Maud fought through the relaxant’s fog. “Yes.”
The door hissed open, and the Scribe walked in. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a mane of chestnut brown hair, he was older than Arland, but not by much. He had a long intelligent face and his eyes, pale green under a sweep of thick eyebrows, were sharp.
“Lady Maud,” he said. “My name is Lord Erast.”
“To what do we owe the honor?” Karat asked.
“It seems Lady Maud and I have gotten off on the wrong foot,” the Scribe said.
“That’s impossible, my lord,” Maud said. “We haven’t met.”
“Precisely. I labored under the assumption that as a human, you would be exempt from our traditions.” Erast nodded at the recording playing on the screen. “I was in error. We know exactly nothing about you, which makes it awkward at formal functions.”
He flicked his fingers at his crest. “This session is now being recorded. What is your lifetime kill count?”
“I don’t know.”
Erast’s eyes bulged. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I haven’t kept track.”
“You were the wife of a Marshal’s son. Was the importance of keeping a personal record not impressed upon you?”
Maud sighed. “In the three years I was with House Ervan, they had no major conflicts. I had several personal bouts, but none of them were to the death. Afterward, on Karhari, it didn’t seem important.”
“Did you have any titles?” Karat asked.
“Maud the Eloquent.”
Karat and Erast looked at each other.
“House Ervan put great emphasis on the knowledge of ancient sagas,” Maud explained.
“Can she use that?” Karat asked.
Erast pinched the bridge of his nose. “Technically, no. They struck her from their records, so any titles or honors earned while with House Ervan are forfeit. They are subjective, bestowed upon an individual by others to highlight certain deeds. The kill count is different because taking a life is an irrefutable fact.”
“What about Maud the Exile?” Karat asked. “Could we do something with that?”
Erast frowned. “My lady, answer honestly. What was the most important duty in your life before your exile?”
“Taking care of Helen.”
“What about on Karhari?”
“Taking care of Helen.”
“And now?”
“Helen.”
“Do you desire revenge on House Ervan?”
“I wouldn’t mind punching a couple of them, but no. I was mad at my husband, and I buried him long ago.”
Erast sighed. “The Exile won’t work. A title like that implies an element of rebirth. Lady Maud hasn’t permitted the act of being exiled to affect her worldview. There was no seismic shift in her personality as the result of being sent to Karhari.”
The two vampires stared at her. The frustration on Erast’s face was almost comical.
“They did call me something on Karhari.”
“What was it?”
“Maud the Sariv.”
“What does that mean?” Karat asked.
“On Karhari there is a summer wind that comes from the wastes. Nobody knows how it forms, but it comes out of nowhere and it picks up thorny spores from local weeds. When you inhale sariv’s breath, the spores enter your lungs and cut you from the inside. There is no escape from this storm. If you are caught in it without protective gear, it will kill you. They called me that because I paid the blood debt I owed to my husband’s killers.”
Erast perked up. “Do you have any proof of that, my lady?”
“Would you hand me my crest?”
Erast picked up her breastplate. His eyes widened at the mess of red. He offered it to her, and she pulled the crest off. She’d transferred all of her recordings to it as soon as Arland gave it to her.
“Play all files tagged Melizard’s Death in chronological order,” she said.
The crest lit with red, projecting onto a wall. She knew every frame of the recording by heart. It played in her head for months. The view of a fortified town from a dusty hilltop. A crowd dragging Melizard through the street, faces contorted with fury and glee, rabid. Melizard’s bloody face as they took turns punching him, while he stumbled, caught in the ring of striking arms and legs. Him crawling on the ground while they kicked him. The stone bench they dragged out of the nearest house. The flash of a rising axe. Melizard’s head rolling as they cut him apart. The greasy smoke rising from his burned body. Melizard’s head on a pike rising above the gates, his empty dead eyes staring into the distance.
Silence claimed the room.
A light ring singled out a face in the crowd and zoomed in. A huge dark-haired male vampire with a scar across his face. A caption appeared. Rumbolt of House Gyr.
The recording zoomed in on his face, turning dark, then blossoming into bright daylight, filmed by a camera attached to her shoulder. Rumbolt’s face, skewed by rage, as he swung a blood mace at her. One, two, three blows, all whistling past her. Her own stab, fast and precise as it slid into his throat and opened a second bloody mouth across his neck. Rumbolt collapsing on his knees then face down into the dirt, his blood spilling onto the dust. Her blade again as she sliced across his neck and kicked his head across the dusty street, sending it rolling and bouncing off the hard dirt.
