I had been hit before, of course, thousands of times over the course of my
twenty-odd years, but this blow was worse than all the rest put together.
My head snapped so far to the left with the force of the impact that I
thought my neck had broken. Obviously, the blow had not been intended to
kill, or I would not be telling this tale. Nevertheless, the force was
sufficient to send me hurtling through the air to drop from the level of
the throne to the floor and skid to a halt in a tangle of silk a good
twenty feet away. My vision was darkened, speckled with whirling flashes
of silver and white, and for the second time that evening, I had to fight
to hold on to the contents of my stomach.
But what of the knife and its deadly poison? Turel had risen from his seat and now stood before it with the dagger hilt protruding from his chest, as though sporting some bizarre body ornament. However, although the weapon jutted out directly above his heart, bang on target, and despite the slow trickle of dark, viscous blood that was beginning to edge its way across his waxen chest, there were no obvious signs that the wound had affected him in the slightest. This could not be! I scrambled backwards, crab- like, on all fours, while he glared at me with one eyebrow raised, battering me with the force of his unspoken anger. Then, he called for assistance.
Several burly members of his Elite guard arrived at once, the urgency of their Lord's summons hastening their response. Two of them grabbed at me roughly and hauled me to my feet. Shocked as I was, I offered no resistance. Moments later, Turel's first-born and his female companion arrived, hot on the heels of the guards. Once they had assured themselves of Turel's well-being, they turned their malevolent glares upon me, and shortly fell to scornful banter.
"Told you she wouldn't last two days."
The black-veiled woman sighed and handed the male a set of keys. "Try not to kill any of them this time, Isaac. Last time you won a bet . . ."
She fell silent as her Lord fixed her with a disapproving glare. Turel then gave vent to a sigh that terminated in a low growl before he yanked out the blade, eyed it with mild curiosity and tossed it aside, commenting on the shoddy workmanship. As his gaze pierced me anew, a shudder of fear ran the length of my body, and, futile as I knew the attempt would be, I began to struggle against the iron grip of the Turelim who held me. While the laughter of the guards rang in my ears, their Lord strode towards me with his face locked in a deceptively calm expression, one which I knew only too well from my time in the slave pits - it always augured ill.
With his black-tipped claw, he drew my attention to the wound in his chest, wiping away the single scarlet droplet that had not yet been absorbed back into his skin. I noted that the small entry wound had already healed without trace, and I cursed both myself and my idiotic visitor for our mutual stupidity. Turel's sibilant hiss brought my thoughts back to the dire reality of the here-and-now.
"I will have the priests who trained you burned alive," he began, apparently unaware of my own dislike of the people in question. "I will raze their temple to the ground with my bare hands, but not before they have begged me for forgiveness for sending such as you to serve me."
Having said his piece, he drew his own dagger, and my heart skipped a beat - how many times would he cut me before I died? The words 'death of a thousand cuts' rang in my mind and I cursed my brain for bombarding me with such images at such an inappropriate time. Turel then caught hold of the end of my hair and tugged at it, so that I had to look at him. That drowned-corpse smell assailed me again, making my stomach churn while he hissed in my face, showering my lips with droplets of spittle.
"I would have shown you favour."
With a snarl, he raised the knife and I closed my eyes instinctively. I heard and felt it as it fell, took note of the dry 'shrikking' noise it made as the keen blade parted matter, and then I opened my eyes, disbelieving, to verify my suspicion. The bottom twelve inches of my hair lay flaccid in his fist, cut off at the nape of my neck. My hair - my newfound crowning glory - was gone, taken from me in the space of a second by the whim of the Vampire god.
Turel spared me one last glance before turning on his heel and stalking back towards his throne, his claws twining playfully in the stolen length of my hair. He spoke but two more words in my presence: "Traitor's Row".
There is something in human nature that incites us to fight long after the battle seems lost, to deny the inevitable fading of our own finite lives. It was this instinct that kept me struggling against the guards' hold on me, much as it amused them. As their heavy tread took us out through the double doors to my impending doom, I tried to console myself with the unlikely idea that Kain's empire was beginning to crumble. Surely, if at least one of their own kind plotted against the Vampire hierarchy, did that not mean that others might be embroiled in the conspiracy as well? I wasn't even sure I believed it myself.
