When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Now she could see all light from the city. She noted the guard patrols, at least those that held torches, and she could see street lanterns and the lights from the watchtower fires. Between them was an abundance of shadow.

  She closed her eyes again and cast her mind forward. She felt the contours of the darkness in the city, of the negative spaces between the lights, and could even make out images in the dimly lit areas, which she perceived as thin shadow. She could feel and see the forms of beings moving within this fluid space.

  A chill ran through her. She could make out the usual guard patrols, but even accounting for doubling their numbers, as Lord Sandovos had ordered, there were dozens, maybe over a hundred other things moving out there in the darkness. Belham was right. This was no wandering pack of twos and threes. As Danry had warned, vampires quietly descended upon Rille, very deliberately and en masse.

  Despite Belham’s warning, she would not give up so easily. She concentrated a moment and felt Khiighun’s presence. Looking through his eyes, she saw that he stalked two of the undead. She returned to her own mind, and then stepped through the shadows again to emerge at the edge of town beside Khiighun. Two vampires approached from the tree line. Anuit could see them clearly with her darkvision. They noticed her, but instead of blindly roaring and rushing forward, as she had seen in the past, they moved silently and with deliberate purpose.

  They drew swords.

  “Damn!” she cursed. She hadn’t seen that before. They were disciplined, and with their speed and strength, they would be even more deadly with weapons. To the guards, they would be unstoppable.

  She wondered why they didn’t carry firearms, but then she realized they wanted to keep silent, to surprise the town at the last moment. They wanted to take Rille, not destroy it.

  Khiighun, kill! she commanded.

  The hellhound rushed towards them, knocking one to the ground with a flurry of claws and teeth. The other advanced on Anuit, sword drawn, with a grim expression on his face. His eyes glowed a faint orange.

  She reached out to the ambient sea of omnipresent dead soul-dust that floated through the air and channeled its etheric substance, drawing upon its latent, dark power. A bolt of solid shadow shot forth from her open palms and hit the vampire in the chest. The impact blew him back, slamming him against the large trunk of a nearby tree. Now he roared.

  Had he been living, the darkbolt would have killed him. Its energy nullified life force in the living, but he had no such essence within him. The Dark was not especially effective against vampires. All she could do was bludgeon him with her power, but it would not be enough to kill him. It would, however, disorient him long enough for Khiighun to bite his head off.

  Khiighun bit his head off.

  The hellhound grinned his great toothy grin, and bounded over to Anuit like a puppy. She would have patted his head save for his spiked mane that would have shredded her hands.

  Two vampires down, but how many more?

  She reached out with her senses again and felt the mass of moving bodies in the darkness. She heard screams as a guard patrol met one of the vampire packs. She knew the guards would not last long. She stepped through the shadows, reappearing to the north of town where she felt their frantic struggles.

  It was too late. Four vampires held bodies to their faces, burying their mouths in the flowing blood. A fifth guard lay on the ground with his throat torn out.

  They looked up at her and her hellhound with gleaming eyes. They threw the bodies to the ground and faced her. One slowly dragged the back of his hand over his lips, wiping off the excess and leaving his hand marked in slick red blood.

  To me! she sent out a mental command to her demons. Khiighun was already at her side. Bryona appeared, looking annoyed, still wearing Anuit’s face and standing naked in the night. She smelled of sex.

  “It’s going to be hard explaining to Lord Sandovos why he’s suddenly thrusting his hips against empty air.” Then she saw the vampires. “Oh. That.” The succubus dropped her magical glamour, and her skin lightened to its milky white. As her wings reappeared, so too did her modest, high-collared dress. She held a folded purple umbrella in her hands.

  The vampires paused at the appearance of the succubus and seemed to notice for the first time the hellhound at Anuit’s side. A fifth and a sixth vampire joined them, and Anuit knew they could wait no longer.

  She flung her shadow bolts forward, striking one of them to the ground. His companions leaped at her, and she dropped to her knees, gathering the darkness to her and forming a spherical barrier. The vampires hit the hardened surface and fell to the ground. Khiighun leaped on one of them, but this vampire was stronger than the others. He rolled back smoothly and threw the hellhound away from him. Khiighun regained his feet, and the two faced off against each other.

  Bryona advanced on the other fallen vampire. She held the closed umbrella in her left hand and grabbed its handle in her right. The umbrella’s shaft sheathed a blade, and she pulled the handle, freeing the hidden saber. It was a narrow sword, but the metal was of demonic make, as strong as any broadsword. She seemed bored, lazily bringing the blade down to remove the creature’s head. Her lack of focus made her sloppy, and the vampire rolled out of the way. He jumped to his feet and drew his own sword. Steel rang on steel as the two engaged. Anuit nodded as she saw the situation had finally won Bryona’s full attention.

  The dark barrier shield was permeable and would not keep determined enemies from pushing through. The four remaining vampires approached, and she curled her fingers, gathering power for another onslaught.

  To her surprise, the music of a guitar sounded from behind her. Notes and chords prickled through the air, and along with the music, a soft, warm golden glow radiated on her back and around her sides. The vampires drew back, hissing in frustration.

