by Jesse Teller
A Plea for Blood
“What are we doing here?” Aaron sat on a barrel on the deck, leaning back against the main mast with a dagger in his hand, stabbing the barrel. Oak stood on the top of the steering deck, looking at the air around him as if restless.
“What do you mean, Aaron?” Avent asked.
“Well, we are sitting here. That fool is dancing for some reason.” He pointed at a half-naked man with his arms in the air, dancing like an exotic woman. “They are playing dice over there,” he pointed to a group of about five men snarling over a pair of dice. “And you’re pacing and growling at yourself. Horsehair is sharpening his knives, and I’m baffled by the way you are all pretending to be cowards when you are clearly not. So, what are we doing, sitting here on this boat, when our fate is being decided out there?”
Aaron pointed at the city and laughed. “When I was fighting in Tienne, the men and I would talk about the worst of it. We would talk about the pain of the wounds, the marching, the food. We would talk about the women we missed at home and the constant exhaustion the war forced upon us.
“There was this bastard named Loho, and when we would get to griping too much, he would point at the commoners we were marching past, and he would always say the same thing. I can hear him say it now as I sit here stabbing this barrel and pretending it is a damn vampire.
“At least we are not helpless in all of this. At least we are not these people waiting to be saved or damned by the actions and will of another.” Aaron shook his head. “I never understood until now.”
Aaron stood on the barrel and looked at Oak who sneered down at him. “See, I was born to a fighting people. I had a sword in my hand before I knew what to call it. I was training and fighting from the time I could walk. So, it was never a question to me as to whether I would be in a war. It was my destiny, always a fact I lived with. But Loho had never been allowed to fight for his life until my king came around. I never understood his mind and his fears.
“But we all know there is an evil out there. It is violent and terrible and has no soul. It cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be bought. It cannot be run from. It is as certain a death as any of us will ever face. And here we are sitting on our asses, stabbing barrels and wishing they were vampires.”
Aaron stood and shook out his arms. He sheathed his dagger, and he readjusted his sword belt.
“I’ll save you a spot on the battlefield. I think they are going to be fighting outside the castle. It is where I would lay it all down. You guys take your time. When you are done being cowards and have screwed up the courage I know you have, join me. Until then, enjoy the dancing.”
Aaron ran off the boat and turned his feet for the center of the city. He had time to make it before the setting of the sun. He had to hurry, though. He needed to find a good spot on the battlefield.
As the Sun Fails
Rayph stood beside Drelis on the topmost tier of a long-abandoned wizard’s tower. Rayph remembered when the wizard had come three thousand years ago to seek permission to build here. The king then had quizzed him and talked to him for weeks, looking into his past and seeking the sort of man the wizard really was. He found little darkness and an all-around good soul.
“If Phomax had done the same, this wouldn’t be happening,” Rayph muttered.
“What?” Drelis asked.
“Vrice, he set all of this into motion years ago. I warned Phomax about him but—”
“Let it go, Rayph. Things happen. People die, and there is little justice. We do what we can. We react until it is time for us to act. Everything that happened with Vrice and Phomax and Thomas, all of it brought you to your knees last night. I find it fair.”
Rayph nodded. He pushed it all away and looked out at the city. At the gate, thousands of people shoved their way through, leaving the city as quickly as they could. Detonation and toppling buildings rocked the city. Roofs were ripped from buildings and tossed aside as the Hoodsmen tore through every nook in the city.
“This city will never recover.” Rayph’s voice betrayed his sadness, and Drelis patted him on the back.
“I don’t believe that,” she said. “This city has survived too many trials to be leveled by this. She will rebuild.”
Shop after shop exploded in a market district, and Rayph let the words of his friend sink into his skin.
“They will take you after this is done. You will be placed in a dungeon and, in time, marched out before the nation and executed,” Drelis said.
