Sweep of the Blade Page 17

Chapter 13

  Maud ran.

  She had heard two words: poisoned and medward. She didn’t wait for anything else. She just sprinted. Hallways flew by, the doors flashing one after another. The air in her lungs turned to fire, but she barely noticed. Karat chased her but had fallen far behind.

  The medward loomed ahead. There were people in the antechamber, Ilemina, Otubar, Soren, but they might as well have been ghosts. Getting to the door was all that mattered. She tore past them and burst into the triage chamber.

  Maud saw it all in an instant, as if the image was seared into her mind in a fraction of a second: Helen lying on a medbed, tiny and pale; a dozen metal arms hovering over her; the spider web of an advanced iv drip; and the medic sitting next to her, his face grim.

  She charged to the bed, and then Karat was on top of her, pulling her back with all of her strength, and the medic was in front of her, holding his arms out, saying something. She fought her way forward, dragging Karat, and the medic rammed into her, pushing her back, his voice insistent.

  Finally, the words penetrated. “…do not touch…”

  She had to stop. It took a few more seconds for her body to catch up with her mind. Maud stopped struggling.

  “…stable for now,” the medic said.

  Her mouth finally worked. “What happened?”

  Karat gently but firmly pushed her back to the antechamber. “Not here.”

  “I need to see her.”

  “Stop,” the medic said. “Look at yourself.”

  Maud forced her gaze away from Helen and looked at her armor. She was smudged with Arland’s blood. She’d washed his arm and sealed the wounds, but some of it must’ve gotten on her when he kissed her.

  “I’ve got her stabilized,” the medic said. “You’re carrying a horde of germs and you’re covered in blood. You can’t help her by going in there. You can only hurt her.”

  Maud had to walk away. Everything in her screamed to get back in there, as if just walking up to the bed would magically fix everything, and Helen would sit up and say, “Hi, Mommy.” But it wouldn’t. It didn’t seem real. It felt like a dream, like some nightmare, and she wished desperately to wake up. She wanted to undo this. If only there was some button she could press to rewind it all back to normal.

  “Come with me,” Karat said.

  There was nothing she could do. Maud turned and walked into the antechamber. The medic and Karat followed.

  “What happened?” Maud asked again. Her voice sounded strange, like it was coming from someone else.

  “Helen was at the lake with other children,” Soren said. “The bugs were there as well, swimming in their designated area. After a while, the chaperones made the children get out of the water to take a break, warm up, and snack. The children ate and decided to play hunt and run.”

  Hunt and run was the vampire version of tag. Helen would’ve loved it.

  “Helen ran close to the Tachi,” Soren continued.

  “Then one of them bit her!” Ilemina snarled.

  “Helen collapsed,” Soren said. “She was rushed here, to the medward. The Tachi was apprehended, and the rest of them are confined to their quarters. We tried to question him, but he refuses to talk. None of them are talking to us and harming him is out of the question until we know if Helen will survive.”

  That “if” hit Maud like sledgehammer. She wanted to sink to the floor, ball up her fists, and scream. But she had no time.

  “He bit a child.” Ilemina’s face was terrible. She bared her fangs, eyes blazing. A primal snarl shook her lips. It was like looking at rage personified. “I will slaughter every single one of them. I will decimate their planet. Their grandchildren will tremble when they see a vampire coming.”

  From anybody else, it would seem like grandstanding. But Ilemina meant every word. Otubar snarled in response. Karat gripped her blood sword. The entire room was a hair away from violence. This was how wars started.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” the medic said. “We have data on the Tachi venom, but there is a synthetic compound in her system inconsistent with what we know of the Tachi.”

  The sharp, jagged pieces snapped together in Maud’s head. Vampires cherished children. There was no greater treasure. They cherished Helen, too. They considered her one of their own. And then a bug bit her, like she was prey. It had awakened a primal response, the collective racial memory of Mukama, of invaders who devoured vampire children.

  “Where is the Tachi now?” she asked.

