Andvari was mocking us, I was sure of it. Any chance of returning life to my body seemed to wane before my very eyes. I had already spent much of my undead life searching for the answer. But the riddle Andvari had delivered to us was maddening.
We were cursed to thirst for blood, to live on this earth as demons and to torture humankind. And I'd had enough. I'd found the strongest place inside my heart and taken shelter there. A place that whispered to me a promise of redemption. My own human death was what I craved. Not even the life before it anymore.
The people of my lands called me Draugr. Vampire. I was a beast feasting on flesh. A man turned animal. Only the four of us remained from our village. Clarice, Fabian, Miles and I. Four pillars of stone who'd never fall to dust.
The others had found a way of life, something to keep them sane. They had bowed to the blood lust. After a time, we'd taken different paths and headed to the four corners of our lands in hopes that we would draw less attention to ourselves. But some of my siblings had flaunted their powers...
In the south, Miles offered eternal life to those who gave him blood and had grown a sizeable group of pious followers.
In the east, men flocked to Clarice for her beauty, worshiping her in the belief that she was a deity. Their blood sacrifice was the price of her company and they gave it willingly.
In the north, Fabian used his animal spies, his Familiars, to seek out the vulnerable. Humans who strayed from their towns, the lone travellers and the outcasts. He took those who wouldn't be missed to ensure he was never hunted down. Fabian's fear of death made him the most cunning of us all. He never caused a stir, always sired humans who could help him gain access to more blood, made deals and played tricks to keep his name from growing too famous. Andvari had come to us once and told us how to sire mortals, make them like us. But I’d refused to do any such thing, unlike my kin.
Through all the years that had passed, I’d remained on the west coast. My homeland. The rolling forests, the fjords and high rivers were a comfort to me.
I had tried all of my family's ways over the years to find a place in this world. A manner of living that provided blood at the smallest price. I'd even attempted not to kill for blood, but sometimes the hunger was all-consuming. And now I felt the burden of those deaths weighing on my soul.
It had been weeks since my last feed. I'd wandered too far inland, roaming the forests of old, praying to the gods, trying to get some answers.
My footfalls made no noise as I crossed the mossy ground, following a well-worn path once used by tradesmen. But they'd long-since moved on from this area. They believed it cursed. And I supposed I was proof of that.
What would you have me do to end this? I will do it, Andvari.
No reply came to my thoughts. Sometimes the god spoke to me in whispers between the rocks, from shining puddles and stagnant water. He was ever-present and yet always eluding me.
I paced to the still pool between five trees. It appeared green beneath the canopy and was formed of several boulders in a circle. I'd discovered this place long ago. The wind barely stirred the air here, the atmosphere was denser and the forest seemed to hold its breath.
Andvari was near.
“Tell me again.” I perched on a boulder, poised in a crouch as I gazed down at the glass-like surface. Despite the glossy sheen of the water, no reflection was cast back at me.
A single golden leaf dropped from a branch above, spiralling down and landing on the pool. As ripples spread out around it, the water changed until my reflection appeared. Andvari always spoke to me this way, with my own mouth. A way of tormenting me perhaps.
My reflection moved, but I didn't. It crept closer on the boulder whereas I remained perfectly still.
“Speak your name,” Andvari purred in my own voice.
“Erik Larsen,” I breathed.
“You shall be known otherwise one day,” he replied.
“When? How?” I demanded, my tongue as dry as ash in my mouth.
“There is a great journey in your future,” he said, tilting his head to one side, his mouth lifting in a mocking smile.
“Tell me how to break the curse. Tell me again,” I begged.
Andvari reached toward the surface of the water and the leaf began to spin in slow circles.
“A warrior born but monster made,
Changes fates of souls enslaved.
Twins of sun and moon will rise,
When one has lived a thousand lives.
A circle of gold shall join two souls,
And a debt paid rights wrongs of old.
