by David Combs
The vampire moved with supernatural speed though, and he caught the descending blade in his bare hand. Black blood welled up around the blade, but if the strike had done any serious damage, it failed to show on the creature’s face. It wrenched the weapon from the captain’s grasp and took the officer by the throat in its free hand.
Knarya tore at the clutching hand, but the crushing strength of the icy fingers held him fast. Desperately, he reached for anything nearby that might serve as a weapon. With a choked cry of pain, the captain’s hands closed on one of the hot braziers that served to light the city streets by night. Ignoring the searing heat and the smell of his burning flesh, the officer swung the bowl of coals around into his attacker’s face.
Like a candle, the vampire’s head burst into flames. The burning embers choked off the agonizing screeches of the creature, as it flailed around helplessly. Knarya kicked the beast away from him, gasping for breath. As he watched the monster struggle and writhe in its death throes, a grim smile crossed his face.
Maybe Tarnath had a fighting chance after all.
***
Galen raced up the stairs to Lorelei’s apartment. The young thief had insisted that they needed to check on the young woman before chasing after Ambrose. Tyrell chafed at the detour, but he was even more reluctant to split up their group, so he and Nestor had no choice but to follow the young man.
“Lorelei,” screamed Galen as he threw her front door open. Tyrell and Nestor nearly bowled the thief over, as he came to an abrupt halt just inside. As Galen sank slowly to his knees, the other men got their first look into the girl’s home. Tyrell covered his mouth in shock, while the barbarian bowed his head in reverence.
Lorelei had been carefully laid out on her table. Her long reddish brown curls were neatly piled around her shoulders, and she held a bouquet of flowers to her breast. Her open eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling as if in silent supplication for divine aid. A vicious slash creased the creamy white skin of her throat, but not a drop of blood spilled from the wound.
Galen pulled himself back to his feet and staggered over to her. His shoulders shook as uncontrollable sobs wrenched his body. Tyrell motioned for Nestor to keep alert, while the mage approached his grief-stricken friend. Gently, the mage closed Lorelei’s eyes and whispered a quick prayer as he laid his hand on Galen’s shoulder.
“I will make him pay,” whispered the thief.
“We all will, my friend,” replied the mage. The somber moment was suddenly shattered by the keening of Shadow Reaver as the elvensteel blade lit up like an exploding star.
“I have been preparing her for this night for a long time now,” said a familiar hissing voice from the front doorway. Tyrell and Nestor whirled around to see Kellen leaning casually against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. “Please don’t think that I chose her simply to spite you. She was a part of my plans long before you three were.” The vampire’s eyes glowed with a hellish light as he looked back and forth between wizard and warrior, silently daring either to make a move.
Galen turned slowly, and squarely met the vampire’s gaze with a distant look in his eyes. “I swear by all the gods of heaven and hell that I will see you die, Kellen Ambrose.” The thief’s voice was soft and strained but held a previously unheard edge to it that even startled Kellen.
Ambrose quickly regained his composure though. “I grow weary of this. Make whatever oaths you wish, boy. Issuing threats and carrying them out are two entirely different things.” His sneer dripped with contempt. “I defy you all. Even now, my army is sweeping through this city, paving the way to make me its master. I am a force of pure evil. Something timeless, something deathless. I am eternal.”
“You are long winded,” growled Nestor as he sprang into action. The glittering rainbow of Shadow Reaver flashed in his hand, as Galen drew his own blade and lunged forward. Tyrell summoned his magic, bending the room around Kellen in a way that warped the vampire’s perception of the actual location of his surroundings.
The vampire blinked and tried to clear his eyes. He heard the piercing shriek of Nestor’s blade as it neared, and knew he was doomed if he couldn’t break the spell. Kellen tried to bolt for the door, but disoriented as he was the vampire smashed into the door frame instead. The barbarian’s battle cry boomed around him, and then a line of agonizing fire cut across Ambrose’s back.
