A/N Ah! The joys of writing a fan-fic, I don't even have to try to be original. Disclaimer no.2 This chapter title belongs to Eidos, but I liked it so much I just had to 'borrow' it. Theft is the sincerest form of flattery after all!

3 In the House of my Enemy

As the little band of Sarafan approach the main entrance to the keep, the portcullis is raised to allow them enter. They saunter in, all of them appearing to be in surprisingly good spirits for soldiers who have spent the last four hours patrolling in the fog. One of the guards steps forward to address Ward.

"Captain Ward, Sir." He says. "You seem very cheerful tonight, Sir. Anyone would think you were looking forward to leaving Meridian."

Ward stops to exchange words with the man and the others stand respectfully behind him and wait.

Once more, Ayden finds himself standing close behind Jay, but he does not risk teasing her a third time. The fog is flowing in under the archway, and swirling around their feet. Ayden looks at it, frowning. Even though he is in mist form, he would still be visible to any of them, should they chance to turn around, for he is standing too close for concealment. Ward and the guard are blocking the exit and the portcullis has already been lowered behind them, so, for the moment, Ayden is trapped. He steps back from Jay and her companions, pressing himself tightly into a corner. He hopes he won't have to wait for too long before Ward makes a move; he cannot hold mist form indefinitely, and if he is forced to reveal himself here, things could get rather difficult. Silently, he draws his sword, just in case. There are too many of them to prevail against in a fight, but if he is destined to die here, Ayden vows he will not be dying alone.

Ward and the guard are still deep in conversation, they are reminiscing about old campaigns now, while the rest of the company shift on their feet and try not to look too bored or impatient. Ayden uses the time to take stock of his surroundings, an occupation that he finds more productive than fretting about when he will reach the limits of his magic.

The gatehouse is set into the perimeter wall and it opens onto a stone bridge, which spans a broad, deep moat. Beyond the bridge, the curving walls of the keep loom dark against the night sky, their smooth surfaces interrupted only by the Sarafan emblem, which is set into deep recesses on both of the main towers and by three lines of narrow windows on the very top floor of the building. The massive ironclad entrance doors stand open on the other side of the bridge, the light from within, illuminating the wet cobbles and the swirling patterns of the fog as it dances above the waters of the moat. The doors themselves are flanked by yet more guards, and a solitary guard also patrols the bridge itself. Although the fog would probably allow him to enter the building in safety, Ayden does not intend to follow Ward and his party in unless he has to, for he has no idea what lies beyond those doors. A side entrance would be far less risky, if he can find one.

To the left of the bridge, the moat simply appears to curl around the keep, the black waters gathering speed as they round the corner and hurtle towards the open sea. On the right, he spies a small courtyard, tucked in close to the perimeter wall, the water apparently flowing out from underneath it. At the back of this courtyard, is a small outbuilding, possibly a guard-house. It looks as though it might offer a means of entry, although it would be very hard for him to reach, but if he could get to it, it would certainly merit investigation.

For the moment, however, Ayden is going nowhere. Ward is still talking to the guard. He is in the middle of telling a particularly ribald story about a raid on one of the local whorehouses. Unseen, Ayden grimaces as the men laugh over antics that seem particularly uninspired, at least from a vampire's point of view.

"So, what did you do then?" Asks the guard, drawing breath, with difficulty, through his laughter

"Well, we threw her petticoats up over her head and…"

Ayden barely suppresses a groan. Have mortals any idea how to have fun? He looks up at the ceiling, and tries not to think about the amount of time he is wasting here, or how rapidly he is tiring from the strain of maintaining the mist spell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While Ward and the guard relive past glories, the present Sarafan Lord is making plans for the future. Lord Agrippa is touring the keep, his keep, he reminds himself as he strides into the main entrance hall, a secretary and several other high-ranking Sarafan following in his wake. All of these men are looking somewhat uncomfortable, for the new Lord is proving to be rather difficult to please. He is far from satisfied with the way the keep is being run, and he has been expressing his dissatisfaction to them in a most forceful manner. Agrippa stops suddenly, and the followers clatter together as they try to avoid crashing into him. He is glaring at the open doors that lead onto the bridge.