  “Across the hall,” Soren told her. “You can’t hurt him, Lady Maud. He may hold the key to your daughter’s recovery.”

  “I need to speak with him.” She sank steel into those words.

  “Come with me.” Soren marched out of the room and into the hallway, to the door opposite the medward.

  Maud followed him, aware of Ilemina, Otubar, Karat, and the medic directly behind her. The door slid open, revealing a small cell. Inside it, a male Tachi sat on the floor, bound in a black captivity suit. Made from tough polymer and weighted to hinder movement, it wrapped around him like a straitjacket. Its exoskeleton had faded to barely visible grey.

  Maud marched into the room, dropped to her knees in front of him, and released the lock on the captivity suit. It fell away, and he sprang up to his full height above her.

  She jumped to her feet and bowed her head. “Thank you for saving my child.”

  The Tachi turned brilliant indigo blue. “You’re welcome, daughter of the Innkeepers.”

  “Somebody better explain this to me,” Ilemina growled.

  “The Tachi venom isn’t lethal to most species.” Maud stepped aside, giving the Tachi room to stretch his wings. “It’s meant to put the prey into a suspended state, slowing down its life functions to preserve the freshness.”

  Karat winced.

  “If he wanted to kill Helen, he would’ve just sliced her head off,” Maud continued. “As soon as you said that he’d bitten her, I knew it wasn’t an attack.”

  Ilemina turned her glare onto the Tachi. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  The Tachi spread his indigo appendages. The gesture looked so much like a human spreading his arms in a Gallic shrug, as if to say “none of this is my fault, I didn’t mess it up, you did, deal with it.”

  Ilemina turned to Maud. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he thinks you are a xenophobic species prone to rash and violent reactions, so he saw no point in explaining himself. You wouldn’t have believed him anyway.”

  Ilemina’s eyes narrowed. She pierced the Tachi with her stare.

  “I can’t make it simple for you,” he said.

  Ilemina flashed her fangs. “Try me.”

  The Tachi turned to Maud, switching to the akit dialect. “They think I killed the child; the royal is angry. Now they know I saved the child; she is angry. I do not comprehend this species. How have they ever managed to achieve interstellar civilization without self-destructing?”

  “Could you please tell me what happened to my daughter?” Maud didn’t even try to keep the desperation from her voice.

  The Tachi’s color lightened for a moment. “Yes, of course.” He folded his arms in an apologetic gesture. “I will use short thoughts. We were bathing. The children were running and making excited noises. Your child ran close to us. She was not afraid like the other children. They could not catch her. She ran too close and almost ran into me. Then she apologized for disturbing my tegah.”

  Maud had given Helen a primer on Tachi manners. Until now she had no idea any of it had stuck.

  “She is such a polite child,” the Tachi said. “We spoke. Something hit her in the neck, on her left side. She fell. I caught her. I saw a wet spot on her skin. It smelled wrong. Her eyes rolled back in her head. I knew I had to act. I bit her to keep the poison from spreading.”

  “Which way was she facing when it hit her?” Soren asked.

  “She was turning away from me to rejoin the game. She
was facing the rest of the children. The lake was on her right and the castle was on her left.”

  “A sniper shot from the bluff,” Otubar said.

  Karat bared her teeth in a grimace. “There is a clear line of sight from the western edge of the game grounds to the lake. They distracted us with the krim match, then goaded Arland into a fight, and while we were watching, they shot Helen.”

  “Pull the video feed,” Ilemina ordered. Karat took off at a run.

  There were implications and conclusions to be drawn from all of this, but right now, none of them mattered. “Did you recognize the poison?” Maud asked.

  “No,” the Tachi said. “I would know it again. It smelled strong.”

  The vampire medic failed to identify it and the Tachi didn’t know it. The Tachi coma wouldn’t last forever. It could fail at any moment. She had to do something now, or Helen would die. There was only one place she could turn.

  “I don’t have anything to trade.”

  Everyone stopped and looked at her. She realized she had spoken out loud.

