Attempted Vampirism

by L. G. Estrella

  “Of course. I doubt there’s a paladin that isn’t.”

  “For those of us who haven’t been paladins…” Eric gestured at himself, Eileen, Miles, and Blue Scales. The merman was still petting Fluffy, and the rabbit looked decidedly content to lounge about on his lap. Interesting. Did rabbits like mermen in general, or was it just Blue Scales in particular?

  “I’d be happy to explain.” The shield was one of Jonathan’s favourite artefacts. It was an absolute masterpiece, a shield unmatched by any other in the world. It was a pity it was in the hands of one of the most militant orders of paladins. He would have loved to examine it. “The shield was created by Argolad the Steadfast, a legendary paladin who lived more than fifteen hundred years ago. It is a sealing shield, so it can seal things inside itself. There are plenty of sealing shields. What makes it so different is that the Shield of Argolad redirects any damage it sustains to the objects that have been sealed inside it… and Argolad somehow managed to seal an entire mountain range into it.”

  Eric stopped slouching and sat up straight. “Are you serious? He sealed an entire mountain range into a shield?”

  “Yes,” Aria replied. “He was that good.”

  “So to break the shield, you’d need to hit it with something capable of destroying a mountain range, right?” Eric laughed. “Oh, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that no one has ever managed to do that.”

  “You’d be right.” Aria ran one hand through her hair tiredly. The shadows beside her bent, and a shadow imp leapt onto her shoulder. To Jonathan’s disbelief, the little creature began to brush her hair. “For as long as the shield has existed, no attack has ever been able to damage it. Argolad was never bested in battle after making it, and whoever carries the shield is considered practically invincible.”

  “Our biggest problem is that the Blood Emperor made extensive use of the dagger,” Jonathan said. “It is highly likely that all manner of malevolent and powerful beings are trapped inside it. If Baron Darkletter is right, at least one of those beings has managed to escape. Aria should be able to help contain it, and I know some Signs that can help, but I’m not especially powerful. What about you?”

  Eric shrugged. “I’m a werewolf with a spear. I’m not much good at complex magic, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve to handle anything nasty we might run into.”

  Eileen held up a sign. Some of my summons can help.

  Blue Scales settled Fluffy into his lap. The rabbit had fallen asleep. “My people have their ways. If I wanted, I could bury the manor beneath a tide of water, but I suspect it might not work.”

  “It probably wouldn’t,” Aria agreed. “But we’ll do it if we have to. Baron Darkletter was very clear that the dagger had to be dealt with. Damage to the manor – even its destruction – would be unfortunate, but he would accept it if there was no other way.” She nodded at Blue Scales. “Conserve enough of your power to destroy the manor, but wait for my order.”

  “To clarify,” Jonathan said. “This won’t be complicated. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but our objectives should be straightforward. I know enough about the dagger that I think I can deactivate it if you can get me close enough. It won’t be pleasant, but destroying it would be almost impossible. Once it has been deactivated, anything that escaped from it should be pulled back into it. The tough part will be getting close to it. Whatever has escaped is not going to just stand aside and let us reach the dagger.”

  “What sort of entities are we talking about?” Eric asked. “The Blood Emperor was a legend in an age of legends. Anything he was worried about is going to mean the very opposite of a good day for us.”

  Jonathan grimaced. “I have some theories about what has escaped. Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

  “Might as well start with the good news.” Eric patted his belly. “Dinner wasn’t that long ago. Give me a few more minutes before I have to throw up in terror.” Eric had a joking smile on his face, and Jonathan was certain the werewolf had never thrown up in terror in his entire life.

  Miles chuckled. “A fine sentiment.”

  “The good news is that when it came to his most powerful and dangerous opponents, the Blood Emperor was usually pragmatic. To avoid future problems, he typically found ways to either kill them or strip them of their powers. We will not be facing anything as powerful as the Blood Emperor.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “Frankly, the records suggest he could occasionally be lazy against opponents he was confident of being able to defeat even if he couldn’t easily kill them. Also, he was not averse to tormenting his enemies, and I’d say imprisoning someone in the dagger seems like a pretty good way to torment them.”

