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

  The few rare humans who made it off-planet were like her, children of innkeepers, all marked with a particular magic that allowed them to defy the rules of physics within their inns. The Arbitrator felt different, suffused with power, unlike any human she had met before. She had stood by the bar, trying to figure out if he was Earth-born, when he turned to her and smiled. For a second, she stumbled. He was shockingly beautiful.

  He asked her if she was from Earth, she told him she was, and he casually offered to deliver a message to her family.

  She’d frozen then while her mind feverishly tried to find someone to whom she could send the message. When she was pregnant with Helen, her brother Klaus and her younger sister, Dina, had come to House Ervan to tell her their parents’ inn had disappeared. One moment the charming colonial was there, hiding a microcosm inside, the next it vanished, taking everyone inside with it. When Klaus had come home from running errands, he had found an empty lot. Nobody, not even the Innkeeper Assembly, knew where or how the inn had vanished.

  Her siblings were going to search the galaxy for answers. She wanted to join them, but she was pregnant and Melizard begged her to stay by his side. He was in the middle of another scheme, and he had needed her.

  Two years later, just as her husband had started on the path that would land them on Karhari, Dina and Klaus had come again. They found nothing. Klaus wanted to keep looking, but Dina had enough. She was going back to earth. Of the three of them, Dina longed for normal life the most, always wanting things the innkeeper families couldn’t have, like friends outside the inn or attending high school. Maud still recalled the bad feeling that had washed over her as she watched the two of them walk toward the spaceport. Something told her to grab Helen and follow them. But she loved Melizard and she had stayed…

  By now Dina probably had a normal job. Maybe she was married, with children of her own. Klaus was universe alone knew where. She told the Arbitrator as much and he smiled at her again and said, “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Messages have a way of getting where they need to go.”

  Maud took off her necklace, scribbled a few words with the coordinates of the Lodge on a piece of paper, and handed them both to him. It felt right somehow, as if this was a test and she had given the correct answer. Now they waited.

  She had no idea how long it would take. Her mercenary job had earned them two and a half weeks of stay, the rest of her money would buy another two weeks or so, then she would have to search for jobs.

  Helen was still looking at her, waiting for an answer.

  Will somebody really come for us?

  “Yes,” she said. “If your aunt or uncle get our message, they will come for us and they will take us away from here.”

  “To a different place?” Helen asked.

  “Yes.”

  “With flowers and water?”

  Maud swallow the hot clump that wedged itself in her throat. “Yes, my flower. With all the beautiful flowers and water you can imagine.

  Maud drank her mint tea. Next to her Helen nibbled on a dry cookie and flipped the digital pages of a book. The book, Weird and Amazing Planets, a paper-thin single use tablet, showed photographs of landscapes from different planets. It had cost Maud a month’s worth of water, but Helen had found it at a trader’s stall and hugged it to her, and Maud couldn’t say no. There were almost a thousand photographs and by now Helen knew every one by heart.

  The Lodge was full tonight. First, two convoy guard teams, each consisting of a dozen vampires, came in one after another; then, to make things interesting, a group of fourteen raiders. The two convoy guards, the traders, and the lone travelers had taken the tables along the perimeter of the Lodge, near the walls, and the raiders were left with a chunk in the middle, exposed and surrounded. The convoy guards and the raiders were eyeing each other, but so far nobody had gotten drunk enough to start any trouble. If a brawl broke out, she’d grab Helen and head upstairs.

  The door of the Lodge slid open, and three travelers made their way inside. The first was tall and broad, his cloak stretched over his wide shoulders in the familiar way it did when the fabric rested on vampire armor. The man right behind him wore dark pants and a windbreaker, his movements graceful and liquid. He didn’t move, he glided. Or rather, he stalked in, ready to fend off an attack.

  The windbreaker looked Earth-made.

  Human.

  Her heart sped up. The man pulled back the hood of his windbreaker. Maud scrutinized his features: scarred face, russet-brown hair, clean shaven…

  The human inhaled, scanned the room with his gaze. His irises caught the light, reflecting it with an amber glow for a split second.

