Ruby landed hard, slamming her stomach onto the crenelated wall of the fortress and tumbling over onto the flat battlements on the other side. It almost knocked her out.
She heaved a gasping breath and tried to rise. Her vision swam. She could hear movement and shouting all around her. No doubt the vampires had heard her botched leap to the wall and were moving to investigate. Stumbling to her feet, she somehow managed to unlimber the heavy crossbow on her back and ready a magnesium-tipped bolt. Her hands shook. Muscle memory allowed her to do this as she stumbled a dozen feet into a nearby stone blockhouse. She hoped it contained stairs that lead down the wall. She shouldered the door open, still readying her crossbow. Stairs. That was good.
She had just finished cranking the bolt back when the first vampire burst in door one level below her, shouting something and looking up the stairs with wide eyes. He looked unremarkable, like your local baker or street vendor. Long brown hair, a weathered face lined with wrinkles and laugh marks. His cheekbones protruded noticeably. There wasn't much human prey up in these mountains, and this coven had to be starving. He looked confused more than anything. Almost scared.
She sighted in and put a magnesium-tipped bolt through the front of his skull. There was a flash of bright, silver fire as it burned away the insides of his head. Something in vampire blood reacted with magnesium and made it ignite. It was a long, time-consuming process to infuse weapons with magnesium, but the results were obviously worth it. She cranked the crossbow back again and slotted another bolt home, then dropped down the stairs onto the first floor. A few feet behind her, set into the stairs, was a second doorway that she hadn't noticed.
A female vampire with jet-black hair burst out of it, claws and fully extended fangs extended. When vampires got hungry and starving like this, they lost some of their ability to disguise themselves as human. Her teeth were nearly six inches long and filed to razor points. Her claws were the same. They were more animals than anything else. Ruby spun on her heel but was a second too slow. The vampire tackled her to the ground, smacking the back of her head into the floor and clawing at her face, trying to bring her fangs to bear.
Ruby desperately grabbed the vampires wrists with her hands, brought her boot up, placed it in the center of the vampire's chest, and kicked. The creature flew backwards and smashed into a wooden shelf, collapsing it. She screeched hideously and started to rise. Ruby didn't let her. She grabbed the crossbow from the ground and put a bolt through the woman's heart. The woman's whole body ignited in brilliant white flame. Ruby had to shield her eyes. Magnesium flares could blind you.
Cursing incoherently, Ruby readied another crossbow bolt. Snow swirled into the blockhouse from the two open doors. She needed to get out of this room. She could handle one or two vampires in close quarters like this, but if they started to swarm her she was dead.
She peeked outside. There was an open courtyard surrounded by the decaying shells of houses. Vampires were starting to congregate. They were pointing and shouting at the blockhouse. Ruby ignored them and the sharp chill of fear in her chest. She could see the gate. It wasn't far.
She took a deep breath, steadied her shaking hands, and sprinted outside into the open courtyard. The gate was only a short distance away. Sudden shouts and cries rang out around her. She could see the blurry forms of several vampires racing to catch up with her in her peripherals.
"Stupid stupid stupid stupid," she screamed in her head.
As she ran, she realized she had no idea how to bring the gate down. It was heavy and wooden. There was a large metal chain holding it up. The gate doubled as a drawbridge. When the drawbridge came up, it became the gate. That chain had to be it. A vampire rushed her from the side and tried to tackle her. She dodged to her right. The creature missed, landed hard and skidded several feet. There was so much shouting now.
She pulled her five-foot ornate scythe from her back. The haft was sturdy oak, engraved with designs of rose vines. The head was magnesium-tipped silver, sharpened to as fine a point as anyone could manage. She was at the gatehouse. She leapt up in the air and swung. The scythe cut clean through the chain links, then slammed into the stone wall behind it and got stuck. Ruby smacked into the wall and fell onto her back.
This time was worse than when she hit the wall earlier. Her vision was dark and filled with bright spots of light. Pain. She hurt. She had been holding onto the scythe when it stuck into the wall, so she had nothing to shield herself with. Her head had cracked into the stone heavily.
She fought for breath and tried to rise. Dimly, she could hear a grinding, a groan, and then a great, heavy smash. She manged to pull herself into a crouch and looked up. A group of vampires, fangs and claws gleaming in the rising sun, were sprinting right at her. She held up her hand in a pitiful attempt to stop them from ripping her open and drinking her dry. This wasn't how she wanted to go. She wasn't finished yet.
There was a volley of sharp cracks, and all four vampires went down in silver-bright flashes. Confused, Ruby looked behind her. Dozens of vampire hunters were rushing across the now-fallen drawbridge, yelling and gesturing, their boots thumping on the wood. A line of them in the front were kneeling and reloading their crossbows. They were shouting and cheering her name. She smiled despite the pain.
Several of them rushed forward to help her while the rest flooded into the open courtyard. The clash of steel and the screams of the dying began to fill the air. Yang suddenly pushed through the men trying to help her, shouting at them to join the fight, and started helping her to her feet.
