CHAPTER VIII
VAMPIRE HUNTER
Moonlight illuminated the forest outside the city of Ashwood. I placed a hand against the obsidian doors and they closed. I called for Torvin who was with other elves nearby skinning rabbits. I requested a horse for Lorena to ride back to the coast and food for the journey.
“But I want to go with you,” she pleaded as Torvin left to fetch a horse.
Shaking my head, I told her, “Where I’m going may be a bit too dangerous.”
“Then it’s too dangerous for you to go alone,” she argued.
Torvin led a horse over and another elf brought a satchel with supplies and a skin of water.
Looking at the horse and back to me with sadness in her eyes, she said, “This is goodbye then.”
I nodded slowly. “Thank you for—”
She suddenly grabbed me, pulling me in for a kiss, and again, her tongue reached in to taste me. I didn’t pull away from her, and I didn’t remain still this time. I held her and tasted her mouth. Secretly, I had hoped she would kiss me again. She may not have my heart, but I will miss her.
Without another word, she climbed on her horse and road off into the darkness.
Whispering, I said, “Goodbye, Captain Eleanor Lorena.” I stood there until I could no longer hear her before summoning my horse, Ralph, which had collapsed into a heap of bones not far from the entrance to the city. Making sure Scourge and Devour were secured on my back, I created a thick blanket over the boney spine of the horse. I mounted up and headed east to find Takarha.
The town wasn’t far. I reached it well before sunrise, so I had time to locate the vampire during her usual feeding time.
I found it strange that there were no torches lit. There was no candlelight coming from any of the windows as I rode into town. I then noticed that every home and building was in disarray. Doors were missing, windows were broken, and roofs were rotting away.
The night air blew cold, and snow began to fall. I stopped my skeletal horse and rubbed my hands together, magically forming gloves over them to help them stay warm. I began rubbing my arms and concentrating on the clothes I was wearing, causing them to thicken with fur. I pulled at my collar, and the material began to form a fur lined hood to cover my head.
I continued on slowly through the desolate town while snow fell in thick, fluffy flakes. Near the opposite end of town, there was a large building with doors still attached and a roof that looked to be still intact. I decided to go inside to have a look around and get out of the snow. I stepped off my horse and walked to the building with my arms tight around me. The latch was broken, so I pushed the creaky door open and stepped inside. Even among the broken furniture and cobwebs, I could tell the place was once a nice bar.
The night vision elves are blessed with helped me navigate the various debris that littered the floor while I made my way to the fireplace. I stacked a couple pieces of rotten firewood and broken chair legs. Removing a glove for a moment, I held my hand over the wood and focused my energy to ignite it.
After taking a moment to warm my cold bones by the fire, I felt ready to look around. Next to the fireplace was a doorway into an adjoining house. There was a bedchamber straight ahead and a hallway to my left that led to a back room. Behind the bar, I noticed a door leading to another room. Inside, the wooden planks of the floor had been broken up to reveal a storage room beneath the building. Through the darkness below, I saw many stacked barrels. I climbed down to the dirt floor. The barrels were heavy, most likely full of mead.
The walls were dirt with wooden beams and boards used to help strengthen them under the weight of the house above. Leading away from the house, I found a small tunnel behind a stack of barrels. I bent down and looked in, speculating it led to the basement of the house next door.
“What if it collapses on me?” I whispered to myself. “What if Takarha is at the other end?”
I listened for a moment, hearing nothing but my own heartbeat. I sniffed the air, catching only a dull, earthy smell. I closed my eyes and dug my fingers into the dirt. I could feel that I was close.
I was apprehensive about entering the long tunnel, but I needed to see where exactly it led. I looked around once more before crawling in on my hands and knees. My night vision cut through the darkness, allowing me to see that it was clear ahead and there were no traps within the narrow passage.
It took a few minutes for me to crawl through to the other end. When I stood up and dusted myself off, I saw that the basement was not filled with barrels of mead but with long crates. I counted more than two dozen in the room. I stepped over to the nearest one and carefully slid the lid over far enough to peek inside.
“Dirt?”
I checked the next crate to find that it, too, was filled with dirt. I reached in to scoop up a bit when a hand suddenly burst from it, grabbing my wrist!
“SHIT!”
The lids of all the crates flew open and people began climbing out of the dirt that filled them.
I tried pulling myself away from the hand that held me as my captor rose from the soft dirt covering him. I unsheathed a sword with my free hand and hacked at his wrist. Severing his hand, I pulled away. I quickly sheathed my sword and leaped back into the tunnel, scrambling through without fear of it collapsing but of being caught by the undead humans that were now funneling in behind me!
“Come on, guys, you don’t want me,” I yelped while scurrying through the tunnel. “I’m just a scrawny, little elf boy. I barely have enough blood for me. I surely don’t have enough for all of you.”
Once I escaped, I pushed a stack of barrels over to barricade the tunnel. A couple of them exploded on impact, spilling their contents. I climbed out of the basement and ran back into the bar. Still sensing the undead approaching, I drew Devour which I always sheathe over my right shoulder. A swirling mist of energy could be seen within the enchanted obsidian blade. Through the broken windows, I could see Ralph waiting where I left him in the deepening snow.
