A VILLAGE DEFENSE

All things considered, Remy was still in good shape by the time night swooped in: fingers and toes in working order, nothing hurting that he wouldn’t survive from.

Malekh hadn’t held back. Remy had enjoyed it. The man made for good practice; he was faster than anyone Remy had ever faced, and his one consolation was that he’d kept Malekh from beating him too badly, even if he couldn’t mount any real offensive. The noble hadn’t been impressed, merely goaded him to hit harder. Likely the bastard would stake himself rather than give Remy any satisfaction.

Malekh had said nothing else about his proposal. As if he’d never had Remy trapped for the second time in two weeks, mouth hot against his throat. Remy rubbed at his neck and flushed. The asshole had used his tongue, for fuck’s sake. The man probably went about fucking anything with two legs and a pulse just for the sport of it. The absence of the latter might not even be a dealbreaker.

Remy supposed Xiaodan was aware of her fiancé’s proclivities—that she would choose to stay with him beggared all belief. She deserved better.

No. No, she didn’t. Malekh might be a shitsack, but he loved Xiaodan.

He’d kept quiet after Xiaodan had woken. Even after she’d narrowed her eyes at them both and demanded a look at his bruises. After a cursory inspection of his injuries and some more grumbling, Xiaodan let it go.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Her breath left her in soft, quick pants, though no changes in her heartbeats suggested exhaustion. Her eyes were bright. Relief he was still in one piece, Remy thought.

“I’ll be fine. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

A quick, derisive snort from Malekh.

The conversation, thankfully, shifted to Zelenka. “We’ll have to keep guard over the village without them the wiser,” Xiaodan said. “They’ve relied solely on the fortification of their stakes and barricades, but that won’t stop stronger vampires from getting past them. Their bonfires are well-placed, but they’re not experienced fighters. Just one vampire getting through their defenses could do serious damage.”

“And what do you propose we do?” Zidan sat on the carriage perch beside Xiaodan with a hand over hers, and Remy had to quell the urge to shout at him for being such a fucking hypocrite, because only a few hours ago, the lord had his goddamn hands on him. Instead, he concentrated on his Breaker, on the loops he was making with it in the air above him.

“Best to stay here and keep watch, be on guard for any movement around Zelenka before the villagers themselves notice. They may not even stage an assault tonight, but something tells me otherwise.” Her nose twitched. “There’s something in the air. I can smell it.”

“The attack will likely come from the forests,” Malekh said thoughtfully. “I’ll move the helhests farther out. The fog’s thicker, and no one will notice them grazing there.”

Xiaodan hopped off the perch and turned to Remy as Malekh led Peanut and Cookie away. “You should still be resting,” she said severely.

“This helps calm me.”

“It looks exhausting.”

“I’m used to it. This was the first thing I learned to do from my father. Said that if I didn’t get used to the weight early on, I’d never be able to use it the way it ought to be used.”

“Are you hoping to ease your mind for what’s ahead, or is this because of Zidan?”

Remy stopped so abruptly that his knifechain swung without his guidance, and he just managed to deflect the blade before it could stab him in the hand. “What?”

“I could smell him on you.” Xiaodan’s gray eyes were gleaming again. “Stronger than he should be. I was worried about your sparring practice with him, but now I’m glad for… other reasons.”

“You’re not angry?”

“No. I… Zidan and I talked. It’s more complicated than you think.”

A million questions raced through Remy’s mind, chief among them being What the fuck? and Do I really want to know and get myself involved?, though his mind stopped short of answering the latter.

Xiaodan had ducked her head slightly. Her breathing had grown rapid, her eyes taking on a slightly glazed look.

“Are you all right, Xiaodan?”

Her head snapped up. “No! I mean, yes. If Zidan bothers you again, please let me know immediately. I’ll speak to him.”

The idea of looking weak to Malekh by having Xiaodan talk to him in Remy’s stead was unforgivable. “There’s no need for you to intervene. He can do whatever the hell he wants. I can take it.”

“Oh,” Xiaodan said, somewhat faintly. “Oh.”

They had a quick dinner—or rather, Remy had dinner while Xiaodan and Malekh refrained from pawing at each other again, much to his relief—then waited some more. They talked very little. Both his vampire companions meditated quietly while Remy cleaned Breaker’s blades, scoured it with a new whetstone, and wallowed in his thoughts. Whatever faith both nobles had placed in Eugenie’s sources, he hoped the trader was right.

It was Xiaodan who spotted the first of the attackers. She hissed something low under her breath, then was simply no longer where she’d been sitting. Malekh had risen to his feet, looking grim. “Ready yourself, Pendergast,” he said. “It’s worse than we thought.”

