Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  The room screamed Veteran Vampire Knight. It was so classic, it hurt.

  The door slid shut. Lord Soren raised his head and regarded the three of them with his dark eyes. He scowled at Arland, nodded to Maud, smiled at Helen, and resumed scowling at his nephew.

  “What?” Arland asked.

  “Did you have to break his arm?”

  Arland made a noise deep in his throat that sounded suspiciously like a growl.

  Lord Soren sighed. “To what do I owe the pleasure of the visit?”

  “I need to understand the structure of House Serak,” Maud said.

  Lord Soren nodded and flicked his fingers across his desk. A giant screen slid out of the ceiling on Maud’s right and presented two pyramids of names connected by lines. The one on the left read Serak, the other Kozor.

  “Who are you interested in?” Lord Soren asked.

  “Tellis Serak,” she said.

  Helen crawled onto one of the sofas, curled up on the big blue pillow, and yawned.

  “Ah. The dashing groom.” Soren flicked his fingers, and Tellis’ name near the top of the pyramid, ignited with silver. “His father is the Preceptor; his mother is the Strateg.”

  “Who is the Marshal?” she asked.

  Another name ignited in the column to the left. “Hudra. She is the Marshal in name only.”

  “Why?” Arland asked.

  “She has five decades on me,” Soren said. “She was fierce in her day, but time is a bitter enemy, and it always wins.”

  Interesting. “Are they grooming Tellis to become the Marshal?” Maud asked.

  “He is the most obvious choice,” Soren said. “His ascension to Marshal would cement the family’s hold on the House. They have been preparing him since childhood. Not that he is ready, by any means. Too young, too reckless. Tonight is the perfect example. What sort of fool requests permission for a fighter flight just so he can fan his bride’s hair while she is standing on a cliff?”

  Of course. If Arland had buzzed his bride in the fighter, he would be dashing. But since this was the scion of Serak, Tellis was reckless. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Marshal candidates must be well-rounded in their military education?”

  “Indeed,” Soren said. “They are trained to lead. They spend a certain amount of time with every branch of the House’s military to familiarize themselves with the people under their command, but the bulk of their education centers on the effective deployment of these forces and military strategy.”

  “A Marshal usually has a specialty,” Arland added.

  “Yes,” Soren confirmed. “Typically they concentrate on whatever aspect of warfare presents the greatest threat to the House in the foreseeable future.”

  Maud turned to Arland. “What’s yours?”

  “Ground combat,” he said.

  “Arland was trained to lead us into battle on Nexus,” Soren said. “We had anticipated being embroiled in that conflict several times over the next few decades, but thanks to your sister, it’s no longer a concern.”

  It was just as she thought. “How likely is it for the Marshal to have other pursuits?”

  Arland’s thick blond eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

  “If you wanted to devote a lot of your time to something not vital to the House, could you do it? For example, if you enjoyed target shooting, could you spend a significant chunk of your time practicing it?”

  “Would I have time to devote to hobbies and leisurely pursuits?” Arland frowned, pretending to think. “Let me ponder. Two weeks! I took two weeks off in the last six years, and my uncle came to fetch me as if I were a wayward lamb. Because the great House of Krahr cannot endure without my constant oversight. My job, my hobby, my off time, my ‘me’ time, all my time consists of taking care of the never-ending sequence of mundane and yet life-threatening tasks generated by the well-honed machine that is the knighthood of House Krahr. I haven’t had a moment to myself since I was ten years old.”

  Lord Soren stood up, took a small blanket off the back of the nearest chair, walked up to Arland, and draped it over his nephew’s head like a hood.

  Okay. She hadn’t encountered that before.

  “He is giving me a mourning shroud,” Arland said and pulled the blanket off his head. “Like the mourners wear at funerals.”

  “So you may lament the tragic loss of your youth,” Soren said.

  Arland draped the blanket over Helen, who’d fallen asleep on the pillow. “To answer your question, my lady, no. A Marshal has no time for any significant pursuits outside of his duties.”

