Bloodforged (12 page)

She looked around. Stacked against the back wall of the warehouse was a pile of bulging burlap sacks. She skimmed across the rafters, then dropped down to them. They had a rich, spicy scent. She cut one open and out spilled a torrent of yellow turmeric. She upended the sack, dumping the powder out on top of the pile, then began stripping out of her cloak, doublet and boots and stuffing them in the sack.

Barefoot, with her breeches rolled up and hidden beneath the long billowing shirt she had stolen from Chesnekov, she hoped she would look the part of a kidnapped girl – perhaps if she kept her head down. But there was another problem. She doubted they would look twice if she carried the sack, but her rapier was another matter. She couldn’t fit it in the sack, and she couldn’t wear it.

The clatter of a horse and wagon came from outside. The buyers were here! She cursed. She would just have to hide the sword here and come back for it. She meant to come back for Gaznayev anyway. She would retrieve it then.

She leapt back up to the rafters, then ran across to the square of crates. At the big doors, Bull-neck and Scrawny were waving the wagon in as the driver backed the horses. Only seconds now. She laid her rapier along a beam, then dropped down to the crates with her sack. A few of the girls heard her and looked up. She waved them out of the way, then jumped down into the cage amongst them. There were a few shrieks and gasps, but most of the captives just stared dully at her with blank eyes, completely lost in their misery.

Ulrika looked around at the girls who had cried out, putting a finger to her lips, then did her best to mimic the lost ones, slumping her shoulders and hanging her head, her sack of clothes clutched forlornly to her chest. She wished she had some way to cover her hair, but there was no hope for it. If they noticed her, then she would kill them now, and find some way to hunt down the rest later.

The door in the crates opened, and Bull-neck and Scrawny led three cloaked and hooded men through the tunnel to the cage.

‘There you are, sirs,’ said Bull-neck, holding up a lantern. ‘The week’s catch. All as hale and hearty as you could wish.’

Ulrika raised her eyes just enough to peer at the three newcomers. She could not see their faces under their deep hoods. They were wearing thin black veils to hide their features. They were indeed, however, men. She could hear their hearts thudding in their chests.

The first of them took a leather purse from his sleeve and handed it to Bull-neck without a word, then gestured to Scrawny to open the cage. The little man gave a shiver as he turned, then unlocked the cage and swung open the door.

‘File out, sluts,’ he said, and banged on the cage with his key ring. ‘Come on. Move.’

The girls shuffled forwards fearfully, and Ulrika went with them, keeping her head as low as she could. Her spine tingled as she passed between the hooded men, sure they would see she was not like the others and single her out, but they didn’t seem to notice, and she followed the other captives through the tunnel in the wall of crates and out the other side.

Directly before the door was an entirely enclosed wagon – like a Strigany’s caravan but without the colourful decoration – with a ramp leading up to an open door in the back. Some of the girls shied at the sight of it and held back, but two more hooded men prodded them forwards with sticks, and they crept timorously up the ramp and into the dark interior.

Ulrika crowded in with the rest, and by the time they were all in and the door shut and locked, they were packed together as tight as toes in a pointed boot, and just as fragrant. The cramped box smelled of fear, faeces and death, and was as lightless as a coffin.

A moment later there came the crack of a whip, the wagon lurched and they were off. Ulrika wondered belatedly how far they would go. What if they were leaving the city? What if they were leaving the country? What if they were let out in daylight? She shrugged. She would face that dragon when she reached it. There was little she could do about it now.

Beside her, one of the captives began to weep, a tired hopeless sound. Ulrika put her arm around the girl, and tried not to think about the blood pulsing just beneath her skin.

After only a short while, the closed wagon slowed and made a tight turn, then started down a steep grade. All the girls in the box staggered and crushed together towards the front until it levelled off again and came to a stop. Muffled voices came from outside, then, with a rattle and a creak, the door swung open. The girls turned like flowers towards the sun, squinting in the dim firelight that filtered through the door.