In a holy mountain the earth will heal,
Then the dead shall live and the curse will keel.”
I tried to find new meaning in the words, but I couldn't see the answer. “Please, tell me more. Tell me what it means.”
Andvari chuckled. “Time is your friend now. You have many years to decipher the meaning.”
“I don't want to live this way!” I picked up a stone by my feet and threw it at the pool.
Not a splash, not a ripple. The stone sunk to the bottom and Andvari regarded it with amusement.
“You have no choice,” Andvari said.
I thought on the prophecy but there was only one part of it I understood. “The holy mountain is Helgafjell. A place of the afterlife. My family and I have already sought it out. We have found the treasure our mothers and fathers stole from you. You know where it is. Is this not enough to pay our debt?”
Andvari sat back on the boulder, regarding me. “That is only one part of it, Draugr...”
I scraped a hand through my hair. I was growing weary and so, so hungry. I was losing my mind in this forest. Sometimes I feared I would sit down against a tree one day and never rise again.
“Blood will sate you,” Andvari whispered. “You only need to seek it out.”
“The curse...it speaks of a debt,” I said, refusing to accept his words. He would try to lead me astray as always. I had to find the answer to his riddle. “If I pay it in hunger will it break the curse?”
A smile pulled at Andvari's mouth. “Do you believe that is the answer?”
“I don't know.” I rubbed my throat, the ache there growing unbearable. If Andvari wanted suffering, perhaps this was the solution. Perhaps it might be enough to return life to my body if I refused to give in to the urges of the curse.
“You will go mad with hunger,” Andvari said, his voice as sweet as honey. “That is a high price to pay, Erik Larsen. You will break. You will cave. You will not last a year in hunger before it forces your hand.”
“I am stronger than you think,” I snarled, growing impatient. “If that is the price, I will pay it.”
Andvari's reflection started to fade and I knew he was leaving me. Was that my answer? Could this be the debt the prophecy spoke of?
As the water returned to a glistening pool of dark green, my decision was made.
There was only one way I could stop myself from breaking. I'd find a place I could seal myself inside. I'd take away the option of submitting to the curse.
I would pay my debt. And pray my heart would beat with human life once more.
I headed north to speak with Fabian. My brother. Or so we called ourselves now. Our true families were dead so we’d united as siblings instead. But it did nothing to ease the pain at the loss of my real sister.
The days merged. Night and day were barely distinguishable. The daylight barely grew to dawn beyond the dark clouds this time of year. The further north I travelled, the more snow I encountered. Its icy touch was nothing in comparison to my cold body and it was no more a burden than the winding trails of the forests.
As I stood one day at the peak of a hill beneath the heavy shade of an oak tree, a raven landed on a branch above my head.
It cawed to me and I tilted my head to look at it. It nestled down on the branch and I sensed this was one of Fabian's birds. Dropping down, I sat with my back to the tree and waited for him to come.
Darkness fell and silence crept across the land as animals took roost. After a time, an easterly wind swept over me and I caught the scent of blood on the air. I ran my tongue across my fangs, the hunger in me begging to be sated.
I held my knees and closed my eyes, willing the urge away.
I will not be the monster Andvari made me.
The blood drew ever closer, a group of five at a guess. Their scent was somehow familiar, but the ache at the base of my skull drowned any chance of me working out why.
They drew near on silent feet. Too silent for humans, I realised.
My senses grew sharper and I stood up, searching the dark surroundings. My eyesight was keen and I could see as well at night as I could in the day. The forest at the base of the hill was concealing them, but I knew they were there. I could taste them on the wind.
A rush of noise made me lurch aside and an arrow embedded itself in the oak tree behind me. I snarled as the group broke free of the trees, charging up the hill clad in fighting leathers.
Slayers.