  Before she could explain, a half dressed Arland rounded the corner, somehow managing to look angry and confused at the same time. “What the hell is going on?”

  Soren blinked. “Why are you out of armor?”

  “Maud?” Arland closed in on her.

  She looked up at him, feverishly rummaging through the list of her meager possessions in her head.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Helen is poisoned, and I don’t have anything to trade.”

  “Will someone explain this to me?” Ilemina demanded.

  Understanding sparked in Arland’s eyes. “But I have things to trade. They will trade with me or I will twist their heads off.”

  “Who?” Ilemina snarled.

  “Explain things to your mother,” Otubar boomed.

  “No time.” Arland grabbed Maud’s hand and pulled her down the hallway. Behind them the sound of a pissed off Preceptor shook the air. Arland sped up.

  “How are you still walking?” Maud squeezed out.

  “Booster. Activated it before you took my armor off. I had plans. None of which involved a sedative.”

  “Arland Rotburtar Gabrian of Krahr!” Ilemina roared. “Stop this instant!”

  Arland ignored her. They were almost to the bend in the hallway.

  Suddenly Arland braked, and then the lees flooded all available space, their veils swirling, their jewelry shinning, tails and ears twitching. Maud saw Nuan Cee in the center of the lees mob and reached out to him. “Helen…”

  Nuan Cee took her hands into his furry hand-paws. “I know.”

  The rest of the lees rushed past them, washing over them like a wave, and rolled down the hallway, parting around Ilemina, Otubar, and Soren.

  “I have nothing to trade,” she said.

  Nuan Cee’s turquoise eyes shone. He grinned, displaying sharp, even teeth. “I am sure we can come to an arrangement.”

  “Get out of my medward, vermin!” the medic screamed.

  “Do not worry yourself.” Nuan Cee patted her hands, as a mob of lees carried the screaming medic out of his medward. “All will be well now.”

  Maud slumped in an oversized chair in Lord Soren’s study. She felt wrung out like a piece of wet laundry about to go in the dryer. The lees had treated Helen for the better part of an hour, and when Nuan Cee finally emerged from the med ward, Maud felt ready to tear her hair out. He had announced that the danger had passed, Helen would be up in a few hours, and there was no need to worry.

  Maud had been allowed to see her daughter and to kiss Helen’s warm forehead, and then the enraged vampire medic kicked everyone out. She wanted to be back in the med ward, sitting by the bed, watching for minute signs of improvement, but it would accomplish nothing and Ilemina had requested her presence in her brother’s study.

  The Preceptor of House Krahr sat in a chair by Lord Soren’s desk, looking grim. Otubar sat on his wife’s right, Arland sat on Maud’s left. He had put on his armor and his booster kept him awake, but she could tell by the slightly feverish look in his eyes that a crash was coming. Karat took a spot at the opposite end of the room. Soren presided over it all, sitting behind his huge desk as if it were a castle wall and he was watching a horde of invaders gather for a siege. Except this time the invaders looked back at them not from a field before the castle but from a massive screen, where the recording of the events on the mesa played out.

  Maud had picked the furthest chair from the screen, maybe twenty feet away. It felt like miles. The room contained the Krahr, not the huge House, but the small nuclear family who ran it. She didn’t really belong here.

  “So we have no useable footage,” Arland said.

  Karat frowned. Her fingers danced across the tablet in her hand. The recording zoomed in past the game of krim, showing distant figures at the edge of the mesa. The image sped up and the figures jerked around in a slightly comical dance as knights mulled about.

  “We know that members of both Kozor and Serak were at the edge of the game grounds and had opportunity to fire the shot at Helen,” Karat said. “We know that none of them had a gun on them, so they had to have assembled it on location. See how they keep crowding each other? They could have assembled a small space craft, and we would have been none the wiser.”

  “We should upgrade the surveillance,” Otubar said.

  Soren grimaced. “Do you want to assign each of them a personal drone?”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Otubar said.

