Free Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) by Susan Griffith Clay Griffith Page A

to Grenoble. Troops rallied with him, surging forward with their commander, screaming victoriously as they clambered over the rubble and entered the enemy city for the first time.
    Vampires were waiting for them.
    Anhalt didn’t stop. His mare bowled into them. She neighed sharply in pain but obeyed her rider’s commands. The general cleared a path for those coming behind. Time slowed and everything around him was as if stuck in a mire. Only he was moving. He howled a battle cry and jabbed forward, twisting and cutting at every fanged shape with his Fahrenheit saber, whose chemical coating burned. Pain actually registered in the wide eyes of the vampires who drew back. Anhalt had no idea if he was alone or surrounded by his men, but he would not stop. He only knew he had to push the line. Kill vampires.
    His arm was numb with the continuous effort of driving at the creatures. He was covered in as much blood as his smoldering blade; he was slick with it, screaming a challenge like a man obsessed. He killed and went forward again. Then something struck his head and he fell back against the mare’s haunches, barely keeping his stirrups and his weapon.
    He tried to right himself while the horse careened into bodies. When he saw three vampires swooping at him from above, he knew he was lost. He couldn’t raise the saber in time, and his pistol was long since spent. His angle was too awkward, and he was unable to do more than watch his demise approach.
    A burst of rapid gunfire brushed his hair, and the vampires disintegrated in a spray of blood and bone. Anhalt twisted to see his savior, a palsied Galahad approaching with faltering steps.
    With a shout, he saluted the man inside and brought his mare back under control. Then the machine gun on the tank rattled through empty chambers, its ammo at last spent; its fuel would not be far behind.
    Anhalt slashed with his saber at monstrous faces all around him. Soon all ammunition would be spent. The ordnance of sinew would have to hold out until the empress made her play.

A DELE HAD BEEN in one other vampire city in her lifetime. She tried not to think about the horrible things she had seen in London, though she knew she would see them again in Grenoble. Vampires turned every city into a cemetery.
    Once-bright-red roof tiles lay in shattered rings around the buildings, torn loose by the claws of vampires perching and crawling. The windows and doorways lay bare and open to the elements with nothing but detritus inside. Adele could see the once-regal beauty of exquisite architecture still outlined in the crumbling façades. Framed against the majestic Alps the city still struggled to maintain its dignity. Balconies of stone and metal had collapsed on once-splendid buildings. In the distance she could see the points of rotund towers, so typical of the region. Beside them, Adele and Gareth strolled past pedestals that once held statues but now stood like silent soldiers.
    In gruesome contrast, a tableaux of morbid humanity lay frozen on the streets, stiff from ice and death. The bodies were covered in a light dusting of snow for which Adele was grateful because the cold masked the stench and blanketed the horror of what it meant to be under the yoke of vampire persecution. All the cadavers were naked, their clothing likely put to good use by the living. Stepping over a pile of bones, herfoot slipped on slick, icy stones. She reached out to catch herself, and almost struck a passing vampire before she jerked her hand away and grabbed a snapped gas lamp. To her relief, the creature sensed nothing.
    A few humans gathered inside stone buildings, huddled around fires. Some glanced curiously at her, but didn’t react. There were far fewer people milling around than she would have expected. As the cacophony of gunfire increased in the western quarter of the city, she suspected that the vampires had gathered their food somewhere to make sure none revolted or ran toward the Equatorian