They each breathed a sigh of relief, but their fortune was short-lived as another, shriller, war cry tore through the cavern and the black abyss below. Before they could react, the ghouls were staring down the might of Lady Amata’s horde as they charged into battle.
Unlike the enormous troll before them, these monsters would find no difficultly in traversing the bridge and bringing the fight to their enemies.
“Everyone, get ready,” Fiona said through gritted teeth, “Show no mercy… take no prisoners… for tonight we dine on the blood of our misbegotten brothers!”
Chapter 6
The horde charged towards the front lines with little care for their own. They threw themselves upon the blades of the ghouls, one by one, until their combined weight proved too much and forced the enemy to reel backwards.
Those caught between the rest of the horde and their adversaries were not so lucky, and they found themselves being pushed off the bridge and to their untimely fates down far below.
“Vampires, charge!” shouted Fiona, sword drawn and pointed towards the enemies that had managed to break through the first line of defenses, “I want the bridge sprayed with their blood!”
The vampires cried out for battle and rushed to help defend the line. They were vastly outnumbered, and their only chance lay upon holding the narrow bridge where they wouldn’t be overrun. That was the plan, at least.
“They’ve already broken through our first line,” Steven said as he drew his sword and looked towards the others, “We need to press on, or we’ll see everything unravel before our eyes.”
The battle was going dreadfully, and it would only be a matter of time until the horde had overrun them completely.
“Where the hell’s Xander, anyway?” Samuel asked, “Someone tell that troll’s ass to get out here and fight! He’s supposed to be the strongest one of us, yet he cowers inside the temple’s walls while the summoner does all the work?”
“Shut your mouth, vampire hunter!” Esther yelled, “You know nothing of my master’s will! He will join the battle when he sees fit… not you.”
“Stop bickering,” Steven interjected as his sword rose towards the opening of the tunnel, “We’ve got bigger problems right now than your petty squabbling.”
Raised above the minions that carried her, the vampire queen emerged through the tunnel on a wooden throne adorned with the skulls of the traitor’s children. The throne barely made it through the tunnel, widened by the force of the mightiest of trolls. But she was a queen, born with stature and importance, and saw it necessary to be carried in such a manner. She was important, and she wanted her enemies to know when she joined the battle.
And notice they did, as the sound of a dozen drumbeats signaled Amata’s entrance into the fray. She leapt high into the air and sailed effortlessly across the cavern’s highest reaches.
“Look out!” shouted Fiona as she tumbled out of the way, “The vampire queen has made a terrible mistake! Press on and we’ll finish her now!”
Amata drove herself into the ground in the middle of the group and sent them reeling from the force of the impact. On a bent knee, she slowly lifted herself off the ground and withdrew a katana from its hilt.
“Foolish creature,” Lady Amata growled, “The sooner you die… the sooner I’ll be able to kill your treacherous master.”
Esther and Fiona charged the vampire queen, swords raised and spirits high. They could’ve never imagined the power she wielded, but they would soon be fully realized to her power.
The vampire hunters, teacher and student, moved to take up swords, but were soon drawn to the bridge, where several werewolves had broken through their last line.
“Allow the vampires to fight their own battle,” Samuel said, “We need to hold that damned line!”
They charged towards their allies holding the line, swords glistening under the temple’s aura as they hacked and carved their way to the front.
“Your skills return to you in short order!” Samuel bellowed as he parried a blow and returned with a thrust to the ribs.
“And then some!” Steven answered with vociferation, “I feel good, mentor! Better than I have in a long time!”
“Don’t let your newfound confidence get the better of you,” Samuel said as the voice of reason, “Our mission is to survive, nothing more. Don’t be a hero and you might just see yourself out of this one.”
“And what shall be the fate of the vampires to our rear?” Steven asked as he cut down the last werewolf to breach the wall, “Shall we just watch them get slaughtered?”
Fiona and Esther were lacking coherence and confidence as a combined fighting force and took turns on the offensive. They slashed away with their swords, but their attacks saw little success and the vampire queen more than held their ground before their united assault.
“We must believe that they will triumph over the vampire queen,” replied Samuel, refusing to look behind, “Besides, they’ve got two to one odds. We’ve got much worse than that. Hold the line, Steven. That’s all your sister requires of us.”
Just then, the towering silhouette of a large vampire emerged from the attacking horde and the man launched himself over the vampires the separated him from those he deemed most worthy.
“And what do you make of our odds now?” asked Steven, staring blankly at the enormous vampire in front of him.
“Considerably lower,” Samuel said as he spat to the ground.