The recording blinked and a woman resembling Rumbolt stared up at her as Maud smashed her face with a rock. A caption popped up. Erline of House Gyr.
“His sister,” she explained. “The relatives came after me at first, but they stopped after the first few kills.”
The freeze frame of the crowd gripping Melizard flashed again. The light circle picked out a new face, a woman with gray hair, screeching, her fangs bared. The caption read Kirlin the Gray.
The recording zoomed in, turned dark, and then a vampire in heavy scarred armor was coming at her, her neck and face hidden by a full helmet.
“Is that an antique space-rated unit?” Karat asked.
“Yes. She preferred to fight in it. It made her slow, but the armor is so thick, the blood weapons can’t penetrate.”
On the recording, Maud dodged the swings of Kirlin’s blade and thrust herself against the woman. Kirlin’s arm came up, then the recording shook and rocked as Maud reeled away after taking the blow. Kirlin raised her sword, about to charge. A small dot of crimson flared on her neck. It blinked and Kirlin’s throat exploded in a gush of gore, taking the head with it.
“Mining charge.” Maud smiled.
The image of the crowd appeared again, singling out a new target. Zoom, darkness, then a lean vampire backing away up the hill from the wild swings of Maud’s mace, moving closer and closer to the drop. She kept hammering at him, her voice a guttural snarl echoing every blow. He planted himself, aware he was almost out of ground, and slashed at her with his sword. She dropped her mace, spun out of the way of his blade, and kicked him. It was a front kick, driven not up, but down, almost a stomp. She’d sunk all of the power of her body into it. Her heel landed on the vampire’s leading knee. His leg gave out and he dropped down to compensate. She punched him in the face and rammed her shoulder into his chest. He sailed off the cliff. She bent down, and the camera caught his body impaled on spikes below. The recording blinked, and a second body joined the first. Then a third. And a fourth.
“He had three brothers,” she explained. “They kept coming after me, so I told them that if they tried to fight me, they would die in the same spot their brother did, and they followed me to the cliff. Worked every time. I already had the spikes set up. It seemed a shame to waste them.”
Erast, Karat, and the medic were looking at her like she had sprouted a second head.
The next target loomed on the screen, an older vampire, his hair shot through with gray.
“This one isn’t mine,” she grimaced. “This is my worst failure.”
The recording zoomed in. She was on the ground, her breath coming out in sharp pained gasps. The camera was splattered with blood. The vampire stood several feet away, his armor a mess of cuts. He gripped Helen by her hair. She dangled from his hand, screaming, her high-pitched shriek so sharp. Every time Maud heard it, it felt like her heart was breaking.
“I’ve got your whelp, bitch! I’ll slit her throat so you can watch,” the vampire roared.
He jerked Helen up. She spun in his grip, pulling her two daggers out, and drove them into the vampire’s face.
He dropped her. Maud surged off the ground, drove her sword into a cut in his breastplate, and twisted. The armor cracked, contracting, and locked on the vampire, paralyzing him. The vampire collapsed, and Helen stabbed his exposed neck again and again, screaming.
“This one is hers,” Maud said.
It was so quiet, she could hear herself breathing.
“How many are there?” Erast asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I never counted.”
“Then perhaps we should do so,” he said.
8
“Mama?”
Maud opened her eyes. Two pairs of eyes stared at her, one Helen’s green and the other golden brown.
She must’ve fallen asleep. In enemy territory. Alarm shot through her in a chemical jolt. Instantly she was awake.
The pale walls rushed at her, the only room she’d seen in the castle so far that was made with a sterile polymer instead of ancient stone. She was still in the med ward. The medic must’ve added a mild sedative to her medications. Combined with the additional strain on her body, exhausted from the fight and healing at an accelerated rate, the medication had put her under. She wasn’t sure how long she’d slept, but the sharp pain in her ribs was gone. Fatigue wrapped around her like a soft straitjacket. Her head was fuzzy.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, my flower?”
“This is Ymanie.”
Ymanie blinked her big round eyes and gave a little wave. She was about Helen’s age, although a little taller and more solid, with dark brown hair and dark-gray skin.