Having left the main body of the keep, we ascended a wide, winding stair whose dark confines spilled us forth at long last into the frigid chill of the night air. Up ahead, a geometric shape loomed ink-black against the starlit sky, and as we approached, I recognised the cross-bar and the sagging bodies that depended from it. Traitor's Row. My struggles began afresh as I was transferred to the cold arms of one guard, while the other operated the mechanism that would lower the spikes beneath the portion of the beam that was now reserved for me. How long would I last? No weakling was I, to be sure. The repetitive actions of such simple chores as washing and scrubbing, though far from taxing, had imbued my limbs with a certain firmness and suppleness. Ironically enough, these were the very qualities that had caught the attention of the Priest, and consequently brought about my current predicament. I imagined I could hold on for quite some time, while grim, gleaming death awaited me eagerly with its spiked claws.
As the guards attempted to manhandle me onto the deadly contraption, the sound of someone emerging from the door must have travelled to their keen ears, for one of them turned away from me, calling out to the newcomer to identify himself.
The reply came in a whirling rush of speed and force, the guard nearest the contraption felled instantly like a forest giant in a storm. He who held me quickly deposited his burden to one side in order to draw his weapon, and so I beheld the ensuing fight in a level of detail I would have preferred not to see. Crouched in a combative stance, the Turelim brought his great two-handed sword to bear in a slash that tore a scream from the rent air. His opponent, whose form was mostly hidden from view behind the vampire's broad frame, dodged the blow with a celerity that instantly convinced me that here, too was another of the undead. Hope burst into bloom within my breast. Here already was a second vampire partial to the human cause. Where there were two, should there not be many? I left my musings for another time as the fierce struggle brought the combatants in my direction. Each now had a claw locked about the other's weapon-hand, and were engaged in a deadly dance about the tower-top, wrenching each other this way and that with a violence that would have torn mortal flesh asunder. With their weapons useless, they resorted instead to their natural offensive capabilities, and took to snapping at each other with fangs distended, much in the manner of wild dogs fighting over a carcass. At length, the newcomer managed to tear his arm free of the Turelim's grasp, and shortly, my erstwhile captor went down, felled by a sledgehammer blow that would have cracked a human skull in two.
Absolute silence ensued, broken to my own ears by the panicked thudding of my heart. I watched the newcomer kick the fallen vampires' weapons to one side before taking three purposeful strides in my direction. As he reached my cowering form, the moon chanced to peek out from behind a cloud, edging the figure of the stranger with a faint luminous glow. The man's low- voiced query as to my well-being, and the addition of the light both combined to aid recognition. With a low cry of relief I leaped to my feet, and I do not mind admitting that I allowed emotion to get the better of me - my mysterious visitor from the night before had turned rescuer in my hour of direst need. To see him thus, standing victorious above the bodies of those who would have hurt me and left me to die, brought out a flood of tears as I caught him in a fierce and grateful embrace.
Presently, he drew me away from him, muttering that it was not safe for us to stay here. I agreed readily and followed him as quietly as I could down the stairs that led back into the keep. So concerned was I at my own clumsy attempts at stealth in the presence of this silent shadow, that it never occurred to me to wonder why my impulsive embrace had left him trembling.
We descended past the level where I had met with the Lord of the Turelim, down spiral stairs that grew ever narrower and more unkempt, until we came at last to a door set deep into the natural bedrock. While my rescuer secured the portal behind us, I took stock of the low-roofed cavern in which we now stood. The room was dominated by a fast-flowing stream that had worn a deep groove in the cave floor over the years. The water flow descended from a wide gap at the far left of the ceiling, and disappeared beneath the right-hand wall. The room stank of vegetable waste and human effluent.
Seeing the wrinkle in my nose, he explained. "We are below the servants' quarters here - their waste is discharged from the fortress by means of this stream."
He was silent for a long moment before asking the question I was sure had been eating away at him.
"What happened?"
I sighed and lowered my eyes, focusing on the steel-capped boots that protruded from beneath his cloak.
"The poison was ineffective. I drove the knife into his heart, and he just stood there and glared at me."