"C'mon, you're fine Ruby, you're fine. What happened? Did they bite you anywhere?"
Ruby shook her head. Her vision was starting to clear. "I uh... I hit the wall pretty hard. But no, they didn't bite me or anything. They were about to though. You guys saved my life."
"Any day little sis." Yang beamed at her and gave her a great big hug. Sudden warmth in the cold. Yang's arms felt safe and wonderful. "You were freaking awesome. No one else could have gotten that gate open. I mean that. Now, are you feeling up to killing some more freaks?"
Ruby grinned. "Always."
She readied her scythe, reloaded her crossbow, and jogged with Yang to the front line of the battle, which was slowly pushing forwards towards the second set of walls. The vampires were mobile, agile fighters. They never stood in one place, never stopped moving. They knew they would be easy targets for magnesium-tipped crossbows if they did. Still, most of the hunters were veterans, and could track the vampires even though they were little more than fast moving blurs of fangs and claws. Several went down to the firing line of crossbows, while they rest skirmished with the front line of hunter spear-men and swordsmen. The spear-men held them at bay, and the swordsmen charged forward in tight groups facing in all directions, watching eachother's backs. The vampires liked to flank and surround their enemies. Whenever a group started to get overwhelmed, they simply fell back towards the heavy line of crossbows and spears, which quickly cut the chasing vampires down. Tried-and-true battle tactics, perfected over the years.
Ruby soon found herself back to back with Yang and two other hunters she didn't know, pushing deeper towards the wall and creating space for the main line of crossbowmen and spear-men to move forward. Vampires whirled and slashed at them from all sides. Ruby blocked and spun and cut. The man next to her went down with a gurgling cry, his throat torn open by jagged claws. Blood poured down his front as he slowly collapsed.
Yang shouted hoarsely and punched a vampire with her gauntlets – her weapons of choice. The metal gloves were tipped with two long spikes near the thumb and pinky, allowing her to punch the blades forward like a pair of brass knuckles. The blades slammed into the unfortunate vampire's head with a heavy thumb, and Yang dragged it shrieking to the ground. She gave his head a few good stomps. The shrieking stopped. Ruby spun and deflected a vampire's blade with her scythe. Some of them used swords, and most were experts in the craft, having much longer lifespans to perfect their techniques. But Ruby was still better. She still practiced more than they did. Her return blow nicked the vampire's thigh, and it caught fire with a bright silver flash. The vampire howled in agony and leaped away. Ruby grinned.
Yang grunted as she deflected a blow from a club with her gauntlets. "This is a lot more than twenty or thirty," she shouted to Ruby. "This is like fifty!"
"We'll be fine as long as we keep together!" Ruby yelled back. "If we stay strong they won't be able to pick us off!"
A vampire leapt down from the inner wall, grabbed a hunter that was a few feet apart from the main group, and dragged him screaming into a darkened alley. Several hunters moved to help him.
"So much for that plan!" Yang shouted.
"Just stick to the plan!" Ruby replied. "We're almost to the second set of walls!"
"Pull back!" a rough voice behind them shouted.
Ruby looked behind her to see a five-man squad of hunters in heavy steel plate armor, wielding battleaxes and greatswords, thundering their way. Ruby and Yang's squad split up, letting the heavier team push their way through to the front. The two sisters took the opportunity to regroup with the main force. The fighting was brutal. Darkened houses loomed all around. Alleyways yawned at them from every angle. Vampires struck and disappeared, vanishing into the shadows before reappearing elsewhere. The hunters were slowly being picked apart. Another courtyard, this one in front of the gates of the inner wall, was opening up ahead.
Ruby recognized the problem, and quickly decided on the best solution. "Regroup!" she shouted with all her might. "Infantry square formation! Stay together!"
The hunters, even the veterans, followed her orders. Everyone wanted to be told what to do when the steel started flashing. It was so much easier than thinking on your own. They started pulling together, coalescing themselves into a four-sided square in the middle of the plaza. The armored block of hunters was bristling with blades. Spears and heavy armor on the outside, crossbows on the inside.
The fighting continued, heavy and brutal and bloody. A man with a battleaxe split a howling vampire in two. A spear-man impaled one through the heart, lifted it up into the air, and slammed it howling back to the ground. Magnesium tipped crossbow bolts ended its life before it rise. A vampire ripped away a man's shield. The man responded by cutting its throat with a broad swing of his axe. A few vampires on the rooftops started using bows. They claimed the lives of a few crossbowmen before the superior force and accuracy of the crossbows claimed their lives in return. Every bright flash marked another vampire slain.
The hunter's superior tactics were telling. A vampire died every few seconds. Their numbers thinned, while the hunter's ranks stood strong. A vampire howled and died with a crossbow bolt in his heart. Another one screamed and shrieked, ripped a man's head off, and then was run through with five different spears. It writhed on the ground, howling and screaming, before a man in heavy plate armor stepped forward and crushed its head with a crunching hammer blow. Blood spattered across the ground like a splash of red paint.