"Why are these doors standing open?" He demands.

The secretary steps forward, he has a rather cringing stance, which Agrippa is already finding hard to tolerate.

"Well you see, My Lord," he says, "it has been the custom…"

"Custom be damned!" Snaps Agrippa with an angry gesture. "Who the hell decreed that custom should replace common sense?"

"Well, Sir, the last Sarafan Lord ordered that the doors should stand open while our men are out in the city and until you countermand that order..."

"Consider it countermanded!"

The secretary makes a sign to the guards, and at once, the doors start slowly turning on their hinges. Agrippa shakes his head impatiently. "How long does it take to shut them fully?" He asks. "Anything could walk in."

"Not past the guards, Sir." One of the generals ventures.

"Anything!" Agrippa repeats, rounding on him, his steel-grey eyes cold with anger. "How many, do you think they'd be able to hold back?" He waves a hand clad in heavy golden mail, towards the gatehouse and the two guards who flank the doors. "And is anyone really going to tell me," he adds, "that those fools out there are paying attention?"

As if to prove his point, a peal of laughter drifts over to them from the gatehouse, just before the doors finally shut. "Put that man on report." Agrippa says in disgust. The secretary nods and makes a note on the parchment he is carrying.

This minor task finished, the secretary looks up and rather nervously starts to clear his throat.

"Now Sir," he begins. "About your scheduled patrol of the city…"

"We've already discussed this." Agrippa says. "The answer is no."

"But Sir," one of the generals protests. "You have to show yourself to the people. Let them see that the Sarafan are there to protect them."

Agrippa stares at him coldly.

"I was elected to rule." He says. "Not to play politics. Three Sarafan Lords dead at the hands of the vampires is enough to make such a venture foolhardy, but don't I also recall a Sarafan Lord who died at the hands of the very people you would have me parade in front of? Don't you study history, General? You should."

"With all due respect, Sir." The general says. "That was over twenty-five years ago, during the rioting that started when the ward-gates failed and the power from the glyph batteries finally ran out. When the factories closed and the workers were left without food or wages, things did get ugly for a while, I grant you, but the people are calm now, they accept our rule. But, if we want to keep things that way, it's important to keep them on side."

Agrippa looks at the general contemptuously.

"What's important," he says with heavy emphasis, "is to keep the people of this city afraid, afraid of the vampires, and, most of all, afraid of us. Remember they are here to serve our needs, not the other way around. While they fear us, they obey us. Leaving us free to concentrate on fulfilling our most sacred duty."

"But Sir! The Sarafan have always enjoyed a most cordial relationship with the city's populace, or at least, with the nobles."

Agrippa laughs openly at the speaker. "You should never fall into the trap of believing your own propaganda." He sneers. "The nobles have been manipulated by their own greed, and by fear, and that is how we shall continue. There is no loyalty among the mob out there. No sense of justice or morality. It is like a wild animal. Given even half a chance, it will bite the hand that feeds it. History has a nasty habit of repeating itself, if you let it." He spins around on his heel and looks up at the walls of the entrance hall, which are all covered over with heavy tapestries. The design is a rather oppressive pattern of black Sarafan crosses on a ground of dull, rusty red. "So where are these murals?" He asks.

"Behind the tapestries, Sir." Replies the secretary.

Agrippa gestures impatiently that the cloths should be lifted. Men dart forward to do his bidding and the lurid depictions of the first Sarafan Lord's defeat of the vampire hordes are brought into view for the first time in over twenty years. Agrippa studies the murals; the ones in the lower part of the entrance hall show vampire bodies impaled on pikes and more vampires writhing in agony as the first Sarafan Lord inflicts the power of the Soul Reaver on their undead bodies. On the upper level, surrounding the door that leads to the great hall and to his own quarters, is a larger mural. This one depicts the vampire Kain, apparently on the point of meeting his death at the hand of the first Sarafan Lord, the Soul Reaver tumbling out of his grasp and just about to be snatched up by his triumphant foe.

