He climbed a tree and used it to climb into another after its branches were exhausted. At the top, he looked out over the canopy of black forest and blinked wearily at the color of the sky. He oriented himself with the mansion and the rising sun and then leaped back down. He grit his teeth when one of his knees buckled beneath him and he felt something give way. But, when he stood, everything still seemed to be in working order.
He ran east. He was not graceful. He was half panicked. Paranoid thoughts invaded him and ricocheted off the inside of his skull like a bullet making gray soup. Had someone finally smelled the blood? Had Bluejay been brought to face court for questioning? Were they sending out a search party now? Was Castello going to feel when he left her realm? Would his thinking about her make his mind vulnerable to her?
A tiny grave. A tiny grave. A tiny grave.
He stopped. He wanted to go back. It was cold in the mansion, but it was significantly colder out in Rheinland wilderness. What if he never found the river? What if he couldn’t find another court? Could vampires drink from animals? He’d never tried. No one had ever been drunk enough to admit having taken from an animal either. Lord Castello didn’t even drink from humans anymore, let alone entertain the idea of drinking from even lesser creatures than they.
A tiny girl. A tiny bomb. A tiny life.
His knee buckled again. He took a moment to sit on a fallen log and figure out what was wrong, but he wasn’t a doctor. It wasn’t broken. He was scared. He punched the log and stood up. His knee tried to give again, but he turned his stumble into a frustrated run. He couldn’t fall apart, not when he’d just been made whole by Bluejay’s sacrifice.
Bitterness hit him. If she had really wanted him to escape, why hadn’t she given him more blood? If she had really given up, she should have let him drain her.
He pushed those thoughts aside. He was grateful. He had to cling to that. Bluejay had wanted him to be free. He was free. She had succeeded in giving him a chance.
A tiny girl. A tiny chance. A tiny hope.
I have to go back for her, he thought as he slowed and then looked about. His encroaching panic had turned into full-tilt terror and he looked back west, hoping to see the shape of the mansion through the trees. He imagined approaching the gates, apologetic for his innocent transgression. He hadn’t meant to leave. He had just needed a little walk… Yes, a little walk! Lord Castello would laugh at the absurd understatement. He could imagine her smile and her instant forgiveness… making the cruelty that would surely come later all the more real in his mind’s eye.
“No,” he hissed to himself as he faced the east. “No…”
Bluejay knew him better than he thought.
Don’t look back. Don’t you dare.
Had she really understood so much in only a year?
Bluejay was far better at being a vampire than him.
He prayed for her wellbeing. He prayed for Castello’s death. She had few powerful friends and dozens of petty acquaintances. Given a tiny chance, she could be done-in by any one of them for virtually no reason. He hoped to be rid of her eventually. He hoped to be truly free of her memory once she was gone.
A tiny chance.
A tiny hope.
A tiny wish.
He found the river by falling into it. He went over the edge of the bank and careened into its freezing water. He sucked in a shocked breath and his atrophied lungs filled with fluid which proved more of an annoyance than a detriment. However, the undertow pulled him into the depths and refused to let him surface. He hit several rocks. His palms were stripped of flesh as they raked over weakly gripped branches. He tried digging his heels in or swimming to get purchase, but the speed of the water kept knocking him free and spinning him around.
Finally, he managed to stop his soaked tumble by bodily banging and clutching at a large protruding boulder in the middle of the rapids. He coughed, expelling brackish liquid. His skin was blistered by the pounding water on his back. His toes kept slipping on algae and moss. His arms were beginning to ache with his effort to hang on. He didn’t get his bearings in time before something—maybe a stick or log caught in the flow—hit the right side of his face hard enough that his lonely left eye saw black spots.
Knocked listless, he rolled off the rock face-up and was pulled further down the river, sinking once more into its embrace and disappearing under the surface of the roiling froth.
A tiny, useless life.
