Isca found Poul in opulent – if tastelessly decorated - quarters, entertaining a female fledge who had doubtless been seduced by his recent promotion - Isca could think of nothing else that would have attracted the woman to the po-faced vampire. After entering uninvited to the sergeant's chambers, he stood silently waiting for the man to notice him, his face half-hidden in shadow.
" . . . which left me with no option but to dispatch the mercenaries myself," came a light-hearted boast from the couch at the far end of the room. It was rewarded with a feminine giggle of appreciation, and then silence reigned for a few embarrassing moments.
Isca cleared his throat.
As Poul's annoyed glance informed him of the identity of his new visitor, he leaped to his feet, his face drawn into a mask of alarm and disbelief.
"Isca . . .!"
"Hello, Poul,"
The female fledge looked from one male to the other, sensing the excess of tension in the air.
"Leave us," growled Isca. The fledge was only too glad to obey. Her intuition told her of the confrontation that was coming, and she knew full well how difficult it was to get blood out of silk.
Poul swallowed visibly before smoothing back his hair, the casual action helping him regain his composure somewhat. After all, the fledge could not possibly have any knowledge of his actions.
"We thought you were dead." He commented evenly, strolling across to a table where he had left a decanter and a pair of goblets. He poured himself a generous measure and drank deeply, pointedly excluding the fledgling from the treat.
"So it seems," replied Isca, closing the door behind the departing woman, who eyed the unhealthy fledge with distaste and not a little fear. Isca ignored her, focussing the full intensity of his gaze on Poul's tense features.
"The Captain tells me you saw me the night the Turelim took me prisoner."
The sergeant nodded faintly, ever keeping the fledgling in plain view as he began to circle around the table towards him.
"Tell me, Poul – I am having difficulty understanding how could you have seen me heading for the border that night."
"I did see you – I was just too far away to reach you in time . . ."
"That is not what I asked – I asked how you could have seen me," Isca dodged quickly around the obstacle, advancing on the flustered sergeant with murderous intent, " -when you were lying abed recovering from the axe wound I gave you in training!"
Poul, in a blue funk by now at the tangible air of menace that surrounded the irate vampire, began backing towards the cache of weapons at the rear of the room. Its location was marked by the protrusion of a large and rather ostentatiously decorated lance, which Isca guessed was a trophy of the Tournament wherein Poul had gained his promotion. He followed the path of Poul's retreat, his hollow, sunken features giving him the appearance of a merciless corpse.
"You should leave now, fledge. I have duties to attend to – and you look like you could use some time abed yourself." Poul was starting to look distinctly uncomfortable.
"Or will I have to pull rank?"
The look of disgust that blazed of a sudden on the fledgling's features was enough to convince Poul that his comment about rank had been a mistake. So, as Isca charged, he was prepared, diving for the sword that lay in the middle of his weapons cache. Drawing the blade from its sheath in a single, practised motion, Poul swung around lashed out at Isca's head. The fledge ducked – only just in time; his once-swift reactions were slowed from his recent ordeal, and Poul, instead of decapitating his opponent, only succeeded in knocking the decanter to the floor. As the sergeant stared in annoyance at the broken crystal, Isca leaped at him, bearing him to the ground under the force of his lunge. Poul struck back, throwing his enemy from him, where he staggered to his feet and collided heavily with the table. The struggle, if such it could be called, was over quickly, the half-starved vampire quickly bested and thrown bodily onto the table by the hale and hearty Poul.
Isca froze as the sergeant's cold blade came to a sudden halt against his throat, sensing that the last seconds of his life were fast approaching. He growled in defeat, his resignation forcing him to ask the question:
"What did Turel give you, Poul, in exchange for my life?"
The sergeant scowled at the accusation, his look of anger quickly replaced by a triumphant sneer: Isca would not leave the room alive, so it mattered not what he told him. With this in mind, he leaned in close so that Isca would not miss a single word of his confession.
"Turel's dominion is coming, Isca. Kain is gone – he has fled these cursed lands, and the Clans beg for a new master. He alone has the necessary power. Those who side with him now will be rewarded when the day of reckoning arrives."
Isca shook his head in disbelief. "I could understand your turning on me, Poul – there has never been any love lost between us: but to betray the Clan itself . . .?" His voice trailed off, lost in the revelation.
"For what Turel has promised me in return: yes! In an instant. I will be foremost among his trusted Elite." He looked lovingly at his own reflection in the polished blade, ostensibly imagining himself in the coveted armour of the upper echelons of the Vampire Guard.
Isca snorted in disgust. "I don't see what you wanted with that woman, Poul – you're obviously completely in love with yourself."
Poul snarled at the insult, then seemed to reconsider, a mean smirk on his sallow face as he leaned in even closer to the doomed fledgling.
"Maeve was devastated when I told her you were dead."
Isca tensed, a rage the like of which had not assailed him since Raziel's execution bubbling in the pit of his stomach. Poul, rather unwisely, continued:
"I rather think she loved you, you know. She cried when I told her."
