Author's Notes: So... the third and final epical story has come to a close. This has got to be the longest story I have ever written...I'm amazed it's taken me so long. I wonder if everyone's disappointed or happy with it so far? No reviews lately, so no point in addressing my readers... only to be thankful they put up with me at all. Welp... I'm taking another twist. As with all stories I write, I don't know what I'm doing until I get there. There'll be water under the bridge when I get there, that's all I know. In this story... Kain and Amanda must remake the vampiricempire, destroy the possed Janos Audren (sp? Gah, i'm tired), and force the Hylden back to the hellish hole fr'm whence the' came, har, har. How they do it... well. We'll all just have to see, won't we?
Balance
--Kain--
The cemetery bowled out like a growing infestation of ancient tombstones, each one having its own measure of decay and history etched into its rough surfaces. I moved around them, feeling the pull and ebbing of death like one unused to being at sea. The air was dense with fog, and my dust-covered face gave little protection against the rising of the sun. Protection, perhaps, was not all that lacking. As the sun rose with dream-like clarity against the roiling fog, my throat choked as maddening worry quickened my steps. My silver-white hair was frayed from my journey through the spatial vortex through which I had come crashing through the monastery roof and landing among the pews. My hands still remembered the desperate, stinging grasp of my daughter's hands as we flew together toward my home world, Nosgoth.
Her scream of terror hadn't yet died, insisting on reverberating in my ears.
So it was with horror as I watched the sun rise, thinking that if my fledgling vampire daughter Amanda had been tossed into Nosgoth in the manner as I had, would she have found sufficient shelter from the sun to protect her young, vulnerable body? Abandoning stubbornly the possibility that was even on the planet in the first place!
My hands clenched. The sword called the Reaver was sheathed against my back and hummed with the proverbial hunger that was awakening now, sensing the change of environment. The sword, possessed of a vicious, unending hunger for the souls of the living and dead, would not rest once awakened.
The sun couldn't touch me as I walked among the trees, passing a sign that read in bold human letters, "Do Not Enter". My fears haunted me while I walked the shadows, listening to the fall of pine cones and the calls of crows. The black birds were flying around possessed as if by madness, beady black eyes catching feverish sunlight. I watched them throw their bodies around back and forth from branch to branch before swinging around in a circle, pecking at each other in mid-air.
"Scavengers," I thought, sneering until my fangs showed. "I wonder what's got them into such a fit."
I investigated further. A road sign stood on the left-hand side with grass and weeds bunched up around its base. To the left was Termegent Forest. Directly straight was a village whose name I didn't recall, but it hardly mattered. I would go to the village first, and ask if anyone had seen a girl calling herself Amanda. This solution heartened me – how else could I find her but ask around?
The road was long and winding, and not a soul passed me on my way. I felt moisture trickle down my throat and wiped it clean, grimacing at the sensation. During my previous reign as a vampiric monarch, foggy days, rainy days and days of snow were a great inconvenience to my kind, particularly my children and their brood. Rahab, who ruled the Drowned Abbey, was immune to such weaknesses. In this, his family alone had an advantage over water.
The water didn't hurt me, but I grimaced because it made my armor and clothes stick causing considerable discomfort in certain, vulnerable places.
I topped the rise and saw a delinquent dash across the road, pursued by several bowmen on horseback. I crept into the trees and waited for the opportunity, eyeing that highly fashionable cloak the little cretin wore. As soon as the thief wheeled off to the left to take shelter in the trees near my leafy sanctuary, I stuck out my leg and caught sight of him take a long tumble down the hill.
I slid after him, hearing the men on horseback catch up and curse their sorry luck. Down in the shadowy wet green, I sized up my prey as he took stock of me, having already gotten to his feet to see who had interceded in the chase.
I drew the Reaver and gave my most terrifying smile. The man's eyes grow as big as sauce pans, a wordless shriek exploding from his dirty lips. I lunged, impaling him without mercy. The serpentine, twining Reaver blade cracked to life in that moment, aroused and hungry all at once, and fed upon the wretch's soul. There came another scream, echoing from the realm of spirits before it vanished, and the Reaver was sated.
I uncloaked the vagabond and slipped it around my own shoulders before mounting the corpse of the man up against the tree for his pursuers to find. I chuckled at what the hunters might think to find him there, posing as if taking a break from a long, refreshing jog.
My body momentarily mystified; it appeared again on the road, where I continued on my way with the Reaver sword sheathed against my back again.
--Amanda--
I staggered through a shallow brook, catching myself on an old pine tree, my fingers scraping loudly on the coarse bark. I was covered with pine needles and dirt; my pants were torn in so many places that they barely constituted much toward clothing at all. The night was ending fast and I was nowhere near anything like shelter. I didn't want to think of what might happen to me when the dawn came screaming over that horizon that was beginning to brighten a little too much for my comfort.
I paused to kneel in the water, and cup water into my hands and drink. Much as it refreshed me, I was still blood-starved and terrified. The trees whispered softly in the darkness of the night, the moon quaked in its reflection in the brook. The stark nakedness of nature alarmed me. I had never felt so completely alone in all my life, until this moment. A fresh bout of tears threatened to burst from me, but I bit them back with a guttural noise of determination. If I was going to get anywhere, I'd have to find something to eat, anything...
