Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles #4) - Ilona Andrews
1
THEN…
The hot wind flung brown dust into Maud’s face. It scoured her skin, clogged her nose, and piled in her hair. She tasted grit on her tongue, dirt tinged with bitter metal, and pulled the hood of the tattered cloak tighter around her face.
Around her the endless plain rolled to the horizon, interrupted in the distance by low hills. Here and there stunted thorny plants jutted out of the dirt, desiccated and twisted by the winds. Far to the north, bur, the shaggy herbivores that made Earth elephants look small, stomped their way across the plain, grazing on the scrawny vegetation. There was no beauty on Karhari; no golden fields of grain, no forests, no oasis. Just dry dirt, rock, and poisonous salt deposits.
Ahead, by the crossroads barely marked by solar lights, the blocky metal box of the Road Lodge jutted against the wastes, tall walls and narrow recessed windows pitted from the frequent onslaught of wind and dust. A reinforced double door punctured the wall in front of her. Maud shouldered her needle rifle and headed to it, carrying the canvas sack in her left hand high enough it didn’t bump her legs. The canvas was liquid-proof, but she didn’t want it touching her all the same.
The door clanged, split in half, and slid into the wall. Maud walked inside, and the doors shut behind her back. The stench of unwashed bodies and klava caffeine washed over her. The delicate perfume of drunk vampires.
She grimaced, pulled the needle rifle off her shoulder, and dropped it through the slot in the electrified wire cage by the entrance. She kept her blood sword. The owner only cared about projectile weapons. If the patrons decided to bash each other’s skulls in, she didn’t give a damn as long as their tab was paid.
The inside of the Lodge consisted of a long rectangle, with a bar counter on the right and a collection of grimy booths and tables on the left. Toward the end of the room, a spiral staircase led upstairs, to seven shabby rooms, each little more than a box with a bed and a bathroom hidden behind a partition.
The Lodge catered to travelers, doubling as an inn and a bar. It sat on the crossroads like a trap, catching the dregs that washed up from the wastes of Karhari—mercenaries, convoy guards, raiders—lost souls who had no place to go and wandered the planet of exiles until they found their place, or someone relieved them of the heavy burdens of their life and possessions.
It was barely past noon and most of the Lodge’s patrons had either left, trying to make it to the next rest stop before dark, or hadn’t arrived. Only a few vampires milled at the tables, nursing the dark klava swill. They paid Maud no mind as she walked over to the bar.
The bartender, a large vampire woman with greasy greying hair and pitted armor, eyed her from behind the counter. Maud held the sack out to her. The woman pulled it open and fished out a blood-smeared counter defilade launcher with a hand still attached to it. Barely the size of an Earth submachine gun, the launcher fired high-energy pellets at 1,200 rounds per minute. Two pellets would make a hole in the armored side of the Lodge. The launcher’s magazine carried 2,000. Firearms of that caliber were outlawed on Karhari. The owner of the weapon had paid a fortune to smuggle it, destroyed a lodge, then spent his time riding around holding random lodges and inns for ransom.
The vampire woman sniffed the bloody gun. “Did he put up a fight?”
Maud shook her head. “Left my bike in plain view on the eastern road. He stopped to check it. Never saw me.”
The bartender scowled at her. “How did you know where he’d be coming from?”
“The west is House Jerdan’s territory; they patrol with infrared and they would’ve stripped the launcher off him. The closest place to rest to the south is four days; to the north, five, and that road gets frequent convoy traffic. Too risky. Someone might have noticed him and if he took too long driving back and forth it would give you enough time to get a defense together. No, he went east and camped for a day. No sane vampire will camp longer than one night during the storm season.”
The bartender nodded. “You do good work, human, I’ll give you that.” She reached behind the counter, put the gun away, and pulled a heavy