by Lucas Thorn
“Its purpose is to find Vampire Lords,” Melganaderna continued, speaking to the elf. “And kill them. You see, they were hard to kill. They were the gods of this world when the world was still Night. When the land was covered in ice. Some legends say they were stronger than all the gods, in the beginning. That's why Rule and Grim were forced to work together despite their own hatred of each other.”
“Then I don't understand why you're afraid,” Chukshene said. “Let it do what it does. Let it kill them.”
“That's not how it works,” she said patiently. “You see these runes? It's said that if the person wielding the battleaxe can connect with it, the runes glow brighter than the sun itself. Until then, it's just an axe to me. Maybe a little lighter than it should be, but still just a hunk of sharp metal. Which means any Vampire Lord this thing tries to kill is only going to laugh it off. The minor runes seem to work for me, though. That's why I can carry it. They make it feel lighter in my hands. But that's it.”
“And you can't connect with it?”
“Not yet.” The dark purple runes ebbed as she traced the lines along the twin faces of the battleaxe's double blades. “It's as if there's something stopping me. A barrier between us. It's difficult to describe, and maybe I'm just making excuses.”
“You'll figure it out,” Hemlock said. He reached for her hand and squeezed lightly. “You always do.”
She smiled at that. Then looked up at the elf again. “It looks cumbersome, I know. Ridiculously big. Maybe even stupid. Especially for someone of my size. I trained on much smaller blades, of course. Swords, mostly. I'm afraid I made a hopeless princess, which my father didn't mind. I think the bastard was hoping for war to come and always wanted a son who'd charge off into battle for him. I was the next best thing, I guess. When we left, I felt it calling to me. Like it wanted to leave with me. I don't know why. I've never heard it before. It wants something, I can feel it. But, so far, I don't know what.” She glanced down the tunnel, eyes glazing over. “All I know is I need to figure it out soon if there's a Vampire Lord haunting these caves.”
“I'm not sure there's one still alive in here, Melgana.” Hemlock furrowed his brow. “I really can't see Urak, even in death, allowing someone else to use his Keep. The Vampire Lords were fiercely territorial among themselves. They fought relentlessly, and by all accounts their King was worse. He ruled out of strength, not wisdom. It's why they couldn't form a single army to fight back. Why they fell to Rule in the end. ”
“And Grim,” Chukshene said. “Don't forget the Dark Lord was there, too.”
“Sorry. I keep forgetting. That's not the way we were taught, I guess.”
The warlock snorted loudly. “Rule lies. It's why Caspiellans are so stupid. No offence, but it's true. The Dark Lord was always honest. He believed we should learn. Not just from our successes, but our failures. It made us strong.”
“But he was called the Dark Lord for a reason,” Melganaderna said quietly. “He embraced magic and darkness. He brought winter back to the land and let loose the Shadelings. He brought the world so close to another Night Age. He twisted life. Created the orks. And then there's the Deathpriests. Everyone knows their magic is foul. Unholy.”
Chukshene's face was blank. “No more foul than necromancy.”
She opened her mouth and shut it again, not knowing what to say as her cheeks reddened.
“He's right,” Hemlock said, smiling easily as Melganaderna shot him a surprised look. “No, Melgana, he is. It's something I thought about for a long time. It's why I went to the High King's crypt in the first place. I wanted to know, you see. Was it magic or was it man which was evil? I still don't know. But I don't feel like the Lich I'm supposed to be.”
“You're no Lich. Don't say that.”
“It's said that's what necromancers are doomed to become.” But he chuckled as he said it. Flicked some ingredients into the bowl and snapped a few words of power.
Magic swirled in the room like an acrid tornado, focussed on the bowl. Hot red flame burst into life above it, flooding the room with a cheerier glow than the warlock's globe.
As the warmth spread, the elf slowly relaxed.
Chukshene, who'd been watching carefully, gave an admiring shake of his head. “I like that,” he said. “All my flames come out looking sick. Green or yellow. Like molten pus.”
“I'm not very good.” Hemlock looked embarrassed by the warlock's praise. “But I'm getting there. The first time I cast that, I nearly blew a hole through the castle wall. As it was, I got scorched rather badly.”