Despite their numbers, the pack of undead had drawn far too close to the village for comfort and avoided detection from those standing guard. The gates were closed, but three villagers were standing within the dubious safety of the fires’ light, each armed with a sword and a burning torch. That was their first mistake, Remy knew—it marked them as targets at a height that was an easy leap for most vampires. Remy could make out a shadow as it bypassed the stakes and barricades the villagers had worked hard on and leaped for one of the unsuspecting men stationed by the gates.

Xiaodan was quicker. She snatched the vampire out of the air, throwing him down with such force that one of the barricades splintered where they landed. The kindred gurgled; one of the sharp poles had been driven into his chest, keeping him stuck as he flailed, gasping in pain.

Shouts of alarm sounded from within the village. Remy could see more people gathering atop the gates, aiming crossbows.

The attacking vampires abandoned all attempts at silence. With loud, whooping howls, they slammed into the wooden gates. Several more turned to Xiaodan, who stood at the center of the field with her arms crossed, glaring at the incoming mob like that would be sufficient for them to leave. The ones unlucky enough to take her up on the challenge were immediately disemboweled, as Xiaodan blurred from one opponent to the next, using nothing but her hands to tear them into shreds like their bodies were paper.

The vampires aiming for the village entrance had Malekh to contend with. The noble drew out his saber, its curved blade gleaming in the dim light, and waited. He gave no ground, even as the coven converged on him, and lashed out, cutting all within reach. There was a poetry to his motions, his weapon flashing like beats to a rhythm, as kindred fell before him.

There were far more vampires than Remy had expected. Xiaodan and Malekh together had taken down perhaps a dozen and a half, but there were just as many now racing toward Zelenka’s gates, and still more pouring out from the nearby woods. He found a position of his own somewhere in between his two companions and sent Breaker’s knifechain spinning in an arc above his head. As the vampire mob neared, he increased its arc, creating a zone where his blade could cut indiscriminately, spraying blood and other entrails all as black as the surrounding darkness while it sliced through bodies.

There was a scream from somewhere behind him. Two vampires had gotten through the barricade, and the villagers on top of the wall were in a panic, flailing uselessly with their pitchforks. Remy took down the nearest mutations around him, then made a running leap for the wall, still swinging his chain. The links wrapped around one of the vampire’s legs, and a hard yank sent it falling back to the ground. The other lunged for him, and Remy braced himself, only for the monster to be abruptly cleaved in two in midair. Malekh blurred briefly into view—fucking show-off—gutted a third mutation, and blurred back out again.

The vampires around Malekh and Xiaodan seemed faster, more inclined to strike. This second wave visibly hesitated as they approached him, and it made all his work that much easier. Remy dealt quickly with the monster he’d dragged down from the wall, sliced through another vampire, skewered several more.

There was a loud thud as something heavy hit the ground beside him. It was an arrow, stuck into the dirt, and Remy swore aloud. The villagers were firing into the pack, uncaring who they hit. He altered the knifechain’s trajectory at an angle so it could swing in a circle over his head, warding off any other projectiles he might not see in the gloom, but leaving him open to the vampires’ attacks. He angled Breaker downward so that his twin scythes were at waist level and, when something tried to come at him from behind, sidestepped the swipe and used his blades to cut the vampire in two from the groin up. He spun around to feint at another, all while keeping the knifechain whirring above.

Xiaodan was relentless, flowing from one vampire to the next and decimating them all effortlessly, her nails already on the next target before her previous victim’s body had finished sliding to the ground. Malekh was all arms and blade, never relinquishing ground, even in the face of the swarm. The Fourth Court vampiress was too quick for any of the arrows from Zelenka to score a hit, but several found their way to the Third Court king, who, without glancing their way, reached out toward the sky with his other hand to snatch the projectiles out of midair, occasionally using one to stab a vampire within range.

Most of the creatures converged on Malekh. Remy rushed to his side, eviscerating the nearest two as the pack started to close in. The vampire lord said nothing, merely inclined his head in acknowledgment as they stood back-to-back, fighting through the pack.

The horde thinned out soon enough, until only a handful were left; Xiaodan made quick work of the remaining undead until only the three of them remained standing in a sea of mutilated torsos, heads, and limbs.

Panting, Remy surveyed the carnage around them and held back a quick shudder of revulsion. If this was the same army of vampires that had swept through Brushfen only a couple of nights before, it was no surprise they’d been able to annihilate the village in only a few hours.

