red thirst Read online

She sighed, as if with impatience.

  "I told you. You should have listened, fool swordsman."

  His left hand felt as if it had been struck with a stone. She took the bent sword out of it as if she were taking a toy from a child, and threw it away.

  She shook her left hand, trying to get the pain out of her wrist.

  Vukotich noticed he had torn the leather around her shackle. The exposed metal core caught the light, and shone silver.

  Silver!

  Her eyes were almost completely red now. She smiled, revealing sharp white teeth, needle canines delicately scraping her lower lip.

  Iron for him, silver for her. Their captors had known what they were about.

  The leech thing took his throat with an unbreakable grip, and leaned across to kiss him.

  Genevieve knew she should kill Vukotich, wrench his arm off, and have done with it.

  But, vampire or not, she wasn't that sort of girl.

  In six hundred and thirty-nine years of more-or-less life, she had been and done a lot of things. Including plenty she wasn't proud of. But she had never been, and wasn't now, a casual murderess.

  She'd killed for sustenance, she'd assassinated several people without whom the world was a better place, and she'd killed in combat - the two dead Acolytes lying back there beneath the trees bore witness to that - but she'd never just slaughtered someone because it was the easiest course to take.

  Not that she hadn't been severely tempted on many occasions.

  Her grip on Vukotich's neck relaxed, and she pushed him away.

  "Come on," she told the startled mercenary, her eyeteeth receding into their gumsheaths. "We have to move quickly."

  The anger subsided, and her eyes cleared. She still felt the red thirst. But there was no time to bleed the fallen. Drinking from the newly dead wasn't pleasant, but she had done it before. She would have been more worried that there would be warpstone in the Acolytes' blood. She was immune to most diseases, but the caress of Chaos wasn't like plague or the fevers. Her natural defences might not be enough to keep her whole with that stuff inside her.

  She jerked him to his feet, and led him downwards. Unlike the traditional melodrama heroine, she was highly unlikely to twist her ankle and become a nuisance for her big, brave protector. She was able to sense the root-holes and low shrubs that might trip them up.

  She had been right. They came to a shallow stream that ran fast downwards. It must eventually feed into the Blackwater. If they followed it, they would find a settlement. She hoped it would be one with a blacksmith who held a very low opinion of Claes Glinka's Moral Crusade. If not, it would mean resorting to force and terror, and she was tired of that. She had come to Zhufbar to get away from her reputation for great deeds, and she did not relish another brush with the makings of songs and folktales.

  She tugged the chain, and her padded manacle shifted. She felt a sharp sting as the exposed silver pressed against her flesh, and let out a pained hiss. She twisted the manacle, and the burning stopped, but the metal still gleamed white.

  She took a handful of mud from the stream, and gave it to Vukotich.

  "Smear this on the tear," she said. "Please."

  He took the mud and, without questioning her, applied it to the manacle like a healer putting a poultice on a wound.

  "Thank you," she said. She took a large leaf and stuck it over the mud, tightening it around the leather. It would dry and fall off eventually, but for now it would protect her.

  "Don't worry," she told him. "I'm not going to drain you dry at a draught. Not that I wouldn't be justified after your amateur attempt at surgery."

  She rubbed her wrist. The bruise was already fading. He had nothing to say. He wasn't even sheepish.

  "Come on," she tugged again. They jogged along the stream, feet splashing in the water. He was wearing heavy marauder's boots, while she only had dancer's slippers.

  "But ..." he began.

  She was ahead of him. "Yes, I know. Running water. Vampires aren't supposed to be able to cross it."

  He nodded, exerting himself to keep apace with her.

  "That holds true only for the Truly Dead. They're the ones who can't stand religious symbols or garlic or direct sunlight. I'm not one of those. I never got around to dying."

  He wasn't the only one who didn't know much about vampires. Glinka's vigilante squad had come for her with wreaths of garlic around their necks, bearing enough medals of Shallya and Verena to slow them down considerably. One of her "clients" must have informed on her. They came to her room in the East Wall Hostelry just after sun-up, when she would normally be sinking into her daytime doze, and found her with Molotov, an official from the Kislevite delegation to the Festival of Ulric, delicately tapping his throat. They had silver scythes and hawthorn switches, and soon had her bound and helpless. She had expected to feel the prick of a stake against her ribs, and for it all to be over.

