The Lone Dragon Knight

by D. C. Clemens

  “I found a good spot to keep a lookout on its front side. If you can find another for the flanks or the back, I suppose that would be best.”

  After agreeing to meet every morning and evening to get updates from one another, we went our separate ways. The next few days were thus spent in patient readiness. During the day I would go to an isolated spot outside the city and catch up with sleep, training, and read a book on prana practice, which Aranath scoffed at. The nights would have me back on my roost, understanding that even if I was right about this house that weeks might pass without anything happening.

  In lieu of weeks, it was early in the fifth night that a dimming of the nearest lamppost told me something was different. It wasn’t by much, but my well-adjusted eyes perceived that the flame had lost some of its fervor behind its glass case, giving prominence to the shadows under the overcast night. Turning my attention beneath the lamppost revealed a cart being indolently pulled by a large horse. Two hooded figures sat in the front of the cart, with the taller one holding the reins, and a third cloaked figure was sitting on some of the rolled up rugs the cart was holding.

  The cart turned to the street that led to the stone house. It didn’t slow down any when it neared the building, but the passenger in the back began to take one of the larger rolls and lift it over their left shoulder. Along with the other passenger, the hooded figure hopped off the cart and headed for the metal gate. The unencumbered figure opened the surprisingly noiseless gate and the two soon entered the house itself, all without carrying a lantern or casting a light spell. The cart, meanwhile, continued on its way.

  I wasn’t sure whether the other watchers saw what I saw, but I at least knew the house wasn’t going anywhere, so I decided to track the cart. I initially wanted to follow it by rooftop, but it was clear that the option would likely cause too much noise. I instead did the more practical thing and climbed down to follow the wheel tracks the cart left. It was snowing, but there wasn’t enough of it or a breeze to mar the tracks for another half hour.

  The cart made a left and then another on the first chances it had, giving it a westward direction. It held this bearing all the way to the city limits. We passed a few guards patrolling the streets, with one even stopping the cart so that he could give it a quick inspection, but no one found the rider mistrustful enough to talk at length to. With the lack of buildings the farther we went, I had to keep a farther distance back to make sure the rider didn’t get apprehensive and start taking a fake course.

  A few miles later and a greater density of trees allowed me to better conceal my whereabouts. The cart was heading for the marshlands. A normally waterlogged area, the marshes were frozen over, with a fine mist hovering over the ground. The snow would have forced a slow crawl in an area where a wrong step could send one through the thin ice and into the freezing water, but the cart seemed to know where to go, and it did so for another hour into the night.

  A twig snapped ten or fifteen yards behind me. It wasn’t the first time I overheard nature moving, but the cracking stick was the final confirmation I needed to know that someone was following either me or the cart. In an effort to oust the second pursuer and to do it noiselessly, I made a turn at a bend, stopped by a tree, and cast my illusion spell. To anyone watching behind me, my illusion would make it seem as though I was still advancing. In reality, I stayed tight by the tree and listened intently for any approaching presence. The sound of crunching snow a couple minutes later was the fruitful result of my ruse. I timed it so that when I circled around the tree, I was standing behind the fooled tracker.

  Unlike most I had seen at this time of year, the white haired girl was unhooded. She might have heard something behind her, but I had already sprung forward. At the same time I put a knife to her throat, I put a hand over her mouth. I noted how her skin lacked any kind of warmth. It was like I was touching a kind of pliable, icy steel.

  “Scream and that will be the last thing you ever do. Understand?” She nodded. “Anyone else behind me?” She shook her head. “Who are you?” I removed my hand to permit an answer.

  “Clarissa Lorraine,” she said in a mousy whisper.

  “You’re one of the missing girls? What are you doing out here?”

  “I saw you following Maxis back in town. I swear I was just trying to see if you could help me end all this.”

  “You seem free enough. Why not go to the guards or guild?”

  “I can’t. They’ll see us no different from them.”

  “‘Us’?”

  “Trevon and I. Please, I’ll tell you everything if you promise Trevon won’t get hurt. He just needs to get away from them.”

  “And ‘them’ are?”

  “Maxis and Belinda. They’re the masterminds behind the missing people.”

  “Why are they taking people?”

  “T-to get stronger. They either feed on them or, if we meet their measures, add us to their ‘family.’”

  “You’re a vampire, then.”

  “Y-yes, but please, I’m not like them. I don’t feed on people, only animals. They already don’t trust me. Only Trevon is keeping me from being banished, or worse. I’ll help you find their lair if you promise to leave Trevon and I alone.”

  “Where is your lair?”

  “Do you promise?”

  “No.”

  “But we only want to be alone together.”

  “That desire seems one-sided. I assume you’ve already tried and failed to convince your friend to leave the clan, correct?”

  “H-he just needs to get away-”

  “He sounds lost to me. You have to start thinking about yourself, and right now there’s a knife being held to your throat. The only reason you’re still alive is because your burden has not yet outweighed your potential usefulness, but the second it does will be the second when both you and Trevon have lost any chance at escape. So where is the lair?”

