Bloodforged (8 page)

Finally he stepped back and shook his head. ‘What must have happened to ye to turn yer hair white so young? Ah, it’s a wicked world, a wicked world.’ He tsked again, then turned for the door. ‘Broth’s coming. Won’t be a moment.’

Ulrika frowned as he padded off across the yard. Her hair wasn’t white. It was dirty blonde. She worked her arm laboriously out from under the heavy strata of blankets, then reached up and tugged down a wet lock. It was just long enough for her to see the ends of it, and it was white as milk.

Panic and uncertainty welled up in her. When had this happened? Had she always had white hair? Did she just not remember? She tried to think back to the last time she had seen herself. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even remember what she looked like. Who
was
she? The pain in her head wouldn’t let her focus long enough to work it out.

The groom’s heart-fire re-appeared at the edge of her senses, and after a moment he came back through the door, balancing a bowl of steaming soup on a plate.

‘There we are,’ he said soothingly as he crossed to her. ‘Hot from the pot, and I brought ye some bread too.’ He set the bowl down on the hay bale next to her and pulled a wooden spoon from his belt. ‘Now then, have a sip of that. Er, ye are from money, aye?’ he asked, pausing with the spoon hovering over the bowl. ‘Not some damned play actor?’

Ulrika swallowed convulsively. The smell of the soup did nothing for her, but his blood scent once again filled her nose, and she could think of nothing else. The voice of her pride admonished her not to break her vow, but it was weak and faint and she squashed it like a cricket. She must feed. It was that or die.

With the hand that was free of the blankets she beckoned to him.

‘C’m ’ere…’ she murmured. ‘Cl’ser.’

‘What’s that yer sayin’, lass?’ he asked, and put his ear to her mouth. ‘I can’t hear ye.’

With strength born of need, Ulrika clamped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down, her fangs shooting out. He grunted in surprise, then yelped and reared back to his feet as she bit deep into his neck.

‘What are ye doin’?’ He shrieked. ‘Get off! Get off!’

Ulrika came up with him, clinging like a limpet, and sucked in his blood in great gulping swallows, her senses reeling with the taste and power of it.

The groom staggered around the stable, cursing and struggling to push her away, but with each mouthful of crimson elixir she grew stronger and stronger. All her senses came back to her. The dark corners of the stable became clear, and her mind sharpened. She wrapped her legs around his middle and held tighter, drinking all the while. Then, revoltingly, his struggles slowly turned to caresses, and he moaned and crushed her to him.

‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘Kiss… more…’

Ulrika’s stomach turned. It was always the way, and she hated it. The victims got as much pleasure out of feeding as she did, which was a kindness, she supposed, but their mewling revolted her. Even disgust, however, was not enough to stop her feeding. Her veins begged for more, and still more, and she could not deny them.

Only when the groom collapsed and sprawled on his back did she wake to the fact that she was close to draining him entirely, and even then it was hard to pull away. Finally, however, she shoved back, gasping and cursing, and knelt over his prostrate form, blood dripping on his broad chest from her wet red mouth. She had broken her vow, but at least she could refrain from killing him. With no mistress around to feed his desire, he would recover eventually from the kiss, at least she hoped so.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m sorry.’

She reached for the purse on her belt, thinking to pay him for what she had done, but it wasn’t there. She had lost it somewhere during her long crawl, or maybe even before. Had she had it while under the boat? Had she ever had a purse?

A door slammed as she wiped her mouth. Footsteps and heart-fires were coming out into the yard from the inn, accompanied by hearty voices and slurring laughter. She froze, praying they would go away.

‘Ho, Herman!’ called one of the voices. ‘Our horses!’

‘And ye better have that stone out of Cecile’s shoe,’ said another. ‘She’s miles to go by morning.’

‘By the hammer,’ swore a third. ‘Where
is
he?’

The footsteps started towards the stable. Ulrika surged up, ready to flee, but then collapsed on top of the groom again, nauseous and dizzy. She had drunk too much too fast. Her belly felt as full as a wineskin. Her head throbbed and her vision blurred. She pushed up again, fighting down the urge to vomit.

A man loomed in the open stable door. ‘Herman! Where–?’ He stopped dead when he saw Ulrika hunching over the unconscious groom. ‘Sigmar’s beard!’ he gasped, and backed away, clawing for the pistol he wore at his belt. Ulrika saw the badge of Wissenland on his right shoulder. He was a roadwarden.

‘A fiend!’ he cried. ‘A vampire!’

Three more wardens crowded the door behind him and cursed in their turn, drawing swords and pistols. Ulrika staggered up then dived aside as the first warden fired. The shot was deafening in the small space and the horses reared and whickered in their stalls.

‘Shallya’s tears,’ a warden cried as they pushed through the door. ‘It’s killed Herman.’

Ulrika looked around as she scrambled for the shadows. She’d trapped herself. There was only one exit from the stables, and the roadwardens were standing in it. There was nothing here but stalls and horses.

She heard another hammer draw back and threw herself into an empty stall just as a second pistol thundered. She groaned and clutched her bloated stomach. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep. She was too sick to fight.

‘Did you get it?’ asked a warden.

‘Might have winged it,’ said another. ‘Reload and go cautious anyhow.’

Ulrika looked up. Perhaps she could leap over the wall of the stall when they reached her, and get around them that way. But wait. There was a hole in the ceiling, leading to the hayloft.

‘Ready?’ came the first warden’s voice.

‘Aye,’ said the others.

