The Lance draped in Crimson: the Story of Reina Tepes
Written by Spiritblade
Disclaimer: For you, Traingham, as promised. Change what you need. This is my gift to you, the best I can give on such short notice. Some parts, I will forewarn you, are not consistent with certain parts of your story, and I ask that you correct them before using them.
Keep fighting, boya. This is a story for everyone who wants to fight, who wants to reach their hands to the starry skies, and who believe that they can win it all back.
(O)
Transylvania has always belonged to my family. It is an ancient land, one that has walked through the centuries with the unconquered grandeur of the titanic mountains whose snow-topped peaks seem to reach for the starry heavens they could never touch. War and strife had come to this land, but its people have never bowed – not even when my ancestor, Dracula, ruled over it with an iron fist and cast out those who would not kneel to his rule. During that era, most of the Tepes Clan fled to our holdings in the Mundus Magicus in order to elude Dracula's servants. Some remained behind to wage a vicious shadow war against their treacherous kinsman whose powers were made greater by the pacts he had made with the Princess Morningstar.
Yes, despite what the Church likes to say, the Morningstar – also known as the Adversary, as Satan, as Lucifer – is in truth, female. How do I prove this? Simple, child: tell me, what is temptation? What is passion? It is the seductive voice in the back of your mind, whispering softly that what you want – and what you feel and want to feel – is not wrong. It is the curling languor of tender flame and warm wind, of the promise of fulfilment and the scent of lost Paradise. None who live in Creation can resist this, for temptation and passion are part of that which we call Life. To never be tempted is to never be tested. To know not passion, is to not know love and desire.
The Messianic religions preach that one must be pure of mind, body, heart and soul in order to enter Paradise, to earn the regard of God himself but I believe otherwise. I have met criminals whose hearts were purer than those who laid them low, prostitutes who knew the value of fidelity than maidens who whispered blissfully the promise of eternity, and despised champions who endured the scorn of their compatriots for the sake of a better tomorrow.
But, enough of this talk about God and religion; let us return as to how my Clan came to be. My family are not true vampires; we were human, once, and were part of these country's ruling elite. We were warriors, merchants and poets whose skills were second to none. We served the King of these lands as his honour guard, and we were loved – and feared –by the people we served. Feared, because of our fearsome battle-rages which some say was the final parting gift of a rebel angel our ancestor vanquished. The words of that mighty being were engraved on every stone obelisk that marks a castle or mansion as the residence of a member of the Tepes Clan:
'The Dragon rises in your Blood,
With pride, fury, hunger and passion;
Prideful child, you will fall,
Not to blade or bow,
Nor to thunderbolt or plough,
But through the hand that is extended to you in mercy.'
Yes, I see that you understand now. The weaknesses of my clan are, to the last child, the vices of wrath and pride. It is in our blood. And when a mighty vampire offered my ancestor (not Dracula) the chance to become immortal, we took it. It was not long before we learnt how badly we erred in accepting the vampire queen's offer. The Beast we thought we could tame soon became a dragon of unparalleled might and rage. In the space of a few nights, we destroyed what took our forefathers generations to build. The Tepes name became synonymous with cruelty, atrocity and vengeance.
It was a reputation that served us well during the war between the werewolf clans and the vampire Houses. In a war between two ancient allies unsurpassed in its viciousness, I have seen even werewolf lords – many of whom were hardened veterans of many battles – trembled at the sight of the three-headed dragon that was the sigil of my family. It was in that same war that I met Lucinda and all the rest; it was in that war I met my commander, Camilla, whose life – and death – would mark me for all the rest of the long eternity I would live. She once told me that there is no curse that cannot be broken. The curse that was laid on my family long ago had a crack that would end it – but it was one that, in our pride, we would never take. What use did my clan have for love? It was a weakness that could see any of us fry in Hell. Should a mortal strike our fancy, we would abduct him and, upon tiring of him, drain the hapless fool of every drop in his veins. Even though humans and vampires are worlds apart, the seeds of mortals can kiss life into a vampiric womb; several of my sisters have, in fact, sired several children with the same partner – and two have followed their lovers to their graves. I could not understand them: what was worth more than the eternity we now had?
Camilla had smiled and told me these words: 'That it ends.'
Did Camilla choose to die because she was tired of living? Yes, eternity brought with it a depth of exhaustion the defied description and the realization that all one knew and love was transitory. But, on the other hand, one could immerse oneself in the complexities of one's craft till time ended. One of my brothers, utterly in love with art and literature, has yet – even after three hundred years – to lose even an iota of the passion which made him embrace his trade whole-heartedly. Do buy his books if you can; I promise it will be worth every last dollar in your wallet. And speaking of books, Camilla loved them. No matter where she was, she would always have that damnable magic pouch nearby. First thing in a city, and she would scour the bookstores to add a new book to her collection. Anything from Shakespeare to a copy of the Quran, she had it on your asking.