“I know the feeling,” Chukshene said. He leaned forward, holding out his hands eagerly to sap the warmth. “You know, this one time, when I was still an apprentice, I set my wife's horse on fire. No, really. Whoomph! Up it went. Char-broiled in five seconds flat. Best thing I ever saw in my life. What? Why are you looking at me like that? It was great. I can't fucking stand horses.”
“That's awful,” Melganaderna said, not sure whether to believe him or not.
“Is it? That's kind of what my wife said. But she was a real . . .” He trailed off, eyes widening as a thought occurred to him. “Oh, fuck me. Grim's dead fucking toenails, I've been stupid.”
The elf slid her knife into its sheath and casually drew another. Lay it across her thigh and began grinding the blade with her stone. Didn't look up. “Well, I'm shocked.”
“Oh, shit.” He looked ready to throw up. “Stupid stupid stupid! It's her. Of course it is. No one else it can be, can it? We're fucked. We are definitely fucked. More fucked than that night in Dragonclaw. Nice girl. Strong legs. Did things to me you wouldn't believe. Yeah, we are so fucked.”
Hemlock raised an eyebrow at the elf, who shrugged. “Reckon the 'lock knows something we don't,” she said. “When he's finished playing with his dick about it, he'll let us know.”
Chukshene turned on them. “Don't you see? It's her!”
“You said that. Never said who her was.”
“His wife, of course.” The warlock was pale and obviously panicked. “Who else can it be?”
“Whose wife?”
“Urak's! The Vampire King. He had a wife. Two children. If you can call a couple of mini-monsters children. Which, technically, they all are, I guess. Neck-chewing monsters. Just the thought of them makes my ass tight.”
“You're losing it again, 'lock” Nysta observed.
“Don't any of you ever fucking read? Look. Okay, listen. There's a few stories. They're not as old as the original ballads. But in them, Grim killed Urak, and then Rule killed the Vampire King's children. They wanted to make sure, you see. That the evil never came back. But she wasn't one of them. Not really. The Vampire Lords found mortal spouses. Turned them immortal through their evil magic, or something. No one really knows how. But whatever. It's not important. What's important is those stories say she was here. And Rule cursed her to spend eternity haunting the halls of Urak's Keep. I thought it was just a poet's addition. You know. After the fact. To make Rule out to be even worse than the usual motherfucker he is.” He tugged on his bottom lip and his eyes flicked this way and that. “It's said she cursed them all. That she'd get revenge one day. She must have been so pissed. And that voice? It sounded pissed. Mad, too. Crazy mad. Not just angry mad. All fucked up, she sounded.”
“It could've been a woman's voice,” Hemlock allowed.
“Could be? It fucking well was!”
“Rule wouldn't kill children,” Melganaderna said doubtfully.
“Oh, yes he would,” Chukshene was shaking. His body trembled as fresh tremors of paranoia drummed through his veins. He looked around as though expecting the Vampire Queen to leap from the shadows. “He did, even. Still does. Many times. Ask her. Nysta's people have been persecuted by him for centuries. Go on, ask her. She knows. And let's not even talk about what he does to orks. Why do you think the Wall was built in the first place? It wasn't built by Rule to keep us in. It was built by Grim to keep him out! To protect the Fnordic Land
s from Rule's insanity. He doesn't kill just soldiers, you know. You can't wipe out a people by killing their soldiers. You have to go for the fucking throat or don't bother. Kill them all. Because, if you don't, their children will come after you one day. He knows that. He's an asshole, but he's not stupid.”
She still didn't look convinced. “But, children...?”
“Ain't ever met him,” Nysta said. Her tone was heavy, and drew their eyes. “But I've seen what his soldiers do. Grey Jackets don't just kill us. They torture us. As long as they can. They believe the screams of a dying elf please Rule. They call us Tainted. Our souls ain't pure enough for their god. Only way to purify us is through pain. In their fucked up heads, they think they're doing us a favour. I've seen them keep a man alive for three days. Seen them keep a kid for five.”
“Grey Jackets? You mean the Accepted? Lieberslanders?”