I had been careless during my journey here. I hadn't wondered if I was being followed. It had been months since I'd last encountered their kind. They were Idun’s revenge upon us for Andvari’s crime against her. Men and women gifted with the strength to fight us. So to me, they were the enemy. An enemy I hadn’t chosen but was cursed with all the same. Their ancestors had been cousins to my kin once and I’d been welcome in their halls. Now all they saw in me was the monster Andvari had created.
Spilling their blood was a dangerous thing. But I was too hungry to drown out that need as they ran on swift feet in my direction, bringing me the nourishment I craved.
I grew weak in that moment. And I knew as they crested the hill with battle cries and swords drawn that the curse was about to claim me once more.
“Stop!” I roared, but they didn't.
Two women and three men.
A man reached me first, just a youth barely past eighteen.
He lunged with his sword and I shifted aside, grabbing his wrist and snapping it like a twig. His wails died as I dug my fangs into his throat, taking the first drink I'd had in months. It tasted sweet and metallic at once. The blood lust took over, drowning me, turning me into the feral creature the gods had made me. The second slayer came at me from behind and I threw my elbow back, catching him in the nose as he tried to drive a dagger into my back. He hit the ground and I twisted around, breaking his neck with a sharp crack.
The final three fell atop me at once. A searing pain scored into my side as a slayer blade met my skin. The woman it belonged to was dead at my feet in moments and a girl of similar looks screamed in pain at her loss. It didn't matter, because she was my next victim. Her body was soon slack in my arms as the final man grabbed my neck from behind, bringing his sword around to my throat. Before it made contact, I rammed my head back into his face, dropping us both to the ground.
I felt nothing. I was nothing.
I turned atop him and buried my fangs in his throat. He clawed and scratched, his sword fallen to the ground and lost to the cold depths of the snow.
The white world turned red around me. The monster in me fed until it could get no more.
Blood soaked my body and ran down my chin as I spat out the last of my drink. I cared minimally for their loss. But I cared more for my immortal soul. A soul now marred in blood once more.
“Brother!”
I turned, spotting Fabian as he sped up the hill toward me. He was at my side in moments, clutching my arm.
“I heard the fight, I came as fast as I could,” he said, shaking me when I didn't respond.
The pain in my back grew sharper and I clutched the wound as my body struggled to heal from the cut of a blessed blade.
I gazed down at the bodies surrounding us, wishing I'd stayed back on the coast and found a cave to seal myself inside there. But I needed to tell someone where I was. If I was remade as a human, I had to ensure someone could let me out.
“Fabian,” I whispered, meeting his dark gaze. “I may have found a way to break the curse.”
His eyes roamed over me. “Is that so?”
“I wish to rid myself of this hunger by starving it out of me.” I hissed between my teeth at the pain in my side. Slowly, it was easing. But it would take a while. The slayer blades were nothing like a human's. They were designed to hurt us.
“You say this covered in blood.” Fabian smiled, dropping to his knees and digging his fangs into one of the women.
I watched with cold detachment as he drained what remaining life she had left.
“I do not wish to be like this forever,” I told him as he rose beside me, a glimmer of satisfaction in his gaze.
“Come, stay with me a while, Erik. You can make peace with the blood lust. There need be no guilt in it. I pick off the weak, that is no crime in our world of hardship. The townspeople will thank us.”
“Fabian...” I shook my head sharply. “My decision is made. I will trap myself inside a cave. I want you to be my guardian. To watch over my crypt until the gods return life to my body.”
He slid an arm around my shoulders, guiding me down the hill. “You are too hard on yourself. Don't be a fool. You will go mad with the hunger.”
“Perhaps, but Andvari will be watching, Fabian. This could be the debt he speaks of in the prophecy.”
Fabian sighed. “I can see your mind is made up.”
“It is. Will you help me?”
He clutched my arm. “Of course, brother. I will do as you ask.”
“It could bring your life back too,” I said. “Maybe this will be enough of a payment for all of us.”
Fabian ground his jaw. “Perhaps,” he muttered, glancing away.