And then there was silence. It was so sudden and severe that Ruby had to blink her eyes several times just to make sure she wasn't imagining things. The adrenaline pumping through her body made her twitchy. She tightened her grip on her scythe. It took several seconds to set in. The vampires had only retreated; they were not beaten entirely. But now was the perfect time to press their advantage.
The creatures couldn't be allowed to regroup and recover; their wounds healed unnaturally fast. Something had to be done. And it looked like she was the one to do it.
"Right," she shouted, trying to make her voice firm and hard. Yang grinned at her. "Casualties? Who's too wounded to continue?"
Several men spoke up. Their voices sounded strained.
"Okay, the wounded men fall out of the formation. I want five healthy men to stand guard over them. The rest of you, hold formation and let's push up through the second wall. Everybody with me?"
A chorus of hoarse and hopeful cheers rang out. The men looked to her with fire and passion. They believed in their cause as much as she did. She couldn't help but smile. Yang gave her a thumbs up and thumped her on the back.
"Alright, let's move out!"
As one, the group of vampire hunters moved forward, maintaining their infantry square formation. Every side was covered. Every approach was watched. There were no gaps or weaknesses. Only thirty or so men remained by Ruby's count. But it would be enough to finish the job.
They pushed down a wide street to the inner wall gate, lined by empty houses yawning and silent. The sun was obscured by an ocean of heavy grey clouds. The chill in the air deepened. Ruby shivered. The whole castle felt like a corpse that had been abandoned a long, long time ago. Even the vampires living here couldn't give it a sense of life.
They reached the inner wall gate. Beyond it lay the castle's keep. The heavy wooden doors were barred and sealed. Ruby could see no other way in. No way to scale the walls. No secondary doors.
"And of course we didn't bring any siege equipment," Ruby muttered.
One of the other hunters turned to look at her incredulously. "What? You want to drag a battering ram up the mountain for us?"
Ruby grinned. "Fair point. Alright! Maintain the formation, and everyone keep your guard up. I want two five-man teams to start searching the surrounding buildings for a way in!"
Suddenly there was a heavy creaking noise, a grinding groan. Ruby turned, startled, to look at the gate. Everyone tensed up and readied weapons. The gate was opening. Slowly.
Crossbows were raised. Spears were pointed at the slowly forming gap in the wooden doors as they were pushed outwards. The doors opened enough for a single man to step through. Everyone stared in confusion.
Ruby laughed. "Orson!"
He grinned at her, tall, strangely handsome, and with a thick dirty beard. He was their best tracker, and frequently disappeared without telling anyone. But he always found the best things when he did.
"Door's open," he called. The man was always quiet. Even his attempts to be loud ended up sounding like a whisper.
"Alright, let's get that gate open!" Ruby shouted. "Spear-men at the gap in case anything comes through! Crossbows, watch the rooftops!"
Men scrambled and hurried to comply. The crossbowmen formed up in a tight circle, covering every direction. Spear-men protected them and leveled their spears at the gap in the now-widening gate that the swordsmen and heavy infantry were pulling open.
Orson moved through the crowd and stood beside her. "I've got something you want to see," was all he said. He nodded at Yang. "You too. A way up to the top of the wall."
Ruby nodded. She knew enough of him to trust him.
They crouched low on the battlements, peeking over the snowbanks on the wall over to the other side, where the castle's keep lay. The heavy, three story building would have been magnificent, a hundred years ago. Arched, fluted, Victorian architecture. Almost like a cathedral. That wasn't what concerned Ruby. What concerned her were the ten figures standing in two ranks of five in front of the keep.
Their armor was black and jagged, spiked and menacing. Miniature stylized wings flared outwards from their helmets. Each man carried a winged spear and a black sword at his hip.
"Draconian Guard?" Ruby hissed. "What the hell? What are they doing here?"
Orson frowned, his green eyes flinty and cold. "I don't know. But it means that there's a vampire lord inside that keep. Draconian Guard don't serve anything less than a full lord. And he has ten of them. He must be powerful indeed."
"Then what's he doing all the way up here in the middle of nowhere?" Yang asked.
Ruby felt a discomforting chill slide down her spine, and it wasn't from the biting cold. "If he's got ten Draconians and he really is a powerful vampire lord, why hasn't he left the keep? If he and his men had attacked us all at once in the beginning they could have slaughtered us."
Orson let out a strange grunt. "I do not know. Perhaps there is something in the keep he wishes to protect?"
"Then he'll probably run with whatever it is as soon as we show up pounding on the door," Yang spoke up. "I feel like it'd be a bad idea to let this guy escape. And c'mon, it's not like we haven't killed a vampire lord before Ruby."
