Chapter V. The Damsel of Lionsmouth
V
THE DAMSEL OF LIONSMOUTH
“SO WE TRAVELED, on through black days, dark clouds over our heads.
Cutting northeast across lifeless foothills, the dark spine of the Mìchaich na Baloch looming before us.
I thought of Phoebe again when I laid eyes upon the Moonsthrone; the silk of her skin, the fire of her blood.
Thirst clawed at my belly, twisting, gouging, and I pushed all memories of her aside, burying them in the ashes behind and vowing to think of her no more.
“It was only in children’s tales that everyone got a happy ending.
“Phoebe was better off without me.
“We hunted as we went: small game for the pot, and foulbloods for the pipe. We’d bleed them to fill a foundry, cook a dose of the sacrament to keep Lachie and me sated.
Aaron would take the rest. He refused to feed in front of us; unwilling to endure the disdain in Lachlan’s eyes.
Returning to our camp later with the scent of dead blood on his tongue, ashes on his hands, avoiding the pain in Baptiste’s gaze.
“It was awful to watch the ire rising between them, born of love. But I ran out of vodka two weeks into the trek, and between nightmares of Celene, Ashdrinker’s growing instability, and the agony of my thirst, I’d troubles enough of my own to fret on.
“We made good time at first, up the Ossian coast, but like tides and taxes, spring came inevitable, and our pace became a fucking crawl. Snow became sludge, and sludge became mud. The roads were knee-deep mires, sucking and slurping like black tar, and worse, as the frost melted, the countless dead slain in Nikita’s winter wars were slowly unveiled.
Our road became an open grave, reeking of rot and shit, swarming with flies.
“Most of the legends I grew up with were as much about the journey as the destination, Historian. But as I’ve said before, it takes a better talesinger than I to make miles of endless drudgery seem interesting.
Truth is, as dark and awful as that road was, we walked for weeks without many tremors in our strange new normal.
“Summer was in its prime before the tale’s next real twist.
“We were stood at the crest of a tall rise that day, squinting into a sodden valley, a half-arsed sunset staining the westward oceans blood-red. Aaron was off scouting for prey, and Lachlan was sat tall in his saddle, looking through my spyglass while I pored over an old map. I knew we must be close to the Barony of León by now, but couldn’t be sure without a landmark, scowling at the parchment and cursing under my breath.
“‘Fishertown down there,’ Lachie reported. ‘What’s left of it, anyways.’
“‘Might be Lionsmouth?’ I offered. ‘That used to be around here somewhere.’
“‘How old is that map of yours?’ Baptiste asked, suspicious.
“‘Older than he is,’ Lachie muttered.
“‘Ancien, eh?’
“‘Fuck you both, I’m thirty-three,’ I growled.
“‘Thirty-four soon, if memory serves.’
“‘Well, you’re still older than me, smartarse.’
“‘Perhaps in years, Chevalier.’ Baptiste stroked his handsome jaw. ‘But not in miles.’
“I scoffed, peering through the gloom at the town below. It was a muddy, crook-eyed shitehole to be sure; a guardtower ringed by a broken wall, bucktoothed buildings leaning on each other like pissheads at last call. But it was big enough to be Lionsmouth—one of the keeptowns on the borders of my grandfather’s great demesne.
“‘Whole place looks abandoned,’ I muttered.
“Lachlan tensed, rising in his stirrups to point. ‘Nae the whole of it.’
“I squinted into the gloom, salt winds whipping the scars on my cheek. Dim and distant, I spotted a figure fleeing across the moldering fields surrounding the town below.
“And in that figure’s wake …
“‘Give me that,’ I demanded, taking the ’glass from Lachie’s hand.
“My old ’prentice drew a wheellock as I raised the ’glass.
I saw the figure closer now—a woman, near my age, sprinting red-faced toward the town.
She wore good leathers, knee-high boots, midnight hair as long as she was tall streaming behind her.
Her face and knees were blacked with mud, hands bright red with blood.
And behind, snarling and tumbling through long-rotten vineyards came more than a dozen …
“‘Wretched,’ I whispered.
“‘For San Michon!’ Lachlan cried.
“He laid his heels into Victory’s flank, and the sosya took off, hooves athunder.
Baptiste and I followed, galloping in Lachlan’s wake, Baptiste drawing his silversteel hammer from his saddle.
The time we’d traveled had near-healed his broken arm, but he still favored his other, forge-hard fists curling about the haft.
My own hand closed on Ashdrinker’s hilt, drawing her into the moldy summer stench with the song of starsteel.