“That's where they come from. We call them Grey Jackets on account of all the grey they wear.”
“But that doesn't sound right. I mean, they're-”
“Bastards,” Nysta finished for her, voice growing colder with each word. “Ain't no other word for them. And I'm trying to forget where you come from, kid. Trying real hard to keep things polite. Ain't sure why, really. But something tells me you're looking for a chance to get free. Well, maybe you'll get your chance. If you do, you'll see for yourself what they can do to a town. Reckon after that, if you still want to tell me how nice these fellers are, or how forgiving their god is, you can look me up. Then we'll see if you can beat me in a fight without jumping out of nowhere like you did last time.”
Melganaderna's fist tightened around Torment's haft. But she nodded. “Maybe things are different out here,” she said slowly. “We've already seen a few things we didn't understand. Maybe you're right, Nysta. I hope you're not, though.”
“You know I am,” the elf said. “Or you wouldn't be running away.”
The axewoman frowned at that, and again had nothing to say.
Hemlock, though, was looking at the warlock. “I've never read that Urak had a wife. Maybe you got it wrong? Maybe it's just a tavern legend? Something to make it sound better, like you said.”
“I'm not wrong,” he said firmly. “It's her. Sure, mostly it's tavern legends like you say. But even in a bard's mouth you can sometimes find some truth. They don't all work as tools for the Emperor's propaganda. She was a fiend, by all accounts. It took rivers of blood to please her. She preferred virgins. Which I understand, of course. You know, being the kind of man I am. But she wanted them for their blood. She bathed in it. The younger the better. Her crimes were so great, they're why Rule cursed her with endless life. Doomed to spend eternity looking at the body of her dead husband.”
The elf's eye twitched at the warlock's words.
A brief image of Talek, his frozen body.
Blood.
Knife buried in his chest.
“What's her name?” The elf's voice was a dry rasp.
“Don't make me say it,” he whined.
“Her name, Chukshene.”
Chukshene's eyes bored into her. His face lost its fear and he sighed, resigned to answering. “She was called the Black Sorceress. Scourge of the Bloods. Vampire Queen, and the Damned Bride. Her name? Gul'Se.”
“You know my name, mortal man. How clever of you,” the voice purred through the room. Nysta couldn't place its source. It seemed to breathe into life from the very air around them. Humming along the walls.
Chukshene rolled his eyes. “I told you,” he muttered. “Didn't I tell you? Don't ask questions. Doesn't anyone fucking listen to me?”
“So now you know your crime, and you will pay for it. How you will pay.”
“We weren't there,” Hemlock barked, looking upward. Trying to locate where it was coming from. “It was centuries ago!”
“You were here!” The voice lashed at them. Sharp as a whip. “And it was only yesterday. The blood is still wet.”
He tried again, voice urgent to communicate his sincerity. “You have to believe us, Dread Queen. We had nothing to do with your pain. We're not your enemies. We came only to speak with you.”
“I know your words for lies. You seek to confuse me. But my mind is clear. I remember when you came here with your cowardly gods and you slew and slew so you could take what wasn't yours! My vengeance is everlasting. Come to me. Come and die, mortals. You will die in such agony. Urak! Urak, my love. Where are you? Come feed with me!”
A slither of air took the voice away again, and Chukshene let out a heavy whine.
“Why did I come in here again? I should have stayed outside. Nysta? Why did you let me do this?” He looked up at her, lank hair glistening with sweat and grime. Then frowned. Rubbed his jaw as he remembered something else. “You hit me.”
“You touched me.”
“Is that why you hit me? All I did was-”
“Don't touch me.”
“Okay, okay,” he grunted. “We're fucked now, you know. She might not be a full-fledged Vampire Lord, but if what little I know of her is right, then she's still stronger than us. It took gods to fight the Vampire Lords. Two of them. Gods. We're not gods.”
“No,” she spat a wet stream out into the dark. “We ain't.”
“All I wanted was Sharras Exilium.”
“You might still get it back, 'lock.”
