Nuln had a marked effect on the others. The sense of urgency that had gradually dwindled during the long weeks of walking returned. Memories of the butchery of the priests in the cathedral were fresh in the mind once more. Even Sammy, who had been a continuous chatterer, grew solemn and withdrew into himself during the days they spent in the old town. It gave Kallad another reason to hate the beasts they stalked.
They left Nuln with renewed purpose.
What none of them had expected was for the magician to tell them that the spoor he followed divided into two. It confirmed Kallad’s greatest fear—they were tracking two vampires, not one: Skellan and the creature that had rescued him from the depths of the Sigmarite cathedral.
“The spoors are different,” Kantor explained. “One is much more potent than the other. It is impossible to say which is our creature, meaning the one imprisoned by the priests, but of the two, the greater evil took the path leading south. The other, I would hazard, is returning to Sylvania.”
“So we have a choice,” Reimer Schmidt said, the young acolyte obviously not liking either of the options they faced. We track one beast back to its lair, where more of its kind will undoubtedly be waiting, or we follow the other south, wherever its path may lead. The other being the obvious master of the pair.”
“That’s no choice at all,” Joachim Akeman said quite matter-of-factly. It was obvious that the cleric was resigned to meeting Morr along whichever road he travelled.
“We could return home,” Nevin Kantor suggested. “We have seen what the beasts are capable of. What chance do we stand? We few against monsters capable of such savagery?”
“Aye, you could all run off home like cowards with your tails stuck between your legs. There’s nothing stopping you, but I won’t.” Kallad said. “The only thing evil like this needs to flourish is for good men like us to do nothing. You can go home and hide if you like, but I won’t. I’ll walk into the belly of the beast if I have to. I’m killing that creature, or it’s killing me. Make no bones about it.”
Korin Reth nodded. “I’m in no great rush to meet my maker, but the dwarf has the right of it. I’ll stand with him wherever he leads us.”
“Good man,” Kallad said. “And” what about the rest of you?”
“I’m with you,” Akeman said.
“Me too,” said Reimer Schmidt.
Grimm’s soldiers nodded one after the other, pledging themselves to the hunt.
“And what about you, magician?”
“One death is much the same as another,” Nevin Kantor said, without enthusiasm.
“Then it’s settled. We go on. It dies, or we do. There’s no going home. So tell us what you can, magician.”
“Not much more to tell, dwarf. The greater evil has taken the path south, the lesser monster has turned for home. Both, as far as I can tell, travel alone.”
“Well, that’s something. Now then, we’ve got us two roads to choose from. Magician, what’s your gut say? Which way did our vampire go?”
The sallow-faced mage gathered up a handful of grass and tossed it into the air. The blades fanned out and drifted on the breeze, each one following its own unique path.
“Pick a blade of grass, dwarf, any one, and toss it into the air. Then do it again, and again, and one last time, just to make the point.”
Kallad did as he was told. His green stems followed yet more trajectories. “I’m guessing there’s some kind of wisdom in the demonstration?”
“Indeed. How can we tell which way the next blade of grass will blow?”
“We can’t.”
“Obviously. Each blade takes its own path. Like destiny, if you like. It is fated to fall precisely so, but we can predict its path, to an extent. We can test the wind,” Kantor moistened his finger and held it in the air for a moment. “Wind’s coming from the south-south-east, so there’s a better than average chance that our blade of grass will drift this way.” He sketched a rough path with his finger. The wind isn’t strong, but the grass is light, so it could well travel further than we’d expect. I’d guess it’ll land around… here.” He marked out a spot with a small white stone. “Another stem, if you would, dwarf.”
“What’s this got to do with anything?” Korin Reth asked.
“Patience, priest. You’ll see soon enough.”
Kallad tossed the stem into the air. It caught on the breeze and twisted, landing less than a hand span from the sorcerer’s stone.
“Impressive,” Kallad conceded. “So how does this help us, because I assume it does?”