Ruby gave her sister a look. "She wiped out the group of soldiers we were with, nearly killed both of us, and was about to finish you off before she slipped and landed on a magnesium sword that was somehow sticking up in the air. How in the world does that count as defeating a vampire lord?"
Yang smirked. "Yeah, but we were only teenagers back then. You're twenty one now, and I'm twenty three. I think we could take one. Plus, we do still outnumber them."
Ruby sighed. "Okay, so we might be able to take them in a fair fight. But like I said before, if we start attacking the Guard the vampire lord might just run for it. And we can't let him get away. Not with what he did to that village."
Images flashed, unbidden, through Ruby's mind. Houses with floors drenched in blood and scattered body parts. Wooden crosses with dead children nailed to them. A metal cage in the center of the town filled with charred bodies. She could tell by the nail marks on the bars that they had been burned alive. Blood. Fire. Smoke.
Hot anger and bitter rage coursed through her body, and her resolve steeled itself. She could still smell the smoke. "We are not letting him get away."
Yang looked at her for several seconds. Then she nodded. "Yeah. You're right. Maybe there's another way into the keep? A way we can sneak around those guys out front?"
"I've already found one," Orson interjected. "A side entrance." He pointed, careful to move slow and not alert the vampiric Draconian Guard stationed in front of the keep.
Ruby nodded. "Good work. We can take a small team and sneak inside, and the rest of the hunters can keep the Draconians busy with a small siege. Pelt them with crossbows and stuff. If they get too close they'll probably lose in hand-to-hand fighting. Draconian Guard are the elite of vampires for a reason. But they can't do much from a distance."
Yang nodded. "Sounds good Ruby. I'll head back and let everyone know, then head back up here. I'll tell them to give us ten minutes, and then to start attacking. Sound good?"
Ruby looked pointedly at Orson.
"Ten minutes is more than enough time for us to sneak in," he said.
Yang grinned. "Sounds like a plan. Let's do it."
Five minutes later, Ruby, Yang, Orson, and two veteran hunters were carefully climbing down the rooftops on the other side of the inner wall. They were on the far side of the keep, the side opposite the Draconian Guard. And as far as Ruby could tell, they hadn't been spotted going around.
She crouched down on the edge of a roof, flipped around and grabbed the edge, then dropped down to the cobblestone ground below. Her boots made a light thump. Snow blew around them in swirls and whorls, spiraling around them and down the narrow street like a vortex. They moved as a group, tight, silent, and vigilant. Orson led. Ruby and the two hunters, Mikael and Harold, brought up the middle. Yang watched the rear.
They reached the spot Orson had pointed to earlier. A window on the second story of the keep. There were metal bars on most of the other windows, but this ones had snapped or broken off long ago. They crouched under the window as a tight group, huddling in the cold.
Harold and Orson got into position under it, ready to lift someone up. Ruby nodded and stepped into their handholds. They grunted and stood up, careful to keep her steady. Mikael and Yang watched the approaches down the street.
Ruby reached up. Her hands grabbed at the ledge of the window. She grunted and pulled. Harold and Orson pushed up and gave her the last few feet she needed. The window still had a single iron bar clinging to its left edge. She climbed up it, clung to it tightly, and started trying to find a way to open the window. The glass was heavy and thick. It didn't appear to open from the outside. Ruby cursed. The frosted metal bar she was holding on to was making her hand numb.
She grunted, braced herself, and started kicking at the window. Three heavy kicks later, the right corner pushed out of its frame a little. She grinned. Careful to make as little noise as possible, she pushed the corner in, and the entire window fell out of the frame. Ruby caught hold of an edge before it could hit the wooden floor on the other side. She held her breath. No sound came from inside. She climbed into the now open window and lowered the glass carefully to the floor. The room inside was dark and dusty, just as empty and abandoned as the rest of the castle.
Ruby crouch-walked up to the room's only closed wooden door and pressed her ear to it. She listened for several seconds. She could hear dim, muted voices, but no approaching footsteps. She let out a heavy breath.
Making her way back to the window, she bent down over the edge and held out her hands. Orson and Harold lifted Yang up, and Ruby grasped her forearms and pulled her up and in. Mikael replaced Orson and then lifted him up to the window. Ruby repeated the process and pulled him inside, then leaned down and instructed the two veteran hunters to cover their exit. They unlimbered heavy crossbows and pulled cloaks over themselves.
She turned back to the room. Her chest was pounding, and her palms were sweaty despite the cold. Orson and Yang were waiting by the door. She nodded, Yang pushed the door open, and they moved into the hallway. It was made of ancient stone, dusty and dim and decrepit. There were sconces for torches in the walls, but none of them were lit. And it was cold. Just as cold as it was outside. Ruby shivered.
Orson had his hand on his longsword. Ruby knew her scythe would be useless in such tight confines, so she had her crossbow ready. Yang just flexed her gauntlets and grinned. Ruby signaled for them to stop. She shut her eyes and listened.