"Why were these covered?" Agrippa asks. The secretary and the assembled generals shake their heads; the tapestries were put up long before their time.

"We don't know, Sir."

"Uncover them." He orders. "All of them. I find them remarkably… uplifting." He walks up to the painting of Kain, stumbling from the blow delivered by the Sarafan Lord. He studies the vampire's features closely, the flowing white hair, the expression of dismay on those demonic features. One day, Agrippa will be standing this close to the monster himself, in person. He smiles in anticipation, his heavy features creasing into unaccustomed lines. "This is one piece of history that will be repeated." He says softly. "I promise you. Only this time, Kain, you do meet your nemesis. You meet me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the doors to the keep are swung shut, Ward comes to the end of his tale. He stares in astonishment at the sight of the Keep's main doors being fastened against him.

"What's going on?" He calls to the guard, patrolling the bridge. The guard shrugs.

"Search me." He says, confusion evident on his face.

Ward gives the order for his troop to follow him and they start to jog across the bridge, Ayden keeping close behind them but it is obvious to him now, that he will not be able to use the main entrance, there will be far too much attention focused on those doors for him to be able to slip in unnoticed.

Half way across the bridge, Ayden stops, his eyes searching for an alternative way into the Keep. As he suspected, there is nowhere to the left of the bridge, the smooth surfaces of the walls are completely unbroken on that side of the building. He has to reach the little courtyard that he saw earlier, but it is too far away for him to simply jump across to it and the walls of the keep are without ledges and offer no hand-holds. Just as he is beginning to fear the task is impossible, he spies something in the water, a half-submerged crate, caught against the wall of the tower on the right-hand side. He looks towards Ward and the others. All the Sarafan have their attention focused on the doors. Never before, have they known them to be closed, and unless the keep is under attack, which it obviously is not, they can't think of a reason why they would be closed now. The doors have been partially opened and Ward is vociferously demanding an explanation. Cautiously, Ayden climbs on to the low parapet that edges the bridge. If he can jump onto the crate, he might just be able to make it to the courtyard wall. Without hesitation, he gauges the distance and jumps. He lands on the crate all right, but the force of the impact pushes it down below the surface of the water and dislodges it from its position. Immediately, the crate is caught by the current and starts moving slowly towards the centre of the moat and back towards the bridge.

As the crate sinks under his weight, and the cold waters swirl up over his feet and around his calves, Ayden experiences a moment of pure panic, if he should slip off, or the crate should continue sinking, he is finished, for he cannot swim. For a moment, he doesn't even realise the crate is moving. He has no time to judge the next jump. As the crate begins to rise and drift away, he leaps towards the courtyard wall, desperately hoping he is going to make it. His hands make contact with stone and he hangs on, unable to move for a moment, relief flooding over him, as he realizes he is still alive. However, His troubles are far from over, as Ayden hauls himself over the low wall, he finds he has fallen at the feet of the Sarafan soldier, whose job it is to guard this area.

"Well, what have we got here then?" The soldier asks, pointing at him with his sword. Ayden doesn't bother to reply. In a second, he rolls away and disappears into the mist leaving his enemy dumbfounded. The soldier blinks and rubs his eyes. "Where did 'e go?" He asks himself, looking around the empty courtyard, just before the cold steel of Ayden's sword is plunged into the back of his neck. The soldier falls to the ground with a low gurgle as his blood pours down his throat, his sword clattering on the stones beside him. Ayden squats beside him, listening. Nothing. No one has heard, Ward and the others are still arguing outside the doors of the keep, and the guard who patrols the bridge is standing with them, too.

Having checked that he is unobserved, Ayden leans down to the corpse, he searches it and then drains it of blood. Then, he rolls it gently over the wall, lowering it down into the water with great care. The body slips below the surface with barely a splash, its armour gleaming pale in the moonlight as it is swallowed by the black waters.

Now all Ayden has to do, is to find a way into the guardhouse. The outside door is locked and the guard did not have the key on him. Ayden curses silently, nearly five hours have passed since sunset, and still, he seems no closer to getting inside the keep.