The vampire hissed through his teeth. "Many partisans died to obtain that toxin. Now all our plans are come to nothing." He was lost to me then in a moment of the deepest introspection, and I fell to watching his graceful form as he paced slowly before the door, mesmerised by the undulating movement of his cloak. He seemed to remember me of a sudden.
"But you still live, so all is not lost." Before I could question his meaning, he resumed his speech. "The stream will afford you escape from the fortress - none of Turel's kin will be able to follow you, and by the time you reach the outside, you will have but a short time to wait before dawn."
He led me by the arm to the shore of the foul-smelling waters, keeping me between him and the liquid that was deadly to him as any poison. "The watercourse terminates in a shallow lake at the base of the cliff. When you reach the outside, you will see the lights of a village through the trees. Go to the Inn and ask for Belfield - he will give you shelter until I can join you."
"Will you not come with me?" I asked, ashamed of the disappointment that showed in my tone.
"No - I must make sure you are not followed, and besides, I cannot tread this path."
"But they'll kill you if they find you!" I blurted out. Surprisingly enough, I found myself quite concerned for the safety of my new friend. The thought of his death at the hands of the hated Turelim - especially the Vampire Lord's scar-faced first-born - was abhorrent to me.
The creature reached out a hand and tentatively touched my short-cropped hair, testing the lopsided length. I sensed a smile in his voice as he replied:
"IF they find me - I am the least of your worries, Althea - now go. Tell them Farsight sends you. I will be with you as soon as I can, but I have business to the east and may not be able to come straight away."
I thanked him brokenly, aware of nothing for the moment but his hand teasing the ends of my hair. As I had told the Priest, I had not known men before, and for the first time since my mind had been filled with the accumulated knowledge of the Temple, I found myself almost wanting to put my new skills into practice.
"Go now."
I forced myself to approach the stream, odious and turgid beyond compare, and gritted my teeth as I lowered myself in. I allowed myself one final glance at 'Farsight', noting with a sense of melancholy that some strands of my hair had attached themselves to his cloak, probably when I had hugged him. I was glad. I felt as though I had given him a keepsake.
As I followed the foul watercourse from the cavern, I found myself wondering if the Gods punished mortals who prayed for the safety of their enemies.
*
A/N
It's 1:30 am, and I have to leave the house in 6 hours. Bloody stinking unrelenting merciless writing muse!
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far - Review Response next chapter - I'm far too tired to write anything else now!
But what of the knife and its deadly poison? Turel had risen from his seat and now stood before it with the dagger hilt protruding from his chest, as though sporting some bizarre body ornament. However, although the weapon jutted out directly above his heart, bang on target, and despite the slow trickle of dark, viscous blood that was beginning to edge its way across his waxen chest, there were no obvious signs that the wound had affected him in the slightest. This could not be! I scrambled backwards, crab- like, on all fours, while he glared at me with one eyebrow raised, battering me with the force of his unspoken anger. Then, he called for assistance.
Several burly members of his Elite guard arrived at once, the urgency of their Lord's summons hastening their response. Two of them grabbed at me roughly and hauled me to my feet. Shocked as I was, I offered no resistance. Moments later, Turel's first-born and his female companion arrived, hot on the heels of the guards. Once they had assured themselves of Turel's well-being, they turned their malevolent glares upon me, and shortly fell to scornful banter.
"Told you she wouldn't last two days."
The black-veiled woman sighed and handed the male a set of keys. "Try not to kill any of them this time, Isaac. Last time you won a bet . . ."
She fell silent as her Lord fixed her with a disapproving glare. Turel then gave vent to a sigh that terminated in a low growl before he yanked out the blade, eyed it with mild curiosity and tossed it aside, commenting on the shoddy workmanship. As his gaze pierced me anew, a shudder of fear ran the length of my body, and, futile as I knew the attempt would be, I began to struggle against the iron grip of the Turelim who held me. While the laughter of the guards rang in my ears, their Lord strode towards me with his face locked in a deceptively calm expression, one which I knew only too well from my time in the slave pits - it always augured ill.
With his black-tipped claw, he drew my attention to the wound in his chest, wiping away the single scarlet droplet that had not yet been absorbed back into his skin. I noted that the small entry wound had already healed without trace, and I cursed both myself and my idiotic visitor for our mutual stupidity. Turel's sibilant hiss brought my thoughts back to the dire reality of the here-and-now.