“Aish’da nomrehaam vo k-kaiden na?
“I blinked, teeth gritted as Argent seethed beneath me. Hammering down the muddy slope toward the fleeing woman, I spared a glance for the blade in my hand.
“‘What?’
“Aish’da no d-d-da? she demanded. Tovrem ma’hai? So voth ne demaisat, Gavrael?
“I blinked again, recognizing the last word as something close to my name. The language Ash spoke was lyrical, wonderful, possessed of a beauty somewhere beyond music, but though she seemed at least to recognize me …
“V-v-vaneth do khavalesh, besaid kiirov, Gavr—
“‘I can’t understand a fucking word you’re saying, Ash!’
“We hit the gully below the slope, sod spraying behind, Argent an engine of muscle and bone beneath me.
Through the gloom I saw our damsel in distress, fleeing across the fields toward the fishertown, wretched closing in behind.
We were cutting fast toward her flank, too distant yet to help, but if she turned toward us …
“‘Over here, mademoiselle!’ Lachlan roared. ‘Come to us!’
“She glanced our way, stumbling and breathless, but rather than looking relieved at the sight of her rescuers, she seemed confounded.
This close, I saw she wore a leather patch over one eye; one side of her face bore a terrible burn scar.
And instead of turning toward us, she kept sprinting, weaving in a jagged line toward the fishertown.
The walls were stone, but overrun with shadespine and luminous maryswort, collapsed in a dozen places.
Twin statues of lions stood beside an empty archway, the gates long fallen. No defense at all.
“‘What the hell is she…’ I drew breath and roared. ‘What the hell are you DOING?’
“K-k-khaval de’ali notata-ta-ta-ta Gav-gavr—
“‘Shut the fuck up, Ashdrinker!’
“Lachlan raised his wheellock, drawing a careful bead down the silversteel barrel. And though one and a half thousand pounds of sosya seethed beneath him, he fired true, the shot smashing into the closest wretched’s head and peeling off the top of its skull.
Silvershot sizzled, rotten brains painted the bloody sky as Lachie unloaded a second wheellock, smashing another coldblood’s head to pulp.
“‘Back!’
“I squinted at the shout, saw our damsel roaring as she ran.
“‘Go back, damn you!’
“‘She’s bloody crazed,’ Baptiste hissed.
“‘She’s bloody dead if we don’t reach her!’ Lachie spat.
“We thundered on, horses bearing down on the wretched, the wretched bearing down on her. The damsel made the broken gates, dashing beneath the archway to whatever shelter waited behind those walls. We closed in at a gallop, Lachlan spurring Victory on toward a moldy fenceline at the road’s edge.
But my belly was sinking as I studied that muddy pathway, hunter’s senses tingling at the wrongness in all this, Ashdrinker shouting in my head all the while.
“Lisaid kiirov, Gavrael! KIIROV NA’DAL!
“‘LACHIE, ’WARE!’
“I reached for Baptiste’s reins as I roared, Rosebud pulled up short, the blackthumb shouting as he was near hurled from his saddle.
Lachie glanced back at my shout, but Victory was committed now, the brave sosya leaping the fenceline onto the road in front of the wretched, hooves striking mud and sod, piercing the layer of thatch it had been laid upon with a crack, and plunging headfirst into the pit trap beneath.
“I heard Victory scream, Lachlan roar, the earth collapsing beneath them.
A few of the wretched plunged into the pit after him, the vampires behind leaping over the great hole now yawning in the road, thirty feet wide and fifteen across.
They dashed onward toward town and prey, but figures rose up from behind those broken walls now; a score of archers in black tabards and chainmail.
They bore strange crossbows, their iron sights crowned with circles of burning fire.
And at the order of that raven-haired damsel they let fly, shots streaking across the dark.
Each crossbow fired not one quarrel but a dozen, the shots catching fire as if by magik and laying half the foulbloods low at a single stroke.
“‘Reload! ’ the damsel cried.
“I flew off Argent’s saddle, thinking only of Lachlan.
I could see nothing past the lip of that pit save the long shadows of wooden shafts, sharpened to vicious points.
The salt-sweet perfume of blood hung in the air; I heard Lachlan roar, a booming wheellock shot.
A foulblood reared up before me, rags ablaze.
I cut it down with Ashdrinker, bone parting like butter, cool crimson splashing my face.
I danced among the wretched then, parting heads from blazing necks and legs from burning torsos, lost in the poetry of steel.
Ashdrinker had begun to sing—the words yet in that strange, beautiful language, but the song itself so bright and full of joy I swear, I near felt tears burn my eyes.