She could hear two voices drifting down the hallway, too muted to make out any of the words. One sounded male, heavy and deep. The other was higher pitched. Female. Were they arguing? She took the lead and signaled them forward towards the sound of the voices.
They crept down that dark, dusty hallway, making as little noise as possible. All the rooms they passed were as empty and desolate as the one they had came in through. Ruby followed the sound of the voices. They came to a wide stone stairway leading down to the first floor and took it. It led down into an open room near the front of the keep. White sheets covered human-like shapes on the floor. Yang crept over and pulled back one of the sheets. Her face hardened.
"Drained of blood," she whispered. "They probably kept these people like livestock, feeding whenever they needed to."
Ruby clenched her fists, but nodded them onward anyway. The other hunters would attack the keep soon, and she wanted to get to the vampire lord before he could escape. She would have time to be angry later.
They crept down a short hallway that led deeper into the keep. Small rooms opened up to either side. White-sheeted bodies lined the floors of most of them. At the end of the hallway was a large set of wooden double doors, the engravings scratched and faded beyond all recognition. The voices were coming from the other side. Ruby held up her hand for them to halt. Yang crept up next to her. Orson turned and watched the hallway.
Ruby put her ear to the door.
"-don't care if you want to stay and fight them off! We are leaving, and that is final! I am still your father, and you will do as I say!"
The male voice. Then the female one spoke. It was high-pitched and lilted. Almost... beautiful. Like a singer's voice.
"But we have the Draconian Guard! If we join them and fight, we can win! I won't just run away from these filthy creatures! I don't understand why you won't just let me fight!"
"Because I won't lose you!" the man shouted.
Everything was quiet for a few seconds. Ruby held her breath.
"I won't lose you," he repeated. "Not after what happened to your mother. Weiss, you are all I have left. You have to live."
"So now you care about me," the female voice said. "You've never cared before. Why now?"
"Ooh, family drama," Ruby whispered. Yang chuckled. Weiss. What a strange name.
"I've always cared! I've only been trying to protect you!"
"By slaughtering and burning down that village? Father, I have nothing against feeding when we must, but you massacred a village full of innocents because one of them might have found this place!"
"I was only keeping you safe. I did what had to be done. And they're just humans. They're no better than livestock."
Yang shot her a look. Ruby nodded.
"Orson," she whispered. He turned. "As soon as the hunters attack, we do the same."
He nodded. She turned back to the doors.
"-we could just kill the one leading them," the female voice spoke. "Without her, maybe they'd fall apart."
"The girl with the red and black hair? She's nothing. Even if she died, someone else would step up and taken humans are experienced in hunting our kind." He chuckled. "Just my luck."
"Maybe if you hadn't drawn hunters from the four corners of the world when you murdered that village," the female voice growled. "You doomed us yourself."
"There was no way to know which one of those villagers had seen us, and if-"
"You don't even know if they'd seen us in the first place!" the female interrupted. "You acted on your suspicions without thinking it through, again, and now we're trapped in this fortress trying to-"
"I will not be lectured by my own daughter!" the male voice roared. "Everything I have done is to keep you safe, and yet you show nothing but ingratitude and-"
A loud noise came from outside. A roar. The combined battle cry of thirty men hungry for battle. The hunters were attacking the Draconian Guard. Ruby readied her scythe. Orson came up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder. Yang grinned, smashed her fists together, and kicked the door open.
The room beyond was wide and open with a vaulted ceiling, like the interior of a church. Stained glass windows lined the rear. Weak sunlight, tainted by the grey clouds, struggled in. Motes of dust swam in the beams of light.
The vampire lord, the one standing and taking them in, was tall. His hair was close-cropped, peaked and grey. His ornate clothing was pitch black. His sword was blood red. Next to him was a girl in white, much younger than he was. And she was beautiful. Ruby almost stopped in her tracks. Long, snow-white hair fell in a flowing curtain down to her waist. Her face was immaculate, sharp, pale, and her eyes were a frosted blue that Ruby could see even from across the room. The girl snarled, pulled a rapier, and stepped forward.
The vampire lord held her back with a hand. He turned and glared at her. "Weiss. Leave. Now."
She hesitated. "But father, if you'd-"
"I gave you an order!" he barked. "Run!"
Her eyes flashed back and forth between her father and the hunters. Then she turned and ran towards the stained glass windows. She jumped, crossed her arms in front of her, and smashed through. Snow blew in like a typhoon.
"Ruby, chase her down!" Yang shouted. She was still the older sister. "Orson, go grab the rest of the guys! I'll keep him busy!"
"Got it!" Ruby replied. She took off like a flash. She had always been a fantastic runner. The vampire lord moved to stop her, but Yang was already there, sending a series of blindingly fast kicks and punches at him. He was forced to fight back. Orson looked hesitant to leave, but ran out of the room anyway.