“I will die one day or the next. If this is the way things will transpire for me, then so be it. If Vanyel is done with me, then I will accept my death and move on. If not, then an opportunity will arise. Either way, it has to end. I can’t scuttle around in the shadows anymore. When the time comes, I will go, but all of you will have time to get away. They will stop looking for you after Phomax dies. Until then, you will have to keep it low.”
Rayph watched the sun dipping in the sky, and he nodded. “I wish the Pack was here. Harpo said they might make it. I guess they got held up somewhere.”
“Better this way. They are wasted in the city.”
“Maybe.”
“Boss,” Smear began. “Where did you find these guys? They are a level of ruthless I have never seen before.”
“I found them in a nightmare, Smear.”
“Whose?”
“Tristan and Kat’s, I guess. How is the evacuation going, Dran?”
Her voice was stilted when she answered, and Rayph knew she was uncomfortable talking to someone she couldn’t see. “They are all moving very slowly.”
“Will we make it?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Make it happen, Dran. You can’t fail us.”
She grunted but said nothing. The sun was failing. Rayph lifted into the air and Drelis joined him. He flashed twice in the sky with two powerful pulses of light and landed in the courtyard before the castle. On the ramparts of the castle stood a lone figure. He wore decorative armor and two beautiful cutlasses hung his hips. He lifted the visor of his helmet as the dying sun glinted off the steel. Saykobar and his hounds landed in the courtyard. Dran and her town guards, Dreark and his fifty men, Toc-a-roc and his crew, all gathered beside Rayph.
Aaron the Marked stepped up beside Dissonance with Mort at his side. He grinned, and his scar did, too.
“Glad to have you, Sleepless,” Smear said.
“There is a big hunk of rock looking for you, Smear,” Aaron said.
“Yeah, I know, I think I have an idea for that actually.”
Rayph looked up at the battlements at the figure who lifted his hands and spoke.
“I, Yoah, Lord of Hemlock, declare you all unwelcome. You will flee the city or withstand my justice.”
Saykobar beside Rayph began to chant, and Rayph elbowed him. “No, let him speak.”
“I have watched the apocalypse from my castle and blame all of you for its falling. You will give back my wife and walk away now, or you will find my wrath laid upon you.”
Saykobar opened his mouth to speak. Rayph elbowed him again.
“Give us your masters and their charges, and we will lay our judgment upon them. When that is done, we will leave this place,” Rayph said.
The lord of Hemlock lifted into the air. His limbs flailed, and a finger of dread scratched up Rayph’s spine.
The nobleman’s face contorted and writhed. He let out a barking scream before floating out over the crowd. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he exploded. Rayph spat out a word that crafted a dome of energy above them, and the falling blood was boiled away. With a clatter, the armor and weapons fell to the ground, and Rayph looked up to see Tristan above them.
“Welcome to my city. You are all welcome,” Tristan said. “File up to us slowly and we will bring you to our fold and be done with it. I sincerely—”
With a burst of sheer power, Saykobar extended his hands, and Tristan was lifted up and shot back against the stonework of the castle.
A sickening thud filled the air, and Tristan fell out of sight.
“He is a blood mage,” Rayph said. “That didn’t kill him.”
“Good,” Saykobar said. “I work in pain as much as I can. And it may not have killed him, but it hurt. You can count on that.”
“I bet it did,” Rayph said.
“Ho, Ivoryfist, you’re not getting started without us, are you?” a voice boomed out through the courtyard. Rayph turned to see the crew of the Venture behind him. Oak stood in steel-armored shirt and skirt. He carried two cutlasses and held them out wide as if to embrace or sever the world. Rayph was not sure which.
Giggles carried a short spear and a buckler. He pointed at Rayph and giggled, and Rayph’s blood ran cold.
Avent tied his sleeves back and looked at Rayph. “Not really designed for battle, but I have a few ways I can help.”
Rayph nodded. Saykobar laughed. “I bet,” he said.
Horsehair’s long braid had been wrapped around itself into a bun on his head. He held two small fighting knives and grinned.