Galen never knew a cry of pain could sound as sweet.
***
Knarya shouted orders to his archers as they prepared their next volley of flaming arrows against the approaching horde. Word had spread around Tarnath to the city’s defenders that the vampires were susceptible to fire, but so vast were the numbers of the powerful undead that they swarmed over the city faster than the news could travel.
Vampires burst into homes and shops. Everywhere they went they destroyed property, and mercilessly attacked the citizens in a bloody frenzy. In one home, a man raised an iron poker against the undead intruder who had smashed through his door. His wife could only stand in stark terror as the vampire blasted through her husband’s futile attack and broke his neck with a savage backhand blow.
A serving maid fled the tavern in which she worked, as the patrons tried to fend off the six fiends that dropped in for drinks of a more grisly nature. Blindly, the girl ran from the carnage, unaware of the fact that one of the tavern’s attackers had set his eyes on her alone. Her panicked flight was no match for the creature’s supernatural speed, and her screams echoed through the night as chill fingers grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the ground.
A man out for his evening stroll in a serene park stopped to help a child doubled over on the pathway. As he knelt down to check on the young girl, he saw too late the gleaming white of her fangs. An explosion of pain tore through his chest as she punched him, and he coughed up a gout of blood as his shattered ribs tore through his lungs. His last sensation before he lost consciousness was of icy, delicate lips closing over his own bloody mouth.
Knarya turned to lend his support to a hastily made barricade that the vampires were smashing through. Cold fingers raked over his forearms as he waved a torch back and forth. Despite the blood that flowed down his arms, the captain ignored the pain of his wounds and drove the undead back from his besieged men. He simply didn’t know how much longer he and his men could keep this up. As he bashed another attacker in the face with his brand, he wondered briefly if those three thieves had fared any better.
***
Kellen shrieked as he fell against the doorway. The pain from Shadow Reaver’s bite had broken Tyrell’s disorienting enchantment, but the vampire lord knew he was not out of danger yet. He batted away Galen’s blade with a bare hand, thankful that the thief’s weapon lacked the magic that the accursed elvensteel sword carried. With a snarl, Kellen backed out of the apartment and hurled himself over the railing into the cobblestone street below.
Nestor charged through the door right behind the vampire, hitting Kellen in a flying tackle as he too soared over the stair rail. Kellen sprang to his feet with catlike grace and recovered a mere moment before the barbarian. With all of the strength his arms could muster, Ambrose punched Nestor with a punishing blow to the barbarian’s jaw.
The force of the blow lifted Nestor from his feet and smashed him into the stone wall of Lorelei’s apartment. He felt like he had tried to catch a catapult boulder with his teeth. With a groan, the barbarian fell to the ground on his hands and knees and tried to clear his throbbing head while the magical blade fell into the mud beside him.
Kellen lunged forward to finish the warrior quickly but he saw Galen and Tyrell already closing fast upon him. The thief’s eyes found the dropped elvensteel sword, and the light of gathering magical energy glowed around the wizard’s upraised hand proved menacing enough to make the vampire pause. Swearing under his breath, Kellen turned and bolted down the street away from the approaching men.
Nestor’s hand grasped Shadow Reaver from the mud just a
s Galen arrived. The thief paused only long enough to help the warrior to his feet and then sprinted into the darkness after Kellen. The barbarian staggered, his cheek broken and bleeding, but the low growl that escaped his lips was one of hatred and fury rather than pain. A gloved hand grabbed his shoulder, and a cool healing warmth flowed through his body. The pain in his jaw eased, and the assaulting dizziness cleared his head. When the mage released him, Nestor gave Tyrell a quick nod of thanks, and then the two men dashed down the street after Galen.
