Innkeeper Chronicles 3.5: Sweep of the Blade Read online

  hunt, a large vaguely feline beast the size of a rhinoceros with dark green

  fur marked by splotches of deep rust red. The House Krahr Huntmaster

  was tracking it, but the main hunting party, and she, had no idea where

  it would come from. The vampires didn’t like hunts with training wheels.

  It really was a beautiful planet, Maud decided. The soft green grass with

  flashes of turquoise and gold lined the floor of the plain. The mesas rose

  on both sides, the grey stone of their walls weathered by rain and sun to

  almost white. The sky was tinted with emerald green, the golden sun

  shone bright, and the wind smelled of wildflowers. It was so easy to lose

  herself in it all and just breathe.

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  The mesa on her left curved, protruding. Maud rounded it. Far ahead a

  long procession trotted across the plain, the massive vihr stomping

  forward like they were trying to crush the ground with every step like

  oversized tan Clydesdales. She was too far off to hear the hoof beats,

  but her mind supplied the sound all the same, boom boom boom. They

  were moving kind of fast. They must have sighted the prey.

  Her personal unit chimed, synchronizing and projected a stylized map,

  tagging the individual vampires in the party. Eight people in the lead

  represented by red triangles, followed by a larger group of white

  triangles, followed by a smattering of green circles. Red signified the

  killing team, white indicated adults, and green was reserved for children.

  “Tag Helen.”

  Among the green circles, one turned yellow. She was in the center of the

  child group. Likely protected by several sentinels and perfectly

  safe. Still, the fights were unpredictable.

  I really am getting too paranoid.

  As if on cue, the hunting party split. The red group at the front peeled

  off, the slow vihr speeding up. The white group remained steady,

  holding to their original course.

  If she didn’t hurry, she would miss the kill. She couldn’t offer

  congratulations to the soon-to-be-married couple unless she actually

  witnessed them bringing the beast down.

  Maud gave a short harsh whistle, and Attura surged forward.

  A distant roar shook the air. A huge creature burst from between the

  mesas, running for the killing team, his green fur blurring with the

  grass. Damn it.

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  The killing team fanned out, seeking to flank the beast. It would be over

  in a matter of minutes.

  Her personal unit screamed, the shriek of alarm piercing her. Something

  was happening in the main procession. The formation broke, too chaotic

  to see. On her display, a big red dot appeared in the mass of green

  circles.

  Panic punched her. Maud threw her weight forward almost lying on

  Attura’s neck. The beast galloped with all its might.

  Individual riders shot out of the procession in all directions. She chanced

  a quick glance at the projection. There were three red dots now. The

  children were fleeing, while the adults bunched at the center, trying to

  contain the threat. The yellow circle indicating Helen angled south west,

  another green circle in her wake.

  Maud shifted her weight to her left, and the savok angled west.

  The group of vampires broke, bodies flying, and through the gap Maud

  glimpsed a creature. Enormous, mottled grey and stained with dirt and

  reddish clay, the hulking beast bellowed, swinging its huge scaled head

  side to side. It caught a knight and the force of the blow hurled him off

  his mount. The orphaned vihr screamed. The beast’s great jaws

  unhinged and shut on the vihr. The creature swung away and a bloody

  half of the vihr toppled to the ground.

  What the hell was that? It looked like a dragon. A huge scaled dragon.

  She had to get to Helen. She had to get to Helen now.

  Another dragon, this one pale and yellowed like an old bone, tore out of

  the clump of the vampires, and charged south west. The two riders on

  juvenile vihr kept fleeing, oblivious to the danger.

  It’s going after the children.

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  Maud screamed. Helen’s head whipped around. She looked over her

  shoulder and shrieked.

  Maud fused with Attura as if they were one creature, willing him to go

  faster.

  The vihr were running for their lives, the kids bouncing in the

  saddles, but they weren’t fast enough. The dragon came after them,

  paw over paw, like a sprinting crocodile, jaws gaping, a forest of fangs

  wet with its drool.

  It was gaining.

  Faster. Faster!

  They were almost there. Almost. A few dozen yards.

  The dragon lunged, roaring.

  The little boy’s vihr shied, screaming in panic, and stumbled. The boy

  and the beast went tumbling into the grass. The dragon loomed over

  them. Maud saw it all as if in slow motion in painful clarity: Helen’s

  terrified face, her eyes opened wide, her hands on the vihr’s reins, the

  vihr turning, obeying her jerk, and then she was on the ground, between

  the boy and the dragon.

  Twenty yards to her daughter.

  A sound ripped the air around Maud, so loud it was almost deafening. A

  small clinical part of her told her she was howling like an animal, trying

  to make herself into a threat.

  Helen drew her blades.