He peers through the grimy windows, a flunky, in footman's uniform is performing some menial cleaning duty, otherwise the room is empty. Ayden thinks for a moment, he does not want to wait until the guards arrive for the next watch. When they find their comrade gone, all hell is going to break loose, and he wants to be far away from here when that happens, but how can he get the flunky to open the door? He decides to try the obvious. He knocks.

The flunky looks up, startled, there should only be the guard outside, and why would he knock? He has only just started his watch and the guards are not allowed to leave their posts until they are relived. Unbelievably though, the man does go over and look out of the window, and even more unbelievably, when he sees nothing out there, he opens the door and goes out to investigate. Ayden gives heartfelt thanks for human stupidity. He slips past the man and into the building. A minute later, the flunky comes in again and locks the door, his face set in haughty disapproval; he assumes he is the subject of a practical joke and he is not amused. Huffing in annoyance, the man picks up his cleaning cloth and leaves the room.

Ayden follows the flunkey into the corridor. There is an open doorway immediately to his right. Cautiously, he looks into the room. The fog has not penetrated this far inside the keep and he does not want to risk following the flunkey for long; there is too much of a risk that he might turn around and see him and the fewer bodies Ayden has to hide, the better his chances of emerging from the keep unscathed. Fortunately, the room is empty. He enters it and looks around, at the very back is a flight of stone stairs, which appear to lead down to the lower levels. Ayden smiles at his good fortune; the lower levels are where the prisoners are usually kept. Silently, he makes his way down the stairs. The corridors below are deserted. Listening hard for even the most distant footfall, Ayden makes his way deeper into his enemy's stronghold.

Everywhere around him, there is evidence of the now defunct glyph-energy that had once powered this great fortress, energy that had made the keep almost impenetrable to his kind in the time before Kain's dominion.

He finds another flight of stairs, and descends even lower. This part of the keep is also quiet; the only humans he encounters on these lower levels are half a dozen soldiers, each of them patrolling his small area, guarding key entrances or stairways. Ayden manages to slip past them all, unseen and without having to kill any.

At length, he comes to the dungeons where the human prisoners are kept. The foetid smell of unwashed skin mingled with the more pungent odours of burnt and injured flesh, leading him unerringly in the right direction. When he finally enters the first of the prison rooms, the stench is almost overpowering, as is the heat.

How many of them are in here? He wonders.

As he walks past the cells, he can see that most of them are full, almost to bursting point. Men, women and even children are crammed together in the tiny cells, more have been fettered to the dungeon walls, and some are hanging in cages suspended high above their heads.

It is in this miserable place that Ayden's luck finally runs out; the guard in charge of the prisoners sees him. Fortunately, the man is overconfident of his abilities and seeing only one fiend before him, he makes the fatal error of rushing into attack the creature, before he attempts to raise the alarm. One swift blow from Ayden's sword is all it takes to ensure that he does not get another chance. Using the key at the guard's belt, Ayden opens one of the cells and quickly thrusts the body inside. He slams the door shut again and locks it. As the key turns in the lock, a face is pressed briefly up against the bars.

"God bless ye, Sir!" A man cries in a harsh whisper. Ayden smiles at the irony.

What kind of fools are these Sarafan, that they make their own kind hate them so much?

As he makes his way through the dungeons, he is forced to kill two more guards, but again, none of the human prisoners calls for aid or does anything to hinder his progress. Eventually, he leaves the cells and enters the torture chambers that lie beyond them. He sees much evidence of man's inhumanity to his fellow man, during his journey, but he sees no vampires held prisoner or any cells built specifically to hold them.

He pauses in the shadows outside one of the tiny rooms where suspects are questioned. Inside, two interrogators are torturing a young human female. The two men are pursing their task with zeal and her screams ring out in an almost unbroken stream, echoing through the corridors. Abruptly, they cease.

"Dammit!" Cries one of the men. "Not another one! You'd think a little slum bitch would be able for more than that."