The cries of anger and frustration caught their ears and they found Galen throwing his shoulder against the door of a small shop. “He ran inside and threw the bar,” said the thief as his friends ran up. Nestor pushed the younger man aside and then, fueled by true berserker fury, he hurled himself against the portal. With a thunderous crash, the door exploded from its hinges and fell to the floor in pieces. Galen and Tyrell rushed into the room pausing only long enough to catch the sound of footsteps fleeing to the second floor. Wordlessly, they gave chase, pounding up the small staircase.
The dark shadows of the second floor gave the illusion that the room was far larger than it actually was. Around the three men, numerous vats and flasks surrounded a strange piece of machinery that faintly reflected the light from below. There was no sign of Ambrose as they peered into the gloom. Tyrell felt a chill race up his spine as he waited for some insidious trap to be unleashed against them. Nestor’s nose twitched, and like a bloodhound, he sniffed the pungent spicy aromas that filled the room.
“This thing is some sort of a still,” he mumbled. The only partially healed bone of his cheek made his words slur, and his voice a growl of pain.
“Indeed it is, my friend,” said Ambrose from the darkness ahead of them. Nestor and Galen spread out slightly to try to corner the vampire lord, but Tyrell stayed right at the top of the stairs. There was no other means of escape from the room that he could see, and he meant to block that path from Kellen against whatever the vampire had up his sleeve.
The rushing sensation of magical energy being drawn forth surged through the mage, and Kellen began a soft chant. “Be ready,” yelled Tyrell. “He’s up to something.”
“Thanks for the tip,” quipped Galen. He and Nestor tried to follow the sound of Ambrose’s voice but the incantation echoed throughout the room making it impossible. Suddenly, Kellen’s voice stopped, and in a blur of movement, the vampire lord leaped between the two men, dashing for the top of the stairs. Tyrell began to summon his own magic, but Kellen brutally knocked him aside and fled back down the stairs before the wizard could bring his powers to bear.
Heartbeats later, before the three men could recover from Kellen’s flight, the room exploded in a blossoming ball of heat and flame. Nestor and Galen were thrown in the direction of the stairs, while Tyrell was blasted through the doorway and down to the floor below. The mage dragged himself to his hands and knees, gasping for air and choking on the superheated air in his lungs. On his hands and knees, he dragged himself back over to the stairs.
“Galen! Nestor,” he cried out over the roaring sound of the inferno above. He reached the top of the stairs, wincing at the heat. The small attic was engulfed in flame. He saw Nestor lying still on the floor. Galen sat nearby clutching his arm where a shard of broken glass had slashed him like a sword. Tyrell pulled the thief to his feet and shoved him in the direction of the stairs. “Go on! Get out of here.” Galen nodded and lumbered off to the top of the stairs before turning to see if Tyrell needed any help with Nestor.
“Nestor! Come on, my friend. Now is not your time,” yelled the mage as he shook the barbarian. He sighed in relief as the big man groaned. “Thank the gods,” he whispered, but the praise died off quickly as his eyes fell upon the contents of a large barrel that had been splintered by the shockwave of Kellen’s fireball.
The grayish-green powder that now lay spilled all over the floors quickly triggered in the wizard’s memory a string of long alchemical lectures he had endured on volatile substances. Of these, one of the most dangerous he had learned of was refined auralesea dust. His master had shown him how just a few grains of this potent powder could start a raging bonfire with the touch of a mere spark. It was mostly used by the military for siege practices or signal fire communications. Another common use for auralesea dust, however, was as a hallucinogenic agent used in some illegal liquor brewing recipes, and here in the burning attic of a Tarnathian distillery was an entire barrel full of the stuff.
Tyrell grabbed the barbarian and threw him over his shoulder. In a panic, he turned and ran for the stairs. The cracking of the burning timbers above told the mage that the roof of the building would come down on them any minute.
“Galen, run. Get out of the gods forsaken building now, dammit!” He shoved his friend down the stairs, crashing down behind him with Nestor on his back. Upstairs, a blazing rafter broke away from the ceiling and fell end over end into the pile of dust. With the doorway to the shop just ahead of them, Tyrell heard the roar of hell itself unleashed above him. Then he was hammered by a cascade of fiery debris and knew no more.
