The Last Guardian

by Bruno Stella

  ***

  It was past midnight when Aginol rose up and stealthily made his way to the heaped pyre. Nobody else was awake save the sentries hidden a way out in the undergrowth, and they were looking outwards – not in. He pulled the hood off the creature’s face, and immediately its eyes locked on his own. It felt as though there was a great pressure pushing against him, trying to break into his mind. He glared back, and after many long minutes the vampire gasped, looked away. Aginol sneered. “I knew that your kind is able to command the weak-willed through thought and gaze alone. The old texts say so. But I … I am the chosen of Yanos. I have spent my whole life conditioning my mind and body to endure anything.”

  “What do you want?” asked the vampire, still looking away. Aginol just smiled.

  “Why do you not just kill me? Spare me the embarrassment of being slaughtered like a pig before those useless peasants.” Its voice was deep, with rounded vowels.

  “Oh, I will,” said Aginol, “but first you can tell me who you are.”

  “What does it matter! Why do you even care?”

  “It matters. Your name will live on in our records if nothing more. Tell me.”

  “Oh, very well. My name is Breath-of-Night. That is the only name that matters.”

  “And your sire?”

  “Death’s Shadow. But he is gone. I ripped his heart out myself.”

  Aginol smiled. “Good. Very good. That name I know. Death’s Shadow. A master-vampire in alliance with the chaos-cultists of Kerak, about a hundred years ago.”

  “I sense the lie within you,” the vampire said, “what is your true intention?”

  Aginol chuckled quietly. “I have told you no lies. Why do you so accuse me?”

  “I can feel the untruth within you. There is something that you are masking.”

  Aginol smiled a secret smile. “Your senses are correct. There is indeed a reason why you have been spared up until now. I want what you have.”

  Breath-of-Night hissed a long, shuddering laugh at this, and Aginol glanced quickly about himself. “Quiet, fool! If you draw any attention, I will light this pyre on the instant.” It took a while for the vampire to stop sniggering, and it looked at him with contempt.

  “You’re the fool, then. Do you know how it is to live ten lifetimes in darkness, alone, the servant of another seeking only to destroy him to gain freedom. Then, one day, when that freedom comes, and your master lies dead through a tiny miscalculation, to face eternity alone? The only company to have is through making more of your kind, and then living in fear and through fear as they in turn hate and despise you, seeking only to destroy you in turn? Fool!” said Breath-of-Night, an intense look of earnestness on its aristocratic face.

  Aginol shook his head. “I told you, I am the complete master of my body. I will control the curse, and use its effect of life everlasting to be the last Anlos for my faith. Yanos will understand. There is need for an invincible leader to ensure that you chaos-vermin never threaten mankind again. I am prepared to undergo the curse of the vampire in order to be that leader, for Goodness. That’s why I wanted to make sure of your bloodline. I need a strong line for this.”

  Breath-of-Night snorted in incredulous mirth. Yet, the vampire also nodded. “If you let me go, I will do it. I give you my pledge that I will go far from here, and you will never hear from me again.”

  “You have my word,” said Aginol.

  The vampire bit down on its on lip, and thick black blood spurted forth. It grinned, and again Aginol felt the intense pressure of its will.

  “Give me a kiss, then,” Breath-of-Night said, smiling a blood-smile.

  Aginol recoiled slightly. “I don’t kiss men,” he said.

  “I’m not a man.”

  Aginol bent over and kissed.

  Immediately the vampire bit him, as he knew it would. Its fangs drove into his lower lip, and its blood mixed with his. It felt as though tiny gold sparks flavoured with some intense spice were seeping into his flesh. The vampire put forth its will again, and this time it was a terrible surge. It was as though he were trying to hold back the flow of a river through will alone.

  Aginol pulled back, and already his motions were uncoordinated, as though invisible strings were pulling his limbs this way and that. Yanos above! The creature’s will was multiplied times over, now that its blood was in him.

  “You’re mine, now,” hissed Breath-of-Night.

  “Not yet. Nath Alleion!” cried Aginol, drawing on his last reserves of will.

  His palm erupted with light, and he shone it with such power at the vampire that its skin ignited instantly, a great puff of smoke blooming up. The wood underneath combusted under the blinding heat, and it began shrieking in agony.

