soldiers.
Veil stepped back with a loud, theatrical smack of the lips and turned to bow to the applauding troopers. ‘Not so bad as I’d expected!’ he declared over the catcalls and lewd shouts. ‘Oh don’t kid yourself, soldier,’ he added, pointing to one of the louder soldiers, ‘you ain’t that pretty.’
‘Aye, well, glad I shaved now,’ Doranei replied, blowing Veil a kiss as he mounted his horse again. ‘Got a reputation to maintain.’
‘If we’ve quite finished, children?’ the king enquired idly, but in a tone of voice that quickly hushed the soldiers. ‘Back to the war, I think.’
‘Aye, Sire,’ Doranei said and gathered the reins of his horse before remounting. ‘Back to the war.’
‘So go back to the part where you and Veil kissed,’ Zhia purred as she dabbed at the cut on Doranei’s head.
‘Think I’ve told that enough already today,’ Doranei replied grumpily. Without meaning to he took a deep breath, inhaling her faint perfume as the vampire stood over him, her clothed belly barely three inches from his lips. ‘You only get it the once.’
‘Now that’s something a girl always likes to hear,’ Zhia sighed, looking down at him and affectionately stroking his cheek. ‘And we’re not even married. How quickly the romance fades.’
‘Aye, well, you didn’t pick the best prospect there: no home of my own, no assets beyond my sword, no prospects beyond a sharp and pointy end the day I’m not quick enough.’
‘You really need to work on your proposals, sweetness.’
‘If we were married and you died, would that mean I’d be free to chase other women?’ Doranei countered. ‘Them’s the rules, after all.’
‘Chase all you like,’ Zhia said, prodding his wound a little harder than strictly necessary, ‘but if you catch them, you’ll find out what they truly mean by “a woman scorned”.’
He snorted. ‘I don’t doubt that.’
‘So was that all I get?’ Zhia persisted, setting down the bloodied cloth and tilting his head so she could look down on the wound. She licked her finger and ran it along the length of the shallow cut and Doranei felt a tingle on his skin as it healed. ‘By way of proposals, I mean.’
‘You truly want to marry me?’ Doranei gasped, failing to conceal the astonishment from his voice.
‘It’s nice to be wanted,’ she said with a coquettish smile.
He winced. ‘Bit of a mismatch, though.’
‘Don’t worry, sweetness. I’d not actually make you marry me.’ Zhia shook her head and her long, lustrous hair fell loose about her shoulders. ‘We are set on too different paths for that. The proposal would do.’
‘Well,’ Doranei said cautiously, ‘might be I could do better’n that, if I really had to.’
‘Trust me; you really would have to do better. I’m a rather unique woman.’
He pursed his lips in thought. ‘I always thought you’d be the one doing the proposing, though. It’s not as if you’ll ever be the little wife on some man’s arm.’
‘I’m old-fashioned, remember? Some traditions I don’t mind.’
Doranei took her hand in his and kissed the back of it delicately. Zhia smiled expectantly down at him, but before he could say anything he felt her tense and the smile become frozen. White trails of light danced inside the dark blue of her eyes, a gust of wind dancing around their close walled tent as she drew deep on the magic in the air.
‘What’s wrong?’
She looked around, her hand slipping out of his. ‘I don’t know. Something.’ In the blink of an eye her sword was in her hand, though there was barely room for a drawn weapon inside the tent. Doranei scrambled for his own sword-belt and hurriedly buckled it on. He was pulling on his pauldrons and helm when he saw Zhia hadn’t yet moved.
He drew his sword and stared at the black, light-pricked surface for a moment. The weapon was older even than Zhia, and incredibly powerful; Doranei had taken it from Aracnan, Death’s bastard son. He found himself checking his palm for darkening skin whenever he sheathed it.
‘Something comes,’ Zhia declared, and stepped outside the tent, Doranei following on her heels.
Half the remaining Brotherhood were still sitting around their supper fires; they looked worriedly at Zhia. Veil made a small gesture, but Doranei shook his head, dismissing the offer: whatever was coming, it clearly wasn’t a normal attack.
The tents were quivering under a strengthening wind. Twenty yards away the king’s standard was stretched out by the wind to display to the whole Land the bee emblem, Death’s own.
Zhia continued to look around, focusing on nothing, while more faces appeared.
Tiniq’s nose rose to a scent on the wind that Doranei couldn’t detect, then he ran to fetch his own weapons. Others stood and started scouting around, but Zhia ignored them all and set off down the path that ran down the centre of the camp.
Doranei kept on in her shadow, his apprehension growing with every step. The wind strengthened and a log on a Kingsguard fire sent a sudden spray of embers dancing across their path. Zhia’s sword was up before Doranei could move, but there was nothing there and she quickly continued on her way.
‘What can you sense?’ he whispered.
‘I’m not sure.’ The tone of her voice made it clear she had no intention of saying any more.
At the edge of the camp a unit of Daken’s Green Scarves were on duty. Their lieutenant, a young man with blue spirals visible behind the cheek-guards of his helm, stepped forward smartly to greet Zhia, but she went straight past him without a word and stopped just behind the picket, staring out into the late evening gloom beyond.
At first Doranei, standing beside her, could see nothing in the darkness. Then he detected movement, and an intake of breath from the sentries behind showed they too had seen it. Zhia raised a hand and they readied their bows.
‘Is that a man?’ Doranei asked quietly as the movement began to resolve itself into a shuffling figure, moving by fits and starts.
‘Once perhaps,’ Zhia said. ‘Now-? Is this one of my brother’s games?’
The figure came closer and Doranei could see its right leg was badly gashed and it was limping. A chainmail shirt hung open at the front, but he could make out little beyond a bloody mess running from chest to groin. A long wisp of hair hung down on one side of its head. The figure was staring emptily at the ground as it trudged on until it was barely a dozen yards away from Zhia.
Then it stopped and looked up, and the sentries started to curse under their breath. Even Doranei took a step back as he looked at the figure’s face.
Its eyes were burning: bright yellow flames leaked like tears from eyeholes that were empty pits of fire. Its jaw hung slack and Doranei could see more fire within there, boiling and rushing up its gullet into its head. It took another step forward and raised its arms almost beseechingly towards Zhia.
That was enough for the sentries. Two fired; one arrow caught it in the arm, the other hit just left of where a man’s heart would be, rocking the figure back on its heels, but it just stared dumbly at the shafts for a moment before struggling forward a few more paces.
A third arrow caught it in the throat, snapping its head back up, and a spray of fire poured down its chest. From its upturned eyes, twin spurts of flame shot a foot up in the air. But it was the wound to its neck that had Doranei captivated: the fire burned bright as it cascaded down the front of the figure, illuminating fat metal staples running all the way down its body.
‘Lords of Ghenna,’ Doranei breathed, ‘what is that?’
‘That,’ Zhia replied slowly, ‘is my brother’s madness.’ She took a step forward and the figure reacted as though shocked by her presence.
Doranei tore his gaze away from it and looked at Zhia, who now had eddies of crimson light flowing off her body and sword and streaming away in all directions as she drew deep on her magic. He could feel the presence of her power on his exposed cheek: the prickling heat of a bonfire and a shock of ice-cold air hitting him together.
‘A Chalebrat,’ Zhia said, ‘a fire elemental — stitched by magery into a corpse.’ She held out her left hand and the whirling magic tightened around her, lighting up the bones of her hand against her skin before the corona of light became too intense for Doranei to watch any more.
