Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles #4) - Ilona Andrews Page 0,103

a knave could be useful. I asked myself, who would find this pirate, once a Knight Captain and now an enemy of Holy Anocracy, useful? So, I bribed his communication officer and then I listened, and for a paltry sum, he told me your entire battle plan. The three barges loaded with explosives, set to go off as soon as they reached our fleet, and the pirates meant to mop up what was left while you used the chaos to take over the battle station. My lords and ladies, please take these few precious seconds remaining of your lives to contemplate where it all went wrong and prepare to cross death’s threshold. You will not be granted another chance to reflect.”

That was her cue. Maud stood up, turned to Seveline and Onda, and said in Ancestor Vampiric, “Did you get all that or do you need me to translate it for you into your backwater gibberish?”

For a moment nothing moved. Then Seveline leaped onto the table and charged her, her blood sword screaming.

The banquet hall erupted as every armored vampire jumped to their feet. Maud caught a glimpse of Seveline swinging her sword at someone in the distance. Maud’s instincts screamed, and she jerked out of the way, turning, and saw the father of the bride, huge and raging, lunging at her from his seat. She’d dodged but not fast enough. His steel fingers clamped her right shoulder. He jerked her to him and roared, baring his fangs.

She grabbed a fork from the table with her left hand, jammed it deep into the roof of his mouth, and twisted. The fork snapped in half. Blood poured from his mouth.

The vampire yanked her off her feet and slammed her onto the table, pinning her shoulders with his hands. The impact reverberated through her, shaking her bones. If she didn’t break free now, he would crush her, armor or no. Maud dropped her sword, locked her left hand on his right wrist, and drove her right palm into his elbow. The power of the blow and the sudden pressure on his left elbow forced him to her left, and she hammered her armored knee into his exposed face with a sickening crunch.

He reared above her, breaking her hold, face bloody, nose broken, eyes insane, and ripped his blood mace off his thigh.

Maud rolled left.

The mace slammed into the table with a telltale whine and bounced off.

The engineer was right. These are really good tables.

Maud swiped her sword off the ground, priming it, and lunged right, putting the table between them. The father of the bride gurgled something, letting out a sound of pure rage saturated with blood.

“Use your words.”

His face twisted with fury. He jumped onto the table. She dove underneath, caught herself on the table’s smooth narrow base, and used her momentum to swing around it on the glass-slick floor, landing a crouch.

The father of the bride leapt down off the table. He’d tried to put some distance into his jump, but he was huge and heavy, and he hit the floor with a thud. For a moment, all of his weight rested on the backs of his feet.

Maud lunged. Her blood blade kissed the back of his right ankle, its edge slicing through the segmented armor like it wasn’t even there. She didn’t stop. Instead she rammed her shoulder into the back of his thigh.

The big vampire went down like a felled tree. She scrambled up his back and rammed her blade into the back of his neck, just above the collar of his armor. He jerked once and went still.

Maud straightened.

All around her the battle raged. Vampires clashed, blood weapons shrieked, and bloody mist filled the air. Roaring and screaming and the sounds of weapons clashing filled the hall, and the din nearly deafened her.

To her left, Arland tore into two attackers. To the far right, Ilemina and Otubar raged, back to back, as attackers came at them over the bodies of the wounded and dying. On the left, the tachi, their exoskeletons so saturated with color they looked almost black, formed a protective ring around their royal and sliced at anyone who came near. On the dais, the Battle Chaplain skewered the bridal attendants as they piled onto him. Most of them were unarmored, but his odds were one to twenty. Karat was methodically cutting her way to the dais to assist the outnumbered cleric.

I should help.

“Mommy!”

Oh my God.

Maud whipped around. Helen scrambled toward her, weaving between combatants,