as though they might have all crashed back together—and left the fey out of it.

  Was that the demons’ motivation? To overcorrect a long-lost power imbalance, except in their favor?

  One thing was for sure—this was bigger than the Cizeks. Bigger than the Raidt, too.

  She shifted, moving farther along, a hand tracing over the carvings in the walls. The rentac was illegible to her, but its form preyed on her senses with its familiarity, the designs looking like a close cousin to the mercari runes that made her armor.

  She shook her head, detaching the thought. Now was not the time to wonder. She had a job to do. And a lot of demons to get through in order to do it.

  “We should hurry.” She grimaced, wincing at the way her woodcraft slid and split in her mind. For a second, the scent of rot and sulfur intensified, almost overwhelming her senses. “With that racket at the entrance, they’ll definitely know where we are. Doneil, could you…”

  She stopped, frowning. There was a new sound above her, a rippling noise, like leather on paper. She whirled, hands racing to her blades and head snapping up.

  Something big and flapping fell on her.

  “Look out!” Caracel shouted, drawing his sword.

  Skin and bone engulfed her in a tight wrap. She jerked back, shoved an arm up, blocking the jaws that snapped close to her neck. A sharp claw scratched over the pauldron next to her throat, slashing down and over, catching on her chestplate. She stumbled into the wall with a yell, eyes stinging as the scent of rot and sulfur and stinking hair smothered her face. A thick, rough membrane pressed into her elbow, tendons flexing as the demon screeched.

  Then, Caracel was there.

  A cut with his sword sliced a wound in its wing membrane. Light appeared. It flinched back. He slashed it on the second swipe, his blade cutting a neat slice through its front left leg, movements quick and snappish, like a striking cobra.

  She shoved hard and threw the thing off her. It ripped away from her and slammed into the opposite wall. Caracel chased it, slashing at it with his sword.

  She stumbled against the carved relief, gulping in air, heat flooding her as she recognized the demon, its spindly legs and coarse, wiry hair a neat replica of the one she and Nales had fought on the terrace at Abiermar.

  Temi demon. Second Circle. Venom barb on its tail.

  Her eyes tracked up, finding its distorted, bat-like mouth, the rows of teeth that flashed in the green light. The scent of blood rose in her memory. Then, anger. Her body began to shake.

  Before she could recognize what she was doing, she was moving.

  Caracel made a small noise of surprise as she roared past him. Her blades cut hard into the demon’s torso, one sinking up to the hilt. She dragged on it. The demon bucked and twisted. Its scream pierced her ears like a train whistle. Blood poured over her hands, slicking her fingers. Spatter sprayed over her face.

  It tried to buck her, jerk her to the side. She resisted the motion, felt Caracel try to parry behind her, heard him yelling something. Above her, the demon’s slashed and bloodied wings flared, as if it could fly away.

  She screamed and shoved it against the wall.

  Finally, Caracel found a way in.

  His sword arced through the air and found the demon’s neck. Its shriek cut off with a gurgle. Its head rolled forward, thudded wetly down her back armor, and hit the ground.

  Suddenly, everything went limp.

  She jerked her blades out as the demon fell.

 
; The tunnel grew quiet. All that moved was her and Caracel, breathing hard next to each other, the scent of blood and adrenaline thick in the air.

  The demon lay in a crumpled heap in front of them, limbs bent and awkward like a dead spider. Its head sat a yard to her right, the snarling maw relaxed in death.

  Slowly, she stepped away. A glance to the side took in Caracel’s concentrated face. In the green glow, his black eyes gleamed, partly reflecting the demon kill.

  Farther back, Doneil and Matteo were openly gawking. The light on Matteo’s gun had flared to life again, though he kept it pointed at the ground. Doneil had half-drawn one blade, his stance clearly having stopped himself from leaping into battle.

  “Stars, Catrin. Do you need to work off some anger?”