  “Tellis of Serak has logged over three thousand hours in a small attack craft,” Maud said.

  Both men fell silent.

  Years ago she watched a science fiction epic with its fleets of small attack crafts spinning over enormous destroyers. The reality of space combat vaporized that romantic notion about as fast as an average warship would vaporize the fleet of individual fighters. Even if the fighters somehow managed to make it through the shields, the damage they would inflict would be insignificant. It would be like trying to attack an aircraft carrier with a fleet of row boats. They could spend their arsenal, resupply, spend it again, and still the capital vessel wouldn’t be disabled.

  “It’s my understanding that small attack crafts are used only for one thing,” Maud said.

  “Boarding,” Arland said, his voice a quiet snarl. “Once a ship surrenders, the fighters deliver the boarding crew to take charge of the vessel and secure its cargo.”

  “Explains the flying acrobatics,” Soren said, his face grim.

  Maud glanced at Arland.

  “After the battle, there is usually a debris field,” Arland said. “Chunks that used to be escorts flying in all directions. The pilot needs a maneuverable ship and quick hands.”

  “Is there any reason House Serak would ever board pirates?” Maud asked. The question sounded ridiculous even as she said it, but it needed to be voiced.

  “No,” Lord Soren said.

  “Pirate ships are glass cannons,” Arland said. “They’re modified to inflict maximum damage and rapidly scatter when necessary. Most of them are held together by hopes and prayers. The vessels have no value, and the crews have even less. I wouldn’t waste time or resources on boarding. I’d simply blow them out of existence.”

  “So, who is he boarding?” she asked.

  Silence reigned. All three of them were thinking the same thing. There were two kinds of vessels in the vicinity of Serak system: pirates and traders. And if Tellis wasn’t boarding the pirates…

  “This is a hefty accusation,” Soren said. “We have no proof. We might even be mistaken.”

  “I heard it quite clearly,” Maud said.

  Soren raised his hand. “I don’t dispute that. But we don’t have all the facts. Perhaps Tellis is indulged and he simply likes to fly around Serak dodging asteroids.”

  “Three thousand hours?” Arland asked.

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “There may be a way to obtain confirmation,” Maud said. “I would need an untraceable uplink that could reach beyond this system.”

  Arland walked over to Soren’s desk and placed his palm on its surface. A red light rolled over the desk. The screen blinked, and the blood-red symbol of House Krahr appeared on it. Maud blinked. Arland had just taken over the entire communication node. The power of a Marshal on display.

  Arland recited a long string of numbers. The screen went black and winked back into existence, a neutral gray.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “Bounced the signal off the lees’ cruiser,” he said. “They encrypt their communication origins, so they can’t be traced. I’m hitching a ride on their encryption system. If the call’s recipient tries to trace it, the signal will look like it’s bouncing around from random spots in the galaxy.”

  Wow. “Impressive.”

  Arland shrugged. “Nuan Cee spies on us every chance he gets. I’m simply ba
lancing the scales.”

  She was suddenly acutely aware of the data sphere hidden in the inner pocket of her robe.

  “Whom would you like to call, my lady?” Arland asked.

  “Someone from my other life.” Maud walked over and sat on the other of the two couches, away from Helen. “It might be best if you stay silent and remain offscreen.”

  Soren grimaced but stayed by his desk. Arland dragged his fingers across the desk’s controls, turning the screen toward her. A second screen appeared in the wall, showing a duplicate image, a one-way feed. They would be able to see what she saw but they would be invisible to the other person. Which was just as well. The last thing she wanted was to introduce everyone to each other.

  “I need the names of two cargo ships,” she said. “One from your House and one from Serak.”

  The names popped into her harbinger.

  Maud pulled up a long sequence. Not a call she thought she would ever make.

  From where she sat, she had an excellent view of both vampires and the screen. This would suck.

