Bloodborn by Nathan Long Read Free Book Online

again. She was so fast, so strong, quicker and more aware than she had ever been alive. She had all at once achieved the level of prowessof which she’d always dreamed. She could see every intention in her opponent’s eye, seemingly before they knew themselves what they meant to do, and she reacted so fast to those intentions that they appeared to be standing still. Her blade, clumsy rusting thing that it was, still slipped around theirs with ease and tore bellies and throats and groins before they even knew she had attacked. She hacked the arm off one as he fell, then decapitated another, the scent of blood turning the world red around her. She wanted to bathe in it.
    Something hard cracked her across the back. She turned. It was the last man, the leader, backing away into the brush, his quarterstaff held out before him, his air of command lost to a quaking, mewling terror.
    ‘Ranald save me,’ he whimpered. ‘What are you? Leave us be!’
    Ulrika laughed and tore the staff from his hands then grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the snow-covered ground with one hand, though he was twice her weight.
    She bared her fangs. ‘I shall leave you dry.’
    ‘Ulrika!’ came a voice from behind her.
    Ulrika froze, cringing, and looked over her shoulder.
    Countess Gabriella stood just outside the tree line, looking in at her coldly. ‘What did I say?’
    Ulrika shrank from the countess’s displeasure and glanced at the ground around her. She cringed with embarrassment at what she saw. The bandits were hacked to pieces. She had not killed without passion. She had ripped them apart, and she had been about to feed on the man she held in the air.
    Ulrika hung her head. ‘I… I’m sorry, mistress,’ she mumbled, then lowered the leader to the ground and snapped his neck. She picked her way awkwardly back to the countess as the man toppled amongst his comrades behind her. ‘I was carried away.’ She looked down at her dress. It was torn and muddy and drenched in blood. ‘And I have ruined your lovely dress.’
    ‘The dress is the least of my worries,’ sniffed the countess. ‘Do you see why I feared to bring you with me? It is one thing to maintain restraint in controlled circumstances. It is another when one is out in the world. Even in my defence you must be discreet. Had this slaughter happened in the city, it would not have gone unnoticed. We go to quiet a crisis, not to enflame one, do you understand?’
    ‘Yes, mistress,’ said Ulrika, staring at the ground. She wanted to be mad at the countess for scolding her, but there was no denying she had lost control – and after she had promised herself that she would not. ‘I apologise. It will not happen again.’
    ‘Be sure that it doesn’t.’
    Rodrik pushed through his knights, glaring at Ulrika and cradling his right arm. A crossbow bolt jutted through the armour above the elbow. ‘She should have stayed in the coach, mistress. We did not require her help.’
    Gabriella gave his wound a look. ‘It was clear to me that you did.’
    He grunted. ‘Well, we would not have, had she not bled poor Quentin near to death. At full strength we would have bested them.’
    ‘Of course you would have, Rodrik,’ said Gabriella, patting his cheek as she passed him. ‘My champion never fails me.’
    Rodrik looked sullen at that and shot Ulrika a venomous look as she followed the countess into the coach.

CHAPTER FOUR
    LADY HERMIONE
    The rest of the trip passed without incident – indeed, there was so little incident that Ulrika nearly went mad. She had never made a journey like it. They passed into the Moot on their way to Eicheshatten, where she and Gabriella, Rodrik and Lotte boarded the riverboat, the Aver Queen, while the rest of Gabriella’s knights and drivers turned around and went back home to Nachthafen. Then Ulrika and the countess remained within her stateroom for six days and nights as the boat made its way down the River Aver to Nuln. They travelled a