Bloodforged (4 page)

Then, with sudden clarity, she knew precisely where she wanted to go – where she
must
go. Her rebirth and re-education as a vampire, and the nightmare of Murnau and the murders of the Lahmian sisters, had taken her mind from the things that mattered most to her before her death, but now she was her own woman once again. Now she could do the things that were important to
her
, and nothing was more important to her than the defence of her homeland.

At the time Krieger had stolen her from Praag, the Chaos armies that had besieged the city had just withdrawn for the winter in disarray. But it had been a certainty in everyone’s mind that they would return in the spring, and this time the battle would truly be joined. It was the month of Jahrdrung now. Spring was less than two months away. If she started north immediately, she would make it just in time to help in the defence.

She smiled to herself at the thought. She was stronger now, and faster – deadlier than she could ever have imagined. She might not be able to fight side by side with the defenders, but she could do better things. She could sneak into the enemy’s camp at night and slit the throats of their leaders. She could turn their troops into mindless swains who would do her bidding instead of theirs. She could sabotage and spy and slaughter, and drown her pain in the blood of battle. It was a perfect plan.

Of course there were dangers in going to Praag as well, both physical and otherwise. Felix and Gotrek and Snorri and Max Schreiber had certainly returned there after they had left her in the countess’s care in Sylvania. Gotrek had come close to killing her then. He might not show such forbearance if they met again. And Felix and Max – she had loved them both, and thoughts of them still warmed her and filled her with desire. But these days desire was conflated in her with violence and feeding. More than once she had dreamed she was making love to one or the other of them, only to tear his throat out and drink him dry. What would happen if they actually met?

Despite these dangers, she found herself longing for such a meeting. The dour dwarf, the worldly magister and the moody poet had been her rock for some time. They had given her advice and comfort, and had led by example. They were practical, unflappable men, with little of the narrow-mindedness and fear that was all too common among the peoples of the Empire and Kislev. Hadn’t Gotrek allowed her to live, despite the fact she had become a monster in his eyes? Hadn’t Felix allied himself with the countess against Krieger, though he knew her true nature?

Suddenly she wanted more than anything to pour out her troubles to them, to tell them of Templar Holmann and the pain that had come when she knew she didn’t have the courage to save him from Gabriella. She longed to ask them what she should do, how she should live, how she was to resolve the black knot of conflict that twisted her cold dead heart. She was alone now, and it frightened her. She didn’t want to face the world by herself. She wanted companionship.

A mad spark of hope flared at the thought. Perhaps she and Felix and Gotrek and Max could travel together again – have adventures again. She had heard of it happening before. Hadn’t a vampire taken up with a great lord years ago and fought an evil sorcerer at his side? Hadn’t she even won the favour of the Emperor? Or was that only a story?

A cry of ‘Cast away!’ and a sideslipping lurch woke her from her thoughts and she looked up, even though there was nothing to see above her but canvas. They were away. She had made her escape. She was free!

It wasn’t until she closed her eyes and laid her head back on her makeshift pillow that she discovered, to her horror, that she was growing hungry.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE TYRANNY OF HUNGER

Ulrika’s eyes fell open as the immensity of the problem hit her. It was full daylight now – she could feel it – and she was on a boat, with no knowledge of where or when it would next land. She might be trapped for days. On top of that, she had no blood-swain to feed upon, and so must find a victim – something she had never done before.

Panic tightened her chest, and the mad red rage that had sustained and driven her since she had realised that Gabriella had locked her in evaporated in an instant. Why hadn’t she thought this through more thoroughly? Famke had been right. It wasn’t going to work. She was completely unprepared. From the moment she had been reborn a vampire, her protectors – first Adolphus Krieger, then Countess Gabriella – had given her willing victims to feed upon. She had never had to worry about where her next meal was coming from, and rarely had she been faced with taking blood from the unwilling – such as when Gabriella had told her she must feed on Holmann. She had refused to do it then, for she had felt strongly for the templar, and had not wanted to turn him into a mindless swain. But could she feed on some other man? A stranger? In the end, of course, she would have to – indeed, once her blood hunger consumed her, she would not be able to stop herself. She would become an animal, without conscience or rational thought.

She did not want that to happen. She had sworn to herself and to the memory of her ancestors that she would never lose control again. The beast would not rule her. She would rule the beast. That being the case, she had to make up her mind how she was going to conduct herself while she still had mind enough to think.

She snorted. The situation was ridiculous. What she was doing here was nothing less than laying out the parameters by which she meant to live the rest of her eternal life. What a joke that she was doing it
now
, in the hold of a riverboat, with hunger gnawing at her mind, when, had she been less impetuous, she might have pondered the moral intricacies of the question in the comfort of Gabriella’s townhouse, and
then
struck out on her own.