"Just when I'd got the irons hot, too." His companion says, clearly disappointed at her sudden demise. He walks over to the body still tied to a chair and gives her feet a kick, spitting juicily onto the stone floor beside her as he does so. "Gargh!" He says. "Bloody bitch of a night this is turning out to be. How many names have we got now, to give our masters?"

"Not enough!" The other replies. "Not nearly enough. Shall I go an' get our next client, Jake, or will you?"

"You can." The man says. "I got the last one and those bloody corridors are playing hell with my rheumatics."

The man shuffles over to the door.

"Wonder 'ow they're gettin' on with that vampire downstairs?" He asks.

The one called Jake, wipes his hands on a filthy rag and looks at him.

"Don' matter does it?" He says, dropping the cloth in the dead girl's lap. "We're just hordinary folk. They won't let the likes of us near somthin' that precious. We might find somethin' hout. Nah, all we get here are sewer rats and street whores. An' if you don' hurry up an' get me another one, we might just be joining the buggers. Sarafan Lord said we were to increase productivity, not decrease it!"

The man leaves the room and shuffles off towards the cells in search of his next victim and Ayden continues to creep stealthily down the corridor; from the sound of their conversation, he must be very close now.

The end of this corridor was evidently once protected by a ward-gate; a steep flight of stairs rises beyond this now defunct contraption, leading up to a pair of doors, which open on to the outside, with another dead ward-gate positioned just in front of the exit. At the moment, these doors are standing ajar, letting in a few helpful wisps of fog for Ayden to conceal himself in. This is the exit by which the bodies of those who die in custody are taken to the carrion pit. Just before the stairs, to the left, is an arched doorway, this one leading to a narrow flight of stairs, which plunge sharply downwards to the floor below. The doorway is open and unguarded.

Extremely cautiously, Ayden descends the steps. It is possible to stay in mist-form until he is halfway down and this is far enough for him to see what lies beyond. At the bottom of the steps, is a short, wide corridor with four doors leading off, two to each side, and at its very end, another door. At this moment, the door at the end is being guarded by two Sarafan knights, they are seated either side of a small table. Both knights are in full armour and armed with swords, their pikes and their shields leaning against the wall beside them. With so much weaponry at their disposal, they should be ready for any eventuality, but they are not being particularly attentive to their duties. In fact, they are engrossed in playing a simple game, rather similar to noughts and crosses, the 'board' for this having been carved into the top of the table.

Ayden watches them for several minutes, he knows he will have to kill both of them if he is to get close to that door, but unless he can persuade one of them to move out of sight of his companion, he has no chance of doing it, not without putting his own life in considerable danger. The problem is, how to distract them.

Stealthily, Ayden begins to back up the steps; he has an idea. When he returns, still in mist-form, the two soldiers are where he had left them. For a long time nothing happens, the two men continue their game oblivious to his presence. Suddenly, one of the soldiers looks up towards the stairs.

"Bastards!" He says. "They've only gone and left that bloody door open again."

"Well, at least it don't smell too bad this time of year," his companion says amiably, "no worse than the butcher's shop at home, really."

"It ain't the smell I'm worried about. I'm bloody freezing! Just look at that fog drifting in!"

The two men raise their heads and look up the stairs. The fog is pouring down the steps and into the corridor. "Go on," says the first speaker, obviously the higher-ranking of the two. "Go and shut it, there's a good lad."

The other soldier gets up heavily.

"Alright," He says. "Only no cheating, Marcus! I'll know if you've moved anything!"

The other soldier smiles as he watches him walk up the stairs, then he moves one of his companion's counters anyway, a sly smirk spreading across his features as he does so.

When he reaches the top of the stairs, the first soldier finds that both the doors are indeed standing wide open. As he goes to close one of them, a hard shove to his back propels him through. He does not even have time to cry out, almost in the same moment, Ayden's blade flashes at the edge of his vision. For a moment, the body sways as if undecided what to do now that it is suddenly bereft of a head, then it crashes to the ground; Ayden drains it instantly. Being close to so many humans and not killing has taken considerable self-control. He needs this man's blood; and then, he realizes, he needs more. He closes his eyes, forcing down the insistent demands of the thirst until it is but a soft whisper at the back of his mind. He cannot afford to give in to his blood-lust now, not when he is so close to his goal. He needs to have a clear head.

