Rough-woven wool snagged on an opportunistic bramble, a soft tearing noise accompanying the parting of aged fibres as sharp points attempted to grab the passing traveller.  The figure paused fleetingly to tug its cloak free from nature's thorny grasp before gathering its smaller companions back to its side and continuing along the moon-silvered path.  The mood was one of suppressed excitement and thankfulness, and the group, which numbered some seventy or so, had trouble in keeping the noise level low.  Fortunately, their journey was not overly long, and soon, the massive walls of their destination loomed coal-black against the pale grey of the moonlit sky. 

*

Elsewhere, the words of a dead man rang true.  In the aftermath of the disappearance of the self-styled 'Sarafan Lord' of Meridian during the recent Vampire attack, it had only been a matter of time before an even less noble peer had marched into the breach and seized the opportunity to rise to power.  In the meantime, the name 'Antaris' had been elevated to the status of martyr.  His story was told in tavern and square, and whispered in awe on the lips of gossips and guards alike; he had been a bold knight and a respected leader, whose assumed death during the Turelim's cowardly night-time assault on the Sarafan keep would not go unpunished.  People tended to conveniently 'forget' the fact that his body had never been found, preferring to remember him as a martyr than to consider launching a rescue strike in the hopes of finding him alive.  People also tended to forget that he was an underhand dog who had risen to his title by the murder of his predecessor, and that he had been hated and feared by the soldiers who served under him. 

How quickly sensationalism supplants truth!

The man who had assumed control in Antaris' wake, Kalippa by name, had even less scruples than the cad he replaced.  He had hovered in the wings while the tense drama between Antaris and the P'ramma had unfolded, and, when both had fallen to the same nocturnal Vampire raid, he had been quick to offer his services in their absence.  Meridian had been just as quick to welcome him.  Stridently fervent in his belief in the Sarafan ideals, and handsome to boot, he had quickly won over the minds and hearts of both the male and female populace. Tonight 'Lord' Kalippa was at work in the Council Chamber deep in the heart of the keep, mulling over maps and plans in preparation for his next move.  His trusted General, who had served at his side in the past and had quickly been installed in the hierarchy when Kalippa rose to power, plotted with him, along with a few choice others, all partial to the Sarafan cause.

Kalippa set down his tankard on the polished surface of the table with little consideration for its fine workmanship.  Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he outlined his plans:

"The town is well defended from the eastern side: that is where they fear they are most vulnerable to attack."

There was a low murmur of assent.

Kalippa tapped a gloved finger on the left-hand side of the map before him.  "We will therefore go in from the western side at dawn.  If any of the leeches do decide to put up a defence, they will be at a disadvantage in the daylight."

His General snorted in derision.  "If the last three villages are anything to go by, we need not concern ourselves with the undead – they have abandoned their charges."

"Indeed," concurred the Lord, straightening from the table and wrenching the cricks from his neck.  "It appears that the heathens have been forsaken by their protectors as well as their Gods."  He turned to address the small group gathered around the table, maniacal devotion blazing in his murky blue eyes.

"Ready the men - the time for cleansing is at hand."

*

Shortly before sunrise, two-score horsemen arrived at the head of the valley in whose basin resided the last tithe village beholden to the Razielim.  The sprawling mass of timber-framed houses and barns lay quiet and still in the misty pre-dawn air, a few somnolent goats the only sign of life at this ungodly hour.  Kalippa tightened a leather-gloved hand on the reins in anticipation, before raising his other into the air and making a forward chopping motion.  The horsemen advanced slowly, the dull thud of the beasts' hooves on the soft loam deadened by the insulating properties of the mist.  Kalippa allowed himself a complacent smile: the raid should be over by sunrise, after all, there was little opposition to be expected from a handful of crippled greybeards and a gaggle of terrified women.   Before too long, Turel's beholden would suffer the same fate – especially since the Turelim Lord and the majority of his followers had been conspicuous by their absence in recent weeks. 