The thought made her suddenly long to go back, to beg Gabriella for forgiveness, to return to the cocoon of comfort it had seemed so important to abandon only a few hours before. But how could she? She couldn’t even get off the boat, and even if she could, and could find a way back into Nuln, would Gabriella take her back? Would Hermione let her live? Could she live with herself, with the shame of having given up on her freedom at the first hardship?

No, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She was damned if she would. So, regardless of the inopportune time and place, she had to make a decision.

Her hunger growled that she should feed on whoever came to hand, that her needs were more important than those of the cattle who surrounded her. She fought it down. She did not want to be like Krieger, her loathsome blood father, who drained innocent girls and left their corpses in alleys. Nor did she want to be like Gabriella, who had killed Templar Holmann with a cold pragmatism Ulrika could not accept. Even feeding on willing swains repelled her, for their slavish devotion to those who had blooded them was sickening to see. But what did that leave her?

If she truly hated what she had become so much that she would not feed at all, then she should kill herself and have done with it. The sun was up. She could end her dilemma instantly by walking up on the deck and burning to ashes, but she knew from experience she hadn’t the courage. There had to be another way. If only she could feed just on those she felt deserved it – the wicked, the cruel, those who had become beasts themselves.

Her brain stopped suddenly, stunned at the simplicity of the solution. Why not? Why couldn’t she? She could feed without dishonouring her past, or pricking her conscience, and at the same time, she would be doing mankind a service. Nor was there any fear of going hungry by keeping to this moral diet, for the Old World would never run short of evil men. She smiled, baring her fangs. Going to Praag seemed like an even better choice now – a never-ending feast of marauders and madmen. She would feed every night.

But…

Her euphoria crashed to the ground as swiftly as it had risen.
But
, what did she do until then? Upon whom did she prey as she travelled? Upon whom did she feed tonight? Was there a wicked man aboard this boat? How did she find out? Was she supposed to question her victims about their morals before she attacked them? It was laughable. Ridiculous.

She growled to herself, furious at her own foolishness. This waffling was human weakness – self-destructive nonsense. She should have left it behind when she died. She was asking herself to behave in a way that was completely antithetical to her nature.

And yet, how was that different from when she had lived? As a warrior, she had walked the knife-edge of savagery all her life, always on guard against the siren call of slaughter that had lured many a good man to the worship of the Dark Powers. She had resisted then, and she could resist now.

Yes.

She would refuse to make her new nature an excuse to abandon the principles of honour and mercy and restraint she had sworn by while she lived. It would be difficult, but easy things weren’t worth doing, and a vow meant nothing until it was tested. She would find a way to live without hurting the innocent, even tonight, even while trapped on this boat. There would be some way. She was sure of it.

She folded her arms across her breast and closed her eyes, relieved to have come to a decision. Now she would sleep, and gather what strength she could to face the challenge that awaited her when the sun went down.

It was not a peaceful sleep, for her hunger grew like a living tumour with each passing hour. Many times during the day, she woke to the baying of it and had to fight it with all her strength before she could find unconsciousness again. Finally, there was no slipping back under. The emptiness in her breast was too painful, and she lay awake, staring at the canvas in front of her face and gripping herself with her claws. She could sense the heart-fires of the crew as they moved around the ship above her. There were five of them, and regardless of the vow she had made, she wanted nothing more than to fill the bare hearth of her cold heart with their warmth.

Why had she not fed upon Gabriella’s maid before she had quit Nuln? The girl’s blood would have held her for at least two days. When had she last fed? Two nights ago? Longer than that? Even if all had been calm since, she would have been feeling the pangs by now, but her exertions of the night before – escaping Gabriella’s house, fleeing from Hermione, racing across the city – had wrung her dry. Her veins ached with want. Her tongue felt as if it were turning to powder. Even her eyes felt dry.

Again she cursed herself for not thinking her escape through more thoroughly. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t like her to act without thinking. She was a grown woman and a veteran soldier, experienced in the necessities of travel and well versed in the preparations required before a dangerous journey. She had been in such a tearing hurry to be gone. The red rage that had overcome her had practically dragged her out of the house by her collar.

And that was it, wasn’t it? The red rage.

For all her talk of maintaining control of her savagery, Ulrika was so lost in it she didn’t even know when she was under its spell. Her actions since the turning of Gabriella’s key in the lock had not been those of a woman of the world, but of a petulant child, of a spiteful cat who shreds her mistress’s things because she has been left alone. A rush of shame came over her as she remembered her rationalisations for breaking her vow to the countess not to leave the house – and rationalisations were all they had been. Gabriella’s actions didn’t matter. A vow was a vow, and Ulrika had broken one for no better reason than wounded pride.