  Aria’s expression tightened. “So there could be a lot of troublesome things in the dagger?”

  “Yes. And given the Blood Emperor’s might, something he considered merely annoying could still slaughter the lot of us if we aren’t careful. Based on the information we have, I think the most likely candidate is an ancient vampire summoner who delved too deeply into long-forgotten eldritch lore. His studies transformed him, making him virtually impossible to kill, and he apparently annoyed the Blood Emperor by sending wave after wave of eldritch beings after him. The information that Baron Darkletter was able to glean from his servants fits, but I can’t make any guarantees. If it is him, he will be troublesome to deal with.”

  “How will we know if it’s him?” Blue Scales asked.

  Jonathan shuddered. “Believe me, you’ll know. Eldritch beings aren’t easy to miss – nor is their influence.”

  * * *

  Aria awakened to the sound of a cat being strangled only to realise that, no, some hapless feline was not being murdered in the middle of their camp. On the contrary, that awful sound was Jonathan screeching. The vampire’s voice had reached an impressively high pitch as he screeched for everyone to get up. He wasn’t the calmest person around – she hadn’t needed to know him for long to work that out – but he wasn’t the sort of person to make a big fuss over nothing either. She got up and groaned. She hadn’t been able to settle into a good position during the night. Perhaps she should have taken Eileen up on her offer. The shape-shifter made for a wonderful pillow when she was in her bear form.

  “What is it?” Beside Aria, Eileen had also risen. Her shadow imps were chittering noisily as they began to take up positions around the camp.

  “There are vampires!” Jonathan shrieked.

  She gave him a flat look. “You don’t say…”

  He must have realised how ridiculous he sounded because he flailed around and added to his words. “No – not me! Other vampires! They’re headed this way!”

  Her gaze sharpened, and she hastily threw on her gambeson and armour as the others prepared themselves. “How do you know?” Surely, Eileen’s summons had not missed any intruders. The shadow imps were not the most deadly summons, but they were diligent and loyal.

  “I saw some birds taking flight in the distance, so I used [Scry]. None of the birds that live in this forest are the kind to fly at night if they can avoid it.”

  “Not bad.” Aria smiled in approval. Jonathan lacked experience, but he was knowledgeable and observant. “How many and how far away?” It was a tricky question. He’d mentioned the strength of his information gathering before, but it had sounded almost too good to be true.

  “Fledglings,” Jonathan replied. “At least a dozen. They’re moving through the trees. We have a few minutes at the most.”

  Aria readied her sword and her buckler. Her sword was perfect for killing fledglings, her buckler less so. However, a good hit with her buckler should still be enough to stun them, and her sword and magic could handle the rest. If only she had a blade shield, but she hadn’t been able to grab one while running from her order. “Well done. You’re as good at gathering information as you claimed.”

  Eric peered into the darkness around their camp. As a werewolf, the darkness did nothing to hinder his visi
on. “I doubt it’s a coincidence that we’re running into them so soon after the bandits.”

  “Wait…” Jonathan cast [Scry] again, and Aria flinched as the Word surged past her. At this range, she could feel the size and depth of its coverage. Her eyes widened. That was probably the most powerful [Scry] she’d ever encountered. “Something about them is… wrong.”

  “I see.” Aria raised her sword and reached into herself. It was a good thing she still held the favour of her patron god. The mightiest of her god’s Gifts could only be used sparingly. She had received four Gifts from her god, and she could only use them three times in total each day. It wasn’t the widest selection – Marcus had access to at least a dozen Gifts – but she had grown very, very skilled with the Gifts at her disposal. “I know some of us can see at night, but a little bit more light would still be good. [Glitter].” Motes of light shimmered in the air as the Word took effect. It should be enough to give them a good view of their opponents without blinding them, and the light itself would weaken anyone she deemed an enemy. “Get ready. They’re close.”