The man stood seven feet tall and covered in blood that dripped down his disheveled beard and scraggly hair. He wore little in the way of armor, not that he would’ve needed it. His arms were like tree trunks and it would’ve taken more than a few hacks in succession to separate meat from bone. Perhaps the scariest part of the man, however, was the war axe he carried, which seemed to dwarf even him.
“What the hell is he?” Steven inquired, his sword hand shaking ever so slightly.
“A Norsemen,” Samuel replied as he braced himself for an attack, “He’s a goddamn true-blooded Viking.”
“The name’s William,” the beast barked, “And I’ll see you stripped of your flesh, vampire hunter, you and your mangy mutt!”
The lumbering vampire charged towards the two startled hunters, and cleaved downward with his mighty war axe, right down the middle of the two. Each jumped to the opposite sides of the bridge and took up arms. Together and fighting as one, the teacher and student threw everything they had against their formidable foe. Steel clattered and tempers flared, but they wouldn’t give in to the behemoth’s strength. They would fight, until they couldn’t fight any longer.
Meanwhile, the two kindred sisters found themselves still unable to cope with having to fight side by side. They may not have shared the same blood as humans, but their connection to their master should’ve formed a bond not easily broken. However, this wouldn’t come to pass for the two vampiric sisters. It was awkward, and they barely managed to slow Amata down as she cut a swath straight through the two of them.
“You call yourself a warrior?” Lady Amata asked as she parried a blow from Fiona and sent her reeling with the butt end of her katana, “Both of you have hundreds of years on me… yet you stand far less than my equal in skill and strength. You’re master has failed you in more ways than one, girl.”
“I’m no girl,” grumbled Fiona, who found it difficult to steady herself after the attack, “I’m right hand to the future king… and I’ll start his reign by ending yours!”
Fiona pushed off the ground and dashed towards the vampire queen with blood and spit frothing from her mouth. She was filled with rage and wanted nothing more than to end the war right here and now, but her mind was clouded with anger and she couldn’t see past Amata’s deception.
Her sword went clean through the image of Lady Amata, and before Fiona could realize the ruse she’d fallen for, she was struck in the back of the head. An elbow from the vampire queen had cracked the bone and Fiona hit the floor without resistance. The attack was devastat
ing, but not fatal. The human blood coursing through her body would see that she was healed in a short amount of time, but it wouldn’t be fast enough.
The vampire queen mounted the unsuspecting Fiona, drenched in blood and drifting in and out of consciousness. Amata, with her katana aimed high into the sky, called out for swift and proper judgment. The blade came slicing downward, but before it sunk into the skin of the Celt, the dark queen was knocked off balance and sent crashing to the floor.
“You get the hell off her,” Esther growled, “I never asked to be a queenslayer… but we don’t always get what we want, now do we?”
“What’re you doing?” Fiona groaned, “She’ll kill you.”
“We stand together, sister,” said Esther, “Or we don’t stand, at all. Now heal… I’m going to need your help, soon enough.”
She charged at the vampire queen, a brightly colored blur of hate and passion, sword aimed at the head and swinging wildly.
Esther wasn’t a fighter, and Amata knew it from the second she laid eyes upon her. The attack was rudimentary and easy to read for the battle hardened queen.
“I bet you read a lot of scrolls and tomes,” Lady Amata said as she dodged the attack, “Always with your head in a book, pen is mightier than the sword, and all the junk. Well, foolish girl, you’re going to learn the hard way.”
With steady hands, Amata grabbed her opponent by the throat and slammed her down to the ground with force. Esther screamed in agony as her head smashed against the hard rocky ground, made from the same limestone that formed the Temple of Prometheus.
“I pity you,” said Lady Amata, her fingers tightening around Esther’s neck while her other hand went to a dagger concealed on her thigh. She playfully ran the tip of the blade down her wounded prey’s body, starting from the shoulder and then down to the waist. “I’m not going to kill you… no, you deserve a far worse fate than death. You’re going to watch while my horde destroys everything you’ve ever held close.”
Amata drove the dagger into Esther’s stomach, piercing the organ where her entire blood reservoir lay collected. Blood poured from her waist and pooled around her motionless body as the blade came back out again.
“You’ll heal,” Lady Amata said with regretful eyes, “But it’ll take awhile… far longer than I need to crush your dreams one last time before your suffer the final death. Now watch, old youngling, as I set fire to everyone that you care about—.”
“You’re nothing but a blood junkie!” Fiona cried as she attacked the unprepared vampire queen.
Amata tried to dodge, and nearly succeeded, but found herself between the blade’s sweeping arcs. The steel separated the skin on her forearm and blood splattered down to the ground.
The attack gave the vampire queen a sudden pause, and the oddest feeling of gratification. It had been over a hundred years since her own blood had been spilled, a game for the demented side of her nature. How many people could she bend and push to the brink, before they would fight back and drop even the slightest of her blood?