“Oh, it does. It most certainly does. You see, we can apply the same logic to determining which path we should take.”
“What? Throw ourselves in the air and see which way we are blown?”
Reimer Schmidt chuckled.
“Not quite, if we assume that Skellan is the weaker of the pair, we can deduce that he was the one who returned to the safety of that cursed country.”
“And why would we assume Skellan is the weak one?”
“Because he was caged for the best part of two years, whereas the other one has been at liberty all this time, feeding properly and building its strength. From the disturbance in the winds, it is obvious that the stronger of the beasts went south. It isn’t random at all, it is logic.”
“So you’re sure the creature that killed them priests went across the border into Sylvania?”
“As sure as I can be, yes.”
“Then we head south.”
That surprised them.
“You mean east, surely?”
“No, I mean south. We don’t want the runt of the litter, we want the master.”
“But if Skellan went east—”
“We go south,” Kallad insisted. “Your man’s right. Skellan must have been near helpless when the other one rescued him. That means the other one has to have been behind most of the killing in the cathedral. Stands to reason.” It wasn’t a convincing reasoning, however, and Kallad knew it.
He had his own reasons for wanting to head south.
He knew that Skellan was a link between him and his father’s killer, but he wasn’t the murderer. Kallad’s gut told him that this newcomer was more important to his continuing search, which meant going south.
It was a matter of strength; it always was with wild animals. These beasts were no different.
“Like I said, one death is as terminal as another, dwarf. You say we go south, we go south,” Nevin Kantor said, picking up the white pebble and dropkicking it into the distance.
Now, almost a month after that parting of the ways, they were close to exhaustion, short on rations and water, and a long way from home. The animals were tired and they were reduced to taking turns riding in the cart.
Kantor led, as he had done every day since they had left Altdorf. Kallad and the others trudged along ten paces behind the sorcerer.
They had long since dispensed with the idle chatter of the road. Now, they walked on in silence. It had been that way for weeks. They had nothing left to talk about so they fixated instead on the road as it opened up ahead of them. Sammy trudged on at the dwarfs side without complaint, but it was obvious that he was missing the familiar streets of Altdorf, even without his parents there to take care of him.
As Kallad crested the rise, he saw that the sorcerer had stopped a short distance ahead. It was obvious something bothered him. Kallad turned and gestured for the others to hurry up.
“I can smell him.”
“How close?”
As close as we’ve ever been, dwarf. It’s less than a day since he came through here, the stink is that strong.”
“That would mean he bedded down somewhere around here.”
Kantor nodded towards a stand of trees less than a mile distant. It was dense enough to provide cover from the sun. “That’s my guess, right there.”
Kallad squinted as he surveyed the landscape that stretched out before them. He couldn’t fault the sorcerer’s reasoning.
They
were close.
After all this time, they were close.
Sunset was still a good hour away, meaning that the vampire had nowhere to run. All they had to do was flush it out into the sun and the beast would burn.
“This is it, we’ve got it cornered.” He shouldered Ruinthorn. “The bastard’s down there and he’s got nowhere to run, and if he so much as steps outta the trees the sun’ll fry ’im.”
“Are you willing to risk your life on an old wives’ tale, dwarf?” Kan-tor asked, pointing up at the setting sun. There’s nothing to say he will burn except stories. I’d rather have something more substantial if I am going to be staking my life on its veracity.”
“Doesn’t matter, last thing we want to do is flush him out. If we’re lucky, he’ll be sleepin’ the sleep of the damned an’ we’ll be right on top of him before he even opens his eyes.”
“Or he’s wide awake and waiting for us to walk into a trap,” Reth said, staring at the trees as if by sheer force of will he might see right through them to the dark heart of the wood where the vampire waited.
“Or he’s wide awake and waiting for us,” Kallad agreed. “Either way, it ends here.”
It wasn’t a reassuring thought.
After months of searching there was no time left to prepare. They all knew what they had to do. There were only so many ways you could kill a vampire: beheading, burning, cutting its black heart out or dismembering the beast. It would be a bloody struggle, Kallad knew, and given the strength of the enemy, more than one of them would fall before the day was through.