She was disgusted with herself, and baffled as well. She felt as buffeted by emotion now as when she had been fifteen and thought the world a hateful place full of know-nothing adults and locked gates. Why had she reverted to such childish behaviour? Was it because Gabriella treated her like a child? Was the red rage some symptom of her new unlife? Would it cool at some point and allow her to think? She prayed to her father’s gods it would be so, and soon.

After a time she crawled out from the tarp and raised her head over the cargo. A lattice of red light slanted down through the grate that covered the hatch. Sunset. Less than an hour to go, but even an hour seemed unbearable. She sat with her knees up and her back to the bulkhead, watching the slow fading of the light because there was nothing else her mind could focus on.

Finally, the last dull purple drained away and everything became shades of grey. She pushed herself to her feet, feeling a hundred years old, and crept unsteadily to the hatch, her head swimming and her limbs trembling with weakness.

She found a ladder lashed to a support post and propped it against the underlip of the hatch, then climbed up to look through the wooden grid of the cover. There was a simple latch – an iron ring with a wooden pin pushed through it to hold it closed – but no lock. She breathed a sigh of relief. That was another thing she hadn’t thought through. What if she had been locked in the hold for days or weeks? She couldn’t imagine the agony of it.

She extended her senses. The heart-fires of the crew were all at either end of the boat. There were none in the middle near her. She reached her hand up and tugged the pin out of the latch, then listened. No alarm. She put her shoulders to the underside of the hatch and pushed. It was heavy, but despite her weakness, she was still stronger than a man. She lifted it enough that she could edge out onto the deck, then lowered it silently back into place with shaking arms. Still no clamour. She looked around.

The boat was hugging the south bank, a dense black wall of forest that hung out over the river, and looking north, Ulrika saw why. A large flotilla of Imperial warships was cruising down the centre of the river, pennons waving, and all the other water traffic had given them a wide berth. Ulrika’s boat and many others were sidling along in the muddy shallows, waiting for them to pass.

Most of the crew were huddled around a cauldron at the back of the boat, eating from wooden bowls and talking amongst themselves. Behind them, a man kept a hand on the tiller. In the prow, another man scanned the river. Ulrika’s head throbbed as she looked at him. She could smell his blood, and hear it rushing through his veins. A quick pounce and she would be sated. The agony of her empty heart would go away.

She took an involuntary step towards him, then forced herself to stop. Did she care so little for her vow? Would she break it on a whim like she had her vow to Gabriella? She did not prey on the innocent – and even if she did, how could she feed on him while trapped on a boat? If she let him live, he would tell the others. If she killed him, they would know they had a predator on board. Unless, she thought, she threw him overboard. She forced the thought away. She was
not
going to feed on him. She had to find another way. She had to think. The situation couldn’t be impossible.

She crouched in the shadow of the mast and looked back at the men sitting around the cook pot. Perhaps she could sneak close enough to listen to them, and determine who was the most wicked. The hypocrisy of the thought made her cringe. Would she feed on someone because he was a mere bully, and tell her conscience she had done a noble thing? Such self-deceiving rationalising made her sick. It would be more honest to just bleed one and start keeping her vow on the morrow. Aye, honest, but weak.

She growled under her breath. What a stupid thing her conscience was. This morning, when the hunger had only begun to wake, it had been easy to say, ‘I will be virtuous. I will only prey on villains.’ Now, with blood tantalisingly within reach, and madness and death waiting for her if she did not feed, the words seemed the babblings of an idealist. She must survive, and feeding on men was as natural to her as feeding on cows was to men.

‘Henneker!’ called the man in the bow. ‘Rocks ahead. Turn it north–’

His words cut off as he noticed Ulrika peering from the shadows, and his hand dropped to the club at his belt. ‘Stowaway!’ he shouted, starting towards her. ‘Captain! We got a sneak!’

Ulrika cringed back and turned, but there was nowhere to go. The men in the aft were setting down their bowls and hurrying forwards too, clubs and gaffs in their hands.

‘No one stows away on my boat,’ growled their leader, a grizzled captain who held a cutlass and a lantern.

‘He’s a toff by the look of ’im,’ said the lookout. ‘Look at them boots.’

‘Hoy, it’s a lass!’ laughed another man.

‘Why so it is,’ said the captain, holding up his lantern as his crew surrounded her. ‘Hold still, girl. Let me have a look at you.’

Ulrika backed towards the rail, shielding her face. So close, the smell of their blood overwhelmed her. She couldn’t bear it. She wanted to kill them all. She wanted to bathe in their blood. ‘Get away!’ she shouted. ‘Leave me be!’