Chapter 21: Two Battles
Belmont Hold
The castle vanished and Alucard gasped.
He growled to himself and began trying to find where it'd moved to.
Braila
In the city of Braila, civilians were going through their routines for the end of the day, but suddenly a gust went over them. That was only the precursor to what would happen next though. There was a bright flash of blue and a shockwave – not that they'd know to call it that – went out. Streets were torn up. Buildings and their foundations were blown apart. The people nearest to it had their flesh and organs torn right from their skeletons. The survivors fled, screaming in terror.
At the end of it all, an impossible castle stood where it hadn't before.
Belmont Hold
This particular Distance Mirror had clearly been designed with the express purpose of tracking down his father's castle. He quickly found it reappearing in a costal city. Not near it – in it. His mother, he remembered, hadn't liked his father moving the castle due to the sheer devastation it caused in landing.
Even now, Alucard could see smoke rising up from the base.
How many more people had to die?
Dracula's Castle
The doors to the Castle opened and the Generals stepped up.
Belmont Hold
Trevor and Yvette ran up the stairs.
They both stopped as one of the demons smashed through the stair bridges above.
Trevor glared at them. 'Oh, for God's sake!'
The two of them leapt out of the way as a behemoth of a demon smashed through the stairs, but as it broke that level and sent both of them flying. Trevor caught himself using the Morning Star and drew out his sword. With a flick of his wrist, he pulled the chain from where it'd caught onto and jumped down at the demon, which had landed firmly on the ground. He couldn't see Yvette but he didn't worry about that quite yet.
The demon looked up and roared at him. Trevor stabbed down, but he bounced off the horn and had to recover quickly. Luckily for him, the chain of the Morning Star caught the horn in question and he used it to swing around and up onto the demon's shoulders before it could respond correctly.
He quickly tucked the Morning Star away and brought his sword around across the demon's throat. He pulled the sword hard, attempted to cut the head clean off. But the demon had a thick neck and it immediately began rearing and trying to shake him off. Trevor began to saw, hoping to get it done faster. It didn't look too good.
'Timber!' Yvette suddenly yelled.
Trevor looked down in time to see her shoot under the demon and it abruptly screamed. He yanked his sword out as the demon fell. It broke through the last bridge. Pulling out the Morning Star, he used it to swing down as he watched the demon die. He landed next to Yvette who, by now, was standing ankle-deep in what looked like a river of blood.
The blood was all coming from the wound she'd inflicted into the demon's leg.
It swirled around his boots, and he looked up. Almost immediately, another demon jumped down at him.
Braila
Carmilla led Hector and the reanimated Bishop out of the stable at the side of the castle. They both held onto chains that were around the Bishop's neck. Carmilla stopped at the water's edge, and Hector and the Bishop stopped behind her. The looked across at the bridge, where Dracula's generals and forces stood on one side, and Carmilla's forces stood on the other. Dracula's army was already marching ahead.
One side would soon die.
Carmilla and Hector sent the Bishop into the water. He stood crouched in it.
'Bless the river, Bishop,' Carmilla ordered. 'Make the water holy.'
The Bishop rose, crucifix in hand, and began to chant in Latin. He dropped the crucifix into the river. A glow began to emanate from the water, starting from where the crucifix had landed. It quickly turned into a blue inferno, which wrapped around the undead Bishop. Even as he burned up, he continued chanting.
Then he fell into the water, gone forever.
The vampire Generals, and Dracula's army, found themselves stopped by another batch of vampire soldiers. Curious, they watched as they vampires had lined up at the borders to the town. They brought catapaults forward but made no move to charge. The vampire soldier in charge lifted his hand.
Dracula's forces tensed, believing they were about to attack. But a few of the Generals noticed that the chains attached to the catapaults went down into the river. They realised what that meant and a few of them gasped. The soldier curled his hand into a fist and the "catapaults" were activated, reeling the chains back.
The towers holding the bridges up had their foundations ripped out.
Several vampires plunged into the water and burned up as they sank in the blessed water.
All of the vampire generals made a hasty retreat.
Belmont Hold
The demon landed, its blade glancing off of Trevor's sword and it swung around to kick him backward, but Yvette was faster. With a swung of her sword, she cut the demon clean in half. It dropped to the ground and shuddered a moment, screaming, before it died. The two Belmonts looked up again to see two more demons coming down.
Trevor yanked the Morning Star from his belt and lashed it up at them. They both dodged, but the resulting explosion sent the two human and two demons flying. Trevor and Yvette were blown through the door and wall and back into the Hold. While Trevor tumbled, Yvette flipped into a perfect landing. She'd probably done that before.
Trevor let out a breath and leaned up. 'Probably just as well I didn't get to play with the whip when I was a kid.'
Yvette chuckled. 'To say the least!'
The two demons shot out at them and the Belmonts drew back. One of the demons flew overhead and knocked them both over the edge of the banister behind them. Trevor caught the creatures leg and flipped over to one of the bridges. Yvette just elected to hit something below and bound up to land on the banister next to him.
The flying demon landed and wrapped his wings around him.
'Oh, I hate these guys,' Yvette remarked. 'The wings wrap around the whole body and deflect hits.'
At that moment the second demon landed behind them and they turned. 'Well, that's an evil-looking bastard,' Trevor remarked.
'All right.' Yvette hopped down onto the bridge. 'I'll take Wing-Boy. You take the furball.'
Trevor turned.
'By the way, the Morning Star's just below us.'
Braila
The catapaults fired off grapplying hooks and extended their own independant bridges out to the other side of the river. The bridges were then tightened to be capable of taking the weight of the men under Carmilla's command. With the signal of their commander, they immediately began their charge across.
The only exception being the one bridge directly in front of them.
Carmilla strode past and grabbed Hector's arm. 'Move!'
'What?' He resisted.
Carmilla turned and got in his face. 'You're coming with me.'
Hector jerked out of her grip. 'Why?'
'You made your choice, Hector,' she said. 'You can't go back to the castle now. You betrayed the Old Man.'
A look of horrified realisation came onto his face. 'I...I...'
'My God!' Carmilla drew his attentioned back to her. 'You're still the baby who had his woodland animal corpses taken away.' She turned away from him and flicked her hair back. 'Isaac is still the indigent boy, getting beaten in the streets.' She spun back to face him. 'And Dracula is destroying the world in a tantrum because someone killed his pet breeder.' She got right in his face. 'You're all nothing but man-children!' Carmilla pointed and gave her order. 'Get across the bridge.'
He was frozen though.
'You're mine now, forgemaster.' Carmilla let her claws drift into his hair and over his cheek. 'You have nothing left, but me.' She pulled his hair hard, elicting a grunt from him, and then shoving him onto the bridge.
Hector staggered and looked back, jaw tight, But Carmilla quickly moved forward and pushed him, forcing him to keep walking. He only stopped to look back at the castle. Unfortunately, she was right. He'd let himself be played and now he had betrayed Dracula. He turned on his heel and ran across the bridge.
There were definitely not tears building up in his eyes.