It was a price he was willing to pay if it brought some satisfaction for the victims of Grunberg. The beast was accumulating a huge life-debt. Grunberg, the Sigmarite priests, the thief. Too many had suffered. Kallad thought of the thief, Felix Mann, and the courage he had shown facing up to his crippling. It was humbling in a way, to see such courage. It was almost easy to face death on a battlefield, to run headlong toward it matching skill for skill with the enemy but to leave the safety of the cathedral and try to find a new place for himself within the world was bravery beyond measure. Kallad wondered how the thief would cope without being reduced to begging; he had faith the thief would find a way. His resourcefulness would be tested, for sure, but Mann was a survivor. His encounter with the beast proved that.
It was time to start repaying the life-debt.
He set off across the field to the trees. The others followed.
With Ruinthorn in his hands he felt whole. On another day it might have disturbed him that he needed his axe to feel complete. Today it felt natural.
The vampire sat on an upturned stump of tree, waiting for them as they stepped into the clearing. There was no doubting that it was a vampire. The creature’s face was aquiline, its features sharp, hard, but it was the eyes that gave the lie to the creature’s vile nature. They were utterly soulless.
The vampire rose with deceptive grace and inclined his head towards Kallad.
“You were looking for me?”
“Aye, if you’re the one responsible for the dead priests, we’re looking for you.”
“Well, it seems that you have found me, dwarf. Now what do you and your merry band of misfits intend to do about it?”
Kallad bristled. The creature’s arrogance was aimed at goading him into doing something stupid, he knew that, but knowing it didn’t stop him from wanting to gut the fiend with his bare hands. He brought his axe to bear.
As one, the three soldiers from Grimm’s guard drew their swords. The metal sang as it slid free of the sheaths.
“Eight against one, hardly a fair fight.” The vampire said, a wry smile playing over his lips. “Let’s do something to redress the balance shall we?” He bent, and in one fluid motion drew two wickedly pointed daggers from sheaths concealed in his left boot, and sent them end over end into two of the soldiers’ throats. The men were dead before they hit the ground. The vampire tumbled to the left and came up on his right leg, flinging a third dagger into the eye of the last soldier. “Now, that’s better,” he said, rising smoothly.
In that moment Kallad froze.
The young acolyte, Reimer Schmidt, reacted first, hurling himself across the clearing at the vampire.
The creature didn’t move as the young man brought his fist around and smashed a vial of blessed water from the font in the Sigmarite cathedral. The glass cut into the creature’s cheek, but the water did nothing except wet his face.
“Your faith is weak, priest. You don’t believe, do you?” Before the young acolyte could answer, the vampire had him in a deadly embrace and snapped his neck savagely. He tossed Reimer Schmidt’s body aside and launched himself at the dwarf.
Kallad barely managed to block the creature’s first strike, bringing the butt of Ruinthorn up and slamming it into the vampire’s jaw as the beast sank his fangs into his forearm. The blow sent the vampire reeling and bought Kallad a few precious seconds.
The naked savagery of the beast was staggering. It had torn through them in seconds. Kallad stood side by side with Sammy Krauss, Joachim Akeman and Korin Reth. Behind them, Kantor screamed. It was a sound of pure, wretched, panic.
It was over before it had even begun. Despair threatened to overwhelm Kallad. This was it. He had failed. There would be no avenging the tragedies of Grunberg, no satisfaction for his people, and no rest.
The magician turned and fled the clearing.
Kallad let him go. He wouldn’t get far if the beast chose to hunt him down, that much was obvious.
It was over for all of them and the vampire hadn’t even drawn its blade.