The riders spread out in a fan-shape, the double line acting as a precautionary measure against any potential escapees.  Not that any were expected; the attack would be swift and silent, and the last of this particular Clan's fawning blood-slaves would finally be eradicated.  Holding off until the riders had come to within a few yards of the outermost building, Kalippa paused to savour the moment before giving the order to charge. The horsemen poured into the sleeping village like the incoming tide: unrelenting; impassive; unstoppable.  Three men dismounted and entered into adjacent buildings almost simultaneously.  The first sighted a sleeping form lying abed in a two-roomed cottage; the second came upon a goatherd emerging from his kitchen, crook in hand, while the third entered the Inn, to find that the aging, hunched barkeep, huddled in a shawl, was already up and about and stocking the shelves ready for the day's trade.  In three separate dwellings, swords slid from their sheaths.  A blade hovered vertically above the sleeping figure in the bed; another was raised in anticipation before the sleepy goatherd, and the third swung in an eager circle behind the back of the oblivious bartender.  The blows never landed.  The patterned coverlets were suddenly hurled back to reveal a wild-eyed and decidedly thirsty-looking Razielim, who leaped from the cot to bury keen fangs in the neck of his proposed murderer; the goatherd dropped his crook in favour of a short, curved scimitar that appeared as though by magic in one heavy claw, the blade's glorious sheen morphing from silver to crimson in the space of a second, while the barkeep whirled and threw off its shawl to reveal an invigorated and distinctly robust Isca, who effortlessly vaulted the bar and sauntered towards his attacker, flashing a helpful smile in his direction.

"Looking for a drink, Sir?  What's your poison?"

The human staggered back, his bravado fading as the person he had taken for a wizened old man quickly turned the hunter into prey.

"B-bit early for me . . ." he stammered automatically, as his eyes darted about in search of an exit.

Isca replied with a grin that would have put a demon to shame.  "It's never too early."

He proved his conviction in his belief by seizing the fear-stricken man by the sword-arm and wrenching the limb around behind his back, twisting the wrist to force him to relinquish his hold on his weapon.  With the blade removed from the equation, Isca took hold of the soldier's fringe and wrenched his head back, exposing his throat, which gleamed in the tavern's gloom with a thin sheen of fear.

"Tut tut," chided the vampire.  "Lost your chance."

The human squirmed at the menacing tone of the creature's voice and made to break free, slamming his free elbow into the vampire's midriff and pushing backwards with his full, and not inconsiderable weight.  He might as well have tried to move a mountain.  Isca shook him forcibly before pulling his bent arm up still further, drawing the first scream of pain from the mortal's throat.

"You should take a leaf out of our book, Sarafan." He confided in a low growl, right in the man's ear.  "We never miss an opportunity to drink." He pulled the trembling head back even further, the groaning of neck-tendons under immense strain filling the unfortunate knight's ears.

"After all, you never know which drink . . ." Isca drew a claw slowly down the man's neck with a sound like tearing silk, and a red line appeared, thickening slowly as the tissues parted.  " . . . will be your last."

He considered the human's response carefully as he watched the first thick droplets slide down over the vein that throbbed visibly in the side of his throat, to disappear beneath his breastplate.  The man had stiffened with fear in his grasp, ceasing all struggles against what was obviously an unbeatable opponent, and now stood immobile with his eyes locked rigidly on the far wall, awaiting his fate.  Isca shook his head.  There was no fight in these Sarafan; no depth to their beliefs.  This was a hired hand, convinced either by the lure of money or the threat of the lash to do the bidding of the latest ignoble bastard to bear the title of Sarafan Lord.  That was the enemy's weakness: they had no love for their cause, and if Isca had his way, it would be their undoing.  With the Thirst vying insistently for his attention in the presence of free-flowing blood, Isca abandoned his thoughts in favour of a more appropriate time and lowered his head to tear at his victim's throat.

From dwellings across the entire valley, identical scenes began to play out as the Sarafan raiding party, instead of the helpless villagers they had expected to encounter, came face to face with large numbers of angry, newly territorial vampires.  As the sun rose, painting the sky in the lightest shade of red, the screams of the terrified, the dying and the tormented echoed through the waking valley.  The attack, just as the Sarafan planned, had ended in a massacre.