  Anuit turned and saw Danry approaching. He held his guitar boldly, as if music could solve all the world’s problems. His left fingers worked their magic over the fretboard while his right hand danced and plucked the strings, weaving an intricate fabric of sound. And light. The guitar glowed, and a luminous gossamer mist dispersed to the ground with each finger stroke. Sunlight bloomed around the two of them, just enough to cover them in a protective field that the vampires’ instincts would not let them approach.

  “You’re a bard!” she breathed in relief. “A true bard.”

  “You’re a sorceress,” he grinned crookedly. “A true sorceress.”

  The light cut her off from the darkness, denying her the ability to sense the movements around the city.

  “So you’re the secret behind the town’s safety,” he remarked, still playing. Lights in the nearby houses at the edge of town came on as people lit candles to investigate the noise.

  Anuit nodded. “It won’t be enough tonight,” she said. “There are too many of them, more than I’ve ever seen in one place before.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I felt them moving in the dark.”

  “Then they were sooner than I expected,” he said. “The vampire Count of Astiana doesn’t intend to let this continue. People are too valuable to them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They need food, and they intend to convert the town.”

  “Convert? You mean turn.”

  “No. I mean convert. They can’t turn everyone. They spread a religion that holds submission as a virtue and self-sacrifice as a blessing.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that earlier.” Anuit frowned. “Why would people do that?”

  The bard shrugged, not breaking the tune. “To feel safe. It’s amazing what people will give up for it.”

  More vampires gathered at the edge of the light. Anuit’s demons drew back to stand at her side in the circle of safety. Dozens of shadowy forms surrounded them, their eyes glowing pinpricks of yellow and orange.

  Then the mass of shadows parted for a new arrival. A darkling vampire stepped to the edge of the light as far as he could stand it
. His eyes did not glow like the others, but instead were a solid dull red. He had their same pale skin, but his head was crowned with two large, curled ram horns. His thick tail twitched behind him. That his eyes did not glow in anger as he readied for battle indicated he was calm, in supreme control of himself and the master of his undead nature. He grinned and extended his forearms, opening his palms to the sky. Flames appeared and licked at his fingers in orange fluidity. He spoke a word of magic.

  No, not a word. A name. A demonic name.

  A hellhound appeared at his side, much like Khiighun with his eyeless mouth and spiked mane, but his skin held the under-glow of embers and fire danced around his limbs and back.

  “A sorcerer!” Anuit exclaimed. “A hellfire sorcerer.”

  “We cannot survive this,” Danry stated grimly. “But you can escape with some of your people. I will hold them off. I need you to get a message to Arda. Attaris of Windbowl can help you find her. Tell her Tulley sends word: Kaldor lives!”

  Anuit shook her head. “Tell her yourself.” She grabbed the guitar neck and muted the instrument, plunging them into darkness as the sunlight vanished.

  The vampires were fast, but she was just a breath faster. She wrapped her demons and the bard in strands of darkness, pulling them through the sea of night’s shadow. They vanished and reappeared outside the opposite end of town, on the slope of a foothill overlooking Rille.

  Danry looked at her in surprise.

  “No,” she whispered, pressing his hands firmly before releasing his instrument. “No light.” She closed her eyes for a moment and felt no bodies, vampires or otherwise, in the darkness around them. They were all around and in the town.

  Danry started to protest, but she put her finger on his lips. “No. This town is lost. There is nothing we can do.”

  “But we can save some of them!” he whispered back. “We can’t—these are your people! How can you just leave them here?”

  “How important is this message of yours?”

  He closed his lips together and nodded once, even as he frowned. “Let us go then,” he said.

  “Wait,” Anuit responded. “I must witness this. I must never forget.”

  Anuit sent Belham out over the town. She listened through his ears and watched through his eyes. The vampires moved through the city. There must have been a hundred of them, and there was more than one sorcerer. Demons—hellhounds and shadow knights—scattered throughout their numbers.

  The darkling leader shouted. “Come out of your homes! We can coexist in peace together! You need not die tonight!”

  None of the townsfolk had ventured from the safety of their own hearths. They knew the vampires could not enter uninvited.

  From the crowd, a woman came to stand by the leader’s side. “See! Your own lady knows! Follow her example!”

  Anuit gasped at what she saw through her imp’s eyes. It was Lady Sandovos. She had fresh bite marks on her neck. Some of the house windows opened, and people looked out on the street.

  “Hear him!” the woman called out. “I have secured safety for all of us! We don’t need to live in fear anymore! All we must do is submit, and they will let us live our lives. Karanos is dead, and the gods have abandoned us! But there is a new Covenant! You call them vampires, but that is the name for a monster. They are not our enemy! No, they are the Liberated, and they offer us new life as Bloodsworn in the Covenant!”

  Not a soul opened their doors.

  The vampire lord pointed at one of the houses. “It pains me to do this, but you must be taught. Your homes will not protect those who reject the Covenant’s bounty. There is only once choice: submit!”

  A stream of fire extended from his outstretched finger. The other vampires, those not sorcerers, shrunk away from the flames, fighting against their own fear. The house caught fire, and soon the flames engulfed its walls. A family of three ran out the front door to escape the flames.

