Just before dawn, the ravenous undead tried to find shelter in the homes and sewers of Kriegsholm. Attaris and the duke chased a trio of the monsters into a tunnel and were surprised when the things suddenly fell and crumbled to ash at sunrise, even though they had escaped its light.
Attaris stopped. “That’s odd,” he panted.
Montevin sniffed at the ash piles, and then shifted back into human form. “Indeed,” he agreed. “Why would they die at dawn? I thought they fell into sleep.”
“I don’t know,” Attaris said. “Do you think Markus was right? That these are part of Pavlin’s attempt to push his—what did Markus call them, the hungerbound—into Hammerfold?”
“I don’t know,” the duke responded. “It’s too convenient.”
Attaris agreed. They both walked back into the rising sun.
Kriegsholm was ravaged. Iron boxes had fallen indiscriminately, breaking buildings and streets alike. Blood splattered the city walls and corpses were everywhere.
“Anyone who was bit and died,” Attaris said grimly, “will rise tonight to feed unless we behead them.”
“So many,” the duke lamented. “We need to be sure to find all of them. All of them.”
“Yes.”
They regrouped with the mayor and his family. Jorey already had organized the guards to bring all the bodies to a field outside the town where they would be identified, beheaded, and buried. Attaris set out to help them with the grisly work.
By noon they had rounded up the bodies—over a hundred of them.
Modhrin preserve us. There were less than a thousand citizens in Kriegsholm!
Most of the dead were human, but a handful of wolven and over a dozen seelie were there as well. Attaris shook his head in sadness. They were probably all, or at least most, of the light elves there. The vampires had singled them out.
He bit his lip, and a wave of grief hit his gut. Tarrin was among the dead. He had been in the group of seelie Aradma brought to Windbowl from Artalon nine years ago, and he had become one of their best rangers. Now his lifeless corpse lay in the grass. A human woman lay atop his body, sobbing in grief. Two small elven boys stood behind her, the younger holding the older’s hand.
Sons. Attaris didn’t know that Tarrin had sons.
The dwarf knelt at Tarrin’s head. The elf’s eyes were open but no longer glowed with light. Attaris closed the eyes gently with his fingers and prayed.
Modhrin, You who forged the universe, Lord of Storms, please watch over the soul of Tarrin. Accept him into the Hall of Ancestors that he might watch over his sons. Tarrin was the first of his line. They do not have a line of fathers going back to the beginning of time, and their line of mothers will need help. Accept his soul to your Hall, and allow his sons’ line of fathers to begin and join their line of mothers.
He felt his god respond by the soft certainty in his heart.
“He is with the gods now,” he told Tarrin’s wife. “He will watch over your children.”
She looked up at him briefly but didn’t respond. A conflicting line of emotions tugged at her face. Grief, irritation, gratitude, anger. The older son turned away, leaving the smaller brother’s hands empty.
By two in the afternoon, they had finished identifying them all, and families lined the square of the field, crying on each other’s shoulders. All were exhausted. There were too many to bury before nightfall, so Montevin and Seredith summoned magical fire and burnt the pile to ashes and bones.
“That’s all of them?” Montevin challenged Jorey.
“Yes,” the mayor answered. “I’m sure of it. We’ve made sure to speak to each household. All are either on that pile or were accounted for alive after daylight.”
“Good,” the duke said. “We will rest tonight. Seredith?”
“I am here, my duke.” The shrouded revenant hadn’t left his side.
“Is your translocation tether in Windbowl active?”
“Yes, my duke. I’ve not one here. I will not be able to return so quickly.”
He nodded. “I need you to go to Windbowl and warn them. Send reinforcements. Tell them to send riders to Hearthholm and warn King Donogan.”
“It will be done, my duke,” she responded. She gave a slight nod and then withdrew her wand. Then she was gone.
“I’m going to stay,” the duke said. “We need to be ready for more, and I want to make sure we really found them all.”