  With a voice barely suppressing desperate tears, she answered, “It’s a-another twenty miles to the northwest. I-it’s a cave h-hidden underneath a bog.”

  “How many other vampires?”

  “A d-dozen more, not including me.”

  “How many victims are still alive?”

  “I don’t know the exact number, but a few have died.”

  “What’s the stone house for?”

  “The house is over an old s-section of the sewer system. They use it to take the latest victim out of the city once the search for them dies down.”

  “Do you know where the sewer exits at?”

  “Yes, just at the border of the marshlands.”

  “If they don’t trust you, then why are you alone?”

  “They don’t outright say it, but they keep Trevon close to them because they know that I know they’ll hurt him if I ever go against them. They think I’m out hunting right now.”

  I stayed silent a moment, trying to come up with a solution to the complications in my hands. “Listen, I don’t care what happens to you or your friend. I just want to collect the reward for helping get the city guard on the right track, so if a couple of vampires are able to escape in the fray, so be it. I don’t think you’re lying to me, but I can’t let you get out of earshot, which means we have to end this tonight before your clan gets suspicious. Where is Trevon now?”

  “He was helping Belinda hide the girl.”

  “Are there other vampires in the house besides those two?”

  “It should just be them for now.”

  “Then my plan is to take the home first. After which, you’ll lead me and the city guard to the lair.”

  “But if the guard finds out about me-”

  “Do anything your way and it’ll be my sword you have to worry about. Do as I say and no guard or guild member will know what you are. Deal?”

  “Okay.”

  I freed her neck from immediate danger, allowing her to face me. Despite the makeup she wore to achieve the impression of color, her face was pale, as was common for her kind. My
hand had smeared some of this makeup away to reveal the even lighter shade of skin beneath it. If she had some actual color to her, I would have thought her attractive. As it was, only her crisp blue eyes had any life in them.

  “Let’s get back to Mil’sith. We have little time.”

  I had her walk in front of me, not only to keep an eye on her, but knowing she had a better idea of where to step if we couldn’t find our tracks. Our pace was a steady, wordless jog through the marsh. It was like this all the way to a real road, where we slowed to a hasty walk so we wouldn’t draw the attention of patrols.

  Probably tired of the silence I was comfortable with, Clarissa, now walking alongside me, asked, “You really don’t care if two vampires go free?”

  “We have a deal. Unless I catch you feeding on someone later, I’ll continue to honor it. Anyway, it’s obvious your only motive to becoming a bloodsucker was to join your friend, not infect the world. Your friend on the other hand…”

  “He’s not like the others. A few days away from them and he’ll see that we can be happy together. She tricked him. She made him think he needs them. I’ve known him since we were little. He just needs reminding that a few simple things is all we need.”

  “I’ve heard stories on all the victims, why weren’t you two connected in them?”

  “Oh, well, he was just a street rat, so I had to keep my friendship with him secret or the stuffy orphanage I belonged to would have forced me to cut my connection with the ‘bad’ influence. He was a loner and a bit of a thief, but he had a hard life. After I started working for the orphanage instead of just living in it, I convinced Trevon to find real work so that we could someday start a new life somewhere. He didn’t take to real work all that well at first, but I think he was starting to believe we could make something of ourselves.”

  “Then they offered another opportunity.”

  She hung her head lower. After a minute, she said, “He sounded so excited. He told me how he found a chance to become something greater than he was. A couple of weeks later and he returned as one of them. He made it sound so romantic. He said that if I joined his new family, that we would have a good life as children of the night. We wouldn’t have to feed on people or work for them anymore. We would be our own masters. Gods, if only I knew what was really going on. That bitch manipulated him so well.”

  “What will you do if he doesn’t choose to leave with you?”

  “He will. He might be mad at first, but he’ll see it was for the best.”

  “I’m not concerned with his resentment. If he attacks to defend his new way of life, what will you do? Will you follow his lead or continue to aid me? Even if the answer is to nail your feet to the floor, I would prefer to know what your reaction would be.”

  Her hands clenched. “If he doesn’t choose me? Maybe the answer is ‘nothing,’ but I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t attack you. I might attack her, but I know even in daylight she’s quite powerful. All I know is a water spell that helps keep me dry getting to the lair.”

  “I would prefer if you retreated until the fight was over, but if you must do nothing, then that would be my second preference. I ask because it won’t just be my ass at risk. There are two members of the Warriors Guild we need to meet before we get started.”

  With no more than three hours until dawn brightened the melancholy sky, I arrived at Francine’s lookout spot. She had told me before that she watched the back of the home from an alley, and that’s where I found her.

  She looked relieved to see me, which was verified when she said, “Glad I didn’t send the big lug to follow the cart with you. Who’s this?”

  Answering for her, I said, “Clarissa Lorraine.”

  “What? You found one of the victims?”

  “She found me. She knows where the vampire lair is.”

  “Vampires? That’s what we’re dealing with?”

  “And two are in the house. Listen, we have to end this tonight. How long will it take to gather the city guard?”

  “I can get a dozen men to back us up in less than half an hour. That should be enough to take care of a couple vampires.”

