Freya's arrival at the Sarafan encampment a little before dawn the next
morning was met with a stern warning from the Sarafan Lord.
"If you've worn out any of my men before today's battle . . ." He allowed the unspoken threat to hang in the air as Freya gave him a look somewhere between exhaustion and disgust.
"Not bloody likely." She muttered under her breath as she donned her silver breastplate, still caked with mud and blood from the previous day's skirmish. Antaris strode past with a critical glare at her appearance, blatantly flaunting the fact that he and all his men had spent at least some portion of the night cleaning their armour. A scant half hour later, which was enough for Freya to ascertain that she'd completely missed her chance at breakfast (unless she fancied the bucket of slops), the Sarafan regiments trooped onto the battlefield in the dishwater dawn light.
At Antaris' reiteration that she had better be in a fit state to fight, she spurred her mount towards the waiting figure of Melchiah, who sat atop his horse next to a flagpole upon which his banner fluttered in the morning breeze. She was struck, just as in their previous battles, by the apparent fragility of this particular vampire. Unlike his brothers, who were the picture of robust un-death, Melchiah always gave the impression that it had been too long since he last fed, or that some lich-like disease was gnawing that the very marrow of his bones. Nevertheless, she greeted him with due politeness.
Melchiah glossed over the necessary formalities before remarking, "What did you do, P'ramma, sleep in the mud?" This raised some jeers from the assembled undead.
Freya smiled gracefully, appraising her breastplate and spreading her arms wide in self-ridicule. "It'll be doused in vampire blood again soon enough - I saw no reason to clean it twice!"
Melchiah grunted in reply and cantered back to his men. "To arms!"
Freya had endured enough of these charges by now to be confident of the best means of survival; however, as the Melchahim drove their front forwards with what seemed like impossible speed, she found herself doubting her ability to retain her seat. She was proved right a moment later when a mace landed with a solid thump in the centre of her breastplate and sent her flying backwards from her horse. She landed with an ungainly thud some feet behind the galloping steed, her resultant disorientation leaving her little time to roll out of the way of the oncoming masses. Having regained her feet, she berated herself mentally for allowing herself to become so distracted - her questions for Antaris could wait until after the battle.
Determinedly, Freya gripped the hilt of the Sarafan broadsword, pushing aside the worrying observation that her hands were slick with sweat. The first Melchahim to attack her met a swift end, his head tumbling through the air with his face still fixed in an expression of inchoate rage. The second and third fared no better. Her poise returning, Freya glanced about to locate Antaris, to find to her utter astonishment and dismay that he was sitting astride his mount at the edge of the fray. Her loping jog in his direction was cut short as a sharp jolt inexorably impeded her progress. Freya looked down to see that the head of a battleaxe had penetrated the gap between her left pauldron and rerebrace, and that the handle yet rested in the hand of a jubilantly grinning Melchahim. She was still looking at him in complete surprise when her knees buckled under her, sending her back into the mud with the axe embedded in her shoulder.
The world turned grey; the thundering tattoo of horse hooves faded into an echo of her own agitated heartbeat; the cool mud in which she lay mimicked a lover's caress against her hot cheek. Somewhere above her, she knew that the Melchahim had drawn his scimitar, and stood poised to strike even now, his lean frame an ebon silhouette against the mist-covered sun. She sensed that her lifeblood was oozing from the open wound to run in unhurried droplets off the edge of her armour and mix with the peaty loam, and she suddenly knew she didn't want it to end this way; slain by a walking corpse while marooned on some God-forsaken mediaeval planet with half the population out for her blood. With a monumental effort, Freya lifted her head from the floor and glowered in impotent fury at the waiting Melchahim.