A spray of dirt hit him in the face and he angrily wiped away at the irritating debris before he shouted, “MOVE!” He dipped out of cover and he heard the pounding boots of his element follow close behind as Aleck laid down ineffectual covering fire. Only three of them made it to the next building and they wasted no time setting up their long gun. Aleck followed, but Conscript watched him get cut down by bullets before he made it more than a couple steps.
Then he heard the rumbling and then the roar and then the scream of the plane. It looked so tiny from where he was positioned. But its dark coloring and unique shape stood out against the lifeless white of the sky. Its cloaking had been damaged. Frack exploded around it like fireworks heralding its beautiful, miraculous arrival.
Conscript lifted a fist and punched the air. “THAT’S IT! THAT’S IT!” He screamed above the gunfire. Everyone looked up, including their human opposition. “THAT’S IT, YOU SONS OF BITCHES! YES! FUCKING YES!” He could hear other elements shouting their own elation as the whine of the plane took over everything else. It was right above them. They all knew what that meant. They all looked at each other, smiled, shook each other’s arms. After everything, they would be brothers to the very end.
A tiny plane with a tiny bomb.
They all marveled at it.
They were still staring at it when it exploded.
“No,” he breathed. “NO!”
A hand gripped Conscript’s forearm and, with a jerk, pulled him from the clutches of the river. He felt hands from multiple people on him, trying to assess his status. Delirious, he managed to rasp, “The plane… No… What happened to the plane?” His face pinched up in old pain.
Slurring Neu-Deutsch met his senses. “He’s been bonked silly, Livey. Come on, let’s get him in the cart before he catches his death,” a harried male voice said as two people picked Conscript up by his ankles and armpits. He was laid in the back of a cart, swaddled in fresh pelts that smelled like blood and game.
“The plane,” he hissed in English between bared teeth. “It’s gone… It’s gone.”
“What plan does he speak of?” a young woman’s voice demanded.
“There now, Son,” the man’s voice insisted, dragging a thick wool cloak over him. “Livey, get in front. Rork! Rork, get away from the edge! Have you any—”
A boy’s voice whined, “I was getting his other boot, it was snag—”
“Good, good. Give it here then and hop up with your sister.”
“The bomb,” Conscript insisted. “The plane’s lost.”
“There, there. Keep your voice. We’re headed to Merda, alright?”
The vampire whispered, “We’re dead,” but then Conscript managed to looked about, his one eye roving wildly for some kind of purchase on the here and now. “No… No, not dead.” He swallowed. The man sitting at his side in the cart was human. He could feel the man’s rising concern, his need to eat soon, his want to return home to cure and tan his new hides for his woman. Conscript felt an ache in his throat. He asked, “Merda?”
The man, really a beard with eyes peeking out from under the wide brim of a leather hat, nodded once. “Merda-under-Cairn. We’re a few hours ride just west of her.” The cart started pulling away from a makeshift campsite and Conscript clung to consciousness. His body didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t move in some respects. He suspected he’d bruised his spine, knocking the feeling out of his legs again. The man said, “Hang in there… We’ll get you home soon enough, then we can work about getting you where you need to be.”
“Merda,
” Conscript whispered, closing his eye. His Neu-Deutsch was unpracticed, stilted. “I… need to… go there.”
“Alright then,” the man said, glancing once toward the cart’s lead. Then he met Conscript’s eye and said, “My name’s Oren. You got a name?”
A name? “I do,” he whispered. “It’s c—ss…”
Innocent confusion was written on the wildman’s face. Did he know what he dealt with? “What’s that?” Oren asked, cupping an ear.
Bluejay’s blood had been a mistake. He’d burned through it so quickly, and now he was vulnerable and even thirstier than before Lord Castello had bled him dry. He had to get to Merda. He couldn’t be found out and brought back to North Rhein before then. His paranoia gave him strength. His fear propelled him out of his comforts.
A tiny girl. A tiny grave. A tiny life.
Conscript psychically fumbled as he attempted to link with the man, but Oren’s mind wasn’t even guarded. Conscript slipped into his thoughts like a thief in the night. His gravel bitten voice might have sounded harsh to any vampire, but to the humans within earshot, his tone was like liquid honey as he rasped, “Come closer… I’ll tell you.”