***
Knarya and the city guard had finally turned the tide of the battle. Something had disrupted the advance of the vampire horde. The watch captain had no idea what that something might have been, but he had pushed his men ferociously to take advantage of the monsters’ chaos. The creatures had fallen victim to the pain and doubts that now tormented their dark master, and the victory that had once seemed inevitable now lay perilously close to disaster.
Knarya poured another jar of pitch on the bonfire he oversaw. For all of the damage that his men had caused the ranks of the vampires, the demons had given back as good as they got. The captain's thoughts dwelled a moment on the faces of those men he had trained and served with who he had watched die in agony tonight, torn apart or beaten to death as they valiantly stood to defend friends and families from the undead terror. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, focusing his mind on matters at hand. The time for grieving would come later. Right now, he had a city to defend.
“Captain,” called out a young archer from his rank. “Sir, we need more fire if we’re to hold them off. The arrows are hurting them but just barely.”
“You just keep firing, son. We’ve arrows enough to last the night, and the courage to face these bastards even with our bare hands if need be.” He cheered as the young soldier put a flaming shaft through the eye of an approaching monster. Knarya knew, however, that his words were just bravado. The arrows would run out before long, and all watchpoints were reporting that the fires were beginning to burn low. They needed more flame, he thought to himself.
The night was ripped open then as a colossal fireball erupted like a volcano in the middle of the city. Fire rained down all over the city as if a flight of dragons had joined the attack. Buildings ignited and both soldiers and vampires were struck by flaming debris from the blast site.
Even from this distance, Knarya staggered from the force of the blast and felt the wash of heat from the conflagration. He cried out in frustration as he realized that the horde of vampires wasn’t the only problem he had to deal with now.
The great port city of Tarnath was burning.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The fires raged across the city as the auralesea flames, far hotter than of any normal blaze, were fanned by the winds that blew in from the sea. At the center of the blast, the distillery had been completely leveled, and a few smoldering stones were the only evidence that the building had ever been there. For one hundred yards around, the surrounding buildings were also blasted into rubble. Screams filled the night air as citizens fled from the dangers around them. Many fell to the fires. Many more fell to the lurking remnants of Kellen Ambrose’s army.
The vampires who fought nearest to the distillery had recoiled from the light and heat of the blast but had blended in well with the rest of the fleeing citizens. Once their initial disorientation passed, they resumed their conquest
on the panicked population who tried to escape the engulfed dock quarter. The citizens found themselves fleeing from one deadly menace into the waiting arms and drooling fangs of another equally deadly one.
Knarya looked in horror as his city burned. A volley of flaming arrows took down the few struggling vampires in his immediate vicinity, and Knarya quickly regarded his exhausted and frightened men. The guard captain wondered, not for the first time, if this night was ever going to end.
“All right,” he yelled. “Bailey, get your archers to provide some cover fire. Nail down anything with fangs. Sartor, bring your foot soldiers to the harbor’s edge. If we don’t start some kind of bucket line immediately, there won’t be anything left of the city for these pointy-toothed bastards to claim.” The pudgy captain absently swung his torch into the face of a lurking vampire. As the beast’s clothing and hair ignited, Knarya’s men fell upon it with a savage fury.
“Captain,” called one young soldier, “couldn’t we make good use of this fire as well?”
“We don’t have time for roasting sausages and singing campfire songs, boy,” Knarya growled.
“No, sir. What I meant was that perhaps we could drive the vampires back into the fires. We could still take steps to control the spread of the burning, but let’s push this scum back in there, and not give them a way out.”
Knarya looked at the young soldier with pride. “Excellent idea, son. When this thing is all over, I’m going to recommend you for a commendation.” Provided we all live through any of this, he added silently. “Archers,” he ordered, “concentrate your fire and push these devils back into the hellfires that spawned them!”