But the size of this particular nest was troubling enough on its own. Neither Astonbury nor Queen Ophelia had had an inkling of any active vampire packs within Aluria of this size. Giselle was wily enough to take a sample of nearly every document that passed through her husband’s desk, and this would have been a priority. Aluria was already compromised if this many vampires were hidden within its territories.

He glanced down at the nearest corpse that he’d butchered and frowned. The vampire’s clothes were in tatters, but not from Breaker. Its clothes were streaked through with dried, rather than recent, blood. They were similar in fashion to those he would have assumed traveling merchants wore, or of villagers when they—

Shock gripped him, then horror. These were the villagers. The ones missing from Brushfen. Why so many bodies were unaccounted for.

He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Malekh responded quietly, “There’s nothing you can do for them, Pendergast,” in a way that made Remy suspect he’d already known. “The blood pooling the grass beneath them does not run red. They’ve been infected by the Rot and are in its very early stages.”

Blue-black blood, just like the other mutations. “All of them? Are you saying they might rise again like at Elouve?”

Malekh grabbed him by the shoulders without warning. Startled, Remy attempted to shove him away.

“Stop struggling, Pendergast. I’m inspecting you.”

“Why—you’re looking to see if I’ve been infected?”

“How smart you are, Pendergast.” The sarcasm was strong in Malekh’s harsh voice, his abruptness. “What would I do without such insight?”

“I wasn’t bitten. You have no need to be concerned—”

“But I do.” Malekh’s hand was on the side of Remy’s face again, turning it so he could continue with his examination. “I worked you too hard during our sparring. If there were any lapses in your fighting just now, then I am to blame, am I not?”

Remy didn’t know why the words hurt but knew why they angered him. “Quit the bloody act. Stop telling me that conversation didn’t mean anything, then turn around and pretend you’re worried for my sake.”

He tried to shove Malekh away. The lord caught his hand, turning it so his palm faced upward, and looked down at the shallow cut on Remy’s finger where the knifechain had nicked it, just a little. The lord raised his gaze up to meet his.

“You are an infuriating human who constantly tries my patience,” Malekh said, “but I’ve never pretended.”

And slowly, without breaking eye contact, the man pressed his fingers against the small wound, tongue briefly flicking out, and Remy’s breaths spilled out of him in soft, jittery waves.

“I am not invulnerable, but neither are you. You cannot be angry at me for putting myself in danger, then dismiss my concerns when you do the same.” Malekh pressed his finger against the tip one last time and let go. He was perfectly composed as ever as he walked over to Xiaodan. Remy, on the other hand, was trembling, staring down at his hand like he’d grown a third thumb.

Xiaodan gestured at the corpses. “If they had entered the village, they would’ve infected the people inside. This was a deliberate attack to spread the Rot. But this… this seems different from what Eugenie’s report said.”

“Yes,” Malekh agreed, frowning. “She said the attack on Brushfen was a coordinated feeding. This mob was comprised of fifteen or so vampires, and the rest their mutated victims. If they can control the mutations like weapons, then whoever’s in charge may know the secrets to the Rot’s creation.”

Xiaodan’s hands tightened on the hem of her qipao. “Those poor people. Were they all from Brushfen?”

“It would appear so. None of the ones I fought turned to ash, though that doesn’t prove much. We killed a few coven vampires as well, but I doubt that these were all of them.”

Forcing away the persistent memories of Malekh’s mouth against his skin, Remy risked a glance behind him. The villagers had ceased firing arrows when the number of infected had visibly decreased, but they were still milling about the gates, no doubt discussing what to do about the three of them. Remy saw a few raise their crossbows as if to resume firing where they’d left off, but noisy arguments broke out immediately, and the weapons were lowered again.

“Maybe we ought to discuss this somewhere else,” he said, still feeling nervous, exhilarated—and irritated that Malekh had so easily reverted back to his collected, dispassionate self. “I can’t dodge arrows as well as the two of you.”

A fresh ruckus erupted among the torch-wielding crowd. Remy’s ears were sharp enough to pick up the word “vampire” amid the shouts. He had a bad feeling. “I think we may have missed out on some of those undead, because it sounds like a few of them did manage to make their way inside the city.”

He was running toward the gates before the others could say another word, re-strapping Breaker to his back so that he was free to wave his arms, hoping the villagers would take it as a sign that he meant no harm.

“Let us in!” he hollered. “Open the gates! If there are any inside, then you have to fucking let us in!”

Some of the men stared blankly at him. Others raised their bows again.

“We’ve just beaten up corpses for all you absolute gits,” Remy yelled again, “and I’d really appreciate some fucking reciprocation!”

“Who’s to say you aren’t one of them, too?” someone yelled back.

