BloodLust (Rise of the Iliri Book 1) (35 page)

Chapter 40

Sal kept to the back of the group as they returned, the entire unit separating her from Blaec.  They rode in near silence, the men subdued.  Halfway through the journey, Cyno dropped back to her side, saying nothing.  Blaec glared at the little assassin but Cyno refused to acknowledge it.  When they stopped to give the horses a break, he looked up at her, his eyes gentle, before reining Raven away.

Sal buried herself in her thoughts for the rest of the trip.  She was losing Blaec, and she could feel it with each step they took closer to the Conglomerate.  She was losing Blaec because she was nothing more than a beast.  Beasts couldn't feel love, and she couldn't explain her feelings.  She could only wonder if that meant what she felt wasn't really love.  Around and around the thoughts went in her mind, throwing her deeper into despair.

When they returned to the encampment, she was emotionally battered and mentally fatigued.  The cavalry had returned the day before, and the entire base was anxiously awaiting the Black Blades.  Having moved the crates to Razor's gelding, the men led their horses calmly through the throng of soldiers clustering around the narrow path between tents.  Blaec walked at the front, proudly, Arctic barely a step behind him.  Sal trailed at the back, lagging well behind the rest, lost in her thoughts.  Arden, head down and half asleep, followed lazily.  The horses knew they were home and that a reprieve from the hours on the road waited for them.

A soldier stepped into her path, halting her.  He looked vaguely familiar, but the scowl on his face warned her that his intentions were not kind. 

"Remember me, bitch?" he asked.

She looked at him in confusion, his features not registering in her mind.  She shook her head, "No, should I?"

"Well, you're wearing my blacks, scrubber." 

She saw the blade too late, its oiled surface held close against his hip.  The man stepped toward her, and Sal tried to dodge, but slammed into Arden's shoulder.  The sweet pain of the blade slipped between her ribs and she gasped.  The bloodlust exploded in her mind. 

The movement caught Cyno's attention.  He turned to Sal, but she was pressed between her mare and the man, slowly sliding down her horse toward the ground.

"
Sal!
" he screamed in her ears and mind at once. 

She tried to react, but her body refused to move like she predicted.  Her right hand pulled a knife, hours of training reminding her muscles of their job even as her mind failed her.  The blade sliced at her attacker when her body collapsed, cutting into the man's hip toward the inside of his knee.  His flesh parted easily but his leathers wrenched the weapon from her weak grasp.  The human yanked his dagger from her body and liquid bubbled in her throat.  It was her own blood. 

Things were moving so slow.  She felt Arden shy to the side and watched Cyno rush toward her like an enraged beast.  He launched himself at the soldier, hitting him like a predator.  His eyes were as cold as ice, his favorite resin blade catching the light when it aimed for the man's heart, his hand closed around the man's throat. 

No.
She stopped Cyno's blade with a whisper of a thought.
Don't.

If Cyno killed the man in front of so many witnesses, not even Blaec would be able to prevent the military's punishment.  While time crawled in her consciousness, she watched Cyno throw the man to the ground, the edge of his blade denting his skin without cutting. 

Beautiful
, she thought, and rested her head against the ground. 

The searing pain in her side called to her, making her want to pull herself to her feet and tear Cyno's leathers from him, but her body couldn't do it.  Moaning, she writhed on the ground, a spasm of coughing spewing blood from her lips as time caught back up.

Men from the crowd jumped on the attacker, pinning him to the dirt.  Cyno released him and spun to her side.  Feet thundered on the ground.  The Blades were coming, they had to be.  They wouldn't leave her alone.  The cries of the men around her, calling for aid, blurred into a jumble and only Cyno's eyes held her attention.  She reached up, wanting him, but he ignored his desire and restrained her.  He was breathing too fast, his muscles too tense.  He wasn't giving in to the passion that enveloped them both.  Blaec called into her mind but she couldn't manage to answer him, her thoughts too weak to send.

"I want that man!" Blaec yelled above the commotion, wrath spilling from every syllable.  "Secure him, damn it."  Walking quickly, he made it to her side, gesturing for someone to hurry.

"Sal," he begged.  "Hang on, love.  Fuck, just hang on."

She coughed again, the spasms pulling her body from the ground, and realized that someone was pressing hard against her side.  The pain of the assistance and the blood in her mouth caused her passions to flare.  Her pale eyes met Blaec's, and she tried to let him know she was trying, while she gasped for breath through the blood thickening in her lungs.  She needed to sit up but couldn't make either man understand.  Both of her lovers whispered to her, begging her for something, refusing to comprehend that she was drowning.

Dark hooves sprayed sand across her, coming so close that Sal tried to move.  Blaec slid his arms under her and pulled her from the ground, pain making her cry out.  The sound was like a woman in ecstasy.  She felt a second set of hands wrenching her apart before pressing her close against his chest.  Her head up, Sal managed to find the air that had been eluding her.  Sucking great gasps, she looked at the strong jaw of Zep, set hard in anger, the rocking of Cessa beneath her somehow soothing.  She could see over Zep's shoulder and watched her lovers fade into the dust of their wake, Blaec's green eyes longing, Cyno's pale face streaked with tears.  She sighed, and her head meet Zep's shoulder as blackness took her.

Both men watched Zep's retreat for only a moment before turning to the attacker held by two men in blue.  Blaec recognized his face and his anger flared.

"Bardus," he spat.  "You didn't figure out that I won't tolerate this when I kicked you from the trials?"

"I just took yer iliri cunt from ya, how's it feel, Lieutenant?" the would-be assassin sneered.