  “Always,” she said. She attempted to wipe her blades off on her armored thigh and grimaced when it only smeared on the blood and dirt already there. She shoved them back into the sheaths, making a mental note to unsheathe them before it dried too much. She wiped her hands off on the nearest rock face, then picked up a jog. “We’re moving fast, right? Let’s go.”

  Chapter 21

  The road continued on for close to a Janessi mile, dim and old, the cracked and broken stonework occasionally slick under her feet, before it began to narrow. As the blood dried cold on her skin, she kept an eye on the ceilings, trusting the jangling bob and weave of her woodcraft even less than she had before.

  They paused when the stamp and rustle of activity came to them on the path ahead. Silently, she held still for Caracel to re-cast his glamour spell. Then, she drew her blades—wincing as they stuck briefly in their dirty sheaths, and stole out into the castle proper.

  Her stomach did a flip when they stepped out. She swallowed hard, casting a quick series of glances around her.

  They were in.

  The interior of the castle was a mix of worn flagstone and weathered stonework. Whoever had built it had clearly taken advantage of the mountain’s natural caves and tunnels. Unlike the straight-edged walls of most castles, this one swayed and twisted like a snake’s tail. Slabs of heavy stone hemmed the corridor in a fine, smooth masonry that looked as though it had been repaired once or twice. Crystals glowed from small alcoves, casting half-circles of white light every twenty feet.

  As she looked to both directions of the corridor, she fought the sudden, clawing urge to panic.

  Gods, we don’t even know where we’re going. This place takes up an entire mountain.

  Fortunately, Caracel didn’t share her doubts. After a quick glance in both directions, he turned to the right.

  They picked up a quick, quiet jog.

  Not two minutes later, a large squad of demons ran past.

  She flattened herself to the wall close to Doneil, heart leaping into her throat. The entire squad was deadly silent, and when they drew closer, she saw why. Though surprisingly humanoid faces peeked out from under steel and leather helms, the silver-tinged eyes held a vacant, cloudy focus, and the once rich brown skin had darkened into a sick, ashy color, spider-webbed through with black veins.

  The undead.

  She clamped her mouth shut, not daring to breathe. The closest ones ran by less than a foot away. Close enough to touch.

  When they passed, she was shaking.

  She caught her breath in slow, shivery gulps, peeking down the corridor where they disappeared.

  They were heading right where she and the rest of the group had just come from.

  Too close. That was too close.

  The halls turned from weathered, tan-colored stone to a cleaner-cut stone carved in a different manner. Sometimes, the mountain’s natural caveform slid in; at other times, an older style surfaced, similar in age and texture to the old road they’d traveled earlier, though better lit. The crystals continued, some cracked and broken, their light decaying, others obviously repaired or replaced.

  They wandered for close to an hour, tense and wary, Catrin never laying down her blades. The smell of sulfur clogged her nose, and her woodcraft had turned into a dull, pulsing headache. Tension tore a line through the back of her neck.

  Then, when the despair had clawed its way up and lay choking in her throat, they found something new.

  An intersection opened up, grander and more severe than the rest. Her attention snagged on a polished balustrade that curved elegantly into the space, and the clean, polished tile that lined the wall going up in a simple pattern. Crystal lights, larger and more exquisitely carved than the ones they’d previously passed, their patterns resembling sea shells, glowed with the soft white of moon-quartz, embedded in diamond-cut frames of obsidian. A lush carpet covered the center of the stairway in a deep burgundy color, reminding her of wine. Or blood.

  She stopped at its bottom, staring up. Though the scent of sulfur permeated nearly everything in the castle, it smelled lighter up the stairs. Her gaze slipped up the slope of the stairway. Above, where the second flight switched back to connect with the next floor, a stronger version of the walls’ crystal lighting shivered and danced across the tile of the upper floor, visible through the gaps in the balustrade’s carved support spindles.

  This light, though, had a different feel to it. Thick and energetic, like a storm pulse.

  “There’s something in there.”

  Behind her, Caracel’s voice was soft, awed. At first, she thought he was talking about the light, but his words didn’t make sense, and his voice was more distant than she expected.