Two hooded men placed the ramp, then beckoned the girls ahead. They trudged obediently forwards, and Ulrika followed, looking around at their surroundings. The wagon had stopped in one corner of a huge vaulted chamber full of looming shadows and smoke. A cold wind blew down from somewhere above, tearing at a fire in a nearby brazier which cast flickering light upon rows of giant brass vats and wooden kegs taller than a man. It was reflected also in a great hill of empty glass bottles piled in one corner that glittered like a thousand red eyes. The place reeked of fermented grain and strong liquor – a kvas distillery, it seemed, though long abandoned.

‘This way, children,’ said a hooded man, motioning with an empty kvas bottle he held in his hand. He led them to an arched alcove in the stone walls, within which had been set a door of iron bars.

From one cage to another, thought Ulrika.

The man swung the door open, then blew idly across the top of his bottle, making a hollow tooting sound as two other hooded men herded the girls into it. Ulrika allowed herself to be prodded in with the others, for she saw the bars were old and rusted, and would not hold her if she did not wish them to. First she wanted to see what their captors intended to do with them.

She did not have long to wait. The man with the bottle held back the last girl, then locked the rest in. The girl struggled as the two men grabbed her and led her across the room to an open space between the vats.

Ulrika pushed forwards to the bars and saw that a shallow circle had been carved in the hard earth of the cellar floor, and that its edges were black with dried blood.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SERVANTS OF SLAANESH

Ulrika gripped the bars of the cage as, from all over the vaulted chamber, more hooded figures emerged from the shadows and gathered around the bloody circle. The design of it was just like that of the one she had found in the cellar of the abandoned tenement – the one with the sacrificed girl staked out in it. It seemed Gaznayev’s gang was selling the girls to a murder cult.

The girl fought harder as she saw where the hooded men were leading her. ‘What are you going to do?’ she cried. ‘Stop!’

The man with the bottle laughed. ‘Stop? Just when we are about to give your worthless little life meaning?’

He motioned to the other men, then continued speaking as they stripped the girl of her clothes and a fourth man set candles around the perimeter of the circle and began lighting them.

‘What would you have done with your span of years?’ he asked. ‘Shat out a litter of brats, lived in poverty, died in poverty? Your wretched life would have added nothing to the world. But now you will have greater purpose. Now you will be part of something monumental!’ He flipped the empty bottle in the air and caught it. ‘When Mannslieb is next full, your soil will join the others in the great awakening that will begin the claiming of Praag by its rightful mistress!’

The two men dragged the now-naked girl into the centre of the circle as another man stepped forwards with a hammer and spikes. Ulrika had seen enough. She wrenched back sharply on one of the cage’s iron bars. It squealed and bent, but didn’t break.

The girls around her gasped and edged away from her, wide-eyed, while the cultists at the circle turned at the noise.

‘What was that?’ said the man with the bottle.

Ulrika pulled again, and this time the bar sheared in half, tearing her palm.

‘What is she doing!’ cried the man. ‘Stop her!’

A handful of hooded forms trotted towards the cage, drawing clubs and daggers. Ulrika pulled at the lower half of the broken bar, trying to bend it down so she could slip through the gap. It snapped off at the base and she stumbled back with it in her hand. She grinned. Perfect.

The cultists slowed their steps, staring uneasily.

‘Powers of darkness!’ gasped one. ‘How is she doing that?’

Ulrika eeled through the gap and rose to her full height before them, brandishing the iron bar. ‘Let me show you the powers of darkness,’ she said, and before they could react, she sprang among them, lashing out on all sides with her makeshift weapon.

Three died instantly, their skulls caved in and blood darkening the fabric of their hoods as they toppled to the ground. The other three darted in, stabbing for her stomach and swinging for her face. She kicked one man back, caught the wrist of the second as he slashed at her with a dagger, then whipped him into the third man. These last two went down on top of one another. Ulrika stabbed down and pierced them both through the chests with her iron bar, pinning them to the ground, then turned to face the last man.

He stood stock still, and though she could not see his face through the veil he wore under his hood, she could smell the fear oozing from his pores. She ripped the bloody bar from the bodies of his companions and advanced on him. He shrieked and fled – but not fast enough.

Ulrika caught him in two swift steps and bashed his head in from behind. His hood, as he fell, sagged and bulged like a sack full of wet meat.

The fight had taken all of twenty heartbeats, and as she turned towards the man with the bottle and his comrades at the circle, she could see they were as paralysed as her last victim had been. Ulrika looked back at the girls in the cage. They were frozen too, the whites of their eyes shining in the firelight as they stared at the bodies at her feet.