"Kain himself will reward me for this!" he shouted with glee, a presight that was not to be, as a moment later he was tackled from his feet by three Sarafan doing a passable impression of a rugby team. Freya let her head flop back onto the earth in relief, only to find she had to raise it again almost immediately as she heard the unmistakeable sound of someone calling a retreat. Ere long, a number of Sarafan were lifting her unresisting body from the ground, a move that triggered a whirling vertigo, and the world faded from grey to black.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The brooding silence was rudely broken by the harsh clank of armoured bodies approaching the moat outside the great crenellated gateway that marked the entrance to Zephon's domain. A light drizzle speckled the hair and beards of those who stood with stoic patience before the massive barred portal, its persistent droplets causing discomfort and unease as they found their way into every unprotected nook and chink. The gloom of the grim dawn was compounded by a palpable uncertainty that was shared by every Sarafan in the group of fifty men that stood ranged before the daunting façade, and substantiated in the constant throat-clearing and shifting of feet.
Anon, a portal opened above the main gateway, and a young vampire sporting Zephon's Clan regalia peered cautiously over the battlements.
"My master asks your purpose here." Called the youth, plainly keen to be absolutely anywhere else.
A figure detached itself from the centre of the group, massive pink plume waving above a grandiosely decorated helmet.
"I would speak with Zephon himself - unless he is too afraid to show his face?" Antaris' bluster quickly restored the dampened spirits of the Sarafan, even raising a derisive taunt or two.
The fledgeling blanched, visibly fearing the conveyance of this request to his sire, and disappeared back into the darkened doorway. A thud and a squeal echoed plainly through the small canyon at whose mouth the Sarafan stood, to be followed a moment later by the emergence of Zephon himself. He cut an imposing figure in the grey morning light, and, unprepared as he was for the sight that met his eyes as he surveyed his forecourt, he lost not one whit of his composure. One midnight-black claw gripped the battlement edge with unerring precision as the Vampire Lord surveyed the waiting Sarafan, a frown of confusion knitting his brows.
"What do you here, Sarafan?" he demanded in crisp, clear tones. "Our dispute pertains to land at the northern edge of my territory - that, as you well know, is where the matter will be resolved."
"Plans have changed, vampire," called Antaris in reply. "We now Challenge for the keep in which you stand."
Zephon was incensed. Not only had the Sarafan flaunted the dictated rules of battle, but they had changed targets without prior warning; and to make matters worse, they had absolutely no legitimate historical claim on this building - it had always been on Vampire land. His anger soon turned to perplexity as he sought but did not find the face of the P'ramma among the assembly. Perhaps the rumours of her defeat at the hands of the Melchahim were true after all.
"I give you one chance, Sarafan. Return with your troops to the designated site, and we will gladly meet you there at the appointed hour."
Antaris bared his teeth in a nasty smile. "Afraid to face us on your own home soil, Zephon? I had no idea Kain's sons were so spineless."
Zephon's spasming claw took a four-inch chunk out of the retaining wall. When he spoke, his voice, though quiet, disturbed every being that crawled, slithered or burrowed in the soil. "You will have your fight, Sarafan."
A single word from the Vampire Lieutenant brought guards scurrying from the many doors that opened onto the battlements and the terraces far above. Most were scantly armed, as the call had come several hours early, and many were still shaking the last vestiges of Lethean slumber from their brains. Notwithstanding, in but a few minutes, Zephon's troops had ranged themselves in positions of defence all over the front of the keep, and stood alert and waiting for their master's command.
Antaris allowed the pregnant silence to germinate for a nerve-wracking minute. Then, with a signal to one of the rearguard, he raised his two- handed cleaver aloft and shouted, "Now!"
Twenty-five explosive charges ignited simultaneously along the exterior wall, cracking the entirety of the keep's façade from base to terrace. The first casualties were those on higher perches, whose less stable vantage points left them twice as vulnerable as those lower down. The wildly oscillating masonry crumbled like so much loose earth, sending the unfortunates plummeting to a scalding death in the waters of the moat below. Zephon, his stance barely shaken, glared in incredulous wrath at the humans on the ground: to have been so easily bested by these wilful mortals - Kain would have his hide!