That was the last thing Ruby saw before she dove through the shattered window and out onto the balcony beyond it. Ruby landed hard and rolled, coming up fast and still moving. The frigid air whipped past her and stung her face. The white-haired girl was ahead, sprinting up a set of stairs to the top of the inner wall. Ruby saw a stack of crates leading up to it. She put on a burst of speed and grit her teeth.
She jumped onto the first box, then the second, then the third, using them as a ramp. She kicked off the top box and smashed onto the edge of the top of the wall, knocking the wind out of herself. But it was still faster than the stairs. The girl ahead looked back for a split second. Their eyes met. Ruby saw something in them. Something in her chest did a double-start. Then the girl in white snarled, turned, and kept running. She dropped off the top of the inner wall down to the streets below.
Ruby cursed her moment of weakness and pulled herself up. It wasn't her fault the vampire was stupidly attractive.
Ruby looked down from the wall. The girl in white was already sprinting down the street towards the outer wall. Ruby spied a faster way there, across the rooftops of the houses between the walls. She jumped, crossing the gap easily and coming up running. She dodged between chimneys, jumped over brick piles, and leapt between the gaps between rooftops. Her prey was running through the streets below her. She was catching up. She grinned. Her legs were burning and her lungs felt like they were on fire from the ice-cold air she was breathing in, but she felt more alive than she had ever. The thrill of the chase was a powerful thing.
She made it to the top of the wall before the vampire girl did. When the woman reached the top of the last step, she found Ruby waiting for her with her scythe at the ready.
"You run pretty fast, I'll give you that," Ruby said, taking deep breaths to still her racing heart. "And you're pretty. Real pretty, for a vampire at least." She grinned. "Almost sucks that I have to kill you."
The girl frowned and drew her rapier. Her chest wasn't heaving like Ruby's was. She drew herself up into a fencer's stance. "What's your name?" the girl called.
"Ruby. Why?"
"I like to know the names of everyone I've killed. That way I don't forget them."
Ruby smiled. "Fair enough. Yours is Weiss, right?"
The white-haired girl rolled her eyes. "How astute of you. It's almost like you were in the room when my father said it."
Ruby mock flinched. "Ouch. I hope your sword hurts more than your sarcasm does, or you're in trouble." She pushed her foot back and tilted her scythe.
Weiss grinned. "Oh really? Well, let's find ou-"
Ruby rushed her in a blur of speed, swinging her scythe horizontally at waist height. The blade cut through the air, making a heavy, brutal sound. Weiss did a sudden backflip, landing on her hands before coming to rest on her feet again.
"Now that was quite rude of-"
Ruby rushed forward again, this time with a downward swing that she turned into a spiraling series of horizontal swings. Weiss ducked and dodged, deflected with her rapier and turned the scythe blade aside before it could touch her. Her rapier sounded like it was singing when she swung it. Ruby almost found herself entranced.
After a few breathless seconds of fighting, Ruby pulled back and came to rest with her scythe across her shoulders. "You're pretty good," she muttered.
Weiss sheathed her rapier, pulled her hair into a tight ponytail, and drew the sword again within the space of only a few seconds. Ruby grinned and raised an eyebrow.
The white-haired girl slid back into a fencer's stance. "Your fighting style is repulsive. You think you can simply brute-force your way to a victory you dunce?"
Ruby swung her scythe off of her shoulders, holding the blade behind her. "Maybe. Just a warning though. This time I'm not going easy."
Now it was Weiss' turn to raise an eyebrow.
Ruby started dancing forward, still holding the blade of the scythe behind her. Weiss kept her rapier up held forward, waiting to deflect the inevitable swing of the heavy scythe blade. Ruby kept shuffling and dancing her feet forward, getting closer and closer. She was only a few feet away when she feinted an overhead scythe swing. Weiss raised her rapier. Ruby grinned.
She darted forward and smashed the scythe pommel into Weiss' gut, following it up with a heavy kick to the woman's ribs. Weiss let out a gasping wheeze and tilted sideways, holding up her rapier to fend off the incoming scythe blow. It never came. Ruby swept her right leg out and kicked at Weiss' shin. The white-haired woman toppled to the ground, sending up a flurry of powdered snow.
Now Ruby used the scythe blade. She aimed straight for Weiss' neck. But the girl was still a vampire, and her reflexes, reaction times, and recovery abilities were far beyond a regular human's. She rolled backwards onto her knees with superhuman speed, but Ruby's scythe blade still caught her above her left eye, gouging a cut down her face. She howled in pain, but stumbled back into a fencer's stance.
Ruby grinned, leaning on her scythe like it was a walking staff. Blood started pouring out from the cut. Weiss tried to wipe at it with the corner of her white sleeve. It stained the fabric red, but did nothing to stop the bleeding. The blood was running into her eye. Weiss shrieked and tried to cover it.
Ruby hefted her scythe up. "Welp, it was a good fight. I'm sure your father is already waiting for you in hell. Tell him I said hi."
She charged forward, her scythe ready to deliver the killing blow. Weiss looked up, her one open eye wide and full of fear. She didn't raise her rapier. Instead, she simply vanished.
