Children of the Sarafan

Chapter One:
The Vampires Raid

"Vampires! VAMPIRES! Run, run for your lives!" And then, the pain-filled, frightened screams of the dying filled the night air.

The men and women of Ziegsturhl fled through the streets screaming, praying not to meet an end similar to the screamer who yelled the warning. The vampires were raiding the town, and people were fleeing away from the danger in a frenzy with not a clue or care for whomever came to a dreadful end behind them, nor would they remember such things tomorrow—presuming, of course, they all lived that long. And while they ran away from the danger, one eight year old, brown haired, wide-eyed boy pushed his way as best he could through the crowds of terrified people, towards the danger—towards the vampires. And he too, was screaming, and he, too, was afraid, but not at all for the same reasons.

"Momma!" he yelled as a man twice his sized pushed him aside as he ran. "Momma! Poppa! Where are you!"

The boy pushed his way backwards, against the crowd, oblivious to the danger. These people had separated him from his family when the vampires were first spotted just outside of the town's boundaries, and he'd continued to run with them until he realized he was alone. Now, it was that loneliness, and the fear of being left, that drive him back towards the predators. Vampires only sucked your blood, he told himself, but being all by himself in the dark was a hundred times worse then even the largest vampire raid.

A woman carrying her infant ran past the boy, knocking him in the shoulder as she did so. The boy nearly lost his balance, and yet, he didn't even seem to notice.

"Poppa! Momma! Momma, where are you!" he screamed, tears now flowing down his face. The crowd had thinned now, and now of them had been his Mother or Father. A large man, looking to be one of the caretakers of the nearby cemetery, came running towards the boy as fast as he could. The boy stopped in his past.

"Have you seen my Poppa?" he asked the man. He didn't even respond, he only grabbed the boy and tossed him aside, as though he were a barrel standing in his way. The boy hit the side of a building head first, stunning him. He could feel the blood running down his scalp and the back of his neck, and he could see the man who'd thrown him run off into the night, and he could smell the blood of others who'd fallen nearby, but found his body unable to react to any of it. And then, he saw her.

A female vampire in a near transparent white dress came up the path. Her skin was as pale as the dress she wore, her lips as red as blood, and her hair was the most beautiful golden brown the boy had ever seen. She seemed so beautiful that at first, he could not understand why such a lovely thing was dangerous, and then she looked at him. Her eyes were as yellow as a wolf's, and when she looked at him, those same eyes turned as red as her lips, and that's when the boy realized that was blood on her lips. She smiled sinisterly, given him a good look of her ivory white fangs, still speckled in her last victim's blood, and she rubbed her nails together in anticipation of feeding from him…No, not nails, those hideous things were claws, claws sharp enough to tear through his throat in one carefully aimed gesture. The boy tried to stand, to run, but his body was still stunned, unable to take commands from his brain. All he could do was stare, and watch as the horrible, beautiful monster before him moved forward to take his young life from him…

And then, out of his line of vision, someone yelled, "Back, vile creature! To hell with you!"

A man in armor lunged forward, cutting the vampire off from its prey. In one hand he held a bloody sword; in the other, a lit torch, the flame of which reflected in his armor and in a strange, cold looking blade strapped to his forearm. The vampire sneered at him and struck out with her claws, but the man jumped backwards, then yelled as he lunged forward with the fire, forcing her back.

"Back! Back, fowl beast!" he yelled, then, slightly over his shoulder, "Dumah! Get the boy!"

Another armored man came into view, and behind him, several more, passing him and the man fighting the vampire. The man who first came was wearing purple under his armor, and wore a helm with wings coming off the sides. A pike was in one hand. The man stopped by the boy, stooped, and with his one free arm, wrapped it around his waist and lifted him up, tucking him under his arm like a sack of flour. He then began to run away from the vampire and the other armored men—away from where the boy thought his parents were.