  “You promised! You said I could go!”

  “I lied,” said Aginol, panting with effort, “you said yourself I held a lie within me. But Yanos will forgive me my trespass. I do this for Him and for Good.”

  As the creature writhed in its death agonies, the immense pile of burning wood sent a lick of flame into the sky visible for many thousandpace. Shouts went up as the knights began to awake. Aginol drew forth a flask of consecrated water and splashed it over the creature, stilling its cries.

  Then he sank to his knees.

  It was as though his heartbeat was amplified at thousand times over. It thundered in his ears. With each beat his head felt like bursting with pain. His face was burning up. His lip prickled and itched with a thousand ant bites. Aginol held his head in his hands, drawing on his training, on his vast will, to conquer the vampire-taint running through his veins. He tried to find his centre of thought. He tried to extend his awareness through his body. He tried …

  … when Aginol awoke, it was in darkness.

  He awoke with a start. He had been having the most awful nightmares. He’d dreamed that he had been running around, ripping the living hearts from the bodies of his men, and eating them. Sucking the hot blood from their veins. And enjoying it.

  Disoriented he ran his hand over his face, and something crusty and flaky crumbled off of it. It smelled of old iron and butter and salt. Looking at his hand, he could see it was a dark powder. Then he realised that he was in the caves. Then he realised that he could see, in pitch blackness. The world was a blur of greys … but he could see.

  Aginol remembered, now. Remembered kissing the creature, and burning it. His dreams … were not dreams. Aghast he looked again at his hand, and rubbed more of the substance off his face. Dried blood.

  “Hellfire and darkness, what did I do?” Aginol muttered shakily to himself. He had lost control. Completely. His training had been as much good as a torch in a thunderstorm when the killing lust had swept over him. He was overcome by the sensation of having made the biggest mistake of his life. The sensation a rat must have, if it walked into a warm hole and found that it was the home of a nest of hungry cobras.

  “But it is not too late,” Aginol whispered to himself, “I must find those that I have bitten. Capture them, and bring them back. There must be a cure for this affliction. This is for the good of the Order. Yanos give me strength. Yanos give me strength!”

  He made his way stealthily out of the caves, which were littered with the corpses of knights. At the very exit, he could see starlight glimmering.

  A bulky figure stepped in the space of the exit, wielding a silver mace.

  Cornac.

  His old friend’s face was a mask of fear and anguish. “Anlos … Aginol! Fight it! Fight the curse. I know that you are still in there. We will find a way to save you.”

  “It … it’s alright. I have regained my senses. I am in command of myself.”

  “Yanos be praised! I thought that we had lost you forever.”

  “No … I’m good. It’s just that …”

  “That what?”

  That a whiff of Cornac’s scent had curled past Aginol. That it smelled like hot iron, and butter and salt and life. His belly knotted with hunger and desire. Dro
ol ran down his lip, but Cornac could not see that, because it was too dark. Just a little taste. What harm … what harm could it do?

  Aginol backhanded the mace out of Cornac’s hand. The weapon bent in half against his inhumanly hard flesh. He bore down on Cornac, and hurled him to the ground, pinning him. Cornac could not push him off because Aginol was beyond human strength, now. He became aware that Cornac was saying something. It sounded like “No.”

  “You cannot deny me,” said Aginol, drool splattering Cornac’s face, “I am the Anlos. The last Anlos. And I just want a little taste. Littletaste.”

  The liquid that he sucked from the monk was like drinking the juice of living rubies.

  Aginol looked up.

  “I won’t … kill you, old friend. I am the Anlos. I have done this sacrifice for you. For our order. For Yanos … and Goodness.”

  He smiled the smile of a pederast.

  The vampire drank again, and the scream carried far into the mountains, but there was nobody to hear.

  The End.

  ***

  This story is a prologue to The Man from the Tower, a much longer work available from major e-book retailers. It is the first in what will be a three book epic fantasy series called “Tergin’s Tale”. Very likely the next books will also have short stories like this one given away as I develop the characters and their backgrounds.

  If you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it, you may want to head over to my blog at https://brunoccstella.blogspot.com/ where additional short stories are available for download, free of charge.

  If you have criticism, praise or something to say about what you have read, write me an email at brunostellareadermail@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you.