The Sarafan Lord, eminently pleased with the success of his plan, ordered the advance of the trebuchet. The Vampires watched helplessly as the massive catapult trundled out of the canyon. Those who were able were rapidly retreating from the open through those doors that still functioned, but many were trapped, watching in growing horror as they perceived the ballast with which the Sarafan were loading their weapon.
Water.
Huge troughs of pure, clear water. Enough to douse the entire front of Zephon's keep in gallons of the burning fluid. Arrows they could withstand; even some of the larger forms of ballistae would have been insufficient to break their defence, but this was intolerable; insurmountable; unjust.
Zephon viewed the developing situation with a rage that bordered on white fury. A quick look around revealed that the majority of his fledgelings had retreated back inside; those that had not, could not. There was still a disturbing number of his Elite on the outside wall, and Zephon knew as well as they that he alone could survive such a deluge. With the wild abandon of a riled parent, he leaped the thirty feet from the battlement to the drawbridge, intent on sabotaging the Sarafan weapon of destruction before it could wreak havoc upon his progeny.
Too late. Zephon witnessed in mute terror the launch of the first water strike. It was devastating, and his belated efforts to slash at the ropes that propelled the machine's mechanism were foiled instantly by the contingent of fifty Sarafan who remained, untried on the bank of the moat. Despite the torrents of water than flowed freely over the cracked frontage of the keep, the walls were momentarily lit with the incandescent flame that accompanied the demise of vampire souls. Zephon hung his head in grief.
"Back to Meridian!" came the raucous cry of the Sarafan Lord.
Zephon looked up sharply from where he knelt, surrounded by human warriors at the edge of the drawbridge, his incredulous "What?" eliciting a supremely satisfied smile from his nemesis.
"Our task here is complete, my friend."
Zephon shot a glance at his ravaged fortress, its walls littered with sodden, blackened carcasses. "You're not going to occupy the keep?"
Antaris laughed as though humouring a child. "Good heavens no!" He supervised the binding of the vampire's claws in blessed rope with an authoritarian eye. "It's not much use to anyone anymore, is it?"
With a final taunting laugh, Antaris and his men departed, the trebuchet rumbling before them, leaving the Vampire Lord on his knees before his ravaged keep.
"If you've worn out any of my men before today's battle . . ." He allowed the unspoken threat to hang in the air as Freya gave him a look somewhere between exhaustion and disgust.
"Not bloody likely." She muttered under her breath as she donned her silver breastplate, still caked with mud and blood from the previous day's skirmish. Antaris strode past with a critical glare at her appearance, blatantly flaunting the fact that he and all his men had spent at least some portion of the night cleaning their armour. A scant half hour later, which was enough for Freya to ascertain that she'd completely missed her chance at breakfast (unless she fancied the bucket of slops), the Sarafan regiments trooped onto the battlefield in the dishwater dawn light.
At Antaris' reiteration that she had better be in a fit state to fight, she spurred her mount towards the waiting figure of Melchiah, who sat atop his horse next to a flagpole upon which his banner fluttered in the morning breeze. She was struck, just as in their previous battles, by the apparent fragility of this particular vampire. Unlike his brothers, who were the picture of robust un-death, Melchiah always gave the impression that it had been too long since he last fed, or that some lich-like disease was gnawing that the very marrow of his bones. Nevertheless, she greeted him with due politeness.
Melchiah glossed over the necessary formalities before remarking, "What did you do, P'ramma, sleep in the mud?" This raised some jeers from the assembled undead.
Freya smiled gracefully, appraising her breastplate and spreading her arms wide in self-ridicule. "It'll be doused in vampire blood again soon enough - I saw no reason to clean it twice!"
Melchiah grunted in reply and cantered back to his men. "To arms!"
Freya had endured enough of these charges by now to be confident of the best means of survival; however, as the Melchahim drove their front forwards with what seemed like impossible speed, she found herself doubting her ability to retain her seat. She was proved right a moment later when a mace landed with a solid thump in the centre of her breastplate and sent her flying backwards from her horse. She landed with an ungainly thud some feet behind the galloping steed, her resultant disorientation leaving her little time to roll out of the way of the oncoming masses. Having regained her feet, she berated herself mentally for allowing herself to become so distracted - her questions for Antaris could wait until after the battle.
