FEATHERWEIGHT
A Janos Audron scribble
Random Janos things seem to occur to me if I'm not careful. So…just a scribble.
Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos, Crystal Dynamics.
It is twilight over Nosgoth, and the sky is richly blue near the horizon, darkening to a heavy, clouded black as it opens up into a low-hanging vault of emptiness flecked in between the clouds with the tiny, dimmed light of stars…
Janos Audron is flying.
To see an Ancient vampire on the ground is almost like seeing a beached seal. The body structure is all wrong: there is an slow care taken about its movement that suggests (wrongly) a certain clumsiness, possibly even comical to the viewer. On the ground, Janos has to walk slightly hunched, holding his wings awkwardly, so as not to step on the trailing black tips of his massive primaries. The muscles in his back are disproportionately powerful in order to accommodate the wings: when grounded, these muscles bunch up like knotted rope under his smooth blue skin, ruining the line of his robes.
But tonight Janos Audron is flying, and like a seal given back to the ocean, he is in his element.
The winds are changing tonight: for days it has been raining, and Janos has remained indoors, pacing his chambers with the sort of patience only developed over centuries. He has done everything he can think of: he has pored over old books, dozed during the wet daylight on a ledge in sight of the Pillars, and even spent a long hour under the ministrations of his adoring servants, suffering the indignity of having his ebony wings brushed and cleaned until the feathers shine that special black that only bird-feathers have - the black that is blue and green and gold when it catches the light.
But tonight, finally, the weather has broken. During the day there was a storm, and the Sarafan, nervous at the anger of the elements, had reason to glance up at the Aerie and murmur amongst themselves that the winged devil must be the cause of it.
Janos himself had been quite asleep during the storm, with several of the many Aerie cats curled at his knees, his feet and, in the case of a large pregnant female, on his supine shoulder. A less devilish scene could hardly have been imagined: but then Sarafan are not trained to have imaginations. They are trained to follow orders.
The wind is warm and dry, blowing away the week of rain. Janos hangs on the updrafts lazily, looking down with bright yellow eyes upon the darkening landscape. Glints of metal show him clearly where the Sarafan skulk in their encampments. They have been there for long weeks, now, and have advanced only scant yards.
Janos smiles to himself, because he knows that despite his kind's current precarious position, the mortals are still scared of him. He is legend: he knows this well, also. The cerulean flush of his skin and the graceful arch of his wings mark him out even more so than the others as vampire, as other, as that-which-must-die.
You do not reach the advanced age that Janos Audron has attained without getting wise to human ways: and vampire ways too, come to that.
The Ancient turns against the wind with a flick of those vast black wings, and heads inland, away from his Retreat. He gazes down with a hawk's intensity upon the landscape, watching the to-ing and fro-ing of the largest Sarafan settlement as the soldiers begin to lock the camp down for the night and set up watch on its borders.
Night is the worst time to be a Sarafan recruit on duty. These men are young, Janos can tell by their scent as he glides silently lower, his wings slowing his descent. Their fear already leeches from them like sap from trees in spring.
It is almost fully night, and humans can't see well in the dark. Their eyes just aren't made for it. And in the darkness, when you cannot see what may spring forth, fear hatches and writhes like a nest of maggots.
Janos is, contrary to popular Sarafan propaganda, not a cruel creature. Compared to many of the younger, more impulsive vampires, who have yet to learn that just because humans are weak and stupid doesn't mean they don't have friends with flamethrowers and stake-loaded crossbows, Janos is circumspect around his prey. His attitude is based on a growing, nagging worry that they will be his downfall, in the end.
Janos thinks he has seen the future in the writings and murals of the past, and his heart is heavy because of it.
But even a fatalistic vampire has to eat.
The Sarafan have a saying: "Recruits who last through their first night watch will be generals by dawn." It is not an idle remark. Until quite recently, a Sarafan scouting party could expect to lose half of its number over an incautious night. But now, with the vampires becoming fewer and more wary, recruitment numbers are rising. It's good to be a Sarafan again. The pay's not bad and you get some decent armour…all you have to do is learn to sleep by day…
This also means, of course, that the newest recruits are far more likely to be farm-boys looking for glory, not hardened vampire hunters from the wastelands. They are slower, less comfortable with their weaponry. And, for many of them, their only encounter with a vampire has been on their way to sign up with the holy army – when they happened to pass a line of grisly bodies on pikes.
