until he found an edge. He strained for a moment, but soon lifted up a slab of stone several paces wide and over a foot thick, revealing the tunnel entrance. He propped up the stone with a thick metal rod he kept nearby for just that purpose, then grabbed the woman and carried her into the shadows. Theron followed, removing the rod and letting the stone close back upon the entrance. The tunnel plunged into blackness.
Taras could see fine, however, and he knew that Theron could, as well. He stepped aside, indicating that the older vampire should pass.
“Don’t trust me at your back, Roman?” Theron asked.
“No,” Taras replied bluntly.
“Very well.” Theron stepped around Taras and took the lead, following the walls of rough-hewn stone deeper into the earth.
“So you have saved this woman-who is an Iceni princess, by the way,” Theron said. “Now what? You will still be Bachiyr. Her blood will still sing to you. And when she wakes up she will either try to kill you or run from you. Either way, you are not likely to receive anything in the way of thanks.”
“Her thanks are not needed.”
“She will not bring Mary back to you,” Theron said, looking over his shoulder and nodding at the swatch of blue cloth on Taras’s belt. “No matter how many you save,” he continued, “it will never bring her back.”
Taras stopped, the muscles on his arms tightening to the point of pain. His vision swam in a red haze as he stared at the back of the creature who had murdered his Mary all those years ago. The urge to drop the woman in his arms to the floor and drive his claws into Theron’s back was so strong he actually started to let go of the Iceni princess.
He caught himself just in time, and tightened his grip on her. If he killed Theron now, the woman would die. Of course, Theron knew that as well, which is probably why the bastard mentioned it. He swallowed his anger and his retort, preferring to walk in silence rather than goad Theron into mocking him further.
Up ahead, Theron chuckled.
“Enough,” Taras said, laying the woman gently on the ground. “We have gone far enough to be safe. Heal her, as you agreed.”
Theron stopped and turned around, favoring the walls of the tunnel with a skeptical glance. “How deep are we?”
“Deep enough that the sun will not find us.”
“And the humans?”
“Have been unable to locate this place for over a decade. I doubt they will find it today.”
“Very well.” Theron stepped up to the injured Iceni and knelt next to her head. He bent down and put his mouth on her throat. The woman moaned, and Taras grabbed Theron by his shoulder and jerked him upward. Two bright red holes marred the skin of the woman’s throat.
“What are you doing?” Taras asked.
“Healing her, as we agreed.”
“It looks like you’re about to feed on her.”
“I am. I did this to you, too. Did you never wonder why you healed so quickly in Jerusalem?”
Taras realized he was grinding his teeth, and forced himself to calm down. “You will not turn her into one of us. I will not allow it.” He pulled Theron’s shoulder back, but the older vampire shrugged out of his grip and glared back.
“How did you survive thirty years while knowing so little?” Theron asked.
“If you don’t begin to make sense soon-”
Theron got to his feet and shoved Taras’s hand away. “For her to change, she would have to drink Bachiyr blood. As long as she doesn’t do that, she will be fine. As you would have been had I not spilled some of my own blood in your mouth by mistake. Your fault, by the way. You stabbed me in the back. The blood from that wound is what fell on your face. You have only yourself to blame for your change.”
You have only yourself to blame, he thought. I did this to myself? Taras looked from Theron to the woman on the ground. “I was not already a Bachiyr that night?”
“Hardly,” Theron sneered. “You were a human with enhanced physical abilities, nothing more. The effects would have worn off in a month or so.”
A month or so. He would have been human again in a month or so. In his anger over Mary’s death and his role in the crucifixion of the Nazarene, he had sealed his own fate. Twenty-seven years of hiding, running, and killing, all because he stabbed Theron in the back. Yet he would do it again, he knew. Theron had deserved to die that night. Who could have known he would live through a sword in his back? If he had it to do all over again, however, this time he would close his mouth.
“So all you have to do in order to heal her is feed on her?” Taras asked.
“Correct.”
Taras scowled. “I could have done that.”
“Of course you could have,” Theron said. “Now that you know, you still could. But it would mean breaking our deal, leaving me free to act on my own while you tried.”
“Get on with it, then.”
Theron barked a laugh, then knelt by the woman again. Just before he sank his teeth into her throat, he looked up at Taras and grinned. “You always were easy to manipulate, Roman.” Then the renegade Bachiyr bit the woman on the neck and began to drink.
After a perhaps a minute, he lifted his head from her throat. Blood dripped from his jaws onto the punctured, swollen flesh of her neck.
“Is it done?” Taras asked.
Theron nodded. “It is. When she wakes up she will be completely healed.”
“Good.” Taras drove his clawed hand into Theron’s back, making sure to keep his mouth shut tight.
Boudica stared at Heanua’s body, lying in a pool of half-dried blood. “I warned you,” she said. Strangely, she felt no pity. Heanua had gone against her will and chosen her course, with predictable results. “I told you the Bachiyr was dangerous.”
The sun shone through the bars of the cage, casting her dead daughter in a surreal, orange light. She looked peaceful, almost angelic. The effect was marred somewhat by the shadows of the cage bars, which striped the corpse at regular intervals. The bloody red tear in her throat also ruined the illusion.
She would have to burn the body before nightfall in order to make certain her daughter did not rise again as one of the Bachiyr. To think she had survived being raped and beaten by the Romans only to die in a foolish attempt to make a deal with the dead. Such a waste. Particularly since Lannosea was surely dead by now, as well. Who would assume leadership of the Iceni if anything happened to Boudica?
She shook her head and turned away. The city of Londinium lay in smoldering ruins before her, spread out across the horizon like a huge, gray stain on the country side. Smoke hung thick in the morning air, heavy with the smells of charred wood and burned flesh. Her men marched through the streets, putting any survivors to the sword. The screams of the dying dotted the air, punctuated by the sounds of her army setting up for the day ahead. To judge by the sky, it would be bright and cloudless.
There would be little time to rest. Once her men finished their grim work in the city, the Iceni army would have one day to recuperate, then they would be off again. Boudica was determined to take back as much of Brittania as she could before Nero mustered a coordinated military response. They had made it this far slaughtering primarily civilians. Suetonius had abandoned the city before they arrived, and had taken most of his troops with him. Had he stayed, the battle would not have been so easy. Though she had little doubt the eventual outcome would have been the same. She looked across the burning remains of the city, as if she could see past it to the countryside beyond, and silently wondered when Suetonius would strike back.
Cyric appeared at her side. He took a knee, then bowed his head in respect.
“Did you find him?” she asked.
Cyric stood and nodded. “Captain Haegre has been located. He and his men were on the northern wall. Haegre claims it was Heanua herself who sent him there, on your orders.”