  The first of the fledglings leapt out of a tree and landed at the edge of the clearing. Aria fought the urge to recoil. Jonathan was right. There was something very wrong with these fledglings. The fledgling’s eyes were a sickly red – the colour of old, dried blood. Many vampires had red-tinged eyes, especially when they called upon their powers, but this was different. It was as though his eye sockets were filled with nothing but clotted blood. The others, who appeared soon after, were little better. They were haggard too, their clothing ripped and torn, and their hair unkempt. This wasn’t a question of resources. No vampire would ever have allowed their fledglings to be seen in such a state. If that wasn’t enough, their gaits were rough and shambling despite their speed, and the sounds they made bore no resemblance to speech.

  Aria’s lips firmed into a thin line. There would be plenty of time to wonder why the fledglings were like this later. Right now, they had a battle to win. “We fight!”

  At her words, the battle began. The closest fledgling leapt right at her, and she cut him out of the air. Her holy blade sliced through his flesh with ease, and a normal fledgling would have at least reeled back, but he barely even flinched as she severed one of his arms. Instead, he landed and rounded on her with incredible speed. She would have been in trouble if not for her buckler. His slavering jaws closed around the buckler – she’d never seen a vampire open their mouth so wide – and she gasped at the pressure he exerted. Even with a Word of reinforcement on her buckler, the metal was beginning to feel the strain. This was insane. This… creature was no normal fledgling.

  She channelled electricity through her buckler. It was a minor elemental generic spell that was barely useful in normal combat. However, it did the trick. His jaw convulsed, and she wrenched her buckler free before slamming it into his face. Bone gave way, but he reached for her with clawed hands, seemingly unbothered by the damage he’d taken. He only stopped when she severed his head and then stabbed him through the heart. His body turned to ash, but the process was far slower than it should have been, and the ash itself was the colour of old blood instead of the usual white or grey.

  “What is wrong with these people?” Eric had another fledgling pinned against a tree. Despite the spear in his chest, the vampire continued to thrash and claw in an attempt to work his way up the spear. The pain alone should have incapacitated him, but he barely seemed to notice the injury at all. Eric twisted and flung the vampire away. “I don’t remember fledglings being this hard to kill.” He glanced at the pile of ash near Aria. “And the colour of the ash is wrong.”

  Jonathan retreated behind Miles. The butler stepped forward, and Aria saw a flicker of doubt cross Jonathan’s face before he took a deep breath and gathered his courage. The vampire noble lifted both hands and pointed. A shower of sparks flew from his fingers and into the closest fledgling’s eyes. It wasn’t a powerful spell, but blinding the opponent was definitely handy.

  “Well done, sir.” Miles struck the blinded fledgling – although how he could even see with eyes of clotted blood was a mystery – and the fledging’s chest crumpled. The vampire hurtled back, and Miles’s brows furrowed. “Interesting. That fledgling’s flesh did not feel right, nor were the organs within him like those in other vampires.”

  More fledglings arrived, and Aria’s heart raced as she caught sight of something truly monstrous amongst them. “By the gods… what is that?”

  The creature was vaguely humanoid, but the similarity stopped at it having two arms and two legs. Instead of a head, it had a vast, gaping maw of serrated teeth with little in the way of eyes, ears, or a nose. On its back were large spines that crackled with energy of some indefinable colour. Its body was studded with strange, vestigial eyes that rolled blindly in their shrivelled sockets.

  “You know how I mentioned we’d know if we ran into eldritch beings,” Jonathan said. “Well, I think we have.”

  Aria pointed her sword. “[Cleansing Light]!” A shaft of radiance struck the creature, but it pressed onward despite great chunks of flesh sloughing off. It turned its head toward her, and she was forced to bat aside several bolts of energy. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

  “The worlds outside our own can be terrible places. Those who delve too deeply into them are often warped and twisted by the experience. These fledglings… something must have been done to them. Look at their clothing. It’s hard to see beneath the grime and muck, but those are Darkletter colours. And that creature… I suspect it’s like them, only further along.”

  “What works against it?” Aria asked. She fired off another bolt of light. Once again, flesh sloughed off, but it was swiftly replaced. Eileen bellowed and charged, and she and the creature exchanged a thunderous storm of blows. Incredible. There were few things that could stand up to Eileen’s fury in her bear form. Through the cuts in her friend’s fur, Aria caught a glimpse of metallic scales. Good. Eileen had used a partial transformation to add to her durability, most likely turning the skin beneath her fur into hydra scales. “Come on, Jonathan. You’re the expert. Tell us what to do.”

