Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles #4) - Ilona Andrews Page 0,7

around them widened and suddenly she found herself back to back with the Krahr.

“My lady,” he said in that deep cultured voice. “I apologize for not arriving sooner in your time of dire need.”

Hell would freeze over before she would owe another vampire. “Not that dire, my lord. Please don’t bestir yourself on my behalf.”

She dropped, spinning, kicked a vampire’s legs from under her and stabbed her in the throat on her way down.

He smashed his mace into the shoulder of a raider with a bone-snapping crunch. “I insist.”

She parried a swing that nearly made her drop her blade and drove her dagger into the raider’s groin, punching through the damaged armor by pure luck. “No need.”

He struck at the vampire on his left, took a hit to the shoulder from another, grunted, reversed his swing, and hammered a devastating blow to the new opponent. The vampire bent forward from the impact and the Krahr drove his fist into the back of his head.

“Please, allow me this small diversion. I’m but a guest on your planet. It was a long trip and I have sat for far too much of it.”

Argh. He out-mannered her. As absurd as his claim was, he backed her into the role of the host and the laws of vampire hospitality dictated that the guests were to be indulged.

Wait, I’m not a vampire. Why does it even matter?

A male vampire kicked. She stumbled back, bounced off the Krahr’s broad back and threw herself into the fray.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dina fighting her way to the exit, the orange energy whip hanging loose and sparking on the floor. Helen was in her arms. What was she doing? Helen’s best advantage was in her size and speed. Now neither of them could move.

She doesn’t know, Maud realized. Her sister had no idea what kind of a child her daughter was.

The werewolf thrust himself in front of them and began carving a path to the door.

“My lord!” Maud called. “We’re leaving.”

He grunted. “I’ll be there shortly.”

“My lord!”

“I’ll cover your retreat.”

Dina and Helen were only a few yards from the door. Maud charged at the remaining vampires. In two swings she was through the gauntlet.

“Arland!” the werewolf screamed, his voice cutting through the noise of the Lodge.

So that was his name. Maud looked over her shoulder and saw him, drenched in blood, mowing down bodies.

“Arland!” the werewolf snarled.

The Krahr turned, saw them, and began backing up toward the door.

The heavy metal doors swung open. Dina ran out, clutching Helen to her, and the werewolf followed. As Maud sprinted through the doorway, she saw the barkeep waving at her with a small surreal smile.

A narrow black shuttle waited on the landing strip and they ran toward it. The doors slid open. Maud leapt into a seat and plucked Helen from Dina’s arms. The werewolf landed in the pilot’s seat and started the pre-flight check, his fingers flying over the controls.

Where was the Krahr? If he didn’t emerge in the next ten seconds, she would go back in and get him. He fought for her and her daughter. She owed him that much.

A ball of bodies rolled out the door and collapsed into eight individual fighters. Arland appeared, fangs bared, face splattered with blood. It was like something out of one of the Anocracy’s pseudo-historical dramas—a lone hero on a strange planet, standing against impossible odds, roaring his rage to the heavens.

Arland swung his blood mace. It smashed a female fighter’s skull in a gory explosion of blood and brains. Before the swing was finished, the Krahr knight turned, grabbed the one to his left by his throat, shook him once like a rag doll, and tossed the dead body aside. The perfect blend of sheer brutality and efficient precision was beautiful to watch.

The Krahr knight kicked a huge raider to his left, driving the full power of his armored leg into the vampire’s knee cap. The man dropped, and Arland backhanded his jaw with his mace, almost as an afterthought, turned and sank the head of the mace into the ribs of the raider on his right. A hammer landed on his back. Arland shrugged it off as if he’d been smacked with a flyswatter, spun, too fast on his feet for a man of his size, and slammed the mace against his attacker’s right arm. The arm went limp. The vampire turned and ran. Arland hurled his mace. It soared through the air and bounced