‘Go!’ she said. ‘Return to your families.’

Most of the girls didn’t move, but a few of the braver ones began to duck through the gap, and as they did, the more timid followed.

Ulrika turned back to the dozen cultists at the circle and started towards them, the iron bar held at her side.

The man with the bottle stepped back, pointing it with a shaking hand. ‘Kill her! Don’t let the sacrifices escape!’

His companions looked less than enthusiastic about the first part of his command, and instead split left and right to address the second, trying to get around her to the girls, who were breaking for the ramp. She let them go, and charged directly at the leader and the men who held the sacrifice. All three fled in different directions. Ulrika pounced on the leader, then dragged him back to the circle, where the girl lay cowering on the ground beside the hammer and spikes that would have pinned her to it.

‘Get away,’ said Ulrika, nudging the girl with her toe, then shoved the man down in her place as she crawled off, weeping.

‘You must not touch me!’ the man cried, squirming as Ulrika picked up the hammer and a spike. ‘Wait! What are you doing?’

‘Saving you for a greater purpose,’ said Ulrika, then knelt on his wrist and pounded the spike through the palm of his hand into the hard earth with a single strike.

He screamed and writhed as she stood and looked around the room. The other cultists had caught the escaped girls and were dragging them back towards the cage. She picked up her iron bar again and stalked towards them, growling low in her throat.

The men shouted as they saw her coming, and some released the girls and fled up the ramp. The rest clumped together and ran at her, weapons raised. Ulrika sprinted straight at these, then leapt over their heads, striking down with the bar.

She landed behind them, not turning to see if her blow had struck home, and charged up the ramp. The fleeing men turned at the sound of her steps, preparing to fight, but she leapt their heads too and got between them and the exit.

‘Jackals,’ she said, as they turned to face her. ‘Preying on the weak. Now you will know what it is like to be prey.’

She sprang into the middle of them before they could move, whirling around with the iron bar and cracking skulls and snapping arms. A handful fell away, howling and clutching themselves, but the rest leapt in, screaming. She smashed a man with a hatchet in the neck, lifting him off his feet and sending him crashing into the wall of the ramp. Two more hacked at her legs with swords. She dodged one, but took a cut from the other, then ran him through.

More darted in, slashing and chopping. She pulled on the iron bar. It was stuck in the swordsman’s ribs. A dagger gashed her back. A club smashed her shoulder. A sword grazed her arm.

Ulrika snarled, enraged, and shot out her fangs and claws as her vision turned crimson and black and a roaring filled her ears. The men around her gasped and cried out. She inhaled their fear and leapt at them, leaving the iron bar where it was. She didn’t want a weapon now. It would only keep her at a distance from her victims.

Blood splashed the walls as she tore a man’s throat out. Another stabbed at her and she ripped his arm off. Her claws found flesh wherever she turned, and she rended and tore in a red whirlwind, blind with fury, finding her victims by the hammering of their terrified hearts.

Then a deafening bang punched her ears, and a blow like a red-hot poker smashed her thigh and staggered her. She looked up, waking from her blood fugue as waves of searing pain radiated from the wound. The men she had vaulted were advancing up the ramp towards her. One had a smoking pistol in his hand, and was aiming a second.

Ulrika shrieked like a wildcat and bounded down at him. The second pistol cracked, but the ball whizzed past her and she tackled the man, smashing him through the others to slam him on his back at the base of the ramp. They skidded to a stop and she tore his throat out with her teeth.

The other men thundered down all around her, shouting at each other to attack. She looked up from her crouch, blood dripping off her chin, then launched herself at the nearest. Again the world became nothing but red and black flashes – frozen moments of glorious slaughter – a man falling, his veil and his face half-torn away, another man screaming and staring at the stumps of his fingers, a hooded head rolling away down the ramp.

Ulrika returned to herself some time later on her hands and knees at the base of the ramp, panting amidst the dead and dying, and deliciously happy. Rivulets of blood coursed down between the filthy cobbles from the men she had killed further up, and more dripped from her chin and nose. It was only as she stood and looked around at the carnage that shame chilled her contentment. There was a girl among the men, one of the abducted, as savaged as the others. There were bite-marks on her face.