A few minutes later, the remaining guard is surprised to see a large ball come rolling slowly down the stairs towards him. Grunting with surprise, he goes over to investigate, Ayden taking the opportunity to leap from the top step and right over his head as he looks down. He lands silently behind the guard, turning in mid-air so he is standing right behind him, his dagger drawn and ready in his hand.

At the very moment the guard realizes that the object he had taken for a ball, is in fact, his companion's head, Ayden is slicing into his throat.

Ayden catches him quickly, before he has a chance to fall, holding the corpse close to his chest. The sound of the blood spattering from the man's throat onto the floor beside him and the smell of it, suddenly fill his consciousness to the exclusion of all else. The thirst has reawakened, and this time, it will not be denied. It beats an insistent tattoo on the inside of his skull, bending him to its will, until he has no choice but to submit, despite the peril of his situation. With a single, nervous glance over his shoulder, at the door behind him, he drains the corpse. Waves of pleasure immediately wash over him, the danger only adding to the heady delights of the feed. Ayden wipes his mouth and then, almost effortlessly, hoists the heavily armoured knight onto his shoulder and carries him up the stairs and outside. The path from the door leads to a narrow plank bridge, which spans the moat, and then, on to the carrion pit beyond. Ayden searches the bodies of both the knights before disposing of them but they yield nothing of interest. He dumps them in the water, the head of the first soldier bobbing comically on the surface for a while, until the current takes it and sweeps it out to sea. Ayden watches until it is out of sight, then he makes his way back down the stairs.

All the doors in the corridor have tiny, barred windows set in their top. Ayden glances curiously into the first door to his left. What he sees is completely unexpected. He is absolutely astounded by the sight. Glyph-batteries! A whole room full of them, still glowing with that weird green light that could only come from one source, the glyph-energy that the Hylden had brought with them from their accursed realm. The room opposite is exactly the same. Ayden reels at the enormity of his discovery. He has never seen a live glyph-battery before; everyone had assumed the humans had used the power until ran out. It is common knowledge that they had been unable to recharge these batteries, but no one suspected the Sarafan had the foresight to secretly hoard some of this energy. Quickly he makes a rough count, there must be at least fifty batteries stored in each of the two rooms. The next room is only half full of live batteries, and a few dead ones as well. The dead cells are cleaner than the live ones, and from way the dust has been disturbed on the floor, it appears that some batteries have been moved out quite recently, Ayden wonders what the Sarafan have been using them for.

The last of the side-rooms is not being used for storage; it has been converted into a cell. Although the room is large, it holds but a single prisoner. He is lying slumped on the floor close to the door, four long chains attached to his wrists and ankles securing him to the wall. It is a vampire, but not a clan member as far as Ayden can see, and most importantly, not Zafar. He is almost dead by the look of things, his chest barely rises with his breathing and the filthy straw beneath him is soaked with his blood, more of the precious liquid running out between the flags in front of him, making black pools in the hollows. Ayden steps away from the door, there is nothing he can do to help him and nothing he would do, if it meant jeopardizing his mission.

Carefully, he approaches the last door, the door that the Sarafan had been guarding. In contrast to the other rooms he has looked into, this room is brightly lit. A huge cage stands at the far wall, directly opposite, and inside this cage is his brother, Zafar. The Sarafan have him secured in a standing position pinned against the wall, his head hangs limp, an iron collar holding his neck against the stone behind him. He does not appear to be conscious. His wrists have also been manacled, his arms held outstretched so his body forms the shape of a cross. The skin of his arms and chest is covered with burns and lacerations, some of them still oozing blood which is thick and sticky and a most unhealthy shade of black, but it is not these injuries that have captured his attention.

As Ayden looks at Zafar, he finally understands what Ward had meant when he said that the Sarafan were keeping the vampire permanently blind.

Zafar has no eyes.