Janos gives a long, pleased shudder, feathers catching the breeze, as he picks out his target for the night. The man is really making it too easy for him. He has been picked for the worst possible place to stand guard, and is leant against the eye-catching standard at the edge of the valley. Possibly he is even thinking himself lucky to have been given such a vantage point: "If those vampires attack, I'll be the first to see because they'll have to run up that rise…and their eyes glow in the dark, don't they…? Yeah…glow red…so I'll be able to kill 'em with my crossbow before they even know I'm here…"
Janos dives like an eagle, directly from above.
Aerial attack is sneaky, really: you can kill 'em with your talons before they even know you're there.
Janos does not kill on impact. He snatches the man skywards, claws dug in under the armour. He ignores the hideous wail of the stricken mortal, and ignores also the clanking and shouts as more recruits come running, cross-bows at the ready and swords drawn.
"What happened?"
"Where's Rufan?"
"There! There! The demon!"
A bolt misses Janos by a comfortable metre. He swerves in the wind, the Sarafan in his claws whimpering in fright, and takes a moment to assess the danger.
It is, he considers, slight. The recruits are spooked like baby rabbits under a falcon's shadow, and he is already too high for their aim in the dark to be true. He sniffs, unimpressed, and his wings downbeat powerfully, giving him more lift as the armoured weight of the human begins to pull him lower.
Janos has never looked like the most powerful of his kind, and this has drawn many an arrogant, foolish vampire to their death. Compared to the sheer bulk and brawn of many vampires, Janos is a featherweight: but his lean body and seemingly delicate wings belie the sort of horrible strength that does not baulk at snapping bones like green hedge twigs.
Janos returns to his home and drops the human in a clanging pile of armour and misery onto the balcony. He then lands carefully a few feet away, taking a moment to settle ruffled feathers and adjust his tunic that has been disarrayed by flight.
The whining sobs of the Sarafan barely intrude upon his deliberations. He carefully plucks out a single secondary flight feather that has become twisted and useless, and casts it to the wind with a careless flick of his hand. His eyes narrow.
Featherweight he may be, but Janos is still a vampire, and now, hunger piqued by exercise, he approaches his food on silent, careful feet.
The man moans. He has landed on his back, and now pedals his metal-clad legs against the stone in a desperate attempt to distance himself from the Ancient. Janos circles him with watchful happiness, his wings held up almost painfully high to keep them out from under his feet. He crouches by the man's head, removes the cumbersome metal helmet.
The human gets his first unimpeded up-close-and-personal look at a vampire. His breath hisses between his lips like an angry snake. Janos cocks his head, curious. To him, that sound is a challenge from an aggressive member of his own kind. He is interested to see what it means to the human.
The man stares with huge, horrified eyes. He has wits enough left not to reach for the sword at his belt. But in that dreadful fascination with mortality that all living things possess, he cannot help it: he reaches out instead for Janos himself.
The vampire remains utterly still, as the human hand reaches tremblingly out and up toward his face. Does the man, faced with his superior in the food chain, have the urge (as many do) to stroke the tiger's beautiful burning fur, feel the edge on teeth that will be the instrument of his death?
It seems that he does.
Janos surprises even himself. He turns his smooth blue face into the touch, bowing his head just slightly so that the trembling, mortal hand can stroke and grip at the sleek bi-colour mane of his hair. Fingers brush over his forehead, his sharp profile: a palm presses falteringly to his lips, hard enough to feel the points of his fangs sheathed behind them.
Janos closes his eyes, sighs a little.
Humans have always fascinated him. But fascination cannot compete with food.
He reaches up a gentle hand and grips the man's wrist. Spell broken, the rambling, terrified touch instantly falls away from his face and becomes instead a wild scrabbling to be free.
Janos's grip is implacable. He presses his face almost lovingly back below those spasming fingers, as if to say why did you stop?
His fangs sink into the man's wrist. There is a crack as the fragile bone splinters, and the Ancient's wings arch, joyful, as the blood begins to flow.
Pet the tiger if you will, but never mistake the purring in its tone for mercy.