First Blood

by K. Gorman

  At first, she didn’t get it. She frowned, parsing the words and reading the ghost of a smile on his face.

  Then, it clicked.

  “Was that a sex reference? Temdin’s holy ass, why?”

  To her surprise, Caracel let out a chuckle. She looked his way, and her grimace froze in disbelief. For the first time, a smile graced his lips, elegant and thin, and his eyes held a wry, tired humor.

  She felt a little something in her break.

  They were on an important mission, deep in enemy territory, a joint rnari-Fey-Cizek mission of unprecedented account, rescuing royalty—

  And Caracel was going to remember them for sex jokes.

  She allowed her eyes to flutter closed.

  Elrya save me. Do men ever think about anything other than their own dicks?

  A door thumped closed up the stairs. Voices came from above. She froze, attention focused on them.

  After a moment, they passed.

  It wasn’t much, but it sounded more promising than the squads of undead soldiers they’d seen thus far.

  Though Caracel’s expression was far from confident, frozen in a grimace, he seemed to agree.

  “All right, let’s try it. Normally, torture dungeons are in the lower reaches of the castle, but I think we are better to look upstairs for our people—they are valuable, after all. Additionally, it’ll give us a better idea of castle layout.”

  She doubted that last part—thus far, the castle had been anything but logical in its layout, clearly a result of several ages of construction and the mountain’s own, twisting layout, and she didn’t expect that to change when they went upstairs—but it was different up there, and more richly decorated, and that was enough for her.

  Nales, you better be alive after all this.

  As they crept up the stairs, pace wary, footsteps muffled against the thick carpet, that storm-like energy pulsed in the air again. About mid-way up, Caracel must have noticed it, too. He stiffened and twisted, his entire manner shifting to locate the source.

  Then, the largest crystal Catrin had ever seen came into view.

  It was the size of a pony cart and floated gently in the air over a small, rippling pool, rough cut with three chunks of crystal reaching out like thick, twinned tree trunks. Its top ended in a series of craggy points that reminded her of the spiky ends of Grobitzsnak’s antlers.

  An unearthly glow shivered within it, light dancing and darting like a silent storm. Each shift and movement hit her skin like a physical sensation, its power buzzing like electricity.

  Everyone stopped when they saw it. For several long seconds, they didn’t move, wide-eyed and focused on the crystal.

  Then, when the seconds passed and nothing happened, they began to move again.

  She let go of the breath she’d been holding and shifted into analytical mode.

  Okay, what in the bright fuck is this?

  It wasn’t demonic. There was no scent of sulfur—only a slight touch of ozone, as if someone had bottled the business end of a thunderstorm.

  The stairs opened up into a massive passageway. The crystal took up the first in what was either a series of tall, interconnected rooms or a massive, segmented hallway. A second crystal was visible at the far end, just as large and floating over a similar pool of…

  Catrin did a double take.

  That was not water. It was too thick and opaque. Metallic. Mercury, perhaps? No, it felt different—just as the crystal felt different from the lights embedded in the walls.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant as a light source. The touch of its energy was enough to tell that much.

  She exchanged a long glance with Caracel. By the expression on his face, he was having similar thoughts.

  He tilted his head up the hallway, indicating a direction to the left, and she nodded.

  They moved on.

  Up here, the halls were quieter. Less echo-y. As if the stone absorbed all the noise. Her tension ramped up, the grip on her hilts hard enough to make her muscles ache. They found one room that looked like a guardroom. It stood empty, but the smell of sweat and sulfur was more prominent, and there were racks of weapons on the walls along with a few provisions hung in sacks over a small counter. A half-dozen simple wooden chairs formed a casual circle, with others near sharpening and cleaning stations. A lavatory followed, the stench obvious. The castle had interior plumbing, though, and a washbasin cut into the stone wall.

  Several more doors were locked, but one opened into another weapons cache.

  At the far end, past a room of barracks, they found a torture chamber.

