Bloodforged (26 page)

As the chorused voices of the cultists crescendoed, Crook-back stretched out his arms and turned the bottle upside down over the girl. She shrieked and bucked as if she had been stabbed, and then, to Ulrika’s horror, her torso began to lift off the ground like a tent in a high wind. Unfortunately, also like a tent, she was pegged at four corners, and though her body rose, the spikes tore cruelly at her hands and feet.

Ulrika growled and stepped forwards, her hand dropping to the hilt of her rapier, but Raiza caught her arm.

‘We are here to discover their leaders,’ she said, ‘not interfere.’

‘But they’re killing her!’ Ulrika whispered.

Raiza only looked at her. ‘You are far too human,’ she said.

Ulrika jerked away from her. ‘And you are far too cold!’ She started forwards again. Behind her, the swordswoman half-drew her sabre.

‘Will your vow to the boyarina break at the first testing?’

Ulrika stopped, her fists clenched. Had Raiza only threatened violence, she might still have gone forwards, but a vow made was stronger than steel, and cut deeper when broken. She cursed and stepped back, her jaw clenched.

‘It will not break,’ she said.

Raiza nodded and sheathed her sword. They returned their attention to the ceremony.

The crook-backed cultist was lowering the bottle towards the wailing girl as his followers shrieked their chant, and the unnatural updraft that lifted the victim off the ground was growing stronger, threatening to rip her hands and feet from the spikes. A strange white glow was pulling out of her body, stretching and fighting like a snail being pulled from its shell.

Then, so suddenly Ulrika almost missed it, the bottle jerked down of its own accord, tearing from the leader’s hands, and the open mouth of it struck the girl square on the sternum with a crack like a pistol shot, then stuck there. The girl screamed, a high bloodcurdling shriek, and the white glow ripped free of her body and was sucked into the bottle.

With a cry of triumph, the bent cultist corked it and held it high between his two hands as the staked girl flopped to the ground, dead and shrunken. The cultists cheered, basking in the white glow that pulsed inside the bottle.

Ulrika turned away, shaking, her mind flashing back to the girl she had found in the cellar in the ruins. There had been a bruised purple circle on her breast she had not known the cause of. Now she did.

‘They must all die,’ she said.

From below came a ringing voice. ‘Seven souls tonight, devoted!’

Ulrika looked back. It was the crook-backed cultist, speaking as he slipped the glowing bottle into a leather sack that already contained a handful of others.

‘Seven souls nearer to the hour of awakening,’ he continued. ‘The hour when all your dreams will be fulfilled. And tomorrow night, the last great hurdle to victory shall be cleared. The master’s most trusted acolytes will steal the Viol of Fieromonte from its hiding place, and the fall of Praag will be assured! All hail the master and the coming of the queen!’

Raiza inclined her head towards the crooked man as the cultists repeated the invocation.

‘We follow him,’ she said.

Ulrika nodded.

Crook-back held up his hands for silence. ‘But,’ he said, dropping to an ominous whisper, ‘we humble ones still have much to do to prepare for her coming, and we are beset by dangers on all sides. Only last night, our brothers in the Novygrad were attacked by a fiend who deprived us of a score of souls. What its intent was, none can say, but we cannot allow it to prevail.’

Ulrika smiled as the cultists muttered anxiously. She was tempted to reveal herself just to watch them flee in terror.

The crooked man thrust out a hand. ‘But do not fear, friends,’ he cried. ‘The master protects us all. Not even the undying can stand before him. Still, you must be vigilant, and report any stirrings in the shadows so he may deal with them. Have I your word on it?’

The cultists murmured their assent.

‘Very good.’ He turned and looked at them all in turn. ‘Now, hear me. Those lost sacrifices must be made up. We have many bottles yet to fill, and only days to do it. I call upon you to redouble your efforts. There are girls everywhere in this city. Reap them in the name of the master and for the glory of the queen.’

‘All hail the master!’ intoned the crowd. ‘All praise the coming of the queen!’