But, as a fighter and a leader, there were few like her. Werewolves are canny fighters; they were bred for war. Underestimating them is the last thing you wanted to do; mighty vampire lords, centuries old, have met their ends on silver swords and talons that could gouge out reinforced concrete. The Lycans – because I have to include the were-cats, were-serpents and other shape-shifters into this category – were not only potent adversaries in single combat; many of them were master scouts and assassins. Not only that, Lycans were prolific: the vampire legions were always outnumbered three to one. Every battle had to be planned carefully lest it become a massacre.
But the Lycans had one weakness – and it was one that Camilla and the other vampire lords exploited mercilessly: the shape-shifters' mastery of magic could never compare to our own. But where our lords would unleash displays of raw, mystical might to intimidate our adversaries, Camilla used it to play the game that the Lycans believed themselves master of. She – we – hunted them. The hunter becoming the hunted; that seriously threw the werewolves' morale into the mire. It went lower when several of their best companies were never heard from again.
Our victories soon earned our regiment the personal enmity of the Lycans' Council. The latter soon put a price on our heads, a price that would almost equal that of the one put on the Dark Evangel. We soon found ourselves fighting our way out of many tight spots, but that was nothing compared to the Night of the Bloody Tundra. That changed everything. That night, on what my comrades and I thought would be our last…we would meet the Dark Evangel in person.
Do you know that the Tepes Clan is one of the ten families vying for the throne of the Vampire King? You do? Good, this will make things easier. You know how powerful our lost monarch was. You know what it took to defeat him. An Archduke of Hell had to look Final Death in the eye before our King drew his last breath. And for centuries since then, the noble Houses of the Vampire Clan have fought each other for the right to claim sovereignty over our entire race.
But, that night, the Dark Evangel would prove that she was worthy to sit upon that empty Throne…even if she didn't want it. Four Lycan legions surrounded a company of less than three hundred; when the sun finally rose – less than a hundred Lycans were left alive. They had brought their most powerful wizards to try to match the might of Camilla's mages, but the Doll Master simply tore their magical defences to shreds, and annihilated them in a heartbeat. And she was laughing…! I remembered the Dark Evangel's insane laughter, the way she swept the finest champions of the Lycan armies like chaff. I remembered my voice, singing a war-song, as I tore through the horrified Lycans. I remembered raising the decapitated head of a slain werewolf lord and slaking my thirst on his blood, remembered striking down his sons and daughters to the last, ending an entire bloodline of the Lycan race's finest champions in a single glorious battle. I have and will never fight as I had fought on the Night of the Bloody Tundra. When our compatriots came to relieve us, they were awed by the scale of the slaughter – and the magnitude of our victory: three Princes of the Lycans Royal House laid rent and broken in the bloody snow, and no less than a dozen lords of the Lycan clans will never wage war against us ever again.
It was then that I found my purpose. No longer did I wish to be my clan's sword, to slay whom it deemed a threat, nor did I wish to be a slave to those snivelling fools in its Council, to be sent where they wished so as to please their allies. No, I will remake Clan Tepes into a new Royal Family worthy of the right to sit upon our lost King's basalt throne. But when Dark Evangel's damned darkling came into the picture, EVERYTHING came crashing down.
Imagine the havoc caused by the Dark Mistresses of a dozen clans chasing after the Dark Evangel's darkling like love-sick mortal girls, and it is not a stretch of the imagination to know that it was only a matter of time before a civil war broke out with him as the prize. My greatest adversary, Alice Dalziel, had stepped into the fray as well, bringing her entire clan with her to claim one who would be King. And it is NOT ONLY my kind getting into the mix: humans, elves, the bloody Lycans, the angels and the rebel angels – all of them are making a bloody beeline towards the Thousand Master's son, and all with the same idea! The Thousand Master had a thousand lovers and perhaps just as many children, but none would ever equal the son who now stood on the precipice of seizing a destiny a hundred Vampire Lords and Kings have murdered each other for.
I drape my lance now in crimson, gilded in gold, bearing the colours of the Royal House that Negi Springfield would one day lead. It was of the triple-headed dragon of my House, curling protectively over a golden sunburst. I smile. I understand, perhaps, why Camilla had a soft spot for mortals; why Evangeline had reached out to grace this one mortal – this one above all others – to become her one sole patriarch to a clan whose power would become second to none.
Mortals knew and understood eternity better than those who had it. It is a lesson I will, most certainly, enjoy learning.
Fin.