Cyno lunged but Blaec grabbed him across the chest, holding the powerful assassin back with every ounce of strength he had.  "That's my cunt, ya piece of shit," Cyno growled.  "She's MINE!"

Stop!
Blaec ordered, the power of his voice in Cyno's mind the only thing able to pierce the haze the assassin was under.  "Cyno," he said aloud this time, calmly.  "Enough."

"Yes, sir."  Cyno let out a breath, relaxing, but only barely.

The crowd parted as the General moved toward them.  "Lieutenant, what's going on?" he asked, taking in the scene.  Sal's blood still darkened the ground by their feet.

"General Albin, your soldier," Blaec said, "just tried to kill one of mine."

"That fuckin' scrubber cunt ain't a damned soldier!" Bardus said as he struggled to pull free of the men holding him, blood streaming down his leg. "It's his play toy.  Ain't a scrubber able to make 'leet ops, everyone knows that"

Cyno lunged again, and this time Blaec let him get even closer.  His deathly blue stare marked every feature of the man before him.  Bardus shrank away from the vengeance in the assassin's eyes.

"Have you ever seen a berserker before, Lance Corporal Bardus?"  Blaec asked, keeping his tone calm.  "The sight of blood sends them into a frenzy.  Only years of training can teach them how to control their urges.  Only discipline can keep them in check."

Bardus gulped, transfixed by Cyno's stare while Blaec spoke.  "I have two in the Blades.  Each one is loyal to me, but loyalty can only restrain them so much.  That girl you just knifed is one."  He paused, watching Bardus try to peel his eyes from Cyno's.  "This is the other, and you just spilled his lover's blood all over him."

"Fuck," Bardus whispered, realizing that his life was in real danger.

"I'm going ta skin ya, you bastard, and make ya eat yer own flesh," Cyno breathed.  "Ya will pay fer this."

"Cyno," the Lieutenant said again, sternly this time.
Not here.

The lithe man forced himself to relax and turned away from the attacker.  "I can na be here, LT," he said.

"We need your report, Cyno," LT told him, adding in his mind,
She's with Risk.  Zep's there, too.  We'll know as soon as they do, and you'd only hurt her more right now.

"Yes, sir."

"I want the prisoner in the stocks!" the General commanded.  "Lieutenant, I need your report and then I'll deal with that man.  Was it your iliri he attacked?"

Cyno tensed at the tone of the General's voice, struggling to act professionally.   Blaec assured him, again, that Risk would bring Sal through this as he answered.  "Yes sir, it was.  She was with us, heading in to report from our last mission.  He seems to think she is the reason he failed out of the Black Blades."

"Ah, I see.  Well, come tell me what you found."  He expected their obedience.

The General walked into his tent and threw himself into a chair behind an elaborate desk, offering the simple chair across from it to the Lieutenant.  Cyno stood beside his commander, his body at parade rest.  Arctic, Shift and Razor moved beside them, standing quietly.

"All right, tell me what you learned," the General said, a casual gesture encouraging them to get on with it.

"Sir," Blaec started, "I'm sure Llyr has already briefed you on the mission in the Escean Pass.  The supply train was not hauling metal, like we'd been led to believe, but iliri heads."

"Yes, yes," the General muttered.  "I know that.  And the Black Blades took some crates.  Llyr said you seemed pretty impressed with them?"

"Yes, sir.  The crates include documents from the landing.  They are written in iliran, by an iliri."

"Not much use to us then."

"I had Cyno translate them," Blaec said, holding his face stoic.

The General looked at the small man, noticing just how pale his skin was.  "Ah, you're iliri as well.  Well, that makes more sense.  What did the papers say, boy?"

"Says we, the iliri, were specific'lly designed and bred to be the ideal soldiers, sir."  He took a deep breath, and continued, trying to control his accent.  "They have detailed descriptions of human colonization of the continent, as well."

"Good to know," the General said.  "So what took you so long to get back?"

Blaec answered, "The oxen used to pull the wagon were slow.  Just above Skyline Creek, we encountered the Black Widow Company.  It appears the reports of their presence were correct."

"And you trailed them?"

"No, sir."  A smile pulled at the corner of Blaec's lip.  "The Black Widow Company set up the caravan through the Escean Pass as an ambush.  They hoped to draw the Black Blades into combat, but it seems we cleaned that up too fast."  He paused.  "With the heavy cav's help, of course."

"Lieutenant, I don't care what's between you and Llyr.  What I want to know, is where the Black Widow Company is, and what we can do to stop them."

"About twenty a them are in a cave, rotting," Cyno growled softly.

The General glared at him, but Blaec nodded.  "Corporal Cynortas is correct.  We were ambushed by the Black Widows and took refuge in a set of caves along Skyline Creek – "

"There's caves up there?"

"Yes, sir.  About a year ago, when Rok sent those assassins over the pass, that's where they were hiding.  We flushed them out of the same caves, so had a bit of experience with them."

"And this time you hid from the Black Widows in there?"

"Lured, sir," Arctic clarified.  "We used the caverns to even the odds."

"Give this to me straight, Doll.  Tell me what I need to know, without all the bullshit."

"Sir," Blaec said with a sigh.  "We killed about twenty of the twenty-five men of Black Widow Company.  Five were able to get away and two others may have been only wounded on the way in instead of killed.  It was somewhat hard to be sure at a full gallop."

"Casualties?"

"None, sir."

"Injuries?" the General pressed.

Shift held up his hand, the red line of his healing wound visible.  "I stepped into a man's blade in the dark, sir."