“My name is Remington Pendergast! I’m a Reaper!”

“Are you constantly this loud?” Malekh had caught up to him. “We can simply leap over the walls, if gaining access to the village is what you’re concerned with.”

“Yes, but then we’ll have to fight through a mob of terrified villagers. It’s one thing to see you fighting on their behalf, and still another entirely to have you right in their midst, knowing you’re one of what they’re trying to keep out. They know what a Reaper is. It’s the kind of authority that they’re familiar with.”

The gates swung open.

“See?”

The men and women were still holding their crossbows aloft, but none of them seemed inclined to fire immediately at the three. “What’s happened?” Remy barked, trying to remember what his father had sounded like in his prime so he could mimic the thundering voice that resounded through the manor and sent him hiding as a youth.

“Got a vampire inside the mayor’s house,” one of the men said, looking about ready to shit his own pants at the thought. “We’ve got it surrounded, but we don’t know what’s happened to him and his family.”

Scared as they were, they kept pace with Remy as he ran, pointing him toward a crowd already gathered, the smell of smoke from the burning torches they held thick in the air.

“They’re as good as dead, Jona,” another man was arguing when they arrived. “The chances of the rest of us surviving are better if we set fire to the place.”

“You’d put his wife and daughters in danger all to save your skin, you coward?” another roared at him. “You can hear ’em screaming! They’re still alive in there!”

“Do not under any circumstances toss that bloody torch into the house,” Remy grated out, when it looked like the man was prepared to do so despite the opposition, “or I will personally see you hanged, black-throated, at the gallows.”

“And who the bloody hell are you?”

“Remington Pendergast, son of Edgar Pendergast, Duke of Valenbonne.” A faint ripple of gasps through the crowd—the Valenbonne name, fortunately, still held some power. “Let me inside.”

“You fool,” Malekh said. “There’s no telling what you’ll find.”

“Then you’d best follow me and see for yourself.”

But Xiaodan had already taken the initiative. A swift whirlwind of sleeves and silk, and the now open doorway leading into the house stood before them, the only indication she’d gone through. Malekh rushed past the crowd to enter; Remy sighed.

They followed the sounds of weeping into the drawing room, where a family sat huddled together—the mayor’s, he surmised. A man who was most certainly not of their kin was seated languidly on an armchair, one leg crossed over the other. The flames still burning from the fireplace cast a cheerful glow across his features, the whiteness of the scar on his cheek standing out, as did his flame-colored hair and the carved V on his forearm announcing his affiliation. He was grinning out his fangs, holding a glass of white wine loosely in one grip. The other was fastened around the throat of a terrified-looking man half-crouched, half-kneeling beside him.

“Took you long enough,” the stranger said.

“You’ve been busy,” Xiaodan said evenly. “We’ve heard stories of you running about, choosing villages ripe for the picking. Rather dishonorable, to be using the victims from your last raid to attack the next.”

“Not entirely my idea. I work with someone far cleverer than either of us, Lady Song. Someone who’s been itching for revenge for a very long time.” The man turned to regard Malekh next. “You don’t look like much,” he said dismissively. “I don’t even know what he saw in you.”

“Set the human down,” Malekh said, “and we’ll have all the time in the world to discuss what Vasilik did or didn’t see in me.”

The red-haired vampire appeared to consider it. “I’d like to keep him here a little longer,” he said. “There are three of you, you see, but this little bloodling gives me the advantage. Who knows? Perhaps I’ll get hungry during the negotiations.” His grip tightened, and the mayor whimpered. “Vasilik sent me here because he would like to strike a bargain with you.”

“This is a strange way to win my favors.”

“You are not in a position to make such demands,” the man snapped. “Vasilik knows the secrets of the blue-blooded plague spreading among the humans, and he knows it imperils your vaunted alliance with Aluria. Our terms are simple. Cede Chànggē Shuĭ and the Qing-ye territories over to him, and we will spare the bloodlings. The mutations will no longer be your concern.”

“He cannot cede Chànggē Shuĭ and Qing-ye,” Xiaodan said, eyes narrowing. “Song Yingyue owns Chànggē Shuĭ and its territories.”

“Your mother?” The vampire grinned. “Our coven grows every day, and the lands we occupy aren’t large enough to suit. You and your old bat of a queen own a crumbling fortress and lands far too vast for the two of you to eke out the rest of your existence in. The Fourth Court is a derelict of better times that shall never return, you spoiled brat. Qing-ye is wasted on the Songs.”

