They slipped onto the battlements together, stolen swords in hand, Raniero with a guard’s shield slung over his shoulder. The sky overhead was black with scudding clouds. The icy wind whipped Amaris’s hair, carrying the sound of chanting to her ears. She didn’t recognize the words of the spell, but something about the hissing alien syllables made the hair rise on the back of her neck.
“I do not like the sound of that,” Raniero said grimly, shrugging his shield down onto his left arm. “Which way?”
Amaris indicated the direction with a gesture, and the vampire took the lead. She padded after his broad back, straining to hear any approaching enemy over the moan of the wind.
Abruptly Raniero jerked back and froze, lifting a warning hand. She stopped to peek around his brawny shoulder.
And caught her breath in dread.
The two Varil warriors stood just ahead, backs turned as they watched the scene ahead with snakelike intensity.
Tannaz held Marin pinned to a stone altar as Korban chanted, holding a glowing knife poised over the child’s chest. The Blood Orb floated above her head like a demonic bubble, crimson energies swirling sullenly inside its glowing heart.
Amaris reached down into the core of her magic, felt its hot leap, and shouted a spell that sent it boiling from her fingertips. The blast hit Korban’s knife and knocked it from his hand, spinning it over the stone wall.
Korban snatched for the blade with a shout of startled rage, but he was too late. Furious, his face going scarlet with rage, he whirled to glare at Raniero and Amaris. “Kill them!”
The Varil whipped around and charged, huge blades lifted, fangs bared. Amaris dodged between them, avoiding their flashing blades. She had to get to Marin before Korban could complete his spell. Behind her, steel clashed on steel as Raniero engaged the two reptiles.
“Oh, no you don’t, you traitorous little bitch!” Tannaz leaped into her path, brandishing his sword. Behind him, Korban wrapped an arm around Marin and dragged her off the altar, ignoring the child’s shrieking struggles. The Blood Orb floated after them like a dog begging for a promised meal.
Tannaz swung his blade in a furious stroke, obviously thinking he’d kill her quickly. Amaris ducked his overconfident stroke, her sword slashing across his armored ribs even as she sent a spell rolling down the blade. Her magical attack sliced through his armor like parchment. Tannaz howled in startled pain and clutched his side. Amaris spun, whipping the sword around to slice his thigh to the bone.
“Oh, you’re going to bleed for that!” Ignoring the wound, he charged her with a vampire’s flashing speed.
She sidestepped like a dancer, and he missed, though she felt his sword snag the fabric of her gown. It tore with a ragged sound.
Damn, but she wished she had her armor.
Being a Blood Rose gave Amaris speed and strength beyond human, but she was still no match for a vampire as powerful as Tannaz. He would inevitably wear her down and kill her . . . Unless she could goad him into stupidity.
“Mother always said you were a bully and a coward. She underestimated you.” Amaris gave him a slow and vicious smile. “You’re also a murderer and a traitor.”
The rage that flashed over his face chilled her blood. He attacked, his sword slamming into hers with force enough to numb her arm to the shoulder. Before she could shake it off, he attacked again.
And again. And again. Amaris scrambled backward, parrying frantically as he rained blows on her, sometimes overhand, sometimes in flat, brutal arcs, sometimes targeting her thighs or arms. In minutes, she was bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds, though she managed to avoid anything more serious.
She was losing. Simply staying alive wasn’t enough; she had to land blows of her own. Yet attacking him was impossible when it was all she could do to keep him from driving through her guard and gutting her.
As Amaris circled with Tannaz, retreating, parrying, trying frantically to stay alive, she got fleeting glimpses of Marin and Raniero. The child hung limp in Korban’s arms, her eyes wide with helpless terror as he chanted, the Blood Orb hovering close.
Raniero’s blade flashed in bright moonlit arcs, shield ringing as he blocked the Varils’ massive battle axes. Blood streaked his armor, both vampire red and reptile green.
But Amaris didn’t dare divert her attention from her father’s murderous blade.
Then one thin slipper hit a pool of her blood, and slid. With a cry, she went down on one knee. She tried to throw herself backward, twisting away from the thrust she saw coming right for her heart.
Too late.
The blade slid between ribs and left hip and kept on going, right out her back. She bit back a scream of hot agony.
Tannaz grinned down into her eyes, fangs flashing.
An axe strike clanged against Raniero’s shield as he spun, avoiding the second reptile’s attempt to hack his head off. He retreated in a fighter’s crouch, watching his opponents with narrow eyes. They prowled, attempting to circle behind him, thick lizard tails twitching hungrily. They were slower than he was, but they were also much stronger, as evinced by the dents they’d left in his shield and armor. He was surprised Amaris had held her own with them as long as she had; only her Blood Rose speed and agility had kept her alive.
The thought of Amaris made his gut coil into a solid knot of anxiety. The last he’d seen of her, she was fighting her father. Yet he couldn’t see her now.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t help her until he’d taken care of the Varil.
An axe thunked against his shield with a force that drove him back on his heels. Damn, the bastards were strong. He spun away from the blow, using the momentum to launch an attack at the other lizard. His blade crashed against Blue Stripe’s axe, skidded along the steel, and bit into a scaled shoulder. The Varil hissed in pain and rage, jerking away as green blood flew.
Unfortunately, it was a shallow cut, not enough to disable the big lizard. And Raniero had collected some ugly wounds of his own, despite his stolen armor. His hands were slippery with blood, and a wound on his thigh throbbed in time to his pulse. His sword was growing heavy in his hands, and he knew he was slowing down.
And that could be the death of him, because vampire speed was all that kept him alive. He had to keep moving, or the lizards would trap him between them.
So he retreated, dancing away from his foes, darting in and out between them as he hacked at any target the Varil presented. He knew he had to wrap up this fight before Amaris or her sister died.
Then, as he ducked the brutal swing of a spiked tail, he glimpsed Amaris on her knees, her father’s sword rammed completely through her body. And his heart froze in his chest.
It was a lethal moment’s distraction. The two Varil saw it and lunged forward in simultaneous attack, one great axe swinging for his head, the other for his torso.
He sensed the twin attacks more than saw them. Throwing himself forward into a long, flat dive, he felt one blade skim past his ass as the other scraped one kicking armored shin. He landed in an acrobat’s tumble and came up just in time to hear an anguished roar.
In missing him, Blue Stripe’s axe had buried itself in his partner’s chest. Cari’f fell, tail lashing in death throes.
Taking Blue Stripe’s axe with it.
Blue Stripe lunged for Cari’f’s axe, grabbed it out of the convulsing clawed fist, and whirled.
Too late.
Raniero heaved his great sword in a flat, furious arc that chopped into the reptile’s thick neck with a meaty thunk. But even as he died, the raider swung his axe. Raniero deflected it with his shield, but the massive blade still struck his thigh a glancing blow. Blood flew, bright scarlet mixing with Varil green as Raniero went down.