  They ducked in as the noise of tramping feet came from ahead of them. Caracel closed the door before any of the demons or undead made it around the corner.

  When they passed, Catrin sank into the room and blew out a noisy breath, pushing a hand into her braids. “Fuck.”

  “Well, we found a torture chamber, at least,” Doneil said speculatively.

  She heard more than saw his gaze wander around the room, a few soft footsteps sounding behind her. Ahead of her, Matteo was taking in the room with a shuttered expression, his body as tense as a bridge wire. His jaw muscles clenched hard, rippling in his cheeks.

  Gosh, we take foreigners to the nicest places.

  She wondered if he was regretting coming along with them.

  Probably. She was regretting it.

  But, if she hadn’t come, she would have been chewing herself up with guilt.

  She forced herself to breathe.

  They were still alive. They hadn’t been captured yet. So far, except for the time with the gate flare, Caracel’s glamour was holding.

  They could do this. In and out. That’s all they needed. They could figure out the rest after.

  She breathed out another long breath, straightened up, and looked around.

  It was a larger room, and definitely in an older style. The smooth, straight stonework of the hall ended past the threshold, replaced with a weathered brickwork that matched some older chambers they’d found downstairs. Cages of varying sizes decorated the room, including three hanging from ropes and chains that she recognized from the Raidt’s own facilities—older torture cages, meant to dangle above fire, or above a crowd, from back when the regime had employed cruder methods.

  Last she’d heard one used was when one rnari trainee had locked another trainee into one as a dare. How she’d managed to get him to go inside in the first place, she often wondered—but then, men did become occasionally stupid around women, and she knew of at least one other upper-Circle who liked to talk men into doing things against their better judgment.

  But, as she looked around this room, one thing kept nagging at the back of her mind.

  “Is it just me,” she asked. “Or does everything seem... outdated?”

  “It’s not just you.” A frown covered Doneil’s face. “It is outdated. Even humans are using better torture methods nowadays. Electricity and whatnot. And there’s no… smell.”

  He was right. In a torture chamber, one expected to encounter certain smells—the activity wasn’t precisely clean. Even if it hadn’t been used in a while, something should have lingered.

  Here, all she could smell was cold and dampness, and a bit of must and mold.

  Rust flaked off onto her hand when she touched one of the bars. A loose cobweb had broken free and entwined around the lock. She picked at it, squishing it between her thumb and forefinger.

  No, this place hadn’t been used in a very long time.

  Reality hit her again, all at once. Her mind crumpled inward, emotion bubbling deep in her chest. Slowly, she closed her fist, staring hard as the knuckles turned white under the blood and dirt.

  A normal castle would take time to search. If she’d been on her own, or with a few other rnari, they could scour a castle like Pemberlin in an hour, if they were careful.

  But this castle wasn’t like Pemberlin. This castle was a literal mountain. And they’d already been here an hour.<
br />
  It would be next to impossible to find Nales on their own—not unless they got lucky.

  The rnari didn’t believe in luck.

  “We should capture a demon,” she said. “We need to get information.”

  Caracel shifted. As usual, his face was a mask, but it seemed harder than normal. Like her, he was worried about his charge. She could see the tension eating away at his edges, the same way it ate away at her own.

  He shifted again, this time rolling his shoulders. She could see the thoughts weighing in his mind.

  “I agree,” he said, finally. He hesitated, a heavy frown on his face. “One of the human-like ones.”

  She chewed on her tongue, thinking. “Can you speak rentac?”

  The skin on his nose curled in disdain. “No.”

  Great. Even if they did successfully capture a demon and they were willing to talk, they wouldn’t be able to communicate with them.

  For a moment, the impossibility spiraled around her. She closed her eyes for a moment, tamped it down, and turned the spin of her mind into a grimace.

  She drew her blades and headed for the door. “Hope they’re bilingual.”