“You will have to pry my home out of both our cold, dead hands to take it, sir,” Xiaodan said with all the pleasant assurance of a mongoose about to take off a snake’s head. “If you sincerely believe we are so old and decrepit, then you would have had no trouble invading our lands without resorting to any of this. And yet you chose to drag innocent villages into your schemes. What good will Qing-ye even do you? It is the last place any vampire would want to set up court. The sun would kill you long before you reached Chànggē Shuĭ—”

And then her eyes widened. “I answered my own question, didn’t I? Your vaunted coven isn’t strong enough to take on the other courts, so you’ve decided to pick the one clan you consider the weakest among them.”

“That means you are already squatting on Qing-ye land,” Malekh said. “And Chànggē Shuĭ was the closest to conquer. It would explain why most of the attacks have stemmed from the east.”

The vampire was silent, eyes darting nervously from Malekh to Xiaodan.

“I’m right, then,” Malekh said with satisfaction.

“The Fourth Court has declined since, but Lord Vasilik respects the power that your mother once wielded, Song Xiaodan. He gives you the option to relinquish your position, to let your clan fade peacefully into obscurity without further bloodshed, and to turn your palace over to a stronger court with a greater destiny. Is that not the more honorable thing to do?”

“How about we start by releasing these people as a show of good faith,” Remy said. “Isn’t that the more honorable thing to do as well?”

The vampire fixed his dark gaze on him. “And you must be Lord Malekh’s newest toy,” he mocked. “A bloodling and a Reaper. Or is it a death wish on your part, Zidan, to fuck hunters?”

“Like hell he is,” Remy said, but no one paid him any attention.

“Perhaps Vasilik would know, since he made no complaints about it in the past,” Malekh responded, more at ease than Remy would have thought. “It seems to me that his tastes have deteriorated considerably since then.”

The vampire’s eyes flashed. “Vasilik loves me. He only used you to further his own ends. He would never have stayed so long with kindred so sickeningly attracted to these fragile humans. In a year your betrothed and her court will be as good as dust. We will rise up in their place as the new Fifth Court.”

“You will do no such thing,” Malekh said coldly. “Vasilik switched his allegiances to spite me. The Fifth Court is dead. If I must stamp it out again as I did the first time, then I will.”

“With a Fourth Court vampire nursing a sickly heart, and your Reaper toy? Your clanmates aren’t here, Malekh. You are alone and defenseless in Aluria, and I doubt Yingyue would rouse from her stupor to defend her own daughter, much less you and your human lover.”

“I would really fucking appreciate it if someone actually corrected him on that,” Remy said.

“If you believe us weak,” Malekh said, “you wouldn’t be clutching the human’s throat like it’s the only lifeline you have left. If he dies, so will you.”

“I am here because Vasilik is magnanimous enough to offer you what he could have taken by force.”

“No. You are here because you had expected to deliver another village into Vasilik’s hands. Not only have you failed, you’ve also lost part of your coven and the Brushfen villagers you turned with the Rot. Whatever falsehoods Vasilik has told you about me, I know him well enough. Vasilik never strikes a bargain unless trickery is involved. You are bargaining with us because he will kill you once he learns of this.”

“I—” The confident mask the vampire had been skillfully putting up finally slipped. “I—”

His grip on the mayor loosened, and Remy moved. His scythes swiped down, cutting off the vampire’s arm and sending both it and the dazed victim it was keeping hostage tumbling to the carpet. But the red-haired man reacted swiftly and seized Remy by the throat with his other hand, sending Breaker to the floor with a heavy crash.

“And is he expendable as well, Malekh?” the vampire asked triumphantly. “Would your precious alliance with the humans survive if they find one of their Reapers dead and mutilated like so much livestock?”

“You’re placing far more importance to me than what is actually the case,” Remy said—or as best he could with the sharp nails digging into his neck, threatening to cut off his breathing.

“Pendergast,” Malekh said. “Shut up.”

“Pendergast?” The vampire brightened. “The Butcher himself? Even better. Would they forgive you if you caused the death of their most prized hunter?”

Remy tried hard not to gag as he was lifted off the floor. He could feel the prick of fangs as they came to rest against the base of his neck.

“Wait,” Xiaodan said, when Zidan began to move.

“Yes, wait,” the vampire mocked. “Vasilik would laugh to see you so domesticated by the Sunbringer bitch. Perhaps he might also claim the Third Court, to—”

The words ended in a gurgle.

“Take it from someone who talks too much,” Remy gasped, after he’d stuck into the man’s chest the two knives he’d squirreled away inside his sleeves, thanks to Elke. “You bloody talk too much.”

The man collapsed. So did Remy, who fell to the floor, bleeding.