  The dragon opened its mouth. Its head plunged down and Helen

  disappeared.

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  Something broke inside Maud. Something almost forgotten that lived

  deep in the very center of her being, in the place where Innkeepers drew

  their power when they connected to their Inn. She had no Inn. She had

  nothing, except Helen and Helen was inside the dragon’s

  mouth. Everything Maud was, every drop of her will, every ounce of her

  strength, all of it became magic directed through the narrow lens of her

  desperation. It tore out of her like a laser beam and she saw it, black,

  and red, and ice cold, committed to one simple purpose: stop!

  Time froze. The dragon halted, locked and immobile, the bulge about to

  travel up its neck stopped in its tracks. The vihr, one fallen, the other

  about to bolt, stood in place, petrified. The vampire boy sprawled in the

  grass, unmoving.

  This is the magic of ad-hal, that same clinical voice informed her. You

  shouldn’t be able to do this.

  But she was moving through the stillness, her sword in her hand, and as

  Attura tore into the dragon’s hide, Maud slit a gash in its cheek. Blood

  gushed, red and hot. Maud thrust her arm into the cut. Her fingers

  caught hair and she grabbed a fist full of it and pulled. She couldn’t move

  it, so she planted her feet, dropped her sword, and thrust both arms into

  the wound. Her hands found fabric. She grasped it and pulled.

  The weight shifted under her hands.

  The edges of the gaping cut tore wider.

  Her daughter fell into the grass, soaked in spit.

  Is she dead? Please, please, please, please…

  Helen took a deep, shuddering breath and screamed.

  The magic shattered.

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  The dragon roared in pain and swiped at Attura clinging t
o his neck. The

  savok went flying, flipped in mid-air, landed on all fours like a cat, and

  charged back in.

  The realization slammed into her like a train. There were two children

  behind her and she was the only thing between them and the dragon.

  Maud attacked.

  She tore at it with all the savagery of a mother forced into a corner. She

  stabbed it, she cut it, she pierced it, her blood blade the embodiment of

  her rage. There was no fear left. She’d burned it all in the terrifying

  instant she saw Helen swallowed. Only fury remained and icy

  determination.

  It struck at her and she dodged. When it caught her with a swipe, she

  rolled to her feet and came back in, her teeth bared in a feral snarl. She

  stabbed it in the throat. When it tried to pin her with its claws, she cut

  off its talons. She wasn’t a whirlwind, she wasn’t a wildfire; she was

  precise, calculating, and cold, and she cut pieces off of it one by one,

  while Attura ripped its flesh.

  The dragon reared, a bleeding wreck, one eye a bloody hole, paws

  disfigured, and roared. She must have lost her mind, because she roared

  back. It came down on her, trying to trap her with its colossal

  weight. She had a crazy notion of holding her blood blade and letting it

  impale itself, then something hit her from the side, carrying her out of

  the way. The dragon smashed into the ground, and in a lightning flash

  of sanity, Maud realized she would have been crushed.

  Arland dropped her to her feet. His mace whined. He charged the

  dragon, huge, his face a mask of rage, she laughed and dove back into

  the slaughter.

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  They cut and slashed and crushed together. At some point she caught a

  glimpse of the children stabbing at the crippled dragon’s legs. Finally, it

  swayed like a colossus on sand feet. They drew back and it crashed to

  the ground. Its eye closed. It lay unmoving.

  Maud gripped her sword, unsure if it was over. She had to make

  sure. She started forward, aiming for its face.

  Arland rose out of the gore, jumped up onto the dragon’s head, and

  raised his mace gripping it with both hands. They hit it at the same

  time. She sank her blade as deep as it would go in its remaining eye,

  while he crushed its skull with repeated blows.

  They stared at each other, both bloody.

  Helen hugged Maud’s leg, her lip trembling. Arland slid off the dragon’s

  ruined head and clamped them both to him. Nearby, Attura raised his

  head, pawed the ground and bayed in triumph.

  Arland’s voice came out strained. “I thought I lost you both.”

  Maud raised her head and kissed him, blood and all, not caring who was

  watching or what they thought.

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  Chapter 16 Part 1 and 2

  October 15, 2018 by Gordon

  We are gently reminding you that because of the nature of this story

  being posted on the internet, where minors can read it, we keep things

  PG-13 until the story is revised for publication.

  Maud knocked on the door separating Arland’s quarters from the tunnel

  leading to her rooms. Yesterday she would have hesitated. Today she

  didn’t even pause.

  The door swung open. Arland stood on the other side, barefoot and out

  of armor, wearing a black shirt over loose black pants. His hair was

  damp, and he’s pulled it back into a loose horse tail. He must’ve just

  stepped out of the shower. The afternoon had turned into an evening,

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  and the light of the sunset tinted the room behind him with purple, red,

  and deep turquoise.