A creak of the wooden floor alerted me of something behind me. I turned to see the silhouette of someone standing in the doorway to the adjoining house, and they leaped across the room toward me! I moved aside, swinging my sword, but tripped over a heap of broken furniture. I quickly climbed to my feet and saw that it was a human woman that attacked me. Baring sharp fangs, she hissed at me. Her skin was dirty and pale, much like the people downstairs. Her hair was a tangled mess, and she wore ruined clothes.
“Where is Takarha?” I asked.
The vampire circled me slowly, careful not to find herself on the end of my sword.
Focusing my thoughts onto her, I asked again, “Where is Takarha?”
The woman cackled. “You have no power over me, elf.”
I mocked her cackling laughter, angering her.
A wild-eyed, stocky man ran into the room. “Ah, let’s bleed him before the others get here.”
“You don’t want my blood; it’s way too salty.”
I eased my way back to the door with my sword held between me and the two vampires. I stepped out into the snow. With unwavering stares, the two vampires followed me.
I caught movement from the corner of my left eye of someone stepping out of a house. While still facing the two following me, I noticed the person run out into the street toward me. I waited until the last possible second before swinging my sword. They fell hard into the snow, their head rolling away from their body.
“You have no head. What do you think about that?”
I sent a mental command to Ralph to charge the vampires, and he immediately responded. The woman was knocked down, but the man attacked me. I stepped out of reach of his nasty claws. I raised my sword, severing his hand. The man screamed out while his arm began deteriorating, but he continued his attacks. I took another step back before lunging forward to push the enchanted sword into his chest. He fought against the curse that burned through his veins to no avail. While struggling to reach me, his body began crumbling away
until he collapsed into the snow.
Tears of blood streamed down the woman’s face as she screamed.
“Well, it seems I have power over you after all,” I taunted. Her eyes shifted to look past me for a brief moment, and I turned to see the town’s people coming out of the dilapidated homes. They were all pale and wearing ragged clothing.
I began laughing at the overwhelming odds against me. “Now, it’s getting interesting.”
Reaching out to the two dead vampires, I called to their bones to rise up and aid me in battle.
“Leave my husband alone!” the woman ordered, charging in to attack. She clawed my face in the blink of an eye, leaving four nasty cuts from my mouth to my right ear. She screamed at me, and I saw her face begin to shrivel. It was then that I noticed she had impaled herself onto my sword. Her cries waned, and she slid from the blade.
The two skeletons that I had summoned broke free of their withered flesh like butterflies from a cocoon, and I sent them into battle against the approaching vampires. Ralph kicked and trampled my adversaries while the two skeletons grappled with them.
I drew Scourge from its sheath and fought off all who attacked me. Those wounded by it saw everyone as a threat, so they turned against their vampire brethren for a short while. Those cut by Devour felt their cold blood turn to ash, making their bodies unresponsive to their dark commands.
Over the sounds of undead attempting to reach me, I heard screams and wet explosions. As the sounds drew nearer, I saw Captain Lorena riding into the surrounding horde, swinging her enchanted sword. Whenever she struck one of the attacking vampires with the red obsidian sword, the force behind it sent an explosion ripping through their blood. She kissed at me and asked, “Miss me?”
“Actually, I did,” I answered, holding my ground.
With her sword in one hand, she raised her other to reveal the gauntlet that Yndra wore back in Ashwood. Facing the palm of the powerful relic toward the vampires caused them to instantly burst into flames.
“How did you get that?” I asked, dislodging Scourge from the chest of a vampire. It hunched over and clenched its wound before turning against its undead brethren.
“I pirated it,” she laughed, scorching all those around her.
The gauntlet emitted waves of intense heat from the blue obsidian gem set in its palm. It burned everything it was directed at, even melting through snow and igniting whatever sticks and leaves that lay beneath.
Lorena incinerated dozens before the gauntlet quit working, and the monsters dragged her from her horse. She was able to defend herself, but her horse could not. While they fought each other for its blood, Lorena scrambled over to me.
Shaking her gloved hand, she asked, “What happened to it?”
“It absorbs energy, so you must have expended all that it had stored.”
“Great! Just great!”
While Lorena and I stood back to back, we were completely surrounded by the vampire horde, and I began to laugh.
“Why are you laughing?” I heard Lorena’s trembling voice ask from behind me.
But I couldn’t stop to answer. Stressful situations often caused me to laugh hysterically. The vampires clawed at us and gnashed their teeth, but were careful to stay just out of our reach.
“A Dark Elf!” I heard a child’s voice say over the crowd. “Everyone stop!” she commanded. Silence fell over the town and everyone turned to the child standing on the roof of one of the houses. “This is one of my own.”
While everyone was calm for a moment, I whistled for Ralph and the skeletons I had summoned to return.
“What’s happening?” Lorena whispered to me. “Don’t tell me these monsters are led by a little girl.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
The girl dropped down from the roof. The town’s people, who had all been turned into vampires, divided for the girl to meet me. Once I saw who she was, I sheathed my swords.
