A Thousand Years
Chapter Nine: Raziel's Inferno
Disclaimer: See previous chapters. e.e;; You get the bloody hint.
It's been ten years now. Ten long, long... for the most part uneventful years. But the time had finally come when my brothers and I were expected to prove ourselves in battle against staggering odds, putting all of our years of practice and expertise to good use.
We were going to war.
To say we were nervous would be to say paperclips squirted with lemon juice hurts. To put it bluntly, we were scared shitless. But of course we never showed it. We all had to be big tough he-men, or we would immediately be jumped upon by our siblings, taunted for being weak and cowardly.
"What's the name of the town?" Dumah asked Kain as we walked through the forest. The night was young, and we were well fed. Each of us were armed to the teeth, dressed in battle armor, adrenaline coursing through our veins.
"Uschtenheim," Kain replied, leading the group.
"Gesundheit," I commented without thinking. There was a smattering of snickers from my brothers, and Kain rolled his eyes.
"No, that's the name of the town," he replied in exaspiration. He had the Soul Reaver across his back, dressed in his own battle armor. The sword was his only weapon, for he needed no other. The moonlight shone down on his ivory hair and alabaster skin. His eyes were silver in the darkness, gleaming like a wolf's when the light hit them just right. He was beautiful, as always, and even though I still admired him, I had dismissed any possibility of a relationship. He simply would not allow it. He knew damn well how vulnerable we still were, and the battles we would be expected to go through. He half expected some of us to die. He would not open his heart when the prospect of loss still hung over him like a shadow.
"It will be difficult," Dumah commented. "Uschtenheim is nestled up against the mountains. There are passageways and hidden crevaces in the mountains that the humans can retreat into and ambush us when we pursue them." His main weapon of choice was a sword, like mine. There was no outward sign of his nervousness. He was cool and confident, as always.
"That is why we must move quickly to surround the town. There is a main entrance and a main exit that leads up into the mountains. I know where the rear exit is, so I will take Turel and Melchiah with me. Raziel, you will lead Dumah, Rahab, and Zephon in the frontal attack." Kain never looked back as he moved with liquid grace through the dark forest, sight penetrating the darkness as easily as any cat's. "If you find yourselves surrounded, move back to back to each other and fight outward. Don't let any of your enemies get behind you. And for heaven's sake, don't forget to feed as often as you can. Gorge yourselves on blood, for it will be what will save you tonight. Any wasted meal can mean the difference between life and death. Use the telekinetic way of drinking blood so you can move and feed at the same time."
Silence settled in on us as we glided through the Termagent forest, nearing our destination. I could hear my brothers' hearts pounding with anticipation, their shortened, excited breaths as we could see the mountains rising up from the trees. This is what we had been reborn for. This was our purpose for existing. We were here to rule these lands that rightfully belonged to the vampires. We were the top of the food chain, so it was only right that we would rule over the humans.
Finally, Kain slowed his pace, and turned to us. "This is it," he murmured, his eyes scanning over his lieutenants. "There are two guards at the front gate. I will go in with Turel and Melchiah, and we will kill them and raise the gate. Raziel, you and your group follow, but remain hidden just inside the gate. We will move to the back entrance and kill the guards stationed there without being seen by the rest of the townspeople." He pinned his gaze on Turel and Melchiah. "That means that we have to be utterly silent." He turned his gaze back to the rest of us. "I will contact you telepathically to tell you when to begin your attack. At the same time we will begin ours. Watch each other's backs, and fight to the best of your ability. Remember your training. Now let's go."
With that, he turned and silently ran toward the gate, Turel and Melchiah following. Kain gestured Turel and Melchiah to the lower area while he leapt up to the top, grabbing the guard before he could make a sound and sinking his fangs into his throat, draining him of blood and breath. I heard the guard down below give a startled gasp, and heard the wet crunch of a battle axe slamming into flesh and bone. I moved forward with the rest of my brothers as Melchiah fed from the guard Turel had killed, and watched as Kain pulled a lever from the upper level to open the gate below. He leapt down and motioned for Turel and Melchiah to follow, slinking out of the gate and glancing around, before swiftly climbing up to the rooftop of a building, stealthily and silently making his way across the town, Turel and Melchiah on his tail.
I stayed at the gate, glancing around. There was a moment of tension when a guard came into sight. I ducked back into the gate tower until he passed, letting out my breath only after he was gone. Nervous, me? Naawww.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, I heard Kain's voice in my head. Now is the time, Raziel.
Alright. Taking a deep breath, I motioned to my brothers, and swiftly moved through the gate. The battle began almost easily, as we swiftly killed the guards we encountered before they even knew what was upon them. But all too soon, the alarm bell began to ring in the small town, and guards and villagers poured out of the buildings to do battle with us. It was terrifying and exhilirating as I fought with my brothers, my sword slicing through my enemies like a hot knife through butter. Their intense, adrenaline-pumped blood in my mouth was ecstacy. But all too soon, that exhilaration turned to fear as I was cut off from my brothers and surrounded.