Ruby's scythe clove empty air. She stumbled forward and almost fell. "What the hell?" she shouted.
She spun, whirled around, her scythe held up to defend her. She was alone. Or so she thought.
Suddenly, small puffs of snow started appearing on the ground, moving away from her at speed. Footsteps. They moved to the edge of the outer wall and then promptly disappeared. Ruby ran to the edge. Below was nothing but snow-covered trees and powdered snow. She could vaguely see more puffs of snow, moving quickly away from her.
"A ghostwalker," she muttered, frustration evident in her tone. She clenched her fists. "No way I can track her. Not by myself." Something occurred to her. "But if she's a ghostwalker, then that means..." Her eyes went wide. "Yang!"
She turned on her heel and started sprinting back to the keep.
She moved faster than she ever had before. She was a blur, a human bullet. Snow whipped up in trails behind her. She tossed her heavy crossbow aside. She didn't need the weight. She took the same path back, leaping over rooftops and the tops of the walls. She slipped once and slammed into the edge of a roof. She grunted, pulled herself up, and kept running. She prayed that she would get there in time. Yang had to know she was fighting a ghostwalker. It ran in the blood. Like daughter, like father.
The keep was right ahead. She sprinted around on the top of the inner wall, to the back where Weiss had broken through the glass, and leapt straight off and through the stained glass window. Shards caught on her thigh and tore her skin. She tumbled to the ground and rolled to a halt.
Yang stood in the middle of the room, alone. She looked up at Ruby and smiled. A trail of crimson ran down the corner of her mouth. She took a few steps forward, then coughed a mouthful of blood. Ruby's eyes went wide. Her heart shriveled, then stopped. Her brain wasn't functioning. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.
"Hey Ruby..." Yang muttered, her voice hoarse, barely more than a whisper. "Take care of yourself, okay? I love you... And give this guy," she coughed, "give this guy hell for me-"
Her back suddenly arched forward. A red blade tip appeared in the center of her chest, pushing outwards and bursting through her rib-cage. The crimson blade lifted her up into the air. Her eyes rolled back into her head. She coughed a great gout of steaming blood. Ruby screamed. Part heartbreak, part terror, part confusion, part pure, unblinking rage.
The sword lowered and slid out of Yang. Her body dropped the ground and was still. The vampire lord materialized over her. It was if someone had suddenly pulled an invisible curtain away from him. He looked up at her, his gaze pure malice and hatred.
"What I did to her," he growled and pointed at Yang, "I will do to you. Now meet your end human filth!"
Ruby howled in absolute fury. Absolute loss. Her scythe was already in her hands. She charged. Yang had taught her over and over to always stay calm when fighting. Fear made mistakes. Anger caused recklessness. But rage...
She clamped down on her rage, felt it like a blazing hot fire in her dying heart. She turned it, molded it, used it. It was her fuel, her strength, her speed. She had never moved so fast, with so much purpose, in her entire life. Her entire existence became to end his. She was a whirlwind of a blade, spinning and twisting and swinging and slashing. The vampire lord grunted and stumbled backwards, his eyes full of surprise. Every time he brought his blade up Ruby knocked it away with another brutal, bone-smashing scythe swing. She put her loss and her anger and her mindless desire to kill into every single movement.
The vampire lord was clearly a master swordsman. But he was used to a refined duel, a contest of skill and tactics and training. This was none of those. This was a match of attrition. He was already worn out from fighting Yang. And Ruby had the unthinkably powerful rage of losing her only family member as her fuel. She was winning.
Almost a minute passed. The vampire lord started resisting less and less. He made a few swings of his own, but every one was knocked aside. His blocks became slower and slower. Sensing she was about to win, Ruby swung even harder, moved even faster. She smiled like a madwoman. They swept around the interior of the keep, smashing aside wooden tables and chairs. Snow blowing in from the smashed stained glass windows swirled around them.
Ruby made her first cut, low on his right thigh. It caught bright, silver fire for a few brief seconds. He was too slow to deflect the scythe. Her next one came several seconds later, high on his right shoulder. He was too weak to turn the scythe blade fully aside. He grunted and stumbled backwards. Ruby pressed her advantage.
He tried to run. Ruby cut his hamstring. He tried to dodge to the side. Ruby slammed the side of his head with the pommel of her scythe. More and more cuts appeared. A shallow slice to his forehead. Another to his knee. A deep gouge into the right side of his chest. Blood ran down his straining, tattered frame, staining his black clothes an even deeper shade. Ruby laughed the laugh of the broken. He brought his sword up to block once again, unable to do anything else. Ruby swung her scythe with all her might, caught the flat of the sword, and sent it hurtling away into the dark recesses of the room. She turned the swing into a spin, wheeling around to deliver the killing blow. But he was suddenly gone. Her swing cut the air.
"Damn it!" she screamed. She almost slipped on all the blood on the floor. She wiped some off of her face. It was all over her. "You filthy coward!"