Attaris looked over at the side of the field for a moment. Among the people, he recognized Jorey’s children. Arlen and Keira had grown. He knew Arlen was a ranger now, but he hadn’t yet seen Keira. She was no longer the little girl he knew in Windbowl. He had been with her during her thirteenth birthday when she first manifested the wolven curse. Now she stood beside her brother, black hair blowing in the wind over blue eyes. She had a distant look on her face.
So much had happened since she had come to Windbowl and adopted him as Uncle Atty. Aradma said she used to call Tiberan uncle, too. They had stayed in Windbowl for two years, and then her father moved them to Kriegsholm and joined the border guard. Tarrin had gone with them. Jorey had become quite popular after two years of serving on the border. Eventually, the town’s lord had died in a vampire attack, and without children or a wife, the lord had been the last nobility ruling in the town. A year later, Jorey was elected mayor.
It was in the final hours before dawn that Attaris awakened to hear screaming just outside his window. This time he had not slept in his night robe. He grabbed his coat and hammers and ran outside. Across the street, a woman ran from her home. Her neck was bitten, and blood flowed in two neat lines from a pair of dark red tooth marks. She tripped and fell to her knees.
Attaris rushed forward and caught her before she fell face first to the ground. “What? Where?” he asked.
“My husband…” she whispered softly. She was extremely pale.
“No, no!” Attaris cried out. “How? We found everyone!”
“I lied…” she said. “I knew he could come back. I thought I wanted to be with him, but he’s not my husband any more. Please, burn my body.” She shuddered. “For the sake of my children…”
Her head rolled back, eyes fixated dully at nothing in the dark sky.
Duke Montevin was at his side.
“What was her name?”
“I—” Jorey’s voice came from behind them.
“Her NAME!” Montevin roared. The muscles beneath his beard worked furiously and the veins on his forehead pulsed.
“Elise.”
“I was foolish to think we had them all,” Montevin growled at himself.
“Oh, Elise!” came a voice from the house. There in the doorway stood the shadow of a man. Blood dripped from his mouth, and he looked in horror at the scene in front of him. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to kill her. I’m just so hungry. I couldn’t stop myself.” His eyes glowed, and his fangs hung fully extended from his upper lips. He truly looked sad.
Montevin’s fur burst all over his body, absorbing his clothing as he shifted into his wolven form. He raised his hands and began chanting the magical words of a spell.
He must be tired, Attaris thought. He hasn’t had a chance to replenish his magic. No rest.
Whatever remorse the vampire had shown vanished when Montevin raised his voice to magic. The creature’s preternatural survival instincts must have taken over, and he rushed forward faster than any could react. He grabbed Montevin’s throat, catching the wizard off guard. The vampire threw back the duke’s lupine head and snapped his neck. He ran up the side of the building, dragging the limp wolven body with him.
Attaris sat in shock, still holding the dead body of Elise.
Then Arlen was at Attaris’ side in wolven form. “Hold your hammers ready, my friend,” he growled. “There will be no peace tonight.”
They saw very few vampires that night, but each of them had been Kriegsholm townsfolk. They found Montevin’s body mangled in the woods an hour after sunrise. His corpse had
shifted out of wolven form, and his eyes seemed so sad as Attaris looked into them.
Like he’s apologizing, the dwarf thought. As if this loss was his fault. He squinted the tears from his eyes. Montevin had accepted so many into Windbowl. The outcasts of the Empire, dwarves, orcs, and at one time, even sorcerers had found their homes under his rule.
It was so quick. How could it have been so fast? He deserved better. Oh Aiella. I’m so sorry.
Montevin’s features held nothing of their wolven spirit. Attaris closed the man’s eyes and wrapped the duke’s cloak around his neck, covering the mangled flesh. He knew he needed to dispose of the corpse, or it would rise as a monster.
At least there are no wolven vampires, a stray thought passed through him. Wolven could become vampires, but their wolven curse was somehow neutralized by the transformation of vampire blood. They only rose in human form. Strange that the contagion does not also overcome the darkling curse. Another random thought.
Gods, I’m so tired! He had hardly slept in two days. An angry tickle pricked at his knees and calves, and the thick pressure of sleep deprivation pressed against his temples. If this keeps up much longer, I’ll start hallucinating.