Behind them all stood a massive beast of a man Rayph had never seen before. He wore a set of armor stitched together from a motley assortment of other suits, a chainmail chest with a scalemail shoulder sewed on and a plate shoulder on the other side. Rayph saw leather and spikes and all other manner of armor. He smiled until the beast pulled a chain from behind its back, and a massive anchor flew forward to drop to the ground beside him. The anchor was battered and beaten, rusting in spots, and seemed bigger than two horses bound together. Solid steel, it dripped seawater and weeds. The chain coiled on the ground, the end wrapped around the cyclops’s arm from wrist to elbow.
Rayph stared, wondering what he was looking at, until the giant creature swung its arm and the anchor lifted off the ground to spray seawater as it hummed through the air. The cyclops brayed, and Rayph trembled. He turned his eye to Oak, forcing words to his mouth.
“It’s not a party without you, Oak,” Rayph said. Giggles giggled, and Oak’s crew let out a howl of ecstasy and brandished their weapons. Rayph turned away, unwilling to look at that sight any longer.
Toc-a-roc sighed, and Saykobar sneered. Through the crowd, a man shoved his way forward.
Corry held up a hand to stop Rayph from speaking. “I’m not the man you think I am,” he said. “I am doing this because—”
Rayph held up his own hand. “I don’t need to know, just glad to see you.”
The gate to the castle rumbled up, and Rayph lifted his voice so all could hear him. “They are coming for us. They will flood this courtyard from every conceivable angle. Stand here and kill them all. Sever heads from bodies, chop them to pieces, do whatever you have to do. Be yourself and have fun. My crew will come with me, with the exception of Dran, who will lead the town guards, and Dreark, who will command his men. Take these poisons.” Both Dran and Dreark shook their heads.
“If you don’t have enough for our men, we will not take them,” Dran said. “We bind our fate to them.”
Dreark nodded, and Rayph smiled.
The gate stopped, and hundreds flooded through the breach. Rayph tossed Smear, Trysliana, Drelis and Sisalyyon a vial, and they took their inoculation. He turned and handed the last poison to Dissonance, who shook her head.
“I will not trust my fate to a handful of witches. I will look nowhere beyond my god for protection. You can keep your poison, Rayph. It is not for me.”
Rayph held the sixth one in his hand, then stuffed it in his pocket. He spoke a word, and he and his crew lifted into the air, leaping over the courtyard and the wall and landing on an empty balcony on the third floor of the castle.
“They will be in the main hall waiting for us. We all saw Tristan take the hit. Don’t let that fool you. He is alive and well. He and Kat will be surrounded. Fight beside me and move slowly. Watch each other’s back and—”
“We’ve done this before, boss. Can we get to it?”
Everyone laughed, and Rayph nodded.
“After this, I will be going away. They will lock me up, and I want you all to run. Go back to Ironfall and hide if you want. Make for another country, just see to yourself.”
Dissonance nodded, and Smear laughed. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m gonna spring ya.”
Rayph laughed.
“We are out of time.” Rayph looked over his shoulder at the utter destruction being doled out by heroes in the courtyard. “Let’s get it done.”
The Embrace of Death
The flood of undead rushed forward, furious and starving. They screamed, desperate for blood and oblivion. Aaron looked to his right, to Mort.
“Remember Maldrog?” Aaron asked her.
“By the sweet face of The Pale, no. I was near death for most of that,” Mort said.
“Just as well, this is nothing like that,” Aaron said.
Demetri stepped up beside Aaron and pulled his swords silently.
“You look like the ass end of Hell,” Aaron said.
“Got beaten recently.”
“I heard,” Aaron said with a chuckle.
“Gave as good as I got,” Demetri said.
The front line of the vampires drew near, and the moment before impact Aaron yelled, “Redfist!” He rushed forward into blood.
The vampires he fought were thick with heavy features, bloated from drinking their fill. Their entire bodies were black and purple from excess blood. They hissed as Aaron slashed, and came at him with teeth bared and claws flashing.