“Well, well,” the beast said, rubbing a hand across its jaw, “I think I should save you until last, don’t you, dwarf? Let you see your friends die.” The vampire dropped into a tight crouch, its body seeming to contort and stretch, tearing its clothes from its back as its body elongated. The leather of its sword belt snapped and the sheathed blade fell to the floor. The thing—because it wasn’t a vampire anymore, it was something between human and wolf—threw back its head and howled before it sprang forward, huge jaws tearing at the throats of the terrified Sigmarites as the vampire’s form shifted into that of a massive dire wolf.
Kallad hurled Ruinthorn. The axe flew end over end and embedded itself in the beast’s arched back. The vampire roared in pain, and fell, sprawling in the dirt. It drew itself back to its feet, face contorted in rage as it turned. Ruinthorn had hurt the thing, but not badly enough, nowhere near badly enough. It was too late for Akeman and Reth. The creature had torn the flesh out of their throats. Their blood soaked its muzzle as the wolf turned on Sammy.
It came forward cautiously, protecting its wounded side. Even wounded, the beast was lethal.
“Run, boy!” Kallad yelled at Sammy, but Sammy stood rooted to the spot, too frightened to move. “Run!”
The spell holding Sammy shattered and suddenly the boy screamed, stumbled back a step, tripped, and fell, sprawling across the dirt.
The wolf was on top on him in a second, huge teeth tearing at the flesh of his arms as he threw them up to defend himself. His screams were terrible as the wolf took off half of his face with one savage bite.
Then the screaming stopped, and the silence was twice as terrible.
Kallad threw himself at the creature, trying to wrench his axe from its back, but the beast twisted and threw him across the clearing. Somehow, Kallad kept his grip on Ruinthorn, tearing the axe from the beast’s back. He scrambled to his feet.
The wolf circled him cautiously.
Despite the massive wound in the beast’s arched back there was no blood.
For a moment, he wondered what it would take to kill the creature—but he knew. Less than a quarter of an hour ago he had told the men exactly what they needed to do to slay the vampire, in whatever form it took: burning, beheading, dismembering. There was no fire, but Ruinthorn was more than capable of meting out the other deaths.
The creature was hurting, that much was obvious
by the way it moved.
It wasn’t invincible.
“Time to die, vampire,” Kallad said through gritted teeth.
The wolf growled deep in its throat, keeping a distance between itself and the dwarfs axe.
Kallad took a single step back, rocking on his heel and raising Ruinthorn above his head. Loosing a savage cry, he launched himself into a spinning step forwards. The momentum of the axe carried him through the arc faster than any normal blow, but it missed its mark. The wolfs head was still planted firmly on its shoulders.
The massive swing left Kallad dangerously open, but the wolf failed to take advantage of the opportunity that Kallad’s miss had gifted it.
The dwarf surged forwards again, swinging wildly. There was no finesse or subtlety to the attack, but it was as brutal as it was ugly. The wolf went up on its hind legs as the axe thundered into its side. Bone crunched, splintering under the impact. The dwarfs momentum sent them both tumbling and rolling across the dirt floor. The wolfs jaws snapped at Kallad’s face, scoring deep cuts down his left cheek and biting clean through half of his ear.
His head swam. The pain was blinding.
The clearing blurred in and out of focus.
He tried to stay focused on the dark shape of the wolf prowling in front of him.
The wolf growled low in its throat and lunged. Kallad sidestepped and slammed a gauntleted fist into the side of the beast’s head. The wolfs teeth sank into his shoulder.
Can the beast feed in this form? The thought flashed through his head as they rolled together, locked in a deadly embrace.
He broke the beast’s hold, but only for a moment. The wolfs teeth bit into Kallad’s forearm. The surge of pain as the fangs sank into his flesh was excruciating, and was made much worse as Kallad yanked his arm forwards, dragging the wolf close enough for him to thunder his forehead into the beast’s muzzle.
Snarling, the wolf rolled away from him.
Kallad scrambled to his knees, planted the axe in the dirt and hauled himself to his feet.
The world swam dangerously.
Kallad stumbled back two steps and righted himself. When he looked up, the wolf had begun to change.
[Von Carstein 02] - Dominion Page 12