“Very good,” Lady Amata said snidely, “Let’s see how you fight without your crib mate.”
* * * * *
Back inside the temple’s inner sanctum, an impatient Xander waited for a sign from the summoner that she was all right. It had seemed like an eternity since she fell unconscious, but he knew not to interrupt whatever the summoner’s might of had in mind. His entire plans rested on Emily’s shoulders and he would live and die by the summoner, whether he liked it or not.
“Go back to them,” a voice rang in Emily’s head, “Share with them what you know.”
“Ugh,” moaned Emily as she started to stir within the circle, “Xander, are you still around?”
“Yes, I am,” Xander replied, stepping forward and nearer to the light, “What do you need of me?”
“Nothing,” Emily said, “I know what I need to do. I know who I am.”
She tried to lift herself, but a sharp pain in her stomach halted her momentum and she crashed to the floor. It was a sudden rush of emotions that brought the summoner to her knees. She could feel the umbrage of her friends and companions. They were dying out there, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
“What’s wrong, Emily?”
“I can feel so much despair,” said Emily, her face all scrunched up from the uneasy feeling the swelled within her, “Chagrin. Hate. Zeal. There’s a war going on outside these walls, a war that we have already lost, all over the illusion of what I am. I see so much happening that I cannot allow to come to pass— a future that must be adverted.”
“I… I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”
“Come to me, Leviathan,” cried Emily with eyes bursting and hands engulfed in flames, “Become an extension of my will… help me cast back the darkness from where they hold no claim.”
Chapter Seven
“Humans,” began William with a look of dissatisfaction. He held Samuel by the throat and extended him into the air. He was toying with him, enjoying the small gratification he received from this most lopsided of battles. “They’re so damned squishy.”
The hunter’s student charged the monstrous vampire with his sword raised high into the air. His attack, not unlike the one used by Esther, was flawed from the start and left him open for counter-attack.
With Samuel still dangling from one hand, William throw a boot into the chest of Steven, and sent him clattering back to the ground.
“Squishy and stupid,” William said with a self-indulgent grunt, “Here, vampire hunter, share your student’s fate.”
William hurled Samuel’s ragged body into Steven’s and the two collided with a booming thud. Ready to conclude his brief moment of play, he dragged his massive war axe beside him as he marched slowly towards the two wounded hunters.
Steven was the first to his feet and braced himself against the much larger opponent. His weapon lay on the ground between him and the plodding vampire, far out of his reach. He waited for a few moments, gathered the willpower necessary, and then rushed William with his hands raised in anger.
“Steven, no!” shouted Samuel with his arm extended to his friend, “Don’t be a hero!”
William laughed at the sight and used the back of his hand to send Steven crashing to the ground. Finding the boy’s anger amusing, he continued past him and straight for his mentor.
“Fiery and ready to meet death straight on,” William said with his axe raised high and sights set on Samuel’s battered body, “I would’ve turned the boy, had he not been that which I despise above all else. I should show him… let him see for himself what really happens to hunters—.”
“Not today,” Steven said with a blade to the back of William. He quickly hit the ground as the beast thrashed around in convulsions.
“You’re fucking dead, you little shit!” screamed William as he tried to reach around and pull the blade from his upper back, “I’m going to eat your brains and floss with your bones!”
William turned around abruptly, and much to the dismay of Steven, he refocused all attention towards the hunter in front of him.
“Oh… shit,” muttered Steven as he backpedaled with his butt dragging on the ground, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
“You really didn’t think that’d stop me, now did you, boy,” William asked, “I’ll grant you the hero’s death you’re so apparently anxious for—.”
“You took your eyes off the wrong one, beast,” choked Samuel as he appeared from behind the vampire and tried to knock him off his feet.
“I’ll see you in Hell!” growled William as he looked behind. The vampire jerked from side to side in attempt of throwing the hunter off his back, but it was to no avail. “You and your mangy sidekick… you’re dead! You’re all dead!”
Samuel used the sword still lodged in his back for leverage and knocked the towering vampire off his feet and watched as he plummeted down to the abyss below.
The vampire queen’s right hand was a qu
iet man, but even his screams could be heard through the cavern as he fell to his end— death by endless black void.
Both mentor and student rushed to the bridge’s edge and peered down into the chasm. They watched until William’s body was nothing more than a tiny speck amid the sea of black. He was forever gone and out of their sight, a madman not long for this world.
“Damn,” said Steven with a pat on his friend’s back, “I didn’t think we’d get out of that one alive. C’mon, man… we took down a freaking Viking! How cool is that?”
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