"I will have the priests who trained you burned alive," he began, apparently unaware of my own dislike of the people in question. "I will raze their temple to the ground with my bare hands, but not before they have begged me for forgiveness for sending such as you to serve me."
Having said his piece, he drew his own dagger, and my heart skipped a beat - how many times would he cut me before I died? The words 'death of a thousand cuts' rang in my mind and I cursed my brain for bombarding me with such images at such an inappropriate time. Turel then caught hold of the end of my hair and tugged at it, so that I had to look at him. That drowned-corpse smell assailed me again, making my stomach churn while he hissed in my face, showering my lips with droplets of spittle.
"I would have shown you favour."
With a snarl, he raised the knife and I closed my eyes instinctively. I heard and felt it as it fell, took note of the dry 'shrikking' noise it made as the keen blade parted matter, and then I opened my eyes, disbelieving, to verify my suspicion. The bottom twelve inches of my hair lay flaccid in his fist, cut off at the nape of my neck. My hair - my newfound crowning glory - was gone, taken from me in the space of a second by the whim of the Vampire god.
Turel spared me one last glance before turning on his heel and stalking back towards his throne, his claws twining playfully in the stolen length of my hair. He spoke but two more words in my presence: "Traitor's Row".
There is something in human nature that incites us to fight long after the battle seems lost, to deny the inevitable fading of our own finite lives. It was this instinct that kept me struggling against the guards' hold on me, much as it amused them. As their heavy tread took us out through the double doors to my impending doom, I tried to console myself with the unlikely idea that Kain's empire was beginning to crumble. Surely, if at least one of their own kind plotted against the Vampire hierarchy, did that not mean that others might be embroiled in the conspiracy as well? I wasn't even sure I believed it myself.
Having left the main body of the keep, we ascended a wide, winding stair whose dark confines spilled us forth at long last into the frigid chill of the night air. Up ahead, a geometric shape loomed ink-black against the starlit sky, and as we approached, I recognised the cross-bar and the sagging bodies that depended from it. Traitor's Row. My struggles began afresh as I was transferred to the cold arms of one guard, while the other operated the mechanism that would lower the spikes beneath the portion of the beam that was now reserved for me. How long would I last? No weakling was I, to be sure. The repetitive actions of such simple chores as washing and scrubbing, though far from taxing, had imbued my limbs with a certain firmness and suppleness. Ironically enough, these were the very qualities that had caught the attention of the Priest, and consequently brought about my current predicament. I imagined I could hold on for quite some time, while grim, gleaming death awaited me eagerly with its spiked claws.
As the guards attempted to manhandle me onto the deadly contraption, the sound of someone emerging from the door must have travelled to their keen ears, for one of them turned away from me, calling out to the newcomer to identify himself.
The reply came in a whirling rush of speed and force, the guard nearest the contraption felled instantly like a forest giant in a storm. He who held me quickly deposited his burden to one side in order to draw his weapon, and so I beheld the ensuing fight in a level of detail I would have preferred not to see. Crouched in a combative stance, the Turelim brought his great two-handed sword to bear in a slash that tore a scream from the rent air. His opponent, whose form was mostly hidden from view behind the vampire's broad frame, dodged the blow with a celerity that instantly convinced me that here, too was another of the undead. Hope burst into bloom within my breast. Here already was a second vampire partial to the human cause. Where there were two, should there not be many? I left my musings for another time as the fierce struggle brought the combatants in my direction. Each now had a claw locked about the other's weapon-hand, and were engaged in a deadly dance about the tower-top, wrenching each other this way and that with a violence that would have torn mortal flesh asunder. With their weapons useless, they resorted instead to their natural offensive capabilities, and took to snapping at each other with fangs distended, much in the manner of wild dogs fighting over a carcass. At length, the newcomer managed to tear his arm free of the Turelim's grasp, and shortly, my erstwhile captor went down, felled by a sledgehammer blow that would have cracked a human skull in two.