Ulrika growled under her breath. More dead girls. She would not allow it.

‘Bring these chosen at the appointed time,’ said the crook-backed man. ‘You will be informed of the next meeting place in the usual way. Now, go. Be vigilant and fruitful, and may the blessings of the Lord of Desire inspire you!’

‘We shall do the will of the Lord of Desire,’ murmured the crowd, bowing low, then turned away from the circle and started filtering towards the various exits.

Ulrika and Raiza paid them no mind. They focused entirely on the bent cultist, watching as he slung the sack of bottled souls over his hunched shoulder and started towards the temple door. Two hulking cultists fell in behind him, then stepped out the door to check the street. When they gave the all-clear, he started forwards again, then paused on the threshold and waved his hand.

A tension Ulrika hadn’t realised was pressing at her chest and eardrums suddenly released, and the air seemed to thin.

‘He has lowered the wards,’ said Raiza, then turned. ‘Now to the rooftops.’

Ulrika followed her to the office window and stepped up onto the sill. The walls above it were not smooth like those below. Crumbling brick and decorative pilasters made easy handholds. Ulrika expanded her senses as they climbed, searching for the man who had been watching from above, but his heart-fire was descending through the building, and the roof was empty when Ulrika and Raiza pulled themselves onto it.

They padded quickly to the other edge and looked down. The crook-backed cultist and his guards were leading three horses from a ruined building opposite the temple. The crooked man slung his pack over the saddlebow and they mounted and started off west towards the river.

Ulrika and Raiza loped after them, leaping from roof to roof with the Sorcerers’ Spire silhouetted in the distance by the two moons that rose behind it. Ulrika smiled as she ran and the night wind kissed her face. The bliss of unfettered movement, of having the grace she had once only dreamed of, filled her, and she nearly forgot why they followed the men, only revelled in the doing of it. She shot a look at Raiza as she ran beside her. The swordswoman’s face was as grim and emotionless as ever. Ulrika’s smile faded. Was this what awaited her down the road of her eternity – the loss of all joy? Would she too someday become as cold and unfeeling as a machine?

The cultist and his guards veered their horses into a northbound street. Raiza and Ulrika changed course to follow, but as they leapt a narrow alley, Ulrika saw something moving out of the corner of her eye and turned her head. A figure in cultist’s robes was bounding after them over the roofs, moving as swiftly as they were, and hurled something in Raiza’s direction.

‘Look out!’ Ulrika cried.

Her words had the wrong effect. The swordswoman slowed and turned to see what was the matter, and ended up directly in the path of the spinning object. Ulrika thrust out a desperate hand and shoved her, sending her windmilling aside, and the thing struck Raiza’s wrist instead of her heart. It was a dagger-sized shard of onyx.

Raiza shrieked in a voice Ulrika would not have expected to come from her, and crashed to the roof, clutching at her arm.

‘So fall all who seek our destruction!’ screeched the cultist, then turned and ran away across the roofs.

Ulrika sprang instinctively after him, snarling and drawing her sword, but to her shock, he increased the distance between them. It was impossible a normal man could be so fast and strong. His leaps were longer and stronger than hers. He was getting away!

‘Face me, coward!’ she cried, but he did not slow.

She sprinted gamely after him as he pulled ahead of her, sailing over streets and clearing chimneys with feet to spare, but then he disappeared over a high, steep-roofed tenement, and when she reached the peak and looked around, he was gone. She ran to each of the edges, looking down into the streets and alleys and extending her senses to search for his heart-fire, but she couldn’t feel it. He was already out of range.

With a curse, Ulrika turned and ran back the way she had come, retracing her steps as a giddy violin played a wild tune somewhere far in the distance, barely audible over the sounds of the city.

‘I lost him,’ she said as she leapt onto the roof where she had left Raiza.

The swordswoman didn’t look up. She was slumped against a chimney with her sleeve pushed back to reveal her left wrist, and she was staring at it. Ulrika stared too, her heart constricting. Raiza’s hand and forearm were withered and shrunken. The muscle that should have covered her bones was nearly gone, and her skin hung loose from them like wet tissue. She could hardly contract her fingers.