  “We would be breaking every rule of hospitality,” Soren said. “They would accuse us of cowardice and paranoia and claim we made the wedding impossible. We already failed to protect a child in our care and we were almost too late to prevent a confrontation between our other guests and these…ushivim.”

  Karat jerked. “Father!”

  Maud blinked. Of all the words she had expected the Knight Sargent to use, the expletive meaning bloody diarrhea of diseased vermin was the last on the list.

  The corners of Otubar’s mouth rose a couple of millimeters. It was the closest she had ever seen the Lord Consort come to a smile.

  “They must think Karat is the Under-Marshal,” Arland said. “Maud told me they were trying to figure out who would assume the responsibility for her and Helen if I were incapacitated. But they’re not sure. They planned to take me out after the krim match, but they allowed for the possibility of failure. So, when I won the bout and walked away, they shot Helen.”

  “It was planned and premeditated,” Karat said. “As I pointed out, they had to have brought the weapon in pieces, assembled it on the spot, shot her, and disassembled it after. We scoured that entire area, on top of the mesa, and down by the beach. If they had dropped any part of it, our scans would have picked it up. Each of them must have carried a small piece of it. It’s smart.”

  Soren nodded. “It’s brutal and underhanded, but it is smart. Had the child died, Lady Maud would be distraught, Arland would be in mourning with her, consoling her. He would have to withdraw from the wedding. It would be unseemly to continue.”

  “And they would flush out the Under-Marshal,” Ilemina finished. She rose, her arms crossed, and studied the screen. “The question is, why are they so fixated on the Marshal and Under-Marshal? Even if both fall, the House won’t be leaderless. Their numbers are still too insignificant to do any real damage. With two hundred knights against our thousands, all they can really do is to take a hostage and barricade themselves somewhere they thought they could defend. But even so, we would just pry them out. What is the end game here? What do they want?”

  The room fell quiet.

  Ilemina was right. It made no sense.

  “They do have a plan,” Arland said. “Everything they have done up until now has been thought out and calculated.”

  “Except for the incident with the lees and the Tachi,” Karat said. “What could they possibly accomplish by hassling the aliens?”

&nb
sp; Soren leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “It may have been a misguided attempt to embarrass us by demonstrating that we are unable to protect our guests. However, the burden of shame would fall on their Houses. They would have acted badly, and their leadership would appear weak because they couldn’t control their people and account for their boorish behavior. Reparations and apologies would have to be made, and they are in no position to offer any. They have been reduced to pirating their quadrant for resources.”

  “They were trying to make them leave,” Maud said.

  Everyone looked at her.

  “If the lees and the Tachi felt threatened, they would evacuate,” she explained. “Neither delegation has the numbers to oppose a large attack and neither party wants to antagonize you. They want the trade station and access to your space. If their presence became an issue or caused any inconvenience, they would remove themselves from the situation rather than risk aggravating you. They would wait the wedding out and resume negotiations after the other guests left.”

  Otubar leaned forward. “The ends justify the means.”

  “Yes,” Soren agreed. “They are willing to weather the shame if it means running off the lees and the Tachi.”

  “But we’re back to why?” Ilemina said. “What possible detriment could the lees and the Tachi be to their plan?” She turned to Maud.

  Great. “I don’t know.”

  “See if you can find out,” Soren said.

  This would not be an easy conversation to have, but it was better to have it now before they gave her any more responsibility.

  “I’ve made a deal with Nuan Cee,” Maud said. “I now owe him a favor for saving my daughter.”

  “That reminds me,” Ilemina said. “Could a lees have poisoned Helen?”

  “It needed to be said,” Otubar said.

  “No,” Arland said. “That was the first thing I checked. All of the lees were nowhere near the game grounds or the lake. Their equipment is sophisticated and can render them practically invisible, but I have seen their disruptor in action and Nuan Cee knows about it. The disruptor relies on a maille emitter, and once you know what to screen for, it’s not hard to find. They’ve been using plain stealth to get around the castle and record candid videos of us, but they had nothing to do with poisoning the child. It would be too heavy handed for them anyway.”