Absolute silence ensued, broken to my own ears by the panicked thudding of my heart. I watched the newcomer kick the fallen vampires' weapons to one side before taking three purposeful strides in my direction. As he reached my cowering form, the moon chanced to peek out from behind a cloud, edging the figure of the stranger with a faint luminous glow. The man's low- voiced query as to my well-being, and the addition of the light both combined to aid recognition. With a low cry of relief I leaped to my feet, and I do not mind admitting that I allowed emotion to get the better of me - my mysterious visitor from the night before had turned rescuer in my hour of direst need. To see him thus, standing victorious above the bodies of those who would have hurt me and left me to die, brought out a flood of tears as I caught him in a fierce and grateful embrace.
Presently, he drew me away from him, muttering that it was not safe for us to stay here. I agreed readily and followed him as quietly as I could down the stairs that led back into the keep. So concerned was I at my own clumsy attempts at stealth in the presence of this silent shadow, that it never occurred to me to wonder why my impulsive embrace had left him trembling.
We descended past the level where I had met with the Lord of the Turelim, down spiral stairs that grew ever narrower and more unkempt, until we came at last to a door set deep into the natural bedrock. While my rescuer secured the portal behind us, I took stock of the low-roofed cavern in which we now stood. The room was dominated by a fast-flowing stream that had worn a deep groove in the cave floor over the years. The water flow descended from a wide gap at the far left of the ceiling, and disappeared beneath the right-hand wall. The room stank of vegetable waste and human effluent.
Seeing the wrinkle in my nose, he explained. "We are below the servants' quarters here - their waste is discharged from the fortress by means of this stream."
He was silent for a long moment before asking the question I was sure had been eating away at him.
"What happened?"
I sighed and lowered my eyes, focusing on the steel-capped boots that protruded from beneath his cloak.
"The poison was ineffective. I drove the knife into his heart, and he just stood there and glared at me."
The vampire hissed through his teeth. "Many partisans died to obtain that toxin. Now all our plans are come to nothing." He was lost to me then in a moment of the deepest introspection, and I fell to watching his graceful form as he paced slowly before the door, mesmerised by the undulating movement of his cloak. He seemed to remember me of a sudden.
"But you still live, so all is not lost." Before I could question his meaning, he resumed his speech. "The stream will afford you escape from the fortress - none of Turel's kin will be able to follow you, and by the time you reach the outside, you will have but a short time to wait before dawn."
He led me by the arm to the shore of the foul-smelling waters, keeping me between him and the liquid that was deadly to him as any poison. "The watercourse terminates in a shallow lake at the base of the cliff. When you reach the outside, you will see the lights of a village through the trees. Go to the Inn and ask for Belfield - he will give you shelter until I can join you."
"Will you not come with me?" I asked, ashamed of the disappointment that showed in my tone.
"No - I must make sure you are not followed, and besides, I cannot tread this path."
"But they'll kill you if they find you!" I blurted out. Surprisingly enough, I found myself quite concerned for the safety of my new friend. The thought of his death at the hands of the hated Turelim - especially the Vampire Lord's scar-faced first-born - was abhorrent to me.
The creature reached out a hand and tentatively touched my short-cropped hair, testing the lopsided length. I sensed a smile in his voice as he replied:
"IF they find me - I am the least of your worries, Althea - now go. Tell them Farsight sends you. I will be with you as soon as I can, but I have business to the east and may not be able to come straight away."
I thanked him brokenly, aware of nothing for the moment but his hand teasing the ends of my hair. As I had told the Priest, I had not known men before, and for the first time since my mind had been filled with the accumulated knowledge of the Temple, I found myself almost wanting to put my new skills into practice.
"Go now."
I forced myself to approach the stream, odious and turgid beyond compare, and gritted my teeth as I lowered myself in. I allowed myself one final glance at 'Farsight', noting with a sense of melancholy that some strands of my hair had attached themselves to his cloak, probably when I had hugged him. I was glad. I felt as though I had given him a keepsake.
As I followed the foul watercourse from the cavern, I found myself wondering if the Gods punished mortals who prayed for the safety of their enemies.
*
A/N
It's 1:30 am, and I have to leave the house in 6 hours. Bloody stinking unrelenting merciless writing muse!
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far - Review Response next chapter - I'm far too tired to write anything else now!