They have been gouged out and the blood that had streamed from the wounds has been left to dry, dark streaks running down over his cheeks that contrast horribly with the whiteness of his skin. Numbly, Ayden stares at Zafar and the bloodied sockets that had once held his eyes. What place is there in a realm as harsh as Nosgoth for a vampire thus robbed of his sight? He knows the answer. There is none.

In that moment, Ayden comes to a decision. Something he had promised himself he would not do under any circumstances.

'Brother,' he whispers. 'I am coming.'

There is no reply, not even a hint of an answering thought, and no movement to indicate that Zafar has heard him either. Though it grieves him to think his brother so sorely injured, Ayden is glad. It was madness to whisper to him. Zafar is not alone in that room and he cannot afford to give the four Sarafan interrogators who are with him, any advance warning.

Two of them are in the cage with Zafar, apparently debating which of the gruesome implements at their disposal, they should use upon him next. Outside the cage, is a scribe and with him another guard, apparently a high-ranking officer, who appears to be overseeing this operation, only this officer is armed.

Ayden watches them through the window of the door. The two men in the cage are working round a brazier. As well as heating the usual tools of their trade, they are melting lead; he can only imagine what they intend doing with it.

"We're ready." One calls to the guard. "We'll have to put it on the table for this."

"Aren't you going to feed it first?" Asks the officer.

"No, easier when it's lying down, get a tube straight into its stomach that way."

Ayden recoils in horror as he realizes what they have been doing. They have been forcibly feeding blood to Zafar. Bringing him to the limits of his endurance and then deliberately healing him. How many times, he wonders, have they brought him to the point of death? And with whose blood have they been feeding him?

"Wait 'til I'm in there." Orders the guard. "The prisoner is not to be released until I am in and the cage has been locked again."

The first interrogator tuts impatiently.

"He's not going anywhere in this state." He says. "And I guarantee, he's all out of surprises."

"Regulations will be followed!" The guard growls, getting up and walking towards the cage. The interrogator bows obsequiously.

"Of course, Sir, of course. I was merely saying…"

The guard takes out his key and unlocks the door.

This is the moment Ayden has been waiting for. He bursts into the room, the door slamming against the wall with a crash that makes all four men freeze momentarily. Ayden decapitates the scribe in one clean movement and then turns to face the guard. He slices at his throat with his sword as the man turns towards him but the wound is shallow. Enraged, the guard charges him. Ayden sidesteps at the last second, felling the man with a blow to the back of his head. He does not have time to finish the job, however. One of the interrogators is desperately stretching a hand through the bars of the cage, his fingers groping towards a lever, which if thrown, will undoubtedly raise the alarm. Ayden slices the arm clean off, just below the elbow, the man reeling back with a cry of shock, blood spurting from the wound; Ayden ignores him. He turns back to the guard; he has managed to get on all fours and is struggling to regain his feet. Without hesitation, Ayden plunges his dagger deep into the exposed flesh at the back of the man's neck. The guard falls to the ground with a groan; his hands and feet moving feebly for a moment and then, he is still.

The two interrogators are both cowering in the far corner of the cage now, but they were unable to lock it again, only the guard held the key and neither of them was brave enough to venture out to try and retrieve it. They shrink back as Ayden slams open the door. He is a truly terrifying sight, his eyes blazing, the bloodied sword and dagger still in his hands. He sheathes the sword and tucks the dagger into his belt. He looks pointedly at Zafar and then, he looks at the interrogators. The two men shrink back even further, both of them realizing that this vampire does not necessarily intend simply to kill them, but Ayden does not have the time to treat these men as he would wish. He has to get out of here and quickly, before the alarm is raised, for despite all his caution, he knows it is only a matter of time before at least one of the guards he has killed is missed. Angrily, he glances down at the implements laid out on the table; he would dearly like to test them all on the flesh of the cowards before him.

He notices the crucible, still nestled among the coals in the brazier, its contents molten and glowing. With a cruel smile, Ayden hooks a pair of tongs into the hole at its topmost edge. He lifts it and immediately hurls its contents over the two interrogators, an arc of flaming silver spraying across their hands and faces. Their screams give him some slight, satisfaction. He draws his sword and finishes them quickly, something he will regret having to do, for a long while. Then, he releases Zafar.