  His gaze snagged on her. She was wearing a white robe of fonari spider

  silk, its fabric so thin and light, she barely felt it. The wide sleeves fell

  over her arms like a cloud. She’d cinched the robe at the waist with the

  belt, but it was cut so wide that the voluminous skirt swept the ground

  behind her, the gossamer silk swirling around her at the slightest breeze

  and when the light caught it just right, it shimmered, translucent.

  The robe was a Christmas gift from Dina. She’d handed her the gift,

  smiled, and walked away, giving Maud her privacy. Maud opened the

  gilded box, touched the silk, and sank on to the floor next to it. At the

  time it seemed like an unbelievable luxury. On Karhari it would have paid

  for a year of water for her and Helen, and Maud had cried over it quietly,

  alone. She’d cried like that the first night of her exile, when she

  butchered her waist-long black hair. The dark locks had fallen to the

  ground and she had mourned the life she lost, but at Christmas, when

  Maud held the delicate fabric in her fingers, it had touched off something

  in her, something gentle and fragile she had hidden deep inside to

  survive, the part of her that loved beautiful clothes, and flowers, and long

  soaks in the bath. It came aware and it hurt, and she cried from pain and

  relief.

  She wished so much she’d had her hair now.

  Arland opened his mouth.

  Nothing came out. He just looked at her. An exhilarating flash of female

  satisfaction surged through her.

  Silence stretched.

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  “Arland?”

  He closed his mouth and opened it again. “How is Helen?”

  “Very tired. We washed all of the blood off and she fell asleep.”

  “Understandable. She was fighting for her life.” His voice trailed off.

  “Arland?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I come in?”

  He blinked and stepped aside. “Apparently, I have lost my manners

  somewhere on the hunt. My deepest apologies.”

  She swept past him into the room.

  He shut the door and turned to her. “Have you sustained any inju—”

  She put her arms around his neck and stood on her toes. Her lips met

  his, and he held very still.

  Does he not want me?

  Arland’s arms closed around her. He spun her, and her back pressed into

  the door. His rough fingers slid along her cheek, his fingers caressing her

  skin. She looked into his blue eyes and caught her breath. His eyes were

  hot with lust, need, and hunger, all swirled together and sharpened with

  a hint of predatory anticipation.

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  His lips trembled in the beginning of a growl. He smiled wide, showing

  his fangs, and lowered his mouth on hers. Her instincts screamed in

  panic, not sure if she was mate or prey, but she had waited for so long

  for this and she met him halfway.

  They came together like two clashing blades. His mouth sealed hers and

  she opened for him, desperate to connect, to feel him, to taste… His

  tongue glided over hers. He tasted of mint and warm spice. His fangs

  rasped against her lip.

  Her head swam. She felt light, and strong, and wanted…

  He kissed her deeper, his big body bracing hers. She nipped his lip. A

  snarl rumbled deep in his throat, the sound of predatory warning or

  maybe a purr, she wasn’t sure. He kissed the corner of her mouth, her

  lips, her chin, her neck, painting the line of heat and desire on her

  skin. She was shaking with need now.

  “I’ve wanted
this for so long,” he groaned.

  “So did I.”

  “Why now?”

  He was kissing her neck again, each touch of his lips a burst of

  pleasure. She could barely think, but she answered anyway. “We almost

  died today. I can’t wait any longer. I don’t want to be careful, I don’t

  want to think about the consequences or things going wrong. I just want

  you. I want you more than anything.”

  “You have me.”

  “Always?”

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  “Always,” he promised.

  #

  Maud stretched, sliding her foot along the heated length of Arland’s

  leg. He pulled her tighter to his body. Her head rested on his chest.

  “What were they? The creatures?”

  “The closest thing to Mukama in my generation. On the vampire

  homeworld, there were predatory apes, like us, but not quite us. A

  distant relative, less intelligent, more feral, more vicious.”

  “Primitive?”

  “Yes. The Mukona, the creatures that attacked us, are the Mukama’s

  primeval cousins. They are to the Mukama what feral apes are to us. An

  earlier evolutionary branch that didn’t grow. This is the birth place of the

  Mukama, after all. The Mukona possess rudimentary intelligence, more

  of a predatory cunning, really, and inhabit caves deep below the planet’s

  surface. When we took over the planet, we had hunted them to

  extinction, or so we thought.”

  “There were three of them,” Maud said. “A mated pair and an

  offspring?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly. I’d never seen one before today. I’d heard

  stories.” He made a low growl. “Once this damn wedding is over, we’ll

  have to send survey drones into the caverns. Find out how many of them