  “Good, but to make sure they simply don’t disappear in the sewers, Clarissa and I will infiltrate the house from an underground entrance they use to transport their victims. It’ll take us about an hour to get in position. The moment you hear anything from within the house, send everyone in. If we’re lucky, there won’t be any real fighting left by the time you enter. Once they’re taken care of, Clarissa will take us and as many guards as we can gather to the lair.”

  Francine studied Clarissa carefully, but the hooded girl kept her face lowered. “Fine, I’ll give you the head start, but in case something happens, I would like to know where the lair is now.”

  Clarissa said, “It’s about twenty-five miles northwest of the city. You’ll find a shallow lake free of any trees. At its center lies a cave system hidden beneath the water, which is kept back by a rune. You’ll need guards to stay outside while others invade the actual cave, as some might try to escape through a tunnel system that leads back to the surface.”

  Not liking how critically Francine was studying her, I said, “Make sure Jacob keeps a good lookout while you gather the guard. One mistake and we could lose them all.”

  After a quick rundown of the plan and taking enough steps to get beyond earshot of the guild members, Clarissa said, “You didn’t tell her about Trevon.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

  She took me back outside the city limits, where we then went another half mile before stopping at a cluster of prickly shrubs. We brushed past them to get to the center of the collection. Clarissa wiped away the snow and dirt to uncover a metal handle, which I grabbed to pull open a trapdoor. A short ladder led into a five foot wide tunnel that had a trench grooved into its center, however, even stepping down into this deeper tier would force someone to hunch over. I followed her down, where I already began smelling a modicum of human waste. It was dark, but Clarissa saying she saw well in the dark kept us from using a light source that could expose us.

  “I can also smell pretty well, so what you’re smelling is ten times worse for me.”

  “And your hearing?”

  “I think that’s pretty much the same as yours. If we’re quiet enough, Belinda or Trevon will sniff us out before they hear anything.”

  “How noisy is it opening the secret trapdoor?”

  “I’ve only been through it once, but I think it can open pretty quietly if we’re careful.”

  “Then we’ll be careful, but if Belinda hears us anyway, you’ll have to pretend that you had to use the trapdoor to escape some trouble. You’ll hopefully be able to distract her long enough so that I can get in a good position to kill her quickly. If you meet Trevon first, I’ll let you talk some sense to him, but if he refuses to listen to you, I’ll have to kill him. And here…” I pulled out two explosive stones. “Keep these.”

  “What are they?”

  “A distraction in case they attack you. Drop them, close your eyes, and yell out ‘Mercer.’ I’ll set them off in that instant.”

  “‘Mercer’? Is that you name?”

  “Yes. If your friend agrees to leave the clan, we’ll hide him somewhere until we can destroy the rest of his associates.”

  “What are you?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, you talk like an old man, or like someone who has seen a lot.”

  “Something like that.”

  “So you’re not with the guild or guard?”

  “No.”

  “With anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you want the reward?”

  “I need it to get somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “Away from chatty mouths.”

  She took the not so subtle hint and we focused and getting where we needed to go. There weren’t many turns to take or hindrances to pass, though the increasingly
fouler stench soon became like a gelatinous river we had to move through. Some hazy streams of light managed to seep through narrow slits from the streets above, and the old tunnel still connected to a few newer channels that spawned most of the stench. The older tunnel apparently acted as an overflow channel as we had to move up to the narrow walkway to keep from treading in shit.

  When we moved back to near complete darkness, she slowed her pace when she thought us close to our destination. We then made a turn to a tunnel that led to a dead end a few yards away. She began patting the stone above her. Her fingers stopped.

  In a whisper I was surprised my ears picked up, she said, “Here, help me lift it.”

  I put my hands near hers and, with great care, steadily began pushing upward. The stone that made up the bottom was actually very thin, making the trapdoor lighter than expected. The rest of the trapdoor seemed to be made of wood. There was resistance, but it wasn’t a big problem. Lifting the flap allowed us to stand up, where our heads became level with a wooden floor. Stretching above the flap was a thick rug. Clarissa slowly pulled the rug away as I held up the flap. When the rug was cleared over us, I saw that we were in a basement, empty except for a couple of chairs, table, and a barren shelf.

  I pushed the flap all the way and Clarissa cautiously pulled herself up. Before I did the same, I summoned some dragon stones and scattered them beneath the trapdoor and down the tunnel. To further bolster against the threat of enemy escape, I closed the trapdoor and had Clarissa help me carry the shelf and place it over the access, forcing anyone in a rush to waste a few precious seconds removing the obstruction. I also placed a few extra deterrents on the flammable item.

  Moving through the wooden floor and up the stairs produced some creaks and squeaks, but nothing responded to our tiptoeing. Once Clarissa opened the door to the first floor, we finally began to pick up some racket coming from the floor above. For someone who often found himself in the vicinity of two or more lovers in the spasmodic act during my Garf days, it was all too familiar to me. Clarissa was less sure, but the growing concern on her face told me she was grasping the only conclusion.