The sun was just cresting the tops of the trees when a gigantic soaring of starlings suddenly took to the sky, swirling in an agitated shape above so many dull colors indicative of the late Rheinland Autumn. Beneath the sounds of the mob, gunshots and muted cries rang out on the floor below. There was a long time that sobbing could have been heard if it weren’t for the birds and their terrific cacophony.
Then there were only the sounds of hundreds of tiny birds, screaming.
A Tiny Life
Sebara
Oren knelt before Lord Deutran’s throne, holding a sopping wet wad of cloth to his bleeding arm. He had refused any attention before he could see his liege, and so he had been brought before her posthaste. Misha stood behind him, just in case the human decided to faint for his wounds. A look of worry pressed his thick auburn brows together.
Lord Deutran asked, “May I see it through your eyes, Mr. Rouges?”
Oren, having already explained the situation in a couple bursts of angry Neu-Deutsch, slowly nodded in assent, almost ashamed by his hesitation. The man had been through an ordeal that had spilled his own blood. His lack of courtesy was understandable, if not expected.
His lord carefully entered into his mind, noting a lingering sense that someone had already barged into an otherwise orderly abode. A novice did this, she thought to herself. Then she selected the memory in question and reviewed its contents. She linked with Misha halfway through and she could sense his shocked surprise and his disapproval.
When she’d seen all she needed to, she gently let the man go, leaving him with a peaceful sensation that would help him sleep through the night. She smiled kindly at him as she stepped down from her seat. “Will you let one of our clerics tend you now, Oren?”
“What is your judgement?” Oren demanded, but then he winced slightly and said, “Lord… What will become of the rogue? Is this the beginning of something? Should I warn the elders of a plan in the making?”
“Peace, Oren,” Misha said gently, pulling the man up and toward a waiting cleric at the edge of the throne room. “Let’s not send our betters into a tizzy over a nobody. The vampire that attacked you was no more than a fledgling in our ways. You did well to defend yourself from him. Take heart knowing he is the only one of his kind.”
“He said something about a lost plan,” Oren said distractedly. “Did he come from the Crater? Are Musketeers mustering?”
“We’ll find out for certain,” Misha insisted, putting on his best court smile. “For now, go with Noona and stop being such a fussy bear, eh?”
After Oren was safely tucked away, Misha looked to one of the courtiers and they nodded to him once before leaving to fetch their newest guest to the Cairn. Misha gave Deutran a dark-eyed side glance before he asked quietly, “What are you thinking, Lord?”
She linked with him and thought, “I want you to ask the questions. Get angry. Don’t touch him. Be righteous. He’s young, scared, and confused. I’ve seen the look before. If you meet him with furious indignation, he’ll buckle.”
A wash of affection splashed into her mind. “I love it when you sound so certain of everything,” Misha thought warmly and the fingers of his right hand twitched. It was a long-standing tic of his that told her he wanted to touch her, but wouldn’t let the desire manifest until he was given permission. He stuck a thumb through a belt loop and the corner of his lips quirked up at her slightly. “Would you define the world for me, Sebara?”
She let him see her small, flattered smile before she forced her face back into cold impassivity. She went back to her throne and sat in it, straight and regal and frozen in time. “Send it in,” she ordered in a flat, angry voice.
Conscript was brought forward from a side door and shoved to the ground before the dais. He looked so small. The two humans flanking him were outfitted in scaled armor and their gauntlets had left angry red welts on his skin. Weak to silver, she thought absently. Castello’s line must be traditional. The two escorts then returned to the closed door they’d entered by, crossing over their lances to make it clear that the prisoner wouldn’t be leaving the same way.
Misha sashayed forward and took his time circling the vampire. He looked every bit her predator. Even wearing his casual brocade and soft felt boots, he cut a dangerous figure. He tucked his hands to the small of his back and led with his nose. His expression was carefully neutral, but Lord Deutran recognized the playful sparkle in his eyes—a flickering of light that promised violence as much as it promised care.