Ulrika looked away, wincing and cursing. She felt no remorse for killing the cultists. They deserved worse than she had given them, and she hoped that, in death, they would find eternal torment at the hands of the cruel gods they had been foolish enough to worship in life. It was the way she had killed that repulsed her. She had once again lost control, once again broken her vow to herself, and once again paid for it in pain and self-loathing. Had she not been lost in scarlet abandon, she would not have taken the pistol ball in the leg, she would not have killed the girl, she would not now feel the crushing weight of guilt upon her shoulders.

She examined her gun wound. The ball had torn a ragged trench in her outer thigh, but had not remained. She didn’t have to dig lead out of flesh again – a small comfort. With a groan she rose to her feet. Her once-white shirt was red and wet from neck to waist. Her hands were sticky with blood, and her hair was stiff with it. She sighed and limped into the vaulted chamber as, on the cold wind that blew down the ramp, the faint notes of a violin laughed in the distance.

The freed girls huddled in a terrified clump and backed away as she approached, looking more afraid of her than they had been of their captors. She didn’t blame them.

‘What are you waiting for?’ she snarled as she passed them. ‘Go! Run!’

They ran, stumbling up the ramp as she crossed to the leader of the ceremony, who lay panting and limp in the circle, his hand still spiked to the ground. At least she’d had the forethought to put him aside before her madness had consumed her. She could still question him.

He raised his hooded head as she approached, then struggled, only to shriek as he tugged on his pinned hand. ‘Lord of Pleasure protect me!’ he wailed. ‘You are impossible. You can’t–’

She knelt on his chest, cutting off his babble, then tore off his hood and veil. He was surprisingly ordinary – a balding, middle-aged man with the look of a prosperous shopkeeper. He stared up at her with wide eyes, sweating and grey with fear.

‘Who are you?’ he whimpered. ‘What do you want?’

‘Tell me of your mistress,’ she said. ‘She who means to claim Praag for her own. Who is she? What is this awakening you spoke of?’

The man shook his head. ‘I will not speak. There is nothing you can do that will make me betray the cause.’

Ulrika smiled. ‘Is that a challenge?’ She pinned his free hand with her other knee, then caught up the hammer and another spike.

‘No!’ the man cried. ‘No, no, please!’

‘Then tell me,’ she said.

‘I cannot!’ he wailed. ‘I dare not!’

Ulrika put the spike to his wrist, and raised the hammer. The man shut his eyes, but kept his mouth clamped shut. She hesitated, but though he continued to cringe, he still said nothing. She cursed under her breath. He was willing to take the pain. He might be willing to die from it before he talked. She had no compunction against torture, if it worked, but the man seemed a true fanatic. Even in fear and pain he would not talk.

The twitch of the vein in his neck as he turned his head away drew her eye. Perhaps there was another way.

She put down the hammer and spike and stroked his throat. He blinked at the unexpected contact, and turned white-rimmed eyes to stare at her.

‘What are you doing?’ he bleated.

‘I have been cruel to you,’ she murmured, bending low over him. ‘I have given you great pain, and I am sorry for it. Now I will sooth you.’

He shrieked as she opened her mouth and extended her fangs. ‘No! What are you? Stop!’

She lowered her lips to his neck and bit into his flesh as gently as if she were kissing an infant. He spasmed and thrashed, but then, as she began to suck at the vein he froze like a rabbit, and after a minute, relaxed with a sigh. She had been afraid his blood would be tainted like that of the Norse marauder she had blooded during the attack on the caravan, but the cultist was apparently not so far gone as that. His blood tasted like any other man’s. She closed her eyes as the sweet salt savour of it poured down her throat and filled her with soothing warmth, but she could not lose herself. She could not feed for the enjoyment of it. She took another pull, then drew away, licking her lips.

This time when he looked up at her, his eyes were heavy-lidded with desire. He reached his free hand up to her. It shook.

‘Again,’ he said. ‘Again.’

‘Answer me first,’ she said. ‘Your mistress?’

‘I cannot,’ he whined. ‘I will never betray her.‘

Her lips drifted back to his neck, brushing it lightly. She licked at the blood that welled from the wound. ‘Never?’