Gail Martin - Dark Haven

"I'll change, I swear it. I can do better."

Berenn's smile was remorseless. "You don't seem to understand. There are no second chances." He threw the man across the clearing, and Malesh heard bones snap with the force of the man's fall. The man tried to scramble to his feet, but his shoes slipped on the wet leaves and he fell flat on his face. He gasped and mewled, and the scent of urine made it clear he had soiled himself.

Senan, the other vayash moru, lifted the man by the scruff of his neck, laughing as their victim once again clawed at the air and struggled to get free. "I have gold hidden under the stone hearth. Take it-take all of it!"

Senan let the man fall into the wet loam and kicked him hard, turning him over. "We don't need your gold. There's only one thing of yours we want. Your blood." Senan drew his lips back and the pudgy man let out a whimper, shrinking back against the ground.

By agreement, the three let Senan draw first i blood. Senan reached down, moving slowly to heighten the terror in the. doomed man's eyes. "The Crone is waiting for you," Senan whispered as he drew the big man close to him. "Please, no: No, no-" Senan's teeth pierced the man's fleshy neck just to the left of his throat. The man stiffened but made no noise. After a moment, Senan drew back and threw the still living man to Berenn, who made a fresh puncture to the right of the man's throat and drank deeply.

The last draughts, the sweetest, the ones filled with mortal dread, were reserved for Malesh. The doughy man was quite pale when Berenn handed his limp body to Malesh, but Malesh could still sense the pounding heartbeat and the shallow breath. Malesh seized the man roughly, who groaned as his spine snapped, sending a last jolt of sweetness into the blood. Malesh went for the spot just below the man's ear, where the blood would run its final course before breath stopped, snapping the man's neck in the process. The broken body twitched in Malesh's grip as he gulped down the blood, letting the man's final terror fill him with intoxicating headiness. When there was nothing left but a bloodless husk, Malesh dropped the body. Not one speck of blood marred his frilled white shirt.

"Good hunt." Senan reached down and picked up the corpse by its collar and dragged it over to a large tree. "How shall we leave him?"

"He's had a hard run," said Berenn. "Let him catch a few winks."

Senan posed the corpse beneath the tree, its head down on its breast, while Berenn retrieved the dead man's hat from the clearing and put it on his head, pushing down the brim to shade his eyes. Senan clasped the man's hands over his ample belly and put one foot sole down, knee raised, while the other leg extended straight. They stood back to examine their handiwork. Unless someone looked closely under the dead man's collar, he might appear to be sleeping, taking a nap in the forest shade.

"One of your better pieces, if I do say so!" Malesh complimented Senan. He slapped him on the back, and the three began their trek back to Uri's manor.

Scothnaran Manor was big, rambling, and vulgar. Just like its owner, Malesh thought, feeling his mood sour. Scothnaran lacked both pedigree and history, two more things it had in common with Uri. No one who saw the huge, garish structure would doubt that it was built to impress any who saw it with the owner's wealth and position. Pity that Uri never did figure out real wealth had no need for show. Malesh had lost his life, his blood, and his freedom to Uri a hundred years before in a duel over a card game that had gone badly. And Malesh, whose bloodlines could be traced to Principality's ruling nobility, had been made courtier to a fool and bumbler, a two-skrivven card sharp whose greatest break came when he was brought across as punishment for a bad debt.

Scothnaran was filled with guests when Malesh and his fledglings entered. Uri enjoyed the company of mortals, as if his status in the Dark Gift together with his new wealth actually accorded him the position he had long desired. But tonight, Malesh saw no mortals in the room-none of the rapacious young men hoping to win at cards, and none of the slatterns Uri called 'ladies.'

The great hall of Scothnaran was as pretentious as its owner. Chandeliers dripped with crystals and pearls. Noorish inlay decorated so many of the furnishings that the pieces seemed to vie with each other for attention, warring with the profusion of color in the tufted carpets that covered the highly polished marble floor. Portraits covered the walls, oils done of Uri and of others whom Uri claimed to be his ancestors. Malesh knew the portraits were fabrications, the social climbing of a gutter snipe.

The room was filled with Uri's fledges. Uri held court in the middle, a goblet of goat's blood in his hand. The stale smell was noxious to Malesh after- the sweetness of the recent feast, and from the looks on their faces, Senan and Berenn felt the same.

"Did you really call him a 'fight slave' to his face?" Tanai leaned forward, hanging on Uri's every word.

"I did," Uri boasted. His face was flush with new blood, and the candlelight sparkled in his rings. "I remain connected with…business associates…in Nargi. They maintain my relationship with the Nargi army-through the necessary intermediaries. General Kathrian's troops held the Nu River border ten years ago, during the golden days of the betting slaves. There was none better than Jonmarc Vahanian. Never lost a fight in two years. Made a bit of gold on him, I did. To see him dressed up like a noble and having Gabriel passing him off as the new Lord of Dark Haven was more than I could stand. Nothing but common trash!"

"Not like there's anyone else who fits that description here," Malesh said in a barely audible aside to Senan, who smiled. Senan and Berenn were of families as noble as his own. Malesh had chosen them, and the others in his inner circle, to help make Uri's casual vulgarity bearable.

"And is it true that you drew blood?"

Uri smiled, showing his yellowed eye teeth. "Do you think I'd let Gabriel keep me from

making my point? If that's all Vahanian has to show for fighting skill, he's lucky to have slipped Darrath's grip. I had my teeth on his neck before he even knew I was coming. But then, I heard Darrath got the best of him the last time Vahanian was fool enough to go to Nargi. Needed a mage to rescue him-that's rich. All over a woman." Uri drained his glass and snapped his fingers. A servant appeared at his side and refilled the goblet.

"Still, I heard he held his own for a good fight-and took the lash without crying out. By the Whore! It might be amusing to go a round with him-for old times' sake."

"So the truce, is it ended?" It was Tresa who spoke, one of Uri's most senior fledges. While Malesh and his friends stayed near the back, watching from afar, Tresa sat at Uri's right hand.

Sit at his feet like the lapdog you are, Malesh thought with annoyance. It was an open secret that Tresa coveted Malesh's position at the Council as Uri's second, a position it had taken no end of calculated obsequiousness to obtain.

"Ah, Malesh. There you are. They've been asking about the Council meeting. You were there."

Malesh stepped forward, more to spite Tresa than out of any real interest in retelling the story. "It's as Uri says. A room full of vayash moru, fawning over a mortal. Gabriel's the worst of the lot, although Riqua isn't much

better. I noticed Rafe and Astasia stayed out of it. If Vahanian is to be Lord of Dark Haven, let him prove himself strong enough to take it."

There were murmured assents all around, and Uri's eyes glinted with approval. Malesh could tell from the way Uri's lids drooped that the blood he drank was laced with absinthe and dreamweed. "I've heard my share of stories about the great fighter Vahanian, hero of Chauvrenne," Malesh said with unconcealed contempt. "But when Uri went for his throat, I saw fear in Vahanian's eyes. Lord of Dark Haven indeed!"