The fledge felt a pang of misery as he ran through the scene in his mind. Poul interrupted the vision with a vindictive hiss:
"But I soon brought the smile back to her face."
Isca went berserk. Poul suddenly and inexplicably found his proposed kill bolting up from the table with the speed and wiriness of a whippet. The fledge's skeletal frame belied the strength inherent in his body and mind, and despite his struggles, Poul found himself seized in an uncompromising grasp and lifted momentarily aloft. He had a brief moment of relief when he thought Isca's strength had failed: it passed as he was thrown backward with horrifying speed, straight towards his weapons cache. His flight ended abruptly as the protruding lance point slammed through his chest, the wicked tip forcing itself further and further out from his torso as gravity took its hold. Screaming in pained surprise, he struggled impotently, a prisoner of his own weight as it left him impaled, to all intents and purposes, until the base of the lance should be moved.
"Isca!" gasped the sergeant with difficulty. "Get this out of me!" The fledgling's lowered brow and bestial expression did nothing to assuage Poul's fears. He was disarmed in short order and was soon writhing helplessly in burning pain as his wound attempted to close itself about the ornate obstruction. He could but watch in vain as Isca circled around to stand before him, his face betraying his hatred, as well as a hint of sadism that did not bode well for Poul's last moments.
"Do you know what it's like to be tortured day and night for months on end?"
Poul shook his head emphatically, dark blood beginning to issue from his gaping mouth as he strove to breathe around the obstruction in his chest.
"Maybe I should show you."
The vampire writhed again, tugging at the lance in his desperation. He did not want to die like this: impaled by the hand of some half-starved fledge, still wet behind the ears. A second glance at his captor convinced him that his appraisal of the youth was wrong. Something new and dangerous resided in the fledgling's eyes; in the proud carriage of his frame, despite its emaciation; in his aura. It was power. Poul had rarely come across such a thing before, let alone in such palpable quantities. It caused him to cringe and cower, shying away from the force of the fledge's hostile glare.
Isca felt incredibly calm. This snivelling wretch, who had failed Raziel during his reign and betrayed his memory after his death was incapacitated and at his mercy. Poul's comments about Maeve had stoked the fires of hatred in him and given him a momentary flare of strength; Isca could now feel the approach of the blinding bloodlust of the Thirst, and although its presence was as potent to him as it had been the first time, Turel's foul treatment of him had conversely imbued him with a powerful sense of self-control. And so, as he approached Poul with the darkest of intentions, his mind was, for once, completely clear. He could sense every iota of agony that wracked the creature's frame, see every droplet of viscous blood that coursed down the shaft of the lance; he could scent Poul's fear in the air: an intoxicating aroma that served to heighten his anticipation of the coming deed.
Visibly taking his time, Isca stepped closer to the trapped vampire, running one claw down the sticky shaft of the lance before raising it to his lips - in doing so, tempting his own thirst as well as tormenting his victim. Poul's entire frame was wracked with shudders, as much from the incredible pain in his chest as from disgust at the fledgling's actions.
"You recoil? Are my actions towards you so much worse than yours towards me?"
Poul let out an anguished yell as he slipped a few inches further down, the lance penetrating his chest now slick with his lifeblood. He shook his head frantically, willing to say anything now that would save his skin.
Isca considered the pain-wracked face carefully. "Perhaps it would have been better if I had not escaped, Poul: I fear that Turel has erased the last shred of humanity left in me."
Poul attempted to disagree, and only succeeded in coughing up a handful of frothy blood.
The fledgling approached the sergeant, looking deep into the glazing golden eyes. "I fear he has left me soulless."
"N-n . . ."
"A killer."
"Please . . ."
"A tormentor."
"J-just k-kill me . . ."
The heartless scowl faded in favour of a benign smile. Poul had been easily manipulated.
"As you wish."
With the sergeant's last request in mind, Isca stepped forward and ripped his throat out, his other claw tearing at the hole in Poul's chest, enlarging it as he did so. Having obeyed the dying command of an officer of senior rank, and sated his own need for violence, he began to drink. The young vampire had never fed so deeply in his unlife: nor, for that matter, had he ever feasted upon a fellow member of the ranks of the undead. The significance of the act, the potency of the blood itself, and the knowledge that he was avenged all combined into one single sensation that hit the fledge like a sledgehammer. Isca reeled as Poul's older blood doused his dry veins with liquid power, the delirium of this particular feed ranking only behind his experiences with his sire and with his lover.
Revenge did indeed taste sweet.
Author's Note.
Heh. I drew Isca at the weekend. Vaguely pleased with the results. Got into trouble with my boyf for drawing him topless though. He got all jealous. *snigger*
Anyway, more next week - gotta go!
*stuffs Evanescence tickets into one pocket and Type O Negative tickets in the other and pootles off to London, grinning like an idiot*