Montevin’s body was taken to the ash pit from the previous day and burned with the bodies of the other vampires they had fought that night. What troubled Attaris the most, however, was that they hadn’t found the vampire that killed Montevin. There was no telling where he had gone.
Jorey and Rajamin organized another search of the city. With over nine hundred people—no, eight hundred now after the first night—it was impossible to be thorough. They found one family hiding a sleeping body in the basement. Someone’s mother. Someone’s wife. The family didn’t want them to be dead.
The sleeping vampire was burned.
That’s not all of them, Attaris thought as he nodded off, lying on the ground with his back against the stone wall of someone’s house. There will be more…
Attaris slept until late afternoon, and was awakened only because someone gently pushed at his shoulder.
“Atty. Uncle Atty! Wake up!”
He grumbled and raised his eyelids. Keira’s blue eyes stared into his intently. She had grown into a pretty girl. A pretty woman.
“Atty!’ she shook him once more.
“What, what!” he grumbled, and then shook his head awake. “Oh, all right. I guess I should get up.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you but it’s almost nightfall,” she said.
Jorey approached behind her. “Keira, get inside! It will be dark soon, and they can’t enter homes uninvited.”
Attaris snorted. Or unless they were launched into the home in steel boxes. At least that hadn’t happened again. Attaris rose to his feet and flexed each leg at the knee, getting his blood flowing.
Okay, he wasn’t tired anymore. Now he was hungry.
“Dad, I’m going to fight with you!” Keira said defiantly.
“Oh no you’re not!” Jorey raised his voice. “You’ll get in there with the rest of the families and hide! You’re not trained to fight!”
She shifted into wolven form. “I can fight,” she growled through her fangs. Her wolf eyes were just as blue as her human eyes, and her entire body was covered in short black fur, as dark as her human hair.
“Wolfina,” Jorey looked at his daughter’s lupine face lovingly. “I know you can fight.” He placed his hand under her furry cheek, his fingers brushing through her thick black wolf mane. “But look what happened to the duke. You’re not prepared. There will be a time when you fight with us, but it is not today.”
She snorted and whimpered. Her tail dropped to the ground, and then she shifted back into her human form. “I hate hiding!” she scowled sullenly. She shot a glance back at the dwarf. “I guess I’ll be in the house. You should come eat something before dark.”
“Aye,” Attaris agreed. “That I should.” He followed her home.
Apples, cheese, and old bread. That’s all they had for dinner that night, but that was all Attaris had the stomach for anyway. Even of that, he didn’t eat much. The losses they had suffered didn’t lend themselves to any sense of appetite. But he knew he had to eat. He would need his energy.
He sat at the living room window and watched as the sun finally left the sky. He finished his last bite of apple, rubbing his fingers on his pants to wipe away the wet residue. Arlen and the other wolven rangers prowled the streets alongside the city guardsmen. There were so few of them left now and no seelie had survived both nights. Rajamin had already gone out to help them.
Attaris saw clumps of shadows move on the edges of the streets. Two wolven and two guardsmen went to investigate, and then the four of them were engaged in battle against the vampires. Attaris couldn’t count how many of the infected there were, but it looked like at least four. He readied his hammers and rushed towards the front door to go help them. Keira stood at the lit hearth with arms folded across her chest in frustration, watching him leave.
Attaris swung the door open and was surprised to see a young woman in the street in front of him. There was fear in her eyes.
“Lilly?” Keira asked. “Why aren’t you at home?”
“Please!” she cried. “Can I hide in here? They’ve taken my parents and they’re after me now!”
“Of course,” Keira cried out. “Get inside!”
“No, Keira!” Attaris shouted.
Lilly’s pretense at sadness fell away, and the hungered joy of anticipation gleamed in her eyes. She pushed forward and threw Attaris to the ground before he could raise his hammers. By the gods, she was strong!
Attaris struggled to rise, but she was on him, and he could do nothing against her strength. In blinding speed, her head struck like a serpent at his chest. He felt her fangs puncture his flesh, and a soothing coolness flowed out from the bite. She sucked, and he stopped resisting.