  Six hundred and thirty-nine years wasn't a bad run for her coin - it was more than Chandagnac, her father-in-darkness, had managed - and she had at least the feeling, since the death of Drachenfels that she had done something worthwhile with the length of her life. But they had just chained her and kept her.

  Vukotich was coughing and spluttering now, his human lungs exhausted by their pace, and she slowed down. She could not help but be amused at seeing the warrior so helpless, so easily outstripped by someone who must seem to him like a little girl. This would pay him back for her wrist, and prompt him to go less by appearances in the future. He was in his thirties, she supposed, solidly built and with a good crop of battle-scars. There was a simple strength to him. She could feel it in his aura. If there was time, she would like to bleed him, to take some of his strength.

  The Tsar's man had been dissolute, his blood too sauced with stinging vodka and weirdroot juice. Molotov had been a poor lover too, a disappointment all round. She had been working the Festival, paid by Wulfric, Master of the Temple of Ulric, to go with visiting dignitaries the Cult wished to sweeten up. She was being paid a little extra for any sensitive military information she might happen upon in the course of her duties, but so far the diplomats and generals from outside the Empire had been more interested in boasting of their achievements on the battlefield or in the boudoir than in talking about fortifications and siege engines. Whore-cum-spy wasn't the most noble of her many professions, but it was better than being a barmaid. Or a heroine.

  The stream was rushing swift about their feet now. They would have to watch out for waterfalls. They had descended to the foothills. As far as she could tell, there were no Acolytes on their track. She hoped that Dien Ch'ing had given up on them, but somehow she knew that was too much to ask the gods.

  She had seen the Celestial before. At the opening ceremony of the Festival, when the Acolytes of the Moral Crusade doffed their hoods for the singing of the sacred songs of Ulric. She had travelled in the Orient, spending a century sailing between Great Cathay and the islands of Nippon, and knew more about the East than most of the inward-looking citizens of the Old World. Yellow faces were unusual in the Empire, and Ch'ing's must be unique among the followers of Glinka. She had planned to mention him to Wulfric when next she gave her report. She could sense powerful magics about him. Not the familiar enchantments of the Empire's wizards and witches, but the subtler, more insidious spells she had learned to fear in the east. Master Po, with whom she had shared three decades, had taught her a little of the magic of Cathay. She barely had her foot on the Pagoda, but she could recognize one advanced many levels towards the apex. Ch'ing was a dangerous man, and he was no Moral Crusader.

  Vukotich stumbled and fell. She dragged him a few yards, and pulled him out of the water. He lay exhausted, breathing heavily. Impatient, she sat beside him, and tried to feel her way back into the woods. No one was following them.

  For the moment, they could afford to rest.

  The bloodsucker told him her name. All of it. Genevieve Sandrine du Pointe du Lac Dieudonne.
/>   "Yes," she said at his involuntary start of recognition, "that one."

  "The vampire in the songs of Brave Oswald?"

  She nodded in irritated confirmation.

  "You killed Drachenfels."

  "No. I was there, though. Unconscious. I missed the big battle."

  Vukotich couldn't understand. Being this near to the unhallowed creature appalled him, made him want to puke his guts, but he was as curious as he was disgusted.

  "But what are you doing..."

  "As a whore? It's nothing. I've been a pit fighter in my time, and you wouldn't want to give that as your profession to a census taker. I've swept stables. And I've been a slave... in Araby and the Dark Lands. That's one thing about living forever. You get to try everything."

  Vukotich found it difficult to reconcile this bedraggled, street-fighting little girl with the glamorous immortal in the songs.

