Blood Heir

13

The mercenary charged, dual daggers glinting like the eyes of a demon through the heavy rain. Ramson parried the blow head-on, grunting as he narrowly dodged the swipe of the second dagger. He twirled and slashed out. The tip of his sword swerved in a graceful arc—but nowhere close to the mercenary.

His opponent pounced again, twin blades unrelenting. Metal clanged as Ramson blocked one dagger. This time, the second bit him in a vicious slash across his forearm.

Grimacing, he pivoted out of the way, backing up as far as he could without drawing the man closer to the witch. Blood dripped from the wound in his arm, mingling with the rain. Shit, he thought, readjusting his slippery grip and shaking his head to clear the dizziness from Igor’s blow earlier. Shit. His opponent was taller and stronger.

And Ramson was rusty.

Think, he told himself desperately. He needed to buy time.

His enemy lunged. Ramson met the twin blades with a blow of his own, slashing downward. Metal screeched. He twisted his blade sharply, using a technique he’d learned from his swordmaster, momentarily locking the two daggers together. The bounty hunter looked up at him and bared his teeth.

“Just a reminder,” Ramson called over their entangled blades. “Lord Kerlan probably wants me in one piece, right?”

“I’ll bring you in one piece,” the mercenary snarled. “After I cut you up and stitch you back together again.”

It wasn’t a confirmation, but it was just as much: Kerlan was hunting him. Though Ramson would, ironically, bet his life that Kerlan wanted him back alive. If Kerlan wanted you dead, you’d wake with a dagger against your neck and your throat slit before you could even scream.

Most people, anyway. There was a reason Ramson had been Kerlan’s Deputy.

As long as Kerlan still wanted him alive, Ramson had a bargaining chip.

With a grunt, Ramson turned and twisted his blade free, pivoting full circle so that he was several paces back, sword raised. “No need to be so angry over your dead partner. With him gone, you’ll now have twice the reward.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about him.” The mercenary raised a dagger, pointing over Ramson’s shoulder. “Once I take care of you, I’ll make that witch feel living hell before she dies.”

Ramson’s blood turned stone-cold. He knew these types of men: cutthroats who’d known nothing but violence their entire lives. To Ramson, violence was a means to an end. To these men, violence had no end.

You could run, a voice inside him urged. Leave the girl to him and take the chance to escape.

He’d kill her. Do worse things to her.

You don’t care, the voice insisted. You made the mistake of caring before. And they ended up dead anyway.

Logic urged him that escape was the best course of action. Calculation told him that the mercenary was taller and stronger, and that his own odds of winning were narrower than a new moon.

Yet something more powerful than logic and more compelling than calculation roared in his veins as he angled his blade at the mercenary. Ramson dug his heels into the ground. “She’s mine,” he snarled. “And I don’t share.”

With a growl, his enemy rushed forward. Ramson darted back, dodging each whip-fast slash of the two alternating blades. Swerve, duck, twirl, parry, as though he were in a deadly dance, his moves light and fluid. The lessons of his youth were coming back to him and he felt as though he had been transported to another time and place, when his swordsmaster was bearing down on him beneath the brilliant blue of a Bregonian sky.

As fluid as the river, as strong as the sea.

This was just another lesson; just another dance.

Ramson leapt out of the way as the mercenary’s blades slashed at him, so fast that they were a silver-gray blur in the rain. Blow after blow, the mercenary bore down, his slashes growing faster and stronger. Ramson dodged. Face, throat, chest, legs—back and back, the song of their blades rising to a crescendo.

Ramson feinted left; his opponent lunged.

Ramson slashed right; his opponent dodged.

Bit by bit, Ramson’s exhaustion began to show. His limbs ached. Soon his weakness would cost him.

Ramson leapt back as the mercenary swung his blades down, but he felt the sharp sting of metal across his chest. Blood warmed his clothes. He barely had enough time to glance up when the mercenary’s fist collided with his face.

Pain exploded in his jaw. Black spots filled his vision and the world spun as he reeled off balance. He plunged backward into cold, wet mud.

Gasping, he rolled to his side, reaching for his sword.

A dark shape burst from the curtain of rain, and the mercenary was on him, landing one, two, three vicious punches in his abdomen. Ramson retched; stars erupted before him.

A flash of metal. Kneeling atop Ramson, the mercenary drove his blade down.

Ramson’s hands flew up. His arms screamed; his legs felt like cotton; his head was light from the breaths that he could not draw.

A savage grin split the mercenary’s face as he threw his body weight into pushing the dagger down, its steely edge glinting like a wicked promise. The man was going to sink the blade into Ramson’s heart. Slowly.