  Jonathan swung his sword awkwardly at a fledgling. The clumsy blow only knocked the corrupted vampire off balance, but Blue Scales’s trident tore the fledgling apart. “Brute force should help. The Blood Emperor’s writings make it clear that magic isn’t always the best option. Crushing their bodies worked fairly well. I think his exact words were ‘hit them until they stop moving and then hit them some more just to be sure’. When he did use magic, it was extremely powerful magic, more powerful than any of us can manage.”

  “Allow me.” Blue Scales surged forward. Fluffy, their newly acquire team mascot, had been safely hidden away by some of Eileen’s shadow imps, leaving the merman free to fight. “Let us see how this abomination handles the power of the Deep!” He brought his trident down on the creature’s head with tremendous force. To Aria’s disbelief, the creature was still able to strike back, and Blue Scales was forced to leap back before it could flay him with some newly grown tendrils. “Hmm… perhaps we should keep hitting it.”

  In answer to his words, several shadow imps shot through the air. Shadowy wires coiled around the creature to immobilise it, and Eileen barrelled forward. She ripped and tore, sparks flying as the creature’s tendrils skittered off the scales beneath her fur.

  “Focus on the fledglings,” Aria ordered Miles and Eric. “Let Eileen and Blue Scales handle the big one.”

  The pair continued to hammer away at the creature, and it finally began to fall. Blow after blow thundered into it. It looked as though it might be trying to heal, but it could not match the pace of their attacks. With a roar of triumph, Eileen ripped it in two. To the shape-shifter’s shock, the two halves tried to crawl back together.

  “Burn it!” Jonathan shouted. “I know some Signs that should help finish it now that it is weakened!”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Ari
a said. Signs were eldritch magic that was usually cast in the form of gestures or movements. Even a small mistake could be devastating. If Words were gifts from the gods to their creations, then Signs were gifts from the far less benevolent – and far less comprehensible – beings that dwelt in the Beyond.

  “It should work,” Jonathan said. “I haven’t had to use them before, but they were frequently mentioned during my studies of ancient lore.”

  “Here!” Miles tossed some oil onto the two halves of the creature and then set them alight with a burning branch from the campfire.

  Jonathan raised his hands. “You might want to look away. Signs often disturb people.” He made a Sign, and the flames roared higher, consuming the two halves of the creature in no time at all.

  The battle ended soon after. The corrupted fledglings were determined opponents, but they were wild and disorganised. Once they had been dealt with, Aria gathered their strange ashes and tossed them into the campfire. It was better to be safe than sorry.

  “So,” Aria said. “How many more of these… things are we likely to encounter?”

  Jonathan shuddered. “If we’re lucky, then this is the only group to have emerged from the manor.”

  “And if we’re not?”

  “Then we could be fighting a lot more of these things in the near future.”

  Interlude Two – Forest and Ocean

  Eric was a werewolf, but not a particularly happy one. It was all because of the rain. Oh, he didn’t dislike rain. He understood it was necessary for the land to thrive, and it could be invigorating to run through the rain, especially in his lupine form. What he disliked was tromping through the rain for day after day after soaking wet day. It was absolutely miserable. There was no other way to describe it.

  It had started raining a week ago, and it hadn’t stopped for more than an hour or two since. Travelling on foot was beyond miserable. His clothes got drenched, mud got on everything, and every inn he could afford had a leaky roof. Travelling in his lupine form was also out of the question. He was in vampire territory, and vampires did not take kindly to unknown werewolves wandering around. Maybe once he’d made a name for himself, he could travel in his lupine form, but until then, it wasn’t worth the hassle even if he was confident he could handle any trouble that came from it, at least for a while. Fighting was all well and good, but he’d learned how to pick his fights over the years. Fighting in enemy territory wasn’t about winning the first fight or the second fight or even the third fight. It was about winning the fourth fight, the fifth fight, and all the fights after that. He was tough, sure, but he’d get worn down eventually.