“Takarha?” I asked, realizing that her body had been locked as a child since Eve made her a vampire a century and a half ago. Her lustrous black hair was worn long and straight just as I remembered it, but her skin seemed paler, almost translucent.
She broke into tears and wrapped her arms around me. “Ambros,” she cried. “I’m sorry I was so mean to you.”
“It’s okay,” I told her, remembering she avoided me for months after I wrote her a poem. “Those days have passed, but right now, we need you to come home.”
Takarha stepped away from me. “I will not go back,” she announced sternly. “This is my home, now. These are my people,” she motioned to the surrounding undead humans. “We’ve tunneled beneath the city to hide from—”
The roar of a dragon caused everyone to instinctively duck their head, and darkness blotted out the starlight. A pungent, green liquid sprayed across many of the vampires, causing them to melt, bone and all.
“NO!” Takarha yelled up at the sky. “She’s come for us!”
Taking hold of Takarha’s hand, Lorena and I rushed her toward one of the old homes just as a huge Black Dragon splashed down onto the carnage and roared. It sprayed more of the liquefying toxin over vampires as they fled and swatted its tail to knock others into the bubbling pools.
Through the missing door of the house, I saw the dragon shrink in size to take a form I was more familiar with. Yndra walked through her toxin to the house. Lorena and I stood between her and Takarha with our swords drawn.
Yndra bowed to me. “Thank you both for luring her and her undead progeny out into the open. Blood will do that, but not my blood. The scent of dragon blood only frightens them deeper into their burrows.”
“She doesn’t want to go back,” I told her.
With a smile, she responded, “It is not her decision to make, nor is it yours.”
Yndra spun around, whipping me and Lorena away with her long, black tail. She grabbed Takarha by the wrist and began dragging her out of the house.
“No! NO!” she screamed, struggling to pull herself free.
Yndra picked her up and leaped into the air where she transformed back into a dragon and carried Takarha to Ashwood.
I sheathed my swords and helped Lorena to her feet. “Come on! Something bad is about to happen!”
Running outside, she stepped over a partially liquefied arm. “What’s about to happen?”
I whistled for Ralph, and he galloped up from between the houses where he had dodged Yndra’s attacks. Lorena and I climbed on and headed back to Ashwood as quickly as he could carry us.
CHAPTER IX
PLANS INTERRUPTED
Upon reaching Ashwood we ran into Yndra’s dark spire and up the stairs with our weapons drawn. A magical barrier kept us from entering the room where the identical women held Takarha captive. I swung my sword against the shimmering, transparent wall to no avail.
“No. No,” one of the devilish women said, waving a finger. Placing her hands against the barrier, she licked it with her black, forked tongue, taunting us.
“Ambros and the lovely Eleanor,” the other Yndra greeted us with a smile. “You made it just in time.” She took hold of two wooden handles that had been attached to the top of the obsidian egg and removed the heavy lid as if it weighed nothing.
“I don’t believe I like you anymore,” Lorena told them. Looking at Takarha, who was lying bound and gagged on the floor, she asked, “Are you all right, sweetie?”
She shook her head that she wasn’t.
“Vampires are physically unaffected by time,” Yndra began. She pulled a rope down from a system of pulleys and hooked it to the shackles around Takarha’s ankles. She hoisted the squirming girl over the open egg. “There are few things that can truly destroy them, save dragon breath or decapitation.” She picked up a sword from the table and rubbed her thumb over its edge to feel the sharpness.
“You don’t mean to kill this little girl?” I questioned.
Answering with a devilish smile, “I am curing her.”
“Yo
u’re stealing her immortality to give to your baby,” I argued. “You told me that you meant to eradicate your kind.”
“And how do you suppose I survive against them? This little girl holds the key to tipping the balance of power.”
“Only in your favor,” I interjected.
“Your father foresaw this shift in power.”
I hit the mystical barrier with my fist. “Do not use my pop to justify your actions!”
“Oh, I struck a nerve,” she ridiculed. “I may take this petite form to walk amongst your people, but I am much too large to gain immortality from this girl. My duplicate, however, is still small enough to benefit from her blood.”
“But won’t she be unable to age?” Lorena asked. “She will remain a child just as Takarha has.”
“My studies have shown that it will take much longer for her blood to alter the body completely, plenty of time for her to reach adulthood. I will then wage war against the World Council, exterminate the dragon races, and rule over the humans unmatched forever,” she boasted.
Pointing to the infant dragon suspended within the egg, I explained to her, “That dragon may attain immortality, but you and your guardian here will die. You will never see if your progeny completes your quest.”
With a grin spreading across her face, she explained, “Ah, but my guardian isn’t just a copy of me; she is me. Like this child dragon, our minds are the same. We share the same thoughts. Another body is merely an extension of my reach, not a separate entity. You can thank your pop for that.”
“You’re taking Pop’s work and twisting it to suit your own devious plans.”
“I am merely—”
Screams from outside brought an abrupt end to our conversation. Yndra ran to the window and grunted her disapproval. “Why does this have to happen, now?” She walked over to us and removed the magical barrier between us. She held her hands up as if surrendering. “We don’t have time for all this squabbling; we need to work together if we’re to save Ashwood.”
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