‘Ursun’s teeth!’ said Ulrika. ‘What happened?’

‘Only a scratch,’ Raiza whispered dully. ‘Only a scratch…’

She trailed away and looked at the onyx shard that lay beside her. Ulrika swallowed. The thing had been black before, she was sure of it. Now it pulsed red at its core.

‘What is it?’ she asked, kneeling.

Raiza shook her head. ‘I know not. But it is worse than silver. It… it took a part of me – part of my essence. Had it struck my heart–’ She shuddered and looked up at Ulrika. ‘You saved my life. I will not forget.’

Ulrika reached out to help her up. ‘Come. I will see you home.’

Raiza accepted her arm and stood, but shook her head. ‘I will return on my own. Go after the hunchback. Follow him to their destination if you can. We must win something from this night.’ She stooped and picked up the sharp shard of onyx with her right hand. She moved like an old woman. ‘I will speak to the boyarina of this cult.’ She glanced at her withered wrist. ‘I believe I can convince her now of its danger. Now hurry.’

Ulrika saluted. ‘I’ll find him,’ she said, then turned and leapt to the next roof.

But she didn’t find the crook-backed man. In the time it had taken her to chase the assassin and return to Raiza, he and his men had vanished. She searched all the neighbouring streets and alleys from the rooftops, then dropped down to the ground and tried to follow them by scent. For a few blocks that worked, but then the trail led to the Grand Parade and was drowned in the smells of all the other horses, carts and people who had passed and were still passing along it.

She considered for a moment returning to Evgena immediately to tell her she had lost the men, but she was reluctant to face the chastisement – particularly if it influenced the boyarina’s decision about whether to fight the cult. Besides, she had promised to meet Stefan at the Blue Jug to tell him how things had gone, and it was getting late. Maybe he would have news of the cult – something she could bring to Evgena tomorrow night.

She shook her head as she trotted past the Sorcerers’ Spire towards the Academy District. She had left Nuln for Praag because she hadn’t wanted to serve any master, and somehow she had ended up, not three days after arriving, beholden to two. How had it happened?

The Blue Jug was shuttered for the night when she reached it, but Stefan was still there, waiting in the shadowed doorway.

‘So, the sisters didn’t kill you,’ he said, raising his head as she approached.

‘No,’ she said. ‘They listened, and agreed to help. We spent the night trailing the cultists then… lost them again.’

‘Tell me,’ he said, then stepped out and beckoned her to walk with him.

Ulrika paced alongside him, telling him about meeting Evgena and agreeing to take her pledge as they walked through the district’s deserted streets. He gave her a sharp look when she told him of drinking the mixed blood from the golden bowl.

‘It would have been wiser of you not to have done that.’

‘I feared as much,’ said Ulrika. ‘But she told me it would not make me her slave. My mind would still be my own. Did she lie?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But neither did she tell you the whole truth. You still have your own will. You could still betray her if you wished, but she will know it when she looks at you. She will be able to read your emotions, no matter how hard you try to hide them.’

A knot of unease twisted Ulrika’s guts. As much as she disliked the vow, and how Evgena had cornered her into taking it, she had no intention of harming her. Indeed, she was trying to help her, trying to save her city from the cult, but at the same time, she had already begun to think about finding a way to escape her service sometime in the future. Would that count as betrayal? Would Evgena see it in her eyes, or did she know it already?

She put that aside and continued her story, telling Stefan about going with Raiza to spy on Romo Yeshenko and his wife at the meeting of the cult. He listened without comment until she told him of the cultist with the black onyx dagger. Then he turned to her, his grey eyes glittering and hard.

‘What did this knife look like?’ he asked. ‘Describe it!’

Ulrika blinked at his vehemence. ‘It – it was hardly a knife,’ she said. ‘It was nothing but a length of onyx, jagged and black. Only, when it struck Raiza’s arm, it withered it horribly, and afterwards seemed to glow red from within.’