Determinedly, Freya gripped the hilt of the Sarafan broadsword, pushing aside the worrying observation that her hands were slick with sweat. The first Melchahim to attack her met a swift end, his head tumbling through the air with his face still fixed in an expression of inchoate rage. The second and third fared no better. Her poise returning, Freya glanced about to locate Antaris, to find to her utter astonishment and dismay that he was sitting astride his mount at the edge of the fray. Her loping jog in his direction was cut short as a sharp jolt inexorably impeded her progress. Freya looked down to see that the head of a battleaxe had penetrated the gap between her left pauldron and rerebrace, and that the handle yet rested in the hand of a jubilantly grinning Melchahim. She was still looking at him in complete surprise when her knees buckled under her, sending her back into the mud with the axe embedded in her shoulder.
The world turned grey; the thundering tattoo of horse hooves faded into an echo of her own agitated heartbeat; the cool mud in which she lay mimicked a lover's caress against her hot cheek. Somewhere above her, she knew that the Melchahim had drawn his scimitar, and stood poised to strike even now, his lean frame an ebon silhouette against the mist-covered sun. She sensed that her lifeblood was oozing from the open wound to run in unhurried droplets off the edge of her armour and mix with the peaty loam, and she suddenly knew she didn't want it to end this way; slain by a walking corpse while marooned on some God-forsaken mediaeval planet with half the population out for her blood. With a monumental effort, Freya lifted her head from the floor and glowered in impotent fury at the waiting Melchahim.
"Kain himself will reward me for this!" he shouted with glee, a presight that was not to be, as a moment later he was tackled from his feet by three Sarafan doing a passable impression of a rugby team. Freya let her head flop back onto the earth in relief, only to find she had to raise it again almost immediately as she heard the unmistakeable sound of someone calling a retreat. Ere long, a number of Sarafan were lifting her unresisting body from the ground, a move that triggered a whirling vertigo, and the world faded from grey to black.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The brooding silence was rudely broken by the harsh clank of armoured bodies approaching the moat outside the great crenellated gateway that marked the entrance to Zephon's domain. A light drizzle speckled the hair and beards of those who stood with stoic patience before the massive barred portal, its persistent droplets causing discomfort and unease as they found their way into every unprotected nook and chink. The gloom of the grim dawn was compounded by a palpable uncertainty that was shared by every Sarafan in the group of fifty men that stood ranged before the daunting façade, and substantiated in the constant throat-clearing and shifting of feet.
Anon, a portal opened above the main gateway, and a young vampire sporting Zephon's Clan regalia peered cautiously over the battlements.
"My master asks your purpose here." Called the youth, plainly keen to be absolutely anywhere else.
A figure detached itself from the centre of the group, massive pink plume waving above a grandiosely decorated helmet.
"I would speak with Zephon himself - unless he is too afraid to show his face?" Antaris' bluster quickly restored the dampened spirits of the Sarafan, even raising a derisive taunt or two.
The fledgeling blanched, visibly fearing the conveyance of this request to his sire, and disappeared back into the darkened doorway. A thud and a squeal echoed plainly through the small canyon at whose mouth the Sarafan stood, to be followed a moment later by the emergence of Zephon himself. He cut an imposing figure in the grey morning light, and, unprepared as he was for the sight that met his eyes as he surveyed his forecourt, he lost not one whit of his composure. One midnight-black claw gripped the battlement edge with unerring precision as the Vampire Lord surveyed the waiting Sarafan, a frown of confusion knitting his brows.
"What do you here, Sarafan?" he demanded in crisp, clear tones. "Our dispute pertains to land at the northern edge of my territory - that, as you well know, is where the matter will be resolved."
"Plans have changed, vampire," called Antaris in reply. "We now Challenge for the keep in which you stand."