I’m going to die.

The tip of the dagger pressed into his rib cage, drawing blood. A strangled yell tore from Ramson’s throat as he gave one final push—

And suddenly, the pressure on his chest and on his arms was gone. The mercenary’s head flew back sharply, throat exposed. For a moment, he was frozen, outline rigid in the rain as though he was grappling with an invisible force. And then he toppled into the mud.

Ramson scrambled into a crouch. Even as he stumbled away, the mercenary began to rise.

But it was the figure ten paces behind the mercenary, barely an outline in the falling rain, that caught Ramson’s attention.

The witch was on her hands and knees, the crimson in her eyes receding as they shifted away from the mercenary. Blood dripped from her nose and mouth. For a moment, their gazes met. And then she collapsed.

Ramson had heard of Affinites surpassing their limits. Affinities drew energy from their bodies, and overexertion could lead to unconsciousness or, in the rarest of cases, death.

For a split second, staring at the witch’s still frame, he wondered whether she’d died, and how he would feel about that. She was a Trade and a valuable asset, so that would be a loss… but there was something more tugging at his conscience.

She’d saved him—again. For the second time, he owed the witch a blood debt.

Long ago, his father—the demon who called himself his father—had taught him the meaning of blood debts, of honor, and of courage. Ramson had made himself forget almost all memories of that man. But today, with the rain roaring all around him, phantom shapes rose from the ground, whispering to him in his father’s words.

Lightning flashed, outlining the mercenary’s towering form amid the slashing rain. His sword gleamed wet as he turned to Ana’s crumpled form.

Ramson’s head spun. The ground blurred, weaving in and out of focus.

Move. Ramson gouged his nails into the mud, struggling to regain control of his muscles. Something rough and hard dug into his palm. He lifted his hand. Half-buried in the muddy water beneath him was the coarse, wet rope that he’d easily shimmied out of while the mercenaries had been distracted by Ana.

Ramson’s hands closed around the rope, thick as a vessel’s anchor line.

Sudden inspiration struck.

He was weakened and exhausted, with no leverage over this mercenary in a sword fight. Yet outside of swordplay, Ramson did have one advantage.

Before he’d become a Cyrilian crime lord, Ramson had been a sailor. A blue-blooded Bregonian sailor.

He stood, gripping his sword and stretching the long coil of rope between his hands. Within a few seconds, his sailor’s hands had worked the end into a bowline with a loop large enough to fit a man’s head. As fluid as the river, he thought.

The rain fell so thickly now, it was difficult to see past a dozen paces. The roar of the deluge blocked out any other sound. He was on a ship again, in the middle of a storm, navigating with nothing but a broken compass and that boy with the thin, sharp voice by his side.

Ramson clenched his lasso, his muscles coiled tighter than a spring. “Hey, horseface!” he yelled. “Find your balls and take on someone your own size, won’t you?”

The mercenary turned. A snarl split his ugly face as he palmed his daggers. “I’ll snap you like a stick,” he growled, and hurtled toward him.

Ramson leapt back. In an extension of the same motion, he whipped out the length of rope, lashing it at his enemy. The motion was smooth, familiar. He’d done it a thousand times in a life long past.

The rope met its mark. Like a living thing, it whipped around the mercenary’s neck.

Ramson threw his weight backward and pulled, sharply and with all his strength. The mercenary stumbled off balance, his legs tangling as he fell to the ground. His fingers scrabbled at the noose around his neck.

Ramson leaped forward, the hilt of his dagger slick but firm in his hands. He plunged it through skin and sinew and flesh, and slashed upward.

The mercenary jerked, and with a few more twitches, his struggles ceased. Blood gushed, quietly pooling around him.

Ramson sank to his knees. The rain fell steadily, already washing away the blood on his hands. He drew a deep breath, trying to still the frantic galloping of his heart and his shaking limbs.

He’d been careless; he’d almost died. Perhaps prison had made him slower, softer. He couldn’t afford that again, because next time, the witch might not be there to help him.

He was cold and drenched and injured, and he would have willingly handed over half the goldleaves in his possession for a soft bed, a warm fire, and a good bottle of Bregonian brandy right then. But he needed to move—quickly. There was no telling whether the mercenaries had allies close by.

Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet.

The witch lay motionless by the trunk of a tree, but it wasn’t her he looked at. Ramson paused at the body of the first mercenary. The man’s mouth was open, his face frozen in a silent scream, his skin oddly colorless, as though the blood had been drained from it.

And it had, Ramson realized with sickening dread. The rainwater pooling around the body bled into crimson, the color seeping into the mud.