Conscript’s pale skull hung and his chin touched his chest. His clothing was still wet with river water and blood. Despite his impromptu baptism, he still reeked of Lord Castello’s house. Mentally reaching out, however, confirmed that there was no hidden connection between this rogue and his maker. Lord Deutran tried to look further, but she was met with heavy resistance. She liked to imagine minds as houses. This hovel was filled with concrete. Even if she managed to get inside, she wasn’t sure if she would find anything not already interred or useful.
In English, Misha barked, “Look at me.”
Conscript managed to raise his head, but he looked at Deutran.
Misha raised his hand and the other vassal flinched. But then Misha simply pushed his hair out of his own eyes and said, “You know why you’re here, Leech. You’ve spilled blood on lands outside your own.” He stepped in close and shouted, “Do you know what that means?!”
When Conscript didn’t answer, Misha paced around him and said with a voice steeped in pageantry, “It means… you are subject to the merciful judgement of the lord of these lands. Your lord has no power here.”
Conscript’s gold eye bored into Lord Deutran’s inscrutable expression as he said lamely, “I’ve got no defense.”
Misha growled, “You will not speak!” and Conscript hung his head. “You will listen!” When the kneeling vassal simply squeezed his eye shut, Misha looked up at Lord Deutran with a suddenly apprehensive expression. She gave him nothing in return and when he attempted to link with her, she gently shook her head. Frowning, Misha returned his attention to the rogue. “You are lucky we outfit our citizens with silver. You are lucky to have your life. Do you realize how fortunate you are? If you had taken more than just blood on our lord’s lands without her say so, your own unlife would be forfeit.”
This fact made Conscript look up with shock. His mouth hung open for a second before he pressed his lips together into a thin red line. Lord Deutran, still loitering outside the hovel of his mind for a true reaction, saw that the concrete wasn’t as thick as it first appeared. But she wasn’t sure if she wanted to hammer away at his defenses just yet. Instead, she knocked on the door and thought politely, “Care to admit a guest?”
Conscript’s eye found her again and his brow rested on top of its stare. Then he looked to Misha and slowly no
dded in understanding. His gaze returning to the lord, his thoughts were disorganized. After what seemed like a great effort, he sent her a confused sensation and one bitter word: “Yes.”
Misha didn’t seem to register their exchange. He announced, “Lord Castello has declared a state of conflict with us, based upon your blatant attack on our people.” Conscript’s eye snapped to him and his body turned slightly. Misha raised a slight eyebrow. He’d clearly struck a nerve there. Lord Deutran wasn’t sure if they were having their own kind of psychic pissing contest, but knowing Misha, she could hazard a guess. “Or are you just a terrible insurgent?” her vassal demanded in a low voice.
Conscript struggled against his bindings. His fangs flashed as he shouted, “I RAN!”
Misha raised a hand, but this time Conscript did not flinch. He stared down his elder without a hint of fear on his face. Lord Deutran’s vassal dropped his hand slowly and then paced around the pale foreigner. “You ran. Why? Without your lord, you are vulnerable. Without your lord, you are meat. Without your lord, your unlife is worthless.”
“Why?” Conscript hissed. Feeling no way out of his current situation, he bared his teeth and snarled, “Stop! You won’t get in!” Then he winced and hissed adamantly, “You won’t.”
“Misha,” Lord Deutran said softly and her vassal’s head snapped up. “Leave his mind be.”
Misha simply inclined his head away from her so she could see his neck. Supplication. Then he circled around Conscript and crouched down in front of him. “Why did you run from the Castle on the Rhein, Conscript?”
Conscript took a long time to answer. The words that finally came out of him were harsh, like he was trying to talk passed a mouth full of broken glass. “Every second away from that place is… paradise on earth. If I give up my ghost today… it won’t be at the command of my maker.”
Vertus State (Vassal State Book 1) Page 3