  She led this time. The others fell into step behind her. She heard the soft thud of the door closing. The light from the next hallway flickered, the crystal light quiet and bright, casting white off the stones.

  She stepped into the next hall, turned, and stopped dead.

  Grobitzsnak stood not ten feet from her, and Prince Nales lay crumpled at his feet.

  Chapter 22

  Everything came crashing to a halt. Her blood froze to ice. A dull roar rose in her ears.

  She barely dared to breathe.

  If he’d been tall in the forest, he was enormous in the hall. Eleven feet at least, and solid. He towered with his presence, broad-shouldered and with a thick body of hard muscle. The thin moonlight might have hidden his form before, but here, he was stark, strong, and obvious. When he spoke, a pair of canine teeth became visible—long and curved, like a lion’s. His voice made the air shake with power.

  Blind panic clawed at her chest.

  Grobitzsnak wasn’t alone in the hall. Another demon stood close by, a humanoid like the others she’d seen. His armor was different, more fitted and elegant, heavier in design and a deep black that shimmered under the light like carved charcoal. Rentac script decorated its curves, a filigree inked in bronze. Rich brown skin showed between the gaps.

  Not one of Grobitzsnak’s undead legions.

  Her gaze slid down to Nales, crumpled on the floor between them.

  Seconds stretched.

  His chest rose and fell softly.

  Relief surged through her.

  He was alive.

  She could work with that.

  The greater demon finished speaking. His tone still made the air tremble, an aftereffect of his power. Gods, how had she missed him? Even casual, the strength he held bat at the air like a visceral presence. If she hadn’t shut off her woodcraft, she would have felt him coming from a mile away—dark and shivering, like a perpetual, shifting thunderhead.

  But then, he’d done that before, back in the forest.

  She hadn’t felt him coming at all.

  The other demon spoke again, a question, and Grobitzsnak made a dismissive gesture, clawed fingers catching in the light like beetle shells. When he spoke next, the words were sharper, louder. An order.

  He walked away.

  The other demon watched him go. Then his gaze fell to Nales on the floor.

  His lips peeled back, revealing long, thick canine teeth, and he spat out a word. A snarl came from deep in his throat, and he slammed a savage kick into Nales’ gut.

  Nales saw it coming, his arms jerking down to defend himself, but the power of it knocked him back. A sharp cry came from his lips as he thudded into the wall.

  Catrin’s muscles tensed. Fear and panic slammed through her, the urge to leap out and attack overpowering. Only the memory of Grobitzsnak stayed her body.

  He was too powerful, and still too close. Less than a minute up the hall. Easy enough for him to turn around and discover them.

  And then, she would have zero chance of getting Nales out.

  The slap of wet meat being hit continued. Each blow made her flinch.

  She gritted her teeth and gripped her blades tighter.

  After a half-minute, the beating stopped.

  The prince lay in another crumpled heap, looking worse than he had before. His breath rasped through split lips. Fresh blood dotted the ground. The demon stepped back, pausing as if to survey his handiwork.

  Then, with a guttural oath, he bent down, took hold of one of Nales’ legs, and began to drag him.

  Toward them.

  Her heart raced. Slowly, she stepped back around the corner, her movements utterly silent. She held a hand out for the others, three fingers splayed away from her blade’s hilt in a signal, but she needn’t have bothered—every one of them had heard the voice, read the tension in her body language.

  She gave a silent thanks to the gods that Caracel’s glamour had held.

  As Nales and the demon approached, Caracel’s hand curled around her bicep. She didn’t flinch when he leaned in close to her ear.

  “We need him to show us where they are keeping people,” he murmured, his tone soft. “Do not attack them. Not yet.”

  Her grip tightened on her blades, but she held her ground. Nales’ breath hitched with pain as he slid by. He shifted weakly on the floor, curled and tense. The scent of blood and stomach acid came to her. He had thrown up at least once, probably from a previous kick to the gut. Her entire body trembled with violence as the demon hauled him past, taut as a bowstring.