  She seemed distracted, annoyed about something. She could stand him trying to chop off her hand, but she didn't like being forced to tell him who she was. She wasn't what he expected of the undead. Those he had met before had been foul-smelling monstrosities of Chaos, vermin to be captured, staked, beheaded and forgotten. He mustn't let this one's almost human appearance fool him. Appealing or not, this was a woman-shaped piece of filth. In this world, there were natural things and there were monsters. Genevieve was a monster.

  Biting down on the words, he asked, "but... well, you must be a heroine of the Empire?"

  She spat in the stream. Her phlegm was threaded with blood.

  "Yes, but sometimes heroines are embarassing, you know. Especially if they live forever and drink blood. I got fed up with being surrounded by politely terrified officials who thought I was going to go for their throats at any moment."

  "And Prince Oswald?"

  "He's not like the songs, either. No one ever is. I met Magnus the Pious once, and he tried to put his hand up my dress."

  She was distracted, thinking of her Prince. He supposed the man must have used her and bested her. She was fetching, but she was a dead thing, an instrument of Evil. Vukotich had killed several of her like in his campaigns.

  But she could have her uses. Vampires, as he had seen, were unnaturally strong. With a crafty grin, he held up his manacled hand.

  "Did you think I hadn't thought of that?" she said. "I tried back in the wagon. Look."

  She held up her left hand. The fingertips were burned.

  There was something mixed with the iron of his shackles. "Silver," she said. "Not enough to weaken the links, but enough to be uncomfortable for me."

  "So," he sneered, "your powers haven't done us any good at all really."

  Her eyes fired again. "Not much, they haven't. How do you suppose your other manacle, the all-iron one, got broken?"

  She made a fist, and Vukotich imagined the iron cracking in her grip.

  They still had shackles around their right feet, dangling the chains that had been threaded to the bar in the wagon. Fortunately, one silver cuff had been enough expense for the Guardians of Morality. She prised her own anklet apart and dropped it in the stream.

  "I should just let you drag that thing, shouldn't I?"

  Vukotich didn't ask for help. With a gesture of exasperation, Genevieve bent over and freed him. The crack of breaking metal was as loud as a pistol shot.

  By now, the hammering inside Vukotich's chest had died down.

  "Can you go on? I can carry you if you can't, although, as I'm sure you'll understand, I'd rather not... "

  "I can walk," he told her, his cheeks reddening. She pulled him upright. By the sun overhead, he judged it to be nearly noontime, and he was getting hungry. And thirsty.

  With a chill, he wondered if Genevieve were feeling the same.

  Although direct sunlight didn't affect her as it would one of the Truly Dead, Genevieve felt a growing lassitude. It was a clear autumn afternoon and unclouded sunlight filtered down through the tall, straight trees, and fell heavily upon her. Her eyes were watering, and she wished she had the smoked glasses she usually wore by day. They were left with the rest of her things in the East Wall. Her exertions had tired her, and she could no longer outstrip Vukotich with ease. The mercenary was tiring too, and they had continually to lean on each other for support. Their chain was a nuisance.

  Vukotich was an intolerant man, and instinctively disliked vampirekind. That was not uncommon. Master Wulfric, who was only too pleased to make use of her to further the ends of the Empire, was much the same: have her risk her life for the Greater Glory of Ulric, but don't invite her to sit at your table, don't let her go to a coffee house with your son, don't encourage her to worship at your Temple. She'd had over six hundred years of wandering from place to place, leaving stake-waving, garlic-smeared, silver-scythed would-be monster killers behind her. Almost all of them were dead now, left behind by the years. But she took scant comfort from that.

  The trees were thinning, and afternoon turned to evening. She could feel her senses sharpening, and now she was propping up Vukotich, pulling him onwards, her full strength returning. And with the strength came the red thirst. Her teeth hurt as they shifted in her jaw, and her mouth filled with blood-threaded saliva. Soon, she must feed. She heard Vukotich's strong heartbeat, and felt the steady, even circulation of his blood. His distaste for the act might add some spice to it... But she wasn't desperate enough yet to bleed an unwilling partner.

  For a few miles, the woods had been different. There were treestumps bearing the marks of axe and saw, well-trampled pathways, old bones, and discarded food wrappings. Above the trees, the smoke of several chimneys combined into a spectral twister which dispelled into the sky.