“It's too late,” he said. “She'll kill us now. Even if I do, there's nothing in it which can help us. Grim's mouldy cock, I've been so stupid. I should have stayed in Godsfall. That's what I should have done. Kept my nose in their books. Become some kind of fucking clerk. Or a cook. I can cook. I mean, I could if I wanted to. I could have done anything. Cleaned their fucking chamber pots. I don't know. Anything's got to be better than dying in a fucking cave.”
Opposite the ranting warlock, echoes of fear spilled across Melganaderna's face making her look even younger. And if it wasn't for the blood soaking through the rings of her mail, the elf would've figured her for a complete innocent.
The elf's hooded gaze moved away from the young axewoman. She couldn't help thinking about another young girl whose name she'd already forgotten.
A girl who'd battled the Grey Jackets along the wall of Tannen's Run. Who'd found the guts to fight when others had run away.
And she saw in this one, the same spirit.
The same steel.
“It breathes,” the elf said. “Whatever it is. Remember that. It breathes.”
“So?”
“So, you can kill it,” the warlock finished. “That's Nysta's motto, sort of. I'm sure it's stamped on the inside of her skull so she can't forget it.”
Melganaderna nodded. It took conscious effort, but the woman pushed her fear away. Clung instead to something stronger than her fear.
Trust.
Not in herself, but in the elf's words.
“You're like him, you know,” she said,. “I was trained by one of the best soldiers my father had. His name was Gormen. He'd fought in countless battles. Killed more than he could remember. And though he tried to hide it, when you looked into his eyes you could see Death staring right back at you. He'd seen that much of it, it had to affect his soul, right? But he spoke like you. The same kinds of words. Maybe all warriors speak like that regardless of where we come from? I'd like to believe that. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think if he were here now, he'd have said just that.”
“Gormen?” And when Melganaderna nodded, the elf drawled; “He sounds ghastly.”
CHAPTER TEN
In the aftermath of Gul'Se's words, the warlock wanted to keep moving. But not further into the heart of the Vampire Queen's madness. He wanted to search for the elusive promise of side tunnels. Find a way out of the mountain's haunted guts.
Hemlock argued against it.
Between coughing fits, he maintained the best course of action was to prevent the Grey Jackets from disturbing Gul'Se any further. “It would be disastrous if she's let loose on the world,�
� he said. “We have to risk it, Chukshene. Have to. There's no one else.”
Melganaderna crossed her arms and glared at the warlock, defiantly siding with Hemlock.
Looking to the elf for a firm decision, Chukshene was doomed to be disappointed when she offered little comment. Instead, she moved further apart and settled herself against a wall to peer down the dark tunnel and wrapped herself in her own thoughts.
Her attitude showed she was clearly not ready to move anywhere.
Responding to the warlock's subsequent frustrated groan, Melganaderna grinned impishly and cleared a space large enough beside the necromancer's fire. Spread her bedroll and motioned for the wheezing necromancer to lay beside her.
Chukshene resigned himself to a long wait and sprawled on his back, hands folded under his head. Mouthed his thoughts, but kept his eyes closed and no sound emerged from his lips.
Hemlock and the young axewoman whispered softly to each other. Her hearing picked up snatches of what they said, but the elf tried to block their conversation from her mind. Not wanting to listen to their more intimate expressions.
Just the thought of those kinds of words made her want to shriek in jealous rage.
Which unsettled her. When Talek had been alive, he'd never hidden his feelings. Had always told her how much he loved her. Often surprising her with a tender phrase.
When she returned after being away, sometimes for weeks at a time, he'd hold her for a long time. The scent of him like a familiar blanket as his warmth eased her steely soul. He'd tell her he missed her. Always in words which fanned the embers of a heart she thought had grown too cold.
His strong arms made soft in those moments.
She'd never been able to open up to him like he had to her. Could never speak the words she suspected he'd always dreamt of hearing spill from her mouth. When his arms were around her, she'd found it difficult to return his affection. Hard to bend into his embrace.
She'd felt awkward. A little frustrated by her inability to express. Sure, the love was there. Buried deep within. But it had crystallised. Hardened into something which couldn't bend. Couldn't even bear to move in case it shattered like glass.
