Samantha Henderson - Dawnbringer

“I didn’t understand what I saw, at first. The house, half-gone, the rest like a broken eggshell, made of burned timbers. They were still smoking. There was another smell, too-burned meat. I found them all inside the house, what remained of them. The woman was clutching one of the children to her. I couldn’t tell which one. I found the others, the man, the rest of the children. All save one. I found, later, from the neighbors that a band of halfling thieves had been plaguing the district. So far they’d just robbed houses and crofts in the owners’ absence-a quick raid to steal cattle, or supplies, or the coin under the bed. Nothing like this.”

His face hardened, and his voice seemed to come from a long way away. “Those bandits gave me a great gift. They taught me that the gods care nothing for us. In return, I give halflings, when I can find them, another gift-the gift of oblivion. And each time, I rid the rotten world of another maggot that burrows in its flesh.”

He looked back at her.

“That time, when the messenger came, and I was gone two seasons.”

“Yes.” Her throat was dry as sand. “I remember.”

“He brought word of Darla. She was the littlest, a girl no more than eight, the one I couldn’t find. When I found their spoor, I thought, perhaps, they’d taken one away, a child they could sell. I followed them, but the trail went cold. But I left word with folk I knew-folk who owed me their lives-that I wanted any word of her.

“The messenger brought me word that it was four years since a halfling gang took a few children to be sold at market not a hundred leagues from the slaughter. It sounded too alike to be a coincidence. It took a long time, and many false trails, but I found a man who had bought a little girl, just like Darla, as a maid for his wife. The child died a year later from the bloody flux. I also found the name of the slaver who bought Darla from the thieves and sold her to the merchant.”

He spat out the word: “Jadaren.”

“No,” Kestrel whispered behind her. “None of us has ever dealt in slavery.”

Lusk ignored her. His faraway eyes focused on Lakini, and his voice became steely.

“So you tell me, Lakini. Where is your good in any of this?”

They looked deep into each other’s eyes for a long moment before he nocked the arrow back to the bow, lifted it, and loosed it straight at her heart.

She was expecting it and had already begun to fling herself to one side, pulling Kestrel with her. The arrow missed, whispering into the leaves at the mouth of the tunnel.

She had to decide, lightning-quick, whether to throw the dagger or charge with the sword before he got another arrow to the bow. Clasping dagger and sword together, two-handedly, she ran up the hillock. He dropped the bow and drew his own sword, parrying her aside as she struck.

She was still healing. But so was he. She ignored the pain in her shoulder as she bore down, two-handedly, again and again against his one-handed defense. Once he managed to push her off balance and struck with the dagger in his left hand. She dodged aside and, ducking, hit him with the hilt of her sword in the back of the leg.

Lusk staggered and went down on one knee. She forbore to press her attack, and he took advantage of that, striking at her sword from beneath and knocking it out of her hand.

She drew her dagger and crouched. There was no time to retrieve the sword. Lusk launched himself at her, chopping at her left side. She met the blow with the dagger, letting it slide down the length of his sword. With a familiar twirl of her weapon, she circled the hilt and slashed the tip into his wrist, opening the artery.

He dropped the sword and gasped, gripping his damaged wrist. His mad eyes glittered at her. “I can’t believe I fell for that trick,” he said.

He drew his own knife with his left hand and leaped on her, letting his useless right hand dangle. She sliced her weapon up and felt it meet resistance, and then as she thrust with all her strength, it penetrated. At the same time he bore down on her, and the pain in her injured shoulder returned with a vengeance. She could do nothing but push the weapon deeper and deeper into him. Her left side felt numb.

For a moment they were locked together, breast to breast, hip to hip, as they had been when they fell in the cold flame from the Hold. As the last of their strength faded, they relaxed and staggered apart. He stared at her, and the glitter went out of his eyes. She saw the hilt of her blade protruding from beneath his sternum. The tip had pierced his heart.

He blinked, as if puzzled, as if he didn’t understand what had just happened. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and a great black bubble welled between his lips and burst, sending a red trickle down his chin.

Unbending, like a tree, he fell. He did not move again.

Lakini crouched by his side. His eyes stared, unseeing at the forest canopy above.

“Ashonithi, Cserhelm ,” she whispered as she closed them.

“That’s one of you gone, anyway,” spoke a beautiful voice from behind her. Startled, Lakini turned.

A woman with the waxy face of a vampire and a scar twisting her mouth out of true stood at the mouth of the tunnel. Her hand tangled in the girl’s hair, she held Brioni tightly against her, pulling her head to one side so her neck was exposed.

Kestrel stood before them, her arms extended in mute appeal.

The vampire ignored her and spoke over her head to Lakini.

“Ironic that one of you killed the other, isn’t it? Very piratical. Ping would have approved. Oh, that’s jogged your memory, has it? Probably wasn’t much to you, just a ship at sea with a dead crew.”

Lakini did remember, and she heard again the sound of Lusk’s arrows finding their targets.

“Don’t hurt her,” said Kestrel. “You can have anything you want. Just don’t hurt her.”

The vampire ran a pale finger over Brioni’s neck, just over the jugular, speaking to the Kestrel now. “But this, my dear, is what I do want. You don’t know this, but your ancestor did me a very bad turn some two hundred years ago. And I don’t forget easily.”

She grinned, showing her fangs. “The delicious irony is this-his friend, his very dear friend, his bosom friend-he also did me a very bad turn at just about the same time. And while your great-grandsire was a Beguine, this one’s great-great-so many greats-grandsire was his good friend. A Jadaren.

“Yes,” she said, grinning at Kestrel’s wide eyes. “They were friends, until I gave them a reason to hate each other. And they were both, you will be delighted to know, pirates. And”-she sighed-“not very good pirates.”

“So this is what I am going to do. I’m going to kill this little chit in front of you, and then I’m going to drain you. But first, I think I’ll take your shatter-faced friend’s sword.”

Still keeping her grip on Brioni, the vampire maneuvered over to where Lakini’s sword lay. As she passed Kestrel, two long, thin cords leaped from the back of the woman’s wrists. They looped themselves around the vampire’s legs and pulled hard. With a shriek, she stumbled and fell, releasing Brioni as she did.

In a single movement, Lakini scooped up her sword and cut off the vampire’s head.

Kestrel clasped Brioni tightly to her, and the girl’s arms were locked around her mother’s waist. As Lakini watched, Kestrel stroked her daughter’s hair and took her by the shoulders.

“You followed us,” she said gently.

Brioni nodded and hiccupped. “I knew about the tunnel. When I came back and found your empty cell, I didn’t want to call the guards. I thought they’d kill you.”

“They’ll always want to, said Kestrel, her voice dark and bitter. “And I don’t blame them.”