  The screen remained blank.

  She waited.

  A long minute passed.

  The screen flared into life. The bridge of a spaceship came into view. Renouard sprawled in the captain seat. He looked the same—older than Arland by about a decade and a half, long dark hair spilling over his back and shoulders onto jet black armor without a crest, a ragged scar chewing up the left side of his face. The bionic targeting module in his ruined eye focused on her. From this distance, it looked filled with glowing silver dust.

  Renouard leered at her. A familiar shiver of alarm gripped her. Ugh.

  “The Sariv,” he said. If wolves could talk in the dark forests, they would sound like him. “Karhari’s gentle flower. So you managed to get out after all.”

  Arland narrowed his eyes.

  “No thanks to you.”

  “I made you an offer.”

  Yeah, there wasn’t a mother alive who would have taken him up on it. “You told me my daughter would fetch a good price on the slave market.”

  “I was joking. Mostly. I heard you bagged yourself a pretty boy Marshal.”

  The pretty boy Marshal went from annoyed to furious in an instant.

  “The word is, you haven’t managed to seal the deal yet.” Renouard leaned forward. “Does he not do it for you? I could give him some lessons.”

  Arland’s face went stone hard.

  “I see the scar on your groin wants a twin,” she told him.

  He bared his teeth and laughed.

  “I have a job,” she said.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I need cargo retrieved from two ships. They’ll be passing through the quadrant at the following coordinates.” She tagged the section of the quadrant near the Serak system and sent it to him. “Not a large volume, two crates off the first vessel, one off the second, less than three cubic meters and roughly one hundred and twenty kilos of mass.”

  “Who is hauling this precious cargo?”

  “The first ship is the Silver Talon.”

  Renouard checked his screen. “House Krahr. So the rumors are right. You’re playing the Marshal. I always knew you had it in you.” He winked to make sure she got it.

  Ugh. “Can this be done or not?”

  “It can be done,” he said. “For the right price. I won’t do it, but I’ll act as an intermediary. What’s in the crates?”

  “That’s not important.”

  He smiled. “Second vessel?”

  “Valiant Charger.”

  “No.”

  He hadn’t even bothered to check the screen this time.

  “It’s a barge,” she said. “You can do it with your eyes closed.”

  “I told you, that’s not my territory and my contact won’t go after that ship.”

  “Get someone else.”

  “There is nobody else. That playing field is a monopoly.”

  “The deal’s off,” she said. “I’ll find someone else.”

  She flicked the screen blank, severing the connection, and looked at Arland and Soren.

  “House Serak is pirating that quadrant,” Arland said. “Independent pirates are too fragmented and too weak to monopolize a star system. Of course, they wouldn’t pirate their own traders.”

  “And Kozor is in on it,” his uncle added. “Alone, neither House has sufficient resources to pirate and to hold the other at bay. They are evenly matched. If they were still at war and either Kozor or Serak devoted part of their fleet to piracy, the other would seize the opportunity to attack.”

  “I wonder how long ago they formed an alliance,” Arland said.

  “At least ten years,” Soren said. “That’s when they had their last serious battle. They bad-mouth each other at political gatherings in front of other Houses and they have small skirmishes from time to time, but nothing serious enough to really bloody each other’s noses.”

  “Their combined fleet isn’t enough to get close to our nose, let alone bloody it,” Arland growled.

  “So why House Krahr?” Maud asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to go for a smaller House?”

  “They’re pirates,” Soren said, “and we are the richest prize.”

  “If they’re going to expose themselves as pirates and allies, they want to reap the greatest benefits,” Arland said.

  “How?” Maud asked. “There are only two hundred of them.”

  “I don’t know,” Arland said. “But I will find out.”

  “It’s a fun game they’re playing.” Soren bared his sharp fangs. “I welcome the challenge.”

  Teeth. Running. Running so fast. Big ugly shape behind her. Footsteps stomping.