Isca stood in the shadows of the Inn doorway, just beyond the searching fingers of sunlight that lit the ground before his feet.  Not for the first time, he cursed his natural weakness, but took heart in the knowledge that the sun would not always blight his days.  The sooner that happened, the better, as far as this Razielim was concerned.  A scuffle from his left caught his attention.  Gurt and one of the Elite were dragging a semi-conscious man through the mud by his ankles, their eyes riveted on his.  Isca stood aside to allow them room to manoeuvre the body through the doorway, watching with interest as they propped him in a chair and proceeded to slap him about the face in an effort to revive him.

"Who do we have here?" inquired the fledgling as the human dizzily opened his eyes.

"This week's 'Sarafan Lord'." replied Gurt, gaining an appreciative chuckle from his audience.

Isca moved to stand directly in the man's line of vision, taking in a head that consisted of a mop of overgrown ginger hair, a shaggy beard and several battle scars.  He wore a battered suit of armour that had probably been quite spectacular in its day, but was now in dire need of a rigorous encounter with large amounts of wire wool - or perhaps the scrap-heap.  Isca frowned.

"Is this true?"

The man swallowed hard, chanced a quick glance at the door and nodded a grudging confirmation.

The fledgling's brow furrowed again.  Something about the man's appearance and attitude did not ring true with his perception of those humans who strive for the higher positions of power.  This man, whoever he was, had fought and suffered to reach his rank.  Isca's manner relaxed again, betraying nothing of his suspicions.

"Good.  I'd hate to think we were torturing the wrong man."

He watched in satisfaction as the warrior's face fell, the look of awful realisation on his face telling an unmistakeable story.  Isca shot him a meaningful glance.

"You're not him, are you?"

The man shook his head wretchedly and stared at his boots, ashamed.  "I am his General." 

"Where is your Lord, General?"

At the man's reluctant silence, Gurt added, "It will go better for you if you assist us."  The Elite guard in the background picked his teeth with his dagger for greater effect.

"Lord Kalippa has returned to Meridian," the General volunteered eventually.

The vampires' eyes met in wordless concurrence.  At length, Isca straightened as though having made a decision.

"Then you should return to him."  The General looked up in hope, hardly believing his ears.  Isca gestured to the Elite guard.  "See if you can find the General a horse."

As the vampire busied himself with the task, the human muttered profuse words of thanks to his captors, adding that their reputation as heartless killers was highly undeserved.  Isca nodded magnanimously.  A few moments later, the Elite guard returned and announced that the horse was ready.  The General rose to his feet, a little unsteadily, and with a final word of thanks, hobbled towards the door.  It was not until he had mounted to the saddle that he saw the line of crossbowmen ranged at the village gate.  He turned to his captors in consternation.

"You said you would allow me to go free!"

"I said you should return to your Lord," countered an amused Isca.  "If you can make it through the archers, you're free to go."

With a sinking heart, the General accepted his predicament and with a last, fierce glance that assured Isca that the man had more guts than the majority of the Sarafan put together, he urged his mount to speed.   As the horse reached a gallop, the General became almost convinced that the feat was possible: his armour would deflect the worst of the barrage, and any wounds he suffered on the un-armoured areas of his legs were unlikely to be fatal and could easily be healed.  On reaching the gate, he knew he had erred in his judgement.  The vampires' bows, heavily sprung and instantaneously reloaded, showered his body with a hailstorm of metal barbs.  The tension behind the bowstrings, strung more heavily that would have been possible for human archers to handle, enabled the bolts to pierce his armour by the score.  In the two seconds it took for the General to pass through the limited range of the line of bowmen, he had been riddled with puncture wounds from over fifty missiles, leaving him a bristling, bleeding parody of a knight on horseback as the unharmed horse cantered swiftly on.

It only remained to be seen whether the knight would die from his injuries before he reached Meridian.  It now lay with fate to decide whether the motion of the horse would cause the barbs to further penetrate his skin and puncture a vital organ; whether he would fall from his none-too stable seat and meet his end as gravity forced the intrusive missiles deeper; or whether he would simply expire from extreme blood loss.

The Razielim began to place bets.

Author's Note:

*sniggers* That topless pic is up now . . .