Ulrika heard more hammers drawing back, and gathered her legs under her, preparing to spring and praying her belly and wobbly limbs didn’t betray her.

‘Now!’

The roadwardens charged forwards. Ulrika jumped to the top of the dividing wall as they fired blindly into the stall. She teetered, dizzy, then leapt for the hole in the ceiling.

The edge caught her painfully in the ribs, but she dug her claws into the straw-covered planks and pulled.

‘Where’s it gone?’ rasped a warden.

‘Above us!’

A blast shot between Ulrika’s feet just as she scrabbled out of the hole. She collapsed, groaning, on the loft floor, and this time she did vomit, splashing a flood of blood across the weathered boards and watching it vanish down the cracks between.

‘Blood! We’ve wounded it!’

‘Fetch a ladder!’

She pushed to her hands and knees and looked around. The walls angled to a peak above her head, and there was hay stacked all around. At the far end was the hay door, through which they winched the bales when they put them up for storage.

A ladder slapped against the edge of the hole, and she heard it creak as someone started to climb.

Ulrika lurched to her feet and stumbled towards the closed door, but just as she reached it, she heard a soft voice croak from below. ‘Masters, don’t kill her. Please.’

There was a general swearing, and then the first warden spoke. ‘He’s alive, poor fellow.’

‘Aye, that’s worse,’ said another. ‘Have to kill him now, before he turns.’

Ulrika stopped, the hay door half-open. What nonsense was this? He wouldn’t become a vampire. She hadn’t given him the dark kiss. She turned back, wanting to go down and kill them all to protect the groom from their ignorance.

A warden rose through the hole in the floor and fired. A hammer-blow impact punched her backwards through the hay door. She fell, flailing, then slammed hard on her shoulders in the cold mud of the yard, a sick, burning pain blossoming in her shoulder as her body rang with shock and the world dimmed and wavered.

There were shrieks and feminine cries from nearby, and then the voice of the shooter calling from inside the stables. ‘I hit it! It’s fallen into the yard!’

Ulrika’s vision cleared and she struggled to sit up, hissing in pain. People were pouring out of the inn, drawn by the sound of the pistol shots, and gabbled and pointed at her. From the stables came shouts and the thudding of boots.

She forced herself to her feet and ran unsteadily for the fence at the back of the yard – and the dark stand of trees beyond it. The wardens roared for her to stop, and a pistol ball whizzed by her as she vaulted the pickets and crashed through a thick cover of brush into the trees.

A few yards in, she crouched down behind a broad trunk and puked again, spilling more of poor Herman’s blood, then wiped her mouth and looked back. Two of the wardens were on top of the fence, one leg slung over, and staring into the woods as they reloaded their pistols. Neither, however, looked eager to venture into the darkness, and after a moment they turned back and dropped back into the inn yard.

Ulrika let out a sigh of relief and slumped down against the bole of the tree, then winced in pain. They would likely come after her soon, but she had a few moments while they gathered lanterns and torches, and she could not move on until she took the ball from her shoulder. It ground against her clavicle with every move, and if she left it where it was, her swift healing, fuelled by the blood she had ingested, would seal it inside her.

She pulled off her doublet and shirt, and winced at the sight of her emaciated arms and her ribs showing through her skin. It seemed it was going to take more than one feeding to return her to her old self. Then, pressing against the tree to steady herself, she extended the claws of her left hand and probed gently into the wound until she found the little lead nugget. The pain of her exploration was nothing compared to the agony of digging behind it and pulling it out through torn shoulder meat, but the relief when she threw it into the brush was exquisite.

As she tore her sleeve into strips to make a bandage, her mind, fogged and confused since she had crawled from under the boat, began to clear at last. She knew who she was again. She knew who she had been and what she was now. She knew where she was heading. But there were terrifying gaps – faces with no names, names with no faces. Was her father dead? She thought so, but couldn’t be sure. Had she made love to Max Schreiber, or had they only been friends? She no longer knew.

The biggest hole was the most recent. She could remember the pain of sinking in the river, and crawling from it to the little boat, but the last clear memory she had before that was fleeing from Hermione’s house and running through Nuln. How had she got from there to the water? She had vague flashes of lying for a long time in a confined space, and others of men shouting at her, and of falling, but that was all. The rest was gone. She had no idea what had transpired.

She was just tying off the bandages when she heard a muffled pistol shot and ducked, then looked around. No one was shooting at her. There was no one outside the inn yard fence. Who were they firing at?

Then she understood. The roadwardens had just shot Herman to keep him from turning into a vampire. She snarled, baring her fangs. Stupid men! She had spared him! She had done her best to honour her vow and let him live, and it had still come out wrong! Why was she so concerned about not killing men when they seemed to have so little compunction about killing each other? She was tempted to go back and prove herself the monster the wardens thought her, but she forced herself to be calm. She needed no more pistol wounds, and the night needed no more death.

With a last venomous glare in the direction of the inn, she pulled on her now-sleeveless shirt and her holed doublet, slung her makeshift pack over her shoulder and limped deeper into the woods, wondering if she would ever find a way to live without causing misery everywhere she went.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MIDNIGHT ROAD

Ulrika crept towards the highwaymen on silent feet. There were two, both on horseback, looking down on a lonesome stretch of moonlit road from the top of a low hill, and she was coming up behind them through a stand of slender trees. They were hard men, in shabby leathers and patched cloaks, with faces scarred by war, weather and drink, but one of them affected a bright feather in his broad-brimmed hat.