  The darkling vampire nodded towards them. “Kill them, but do not drink their blood. They will suffer the final death.” One of the other vampires moved swiftly, his form blurred, and buried his sword cleanly in each of their hearts. The three of them fell to the ground and bled out on cobblestones. Anuit felt a stab of pain with every thrust of the blade. She had known each of them.

  “Those who come out willingly will be spared!” the vampire shouted.

  One by one, doors opened and families emerged. Anuit’s neighbors and friends. Their eyes were wide in fear, many of them trembling.

  “Share your blood with us, and we will share the grace of our goddess with you,” the darkling said. “Give us open invitation to your homes, and we will protect them as they become our own.”

  The people agreed.

  Lord Sandovos came out from Anuit’s house. “What have you done?” he asked his wife.

  She stared at him. “Where is that bitch, Anuit?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Lady Sandovos turned to the vampire. “He cannot live. He has no loyalty.”

  The darkling vampire moved to Lord Sandovos faster than eyes could follow, and with a quick thrust of his clawed fingers, reached into the man’s chest and pulled his heart out through his ribcage. Lord Sandovos slumped to the ground, a look of surprise still on his face.

  The darkling returned to her side and touched her cheek. “Your reward for calling us: do you accept Liberation in the Covenant? Will you rule and keep our law here?”

  She nodded, an ecstatic fervor in her eyes.

  The vampire darkling embraced her and bit into her neck. She hissed as he penetrated her skin, but then she sighed in pleasure as he drank. As he sucked, his fangs remained buried in her flesh, and Anuit knew that they pumped his venom into her. When she died, the poison in her veins would animate her body and bring her into undeath as a vampire. He continued to drink deeply from her until her lips turned cold and gray. Her eyes listed to the side lifelessly, and he laid her on the ground.

  Anuit withdrew her mind from Belham. “I’ve seen enough,” she said. “We must go.”

  She unsummoned her demons, knowing they were only a word away should she need them. The two of them withdrew into the hills, keeping watch through the night before sunrise. At dawn they crossed over the next hill before they rejoined the northern road towards Kriegsholm and the safety of Hammerfold.

  5 - Off the High Horse

  Arda thought about returning home to Kriegsholm to report that Traversham had been lost. She knew why the messages had stopped. The road towns had fallen. But she chose to travel south; her mission wasn’t finished. She needed to investigate deeper into Astia and find out what made things different here than they had been in Roenti.

  And yet… that was not why she pressed south towards Astiana. She felt the weight of innocent blood on her sword. The slaughter of Traversham, of its living people, tore at her. For the first time in her life, she had lost control, and that was unacceptable. She had spilled innocent blood, and now judged herself guilty.

  She had failed as a paladin, and she was compelled to seek penance. The Kaldorite’s were not so severe that penance was demanded for any little slip in the code, any minor breach of their core virtues; it was up to the individual conscience of each to determine when she had gone too far. Should a Kaldorite judge themselves as having utterly failed in being whom they aspired to be, they were required to present themselves to a senior officer, the one who trained them if at all possible, for judgment.

  Tulley was alive and still operating in Astiana the last Arda had heard. It was just over a year ago that she had received her last correspondence from him, and she owed it to him to seek him out. Honor required her to confess her failure as his student. Then he would decide what penance fit the crime or whether there could be penance at all.

  After her failure in Traversham, she did not seek out the vampire masters in any more of the roadside towns. It was the same in each. Most of the humans had submitted to being food for their undead lords
, and the vampires who ruled the towns let them live. She couldn’t kill them all, and now that she doubted her own virtue she wasn’t sure she should.

  She found that during the day, the townsfolk didn’t bother her if she didn’t bother them. She even found she could stay in an inn largely undisturbed. It was harder to summon the Light now, but it still responded to her will. Through its power, she could declare her room her home, ensuring that none of the infected could enter without her permission. Every night, this got harder the longer the guilt festered in her heart. The strange thing was, the vampires didn’t even try to gain entry to her room. They let her go about her business. It was very different from Roenti.

  Is this how it starts? she thought to herself. Maybe you break inside, and then you lose hope. Then you surrender responsibility for your life to them.

  She had been told since birth that being a darkling was no shame. Only the cosmetic effects of the hereditary curse were visible… but what if that wasn’t true? What if her soul too bore a dark mark, and was the reason she lost control?

  Pride. That was it. She had been so sure, in that moment, that stamping out that evil and its collaborators was the only right thing to do. Her ancestors had also been proud. They were sure that the magic offered by demons was the right thing, the necessary thing, to save humanity from the High Elven Imperium. They were the humans who embraced the dark pact and became the first sorcerers. And the first darklings.

  She sat on her bed in one of the inn rooms. She could hear people downstairs, some of them laughing. She guessed it was the vampires who laughed.

  Her bed was simple, and the mattress had lost its spring. It was no longer plump, but dead and flat after much use by patrons. Her horse waited outside in the stables—vampires didn’t like animal blood, in any case—and she had taken her pack upstairs with her. She had flung her coat and hat on the floor, and her pistols lay at the foot of the bed beside her sword in its scabbard.