  After they’d passed, Caracel’s fingers left her arm. Silent as a ghost, she rose to her feet and followed.

  The demon dragged Nales through the halls. Twice more, he stopped to give Nales another kick, or to spit in his face, but the attempts were more half-hearted—going through the motions rather than dedicated to genuine pain.

  They passed another floating crystal, its power dancing across her skin, the liquid shivering underneath it. A brief moisture touched her nose, then the metallic scent of blood. She let go of a breath and decided not to think too hard about the contents of the liquid and followed the demon down the stairs. Nales cried out and curled up as he bumped down, attempting to soften the blows with his arms. One, she thought, was definitely broken.

  Finally, after nearly ten minutes of dragging, they came to a large, circular door.

  Despite being in the older underbelly of the castle, the door itself looked newer. She perked up as she analyzed its surface, finding more and more hints of a new installation, and none of the crude, rusted wrought iron she’d found in other parts of the castle.

  The demon pulled the door wide and dragged Nales through. She ran to catch up, she and the rest of their small group slipping through before it shut.

  Inside, the room was full of cages and torture devices, both old and new. A quick glance around at the grisly objects told her everything she needed to know about the place.

  This is where they would be keeping him.

  The demon dragged Nales to a cage—a relatively large and generous one, she thought, until she noticed that it was attached to a large door on the wall with heavy scratches gouged into its threshold. Likely a place they set wild animals loose on prisoners.

  Yeah, no. That was not going to happen. Not on her watch. Not with her blades so ready and eager.

  She parted herself from the group without a word, a silent, deadly urge running through her. The demon opened the door with a squeak, tossed Nales in like a rag-doll, and closed it again.

  When he was busy locking the cage, she lunged into the attack.

  The demon must have sensed something, because he turned a half-second before, but she still slammed him into the cage bars. He yelled, twisted under her grip, and she shoved him, keeping him off balance, chasing him
along the outside of the cage.

  With a buzz, Caracel’s glamour snapped from her skin.

  The demon’s eyes widened, taking her in.

  A deep, primal part of her reveled in the fear her blood-mangled appearance caused him.

  She shoved him again, slammed a kick into his left side. He blocked but still got knocked against the cage bars once more, and she took a moment to examine him.

  He was softer than she’d expected, and more humanoid. Silver eyes stared up at her from a dark brown face, giving him the look of an elf—until one noticed that he stank of sulfur and the tattoos that ran down his cheek were in rentac, not mercari.

  He struck out at her after a few seconds’ scramble, gripping her arm above the elbow. A smile tucked the edge of her mouth.

  She shoved him once, twice. Turned away a strike aimed for her face and smashed her hilt toward his nose. He blocked it at the last second. She let him get a hand on her elbow, tug her into a lock.

  She spun and dropped, throwing him several paces away to where the rest of the group was waiting.

  Caracel was on him in a heartbeat.

  He roared, his sword stabbing down like lightning. The demon dodged it once, but not twice. Caracel’s sword skewered his shoulder, and a scream split the air.

  It cut off with a wet smack when Caracel kicked his face.

  Caracel straightened, shaking with fury. Behind him, Doneil and Matteo stood by the wall in stunned silence. Both had drawn weapons, though they weren’t now needed.

  “I’ll just stand here, then,” Doneil called over. “Being pretty.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “It’s best to play to your strengths.”

  A wheeze of breath and a rustle of cloth made her turn. Nales had pushed himself to his feet. He swayed, his entire body hitched to one side. His bloodied gaze watched her, tense and wary. Sizing her up.

  She walked over to the cage, looped an arm through the bars in the cage door, and gave him a glance-over.

  “So,” she said after a few seconds. “Your deal fell through.”

  He swallowed. “The Great Lord Grobitzsnak decided I was being less than honest.”

  “He should have expected that the moment you told him you were a Cizek.”