A howl sounded from the hearth, followed by a feral growl. Keira pounced in lupine form. Lilly was enraptured by Attaris’s blood and did not react in time. Keira’s jaws descended on the back of Lilly’s exposed neck. The wolven woman pulled back, jaws clamped firmly, and the vampire’s fangs were torn away from his breast. Two gashes opened and bled freely where there should have been a neat pair of bite wounds. A flash of pain tore through his chest.
Keira thrashed her head as a wolf breaking a rabbit’s neck. The vampire went limp, and she flung Lilly’s body against the wall. Lilly’s head hung at an unnatural angle.
Keira knelt down beside Attaris and lifted the dwarf into her strong, furred arms. She kept her eyes locked on the vampire.
“It’s okay, you can put me down,” Attaris said. His chest hurt, but the wound was superficial. He had suffered worse in his years adventuring with Arda and Danry.
Lilly’s body twitched, and then pulled itself to its feet. Her head hung to the side, eyes staring dumbly at them. Her bloodied mouth opened and hissed. Red fluid gurgled and bubbled in a froth over her lips. Her arms rose and lifted her head back into its place.
Keira dropped Attaris and leaped over him, tearing forward with all her wolven speed. Her clawed hands thrust into Lilly’s shoulders. Lilly tried to bite her, but her neck had not yet healed itself. Keira picked up her former friend and bounded to the lit hearth. She thrust the vampire’s body into the burning logs and held her there.
Lilly thrashed in pain, and Keira gave a piercing yelp as the flames burned her own hands. Keira held her ground, even though the fur burned away from her arms, keeping Lilly pinned until the vampire body ignited. Only then did Keira release the undead creature.
Lilly bolted forward, flames consuming her body. She flew out of the house, only making it twenty feet into the street before she fell over in frenzied convulsions and her body moved no more.
Keira crouched behind the sofa, her back to the fire. She stared out at the door, watching her friend burn. Lilly’s throaty howls ceased, and the corpse continued its descent into ash as the fire consumed
it. Attaris saw Lilly’s flames reflected in Keira’s wolf eyes, golden light deep in her pupils surrounded by the blue lupine irises.
Keira snorted once more, licked her lips, and then whined.
Attaris walked to the door. His chest still slowly bled. There seemed to be clumps of vampires moving about. Some noticed him and then suddenly stood in front of the door. Their mouths stretched open hungrily, their glinting eyes fixated on his wounded chest. The runewarden didn’t see any guards or other rangers moving outside.
“Let usss innn…” they hissed.
Attaris slammed the door in their faces, and then closed the window blinds.
“We’ve lost the night,” he said.
He turned to Keira. She had shifted back into human form and lay slumped over the back of the sofa, knees on the seat cushions. Her arms extended straight forward, elbows on the top arch of the sofa’s back. Red and white blisters covered her fingers, hands, and halfway up each forearm, standing out in contrast against her otherwise creamy skin. Her eyes blinked with tears of pain but she did not cry. Attaris noticed the smell of charred flesh.
“There’s nothing more to do tonight,” he said. “We’re safe in here as long as we don’t let them in. They’re too hungry to think straight or overcome their fear of fire to try to burn the houses down.” He withdrew his healing stone from his pocket and said the prayer to activate the rune. He laid it on the floor, and soon his own wounds closed.
“Gods damn it,” she whimpered. The magic did nothing for her burns.
Attaris found some cloth bandages in the house. He poured cool water over her arms, and then gently patted them dry. He wrapped clean, dry strips of the cotton around her arms, dressing her skin in a protective layer. She hissed with each wrap but did not cry out.
“It’s going to hurt,” he said. “But it will heal. Maybe Rajamin can help more tomorrow.”
She nodded. Her eyes squinted shut. Poor lass. It was probably too painful to speak.
Attaris grabbed a stool and set it beside the sofa. He sat facing the door, hammers in hand and resting on his knees for the remainder of the night as he listened to fingernails lightly scratching at the front door.
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 61