When his sword hit their bodies, blood exploded from the wounds. In moments, Aaron was drenched in gore.
Mort prayed and touched all vampires within reach, and they instantly fell over, vanquished by the touch of The Pale.
Saykobar rose above the battle to hover in the air. He grinned, and with a great screaming of power, he threw his hands up and the ground ripped away. Cobblestones from deeper in the city lifted to fly wild, whipping through the air.
He laughed the cackle of the clearly insane, or the diabolically evil, and pointed his hand forward. The flagstones shot forward as if from the crossbow of the gods. They hit the vampires full force, and parts and gore exploded into the fray.
Aaron fought and raged. He called on his king. He called on his brothers. He summoned all his devastating fear and crippling hate, and he cut a swath through his enemy as a scythe would cut down a weed.
Sabrar shoved his way through the crowd to stand in the midst of the monsters they fought. Not a single vampire made to bite or even scratch him, as if the very face of undeath could not bear to look at him. He held his mighty staff in the air, speaking words that were a curse to all who heard them. Aaron held his hands to his ears. The whole of the battlefield screamed in torment until Sabrar brought his staff down at the crescendo of the incantation.
Around him, a great pillar of dust and ash rose from the ground. Sabrar screamed out one final curse, and the pillar exploded out in every direction. Suddenly, a great silence fell upon the air as the energy passed through every soul, living and dead, in the courtyard.
Aaron heard not one vampire scream in agony. He heard not a single curse or cry of any sort as every bit of flesh disintegrated from the vampires around him. Every dot of skin, every shred of muscle, every organ and every hair vaporized instantly. Aaron could hear nothing, as the entire battlefield fell to silence, save the sound of thousands of bones dropping to the ground in a great clatter. Within a breath, seven hundred vampires or more had been wiped clean from the world. Aaron shuddered as he wondered if they had not all been moved to a much worse existence.
Sabrar slumped, holding himself up on his staff with the last of his power.
“We have to defend him!” Demetri shouted and, as one, the three of them fell in around Sabrar as he dropped to the ground.
Aaron looked over his shoulder as the sound of violent bellowing filled the air, over the sound of a great humming of some massive object, and the sound of waves of flesh being pulveriz
ed.
Behind him, Mast swung his deadly anchor, and the rest of the Venture fought beneath the weapon’s arc, keeping all the undead from crawling on the enraged cyclops.
The vampires kept coming. Wave after wave of them pressed in boiling over one another in a mad press to get to them.
Demetri took a slash to the face and, suddenly, Mort was standing over him.
“Get him up!” she shouted.
Aaron gripped the man by his hair and yanked him to his feet. Demetri cursed, and Aaron laughed, when vampires rolled over Mort like a river over a stone.
He screamed, and Demetri rushed in with him, slicing and chopping their way through the wave.
Aaron grabbed Mort from the ground and gasped in horror at the huge chunks of her body missing from fang and claw. Much of her had been torn away, and she stared up at him, her body gushing lifeblood as she fought for words. Aaron could not hold back the tears as he stared at the woman he had once allowed himself to love. She fought for words as she drooled blood, and Aaron pulled close to her mouth, weeping as he listened.
“Demise,” she said. “Find Demise.”
Aaron nodded, unable to decipher her final words. He wept as she passed into the embrace of death.
“So sad.” He heard spat from above him. The voice, he did not recognize, but he decided if it was Saykobar, he would slit the man open. Aaron looked up to see a monstrous vision before him.
It possessed a twisted body, covered in places in fur, but most of its body was naught but seared flesh. It bore great stitching in its hands, thighs and feet. It looked to have at one point been disassembled and hastily sewn back together. It was tallish in places, crumpled in others, and Aaron did not see it for what it was until he noticed half the face had been sheared away.
He stood and pulled Demetri close.
“Keep them off me. This bitch and I have business,” Aaron said. The Hoodsman grunted, and Aaron stepped forward.