He’d heard a tale once: a terrible haunting that had occurred ten years back with an Affinite. The bodies, twisted like a grotesque piece of artwork. The looks of terror on the victims’ faces. The lack of puncture wounds. And the blood, all the blood…

They’d called her the Blood Witch of Salskoff—a story a decade old, at this point, the culprit having vanished to never be seen again. Some had taken it as a sign that Affinites were growing more powerful, that darker powers graced these monsters sculpted by the hands of demons.

Ramson had thought it all a pile of waffles. But that hadn’t stopped him from keeping his eye out for the powerful Affinite who had become that myth.

He’d simply never thought she’d come looking for him.

A cough snatched his attention. He hurried to the witch. Blood dripped from her nose. She was shivering, but she was conscious.

“Are you all right?” He touched a finger to her cheek; her skin was colder than ice. For the second time since they’d met, he examined her, running his gaze over her elegant cheekbones, the heart-shaped face and sharp chin that rendered her beautiful yet feral in appearance. She was young, too young, to be the Blood Witch of Salskoff—yet as he reached forward and tipped her face up, he caught the fading red hue of her eyes.

Something stirred in his memory again—she looked faintly familiar, like a portrait he’d come across many years ago that had left a single, deep impression. But that was impossible.

Ramson let his hand drop. “How did you find me?”

“The Gray Bear’s Keep. The bartender.”

“He told you?” She nodded. Ramson cursed. “We have to move. He’ll send men after us. Can you stand?”

She tilted her head in a motion that might have been a nod or a shake. “I took a horse.” Her voice was barely a whisper, and she nodded toward the trees behind her. “That way.”

The mercenaries’ horses had fled, which left them with a single steed—the one Ana had stolen. With a resigned sigh, he straightened and went in search of the horse.

Finding the beast was hell itself, with the rain-turned-sleet reducing his vision, and his boots squelching through mud with every step. When he did see its pale outline, he almost laughed.

“A valkryf?” he asked when he led the horse back. “Igor must be cursing the Deities that you took the most valuable living creature in his tavern.” The witch was curled against the tree in the same position as he’d left her. When she didn’t respond, he dropped the reins and knelt by her, lifting her chin and forcing her face toward his. “Witch?” he breathed. “Ana?”

Her eyelashes fluttered. Ramson cursed. She was going to pass out again—and that would make it hugely inconvenient for him to hoist her onto the horse. “Ana,” he said urgently, shaking her shoulder. “I need you to stay awake for a little while longer. Can you do that?”

Her head dipped in the faintest of nods.

He stood and suddenly realized what was wrong. The absence of curious ocean-colored eyes. “Where’s May?”

Ana’s face had been drawn and tired previously, but a steely spark had shown in her eyes. At the mention of May, though, whatever remaining resolve in her seemed to dissolve. Ana’s face crumpled, and such raw sorrow and vulnerability crossed her features that Ramson looked away. It felt as though he was gazing at something intensely private.

A sob gurgled from her throat. “They took her.” Her shoulders drooped and she wrapped her shaking arms around herself. “The Whitecloaks. I couldn’t… I couldn’t—”

“We’ll get her back.” He grasped the first comforting phrase that came to mind, and it was the first that wasn’t intentionally a lie. “But right now, we need to move. Can you stand?”

She stirred weakly. Blood continued to drip from her nose.

Ignoring the shaking in his own limbs, Ramson bent down, wrapped an arm around her waist, and hoisted her to her feet.

They staggered unevenly to Ana’s horse. It stood silently in the downpour with the quintessential patience of a valkryf.

Grunting, Ramson heaved the witch—Ana—onto the saddle. Keeping his hand on her back to steady her, he swung himself up behind her. As he took the reins in his hands, he felt a renewed sense of power surge through him despite the battered state of his body. He was alive, with a powerful Affinite beside him, riding a valkryf to shelter. Things had improved significantly since his kidnapping.

Ana shifted, reaching for something in front of her. With what seemed like tremendous effort, she lifted a large leather pouch for him to see. “I took this from the bartender,” she croaked. “Since I won you from the bounty hunters, I suppose it belongs to me now.”

Ramson stared at the bulging pouch of goldleaves in her hands, a laugh caught in his throat. For once, he had no interest in the gold. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, so many words at the tip of his tongue. Thank you for coming after me. Thank you for fighting for me. Thank you for saving my life.

But Ramson couldn’t bring himself to utter any of those. Instead, he gave a raspy chuckle, tapped the pouch, and said, “I’ve taught you well.”