  She turned, and her body gave a start when she saw what had caught his attention.

  Suns, I need to pay more attention to my surroundings.

  The door was huge, standing what would have been two stories tall on a normal building if the castle’s ceiling hadn’t been so high, and absolutely covered in rentac script. Writing in paper and metalwork, stone and wood—hells, even carved into the threshold of the door—took up every clean nook and cranny, some looking as old and formal as the script they’d found on the ruins earlier, with other, newer ones seemingly tacked on as an afterthought.

  One of them, a piece of thick paper with script that appeared to be written in demonic blood, by its dark, rust-tinted coloring, had been affixed just above the door’s handles, seemed to be significantly newer than the rest. It was bigger than many of the others, and nailed in place.

  Several cracks were visible in the wood, as if whatever it was protecting from had already started to break through.

  A heavy frown took over Caracel’s face.

  “There’s something in there,” he said again, his words hushed and quick. “Can you feel it?”

  Looking at Doneil’s face, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. The elf stood more than six paces from Caracel’s back and had the look of a man who had just heard a dire wolf growl on the other side of his bedroom door.

  She grimaced, braced herself, and slid her mind into the throbbing, painful world of her woodcraft.

  For a second, everything was as she remembered it. The world slid and shivered together as if drunk—like her mind was a boat crashing repeatedly into the rocks with every swell.

  But, as she struggled to detangle the sensations her woodcraft was reading, her attention caught on something in the near distance. A lump of energy, similar to how a fire would appear in a forest. A big fire, honed like a dwarven forge.

  Then, it sensed her.

  A head shot up, turned in her direction. Blazing eyes crashed into her mind.

  Shards of pain drove through her head. She let out a throaty hiss as a line of fire sank in and traced the ink of Kodanh’s runes, its energy scratching like a thousand tiny claws. A huge presence reared in her mind—she caught a glimpse of feathers, and talons like an eagle’s. A large, sharp, carnivorous bill. Eyes a solid gold, flecked with blood.

  She cut the connection with a throaty swear, switching back into her specific mother dialect for it.

  Doneil’s eyebrows shot into his forehead. “Damn, Cat, I’m impressed. I didn’t think
you had it in you.”

  She ground her teeth, wincing at the echo of pain that flashed through her skull. “What in the ten hells was that?”

  Concern lined his face. His eyes slid up across the door, once again taking in its scripts and writing. “I do not know. It didn’t call to me. What did you see?”

  “Something big and angry with sharp claws.” She winced, rubbing her head. “I suggest we avoid it.”

  With a small shake to rid her head of the leftover ache, she glanced back to check on Matteo. His expression had turned to concern. He gave her a once-over, clearly worried.

  She shook her head again, this time following it up with a dismissive gesture from her hand. She stopped it mid-air when she noticed the amount of blood and dirt that still covered it.

  Gods, she was disgusting. She felt it on her, like a layer of vomit. She must look like an absolute nightmare—like one of the bog-ghasts in old Death Veil stories.

  Given the situation, her appearance was probably an advantage. The next time she got into a fight with a demon, she’d be coming at them covered in blood and death, wielding spelled blades that were just as bloody.

  Her lips twitched at the thought, the dry humor finally getting to her.

  If there weren’t so much at stake, she might have enjoyed this castle raid.

  “I vote we go up,” she said. “We’ve found nothing so far. That—” She gestured to the carpeted stairs, gleaming tile, and the light that danced on the wall above, “—looks more promising.”

  Caracel considered it.

  “I don’t know,” Doneil said slowly. “Castles usually keep their torture chambers in the lower parts, in my experience.”

  “Toured a few of them, have you?” Her voice dipped, sarcasm laced in her dry tone. “This isn’t a normal castle.”

  “Only the ones in people’s bedrooms, Catrin.” Doneil’s lips twitched up at the corners with some thought before his voice took on a more somber tone. “It depends on what they’re into, I suppose.”