  Disappointment slammed into her. Not a human. A werewolf, a refugee from a dead planet.

  The towering cloaked figure headed for the bar. The werewolf followed. A third person trailed them, wearing a tattered gray robe. The cut of the robe was achingly familiar. It looked like an innkeeper robe.

  You’re imagining things, Maud told herself. It’s a gray robe. There were millions of them in the galaxy. It was the simplest and most common garment, second only to a cloak. In the end, all colors faded to gray.

  The robed traveler took a seat at the bar. The bartender took the order and came back with two cups. The larger man half-turned to watch the room, blocking Maud’s view of the robed traveler.

  Move, you oaf.

  He leaned his elbow on the bar. The armor on his arms was jet-black. A new victim added to the never-ending trickle of exiles? No, he didn’t hold himself like an exile. She’d seen enough of the new arrivals over the years. They broke into two categories: the first thought they would own the planet in two weeks and the second were desperate and broken. Both held themselves tight, ready for an attack to come at any moment. If this vampire got any more relaxed, he’d start stripping his armor off.

  A few moments passed. The raiders sized up the newcomers. Much easier prey than either of the convoy guard teams. If the raiders got into it with the guards, the other team would likely jump in, but nobody cared about three strangers. The guards would sit back and watch.

  Anticipation hummed through the room like a low-voltage current.

  The raider leader rose and casually moved back, giving himself room for a charge, resting his hand on the big blood hammer at his waist. Almost simultaneously, the largest raider, his face ruined by a deep scar, got to his feet and lumbered toward the bar.

  “Stay close to me,” Maud whispered, and squeezed Helen’s hand.

  Helen squeezed back.

  The huge raider made it to his destination and stopped in front of the cloaked figure. The raider had a bit of height on the newcomer, but not much. His armor, an ugly mess of gray and black, looked like it had gone through a car crusher and was then somehow muscled back into some semblance of the right shape.

  “You’re not from around here,” the raider declared.

  The Lodge went quiet in anticipation of a good show.

  “Such keen powers of observation,” the cloaked man answered, his voice deep.

  An old House. Crap.

  The accent was unmistakable, cultured and still carrying traces of the original home world, the planet that gave life to the vampire species. Everybody in the room recognized this. Her husband’s family did their best to imitate it, going so far as to hire voice coaches for the children. Maud pulled her dagger and her sword out under the table. Things were about to get ugly.

  A grimace twisted the raider’s face. “Your armor is clean. Pretty. Do you know what we do to pretty boys like you here?”

  The tall vampire sighed. “Is there a script? Do you give this speech to all who enter here, because if so, I suggest we skip the talking.”

  The raider roared. His mistake.

  The cloaked man waited until the sound died. “A challenge. I love challenges.”

  The raider grabbed his sword. The cloaked man punched him in the jaw. The blow swept the larger vampire off his feet. He went airborne
and landed into a booth.

  Okay then.

  The raider scrambled up and swung his blade. The cloaked man ducked under the strike and smashed his fist against the raider’s ribs. The shoddy armor split with a dry burst. The edge of the breastplate popped free. The cloaked vampire grasped the broken breastplate and yanked it upward. The entire armor collapsed with a deafening crunch, locking the vampire into a rigid straitjacket.

  Every vampire in the Lodge winced. Maud did too.

  “Nice,” the werewolf said.

  “If one is going to wear armor, one must properly maintain it.”

  The raider tried to rise. The armor on his left arm fell off completely, the one on the right twisted his limb so far back, his shoulder had to be dislocated. He managed to stagger halfway up. The cloaked vampire kneed him in the face. The raider collapsed, his face bloody. The other vampire kicked him. The raider went still, drool and blood dripping from his open mouth onto the floor.

  He wasn’t just a random knight. This one had a lot of martial training. If he headed for the doors now, he and his friends could walk out. Vampires respected strength. Even this lot would acknowledge his victory. If he stayed…

  The cloaked man surveyed the room. “Anyone else?”