Walking became an immense chore, the cataclysmic thirst rumbling in me with a vengeance. I couldn't help but think of Kain not only as my father, but the source of the blood that made these hunger pangs vanish like a fresh wind blew away dust from a table. My faltering steps, my failing vision and my uneasy hold on existence, all of them were beginning to look like good reasons to lay down and die. But something was pulling me toward the hill ahead of me. In it, I spotted a low-sitting cave, dug out of the fresh earth as if laid out before me. I collapsed at the mouth and searched the inner shadows for a heartbeat. Nothing reached my ears.
The subtle beating of horses hoofs, however, did catch my attention. I lifted my head slowly, turning my back to the cave and scooting back. The riders crested a slight hump in a road I hadn't noticed. Their blurred shapes clarified as half a dozen heartbeats began to pound in my ears, drumming against my skin and my veins turned to fire. I scooted further into my cave, excitement coursing through me. I called out to one of the riders with my mind.
The man on the brown horse wheeled to a halt. He told his companions that he was going to look over there for a missing. I didn't care what boy he spoke of - the man's companions left him and he rode closer to my cave. I sneered, commanding with every ounce of will that was left to me. It was making me oh-so-exhausted...
"What's this?" he mumbled, his boot scuffing some dirt into the little cave. "A hole?"
I pounced on his boot. He screamed - too late, I realized, his companions would come. But I dragged his body in, my bloody thirst ruling my every thought and intention. The man was strong and powerful, and it was difficult maneuvering him into the cave with me since his armor was slightly bulky. But once I bent his arm in a particular way (after which the man screamed again in insufferable anguish.
"I don't know what manner of business you've got here, dude," I snarled, "but it's no longer your biggest concern." With that glowing bit of warning, I sank my teeth and felt his lifeblood gush into me, leaping into my mouth and down my throat like a wild herd of horses, stampeding into my body and making it whole. I saw flickers of images from the past enter into my thoughts - as alien and misconstrued as anything I had ever seen - and he fell limp and silent in seconds, utterly drained.
The horse outside was still standing, stomping nervously and nickering with distaste for the whole scenario. When I emerged, and his master did not, the horse gave me a long stare and started to back away. I took the reins without thinking. "Obey me," I commanded harshly, wiping my mouth with my other hand. Then I swung onto its back and started riding away, far away, surprising myself at how easily I adapted to riding in a saddle. I'd never ridden in my life before.
The tree branches were a real bother, however. They seemed to reach down and swat at me, trying to knock me off my chosen path. The blood was throbbing in my temples, nourishing me the longer I was riding. My pounding heart. Suddenly, crossing my path was not another tree branch, but a body, throwing itself in my path and startling my temporary mode of transportation into a rearing friendy. The thing bucked with its hind legs kicking and threw me forward, sending me tumbling into my impeding adversary.
We hit each other head on, tumbling a few feet over the road. My shoulder struck a stone and sent a lancet of paralyzing hurt through me so terrible I couldn't see for a few seconds. But my adversary was better off, and soon had us tangling together, wrestling.
"Stop it!" I cried, trying to pin his arms down. He was a little fast for a human, but in a few moments he had been pinned and I sat on his chest, staring down at his face. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?"
"Get away!" the man - or boy - crowed, turning his face away. "They're after me! Get off!"
"I don't think so!" I snarled back, suddenly careful not to show my fangs. I looked around, listening, but he was struggling and growling. So I said, "Shut up!" and raised my hand to smack him one, and he did as he was told.
The woods were lovely, dark and deep, to quote a famous earth poet named Robert Frost. But there were no men riding after us, and it seemed they hadn't heard their companion scream. I was terribly lucky. The horse was standing in the trees a few feet away, quivering from terror but otherwise well-trained. I looked back at the man again. His cheeks were two points of utter red from all of the fighting and running, it seemed. His hair was pitch black, cropped short but a few wild strands fell over his forehead, curly and thick. Then I looked up.
The sky had lightened and in a few seconds, I knew - the sun would rise. I gasped, and staggered away. "Take the horse if you want," I snapped to the young man. "But just get the hell away from here!"
I turned, dashing into the trees for another kind of shelter. On my swift slight through the trees, I thought I saw an abandoned stone structure topped by a black spike, beneath which had a small entranceway long abandoned that lead into untold crypts. I dove into it, not caring that the man even saw me run with such inhuman speed. At any rate, I barely percieved the sun's heat pierce my flesh just as I turned a corner in the darkness and slammed into something hard and knocked back. I slid to my knees and sat shivering, watching as a bar of sunlight stretch across the dusty floor of the crypt, pale and deadly, just inches from my arm.
I was safe, even if the sun fully rose. By the time it was noon, its angle shift, the sunlight retreating from the crypt entry which would allow me to move about in the little room and find further shelter within.
"Damn," I sighed, leaning my head back slowly. "That was so close, I don't ever want to do that again."