  "There's a village up ahead," she said.

  They stopped, and tried to do something about their chain. Vukotich was wearing a long-sleeved leather jerkin and was able to wrap most of the chain around his forearm then pull the sleeve down over it. They had to hold hands like young lovers, their fingers entwined.

  "Now, this is going to be uncomfortable," she said, "but if I put my arm around your waist, under your jerkin, and you twist your arm backwards..."

  Vukotich winced. Genevieve wondered if he wasn't hurt inside from the fall or the fight.

  "There."

  Together, they strolled towards the village, not exactly convincing as a woodsman and his girlfriend out for an evening in the forest, but not exactly obvious as runaway convicts either.

  It was a small settlement, a few peasant dwellings clustered around a hillock, upon which stood a nobleman's hunting lodge. There were fires in a few of the houses, but the lodge was dark. It must be between seasons.

  Genevieve guessed they might be in luck. Where there were huntsmen, there would have to be a good ostler's and a good smithy.

  It was full night now, and her blood was racing. But she would have to restrain herself. They couldn't deal with a blacksmith at night. They would have to sound out the villagers first, win the smith over by stealth, and make sure that they weren't in a nest of Glinka's moralists.

  "Let's find a woodshed," Vukotich said. "Maybe there'll be tools."

  Genevieve hadn't thought of that. Vukotich could probably swing a hammer as well as any smith.

  She felt a chill. She was alerted to some danger. She put her forefinger over Vukotich's mouth.

  There were people coming out of the woods. Genevieve heard armour creaking. Armed men.

  They saw lanterns approach, and heard people talking. The Acolytes must be searching the area.

  But surely they weren't important enough to warrant this much time and these many men?

  The lanterns came out of the woods, and a small group of men-at-arms emerged, trudging into the village. They were being directed by a sergeant on horseback. He bore a familiar crest on his helmet, that of the Blasko family, and his breastplate was decorated with the mailed fist symbol of Zhufbar. Genevieve had seen soldiers dressed like this in the city. They were with the Lord Marshal's elite person
al guard.

  Escaped felons or not, Wladislaw Blasko was unlikely to be concerned about a couple of offenders against public morals.

  The soldiers were conducting a house-to-house search. Doors were pulled open, and the peasants quietly stood aside to let the men look around. Blasko's guards were efficient and polite. They were careful not to break anything. They didn't seem to be searching for anyone or anything in particular. From the way the soldiers and the villagers acted, she guessed that this was a familiar procedure. The sergeant even took the time to sweet-talk a middle-aged woman who brought him a goblet of wine.

  The wine was a good omen. None of Claes Glinka's foul coffee for these men. The Crusade had not taken hold here.

  Genevieve pulled Vukotich into an alley between buildings, not too quietly. She felt his body tense, and knew he was expecting a fight.

  "Relax," she told him. "They're not here for us."

  But they had been noticed.

  "Who's over there?" shouted the sergeant. A soldier fast-walked across the roadway to investigate, his lantern jogging.

  Genevieve put her free hand up to Vukotich's face and kissed him. He squirmed, and tried to protest, but then realized what she was trying to do. He went limp in her embrace, not resisting, not reciprocating.

  Tasting him, she felt the need for blood.

  The lantern was shone at them, and they looked, blinking, at the soldier.

  The man-at-arms laughed, and turned away. "It's all right, sir," he shouted. "Courting couple."

  "Lucky devils," said the sergeant. "Leave them alone. We've plenty more forest to sweep."

  The lantern was taken away. Vukotich went tense again, and Genevieve put her hand on his chest, restraining him. She felt his heart beating fast, and realized her nails were growing longer, turning to claws.

  She regained control, and her fingerknives dwindled.

  Vukotich was bleeding slightly, from the mouth. She had cut him when they kissed. A shudder of pleasure ran through her as she rolled the traces of his blood around her mouth. She swallowed, and felt warm.

  The mercenary wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked at her in disgust.