A group of men burst through the entrance of the hall. Orson was with them.
"Orson!" Ruby shouted. "Ghostwalker! He's bleeding!"
The man reacted without a second of hesitation. He reached into a pouch on his hip, produced a handful of shining grey dust, and flung it into the air. Fine, powdered magnesium. The wind blowing in through the window carried it around the room.
There was a blinding flash and a scream of pain from the corner of the hall where the vampire lord's sword had landed.
Ruby howled a wordless cry of rage and sprinted over to the tumbling, burning outline of a man. The screams became higher pitched. Ruby swung her scythe. It stuck deep into where the vampire lord's stomach would have been. Ruby snarled and twisted, pulled the scythe out, and swung again, this time at his legs. He was too busy being burned alive to dodge. Two sections of the magnesium outline, roughly the size and position of his legs, flew off, spraying blood in every direction. The main, larger section of the outline fell to the ground and started flopping around.
Ruby laughed and started hacking at it with her scythe. Each swing drew fresh blood. Each swing painted burning crimson liquid across the snow-dusted floor. She swung down at where the neck would be. The body suddenly appeared, materialized out of thin air, torn to pieces and covered in blood and magnesium fire. It had taken that much to kill him. The head rolled several feet. Blue eyes wide with horror and pain stared at the ceiling.
Ruby screamed and shouted and howled as she continued her bloody butcher's work. Despite herself, she started to choke up. Her swings slowed. "Why did you take her!? She was all I had! First my mother, then my life, and n-now her! You vampire freaks have taken everything from me!"
The body stopped twitching. Ruby kept swinging, until she missed and struck the cold stone floor, lost her balance, and tumbled to the ground. Her brain was empty, her mind blank. She couldn't process what had happened. She didn't want to. She couldn't face reality. It hurt too much.
She got to her knees and crawled over to Yang's body. The snow swirled around her, blowing around in spins and circles from outside. The layer of fresh powder on the floor was stained red. The men at the entrance of the room simply stared at her. They were too afraid to intervene.
"Yang?" she muttered, her voice weak and alone. "Yang? Are you okay?"
She nudged her older sister's broken form, trying to ignore the way her chest was split open. She looked at her face instead. "Yang? You're okay right?"
She looked into Yang's lilac eyes. They were empty and dull, lifeless and dead. Ruby felt a soul-shattering, heart-stopping loss set into her bones. It was certain. There was no denying it. Yang was gone. Yang was really, truly gone. The vampire lord had taken her. They had taken her.
Ruby sat upright, growled, and clenched her fists so hard her nails drew blood from her numb and frosted hands. "You took her from me," she muttered to the howling wind. "She was all I had left, and you took her."
Tears threatened to run down her face. She stopped them. She wouldn't cry. Not yet. The vampire lord was dead; there was nothing more she could do to him. But his daughter... his daughter had been precious to him. She would take her away too, then. An eye for an eye.
"You loved her," Ruby choked out through her rage. She could barely see through a haze of red. "I could tell. So I'll kill her, just like you killed Yang."
The lifeless, hacked apart corpse of the vampire lord didn't respond.
"I'll kill her," Ruby growled. "I'll kill her."
One of the men finally moved. Orson stepped forward and put his hand on Ruby's shoulder. He didn't say a word.
Ruby remained on her knees. She stared straight ahead. "Orson, where were you?"
"The Draconian Guard," he replied. His voice was so quiet. "I was fighting for my life."
Ruby squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm down. She couldn't. Her mind wasn't working right, she could tell. She needed something to blame, something to hurt, something to kill. Orson wasn't to blame. So the only thing she could focus on was the girl in white.
"Orson, I need your help. The girl escaped. I need your help tracking her. Please."
He was silent for several seconds. The other hunters tried to make conversation and pretend they weren't listening in. "You couldn't track her yourself?" he replied.
"She's a ghostwalker too."
Orson let out a heavy breath. "Yes. I'll help. Let's move."
Ruby stood in one swift movement. Ignoring the looks of the other hunters, she grabbed her scythe from where it was stuck in the ground and pulled hard, dislodging it. She slid it into the holster on her back and cinched it up tight. Orson was waiting for her by the door.
They strode out through the keep into the courtyard, then started to make their way through the captured fortress. Dead vampires were being drug out into the streets and burned. The stench of blood and cooking flesh filled the air. Occasional screams sounded as the last few vampires were hunted down. Some of the screams were human.
The howling wind stung her exposed skin. She pulled her cloak around herself. Her heart was choking and dying. Her brain was still struggling to accept the loss. Part of her wanted to think she would turn the next corner and find Yang there, hugging her and congratulating her on a job well done. But she wouldn't. She was gone. The slate-grey sky overhead was brooding and uncaring.
"What are you going to do with her when you find her?" Orson asked.
Ruby's face twisted into a snarl. "What do you think?"
