Page 45 of Besieger
“I do not know. But I think…” Silvio bit his lip. His teeth had grown long and sharp. “I think she did something to us back in the desert. To the men chasing us as well.”
Amerigo furrowed his brow. He did not remember being chased. The last thing he recalled was Silvio calling him, at the citadel.Rico, he had yelled amid the chaos of the raid and slaughter. And then Amerigo woke up in the earth.
“I do not like this, Sil. I do not like it…” He looked nervously around, scraping a hand through his shorn scalp. It was late at night but he could see clearly a great distance ahead. The houses, their windows, pigs moving in a sty close by. “I keep hearing things. Awful things.”
“What things?”
Silvio looked up from his hands and his eyes focused on Amerigo. The circles under his eyes were gone, the signs of exhaustion and malnourishment had also vanished. He looked healthy, young and beautiful. The sight made Amerigo ache. His teeth hurt. He was so thirsty. He regretted not drinking from the spring earlier. It was too late now.
He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. What if itwashis imagination driving him insane, making him hallucinate all these visions and sounds. Of course he was not hearing voices. Of course he was not listening to someone wish him harm. He was tired, that was all.
“Rico,” Silvio made to cup Amerigo’s face and pull him close, when the sound of snapping twigs and struggling startled them.
The woman reappeared, like a daemon materialising from the shadows, her eyes glowed with bloodlust. Behind her, she was dragging a man, a farmer of some sorts, who was bleeding from the mouth.
Both of them froze at the sight; Silvio’s heartbeat so loud Amerigo was sure the organ would explode any second in his lover’s chest. The smell of blood grew stronger, his vision blurred. His hands started to shake.
“Come.” The woman raised her hand and beckoned for Silvio. With her other she held fast to the struggling man.
Her long nails dug into the man’s throat and the blood spurted. Silvio gave out a sound, raw and broken, and fell to his knees. He struggled to breathe; like a fish out of water, he opened and closed his mouth.
“Here, let me help you.” The woman cooed and pushed the farmer closer to Silvio, the wounded throat against his mouth.
Amerigo watched the scene before him, mind reeling. His own breath caught in his throat, he was on the verge of choking with desperation, the smell of blood agitated him. Silvio now held the body, the limbs twitched and flailed against him, the human’s gagged sobs reverberating into the night.
And the blood—
Amerigo wanted to taste it: to run his tongue over a vein and sink his teeth into it. How would the flesh feel when his teeth pierced and broke it like the skin of an apple—and he gulped it all down? He watched Silvio draw the life out of that body and drown in the sweetness of it.
“We will findsomethingfor you later,” the woman said and at first Amerigo thought she was speaking in his mind again, but he saw her red mouth move with its tongue and sharp teeth. He wondered how her voice would sound when it was not dripping with poison. “You feed last.”
They hid from the day in a barn, being full of blood and warm under the weight of the straw. Amerigo could hear the animals moving in the stalls under them. Silvio lay next to him, enjoying the extra space to stretch and move his limbs, away from the pressure of stones and wet earth. They fell asleep holding on to each other, Silvio keeping him close, legs intertwined; Amerigo’s face buried in his lover’s neck, his mouth against the artery, pulsating with blood; blood that had not belonged to Silvio.
The woman waited for them, complaining that they were wasting time, that it took too long for them to wake. The sun had set hours ago, she bickered. Amerigo did not understand why she insisted on accompanying them, nor why they could no longer travel by day. Despite how her very thoughts echoed in his mind, he did not know her reasoning, nor her name. She was a spectre, a witch, guiding them on some kind of quest. Huffing, Amerigo raked a hand through his hair and brushed it back. It kept falling in his face, and was full of straw and twigs. Silvio tried to help him get it clean and tore a piece of fabric so Amerigo could tie it in a low ponytail.
He still had the taste of pig blood in his mouth from the night before. The woman had deemed the farmer too good for Amerigo to feed on. “An animal for an animal,” she had hissed and made him butcher a sow. The flavour was disgusting and clung to his gums but it gave him strength, so he endured in silence.
They could not remain in the town, not with the corpses of man and beasts left in their wake. It was best to put some distance behind them and, if needed, sleep in the earth or within a hollow trunk. Yet they must not linger and attract attention. Paris lay far ahead. The journey would take weeks, months.
“Why Paris?” Silvio asked. His step was lighter, full of vigour. The blood had revitalised him. The more bodies he drained, the stronger he became.
Amerigo liked the shine in his green eyes, the familiar intelligence behind them. He pulled absentmindedly at a lock of hair that had escaped the tie and twirled it around his fingers.
“To our home, husband,” came the unsettling reply.
“You call me husband, yet I do not know your name.”
“Dulior.” The woman smiled and looked her groom up and down, savouring the sight of him. “You shall be my Count, as I—your Countess.”
Silvio made a face, his grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. He had hung it to rest at his hip and the scabbard bounced off his leg with each step.
“I do not wish to marry.”
“And yet you have,” Dulior countered. “I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, husband. Do yours.”
She jerked her chin towards Amerigo, and the mirth disappeared from Silvio’s face, his step faltered. He seemed to ponder, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“What bargain?” Amerigo asked and halted.