  He did not just say that.

  Seven raiders stood up.

  The werewolf muttered something under his breath and pulled a large knife from a sheath on his waist. The blade shone with emerald green.

  “Might as well get it over with.” The vampire tore off his cloak and hurled it aside.

  State-of-the-art armor. House Krahr crest, as old of a bloodline as you could get. The sigil on the shoulder was blurred, something higher-ranking vampires did when they weren’t acting in official capacity. Stunning face and a mane of blond hair.

  Oh dear universe. What the hell was a high-ranking knight of Krahr doing brawling on Karhari? She knew almost nothing about House Krahr except that it was large, aggressive, and one of the original Houses. Had one of Krahr’s knights visited House Ervan, her husband’s family would’ve treated him as an honored guest. Back before the exile, they probably would’ve paraded her in front of the visitors and had her recite one of the ancient sagas in a dialect nobody had used for three hundred years. Look at our pet human doing cute tricks. The thought brought bile to her throat. Why did she let it go on for so long?

  The Krahr knight stepped forward, and she finally got a look at the person behind him. The figure in the gray robe slid off the stool. The hood had fallen back, revealing a familiar face framed by blond hair.

  The hair on the back of Maud’s arms rose. She looked again, terrified she was mistaken.

  “Mommy,” Helen whispered, “who is that lady?”

  Somehow Maud’s lips moved. “That’s your aunt.”

  Half of the room was now standing. The vampires roared in unison, bellowing a challenge.

  Too many. Because of that idiot’s hubris, the werewolf and her sister would have to cut their way to her through at least thirty pissed-off vampires. She had to act, or they would never make it.

  “Helen, get down low and head for the door.”

  Helen slid her book into her little backpack, shouldered it, and slipped under the table.

  Dina’s gaze connected with Maud’s. Her sister grinned.

  Maud jumped onto the table and sprinted to the raider leader. He was focused on the Krahr knight. He never saw her coming. She primed her blood sword a moment before she reached him. The weapon whined as the bloodred high-tech liquid surged through it, rendering it nearly indestructible. The raider leader turned, reacting to the telltale noise, and she beheaded him in a single smooth stroke.

  Blood splashed on the tables. Vampires roared and attacked.

  She sliced someone’s arm in half, the blood sword cleaving through the subpar armor like it was baking foil, spun away from a female vampire’s outstretched hand trying to grab her, and kicked another female raider in the face.

  Around her the Lodge was chaos, vampires shouting, tables flying, and blood weapons screeching as they were primed. She registered it all with adrenaline-saturated detachment. Nothing mattered except killing until they reached the door or there was nobody left to kill.

  Someone grabbed her cloak and jerked at it. It came loose as it was designed to do, buying Maud an extra second. She dropped to her knees, buried her dagger in the nearest vampire throat, rolled off the table to avoid an incoming mace, and slashed across a raider’s face with her sword. He bellowed in rage, and she sank her blade into his side, in the gap between ill-fitting armor sections.

  Maud twisted, checking on Helen. Her daughter had dropped to all fours and was crawling under the tables to the exit. Good girl.

  Dina was screaming something. Maud spun, trying to parry and keep her in view, but the raiders closed in on her, locking her into a ring of bodies. Too many…

  A deafening roar tore from behind the raiders. Bodies went flying like they were made of straw. The huge female vampire in front of her collapsed, blood spray flying from her ruined skull, and the Krahr knight burst into the ring, his fangs bared. He brained the raider to her right with a vicious swing and hammered a savage uppercut into the stomach of the one on her left. The faulty armor cracked with a sound of crushed nut shells. The raider doubled over, and the Krahr drove his left elbow into the back of his neck. The blow swept the raider off his feet, sending him to the side. One moment there were two bellowing vampires. The next there was only the Krahr knight, brandishing his mace.

  The raiders stared, awestruck for a moment, and Maud used every fraction of it to stab and slice as much as she could. The ring around them widened and suddenly she found herself back to back with the Krahr.