"Wait," he whispered weakly, finally finding his voice. "You're going…the wrong…way…" And then his head grew groggy, and the world grew dark as he passed out, and he knew no more.­­­­­­­­­­­

He awoke, but did not open his eyes. It seemed to hard a thing to do at the time, and his head seemed ready to burst with blood pounding against his skull. He could hear people around him, talking. He recognized one of them as one of his rescuers. Not wishing to reveal his awakened state yet, he listened.

"Will he make it, Melchiah?" said the one who chased back the female vampire who'd nearly had the boy for dinner.

"No question," another voice answered. "The Healers say he has a moderate concussion, but that is the worst of his injuries."

"If that's all he has, he is lucky," yet another voice said, "Not too many come face to face with one of Vorador's brides and live to tell the tale, much less a child. Those whores know no mercy…"

"Fear not, brother," the rescuer said, "That wretch was not long for this world after it encountered me. It is only lucky we found him when we did. Has anyone claimed him?"

"Not yet," the third voice replied. "What were those things doing way in Ziegsturhl anyway?"

"Look," the second voice, Melchiah, said, "He's waking…"

The boy slowly, and with much effort, opened his eyes. He was met with three of the armored men with their helmets off, each one looking at him. One stood on each side of his bed, and his first rescuer stood at the bed's foot. He knew him immediately even without his helmet because of the blade strapped to his arm. The boy was surprised to see that his face was almost fair, but his hair was as black as raven's wings, and his eyes were hard and cold from the many battles he had likely seen. The one to his right was balding, and wore yellow under his armor, and while he too was hard, a look of concern filled his eyes. And to his left was a man also in purplish underclothes, but had a different build than the man who'd carried him to safety—he was much leaner.

"Good morning," the man at the foot of his bed said. "I hope you are feeling better this morning. I am Raziel…These are my brethren Melchiah and Zephon. Our brother Dumah and I saved you."

"Hush, Raziel, he doesn't care about heroics right now," Melchiah chastised Raziel. Raziel shot him a dark look but didn't respond. Melchiah looked down at the boy worriedly. "Can you speak, son?" he asked.

The boy lay there for a moment thinking about it. After that, he opened his mouth and managed to choke out in a cracked, weak voice, "I…can try…"

Melchiah smiled. Raziel nodded his approval and seemed to try to smile, while Zephon looked as though he needed to be somewhere else. "Do you have a name?" Raziel asked.

The boy nodded again. "Loo…Lucas," he said. He paused for a moment, then said, "You're…you're Sarafan…"

"Real observant, kid," Zephon scoffed. Raziel hit him in the shoulder, making his armor rattle. Zephon gave Raziel a confused what did I do? look, but was ignored.

"Yes, child, we are Sarafan," Raziel said, "We came as soon as we could to help your village."

Lucas listened, but then tried to get up. "I need…to find…my parents…" he choked. Melchiah gently stopped him and pushed him back down.

"You need to stay still for a few hours," he said, "I'm sure you're parents will come find you soon—"

"No!" Lucas managed to exclaim, hurting his throat as he did so. He didn't care. Then, despite his concussion and the headache that accompanied it, he managed to squirm out of Melchiah's grasp. "I have to find them!"

Lucas jumped out of the bed and landed next to Zephon. The man managed to grab Lucas by the arms, but the young boy twisted out of his hands easily, as the gauntlets Zephon wore were designed to hold full-grown vampires, not slender eight-year-old boys. He ran past Raziel before he could block the exit.

"Curse this armor!" he spat, and then he started out the exit while waving behind him. "Quickly! Lord Malek will flay us if we let him wander!" The other two were already behind him before he said anything.

Outside the tent that had housed him in the night, an 11 o'clock sun greeted Lucas. He reeled for only a moment, then, still half-blinded, he ran. The encampment was not large, but it wasn't small either, and full of refugees from the night before. And so it was, all over again: Lucas ran through the makeshift allies and through the groups of people, calling for his parents as he had the night before. The only differences were that the sun was up, he was not in Ziegsturhl, and he had three Sarafan warriors on his trail. Lucas ran through the lost, the injured, the homeless, and straight, unknowingly, into the dead, where they lay stinking and decomposing in the summer's sun, waiting to be identified by their remaining family.