  Dad stepping into her path, his innkeeper robe solid black, his eyes and the broom in his hand glowing with turquoise fire.

  Teeth. Right behind her.

  Maud opened her eyes. Another nightmare, the same one, muddled and odd, as if it were less a dream and more a memory.

  This place is driving me crazy.

  She turned to check on Helen.

  Her daughter’s bed was empty.

  Panic stabbed her. Maud bolted upright and saw the open door to the balcony. Sunlight sifted through the pale gauzy curtains, painting bright rectangles on the floor. As they parted, coaxed by the breeze, Maud glimpsed a small figure sitting on the stone rail.

  Maud picked up a robe off the chair, pulled it on, and walked onto the balcony. It stretched along the entirety of their quarters, thirty feet at the widest part. On the right, a fountain protruded from the wall, shaped like a flower stalk with five delicate blossoms that reminded her of bell flowers. A man-made stream about a foot wide stretched from the fountain’s basin, meandered in gentle curves along the perimeter of the balcony and disappeared into the wall. Both the stream and the fountain had run dry. A couple of benches had been set up, inviting a quiet conversation. The balcony begged for plants. It seemed almost barren without them.

  Maud crossed the parched stream and leaned on the stone wall of the balcony next to Helen. The ground yawned at her, far below, hidden by the breezeways, towers, and finally trees. A normal mother would’ve pulled her daughter off the rail, but then there was nothing normal about either of them.

  Helen had found a stick somewhere and was poking the stone wall with it. Something was bothering her. Maud waited. When she was little, she used to sit just like that, sullen and alone. Eventually Mom would find her. Mom never pried. She just waited nearby, until Maud’s problems finally poured out of her.

  For a while, Maud just stood there, taking a mental catalogue of the aches and pains tugging at her. Her ribcage hurt. It was to be expected. She should’ve spent yesterday in bed, not hiking up a mountain and dodging vampire knights who tried to throw her off the path. The booster had taxed her body further and exacted its price. She’d slept like a rock for over twelve hours. The sun was well on its way to the zenith. Soon it would be lunchtime.

  She had to
have missed breakfast. There were probably messages on her harbinger. She would check them, but not yet.

  The breeze stirred her robe. Maud straightened her shoulders, feeling the luxurious softness of the spiderweb thin fabric draped over her skin.

  Seeing Renouard last night had dredged up the familiar paranoia. It had hummed through her like a low-level ache, a wound that bled just enough to make sure you couldn’t ignore it. She fought it for a while, but eventually it won, as it always did, and she’d excused herself, picked up Helen off the couch, and carried her to their room, driven by the urgent need to hole up behind solid doors.

  Arland seemed to sense that she needed it and he hadn’t offered to take Helen from her. Instead they walked in comfortable silence to her room.

  Feeling Helen’s weight draped across her chest and shoulder and the familiar scent of her hair had soothed her a little. Helen was safe. They were both safe.

  Once at her door, Maud had stepped inside and carefully put Helen on her bed. She put her daughter’s daggers next to her, tucked her in, and straightened. She’d left the door open and Arland waited at the threshold.

  Last night, she turned and saw him standing there, in the doorway, half hidden in shadows, tall, broad-shouldered, his armor swallowing the light. His hair had fallen over his face, the line of his chiseled jaw hard against that backdrop, and when the light of the two moons caught his eyes, they shone with blue green. He took her breath away. He looked like an ancient warrior, a wandering knight who somehow found his way out of a legend and into her room, except he was real, flesh and blood, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw heat simmering just under the surface.

  She had forgotten what it felt like when a man looked at her like that. She wasn’t sure Melizard even had, although he must have. Every nerve in her body came to attention. Her breath caught. All she wanted to do, all she could think of in that moment, was closing the distance, reaching up, and kissing him. She wanted to taste him. She wanted to drop her armor, to see him abandon his, and to touch him, body to body, skin to skin. Even now, as she remembered it, her heartbeat sped up.