  “My lady,” he said in that deep cultured voice. “I apologize for not arriving sooner in your time of dire need.”

  Hell would freeze over before she would owe another vampire. “Not that dire, my lord. Please don’t bestir yourself on my behalf.”

  She dropped, spinning, kicked a vampire’s legs from under her and stabbed her in the throat on her way down.

  He smashed his mace into the shoulder of a raider with a bone-snapping crunch. “I insist.”

  She parried a swing that nearly made her drop her blade and drove her dagger into the raider’s groin, punching through the damaged armor by pure luck. “No need.”

  He struck at the vampire on his left, took a hit to the shoulder from another, grunted, reversed his swing, and hammered a devastating blow to the new opponent. The vampire bent forward from the impact and the Krahr drove his fist into the back of his head.

  “Please, allow me this small diversion. I’m but a guest on your planet. It was a long trip and I have sat for far too much of it.”

  Argh. He out-mannered her. As absurd as his claim was, he backed her into the role of the host and the laws of vampire hospitality dictated that the guests were to be indulged.

  Wait, I’m not a vampire. Why does it even matter?

  A male vampire kicked. She stumbled back, bounced off the Krahr’s broad back and threw herself into the fray.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dina fighting her way to the exit, the orange energy whip hanging loose and sparking on the floor. Helen was in her arms. What was she doing? Helen’s best advantage was in her size and speed. Now neither of them could move.

  She doesn’t know, Maud realized. Her sister had no idea what kind of a child her daughter was.

  The werewolf thrust himself in front of them and began carving a path to the door.

  “My lord!” Maud called. “We’re leaving.”

  He grunted. “I’ll be there shortly.”

  “My lord!”

  “I’ll cover your retreat.”

  Dina and Helen were only a few yards from the door. Maud charged at the remaining vampires. In two swings she was through the gauntlet.

  “Arland!” the werewolf screamed, his voice cutting through the noise of the Lodge.

 
; So that was his name. Maud looked over her shoulder and saw him, drenched in blood, mowing down bodies.

  “Arland!” the werewolf snarled.

  The Krahr turned, saw them, and began backing up toward the door.

  The heavy metal doors swung open. Dina ran out, clutching Helen to her, and the werewolf followed. As Maud sprinted through the doorway, she saw the barkeep waving at her with a small surreal smile.

  A narrow black shuttle waited on the landing strip and they ran toward it. The doors slid open. Maud leapt into a seat and plucked Helen from Dina’s arms. The werewolf landed in the pilot’s seat and started the pre-flight check, his fingers flying over the controls.

  Where was the Krahr? If he didn’t emerge in the next ten seconds, she would go back in and get him. He fought for her and her daughter. She owed him that much.

  A ball of bodies rolled out the door and collapsed into eight individual fighters. Arland appeared, fangs bared, face splattered with blood. It was like something out of one of the Anocracy’s pseudo-historical dramas—a lone hero on a strange planet, standing against impossible odds, roaring his rage to the heavens.

  Arland swung his blood mace. It smashed a female fighter’s skull in a gory explosion of blood and brains. Before the swing was finished, the Krahr knight turned, grabbed the one to his left by his throat, shook him once like a rag doll, and tossed the dead body aside. The perfect blend of sheer brutality and efficient precision was beautiful to watch.

  The Krahr knight kicked a huge raider to his left, driving the full power of his armored leg into the vampire’s knee cap. The man dropped, and Arland backhanded his jaw with his mace, almost as an afterthought, turned and sank the head of the mace into the ribs of the raider on his right. A hammer landed on his back. Arland shrugged it off as if he’d been smacked with a flyswatter, spun, too fast on his feet for a man of his size, and slammed the mace against his attacker’s right arm. The arm went limp. The vampire turned and ran. Arland hurled his mace. It soared through the air and bounced off the vampire’s smaller back. The armor, already dented and hanging together on a prayer, cracked, and the raider flew into the side of the building, bounced off and fell to the ground.