The man in the winged helm from the night before walked along beside one of the carts hauling the dead to this place, talking to another of his brethren in a horned helm with blue underclothes. They walked along beside the horse that pulled the cart, oblivious of the running boy until he ran under the horse's nose, spooking him into a rear and spill the cart's contents. The boy stopped and gasped; he skidded to a halt so quickly that he slipped and fell under the horses rearing hooves. Just as the horse began to descend, the Sarafan in blue grabbed Lucas and pulled him out of harm's way.

"Woah, boy!" the Sarafan with the winged helm cooed to the horse, "Woah, boy, easy, easy, it's only a child! Easy!"

The man in blue scoffed at Lucas. "What did you think you were trying to do, lad? Get yourself killed?"

"Rahab! Dumah!" Raziel cried as he, Melchiah, and Zephon approached. "Hold that boy still! Don't let him get away!"

"Why? Is he a vampire?" the blue man joked. He kept a firm grip on Lucas just the same. "You alright there, Dumah?"

"Just fine, thank you, Rahab," Dumah replied, though the horse was still quite spooked. The whites of his eyes shown, and he jittered and pranced back and forth, nervous and afraid. As he moved his body, the cart to moved, just enough to give Lucas a good look of the bodies it had carried. One face in particular.

"Momma!" he yelled, and instantly began to struggle against Rahab. Seeing the direction of his gaze, he released the boy to flee to his mother's side despite Raziel's order. Lucas ran behind the cart and looked on. There, to his rising horror, lay his Mother, her throat ripped out of her neck, a look of pure terror forever frozen on her face. And next to her, more terrible still, laid his Father, his overcoat drenched in his own blood.

"No…Momma….Poppa…" Lucas whispered. He could not bare the site, and yet, his eyes were glued to the scene, unable to be torn away from it. Tears began to roll down his face.

For a long time he just stood there. The five Sarafan he had encountered soon joined him. Melchiah, Zephon, and Dumah stood across from him, while Rahab and Raziel stood to ether side of him. They all remained silent, but shared the boy's anguish to their own extent, and for their own reasons. At length, Raziel knelt down beside the boy, who was still sobbing silently. He looked at him for a long while then, in an uncharacteristic moment of compassion, he put his arm around Lucas's shoulder. Lucas responded instantly by turning into Raziel's body, hiding his face against the warm metal, and sobbing into his armor.

Rahab sighed. "Damn the demons," he mumbled, "They've made yet another child an orphan…"

Raziel looked up at him, seeming bewildered by Lucas's display. Rahab only shrugged, to which Raziel sighed and gently picked up the boy. He didn't even notice, and continue to sob against Raziel's armor. Raziel walked around the spilt load of corpses, where he handed Lucas off to Melchiah.

"Take him back to the nurse tent," he said, "The rest of us will take care of this mess."

Melchiah nodded and turned to leave. Lucas buried his head into Melchiah's neck as deeply as he could, and when they turned to leave, he chanced a look up just in time to see Zephon and Rahab lift his Mother's body up and toss her into the cart like lumber. The site was too much for his distraught mind and heart to handle, making him wail mournfully into Melchiah's ear before burying his face again. Melchiah did his best not to flinch and held the child and comfortingly as he could, speaking softly and soothingly to him. But what was done was done, and he knew, even if Lucas didn't, that he was hence forth like he and so many other Sarafan Warrior-Priests once were: he was a child of the Sarafan…

Author's Notes: This is NOT meant to be a one shot story, but it will be if people don't review. I personally thought it would be interesting to imagine what the softer side of the Sarafan and the Sarafan Inquisitors might have been like, but if people don't like it, I won't continue. So please RR, and remember, constructive criticism always welcome! (Btw, I know I said I'd take a break from fan fiction, but I can never stay away for too long…)