Bloodforged by Nathan Long Read Free Book Online Page A

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,