Everything seemed to slow down, my mind numbing to all rational thought as I relied solely on instinct. I could do nothing but defend myself, whirling to block the thrust of a pitchfork, throwing it off and turning to block the downward arc of a battle axe, spinning to avoid the slice of a sword, ducking to avoid the jab of a spear. My heart pounded in my throat as this continued for what seemed like hours, but was probably little more than a minute.
Pain suddenly slammed into my side as I was unable to avoid two attacks at the same moment. There was a gut-wrenching feeling of shock and displacement as I felt the battle axe being torn from my side, and I fell to one knee on the ground. Distantly, I thought I heard a voice call my name as I looked up with wide eyes to see the battle axe soaked with my blood rising up to deliver a finishing blow.
Warmth flooded through me at that moment, bubbling up from somewhere deep within me, spreading throughout my body. My breath caught as I felt strength flooding through me, closing my eyes tightly as it seemed this fire in my veins would burst out of me and set everything around me aflame. Tortured screams suddenly filled my ears as the fire died down. I cracked one eye open, swiftly following it with the other as I saw the soldiers around me had burst into flames and were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
...What the hell?
I climbed to my feet slowly, one hand over the gaping wound in my side, staring in shock along with my brothers and the remaining humans, morbidly fascinated by the humans that were shrieking and running into things in their frenzy. One fortunate soul tripped over the low wall of the fountain and fell face-first into the water, steam billowing up as the fire was extinguished. But the others, one by one, dropped to the ground and died.
Zephon suddenly realized his advantage and quickly cut down the shocked, distracted humans in front of him, and their pained cries snapped everyone else out of their daze to return to battling. But I retreated from the scene, one hand over my heavily bleeding side, back to the masses of bodies we'd left in our wake. I found several corpses that had not yet been drained of their blood, and quickly downed the precious crimson elixir, feeling the wound in my side rapidly mending itself and my strength returning. After the pain had subsided, I ran to rejoin the battle. I could ponder what exactly had happened at a later time. Right now, I had a battle to finish.
Kain surveyed the city with a satisfied smirk on his face, the blood-stained Soul Reaver perched with the tip in the ground before him, his hands folded atop the hilt. All that was left of the city's inhabitants were the women that had not fought, along with the elderly and the children. They stayed in their homes, too terrified to venture out.
All of us had suffered wounds, and all of us had gorged ourselves until the wounds had completely disappeared. We stood behind Kain and surveyed our conquest with pride and relief. But I was the first to break the silence. I stepped up to Kain's right side and looked up at him. "Kain, something happened to me during the fight. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I was cut down, and I suddenly felt this warmth flooding through my body and bursting outwards. When I opened my eyes, all the humans that had been around me were in flames, running around and screaming."
All eyes were on me now as Kain turned to regard me with mild surprise. "You've discovered a Dark Gift."
"..What? But I thought you could only get Dark Gifts through metamorphosis," I objected hesitantly.
"That is usually the way," Kain admitted, "But there are times when a vampire's life is in danger, that their body will desperately employ whatever means it can of saving itself. In some cases, birthing a Dark Gift. You have fed from me a handfull of times over the past ten years, so my blood probably contributed to your gift." He looked to my brothers. "Dumah, what did you see when Raziel's Gift emerged?"
"His entire body began to glow as if engulfed by fire," Dumah recalled, his eyes wide at the memory. "The fire around him pulsed, and suddenly burst forward from his body in all directions for about ten feet, setting every human in that circle afire."
"It was so kick-ass!" Zephon chimed in, grinning with equally wide eyes. "They all started running around waving their arms and screaming bloody murder, tripping over and running into things until they dropped down dead!"
"And what was REALLY interesting was when they'd run into their fellow humans and set them on fire as well!" Rahab laughed, ignoring the filthy look Turel and Melchiah gave him for speaking up on my behalf.
Kain looked back at me. "So, Raziel, what are you going to call it?"
"What, my Gift...? Well..." I paused, considering this. "...How about 'Inferno'?"
My sire lifted a single brow in approval. "A place or condition suggestive of Hell, especially with respect to human suffering or death. Very appropriate." He looked toward the slowly lightening sky to the East and turned back to us. "You've all done well. Come, let's head home."
I went to my chambers with a light heart and a smile upon my lips as I hung up my armor and my sword, crawling into the warmth of my bed and beginning to drift off to sleep. Today had been a good day.
Kain was right. Victory tasted very sweet.
A/N: I am SO SORRY;
Thank you so much for your forceful reviews, they helped me get up off my lazy butt to get back to work on this. I wrote this all in one night. I struggled with it at first, but as it went on, it got easier and easier to write. Keep the reviews coming, you have no idea how much they help!
P.S.: I looked back on the other chapters in the past and noticed that had scrunched all my paragraphs together. Sorry about that! Another note, when Kain was teaching Raziel about the thoughtspeech, they did actually have text that you could read... But it was inside the arrow key thingies and for some reason, just... disappeared. So I'm re-uploading that chapter with what I think they said.. I can't quite remember, it's been too long. Check it out if you like.