He is still unconscious and far too weak to feed, which in some ways, makes things easier. Ayden slakes his own thirst on the corpses of the Sarafan and then, carrying the limp form of his brother over his shoulder he ascends the stairs, He pauses briefly at the top of the first flight to check that the corridor to the torture chambers is still clear. From the sounds issuing from the furthermost room, the two humans, whose conversation he had eavesdropped on earlier, are still hard at work. He turns away and starts to climb the second flight.

As Ayden reaches the topmost stair, a siren suddenly blares out. He pauses for a second. There is a strange, warning glow of green in the power indicator of the ward-gate that once protected the doors to the outside. It is still connected! Hastily, Ayden throws Zafar through and then rolls through the opening after him, just as the green ward-curtain snaps into place.

Agony! He has been burnt as never before. His skin is on fire. He bites deep into his wrist to stifle the roar of pain that threatens to escape his lips. A cold sweat breaks out on his skin, inflaming the burns still further. But he is out! Slowly, Ayden removes his teeth from his wrist; the wounds healing almost instantly. He hoists Zafar onto his shoulder, and runs lightly over the wooden bridge that spans the moat, fading into mist-form just as a troop of four Sarafan soldiers comes crashing out of the door. The men don't even look across the moat to where he is standing. They are more concerned that the bridge has been left down during an alert. Hurriedly, they lift up the flimsy gangway and lock it into place against the wall of the keep, and then they head back inside, locking and barring the doors behind them. It doesn't occur to any of them, that these actions might have been taken too late.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ayden turns away from the keep and heads down the path to the carrion-pit. Even at this time of year, the stench is appalling. The pit is edged by a high wall which serves the double purpose of security and keeping all evidence of Sarafan atrocities away from the prying eyes of Meridian's population, though the smell is surely enough to tell the truth to any who would know it.

Ayden walks into the pit, ignoring the stench and balancing lightly on the unevenly yielding flesh beneath his feet. He scales the crumbling brickwork of the wall with ease. When he reaches the top of the wall, he finds his luck has held; it is flat and just wide enough to walk on, wide enough for a vampire, that is. Once, it was protected by coiled wire, specially designed to repel intruders, razor-sharp barbs, knotted along its length, but now, the wire is rusted and broken, and in many places, it has disappeared completely. Ayden climbs onto the top of the wall, balancing with ease on the crumbling bricks. He runs along the edge, leaping over any remnants of the wire, until it is possible for him to drop down into one of the deserted streets below.

Beyond the keep, Meridian lies wrapped in velvet darkness, waiting silently for the sun to rise. In the hour before dawn, almost everything sleeps. With a last glance up at the keep, Ayden begins the long journey home.

Review responses

Dark Sephiroth, Thanks for the suggestion of how I should have dealt with Rahab. Lol :) I think I'll stick to my original storyline, if you don't mind tho'. Don't  think we have halogen torches in medieval Nosgoth.

Syvvia Nice to have you along, I'll be watching for any updates from you too.

Aquasword Yeah, I never liked Raz, really, (Sorry Raz fans!) I find I can have more fun with the other boys 'cos so little is known about them and their actions.

Tom T. Thomson Now you have two chapters. Hope you like 'em!

Golden Seraph These two stories are meant to be linked and consistent with each other. Let me know if I slip up on that, tis easy done I fear, even with something you've written yourself!

PheonixFlame6  I hope it isn't over too! Dark Awakening that is. Glad you like this one so far.

Nocturnally-Dammned You know something, this was actually the first time I've felt I ought  to apologize to one of my characters for the way I've treated them, 'cos I was feeling sorry for him, too! But I couldn't let sentiment get in the way of a good story now, could I? Ayden doesn't agree with this decision, of course. He's sulking a bit at the moment, despite the apology, and throwing words like 'sadistic', 'bloodthirsty' and 'bitch', in my direction. Oh well, if the cap fits…