We walked on for miles, heading deep into the forest until we arrived at the edge of a large cave which sat on the curve of a river.
“Are you sure about this?” Fabian asked. “At least spend an evening with me first.”
I shook my head. “Now, Fabian. It can't wait another day. My penance must begin now.”
I started gathering large rocks, building a wall before the cave and ignoring the stabbing pain in my side. Fabian finally joined me as we covered the entrance. It was nearly morning by the time a small hole was all that remained in the wall, just large enough for me to enter through.
I stepped toward it and Fabian took my arm. “Don't do this, Erik.”
I cupped the back of his neck and pulled him into my shoulder. “Let me pay this debt. Do not deny it of me.”
He sighed, releasing me and gesturing for me to go inside.
“Visit me every week,” I asked and he nodded stiffly.
I climbed through the narrow space, wincing as my skin flexed against the wound. I dropped into the dank cave beyond the wall and fear flickered on the edges of my heart, but I didn't let it seize me. I was a born warrior. And I would die as one too. But not until my human body was restored.
“Fabian!” I called. “Do not release me until I am human. Let me waste here until the debt is paid.”
“As you wish, brother.” He forced stones into the hole and continued until it was packed solid.
I lowered myself down onto a rock, the darkness absolute.
And there, I would wait.
Trees surrounded me, seeming to swirl like mist. Darkness gripped the world and made me squint as I tried to find something solid to focus on.
A figure came into view in strange attire. He looked like a warrior from one of Dad's stories. Tall and roguish with streams of dark hair.
The world shuddered once more and he was suddenly closer. His eyes shone like molten gold and my heart stumbled with an ache of longing.
The world trembled around me and suddenly I was sat on a horse, swaying from side to side. Hills rolled out before me, merging into grasslands and trees.
The sun warmed my cheeks and the wind fluttered my hair.
Arms tightened around my waist and I gazed down, finding the tanned hands
of a stranger.
A voice filled my mind as familiar as my own. Callie’s voice. “I’m coming for you.”
A cool palm on my cheek stirred me. I jerked backwards as I woke fully, thinking of Wolfe but finding Erik crouched before the chair I was curled up in.
He extracted his hand, giving me a slanted smile, his metallic eyes warmer than usual. “Good evening.”
Evening? I'd slept all day? Holy shit.
I glanced toward the window finding the shutters open, revealing a low moon above the trees.
“I take it your date with Fabian didn't go too well.” He raised a brow, looking mildly intrigued by that fact.
I sighed. “He had something to do in the city. A Chancellor died apparently.”
Erik's eyes glittered. “Ah, that makes sense.”
I frowned as he rose to his feet then perched on the bed opposite me.
“Aren't you concerned?” I asked.
“No.” He shrugged. “I was the one who had him killed.” He smirked and my heart rate picked up.
“What? Why?”
Erik flopped backwards onto the mattress, not answering.
I stood from the chair, moving forward and tentatively sitting next to him. He gazed at me with a roguish grin.
“Well?” I pressed.
“Chancellor Torin had been poking around in my business for too long. I decided it was time to keep his beaky nose out of things for good. Besides, he’s not the only one who’s been killed lately. My men are being targeted, so I’m entitled to strike back.”
My mouth grew dry as I absorbed this information. It was strange to know vampires had their own feuds. And were even willing to kill each other. I didn’t know how much I could ask, and was even less sure if Erik would give me any answers.
Before I could pick a question from the torrent flowing through my mind, Erik snatched my arm, dragging me down beside him. A breath jammed in my lungs as he rolled onto his side to look at me, his mouth hooked up in a playful grin. My heart thundered as he lifted a palm and pushed a coil of hair from my face. The order he’d given me to forget about last night hovered at the edges of my mind, but it was impossible with him so close. His masculine scent was like a drug I was getting hooked on. But I’d always had strong willpower and I was determined not to get addicted. Especially not to a bloodsucker.
Age of Vampires- The Complete Series Page 29