Zephon was incensed. Not only had the Sarafan flaunted the dictated rules of battle, but they had changed targets without prior warning; and to make matters worse, they had absolutely no legitimate historical claim on this building - it had always been on Vampire land. His anger soon turned to perplexity as he sought but did not find the face of the P'ramma among the assembly. Perhaps the rumours of her defeat at the hands of the Melchahim were true after all.
"I give you one chance, Sarafan. Return with your troops to the designated site, and we will gladly meet you there at the appointed hour."
Antaris bared his teeth in a nasty smile. "Afraid to face us on your own home soil, Zephon? I had no idea Kain's sons were so spineless."
Zephon's spasming claw took a four-inch chunk out of the retaining wall. When he spoke, his voice, though quiet, disturbed every being that crawled, slithered or burrowed in the soil. "You will have your fight, Sarafan."
A single word from the Vampire Lieutenant brought guards scurrying from the many doors that opened onto the battlements and the terraces far above. Most were scantly armed, as the call had come several hours early, and many were still shaking the last vestiges of Lethean slumber from their brains. Notwithstanding, in but a few minutes, Zephon's troops had ranged themselves in positions of defence all over the front of the keep, and stood alert and waiting for their master's command.
Antaris allowed the pregnant silence to germinate for a nerve-wracking minute. Then, with a signal to one of the rearguard, he raised his two- handed cleaver aloft and shouted, "Now!"
Twenty-five explosive charges ignited simultaneously along the exterior wall, cracking the entirety of the keep's façade from base to terrace. The first casualties were those on higher perches, whose less stable vantage points left them twice as vulnerable as those lower down. The wildly oscillating masonry crumbled like so much loose earth, sending the unfortunates plummeting to a scalding death in the waters of the moat below. Zephon, his stance barely shaken, glared in incredulous wrath at the humans on the ground: to have been so easily bested by these wilful mortals - Kain would have his hide!
The Sarafan Lord, eminently pleased with the success of his plan, ordered the advance of the trebuchet. The Vampires watched helplessly as the massive catapult trundled out of the canyon. Those who were able were rapidly retreating from the open through those doors that still functioned, but many were trapped, watching in growing horror as they perceived the ballast with which the Sarafan were loading their weapon.
Water.
Huge troughs of pure, clear water. Enough to douse the entire front of Zephon's keep in gallons of the burning fluid. Arrows they could withstand; even some of the larger forms of ballistae would have been insufficient to break their defence, but this was intolerable; insurmountable; unjust.
Zephon viewed the developing situation with a rage that bordered on white fury. A quick look around revealed that the majority of his fledgelings had retreated back inside; those that had not, could not. There was still a disturbing number of his Elite on the outside wall, and Zephon knew as well as they that he alone could survive such a deluge. With the wild abandon of a riled parent, he leaped the thirty feet from the battlement to the drawbridge, intent on sabotaging the Sarafan weapon of destruction before it could wreak havoc upon his progeny.
Too late. Zephon witnessed in mute terror the launch of the first water strike. It was devastating, and his belated efforts to slash at the ropes that propelled the machine's mechanism were foiled instantly by the contingent of fifty Sarafan who remained, untried on the bank of the moat. Despite the torrents of water than flowed freely over the cracked frontage of the keep, the walls were momentarily lit with the incandescent flame that accompanied the demise of vampire souls. Zephon hung his head in grief.
"Back to Meridian!" came the raucous cry of the Sarafan Lord.
Zephon looked up sharply from where he knelt, surrounded by human warriors at the edge of the drawbridge, his incredulous "What?" eliciting a supremely satisfied smile from his nemesis.
"Our task here is complete, my friend."
Zephon shot a glance at his ravaged fortress, its walls littered with sodden, blackened carcasses. "You're not going to occupy the keep?"
Antaris laughed as though humouring a child. "Good heavens no!" He supervised the binding of the vampire's claws in blessed rope with an authoritarian eye. "It's not much use to anyone anymore, is it?"
With a final taunting laugh, Antaris and his men departed, the trebuchet rumbling before them, leaving the Vampire Lord on his knees before his ravaged keep.
